thirty-eight goals

It's been two-and-a-half months since the school year has started, and I've wanted to just let some things meander properly in my overburdened brain before making it through a post. Each day is a new, bracing, beautiful adventure. I can enter the classroom at the start of the day, turn on the lamps, watch the sun stretching into full-on morning, and the day will unfold in any number of ways: once that door opens and the first student walks in, all paths are open. If the team of writers who pumped out the beloved childhood series Choose Your Own Adventure did a teacher-based version, there would be a thick, fat book just for the first few minutes of the day.

Noise comes from the area of the coat room. 

To investigate, turn to page 2.
To continue helping the student asking you a question, turn to page 3.
To give your assistant the secret raised eyebrow signal, turn to page 4.
To decide to go grab another cup of high octane caffeine from the work room, turn to page 5.
To lose your Montessori composure, turn to page 6.

You know how it can be. Usually it's just herding cats in these parts, but they are truly well-loved cats. (And I apologize for the metaphor, B; I know you're allergic.)

☼ ☼ ☼ 

I turned thirty-eight a number of days ago, which I try not to let shock me too much, but it's a nice age when you're relatively happy about where you've landed in life. I did a lot of those bucket-list things, like get an MFA, publish a book, and I even discovered new bucket list items as I progressed, such as starting a press. I have two beautiful children, a smart and peaceful and kind husband, a house in the woods, chickens, enough books that I fear we sink in our foundation just a little bit each spring when the ground thaws, securing our place in this fine state.

I decided to attempt thirty-eight goals for myself, which got a little silly, because thirty-eight is a lot, but one of them is to be more attendant to ye ole blog, giving me a regular opportunity to reflect on my place as a teacher, a profession I hadn't realized, half a lifetime ago, I would love as deeply as I do.

I grew up in a family of teachers. I watched my parents. I was all too aware at how easily teachers slip into an overworked oblivion--sussing out how to best reach our individual students with the materials at hand is one of the biggest pleasures, a compassionate puzzle that taps into all kinds of dusty, neglected places in our brains, gives us a sense of accomplishment when it works out well, and drives us right back to the drawing board when it doesn't. I also knew this work can feel protective when other things in life aren't going well--moving to a new part of the country, as we did, when marriages can feel tested, and children entering middle school can be nightmarishly petulant (hello! I'm referring to myself here)--the work, because it is noble, as I see it, and satisfying, and intellectual, can be a protective shield. It can also be the thing from which we need a shield. Teachers are regularly attacked by parents who may have had their own bad experiences and perceive the school as an enemy before the year even begins, by people who misinterpret well meaning actions, by taxpayers who just want to spend their money as they see fit, who think teachers are lazy or incompetent and don't deserve summers off (oh, a day in my shoes, please)... Some boards or administrative staffs are miserable to work for, some districts pump their schools full of jargon and paperwork and are boys' clubs or are so disconnected from the everyday life of a teacher that decisions are made behind confused, closed doors. (And, to be fair, sometimes we have parents and bosses who are so good to us, we often wonder what we did in a previous life to be so lucky.)

But mostly I just watched how many hours my parents sat with their grading pens, how the stacks would teeter on chairs, and I'd fold myself back into a book at hand and think, Never me, absolutely not.

Funny thing about me: I stubbornly declare a lot of things and am completely wrong.

In my thirty-eighth year, I'd like to give myself permission from my physical and metaphorical stacks, my antsy to-do list that is always urgently bleating at me, to reflect. I think a reflective teacher is a more effective teacher, and I did this regularly when I started, when I student taught, and then in the beginning of my first year, and I want to make this a weekly practice. On Mondays, I publish.

Thank you for being here with me.

I'll end with some news:

☼  My interview with educator Tom Rademacher is in the most recent print edition of Rain Taxi Review of Books. His book, It Won't Be Easy, is fierce and passionate, just as I remember him a zillion years ago in undergraduate poetry workshops.

☼  I made my debut on the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) blog, and I feel so disgustingly tickled. The post is called "Keeping a Record of the Reading Life," and I am still doing a happy dance that I got to contribute to this community.

☼  I had a poem accepted in Orion, which has left me stunned for some time. It's one of those magazines I regularly read from cover-to-cover, so much do I value its contents.

☼  I am currently practice teaching in St. Paul with an incredibly lovely upper elementary teacher. A highlight was when the kids had their first baking lesson and used eggs from our own chickens! (We teachers love to be useful.) I also loved how a student declared, after a lesson I gave, "I don't know why you're in training! You're good enough to be a real teacher." (I tried not to snort.) They also do thank yous and compliments after class council on Fridays, and I got a slew of them from the children I've had the chance to work with. I kind of wanted to dust off my corduroy jacket shoulders in mock job well done, but I maintained composure. I know my own countenance tends closer to laid back than the standard proper Montessori guide, so I have to draw back at times, settle my instinct to be a little goofy and mock-deprecating.