You Have To Wonder Why Anyone Wants To Be A Teacher Anymore

As a longtime school board member, I have some real, serious issues with the teachers’ union in my state and their slimy, underhanded negotiation tactics, but my experience with rank and file teachers has been good overall.  They have legitimately done a solid job (in some cases, outstanding and with effort well beyond the job requirement) of educating my kids.  Full props to them.

Scenario the First: I teach two consecutive taekwondo classes every Friday afternoon with another adult instructor and Thing One. We have one class of 5-7 year-olds and the other of 7-11 year-olds (the higher belt kids are older, the first class is the introductory level.)  Thing One is now a paid junior instructor (his first official job!) and since he and I are there anyway, I generally bring my other two kids to help as well since both are also older and higher belts than the kids we are teaching.  To say the least, it has been an eye opening experience for all of us, particularly the class of younger kids.  There are a lot of kids in that class, 25-30 on a normal Friday. I would also say (I’m just guessing, none of the parents have talked to me) that a good four to six of those kids either have something like ADHD or are on the autism spectrum or both.  We have them for only 45 minutes, but those 45 minutes are exhausting.  Last week it took me and all three of my children to keep a subgroup of 12 kids orderly (luckily we had a third adult in class that day.)  And all we were doing was trying to get them to stand in two lines and kick padded targets without injuring each other. As my daughter observed, imagine having to teach kids that age to sit still and read or write, and all day every day, not for only a few minutes a week.  It would take a real gift, sincere dedication and probably more patience than I will ever possess.

Scenario the Second: a friend of mine from soccer, who used to be a middle school history teacher, quit her job in frustration this year and has just finished retraining as a flight attendant.  She got tired of teaching to standardized tests, dealing with paperwork and the kids not having to think anymore.  She says being a flight attendant is much easier and also a whole lot less stressful. (!!)

Scenario the Third: last but not least, the stories I hear from school administrators (they aren’t talking out of turn; as school board members we need to know what’s going on.  We aren’t told individuals’ names or other identifiers though.)  Some kids can only be released to one parent and not the other because of court custody orders and previous attempts by noncustodial parents to abduct the kids from school.  Some kids have parents who abuse or exploit them or seem legitimately mentally ill.  Some kids have such chaotic home lives that school is the only safe place they have.  And some parents are of sufficient concern to the administration that the topic of having town police at our board meetings has come up more than once.

It’s a crazy crazy world.  You have to wonder what kind of person looks at this and says “Yep, that’s for me. Sign me up!”

Not Even Close

If you have a few extra minutes on your hands, go here and take this New York Times quiz.  Supposedly, it tells you where in the US you are likely from (i.e., what regional dialect you speak) based on the words you use for certain objects and situations.  I took it just now, and while it was very interesting, I’m curious as to whether others find it more accurate than I did.

Although I lived overseas for most of my childhood, I was raised by Midwesterners.  I went to college in the Midwest, lived in Texas for the six years of graduate school and have spent most of the last 20 years in either the northern half of the East Coast or Midatlantic regions.  So...why this thing says I am likely from Florida is a bit confusing.

Especially since one of the key things they apparently used to make this determination is the fact that I call the shoes one typically would wear to gym class at school “sneakers.”  I thought that was a fairly generic term.   How in the world does that make me from Florida??

On Weird Cats And Power Outages

Fortunately for my sanity, the power finally came back about 9:30 last night after being out for 2 1/2 days. When I returned to the house, I discovered this surprise waiting for me on the kitchen counter.  In case it isn’t clear from the picture, this is a perfectly unoffending loaf of sandwich bread that has been viciously attacked by a cat.

 Cats are obligate carnivores. Neither of my two should be remotely interested in bread! Darcy understands that he’s a cat, but we are not nearly so sure about Bingley. He appears to think he’s a dog and begs for everything that our dog wants.  I believe I’ve mentioned before that he absolutely loves marshmallows, which has our vet just shaking her head. Unfortunately, unlike the dog, he can jump up on the counters, so I guess we now have to start putting the bread in the refrigerator. *headslap*

Why It Rocks To Have Friends When You Live In The Sticks, Part Zillion

 Our house has been without power since Monday morning sometime. You may recall that when my house has no electricity, it is basically a nonfunctional shell because the water pump, the heat and air conditioning and the stove all run on electricity.  The power company that serves our lines has the distinction of being probably the worst for competence and communication in the entire continental US. If you think yours is worse, you’re wrong. I would bet you.  I live on the main county road for our town. Our road has been closed for three straight days because just north of our house, three powerline poles snapped off at the base in high winds on Monday and fell into the road.  Local people have been managing to detour around the road closure, even though it’s a pain. However, last night, a house not too far from us burned to the ground partly because fire trucks from other towns couldn’t get around the detours fast enough.

 The children and I stayed in hotels the last two nights. My husband, bless his heart, stayed at the house to take care of the pets. It’s cold. It hasn’t been fun for anybody. But this is where the friend thing comes in.

One of my fellow school board members heard me mention at last night’s meeting that I was taking my daughter back to a hotel and offered me his generator on the spot. I mentioned to the three guys we carpool with to Thing One’s soccer that he might not be at practice tonight because he might not be able to shower afterward.  All three of them texted me back within five minutes, one offering me a generator and the other two offering their homes to charge devices or shower or get warm, whatever is needed.  Two other friends have been texting me for the last couple days offering help with anything necessary. I just dropped a bag of laundry off at my best girlfriend’s house around the corner, because she got her power back today and offered to do laundry for the kids while I’m out running around tonight.   I’m not sure what I did to deserve this tribe, but I am one lucky lady and I am grateful.

Oh, and the people who run our power company? You guys can kiss my lily white butt. Your linemen are awesome. They work outside in freezing conditions all night long and they get the job done. Whomever didn’t see the storm coming and plan ahead for it, however, or organize the response once it hit, you’re dead to me.

New One On Me

I was in line at the grocery store yesterday and the lady behind me said something to me about her “carriage,” meaning her shopping cart.  Then I was talking to a friend on the phone last night, and he said something about a “buggy,” by which he also meant a shopping cart. I have heard the term buggy used that way before, although not often and not around here, but “carriage” was a new one.  Wondering if these are regional linguistic things.

So, out of curiosity, anyone reading this: where are you from and what do you call the thing you push around a grocery store to hold the food items you are buying?

Oh, and while you are at it, what do you call the thing that women carry around to hold their wallet, makeup and keys, etc?  Purse, pocketbook, handbag, or something else??  I’m not sure if that term is generational or regional or both but I have always called it a purse.

From The Mouths of Babes

Or teenagers, at least.

Thing One’s club soccer team played a tournament in Las Vegas last weekend, and he and I made the trip together.  My parents were able to meet us there, but the rest of my immediate family had to stay home because the other kids had sports and birthday parties and such going on.  Thing One has never been to Vegas before, so the whole experience was mind-blowing for him.  We took him to a Cirque de Soleil show and the Hoover Dam while we were out there (kind of like making sure he got to see Niagara Falls when they played in upstate NY last year), but what made the strongest impression on him was the Luxor, the casino in which our team was staying.  He was absolutely fascinated by the slot machines, the haze of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, the people who were visibly drunk at 9 o’clock on Sunday morning while gambling, the clouds of pot everywhere, and the signs on the Strip and in the casino regarding all manner of sex-related stuff.

As he put it, “This building represents everything that’s wrong with America.”

Pretty funny that that was his summary, but I guess it beats him deciding that UNLV is now at the top of his college choice list!

More Car Conversations With Thing One

On the way to soccer, as usual.

He asked why so many prominent men have much younger wives.  (The subject came up in the context of a conversation about American politics.)  I explained the whole concept of the midlife crisis and that the taking of a younger ‘arm candy’ second wife is actually relatively common among the powerful and privileged.

It absolutely blew his mind, as he put it, “that you could love someone for 25 years and then dump them.”  Hopefully he will still think that way when he’s 50, but I’m doing something right with this kid if this is where his head is at 15.  Actually, it isn’t so much that I can take credit, as that his father and I have been married for 17 years and that both sets of grandparents have been married for approximately forever.  (Just under 50 years in one case, just over 50 in the other.)  I suspect it’s more that he is assuming that the norm is what he’s grown up with, but that’s not a bad thing.