Mamacita says: While it is true that I tend to rant and rave about how far too many students (one is too many) can’t read or write or add two numbers together, and how far too many students (one is too many) can’t behave themselves, have no intention of learning anything, and have dedicated themselves to preventing the nice kids from learning anything, either, it is also true that I have nothing but admiration and fondness for the students who work hard, pay attention, behave themselves, and laugh at my jokes have a pleasant attitude. Add a quirky sense of humor, and I’m hooked. There is nothing better than a friendly, hardworking student. Nothing.
I never minded the “stupid questions” and I still don’t mind them, because if a question is sincere, it is not a stupid question; it’s a legitimate question and isn’t that what it’s all about? I love a student who asks questions; that student means more to me than a student who answers questions. If the question is about a connection between the lesson and something out in the world, even better. Better? It’s FANTASTIC!!!
I’ve had my share of teachers who were interested only in what was in the textbook. Questions that dealt with a connection or a tangent were dismissed completely; I’ve actually seen students punished for asking questions. I know tons of teachers who are lost without the answers pre-printed in their Teacher’s Edition.
What the heck is up with that? I have always assumed that a teacher who doesn’t already know those answers has no business standing before a group of learners in the first place! Sometimes those Teacher’s Editions have mistakes in them, and I’ve known teachers who will count the student’s correct answer wrong because the teacher is fixated on believing that the Teacher’s Edition is always right. I do not believe that these are good teachers, and I really don’t care what kind of scores that particular school is making. Scores are not education, but if I start in on that one again I’ll never make my dental appointment in a half hour.
Now, we all know that there are kids who will pester the teacher with questions just to get attention or get a laugh from his/her classmates; that’s not what I’m talking about here.
I’m talking about students with eager minds who genuinely want to know something. I’m talking about students who suddenly see and understand a connection between a few words in our book and something out there in “real life.” I’m talking about the wide eyes and the amazed expression and the gasp of realization that teachers come back year after year hoping to see. I’m talking about that moment when the student gazes at his/her pen and realizes that it’s actually a magic wand, and that with that wand the student wields power the likes of which make atomic energy seem feeble.
Every year, teachers have less and less authority. Every year, teachers must work in environments that would have most adults calling the authorities on the first day. Every year, teachers must deal with a population that is dangerous to the point of being criminal, and every year teachers risk their lives to try to bring a little light to the few actual learners and workers who hover quietly, in fear of their lives, too, on the sidelines. Every year, teachers must deal with parents who won’t support them, children who won’t try, administrations that won’t guarantee a safe habitat for either the teacher or the students, and buildings that are crumbling. Our students are hungry and sleepy, and far too many of them know far too much about the dregs of society: some because their families ARE the dregs of society, and others because they spend too much unsupervised time watching the trash on Jerry Springer and various television shows that teach our young people to be smartassed single parents who sleep around, have a cell phone glued to their hand, long for designer shoes, and respect nothing. Every year, teachers must deal with more and more evidence that too many stupid people are breeding like rabbits, too much time, attention, and money is spent on the lowest common denominator in the building and not nearly enough on the students who would really love to be taught something, and the very real possibility of being disciplined or sent to the Rubber Room if they speak out, try to help, or in any way upset the status quo of our extremely dysfunctional school systems. It’s dangerous to speak out, and it’s dangerous to show up for work, it’s dangerous to walk to the restroom, and it’s dangerous to walk across the parking lot before and after school, and it’s dangerous to mow your lawn on the weekend because you never know which disgruntled moron – parent or child – is going to show up demanding “justice,” ie entitlements, favors, exceptions, and freebies.
But I digress.
I believe that the students I have now are the same as students in the public school – it’s just that at this level, it’s safe to be a learner because those who would disrupt and endanger and bully are escorted out of the building almost immediately. Have you any idea what a difference knowing that small fact can make to a student who really IS a student? Today, for example, we were discussing the fact that many words we all consider to be English were actually stolen borrowed from other languages. The students caught on immediately to the fact that if a person speaks English, a person is actually also speaking Spanish, and French, and Italian, and Russian, and German, and Yugoslavian, and Aztec, and Hawaiian, and Chinese, and Outer Mongolian, not to even mention the dialects of the Fiji Islanders and assorted Scandanavian nations, and dead languages, because our language is not only vaguely reminiscent of Shakespeare’s English (which catered to the uneducated peasants), it’s also a big stewpot full of every other language on the planet. This is a partial explanation of why we have so many odd spellings and strange plurals and exceptions to all the grammar rules. I love it. Today, my students loved it, too. Watching them love it made me love it, and them, even more.
I tried this lesson back in the public schools and several parents complained because I was telling their kids that the language of the true patriotic Americans wasn’t “pure.” Of course, this was the same group of parents who were irate because we were talking about homonyms. Can you guess why? I mean, jeepers.
See above, “Too many stupid people are breeding.”
But a student who asks questions, questions that show a longing to KNOW, questions that demonstrate an understanding of a connection. . . questions that tell me that there is yet hope for the human race because in this classroom, today, students were laughing and excited about a few WORDS, and looking at their pens in awe as though they’d just that moment understood the amount of power they had with it?
This is why teachers come back, year after year. This is why we hope. This is what makes it all 
worthwhile. This is why we risk everything we have and everything we are.
I wonder how many professions require as much hope as teaching? I’d bet money, if I had any, that educators lean on hope even more than the medical professions and the ministers do.
Mamacita says: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the children who grow up in households wherein there are no books are generally the kids who end up in the slow class at school. There are exceptions, of course, but I haven’t seen very many. I was always happy to see the exceptions, but I was also really surprised.
Some parents got angry when their kids brought home books. Books were suspect. Books might contain something Uncle Reverend Billy-Bob didn’t already know. Why does the kid want to read a book? Nobody else in this family does. Put the blame thing down and come watch TV with the rest of us.
I’ve posted about this before, but it bears repeating. Back when classes were grouped (don’t get me started because some of you won’t like what I would say) EVERY KID in the top class knew dozens of nursery rhymes, poems, and stories, many by heart. Down in the slowest group, few if any kids even understood the question. They didn’t know no pomes.
There are good books, poems, and stories about chaw, huntin’ dawgs, Nascar, and county fairs. Great stuff. Billy Coleman might have worn Carhartts. He might have listened to the Blue Collar guys. Travis knew there was more to life than just huntin’ dogs. Caroline Ingalls loved Jack the bulldog, but was determined that her girls get an education. Great-grandparents may have been illiterate, but by golly, their kids were going to have an education.
experience life, and do some physical labor.
The reinvention of ME and the reason for that reinvention are both the result of an invention – specifically, computers. I was a middle school teacher, and had been for over twenty years. It was a hard job, but I loved it. When computers entered the classrooms, my job became at once more difficult and more enjoyable. The students certainly loved it; it was the administration that remained skeptical.With 46 students in one classroom, close supervision was pretty nearly impossible, but even acknowledging that fact, I was held responsible for every single thing that could possibly go wrong with students and computers. It finally got to the point where I’d had enough, and I quit. Cold. I walked out the door and never looked back. I had never done anything in my adult life except teach middle school. What would I do now? A community college heard that I was now free during the day and hired me on the spot. I didn’t even have to fill out an application. College level teaching was, and is, an experience like no other. It was a different world. It was a world in which my judgment was trusted and my technique admired. In other words, it was as unlike public school as if it were on Mars. I loved it. Love it. Still doing it. But I’m also doing something else – professional writing and social media for several businesses. A few years ago these jobs did not exist, and now, almost every business participates; they have to, or they’ll go under. This is so exciting for me – seeing my name in print, being asked to speak at conferences, being trusted with logins and passwords and reputations of businesses. . . I was created to do these jobs. Leaving the only job I’d ever had as an adult was scary. It was traumatic, after I’d had a few day to 
consider what I’d done and to wonder how I’d feed my children on personal satisfaction. In retrospect, it was the best decision I’d ever made in my life. The best decision of my life. My life’s BEST DECISION. Turning my life, and the lives of my family, completely askew, changing my getting up and my going to bed, my eating habits, my every aspect of living habits. . . buying plane tickets and making hotel reservations and wandering around huge strange cities gawking at the skyscrapers. . .being hired to speak in front of people. . . .being consulted on issues people considered me knowledgeable about. . . . I discovered that I was made for this life. Do I regret turning myself into an entirely different person? I do not. I only regret not doing it sooner.
Mamacita says: Father’s Day and my daughter’s birthday are always within a few days of each other, and this year, they’re on the same day. That is because calendars are alive and love to mess with us, and because those selfsame calendars, parts of them anyway, dwell in the past with emperors, gods, and goddesses. We can mess right back by denying our ages. But I digress.
we love. We recover, and get on with our lives, but the memories are still there, and aren’t we all glad they are?
This is a rerun, but it’s an issue I wanted to discuss again.
a fact that while a lot of little girls are reading “Gone with the Wind,” the little boys sitting next to them are still struggling to recognize letter combinations. It is also a fact that some of these little boys who still can’t do it in the third grade, or the fourth, somehow have their own “epiphany” in the middle grades; something in their brain becomes aware of symbols and their meanings and how to translate them to Harry Potter. It wasn’t that these little boys didn’t TRY down in the lower grades; it was that their bodies and brains weren’t THERE yet.
Mamacita says: Just because I haven’t done these things yet doesn’t mean I’ll never do them. I ain’t dead yet. Then again, some things most people do all the time don’t interest me in the least, so, yeah, I’ll never do them. But you can. I’m not the boss of you.
7. I never gave a pass to a student athlete who only became interested in grades right before a game. Let him sit on the bench and think about his choices. No pass/no play. I’m all for it.