Hannah's mother

Fourth block today, the guidance counselor appeared at my classroom door and beckoned me. I left the students in their reading-aloud circle, which by the way, seems to be working well, and stepped into the hall with her. She asked, "Which student is Hannah?" I said, pointing, "The blonde girl who was sitting next to me in the circle." She continued, "Hannah's mother died this afternoon." I was speechless.
The guidance counselor added, "And her father is in Iraq. A neighbor is in the office right now." My eyes filled. How horrible for the poor girl. She didn't share how the mother died, and I didn't ask.

The guidance counselor then opened the classroom door and said, casually and pleasantly, "Hannah, I need to see you now. Bring your things with you." As she came to the door, Hannah said, "I'm not in trouble, am I?" "Oh, no, not at all." I ducked back into the classrom without meeting her eyes, thinking of how her state of innocence had not yet been shattered, but would be within moments. I could imagine as she walked down the hall with the counselor, her mind would begin to fill with awful possibilities, and by the time she got to the office, she would be sure that something had happened to her deployed father. What a shock it would be to learn that it was her mother.

Meanwhile, when I returned to the classroom, the students were still reading aloud, as I had left them. The class, thank God, is small enough to differentiate, so I have them choose whether to read silently themselves or out loud in a group. The read-alouds are the less mature ones who do everything in their power to show off, divert the reading, and say purposely stupid things, but they're enjoying the novel, I can tell. I realized, as I listened to them take turns reading, that for the rest of her life, Hannah will remember all of us. We are the people she'd been with just prior to learning that her mother had died. She'll always remember the classroom, the novel, the goofy guy who can't stop running his mouth, just as I remember little unrelated details from the day my mother died, such as the wooden cabinet in which we hid the telephone so that Derek, who was an eight-month-old crawler at the time, couldn't reach it and pull it off the hook 30 times a day. I can still see that cabinet now. I can see myself after Dad's Sunday morning phone call, in shock, slowly lowering the phone into its the cradle within the cabinet. My husband was at his once-a-month National Guard meeting in Vermont that weekend, a five-hour drive away. I reached into that cabinet several more times in the next hour to try to phone the Guard Unit where K. was, to leave messages for him to call me. How complicated it was to reach somebody in those pre-cell phone days!

I feel so sad for Hannah. She's only 14. From what I can gather, the death was unexpected. A car accident? Heart attack? A few minutes before the bell rang, I told the students what had happened. A few girls exclaimed, "Oh, my God, how awful; I would DIE if anything happened to my mother!! I couldn't live without my mother!! My mother is my world!" Sweet, innocent things.

Now Basic Reading, Fourth block, is forever imprinted in Hannah's memory, but not for the reasons I'd like.

First week of school

One of my facebook friends wrote, "Now that school has started, we can look forward to weekends again." I agree. Now that I've forced my body and my mind back into that working rhythm, the weekends seem like pots of gold. I love summer. I wouldn't have minded continuing to flow through the timeless, nameless days. But here I am, back at work.

I like my new classroom in the main building. It has more light, a carpeted floor, a floor-to-ceiling window-door, and a storage closet. The LCD projector has a remote this time, so I don't have to ask a tall student to stretch up and manually press the on and off buttons. In my previous classroom, the LCD projector was old enough that they had long ago lost the remote and couldn't order a replacement because the model was outdated.

The new classroom is also close to the nurse's office. I have one diabetic and one epileptic student who need to get there fast. My diabetic student has already had to leave class to see Nurse O. On Open House night, the mother of the girl with epilepsy told me H. had frequent seizures, felt them coming, and lay down on the floor in preparation. I doubt if the Administration knew this medical information in advance. They usually aren't sure which students will enter which classes until five minutes before the first bell. Close access to Nurse O. as well as the carpeted floor must be a fortunate coincidence for which I'm grateful.

The new location is also close to the mailroom, front office, book room, and other teachers. I can't tell you how many times we're told to bring his form or that form to the secretary or data clerk, or books need to be carried back and forth to the bookroom. I also enjoy having other teachers in the same hallway. It makes me feel more like a member of the community. I also see lots of former students walking the hallways between bells. Many stop to say hi. One little boy from ninth grade two years ago, who hadn't had his growth spurt at the time, is now a man! He's the student I may have mentioned in an earlier blog who came up to me during class two years ago and said, in wonderment, "You are the NICEST teacher I've ever had!" At the time, he looked like a sixth grade middle school student. Now a tall man on the basketball team, he walked by my classroom door two days ago, and stopped to give me a hug. When he found out I was teaching 11th grade Comp/Lit, his eyes lit up and he said he would try to change his schedule to get into my class.


Another positive surprise is I was given third block planning! I feel like the luckiest teacher in the school. When I saw that on the schedule, I just about fell on my knees and screamed "Hallelujah!" Third block planning is the best. You don't have to stuff down your lunch sandwich on the run, while waiting for your students to return from their lunch, all hyper, playful, and ready to rock. When class is interrupted with a 25-minute lunch, the students lose whatever focus they had. They are reluctant to return, they come in tardy, they act like fools! But I don't have to worry about any of that this semester. Another plus is that third block is longer than the others because it incorporates the five lunch periods. Being in the middle of the four block sequence, it's also a blessed break.

Now, for the students. Again, I am fortunate. My first block class is 11th Grade Comp/Lit (American Literature). The students are awesome. It's a large class of 28, but they listen quietly when they need to, then work productively in groups. As in every class, there are a few guys that like to be witty and enjoy being the center of attention, but by 11th grade, they channel it in a good way---unlike some 9th graders who simply act like idiots for the sake of being idiots. The 11th graders use their energy more appropriately. For instance, we are reading The Crucible, so the students played parts for two days. The attention-getting ones volunteered immediately and poured their energy into playing Rev. Parris, Abigail, Putnam, Tituba, and the rest with such great vigor that the whole class was in stitches.

My other two classes are Basic Reading, which is like a pre-9th grade Comp/Lit. Somehow, I ended up with two very small classes, although that could change. Schedule-changing seems to continue throughout the school year, and you never know when students will disappear off the roles or new ones will appear one day, three months into the class. The second block class consists of a lot of very quiet students. No show-offs, ADHD's, or severe immaturity levels so far. However, the fourth block class includes a couple of live-wires who need to acquire a lot more self-control. I've learned over the past few years that sending students for a few days in ISS does very little to alter behavior for very long. This year, I created a list of 7 semester-long Anchor Activities, each of which gives them a list of choices. They have to choose any five, and within those five, there is a long list of choices. I'm hoping this form of differentiation will help the hyper ones focus on something they're interested in.

Overall, I like my classes. So far.

Yesterday, I went to the Richmond Hill Y after school, keeping up my promise to myself. Five or six other RHHS teachers were there too, so it was fun. Today, Liberto and I are going to the Habersham branch of the Y. He's going to swim, and I'm going to use the machines.

Good news! Paul was accepted at Armstrong for a four-year degree in Health Science. He's thinking about X-ray technology or nursing. He is really, really psyched up. He has met with his advisor and has gotten his picture ID and parking tag. His last quarter with Central Georgia Tech ends in September, and the semester at Armstrong begins next week, so there will be some overlap. Probably, the best thing for him to do will be to take Armstrong Term B courses (courses offered in the second seven weeks of the semester) or just take one serious course and two electives, until winter semester. I don't think anyone could handle six serious courses all at once, which is what he would have to do for a month during the overlap time.

I love thundery nights lying under the covers in bed, hearing the rain drum down. Liberto told me there'd been quite a nice storm last night, but I slept through it all; didn't hear a thing.

Waltzing with D.

Today's discussion is difficult, because it sounds as though I'm dissing someone in my family. But I need to analyze why I often feel toxified in subtle ways after long conversations with my sister. One thing that bothers me is her streak of cagey-ness---some would even call it issues with lying---which causes her to skirt around and evade the truth, tiptoeing carefully around it like a curfew-breaking teenager who ingenuously omits portions of what she did that evening to questioning parents. At our ages, it's annoying. I'm not a parent figure and she's not a teenager. So why does she lie by omission so much? It happens a lot, but the most recent incident irritated me majorly.

Here's what happened. Last June, she and her daughter went to Italy. Her daughter posted the pix on facebook, which is the only reason I knew about it. But when talking with me, both before and after her trip, my sister took great pains to edit out the fact that a vacation in Italy was a part of a trip to the East Coast. (Trust me, dear reader, it was not a well-intentioned omission to spare my feelings that I, too, wasn't enjoying a vacation in Italy. Nothing like that. She knows I can afford a trip overseas too, if I want. Sparing feelings is also not her strong suit, at least not with me.)

Continuing with this story, she had told me in May that she was going East soon to visit her daughter in Boston and see a couple of high school girlfriends in Long Island. The three planned to drive to NYC for a night on the town. Sometime during the trip, my sister actually phoned me in the middle of a week day, allegedly from Long Island, saying she had just arrived in Long Island and was waiting for the girlfriends to pick her up. That phone call, in itself, was weird. It was almost like a cheating-husband-deciding-to-check-in-with-the wife before checking into the motel kind of call. It was even more strange, in that she rarely calls me when she's home, let alone on the road. "It costs too much," so she doesn't have outgoing long distance from her landline and the cellphone signal sucks, so if she calls me, she asks me to call her right back, which I do. Anyway, during the call from "Long Island," she said she would be returning to Denver the following Sunday. A few days later, I texted her to ask for more details about the reunion. I was interested in hearing more about the the high school friends since they had been my friends, too, and both their older brothers had been friends/objects of romance during high school. She texted back that she was at work and would call me later to tell me. But she never called back. In late June, I saw the Italy pix on facebook and thought it was bizarre that she would forget to mention that major leg of the trip. But then it struck me why. A trip overseas contradicts the identity she embraces and the image she unconsciously but persistently tries to project (to me, at least) of a pathetic, aging, single woman without enough income, no husband, a too-high mortgage, a job with no paid days off or paid holidays, and a crappy health insurance plan. I hear that tale time and again.

The next time we connected on the phone, I didn't mention her trip, and of course she didn't volunteer it. This past Sunday, we talked after barely talking all summer, and at the end of the conversation, I said, as a genuine afterthought to my announcement that we are going to Italy in December, that I had noticed on facebook that she had been there recently. "When did you go?" I asked. Hedging, she replied, "Well, uh, I went there seven years ago." (that trip, which I knew about, is a story for another time). I said, "Oh, you took J. with you seven years ago?" (J. was in the facebook photos too.) Pause. "Uh...what do you mean?" she asked evasively.

Do you see what I mean about dancing around a straight answer?

She finally said that she'd gone to Italy as part of the East Coast trip. I asked, "Why wouldn't you tell me about an exciting thing like that?"

Because, she said, she felt stupid spending the money when she shouldn't have. "I just wanted to do something for J. since she had just passed an important test in graduate school. And I felt depressed about turning 60. But I felt even worse after because I couldn't afford it."

But you DID afford it, I thought later. There are plenty of people in this world who wouldn't be able to scare up enough cash or credit for a trip to the state border, let alone to Europe. There's a difference between not being able to afford something at all, and spending money you wish you'd saved for a rainy day.

More important, this incident, following a string of them over time, suddenly opened up my eyes to the tacit roles that we seem to have established with each other. I must be a slow learner. Apparently, my "role" is supposed to be to feel sorry for the bum deal life has dealt her, and her "role" is to live up to that image. Going to Italy (openly) causes a mis-step in the waltz.