Teacher Trek Day 11: Tiptoe through the Essays

Today marks day five that I have had seniors in my class this semester. I have received 920 pages of homework to date, including 350 pages of summer projects. In addition, students will turn in 400 pages of free-writing journal entries tomorrow and 90 pages of vocabulary journals.

I read somewhere that Jimmy Carter failed to thrive because he brought 400 pages a day from the West Wing to read before bedtime. He became overwhelmed.

Although I have deep respect for President Carter as a tireless humanitarian and dedicated advocate for peace in Israel and Egypt, there is no way the machinations behind the Camp David Peace Accord were any more convoluted than the arguments in the essays I have encountered this week.🤓

But the students themselves are awesome!

Teacher Trek Day 10: My Son, the Dog

My college teacher long ago summoned me to his office and asked to see my notes, because he could not remember all of the material that we had covered. I gave him my notes, but I was disappointed that he, the captain of the ship, lost sight of where we were headed.

Thirty years later I understand how such a blunder could occur if a teacher doesn’t plan well. When one has taught a class out of his back pocket many years in a row (as he did), and several times each day, some of the lessons and topics can run together. A story told just yesterday can seem like it hasn’t been shared in years.

As a man who cannot always remember his own sons’ names from time to time and just calls them by the dog’s name, I get it.

Teacher Trek Day 9: The Fall of Women

While studying vocabulary unit 1 today, the class and I practiced pronunciations and definitions. The words were, predictably, difficult.

As I listened to the students, my mind drifted back to some of the funny words and expressions that I have heard and read across the years. I will never forget the young lady who used the word “consummate” instead of “consume.”  How does one even recover from that?

During grad school, I was working in a writing lab at Purchase Line High School (PA). One of the students asked me to edit his “research” paper that was penned with the wordsmithing skill of a seasoned plagiarist.  My first clue was that he, a 16-year old, chose the topic of post-partum depression, sharing remarkable insights gleaned from the pages of his mother’s nursing textbook. I asked what he meant by post-partum depression. His response: the depression experienced by women who cannot give birth. Some of the depression even rubbed off on me by the end of the conversation.

My all-time favorite, however, is from another teacher, whose student wrote that a lady “fell down the stairs and lay prostitute at the bottom.” The teacher responded that in the future, the student “should take care to differentiate between a fallen woman and one who has merely slipped.”

Yes, being specific is what vocabulary study is all about!

Teacher Trek Day 8: Love and Self-hood

Today is the first “real” day of school for seniors. Day one was more of a meet and greet than a day of school, and day two was the senior outing: whitewater rafting.

So today we play for keeps.

We are studying how authors create compelling characters in order to get readers to invest in important ideas.  When readers become emotionally attached to a character, the reader/viewer/listener significantly lowers his/her threshold of resistance to the character’s argument.

Today I asked students to agree or disagree with this value statement: “Love is not a substitute for selfhood; indeed, selfhood is love’s precondition” (Barbara C. Ewell). Oxford dictionary defines selfhood in this case as individuality or individual identity. So then the question becomes whether individuality is a precondition for love.

We read Kate Chopin’s three-page “The Story of an Hour,” in which Louise finds out that her husband has died in a train wreck (spoiler alert). She responds predictably for a few moments of measured grief before excusing herself to her bedroom. Alone, she exults, “Free, free, free” and rejoices that hubby Brently will never again exert his will on her. Louise sounds remarkably contemporary for a character sketched out 125 years ago.

After a respite from which she is begged to open the door, Louise descends the stairs like a “Goddess of Victory” to meet the gathered mourners. To her amazement, the front door opens and Brently enters the house. The report of his death was completely erroneous.

When Louise sees her husband, she has a heart attack and falls dead. Ironically, when the doctor arrives, he says that Louise died of heart disease – of joy that kills. What a reminder that the source of a person’s “joy” is often misconstrued.

Back to the point: would Louise have asserted selfhood as love’s precondition? More importantly, does the Bible support selfhood as a precondition to love? Haven’t we nearly biblicized the mantra “You can’t love other people if you can’t love yourself”?

I loved Miss M’s response in class today: “Our self is of no value until we allow Christ to clean us up.” As my professor, Parker Maxey, used to say, “You are not completely wrong.”

 Paul offers this thesis in Philippians 2:

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

I have to believe Ewell had it backwards: one finds true love in the loss, rather than the assertion, of selfhood.

Teacher Trek Day 7: Post-Traumatic Teaching Syndrome

 

As I walked toward the school this morning, I saw a ladder against the building for roof repair. Immediately I was transported back to my first year of teaching high school in Louisville, Kentucky.

Having been associated with graduate school for the years leading up to my first high school job, I confess that my classroom discipline was lax. Make that LAX. For example, in grad school, if someone wanted to leave the room, he simply left. If someone wanted to get coffee, she went. The thought of having to be in the room with my students all of the time had simply not crossed my mind in several years.

I had completed my Ph. D. classes on an early August Thursday, 1997, in Pennsylvania. We climbed into the moving truck and drove into the night. My new job began on Monday in Louisville. I missed all of orientation, and I saw my books for the first time on the afternoon before classes began. I was in survival mode, and class discipline was not on my radar.

So when I needed something from the office on Tuesday, I simply told the students, “Be right back,” and walked out. When I returned down the hallway toward my class, I just happened to glance out the window. To my dismay and to his classmates’ delight, I saw one of my students crawl out of my classroom window and onto the roof.

The horror, the horror.

I was ticked, so I hustled into the room, ushered the student back through the window and into his seat, and grabbed a demerit to penalize him to the fullest extent of the law. When I told my principal, B.Rose, he offered sage advice:

“David, were you in your room when Brandon S. climbed out?”

“No, I definitely was not.”

“Then if I were you, I would just put that demerit back into my pocket and hope this goes away.”

The incident remained undiscussed in my classroom for the rest of the year, but I did receive a call from Brandon’s father that night, asking if I was in the habit of letting my students walk on the roof.

Amazing how seeing a harmless ladder against a building can trigger the PTSD from my early teaching years.

Teacher Trek Day 6: A Story of Two Childhoods

Today, students came back to school.

The biggest challenge for all my seniors was to complete a summer assignment wherein they (1) read a book of college application essays written by students who were accepted into Harvard, (2) wrote a short essay where they compared/contrasted two of the essays from that book, and (3) wrote a college entrance essay of their own in response to one of several prompts on the Common App website.

I will sum up student day one by saying that I am excited about each of my classes. However, I want to focus my notes tonight on two stories; one from a student essay and one ripped from today’s local news.

One of the essays read today was written by a student from a large family. She humorously recalled wishing people would think she owned the cool BMW in the parking lot, but instead she had to climb into the 12-passenger van at the end of the day. She described dressing multiple siblings for church, and changing myriad diapers. She did not realize the positive effect of a large and loving family, however, until a mission trip when she found herself subconsciously drawn to crying babies. Whereas some students could not connect with the young, she comforted, carried, and “mothered” the children effortlessly. So ends story #1.

Story #2 began in 2013 with the birth of a little girl, Laila Daniel. Laila and her older sister moved into foster care in the home of Jennifer and Joseph Rosenbaum in 2015. In November 2015, Jennifer Rosenbaum called 911 to report that Laila was choking on a chicken nugget. Laila died, but her little body told a story completely different from death by choking. The coroners found no chicken in her system at all, but their findings revealed multiple, violent, and heinous injuries. The judge said this was “one of the most horrible crimes and outcomes anyone would ever dream of.”

Today, nearly four years after Laila’s death, Jennifer Rosenbaum was convicted on 47 of 49 counts, including aggravated battery, aggravated assault, and first-degree cruelty to children. The most serious conviction was felony murder. Husband Joseph was convicted on fewer counts, and found not guilty of the felony murder charge. She received life plus forty years (approximately 85 years); he, 30 incarcerated years plus 20 on probation.

Two very different stories of two girls headed toward a very different future. One girl plans to graduate in May, and the other should have entered kindergarten this fall. As teachers, we want to reach every child, save every child.

Some would blame God and question where He was four year ago in November. But these sad circumstances are certainly not an indication that God is absent, weak, or callous. Rather, I see in today’s proceedings the logical demonstration of the effects of sin upon a creation that “itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). As The Message paraphrases the idea, “The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next.”

The wheels of time grind slow, but fine, and one day every wrong will be made right in the court of the Righteous Judge.

Teacher Trek Day 5: "Be ye therefore ready"

Sweet Mrs. B and I frequently observe that when my teaching pilgrimage began in the 90’s, we considered education one of the safest possible occupations. What could possibly be less dangerous than teaching?

How times change!

Today’s focus for our last day of preplanning was preparation for the unthinkable. I am really proud of the way our administration holds sacred our school parents’ trust that we will protect their children. We take safety seriously, and today we practiced several scenarios.

Practice revealed important insights to me. First, I considered the idea that emergencies do not have to be unplanned. Today I discovered that my response bag was missing two important items. Had we not practiced, I might have been left unprepared in an emergency. I also noticed that the David in my imagination reacts much more calmly under pressure than does the David in reality. When adrenalin kicked in and I heard the sounds of practice-disaster erupt, my heart pounded as though the events were a surprise. I felt a chill come over me – nothing like the calm that always surfaces in my imagination. Less like Harrison Ford and more like Don Knotts. Can you say, Shakiest teacher in the West? Frankly, at some points the drill was a bit unnerving. But that’s why we drill.

My highlight was a short discussion with an upcoming ninth grader who was one of the “victims.” As I applied pressure to the reddened “injury” on his shoulder, we talked about the importance of always being prepared, even (especially) for worst-case scenarios.

Today I was reminded yet again of why I love Christian education. We are never more than an arm’s length away from painting life’s most compelling artistry upon the canvas of young lives, and we can solidify our work within the frame of certainty. Even as we prepare against the backdrop of unsettling twenty-first century realties, we place our confidence in the One who sets our sail and charts our course.