To those "above" me, I am inconsequential. To those "below" me, I am indispensable.

Only one of those groups actually matters. And it's not the group that thinks so very highly of themselves. Only one of those groups still has the potential to change our system, to improve education and our society by addressing real and complex issues in immeasurable ways. The other has already given up, and is looking only for numbers from a test or a survey that will help them justify their existence to their own bosses.

I'm uninterested in catering to the desires of those "above;" as uninterested in that as they are in creating real and effective change.

Sent from my iPhone

One of many problems

It is a travesty that the only way to advance your career as a teacher is to leave the classroom. No raises, no more responsibilities, no more prestige, unless you stop doing the thing that, if you're any good at it, needs doing the most. And so talented, hardworking people stay underpaid, and those who don't care so much about student interaction move on up, making double or triple what a classroom teacher does.

And even those who do care, who love the classroom and students and who get it - within 2 or 3 years away from daily teaching, they've forgotten. They've been seduced by fancy looking paperwork and rubrics that no one will ever see; by color copiers and real duty-free lunches, by politicians who don't understand education telling them what good work they're doing...so they take the money and create the forms and hold "Professional Development Opportunities" that just showcase how far gone they are from real teaching.

And those who could make change, who really see what the problems are and where change needs to happen, are too busy grading papers and emailing parents and opening milk cartons and adapting homework assignments for 10 different students who need individualized lesson plans in order to reach their potential to do anything about it, except for recognizing that if they leave the classroom for long, their soul will lose its spark and they'll no longer be a part of the solution, but rather a part of the problem.

One of the Roots of the Problem, Maybe?

"Americans have internalized the idea that racism is bad, without ever accepting that they’re racist. So, the average American’s thought process goes something like this:

Racism is bad

I am a good person

Therefore, I am not racist

Once that line of logic has been completed, all the arguments in the world can’t overcome their rationalization and willful blindness."

From here

Interview!

Oh my god, I just had two interviews and a photoshoot. I'm going to have my picture in the paper, and a feature on a website. This is surreal!

I'm teaching a new class next year, and it's kind of groundbreaking. Which is super exciting and inspiring, and also means that lots of people care, and apparently that newspapers and magazines want to write about it!

It's strange to be the voice of this, because there are so many people who have worked so hard for so long to make this kind of thing happen (if you know me, you know what kind of thing, and what kind of class, I'm talking about), and in many ways, this just fell into my lap. And now people are asking me to speak about it!

I'm going to do my damnedest to do it justice, though. I have so many ideas, none of which have to do with standards or alignment or anything else that curricular specialists would say I should focus on - it's a revolutionary class, so why shouldn't the approach to education be a little revolutionary?

I'm going to bring in podcasts and speakers and teach activism and infuse art into every nook and cranny of this learning that I can. We'll read primary documents and create context and compare intense hypotheticals because they've got enough focus on literacy going on. Skills are great and all, but if you're not inspired to do anything with them, then what's the point?

I didn't talk about that in the interviews so much though. Instead, I talked about how amazing the community I teach in is. There aren't many places that would allow this kind of class, and even fewer that would be celebrating it. I feel so blessed. And the pressure's on! This has to be good.

#fingerscrossedemoji

Target; A Magical Land

Speechless

A flashback to when I first found out I was pregnant with EtheFirst:

I'd suspected for a few days that I was pregnant. There was this knot in my belly, like a flattened tennis ball. That was actually what I pictured when I first noticed it, as if somehow a tennis ball had just wandered its way into my uterus. In that way they do sometimes. Because clearly, through the noisy brain fog of "am I aren't I am I aren't I am I aren't I," I was thinking logically. And it wasn't so much that I could feel a new firmness when I pressed my fingertips into my stomach, though I could, a bit. It was that I was just conscious of it, the way you know your ankle is sprained before the pain even hits, or know that your boyfriend is going to break up with you the moment he walks in the door, before anyone has said a word.

At school, when I thought (hoped) none of the other teachers were looking, I'd do a little wiggle. Maybe it was just a fart. Or a rogue intestine! Maybe I'd get my period tomorrow. Maybe, four months from now, I'd still fit into my just-bought wedding dress. Or "maybe," (said the hypochondriac who lives all the way in the back of my brain) "...something is wrong. Maybe it's cancer." Could I still fit into my wedding dress then? "Probably you'll be even thinner after chemo," snarked my teenaged self, "but your hair will look like shit." She was the one who thought vomiting after meals was the way to make friends, the idiot. I flipped them both off in the bathroom mirror and indulged instead in the mama fantasies.

Sweet little cheeks, roly-poly thighs, eyes that cross from trying so hard to see you while giving eskimo kisses. A little bit him, a little bit me, a little bit of a soul coming back earthside for another attempt at nirvana. I craved a baby. My imaginary future self, the one who had life totally figured out, taunted me with her perfect motherhood. "This can't be yours, you know. You're broken, remember?" I knew she was lying. Probably lying. Probably (I crossed my fingers). The doctors only said it would be hard to get pregnant, not impossible. And it's not like that monthly indicator of my failed attempts at motherhood had arrived yet. That painful morning-time reach for a tampon that, for so much of my life had been a little red celebration meaning I knew how to use birth control properly, but suddenly (sometime in my late twenties) had become this near-literal punch to the gut. Failure and despair and all my lonely feelings, leaking out of me every month. So I closed my eyes, shut out that version of me who probably wears sweater sets and pearls for house cleaning, and sang sunshiney songs to the tennis ball baby in my belly.

Another day passed, the now-familiar "am I? I'm not. I think I am? I'm not" refrain running nonstop in my head, is a distracting backup singer to all my lectures on the Russian Revolution. "The Tsar thought of himself as Russia's little father" my teacher self told the kids, as I fantasized about the father my fiance would be to this imaginary baby.

Still, I waited to actually do anything about it. Because once you pee on that stick, it's either real, and your suspicions are confirmed and then holy crap, you're pregnant, or...or you're not, and you've been hallucinating and fantasizing for a week. Also, you've now got this tennis ball thing to get checked out. And who wants to write "tennis ball uterus" as her chief complaint when checking in at the doctor's office? Both options terrified me. So I waited, and waited, until almost a week past when every other logical person would have thought back to 10th grade health class, and then gone to the damn Walgreens, bought a First Response, and done something useful with her pee for once.

By Sunday night, the back-and-forth in my head was so loud I couldn't hear my toothbrush do its familiar "schhh schhh schhh" while I got ready for bed. The toothbrush just sang "pregnant, pregnant, pregnant," or alternately "crazy, crazy, crazy" until I said out loud "FINE."

"Tomorrow morning," my stern face told me in the mirror, "you're going to suck it up and face reality."

The night came and went, and before the cobwebs cleared my head, I went for it. The minute in between peeing on that stick and watching first one, then two, blue lines appear, seemed to last at least an hour. I'm not sure I breathed. I definitely didn't move. And none of my selves said a thing. I just sat for a moment, pants around my ankles, staring into the mirror across from the toilet at this new version of me. First one tear, then two rolled silently down my cheek, dropping onto my thigh. And finally, when I breathed again, a big gulping gasp of air, my strangled voice, and every other part of me, shouted "thank you" to the universe, in the very quietest voice, so I could hold my secret for just a little bit longer.

Troubled Waters Art Show

Ross had an artist's reception for another show today! He had 5 pieces in the show, all some of the best works there.

The boys and I are so proud of him! They loved his name tag - "Ross Becht, Artist" and of course, the snacks!

All in all a great show. It closes May 30th.

To see more about the pieces Ross had at the show, check out his website!

www.RossBecht.com