the boy
Selling
The Boy has been selling popcorn for his scout troop. We decided to make a poster tonight for me to put in the teachers' mailroom (pending approval) inviting teachers to indulge their popcorn cravings. A few of the shots in for the poster...
Conestee Walk
It's been a while since we went out for a walk in our favorite local part. Months, even. L is sick at home -- an awful sinus infection -- but we made the most of it as three.
American Ognisko
Football Glory and Critical Thinking
When we lived in Asheville, I worked for one year at a day treatment facility for kids who'd been expelled from alternative school. It was a tough bunch of mainly fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds. At one point, though, two boys who'd known each other "on the outside" (as they'd referred to it) were in the program at the same time. At lunch they'd revel in their former football glory, recalling magnificent plays they'd been a part of and sharing in the sorrow of those losses that had stung so badly. At one point, one of the boys mentioned having a recording of one of those games.
"Really!?" The program director was incredulous, but he managed to talk the boy into bringing in the video.
A couple of days later, during afternoon free time, the kid put the video cassette into the VHS player and pressed play. Soon, the director was howling in laughter as he watched a little league game in full chaotic, cute glory.
"Man, I thought you were talking about games you'd played in middle school or something," he laughed. "I didn't realize you were talking about second grade!" He was just good-naturedly ribbing the kids, and they took it fairly well.
Looking back on it this evening as I jogged laps in a parking lot while the Boy had soccer practice, it suddenly took on a newly instructive dimension for me. Had any of us really thought about it, we would have known it could not have been middle school football the boys were talking about. They'd experienced little success in middle school, showing out enough to be removed from the setting altogether. Even the most gifted player is going to have to meet certain standards -- administrators might bend some requirements for such a boy, but there are at least some requirements. These boys couldn't even make it through alternative school let alone the less structured setting of a typical middle school classroom, so there was no way we adults should have assumed they were talking about playing organized football in the last several years.
We made those assumptions, though, because they neatly and immediately fit our assumptions. When a fourteen-year-old boy is reveling in past glory, we don't expect it to be from early elementary school but from the recent past. It's an immediate and logical assumption that we make without even being aware that we've made such an assumption. The thing is, we make these kinds of assumptions constantly throughout the day. We couldn't function, I'd argue, if we were to give extended critical thought to each and every decision we make and every thought that flits through our mind. The trick is being aware enough of our thoughts to have as a conscious option the ability to switch on our critical thinking and go, "Now, hold on there."
It's one of the reasons I enjoy teaching literature to middle schoolers. It's just those "Now, hold on there" moments that critical reading encourages.
Monday Night Moon
After desert, when K pretended she was about to eat E’s while he ran inside for a moment, we went to the front yard to get a little family exercise. L, having stayed home today because of sinus issues, passed the volleyball to me. Later, the Boy and I worked on his defensive skills in soccer.
As the Girl and I played, I noticed that, over her shoulder, the waxing moon was almost a half-moon. A waxing moon in the autumn was always a harbinger of the greatest week of the year, hands down, year after year. It was in the fall that our heterodox sect took a week off of work and school to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in a strange attempt to follow the pattern of Old Testament holy days that we were taught were still required.
When I was L’s age, the sight of such a moon in September would edge me toward near-giddiness as I thought about all the adventures that awaited after the obligatory, daily, and often boring church service (yes, daily church — a two-hour service, no less, with a sermon that lasted anywhere from sixty to ninety ass- and mind-numbing minutes). Surely I’d meet new friends. Maybe we’d see some great attractions. But most enticing was the promise of what everyone called a feast-fling: a week-long adolescent romance that ended with addresses and phone numbers exchanged along with promises and more promises, a romance that was lucky to reach Christmas break. “Maybe we’ll go to the same feast site next year!” was the excitement.
It never worked, of course, because adolescent romances are just that — flings. But that excitement along with the excitement of all the other amazing experiences we’d certainly have hung in the glow around waxing autumnal moons.
My children know none of these things. The specifics of my religious upbringing are a complete mystery to them. I’m content to let them assume what they will. I’ve hesitated to tell them anything about it because it doesn’t seem all that relevant to their lives, and quite honestly, I didn’t want to shade how they saw Nana and Papa. That of course assumes that it would color how they see them, which is likely a projection: through almost all of my adult life, I have looked at the beliefs they inculcated into me, beliefs they held with complete conviction but were without a shred of logic even within a strictly Christian theological context, and wondered how in the world they could have fallen for such silliness. I know they came to view their own beliefs similarly, returning eventually to a more orthodox Protestant faith, but somehow I still hesitated.
“I hesitated,” I say as if it’s something that’s occupied a large part of my conscious thoughts. In truth, it has, but only in a theoretical, theological sense. My thoughts have only turned to that theology while mowing or having a cigar and scotch on a Saturday night. Unless I happen to see a waxing autumnal moon…
Goodbye, Kiddos
I lost four of my students today. They’re not gone from school or even off our particular team grouping. I’m just no longer their English teacher. The reason is the irony of bureaucracy: the law that’s meant to protect in this case hurts.
They’re special education students with IEPs that require a special ed facilitator in the room with them for English class. This special ed teach has been reassigned to another class, so those four students have to go to another teacher’s inclusion classroom. It’s the law. The problem is, there are already too many special ed kids in the classroom my students got moved to, and since there are only four of them, it’s not much of a challenge for me to meet their needs without assistance. But the law is the law. It’s there to protect them, even when it doesn’t.
I spoke to administrators, special ed coordinators, guidance counselors about these kids. “Please, leave these kids in my class! They’re doing great! The classroom atmosphere is very supportive. It’s a smaller class than the one you’re moving them to. I really like them; they like me. They’ve settled into the routines of the class. They know how things work. It’s a good fit. It’s working,” I begged. But it’s the law, and it’s there to help these kids.
I’ve known this was coming for a week. I’ve been fighting it for a week. Today was the first without the kids in class. Three of them came to my door later in the day asking why they can’t be back in my class.
“Trust me, kiddos — I want you in my class,” was all I could say.
Unrelated Picture
We went for a bike ride this evening. The Boy wanted to visit the old garment factory that’ now houses only a costume shop.
It doesn’t open until later in the month…
Return from the Long Weekend
We returned to school to find 18 teachers out today due to covid. That’s not 18 positive cases — just 18 teachers affected in one way or another. Quarantined due to exposure. Staying home because of a child being quarantined due to exposure. Staying home because a child’s daycare has closed due to excessive covid cases.
“Why don’t we call the governor to see if he would like to come and cover some of these teachers who are out,” I suggested to another teacher as we stood, sensibly distanced and masked, making copies and preparing materials in the teacher workroom.
Meanwhile, the kids came and went in a variety of styles: no masks, masks worn down on the chin, masks worn properly, and various transitional states between the three. I carried on, masked all day, conscientiously distanced from everyone, teaching English I Honors kids how to parse some crazy Poe sentences.
After school and dinner, the Boy and I headed across town for soccer practice.
At last — a fairly safe activity in these uncertain times. And after practice, I was pleased to see the Boy making a conscious effort to distance himself.
How long will these habits last? Will E still be pulling back from huddled groups ten years from now? Will it become a reflex? Some on the right would bemoan how this somehow scars them. Maybe, but I can think of worse scarring.
Lake Tillery 2021
Chatting at the Lake
