Hodie Christus natus est;
hodie salvator apparuit;
hodie in terra canunt angeli;
laetantur arcangeli;
hodie, exultant justici, dicentes:
Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Alleluia!
--Text from the Latin Christmas Mass
Today Christ is born;
today the savior appears;
today the angels sing on earth;
the archangels rejoice;
today, the just exult, saying:
Glory to God in the highest!
Alleluia!
Have a blessed Christmas season!
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
O magnum mysterium
This past weekend was busy to the point of madness; in addition to my singing in four concerts in three days, my husband and I hosted my parents and one sister for the weekend and had a Gaudete Sunday brunch for our visitors and my husband's parents, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. I'm tired today, but it was truly wonderful to spend time with family and to participate in such beautiful concerts.
Years ago, Robert Shaw started the tradition of Christmas concerts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Choruses. When Shaw passed, the baton went to another local conductor who was less sensitive to the very religious nature of the programs Shaw had always selected and chose instead to do a more secular concert. It was nice enough, but attendance waned and the concerts lost their luster.
The baton passed again this year to Norman Mackenzie, the ASO Director of Choruses. I could go on for a really long time about how wonderful Norman is as a conductor and as a person, but that's another post. Suffice it to say that I count myself very privileged to sing under his direction.
It's always been fascinating to me how the same group of singers and instrumentalists can behave and react so differently to different conductors. There was a spirit present in this year's concerts that wasn't there in the three previous years I sang in this concert series. I can't explain it, but it was there nonetheless. People understood that this was something special and holy -- much of the music had the aching Advent sense of longing for Christ and/or marveling at God's incredible love and humility.
The two best pieces on the concert were, to me, Morten Lauridsen's "O Magnum Mysterium," sung a cappella by the ASO Chorus, and Olatunji's "Betelehemu," sung and accompanied by the Morehouse Glee Club. Two more completely different pieces of music it's hard to find, yet both of them were so beautiful that I found myself choking up at the same point in each song during each performance. (If you know the pieces, it was the soprano descant alleluia in the Lauridsen and the final refrain after the solo verse in "Betelehemu.") The Lauridsen was just piercingly exquisite, and "Betelehemu" was so full of joy.
As a member of the ASO chorus, I've had multiple opportunities to sing beautiful music with a chorus that sings beautifully well. I love and enjoy many of the works we've performed over the past several years, but there's very little that touches me in the same way that this concert of predominantly sacred music touches me. The only thing that saddens me is that for most people, the only time they'll hear music of this caliber is in a concert hall, not in a church.
Years ago, Robert Shaw started the tradition of Christmas concerts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Choruses. When Shaw passed, the baton went to another local conductor who was less sensitive to the very religious nature of the programs Shaw had always selected and chose instead to do a more secular concert. It was nice enough, but attendance waned and the concerts lost their luster.
The baton passed again this year to Norman Mackenzie, the ASO Director of Choruses. I could go on for a really long time about how wonderful Norman is as a conductor and as a person, but that's another post. Suffice it to say that I count myself very privileged to sing under his direction.
It's always been fascinating to me how the same group of singers and instrumentalists can behave and react so differently to different conductors. There was a spirit present in this year's concerts that wasn't there in the three previous years I sang in this concert series. I can't explain it, but it was there nonetheless. People understood that this was something special and holy -- much of the music had the aching Advent sense of longing for Christ and/or marveling at God's incredible love and humility.
The two best pieces on the concert were, to me, Morten Lauridsen's "O Magnum Mysterium," sung a cappella by the ASO Chorus, and Olatunji's "Betelehemu," sung and accompanied by the Morehouse Glee Club. Two more completely different pieces of music it's hard to find, yet both of them were so beautiful that I found myself choking up at the same point in each song during each performance. (If you know the pieces, it was the soprano descant alleluia in the Lauridsen and the final refrain after the solo verse in "Betelehemu.") The Lauridsen was just piercingly exquisite, and "Betelehemu" was so full of joy.
As a member of the ASO chorus, I've had multiple opportunities to sing beautiful music with a chorus that sings beautifully well. I love and enjoy many of the works we've performed over the past several years, but there's very little that touches me in the same way that this concert of predominantly sacred music touches me. The only thing that saddens me is that for most people, the only time they'll hear music of this caliber is in a concert hall, not in a church.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Pranks and cruelty
Fair warning -- this isn't going to be a happy post.
A student's home has been vandalized three times in the past two months. Not that vandalism isn't bad enough, but these particular miscreants have spray-painted homophobic epithets in several places on the house (including the garage door), causing thousands of dollars worth of damage to the house and untold emotional damage to this young man and his mother.
Right now, there's no reason to believe that it is another student who is committing these crimes. But there's also no reason to believe that it isn't, and that's what has me feeling heartsick.
I looked at the pictures of the words "GAY (Student's Name)" spray-painted in eight-foot high red letters on the garage door that our principal showed the senior class this morning in an assembly discussing the problem and wanted to vomit. I still can't wrap my head around why somebody would do something like this. I don't know if the kid is gay or not, and frankly, I don't really care. It's none of my business. He's a successful kid with an amazing athletic talent -- he could conceivably go to the Olympics someday -- who makes good grades, isn't a troublemaker or a clown, and is just generally a nice, serious, decent young man. Not that it would somehow be okay if he were a total jerk, but his being a good guy just adds insult to injury.
What is so wrong with someone that he or she feels the need to tear another human being down? To be so incredibly cowardly and hateful? To rob someone of the right to feel safe in his own home? Why should this young man's memory of his senior year of high school include this?
I don't know what to say or what to think. How can people be so hateful?
A student's home has been vandalized three times in the past two months. Not that vandalism isn't bad enough, but these particular miscreants have spray-painted homophobic epithets in several places on the house (including the garage door), causing thousands of dollars worth of damage to the house and untold emotional damage to this young man and his mother.
Right now, there's no reason to believe that it is another student who is committing these crimes. But there's also no reason to believe that it isn't, and that's what has me feeling heartsick.
I looked at the pictures of the words "GAY (Student's Name)" spray-painted in eight-foot high red letters on the garage door that our principal showed the senior class this morning in an assembly discussing the problem and wanted to vomit. I still can't wrap my head around why somebody would do something like this. I don't know if the kid is gay or not, and frankly, I don't really care. It's none of my business. He's a successful kid with an amazing athletic talent -- he could conceivably go to the Olympics someday -- who makes good grades, isn't a troublemaker or a clown, and is just generally a nice, serious, decent young man. Not that it would somehow be okay if he were a total jerk, but his being a good guy just adds insult to injury.
What is so wrong with someone that he or she feels the need to tear another human being down? To be so incredibly cowardly and hateful? To rob someone of the right to feel safe in his own home? Why should this young man's memory of his senior year of high school include this?
I don't know what to say or what to think. How can people be so hateful?
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Another gem from the pen of a student...
Seen on a final exam today:
"'The Wife of Bath's Tale' teaches the reader how to be truly gentile."
N.B. The noun form of "gentility" is "genteel."
"'The Wife of Bath's Tale' teaches the reader how to be truly gentile."
N.B. The noun form of "gentility" is "genteel."
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
"Contemporary"* music and divine liturgy
I've been thinking much lately on the current cultural trend toward so-called "contemporary" music in liturgy, and the more that I think on it, the more discomfited I become.
A frequent argument cited by proponents of "contemporary" music is relevancy. "We need to be more relevant if we're going to reach people effectively" is the philosophy which translates in practice to the adoption of Top Forty-esque music in liturgy. This argument is frequently cited in discussions involving youth and liturgy.
The premise seems flawed to me on two levels: one, a misunderstanding of the proper function of liturgical music; and two, a reversal of the attitude with which liturgy should be approached.
As for the first, the function of music in the liturgy is to be an organic part of the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Raucous instrumentation, whooping and hollering, hand-clapping and motions are all at odds with the formal, elegant, highly structured rituals of Mass in the Catholic church. Not that there is not a time and a place where all of those things are not inappropriate, and not that those things are intrinsically bad; they're just the liturgical equivalent of redecorating the entire White House with Pucci prints and Ikea furniture. Whenever something jars my focus away from the celebration of the Mass, it becomes liturgically problematic. If the congregation feels unsure whether or not it should applaud after a piece of music, it is liturgically problematic. The focus has shifted from the communal celebration of Mass to a performance, which reduces the congregation to the role of audience.
"But the people can't sing Gregorian chant!" is another frequent complaint, to which I reply "Nonsense!" I've taught a group of teenagers who can't read music how to sing the chant "Ave Maria" in under fifteen minutes. I find that the structure and tessitura of chant is easy to understand even for non-musicians -- people who can't read music can still see on the page whether a line rises or falls and feel naturally where a line resolves. Chant is simpler to sing than 95% of "contemporary" music, which generally has irregular rhythms, uses odd harmonic structure, and has a broad or uneven tessitura. Much of it is sung in a range that's very uncomfortable for women's voices, as it's too low to be sung comfortably in the range where it's written but high enough that singing it up the octave isn't pleasant, either. The lower male voice suffers, too, as the music as written is too high but down the octave is too low. In the services I've attended where I have not had a hymnal in front of me, I've found it easier and faster to catch on in a chanted service than I have in "contemporary" services where the words to the songs are flashed up on a large screen.
To the second, the idea of relevancy, when explored by its proponents, seems to entail an injection of God into the modern culture. I believe this raises two questions: one, is God not already present in our culture, at least liturgically speaking; and two, since God is timeless, why the necessity to make His worship "timely"? I submit that the driving force in the relevancy argument is actually the reverse: an attempt to inject secular culture into sacred liturgy.
As Paul instructed us, we are not to be conformed to this world. Using the musical language of secular culture conforms our worship immutably to worldly standards. Liturgy should be sacred -- set apart -- in all its components so that we understand just what it is that we do.
One of the theological concepts I so love in the Eastern Catholic Church is the knowledge that the liturgy is where Heaven and Earth meet, and the liturgical space and music and prayers all acknowledge that reality. The Western rite could certainly use a dose of that uniformity of purpose and intention. The Divine Liturgy in the Melkite church I regularly attend feeds my soul in its embrace of the mystery and sanctity of God in a way that pop-culture Masses are simply incapable of doing.
*I chose to put the word contemporary in quotation marks because as it is a term of art as applied to liturgical music. Contemporary comes from the Latin con tempore, meaning with the time. Arguably, the work of living composers is contemporary by definition, but I have yet to hear someone calling for Arvo Part's "O Antiphons" in the name of contemporary music! Contemporary, in the current discussions of liturgy, is applied solely to music which shares the lyrical style, structure, and setting of pop/rock/Top Twenty hits.
A frequent argument cited by proponents of "contemporary" music is relevancy. "We need to be more relevant if we're going to reach people effectively" is the philosophy which translates in practice to the adoption of Top Forty-esque music in liturgy. This argument is frequently cited in discussions involving youth and liturgy.
The premise seems flawed to me on two levels: one, a misunderstanding of the proper function of liturgical music; and two, a reversal of the attitude with which liturgy should be approached.
As for the first, the function of music in the liturgy is to be an organic part of the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Raucous instrumentation, whooping and hollering, hand-clapping and motions are all at odds with the formal, elegant, highly structured rituals of Mass in the Catholic church. Not that there is not a time and a place where all of those things are not inappropriate, and not that those things are intrinsically bad; they're just the liturgical equivalent of redecorating the entire White House with Pucci prints and Ikea furniture. Whenever something jars my focus away from the celebration of the Mass, it becomes liturgically problematic. If the congregation feels unsure whether or not it should applaud after a piece of music, it is liturgically problematic. The focus has shifted from the communal celebration of Mass to a performance, which reduces the congregation to the role of audience.
"But the people can't sing Gregorian chant!" is another frequent complaint, to which I reply "Nonsense!" I've taught a group of teenagers who can't read music how to sing the chant "Ave Maria" in under fifteen minutes. I find that the structure and tessitura of chant is easy to understand even for non-musicians -- people who can't read music can still see on the page whether a line rises or falls and feel naturally where a line resolves. Chant is simpler to sing than 95% of "contemporary" music, which generally has irregular rhythms, uses odd harmonic structure, and has a broad or uneven tessitura. Much of it is sung in a range that's very uncomfortable for women's voices, as it's too low to be sung comfortably in the range where it's written but high enough that singing it up the octave isn't pleasant, either. The lower male voice suffers, too, as the music as written is too high but down the octave is too low. In the services I've attended where I have not had a hymnal in front of me, I've found it easier and faster to catch on in a chanted service than I have in "contemporary" services where the words to the songs are flashed up on a large screen.
To the second, the idea of relevancy, when explored by its proponents, seems to entail an injection of God into the modern culture. I believe this raises two questions: one, is God not already present in our culture, at least liturgically speaking; and two, since God is timeless, why the necessity to make His worship "timely"? I submit that the driving force in the relevancy argument is actually the reverse: an attempt to inject secular culture into sacred liturgy.
As Paul instructed us, we are not to be conformed to this world. Using the musical language of secular culture conforms our worship immutably to worldly standards. Liturgy should be sacred -- set apart -- in all its components so that we understand just what it is that we do.
One of the theological concepts I so love in the Eastern Catholic Church is the knowledge that the liturgy is where Heaven and Earth meet, and the liturgical space and music and prayers all acknowledge that reality. The Western rite could certainly use a dose of that uniformity of purpose and intention. The Divine Liturgy in the Melkite church I regularly attend feeds my soul in its embrace of the mystery and sanctity of God in a way that pop-culture Masses are simply incapable of doing.
*I chose to put the word contemporary in quotation marks because as it is a term of art as applied to liturgical music. Contemporary comes from the Latin con tempore, meaning with the time. Arguably, the work of living composers is contemporary by definition, but I have yet to hear someone calling for Arvo Part's "O Antiphons" in the name of contemporary music! Contemporary, in the current discussions of liturgy, is applied solely to music which shares the lyrical style, structure, and setting of pop/rock/Top Twenty hits.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Update from last week...
The student who chose not to do her Shakespeare project (very uncharacteristic of this young lady!) came back on Monday, apologized for her abrupt behavior, and asked if she could have another opportunity, which I was pleased to give her. She recited perfectly; it must have been une attaque des nerfs on Friday that got to her.
It makes me feel better that she did come and get her "do-over" of her own volition. I think it's important for me as a teacher to respect the decisions of my students -- there is great learning to be had from unwise choices and none from insulating students from the consequences of their poor decisions -- but it's very difficult to step back and let these precious people suffer the effects of their own choices.
It makes me feel better that she did come and get her "do-over" of her own volition. I think it's important for me as a teacher to respect the decisions of my students -- there is great learning to be had from unwise choices and none from insulating students from the consequences of their poor decisions -- but it's very difficult to step back and let these precious people suffer the effects of their own choices.
Ora et labora
Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous and unseasonably warm (78 degrees in November!) day. When I got home from work, I noticed that the yard, deck, and driveway were covered with leaves, so I changed clothes, brought the dog outside with me, and grabbed a rake.
As I raked, I was mindful of the gift that work is. My husband and I are currently involved in a Bible study that focuses on financial stewardship, and the past week's study was about work. One of the verses in the study was Genesis 2:15 -- "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." The principle in the lesson was that God created work before sin entered into the world. Work is made difficult by sin, but work itself is not a punishment for sin.
In the spirit of that verse, and in the spirit of stewardship (all that we have belongs to God and we are temporary caretakers of His gifts), I began to be thankful for the gift of strength and ability to do manual labor. I was thankful for the ability to care for the home that my husband and I share. I was thankful for the amusement of watching our silly dog bound ecstatically through the leaf piles.
I worked and thought on a Benedictine motto: "Ora et labora" (pray and work). Both essential elements of the Christian life, they felt to me artificially separated by the "and". A twist on the motto sprang to mind: "Labora est ora" (work is prayer). If our work is for God, as Paul states in the Epistles, then it is, indeed, prayer and not punishment.
As I raked, I was mindful of the gift that work is. My husband and I are currently involved in a Bible study that focuses on financial stewardship, and the past week's study was about work. One of the verses in the study was Genesis 2:15 -- "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." The principle in the lesson was that God created work before sin entered into the world. Work is made difficult by sin, but work itself is not a punishment for sin.
In the spirit of that verse, and in the spirit of stewardship (all that we have belongs to God and we are temporary caretakers of His gifts), I began to be thankful for the gift of strength and ability to do manual labor. I was thankful for the ability to care for the home that my husband and I share. I was thankful for the amusement of watching our silly dog bound ecstatically through the leaf piles.
I worked and thought on a Benedictine motto: "Ora et labora" (pray and work). Both essential elements of the Christian life, they felt to me artificially separated by the "and". A twist on the motto sprang to mind: "Labora est ora" (work is prayer). If our work is for God, as Paul states in the Epistles, then it is, indeed, prayer and not punishment.
Friday, November 04, 2005
All things counter, original, spare, strange...
Today was the last real day of classes for the term. Tomorrow is the day that I'll be spending at school grading papers and preparing the final exam.
The term went by, as is usually the case, far too quickly. This term seems to have been sped on its merry way by a marked abundance of special schedules, accelerated days, and approximately twelve hundred assemblies and Masses and whatnot. I know that my original syllabus had far more time spent on Shakespeare than what actually occurred. Next year I will plan for four weeks of Shakespeare and perhaps get the three that I want.
The students presented their live performances of scenes from Henry V in class yesterday and today. Some were better than others. Some were amazing. Some were heartbreakingly rough. One chose not to do hers at all. I haven't decided whether or how to respect that choice, since it will mean a failing test grade and possibly a failing grade in the course.
I'm always surprised by what this assignment reveals about the students. It's not that complicated: memorize and perform 30-60 lines of Shakespeare. There's a written component that consists of turning in a copy of the script with the blocking written on it, a few sentences about their costume/production concept, and a rewriting of their lines into their own words. Not, to me, a massive assignment.
Some students embrace it wholeheartedly. Others fear it worse than they'll fear anything else in their whole high school experience. Students who like to "play the game," as it were (figure out the Magic Combination to the Teacher's Brain and Make an A!) go all to pieces over this assignment. Students who don't find much redeeming value in test-taking and paper-writing suddenly produce amazing results.
Every year, a few kids get stage fright so badly that they just freeze and forget their lines; I let them come and get some points back by reciting for me alone. Usually, if the student knows the lines, he or she will be able to do it for the audience of one with no stress.
I had something different this year, though. A student had a real mental block with the assignment. I've had him in class for twelve weeks, and he's always been a very quiet, reserved young man. He came in this afternoon after school to try to finish his speech for me, and he just couldn't do it. After a few abortive attempts, he suddenly started talking about how he was having trouble with the memorization and how it was confusing and frustrating for him, not like math which comes easily to him. He kept talking about how he "sees" what he has to do in a math problem, and he couldn't see anything in the lines he had been desperately trying to memorize for the past week.
We had a great conversation about math and English, different learning styles, what was happening in the lines he had to read, and what's interesting or important in Shakespeare for a modern audience. He finally read his lines (not entirely correctly, but with a smile on his face) and left.
I'm still not sure why I decided to go back to my classroom this afternoon instead of racing to beat the Friday afternoon rush hour, but I'm glad that I was there for him when he stopped by.
The term went by, as is usually the case, far too quickly. This term seems to have been sped on its merry way by a marked abundance of special schedules, accelerated days, and approximately twelve hundred assemblies and Masses and whatnot. I know that my original syllabus had far more time spent on Shakespeare than what actually occurred. Next year I will plan for four weeks of Shakespeare and perhaps get the three that I want.
The students presented their live performances of scenes from Henry V in class yesterday and today. Some were better than others. Some were amazing. Some were heartbreakingly rough. One chose not to do hers at all. I haven't decided whether or how to respect that choice, since it will mean a failing test grade and possibly a failing grade in the course.
I'm always surprised by what this assignment reveals about the students. It's not that complicated: memorize and perform 30-60 lines of Shakespeare. There's a written component that consists of turning in a copy of the script with the blocking written on it, a few sentences about their costume/production concept, and a rewriting of their lines into their own words. Not, to me, a massive assignment.
Some students embrace it wholeheartedly. Others fear it worse than they'll fear anything else in their whole high school experience. Students who like to "play the game," as it were (figure out the Magic Combination to the Teacher's Brain and Make an A!) go all to pieces over this assignment. Students who don't find much redeeming value in test-taking and paper-writing suddenly produce amazing results.
Every year, a few kids get stage fright so badly that they just freeze and forget their lines; I let them come and get some points back by reciting for me alone. Usually, if the student knows the lines, he or she will be able to do it for the audience of one with no stress.
I had something different this year, though. A student had a real mental block with the assignment. I've had him in class for twelve weeks, and he's always been a very quiet, reserved young man. He came in this afternoon after school to try to finish his speech for me, and he just couldn't do it. After a few abortive attempts, he suddenly started talking about how he was having trouble with the memorization and how it was confusing and frustrating for him, not like math which comes easily to him. He kept talking about how he "sees" what he has to do in a math problem, and he couldn't see anything in the lines he had been desperately trying to memorize for the past week.
We had a great conversation about math and English, different learning styles, what was happening in the lines he had to read, and what's interesting or important in Shakespeare for a modern audience. He finally read his lines (not entirely correctly, but with a smile on his face) and left.
I'm still not sure why I decided to go back to my classroom this afternoon instead of racing to beat the Friday afternoon rush hour, but I'm glad that I was there for him when he stopped by.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Dogs are strange.
Mine is right now lying on the floor on his back, waving his hind feet in front of his face, and trying to bite them.
It's sort of like watching a baby attempt to eat its own foot and is strangely entertaining.
It's sort of like watching a baby attempt to eat its own foot and is strangely entertaining.
Random thoughts on high school dances and "financial decadence"
In the abstract, I don't have a problem with high school dances or social events. God knows that teenagers need all the chances they can get to develop social skills (including but not limited to the ability to say five words without interjecting "like", but I digress).
However, it's been my experience that over the past ten years, high school dances have devolved from social events where kids dress nicely and play grown-ups for an evening into debauched orgies of excess. Prom isn't treated like a nice opportunity to wear lovely clothes and enjoy an evening with friends and classmates; it's become an Event that's second only in scope to a wedding and is beginning to assume much of the conspicuously consumptivist trappings of a wedding.
Much of the behavior at the dances is objectionable for an educational setting. I know what people do at clubs and at private parties and on MTV, and while I personally find people humping in public squicky, I won't quibble with their right to do as they please in those places. At schools -- where students are supposed to be held to a certain standard of behavior conforming to public decency -- and particularly at religious schools, most of which have mission statements that use moral language and speak about forming the character of the student -- erotic dancing has no place. Social intercourse doesn't mean sexual intercourse!
I also find it deeply problematic (as a teacher at a religious school) that lack of rules or lack of enforcement prohibiting such dancing paints the faculty, staff, and administration in a hypocritical light in the eyes of the students. We tell them in class that they're supposed to be chaste and respect their sexuality, but then we sponsor events and let them grind to their hearts' content? It's a very mixed message! As for financial decadence, the expenditure of staggering amounts of money for proms and after-prom parties is a sanctioned replacement for the decadence of going out and getting wasted in a hotel room. Worse, people think they're doing something praiseworthy -- "I don't want Little Johnny to drink and drive, so I'll rent a limo with a fully stocked bar for him and his buddies!"
I'm all for having a good time, but spending hundreds and thousands of dollars for a dance is positively disgusting. When people spend thousands on weddings, at least there's something to show for it at the end -- a married couple. What's to show for all the money spent on proms? A crushed corsage and an expensive dress that'll never be worn again?
However, it's been my experience that over the past ten years, high school dances have devolved from social events where kids dress nicely and play grown-ups for an evening into debauched orgies of excess. Prom isn't treated like a nice opportunity to wear lovely clothes and enjoy an evening with friends and classmates; it's become an Event that's second only in scope to a wedding and is beginning to assume much of the conspicuously consumptivist trappings of a wedding.
Much of the behavior at the dances is objectionable for an educational setting. I know what people do at clubs and at private parties and on MTV, and while I personally find people humping in public squicky, I won't quibble with their right to do as they please in those places. At schools -- where students are supposed to be held to a certain standard of behavior conforming to public decency -- and particularly at religious schools, most of which have mission statements that use moral language and speak about forming the character of the student -- erotic dancing has no place. Social intercourse doesn't mean sexual intercourse!
I also find it deeply problematic (as a teacher at a religious school) that lack of rules or lack of enforcement prohibiting such dancing paints the faculty, staff, and administration in a hypocritical light in the eyes of the students. We tell them in class that they're supposed to be chaste and respect their sexuality, but then we sponsor events and let them grind to their hearts' content? It's a very mixed message! As for financial decadence, the expenditure of staggering amounts of money for proms and after-prom parties is a sanctioned replacement for the decadence of going out and getting wasted in a hotel room. Worse, people think they're doing something praiseworthy -- "I don't want Little Johnny to drink and drive, so I'll rent a limo with a fully stocked bar for him and his buddies!"
I'm all for having a good time, but spending hundreds and thousands of dollars for a dance is positively disgusting. When people spend thousands on weddings, at least there's something to show for it at the end -- a married couple. What's to show for all the money spent on proms? A crushed corsage and an expensive dress that'll never be worn again?
Monday, September 26, 2005
Today's Deep Thought
(Note: my students have a daily journal-writing assignment where they write for five minutes on a question/quote/topic that's on the board when they come in. Some days we discuss them; some days we don't. Today, we discussed.)
Me: "So, what makes a lady or a gentleman?"
Student: "Well, good manners and stuff."
Me: "What constitutes 'good manners'?"
Student: "Helping little old ladies and making sure your fly is always zipped."
Me: "Setting that bar really high, aren't you?"
Me: "So, what makes a lady or a gentleman?"
Student: "Well, good manners and stuff."
Me: "What constitutes 'good manners'?"
Student: "Helping little old ladies and making sure your fly is always zipped."
Me: "Setting that bar really high, aren't you?"
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Get your freak on, junior high style
Yeesh. I chaperoned the seventh and eighth grade "social" last night. (The term "dance" is seen as too intimidating and too encouraging to the "come with a date" phenomenon. Ergo, social. But it's the same thing...D.J., chips and Coke, boys on one side and girls on the other for the first hour.)
The kids generally had a blast, and the peer leaders (juniors and seniors who act as mentors to groups of 6-8 7th or 8th grade girls or boys) came and helped get the dancing rolling. Several peer leaders hosted sleepover parties for their peer kids after the social, which I thought was fabulous, although I'll admit that the thought of spending a Saturday night with 17-20 thirteen-year-olds seems like the seventh circle of Hell to me!
Even though the dress code was casual, the kids were all told what was and was not appropriate attire for the dance. We went over it with them in homeroom. Still, we had girls show up in WAY short (read: barely covering everything that needed covering!) skirts and uber-tight tops. The tight, low-cut, belly-baring tops look completely obscene on girls who still have baby pudge and no breasts. Thirteen-year-olds who look like they're going clubbing just scare me.
The kids who showed up in inappropriate attire got a verbal reprimand, but nothing else. I think it sends a mixed message, but we don't have a protocol for what we do with inappropriately dressed kids. (Note to self: bring this up at next faculty meeting.)
And then there was the freak dancing.
I'm used to breaking up freaking, because I've done it for two years at the high school dances. What they do in their own homes with their parents' full knowledge and blessing is one thing, but at a Catholic high school dance, it's just not right. I did not expect to have to do it at the junior high dance.
The little boys weren't interested in dancing with the little girls. So the little girls just went and freaked with each other. That's a whole new level of icky.
I love dancing, and I do think it should be about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on, but I don't think it needs to look like what you do with your clothes off!
The kids generally had a blast, and the peer leaders (juniors and seniors who act as mentors to groups of 6-8 7th or 8th grade girls or boys) came and helped get the dancing rolling. Several peer leaders hosted sleepover parties for their peer kids after the social, which I thought was fabulous, although I'll admit that the thought of spending a Saturday night with 17-20 thirteen-year-olds seems like the seventh circle of Hell to me!
Even though the dress code was casual, the kids were all told what was and was not appropriate attire for the dance. We went over it with them in homeroom. Still, we had girls show up in WAY short (read: barely covering everything that needed covering!) skirts and uber-tight tops. The tight, low-cut, belly-baring tops look completely obscene on girls who still have baby pudge and no breasts. Thirteen-year-olds who look like they're going clubbing just scare me.
The kids who showed up in inappropriate attire got a verbal reprimand, but nothing else. I think it sends a mixed message, but we don't have a protocol for what we do with inappropriately dressed kids. (Note to self: bring this up at next faculty meeting.)
And then there was the freak dancing.
I'm used to breaking up freaking, because I've done it for two years at the high school dances. What they do in their own homes with their parents' full knowledge and blessing is one thing, but at a Catholic high school dance, it's just not right. I did not expect to have to do it at the junior high dance.
The little boys weren't interested in dancing with the little girls. So the little girls just went and freaked with each other. That's a whole new level of icky.
I love dancing, and I do think it should be about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on, but I don't think it needs to look like what you do with your clothes off!
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Reasonable accommodation
At our department meeting this morning, the subject of reasonable accommodation for students with learning disabilities came up. One of the new things that we're doing, spearheaded by the assistant academic dean and the counseling department, is the creation of a notebook with a page for each student with a documented learning disability that details the student's strengths, weaknesses, and needs. Teachers are expected to look up those students who are in their classes and read the students' profiles, then make accommodations accordingly.
That opened up a whole can of worms. Some teachers were all in favor of accommodating students; others thought that students used the accommodations as crutches. Some felt the one-page reports were asking too much of the teachers. I pointed out that were we a public school, we'd be required by law to do IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) for all students with documented learning disabilities or disabilities that influenced their learning (like hearing impairment). An IEP can run to 10+ pages and involves an annual meeting with each student, the student's parents, the counselor, and the teachers. Comparatively, we're getting off easily.
Still, people brought up the following: Students may be uncomfortable asking for extended time in public. Students get diagnosed by family friends or others who may or may not have a stake in the students' academic success. Students who are from wealthier families may have greater access to testing since we don't do it in-house. Students who do not have documented learning disabilities don't get teacher continuity or requests for specific teachers honored. Parents try to work the system to give their children unfair advantages. Teachers aren't included in the process to the extent that perhaps they ought to be. And so on.
I know that people try to game the system. Heck, I've seen people do it. There isn't much to be done about that. However, should all the students suffer because a few take advantage?
I just don't know what's reasonable and what isn't.
That opened up a whole can of worms. Some teachers were all in favor of accommodating students; others thought that students used the accommodations as crutches. Some felt the one-page reports were asking too much of the teachers. I pointed out that were we a public school, we'd be required by law to do IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) for all students with documented learning disabilities or disabilities that influenced their learning (like hearing impairment). An IEP can run to 10+ pages and involves an annual meeting with each student, the student's parents, the counselor, and the teachers. Comparatively, we're getting off easily.
Still, people brought up the following: Students may be uncomfortable asking for extended time in public. Students get diagnosed by family friends or others who may or may not have a stake in the students' academic success. Students who are from wealthier families may have greater access to testing since we don't do it in-house. Students who do not have documented learning disabilities don't get teacher continuity or requests for specific teachers honored. Parents try to work the system to give their children unfair advantages. Teachers aren't included in the process to the extent that perhaps they ought to be. And so on.
I know that people try to game the system. Heck, I've seen people do it. There isn't much to be done about that. However, should all the students suffer because a few take advantage?
I just don't know what's reasonable and what isn't.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Dein ist, dein, ja dein...
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra season is officially underway with this weekend's performances of the Mahler "Resurrection" Symphony #2.
I'm not a big Mahler fan (or actually a fan of German composers in general, probably because I don't have the correct voice type for singing great big loud Germanic music), but I enjoyed the "Resurrection" Symphony more than I thought I would. Like the Beethoven 9th, it's got a long period of chorus-sitting-onstage-and-waiting-to-sing that can be a bit uncomfortable on the ASOC's folding chairs. Between every movement, there were massive not-quite-surreptitious stretching and shifting position sessions in the chorus, including a completely spontaneous synchronized leg-cross in the back row between movements 2, 3, and 4.
Despite the discomfort, I found that the Mahler grew on me more and more each night. By the third performance of most concerts, I find it very hard to pay attention to the non-chorus parts and the concert usually seems longest that night. Last night's concert seemed to be over quickly, and the chorus part had improved since the previous two nights (which, again, is not always the case. Saturday nights can get fatigued and sloppy.) Robert Spano (ASO principal conductor) spoke to us during our warmup and said, "I'm in a mood tonight, so...as Donald [Runnicles, ASO principal guest conductor] says about Scottish foreplay, 'Brace yerself, lassie!'"
And we did. It was a great night, and the audience was as enthusiastically appreciative as they had been the two previous nights.
Now if I could only get the florid German poetry out of my head, I'd be a lot better off.
I'm not a big Mahler fan (or actually a fan of German composers in general, probably because I don't have the correct voice type for singing great big loud Germanic music), but I enjoyed the "Resurrection" Symphony more than I thought I would. Like the Beethoven 9th, it's got a long period of chorus-sitting-onstage-and-waiting-to-sing that can be a bit uncomfortable on the ASOC's folding chairs. Between every movement, there were massive not-quite-surreptitious stretching and shifting position sessions in the chorus, including a completely spontaneous synchronized leg-cross in the back row between movements 2, 3, and 4.
Despite the discomfort, I found that the Mahler grew on me more and more each night. By the third performance of most concerts, I find it very hard to pay attention to the non-chorus parts and the concert usually seems longest that night. Last night's concert seemed to be over quickly, and the chorus part had improved since the previous two nights (which, again, is not always the case. Saturday nights can get fatigued and sloppy.) Robert Spano (ASO principal conductor) spoke to us during our warmup and said, "I'm in a mood tonight, so...as Donald [Runnicles, ASO principal guest conductor] says about Scottish foreplay, 'Brace yerself, lassie!'"
And we did. It was a great night, and the audience was as enthusiastically appreciative as they had been the two previous nights.
Now if I could only get the florid German poetry out of my head, I'd be a lot better off.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
And another gem from the mouth of a student...
Student: "So the moon is a place in the world, right?"
Me: "I'm going to hazard a guess and say, by definition, no."
Me: "I'm going to hazard a guess and say, by definition, no."
Monday, September 12, 2005
More overheard today...
Student: "So, like, Beowulf is, like, the, like, hero, because he, like, is, like, honorable..."
Me: "Whoa. I'm cutting you off of 'likes.' One 'like' per comment."
Brief pause.
Student: "That's, like, hard."
Me: "My point exactly. And that was your one 'like.'"
Me: "Whoa. I'm cutting you off of 'likes.' One 'like' per comment."
Brief pause.
Student: "That's, like, hard."
Me: "My point exactly. And that was your one 'like.'"
Overheard today
Student: "Hephaestus? Isn't that some product they used to use in schools that's dangerous?"
I think he meant asbestos.
Student: "Hey, look at Nick's monkey!"
Me: "Hey, let's not!"
I'm so glad that nobody walked into the room at that moment.
More later...
I think he meant asbestos.
Student: "Hey, look at Nick's monkey!"
Me: "Hey, let's not!"
I'm so glad that nobody walked into the room at that moment.
More later...
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Fun and games, but no busses
For some reason, probably because I'm my mother's child, I volunteered to go on the ninth grade class retreat as a chaperone.
No, I don't teach ninth grade. I don't moderate the ninth grade class. I don't even have a ninth grade homeroom anymore. But getting faculty to chaperone overnight trips is something of an onerous task at my school, so I raised my hand and hopped on the bus to camp Thursday morning, little knowing what lay in store.
My school admits students primarily at two grades: seventh and ninth. There's always been an issue with class unity in ninth grade between the new students and the kids who've been there since seventh grade. In previous years, the ninth graders have had an all-day retreat at a local church to try and encourage togetherness. Last year's retreat was, by all accounts, an unmitigated disaster, so the counseling department decided to try an overnight retreat this year to see if increased length of time and increased distance from school helped the kids to break out of their cliques a little more. An unforeseen benefit in the timing of this retreat was that there were several brand-new ninth graders who came this week as hurricane evacuees, so it was a nice opportunity for them to spend time with their new classmates.
Thursday morning, we put the luggage on the busses, went to Mass, then grabbed box lunches and headed up to the North Georgia mountains. The kids seemed excited; I'm not sure whether they were more excited about going to camp or missing class for two days, but they were sure loud!
We got up to camp later than we'd planned, so the staff got the kids going on their planned team-building activities right away. The staff assumed that the kids already knew each other's names, so they cut the icebreaker activity for the sake of time. Because many of them have only been at the school for two and a half weeks, they really don't know each other's names yet. The kids did have nametags, but they were pretty much destroyed by the time they got to camp. (How it's possible to destroy a stick-on nametag when all you're doing is sitting on a bus for two hours is beyond me, but it's obviously not beyond them!)
They ran around and did team-builders all afternoon, then ate dinner and had a little bit of free time before the evening concert. The guy who came out and performed was great -- the kids were all into the songs and the games and they were wound up by the end!
The chaperones were all on sleeping porches on the back of the cabins, which may not have been the best plan ever; I was nervous that we'd fall asleep and the girls would head out the front door. They didn't, but they were hopping in and out of bed so much and "whispering" (actually muted yelling) at each other so loudly that I didn't get a lot of sleep. I finally told them to get in their beds and close their eyes around 1 a.m. And 1:45 a.m. And at 2:15 a.m., I went all Wicked Witch of the West on them and said that anybody who couldn't control her mouth was going to come sleep out on the porch with me and Ms. N., the other chaperone. (She was knocked out on cold medicine at that point.) They settled down after that.
We had two more activity rotations on Friday morning, with a brief period of free time between breakfast and activities. Some of the boys used that free time to shoot off a fire extinguisher in one of their cabins, which the adults discovered before lunch. The counselors were really upset, not just that it had happened, but also that it could prejudice the administration against repeating the retreat next year.
The boys from the cabin where the incident had occurred had clean-up duty after lunch, and they were all worried that they'd be punished collectively for what had happened. They all said that they weren't involved, and then one kid came forward and said, "I did it." I was really proud of him -- it took guts to confess in front of his friends.
He wasn't the instigator; two boys from another cabin came in and were spraying the fire extinguisher and he walked in on them. They coerced him into spraying the extinguisher himself, probably so he wouldn't turn them in, although that sort of thinking may be too subtle for this age group. Anyhow, it put a blot on the end of what was otherwise a good trip.
We got the kids and their stuff up to the staging area for the busses around noon. By this point, we were down to eight faculty members because some had driven their own cars up and had already started back and some had gotten on the school's minibus with the JV volleyball players who had had to get back a little early so they could go play in an out-of-state tournament.
No busses.
They started calling the bus company and the school, and the bus company had messed up. They had scheduled busses for Saturday instead of Friday. So here we were, two hours from Atlanta, with two hundred kids and no transportation.
We needed four busses, but we could only get two each from two different companies and they had two different arrival times. I stayed with the kids in the last half of the alphabet, who were going out on the second set of busses.
The first group left around 4. We didn't leave till after six. The kids were real troopers; they sat around and talked and joked and played and generally had a good time. It may have been serendipitous...after all, nothing builds unity like adversity!
So will I be going on the Second Annual Ninth Grade Retreat next September? You bet!
But I'll take my own car. :-)
No, I don't teach ninth grade. I don't moderate the ninth grade class. I don't even have a ninth grade homeroom anymore. But getting faculty to chaperone overnight trips is something of an onerous task at my school, so I raised my hand and hopped on the bus to camp Thursday morning, little knowing what lay in store.
My school admits students primarily at two grades: seventh and ninth. There's always been an issue with class unity in ninth grade between the new students and the kids who've been there since seventh grade. In previous years, the ninth graders have had an all-day retreat at a local church to try and encourage togetherness. Last year's retreat was, by all accounts, an unmitigated disaster, so the counseling department decided to try an overnight retreat this year to see if increased length of time and increased distance from school helped the kids to break out of their cliques a little more. An unforeseen benefit in the timing of this retreat was that there were several brand-new ninth graders who came this week as hurricane evacuees, so it was a nice opportunity for them to spend time with their new classmates.
Thursday morning, we put the luggage on the busses, went to Mass, then grabbed box lunches and headed up to the North Georgia mountains. The kids seemed excited; I'm not sure whether they were more excited about going to camp or missing class for two days, but they were sure loud!
We got up to camp later than we'd planned, so the staff got the kids going on their planned team-building activities right away. The staff assumed that the kids already knew each other's names, so they cut the icebreaker activity for the sake of time. Because many of them have only been at the school for two and a half weeks, they really don't know each other's names yet. The kids did have nametags, but they were pretty much destroyed by the time they got to camp. (How it's possible to destroy a stick-on nametag when all you're doing is sitting on a bus for two hours is beyond me, but it's obviously not beyond them!)
They ran around and did team-builders all afternoon, then ate dinner and had a little bit of free time before the evening concert. The guy who came out and performed was great -- the kids were all into the songs and the games and they were wound up by the end!
The chaperones were all on sleeping porches on the back of the cabins, which may not have been the best plan ever; I was nervous that we'd fall asleep and the girls would head out the front door. They didn't, but they were hopping in and out of bed so much and "whispering" (actually muted yelling) at each other so loudly that I didn't get a lot of sleep. I finally told them to get in their beds and close their eyes around 1 a.m. And 1:45 a.m. And at 2:15 a.m., I went all Wicked Witch of the West on them and said that anybody who couldn't control her mouth was going to come sleep out on the porch with me and Ms. N., the other chaperone. (She was knocked out on cold medicine at that point.) They settled down after that.
We had two more activity rotations on Friday morning, with a brief period of free time between breakfast and activities. Some of the boys used that free time to shoot off a fire extinguisher in one of their cabins, which the adults discovered before lunch. The counselors were really upset, not just that it had happened, but also that it could prejudice the administration against repeating the retreat next year.
The boys from the cabin where the incident had occurred had clean-up duty after lunch, and they were all worried that they'd be punished collectively for what had happened. They all said that they weren't involved, and then one kid came forward and said, "I did it." I was really proud of him -- it took guts to confess in front of his friends.
He wasn't the instigator; two boys from another cabin came in and were spraying the fire extinguisher and he walked in on them. They coerced him into spraying the extinguisher himself, probably so he wouldn't turn them in, although that sort of thinking may be too subtle for this age group. Anyhow, it put a blot on the end of what was otherwise a good trip.
We got the kids and their stuff up to the staging area for the busses around noon. By this point, we were down to eight faculty members because some had driven their own cars up and had already started back and some had gotten on the school's minibus with the JV volleyball players who had had to get back a little early so they could go play in an out-of-state tournament.
No busses.
They started calling the bus company and the school, and the bus company had messed up. They had scheduled busses for Saturday instead of Friday. So here we were, two hours from Atlanta, with two hundred kids and no transportation.
We needed four busses, but we could only get two each from two different companies and they had two different arrival times. I stayed with the kids in the last half of the alphabet, who were going out on the second set of busses.
The first group left around 4. We didn't leave till after six. The kids were real troopers; they sat around and talked and joked and played and generally had a good time. It may have been serendipitous...after all, nothing builds unity like adversity!
So will I be going on the Second Annual Ninth Grade Retreat next September? You bet!
But I'll take my own car. :-)
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Why I'm proud to teach where I do
Today we had a hastily convened faculty meeting after school to discuss our response to the people who have been displaced by Katrina who've called to see if we'll take their children at our school for the time being.
I'm so proud to say that we're not only taking up to 60 students, we're not charging for tuition, books, or uniforms. The other diocesan schools are going to do the same.
It isn't much, but anything we can do to lend some sense of stability to those shattered lives is worth doing.
I'm so proud to say that we're not only taking up to 60 students, we're not charging for tuition, books, or uniforms. The other diocesan schools are going to do the same.
It isn't much, but anything we can do to lend some sense of stability to those shattered lives is worth doing.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Reading histories...
One of my favorite assignments to give at the beginning of the year is a 1-2 page essay on the students' personal reading histories. How did you learn to read? What do you like to read? It serves a couple of purposes. One, I learn more about the students themselves so I get to know them better, and two, I can see where they are in their writing mechanics. (The second part tends to be somewhat depressing. Next to nobody can properly punctuate titles!)
They run the gamut from "I love to read and I read every single chance I get" to "Reading is really hard for me and I don't like it very much" to "I got made fun of by my classmates or my teachers because of my reading" to "I don't get a chance to read anymore because I'm too busy."
Some of them are hysterically funny; others make me want to cry, like the student who locked himself in the bathroom and cried for an hour on the first day of kindergarten because he didn't know the alphabet. His classmates teased him and his teacher thought he was defiant. It's a marvel to me that kids like that don't end up just hating school and giving up.
It reminds me every year of how strong the human element is in teaching. Every person in the room brings something different to the class.
The other beginning-of-the-year assignment is an essay on a summer reading book of the student's choice. I had one student bring hers by during tutorial yesterday so that she could get feedback on it before turning it in on Monday. Mechanically, it was well-written. Content-wise, the student had obviously written what she thought I wanted to hear. I told her that she needed to give herself permission to take a risk and write what she wanted to write, not what she thought I wanted. She squirmed a bit, then said, "I played around for my first couple of years here until I learned how to play the game -- tell the teachers exactly what they want to hear and make the grade."
I told her she had my permission not to do that in my class, but it still disturbed me. How many of the students who graduate from here look at their educational experience as "playing the game" for grades instead of investing in themselves and cultivating curiosity about the world?
They run the gamut from "I love to read and I read every single chance I get" to "Reading is really hard for me and I don't like it very much" to "I got made fun of by my classmates or my teachers because of my reading" to "I don't get a chance to read anymore because I'm too busy."
Some of them are hysterically funny; others make me want to cry, like the student who locked himself in the bathroom and cried for an hour on the first day of kindergarten because he didn't know the alphabet. His classmates teased him and his teacher thought he was defiant. It's a marvel to me that kids like that don't end up just hating school and giving up.
It reminds me every year of how strong the human element is in teaching. Every person in the room brings something different to the class.
The other beginning-of-the-year assignment is an essay on a summer reading book of the student's choice. I had one student bring hers by during tutorial yesterday so that she could get feedback on it before turning it in on Monday. Mechanically, it was well-written. Content-wise, the student had obviously written what she thought I wanted to hear. I told her that she needed to give herself permission to take a risk and write what she wanted to write, not what she thought I wanted. She squirmed a bit, then said, "I played around for my first couple of years here until I learned how to play the game -- tell the teachers exactly what they want to hear and make the grade."
I told her she had my permission not to do that in my class, but it still disturbed me. How many of the students who graduate from here look at their educational experience as "playing the game" for grades instead of investing in themselves and cultivating curiosity about the world?
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
And a Deep Thought from a meeting this morning...
"Because we teachers pour so much energy into caring for our students, we frequently neglect to put similar energy into caring for each other."
I love the smell of coffee in the morning...
Coffee. Mmm. Schools are fueled by coffee, I believe. The coffeemaker runs constantly in the faculty lounge, and nobody's drinking decaf except for the people who've already had heart surgery.
There's this great energy in the building that doesn't come from caffeine or sugar. I can't quite define what it is, but it flows from the interaction of teachers and students. I'm participating in a pilot program for teachers this year called peer coaching, where teachers go into other teachers' classrooms and observe all or part of the class. We fill out evaluation sheets with two compliments and two suggestions, then put one copy in the evaluee's mailbox and keep the carbon in our files.
I went and observed my first class today during my planning period: A.P. Biology with a 25-year veteran teacher (actually, the person who suggested the whole peer coaching program in the first place). At first, it felt weird to be commenting on someone else's teaching...almost as weird as it felt to be in a classroom that wasn't mine!
How quickly people get stuck in their little habits. I've been at my school for two years (starting my third), and I've never been in another teacher's room while teaching was going on. I probably know more about what's going on in Europe than I do about what's going on in another classroom down the hall.
I found that I was able, after a few minutes, to observe the instruction objectively. It's so great to see a master teacher at work, especially when you're a younger teacher. It gives one hope that there will come a day when everything starts to flow and you don't feel terrified that somebody's going to ask a question for which you have no answer. I also saw a few things that maybe weren't working so well. One was possibly a function of the classroom setup: students sit at lab tables with large computer screens under hoods at the center of the tables, which makes it possible/easy for students to have side conversations without being noticed by the teacher. The other made me realize how important it is to get information from another perspective: I had trouble hearing from where I was sitting in the back of the classroom because of the level of ambient noise in the room from the computers and projectors, especially when the teacher turned and faced another direction from me.
Maybe I'm deeply sensitive to hearing issues, since both my husband and my dad are hearing-impaired, but as a teacher, that's something I'd want to know that probably only another teacher would notice. I left the class excited to think of the possibilities for the program.
As I walked down the halls, I looked into windows to see classrooms full of students and teachers and learning happening, and it made me happy. I think that you know you've found your vocation when you can walk away at the end of the day with good energy in your heart.
There's this great energy in the building that doesn't come from caffeine or sugar. I can't quite define what it is, but it flows from the interaction of teachers and students. I'm participating in a pilot program for teachers this year called peer coaching, where teachers go into other teachers' classrooms and observe all or part of the class. We fill out evaluation sheets with two compliments and two suggestions, then put one copy in the evaluee's mailbox and keep the carbon in our files.
I went and observed my first class today during my planning period: A.P. Biology with a 25-year veteran teacher (actually, the person who suggested the whole peer coaching program in the first place). At first, it felt weird to be commenting on someone else's teaching...almost as weird as it felt to be in a classroom that wasn't mine!
How quickly people get stuck in their little habits. I've been at my school for two years (starting my third), and I've never been in another teacher's room while teaching was going on. I probably know more about what's going on in Europe than I do about what's going on in another classroom down the hall.
I found that I was able, after a few minutes, to observe the instruction objectively. It's so great to see a master teacher at work, especially when you're a younger teacher. It gives one hope that there will come a day when everything starts to flow and you don't feel terrified that somebody's going to ask a question for which you have no answer. I also saw a few things that maybe weren't working so well. One was possibly a function of the classroom setup: students sit at lab tables with large computer screens under hoods at the center of the tables, which makes it possible/easy for students to have side conversations without being noticed by the teacher. The other made me realize how important it is to get information from another perspective: I had trouble hearing from where I was sitting in the back of the classroom because of the level of ambient noise in the room from the computers and projectors, especially when the teacher turned and faced another direction from me.
Maybe I'm deeply sensitive to hearing issues, since both my husband and my dad are hearing-impaired, but as a teacher, that's something I'd want to know that probably only another teacher would notice. I left the class excited to think of the possibilities for the program.
As I walked down the halls, I looked into windows to see classrooms full of students and teachers and learning happening, and it made me happy. I think that you know you've found your vocation when you can walk away at the end of the day with good energy in your heart.
Bikram Literature Classes
On Monday, I got to school early and went to put some things in my classroom. I walked in and nearly fainted from the heat; it was cooler outside than it was inside by several degrees.
Turns out that a fuse blew in the A/C unit over the weekend and there was no air circulation in the building for 48 hours. I spent the whole first hour dripping with sweat, literally.
Other than that, the day went well. I spent time reviewing the syllabus, which is a not-exciting but very necessary part of the term.
Turns out that a fuse blew in the A/C unit over the weekend and there was no air circulation in the building for 48 hours. I spent the whole first hour dripping with sweat, literally.
Other than that, the day went well. I spent time reviewing the syllabus, which is a not-exciting but very necessary part of the term.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
The best thing said during the first half-day of school...
Class is dead silent and staring at me like a group of zombies.
Me: Are you tired, or is it something I said?
Student: It's not personal. I just don't want to be here right now.
Me: If we can do anything to help you want to be here, let me know.
Student: I'll make a list and get back to you.
Me: Are you tired, or is it something I said?
Student: It's not personal. I just don't want to be here right now.
Me: If we can do anything to help you want to be here, let me know.
Student: I'll make a list and get back to you.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
And we're off...
This week has been the Never-Ending Series of Meetings. The beginning of the school year ought to have some time built in for actual planning...but it doesn't. (Although the word on the street is that things will change next year. The frenetic pace of the schedule shocked the new academic dean!)
And now, after all the meetings, the kids are coming tomorrow. Thank God, it's only for half a day of chaos. I'm excited...I'm very ready for them to arrive so we can get this show on the road!
And now, after all the meetings, the kids are coming tomorrow. Thank God, it's only for half a day of chaos. I'm excited...I'm very ready for them to arrive so we can get this show on the road!
Monday, August 15, 2005
Faculty togetherness
This weekend, the school hosted its second annual trip to the Nantahala Outdoor Center for a whitewater rafting excursion. I didn't get to go last year because I was on the Liturgy Team retreat, but as the Liturgy Team has now been disbanded, I got to hit the river with 25 other faculty and staff members.
The trip was great fun. We had a blast being out on the river, and we got to spend time in fun and fellowship in ways we would never otherwise do. Particularly when a storm knocked out all the power in the place at 6 p.m. It didn't come back on till after midnight, and let me tell you...it is DARK up in the North Carolina mountains when you're walking back to the cabins with only a candle to light your path.
Despite the power outage, a good time was had by all. I stayed up talking to my cabinmates till after two in the morning. I've worked with these people for two years and never had a conversation with them that lasted longer than ten minutes. It was so good to have the time and the lack of busyness to be able to meet my coworkers as people.
The comment I heard over and over again was "We need to do more of this." Unfortunately, once the school year starts it's hard to find the time and the atmosphere to spend time with each other that isn't school-oriented.
Today was the official faculty "retreat" at a local church. Part of the day involved breaking up into groups and brainstorming about activities that would promote some community value to be done over the upcoming school year. We did the same exercise a couple of years ago, which is where the whitewater rafting trip originated.
The ideas were great...a faculty talent show, family picnic out at Stone Mountain, doing painting for the Foundation for Hospital Art, beer tasting and movie night, and several others. One of the themes that came up in multiple suggestions was time that included families -- children and spouses both. Another was just getting away from our little school bubble and doing more interaction as people. Everything seemed well-received by the administration.
In teaching, we focus so much energy and attention on our students. That's appropriate and good, but we lose sight of the necessity to spend some of our energies and attentions on each other. Our new academic dean seems to have a good understanding of the need for that time spent being together without being focused on school, so I'm hopeful that this investment in faculty togetherness will continue into the future.
The trip was great fun. We had a blast being out on the river, and we got to spend time in fun and fellowship in ways we would never otherwise do. Particularly when a storm knocked out all the power in the place at 6 p.m. It didn't come back on till after midnight, and let me tell you...it is DARK up in the North Carolina mountains when you're walking back to the cabins with only a candle to light your path.
Despite the power outage, a good time was had by all. I stayed up talking to my cabinmates till after two in the morning. I've worked with these people for two years and never had a conversation with them that lasted longer than ten minutes. It was so good to have the time and the lack of busyness to be able to meet my coworkers as people.
The comment I heard over and over again was "We need to do more of this." Unfortunately, once the school year starts it's hard to find the time and the atmosphere to spend time with each other that isn't school-oriented.
Today was the official faculty "retreat" at a local church. Part of the day involved breaking up into groups and brainstorming about activities that would promote some community value to be done over the upcoming school year. We did the same exercise a couple of years ago, which is where the whitewater rafting trip originated.
The ideas were great...a faculty talent show, family picnic out at Stone Mountain, doing painting for the Foundation for Hospital Art, beer tasting and movie night, and several others. One of the themes that came up in multiple suggestions was time that included families -- children and spouses both. Another was just getting away from our little school bubble and doing more interaction as people. Everything seemed well-received by the administration.
In teaching, we focus so much energy and attention on our students. That's appropriate and good, but we lose sight of the necessity to spend some of our energies and attentions on each other. Our new academic dean seems to have a good understanding of the need for that time spent being together without being focused on school, so I'm hopeful that this investment in faculty togetherness will continue into the future.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Come on and take a Free Ride...
This morning, I realized that there was a vital piece of photocopying that I had, as yet, forgotten to do: the now-famous Free Rides.
In the tradition of "good writers borrow, great writers steal," the Free Ride concept is completely stolen from my ninth grade honors English teacher, then-Mr. now-Dr. Brooks. At some point in the future, I'll have to write a paean to how Mr. Brooks is more responsible for my teaching style than any other person, including all my college profs. For now, I'll just say that Mr. Brooks' take-no-prisoners, drill-sergeant strict approach to classroom discipline made such an impression on me that I decided to try some of it and see if it worked.
Mr. Brooks told all of his students not to be late (lateness defined as not being in one's desk and seated by the time the bell stopped ringing), not to ask to leave class to go to one's locker or to the bathroom, and to have one's homework every single day. However, he held out these little passes called Free Rides. Everybody got one. The Free Ride was good for a minor homework assignment like a reading quiz, to get out of class to go to lockers or on potty breaks, to excuse lateness or out-of-uniform-ness, et cetera.
There was a catch.
If you hung onto your Free Ride all the way till the end of the semester and turned it in with your final, you got bonus points on the final. Not very many, but it could mean the difference between a B and an A.
Well. Nobody ever had to run to the potty in Mr. Brooks' class.
And now, nobody ever has to run to the potty in my class. My students treat their Free Rides the way that my classmates and I treated ours: like solid gold.
Who knew that one little slip of paper could eliminate so many classroom management issues? Thanks, Mr. Brooks.
In the tradition of "good writers borrow, great writers steal," the Free Ride concept is completely stolen from my ninth grade honors English teacher, then-Mr. now-Dr. Brooks. At some point in the future, I'll have to write a paean to how Mr. Brooks is more responsible for my teaching style than any other person, including all my college profs. For now, I'll just say that Mr. Brooks' take-no-prisoners, drill-sergeant strict approach to classroom discipline made such an impression on me that I decided to try some of it and see if it worked.
Mr. Brooks told all of his students not to be late (lateness defined as not being in one's desk and seated by the time the bell stopped ringing), not to ask to leave class to go to one's locker or to the bathroom, and to have one's homework every single day. However, he held out these little passes called Free Rides. Everybody got one. The Free Ride was good for a minor homework assignment like a reading quiz, to get out of class to go to lockers or on potty breaks, to excuse lateness or out-of-uniform-ness, et cetera.
There was a catch.
If you hung onto your Free Ride all the way till the end of the semester and turned it in with your final, you got bonus points on the final. Not very many, but it could mean the difference between a B and an A.
Well. Nobody ever had to run to the potty in Mr. Brooks' class.
And now, nobody ever has to run to the potty in my class. My students treat their Free Rides the way that my classmates and I treated ours: like solid gold.
Who knew that one little slip of paper could eliminate so many classroom management issues? Thanks, Mr. Brooks.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Making a bulletin board
After two years teaching, I finally got it together and made a bulletin board. The other teacher who shares the classroom has had the same bulletin board up since I've been there, and it's pretty cool. She has a big poster of Shakespeare up that's had other things stapled to it: "spirit beads" (Mardi Gras beads in the school colors), a button with the school logo on it, a large floppy hat with attached yarn dreadlocks, and a "W: The President" sticker (W for Will Shakespeare, natch.)
The other bulletin board in the room is...well...sad. It had random stuff stapled up to it haphazardly: news articles about college kids dying from binge drinking, a five-year-old tornado exit plan, a card with pictures of Magnificent Mullets (the hairdo, not the fish), and other junk.
Since I'm actually going to be in this room for all four of my classes this term plus at least two classes the other two terms, I decided that I would spruce up the bulletin board.
I asked another teacher where I might find butcher paper appropriate for covering a bulletin board, and she looked at me rather blankly. "I haven't seen butcher paper around here for years."
I remembered the large racks with rolls of colored butcher paper that resided in the offices of my grade schools, high school, and residence life in college with nostalgia and went off in search of paper. I found some in the English department office behind the card table with the electric typewriter. Since it hadn't been touched in the entire time I'd been at the school, I figured it was fair game. I also found a bit of bulletin board edging. Both were bright flame red. Not my first color choice, but hey...it was free to the finder.
Bearing my found treasures, I headed upstairs and started creating my bulletin board. One of the reasons I wanted to be a resident advisor in college was the ability to make bulletin boards, and I made some really cool ones. I had a Breast Cancer Awareness board that had little pink ribbons made out of tiny strips of pink paper all over it, a Welcome to 2 Annex board that had calligraphed names of all the residents and lollipop bouquets, a Stop Conflict Diamonds board with big fake rhinestones everywhere...I had too much time on my hands, really.
This wasn't one of those cool boards. However, it does have smooth, neatly stapled bright red paper on it and red corrugated bulletin board edging on the top and bottom. It also has the words "British Literature" floating in Quill font in the upper left-hand corner.
Other than that, the only thing on it is a sign that reads "Friends don't let friends go to Barnes and Noble" followed by a list of local independent bookstores. It also has a small sign with the website for the Fair Tax (okay political action because it's nonpartisan).
But now I've got a problem...about six square feet of smooth shiny bright red paper that is absolutely blank!
The other bulletin board in the room is...well...sad. It had random stuff stapled up to it haphazardly: news articles about college kids dying from binge drinking, a five-year-old tornado exit plan, a card with pictures of Magnificent Mullets (the hairdo, not the fish), and other junk.
Since I'm actually going to be in this room for all four of my classes this term plus at least two classes the other two terms, I decided that I would spruce up the bulletin board.
I asked another teacher where I might find butcher paper appropriate for covering a bulletin board, and she looked at me rather blankly. "I haven't seen butcher paper around here for years."
I remembered the large racks with rolls of colored butcher paper that resided in the offices of my grade schools, high school, and residence life in college with nostalgia and went off in search of paper. I found some in the English department office behind the card table with the electric typewriter. Since it hadn't been touched in the entire time I'd been at the school, I figured it was fair game. I also found a bit of bulletin board edging. Both were bright flame red. Not my first color choice, but hey...it was free to the finder.
Bearing my found treasures, I headed upstairs and started creating my bulletin board. One of the reasons I wanted to be a resident advisor in college was the ability to make bulletin boards, and I made some really cool ones. I had a Breast Cancer Awareness board that had little pink ribbons made out of tiny strips of pink paper all over it, a Welcome to 2 Annex board that had calligraphed names of all the residents and lollipop bouquets, a Stop Conflict Diamonds board with big fake rhinestones everywhere...I had too much time on my hands, really.
This wasn't one of those cool boards. However, it does have smooth, neatly stapled bright red paper on it and red corrugated bulletin board edging on the top and bottom. It also has the words "British Literature" floating in Quill font in the upper left-hand corner.
Other than that, the only thing on it is a sign that reads "Friends don't let friends go to Barnes and Noble" followed by a list of local independent bookstores. It also has a small sign with the website for the Fair Tax (okay political action because it's nonpartisan).
But now I've got a problem...about six square feet of smooth shiny bright red paper that is absolutely blank!
SparkNotes = Tool of the Antichrist
I'll admit it: I hate the very idea of SparkNotes. I'm not fond of anything that promises great results with minimal effort...weight-loss pills, most items sold on infomercials, and so-called "educational" products that are really flashy marketing tools. If you're going to spend the time it takes to read the SparkNotes, why not just read the actual text again and see if it makes more sense the second or third or fifth time you read it?
Because that takes effort. And school, evidently, is not supposed to require more effort than it takes to produce the desired grade, or so some of my students want to believe.
My biggest problem with SparkNotes, besides the fact that they encourage lazy academic habits, is their lack of quality. The writing style is atrocious, the content shoddy, and the analysis superficial at best. If they just provided summaries, that would be one thing, but their summaries include analytical (and I use the term very loosely) commentary.
Not that I can convince my students of this, by the way. They refuse to believe that scholars won't put their work out on the free internet. They refuse to believe that SparkNotes is a marketing tool (how they can ignore the multiple ads from companies like TMobile that take up half a page is beyond me) and think it's a happy little service provided by nice helpful people. Riiiiiiiiiight.
I went and checked out their offerings on Henry V today because I'm teaching the play in a few months. It was predictably crappy. I'm just waiting to see how much of SparkNotes' "analysis" shows up on the final exams in November.
I've written my own synopses of each act of the play that I'll put up on my website in handy-dandy .pdf files. I wonder how many of my students will pick me over Spark!
Because that takes effort. And school, evidently, is not supposed to require more effort than it takes to produce the desired grade, or so some of my students want to believe.
My biggest problem with SparkNotes, besides the fact that they encourage lazy academic habits, is their lack of quality. The writing style is atrocious, the content shoddy, and the analysis superficial at best. If they just provided summaries, that would be one thing, but their summaries include analytical (and I use the term very loosely) commentary.
Not that I can convince my students of this, by the way. They refuse to believe that scholars won't put their work out on the free internet. They refuse to believe that SparkNotes is a marketing tool (how they can ignore the multiple ads from companies like TMobile that take up half a page is beyond me) and think it's a happy little service provided by nice helpful people. Riiiiiiiiiight.
I went and checked out their offerings on Henry V today because I'm teaching the play in a few months. It was predictably crappy. I'm just waiting to see how much of SparkNotes' "analysis" shows up on the final exams in November.
I've written my own synopses of each act of the play that I'll put up on my website in handy-dandy .pdf files. I wonder how many of my students will pick me over Spark!
Monday, August 08, 2005
One week and counting...
I feel so official...I got my class rosters and schedule yesterday. Yet again, I have a seventh-period study hall to proctor. Seventh-period study hall and I don't have a good relationship.
The first year I taught, I had a seventh-period study hall first term. At the time, there was no cap on the number of students that could be assigned to a given study hall period. I was new to this gig, so I didn't know that it was abnormal to have more than twenty students in a study hall. Twenty-five students is about the limit that the classroom will hold.
I walked into a room with sixty-two students.
The registrar altered some schedules so I ended up with only forty-four in the room. Of course, the forty-four included almost all of the sophomore football players, who begged and pleaded and whined to be let out of class early on Fridays so they could beat the traffic out of the parking lot to go eat their pre-game meal.
There was great rejoicing when that term ended!
This year, I've got twenty in the study hall. Study halls are now capped at twenty-five, and I have the dubious distinction of having the largest study hall in school history!
I'm pretty happy with the schedule overall. More than half of the students I taught in the one freshman English class I had my first year are now back for Round II, and since they were a fabulous group, I'm looking forward to seeing them again.
Off to school to create a bulletin board...for the first time EVER, I'll be in the same classroom for all four of my classes! Seniority rocks!
The first year I taught, I had a seventh-period study hall first term. At the time, there was no cap on the number of students that could be assigned to a given study hall period. I was new to this gig, so I didn't know that it was abnormal to have more than twenty students in a study hall. Twenty-five students is about the limit that the classroom will hold.
I walked into a room with sixty-two students.
The registrar altered some schedules so I ended up with only forty-four in the room. Of course, the forty-four included almost all of the sophomore football players, who begged and pleaded and whined to be let out of class early on Fridays so they could beat the traffic out of the parking lot to go eat their pre-game meal.
There was great rejoicing when that term ended!
This year, I've got twenty in the study hall. Study halls are now capped at twenty-five, and I have the dubious distinction of having the largest study hall in school history!
I'm pretty happy with the schedule overall. More than half of the students I taught in the one freshman English class I had my first year are now back for Round II, and since they were a fabulous group, I'm looking forward to seeing them again.
Off to school to create a bulletin board...for the first time EVER, I'll be in the same classroom for all four of my classes! Seniority rocks!
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Inspiration after lunch
I've been taking a technology class at school for the past couple of days. With all the money and effort the school puts into technology stuff, it seems a shame that generally teachers don't know what's available both in terms of software and hardware.
It isn't (in most cases) that people don't want to know about it but more a lack of time and initiative. Kudos to the tech department for putting these little courses together -- they've really been helpful!
Today we learned about a program called Inspiration. Basically, it's an electronic version of brainstorming -- users can create graphic organizers and outlines. Users can also take a graphic organizer and turn it into an outline, which is a great teaching tool for the younger students who don't really understand how one generates an outline. Although it wouldn't be a bad tool for my juniors, who tend to be less proficient at writing and its attendant tasks than they'd like to believe themselves to be.
I played around with creating a graphic organizer for my second term units of study, which made me realize two things. One, I haven't touched anything for that term yet, and two, there's far more that I want to present than I'll be able to accomplish. I think that's the beauty and the beast of teaching survey courses: one gets to pick and choose from a wide variety of material, but there are just too many good choices out there!
It isn't (in most cases) that people don't want to know about it but more a lack of time and initiative. Kudos to the tech department for putting these little courses together -- they've really been helpful!
Today we learned about a program called Inspiration. Basically, it's an electronic version of brainstorming -- users can create graphic organizers and outlines. Users can also take a graphic organizer and turn it into an outline, which is a great teaching tool for the younger students who don't really understand how one generates an outline. Although it wouldn't be a bad tool for my juniors, who tend to be less proficient at writing and its attendant tasks than they'd like to believe themselves to be.
I played around with creating a graphic organizer for my second term units of study, which made me realize two things. One, I haven't touched anything for that term yet, and two, there's far more that I want to present than I'll be able to accomplish. I think that's the beauty and the beast of teaching survey courses: one gets to pick and choose from a wide variety of material, but there are just too many good choices out there!
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Beowulf and Scott Foresman's Handbook for Writers
T-minus twenty-four days till school starts and I'm still working on my first unit of study -- Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. Frankly, I'd never much cared for Beowulf till I read Heaney's translation. The poem reads as a poem, not a stilted translation. If you're in the mood to read some early English epic poetry, pick it up sometime.
This year, we've added a grammar/writing handbook to the curriculum. My vote was for two books -- the Warriner's handbook for grammar and the MLA Handbook for writing. I was also interested in adding Strunk and White's Elements of Style. All three are classic texts for writers/students/teachers.
Warriner's is out-of-print. (Shocking...or not, when one considers the current state of grammar instruction!) Nobody else agreed with me on the MLA. (Philistines.) And Strunk and White was dismissed as too advanced for the ninth and tenth grades. (I'll concede that point.)
The compromise position is the Scott Foresman Handbook for Writers. I was instantly turned off when I saw it -- the cover features a cutesy graphic of an apple sculpture being constructed. However, the adage that one cannot tell a book by its cover has held true, and thus far I'm satisfied with the content. I still think that my eleventh grade students will need the MLA when they write their research papers in the spring, but for now this book will serve them well.
Back to marking key passages in Beowulf...
This year, we've added a grammar/writing handbook to the curriculum. My vote was for two books -- the Warriner's handbook for grammar and the MLA Handbook for writing. I was also interested in adding Strunk and White's Elements of Style. All three are classic texts for writers/students/teachers.
Warriner's is out-of-print. (Shocking...or not, when one considers the current state of grammar instruction!) Nobody else agreed with me on the MLA. (Philistines.) And Strunk and White was dismissed as too advanced for the ninth and tenth grades. (I'll concede that point.)
The compromise position is the Scott Foresman Handbook for Writers. I was instantly turned off when I saw it -- the cover features a cutesy graphic of an apple sculpture being constructed. However, the adage that one cannot tell a book by its cover has held true, and thus far I'm satisfied with the content. I still think that my eleventh grade students will need the MLA when they write their research papers in the spring, but for now this book will serve them well.
Back to marking key passages in Beowulf...
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