That's just how we roll around here

Two days after Thanksgiving, and the Christmas season has officially started.

Or it's open season on Christmas. Pick your favorite.

Today I added one more item to the list of Horrifying Evidence that I Am Indeed Becoming Just Like My Mother: I baked Christmas cookies.

I love baking, actually. The only problem with baking is that it produces baked goods. And the problem with baked goods is that if they're around the house, I'll eat them in quantities larger than what is good for me.

But these cookies are not for me -- they are for Other People. Family and friends. Being the kind and considerate person I am, I even baked light cookies.

The cookie tally currently stands at 4 dozen peppermint double-chocolate chews, 4 dozen almond biscotti, 2 dozen ginger shortbread wedges, and 2 dozen plain shortbread wedges. Still coming: 4 dozen mini chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, 5 dozen chocolate chip cookies, and 5 dozen chocolate chip/mini peanut butter cup cookies.

I'll post the highlights of the ALAN conference later...off to roll more cookies!

Reflections on Term 1, 2006

Because, as I've learned in my (few but full) years in the classroom, good teaching comes from reflection.

The only problem is finding the time in which to reflect.

So, in a blast of stream-of-consciousness, Reflections on the Past Twelve Weeks:

1. Never, ever again will I have thirty students in an elective. Especially not when 26 are seniors. And certainly not when 19 of the 26 are young men. Trying to manage that class was absolutely exhausting. Of course, it had its benefits...I gained a newfound level of respect for grade-school teachers!

2. Order the Henry V texts way earlier in the term. The Shakespeare unit snuck up on me this year, and I ended up kind-of sort-of wasting a week waiting for the books to arrive. Shakespeare got short shrift this year, and that's irritating to me, since it's my favorite part of the term.

3. But on the silver-lining side, not having the texts forced some quick revision on my part, and I liked the way things came out -- the performance aspect took precedence over the textual analysis aspect, and I felt that the students' understanding of and ability to dissect the nuances of the play was much improved from years when I tried to do the heavy textual analysis first and performances second. They really got the idea that you don't have to understand every single little word in order to get what's going on and enjoy it.

4. Plus, watching clips of the Branagh Henry V is really fun when the students are calling out to see "their" scenes -- and even more fun when they're righteously indignant that lines are cut out of the film version!

5. Even if they did spend a lot of time saying "There's Christian Bale!" "There's Bilbo!" "There's Gilderoy Lockhart!" instead of paying attention to the words of the play. (Ian Holm plays Fluellen in Henry V and Bilbo Baggins in Lord of the Rings; Kenneth Branagh plays Henry and also Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter. They didn't, however, recognize Emma Thompson, who plays Princess Katherine in HV and Professor Sybil Trelawney in HP. Must have been the lack of glasses and fluffy shawls.)

6. Numbering the in-class writing assignments on the board is a good idea.

7. Encourage the Vocabulary Game more. Keep the daily class participation log handy.

8. Resolution for next term: grade all papers within the week. Procrastination makes it harder to do the longer it's put off.

9. Having three ASO performances in six weeks, plus a dance competition in the middle of it, was way more stressful than I thought it would be.

10. I will start planning next year's fantasy lit elective over Christmas break. Hold me to it.

11. Maybe hiring a cleaning service to come in once a month to do the heavier housework would not be a bad idea, or an advertisement to the world that I am an incompetent housekeeper, or a lazy spoiled person.

November Rain

Or snot, as the case may be...

It's November, it's the week before exams, and like every other pre-exam week on record in practically my entire life, I've got a sinus infection. And unlike the days when I was a student and could stay home with chicken soup and orange juice, I have to be there.

So I'm teaching with a big bottle of water and a big box of Kleenex by my side.

Things that make you go "blech"

It's not a big secret or a big revelation to say that school Masses here are less than beautiful, reverent, worship-filled liturgies. In fact, Mass is probably the thing we do worst here, and yesterday's All Saints' Day Mass was no exception.

Part of the frustration inherent in trying to hold a Mass for a thousand students and two hundred faculty/staff/guests is that the only location that will accomodate the crowd is the large gymnasium, and the youngest half of the student body sits in folding chairs on the floor. Since the altar and lectern are also placed on the floor, it means that the only thing that most of the younger (and most easily distracted) segment of the community can see is the backs of each other's heads. Also, in an attempt to create a more reverent atmosphere, the lights are dimmed. Not the most aesthetically engaging environment for liturgy. Plus, the dim lighting makes it hard for teachers to see what kids in the middle of the crowds are doing (and half the teachers don't sit where they're supposed to sit or even show up to Mass, but that's another whole issue.) At the last school Mass, I collected three textbooks and four notes and pencils before the homily. Don't get me started on the gum-chewing.

Another part of the frustration is the "well, God loves any effort we put forth on His behalf, so anything and everything is perfectly acceptable and laudable" attitude. I will simply say this: if we had the same results and attitude about our academics, athletics, and fine arts that we have about our liturgies, nobody in their right minds would pay five figures to send their children to school here. The readers mumble and fidget, there is a positive herd of EMoHCs (who, in defiance of the removal of the indult, assisted with the purification of the Eucharistic vessels), and the music...well. Let's just say when people ask for a return to Latin in the liturgy, I don't think they're looking for "Gloria! (clap clap) Gloria! (clap clap)". There is a real feeling, too, that anything done in the liturgies is completely above reproach...because it's for God and all. So we applaud everyone under the sun at the end of Mass and "thank" them for "all their hard work" in putting the liturgy together.

I want, sometimes, to stand up and scream, "No! No, I will not thank anyone for his or her hard work or effort! It is a privilege to serve the Body of Christ. Applause for this work should be an embarrassment to those who do it!"

Beyond that, the Mass conflated the celebration of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. The homily was a rubbishy "we're all saints and all the dead are in Heaven with God." Reminded me of The Incredibles: if everyone is special, then nobody is. If everyone is a saint, then what's the point of this feast? Look at us, we're so great and awesome?! And if All Saints honors all the dead, what's the point of All Souls?

Anyone hear an inspiring homily, besides the Pope's?

Your child is not special...

And neither are you. Get over it!

I'm so tired of all the bumper stickers I see all over the place: "My child is an honor student at Fill-in-the-Blank Elementary!" "My child is Student of the Month at Such-and-so Middle School!" "My child is a STAR! at the Twinkletoes Dance Academy!" "My child is an Accelerated Reader!" "My child goes poop in the potty on a consistent basis!"

Except for the last one, I've seen all of the above (names changed to protect the not-so-innocent) in the past week. Plus all of the huge magnetic thingies that are shaped like cheerleader megaphones and football helmets and whatnot that announce the child's name and jersey number and what team s/he is on. I'm beginning to think the proliferation of Monstrous Behemoth SUVs is an outgrowth of the desire to turn the back of one's automobile into the personal billboard advertising the greatness of one's children.

My school is feeding the ego-frenzy, too. Instead of generic stickers that advertise the school, we now have stickers for football, stickers for cheerleading, stickers for the Arts Guild, stickers for the swim and dive team, et cetera. We do have generic school stickers, but we also now have stickers to go under the generic school sticker for Every Single Activity/Club/Sport in which your kid is involved. Bonus points if your sticker collection has to make two rows. (And I'm not talking just a "Band" sticker. We have "Marching Band," "Jazz Band," and "Concert Band." "Swimming" and "Diving" are two separate stickers.)

At one time, I think, putting stickers on your car advertised support for a school or organization with which one was involved, not one's individual achievements or accomplishments. Now it's all about the individual -- like the organization exists to showcase Your Specialness!

I'm having a hard time this year dealing with parents and children who believe that they are Special. It's not that I don't want children to believe that they are precious in the eyes of God and worthwhile individuals who have much to offer their world -- I do -- but it seems like more and more, I'm just seeing children who think they're the only persons who count in the world. Everybody Else has to meet certain standards, but I'm Special, and I need to be treated differently! And then I meet the parents, and I get where it's coming from.

Instill a sense of individual worth in your children -- that's great. But when it's not accompanied by the lesson that other people are just as worthy, then you've created Selfish Monstrous Bratty Beasts.

Three years and counting...

Today The Greatest Man in the World and I are celebrating three years of wedded bliss. (It's also parent/teacher/student conference night tonight, so our celebrations won't really begin till after 7 p.m. But who wants an early dinner anyway, right?)

I don't pretend to be an expert on All Things Marriage, but I can say that after three years, it isn't what I expected -- it transcends expectations. It's also hard but rewarding work, this vocation.

The Holy Father's Angelus address from Sunday 8 October is addressed to married couples, and he puts it better than I can:

"My thought is directed to all Christian spouses: With them I thank the Lord for the gift of the sacrament of marriage, and exhort them to remain faithful to their vocation in each stage of life, "in joy and in sorrow, in health and in sickness," as they promised in the sacramental rite.

"May Christian spouses, aware of the grace received, build a family open to life and capable of facing together the numerous and complicated challenges of our time. Their testimony is particularly necessary today. Families are needed that do not let themselves be drawn by modern cultural currents inspired by hedonism and relativism, and that are willing to realize their mission in the Church and in society with generous dedication.

"In the apostolic exhortation "Familiaris Consortio," the Servant of God John Paul II wrote that the sacrament of marriage "makes Christian married couples and parents witnesses of Christ 'to the end of the earth,' as authentic 'missionaries' of love and life" (cf. No. 54). This mission is oriented both to the internal life of the family -- especially in mutual service and in the education of children -- as well as the external: the domestic community, in fact, is called to be the sign of God's love to all. The family can only fulfill this mission if it is supported by divine grace. For this reason, it is necessary to pray tirelessly and to persevere in the daily effort to keep the commitments assumed on the wedding day."

The biggest assumption I made about marriage three years ago was that it was mostly about my husband and me, and what wasn't about us was about our families and friends. That assumption's been turned on its head many times since; in fact, what our marriage is has less to do with us as individuals and more to do with what God is calling us to be in this mystery.

The priest who celebrated our wedding (God rest his soul) began the ceremony with the words "We interrupt this wedding to bring you...a miracle." And in the years since, I've realized he was right -- that this holy mystery is miraculous and a high calling, and through it, we are transformed and transforming, changed into something more than we were as individuals by His Divine Grace. I don't understand it -- I just try to live it.

Teaching...English?

So. (I think I'll borrow that little opener from the lovely Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf -- it's simple yet profound. /digression)

My job description, if I had one, would probably include language about the teaching of English language and literature, helping students develop writing skills and critical analysis skills, and shepherding my youthful charges through various Extracurricular Activities that appropriately engage their interests and talents. Thank God it doesn't include coaching athletic teams, or I'd be sunk. Hand-eye coordination seems to be a prerequisite to most organized sports, and I am sorely lacking in that capacity. I don't know if it would include catechesis.

When I attended the National Catholic Educational Association annual convention last spring, I went to a session about the new publication from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: the National Directory for Catechesis. It's been out for maybe two years...so perhaps new isn't quite the term anymore. Recent, perhaps. Anyhow, the session was unfortunately only an hour long, so the presenter was forced to give some items a lick and a promise. I've since gone back and read further in the directory for myself.

The most striking assertion the directory makes is that every teacher in a Catholic school is a catechist...not just those in the theology/religious studies/whatever the term is nowadays department. Which, on reflection, shouldn't be all that striking, but still is.

I think back to my own seventeen years in Catholic schools (kindergarten through undergrad), and I can certainly think of great catechists who were and were not specifically engaged in religious instruction.

But what does it really mean? Yes, I begin each class with a prayer...but certainly that isn't the be-all and end-all? The best I've come up with so far is leading by example when possible: reverence during school Masses and morning prayer, annual assistance in preparing musicians for the Latin Mass in February, speaking to the faith and gender course for girls, and the like.

This week, though, I got two opportunities to be a bit more direct in the presentation of the Catholic faith: once in a class discussion and once because of a slightly flippant remark I made. (I know...first rule of teaching is don't make jokes. I break it constantly.)

A class discussion on The Lord of the Rings (in fantasy literature, so it was on topic) brought up the question of the moral licitness of using evil means to achieve a good end. I posited and believe Tolkien's work posits the teaching that one can never use evil means (i.e., The One Ring) to achieve a good end and that Saruman is an example of what happens to those who believe otherwise -- evil is a strong force and not to be trifled with. A student asked the question, "What about the dropping of the atomic bomb to end WWII?" And we were off on the issue of that which is evil in itself (malum in se) versus that which is morally neutral but can be put to evil ends. Without expounding too much on just war theory and Catholic teaching on war, the class and I concluded that nobody would say that dropping the A-bomb was a moral good but rather that it was an evil perpetrated to prevent the possible greater evil of an invasion of mainland Japan and the probable carnage and destruction on both sides. I was pleasantly surprised to hear how articulate the students were in their moral thinking and only had to insert the "Well, the Church teaches X" comment in a couple of places.

The second situation arose during a casual exchange with a student after class -- he'd gotten a detention for being out-of-uniform and wanted to get demerits instead of going to detention. I remarked that while he might prefer that option, I was fairly certain his mother and father wouldn't feel the same way. He expressed his feeling that parents have too much control in their children's lives as it is, and I said that as long as one is on one's parents' payroll, that's just how it is. I added "And when you're off the parental payroll, there's always that whole 'honor thy father and thy mother' thing as well."

The student then stated his belief that parents wrote that and furthermore that the Bible was man-made rather than divinely inspired. Luckily, we were going into the lunch period, and I could stop and chat with him about faith, reason, and the Bible. It's rare in the modern world that one is actually afforded an opportunity to share one's faith openly and unreservedly, and in truth, it's a little intimidating. I don't think I really made a life-changing major impression on this young man, but he was open and receptive to what I had to say and I think maybe a bit impressed that I could answer his assertions and questions logically and not with "Well, that's just what I believe." (Hat tip to my husband, a.k.a. The Greatest Man in the World, for introducing Bible study and apologetics into my faith formation -- although he can still whip my backside when it comes to knowing Scripture by heart. The Protestants have us Catholics beat soundly there.) We parted with his summation: "I accept faith because I can't see another acceptable alternative -- sort of why/why not. You're more why/because -- you actually believe it because you thought about it." I suggested that he read Mere Christianity.

I came home today feeling like I accomplished something. Maybe only a small seed planted, but something nonetheless. And it was a good, good day.

Heart of an Empire

So. Notre Dame won, Florida State won, my sister is engaged :-) and Dragon*Con was great. It's always fun to see all the wild and fabulous costumes, and since they added the YA lit track, I actually feel like I'm doing work! Well...maybe. Work disguised as fun, perhaps.

The Greatest Man in the World and I busted our backsides to get down to the con on Monday morning at 10 so that I could go to a panel with some of the actors from the Harry Potter films. On the schedule, the panel was listed as being in one room, but when I got to that room, I was told it was in a different room, so I hiked over to the other end of the hotel and found...no Harry Potter actors.

What I found was a large poster advertising a film called Heart of an Empire. If you're a Star Wars nerd like me, you might have heard of the Fighting 501st, a group of people around the world who dress up like stormtroopers and clone troopers and various other Imperial folks. They aren't affiliated with Lucasfilm in any way and they aren't a LARP; they just like to dress up like the characters and do various events.

I didn't have anything else I was doing till 11:30, so when one of the filmmakers told me that the Harry Potter thing was cancelled but I was welcome to stay for the screening, I said "Sure."

I'd always thought that grown people dressing like movie characters was a little weird and a little cool at the same time. What I didn't know -- and what most people won't know -- is the impact that someone dressed like a stormtrooper can have on someone else. I won't spoil the movie for anyone, but suffice it to say...I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats. And I left with a new respect for the power of imagination and of that inventive mythology of George Lucas'.

Only one week?!

Yes. So far, it's only been One Week since school started. Already I'm needing a three-day weekend (although that might be due to the head cold that reared its head yesterday and is in its full nose-honking glory today).

But this weekend is Dragon*Con, to which we've had tickets since...March. And friends who we seldom see are going to come over from Birmingham for the events.

(Dragon*Con, for the uninitiated, is a four-day-long Nerd Fest of all things cult, sci-fi, fantasy, and strange. I'm going for the young adult literature track and a few things on the Tolkien track; the Star Wars fans at this thing make me look like a dilettante. And for those of you who know my 20+ year enjoyment of Star Wars...that takes some doing.)

It's also the Georgia Tech/Notre Dame game, which is being played at Georgia Tech for the second time since the Great Fish Debacle in 1978. (Tech hosted ND in 1980 for the only tie in the series, for you sports trivia junkies. The score was 3-3.) My parents, along with hordes of other Irish fans, are descending on Atlanta this weekend.

Plus, it's Labor Day weekend, and my in-laws are having a Big Family Cookout on Sunday night.

Somehow, I don't think that rest and recuperation are on the schedule this weekend. *honks nose loudly*

Onward and upward!

Long time, no post, part deux...

So...it's been a while. I've been in Italy, England, and home in Georgia. But I've been taking a break from the blogging thing for a while with summer and all.

Pics to come later...

School's out...well...almost.

The end of another school year is nearly upon us, for which we are all truly thankful -- amen!

Actually, when I was in high school, I don't know if I ever thought that my teachers were probably as tired and drained as we were towards the end of the year. Since becoming a teacher myself, I've learned that teachers look forward to the summer vacation as much as their students do!

But between me and those blessed weeks of respite lie the following:

-- Four classes' worth of performance projects to grade
-- Four classes' worth of in-class essays to grade
-- Four classes' worth of final papers to grade.

The final papers have me quite worried right now. The papers are due in my hands in eleven hours, and I'm still getting emails from students of the "is this thesis okay" variety.

Note to students: the "Pressure produces diamonds" theory may work for carbon, but I don't think it's well-applied to scholastic endeavors.

I'm off to sweet dreamland while the Little Darlings slave away, fueled by massive amounts of caffeine, sugar, and Instant Messages about their cruel English teacher.

Reposting "Contemporary* music and the 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 the worshipper's 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 Byzantine church I now 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.

The new apologetic

To quote one of my students -- "I just want to throw this out there."

Back from the NCEA convention and it was a whirlwind day; I was once again reminded how small this world of Catholic education really is in some ways when I ran into my grade-school principal along with two of my grade-school teachers within five minutes of arriving onsite. Plus, the new president of the NCEA was working at my college when I was a student there.

I'll post a bit later about the two sessions I attended -- they were both substantive and reaffirming of the ministerial nature of Catholic educators. While it's still fresh in my memory, though, I'd like to say a bit about Bishop Braxton's keynote address this morning, titled "The New Apologetic."

It's my hope that the full text of his remarks will be made available online sometime in the near future, but he issued a call and a challenge for a new apologetic in the twenty-first century. Acknowledging the reality that our young people are more willing to ask their questions in the chat room than in the classroom and more apt to do their research on the Web than in the library, he challenged those who are committed to the strong formation of young Catholics to have a bold and compelling presence in cyberspace (Catholic bloggers, unite!)

The four points that this new apologetic needs to address are the new atheism, the lack of substantive instruction in Scripture and Tradition, the rise of Islam and what it means to Christians, and...argh. Drawing a blank on the fourth point, and I know it was a good one.

In a world that is so often hostile to the message and messengers of Christ, the only thing that will effectively arm us to defend our faith and our hope is reason coupled with deep knowledge, which means that we who teach in Catholic schools need to communicate the Gospel and to catechize our students at all times. We teachers also need to be aware of what's out there in the world around our students so that we can effectively address their questions.

The day reminded me yet again why I'm proud to teach in a Catholic school.

(Lest you think, though, that all was sunshine and roses, the session on liturgical music was run by none other than David Haas. Grrr. I did not attend.)

Christos Voskrese!

Voistinu voskrese!

And that is my entire Church Slavonic vocabulary.

Your resurrection, O Christ our Savior, is praised with songs by the Angels in heaven, make us worthy to praise You also here on earth and to glorify You with a pure heart.
-- Resurrectional Stichera

A blessed Pascha to all!

Going East, part I

I know this isn't really anything to do with teaching, but all of the rumors currently swirling about the possibility of a general indult for the 1962 missal have got me thinking a bit...

About six months ago, I started attending a Byzantine Catholic church full-time. One of the primary differences between the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the Novus Ordo Liturgy is that the priest faces the altar during the Consecration in the Eastern rite.

Having been brought up in the post-Vatican II Roman rite, I'd always heard that to have the priest facing away from the congregation was a bad thing (or if not precisely bad, then certainly undesirable). Now, it's one of the things I cherish in the liturgy.

In the back of my mind, I had a sense that the priest facing the people turned the liturgy into a bit of theater, with the community focusing on him and his gestures instead of on the Eucharist. When I went to a Roman rite Mass after having spent six months away from it, that sense intensified sharply, and I found the priest facing the congregation most distracting.

When the priest faces the altar, it creates a sense of community -- he is leading us, but the focus is on the Holy Mystery taking place in the room and the words of the prayers, reducing the "spectator sport" aspect.

Holy Week...

Or as we like to call it around my school, "Spring Break Redux."

It's really rather depressing when the principal at a Catholic school feels he must give multiple reminders via the public address system and through newsletter notes home that we are asked to keep this week holy, which at a minimum requires that we attend church on Easter Sunday, and a student in my class scoffs openly as though this is the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard. (Other students just sighed or got Expressions of Supreme Teenage Boredom at Adult Inanity on their faces.)

Holy Week? You mean the point of Holy Week is not to go to Florida and lie around on the beach?

Generally, I like and respect the majority of the parents who send their children to this school, but I believe that this attitude begins at home. Parents need to be told that they're derelict in the duties to which they swore when they baptized their babies when they don't act like the spiritual heads of their households, leading by action and example.

Oh well...it reiterates to me the importance of our young people's seeing good and faithful examples of Catholicism and Christian living in their daily lives. And when they asked what I was doing for Easter recess, I was happy to tell them that The Greatest Man in the World and I were staying home and going to church. Lots of church. Two services at his church and three at mine over the course of four days. If nothing else, it maybe plants a seed...

Long time, no post

Every spring, I feel like I don't accomplish very much. The kids don't want to be there; I don't want to be there, and we generally end up antagonizing each other past the limits of reasonable human endurance.

But. There are moments of greatness along the way. One class had a great discussion today about sexual morality (only tangentially related to Byron's poetry, but so substantive that I hated to bring it to any premature ending). The weather is gorgeous, bar the insanely high pollen counts. The research papers I'm grading are better, mostly, than last year's batch of papers. My dog still thinks I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. I got the funding to do summer study in Oxford. Life is pretty darn good.

Why can't you just do what I told you?

Grrr...

I went downtown today with several students to attend a Mass in memory of the late Coretta Scott King celebrated by our local archbishop. The setup was all very last-minute, and the need for chaperones was dire, so I volunteered my services and left three of my classes to the able hands of my colleagues.

The Mass was quite lovely; one of the intown parishes sent their exquisite gospel choir to augment the liturgy. Normally I disapprove very strongly of "Communion meditations," which strike me as a means of introducing performance into a prayer that should be focused on the community, but I'm very willing to make an exception for such glorious music as this group made. They sang "Straight and Narrow Way" with a soprano soloist who sounded like Leontyne Price. It absolutely sent chills down my spine.

When I returned to school in time to substitute for another teacher's last-period class, I discovered that some of my students in one class had made the executive decision that the in-class writing assignment I had left for them was a suggestion and not a command. They had opted not to write the essay, and they turned in Free Rides in lieu of their essays.

A Free Ride is a pass I issue each student at the beginning of the term. My class rules are strict (no bathroom trips unless it's a medical emergency, no locker trips, no gum-chewing, no sleeping, etc.) and my reading assignments can be long. I like to give the students a bit of personal responsibility and freedom of choice -- hence the Free Ride. It's good for one bathroom/locker trip, one reading quiz, one minor homework assignment, one extra night to work on a paper...but once it's gone, it's gone. And the catch is that the Free Ride, if stapled to one's final exam, is worth 5 bonus points on the raw score of the exam. (Since my exams are usually out of 200 points, and the exam is worth 20% of the final grade, the Free Ride can only mathematically make a difference of 0.5% in the actual grade (if my math is correct). But the kids think it's a big deal and they treat those Free Rides like they're gold-plated.) Basically, the Free Ride is worth about 5 points any way you slice it.

The assignment I left today was a 50 point assignment. And they blithely decided that it would be okay for them not to do it, despite clear and specific instructions that the assignment was to be completed and turned in at the end of the class. One student out of the seven or eight who didn't do the assignment came to me after school to question whether or not it was all right for him to have ignored my instructions. When informed that it most certainly was not all right and that he owed me a paper, he asked for an additional copy of the instructions so that he could write a paper and turn it in tomorrow. Fine.

My knee-jerk reaction was to give the miscreants zeros on the assignment and to keep the Free Rides. But then the voice of reason and the voice of mercy piped up in my mind. (Inconvenient conscience and compassion!) I'm going to give the students who did what I asked a study day tomorrow and give the students who didn't do it the chance to write the essay for full credit. The Free Rides that they turned in will excuse the lateness of the assignment, as under most circumstances our departmental policy is that late papers may receive a grade no higher than C.

*sigh* Well, they wouldn't be teenagers if they didn't do wild and wacky stuff that confounded adults, would they?

Happy birthday, Rabbie...

The auld lad's still sounding wonderful a mere 210 years after his untimely demise.

I need a break between finishing Paradise Lost and starting Frankenstein, and I usually try to schedule that break to coincide with Robert Burns' birthday on 25 January. It's a good excuse to have a party that also has some cultural and educational merit: a Burns Supper.

Burns Suppers (or Burns Nights) vary in tone from quite elegant evenings with scholarly speeches and silver spoons to raucous events down the pub. The first year, I described the Burns Supper and had the students read "To a Mouse" and "Red, Red Rose." Last year, I brought in cakes and asked each student to read a Burns poem of his or her choice aloud.

This year, I decided that it would be good to have as fully-developed a "supper" as possible. No John Barleycorn and no haggis, but plenty of food and everything as student-driven as possible. So my students and I spent the last week planning the parties (one in each of the four sections of the course I teach), inviting other teachers and friends to join us, choosing and rehearsing poetry, and writing speeches and toasts.

I'm always slightly amazed by how much students can accomplish when they're given some clear directions and some flexibility in choices. Not only did they lay out some very impressive spreads (including two very authentic and delicious trifles!), they all did very well with their poetry readings -- even the students who read in Scots. (Although they did complain quite a bit that "this isn't English," to which I replied, "No, it isn't. The dictionary link is on your handout.") We had outside guests in all but one of the classes, and the students seemed to have a good time. Particularly in the class that discovered the poem entitled "Cock Up Your Beaver, Johnny," which is a completely innocuous poem about putting a feather in one's hat, but has the opportunity for all sorts of vulgar jokes in modern parlance.

As much fun as it all was, I think that next year I'm just going to do one big supper as an on-campus field trip. I'll pull all my classes out for the middle of the day, serve an authentic Scottish lunch, and augment the poetry by some Scottish dancers and pipers. Doing three parties in three periods on an accelerated schedule day was just too much running around.

On sportsmanship and high expectations

On Tuesday night, I ventured out in the torrential rain to attend the girls' and boys' basketball games that my students were playing against the archrival diocesan Catholic high school. Most sporting events between our school and this school are more or less cordial and generally well-attended.

I arrived midway through the girls' game due to traffic difficulties, and when I got there, we were leading by 22 points. As the game progressed, the lead shrank to 10 at times, then widened back to 14-16 points for most of the second half. The outcome was never really in any doubt.

Engrossed as I was in the game, I had hardly noticed the cheerleaders on the sidelines till an opposing player went to the line to take some free throw shots. The entire time that she was shooting, the cheerleaders were performing a "Miss It!" cheer. The first time they did it, I was nonplussed. But after the ninth, tenth, and nineteenth times they did it, repeating it with increased vigor every time an opposing player took foul shots in both the girls' and boys' games, I was dismayed. Even more disheartening was the fact that the opposing school's cheerleaders did not do such a cheer when our players went up for free throws.

As a school, we profess to value sportsmanlike conduct. There's a large banner in the gym that says "Sportsmanship is an expectation." I know that the cheerleaders were, at heart, just cheering on their friends and classmates, but I also know that there are many ways to cheer on one's team without tearing down the opponents. I also feel that we ought not have been shown up by our archrivals on our home court.

Even though we won both games by the scoreboard, we didn't walk away with the class and sportsmanship trophies.

Best one-liner of the day...

When discussing blood sugar levels and the necessity of a balanced diet:

"Yeah, I tasted my blood the other day...it tasted like Hawaiian Punch."