Chasing Down Grief

Well, it finally happened. I sat watching the inauguration today and suddenly realized that my little brother, Eli, will not be watching this and giving some kind of running commentary. Tears that wouldn't come at a funeral not meant for me and in the days since finally flowed unbidden.

For those of you who don't know, Elijah Eatman, a close friend of Kevin's and mine, was found dead in his apartment by his mother after going home sick earlier in the week. From the moment I moved up here and began to hang out with all of Kevin's friends, I put them into my extended family. I've never been this far away from my regular family, so I needed some folks to turn to. They were all into sci-fi, fantasy and anime, so we all became fast friends that helped each other embrace our inner geek. The Quinns, along with my nieces and all my students and, became adopted children, taking the place of those we couldn't have. Maureen, Kathy, and then Brandy became the sisters I always wanted. Chris and Darrin became like those cousins you rarely see, but love hanging with when you get them back into your life. Tom (another friend of ours and Eli's that passed two years ago from complications stemming from his kidneys) became my eldest brother, the gruff but lovable one who lead the family with his foot in your ass and his heart devoted to your soul. Darryl became my dreamy eyed middle brother, the one who always wanted to see everyone happy and would never harm a soul. Dean became my twin, the one born a few minutes before me and capable of more bluster and pride in himself, but (if possible) twice as much bluster and pride on my behalf. Drew became a younger middle brother, picking up Eli's goofy slack and getting us all into trouble as he joined our group of gamers.

And Eli was the baby, the one I had to protect from jibes and push in the right direction. Tom's departure set his feet truly on the path to independence, but he himself pulled on the bootstraps and got himself where he wanted to be. In not hearing from him, I was actually comforted, because I knew it meant he was finally okay. Even when he WAS over here, he'd lost the need to impress or defend himself because he was fully comfortable with who he was, despite what anyone else thought.

It took a while to grieve. I felt robbed at the funeral, cheated of my chance to release in such strange settings. Eli was a Muslim, so the women sat in the back at his funeral and weren't allowed at the gravesite at ALL. The men couldn't even touch the women, so African American males shook hands with my husband, but apologized to me and passed on. Kevin said it was odd to be treated like a prince by a group of black men while his black wife was shunned like a member of the KKK. After that, Kevin needed time to adjust and grieve himself, so, like all people who care for each other, my thoughts about the whole event disappeared as I comforted him in his time of need. Later, when he was coming to terms, it just seemed silly to cry over something I felt I'd already gotten past.

I really believed that I was okay up until now.

I'm sorry he's gone. I can't believe I won't get to tell those guys to "leave that boy alone, he's not doing ANYTHING to you" anymore, as if he NEEDED a defender. I won't get to burst into hysterical laughter at his rapid fire chipmunk laugh, correct his spelling, or remind him that, no matter what his family says, finding a woman to be with is NOT a necessity if he's happy. I won't get to see him eventually find that spooky anime loving horror movie going chick with the smoky voice and a dominatrix outfit in her back closet, behind her Hot Topic wedding dress and her "Foamy" t-shirt (yeah, I guess I've thought this through a bit!).

Mostly, I'm just plain old sorry for me. I wish I had more stories to share than this. Kevin knew Eli from college in the Anime Club and our other friends grew up together. I moved so much as a child that I never spent more than 3 years in any school before college (and even then, I went to 3 different colleges before finishing up at UNT). I wish, as I always do, that I'd had a history with all of my friends beyond what I've got now. God knows I'm grateful for what I do have with all of you today, but man, I wish we'd all been neighborhood pals and everything and could talk for hours about all the fun we used to have. I don't know if that would make me miss Eli less, but it'd sure feel more tangible than what I've got right now.

For my sake, I would appreciate it if all my friends would wait at least a decade before deciding to check out on me. Two in three years is a little much.

D.

Teachers Are Glorified Babysitters!

So, I was thinking about the whole "teachers are just babysitters" thing again today and laughing to myself, especially when I thought of all the folks at home with their kids know who WISH they had that teacher working right now!

Frankly, my hubby has it right. If teaching is such easy money just to babysit, why don't more people DO it??? Just go out and get the 4 year degree (in which you do student teaching and learn how one tries to impart knowledge while "babysitting"), then sub for years on end trying to get INTO a district (while DEALING with the same kids who don't respect you because you're not their teacher) and then...teach! Actually try to MAKE children learn when they really want to do anything else, even just sit and VEG out rather than learn. And THEN deal with the parents who think you're just teaching because you're that mean teacher THEY had back in "n"th grade that hated them. Oh, and don't forget the general public who'll want to know why Johnny can't read later on down the road because all you did was "babysit".

As Noah once said to the Lord..."RIGHT!"

Let's break this down for a minute. Babysitters come in and go home. As a teacher, just TRY to make your work day just fit into the actual DAY. Babysitters do NOT have to take the kid home with them or grade them on how they did. And if you're thinking "Well, if teachers gave less homework, they wouldn't HAVE so much work at home to do" think again. When I go home, I'm not just grading. I'm doing lesson plans and checking to see where the kids are so I can adjust my lesson plans and finding new ways to present old material so the kids will actually ENJOY learning ('cause if they DON'T, they won't make it far). Every teacher I know carries work home with them, even on holidays and does it during free time. And we're NOT hourly, we're SALARIED, so it's EXPECTED we're doing this and that our salaries will cover the time lost with our loved ones.

Oh, and the holidays? Those times you think we have it easy? Those are the times when we're told to go to superintendent's meetings, conferences, and other places that AREN'T because teachers NEVER stop learning. There's always new ways to do things, new rules and regs to follow, new constrictions that prevent us from doing what it is we were hired to do in the simplest and most direct manner.

And have you ever dealt with a school bureaucracy? People at the top are kinda like the financial wing of hospitals. They sometimes forget that school really ISN'T a business. It's not about making kids and their parents HAPPY (although it's a nice side effect). It's about giving them what they NEED to survive. It's about making them into life long learners, people who understand that education is what makes us better than animals. Despite the separation of church and state, we still show children how to treat their fellow man by showing them the mistakes of the past, explaining how to take care of the future and letting them interact with other humans on a regular basis where they're CONSTANTLY tested on right and wrong.

As more and more parents try to be friends and not parents, teachers have become more like parents than anything. But we're GOOD parents. While we teach, we try to shelter and protect your child from the world around them. We know they may go home and deal with terrible outside forces and scary adult issues, but while they are with us, they are SAFE. Even in extreme circumstances, when other adults (even parents or family members) turn cold and frightening, or children become confused & angry and turn on each other, we assure your child that NO ONE can get to them while we are there. Every time we have any kind of drill, I remind my students of all the proper procedures, as well as tell them that "no matter WHAT, I will personally STOP anyone that tries to hurt you!"

And homework? Okay, admittedly some people go overboard, but isn't it possible that with all the ways the public demands that children be ready to join the workplace that it's NECESSARY? School is where you LEARN things and homework is to PRACTICE what you learned, just like anything else. And if you expect the same of your kids in a SPORT (going to practice regularly before you actually play the game), why be so shocked that your kids would do the same in the academic arena? We've read about parents who've threatened and literally KILLED to make sure their child got on cheerleading squads or hockey teams. Where's the same passion for something they'll need for the REST of their lives ('cause, I can PROMISE you, VERY few move on to professional careers in SPORTS!)?

And, really, folks, even if you think education did you NO good at all, can you GET the high paying jobs without going to school anymore? You literally HAVE to have a degree from a secondary school of SOME sort to stand out in the ever shrinking workplace.

Do you REALLY want to call the person who taught you to READ nothing more than a babysitter, then pay them pennies to do all that you expect of them?

Okay, since I've rambled on like a Seinfeld rerun, let me end with this bit of humor. Can't take credit for it, but if this is how the world feels, I have no choice but to acquiesce for the global good! :-)

Since school teachers are really just glorified babysitters, let's just pay teachers the going rate for babysitting.

Let's pay them $3 an hour per kid, and they work 8-4, with a half-hour lunch. After all, why should we pay them for 'planning' or to eat?

So that's 7.5 working hours a day, and an elementary teacher works with about 20 kids a day.

So $3 X 7.5 hours a day X 20 kids = $450.00.

And I'm sure not paying them for weekends (more 'planning') and I'm sure not paying them for summers off for 'training' or advanced 'education,' so really, we are only going to pay them for 180 days a year.

So $450.00 X 180 = $81,000.

And just to be nice, if you have a master's degree, I'll give you $4.00 an hour.

That means we are going to pay teachers/babysitters $80,000 to $108,000 a year.

And not a penny more!

You Know You're Getting Old When...

This list started while watching the first item on the list and just kept expanding:

1. You watch Lindsey Wagner selling Sleep Number beds and are just as interested in what she has to say as when she was the Bionic Woman.

2. You're ALLOWED to stay up all night, but don't want to.

3. You DON'T have to take a nap after lunch, but you DO want to.

4. The sight of snow falling makes you think about scraping windows and shoveling, not building forts and making snowmen.

5. Your parents' house or grandmother's house looks smaller than you remember it.

6. You look at people you would have described as "hot" when you were 18 and wonder do their parents know what their wearing in public.

7. The idea of getting to drive to the pizza place, take the money inside and PAY for the pizza makes you feel tired, not grown up.

8. Running surprises you as much as it does your walking shoes.

9. You actually HAVE walking shoes.

10. You are more likely to be a spectator than a player in a pickup game.

11. You watch the love scenes in movies and actually understand them.

12. You can't get candy if you dress up on Halloween.

13. You're the one saying "When I was your age" and boring your children/grandchildren.

14. You actually have children/grandchildren.

15. You REALLY know what sex is (not just what your friends say).

16. Your worries about money involve more than just candy and video games.

17. You're more like Hook than Peter...and you're not sure how or when that happened.

18. You're mad that you can't find anything but anime & computer gen stuff on Saturday mornings.

19. When you watch tv, you spend half the time saying "Who's that?" and the other half asking "What ever happened to (insert 70's/80's tv star here)?"

20. You stopped believing that Saturday Night Live was funny about 15 years ago.

Well, of course YOU did...redux!

Okay...I can now publically admit it.

I voted for Barack Obama!

Man, what a relief to finally get to SAY that! For those of you wondering why I kept it a secret, there's a ton of reasons. First of all, I'm a teacher, so I never tell the kids who I plan to vote for. They're always trying to gauge their own thoughts with my own and I want them to decide for themselves.

The biggest, though, was the subject of one of my earlier blogs and where the title for this one came from. I didn't want people throwing away my political opinion just because I was black. With some of the folks I know, just saying that I was voting for him would have made them decide to not listen to anything I had to say about ANYthing. They would have been disgusted, thinking I only voted for him because of his race and that "we all stick together".

This is patently NOT true. There are about as many divides in the black community as there are in the white community, so looking like someone does not automatically mean I'll be casting a vote for them. I was ready to vote for either of them back in the primaries, but in the end, I really just paid attention to what the candidates had to say and felt like Obama was the most likely candidate for CHANGE.

Watching the returns was amazing. I was completely overjoyed until I listened to McCain's concession speech.

And then, right in the middle, I started to cry.

All this time and I had truly forgotten that he was the FIRST (frankly, I forgot he was black at ALL!). He did such an amazing job of making this NOT about race that people of ALL races truly forgot. Personally, I really only cared about CHANGE, not making history or anything else. Even before I walked into the polling booth, Kevin nudged my elbow and whispered "Go make history." And it still didn't hit me.

But once I remembered, really understood, I wished that my (and his) grandmother had lived to see the day. My own parents (who never voted in their lives until 2000) even said they really had never expected to see this in their lifetime. Dad said he'd just never thought that far ahead. I liken it to the way one doesn't think of marrying flowers. It's not that they can't be pretty and sweet, but the idea of marriage to a plant just seems so farfetched as to never occur to you.

My favorite saying from all this was on a t-shirt:

Rosa sat so Martin could walk
Martin walked so Barack could run
Barack is running so our children can FLY.

Speaking of children, despite my attempts to NOT discuss my personal political views and stick to the basic facts of the American election process, this whole thing held my class in its thrall. I was so proud! Last week was NY Kids Voting, but I had NO info on the candidates. I was very disappointed because NO one should vote without finding out the FACTS about the people involved. So, without my telling them to, many of them went and did research on their own. When I mentioned that the US president is a world leader, one of my boys asked "How can we be so popular if our economy is so bad?" They kept asking great questions, so instead of sticking to the basics, we went deep into everything that's been hitting the US (war, economy, etc.). We even talked about what a patriot really is (ANYone who defends their country against outside influences). On Tuesday, we kept an electoral college map that refreshed every 10 minutes up on the tv with kid votes from all over the US. They were excited today when they checked the real map and saw how well the kids mirrored their parents in voting (which led to the discussion of why kids AREN'T allowed to vote).

Anyway, it's been one amazing race...now I'm just praying for the man's safety and hoping people aren't looking at me now and thinking I'm gloating. I'm not, I promise. I'm just glad to see that something NEW is happening. The world can FINALLY look at us and think we're good people again, not selfish brats that like to bully our way into whatever financially benefits us.

So, I'm all full of national pride again...and not in that "holier-than-thou-'cause-I'm-a-bigger-patriot-than-you" kind of way, either. Just the "glad-we're-back-to-normal-with-a-HUGE-sigh-of-relief" kinda way!

D.

On the heels of THAT...

With all the wonderful racially insensitive things I've bumped into this summer, you'd think I never crossed the Mason-Dixon line back in 2001...!

Without going into too many specifics, I had another issue in which someone relatively close to me didn't understand my feelings about something that was blatantly stereotypical of African Americans. I was worked up enough about this to ask friends what to do and while some wanted me to just tell her off, the others were of one mind:

"Why bother? This person is obviously not worth your time, so ignore them. You can't change their views!"

But to that, I reply with the words of James Baldwin: "We are responsible for the world in which we find ourselves, if only because we are the only sentient force that can change it."

And therein lies the rub. Once it comes to something racial, it goes beyond my personal wants and into African American ambassadorship. Frankly, I'd LOVE for this person to leave me alone for the rest of our lives (and I felt that way BEFORE all this), but, if I go and hurt their feelings, they'll think "Black people are too sensitive about these things...they don't understand MY feelings." And NOW I've made it difficult for some other black person down the road. It's a chain effect that my generation and those before me pay a GREAT deal of attention to. We watched great men like Martin Luther King and learned that if no one tried to change the attitudes of the world, we ALL suffered. We needed to show gratitude for those who fought for our rights before us by continuing to change people's views wherever we went and set positive examples for those to come. So, none of us are comfortable just letting ignorance or stubbornness in race relations go. I have friends who became doctors and lawyers and other upstanding community members. For my part, I became a teacher and teach kids as they grow to treat everyone with respect, no matter what family members might say. It's a lifelong balancing act, saying what you think, but finding the right words and ways to say it so that you make a difference.

Honestly, there's just so much more to being darker skinned than anyone ever imagines. You become the channel through which other races and cultures learn...and it's up to you what they take from their experience. Most of you are blessed with the ability to be responsible for ONLY your actions. If you say something rude or make your point to someone, they can ONLY say "Well, (insert your name here) sure pissed me off" or "(insert your name here) makes a good point". For me, it becomes "Well, black people ARE just as violent as they say" or "Well, there ARE some good ones after all". People will genuinely base their experiences on their one or two friends/enemies of a certain culture or race. If I'm lucky, I meet someone whose mind I change so that they think of me as JUST me (or just think positively about the whole race so they can spread the word to friends). Since I don't know whether it's a lucky day or not, I play diplomat rather than take the chance.

Anyway, on the up side of all this is school. The first week of school is ALWAYS the promise of fresh young minds that will learn and pass information along to the next person they meet. It's like my own lifelong grassroots effort! :-) So, for now, I'm looking to the future and shelving the past...after all, it makes it easier to travel down the road of life when you look where you're going!

D.

Spanish Team on Offense AND Defense...!

So I'm reading stuff about the photo the Spanish team did about the Chinese (the one where they do the slanted eyes thing) and I'm finding more and more people that don't understand the offense, here. So, let's put this whole "ethnic joke" thing into perspective, shall we?

Try putting yourselves in the Chinese players shoes for a moment. Picture how you've felt in school when someone made you feel stupid or look stupid, all the while laughing at you and getting others to join in. Picture the times that you've tried to fit in and felt out of place. Picture ANY time at ALL when all you wanted to do was blend in with others and not have someone point out how much you are NOT like them. This is how intelligent people of other races feel every time someone does another slanty eye joke, another ebonics joke or any other joke that makes their people look foolish.

I think the reason why many people are confused is because they can't fathom how a joke like that affects those people or reflects on those people, regardless of the intent. There seems to be a consensus in America that it's acceptable to make fun of another culture if you:

A) "don't mean anything by it" or say you're just joking (as in the Spanish photo
B) have done it long enough that it's okay to you or would take too much effort on your part to change (Ex--keeping the name Squaw in names of places or keeping offensive Native American images like the Cleveland Indians because so many people have a history with those things)
C) know a person or persons from that culture who will laugh with you or use the same words to make fun of a culture, which gives you license to do so (ex--"Well, my black friend says the "n" word, so I should be able to!" or "I know a ton of Chinese guys and THEY didn't mind!")

All of these are really just excuses to belittle someone else and make them feel like I mentioned above. Think about what you'd do if these guys had pretended to act like a person with mental disabilities or handicaps...we'd ALL be up in arms because it's considered rude. There is NO difference at ALL in making fun of another race or culture.

If you can take anything from this, remember this...just because a LOT of people have done it all their lives or think it's acceptable does NOT MAKE IT SO. After all, lots of folks liked slavery and backed the Holocaust...didn't make them RIGHT. And even if it's a joke to you (or you wouldn't MIND that same joke done on you), it's not always funny to the person who has to show people that they are SO MUCH MORE more than just differently shaped eyes, darker skin or a different accent.

Hope that helps...really! :-)

Kevin's new blog!

Finally, he's computer savvy!

Kevin finally got tired of writing long e-mails and decided to create a blog of his own. He's an amazing write in his own right with insights that crack us all up (when we have time to read them in our inboxes)! So, without further ado: http://whineratthegatesofdawn.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

D.