What Did T. Read in 2022?

 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yātrika (यात्रिक) - Pilgrim

Image
When I was in college, I took a course on Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales is a frame tale: Chaucer paints a picture of 29 pilgrims on the road to Canterbury to make atonement for their sins. On the way, each takes a turn entertaining the others with stories to pass the time. The tales told by each character are set ( framed ) within the context of the greater pilgrimage, with every story inadvertently revealing something about the person telling it. The Pardoner, for example, while a churchman, is a terrible human being. Five hundred years before Harry Potter, the Pardoner tells the story of 3 brothers swindling Death. While his tale loftily preaches against the evils of greed, he reveals to his traveling companions his favorite ways of cheating people. Like I said, terrible human. The Miller gets credit for the most X-rated tale, but he's also a drunkard and looking for shock value, which he gets. And the Parson just gives a sermon that bores everyone to tears. My class read the bo...
Read more

Poetry. Feminism. Dharma.

Image
This morning I woke up at 4 am, unable to return to sleep on the first day of school. Too many nerves. So instead, I thought about dharma,  or our calling and purpose in life. Most teachers are women, I suppose because we're seen as more nurturing. I think you can be nurturing and still be a feminist. So here are my thoughts, courtesy of insomnia... Ask me what I mean when I tell you I'm a feminist. "Bra-burning excuse-making man-hating harpy!" That's too easy. That's a trope. I mean I broke free from the ideas forced in youth: That a woman's purpose is to love and support a man. Cannot bear his own children (so you must) Cannot be his own "helpmate" (so you must) God created man to rule and to provide. A woman's place is by his side -- Complementing. Complimenting. Only -- Years passed. No one's life was less without me in it. I had failed my Woman's role. But was it me? Or could it be the job itself? I did not ask for consignment to...
Read more

Rowan

Image
I have written up Rowan a million times this year. I sent a note on his last office referral saying, "These referrals are not working. Do you want me to keep writing him up? Or should we try something else?" The grade-level principal asked if -- for his most recent display of ridiculousness -- I wanted to give him 3 days of in-school-suspension or try a restorative conversation. I voted for the latter and came to her office a few minutes before our scheduled meeting with him. "End goals," she said. "Ideally, what do you want to happen from this?" "I don't even know anymore," I said. "I just feel like I've completely failed him." "How so?" "Because he cared so much about wanting to be a good student at the beginning of the year. And now look at him! I feel like maybe I didn't encourage him enough, or... something." "Love the self-reflection, but I don't think you can take ownership of all this beh...
Read more

Tarkaya (तर्कय) - to judge

Image
I read once somewhere that teachers make around 3,000 decisions per day. I have no idea whether or not that's true, but it certainly sounds impressive, doesn't it? Therapy Elsa says that some of the judgments I have made as a teacher have led to consequences. When I signed my contract for this year, the contracted start time of school at my building was 7:05 a.m. and the contracted end time was 2:20. This meant I had plenty of time to log onto my laptop for my 2:30 medical telehealth appointments every other week. Only... they decided to change the start and end times of school. This meant I had to tell my brand new boss -- brought in special by the Superintendent -- that I had medical appointments that interfered with my assigned bus duty and various meetings two days a month. He did not like this. He didn't say that, of course. But he repeatedly asked me to ask my medical provider for a different time (although I explained several times that there was no other time). It b...
Read more

Hubris - Pride

Image
There's this story in the Bible where Elijah is the one, lone prophet of God who hasn't been executed... he's managed to escape this wicked king and queen who want to eradicate the old theology and make way for new gods. Elijah is like constantly on the lam and in hiding and like, "WHY AM I HERE!?!" But he has these moments of brilliance, when all his dilly-dallying and depression fall away and it's like he's imbued with power. One such moment is a showdown between the prophets of God (read: only Elijah. that's it) and the prophets of the false gods (estimated at 450 for Baal and 400 for Asherah). Picture such a thing! Lone Elijah facing down this horde of powerful prophets, with the king and all the people of the country on their side! But Elijah wins. The prophets of Baal and Asherah try to incite the power of their gods for hours, to absolutely no avail. Then Elijah's turn comes. He asks the God of the Israelites to prove to them that he exists,...
Read more

īkṣaṇa - Look

Image
A look back at something that haunts me. I've been living in denial about my immediate future. Rather than using the summer to prep for teaching 7th grade, I've been hoping that something else will open up last minute in, say, Greece, and I will be able to leave 7th grade 4,000 miles behind me and relocate to a place that has no 7th grade. Or that at least I'd be on Corfu teaching 7th grade. The curriculum where I'm supposed to teach is...confounding. I told Stella I don't know what I'm teaching. Since she works in Clayton and is the best teacher I know, I trusted her to tell me where to start and then kick my ass into gear. Stella opened her computer, spent 7 minutes examining the curriculum published for my district, then slammed the computer shut and said, "Yeah, good luck with that; that's a mess. Sorry, T." So I refuse to look. I refuse to check my school email. I refuse to set up my classroom. I refuse to remove "high school English...
Read more

Mud

Image
I used to read through my friend Stella's essays for her when she was in grad school. This was back when we were working together in Hazelwood. She already had one degree in English and had been teaching literature for at least a decade by this point but insisted she needed feedback before submitting any work. That lunatic would actually write 3 different versions of every essay and ask me to choose which one was the best. She eventually got the degree and left to go work in Clayton, where -- surprise, surprise -- that kind of insanity is rewarded. I remember she showed up on my doorstep one night months later, in tears. She didn't know if she could survive the new job -- she was getting 4 hours of sleep per night and answering 150 emails a day  from middle school students and parents. That was years ago. She's fine now, but that night always stuck with me because I thought, There is no fkking way in hell I could handle that amount of pressure. I would have a nervous breakd...
Read more