Random Thoughts

Doing Hard Things

The diplomas are safely on a shelf in my closet, and the desire to wreak irrational havoc upon them has thankfully passed.

I’ve learned that the most recent job I applied for which appeared to have been a perfect fit for me (teaching 5 periods of 7th grade English), was filled by someone already hired in the district, moved from another school because of “a shifting population.” Basically, I’ve been trying to get jobs that aren’t really available at all.

Well gee, at least now I know it’s not my age. Or the color of my slacks. Or the fact that I got my degree during the era of deconstructionism. Or anything of any relevance whatsoever–there’s just no job available for a newly credentialed English teacher. No matter how well educated she might be.

Meanwhile, more US companies face obliteration, guaranteeing fewer jobs for Americans in general.

How’s that “hope and change” working out for you?

Despite the fact that I’m unemployed, and therefore can’t really call myself a “teacher” now–I have no students, no classroom, nothing but this little blog and whomever I happen to converse with in the 3-D world–I am still educating myself.

One of the best books I’ve read in months:

Written by two teenage brothers, Alex and Brett Harris, it tackles head on the contemporary concept that teens are immature and incapable of handling serious responsibility. The boys point out that “teenager” is a 20th century construct. Throughout history up until the early 20th century, you were considered either a child or an adult; there was no decade of transition between the two. Now, they argue compellingly, we have a significant span of years where children are capable of mature behavior but treated like they’re not. Society sets low expectations for teens, resulting in laziness and self-centered (often self destructive as well) behavior.

In their words, it’s time for a “rebelution.”

When you look around today, in terms of godly character and practical competence, our culture does not expect much of us young people. We are not only expected to do very little that is wise or good, but we’re expected to do the opposite. Our media-saturated youth culture is constantly reinforcing lower and lower standards and expectations.

The word ‘rebelution’ is a combination of the words “rebellion” and “revolution.” So it carries a sense of an uprising against social norms. But in this case, it’s not a rebellion against God-established authority, but against the low expectations of our society. It’s a refusal to be defined by our ungodly, rebellious culture. Actually, we like to think of it as rebelling against rebellion.

The boys have a website too, The Rebelution.

If I ever get a classroom of my own, I’m having my students read that book. Even if I’m teaching in a public school. Especially if I’m teaching in a public school. I’ll probably get fired, unless I wait for three years to implement the book, then I’ll have tenure permanent employee status and they won’t be able to touch me. Ironic, as that’s one of the worst aspects of public school education, and directly responsible for the deplorable state of far too many schools.

Sometimes I really do feel like a chef trying to get work in a restaurant that’s been given a failing rating by the health department. And then I think about the kids whom I could help…

Applications

It’s taken me most of my life to figure out what I want to do with my life.

After a ridiculous amount of education, and at least four different career paths, I finally realized that I want to be a teacher. And I want to teach junior high or high school kids English literature and writing.

I have a Bachelor’s degree in English Lit.

I have a Master’s degree in English Lit.

I have a preliminary California teaching credential.

I can’t seem to get a job.

It is disheartening to send out applications, complete with all kinds of documentation and references, only to get no response.

It is disheartening to go on interviews, only to hear nothing back from the prospective employer.

It is so disheartening to interview for jobs you really want–not just any job, a job you truly would love to have–only to have the school hire someone else instead of you.

There was a time when I would have been happy to work at Starbucks. Even now, that seems like a reasonable option. As long as I don’t think about how much I want to teach kids. That’s when I feel like crying.

Spare me the Drama

Why does this blog get so much Russian spam? What is with that?

Imponderable questions…my life is full of them.

I’ve spent all summer hunting for a teaching job. Thus far, I’ve submitted about a dozen applications, and had three interviews. The first one, Job #1 was for a job I really, really wanted.

I have two English degrees, a teaching credential, and Eldest Son graduated from the private school in question, so I thought I would have a shot at the open teaching position.  I may have had a shot at it, but Job #1 hired someone else. Probably someone with more experience. Mr. Random Thoughts thinks that they probably hired someone younger, but he’s that way.

There’s nothing I can do about my age, or my level of experience. I yam what I yam.

Job #2 involved a more traditional interview given by a principal who looked like he was one step away from a heart attack, and not at all enjoying the hiring process. His questions were about my teaching style, my perspective on discipline, and how I would prepare students for STAR testing. I was the first of a string of interviews he had scheduled, and as soon as the alloted 1/2 hour was up he was done with me, onto the next, “We will call you, we may have you go through a second interview,” etc. etc. thank you goodbye.

On the way out I passed the next interviewee, a perspiring, stressed out young man. Impulsively I stuck out my hand and shook his, telling him “Good luck.” His hand was cold and clammy. Poor guy. He looked so desperate and so despondent even I, his competition, felt sorry for him. He probably needs the job even worse than I do.

Job #3 is a position teaching honors English, Debate, and Drama. The interview call came very unexpectedly (I had not submitted an application except to the district in general) from a school that suddenly has a teacher not returning, and needs to fill that hole immediately.

I don’t do Drama though. I don’t teach it either. Do you want me to learn on the job? Do I want to learn on the job? Do I really want this job?

Heck yes, so I did my best to wow them with all I have to offer, pulling out the “attended law school” card I normally bury deep in the pack–it intimidates people–to demonstrate that I could handle teaching Debate, and would be willing to tackle Drama.

Why did I ever think having an MA in English Lit was going to help me get a job teaching English? Obviously it’s not enough. I need to have minored in History Social Science, or Theatre. Or be 23 years old and far more attractive than I was when I was 23 years old. That is, if Mr. Random Thoughts is to be believed. He hires people. I haven’t been hired yet. So maybe he’s right.

I hate this part most of all though: Waiting for the phone call. The phone call that never seems to come, because they’re calling someone else.

This is the first time in my entire adult life that I haven’t been able to get a job simply by wanting it and presenting myself as fully capable of doing it. Oh, there was that one time an employer wanted to hire me away from a temp agency, but the negative reaction from her other employees (two of whom threatened to quit) made her back out of the deal. The temp agency told me I’d come across as “too capable.”

Somehow I don’t think that’s the problem now, but then what do I know?

All I know for certain is that I picked the worst time to enter the teaching profession in California.

I am certainly not the only one going through this sort of thing. Beyond the Pale has had an experience eerily similar to mine. And of all things, she wants to teach Drama! Maybe she could qualify for Job #3.

I’m trying to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing. This is me on the inside:

Okay, I am a woman not a man, and I will never see 35–or 45–again, and I am the mother doing the laundry, and the loans are about twice that much (thanks to the abortive attempt at law school), but otherwise it’s pretty accurate.

In fact, many of Kerry Soper’s cartoons describe my internal thought process about interviewing. On the outside, I’m smiling, answering questions ranging from “What Bible character do you think you most resemble” to “How would you teach writing using Bloom’s Taxonomy?” without breaking a sweat. On the inside, I’m wanting to say something like this:

Maybe I should teach Drama after all…so much of getting hired seems to involve acting.

Maybe I need to put my mind on other things. Things that are both simpler and weightier.

Like Crosscribe’s Ripples.

And I Was Just Thinking’s Challenging Words.

Anything to get my mind of the futile-thus-far job hunt.

How many weeks left ’til summer?

Ah, my blog. I remember the days when I had plenty of time for you.

Student teaching is sucking all the energy and a great deal of the joy out of me right now.

I have five classes of 12th graders with whom I’m working every day, starting at 7 AM. I’m supposed to be on campus by 6:30 AM, which in an ideal world would be a snap–the school is only about six minutes from my house.

This is not an ideal world. Even when I get up at 5 AM, getting out of the house by 6:20 seems an impossible feat. I suspect there’s a bit of passive resistance at play here in my psyche.

That, and being really dead tired from Tuesday through Friday. Monday, I’ve rested up somewhat over the weekend, but that “rest” doesn’t last long.

12th graders in the final half of their last year of high school are not exactly…enthusiastic. And those are the “College Prep” students (i.e. average kids). I also have to draw up and present daily lesson plans for one class of “standard” students (the euphemism for remedial English) and that has been a special nightmare. Seriously. I’ve been dreaming about it in a most unpleasant fashion since the semester began. I’m still working on it. In fact, I have to go work on it now.

Is it wrong that I’m counting down the weeks I have left?

Is it wrong that some days (more and more days) I wonder if this was a Bad Idea? The latest in a chain of “What do I do when I grow up?” bad ideas? It’s not like there are any jobs in teaching now; quite the contrary.

But I’ll get up tomorrow morning and go back to the high school and do my best not to screw up, and hope that somehow I’m doing what the university expects of me good enough to get the credential, and then some school will actually hire me.

Or something. Maybe Christ will come back and none of this will matter. A gal can hope.

And in the meantime…

I am brushing off the cyber equivalent of cobwebs here. I ought to be ashamed of myself, for all but abandoning my blog for two months.

My blog email is full of spam, understandably, but why is it written in Russian? What did I post last that issued an invite to Russian spammers?! Nevermind, I’ll just hit “delete” repeatedly.

Nothing bad happened to me in the interval between my last post and this one. My only excuse for dropping out of the blogosphere was the hurricane of life: Committing to writing NaNoWriMo, then having a full court press California state mandated teaching performance assessment followed by holiday craziness. Blog? I have a blog? Does anyone read it? Will they notice if it falls silent for a few weeks, or months?

I did not finish NaNoWriMo, but I did find my creative (fiction) voice again. That’s been fun. I’d forgotten the pleasure of playing with characters, of letting them interact and typing the result. So, for me, NaNoWriMo was a success. And I nailed a major win on the state requirement, with a perfect score and the evaluator’s comment “This is the best TPA 2 I have scored.” It felt really good to kick butt on that one.

The holidays were a success too. Though my family has narrowed down to MrRT and the four RT offspring, three of whom no longer live at home, this meant the holidays really were happy. No ugly scenes, no unpleasant relatives, just good food and good times. Christmas especially, when all six of us were together.

Nothing, and I do mean nothing, makes me happier than watching my kids thoroughly enjoy each other’s company. That is the best part of parenthood, right there.

So, it’s January now–heck, January is half over–and I’m preparing to walk into a 12th grade classroom and teach English to high school seniors who are already half checked out and heading for graduation. I must be out of my mind. Not that I have a choice; it’s the final part of the teacher credentialing process. Since they put me with 6th graders last semester, they (whomever “they” is at my university) apparently figured I needed to experience the other end of the spectrum.

Hey, if I can teach 6th grade (and I can) and 12th grade, then surely I can cover everything in between.

At least in theory.

Meanwhile, life goes on in strange and terrible ways.

One one hand, Massachusetts voters finally grew brains.

Brutally Honest calls this triumph “Obama being spanked.” Brilliant metaphor, and so apt.

Right Voices offers up a gem of humor from Jon Stewart on the election.

And Michelle Malkin calls it a miracle. Yes, they do happen.

On one hand is US politics, sometimes depressing, sometimes wonderful, often surprising.

On the other hand, we have the horrible tragedy in Haiti:

I can not even fathom this.

There are so many ways we can help these devastated people, without even leaving home. First and foremost there’s the financial, through reputable organizations like the Red Cross, Child Hope, World Vision, Compassion International, Samaritan’s Purse, and in Haiti itself, the Real Hope Rescue Center. 

A fairly comprehensive list of charities working in Haiti is available here.

Even five or ten dollars matters in a country so poor they’re beyond desperate on a good day. They haven’t had a good day since January 12. They’re not likely to see another one for a long time.

And you might want to bookmark The Anchoress as you keep Haiti’s people in your thoughts and prayers.

I’m back. I’m writing. And I’ll be posting more on these and other stories very soon.

The ghost of anger past

It’s been a challenging week. Not challenging in the usual way, which involves juggling the activities that fill my life and the lives of my family members. Not challenging in the newest way, which involves figuring out how we’re going to stretch nonexistent finances to cover the next year. Not even challenging in the sudden surprise way, which typically involves something unexpected and unpleasant like the need for a root canal.

This week has been challenging in the “Oh God, I didn’t see this coming, and please don’t make me go through anything like it again in the next two decades or so” way.

Thirteen years ago–1996, to be precise–was the worst year of my life, Not hyperbole, truth. Within six months I lost both my parents in particularly ugly and traumatic ways, my last child was born prematurely (necessitating two months in the local NICU), and the repercussions of these events sent a shock wave through my marriage and the lives of my older children. Even now, more than a dozen years later, we all are still recovering from that Very Bad Year.

Mostly, I try not to think about it anymore. Life, as they say, has moved on, and it ’s a busy life. During this week I had two back to school nights, the first being Tuesday at Youngest Son’s middle school. For those who have never experienced “back to school” night, it involves meeting your child’s teachers, seeing their classrooms, and in general getting a sense of what they’re studying and how their teachers approach education.

It’s kind of fun, in a “thank heavens I’m not in middle school anymore” sort of way.

At least it was until I entered Youngest Son’s fifth period classroom. As I stood in the back of the crowded classroom and  looked at the teacher for the first time, he seemed oddly familiar. His name meant nothing to me, but I read the handout he provided which had a brief resume. As I read, part of my mind registered what he was saying by way of introduction to us. The word “quadruplets” registered at about the same moment I spotted a particular resume item involving performing arts, and I suddenly felt literally ill.

Later, my husband commented that he thought we might be in the wrong room or something, as my face had turned pale then taken on a look of panic. I might not recall the name, but I definitely remembered the man who was now my son’s teacher. He and his wife had given birth to quadruplets a few days after my son was born prematurely. Their arrival–particularly the husband’s arrival–in the NICU had added a thick layer of stress to what was already a horrible experience.

As I watched this man describe aspects of my son’s class, I wrestled with a sense of loathing that threatened to overwhelm me. As though 13 years had not passed, I could recall how his bombastic attention-grabbing voice sounded in the formerly quiet confines of the hospital ward, his utter obliviousness to the fact that his four babies were hardly the only infants receiving care, and the nurses’ excitement at the way his media whoredom brought news crews repeatedly into the crowded NICU.

I recalled the times I lost my temper entirely, trying to nurse my baby with no privacy while reporters clustered around the tired new mom of four and her proud husband. He did all the talking–he clearly loved the attention–as she sat quietly and looked exhausted.

I remembered how much I came to loath the very sight of the man. His presence guaranteed there’d be no privacy, no quiet, both of which I desperately needed as I attempted to bond with my fragile premature son.

…a calm moment in the NICU

As his explanation of class procedures and policies drew to a close, I tried to pull myself out of the past, tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. He couldn’t have known how negatively his presence affected me 13 years ago. He couldn’t be the same person now; I know I’m far different than I was back then. But his face, though older, had the same puffy over-fed features, his bearing was the same strutting swagger. Surely these were just my perceptions though; the man inside might now be kind and observant, not as self-focused and domineering as I recalled.

In an effort to give him the charity any human being deserves and change the bad first impression he’d made so long ago, I approached him after class. I asked him if his children were born at the local hospital during the month of August, 1996. He beamed and said “Yes!” I told him my son was there at the same time. He had no recollection of my son nor I of course, though our children spent at least a month side by side in the NICU. He was quite jovial in recalling that time, and told me he was suprised that I remembered being there when his babies were born.

I remember all the other babies that were there with my son: the twin boys, one who was thriving, the other who was weak, the premature hispanic baby girl who went home only to die a few weeks later, the extremely premature little girl no bigger than a Barbie doll who managed to cling to life. I noticed them. They mattered.

“Some things one never forgets,” I said. I hope my voice didn’t sound bitter.

As I left the middle school classroom, I consoled myself with the thought that I need not ever interact directly with this man again. For the next two years he will teach my son, but really, other than attending performances a few times each year I need not ever see the teacher.

Surely the urge to punch him in the face and demand an apology for a 13 year old grievance will pass.

And then there was Thursday, the second back to school night, and a startling reminder that life is so not about me. But that day needs it’s own post.

In other back to school news, Kris has some interesting Reflections. High School class rings with “Obama” on them?!  H/T Ed Morrisey at HotAir. You can’t make this stuff up.

Teaching is a noble profession

So, it’s September and I’m heading into the Student Teaching Teaching Candidate portion of the California Teacher Credentialing process. I was told this morning during a PowerPoint presentation which repeatedly used the term “Student Teaching” that California no longer uses that term. It, like so many other innocuous phrases, is apparently politically incorrect. The new term is “Teaching Candidate,” and it’s paired with other terms like “clinical observations,” in an effort to spread a gloss of professionalism over a job that pays somewhere between $28,000 and $40,000 per year to start.

Professionalism is a Big Deal at the university where I’m getting my teaching credential. Yesterday we were treated to a lecture–and I mean that in the dad-is-going-to-scold-you sense–given by someone I shall call Aged Professor, about appropriate dress and behavior. We were never given any specifics about behavior, just that we were to “behave appropriately,” because apparently last year’s class had at least one person who did not “behave appropriately.” I wonder what that entailed. Maybe they took off their shoes and taught barefoot. Considerable time was spent telling us how to dress appropriately.

Now, this is Southern California. It’s HOT this time of year. Back away from the open-toed shoes though, and don’t even think about the sandals. No sneakers either. And for those of us of the female gender, there will be no jeans, no capris, no clam diggers, no shorts of any length, only skirts or dress slacks with an “appropriate” blouse.

I don’t care what Aged Professor says, I am not putting on a pair of nylons in 95F weather for anyone.

That being said, I am not a 19 year old, I’m the mother of a 19 year old. I do not need to be lectured about clothing and behavior. Neither do the dozen or so other students in my credentialing program who will never see age 30 again. Unfortunately for us, Aged Professor can’t seem to get his head around the fact that we aren’t children. He admitted as much last semester when he said “I’m not used to having ‘older’ students.”

As he lectured us, our cumulative expressions of disbelief and irritation must have clued him in somewhat, because Aged Professor added that the teachers we’d be observing during our Student Teaching Teacher Candidate semester “won’t be dressing like you will. They don’t dress appropriately, but they already have jobs. You don’t.”

That led directly to “This is not about you. If you want a job that’s about you, don’t go into teaching.”

Well duh.

And they wondered when I applied for the credential process, why I didn’t want to teach at the college level (been there, done that and am qualified to do it again).

It’s not the students, it’s the other professors. My tolerance for pedantic arrogance is dangerously low.

Yes, this post is all about me. I’m trying to avoid ranting about politics, particularly health care reform, until I can do so without using unprofessional language.