amy loves books

half-pint

At the thrift store this weekend, I found the Big Yellow Box, and Lily, age eight, has started summer vacation in a little house in the big woods. Life does not get any better.

no, just all kinds of no

Who knew pantaloons had such a dark side?
The Christian Wife Spanking Shop: Featuring "romantic spanking fiction". Wow.

(Link compliments of my lovely husband, who has a sense of humor)

the magical land of learning

Knowing that I love keys, my biological children gave me a set of Disney key covers as a gift. They are rubber key topper-thingys, one for each of the parks at Disney World. Being the nerd that I am, I matched up the key icon to the proper key. The Tree of Life from Animal Kingdom is my house key, the EPCOT key opens the business office where the Xerox is kept, the sorcerer's hat leads to the English office. My classroom key is disguised as the castle from the Magic Kingdom, because, as I tell my non-biological children, my classroom is The Magical Land of Learning.

Yesterday, the Magical Land of Learning got very, very, very loud. Earlier in the week, my 9th grade honor students had been presenting their Romeo and Juliet projects. One of my students asked to present a day late because her friend (who was not in my class) forgot to bring the drum. I knew that she had composed a song inspired by Shakespeare's play, and she's a good kid, so I excused her.

The next day, she was not in class when the bell rang. This tardiness was explained when she arrived, about ten minutes after class had started, with the entire drum line. In my classroom. They shut the door, fanned out to all corners, and she explained that she had written a piece to accompany the fight between Tybalt and Romeo, because she "thought the music in the movie was crappy".

The drum line performed.

Luckily, the classroom next to mine was empty at the time, but they were SO loud that hall monitors and teachers were peeking through the window to see what on earth was going on. Because, really, who has a drum line in their classroom? Had I known in advance that she was bringing the entire line, I don't think I would have agreed - but what could I do? There they were, ready to drum. She had organized the whole thing, and her composition with all of its cymbals and boombast was actually really insightful and appropriate.

But still, it was loud. It was so loud that it literally made pieces of my ceiling fall down. When the drum line finsihed, a fine film of white ceiling tile dust covered everything in the room.

After school, I apologized to all the teachers on the hallway. I had no idea she was bringing the whole drum line, I said. Secretly though, I thought it was fabulous. It was, truly, the Magical Land of Learning.

human one immortally mortal i

I've been a teacher for eight years, and in those eight years there have been a handful of kids that were a mess and that I have tried to help, but the resources a teacher has are woefully limited. I need money, and doctors, and mentors, and other various grown-ups to call. I need a red batphone, a hotline, and doctors, dentists, optometrists that work for free.

I have learned that I was under the illusion that "all sorts of programs" exist to help the poor, and the broken: the locked-up, abused, mentally ill, raped, pregnant, homeless, hungry, illiterate, addicted. Okay, maybe not for all the adults, but I believed there were programs for the kids. I truly believed in the amorphous but real programs shining like whatever million points of light and candles in the wind. There were programs, and they were featured on Oprah, and you just called and the Angel Network appeared and fixed things, becuase my mother's friend's daughter's neighbor volunteers at some place like that. Right?

I have learned that if you are poor, not so much. If you happen to be poor and black, and especially if you are a minor there's not so much. If you happen to be poor and an immigrant.

I have learned that, most of the time, all I can really offer is prayer. I pray for Deus Ex Machina, and I pray to cinderblock walls.

because the government cares about such things

99% of our junior class passed the No Child Left Behind mandated graduation assessment. This pretty much means that the English Department ROCKS.

I am a very happy girl.

catcher

We are two weeks away from the end of school and I have a handful of students failing my tenth grade class. I do not accept failures. I have not sent failure letters, because I do not believe the kids will fail. I believe they will pass. I am harassing them daily.

I am generous with recovery. My policy has always been to allow the recovery of any grade. The only catch is that students have to complete an alternative assignment. In the tenth grade, all of the alternative assignments require students to read Catcher in the Rye.

If I were to write an essay for NPR's "This I Believe" series, I would say that I believe in the power of books. I believe in their abilty to capture the mind, the heart, the soul.

And I believe that Catcher in the Rye can get a failing child to read a book.

I have three boys reading Catcher right now. One has Sickle Cell, hates to write, and misses lots of school. One is constantly suspended. One is brilliant, but spends his time drawing pictures of marijuanna leaves instead of doing work. They are all actually reading the book. They come to me privately and tell me what they think, and ask questions about the novel, and they keep asking me if Holden is black or white.

I tell them that I am not going to answer their question. It does not matter, I say. When it comes to Holden, race is totally irrelevant. I know that they want him to be black. I tell them that his race would not change the book at all.

Today, my most challenging kid, the constantly suspended kid, started pressing me for more details about Holden. This is a kid that tried to sell me a stolen cell phone in class for ten bucks. This is a kid that I have sit outside my class to do his work just so he won't fight and get suspended again. He was creating a mask that was symbolic of Holden. He said that he thought Holden had two sides: he had an outside that was tough, but an inside that was troubled. And I think he likes a girl, he added. I smiled and I told him he was one hundred percent right.

Then, he asked me again if the author was black or white. He turned the book over, looking for clues, an author picture or biography that would give it away. There is nothing on the cover of Catcher. Despite the scrutiny, it remains an enigma.

Once again, I told him that I was not going to give him an answer. What do you think?, I asked. I don't know, he said. The name sounds..... I stopped him.

I'll tell you what J.D. stands for, I said. But that's all I'll tell you.

I paused, and then I told the truth.

Jerome David.

His eyes widened, and at the end of the period, he turned in an absolutely amazing, beautiful mask to symbolize Holden.

And Holden had dredlocks.