amy loves books

why i love ninth graders: part two

They do things like ask, in complete seriousness, if it's okay to lick instant hand sanitizer.

the lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

- Billy Collins

Speaking of the 70s - Oh My Gosh!!!!!!!!!!!

Space Food Sticks Are Back!!!!!! and you can buy them here!

As a child I would only eat two foods: Boo Berry cereal and Space Food Sticks.

If only they had named her Amy

The moment I have secretly been hoping for has arrived.

American Girl has announced a new historical doll: Julie from the 1970s.

I was just a little too old for American Girl dolls when they came out, but I was old enough to devour the catalogues and fantasize about buying one for my eventually-hoped-for daughter. When an ultrasound revealed that my first baby was going to be a boy, I finally broke down and asked for my own American Girl for Christmas.

In 2000, I started to wonder if they would make a 70s girl. After all, the decade of my childhood was now 30 years in the past. As we've crept closer to 2010, it's seemed more and more possible that a peace-loving, environmentally aware, hippie doll could be in the works. I figured it would either be a 60-70's girl or an Asian immigrant from some other time period (to round out the ethnic diversity of the historical dolls). Well, lo and behold, we're getting a flower child and her Chinese-American best friend. Rock on.

I can't wait for the little doll-size accessories. I am hoping for a Ziggy lunchbox with tiny space food sticks; a snap-lid box-style record player, a wee little ERA NOW button, a transistor radio with a wrist strapand a groovy sleeping bag. A macrame plant hanger craft kit and miniature bottle of Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific would be pretty nifty too.

And let's not forget the banana bike and iron-ons.

why i love ninth graders

At the beginning of the year, they still say "ooh! ooh!" and lift their butts out of the chair when they raise their hand. This is the sort of behavior that I immediately put an end to, but it's just enough to remind me that, in spite of all the cleavage and attitude, they are still just kids.

the good guys

Publix pharmacy is now providing basic antibiotics free of charge to all customers.

This is kind, and good.

clipped wings

Over dinner last week, my mother-in-law congratulated me on the successful running of the language arts department, on being teacher of the year, on all my hard work. Then, she said don't I want to "spread my wings" and really advance my career?

And, by this, she meant don't I want to leave the dead end of the public school system and go to a nice and shiny private school, where the hallways are roach-free and I can podcast my lessons to all of the eagerly homework-completing college-bound rich kids? Because she had just attended an alumni night at private school X and it was so amazing. They were showing alumni how they incorporate technology into all their awesome lessons and professor X had his ipod and would show clips of current telvision shows and then switch to questions relating them to ancient philosophy. Wasn't I done with public schools yet? She wanted to know because she cares. Because I look so tired.

If I left public education (and I think many people assume that, eventually, I will) I'm sure that I would get lots of pats on the back and assurances that that I "did my time" and "made a difference". Nobody would blame me for not feeling up to the challenge of daily volunteering to drown in the under-funded, over-mandated, energy-draining, red-tape maze of public urban education.

This week was not fun. My classes were fun. I love my classes and I love every second that I am teaching, but the week itself was not fun. By Friday, I was exhausted and actually depressed - because there is just so much that needs fixing right now and my fixing-powers are running dry.

Yet, even on my worst days, leaving is a non-option for me. There are rewards that are intangible. There are moments.

One of these moments happened yesterday.

I needed boxes of paper moved into the English office, but I hate asking the envioronmental service people to move my stuff because they work so hard as it is. I saw a kid with a broom and plastic gloves standing by the bathroom and guessed (correctly) that he was being punished and had opted to do work detail rather that get suspended.

I asked his supervising punisher if I could borrow him long enough for him to move paper. As we walked to the front office, we chatted long enough for me to find out his name, that he was a junior, and that he was (of course) completely innocent of the offense he was being punished for. It was a brief conversation, and I waited for him in the front office while he unloaded paper into my bookroom. When he returned for a second load, he asked me if I had read all those books. The ones in the bookroom? I asked? He nodded. I said that I'd read most of them and asked why he was curious. He said that he wanted to know what The House of the Scorpion was about.

I told him it was about a kid that was the clone of a drug kingpin, and that it was a good book. And there, in the hallway, and in the middle of his work-detail, this huge, seventeen-year old young man started to talk to me. I don't read very well, he said. I've been trying to find books that will interest me so I can practice. He went on to tell me that he'd had epilepsy in elementary school, and that he could read, but he had missed lots of school.

This is the second boy in two years that I don't teach, but that has come to me on their own and asked for help learning to read.

As much as I don't like some things about my position (red tape!!!!!!!!! politics!!!!!!), there are almost two thousand things about it that I love.

Each of those two thousand things has a name, and a story, and a schedule that I need to make sure is right; and every week at least one of them does something or says something and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I although I am often sad and tired and frustrated with the system, I am finally at home in this world.

the old road is rapidly aging

I graduated in 1988, which makes this summer my twntieth high-school renuion. In December, I will have been married fifteen years, which makes me realistically old enough to have legally borne the fourteen-year-olds I teach.

I start my ninth grade Honors class with the novel Animal Farm and a unit on dystopian fiction. Threre is a great deal of discussion about what they believe is wrong with America, and how it could be changed - and I try to focus the debate so that they consider the ramifications of their proposals.

Each year the anger of my ninth-graders towards Bush (because of the war) has increased. A few years ago, the attitude was one of disapproving confusion. The war was not good, and Bush was not ever going to be the type of president (white, male, Republican) that poor, southern, African-Americans embraced and loved, but there was a degree of apathy in their disapproval. Then, Hurricane Katrina happened, and the war has continued, and my current ninth graders are now really, really mad.

When you see ninth graders year after year, it's sometimes hard to realize how much they change from year to year. This year's ninth graders share these characteristics:

They were in the third grade on September 11th.

They were in the seventh grade during Hurricane Katrina.

President George W. Bush has been the president for the entire length of time that they have had any awareness of presidential politics.

They were in the fourth grade when the current war started.

They were not even born during Desert Storm.

These children ask me why we went to war. I do my best to explain the reasoning that existed at the time, but they don't buy it. They don't buy it because they tell me that if I fold a new twenty dollar bill, I can see the twin towers falling. This evidently proves something.

I have never heard this urban legend before, but they swear it's on the internet and I tell them that if it's true, my husband (who loves conspiracy theory) will be absolutely thrilled.

So - lo and behold. It is true. And, I am not a conspiracy theory girl, but I folded the new twenty dollar bill and now all I have to say to whoever it is that designs these national treasury treasures is this:
How hard would it be to just make un-creepy money? Seriously. Enough with the freemasons and Da Vinciesque intrigue - just make the money normal. Please.

Creepy Creepy Money Folding