This Is Why I Do It

Yeah, this is going to be another "this is why I teach" stories. For those of you who don't cotton to those kinds of stories, just keep moving -- nothing to see here.

In the teaching world, some days are better than others. For every high of a class groaning when the bell to end class rings because they don't want the class to be over (yeah, that's happened to me), there is a low of a kid calling you a "bitch." There are days when I come home riding a natural high that comes from feeling like I'm truly making a difference, and there are days when I come home in the pits of despair, sure that I am failing my students. There is a lot about teaching that can be frustrating -- the miles of paperwork, the apathy of students, the ridiculous demands of parents, the lack of administrative support, the lack of funds to really do what you'd like to do in class.

And yet I admit that I wake up just about every day excited to go to work. (That's my big secret. And I should insert here the caveat that I am excited about going to work NOT about getting up at 5:45 to do so. I've long said that if my job could start at, like, 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning, it would be absolutely perfect.) When it comes right down to it, I made the decision to go into teaching because I wanted to help kids become better people. I saw teaching as my own little contribution to save the world.

This brings me to yesterday. I had a very long (but good) day at work. My freshmen are digging Romeo and Juliet, my Drama class has discovered the joy of Oscar Wilde, and my speech class was having fun with the challenge of creating speeches discussing the denotative and connotative meanings of the words of their choice. Add to that a pretty productive round of speech team practice after school, and I was feeling in the zone.

Who knew it would actually get better?

I got home, crawled into a pair of pajamas, and hit Facebook. There, on my profile page, was a message from a former student. Natalie graduated several years ago, but Facebook has allowed me to keep in touch with students like her. They find me and add me -- my policy is to turn none of them down. Over the past couple weeks, she's had a rough time as she was facing the likelihood that her college career was about to come to a halt because of financial problems. I had sent her encouraging messages, knowing how disappointed she must be but trying to remind her to hang in there. I knew she had been doing so well in college (and had been a strong student when I had her), so I sensed that compounded her frustration and grief as she realized all that she stood to lose. It was one of those times when I wished I had this huge amount of expendable cash to just send her, but, well, we all know how poorly teachers are paid.

Anyway, Natalie's wall post last night was one of those reminders for me that it isn't about the money. She wrote me to thank me and tell me how much she appreciated all she'd learned in my classes, how those skills have served her so well in college. It was a very simple, honest post, but it meant the world to me. Later that evening, I saw a status update from Natalie telling her friends that a grant had come through and that she would NOT be dropping out after all.

And that is why I do this.

The Depth of Kindness

I think a lot of my regular readers (gee, that sounds rather arrogant -- "regular readers" -- like I'm Maureen Freakin' Dowd or something!) know that this has been a tough year Chez Mel. My sis was struggling to find work in a DOA local job market. Our mom died very suddenly and unexpectedly. Slowly, things have picked up -- my sis has a job that she seems to really love (or like a great deal), and we're working through our new status as orphans as best we can. My sis and I are from tough Irish and Swedish stock with some stiff upper lip British thrown in for good measure, and that genetic coding has gotten us through a lot. Another thing that has been a continual source of strength for us has been the love and support of our friends. We've been blessed with some pretty great people in our lives.

We were reminded of this last night in a pretty great way.

It was a typical Wednesday night. We had just finished dinner and my sis had headed back to the den to get ready for another installment of The Ford Show. I was in my holey but totally comfy sweats watching a DVRed episode of Melrose Place. (I had to see Amanda's return! And I have to say FINALLY -- age is NOT treating Heather Locklear so kindly. Either that or her plastic surgeon.) A friend of mine (Anne) popped online and asked if we would be home in about 15 minutes. I said that we would, and she told me she and her husband were popping by.

My immediate thought was, "Um, weird." Anne is a good friend that I've made through doing theatre locally, but not a friend that typically "pops by." When they arrived, both she and her husband came in. I grew concerned. Anne has faced numerous health battles in the past several years that often require surgeries and painful rehab. I worried that maybe something huge was going on.

Sort of. Anne told me that she did have to have a medical procedure done right after Christmas, assuring me that it was pretty minor although inconvenient. Inconvenient in that she and her husband had made plans for that day, plans they now had to change, plans they were instead gifting to me and my sis. It turns out that the plans they had made involved tickets to go see the pre-Broadway run of The Addams Family in Chicago, starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. I had mentioned the show to Anne about a month or so ago, telling her I was thinking of getting tickets for my sis and I. I had not yet had the chance to buy the tickets due to some logistical snafus like transportation and where we'd sleep. Anyway, Anne handed me an envelope containing two tickets to see the show. Her only caveat was that we go, have a good time, and tell her all about it. It was her gift to us. When my sis and I looked at the tickets, we were floored. We were holding two pretty pricey orchestra level tickets to see a show starring two people we've idolized for years -- and one of our mother's absolute favorite actors, which makes it seem all the more fitting. Anne said to us, "After the year you two have had, we thought you would be the perfect people to enjoy this and that it would be good for the two of you to go have just a great, fun time."

My sis and I were literally floored. It takes a lot to render either of speechless, but we truly were unable to speak. Crying -- now that was something we were able to manage. Of course the flurry of preparations now begins as we address the logistics, but suddenly, that seems meaningless. Because we don't have a ticket expense to worry about, the train and a hotel room seem much less extravagant. It will be a nice way for the two of us to wrap up our annus horribilis and hopefully begin a new annus mirabilis.

Unforgettable

I'm in my ninth year of teaching. Over the course of those nine years, I've averaged roughly 100 students a year -- so 900 students have sat in my classroom and (I hope) learned a little something from me. It is sad to say that not all of those 900 students have left lasting impressions. There are many kids who I will see in the hall, I know I've had them in class before, and I cannot remember their names. There are, though, those students that stick with you long after they've left my classroom, long after they've graduated and headed out into the real world. Some of those students have stuck with you for negative reasons -- the first student to call me a "bitch" to my face, a student who left midway through the year to go to drug rehab, the student you KNOW came to class high as a kite and saw class as naptime. Most of the students I remember, though, have stuck with me for more positive reasons. Sometimes, it's whole classes that linger on even after they've gone their separate ways.

My second year of teaching, I had a particularly memorable class of English I students. It was a pretty small class -- 12 kids in all. The fact that there were so few of them allowed us to bond and get to know each other. I found myself a little more relaxed with them -- partly because I was more relaxed period as a second year teacher and partly because they were a more laid back group of kids. They were a lot of fun. They were eager, enjoyed learning, but also enjoyed having fun at the same time. They always found ways to insert a little humor into the proceedings, such as Justin who wrote an essay on the effects of not doing homework that ended up with him living in a cardboard box in an alley -- all because he'd blown off a math assignment. A year later, Justin would come home from a baseball game and drop dead of an undetected heart problem -- an event which shattered the school.

The most memorable of that class, though, was Jada. The best word to describe Jada was "spitfire." She was this tiny little thing, barely hitting five feet tall, but she had a huge personality to compensate for that lack of size. She had a voice with a permanent laugh -- and which could be heard clear down the hallway. Jada was sassy and opinionated. I knew Jada had escaped from a rough past that included being placed in foster care before ultimately being adopted by a single mom. You never would have known any of this, though, from spending time with Jada. She was constantly happy and outgoing, whether it was during class discussion or performing with the dance team.

There was a sort of happy-go-lucky air about her, best exemplified by the essay she wrote for me identifying her hero. Jada's hero was Spongebob Squarepants. She was OBSESSED with Spongebob. At first, when I saw Jada's subject, I was a little annoyed that she had, I thought, clearly not taken the topic seriously. As I read further, I not only saw that she had taken the topic seriously but that she had given it a tremendous amount of thought. Spongebob was heroic, according to Jada, for three reasons -- he was a hardworker, he was a good friend, and he always maintained a positive outlook on life. What isn't heroic about that? I realized, too, as I read that Jada had also described herself because the Jada I knew as a freshman was a hardworker, a good friend, and always positive. Over the course of the next several years, I kept in touch with Jada as she moved through high school, eventually having her in class once again her senior year when she signed up for Journalism. I was touched when she gave me a copy of her senior picture, a picture she had taken with her older sister that she admired so much.

After graduation, Jada took off for college out of state, and I didn't hear much from her. As a freshmen, she had dreamed of becoming a CSI investigator, so I assumed that she was off learning how to shine blue lights to find blood splatter.

I was wrong.

Last night, I logged into Facebook and saw a string of status updates from former students all saying roughly the same thing -- "RIP Jada." I noticed one of those students was online and we began exchanging messages that included her confirming that Jada had died and telling me to go check out google for the details. (She said a fellow classmate had called to tell her and she had done some investigating because she just could not believe it was true.) The details were shocking and heartbreaking. Not only had Jada died, but she had apparently committed suicide, hanging herself in her jail cell while awaiting trial for a double homicide. Jada had allegedly been involved in the murder of two men. If found guilty, she would have faced the death penalty. She didn't wait for a verdict.

I spent a lot of time last night crying, trying to somehow make sense of it all. How had that Jada I'd known, the girl who constantly was smiling and laughing, the girl who admired Spongebob ended up in a jail cell? What had happened? The fact of the matter is that we may never know. Her friends are left with all these questions that may be unanswerable. The fact of the matter is that we lost her somewhere along the line. That realization is maybe what hurts more than anything.

Today, I choose to remember the spunky little freshman who always made me smile and hope that wherever she may be, she's found some semblance of peace. I choose to remember the hardworker, loyal friend, and positive spirit that exemplified the Jada I knew. I will miss that girl -- no matter what her adult counterpart may or may not have done.

Tech Week

A little local news coverage for our upcoming play. Speech season starts Monday, but I hope to be a little more active here in the blogosphere.

Oh My God! I'm Part of the Problem!!

A couple days ago, I was on a bookworm cloud nine. I had discovered in my Internet travels that target.com was offering Barbara Kingsolver's soon-to-be-released new novel for $8.99 with free shipping. Hardcover.... brand new .... $9. Needless to say, I quickly went to the Target website and put in my order for that as well as the upcoming John Grisham short story collection. I bought both books for less than $20 total. I was ecstatic.

Then yesterday, my happy book bubble was burst when I read this article in the New York Times. In short, the American Booksellers Association is charging Target, Wal-Mart, and Amazon with destroying the book industry -- and I am their accomplice!

Or am I?

The gist of what the ABA is claiming is that this "predatory pricing" is devaluing books by selling them at bargain basement prices, at a rather significant loss to the retailers. The ABA's real concern, of course, is that people are flocking to Target, Wal-Mart, and Amazon to get their books rather than independent booksellers who cannot afford to take that loss and instead charge full (or very close to full) price for these books. As a supporter of independent booksellers, I was wracked with guilt over the damage I was potentially doing to my favorite (and only) local bookstore Stone Alley Books.

Here's the thing -- chances are highly likely that, had these books not been so deeply discounted, I wouldn't have bought them anywhere -- not at Target, not on Amazon, and not at Stone Alley. I would have waited until they came out in paperback at a significanly cheaper price, or I would have waited to stumble across them used at Stone Alley, or I would have just bought the Kingsolver book and not the Grisham book. Regardless, both authors made a sale that they may not have made.

And because I was able to get the books for such a good price, I have a little extra in my monthly "book budget" (yes, I have a book budget....I'm geeky like that) to go to Stone Alley and spend a little more than maybe I would have. So my local bookseller will make an additional sale that he may not have had I not discovered the cheap prices.

Of course, I realize that not everyone is like me. I realize that not everyone is as obsessive about books as I am and that plenty of local booksellers have lost business thanks to Wal-Mart, Amazon, and Target. I don't think, however, that what has happened is criminal or merits a Justice Department investigation. What this shows is that there is a market for books out there, but that the market needs cheaper pricing in order to keep going and that publishers need to start finding ways to make it easier for local booksellers to compete and offer the kinds of discounts that will keep the market thriving. Keep books alive -- but keep them affordable.

Reality Bites Back

I missed out on most of the fun surrounding Bubble Boy last week. When the balloon supposedly containing six-year-old Falcon Heene was soaring over Colorado, I was in the midst of rehearsals with the cast of Twelve Angry People with no internet access to fill me in. I learned about it only when I got home and saw a ton of tweets providing a nearly blow-by-blow account of what had been going on all afternoon. The whole thing seemed too fantastic to be true, and it turns out that that is probably the case. The local sheriff investigating the whole situation has reportedly found that the whole thing was a hoax, cooked up by dad Richard Heene (a veteran of that reality-tv gem Wife Swap) to facilitate getting his own extraterrestrial-themed reality show.

In theory, Heene had a great idea. How many times have we seen people turn a media frenzy into reality fame? Pop out a couple dozen babies, and it's a matter of time before TLC is knocking at your door, right? Be stupid enough to make (AND KEEP) a sex tape, and E! will fall all over itself to help keep your fame alive. So who can blame Heene for thinking that creating his own media frenzy would be his path to superstardom?

Heene made a couple crucial mistakes that may ultimately land him in jail if the felony charges the sheriff is seeking stick.
1. He should have put the kid in the balloon. First of all, it would have made for a better story -- the kid who survived the balloon journey and lived to tell the tale. Once word got out that little Falcon was never in the balloon, the talk began that the whole thing had been a hoax.

2. He trusted in the media's willingness to be duped. Heene was right in thinking that the media would jump all over the tale of the little boy stuck inside the balloon and the heroic efforts to rescue him. Hours of cable news coverage was devoted to Falcon's flight over Colorado. Once it was revealed to have all been for naught, that little Falcon had been safely at home the entire time, the media turned vicious. They had been betrayed, deceived, and, worst of all, made to look foolish. As they fed on each other in accusation, they turned on the person responsible, Heene, and became determined to prove their innocence at his devious hands. They gunned for Heene and now seem to be reveling in dancing their victory dance at his fall.

3. He entrusted an essential part of the plan to a six-year-old child. As angry as the media was over their betrayal, they may have had no choice but to sit and pout for a few weeks and put together self-flagellating stories about themselves had it not been for one little boy. Thursday night, little Falcon Heene joined his family on CNN's Larry King Live. When asked about the whole ordeal and why he had hid and not responded to his parents' frantic cries, Falcon responded, “You guys said that, um, we did this for the show.” You could almost hear the collective "d'ohs" across the country. What parent didn't empathize, thinking of their own tales of secrets revealed by a confused child? Of course, most parents aren't engaged in a huge media scam, and so those moment of empathy quickly gave way to smug moments of triumph as everyone became convinced that Falcon's story was a hoax, and the charge was led by the media. Falcon's throwing up on two morning shows the next day only added fuel to the fire as it became sure "evidence" of his nervousness and guilt. Heene's fatal flaw was that he trusted a child to keep silent and keep a secret. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

A Wild Rumpus Full of Existential Angst

When I was a kid, there were few places I loved more than the children's room at the local public library. My mother and I would frequently walk from our home to the library where I would spend hours pouring the shelves to find a new assortment of delights to take home. Of course, there were several "standbys" that were checked out by me so many times I'm shocked the librarian didn't just GIVE them to me -- Eloise, Tilly Witch, The Lorax, and, of course, Where the Wild Things Are. What kid didn't identify with Max, the rambunctious young protagonist who is sent to his room for being rowdy and sails away in his imagination to a land where his rowdiness is cherished and rewarded? Who didn't want to preside over a wild rumpus?

A few years ago, word got out that Spike Jonze would be tackling what seemed to be an impossible task -- turning Maurice Sendak's slim, 45-page book (many of them wordless illustrations) into a feature-length film. Initially, I had visions of some CGI monstrosity ala The Polar Express or Shrek where the heart that lies at the center of the film would be lost in creepy animation or fart jokes. And then I reminded myself that it was Spike Jonze who is one of my absolute favorite filmmakers. His two previous films, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, are two of the best films I've seen in the past decade or so -- films that were funny and thoughtprovoking, messing with your mind in a way no other films have before. When you take Jonze's neo-aburdist take and mix it with screenwriter Dave Eggers's deft touch, you are certainly guaranteed something good, right?

Thankfully, the answer is "right." The result of this collaboration is truly masterful. What Jonze and Eggers have done is find the dark underbelly of Where the Wild Things Are, allowing the book to grow up with the thirtysomethings who grew up with the book while still creating a film that will appeal to the new generation of potential rumpusers. They have found in Max (Max Records) a boy filled with existential angst seemingly fueled by an absent father, a thoughtless sister, and a mother (Catherine Keener) who's trying her darndest to keep it all together. Max's world is filled with typical childhood heartbreaks, like the destruction of his igloo, as well as the pain of a more adult world, like the "discovery" that the world is doomed to collapse in the face of uncontrollable natural disasters. He seems to stand in that odd world between childhood innocence and adult cynicism, and his realization of that status fills him with alternately with grief and rage. He can't seem to express his confusion verbally so that frustration becomes physical -- tearing apart his sister's room or throwing a tantrum as his mother prepares dinner. That his pre-dinner tantrum seems to be rooted in the presence of a man (Mark Ruffalo) in his home who does not seem to be his father makes his actions both understandable and sad.

After fleeing from his mother, Max ends up in a land populated by a community of wild things that seems to mirror the fractured home from which Max has fled. Wild Thing Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) is destroying their nests in a fit of rage, fueled by the absence of KW (Lauren Ambrose). KW has apparently abandoned her friends to spend time with her new friends, Bob and Terry, sending her community into despair as they wish things would go back to the way they used to be. KW and Carol become stand-ins for Max's own parents, giving us clues as to the cause of Max's own grief and rage and perhaps even letting us know why things in Max's family back in the real world seem so fraught with tension. At the same time, the wild things become representatives of sorts of Max's fractured id and ego. Judith (Catherine O'Hara) is frequently snarky and passive aggressive, just as Max is when he tells his mother he prefers real corn to frozen corn. Her companion Ira (Forest Whitaker) is clingy and desperate for approval and attention, just like Max frequently is with his mother and sister. Like Max, Alexander (Paul Dano) frequently feels ignored. Max attempts to help the wild things build a community in which only what you want to have happen happens, where people who are unwelcomed are punished for their trespass by having their brains explode, but he soon learns that such dreams are impossible, that there are some fractures that can't be fixed. No matter how much he wishes it to be so, there is no fixing the relationship between KW and Carol, but Max also seems to realize that being apart may be better for KW, Carol, and the community in the long run. As hard as you may try, there are some things that just can't be fixed.

This all sounds really deep and dark, I know, and you may be wondering how this could be appealing to kids. The thing is that it is. The matinee audience with which I saw the film was filled with children who giggled and cheered and roared throughout the film. The subtext went right over their heads, I'm sure, but that didn't mean that they couldn't find joy in Max's adventures. Like those of us who read the book as a child and found more depth when we revisited it as adults, I'm sure these children will revisit the film in a few years and see the deeper meaning here, too. They will surely revel in the moving performance of young Max Records who instills Max with heart, intelligence, and angst with single looks. They will marvel at the intelligence and realism that fills the faces of the wild things. They will embrace the artistry with which Jonze captured this world, never once resorting to cheesy gimickry to give us a world that is at once real and imaginary, earthy and out-of-this-world. They will laugh as I did and cry as I did and walk away thinking how lucky they were to have spent that time at a beautiful, glorious, and truly wild rumpus.