Wednesdays are Gonna Be Rough!

 January 19, 2022

For the first time tonight, I get to meet my Clovis Community students face-to-face.  I was supposed to start with them last week, but since Nicholas got Covid, I was in quarantine and couldn't come to campus.  Normally I try to teach Tuesday/Thursday classes with CCC, but this semester they only had a Monday/Wednesday class available.  My Wednesdays are packed:  PLC meeting before school, straight-through class schedule with no prep period, a class officer meeting at lunch, a two-hour CCC class at night, and then Family Zoom.  Thank goodness Thursdays are light days so that I can recover!

How Did I Get Here?

 January 18, 2022

I gave my students several prompts to choose from to write some literacy narratives: stories about the way in which people, moments, or events helped shape their sense of themselves as readers and writers.  I thought I'd write to a couple of the prompts along with them.

You never really recognize the unusual circumstances you might find yourself in if you have nothing with which to compare that circumstance.  When I moved from Garden Grove to Clovis, California in the fourth grade, the discrepancy between the two schools was something that would inform my life and place me on a trajectory I might possibly never have traveled otherwise.

I loved school, and in my early elementary days I was a good student. I was the kind of student most teachers enjoy having: quiet, compliant, relatively intelligent, and a people pleaser.  What’s not to like? I caused no one any trouble, nor did I ever raise any alarms, neither behaviorally nor academically. I was the kind of kid that made a teacher feel good about herself, because I was a ‘success’ under her tutelage.

In Garden Grove, we had a specialized Reading Lab.  Once a week, our teachers could schedule time to go in and rotate through various stations designed to grab our interest and attention.  There was a variety of machines, presumably state-of-the-art at the time (but which would now be seen as amusing relics of the past), on which we could take turns playing games, challenging ourselves to speed reading,  and creating art to signify short stories we read.  We clamored around the stations and excitedly awaited our turns at each.  Reading Lab was seen as a privilege, and it was one that could be taken away if the class misbehaved during the week.  It was a powerful incentive; we thought when we were in the Reading Lab we were getting away with playing during school hours, instead of what many saw as enduring the tedium of the classroom. Little did we know that our teachers knew something we didn’t; having the reward of self-selected and self-directed reading was one of the most powerful learning tools at their disposal.

Reading at my elementary school in Garden Grove wasn’t celebrated or made to feel unique or even aspirational.  It was simply part of the culture of the school.  As far as I know, our teachers didn’t preach about how important reading was, or how we needed to excel in it if we intended to succeed in life.  We just lived it.  It was understood.

In the middle of fourth grade, I moved to Clovis and started just after Christmas break.  Naturally, on my first day my teacher needed to assess my abilities and skills.  She needed to know what I knew already, and where I would need support.  At the beginning of the day, she sat me down to run through a series of diagnostic reading tests.  I found them to be almost comically simple at first, and even as we progressed through the levels I flew through each one, missing no responses.  My teacher was impressed.  She continued with the assessments until I had reached the highest level, which still posed no challenge.  She showered me with praise and her wide smile gave me all the feedback I needed.  I felt like a genius, and she looked like she had won the lottery with her new student.  I was going to like this new school.  In my old school I was a good student, as I said, but as far as I knew, nothing remarkable.  This new teacher seemed to think there was something special about my aptitude for reading and vocabulary.

I rode on that emotional high throughout the morning.  We went to lunch (where the cutest, friendliest boy was ‘assigned’ to help me navigate the cafeteria and the playground, which he did with charm and a willing attitude), and once the bell rang to return to classes, I found where my classmates were congregated to follow them back to our room.  That’s when the trouble began.

Since I started in January, classroom routines and procedures were already well-established and ingrained in the students.  They all knew that after lunch they would silently file in, sit in their seats, and await the next task.  I found my way back to my seat and waited silently with them as my teacher efficiently passed row by row to deposit an assignment on each desk.  Without saying a word, she moved from the last student’s desk to her own, picked up a timer, and elaborately set it.  “You have three minutes.  Go!” Her voice was loud and abrupt, breaking through the silence.

My classmates ducked their heads and began furiously scribbling.  The only sound in the room was the sound of pencils on paper.  I looked down at my own paper.  On it were rows and columns of boxes with numbers and ‘X’s in each one.  I sat staring, not moving. “What am I supposed to do with this,” I thought, bewildered, “and why on earth is the alphabet mixed in with the numbers?”  In fourth grade at my old school, I had not yet been introduced to multiplication, and certainly not to the very competitive, speed-driven 3 minute Math Facts exercise that was so popular in my new district.  I couldn’t begin to fathom what I was supposed to do with 3 ‘x’ 4, let alone know how to do it in a speedy fashion.

I am a people-pleaser at my core.  I had never encountered a situation where I was utterly at a loss in school, and I was horrified that the teacher who was singing my praises earlier that morning was going to be disappointed in my complete lack of ability to understand the task at hand.  I was also a relatively shy kid, and being new, I was reluctant to simply tell my teacher I was confused.  It was humiliating.  So I did the only thing I could think of.  I lifted the lid of my desk quietly and pretended to search the inside of it for a pencil, presumably to be able to get my Math Facts done alongside the rest of my classmates.  Tears had sprung to my eyes and I couldn’t keep them from rolling down my hot cheeks, so I tucked myself further and deeper into the desk.  It didn’t occur to me that the sight of me hiding under the lid of my desk wasn’t nearly as discrete and clandestine as I thought it would be.  Within seconds my teacher was kneeling at my side, trying to quietly lure me back out from inside the desk.  She seemed surprised and concerned to find me crying.  “What’s the matter, Donna? Are you okay?”  I explained to her that I had no idea what this paper was on my desk, or what to do with it.  “It’s multiplication,” she said quietly, as if that was all the explanation needed.  I blinked at her, a blank stare indicating the words meant nothing to me.  “You don’t know your times tables?”  Continued blank stare. A slight shaking of my head.  She went over to her desk and pulled out a little study sheet to help me learn them.  I thought that perhaps she was rethinking her earlier assessment of me as a star pupil.  Math would be my undoing–in my eyes and in hers.

My old school was apparently pretty advanced in the teaching of reading–and woefully nonchalant about teaching math.  My new school, though they took reading seriously, was much more enamored of math, from the very early grades.  Being able to score 100% on a 100-problem math facts sheet (front and back!) in the three-minute time frame was a badge of honor.  Naturally, it took a very long time before I was able to catch up to my classmates and achieve that benchmark. From my very first day in my fourth-grade classroom, I started to see myself as a star reader, and a sub-par math student.   Before I had only ever seen myself as a student.  The distinction wasn’t really anything having to do with me–I hadn’t suddenly grown as a reader or lost I.Q. points as a math scholar between schools.  It had everything to do with the focus each school had placed on the different subjects, though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it at the time.   But on that day, a divide began to grow between my reading and my math-oriented selves.  When we experience success at something, we have a positive connection to it, and it makes us want to do more of it.  When we experience failure, we often avoid the very thing where we feel we failed.  After that day in elementary school, I wanted to read often, and as much as I could.  I felt validated, strong.  I continued to get positive reinforcement from my teachers and my peers for my reading ability.  I tried to engage in math as little as possible, because I associated it with that feeling of confusion and helplessness.  The more I read, the better I got, and not giving that same kind of attention to studying math, I did not grow at the same rate.  I fed what I perceived to be already strong, and reinforced that reading and language were the subjects for which I was best suited.  Years later, I find it no wonder that my chosen path was to become an English teacher.

And yet…I have always wondered what would have happened if I had not changed schools.  What would have happened if I had continued on the same path, feeling right on par with my classmates in both of those core subjects?  What if I had never gone to a school where suddenly the differences in my schools had instead translated to a difference in my own ability–to myself and to my teachers?  I think I still would have enjoyed reading had I remained at my first school, but would I have thrown all of my concentration into that subject because that’s where I found comfort and solace?  Would I have ever encountered a time when my math abilities were a disappointment at my former school, or would I have continued to give my studies in math equal weight, as I would not have shifted my perception of myself as a math student?  That single day, decades ago, defined a part of me, and every step I took thereafter solidified and reinforced that definition, without me having realized it.

Genres that Shaped My Early Reading Self

 January 17, 2022

I gave my students several prompts to choose from to write some literacy narratives: stories about the way in which people, moments, or events helped shape their sense of themselves as readers and writers.  I thought I'd write to a couple of the prompts along with them.

When I was an elementary student, there were a lot of phases I went through in terms of genres I read.  The earliest I can remember was probably humorous poems.  I remember being introduced to a poem by my second-grade teacher called “The Backwards Poem”.  I can still recite it to this day.  It began, “One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight.”  My little primary school brain thought it to be a very clever poem, and I sought out other humorous poets, like Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss.  The sing-song nature of these poems was infectious and delightful to me. I loved the musicality and the rhythm in them.  I’m sure my mother, on the other hand, got tired of hearing me say, “Hey Mom–listen to this one!” over and over again while she was trying to cook dinner and clean up after five young children every night.

About this time I was also very invested in comic books.  Most specifically, I loved the Archie comics, but I also read a fair share of Daffy Duck, Richie Rich, and a wide variety of superhero comics.  I don’t know when I first got ahold of one of those brightly colored magazines that told the antics of Archie and the gang, but I do know that I associated those comics with trips to visit my grandparents.  Every year my parents would pile all five of their California kids into the back of our 1970’s Plymouth Station Wagon and we would make the long trek across five states to visit Grandma and Grandpa Mayes for a white Christmas.  Although it didn’t always snow, most years it did, and it was magical for kids who lived in Garden Grove, California, where the winters consisted of only slightly chilly temperatures in the deep of winter.  In order to occupy us on those long drives–it must have been quite the undertaking to drive five kids under 11 halfway across the country–my mom gave us some of our Christmas presents early.  Anything that could entertain us on the road became an early gift:  comic books, Colorforms, Rubic’s cubes (for the older kids), baby dolls, toy trucks, or anything that didn’t have too many pieces and didn’t make noise.  Comic books were one of the favorites.

In my later elementary years, I found mythology.  There was a copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology that I must have checked out and re-read five or six times during my fourth-grade year. I was fascinated by the capricious ways the gods manipulated humans and each other.  They were often temperamental and fickle, but just as frequently cunning and creative, and sometimes sympathetic.  It was my first real glimpse of characters with depth and multi-faceted personalities.  The Dick and Jane readers we had when I was learning to read didn’t have motive or struggle or conflict; that simply wasn’t their purpose.  But these mythological stories were not only meant to teach lessons; they intended to be entertaining and engaging, and they were.  It wasn’t until much later that I learned that what I thought of as ‘mythology’ was only one set–albeit a well-known set–of cultural myths handed down from generation to generation.  Learning the Greek myths weren’t the only kinds of cultural mythologies was one of my initial epiphanies that societies often privilege one voice over all others, and that seeing those other voices and stories and cultures was an act of stepping outside of one’s own experience in the world to learn about others.  In order to learn about other cultures’ mythologies, I had to go out of my way to find them.

In fifth grade, I found my way into fairy tales.  It was a natural progression from the mythological stories I had been reading.  I don’t mean the Disney versions of the tales, I mean the dark and sometimes gruesome stories of the Brothers Grimm.  Again, my school library was the home of a giant book of these tales, and after having checked out this book a couple of times to read, I saw that there was another book, similar in size and content.  I started digging into the fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson.  The horrifying “The Red Shoes” and the ridiculous “The Emperor’s New Clothes” were among my favorites.  It’s strange that although I strove in real life to be friendly, kind, and happy, and was very much a people-pleaser, I was drawn to some relatively dark stories where people’s bad behaviors were often dealt with through some of the harshest punishments meted out.

At the same time I was deeply entrenched in the worlds of fairy godmothers and evil goblins and magic and spells, I also stumbled upon one of the first non-fiction books I ever remember reading.  Somehow I stumbled upon Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life, and it was transformative.  I read about a young girl who was trapped in her silent and dark world, frustrated and angry about not being able to communicate with anyone.  Her world collided with Annie Sullivan, seemingly the only person who, with persistence and determination, could manage to slowly chip away at the wall Keller found herself behind.  Deaf and blind during that time in history, Keller could easily have been pushed aside, abandoned, or worse, and yet fortune or destiny or chance matched her with the woman who would teach her the way to communicate the fierce intellect and fiery spirit that had been bound up inside her.  It was another book I read and re-read, and it made me realize two very important things.  The first was that we never really know what is going on in someone else’s mind unless they are willing or able to share it.  The second was that people’s lives, their everyday existence, could be a story.  Our lives are stories.  Every one of us has one to share.  I went on to read other autobiographies and biographies, notable among them was the story of Joan of Arc.  Her faith, confidence, and selflessness were undeniably inspirational and awe-inspiring.  And at such a young age!  I guess even in my pre-teen days, I was drawn to stories of strong powerful women who made their mark.

At this point in my young reading life, my fiction and non-fiction fares continued on parallel lines.  Fiction found me moving from fairy tales to stories of witches and witchcraft, while my interest in non-fiction progressed from learning about strong people in history to learning about history itself.  I became engrossed in World War II, and more specifically, the Holocaust.  If my mother had paid the least bit of attention to what I was reading, she might have been concerned.  She didn’t, however.  I was a good kid, did very well in school, and caused no trouble for anyone.  It never even occurred to her to pay attention to what I was reading; she was just happy I could occupy myself for long stretches of time.  Not that I was reading either of those genres as how-to manuals or anything.  The stories about witches and witchcraft tended toward the lighthearted and fanciful, something like “Bewitched”, but there was definitely a dark and sinister tone to some of the books I read.  I didn’t get too entrenched, though, because while I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not I believed in that kind of supernatural power, I was smart enough to know I didn’t want to take any chances of accidentally signaling to some otherworldly figure that I might be interested in joining their ranks or somehow raising their ire.  (To this day, this is my rationale for not dabbling in such seemingly childish yet somehow sinister games like playing with a Ouija board.)  I imagine my interest in reading so much in this genre during this time, if I had to step back and look at it objectively, is that there was a lot of tension and instability in my household during that time, over which I had no control.  Perhaps reading about witches who had the power to manipulate and change circumstances for themselves or others gave me a little solace and a vicarious sense of power.  The Holocaust books I read during that time were almost entirely first-hand accounts of survivors of the concentration camps–an extension of my autobiography phase–and served as a counterpoint to the books about witchcraft.  Books about witchcraft were about wielding power over others, whereas survival memoirs were about the physical, emotional, and spiritual damage done to human beings when those in power give in to their unfettered desire for control and lose sight of humanity.  The atrocities I read about in the books about the Holocaust were far more horrific than anything I read about in the fictional stories of revenge-driven witches.  Humans have great potential for rising above adverse circumstances and persevering through trauma, but so do we have a terrible potential to give in to our basest desires and put self above all others.  It is up to us to decide which story we want written about us in the end.

From a young age, books have been a constant companion for me.  They were a way for me to not just try on identities and learn about parts of myself that were fledgling characteristics at the time, but also to try on ideas that were unfamiliar to me. They allowed me to grow an understanding of the world around me and begin to understand the nature of human beings, both good and evil, from a safe space within the confines of my home and my library. I retreated into the world in between pages so that I could step out into the world I inhabited with a better understanding of how I fit into it. 

What I Am Not Grateful For

January 16, 2020

There are a great many things in my life for which I am thankful.  I am a big believer in expressing thankfulness.  However, many times in my life I have heard people say they are thankful for particularly adverse times in their lives because those times shaped them into who they are or who they would become.  I am not one of those.  I will never say I was grateful for having gotten cancer, nor will I ever say that I am grateful for having someone I trusted with the whole of my being betray me and make me question my worth, my value, and even my trust in myself.  I will never say I am grateful for having had my heart crushed and my spirit demoralized, because I would never, ever wish any of those things upon anyone else for the 'growth potential'. Yes, I came out of those things stronger and wiser.  But no, I am not thankful I went through them.  I am thankful, instead, for my own resilience and positivity and fortitude that enabled me to persevere.  I am endlessly grateful for an incredible support system, including my children, my family, and my amazing tribe of friends-who-are-family, my rocks when I felt I could not gain my footing in shifting sands.  In such a place, in such circumtances, one does not thank the sands for being unstable; one is grateful instead for the rock, and for the ability to stand atop it rather than sinking.  I am in a beautiful place now and see peace and happiness in my future.  For my past, for my now, and for my future, I am grateful to the strength that is within me and the love of those who held me up until I could find my footing during those trying times.  I have no time or desire to thank the obstacles that tried to pull me down.

A New Start

January 15, 2022

On Saturday I got to help Nicholas make his move to Morro Bay.  He's been working up in Yosemite for the past couple of years, but he got a job working on the Cal Poly campus.  He and his good friend Treasa (who will also be working on campus) decided to strike out on this new adventure together.  He starts this Wednesday, and I couldn't be happier for him.  His apartment is two blocks from the shore, and he can see Morro Rock when he steps out his front door.  He's only a few blocks from the downtown area, there's tons of cute thrift shops nearby, and they have a Farmer's Market just up the street every Saturday night.  The last picture is a little seafood restaurant that is literally right around the corner from him, which is where I took him to dinner.  Cheers to the next chapter for Nicholas!

I'm Back

 January 14, 2022

Due to the ever-evolving nature of Covid protocols at school, paired with this particularly contagious Omicron variant, I had a record number of students out last week, and then I was out this past week. Today I was finally able to return, and I got to see some students I haven't seen since before Winter Break.  As tired as I have been this year, and as frustrated as I have been with the constant shifts in--well, everything in our profession, there is nothing like the cheerful greetings of my students when I return from an absence, especially a prolonged one.  As I greeted my students in the hallway in front of my classroom door, welcoming them into the room, I heard so many of my kids turn to their friends and say, "Ms. Lutjens is back! Hey--she's here today!" before turning to me and saying, "Welcome back--we missed you!" Same, you guys.  Same. 

Walking in the Fog

 January 13, 2022

When the new year began, I renewed my committment to myself to hold myself accountable to my Fitbit goal again.  10,000 steps, every day.  Because I'm a night owl, I prefer to do my walking at night, and because it's January, several nights I've been out walking have been pretty foggy.  I've always really enjoyed walking in the fog.  As cheesy as it sounds, fog was always slightly reminiscent of a hug to me, enveloping me close and tucking in around me. There is something peacefully solitary and reflective about the mists surrounding you and blanketing the world around you in a cotton candy haze. I remember being a kid on the playground at school when it was densely foggy out and thinking everything is fuzzy and magical right here in front of me, but two feet out I have no idea what lies beyond.  Out there, it didn't feel frightening or threatening--just unknown, and full of possibility.  It's like that in life too, really.  We know our lives and we see the lives we're living and the immediate path we're on, but we really just don't know as we move through the fog what we're going run into that we just can't see right now.  There are people and opportunities and experiences out there that we have no idea are out there yet, but there they are, just ahead, just out of sight, just beyond the magical haze.  The closer we get, they come into view and become part the space we inhabit.  Just keep walking.

And They Wonder Why We're Still Having Problems

 January 12, 2022

Yesterday we got an email from our principal, reminding us in stern language that it is incumbent upon us to be diligent about enforcing mask-wearing for the students.  Parents had complained, he said, and students were feeling uncomfortable about how many teachers weren't following the required mandate.  I agree, frankly, that the mandate should be uniformly enforced. However, just last week we sat in a faculty meeting where several staff members remained unmasked or improperly masked for the duration of the meeting, despite a blanket reminder by both the principal and the deputy principal.  Those not in compliance were never directly addresssed.

I get it; enforcing the mandate can be uncomfortable.  It's uncomfortable for us in the classroom or in the hallways to speak directly to a student who isn't wearing his or her mask appropriately, but we are required to do so, just as we are required to enforce the dress code withinn our classrooms--also not a comfortable topic (and often far more distracting to the curriculum than the actual infraction), but one we are required to address.  So why does this not happen when our supervisors see our staff blatently disregarding the mandate?

Tonight our district held its board meeting.  And guess what?  Although there is a government mandate in place that masks shall be worn indoors at all times if there are other people present (in effect as of now until February 15), there were several in attendance who did not wear a mask.  No one addressed those individuals, nor were they turned away.  One of our deputy superindendents, when asked, merely said there wasn't enough time to check everyone, so they assumed anyone who was unmasked had a medical waiver.  Did our principal assume anyone unmasked in our faculty meeting had a medical waiver because it takes too much time from the task at hand to check?  What if I said in my own classroom that I didn't have time to check, since it would take time away from the curriculum?

No, I can't do that.  Nor would I, since that is one of the protocols in place that is designed to help stop the spread of this particularly transmissible virus.  And yet if the other adults in the rooms are 'too busy to check' and pass off the obligation of practicing the same diligence that is expected of me in my classroom, is it any wonder not all of the kids are taking it seriously?  Our kids are smart.  Our kids are watching.  They look to all of us to be role models.  It's time all of us are.

If This is the First Dozen Days, What's Next?

 January 11, 2022

Even before we hit 2022, we lost the great icon, Betty White.  Now, Betty White was 99 and we knew that she was going to go sometime, but it still came as a shock.  Then seemingly just after the ball dropped to herald in the new year, we lost Sidney Poitier and Bob Saget? Not cool, 2022, not cool.  You don't think we've already suffered enough at the hands of '20 and '21? I already don't like the direction you're heading....

So Many Shades

 January 10, 2022

When we were very young, and our parents or teachers wanted us to learn our colors, they knew better than to try to teach every shade.  It's too overwhelming.  When we learn the color blue, for example, we learn the blue that is in the 8-count box of crayons.  Simple.  Easily identifiable.  Then we start to branch out to the vast array of shades of blue, slowly over time.  Yes, that's blue too--light blue, denim blue, sky blue, midnight blue, etc.  We also gradually learn that there are more meanings for the word blue besides that which describes a hue: blues music, feeling depressed.  There is so much more depth and shade in a single word than we could ever imagine when we were children.

Relationships are like that too, at a young age.  Children relate to each other at the most basic level, and that's all they need.  "You like playing on the swings too?  We are now best friends!"  As we grow up we realize that there's a lot more to it, but that too comes about gradually.  As we start learning about our own likes and dislikes, hobbies and interests, communication styles, and habits, we start connecting with new friends based on those things, and we grow away from others who might have loved to swing on the swing with us in kindergarten but had traveled down different paths in their exploration of the world.  We find ourselves having formed connections and circles that cater to what we already know about ourselves and those with whom we surround ourselves.  It's gradual, but as grown ups we often find ourselves with a set group of relationships we've grown into comfortably.  These are our safe people, our beloved people.  These are the ones who have learned all those quirks and idiosyncrasies, all those qualities both endearing and occasionally annoying, and have decided in their heads and their hearts that in the balance your endearing qualities prevail and they have decided--you have collectively decided--that you belong in each others' lives. These are your people.

But of course we know that in this world, sometimes catastrophic events can occur that rip at the fabric of a closely developed relationship.  You lose a spouse or are betrayed by a dear friend.  It can be something that irrevocably changes our circumstances and we have to start out anew.  Now, however, we are acutely aware of time in a way in which we aren't as kids.  Nothing is as simple as "We both like Rom-Coms", so obviously we are meant to be in a relationship.  We know that there are so many shades, so many nuances that make two people's complex and layered lives interlock.  There is a lot to unfold, but because we feel time nipping at our heels, we feel like we have to learn everything in a crash course, learning the details of those shades at warp speed:  Are you a morning person or a night person? Do you like cats or dogs? Are you allergic to pets? To nuts? To cheese? (Being allergic to cheese would be tough, man.) Do you like the beach? Have you traveled? Are you a football-and-beer kind of person, or a wine-tasting-and-sunset-cruise kind of person? Or are you both? Are you someone who never lets the gas tank go below half, or are the type who likes to live on the edge and push it a day or two after the 'needs fuel' light comes on? Do you like to hold hands and hug, or do you not need to be velcroed to one another in order to feel connected? Are you a parent? What kind of parent are you? What's your stance on global warming? Vaccines? Immigration reform? Does pineapple belong on a pizza? What's your love language? Do you communicate using complete sentences? Can you actually spell the words in those complete sentences? How often do you laugh? Who do you talk to when you cry? How do you handle anger? Do you consider yourself an optimist, a pessimist, or a realist?  How do you feel about spirituality? Are you a kind person?  No, really--are you a KIND person?

There's a lot.  And playing the lightening round at this stage of life can feel a little daunting.  We've all developed so many shades of blue that finding someone whose shades are mostly complementary can feel impossible.  At the end of the day, though, we keep looking, because we are all hoping to find one whose shades blend so seamlessly with ours that it paints a beautiful and lasting relationship.