Accidental Devotional

I feel like I was born screaming “It’s not fair!” It is written in my DNA, can be found in the center of my bones. I am the daughter of a man who spent many years making sure those accused got the trial they are entitled to. He was simply making sure that the system worked like it was supposed to, making sure things were fair.

One of my earliest memories, the first time I can remember feeling shame, I was slung over my mother’s shoulder as she escorted me out of the J.C. Penney and into the car to calm down. I was too old at this point to be throwing a raging fit, but I simply could not contain it. Strangers stared and I yelled at them too. I wanted a dress my mother did not approve of, and her dismissal of my desires was simply not fair.

This was not the first nor last of my fits. As I grew I learned to contain my rage. My age grew and so did my perspective and I began to refine my sense of justice. What started with fury about the ways people were not fair to me has grown into an indignation against things that disenfranchise others. Inside, I am still screaming “it’s not fair.”

I have passed this rage on to my daughters. Not even two, my youngest flings herself at my feet, pounds her fists into the dust beneath her. If I dare move, if I do not hold court and hear her rage, she follows me to wherever I have wandered and starts all over again. Priscilla demands to be heard.

At the roller derby, (When your husband studies the rhetoric of gender and performance, roller derby is research.) Rilla decided that the demands that she not stick her chubby fingers in the sharp opening of my Coke can was simply not fair. She threw herself on the ground, arching her back, the rage turning her face as red as the can. You know your kid is throwing an epic fit when she is too loud for the roller derby.

I took her flailing body and pulled her into the bathroom. I deposited her safely on the floor and waited for the screaming to subside. I had already tried distracting, deterring, delighting. At this point she just wanted to scream.

An amazing thing happened on the dirty floor of the bathroom I was letting my child press her forehead against. Every single woman who walked into the bathroom affirmed my girl’s rage. Priscilla demands to be heard, so she kept moving herself so that the women entering the bathroom would have to literally step over her screaming body. They did happily, told her she would make a great roller girl, and told me I was doing a good job too, not giving into this tiny terror. Even when it isn’t fair, there are some things you just are not allowed to do.

I had this thought in the bathroom at the roller derby: wouldn’t it be great if the church were a safe place for my kid to learn how and why to rage.

Somewhere along the way I learned to silence the scream with in me, it’s not fair. I learned it was something to be ashamed of. I learned to replace it with “it’s fine, I am sure it will be fine” even when it wasn’t. I am grateful for the parents who did not allow me to scream every time I felt that something wasn’t fair. I am grateful for the lesson that not everything is worth raging against. But somewhere along the way, when I was taught to be cautious with those feelings, I heard that I shouldn’t feel them at all.

I feel like I was born screaming, “It isn’t fair!” I feel like it is written in my DNA. I am learning that sometimes now is the time and this is the place to shout those words. I am learning to not turn off those feelings, but funnel them into a stream that is pointed and powerful. This is not fair. You can find the message scrawled deep in my bones.

When I announced my arrival at the school I currently work at on Facebook, there were shouts of surprise, especially from my old co-workers. It is called surplusing, and it is a transfer you didn’t request. Populations of students shift and the low-man on the seniority totem pole gets shifted with them, even when she doesn’t want to be.

It happened once from one school to another with matching numbers of minority and poor kids. I could still claim my title as a teacher in the trenches, but it was nothing like my first school. The administration was more supportive and the magnet program offered something for some of the best kids to be drawn too. While the schools looked the same on paper, I no longer needed to drink for a week after the last day of school in order to forget enough to return the next year.

But it was my second surplus that brought raised eyebrows and internet pats on the back. I was one lucky girl and God must favor me. I was being surplused to an affluent, whiter part of town. One of my friends from my first school left this on the announcement: It is as though you got a call that said, “You are no longer needed on the front lines in Afghanistan. Please report to rum tasting duty in the Caribbean.” Two school years later, I would say that about sums it up.

I’m supposed to be writing the hard thing. I signed up for Elora Ramirez’s story sessions, and this week we are writing the hard things. So, of course, I’ve been busy. Busy writing even, just not the hard thing.

I’m writing a book about inner-city teaching. It is my hard thing. I sit in a suburban school where the worst thing that has happened is a student has raised his voice, and write about the day a student threw me up against a wall. The emergency button was broken, the kid was never even suspended. It was the end of the year and even the administration was too tired to do anything. His mother was insisting I provoked him.

I’m sitting next to a printer that always works, with a copier machine right down the hall. Both of these things have never run out of paper, and I am writing about October of my first year of teaching. We got an email that said there would be no more paper, and a follow-up email quoting prices of cases of it at various office stores. It took me two years at my current school to learn I did not have to hoard offices supplies. Here, the things you need are always available.

It is hard because it would be easier to forget. It would be easier to wave around the scores I just received and tout it as proof that I am a good teacher. And I am a good teacher.  It is the end of the year and I am tired, and I need to be told that I have done a good job, that I have served my students well. But those scores don’t prove that, and if I pretended they did I would be lying to myself and denying the truth of the work that my colleagues at different schools with lower scores have done.

Survivors guilt. I have heard people who come home from war often feel guilty that they were not the ones to perish on the front lines. They are grateful that they made it out alive, but they wonder if there wasn’t more they could do. People thank them for their service and they smile and nod, and keep to themselves how much more others have sacrificed, are sacrificing.

I still wonder if there was more I could do. I still sometimes search for my students on Facebook. There is one I can’t find. I have a story of hers that burned its way into my heart and I type her name in and pray that she made it out somehow. I’ve never been able to find her. Does that mean she is dead? I learned the hard way that victims of stray bullets in that kind of neighborhood don’t make the news.

I try to write this hard thing and am shocked by how angry it burns. I can feel my face set and my fingers press hard against these keys. IT IS NOT FAIR! I want to scream. I want to throw my body on the ground and pound my fists into the pavement and throw a fit so public that someone will pay attention this time. I know that in order to get someone to listen I will have to stand tall and speak evenly. I will have to lay my arguments out thoughtfully and carefully. But even and measured are not the way these words come from my belly to my throat. They come out jagged and angry. They come out screaming and raw. THIS IS NOT FAIR.

This hard thing that I am writing, I am trying to explain just what isn’t fair. I am trying to explain how people who want desperately to make a difference can’t. Not really, not in the ways they have been told they can. I am trying to combat the teacher memoirs people keep recommending I read. The ones where the kids are saved and the teacher sacrifices everything but still finds happiness. It is a gross misrepresentations of the good a teacher can do. I have worked at schools where everything is sacrificed, where every year a teacher ends up in a mental institution because they were willing to sacrifice it all. I know this sounds like an exaggeration; I promise you it isn’t. 

It is the lie that won’t die. It is the lie that well-intentioned people believe. It is the lie that laws about my future pay are being built on and I am trying to write the antidote. It is my hard thing.

It is my hard thing because it is the lie that part of me still believes. I am writing an antidote to a lie that still has a place in my heart. I still believe I failed my students. I still believe that if I had just been able to do more, to give more, to stay later and come earlier that I would have been able to save my kids. In the midst of writing about an impossible system, in the center of explaining just what the storm of a forgotten school can feel like, I still hear the lie that I am trying to combat.

Maybe everything you are writing is true, the lie whispers, but if you were just a little bit better, you could have been enough for your kids. If you were tougher, if you were smarter, if you worked harder you could have made the difference you so desperately want to make. It is hard to admit that your best still failed.

It is my hard thing because I don’t understand why I got to leave. And I am ashamed that I feel lucky that I don’t work there anymore. I always make it a point to tell people I left that school against my will. I am too ashamed to tell them I no longer have plans to go back. 

I wonder if I am writing this book to prove to myself that it was not my fault I failed.

It is my hard thing to finally admit that the teacher I wanted to be is a myth. It is my hard thing to remember where I came from and what that feels like. My friends are still on the front lines, and I am in the Caribbean enjoying the sunshine.

This is the second of four posts for Live 58. They are doing some amazing things, and I am honored to be a part of it.

I remember my first interview for teaching well. The panel of teachers and administrators asked all the questions I expected them to, and I answered in much the ways they expected me to. But then I got this question: “If you leave this school, three or four or five years from now, what legacy do you want to leave?”

Sometimes the truth pops out of your mouth before you realize it is true. “What I want kids to say about me is this: I didn’t even know I was capable of what I accomplished in Ms. Norman’s class.”

What does this interview have to do with the Israelites? Go here for the second part of my reflections on Isaiah 58.

I met Laura working one summer at Camp Ray Bird. She was smart, witty, hilarious, and huge hearted. As a social worker she uses those skills daily. I am absolutely thrilled to host her thoughts on education. After reading this, I have decided she needs her own blog.

This post is part of the series Jesus at the Blackboard. You can read the rest here.

Understanding the Educational Smorgasbord

If I had to choose a word to describe my educational experiences thus far in my life, it would most certainly have to be smorgasbord. Private preschool, public kindergarten, home schooled second through sixth grade, public school seventh through twelfth, private Christian college initially majoring in elementary education (intending on public school service), my current vocation requires my presence in a variety of private, public, charter, and Montessori schools, as well as a recent acceptance to a private school Master’s program. (Exhales)

While I do have a handful of memories from Kindergarten including my one and only treasured field day experience, most of my distinct elementary school memories come from home schooling. I remember being aware, even at six, about trips down to spend time with a teacher’s aide while my peers participated in activities about Halloween and Santa and DARE because my family didn’t believe I should celebrate or be educated about certain things. Today, I was in a classroom when a teacher deemed it appropriate to show thirty Kindergarteners a “Gangham Style” music video, the only English words they know being ‘Hey Sexy Lady.’ My skin crawled and my feelings resonated with that of my mother’s all those years ago. Innocence should be protected. From what I recall in my little six-year-old brain, my mother’s reasons made sense to me. I was sad to leave my friends, my teacher, but what did I know about it?? Even my five-year-old client today said “Ms Laura, that was a bad song.”

Since my Mother worked full time at some point during this period, every morning I was left a 3×5 index card with my assignments to be completed. I remember individual lessons with my Dad about the Presidents. I remember memorizing the state capitols while “Regis and Kathy Lee” was playing on the television. I remember dreading my math textbook. I remember struggling through work individually; it was hard and I’m sure I used some mean words with my mother at one point or another but the value of “a struggle” is something I teach on a regular basis. Even though I was very much protected from the realities of the world, I also remember the neighborhood bully who introduced me to the concept that home schooling made me inferior. And I remember worrying that I was not as intelligent as my publicly schooled peers. My parents were gracious in their response to my pleas to return to a life of public schooling, to be around peers my age and away from my siblings—a reasonable plea at 12 years of age.

Public school was more of a social challenge than anything, most likely because I returned for 7^th grade. Middle school was like an awesomely impulsive immature highly ambitious and emotional rollercoaster/whirlwind that I loved being a part of, hated to be stuck in, and was the only period of my life where I could sleep 12 hours straight on the weekend, now I’m lucky if I can sleep in past 8. And then in high school we all suddenly and collectively realized it wasn’t cool to be anything like ourselves anymore, so not as fun but probably more academically productive. Intellectually I was above my peers and I was often bored in class, even through high school. I think this is where some of my love for Montessori comes in—how much more could I have experienced if I was in a system that where it was the norm to be at a different level and was more accommodating to “work at your own pace?” Also friendlier to those whose strength is NOT verbal lecturing or sitting for long periods of time.

It was scary in high school to be exposed to things I knew I should not be. The scarier part was my parents didn’t know how to ask me about those things and I knew it. They didn’t see beyond those “teenage hormones,” not unlike many of us who I believe repress those years between 13 and 17, and I think that did me the disservice of not processing through some hard issues. Was I intellectually and emotionally capable of exposure to and discussion of those maladaptive behaviors of so many of my peers and myself? I think so! A lot of people assume that the only intervention to prevent teen criminal behavior, drug use, and pregnancy is lack of exposure/extra sheltering because of those darn hormones. I think public middle and high school was a great opportunity for me to expand my understanding of the complexity of human behavior and God’s sovereignty. It was a challenge for me to attempt to mediate spirituality with the world and who I wanted to be. I was young enough to have that neural plasticity but old enough to think abstractly. I met many peers in college who were just beginning this process due to having attended only private Christian or home schooling and thereby were exposed to a particular subset of the population.

We could site the traditional argument against children being home schooled as “How will they learn how to interact in the real world? You don’t want a kid to be sheltered from reality.” As I started college, I know I felt insecure about a potential inferiority socially due to years ago home schooling. Now, I am more inclined to say that I am an introvert, period. Also, I’m a very successful social worker that, on a daily basis, builds rapport and facilitates recovery with “the real world.” I think this is in large part due to exposure to a variety of educational settings. I reconciled to the decision that there should not be us versus them. There is only us and there’s significance just because you are a human being, my sister, and my brother. I know the home school kid, I know the public school kid, I know the public school teacher, I know the Montessori teacher, I know the private school Mom. When my caseload parents ask me “what are the good schools, Ms Laura?” I don’t have an answer because I don’t know what a good school is; it’s too vague. No school has perfect teachers and/or administrators and/or students. But every school has good teachers and/or good administrators and/or good students. I think it’s a battle of knowing what your child is being taught and what your child is thinking.

As it regards my future children, I’m not set on anything aside from wanting to be home with them until and potentially through preschool. I think an early foundation is crucial—thanks Mom! Otherwise, I think value can be found anywhere, as long as you are looking for it.

Juliet, who just finished four days of three-year-old birthday celebrations has grasped onto the concept of gifts and giving. There is nothing in our house that currently goes un-narrated and back stories behind possessions are no exception.

Recently, she has noticed my ring. Christian bought me a present in the midst of his finals week, when I was shouldering more of the load so that he could go write. It is a chunky ring with an owl on it that I was looking at a few weeks ago. Owls are becoming a thing for me. (PhD pro-tip:When things get crazy, get your wife a present.) “Oh!” Juliet says. “Daddy get that for you!” I explain to her that daddy did in fact get that for me. “He get that for you, because you like it! Because he like you!” And isn’t that the truth? He got the ring for me, because I like it, because he likes me.

Sometimes I think God works like that. Sometimes you ask God for something and out of his abundant love comes a knowing grin, He says “Why not?” You like something, and God likes you, and so He gets it for you. I love moments like that. Moments when a gift from the giver are so clear and surprising and you are delighted, and he is delighted in you and you can tell. Oh how those moments make my heart sing. I love the moments and think that I miss them some days, in my business, in my ingratitude, in my looking at what everyone else gets.

Sometimes God says yes. He does,  He says YES! You ask Him, and he says yes and it is wonderful.

And sometimes God says no. Sometimes, like my kids asking to get in a bath that is too hot, or open up the oven door when the cupcakes are baking, we ask for something that is not good for us and God says no. So many people have beautiful testimonies about God saying no, about God knowing better, about the amazing thing that was right around the bend and they just had to get through the no to get there and they promise, they PROMISE it is worth it!

I am reminded of this truth every time I sit in the backyard. The yard I did not think I needed. The house I had originally picked out for my family doesn’t have a yard. It is two blocks from the train station and it was wired for surround sound all the way through the house. It has a front porch on both stories and it was perfect. But some technical problem made it impossible for us to bid, and I was mad. I was sitting in the school library telling my friend the librarian how stupid these technical problems were while I showed her the pictures of the house we were not getting when she slowly rolled her head around to look me straight in the face. “Girl, God don’t with hold good gifts from us, if He don’t want it for you, you don’t want it.” I started telling her all the reasons I so clearly needed this particular house when she stopped me. “Abby, God does not with hold good gifts from us.” That conversation was over, and she was right.

I think about how right she was every time my kids run gleefully through the yard I didn’t need and I have a minute to breathe because….Because God does not withhold good gifts from us.

But sometimes, God says not yet. Not yet. And isn’t that the hardest? Yes and no have clear beginnings and ends. Yes you got it, no you didn’t, yes go forward, no make other plans. But not yet? What do you do with that? Can you be more specific? If not yet…then when? And what in the world do you want me to do until then? I think we are good at celebrating the yes, and the no. But I think we are bad at honoring the time and space that represents God saying “not yet.”

This weekend I had the opportunity to Skype with an internet friend, who is quickly becoming a dear friend. She is in the not yet. She has been in the not yet for years now. As other people move in and out of the yes and the no, move past their own not yet, there she is, waiting for the yet to become a now. The not yet is hard. It can be terrible and lonely and just brutal some days. I think we gloss over the not yet, because it requires less talking and more being. It makes me shut my mouth and stand up and walk over to stand next to, to walk along.

I don’t know very many people who aren’t in a not yet. A baby, a husband, a book that you feel called to write that has already been rejected twice…. We hide our not yets, tuck them away, protect them from harm, try to make sure no one pokes us in those tender spots. But I am starting to think that those not yet places need room to breathe, room to be. They need people who will not speak anything into them, but will just hold them for a while so you don’t have to. I think we can find the most community in the not yet; I think maybe in the mystery we also find holy ground.

I am delighted to be writing a series on Isaiah 58 for Live 58, an incredible organization committed to ending extreme poverty by 2035. Here is the first in that series.

I have a new favorite phrase. I learned it from my friend at work, who unlike me, is a native of the south. “Someone needs to tell her about herself.” As a high school teacher I can tell you, that no one needs to be told about themselves more than teenagers. As amazing a time as I believe the teen years have the potential to be, there is something about some youth that makes them unable to see the blinding reality of how they are part of the problem. A zero in the grade book is my fault, even though they neglected to put their name on it or turn it in in the first place. The head of the mean girl pack is the first one to cry out if a negative word is uttered against her. How could someone be so cruel? As much as I would like to paint this as a youthful folly that I have fully grown out of, sometimes I need told about myself too.

You can read the rest here.

This is a guest post in a series Jesus At the Blackboard. School decisions are high pressure, and different people are called to different things. In an effort to honor those choices and have a healthy conversation about education I have invited people to share their story here. Please welcome Melissa Thomas and check out her blog. You can find the rest of the series here.

Choosing School by Melissa Thomas

Choosing school is such a daunting task.  Who will be responsible for the education of our boys?   Where will we send them for seven hours a day where they will feel safe and loved.  These questions started when the boys were three and two and fortunately for us, there was an easy answer.  The most recommended preschool in a neighboring town.  So, for preschool, it was an easy choice.

For Kindergarten, not so much.

My husband and I come from varied educational backgrounds.   My mom was a teacher and I attended catholic School from Kindergarten through College.  When I graduated college with a B.A. in Special Education, I spent two years teaching in a Public High School, four years in a Catholic High School, one year at a Catholic elementary school, one year teaching High School age adjudicated youth at a Day Treatment Center and then half a year teaching Middle School at a Catholic School.   My husband attended public school through High School and then joined the United States Marine Corps from which he retired after twenty years.  I always felt like the boys would attend Catholic School, too but we decided to look into all of the options.  The one thing we didn’t want is for the boys to have to change schools.    Even though the task of choosing a school for the boys to attend was our decision, the research, etc mostly fell to me.  Obviously, public school was an option for us.  It made the most sense from a financial perspective.   It’s free to attend and the boys could ride the bus to school.  Other options included a Montessori School, a Charter School and Catholic School.  It’s important to note that we live in a town of about 5500 people so quite literally, every time we leave the house we have to drive at least 20 minutes to “go anywhere” except for the Dollar General and a gas station which are two miles from our home.   Even choosing to drive the boys to the public school would be at least a 15 minute drive.   In order to go to the mall or Costco we have to drive at least 30 minutes.  So, making a drive to take the boys to school wasn’t really a huge consideration.   We also lived in our town for about five years before our oldest started Kindergarten so we had “heard” from various sources the good and the bad of school choices.   Homeschooling was not even an option because although I do believe it is a great option for those parents who want to do it, it is not for us. 

Our biggest issue was finding a school that would suit both of the boys’ academic styles and personalities which are pretty much complete opposites of each other.  Our oldest son thrives on structure and is very analytical and truly sees things as either “black or white” with not much give either way.   Our youngest son, only 13 months younger than his brother, is very creative, spontaneous, dramatic and lives in a world that is “gray”.  In a perfect world, the oldest son would go to a school with a military type academic setting and the other would go to Montessori School. 

Unfortunately, sending them to two different schools was not an option.

Very early on, we eliminated the possibility of sending them to the local public school.  Upon doing some research, the end of year test scores was just not great and we had heard from others that they were not happy with the school.   (Note:  We have since heard good things about the school and know parents who are very happy with it.)

We then took the Montessori School option off the table for a variety of reasons.  The most important one being that our oldest son would just not do well there.   I felt sure that I could find a school where our youngest son would fit in well or at least have a teacher who could accommodate his learning style.

Our final two options became the Charter School which is 25 miles from our home or the closest Catholic School which was the same distance away but in another county – which meant crossing a drawbridge that spans the Cape Fear River.   The bridge that rises at random times of the day depending on river traffic (i.e. those huge shipping container ships).   Both schools are similar in that they have high structure and high academic rigor.  They require students to wear uniforms. Each has more flexibility in expelling students for repeated classroom disruptions.   Both require at least a 30 minute drive one-way to school as there are no buses for students.   The similarities didn’t really sway our decision one way or the other.  But the differences did –

The Charter School is free, the Catholic School requires monthly tuition.  (Which we could afford but not easily).  The Charter School operates on a year-round schedule while the Catholic School is traditional.  Students get in to the Charter School on a lottery system whereas the Catholic School requires only a simple application which makes getting in to the Catholic School a bit easier.  The Charter School population is larger than the Catholic School.  

After some discussion, we decided to take the chance on the lottery system for the Charter School.  If our oldest son got in, our youngest son would automatically have a spot for the following year.  The lottery entry basically consists of filling out an application.   Then someone makes a list of all the students going in to the lottery, cuts the list into strips, folds the strips and places them into a clear plastic container.   Quite literally, if the name is picked out of the container ( in front of a large crown of anxious parents), then your child has a spot.  Once all the spots are full, a waiting list is created.  At this particular school, there is a waiting list every year.  Our oldest son was the last name chosen to fill the last spot!    So, our decision was made – the boys would be attending the Charter School. 

They are now in 2^nd and 1^st grade, respectively, and we continue to be so pleased with the decision.  For us, the Charter School works for various reasons.  Both boys have had teachers that are wonderful to work with and very accommodating of their learning styles and personalities.  They wear the same thing to school every day.  They have a set of school friends and a set of home friends which has given them each different perspectives on families other than their own.  The driving is a lot ( 100 miles round trip everyday) but we have a lot of good conversations in the car.  The boys also use this time to practice reading aloud.   

The greatest result of our decision is that the boys love their school, too.  THAT is probably the most important part because it’s not fair to make them go somewhere they hate for seven hours a day.  Not when getting a good education is SO crucial to their future success.