Here I am… November 3, 2006

feeling small and thinking big.

There’s been a lot going on in my life lately. So much going on, truly, that I’ve been kind of mucking my way through my days, trying to keep a smile on my face, trying to remember that every day is a moment of time that can be either gotten through or enjoyed for what if gives. Some days give crap, to be honest. But most days give, at the very least, one moment to be grateful for.
I have a class full of bilingual students (english-spanish, or should I say, spanish-english), 5th graders, and I am trying my little (hard, cold) heart out to teach them to write. Or, maybe, to give them the opportunity to write and to make that 2 hour opportunity the best goddamn 2 hour opportunity per week they’ve ever, or might ever, have. Had? How to properly write that sentence? I don’t know. I’m a writing teacher. But I’ve not got the fortitude to puzzle that sentence out right now. I trust you, dear readers, know what the hell I’m talking about.

Anyway, 23, 24, something like that, bilingual students. Two do not speak or write a word of English, but I know they’re getting some of what’s going on because they remain, after three weeks, enthusiastic and excited to be in my precious little semi-circle. They want to write, they want to learn. Right now? I’m having them write in spanish, participate in our word games and oral tellings in spanish, and the other kids translate for them and for me. I can’t even begin to take on the task of teaching them english. But I can set myself a goal to get them to the point where they can write a solid paragraph in english by the end of our 10 weeks together (with LOTS of help from their regular classroom teacher, bless her fantastic heart). Several are borderline. They can puzzle out reading aloud a story in English, but they have to be given permission to use spanish words in their writing if they don’t know the english. I don’t want the language barrier to block what they want to say. I’ll figure it all out in the end, if I have to beg my husband’s Mexican helper to help me translate their work. This is a challenge for me, because I can’t just go in and do my well-rehearsed thing with a bunch of states-born, english-speaking white kids and hope for the best, hope they’ve gotten their (or somebody else’s) money’s worth. I have to figure out ways to make what I do work for them. And every goddamn moment of it is sweetly gratifying.

Beginning next Wednesday, I will be doing this very same thing with a class of 13 special-ed kids. And this is the real special-ed. This is a class full of letter-designations. LD, ED, ADD, ADHD, ADD off meds, speech impediments (HUGE speech impediments), truly? There’s a bunch of letters assigned to these kids and I don’t know what the fuck they all mean. Two full-blown mentally retarded kids. They’re eighth-graders. I’ve not officially met them, but I’ve observed them while talking with their teacher, and I am so blown away by the opportunity I have been given to teach them, you have no idea. Their teacher ROCKS their world, and they don’t even know it. His last name’s Capone (we’re in Chicago, mind you), he’s got Soprano’s posters on the walls, he’s a big, portly Italian man with his SHIT in ORDER, and he takes no guff. He’s the man with the plan, and his plan is to teach these kids something before they leave his special room. I’m not sure I’ve got what it takes to do what he does. He has these kids every day, all day, all school-year, and when they leave him? They leave him. He has only the time he’s given to do what he can, and he loves every single one of them, that was apparent in the 45 minutes we sat in his room and talked, while he maintained control and somehow managed to continue to teach while we talked. I’m in fucking AWE of this man. I don’t know if I could handle the drain, honestly. I don’t know how I’ll handle the drain that will happen in the two hours I’ll have with these kids each week. But I take my cue from him, Mr. Capone, he of the pasta-red-wine-belly and the Soprano’s posters. Give them what you can, as much as you can, and pray for the best.

I think these kids will teach me a LOT more than I’ll end up teaching them. Bless every one of their labeled heads.

I never, in a million years, thought that this would be something I would WANT to do. If you’da told me that I’d HAVE to do this, I’da said, okay, sure, I’ll do that, if it means at the end I can make ONE MILLION DOLLARS teaching kids who were afforded a well-funded education to write better than they’ve already been taught to, so that it’s not too TAXING on my mental health, so that I can, at the end of the day, go home and write my own shit. But truthfully? I cannot fucking wait for next Wednesday.

I’ll be sure to let you know how that all flies, but I’ve got ideas coming out of my ears how to engage these kids, including giving them the chance to publish their work to the web (via a blog? Wouldn’t that be great?). I think that (and this may very well be my biggest strength, in this as well as in the rest of my life) my best bet is to be fucking honest with them. To lay it out there for them. This isn’t fair, that they’ve got these fucked-up disabilities and problems and issues and roadblocks-to-learning that “regular” kids don’t have. But that they can make the best of it. They can, at the very least, find a way to let the world know what’s in their heads every day. And maybe, they can make some kind of difference in the world. They might be able to knock somebody’s block off. They might find a way to express themselves in a way that their “regular” education doesn’t give them a chance to do.

I don’t know what will happen with this. I do know that I want to do my damnedest to give them SOMETHING. Like I said, I never in a million years, would have predicted that this would be something I wanted to do. I want to do this. Truthfully? For myself as much as for them.

I had a tutee (meaning, someone I tutored), who I couldn’t help. This broke my fucking heart. And really? That’s hard to fucking do. Most days, my heart is a million splinters puzzled together and held in place by a giant wad of duct tape. This girl managed to spread those splinters around on the ground again. Maybe I’m too easy. Maybe I’m really just a soft, unprotected wad of cotton balls. Maybe. Duct tape is fucking STRONG, people. That’s why we’re supposed to line our windows with it in case of some kind of terrorist attack. My heart is wrapped in so much fucking duct tape, it might as well be a fucking rock. But this? This was a razor blade. A super-sharp, just-sharpened razor blade. And now, I’m a bit raw. I keep telling myself not to be so damn raw, to let it roll off me like any other stupid thing. But it isn’t working.

Truthfully? I’m angry. I’m angry for many, many reasons. Some of them:

1. I’m angry that I don’t have the ability to help her. I wish I could. And this is why I chose to pursue a combined degree in Creative Writing and Teaching of Writing. Because my cold, hard, splintered, held-together-by-duct-tape heart can’t handle the once-thought-brilliant plan to be a psychologist-counselor-yadda-yadda. I can do it on an amateur basis, when I know the people I do my amateur-psychologist bit with aren’t going to go home and shower 12 times, wash their hands for 6 hours, and lay prostrate on the ground in prayer. They’ll just go out for a couple drinks. Or 10. Usually, with me.

2. I’m angry at the educational system of this country in general. I’m angry, yet heartened, by the open-admissions policy of Columbia College. I’m angry that not everybody can realize their dreams. I’m angry that I have the opportunity and intelligence and ability and talent to realize my own, but I might not, because I might have to do the laundry instead. I’m angry that I’m not, at this moment, fully grokking the lesson that was put in front of me with my interaction with this young woman.

3. I’m angry at myself for not taking advantage of the opportunities that have been laid (lain? lied? laid down?) at my feet. And there’s a lot of them. I should be grateful, and am, but there are a lot of people out there who would do anything to have what I’ve been given.

I can’t go on with all that right now.

I said I had a lot going on.  My kitchen and basement are being remodeled (yet another thing I should be, and am, incredibly grateful for), and it has thrown my regular routine into utter chaos.  Laundry?  Sure!  When I can get into the basement, and nobody is spraying trim-paint all over the fucking place, or sawing trim boards, or putting up drywall, whatever.  Washing dishes?  No problem!  Just let me get into the basement.  Cooking?  Sure!  What can I get you?  I’ll just go outside and stand in sub-30 degrees in the morning and microwave you some fucking Aunt Jemima frozen pancakes!

I am, seriously, outside every morning at 6:30, grinding coffee beans for my husband’s morning coffee.  I’m about done with this shit.  I’m out there in my jammies, some shoes, and a fucking winter coat.  This is ridiculous.  But almost over.  The granite guy is my new hero, and he’s installing early next week.  The floor guys are back on Thursday and Friday, and we’re going to be gone all weekend at a wedding, and when we return?  Counters installed, floors shiny, and then the remaining appliances get installed and we’re in fucking business.

And out of money.

I’m also teaching on Saturdays in a rather fantastic program called Teens Together that is funded, in part, by the Chicago Park District, in partnership with the Columbia College Fiction Writing Department and Music Theater Workshop (MTW), where we recruit awesome teens from all over the city to write, take part in theater games, and at the end, come up with a big-ole cohesive story from which we (they) will write a musical play, and spend next summer performing it, with help from still more teens.  It’s an awesome thing.   And on Sunday, I start a 5-week stint teaching SGI writing classes in Joliet.  I’m pretty sure that Thursday is my only day during which I have nothing to do for other people, although I guess that’ll be the day I need to spend doing laundry and taking care of other people, namely my family.  I hope my children forgive me for all of this one day.  Because right now?  I’m bordering on negligent.

Alright.  Enough of the self-serving whining crap.  How boring is this?  Blah, blah, yadda yadda! For Christ’s sake, VikiBabbles!  Make fun of somebody already!  Talk about drinking vodka!  Be funny!