pinkeyerobot

Here is a favorite photo from graduation day, last weekend. On the coaxing of Mom and me, we stopped to see the antebellum archtecture in Holly Springs. That's my nephew in the foreground. His great-grandmother is said to have babysat Elvis in Tupelo. How many of you, I ask, can claim just three degress of separation from the King?

Youth Movement

Topics of conversation at school today:

• Mr. A "lookin' clean" last night at graduation "wid dat suit on"
• Ms. H not giving Mr. A a ride home from graduation
• which teacher made Mr. G mad by giving their exams early 
• whether Mr. A will let us go to the gym today if we get our work done
• why Mr. A did not ride his bike to school today
• the fact that Mr. A was lazy
• ... too lazy to ride his bike today
• ... because he slept in
• ... because he woke up at four o'clock this morning, only to go back to sleep at six
• whether Mr. A slept with his girlfriend last night
• who copied whose answers
• who got their "little paragraphs done" for detention
• yes, Mr. A was in Peace Corps, and no, that did not involve flying airplanes
• Mr. A should write the "I-C-A" at the end of "Jess"
• referring to all students by the last three letters of their names
• Mr. A, "You play too much!"
• Mr. A will take that "big fat pen" to match his "big fat wallet"
• Twon has a two-year-old son by Mafiyania (who is in alternative school) - "You didn't know that?"
• Mr. A thinks Twon should reconsider his plans to father two more kids before he finishes school
• Mr. A's behind-the-back dribble at lunch today, the fact that he "pushed" Kiki to get the ball, etc.
• students throwing stuff at Mr. A during lunch today
• whether we really "all use math every day" as my casual Friday t-shirt proclaims
• "Warm-up #1: the answer is 4" - half the class got it right!
• Mr. A is a high school drop-out
• whether Mr. A is attending the parade this afternoon
• whether Mr. A is attending the clubs tonight
• Mandy apologizes for slamming the door in my face earlier
• Mr. A's letter to the superintendent requesting $$$ to start up the soccer program

Happy as I am not to teach Transition to Algebra next year, I am starting to realize how much I will miss them. 

Regarding the importance of reading to children from an early age (MTCer's see comments here), an idea has occurred to me from time to time for a family literacy program. The idea is to establish an evening program where poor, at-risk families are encouraged by the prospect of free food and possibly even an hourly remuneration to attend reading workshops that last an hour or so each night. The setting is comfortable, friendly, and informal, but focused on reading and literacy, without the interruptions of television, cell phones, boyfriends, etc. For the first part of each session, the children (the younger the better) are read to by master reader volunteers (who could be teachers or advanced high school or middle school students) while the adults are taught literacy skills by trained adult literacy specialists. Later, since one important aim is to get parents in the habit of reading to their children, each adult is scheduled a formal, supervised time when they will read to their children, even if they have to rehearse a familiar storybook with help from a tutor. Overall, the emphasis is on encouraging regular attendence and participation while making adults and children alike comfortable with reading as an enjoyable family tradition.

It seems like a good idea in need of funding to me. Has the Barksdale Reading Institute considered anything like this?

A crash course on Ebonics, or AAVE, should be required reading for everyone in Mississippi Teacher Corps -- not so we can understand what our students say, but why. Looking at it from a linguistic perspective is a lot more interesting and compassionate.

The killing continues in Palestine. My friend is there.

I am starting to do a fair bit of thinking and planning for next year. Now that I understand my school and the students better, it is time to rewrite my classroom rules. Originally, I began with some vague, pretty-sounding sentiments about “respect” and figured that would do. Now that I know better, it is easy to come up with six specific, pointed rules that cover at least 90% of the incidents that annoy me and generally detract from the classroom environment. Stating my rules so unambiguously should make them more enforceable. Drum roll, please!

1. If you have not done your homework, do not complain.
2. Listen and be quiet when the teacher is speaking.
3. Ask permission before leaving your seat.
4. No food, gum, or drink.
5. No insults or hit-backs. Retaliations will be punished!
6. Head up at all times.

I am especially happy about the innovation of Rule #1, as it has been such a problem in Algebra II, with my surly and lazy students complaining, “This is not Advanced Algebra!” and so on, that it deserves top-billing. I am seriously planning to give consequences for it next year. I like how it is not so authoritarian as to say, “No complaining,” but rather establishes a prerequisite effort required to make a valid complaint. The wording of Rule #6 is chosen so as to make it especially unambiguous and enforceable, rather than something subjective like “Pay attention,” or “No sleeping.” I swear, I will warn them once, and if they put their head down again, I will write them up for “failure to obey teacher” and send them out! “I’m not sleeping!” is not an excuse.

All of these photos were taken today, on my ride to Rosedale, Skene, and other locales around Bolivar County, Miss. Today's roadkill count:

• 2 armadillos
• 2 possums
• 5 baby possums
• 1 raccoon
• 1 turtle
• 1 or 2 dozen assorted mice, snakes, etc.

I [heart] Mississippi.

And now for a random opinion...

The best sports are exciting and beautiful because they involve constant action and movement. These games involve tremendous skill and athletic prowess, but never for their own sake. The essence of the game is movement, and the best players are like master artists painting their impromptu masterworks on a canvas of space and time. Passing lanes and shooting angles open and close in the blink of an eye. What was a goal one moment is good defense a fraction of a second later. My list of the four best, most exciting, most beautiful sports in the world:

1. soccer
2. ice hockey
3. basketball
4. Australian football

The most boring and overrated sports are dumb because they involve standing around most of the time. It is difficult to fathom why people get so enthusiastic about these sports. They are as exciting as watching grass grow. Come to think of it, they pretty much are watching grass grow.

1. cricket
2. golf
3. baseball
4. rugby union

Although rugby certainly involves physical exertion, unlike the others on this list, the rules of rugby union make for a slow and dull game with a lot of fishing the ball out from under piles of bodies, massive phalanxes butting heads for little reward, and punting the ball for position. It is a like a bunch of offensive lineman from American football trying to push each other around without ever getting a chance to catch their breath. Australian football is arguably just as rough-and-tumble but involves immensely more action.

My mental health has been the defining issue of my Mississippi Teacher Corps experience. I first began this effort by recapitulating my feelings about the Teacher Corps program, because the prospect of writing retrospectively about my own two years in Mississippi seemed so dauntingly difficult. Truth be told, there is so little to feel proud of. I have not been my best in any way, and I have underachieved as a teacher. I myself have not been a teacher fit for my ideal school, and at times it has rocked my self-belief to the very core.

My story has been a simple failure to thrive. At times I blame Mississippi, as a place I find so narrow and unappealing in many ways. Perhaps in a more nurturing and stimulating environment, I would have done better. Other times I dig in and refuse to grant power to this place for my troubles. There is a significant part of me that believes there is true love and acceptance to be found in and for any place, whatever its beauties and imperfections, and I also recognize that despite my love for the novelty of traveling and moving, I am in fact exceedingly slow to adapt socially and otherwise to a new environment for the long haul. It is entirely possible I would have been just as miserable in New York City for these past two years.

One belief has persisted and grown in me throughout it all: If I could only be happier, I would be a better teacher. My lasting depression and general lack of energy, my listlessness, my isolation and loneliness have affected my professional output profoundly. There was so little of me to give. The result caused me to look upon myself with contempt and dissatisfaction, only further contributing to my depression.

The original causes of my depression are both easy to identify and difficult to describe. The most obvious cause has been simple loneliness and isolation. Personal relationships have not gone so lucky as they did in Peace Corps, which has been the deciding factor why this experience has been considerably less happy than that one. But retrospection and the wisdom of a trusted friend has provided me with the lenses to see clearly how even that relationship in Peace Corps was a product of circumstance, which necessarily crumbled when the circumstances changed and we returned.

As much as anything, my isolation has been caused by my own shyness, my impossibly high standards, my lack of social initiative, and my slowness to adapt, all familiar enough to me. Still there has been a profound change going on within me for the last year or so that speaks volumes to my depression. It is humbling yet so, so true. The thing is, I spent my whole life, for as long as I can remember, cherishing a quaint, appealing notion of a soul-mate future spouse, the ideal partner who would complete me and fulfill my every remaining need. The dream comforted me through every social disappointment; I just knew there must be someone out there who would truly get me! Despite my antagonism toward religion, I am capable of tremendous faith, and perhaps what in some people would have been a heavenly bent, for me was a fervent belief in a future, earthly happiness to be found in my ideal match. But the expected time of the Second Coming came and went. There was Great Disappointment. And then, only relatively recently did I begin to look critically at the belief of my childhood. Looking at it now, it seems a bit obvious how unrealistic my dream was, not to mention the detrimental effect such high expectations had on my actual relationships, but for so long, the faith was so strong in me that I was oblivious to all sense about it. It was everything. In my hidden, subjective experience of life, nothing mattered more.

I sometimes take comfort in the proposition, recently speculated here or there, that happiness is a U-shaped graph and our middle years are usually the most unhappy, as our youthful expectations clash with adult disappointments. Certainly I consider this latest, internal change one of my most important steps to true maturity and independence. I no longer expect any other individual, real or imagined, to complete me. I now believe I can find happiness no matter what comes to pass in my personal relationships, even regardless of marriage or fatherhood. I guess I am the all-or-nothing sort of person, but what once seemed so indispensable now seems impossible to anticipate or rely upon. I am open to anything.

The point is, this change has not come to me without cost. It has been a tremendous grieving process for me to give up on my childhood dream, held dearly for longer than I can remember. While it lacks some of the sensory power of real memories, the dream lived with me longer and influenced me more than any real person, and so the process of grief has been nearly as strong as that following an actual death. I am sadder for the change, but ultimately stronger and I think better off.

A final, subtler reason is also responsible for my depression. It is less excusable, but happened in combination so as to work its insidious contribution. It was my attitude. Somewhere along the way, I surrendered my locus of control. I allowed the experience to define me, rather than the other way around. I shut down. I simply absorbed the misery, and I did not pursue the things I could have done to make myself more happy. I did not seek out anything.

I speak of the past two years in sweeping terms that do no justice to the many aspects of my experience. But this is not the time for entertaining anecdotes; I am telling the most pertinent truth. My experience has been tainted in every way by my depression, a tendency that existed in me beforehand but reached severe proportions during the past twelve months. But the experience to me is not over. I have been getting better and better. While my structured relationship with the Mississippi Teacher Corps program is about to end, my relationship with teaching in Mississippi is not. I expect to do better next year. For the first time in at least a year, I am starting to feel energy and optimism in my daily life, even at school.

Depression is like quicksand and gravity: The deeper you are down in it, the stronger its pull on you, and it tends to compound upon itself. The last few months have been a long, slow process for me to climb out of the deep hole I was in back in October and November, and I still have some ways to go before I reach ideal mental health. But I am proud of the progress I have made, as well as the way I have pulled through without bringing utter disaster upon myself or my school. I am particularly proud of the “C” I accomplished in research writing (and in the end probably deserved a better grade, despite missing every deadline but the most important one) even as I battled through one of my deepest-ever periods of depression.

I have made a lot of progress lately on the issue of adjusting my attitude and reasserting control over my experience of living in Mississippi, particularly on the corporeal level. I recently saw a physician about the shoulder that was bothering me. He prescribed a steroid, along with regular icing and exercises to calm down and rehabilitate my rotator cuff. It seems to be working. Regular use of the inversion table recently purchased, along with a more dedicated approach to daily stretching and exercises, have allowed me to take better control of my chronic back pain, despite a severe flare-up following my spring break hiking trip. I now feel optimistic that, while I have a troublesome back that will bother me for the rest of my life, I can take control of it, instead of the other way around. It just requires dedication. Also I recently discovered the wonders of the nonadictive, nonprescription sleeping pill. What a revelation! Sleeplessness has always been a problem for me, but for whatever reason I never really took it seriously enough to consider pills. Now I find them almost indispensible. Not only do they help me fall asleep, but the sleep that I do achieve is far more restful and less interupted. That discovery alone has improved my energy levels considerably.

Finally, I bought myself a new bicycle to replace the one that was vandalized so long ago and finally broke clean through the frame while I was touring in Britain last summer. I am happy with my new bike and rediscovering the joy of the open road along with the considerable mental health benefits of exercise and fresh air. It has been too long. Until last week, I had never left sight of this town under my own power!

I have an old REI water bottle that says, among other things, “Bikes are freedom.” There is a lot of truth to that. Drivers and lawn-mowers wave to me. The sun shines, and a stiff breeze blows the earthy smells of soil, rain, and pollen across the flats. Country roads appear, disappear, and reappear, turn from pavement to gravel and back again. Wildlife preserves and bayous turn up where you never expected them. Dogs bark and chase. Turtles hop into ditches, and birds sing. The black folks sitting at store fronts in Mound Bayou shout a hearty “Mornin’!” as I glide past. And all seems so much better with the world. I am making my peace with Mississippi. Slowly but surely.

It has been so hard to write anything lately. To paraphrase another Teacher Corps friend, it takes hope to write. So true. But it takes a precise, certain kind of hope, to me, like a belief in the meaning of your own words. There have been plenty of things to write, but not much belief.

My students are racist, I can say that. For some reason this fact has not bothered me much until now. For example, my colleagues can say anything they want to the students, and the students just shut up and sit down. But of course, if I say anything remotely harsh to a student, they react like they are going to get me fired or something. I am 100% sure the main difference is the color of my skin.

The other day, I offered bonus points to the first person who could name the best soccer player in the world currently, with justification. The point was to get them curious about the outside world and encourage them to research something they know nothing about. It seemed like a good idea at the time, perhaps something that could become a weekly routine. Except no one has taken me up on the offer yet. The question just provoked some ignorant talk like, “Who that Brazilian guy?” Trouble is, Ronaldinho (who I’m pretty sure they’ve only heard of because he has dark skin and kinky hair) has had some injuries lately and not played particularly well for a year or two. It is like suggesting Dwayne Wade for MVP of the NBA. And then someone asked if David Beckham is black. “He the whitest man in the world!” another classmate scoffed. These kids would not know David Beckham from the man on the moon, and all they care about is his skin color! That really irritates me. I feel like lecturing my Algebra II class about their racism, but I cannot think of a way to talk about it and be heard. Maybe I will ask them to write about it tomorrow. Perhaps something like, “You are reading a resume. Do you care what color the person’s skin is? Should you care?”

Over dinner this evening with a couple first-years on their way back from Oxford, where we each ordered huge, bloody steaks and whiskey, and where my view of whatever college basketball game happened to be showing on TV was obstructed by the three large boars’ heads mounted on the wall, the question came up as to whether we “believe in Teacher Corps.” My answer, anyway, is no. I don’t believe in Teacher Corps, not because it does no good at all, but because it is too minuscule for such an enormous problem. We have a problem with education in this country that we need to solve. Programs like Teacher Corps allow legislatures and the general public to salve their collective conscience, reassuring themselves that they are doing something about a problem which in fact requires several orders of magnitude more investment than they are willing to sacrifice. This is like that TV commercial where the engineer tries to patch a leak in a dam with a wad of gum, followed by the admonition, “Assuming you’ve done enough for retirement doesn’t make much sense either.” When public education fails, the apathy and selfish, conceited ignorance of the voting public is ultimately to blame, and no Mississippi Teacher Corps can solve the problem or absolve the responsibility.