Contrasts and Contradictions

This weekend, I will attend the Northern Virginia Writing Project's Language and Learning conference. The keynote speakers this year are Kylene Beers and Bob Probst, who will be discussing their new book Notice and Note. Well, in advance of the conference,  I tore through the book and found their method of helping kids read deliberately makes sense in the "why didn't think of this" sort of way that good teaching does. I immediately adopted their six literary signposts and have begun experimenting to see if they will help my students as much as I suspect. 

While that book and this week's conference more than deserves their own Slices, I won't get into it here. What's more important to me the way the signposts have begun resonating in unexpected ways. It probably shouldn't surprise me I've begun to notice these patterns not just in my reading but in life. One of the six signposts they use to help students see patterns in literature is "Contrasts and Contradictions, " and  Today, in particular, seemed to be rife with contrasts and contradictions. With apologies to Beers and Probst, I've appropriated their signpost as my title for Slice #7 so that I can talk about the most dramatic contrast of the day.

This morning, school opened two hours late. When this happens, I like to try to get to school close to the regular opening time; often this allows me to get some preparation done and to touch base with colleagues I don't have the chance to see normally for more than a hello in the halls [1]. This morning, two colleagues, one my next door neighbor and another from different department visited. In both cases, we talked about writing and rhetoric. One asked about the rhetoric and composition program that she'd heard about from my former colleague-turned-preferred-substitute-teacher, who was in for me when I went to the Monday meeting. The other proposed a new student and faculty writing salon style meeting [2]. The end result of both conversations was a sense of belonging and of thoughtfulness. 

Soon after the second conversation, and well before school began, I sent two multi-page, double-sided print jobs and one single-sided print job to the second floor copier in preparation for 1st period. As I live at the end of the hall and far from any department printer, I tend to send my copying directly to the copier instead of printing, walking to the department office, picking up the print job, walking to the copier, programming the copy settings, and waiting for the copies to finish. Most of the time when I send sets of 30-60 copies that are double-sided and stapled, I leave my room and get to the copier soon after the job finishes. I simply pick up the copes and go back down the hall. 

So far, this has not been an issue. Once or twice, when someone else has been there to program jobs, I've had to wait for my print job to come up, so I assumed that the copy function takes priority. Apparently, that's not always the case. 

Unbeknownst to me, two of the building's copiers were broken and there was . Thus, the copier where I sent the print job had a line. And my printing took priority over other jobs. My colleagues couldn't figure out how to interrupt my printing jobs and do their own copying, so they watched and fumed as my copies got made.

Wholly unaware of the copier situation and chaos my use of copier as printer had caused in the more than 40 minutes before classes started, I stopped through the workroom to pick up other single-copy printing and ran into one of my fellow English teachers. She asked if I had sent a job to the copier and told me several people were ticked off that the job went through and they had to wait.

Though my friend suggested I lay low, I went to the copy room to pick up the job; when I arrived, a teacher I have never met before immediately laid into me about the printing. She didn't introduce herself. She didn't ask if there had been a mistake. She instead decided to scold me and asked me if I thought it was appropriate to make other people who had been in line wait for my jobs to finish. I pointed out that I had no idea the technology made my print jobs the priority. However, she seemed intent on making me admit that I was some sort of inconsiderate, thoughtless wretch and didn't seem satisfied that I was not going to contritely apologize for making her wait. 

The more she tried to manipulate me (or so it seemed to me at the time), the less I was willing to compromise by offering any sort of apology. After all, I didn't even know this woman, and I was not about to be treated like a 14-year-old who had spoken out of turn in one of her classes. We exchanged a few words, though I remember little of what I said as I was focused on remaining calm yet uncompromising. Then, I walked over to the administrative assistant's desk and picked up my job. It was one of the two most unprofessional interactions I've ever experienced in a workplace. Within the span of half an hour, I went from feeling like part of a community to feeling like maybe this was no longer the place for me. 

Fortunately, that moment didn't end up ruining my day, and I have not decided to change jobs, as I briefly considered immediately after the confrontation. But the left over adrenaline and defensiveness made it tough to get started for a while as I tried to shift my focus away from the feeling of being attacked. Thank goodness for the breathing room afforded by the Pledge of Allegiance and the morning announcements.

I will try not to let this interchange color the way this other teacher and I interact from here forward; now that I'm not in the heat of the moment, I'm more inclined toward compassion and understanding. Having had situations where I felt as if every second counted, I was behind, and I felt under the gun, I certainly understand how she could feel panicked about getting her work done before the bell. The change in the daily schedule and the unexpected copier obstacle likely combined  to make the routine seem even rougher than normal. I admit I've not always behaved as well as I would like; my reactions have been out of proportion to the situation at times, too. And I didn't always realize it until after I had done or said something that upon more sober reflection seemed outsized. 

For me, this contrast between my morning conversations reinforces that we all have bad days, but they are not the whole of who we are any more than our best days. I hope that I'm not judged by either my very best or my very worst days; either would be reductive of who I am as a person and as a professional. This isn't an easy job we do, and part of acknowledging that complexity means forgiving ourselves and each other as we forward. 

[1] The room where I teach is at the end of one of the hallways. I can go literally days, and probably weeks if I'm not careful, without interacting with my peers beyond brief smiles, "how are ya"s, or waves. This isolation has been exacerbated by having a different lunch schedule than the others in my department, which was admittedly self-inflicted because I wanted to have time to move the computer lab where I teach journalism during the last period of the day. While I like the quiet at the end of the hall and the time to move without the hallway crush, I do miss the brief connections afforded by shared lunches.

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[2] Again, this deserves its own Slice when this colleague and I have fleshed out the idea further. The proverbial cat should be out of the bag sometime during the month.

Unproductive

When I suspect there will be a snow day, I pack up all of the grading I have to do and bring it home with me.  If I'm home alone, I have a better chance of getting it done. Today was not one of those days.

Don't get me wrong; I do not blame Eric for this. I would just rather spend time with him than with the papers if I get an unexpected day off.

So, what did I get accomplished today? 

• I explored non-fiction works for my AP students to read over the next two weeks. I have been working with one of the fabulous librarians at school, and I tweaked the list we'd come up with months ago. I still need to finalize the list and type up the corresponding assignment, but I think that will happen tomorrow during a timed writing I give to my students.
• I helped shovel the driveway. We'd put it off, thinking that the snow would keep coming. When the snow changed to rain, we got out there before the driveway changed to ice. 
• I helped portion out pasta for lunches.
• I remembered to write this Slice of Life post.

That's about it for "productive" work. However, I also

• finished Game of Thrones season 2 with Eric;
• watched this week's The Following  and The Walking Dead on the DVR;
• slept in to get rid of a headache that woke me up in the middle of the night last night;
• had lots of cat lap time; and
• watched the local news's silly weather coverage.

And so, I will likely drag the grading back to school with me and work tomorrow...unless the school system cancels. I know it's a Faustian bargain that I will regret when I have no work day in April, but I'd take it, hoping I'd be productive the second time around.

My hobbies include reading, playing board games, and meteorology...

Winter in the area where I live is a mixed bag. The average temperatures don't really tell the story.  In the last 30 days, we had highs ranging from 33-60 degrees. We can have rain, ice, or snow as the precipitation from any given system, and sometimes a mix of all three.

To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to the winter weather before I started teaching in 2005. Bad weather meant I had to use my vacation time. Bad weather was not something to be celebrated.

But now, like many of my colleagues, I become an amateur meteorologist when the seasons change. At school, days off and delays happen with the ice and snow. For years, my department ran an informal snowday pool to guess which would be the first cancellation due to snow. But for the past two years, we've had very little of snow or ice, and that pool has fallen by the wayside.

Still, we perceptually look to the skies and the internet, especially during the drag of February and March when the honeymoon has ended and before the crush of testing and end of the year activities has us spinning through never-ending "to do " lists. Social media has become the outlet for our weather obsession.

In the past four days, it;'s become increasingly likely there will finally be a measurable snowfall in the area. In response to this developing story, I've watched my timelines fill with  snow talk like this:

• More than one teacher has shared this image: 

• The BSB weather team (BSB are the initials of three teachers who try to predict delays and cancellations, often comically incorrectly) has made its pronouncements. 
• Several people, myself included, have talked about the Capital Weather Gang's latest predictions and models.
• One teacher claims a student send her photos of ice cubes in the toilet in an attempt to get extra credit for causing the snow day. 
• Teachers have started talking about their to do lists and/or their plans to avoid working and use the day as a rest.
• So far, the funniest has been a rumor that Jim Cantore had arrived in Washington, D.C.[1] on Tuesday, a sure harbinger of weather doom.

Most of this is harmless fun and wishful thinking. We all want a day to catch up and breathe. We probably will get it, too.

But, we could also get Thursday, which will be a Faustian bargain. See, these days aren't all free. The school system where I work schedules three days without make-ups iinto the instructional plan. After that  we start losing federal holidays and teacher work days. Eventually, the system will tack dyas on to the end of the year and lengthen the school dya to meet the state-mandated requirements.

Still, as I gaze upon the piles of student writing to be graded and look forward to a week and a half of schedule interruptions due to state-mandated writing tests, I cannot help hoping to have at least one day of space before the next "to do" list starts again.

[1] @JimCantore's Twitter feed had an Instagram picture of the Charleston, SC Food and Wine Festival on Sunday. He retweeted a picture of himself and several friends outside of a Charleston restaurant on Monday night. So, I don't know if he was in DC.  But, he also tweeted "I feel a trip to #DC in my future: http://wxcaster.com/gis-gfs-snow-overlays.php3?STATIONID=LWX … #vawx#mdwx #wvwx" on March 3.

Pushing the boundaries

Today, I participated in an accreditation meeting at my local university. The English department has been working towards starting a PhD in Composition and Rhetoric, an area of study I pursued as a masters candidate in the mid-1990s. This new program has been in the works for years; I first heard about it when I attended the Northern Virginia Writing Project's Summer Institute in 2010. Since then, the proposal has developed and gone through a variety of approvals. If all goes well and the accreditation team gives the final thumbs up, the program will kick off this fall. The idea of a PhD program that focuses on this area excites me.

When I went to the University of Wyoming in 1995, I wanted to study composition and rhetoric. The Wyoming department was small, but there was a newly-minted PhD there who I liked and Comp/Rhet was an approved concentration area. Plus, they offered me the chance to teach for the very first time through a teaching assistantship. I had the vague idea I wanted to teach, so I pushed my own boundaries, moved from Chicago to Laramie, and gave it a shot. It didn't really bother me being the only person in my cohort not in the literature concentration. Little did I know, I'd also soon be creating my own program.

The semester after I arrived, the only rhet/comp professor announced she would leave after my first year. I had completed only a single course--the same teaching pedagogy course all my peers completed. She arranged to supervise an independent study for my second course. As the department's linguistics professor had taken a two-year leave of absence to serve as a visiting professor abroad and to pursue her research, my third would be an ESOL course taught by the department chair, who would also become my thesis committee supervisor. My research methods would be a qualitative studies course taught by the Education department. I was probably the strangest English graduate student Wyoming had seen in a very long time.

Don't get me wrong, though; it was a fantastic experience. I'm forever grateful to Janet Constantinides for helping me create a qualitative study of composition classes. Having the department chair as my committee chair allowed me to study two composition classes taught by the same instructor, something that probably required a little massaging of the teaching schedule. I didn't break any ground in educational research, but I learned what to do and not to do.

Also, I don't blame the professor for leaving. Laramie was a culture shock for her and she can't have had it easy being a pioneer comp/rhet professor (I believe she was the first full-time hire) in a department full of literature scholars. Since her research interests centered on studying the effects of technology on composition and rhetoric, Wyoming wasn't a good professional fit for her as a long-term placement. She has since become a researcher in human design engineering. Occasionally  I Google her and I'm pleased to see she's still on the cutting edge of the field.

Still, I'm not really a comp/rhet specialist, as I thought I would be. The self-directed nature of my studies has some significant holes. That was made abundantly clear to me as I sat in a brief meeting with other prospective PhD candidates, most of whom are recent graduates and/or adjuncts teaching at the university, with two well-respected comp/rhet professors, neither of whom I'd ever heard of or read her work. As I listened to one candidate and one professor/accreditation team member talking about the importance of multilingual composition studies and another pair talk about the value of linguistics combined with composition studies, I really had little idea what they were talking about. At that point, I knew I'd been out of academia a long time indeed, and I had not any real clue about the breadth of my field. Certainly, re-engaging in serious academic study would be a stretch for me, as it was when I started my masters program about 18 years ago.

And, I'm at a point in my life where taking three years off to work for a $12,000 stipend as I pursue full time studies would not be easy. In fact, it would require more sacrifice from my spouse than I'm willing to ask. There are some boundaries I will not push.

The next two months could rearrange my life in some significant ways.

Connection vs. proximity

Last night, I attended a small dinner party, hosted by a colleague and friend from school. She and her new significant other (do we still call them boyfriends and girlfriends when we're decades older than our students?) made a wonderful dinner for three current and former teachers from our school and their spouses. While the four teachers did inevitably engage in teacher talk, we also opened up the conversation to books and televisions shows, famous people we'd met in our lifetimes, and other topics that the non-teachers could have more to discuss. If you know teachers, you know how much we love to talk shop, so I counted the night as a win for our partners, who were no longer relegated to the sidelines of the discussion. Before I knew it, three hours had passed, and the party started to break up.

This was the second weekend in a row I've been at a friend's for food and conversation. Last weekend, two of our friends hosted their annual Chili Cookoff. This year was smaller than usual, with only 4 chilis in the competition and 15 or so people stopping by. As I moved from room to room, I had the chance to talk to most of those there, some I hadn't seen in several months. Conversations ranged from work to books to politics.  Stories about practical jokes two friends played on one another at work, the various aspects of police work (two of our friends work for different law enforcement agencies--lots of stories there), dumb things we'd said or done under the influence of general anesthetic had us laughing. Discussions about books made some of us write down new titles. The night passed quickly and enjoyably; we left after 10, full of chili and happy to have reconnected with friends we've known for years.

Looking back on both nights, I realized I have distinct preferences for the number of people at these types of events and my preferences have not truly changed much over the years.

First, I have to admit I've never been a big party fan.

Sure, I grew up just outside of  New Orleans, so I've been to my fair share of large gatherings. I went to Mardi Gras parades in the suburbs, which are exercises in large crowd control. But even at those, I would surround myself with a small group of friends and avoid the most crowded stretches of parade routes.

In college, I never went to large house parties. Most of the nights classified as "parties" consisted of 10-115 friends in someone's dorm room talking over pizza, gathering around someone's tv, and (a little later) having drinks together at an off-campus apartment.

In my 20s, I never felt the urge to crowd into fancy New Year's Eve bashes. I can remember only one very large dance club night; most of the bars and clubs I frequented were smaller venues.

Unsurprisingly, I find that the ideal number of people for me to feel comfortable and have a good time at dinner and parties remains the same. For dinner, it's 10-12. For a "party" where I can walk about, it's fewer than 20. More and I become overwhelmed by the number of conversations and the noise of so many talking at once. I lose track of those not in my immediate proximity at a table and don't make it around to talk to enough people at a party. In larger settings, I often leave feeling like I didn't get to say more than "hello" and "goodbye," and sometimes can't even remember who was there.

As I get older, I'm not willing to content myself with half-hearted, fleeting moments in proximity. I want connections. I want to talk to people. I want to share stories of our lives. I want to lose track of time and leave more refreshed than I arrived. So, last night's 9-person dinner and the weekend before's 15-or-so person party were just about perfect.

Pattern recognition

When I teach students about literature and language, I often tell them that reading is like "Where's Waldo" with words. Literary analysis, rhetorical analysis, and image analysis consist of recognizing common patterns and noting where those patterns break down or break away from the expected.

In life as well, I notice patterns. Right now, I'm in what has become my winter pattern.

Each December, I feel the withdrawal begin. Like the landscape around me, I hunker down. I withdraw into books and responsibilities. When I'm not working or spending time with my husband, Eric, I read, drawing solace and sustenance from the words on page and eReader screen.

This withdrawal leads me away from the computer, too. As my online friends reach out for community, I slowly disappear. My interactions become fewer, with the exception of reporting basketball game information and linking to articles on social media.

In my teaching and my personal life, the end of December 's school break bring a brief Indian summer of energy. Then, I reach out to others, share what's going on, participate slightly in the online worlds I've slipped away from with the turning of the seasons.

But this thaw lasts only about a week or two into January. Between January and March, my hibernation becomes markedly intense. The demands on my time from school include grading, preparing for March test (our end of course writing exams), operating the scoreboard and clock for basketball games, and maintaining my personal life at home. I shuffle to work, stay late, feel my senses dull in the repetition.

I watch the beehives in our yard closely, looking for signs of spring while I let myself become wrapped up in the pattern of work, home, eat, sleep. This year, the bees survived the colder months. When February gave them the taste of warmth to come, the girls took full advantage. Emerging from their winter clusters, they sought and found early pollen. Two hives vigorously collected what they found on the warm days they enjoyed; the other less vigorous, but still collecting in anticipation of the onset of the nectar flow. They will need the pollen then for the hive to thrive and multiply as they work all summer to prepare for next winter.

I, too, have come to see my March as a time of collecting: memories of the students I teach now; dreams for the summer; ideas for the next year. But my emergence is slower than that of the bees. I tend to linger in the familiarity of winter patterns, to go through the motions for a while longer. The routine lulls me; I know the expectations and the routes.

That's why I decided to push myself into the Slice of Life Challenge this year--I want to emerge before Spring Break, to feel renewed and reconnect. I can feel the seasons changing, and though I want to linger in familiar patterns, I know I will feel better about my life and my work if I can break the pattern early this year.

And so, a day later than I expected, I'm writing my first Slice of Life post. Here's to 30 more.

Rigel and the lost wallet

For a year in grad school, I shared an apartment with a Dutch rabbit named Rigel. I didn't set out to have a pet rabbit, though I had wanted one. Rigel was originally my friend Kate's rabbit. The summer after my first year, I moved out for dorms and into one of the apartments in Kate's building. She left for Naval Officer Candidate School, and I took over caring for Rigel until I, too, left Wyoming.

Rigel literally had been saved from the stew pot, or so the story goes, by Kate and her former roommate a year before I ever met her. Kate and her roommate were looking for an apartment-friendly pet and called a local rabbit breeder. The breeder didn't really breed for pets, but she had a young rabbit who she was willing to let them adopt. Rigel had a genetic defect that would prevent him from being showable. It was the kind of defect only a breeder would care about: his eyes weren't a uniform color.

After Kate's roommate moved out, Kate cared for Rigel. I loved coming over to Kate's place, which was far more comfortable than my small dorm room. Rigel made it even more homey for me. Kate often let him have free reign when she was home. I could have spent hours watching Rigel wander around the apartment. He would explore, then touch base with us, often nudging us for a scratch between the ears. Rigel accepted me as part of the family, dancing around and sometimes even circling me.

Rigel was a sweet, wonderful little guy, but he also had a streak of mischief. When he wanted to play chase, or when he wanted something he knew he shouldn't have (like a paper I was working on), Rigel would try to be stealthy. Instead of approaching the thing directly, he'd wander around, making a circuitous, but inevitable path toward the object of his desire. Kate and I jokingly called it the "lost wallet" technique because it seemed like Rigel was trying to convince us he was looking for SOMETHING ELSE. But, even though he appeared to be uninterested in the paper or other bit of stuff he wanted, he'd get closer and closer. Soon, he'd snatch the desired object and tear across the living room as if his life depended on it. One of us would give chase, and the game was on. When Rigel tired of the game, he'd drop whatever it was he'd grabbed, and flop over, letting us have our possession back and getting his favorite between-the-eyes scratches.

Today, as I folded laundry, did dishes, and tried to complete other more domestic projects during break, I realized that these were my own version of the lost wallet. Often, when I have a task that troubles me like writing letters of recommendation or reflecting on what I'm reading or teaching, I will engage in completely unrelated tasks as if I didn't have looming deadlines or self-created goals. Then, suddenly, I'll start whatever I was supposed to be doing and I'll tear through it, completing it much faster than thought I would.

Sometimes, it's avoidance. But sometimes, like today when I was having trouble forming a coherent response for an online discussion of Penny Kittle's Book Love, I need to take a more roundabout path toward my destination. My thoughts still haven't quite come together. But remembering Rigel and the sheer joy of the chase when he finally got his teeth into what he wanted, I'm ok looking around for my lost wallet for a little while longer.