And a Happy New Year

Merry Christmas, all!

Meditate On It

There aren't many things more beautiful than watching the snow fall through a classroom window. . . save, perhaps, for the sight of my students' faces as they watch.

Best Excuse for Poetry Friday

Leonard Cohen's heartbreakingly wonderful "Bird on a Wire"


Like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
Like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.
If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a baby, stillborn,
Like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.
But I swear by this song
And by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee.
I saw a young man leaning on his wooden crutch,
He called out to me, don't ask for so much.
And a young woman leaning in her darkened door,
She cried to me, hey, why not ask for more?

Oh like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.



Here's the incomparable Johnny Cash performing it. . .

In Solidarity

Workers at the Republic Windows & Doors Plant in Chicago were victorious in their occupation of the plant after being laid off without proper notice and without access to severance/vacation pay and health insurance owed to them by law. Bank of America and other institutions agreed to pay the $2 million they initially refused to give up. BoA was not required to do so but gave in due to the occupation, political pressure and media coverage.

This victory is a clear reminder of what can be done when people come together and demand equality. It's not unachievable. Causes are not lost. This article quotes the union v.p. saying, "See that sign up there? Without us, it would just say 'Republic,' because we make the windows and doors. This shows that you can fight--and that you have to fight." Powerful stuff. I would like to hear more from the workers too, not just the vp. It's important to note and not take for granted the presence of widespread media coverage of the workers' struggle and of the factors surrounding the violations of the company:

"Press coverage was affected as well. For once, the media not only highlighted the issues in a labor struggle, but also used its resources to investigate the employer. The Chicago Tribune
reported that Republic's main owner, Rich Gillman, was involved in the purchase of a nonunion window factory in Iowa to move to. Journalists also uncovered evidence that Bank of America refused repeated requests to extend more credit to Republic, despite its infusion of bailout money."

BoA gets $25 bil. Workers? Not a damn thing. Until they fought for it. And don't think for a second that BoA is just doing the right thing or being caring by any measure. They simply couldn't afford--image wise--to not give the measly (to them) $2 mil after everyone, all the way up to the O man, took the side of the workers.

Perhaps the workers of the Republic Windows & Doors plant will serve as a galvanizing example of what can be done to improve things in this country through working-class solidarity.


Let's all take a moment in our hectic lives to pause and think about the importance of this outcome and to be refreshed and encouraged in a time of desperation and darkness.




pics socialistworker.org

Random Acts of Music

Wind & Wuthering is one of my most favorite albums ever.

Oh No They Didn't

Urban Outfitters pulled the t-shirt above from stores last week. Check out this article, and this one too if you're interested. How is it that supporting an oppressed group's human rights could be even slightly offensive? And it's not a little bit ironic that they would be so bigoted and discriminatory and yet have the chutzpah to carry the following:



and this, which is offensive in its own right, perhaps:





and the kicker, a call to end oppression of another sort (the struggles of all people for rights are not equal, silly):





It's interesting to contemplate the impact of the political leanings corporate giants. Years ago, Michael Jordan quipped "Republicans buy sneakers, too" in defense of his lack of endorsement of an African American mayor's bid for a seat in the Senate. This dude Hayne, U.O. owner, is a major Republic/right-wing supporter. You know, I don't have as much of a problem with his political affiliation (though I do have a problem with it, to be fair) than I do with the fact that he was too cowardly to come out and say why he pulled the shirts. One buyer, as the first article points out, claimed that the shirt was pulled because of "bad press--"an excuse for which there is absolutely zero evidence. What a crappy excuse. My 8th graders are more persuasive. Way more.

I'm not saying everyone has to be Dov Charney--far from it, indeed, for dude and company come with their own set of issues--but at least give real reasons for your actions. He admits to using sex and sexual images as selling points and doesn't make any apologies. If your company is going to pull shirts that support same-sex marriage, why not just say it's because you don't support same-sex marriage? I'd rather buy from a company belonging to an honest if bigoted owner than one who hides behind his decisions and refuses to be accountable for them. Come to think of it, I don't want to buy from either. So I don't think I will. Not that my lack of patronage will send U.O. into a tailspin only to be saved by the socialism-is-only-for-the-rich government. Since we can't regulate ignorance and hatred, I suppose I will just have to regulate where my paycheck goes. . .

Too bad, too. Perhaps those shirts could have helped U.O. seem like less of a horrendously trendy mess.

This quote from the New York Magazine article is priceless:
"When a right-wing Republican is the one concocting your anti-Establishment image, you start to wonder if the entire hipster movement has been duped into becoming puppets of Hayne's billionaire income."

Oh Yeah, and I'm a Teacher

Thank goodness November is done. It's a month full of crazy weeks and plenty of days off, but this makes it a real planning challenge--and a challenge to keep a room full of kids' attention with a 5-day weekend staring them in the face.

I realized I haven't posted about what's happening in the classroom for quite a long time. I've been so frantically busy that processing teacher stuff here has become less appealing of late, while posting about non-teacher-related issues has been hard to resist. I'm theorizing that this has something to do with that whole process of incorporating my teacher identity into who I am. There are times when I need to talk about every little thing that happened throughout the course of a day, and other times when it's the last thing I want to discuss. And these don't match up with good and bad days as one might assume. Instead, it's more like there are days when I leave school (days! ha! funny. the sun's never still up) and I just want to leave that identity behind for a few hours and be my old self. Or my new self. Either way, what happens in the classroom sticks with me all the time. So at times talking (or posting) about it is sheer redundancy. And sometimes it's absolutely all I can manage to converse about, to the chagrin of plenty. . .

Watching my classroom communities strengthen has been miraculous. The feeling of togetherness and trust is amazing and absolutely lives up to everything I could have asked for. I was modeling the use of Nancie Atwell's Character Questionnaire the other day--we're working on creating interesting, multi-dimensional protagonists facing authentic problems for short stories--and I looked out into a sea of faces who were so genuinely engaged and invested in what I was saying to them and what I was teaching them that it just about took my breath away. I know it seems like a simplistic example of what is going right, but it was truly a moment for the books--an example of everything I've been working to develop with these kids for four months.

And with all that trust and togetherness comes a certain measure of comfort--sometimes a little too much comfort. There was a clear and evident descent into madness during last period on Thursday. This is an 88-minute block at the end of the day, with the same kids, every day. Needless to say, we have our moments. We were reviewing their word study for the week and I decided to include the Hebrew word, chutzpah, as I had used it in passing a couple times and none of them were familiar with it. Somehow, out of nowhere, it became let-me-tell-you-how-many-Hebrew-words-I-know-hour. Well, I try folks. I try so hard to keep a straight face. But kids are funny. They are hilarious, actually. And that's partly why I chose this profession. So try as I might to the contrary, I lose it from time to time. And I lost it. And when I've lost it, we've all lost it. They find one another pretty amusing, but there aren't many things they find more amusing than when you think something is hilarious enough to lose it in their presence--especially if that something is something they said or did. Perhaps their amusement is due to the fact that this is a rare occurrence. I think some people view emotional honesty with students as a weakness of some sort, perhaps a threat to their power. But I'm not in it for that. And when I need to laugh, I need to laugh. And when I need to be frustrated, I need to be frustrated. And the same goes for them. I believe it's not only honest but important to let kids in on how adults manage their emotions--this is, after all, part of what we're supposed to be teaching them. Remaining emotionally distant teaches them to do the same. If I feel genuine disappointment or unadulterated glee, why aren't they deserving enough to know it?

So that's a little snap shot into what's new with the kids and me. I know that I'm teaching Language Arts and I barely touch on instructional practices, etc.; I will try to be better at posting about this. It's just that all that stuff, the "skills and competencies," seem so secondary to the other dimensions of teaching that I like to discuss.

Oh, and out of the mouths of babes: "You were at the top of your class, Ms. [Me]? But I thought people at the top of their class became lawyers and doctors." Yeaahhhh. How's that for the social perception of teachers?