25 April 2012
Grandma Olive
My grandmother Olive Caroline Habbart Draper passed away several years ago. Today was her birthday. I googled her name to see what I could see and came across this picture--it's from her high school graduation in 1930 in Beverly, KS. She's the 3rd from the left in the front row--how great is her Mona Lisa smile?
17 April 2012
Advice?
As a part of my job--that I love--I am on a committee that helps consider and draft curriculum changes for our district. Teachers in my discipline from both area high schools serve on this committee under a coordinator who-despite being well intentioned and a genuinely nice person--is a bit out of her element having never been a high school English teacher. This means the committee members function with an overseer of sorts, but no real person of authority guiding our meetings. To her credit, our coordinator has acknowledged she knows less than we do and is willing to learn. I applaud her for that effort.
The other people on the committee are all seasoned teachers with years in the discipline and a vested interest in the curriculum. The members from my school, including myself, are rabid readers and constantly revise what we do in our own classrooms, excited by the possibility and thrill of change in a profession that can--due to bureaucracy--often feel sadly flat and lackluster. Our colleagues from the other school, though I have never taught with them, represent themselves as more comfortable with the status quo than with any concept of change. I understand this stance, it is easy and requires far less effort and has always worked before. I do not begrudge them their position though I disagree with it. We all bring something different to the table, and that is the point of a group of people making decision vs. on person: all perspectives must be represented.
The issue of late, however, has been in the way my enthusiasm and passion for my job has been perceived. I fear my other school colleagues see me as some sort of power hungry strategist intent on pushing my own agenda to the detriment of their positions and/or feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth, and yet on four separate occasions someone from that side has chastised, corrected when no correction as needed, or verbally attacked me for what I can only describe as the way I communicate. I become impassioned. I may speak quickly and loudly, but in a room full of educated adults participating in the conversation with me, I feel this kind of reverence for what we do is warranted and certainly not something that should be condemned. But, the negativity pours out.
I do not want to change the way I work or present myself, but I do not wish to be attacked either. I believe wholeheartedly that none of these people would have made similar statements to my male counterparts from my own school which saddens me to no end, that even in a professional setting men are allowed to voice their opinions passionately and women aren't. My basis for this assumption is that I have seen my male counterparts worked up, near incensed, and no hostility has been directed their way. I, on the other hand, can't seem to attend a meeting without being attacked.
If you have advice about how to handle this situation, I would appreciate. I truly respect my colleagues and believe their opinions matter, I do not wish to upset or undermine them in any way, but I simply cannot tolerate their ill treatment any longer nor do I wish to compromise my integrity by being someone I am not. So, I guess what I'm saying is...help.
The other people on the committee are all seasoned teachers with years in the discipline and a vested interest in the curriculum. The members from my school, including myself, are rabid readers and constantly revise what we do in our own classrooms, excited by the possibility and thrill of change in a profession that can--due to bureaucracy--often feel sadly flat and lackluster. Our colleagues from the other school, though I have never taught with them, represent themselves as more comfortable with the status quo than with any concept of change. I understand this stance, it is easy and requires far less effort and has always worked before. I do not begrudge them their position though I disagree with it. We all bring something different to the table, and that is the point of a group of people making decision vs. on person: all perspectives must be represented.
The issue of late, however, has been in the way my enthusiasm and passion for my job has been perceived. I fear my other school colleagues see me as some sort of power hungry strategist intent on pushing my own agenda to the detriment of their positions and/or feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth, and yet on four separate occasions someone from that side has chastised, corrected when no correction as needed, or verbally attacked me for what I can only describe as the way I communicate. I become impassioned. I may speak quickly and loudly, but in a room full of educated adults participating in the conversation with me, I feel this kind of reverence for what we do is warranted and certainly not something that should be condemned. But, the negativity pours out.
I do not want to change the way I work or present myself, but I do not wish to be attacked either. I believe wholeheartedly that none of these people would have made similar statements to my male counterparts from my own school which saddens me to no end, that even in a professional setting men are allowed to voice their opinions passionately and women aren't. My basis for this assumption is that I have seen my male counterparts worked up, near incensed, and no hostility has been directed their way. I, on the other hand, can't seem to attend a meeting without being attacked.
If you have advice about how to handle this situation, I would appreciate. I truly respect my colleagues and believe their opinions matter, I do not wish to upset or undermine them in any way, but I simply cannot tolerate their ill treatment any longer nor do I wish to compromise my integrity by being someone I am not. So, I guess what I'm saying is...help.
14 April 2012
Nicole Krauss
If you haven't read Nicole Krauss, go learn all about her. This is from her novel, The History of Love:
“The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people’s hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely.
During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life. The labor of building a house, say, or preparing a meal was no less an expression than making the sign for I love you or I feel serious. When a hand was used to shield one’s face when frightened by a loud noise something was being said, and when fingers were used to pick up what someone else had dropped something was being said; and even when the hands were at rest, that, too, was saying something. Naturally, there were misunderstandings. There were times when a finger might have been lifted to scratch a nose, and if casual eye contact was made with one’s lover just then, the lover might accidentally take it to be the gesture, not at all dissimilar, for Now I realize I was wrong to love you. These mistakes were heartbreaking. And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen, because they didn’t go round with the illusion that they understood perfectly the things other people said, they were used to interrupting each other to ask if they’d understood correctly. Sometimes these misunderstandings were even desirable, since they gave people a reason to say, Forgive me, I was only scratching my nose. Of course I know I’ve always been right to love you. Because of the frequency of these mistakes, over time the gesture for asking forgiveness evolved into the simplest form. Just to open your palm was to say: Forgive me."
"If at large gatherings or parties, or around people with whom you feel distant, your hands sometimes hang awkwardly at the ends of your arms – if you find yourself at a loss for what to do with them, overcome with sadness that comes when you recognize the foreignness of your own body – it’s because your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body, brain and heart, what’s inside and what’s outside, was so much less. It’s not that we’ve forgotten the language of gestures entirely. The habit of moving our hands while we speak is left over from it. Clapping, pointing, giving the thumbs-up, for example, is a way to remember how it feels to say nothing together. And at night, when it’s too dark to see, we find it necessary to gesture on each other’s bodies to make ourselves understood.”
“The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people’s hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely.
During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life. The labor of building a house, say, or preparing a meal was no less an expression than making the sign for I love you or I feel serious. When a hand was used to shield one’s face when frightened by a loud noise something was being said, and when fingers were used to pick up what someone else had dropped something was being said; and even when the hands were at rest, that, too, was saying something. Naturally, there were misunderstandings. There were times when a finger might have been lifted to scratch a nose, and if casual eye contact was made with one’s lover just then, the lover might accidentally take it to be the gesture, not at all dissimilar, for Now I realize I was wrong to love you. These mistakes were heartbreaking. And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen, because they didn’t go round with the illusion that they understood perfectly the things other people said, they were used to interrupting each other to ask if they’d understood correctly. Sometimes these misunderstandings were even desirable, since they gave people a reason to say, Forgive me, I was only scratching my nose. Of course I know I’ve always been right to love you. Because of the frequency of these mistakes, over time the gesture for asking forgiveness evolved into the simplest form. Just to open your palm was to say: Forgive me."
"If at large gatherings or parties, or around people with whom you feel distant, your hands sometimes hang awkwardly at the ends of your arms – if you find yourself at a loss for what to do with them, overcome with sadness that comes when you recognize the foreignness of your own body – it’s because your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body, brain and heart, what’s inside and what’s outside, was so much less. It’s not that we’ve forgotten the language of gestures entirely. The habit of moving our hands while we speak is left over from it. Clapping, pointing, giving the thumbs-up, for example, is a way to remember how it feels to say nothing together. And at night, when it’s too dark to see, we find it necessary to gesture on each other’s bodies to make ourselves understood.”
11 April 2012
This Too Shall Pass
I didn't intend to stop blogging after last month's post, but here it's five weeks later and I finally have something to say, though it isn't much.
My house is on the market and the school year is almost over. I will spend the summer readying for the classes I'll teach in the fall, revamping lesson plans, putting together things for the new course I am picking up, and if I am lucky I will find a part time job to make some extra money as I wait for the house to sells waaaaay below what I paid for it.
Ging through this process, all these endings, is making me think more and more about my divorce and how hard it still is to be alone. I love that man, but we were not meant to be married. We have talked about it, about how strong our friendship is, how much we love one another, how this was the right decision for us both. But even now, nearly two years since it ws finalized, I find myself aching for the security of someone to rely on. We had our communication problems, big ones if the truth be told, but if I was sad or scared, he was in the house and I could ask him to listen. Now, I can call my friends, I can even call him, but I don't have someone who, no matter what time of day or where they are, they can come running to me. That may seem like a silly thing to want, childish even, but I want to give that to someone, that constant and unwavering attention, and so it is what I hope for in return.
I know every thing is going to work out. The sun will rise tomorrow morning and set tomorrow night as it has for centuries before and as it will continue to do so for centuries after. We will all move forward, and this middle time, sad and lonely as it has been, will fade and I won't even really remember how hard it was, the joyful always trumping the tragic with time.
I didn't mean for this to be a maudlin post. It's just a hard time right now, so much to do on my own. I know there are people built to be alone, who relish that independence, never needing or wanting to rely on someone else. I appreciate that in others, and I respect it. It's just not for me.
So, universe, tonight I ask for the strength to see beyond this moment, to dwell possibility, and to know this too shall pass.
My house is on the market and the school year is almost over. I will spend the summer readying for the classes I'll teach in the fall, revamping lesson plans, putting together things for the new course I am picking up, and if I am lucky I will find a part time job to make some extra money as I wait for the house to sells waaaaay below what I paid for it.
Ging through this process, all these endings, is making me think more and more about my divorce and how hard it still is to be alone. I love that man, but we were not meant to be married. We have talked about it, about how strong our friendship is, how much we love one another, how this was the right decision for us both. But even now, nearly two years since it ws finalized, I find myself aching for the security of someone to rely on. We had our communication problems, big ones if the truth be told, but if I was sad or scared, he was in the house and I could ask him to listen. Now, I can call my friends, I can even call him, but I don't have someone who, no matter what time of day or where they are, they can come running to me. That may seem like a silly thing to want, childish even, but I want to give that to someone, that constant and unwavering attention, and so it is what I hope for in return.
I know every thing is going to work out. The sun will rise tomorrow morning and set tomorrow night as it has for centuries before and as it will continue to do so for centuries after. We will all move forward, and this middle time, sad and lonely as it has been, will fade and I won't even really remember how hard it was, the joyful always trumping the tragic with time.
I didn't mean for this to be a maudlin post. It's just a hard time right now, so much to do on my own. I know there are people built to be alone, who relish that independence, never needing or wanting to rely on someone else. I appreciate that in others, and I respect it. It's just not for me.
So, universe, tonight I ask for the strength to see beyond this moment, to dwell possibility, and to know this too shall pass.
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