rustypants speaks

after three weeks of teaching at pine forest high school

i woke up from a nightmare last night

where i was back at my school from last year.

*whew*

one painful aspect of having been subjected to catholic school education was the weekly grade-level church service we had to go to.

my school, st. antoninus, didn’t have a lot of good choices of priests at this point in my catholic school career. the old one was father hagedorn – he was probably 107 years old, shook uncontrollably, smacked his lips a lot, and paused too long and too often. father mick was no better – he was probably 21, a little too chummy with the guys and waaay too physical with the girls – we didn’t care for him and it was obvious that he was either on the lam or made too hasty a decision to enter the priesthood.

my best friends and i did our best to keep it as low key as possible but still eke some fun out of the experience. we sit together each week against better judgement but up to this point we’ve not gotten into too much trouble.

catholic church, in and of itself, has always been a boring thing for me. too pious, too organy, too… churchy, i guess. and when we had to go with our grade each week, oh, sheer torture! what’s worse: being in CLASS or being in CHURCH – haha, it’s a hard choice!

so picture this: four 14 year old guys: ken. brian. tony. scott. it’s spring. thursday morning. eighth grade church. front row. bored. hyms. father hagedorn. jesus hanging on the cross. robes. solemnity. holy water. communion. sit. stand. kneel. stand. sit.

and when the next hymn started up, my friend tony had apparently had enough.

we’re singing this hymn and this garbled noise starts coming from my left. it sounded like… a cat stuck in a washer? no. a record being played backwards! YES! that’s it!!

i and my other friends look at tony and he has his hymnal turned UPSIDE DOWN and is singing… backwards.

i’m not sure who started laughing first, but it was SO FUNNY. oh, we tried so hard to stop, but there was no place for the laughter to go. we grabbed our faces, nudged tony, laughed and hoped no one noticed. then, since we couldn’t stop, we started singing backwards, too. and laughed even harder.

we were lucky – no one came over and smacked us or told us to stop. we managed to get ourselves together enough that we got through the service and back to class in one piece. short bursts of laughter still plagued us during the day, but we were ok.

and then. at the end of the day. the very end of the day… we came back into our homerooms and sitting on our desks? THREE DETENTIONS EACH. signed by the director of catholic education for our school. he had been sitting in one of the wings of the church, hidden, and had seen everything.

and church, my friends, was NOT where we were to be goofing off and screwing around!

was it worth it? oh, when you can still laugh almost to the point of tears 26 years later – it’s definitely worth it.

i was once shushed by the librarian at the gallaudet university library for being too loud.

when i asked if that wasn’t a bit like a blind kid getting scolded for sticking his tongue out at another blind kid, i was warned & shushed again.

dang, the library police at those libraries for the deaf are tough!

days like today and this past week

wear the hell out of me.

i get tired of playing psychologist at school.

tomorrow the FCAT begins.

and my class is gonna kick its butt!

my students are a tough bunch. passionate and vocal about everything – happiness, anger, fights, bickering, petty squabbles – they don’t hold back and this is cause for a lot of trouble at times. there are moments when i love this loud passion and many times when it makes me want to scream.

this loud passion also causes the few quiet, introspective, reserved students to get lost in the shuffle of classroom dynamics. i frequently feel frustrated because i want to give them more attention but often cannot simply because they’re not being obnoxious loud and passionate enough to be noticed.

but one girl in particular has been a real powerful influence in our grade. she’s quiet. she’s smart because she works hard and studies. she’s not real popular with the other girls because she’s not in-your-face and doesn’t look like them, but she has a lot of admirers. she was the first student in harper’s class voted as student of the month because she follows all the rules, does all her work, goes out of her way to be helpful, is quite respectful to not only students but to teachers, too.

and she’s compassionate.

early in the year as i was trying to establish my relationship with the students, she wrote me notes several times to let me know when this or that student was “doing a good job” – meaning that i should make sure i praised / reinforced them.

she has drawn me pictures just out of the blue. she’s made pipe cleaner / ribbon things and given them to me. we have swapped seashells and told stories of how we found them.

a couple months into the year, she wrote me a page long note letting me know that some of my interactions with the students were making them unhappy because they felt i was making fun of them. she folded the note into an interlocking square and colored the outside of it bright colors and gave it to me quietly at the end of the class period. honestly, i’ve not felt so chastised as at that moment.

several weeks ago she asked me what my favorite candybar was – i told her hershey’s special dark and forgot about the conversation. a week or so later, she’s brought me a mini special dark bar.

all this to explain how i continue to learn about compassion:

last week i hit the store and found bags of skittles 2 for $.95 and bought several to use for incentives. harper’s class is the noisiest and most obnoxious and in need of the most incentives, so during a 30 minute period during which students were to be working independently on computers in the lab, i made the following offer: the two students who could be the most quiet during that half hour would get a bag of skittles.

and it was amazing. the whole class. dead quiet. honest! you could have heard a pin drop. i was literally flabbergasted and at odds as to how to distribute two bags of skittles.

so i picked the two students who get into the most trouble for talking and messing around, and in front of the whole class, pointed them out, complimented them on how hard they worked and how quiet they were, gave them their skittles and was ready to proceed to the playground for a bit.

the moans and groans from those who didn’t get the skittles were predictable. what was also predictable was seeing this young lady so happy for those two students that she was literally hopping in place in line, huge smile plastered on her face, and she was clapping.

two students who almost never get praised for anything looking at skittles like they’d won the lottery. eighteen students who were mad that they didn’t get the skittles, some complaining and wanting to know how / why these two got them, it’s not fair, how did you decide, etc.

and one girl who was thrilled to not get the skittles. thrilled that two others got them. so thrilled that she couldn’t contain her happiness for them and was clapping for them.

now fifth grade is fifth grade and she realized that she was getting The Look because of her compassion and caring and clapping – obviously she stopped, but the smile never left her face. and i knew i had made the right decision about giving those skittles away.

and i am continually taught about compassion and love from sources i don’t always expect to find it.

last week, two of my frequently misbehaving students were discussing with me the discipline that occurs at home. it was a light conversation that ended like this:

student 1: have you seen how they make the kids squat against the wall and put their arms straight out when they’re in trouble, like to punish you?

me: yeah, that would stink to have happen!

student 2: my daddy makes me do that when i’m bad. he gives you a whuppin’ if you put your arms down or sit before he tells you to.

me: wow – does that happen often?

student 2 (with pride in her voice): no! i don’t never get no whuppin’ – i can squat and hold my arms out a long time! i have to do it a lot!

student 1 and i exchange a look that i wish were caught on camera.

priceless.

one thing that has pissed me off for years is having Christians tell me and other christians:

• how to vote
• what music to listen to
• what music to NOT listen to
• what products to buy
• which TV shows / movies are acceptable to watch
• what books to stay away from

over the last few years it’s gotten to the ridiculous – boycott Disney, vote for Bush, brian mclaren is satan, 24 is a tool of the devil, real-christians-would-never-listen-to ________________, Harry Potter will send your kids souls to hell, etc. etc. etc.

recently the flap has been over The Golden Compass, a book and now movie written by Phillip Pullman. Pullman has made headlines over the fact that he is an atheist, a humanist, and his heroes in the His Dark Materials trilogy literally set out to kill God.

at least a half-dozen well-meaning Christians have told me not to read this trilogy and have spouted off ill-informed rumors about the author / book / movie designed to bolster their argument and thus save one more soul from eternal damnation.

“have you read the book?” is my question. “oh, my goodness, no!” has been the consistent reply. “but i heard about it from ______________ (insert name of relative here)” or “james dobson told me not to read it! so i’m not!”

i’m at the very end of the third book and here’s my informed assessment:

• pullman is a good writer. he’s crafted a well-written set of books that hooked me early in the first book and, except for a few short spots, has kept me hooked ever since.
• pullman has written these books for children / adolescents.
• adolescents can read these books with little trouble.
• children should not read these books.
• Christians can read these books without going to Hell.
• the heroes do, in fact, set out to kill God.
• God, being dead in a work of fiction, does NOT kill him in real life.
• adolescents who have been raised in a Christian family and who understand the features of fantasy in writing (and they should – this is a benchmark in every state’s elementary school writing / reading curriculum) can read this book without losing their faith.
• pullman seems to have more of a gripe with The Church (holy, Roman, apostolic), especially The Church of history, with its manipulations, killings, suppressions, etc. than he does with God. this doesn’t change the aim of the book – it’s simply an observation.

now, why shouldn’t children read this book? it’s a bit much – the imagery, the length, the subject matter. harry potter is better suited for younger children, and even that is a bit much depending on how young we’re talking. i’d say that 11-12 year olds could read pullman’s trilogy with some difficulty and much in the way of questions and needing support in understanding the events.

do i like His Dark Materials? yep. do i fear that his killing of God will kill my faith or kill Christianity? haha – nope. as stated many times before: my God is bigger than that and the faith of His followers is not so shaky that a work of fantasy is going to tank the life-changing reality of the message of His son.

and finally: shame on you, ill-informed, fear-mongering Christians who won’t read / watch / consider something that you fear goes outside of your own worldview! you MUST engage the world around you! you MUST read non-Christian literature! you MUST watch TV shows that challenge your faith! you MUST form your OWN opinion about things and not simply follow the herd! you MUST because this is what gets Christians in trouble: parroting with no basis in fact, making you simply one more of the brainwashed millions who fulfill the stereotype of thoughtless, conformist Christian faith – something of little or no actual world-changing substance. and this, my friends, goes against what your supposed leader taught and did.

today, at the top of an “enough! go-to-the-back-of-the-room and write-out-definitions-just-so-i-can-teach the students-who-give-a-rip” assignment:

“I can’t wait to go back to Mr. Harper’s class.”

to which there was only one possible reply:

amen, sister. amen.

a couple weeks ago i received a request from one of my students to go to the office with a small group of girls who were having an ongoing issue with another small group of girls – this other group had asked (and been granted) permission to go to the office to address some of these issues.

well, when the second group got wind of this, a passionate plea to go to the office to challenge this first group arose. i was on to what was going on and refused permission to this second group for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that i had much for them to do in my class!

this, obviously, was cause for whining and under-the-breath muttering in my direction. and obviously, i was physically unable to care less.

until the following note was given to me by one of the leaders of this small group of girls:

to which i had to stop everything and explain:

Dude! I AM cool!! when God was handing out the coolness, he gave me an extra handful in exchange for taking some of my hearing. “Is that ok with you, son?” God asked. “It’s cool with me, yo!” was my reply. COOL was going to be my middle name until my mom convinced my dad that it just wasn’t appropriate. the latest edition of Webster’s includes a small picture of me with the definition of cool. why, i’m so cool that some people from florida take vacations to MY HOUSE because the temperature is a full 20 degrees lower in its vicinity.

obviously, some of this was a revelation to my students, but now that we’ve got that settled, everything’s cool.

hee hee.