May 2009 Archives

One of the perks of teaching is that occasionally you get presents.  Over my (yow!) eighteen years in the classroom, I've been the recipient of books, gift certificates, foodstuffs, knicknacks, and a number of neckties.  Since I have to wear a tie to work every day (though I sometimes cheat and don't wear one to Saturday morning classes), the latter is a highly useful present, and since I don't go tie-shopping for myself all that often, the ones I've received have become a significant part of my work wardrobe.

All of this is a way of prefacing the fact that I wasn't entirely shocked when I got a tie at yesterday's graduation. But it wasn't all I got.

The student who gave me the tie is not the typical Woodberry student.  If I were to engage in blatant stereotyping, I'd draw that typical Woodberry student as a WASP from a private middle school in a southern city where his wealthy Republican father works in banking, law, medicine, or management; "William Beauregard Pickett Hill IV" is the name you expect.  But of course I can quickly think of scores of boys here whose background is nothing like that.  One of them is this tie-giver--"Joe," I'll call him--who hails from up north, went to public school, and may or may not have family members who attended college, but they're definitely not WASPs. 

I taught Joe speech when he was a newcomer here, and I was worried about him.  This school's academic requirements are demanding enough, but its culture puts demands on its students that even those from the "typical" background can find restrictive, frustrating, or isolating.  We don't get dumb kids here, but just being smart isn't enough to get you through. You've got to have an unusual degree of self-motivation, focus, and persistence, and if you don't have those (or develop them soon after arriving), you won't be getting our diploma. In addition, if you become too wrapped up in negotiating the cultural issues, you can find yourself so mired in frustration that maintaining what motivation/focus/persistence you have can become almost impossible.

Joe was obviously bright, but when I first taught him, he was a long way from being able to apply his intelligence effectively. He was often angry, often for good reason, and he seemed to be struggling to find a niche for himself. Having just a wee bit of class awareness lurking in my own makeup, I always try hard to keep kids like Joe on track, offering encouragement to them and doing my best to ensure that my classroom is a place where they can feel like full members of the community. (Note: this doesn't mean I put up with crap from them or let them get away with not doing the work; it means I expect them to give me their best work and I expect their peers to treat them fairly.)  Joe didn't do a bad job for me, but at the end of the year, I wouldn't have bet on his graduating.

By his junior year, though, Joe had found a good friend (ironically enough, a classic "William Beauregard Pickett Hill IV"), a longer temper, and several areas where he could strive for excellence.  I had him in one of my English courses, and though he wasn't a world-beater, he was a solid B student who stayed on top of his assignments and never failed to smile when I made a joke in class.  (This isn't itself a guarantee of a good grade, but it does suggest that you're at least paying attention.)  When he asked me to write him a recommendation for college, I agreed without hesitation.

It's still uncertain exactly what college he'll be attending; he's hoping to get off the waiting list at one school relatively close to home, but the real issue will be financial aid.  He's gotten a good offer at another school further away, though, so he'll be okay wherever he ends up.

Yesterday, following a rather warm ceremony, the newly-graduated Joe walked up to me with a small bag brimming over with red tissue paper, shook my hand, and thanked me for teaching him and recommending him. I told him the gift was completely unnecessary, and that I was proud of how far he'd come--and of how far I expect him to go.  I wished him good luck and sent him off, and when I got home later, I looked into the bag and discovered a very nice Kenneth Cole tie--a generous gift, to be sure, especially from a family that had made considerable sacrifices just to get Joe to Woodberry, let alone get him through college.

But underneath the tie, down amongst the tissue paper's folds, there was more:  three pairs of light brown socks, their TJ Maxx price tag only incompletely peeled off the little plastic display holder.  As Kelly commented when I showed them to her, that shows me something about Joe and his family: that they weren't just offering me something ceremonial, but something real.  Something that didn't just help me look like a Woodberry professor, but that would help me get through the job of BEING a Woodberry professor.  Feet that spend many hours standing in front of a class, or wandering the halls on dorm duty, are feet that need a good pair of socks.  Or three.

So I gratefully accept this gift, and note that I'll think of Joe and his days at Woodberry as long as I'm wearing those socks, and that I'll forever associate him with the wise words of Pablo Neruda:

beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

Thanks, Joe.  A posse ad esse.


11:44 AM

This morning I had an idea about the manuscript.

No, not the children's book.  That's still on an editor's desk.

Not the maybe-it's-YA-maybe-it's-just-fantasy book.  That's still on a friend's desk awaiting review before I send it to a slush pile.

Not the nonfiction fifty-birds-in-fifty-states book, which is still a couple of dozen states and birds away from completion (namely AK, WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, NM, ND, SD, NE, KA, OK, TX, AR, MN, WI, MI, KY, TN, MS, ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, WV, and GA).

No, it's the novel. The big one, the one I finally finished a draft of about three years back and have been letting ferment ever since because I knew that this draft wasn't the final one.  It was important that I finish it--it's important to know you can finish a novel if you intend to publish one, after all--but I knew it was just a placeholder, so to speak.  The engine runs, the wheels are all attached, and you can steer it, but it's a long way from ready for the Grand Prix just yet.

And this morning, pop, up through the murk there came a yeasty bubble of thought about how I might go back and restructure it.  And here comes a three-month window of relatively free time...

I can't decide if I should be happy or very afraid.


1:54 PM

I'm trying something new with my juniors this spring: having each one read a different graphic novel (or two collections of longer series) and do a PowerPoint presentation on an aspect or aspects of it.

Whether this will work I don't know yet, but I tried to get our library to set out a reserve shelf of the most interesting comics in our collection.  While some gems were left on the shelf (Gene Yang's American Born Chinese, Howard Cruse's Stuck Rubber Baby, Kyle Baker's Why I Hate Saturn, etc.) and at least one (Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell's From Hell) never even got picked up (due to its immense size, I suspect), the guys ended up selecting what I think will be a good set of books to discuss next week:

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Death: The Time of Your Life by Neil Gaiman & Chris Bachalo and At Death's Door by Jill Thompson
Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman & Andy Kubert
Sandman (Books 1 & 2) by Neil Gaiman et al.
Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer & Rags Morales
Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller & David Mazzuchelli
The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill
Swamp Thing (Books 1 & 2) by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette & John Totleben
V for Vendetta by Moore & David Lloyd
Watchmen by Moore & Dave Gibbons
Bone (Books 1 & 2) by Jeff Smith
Fables (Books 1 & 2) by Bill Willingham et al.

I'm not surprised that the books chosen tended to be from the super-hero, science fiction, or fantasy genres, or that those featuring characters or stories that have been made into movies were generally favored (with the notable exceptions of From Hell and Persepolis).  Still, I have to feel happy that so many kids were interested in exploring the work of Alan Moore & Neil Gaiman, I'm pleased someone went for Bone, and I'm thrilled to death that a junior at an all-boys school thought Fun Home would be his best option.

I've spent a lot of time this year helping our new librarian find good graphic novels for our collection; I think all of the above were purchased on my recommendation, though in the case of Watchmen the recommendation came several years ago.  I'm sort of viewing this unit as a chance to see how the boys respond to all our hard work, as well as to expose some of them to the opportunities provided by the medium of comics.  (I've had to explain to several of them how to read a comics page, which I was prepared for, but still find a bit astonishing.)

After I get a look at their presentations next week, I'll let you know just how they responded and whether they're likely to take advantage of their opportunities.




8:00 AM

*As Andre Codrescu once observed, it's been raining since the dawn of time.  I'm not sure if he meant that it's been doing so without interruption, but that's how it's starting to feel here.  The string of rainy days is producing the kind of oppressively grey and green landscape that I thought one had to read about, probably in The Children of Green Knowe or something that takes place on a moor.  If it weren't for the quartet of azaleas exploding into bloom beside our driveway, it would be downright oppressive.

*Speaking of the quartet of azaleas, I should note that the house we now live in has a variety of features that were obviously put in by well-meaning individuals, but not necessarily individuals who thought the way Kelly and I think.  The azaleas are a case in point.  Closest to the house is the bush with white flowers. Beside it, so close that the color is the only thing suggesting it's a separate plant, is the bush with heliotrope flowers. Beyond that one, in the same configuration, is the one with magenta flowers. And last, closest to the road, is the bush with scarlet flowers.  I think the previous residents were going for a nice gradual-spectrum effect, but it comes off as less a rainbow and more a striped Merimekko print from about 1973.

*The other strange/irritating features of the house include a remarkably uneven set of stairs to the basement; they're shallow, generally speaking, with the lifters varying in height from 6.5" to over 7", while they vary in depth from 9.25" to 10", with a solid 12-incher at the very top.  Let's just say we go up and down rather carefully.  Finally, there's the placement of light switches. There isn't a single light in the house with more than one switch, and it's inevitably placed at the wrong end of the room or hallway. When I wake up in the morning, I must walk through the darkness to the other end of the hall, and then the other end of the dining room, and then the other end of the kitchen, to turn on the lights; needless to say, when I go to bed at night, I must turn off the kitchen lights, then the dining room lights, and then the hall lights, after which I can walk through the darkness to my bedroom.

*After a long period without professional theater, I got to accompany my English students to the Kennedy Center's production of Ragtime, which was a rousing experience all the way.  I'll advise you all to keep an eye out for Quentin Earl Darrington, who commanded the stage as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., with a mighty voice and palpable charisma; he was matched by Jennlee Shallow as Sarah, whose emotional voice was a perfect complement.  Manoel Felciano did a great job as Tateh, and Christiane Noll was a wonderful Mother. All in all, a highly successful production, brought off largely through a great cast and a bold bit of set design by Derek McLane: a five-level set of steel causeways was the home to most of the action. Beautifully done.

*With Maine's legislative/gubernatorial move yesterday, same-sex marriage is now legal in one-tenth of the country (and most of New England). If you'd asked me in 2005 when the U.S. would reach this point, I'd have said 2015 at the earliest. It's nice to know that, even at this late date, America retains the ability to pleasantly surprise me.

*After discovering a link to a bunch of Amazon.com's free music downloads (behold!  I reproduce it thus!), I've been happily building up a list of tunes by unfamiliar and semi-familiar artists and new tunes by familiar artists.  Among the former group, my favorites (all of which you can find on the other side of that link) are the relentlessly cheery "Sleepy Tigers" by Her Space Holiday, "Dead Sounds" by the Raveonettes, and the melodic, wistful "Don't Be Afraid of the Light That Shines Within You" by Luka Bloom (whom I know only from his competent but not stellar cover of "Earn Enough for Us" on the XTC tribute album A Testimonial Dinner).  Among the semi-familiar names were Iron & Wine, whose "Belated Promise Ring" shares the rich melodic sense and low-fi sound of their version of "Such Great Heights," but which is decidedly less mournful.  There's also "La Luz del Ritmo," a stomping good Latin/ska workout from Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.  The most familiar names included John Doe, whose "The Golden State" sounds like a happy medium between X and the Knitters, right down to the addition of a plaintive female voice; Loudon Wainwright III, who reworks his own "Motel Blues" into a slightly desperate-sounding lament, rather than the goofy come-on it used to be; and New Zealand's fourth-most-popular folk-parody duo, Flight of the Conchords, whose autobiographical rap "Hurt Feelings" is yet another hilariously bathetic look into the world of pop music.  My favorite song of the bunch, however, may be the David Byrne/Brian Eno collaboration "Strange Overtones."  It's a danceable polyrhythmic delight very much in the vein of Talking Heads' Naked or Eno's superb 1990 album with John Cale, Wrong Way Up, and I'm delighted to see both Eno and Byrne willingly exploring pop with their usual intelligence and creativity.  Check 'em all out, along with tunes by Coldplay, My Morning Jacket, Bob Mould, and Death Cab for Cutie.

*After downloading all those freebies, however, be aware that you may find yourself in the same straits I did, yearning for yet more new music.  As a result, I chose to actually break out the credit card and do some purchasing of songs new and old:
- Jonathan Coulton/ "First of May"
- Joan Baez/ "Diamonds and Rust"
- Stewart Copeland & Stan Ridgway/ "Don't Box Me In"
- Katrina & the Waves/ "Going Down to Liverpool"
- Joe Henry/ "Time Is a Lion"
- Bruce Springsteen/ "Pink Cadillac"
If you're wondering, I heard the Joe Henry tune on WNRN while driving to work the other day and was immediately intrigued; the Coulton came into my view earlier this week thanks to a link at John Scalzi's Whatever; the Baez, Springsteen, and Katrina tunes are old favorites I just never obtained; and the Copeland/Ridgway jumped back into my brain after I began a long and rather meandering search of YouTube.com that began with this rather inexplicable video by the legendary DasWaff.

*No, it's no easier to wait on the word from an editor than it used to be.

*Dixon wrapped up a triumphant performance as (deep breath) Thurston Wheelis, Elmer Watkins, Bertha Bumiller, Yippy the Rat-Terrier/Chihuahua Mix, Leonard Childers, Pearl Burras, R.R. Snavely, Reverend Spikes, Sheriff Givens, and Hank Bumiller in last week's WFS production of Greater Tuna.  It's a demanding series of roles, equalled only by the ten roles played by his castmate Dennis, and requiring a series of furious costume changes, but he emerged from the experience a more savvy and experienced actor, and one who will, I hope, go on to even greater triumphs.

*Ian, meanwhile, is wrapping up his high-school career with a bunch of AP exams (whee.) and an internship in the Shenandoah National Park.  So far he's been involved in a day-long attempt to get rid of invasive Mile-a-minute weeds and a morning session with a ranger showing the public birds of prey (in this case, a barred owl and an eastern screech owl).  His fascination with the history of the park and the mountain folk's displacement has been the main thrust behind this project, and we're hoping he continues his historical education at college next year. He's decided on Virginia Commonwealth University, in part because he thinks the urban environment will be as different from Woodberry's rural setting as possible.

*Yes, it is entirely possible that next year Kelly and I will have one kid in college and another at boarding school.  What exactly are we going to do at home?


6:10 AM