What Would Jeeves Do?

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Keely

10th graders gave me ten good reasons we should go outside today.

We could get bedsores from sitting all day!
We need to get tan! (why do I care?) because you want us to have self confidence and feel beautiful!
We get vitamins from the sun!
Childhood obesity is a major problem, Ms, O.
God made this beautiful day (it’s actually cold and icky out, but whatever) for us to enjoy.

I forget their other reasons. They had just finished the End of Course Biology exam, so I said yes. While we were outside, I watched as they rolled a tractor tire around the schoolyard (yeah, we have those in our schoolyard). Eventually, they put one kid inside and boosted another on top and rolled it around while the kid inside clung to the edges and the kid on top walked as it rolled. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to make them stop, but it didn’t (Bad Supervisor!). It was pretty impressive and pretty country.

During lunch, I heard the following kid joke

A: “Tell the one about the bison!”
W: “What did the buffalo say to his son when he left for college?”
Ms O: …
W: “Bison. Oh dang it A, you spoiled it!”

During 6th, a mystery that had been plaguing me all day resolved itself. I had arrived at school to find my normally grubby classroom spotless. Who or what could have wrought this miracle? C came in after lunch and immediately asked where I wanted to keep a stack of old binders. When I asked why he cared, he explained that he’d “tried to tidy up” for me while I was out yesterday and thought he’d “better finish the job.”
Since a girl who’s recovering from surgery has been spending 6th with us, C and I wound up helping her with her sonnet instead of tidying, but it was a really thoughtful gesture, and I think I’ll make him a thank you card. He’s really enthusiastic about the poetry unit they’re doing in 9th grade English. Maybe I’ll ask him if he’d let me post one of his poems.

I’m reviewing point-slope form through piecewise functions right now in Algebra 1 and it is AGONY. They look at me all wide-eyed like they’ve never been through anything so excruciating before. WE SPENT TWO WEEKS ON IT THIS FALL. I need to kick it into high gear to get them ready for the test, and I thought this week of applying a variety of skills to piecewise functions would do the job, but it seems to be doing more harm than good. I’m so frustrated and angry with my students, and that’s terrible for morale. So many of them come to me for extra help outside of class, but can’t focus during lessons or work time. I know that this is my fault for not building their self-sufficiency, but LORD IN HEAVEN they are airheads. AIRHEADS. end rant. I will meditate upon the Jeevesiest course of action and reimagine for tomorrow. I hate review.

On a more cheerful note, this is happening 100% of the time in our yard. Rubbadubdub three pigs in a tub. They have devised the best possible fattening system: sleep in your snacks! The little hoof sticking out of the tub is my favorite part of this photo.

Acting White

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Keely

Let me preface this by making it clear that I’m white and I can’t pretend to fully understand the experiences of the young people of color that I teach. I do, however, consider it worth my time to try to understand the social dynamics that operate in my classroom and that influence my students’ goals and self-efficacy.

I teach in a predominantly white high school in rural Arkansas. Most of the public schools around my district are much less diverse and serve a majority-black population. The numerous private schools in the region are almost exclusively white. Sean teaches in a school that has never been integrated. It was a white school until integration was mandated. That event coincided with the opening of a private school less than a mile away and LHS became a black school.

I had a conversation yesterday with a couple of colleagues about the phrase “acting white” and it’s still turning around in my head. Our black students use the phrase to deride other black students (or themselves) for appearing to put effort into school and for openly seeking success. The phrase associates success, earnestness and goody-two-shoesiness with whiteness, and implies that you can’t be black and successful or black and educated. It turns my colleague’s stomach, and mine, to hear them using this phrase because it’s a slap to the face of the few black kids who don’t fit the mold of “blackness”. Our students self-segregate during their social time. White kids have cliques and they congregate during lunch and before school according to their interests. There’s someone for everyone to talk to, some support system for every kind of weird, as long as you’re white. There aren’t enough black kids to form cliques, so they all hang together. If you are black, at P-W, it is much harder to be different than if you are white.

My colleague compared it to girls in sports, saying that if you’re a girl, you have to overcome a stereotype to play sports, but if you’re a boy, you have to overcome a stereotype to not play. That takes a lot of confidence, which isn’t abundant in teenagers. If you are black, especially if you’re male, you have to overcome a stereotype to even try to succeed in school. You have to reject your friends and your race and “act white” to gain access to the choices and privileges that we teachers work so hard to provide for our kids. One of the endless frustrations of this job is the kid who actively chooses to forego education, throwing everything you value and every bit of work you’ve done back in your face, daily. By demanding that she get an education, maybe we’re trashing her identity and throwing her values back in her face, and maybe the reaction, which seems so out of proportion, actually isn’t.

Though it makes me uncomfortable to hear my kids talk about “acting white” I want to validate them. They’re being accurate. They are describing a real phenomenon. Our society is dominated by white people who promote white values. Achieving success and being yourself requires sacrifice, and for some people it costs more than for others. For youth of color it can demand the sacrifice of a racial identity and a community. However you define success, you must recognize that it isn’t readily available to people of color, especially people of color who embrace black culture.

Because I am limited by my own experience, I’m going to compare this race issue to a gender issue again. As a woman, I’m uncomfortable traveling alone. I will never sleep on the street in Dubai, as a male friend recently recounted to me that he’d done during a long layover. It is absolutely horrible and unfair that I should be afraid to go out alone at night, but I am. I am afraid of strangers doing me physical harm, and that sucks. It’s not right, but it’s right that I should be afraid. My fear is justified. Just so, my students are justified in equating success with whiteness. It sucks. It’s unfair. It’s wrong, but it’s correct.

My colleague brought up the irony that we can’t change this injustice without more black role models, and to become a black role model, you have to act white. I’m not sure, yet, what I think of this statement.

Until yesterday, I don’t think I’d really come to grips with the personal, internal conflict that characterizes the achievement gap. Here I am at the end of my second year of teaching in a school with racial tension out the butt, and I’m just now comprehending, in a really personal way, the pressure that made J drop his Pre-AP classes, telling me he’d done it because “there’s so many white faces in there. I’m too stupid to be in that class.” When I moved here, I knew something about educational inequity, but I didn’t have any sense of the feelings that contribute to an individual’s experience of educational inequity. I do now, so I guess it’s time for some action. Ideas? How can I, in my role as math teacher of all things, empower the kids I work with every day to overcome social pressure and stereotypes?

It’s not an easy question. I’ll have to ask the kids.

Hitch

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Keely

Hitch up yer dungarees! This weekend kicked some derriere and I’ve got some thoughts I’ve been thinking on and I’m ready to spill because I think I done thunk ’em out fully.

1) Hitchin’ up the team:

Meet Jesse and Chelsea. They’re living and working on Jesse’s family’s farm in Ohio.

We played board games and had real conversations and amazing food all weekend. Every time we end a visit with them, I’m left with a hole in my heart as the car rolls down the gravel road. We always talk about ways to bring our lives closer together, and someday we will. These folks are our family.

The farm just acquired two gorgeous Haflinger draft ponies, Molly and Polly, at an auction last weekend. They’re a trained team, and are to be used, among other things, for logging and to haul wagons and farm implements. It felt so good to smell like horse again. Jesse and Chelsea taught us the basics and let us each try driving the team. The girls know their stuff and they’re eager to work. They’re really magnificent, purposeful, powerful animals. My superior position felt fragile: It was a privilege to direct their strength, but I never felt like I had any ability to command them without their consent.

We were lucky enough to be present on the farm for Open Farm Day. I hung out with Molly and Polly and got them ready for the driving demonstration, but not before checking out the chinampa and the hugelkultur. I helped Chelsea put up signs, which meant I got something of a grand tour.

It's a living fence! You can see the willows starting to leaf out. It'll provide fencing for livestock, withies for basketry, food for critters, and wildlife habitat.

It’s a living fence! You can see the willows starting to leaf out. It’ll provide fencing for livestock, withes for basketry, food for critters, and wildlife habitat.

They raise a lot of sheep, and they’re ridiculously cute when they’re small.

This eggmobile is moved from place to place to give the chickens fresh grass. As it moves, it leaves a well-fertilized swath in its wake. There are also chicken tractors for the broilers, which are moved on the daily to keep the meat birds delicious.

In addition to all the cool stuff mentioned above, the farm practices management intensive grazing with their sheep and cows, presents farm-to-table dinners, and is hosting a permaculture course. I’m selling them short by trying to list it all. They rock.

Jesse told me a great story about a hawk that used to prey on the chickens that would graze in the pasture. When they started grazing the pigs and chickens together, the hawk killed a chicken, only to have his dinner stolen by the pigs! The hawk spent the rest of the summer sitting mournfully on his perch, gazing down at the fearless fowl below, knowing they were unattainable thanks to the pigs.

The kind of farming that our friends practice is something that I aspire to emulate in every aspect of my life. They solve problems creatively and seek to build streamlined, efficient systems that are sustainable and productive. The farm is beautiful and it does important work. It allows the people who live and work there and the patrons who support the business to live ethically. It educates people about the significance of food in the economy and the environment.

On Saturday night, we had a picnic dinner and a fire in a hilltop pasture. The view was stunning, the food delicious, and the conversation candid. We are all at this amazing point in our lives where we have these enormous choices to make, and the imminent decisions can either be crushing in their significance or can make you feel free.

2) Gettin’ hitched:

A ton of our friends are getting engaged these days. Sean and I have been together for almost six years, we are the dream team, and we choose each other every day, gladly. Marriage seems like an obvious choice for us, but we’re not getting married, at least not for a while. There is no compelling reason for us to get married: We don’t believe that our lifestyle is sinful (apparently some people do?!), and, though we want to have kids someday, we don’t think marriage necessarily has to come first. There is, however, something that compels us to not get married: we can’t buy into an institution that excludes people that we love. Love and partnership aren’t limited to one man and one woman, and marriage shouldn’t be either. Until it’s an option for all of our friends, in any state, we refuse to take advantage of our privilege. For Sean and Keely, the personal is pretty much always political. That said, I’m super stoked for some beautiful weddings.

3) Bonus

highlights from my conversation about the farm photos with C:

Ms O: “they have a wire bottom on their chicken house, which is on wheels, so the chicken poop falls on the ground and fertilizes the grass, and they move it so they can fertilize all over the place”
C: “That’s awesome!”
(this is markedly more enthusiasm than I expected)

C: “Are those solar panels? Way cool.”

C: “when they were logging my woods, the tractors ripped that place up. Probably, if you were doing it with horses, you’d do way less damage. That’s what my grandpa did. He had mules and stuff when he first got here. That seems like a pretty good way of doing things.”

Farm Chores Friday

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Keely

High five! You made it to Friday!

Tomorrow night is prom night (roaring 20s themed) so all of my students were wild to be in the cafeteria “helping” to set up. It didn’t help that the weather was perfect for languor at a picnic table, and all I could think about was napping in the sun. During my 8th period prep, I had several students just wander in and start chatting. Their classes were doing prom prep or their teachers had given up on accomplishing anything and let them roam free. I have a page-a-day bananagrams puzzle calendar, and A challenged me to a race to see who could finish a puzzle first. I took him up on it, since I have a considerable backlog of puzzles. I love seeing kids focused on hard problems just for fun, so A made my day. We tied. After the race, I showed him my post about Freckles and the chicks, and we talked about blogging.

“What is a blog?”
“Well, you write stuff, and other people can read it”
“Do you only see stuff that your friends post, like facebook?”
“kinda, but it’s more about writing than reading, like a cross between facebook and a journal”
“could I have a blog?”
“anybody can have one. It’s easy.”
“What do you write about?”
“I write about school and my garden and critters”
“You write about school?”
“You would too! You spend all your time here! You’d probably write about your horse, too, snap a picture and be like ‘check out my horse'”

Meanwhile, a couple of other kids came into my room and walked out with the pizza boxes that were sitting on my desk from the reward party earlier. They walked out again with the big stack, marched over to the gym and announced “hey y’all, we got the refreshments.” They retreated at a dead run when their deception was discovered.

A, if you’re reading this, because you totally heard me tell Erwin the name of my blog, you should totally start your own. You are an awesome guy, and I’d like to read about whatever it is that you think about life and school in Palestine, Arkansas.

When we got home, Sean and I decided to move the pigs. This involved taking down and setting up the electric fence, carrying the heavy and bulky shelter, and chasing a rolling metal water container down the driveway. When it was all ready, we had to catch the pigs. The first one, Daisy, was easy. We corned them just outside of the chicken house, and Sean was able to grab her as the other two ran away.

Daisy screamed bloody murder for what felt like hours as I tried in vain to corner one or both of the other two, who were becoming more and more agitated and wary as the screaming continued. Sean was afraid to leave Daisy in the new pasture because of Raccoon-Eyes’ escape attempt last spring. I chased the pigs around and around the chicken yard, lamenting the use of piggy calories for galloping instead of bacon. Sean finally had to trust Daisy to stay put and come help me: Levi and Sizzle refused to be cornered.

I had tried the flying tackle and the sneaky step. I had tried soothing talk and herding them into the enclosed chicken vestibule. Nothing was working. Finally, Sean thought of a hog panel, and I grabbed one of the metal gates that was left in our carport when we moved in. We were able to use that in conjunction with our cunning and speed to capture the other two. I ate some dirt.

I am not nearly as serene in this victory photo as Sean is above, but that’s because I probably ran a mile chasing those critters while he was babytalking Daisy down in the pasture. Humph! At least poor Sizzle isn’t screaming her head off in my arms.

All three pigs are now happily snurfling in a fresh green pasture, and the chickens are grateful to have their yard back. So far, they seem to be doing fine with the electric fence.

We watered the garden today, and I can’t believe how big everything is already. The brassicas (left) have grown enormous almost overnight, and it won’t be long before we’re eating garlic scapes.

Check it out! Strawberry shortcake, here we come.

We decided to leave the chicks in the nestbox tonight to give Freckles one more day with the fourth egg. Chicks can survive a day or two without food or water on just their yolk juice, so they’ll be okay until morning. We’ll move them down tomorrow to the enclosure that I devised. I’ll explain it with a photo in my next post.

Prism

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Keely

“Ms. O’Connell, at the beginning of the year, didn’t you say you were a naturalist?”
“Like, someone who studies nature?”
“No! Like, someone who doesn’t shave and stuff”
“I never said I was a naturalist, but it’s been a while since I shaved my legs, I guess.”
-Z and Ms. O in 7th period

This is my world away from the homestead. It’s always a wreck.

Yesterday C pushed his luck pretty hard with our Principal. C is going into his fifth year of high school – his fifth year of ninth grade English – for an array of reasons. One of the big ones is his temper. C is proud. His pride is pretty much all he has to be proud of, so he guards his pride with terrible care. He makes mistakes and he doesn’t have many role models who can keep their pride and still say “sorry,” so he often winds up clashing with authority. That’s kind of an understatement. C is actually the only student I have ever felt physically threatened by. I once thought “this kid is about to slug me.” He didn’t, but he had that look in his eye.

The principal asked C, repeatedly, to remove his hood, and C ignored him. The principal asked to speak to him, and C ignored him. The principal asked for an apology, and C refused. The principal gave him three days of In School Suspension (ISS). C came in from lunch fuming. He’d been given ISS for an offense that he felt was minor. He argued that no other student would have received ISS for wearing a hood. I pointed out that no other student would have escalated the situation the way that he did. He didn’t give the principal any opportunity to not punish him and still save face. We talked about that: how you have to make it easy for people to do what you want. We discussed how he doesn’t let people see the good in him. I see it, but most adults don’t and it’s easy to punish a kid who you think is a jerk. I told him to go talk to our principal like the intelligent, thoughtful, perceptive and sensitive adult that I know as C, and, after taking out some of his nervous energy on cleaning my whiteboards, he did. The principal (as a favor to me – I’m all in for this kid) put his suspension on hold. He told me that C was well-spoken and respectful when he came to argue his case. I’m proud of C. That act represents a huge growth in self-control and maturity. He needs second (thousandth) chances more than anyone I’ve ever known, because if he doesn’t grow up here, he probably won’t grow up anywhere. It’s very reasonable to suppose that he’ll wind up in prison.

A’s awesome prism quiz doodle

Our school doesn’t really focus on character development in a meaningful way. We don’t reward excellent character, and when we punish cheating or lying or violence, it’s always with the attitude that a child will learn to avoid the crime to avoid the punishment. I know that nine times out of ten, I don’t catch liars or cheaters. My classroom isn’t a police state, and I expect my students to be kind, honest and hardworking without surveillance. I try to use trust as a motivator, but I’m often disappointed. Cheating and lying have a low risk and a high reward for kids, and unless there’s something more than detention, loss of points, or a paddling hanging over their heads, they will not learn honesty. It’s easy to take your licks and move on. I learned to be honest out of fear of my parents’ and teachers’ disappointment and loss of trust. Guilt burned me up inside. I learned to be considerate by cleaning up after other people when I worked in the dining hall at Warren Wilson: When other people’s thoughtlessness impacted my life, I learned to be thoughtful to save other people discomfort or inconvenience. I can’t speak for others, but in my life, punishment was emotional and largely self-inflicted or relationships-based, and I think I have learned, as a young adult, to be honest and thoughtful to keep my pride and to maintain my relationships. How can we accomplish this in schools?

Note to self: Next Year …

Hit PEMDAS hard and early
Do an activity where you compare things’ weights: an apple is the same as an orange. Three oranges is a koala. Two snails is an orange. Two cakes make a koala. Make as many unique equations as you can.
Open response competitions all the time