Adults need heroes

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . April 26, 2011 . 10:15PM

I try to be an introspective person. Generally, because of my various professions, I’m required to be more self-aware as an aspect of my job that allows me to connect with the people I talk to on another level and propel them forward in a way that helps them in life. Usually, I can do this fairly easily and yet there are still times in my life where someone reminds me, in a jaw-dropping way, that I still have a long way to go before my self-knowledge reaches that level that Maslow called self-actualization.

Over the weekend, I received an email from one of my students that made me feel both happy and sad. I’d never violate her privacy by telling you what the email said, but the gist of the email was that I’d made a decision that helped her with her faith in educators. Vague enough? Hopefully. We often do things that we never realize in a million years that other people are watching with a close eye. These aren’t the big decisions that we agonize over, either. These are small daily decisions that we either make with the bat of our eyes or that we briefly reflect upon before going on with the day and batting it away like a fly in the summer.

The decision that increased this student’s faith? It wasn’t something that I’d spent much time considering. It was an ethical decision that didn’t feel like it was a major decision at all, really, just common decency and common sense and good teaching practice. I consider myself a role model for my son. I try to model the behavior that I want these future teachers to exhibit. Beyond that, I don’t really consider my daily actions and their consequences outside of my profession as much as I probably could.

As I continued to reflect upon this email and what it said, it occurred to me that adults need someone to look up to as we go throughout our life. That need for a hero, or someone who continues to display attributes that we covet, never really goes away. We call it other things, such as mentorship, but that need for it and the approval of that person remains, especially if there wasn’t a lot of approval and support in the childhood of the person.

I don’t think that I realized that I was old enough to have this position for anyone other than my child. I haven’t decided how I feel about it yet, but I think I’m going to continue what I’m doing. It’s working for at least one of my students and I wasn’t attempting any big superhero intervention with my students in the slightest.

How are other people viewing you in the moments where you aren’t paying attention to what you are doing? Would it change how you handle yourself in those moments?

Book Review: How to Love an American Man by Kristine Gasbarre

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . April 22, 2011 . 10:19PM

Oh Dear.

Every now and then a book comes along where the premise sounds so good that you feel like you MUST read the book. In this case, the book in question was How to Love an American Man by Kristine Gasbarre and I’d requested it as my monthly book to review and eagerly waited for it in the mail. I couldn’t wait to read what I was certain was going to be an amazing story of intergenerational lessons, story-telling and romance.

I was wrong. This isn’t going to be one of those book reviews where I get a lovely note from the author expressing gratitude for my review. Unfortunately, I don’t have many kind words this go-round.

Frankly, the bottom line is that Ms. Gasbarre had an amazing story to tell, but her writing style is elementary and, at times, boring to read. With what she had to work with, this book could have been ten times what it was and I was disappointed for her. The book felt like it was written in a rush and sometimes you want food from a crockpot, not a microwave.

The storyline is that the author loses her grandfather and this starts a chain reaction of discovering who she is through her relationship with her newly widowed grandmother. Seeking advice from a grieving widow about relationships has much to offer as both people in the story were grieving and there was much information that was rich for the picking in a literary sense. At the end, however, I felt like Krissy, as a person, was immature and unlikable with the way she portrayed herself. Her inability to adequately portray emotions concerns me over her choice of profession as a writer, especially when she compares her first feelings in a relationship to that of two actors in a well known vampire movie series.

Seriously? Was that really the best reference she had for a relationship? The book has plenty of pop culture references that are geared towards 20 year olds, not 28 year old women who are in the midst of trying to find themselves. Unfortunately, for Ms. Gasbarre, 20 year olds are not going to be her target audience. They aren’t going to be interested in “How to Love an American Man.” At the age of 20, most 20-year olds think they’ve got it all figured out. It isn’t until later that we’ve realized that we have no idea.

My understanding is that Ms. Gasbarre is writing a sequel. If I didn’t need to finish the first one to write this review, I would have stopped reading it about 1/4 of the way into the book, if I’m being perfectly honest with myself and with you. I will not be reading the sequel. I will not be passing this book on to my mom or friends to read. I just don’t care how the story ends…and that makes me sad.

This book is a miss.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in order to review it on my blog. Thanks for allowing me to share my feelings, no matter how honest, with other people.

Sidenote: On every site that I posted my review, and in droves, people came in and bullied me about my negative review of this novel. This happened until I called the author out on Twitter and noted that the language in the bullying was extremely similar to the writing in her novel and just as immature. Be aware that the author’s friends/publisher’s are likely stacking the ratings on this one. I normally wouldn’t bother mentioning this stuff, but it was such shoddy practice and left me with such a bad taste in my mouth about reviewing books that I feel like I need to get it out there and just let it go. I’ve had authors be upset with what I had to say about their books. I’ve never had them send the dogs out for me. It’s not ok. Either you can deal with the criticism or you can’t.

Teachers and their role in bullying

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . April 3, 2011 . 1:18AM

As I taught my classroom full of teachers, I looked around the room and my heart grew heavy. Often, my classroom deviates from the class lesson to discuss practical application of our learned principles and today I had to discuss something that bothered me on a personal level. I was teaching my students about the development of the young minds that they would help shape and role model behavior at impressionable ages and they far outnumbered me, the new teacher of two years. Frankly, few things intimidate me, but I was going to call them out in advance on something that they needed to learn now, before they did something that could hurt someone tremendously and I wasn’t looking forward to a potential negative response. However, fear has never stopped me from saying what needed to be said, especially when I had the opportunity to use it as a teachable moment and I wiped my hands on my jeans and turned to them.

“You all want to be teachers. We’ve talked about bullying, but what you probably don’t realize is that some of the biggest offenders of bullying in schools are the staff. That’s right. I’m pointing my finger at all of you and telling you now to be careful how you conduct yourself because your actions can be just as, if not more, harmful than the actions that these students deal with in their peers. I recently read a study that told me that teachers instigate bullying on a regular basis. The ways they do this are by ignoring children that are “dumb,” laughing at the jokes children make at another child, feeding into the relational aggression ala Mean Girls by taking sides or allowing it in their classrooms, lunch rooms, gymnasiums and hallways, or, what I consider to be most hurtful, going into their teacher’s lounge and commiserating about children and actively working against the better needs of the child by making the child a pariah amongst the adults as well. They also do this by writing intentionally vague and negative comments that stay in a child’s report card file until they graduate high school. This is all BULLYING and YOU are going to buy into it…unless you consider it and stop yourself now. You can do this with self-awareness and the knowledge that you will NOT be that kind of teacher and that you are teaching to make a positive impact and not crush a child’s will.”

By this time, I was gaining momentum. The room was completely silent. I have my class write journals and I knew that some of them had been bullied by teachers. One of the ways I teach my students is to share stories with them about my experiences both as a student and as a teacher. Now was the time for me to wince and share some of my personal experiences. Earlier this semester, I’d had them do an experiment on assumptions and write a journal about it. One assumption they made about me was that I’d never been bullied. It’s not true. I’d been bullied by a few students, but what really impacted me was the way some of my teachers treated not only me, but my fellow students.

“When I was in high school, I was pretty naive. I thought that teachers always had your best interests in mind and that they could be counted on to act like adults. I’d had an experience in junior high where I’d made the mistake of acting like I was going to throw my basketball at my coach. She flipped out, screamed at me in front of my team and shamed me. I didn’t play much that season and I never tried out for basketball again. Looking back on that behavior as an adult, I’m appalled and curious as to why no one thought that behavior was irrational at the time? However, in high school, I had this idea that everything was going to be different. New friends, new classes, new teachers, a new start and that things were going to be ok. I was wrong.”

“See, adults still do the petty things adults do, even when they teach. Professionalism is key. An English teacher lost her cool and called an entire sophomore class “a bunch of bitches.” She later apologized, but I don’t remember her getting into any real trouble for something that, as a parent, I would take serious issue over. We weren’t acting like a “bunch of bitches” that day. She was having a bad day, we were all working on projects and we weren’t moving quickly enough is what I remember. I was surprised and vaguely concerned that she’d lost her marbles. She also put on the school’s musical. I was helping with sound and when a tape was played improperly she went berserk. It heavily defined my high school years. Not only did she go crazy on me for what another person admitted was that person’s fault at having not rewound the tape earlier in the evening, but she didn’t bother to defend me to an angry cast of people. She walked out of the auditorium and left a freshman to deal with something that was beyond her control. I dealt with the fallout from that for not days, not weeks, not months, but YEARS. I still have nightmares about that. As adults, you are responsible for YOUR responses and for helping to calm the responses of others.”

As I spoke, some students began to look nervously at their hands and what I realized is that they weren’t bored. They weren’t uncomfortable with my story. My story had triggered their stories. I went on.

“Around that time, because of the issue with that teacher, I began lying about things to look better. I was miserable with life. I felt like I had no support and that people weren’t listening when I’d defend myself with the truth so lies were better. Because of that, when I auditioned for something that meant a lot to me, I didn’t make it. When I went to talk to the new sponsor for that activity, it ultimately boiled down to my not being able to be in the activity because a couple of the guys in that activity couldn’t get beyond it and they were short on guys. It wasn’t my lack of talent. It wasn’t that I wasn’t capable. It was that the guys couldn’t get beyond and they couldn’t lose them. The teacher had not only allowed the bullying, he’d promoted it. He didn’t help their growth and he shattered my self-esteem.”

I took a deep breath and sat down at my table in the front of the room.

“Why am I telling you this? Do I need you to feel sorry for me? Absolutely not. I am less than a year from getting my doctorate and I have no idea what path my life would have taken had I not developed the resolve that those experiences gave me. I’m telling you this because every single action you take as an educator COUNTS. Every minute of every day, every smile, every frown, every word, every shrug. It all counts. When you take actions to make your everyday life easier at the cost of hurting a child, you have no idea what the repercussions may be or how long-lasting. I remember those teachers. Let me tell you what else I remember. I remember the fourth grade teacher that wrote to me for 2 years after I moved because I was lonely. I remember the high school communication student teacher that taught me how to be a confident speaker. I remember the band teacher that gave me a chance to learn an instrument when all of the other students had been playing for years. I remember the community college professor that listened to what I wrote and proclaimed it brilliant. I remember the undergraduate professor who still writes me to tell me he’s proud of what I’m doing. I remember the masters professor who comments on my accomplishments with such happiness that I smile to know that she genuinely cares. I remember the doctoral professors who cared enough that in some dark days they cut me a real break when I needed it. I remember ALL those teachers. The good and the bad. What kind of teacher will you be? Whatever kind it is, you will be remembered. But HOW will you be remembered?”

I closed my eyes, shuffled my papers and waited. My students are insightful and this sparked discussion as to the experiences they had and the problems that they’d encountered. Those aren’t mine to share. As we grow up, we forget what it is like to be a child. We forget that people aren’t always nice and those that are supposed to protect us, advocate for us, don’t always do their job. Hopefully, I reminded them and they take it with them. If they don’t, they can always email me and I’ll give them advice.

It’s my job.