ax^2 + bx + c = 0

Everybody has an Achilles heel.  Everybody.  Even the most brilliant people I know – some of whom are former students – have an area where they just are not as confident.  Mine has always been math.

Over the years I have joked with my students about how I always do grades and all math on a calculator or computer.  It’s the truth.  When I have important statistical reports that I need to prepare, I do the math, and then I take it to our school’s calculus teacher, and ask him to check my numbers.  I am humble and he is kind, as well as generous with his time.  I do math when I cook - halving or doubling recipes.  I can balance my checkbook and proofread my paystub.  That’s about it, folks.  And, I have always covered up my math deficiency with jokes and extreme proficiency in other areas.

In considering pursuing a second master’s degree, I was going to apply only to a school that did not require any testing.  Then, as Murphy will tell you always happens, I found one that I really want to apply to that requires the GRE.  I signed up to take it on December 20, being relatively confident because I took this test 24 years ago and did well enough.  Friday afternoon I took a diagnostic test online.  Results:  95% in verbal; 0% in quantitative reasoning. 

I am not joking.

I texted the results to my eldest son.  His response:  “That’s bad.”  Same text to middle son: “No problem.  I’ll teach you.”  Same text to a friend who is in the middle of applying to med school: “Give me a book and two days, and I can teach you everything you need to know.”  Same text to my sister: “Are we even related?” 

Later that night after drinks with friends, I reflected upon this result and I became very sad.  The kind of sad that call forth tears whenever the topic flits across one’s mind.  Middle son asked me what was wrong, and I said (in typical middle school girl fashion):  “I’m stupid and it makes me sad.”  He responded (in typical now-I-will-be-the-parent-for-a-minute fashion): “You’re not stupid; you can relearn this math because you once knew most of it.” 

Rewind to 7^th and 8^th grade.  It always stuns people when I tell them I was in accelerated/honors math in junior high.  In fact, it still surprises me.  I remember the room – up and around the corner from home ec and woodshop.  I fondly remember the teacher:  Mr. Page.  Love that man.  I don’t remember what we learned.  I don’t remember how on earth I was in “smart” math – pretty sure some money changed hands on that one.  At any rate, I trundled along in math – getting As and Bs as best as I can remember.  I preferred humanities, but I could hold my own in math. 

Enter Mr. Anderson – if there is a teacher who should have never been allowed in a classroom, it is this man.  He was a very tall balding blond man who sat next to his overhead projector, drew angles and talked.  Geometry was not my friend.  Still, I went in after school.  I tried to get it.  I attempted the proofs.  Then the day came:  I was in his room, ostensibly getting help, and he became exasperated with me.  I was at the end of my rope trying to get whatever the concept was that was eluding me, and he was at the end of his trying to explain it to me.  As he packed his briefcase, getting ready to go coach basketball, this was the sentence that ended my math career:  “You know, you’ll never really get math because you’re a girl.” 

I should have been taken aback, horrified, enraged.  I should have reported this overt sexism and lack of professionalism to the principal or my parents.  I should have taken this statement as a personal affront-turned-challenge and excelled in every level of math, eventually becoming a world-renown rocket scientist or economist or mathematician.  I don’t know what – if anything – I said to him. What I do know is that from that moment until today, December 8, 2013, I gave up.  I did not report his comments to anyone; I did not take them as a challenge; I was not mad.  I had been given permission to give up, and so I did.  I have bachelor and masters degrees, and the last time I took a math class was my junior year in high school.

I have a student in Russian class this year who frequently says, "I'm not good at languages."  It's not true.  She is doing well, and she has the best of reasons to be in the class:  to one day talk with her birth mother. Motivation. I have a friend who is just out of college who defends her perceived weakness in English with such light-hearted phrases as, “I can’t write; I’m an engineer.”  This isn’t true, and I know because I taught her in Advanced Language and Composition in high school.  In fact she can write – it may not be her favorite thing to do.  She may feel she is stronger in other areas; she probably enjoys sciences and math more, but she can write. She just finished reams of med school essays.

The same is true of me.  I may have forgotten most algebra and never truly learned geometry, but I can learn some now.  I am motivated. I can do math. As we enter the holiday season, I hope you don’t have to take standardized tests, but I do hope that you are thinking about challenging yourself.  Sure, we all have areas that we accept are weaknesses and that’s that.  But, there are other areas where we might sit up and take notice.  We might think about learning or relearning something for our own edification.  In the end, wouldn’t that be a better way to spend time than watching cat videos or reading all of those internet lists? 

So, what are you going to learn?

When All Else Fails...Snark

I am a professional writer.  Well, let me amend that.  I write all the time.  In my job. School reports.  Recommendations for students.  School publications.  And for fun. Poetry. (see:www.1daypoems.blogspot.com)  This blog.  Most recently, work on a short story based at a bar called "County Line."  I have also taught English for nearly twenty years - high school and middle school. Over the past few years, I have attended the Iowa Summer Writers' Festival.  I teach creative writing and advanced creative writing.  I briefly joined a short-lived Augusta writers' group. I've read my work publicly in Iowa and Georgia. I've been around the block, using writing for various purposes: on the job, in service of others, for personal enjoyments, as gifts, and for publication.

In all of these settings, I have found those who read or heard my work generous and thoughtful.  My work is certainly not perfect, but I am doing the work.  In talking with others who write professionally and personally, I have found that the vast majority of them are encouraging and interested.  Then, I found the group.  You may recall the old saying: "There's one in every crowd."  Well, this is a crowd of them.

I joined a group on Face Book which purports to support writers in a particular endeavor. Imagine my surprise when I came to realize that the group has deteriorated into a group designed to sap the confidence out of its members. Judging from the posts in this group, the idea is to snark at and belittle the other group members because we all know that if you denigrate others then you automatically become more valuable.  And, you will be more successful if others are less successful, right? Of course not. That’s silly, to say the least. However, that’s how these individuals are conducting themselves. There were several moderators of the group who were conspicuously quiet.

"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." I don't know that this applies in every circumstance.  Sometimes encouragement can take the form of something being said that isn't very nice.  I used to have a sign that read "Diplomacy is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that he actually looks forward to the trip." Even in the high school classroom when a student was curiously off-topic or misunderstanding a text, I would say, “Well, that’s one interpretation,” and then ask the student to support or elucidate his idea. Most often, he came to his own conclusions, “What I said earlier was kind of off-base, wasn’t it?” 

I attended a summer writing workshop where the instructor told us that really the only rule in the session was that you cannot be negative about your work, and if you are thusly tempted, you are to say, “This smacks of brilliance.”  Likewise, at the start of my creative writing course every year, I find a time to give a little talk to my writers about the fact that the world is more than willing to judge and berate them, they don’t need to do it to themselves.  High schoolers being high schoolers, are apt to run themselves down as a protective measure.  For example, “if I note that this poem is weird then it will hurt less than if someone else says it’s weird because I know that it’s not really weird and it’s really about my grandma but I can’t let anyone know that.”  But, if I can get them to be kind to themselves about their own work, we are one step closer to being happier and more thoughtful people.  Plus, if you act like you know what you’re doing, you will find that you often do; you were just letting your inner critic run you down.

In addition to those pesky inner critics, we can stumble and fall on those outer critics as well.  We all know them – the ones who stop mid-sentence the minute you walk into a room.  Or, as a friend recounted earlier this week, “I returned to the table, and I overheard [my mother-in-law] say, ‘She just smothers me.’”  Never mind that my friend was there caring for mother-in-law after a surgery.  There’s one in every crowd.  In teaching there’s a joke that we tell each other when nothing seems to go right in the classroom: 

You know what the headline would be if teachers could walk on water? 

No. What?

Teachers refuse to swim.

So, for today, whatever it is that you are doing – writing, swimming, teaching, gardening, cooking, leading a book club, managing a multi-billion dollar deal, organizing a shoe drive for the homeless, do it well and enjoy it. And, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.  Don’t let the bastards (or your Face Book groups) get you down.

Broken Hearts and Hope

Well, ladies and gentlemen, in the halls of your local high school it has begun.  The subtle hand-holding despite the rules against PDA; the kisses snuck in the parking lot or near the stadium before the game; the too long telephone calls and too many text messages.  I had my first “I can’t live without him” discussion with one of my students early last week.  I told her that in fact, despite what she thinks, she can, indeed live without him and live well at that.  Those of you who know me, know that I have had my share of this sort of thing: being the dumpee and also being the counselor to the dumpees (both male and female).  High school can be cruel in the area of relationships, but so can life. 

One can make arguments for never letting one’s children date.  I had a rule:  you must be sixteen and able to drive.  Reasons?  I don’t drive people on dates.  And sixteen is a good arbitrary number.  And I’m the Mom.  Eldest son never fussed about this rule.  As the eldest, he accepted his fate at the object of parenting experiments, and, anyway, he was always happier with a book or LOTR marathon.  Middle son insisted he had a girlfriend in middle school.  He was wrong.  He argued.  I won.  Youngest son thinks he has had a girlfriend since kindergarten.  He is also wrong.  I will win. 

Still, whenever the New Year starts, I think it is natural to want to have that special someone to share it with.  To go to dances with.  To hold hands in the hallway with.  And, those of us single adults want the adult equivalents.  Our school has various events throughout the year, and we must RSVP for ourselves and our guest.  I always RSVP with a grin, “I’m coming, and maybe, if the planets align, I will bring someone.”  I go alone or with my dear friends. I do think that the events coordinator would fall over in a fit if I ever showed up with a “someone.”

All of these football, homecoming dance, and relationship ponderings of my students reminded me of a sketch I wrote at one of the summer writing sessions.  I offer it here for your consideration.  And, I hope that no matter what your relationship status that you are well loved and thoughtfully cared for.

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Tears.  Mutterings and awkward hand holding.  He is clearly breaking up with her.  She is the kind of girl boys break up with.  Especially when the boys in question are 20 and shallow and lack forethought.  Her hair is not brown neither blonde nor red – an indeterminate color and her eyes are pale and washed with the pain of never yet being the dumper – always the dumpee.  It is not a fun place to be for her.  In fairness, he is not comfortable, either.  Trying to stroke her hand and bring comfort to a place he just made ultimately uncomfortable.  Did she give her virginity to him?  He to her?  Has he realized that she is too self-centered or too controlling or too interested in marriage?  Maybe she realized those same things about him long ago and chose to overlook them in favor of being with someone rather than being alone.  She looks away, wipes her eyes, willing the tears to flow or to stop.  He looks at the ground, shifts restlessly, and glances at his phone, checking the time or the text message that he would really like to get but hasn’t yet.

We have all been there.  We have begged someone whom we knew not to be the right person to stay with us.  Why?  Because being with someone – even a sub-par someone is better than being alone.  In this culture of couples – it is hard to have the resolve to be alone.  Alone.  Not lonely.  Just alone.  There’s a difference.  I was dumped at 20 – at 17, too.  And, again at 23.  I’m sure there are other times – we all can mark a few of them.  We shed the tears or we created the tears.  Or a little of both.  We have been uncomfortably waiting for the text that never comes.  We have gone home to our dog, our childhood blanket, and a pint of Rocky Road.  We have drunk one too many shots of whiskey and almost called.  Or we did call.  Or we texted.  And it wasn’t good. 

About two months ago I got a call from one of those sweepstakes things you fill out at the annual home and garden show.  The kind where you get a 4 night-5 day stay somewhere fabulous as long as you agree to hear the sales pitch and fill out some questionnaires.  They are good deals, if you have no money to invest or the willpower to say “No, thanks.”  After a few preliminary questions, the gentleman with a lisp on the other end of the line asked me who I might bring with me on such an excursion.  I said, “Hmm. Maybe my son.”  He then proceeded to ask me if I were married, if I lived with someone, or if I had a partner.  No. No. No.  He said this offer was only for those in relationships. He promised to call back with a different promotion for singles.  I don’t expect to hear from him.

In a culture that smacks of marriage-worship, it can be hard to be alone.   And, when you’re young and you haven’t yet had your first job, bought your first house, or had your first child, and you’re ever so slightly afraid of really living by yourself, it’s even harder to be singular.  I sympathize with that girl – even if she knew he was all wrong for her.  And I sympathize with that boy – even if he had a new girl lined up.  This isn’t the last time they will be alone, but my hope is that they can embrace the peace that is found in solitude in order to find the meaning that can be in a relationship. 

How was your summer?

“How was your summer?” has been reverberating in the hallways of high schools and across college campuses for the past few weeks.  The traditional “What I did on Summer Vacation” essays will have been read, graded, and revised within the next two weeks.   So, how was your summer?  How was your summer?  How was your summer? 

My summer wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either.  Like hundreds of thousands of people across the nation, my summer began with the end of school.  I finished my 24^th year in high school on June first.  For sixteen of those years, I was a classroom teacher.  So, a few days, a couple of meetings, and one well-intentioned but always ill-conceived end of the year luncheon after graduation, summer began. Not being a classroom teacher now, though, I work through the summer (like the vast majority of Americans).  The hallways are quieter, but the work continues: testing statistics, best practice research, cleaning out last year’s publications to make room for the next year.  We have things to do over the summer. 

Everybody does:

Vacations.

Cook outs.

Baseball games.

Beach trips.

Family reunions.

We all have things to do over the summer whether or not we work full time during these three precious months.  And, now here we all are at the end, ready to go back and report on how we spent our time.  Perhaps we share some common ground.

I revisited the city where I spent five college years.  I went to two weekend conferences there, and I still agree with myself: this is a great city to live in.  My son, who is a junior there, disagrees and argues that the tenor of the town changes when the undergrads are drunk in the streets.  Yep, I remember.  But, I wouldn’t be a part of that scene if I lived there as an adult.  Still a great place: cultural, gastronomical, athletic, literary opportunities abound.  In between those two weekends, I visited my parents in the town and home where I spent my formative years.  I hung out with a high school friend, a college friend, and a friend of my sister’s.  More traffic there.  I still mostly know my way around there despite an absence of thirteen years.  I feel like I could, indeed, go home again and be quite comfortable. 

Then, I spent some time alone.  Not by design, but due to the fact that eldest son was in summer school, middle son was on a beach trip with friends and then at summer language camp, and youngest son was with his dad.  I found out I can, pretty comfortably, not talk to anyone for hours on end.  A good thing?  I think so.  Middle son was worried that I became anti-social during this time.  Not so.  Also during this time, I was privileged to help a friend who was recovering from surgery.  Yes, I was alone, but I didn’t curl up or wither up.  I did the things that about fifteen years ago I would have lamented never having time to do:  read the whole newspaper, watch the movies I wanted to see, go to the bathroom alone, make exactly what I wanted for supper and then eat it while I read my favorite book.

Finally, it was road trip time.  Ten days up to New York state and back, including lots of points in between with middle son.  It is good to change your surroundings occasionally – from rearranging furniture to just seeing something new outside of the car window – this can refresh your approach to life.  And so it did for me.  We also did some planning for the future; he is a high school senior, and the future looms, inviting him to new places and marking changes for me.

We didn’t go to the beach and, blessedly, I only had to watch one baseball game.  For me this summer was about looking back when we were in Iowa; reviewing the past and the places where I come from.  It was also about discovering peace in the present.  Where I thought there might be panic or fear, I found that I enjoy my own company, and I have dear friends to spend time with.  Finally, in the college visit road trip, I have begun to embrace the future fact that two-thirds of my family will be gone next year at this time. 

Maybe you watched a lot of baseball; maybe you spent weeks at beach or did the family reunion thing.  Perhaps you had an illness to contend with or a wedding that launched you into a new life.  As a teacher and parent, September first has always been more of a New Year than the one in January.  As we enter this New Year, my hope for you is that you embrace what you have learned from the past, you have peace in your present, and some really great plans for the future.  How was your summer?

Anything

"What are you going to do with your one wilde and precious life?" (Mary Oliver)

     It is the season of anticipation in the senior hallways of our nation's schools.  National notification date for letters of invitation or declination is April 1 - and, no, it's not a cruel joke.  A former student called the time period of February 1- April 1 the "cone of silence."  There's nothing an applicant can do to further their cause that now finds itself on the computer screens of admissions officers on campuses everywhere.  No matter what decisions come, I have seen students embrace the power of this moment.  There is inspiration and motivation when you are eighteen and look your future square in the face.  At what other time in your life did you feel more like you could do anything?  Opportunites are endless.  The moment you are accepted to a college seems to open up the future like nothing else can.  Being in academia, I have always had the sense of renewal in the fall, but spring is the traditional time of renewal - nature and a college acceptances bear witness to this. 

     For those of us not expecting the thick envelope from the school of our dreams right now, we might pause and wonder just from where the moments of inspiration, motivation and empowerment come as we load the whites in for a hot cycle, clean the cat vomit from the carpet, check emails, and tell our children to turn off the television.  No, doing anything, having real chances to open up the future is not often on the radar screen for those of us knee-deep in adulthood.  Many of us feel like we can't do anything because we have to do everything.  This could take a middle-aged angstful turn right now, but let us try to avoid that and forge ahead.

    When a well-meaning parent, aunt or college counselor said to you, "You can do anything you want with your life," what did that person really mean?  There seems to an innate falsehood to this statement.  Even in my most athletic phase, I could not have been a professional football player or a starter for the '90-'91 Chicago Bulls.  So, no, I could not have been a Deion Sanders, a Michael Jordan, or even a Jay Cutler.  Naturally, the question arises: did you want to be those things.  Well, no.  Not really.  But, even if I had wanted to, I couldn't have.  So, where does all of this go?  Can a person truly be anything the want to be?

     How about the reverse?  Can you not be anything you don't want to be?  I never wanted to be a meth addict.  I'm not.  So, yes, it seems to work in reverse.  I did not want to be prime minister of Canada nor was I ever interested in being an astronaut.  Those ambitions have never plagued me, so I guess I'm doing pretty well.  But, wait, I never really wanted to be a high school English teacher.  As a person who has spent 22 years in high school as a student, teacher, and counselor, I have the opportunity to converse with young people about their ambitions.  In the course of such discussions, I am inevitably asked, "When did you know you wanted to be a teacher?"  The answer, as unglamorous and uninspiring as it is, is: "Never."  I never wanted to be a teacher.  Nope.  No higher calling to mold the next generation or to be an inspiration the youth of today or to ensure my own immortality through touching lives.  I became a teacher quite by default.

     I am sure that given a few moments of reflection, my sisters and mother might disagree.  I am the eldest of three girls, and I did my fair share of "playing school" with my sisters.  After a day of being told where to sit, how to walk, where to sit, what to think, and when to lay on your nap mat, it is relaxing to come home and boss your little sisters around for an hour and a half.  To be fair, they enjoyed it.  Mostly.  In fact, I even went so far as to organize a sort of pee-wee Brownie troupe for my youngest sister when she was too young to join the real Brownies.  We called it Nannie Troupe.  I think we did a few crafts and maybe even designed a t-shirt with the use of (gasp!) permanent markers.  When I started learning Russian, I foisted my knowledge on my youngest sister, as well.  Even my middle sister - who quickly found her own interests and didn't really "play school" for long - remembered a few phrases in Russian that I engrained despite her study of German and Arabic.  The point here:  I never wanted to become a teacher.  This was all child's play.  My sisters might argue that it was an advanced, slightly polished form of bullying. (Ha!  Perhaps that is all education truly is anyway.)  But, nevertheless, it was play.

     However, I did want to be a diplomat; why else would someone study Russian in 1987?  And, to that end I have two degrees in the fifth most widely spoken language in the world.  Right, it might be fifth, but I can tell you that a Russian degree is slightly more useful than a philosophy degree and slightly less useful than a degree in art history.  A one-eyed monkey can tell you that it would be hard to find a career as far away from a globe-trotting diplomat as teacher & college counselor in private school in Augusta, Georgia. 

     So, could we be wired to want what we can't have?  Probably not.  Think of all of the would-be professional athletes.  Think of all of the blinded-by-hope-for-instant-fame-and-fortune-auditioners for American Idol; a conservative estimate approximates 100,000 individuals auditioned for season eight.  Okay, so you might say that it doesn't matter what age you are - figure out what you want to do and do it.  Find a way to make it happen.  Of course, at my age, I have to take certain things into consideration:  kids, house, job, car, supper, dog, laundry, a washing machine that doesn't stay balanced....right, this list could go on.  The question remains:  Can we do anything we want to do? 

     Yes, we can.  With more patience and wisdom, we all adjust our life dreams.  We can look around today and find a way live and be and pursue our dreams.  Doing anything might not be realistic, but we can quit trying to everything and focus on a something that gives us inspiration and empowerment.  We may not be waiting for the thick envelope at the end of March, but we can be reminded that the warranty on hopes and dreams is a lifetime one.