Balancing

In so many respects, teaching is a balancing act. The balance between the professional and the personal, the profound and the profane, between free speech and censorship, hope and fear.

I’ve been reading and researching a number of memoirs recently. The stories of child soldiers in Sierra Leone and those forced from their homes as a result of the civil war in the Sudan haunt me. I’ve reread stories of young men who survived unthinkable atrocity under South Africa’s apartheid and stories of girls living under strict Shira law in the Middle East. How poignant and important these stories are, the stories of youth surviving the harshest conditions and clinging to their hope for a better world. Of course such memoirs would be of the utmost significance in a world literatures course like the one I teach, the stories of young people the same age as my students persevering, reflecting on their experiences, and making a difference in their world. But I’m caught in a balancing act.

In some respects, educating teenagers is perhaps the most difficult age group to teach. In middle school, parents and teachers need to shield adolescents from some of life’s most grotesque realities. As college students, no content matter is taboo. High school is a time of balance for teachers, students, and parents alike. It is a time when students are initiated into the world of adulthood, truths revealed and fantasies shattered. Students are initiated into the realities of our modern world in the hopes that they will learn from the mistakes of the generations before them. But how much is too much?

I’ve just finished Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. It is the heart-wrenching journey of a young man who loses his family and at twelve years old is forced into fighting Sierra Leon’s bloody civil war. Drugged and brainwashed by unthinkable acts of violence, Beah’s story is important for all readers, but for especially high school students. Such a memoir would help students begin to question the nature of violence in our modern world, contemplate the effects war has on children, question how such violence toward and against children is sustained and in some cases funded by the western world, and reflect on the privileges that they have as a result of growing up in the suburbs of the United States. It is from memoirs like Beah’s that students learn to take an interest in their world and hopefully take action to make it a more peaceful, more just world. But is it too much, too early?

Stories like Ishmael Beah’s are violent. How could they not be? Beah’s story would not be as poignant, as real without his vivid descriptions of how he was kept in a drugged stupor in order to perpetrate horrendous acts of violence against his own countrymen. To leave such reflections and descriptions out of the book would lessen the importance of Beah’s journey. His is a story begging the world to wake up to the realities faced by child soldiers throughout the world today. Without such descriptions, his story would not have the impact that it does. But is this too much for a 15 or 16-year-old to grapple with and understand? Some would argue that Beah was forced into this violence at 12, so of course American high school students should not be shielded from such a memoir. In fact a story about the atrocities of violence would be one that is especially important to an increasingly more violent youth culture in our own country. Others might argue that such a story is too violent, too profane for the high school classroom. Where do we draw the line?

I’m not sure if I will add Beah’s story to my list of recommended books this fall. In an ideal classroom, I would. In fact, the story was recommended to my by one of my former students, so I know I have students that would be moved by Beah’s words. But in a society where the threat of litigation is ever present, especially for teachers, I am stuck between the profound and the profane, between free speech and censorship, hope and fear.

But in case you’re into some good non-western memoirs, might I suggest:

Ishmeal Beah’s A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Alphonsion Deng, Benson Deng, and Benjamin Ajak’s They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky

Mark Mathabane’s Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa

Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran

Shoba Narayan’s Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes

Paul Rusesabagina’s Ordinary Man

Yang Erche Namu’s Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World

Farah Ahmedi’s The Other Side of the Sky

Dillard Calling

So writing about Annie Dillard last week, sent me back to her book The Writing Life. It also forced me to reconsider how I was living each day, each hour. I’m struck by how much time I spend putting out fires in the classroom, and I recall a moment from this past semester that has me reconsidering how I teach.

It’s the middle of my second block class. The January winds are tearing at the window screen, a whispering howl sneaking in. Inside, my tenth grade World Literature students are bustling around the room, finishing their work on a semester’s long research project that they will be sharing with their fellow students, staff, and family members at a cultures fair later in the week. At the moment, I have a swarm of students surrounding my desk at the front of the room. One needs a fundraising permission form signed, another wants to double check on the proper citation rules to follow for an interview, three are asking for permission to go to the art room, and another needs help finding up-to-date research on the current status of the African Union’s troops in Darfur; the rest are hovering over stacks of art supplies and folders of research. I’m simultaneously reaching for my pass book, jotting down a website address, and attempting to find my lost cup of now cold coffee among the clutter. From out of the chaos comes a small voice, “Geez, Ms. Ward, it’s amazing how you keep track of all the stuff going on.” It stops me in my tracks.

I’m involved in a million different things at once, but not engaged with any single one, caught up in what comes next, not thinking about the moment in front of me. It is unfortunate that I find myself in many of these moments as a teacher – putting out one fire while trying to light another in a student. I get drawn into, enveloped by grading, disciplinary reports, departmental meetings, parent phone calls that still need to be made. All teachers do. It’s in moments like these that I need to be reminded by Annie Dillard to think of how I am spending this hour. It is this moment, this hour that makes me, not how much I plan ahead or how many tasks I can complete in a day. It was in a moment like this that I printed out the Annie Dillard quote.

Crumpled and coffee stained, the quote clings steadfast to the top of my computer monitor, centered above the screen. I found it recently while clearing away the books and random notes scribbled on scraps that used to call my desk home. I had printed it to serve as a mantra, a reminder, but it had been shuffled into the daily clutter. The quote has since re-established its presence, its place of prominence. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” Annie Dillard, whose writing I first encountered in an undergraduate literature course, is a writer who calls us, who calls me, to engage fully in the world. And this past week, she has been calling to me quite a bit.

You’d think I’d need to be beat on the head for her message to sink in. =)

Thurber and Dillard

Apparently, I have read at least a portion of James Thurber’s autobiography. I don’t remember doing it, but apparently I did. A friend recently asked me to send her a couple of my graduate course essays as she is in the process of applying to an English program and wanted to review some example pieces of writing. But after scouring through old hard disk files, I have discovered two things: 1) my writing is atrocious and I should go back to school, and 2) I was a much better writer when I was in school. Yes, I realize these two things contradict one another.

My essays are riddled with citation errors, grammatical faux pas, and repetition. Lots and lots of repetition. I restate the same thing over and over again. Hitting on the same point way too many times. Like a hammer hitting a nail that is already sunk, I repeat the same ideas instead of actually clarifying subtleties (and use cliché analogies to do so). However, even in the essays most mired by mechanical and grammatical errors, I come across moments like this:

“Gone are the inflated egos and highlighted accomplishments; Thurber does not stand on a beautifully adorned pedestal. Instead, James Thurber has purposefully smashed the pedestal of the well-made man into a million difficult pieces. Unlike Benjamin Franklin's self-glorifying autobiography, Thurber creates himself, the narrator of "University Days," as a failure. Whereas Franklin and other ego gratifying autobiographers have attempted to sculpt a successful mask of themselves, Thurber's exploration of his shortcomings creates a type of unlikely hero, secure in his individuality.”

Okay, so there are problems with this too. Some punctuation errors and structural problems with the third sentence, but overall, not bad. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I called a memoirist an “ego gratifying autobiographer.” I don’t remember the last time I made a comparison using Thurber or Franklin, which tells me I am I better writer, a more critical thinker when I am engaged in a community of writers and thinkers. So – I need to be engaged in a community of writers and thinkers.

One of my very favorite quotes by writer Annie Dillard is “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” This quote is taped to my computer monitor. It has become my mantra, a daily reminder to spend my life engaged - engaged in my writing, engaged in my relationships, engaged in my thinking, engaged in the world around me. I do not want to be remembered as a great television watcher or an exemplary consumer. I want to be remembered as a writer, as a photographer, a thinker, a teacher, an activist, an idealist. If I want to be a better writer, I must write; it is how I must spend my days.

Change in status

I looked up and realized that I had just spent the last three hours remodeling a kitchen I don’t even own. Pictures of cabinets, countertops, and flooring now litter my desktop. We put an offer in on a house today - a daunting and exciting process. Daunting to realize how much time, sweat, and money will go into renovations to make the place ours but exciting to also realize we are – making the place ours. Having lived in apartments for the last ten years, I’ve gotten used to the sort of transient way of life. There are boxes still crammed into the backs of closets that remain unpacked from our last move over six years ago. In an apartment, one always anticipates another move. You don’t live in an apartment permanently; it is a transition. And at this point in our lives, moving into a house is symbolic of a much larger sort of transition.

Apartment living has always signaled that either my husband or I (or both) were students, unsure of where we would be following the degree. But since my husband finished his doctoral degree last May and was offered a full-time (paid!) position starting in August, we’re moving out of the student lifestyle, an anxiety-provoking prospect. Our entire married lives we’ve been connected to institutions of higher learning; we’ve always been students. We have always known one another as students. And although both of us will continue to take classes here and there, we’ve moved out of the status of full-time students. As we move from temporary housing to a permanent residence, it singles a change in our relationship as well. We’ll both have real jobs, two incomes…gasp…we’re adults!

I realize that this is a bit of a delayed realization. I think in some ways my husband and I have resisted this change in status – student to employee, apartment dweller to home owner. As students we are free to try on new ideas, take risks, be unabashedly idealistic. I am perhaps a bit afraid of losing that which has defined me to date. So I think the trick with this move, this transition, will be to embrace the change in residential status, but try to retain some of that mindset of a student – to continue to grapple with new ideas, try new things, and be unabashedly hopeful and idealistic.

Cheating

I think I’m cheating. I’m listening to Joan Didion’s latest memoir The Year of Magical Thinking. Yes, listening. Thus the reason why I believe I’m cheating.

I love Joan Didion’s simple and pithy sentences, her uncanny way of describing the ordinary in a fresh light. I love the way that she uses scientific and medical jargon to distance herself from the gaping chasm of grief left in the wake of her husband’s death. I fell in love with the way she described the whining Santa Ana wind in her essay about Lucille Miller that opens Slouching Toward Bethlehem when I first encountered it as part of a course packet. Joan Didion was the very first writer I studied as a part of my Nonfiction Literature course seven years ago. Shortly after reading that first essay, I devoured that book, reading until the wee hours of the morning despite the fact that I would get up for work early the next day. So I feel I might be committing some sacrilege by listening to her work instead of admiring the look and feel of her written pages.

But, I’m obsessed. My library system has just introduced a new digital download section of their webpage. I can temporarily download audio versions of nearly any book and listen while I’m cleaning, driving, working on lesson plans (see earlier blog about how I never seem to be able to leave school behind even while on summer vacation), or like today, blogging. I must confess that I tried something I think only an English teacher might attempt. Yesterday while listening to This I Believe, a collection of essays that came out of NPR’s weekly program by the same name, I attempted to read something else. Granted, it was a text version of a number of the essays I was listening to, but I found myself reading different essays than the ones that I was listening to, half-tuning in to the audio version, realizing I wasn’t comprehending what I had just read, then refocusing my attention on the text version, an ever looping cycle. I think this is the pitfall of technology.

Technology begs us to multitask. I have learned to multitask, and those high school students that I teach have grown up multitasking. They IM and draft an essay while they listen to the latest Fallout Boy cd. I’m attempting to listen to one of my favorite writers and write myself. It is an attempt, a futile attempt I now realize. As I write these words I realize that I’ve just missed the last few lines of Joan Didion’s novel. I’m attempting to accomplish too much. Technology promises to make our lives easier, but I wonder if it also turns our attention away from fully engaging in one activity, one idea. As we multitask, we distance ourselves, much like Didion uses her scientific inquiry into the brain and the body to distance herself from the reality of death and grief. Technology distances us from our lives, from fully engaging in the world just outside our door. So, maybe I should stop listening to The Year of Magical Thinking and go pick up the book. Unfortunately, I also have Barbara Kingsolver’s new memoir already in my cue downloading to listen to later.

Is Change Possible?

In the last 24 hours, I’ve been beat over the head with a call for change. Last night I went and saw Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko. A number of moments spoke to me directly as I have family members who have been near some of the same situations depicted in the film, but one interview in particular connected with a class discussion from last semester. Tony Benn, a former British politician, spoke of how people become disenfranchised and disconnected from their government and world in general. Although he was speaking specifically about voting habits, his quote can easily apply to apathy. Paraphrased, he said that people lose their sense of power as a result of fear and/or being demoralized. Recently in a class discussion about how the memoir Night by Elie Weisel might be applicable to modern times, one of my students proclaimed with a sigh, “What does it matter? Teenagers don’t have power, anyway. We can’t change anything.”

I stood there gaping for a few moments, the class watching intently to see how I would respond. How could someone so young, just at the start of his journey, be so disenfranchised? How does someone at 16 years old lose all hope? What is it that this student and others in the class who agreed with him be so afraid of, be so demoralized by? Now I know in part that such a comment was meant to goad me; I’m obviously a teacher who believes that the individual can make a difference, can change the world; otherwise, I wouldn’t be a teacher. It is the position, the power of the student, to try to test the teacher, but I believe in part that the student and others in the class truly felt there was nothing they could really change, so why try. How is it that as a nation we have become so cynical, so demoralized that these are the values that we are passing along to our children? It is a sad day when our future leaders lose their idealism, a belief that they can make a difference, can change the world. What hope does that leave for any of us?

But then I also have been watching the Live Earth concerts this morning and see all the young people engaged in a worldwide effort to change the practices of the world’s governing systems. What a noble cause – to raise awareness, to make a pledge to change our Earth damaging habits. I sincerely support this effort, making sure that I recycle my paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, and cardboard and switching to the low-energy florescent bulbs. It truly breaks my heart to see the natural, untouched areas where I grew up ripped down to be turned into sprawling strip malls. However, on the top of my webcast screen I see that the online coverage of Live Earth is in part sponsored by Chevy. Now, I’m the one who turns a bit cynical. Okay, so GM and Chevrolet have made some strides toward helping the environment with their soon to be released hybrid versions of their SUVs and trucks…their SUVs and trucks? Forgive me, but if you really want to make positive environmental change, you should think about driving something other than a gas-guzzling SUV. Even if that SUV is a hybrid, it still does not get nearly the same gas mileage as compact car, or better yet, a hybrid car. I understand that we must start somewhere, but I do worry some of the contradictory messages sent by such commercial awareness raising events. What happens after the concerts? How do we follow through with the promises made by such a corporate-sponsored event? A student from Sri Lanka helped me understand this better.

In December of 2004, South East Asia, especially Sri Lanka, was devastated by the largest tsunami of the 21st century. The world pulled together and as an international community, donated more financial aid to organizations like UNICEF and the Red Cross/Red Crescent than the governments of many industrialized nations. However, just over two years later, Sri Lanka is still in desperate need of suitable housing, medical care, and food for its displaced citizens. Although as a global community we pulled together in the moment, many of the international aid agencies have left Sri Lanka, leaving local agencies scrambling to provide services. As my student from Sri Lanka shared her research about the current conditions in her native land, I was appalled. How could we leave our fellow human beings in such dire circumstances?

Are we a culture, a nation, a world that will empty our pockets in the moment, but when it comes to making lasting, effective change are we too fearful or too demoralized to get our hands and hearts invested? In all my rambling I am reminded of the sentiments of writer James Russell Lowell who said, "All of the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action." And so, I’m signing off and going to turn off a light.

Home?

I'm still strangely trapped between "homes," a kind of dysphoric limbo. Recently returning from a week in Michigan, I catch myself calling many places home. "I've just come back from a trip home," I said to one of the staff members at the high school the other morning. I got this quizzical look in return.

"Come back from home? What do you mean?"

His question jarred me. I haven't lived in Michigan for almost ten years. And, for a long time, I haven't really felt like Michigan was home; it is the place where I am from. I occassionally say that it is the place where I grew up, but it's not the only place.

Where in Michigan am I from? When my husband introduces me to someone new, he holds up his right hand, palm facing the stranger in a high-five sort of gesture, and points to the tip of his pinky finger. And he's right, in some respects. I lived near Traverse City until age 11, when my parents moved us down to a suburb just outside of Grand Rapids, more near where the head line ends on my palm. But when I introduce myself, if I don't just generically say I grew up in Michigan, I'll say that I'm from near Grand Rapids, assuming I'll be lucky if the person knows where that is, not bothering to give the exact name of the small town where my parents still live. It is where I went to middle school and high school, where I tried on a number of interests and identities, and started to shape and understand the person I am today. I consider Grand Rapids to be the place where I grew up, my former home; whereas my husband, who was born and raised in that area, to this day considers me to be still a bit of an outsider. A stranger in my home.

But of course, I haven't lived there for many years. I've done just as much growing up here - in Pennsylvania. First living in Pittsburgh and now just outside of Philadelphia for the past six years. Yet, I don't quite consider myself to be a Pennsylvanian either. I couldn't tell you the name of the state bird or state flower; I still feel like a visitor to this state in some ways. And even though I can tell you the state bird, flower, and fish (the robin, apple blossom, and rainbow trout, respectively), and that Michigan was the first state to start roadside rest stops for travelers (thanks to a my third grade teacher, Mrs. Mummert), it is no longer my home.

And so I am in limbo, occasionally calling both Michigan and Pennsylvania home, but feeling a little like a visitor in both.