A Short Reflection On My First Year

I started my time in adult education in New Orleans a little over a year ago with no background in education and no experience working with adult learners, which was a killer combination that set me up for complete failure. Luckily, working with AmeriCorps allows a bit more wiggle room than a normal job; that is, you're not necessarily expected to go into the job with the appropriate skills and experience that it might actually take to do the job well. On the flip side, no 16 year-old GED student in New Orleans gives a hoot whether you're an experienced urban educator or a recently graduated 22 year-old Women's Studies major from Wisconsin. Unfortunately or fortunately (yet to be determined), I was the latter.

My inexperience and my profile in general (white, middle-class, young, female) ultimately did seem to help me in the classroom, because neither my students nor I knew what to expect from my presence there. I was able to put myself out there, to admit that I had no idea what I was doing, and to confess that, in fact, I needed immense amounts of help from the students themselves in order for anyone to benefit from the experience. The result of placing myself out on this tiny limb was surprisingly positive.

"Don't let the kids know you're scared" and "Always look like you know what you're doing" are some of the pieces of advice I received before embarking on my mission to educate all of the GED hopefuls in the city. While potentially harmless and maybe even good advice in some educational settings, these philosophies did nothing positive for me and my students. In fact, my first day leading a class this way was met with scowls, slang phrases directed at me that I have nowhere near the skills to translate, and a little message left for me at the end of class on the whiteboard saying, "You is a hoe who could shag god".

Although I felt somewhat complimented by the message- you've got to have something going for you if you possess the ability to "shag god"- I knew that my methods were flawed. It was only when I clearly communicated to my students that they had a wealth of knowledge that I couldn't even touch that they began to trust me. I desperately needed to learn how to function in their culture in order to understand how to teach them, and they needed to learn how to function in mine in order to reach those dreams that only a young person can so wholeheartedly wish for. And eventually we all came to realize that.

At this point I might go back and mention that my students were not fully accepting of my presence even when I did lose my "tough" front. It took awhile. These were kids that were forced by the judge and their probation officers to come to school even if they didn't understand the value of education, kids who couldn't walk through the wrong neighborhood without taking their lives into their own hands or risking police arrest for no substantial reason, and kids who saw me as someone who could never, ever understand their struggle. And they were mostly right. No matter how much compassion or sympathy I felt, I could never say to them, "I understand you", because it would be a total lie. I could understand that the poverty and racial profiling that they lived with was unjust, but I would never be able to empathize. If a student of mine met me on the street and I started an altercation, I wouldn't be the one getting arrested. And they all knew that.

So instead of telling lies of my deep understanding of their plight, I tried telling the truth. I said to them, "I don't understand". One day, a student came into class even though his cousin had been shot in the head and killed on his porch the day before. He said he didn't have anywhere else to go, and besides, he wanted to look on the city criminal court website to see if he could find a picture of his cousin's shooter. I asked him, "Why do you need to see a picture of your cousin's shooter? I don't understand." He told me he couldn't just let someone get away with killing his cousin. I asked if I could talk to him privately, and despite his rage, we went in another room and closed the door. I said to him,

"I don't understand how it feels to watch your cousin get shot in the head. I don't understand how it feels to walk down the street and worry that the same thing will happen to you. But, I do understand how much all of the teachers here love to see your face every day. I do understand how smart you are and how much potential you have. And, I do understand that if you try to hurt your cousin's shooter, you'll probably go to jail, and I'll be heartbroken that you never got to go to college and buy your mama that house you always wanted to get for her."

A very unusual but very appropriate thing happened after that: he cried. And I hugged him. I told him I was sorry that I didn't understand. And I think he understood.

Now, after I've told such a heavy and touching story, it needs to be stated that I didn't stop all of my students from hurting those who hurt them. I didn't inspire all of my students, or even the majority of them, to continue coming to class after something more important got in the way. And I never did teach the student who thought I could "shag god" anything more than how to change his sentence to the grammatically correct version of "You are a hoe who could shag god". But I learned to be real with my students, not to assume that I understand, and that earning trust can be hard. Not too shabby for a Women's Studies major from Wisconsin like myself.

5 tattoos for $1OO and other things I should always remember.

"Where are you goin' Jerrell?"

"I gotta head outta here," he says with a smirk.

"Where're you goin' that's so important you can't even finish this essay?" Keeping Jerrell here is always a struggle, but his innocent teenage face is so revealing that I can't help but know what kind of agenda he's got in mind.

"My deal ends at 5. I gotta get me a tattoo. Five of 'em. For one hundred dollars." The light in his eyes flashes across the room as his smile engulfs his face.

"You're getting five tattoos? All at once? Because it's cheaper?" Obviously, I don't understand the outstanding value of this opportunity.

"Oh yeah, Miss Laura. Five for one hundred. Best deal around."

"Alright, I hear ya. Whatcha gonna get?" Clearly someone with an aspiration for five tattoos at once has to have an intricate plan for his tats.

"Oh, I dunno. Whatever I think of when I get there. Like, if I'm sittin' there, and I think of my gramma, that's what I'll get. Or if I think about my sisters, I'll get summa their names. Or else, I'll get my momma's name again. Or maybe even, if I think about GED school, I'll get that." His transparent face shows his mind searching through the list of everything that exists in his life, mostly bound by the borders of his neighborhood.

"You'll get our program name tattooed on yourself?" Is he serious?

"Oh yeah, Miss Laura. Whatever comes to my mind." He is.

"Okay, well get my name if you think of me, k?" I know that'll get a chuckle out of him, and it does.

"Awright, Miss Laura. Is that my homework?" The light in his eyes spews out into the drab room once again, and I can see more clearly.

"Yeah, and write three paragraphs about it, too."

Sure, Jerrell, you can go get those tattoos, as long as you keep that sparkle in your eye.

disabled.

are you high?
i asked if you
were on drugs
which i
knew you were.

it's a
disability
you said.

a teacher told you
to pick one:
stupid
or
learning disabled

you were high
so
you didn't have to pick
either.

THIS JUST IN.

As some of you may know, a good portion of my summer of '07 was dedicated to the fashioning of a milk carton watercraft. More recently, two adventurous and fish-loving souls completed a much more purposeful journey than my previous voyages across Lakes Mendota and Wingra, using a suspiciously similar vessel.




Original Watercraft, July 2007





Counterfeit Vessel, June 2008



Take a look at the evidence, and come to your own conclusions.

Windblown

Usually, I think to myself, "Life totally blows me away". And usually it does.

After being in London for three weeks, I now consider myself a true Brit. Not only have I mastered the public transportation system and memorized the description of every stolen item in the British Museum (free entry!), I've also finished nearly half of "I Fought the Law", a commentary on British government and the absurd laws that Brits must follow in order to escape punishment. Of particular interest to me is a little something called an ASBO (not to be confused with ASDA, the cheapest place around to buy your groceries). According to the book I'm reading, these ASBOs seem to be quite frivolous- for example, you could get an ASBO for singing in your own home, or for being sarcastic to your neighbors when you are 82 years old, or for, coincidentally, misbehaving in ASDA.

Hearing about all of this ridiculousness happening in Britain makes me proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free- not like London, where I feel utterly trapped and smothered. And on this anniversary of our attainment of freedom from these dreadful Brits, I'd like to give a shout-out to all of the rich white men that wrote our Declaration of Independence while all of their wives were baking crumpets at home without the right to vote.

potential new career path.

Since i became unemployed three days ago, I decided to take on a new career: photography. I started with the Grand Canyon since, you know, it seems like there's really a paucity of good, quality, professional-looking photos of this giant hole in the ground. This one will be selling for $10,000 (to pay for my trip to Europe and my move to New Orleans, where I will continue my career using all of the sights that exist in these places, such as wooden shoes and tassled boobs). Also, no prints are available- just an online link (and don't even THINK about just clicking on the photo and saving it to your computer).

Interested? Email me with "Why I deserve to enjoy and be entertained by your mad photography skills..." in the subject line.

Driving

There's one memory that sticks in my brain more spiritedly than all the others. Some might argue that the perception of an eleven year-old might lean towards inaccuracy, but I'll take my chances. The way I remember it, we were driving in my dad's 1992 white Chevrolet Impala after I had finished another demanding day in Mrs. McConnell's sixth grade classroom. I had, for days, been protesting the newly emerging pack of “popular” girls in my class. Of course, this protest always existed secretly, consisting only of complaints spewed into my father's open ears (definitely not within earshot of my classmates!) on our daily rides to and from the schools we both attended (mine, a catholic middle school; his, a catholic high school where he taught science). Today, though, he shifted his normally amused and condoning attitude to take a more challenging approach to my problems.

“I'm telling ya, dad! They all wear the same jeans, have the same hair, and they...they don't even let anyone who's not in their 'group' sit at their lunch table! And, they all hate school. And, they all like the same boys. It's like they don't even have their own personalities!”

To my classmates this claim may have seemed ironic, or even hypocritical, coming from the most timid and close-mouthed student, potentially exhibiting the least amount of “personality”. In my own head and to my father, as I imagined it, the statement seemed highly reasonable and perfectly accurate. He neglected to provide me with his usual chuckle or occasional response of “quit yer bitchin'”, his lighthearted and well-known comeback to any seemingly whiny comments that evoked a somewhat rebellious pleasure from my 11 year-old mind. Instead, he posed the question, “Well, if you aren't “popular”, what are you?”. At that point, along with every other eleven year-old, I wasn't completely sure.

But I was certain that the root of all my troubles at the time existed in one being, one adversary, one horrifying monster of a girl: Shelly Bobson. At least once a day, I found myself frantically picking up the pencil shavings that Shelly had dumped out on my desk just to aggravate my preference for perfection. Or on a good day, she would be content with blurting out a single comment about my unstylish attire. Regardless, I faked sick at least a dozen times because of her presence, and feigning illness in my family didn't mean anything pleasant. In any other house in our quaint, isolated, suburb-like city of St. Cloud, faking the flu or a sore throat meant hours of relaxing daytime television or your favorite movies, along with a fresh bowl of chicken noodle soup and unlimited parental pampering. In my particular home, having a sickness meant that you had the potential to spread that bug all over the house; since my mother ran a daycare, those germs had to be quarantined! So, I stayed isolated in my bed on those fateful days without entertainment or company, yelling advance notice in order to use the bathroom. Of course, I wasn't really sick and I wasn't tired enough to sleep, so I spent that time harboring my fear of Shelly and her followers.

I didn't only feign sickness for the sake of escaping “the monster”, as I tended to call Shelly in my own thoughts. There were other reasons, too, although to say that I played sick because my father was dying of cancer seems too simple.

Wooden Monkey Bars

Before I was eleven, I was seven. I was seven and she was eight and we were climbing on monkey bars. We were climbing on monkey bars because she was eight and I was seven and she was in charge. And she was in charge because her blond hair was short and her muscles were big and she had more words to say.

Then, one day, it switched. Now I was in charge, because when boys and girls taunted, “Are you a boy or a girl?”, she had less words to say and more muscles to hide.

The monkey bars were made of wood that gave us splinters, but we were pirates who were tough. We caught turtles with bare hands and screamed at the top of our lungs and laughed until we squirted Cherry Coke from our nostrils (pirate-style). Once, we used a bath towel and a knobby stick to save a squirrel from imminent death by drowning. We were pirates ransacking the day camp, plundering the backyard, and taking what minimal loot we could get our hands on.

Today, I am not seven and she is not eight. Her blond hair is long and her muscles are slim and men call her “beautiful” and “hot”. She is still in charge, though, the last time I checked.

Yellow Station Wagon

Before I was eleven, I was six. I was six and he was ten and we were playing hide-and-seek. We hid together in the back of a yellow station wagon because his muscles were big and his blond hair was short and he had a dad with even bigger muscles. He was in charge because I was six and he was ten and he knew the most. He knew the most about the thing that I didn't know about yet. He knew about the difference between boys and girls and he knew which part was supposed to go where. He knew the most about the part of me that he was in charge of in the yellow station wagon.

My mom and my dad and my brothers and my sister called the yellow station wagon “the banana”. Bananas are bright and yellow and long like the station wagon. Soon the station wagon started to get brown and aged, just like a banana, but I remembered its bright yellow color from the day we played hide-and-seek.

He and I played make-believe. I was Jasmine and he was Aladdin, but in the end he always got to keep the magic lamp and the flying carpet.

He is not ten anymore and I am not six. Just like his dad, he has big muscles and a big truck and he makes love to a woman who has long blond hair and golden skin, like the color of bananas, but deeper. She is in charge when she sticks out her bottom lip and bats her mascara eyelids, but mostly he is still in charge.

Twelve

After I was eleven, I was twelve all the way until I was eighteen. The day I turned twelve, there was a party. Everyone was invited, including: aunts and uncles, a girl from school, the neighbor's bichon frise, my mom's orthopedic doctor, the priest named Ed, my future high school librarian, and a myriad of trendy preteen t-shirts disguised as boxes with bows. Also invited was my father, lying in the hospice bed next to me. I pretended it was my real dad, not the one with so many brain tumors that he called the remote control “the chicken” out of confusion, and not the one who closely resembled the light-up skeletal system model that my biology major brother gave me for Christmas. I like to think that he was ecstatic to be given the opportunity to watch me come of age, for the brief moment he remembered it was me. He always wanted to make sure I would be okay, so I tried to be.

I tore open the mysterious boxes with bows to find several fashionable clothing items. The sparkling blue bow flew off the box- a fitted purple tee! The brown box with stripes came open- a striped colorful tee! The spotless little white box that was cute enough for no wrapping paper- a blue v-neck tee! The shiny, blinding gift bag- a simple white tee! Bows and boxes and bichon frises buried in boughten goods. It wasn't exactly what I had asked for, but how could I be angry about my upcoming days of improved fashion?

Tubes

The big van filled with 14 year-olds pulled into my driveway, and my neighbor came running. It was a funny sight to see, her graying hair bouncing up and down in sync with her small dog's floppy ears. I stopped giggling, though, when I saw the look on her face. “Your brother Phil is in the hospital”, she said. “I told your mom we'd drive you there.” So I hopped in the car, not really registering what she had just said, and we drove for an hour and a half in the red-orange leaves that signified the beginning of a new season.

I sat in the back, hearing muffled words that might have been directed towards me... “marathon”, “coma”, “heart stopped”, “feeding tube”... I silently repeated them over and over until my head was pounding so loudly that I couldn't hear them anymore. A tear grazed my cheek, but I only let one out.

We arrived at the hospital, and I quickly made my way through doctors, nurses, an old man carrying three Starbucks' Frappuccinos, and an incessant beeping noise, to find out if the rumors were true, or if I'd made them up. I found the waiting room, and it was stuffed to the brim with aunts and uncles, a girl from school, the neighbor's bichon frise, my mom's orthopedic doctor, the priest named Ed, my high school librarian, and a myriad of fruit baskets. My mom pointed towards the room down the hall, and I opened the door to find another brother, Dan, standing there. He was standing there, blocking me from something painful, and I thank god that I had that moment to breathe.

When he did step aside, I looked for Phil, but instead I saw miles and miles of tubes. Tubes weaving in and out, over and under, like the 'Wild Thing' roller coaster I had ridden just weeks before. Transparent tubes, red tubes, blue tubes, fat tubes, and skinny tubes. Tubes on top, tubes underneath, and tubes that seemed to have no end or beginning. I turned to Dan, perplexed, wondering where Phil was amidst all this plastic. He turned to hug me, sobbing, and I cried, too.

We made the waiting room of the ICU our home, and more fruit baskets were sent to us to decorate our new living space. After we'd had a thousand Frappuccinos, one leg amputation, two hundred games of rummy, and some greeting cards, we all packed up our stuff and went to our real houses.

A first try

We'd both had other lovers, but they were just for practice, I think. We didn't know it, but we were practicing for this very moment. You, in your fuzzy blue hat that I used to think was hiding something. Me, in who knows what (but wanting to take it off!). It was your suggestion, but I verified it with more enthusiasm than you'd anticipated . A mixtape (a cd, really, but let's be nostalgic here) that you made just for me, just for this, was playing in the background.

The stakes were high. We liked each other too much for this to go awry (that's why you made the mixtape). We might have been nervous. Maybe we were just way too thrilled to be with each other. Maybe I had too many images of being convinced to do something that made me uncomfortable; maybe you had too many memories of lovers wanting to do things that made you feel too powerful.

It started slowly, of course; our apprehension wouldn't allow us to be hasty. Soon, though, hands and feet and faces and elbows were linked so tightly that we couldn't disconnect (not that we would've wanted to). We were stuck, adhered together by our doubt and our hopefulness and our salty bodies. Our desires weren't limp, but other things were, and we barely even noticed it amidst the pinkish red bedsheets that, at first, made me think you might be gay. How wrong I was! And how happy I was to be there, stuck to you just as sweet as maple syrup on my lips at breakfast.

Buses

Of all the knowledge I've acquired in life, I've learned the most on buses. Greyhound buses, mostly, but sometimes city buses (the bus fee is in direct correlation with the amount of potential wisdom to be gained). I paid my fees to obtain all of this insight, so I didn't feel guilty about not giving back.

I met a man with dental problems. He was sitting in the seat behind me, and he desperately wanted to show me his tooth (or lack thereof). “Do you think I need to go to a dentist for this?”, he asked. He probably needed a dentist 10 years ago, so I said, “Yes, I think you might.” I wished I could've given him one of the 10 dentist appointments that I'd had in the past 10 years.

It was my first trip home in months. I had made my specialty chocolate chip cookies for the occasion, attempting to woo my family in hopes that they wouldn't forget me until the next time I came home. An older black woman was sitting next to me, and I offered her a delectable cookie of her choice. Ecstatic, she exclaimed, “Oh honey, I haven't had a homemade cookie in years!”. The enthusiasm spread through the bus, whispers drowning out other whispers, until eventually the box had reached everyone, and a single broken cookie remained. Everyone had a chance to try one, except for the college guy with his laptop and iPod.

We chose the back seat, right next to the bathrooms. We hadn't eaten in a while, but luckily, the man in front of us had a giant bag of Fire Cheetos to share. “I'm gonna ask my lady to marry me,” he told us. “Will you look at the ring, and make sure it's good enough?” I examined the specimen, worth $189.99 according to the price tag. “It's just perfect!” I exclaimed. “She'll love it”. Soon, he called her just to tell her that I had verified the opulence of the newly purchased symbol of their love.

On the buses, I saw college kids working their way up in the world, and black folks just trying to work their way through. I will graduate from college soon, and I've learned a lot from four years of reading scholarly articles, discussing theories, and writing my brilliant ideas down on paper. Maybe I will make money with my fancy degree, but I think I'll keep taking the buses.

Shapes

I compare all my lovers to my papa (in a purely platonic way, of course), but I didn't know this until I met you. You were on to me from the beginning, claiming that I fell in love with you because you're a teacher. “Tell me about your dad”, you would say. “I feel like I need to understand him to understand you.” You wanted to know him so badly, believing that this sacred knowledge would provide insight into my soul and would somehow allow you to dig your way into the tenderest spot in my heart. It is impossible for you to know him, just like it's impossible for me to know the man who shaped you at your earliest stage.

We can only rely on each other to relay the depth of character of each of our “shaping men”. And it's funny to think of how different they were- mine, a catholic school teacher from a small farm town; yours, a benevolent civil rights advocate who loved his grandkids- and how they shaped us into people who could get along so well.

You are an octagon, with too many sides for me to see at one glance. I turn you around and around and around, and I keep finding new sides, edges that I didn't know existed. I am a hexagon, and sometimes I hide in one of my corners where it's hard for you to find me. Together, usually, we are circles and spheres, rolling over and under and into each other with our soft borders and continuous lines. This is how we've been configured, thanks to those who have shaped us.