Moving ahead

I want to write this next blog while the zeitgeist of the nation is freshly focused on race relations and marriage equality.  I won't be talking about the latter specifically, but the supreme court just made Gay marriage the law of the land, and I wanted to give my congratulations to all my gay friends who have gained a huge victory today.  I'm so happy about that!

 But this blog is focusing on race relations.  Here is the class picture of my fifth grade year.

I am  the girl with gasses on the bottom row.  I want you to note the difference between fourth and fifth grade.  My fourth grade class was incredibly homogeneous, as white as can be.  In fifth grade, the demographic was  beginning to change,  I mentioned the the kids from the Children's home attended my grade school, and indeed I recognize at least two girls who were residents of the Home, and they are both white.  The brown faces you see where simply a reflection of the changing community.  I mention this because fifth grade was my first real experience with blatant bigotry and discrimination,  And it was perpetrated by a friend.

Just to give you some background on my understanding of race in general, I want to tell a somewhat embarrassing story.  When I was little, we had a topsy-turvy doll.  It was one of those rag dolls with a big skirt, and if you turned her upside down, she had a different head where her legs should have been.  This particular doll was a "Nannie-Nellie doll- black Mammy (I know that's not PC, but that's what it was) on one side and a little white girl on the other.  Since it was all one doll, I figured it was all one person.  I concluded that, somewhere along the line we all just turned black.  I asked my startled mom when was Grandma going to turn black.  She let me know that black people were born that way and that was the end of that particular cognitive distortion! I think that times were so segregated that the only black person I had ever seen was an elderly black man.  Thus I created that very odd delusion from my doll!

Fast forward to fifth grade.The two black girls were Tracy and Clara.  Tracy was sweet and a little quite and Clara was bold and outspoken.  While they were not part of my inner circle of friends, I always felt somewhat proprietary and protective of them.  I wanted it to be my job to make them feel part of the class.  I think they were exotic and different to me,which isn't necessarily very sensitive or flattering, but it was better then hostility displayed by some of the other kids.

I was fairly popular and a leader at Harrison school.  Teachers liked me and kids liked me so I had no problems standing up for myself.  

My teacher that  year was Mrs, Movshin, who I adored.  We was firm but fair and gave us interesting assignments.  we were reading a story about a girl who attends a progressive dinner.  Progressive dinners are parties were you move from house to house for the different courses; so appetizers at one house, then go to the next for salad etc.  While we were discussing the story, one of my friends said "We should have one of those!"  We were talking about who could do which course, and Clara said "I could do dessert!"  My friend Lori say, "you can't be in it you're an N word" only she said the whole thing.  I guess I had heard that word before, but not in my house.  I didn't think about how insulting that was  I just looked at her, put my arm around Clara's shoulder and said "She can so be in the party!"  Because I was a leader, and Lori was my friend, she just glared at me and said no more about it.  

Skipping ahead several months, my Dad took the job as the pastor of the church in Jefferson City.  I have talked about this transition in other blogs but I haven't mentioned the send-off my teacher gave me from on my last day,  I was in the middle of reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little house book.  I think  I had read them all except one- "Farmer boy".  As a going away gift, the class gave me a hard cover copy of that book. All of the kids signed the inside of the dust jacket.  By far, the largest signature was from Clara who added "Your friend" before her name.  

I think I may still have that book around somewhere, but the dust jacket-and signatures-is long gone. 

I always wonder what it meant to Clara that I stood up for her.  I wonder if that iis why she thought of herself as my friend .  I hope she remembers me.  I certainly remember her and, although I didn't realize it at the time, I remember the lesson of how much she had to struggle for inclusion.

School days continued

My fourth grade teacher was Mrs. Stroessner.  Or I should say she was my teacher for most of the year.  Mrs. Stroessner had a baby and moved to Jefferson city.  This was probably when I began to realize that teacher were human beings with lives outside of the classroom.  I think, other than that, fourth grade was rather uneventful.

 My mind remembers the strangest things!  I have a clear memory of finding out about Mrs. Stressner's pregnancy at the class Christmas party.  Everyone participated in the gift exchange and everyone brought a present for the teacher.  My mom, having been a teacher, understood the importance of NOT giving teachers another "worlds greatest teacher" mug. We always gave the teacher stationary, which was useful for writing thank you notes for "World's greatest teacher" mugs.

One of the presents Mrs. Stroessner received that year was a toy bunny and some other baby related items.  I think she saw this as an opportunity to announce her pregnancy.  I am sure I have collapsed the two events (moving and having a baby) into a single announcement, but whatever the timeline, I knew she was moving on and I spent he rest of the day being sad.  After school I tearfully informed my sister of loosing my teacher to pregnancy and the move.  She told me I should be happy because having a baby was a miracle.  I thought, #1. No it's not and #2.  This was a stupid unhelpful thing to say.  I kept both of those thoughts to myself, of course.

The other thing I recall from that day is really odd. Everyone at school got a Christmas gift bag with candy, pencils, and other trinkets.  One of the items was a furry ornament with googly eyes, hung with a piece of elastic.  I immediately called a Bippy,  Remember on Rowen and Martin's Laugh-in how they used to say "You bet your sweet bippy"?  I'm sure they were not referring to a hairy ornament with googly eyes.  But the thing just seemed to be a bippy to me.  The odd thing about this is that I remember Beth (my sister) showing me her pink furry ornament (mine was yellow.  Why did she always get the good color?) and saying, "Look! I got a bippy!"   I distinctly remember thinking how weird it was that we both independently call these goofy things by the same name!  So while her advice regarding how to manage my feelings was trite and contrived, we still maintained our cosmic connection.!

The teacher who took over for Mrs. Stroessner was Mr. Hulsey.  A male teacher was a curiosity to me, but I remember that he was kind and funny.  The only thing that bugged me was how he pronounce the name Phoebe.  Mrs. Stressner had been reading a book aloud to the class as a sort of time filler I think.  She would read a chapter at the end of the day, and she was about half way through when she left.  The main character's name was Phoebe, but Mr. Hulsey pronounced it
 Ph-o-be with a long O sound.  We were too polite to correct him, of course, even though I am sure I am not the only one who noticed!

So now, not only was I aware that teachers were actually real people with real lives, I also realized that they were fallible, too.  So maybe fourth grade wasn't as uneventful as I thought!

Today is Father's day
Last week we had another mass shooting racist hate crime.
I also want to stay with my journey through my teacher memories.
I actually have a way to make all three things meld here.

I left off with my move to Harrison school in 2nd grade.  My dad had taken a position as the resident director of the Evangelical Children's Home in St. Louis.  The home had originally subsidized a  small tri-level home in a residential neighborhood for our family , with plans to convert it into a neighborhood group home.  Although this was something of which I could possibly have been aware at the time,  I am pretty sure the neighbors complained about the idea of a group home being there due to the possibility of black children being place there.  I can't be entirely sure that this was the complaint, but whatever it was, it meant that the plans were scratched and that's why we moved to the big house on campus and my education got moved to Harrison School in the Normandy school district.

I tried to look up Harrison school on -line.  It is still listed, but it doesn't appear on the Normandy district website as one of it's district elementary schools, so I am not sure if it is still there.  At the time, though, it was still a mostly white working class neighborhood school.  The children's home sent most of the residents there, and although the population of the home was mixed racially, it seemed to be a mostly Caucasian group of kids at the time.

By the third grade, I had settled in with friends and teachers and felt pretty positive about things.  Living on the campus of the children's home had its challenges, but generally, at my fairly young age, I was accepted as a friend and playmate.

The school had outgrown itself a little, so my third grade class was located in a small separate building along with the Kindergarten class.  I seem to recall the it was relatively new.  It had two classroom and two restroom, but we had to go to the main building for PE and lunch.  I l0ved my teacher that year.

Mrs. Donovan was the epitome of the old fashioned school Marm.  I'm sure she had been teaching for years and she really loved the kids.

Third grade is the year we were taught cursive and multiplication tables. When we were first learning multiplication, Mrs. Donovan explained the concept and then had us each take turn guessing what the answer was staring with 1x1. We started out  strong and then, as the numbers got higher, more and ore of us faltered.  As it turned out, Mrs. Donovan asked me to run to the main building for something.In the days before intercoms, it may have been something like letting the office know who was buying lunch or who was absent. I had calculated how many people were in line to guess the next equation, and then what my number would be when I got back.  I figured out it would be 8x8 so I spent the entire trip to the office adding 8's.  Sure enough, when I returned to my seat, and my turn came, I knew that 8x8 was 64, thus impression Mrs. Donovan with my prowess at math.  I have since realized that the math part of my brain is missing, but it was ice to be good at it for a few moments.  
Third grade was my first encounter with seeing a child display separation anxiety/school refusal. I can't remember anything else about that little girl except that she was new to the school and she wailed and sobbed as soon as her mom left her side.  I remember Mrs. Donovan trying to make her feel welcome, but the little girl suddenly darted for the open window and slithered though and was gone. The interesting part for me, was that I was keenly aware of understanding her feelings...being scared of the teacher and the kids; hating new surroundings; missing her mother.  The other kids laughed at her antics, but I just remember wishing I could help her understand that it would be okay.  I had been in her position and everything would be just fine.

I know that I said I would tie  this blog into Father's day and touch on the hideous shooting.

Although third grade was uneventful,I think it was the calm before the storm that was to come to the Normandy district as more African Americans move in and race relations reached a fever pitch.

I have a lot more memories of third grade, but I think you've probably hear enough for today.  I will end by saying Happy Father's day to the man who taught me tolerance and led me into a life of service.

Here is of my Kindergarten class.  I'll dig up some more for next time

More on teachers and a lot on learning

I left off with first grade.  I started second grade at Home Heights in the Riternour School district in St. Louis.  I have zero memories of the teacher I had at that school, which is odd for me.  I think it may be due to the significance of moving to a new house and a new school when we moved onto the campus of the Children's home.

We move around Christmas time.  I know this because I remember buying something for our class gift exchange.  Those were the days before political correctness and worries about liability.  Gift exchanges were a common practice and sexism was a given.  Girls had to wear skirts or dresses even in phys ed.  Boys chased girls on the playground and it was a given that every one would fall into gender roles with ease.

Given the sex divide, politically incorrect Christmas gift exchanges were generally separated by gender.  Since  I was new to the class, my mom bought gender neutral school supplies as a gift, just in case it was a random exchange.  Turns out it wasn't,,  Girls gift and boys gifts were piled on separate tables.  We all drew a number and gifts were selected (from the appropriate tables, of course) in numerical order.  My number was high, so I had to wait while the bigger and flashier gifts left the tables first.  I was less interested in getting a good gift than I was worried about someone having to receive pencils and notebooks when they selected my gift.

The girl (naturally) who picked mine was as gracious and appreciative as a second grader could be.  She thanked my and said  that was always happy to get new supplies for school.  I'm sure she cried all the way home.  I had to choose from the last two or three small packages left on the table.  Good things often come in small packages.  I got a really cool Liddle Kiddle  (remember those?) bracelet with a tiny little doll inside a tiny little locket.  Wish  still had that.  It's probably worth a fortune on ebay!

My teacher that year was Mrs. Feeney.  I don't think I could have been more fortunate in being assigned to her class.  There was a Japanese student in her class who was also new that year.  He spoke no English when he first arrive in her classroom, but Mrs. Feeney was so excited to have him in her class, that he was able to communicate and flourished by the time I got to the class in December.  She was excited to have me there, too, although I was a lot less interesting than Kazu!

She made Kazu into an opportunity to teach us all about Japan. We learned how to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in Japanese, and made a Japanese Christmas tree from newspaper. Kazu painted our names in Japanese figures for each of us (very inaccurate translation, I'm sure).  We always sung Happy Birthday to each child in Japanese and had Japanese bean cakes for snacks.

I don't remember if Kazu stayed at that school for more than just that year (or even for more than that semester), but Mrs. Feeney made his stay in her class something significant and wonderful for him and for everyone in the class.

Thanks, Mrs Feeney, for making my own transition to a new school, a welcoming , nurturing magical experience.

Teachers

Thanks to my mom, who meticulously filled out my baby book and my school year journal, I jnow exactly who all of my teachers were throughout elementary school!

I was not so thoughtful.  I shoved items of interest between blank pages with every intention of going back to fill out each entry for each year.  I could have answered each question;  Who was my teacher? Who were my friends?  What did I like to eat for lunch, or What was my favorite subject?  Now that my son is a sophomore in college, it sees to be a missed opportunity.  Not that I think he will be all that disappointed anyway.  Considering how sentimental I am, I managed to raise a wildly pragmatic kid.  I blame his father.

I do have memories of my various teachers.  Accuracy is not guaranteed, but the memories are there.  I did not attend preschool except for the occasional stays at the daycare at the YWCA (I think it was the Y, anyway.  Remember accuracy is debatable here), so I did not have a consistent teacher until Kindergarten.  My Kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Freeman who I remember as a heavy set lady who was  little scary to me.  I'm sure she was perfectly lovely, but this was my first foray into academia and it was scary in general.

I had to ride the bus, and in the days when children weren't taught to read until first grade, we relied on strips of color coded construction paper to get us to the right bus after school.  I recall some man asking me where I lived in order to verify that our colored strips were accurate.  My strip was green, and my mom had drilled into my head that I was to get on the green bus.  When I dutifully gave the man my address, he took my green strip and said something vaguely disparaging about my mother being mistaken about which bus I should take to get home.  .  I think he gave me different colored strip of paper, but I still boarded the green bus.  I never doubted that my mom was correct, and sure enough I made it back to the stop in front of our little ranch house.  My mom must have seen the incorrect color strip, because I told her the story and what the man had said.  I recall, her expression and understood that my mom was none too pleased with the backhanded insult to her intelligence. I, however, never once doubted that my mom was way smarter than some random color strip checker!

After Kindergarten, who moved to St. Louis requiring a transfer to a new school.  My teacher was Mrs. Burney.   I have a clear memory of looking at a page of a Humpty Dumpty magazine as my om read it to me.  I thought "How on earth do you get words out of those strange squiggles?"  I'm sure I knew the alphabet, but did not translate that those squiggles were letters..  (Just as a brief digression; I love Humpty Dumpty magazine.  I was very excited every time it came.  One arrive on the same day that my mother returned from the hosital with my new infant brother.  When my sister got home from school that day, I ran to greet her saying "We got a new Humpty Dumpty magazine...and Mom came home from the hospital.  I am going to sick to the idea that I was saving the best news for last...)

Mrs. Burney taught me to read.  I finally was able to decipher those squiggles.  I think I graduated from picture books to chapter books very quickly after that and have enjoyed words very much since then.   Thanks Mrs. Burney!

I want to scan some pictures from that time, but it will have to wait till I figure out how to set up my new scanner.  Pics will come next time

Cheers  to teachers and...moms

It's Mothers day, so I must do a shout out to my mom and all the phenomenal mom's I know and those I don't.  One day a year to celebrate Motherhood, is way too little.

But I wanted to write about teacher.  Actually, I have never taken a class with three of my all time favorite teachers, although I have definitely learned the most from them.  There are my mom, my sister and my brother.

 My mom was an English teacher.  I thank her for making me somewhat of a grammar geek/snob.  I also credit her for my love of books and reading.  Did you know that parents owning books-more than being read to or being provided with their own books- is highly correlated to their kids becoming readers and book lovers themselves.  We always had books around, and memories of my mom frequently include seeing her with a book.

I take back that I never had her as an actual teacher because I am pretty sure she was a substitute in one or two of my classes.  Although she knew how to teach, her real strength as a substitute was being able to manage unruly kids.  Once she was warned that the class she was subbing for had locked a previous sub in a closet.  Her first words to the class were "I heard you locked your teacher in the closet yesterday.  There will be none of that happening today.  "  I am sure that she struck terror into the most harden delinquent in the class!

Another teaching gig that I know she aced, was being a Sunday school teacher.  This easily could have become repetitive and boring, and I am sure that quite a few Sunday school teacher see an opportunity to preach dogma to bored teenager, or complete Biblically based worksheet with rowdy 10 year olds.  But my mom really liked teenagers.  She liked challenging them to think about their belief and memes in new ways.  She liked lively discussions and sometimes, even got into trouble for bringing up controversial topics or using edgy materials.  Maybe it seems as if teaching Sunday School is a not real teaching, but I guarantee that she changed more minds and influence actions just as much as anybody teaching algebra in a High School.

My brother is a High School Band teacher.  He and his wife, who is in charge of the drum line and color guard, have taken the band program in their small town, into the national spotlight with their amazing marching shows,  Here is a link to one of their brilliant performances

https://youtu.be/uDMnAWdVlEo

Even though his prowess as a teacher and his ability to visualize and create amazing  performances is a strong suit, he is even more amazing at how he interacts with students.  Just as my mom made kids be respectful and made them think, Paul holds his kids to high standard,  He believes in them and motivates them to be their best selves.  He never questions their ability or willingness to make things happen.  I have seen him in action.  He is stern and demanding without ever losing his respect or love for those kids.  and they respect and love him right back.

My sister never really wanted to be a teacher.  She is an actor from birth and by training.  When we were kids, she and I used to put on shows for our mom and dad and anyone else who may have been around.  Most of our show consisted of lip syncing to sound track albums from Disney movies.  I always thought it was so nice of Beth to let me be the lead character.  In days long before  every girl wanted to be one of the Disney Princesses, I was being Aurora and Snow White and Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland.  Poor Beth was relegated to being all the other characters.  What I didn't realize at the time, was that , by making me be the one note hapless heroines, she got to dance around as Cinderella"s animal friends, cast spells as  the fairy godmother, drink tea with the mad hatter, look into the magic mirror as Snow White's step-mother, and the turn around and be the magic mirror itself!  She was a pint-sized one woman  show!

After years of being a working actor, she succumbed to her desire to have a steady paycheck and took a teaching position at a performing arts high school in New Jersey.  Just as my mom and brother have inspired and shaped their students, my sister is creating a classroom full of thoughtful and sensitive aspiring actors.  While many of them do go on to use their skills in the field, she is really giving them the tools they need to be thoughtful and expansive human beings, by challenging their believe about themselves and the world.  Here is a like to a video of her students, nominating her for a Tony award to acting teachers.

https://youtu.be/bp0Cfi10O8g

 By the way, my very busy sister also operates her own outstanding school for actors.  Here isa link to her school's website  www.njactors.org

I am fortunate to have these amazing teachers in my life.  I do feel a tiny bit inadequate to two such decorated and well-loved teachers.  Teachers and actors love to give out awards for excellence.  Therapists aren't even able to tell anybody about any of their work, let alone make a video of their best sessions!  I'm definitely in the wrong feild if I'm looking for accolades, butthe rel unsung heroes are Moms who could never be singled out as Mother of the Year, because they are all the best mom's in the world.!

Here's to my own best mom!  I love you!

I'm back again.  I tend to come and go so frequently!

I have figured out something about myself.  I get busy.  I get behind.  I feel guilty for not keeping up,  I procrastinate.  I give myself a hard time.  I procrastinate more.  And then I figure I shouldn't be focusing on frivolous things until I get my "real work" done.  This does  not stop me from playing word games until my head explodes,or reading drivel or watching my very important TV shows.  It just keeps me from being productive in other meaningful ways.

Here is what I have been up to,in the meantime.

On the MS front:  I have "graduated" to using a walker.  My neurologist wrote me the order for it and said "You're gonna kill me, but I think it's time"  So I got one, and , what do you know...I actually get around a lot better and can last a lot longer-which is very important when you are shopping.  The next time I the neurologist , I had the walker.  I said, "I think I get around a lot better with this thing."  He responded,"God, yes!"  Not just yes or even "I think so, too," but, "God, yes!" Somehow, that was just a little disconcerting...

Amazingly, my practice has been picking up a little.  That's part of the reason I have gotten behind on paperwork.  I hate paperwork.

In order to not feel like a complete slug, I spend a great deal of tie taking open coursework classes.  I am currently taking "The Neuro-biology of Everyday Life"  through the University of Chicago.  Originally I was trying to take it more seriously; trying to pass exams and doing course projects etc and then I realized the reason I never followed through with getting a doctorate degree.  I hate that stuff!  I only want to absorb the interesting stuff.  (Just as an aside, I really did debate going back to school for a few minutes.  I even took the Miller Analogy Test and scored n the 98th percentile nationwide-I am a good test taker).  Since I hate studying and completing paperwork, but love actually learning new stuff, open coursework is the best thing.. It even beats going to seminars and conferences because it's free!  Plus I don't have to wear shoes.


Learning stuff makes me feel as if I am accomplishing something, even though I'm really not.   I watch a lot of TED talks for that very same reason.  So I'm knowledgeable, but being so doesn't really help me accomplish much.  Although, maybe that's why I aced the MAT.

So now that I feel as if I got that off my chest, maybe I can get back to the story of becoming me.

It's teacher appreciation week, so I think I will focus on amazing teachers I have had or that I know.  Watch for it!