Blogging is for the Bats

I love to write. 

I am in no way a novelist or a poet; in fact, my writing is full of grammatical errors like comma splices and pronoun-antecedent agreement problems. I know this about myself. As an English teacher, it is a source of great shame; as an English major, I am content with my extreme love of literature being enough. I am not one for quality rhetoric.

Nonetheless, I like to write and share my ideas.

I have been writing all of my life, aside from traditional academics. I used to create little picture book stories. My second grade teacher was very impressed. I created a story for her called “Ms. June Bug.” She said that I would be an author one day and a part of me always clung to that idea.

My next venture in book making was in third grade when I wrote “Frosty the Ax Murderer”, a tale of a snowman who vowed revenge for the children allowing him to melt away. Needless to say, this deeply disturbed my mother.

This idea is apparently not unique, even though it was to my mom in 1986. 

There was a time in college when I was told that I was a good poet. Upon reflection and maturity, I realized that I am a horrendous poet.  Most teenagers are, in my opinion. I have only known three people who were capable of writing poetry worth reading as teens and young adults: Sarah, Brad, and Neal. Everyone else was/is producing the same trite couplets that all forlorn and angst-ridden teens has written over the decades.

They were really wanna-be Beatniks, which turned into Hipsters. 

I love reading, analyzing, and discussing poetry. It is one of my strengths. Despite my knowledge of the technical aspects of poetry, it is far from my gift. In my early twenties, I realized that the wanna-be beat-niks who gave my poetry any ounce of admiration were actually only trying to advance their access to a (probably not-so-poetic) encounter with me. It never worked.

I had one glimmering moment of success with a short story and it is an idea that I play with to this day. I needed a scholarship and the prompt was so easily manipulated for the audience that within a few hours, I produced a piece that tugged at their heartstrings. It served a purpose and met the needs of the intended audience to get the scholarship. Although the piece had my voice all through it, it was underdeveloped and it was my sad attempt to be the next Flannery O’Connor. They say that you write what you know and what I know is Southern culture and the complexities of crazy, Southern women and the odd dynamics that are shared between them.

Still, I am no writer.

I eventually found my best form of creating when I became a teacher. I took great pride in myself for writing some of the best lesson plans out there. Maybe I am simply full of a false bravado in this department, but I own it for now.  

I have to give all the credit for this ability to the influence of my professors (Dr. Y, Dr. V, and Dr. L) and my 1^st year mentor because they all challenged me to go with “thinking outside of the box” while meeting the requirements that are set for educators. It could be that I came in at a time when many people in my profession were suffering from burn-out and had resorted to not “recreating the wheel” by utilizing online-resources. Some call that “working smarter and not harder.” I don’t have an opinion on it, either way. I wanted to create lesson plans that were true to my identity as a teacher and that I felt would be most effective for my students. I could find great ideas in other resources and through collaboration, but I still had to create what was me and was good for my students.

Yet, with the impending threat of a state-takeover and the ever-present, profiting-making corporate educational programs in our nation’s public schools, my ability to write an amazing and innovative lesson has been trampled and degraded because it did not fit the format of the corporations that is infiltrating schools across this country. I have been tied down to becoming a “YES” woman and have had all creativity stripped from me, as deviating one bit is taken as an act of insubordination instead of an act of trying to reach my particular set of students. There seemed to be no value in the success that I was producing in the classroom, or so I felt in that time and space. I, with my very vocal determination to do what is best for students, became a sitting duck that was quickly used as an “example.” With each defense that I provided, each attempt to not be bullied or wrongly accused, each attempt to keep the instruction true to the needs of the students, I became more and more of a target. I had not mastered handling these situations with grace and professionalism. I resigned myself to what I viewed as submission, but may make me a stronger educator.

I have spent my entire summer reconciling myself to the fact that I am not to be a “trailblazer” in education, but rather a “puppet.” Does this mean that I will give my students less? Absolutely not. I will continue to walk into my classroom everyday and teach each child as much as a I can with what I am told to do. I do this for me and my students – no one else. It does mean that I, like so many teachers across this country, have to face the fact that we are now merely a part of the political and corporate game that has become education.

I was very close to leaving the field, yet this was not fathomable to me. Teaching has been my dream profession since I was very young. God calls me to teach. In fact, I feel called to teach at a school that many people locally judge rather unfairly and harshly, despite the fact that we have a great amount of wonderful students who achieve great things in life and a large amount of staff with the heart and knowledge that surpasses most. I teach every child that walks through my door with all that I have because that is what every student deserves. That is the level that I choose to challenge myself to achieve every day.

Per usual, I digress.

                   

I wanted an outlet for my thoughts and opinions. I would get into these social media rants and debates. I have opinions that I want to share and discuss. The limited character space on social media makes it difficult to express it all and the unchecked emotions that come from an immediate type and click often detract from the validity of any point that is being made.

A secondary draw to blogging is that I like to talk about a wide-range of things: Pinterest fails, the crazy situations that I get into, life as a reformed hooligan, being a mom, a wife, an ex-wife, and so forth. It isn’t that I think the world cares, but, like with teaching, it is worth the work to reach just one person.

I very stupidly believed that blogging would come easily to me. I type exceptionally fast and I run my mouth constantly (hence, the title of my page).

Yet, it didn't. 

I went stale right out of the gate. I continued to make lists of things that I wanted to discuss, but did not find the time or momentum to put it down on paper.

I have two friends that are actual authors (Check them out because they are both amazingly gifted people Celia Anderson and Brad Carter). They are very different writers, but both are passionate about what they create and dedicate themselves to their craft. In fact, they have had that drive since high school.

I have lacked the dedication to even write my little rants and raves about life. Anyone who is invested in a venture professionally or personally has to create a certain amount of time and effort for their projects and goals. I spent the first half of summer moping over the last school year. After reflecting about what I needed to do to remain a teacher (which felt like a ritualistic sacrifice akin to a scene of out Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), I began working on improving my outlook on my personal and professional life. I had to cut out a lot of negativity with myself, my environment, and my associates.

I am still more misanthropic than Polly-Anna, so don’t let any positive spin confuse you.

Yet, being able to have dreams and to survive suffering the bumps and bruises of recognizing my shortcomings, being shoved into metaphorical boxes, and learning that my spur-of-the-moment efforts are not going to cut it in life is freeing.

Being transparent and raw, is not good for the ego, but it does seem to soothe the soul and provide hope that I can still be me without all of the battles that I either create or in which I willingly engage.

Until next time,

LIVE LOUDLY!!!

Out of Context: Procrastination used Shakespeare to Scold Me: “Turn thee, Jaimie. Look upon thy Death.”

My first year experience with the National Board Process

                I tell my students repeatedly not to procrastinate. I always tell them that I will not take late work, but I do. I accept it because I have a secret: I am a massive procrastinator myself.

                I think it is a genetic trait, but my mother and both of my sisters are the same way.

 I have, my whole life, waited until the last minute to complete a task. I am procrastinating right now; I should be cleaning my house because I have family coming to stay, but I am writing this instead, a blog post that should have been written a week ago.

Do you see how sweet I was? There is not way that I was a procrastinating mastermind already. 

  In 1^st grade, I never completed my work. I HAD to wait until “crunch” time. My mother says that my teacher would collect my incomplete work, but I would somehow manage to steal it off of her desk during the day and finish it. It drove Ms. Edmonds bonkers.

                By late elementary and early junior high, I would only tell my mom about items that I needed for a project the night before. This always led to a very tense situation and an all-nighter for me. I pulled it off, though. I created a wonderful version of a cell with jello and craft material around the house. When I didn’t study for a Biology test, I would write, “I refuse to answer based on my religious beliefs.” I feel so wrong for doing that to Ms. Holcomb. She was a nice lady who deserved my full effort. In high school, I faked the resulted of a Science Fair project. Ms. Holcomb gave me a glowing review. That was a product about the effects of smelling essential oils. Anyone that knows my mom, knows that she has been reading books about natural remedies and creating products with natural ingredients for years. I didn’t consider it cheating at the time; I was merely using my resources by recreating the information in a different, more cutesy tri-fold board way. This was before the age of Web 2.0 and access to the internet, so proving that I had cheated would have taken a very keen mind with knowledge of the exact books that I copied.  

This is how us old people used to Google. 

It didn’t stop there, either. High school, the age of writing papers for class, was a time for me to refine my methods of procrastination. I was blessed with the ability to read very quickly and pull out the important details. Armed with my prompt and my highlighter, I would find what I needed and get started. Most of the time, I had read the literature prior to my essay; that did not encourage me to write about when the assignment was given. Nope. I had to push the deadline.

I had a couple of some new tools that I used right before deadlines, too. From high school on, I always had an intelligent boyfriend. I never seriously dated anyone that I thought to be less intelligent that I was. Please understand that I never set out to use my boyfriends for their brains; I simply find intelligent men to attractive (I liked my first grade crush because he had glasses and could read well). Having said that, it was convenient to have a boyfriend who was smart enough to help" inspire ideas and approaches to writing: about the subject at the time. The Ex was smart, but he was more science oriented, so I had to manage college on my own, but Neal was a blessing when it came to grad school and APA format. I would write furiously just before the submission deadline, and he would create my bibliography and check my in-text citations (I know MLA and procrastinated too much to master APA).

Lastly, on my post of shame as an educator, I was the Queen of Excuses and lies. This also started in elementary school. I told my first grade teacher that I couldn’t do my work because I needed glasses, but my parents couldn’t afford them. I also claimed that my parents kept me up all night working in the snow cone stand at the ballpark. Neither of these things were true. Imagine how my mother must have felt to get the “charity” phone call about taking up a collection at school to get my glasses (I still have 20/20 vision, by the way). I came home to my mother throwing all of my toys in trash bags, as she repeated the phrase, “My child does not lie. My child does not lie.” It was a moment of denial meeting acceptance full of rage, embarrassment, and sadness.

Disney had such an impact on my development. 

When the excuses and lies quit working, I started to create classroom disruptions or get into enough trouble to get a minimum of In-School Suspension to by myself some time. The only upside to this is that I can typically recognize these same tactics in my students. It is hard to con a con.

I made above-average grades in most of my literature and education classes, despite the grammar errors and typos that come with writing all-night. I made even better grades in grad school. By my mid-thirties, I had developed a confidence an arrogant attitude that I create my best work at the very end.

National Boards decided that it was time to teach me a lesson and kick my tail into submission.

I earn my Masters in the Art of Teaching, but that wasn’t enough for me personally. I wanted to become a National Board Certified Teacher. This is essentially the best of the best according to some and I have to agree. Although I procrastinate, I do have an ego to feed and a competitive nature that does not allow me to be stagnant.

National Boards is a yearlong process. It was similar to my pregnancy in a way. I spent months aware of the growing life inside of me, but as his due date drew near, I just felt completely unprepared for what was coming.

Part of my grad school process was to create a mock National Board portfolio. I held on to that because I made good grades on it and thought that it cut my work down by ¼. That was my first excuse in procrastinating. In November, I discovered that one of the most brilliant teachers that I knew did not pass her first round by less than a point. If a type-A perfectionist like her couldn’t make it the first time, then I felt like my organized chaos method was bound to fail. That was my second excuse. My third excuse had to do with the discovery of corporate involvement with the program. I will not discuss this for legal reasons, but it left me very bitter. This was not an excuse. This caused me to shut down completely.

I am no Mozart. 

The due date was May 16^th. I had done my recordings and some of my writing, but not enough. I spent my National Board days writing away, but would scrap everything that I wrote. Around the last week before it was due, I went into panic mode. I began to analyze my in-class videos and revising what I wrote to the point of insanity. When my supportive friends would ask how it was going, I would say, “It will be done.” Inside, I was filled with anxiety that I was not going to be able to create some last-minute genius or wiggle my way into an extension. I had had a year. This was all the curse of procrastinating.

The electronic submissions weren’t due until 2 a.m. Central time. I thought this to be a blessing at first, but I was becoming delirious from sleep deprivation. I know in my heart of teacher hearts that two of my entries were atrocious and I was humiliated to submit such crap. The only ones that I felt pretty good about were the ones that I had worked on throughout the year. I am still not sure if the final entry for my portfolio submitted completely because they shut the system down at 1:58 a.m. my time. 

It is certain that I will have to bank the scores that I made and re-do part of the process next school year. This is going to cost me some money and that just adds insult to my self-inflicted injury.

It took me two weeks to fully process how much I had failed myself. It took me two weeks to admit that I was a hypocrite for being so hard on my procrastinating students. I have yet to think about it without getting ill.

Having said all that, National Boards will tell you up front that it is a one to three year process to achieve National Board Certification. It is a challenge worth accepting and has made me a better educator already. I recommend it for anyone who plans on being a lifelong educator and learner. You can’t escape facing your personal and professional shortcomings while going through this process, which in turns creates an opportunity to promote best practices for learning in the classroom.

In November/December, I will get my letter that says that I did not score high enough to pass. I will cry. I will, however, make a timeline and stick to it. I will utilize the free support groups that were offered to me and take advantage of the expertise of my National Board Certified friends other than the night before it is due.

            

After all these years of knowing that “procrastination leads to aggravation,” I have learned that I can no longer stand in front of a group of kids and be a secret procrastinator. I have to evolve and model for my students how to get stuff done.

Until next time, LIVE LOUDLY!!!