Accepting Harlan

                                        "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive"

In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky

That's the place where I traced my bloodline

And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone

You'll never leave Harlan alive

Full Song

Something about the haunting tone of this country song has always resonated with me.  I couldn't put my finger on what that something was until today.  It wasn't the fact that it references a small town from which few people escape.  Though, given my complicated relationship with Nebraska, that would make sense.  

Here's what it is.  At it's heart, this song is about inescapable fate.  It's about that thing you don't think you will ever overcome no matter how much you want to or how hard you try.  I believe that at some point in every person's life, they will have at least one moment like that.

My friend Brian's suicide is my Harlan.

Today, I was packing up my things at the coffee shop where I sometimes work, and the song "Amazing Grace" shuffled up next on my playlist.  I was immediately swept back to another Sunday, almost exactly ten years ago, when I stood in front of my congregation singing that exact same song.  I looked out on the sea of sleepy smiles and spotted five grey, breathless faces.  They knew what I'd known since 7:30 that morning.  They knew what everyone else would know in a matter of minutes.  Something beautiful had been destroyed, and none of us would ever be the same.  

The next song, you can guess what one, landed me safely back in 2015, and all of the sudden the words made sense.  For six months after Brian died, I felt dead too.  For the rest of that first year, I felt painfully alive.  I felt like everything and everyone I loved might crumble before my eyes at any moment, and that constant fear left me paralyzed.  I was sure life would never be the same, and I would never be happy again.

I was half right. I've never left Harlan.  Honestly, I hope I never do.  I never want to stop missing Brian.  I never want to become numb to the painful memories that accompany each September 18th.  

However, I have learned how to be alive in Harlan.  

I realize this part smacks of George Bailey, but hang with me if you will.  I'm no longer afraid of Harlan.  I've overcome paralysis, I've stabilized the relationships I know are solid, and I've accepted that others will inevitably crumble.  Most importantly, I've learned the difference between living and being alive.  Regardless of where I am, I will eventually stop living.  It's just nice to know that when I do, I'll be in Harlan - alive.  

Well Hello

I’m 4.  Brow furrowed, heart aching, I am somehow leaving Blockbuster without “The Sound of Music.”  Whoever this "Dolly" is, I do not want to say, "Hello!" to her.  My brain has no room.  I need to see my Maria spinning free on the hills!  They are alive for heaven’s sake!  She wants to skip across rocks and run through fields.  So do I!

"You’ll like it Erin!  Stop pouting!"

The VHS clunks and whizzes, and I whiz with it - into a world completely choreographed by a whipperwhool of a woman with the boldest voice I’ve ever heard and the biggest energy I’ve ever seen.  Her charisma eats up the screen, and while she could never, ever replace my nun who longed for adventure, she makes her own space in my world.

I’m 14.  Boys are really cute - especially this one boy with deep blue eyes and a soul and brain to match.  Plus he has a six pack.  

We have cable now, so I’m flipping through channels.

-And if you act right now-

FLIP

-f only we’d gotten there sooner sh-

FLIP

-ming up next, see how-

FLIP

- OUT THEEEEEERE! -

FLIP pause FLIP BACK

And Dolly and her gang are at it again.  Except it’s the young people who draw me in this time.  All Barnaby and Cornelius want is to kiss a girl.  All I want is to kiss that boy.  I get them.  They get me.  We all eventually get our kiss.  Life really is like the movies!

I’m 17.  Our director is sick so we’re watching a musical in class.  Babs wins the vote over those gangsters who for some reason fight by snapping their fingers at each other.  I smile.  It’s like seeing old friends. I sit and think of other things.  That is, until the parade passes by.

Alright Dolly, you’ve got my attention.  

Suddenly I realize, Dolly got lucky.  She married rich.  Her husband died.  Now she can do WHATEVER she wants.  What a life she’s lived…

Fuck the boy!  I mean - you know what I mean.  Why does every girl who goes looking for adventure end up married?  Really - fuck the boy.

I have to get out of here before the parade passes by, because out there, there’s a world outside of Nebraska, and…

I’m 20.  My college home is Swarthmore, PA, but for now, I’m back in Nebraska.  I’m triple-counting to make sure I have the same 12 bobbing heads that I had when we first sat down.  The chair kicker is strategically seated next to me, I’ve convinced the man behind the counter that it's worth everyone’s while for him to refill two pops that have already spilled - free of charge - and the lights are dimming.  

"OUT THERE!"  Plays on the screen.  In a theater populated by college students and summer campers, I realize I’m the only one who recognizes this song as we spin through solar systems, and streak past planets - Star Trek style - until finally Earth comes in to view.  We meet a cube-ish robot who collects things, human things, things he’s piecing together in a world where he is totally alone (save for one bug).  This little robot reminds me of what it means to wonder.  And he does it at a time when wonder feels very far away.

I’m 27.  Gin and olive juice fill my nostrils as a chorus of voices announce they’ve, “gotta get in step while there’s still time left.”  It’s a sentimental last hurrah for a man who is about to leave the city by the bay.  I talk to him later, and he tells me through tears that he is moving to Florida.  To be close to family, yes, but also to be there for a godchild with a gay son.  The man I’m speaking to wants to make sure that neither of them are left behind by the parade, because many, many years ago he feels like he and his father were.

I now have a heart and a brain full of many examples of courageous, intelligent, independent women.  Many of whom don’t get married at the end of the movie.

The boy is dead, and with him died that little girl who thought that all stories have a happy ending.  It’s a perspective that needed to die.  Still, I wish something else would have killed it.  There have been plenty of moments that would have done the same job far less viciously.

The parade has not passed me by, and I am certainly OUT THERE, both figuratively and literally.

I still love that kid who bangs his feet against the chair in front of him, and I still feel the unrelenting drive to advocate for every kid who “spills a soda.” They all deserve a second chance.  Many of them didn’t get to believe in happy endings as long as I did.  Many of them still do. Regardless, they are all beautiful.

What is all this for?  Who knows.  I got to say, “Hello!” to Dolly for the first time in a while on Monday night.  I guess it just got me thinking.

ALIVE! SHE'S ALIVE!

This year has been insane.  I've been pushed hard and stretched thin, and I have not had much time to reflect.  My focus as a second year instructor has been on the practical aspects of educating; procedures for a productive room, incentive structures, exit ticket trackers, etc.  I have also taken on a lot more responsibility for whole-campus tasks such as planning various field trips and creating units of curriculum on subjects like debate and story-telling.  This has been a wonderful experience, and I feel like I have grown immensely as a teacher and a professional.  Now I need to learn how to balance that with thinking about why I do this work and what kind of teacher I want to be.

This week I finally had the chance to sit down and look over my 1.5 years of blog posts.  I'm shocked by how much I have already learned and grown since my first post.  I'm also shocked and a little disappointed by how many times I read an old post and thought, "ooooh, that's why I do that," or, "wow, I've really lost sight of that."  My focus for the coming year is going to be to find more of a balance between practice and reflection. 

One area of thought and practice where I feel I have made some actual headway is around the issue of trust in the classroom.  Questions surrounding trust and belief have been a reoccurring theme in my posts:

           How do I empower students to take chances?

           How do I show students that failure is not an end point but rather a step in the process?

           How do I balance the needs of different students so they all feel supported?

           Where should the greatest portion of my attention be directed, towards students who are already
           motivated to learn or towards students who have yet to find that motivation?  Do I have to choose?

What I have learned this year is that creating a safe and supportive classroom is more dependent on the culture of my room than the planning I put in to my lessons.  Students need to feel like they can be successful.  Some students come to my classroom having already experienced plenty of success.  They are the students whose hands eagerly launch from their desks whenever you ask, "What do you think about...?" or "Does anyone have any questions?"  Then there are the students who have not experienced as much success.  Either the will to learn, the skills needed to learn, or both have been absent from their educational experience in the recent past.  These students are either lethargic or are attempting to highjack the class.

My greatest area of growth this year has been in recognizing students who are not motivated to take academic chances in my room and helping them to find their academic strengths.  I've used many skills and strategies that have been very effective, but what I find most striking is also what probably should have been most obvious.

My students start trying because they realize I am never going to stop trying.

It is both touching and inspiring to me to see how their attitudes change when they figure out that I am going to continue to care and to try no matter how much resistance I'm met with or how much they might be struggling.  Until this year, I never really realized the impact a teacher can have when students know that no matter what happens, that teacher will still expect big things from them and will still care deeply about them as people.  Its difficult, it takes patience, and I'm definitely not perfect in my resolve just yet.  Still, it is reaffirming to me as an educator to know that if you hold out the rose petal, students will eventually sniff!  If you show that you care, your sparkle can respark the "dull gray dots of apathy".  If you make sure students know that you think they are making unfortunate choices but you maintain your belief that they are smart and good hearted people, they will eventually begin to believe it too.

So I keep hoping. 

And I keep working on being as patient, consistent, and caring as I can be.  Now, I need to learn how to pair that demeanor with high expectations and rigorous curriculum.  I need to work on how to use the supportive environment I am getting better at creating to push my students to grow academically.  Needless to say, I still have a lot of work to do.

It's just nice to know that all this time, I've been on the right track.  Its re-energizing to think that my early notions about teaching, though idealistic and not fully-fleshed out, were not totally out of the ballpark or completely naive.  Hopefully when I look back 5, 10, 15 years from now, I am still saying the same.

Power of Passion

This morning, I felt like crap. When I got on the subway, I was so focused on how putrid I felt, I was barely aware of what was happening around me. What brought me back was the familiar whine of a three year old girl who had just been scolded by her mother. The affected child's face, though far cuter than my own, directly reflected my internal feelings.

Then, something interesting happened. The little girl's mother handed her a tube of bubbles with a yellow plastic cat's head for a lid. She grabbed the toy in a huff and let it hang limp in her tiny hand. This only lasted a couple of seconds. Maintaining her scowl, she began to examine the object she now possessed. She soon discovered that the cat head screwed and unscrewed, and her face began to change. Her pursed cheeks softened, and the wrinkles that had formed above her nose relaxed slightly from wrinkles of anger to ones of interest.

This tiny child, who only moments ago had been so distraught, was now enthralled with the simple motion of twisting and tightening that yellow plastic cat head.

I watched her with a mixture of deep adoration and considerable envy. In my mind, I was already starting a blog post about how kids start out with natural curiosity about the world and how that curiosity overrides their negative emotions. In my mind, that would have been followed up by a rant about how that dies overtime because of experiences they have in life and school.

But then I realized that this same little girl had acted as my yellow plastic cat head.

Education is my passion. No matter how terrible my mood, any display of childhood curiosity transfixes me and sets my wheels in motion. I found myself sitting on a subway, no longer feeling like crap, but instead completely enthralled with a small girl and her tube of bubbles.

Student's do not loose their curiosity about the world, it just evolves. Eventually, children figure out why the cat head untwists, and that is no longer a subject that is transfixing. That is why it is so important to help students find a focus for that natural curiosity. In other words, they need to start uncovering their passions.

As a teacher, I feel it is my job to help my students find that thing that gets them so pumped up, so focused, and so dedicated that they forget anything else they are feeling. I want their desire to to explore and discover to override the negative feelings they experience and to give them renewed purpose in moments when things are hard. I want them all to have days like I had today. That is to say, days that start out completely terrible, and end with an exciting revelation.

Half and Half

My life as an educator has been tumultuous for the last couple of weeks. I've dealt with frustrations including everything from poorly delivered lessons and hours of standardized test prep to deeper systematic changes that are completely going to change the job I am doing next year. I've felt disgruntled, angry, frustrated, mopey, and helpless. Sometimes, when I look at the current direction education in this country is headed, its easy to feel like the "good fight" is simply too overwhelming.

No worries, this post turns around fast.

On Saturday, I went with a co-worker to the Museo Del Barrio (a Latin American Art Museum) on a scouting mission. Our college to career connections class just finished a unit on family history and identity, and many of our students have Latino roots. We thought it would be a nice way to end the unit, but we wanted to check it out first to be sure.

As I was meandering about the museum, I was picturing my tiny scholars flitting from placard to placard reading about the different pieces. Eventually I found myself in front of the painting Virus Americanus by Rafael Vargas-Suarez (see above).

I found this painting interesting, but not particularly inspiring. What got my mind flipping circles was the description of the painting provided on the placard that accompanied it. The painting was described as a visual depiction of America as a virus that is attempting to infect the entire world. However, it is difficult to tell whether the virus is advancing or the world is successfully fending it off. In other words, what we are really witnessing is a fight between optimism and pessimism. Again, I wasn't that impressed with the image, but this description of the painting hit a chord.

I am in a very similar place right now. As someone passionate about education reform, I see NCLB and other similar policies as a virus that is taking over the education landscape, and I am forgetting that the fight is far from finished.

As a teacher, I have been so focused of late on perfecting my lesson planning and ensuring that things go exactly according to plan, I have forgotten something vital...

That's not my style.

Luckily, I have brilliant and beautiful patches of light surrounding me who find ways to remind me of why I started doing this in the first place.

For instance, on Monday I had a group of three seventh graders who chose not to go outside for free time, and we were playing with play-do. One of my seventh graders made a ring out of the play-do and threw it across the table trying to ring it around a marker that another student was at that moment using. I could have reacted to this in many different ways.

1. Kicked my unruly student out of the classroom because I felt he was not mature enough to handle the activity.

2. Admonished the student for throwing the play-do with the stereotypical, "play-do is not for throwing" retort.

I almost did both, but instead for some reason I responded by saying, "My dear if you want to throw play-do rings at markers, please find a way of doing so that does not cause Thomas to mess up his beautiful picture."

And he did.

My chosen reaction led to the creation of ULTIMATE RING TOSS, a wonderful game in which you throw play do rings at ever changing formations of markers stuck to the table with gobs of play-do. It kept the whole group entertained for nearly 40 minutes, and it inspired another student in the room to create a play-do based game of her own.

I learned two major lessons from this experience.

1. No matter how daunting the world of education reform may seem, ULTIMATE RING TOSS moments are worth fighting for.

2. Sometimes it is necessary to remove the stick from where the sun don't shine and just go with the flow.

Are you ready, are you ready for the floor?

This weekend I was watching Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. My feelings about the movie were mixed. However, one thing about the movie that I found delightfully refreshing was the opportunity to see an on screen heroine boldly and actively pursuing what is right and just. Watching Alice constantly propelling herself forward toward her goal tapped in to the desire I have for my students to do the same. It left a question echoing in my mind.
How do you get students to jump down the rabbit hole?

One of my continuing challenges as an educator is to create an environment in which my students feel safe taking chances. I have written on this topic before, and I feel it is an appropriate time to return to it now that I have some experience attempting to create such an environment. My first impulse was to shield and protect my students from failure. I figured, if they took a chance and succeeded they would be more comfortable taking them in the future. When lesson planning, I tried to think of all the possible ways my students could make a mistake and then created safeguards within a lesson plan to ensure no such hiccups occurred.

This was very silly.

Obviously, it is impossible to think of everything that can go wrong, and attempting such a feat is hugely counterproductive. The message I ended up sending to my students was that you should always be cautious and do things perfectly the first time you try. It is completely possible that they came away from my lessons believing that doing a good job requires following a set of explicit and detailed instructions and creating an end product that fits a strict set of criteria. Planning lessons in this way makes it impossible for students to get comfortable taking chances because there are no chances to be taken.

Then last night all the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head regarding chance taking finally conga lined into a single stream of conscious thought.
Alice can fall because she has fallen before.

In Burton’s adaptation of the tale, Alice is returning to Wonderland as a young woman. Which means when she jumps into that rabbit hole she can do it without batting an eye because she has done it before and it turned out fine. This isn’t a perfect metaphor. In the movie Alice does not remember having been to Wonderland before and she thinks she is in a dream, but stick with me on this.
When I think of my own life and the moments when I have exhausted my ability to analyze, criticize, categorize, and every other “ize” you can think of for a decision, experience with falling is what allows me to finally say, “what the hell” and go for it. I have lept into the murky unknowns of life before, I have fallen into the blackness, and I have hit the ground at the bottom.'

Sometimes that ground is an embracing plushy surface that allows me to get up immediately and move on feeling glad that I jumped. Sometimes it is fitted with long jagged spikes that leave my body mangled and leave me seriously questioning why I ever thought jumping was anything but insane.

What always saved me from remaining impaled, hurt, and defeated was that during my early “spikes at the bottom” experiences is that someone was there.  Many people actually were there to say, "Wow Erin, you really f-ed this up, but you are not done, you are not defeated. Get up, learn from what has happened, and move forward." This was essential, because I learned that I could make mistakes. I could make huge mistakes, and with time and perseverance, I could recover and move forward.

I need to let my students hit the spikes.

However, when they do, I need to be there to help them stitch up the wounds and move forward. Hopefully that way, when they come to a rabbit hole in the future, they will jump with the understanding that regardless of what awaits them at the bottom, they will learn many valuable things about themselves and about life. More importantly, they will know that no matter what awaits them they possess the strength to propel themselves toward their dreams for the future.But what is the best way to do that?

Defining Moment

If you know me, you know I like poems. If you read this blog, you know I like using poems when I teach. The first poem I ever taught was The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes.

The Dream Keeper

Bring me all your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world


I did the explication of this poem with a group of 10 year old boys from Chester, PA. It did not take them long to uncover Hughes' meaning. However, what has stuck with me about this first experience is the response one boy gave to an off-handed question I asked at the end of our discussion.


Erin: Now that we have figured out what this poem means, what do you guys think about the idea of a person who protects other's dreams?

Darien: Erin I think that's stupid. No one can protect a dream for you. You have to take care of it yourself.


At that moment, I knew I wanted to be an educator. Not only that, but I knew what kind of educator I wanted to be.

Today I stood in front of my room full of sixth graders and did another "poetry activity." We compared the lyrics of two different love songs. One of them dealt with romantic love (All My Life by KC & JoJo) and the other with familial love (A Song for Mama). As I watched eager hands shoot up in the air and listened to the connections and observations my students were making, I felt a desperate longing that I am very familiar with.

My heart ached with the desire to be their dream keeper.

But Darien was right. That is something I cannot be, and trying to take on that role would be doing my students a grave disservice. Instead, it is my job to help my students develop the perseverance and passion they will need to fight the sparkle-dousing cynicism the world will inevitably throw their way.

As a teacher, I cannot buffer my students from disappointment and disillusionment. However, I can do everything in my power to prepare them to be brave and vigorous protectors of their own dreams. I can help them discover the strength and beauty that I already see in each and every one of them.

In the end, why would I ever want to keep their dreams when it is so much more amazing to watch them become their own keepers?