Teaching during Covid

I spent the last few months reading social media and listening to people in real life talk about teachers.  These people, none of them teachers, were saying things like,

"Breaks over teachers, time to get back to work!"

"You are an essential worker, get over yourself and embrace it!"

"You just had five months off, what are you complaining about?"

"Why are teachers so lazy that they don't want to work?"

And this is what I did- I listened to these words.  I absorbed them.  I internalized them.  And I allowed these words to hurt me.  I allowed these people to affect my perception of myself and allowed these people to make me angry.  I allowed myself to respond to their comments.  I allowed myself to spend my precious energy on this negativity. 

And then I realized something that a dear friend has been saying to me for over a year.  She says something to the affect of, "People don't understand what we do.  We have to get our validation from each other, and if other people want to appreciate us, that is just a bonus."

I was reading "Teach Like a Pirate" by Dave Burgess, and he basically said the same thing.  And after hearing it from two different sources, I had the great "Aha!" moment.  

In teaching, as I'm sure in most professions, there is a reason you do it.  There is a "why".  Obviously, in teaching, the why is not for the money.  My personal "why" is for the children.  I believe that every single child deserves to have someone believe in them and encourage them to be their best.  

I am a teacher

I would jump in front of a bus for one of my students

I would stand between them and a gun

I would run through fire to get them out of a burning building

(We practice these things and real teachers do them)

Every day, I check that they are clean, fed, and rested

Every day, I make sure their medical needs are met and check for signs of illness

Every day, I check for signs of neglect or abuse or trafficking

Every day, I protect their privacy

Every day, I teach them skills like shaking hands and looking in my eye

Every day, I make sure each child's individualized plan is followed

Every day, I engage them

Every day, I say their name

Every day, I make them feel safe

and loved

and wanted

and special

Every day, I teach them

I listen to them

I speak to them

Every day, I advocate for them

Every day.

And now I teach full-time in person learning

full-time virtual learning

and some hybrid version of these two

I am learning a gazillion new acronyms and how to use more technology

how to teach from 6 feet away

wearing a mask

unable to hug these children that I love

teaching them without even seeing them.

From now until it ends.

Every day.

And after all of this, some people are going to complain.  Judge. Hate.

But do you know what?

I don't have time for haters.  

I don't have time to even read the comments.

I have students to teach

and a world to change.

Image credits: 

1. https://www.economist.com/international/2020/03/19/how-covid-19-is-interrupting-childrens-education. 

2. Me

Letting them go

Sometimes there are no words
No actions
No way to help
Nothing but
Watching
Waiting

Sometimes it hurts more than breathing
When you have to let them go
Let them decide
Let them choose
Let them lead

Sometimes they walk into fire
And you can't stop them
And you can't go with them
And you can't send anything except your love with them into the flames
And pray to all the gods they won't be burned

Sometimes there is nothing except pain
An ache tearing through your soul
A gasp escaping your lips
A spinning in your gut
A hollow in your heart

Sometimes
There are no words
There is nothing
Nothing
But hurt

5/26/20
em


Image credit: https://www.kxly.com/spokane-valley-fire-dept-urges-alarms-sprinklers-after-weekend-of-fire-calls/

Being a Mom

Being a mom is the hardest thing I have ever done.

It is putting all of my energy and love and hope into someone else.  

It is someone else's actions affecting my happiness.

I am only as strong as my weakest child.

I am brave even when I am afraid.

I feed them, even if I have to crawl.

I protect them, even when it puts me in danger.

I hold on to relationships I do not want and let go of relationships I want to keep.

I choose a career and a home that fits their needs.

I choose what is best for them instead of what is best for me.

I have lost years of sleep.

I have destroyed my body.

I have spent 69 months breastfeeding and 40 months pregnant.

I fail.  Again.  And again.  And again.

To be honest, there are days that I want to run away.  

It is that hard.

Being a mom is a contradiction.

My children have the power to break my heart, but they are also the reason my heart beats.

I want to get away from them, but then miss them terribly.

They make me crazy and they keep me sane.

They are the reason I breathe and the reason I want to scream.

They are my greatest joy and my greatest fear.

Watching them grow fills me with happiness and nostalgia.

I can't wait for them to get to the next stage, but then mourn the last.

I celebrate their successes and catch them when they fall.

But being a mom is the best thing I have ever done.

My children have made me strong.

They have taught me how to give.

For them, I learned how to never give up.

To care for them, I have done things I never would have done for myself.

To protect them, I have gained courage I never knew I had.

To provide for them, I have pushed myself to the limit and found success.

To love them, I have learned selflessness.

To set an example for them, I have become a more honest and responsible human.

For them, I have become the best version of myself.

Although I fail them so often, they continue to amaze me with their resilience, their kindness, their goodness and their love.

When I see who they are becoming, I know I succeeded more than I failed.

And even on the hardest days, I love them more than breathing,

more than sunshine.

Parents say they will do anything for their kids

Burn down the world for them

Kill for them

Die for them

I continue to do anything for my kids

Burn down bridges and build new ones

Fight for them

Live for them

They are worth it.

Dreams Come True Ranch

The best sunset in Texas

Twenty years ago, when we threw my mother a surprise 40th birthday party, my stepdad held up a small, clear glass jar that held Texas soil.  He said he appreciated this woman who believed in his dreams, and my parents used this event of family and friends gathered together to announce that they would be leaving Utah and moving to Texas, where they would buy a ranch and run the horse business they had been talking about and dreaming of for years.
We all thought they were nuts. 
And they did it anyways.
For the last eighteen years, my parents have lived in East Texas.  For most of those years, they have lived at Dreams Come True Ranch in Nacogdoches. 
It is the place we have held Wednesday night dinner since my children were itty bitty. 

It is the place my children learned to fish, ride horses, shoot turtles, and hunt for frogs. 
And snipes. 
It is the place that each of my children worked their first job. 
It is the place my children have always run away to when they needed to feel safe and loved and mom and dad were just too mean. 
It is the place that my nieces and nephews took their first horse rides. 
The place my nieces run through the water hose and connect their big blow up slide. 
It is the place where kids swim in the pond, dump each other off of boats, and sling mud until they all look like creatures from the deep.
It is the place children watch mares deliver their foals in the middle of the night. 
It is the place the chicks hatch and the ducks splash.
It is a place with dogs, rabbits, chickens, ducks, deer, horses, cats, frogs, toads, snakes, fish, turtles, nutria... I can't even name all the critters we have seen there.
It is the place the children help grandma plant a garden.
It is the place that we used to play baseball on spring evenings after dinner.  Grandpa was the umpire and a close call always went to the kids. 
It is the place my little sister had her wedding.
The place my sister brought her first born child home to.  And her second.
It is the place we watch the sunset on the porch after a family meal.
It is the place I watch the sunrise on my way to work; where I feel calm even in the midst of chaos.
It is the place I have run to for comfort, peace, safety and love for eighteen years.
It is the place of my parents' dreams.
Their hopes.
Their vision.
Their livelihood.
Their future.
Or maybe not.  Twenty years is a long time to live a dream, and, boy have they ever lived their dream.  They bought the ranch. Left everything they had behind.  Started a new life.  Raised champion race horses.  Bred champion race horses.   Won awards and accolades.  Had articles written about them in magazines.  Horses on billboards.  causing waves in the horse industry by cloning horses.  Having a horse inducted into the AQHA Hall of Fame. 
And now,  they talk about selling the ranch.  And there are tears in both of their eyes when they say it.  It is their dream.  It is their home.  And it is our home.
 I love the ranch.  I cry when I think of it being gone.  My siblings will cry.  Our children will cry.  Our home.  Our beautiful, beautiful home. 
I imagine my youngest daughter growing up without knowing this place.  It hurts my heart that she will not know this place.
But then I think.
This place is built on my parents' love.  On dreams, on hope, on strength and sheer will.  It is built by my parents.  And I think of this place without them.  And it loses its beauty.  And I know that my daughter will be perfectly happy and whole without this ranch. 
But she won't be fine without her grandparents.
And so I look forward with a joyful heart to a future where my parents are not tied to the land.  Where they can sleep and care for their bodies that have been beaten and scarred from this life.  Where they can travel and spend time with their grandchildren.  For my oldest children have been blessed beyond belief to know their love, and there are grandbabies and great-grandbabies to snuggle and love and cherish.
This morning, as I drove down the ranch road watching the sun rise, I realized how much I love this ranch.  But I love my parents more.  I need my parents more.  Selling this ranch will give us more of them.  Of their love.
When my parents sell the ranch, I will remind them to take a small, clear glass jar and fill it with soil from this home.  This time, it will not be soil for a dream they hope to find; it will be soil from the completed dream.  It will be the soil of Dreams Came True Ranch.

The first 11 grandkids having shenanigans.

Morning on the ranch

Death is heavy

On May 30, 2019, I witnessed my grandmother's death.

We knew it was coming.  On Sunday, Grandma had been in the hospital and found out she was bleeding internally.  She declined medical intervention and said she was ready to go home.  In this case, home meant both my mother's house and heaven.  My grandma was ready to go home.  When I came up to the hospital that day, she told me all about her plans to go home on hospice and die.  She was happy with her choice.  She was grateful that her children were supportive of her choice even though they didn't like it.  Let me repeat, she was full of joy that it was her time to go.  She was ready.  She knew.  And so my mother took her home.  And we waited. 

Every day during this week I came to the ranch after work to sit with my grandma, to give my mom and aunt and uncles the chance for a break.  Today, when I arrived, I could feel ... something different in her room, something heavy, something new and uneasy, but I didn't know what it was.

I went into Grandma's room and sat in a chair at the foot of her bed.  My Aunt Dolly was with me, as my mother and uncles were taking care of other things.  We sat visiting and talking with Grandma.  She made a noise, it sounded like a gurgle, so we both moved from the foot of the bed to the top.  One of us on each side.  We adjusted the bed so she was at an incline to help her breathing.  I stroked her arm as Dolly caressed her cheek.  We told her how much we loved her and we spoke all the words of love we knew.  She made these strange sounds a few more times.  She made a few grimaces.  I asked Dolly if we should go get the others- I wanted them to be there if it was the end, but I didn't want my mama to see her mother making the pained expression.  We waited a few minutes- patting, caressing, loving.  And then her breathing slowed.  I told Dolly I was going to go get mom- she said she would get Paul- and then I realized we were both leaving and I said I would stay and asked her to please get mom.  She hurried out of the room calling my uncle''s name and sending someone else to wake my mother.

I was finally alone with my grandma for the first time in days.  I sat beside her.  I gently touched her brow, her cheek, her arm.  I thanked her for teaching me how to live and die on my own terms as she was doing.  I thanked her and I told her I loved her so many times, so many, many times.  "I love you, Grandma, I love you."  And as her breathing slowed, she made one gasp and, I don't know why, but I started counting... I made it to 45 before she took another breath.  And then it was a minute.  And I just kept telling her how much I loved her... that I was there... that her children had all come... that she was brave... that I loved her and she was not alone.  And I found the pulse in her neck and watched it because there was no more breath to watch or feel.  And then they got there.  And I told them it had been over a minute since she breathed.  And Dolly held Grandma and wailed, "Mom, no!  Mom!" and it was one of the most beautiful and devastating cries I have heard in my life.  The sound of love.  The sound of a woman losing a mother she has known for 30 years.  

 I touched her cheek.  Grandma was already growing cold... so quickly.  And then my mama came and it had been two and her pulse was gone and I moved from the bed because Grandma's children were there now.  And then I told my mama I would make the call... and she said we were supposed to wait five minutes... and I said I would wait however long she wanted, but that Grandma was gone.

Soon after I made the call.  I made many calls.  I walked through the back field and called everyone who needed to know.  I watched the sun drop low in the late May sky as I told so many people that it was over; Grandma was at peace.  

I stood beside my stepdad, our arms around each other, as we watched my aunt, uncles and mama say goodbye to their mama.  I watched as the stress and energy and nerves from the last five days deflated down to grief.  I watched as the hospice woman came to minister to my family.  I watched as the funeral home so respectfully cared for all of us in their gentle handling of my grandmother and all of our feelings.  We all left the room as they wheeled her out because ... it hurts.  

And then I was so tired.  The burden of witnessing death is heavy.  I was not sad, I was not broken, but the weight was oh so very heavy.  I never understood that there was a weight to death, a feeling in the air, but there is and I will never forget it.  

I was not close to this grandma of mine.  But she was my grandma, and my mother's mother.  And she taught me, all the way at the end of her life, that people can always change.  She taught me to live and die on my own terms.  

Already my memory is fuzzy.  Already I have forgotten and muddled the order of events of this day.  These are just my memories and my version of the truth.  Reality may be different, but this is my story.  On May 30, 2019 Pearl May King died as I stroked her cheek, counted her pulse, and spoke words of love to her.  I did not grieve her until six weeks later, when my tears finally fell and I let go of the weight I had been carrying.  

Death is heavy, my friends, death is heavy.  The burden must be shared. I told my Aunt Dolly that we are bonded forever now because we lived through the last moments together.  

I don't know what I believe about an afterlife, but my grandma believed in Heaven, and I like to imagine her there.  She is with her husband and her sister, and she is laughing at something she said that cracked everyone up.  And her body is strong and whole again.  And she feels our love traveling through time and space and making the Heavens feel a little more like home.

This is the last picture I took of my Grandma Pearl at her last outing.  Three generations- I so wish I had gotten the fourth in with us!

Anxiety Attack

There is an ache in my chest

A heaviness that sits between my breasts

Beneath my sternum bone

Beneath my skin and muscle

It weighs upon my lungs

So I cannot breathe

It pushes against my heart

So I cannot feel

I breathe

Deeply in, slowly out

I breathe

Deeply in, slowly out

I am losing

Deeply in, slowly out

The tears are pushing

Deeply in, slowly out

Against my eyes

Deeply in, slowly out

I breathe

I want to scream

And rage at the unmerciful gods

This is so unfair

So unfair

But I already learned it does no good

The weight becomes a butterfly

Trying to be born

It struggles to break free

Out of my chest

I breathe

Deeply in, slowly out

I breathe

Deeply in, slowly out

Don’t be born

Deeply in, slowly out

Stay inside butterfly

Deeply in, slowly out

I breathe

The butterfly does not burst out

The blurriness fades

The sting evaporates

My brain quits somersaulting

The world seems upright again

The floor no longer wavers

The roaring subsides

And the weight lessens

I breathe

And the panic attack is held at bay

But it’s not gone

It waits in the shadows

Until it thinks I’m weak enough

To try again

So I breathe

Deeply in, slowly out

Right on Target

In the news and social media lately, I have seen so much emotion and drama about people going to the bathroom.  Yes, we are vehemently arguing here in the U.S. about who is and is not allowed to pee.  I think this is absurd.  With this in mind, I am going to attempt a little tutorial on American culture and bathrooms from the perspective of a fairly well-educated, middle class, American woman.  I am going to explain a few basic ideas, and then pull them together so that we can have a simple understanding of the situation.

Rape Culture

The simple definition I go by:  As a culturally accepted, non-written rule, we blame the victim for the sexual crimes perpetrated against her.  

Even though I never heard the term until I was an adult, I have belonged to this culture my entire life.  When I was a little girl (growing up in my middle class, white neighborhood), my mother taught me to never go to anywhere alone.  She taught me to take a buddy with me to the bathroom and to always tell someone where I was going.  Bathrooms were an especially dangerous place- one that I could not enter without her or someone else along with me. Now, my mother never told me, "bathrooms are dangerous places full of men who want to molest or rape you," but that was what she said when she told me, "never go to the bathroom alone."  

I taught my children the exact same thing.  I went with my daughter to the bathroom until she was 12 years old.  When my boys were old enough to be embarrassed by using they women's restroom, they went with each other to the bathroom until they were 10 or 11.  Even when they went together, and even once I allowed them to go alone, I always asked if they were going "number one" or "number two" and let them know how many minutes they had until I came looking for them.  It may be in a restaurant, a church, or a school, but I never let my children use restrooms unsupervised and without me knowing exactly how long they were gone.  I also made sure to know that there were no exits between me and them.  I never told them bathrooms were scary places, but I am pretty sure they figured it out just like I did.  

To this day, when I am traveling alone and I stop at a rest stop or gas station to use the bathroom, I call or text my husband to tell him exactly where I am before I get out of the car, and I call or text him again when I am safely in my car and locked back in.  When I am walking into the restroom, I look around to see who is there.  I look in all the bathroom stalls if I think I am alone in the restroom.  I go as quickly as I can while listening for footsteps.  I am quick to wash my hands and I don't run the automatic hand dryer because I don't want to miss a sound.

This makes it sound like I live in fear.  The thing is, I do not live in fear.  This is simply how I was taught to travel in the world.  I must always be on my guard to protect myself when I do not have a man there to protect me.  This is rape culture.

 I am infuriated that I have been taught to live in a way that no man is.  My husband does not do these things.  My father did not do these things.  They are survival skills our mothers teach us to survive in a world where we are not protected against the men who may want to hurt us.     

Does it seem that this is just one personal example?  Here are some others:

Last week, a court in Oklahoma found that a teenage girl was not raped because she was nearly unconscious.  This allowed a white male to force her to perform oral sex on him while she was unable to give consent.  He will not be punished for this crime, even though he admits he committed it.

Over the last few weeks, it has come out that BYU, a prominent American university, has been disciplining the victims of sexual assault and rape because they broke the honor code.  Yes, according to BYU, a rape victim broke the honor code because of what was done to her without her consent.  

I just ran a search for "how to keep my daughter safe at college" and 13,300,000 results came up.  I typed in "how to keep my son safe at college" and 11,000,000 results came up.  I was about to be surprised, when I realized that those articles were being gender neutral.  Not a single one used the word "son."  On the "daughter" screen, every single one used the word "daughter."  This is rape culture.

My daughter wants a keychain with mace in it for a going-away-to-college present.  Just like her aunt got for hers.  Just like I got when I got my first job.  My brothers never got any such gift.

Clearly, 2016 America still holds on to its rape culture, even to the point that we don't even realize we are living it because it is a generational norm we have never stopped to notice.

Transgendered People

Disclaimer:  As far as I know, I do not know any trans people well.  I am going on what I have read and seen in documentaries, the news, and social media.  All ignorance in this section is mine.

  

The simple definition I go by:  A transgendered person is someone who was born with a body that belonged to one sex, but with a spirit, mind, and heart that belongs to the other.  There are other people who do not identify as either male or female, and they fall in this category too.  Basically, the person inside of the body does not match the gender assigned at birth.

While looking up statistics to write this blog post, I found out things I don't want to know.  

75% of transgendered students don't feel safe at school.  Many of these students are not only harassed and bullied by other students, but many are picked on by teachers and administrators (which makes my teacher heart ache).    

These same children hear anti-LGBT comments at about the same rate.

Approximately 41% of trans people have attempted suicide at least once.

Trans children are often abused by their own families.

1 in 2 trans people are sexually assaulted (this is not adding all the other assaults they face).

I did not see any statistics about trans people as the abuser or rapist.  

What all of this tells me:  Trans people are one of the most victimized, abused, and singled out groups of people in our country.  These people- our coworkers, friends, brothers, and sisters- are hurting and the people around them often do not understand or blatantly say or do harmful things to them.  

Fear and Love

When I put together what I know about rape culture and trans people, this is what I get.  We live in a society where women (and boys and girls and other humans who do not qualify as men) live in a constant state of awareness to protect ourselves from becoming victims.  We must be  ever vigilant in protecting ourselves because we know that men are liable to harm us, and in the American justice system and American culture, we will be blamed for it.  We will be the ones who are scrutinized and held under a microscope to deem whether we are worthy to be a victim or if there was something we did that caused it to happen to us.  Among us are trans people, one of the most abused groups in America.  

Enter this fact:  Trans people have to pee.  Sometimes, they are out in public when this happens.  They go to the bathroom just like the rest of us do.  They pick the one with their gender on the door.  They go in and they pee.  Hopefully they wash their hands.  They go back out and carry on with their day.  Obviously, they do the same thing I do if they go into an empty bathroom- they check to make sure there is no rapist hiding on top of a toilet seat.  

Now, enter the absurd side show that America has become:  Some idiot on his legislative seat has determined that trans people should not be allowed to pee in the bathroom that fits their gender.  They should use a bathroom based on an appendage or a lack of an appendage connected to their body.  

What this legislator is saying is that instead of a little girl going pee with her mom, the mom should say:  Hi daughter, I know that you are a girl, but you were born with a penis, so I am going to send you in your pretty pink dress into a bathroom with men.  Don't bother checking the stalls for rapists or child molesters, they won't need to hide from you.  After all, one out of every four rapes occurs in a public place.  Don't worry honey, I'll be here when you come out.  I know that one in two trans people are sexually assaulted, and we had better get you used to it now.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  

Why Don't We Take Out Our Fear and Rage Upon Those Who Cause and Perpetuate It?

Last week, a former Speaker of the House of the United States of America was indicted for sexually abusing several teenagers.  I have seen many, many people take to social media to rage against trans children using the bathroom that belongs to their true gender.  I have seen ZERO of these people say a single word about this sexual predator.  Why, if our goal is to protect people from sexual predators, do we not fight for laws banning these rapists and molesters from bathrooms?  Why don't we fight for them to have a little shack out back to use for the bathroom?  Why are we taking one of our most abused populations and trying to force them into situations where they will no doubt be abused further?  

When we have celebrities, religious leaders, politicians, and countless other men raping, molesting, assaulting, and damaging other humans, do we not try to enact laws to keep us safe from them?  

When we have a population of abused and misunderstood people, why do we make laws to further push them out of our communities?

Why don't we rage against the evil of these criminals who cause our fear?

Why don't we love and embrace these individuals who have already been or are at the highest risk of becoming victimized?

I ask you, why do we choose fear instead of love?

The answer is simple my friends.  Rape culture is so ingrained in us that we are willing to blame the victim for the crime we are afraid will happen to us.