unexpected beauty around the school.

my good friend and fellow art teacher, amy, recently did a project with her middle school students where they used non-traditional materials to make site-specific installations. she organized them into small groups and gave each group a pile of stuff, brown lunch bags, rubber bands, string, etc. they had to figure out what to do with the stuff. the beautiful results that can now be found around the building. amy is so good at organizing groups of kids to do wonderful things.

inauguration day.

i brought in my rabbit ears from home and set them up on the television i usually show my powerpoints on. my intermediate drawing and painting class was scheduled for a double block and they're all knee deep in several projects so i just set it up and let it play. they painted and watched like they were at home. it seemed perfect...for me and for them.

at 11:15 we all gathered in the assembly hall and watched the live coverage on the big screen.

i feel lucky that my school co-ordinated this...but i have to admit that i often feel conflicted about experiencing so many big events with my students rather than with friends or family. i know most people watched at work and i did too. but i feel like i can't always experience things the way i normally would (read...crying) in front of the kids. maybe this is silly.

the experience also made me long for brooklyn to see how my former students felt about the whole event.

halloween

my school has what i consider to be a pretty cool halloween tradition. only the seniors are allowed to dress up and they come up on stage one at a time, sometimes with music, and often with a performance. the whole school watches and waits their turn till they're seniors. most of the costumes are awful and some are inappropriate. it's a great excuse for the boys to dress up like girls just like it was back when i was in high school. it's all in good fun and funny.

the art department loves to get involved. last year we did the wizard of oz. this year we decided to be fenway park with peter as the field, amy as the green monster, meriah as the bleacher seats, and me as the pesky pole. tara always joins us in these adventures and she was our player. the kids get a big kick out of seeing how hard we work to build our costumes since many of them are used to the store bought kind. 

thoughts on how girls dress for school.

in preparation for our faculty meeting this morning we were sent a list of behavior scenarios to read over and think about. the list included things like overhearing kids swearing or talking about drinking, seeing students sleeping or talking during all-school meetings, seeing a boy grabbing a girl’s rear end, inappropriate cheering at an athletic event, students leaving campus, and seeing a girl wearing a low-cut shirt. the goal was for us to talk in small groups about which of these issues felt challenging. at the end, we came back together as a large group to share our ideas.

the issue that each group focused on the most was how the girls at our school are dressed.

this pisses me off for a couple of reasons (and I’m sure I’ll think of more over the course of the day). first and foremost, the concept of the meeting was to focus on issues that made us uncomfortable. if every group talked about how girls are dressed i can only assume that we were really talking about were (mostly) the male teachers’ concerns. secondly, it bothers me that how the girls are dressed took precedence over substance abuse (drinking & smoking), missing out on education (sleeping), gambling (online), and assault (boy hitting girl on the butt).

now don’t get me wrong…i have jokingly suggested that i would like to give a workshop on undergarments to the girls in this school on numerous occasions. i have also had many, many conversations with girls about how they’re dressed and why it matters.

i think this issue is important!

but I also think that in a school that is not ready to truly enforce a dress code (we’re not) the state of girls’ outfits should not take precedence over some of the other topics that came up. i think the reason it took precedence is because it’s easy. it’s easy because men can bring it up as a concern and then say well, there’s nothing i can do about it because it would be inappropriate for me to comment. men are seen as sexual beings that can’t touch this issue without seeming inappropriate while women are seen as maternal, and obligated to “deal” with it. i get that the male teachers don’t want to deal with it directly and i’m not suggesting that they should. What I’m suggesting is…let’s move on.

in 2008 talking to teenage girls about fashion is tricky. clothes today are revealing. bra straps are in. leggings count as pants. on top of that we’ve got teenagers in this country exercising less than ever before so these kids are trying to squeeze all kinds of bodies into what’s trendy. it’s tough even for us grown women to figure it out. we are never going to agree on what’s appropriate unless we wear uniforms or enforce the dress code by meeting kids at the door like we did at my school in brooklyn. so let’s talk to girls about something OTHER than how they look. maybe if we take our focus off their looks they will too.

in the meantime i will continue to preach my mantra to the girls i teach…TIME AND PLACE. are you getting dressed to go to a club, to school, to church, or to a college interview? you don’t dress the same for all these things. where do you want the college admissions officer to focus…on your boobs or on your accomplishments? Only one of those will take you places. and i will continue to lecture my advisees about the length of their skirts, the width of their bra straps, and their cleavage. I won’t even try to get into the concept of slips and maybe someday i’ll figure out the leggings as pants thing.

i would like to take this opportunity to thank my Mom who made all this easier for me by making me wear a slip despite my griping, introducing me to strapless bras when it was time, and helping me to understand that “adult” fashion was something you grow into over the years. she taught me that i could be a powerful, sexy woman by being smart, talented, and opinionated. thanks Mom.

BUT…i will continue to be pissed off about women doing most of the work in raising our children…still, today, in 2008…even at school. we need brave, bold men to help us out once in awhile. i’ll take on the girls if you, guy, will take on the boys…

getting to know ALL students

i just attended the student of color check-in at my school. these events are held several times a year. it's a chance to get most of the students of color in one room together. it's a chance for them not to be the minority in the room and to share their experiences, both positive and negative, here at our school.

i have attended one or two of these meetings in the past and i have to make sure to bring tissues next time. i always end up getting emotional watching these brave students share their very personal and sometimes hurtful stories with each other. 

they began by watching this video made by a student who couldn't attend the meeting. he talks about his experiences, especially in regards to the racial stereotypes he's encountered. 

several students shared feelings of being obligated to know the answer in history or english classes when discussions of race or civil rights came up. they told us about the pressure they feel on them in that moment. they said they felt like a disgrace to their race if they didn't already know the answers. and those same assumptions show up when subjects like hip-hop or basketball come up and their classmates or, god forbid their teachers, expect them to have all the answers.

a female african-american student who excels in math and science told stories of teachers and students who acted surprised to see her in honors level courses. another story involved a coach who never learned the names of the four african-american girls on his team. and one girl became emotional when trying to explain how torn she feels about wanting to spend most of her time with her friends who are students of color because the are "like her", but not wanting to seem like she's cutting herself off from the rest of the community.

one of the most difficult situations students of color face here at our school is the assumption that they are all from the same kind of place with the same kind of bank account. of course they're not. some come from tough neighborhoods and face hurtful comments from their white classmates about the places they call home, while others are more well-to-do, and live in "fancier", whiter suburbs, and they face misunderstandings from their classmates of color. 

my wish is that all of my colleagues could hear the stories i heard during this meeting. 

naturally, this isn't possible. the students wouldn't be able to talk freely with a large group of adults sitting around them and they shouldn't have to suffer through telling hard stories in order for us to learn what we should already know...that ALL of our students are unique individuals who come from very different places and part of our job is to learn about that.

it makes me think of a colleague of mine who gave me a piece of advice that i come back to time and again. he said, "you're supposed to be enjoying this, you know. it should be fun." he wasn't referring to teaching but the advice still applies. my life has been so enriched by all the different kids i've taught over the years.  i really enjoy getting to know what makes my students tick and so i really enjoy my job. i just want everyone else to have that same rich experience.

as someone with a small leadership role in the building, i am thinking of possible ways to share what i experienced in that room with the larger community...but how do you do that without being preachy or accusatory? the new agey philosophers i love so much would say, be the example and people will follow, but is that enough? these kids are suffering for pete's sake...i'll get back to you when i have it all figured out...