Category: Uncategorized

The Pronoun Thing

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Over the past couple of months I’ve interacted meaningfully with different groups of friends: friends I’ve known for decades, friendly neighbors, fellow rowing enthusiasts, and brand new acquaintances. Almost invariably, our conversations digress to politics. It is an election year, after all, and we live a few miles from the White House. 

“We live in a bubble here in the DC area,” they say. “Away from the big cities, Trump is still very popular.” National politics is our local politics, and we all have opinions. 

“Democrats are losing the culture wars,” they say. “By focusing on LGBTQ-plus issues, they’re losing mainstream Americans.”

“So you don’t support LGBTQ rights?” I’ll challenge. 

“Of course I support the rights of trans and LGBTQ people!” they huff indignantly. “But I draw the line at all the pronoun stuff.”

The first time it happened, I looked on in disbelief. My liberal, progressive DC friends can not handle the reality of LGBTQ+ rights, no matter what they profess. 

Let me tell you up front that we are all in our late 50’s or 60’s. Older adults. Many of my friends are retired. I still work full time teaching high school.

“They is a plural pronoun; it should not be used as a singular.”

“Right! And putting the pronoun in the signature is so ridiculous!” they say. “Why do we need that? It’s usually so obvious if you look at the name!”

I felt this way seven or eight years ago. As an English teacher, I struggled mightily with this issue – especially with English Language Learners, who need to learn the rules of grammar. 

Then in 2016, my first trans student began their transition right in front of me. She became he. He became they. I kept messing up their new name and using the dead name, each time apologizing for the brain fart.

That student’s name in my online gradebook was a very girly name. This was before the MCPS policy allowed students to determine the name that appeared on teachers’ rosters, before we asked for their pronouns in the first week of school, before my direct supervisor signed her name Mx, before one of the first LGBTQ studies classes in the district was held in my shared classroom and I saw first-hand what it meant to be a student from a traditionally-marginalized background.

The face that stared at me with bright blue eyes was a girl’s face, now with short hair and a crocheted rainbow hat. The pudgy body slumped in giant rainbow t-shirts. Combat boots. Since then, I think I’ve had a trans kid in my classes every semester.

“But it’s so disrespectful of their identity to use the wrong pronoun! It’s like purposefully mispronouncing someone’s name because you can’t be bothered to learn it!” I tried the direct approach with my friends. “Or using a detested nickname instead of their real name.”

In MCPS, students are allowed to self-identify their gender as male, female, or X-Nonbinary. They are allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms “in alignment with their consistently asserted gender identity.” I support this. My friends do, too. Or at least they say they do.

So why do my older DC friends draw the line at the pronoun thing? 

Back in the early 70’s our parents balked at calling a woman Ms. instead of Miss or Mrs. We argued that it was nobody’s business – especially when first meeting a young woman – if she was married or single. Gradually this honorific gained widespread use, and now it’s a normal form of address. 

Maybe that’s the argument I need to use with my friends. However, I do not feel qualified to take on this issue. I’m not LGBTQ; I do not have any immediate family members who identify this way, but I am an ally. I have a unique perspective that I feel compelled to share.

Now MCPS promotes inclusive LGBTQ curriculum, staff training, and Pride Town Halls. I’m proud to be part of a progressive school district that is at the forefront of affirming the rights of gender non-conforming students. Even using that terminology is something I did not do eight years ago. 

According to a recent Gallup Poll, only 7.1% of Americans identify as LGBTQ+ but among Gen Z kids, it increases to one out of five. My students took a poll and thought it was almost 30 percent! I think our perception of this issue is strongly influenced by who we surround ourselves with. I am privileged to work with young people every day and can sometimes see the world a little bit through their eyes. 

This is my chance to influence my Baby Boomer peeps. “Be kind,” an older colleague reminded me when I presented my case to her. “They don’t work with teens every day, and they probably just don’t know how important it is.” I’ll go with that.

This blog is my first stab at addressing the often-confusing, ever-changing language around gender identity. I hope I haven’t messed it all up.

(she/ her)

Spring Broke

With a nod to my friend Amy, I appropriate her lament for teachers on Spring Break this year. I didn’t have any money to spend on a trip to the Bahamas or Hawaii, which has turned my holiday into an inexpensive, productive, and fun week.

Being broke has an upside. I reached out to friends I haven’t seen in ages – including Amy, who I ran into while walking her dogs in Wheaton Regional Park. Then I met her for drinks at a sponsored event that several local elected leaders attended. Free food! Great way to catch up on each other’s news. We also shared our diverging answers to the question, “How are the kids these days?”

The kids are definitely better this year than last, but a lot of my seniors simply didn’t submit the in-class essay, the biggest grade of the marking period, even though they were given plenty of time, advance notice, and open-notes formatting. Several sat in class for two days with their heads down instead of writing. Amy teaches middle school and has different issues – disrespectful behavior from dysregulated students and social promotion policies that thwart any efforts to hold students accountable for showing what they’ve learned.

It’s been rewarding to cross items off my enormous To Do list. Dentist appointment, filing taxes, dealing with my son’s car insurance and maintenance ($$$). I’ve also spent a lot of time on school work: creating materials for a MCPS curriculum-writing project, meeting with that team, and grading student assignments. But the most rewarding aspect of my Spring Broke has been reconnecting with friends. Cherry blossoms, museums, and hiking don’t cost much in the DC area. I feel so lucky to have friends who like those activities, too.

A long-term sub in my department was asking about entering grades in Synergy (our online grading platform), and when I showed her what I do, she responded, “That’s so much work!” With just two more days left of spring vacation, I turn to all the unfinished tasks. Fortunately, my stay-at-home plans this year have allowed me to save money, make huge progress grading essays, and share many little fulfilling conversations that will sustain me as we push to the end of the school year. Oh! And I got to see some provocative art!

It Could Be Worse

It could be worse. I have a roof over my head, a job, a reliable car. My neighborhood is a steady source of comfort and fun, whether I’m walking the hills after school or meeting up for a book club discussion. But my coping skills in the face of my son’s disability are undoing me, while all the promised supports remain unfulfilled. 

Since his father left two years ago, my adult son – let’s call him Xavier, after the name I wish I’d given him at birth – has fallen into a deep, debilitating depression. On top of his autism spectrum disorder, this has been a devastating turn for our newly-configured family of two. I’ve learned to tiptoe through the house after school because his night-day reversal makes it impossible for him to maintain a normal routine. When I smell sausage cooking at 3 am, at least I know I’ve got a few hours before a wellness check is needed.

For two years, I have launched hundreds and hundreds of phone calls, emails, and in-person visits to agencies and individuals designed to help me deal with Xavier’s rages, poor eating habits, insufficient exercise, medication management, and lack of meaningful work. I’ve kept track of every contact on narrow-ruled notepads. 

He’s got full eligibility for Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) services, and is now on their Wait List. Because he qualifies, a service coordinator has been appointed to help navigate the system. In her six years on the job, she’s never seen anyone move off the Wait List. 

I’ve applied for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits through the Social Security Administration. They needed an updated neuro-psychiatric evaluation, which occurred over several days and cost me $3000. I sent in supporting letters from therapists, doctors, and licensed clinical social workers who had worked with him over the years. A worker in DC was handling the SSI application because, she said, Maryland was backlogged by 20,000 cases. She told me, “pack your patience.” SSI turned him down. Now I’ve appealed the decision and contacted a lawyer. 

The Division of Rehabilitation Services (DORS), a Maryland Department of Education agency, has allotted Xavier full support status. He met with a vocational specialist there and completed the three-day career assessment inventory they recommended. Then she retired, and it took months to get another appointment. Appointments in most places occur between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm. Xavier could not get out of bed for the next few appointments. 

I’ve put Xavier on the county wait list for HOC housing, found another agency that allotted 140 hours of respite care. So far, he’s slept through every appointment. I called his insurance provider.  Immediately post-pandemic it was impossible to find a Medicaid-funded therapist with availability. 

Dozens more phone calls and emails got him into a Medicaid-funded wellness center, where he got monthly therapy with a practitioner he liked. Then that guy retired. The new guy has not earned Xavier’s trust or my respect. But at least Xavier got an updated anti-depressant prescription. Who knows if he’ll actually take the medicine.

In the meantime, I found a family therapist that could work with my insurance. They live in another time zone and can do telehealth therapy with us at 7:00 pm. I have to sit at my computer ignoring the dishes piled in the sink, the cat vomit on the carpet, and Xavier’s electronic pile up in front of the TV. He’s forgotten to put out the recycling again, and the blue bin is overflowing. They suggested I reset my expectations. 

After my husband left, I cut the cleaning lady down to once a month because I couldn’t afford it. I mean, that’s what I told her. But the truth is that the whine of the vacuum cleaner sent Xavier into such a rage that he punched a hole in the ceiling. I had to ask the guy who cuts my grass to stop using the leaf blower outside because the noise disturbed Xavier’s sleep. At 3 pm.

When I traveled to Uzbekistan for work in June, I arranged for Xavier’s brother to come down from New York and stay with him, then take a train together to their father’s in Maine. I hired a teen to look after the cat, and a neighbor to keep an eye on the house. I didn’t think Xavier could function in the house unsupervised. At the time, he was off his medication completely. I’d contacted the crisis center to find out how they would deal with someone on the autism spectrum. Before my trip, I set up a special needs trust in case something happened to me. 

What happened is that Xavier refused to leave the house. He and his brother had a major fight, and his brother went back to New York. There’s a nine-hour time difference between Maryland and Tashkent, and I was fielding phone calls from both boys, my ex, and my lawyer at odd hours. Then going off to teach English with a smile on my face. I should have called the police. Then maybe my DDA Priority Category Assessment change would go through. 

My mortgage increased by $500 per month in August and it’s clear we can no longer stay in this lovely house together. So now, while working full time as a high school teacher, managing Xavier’s appointments (and moods), I will have to get this large house ready to sell by myself. You may ask where his father is in all of this. He’s still paying for half of the house. Thank God. It could be worse.

I’d like to say I’m waiting for something better to come along, but I suspect things have to get far worse before we’ll get any help.

The Motivational Speech

I was flattered that L.J. surreptitiously recorded my farewell speech to Period 3 Honors English 12. I’d just signed a dozen yearbooks and stumbled into the perfect metaphor: a rocket! Our school mascot is a Ritchie the Rocket, so I said something about using high school as a launching pad while soaring to new heights, with rocket power fueling your rise to success. I know that the metaphor was corny, but I had their full attention.

In Period 6, I read Oh, The Places You’ll Go! in its entirety. Not one student glued their eyes to a cell phone. Nobody asked to go to the bathroom while I read in my best teacher voice. You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

Dr. Seuss is out of favor these days. But his words fit the expectations of the moment. Something happens to seniors in their last week of school. A sudden realization that This. Is. Final. The fear, the sadness, the excitement. For 23 years, I’ve been saying good-bye to students at the end of the school year. I know my role.

This year, however, we had briefly reversed roles. Seniors wrote and delivered their own motivational speeches. We watched some model orations: a wedding toast, a graduation speech. I provided a graphic organizer, a rubric (below), and a deadline. I got some of their best work all semester.

Maybe that’s why some of their final thank you cards brought tears to my eyes on the last day. I choose to believe that the self-reflection imposed by our final English 12 assignment became internalized, that students rose to the occasion. We tend to think that students are disengaged, but they pay attention to every nuance and they have something to say.

The Class of 2023 has brought back hope and a positive attitude.

A motivational speech will often end with a positive quote. Fueled by Rocket pride, my students will join the high fliers who soar to high heights and be the best of the best! I hope my words will give them a boost. I know theirs have certainly boosted me.

Hamlet and the Class of 2022

Appearance vs. Reality. Anxiety. Mistrust.

The themes of Hamlet could be taken from today’s headlines. Or maybe from our students’ social media posts. When we asked Honors English 12 classes to find elements of the play that are valuable and relevant for today’s young people, many chose to make a personal connection to Hamlet’s disturbed state of mind. Who can blame them? The mental health crisis among teens today is well documented and serious.

Like Hamlet, this year’s seniors have experienced plenty of disruptions in their lives: school shootings, toxic political discourse, the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter, and two years of pandemic schooling. Hamlet spends half of the play depressed and brooding. Then in a moment of rage he lashes out at the man behind the curtain, killing Polonius instead of his evil uncle, the king.

Fortunately, student fights in the hallways don’t usually end in murder. Most school districts saw a huge uptick in violence as students returned to school buildings in the fall of 2021. School police officers had been removed in response to the BLM movement and administrative teams were overwhelmed. Something was definitely rotten in the state (of Denmark), and our leaders were very slow to recognize it.

In the classroom, however, we see almost the opposite effect: lethargy. Here we are, two months from graduation, and it’s almost like the entire class of 2022 presents with Ophelia syndrome: they’re going through the motions of writing an essay, but waiting for authority figures to tell them what to think. I don’t truly believe that, but wonder how much their social-emotional development was stunted by 18 months spent going to school from a corner in their bedrooms? Is that why they identify so much with Hamlet?

Teachers continually try to find ways of connecting Hamlet to the real world. Here and here are some of the best ways that is being done this year.

Polonius counsels his son Laertes before he heads back to university. “To thine own self be true,” he tells him.  What does that even mean for the Class of 2022?

The weight is over

The weight of the past two years begins to lift. The Maryland State Board of Education has pulled the mask mandate for public schools. WiDA Access testing is almost over. The green shoots of crocuses poke up from the cold ground. And spring rowing is about to begin. 

Like the naked trees outside my window, my emotions have been stripped to nothing. In the fall, I shed every pretense of being in control of my life. I endured the freezing rains of winter, sobbing alone in my room while imagining friends and colleagues nestled with loved ones in their own cozy retreats.

I spent my childhood outdoors and have always had a visceral connection to the changing seasons. After a dormant period, I feel a glimmer of hope as the sun grows stronger and buds play peek-a-boo. We feel these changes in a school as well.

Teachers waited for the vaccine, we waited for covid testing kits, we postponed weddings and family reunions, we waited to travel, we waited for omicron to pass. Now we’re waiting for our local Board of Education to decide what the Montgomery County Public Schools district masking policy will be.

The weight is almost gone.

Come with me into the woods where spring is 
advancing, as it does, no matter what, 
not being singular or particular, but one 
of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.

~ Mary Oliver

Cherry Blossoms and Spring Break

The famous cherry blossoms on the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC reached the peduncle elongation stage last week, then burst into peak bloom several days before expected. The high temperatures and warm sun have brought on the full glory of a DC spring – just in time for local school children to enjoy Spring Break.

Like thousands of blossom watchers, teachers keep their eyes on Board of Education meetings, trying to anticipate when a vote might suddenly change everything. It’s happened so many times during this pandemic year, that almost nothing has been a total surprise for educators who read the signs. However, when Governor Hogan announced suddenly that schools needed to reopen March 1st instead of March 15th, school districts scrambled, loud-mouths bloviated, and unvaccinated teachers panicked. It was the equivalent of rushing from the Green Bud phase to the Fluffy Blossom phase without anything in between and way before the cameras were ready.

With the possible exception of air-traffic controllers, teachers are probably the best multi-taskers in the world. You want us to teach online and in-person at the same time? Sure, no problem! You want us to work on social-emotional health while mitigating “learning loss” with just two hours a week of contact time? Sure! Asynchronous lessons using a new platform and grading program? Got it! Student Learning Objectives posted? Check. Opportunities for one-to-one time and reteaching? Of course! Just come to our “office hours.” Oh, it’s my evaluation year? I can do the dog-and-pony show, too!

Hybrid teaching? No problem!
Doing it all

In my district, 60% of students have opted to remain virtual, but parents and politicians have been pushing hard – very hard – to reopen school buildings before it’s Covid safe. Schools with the most number of parents opting for the return to in-person instruction happen to be in the wealthiest communities. Ironically, they are the ones to argue that it’s for the poor kids, the English Language Learners, and the black and brown students. But the data and my experience says something else.

I teach high school seniors and, even though they’ve been 100% virtual for the past year, less than half are coming back to the building after spring break. My district has had meeting after meeting after meeting about getting kids back into the building – but few resources have been directed to the majority of students who opt to remain at home through the end of the year. It’s a highly emotional issue that’s pitted parents against teachers. The rhetoric has been exhausting.

Spring Break is supposed to be a time of rest and renewal. So far, I’m feeling the pleasure of elongated days, even though I’m spending part of them grading all the late student essays that need feedback. The beautiful DC weather and spectacular cherry blossoms, tulip trees, flowering pears, forsythia, and daffodils make me smile. This weekend, fully vaccinated, I will be able to hug my elderly mother for the first time in more than a year.

The Fourth P of 2020

Others are writing more profoundly about the meaning of 2020: Politics, Pandemic, and Protests. I can only write about the 4th P: the Personal. The Personal includes my family, my community, and my experience teaching public high school during the most disruptive year of my professional career. 

I miss my students. People keep asking me how they’re doing. My answer: I don’t know. Most of them attend my Zoom classes most of the time. Most of them turn in assignments most of the time. I don’t see them or hear them. Cameras are off and their microphones are on mute. I teach to little black boxes with names written in white. I teach like I’m a radio dee jay in a sound booth.

It’s the students who don’t attend class and don’t turn in work who worry me. I spend a lot of time reaching out students who have disappeared. I contribute money for PTSA gift cards and support the MCPS Foundation. I post links to food distribution sites and help students navigate the Pandemic-EBT card requirements. I call parents, and I email counselors. I chat with co-teachers and document every outreach effort in our new Synergy system. My ESOL department chair says that we’ve “lost” 11 students so far this year, students who have been withdrawn from school. I’m really worried about what this means going forward. 

I miss my hard drive. In July I spilled a glass of water on my laptop, losing more than two years of creative writing and work. I thought everything was backed up in iCloud, but only my photos were saved (and I am very grateful for that). I lost all of my writing from my year living in Laos. This spring, I was at my most prolific and am publishing my first short story based on this writing. I am devastated by the loss of personal documents. 

I miss my family. Like the rest of the country, I’m in mourning about what we’ve lost this year: 340,000 people to Covid-19, dozens of black lives that matter, countless graduations, proms, weddings, funerals, and homecomings. I haven’t hugged my mother in 10 months. I haven’t seen my son since last Christmas.

My relatives are divided by politics. Those who remain in the Deep South supported the Vulgarian in the White House for a second term. I could not fathom what qualities in him they admired. Then I figured it out. My respect for them has diminished. My siblings are divided by decisions about my mother’s health care and estate management. I am grieving for the togetherness we have lost. 

A crisis does not build character; it reveals character. 2020 has shown who we are as a country. It has shown who my family really is. I still love them. I still love my country. A new year always brings hope. 

2020

Lost and Found

So many people are mourning their losses this spring and summer. A killer virus lurks around every corner – or every person not wearing a face mask – and we have lost the ability to do almost anything normal. We can no longer go to work, gather in large crowds, sit indoors at restaurants, or attend parties. Virtual cocktail hours have replaced the real thing. Political divisions and raw emotion have replaced civil discourse. When I most need a friendly hug or a collegial conversation, the best I get now is an elbow bump or Zoom. I miss my colleagues, my students, and my friends. I miss my mother.

With almost at 150,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the US, I think about Mum sitting alone in her assisted living apartment, safe from the pandemic for now. She is recovering from hip surgery and will probably never walk again, due to her advanced dementia and the fact that no physical therapists are allowed into the facility. She can barely hear, so a phone call is frustrating. I feel like I’m losing my mother bit by bit. However, I know that she is still here physically, and am thankful for that small grace, when others have not been so lucky.

Yesterday I found a little moment of happiness when I went to visit her. I expected to sit outside her window and communicate through the glass. Instead, the Activities Director wheeled her out to the front porch, all bundled up in a blanket, and allowed us a precious 30-minute visit. Just hearing her voice was a salve to my heart. She reminisced about her life as an Army nurse during World War II, about how they gave her so much responsibility, even though she was very young. I wanted desperately to hug her and warm her hands in mine.

Small moments of success like this take on new meaning during a global pandemic. My mother is a fighter, and she has passed down that optimism to me. In spite of the mounting losses in the world, I can feel grateful for this brief human connection.

 

The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

In spite of the beautiful spring flowers, we have endured one of the most anxiety-filled weeks I can remember. It started with Daylight Savings Time taking away the morning light. Most high school teachers know the effects of asking teens to wake up an hour earlier. First period was zombie land for three days.

On top of that, it was a full moon. Students are usually agitated just before a full moon, but this was not just any full moon; it was a bright supermoon that shined like a glowworm through the eyes of every miscreant. S is not usually the most focused student, but when she called me a bad name in Spanish, I pretended not to understand. I had to remind J & K not to fake chokehold each other while I was presenting literary elements.

By Thursday, the anxiety over corona virus had spread to my classroom. On Thursday, I had to stop instruction 15 minutes early to talk about it. Teachers were instructed not to “ad lib” so we went to the district and the CDC website and looked at information there. Mostly I just let students vent. My students are all from foreign countries. One student has a mother in Wuhan, China and his worry is already two months old.

On Thursday evening, the governor of Maryland announced that all schools will close for two weeks. Friday was a scramble of trying to finish work, clear out the refrigerator and make sure students could get on to Google Classroom for any information. We are NOT allowed to create new assignments for a grade or to continue instruction. I told students that I will check email every day and post optional assignments so that they can keep up their English language proficiency.

Now I’m heading outside to enjoy the spring weather. I hear that sunshine is a natural antibiotic. I plan to get a lot of it in the next two weeks.