Tuesday's Thoughts and Prayers.

It's Tuesday.

I sit in meetings after work, planning the summer professional development offerings. "Restore, Reconnect, Rejuvenate." We’re attempting to create an opportunity for teachers, dragged out from the —last year— the least few years-- to try to find themselves again, to remember why they do what they do.

And then I refresh my browser and see the news. 14 children dead. 1 teacher dead.  The shooter is dead.

Another fucking school shooting. Another 18 year old with access to guns. Another disenfranchised, angry, obsessed young man. Another one.

I pour a drink and I lay down on my bed, pull the quilt over my head, even though it’s too warm for a quilt. I lay there in the dark, breathing in my own carbon dioxide, and think about trying not to think.

I go for a walk later with my daughter. We talk about the shooting. 16 dead, plus a teacher. We talk about the fight at her school today that resulted in a kid being wheeled out in a wheelchair. We talk about the kid who insists on dropping the N word as he enters the room, and the kid who is so disruptive that no one can even begin to concentrate on the worksheet. We talk about her school year, her future, the debt she will accrue in college, the relationships she hasn’t had yet. I have managed to keep her alive for 15 years and 50 weeks. 

18 dead, plus a teacher.

My son wanders down, pulls out a frozen pasta mix, puts it in the pan. He is watching some YouTuber, an obsession I will never understand. I tell him the news. Another school shooting. Fuck, he says. That sucks. He goes back to his phone, watching the latest takedown of Dr. Strange and the Multiverse. He is suddenly taller than me, his voice suddenly lower. His feet won’t stop growing. I have managed to keep him alive for 13 ½ years.

18 dead. 2 teachers. The math is fuzzy. The numbers keep climbing.

We sit down and watch a Thor movie. I can’t do reality right now. I can’t do real people. Superheroes are all I can handle, all I can emotionally lift tonight. 

It’s a senseless tragedy.

Thoughts and prayers.

I tuck my own kids into bed, knowing that —no matter how hard I love them, no matter how many tools I try to give them— their lives are at the whim of some future angry, disenfranchised young man, some guy with a sense of futility, coupled with anger at being wronged, some guy with access to guns— their lives are not in my hands. I literally can’t keep them alive.

Tomorrow, the alarm will go off and I’ll get everyone up. Make coffee, make peanut butter toast, make oatmeal. I’ll remind my son to take his band uniform to school. I’ll hug my daughter and tell her there are only 12 days of chemistry left.

19 dead plus 2 teachers. Their summer vacation would have started in 2 days.

Tomorrow, I’ll thank my partner for recognizing that I just couldn’t face anything resembling reality. Thor was as deep as I could get.

Tomorrow, I’ll go to school and try to reassure my students that they are safe. I’ll email the counselors again about that one kid who scares me, with his angry eyes and his silence. I’ll email his mom again, begging her to get him some help, begging her for reassurance that he is okay. I’ll tell him I’m proud of him, that I see that he’s trying. I’ll try to make eye contact, to see into that darkness, to try to connect.

19 dead plus 2 teachers. Many more hospitalized. Tomorrow, the numbers will probably be higher. 

It's Tuesday.

Thoughts and prayers.

Never Punch Down

 Seems like everyone has an opinion on Will Smith’s actions at the Oscars.

But I think I might be on #teamsmith.

Hear me out: Violence is never the answer. But words cause irreparable harm as well. A slap across the face stings for a bit. Words last a lifetime. Both are wrong. Both are human mistakes.

I feel like Will Smith is getting some heavy criticism for things that are inherently more about him than about his actions. If Jada had marched up there and slapped Chris Rock…would we be overwrought about her physical violence? If Patton Oswald had marched up there to defend his (late) wife’s reputation…would we be so quick to judge? How much of this backlash is because Will Smith is hot, successful, and—wait for it—Black? 

There is a whole lot of “non-violent” rhetoric coming out of the blogosphere. And I want to agree. An eye for an eye makes everyone blind. Turn the other cheek. Violence is never the answer. 

But why is bullying from the stage okay?  

Chris Rock should know better. You never punch down. You always punch up. And if taking cheap shots at Jada and Will is okay in your book, then who is off limits?

If someone had mocked my man or my kids or my mom or anyone else that I loved from the stage on national tv…are we required to just sit there and take it? Suck it up because violence is never the answer?

I find it very strange that white comedians like Amy Schumer, Kathy Griffin, and Jim Gaffigan are suddenly “triggered” by Will Smith’s violence; Jim Carrey is “sickened” and would sue for $200M if Will Smith had slapped him. These people have the right to their opinions, but it is strange that they are so physically affected by an action that was not directed at them and is literally not about them at all. Chris Rock has a history of mocking Jada Pinkett Smith from the stage in very public fashion. If this was a roast of Pinkett Smith, then she should be expecting the attack. But at the Oscars? Why does Rock get to throw shit at her? Why does he feel the need to belittle her? And why are a bunch of white people all up in arms about his right to do so?

I don’t know what I would do in that situation, and I’ll never have to know. I’m not famous. I’m not in the public eye. I’m not dealing with a very public autoimmune disorder, and neither is my partner. But even more than that—I am not Black. No one is policing my actions or expecting me to be the poster child for all white women. And I just don’t think that we have the right to police the relationship between two Black men with decades of history. We don’t get to arm-chair judge the actions of one man, in a very emotional time, who slapped—not punched, but slapped—another man across the face for insulting someone he loved. 

Will Smith could have taken Chris Rock to the floor. He didn’t. His awards speech later in the night conveyed how emotional the entire situation was. His apology the next day was not only well-written, but it was honest, it owned his actions, and it recognized his errors.

Maybe we could all just give our hand wringing a rest. There are real villains in this world destroying real lives. But at the end of the day, Chris Rock is fine after being slapped. And frankly, he deserved to be shut down. Because the harm that he causes with his words is more violent than any slap across the face that he received.

Photo by jurien huggins on Unsplash

If we really feel the need to pass judgment on this situation and insist on non-violence, then we also need to look in the mirror and reflect on what non-violence really means.

Words cause harm.

Words have consequences.

We can do better.

The 10 Year Challenge

I swear, the 10 year challenge is some sort of corporate mindfuck, like Sweetest Day or Mother’s Day, meant to make us feel inadequate and drive us to spend money on things we don’t need to fill our self-esteem void. No one—I repeat—NO ONE looks and feels better after 10 years of a well-lived life. We may tell ourselves that we look wiser, more zen, more in control—but we are also older, greyer, lumpier, wrinklier, closer to death. Every 10-year challenge photo collage on my feed is conveniently followed by ads for fixes for menopausal symptoms, work-out programs, intermittent fasting plans, and comfortable bras. 

We are being played.

It’s impossible to avoid feeling inadequate, if we compare ourselves to someone 10 years younger. That’s 10 years of living, 10 years of hopes and dreams and struggles and frustrations and anxieties and illnesses and disasters and joys. Just look at the dust on the top of the ceiling fan blades. Multiply that by 10 years. That’s a lot of dust. That’s a lot of life lived.

I look back at 39-year-old me, and I was a hot mess. Single, trying to keep 2 kids alive, trying to pay the bills on a single salary, trying to keep up with an impossible workload, trying to be “fun enough” for a leadership team of childless men—that woman was thin and gorgeous, sharp angles and intense eyes. I see those pictures and I can’t believe how beautiful she was, a red-headed powerhouse who wore heels on purpose. 

But I’m not sure that person is someone I want to compare myself to. She was stunning. But she was also hanging on by a thread. Her best friend rescued her on the regular, as she locked herself and her kids out of the car, out of the house, lost her keys again and again in the snow. Her patience was as taut as her calves; she punched walls late at night out of frustration, trying to get her kids to just go to bed; her students thought she hated them, because she couldn’t keep the exhaustion and frustration out of her voice and off her face, as they asked a question she’d already answered 6 times, and then complained about having to read a book in English class.

I’m not that woman anymore. My students still complain; I still get frustrated. That frustration still shows in my voice and on my face. And yet, they tell me regularly that I approach them with honesty and compassion, and they thank me on the regular for my understanding and grace. I’m not the teacher I was, thank god. My own kids no longer scream at bedtime; I don’t punch walls anymore. I don’t take long walks outside in the dark after they are in bed, just trying to remember to breathe, while desperately hoping the house doesn’t burn down while I’m gone. I’m not the mom I was.

I know that, ten years from now, my kids will be out of the house and my workload will lighten substantially. I won’t be kicking out 100s of dollars a month to pay for clothes for kids who won’t stop growing, and to cover sports fees and school fees and music lessons and batting lessons and McDonalds. In just a few more years, I won’t have to get up at 5:30 in the morning if I actually want a warm shower; I won’t have to fold 8 loads of laundry every weekend; I won’t have to try to put food on the table that will appease all of the likes and dislikes and allergies and abhorrences in the house. In 10 years, my house will be paid off and I won’t have to work 3 jobs to pay the bills. 10 years from now, I will be 59. Maybe, when all of this current responsibility is gone, maybe I can get back to the size 12 that I was 10 years ago. Maybe that’s when the comparison picture will make me feel like I’ve come into my own, that I’ve finally aged gracefully. And yet, 10 years from now, the chin(s) will be lower, the wrinkles deeper, the skin more transparent, the hair greyer, the ads for bladder slings ever more prevalent. 10 years from now, will I be good enough?

David Foster Wallace, love him or hate him, mused about “making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head.” (Spoiler alert—he didn’t make it.) but he did tell the story about the two young fish that now lives as a tattoo on my forearm.

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

If we are so busy comparing ourselves to who we were—or to who we think we should be—we are never allowed to appreciate who we are today. There are so many things I want to do this year, the year I turn 50, and so far I haven’t managed any of them very successfully. Life got in the way.

But life is the water we are in.

I don’t want to waste this year of my life, comparing myself to who I was, or who I think I should be. I want to live this year of my life—right here, right now—and appreciate this water for what it is. I want to learn to extend the grace to myself that I try so hard to extend to my kids and my students and my partner. 

Photo by Steven Lasry on Unsplash

I want to look in the mirror and appreciate the beauty that is looking back at me, not because of who she was or who she might someday be, but because of who she is today.

Maybe that’s my 10 year challenge.

50 Things - Week 1

2022 is the year I will turn 50.

It’s strange, because from the outside, it looks like I’ve lived an incredible, privileged life, full of so many experiences --so much education-- and surrounded by so many amazing people. And inundated with so. much. stuff.

And yet, as is the norm, from the inside looking out, it feels like a life not yet quite lived. A life where “too much” doesn’t just apply to my personality, but to everything about me. Too much stuff. Too much obligation. Too much weight. Too much debt. Too much to do. Too many sleepless nights.

This year, I will turn 50. Even in the best possible Betty White scenario, my life is half over. 

So what do I want the next 50 years to look like? And when will I start making that happen? What are the things that I realistically can do --or not do-- to live the life that feels truly lived, and not just survived?

50 Things to Do Before I’m 50

1. Move intentionally for 50 minutes each day. Walk? Run? Dance (like a formerly Baptist white girl)? Channel my inner Jillian Michaels? Shaun T? Billy Blanks? Jeff Galloway? Adriene Mishler? What does that 50 minutes look like and how in the hell do I make it happen? Stay tuned…

2. Get rid of 50 items of clothing. Don’t pretend that I’ll have time to sell it. I won’t. I really should just delete Mercari and Poshmark. Maybe I’ll do the hanger thing. Maybe I’ll Marie Kondo the closet. (we all know I probably won’t do that.) Maybe I’ll just get rid of stuff that isn’t comfortable. I can do that.

3. Break the “Shopping High” addiction. Do. Not. Buy. Clothes (or shoes) in 2022. Do Not. (Except for bras and running shoes. But I will not buy impulsively. I will not buy online. I will not.)

4. Drink 50 oz of pure water each day. Not coffee. Not tea. Not Coke Zero. Not Seltzer. Not Vodka. Not water with vodka. Just pure water. Drink it. (And then drink the other things.)

5. Write 50 blog posts. They don’t have to be good. They just have to be. Look, a list! Blog post #1 done.

6. Lose 50 lbs. I know, I know. Weight loss should never be a New Year’s Resolution. But I’m tired of feeling run-down and I know why I feel this way, and I need to value my own health more than I value a drink or some fries or my pride. 

7. Go to bed (on average) 50 minutes earlier S-Th. 50 minutes means more sleep, less alcohol, less mind-numbing. Rest more.

8. Make an extra $50/week through subbing and save it for something special. Maybe take that trip, finally, with the girls. 

9. Make an extra $50/week through freelance and pay down debt. 

10. Do something technology-free for 50 min/day. Meditation? Reading? Going for a walk? Put the phone down and just exist in the world.

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

The other 40 things? These are T.B.D. Maybe I’ll document them. Maybe I won’t. But I don’t want to just survive 2022. I want to truly live it. This is the year I will turn 50 and I want to remind myself that I matter.

This is week 1.

Untitled.

It was late at night when the phone rang. 

My roommate’s little sister sat next to him in Chemistry. One of her friends died.

We talked about what it feels like, to see this happen over and over and over again, to see it get closer and closer and closer.

“Why?” I asked. I didn’t need to finish the question. She knew. Everyone knows the rest of the question. No one has an answer. No one ever has an answer.

“Anger.” That was the best answer we could find. And yet, we mused, no matter how many times we have been ragingly angry, no matter how many times we have survived physical, verbal, emotional, sexual violence, we have never decided to kill people. That’s a white guy response. Overwhelmingly. Another white guy. Why?

It could have been anyone.

But that’s not true. My middle school son, a white guy with outbursts of uncontrollable anger, does not have access to guns. We work with a therapist. He’s learning to be aware of his body, of when his heart starts to pound, of when he feels anger building. We talk it out, every night. His day, his frustrations, his joys, his insecurities, his anger, his laughter. I curl up in bed with him at night, a full body hug, as he cries, apologizing for the plate he broke in anger. He does not have access to guns. 

It’s not anyone. It never is. It’s a specific person at a specific moment in time. Usually a white guy. The signs were there. They always are.

And yet it happens again.

Today, at school, the kids are quiet. Their eyes are serious and sad. The room is silent. Occasionally a student looks up. Makes eye contact. Looks down.

“Are you okay?” I ask. 

My friends there, they were in the group chat as it was going down. It just kept blowing up all day. All night. Helpless. Scared.

Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. Just sad.

I’m fine.

I know.

I know.

I check the news again, looking for answers. Make it make sense.

My students check their feed. They text their mom. They make eye contact. They put their phone down.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I get it. You can text your mom.”

I scroll my feed, looking for answers.

I want to hug them all, each and every one of them, an awkward, uncomfortable hug from a middle-aged not-huggy lady, because I want to tell them that I am here. That they will be okay. That they are safe. I want to give them assurances that I don’t believe.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I tell them.

The bell rings.

Time, Time, Time...

13 years ago today, I was wearing an ice-diaper, staring at the biggest baby I had ever seen IRL. He looked like he'd eaten the other babies in the nursery; he was full-grown and so serious, compared to their shriveled hands and crying old-man heads. He was brave and beautiful. 

I walked out of the hospital at my pre-pregnancy weight. That's how big that kid was. And his heart was just as big. He loves, fiercely. He plays, fiercely. He rages fiercely. He turns in circles in the center of the room, telling a story about his day, picking up this thing from here and setting it there, picking up that thing from there and setting it who knows where. He gives me a full-on hug, still my snuggle bear, and he wanders upstairs to watch grown men squeal on YouTube, while I rescue the remote from the bathroom and a dog toy from the kitchen counter and his phone from the back of the couch.

In 6 years, he will be gone, suddenly an adult. 

I am not ready. 

Only this year, have I felt the ticking of the clock, as my kids grow into their futures. They have both started to settle -- just a bit-- into their own skin. Puberty is a fickle bitch and it has not been -- is not -- will not be easy on these two. They both sense and see the world for what it is. They call out injustice. They pick up on what is not said. They see hypocrisy and greed and they see beauty. They are both already taller than me. And they both reject societal standards of beauty and femininity and masculinity and sexuality. They are who they are and they dare you to ask them to be anyone or anything different. They refuse to cave to your pressures. 

But n 3 years, she will be gone. In 6 years, he will be gone. I won't have to feed them fast food in the car as we drive to practice; I won't have to stock the pantry with Cheez-Its because at least it's something they might eat. In 6 years I won't have to check the fridge for the remote. 

Photo by Delia Giandeini on Unsplash

Time is flying off the shelves like toilet paper.

Currently, my house is a disaster, my me-time consists of bourbon and Hallmark movies and laundry, and there is a single Rick and Morty sock on the piano. 

In 6 years, this chaos will be gone. 

I'm not sure I will ever be ready.

Pointlessly Biting My Tongue

 I am biting my tongue.

It is not my place to interfere, to pull rank, to fight my kids' battles.

But everything I know about teenage development and about teaching with equity and about decent human behavior tells me that something fundamentally is broken with so much of our school system.

I get that I'm weird: I include students' own self-assessment as part of their final grade. I allow late work and rewrites right up until the end of the semester, as long as the work is authentic and not just grade-grubbing. I don't mark down for late work. I don't give traditional tests. I think that grades should ultimately represent the students' engagement with the material and mastery of the content, not their behavior.

I've done a lot of reading, research, and contemplation. I've read a lot of what Ken O'Connor has put out there. I've read Pointless. I think about grading with equity in mind all. the. time. Every 504 and IEP requirement? Those are universal accommodations in my room. Extended time? You betcha. Need the audio? Here's the link. 

So I get that I'm weird.

But right now, my daughter is in tears because she doesn't understand her chemistry homework and she has a test tomorrow. She's had a cold all week (that I caught from my own students and then gave to her) and she's missed a couple of days of school. I kept her home because she was coughing, and even though we know it's a cold and not COVID, the stigma is there, and she doesn't want to get anyone else sick. She is exhausted and under the weather and she should have been in bed an hour ago, but she has to finish her chemistry and then read and thoughtfully annotate a 17th century passage for her American Lit class. It's her fault for procrastinating. Everything was posted online, so she should have kept up at home, and she only gets two late work passes per semester, so she has to get this done.

WHY? Why are we doing this to our kids?

What is she learning right now--long after she should be in bed--about chemistry? About American Lit? About responsibility? About humanity?

She is 15. Any metaphorical rebuttal you can give about accruing late fees on credit card payments and getting fired from a job when you didn't do your work by deadline is --frankly-- irrelevant. Because we are not teaching them about paying their bills on time or about the requirements of entry-level hourly jobs. We are teaching them chemistry. We are teaching them American Lit. We are teaching them Algebra. But we are grading them on compliance in a "gotcha" system that nails them if they are unable to pay attention one day, no matter what was going on in their lives.

I am really trying to bite my tongue. 

But this is my kid.

These are my kids. 

Quit punishing them for being human.

Grades should reflect understanding and mastery of content. And every damn kid in the room deserves the chance to truly understand the content, no matter what baggage they bring with them.

Are our policies in place because they make our lives easier? Or because they truly teach our students something meaningful?

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Are our grading procedures punitive? Or are they meant to acknowledge mastery?

Are we truly trying to reach and teach each kid in the room? Or are we demanding that they conform to a system that works best for us?

My daughter needs to go to bed. She has a chemistry test tomorrow.

I am officially two weeks behind in grading.

And so, I am biting my tongue.

Making a Memory

 As my students were working on their personal narrative essays this week, I wrote my own, to model my process from brainstorming to  revision to final edit, and to show them that writing is never done, it's just due.

The prompt: Write about an insignificant moment in your life that says something significant about you. Try to stay in the moment and avoid obvious "looking back reflection" at the end. Suggested length: 500-600 words.

The mentor text: "My Secret Pepsi Plot" by Boris Fishman.

Making a Memory

“Come on, guys, we are making a memory today!” my mom sang out, while my Pops snorted and I rolled my eyes. As usual, we were starting out 3 hours later than planned, and it would be getting dark soon. We piled into the truck, seat-belts optional, my baby sister on my mom’s lap and me in the middle, awkwardly straddling the 4wd shifter and snow plow lever in the center floor hump.

The only thing matching my Pops’ bitterness at being dragged away from work for “forced family fun” was the bitterness of the cold. I could feel it through my scruffy Moon Boots, a Christmas present to me the previous year, 3 years after they were popular. Everyone wore Duckies now, but I had knock-off Moon Boots, the silver lightning bolts on the side advertising my awkwardness.

Every year we had to cut down our own Christmas tree, a family tradition that Pops and I grudgingly put up with, because it made mom so happy. Trudging through the drifts, getting snow inside the scrunched up felt liners of my ugly boots, my socks working their way down my heels and bunching under my arches, jeans wet around the cuffs and fingers freezing because I couldn’t find my gloves, I grumbled under my breath. My mom held my sister’s hand, as she bobbled through the snow in her hand-me-down faded pink snow suit. Pops carried the chainsaw, ready to cut down a ridiculous, lop-sided tree that would never actually fit into our living room.

“This one?” I pointed, but mom rejected it. 

“This one?” No, not that one either. Pops sighed in exasperation.

“This one!” my mom breathed. This was the one, the perfect tree, her dream tree this year. The bottom branches were too wide; the top of the tree pointed slightly west. This was the perfect tree, the tree that would make this Christmas a perfect memory. These family moments meant everything to her, the family she’d built through sheer willpower and nursery rhymes.

I stood with my hands shoved deep into my pockets, willing my fingers to stop aching. As Pops sawed down the tree, jumping out of the way as it finally creaked over sideways, my sister ate snow from a small hillside on the tree farm. My mom tried to take a picture, capturing this memory moment forever, but she’d forgotten batteries for the camera again, just like she did every year. It was too dark to take a picture without the flash anyway, too dark to capture this memory that would never make it into a photo album.

As we finally dragged the tree back to the truck through the snow, Pops and I grunted and huffed, sticky sap and pine needles coating our fingers. I was on the pointy end of the tree, holding on through the scratchy branches, trying to keep the tree from scraping the ground and losing too many needles. Then, I tripped. The tree bounced to the ground and I landed with a face full of snow. Pops reached out to grab my hand and pull me back to my feet, but I yanked once, hard. He fell into the snow beside me, laughing as he landed, my sister piling gleefully on top.

And Mom smiled knowingly at her family, piled in a snowy, laughing heap on the ground, the mutant Charlie Brown tree momentarily forgotten, the snow glittering in the fading light.

This is not our tree. This is someone else's tree. Mom forgot batteries for the camera, so we don't have a picture of our tree.

26 years

 The year I turned 25, I panicked. I had always thought that I would have my shit together at 25. That I'd have a career and a plan and I'd finally know what I was doing. Instead, I was waiting tables, bouncing between teaching jobs and sub jobs, trying to stay out of trouble but inadvertently blacklisting myself for "encouraging students to write letters to the school board." (Oops.)

It's been 2+ decades since my 25th birthday. The existential identity crisis hasn't passed yet. Today I started my 26th year of teaching. Do I know what I'm doing? Do I finally have my shit together? Will I manage to stay out of trouble this time? Do I have a plan? (Is is a good plan?)

The thing about teaching is that you will never, truly, be successful at your job. Kids will always fail, no matter how hard you try to reach them. Kids will always disengage, no matter how clever or creative or inspirational you try to be. There will always be a vocal parent or three who seem to drown out all of the support and make you feel like you are not only a terrible human being, but an awful teacher, systematically destroying kids' lives. 100 parents will be silent, 27 will be vocally supportive, and 3 will tear you down, and it will be those 3 who keep you up at night, questioning every professional decision you've ever made. 

The first day of school of year 26, I caught a train. By "caught," I mean, the train was stopped on the tracks, blocking the road, and I was 20some cars and 2 school buses on the wrong side of the tracks. After I made an 8 point turn and backtracked several miles to get around the train, finally headed in the right direction, a family of deer decided to be indecisive in crossing the road...should they go? should they stay? should some of them go and some of them stay? Several minutes and two more stoplights later, I finally was within a mile of school, in the mile-long traffic jam, backed up all the way up to the student parking lot. I skated into my classroom exactly 60 seconds before the final bell. And the year began. 

I'm not sure I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish today. Was I warm enough? Friendly? Approachable? Funny? Did I leave a good impression? (Was I a hot mess?) Did I inspire anyone? With anything? Will they be eager to return tomorrow?

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

26 years, and I still worry late at night (and all day long). Am I enough? Do I have what it takes? Will I be able to save this kid? Inspire that one? Challenge her? Comfort him? Support them? Truly connect?

Will I do enough?

26 years of teaching. Day 1 is in the books. Tomorrow is day 2.

I hope I have what it takes to truly make a difference.

20 Books You Have to Read, According to Your Favorite English Teacher

Photo by Tom Hermans on Unsplash

A former student contacted me, asking for a reading list of 10-15 classics she had to read. Because I can't follow directions, I came up with 20. Without further introduction, here are the 20 books you have to read, because I am your favorite English teacher. 

Dead (and mostly White) Guy Classics

1. Macbeth by Shakespeare. There’s a GREAT article about it here. Plus, the downfall into insanity of Macbeth, as he gets more power, as well as the downfall of Lady Macbeth into suicide as she deals with the repercussions of her actions...the modern parallels are stunning.

2. The Odyssey by Homer. Find an easy to read translation...no need to wade through a hard-to-read version, because the point is the stories, not the language. It’s a great primer on mythology, plus it’s a great adventure story about a narcissistic asshole and his family...definitely insight into modern man!

3. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. This is an amazing adventure story. It stands alone in its genre and creates a stunning fantasy kingdom with likable characters. Full of humor and warmth and bravery, Bilbo's unwilling and unwitting journey is pure gold. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is long and often heavy, but The Hobbit is brilliant.

4. Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was a womanizer and an alcoholic...but he had his finger on the pulse of what the American Man is. And his understanding of love, although seemingly skewed in his own life, really captures the insecurities and honesties of it all.

5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was a lousy husband and father and a drunk, too, but much like his character Gatsby, he was also passing in society. This, to me, is the great American novel, exploring the juxtaposition between middle class and the rich, between midwest America and the East Coast, between honesty and lies.

6. 1984 by George Orwell. The ultimate dystopian novel, this hits uncomfortably close to home. Plus, Orwell’s manipulation of language is spot on. If you don’t have the words, then can you have the thoughts? They who control the narrative and the language control everything. Just think about our country’s issue with health care. We have Obamacare (boo hiss socialism) and the Affordable Care Act (yes please!) and they are the same fucking thing. The words we use control the conversation. Literally.

7. Of Mice and Men or The Grapes of Wrath or East of Eden by John Steinbeck. No one writes like Steinbeck. His characters are gritty but laced with humanity. They are all flawed and all marginalized, but all redeemable and understandable. Plus, the way Steinbeck weaves hope and Christian iconography throughout (without being Christian or religious himself) is mastery. If there is one dead person I'd want to have coffee with, it would be Steinbeck.

8. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. People love to hate Holden Caulfield. He’s whiny and he complains a LOT. But he is the most authentic teenage voice I have ever read. He is every teenager, even when they (and we) hate him.

9. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Although this is in translation (Hesse wrote it in German, I believe) and it’s a white guy writing about Buddha in India, it’s accessible and it really helps us see the hero’s journey in another culture...not just another culture but another entire way to live. The search for enlightenment is profound and a great contrast to the search for love or acceptance or hope -- or the American Dream. 

10. In the same vein, pick up a copy of the Tao de Ching. Read one "poem" every night before bed. It is lovely and thought provoking. You can find it (and most of the books in this list) online as a PDF, but I’d recommend a pocket edition of the Tao, so that you can just read a “poem” a day.

11. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I love love love this book. It’s long, but it’s really funny, and the main character, Pip, is so true and believable, both as a naive kid, then as a teenager, and finally as an adult. Dickens loves puns...even when little kid Pip talks about being “brought up by hand” and what he really means is that his Aunt slaps him a lot...Pip is innocent, until he’s not...and he’s one of my all-time favorite characters.

12. Different Seasons by Stephen King. King is an amazing writer, and this collection of 4 short stories is brilliant. Each one stands alone and covers a different aspect of humanity, from horror to innocence, and in-between. It’s brilliant. I hate horror and I love this book.

Dead White Lady Classics

13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Ugh, this book. It is beautiful and it has been so misunderstood throughout the decades. Atticus Finch is not really a hero. He’s a distant father, a closet racist, and he's unethical. But he also speaks truth to his kids -- and their purity, watching this story unfold, is what makes this book live. Although the “white savior” trope and the “hulking but broken Black man with no agency” tropes are problematic, if you read the book understanding what Lee was trying to do, you see both the mastery and the flaws -- and the mirror.

14. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. You don’t have to read the book (although it’s lovely) but if you decide to watch this instead of read it, you HAVE to watch the Colin Firth version. He IS Mr. Darcy. The newer version of the movie is crap and completely misunderstands what Austen is doing: passing judgement on society and on ALL of the characters, and yet redeeming those who are willing to be honest in the end. But I’d recommend the read, if you’ve got the time. Austen pointedly makes fun of people. I feel her. :)

BIPOC Classics or Soon-to-be Classics

15. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. My favorite book in the whole wide world. It is so beautiful and thoughtful and the characters are so real. There is love and humor and hope and resilience and if there is just one book on this list that you read, make it this one. Although it takes a bit to learn to read the dialect, if you listen to this audio for the first chapter while you read, it will all click into place.

16. The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Written as an epistolary (written in letters), it’s raw and stunning and impossible to put down. The movie is good, but the book is light years better. It’s usually my students’ favorite book of the year.

17. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. When I read this book, it took me forever, because I stopped at every sentence and reread it because it was written so beautifully. I love this book not only for the story but also for the incredible craftsmanship of the writing. It’s pure poetry.

18. The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas. Although this isn’t a classic...yet...it will be. This book broke the ceiling for Black YA writers and it was one of the first POC books to be adopted into mainstream ELA classrooms. The main character, Starr, is all of us, and yet she is fighting her own battles about race, about her community, about her friends and family, and with herself.

19. There, There by Tommy Orange. This is a stunning "urban Indian" book. We are used to reading books by Native American authors set “on the reservation,” but this one places its characters in the city, where so many Indigenous people live, and it tells the stories of teens coming of age and their parents and grandparents, and what it is like to be Indigenous in our country today. It’s a story whose main characters just happen to be Indigenous, but that also affects every aspect of their lives.

20. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Beautifully crafted book about what it means to be Black in America...when you are not an American (the protagonist is a Nigerian immigrant). Adichie gave the famous TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story” and this book captures those idea threads about identity. It’s a masterpiece and Adichie’s narrative voice is powerful and authentic.

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