157: Last Day of School at the Bison Range

Lex's preschool had a field trip to the Bison Range for their last day of school. He's excited about kindergarten, but I'm kind of sad he'll be leaving this school. He's learned a lot more and been more excited about learning than any of the other kids ever were in kindergarten. 

"Be related, somehow, to everyone you know."

 My world, my children’s world, is full of heroes.

When my kids start talking about what happened today, that’s the part of the story we’ll focus on: how teachers, the principal, policemen, and volunteer firemen all acted quickly and selflessly to try to save hundreds of kids. I’ll remind them how lucky they are to be surrounded by so many people who would also do whatever it takes to keep them safe: parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, teachers, and all those community members we love as much as our family.  

My kids came home from school today, like they do all days, laughing and bouncing and chatting rapidly and excitedly with a huge gang of cousins and siblings. They’re carefree and happy. Here, the good stories are winning, and they often crowd out all the negative news. I’m fine with that.  My kids know far more good people than bad, and their world is full of far more good than evil. Even though my children live in a world where bad things happen, I don’t want them to live in fear.

We haven’t yet discussed this awful event, and I won’t bring it up until they do. My kids aren’t immune to tragedy. They’ve already seen too much of it and I’m sure over the next few days they’ll hear more about this one and have questions. They’ll know what happened; unfortunately, they do understand the reality that sometimes we can’t keep everyone safe. I hate that, but we’ll spend no more time elaborating on those facts and we’ll not discuss the person responsible. Evil like that deserves no more of our time; it’s stolen too much from us already.

People are quick to condemn our government, our gun regulations, and our health system. Surely all of that could be improved, but I’m not optimistic any of those types of changes will prevent awful things like this from happening. Throughout my life, I’ve found stories and relationships have always been more powerful than laws. It’s exactly why we don’t need to hear this particular story on repeat everywhere we turn. We’ve given over our storytelling to the media and it’s much too important a position to hand off to social media and networks looking for sensational headlines. I never need to see the face of the people who commit crimes like this and neither do my children. We don’t need to know what he was planning, or the total body counts compared to other massacres, or see documentaries about who he was. I don’t need to know his story. I feel like our country’s obsession with spreading horrific news has been more to blame for the increase in these types of crimes than our too lenient gun laws. People considering horrific things don’t need any more horrific ideas, and they don’t need to see people who commit acts like this getting national fame.

Today’s national tragedy comes at the end of a month of local tragedies, which makes the loss seem even more overwhelming. My community is small—just few hundred people, our whole reservation is only thousands, not even the size of a small city. We’ve had multiple violent murders in the last few weeks and lost some good people to senseless crimes. It’s hard not to feel powerless. It’s hard not to feel like evil is winning.

But we aren’t powerless and I think in times like this, when we get hit with such huge losses, it’s even more important to remember that. It’s important to remind our kids of the truth of that as well. I have hope that our government will support good things, but I find it naive to believe legislation and policy will protect me from people with no regard for basic human life. Laws and policy are also not going to make my elementary school children feel safer. I’ll continue to vote for laws and people I believe in, but laws are for those of us who agree to follow them.

I’ll continue to encourage my kids to be those sorts of people who do follow them. I’ll continue to surround them with good people and continue to remind them how important it is to look out for one another and to be kind to each other, especially to those who are often hard to be kind to. I think we too often underestimate how powerful these simple things can be.  When huge tragedy happens everyone cries for huge changes; I think it makes more sense to start with small ones.  One of my favorite ideas is Ella Deloria’s suggestion to, “Be related, somehow, to everyone you know.” We need to spend more energy paying more attention to the people we see everyday. I think establishing connections and awareness can be more effective than implementing more systems filled with people with no background with or connection to the people they’re being paid to help.

I’ll continue to encourage my children to pay attention, to be a part of the community where they live. And I’ll continue to tell them stories of people who are brave and strong and selfless.  We’ve had many great leaders in this country who’ve made hard choices that have made our lives better and who have made huge sacrifices for others. My children have family members who have done the same. It’s these stories they need to be familiar with.

And even in our horrific local tragedies, that piece of the story is there. We live among brave men, real heroes, who when confronted with evil, will give everything to protect others. Those are the people we need to remember. Theirs are the lives worth knowing. Honor and courage and loyalty and selflessness aren’t just lofty ideals and people who believe in them and act according to them aren’t just the stuff of fairy tales.

They’re the only real protection we have.  

284: "If they'd just apply themselves. . ."

My children's conflicted relationship with school continues to drive me crazy.  Both Israel and Azia came home after getting their scores for last year's testing and they thought it was hilarious because they both did "better than all the smart kids!" I got annoyed at them and tried to explain that there is no reason they couldn't be the smart kids. But that seems to be more about being a part of a social group smart enough to have good habits rather than any assessment of existing innate intelligence, and they both ignored me and went on to clarify they even did better than the "really smart" kids.

I really think that it would be much smarter of them to just do the work that the teachers give them. But Azia often doesn't find that very interesting; Israel explained to me after giving the good student thing a try for one quarter last year that it really was quite a lot of work to try to get good grades. It's totally different than testing (which he enjoys much more) because it's so easy and the teachers don't bother you and there isn't any homework. Israel completely topped out the reading and science sections this year. This is the second year he did that with reading even though as often as not he wasn't passing English last year.

Sometimes I think they are not related to me at all.

Especally Azia. She even topped out the math. All 300 points. Who are these children and where are the studious little obedient ones I surely deserve for all my diligent years as a student?

Day One: Back to School

Although we were all a little hesitant to head back, the kids seemed to have a great first day of school, even if I only have sketchy photographic evidence of it.

As always, my children weren't really on board with me getting even one photo of them all together. They don't believe in that. Azia & Zoran were game for anything, Israel was annoyed and ready to walk to school more than an hour before it started and was impatient. He wanted to leave as soon as everyone was waking up. Lex needed a little additional time waking up and wasn't ready to immediately be involved in anything except a few giant plates of huckleberry pancakes. Dev thinks it's silly and annoying if I ever want to take pictures where I need people to cooperate at all, so he just told Israel to leave and Lex was still wrapped up in his blanket.

So, our group picture is a sort of collage:

Israel did some checking of his morning messages before leaving, Zoran enjoyed some pancakes, and Lex continued to sleep while everyone else started their day.

About three hours later Lex did get up and decided to measure himself like all the other kids did in the morning.  When he scooted up to the measuring chart he saw the big "3" right in front of his face and told me he was three inches. I explained to him it was three feet, and he told me that was just silly: "People don't have three feet, Mom! Look I have two, you have two. . . everyone only has two! What are you talking about three feet?"

I suppose he does have a point, though he may tell people for the immediate future that he is three inches tall.

Zoran discovered it was sort of hard to remember how to tie up those new shoes after not wearing any shoes at all for three months!

We stopped at the end of the driveway to take a couple pictures and Zoran turned around and started peeing in the field. Hopefully this socializing  & moving back to civilized days isn't too abrupt.


When I couldn't even get the kids to look at me for a picture I decided to take my favorite new shoes and backpack feet shot. . . and then I realized none of the shoes (except Zoran's) or backpacks are even new. Oh well.

 We found some friends and couple cousins once we arrived at school. Maysa & Paisley were getting there the same time we were.

Zoran and Azia were both really excited to go back this morning. It made the day so much better.

Zoran told me last night his two favorite days of the year were the first and the last. The last was quite a lot better, but the first wasn't too bad because there was always a little bit of discovery and not too much work.

We're going to work on not being so against the work part, but a little bit of discovery is a pretty good thing to hope for every day.

On to day two.

235: Back to School Eve

It’s back to school for all my kids in the morning. This is the first year in the dozen years I’ve had kids in school that I don’t want to send them back.

It seems to be commonly understood that if you can make it work financially (and can stay sane) it’s a good thing to keep your kids home with you when they’re itty-bitty.  But the last few years I’ve begun to feel like it’s even more important as they get older.  Of course it’s important to be there for much of their days when they’re little, but it seems almost increasingly important when they’re not. Mainly, my concerns are still keeping them physically safe and mentally curious, just as it was when they were tiny. Increasingly though, it’s also very much about helping them become good people who make smart decisions. Their decisions are getting bigger as they get bigger. The dangers and consequences of those decisions are getting bigger, too.

These school days aren’t practice for real life or somewhere to waste time until they are ready to go out in the world. It matters. How they are spending their hours and days and who they are spending them with matters a lot, and it’s already shaping the kind of people they will be years from now.

I’ve loved many of my kids’ teachers. I love it when my kids come home and teach me things or ask me questions about what they learned that day and want to continue finding out more. I love that my daughter came home last winter and asked me where to find our Edgar Allen Poe books after her teacher got her interested. She sat at the table reading to her brothers while they all ate their after-school snack. I was so excited when my son finally had a teacher who enjoyed history as much as he did and who helped him finally find some overlap between all the research and reading and history he’s fascinated with and the work he needed to do at school. I love teachers who show up at baseball games on weekday evenings and soccer games on Saturday mornings to cheer on their students even though they have a million other things to do. I love those teachers who, when I see them outside school, so obviously know who my child is and their quirks and interests and what they are doing well or need to work on without needing to consult their grade book. I love teachers who drop a postcard in the mail when they’re amazed at something my child did at school or who seek me out when they sense something is wrong. 

I want all my kids to have teachers like the one who will text me at 10:30 at night to tell me to have my daughter look at the moon because they studied its phases in class months ago and she knows it's in one my daughter has been wanting to see.

I remember these things. So do my kids. We are paying attention.  I love teachers who help my students grow academically. That’s huge for me. But how they go about it, the little things in between the formal lessons, that all matters, too.

So it also matters when you call my kid names in front of the whole class to illustrate the sorts of name calling the class shouldn’t do, it matters when you repeatedly lose assignments or can’t make time to update your grades more than once every six weeks.  It matters when you’re rude and when you treat whole groups of kids differently than others. Even when my kids aren’t directly involved, they’re watching.  And they’re coming home and asking me why it’s okay because they already understand that really it isn’t.

My kids have been luckily that they haven’t really had problems with bullying, but it makes me sad that the only times they felt degraded, picked on, or disliked it was by their teachers.  My kids are pretty resilient, don’t complain much, and most of the incidents were small. In every case I’m fairly certain it bothers me more than them, partially because it’s the cumulative effect of collecting all these small heart breaks from all my kids, and partially because it feels like I’ve failed them because it’s my job to protect them. Of course it’s also my job to help them learn to deal with people who are unpleasant and unkind, but I’d feel a lot better if their teachers were helping me with this job rather than being the ones I’m trying to help teach my kids how to deal with.  Though my kids rarely complain, have friends that they like hanging out with, don’t get in trouble, and do fairly well academically, they don’t want to be at school.  I think that says quite a lot. Hopefully we can change that this year.

We’re lucky to have so many outstanding teachers. But outstanding isn’t even necessary. I feel like I’m constantly on my kids to be more organized, prepared, and respectful. It feels doubly hard because some of the teachers I’m dealing with are none of these things. While I love those amazing teachers, I’m even okay with those who are just fair and competent. Teaching is a really hard job; sometimes it takes all the energy you have to show up and do it well that entire school day. But if teachers can do that, if they just take their job and the kids seriously while they're there, I think we’d be okay.

So, we’ve shaved off scraggly summer hair, bought about 600 glue sticks, dug out the backpacks, bought some new shoes, and have been practicing our optimism by reminding each other about all the good things about school we've missed the last few months and all those teachers we love we haven't seen as often as we'd like.

We have new classrooms and new teachers and new chances. 

We’re ready for a good year.

88: Inside Anna's Classroom

The documentary about my friend Anna's work with her sophomore English class premiered here on campus today. The film follows Anna's class as they read Wind From an Enemy Sky and studied and discussed the local history it's based on. Anna does such a great job, and this is a pretty amazing group of students. I always did a very similar unit when I was teaching high school, so the whole morning made me miss teaching at that level.  It also made me very happy that we have some really great teachers still there.

April 8, 2010: Driving. Again.

I'm getting so tired of driving. And Thursdays.

This is my view out my cracked, chipped windshield, for too many miles and too many minutes this semester.  Thursdays are the worst because that's the one day of the week my teaching duties on opposite end of my little area here overlap. I drive like 140 miles every Thursday and do about five hours of teaching in between. I drive up to Pablo to teach at SKC and then leave directly from that class and drive to Missoula to teach at the U of M.  I understand this isn't really much of a commute for most people, but I can usually walk everywhere I need to go most days. That's really more what I prefer.

Israel, math, and backyard ballistics

So after an hour of working on his homework, I needed Israel to so some other work around the house.
 

"What number are you on?" I asked.

"One." 
 

“One!?”  


“Yeah."
 

“How many do you have to do?”  

“45. I took some notes in class today, but they don’t seem to be working.”

So he sat at the kitchen counter for an hour, with his math book, apparently doing nothing. Or something that didn't involve accomplishing math problems. He has these technical problems a lot. When I asked him if he tried to look up how to do it in the book he explained,

"Yes. I signed up for the Backyard Ballistics class today. I wouldn't normally sign up with that teacher, but we get to blow things up. Once a kid even lost three fingers."

Israel, we're talking about Math right now. 

"Oh I know. I have the attention span of a chipmunk."

And then he crawled away on his hands and knees barking at our miniature little dog.

I'm pretty sure he didn't do any of his math. I understand that I should make sure things like this get done, but sometimes the gap between the type of student my son is and the type I am makes me feel more than mildly crazy. Sometimes I have to just walk away. Otherwise, in a few years I'm afraid I might be the one yapping away and chasing dogs around on my hands and knees.

March 18, 2010: Missoula's Annual Poetry Slam!

February 14, 2010: Piles

What a great way to spend Valentines Day.

Why do I keep assigning writing?

January 30, 2010: Inservice at Potomac

I spent today doing IEFA & writing integration inservice in Potomac. This is such a picturesque little school. Even though all the schools on the Reservation here are definitely rural and small, I forget there are still some places like Potomac in Montana. I think there were 10 teachers I was working with. When the teachers started talking about what they taught and how many students were in the school I made some comment about how this must actually be most of their staff--it was the entire staff! (Except for one person who was sick.) Rural Montana is such a different sort of life from so much of the rest of the country.

November 14, 2009: saturday morning with the Writing Project

Simon Ortiz

Work meeting today at the UofM. Simon Ortiz stopped by to visit with our group after his reading on campus this evening.

August 25, 2009: inservice in Troy

So this made for a long day. I probably should have taken a photo of the road through the trees that I was driving on for hours (all the way into ID in the morning when I forgot to turn off the first time through) or a photo of teachers working on writing or listening to Barry Lane, but both of those things are kind of difficult to photograph when you're in the middle of it. The inservice went well and the drive wasn't as bad as I was suspecting. Actually for much of it I was realizing how much I love this area of the world. I haven't been back to Libby really since I spent that week there like 5 years ago and I couldn't remember being to Troy at all since high school. There are so many trees and its all closed in and cozy and surrounded by mountains and lakes. It's really beautiful. It is quite a ways from the rest of the world. I suppose that could be a good thing...unless you needed to interact with the rest of the world.

IEFA ... Azia should help me with my workshops

So Azia impressed me today. I continuously underestimate what kids know and understand.

I’ve been doing all this work preparing inservice for teachers trying to figure out authentic ways to integrate Indian Education for All. Tonight I had a DVD of an old 1970s film called "Unlearning Indian Stereotypes" playing on my computer while I was kind of doing other things and Azia came and sat beside me and wanted to watch it. It has elementary kids in NYC narrating and talking about different stereotypes they’ve had to deal with. Anyway, her response and comments really made me rethink how much young kids could really be working with these ideas.

I was kind of amazed by how much information she kept offering and connecting to what was happening in the film without any prompting from me. Information about other US tribes she knew about (Inuit, Osage, Choctaw…) different lodgings beyond teepees (longhouse,hogans…), historical events like The Long Walk and the Trail of Tears. Every point the kids on the video made, she wanted to talk about or had information or questions. Of course it was basic information, but there was quite a lot of awareness and some of the things she talked about I didn’t even know anything about. I asked her where she learned it and she told me her “NAS teacher knows a lot.”

Anyway when the kids in the DVD made some point like “some people think Indians wear these clothes” (referring to the Powwow regalia) she said, “But Mom, people do still wear those!” And of course she knows people do, but when I said she and her friends don’t wear their clothes like that everyday, she laughed and thought that would be pretty silly. I said something about how some movies only show Indians wearing those kind of clothes and only drumming and dancing and they didn’t even seem like real people. She then brought up Peter Pan as an example!

I know I didn’t know any of that kind of historical or cultural information when I was six. (I still don’t even know much now!) Every once in awhile I’m really amazed. I forget my kids are becoming real people and they have all this knowledge beyond (and different than) what just the things I’ve taught them.

Israel Loves the MontCAST

Well I've spent the last few years complaining about how awful I think it is that we are having our kids do all this testing. I hate that they're cutting out all sorts of arts and even science and social studies so they have more time to get kids ready to pass these tests. (Often not even become more skilled at math or better readers, but more ready to pass the tests.)

And all along, apparently I'm opposing Israel's favorite weeks of the year.

As he was getting ready for school this morning, out of the blue he blurts out, "I'm in love with the MontCAST."

I asked him why and he said, "It's just so easy. I wish we did it every day. That's all you do all day long. There's no real work. There's no homework. And you have snacks."

"And it's all just basic stuff--stuff like all 5th graders should know. So you don't need to think a whole lot. It's like if Mr.Phillips just made a real easy test about stuff it doesn't really matter if we know or not."

So, this is what makes a good school day for a fifth-grader these days? No thinking. No challenges. Snacks.

Maybe it's worse than I thought.