It’s been a while.
What can I say? I’ve been busy. In the time since I’ve seen this screen, I’ve been to New Zealand, taught another entire year of 9th grade science, bought a dog, had to give up the dog, got two kittens, loved the kittens, been to Spain, seen my parents move across the country, bought a giant stuffed toy shark for my high school classroom, stood by my best friend when she got married, started yet another year of teaching, got a new tattoo, tried 14 new breweries (now we know where all my time goes) and who knows what else. It’s been a busy year and a half.
I stopped writing for a while. For no real reason other than I was loving my job and wanted to spend time writing and creating things for my kids. Now, obviously, I hate my job and I don’t care about creating a single new thing for those ungrateful turds.
KIDDING.
I think I’ve finally just taken enough time to sit and reflect enough to put words together in one cohesive message. And I guess it took, like, a year and a half to do that. That said, please know that the time it took to produce these thoughts is in no way correlated with the quality of them, so before you get excited, just go ahead and lower your expectations.
So now it’s year three and I decided it’s time to finally reflect on all that I learned in year two (and a half). After all, I’m wise now. I am enlightened from all my two and a half years of teaching. I’ve seen things. I know things.
So without further ado, gather ’round, behold my (already known to every veteran teacher and probably all parents everywhere) knowledge:
1. Stuffed sharks are the secret to a safe classroom.
Okay, so here is the thing- there is no normal way to say this. But, uh, I have a stuffed shark named Bruce that lives in my high school classroom. I bought him on a whim at Ikea, where all great whim-buying occurs. It was one of those things where I bought it because I love sharks and I love telling my kids how much I love sharks, but then once I got it, I was really nervous to show my kids because, like, I just bought a bunch of high schoolers a communal stuffed animal.
Right before I introduced Bruce to the kids, I had this moment where I thought to myself: This is it. This will go one of two ways. One, kids will roll their eyes and then ignore him. Or two, kids will spread rumors about how I am a psychopath obsessed with stuffed animals and I will be fired for my weird “fetishes” which is what the kids will eventually call my obsession with sharks. Here goes nothing.
And then it went a third way. Kids freaked. For weeks on end kids argued over who got to hold Bruce during class. He was cuddled, carried around, hugged, cried into, and even the subject of an Instagram fan page. He made it big time. Bigger than me, that’s for certain.
I had a student teacher at the time who definitely thought I was weird for bringing Bruce into the high school classroom and he said to me once, “I don’t get what the big deal is.”
So I started thinking and my theory is that Bruce is a cover. He’s a beard. A disguise. He’s a giant, fluffy way for my 9th grade babies to be babies. He gives them permission to sit down and cuddle a sensory object and just be a kid for a nanosecond in a day in a world that constantly demands that they “grow up.”
I was so sure that after a week or two kids would forget about Bruce and he would end up in the back corner of my room, forgotten and left as a decoration. But it’s been a full year and a brand new class. He’s never left alone in my room. Even still he is well loved.
Bruce has been a reminder for me that 14 year olds are still just babies. They need and deserve time to decompress their many emotions, to feel the security and comfort of something that can’t leave or betray them, and to feel the freedom to be exactly where they are in life.
2. Self-care is more than bubble baths
Okay, this one I’ll keep short and sweet.
Self care is not just manicures, bubble baths, face masks, “treat yo self” dates, and exorbitant spending/eating/watching/drinking/etc. under the guise of making yourself feel better.
Self care is the hard work of repeatedly examining where you are at emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially, and all the other “-lys” and simultaneously accepting where you are at with grace and appreciation and challenging yourself appropriately to push yourself into a better place.
Um, that’s, like, super hard.
I finally chiggity checked myself before I wrecked myself this past year, culminating in me staring at myself in the bathroom mirror hyping myself up about what a strong, brave human being I am and that no matter what I could and would survive going to.. dun dun dun… the doctor to talk about potentially having anxiety.
And then I did. And now my self care looks like little white magical pills that stabilize the chemicals in my brain. It also looks like having a financial plan that is reasonable. And like making time for things I love. And like having a “bad day plan” that prevents me from eating an entire gallon of ice cream or buying the entirety of Old Navy when things go south.
There are still days that are not perfect. But they are way better than before. And way better than bubble baths alone.
The work is worth it. (That particular sentence is about self-care, but I find that it works in most cases for…well…everything)
3. The times they are a changin’
This section I’ve had to type and re-type and edit out the profanity and then added it back on accident and then talked myself into erasing again. That, for me, is a sure sign that it is something I’m passionate about.
Times are changing, right? That’s a phrase people say. And it’s stupid. Because people always say it like “oh, poor, woe is me, the world is changing around me and I am far superior to the things that they’re coming up with now and why can’t things just always stay the same because that is where I’m comfortable.” And that is dumb.
Of course times are changing. That is the entire point of time passing.
No one is going to argue that this is a different climate than years past. But hasn’t it always been that way? Haven’t the oldest living generations always howled in dismay at the state of the world and the terror of the youths and the future of the economy? I’m sure somewhere some Roman patrician was reclining on his left arm in his oversized Roman house (domum if I remember my 9th grade latin correctly? Sorry, Mr. Revard) declaring his hatred for the private bathroom stall and the up and coming Visigoths and how this new technology and these new people would ruin their known world or whatever. Like, duh, this is what happens to society.
This isn’t new. Nothing has changed here.
And you know what else isn’t new? Hasn’t changed?
Kids.
Here is the thing that I will say dramatically at 24 years old that I will “stand by until I die,:” kids don’t change. They just don’t. Everything else does. And it breaks my heart when I hear (forgive me for this…I am *kind of* sorry) old people squawking about how awful kids are these days.
The kids haven’t changed. Kids are kids.
Show me a kid who was chronically misbehaving in 79AD, 1267, 1502, 1779, 1950, 2001, 2019 and I will show a kid whose needs weren’t being met.
Kid have always needed attention, devotion, high expectations, boundaries, hearing the word “no,” hearing the words “I love you,” grace, mercy, accountability, respect, and love. They still need these things. They always will. And squawking about how “awful kids are these days” is accomplishing exactly none of those things.
I guess my point in all this is what are you doing to supply a child with those things?
I think that’s where all of our conversations about parenting, teaching, administration, politics, advertising, journalism, theater, social media influencing, tv-making…everything have to start. What message are we sending our kiddos? What are we doing to give them what they need to be successful?
A kid who is very near and dear to my heart one time told me in tears “Why do we have to have these? There is so much more we have to deal with than you did!” And he was talking about his phone. So I was like “Um hello, I am only 24, I didn’t grow up in the stone ages. I had a smartphone in high school, too. Such rude and disrespectful comments. Gosh, kids these days….” And then I kicked him out of my room with a month of detention.
Psych.
I took his phone and put it on my desk and said “I know you do. You have so much more to manage than I did and that must be so difficult. How can I help?” Because he’s 14 and literally crying for help and rescue from a world he has been thrown into but isn’t ready for. Just like all of our kids.
I remember when I was in first grade on September 11th, 2001. I remember the teachers being covered by our principal one by one to go watch the one television in the school to get caught up on what was happening in our country. As a kid, I didn’t see footage of it until my parents had seen it and watched it with me when they felt it was appropriate.
I remember teaching 9th graders on February 14th, 2018 when a student looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said, “there was a shooting in Florida. I just heard the shots.” As a child, she saw a video of the shooting MINUTES after it happened.
The world is changing, and it always will be. But our kids are still the same. And they have to navigate through so much more than we ever had to as kids. And I think we have a duty to help them navigate, not abandon and ridicule them.
Kids don’t change. They have always needed stuffed sharks and down time and adults who care about them. They are what make my job so stinkin’ sweet.
Maybe one day we will have a generation of “old people” who look down on the generations below them with compassion and empathy, who remember what it was like to feel overwhelmed in a world that was beyond them.
Until then, bring it on 2020. Bruce is waiting for you with open fins.
Science and Sarcasm 