Love Not Shove!

Middle school boys love to shove.  Oh sure, there's always time for a nice punch on the upper arm or a trip when someone is walking down the aisle.  But nothing quite tops the joy of a shove from one adolescent boy to another.

As I stand and watch kids in the locker bay by my room, I am always amazed at how much shoving goes on.  Into lockers.  Into other kids.  If you can knock books out of someone's hands, that is just a bonus!  Girls like a good bump now and then, but they can't hold a candle to a middle school boy's penchant for pummeling.

Why, oh, why do they shove?  Is it, as many claim, the pulse of increased testosterone in their veins?  Is it misplaced aggression?  Truthfully, I think it is a side effect of homophobia.  You need love or affection?  You better not let another boy know it.  Men don't hug.  Men shove and thump one another on the backs.  Men shake hands as hard as they can or fist bump.  Manly men do not hug.

For many years, we had a male guidance counselor in our building named Rick Showalter.  Rick was one-of-a-kind.  With his weird tee shirts and the rubber chicken outside his door, Rick was a fascination for many of the troubled boys in our building.  Also?  He gave them candy just for coming to his office.  Oh!  I used to get so frustrated with him.  Boys would come in to my class, rushing in just after the bell, Jolly Ranchers rattling between their teeth. 

"I wazh wish Mishter Showalter," they lisped and shlurped.

"Doesn't he know they only come by to get the candy?" I would fume to myself. 

It is only now that Rick has retired that I get it.  Of course he knew.  They come by the first few times for the candy.  Then, those big, shoving boys would start to talk.  Talk about the girls who didn't like them back.  Talk about the parents who were splitting up.  Talk about the dad who drank too much or the step mom who hated them.

You see, Rick understood those kids in a way many of the rest of us couldn't.  Rick's dad had been an alcoholic, and he was so open and honest about the hurt that had caused in his life, he was an inspiration to kids who had to tread a rough path like his.  Name any boy dressed in black, satanic rock tee shirts, and Rick could tell you anything about his life.  Where he lived, where he sat at lunch, whether or not he got enough to eat each day.  Rick knew and loved those hard-to-love boys.

The shirts, chicken, and candy -- none of it is what mattered most, however.  No. It was the hugs.  Rick Showalter gave a hug to any kid who wanted one, and the shoving, sometimes smelly boys wanted and needed them most of all.  For the first, and maybe last time in many of their lives, those boys had a full grown man show them affection.  Rick was a true "guy," yet he saw no shame in wrapping those boys in a big bear hug right in the middle of the hallway.  None of the boys saw any shame in it either.

When Rick retired a few years ago, he got up and spoke to the staff at our annual breakfast.  He cried; we cried.  He told us how much his job meant to him and how hard it was to leave some of the kids who had no one else.  "Hug the kids," he challenged us.  He practically begged.  "Please, hug the kids.  They need it."

I'm not sure we have truly honored Rick's request, or his legacy.  But, starting today, I'm in.  Maybe the next time I see some boys shoving one another, I'll walk right up and hug them both.  Well, maybe not.  Maybe I should start with candy or a rubber chicken.  Either way, Rick was right, and I've got some hugging to do.

Clicks of the Week #1

Said to me at my desk...during class:

Do you know who Aaron Rogers is?   Well, my aunt knows him, and I got his autograph in the mail the other day.

I fell off a yoga ball this weekend and landed on my neck.

My tongue is numb.  I drank some really hot hot chocolate this weekend, and now I have, like, frostbite, but for hotness.

Look!  I covered my desktop with pictures of airplanes (done instead of writing a research paper, I might add!)

"CLICK"

Have you ever been to a school sporting event?  As you enter, there is generally some poor guy there whose job it is to press a clicker in his hand to count how many people have entered.  "Click."  In you go.  "Click. Click. Click."  Family of three.

One day, while standing in the hallway, I told one of my good friends and colleagues that middle school teachers should each hold a counter in their hands.  Each time a student tells us something we really don't want/need to hear, we could click it.  The number after just one week would be staggering.

I have decided to find some joy in this sometimes exhausting aspect of teaching.  By keeping track.  "Guess what I did this weekend!"  Click.  "My mom bought a bell just like yours!"  Click.

Ready to share the joy?  If not, just "Click."

Death by 1000 Paper Cuts

Teaching is a glorious profession.  Any of us inspired by Dead Poets Society or Stand and Deliver can tell you that there are (rare as they may be) moments when all the late night grading becomes worth it.  You really DO see the light come on in a student's eyes, and you know they understand something brand new for the first time.  We do, most of us,  have someone come back years later and say, "You were one of my favorites."  Yes.  Teaching rocks.

Actually BEING a teacher, on the other hand...now that is something else.

This is my 13th year of teaching middle school English, and I can genuinely say that this is my best year ever.  Part of it is the kids; part of it is me.  As the Rumi quote I wrote on my back board this morning says, "Yesterday, I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.   Today, I am wise, so I want to change myself."  I am a happier teacher this year than I've been sometimes in the past.  Even so, I still have to look for bright spots to keep me going.  Teaching middle school students, as a colleague and I once observed, is like "death by a thousand paper cuts."  It's not any, one, big issue that exhausts you during the course of a day.  It is the millions of questions you have to answer; the questions that students ask during class to try and steer you off topic; the student who wants to know an hour after the essays are turned in if you have them graded yet.

A few weeks ago, a student came up to me in the hallway and said, "Hey!  Guess what I did this weekend!"  I pasted on a smile, as I always do, and I asked them what they did.  It's not really the event or activity itself that is important to them.  Generally, students just want to tell me about eating too many donuts or watching all the Twilight movies in a row.  What they really want and need is what we are all looking for:  a connection with someone else.  It's an honor that it's me.  Whenever I forget that for a minute, God seems to snap me back into reality. 

What if I'm the only person they have to tell?  What if someone at home would just say, "Be quiet.  I'm watching TV."  What if it's worse?  Among all the other things I am called to do, I am called to listen.  Even when I really don't want to.  Even when I'm too tired or have troubles of my own.  I must listen, even when I feel like I will bleed to death from these cuts all day.  Teachers listen.