Merry Effin' Christmas!

When I was a kid, my elementary school had a little "Elf Store" where the students could go and shop for gifts for their parents.  I remember that I bought my parents an enormous clay ash tray.  There's a pretty good chance that they still have it around just for when "smoking" guests come to the house.  It was a thoughtful gesture to say the least.

I have a Rudolph plaque on my living room wall that my entire 4th grade class signed the year that I moved over the holidays.  My tree has a play dough ornament lovingly sculpted and gingerly painted by yours truly with my name puffily written on the back every year from 1983 to 1988.  

I love them.  I used to take them for granted, but now, I know.  Unless, you go to a private Christian school, Christmas is a thing of the past or whatever you make of it at home.  It's practically a dirty word at school.  My poor principal.  She is a good woman.  You can just tell.  She wants to do a good job.  The pressure is on her, just like it is everyone else. 

It's funny what issues bring to light that your boss is in the same boat as everyone else: "the don't let me lose my job over something stupid boat."  Our principal is FREAKED OUT over Christmas.  We can't say, "Merry Christmas" unless a kid or parent says it first.  No Santa, no Rudolph, no Christmas trees, and no red and green anything together.  

Also, no candy, and especially no candy canes.  So, lots of no, no, no, no, no!  I'm wondering what horror story she heard that made her paranoid enough to ban Santa.  I think it's sad that we can't dive into the holiday spirit the way of yesteryear.  I don't need to go out and baptize the kids, but it would be cool to read "The Night Before Christmas" or "The Grinch."  

I know that she is just looking out for all of us.  I know that there probably is some parent lurking around our campus just dying to pounce on some poor unsuspecting teacher.  It makes me breathe a sigh of relief that I held back the other day when counseling a student that I really wanted to witness to. And I'm not an evangelical. 

I believe in God and Jesus and the resurrection, but I don't really get all in your business about it.  I mean, I barely get myself to church a few times a year, so I'm not one to talk.  But on occasion, I do feel compelled to tell a kid that God loves them and will always be there for them.   I've managed to say this metaphorically and never directly thus far.

This year I am particularly glad that I've never crossed that fine line between "positive emotional influence" and "spiritual/religious guidance."  It's just too scary when you have a little baby who is counting on you to take care of her to risk it.  But it feels like a betrayal of my beliefs somehow and I kind of hate myself for that.  How do I love the separation of church and state and despise it all at once?  

Maybe three or four seasons ago, my sister and I went and did some gift shopping at the mall together just a week or two before Christmas.  We had the most difficult time finding a place to park, when finally we spotted a car backing out right in front of us.  We put our blinker on "left."  The car backed out towards us and another car zipped into our spot.  We looked at each other... a mixture of shock, horror, and distain on our faces.  We were caught in a mix of traffic standstill and watched as some class A asshole took our spot and began to walk inside the mall.

My sister reached over me and honked the horn.  She rolled down the window and climbed halfway out stretching over my body with her arm extended and her middle finger shooting straight up in the air, the rest perfectly coiled at attention. 

"Merry Fuckin' Christmas!!!" 

The parking offender barely turned his head sideways, but I think he did flinch.  

"Yeah!" I said.  "Merry Fuckin' Christmas!!!"

Just then, my sis pointed to a spot that was open.  A car had just backed out and we had just a split second to pull in before some sucker who was patiently waiting with his blinker on... I looked at my sister.  She looked at me.  

We parked and giggled the whole way into the mall hoping that nobody keyed our car.  I don't think we got the bird, but I didn't look back.  I suppose I shouldn't look back now, either.  Christmas just ain't what it used to be...

Thanks for the Break

I'm back... Sorta... Thanksgiving break was a godsend.  I got to see my baby and hang out with my man.  I saw my family.  I ate.  I drank.  I had a good time.  I brought home a big bag of papers to grade and books to read and record.  I didn't touch any of it.  Not once.

Well, maybe, once.   The night before school started and then I had a glass of wine instead and stayed up until 1:30 in the morning worrying about everything that I had to do to get ready for school.  I do that kind of stuff sometimes.  I still haven't caught up.

I'm writing this blog, because I can't stand the thought of grading papers.  I hate grading papers.  It's not even like they are hard to grade.  They are even pretty cute once I get them all sorted out.  I guess everybody has something that they hate about their job.

Let's see, I also gave up cussing over the break.  It's going okay.  Matt doesn't like it when I cuss.  He says it makes me "sound like a dude."  That super queases me out, so I had to quit.  I am going go ahead and put in a clause though... writing doesn't count.  My writing persona gets to say whatever the fuck she wants to say.  Sorry, baby, I've got to have one holdout.

That had to go in there, because a lot of fucked up shit has happened since the last time I wrote... hopefully, I can fill you in... one post at a time.

Why I Changed the Blog Title

So I had to change the title of the blog.  It began as Effed Up Shit My Kids Say.  Then I told my mother the name of the blog and it was just too much.  It took me almost two hours to change over my GMail and the Facebook account and then the blog even got deleted and I had to email Google.  All because of the disharmony I felt telling my mother the name of the blog and then realizing that it didn't really fit with the message of the blog or the intended audience.

My intended audience is primarily teachers, educators, and the cool parents.  I know some readers (if there ever are any) may take issue with my cussing, but I have to do it.  I know that in school I can't cuss, but if you only knew what was going through my mind half the time you would be amazed at what didn't come out of my mouth.

I think that most teachers have a teaching persona that they wear during the day.  And in the background of their minds, they have a little narrator that they dialogue with that keeps them sane throughout the day.  I converse with myself constantly.  There is a stream of consciousness that hurls out rhetorical questions and asinine insults, while my face says and mouth pleasantly nods, smiles, redirects, and reteaches without so much as a furrowed brow.

That's what mothers can do to you.  They worm into your subconscious and keep your demons at bay.  On occasion, mine seep out when I think that nobody is looking.  I preach about this constantly to my students.

You have to have integrity.  You must do the right thing when nobody is looking.

I don't know if writing an anonymous blog full of cuss words about my teaching life lacks integrity, but something about referring to my students as "effed up" felt bad.  So, it had to go.  Even though I feel like I've got to hang on to that creative license to write how I think sometimes, I don't want to put down my students.  I mean, they can't help it if their parents are totally fucked up.

Just kidding.

Sort of...

Let's just say that I don't ever want to know what they say about me at my kid's daycare.  Fair enough?

But, the bottom line is that I don't think I'm alone.  I think a lot of teachers are like me.  We struggle.  We love these kids.  We work so hard to help them succeed.  We take a lot of criticism from a lot of people who don't know what the fuck they are talking about and granted sometimes we don't know what the hell we are doing, but we are doing our best.

I personally know some administrators who have changed their surnames to Redtape.  I've deforrested 40 acres in the Amazon filling out bullshit paperwork that never go anywhere for kids that are "generally low" and will never get the real support and services that they need.  Who hasn't?

So maybe it's not that my kids are effed up.  Could it be that something else is failing them?  I know the answer to that, but I don't have the solution.  I know and so does every other teacher out there that works his or her ass off for their kids everyday.  I'm not special or unique.  There are thousands of under appreciated teachers out there and I could be any one of them.