A message

Oh, where to begin? So much has happened I feel as if I have too much to write in a 'short' blog post. While the holidays have come and gone, I still am glowing and my Christmas lights are still up (they probably will be for a while). Here's a summarized version of the past three weeks- went home to Port Angeles by way of plane, spent a few days seeing Mom, Dad and Corey, the new and totally sweet Hot Shop (still in the works, but open!), the mountains and the ocean. We celebrated Christmas two days early, and then it was off to Grandma and Pa's house in the Tri-Cities. It was packed to the rafters with family, food and large dogs- I love it! As if this wasn't enough, we were then off like a shot to Logan, Utah to be with Caitlin and Andy, the expecting PARENTS!! and we spent the days before the New Year in a Cabin up in the mountains. So nice. The New Year was brought in with pots and pans and screams of delight, and then I flew out of Salt Lake City to get back to St. Louis last Sunday. But, that's not all folks- instead of having a full week waiting for me, I was delightfully surprised by a four day weekend due to, get this, three inches of snow and 'extremely cold weather conditions.' WOOOOWWW!!

So here I am, back in St. Louis again, caught up on sleep and re-energized with family goodness. I was so exhausted before the break and I'm sorry to say I kind of took out my suppressed frustrations with school and stress on my family over the break. I am so lucky to have people who love me enough to deal with that kind of stupidity. My kids, in the two days that I saw them, have successfully forgotten how to act at school- woohoo! and I'm sure attendance is going to be awesome tomorrow- HA!

Well, now I get to the nitty-gritty part of this blog, and I would really appreciate your prayers about this. The entire time that I have been in St. Louis I have felt safe and grateful to be in such a wonderful school with such great kids and such a supportive staff. However, I have found the St. Louis Public School system extremely wanting in many respects. To put it mildly, many of the people in power have their priorities twisted in a messed up, complicated knot of funding, stupidity and backwards thinking. And that's mild. There are many problems here, and while I feel that I am doing alright with my kids, I feel a great hopelessness for many of the students who attend public school in the city.

The reason these feelings of inadequacy are surfacing so passionately right now is because one of my roommate’s students was shot and killed over the holiday break. It happened in north St. Louis, and while it was a drive by gang shooting, and while the school had nothing to do with this horrible act of unnecessary violence, the school handled this student's death very badly. In fact, they did NOTHING. My roommate was pretty shaken up by this, and when she had her students do an activity to say goodbye to the student who died by writing on sticky notes, which they then put on the student's locker, she received a blow from the administration that I would have a hard time forgiving. The assistant principal actually came into her class, told the students that what they had just done was pointless, silly and that they should take the notes off the locker. Then, she was called into the principal's office and told that she should 'handle this better next time,' that crying in front of the students was a bad idea, that she really "shouldn't get so attached," and that the school had sent staff to the funeral, just like the other seven students who had died.

Wait a minute...SEVEN? My roommate knew nothing about five of the other students who had died and there was next to nothing said or mentioned in the news, except for maybe a little blip on pages 5 or 6 in a newspaper that nobody reads. It was as if these children, for that is what they are, had simply disappeared from existence, without any trace of them ever having been here, reduced to just another tally mark on the long list of gang warfare fatalities. The run-by shooting that occurred at her school last year was not even REPORTED and the police didn't even show up. I can understand a school not wanting to glorify gang violence, but COME ON! It doesn't matter how much death a person has been around, they still need an outlet to grieve. That grief is going to come out in some form and more often than not, it will be in retaliating violence, a continuation of what has been going on for far too long. How is this OK? When did things become so screwed up that a person is made to feel embarrassed and shamed for crying over the death of a freshman in high school, a fifteen year old kid with the potential to lead a fulfilling and productive life?

So please, family and friends, loved ones all, please say a prayer of thanksgiving for the education you received, for the place that you are living now, for feeling safe when you sit on your front porch, for knowing that if you were to move on from this world, there would be those that would grieve your passing, those that would miss you. And, while I know that this student, and all the students who have died, are missed terribly by the family and friends they left behind, please say a prayer for them too. Pray that this student is at peace and that his/her death will not be a cause for further violence, but instead a message. A message that dying young is not natural. A message that being in a gang will not protect you but bring you down into a dark place that few escape. A message that things need to change and that death must be addressed and not ignored. Ever.
Remember always that I am in a good place here- that I am safe and feel that I am doing important things and making progress with my wonderful kids. There are just things that need to be said. I love and miss you all.

First and foremost, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! HAPPY CHANUKAH!!! HAPPY KWANZA!!! No matter what holiday you celebrate or don't celebrate, I hope you never feel guilty for saying the words that you believe in.
Secondly, I NEED MAILING ADDRESSES!! And I'm not talking about e-mail. I need good, old fashioned snail-mail addresses to send Christmas cards to. So please, e-mail or write me a note or a message and give my your most updated info so I can send out these cards pronto.
Now, back to the first point about political correctness- the school system is over-ripe with it. Oi vay. Like many good thoughts, it started off with the right intention and has taken on an attitude that effectively puts an embargo on any word or action that is not acceptable by our media controlled, law-suit driven, and consumerism loving society. Enter the catchall phrase 'Happy Holidays,' an excuse to forget the reason for the season and buy whatever we can and can't afford. Which brings me to my soap box of the month...
This Christmas, try not to buy into the whole buying attitude. Whether you believe in Christ or not, this season of giving is not about the next big gadget or the brightest toy, it is about family and love and self sacrifice. Whatever you do for the holidays, do something that won't burn a hole in your wallet. Make a gift, give of your time and talent, spend an evening with family, actually have a conversation on the phone with a distant friend using your whole concentration instead of checking your e-mail while talking (that's one I'm working on personally). And whatever you do, remember the less fortunate in this season and always. As Jesus said, the poor are always with us, a statement that will, I fear, never be out-dated. If you have money to spend this season, thank your lucky stars, and consider giving a gift certificate to a charity instead of a gift certificate to Old Navy. Here are some excellent charities that I enjoy helping out when I can.
Check out http://www.adventconspiracy.org/, a wonderful way to refocus your attitude for the holidays, and one of the programs that got me started on my high horse of charity and home-made gifts.
http://www.kiva.org/ This is an organization that helps entrepreneurs in developing countries start their own business. The cool thing about this website is that you can give money in someone else's name, and then that person can go on the website and choose which project to fund. When the loan recipient pays back their loan (which I believe nearly 95% do on time), you can choose another project to donate the funds to, and the gift just keeps on giving.
http://www.donorschoose.org/ This website allows teachers to post classroom projects that need funding online, and then do-gooders can browse the website and find projects that interest them. Many projects have photos and inspirational stories. No gift is too small when it comes to serving kids (they come in all shapes and sizes :-)
http://www.smiletrain.org/ is a personal favorite of mine, just because the laughter and smile of a child brings me great joy. This organization is all about fixing cleft palates in children born in developing countries and is run completely on donations and volunteered time. While I have been donating to this organization for some time, I would recommend making an anonymous donation, as I tend to get a lot of junk mail after I make a donation to the smile train. Just a heads up.
These are just a few of my favorites, but there are so many worthy organizations out there. Stepping off of my soap box now. Thanks for reading ;-)

Here's a teaching update: Every day I am reminded that I am surrounded by students who are in need: in need of clean clothes, in need of breakfast, in need of attention and love. I wish I could give them everything they need, but for now, I just buy breakfast bars and try to be supportive and caring and to teach them as much as I can in the short time I have with them. I am getting tired and canNOT wait until I get to fly home again and get a big bear hug from those who loved me from day one, but teaching is still what I love to do. The most challenging, time consuming and heart wrenching thing I've ever done, but still the best.
I took 50 students on a field trip to the St. Louis Holocaust museum yesterday and I learned two major lessons- never take that many students on a field trip, and never take a student who has had a referral before. Life is much simpler that way. On the whole, my students were wonderful- very respectful with excellent questions of the three Holocaust survivors we spoke to. It was a great hands-on experience for them, and no matter how many pieces of hair I lost over the stress of making sure I didn't forget the two students puking in the bathroom, or making sure my students didn't write on the walls, or making sure that everybody got to eat lunch, it was worth it.
I had a student come to school with chicken pox today because he didn't want to miss my test. Ah, the little sweetie pie without a clue (he's the same one that pointed out rather loudly that I have a lot of grey hair on my head). He was the cause of what I dubbed the 'scrub party' in which I handed out disinfectant wipes and just let the kids go at every surface my little sweetie could have touched.
Here's a funny story for you all- I have a particular 'favorite' in class, and those of you who know of whom I speak will know that 'favorite' is being very very sarcastic. Today, I decided that I would not argue with said student, whom we shall call Abe, but instead chose to ignore Abe. Completely. As if he didn't exist. Abe acts horribly in class, all to gain attention. It doesn't matter if it is negative, all Abe wants is attention. So, keeping the power on my side, I ignored him. IT WAS SO HARD!!! He was making incessant noise during a benchmark test, refusing to follow directions and in general being a nuisance by asking to go to the bathroom over and over again. The only thing I said to him was to write his question down, because if it was important enough to be written down, it was important enough for me to pay attention to. Wow, what a battle of the wills! I actually thought at one point, "Oh God, let him break, please, let him just write the question down, because I am about to break here."
Thank heaven above because, right after I thought that, Abe finally wrote his question down. First battle, done. Then, I kind of failed at the whole ignoring thing and things became as bad as they have before and I ended up writing him up, but that's not the end of the story. When I told Abe I was going to write him up for being a distraction, he actually mumbled back, "I'm going to write YOU up," which he did. It was the first time in my whole class that I have actually seen him write more than three lines. He was so impassioned that he actually wrote 24 lines! Granted, it was all one sentence, but now I have my writing diagnostic for him! It was a hilarious tale of woe and misery on his part, in which he simply told on himself and didn't make me sound bad at all, even if he miss-spelled every other word, and now I have a writing example from him and I am more than happy. The fact that I am celebrating after making him respectfully ask a question says a lot towards our current relationship. All Abe wants is attention, and he'll do absolutely anything to get it.

So, in closing, I love and miss you all, I can't wait to see some of you very soon, and I really need MAILING ADDRESSES!! Remember, spend money within your means and spend all the time you can with those you love.