Highs and Lows

After class two weeks ago, a student came up and thanked me and told me how his parents never thought he'd make it to college, let alone pass his classes, and he was so grateful to me for helping him craft his papers. It was one of those moments that make all the long unpaid planning and grading hours worth it.

The next night, another student came up after my other class and told me how he ran into a couple other students somewhere, and they all agreed that they didn't understand half of what I was talking about, and I talked too fast, and everything I wrote on the board was confusing.

Gut punch.  Back to the planning board.  Time to revise, yet again, my teaching notes for simplicity and clarity.

Another 10 week term of teaching is completed, and a new one, perhaps my last here, has started.  The one just completed was a difficult term.  I had too many distractions and 2 large classes, including some students who needed remedial grammar work. This new term I only have one writing class and the service learning class, but I'm still a bit worried about getting everything done for class while fretting about the move and the kids and managing the other events in our life.

I can't look too far ahead at the calendar without feeling overwhelmed. This is when I need to just take one day at a time. But we also need to figure out some plan for the shadowy future.

It is also Holy Week.  I broke every Lenten promise I made this weekend - it was the Seabee Ball weekend and Palm Sunday and we just returned from San Diego school shopping for two intense days. I am tempted to throw in the towel on moving and just stay here and let my husband commute 3 or 4 hours each way.  The school I liked is way too expensive and doesn't offer enough financial aid. The other schools are in areas where we can't afford to live or don't want to live. Nothing seems to feel right.

So I was weak in the will - bring on the sweets and the swill! Stay up late and grump the next morning. . . . check out facebook and neglect that book of spiritual reading. . . have a pity party and place all the blame for everything wrong on somebody else.

But now time to refocus. I need to remind myself that my problems are not so big. Pope Francis writes in his The Joy of the Gospel (which I did finally finish),

 "Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force. Often it seems that God does not exist: all around us we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference and cruelty. But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life and sooner or later produces fruit. On razed land life breaks through, stubbornly yet invincibly. However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world beauty is born anew; it rises transformed through the storms of history. Values always tend to reappear under new guises, and human beings have arisen time after time from situations that seemed doomed. Such is the power of the resurrection, and all who evangelize are instruments of that power." (186)

We'll pull out the few Easter decorations we own this weekend and color some eggs and look for the beauty of these spring days.

And some other events of the last week:

Robot wars!

Palm Sunday

soccer joy

soccer exhaustion

soccer skills

Education options

My least favorite part of moving: deciding what to do next for the kids' education.

I would say picking schools, but sometimes I opted out by home schooling. 

So I've been spending hours scouring the internet to study the choices available to us in San Diego.  The city has more charter schools and private schools and options for education than anywhere else we have lived, which reminds me to be grateful for not having a lot of options.  I don't like the smorgasbord. It leaves my anxious that I may have missed something that is the BEST thing.  What if the kids would really have been happier somewhere else? 

Our options: 

1. Public school in the neighborhood where we decide to live (which will be based on the schools).
2. Private school if we can work the tuition numbers to a favorable level.
3. Charter school if I can figure out which school provides what advantages. Some are 3-4 day a week programs that incorporate home learning.
4. All kids at one of these three, or kids at different options.
5. And lastly, home schooling. My fifth grader is asking for this, but because he wants a short school day and snacks.

Factors in making the choice: 

• Location is partially a concern - where we school depends on where we can find housing, but we have the luxury of looking for housing after we look at schools, and some schools have the option to go across school boundaries.
• Price
• Integration - how quickly can our kids fit in? Is this a school with other transfer students or a lot of cliques that have been around since preK?
• Faith life is a consideration even if we don't pick a Catholic school. Someplace that won't hurt their faith life is crucial if we pick a public school
• Size: Will integration be easier at a large school, small school, a school with lots of military kids?  We have tended to think small is better, but after some difficulty with one child/teacher combo, I realize that at least one of my kids may do better with more options for teachers.  Midsize would be ideal. Not finding many high schools under 1800 in San Diego.
• Academic achievement - I want a high-performing school, but not one that is too competitive or too conscious of college admissions over all else. 

The challenge is figuring all this out over the internet, although next week I'll be making a trip to visit some options.  Because too many choices sometimes results in inertia, my lack of decision making becomes a deciding factor - some of the charter schools are enrolled by lotteries, which I have already missed. Simply by doing nothing I have eliminated those as a possibility for next year. Ironically, my third son came home yesterday interested in one of these because one of his teachers had shown him a video about this High Tech High.  It's a horrible name for a school, so I hadn't even really considered it, and it appears to be operated on a corporate model. It also is a very progressive and technologically minded place, two things I usually shy from.

But it would probably be a great place for him, because he loves projects. And despite the bad name, I do find the video and website appealing.  Project based learning is actually what I wanted to do with home schooling. And I am not opposed to using technology. The type of technology I don't like in the classroom is the type that in nonessential to the subject. I am STRONGLY opposed to the idea of giving all the kids at a school a laptop or an ipad and then claiming to have a technologically advanced school. Where is the study that shows that kids are learning to write better papers or solve math problems better because they have access to an ipad? Are these tools accelerating learning or deepening learning or simply providing another tool that creates extra irritating busy work?  I don't think my third grader has learned her math facts any faster or is retaining them better than her older brothers who used flash cards even though she is drilling on the computer every day.  If anything I think the computer drills impede her retention because she just presses the next button.  

And at the high school level - are these devices simply another way for kids to become distracted in class? They know the technology better than the teachers.  And the teachers are distracted by trying to figure out how to use these things instead of focusing on their students and involving them in the subject.

When can technology be a good thing?
-- In a computer programming class. Learn to build apps and use audio-visual programs to communicate ideas. Find good videos on history and science or whatever subject. But go deeper. Do Prezi and Powerpoint presentations create connections between ideas or just look flashy? 

--Use ipads to do research - but teach kids to find the journals and resources on databases - not the easy open Google search and the latest Huffington Post article on this subject.  Students can't even understand the academic sources if they haven't first TALKED about these things in class, instead of using gimmicky apps and "educational" games

--Use online classrooms when school has to be cancelled or to show films or to remind kids about assignments or provide a discussion format.  But show the films communally if possible. Letting students watch on individual screens is isolating, not creating community and sharing ideas. 

The action of writing and the action of turning pages and looking at a book and perhaps reading random pages are benefits that writing online and reading ebooks don't have. Ebook sales are slowing tremendously.  Etexts have no resale value.  Kids might spend time exploring a physical text book that they wouldn't spend with an etext. They might read photo captions or study a map or look at the next chapter.  I used to read dictionary pages when I was looking up a word.  Do kids do that with ebooks? Now when you look up a word online, you only see that word. But I guess you get synonyms and antonyms.

I'm a pessimist about technology. At the recent high school accreditation meeting, 9 out of 10 parents were actually against giving the students ipads next year. The one parent for them was touting the amazing nanotechnology and neurobiology information available online. But woah, friend! -- these are high school kids! They don't have the basics of general biology down yet.  The other example from the accreditors was the digital frog dissection. Again, I'm sorry. This is a game my fourth grader played. I want my 10th grader to touch real guts.  I wouldn't want to be operated on by a surgeon who learned to dissect on an app.

So that's my lament.  I am weary of looking at school websites that all appear similar and just want to make a decision and stop thinking about it. And I am tired of hearing how great technology is in the classroom. But I am afraid to home school again.  There are a lot of good things going on in schools. And my kids thrive on the competition - the high schoolers all three were on their school's Knowledge Bowl team that just won the county meet.  They learned  a lot of their facts from the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader my mother-in-law sent them. They also learned a lot from the volumes they used to read.

And now we have to rip them out of this environment where they've thrived and start all over again.  The 10 year old is not happy about it. Nor is the 17 year old. Nor is the 41 year old. Just when we've started to settle in.  I remind myself that we are going to meet more wonderful people in San Diego, just as we did here, and in Guam, and Mississippi, and Virginia, and Illinois, Indiana, Rhode Island, Texas, and Virginia the first time.  There are good people all over. And beautiful places and wonderful schools. We'll find one. 

The news

Lent calls to mind a certain slowness of time and a contemplative spirit.  I've done lots of contemplating, but most of it behind the wheel of a car.  Time has not slowed at all for us.

Some things I've been contemplating: Birthdays. It's that season around here. February kicked off with the middle child's 15th birthday.  Two weeks later our second son turned 17, and we marked our Irish twin month  - for 3 weeks he and his older brother were both 17.

But now our first son is 18. Officially a young adult.  His selective service card showed up the other day, causing a pang in my heart.  Then I saw a permission slip sitting around with a waiver to publish photographs attached - I started to sign it, but he proudly pointed out that I don't have to sign for him anymore.

And yet I still am hesitant to let him head out in the car alone, or to leave him in charge for a weekend while we go out of town, even though in about 6 months he'll be heading off to college.

I meant to write him a meaningful letter about growing up. I thought about that a lot while driving. On the to-do list.

I also meant to write here about how having an 18 year old should signify something as a parent. Our oldest will graduate in May with high honors and will be off to his first choice college with scholarships. He reads the Wall Street Journal and goes to daily Mass without being told to go.  He gets himself to work and school on time.  Outwardly it looks like I have had some success in my parental duties. And yet these duties are so far from being over. The 18 year old was distressed about a cavity the other day.  He was mad I didn't pack him a sufficient snack one afternoon. He called me to ask if he should call someone back. YES! Return messages! Keep in touch! Brush your teeth twice a day! Pack a snack!

Those are the silly little things. I know he needs to know more about cooking and cleaning and car care, but even more does he need to know about marriage and compassion and responsibility to family and community and to comb his hair before he leaves the house. Has he learned to know, love, and serve God and to know, love, and serve his neighbor? So many things I have forgotten to teach him! Or don't know how to teach him!  Or don't know if they can even be taught!

Rocky days lie ahead, I am sure. Not long ago, after a lot of complaining, I wrote the word "resilience" in large letters on our white board, but how does that help anyone understand what it takes to persevere in difficult times? Can the talent of putting your head down and burrowing through be taught? Do I tell them that in hard times you need to keep going through the motions and praying hard and eventually you come out on the other side of darkness?

Do I remind them to love God and neighbor and any future wife and children with a love that is all self-gift, even though the natural inclination is toward gift to self instead of gift of self? 

Do I need to say come home often?  Your family may be the people who irritate you most, but we are also the people who love you most. We care whether you get up in the morning.

Maybe these teenagers already know.  

The little old ladies at church warned me that little boys would grow up quickly. I believed them - but I really didn't understand.

To me these three big guys are still those little personalities who would attract attention at the grocery. Three little boys hanging on the cart earned me a lot of pity. Once I told them they could get whatever they wanted in the produce section.  Boy #2 asked for brussel sprouts. The lady next to me turned and asked, "What have you done to that child?"  Don't worry, Lady, he asked for Swedish Fish and Marshmallow Fluff for his birthday. My hands were full - they still are - but so was my heart. 

And it still is. I can't get enough of taking photos of the baby with her siblings. Already I miss the days when she was a tiny hunch in my arms. Next month she will turn one. She walks everywhere, babbles constantly, and laughs readily.

Will Baby remember living with her big brothers?  Below is proof.

The 15 yr old wanted a vintage typewriter. This one had some sticky keys, but he jimmied them free and has it working.

Some teenagers ask for tiramisu and almond bars instead of box cake with lots of buttercream frosting in amazing designs. Dinner was Italian feast - gnocchi and manicotti.  Others want the frosting and pizza.

1998

2015 Birthday morning hug.

Mississippi mud cake and marshmallow fluff cheesecake to go with barbecue feast - and a new banjo.

Knock, knock, let me in.

Mom is discovered.

Taking steps.

Surprise party!

A mountain of frosting symbolizing the sweetness of life's journey...

Practicing

on her own

I don't feel much older than 18 myself. 

On Lent

A good part of the US may be huddled before fireplaces still, but we are two weeks into Lent, and it looks like spring in California. The orange blossoms smell sweet, and freesia is blooming, and some landscape plant - sweet olive? photinia? - is flowering and perfuming the air with a scent reminiscent of hyacinths.  Only those who suffer winter are able to rejoice in that the beauty of spring. I miss the bulb flowers of spring in the Midwest - daffodils and tulips and especially little grape hyacinths -- and I miss the idea of a mid-winter slog that mirrors the spiritual slog of mid-Lent. Bougainvillea out here is pretty, but I don't notice its part in the landscape any more.

When glutted with good things, it is hard to appreciate them, which is what is so invigorating about Lent.  Stop being a glutton! Get rid of all these comforts!  Detach!  And then appreciate the Alleluia of Easter even more!  I welcome this period of deprivation, even if two weeks into it, I'm already failing.

Maybe I shouldn't be blogging about my plan for Lent in light of the readings for Ash Wednesday, but since I feel my resolve weakening, I'm recording my offerings here as a means of accountability. Not that anyone will know if I check Facebook "just to read a message" or have some semi-sweet chocolate chips during the chocolate hour for a pick me up before dinner because they aren't "dessert." And I've already decided I can have a glass of wine on Saturday night after the vigil Mass, even if I didn't attend that vigil, because it's like Sunday already. But since this is a diary of sorts, writing down these "plans" is kind of an examen, a scrutiny of my own weak will. And even as I write these words, I know I will not eat those chocolate chips, because it would prove to me the puniness of my spiritual muscle.

But I also found support in a recent homily. At daily Mass last week, the priest encouraged everyone to rethink the reading about hiding prayers and good deeds.  When Jesus spoke these words, religion was in the public square.  Everyone wanted to appear holy in public.  Now no one is praying in public. No one wants to appear "holy" because "to be holy" is now conflated with "to be holier than thou" or to be a zealot. If this indicated a resurgence of humility, not the effect of a desire to identify with the secular majority as open-minded, it might be a good thing.  Instead, it is an act of humility to pause for that moment of silent prayer at a restaurant before digging in like everyone else. The priest encouraged the congregation to be sign of faith in a world that increasingly views the faithful as ignorant or intolerant.

So an accounting: For my penances, I am giving up sweets and alcohol - that glass of wine after the kids go to bed has become a crutch.  My husband is giving up meat, so it will be a penance for me to figure out menus for all of us. Last night it was scrambled eggs. We'll probably be eating more tuna, which is good for our brain health anyway. Cooking is a sort of penance for me on the nights when I'd rather be doing something else, so another small penance will be trying to cook and do dishes without inner complaint.

I was going to discipline myself to go to bed by 11, but that hasn't happened. I need God to give me another 24 hours in a day.

For prayer: Reading Pope Francis's Joy of the Gospel finally.  Planning to go to Stations on Friday, but so far every Friday we have had a conflict.  Trying to do a better job at offering up little prayers throughout the day.  In so many ways, I could give God more time and attention, but right now I am just trying not to be gloomy, like Jesus exhorts in the Gospel, by giving the kids more positive attention. (the reason I won't give up coffee...)

Perhaps the homily I heard grew out of the priest's reading of Pope Francis on living the Gospel joyfully and being full of mercy.  Pope Francis points out how the Gospel message is one of hope and joy, and if we are living with it, our joy and mercy will make the gospel attractive to others.  I'm trying to take to heart his message as I read by heeding his encouragement to delight in small gifts so that my gratitude and joy might let God's invitation shine through me.

For almsgiving: Again a plan that hasn't happened is to take the family to do Many Meals again. I like the little project my sister-in-law did - crocheting scarves to give away, which got some attention from the local news, but I don't crochet.

 Instead my goal is to fill a bag a week with stuff to pass on.  I really have a selfish motive - I have to de-clutter before our move.  The linen closet needs to be culled, but some of our linens are too worn to give away except to the animal shelter for rags. Do we keep using them or pass them on and buy new?

As I look at my closet, the garage, the kids' rooms, I see all sorts of things that I am hoarding.  It is surprising how much can fit into 1500 square feet. I think about my reaction when my brother-in-law suggested we buy a house for his parents because of recent crimes in their neighborhood. I immediately cringed and thought of all the things I'd have to give up. My selfishness seems to grow as I get older.  I want to cut that strangling weed of stinginess out.

So one other work I'm offering this Lent is to try to give things easily.  Depriving myself of luxuries, treats, drinks, fancy meals is something I'm not bad at, and I kind of enjoy.  I inherited a frugal gene.  What I did not inherit is a magnanimous gene.  I have a hard time giving until it hurts.

Perhaps I should meditate daily on the quote from St. Basil that was in The Monastery Cookbook, one of the worst presents I ever gave my husband, or so he claims. (Since he plans to give up meat for Lent, he might rethink his valuation of this gift.):

Who is a man of greed? Someone who does not rest content with what is sufficient. Who is a cheater? Someone who takes away what belongs to others. And are you not a man of greed? are you not a cheater? taking those things which you received for the sake of stewardship, and making them your very own? Now, someone who takes a man who is clothed and renders him naked would be termed a robber; but when someone fails to clothe the naked, while he is able to do this, is such a man deserving of any other appellation? The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear mouldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so many are those whom you wrong.
https://bekkos.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/st-basil-on-stealing-from-the-poo