Artist • Author • Activist • Advocate

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I have been thinking that this will be my last semester in the classroom. It’s been a hard year for a variety of reasons, but I have been thinking I just am not connecting with my students the way I used to. Part of it may be that I am getting older. I have somehow become an “old-fashioned teacher” who doesn’t show movies, rely on Smart Boards or Power Point presentations. In other words, I have always been able to “be my own show,” create my own bells and whistles, and that was enough. I was enough.

This year is different. I don’t like how my students seem less prepared each year. I don’t like having to repeatedly tell adults to put away their technology/toys. It’s exhausting. I haven’t lowered my expectations with regard to their assignments or how I grade them, but I have a lot of students with D’s and F’s. That doesn’t feel good to me. Part of it is the 15-week gig: It doesn’t feel long enough to get my students where they need to be. I don’t understand why some of my students come to class without full drafts of their papers when I tell them they need to come to class with completed papers. I don’t understand why they leave their books in their cars. I don’t understand why they come to English class without pens or paper, even though it is clearly stated as a basic expectation on my Course Information Sheet. I don’t understand their lateness, why they don’t recognize walking in late as a terrible act of rudeness and incivility. I don’t understand why they struggle so much with citation. Except I do: it requires meticulous attention to detail  – and, based on this last essay I collected – about 7 students out of about every 22 possess the ability to attend to detail. Here’s a newsflash: some students don’t attempt to write papers at all. They take zeros, and they seem fine with this.

Me? I’m not fine with any of this, so I’ve been feeling run-down.

There is a bit of ego in teaching, maybe more than teachers might care to admit. I can’t speak for all teachers, but I think it is fair to say we are willing to take the ridiculously low pay, work the long hours, plan our lessons, grade the papers into the wee morning hours – as long as we see progress. Positive change. Forward movement. Progression. I need to feel as though I am helping my students move from point A to point B: even better if I can take them from point A to point Z! That said, it’s been a little light on that this semester. So I’ve been thinking about jumping ship and hopping onto a different boat.

And then I received a poem from Niquette Kearney.

Niquette in 2010

I taught Niquette in New Orleans back in the mid-1990s at Metairie Park Country Day School, nearly twenty years ago. When I first met Niquette, she was in 10th grade Honors English while struggling with some big life stuff. Big. Life. Stuff. And she was floundering. Because it is hard to focus on writing papers when you are dealing with Big Life Stuff. I suggested Niquette drop out of her high-pressure Honors section (with me as her teacher) and pop into another section of Regular English, (also with me as her teacher.) Poor Niquette. There was no escaping me that year as I taught the entire 10th grade! Boy, was she pissed off! I’m pretty sure she wanted to kill me; instead, she agreed. (Really, though, what was the alternative?) And the Regular section was easier for her. She got her work done, earned stellar grades, and she was able to focus on herself.

From the beginning, I adored Niquette. Teachers aren’t supposed to have favorites, but Nikit (the nickname I began to scribble on her papers) was beautiful and smart and funny and strong. How can you not love that? She was the whole package. She just didn’t seem to realize she was the whole package. But then, honestly, in high school, who feels they are “all that”? Nikit and I spent lots of time on a beat-up old couch in the English Department. Sometimes we talked about papers, but lots of times, we didn’t. Sometimes I just listened to her talk about her life, her experiences. Sometimes she cried, but mostly she didn’t. Her voice always quavered a little, as if she lived right on the verge of tears. That year, Nikit found herself at a crossroads. Without sharing her secrets, let’s just say, because she is beautiful and smart and funny and strong, she has managed to survive this very difficult year – maybe even thrive despite the adversity.

So here I am thinking of leaving the teaching biz, and I get this piece of correspondence.

Niquette’s message read simply: “Here’s a poem I wrote recently and thought I’d share with you, as you were in my thoughts.”

In a moment bigger than I knew,
At a time which could have been many,
I glanced at myself

In the mirror of my own eyes,
As if greeting a stranger for the first time,
I introduced myself with wonder
At the amazing sight of me

After so long without looking,
I finally saw
What I thought they’d lied about
Suddenly, it covered my reflection, overcoming me
So bright, I shuddered, reaching out my hand,
Welcoming the newcomer,
The one I thought I’d seen before

It was then, that I saw myself
And what I’d never even looked for,
And I blushed when I knew
That it was there the whole time

What a rare sight,
To view myself that way,
As a stranger meets another pleasantly, then parts
This moment passed but was mine
I saw what I did, and it was precious; beautiful

It was me.

Niquette Kearney, 2010

I am pretty sure I am one of the ones who tried to convince Nikit about her strength, her smarts, her internal and external beauty. I’m pretty sure I’m one of the one’s she assumed lied to her about all her fabulousness. I’m just so happy to know that she saw it, felt it, if only for a moment. And I’m even happier to know that she sat down and recorded it – as if it had been an assignment for English class – so she can have it to hold on to. I love that, after all these years, she is still writing poetry.

And then, thanks to Nikit, I remember this is the reality for teachers, especially college educators. We do our stuff. We try to shimmer and shine and get our junk into our students’ heads in 15 short weeks – and then, if we are lucky — maybe — 10, 15, 20 years later, someone reminds us that we helped them along the way. Someone might send us a poem, or a card, or run into us in the grocery store and give us a giant hug and tell us how much we helped. Teaching is like parenting; it involves a lot of delayed gratification. Folks shuffle in; they shuffle out, sometimes without so much as a smile. Sometimes it’s really hard to wait for gratitude.

I am happy for my sweet Nikit. She is going places, that one.

Me? I’m not so sure if I’m jumping ship. Time will tell.

For now, my course is set, and I will continue to power ahead through these choppy waters, full throttle.

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I am in love with this post! Gabe Doyle is a fourth-year graduate student in Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego. He is a computational psycholinguist. I don’t exactly know what that is, but I believe it means he is interested in how people choose to express the ideas they want to express. Or something like that.

While I am definitely a Facebook fan, I do not enjoy what social media and texting are doing to our language. It is becoming increasingly difficult to define and get people to agree to stick to a set of rules upon which we can all agree are necessary to follow with regard to language. Because, really, that’s all the conventions of writing are – little polite agreements between communicators.

I think of writing like driving. Just as there are rules of the road created to maintain civility and prevent chaos, so too, there are rules for writers. When we write, our pens are our cars. So we zoom around our little pen-cars where it is implied we have agreed to follow the same conventions because it helps us to better understand each other. Grammar conventions are kindnesses we bestow upon our readers, so they can understand us more easily. For example: Commas are little road bumps which make us slow down. Periods are stop signs. Semicolons are flashing yellow lights. The only problem is very few people follow the grammar rules anymore, so we are starting to have a lot of difficult situations out there like when people don’t use capitalization or end punctuation and just keep going on there is no break or anything at all to indicate that the sentence is coming or has come to an end so it just keeps going which can be confusing because sometimes writers  change topics suddenly you and are in outer space floating among the planets which is cucumber cool except you didn’t want to go to outer space. You wanted to go to a movie.

So check out the link to the great article above. I wish I’d written it.

I’ve had my reading glasses for over a year now. At first, if you’ll remember when I posted about new glasses, I was suffering with the concept of how the damn spectacles represent that my eyes are getting older and that, by extension, I am getting older, too. I’m getting used to the concept. Some of you suggested that I try to find a pair of glasses that I really love, so I don’t feel as though I’ve lost my mojo.

Well, I’ve been trying. So here’s what I’ve got:

My actual prescription pair.

These are okay. They are kinda boring though, right? Anyway, this was my starting point.

Round?

These turned out to be some weird, unintentional tribute to John Lennon. So. Totally. Not. Working.

Do I look like a sexy librarian? Hmmmm. Not so much.

These are a vintage pair of specs from the 1960s that I picked up at a local street festival for $2.99. I like them a lot, but the burnt-orange finish is peeling off.

Okay, this pair is a hoot. Emergency purchase. On the way to school one day, I realized I did not have my glasses. Question: How would I ever be able to read all those English papers without glasses? Answer: I wouldn’t. So, I stopped at my local Walgreen’s and snagged whatever I could find in my prescription. There were two choices. I grabbed this pair and, without ever trying them on, made my way to the register. This pair cost about $15. In the classroom, I realized the frames were completely crooked, and no amount of bending or manipulating would make them sit right on my nose. That was a long day. (These glasses now live in our downstairs library. And by library, I mean, bathroom.)

These are my Drew Carey‘s. They are quite awful, but in a weirdly fabulous way. I really like them. I mean, I know I look like my dad in 1963 – but I actually think they are kind of hot. I think I am starting to love them.

My son used these for Halloween when he dressed as Harry Potter – about 6 years ago. They are useless, of course, seeing as though as they are completely lens-less. Still, if I could find a real pair in hot pink or apple green, I might be persuaded to go for them. 😉

I’ve decided that finding the perfect pair of reading glasses is kind of like dating: While searching for the right fit, I’m enjoying all the different types out there. And who knew there would be so many different types out there?

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I have one section of students that  hasn’t mastered the necessary skills to show they understand how to properly write a college essay, complete with proper citation. Their last batch of essays was pretty bad. With the exception of a few papers, most students bombed their Works Cited pages and their writing felt unpolished.

I asked a few other professors what to do.

“Tell them to suck it,” one said. “If they don’t have it by now, it’s not because you haven’t shown them; it’s because they haven’t taken the initiative to learn the material.

The other professors agreed.

But I didn’t want them to “suck it.” Why am I hesitating? I wondered. What has happened to me? As always, I want my students to master the material, so regardless of what my colleagues said, I decided to give them an option: I returned ungraded essays to them with extensive feedback and told them they could ask me for the grade they received on the essay and forfeit the right to revise, or they could revise their essays (with rough drafts attached) by Wednesday at the beginning of class. And by Wednesday, I mean tomorrow.

No one asked for his or her grade.

Now, I’m not crazy enough to believe that everyone will actually revise, but I am hopeful that some will. I am hoping that they will use their style books, the extra time along with my feedback, and give it one more try. Because after this, that’s it. There are only a few tiny assignments, 7-minute oral presentations, and self-evaluations.

I know students have other classes, but mine is required. English Composition-101 is required. Required. So if a student fails, he or she will have to take it again. It’s expensive to fail classes, but some students don’t seem concerned about the debt they are piling up.

At this point of the semester (with 6 classes remaining before the end of the term), certain students wake up and realize they have been doing poorly (for most of the semester), and act shocked by this revelation. They ask about extra credit and want to be passed because they need to keep an athletic scholarship, and/or avoid parental wrath. Requests for points for nothing or for passing grades are easy to handle. I offer a “no” along with my sympathy, plus advice about how to retake the class.

Today, as we began week 14 of 15, I had a student with an overall average of 54.4% ask me what he could do to bring up his grade. I shrugged. He shrugged. Later, I saw this video. I’d send him the link, but I don’t think he’d get it.

*Note: This little ditty was made by Clay Morgan at Educlaytion.com*

In reality, it is kind of hard to fail my class. I offer a lot of help to students to want it. I make myself available to conference. I allow students who show initiative to revise their papers. I offer extra credit opportunities throughout the semester – just not as an “emergency out” at the end.

I hate watching students unravel at the end of the semester but – the reality is – there are always some who come unstitched.

It’s reality, but I don’t have to like it.

Seriously though, why am I more upset about my students’ failing grades than they are?

“Mouth” by Phineas H @ flickr.com

It should not have been a surprise when I received the diagnosis; after all, I was a shrieking cheerleader in high school. And while I never had a single voice lesson, I used to sing in a band. For fifteen years, I shouted to my father while he pushed his lawnmower to let him know that I’d brought him a drink and some cookies. I hollered when riding snowmobiles, dune buggies, motorcycles and motorboats, and I shouted to get attention in noisy places: bars, restaurants, at concerts, hell, even while at the salon while under the hair dryer. During my years at summer camp, I intentionally tried to scream the loudest to show my spirit, and over the last decade, I’ve morphed into that crazy mom (you know the one) who cheers for everyone’s kids at the baseball games – even the kids on the opposing teams. I laugh a little too loud. I squeal and carry on when I am reunited with people whom I haven’t seen in way too long, when a friend’s child dives into the pool for the first time, or when I find out someone has just gotten engaged. In my car, I am Madonna, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. I try not to shout when I am mad, but sometimes I can’t help it.

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed that after a day of teaching, my voice is pretty shot, that I am hoarse and I strain when I speak. At first, it was kinda cool: I sounded like Stevie Nicks, all husky and sultry. . . but when I developed a night-time cough and realized I’d lost more than a full octave when singing, even I knew it was time to make an appointment with the Ear, Nose and Throat doc who told me exactly what I didn’t want to hear: I’m a vocal over-doer.

Yup, that’s my diagnosis.

Dr. Anat Cedar and Dr. Robert Bastian coined the term “Vocal Over Doers Syndrome” to designate an individual whose manner of voice use can be considered excessive and thereby put the person at risk of injury. Typically, the vocal over doer is talkative (Check.) And possesses a life circumstance that demands much voice use. (Um, double check.)

I’m supposed to rest my voice and do these weird breathing exercises to prevent further damage. It’s called practicing “good vocal hygiene.”

I am supposed to avoid nicotine and caffeine, shouting, cheering and excessively loud laughing. I am supposed to clear my throat only when absolutely necessary. I am not supposed to cough or make “strange noises” with my voice. (I swear, I am not making this up.) I should talk when I wish, but not too much. (I’m finding “too much” is too relative of a term.) I am supposed to avoid spicy foods and substitute skim milk for whole milk. When I teach, I am supposed to sit in the center of the room so I can be heard easily without talking loudly. (That one cracks me up.) The list goes on, and truth be told, I fail miserably on nearly all fronts, except the nicotine. That one is easy: I don’t smoke.)

Alas, I don’t know how many more years (or semesters) I have left in the classroom. It has definitely become more difficult for me to project my voice the way I used to, but I am still wildly enthusiastic about my subject matter, so it is incredibly frustrating when I open my mouth and a tiny squeak of nothingness comes out instead of my intended passionate auditory gush over a well-placed comma or properly used semicolon.

You should hear me on roller-coasters. Terrified, my hands balled into fists, my mouth agape, I’m positively silent.

There is a compelling gospel song that repeats the line, “God is trying to tell you something.” Maybe this is the case. Perhaps some cosmic force is trying to tell me to quiet down, exercise my ears, and become a better listener. I am open to anything.

tweet me @rasjacobson

People who know me know I’m struggling this semester. I try to explain how a larger number of my college students seem to have weaker skills this year; how I can’t get them to use capital letters (or, in some cases, how I can’t get them to stop randomly capitalizing words that don’t need to be capitalized); how they won’t stop writing “im” instead of “I’m”; how I can’t get them to stop using the letter “u” when they mean the word “you.”

“They don’t know how to outline!” I exclaim. “Or write in five paragraph essay format!”

People think I’m exaggerating. “Things can’t be that bad,” folks say.

Finally, here is a perfect example of why my panties are in a bunch this year.

This post called “Functional Illiteracy” from Just Sayin’ addresses some of the very real struggles that educators are facing today, even at the college level.

Do you have discussions with your kids regarding their use of language? Are they writing as well as you would like? Do error-filled papers (with high marks) come home from your children’s schools? Do you think their grades are inflated? Because, I am here to tell you, graduating high school students are not using capitalization or punctuation.  Many high school graduates have not figured out basic written communication skills which my peers and I had mastered in the 6th grade and spent the following years perfecting.

Many of this generation’s students are essentially unemployable, and if you don’t believe me, read this post from my friend, Michael Hess, of Skooba Design. Because as a business owner, he cares about the way people write.

Do you care about how you write?

Or r u 2 busy txtin 2 care?

“Bad, Bad Hair Day” by downing.amanda @ flickr.com

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with my hair. I’m a sproingy girl, so my wild curls kind of mesh with my personality. In middle school, my straight-haired friends would marvel at my effortlessly formed curly-Q’s; some would even stick their fingers inside the corkscrews and squeal with delight. (Seriously, they did.) And all the while, I coveted their straight, blunt cuts. I watched them brush and comb their hair, stared as they absently dragged their fingers through their locks. Après shower, I slathered my hands with V05, a thick petroleum-like product, rubbed it all over my hair, and never touched my hair again for the entire day. If I dared to twirl or twist a dry tendril, it was over: frizz city.

Shauna, The Miracle Worker

About a year ago, I went to a fancy-schmancy event where I was the only woman in attendance with seriously curly hair. Everyone else had perfectly smooth, pin-straight, flat hair. It was confirmed. Clearly, G-d hated me. As we posed for a photograph, I sighed and commented how unfair it was that everyone else had such perfect hair while mine was so unruly.

“Honey,” said one of the women, “You need to meet Shawna.”

It took a while, but eventually, I found myself in Salon LuSandra, not my regular salon, thinking about my husband’s words that morning before I left.

“I love your curls,” Hubby said again with emphasis adding, “Your curls are one of the things that most attracted me to you…”

“You’ll learn to love other things…” I told Hubby, smooching him on the cheek. “And it’s only semi-permanent. In four months, the wild woman shall return.”

I sat on the wooden chair in the salon for about 35 seconds before an extremely adorable blonde materialized and introduced herself as Shawna: the woman who was going to make my curls go away.

There was no time for nerves. Shawna wrapped my neck in a black towel and had my head tipped back in the sink before I could ask but-what-if-my-husband-doesn’t-love-me-after-we-do-this? She washed my hair three times. She scrubbed and scoured my hair as if I were a nasty little street urchin who hadn’t washed in weeks, maybe months.

Once in her chair, Shawna applied a chemical mixture to every strand of my hair from root to tip. She explained that once she was finished, I would have to wait for 15-20 minutes to let the product saturate each follicle. She told me that if I did everything properly, the process would reduce 50% of the curl and 100% of the frizz.

And by “frizzy,” this is what I mean.

Truth be told, I could not imagine what that even meant. I’ve always had frizz. I have always been the girl with crazy hair. In the decades before there were long aisles devoted to hair care products, if I attempted to use a blow dryer, I emerged a wild lioness – and I don’t mean in a sultry, beautiful way. I mean I had a mane that was enormous, fluffy and uncontrollable.

As she stood behind me in her black and white polka-dotted smock with skinny red trim, Shawna applied the chemicals. Wearing short black gloves that stopped just above her wrists, she painted and combed, making sure to coat every single strand, fussing over my tresses the way no one has ever fussed before. She was serious about this procedure.

That’s when Shawna reviewed The Rules associated with Smooth Keratin Treatment. She told me that for the next four days I could not get my hair wet. No shampoo. No conditioner. I promised:

On my honor, I do swear, not to wear my hair in a ponytail. Or use barrettes. Or clips or hats or headbands or any other fashion accessory that might leave a crease in my hair. I promise not to tuck my hair behind my ears. I promise to sleep carefully and, upon waking, I promise to touch up any bumps or lumps with a blow dryer and/or flatiron. I promise to wear a shower-cap while washing. I promise not to venture outside if there is any sign of precipitation.

But I was worried. I knew I had to teach over the next four days. What if I had to get to school while my hair was “curing” – and it just happened to be raining? How would I get inside the building without getting my hair wet? I made elaborate plans, involving umbrellas and shower caps and running shoes. I considered which colleague would not think less of me if I needed to leave a flat-iron in her office. In case of a hair emergency. In the end, I decided it would just be easier to cancel classes in the unfortunate case of poor weather.

Three hours into the procedure, I was amazingly relaxed. Maybe it was the cyclopentasiloxane (one of the ingredients in the Simply Smooth product). Maybe it was the prospect of no frizzies or the idea of not having to devote so many hours to hair care. Maybe it was just that Shawna knew what she was doing. Because she knew what she was doing.

Meanwhile, people wandered in and out and bubbled over with testimonials. They used words like “life-altering”: clearly, everyone loves this keratin treatment.

Eventually, Shawna removed my plastic hat, which was good because my eyes had started to tear up a little bit under there. She grabbed a dryer and started blowing-out my newly chemically treated hair. I was confused. My hair was still huge.

“Now we flat-iron every teeny-tiny section about five times,” Shawna explained.

For over an hour, Shawna tugged at my head.

And then it happened.

Someone walked by and said, “Oooh. Gorgeous hair.”

Could I have “gorgeous hair”?

And I realized (or I thought that maybe, possibly) they could have been talking about my mop, except it wasn’t a mop anymore. It was flat, shiny hair that looked healthy and vibrant and felt soft.

“Try not to touch it,” Shawna said.

The following four days were all about the hair. About not touching it and avoiding water.

Here are the results:

Day 1 – no curls. And no shampoo.

On this morning, I showered (with a shower cap) and used a flatiron to dry any wet areas. See that one little “dip”? I got rid of that!

Day 2. Still no shampoo.
Day 3. Stinky.

This is where things got tough. I had to conference with  students, and I felt like my scalp may have smelled more than a little funky. I asked a good friend to give a sniff (good friends do things like this), and she said, “Not so bad.” I pressed on, impressed that my hair on day 3 looked even better than day 1!

Day 4. Definitely wanting a shower!

I can’t lie. Day 4 was rough. Our family went to a football game, and I was terrified that I would see people I knew because – even though I had been showering my body, my head was stinky. Or, at least, I felt like it was. It was. I’m just putting it out there. I mean, I was coming up on 96 hours without shampoo.

Day 10

So, this curly-haired girl now has straight hair. What used to take hours to try to accomplish can now be easily achieved in under 25 minutes. Do I miss my curls? Kinda, but this is a fun little hair vacation because I know they’ll be back. They always come back. And besides, if I don’t want to blow dry, I can wear my hair like this:

Wavy hair with no product!

So I can wear my hair straight or wavy. And the biggest surprise of all? Hubby likes it! Only downside, I never realized how many products I would need to buy to have this hair. I had to buy a blow dryer (never had one before), a flat-iron (never had that either), and I had to buy a boat load of products (shampoos, conditioner, serums, oils) that are specifically formulated to extend the life of the procedure; otherwise, the curls will return more quickly!

The procedure has confirmed it for me: curls or no curls, I’m still a wild woman. And while I am enjoying the change, I kinda like knowing my inner wild woman and my outer wild woman will be reunited in full force around March. 😉

Has anyone else had a “hair experience”? Do tell!

tweet me @rasjacobson

So it’s Thanksgiving. I’ll tell you what I’m grateful for: My son, who decided to take over as today’s guest blogger and gave me a little extra vacation time. I was going to add more, but I think he’s about covered it.

Stuff I’m Thankful for at Eleven Years Old

1. Thanks for my family. They love and support me when I’m in a tough situation.

2. Thanks for life. It keeps me alive.

3. Thanks for friends. Those guys sometimes piss me off, but they are still awesome.

4. Thanks for entertainment. It makes us say: “ooh,” “aah,” and “oh no!”

5. Thanks for books. They help us learn and are great on car rides when you don’t want to get out of the car to do errands. You can say, “Do I have to go in? I’m reading.” That usually works.

6. Thanks for my Dad’s job. Without it we wouldn’t have enough money for everything we have today. Because everyone knows my mom’s job as a teacher doesn’t really pay very much.

7. Thanks for technology. Especially when it works.

8. Thank goodness for a little vacation. No school!

9.  Thanks for blankets: Warmness!

10. Thanks for everything. Except the bad stuff. And luckily, we don’t have too much of that.

What are you thankful for?

image from google.com

I have a friend who, after two years as a full professor, is back down to adjuncting part-time due to budget cuts. A former student of mine earned his degree in math and special education and has been subbing for two years in an outstanding district, but he simply can’t seem to get his own classroom. And even though I am (currently) employed by a local community college, I recently decided to conduct an experiment to see if I, with my soon-to-be twenty years of classroom experience, could land even a part-time position in any school district within a desirable radius. I updated my resumé and cover letter and applied to four local school districts.

Did I get a bite?

Not one!

At first I was bitter, but now I understand. There are too many teachers and not enough jobs.

What does this mean? Well, theoretically, it could be a good thing for our children. If the pool of applicants is supersaturated, then – hopefully – the weakest candidates will be tossed away quickly, making way for the cream of the crop to land in our nation’s classrooms which, as we all know, are badly in need of help. Alas, I suspect it means that many positions will be “excessed” causing more teachers to scramble for fewer positions. It means greater numbers of students will be squished into classrooms, which will make it harder for them to learn. It means less adult supervision in the place where we really need them to receive specialized, individualized attention.

Meanwhile, I know plenty of people who have given up. Though stellar students themselves, each having received outstanding reviews during all phases of their student teaching experience, each has decided to leave the dream behind. One former student of mine just took an entry-level position at an editing/publishing company last fall, after three years of looking for an elementary school position. She sent out hundreds of resumés, attended dozens of encouraging interviews, but just never could seal the deal. For years, she worked as a substitute teacher, earning $75-85 a day (with no benefits). I think she files and makes people coffee now. Seriously. I’m not kidding. To do these things, one does not necessarily need to attend college.

“It’s ridiculous,” my former student says, “Spending all that money for an education I can’t use has been beyond frustrating. But really I had no choice. I needed benefits. And I needed to make money.”

How can we continue to allow good students to go through graduate school to become educators if the jobs are not there for them when they come out the other side?

So, my little experiment, though simultaneously interesting and humbling, meant little for me. I am one of the lucky ones: I have a job that I love.

For now, anyway.

tweet me @rasjacobson

photo from MC Quinn @ flickr.com

Several years back, on the first day of the semester, a student walked into my classroom. A boy, clearly, a male — wearing a long pink skirt, his hair tied in a low pony-tail. When I read the roster and got to his name, he corrected me and told me that his name was Sophia.

I quickly noted the change.

When I met Sophia, she wanted gender reassignment surgery. She wished for it, but knew it would be a long road. As gender reassignment is an irreversible procedure, two letters of therapy clearance would be required. She explained one therapist (psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, sexologist) would be required to have a doctoral degree, and one of the two therapists would have to know her for an extended period of time. When I met Sophia, she was simply trying to change the name on her birth certificate and running into all kinds of roadblocks. A ward of the State from age 15, if memory serves, Sophia was an emancipated minor living with distant relatives. She had no car, took the bus to campus, and had no expendable money for one therapist, let alone two with the kind of credentials that she would need to put her on the path towards gender reassignment.

That semester, Sophia was distracted. It was hard for her to get to class on-time. Hard for her to make deadlines. Hard for her to deal with the stares and (I imagine) comments in the hallways. A talented writer, Sophia was exhausted at age 19. And I wanted to help her. Eventually, Sophia stopped coming to class. I had lost her.

In June 2009, I read that the person once known as Chastity Bono, the precious little blond-haired daughter of Sonny and Cher who often made appearances at the end of their shows, would henceforth be referred to as Chaz Bono. At age 40, Chaz Bono went public that he was undergoing gender reassignment surgery, and I read the surgery had been completed in May 2010. Of course, I thought of Sophia.

I cannot imagine what it must feel like to be a person stuck in the wrong-gender body.

I am English teacher. I am supposed to teach my students how to improve their writing skills; how to properly use their commas; how to understand and compose for different audiences and recognize the varying modes of discourse. But writing teachers also get to read their students’ words. And I got to read hers.

So while I don’t know where Sophia landed, I still hope she is okay. That she feels good about herself. That she saw the article about Chaz Bono and feels hopeful about her future. And I hope she doesn’t have to wait until her 40th birthday to get the surgery she wants.

tweet me @rasjacobson

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