Edubabble and other Blither

I’m living a John Mellencamp video. No, I’m really living a John Cougar Mellencamp video. No, maybe I’m actually living a John Cougar video. I find myself glancing out the window of the Sipesburg Town Hall, searching for little pink houses peeking out from the trees on Sipes Hill.

I scoop my hundredth (at least) serving of spaghetti for the local Eagles’ Ladies’ Auxiliary’s fundraiser, benefiting the kids’ Christmas party. My apron, donated by a nearby city’s family-owned pasta and sauce company, is evidence with its blood-like splatters of our canned-but-doctored sauce, some still wet and oily, others in various thicknesses of crusty scabs. My feet tap, my knees bend, my hips shimmy, my hands and wedding ring thump and chink on the counter-top in time to The Country Rebels’ talents, donated especially for the event.

Middle-school-aged members of the local Boy Scout troop, indentured for the afternoon in order to serve plates, pour coffee, and wash dishes, snicker occasionally at me, but I don’t mind. I ham it up a little more for them every once in awhile, in between chastising them for eating too much Italian bread or cupcakes or for chewing gum. “We’re not in school! We can chew gum!” they remind me gleefully.

One such fellow, Old Navy, grates on my nerves. He whips out his cell-phone continually, often to answer it, sometimes just because he can. He’s in ninth grade, and his nameless girlfriend has called him seven times since the start of our event. (Like 14 year olds need another, more convenient way to spend time on the phone.) Several kids are glued around my serving window, and I know the reason. The reason is not me, Chrissy. The reason is Katie, hazel-eyed, brown-tressed, girl-next-door cool.

Katie has no idea how cool she is, how mesmerizing to the scouts. To me. She wears no make-up. She sings along with the Rebels. When Old Navy ridicules her for being so lame, she taunts him happily. “I like it!” I never would have been so bold.

Old Navy’s phone again finds itself at his ear. “Say hi,” he orders Katie, and places it against hers.

“Hi?” she obeys. “Whoever it was hung up,” she announces.

“It was my girlfriend,” Old Navy brags.

The Rebels play “Mustang Sally,” and an old lady, maybe sixty-five years old, dances alone. I’m watching my future self—still hamming it up thirty years from now. My hair is grayer, but still worn the same as now. I still have rhythm. People still snicker. I still don’t care.

After everything is washed, swept, and put to rights, I sit at the club across the street. I’m comfortable here and take the opportunity to clean out my wallet—dozens of expired coupons, losing tickets, and neglected lists of tasks litter the bar in front of me. The bartender bullies the members into supporting the kids’ Christmas party by buying more tickets. Shep Yanek, an elderly bachelor, stands next to me. “Call me a girdle and I’ll support you!” he quips, mighty pleased with his wit. He obeys, however, whipping out a crisp one-dollar bill from his gray plastic wallet.

The crowd at the bar yells indignantly as they watch a Kansas City Chief yank Troy Polamalu’s hair, taking him down in excruciating slow motion during the first half of the Steeler game on the television. I don’t even really follow football, but offer this: “Cut it off if you can’t take it, Troy!” I don’t know where that came from.

I’m exhausted and ready to go home. I just returned yesterday afternoon from a state convention of English teachers, where my former colleague, now a professor, and I presented for two people.

Laurie Halse Anderson, a young-adult author of rock-star status among English teachers and teenagers, was a keynote speaker. (There were more than two people for her.) Her novel Speak, set in Syracuse, is a staple in classroom libraries and reading lists. She’s received thousands of letters from kids just like Katie, Old Navy, and the other scouts. The most disturbing, she told us, was from a young man who liked the book a lot. “I just don’t see what Melinda was so mad about,” he wrote, referring to the main character’s self-imposed silence after surviving a rape at a party.

Thinking of that sobers me, and I head home to my not-pink house, to lesson plans, paper grading, and a nice long bath.

School should be fun tomorrow. The secretaries and aides are going on strike after three years of negotiating. Meetings were had, letters were distributed. We are not to do anything that would usually have been done by a secretary or aide. I plan to stay in my room all day.

We have a sub all week for our math teacher, whose father died. The sub's a really nice lady, a hard worker, but she needs to be a little harder on some of the kids. I had to kick ass on the entire second period class after a T.S.S. approached me, angered by the kids' behavior.

I've been doing this a long time. The kids like me (or at least I seem to think they do...), but I've developed a great ability-- I can walk into a class, stand there expectantly like Queen Victoria, and the whole class falls silent. I think I've developed this due to an utter refusal on my part to EVER need someone to kick ass on my behalf. (I did need that, I will admit, once while subbing. I vowed never again.)

I drove to the funeral this evening with our guidance counselor and history teacher. The guidance counselor said our principal was concerned about the value-added scores. I sighed. I just don't care anymore. Not about testing. It's like chasing your tail-- we will never get it right. The whole system is orchestrated to prevent it.

Value-added is a good concept-- it looks for growth, not just a score. So, if Johnny's a genius and gets good state assessment scores, that might not be something to celebrate. Why, you ask? Well, if he's capable of scoring 2000, but only scores 1600, we failed him educationally. On the flip side, if Johnny's only expected to score 800, but instead scores 900, that shows that he DID indeed achieve, even if he didn't make the "proficient" cut. Great theory, and I was all on board six years ago.

Since that initial enthusiasm, I've watched as our elementary schools cut instruction in social studies, science, health, etc., to focus on nothing but reading and math for months before D-Day. Those kids, therefore, score well on the math and reading. We celebrate those students, those teachers, and those elementary schools. The students, then, are predicted to score very high on the next state assessment. (It used to be 5th, 8th, and 11th grades; now it's 3rd through 8th, then 11th.)

Fast-forward from 5th through 8th: new school, hormones, harder material, and a school day that just doesn't permit (and nor should it, in my opinion) tossing other course content aside to frantically prepare for the tests. The students may or may not score at that predicted level, and when they don't, they have negative value-added assessment scores. We've gone from bemoaning low scores to now bemoaning high scores if they're not high enough. Chasing our tails.

I say, "Stop the insanity!" I'm trying. This week my kids have learned a lot about writing. I very subversively chose to have them write narratives. The state tests, you see, now test writing in the informative and persuasive modes only for 8th grade. Narratives are superfluous and very adequately covered in elementary school, where the kids learn to write 5-paragraph essays that begin with a not-so-probing question. Questions as leads have been banned from my classroom. I'm a rebel. I'm also a real pain-in-the-ass for those students who've been praised for beginnings like Have you ever been so proud you thought you might burst?

I wrote with them this week. Seven years ago I wrote a draft for my seventh grade classes about the time Paul Galileo dumped me at a junior high dance. I shared that with them, and dragged them along with me as I revised it-- thinking aloud about how my original lead is interesting only to me, not to my middle school audience; how the whole paragraph about my first seventh grade boyfriend has nothing to with my story; how I need more active verbs, but my flashback opening kind of prevents that; how I can get very, very wordy, and I need to simplify. I was in heaven. I even have a picture of him, as I'm sure does Professor Girl, in all his corduroy-coat-wearing-chapped-lipped-fly-away-hair glory. The kids, when they saw it, groaned appropriately.

That's what I was trained to teach. That's what I'm good at teaching.