Pop Culture Props

Lately, I've been interested in this idea of "my new and improved life."  I'm not teaching anymore, not getting up at 6:00 every morning, after a thirty-minute fight with the snooze button, not sleeping in the shower, not panicking on the freeway as I pass accidents in progress or slam on my brakes in a sudden reflexive jerk because the driver in front of me has tapped theirs for some unknown reason.  My daily life is better, if only because of the relief of not having to march a million miles a minute to the routine I had adopted.  And yes, I am less stressed without the workload that comes with teaching.
However, there are many pleasures of teaching and working that I miss.  One thing I've noticed, among many others, is the fact that not being a teacher is causing me to act more my age.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I still like to stay up late, go out and have a drink or four, drive to L.A. for a mid-week concert, and wear clothes that have caused my husband to say things like, "Your clothes don't seem like the clothes of a forty-year-old."  The fact that I still enjoy all of these things, does not mean I recover from them like I used to.  Still, except for the sound of gravel in my knees as I walk, and the subsequent pain that follows whenever I, say, run, or jump, or stand from a seated position, I feel pretty young.  I definitely do not feel like I'm rounding the dreaded corner of forty in less than a month.  If only the way I feel could somehow alter the reality of my situation.  Now, I'm all for growing old gracefully, and being the best you can be in the body you've got, and all that motivational self-love stuff; it was just so much easier to espouse those ideas when trying to comfort someone else.  Now that I have to apply these rules to myself, it's a little more difficult.  So, I try not to think about it.

What I have been thinking about is pop-culture.  I've been feeling an emptiness in my soul--a wide, dark hole in my mind.  I used to secretly pride myself in my knowledge of the Jersey Shore cast's latest antics, the new controversial music video of the moment, the can-you-believe-thats and the oh my goshes of TMZ.  I used to know who Justin Bieber was, and Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, and Vanessa Hudgens, and all of the other up-and-comings, and I used to know what they were wearing, where they were going, what they were doing, and who they were doing it with.  And I used to kind of give a shit.  And it was all for the sake of my students.

It used to mean something to someone if I knew who Amanda Bynes was when I had a student on the first day of school try to trick me into believing that was her name.  Because I watched America's Next Top Model, and so did many of my students, we could talk about how wrong the judges were for voting off this girl or that.  And when I had a male student who dreamed of being on America's Next Top Model, the the show became a catalyst for his trust in me as he shared his struggles with being a transgendered individual.  I still watch America's Next Top Model, but that's beside the point.  The point is, there is no one keeping me on my toes, no one who thinks it's cool if I know the lyrics to their favorite song, no one who might care if I care to be in their world and understand their language.  Teaching kept me in the loop, and it kept me young.  There is an argument out there that being interested in pop-culture is a vapid, meaningless pursuit.  Certainly, there are far more important issues on which to focus than Kim and Kanye's dim-witted decision to name their baby North.  But when you're standing before a group of teenagers and what they want most in life besides money and women and cars is to connect with others, it gives you a little more credibility as a real person.  I was more than an authority, more than some lady who knew nothing about them, more than a robot who shut down at night and slept in the classroom closet.  I became someone who could actually speak to them.  I became someone who might have had something in common with them.  Or at least that's how I felt.

When I first started teaching, I was twenty-two years old, and I cared too much about being liked.  I thought that if my students liked me, everything would be perfect.  They would all listen to me with ears perked up, backs straight, and hands neatly folded on their desks.  I thought they would easily grasp everything I said and taught.  I was certain they all would complete every assignment and earn A's on their assignments.  I thought that if I cared, they would care.  I was truly idealistic and stupid!  I didn't know what hit me.  My days alternated between those that brought tears and those that brought hope.  I hated and I loved my job.  But I was not really connecting with my students yet because I was still walking on glass.  I lacked confidence, experience, and wisdom.  And I lacked the most important thing of all: the knowledge that for students to succeed in school, they must first and foremost respect the teacher.  Being liked comes later, if at all.  Over time, I cut my teeth on their variety, their angst, their mob mentality, and their vulnerability.

I realized later in my career that many of my students probably didn't like me.  But once I shifted my focus from being liked to being effective, the rest seemed to follow.  And it mattered that I could bring in examples dealing with pop-culture because it was a language that almost all of my students could understand.  Now that teaching is gone from my life, and my students with it, much of pop-culture has made a graceful exit as well.  I miss it because I long for what it represented--a means through which to connect with others, a mode of trivial communication that almost always led to laughter and often to critical thinking. 

It's impossible to keep up with all of the shows and tabloids, and as I get older, I find myself less and less interested, which makes me and my knees feel older.  I could spend my time reading pages and pages of heartbreaking truths such as the chemical massacre in Syria.  But I'm too sensitive.  My husband shares what he reads with me, and it keeps the sadness to a minimum.  I am aware of the world, but I'd much rather laugh or get lost in the silly lives of celebrities.  I want my down time to be mindless.  I don't want to ponder the misfortunes of the planet or the ramifications of war.  I don't want to see children dying in the streets, even if I know they are.  I want to be somewhat blind.  Ignorance is bliss, yes?  And what I don't know won't hurt me?  Or is knowledge power?  I'm not suggesting that we all turn to pop-culture as a means to deny the cold, hard truth. I think balance is the answer.   So for now, I will go back to watching Project Runway.  As it turns out, the fashion world can be pretty cruel, but nobody dies--unless you count the suicide of Alexander McQueen.

I guess what I'm realizing is that there's a part of me that needs a little bit of reality TV, a little bit of pop-culture, a little bit of relevance.  It's the kind of stuff that I don't feel bad about, and if I had a group of students this year, we'd probably be working on a persuasive essay right now.  We are not Congress, so I think we'd delve into the power of advertisements and what they're really trying to sell. Maybe we can discuss Syria after we've played with puppies and eaten a bunch of candy.  Aren't you more likely to have power over whether or not you buy Axe Body Spray than whether or not America goes to war?

I'm not saying that current events aren't important.  I'm just trying to say that most of us would like to see some rainbows and butterflies before we can begin to contemplate death.

Failure...?

This is really a Motivate Me post, but I'm not feeling very motivated, and it's my own dang fault.  Or is it?  I was supposed to go to the gym today and do 30 minutes of cardio, 100 squats, and 100 crunches...or something like that.  Well.  I didn't even make it out of the house.  I failed.  I did do 50 squats while I waited for my popcorn to pop.  And I did 50 more after I ate a piece of our anniversary cake.  So, I guess I only partially failed.  Is partial failure really a failure?  Or is it a partial success?  This is a matter of paradox and perspective, isn't it?  The fact that I did relatively nothing that I view meaningful today may be seen as lack of ambition--complete laziness.  Or, it may be seen as a rare opportunity to relax.  Just because I seem to have more opportunities to "relax" than many others shouldn't necessarily mean I'm a slacker.  Or am I providing myself with yet another justification for a wasted day?  I did a load of laundry!  I made my husband dinner!  Ha!  Though I suspect nobody would actually think I ate my husband, let me rephrase that:  I made dinner for my husband!  I walked ten feet to the mailbox!  I caught up with two girlfriends on the phone!  I wrote a lengthy email and now am writing this!  I'm contemplating some push-ups but canceling my crunches due to all the over-eating that occurred today.  There have been less productive days, just as there have been more productive days, in the history of days.  So why am I beating myself up?  Why do I feel as if I've failed?

As a teacher, I came to know many students who truly saw themselves as failures.  They believed they could not write poetry or understand difficult reading or get an essay started or even come up with an idea for a paper.  They believed they could not, would not, succeed, not matter what they did--never mind what they did was often sit there comatose or paralyzed or both, utterly convinced that no movement on their part could ever make an iota of a difference.

I often wondered what had happened in such kids' lives that rendered them so adamant about that with which they were so inexperienced.  How did they know they couldn't read Thoreau?  Had they ever tried--really tried?  Did someone one day see them sitting on a park bench holding an open volume of Walden and swoop up, undetected, snatch the book from their hands and yell, "You can't read that!  It's impossible!"?  And if such a person had done that, why on earth would this kid, this young, curious, mind, ever believe this person?

After many years of hearing students say they couldn't do something I was convinced they could do, I began to get a little nosy.  Instead of reiterating the importance of trying or showing my frustration with some obvious gestures of impatience, such as a sigh, or a caught breath followed by a turn of my head to the next student who was, evidently, trying, I began to get a little personal.  Instead of letting the impotent student carry on in what was clearly (to me at the time) a ploy to avoid having to work, a technique to try to get me to do their work for them, I began to get a little honest.

 One student repeatedly told me he couldn't write--that he was a bad writer and never had anything to say.  Every time students were supposed to be eagerly, frantically journaling at the beginning of class, or writing a timed essay (this was a student in my AP Language and Composition class!), or brainstorming, for goodness sake, he just sat there, twiddling his pen between two fingers.

 I finally went right up to him and said, "Let me guess.  You're a bad writer?"

He said, "Yep."

When journal time was up, I spoke to the class, using this particular student as an example.  I realized immediately that he might not appreciate what I was about to do, but his future depended on the next few minutes.  I reminded the class that the purpose of journaling was to develop fluidity and voice.  What they said wasn't as important as the fact that they said something--anything at all, and that they wrote continuously for five minutes, with an attempt to be on topic.

"But some of you," I lied; it was actually only this one student in this particular class that day, "are sitting there trying to think about what to write.  I looked around the room.  They all looked around the room, as if connecting glances would tell them who defied the most important rule of journaling.  And then I said his name--We'll call him Jim.  "For example, Jim, here, is just sitting there.  He has to produce a page of writing in five minutes, and he has only written the quote and prompt from the board.  How is that going to help him accomplish his goal?"  Students shook their heads.  Jim bowed his in shame.  "Why is he just sitting there?  He thinks he's a bad writer.  Don't you?"  I looked right at him.  He nodded his head, yes.  

 "Well, how would you know?  How do you know what a bad writer looks like?  Somebody along the line told you that you were a bad writer, and you believed them, and you've been paralyzed ever since."  He had steel in his eyes.  "Right?"  I said.  He nodded his head, yes, again.  "Well, guess what?  You're actually a very good writer."

A smile began to form on his lips.  "Really?" he said.

"Yes, and I should know, because I've been reading your work.  And anyway, everybody in here is going to get better.  But not by doing nothing.  Writing improvement happens with practice, so stop telling yourself you're a bad writer.  Has telling yourself that helped you?"

He shook his head.

"So what about trying to tell yourself you are a good writer?  Better yet, tell yourself you are going to do what it takes to be better.  Can you do that?  Believe in yourself, and work to be better.  That is all anyone can ask."

By now, many were nodding their heads.  Jim was smiling.  I could tell, that just in those few moments, whatever faith he'd lost somewhere long before he stepped foot in my classroom had been restored.  The truth was, I couldn't remember any significant details from what he had written up to that point for my class.  What I did know was that his writing was stifled, truncated, and suffering at the pen of an uninspired writer.  But it had potential, and I certainly wasn't going to stand for his blatant lack of faith that had propelled him into writing paralysis.  And he shouldn't have been satisfied with it either.  Anyway, the point wasn't so much whether his writing was "bad" or "good"; so much writing is subjective anyhow.  What mattered is that he once again saw that it was important to believe in himself, and that whoever it was that had effectively oppressed his curious spirit no longer did matter.

Whew, was I glad that worked; I knew there was a chance he could hate me for "putting him on blast," but the risk was well worth the reward.  From that moment on, Jim wrote like a madman, and he became a curious, thoughtful writer.  His essays honestly became some of the best in the class.  He earned a 5 on the AP exam, and he gained a renewed sense of self-worth.  I was so proud of what he accomplished, sure, but the fact that he was so proud of what he had accomplished should be a reminder to us all.  Sometimes, just believing in yourself is all you need to get where you're going, and it is certainly hard to believe in yourself when people you trust don't believe in you first.  As parents and teachers, it is not our job to kill dreams.  It's pragmatic, perhaps to offer a dose of reality, and to guide students toward their strengths.  However, may we tread lightly, for our assessment of another's strengths and weaknesses reveals more about us than it does about them.  It is our job not to falsely build up our youth but to provide opportunities for growth and learning. 

When we think about success and failure, we often allow others' definitions or standards to determine our progress.  We are driven by praise and affirmation of the good; likewise, we are derailed by criticism and comparisons.  I'm trying to give myself credit for what I am accomplishing.  It's still hard to think of a day "wasted." Perhaps it's all in the language I use.  Instead of "wasted," maybe the day was "redirected."  I've stopped being so hard on myself when it comes to "redirecting" my workouts.  I realize I am not as motivated to be fit as I was when I played basketball in college, or even as motivated as I was in my early 30s when I played competitive volleyball regularly.  Once I injured my knees, things seemed to go downhill in the fitness department.  Perhaps this is just my dose of reality.  Every day is about reassessing the destination--and the determination.  The good thing is I sure as hell know there's nobody holding me back but myself.