Ringing Like a Bell

I hope you have someone or more than one someone in your life that inspires you. I'm blessed in that sense. I am constantly surrounded by the most amazing, inspiring women. I often feel that these ladies are the unsung heroes of everyday life. You know the ones -- the ones who keep on keepin' on even in the toughest circumstances. The ones who manage to fill lunch table conversation with laughter and joy, who will cry with you, who will bake you a birthday cake, or tell you there's something gross stuck in your teeth. One is always smiling and laughing. I've never spoken to her without a hug or an "I love you," maybe even both. She teaches a tough science course and is always thinking of new and better ways to engage her students. She helps them find pumpkin DNA in the fall and is legendary for her homey holiday sweaters. She wears them with joy because she really does love Halloween, Thanksgiving, and especially Christmas. She is so dedicated to her stud...

Summer's nearly over. In just a few days, all the concerns about the new school year will rush in, and I'll be consumed by it completely. For now, I find myself languishing in a lovely middle ground. I have rested from all the demands of last year, and since the new year is still several days away, I'm in a good place. I'm a tiny bit bored in a pleasant sort of way, which is what led me to re-watch an old romantic comedy I already saw years ago -- New in Town .  I remember watching the movie when came out in 2009, but there's something about it I forgot. It slipped my mind that one of the characters in the movie is an uncomfortably exact reflection of me. Let's just say it isn't Renee Zellweger's character Lucy -- if only. As I saw the film again a few days ago, I was transported back to 2009. The first time I watched the movie I was transfixed -- not by the plot, the actors, or any kind of amazing special effects. On the whole the movie is just wha...

I've written before about the quotes that motivate and sustain me each school year.  This year my focus has been on the fact that I belong to God twice over -- created and redeemed.  Interestingly, my students seem to have a unifying phrase this year too, very different from mine: That's it! I'm dropping out! Multiple students have said that to me this year half-jokingly, half-seriously. At first it was funny, and I laughed. Now when they say it, it makes me sad because I've realized that many of them do leave school instead of pushing forward to a future full of opportunities. What's more is that I think it exposes a certain mindset they have in general. If anything is difficult or challenging or painful, their first instinct is not to dig in deeper but to quit. Can you blame them? I can't. That's what I want to do too, all the time. My drive to work yesterday was a minute by minute struggle against turning around and going back home. For starters ...

It's that time again. Early Monday morning 900 students will fill the halls of our high school. The last few days of this week began with lazy procrastination and culminated yesterday afternoon in a fevered rush to make everything perfect for the first day of school. Earlier yesterday morning we had our annual district-wide convocation. For the last few years it has been held digitally, so our staff gathers in the library to watch our superintendent give his remarks about the year ahead. Usually it consists of a lengthy list of accomplishments given school-by-school which is followed by what amounts to a professional pep rally. If you work in public schools, you'll know that it takes a lot of encouragement to make it through a school year; the task ahead is daunting. Sometimes we even watch an inspirational video. I think I shared last year's with you,  Dalton Sherman asking, "Do you believe in me?"   I was moved to tears last year and walk...

Today began with such promise. I woke up early to an unseasonably cool breeze and sunshine filtering through the trees. Today is the last day of my summer vacation. It seems as if it was to be the last perfect pearl plucked from the strand. I took Bailey for our morning walk, prayed, and read my Bible. I already decided yesterday that I would give our house one more good cleaning before my time and energy got sucked away by the greedy demands of teaching public school. The turning point came while I was wiping down the kitchen counter. I saw the slobber stains all over the glass of our back door. That's where Bailey spends most of her time outdoors, waiting impatiently for someone to let her back inside. She uses the doorknob as a signal by hitting it with her nose; the more frequent her hits, the more frantic she is. That's how her saliva gets all over the glass and the knob. That's when my glorious morning morphed into a bad episode of I Love Lucy . It's easy to...

"I hated it when my teachers did that! It was so unfair," I hear that statement or similar ones pretty frequently in social situations. Sometimes it's awkward. Someone will say, "I hated it when my teachers punished the whole class for what one person did." How am I supposed to respond to that? I'm guilty of the thing this other person just declared that he hates. What's worse is that I used to be just like him and think the same thing -- until I became a teacher. Now I know. Things aren't always what they seem to be. People are particularly nasty when it comes to talking about tests or as we call them now "assessments." Nobody likes being tested; it's a lot of pressure. You are judged, graded, and evaluated. Most of the time the results are less than favorable. I have heard, more than once, teachers say things to students along these lines, "I wish we didn't have to have tests, that we could just learn, but that's n...

I know people who are bold, courageous, and inherently tough. I know people who are humble, focused, and intuitively seem to know just what needs to be done in every situation. I know people who don't have a habit of second guessing themselves. I know people who find living and breathing in their mortal bodies effortless. I am not one of those people . When I first started writing this blog last year, I felt like I was trying to expose what's really going on with me, deep inside, the way you might pop off the back of a watch to see all the little gears and springs inside. I've got a box full of old journals in a closet right beside the desk where I'm sitting. The chief difference between what you're reading now and those journals is audience. I'm letting you see what I have to say if you want to. I just read a book called An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith   by Barbara Brown Taylor. As I read the introduction, I found a kindred spirit, not someo...

Since school has been out, I've been catching up on all the little things I've put off during the year. One of those things, besides resting and going to the dentist, is listening to all the podcasts I've missed in the last few months. One of my favorites is the Freakonomics podcast. The subtitle is "The Hidden Side of Everything." So if you like thinking about off-beat things in a weird way, let me recommend it. The Stevens (Levitt and Dubner) do a lot of talking about unintended consequences, and last week I listened to one called " The Cobra Effect ." Here's a quote: MEHROTRA : So the “cobra effect” refers to a scheme in colonial India where the British governor, or whoever, the person in charge in Delhi, wanted to rid Delhi of cobras. Apparently in his opinion there were too many cobras in Delhi. So he had the bounty placed on cobras. And he expected this would solve the problem. But the population in Delhi, at least some of it, responded by f...

Let me tell you about a student who sits right beside my desk. I'll give you three chances to guess why he sits in that particular seat, and the first two don't count. This guy drives me crazy! He spends his time in my class constantly looking at the other students and thinking of things to say that will make them laugh. (Mostly quotes from Rush Hour 2.)  He's a classic class clown. Needless to say these behaviors often interfere with his learning; he'll be lucky to get credit for my class at all. You might be thinking that I dislike this student of mine, but I don't. At heart, he's a good kid -- he just exhausts me. In fact, there's a tender spot right in the middle of my heart for him. I've been teaching for a while now (next year will be number ten), and I've learned quite a bit about human nature in that time. I can tell you that the atmosphere in the room shifts in just this certain way when a punch is about to be thrown, and nothing brings...

Keep your eyes on the road . I learned that lesson , where I should have learned it -- in driver's ed. class. Our teacher, Coach Burnette, took us down lots of winding country roads, and believe me there are plenty in rural Alabama. My lifelong friend, Joey, and I were in the same driving group along with another girl named Debbie. I'll never forget Debbie's 30 mph stretches and her 50 mph right turns. I don't know how he did it, but somehow Coach always remained calm. He had a "teacher's brake" over on the passenger side, but I'm not sure how much good that really would have done in an emergency. The man must have had nerves of steel. I really didn't have much experience behind the wheel then, and I'm not exactly the best driver in the world now. I wasn't too worried about what Joey and Debbie were going to think because both of them had already driven. They hadn't had too many serious issues. I could handle it. Right? I crept  ...

So, I've gone crazy over The World Needs More Love Letters . I know I already told you about it, but I just can't help myself. I have to give you an update. Today was the last day before my students' spring break. I wanted to send them off on a good note, so I introduced them to the concept and gave them the "homework" to hide love letters of their own over the vacation. I really do love my students; I want them to come away from my class with real skills that will help them out in real life, but also want them to come away from my class with the understanding that I genuinely do care about them, that they matter, and that I'm here for them, cheering them on. Let's face it, all of us need to know we have somebody in our corner, even if that somebody is a geeky language arts teacher or a total stranger. I guess that's why I love the idea of anonymous love letters so much. Recently, I've lost some of my former students to suicide. I don't r...

This weekend I was standing in line at Wal-Mart, which turned into about a twenty minute wait. Something about the lack of a tag on a bag the lady two people in front of me wanted to buy took forever. I know -- you're trying to figure out what level of Dante's Inferno that belongs in. I'm not sure either. Anyway, while I was standing there, I picked up one of the little, impulse-buy publications near the register and cracked it open. The page fell right to this article about the woman who started a movement (and website) called The World Needs More Love Letters . You need to check it out; it's not what you think. One day the woman was riding the subway when she noticed another woman who looked like she was having a really bad day. On impulse, she got some paper and a pen out of her purse and started to write the woman an anonymous letter. In the letter she encouraged the woman and told her how special she was to the world. After she'd written it, she felt so much...

I, like my favorite literary icon, 'dearly love to laugh.'  In fact there's only one thing I like better --  making other people laugh. Last week I co-hosted our school's annual Relay for Life talent show. In between acts, Mr. H and I regaled the audience with embarrassing stories about falling down in public or being caught in mid - "Baby Shark" dance. I shared some of my best stories about how I don't need the subtitles on the show Moonshiners , how I got in a fight with my sister-in-law over some cole slaw, and how my dad sometimes calls me just to say, "Roll Tide!" This past week I've really seen how much joy and laughter there is at my school. I'm thankful. Victor Borge was right: laughter is the shortest distance between two people. In fact, there have been times when humor has been my saving grace in the classroom. Often when tension or conflict arises, if I can say something funny about it or change the subject entirely, the m...

A job is a job . I like to tell myself, "If what I do were easier and more fun, people would pay to do it instead of getting paid to do it." At the same time, I must admit that I don't exactly work for the great pay or anything.  I'm a teacher. My job can be rough, and people who aren't teachers seem to have a vague idea about that. Most people I talk to about my job bring up how "tough kids are to deal with these days," which is unquestionably true. However, there are other things about teaching that people who aren't teachers usually don't understand.  I must say that many people don't have any conception about the time teachers actually spend on their work. Even my husband still doesn't realize all that my job entails. We actually fought about it when I first began working in the classroom. The scene would be like this -- ( Midnight. On the couch of Brandy's living room. A lamp is on near her head, papers are scattered a...

If there's ever a Lifetime movie made about my life, I'm convinced it will amount to nothing more than a chubby actress bumbling through life enduring a series of clumsy, self-inflicted accidents. Scene one : she falls off her tricycle and skins her knees. Scene two : she loses her grip on the merry-go-round and is launched into a huge puddle of red mud. Scene three : an entire montage of bike wrecks. Scene four : she knocks down an entire row of tables at McDonald's. Scene five : an entire montage of horrendous athletic accidents -- tripping, bobbling the ball, getting smacked in the face... Scene six : she falls, head first, down the bleachers. Scene seven : she loses her balance and rolls down a hill on her college campus. Scene eight : she tumbles off her stool while her students are testing. Scene nine : she slips while trout fishing and nearly breaks her arm. Last night I added a new one to the list; I fell out of the church van while Christmas caroling. ...

One Christmas when I was in high school the adult ladies Bible class at my church, The Hamilton Church of Christ , decided to host a special dinner for the teen girls in our congregation. Each of us was paired up with a lady from the class as our 'buddy' for the evening. My buddy was Ms. Fayrene. When she came to pick me up, I gave her the Christmas pot holder set I'd picked out for her a few days before. She acted like I'd just given her a check for a million dollars, and right away she started talking about how much she loved the Christmas season, exclaiming that the gift was perfect. I'd always known her in a general way, but until I sat down in the front seat of her car, we'd never really talked one on one. She was wonderful. She asked me about my life and listened intently to what I had to say. The twenty minute ride to nearby Winfield was over in the blink of an eye. At The Boar's Butt (yes, it had a drive through), we stepped into a fabulously d...

A few guys I taught last year are crazy. I don't mean literally crazy. They're loud, and somehow they manage to find me wherever I am. One morning I walked up to another hall to visit one of my teacher friends. I sat down in one of her student desks for a quick chat before school when these students burst through the door panting. "There she is!" They yelled. They'd tracked me down. Last year they waged one of the best student council election campaigns I've ever seen. They didn't hand out Jolly Ranchers or make empty promises to the student body. Oh no! They just screamed. A lot. In between classes they constantly yelled, "Vote for him!!" Over. AND OVER. They followed that up with a series of posters with Conan the Barbarian [Arnold Schwarzenegger] giving a hearty endorsement. It was obnoxious, but what can I say? He won. There's this thing they love to do - The Trust Fall . It might be familiar to you from corporate team- building work...