For Granddaddy

For many years now I've said that the only two normal people in my entire family were me and my grandfather. Sadly, we are now left with only one 'normal' person in the family because my grandfather passed away in his sleep this past Saturday. The reality of his passing still has not completely set in and I'm not sure when it will. What I do know is that it's going to hit me like a freight train once I finally accept the fact that I'll never see him again. Throughout so much of my life, either through poetry or prose, writing has been my therapy, so I could not think of anything better that I could do to ward off the impending pain I'll feel when his passing actually settles in for me. So faithful readers, though this post is mainly to serve as my therapy I do hope if you decide to read any further that you can relate to some of it as we've all had people pass on that we were close to. So allow me to tell you a bit about the man that was my grandfather...

I'll begin with a brief synopsis of his life,

He was born on June 11, 1919, and to keep you from doing the math he had just celebrated his 91st birthday a little over two weeks ago. He met my grandmother, who is survived by him, when he was in his mid twenties. He served 25 years in the Air Force, and spent the the large majority of his life living in Warner Robins, Georgia. My grandmother and him had 2 children, a boy and a girl. Throughout most of his life he was healthy, even right up until the night of his peaceful passing. Even at 91 he was still riding his stationary bike a couple of miles each day. If I were to narrow down the two real passions in his life it was that he was an incredibly vovarious reader and a Civil War enthusiast.

I'll now tell you about the man I knew and loved,

My grandfather, like all the Styron men I suppose, was incredibly complicated to really get to know and understand. Throughout my childhood, which was less than great, there were many occasions that my sister and I would have gone hungry and/or homeless had it not been for my grandfather's financial support. He never asked for a thank you, and to my knowledge never asked for any of the money to be returned. He lived in Greenville, NC during that part of my childhood, and some of my fondest memories of our times together were when I would cut his grass. He paid me $5 to cut the front and $6 to cut the back (cause as he said, "It's a little bigger, don't ya think"). I felt richer than Bill Gates when he forked over the $11. Every 2-3 weeks he would come pick me up and we would go get our haircut together, and I just thought this was the coolest thing.

He had a fantastically dry, but refined sense of humor. As both he and I got on in years some of my greatest life's joy came from making him laugh non-stop everytime we were able to visit. He was always so concerned about the well being of those around him, and with always wanting to make sure that everyone had what they needed. One of his most annoying habits each time I visited his house was him asking me literally every 15 minutes if I "had gotten enough to eat" or to tell me for the 20th time in 4 hours where all the food was in the house, and that I should feel free to help myself. Though this used to annoy the hell out me, there is not much I wouldn't give to hear him say those things one more time. As I prepare to drive down tomorrow for the funeral, I cannot help but think of the emptiness I will feel upon entering his house. Though my grandmother and the rest of the family will be there, it will simply be heartbreaking not to see him come walking up to give me a hug with that big grin on his face while he says, "Hah hah, there's my boy!".

When I was around 12 or 13 he started affectionately calling me 'puscle (pus-sel) gut'. A phrase I think he made up for me, because he would often take me to an old 'all you can eat' restaurant that is no longer in Greenville and I would seriously eat 8 to 11 plates of food. I'll always remember how much he enjoyed seeing his loved ones eat. I think this was due to his being so poor growing up, and it gave him so much pride to be able to provide so much to his family. I'm rambling at this point, so I'll just say that like most things in life it is the little details you recall about a person when they are no longer with us. Like how my grandfather always had to take off his glasses before he would have his picture taken, the sound of his laugh, the way he kind of dragged his feet when he walked with one foot pointed slightly in, the way he would turn down his hearing aids later in life so he wouldn't have to hear my grandmother yelling for him to do the dishes or take out the trash, or how he claimed to have never had a headache in his entire life. I will miss all that and so much more.

I don't want to end this by pretending that my grandfather was perfect, again most of the Styron men are not, but I do know that to me he was loving and caring. Did he make some mistakes along the way? Sure he did. He left my grandmother for several years, before finally returning to her and there was probably a part of his life when he drank too much. We all make mistakes in life, and one of the many lessons I learned from my grandfather is that it is never too late to gain redemption for yourself and forgiveness from others. The goodness of the man very much outweighed the mistakes he made in life, and I will forever miss and love him. He was my granddaddy.

The Good and The Bad

The saying children can be cruel sadly has more validity to it than I would have thought possible before becoming a teacher. This is especially true when it comes to middle school students that are continually in search of their own identities, as well as trying to keep their hormonal see-saw balanced. Often, the turbulence brought on by adolescence causes students to pick on others in order to make themselves feel better about their own insecurities. Some make a habit of picking on others they feel to be inferior to them for whatever reason, because they are so confused and lost feeling in their own lives. Others pick on students that have become regular targets of abuse as a way to fit in with the 'popular' group. As a teacher that has witnessed these types of behaviors on numerous occasions it puts me in an uncomfortable position of wanting to handle the issue personally versus how I have to deal with it professionally.

Personally, when I see students being bullied, or made fun of by others, what I instinctually want to do is torment the student in the same way they torment others. Quite honestly, there have been some occasions in which I was actually hoping that one of the 'bullies' would take a swing at me just so I could put them in a theraputic hold :) until help arrived. During the time the student spends locked in my theraputic hold :) the temptation to cause physical punishment to that student would be nearly overwhelming. I say all of this in jest of course, as I would never actually harm a student...seriously...I wouldn't...seriously...unless...

Anyway, professionally when I witness these types of teasing and bullying actions I first attempt to address the issue myself. If that fails I report the matter to the guidance counselor and/or administration. As a teacher, contacting parents about these matters can be tricky for a teacher, so I've found it's better handled from the administrative level. I guess that what I'm trying to say in a roundabout way is that even though our students often engage in behaviors we don't agree with, as professional educators at the middle school level it is imperative we always remember that our students are between the ages of 11 and 14 and that they are going to make mistakes.

For as much cruelty as students can create, I discovered this year that some of those same students are also capable of tremendous compassion and kindness. For the past four years I have coached the 21 and up age group in the track and field division of Special Olympics. This year, during the height of our training season in February and March, I decided to invite students willing to come help out with training. A bit to my surprise I had a decent amount of students that signed up to participate each Saturday. I chose some wonderfully behaved students I knew would do well, and they did just that. I also chose some students with reputations for having behaviors issues, and much to my delight they too were absolutely wonderful with working with the Special Olympians. It was really quite amazing to witness students that were basically hell on wheels within the classroom be so kind and caring to the special athletes. A particular moving image that is embedded in my mind from that time is when one of those problematic students quietly volunteered to walk one of our older and blind special athletes across the gym to the water fountain. Though such a simple act, it's one of my most cherished memories.

It is important to remember that all students, like adults, have both good and bad qualities. An important aspect of teaching must also include doing what we can to accentuate the good and eliminate or reduce the bad.

The Incredible Case of Armpit Itch!!

So by now you know that I have to mix in some humor every couple of blog posts, and I have a real treat for you today. Unlike many teachers who anxiously await summertime so they can relax, vacation, and simply take it easy, I'm a bit different. Don't get me wrong, I love the much needed break as much as the next teacher, but I discovered after my first year of teaching that I would have to have something to do over the summer or I would quickly lose my mind. This summer I'm spending my days with grad school, prepping for next year as I'm moving from the 7th to the 8th grade, and I also work at a private tutoring company part time. It is at this very tutoring place that the incredible armpit incident took place.

So in walks this 8 year old student that I will call Clyde. He was there to be helped with reading, and the first 30 minutes he was at my table was absolutely wonderful. Given the fact that my luck with tutoring students under the age of 10 typically test my patience to its very limits, things were going really well. At the 31 minute mark,however, everything went completely haywire in Clyde's world. For reasons I'm still trying to figure out Clyde, without warning, leaned back in his chair, put his feet on the table spread as far apart as possible and began making really wierd motions. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say that they were motions that no 8 year boy should be making. By the way, there were 2 other students sitting with me at the same table that of course happen to be female.

Once that situation was resolved he settled back down briefly. A few minutes later out of the corner of my eye I saw a commotion. When I looked towards Clyde he was sitting there with the entire left side of his T- shirt up around his neck and was ferociously scratching his armpit like a contractor sanding drywall. It was then that the following conversation happened between myself and Clyde...

Me: Dude, what are you doing?

Clyde: Man my armpit itches real bad.

Me: Well I'm sorry about that, but you need to keep your shirt on in here.

Clyde: (after putting his shirt down) I think I got bit by a spider.

Me: Do you want to call someone?

Clyde: Nah

He then spent the next hour and 15 minutes scratching his armpit and making the strangest faces a human can make. Every once in awhile I would check again to see if he wanted to call home, but each time he said he was fine. To add to the insanity of this bizarre 2 hours of my life, he would not stop talking. During our final hour together I informed him we were going to play the quiet game at our table, and that the winner would win a prize. For 2 short and glorious minutes I had a quiet table and no wild armpit scratching. At 2 minutes and 1 second and for the remainder of our time together he asked me the following question every 30 seconds...

"Am I winning the quiet game?"

My reaction was a mix between wanting to see how far I could actually throw an 8 year old across the room, and wandering how quickly I could throw myself off the tallest building in town.

Improve Schools? Repeal NCLB!!

“Schools, like all organizational systems, are known for their tendencies to resist any change, particularly significant change, in the ways they operate.” (Parsons and Spradlin, 2010)

Unfortunately, the truths behind that statement coupled with the reluctance of teachers and administrators to become advocates for change I imagine our current school system will basically remain the same for the foreseeable future. In terms of change within our schools I’ve really only noticed two from the time I began as a student in the public school system to present day. The first of which is from my own time in elementary, middle, and high school and the once taboo practice of having students actively engaged in class discussion and working together seems to be a thing of the past. Not very long ago the teachers with the quietest rooms were thought to be the best at their profession. The other change I’ve noticed, though they are still far from sufficient, is with the textbooks used in class. I agree with the authors that indeed textbooks have come a long way, but there is also a ways to go in terms of making the texts more relevant to and encompassing of our growing multicultural needs.

What I would like to see occur in our public schools and what will actually happen are regrettably two different things. I would like to see our public school systems in North Carolina refuse to acknowledge the No Child Left Behind laws and forfeit federal funding. Though this would spell disaster for many schools already severely underfunded, the lost money could be pulled together through private and even corporate donations at this point. Many will argue that public schools taking money from corporations, like for example Shell Oil Company, would create problems, because the company would be in a position to indoctrinate students. While there is probably some truth to that, I think it would still better serve our students than the education crippling No Child Left Behind law that has pinned down public schools and educator’s creativity by basically saying to America’s youth, “You do things the federal government way, or we take away all your funding.” In essence our government is telling our students attending already underfunded schools that they better learn, or we’re (the federal government) going to cut off what little funding you have which will leave you in an even worse situation. How does this law benefit anyone? For me it is like cutting off a man’s arm, throwing him in the ocean, and telling him he better kill a hungry great white shark all while not drowning. If the man fails to kill the shark within a certain timeframe his other arm is cut off, thus putting him in an even worse predicament. Is this analogy really so far fetched when you actually breakdown the demands of the No Child Left Behind law? I don’t think so. Rather than helping American public schools, it is destroying student’s confidence with high stakes testing, and causing the nation’s best educators to leave the profession.

Summer Vacation or Summer Detoxification

The next time I run across someone with a stupid grin on their stupid face who says to me, "Well...you'll never be rich teaching, but how about the perks of having your afternoons free, weekends off, and 2 months of vacation every summer?", I will likely beat them across the head and neck with the nearest, heaviest object around me. As for having afternoons free...I have yet to encounter a teacher worth their salt that is able to leave early everyday. There are always meetings to attend, plans to make, students to tutor, parents to talk some sense into, and the list goes on. In regards to those weekends off, a smart teacher will try their best to get all their planning and grading done while at school,which occurs mostly after school, because our 'planning' periods (hahahahaha!) are almost never used for actual planning because we always have Mt. Everest size stacks of menial, and largely, useless paperwork to complete, or we have to attend often pointless meetings. Therefore, our 'weekends off' are frequently spent trying to catch up on grading and planning that non teachers believe we have so much time to do.

It seems that people that do not teach think it must be wonderful to have 2 months off every year during the summer, and to be honest it's awesome! Why may you ask is it so awesome?

Non-teachers will say things like...I can't imagine being able to sit home and relax all summer, travel, spend time at the beach, not having any deadlines to worry about,...etc. To these blissfully ignorant souls not in the teaching profession I would like to say two things. 1) Remind me that if we ever meet I owe you 4 slaps across your face, and perhaps a throat punch for good measure and 2) What you refer to as summer vacation, teachers refer to as our summer detoxification. Summer break is a time for us to decompress and let go of all our built up stress acculumated in the process of dealing with unruly students, non-sympathethic parents, low pay, long hours, and a state government that appears to be working against us rather than for us. It is also a time for us to heal physically and mentally from the variety of sicknesses collected throughout the school year ranging from the common cold we caught from little Johnny to the mental instability so many of our students left us with, because they seem to don't understand the English language as we had to drive ourselves to the brink of insanity repeating the same things over and over, repeating the same things over and over, repeating the same things over and over, repeating the same things over and over....whoa! Sorry about that. I just got caught up in a horrific flashback.

With all that said non-teachers, the next time you talk to a teacher instead of being condescending about us having our summer off how about thank us for a job well done and for letting you live to see another day!!

Schools and 'Multiculturalism'

Our schools are going to have a tough time instilling true multicultural curriculums and teaching practices for several reasons which include societal restrictions, No Child Left Behind and standardized testing, lack of adequate funding, and too many cultural differences in teaching staffs and styles of teaching. What I mean by societal restrictions is the fact that schools cannot and will not change until society has become more multicultural tolerant. Laws such as No child Left Behind and high stakes testing have basically taken the teaching out of teaching. Teaching has instead become about ‘the test’, instead of helping students to find their interest and passions and allowing them the opportunity to explore those paths. The lack of funding for public schools is beyond ridiculous. Education should be at the top of the list in terms of funding, but it is most often overlooked. Each year teachers in public schools must do more and more with less and less. With each of these things working against public schools becoming more diversity friendly, it appears it will be a long time before anything of significance occurs in terms of a truer sense of multicultural acceptance. I think that the best we can hope for at this point is that individual teachers make the choice within their classrooms to better facilitate multicultural learning environments. The change needed will not likely come from the federal level and work its way down, instead the change must begin within the classroom and work its way up.

Why Help One and Hurt Many?

I am in complete and total agreement that all students need and deserve the same educational opportunities regardless of any disability or marginalized status. However, I disagree on the setting in which they should be educated. I will explain. As the only male teacher on my seventh grade team I am always given the homeroom/language arts class that mostly consists of students diagnosed with some form of learning disability (LD); be it EC, SED, OHI, or any other recognized disability. Is it because I have some elite power to teach these students that are placed in my room year after year? No, in fact I have only taken one special education class. Is it because I am a master at implementing modifications and lessons to reach all learners? No, though I like to think I’m decent after years of practice. So, what is the real reason? The answer is simple. While certainly not the case everywhere I hope, at the school I teach at I would estimate that 75% of the identified LD students are BEHAVIOR ISSUES.

The ‘LD’ students make up over half of my language arts class, and each comes back to me later in the day once again for social studies. The question for me is quite simply whether or not I am qualified to offer these students the same educational opportunities I believe they need and deserve? For some students with minor LD’s I feel I am capable, but for many I think I am doing that child a disservice. Additionally, as Florence points out in her book Multiculturalism 101, “some students cover up inadequacies by acting out…” (Florence, p.22, 2010) This raises my main point in having it mandated that all children, despite their learning disability, be included in the ‘regular education’ classroom. The distractions caused by these students choosing to act out, coupled with the multitude of modifications needed, completely monopolize the teacher’s time to the point that the students with no labeled disability are being cheated out of their education.

The fact is that we are all different. It seems to me that our educational system would be better off if we would recognize and accept those differences. If a student needs to be in a special education class all day with a teacher trained specifically for that purpose, why are we not allowing that to happen? If it is because we don’t want the student’s feelings hurt I just find that ridiculous. The education the student received from an educator trained to deal with their disability is going to be far greater than he or she would receive in a ‘regular education’ class setting. The unfairness of having that student(s) in the ‘regular education’ classroom also robs the other students from their education.

The current system from most angles is unfair to all students with disabilities. Were I a student with a disability, depending on the severity of it, I’m not even sure I would want to be in the ‘regular education’ class setting. The old saying that ‘children can be cruel’ is an understatement, particularly within the middle school in which so many students find comfort in their own changing adolescence by picking on others weaknesses. Students with disabilities recognize they are different, the other students know they have differences, and unfortunately I see students everyday made fun of because of those differences. Again, the distractions caused by the teasing in and out of the class setting distract all learners, disability or not. Why are students with disabilities being made to have their likely already low self esteem further destroyed? Particularly when it seems their educational needs could be better served by highly trained professionals along side other students that share similar learning disabilities. It has gotten to a point where I can’t decide if we are mainstreaming students with disabilities for societies benefit or theirs.

The rampant political correctness that oozes from our modern society says that it is necessary and right that all students are entitled to the same educational opportunities. As stated I completely agree with that line of thinking. The frustrating thing for educators is that the society and lawmakers who create the plethora of regulations and laws we are made to follow do not seem to be in our current educational reality. I think that if they were to spend any time within a classroom they would quickly realize that their want for complete equality for marginalized and disabled students has actually created a system that has become unfair and often harmful to the majority.

uhhhh....

Since I tend to want to laugh rather than cry, I hope you laugh and enjoy the following story rather than focusing on the sadness of it. This past Monday (Memorial Day) the students had to attend school until 11:44 to make up for a snow day earlier in the winter. Every student in the entire county, town, and school at which I teach knew that they were being released from school at 11:44...except for one student.

Beginning one minute after this student entered my homeroom class, he asked me at least 4 times, "Mr. Styron...do we get out of school today at 11:44?" To which I replied every time he asked, "Yes!"

Later in the day, my homeroom students came back to me before being dismissed for the day. Despite the fact that this student had asked me at least 4 times that morning about early dismissal, and despite the fact that I had the schedule written on the board literally 5 ft. in front of his face the student asked me the following question at 11:36...

"Mr. Styron...do we go to 7th period today?"

Please understand that he was completely serious, which is the sad part of this story. My only reaction was to stare at him for what seemed like 2 minutes, before I had to force myself to walk away for fear that I would pick up my computer monitor and pummel myself to death with it. Since the first day of school I've have been trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with this student, and/or what planet he is from as he seems to not be able to comprehend either things that fall under the realm of common sense or the English language.

For those wondering, this student has no known exceptionalities or identified learning disabilities.