Community Curriculum Building #SOLC26 29/31

My mind keeps going back to Sherri’s post from earlier this month. In it, she quotes abolitionist organizer Mariame Kaba who says, “Knowing who to be mad at truly is praxis.” Sherri follows this quote with a number of questions we might consider when we think about our anger. In my comment I suggested that I should put them on a poster and have them next to my desk.

After venting my spleen yesterday about the frustrations of teaching with no textbooks and little content guidance, I started thinking about Kaba’s statement again: who should I be mad at truly? Whether or not I should be mad at them, I realized that I’ve been targeting my anger at “the system” or, more to the point, “the government” and then joining in the chorus of cries about intentionally underfunding education.

And look, probably “the government” should be providing more money and guidance here, but Jessica’s comment on my post reminded me that the opposite of no guidance can be far too much guidance. Very few teachers appreciate mandated programs – and sometimes these programs can be harmful (think of the mandated programs that did not use research-based ideas for teaching reading; think of the mandated programs now that only use part of the research). Glenda reminded me that even lists of suggested titles can function to place some ideologies over others. While I know these things, it was good to be reminded again that the solution to these problems is not easy. Lisa reminded me that this isn’t just happening in one place or at one school level.

I thought about these things on the way to the gym and, later, while I planned this week’s classes. My brain circled back to this as I texted my student teacher and then walked the dog. Eventually, I went back to Sherri’s post to re-read the questions she had posed as she thought about Kaba.

What is this about?
What’s at stake?
Who is involved and impacted? In which ways?
How am I contributing to this issue?
What is my role?
Who is harmed? By whom?

My brain noodled away over dinner. My ah-ha moment came when I realized that every time I’ve written about school this month, people have commented on the strength of our school community. They’re right: we have a great community. I also deeply value community, and one of my goals as a teacher is helping students feel confident about participating in society to the extent that they choose. These questions ask me to use my anger and frustration not to pull away from others, but to be in relationship with them.

Community, at its best, builds. I am contributing to the issue right now by pretending that I have no agency. And, while I cannot allocate more funds to education or create a curriculum coordinator position at the school board, I can still change my contribution to the issue. So… once March is over, my next challenge will be to reach out to English Dept Heads at high schools in my board and begin a spreadsheet that shows what we are currently teaching at various grade levels. I will ask if others want to coordinate to create a sort of internal what/ when/ why of texts we teach. I can share my criteria for choosing texts and see what others use. We can pool our knowledge to create flexible lists of texts that respond to students from all of our schools. I can use my frustration to make change. And if we, the teachers, create this content, we might be able to create something that is both useful and flexible.

The worst that happens is that it doesn’t work. The best that happens is that community – this writing community, the community of friends and colleagues who commented on my post, the community of teachers around me – creates something that serves students more effectively and helps teachers feel empowered and less alone. There is potential power in this; I’m pretty excited.

Is the textbook dead? #SOLC26 28/31

The first I hear of his plan is when he pops in to pick up something he has printed for a class, and I ask how his classes are going. I haven’t seen him in a few days, but that’s not surprising: he’s a new teacher with a full load of courses, and I know that’s tough. Still, he cheerily tells me all is well, then, in passing says, “So, about Hamlet: I think I’m just going to sort of, you know, touch on the main points and cover it in two weeks. You ok with that?”

I am not.

I have many layered reactions to his casual statement, but I also need to help another teacher set up for our provincial Literacy Test and then set up my own classroom, so I defer the conversation, suggesting that we meet soon. For the next few days, I consider what I want to say.

Nothing in our curriculum tells us to teach Hamlet. In fact, we have no required texts at any grade level. Our school board has not endorsed or purchased any French textbook series – or any textbooks at all. Instead, we are given the freedom to choose what to teach as long as we assess students based on the provincial curriculum.

For some teachers, this is a dream. Complete freedom? Entirely up to the teacher? Wow! What respect! What trust! Imagine being able to meet your students where they are, being able to respond to the needs and interests of the students in the classroom. We could address bias head-on! We could re-shape what we teach! It sounds amazing, and I truly agreed with this perspective for a long time, but recently, I’ve been reconsidering this supposed freedom.

A few weeks ago, the Toronto Star ran this article (with a clearly AI generated image that already betrays their bias).

The article – which is behind a paywall, so I can no longer access it or share it here – begins by weighing the pros and cons of paper textbooks (hint: they’re expensive and hard to update), but a) it seems to assume that we are possibly using electronic textbooks (we are not) and b) then quickly shifts to noting that, without textbooks, no one really knows what any one class is learning. There’s no continuity from classroom to classroom much less from year to year. In my experience, this is true – and it’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Let’s start with French instruction as an example. I do not currently teach French, but I did for many years, and it’s a required course through grade 9 in Ontario. In grade 9, most high schools have a mix of students from several different middle schools. What did they learn last year? No one knows. With no textbooks and no clear year-to-year expectations, teachers are left to figure out what their students already know and what to teach them next. If we’re lucky, each school has a scope-and-sequence – but the only requirement to follow that is collegiality. If a middle school has more than one French teacher, the students from one school may arrive with different knowledge. Some years, I taught students who had studied animals, family members, colours and daily routine every year for four or five years. What should I teach next? Whatever I felt like.

Imagine, however, that a miracle occurs and the students all begin with a similar level of knowledge. Now, the teacher needs to a) decide what to teach next and b) create all the practice activities to help that learning occur. Every single one. No textbooks help guide this choice. A new teacher might find a mentor and get some guidance; AI might make worksheet creation a little easier – but really, the teacher is responsible for determining what comes next and how to teach it.

I don’t want to shock anyone, but there’s good research available about effective language teaching. In fact, (some) textbooks even use that research. And there are reasonable resources available for teachers to use to support their students – but when the school boards stop buying these resources, individual teachers are left to create them over and over on their own – or to purchase them from other teachers online. School boards save money; teachers pay. And that’s just French.

Where I teach, the science, math and geography textbooks are old, and there is no money for updated sets. I suppose we could offer students online textbooks, as the article suggested, but our board generally doesn’t approve subscription services (often required for these textbooks), and even if it did, not all of our students have access to Chromebooks or computers.

Luckily, English departments can just, you know, teach books. Right now, what limits our instruction is a) the books in our book rooms and b) what we, as teachers, have read. Unfortunately, because no books are required or recommended by our province or our school board, every bookroom has different books available. A teacher in their first few years of teaching who is still bouncing from school to school (standard in our board), may have to teach different books every semester, even if they are teaching the same grade level. What if they’ve never read that book before? Well, they’d better get reading. This explains why the young teacher I was speaking with just taught grade 12 students three short stories that my own children read in grade 8. There are *millions* of short stories out there, but to teach them you have to know about them. Instead teachers are left adrift, thinking not about how to teach certain texts or themes but rather what to teach. And, of course, the richer the school community, the more comprehensive the book room – which leads to an entirely different set of inequities.

Still, I don’t want to pretend we have no money: many years my school gets some money to purchase books that “reflect the students’ lived experiences.” This sounds great but is actually quite complicated. For example, I’m a department head, age 54 and an avid reader. For as long as I’ve been keeping track (and yes, that predates the internet), I’ve read an average of about a book a week. For the past ten or so years, I’ve read about 100 books a year – age along puts me literally thousands of books over a teacher who is twenty years younger than I am, if they read the same amount. Not to mention that I have my own reading preferences (no horror, thank you very much) and no one buys my books (well, except the public library – hooray for public libraries!) or pays me for my reading time. Every time our school has money, I am left to sift through titles to find books that are the right reading level, age range, length, topic and “lived experience.” Plus, of course, I need to find books that other teachers will actually teach. There’s no list of suggested books or set of criteria to help me with these decisions. I’m on my own, trying to determine what books students at our school should have available to study in their classes. What is students’ “lived experience” in a school where 60% of students speak a language other than English at home? where nearly 30% are new to Canada? How about in a school that both has the highest housing insecurity in the board AND encompasses several wealthy neighbourhoods? Whose lived experiences do I prioritize? What stories should we offer? (Fear not: I’ve developed my own criteria.) And, when I do make the decisions I am asked to make, I am left open to the attacks the article discusses: I can be vilified as a teacher activist who is deciding what students should learn based on my own priorities.

Let’s go back to the young teacher who has just told me that he plans to teach Hamlet in two weeks. He has been teaching for nearly seven months. This semester he has his first grade 12 English class – along with two other new classes to teach. The curriculum doesn’t require Hamlet, but, then again, it doesn’t require anything. We have some beat up old copies of Hamlet (donated to us from the richer school down the street), and he’s read Hamlet so he’s at least a little familiar with it. Has he read the other texts we have available? Probably not. Brother, The Book of Negroes, and Washington Black are all good books, but even though he’s deeply committed to equity, they’re not books he’s prepared to teach. And the school year doesn’t slow down.

Two days after that moment at the copier, we sit down to chat. I ask what his goals are for the two week unit (he sees it as a bridge, a moment when the students encounter hard text and realize they can make sense of it with some effort); I ask why he chose Hamlet (he wants to give them something hard AND something that will provide them with a toehold into a cultural dialogue they might not have encountered yet; he wants them to be proud of their understanding); I ask why two weeks (he has big plans because he is young and enthusiastic – I envy the students in his class who have a teacher with this energy) and who his students are and what he wants them to get out of the class and the text and… we talk for nearly 30 precious minutes. In the end, he realizes that Hamlet probably isn’t a two-week text for 12th graders. We make a different plan. It’s imperfect, and I will have to ask other (richer) schools for copies of the (still *extremely* traditional) book he’s chosen, but it’s more doable.

Meanwhile, every other grade 12 English class in the school will study Hamlet. Some of our students will read three of Shakespeare’s plays before they graduate; others will read none. Some of them will read books that, apparently, reflect their “lived experiences”; some will read all classics. Despite our departments’ best efforts, in French, some students will learn colours and animals again, and in English, some will read the same short story they read in middle school. Throughout the school, teachers will try to piece together what their students know, should know, need to know… then we will stay up late creating worksheets and handouts and slide shows that we used to get from a (deeply imperfect) textbook. Some of us will do the calculations and spend our own money on information other (tired) teachers have created.

Sometime in May, the board will tell the principals then the principals will tell the teachers that our biggest expenditure is on photocopying. We will be chided and told to be more aware and to print only what we need and to offer more things online. But no one will buy any textbooks. Apparently it’s saving the province money.

Truth-telling #SOLC26 26/31

The older I get, the more I enjoy meeting caregivers at conference night. (We used to call them parent-teacher conferences, but “caregiver” makes more sense – tonight I met a host parent/ guardian, several parents and an uncle – and also a very cute younger brother, but he was not a caregiver.) I especially enjoy when students come with their caregivers and we can chat together about how things are going. I love opening with compliments and watching people’s faces light up. I love asking the students to talk about what they’ve learned. I love learning more about each student and seeing how they interact with those who love them. Sure, it’s exhausting to do all of this after a full day of teaching – and with a full day of teaching ahead – but it’s usually worth it.

As you can see, however, my enjoyment is predicated upon compliments and discussions of learning – but not every student is making the kind of progress that will move them towards their goals. If things aren’t going particularly well, I am usually a fan of the compliment sandwich: good thing, slip in the complicated bit, good thing. This plays to my predilections: I have a penchant for looking for the good in people, especially if those people happen to be in my classroom. Still, I knew that my last conference tonight was going to be different: I needed to tell the parents the truth that their hard-working, loveable child needs extra support.

When I was younger, I probably would have danced around this issue a bit more, but I’ve been doing this for too long to fool myself. I’ve read this child’s school records and seen their progress through old report cards. This year, I’ve been working with them since September, tracking their reading fluency and comprehension: they started well below grade level and they’re not catching up in the way that I had hoped. I’ve sat with the student’s work for a long time, wondering what I can offer to support them. I can’t figure it out. The student is hard-working and enthusiastic, well liked by teachers and resilient enough to have overcome some of the bullying they endured in middle school. They play sports and have friends…but the truth is that I don’t see how a regular classroom with a regular number of students can support the growth they need. I’ve made suggestions along the way, of course, but tonight I had to tell the truth.

I could have spent the whole conference telling their caregiver how wonderful they are, and as the conference continued I kept coming back to that idea, but I reminded myself both before and during the meeting that the best thing I could offer was the truth. So, while I softened the data with phrases like “just a snapshot” and “may need more time” I still shared the data. When the student proudly pulled out their notebook to show their growth in writing – and they have grown! – I complimented the increase in volume, then took a deep breath and pointed out the spelling and grammar that made it almost incomprehensible. I did the same as I shared the books the student has been reading – far far below grade level.

Looking in the eyes of the people who have raised this child and telling them that they need more help than I can give them was hard. I felt sadness and a little shame – why can’t I fix this? Have I worked hard enough, tried enough strategies, offered enough support? I know that I have truly given this child everything I can in the confines of the classroom, but my heart only barely believed that when I sat in the conference.

Still, I told the truth – and then the real miracle occurred: their caregiver nodded and said “thank you.” And then, with the student as part of the discussion, we started talking about specific strategies that they could use at home. The caregiver took notes. The student seemed genuinely excited about strategies that might work. I was able to talk about ways to measure growth and outcomes. We agreed to try something, then speak again in a few weeks to see if things are progressing. I felt the same thing I often feel in the conferences I love: a sense of community. Here we were, teacher, caregiver, student, working together to set a goal and work towards it. And look, none of us are expecting miracles, but a little truth-telling might at least have set us all on a path towards improvement rather than stagnation.

After that conference ended, I chatted for a while with a colleague and let my brain and my heart settle. I hope that in the end the family went home feeling the same sense of community that I did. I hope that we can work together to help this child become a stronger reader because that is something they desire. And I know that with each conference like this, I become a little better at telling truths.

Friday, Third Period #SOLC26 16/31

The door would not open. After spending most of lunch working to make the plans for this class just a bit more interactive – they were already fine, but I wanted better – I had nipped upstairs to the photocopier before the first bell. A few early birds were arriving as I left, so I called, “Be right back!” as they filed in and I rushed out. And I truly was right back – maybe three minutes had passed and the second bell hadn’t yet sounded when I found myself facing unexpected resistance from my own classroom door.

This was not good. I (mostly) affectionately call my after-lunch grade 9 class the “Chaos Crew.” I’ve written about them before, most recently because this group of anything-but-work students chose Romeo and Juliet as a better alternative than anything I had planned to teach. It’s a full-inclusion class, so there are only 18 students, and the kids vary widely on every metric you can imagine. At any given moment, a lot is going on. At this moment, someone was preventing me from opening my classroom door.

I announced myself loudly and pushed harder. The door gave suddenly. Two students stumbled back. Others were on their feet. Voices overlapped at various volumes. Amidst the chaos, I registered important information: a student who has been the target of relentless low-level bullying (mostly not in my classroom) and a student who I have suspected since late September as a primary bully had nearly come to blows. I was not impressed.

My teacher-voice was clipped: “Sit. Down.” I addressed the class while pinning the two perpetrators in place with my eyes. The others moved. “Do. Not. Move. From your seats.” They stilled. The push-in support teacher had not yet arrived, but the sheer chaos had alerted another colleague and she was already at the door, ready to help. “You two. With me.” I turned on my heel and moved towards the door.

“But, Miss, I didn’t do anything,” the whining began. “It was him.”

I had no patience for this nonsense. I whipped around and said, “I didn’t ask if you did anything. I told you to come with me.” The bully complied. The bullied had taken up his defensive stance: threatened, he turns himself into an immovable mountain and refuses all verbal or eye contact. Unphased, I said to the bully, “With me.”

“But he started it! You can’t just leave him here!”

“I can and I will. What happens with him is no concern of yours. With me. Now.”

He complied. As we passed my colleague and the support teacher (who had come running), I nodded toward the mountain-child and whispered, “Help him get to the office, too. If he won’t move, call admin.”

The bully spat excuses all the way to the office door. A VP saw us coming, took one look at my face and said, “I’m on it.” As I hurried back to the classroom, I saw the second student coming, escorted by my colleague. He, too, told me that it wasn’t his fault. I ignored him.

In the room, students were tittering and laughing. The minute I walked in, they started defending their friend – the bully. I shut the door firmly and walked to the front. My face must have been tornadic because when they saw me, they all stopped talking. And then I tore a strip off of them. In fact, I tore several strips off of them. I do not remember the last time I have been so angry at a group of students. It might be never. Because, of course, the bullying hadn’t been just this one time. It never is. Last week, five boys had been suspended from their math class (same group of students, alternating days with English class) for their behaviour towards this same child. Two more freely acknowledged that they would have been suspended had they not been in the bathroom or talking to the teacher – aka in trouble. By my count, that means 8 of 18 are actively involved in this ongoing situation. The other 10 are either encouraging this (3 or 4, it’s hard to tell), trying to ignore it, or hiding so that they’re not next.

Until Friday I had not witnessed a single send-to-the-office offence. Once, in late September or early October, I had spoken one-on-one with two students and insisted that they change their behaviour or risk phone calls home. Both boys were vaguely contrite; both were careful not to be caught again. Both, of course, continued. Bullying is wildly frustrating to catch. It’s easy to see a wad of paper land, but much harder to see who threw it. It’s easy to catch the reaction when the targeted child finally lashes out; it’s hard to catch the provocation. I can talk to students one-on-one or in a group, but in the end, they have to change and, in my experience, they rarely do.

But they might now. To say I was livid on Friday is an understatement. I told them I was ashamed of them, that I was embarrassed to teach them. I told them that this was the very definition of bullying, that people who behave in this way are cruel. I told them that if my child were accused of doing this, my heart would be broken. When ring-leaders claimed that they had done nothing and shouldn’t feel bad, I offered to call their parents and invite them in. I said I would happily sit with them while they explained to their parents precisely the kind of nothing they had done. When someone smirked, I reminded them that they were smirking because they were unkind. I said, “after this class, when you laugh in the hallway because ‘Ms Potts went crazy’, I want you to remember that you are laughing because you are unkind.” Again, someone insisted they had nothing to do with this – someone who definitely had a lot to do this. “You’re right,” I said. “You’ve done nothing. You’ve never laughed when your friends did this. You’ve said nothing mean or cruel about [your peer]. When your friends behaved badly, you stood up and said, ‘lay off, man – he doesn’t deserve that.’ Right?”

I spoke for maybe three endless minutes, and finished my tirade with this, “Every one of you who is thinking that this is not about you needs to take a long hard look at who you really are because way back in September, you had a choice: you could have chosen to lead with kindness. Any person in this classroom could have said hello, could have offered to help, could simply have been polite. You could have led with kindness but not one of you did. Imagine what this class could have been if only you’d made a different choice.”

And then I asked them to open Romeo and Juliet. As you can imagine, they did. One child had tears in their eyes. Slowly, slowly, we made our way through the next scene. I did nothing exciting or interesting with it. We just worked. Twice a student started to lose focus. Twice, I stopped and told them that I was no longer entertaining students’ arguments for their own limitations. The second student sheepishly asked what that meant. I explained that I refused to believe that the students in this class were particularly incapable of learning, that I *knew* they were smart and capable, and that I would spend every minute I had with them until they graduated from high school to insist that they could both learn and be kind. I got a quick nod in reply.

Slowly, over the rest of the period, they decided that Romeo is possibly an idiot (they are not pleased that he starts the play in love with someone who is NOT Juliet), that Paris is “a creep” and that Benvolio might be the coolest of the characters they’ve met so far. At least he seems like fun.

As they worked, I checked in on some of the students and left some others alone. The student who had been teary simply said, “when you said to imagine the class if we’d been kind, I realized that it could have been beautiful.” By the time class ended, the emotions in the room were mostly cooled. As the students left, some stopped to thank me. A very few stopped to apologize. My co-teacher paused on her way to her next class to congratulate me.

Once everyone was gone, I closed the door and cried.

Friday, Second Period #SOLC26 15/31

Some of the grade 12s have already found their seat before the students from period 1 have entirely cleared out, but somehow the bell still sneaks up on us. As the announcements play, I observe that a lot of students are wearing green and comment out loud before remembering that today is “fake” St. Patrick’s Day since the real one falls during March Break this year. One thing leads to another and soon we are looking up St. Patrick and why people celebrate St. Patrick’s day. Didn’t he drive something out of Ireland? Rats? Cats? (Snakes. It was snakes – though that part’s a legend.) Why do Canadians care if someone drove snakes out of another country? Umm… they don’t.

Our conversation meanders and morphs and I point out that the Irish were considered highly undesirable when they first came over, and talked about how many nationalities and ethnicities struggle, even today, to find a foothold in a new place. Yes, even in Canada. Somehow the idea that Irish people were considered “nonwhite” comes up, and students are shocked. I disabuse them of this – the idea that Irish people were ever viewed as entirely non-white is pretty clearly false – but they are puzzled by the idea that race could be so malleable. I take a deep breath.

Soon, we are talking about the idea that race is not, in fact, a purely biological construct, that what societies notice and separate and categorize as different races changes over time. No matter how many times I have explained this, the idea is always hard for students to take in. Today, I am able to use the wide array of skin tones in the classroom to show that “white” makes no sense. We all agree that I am “white” but my skin is clearly not the palest in the room. From there, I move to my family – are my niece and nephew white or Latino? The answer is obviously both, but when they move through the world, they will likely be viewed as one or the other. From there, I move to the author Lawrence Hill, who has generously shared his family background with his readers. We talk about the “one drop” rule and the labeling of humans as “quadroons” or “octaroons.” The students have questions.

At one point, someone asks if I see gaps between how Canadians understand race or racism and how Americans do. Now that is an interesting question. I give it some thought. One thing about Americans – at least when I lived there – was that we couldn’t pretend that slavery hadn’t existed. Canadians too often like to think that we did not benefit from the enslavement of human beings. We did. I tell my students today that I gave up teaching Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes a few years back when I tired of my annual attempt to convince that one recalcitrant white kid that slavery really was that bad. Like… sir, allowing an enslaved human being to learn to read and write does not negate the fact that you consider them property. My current students are horrified. We talk about how much has changed in the last 15 years, the last 40 years. I tell them about how I was raised “not to see color” and how I had to learn that whiteness too often obliterates other perspectives. Eventually, I tell them that I need us to move on, that we’ve got plenty to think about for a while, and we settle in for some quiet reading.

I use reading time to check in with various students. Did they feel heard? Did I miss something? One student calls me over and thanks me – no one ever talks about this, she says. I thank her and ask her to bring up anything that needs to be discussed in the future. Another student asks what books I have that address these issues. I pull Stamped from the Beginning, Homegoing, Beloved… she and her friend start thumbing through these, eventually choosing different books and sliding them into their backpacks to read over break. The class calms and breathes. We’ve gotten off topic – how did wearing green lead us to slavery? I muse – but I believe this digression was well worth it.

After reading, we begin our first Socratic Circles of the semester. “Does walking away constitute meaningful action or is it merely an escape?” In groups of 8, fishbowl style, the students engage in thoughtful discussion about justice, utilitarianism, cowardice and whether or not anyone has the right t make decisions for others. Every student speaks. Everyone is engaged. It is a minor miracle.

Just before the end of the class period, I show students the “graphs” of each discussion. We talk about how good discussions allow everyone to participate in their own way while making sure that everyone feels welcome. It’s ok to talk more or less, to indicate agreement by leaning in or nodding. This class has done exactly that. When I point this out, one student counters with, “Yeah, but like six people were absent.” True, but I’ll take the wins where I can get them. When the bell rings, I tell them honestly how incredibly impressed I am with them.

A few linger to discuss books (“Hear me out, Miss. What would you say to teaching Catcher in the Rye after Hamlet?”), but most head off to lunch. I am tired but elated. What an amazing pre-break class.

Basic kindness

“Mom,” he says, “there’s some lady outside who needs water.”

Mr. 17 is back from soccer practice, standing in the front hall, holding an unfamiliar water bottle.

I blink. What?

“She was going to use our hose. She was walking down our driveway. She seems really thirsty, so I told her I’d get her some water.”

Our house is not large, so he’s already in the kitchen by the time he finishes this uncharacteristic rush of sentences. I hear ice cubes clink against metal, then running water. He lopes back towards the front door, screwing the lid onto the water bottle.

Before he goes out, he pauses and runs a hand through his sweaty hair. He looks at the water bottle in his hand and looks at me. “Do you have maybe $5 we can give her, too? So she could buy some water or something? She seemed really thirsty. Everybody should have water, you know? It’s like, basic.”

I nod, find my wallet, and hand him $5.

“Thanks, Mom.” He hugs me, takes the water bottle and the money, and disappears out the front door. I catch a glimpse of him handing someone the water. She has certainly seen hard times. Seconds later, he’s back inside, saying, “Oh, I’m going to [my friend’s] house. They’re waiting outside. I’ll be home later.” He looks around for a bathing suit, finds a towel, and he’s gone.

And I’m left, quietly stunned.

My children don’t follow the news. I wish they did, I guess, but the news these days is so often unsettling that I don’t push. Sometimes at dinner, we bring up various topics for discussion, but mostly our teens are happily ensconced in a world that is immediate to them. Mr. 17 probably doesn’t know that right now the world is arguing about who is or isn’t providing aid to people in Gaza, pointing fingers and laying blame while allowing children to starve. I doubt he’s seen the images that make my stomach hurt. He certainly doesn’t know that I was just talking to a friend about feeling helpless, overwhelmed and almost constantly unsettled. And yet, when someone was in our front yard, thirsty, he got her water and gave her a little more than she asked for. He did it without even pausing. I am stunned by his easy kindness, by his clear statement: everyone should have water.

Worldwide solutions are, of course, far more complicated than this interaction; but really, the idea that everyone should have water (and food) seems like a reasonable place to start.

I bought you a book

She had grade 9 English with me and, though it’s hard for me to believe, she’s in grade 12 now which means we’ve been smiling at each other and saying hello in the hallways for three years. In seven weeks, she’ll graduate, yet it was only a few days ago that I realized I’d never told her the story.

Oddly, I’ve told a lot of other people the story: how we were both new to the school; how she was quiet but eager; how she finished reading a book then asked me shyly if I had any books about Asia. She didn’t even ask for something set in Bangladesh – her home country – just anywhere in Southeast Asia. Oh, how I wanted to say yes! I scoured my bookshelves – my classroom library suddenly seemed so paltry – but I could only come up with one, and it didn’t really fit: it was really about a girl living in the US who was dealing with issues of sexuality. The 14-year-old in front of me wasn’t ready for that book; she wanted something that reminded her of home.

I was sad to have to tell her that I didn’t have anything, really. We found another good book, and she continued to read, but I couldn’t shake my disappointment. I looked online to find books about Bangladesh. I checked out Samira Surfs from the public library – too young, too refugee-focused. I found books set in Pakistan, books by white authors, books for adults…

As the school year continued, I had to confront a sad truth: my classroom library was designed for a different student population. At my new school, the books I had didn’t reflect the students in the room. I knew I needed to address the problem, but I also knew I needed money to do it.

At this point, I applied for a classroom library grant from the Book Love Foundation (founded by Penny Kittle). I asked two senior students to write me a recommendation; they also helped me with my video. And then… I won a grant! Oh, the books I bought – books set in places around the world. Sports books and fantasy books and realistic fiction. Graphic novels and novels in verse and memoirs with main characters from places my students knew and I did not. And yes, a book set in Bangladesh.

By the time the books came in, she was in grade 10 and our paths rarely crossed, so I didn’t think to tell her what she had inspired. Last year, I barely saw her at all. This year, though, our schedules overlap, and I see her often. And this year, I finally realized that I’d never told her about the books. So, last week I told her. She was startled. She didn’t remember asking for a book and she was surprised that I remembered where she was from. She blushed a little and we went on our way.

Then, a few days later, there was a knock at the classroom door. Could she come in? Could she see the books? I showed her what I could find on the shelves, but I had to laugh: so many of the books that I would have offered her if only I’d had them then – Amina’s Voice, Amina’s Song, Amira and Hamza, The Last Mapmaker – weren’t there because they’re being read by current grade 9 students. Still, I showed her Saints and Misfits, and Love from A to Z, and The Patron Saints of Nothing – and listen, it’s not perfect, but oh how she smiled.

Three years later, her request and the Book Love grant have changed everything.

(If you are interested in information about applying for the grant, feel free to reach out to me – though honestly the link has all the information; if you are interested in donating to the foundation, please don’t hesitate. All kids deserve to see themselves in good books!)

Thank you, Sen. Booker

One thing about writing later in the day is that sometimes I can catch an unexpected moment that might otherwise slip by. Tonight, I am writing in the moments after Senator Cory Booker broke the record for longest floor speech set by Strom Thurmond in 1957. While I realize that many people in the US and the world will not know or care that this has happened, or maybe they won’t recognize how impressive this is, Andre and I called the boys into the living room so we could watch this historic moment as a family.

While Senator Thurmond, a segregationist, spoke to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Senator Booker is speaking “with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able…because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.” As I write, he is still speaking, still saying important things, still imploring citizens to pay attention as he speaks in protest of “actions taken by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.”

Here in our house, Mr. 16 is in the middle of research for an essay on the historiography of the Civil Rights Movement, so he knows that, despite the way we often speak of it as mostly the actions of small group of leaders, it was truly a movement of everyday people, of mothers and fathers and workers and students. He is beginning to understand that ordinary people have power when they work together. He is, I hope, beginning to understand true citizenship. It’s hard for them to imagine, I think because my children have never known a world where a Black man cannot be president or where they cannot date or befriend or marry whomever they wish. My children believe that people are inherently equal and understand that while racism exists, it is something we can and should push against. It’s hard for us to remember how much has changed in a short time.

Cory Booker is speaking to draw attention to the fact that President Trump’s administration is rolling back many rights and bringing into question many others, to point out that many of their actions are unconstitutional. Around the world, we are seeing similar autocratic movements and democratic backsliding, and it is, frankly, frightening. Even writing this with an eye to publishing it on my little blog makes me nervous: we know that immigration agents are now asking people applying for a visa to provide their usernames for social media platforms. I’m a US citizen, but I live outside the country. Will I be allowed back in if I voice dissent? Some will scoff at the question, but Sen. Booker’s speech is part of what ensures that I will be – and that my children, half Canadian, half American – will be, too.

I took a picture of the kids watching Sen. Booker as he set the record. Mr. 14 declared the moment “not picture-worthy” and I am, unsurprisingly, not allowed to share it. Maybe my children will be right: maybe this moment will not be that important because civil rights will never be called into question again. Maybe we’ll forget the picture and the moment and the feeling of crisis that has led to it. Even if we do, Sen. Booker’s feat will help us remember that American ideals of justice and equal rights are foundational – “all men are created equal” – and worth fighting for. He will help us remember that ordinary people are the ones who have to stand up. Hopefully, tonight, my children heard that message; hopefully, other people did, too.

Dinner conversation, outlined #SOLC25 27/31

We went out for burgers with our kids tonight to celebrate a birthday. The Works isn’t fast, but their burgers are delicious. While we waited for our food, we talked; when the burgers came, we kept talking. Once we were home, I was stunned to look back on our meandering conversation and to realize how interesting I find my teenage children. When did they get this curious about the world?

I can’t possibly write it all up, so I’m taking (more) inspiration from Sherri and trying an alternative format. Here’s an outline of we discussed:

Andre’s run today
1. his longest since pre-children
2. how far the rest of us have run
  1. I have run the farthest (yes, I’m bragging)
What the Bank of Canada does
1. The state of the internet when Andre worked for the Bank
2. It was rudimentary
Why the drama teacher was late to class
1. This is unclear
2. Maybe she was creating a seating plan?
3. She still does not know the names of everyone in the class
  1. It is six weeks into the semester
4. She now has pictures of the students with their names
  1. It’s not obvious that this is helping
When the next set of article summaries is due
1. Monday
2. This will require good time management
Camus
1. He is an existentialist
2. This was not required reading
Jesse Thistle
1. He spent a lot of time in his memoir recounting his experiences with addiction
2. He met his wife after he got clean
  1. Because falling in love with an addict would be hard
  2. She was from the same town he was
  3. They now have children
Being cancelled
1. Is it being cancelled if, like Joseph Boyden, you misrepresent yourself?
  1. Did Joseph Boyden actively misrepresent himself or did he not understand the gravity of what he was doing?
Race – biological or cultural?
1. The idea of race as a cultural construct is very difficult to fathom
  1. It’s hard to see culture when you’re in it
2. Andre and I provided (frankly) thoughtful examples
  1. The children were unconvinced
  2. But they listened
Why Google’s AI summaries are untrustworthy
1. Which teachers have discussed this in school – mostly English and Social Science teachers
2. hilarious examples from our children
Tariffs
1. Why targeting the auto industry might be effective or ineffective
2. Why countries are or are not banding together to oppose the US
Illegal actions by the current US President
1. Including interfering in private industry, like specific law firms
2. Also telling a university that its students cannot wear masks during protests
  1. Which seems a bit much
Group chats
1. Signal vs WhatsApp
2. Why would you add a journalist to a government group chat?
3. Why would the US bomb Yemen?
  1. Who are the Houthis?
The efficacy of protests
1. Some of these seem deeply ineffective to the children
  1. One protest was declared “annoying”
2. The children are not convinced that protesting Israel/ Gaza is effective – on either side
  1. Institutions outside the affected area have financial interests in what is going on
    - Including weapons
Civil disobedience
1. Examples from Gandhi & India
2. The US Civil Rights Movement
  1. Rosa Parks was effective
  2. Perhaps we need to watch some movies about this because it sounds really interesting to the kids

Dinner ended.
WHEW!

Par, pars, parsh, parch #SOL24 6/31

“Hey Mom! Can you come help with my English writing?”

I’m supposed to be doing my own writing – this writing, to be precise – and I’m still knee-deep in grade 9 projects, but he knows I won’t say no. Mr. 13 is an excellent writer – effective vocabulary, interesting sentence structures, good grasp of punctuation – and he is dyslexic. Years of Orton-Gillingham-based tutoring means that he reads well and knows how to make good use of extensions like Grammarly or Language Tool, but when push comes to shove, he still benefits from a once over by someone who’s not dyslexic. Also, he knows I like to read what he writes.

He’s reading his sentences aloud under his breath as I plunk down next to him. “Um… I need a word for like ‘kind of was related to the point but not 100%.'” My eyes widen as I try to figure out what on Earth he’s talking about. “Oh!” he snaps his fingers, “got it: partially!”

He types parsley.

He keeps going, then circles back to fix it. Parshly. Spellcheck suggests harshly as a replacement, so he changes it to parchly – and the new suggestion is archly. “Um, Mom?”

“Partially means ‘in part’ so it starts with the root part,” I say.

“Part isn’t really a root,” he interrupts. Then, “sorry.” He would know. He knows Latin and Greek origins of words; he understands spelling rules in ways I have never had to.

I laugh, “Just start with part.” He does. I break the word down orally so he can hear all the syllables, then I spell. “Now i a l…” I pause because he is looking at me like I have two heads. Finally, I reach over and type the word.

He stares for a long second, then shakes his head in wonder. “There is no way that word looks like /parshully/. I would never have guessed that.”

And he wouldn’t have. Which is why I was so angry last night when I found one of his old math tests where the teacher has circled his attempt at the word “isosceles” and written “Really???” with multiple question marks. He brushed it off – “I mean, she did tell us we had to be able to spell all the terms” – but she doesn’t see how hard he works to spell these words.

But now he’s moved on and is enthusiastically excoriating someone’s weak debate argument. He doesn’t need me again until the end, when I do a check for capital letters and other words that spellcheck didn’t get. This time, he’s mostly good. I ruffle his hair and head back to finish my own work.

I wish all teachers could understand his truth – the kind that looks good on the surface but is working awfully hard to stay afloat. “Isosceles,” I mutter, and his exasperated voice trails behind me, reminding me to let it go. “Mom!”