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catalysts for writing
catalysts for writing
Explore your thoughts and opinions regarding something happening in the media. Mrs. Paulsen's Entry: 25 October 2014 Peace Talk: Ending the Violent & Silent Masculinity Narrative This week, during discussion of the dangerous intruder protocol to prepare for drills, I asked a question: Have you ever been held at gunpoint? The surprising answer from two of my girls was yes. In both situations, they were very young children, in the presence of their mothers, when a husband or lover came to their door with a gun. One was too young to remember it, but she has heard the story multiple times in the family. The other was eight years old. To protect her mother, she stood in front of the gun her father was pointing. My point in asking was to remind students to take the training seriously because I assumed they did not have prior experience. I was wrong. This lesson could not be more sobering. Today, I am thankful: that my students are safe and that our dangerous intruder drills on Thursday were just drills. I am thankful that, unlike first-year teacher Megan Silberberger, I have never had to run toward bullets in the course of my teaching day. I am thankful to be alive. I am also troubled. Troubled by my students' lack of seriousness during drills. Troubled by the story of the young shooter, Jaylen Fryberg, and his victims. Troubled by the words "I'm fine." There are many other words and images on this young man's Twitter account likely to cause a stir, particularly the sexual content, as well as the volatile mood swings. We still don't know the whole story, and we may never make sense of it, but these are the words that are festering. I've been teaching teenagers for a long time, and my husband and I have been together even longer. I have three younger brothers and many male cousins. My son is eleven. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I'm a careful observer. I've heard this phrase uttered more times than I can count. In my totally unscientific experience, females who say this usually follow up with elaboration on why they should or shouldn't feel "fine." In general, they verbally process how they are feeling. Because society encourages this. What it usually means, when uttered by males is some variation of: "I'm angry, confused, embarrassed or ashamed, and I don't know what to do about it. Talking about my feelings is a sign of weakness, so I'm going to handle this on my own. I don't want you to think I'm weak. I don't trust you." Society also encourages this. Sometimes, the phrase actually means what it says. The trick is in figuring out which meaning applies. And then, what, if anything, is within your sphere of influence to respond.
Now, I'm not a counselor, and I don't pretend to be one, but I AM a caring adult. I've watched a lot of students, male and female, swallow their pain over the years. Often, I know more about a student's emotional state than the parents do. Sometimes, I know more about a student's emotional state than they know themselves. Behavior choices, body language, and tone of voice are signals to which all good teachers are attuned. But some are such masters at hiding, they fool us--and themselves. A few years back, I had two senior students, we'll call them Jeff and Jane, in my creative writing class who had been dating for two years. They were both attractive and smart, popular and witty. In the middle of the semester, I heard rumors about their breakup, nothing dramatic--a mutual decision, but I wondered how it would affect the class dynamic in a tight learning community of just eighteen students. For the first couple of days, class went smoothly, and everything seemed "fine." But I noticed that males and females both were very solicitous of Jane's feelings and openly discussed how she was coping with this major change. No one, not even his closest friends, talked to Jeff in this manner. Jeff would occasionally linger for a private word or two with me before going to lunch, so I asked him to stay a minute on the third day. I pulled up a chair next to his and asked, "You seem like you're doing okay, but how are you really holding up?" The tears welled up in his eyes immediately, and he dropped his head in his hands. "You're the first person to ask, Mrs. Paulsen." Three days! I was SO ashamed for not asking on the first day. For the next fifteen minutes, I listened to his isolation from his parents and longing for connection to them, to his fears about the future, to his confusion about Jane, to his increasing feelings of separation from his peers. I wonder how many of my students are hiding heavy burdens. How many are "fine"? I wonder how many of my students go three days without anyone asking them how they're feeling, and how many of them would give an authentic response. I missed an opportunity to teach the whole class a valuable lesson about gendered communication. And for two days, I missed the cues that Jeff was feeling awfully alone. But on that day, for Jeff, it was enough that I asked and listened. Maya Angelou said, "The loss of young first love is so painful, it borders on the ludicrous." When I think about my student standing between her parents and a gun, I think how many adults are not equipped with the emotional intelligence to face the pain, grieve a loss, and move on when it comes to love. I think about my two seniors who struggled to grieve their loss, without malice, but still groping their way in the dark unknowns of the human heart. Today I am thinking of a troubled young man who loved (at least in his mind) and lost in ninth grade, who chose the all-too-common murder-suicide ending to the love triangle in which he appeared to be tangled. And I am thinking of his alleged former love, dead on the cafeteria floor, their senseless and preventable deaths lingering in my consciousness. Could this happen at my school? Odds are: Yes. What messages are teens hearing about love, sex, violence, and gender to counter the media's narrative of violent and silent masculinity? If we don't speak up to influence the teens around us with a counter-narrative, the list of shootings will continue. And in the words of Prince Escalus at the end of Romeo & Juliet, "All are punished."
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Quick Brain Spill of Moments I Don't Want to Forget Since Thursday (9/8/14):
Disorderly Conduct--My Personal Writing Challenge
13 September 2014 (originally written) "I found her like this, Dad." Tommy's voice drifts into my consciousness as he gently lifts my hand off the keyboard and shuts the laptop. I open my eyes and he's leaning over me in full Boy Scout regalia. There is a smile twitching in one corner of his mouth and his hazel-green eyes are soft with affection. They are striking, like my mother's. My heart melts twice every time I see them. "Mama, you were sleeping at the computer again." I struggle to surface to full brain power, eyes fluttering heavily, as Chuck wanders in to the living room, the same twitching smile in the corner of his mouth, blue eyes bright and piercing even in my drowsy state. "Up to bed, Jen." I must be hallucinating. Is Chuck dressed in a Scout uniform?! While he is a fantastic leader, he has always refused to conform, consenting only to the t-shirt. I croak, "What are you wearing?" He poses like a JCPenny underwear ad. "You like? I'm very stylish." I'm not hallucinating, but now I wish I was. I was looking forward to the mental space of a couple hours to write while Chuck and Tommy were at Boy Scouts. And I promptly fell asleep around 7. Before I could even start the entry. Tommy woke me up at 9:30. Once I was finally upstairs in bed around 10, sleep eluded me. I tossed and turned, writing in my head, fingers itching for the keyboard. So I snuck back downstairs to the computer around 11 and started writing this. And the record of my falling-asleep-typing is below as Exhibit A. I don't know why I am compelled to save it. Perhaps because it says, "I came, I wrote. It was gibberish because I have a sleep disorder. See?" You may have thought I was exaggerating in my last entry--a little hyperbole perhaps--by leaving in the gibberish. You may have thought I was manufacturing it for effect. It's honestly what I typed. I have two sleep disorders. It makes it hard to function as a teacher, much less mother and spouse. So, it is a beautiful Saturday morning. And I'm finally finishing this entry. This week, I hope to write every day without falling asleep. Photo Credit: http://www.conecomm.com/sleeping-at-the-internet-wheel -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exhibit A kjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 'fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo aeeeeeeeeeeee wneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk myuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu 9999999999999uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu wekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkklllllll kddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddlllllllllllllllllllllllllllll |
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