Against School--John Gatto

As I read through the article, Against School by John Gatto, I couldn't help but think of a few of the other articles we have read or talks that we have heard this quarter on education. Gatto and Sir Kenneth Robinson concur that the educational system as we know it was formed in response to the Industrial Revolution because we needed workers to make industry happen. The system we know emphasizes math and language as a measuring stick for how well we are educated and so much of what  happens to us is a result of this weeding out process. Those who are good at math and language, or who are at least good at figuring out the game of school, move through to the top and become the bosses of those who did not fair as well. Yet, that is not a true indicator of intelligence or ability. The way we measure lacks the ability to measure character and creativity. In school we are not educated, we learn how to go to school and conform. 

Also, when Gatto writes about the selective function of schools I thought about the first part of Mike Rose’s article, I just wanna be average, and how the boy just wanted to be average. Gatto uses Inglis’s break down of the purpose of school and states that, “schools are meant to tag the unfit--with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments--clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive process”. Being average you are not at the total inferior bottom, but you do not have the pressures of being at the top. 

Mentors: Passion, Expectations and Personal Interest

Lisa Miller

Dr. Sonia Apgar Begert

English 101 

26 February 2013

Mentors:  Passion, Expectation and Personal Interest

Teachers play important roles in the lives of their students. Wearing many hats, they do far more than present a lesson. Over the course of the day a teacher may play the role of educator, ally, confidante, disciplinarian, protector, health expert, counselor or advocate. The teacher who can successfully navigate these roles with passion and high expectations while taking a personal interest in their students sets the stage for a learning environment that allows the teacher to guide or mentor their students. The role of mentor goes beyond teaching a subject, they provide guidance and support while inspiring their students to reach for more than they thought they were capable of. The role of mentor is the most important role a teacher can play in the lives of their students and though Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson teach in very different schools they are both excellent examples of this.

Great teachers are passionate about teaching; they teach because they want to. Though we are not explicitly told why Mr. Escalante chose to teach, we can assume that it was a choice that he made because he had passion to do so. Early in the movie, Mr. Escalante is taking the garbage out to the curbside and while there he visits with a neighbor. The neighbor is surprised to hear that Mr. Escalante is now teaching and surmises that Mr Escalante must have gotten laid off instead of this career change being a choice that he has made. This passion spills over onto his students as he works to draw out their “ganas” or desire. He says to them, “You already have two strikes against you. There are some people in this world who will assume that you know less than you do, because of your name and your complexion. But math is the great equalizer… You’re gonna work harder than you ever worked before. And the only thing I ask from you is ‘ganas’”. By checking in with them about their “ganas” he was creating an atmosphere where everyone was ready and wanting to learn.

Likewise, Ms. Watson taught because she had a passion for teaching. In the opening voiceover we learn that Katherine Watson had “all her life, wanted to teach at Wellesley College. So, when a position opened in the Art History department, she pursued it single-mindedly until she was hired.” Ms. Watson came to Wellesley because it was the top women’s college in the nation, she wanted to be a part of an institution that turned out tomorrow’s leaders. She came to Wellesley because she wanted to make a difference. However,  her first day was a disaster. She introduces herself and the syllabus and begins to show the slides of pieces of art. As she does, in turn, the girls call out the name of the piece and it’s importance without being called upon. They had very smugly showed that they had done the reading, memorized the details and were able of regurgitating the information. By doing so they had rudely taken over the class. The following day, she surprises them with a whole new plan. She introduces art work that is not on the syllabus and asks the girls to look at the piece and consider it without knowing anything about it. In this way she regains control and begins to teach them to think for themselves. She asks them to “look beyond the paint” and “let us try to open our minds to a new idea”. At first the girls are frustrated by this and are not really sure of what she is asking of them, but as the year wears on they begin to dig in and consider new ideas and have meaty discussions about art and what they think. As word gets out about Ms. Watson and her class, interest is generated and a demand develops for her class the following year. 

Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson both have high expectations of their students, yet their expectations are in conflict with the expectations of the schools where they teach and the student’s parents. Mr Escalante teaches high school math at a barrio school in East Los Angeles where the students are not expected to be high academic performers. It seems that the only expectations for the students is that they would finish high school and go on to get a service type job. It is quite shocking for them to have a teacher like Mr. Escalante who sets up the structure of the class and makes it clear that if you come to class, you come prepared and you participate; no exceptions. By establishing this type of structure in the class, the students begin to learn and develop confidence. On a field trip he takes his students to some type of plant where his neighbor works, there are computers everywhere and the kids are enthusiastic. There he learns that his neighbor’s daughter is using a computer program at her school to learn calculus, which gives him the idea to teach calculus to his students.  When he lets the head of the math department know his intentions, she objects because she thinks that he is creating a situation where the students will only be disappointed and their hard work will be for naught.  His response is that “they will rise to the level of expectation”. He figures out a schedule that will bring the students to the level they need to be at to take the AP calculus exam. His doing so creates tension amongst himself and the faculty. This also challenges the expectations of the students parents. One girl’s mother questions why she would do this because, after all, “boys don’t like you if you are too smart”. 

Ms. Watson’s expectations for the girls also collided with those of the faculty and the students’ parents. Wellesley College accepted only the brightest young women in the nation and had very strong sense of tradition that connected the current students to those who had gone to Wellesley before; this was a very elite group of women. Yet, these traditions came with a cost.The cost of fitting into those traditions is to squelch your own sense of creativity and uniqueness in order to fit into roles that have previously been set and expectations that have nothing to do with your own hopes and dreams. Joan’s editorial of Ms. Watson made it very clear that by challenging the girls to look beyond and consider something new, she was “disregarding the roles they (the girls) were born to fulfill”. In this case, these roles were to marry and be housewives versus to further their own educations and have careers of their own. It is in this tension of tradition and expectation that Ms. Watson led by example, proving herself a great educator and mentor who was true to herself and compelled others to look beyond:  “To seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image”.  In this way she made the difference that she had sought to make when she arrived at Wellesley.

By taking a personal interest in their students, both Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson create a relationship of trust. When Mr. Escalante learns that one of his brightest students, Anna, will be dropping out of school to work in her families’ restaurant, he goes to the restaurant and petitions her father to allow her to stay. Mr. Escalante convinces him that Anna is smart and that after completing high school and going to college she will be of greater help to him than any work that she could do for him at this time. In the end, Anna received a 4 on the AP calculus exam and was making plans to go to college, the first person in her family to do so. Similarly, Ms. Watson goes the extra mile when she learns that Joan is interested in going to Yale Law school by getting her an application and helping her to fill it out. Though Joan was accepted, she chose not to go, but to marry instead. Knowing that Ms. Watson believed in her and giving her the courage to apply to Yale meant a great deal to her. Even though she still chose to take the path that had been laid out for her, she closely looked at and considered another option before making her final decision, something that she would not have done had it not been for Ms. Watson. 

Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson are two teachers who are excellent of examples of the most important role that teachers play in the lives of the their students; the role of mentor. Both teachers have passion, high expectations as well as a willingness to be personally involved in the lives of their students. More than just teaching a particular subject, teachers who are mentors teach their students about life and challenge them to be the best they can be.

Rough Draft #2 Paper #2

Teachers play important roles in the lives of their students. Wearing many hats, they do far more than present a lesson. Over the course of the day a teacher may play the role of educator, ally, confidante, disciplinarian, protector, health expert, counselor or advocate. The teacher who can successfully navigate these roles with passion and high expectations while taking a personal interest in their students sets the stage for a learning environment that allows the teacher to guide or mentor their students. The role of mentor goes beyond teaching a subject, they provide guidance and support while inspiring their students to reach for more than they thought they were capable of. The role of mentor is the most important role a teacher can play in the lives of their students and though Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson teach in very different schools they are both excellent examples of this.

Great teachers are passionate about teaching; they teach because they want to teach. Though we are not explicitly told why Mr. Escalante chose to teach, we can assume that it was a choice that he made because he had passion to do so. Early in the movie, Mr. Escalante is taking the garbage out to the curbside and while there he visits with a neighbor. The neighbor is surprised to hear that Mr. Escalante is now teaching and surmises that Mr Escalante must have gotten laid off instead of this career change being a choice that he has made. This passion spills over onto his students as he works to draw out their ganas or desire. He says to them, “You already have two strikes against you. There are some people in this world who will assume that you know less than you do, because of your name and your complexion. But math is the great equalizer… You’re gonna work harder than you ever worked before. And the only thing I ask from you is ganas.” By checking in with them about their ganas he was creating an atmosphere where everyone was ready and wanting to learn.

Likewise, Ms. Watson taught because she had a passion for teaching. In the opening voiceover we learn that Katherine Watson had “all her life, wanted to teach at Wellesley College. So, when a position opened in the Art History department, she pursued it single-mindedly until she was hired.” Ms. Watson came to Wellesley because it was the top women’s college in the nation, she wanted to be apart of an institution that turned out tomorrow’s leaders. She came to Wellesley because she wanted to make a difference. However,  her first day was a disaster. She introduces herself and the syllabus and begins to show the slides of pieces of art. As she does, in turn, the girls call out the name of the piece and it’s importance without being called upon. They had very smugly showed that they had done the reading, memorized the details and were able of regurgitating the information. By doing so they had rudely taken over the class. The following day, she surprises them with a whole new plan. She introduces art work that is not on the syllabus and asks the girls to look at the piece and consider it without knowing anything about it. In this way she regains control and begins to teach them to think for themselves. She asks them to “look beyond the paint” and “let us try to open our minds to a new idea”. At first the girls are frustrated by this and are not really sure of what she is asking of them, but as the year wears on they begin to dig in and consider new ideas and have meaty discussions about art and what they think. As word gets out about Ms. Watson and her class, interest is generated and a demand develops for her class the following year. 

Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson both have high expectations of their students, yet their expectations are in conflict with the expectations of the schools where they teach and the student’s parents. Mr Escalante teaches high school math at a barrio school in East Los Angeles where the students are not expected to be high academic performers. It seems that the only expectations for the students is that they would finish high school and go on to get a service type job. It is quite shocking for them to have a teacher like Mr. Escalante who sets up the structure of the class and makes it clear that if you come to class, you come prepared and you participate; no exceptions. By establishing this type of structure in the class, the students begin to learn and develop confidence. On a field trip he takes his students to some type of plant where his neighbor works, there are computers everywhere and the kids are enthusiastic. There he learns that his neighbor’s daughter is using a computer program at her school to learn calculus, which gives him the idea to teach calculus to his students.  When he lets the head of the math department know his intentions, she objects because she thinks that he is creating a situation where the students will only be disappointed and their hard work will be for naught.  His response is that “they will rise to the level of expectation”. He figures out a schedule that will bring the students to the level they need to be at to take the AP calculus exam. His doing so creates tension amongst himself and the faculty. This also challenges the expectations of the students parents. One girl’s mother questions why she would do this because, after all, “boys don’t like you if you are too smart”. 

Ms. Watson’s expectations for the girls also collided with those of the faculty and the students’ parents. Wellesley College accepted only the brightest young women in the nation and had very strong sense of tradition that connected the current students to those who had gone to Wellesley before; this was a very elite group of women. Yet, these traditions came with a cost.The cost of fitting into those traditions is to squelch your own sense of creativity and uniqueness in order to fit into roles that have previously been set and expectations that have nothing to do with your own hopes and dreams. Joan’s editorial of Ms. Watson made it very clear that by challenging the girls to look beyond and consider something new, she was “disregarding the roles they (the girls) were born to fulfill”. In this case, these roles were to marry and be housewives versus to further their own educations and have careers of their own. It is in this tension of tradition and expectation that Ms. Watson led by example, proving herself a great educator and mentor who was true to herself and compelled others to look beyond:  “To seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image”.  In this way she made the difference that she had sought to make when she arrived at Wellesley.

By taking a personal interest in their students, both Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson create a relationship of trust. When Mr. Escalante learns that one of his brightest students, Anna, will be dropping out of school to work in her families’ restaurant, he goes to the restaurant and petitions her father to allow her to stay. Mr. Escalante convinces him that Anna is smart and that after completing high school and going to college she will be of greater help to him than any work that she could do for him at this time. In the end, Anna received a 4 on the AP calculus exam and was making plans to go to college, the first person in her family to do so. Similarly, Ms. Watson goes the extra mile when she learns that Joan is interested in going to Yale Law school by getting her an application and helping her to fill it out. Though Joan was accepted, she chose not to go, but to marry instead. Knowing that Ms. Watson believed in her and giving her the courage to apply to Yale meant a great deal to her. Even though she still chose to take the path that had been laid out for her, she closely looked at and considered another option before making her final decision, something that she would not have done had it not been for Ms. Watson. 

Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson are two teachers who are excellent of examples of the most important role that teachers play in the lives of the their students; the role of mentor. Both teachers have passion, high expectations as well as a willingness to be personally involved in the lives of their students. More than just teaching a particular subject, teachers who are mentors teach their students about life and challenge them to be the best they can be.

first rough draft and point by point format

Teachers play important roles in the lives of their students. Wearing many hats, they do far more than present a lesson. Over the course of the day a teacher may play the role of educator, ally, confidante, disciplinarian, protector, health expert, counselor or advocate. The teacher who can successfully navigate these roles with passion and high expectations while taking a personal interest in their students sets the stage for a learning environment that allows the teacher to guide or mentor their students. The role of mentor goes beyond teaching a subject, they teach life skills and lessons while inspiring their students to reach for more than they thought they were capable of. The role of a mentor is the most important role a teacher can play in the lives of their students and Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson are excellent examples of great mentors.

Great teachers are passionate about teaching; they teach because they want to teach. Though we are not explicitly told why Mr. Escalante chose to teach, we can assume that it was a choice that he made because he had passion to do so. Early in the movie, Mr. Escalante is taking the garbage out to the curbside and while there he visits with a neighbor. The neighbor is surprised to hear that Mr. Escalante is now teaching and surmises that Mr Escalante must have gotten laid off instead of this career change being a choice that he has made. This passion spills over onto his students as he works to draw out their ganas or desire. He says to them, “You already have two strikes against you. There are some people in this world who will assume that you know less than you do, because of your name and your complexion. But math is the great equalizer… You’re gonna work harder than you ever worked before. And the only thing I ask from you is ganas.” By checking in with them about their ganas he was creating an atmosphere where everyone was ready and wanting to learn.

Likewise, Ms. Watson taught because she had a passion for teaching. In the opening voiceover we learn that Katherine Watson had “all her life, wanted to teach at Wellesley College. So, when a position opened in the Art History department, she pursued it single-mindedly until she was hired.” Ms. Watson came to Wellesley because it was the top women’s college in the nation, she wanted to be apart of an institution that turned out tomorrow’s leaders. She came to Wellesley because she wanted to make a difference. However,  her first day was a disaster. She introduces herself and the syllabus that she will be following. As she begins to show the slides the girls one by one call out the name of the piece and it’s importance without having been called upon by Ms. Watson. In other words, they took over the class. The girls had already read the required reading and memorized the information because they were in the habit of regurgitating information. The following day she comes back to class with a whole new plan. She introduces art work that is not on the syllabus and asks the girls to look at the piece and consider it without knowing anything about it. In this way she regains control and begins to teach them to think for themselves. She asks them to “look beyond the paint” and “let us try to open our minds to a new idea”. At first the girls are frustrated by this and are not really sure of what she is asking of them, but as the year wears on they begin to dig in and consider things that they had not consider before. By the end of the year they are having meaty discussions about art and what they think. As word gets out about Ms. Watson and her class, interest is generated and a demand develops for her class the following year. 

Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson both have high expectations of their students, yet their expectations are in conflict with the expectations of the schools where they teach and the student’s parents. Mr Escalante teaches at a barrio school in East Los Angeles where the students are not expected to be high academic performers. It seems that the only expectations for the students is that they would finish high school and go on to get a service type job. It is quite shocking for them to have a teacher like Mr. Escalante who sets up the structure of the class and makes it clear that if you come to class, you come prepared and you participate; no exceptions. By establishing this type of structure in the class, the students begin to learn and develop confidence. On a field trip he takes his students to some type of plant where his neighbor works, there are computers everywhere and the kids are enthusiastic. There he learns that his neighbor’s daughter is using a computer program at her school to learn calculus, which gives him the idea to teach calculus to his students.  When he lets the head of the math department know his intentions, she objects because she thinks that he is creating a situation where the students will only be disappointed and their hard work will be for naught.  His response is that “they will rise to the level of expectation”. He figures out a schedule that if followed will bring the students to the level they would need to be at to take the AP calculus exam. His doing so creates tension amongst himself and the faculty. This also challenges the expectations of the students parents. One girl’s mother questions why she would do this because, after all, “boys don’t like you if you are too smart”. 

Ms. Watson’s expectations for the girls also collided with those of the faculty and the students’ parents. Wellesley was a college that accepted only the brightest young women in the nation and had very strong sense of tradition that connected the current students to those had gone to Wellesley before. This was a very elite group of women. Yet, these traditions came with a cost.The cost of fitting into those  traditions is to squelch your own sense of creativity and uniqueness in order to fit into roles that have previously been set and expectations that have nothing to do with your own hopes and dreams. Joan’s editorial of Ms. Watson made it very clear that by challenging the girls to look beyond and consider something new, she was “disregarding the roles they (the girls) were born to fulfill”. In this case these roles were to marry and be housewives versus to further their own educations and have careers of their own. It is in this tension of tradition and expectation that Ms. Watson led by example, proving herself a great educator and mentor who was true to herself and compelled others to look beyond:  “To seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image”.  In this way she made the difference that she had sought to make when she arrived at Wellesley.

Taking a personal interest in their students and the people they are, both Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson which helps create a relationship of trust. When Mr. Escalante learns that one of his brightest students, Anna, will be dropping out of school to work in her families’ restaurant, he goes to the restaurant and petitions her father to allow her to stay. Mr. Escalante convinces him that Anna is smart and that after completing high school and going to college she will be of greater help to him than any work that she could do for him at this time. In the end, Anna received a 4 on the AP calculus exam and was making plans to go to college, the first person in her family to do so. Similarly, Ms. Watson goes the extra mile when she learns that Joan is interested in going to Yale Law school by getting her an application and helping her to fill it out. Though Joan was accepted, she chose not to go, but to marry instead. Yet knowing that Ms. Watson believed in her and giving her the courage to apply to Yale meant a great deal to her. Even though she still chose to take the path that had been laid out for her, she closely looked at and considered another option before making her final decision, something that she would not have done had it not been for Ms. Watson. 

Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson are two teachers who are excellent of examples of the most important role that teachers play in the lives of the their students; the role of mentor. Both teachers have passion, high expectations of themselves and the students as well as a willingness to be personally involved in the lives of their students. More than just teaching a particular subject, teachers who are mentors teach their students about life and challenge them to be the best they can be.

Blocking exercise for paper #2

I.  Teachers play important roles in the lives of their students. Wearing many hats, they do far more than present a lesson. Over the course of the day a teacher may play the role of educator, ally, confidante, disciplinarian, protector, health expert, counselor or advocate. This type of personal interaction, plus a teachers own positive attitude,  develops a rapport between teacher and student setting the stage for a successful learning environment allowing them to guide or mentor their students. It is the role of mentor that is the most important and Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson are two teachers who are great mentors.

1. The body

A. Mr. Escalante has passion.

1. Though we are not explicitly told why Mr. Escalante chose to teach, we can assume that it was a choice that he made because he had passion to do so.Early in the movie, Mr. Escalante is taking the garbage out to the curbside and while there visits with a neighbor. The neighbor is surprised to hear that Mr. Escalante that  is now teaching and surmises that Mr Escalante must have gotten laid off instead of this career change being a choice that he has made. 

1. His own passion for teaching spilled over onto the students to help them learn or prepare themselves for learning.Through his own passion he asks the students whether or not they have desire, or ganas; you must have ganas to learn. By checking in with them about their ganas and supporting that, he was creating an atmosphere where everyone was there because they were ready and wanting to learn. “You already have two strikes against you. There are some people in this world who will assume that you know less than you do, because of your name and your complexion. But math is the great equalizer… You’re gonna work harder than you ever worked before. And the only think I ask from you is ganas.”
2. We learn that not only is he teaching his students at Garfield High School, but he is teaching an adult english class as well.

1. Mr Escalante has high expectations.

1. On the first day of class he arrives at the high school which is a very chaotic scene. He learns that though he was hired to teach a computer class, the computers have not arrived so he will be teaching math instead. The class he is to teach is very unruly and that first day no teaching takes place. He is able to assess which level the students are at, re-groups and begins teaching math. He begins setting up the structure and expectation of the class. He makes it clear that if you come to class, you come to class prepared. If you come to class you participate. 
2. There is tension between the faculty and Mr. Escalante because he is creating expectations for their success in learning and challenging them to do more they thought possible. Raquel Ortega, the head of the math department, objects to this because she thinks that he is creating a situation where they will only be disappointed and the situation will be for nought. His response is that. “they will rise to the level of expectation”. 
3. By the end of the year, the students have risen the level of being able to take the calculus AP exam. However, this will take some preparation time over the summer in order to do so as well as time before class, two hours of class during the regular school day, after school until M-F and Saturdays 7-12. Mr. Escalante will only teach this intensive program to those students and their parents who sign contracts agreeing to the terms of the class. This challenges the expectation of parents and families of the students. One girl’s mother questions why she would do this because, after all, “boys don’t like you if you are too smart”.

1. Mr. Escalante is personally involved in his students lives; he takes an interest in them.

1. When he teaches algebra, he creatively writes story problems that the students can relate to; they reflect their lives.
2. Mr. Escalante earns the respect of Angel by showing him that he is capable. By doing so, Angel does develop the ganas, but is conflicted because he may be teased by his friends. Mr. Escalante is sensitive to this gives him extra books sot hat he doesn’t have to carry books around.
3. When Mr. Escalante learns that one of his brightest students will be dropping out of school to work in her families’ restaurant, he goes to the restaurant and petitions her father to allow her to stay. He convinces him that she is smart and that her completing high school and going to college will be of greater help to him than any work that she could do for him at this time.
4. When the students are falsely accused of cheating, he personally goes to speak with the men who are conducting the investigations. Mr. Escalante is very angry about the injustice of why they are questioning the students. The students are given the option to retake the class. The students agree to this, but they only have a one day to prepare, so Mr. Escalante once again uses his own time to help them.  He stood by the kids and believed in them

1. Ms. Watson is determined

1. Ms. Watson comes to Wellesley because she wanted to make a difference. Coming from the West Coast, Ms. Watson takes a position at Wellesley College teaching art history. Wellesley is an all women’s Ivy league school for the brightest women in the country. She is looking forward to being apart of a school that turns out tomorrows leaders. She learns that she was not their first choice of teacher, but she was available. The staff is turned off by her lack of a doctorate degree, though she is working on it, and her choice of thesis. They are skeptical of her from the beginning.
2. Her first day of teaching is a disaster. She introduces herself and the syllabus that she will be following. As she begins to show the slides the girls one by one call out the name of the piece and it’s importance without having been called upon by Ms. Watson. In other words, they took over the class. The following day she comes back to class with a whole new plan. She introduces art work that is not on the syllabus and asks the girls to look at the piece and consider it without knowing anything about it. In this way she regains control and begins to teach them to think for themselves. She asks them to “look beyond the paint” and “let us try to open our minds to a new idea”.
3. Ms. Watson comes very frustrated when she fully realizes that Wellesley is more like a finishing school than a college. There are classes on marriage and many of the activities on campus center around when a girl will get her ring and be married. Once married, there are a number of allowances for them to miss school. Betty, a married student and editor of the school newspaper, writes an editorial that rips Ms Watson apart. She states that Ms. Watson “has decided to declare war on the holy sacrament of marriage. Her subversive and political teachings encourage our Wellesley girls to reject the roles they were born to fill.” Having read this, Ms. Watson address this very boldly in class by showing advertisements of the women of the day as housewives. She says that it was her mistake, she didn’t realize that by demanding excellence that she would be challenging the roles the girls were born to fulfill.”
4. Though she was asked to return to Wellesely the following year, the conditions that the alumni board had created and the school adopted would meant that Katherine would have to change too much of who she was in oder to accommodate them and so she declined saying that, “to change for others is lie to yourself”

1. Ms Watson had high exceptions

1. Of herself. In the opening voiceover we learn that Catherine Watson had “all her life, she had wanted to teach at Wellesley College. So, when a position opened in the Art History department, she pursued it single-mindedly until she was hired. It was whispered that Katherine Watson, a first-year teacher from Oakland State, made up in brains what she lacked in pedigree. Which was why this bohemian from California was on her way to the most conservative college in the nation.” 
2. Of her students. She again and again encourages them o look beyond and open themselves up to a new idea. They were so steeped in the traditions of Wellesley that the expectations that were in place were traditions that kept them boxed into particular roles, namely those of passing through college with A’s without having to really think and getting married.  She had them word for their grades. When JOan receives a C on a paper she goes to MS. Watson and asks her why. Ms. Watson said that Joan had told her what someone else thought about the question not what she herself thought. In the end the girls were having very academic conversations about what they thought.
3. The faculty. Ms. Watson was incredibly disappointed int he faculty of Wellesley who did not expect more for the girls, but were they themselves caught in the traditions of Wellesley. In particular through the alumni association which was comprised of the girls mothers who led tightly to traditions who themselves were unable to look beyond.
4. Of her lover. She expected truth and didn’t get it, so she broke off the relationship.

1. Ms Watson is personally interested in her students

1. When Ms. Watson learned that Joan was interested in going to law school, she got Joan an application to Yale Law School and helped her apply.
2. Ms. Watson attends Betty’s wedding.
3. Ms. Watson accepts her students invitation to the AR meeting and is a good sport about answering their questions honestly.
4. Though they were unaware of it, Ms. Watson acted as advocate for the students by         heatedly challenging the dean about the expectations that the school had of the girls. 

Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson are two teachers who are excellent of examples of the most important role that teachers play in the lives of the their students; the role of mentor. Both teachers have passion, high expectations of themselves and the students as well as a willingness to be personally involved in the lives of their students. More than just teaching a particular subject, teachers who are mentors teach their students about life and challenge them to be the best they can be.

WS sections 47 and 48

In WS sections 47 and 48 we learn about enumeration, chronology and classification. Enumeration is to specifically name or mention each item, where as when you are putting things in chronological order you are saying what came first, second and third; they are said in their correct order. Each item in the chronology can have an explanation. In classification, you are making distinctions between and giving order to items and noting how they are similar and/or different from each other. For our paper these can be helpful in explaining the build up of the evidence in order of how you arrived at the conclusion that the teachers that you have chosen fit a particular role. The different characteristic of the teachers are then the classifications of them.

WS 45 and 46

WS sections 45 and 46 talk about the use of definitions in writing and writing about process. Though a common way to define a word is through a dictionary, when writing a paper about a particular topic it requires a more lengthy explanation for a term. This is called an extended explanation and is done in one’s own words. This is useful in paper # 2 as it reminds us to use our own words to define the terms we are using in describing what we believe the most important role a teacher plays is.  For instance, if we are using the role of mentor as the most important role a teacher plays, we must define in our own words what we think of when we are using the word mentor. Next, in writing about process we are describing how something works and is useful to us in this paper because we will be describing the ingredients that go into making the role that we have described. So if we are using the role of mentor, we would write about the ingredients ( passion, having expectations, etc) that we think that the teachers we are using as examples posses in order to be good mentors.

2/2 begin Paper # 2 and thesis statement homework

Teachers play important roles in the lives of their students. Wearing many hats, they do far more than present a lesson plan. Over the course of the day a teacher may play the role of educator, ally, confidante, disciplinarian, protector, health expert, counselor or advocate. This type of personal interaction, plus a teachers own positive attitude,  develops a rapport between teacher and student setting the stage for a successful learning environment allowing them to guide or mentor their students. It is the role of mentor that is the most important and Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson are two of two teachers who are great mentors.

Both Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson have a passion for teaching. Though we are not explicitly told why Mr. Escalante chose to teach, we can assume that it was a choice that he made because he had desire to do so. We watch him drive a long way from a middle class to lower class neighborhood and  through a conversation that he has with his neighbor we learn that he has held a good job;  it is unclear if he has had any precious teaching experience. At the beginning of Mona Lisa Smile we are told that Ms. Watson came to Wellesley to make a difference. Both teachers are making deliberate choices to teach in the schools where they work. Their positive attitudes reflect his choice and their passion for what they do.

more to come

brainstorming ideas for Paper #2

It's been a long time since I have been in K-12, so my memory is a bit fuzzy on the details of what I really admired about particular teachers. Also, I switched schools a lot and had a pretty disruptive home life, so I was really more concerned with surviving school than taking anything positive away from my experience. There were teachers who were better than others and there were some that were decidedly not good, but again the details are so fuzzy that I think a teacher from my own experience will not give me the material that I will need to write a paper. I've considered my children's teachers, but my experience with them is from the persecutive of a parent and somewhat limited to write a paper. I will choose the teachers from the movies that we watched in class; two teachers that I would have loved to have. I loved their passion, their creativity and their abilities to look beyond what was expected of them as faculty and the expectations that traditions had created to really teach and mentor their students. They both went the extra mile for their students did not let others compromise their visions what needed to be done. They stuck to it and followed through. I especially loved how Ms. Watson had effected her students and how she challenged them to go deep and learn in a way that they had not done before. It is was fitting that in the end the greatest thing that she taught them was to not compromise yourself. She taught them this by the way that she lived her own life. I admired both of these teachers as people.

Difference between two schools

The difference between the two schools that Jerry Large writes about in his article, "Gift of grit, curiosity help kids succeed", is that one school, KIPP, has students that are black, Hispanic and mostly poor and the other, Riverdale Country School,  is an elite school. At KIPP the students "are overwhelmed with stress-inducing conditions in their lives", while the students at Riverdale are "shielded from the possibility of significant failure". Given that a large part of character development is grown through overcoming failure, the children of Riverdale are lacking in character. Yet, the children at KIPP are faced with too much adversity and also do not have the opportunity to develop character or grit. Large describes grit, "self-control, zest, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity as being characteristics that are indicators of successful people. Finding meaningful ways to bring character building into the schools through nurture is vital for the child's success as well as for the adults providing it as well.

Boyce and Large

Both Barry Boyce and Jerry Large are advocates for developing children into whole people. With so much emphasis in our society on what we are doing, the competitiveness of taking the right classes and getting the right grades and even being at the right school,  we are often times neglecting to teach our children character and developing the kind of people they become. Though academic learning is an important piece of what a person will need to obtain a job, it is as critical to be able to "calm yourself and regulate your emotions, accurately perceive others' emotions, and empathize; listen attentively to what someone is saying, negotiate and confidently persuade; think through problems effectively while considering others' perspectives" (Boyce). By teaching our children skills that help them to successfully navigate stressful situations, we are teaching them to also be smart socially and emtionally. Often times children in more impoverished situations have too much stress which is not good, but conversely the children from middle and upper class families are too often sheltered from lifes' stresses and do not have practice in developing their character. In the balance of mindfulness and stress we find the grit that we need to develop into whole people; people who are academically, socially and emotionally smart. The people who help to teach these traits are not the sole responsibility of school teachers, but the role could be shared by parent or guardian, mentor and role model. It incorporates the idea of it taking a village to raise a child.

Roles of teachers

Of the teachers that we have become acquainted with in class through readings and movies, many play a similar roles in the lives of their students. The one that stands out as being very different from the others is Sister MPH. Sister MPH’s role in the life of Audre Lorde was strictly that of disciplinarian. She ruled the class with a heavy hand and I would say did very little educating of her pupils, rather the shame that she forced on them was what taught them. One example is her dividing the kids up into two groups, the brownies and fairies; the faries were good and the brownies were bad. She also has the Lorde sit in the back of the room wearing a dunce cap to further shame her because she had broken her glasses. In my experience, the learning that comes from shame is not long lasting, it is only the shame that stays. 

Mr. Escalante, Mr. MacFarland and Ms. Watson on the other hand played the roles of mentor, friend, ally and therapist with a dappling of disciplinarian in their students lives. All of these teachers taught because they had a strong desire to do so; it was a choice that they made. They each wanted to make a difference in their students lives and they did that by holding the bar high, challenging them to do more than they thought was possible, caring deeply for each of their students, and having high standards of themselves. 

Mr. Escalante and Mr. MacFarland

As I read about Mr. MacFarland in “ I Just Wanna Be Average” I was reminded of Mr. Escalante in “Stand and Deliver”.  Though we are not explicitly told why Mr. Escalante chose to teach, we can assume that it was a choice that he made because he had desire to do so. We watch him drive a long way from a middle class to lower class neighborhood and  through a conversation that he has with his neighbor we learn that he has held a good job;  it is unclear if he has had any precious teaching experience. Mr. MacFarland also made a choice to teach because he desired to do so even though he had not had any teachers training. Both teachers worked their students hard, or as Rose says, “he had us so startled with work...”. Though the level of expectation both teachers had for the students was high, the students in both classes could also see the level of expectation that the teachers had for themselves in teaching the classes. They were committed. Going beyond the call of duty meeting students outside of class to help them see themselves as having more than they had previously thought.  Neither teacher was deterred by someones bad attitude and any attempts to derail the progress of the class ended up making the student look foolish. In both cases the students worked hard because they respected their teacher and wanted the favor of that teacher in return.

Reactions to Mona Lisa Smile

I really liked Mona Lisa Smile. On the one hand I like the romantic notion of being apart of a school like Wellesley that has a strong tradition base that connects you to other women who have gone before you. I loved the beauty of the campus and buildings and even got a kick out of the opening ceremony. It seems that Katherine Watson might have also drawn to Wellesley for those same romantic notions. 

On the other hand those same traditions come with a cost. The cost of fitting into those  traditions is to squelch your own sense of creativity and uniqueness in order to fit into roles that have previously been set and expectations that have nothing to do with your own hopes and dreams. Joan’s editorial of Ms. Watson made it very clear that by challenging the girls to look beyond and consider something new, she was “disregarding the roles they (the girls) were born to fulfill”. In this case these roles were to marry and be housewives versus to further their own educations and have careers of their own. 

In the tension of tradition and expectation, Ms. Watson led by example, proving herself a great educator and mentor who was true to herself and compelled others to look beyond:  “To seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image”.  In this way she made the difference that she had sought to make when she arrived at Wellesley.

How are the two schools different? Similar

At first glance the schools that Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson teach at look very different, but with a closer look we see their similarities. Mr. Escalante teaches in the 1980‘s in a very impoverished high school in the Las Angeles area that has a large population of hispanic students. The families are working class and have little education. There parents hope that they will finish high school, but have no expectation of their students will continue on to college. While the school that Ms. Watson teaches at in the 1950‘s is a very prestigious all women’s college on the east coast. The students at her college are from families with a good deal of money and whose parents are also college graduates. Though the girls the girls receive good grades and it is expected that they will graduate from college, the end goal is that the girls will marry, have kids and be housewives. 

The similarities are that in the first scenes the students in both schools are disrespectful and unruly. The welcome that both teachers receive from their fellow employers is very standoffish and both teachers deal with a culture of low expectation for the students as for as how well and how far their students will go in their pursuit of education and careers.

Mona Lisa Smile Real Time Notes

• Wellesley College in 1954
• Kathryn Watson, Art history professor came from LA to East Coast.
• Came to make a difference
• Wellesley is steeped in tradition.
• looks for a place to live. Lots of rules. 
• Told by fellow teacher, Be careful, they can smell fear.
• Classroom is a small auditorium.
• All of the girls studied ahead and knew all of the answers leaving her nothing to teach. They thought that they had outsmarted her.
• One of her bosses had been watching the first class.
• Learns that she wasn't the first choice for the position.
• In a meeting at a very long table with her at one end and three of the higher ups at another. Lots of space in between. Her dissertation is being questioned, which really means that she is being questioned. She is told to have better discipline in her class.
• Later at home she learns that one of her housemates who is the school nurse is a lesbian. 
• There are claws under the white gloves--students, staff, parents and alumni.
• She changes the curriculum--outsmarts the students. She challenges them to think not just to regurgitate, to open themselves up to a new idea.
• Distribution of birth control by the school nurse is forbidden. It is still against the law to do so. The school nurse is let go.
• The students engage in some sort of strange games that look very medieval and are supposes to determine who will marry next. The already married girls play the game with a baby buggy.
• Italian teacher, Bill, gives Watson the advice that for a teacher the "trick to surviving is to never getting noticed".
• Meets up with Bill at the bar. Watson observes that there aren't many chances around here. Bill says, "depends on how well they like you in first place".
• Marriage lessons: "in a few years your sole responsibility will be caring for your husband.
• There are a lot of labels around here
• The girls are used to getting A's. Joan is upset that she received a C. Watson felt that she was generous with that C as Joan had been asked to say what she thought not to parrot what someone else thought.
• Girls don't have hopes and dreams for themselves. The purpose of a four year degree is to get married. Marriage is the goal, not education.
• Betty's wedding is a huge see and be seen affair--very society. 
• Watson challenges the girls by taking them to a studio in the village to look at a piece by Jackson Pollock. Their only assignment is to look  and consider. For this she is told to use less modern art. 
• Joan and Betty argue about Joan's application and acceptance to Yale law school. Betty doesn't look happily married.
• Watson regrets Paul's proposal. 
• Watson responds in class to the editorial written about her. She was very angry. By challenging them  and demanding excellence she didn't realize that she was disregarding the "roles they were born to fulfill".  Has a very heated argument with the dean, calls Wellesley a finishing school disguised as a college. Moves her rant to Bills class where she busts through the door saying that she thought that they would be turning out tomorrows leaders, not their husbands. 
• Joan elopes. Watson very upset that Joan not going to law school. Wants her to realize that she can do both. Joan challenges Watson to look past her perceived notions of right and wrong about Wellesley and their traditions to see that they are all not bad and that Joan is doing what she wants to do.
• alumni board meet with Dean to discuss whether or not to have Watson back. They decide that with stipulations she can be asked back.
• Discovers that Bill is a fake.
• Watson does not agree to return. 
• Girls each give her a Van Gogh paint by numbers picture to remember them by. This makes Watson question herself, but she decides that to change for others is to lie to yourself.
• Girls (Joan) viewed her as a women who lived by example and compelled others to look beyond. 

In class exercise--Stand and Deliver

1) Interestingly, many of the criteria that I had given for what makes a good teacher in a previous blog seems to be more of an ideal set of criteria versus something that is concrete. For instance, I had said that teachers should be well trained as teachers. In the movie Stand and Deliver, Mr. Escalante is a great teacher despite his lack of training. Early in the movie, Mr. Escalante is taking the garbage out to the curbside and while there visits with a neighbor. The neighbor is surprised to hear that Mr. Escalante that  is now teaching and surmises that Mr Escalante must have gotten laid off instead of this career change being a choice that he has made. Through this scene, I came to believe that Mr. Escalante has not had formal teacher's training, but what he does have is maturity, mastery of his subject and a passion for teaching his students.

2) In "What Makes a Good Teacher", Dan Brown lists ingredients that he thinks makes a great teacher. Included in these are teachers training where one can learn the craft of teaching in a situation that has a "reduced teaching load, room to experiment with my practice and access to one-on one feedback from mentors every day". Next, a school needs a great principle; someone who is supportive and provides direction and development. In the school, a teacher needs to have a spirit of collaboration with the other teachers at the school. Outside of the classroom and school, a good teacher ought to have good working relationships with their students families and be apart of the larger community. He also advises teachers to take on leadership roles as a way of helping to direct policy. To sum it up, Mr. Brown believes that "great teachers are cultivated, not anointed".

3) Though Sir Robinson does not explicitly outline the criteria for good teaching, he does challenge the educational system as a whole. He challenges us to rethink the hierarchy of what we value in education with math and language being the most valued, followed by the humanities and the arts taking up the rear. His challenge is value math, languages, humanities and the arts equally because people learn best when things are interactive and not compartmentalized. In other words, we learn best by utilizing all of our senses. He also asserts that creativity is as important as literacy. By educating people to come to the same right answer we are educating people out of their creativity because they are afraid to make a mistake or have the wrong answer versus being able to think outside of the box. He says, " if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original".

4) Mr. Escalante employs Sir Robinson's criteria of good teaching in his math classroom through the use of creative examples and creating a space where the students are encourage to try and not punished for being wrong. Early in the movie Mr. Escalante comes to class wearing a chef's hat and apron. He begins the lesson by cutting a portion out of red apples and passes them out to students who then tell him which percentage of the apple they are holding. This lesson creatively uses many senses to teach to teach percentages. Another example of his creativity is when he teaches algebra he writes story problems that the students can relate to--subjects from their real lives. The scene in movie that sticks out for me as being one where the students are encouraged to try regardless of whether they are right or wrong is in the scene where they were going to take a test and three students smugly decide that they are not going to take it. The girl, Claudia, is asked to sit in the chair at the front of the room. Upon seeing this the other two students start testing and then Claudia is allowed to sit back in her chair and take the test. Mr. Escalante wanted them to try. These are a few reasons I think that Sir Robinson who view Mr. Escalante as a good teacher.

Audre Lorde

 love all of the detail that Audre Lorde uses in her descriptions of learning to read, to talk and starting school. Her descriptions are colorful and make her story come alive.In this piece she gives accounts of interacting with three different teachers. The fist is the librarian who she describes as “immense, light, hooded eyes and a very quiet voice that said, not damnation for my noise, but would you like to hear a story, little girl?” This was very calming and the experience left her wanting to read. 

Her kindergarten teacher used shame and manipulation as a way to get Audre to do what she was wanted. An example is when she said, “Imagine that, a big girl like you. Such a shame, I’ll have to tell your mother that you won’t even try. And such a big girl!” Which does motivate her to do what she is asked because she wants to please her mother, so instead of just writing the “A” in first name she writes her whole name for which she is punished for not following the directions. Happily, when her mother learns of what has happened she comes to her defense and Audre switches schools and enters the first grade. This experience was her first dose of reality about school; “ability had nothing to do with expectation”.

Her first grade teacher was a nun whom she describes as being big and likely blonde, because although the nun’s hair was covered, her eyebrows were blonde. She also describes her as being a “disciplinarian of the first order, right after my mother’s own heart”. There was an assumption that she was to be dedicated and caring, but Audre learned that there was a difference between “caring for” and “caring about”. Through this Audre surmises that the sister either hated teaching or little children.

Through all of Lorde’ descriptions we get a look at what her first year of schooling was like. I can picture it, I can feel it, and I have a good understanding of what that year was like for her and why.

WS sections 28-30

In our textbook, “Writing Simplified” sections 28-30, we are given information that will be useful in writing our second paper. Our second paper will be a compare/contrast paper that explores educators roles. Section 28 reviews what an essay is and section 29 revisits how to begin writing an essay by planning and prewriting. Included in this is choosing a topic, being mindful of our audience and being sure of our purpose in writing the essay. Section 29 also reviews how to structure an essay; the first paragraph will introduce the topics and will include a thesis sentence that will let the reader know what the paper will be about. 

The paragraphs that follow will be the body of the paper and each shouldl have a first sentence that once again tells the reader what that paragraph will be about. The last paragraph will be the concluding paragraph that retells the thesis in a new way and concludes the paragraph without bring up any new points. 

The use of outlines is a great way to ensure that a paper has all of the structure it needs to be a success. 

In a way this is like a recipe. It is giving the basic structure that one might needs to make a dish successfully; just add creativity.

What makes a good teacher

There are many parts that go into making a great teacher. I think the starting place is that teachers must be trained well. A teachers education and competency in the subject that they will be teaching is vital but training to teach is crucial. It is not enough to be smart and good with kids. Teachers are responsible for teaching to variety of personalities and backgrounds. Liking people is important combined with having an interest in learning what makes different kids tick and how they learn is important. Not all kids learn in the same way. 

Being organized with the plan for each day and knowing the direction that they are steering the class is important. the teacher should have an understanding of their own expectations of themselves, the class and the parents and the ability to communicate those effectively. 

The assignments that are given should be realistic. I have an aunt who is a retired middle school teacher and she said that she would never assign something without she herself doing in the assignment and knowing that it was reasonable. They should also have some measure of creativity and inspiration so that the students are interested.  

Teachers ought to have good working relationships with the rest of the faculty and help to build a sense of community for the school as a whole. Ideally the principle at the school will be well trained trained, wise and supportive.

I think that it also important that the teachers themselves continue to be learners. Bringing something new and fresh to themselves and the classroom keeps things interesting. 

Malcolm X

Though the essay, "Just Wanna Be Average" told of a learning experience that I could relate too, I was really inspired by Malcolm X's "Learning to Read".
I loved reading about his desire to communicate being so strong that he chose to dig in with such depth and tenacity to teach himself to read and write. It's hard to face your inability. Malcolm X noted his when he recounted that on the street he was an "articulate hustler" who could "command attention", but when it came to writing his simple english was not effective. He quickly discovered that even trying to read in the library with the little skill that he had, was not going to work because he got stuck on too many words to make the reading a productive experience. He obtained a dictionary and copied it, word for word. This did two things, 1) he learned to write legibly and 2) he learned the meaning of words and how to use them. Once he accomplished this task, he could read. He could really read. He could read and understand and from that understanding he educated himself. When he emerged from prison people who encountered him, considered him to be a learned man. When he was asked where he had attended college, he replied "Books".

Malcolm X, Benjamin Franklin and Mike Rose

Though the essay’s that we read by Malcolm X, Benjamin Franklin and Mike Rose all describe a learning experience in each of their lives, they are writing in different times and come differing backgrounds.

Malcolm X is black man who was a civil rights leader in the 1960’s who had dropped out of school in the eighth grade. We read his essay “Learning to Read” which tells how he learned to read and write while in prison. He was frustrated by his inability to communicate effectively in the letters that he wished to send to those outside prison; especially to Elijah Muhammad. Spurred by desire, he developed a plan to teach himself; a task he performed with abandon. Not only did he teach himself to read an write at a remedial level, he became a learned man that was one of the “most articulate and powerful leaders of black America”.

Benjamin Franklin on the other hand, came from a white, well to do family who valued education which was not just learning from a book, but learning a trade. He stated that he can not remember when he could not read and at the age of 8 began his formal education. At the age of 10 he stayed home to learn the family business while working with his father. His father spent much time with him looking at different trades that might suite him and become his vocation. All the while Franklin loved books and had access to them. He found a friend that he enjoyed exchanging letters with on topics that they would argue for the fun of it. His father happened upon these letters and was able to offer helpful criticisms on how his writing could be improved. Franklin’s father was very much a part of his educational experience. He had the family support that neither of other two men had.

Mike Rose writes in the 1980’s of his educational experiences in high school from he perspective of a child of working class immigrant parents. Unlike the other two writers, he finished school. However his parents were trying to learn the ropes of a new country and busy working to provide for the family’s basic needs and were unable to adequately prepare and support him in his education. As a consequence he was placed in the remedial classes with teachers who were unprepared to see the potential in their students. Rose saw many of his classmates fall through the cracks and begin to embrace their status, to not do so was too painful.

Through each of these men’s writings we get a peek at a educational experience that was significant to each, yet how they were all so different from the others.

Final Draft--How I Learned To Live

Lisa Miller

Dr. Sonia Apgar Begert

English 101

29 January 2013

How I Learned To Live 

In life, there are times we face certain situations or challenges that cause us to pause and examine the course of our lives, giving us the opportunity to live our lives differently and hopefully for the better.  Not long ago I faced one such challenge. 

On a day like any other day, I went about getting the kids to school and went to take a shower and get on with all that I needed to do for that day. As I showered, I felt a funny bump about the size of a hard pea between my right armpit and breast. I did not think it was a big deal, but it was a bit weird so I went to the doctor to have it checked out. I had hoped they would say it was nothing, not to worry. Instead, they sent me to have an ultrasound. A few days later I went in for a biopsy. I do not know how to describe how I already knew that it was breast cancer, I just did. Everyone that I had told was sure it was nothing, it will all be fine. Two days later I was in the doctors office with my two friends waiting for the results. As my doctor told me that I did in fact have breast cancer, I just sat there. What do you do? What do you say when you have just been told you have cancer? My friend to the left of my held my hand and cried. My friend on my right asked the questions. I sat there speechless, yet already knowing. 

I was 39,  young for a breast cancer diagnosis. I had no family history of breast cancer or any other form of cancer for that matter. Three weeks before this my husband had filed for divorce. I had two small children, aged 8 and 11. We were in the middle of a major remodel; our 90 year old house was jacked up so that we could pour a proper foundation and update all of the plumbing and electrical. We were living in the one bedroom apartment above our garage. Outside our yard and driveway were nothing but mud as everything was torn up by work trucks bringing materials and we were preparing for new landscaping. Needless to say, the whole of my life felt as though it were coming apart. How I described that time in my life is that it felt like someone had put all of my life in a brown paper bag, shook it up, dumped it out and said, "ok now put it back together". 

Fortunately my breast cancer diagnosis is one that is very treatable. I had stage 1 invasive ductal carcinoma with no cancer in my lymph nodes. The tumor itself was estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor positive which meant that it used these two hormones to grow.  Which meant that my treatment options were very good. I had surgery to remove the tumor and at the time of the surgery they dissected the lymph nodes closest to the tumor and found that they were cancer-free. A sample of the tumor was sent away and tested to determine the likelihood of reoccurrence. The results came back very good; only a 7% chance that the same cancer would return. This test helps to determine recommendations for treatment. Because my risk of reoccurrence was so low, chemotherapy was not recommended. After I had healed from my surgery, I underwent seven weeks of radiation therapy and began taking tamoxifen, which acts as an estrogen blocker in breast tissue, a hormone therapy that I would take for five years. Though there are side effects I was able to deal with them without much hassle. 

The first day of radiation therapy I sat in the patient waiting area wearing one of those really ugly hospital gowns. As I looked around, I noticed just how ugly the waiting room was, nothing warm, inviting or happy. It just reminds you that you are sick. Because radiation is every weekday for a several weeks, you tend to have appointments at the same time each day, waiting with the same people who are also waiting for their appointment.  The woman that I waited with had Alzheimer's. Day three of this waiting room experience I looked at my friend who was with me and said, "I can't do this, this is depressing, I have enough to be depressed about, I don't need more". I determined to think of a way to make this experience doable. My friend and I had used a lot of laughter up to this point, but I was wearing thin. As I laid on the radiation table, contemplating my alternatives for making treatment bearable, I came up with a plan. I would bring a party with me several times a week. I would bring the happy and give myself something good and fun to think about. 

The first time was the funniest as the radiation technicians treating me were unsuspecting. I had decided to do themes and with each theme I would wear sort of a costume under my hospital gown and bring food for the staff that matched the theme. I had to keep things simple because I need to easily take the costume off and receive my treatment. The first theme was naughty housewife. I had baked a coffee cake and went into the treatment room and put down my things, I slipped off my robe and turn to face the technicians holding my cake in a provocative stance in my naked girl body apron. They laughed so hard. I had the desired effect; we had a party. I brought in a party three times a week, soon all of the staff in the department were walking by the treatment room during my appointment time to see what I had brought. This gave me something positive to focus on and cheered many other people as well.

Even though I had figured out a way to go through treatment in a way that felt good to me, I still need to sort out the rest of my life. As I looked at the pieces that came out of the paper bag, the question that I was struck by was: did I want the same life that I had been living put back together? I knew that I wanted to live, I knew that I wanted the best for my children, but what is it to live? As I exercised on my elliptical trainer, I had an ah-hah moment. I considered a good long life to be eighty-plus years of which I was on thirty-nine, so roughly half. As I looked back over the first half, which had had a lot of turmoil, I determined that I did not want the remaining forty to be the same as the previous. I needed to change how I lived. Though I knew that I would survive cancer, I wanted to do more than survive, I want to live, to really live. Yet, I needed to determine just what that meant. What does it mean to really live? I reasoned that one thing that it meant was to be intentional. How many times do we say “someday”? I needed to decide how to turn someday into today. I made a list of all of the things that I had been talking about learning and wanting to do, the places I wanted to see, people I wanted to visit or connect with and hung it by my computer in my home office. This keeps me mindful of those things and when I see an opportunity to do one of them, I seize it. I  try to do one of the items on that list between scans, which until recently was every six months. I try to keep a mixture of both big and small things. As I do one of the items, I lightly draw a line through it. I love to see all of the things that I have done. The list has included knitting an afghan for myself, walking along the beach out to the lighthouse at the Dungeness Spit in Sequim, being in a dance performance, going back to school, canning jam, going to yellowstone with my family and learning to fly fish. To celebrate my being five years cancer free, my new husband, kids and I toured Norway this past summer.

Though I would never wish cancer on any one and would have preferred not to have had cancer, I have chosen to see this as an opportunity to do life differently. I choose to live. Not just in the biological sense, but take things in, enjoy, be intentional, explore, take risks. Cancer for me became an opportunity to learn to live.  

Stand and Deliver

• As he drives to work the scenery changes. He leaves his middle class neighborhood and arrives in a much poorer neighborhood. Things are dirtier, buildings in disrepair, graffiti--just a different vibe.
• He enters the school for his first day on the job teaching. He walks into the office where there are police officers taking a report. There had been some break in. There was graffiti on the walls and feces in different places. 
• He was hired to teach computers and when he arrived to do so, he discovered that there weren't any computers and that he would be teaching math instead. 
• The classroom itself is pretty bleak; just the basics. 
• The students were unruly. There was a mix of hispanic, bilingual students and white. One kid reading with chaos all around.
• At the end of the day, he goes out to his car to find that it had broken into and his stereo was missing.
• Uses cut apples to illustrate percentages.
• Doesn't let student not answer. Believes in him and finally gets him to answer. 
• Students in a gang.
• In the classroom he uses problems that the students can relate to-- the content in the story problems.
• He connects with the students and earns their trust. 
• The rest of the staff have given up. 
• "They will rise to the level of expectation"
• Home lives of students varied, but in all there wasn't a lot of support for the students academics or true expectation that they would do well and succeed. The parents have a lack of hope and imagination for the kid's futures. 
• He is fearless: breaks up fights, confronts parents, doesn't go with status quo with the other staff.
• He is caring and fatherly--Claudia.
• His enthusiasm for teaching took him away from family time.
• Heart attack.
• school didn't find a substitute teacher that had any math skills to teach while he was out.
• His car was stolen, so he walked home.
• He and the students were frustrated when accused of cheating. They hadn't. Assumption that because of where they were from, they couldn't possibly have done as well as they did on the test. They were discriminated against. They worked so hard, but nothing was changing. Helplessness.
• All kids proved themselves by passing the test a second time. 
• He got his car back with a new paint job.
• The students did well because someone believed in the them and took the time to do what needed to be done, so that they too could see their own potential.
• A legacy was begun and for many years that follows other students also succeeded in math at that school because of that one teacher.

best and worst teachers

oh gosh this is hard. Big jumped to go back to K-12. Let's see. I'm going to start with worst teachers, because I seem to have a great deal more of them and can remember their impact more easily. I had a history teacher in high school who was a very nice man, but as far as teaching was concerned, he was lacking. He had begun his career when my father was in high school and ended it shortly after I had graduated. He was the baseball coach and was much more concerned with his coaching, team and baseball field readiness then he was with teaching class. I had this man two or three times in high school. He was not inspirational in the least. We were assigned reading that he never checked. The assignments that he gave and we did and were never given back with comment or grade so we had no idea how we had done. I think that there may have been tests, but I don't recall them being a big deal. He didn't lecture or lead discussion. In civics class he let my friend and I bake a cake that was decorated as an American flag for our final project. We received extra credit for going out to the baseball field during class time. Bummer because I really like history and I didn't learn anything in his class. I do hear that he gave his AP class more effort. Sad.
The best teacher was probably my high school biology teacher. Her was strict, but was very clear with his expectations that were realistic. There was a sense of order in his class. He had a good sense of humor. He too had taught my father and myself, but he still had lots of enthusiasm. He was caring, but not a push over. He explained things well. You got the sense that he had a passion for his subject, he cared about the students and he enjoyed teaching.