Clubbing: Reader Style

It was our first meeting and we stared at each other anxiously.  We all loved the book, but who would start and what would we say?  Even though we all knew each other and were comfortable together, the discussion lurched in fits and starts as everyone cautiously shared their thoughts on the book.  Out of the five of us, I was the book club veteran, having been in different clubs in the past and am currently in four others (a logistical feat), and our unease confounded me.  At all of my other book clubs we just started talking about the book; it was an organic process, a grown-up Socratic Seminar where we built upon each other’s ideas.  There really weren’t any “rules”, I thought.  However, once you call something a “Club”, even if it’s just in name only, “rules” are implied, like “no boys allowed!”.  Our meeting lacked liveliness because I assumed we’d just start talking; the other members weren’t certain what to do.

Book clubs should be organic– they are a wonderful venue for discussing ideas, learning from others, and building bonds.  They are also like Christmas: each book a surprise that leads to new interests and perspectives (although some books are the equivalent of receiving scratchy underwear from your grandma).  But they are also made up of people– as varied as the books that are read– and for this reason, there are some “rules” to having a successful book club.

Logistics:  

1. Getting Started: It’s easy!  Invite a group of friends, select a book, set a date, determine a location, bring some food, and voilà!  You have a book club.  No applications, W-2s, or blood tests necessary.

2. How Many?: Anywhere between 5-7 members is good.  This way if a couple cannot show up, there are still enough members to have a discussion; if all show up, everyone will still have enough time to share. (Although, the summer the last Harry Potter novel was released, my friend Jessica and I had a book club of two as we reread all of the series and crying when it was all over.)

3. How Often?  Most meet once a month, but one of mine meets about every six weeks or so.  Make sure there’s ample time to get and read the book.

4. Setting A Date: There a couple of ways to do this. My art book club meets the first Thursday of each month and whoever can make it shows up.  Selecting a specific day each month may work for your group.  My other groups decide at the end of each meeting, so we can check our calendars.  One word of wisdom: once you set a date, keep it.  If someone can’t make it, they can’t make it.  If everybody can’t make it, then reschedule.

5. Where?: Anywhere!  Open up your home.  Meet at a coffee shop.  Have a picnic in the park.

6. Communication: Select someone to be the coordinator.  The coordinator is the one who sends out the email reminders to the rest of the group.  If you are not the coordinator, please respond to the coordinator’s emails or texts.  A terrific website for book clubs is Bookmovement.  It is a website that shows what other book clubs are reading, provides ideas and an “e-vite” reminder for all of your members.

7. To Theme or Not To Theme?: Some book clubs are based on themes or genres. I belong to an art book club and read all kinds genres about art.  One of my friends belongs to a club that only reads memoirs; another to one about politics and current events.  The benefit of a theme group is that it caters to a specific interest of which each member is knowledgable.  Together they increase their knowledge and can compare one author’s ideas to another’s.  My other clubs read anything and everything.  This is a lot of fun, because we don’t know what the next book will be. Our interests are so disparate, but we are connected through our love of reading and learning.

Discussions: 

1. Read the book (it helps!):  Remember this is a BOOK Club, not a Wine and Cheese Club (although wine and cheese are lovely accouterments).  Sometimes life gets in the way, and finishing the book is just an impossibility. It happens.  When this happens, still attend the meeting (because the other members still want to enjoy the pleasure of your company),but have something to say or ask.  Sometimes the book is a dud or something you want to use for target practice.  Read it anyway.  The cloying and saccharine Memory Keeper’s Daughter, the dense and convoluted Tiepolo Pink, and the second-person present-tense Wolf Hall were all struggles to read, but having finished them gave me much more to say.

2.  Determine how your discussions will be run:  Will the person who suggested the book be in charge of leading the discussion or will it be a free-for-all?  Out of the two, I favor the free-for-all.  Many of the members like to “nerd out” and research different topics about the book, and in the free-for-all format, everyone has an opportunity to share without it infringing on the “discussion leader’s” time or plans.  For the free-for-all, each member selects quotes, information, or fun facts that they want to discuss.

3. Be considerate and determine what you, yourself, want to say: This is a subjective “rule” based on a pet peeve of mine: those who hog the discussion. There is really nothing more annoying than taking the time to read a book, jotting down discussion notes, selecting an item to bring as a snack, and traveling to a meeting only to have someone blurt out every idea he/she had about the book, some being the ones you and others wanted to bring up.  You end up being like the kid in class with your hand raised only to have the teacher call on the “know-it-all” who has to share everything he/she knows, and when you’re finally called on, all you can say is, “He/she said what I was going to say.”  To avoid having a monopoly on ideas, choose a couple that you really want to discuss and allow others to share their own.  Most likely, they will bring up the other ideas you had and you’ll still be able to discuss them.

3.  Selecting your first book:  It is really important that the first book chosen is something that would appeal to a wide range of interests and have something juicy enough to talk about.  Some first books that I can remember are Chris Bohjalian’s Midwives, Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies, and Michael Hainey’s After Visiting Friends.

4. Selecting the next book: Bring a title that you would like everyone to read for the following meeting and share why it’s interesting to you. Sometimes selecting a new book is easy, everyone gravitates to a certain book. (If this book is something that you don’t want to read, suck it up, and read it anyway.  It may be your next favorite.)  Sometimes it’s hard; when it’s hard, write all the suggested titles on scraps of paper and draw one from a hat.  One time we had six books suggested, so we numbered them one through six, rolled a dice, and whichever number came up, that’s the book we read.

Reading alone is one of life’s great joys; sharing and learning from others is another joy.  Book clubs open up worlds and perspectives and provide connections and friendships.  If you’re not part of one, I encourage you start one.

Readers: Do you belong to a book club?  What advice do you have?  What are some of your favorite club memories?  What books elicited the most lively discussion?

Why I’m Jealous Of The Pencil Sharpener

Yesterday I wrote about a moment in my English class where a boy refused to be bested by my passive-aggressive pencil sharpener.  This event not only stuck in my mind because it was funny, but it gave me a feeling that I never thought I’d feel before: jealousy of my pencil sharpener.  I know this sounds like I’ve fallen to a new low, but let me explain.

Jerry, the subject of yesterday’s story, averages a low B in my class.  He could easily earn an A, but instead he spends class leaned back in his chair and complains to me about the work.  Half of the time he doesn’t look engaged, and the quality of his work leaves much to be desired.  The day he decided to tame my pencil sharpener he was motivated, focused, and engaged.  The sharpener gave him a challenge and frustrated him and put his pride at stake.  Jerry didn’t give up, nor did he give a half-hearted effort, and in the end, he succeeded. Granted, what he was doing wasn’t rocket science, but it is why he struggled so hard for the sharpener, but not for me, that gives me pangs of jealousy.

Building student motivation is a struggle for all teachers.  In a perfect world students would show up to our classrooms ready to learn– excited to learn rhetoric, analyze theme, practice using semi-colons, and write essays.  They would arrive with their homework completed, armed with thoughts to add to discussion, their textbooks, paper, and writing utensils.  For many students this is the reality. They work hard, learn the material, and really want to improve and do well.  For many others, they are content doing the very bare minimum and, some, nothing at all.  And it’s not like teachers are ignorant about what motivates students.  Every book about teaching will explain that motivation arises from building connections with students, stating lesson objectives, building lessons around their interests, showing how the information connects to what they have learned, will learn, and their life, providing timely and constructive feedback, being enthusiastic, and the list goes on.

All of these are great strategies and contribute to the overall ambience and expectations in the classroom.  But they’re not a panacea for motivating each and every student.  The tricky thing about motivation is that it’s personal and individual.  How was I to know that Jerry had a great motivation to work my pencil sharpener?  In reality, Jerry’s motivation is the least of my worries.  He does his work, asks questions, and we have a good rapport.  It’s the others I worry about.

One student of mine from a few years ago stands out.  I’ll call him Ford.  Ford was a lovable knucklehead who was failing all of his classes– including PE.  In my class he goofed off, wore his hat even though I asked him to take it off, never did his work.  His only motivation it seemed to me was to write rap lyrics and get me to call him by his “tag” name (his graffiti nom de plume).  In order to motivate him, I bantered with him, refocused his attention, stayed one step ahead of his antics and created lessons where he could write rap lyrics in connection to our readings.  We got along, but there was nothing on the production end although many of the other boys enjoyed writing and performing their rap songs.

One day there was meeting after school with his counselor, teachers, admin, and his father.  Since I had him in during the last period, I felt it was my responsibility to get him there.  He refused to go, told me his dad wasn’t going to show up, and worried that he would miss his ride home.  To convince me, he called his dad and had him tell me that he wouldn’t be there.  His father explained that something came up “last minute”, but he did tell me that Ford walked home everyday. Ford was shocked when I asked his dad if I could drive his son home after the meeting; he agreed.  With no out, Ford walked with me to the conference room.

The meeting was a revelation.  The only one who really seemed to be fighting for Ford to get back on track was the AP; everyone else seemed disengaged.  The AP spoke frankly to him about his behavior and the resources on campus to help him.  She peppered her talk with profanity, which he responded to.  She seemed to be the only one who had a modicum of his respect.  As he and I walked out of the meeting, I developed a plan of how he could be successful in my class.  He constantly “lost” his work, so I gave him a notebook to keep in class.  If his hat was near him, he would put it on; we agreed to keep in the cupboard during class.  We had a research project on American authors coming up, but I knew that he would be bored by them.  I agreed that he could research Tupac Shakur.

The result was astounding.  He started doing his work and following directions.  He proved that he had the skills to write and research.  He decided that he didn’t want to research Tupac, but Lil’ Wayne instead.  I told him that he had to build his case for Lil’ Wayne by showing me that he had info about him and a true desire to research him.  The next day he brought me a file folder of printed articles and song lyrics highlighted and organized.    Everyday as he walked into class he told me of new information and connections he discovered.  Even my over-achievers were impressed.

I wish I could finish this story with accolades of his finished product, but there was no finished product.  He was expelled.  You can imagine my level of disappointment.  I was disappointed in him for not transferring his good behavior to his other classes.  I was disappointed in his father who showed that his son was not a priority.  I was disappointed in his other teachers for not cultivating an area of success for him (this is pure assumption on my part, but I was disappointed all the same).  I was disappointed by the fact that for all of the motivation I could help bring about in him, it still competed with the negative influences outside of school.

So when I see my pencil sharpener, without exerting any effort on its part, motivate a student to succeed at doing something, I get a little bit jealous.

Jerry Versus The Pencil Sharpener

Public Enemy #1

Jerry’s body language told me that he was bored.  Heck, I was bored.  Unlike him, who had his face planted on the top of his desk and was probably taking a nap, I was at the front of the class reviewing the syllabus and classroom procedures.  I wanted to take a nap, too.

“This is the in-box– turn your work in here.  This is the out-box– once your work is corrected, it’ll be here.  This is my desk.  Don’t touch it,” I explained as I made my way to the pencil sharpener, “And this is the pencil sharpener.  If you need your pencil sharpened, ask me to do it.  It doesn’t like students.”

Jerry lifted his head sharply, giving me a look that clearly said, “What the hell?!”.  Ah, he was paying attention.

The pencil sharpener is a run-of-the-mill shiny silver dial-a-hole, crank-handle model mounted to the side of a cupboard.  There’s nothing that separates it from the hordes of sharpeners the world over, except that the user has to earn its respect.  For the last six years it has taken fiendish delight breaking, eating, or just flat refusing to sharpen my students’ pencils.  It can turn a brand new Ticonderoga into a stub in no time flat.  Students, who have learned their lessons the hard way, just give me their pencils and watch in awe as I return it to them sharp and gleaming.

One day as we worked on imagery and figurative language posters, Jerry brought me an orange colored pencil and asked if I’d sharpen it.  He watched me closely as I inserted the pencil, cranked the handle, and returned it to him.  As far as he could tell, I used the sharpener the exact same way he was taught how to use it way back in kindergarten.  He looked at the sharpener.  He looked at me.

“I can do this.  I can use this sharpener!” he exclaimed.

“Oh really?,” I retorted, smiling at him, “You want to take on the pencil sharpener?”

He nodded his head, “Yeah.  There’s nothing special about this.”

“Go for it,” I challenged.

He marched back to his group and grabbed two more pencils and marched back.

“Now watch this,” he said as he thrust the first one in, cranked, and pulled it out.  The pencil emerged, its round wooden tip formed a cave around where the lead should have been. “What the…?!”

I grinned up at him as I took the pencil out of his hand and expertly returned it to him healthy and whole, “As I said.  It doesn’t like students.”

Jerry gave me a look meant to wither me.  This had escalated from a mild skirmish to an all out war.  Nothing was going to get the best of him– especially not his pipsqueak of an English teacher and her demonic pencil sharpener.  And especially not in front of the entire class whose attention was now directed at this heated battle.

“Move aside,” he commanded as he tested his abilities on his second pencil.  He again cranked the handle.  A hollow sound emanated from the sharpener’s belly. “What!  It’s broken now!  It’s not even sharpening!”  He cranked some more.  It was clear the grinders hadn’t caught the pencil.  The class tittered.

“It can’t be broken. I just used it,” I replied as I took over.  It worked and sharpened the pencil.

He was stunned and visibly frustrated as the class laughed.  ”Look,” he said as he glared down at me, “you’re crazy.  Your pencil sharpener’s crazy.  This is crazy.”

He marched back to his seat, plopped down, and crossed his arms.  He shook his head at me as I grinned and pet the pencil sharpener.

A couple of minutes passed.  He grabbed a yellow pencil and made his way toward me.  One of his classmates alerted everyone, “Look!  He’s going back!”

He stared down at me, rolling the pencil in between his fingers. “I’m going to do it, Ms. L. I’m going to sharpen this pencil.”

“By all means, please do,” I responded.

Shaking out his shoulders, he squared up to the sharpener.  He gave me nod; the class looked on in anticipation.  He placed the pencil inside, grabbed the handle, focused, and cranked quickly.  As if waiting for a sign, he suddenly stopped.  He pulled it out and there it was: just the curl of a wood shaving dangling from the pointy yellow tip.

He brought the top of the pencil up to his mouth like a tip of a gun and blew off the shaving. He smiled at me as the class burst into applause.

The Sad State of the One Star Review

I have been warned many a time by many a friend that Amazon reader reviews should be taken with a grain of salt.  I suspect this is good advice.  These reviewers are unknown to me and their credentials suspect, even if their screen name is “Professorofeverything”, “books4life”, or “LiteraryWizard”.  Who knows who these people are, their backgrounds, beliefs, and everything else they bring to their readings of a text?  However, there is an industry of Joe Schmoes parcelling out advice for the Amazon Vine program– high-rated reviewers selected by Amazon and who receive benefits from said company– to the community who make up GoodReads.  Obviously, there are those who are taking this with more than a sprinkling of salt.

But like the explorers before me, I use the stars as my guide, and it is with some star snobbery on my part that books that garner only three and a half give me pause.  Are these books that I really want to read?  Those that couldn’t muster an average of a four-star review?  At this point I put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and puff away at my pipe to determine if these reviews written by strangers to myself about a book I have yet to read are valid.  Some questions that I think about as I read are: how well does the reviewer know the subject or the author’s work?  How balanced is the reviewer’s tone?  What biases does the reviewer reveal?  Like Sherlock, I also look for the telling details such as the smudge of jelly on the reviewer’s tie that discredits everything he has previously said.  Jelly smudges in writing include words that are not capitalized, like “I”; or words that are in all-cap; or rampant misspellings; or the use of “gonna”, “wanna”, or “I seen”.  Poor use of grammar undermines the message, no matter how balanced it is.  The last thing I look for is the prevalence of the one-star review.

Finding a one-star review worth its salt is a particular (and peculiar) quest of mine.  Mostly it reveals that I need a new hobby.  It is easy to give a book a five-star review, but it takes a certain amount of bravura to award it with only one.  This means the reviewer better have solid evidence as to why the book is THAT bad, why it doesn’t even deserve a “mercy” two star rating.  Giving a book a one-star means that the book is not worth being read; the book is worthy of being ostracized. It draws a hard line.  While the five-star review is superlative, the one-star is dogmatic: “Do not read this!” it warns.

However, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what the one-star is for, and it seems that they should be peer-reviewed before they are instantly published to the web.  If a one-star review fell under any of the following categories, it would would be kicked back to the reviewer for revision:

1.  It’s a complaint about the Kindle edition.  If it didn’t download fast enough, cost more than the paperback, or was full of grammatical errors, learn the lesson, drop the technology, and move back to reading paper books.  The author who slaved over the writing of the book should not be punished for something outside of his or her realm.

2.  It’s a complaint about the UPS driver.  Contact UPS.

3.  Misuse of literary terms.  I have read reviews of non-fiction texts where the reviewers complained of there being too many facts, too many characters, a non-linear story line, and all of this makes the plot really hard to understand.

4.  You’re rooting for who?  Reviewers who complain that a book made Hitler or Trujillo “look bad” or that Abraham Lincoln “deserved to be shot” should have their reviews kicked back with a nice note suggesting “soul-searching”.

5. Inability to determine good writing.  One reviewer of Wallace Stegner’s Big Rock Candy Mountain suggested that Stegner learn how to write.  He then posted an example of the passage he found difficult: “The train was rocking through the wide open country before Elsa was able to put off the misery of leaving and reach out for the freedom and release that were hers now.”  This is the first line of the novel.  It went downhill from there.

6. Inability to determine context of writing.  One review of Osa Johnson’s I Married Adventure decried how Osa and her husband, Martin, treated animals in the wild; they didn’t use today’s standards.  The Johnson’s traveled the globe in the first part of the 20th century.  Today’s standards weren’t invented yet.

6a. Using evidence against a writer without first determining its validity.  This most recently came up when I read Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way.  There are 17 one-star reviews of that book– which surprised me because it’s Bill Bryson.  Who picks a fight with Bill Bryson?!  But when the topic is language, specifically, the English language, people can get a bit truculent.  It also doesn’t help that the book was published in 1990, and the information is more than 20 years old.  Some of what we know about language has changed or expanded since then.  But instead of reviewing all of Bryson’s work, which is cited, reviewers picked at his credibility through the use of small examples.  One criticized his etymology of the word “petroleum”, which he said that “petra” is a Latin root and “oleum” a Greek suffix.  The reader took offense and stated that it is in fact the reverse!  Therefore because of this and other mistakes like it , Bryson’s work should not be taken seriously, and definitely not as a work of scholarship at all. However, if one looks up the etymology in the dictionary (and the internet provides many dictionaries to choose from), one learns that “petra” is Latin, and so is “oleum” (a half point for the reviewer).  But upon further study, one finds that “ole” is a Greek root for oil. Bryson’s point was that words are created by making Latin and Greek hybrids.  Maybe he should have used the term “hypercorrection” as an example instead.

What I think bothers me the most about one-star reviews is how close to life they are.  We have all received such reviews in our lives, and they’re based on spurious reasons.  They’re unfair, and mostly (unless we’re major screw-ups) we earn them through no fault of our own.  It’s hard to deal with someone who misunderstands you, willfully or otherwise, and does not seek to understand.  Or one who could be corrected, but lets the rating still stand.  Or one judges us using different criteria (“Yes, she gave a knock-out presentation, but did you see the bags under her eyes?!”).  Like authors on Amazon, we cannot do much about what other people say about us.  Some reviews can be changed; our merits shine through and our reviewer sees the light.  But for those who dig in their heels, there’s no budging them.  It’s not necessarily the Amazon reviews that we should take with a grain of salt, but it’s the one-star reviews about ourselves.

“She took life by the throat and dealt with it.”

This post’s title is a quote from Dorothy Wickenden’s book Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West, a biography of Dorothy Woodruff (the author’s grandmother) and Rosamond Underwood who in 1916 left their upper-class lives of teas and socials in New York to teach in a Colorado school for a year– far, far away from the comforts of home. Nothing impelled them to go; they were college educated, unmarried, and bored. The wilds of the still untamed West sounded like an adventure. And it was. Thrust into a world more foreign than the Grand Tour of Europe, the girls, with their charm, wit, and grace, embraced it all: the landscape, the people, their students. Their experience challenged them, and through the community, its children, and the wild terrain, they learned the true meanings of work, tenacity, and survival. Later they described their year in Colorado as being the best in their lives. It also prepared them for the challenges of life outside of their parents’ money and close knit community. Both experienced immense struggles and heartbreak later in their lives, but they “dealt with it”.

I read Nothing Daunted right after finishing Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies, a novel about the Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic who fight against Trujillo in the 1950′s. Like Woodruff and Underwood, the sisters gave up their lives of comfort, but this time for a principle rather than boredom. Through the use of facts, documents, and interviews, Alvarez presents a fictionalized account of how Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa (Mate) each come to the realization that they must fight against Trujillo’s regime, one of the most bloody in Latin America, and their transformation into las Mariposas– the Butterflies. Dede, the fourth sister, whose domineering husband and own need to not “rock the boat” prevent her from joining up with her sisters, is left to tell their story. Each woman “took life by the throat and dealt with it”. Each understood the meaning of their commitment– destruction of possessions and property, prison, torture, death, and the fact that someone else would live to take care of their children. While they are single-minded in their battle against Trujillo, their journey into the revolution breaks down their pride– whether it be their pride of family, God, status, or marriage. Alvarez develops the theme of appearances and what is “buried” underneath– the outward revolution against the regime leads to inward revolutions as each questions what she knew of life before.

These women’s stories inspire me. Woodruff, Underwood, and I are much closer in spirit– I am always looking for the next adventure. But I wonder if I have the same tenacity of spirit and dedication to ideals as the Mirabal sisters. Could I put a principle above my life? Would I? Woodruff and Underwood had the luxury to make their choices– a warm bed and a cushy life would always be there to welcome them home. In Trujillo’s Dominican Republic the choice is not as cut and dry. As Elie Wiesel said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” To live life as the status quo may prevent one from getting into trouble, but it is not a guarantee for safety. It might leave one with a warm home, but a cold conscience. In a regime as cruel as Trujillo’s (or any regime for that matter), where people were killed or disappeared as a matter of routine, the sisters’ ambush and murder might seem in vain. By the time of their deaths they were revered national symbols of the revolution, and their deaths inspired Trujillo’s future assassins. In the end, they achieved their goal. I’d like to think that if I had to fight for what I believed in that I would do so with as much humanity and courage as they did. They knew the risks of their decisions; they knew what they were giving up; they “took life by the throat and dealt with it”.

Slow Down, Casanova!

I think we can all agree that there is no such species quite as, well, unique, as the high school student.  Really, is there any being that can be so profound, yet so mystifying at the same time?  High school students teach us teachers a lot.  They teach us such edifying knowledge on how to use the computer, how to manipulate the thermostat, how to access pirated versions of The Dark Knight on the web (long story), and, most of all, how to dougie. Sometimes though, they go beyond the call of duty to teach you a lesson that transcends all others: how to woo your English teacher.

Wooing your English teacher takes a little more finesse than one might think.  It turns out that you can’t be like a besotted six-year old boy sitting next to his favorite camp counselor on the school bus and beam at her from departure to arrival.  Nor can you be like the college student visiting his instructor during office hours drenched in Drakkar Noir to describe how he lifted very heavy weights the night before.  No, these tactics won’t do.  Remember, these are devised by the teenage mind and are aimed at befuddling, bewildering, and beleaguering your beloved literature-lover and grammarian.

Now pay close attention to learn how you, too, can turn her heart away from the likes of Atticus Finch and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and make it your own.

Show Initiative: Even after you have disclosed your fear of public speaking to her, volunteer to present your project first.  She will remember you for your gallant and brave action.

Greet Her Everyday:  This is a very important step in making sure that she knows that you exist.

Say “Goodbye” To Her Everyday:  Just in case she didn’t notice you when you walked in the door to greet her, make a point to look her in the eye, and say goodbye.  If she’s trying to discuss an issue with another student, stand there, wait, and stare until she turns, looks at you, and says, “Do you have a question?”

Remind Her Of Your Outstanding Qualities: Your English teacher is most likely a very busy woman.  My, with all of those essays to read, lessons to plan, and lectures to write, she may become a little forgetful of the various ways that you have dazzled her in class.  Be sure to remind her, often, that you say “hi” and “bye” to her and that you courageously went first for the presentation– oh, and don’t forget the one time you passed out papers, too.

Render Her Speechless With Your Keen Observations Of Her Favorite Novel:  After you have read, discussed, written about, and  completed projects about your teacher’s absolute-most-favorite novel, ask her that one elusive question that has been burning in your brain, the mother of questions, the questions of all questions: “I don’t get it.  How could Darcy and Elizabeth love each other?  Like, they spend no time together.”  This will certainly stun her into silence as she stares at you in wide-eyed wonder.  She will for sure be brought out of this state of incredulity at your brilliance by another student who will revive her by suggesting, “Ignore him.  He’s a boy.  What does he know?”

Discuss Her All-Time Favorite Movie: Teachers like it when you go out of your way to learn about their interests or what’s going on in class.  Learn about the version of the film she plans to show in class and engage her in conversation like the following:

You: Are we watching the 2005 Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice?

Teacher (smiling): Why, yes!  We are!

You: Yeah, I started watching it.

Teacher (interested in what you have to say): What did you think of it?

You: Yeah, I didn’t finish it.

Teacher: Why not?

You: It was boring. Yeah.

Trust me.  Follow this script and you will hit it out of the ball park.

Impress Her With Your Progressive Values And Gentlemanly Charm:  Make it a point to walk her to car on those days when you are leaving at the same time.  Take an interest in her outside life; ask her what she’s planning on doing that evening.  If she answers with some activity like “Write”, follow up with a question that values her interests, like, “Aren’t you going to make your husband dinner?”.  If she states that her husband is making dinner, wow her with your ideas of how you expect your wife to cook and clean so you will have to do nothing.

Show her that you are a teenage boy of your word.  When you see that she is carrying two heavy bags, offer to do nothing.

Always be a gentleman and escort her to her car– especially on the day when she’s carrying the two heavy bags, forgotten where she’s parked, and walked past it by forty feet.  At that point, let her know that her car is over there, behind her, and that you wondered why she walked right past it.  Your act of kindness will endear you to her greatly.

Last, But Not Least, Remind Her How Special She Is:  On the last day before break as everyone is scurrying out of the room, loudly proclaim, “Everyone else is not saying goodbye to you or wishing you a good break, but I am!”

There you have it: the sure-fire way to win your English teacher’s heart.  Sure, she may have an apple on her desk, but these strategies will make you the apple of her eye.

Life, Examined

One of the joys of winter break is the long, uninterrupted stretch of reading.  It’s even better when the books read are given to you.  My friend Christine passed along Aryn Kyle’s first novel The God of Animals and my MIL gave me Rebecca Stott’s Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution.  Happy that neither were in MLA format, 12 point Arial font, and full of high-school errors, I eagerly dove in and devoured the delicious diction.  Even though they are completely different books, Kyle’s novel is a coming-of-age story of a young girl on a horse ranch and Stott’s non-fiction work delves into the naturalist-philosophers who helped create the idea of evolution prior to Darwin, both share a similar theme: observing the world around us and the consequences of that knowledge.

In The God of Animals, the protagonist is twelve-year old Alice Winston who is left to fend for herself after her beautiful and talented older sister runs off with a rodeo cowboy.  Her mother is a recluse and her inattentive father is lost in dreams of how to make his middling ranch a success.  Her life is shrouded by mysteries: Why did her sister leave?  Why does her mother never leave her room?  Why is her father so silent?  Why are people the way they are?  And in the recent death of a schoolmate, why did she die and what were her secrets?   Having no Atticus Finch as a father to explain life’s mysteries to her, Alice relies on keen observation to come up with her own conclusions.  She delves into the mysteries of love, growing up, others’ actions, and the choices people make. What should she do with the knowledge she learns?  Should she keep it to herself?  Share it?  And to what purpose: to help or hurt?  Ultimately, she has to grapple with the truth about her family and her own actions.

Naturalists who explored ideas and studies in “transmutation”, ultimately, evolution, had to grapple with the truth they unveiled and how to disseminate it to the public.  Stott explores the list Darwin compiled for his book On the Origin of Species that acknowledges the work of other men (including his grandfather) who helped bring forth the idea of the descent and modification of species.  The first third of the book is devoted to Aristotle, Jahiz, da Vinci, and Bernard Palissy and their devotion to observing and questioning the natural world and learning that organisms have existed a lot longer and are more connected that previously thought.  What differentiates these men from those who came after them is that their knowledge did not threaten their livelihoods or threaten the power and belief of the Church.  The evolutionary plot thickens as Enlightenment philosophy takes hold in the 18th and 19th centuries and the formations of life turn from theorizing and the biblical narrative to close observation and research.

Darwin’s list of predecessors runs long.  Benoit de Maillet, a French consul to Egypt, discovered the age of the earth was much, much older than previously thought and that life descended from the sea and was not formed by God.  Everything happened by chance rather than divine intervention.  He wrote his findings in a book titled Telliamed and presented them as though an old Indian revealed the earth’s secrets to a philosopher rather than stating his evidence outright.  His book, which he wrote anonymously, was eventually published in Amsterdam, since it was too seditious to be printed in Paris.  Three decades later Abraham Trembley cut a polyp into two, and with the help of his newfangled device called the microscope, was shocked to discover that it regenerated its missing parts.  He was just a tutor to two aristocratic Dutch boys creating exciting lessons and experiment for them, not someone out to dismantle the hierarchy of man.  But as he shared his findings with just about everyone of importance in Europe, people began to wonder about man’s role in the world.  Man could not regenerate himself, but polyps could.  Philosopher Denis Diderot, who wrote about species mutability and how they change and fall away, wrote and worked under constant police surveillance.  His work was deemed heretical because he placed the Catholic church on the same level with other churches, declared that the only things we can really know are what we see, and that the chain of being is not separated but each species is bound up with the others.  Erasmus Darwin cloaked his views on mutability and adaptability in poetry  and buried his evidence in the footnotes in order to avoid controversy.  Charles Darwin’s former mentor, Robert Grant’s career was destroyed because of the backlash against his beliefs in “transmutation”, even though he discovered that plants and animals shared a “monadic base” in the past as he proved with his study of sea sponges.  Publisher Robert Chambers had his book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation anonymously published.  What made Chambers different from the rest of the naturalist philosophers was that he wrote his book for the lower and middle classes; he understood that people wanted to learn and be educated, but only the few could afford the university.  He explained his ideas in layman’s terms and had it priced for the everyday consumer.  While his work was deeply heretical, it was also very popular with the public; it provided the basis for the public to accept Darwin’s theories.  The efforts of these men and others set the stage for Darwin’s knowledge and study.

It was the effort of Alfred Wallace that set the stage for Darwin’s publication.  Wallace, a contemporary of Darwin, caught, preserved, labeled, and sold insects, birds, and animals from Brazil and the Malay Archipelago to museums in England.  In a fit of  malarial delirium, he came up with the idea of the survival of the fittest, an idea that took Darwin twenty years to form.  Wallace sent Darwin his discovery.  Darwin, in fear that Wallace may gain credit for the same idea he himself had labored on, got the okay from other scientists to hurriedly publish his work.  We all know and are still dealing with repercussions of that publication as many continue to deny and refute his science.

Both books shed light on the importance of asking the big questions, observation, learning, and finding answers.  Kyle’s style is lyrical and cemented in a sense of place; her characters are finely drawn, and Alice is a sympathetic protagonist.  The story builds slowly, so much so that I often realized that nothing of great importance “happens”, but her writing propelled me forward to the startling climax at the end.  Stott has the ability to bring people from the past to life.  The first part of her book is not as engaging as the rest, mostly because she’s setting the background and its devoid of conflict.  The rest of the book picks up, mostly because it explains the discoveries and their times are more similar to our own.  Stott writes well, but is often repetitive in her phrasing and sentence structure (long sentences that catalog names, animals, and ideas– there are a lot of them).  If you want an interesting read on the history of nature, evolution, or ideas, I recommend it.  If you want just a really good story, read Kyle’s novel.

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 11,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 18 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Grateful in 2012

This time last year I anxiously awaited 2012, also known as the year of the Dragon in Chinese astrology.  As a fire Dragon, I fully anticipated this to be MY year.  Dragons are known for being rather lucky, and really, who can be luckier than a Dragon in its year?  However, the year of the Dragon is a tumultuous one, fraught with changes and upheaval. No one escapes unscathed… even Dragons.

2012 did give me a year of fortune and luck. I have a loving family and husband. I went to Palm Springs (three times), Michigan, Chicago, and New York; I took four students to London and Paris and brought them all back.  I started this blog, got back into writing, and met wonderful people from all over the world.  I have a job I love with an administration and staff that supports my goals.  I coach our school’s Academic Decathlon team and advise our Book Club, Health Careers Academy, and Adventure Club.  As a result, I spend a lot of time with students who give me a lot of hope for our future.  Then there are my own students who bring me many smiles and laughs.  In their reflections of the class, a few wrote about how they learned to love reading.  As an English teacher, is there any higher compliment?

2012′s upheavals served to remind me how lucky I am.  In February, my cat Toby fell ill and we were quite sure we’d have to say goodbye to him; fortunately, after a weekend at the vet’s, he came home more chipper than ever.  In April my MIL fell and broke her hip.  This resulted in a full hip replacement and pelvic reduction and exposed a whole host of other issues.  Anyone who has a stubborn, fiercely independent aging parent in complete denial about her bad health and habits knows what we’re up against.  There were many tense moments at home as my husband tried to acquire care for her even though he is 400 miles away.  Right now everything is “stable”– whatever that means.  Meanwhile, my health went bonkers with recurring bouts of getting sick (ie. vomiting) that landed me in the ER, my doctor’s office a few times, and the gastro-entologist.  We’re still pursuing tests to find the root of the problem.  Next up is my colon (yay.).  The most recent tests revealed that I am anemic, which helps explain my lethargy and constant need for sleep.  Oftentimes, I come home from work, take a nap, eat dinner, and go back to bed; hence, no blogging.

2012 taught me how to be grateful for everything I have.  I am grateful for my husband who takes care of me and makes me laugh.  I am grateful for my family who is always there for me.  I am grateful for my friends who all inspire me.  I am grateful for my cats, Toby and Molly, who melt my heart.  I am grateful for my job and my students.

I am also grateful for all of the readers who read my work regularly and those who stop by every now and again.  Thank you for making this so much fun.

Happy New Year!

Bucking Tradition: A Reflection and A Review

Before I went to London and Paris last summer I wrote some posts that I set to be published while I was gone.  This was a challenge since I was already at that time writing a post a day– this goal forced me to write two or three.  Instead of trying to create something entirely new, I mined my past and came up with my prom.  More specifically, how I did not go to prom and how this act changed the course of my life.  Since it posted in June, this reflection has been one of my most viewed posts ever, and the search term “not going to prom” has lead many a people to my site.

Prom, or not going to prom, apparently is a big deal.  As someone who has taught high school seniors in the spring, I know how all-consuming prom is for the teenage brain.  There is a lot of pressure to go and even more pressure to have it mean something, so it’s not surprising that there is more than one kid who would want to opt out.  Some may even see it as akin to Valentine’s Day, an event that everyone gets so wrapped in because it’s supposed to “mean something” but ultimately only means something to the corporations hawking their red, pink, and white wares.  Prom is good for business– it tides companies over between Easter and the Fourth of July.  These consumerist tendencies are kept alive because of “tradition”– it’s what everybody does every year.  It is no small thing to buck tradition, but doing so can teach you a lot and may even be the key to survival.

The Michelin Guide, the little red book that lavishes stars on restaurants they deem worthy of praise, is like prom.  Restauranteurs do everything to be titled prom king or queen and when they do not win, it’s crushing.  More puzzling is how were the winners chosen.  Was it a popularity contest?  Did the winners have a whiter, brighter smile? Did they deserve to win?  In the meantime, Michelin turns a profit: people buy their guides and their tires.  Michael Steinberger explores the impact of the Michelin Guide and other social and economic forces that lead to the downfall of French cuisine and culinary greatness in his book Au Revoir To All That:Food, Wine, and the End of France.

Steinberger is a Francophile who remembers the France of his youth: the one that set the standard for the world to follow.  Now he laments its fall from grace as other cities such as New York and London, yes, London, have taken over the reins as as the culinary capitals.  He set out to discover how this came to be so, and wrote not only an engaging and entertaining book, but one that sheds light on the impact of economic policies, the rise of businesses and celebrity chefs, the non-integration of immigrants, and the control of societal expectations.

The decline of French food and wine cannot be traced back to one source.  It is the result of government policies and regulation run amuck.  First of all, we need to consider the traditional fine dining experience; it included not only top-flite cuisine, it also meant that the meal would be served on fine china, with crystal stemware and silver on crisp, white linens in an opulent dining room run by a legion of suited servers.  This cost money.  With a history of high unemployment and a 19% value added tax, most French cannot afford go out to eat.  For a successful French chef to remain successful, it means opening restaurants in the States, Japan, and England.  This results in less time behind the stove and less time involved in quality control.

The economy has also hit cheese-makers and vintners.  Most French consumers cannot afford to purchase the expensive small-batch cheeses that are made in the traditional ways.  Instead they turn to mass-produced cheeses that are less expensive but also have less quality.  Regulations against using raw milk for cheeses hurt the industry, too.  The extra bacteria in raw milk cultivates the complexity of flavor that traditional cheeses are known for.  Regulations have hurt the vintners as there was a massive crackdown on drunk driving and the advertisement of alcohol.  In addition to these prohibition-like moves, the wines are categorized as AOC (supposedly the best), vin de pays, and vins de table.  Wine sellers are required to display each group separately, rather than displaying the best together.  The AOCs often had many bad wines, while the vins de tables represented many of the good wine-makers.  Of course, the French vintners rested on their laurels and were blind-sided by the quality and affordability of California wines, and soon those made in Chile, Argentina, and Australia.  They experienced competition like never before as the French consumed less wine and the Americans consumed more.

If California’s wines were surprising, then their other form of competition is even more surprising: McDonald’s.  In a depressed economy McDonald’s acts as a salve to many.  It’s cheap and only has a 5.5% value added tax; most of the youth are poor, need something, anything to eat, and cannot afford fine-dining; it employs large numbers of youths, including immigrant youths who have been disenfranchised from traditional businesses; and most people do not have time for long meals anymore.  McD’s won over the French by reaching out to the consumers and using French beef, bread, and vegetables.

Steinberger also puts much of the blame on the Michelin Guide.  Michelin put out the guide to get Parisians out and about, on the road, to experience fine dining and gain product recognition for its tires.  It doled out one, two, or three stars to various restaurants; two stars cemented the success of any chef who received them.  Chefs, in turn, worked hard and did anything they thought was necessary to receive a star, including piling up millions of dollars of debt.  Unlike our Zagat ratings, which lay out the standards by which a restaurant is judged by, Michelin’s methodology is unclear, nor do they feel the need to explain themselves.  The result is restaurants of inconsistent quality being awarded stars and those of quality not receiving them or having stars taken away.  This guide dominated the food scene for almost one hundred years.

But is this ultimately the end of France?  Steinberger points to some new trends that signal the revival of French dining, but they do not include expensive tabs, fine linens, or le Big Mac.  One involves a group who turns out to be more French than the French: the Japanese.  From a culture devoted to making a superior product, many Japanese chefs have learned French cuisine and often stay in France to open restaurants.  If not, they go back to Japan or elsewhere in the world and recreate the bistros and brasseries.  Another group is a new generation of chefs who have bucked the traditions of large dining rooms with opulent decor.  They focus on smaller restaurants that provide quality local food at reasonable prices.  They do not aim to create culinary empires but prefer to stay behind their stoves.  The result?  They’re getting the French interested in French food again.

Au Revoir To All That‘s first half is reminiscent of Robert Grave’s WWI memoir Goodbye To All That in that it shows the death of a way of life.  The last part of the book twists the meaning as the new trends say goodbye to much of what has held the culture down.  New chefs are carving their own paths, creating new experiences, and reviving their culinary greatness.  They do not chase after anyone else’s stars, but instead chase their own.