New Haven Independent

March 1, 2006

It’s hard to believe there are only three and a half months of school left. March, though, is always the most difficult month to get through. No breaks, no vacations, nothing. In Vermont, March is the beginning of mud season, so it generally is the most depressing month of all.

I didn’t have a good morning today. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering that the skills I’m helping my students develop are new to them. So they don’t get things right away. I get frustrated when my kids hesitate or don’t try something. Today, all I wanted was for Adam to write a paragraph. We’ve been working on writing paragraphs for three weeks straight. I’m teaching him how to narrow or focus his ideas so that his paragraphs become more specific and that the evidence he uses clearly aligns with his argument. For 70 minutes, he sat at his desk with his pen poised and his head in his hands, absolutely frozen. No matter how much prodding I did, no matter how many different ways I tried to pull a response from him, it wasn’t happening.
I could feel the mutual frustration rise. I had an edge to my voice, and I wasn’t comfortable with myself.
I asked that he stay after class so I could work with him, but it was more of the slow-going, torturous attempt at getting his ideas down on the paper.
“You’re not going to be wrong, Adam,” I tell him, thinking that he’s concerned about being wrong and therefore doesn’t want to write anything down.
“But I can’t get the ideas straight in my head,” he tells me.
“Well then write thoughts down on paper. Put them down in list form. Put them down in diagram form. Put them down in sentence form. The point is to get them out of your head and onto the paper so that I can help you organize them. I can’t help you organize things I can’t see.”
And with that, I knew I’d gone over the edge. He was telling me he was having trouble doing something, and all I was doing was trying to find an answer.
You don’t do that as a teacher. You just don’t find answers to your kids’ problems. You help them find answers.

My frustration doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that it’s March. It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I’m tired or working another job. I am about to take a turn down another path and I’m eager to start moving in that direction.

But even if I’m about to get going, I can’t—I have to tell myself—put my kids on the side. So I need to tell myself to calm down, chill out. I have a commitment to these kids and I need to put my own eagerness on the side. I was angry with myself today with Adam. I did a huge disservice to him. My frustration outweighed my patience. I know I am not an infinitely patient person.

March 2, 2006
I was awoken today by an announcement that Dennis’ school was cancelled, even though there was no snow on the ground. So while he gloated and fell back to sleep with a smile on his face, I grumbled and moaned at the computer screen when it said “Early Dismissal” for New Haven Public Schools. I had to get up early, but at least it’s a nice surprise to go home early.

At the Starbucks in Woodbridge, I walked in to get my daily cup (today a Peppermint Mocha). When I went to pay for it, the girl behind the counter looked at my driver’s license.
“You’re from Vermont, huh?”
When I agreed, she told me that she loves Vermont and thinks it’s a healthy, nice place. I also agreed with that and asked her where in Vermont she’s been.
“Stowe,” she said. And I told her I’m from kind of around that area.
“Oh! So this place must be kind of crappy, huh?” she asked, meaning New Haven and Connecticut in general.
“Well,” I said, smiling. “Let’s just say it’s different from Vermont.”
For the record, neither Connecticut nor New Haven is “crappy” in my opinion.

And while I was waiting for the guy to make the mocha, a man walking out the door said to me, “Nice shoes.” I looked down. I’m wearing black slingbacks with a pointy toe and beads on them. His comment reminded me of the woman at the Starbucks in New Haven who commented on my green “funny” shoes. I first told the man Thank You, but then kind of laughed in my head. It’s not often that a man comments on a woman’s shoes, especially a woman who he doesn’t know. But I think the funniest part was the fact that the man looked very much like a construction worker or a contractor—jeans, worn in the knees and seat, sweatshirt, work boots. He got into his white work van and drove off. I laughed the whole way to school. While turning the wheel, I hit the windshield wipers on high speed, and honked the horn. I don’t know how I did it, and I laughed for a mile, into the parking lot at school.

So today isn’t so bad.