can't keep running awayyyyyyy....

the crazy thing is, i feel less in charge of motherhood when he's two than i ever did when he was a baby.  it is often written in the literature that you eventually move into rhythm and things fall into place, but the terrible twos are a grand canyon away from me figuring anything out.  i feel more like a failure these days than anything else, because i get upset, have to remove myself from the room and come back to it, composed, ready to talk about why.  he doesn't care about why.  instant gratification is our first language, and i am always worried that i have babied him, spoiled him by learning fluency in this language first.

but how can i not?  i hear stories of children being bombed in a school in Gaza, being beaten by their peers on the slide, being bullied until they'd rather not live through this, being shot by police officers just for being themselves, and sometimes the only reflex that i have is to give in and say yes.  to hold him and tell him that he is valued, his life is important.  too many people have said no, pulled triggers on the education of our youth, and i remember reading something that Kate sent me a few months ago about why our country hates its children.  how can we, a "developed nation", allow our students to go with a sub-par education, poisonous food, violent streets and not enough options?  how can America starve its own children of the knowledge they need to succeed and survive?

(this needs a clever transition here)

i am nesting again - building branches of a home with so much material, and trying to make it bright and bold.  i am trying to take care of the space where we are ourselves and no one questions us (dr. angelou).  i am droppin' revolution (sekou) on the floor as i scrub and clean the kitchen, again.  taking care of a home is consistent job, and this is another of my insecurities.  but i am not a housewife, except on weekends, and this is not a book that closes with happily ever anything.  this is real, and it is messy, and it must be cleaned.  that is a home, and i am bowing my head everyday, because the disaster is a blessing.  it is loving the color of time, and spending a day to reinvigorate your apartment, while he sleeps.

lost in dilla, found in outkast

the reality of transition was sitting on my front porch, greeting me this morning.   child in mid-tantrum because he forgot his toy in the house, locked door, tumbling too many bags in my arms.  i often wonder the determinations people make about me when they see me at the corners of my life, making decisions quickly with too much resting on my brain.  our across-the-street neighbors have told me our antics are their entertainment on slow summer afternoons.

near tears in the frantic moment -- i paused, found key, opened door, let him in to retrieve Mickey Mouse, who he carries around like another limb, retrieved his ball from under the hostas. i took a breath, shoved assorted extra things into the car.  walked down the street with him, to briefly let him roam before confining him into the carseat. mornings are not pretty right now, but my life very much relies around routine, and i am always nervous about the shift to a new routine.  but this time, i am shifting another human being's routine, intentionally.  and i don't take this lightly.

none of this is taken lightly.  moving is never easy, but it's always only been me before.  this is the first time that i leave, and i take someone with me who is deeply connected to my family.  and i have to figure out how to keep the connection strong, how to strengthen it from afar.  it has been a struggle, these past two years, to meld my families together - that of choice with that of blood.  the struggle is ongoing and fierce, at this juncture.  we do not like to change, and we rear our fear when someone asks us to rethink what we've always known to be true.

but i refuse to choose between family.  we do not choose one another in a blood family, but we must love one another unconditionally.  this is my definition of family = unconditional love.  loving beyond faults, letting people breathe and be themselves, sometimes in their tantrum-rage glory.  just like you did not choose me, you did not choose him - why can you not find it in your heart to bring love out?  you know that it will only multiply with the giving.  i will show you what i mean.

so, i am going, but i will continue to show up.  i will continue to be there, because my love for you is unconditional.  you may not always love the choices i make, where and how i operate my life, but it is mine, and you are part of it.  you can't get rid of me that easily.  but i also promise you this.  i am the black sheep, and i have learned how to embrace my position on the fringes -- and operate outside of the boundaries of normalcy.  i will always question everything, risk everything, and sometimes lose, often fail.  but i am never really gone, we are always right here, and i will prove to you how bright our love can feel from afar.

today i am sankofa, i must look back to move forward.  from 2002, i was calling to you, just waiting for you to formally accept the challenge.  nam myoho renge kyo. 

*as always*

of books thrown from balconies
onto white streets, of sheets
closing over one body.

we kept the lights on
throughout violent storms
of vacant arms,
bringing hush to a close,
saying goodnight.

it's not my style to leave
without waking you, so
i wake you from far away,
with my metal door latching.
the sounds of the ways i wish i want.

(as always)

is not a truth held to lips
quieter than anything on my skin,
there is more hush to me
than there used to be.

fold over, unhinging
my back from my you's,
cascade down and lightning, later.
repeat home until home
leaves for elsewhere.

why grit resonates with me.

my organization has been focused on grit this year, or the idea that teaching students how to persevere through difficult times is a coping skill that is connected to success.  our field-based research and practice has revolved around how we ourselves, as educators, become gritty and model this character trait for our students.  Angela Duckworth is the leading researcher on this concept, and she has written and spoken extensively about her findings.

i have a personal connection to this concept; my Finnish heritage informs much of what i do, and our national identity revolves around "sisu", which means "tenacity", translated into English.  we pride ourselves as a country on our resilience; throughout history the Finns were repeatedly conquered and have had to fight to maintain our sense of identity, our land, our language and our livelihood in the frigid climate near the North Baltic Sea.  my grandparents tell the family stories that their parents told them of the old country: of difficult fishing seasons and hunting for scarce game in order to keep their families fed in subzero temperatures.

this is why grit resonates with me so much - i've been taught this character trait through my family, and it's become a part of my life and outlook.  when i taught high school, we talk about coping strategies and how they can get through tough times by using humor, the creative process and other outlets for dealing with anger, grief and depression.  my next entry will be a final project for a class i'm taking, about how i'm applying character education to my classroom, and grit is the trait that resonates with me so clearly.

gemini rising

there are simultaneously two things happening in my mind.

1) mourning the decision finding Jordan Davis's killer not guilty.  this part speaks of the unspeakable pain and suffering of losing a child, that so many people experience daily in our collective past.  the system is not broken, it is functioning exactly as it was designed:
On the Killing of Jordan Davis

2) envisioning a future of peace and non-violence.  this part has to exist, or i would be catatonically depressed at the state of our nation and of our world.  the violence seems unceasing, but i have to believe that it is possible to make change.  for me, it is just one person at a time.  my contributions are small, but i am vibrantly, electrically overjoyed about the blessings i have in my life.
Pharrell Williams - Happy

it is difficult to have these things co-exist, but one thing that i have learned this year is that life is not either/or, it is both/and.  it is moments like this when i remember that i am a gemini.   good morning. :)

the kitchen table

i am learning more about the other side of education than the one i knew at Banana Kelly.  i often say that education does not only happen in classrooms, it happens on softball fields, and hockey rinks and soccer pitches and front stoops, and kitchen tables.  though i was a coach and after-school educator in my past, i have mostly worked in classrooms or computer labs, and have access to lots of materials that can help me help kids.  so while my job as a teacher is challenging, i do have resources at my fingertips.

i am learning about home - and educating at home, as well as at work.  because it is easy to come home from teaching and vegetate.  i will often lay like broccoli on my couch and imbibe the d-i-y attitudes of folks on HGTV.  but my son raises his hands, asking to be held, and wants to continue learning when i get home.  i need to find the patience and energy to begin a new lesson, the most important one of the day, after my energy is completely spent.  we are writing, drawing, dancing, moving, listening to music... i am starting off slow.  but i want to be organized enough to come home with a daily lesson, something to share with my favorite student (who is already schooling me on life and what's important).

i plan to send m.j. to public schools, because i am a public school educator and i believe in it.  this will be a struggle within my family, but i'm confident in my ability to supplement and enrich what he's doing in school and provide growth opportunities at home.  recently i've started to toy with the idea of teaching him at home, though it's not a foreseeable financial reality, i know that i could teach him well and raise a conscious, aware and critically thinking child.  but he also needs socialization, and i am an interloper at heart, i love to be within institutions so that i can examine and deconstruct them.

i've also been interrogating what my next steps are, and i miss the classroom endlessly - but i want to change the shape and nature of where i work and who i serve, as i'm not where i want to be right now.  i want to work with incarcerated youth next, as there is a location where unconditional love is needed.  i want to travel, often.  i want to see the world and continue learning how to become a better teacher. i don't want to be an administrator.  i always want to work directly with students.  and i want to retire from teaching and become a DJ, spinning in the barn on our farm.  but i hope that the farm too can become a place for teaching, because i will never retire from my desire to grow.

Institutional Interloper

Sometimes your first drafts are meant to stay that way, but my zine days are coming back to me, and I feel like I am overflowing with words and feelings, that simply must scrape their way into the light.  So even though a more poignant letter exists from the entire faculty of the College of Education in the Washington Post, here is my abbreviated version.  I cannot work for EMU and not call out the ironic and oxymoronic nature of a college known for its Education programming partnering with an organization designed to demolish public schools as we know them.  Hyperbolic as I may be, and as hard as teachers work in any school, EAA, charter, public or private... the graveness in my voice is real.  I am worried that we are witnessing the beginning of the end for public education.

"So, what happens when the institution you work for contradicts with your politics and ethics about life? You feel the need to respond, as an educator, who is invested in reflective pedagogies of consciousness... to acknowledge and call out that a teaching college for undermining the very profession to which we're committed, to understand what motivates us to partner with the devil.

Detroit is under seizure... We are violently transforming public to private, for the gains of a small few, and I urge you to interrogate what our college gains from this partnership.  Certainly the students we teach are not going to gain from the upheaval within our public education system, with every child being left behind, in the wake of testing the tests for the best test-takers.  We have tested our brains to death.

I am an educator committed to servicing public school kids, because I firmly believe that every child has a right to a rigorous, quality education. Please join me in standing up for a public, collaborative solution to Detroit's failing schools and not selling our kids out to an emergency manager that wants to turn education into a business, our children into products.  Please consider disconnecting from our partnership with EAA, siding with our teachers' unions and the understanding that public services should remain public, transparent and accountable to citizens."

Instead of sending this first draft outward into the world, I decided to let it breathe here... where only 3 people will ever see it.  I have since contacted the faculty members who have contributed to this letter, in order to sign it myself, and will be attending the December 10th Regents meeting where this item is discussed with the university community.  I hope I am like Grace Lee Boggs, and never grow out of being active.