Dread Reprise (Someday)

Since summer started, I have been craving dreadlocks again.  I want to be able to drive with the windows down on the freeway and not worry about my hair.  I want to be able to camp, hike, backpack, climb, swim, and work out with my hair looking like I'm about to go on a date.  I want to meet my original dreadlocks goal, the one inked on my bucket-list: to have dreads for at least a year.  I want to see what it's like to have long dreads, I want to experience what dreads are like at six months, a year, or two.  I will get dreadlocks again.

But not yet.

I'm still researching, for one thing.  After last time's failure, I have a lot to think about and decisions to make. Second, I'm enjoying having long, classy, loose hair right now.  I like being able to braid it, curl it, do it in elaborate twists, and watch the highlights--absent for the two years I had a pixie cut--reappear and streak through my hair.  I enjoy being able run my fingers through my hair, or letting a boy play with my hair.  Third, it's probably that this time, I would get my dreads professionally done.  Last time the burden fell almost entirely on Di, for which I felt awful.  Then, when I had to take them out, I felt worse.  If I have my dreads locked at a studio, it will probably cost me several hundred dollars.  At this point, Japan, Boston, camping trips, etc., have cleaned out my disposable income and my savings.  Right now I'm telling myself that when I finally get my car paid off, I will get dreads again.  The earliest that might happen is next winter, but it might not be until next summer.  So I have six months to a year to make some money, pay off my car, and enjoy my hair while it grows.

But still, oh internet, this is your official notice.  Dreadlocks are coming back.

Since the dreadlock craving hit me, I've been once again feverishly researching dreadlocks and information about creating them.  This time, I'm approaching it with even more of an open mind than I did the first time.  I emerged from months of research last time convinced that I should backcomb, wax, and use rubber bands.  Now, having pulled out the gluey mess of disintegrated rubber bands out of my dreads, combed out my dreads to discover months old wax and dirt caked in the center, and having watched the knots that had been so painstakingly and friendship-strainingly created migrate out the ends and into nothingness, I intend to neither wax, use rubber bands, or backcomb.  I'm investigating other methods that sound promising.  Plus, my hair will be longer, and I'm willing to dread my locks a little thicker, all of which should contribute to healthier, longer-lasting dreads.

To remind you of why I want dreads, here are few memories:

Whew! Ugh.

I'm tired.  Since school got out less than a month ago, I have been to Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point State Park, participated in a three day workshop on the new Utah Core curriculum, led a trip to Yellowstone, completed a three-credit hour class on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, and taken a trip to Boston where I toured Plymouth, Lowell, Lexington, Concord, the U.S.S. Constitution, the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston's graveyards, and went to two Red Sox games in Fenway Park.  Now I'm sitting in the third day of my last class this summer, Creativity in the Classroom.  In between I've tried to squeeze in climbing, other exercise, family, friends, cooking, and cleaning.  Oh, and sleep.  That usually ends up being last.  Cooking, cleaning, and sleep.  This morning I looked at the dishes in the sink and realized they'd been there for four days.  I skipped a shower and washed half of them.  Maybe tonight I'll tackle the other half and the ones on the stove.  

But here comes the next stage of summer: adventure.  If I do everything possible so far, not counting last minute climbing trips that will probably get suggested by friends (I've already turned down three this month), I will assist in the pilgrim reenactment for Freedom Days, go camping in Glacier National Park, summit the Grand Teton, and go backpacking with my family.  That's just July, but my meetings for school start on the 9th of August, so there's not much summer left after July.  If I do all of that, I will have a grand total of 2 1/2 weeks of un-scheduled time, assuming I do nothing but those planned trips.

Here's the catch, I'd love to do all of them, but here are some things I have to get done this summer somehow:  Move and rearrange/redocorate my classroom, complete another 3 credit hour history course, adapt my English curriculum to the new Utah Core, read about 20 books I'm supposed to teach my gifted students next year, and figure out what the heck I'm teaching my gifted kids next year.  In there somewhere it'd be nice to get 8 hours of sleep (hasn't happened in weeks), do the dishes before they mold, and maybe hang out with some the friends I put off all school year because I was too busy.  And make healthy, good food.  Or try a new recipe for the first time in a year.  That's an impossible order for 2 1/2 weeks.  If I try to fit in all of those trips plus all those necessary plus a 10th of the things I'd like to do, I'm going to hit the school year exhausted, which is a bad way to start a school year where I will be teaching three subjects, one of them new, and once again taking evening classes.

But what do I take out?  This may be the only time I have an opportunity to hike the Grand, though it will require a lot of training I don't have time to do.  How can I not do that?  I already turned down the Freedom Festival opportunity this morning, despite the fact it would give me credit toward my history endorsement.  The family backpacking trip is also a must that cannot be skipped.  Not going to Glacier National Park would free up six more days, nearly a full week.  It's my longest time commitment for the rest of the summer, the easiest one to drop.  An extra week I could sleep and train and work on school stuff and do my dishes and work on school stuff.  But man, would I disappoint my parents and sister who have been looking forward to and planning this trip for a month.  I've only gotten to see my sister and my dad once since summer started, and my mother not at all.

Sigh.  I'm tired.  Yesterday morning I was so tired I lost my breakfast, so I skipped my training after class and went home and slept for three hours.  I didn't get up early this morning and exercise, I slept.  I've got a sore throat, and I'm feeling whiny (can you tell?).

Hee Hee Hee Hee Hee

Guitar Pee Urinal

Just go look at it.  And then think for a minute or two, and then laugh.

Miss Wesel and Miss E. Run Away to the Desert

School got out on a Thursday afternoon, and Friday morning Allie and I packed up her car and drove to the desert.  In two days we saw Dead Horse Point State Park, which Allie had never seen, and Canyonlands, to which I was a stranger.  It was crazy warm, but while the heat saps your energy, but it also warms your soul.  We saw jack rabbits and prairie dogs and lizards of all colors, sizes, stripes, and spots.  Here are some pictures, though we used Allie's camera for Dead Horse Point, and mine for Canyonlands, so these pictures are only of Canyonlands.  

The bathroom at our campsite had neither roof nor door.  

Sunrise at Mesa Arch

A week ago, after months of searching, I finally found a cowboy hat that fit, looked decent, and  cost me only twelve dollars.  It also meant I had to take a great deal of ridiculous pictures.  

Chillin' on the edge of the Grand View Point

Of course I didn't hit the button on my camera and dash toward the edge of the cliff to get into position before the picture took.  Of course I didn't.  

As we were leaving Grand View Point, it began to rain.  In the Quran, there are multiple times when it refers to "God's mercy," and a footnote will tell you plainly that "God's mercy" means rain.  Being in the desert in the heat of summer for a few days, and walking on paths where sandstone is returning to sand and baking white, the rain is magical, merciful, and heaven sent.  

Teaching Beliefs

Sitting in training for the new Core Curriculum on the first Monday morning of my summer break.  In the opening ceremony, they asked us to write down some of the core teaching beliefs that drive our practice.  This is what I came up with off the top of my head, unedited and fresh.

Students respond to honesty.  If your are honest about yourself, your subject, and your assessment of them, they will be more honest with you.

Students respond to respect.  If you look down on their hobbies, their clothes, their hair, their grades, their peers, or their opinions, why should they not look down on you?  And how could you believe you don't deserve it?

Students value your opinion.  Deep down, both teachers and students are human beings, they want to be liked, they want to trust you, they want each other's validation.  Just like original analysis is often the most important and interesting part of a good paper, the times you step out of Information Dispensary mode and into What You Really Think About That Information Mode are often the ones that even the kids you think have turned into zombies while they sit there will perk up their ears to listen.  

Students want to like your class--no one wants to be bored, left behind, or talked down to.  At the beginning of the movie Hitch, the main character points out that no matter how emphatically a woman says she's not looking for love, that she doesn't have time, that she's really into her career, etc., no woman wakes up and thinks, "I hope I don't get swept off my feet today."  The same applies to students.  No matter how much they say they hate you, your class, or school in general, no student wakes up and thinks, "Gee, I hope I'm miserably bored and fail today."  

Students can achieve, but you have to give them something they see as worthwhile to do.  If they don't like you, your subject, or the assignment, the only reason they'd complete it is because they already have a habit of obedience and success.  If they do, congratulations to their former teachers and their parents for instilling it in them.  However, they only form about 10% of your students.  The rest are going to need at least like one of the three variables to even try.  

Students respond to recognition.  Whether it be for their achievement in your class, their good fashion sense, their witty disruptive comments, their martyr-like position in the family, that their cold makes them sleepy, or that they doodles they draw on the worksheet you gave them are works of art, even if the worksheet is otherwise blank.  After repeatedly complimenting one student on his drawing, and even mentioning it at parent teacher conferences, he suddenly started turning in his worksheets, coming to talk to me before or after class about what was had happened over the weekend.  He still failed my class, but he started enjoying the class and learning from it, which I cared about a lot more than his grade. 

Students respond to patience and consistency.  You will be with those students for nine months.  Nine months of junior high is a lot of time for the quickly changing and developing students.  Keep patient with the ones that drive you up the wall first term: they may be your favorites the next term, if you haven't driven them away or written them off.  In a world where they themselves and all their friends are all changing physically, emotionally, psychologically, and friendships are formed and broken and mangled and affirmed multiple times daily, your consistency and the steady and dependable conditions in your classroom will be appreciated more than your or they realize.  Unlike their hormonal friends, you do not fly off the handle with no reason.  Though their families are growing, moving, changing, or even breaking, your classroom is always in the same place, with consistent rules and expectations  Your consistency and patience is an asset to both you and them.  

Students have the right not to listen, like you, or do their homework.  You can make them be quiet, you can make them sit still, maybe you can even make them copy down the notes, but you can't make them learn or care.  You can invite, encourage, threaten, plead, and gently tease, but there will be students every year who hate you, hate your class, and think you're a terrible teacher who tells bad jokes.  Some students will fail your class.  The government will tell you that every student should pass, but the government's never had 250 students.  In any sample of 250 early teenagers, a handful of them really will fail your class.  You can make them stay after, put a pen in their hand and a worksheet in front of them, their parents can threaten and bribe, and yet they will sit still, stare into space, and not do the stupid worksheet.  Don't look down on the student for it or for hating you if they hate you, they have that right.  Don't try and take it away from them.  

The second to last day of school, this was in the office.  It's a balloon version  of our mascot, the Caveman.   All I can say is wow.