I'm starting to think that maybe children aren't universally terrifying after all.

I don’t really know what to do with small children. I didn’t have to acquire much experience in this department growing up—my brother is only three years younger than I am, all of our cousins are older than that, and by the time I reached babysitting age it was already firmly established that I was not the right teenage girl to ask to help out in the nursery.

Despite having known this fact about myself since elementary school, I managed to forget it entirely in my senior year of college. That’s when I encountered the attractive whirlwind of powerful marketing and well-meaning hubris that is Teach For America.

For anyone unfamiliar with the organization, Teach For America (TFA) is a program that recruits brand-new, maximally idealistic college graduates and enlists them to teach for two years in severely underperforming schools. TFA specifically seeks graduates who did not study education in college, because the organization prefers a fresh receptacle for its own systems and values without interference from clutter such as “years of training” or “classroom experience.”

After acceptance into the program, TFA teachers undergo a five-week summer training called “Institute,” which is obviously sufficient to cover all of the skills a 22-year-old could need in order to manage and serve a classroom of academically disadvantaged students. The TFA website calls Institute “a rigorous and intensive experience,” which is presumably the result of the public relations team reworking their original slogan.

From Institute (where I learned that showers are so your roommates can’t hear you cry), I went on to my very own classroom of first graders in rural southern Louisiana. There it quickly became clear that those hours of instruction and practice in lesson planning had not addressed my extreme lack of experience with six-year-olds. My determination to eliminate educational inequity did not prepare me for the child who brought a pocketful of playground gravel back to class to throw at me...

... or the child with surprisingly good spelling and penmanship for a first-grader.

I want to be very clear on this point: These problems sprang from my extreme lack of confidence and ability in classroom management, and not from any fundamental fault with these children. They are almost definitely not evil in their cores at all. And they certainly didn’t ask to be subjected to the authority of that shouty white lady who kind of sounds like she might cry.

After a couple of months, it was obvious to everyone that my ability to explain subtraction was no match for my inability to get anyone to sit still, keep their shoes on, and stop spitting sunflower seeds at each other long enough to listen. I left the program early and came home with more than a little psychological baggage.

 Fortunately, there have been a few changes over time. For one thing, it’s been eight and a half years since I left Teach For America, so I almost never have the nightmares anymore.

For another, I have recently gotten to know a few little kids who seem not to mean me any physical or emotional harm! This experience is distinctly preferable, and in fact I have found that it can even be fun. For instance, several months ago I had a graduation party at which the first guests to arrive included friends of mine with their 5-year-old twins, Lucy and Batman. Also in attendance was a large and delicious-looking cake. I let the kids know that there were not enough people present yet to cut the cake, and we would have to wait until some more arrived. Lucy spent the intervening time making sure that the presence of a cake in the room remained at the front of my mind.

By the middle of the party (during which Lucy got plenty of frosting on her cake), there were four children under the age of six in my house. I am proud to report that I did not find this situation even a little bit harrowing.

Funny how context can change your experience. It’s almost as though Teach For America has significant organizational failings that should not be interpreted as a direct indictment of children’s character or my worth as a person. Huh.

Extra Credit: Sure, it’s satire. But it’s true.

Trust Me

I like being an expert on things. If there were a way to harness this “internet” thing to regale imaginary strangers with long stories they don’t care about, I would definitely be all over that. I might even draw pictures.

The best times, though, are when you get expert status as a bonus—it just so happens that everyone else in the vicinity has less knowledge or skill in this area than the paltry amount you’ve got, plus no way of judging your own ineptitude.

A sudden snowstorm recently handed me one of those glorious moments of unearned authority. I was checking the freezer for ice cream around midnight when I noticed the snow through the window, and I went out front to look at it in case it melted before morning. That’s where I found my next-door neighbors and their abbreviated dog, staring around them at all of the weather and looking awed but apprehensive.

With a hand to my sagacious chin, I dispensed the deep wisdom of the ages.

They listened, confident in their newfound guru, as I nudged them toward enlightenment through sticking to major streets and looking for closures on the news. They had no way of knowing that I had spent the previous February frantically Googling how much road ice it would take for me to die of fear before even starting the car.

Of course, operating under unearned credentials is a risky game, and there’s always a chance they’ll figure you out. During the summer educator-training program for Teach For America, I once spent about twenty minutes as the person in the room who could draw. This is not typically a title I can claim in the presence of an even moderately capable fifth grader, so I was as surprised as everyone else by my answer to a colleague’s plea of, “Help! Can anyone draw a pet that kids have?”

However, in that rush of sudden exalted proficiency, you have to be careful not to push your luck. With everyone else thinking you have superior skills or knowledge, you can start to believe it yourself…

It’s easy to ruin the illusion.

Sometimes it’s just better not to reveal your expert knowledge in the first place. For example, the assortment of 65-and-older ladies assembled for Sunday School do not necessarily want all of their questions energetically answered.

In any case, you can definitely trust my advice on all of this. It’s pretty clear that I’m the expert.

Sicko

I caught a cold this past week, which was not a raucously awesome time. I didn’t get sick last winter, though, so this year I was pretty much doomed. It’s like hitting too many green lights in a row: You can only cheat the system for so long before getting stuck behind a bus for five cycles at the same intersection.

Actually, I’ve grown so used to getting a head cold for Christmas that the first warm rivulet of post-nasal drip oozed with the nostalgia of holiday tradition.

The saving grace was that my job offers not only sick days, but also the special bonus of actually wanting me to use them instead of coming to the office to spew contagion like a germ land mine.

This culture of not infecting others (Ha! Culture!) is taking some getting used to. In college I would just snargle my way through classes and into a puddle of pitiful, late-night studying and nose-blowing. During fall-semester finals of my senior year, I eventually followed the combination of an overflowing waste basket and NyQuil-induced forlornness to its natural conclusion:

In twenty-five years of phlegm experience, though, I’ve only ever lost my voice once—naturally, at the least convenient time possible. I’ve already mentioned my abortive stint as a 1st-grade teacher with Teach For America, which put me in front of a roomful of six-year-olds over whom I had effectively no control even when I could shout.

The day I started to lose my voice, I stubbornly decided not to need a substitute. I tried to encourage the class to keep their volume down so that I wouldn’t have to overtax my vocal chords, and since my go-to tactic is “THREATEN WITH RIDICULOUS THINGS,” that’s what I did.

In the end, I did have to take a couple of days off. I left some helpful notes for the sub, though.

Weirdly, when I got back to school, the students turned out to be better behaved than usual until my voice came back. They were oddly accepting of games like, “OK class, we’ll be learning about even numbers in Impossibly High Squeaky Voice today.” Maybe I was right about the substitute in the first place.

A helpful friend made sure to preserve my dulcet tones for generations yet unborn. This video features me attempting to sing our class song—music by Woody Guthrie, lyrics by me, and hand motions/frantic jumping by Miss Boling’s Class.

ARE YOU READY TO LEARN NOW?

Si, Habla Ingles

A lot of Americans do not realize that New Mexico is part of their country.

I first learned this fact in elementary school, when we lived in Oregon and occasionally travelled to visit my grandparents in the desert Southwest. I announced one of these trips to my gym teacher, who was from Alaska herself and should have been familiar with nonstandard states.

I was not the kind of child who let inaccuracy slide, and I think my teacher showed a lot of restraint for someone being vehemently corrected by a seven-year old.

Sadly, this geographical ignorance persists, even in areas much closer to the state in question.

I lived in rural south Louisiana for six months while failing at teaching the first grade. My Teach For America coworkers and I had to cross the Mississippi once a week to attend training classes in another little town, and on one of these trips we met Perry the Ferry Man.

(TANGENT: I loved taking the ferry. A westerner by birth and raising, I had never seen a river the size of the Mississippi. My first day in town I drove across the bridge to Baton Rouge three times just for the heck of it, and the ferry is way better because you’re still in your car, but now you’re on a boat. In your car. On a boat. You can even get out of the car, and you are still ON A BOAT. I could say this all day: CAR. BOAT. RIVER. ON!)

Perry could tell we weren’t locals, and he came over to talk with us. He headed for my two fellow teachers, who had arrived in a truck with Illinois plates, and asked a few questions before turning to me.

I wasn’t sure what he meant at first, but then…

Now, I realize that my license plate says “Mexico,” right in between “New” and “USA.” But I had not prepared an appropriate comeback for this type of misunderstanding. I was also several weeks into a neuron-destroying cycle of sleep deprivation, so my response lacked a little punch.

Perry seemed to decide that I didn’t understand all that much English, so he spent some more time interviewing my friends. Eventually, though, he couldn’t resist:

This is where I really, really wish that I had been firing on all cylinders.

Instead, I just left the man wondering how on earth this half-mute Mexican could teach school.

As a teacher, I probably should have put more effort into American Geographic Awareness. All I can say to that is, “What did you think was on the other side of Texas?”

P.S. You’re welcome.

Super Powers, Part III.5: Not Liking Coffee, Sort Of

I am not exactly a connoisseur of coffee.

I’ve spent most of my life smugly disliking the stuff. I felt superior and health-conscious. Every warning I saw about negative effects—cardiovascular damage, weakened teeth, pre-caffeine morning stupor—inspired a self-satisfied “Not me!” I even told a congratulatory little story about my superhuman resistance:

I got all these benefits without any sacrifice—if you sincerely dislike something, you do not get Martyr Points for giving it up. This logic did not stop me from regaling others with the tale of my impressive willpower at every opportunity, though.

The trouble was that I kept tempting fate. I still liked how coffee smelled, so I would try it every now and then to see if my tastebuds had changed. It’s the same way I occasionally sample brie and V8 in case they’re no longer disgusting and I’m missing out. With every test, though, I continued to file that cup o’ joe under “gross.”

So what major life event—what monumental stressor—finally got me to drink coffee?

I realized that fat is delicious.

I bought a carton of heavy cream for the fridge at work, and it took a single cup to corrupt my once-touted purity.

(Plus I got a nifty mug like this one, and I really had to start drinking something that leaves stains so that no one else would try to borrow it.)

Despite this shameful fall from grace, I held onto a last shred of superiority: Up until recently, I was not aware of any personal standards for coffee quality. All the fuss about finding the good stuff or being the world’s best sounded affected and needy—unlike the fine gradations I recognize in ice cream workmanship, coffee pretty much seems to be coffee.

Last month, however, I faced a 12-hour, overnight drive across six hundred very flat miles. This trip led me to sample a great deal of the coffee available in the wee hours of a West Texas morning, and my palate mustered up some previously unrecognized discernment.

At my gym, the tanning booths are in between the front door and the women’s locker room. When I walk past them, the surrounding area is usually scented like tropical fruit or lavender. Occasionally, though, it smells disconcertingly like dinner.

That’s what it tastes like when you pull into a small-town McDonald’s at 4 a.m. and they pour you a cup from the pot left untouched by last night’s shift. The greasy savor of roasting skin.

I don’t have a good way to end this post. It’s hard to rebound from flesh coffee. Instead, you should listen to this song, which I heard on vacation and which is now my very favorite snake-related song of all time:

Superpowers, Part II

Like any good superhero (as opposed to, for instance, Matter-Eater Lad), I have more than one power.

#2. Falling asleep in any location, no matter what is going on

This ability began to develop in my senior year of college, and it blossomed into a true superpower during my six-month stint as a first grade teacher with Teach For America. By exercising this power, I have fallen asleep

• while attending a five-church southern gospel choir extravaganza
• at a dance club on Halloween
• 50 feet from the stage at a John Mellencamp concert
• eighteen inches behind a performing bluegrass band, while standing up

During this last feat of strength, I was awakened from my super slumber only when the double-bass player backed up and accidentally stepped on my foot.

As a college student just beginning to recognize the scope of my abilities, I once used the power of super sleep in a one-on-one meeting with an adviser. I managed to lose consciousness any time I was not personally speaking, as follows:






The best thing about using this power is that it’s completely undetectable.