The Economic Crisis Hits the Markson Family Monopoly Board

I don't claim to be a financial expert, but even I can plainly see the effects of the current economic chaos on ordinary American families. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Your hope a fire

I was resigned to foregoing the concert. “Sara Groves will be here again someday,” I told my friend Emily wistfully. “I just don’t think I can afford 24 hours off next weekend.” “Sara Groves – are you kidding me? Chelsea, just go.”

Emily knows me well enough to understand that Sara is more like my long-lost older sister than anyone else I’ve never met. She was my closest friend in Europe this summer, the one who was always as close as my laptop. She reminds me in all her songs that she understands my life and offers a better way to see it. So go I did, last weekend, to the Art.Music.Justice concert near Harrisburg, and found it well worth the while.

The drive there and back was stunning. I’m enraptured by rural Pennsylvania because it reminds me of Vermont, and I felt like a leaf peeper hypnotized by the dazzlingly vibrant leaves transparent in the intense sunlight. Arriving at the concert, I met up with Penn State friends (Ruth, Catherine, Dana, and others) likewise involved in International Justice Mission (IJM), an antislavery group and one of the concert’s beneficiaries. My parents even decided last-minute to join me.

I knew the concert couldn’t top the five years I’ve spent getting to know Sara’s music. Her portion was too brief, but it had what I wanted: stories. Much of her latest album has puzzled me, and at the concert, I realized how much of it is about social justice. She told of Elisabeth, an Asian girl forced into prostitution, and others she’s met through her support of IJM. She spoke of her heroes and people near to her heart. It went beyond her music, just as I had hoped. I enjoyed the other artists, too: Derek Webb I’ve liked for a while, and I’m hoping for more of Sandra McCracken and Brandon Heath soon.

Afterward, I spent the night with my friend Catherine’s family. Her mom greeted us with, “Hi, I’m sporcling!” Sporcle, as I discovered, is a cache of addictive quizzes that makes you fill in lots of blanks. We beat one on Oh, Susanna, and got pretty far on Symphonic Orchestra Instruments, but were crushed on the Periodic Table. Catherine’s parents remind me a lot of Catherine, and so I loved them instantly. It was also great hearing teacher insights from her new husband Greg, now in his second year of teaching music. We proved together that water tastes better when sipped through neon straws.

I thought I had worked ahead enough, but it turns out that I was correct in my initial hesitation about affording time for this trip. All this week, my German students suffered from my lack of preparation, despite my best efforts to recover. It’s a shame for them and makes me feel guilty, but I can’t regret the trip. It reminded me of so much that is important to me.

Your courage asks me what I am afraid of
(what I am made of)
And what I know of love...

In the neighborhood

The garden by the neighborhood's entrance. Due to a bad hip, Jackie had to give up her role as its caretaker about a year ago, and she tries not to lament all the weeds that have sprung up. Maybe they'll become dangerous, but for now, it still looks lovely.


Lemon meringue and coconut cream pie are the two favorite desserts of Jackie's boyfriend Ben. It was my first time making the former; I still need to try the latter.

The honeymoon’s not over

Two weeks ago, I met my new German students. The first few weeks of student teaching are commonly referred to as “the honeymoon,” when hundreds of little angels cooperate perfectly for their student teacher’s lessons. As college students, we are instantly Cool. Plus, they haven’t had time yet to get bored and start misbehaving. This phase does not last, but I’m still in it. I love my students. I’ve barely learned all 130 names, but I’m already sad about leaving them in mid-October for French, wonderful though those kids may be.

This week I took over both sections of German 1. We’ve been learning numbers, greetings, stating one’s name, and the questions “Who/what is that?” Most of them had a 9-week exploratory German class last year, so I’m trying not to bore half of them with the review that the other half really needs. I have a lot to learn, and especially in first period, I feel bad that they're suffering from my figuring things out. But I’m excited for the huge wall map they’re making, merged with presentations on the German states. Next week, while they’re busy with the project, I’ll start teaching German 2 as well.

It’s interesting seeing what they know and don’t know. Even German 2 students, after one year, can understand a LOT of German. But they always forget, when writing, that “I’m going” and “I go” are translated the same way into German. (Same with any –ing verb.) Poor kids – I’d forgotten how hard the early stuff can be...even before the past tense … In a writing exercise today, translated from English, one kid had the following beauty:

Original (English): Stefan is putting food into the bag.
Attempted (Denglisch/invented): Stefan ist puttingt fuden in dem sack.
Correct (German): Stefan stellt das Essen in die Tasche.

In German 4, students had to state their names and interests for me. When I asked one student what he liked, he accidentally answered “Woman.” He got a bit flustered when everyone started laughing. I was dying, and it took a while to regain control. I hope he wasn’t offended, because when something is honestly funny, I have a very hard time keeping a straight face. I always lost those “don’t smile” games in elementary school.

Mr. Hindman used to live in Austria, so his knowledge of language and culture is outstanding. This summer he took a group of students to Austria and Germany. The kids love talking about their time there, and so does he, which makes German feel very personal. It’s great hearing their stories and enthusiasm. It’s also a big switch from last year’s placement, where my mentor teacher had only ever spent a week in France and had been homesick the entire time.

Girls on the town

Jackie sports an official Cycle Paths T-shirt on a recent excursion with the group.

The danger in caring

“Why don’t you just leave me alone?” he [Tomaso] asked. His voice was very soft and he raised his eyes to me. “Why are you always looking in me?” I saw his hand close around the scissors and lower them. “I wanted to hate you. Why wouldn’t you let me? Why wouldn’t you just let me be alone?”

[…] I was overwhelmed. The question of questions he had asked me. What right did I have to make him care about a world that did not care about him? For every child I saw, for every child I touched, that question was there. And he had not been the first to doubt my wisdom in it. For me the sorrow came in having no answer, in never being quite sure that the pain I gave was better than the pain I relieved.

-Torey Hayden, Somebody Else’s Kids

This scene follows an attempted attack on Torey by an emotionally disturbed boy in her special-needs class. Her four elementary students are as diverse as could be. Boo is autistic, abuse left Lori brain-damaged, Tomaso is violent and in denial about his father’s murder (which he witnessed), and Claudia is pregnant. Somehow, they form a community.

Reading this book has made me cry, probably more than any other book. It’s also caused me to think about why I’m drawn to teaching, and what I want from it. Hayden describes the utter beauty she sees in these kids, their expertise at pushing her buttons, and her fluctuation between trying to pretend she’s omniscient and doubting she knows anything useful. She’s an idealist and a dreamer, and I needed a dose of that before starting student teaching. It’s easy to let details swallow up vision instead of fleshing it out. That scares me.

Torey Hayden reminds me that school is about the learners, not about the lessons. Lori’s brain damage has left her unable to process symbols: though her IQ is normal, she can’t even distinguish the letters in her own name. When Lori is humiliated in front of the “regular” first-grade class for her inability to read, Torey apologizes for the school. “We should never have made you feel that reading was more important to us than you are.”

I know foreign languages are scary to a lot of people. While I believe everyone who’s learned their native language can learn another one, I don’t want to blindly demand a skill or a rate of learning from everyone. May I have sympathy for the learners who honestly don’t get it, even when it seems ludicrously easy to me. May I avoid mixing up the struggler with the stubborn, or the confused with the lazy. Too often, lack of sympathy is the plague of the teacher who learned her subject matter easily.

Hitting the (soon-to-be) floor running

Yesterday, In-Service finally began at my school, meaning everyone at the high school is preparing for students. Actually, we began yesterday at Harrison Middle School listening to pep talks and instructions. (The folding chairs said “HARRISON” on the back, but the one in front of mine had been scratched off to read “PRISON.”) The highlight was definitely the silent speech given by the superintendant, who simply let us read each Powerpoint. A memorable quote: “Talk is cheap. The Romans didn’t build an empire by talking…okay, so they did it by slaughtering their opponents, but still…”

The teachers had to learn their way around the school just like me. (We went on a scavenger hunt, where staff filled our “goody bags” with planners, dry erase markers, first aid kits, etc.) It’s been closed all summer as massive renovations near completion. They’re thrilled about their sparkling new rooms and upgraded technology. With about half the building open, they’ve been teaching out of boxes the last few years. There’s still a long way to go – exposed drywall, unlaid tile, stepladders, and floor-waxing machines are the norm. Several sections won’t be finished until January, so some teachers have temporary room assignments. But it’s already a huge improvement, they say.

Unpacking boxes and hanging posters has helped me connect with my mentor teachers, especially Mr. Hindman in German. Originally, I expected to work with both teachers for half the day all semester. Now, it looks like I’ll be with him for 8 weeks, then switch to Mrs. Frye in French. But she’s already given me her #1 Advice for New Teachers: “Do what you want until someone yells at you.” Words to live by. Until then, I think I’m going to love teaching with Mr. Hindman. He’s infectiously enthusiastic and full of cool ideas. I just need to adjust to his schedule: he arrives between 5:45 and 6 daily, so I’ll need to leave my house by 5:30. Students arrive Monday, but I’m not nervous yet…there’s much to be done in the meantime.