Skip to main content

Memoir: Being with Children

I'm pretty awful with middle schoolers. This wasn't a happy time in my own life, and I don't recall a truckload of gracious adults working to "connect" with me when I was in seventh or eighth grade. (I do remember a teacher confronting me after a big speech, a speech I was proud of. I imagined this teacher might say something nice. Instead, he rolled his eyes and said, "Your collar buttons were undone the whole time." A comment that seemed small to the adult--but not to the middle-school kid. A moment I'll never forget.)

When I try to "relate" to my middle schoolers, I lean heavily on movies. I once asked a group of tweens if they had seen "A Star Is Born": The smartest of the group guffawed and said, "We *might* have gone to see that....if we were forty-year-old housewives." I later learned that this kid had recently given a big presentation on Stephen Sondheim, and that her mother writes books on Dolly Parton for a living, and I knew, suddenly, that I had found a friend for life.

After my "Star Is Born" comment tanked, I asked if anyone had seen "Spider-Verse." I abbreviated the title because I'm a bit lazy, and because I thought this would give me "currency"; it would suggest that I was "cool," and had insider Hollywood knowledge. No dice. No one actually answered my question. Instead, a child sneered at me and said, "It's called SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE. It's not called SPIDER-VERSE." And this was the end of the conversation.

I guess--if I'm offering any tips--I'd say this. If you're subbing or teaching in a middle school, choose two behaviors you want to see for the duration of your class. The behaviors can even be arbitrary. "I want you to draw kangaroos and to quietly hum QUE SERA for the next forty minutes." Then, any time you see a student not doing what you have clearly defined, you stick to the facts. You can even show anger: "YOUR JOB IS TO DRAW KANGAROOS RIGHT NOW!" Don't get into a philosophical discussion. Don't defend the reasoning behind the task. Just state the task, then enforce your rules, in a deep voice. People like boundaries. The deep voice is bizarrely powerful.

The other thing I'd say: Don't get into battles about things you really don't feel invested in. A terrible misstep of mine: "Respect the DRESS CODE!" The tweens could hear, in my voice, that I actually cared not at all about the dress code, and so they ignored me. I could have pursued this--and lost more and more ground--but at least I recognized that the battle was over, and that the best thing to do was to change the subject.

It's a jungle out there. Try not to betray any weaknesses. Recognize when a lost cause is a lost cause. There's always tomorrow! And, as my all-time favorite mentor once said, "Just survey the craziness, and try to be amused." When all else fails, remember that you are likely obtaining some juicy new material.....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...

Joshie

  When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...

Josh at Five

 Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...