If only the disaffected kids would write a good thesis

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being yourself, control, dreams coming true, express feelings, fear, goals, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, relationship, teacher, trust, words, writing

Both of my students came to their piano lessons yesterday, sat down and immediately asked it they could add a few minutes to the timer and set it for 32 or 35 minutes instead of 30! It is a delight to think they want to stay longer.

But what about the kids in English class I must face again today. The ones who grunt in answer to direct questions such as “Can you tell me of an instance in the book where Susanna shows she is smart,” knowing the paper proving some attribute of a character is days overdue. The ones who shut down at the very sight of me, or maybe just any adult or figure of authority. The ones who have been taught that it is a good idea to fear and deny those who reach out to help. The ones who make it plain that somewhere along the line the idea of interacting with others like me is dangerous. It is so unlike the students who embrace my help and seek me out and work with me to lift them up.

I feel for those kids in class who spend more time crafting ridiculous things to say in an effort to get rid of me, than they do crafting anything useful. They could be thinking up clever things to tell the world to get back at whoever or whatever put them in the hole they are in, in the first place. I feel for the kids who cannot see that the best way to get out of their misery is to accept the free education we are offering. What promise these kids hold that they have the angst and anxiety and pain and suffering that would speak so well to the world if they could articulate it and be brave to share it. The disaffected kids of my classroom have much to teach us all about human spirit if only they would learn to organize a sentence and string it with others to make a paragraph, use specifics to prove their points and tell us all to go to hell in a way that makes it clear that teaching kids to fear adults is a bad idea.

That’s why I try to be a piano teacher that the kids enjoy, so they want to come back, and so I can teach them there is at least one adult around who can be trusted. Not that I worry about that for any of my students particularly. But it makes me feel good, just in case.

Doing your child’s homework for him

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being brave, control, education, fear, goals, higher power, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, listening, relationship, security, taking risks, teacher, trust

I think it starts when kids are young. There must be some trickery involved, telling ourselves that we are actually modeling, demonstrating how to get homework done, but not actually doing the homework. There must be some degree of denial happening wherein we believe this is actually good for our child. Or is there some fear under this ‘helping’? Otherwise, why would a loving, caring parent steal from their child like that? You know, taking away precious opportunities to learn and grow and mature.

It may not look like it but it is the very same thing as being too afraid to let our children try out for the choir, school play, sports team, or talent show. These are the parent’s fear, not the child’s. In fact, if we listen carefully to kids they show us that they are marvelously fearless. They have not been through the trials of life yet and so still have the joy of possibility in their spirits.

When my kids tell me they want to do something outrageous I say, yeah, show me how. Show me how to have a free heart that can see the possibilities in life and show me how to be free of the chains that hold me back. Show me how to live. As soon as we decide our kids should not do something, all because it might (fill in the blank with your personal fear), we have just passed on the limitations we ourselves live by. Isn’t it a great thought that our children can be bigger than us and better than us and ultimately pave the way for us to be free of our inhibitions?

If you know you are too involved in your child’s homework, literally doing it, you would be smart to hire someone else, like a tutor, to take your role. Someone who can keep the student’s actual best interests in mind. Maybe that way you can still feel in control but not sabotage your child’s education. And if you find yourself discouraging your children from trying for their dreams because of your fears, think again about the power of your role as parent and whether you like the idea of controlling everything they do.

Being brave and taking risks isn’t for everyone.

A classroom of challenges

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being yourself, control, express feelings, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, relationship, teacher, trust, words, writing

Friday was one of those days where there was a tiny miracle in English class. Somehow, a young lady and I seemed to be in the correct frames of mind to have our thoughts intersect, despite her typically being hard to inspire. Maybe my quiet approach, and I mean extra quiet Friday, was the right door through which to enter, because for the first time I can remember she took me seriously. She did not dismiss my attempts to help but this time took the bait, hook, line and sinker, and located a quote in the text, read it to me including the difficult to pronounce word ‘nonchalant’ and then committed it to a worksheet she up until then had been staring at for days. Don’t be too impressed. All this happened after I talked with a young man who explained that he was playing a video game on his iPhone to reward himself for answering a question on the quiz he was supposed to be taking, and another who informed me that it was too boring to work on English papers so no thanks for the free help I offered.

As far as my success story goes, it might have been because during our very quiet conversation I asked a few simple questions about the reading, and to my surprise the typically grumbly and unengageable young lady answered me seriously. That’s when I used a method that sometimes is helpful, and that is to quickly write down, verbatim, whatever the student says. “Well, you surprise me,” I said, “maybe I did not realize you could form such effective sentences. These are your words, not mine, and look how great this sounds.” And then I read it back to her. She corrected it slightly which told me she heard what I said. So I said it again in a different way. “I do hope this sentence shows up in your paper somewhere because it is exactly the kind of thing to support your thesis and prove your point.” We spoke a little more and she complained it was hard to find a quote to go along with her idea. I asked if she knew that anything between the covers of the book is quotable, and not just dialogue. Oh yes, she knew that. That’s when she took up the book, turned to a passage and read it to me to prove her own point. “Nice. That works,” I told her. “That goes well with your great sentence, so put them together and you are halfway home.” Another girl I was working with called me over and that ended my time with the difficult girl, but it amazes me how our very quiet conversation was so productive.

Having it happen that we both were in the spirit of working together despite the many days we have failed to connect, gives me hope that we are building a relationship that will result in her growing in her ability to write and express herself so we can all know how she feels. Since she is so quiet all the time.

Ignorance is bliss

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being yourself, control, Dante's Inferno, express feelings, fear, goals, high school English class, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, listening, mentors, passion, teacher, trust, words, writing

Today I got an email from my English teacher asking if I could come in next Tuesday to help in the classroom. It’s midterms and the kids requested me be there during the essay portion of their test. What, you say, help out during the test? Yes. This is precisely what the trained educator in the room and I dreamed of, building enough trust with the kids so they might do something like this…seek out help.

My teacher is so clever as to recognize the value in teaching kids how to take a test by having me present. I sit on the sidelines and students step up one at a time in the middle of writing an essay, and as the spirit moves them, kibitz quietly for a moment or two. I don’t have any answers. Honestly, at the AP level I barely know what the literature is that we are talking about. But I do know how to think, and how to organize and how to help guide a logical progression of ideas. And that’s what we talk about. As a matter of fact, the idea that I do not necessarily read the works we are studying, allows an ignorance the teacher can never get back. She’s read it all, and read it all a lot. So, if kids are not clear enough in their writing to inform me, the average individual, of what their point is by way of specific examples that prove a point, they are not communicating effectively. So, in this way, the less I know about Dante’s Inferno, the better.

I do what I can, and apparently my ignorance is quite helpful.

Helping kids find their Intuition

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being yourself, control, Dante's Inferno, English class, express feelings, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, Merchant of Venice, responding to art, Shakespeare, teacher, words, writing, Wuthering Heights

I absolutely adored my job today. I am talking about the one where I get to go to the high school and hang around the English classes and talk to kids about their writing. Today a steady stream of students visited me to discuss what to write their comparative papers on relative to Wuthering Heights and Dante’s Inferno, or how to prove some kind of point being made in Merchant of Venice. It all sounds pretty high brow, I know, believe me it is not, but truly the same dynamic occurs no matter whether we are talking about Shakespeare or the Sunday comics. It’s about art and responding to it, so there is not necessarily a correct answer. But half the kids are convinced that there is some special thing we must see them write in order to get the credit when truly it is about making an argument and supporting it with evidence to convince the reader of something.

So my job turns out to be sitting with kids helping them react honestly to the literature at hand since they cannot really pose an argument if they have not responded to the art in the first place. Whether they love it or hate it does not matter. Discovering that reaction and exploring why it is what it is, is so much more fun and so much easier than trying to figure out the right answer.

One tiny step closer to adulthood

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being yourself, control, growing up, high school English class, inspire, joy, listening, teacher

Every day kids move invisibly a tiny step closer to adulthood. So you never know what you’re going to get. You never know if today is the day they suddenly like spinach after years of saying no to it. You cannot tell by just looking, so it is a little dangerous to think the kid you are talking to today is the same kid you were talking to yesterday. It just might not be.

So at school I have to keep open the possibility that one of my students, instead of flipping her hair and turning on her heel in exit, may instead stop to talk about our work in class together, contributing even more to her own learning. I need to remain ready for that. Teenagers are on the brink of adulthood so some days you get an Elmo tee-shirt wearing kid discussing Faulkner and some days you get a fashionable looking young adult playing classroom pranks.

You just never know. Today could be the day a kid steps a little closer to her future, and if it is, I’d like to be there to cheer her on.

Falling asleep while reading to kids

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being yourself, control, falling asleep reading to kids, goals, high school English class, inspire, joy, listening, piano, piano lessons, teacher, teaching, trust, words

The high school English teacher I work with said to me today, “Let’s go where the learners are”, meaning we should follow the kids in the classroom that show their interest in learning, and then try to teach them whatever it is they are able to receive. This creates a culture in the classroom, of learning.

I know this might sound complicated but really I think it is what we do as parents all the time. When my toddler brings me a book, I see that it is time to read. He is showing me that he is ready to learn about reading even if it is only to hear the story. Do it enough times and more things, things we are not even counting on, are being learned as well. Things like our ability to be close, or how stories are composed, or that Dr. Seuss is an artist and an author, or that sometimes parents fall asleep reading books, or that sentences can be constructed lots of different ways. Frequently my piano students are eager to show me what they have learned over the intervening week….ripe to learn more. “Show me,” I say, and I let them lead the learning right off the bat.

There is little way for us to know for sure what our kids learn when we attempt to teach them, so why worry about it. Let’s just go where the learners are, and offer what we have with the hope they will benefit.
All of this creates a culture of learning and of caring about kids, teaching our children to value and embrace our authority.

Salutatorian takes first place

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being yourself, dreams coming true, express feelings, goals, inspire, saludictorian, teacher, valedictorian, writing

As soon as he sat back down and I’d heard his valedictory address I was disappointed that as a writing coach in his very school, I hadn’t had a chance to meet with this young man ahead of time to impress upon him the great opportunity at hand. The opportunity for him to create a capstone idea for himself and his audience of his experience in life so far. In my opinion he wasted his ten minutes of fame, the ten minutes he took to address the gathered graduating class and the hundreds of spectators before him by having us all stand up and clap for ourselves. He didn’t say anything meaningful but filled his talk with cliches and throwaway lines. He gave me the impression although I know it cannot be true, that he is a guy who through brute force, that is just sheer will, got himself to the top of the class and had no creative insight into his experience whatsoever. Surely he would like to take stock of what it all meant and as a leader what he might share with his colleagues.

In contrast, the salutatorian whom the program tells me is driven to create his own software company someday, urged his countrymen to be conscious of what they like to do and to do it a lot. Even though I do not expect high school students to know with such great specificity what they want to do with their lives, I was impressed with this young man’s drive and his clear message to his classmates. He urged them not to waste themselves on unimportant matters but to follow their instincts and forge ahead with passion. Based on all that I read and saw of him he is taking his own advice.

For me, in the big high school competition to create winners I see the second place finisher miles ahead of the boy who won top honors just because along the way he managed to learn so much more.

Insanely insecure AND wildly confident today

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being yourself, change, dreams coming true, express feelings, fear, goals, insecure, inspire, listening, teacher, writing

You know, I feel good about stepping out of the box a little, but today in the same breath I actually admitted to insane insecurity, worrying about what others were saying about me behind my back, and then announcing my absolute lack of concern about doing things my own way.

Somehow in all the isolation of my childhood and all the time I spent under my own personal sky I got to knowing myself pretty well, and being able to hear my own voice pretty well, not ever realizing what others might be thinking. What I know about myself right now is that I love teaching kids to write. I love the whole notion of helping anybody see anything in a new light. And I do it in my own way. Today I told the teacher that I work with that when the schedule opens up next year and I have only half as much work to do, that I’d like to work with other teachers as well, and maybe do some things most theme readers like myself don’t usually do. She is all for it and had some ideas of her own. It’s both thrilling and scary to move into a new realm. And oh so worth the risk…even if it turns out differently than I hope.

I’ve heard that people often say on their deathbeds that they wish they’d taken more risks. So I try to keep that in mind when I stick my neck out a little.

Insane insecurity is paired with stepping out a little and I don’t really mind…

Every child needs security

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being yourself, cooking, parents, relationship, security, trust

My eldest son is looking for a new, bigger apartment in NYC, for his last year of college, and learning about the ways of the world the hard way.

Just a few more months left before my middle child, eighteen now, heads off to South America for a year to become immersed in another culture and learn another language before heading off to college.

My daughter is so big she can make forty cupcakes for the Salvation Army dinner, all by herself, and only needs to occasionally call out such things to me over on the couch as, “What’s cream of tartar?”. It’s a picture of happiness for me to look in there and see her in the apron we made together, pondering how to use a candy thermometer.

All three seem secure to me. When I think about trying to provide security for my children, that is with a home that is a good safe place to feel sure about, where we protect them always and in times of crisis, and where they can feel they belong and fit in, I know it has happened for all three. They are big now, but the job of providing security has happened every day since the first was born. Every day since he came to us we have tried to build a life that feels safe and sure even as the world sways around us. It has been made of ideas such as dinner together, a predictable bedtime with stories and hugs, laughter and playing, rules and limits, a place to take all feelings, an overall predictable life even amidst the unpredictable such as the flood of our house, worries about jobs, illness, death.

When I see kids in the high school struggling to be present in their opportunity to get an education I am reminded that the need for security is far reaching. My kids have not had to wrestle with difficulties at home because we have been able to create a life that precludes that. It is among our goals for ourselves as a family to be secure, to cling to one another and believe in one another, even when it is difficult, not ever giving up.