Beauty in the darkness of the past

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is such a wonderful book. It is such a shame more people haven't read it. This is one I think I could teach every year for the rest of my life and never tire of it. Sadly, I know if I tried I'd eventually run into opposition from parents. I heard of a teacher being fired over teaching this.

Such a shame. How can people turn their backs to the events Angelou speaks of. Sure the sexual abuse is heartbreaking, but it's real. It's a true story, and it happens to so many women. Plus, I felt the way she tells the story is so fascinating. She tells it just as a 7-year-old would have experienced it. Especially an 7-year-old who had never been hugged. Who had faced years of abandonment from her parents. The guilt Maya feels after word was so frustrating for some of my students, but again her descriptions are so marvelous. You see right into the mind of a confused victim.

As she grows older her descriptions and her vocabulary matures. I doubt she even noticed the voice change. I also doubt she planned it. Such a testament to the wonderful writer she is. The sexual identity chapter is the only one I feel parents really have the right to question. But isn't it so much better that their children experience their introduction to these things through the power of words rather than the glorification of Hollywood and the media. I feel like if anything, this opens up the need for good communication skills between parents and children.

Maya's story needs to be told. Her experiences need to be talked about. Of course, the book should be read with caution, but if you are so close-minded you can't find beauty in her life and in her prose you are sheltered passed the point of damage control.

I found this jewel at the Gettysburg gift shop. I'd never heard of it. But it's the nature of the beast, I'm drawn to tragedy. The amazing part is that she admits to keeping some of the most heinous abuses towards her out. I can't even imagine.

We as humans really are a disappointing species. How sick was Ms Bellmont? How could she reason with any of her treatments of Harriet? And those Bellmont men, to allow such to happen in their home. They really are just as guilty. It is sickening.

Nothing I've read so far beats Fredrick Douglass' slave narrative. But I'm still so grateful books like this are republished after years of being lost.

Technically . . .

I didn't read these ones per say, but I did/am teaching them so here are my thoughts.

I'm not really surprised I hated/didn't get this in high school, but I am surprised that even when I tried to re-read it this summer I still couldn't get through it. After picking up the story through discussion with my students I have realized what a masterpiece it really is. Plus, I rented to movie and then I really saw the beauty.

We had some great discussions on whether or not George did the right thing, how times were different back then wha da wha da wha da. I wish I loved reading the story as much as I love the actual story, but I just don't. So if you're like me and you can't get through the book, go check out the 1995? version of the movie. 90 something anyway. It is excellente!
Now this one, I love. I could read Sharon Draper all day and all night. She is such a page turner, even for adults. And as a teacher I really love how character rich her stories are. You can tell she use to be a teacher, she totally writes books that are perfect for teaching (especially Urban kids). Anyway, it's a 300 pager so I actually read it on tape. First time I've ever done that. It was kind of nice. I'm sure it took thrice as long to get through, but at least it was while I was in the car, multitasking!

I'm still in the process of teaching this one. We've just barely left Africa with Amari. My students are totally depressed by it, but I know Draper did her research and the account of slave trading really is accurate. Unfortunately for my students, it is just going to get more depressing. At least half of them have already finished it. Little Anna told me she was reading it by flashlight when her mom thought she was already asleep. She shouted out in anger and her mom came rushing in to see what her nightmare was about. Ah, to be a teen again.

Seriously, go check this one out of your local library. NOW!

Not as good the second time

I didn't like fires in the bathroom at the middle school near as much as I did at the high school. Does that mean kids won't light fires in the bathroom of the middle school I am transferring to? Cause they tore them up at Dunbar!

Reading this book really just reminded me of how little control I had in my classroom this past year. Not really all my classes, mostly just my 1st period. Which is strange considering they were probably the best behaved kids I had, and super smart. There was just something about how chatty they were! It irked me. So now I'm almost even more nervous, cause I realize the students at Deal are going to be super super smart and also well behaved. But Linda seems to think I'll soar at Deal, and she's never steered me wrong.

Anyway, more about the book and less about me. Though that may be hard to do considering the whole time I read this book I thought about myself in those middle years. I really remember close to nothing about the educational aspect of middle school, and judging by the responses in the book I think that is totally normal.

Now I feel even more challenged to create exciting and eager projects with active lesson plans built around them. I want to follow unit guides designed with standards more than usual, while actually tricking my students into mastering those standards. I want to maintain such great control with little classroom routine, as to strengthen the element of surprise in my classroom. To keep kids eager to come through my doors each day.

Other than that, there is little I learned from these students. Their advice was contradictory and confusing; it felt like reading a very unreliable narrator. Makes sense though if you think about it.

Teacher Improvement

It's that time. The time I start cramming in a bunch of teacher books to get me geared up for a new school year. Yesterday I blazed through two that I'm hoping to sell back to a college book store. I've had each of these for almost a year, but never read either till I realized I could sell them back and make a profit since they were both free.

Failure is NOT an Option was to be a joint read at Dunbar. I believe the idea was headed up by Ms Exum. I'm sure she had read it and gained much from it's suggestions. But that's just it, I believe it is more for school administrators, not everyday classroom teachers. It would have been good to read as an entire staff, but as the book itself points out. It is hard to get teachers in failing schools on board with another "reform approach." After they've tried so many they begin to just roll their eyes at the next one.

I still worry about the fate of Dunbar. I do believe the bulk of the remaining teachers want the school to change and are more than willing to aide the leaders as they strive to do so. I just worry those Bedford guys have kept them too far out of the loop and maybe got their hopes up a little too high. I'll be very interested to see/hear about the buildings summer infrastructure changes. I hope they were a success.

There really were a lot of things to learn in here, but I'd have rather heard it through Professional Development with the author or another school Principal who had put those six strategies to use. Then what you really need is a professional to monitor and make sure the school authenticates those strategies instead of just copying them out of the book and calling them their own.

Schools of Fish was next. That was a birthday gift from Sam. She liked the Business version so she let me in on the fun. I love the idea of basing any work place after the guys in Seattle's Fish Market. I was only in the 5th grade when I traveled there (well, 4th really) and that is still one of my most vivid memories of the city. They really found so much joy in their job and at the time I didn't even realize how strenuous that had to be to get up at the break of dawn, stand on your feet all day while continually bending over and tossing 40 lb fish around. But they just made it so entertaining. They attract people from all over the world just to come watch them work. Impressive.

And since the book is all cheery about having the right attitude I think it was a good end of summer read. The reason I'm willing to turn around and re-sale it is simply that there weren't a whole lot of classroom strategies. More like simple tips and happy ending stories. So sure it was a good pick me up, just not something I'd need to keep around and refer to from time to time. Let's see, do I remember what FISH! stands for? Be There, ?, Choose Your Attitude, Make Their Day -- hmm, not bad. Especially considering I only remember one of the six principles of not failing, wait two. Mission Vision blah blah and Community/Parent Involvement. I'm sure Collaboration was one as well. So maybe I retained more than I thought after all.

The Potato One

Even though they are never super fulfilling, I usually like pop-literature. With all its cliches, predictability, and lack of diverse characterization; I still enjoyed this. After a rough start it turned into a real page turner. I think I get so anxious with these books cause I want what I can't predict to happen. It didn't. And the tricky thing with this one is that when I looked at all the possible endings none of them made me happy, not even the one where the narrator gets everything she wants (at the loss of other characters).

I think the author tried too hard to have two different heroines in this novel and in the end they're voices were too similar and their lives crossed paths in too creepy of ways. I did however, totally and completely love Elizabeth and several of the people from Guernsey. I only wish this story was based on true characters from the island during the WWII years. I know the author did her research so I'm sure their depictions are accurate of the people and time, but I really wanted the people to be real. I loved them so much. And that is why I continue to read pop-literature, with its many flaws. Those cheesy happy ever afters (whether movie or book) always seem to have characters you relate to and wish were your friends in real life.

What a gem, only three stars, but a gem.

The Bell Jar Life

How to begin? First, I can't believe I went SOOO long without reading a book. That last one must have been really bad, to put me off to reading for so long. Shame. But this, this one was a perfect way to get back into the groove.

I feel reviewing this book will open up too many of my own thoughts, and reveal too much of my own personal life. As much as I want to write my own Bell Jar, I'm not quite ready and I'm unsure what will come out in this post. But here goes . . .

I guess I'll start with how disappointed I was by some of the reviews on Goodreads.com. As I read the book I was floored by the time periods medical professionals' ideas about mental illnesses and treatments used for certain disorders. How on earth are shocks of electricity that knock you out cold going to suddenly cheer up your spirits when you regain consciousness? As I read this novel, I realized how wonderfully advanced modern medicine has turly become. As I read reviews on goodreads I was saddened by how little people's understanding of mental illnesses have progressed.

As I read this novel, I saw it all. I saw the happiness Esther felt. The pride she had in her bold, somewhat cynical and witty personality. A strong independent woman, a likely heroine of many great novels. I saw her mind become discombobulated. I saw her sadness control her in the most uncontrolable ways. I felt her desire to slap herself out of that slump, only to wind up desperate on the bathroom floor, and later awakened in the asylum. It was all too easy to understand and empathize.

That's the tricky thing about mental illness. So many have suffered from bouts of depression, I dare say . . . everyone who has ever lived knows what it is like to lift themselves out of the dumps. So I can see why it is so easy for those billions of people to wonder why those of us who suffer from depression can't pick ourselves up out of those slumps.

The other day my co-workers were talking about the pain of a charlie horse. I mentioned I thought I'd had one a time or two before. Emily and Amanda both assured me that if I couldn't pin point the exact when, what, and where, of a former charlie horse, if I simply thought I'd had one but didn't know for sure I'd experienced it . . . I had never had a charlie horse. They were very convincing. I've decided I suffered serious muscle cramps, but never a charlie horse.

Same for depression. We can all think of times we were in pain, the kind of pain we didn't want to get out of bed for. But unless you can really pinpoint a time you were beyond help, a time there was truly nothing you could do to stop yourself from your own suffering, than you have not suffered from the powers of depression. That's why all those reviews on goodreads, and all the ones flooding the papers shortly after Plath's novel debut are so devastating.

If you have ever wondered what life trapped behind a bell jar might be like. Read this book. If you finish, and feel that Plath was just a whiny, priviliged girl . . . you have learned nothing and can never understand the suffering we go through.