Wednesday, July 14, 2004
What's my age again?
Every so often, I like to spend a little time browsing the Invisible Ben e-mail address. Since I do not have a comments section on this blog (much to certain people's chagrin), this remains the most effective means of contacting me for blog related questions. Normally, I could read all the blog-related e-mails and write comprehensive and personal replies to all of them with relative ease. Unfortunately, it appears that I have such a desperate need for spyware, paid online surveys, and pornography that for every one real e-mail, there are at least 20 e-mails purveying these items.
Once I have cut through the spam however, I find that people ask all manner of questions. These range from the mundane (Q: What is your favorite pizza topping? A: Fresh garlic) to the professional (Q: What is your opinion of No Child Left Behind? A: If no child gets too far ahead, then no one is left behind!). Some people just go straight for the trivial, asking things like who would win in a fight Jules Verne or H.G. Wells.
Ok...that last one was a joke, although Verne would probably outlast the relatively pacifistic Wells in a battle of fists. I'm not sure who would win a chess game between the two, but would be willing to bet that their conversation would outline the key scientific achievements events of the next five hundred years.
One question that I have never been asked has been about my age. I suppose this is mostly because most of the people who read this have met me in person at least once and therefore have no reason to ask. My students would frequently ask me this question during the school year, claiming that I looked real young compared to their other teachers. With my freshmen perhaps I could have told the truth, but with my seniors, with whom I only share a 5 year age difference (on average), it would have proven even more difficult to maintain any semblance of authority if I let them know I had just graduated from college a few months prior to taking the position. A month or so after finishing my first year in the classroom, that distance seems much greater.
Teaching ages you a little...mentally, and perhaps physically as well. Stress can take its toll on both the mind and the body after all. So perhaps that is why this morning, July 14, 2004, feels so odd. For you see, today marks the one year anniversary of my being in a classroom. Yes, the very first time I ever stepped in front of actual students in the guise of teacher was one year ago today at a high school in Los Angeles. If I knew then what I know now, how different my time out west would have been. (I would not have spent so much time working on my lesson plans, I know that for sure!)
In addition to my induction into the teaching fraternity, today marks a more personal anniversary as well. Exactly 23 years ago, a few miles from where I am sitting right now, Invisible Ben arrived on the scene for the very first time. It was one hundred years to the day after the death of William Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid. My memories of the day are rather hazy, I confess, though I am told by reliable sources that I was not a particularly gracious tenant and attempted to stay in my previous residence until after the lease had expired, and so had to be coaxed out. I suppose in a way I've been trying to make up for my lateness ever since!
This birthday is different from most of my others. When I was in college, my friends and I would celebrate together since we were mostly home on break. Having a summer birthday means occasionally having blockbuster movie hits premiere within hours of your celebratory dinner at the International House of Steak. Even when I was away over the summer, whether in D.C. or Los Angeles, there were guaranteed to be a lot of people about who were eager to at least go out and grab a drink and wish you a happy birthday from the get-go. No such luck here. I don't particularly blame anyone. It's not like I went around wearing a big sign saying "It's my birthday damnit, commemorate me!" No, I deliberately kept the day's significance quiet. After all it's a really arbitrary thing celebrating birthdays. Why should I attach any true significance to it at all? Just another sand through the bloody hourglass, right?
I suppose we commemorate birthdays because of sentimentality, a simultaneous attachment to our pasts and the recognition of our progression as individuals. Everyone wants to be a success and whether or not they know it, everyone wants to improve as a person between one birthday and the next. Despite my professional accomplishments during the past year, despite surviving grad school, new teacher training, and (oh yeah) teaching science full time, I wonder how much I have really grown this year. On some days, my job just rekindles childish notions of pettiness and revenge...being immersed in the high school climate almost induces the readoption of high school behavioral norms. How many times has a teacher been tempted to fail a student they dislike simply because they are insulting or rude in class? How many times are phone calls home motivated, not by severity of offense in the classroom, but a desire for vengeance? These are real challenges that we face in the classroom. I faced them. Not always well, but I did it. Still I made sure, that if a student did good work, I passed them. Even if I hated them. And there were a few for whom that was the case. Whether this was a reflection of preexistent maturity or strength of character I possessed going into the classroom or a growth during the course of the year, I am not certain. I'd like to think it was a little of both.
Anton Chekhov, famous playwright and author (no relation to Pavel Chekov, played by Walter K-O-E-N-I-G), died 100 years ago today. (23 years after Billy the Kid, remember?)Along with Borges, he remains one of the finest crafters of short prose in literary history. Chekhov, who died on my birthday, once wrote the following, which I feel is a very appropriate reflection for today:
"Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit. "
A birthday is a turning point. To all of those, past and present, who celebrate their births with me today (a distinguished list including Jules Mazarin, Gerald Ford, Woody Guthrie, Gustav Klimt, and the nations of France and Iraq), I wish you good health and the ability to truly reflect on who you are and what you want to be.
Happy Bastille Day to all.
And to all a good night.
Every so often, I like to spend a little time browsing the Invisible Ben e-mail address. Since I do not have a comments section on this blog (much to certain people's chagrin), this remains the most effective means of contacting me for blog related questions. Normally, I could read all the blog-related e-mails and write comprehensive and personal replies to all of them with relative ease. Unfortunately, it appears that I have such a desperate need for spyware, paid online surveys, and pornography that for every one real e-mail, there are at least 20 e-mails purveying these items.
Once I have cut through the spam however, I find that people ask all manner of questions. These range from the mundane (Q: What is your favorite pizza topping? A: Fresh garlic) to the professional (Q: What is your opinion of No Child Left Behind? A: If no child gets too far ahead, then no one is left behind!). Some people just go straight for the trivial, asking things like who would win in a fight Jules Verne or H.G. Wells.
Ok...that last one was a joke, although Verne would probably outlast the relatively pacifistic Wells in a battle of fists. I'm not sure who would win a chess game between the two, but would be willing to bet that their conversation would outline the key scientific achievements events of the next five hundred years.
One question that I have never been asked has been about my age. I suppose this is mostly because most of the people who read this have met me in person at least once and therefore have no reason to ask. My students would frequently ask me this question during the school year, claiming that I looked real young compared to their other teachers. With my freshmen perhaps I could have told the truth, but with my seniors, with whom I only share a 5 year age difference (on average), it would have proven even more difficult to maintain any semblance of authority if I let them know I had just graduated from college a few months prior to taking the position. A month or so after finishing my first year in the classroom, that distance seems much greater.
Teaching ages you a little...mentally, and perhaps physically as well. Stress can take its toll on both the mind and the body after all. So perhaps that is why this morning, July 14, 2004, feels so odd. For you see, today marks the one year anniversary of my being in a classroom. Yes, the very first time I ever stepped in front of actual students in the guise of teacher was one year ago today at a high school in Los Angeles. If I knew then what I know now, how different my time out west would have been. (I would not have spent so much time working on my lesson plans, I know that for sure!)
In addition to my induction into the teaching fraternity, today marks a more personal anniversary as well. Exactly 23 years ago, a few miles from where I am sitting right now, Invisible Ben arrived on the scene for the very first time. It was one hundred years to the day after the death of William Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid. My memories of the day are rather hazy, I confess, though I am told by reliable sources that I was not a particularly gracious tenant and attempted to stay in my previous residence until after the lease had expired, and so had to be coaxed out. I suppose in a way I've been trying to make up for my lateness ever since!
This birthday is different from most of my others. When I was in college, my friends and I would celebrate together since we were mostly home on break. Having a summer birthday means occasionally having blockbuster movie hits premiere within hours of your celebratory dinner at the International House of Steak. Even when I was away over the summer, whether in D.C. or Los Angeles, there were guaranteed to be a lot of people about who were eager to at least go out and grab a drink and wish you a happy birthday from the get-go. No such luck here. I don't particularly blame anyone. It's not like I went around wearing a big sign saying "It's my birthday damnit, commemorate me!" No, I deliberately kept the day's significance quiet. After all it's a really arbitrary thing celebrating birthdays. Why should I attach any true significance to it at all? Just another sand through the bloody hourglass, right?
I suppose we commemorate birthdays because of sentimentality, a simultaneous attachment to our pasts and the recognition of our progression as individuals. Everyone wants to be a success and whether or not they know it, everyone wants to improve as a person between one birthday and the next. Despite my professional accomplishments during the past year, despite surviving grad school, new teacher training, and (oh yeah) teaching science full time, I wonder how much I have really grown this year. On some days, my job just rekindles childish notions of pettiness and revenge...being immersed in the high school climate almost induces the readoption of high school behavioral norms. How many times has a teacher been tempted to fail a student they dislike simply because they are insulting or rude in class? How many times are phone calls home motivated, not by severity of offense in the classroom, but a desire for vengeance? These are real challenges that we face in the classroom. I faced them. Not always well, but I did it. Still I made sure, that if a student did good work, I passed them. Even if I hated them. And there were a few for whom that was the case. Whether this was a reflection of preexistent maturity or strength of character I possessed going into the classroom or a growth during the course of the year, I am not certain. I'd like to think it was a little of both.
Anton Chekhov, famous playwright and author (no relation to Pavel Chekov, played by Walter K-O-E-N-I-G), died 100 years ago today. (23 years after Billy the Kid, remember?)Along with Borges, he remains one of the finest crafters of short prose in literary history. Chekhov, who died on my birthday, once wrote the following, which I feel is a very appropriate reflection for today:
"Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit. "
A birthday is a turning point. To all of those, past and present, who celebrate their births with me today (a distinguished list including Jules Mazarin, Gerald Ford, Woody Guthrie, Gustav Klimt, and the nations of France and Iraq), I wish you good health and the ability to truly reflect on who you are and what you want to be.
Happy Bastille Day to all.
And to all a good night.
