Jay Cee

I know it. I know that going through magazines, business mailings, and junk mail as soon as they arrive is the best way to manage it. Yet. I still let it pile up until I have weeks (or sometimes months) worth of papers to sort and then my hand starts to hurt from ripping up everything I don’t want and then I start to feel guilty for helping waste so many trees. Nonetheless, snow days are good days to go through said piles of paper, and sometimes said piles of paper render a few things to think about.

Yesterday, as I was reading the summer newsletter (yes, summer) from Manna House, Inc., a homeless shelter in Baltimore where I volunteered for a week in college, I came across a poem that made an impression on me. I want to share it here, in hopes that it will make an impression on you, too—especially this Lenten season.

Jay Cee (J.C.)

J.C.’s mother was pregnant out of wedlock
He was born in an animal shelter
He had no formal education
He was homeless

The governor tried to murder him when he was a baby
His parents had to migrate to save his life
He had very few friends
He was homeless

He slept in boats
He spent his quiet time in parks
He rode on a borrowed donkey
J.C. was homeless

His friends were mostly illiterate fishermen
He owned no property
His father was a simple tradesman
He was homeless

One of his trusted friends betrayed him
He lived on the kindness of strangers
He was falsely accused and arrested
J.C. was homeless

He did not get a fair trial
His best friends denied knowing him
He was assaulted by Soldiers to near death
He was homeless

His sermons were free
The religious leaders of his time hated him
He was brutally murdered for a crime he did not commit
J.C. was homeless

His mother was a witness to his murder
He changed the course of history
He changed the fate of mankind
He was homeless

Today many call themselves his followers
People are persecuted because of him
Millions know his name.
J.C. was homeless

--Samuel Enos, M.D., M.P.H

Kindness Is Okay

I wish I weren’t surprised by this, but a couple of weeks ago a group of 4th grade boys surprised me when they wrote KINDNESS acrostics for the school’s character education challenge of the week. What surprised me most is that this particular group of boys doesn’t usually show interest in anything I teach or say, yet they wrote their thoughts about kindness—which felt to me as if they were sharing little pieces of their hearts. I spent a few minutes typing up their thoughts this afternoon, and I want to share them with you all here. I will bold the lines that I think are particularly profound, cute, or inspiring:

Kids should be nice to others.
I can show kindness to kids that have trouble understanding.
Not everybody knows what kindness is so people can teach them what it is.
Don’t be mad at people. Show kindness so you can be their friend.
Make new friends and show kindness.
Everyone should be kind.
See people helping others and give them a treat.
See someone getting bullied and you can show kindness to the kid who got bullied to make them feel better.
--Co.

Kids should help out.
I must help people always.
Never waste trees.
Don’t hurt anyone.
Never steal from someone.
Einspire everyone.
Share with others.
Show respect.
--H.

Keep each other safe
Interest in other’s feelings
Nothing about us is different
Don’t bully anyone
Nobody fights alone
Encourage others
See others problems and fix them
See if you can make stuff better
--Ca.

Kids should be friendly.
I like to help people.
Never push people. Help them.
Don’t be a bully. Be a buddy.
Never take stuff. Give stuff.
Everyone should help.
Share your stuff.
Share your kindness.
--K.

And then there’s my 5th grade nephew Henry. Henry’s kindness has never surprised me. He’s like me and wears his heart on his sleeve. So it’s no wonder that in between basketball games and a family birthday party on Saturday, he set up a cookie stand so that he could raise money to give to a ministry that he heard about at church. The church wasn’t doing a major push to raise funds. No one had been pushing him to do a service project. There was no badge or award to be received. Henry simply heard one presentation by the Zoe Ministry at church (http://www.zoehelps.org/) and decided that he wanted to help. Months later, he used his resources—the main one being his mom who once owned a cookie business—to set up a cookie stand and raised well over $100 for the ministry. Henry put kindness into action.

Here’s the thing, folks. The poems and story above were all brought to you by boys who listened and who haven’t become too stereotypically masculine to share or act upon feelings of kindness. I don’t know about you, but I want to do everything I can to help these boys know that while society will inevitably discourage it, kindness is almost always okay.

Give Me An F

Hi. My name is Ms. Deaton. I work at a failing school.
Officially. My school was given its grade last week.
We were given an F. For failure.
We didn’t meet someone’s expectations for us.

They saw our data.
They analyzed our test scores.
They locked in our before, middle, and after.
They looked at papers and numbers and statistics black and white,
And they definitively decided that we weren’t good enough.
They gave us an F. For failure.

But here’s what they don’t know:
We’re not failing.
We may not be thriving.
But we’re not failing.
We’re figuring it out.

We’re figuring out how to
Feed students who do not eat unless they are at school;
Find shoes for students walking on holes or hanging onto soles with duct tape;
Fit shirts, pants, coats, and underwear to students who are in need;
Finance the treasure box;
Fix discipline issues with limited options for consequences in a society centered around the rights of “me”;
Finagle the daily schedule to include childhood;
Fabricate lessons with no textbooks;
Free generations from bonds of illiteracy;
Fell the fences that separate rich from poor, haves from have-nots;
Fill classrooms of twenty-eight students with positive energy and love when the deficits of some are so great that they fight to get their fill.

Learning doesn’t happen in a bubble.
Intelligence is not all test scores and black and white.
Knowledge is not all facts and figures and strategies and tools and rules and data and samples and bubbles and statistics and interventions and
Students are not robots who objectively regurgitate information during pencil-and-paper-sit-absolutely-still-in-the-absolute-quiet-that-absolutely-never-happens-in-this-absolutely-overstimulated-world tests.

My name is Ms. Deaton. I work at a school that they say is a failure. An F.
Well let them give me their F.
I’ll give them mine.
And I’ll stand with some of the most courageous heroes that I know and boldly proclaim that our school is figuring things out by
Failing to believe that we can be reduced to or diminished by an F.

World Peas

Yesterday was Amelia's 7th birthday.
Each year for her family party she chooses the menu and dinner attire.
I don't remember the menu from last year, but I remember that we were all charged to wear pajamas. I like pajama parties.
This year, she chose for each of us to wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants, and for her "comfort party" menu she chose:
Soup, potatoes, and peas.
Yes. Peas.
She's seven.
So at the party on Tuesday night, we had chicken noodle soup, tomato bisque soup, potatoes, and peas.
Now, I don't really like peas, but I love Amelia, so I dutifully put a spoonful of peas on my plate. Everyone else did, too.
Yet at the end of the party, there were still a lot of remaining peas in the pea bowl.
We are a one bag of peas family. Not two.
Not knowing about the remaining peas but living in a general state of excitement, Amelia said, "Hey daddy. If there are any peas left, maybe you could put some in my thermos for lunch tomorrow."
Finley told her that were peas leftover and that that could probably be arranged.
Amelia was thrilled.
At the thought of peas. In her thermos. For lunch.
If only there were more people in the world like Amelia--
excited by possibility,
creative in thought,
appreciative of friends and family,
eyes aglow from the happiness of life--
Then maybe we would have world peace...
One pea at a time.

Shameful Failure, Beautiful Success

Have you ever had one of those moments when you knew that you should stop talking, yet you kept speaking anyway?

That is exactly what happened to me during one of my fourth grade classes two weeks ago. Partly due the class itself, partly due to it being on a Friday afternoon, I have struggled with this class since the beginning of the year.

I’m not sure why, but one particular student in the class has made it her goal to be as mean as possible in my classroom. I don’t know if I offended her, made her mad, bored her, or what, but she has had a terrible attitude in music class since day one, and it has made teaching the rest of the class very difficult. The eye rolls, the neck slides, the malicious smirks, the mean comments, the obvious desire to stir up trouble—all of it together equals a disrespectful attitude that gets under my skin and irritates me by its very existence. What’s worse? This student knows exactly what she’s doing and thinks it funny. Give me genuine learning or behavior difficulties all day long. I can be patient with those. But intentional disrespect and hurtful choices? That is my limit.

And so…the class walks in and her eyes start rolling and her grins start forming and her comments start flying and seven or eight students start arguing because of the trouble she is stirring up and…well…I lose it.

I look at her, open my mouth, start speaking, and all of my raw emotions toward the disrespect come flying out. In short, I remind her that she hasn’t been in my classroom for the past few weeks and tell her that the class has behaved better without her; therefore, their poor behavior must have something to do with her. While speaking, I’m thinking, “You don’t need to be saying this in front of the whole class. This could make her feel that the class is better off without her. And that’s a bad feeling. Each person is important. Even the difficult ones—even her. Each person needs to be here. Talk to her privately. Stop talking now.” And yet. Everything I had been holding in continued to come out.

The sad thing? She just looked at me, smirked, and agreed with what I was saying as if she were proud to be the source of trouble; meanwhile, the rest of the class was so loud that they didn’t even hear me.

While I knew that what I’d said wasn’t the worst thing I could have said, I felt horrible for saying it. I also felt horrible that I lost my patience so publically. All weekend, I thought about my poor behavior and wanted nothing more than to apologize to this student.

Monday was such a busy day that I didn’t think about anything but morning announcements, teaching, and Harnett Off-Broadway. But on Tuesday, after morning announcements, I saw this student in the hallway and decided that that moment was the moment. I walked up to her while she waited on her class to finish its bathroom break and calmly and repentantly said:

“Hey…Look at me, okay?”
She looked at me with her disrespectful smirk, defensive, as if she were expecting me to fuss at her.
Gently placing my hand on her shoulder and looking her in the eyes, I said, “I was really mean to you on Friday, and I’m sorry.”
Still smirking, but not as much as before, clearly not remembering the moment of my transgression, she responded, “What did you say to me on Friday?”
Not wanting to rehash the moment of shame, I ignored the question and said, “You have a really bad attitude when you come into my classroom. You know that, right?”
She said, “Yes.”
I said, “Do you think you can stop?”
A little shocked, she quietly said, “Yes.”
I said, “Good. I’m glad. But I was really mean to you on Friday, and I want you to know that I’m really sorry. Okay?”
Stunned silent and deeply confused, smirk completely faded away, she said, “Okay.”
I said, “Okay,” patted her on the shoulder, wished her a good day, and walked away.

Guess who had a slightly different attitude in music class this past Friday.
Guess who didn’t smirk at me or intentionally try to aggravate me.
Guess who didn’t cause as much trouble with her classmates.
Guess how long it will last.

Your guess is as good as mine on the latter. It may not last for more than last Friday for all I know. But for one moment, of one week, of one fairly tough year, something went right. And though the entire rest of the class period was a failure, I count that something with her a success.

I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that the student about whom I’ve been speaking had never had an adult directly and sincerely apologize to her until that moment in the hallway last week. I’m sure she’s had adults yell at her time and time again—tell her she could do better—tell her what she’s done wrong—tell her how she could improve. But I’m not sure she’d ever had an adult show genuine vulnerability after making a mistake…and sometimes vulnerability changes things. So while it was difficult—apologizing is often difficult because it means admitting some type of failure—I know that it was right. And I know, now, that sometimes shameful failure can be turned to beautiful success.