View from my Classroom

A few weeks ago I read about upside-down salads on a food blog. It's a pretty simple concept: dressing and sturdy vegetables on the bottom, protein in the middle, greens on top. Refrigerate until lunchtime. Dump out onto a plate. Voila: perfectly-dressed salad you prepared the night before. I've been on a kick ever since, throwing in anything I have in the fridge -- today it was a hard-cooked egg from my mom's chickens and some leftover smoked salmon.

Over this lunch, alone in my classroom for 25 minutes of introvert recuperation, I thought about May. It's a strange time of year. Looking forward, looking backward. Trying to stay afloat in the present while worrying about the future. Sticking to your guns, but trying to end on a bright note. Feeling disappointed. Feeling giddy. Feeling tired.

Although I had plenty of Huck Finn essays to read, I found myself instead feeling already nostalgic for this classroom, the first place in the school I've ever thought of as my own; after seven years of dashing in and out of different rooms just before the bell (and sometimes after it) I finally got a full-time contract, and a place to call home, two years ago. I liked to think I was rewarded for my patience with one of the best classrooms in the school -- plenty of space, high ceilings and a gorgeous view all the way to the harbor: snowy rooftops in winter and wisps of green foliage in spring and dazzling pink streaks across the neverending sky every morning, if I arrived early enough to witness them. Today I stopped in the middle of a review session to point out to my students a lone male cardinal, bright red, surrounded by the dark, leafy canopy of a mature oak that floated in clouds of gray, drizzly fog. It was a postcard, I told them. We stared together, lost in the moment.

We imprint on the spaces we inhabit. My classroom was an extension of me, almost as much as my living room, with its vase of graceful Palm Sunday willow branches on the piano and dog toys eternally, aggravatingly strewn on the floor. I enjoyed the clean white boards with my neat block printing, color-coded by class; the icon prints I hung on the back bulletin board, to which I referred a surprising number of times during conversations about faith; and the comfortable, worn rolling chairs I could drag to the center of the room when I wanted to sit for a discussion instead of standing for a lecture. (There's a big difference.)

Next year I am moving to one of the worst classrooms in the school, a tiny closet of a space in the damp basement with no room to breathe and a dismal view of the parking lot. I am moving there so I can teach French, which may be what I do from now on. I am not sure about any of this, but for now, I am focusing on the positives. Fewer papers to grade. More opportunities to cook. New challenges. Learning to know the students in a deeper way instead of bidding them farewell after one season.

I will take down my Dorian Gray posters and my Mythology flow chart and put up posters of French kings and farm animals, and I will buy a dehumidifier and some cheery curtains and make the best of the space while I try to make French as fun for them as it was for me so many years ago. Of all the vocabulary I learned then, I remember most of all "Je suis si fiere de toi." I heard it over and over and over until it spilled forth naturally the first time a student shyly confided that she had spoken French to a stranger in the grocery store. I'm so proud of you, I said, without stopping to summon up the words first. I didn't need to think. I felt it. That's what teaching is all about.

Our Christmas Card: The Extended Version

The first couple of days of Christmas break are always wasted in a flurry of movie-watching, cookie-baking and snuggling with furry things on the couch (blankets, animals, unshaven husbands.) Suddenly, on Christmas eve, I realized we hadn't done Christmas cards. I half thought of scrapping it, since we'd been good about it for our first ten Christmases, but I realized what I said last year is still true: I like the whole process, the hassle of changing addresses and names and the fun of scribbling little notes by hand and the nice finished product at the end -- a pile of pretty stamped envelopes waiting to join our friends all over the country.

So, those are on their way to you, and meanwhile, for those of you who really want a play-by-play, here's what we've been up to this year:

First, we had a lot more work to do with our two new end-of-2011 projects: dog and kitchen. It took me a very, very long time to get used to having Mishka in the house, but I do enjoy her company, as well as the protection she offers me from burglars, the UPS man and umbrellas. (Bubble wrap, however, is a different story. If bubble wrap ever broke into the house, she would hide in the corner while it made off with all the valuables.)

She also forces us to get outside more, which is definitely a good thing, as she has an endless capacity for running, sniffing and chasing. On one recent foray in the woods near our house, I enjoyed calling her back with a whistle: I would hear nothing, then a very faint rustle growing louder as she trampled through the fallen leaves coming toward me. The last time I called her back, however, the rustling grew louder and louder until I saw, with much alarm, half a dozen deer charge over the crest of the hill in front of me, on high alert with tails up. A hundred yards behind them was Mishka, having the time of her life.

Snow is like crack for dogs, apparently.

She loves the snow, but unfortunately, this little dusting was it for the year until this week. Thankfully, we got in a visit to our dear friends in Colorado and saw some real snow, along with real mountains, trees and blue skies (you think we have these things on the East Coast, but you're so wrong!)

Spring brought more raised beds and another attempt at filling them with our favorite heirloom varieties. Unfortunately, our summer traveling always interferes with the crucial work of watering and harvesting, but we still got quite a few tomatoes, beans, berries, carrots, beets and greens, plus all the fresh herbs we could handle!

Some pretty flowers, too, especially in the spring -- and yes, we still have the cat, and yes, she tolerates the dog who wants so badly to be friends with her.

Church is a constant source of peace and healing for us amid the stresses and trials of everyday life. I am grateful for my job as protopsalti, training and leading the other chanters; it keeps me connected to the community of Holy Cross, and to the Cross itself, eliminating the possibility of intruding busy-ness. We had a beautiful Lent, Holy Week and Pascha this year, including this lovely flower-covered bier with which we processed around the church on Holy Friday, commemorating the Lord's death and looking ahead to the promise of His Resurrection.

In the late spring, Rob and his dad, along with some friends, rode in Bike New York -- a a 42-mile ride that spanned all five boroughs and gave them some great views and an even greater workout. My mother-in-law and I happily tagged along for shopping, dining and a beautiful visit to the new Ground Zero park.

Giant waterfalls outline the footprints of the original Twin Towers, surrounded by a peaceful tree-lined arcade. The names of the fallen inspire personal tributes like this one.

Then we turned right around and went the opposite direction, to beautiful New Orleans for a weekend filled with sunny weather, beautiful music and way too much good food. We also enjoyed a visit to nearby St. Francisville to spend time with some dear friends who took us out for crawfish and stopped for cracklins on the way home (that comment about too much good food? I really meant it.)

New Orleans may be Party Central for most, but to me it's more a place of peace than anything else. The people we meet, the cocktails we toast with, and the streets we walk are all infused with a quiet, refined grace that trickles down into the days and weeks following our return. I couldn't ever get enough of the place.

Almost as soon as we returned from these trips, and as we were wrapping up the school year, I ended my 21-year academic career by walking the stage at Loyola University to receive a Master of Arts in Teaching along with a Secondary English teaching certification. In other words, after ten years of private instruction and seven in the classroom, I am finally, officially, a teacher.

As the school year ended, I signed a contract making the leap to full-time employment; I would have my own classroom for the first time, as well as increased administrative and supervisory duties. I was a little nervous about this, but Rob assured me it was not all that different from what I had already been doing as a part-time instructor. He's still full-time at the college level, teaching design courses to diverse classes that include both starry-eyed teenagers and professionals older than he is. One of the biggest perks of his job is that every other year or so, he gets to run a travel study program in Paris!

Like any good husband (and he is the very best) he brings along his French-speaking wife so she can enjoy herself and help him out of Metro limbo when necessary. This year we ventured further south of the city on our days off, seeing some incredible chateaus in the Loire valley.

(For more about our travels in Paris, I invite you to read my Top Ten series. Loyal readers (all four of you) will notice that not all of the ten pieces are published yet, but please enjoy what's there and I promise to finish soon!

Upon returning, we hosted a huge, fancy dinner in honor of Bastille Day, featuring five French courses paired with hand-selected American wines. The most prestigious Louisianan journalists all covered the story.

We spent time at the ocean as the summer ended, and also attended three beautiful weddings -- a longtime friend of mine in a three-part French-Indian extravaganza, a longtime friend of Rob's in a sweet homegrown ceremony on a farm, and a cousin's eclectic celebration in some local ruins:

School began again this fall, and with my increased class load, I made the difficult decision to stop teaching private piano lessons. My students were an important part of my life for nearly ten years, and it was hard to say goodbye, but I know they will be successful elsewhere: several have transferred to my mom's studio and are already making great progress. Meanwhile, I've enjoyed teaching a French class in addition to the English that makes up the bulk of my workload. I credit Rosetta Stone with my quick recall of vocabulary I learned when I was my students' age!

We've made time for lots of fun weekend trips this semester, too: besides the weddings, we also took in a couple of concerts and enjoyed the stately beauty of Williamsburg with our family. And a friendship that began at the summer Sacred Music Institutes took me to Boston for two weekends in a row, to rehearse and record as part of Charlie Marge's Boston Byzantine Choir. I was so honored and humbled to be a part of the incredible musicianship and camaraderie of this group, and we enjoyed quality time with our Boston friends in my free time. They call this the "Hahbuh."

We were out of town so much this fall that I'm afraid I was a bad mother to this blog. I hope this New Year will bring some more stability, but I also have to blame social networks for some of that: although Facebook's time-sucking capabilities have kept me away so far, I have enjoyed the simple beauty of sharing photos via Instagram (in fact, many from this letter were originally published there; it's a nice backup in case, say, your hard drive crashes when your laptop falls off the couch and your last month or so of data is unrecoverable.) I've also enjoyed reviewing restaurants on Yelp, and as one of their Elite members I get to attend fun events around town. You can check out the content on the left-hand sidebars, and if you share either hobby, please look me up!

And now, having celebrated the glorious Nativity of Christ with a late-night festal Liturgy, and having feasted and clinked glasses and given gifts and sung and laughed, we prepare for an end-of-year gathering with family and friends to do more of the same -- and we wish you as much peace and joy as can fit into your hearts.

Merry Christmas from Baltimore!

Love, Emily and Rob

The Way of the Future

1) Teacher makes up a blank chart in Microsoft Word.

2) Students download the chart and fill it in with quotes, citations and examples of the American Dream as stated by the characters in the novel.

3) Students upload individual assignments to Turnitin.com.

4) Assignments are automatically cross-checked for plagiarism against tens of thousands of books, hundreds of millions of other papers and billions of websites.

5) Teacher viewes individual papers and reads the plagiarism reports. Teacher adds comments with one click, anywhere in the document, and can even choose from a list of common comments, like “fragment” and “incorrect citation” — which each come with multiple paragraphs of explanation and reference.

6) Students log on, read comments and print a copy if desired. (It’s usually not.)

Less waste, less headache, less drudgery. I actually found myself commenting more because it’s so much faster to type in a box than to write on a piece of paper!

It doesn’t approach the cushiness of, say, an architecture professor, who assigns letter grades for entire projects DURING the students’ presentations. Nevertheless, these advances have certainly made life easier for English teachers everywhere.

Scenes from the First Day

I awake well rested. I get ready in a quiet house, make the bed. Morning prayers: I read the name of each student, wondering what they will look like, what they will say, what they will think of me.

They are huge classes: last year my largest class was 15, and this year my smallest is 17. Every chair is filled, even the ones by the windows. Rain blows in and soaks their backs. They squeal and run for cover, kicking their backpacks in front of them.

They enter to index cards — one on each desk. The assignment is on the projector: name, interests, English history (grade, most and least favorite part) and the clincher: a 10-word summary of a story they heard recently. “Anything that caught your attention,” I say. “It could be funny, gross, sad, or just strange.” They hem and haw and whine. “I can’t think of anything! My life is so boring!” I remind them that they’ve lived through a hurricane and an earthquake in the last week, and a flood is forming in the streets outside as we speak.

It’s uncomfortably warm; I quickly pin up my hair and am glad I wore a black shirt.

We pass out textbooks — as many as ten per student. Their groaning turns to laughter as I ask, “Raise your hand if you have TOO MANY books on your desk!” They ask if they have to bring every book to every class. “Yes,” I say solemnly, “And you have to carry them on your head, too.” I don’t care what Todd Whitaker says about sarcasm; it works if you know how to use it properly.

The opening exercise is a huge hit. They highlight dutifully and enjoy reading their selected phrases along with me (this is one of the most powerful ways to begin analysis of any piece of writing, and yes, I stole it from another teacher.) They have lots of questions, lots of ideas. They talk about parents and friends who have lost jobs and houses. They demonstrate how much they learned and overheard during the last presidential campaign, and during the last year of school — referencing simile, climax and conflict as elements of the “story” the author is telling.

“Mrs. Lowe,” one student pipes up, smiling. “Can I be your favorite student?” I ask about her cooking skills. “That’s a high priority if you’re considering the position.” Now they all want to tell me about their cooking skills. “I can make cheesecake!” “I make the BEST cookies!”

I spend as little time on the syllabus as possible, but because I am organized, I don’t need to. They read and sign the class policies, which include expectations for both students and teacher — “I expect you to hold me to these as I will hold you to them,” I say, without a trace of a smile this time, meeting and holding each gaze in turn. “I will demonstrate respect, responsibility and passion in this classroom. You will do the same.”

So thirsty. I always forget how much talking there is in teaching. I will not leave the room to get a drink, even though it would be easy. This is my classroom. I am in charge. End of story.

Every ten minutes or so, to lighten the mood as much as to learn their names, I reshuffle the stack of cards in my hand and call on another student to tell her story. A little brother who has an imaginary friend. A dream about red turtles and a shooting star. A dog who went out for her last walk, came home and dropped down dead. After the laughter and murmurs of sympathy, we address the story itself: why is it memorable? What do we love about it? How does it compare to what we will read this year?

Gently, I hold their collective hand through the quarter syllabi that show each and every assignment. Next class: vocabulary and an oral quiz on summer reading. After that, they’re on their own to remember and complete their work. But I know you can handle it, I say.

“I have to say,” says one student as I leave the room, “That was a fun class.” As I enter the next: “I’ve heard great things about you, Mrs. Lowe.”

Of course every day won’t be like this. But thank you, Lord, for letting this be the first.

Joyful

Yesterday was tough, disappointing and tiring. It was also exciting, cathartic and joyful.

I'm choosing to focus on the joyful part. When I saw how my hardworking student and her mother had prepared the refreshments table for her recital, my heart was lifted. They'll never know how much.

Something about that ritual, the one I've performed countless times for students whose names and faces are now blurred by time -- the one I can perform by heart, including the speech at the beginning, the silly story punctuated by repertoire and the encore bow at the end -- never fails to help me face the trials I am called to bear with renewed strength. And even with joy.

The Endless Summer

My school raised several million dollars for a major addition to the building, which was to take place over the summer. Anyone who’s ever observed an ongoing construction project knows that deadlines are seldom met, so when the first day of school got pushed back several times, now holding at 10 days later than the original, our gleeful gratitude far eclipsed our shock. However, the gift of a week and a half, just when I’m starting to get depressed about all the things I didn’t accomplish this summer, is nothing to sneeze at. Here’s my plan:

Clean the house from top to bottom.
Organize all the junk in the basement.
Sell one or two more unused pieces of furniture (I’ve had pretty good luck with Craigslist, despite a preponderance of flaky people who simply stop responding when they’re no longer interested.)
Weed the gardens and harvest remaining produce.
Go through my piano and vocal music; purge and reorganize.
Catch up with friends I missed all summer.

The real surprise? An earthquake that unleashed widespread devastation in the area this afternoon. We’re slowly digging our way out from all the havoc.

Starting Over

“Once I finally learned how to teach piano the right way,” said the instructor who trained my mom, “I had to fire all my students and start over.” She was obviously (and humorously) misdirected in this remark, but expressed clearly the familiar frustration of trying to teach a new system to an old and complacent student.

For other reasons, though, her words have an uncanny resonance to me at this moment. My studio is half the size it was at the beginning of the year, which was half of what it was when I began teaching from home, which was half again what it was when I used to travel to students’ houses. Over the years my students have lost interest, moved away and succumbed to the seductive allure of home lessons; they’ve been replaced, but never in the same numbers. I suppose I could start advertising, but I prefer word-of-mouth referrals because they ensure the parents know what they’re in for before they ever show up for the first lesson.

So here I am, with half a dozen kids and what could be viewed as an opportunity. With twenty or forty students, cancellations are commonplace and overhauls to the schedule nearly impossible. With six, I decided, I can try something I’ve wanted to do for years: group lessons.

I started small. Two groups of three: one for beginners, one for advanced. I told the families that for our end-of-year event, we’d replace the last lesson in June with a group class. I dreaded the scheduling, but it actually wasn’t so bad, and I was even able to put the groups back to back for two solid hours of games and performance.

Surprisingly, though I’ve had lots of classroom and private teaching experience, this new hybrid format made me a little nervous. I wrote out a schedule of games, reminders and stalling techniques in case I ran out of things to do. And then I unlocked my front door and waited.

They came with parents and grandparents and anticipation. They sat on the rug, pointed and spoke and clapped rhythms, worked cooperatively and let their personalities shine through. The slower, more methodical boy accepted help from his bouncy, lightning-fast friend. They both stared wide-eyed at the girl who played the last piece of the volume they had just started. The preteens fell into joking and jabbing each other as if they’d always been friends. They complimented each other and talked seriously about improvements for the future. When they left, smiling for a few parting photos, I wondered why in the world I hadn’t done this a long time ago.

Oh, yeah – because I couldn’t have done it then. I can, however, do it now. And I’m already scheming about how to make it a permanent part of our plans for the future.

Time to Chat

I entered our accountant's home in a harried rush last Friday, wanting to get on with the day's to-do list; but when we sat down, she leaned across the desk and smiled inquiringly: "So, what have you been up to? I mean, I know all this -- gesturing toward the pile of income and donation records -- but how is your life? How are you?"

This unexpected dose of humanity caught me off guard. "I, well -- we're good," I stammered lamely. Rob, who has always been better than me at relaxing, told her of our traveling last summer, our adventures in the kitchen, and our quiet evenings at home with the cat. I smacked headlong into the reality of my blessed existence, and it knocked the wind out of me. It was with a quieter, more awed consciousness that we went on to discuss IRAs and earnings brackets.

Four days later, I arrived at my doctor's for my annual check-up; again, flustered because of a time crunch that would almost inevitably make me late for my evening class. In she came, with a cheerful greeting, and didn't even open my folder before she asked, "How have you been? What's going on in your life these days?"

This time, without a husband to turn to, I had to speak for myself. I told her of the joyfully chaotic mornings with my classes, full of life and unexpected humor; of the cozy afternoons spent tete-a-tete over a piano or a prep book; and of the evenings in discussion with friends and classmates, continuing studies of my own. She nodded sagely. "We need teachers. You're making such a difference, whether you know it or not."

She went on to say that her three daughters had all graduated from my school, and though they were now in very different fields (nurse practitioner, elementary education, public health), they were all grateful for the education they'd received there, especially in English. "People just can't write any more," she lamented. "But the girls you've taught? They can. And that's such an advantage for them."

Leaning forward, she delivered the lines I most needed to hear: "You're doing a good thing. Teachers are wonderful." And the rest of the visit was downright pleasant, even the expected lecture about more exercise.

Twice in one week, a humanizing chat in an unexpected forum brought me back to circumspect reflectiveness. The more cynical part of me wants to chalk it up to the economic insecurity of both professions. The optimist cheers for these tiny steps on the way to a better life -- a better world.

Make Me One With Everything

Which is exactly what the Buddhist said to the hot dog vendor. But that's beside the point.

We're in The Slump now -- the third quarter of a four-quarter year. The weather has warmed enough that snow days are out of the realm of possibility, but not enough to make time spent outside pleasant. Midterms are over, but finals seem miserably far off. Even spring break exists only in the distant future, on the other side of the chasm called Term Papers.

And as such, there are many days when I feel selfish, whiny and generally unsatisfied with my life. Most times when I feel this way, it's because I feel the pressure of an existence that is crammed with many different facets. I spend my mornings working for The Man (solely a figure of speech, as my principal is female): part of that job involves spending time with people who are not easy to get along with, for one reason or another. I come home and work for myself: part of that job involves allowing others into my home, a situation with which I am not always completely comfortable. I spend a lot of time preparing for and directing church services: like teaching, this is a job that is potentially limitless, ending only when I arbitrarily call it quits for the day. In the cracks between these jobs, I'm also trying on the hats of student and housewife -- and, I suppose, writer. So many spinning plates that I feel I never have enough time and energy to treat them all with the respect and care they deserve.

But there's another dimension to all this busy-ness: the unexpected and dynamic reactions that occur at the intersections of my various vocations. Working for The Man means I can, on occasion, take a day off for which I am paid as if I had shown up and taught the lessons myself. Teaching from home means I can step into the next room to make a cup of tea and come back to congratulate a student on her diligent practice by moving the star stickers from her music to her cheeks, where they accentuate her dimples in the sweetest way. Playing at housewifery means I can spend all afternoon on a batch of chocolate babkas, just for the heck of it. I get to learn about being a teacher from professionals who have been at it all their lives, and then I get to go to work the next morning and play the sovereign over my own class, experimenting with new methods and techniques I just picked up. And while I'm laboring over a blog entry that seems unnecessarily heavy or heady or both, my cat will pad into the room, meow inquiringly and then look for a spot on or near my lap to curl up and offer soft rumbles of support.

I am *not* the person who orders the same thing every time she visits a restaurant she likes. Rather, I often feel anxiety about the fact that I can only try one thing at a time. So the funny thing about my life is that if I could have created it from scratch, ordered it at a deli, I would have picked this one. One with everything.

Keeping the Mystery Alive

"What's in the cupcake?" they all want to know.

I keep mum for as long as I can. But when they're down in the dumps and they just can't seem to *get* it, sometimes a little encouragement is called for. So I pick it up and open it just a tiny crack -- enough for someone to come out and make them smile.

"One time. Great job! Want to do it again?"

They beg, plead and cajole to be able to open the cupcake and choose their own. I shake my head solemnly. "But if you play it again, you might see another one."

"Might" means "will," of course. Until the spot is perfect, or at least until they're cheered up.

Sometimes a little mystery can make all the difference, whether you're three or thirteen or thirty. (Hey, I'm the one who keeps expanding the collection.)

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