Live an interested life. I cannot put this in bold enough face. You are interpreting the world to your child. Is it fascinating for you? Are you engaged in creating, in thinking, in knowing people? Do you make music, take pictures, cook, teach yourself to sew, hike someplace new, learn to fish, eat at a new restaurant, take the back way into town? Are you reading about the history of mental illness, repairing furniture, learning to oil paint? *Show* your child how interesting the world is, and they will love to learn.

And that is what we’re after, isn’t it?

She was talking about homeschooling (she did it with five of her own) but I think it’s good advice for all parents, and godparents, and teachers too.  I’ve always thought it was just fine if students thought I was weird, as long as they saw I was passionate, because maybe it would inspire them to be more passionate toward the things they love to learn about.

Or, at the very least, they’d get a good laugh at my weirdness.  Which is good for both parties.

We marvel at the resilient child who survives the most toxic parents and home environment and goes on to a life of success. Yet the converse — the notion that some children might be the bad seeds of more or less decent parents — is hard to take.

It goes against the grain not just because it seems like such a grim and pessimistic judgment, but because it violates a prevailing social belief that people have a nearly limitless potential for change and self-improvement. After all, we are the culture of Baby Einstein, the video product that promised — and spectacularly failed — to make geniuses of all our infants.

Not everyone is going to turn out to be brilliant — any more than everyone will turn out nice and loving. And that is not necessarily because of parental failure or an impoverished environment. It is because everyday character traits, like all human behavior, have hard-wired and genetic components that cannot be molded entirely by the best environment, let alone the best psychotherapists.

Besides playing on my biggest fear about parenthood (what if your kids are just plain rotten?!) the article brought to mind another point made, much more lyrically and with a healthy dose of cynicism, by Jason Peters: Too many people are going to college, and college itself is ceasing to do much of anything but harm:

It may be—it is certainly so in some cases—that “higher education” is little more than a poorly wielded blunt sword that maybe strikes, but for the most part glances off, the heads and shoulders of young people, and I suppose this is lucky.

But not in an ideal college experience. There’s a risk to education, and education should be worth the risk, to say nothing of the cost. It should result in better and more thoughtful citizens of given places. It should culminate in full human beings who know better than to be enamored of abstractions. If I allow that education should be driven largely by content, I hasten to add that it should also be ethical, moral, and humane. It should be conducted with respect for both the future and the past, which is to say its should be conducted with measured suspicion of and admiration for both.

Young men and women, if they have been properly educated, should undergo a crisis of conscience analogous to physical growing pains.

By and large they don’t. They undergo a closing of conscience–and of consciousness. They are introduced only to the easiest of moralities—“tolerate difference.”

[. . .]

It is difficult to imagine handing over democracy to such people, but we really don’t have any other choice. We can’t exactly hand it over to the cows.

And of course there’s the other kind of student who will not suffer any crisis of conscience whatsoever. He is the student who has been raised by fundamentalists, either religious or secular. He arrives at college knowing he will be assaulted and he is determined from the start to withstand the assault. He believes St. Matthew was written first and Revelation last. Or he believes all facts of existence can be explained in terms of natural selection, or by brain states, or by the subconscious. The great catastrophe of his existence is that mystery has been dismissed before he even gets a chance really to be confronted by it. He was raised by parents who on Sunday mornings either went Jesus-hunting at the Bible Chapel or warbler-hunting at the Cathedral of the Pines.

All of this is to say that there are both pervious and impervious students and that all of them are being introduced by “higher education” to a lower form of existence. Perhaps all of them are credulous young men and women, at best the trusting sons and daughters of trusting men and women who don’t know that they’re paying a lot of money so that their children can be told things that aren’t so by people who don’t know that they aren’t so.

Really, it’s hard to summarize a good author — you should read it all, though there is some mild adult language and a general jaded tone that belies his good nature.  (He’s the brother of one of my dearest friends, so I’ve met him several times.)

I could (and do) heartily agree that college is too widely seen as an instant fix for everyone: students who did well in high school are expected to cement their social and vocational status with a degree or two, and those who blew off four years are told they can make a comeback with the next four.

I could (and do) also second Peters’ suggestion that higher education should include compulsory manual labor — food preparation, cleaning, gardening or something designed to teach them the value of visceral, tangible effort.  It’s good enough for you that you should be forced to do it even if you wouldn’t have chosen to.

However, I think the important point in both articles is that we (I speak for Americans, though probably some Western Europeans are following suit) are far too empowered for our own good.  We think we can do anything, from changing dispositions to changing intellect.  We are all such complex beings that it’s ludicrous to try to pin ourselves to any one set of influences; we just don’t know where our minds and personalities come from.  We’ve all met nasty people and simple people, and though we’d like to think they wouldn’t ever exist in our families (or, God forbid, ourselves) odds are that some of us will have to accept that reality.  We just don’t want to.

But I really thought that e-mailing a group of teachers about a new product opportunity, designed by one of my good friends, would be simple.  Take orders.  Collect money.  Write one big check.  Feel good about helping my friend and giving the manufacturer some business.  Easy, right?

Wrong.  In 24 hours since the original offer, I have gotten e-mails from almost a dozen teachers who obviously didn’t read it.  They want to know what size they should get.  (There are two sizes.  How in the world should I know which would work better for you?)  Where should they send the check?  How long do they have to decide?  What kind of material is it?  And how does Paypal work?  ALL questions I already answered, except the last one, which is utterly ridiculous.  Why not just ask me how the Internet works?

After a year of answering questions like this (What page did you say we were on?  When is this due?  Do we have to write in complete sentences?) I have had it up to here with people who don’t listen, don’t problem-solve on their own, and expect me to do both for them.  My patience and compassion reserves are drained.  I have chosen to not respond to these messages at all, rather than to unleash the torrent of my wrath that would surely follow.

On days like this I love to read Dr. Grumpy’s rants. His stories always make mine look downright reasonable.

The first student was too absorbed in his work to notice, and the second was a family friend who generously refrained from staring, but my last student of the night was a sweet, inquisitive four-year-old who simply couldn’t concentrate until, as Carole Bigler would say, he had cleared his mind by speaking it.  I apologized to both parent and student for the ice pack I was holding over my face and explained that I was having some sort of allergic reaction.  His mom gallantly claimed she hadn’t noticed.  Her son, however, had. “WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR EYES?”

I don’t know, honey.  But don’t worry.  I’m all right.  Can you play Mississippi Hot Dog for me?

This seemed to satisfy him, and he played it beautifully.  On the last note, he looked up at me.  “ONE OF THEM IS BIGGER THAN THE OTHER ONE!”

Yes, this was true, I agreed.  And how about Ice Cream Cone?  Can you play it with your left hand?

He complied, but this time got only a few bars in before whirling back around: “IT’S RED!”

His mom and I laughed, and I told her one of the best benefits of teaching: it keeps you humble.  At no point can you pretend you are above it all when there are people around you who remind you constantly of your ordinary-ness.

This reaction has happened half a dozen times in as many months, and I haven’t been able to narrow it down to one factor or another.  First I thought it might be an evergreen allergy, as it was near Christmas; then I suspected calamari, which I had eaten twice before having the reaction; but this time I had had a lunch of whole-wheat pasta, and the near-constant drizzle of the last 48 hours has prevented me from going outside at all.

So, another call to another doctor, and another appointment.  It’s as if my body knows the warranty’s about to expire.

Yes, it’s bad for you.  So is eating at McDonald’s.  And if done in moderation, it’s probably even less bad for you than McDonald’s, especially if you’re smoking anything other than unfiltered tobacco cigarettes.

Society has certainly demonized it, and as a borderline libertarian (who voted for Obama — hey, at this point I might as well alienate all of my readers) I tend to come down hard on the other side.  I think secondhand smoke is largely a myth.  I certainly think bars, restaurants and other private businesses should be able to decide for themselves whether to allow smoking on the premises. But that’s all politics and personal freedom, and the Church doesn’t care much for either.

My good friend Pastor Toby Sumpter recently posted about this issue, and I have to say, it’s one of the most thoughtful and balanced perspectives I’ve ever read on the subject.  He primarily addresses the students of his parish and school, but then broadens his argument to include all of us:

If 9 out of 10 of your elders, pastors, and teachers would frown at it, why do it? Aren’t we called to love? And love not only covers multitudes of sins, it looks for ways to die for others. Ordinarily, in our culture, cigarettes are self-serving and the only other people thankful for your indulgence are your friends who also know deep down (or not so deep down) that dad would really not be pleased with this. Is that love?

I’m still not sure what I think.  But it’s a pretty compelling argument: Christianity is about sacrificing for others, not doing what we want and forcing them into acceptance.  St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians: “But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak.” (8:9)  Just as interesting is the question of whether it’s morally wrong for a non-Christian to smoke for similar reasons — his own autonomy versus the pain and distress inflicted on those he loves.  Some people quit lifelong habits out of deference to their parents or spouses, and I’d like to think it’s not just because the nagging wore them down.

Anyone want to jump in with their two cents?  You thought I’d never ask?

After my first year of classroom teaching, I wrote a piece for my school’s alumni magazine.  It was a half-rant, half-rhapsody about teenage girls and how wonderful and frustrating they were to teach.  At the time, I wasn’t at all sure I would ever teach again, so it was a sort of swan song, just in case.  A little like my friend Chris’ (sadly, his piece has now been archived and costs money to view, but you can take my word for it that it was compelling and true-to-life.)

That summer, I asked my dear friend Terry for some advice.  I wanted to write more, but I was lost about how to do it.  Getting into the business is a lot like getting into acting or fine art: you have to know someone, or preferably, know a lot of people.  What should I do?  I wondered.

Terry is nothing if not direct.  “I think you should write more about the Pink Girls.”

At first I didn’t know what he meant.  Then he started suggesting reading material: Reviving Ophelia, A Return to Modesty, I am Charlotte Simmons, unhooked.  I read them all, but I had more questions than answers.  Mainly: What on earth was going on in the minds and hearts of these women, who were barely younger than me but appeared unable to take part in a healthy, normal relationship of any sort?

Of the four, I think unhooked resonated most clearly with me.  I could sense the author’s concern, shock and bewilderment in every page, all emotions with which I could sympathize.  I wrote the author, Laura Sessions Stepp, and wound up in an extended e-mail and phone conversation that continued sporadically over a few years’ time.

It’s been simmering for several years now, boiling over every now and again when I hear another story of serial hookup followed by serious heartbreak.  So when I had the opportunity to write about an issue of social justice for my current class, Child & Adolescent Development, I jumped.  The paper is much too long to post here, but I’ll give you a teaser in preparation for the next few posts, which will contain controversy-laden excerpts (having done my research, I’m prepared to be attacked, as has everyone who’s written about this from a point of view I admire:)

It’s no secret that teenagers tend to be emotional, volatile and insecure, or that they take evident pleasure in flouting the rules set for them by parents, teachers and other authority figures.  The last decade, however, has revealed a disturbing trend among adolescents that persists well into young adulthood: the replacement of healthy short- and long-term relationships with episodes of unplanned, emotionally-detached physical contact called “hookups.”

Sex is easier than ever for teenagers; we live in one of the most permissive societies in history, in which sexual innuendo permeates even the children’s entertainment market.  As a result, teenage pregnancies are on the rise for the first time in over a decade. I believe this is because our sex-education programs (some of which begin in elementary school) are falling short in a crucial area: emotions and relationships.  We are failing our young women by denying them models of healthy relationships, experiences they can learn from and build on, and forums where they can define for themselves what they want out of a partnership.  In denying them the tools they need to negotiate in relationships, we as a society have essentially set them up for continual failure, and only through a focused effort to reverse these conditions can we hope to change the pattern for future generations.

How bad is it, really?  You have no idea.  Stay tuned.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have.

Friends have bound me to earth, enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.

Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world. Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

This afternoon I learned of the death of one of my former professors, Raimund Abraham.  He was an architect from Austria who taught at Cooper Union, where I spent the first two years of college.  In studio and critique, he loved to digress into diatribe about the violence of tectonics, the dialectics of form, and his cats.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world.

They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself.

They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments.

They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself.

They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance.

Abraham (as we knew him) was both immensely talented and immensely troubled.  He ran his studio with a gleeful sadism, promising us we wouldn’t sleep for days and lambasting us with choice expletives when we got too relaxed and seemed to be enjoying ourselves.  He frequently told us we were stupid, foolish, and would never succeed in architecture, and he failed or forced withdrawal on many to prove himself right.  In his furor, he ripped drawings off the wall and snapped carefully-assembled models into pieces to “fix” them.  He gave tacit approval to ideas and then turned on a dime to skewer them later.  He never gave specific assignments, but he expected us to work until we passed out or injured ourselves using box cutters and power tools in a sleep-deprived state.  He took evident pleasure in belittling and slandering others, both behind their backs and to their faces.  He could sense fear better than a wild dog, and if it was present he would capitalize on it, refusing to give his approval even when we bent over backwards to win it.

He made us cry, and not just the women.  His abuse made my father say, “I can’t remember the last time I just wanted to deck someone,” and a pious, devout friend called him “the reason they invented” a certain seven-letter word.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish.

Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a dwarf.

Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.

Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.

Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.

Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out.

Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of your garment.

This man almost singlehandedly drove me away from architecture.  Worse, he made me question my faith in God, the faith that had sustained me through a childhood I now realize was wonderfully uneventful.  Where was God when Raimund Abraham, who didn’t seem to like anybody, decided to teach a class full of young, idealistic teenagers who wanted to change the world — and instead turned to cigarettes and shrinks to cope with their feelings of worthlessness and despair?  Where was God when we failed crit after crit, unable to produce something he would like and frightened for our academic future with expulsion forever on the table?  When we got sick and depressed, flung ourselves into loveless relationships and rejected the advances of friends and family members who worried about us?  When I had the darkest thoughts of my life (and even wished for the courage to end it), desperate to prove to someone, anyone, that I was the smart, funny, creative person I knew myself to be?

At one time I would have said quite freely that Abraham ruined my life.  He certainly brought my dream of living and working in New York to an abrupt close; when I took a leave of absence from Cooper Union, from which I never returned, I couldn’t afford to stay in the city, and by then it held so many painful memories that I was happy to leave.  Years of antidepressants and therapy helped, and I can honestly say I’ve forgiven him, but the pain is still there, the insults and taunts embedded deeply in my memory.  That time is a part of me now, a part that will never go away, like the dot of rapidograph ink  just below the skin on the palm of my right hand, another wound born of late-night drawings and despair.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:

so that my fleeing to You may have no return;

so that all hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs;

so that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul;

so that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins, arrogance and anger;

so that I might amass all my treasure in heaven;

ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows, that a person has no enemies in the world except himself.

“The world is your enemy,” Abraham once told me during a critique.  It seemed to imply, within the context of the entire tirade, that this is why he was so hard on us: he wanted the weak to crumble away and the strong to conquer all.  And he succeeded.  I never had the heart to return to architecture school, partly for fear that my awful experience might repeat itself at a different institution.  This failure remains one of the biggest embarrassments of my life.  I will forever have to explain to people that I started architecture school, but didn’t finish it; that I received C’s and D’s and F’s when I had put forth my best effort, all that I had.  That I couldn’t succeed, no matter what I did; no matter how much I prayed and wheedled and fumed and sobbed, my best wasn’t enough.

I thank God for that experience.  I thank God for teaching me, through Raimund Abraham, that the world is a fallen place; that we should never be too comfortable here, too used to getting what we want and think we deserve.  I thank God every time my husband teases me about dropping out of architecture school, or my students ask why I changed majors halfway through college, or a friend remarks on the photographs of the East Village that grace my kitchen, the only visible reminders of that wretched time.  It was a time when I had nothing and no one to turn to, when I was friendless and alone in a city that was happy to continue on without me, and it was a time when I realized that suffering is a blessing — that it is only through doubt that we learn to have faith, only in torment that we learn to have peace.

One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize that they are not enemies, but cruel friends.

It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good and who has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies.

Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and enemies.

A slave curses enemies, for he does not understand. But a son blesses them, for he understands.

For a son knows that his enemies cannot touch his life.

Therefore he freely steps among them and prays to God for them.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon the soul of your servant Raimund Abraham, a sinner.  And as the first among sinners, I beg you to have mercy on me.

Prayer by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich. Originally published in Prayers by the Lake, Serbian Orthodox Metropolitanate of New Gracanica, 1999.

Down: Discovering that only half the school got the latest edition of the paper.  Somehow, I forgot to remind all the students about their assignments.  You know, the assignments that have been on the board since we made up the schedule LAST SEPTEMBER.  Additionally, we’d run out of 11 x 17 paper and no one had ordered more.

Up: Discovering that there was in fact a whole case of 11 x 17 paper, hidden at the bottom of the stack of boxes in the basement office behind the forklift and among six prepositional phrases.  Glad I didn’t wear heels that day.

Further Up: Getting excited about the upcoming field trip to the Washington Journalism Center, which I’ve been planning since January.

Down: Getting two parent phone calls several minutes apart in which mothers told me their daughters couldn’t attend for various annoyingly understandable reasons.

Up: This means the entire class can now fit into my car, so I don’t have to drive the school van.

Down: The dearth of submissions for the literary magazine, even with the incentive of a contest with cash prizes.

Up: The cheerful willingness of the staff, all volunteers, to make announcements, place flyers and talk about layout design, even if it’s all in vain.

Further Up: Most of the computers in the lab finally got layout software installed on them.

Down: I’ve been requesting this, also, since September.

Further Down: An anonymous negative comment scrawled in blue highlighter over a copy of the newspaper and placed in my mailbox.  Our latest issue, centered around food, was conceived, written and designed by students; it included an article that interviewed the school’s physician about eating correctly before sports events, an tour of the Asian market with a Filipino student, polls about favorite Food Network stars and local eateries, and an article about the Culinary Club’s philosophy of home cooking.  The comment said, “Whatever happened to writing about the students?”

Up: The support of the vice-principal when I showed her the comment.  “It’s not like you would tell them how to design their class,” she said.  “They shouldn’t tell you how to run yours, and I sure don’t see anyone stepping up to take over.”

Further Up: Rob suggested I post copies of the anonymous note in the faculty room with the caption, “Whatever happened to writing in ink and signing your name?”

Today, one more day of trying to teach while ensnared in a web of red tape, I’m thinking specifically about two kinds of people:

1. The kind who thinks the rules don’t apply. You can give them the Suzuki Speech before beginning lessons, but they still don’t understand that they need to be involved.  You can tell them tuition is due at the beginning of the month, but they won’t bring it until you remind them, sometimes multiple times.  You can even make them sign a contract, but they may or may not abide by it, depending on the weather.  Their lives are just SO complicated and SO busy; you couldn’t possibly understand what they are going through, but at least try to understand it’s much more important than anything you care about.

2. The kind who takes a mile. Growing up, my mother had the same job I do now, so I learned early the value of a professional relationship.  It drove us crazy the way her students would tromp through the kitchen exclaiming, “Wow!  That smells GOOD!” or “What are you reading?”  We felt invaded, even when the people were our friends — imagine your friends following you to the office and trying to make small talk while you work.  Eventually, she trained them to come in through the front door, and I’ve done the same with my students.

Except then we had this little storm, and shoveling four feet of heavy, wet snow is exhausting; it was all we could do to clear a path from the street to the front and back doors.  I (generously, I thought) offered to let my students use the back door that week.

Now the snow is melting and the walkway is clear, but they have still been coming in and out through the back door.  I feel awkward refusing, especially when they look at me with Bambi eyes and say, “It’s soooo cold, can we go out through the back?”  So I say of course, and they walk through the kitchen commenting on dinner / dishes / decor.  It throws me into the most grumpy mood imaginable.  Is it a big deal?  Of course not.  (And at least it’s reasonably clean.)  But I hate feeling like a sucker when I was just trying to be nice.

Now, I’m willing to bet that I’ve played both parts on occasion.  So I’m actually, in a sick sort of way, grateful to the people who have inspired this rant post.  Because of them, I am more than careful to honor my commitments and respect the boundaries others set.  Here’s hoping that’s contagious.

With a careful sequence of courses, including ninth-grade algebra, and attention to skills like note-taking, the early-college high schools accelerate students so that they arrive in college needing less of the remedial work that stalls so many low-income and first-generation students. “When we put kids on a college campus, we see them change totally, because they’re integrated with college students, and they don’t want to look immature,” said Michael Webb, associate vice president of Jobs for the Future.

The article considers it a given that the last year of high school is a waste — I guess because students have already made plans for college or a career or both, prime conditions for the ailment known as senioritis.  That was certainly not the case with me; I found my senior year very freeing.  I was finished with most of my course requirements, so I was able to choose courses I knew would bring success and enjoyment, like Yearbook and AP English.  I also experimented a bit, taking Anatomy and AP Civics, neither of which interested me beforehand, but both of which proved useful and fascinating studies.  And I finagled an independent study of classical piano, which basically meant I got to continue studying with my private teacher while practicing for a whole period on the school’s sadly neglected 9-foot concert grand.  Someday I’ll tell you all about that.  Besides, I got to play Liesl in The Sound of Music, I learned how to swing dance, and I had my first real boyfriend.

So I’m a big proponent of senior year productivity, however it can be achieved, and although I still object to the idea that college is for everyone, I can’t take issue with an idea that expects a great deal of students out of whom  no one has ever expected much of anything.  I’ve never seen a study that didn’t prove the link between expectations and achievement, and this is no exception: dropouts plummeted from the 38% state average to zero, and one college president said this performance, from a group of completely average kids, was the most exciting development he’s seen “in 27 years.”  The kids are pumped, too:

“I didn’t want to do it, because my middle school friends weren’t applying,” Ms. Holt said. “I cried, but my mother made me do it.

“The first year, I didn’t like it, because my friends at the regular high school were having pep rallies and actual fun, while I had all this homework. But when I look back at my middle school friends, I see how many of them got pregnant or do drugs or dropped out. And now I’m excited, because I’m a year ahead.”

Good for her.  Good for her mother.  Good for the school, for trying something different.