Just like a headless chicken.

They laugh, almost as though I’m a reminder that there are people in this world worth laughing at, that there are people in this world that you don’t need to take too seriously, because really, how can we ever do everything at once?

Silly Miss Kay. Aren’t you cute, with those cherubic cheeks and an impish grin.

Such is the case that, at my age, I still read about working as a hippy travel blogger who writes about parachuting into the rainforest while Kelly Clarkson’s “Mr. Know It All” streams from the crack of the door in my suburban bedroom at my parents’ house, as if I still have something to prove to all those boys I’d dated in the past, as if I still have something to prove to those who judge me to be someone I’m not.

Oh you think that you know me, know me

That’s why I’m leaving you lonely, lonely

Cuz baby you don’t know a thing about me

You don’t know a thing about me

As if I’m still 16 and finding my way in this world, without a clue about what I want out of life, without a clue about anything really, except that people don’t understand my joys and bright-eyed aspirations to save the world.

I recently took up yoga and kick-boxing and spending winter vacation at Algonquin and flying a plane and learning how to code and modeling and vowing to sign up for a half-marathon all the while trying to stay afloat as a teacher with a very time-consuming class of 13-year-olds. During winter break, I was home trudging through my messy pile of receipts that I’d avoided organizing and suddenly jumped up and sat in the middle of my family room, arms stretched towards the sky with my fingertips as guidance. My brother came home in the middle of all this and asked with a laugh, “Now what are you doing?”

Maybe I am as foolish as they say. Scatter-brained and all. But all I know is that I want to make an impact on people’s lives, and I want to do it in a way that will help bring them joy, because this world has enough unhappy people and if we could all just be a little more joyous and appreciative of everything we had, of all the opportunities presented to us, and maybe if we allowed ourselves the courage and inspiration to discover what brings us joy, then maybe there would be less suffering in this world.

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Their eyes turn from mine
As I teach and preach and preach and teach
About getting a proper education
Cuz one day they’ll lead the nation
Yet I’m probably not much of an inspiration
Cuz to them
I drone with a tone that draws a groan
A groan every single time I
Visualize
What I think they should be
Instead of embracing the cool cats they have been
And somehow
I’d forgotten to see it

But forgive me
Cuz as a woman, I worry
As a daughter
A sister
A teacher
A future mother
My skin bears the burden of worry

By 15, will her belly swell to bear a miracle that she cannot appreciate nor care for?
By 15, will he plant the seed of potential that may be ch-ch-choked out of life by the weeds of circumstance?

Just these thoughts alone are enough to create
Anxious creases beside
My beloved laugh lines
And when I cast my sights across this sea of bright-eyed youth
I worry.

But then I see you
And I realize
That there is more to love than worry
There is more to love than the feeling of
Your heart bursting at the seams as it screams
In the eye of the hurricane
There is more to love than to
Grip your fist cuz you’re pissed
That our girls
Our precious goddesses of the world
Are left to the Britneys
And the Katies
And the leading ladies
Of trashy MTV
Who show our lovely ladies
That the best way
To make their pay
Is to sell their bodies…?
No way…

And don’t get it twisted ladies,
I worry about our boys too
Not boys, but young men
Whose parents ain’t there
And so they’re
Tough as nails
Thrown in jails
Young men who are wrongly told,
“Men don’t cry
Unless you wanna be victimized”
So they
Dry their eyes
Keep their sorrow in disguise
Until a violent tornado crashes through
With fists of rage smashing through
Bricks and stones and skin and bones
Cuz that’s the only way they free their rage
And we expect our young men not to kill each other?
What gives?

And so I worry.

But as I was sayin’
There is more to loving these youth than to worry
There is trust
As much as I want to
Fold these bright-eyed youth
Under my wings of unconditional protection
They will never have room to breathe under them armpits
Nor can they ever spread wings of their own volition

So though I must worry
I must breathe
I must trust
I must believe
That when all is said and done she will
Remember why she chose to dance
And he will
Remember to create the right circumstance
And they will
Fly beyond their wildest dreams
Cuz they
Have it in their wildest dreams to
Reach for the stars and the skies
To create their own lives
And this time I’m
Really not telling any lies
Cuz Ms. Au promises you
If you put your mind to it
Time and time again
You will succeed
You’ll get that proper inspiration
To make a life
A celebration of creation
You will lead the nation
Then you can turn to me
And say, “See, Miss?
You had nothing to worry about.”
And you
Would be
Right!

Love,
Ms. Au

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He looks up. He looks down. He keeps writing.

The most endearing was the "SEC" that was just visible underneath his cardigan. Crisp, white dress shirt. Creased black dress pants. This one was a security guard, I realized, my heart growing warm. A male security guard, secure enough in himself to pen a piece of prose or rhyme while swaying to the subway chimes on a Friday evening.

Our eyes meet as he exits the car, and ever so briefly, he flashes a polite half-smile my way. And in that moment, he is instantly my favourite poet.

Write on, my security guard friend. Write on.

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All was fine and dandy until I reloaded my card yesterday and the balance wasn’t updated on my card in time for use.

So, assuming that any efficient technology wouldn’t make me wait 24 hours before I could use what I paid for, I tapped my card at the train station and noticed that my balance went into the negatives. Bullocks. But I thought, oh well, once my payment is processed, I won’t be in the negatives anymore and I can use my card as usual.

Except, surprise surprise, this wasn’t the case. Apparently, once our Prestocard balance goes into the negatives, we have to go to their office IN PERSON to pay a $0.25 processing fee (?!seriously?!) before we can use our Prestocard again. And get this: their office hours are government hours, meaning they are open from 8:30am-4:30pm.. THE TIME WHEN REGULAR PEOPLE WOULD NEED TO BE AT WORK OR COMMUTING TO WORK.

What sort of idiot made this policy????? Having such inconvenient consequences for a PRESTOCARD??

Way to make people want to use your product, Metrolinx. Kudos to ingenuity. Not.

The York Region Transit has sent a request for this policy to be changed, since it is obviously a ridiculously unnecessary inconvenience for people who are trying to make use of a supposedly more convenient transit option. Until then, I either can’t use the card, or I need to hike over to Union station to pay my darn $0.25 fee just so I can use this card again. Chances are, I’ll opt for the latter, but you can be sure that I will be raising a stink about it.

Figures the head honchos would be so out of touch as to implement such idiotic policies, only to have their workers get yelled at by dissatisfied customers.

All because the transit fee I paid for was not processed in time. What lunacy.

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<3
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*One act of kindness at a time…

• Adapting to change: dealing with culture shock, dealing with leaving friends and family back home, dealing with the loss of their old life
• Socio-emotional growth: trying to reach across language barriers and make friends

I’ve written this as an ode to our brave students – our brave students who face learning an entirely new language in a strange new place while trying to hold on to the language of their ancestors.

Enjoy!

An Ode to the Linguist

I watch your pen slide across your notebook
Curling the magnificent script with ease
And suddenly
I wonder about your life story
The truth of old friends
The depth of your family
Your past life across the sea

You see, my dear student
It’s so easy to place blame
On you.
You, who cannot speak the same
Way as me
Cannot write with the same
Words as me
Cannot hear the same
Melodies as me
How can I even begin to share complex ideas with you?

I watch your eyes droop, as if shamed
By the shackles and chains
That have had you tamed
Since you first came
To this place you must face
With a brave face
And absolutely no tears allowed
Because you cannot go home anymore anyway
And what’s the use of crying?
This is your home now.

Yet as I watch your pen slide across your notebook
Curling the marvellous script of your heritage with ease
I see your eyes flare with light
A light that goes beyond the sounds of the ABCs
A light that goes beyond the new decrees
That you must seize
As your own
A light that burns brighter still
As your thoughts ooze down your arm
To your hands
To the pen you grip tightly
And spill out as a story to tell the whole world
And quite rightly
You do it in the script of your family
Your history

And as I watch your pen slide across your notebook
Curling the unceasing script of your heritage with ease
I realize that you are a Linguist
A Linguist for your mother
Your father
Your brother
Your sister
Your friends
So use your language, Child
Because I can see that you want to speak
Of the unfamiliar breeze
Of the 8-month long Canadian freeze
That makes you sneeze
More than you ever have back home
Or the sounds of children playing
Out in the school yard
And you are desperately praying
That you knew what they were saying
So that you can join them too
And make this strange new place your home

But keep writing, Child
So that I can watch your pen slide across your notebook
Curling the beautiful script of your heritage with ease
So you can break free of those shackles and chains
And lift your eyes with no shame
Because your spirit cannot be tamed
Take your time
Try your best
I will be here to help you
And one day, though we may not speak the same
Write the same
Or hear the same
We can write and speak our stories
Together

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<3

Boys and their toys.
Boys will be boys.
Boys are so much sillier than girls!

And then you have the academic concerns cropping up over the last little while.

Boys ‘lag behind girls’ by the age of five.
Boys falling further and further behind at school.
Boys develop slower than girls. You don’t want your son to be born in December!
Boys hate books.

Okay, so clearly there’s a behavioural pattern being observed here. Not many people would disagree that boys tend to be more hyperactive than girls, tend to enjoy rough-and-tumble games, tend to enjoy sports more, and of course, tend to fall behind girls in school.

More specifically (an alarmingly), our standardized tests show that our boys to score lower than girls in the realm of language arts.

As a result of these findings, educators are scrambling to unearth the magical tome carrying elusive pedagogical spells that can help us “cure” our boys. “There is a problem with all these boys that can’t and won’t read!” we cry, dismayed. “We must find a way to fix them all! There has to be a solution!”

Hold the phone.

Fix our boys?

Who says our boys need any fixing?

As much as I agree with existing gender differences, it’s strange for me to think of our boys as… well… educational liabilities. Lumping them together and trying to come up with a dossier of strategies that are supposed to, in effect, save our boys. But perhaps I’m being too sensitive. They DO have target groups like this in the non-profit world for girls, such as the most recent campaign called Because I Am a Girl, and no one really complains about groups like that. As a society, we can see that girls are at a disadvantage, so we actively try to even the odds.

Why, then, do I feel so uneasy about this push for Literacy, targeted directly at our boys?

I think what bothers me about this whole initiative is the way it has been played out in the classroom. Because of the conscious effort that teachers are trying to make in differentiating their reading program, I am finding that gender differences are being leveraged in a way that segregates students and creates negative stereotypes within the class. Rather than celebrating differences, the differences are merely identified… and it is up to the students themselves to discern whether or not these differences are positive or negative.

Given the negative connotations about intelligence associated with low academic achievement, children have naturally assumed that boys are not as smart as girls. So begins the cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy: the belief that one is dumb, and so he will not perform his best.

So what do we do then? It’s not as though we should stop being aware of the fact that certain teaching and assessment strategies will more effectively engage our boys in reading. We are not going to stop integrating more hands-on activities into our lessons, designed to create meaning. We are not going to stop grouping our students according to their varied reading interests. We are certainly not going to stop differentiating our reading program to better suit the hyperactive tendencies of our boys.

So what do we do then?

Clearly, one other awareness piece needs to be in place in our pedagogy.

Yes, we need to cater to the needs of our boys. This much is clear. We need to change the way we teach and assess so that our boys can develop their love of reading in an environment that works for them. But it is also absolutely crucial that we do not systematically discriminate against them through the routines of our reading program.

What does this mean?

It means that we need to:

1) Avoid physical isolation and segregation. Some suggest creating gender-specific reading groups and creating a space within the classroom that is set aside specifically for boys. I disagree with this, because boys are not the only ones who enjoy books about dinosaurs and cars, nor are boys the only ones who may struggle with reading. There are girls who do too, on both accounts, so create reading groups according to the actual interests of the children, not by their gender.

2) Avoid using language that psychologically segregates our students by gender. For example, avoid making comments such as, “the girls are sitting so nicely and quietly” because chances are, not all the girls are sitting nicely and quietly, and not all the boys are running around wreaking havoc in the classroom. Speak to the specific child with the behaviour, not the gender of the child.

3) Make use of differentiated instruction strategically and purposefully for all students. The accommodations suggested for boys in current literature work for everyone, so it is more important that the students understand that every individual is being accommodated for. Get to know the boys in your class, and the girls too. You may be surprised at the common interests between your students!

Boys and their toys. Boys will be boys. But the boy is so much more than just the common behaviour patterns of his gender. The boy is a person, just like any other child. Let’s try to see beyond his gender then, shall we?

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I was in a heated conversation once
With someone who claimed to hold me dear to his heart
Claimed to hold me in high regard
Yet it’s funny ain’t it
How truth can be revealed through a tiny shard
Of proof
That maybe
He never really saw us as equals to start.

“Here’s your opportunity to explain to me.”

He says this assuming I wanted to be given that opportunity
And so I hold my phone
(Because of course, all of this was sent through
The mediocre medium of the BlackBerry messenger
Apparently I wasn’t even worth a phone call)

And so I hold my phone
And I stare at that line
Of text with burning eyes
That cannot believe that he believes he has the means
To grant me the right to speak.
Unbridled rage burned inside of me
As a million thoughts bubbled and seethed
Wanting only to shake these feelings of feeling like I’m treated
As an inferior.
A minion
Bowing to my king.

But we were supposed to be friends.
We were supposed to be friends.
Yet he says to me,

“Here’s your opportunity to explain to me.”

And I want to say back,

“Why thank you, Your Highness
For granting me this opportunity
To provide you with some clarity
Because I know you are busy
And probably find it bothersome
To listen to the likes of me.”

But I bit my tongue and said nothing.
How do you explain arrogance
To someone who embodies arrogance?

“Here’s your opportunity to explain to me.”

Words.
Just words.
But you see my dear friend,
The words that collide with the mind of your listener
Lets slip your story of how
You expect people to bow
And prove their worthiness to you.

Such cockiness disgusts me.
And I owe you no clarity.
So I will speak when it suits me.
Or maybe
I will choose not to speak to you at all.
Arrogance
Is a waste
Of my time.

So remember this:

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats those he considers his inferiors, not those he considers his equals.”

Try it consistently for one week. Just one week. Observe behavioral differences in the people around you, in the people you work closely with, in your own peace of mind. Let me know if you’d like some ideas. I’d love to hear your results.

The satire punches you in the gut. Makes you want to throw in the white flag and despair.

There’s a lot to reply to, but one thing I will address is this:

It infuriates me when people focus on the 3 months of “vacation time” teachers have, when really it amounts to only 4 weeks, if you take into account how much of that time we spend preparing our classroom and curriculum for the following year, and how much of our breaks are spent doing work. And how we have “plenty of time off each month”? NO, we don’t. Those PA Days are for meetings, board-wide professional development initiatives, or writing report cards. Weekends? Non-existent.

If you’d still like to press that 4 weeks is a lot of time, consider this: if we didn’t have that time off, we’d kill your kids because we have to see them everyday, put up with their BS everyday, help you raise them everyday.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my job. Love. And I ADORE my students. ADORE. And I never complain about any of it, because I love it all. But when some douchebags who have never done this job complains about how we’re overcompensated, well then, objectively, there’s a lot to complain about, and I could go on. So please stop me or I’ll have a hernia.

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Lisa Wade at Sociological Images:

Most of us are clear on the idea that patriarchies are defined by sexism… In our American patriarchy, however, this is …perhaps even superseded by something called androcentrism: the valuing of all-things-masculine over all-things-feminine. We know we live in an androcentric society because masculinized things (playing sports, being a doctor, being self-sufficient) are imagined to be good for everyone (we encourage both our sons and daughters to do these things), but feminized things (playing with dolls, being a nurse, and staying at home to raise children) are considered to be good only for women.

Grace breaks down Wade’s argument, drawing the conditional conclusion that women appear more well-liked as they exude more femininity, and so femininity can’t really be all that bad.

I’m not sure if I agree with this, though. More feminine women appear more well-liked, but is this only within the domain of attractiveness? What about within the domain of talent, of intelligence, of brilliance? Grace and Wade’s discussion led me to consider the conflicting values that girls are raised with nowadays, what with the suffrage in the early 20th century and the push to have women seen in male-dominated roles. “Man up girls.. don’t let the men see you as weak!”

Being raised with this message has warped my ideas of what a woman should be and has even made me judge the value of women who exude what social constructs deem as ultimate femininity. I pushed away the image of princesses as our role models; I was frustrated at the thought of women being physically more diminutive than men; I associated feminine products with negative ideas of superficiality and vanity; the thought of being a “girly girl” made me cringe.

I’ve always been one to fight sexism and to say “Women should be allowed to do what they want and be who they want to be; masculine things should not be seen as simply masculine, but should be seen as things that could be cross-gender and accessible to women as well.”

Yet here I am, unconsciously scorning and debasing women who ENJOY the feminine, PREFER the feminine, and are simply.. well.. girly girls.

Who’s being sexist now?

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