Happy Easter! No guillotine; yes gunpowder.

The girllettes chose not to do the guillotine.
They said there’d been a misunderstanding:
they'd thought a guillotine was like a machine for dispensing soft-serve ice cream––a machine with a lever you pull for treats,
like on an old-fashioned slot machine.

And, in fact, Penny Cooper didn’t do the Annual Sydney Carton Martyrdom Reenactment at all. "We're tired of that."

They held an Easter Parade instead. Indoors, because it's cold and snowy outside (unlike the entire rest of this winter). bink helped, including bringing over the little yellow chicks.

Here, you can see their hats from Linda Sue better:

Do you recognize the artwork? It's Leonard Weisgard's illustrations for The Golden Egg Book (1947), by Margaret Wise Brown who also wrote Goodnight Moon.

' Brown said The Golden Egg Book was inspired by her feeling “that there were not enough wildflowers in children’s books.” She invited Weisgard up to her summer cottage on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine, to sketch such wildflowers as well as weeds and bugs. '
[--via "How The ‘Goodnight Moon’ Author and Collaborator Revolutionized Kids Books"]

 

So, no guillotine, and since Easter celebration should have some ritualized violence--unless a seed falls to the earth, there is no resurrection-- here's the 30-sec video Peeps Blow Up,

the Easter classic bink & I made 14 years ago.

WARNING: Peeps blow up.
(Truly, someone told me they found it disturbing.)

Plant the sapling

English painter Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) is one of my favorite artists.

Here, his darling fatty Jesus considers the lilies of the field.


I was thinking of the saying/advice,
“If you’re holding a sapling, and someone says, ‘Come quickly, the Messiah is here!’, first finish planting the tree —and then go to greet the Messiah.”
—Both Islam & Judaism have versions of this saying.

A similar Christian “Do good, anyway” sentiment:
Supposedly when Martin Luther was asked what he would do if the world were to end tomorrow, he answered, “I would plant an apple tree today.”

And, again similarly, I think of a nursing home resident with dementia – – one of my favorite people ever— an old Jewish guy who used to say (repeatedly), 

 “The messiah is coming – – but don’t hold your breath.”

I love all these stories so much – – and their ennobling idea that whether there’s a divine presence or not – –either way, we’d do well to get on with the planting.

P.S. Museum Outing

I mentioned the museum outing in the post below--then remembered I hadn't written about it here.

The “sensory-friendly” museum visit was well-planned by museum staff who had all sorts of interactive tools. Some planned activities the students engaged with, some they ignored.

In the black room where this film was running, however, on their own the students started making hand-shadows in the stream of projected light.

"I've never seen anyone do that before," said a museum guide.

What I am/you are seeing is not what everyone is seeing.

"All the details they leave out...”

I. Water Beetle

I'm reading Turtle Diary (1975) by Russell Hoban--slowly, but too fast. This morning, halfway through I started reading again at the beginning.
I laughed out loud at this, on page 9.

The character Neala H. writes:

“I fancied a china castle for the aquarium but they had none at the shop, so I contented myself with a smart plastic shipwreck. Snugg & Sharpe are expecting a new Gillian Vole story from me but I have not got another furry-animal picnic or birthday party in me.
I am tired of meek and cuddly creatures, my next book will be about a predator. I’ve posted my cheque for 31p to Gerrard & Haig in Surrey for a Great Water Beetle, and I should have it by tomorrow.
…

Here I am, I thought, forty-three years old, waiting for a water-beetle. My married friends wear Laura Ashley dresses and in their houses are grainy photographs of them barefoot on Continental beaches with their naked children.
I live alone, wear odds and ends….”

________________

The story is set in middle-aged loneliness.

The other character, William G., works in a book shop. They do not know each other. Independently, both have become concerned with the captive sea turtles at the zoo.

When Neala goes to the bookstore to find out about sea turtles, he doesn't welcome the intrusion.

"It was the sort of situation that would be ever so charming and warmly human in a film with Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith but that sort of film is only charming because they leave out so many details, and real life is all the details they leave out."

(In fact, in the 80s it was made into a film with Ben Kingsley and Glenda Jackson. I haven't seen it.)
_________________________
II. Bowling

My class was part of an outing to a bowling alley yesterday, hosted by the Unified program. Unified Schools are a program from Special Olympics "to build inclusive school communities for young people of all abilities."

It was the opposite of the museum visit, which was carefully planned.
I don't think the students minded the chaos.

I look like I'm having fun, but I don't like bowling (boring and loud), and I was cranky because the neurotypical (NT) kids didn't mingle much with the neurodiverse (ND) kids. Poor planning.
But then I remembered:
the ND students prefer to hang out with one another mostly, anyway.

I'd even had this conversation with a gym teacher who 'd said we should discourage the students' special interests so they could "make friends in gen-ed" (general education kids, vs special ed).

"Why?" I'd said. "They LOVE their interests––what kind of friendship would it be without them?"

Anyway, bowling wasn't my thing–– but the students had fun.

Where I come from/am

I will be taking the bus this morning. It’s snowing heavily for the second day – –(good against our drought)— but no snow day off from school… Grumble grumble. 

It’s OK—I’m liking my work, but it would be sweet to have a day off. I will get one soon enough: starting Friday we are on spring break!

I was happy to find (on FB) a map of the clans and families of Scotland, from Amazing Maps. Some of my mother’s ancestors were Sutherlands – –circled in red, below. The earliest one to emigrate was Uriah Sutherland, in the mid-1700s. 

below: Classroom 

I took these photos ^ for my fantasy Pinterest page on what classrooms really look like. 

This idea came to me after looking at millions of reels and Pinterest boards of cute ’n’ clever ideas to make your classroom look like – – – oh, like no classroom I’ve ever seen. 

 I certainly don’t expect teachers to put in time as interior decorators, Though if it were my classroom, I probably would take down the faded-marker, two-year-old Valentines cards…

Teachers or staff are supposed to care for the classrooms (including cleaning them) on their own time, and pay for it themselves too. I have now seen a couple pretty cool classrooms – – set up by young energetics teachers. But the ones I work in look like the above.

Duct tape notwithstanding, I like the building a lot – – it’s 100 years old, with tall ceilings, wood floors, big windows – – I’d rather work there  than a pristine modern building. Or,  worse, the schools built in the 1970s that look like prisons, with window slits that don’t open. 

Our windows open (a few inches), but our doors don’t. A teacher looked shocked when I commented that our school is like a prison because the doors are locked. 

I think everyone’s gotten used to that, like industrial livestock, but it continues to bother me a lot. Especially because it’s matched in many ways with an attitude towards the students that they are not full human beings who have their own voices. Certainly not equal in power or dignity to the adults anyway. Often – – usually – – the teachers are benevolent in intent, but the students are more like inmates then full participants. Same as it ever was.

I just keep thinking of my rule to be like the teachers I see who do create a little bubble of dignity and personal space for the students. 

Yesterday morning I found one of the special ed kids lingering in the hall – – they did not want to go to their class, taught by the one teacher I have a serious problem with. So I asked the student if they wanted to come to the art class I was supposed to be in – – even though my student hadn’t turned up. This other student said yes happily. 

 Afterword I told the teacher that that was a testimony to what a good place they have made their classroom – – that a student voluntarily wanted to go there.

The student drew my portrait in class:t

A reasoned response

Auntie Vi! Hello! I miss you!
Why are you still dead?!

I'm going to check in with you anyway, because I know you'd LOVE hearing about my new job.

Yesterday as I was unlocking my bike at work--I park near the school bus drop off/pick up--a coworker said, "I dare you to bike next week"--meaning in the snow.
After a dry, dry winter with almost NO snow, we're supposed to get a nice, big snowfall here in the next few days.
I wish it would close schools, but it probably won't be that big. (If it even arrives... I hope it does!)

I probably will bike to work--unless it's horribly icy. I'm only a mile and a quarter away, straight down my street, and one block over.
It takes about 7 minutes, door to door.
Deceptive.
I need to be careful-- especially if I'm blogging or emailing, I wait until the last minute to start finding my keys, packing my lunch, etc.
Not a good plan!

It's not like the thrift store where it didn't matter when I got there: at school, I walk certain students to wherever they need to go, so I need to be there on time.
Luckily, I've never not made it.

I'm liking my job a lot. I fell asleep last night thinking, "This is really interesting".
It is. People say of teaching, It's all about relationships-- and I'm seeing that.
Relationships are really my entire job.
I don't plan lessons, take meetings & phone calls with parents and administrators, and all that other stuff the teachers do. I just walk and sit and talk with the students.

The autistic students are a little more different from other people I've known than I expected.
My intuition is not in itself sufficient to understand them well--I have to observe and attend.
Wait and watch.
Talk and listen (mostly listen).

I had a satisfying success yesterday.
A few days ago, a student had burst out in anger at something a Teacher does in class: "It's for babies!"
I won't go into it in public, but I agreed with the student.
I'd even wondered on my first day why the Teacher did this thing--it didn't fit the students' chronological age. (I mean, just because someone might not have certain intellectual abilities doesn't mean they aren't the age they are, socially.)

Turns out, the student had complained about this in the past, too.
I talked to another aide, who suggested I take the student out of the classroom during this particular activity.

I went to the Teacher yesterday and suggested this plan of action.
At first they said yes, good idea; then said that it might separate the student from the class community--not a good thing...
Pause...
"Maybe I could just stop doing [that thing]", the Teacher said.

We talked a little more, and they decided, yes, they would do something else in its place.
! ! !
And that very afternoon, they did.

OMG! I never got such a reasoned response at the thrift store. 
No ego, just a "Hm, yes, that's not working, let's try something else."
And I felt good that I hadn't just fumed in silence, but had talked to a work pal about how I could help. And then I COULD help!
So nice.

And now time to pack my lunch and head out the door.
Have a wonderful day!

Never Pinned

FB has cottoned on to my new interest in education and is showing me teaching TikToks--including ones of clever Pinterest-y classroom ideas. "Make a sensory board in only 15 minutes" [not counting the couple hours it takes to shop for supplies, plus you have to pay for them yourself].

I laugh. The classroom aesthetic I see at work is more like
Artwork-from-Students-Graduated-3-Years-Ago.

A friend suggested I be careful, blogging about work. I will go back and edit some earlier posts. The main thing I've been curtailing as I go along is stories about the students--sooo many funny, smart, unique stories!

Here's a coffee pot instead.

I mentioned to Abby that the teachers' coffeepot was broken, and she gave us one she didn't want herself (an expensive Bunn, too big for her kitchen).
When I set it up on top of the mini-fridge, I laughed to discover the electric plug-in situation... I'm sure there's a decorative cord cover-up on Pinterest.

Also, we offer Ketchup & Oranges (leftover from lunches).

Happy Spring Equinox!

Their vernal tableau was like Beckett for grade-schoolers.

_________

bink was an invaluable stage hand. 

Here she is, Behind the Scenes:

A Suitable Orb

 Spring equinox is tonight at 10 PM, here in central US (in UK, it’s this coming morning, March 20 at 3 AM GMT)– – a suitable orb has been found for a tableau— to be constructed when I come home from work today. Hopefully bink will join us, as she is a masterful constructor.

Penny Cooper Prepares to (not really) Die

Penny Cooper is mightily pleased--plans are well underway for this year's Penny Cooper Triumphant:
The Annual Easter Reenactment of the Martyrdom of Sydney Carton.
(––"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done", from Tale of Two Cities, ya know).

Yesterday Emmler lent me a grocery cart to be Penny's tumbrel.
It should have only two wheels, like a wheelbarrow-- but it has been deemed "an acceptable modern interpretation".

Aaaaand, bink & I went to an antiques faire this Sunday, where I found a little food chopper that will make a perfect guillotine blade. (Only two dollars.)
The guillotine is new this year--at Penny's repeated request.
I'd always been reluctant to make a guillotine before, but this year I've lightened up. "It's just pretend," she says.

None of the girlettes wants to play the executioner though.
They say they can't, they are too short, that you have to be as tall as a guillotine.
"A bear can do it!"
You'd think one of them would relish the role of the "bad guy"--maybe one of the rogueish Duquettes? But, nope--they don't.
____________________

I am a little sore in the body today because I ended up volunteering at the thrift store yesterday, and after five weeks away, I can confirm that it's quite a workout, lifting, reaching, stooping, bending...
And it hurts my hand joints--another confirmation that I made a good decision to leave this work.

I'd been uncertain about going back to the store. As I walked the few blocks from the bus, (too cold-windy to bike), I felt strong sense that I was going home, but I was worried about feeling either too sad there, or possibly being rejected.

But it went great!
Better than I'd hoped.
Everyone was glad to see me—even, after giving me some grief, Manageress.
She said my BOOK's replacement, Amina (not her real name), was doing well but had lots of questions that she herself couldn't answer---could I hang around until Amina came in to work?

I said I'd be happy to. Would she like me to start sorting toys while I waited?
"Please!" she said.

Okay, then. 

I felt at home, in the best possible way--in my element, an entirely free agent, with NONE of the pressure of being staff. What a relief, to be free to do just the stuff I love.

I also felt a little smug, being able to report that my new job is going well, and that I enjoy it. 

I told them what I earn and was encouraging everyone—Manageress included—to look into working for the public schools.  Manageress got play-angry (not really play) – – saying I should stop trying to lure her staff away, but when I said that teaching aides get unemployment over the summer, she got quiet.  
Then, “…I could go home and visit my mother in Eritrea,” she said.

Amina has been doing a good job, but is naturally not yet as fast as I was, and there was a pretty big ol' pile up. It felt good to plow through and get that down--and sorting the little toys into grab bags was always a favorite task of mine.
I even set up a side-by-side on the Toy Bridge—pink-haired, star-eyed figures of Strawberry Shortcake and  Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy. 

I priced and put out a lot of toys before Amina came in, and then we spent the afternoon sorting books. She's smart--more than I'd realized (I'd never really talked to her in the years she was a customer, just liked her, intuitively) --but she's only a freshman in college and doesn't have the breadth of knowledge.
You can't quickly learn all the details, every author/book/topic, there are too many; but you can develop a Spidey book sense--a tingle that says, I should check this particular book.
She catches on quick.

I was careful to emphasize that BOOK's are hers now, and I'm just there to support her. I said I'd come again, if she'd like--maybe regularly on Saturdays, if I can manage it. She said she'd love that.
Nice!

I'd texted Em that I was at the store, and she came to help for the last hour, and said she'd like to volunteer every Saturday too, if I do.
I'd love that. We rarely manage to get together outside the store, and we have a lot of fun there, exclaiming over tchotchkes and ephemera.

I walked her home after, and she lent me the toy grocery cart. Of course she had a cart. Her apartment is a palace of creative destruction and re-creation, collections, and tools & supplies for quirky, playful, sexual, angry, sumptuous collages  and constructions:
-- some, possibly unsettling, like a framed tooth (she has dental issues), or mutilated religious imagery (that to me is in keeping with the grotesqueries of the religious imagery itself…).
I will take photos sometime.
_______________________

Having gone back to the store, I am returned to myself.

Preach.

ABOVE: Me looking like me, 30 years apart
(Left—62 y.o., last summer at the thrift store;
right—32, writing a paper (about the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste))
__________

"This is why I liked being here--I ran my own domain."

I dreamt I walked into the thrift store as if I still worked there, and that's what I thought, in the dream--that I'd liked running my own domain.
For all the trouble around it, BOOK's was my own peaceful kingdom.

I probably should go back soon, to re-vise, to re-see (re-spect) my relationship to the store from the outside.
I don't want resentment to cement; I don't want never to return, just because I more or less hate Big Boss.

Some coworkers left and never came back. Others--including Ass't Man & Em, who also had bad relationships with BB--shop and visit all the time.
Maybe I'll bike over this morning, and see what's what with me 'n' them.

Conflict happens everywhere. Or, in the positive, as it's now called,  "courageous conversation"--for which, we prepare to feel uncomfortable and expect to leave with things unresolved.

Yesterday I had a long(ish) talk with a coworker about the one class where I'm having troubles.
The relationship between the teacher and the students is not good, and I don't know how to position myself, how to help.
Weirdly (or, not?), I've kind of aligned myself with the students.
It's my job to advocate for the students, though, not to "take their side" in sullen resentment against the teacher.

The coworker suggested some things I could try, to help. All involve challenging the teacher. I mean, if the teacher were receptive, it wouldn't be a challenge, but they are "territorial", as my coworker said.

I'm also in class with the exact opposite type of teacher.
I asked them why their class is so chill---everyone works away at their chosen task. (Yeah, right there--"chosen" is key).
They laughed, "Not all my classes are this relaxed. But I guess it's just . . . respecting the students."

EVERYONE IS THEIR OWN DOMAIN

Over and over--that's exactly what I see everywhere.
Respect people as individuals--including all their inconvenient traits-- and whatever brilliance is in them will come forth too.
You gotta take the weeds with the wheat.

Disrespect them, and in their weakness they will show you the power of their resentment. It can be mighty.
And that's what's happening in this class.

Here in the last quarter of the year, I don't know what would be effective... I'm nervous--the teacher has not made me an ally--but I will try.

I am my own domain.
____________________

Speaking of allies, I wasn't sure of a student's pronouns--different coworkers refer to them with different pronouns––so I finally asked them.
Like, what's your domain name? 😊

They told me; it was a friendly exchange; and the conversation closed.
THEN I thought, Oh! I should say mine.

"I'm she/her", I said.

"Preach," they said.
[Translation, from my era: "Tell it like it is, sister!"]

Got that right.

This can get thorny. I do have some concerns about Large Picture politics and the medicalization of gender.
And I've been in places ("spaces", now) where I felt pressured to say my pronouns, as if it were a test of my acceptability that I perform this ritual.
Not to conform would have been to declare myself an enemy.

Now, I recognize that the enemy of freedom is a clear and present danger.
But CLEARLY we were all on the same page (or we wouldn't have been in the space).
It was not a courageous conversation, it was pressure to perform political theater.

But this was not that!
This was the equivalent of asking someone their name.
They say their name, and then you tell them yours.
Easy.

______________

Blogger was not loading images earlier this morning, which reminded me of the early days of blogging. I'd posted no images at all in my first blog (flightless parrots, 2003–2005).

So, instead of the photo up top, I was just going to post a quote from C. S. Lewis. I don't love the guy--he's such a prig––but here he's saying something I came to too, working in a non-reading, tiny-world workplace:

 (Of course now there are many other ways of enlarging our world through media besides books – –)

"Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realize the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors.
We realize it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated.

"The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison.
My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented."

––C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (1961), via The Marginalian

And this, below, reminds me of Auntie Vi on the importance of taking your dog for a walk--not just letting it out in the backyard:
"Scents are like a dog's e-mail", she said.

Lewis goes on to say,
"I regret that the brutes cannot write books. ... Gladly would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog."

Thinking of Auntie Vi gives me courage.
She never doubted herself––not that I could see, anyway.
I mean, I wouldn't mark her high in self-awareness, but a little over-confidence can serve a person well.

I'm going to borrow some of hers because I realize I'm a little afraid, a little lacking in confidence, about going back to the store.
I don't need to be--I'd left on friendly terms, outwardly, even with Big Boss. I hadn't been happy with our last meeting, but I hadn't told him because I was thinking, "I'm going to be outta here soon".
Four days later I interviewed for my new job.

I'm sure people would be happy to see me. But I feel uncertain within myself.
How will I feel, visiting a place I hate and I love?

Odi et Amo! The famous Catullus couplet:

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask.
I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.

And this reminds me, now I have time, I've thought I might brush up on my never-good Latin... It's been thirty years---I was studying it at the time the top, right photo was taken.

I actually earned a minor in Latin (with my BA in Religious Studies), but that's a joke--I never could read anything without a dictionary, even the simplest church Latin.

I don't know.
I don't know what I'll do with my renewed energy, and with all this free time coming up. I might just have to weather the discomfort of not-knowing, like in a courageous conversation.

Speaking of weather, it's so weird this year--I sometimes think, why are we bickering about This and That?
Maybe we should live as if we were near the end. (Some of us are quite near our own ends, for sure.)
Not in a gloomy way, but in a FREEing way.
Your domain, free rein.

The IDEA Act

Found it!
Federal Funding of Special Education

Federal special education funding comes primarily from the US Department of Education’s Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). https://sites.ed.gov/idea

IDEA accounts for the bulk of the federal government's ongoing contribution to special education.

In the law, Congress states:
“Disability is a natural part of the human experience and in no way diminishes the right of individuals to participate in or contribute to society.
Improving educational results for children with disabilities is an essential element of our national policy of ensuring equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities.”

A secondary source is the US dept of Ed’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). ESSA provides categorical funding to support student achievement in low-income areas.

Pencil (in Gym Class)

Lots of good things yesterday:
In gym class, another aide handed me a pencil he'd found--to add to my collection. When there's enough, I'm going to assemble them into a collage, with the students.
It was the best broken pencil yet:

I went to the administrator of the sp'ed program to ask about funds for education. She said there are none dedicated to aides' "p.d." (professional development), only for teachers', but that she believed she could dig around and find something...

"It's commendable that you want to learn more," she said. "And I see you in the hallways--you bring good energy to the school."

!! Good reminder I'm not invisible. I'd met this administrator once for 30 seconds, and I barely recognize her, but of course she knows me, the new face.
Anyway, it was nice change to get feedback, and especially good.

My coworkers, too, have said encouraging things to me. When I suggested a field trip to a laundromat, for instance, they said, "It's so great to have new ideas."
It's the fourth quarter of the year---I can see that everything's running pretty smoothly, but also, is everyone's energy a bit down?
A new person can be a boost.
_____________________

Allan, old friend from art college library, took me out for belated birthday dinner. I told him about looking into classes & funding, and he volunteered to pay for half ($382) of a class.

There might be cheaper options––I'll keep looking–– but this makes that route possible, even if I have to pay the other half.
Most of all, I appreciate his support.

I was talking about how nice it is to have a system in place--to see adults work together, trying to help growing humans. Some coworkers complain about various things, I said, but compared to the thrift store, it's plush.

Allan said, "If I could show you your face when you talk about your school compared to when you talk about the store, you'd see how much happier you are."

That made me a little sad, though.
I'd loved the thrift store so much, for years I'd have work there for free, if I could've afforded to.
(In fact, that would've been less frustrating, out from under the thumb of management.)

Happy as I am in this job--it's interesting, engaging, meaningful, sometimes fun–– I wouldn't work there for free.

Oh, speaking of pay, I met with a different admin about logging hours for federal funding. I don't know how this goes, but the special ed dept is funded in part by federal programs.
I asked the admin for more info--what federal department?--but they didn't know.
(I feel like I'm often asking for more information and understanding than the people around me...)

I have felt some small pangs of longing for the pleasure of unboxing and organizing thrift. I thought about volunteering at the thrift store.
I could.
But the very idea tastes sour.
I want to make friends and connect to community, and the store doesn't lead to that.

Also, I just want to try new things. Sorting toys and books IS fun, but godknows I've done it thoroughly.

Best of all, at work I'm connecting with the students in various ways.
Mostly I'm working on NOT pushing for connection--let them come to you. Kind of the opposite from the neuro-typical norm.
Also, people's pacing and timing is often different from what I'm used to--there's a longer lag time between input and response. Sometimes much longer.
So I'm practicing patience too--or, not patience, exactly, but learning to READ people differently. Silence doesn't mean no-response.

It's like I'm looking at a map upside down. It's totally realistic and valid, it's just not the way I'm used to it.
Like I said to my coworker about using the pronoun "they"---it's good to form new neural pathways.

Row Your Boat

I went to a new employee training for the entire school district yesterday. It was good: it focused almost entirely on race and racial equity.
Race was meant, the presenters said, to represent all the many other challenges students face, like disability, sexuality & gender, etc.
"A rising tide lifts all boats", they said.

Well, I get the theory, but DO all other social inequalities intersect with race?
Are they all boats?
Um. Not necessarily.

Still, I was glad to see race fore-fronted. It's great that the schools are taking a stance with all incoming staff, from building maintenance to administrators.

The one presentation that wasn't specifically about race--though it definitely intersects, and they showed how--was on Homeless and Highly Mobile students.
That was really useful to me--I didn't even know that term "highly mobile". It's not only moving a lot, it may be sleeping on different couches, staying with relatives and friends.
I'm already seeing students dealing with that, and I don't know the systems.

But yes---race is CODE RED:
the rotting bodies in our closet--oozing out, poisoning the waters, or building up gases to burn the whole place down. 
I saw it at the thrift store--how it comes with its goons, poverty and ignorance, and rots away the floorboards of lives, of society.

But I wish the presenters had given just a few minutes to the orange and yellow codes too.
I will fill out the feedback form and suggest they give a few minutes to, say––special ed.
That it was only included as one word on a list, with absolutely no further mention, matches what my coworkers say:
"No one thinks of these kids."

Autism is historically under- or mis-diagnosed in BIPOC children, but the students I work with are all races and different ethnicities.

A teacher told me that a few years ago, the parent of one of his former autistic students had had a hard time dealing with the student's behaviors.
They called the police, and guess who showed up?
Derek Chauvin--the guy who would later murder George Floyd.
Chauvin proceeded to get this former student on the ground, where he knelt on his neck... His signature move. 
"It wasn't race though", the teacher said. "This student was white."

A Black woman educator who was nodding along to the presentations said to me at break that she sees her students facing challenges around gender every day, and she wanted to talk about that.
How to respond to things like my coworker complaining about "they" being plural?

I left wanting to learn more about the challenges my students face.
(And, lordy, I already see that some of them face them all.)
I think I'll have to row that boat myself.

I found a program at a local private university to earn an Autism Spectrum Disorder certificate:
"Gain the expertise to engage ASD learners in school, clinic, community, and home settings".

It's not cheap though: $382 per credit. But maybe I could take a class or two--maybe this summer...

• SPED 7100: ASD: Introduction and Overview (2 credits)
• SPED 7101: Proactive Behavior Management (2 credits)
  

4 credits x $382 = $1528.
Yikes!
I will ask about tuition reimbursement--or if the school has some other education options.
____________________

So, while I think the training should have included a quick round-up of other challenges, I do think it's smart to focus on race.
Society-- us--should choose to foot that old bill, voluntarily.

Continuing to let the problem rack up charges is not a smart policy.
Choose positive change.
Choose education!

And I did leave feeling supported. It was mentioned that the union had fought specifically for special-ed assistants to get a substantial raise a couple years ago, when teachers went on strike.
"We need to recruit, support, and retain you folks who are SEAs."

And that's why I earn a decent wage, and will get unemployment and can take classes this summer.
I'm tempted to go volunteer out of town, but I really want more to build connections with people HERE.

Sketch Diary/ Summer Plans?

I used to draw daily diaries when I worked in Memory Care with seniors... Sketching is good way to fill open time, while still paying attention.
A lot of the job--that one, and this new one with high schoolers--is standing by and paying attention. Active engagement, too, of course.

I. Sketch Diary

In art class yesterday, I cut a big piece of paper into strips, and folded the strips into accordions for my first sketch diary.

My day starts with waiting in the parking lot for a student to arrive on a school bus, so I can walk them to their destination. Streams of kids and staff arrive--off city buses, school buses, in cars, some drive themselves--and some bike or walk.

(I’d originally intended to walk to work, but since I always leave the house at the last minute, I bike.)

I've started to do squats and lunges while I wait---to rev up and get a bit of exercise.  Lots of my sketches were incoherent, but here's a little glimpse of the day....

I'm going to try to keep this going.

II. Summer Plans?

I am too alone.
Now that I am no longer ENRAGED BY PICKLEBALL--
that is, now that I'm no longer watching civilization collapsing around me, and so on edge that I was unable to tolerate frivolity--
I've been reaching out to old friends, like KG. I’m finding that our everyday human foibles don't set me off.
That's been great.

I want, I need to reconnect with people.
(Six years at the thrift store did not create community--rather the opposite.)
Besides my new work, I have an unexpected chunk of open time coming up:
I was amazed to learn yesterday that teaching aides (like me) get unemployment pay for the ten weeks that school is closed in the summer.
The legislature only passed that last year--at the same time, I think, that it voted in free breakfast and lunch for ALL students (not staff), and free tuition at state colleges.

Supporting education?
SO CIVILIZED.
Coworkers say all this will get voted out when the legislature changes. Who knows...

I'd been planning on doing an extended project or some schooling this summer anyway, and now I'm extra-motivated to start planning something large.

Took a quick look around last night on Workaway (like WWOOF) and found Community Homestead, only 5-hours by bike (on a bike trail!) from here.
It's a volunteer organic farm--crops, dairy and chickens--bakery, where 40 people of all ages and abilities, including people with developmental challenges, live and work together--inspired by principles of Waldorf, et al.
And they host long-term volunteers, minimum stay, one month 

In some ways that sounds ideal; but I'd like to build community RIGHT HERE, where I live.
I don't know--I will look into that, and other opportunities.

P.S. Being short one-night's sleep was no big deal, I was happy to discover--and I caught up last night. Nice!

Half-charged

Today is a tiny sleep/work test.
Marz was over until midnight--I loved seeing her for such a good long talk--and now I will see how it goes if I'm a little bit under-rested at work.

I'd rather spend time with Marz than get enough sleep, but I don't function great without enough rest.
But, I don't know: how much do I need AT THIS AGE?
I've always done best with 8-9 hours, but maybe that's changed?

It's become clear to me, now that I'm gone from the store, that for sure I was sleeping more when I worked there because it was such a stressful environment.
I told Marz that when I was NOT enraged at the pickleball players this weekend--not enraged that people were being frivolous and privileged while I watched people slide off the edge into a crevasse--that that gave me solid proof that the environment had thrown me seriously out of whack.
So perhaps I'll need less sleep?

At any rate, one day won't hurt me--I just don't like operating on less than 'fully charged'.

Have a lovely Monday, everyone!

Condensed portentousness

Oh, dear. I think I’m not a fan of modern poetry. I got Then the War from the library—the 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning book of poetry by Carl Phillips, and immediately I recognize the condensed weight of the portentous, pressing—

pressing on the necessary but fragile 

breath…

Oh, the judicious use of the 

line break. 

And, repetition.

An actual line:

“The gray of doves. The gray of doves, in shadow.” 

Yes. Very nice. The dying tree poem (post below) fulfilled my quota.

Instead I shall read, also from the library, Do zombies dream of undead sheep? A Neuroscientific view of the zombie brain, Princeton University Press, 2014. Serious science applied to a fictional being, “combining tongue-in-cheek analysis with modern neuroscientific principles”.

Spring shaketh

Time to spring ahead.
I was baffled just now that the computer says it's already 7 a.m., when I haven't been out of bed two hours yet...  Then I remembered it's time change weekend.

And almost spring equinox. March 19.
The weather's been so weird, I barely know what season we're in. We see-saw between November and May.
But yes, it's getting light out now.
___________________

I've reconnected with an old friend, KG, who I was very close to in the 1990s, when we both made a lot of art.
Yesterday she took me out for my birthday. She chose a couple places I've never been--including a cidery in an old warehouse that also has pickleball courts.
(I'd had no idea that pickleball is just tennis on a short court, played with paddles. So, tennis made easier. I'd thought it was an entirely different sport.)

KG and I drank mango habanero cider and talked half the afternoon. After a long dry spell, making nothing, she's taken up printmaking. It was exciting to see her first prints--vibrant work!––and to sense her excitement at making them.

Creativity can lie dormant a long time...
Its return reminds me of George Herbert's poem "The Flower":

Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart
Could have recover’d greennesse?
...
And now in age I bud again,
After so many deaths I live and write. . . .

In my new job, I'm not bursting in joyous bud, but I do feel my heart returning to some equilibrium.
I'm not enraged that people play pickleball.
I would have been a few months ago:
How can you frolic while hell smolders just out of sight?

I'd been working in a coal mine of the soul, where no light reached. (That wasn't my "mood", that was the social reality.)
I don't know... I feel a little stunned, like a pit pony returned to the surface. 
_____________________

"Things which cannot be shaken..."

I'd wondered if I'd feel guilty for leaving the thrift store & environs.
I don't.

Maybe I would have if I'd gone to some plushy job? Public high school is not that.
And it's not like there are no problems up here. Hardly! But they are leavened with light and air. 

I don't feel guilty.
I do feel humbled.

Chastened.

Chastened?

What a weird word, but it came to me.
--from Latin castigare--literally "to make pure" (from castus "pure");
"to set or keep right, to reprove, chasten, to punish".

Biblical, eh? Let's see...

"Those whom the Creator loves are chastened. 

.../ See to it ...that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble.

.../ Those things which cannot be shaken will remain."

--Hebrews 12 (Huh--possibly written by Priscilla, a close associate of Paul’s. At any rate, "Few New Testament scholars believe Paul wrote it." --per Zonderan)

Well, I hardly feel "pure", but I do like "those things which cannot be shaken...".
Yes, I feel I've been shaken, like spring shakes trees.

Refresh Up

I. Words Can Bend, & So Can We

Watching sports and smoking pot?
Well, shoot.
We'll be good work pals, but I was disappointed that Mr No-Exclamation-Points listed those activities when I asked people what their fandoms were, at happy hour last night.
Flirting stops here:
sports & pot are high on my list of Active Dislikes.

He's a great coworker--knowledgeable, helpful--for which I am truly thankful.
But I'd been hoping that he was a writer, say, or at least a language lover.

He told me, however, that he supports non-gendered pronouns, but he doesn't like "they" because, It's plural.
When I asked him what non-gendered pronoun he liked better--"zie/hir?", I suggested--he had no answer.

Uh-huh.
I'm embarrassed when people my age pretend to be hip, but complain like fuddy-duddies that it's inconvenient to learn new terms:
"It's so hard to change _____ {fill in the blank: Negro to Black; "retarded" to "delayed"; homeless to unhoused}".

Yes, it's a miniscule inconvenience to adopt new terms, and the euphemism treadmill guarantees we're going to have to do it again and again, as each new term takes on pejorative meanings....

But the idea behind name changes is noble:
to refresh how we see groups of people who are not granted social respect.

Be noble.

Or, just be honest. After all, you don't have to like it.
But it's you, not the term.
You could say, "It's beyond me"; or, even, "I don't like it".

Loyalty to the rules of grammar and complaining about bending them is not support, so don't say it is. Exclamation point.

I was excited to talk at happy hour to a woman who works in the media center–she told me she's retiring and I should apply for her job for this coming fall.

I would love to work in the media center!
But--speaking of "it's beyond me"-- I can't do the tech that I think is a big, BIG part of the job.
Audio-visual equipment, computers, etc.

I find it difficult to learn tech, partly because I'm not interested in the machinery, but also, my brain does not bend that way--never has, and it's definitely less bendy as I age.
Maybe I'll ask the librarian (media center boss) if he needs help with books in some way... just for fun...

________________________

II. The Kids Are Alright

Speaking of fun, there was a talent show yesterday, and one of the songs performed was Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me".

I'm used to people talking bad about kids, but I haven't seen badness at this huge high school.
I mean, I'm sure bad things are happening.
No doubt. Because humans.

But on the surface anyway, I see young people being vulnerable (the kid who told me they were depressed); sincere, funny--and kind:
when I was lost, I asked a kid in the band room for directions, and he walked me all the way to my destination.
And when the entire audience sang along to this song, about a nerd girl in marching band finding love (but yeah, she's still Taylor Swift)-- all the way through--I felt such sweetness, I kinda teared up...

______________________

III. Benefits

At the end of my second week in this new job yesterday, I thought, "I've got this."

I'm a little disappointed--had expected more of a steep learning curve.
There are, of course, a LOT of things I don't know (in-depth understanding of neurology), but the basic job?
Yep. Got it.

Of course I can add challenges and learn more, and I will.
Meanwhile, a great thing is--(there are several great things, actually)--
I will be honest: THE PAY.

Until now that I'm earning a livable hourly wage, I didn't fully realize how much underground stress I was registering (like rumors of an earthquake) as I became aware of my body physically aging while I continued to grow poorer, drawing on my savings to supplement the thrift store pay and giving large chunks away to coworkers.

Earning decent money does not just add comfort (that too: I ordered what I wanted at happy hour! and it didn't even cost one-hour's pay)--it increases my sense of safety.
(I always want to add that safety is an illusion. But it's a nice illusion.)
Say, if I have to move at some point, I can afford to do that.
If a friend needs money, I can share without undercutting my retirement.

Another great thing: RESPECT.
A coworker said we who work in special ed are on the bottom of the Educator Scale.
I see that, but the truth is, a lot of people do respect educators, even in sp'ed. Society at least gives lip service to that.
Clap for Teachers.

No one (hardly anyone) respects people who sort the garbage donated to a run-down thrift store, not even many of the workers and managers themselves.
Well, I do. And you, too. But you know what I mean.

So that's nice, to be part of something---educating and caring for young people--that is generally agreed to be a Good Thing, and that is supported as such.

Teachers should be MUCH MORE supported--why aren't they paid as much as an engineer in tech?!--but compared to the thrift store, I am supported in my work:
I get health care, vacations, a work laptop, opportunities to learn more (gotta get on that), recognition from other educators, parents, etc.

So, yeah.

Something else unexpected, and nice:
A return of ENERGY.

I continue to sleep a lot. Last night–after a week of new people, places, and activities––I slept twelve hours. I woke up at 5 o'clock this morning but decided to recharge my battery all the way, plus, and went back to sleep a few more hours.

But more to the point: I am not wiped-out when I come home every afternoon.

Again, in contrast I see how right I was that the thrift store was heavy emotional/spiritual work. Working with people in distress with no outside support was Olympic weight-lifting level.
Damn.

Helping someone who has overdosed in the parking lot; talking to people with drug-ravaged faces and bodies; watching someone high on meth throw a stapler at a cashier;
and then witnessing drug dealers sell the stuff across the street, for years---it takes it out of a person.
And Management offered us nothing in the way of replenishment.

I know I've said all this repeatedly, but being away from it and looking back, I am astonished...

IV. Level Up

So... I feel somewhat energetic.
I am wondering if I want to take something on.
School? Train for a different new career?
A personal project?
Or, better--for now, find ways to level up, right WHERE I am!

Initiating the found-pencil project made me happy...

I wonder if I could interest/engage the students in making a zine...
The autistic students I work with have "high support needs". They are not the college-bound kids in the sp'ed program--and they are not well able to express themselves to outsiders.
. . .
A zine might could be a cool way to do that. Or just to have fun creating something NOT on the computer.

The students are on their laptops a lot, and they seem to generally love it. I see radiating delight, watching, for instance, some videogame play-through. Some autistic people flap their hands and call out when happy (or distressed)--and that expression of joy can be infectious.
In fact, I have to be careful not to appear in any way mocking, but the other day when I was happy, I caught myself flapping my hands.

I asked a science teacher at happy hour about that--how I pick up expressive joy, and the teacher reminded me of our brains' mirror neuron systems.

You know,
"Mirror neurons are a class of neuron that modulate their activity both when an individual executes a specific motor act
and when they [ * NOTE the plural "they"!]
observe the same or similar act performed by another individual.

"The discovery [early 1990s] of mirror neurons was exciting because it has led to a new way of thinking about how we generate our own actions and how we monitor and interpret the actions of others. This discovery prompted the notion that, from a functional viewpoint, action execution and observation are closely-related processes, and indeed that our ability to interpret the actions of others requires the involvement of our own motor system."

--"What We Currently Know about Mirror Neurons", NIH, 2013 (but still true)

Applying that to the thrift store environment, how much we were exposed to/ mirroring despair actions? A lot.

Anyway, not to take away from the joy of computers, but I wonder if the students would enjoy creating something ON PAPER to share?
I don't know.
Something to explore!
____________

Below, A drawing I'm working on while I'm in art class with a student--a Toothy Landscape with Llama.

Lead Artist

High school students are issued laptops, but in class they write on paper with pencils (or pens), and there are pencils lying all over the school grounds--and beyond.
I've started to pick them up, and yesterday, walking to the city bus with students on a field trip, I invited them and my coworkers to pick up stray pencils too.

Two students picked one up. (Hmph, no coworkers did.)
Good enough for me to declare it A PROJECT. "When we get enough, we'll glue them into a collage."

Back in our classroom, I labeled a jar to put them in.

The Found Pencil Project
Lead Artist: Francesca
(^ get it?)

At the end of the day, waiting for the school buses, I told other coworkers about it too. One, also fairly new, pulled a handful of pencils out of the pocket of his hoodie. "I've been picking them up too." He gave them to me.

A teacher said, "If it involves glue, the students will love it."

I'm thinking for one of our field trips we could go to the art institute--it's on the same bus line as the school--and look at George Morrison's  work.
Morrison was a Minnesotan Ojibwe painter who also did sculptural wood collage, which he called painting with wood.

Below, right: Red Totem I (1977), George Morrison
Below, left, some of yesterday's pencils

(I like Morrison's weathered found-wood collages better, but ^ this red piece is the one that's currently on display.)

I'm starting to feel at home in this workplace, enough to come up with my first project anyway. Working in this new setting is like a test of what powers I've gained in the past six years.
As long as you keep doing the same thing, it's hard to measure change.
I'm surprised how much confidence and ease I've gained, for working with people. All sorts.

______________________________

I told Abby about the pencil project at dinner last night, and she said, "Can I steal your idea?"
She's a sp'ed assistant at a different school, and there are pencils all over there too.

She gave me news of the thrift store. (She still volunteers 10 hours/week there.)
I won't go into all the details, but it's worse than ever.
Mr Furniture had been out sick on my last day. Turns out he got so sick, he was hospitalized, and no one did anything. Everyone knows Abby and Mr F are good work pals, and she was outraged that no one even let her know.

I said the store was worse, but that negligence is actually par for the course.
Mr F is home now--I will take him a meal this weekend.

Abby said she told him that I love my new job, and he said, "That's good--I love San Francisco."

Supply Side

My social life is instantly different than it's been for the past six years.
I caught myself sorta flirting––flirting?––with a coworker this week.
About exclamation marks! (I noticed he doesn't use them.)
Oh, happy day--someone who cares about punctuation ! ! !

But... flirting?!
I didn't know I knew how, it's been so long. 
It was just a bit of silliness, but it made me nervous too: we all work closely together in tight spaces with lots of emotion. I'm NOT wanting to complicate that, at all. [ohgodno]
___________________

Crowd Funding

A teacher mentioned spray-painting with the students, and I suggested I ask my graffiti artist friend The Emmler to come do a project with the students. The teacher was enthusiastic--though warned me there's no budge to pay for outside artists to come in.
Em said she'd love to do it as a volunteer, as long as paint was supplied.

Of course there is NO BUDGET for classroom supplies--teachers were regular shoppers at the thrift store, buying supplies from their own pockets. If I spotted them buying cartloads of children's books, I always gave them half-off.
But spray paint could be supplied because this teacher Crowd Funds on their IG, asking people to donate to the classroom for autistic students.

They raised around $500 for this semester---that pays for weekly outings to the grocery store. Students choose something to cook or prepare, shop for it, and then make it. (This is a three-day project, every week.)

Also, they buy snacks for the students--goldfish crackers and fruit crisps, that sort of thing. The kids do get free lunch, but some get hungry mid-morning.

Reminds me of how some of you and other friends and volunteers chipped in for me to make lunch for my coworkers who ran out of grocery money before pay day.

At lunch yesterday, I was chatting with the librarian about what we're reading. Another teacher came in and told the librarian that he's not coming back next year, he's returning to his former industry--(he  was an engineer for a major technology corporation)---because--get this--teaching is too hard!

LOL, I can see that. I would not want to be a teacher--it looks like practically a 24/7 job. I asked one of the sp-ed teachers if the one-hour/day allotted for prep time was enough.
No, they said.
(Though I can see already that some folks are phoning it in--showing a lot of videos, for instance--for which I can't exactly blame them.)

The departing teacher didn't mention money, but I looked up his former employer and they pay like $100k--twice what he's making.
_________________________

Continuing Ed

I'm starting to get the hang of the job, and I would describe it as being exactly like . . . 
WORKING WITH PEOPLE.

Yep. I'm still figuring out a lot of stuff--where is the gym?--how do I sign up for benefits?--but the day-to-day work is super familiar.
I am old, I have done this before.

I wouldn't want to, but with some prep, I think I could even step into teaching pretty easily (and there's one class where I sorta think everyone would be happy if I did--including the teacher).

When I have more time, what I want to learn more about is neurology--specifically brain science and behavior. I asked my supervisor to let me know if there are any "learning opportunities" (conferences?) coming up.
I've chatted a bit with the speech pathologist, and that's interesting.

[See post below for Autism Wheel--that's the sort of thing I want to know more about.]
_____________

One of my coworkers organizes a Friday Happy Hour every two weeks, and my first one is tomorrow.

Happy Hour? Exclamation mark!
So NORMAL in a workplace, but something my fellow thrift workers and I did exactly once as a group--I remember it well---BJ arranged it for Ass't Man's birthday three years ago (the year before she died).

I'm going out tonight with my former coworker/volunteer Abby, the one who works in the field and encouraged me to do it.
I have so much to tell her about my first two weeks! And I'm curious what the news is from the store. My last day was almost four weeks ago...

It's a Pie, Not a Line

Julia commented on a previous post where I'd implied people with autism are all hypersensitive.  (Thanks, Julia, I added a note to that post.)
–––They replied:

"Clarifying the autism sensory stimulation thing.
Ime (inc talking with lots of other autistic people), we're not all hypersensitive.
Some of us are hyposensitive (raises hand).
Some might be hyposensitive in one sense and hypersensitive in another, or have very specific sensory preferences (think inability to deal with seams or tags in clothing, heightened sensitivity to specific noises, textures, or flavors).

"One of my autistic pet peeves is flattening autistic people to the hypersensitive ones when the truth is more that we don't process sensory stuff in the same ways as neurotypical people, and so we fall in all sorts of strange places on the sensory bell curves."

______end comment____

Similarly, I'm seeing pie charts--an autism wheel to show how one individual experiences autism––replacing the depiction of the autism spectrum as a line that progresses from "easy" to "hard", or "less" to "more".
Autism is not one thing.

"The pie chart model, or autism wheel, also acknowledges that autistic people's symptoms may change and develop through time, and allows for a fluid development over the life span."
--"From Autistic Linear Spectrum to Pie Chart Spectrum", by Claire Jack, Psychology Today, August 2022