Today's Actual Students

Today, the Matron put her best pedagogical foot forward and administered a fair, yet comprehensive, exam in class XXX. Because students did so poorly on the last exam, she also graciously offered this version as an open book!

An open book exam! In a fun and interesting class! Sounds like a party!! Compare this to calculus and well, let's all groove on that humanities thing!

Early this morning, however, calamity struck. She's sure her students were each, surprisingly, coincidentally born under the exact same astrological constellation. How unusual!

Email 1: "I am on my way to the dentist for an emergency root canal. When can I take the test?"

Email 2: "My car stalled on the highway and I'm typing from cell phone. What should I do?"

Well . . . she guesses that depends entirely on the veracity of the report.

Phone call: "My dog ran away, Mary. I need to keep looking for him. Can I take the test tomorrow?"

Email 3: "Funeral. Same time as test."

Email 4: "All of my four children are sick and I have to stay home to take care of them."

Phone call: "I lost my book!"

By the time yours truly got to the actual exam itself, she was beaten. Demoralized. Worn to a pulp and also annoyed with the extra work she just went to, setting up a second time for these absent students to take the exam. Yes, she gave them one final shot.

Just in case there really was a root canal, funeral, stalled car, sick children, lost dog and misplaced book. She's weak that way . . what if. Damn those stars.

So she was in a no-nonsense mood when the exam arrived for the students actually prepared to take it. With a book. To the Matron, this is sort of like saying: here are the answers. But she did it anyway. . .just in case that last test really was too hard.

Those students dug in. Got to work. Focused with barely a pause for a question or two. A peaceful, somewhat foreign, aura of genuine studiousness permeated the room. She began to relax.

Click, click click. Ten minutes are the test time was up, she gave the stragglers a two minute warning.

Click, click, click. The stragglers wrapped up and sort of meandered about, a few waiting to talk to the Matron. Except one, who kept on writing even as her instructor (the supposed authority figure) stood next to her and said: "really, it's time to stop."

Student Q: "I just need, like, another hour."

Matron: "Well, it's a timed exam with a grace period. That's all part of the process." Plus, the Matron had plans for that hour that did not include sitting in this classroom.

Student Q sighed deeply and shut her book: "Okay, but I did horrible."

But, there appeared to be a solution for Student Q. She handed the Matron her test and said: "You should just let me take this again tomorrow, okay?"

Now . . . the Matron isn't sure if it was the build-up -- the well-timed emergencies, the hours spent creating an exam (open book tests are tricky), the grading ahead -- or if it was just the 'you should' part that hit that wee little gas light that had ignited within her that morning.

Actually, she's pretty sure it was mostly shock that colored her reaction.

Matron: "ARE YOU KIDDING? NO. No. NO. This is a TEST which means how you actually perform on it MATTERS."

Student Q: "Well, it was just an idea. How else can I get a better grade on this test?"

Matron: "You can't! It's a test! Like Driver's Ed where if you crash you fail. The 'how can I do better' part is over!"

Student Q: "Well, the whole test situation just doesn't seem right."

Here, she was in complete agreement.

Take Away Teaching Moments 101

A mosaic, of sorts, of instructive moments this far into the semester.

First, background. The Matron is teaching not one, but four, of her five classes online. Someday she'll post about the merits of online life (she loves it) but today, some of the little thorns on that computer screen. Students and instructors alike tremble before the Matronly syllabus: 17 pages long, replete with assignments, links, guidelines, schedules, etc. It is a semester in a snapshot. She's organized (ahem, nice word for obsessive) that way.

So she can forgive the occasional oversight, the missed bit of information. And does forgive.

But still . . . three weeks in? Time to at least understand some fundamentals, condensed here:

1. Don't email with a general question about the class. Ask these on the classroom discussion board.

2. Don't send an unsigned email message. It's impossible to know who you are from the email address (this one is important for obvious reasons)

3. Don't ask your instructor to manually regrade the automated quiz to give you points for misspelled words or other small mistakes you make: if the answer is wrong, it's wrong. Spelling and following instructions are part of the assessment.

With that . . . a few humorous gems, recounted with love (after all, the Matron has made her own errors, including once DELETING an entire online constellation of graded student papers).

So putting herself on equally flawed footing, let's start with her personal favorite, unsigned and simple: "Send me syllabus."

Sure! What class are you in (which syllabus?) and who are you? Helpful details can be so annoying. Let's not even aim for niceties like salutations or thank you. Plus, there's the fact that the syllabus is not 'sent' but lives in the online classroom already.

Here's another, unsigned: "I spilled Columbia like Culumbia on the quiz and need that point back." Sure! And you are? What quiz? Which class? She actually gets several of these a week.

From a student removed from the class for non-participation: "I have had the flu for two and a half weeks but am fine now. Sorry. You can put me back in the class now." Okay, thanks. She'll get right on it.

Three dead relatives the day before the first assignment was due.

"I need a paper topic. Thanks!"

Then, in her on-the-ground class -- that lovely group who didn't know anything about the 1960s --, the Matron mentioned that she was just a few days (okay, 462 days) short of her fiftieth birthday. Not that she's counting.

She let that little bomb drop carefully, aiming for an onslaught of "wow you look amazing and you CANNOT be nearly fifty or "but you wear skinny jeans and heels" shrieks. Yes, shrieks. That's what she imagined.

Instead, silence.

Sigh . . .

Prehistoric Matron

The Matron LOVES her Gender and Women Studies class! In fact, the Matron LOVES the entire GWS department -- because she is the only person in it! Yes, yours truly gets to play Department Czar. Good times. What's not to love about Total Control (okay, okay, within institutional guidelines), her favorite state of being.

Most of all, she loves her students. This class is, coincidentally or not, entirely female. They are mostly young -- certainly, all younger than she is. With just 20, she can do more than memorize names but actually know people. Amazing, all around.

Just two weeks in, the students are lapping it all up: feminist theory, Marxism, post-structuralism, all drawn in introductory, broad Matronly strokes designed for the eager but uninitiated. Wonderful. All is good. There is much discussion of 'micropolitics' and how those everyday exchanges regarding gender, sexual preference, class and race are related to and help create larger social and economic processes and ideologies. Perfect attendance and nobody bolts for the door the second the class leaves.

Today, the discussion turned toward identity politics.

Matron (note the careful use of 'in part' which is a handy phrase in case you forget something or get it partly right): "Identity politics, in part, grew out of the political movements of the 1960s and early 70s. Political, economic and social change was changed fueled by activists' identification with a certain group of people: African-American and to a less visible and less applauded extent all other groups of non-white people, female, workers, etc. This is a generalization, but whereas we see a lot of political fervor today about the economy, in the sixties there was political fervor over identity and the rights of people defined by certain identities."

Silence.

Student raises hand: "Do you mean the NINETEEN sixties or an earlier century?"

Here, picture the Matron with raised eyebrows, lecture paused.

Matron: "Of course, the 1960s. Everyone here is familiar with the political upheavals and social transformation of the sixties and early seventies, right?"

Silence.

Matron, who is a big believer in cutting to the chase in the classroom: "Who here has never ever heard of an era called 'the sixties' and the political changes that happened then?"

Every hand shoots up.

Guess who is constructing a history lesson about waaaaaaaaaaaay back when in the last century and feeling like the dinosaur who belongs there.

When Kiara Comes Sauntering In Again, Hurrah, Hurrah

This title, of course, must be sung out loud to the tune of When the Saints Go Marching In!

When Kiara comes sauntering in again, hurrah, hurrah! The entire class will turn on its heels and grin, hurrah, hurrah!

Remember Kiara? The student who contacted on February 17th, in regard to her mysterious absence since January 19th? The student felled by the world's all time greatest migraine--for a month?

Kiara came back to class -- on March 4th.

Imagine the Matron's complete and total SHOCK when--with no advance warning or other signs of life---Kiara simply walked in with everybody else on Thursday morning. Well, wait a minute. This would imply that she was on TIME. No. Kiara walked in half an hour late.

The Matron didn't know who she was.

Matron: "Can I help you?"

Kiara: "It's me, Kiara."

Now, it turns out that for some reason the 'system' failed to remove her from the class --some computer issue, probably. So Kiara sees this class continuing to show up on her schedule and she thinks: "what the hell? why not go one day? did the room change colors?"

This would be the Matron's assessment of Kiara's detailed and sophisticated thought process, because Kiara didn't have a syllabus, any assignments, or books.

What's a teacher to do?!

This one is throwing that young woman what will be most difficult: giving Kiara exactly what she wants, which is half a semester of work to complete, independently. Yours truly is not giving private eight week instruction.

She is not holding her breath for this particular success story. Indeed, the second day all year Kiara selected to attend class? Right before Spring Break, which starts Monday.

The Matron can just see a hang-nail or stomach ache coming, issues that might down Kiara for another couple of weeks, starting right after Spring Break on Monday March 15th.

Good luck, honey.

Spring Break!! And the children? Still in school.

Hurrah, hurrah!

The Company She Keeps

Last week, a colleague at the Matron's very fine community college sent an email message to a professional listserve.

The listserve goes out to over 2000 English instructors teaching in community and state colleges throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin. These are people who hold advanced degrees. Why, the Matron herself is the proud owner of a P-H-D. Dang! Her colleagues, by nature of their employment, must also own such a degree, or a Masters at the least.

The people on the listserve are responsible for shaping minds! For passing on essential information, appropriately.

The message the Matron's colleague sent? Completely appropriate! Professionally valuable, even, asking for feedback and discourse about developmental writing at the college level. Bring it on, thought the Matron, when she saw the message in her inbox.

Instead, this popped in the inbox next:

Remove me from this list!

Please delete me from this list.

Who put me on this list in the first place? Take me off?

REMOVE ME FROM THIS LIST.

Get me off this damn list!

Why am I getting these emails! Take me off the list!!!

~*~*~

My, my, these people are testy! Demands to removed from the list fairly flew into the inbox. All of these fine, well-educated people appearing incapable of reading the instructions for how to unsubscribe at the bottom of the message.

Finally! A voice of reason and calm!

Hello colleagues! If you want to be removed from this listserve please do one of two things. Follow the instructions for how to be removed from the list, copied here, or contact the listserve administrator, Dr. Very Nice Guy, at here's his email. Please don't continue to hit 'reply all' and perpetuate the very problem we're trying to avoid. Thank you and have a good day!

Whew, went the Matron! Back to blogging and coffee now that this drama's all wrapped up. But wait! What is this she is seeing?

Take me off this damn list.

Please remove me from the list.

Get me out of here!

You're all stupid which means your school must be stupid too.

Are there more morons on this list than anywhere on the planet?

Get me off this list.

Please remove me from the list.

People get a brain! Are you idiots allowed to drive let alone teach?!

F$(#k off or get me off this list.

Remove me too.

Take me off.

Reason and decorum vanished. Chaos ensured. People fell apart before her very eyes. Supposedly well-balanced professionals turned into L.A. drivers during rush hour: road rage by email! Email mania meant it was OKAY to call your professional colleague a "whining meanie."

The thing that REALLY amazed the Matron (okay, the entire toddler-like squall blew her away) was that these people were not anonymous: everyone sent an email with,well, NAME and EMAIL address and institutional information attached!!

So Dr. Doo-Doo at College Q can tell 2000 of his professional colleagues to: "F$(%K off."

She can't wait to see him at the next conference.

The Matron even googled several people to see if she could find a picture of someone who can be conscious and still write "your school is stupid and you are too." Middle-aged white woman wearing a really bad sweater, it turns out. Honest to God-Buddha-Oprah-Universe-Allah she wishes she would have saved that link to show you.

Forget Actual Student Email. Check out who's doing the teaching!

why cant u weanies get a live?

Didn't know such high end people were helping to shape our nation's future, did you?

Cautionary Tales

is what the Matron is getting regarding Hollywood, largely, here. She's also got a couple of phone numbers from local folks who've made the journey to the holy land. Thanks so much to all of you dear friends and readers for giving her plenty to think about --and then some.

Another cautionary tale would grow out of the Matron's vast error in judgment, for once not involving a child or excess food.

So. . . she's all groovy and good because one of her classes is Contemporary Fiction. This class is online and goes 'live' at midnight on Sunday. This is a NEW class for her and the other three, taught before.

What makes sense? Get the new one started earlier so you have more time or first reboot the old classes and wait until a later date to start the new?

Bingo! The Matron put Contemporary Fiction LAST.

And here is where her grave error in judgment steps in to thunk her on the head and kick her scrawny ass. The Matron is assigning many books she adores (contemporary fiction! even the words should make you happy). But because she read many of those books several years ago, she has FORGOTTEN THEIR ACTUAL CONTENT.

She realized this when she sighed and picked up Zadie Smith's On Beauty in order to create an assignment based on this one million page book only to realize she didn't remember what the book was about!!

Now she has to 'refresh her memory' on On Beauty, The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien), Breath, Eyes, Memory (Edwidge Danticat), Interpretor of Maladies (Jumpha Lahiri), Drown (Junot Diaz) and everything Lorrie Moore ever touched, IMMEDIATELY. For those interested, the list rounds out with The White Tiger by Aravnd Atiga which she recently read for just these purposes.

Of course, you must read these books! But if you have to pick just one new one, go for Danticat.

So Sunday night at midnight, in her other life (not real life but just different as it involves actually seeing and sometimes -- willingly or not -- touching other human beings), this new online class is open to students.

Guess what she's doing this weekend?

Like a Good Neighbor, the Matron is There

The Matron has a cozy little office, one in a row of cozy little offices strung together down a narrow little hallway. Biologist, philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, linguist, medic: that hallway has it all! There is much collegiality and good will. The Matron has only known these people for a year and she adores them (mostly but that's a post-tenure post).

She especially adores Edward, not Ed, who has the office directly across the hall.

Edward, not Ed, looks like he hit retirement age about five years ago but bounced back against that wall for another season. He can't hear all that well. This second trait immediately endeared him to the harried working mama Matron, who is often as not happy NOT to have that ten minute chat about this and that. Edward, not Ed, usually doesn't even notice when her comings and going.

Edward, not Ed, generally brings along his dog, Elsie, a lovely Australian Shepherd who shares Ed's seasoned status.

Official College Memo Distributed Every September Since 1989: "Please remember that because this is a state building, no animals are allowed. You may not bring dogs, cats or ferrets on campus."

Elsie has been coming to campus with Edward, not Ed, since about 1989, too.

Edward: "Why, Mary. I just ignore those old memos! What's an old professor without his dog?"

Edward, not Ed, has a strained relationship with his computer -- with technology introduced after 1989 too, actually. For this reason, the Matron is a frequent visitor to his office.

Edward: "Mary? Say, you would think the faculty bulletin is on our web site, right? Do you think we could locate that?"

Edward: "Mary? Say, aren't we supposed to fill out student withdrawal forms online. That can't be too terribly tough to find, can it?"

Theirs is not a one-sided relationship. Edward (rightfully) assumes that the Matron shares his sweet tooth and takes keeping her satisfied, seriously. If he's just read a fabulous book, a copy makes it to her desk. He inquires after the children and his interest? Not rudimentary. He's genuine.

They share dog stories. She inquires after his grandchildren. Genuine, too.

Today, Edward not Ed, tapped on the Matronly door.

Edward: "Say, Mary. Are you going to that hour and a half training session for the new voice mail system?"

Matron: "You mean the hands-on facilitation for our new communication tool - the telephone/internet/email units we're getting, headsets optional?"

Edward: "Say, Mary. I meant to ask you about that. Yup. That's the one. Will we be able to answer the phone and use voice mail?"

Matron: "Oh yes but there's so much more! These are incredible, complex machines that will let you send messages to groups, set up meetings, invite people to forums, email and more. That's why we have the hour and a half training."

Small silence.

Edward: "Say, Mary. About all that hoopla. Are we still going to be able to answer the phone and use voice mail?"

Matron: "Of course!"

Small silence.

Edward: "Say, Mary? Are you going to that training? Sounds awfully involved, doesn't it?"

There was something about that 'say Mary,' that gave the Matron pause. She took a good long look at him.

Matron: "Edward. I have an idea. How about if you skip that meeting. I'm going. I'll show you how to answer the phone and use the voice mail."

Edward: "Now, there's an idea!"

And later that day there was chocolate--in the sweetest way possible.

Yo, Students!

The Matron has decided that this will be required viewing in her basic writing courses.

Nostalgia

Something other than Christmas -- abit of fresh air for those of us stumbling after organizing all that holiday cheer.

Stryker's algebra teacher has brought the Matron back to the day. You see, Mr. X is a guy's guy, the kind of man who stands firm on a handshake. He fills the algebra classroom with Tale and Parable, warning away his young charges from drugs, alcohol and those damn Democrats.

Here's how he replied to an email alerting him to the fact that Stryker was home sick for the day, by parental decree.

"Mary. Stryker would never skip, lie or cheat. He's solid. His word on anything is enough for me. Thnks."

Mr. X? An avid hunter. Registered Republican. Computer and algebra geek morphed into a thirty-something teacher with two small children of his own, who clearly adores his junior high charges.

Stryker worships the man.

Mr. X was the only one of Stryker's teachers to receive a holiday present and the only teacher bold and politically incorrect enough to put in a request: "I like books. You don't know which ones. That equation equals bookstore gift cards."

Stryker does algebra equations with reverence and care. After all, Mr. X will be seeing them.

He's an incredible teacher! Who reminds the Matron of this one. . . .

When the Matron was a Very Young Miss and entering seventh grade, she suffered from a severe case of Math & Science Fear. An otherwise straight A student, she stumbled and bled in these two departments. Believed herself Less Than, incapable.

She decided to get Biology over with during summer school, the summer before officially entering 7th grade.

Now, Very Young Miss's mother saw her daughter's academic anxieties and so struck this one and only school-incentive deal. Should Very Young Miss get an A in summer Biology, her single mother (who worked two jobs so you know rolling in dough they were) would spring for the item that Young Miss desired above all else.

A Samonsite bag. They were all the rage. The girls whose fathers owned furniture stores and car dealerships each had one. Never in her wildest dreams did Young Miss think she would be so lucky.

So she vowed to get an A in Biology. Nothing would stand between her and that bag!! She knew this was her one and only chance.

Her teacher? It took about four days for Mr. Z to identify himself as a Republican, prolife, Catholic, 'anti-women's libber." If memory serves, he used those precise words. And Young Miss's Incredible Left-Wing Sensibility was already firmly established.

She hummed "I am Woman" on her way to school while he thought that breed should be, breeding.

But, complexities and complexities abound in the human spirit.

On day two, Mr. Z pronounced: "About the only thing as bad as those doctors who kill babies are girls who believe they're SO DUMB they can't kick the behinds of those doctors who do it! Dumb girls almost always are my straight A students. You boys are weenies compared to the dumb girls who will one day kick the butts of those abortion doctors and any other butts they want to kick!"

Remember, this was the 70s. Classroom conduct had a different definition.

Young Miss was terrified by and attracted to this teacher, who pontificated on things she KNEW were inappropriate for Biology 101, like homosexuality (bad) abortion (mortal sin) Catholicism (convert). But he made those cells in the fish and worm come alive for her, the fauna and flora and whatever it was, pop.

There was that Samonsite bag!

Young Miss quickly became the Wonder of Seventh Grade Biology. Not only did she earn an A in those six summer school weeks, she did not miss -- one, single, point.

And nearly everyday, Mr. Z would pace around the room, waving Young Miss's most recent assignment, with a variant of this speech: "See this, the rest of you C and Bers? A DUMB GIRL is getting a first-ever perfect score in this class. This dumb blond will kick butt one day while you're all recycling beer cans and paying for abortion doctors and Democrats to make sure baby killing is legal everywhere. This dumb girl is not only blond, but she is going to run the world. Whaddya all think about that?"

When he slapped that assignment on Young Miss's desk, every day, he beamed at her as if she had just singlehandedly eradicated abortion and liberal politics everywhere. "Atta girl," he grinned.

She loved him!

She got the bag. The perfect score. And his assessment? "You're the real deal, for a girl. You got the goods: the brain."

She loved him!

Four years later, as the Matron entered 11th grade, her mother forced her to take Chemistry. Mother was all about 'college' and 'prerequisites' and did not care one whit that Young Miss cared nothing for said discipline, planned to major in something very WORDY and knew, rightfully, that colleges were all full of "Science for Poets" classes and Chemistry was not actually something she needed.

But her mother called the school, and forced her.

Mr. Z was her teacher. Oh, so thrilled was he to see her sweet face in his classroom!

Here's how he greeted her: "Hey, the rest of you losers? This dumb girl is the best student I ever had! Perfect scores. So while you're all chasing cheerleaders or football players, she is going to be kicking your butt and changing the world."

And Young Miss slouched in her chair and said nothing.

Her first assignment? Handed in, blank. First test? She wrote her name on top and doodled. Her strategy was to sign her name to all her work and do nothing. This is exactly how the first half of the semester went until Mr. Z told her to stay after class.

Mr. Z: "You've got a perfect zero, you know."

Young Miss: "Hmmmm."

Mr. Z: "This is a pretty small town and your mom's a teacher. I know you don't want to be here."

Young Miss: "Hmmmmm."

Mr. Z: "Well, I'm not going to play your little game and let you 'hurt' your mother by getting an F on your record. The only person you'd hurt is yourself and your chances for a scholarship, which I know you need. So no F. You can sit here and do nothing all semester and I am STILL giving you a C. Sorry."

And with that, she was dismissed. Oh, she was furious. Undone! Discovered! She had indeed been planning to show her mother a thing or two with that F.

But two years later, when she got that letter saying "full scholarship" to a private, four-year college? She was grateful.

Still is.

Waxing, Philosophical

New reader, hot from NaBloPoMo? Continue on for today's tidbit, or get to know the Matron ( or both) from her introductory course or Satan's Familiar (in honor of the half hour she spent searching for him throughout the neighborhood, today).

On other fronts.

For her new job, Dr. Matron is required to take this edifying online course: The Philosophy of the Community and Technical College.

• When was Minnesota's first community college established?
  
• What school district offered the first vocational programs?

And so on. She did the entire course yesterday afternoon, slogging through legislation, formation, and consolidation as the intrepid Community and Technical College system took shape before her very eyes. It was not a very wild ride.

But! She was evenhanded and understanding right up until the personal Teaching and Learning Statement she was required to write, complete with rubric for format and content, offering no real room for the individual jig or magic trick. So the Matron will be all rubric and good student, line up goal and pit it to strategy and outcome. Fine.

But really?

Teaching at the community college level is teaching on the front line of education, where your work matters.

Teaching at the community college level? These students weren't born into the language you'll be using, the precise and nuanced language of literature, art and theory. It's your job to help students learn this language and always, always remind them that they deserve to be fluent in it.

Understand that half of the people in your classroom are struggling financially. They all have full-time jobs. Many of them are parents. Most of them are ground breakers, the first in their family to attend college. Wow. You get to be continually amazed by and impressed with their persistence and courage, and you get to tell them that, too!

Someone can't write an essay to save her life? Well, Dr. Matron cannot do fourth-grade math. So there. But if someone sat down and reminded the Matron about fractions and the funny names for the numbers on bottom and top and how they all fly together? If she practiced adding 1/4 and 2/3? She'd get better. So will that writer in her classroom. Practice, practice, practice.

Standing in front of 25 community college students? You will be the recipient of endless, unanticipated life experiences. Recent emigres, new citizens, ex-cons, Iraq vets, single mothers, recovering addicts--you name it. And if you're receptive, they'll teach you (nearly) as much as you teach them.

And even though the Matron moans about her job and sometimes reproduces one of her more taxing students on the old blog? She loves every minute of teaching. When she's standing in the midst of a heated, full-classroom conversation and students are putting together X with Y and understanding C, and then a new hand shoots up, and there's, wait, one more concept, here, to incorporate--she's the conductor and the orchestra taps into a little bit of heaven.

There's that Teaching and Learning Statement. The real one.

But Then There Is This

So the Matron has a few high need students on her hands.

She also has this: a current night class with a gaggle of 8 women in their early forties who've become dear friends through their shared quest for the all-important college degree.

They are practically lunching instead of in schooling as they sit around their shared table and try (largely successfully) not to talk about their children, husbands and jobs and instead, to focus on College English.

They are respectful, disciplined, courteous, friendly and hard-working.

The Matron must resist the frequent and intense urge to sit down at that table. She'd like to start conversations: "Oh! You have a 15-year old! How are you handling the whole driving thing?"

Or join in, when she eavesdrops on this: "There's a plastic spoon sitting on the front steps. It's been there for 42 days. I'm not moving it. Think anyone else will?"

She can hardly stand it! She wants to chat.

And they are not helping her situation.

The second week of class, one of these women raised her hand and said this: "You look so cute today! It's the hair, up like that."

Matron: "Oh, thank you! I'm of a certain age. I'll take any compliment I can get."

Student: "Honey, age doesn't matter. We all wanna look good."

Laughter and general female good will.

The following week, the entire group waved her over to the table to point out how smashingly the Matronly earrings and bracelet operated as a fashion unit. The indigo and amber sparkled and popped, just so. They noted their collective approval.

Later, the boots.

Student raises hand: "Mary? Where did you get those boots? Please don't tell me you got those at a thrift store, too? I'll be just sick with envy."

The Matron notices how they then put their heads together and peered in her direction.

Yesterday, the Matron spent quite some time dressing for these women. She fretted and scowled at the brown pants with the Doc Martin boots. Not quite right -- and besides, no clear jewelry match--not to mention the purse! She wiggled into something that was just a bit too hot for the audience. Maybe gypsy, hippy-dippy kinda thing? Not quite right.

She finally settled on a sea green J.Jill dress that was breezy and bookish, in a feminine sort of way. Tights, shoes, and jewelry, carefully considered. Why, she nearly forgot to create the quiz, she was so preoccupied!

Here's the kind of scholarly recognition she's getting these days. Forget Omar. Let's be grateful for any kind of teacher appreciation.

"Mary! Did you notice how the blue in those shoes perfectly draws out the tiny flowers in the dress? You add in the gray tights and it's just stunning!"

Yes! She noticed! And thank you.

The Great White North

One of the college at which I teach is the most diverse educational institution in the state. When I walk through the hallways, mine is often the only white face.

My research and writing class has 25 students: 17 are people of color.

Today I read this in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: the Citizens League projects that "of current 9th grade Minnesota students, only 3% of American Indians, 5% of Hispanics and 3% of African-Americans will get a bachelor's degree in Minnesota within 10 years."

My job?

Suddenly seems pretty important. Urgent.

These kind of statistics are what make me roll my eyes when pundits chortle and point: "Oh, oh! Barack is pulling out the race card!" Or "Hillary's got the gender card! Hillary's got the gender card!"

Recognizing that race matters isn't a game. The more we actively and overtly fight racism, the more chance those really shameful statistics change.

A rock star? Got nothin' on my gig.

The Linguist Among Us

Students focused on rough drafts of their essays today, critiquing each other's work in small groups.

I was able to read and comment, too. One student had a long, convuleted essay that needed a lot of reorganization.

I penned in the many changes and returned the essay.

His complimentary comment to his small group? "Wow, Mary can really move this shit."

That Kid

Remember the student I love--from a couple of posts down -- the idealist who stood up to his older peers?

He wrote a really lousy rough draft of an essay. I spent a lot of time mulling over that draft, trying to find my way into its interior workings, trying to find the key to help him revise.

While we were discussing his essay in class, as a group, I made some apologetic gesture toward my comments, which were fairly critical in content (if kind in tone). Trying to be careful not to hurt his delicate (possibly left-leaning, a kindred spirit in a foreign class) feelings.

His response? "Oh, I knew it was bad. I just sort of pulled this one out of my butt."

Lovely. Here I remain, stranger in a foreign land.

The Busy Season

Sum up the holidays?

Between their 2 to 3 jobs and full-time school, my young college students don't have any time. None of them ingest news of any sort on a daily basis, on-line, in print, on TV or radio. One was shocked to learn (from me) that Rudy Giuliani is now a presidential candidate.

"But isn't he the mayor of New York?"

My older students--those returning to school, mid-career--are swamped with full-time jobs and full-time school and children. They're marginally more informed but they don't care. Theirs is the shrug your shoulders attitude. Their noses are to their own grindstones, consumed with mortgages, careers, family demands.

A year after 9-11, Elaine Scarry wrote a marvelous essay that first appeared in The Boston Review: Citizenship in Emergency.

She points out that the only defense launched against the terrorists was from an informed citizenry (not the military, not the president). The people on Flight 93, she says, operated like a "small legislative assembly or town meeting."

Using cell phones, they gathered and verified facts. They assessed the threat to their own lives. They developed a plan. They voted on the plan. They acted.

She juxtaposes the efficacy of this process to the inability of the government to respond. Scarry notes that the military suspected Flight 93 was under terrorist control for nearly an hour but knew this for a fact for 20 minutes before the plane crashed.

Still, the military didn't deploy a defense. The logistics were just too overwhelming.

The main thrust of her argument is to question the wisdom of our current nuclear policy, allowing the President to make a decision--without Congress-- to launch a warhead in the name of defense.

We all know that scenario--the nuclear missile headed toward our borders, the President's hand forced to press that red button.

This should be changed, Scarry argues. Effective, speedy response and defense is a myth, an impossible story citizens soothe themselves with--and a dangerous lie. One person shouldn't have that power.

Instead, she holds the citizens of Flight 93 as examples for us all: we should all be operating like that, right now. We have the responsibility--as citizens-- to be well-informed. We have the responsibility to act on our knowledge, to defend the nation, ourselves. If we leave this vital task to politicians and the government machinery, we lose.

When we read this essay in my classes, someone always says: "But I'm too busy to get involved."

Then we all marvel at the irony, how we're too busy scrambling to question the scramble itself, the direction we're headed.

Well.

I better get going. Lots of shopping, baking, gift-making, card-writing, and party going ahead. Busy, busy, busy.