Does anyone know where this image originated? If so, please inform me.

Until now, I haven’t commented on the madness happening in Montreal streets concerning tuition hikes.  I haven’t commented because my feelings about the tuition hikes, and the resulting student strikes and protests, are, as a friend recently described his own, “nuanced.”

I am not in principle opposed to tuition hikes in Quebec.  I AM opposed to wasteful government and university spending, and I am most certainly opposed to the ludicrous Loi 78, a “special law” passed a few days ago which severely restricts the public’s right to protest.  This law, an attempt to quell increasingly fevered demonstrations around the city, has made things much, much worse, and it’s hard to believe that the provincial government actually thought the effect would be otherwise.  (Everyone else in the province seemed to understand, as soon as the law was proposed, that it was a really bad idea.)

I mostly haven’t commented because I haven’t felt clear enough about the issue to put my feelings into words, especially my feelings that I wasn’t entirely on the side of the people protesting.  So I was relieved, today, to come across this elucidation by (formerly local) curmudgeon, protesters’ darling, and wonderful writer Mike Spry.  He’ll break it down for you:

100 Days of Blame

At the end of his post, he explains the problems with the student argument and the perspective that the students needed to take from the beginning in order to win public sympathy.  It is helpful to anyone who feels conflicted.  I’m still not entirely clear about my position (except my position that Loi 78 is a stupid, stupid law – who does that?)  Spry’s article, however, has articulated a few things I wasn’t able to straighten out for myself.

My semester is wrapping up, and as much as I want to post and discuss throughout the summer, I think it is time to take a break.

As those who have been reading regularly will know, my husband and I have just bought a new home.  The next few months will be consumed by packing, moving, hiring contractors, painting, and so forth.  I could probably fit some blogging in around that, but I’ve decided not to, for a couple of reasons.

The first is that, as I discovered the summer we were planning our wedding, big projects are a lot less stressful if they are the whole focus of your life.  If the ONLY thing you have to do is settle into your new home, then settling into your new home will probably be pretty fun, regardless of the frustrations it brings with it.

Also, I am going to try an experiment.  Since I was old enough to use language, I have invested an awful lot of time and energy in my brain, and not nearly enough in my body.  This summer will require me to use my body to move, paint, build, walk around a new neighbourhood, and maybe even garden.  So I’m thinking I’d like to give my brain a break.  Read  a few mystery novels, sure.  Have long conversations with friends.  Otherwise, I’m going to lift and stretch and run and dig and jump, and let my brain take long naps.

I hope by giving myself this break, I will return to you in August refreshed, full of new ideas, and ready to reply more reliably to your comments.  And you never know: I may poke my head up time to time during the summer months if something inspires or outrages me.

Thank you all for your insightful, dedicated, articulate responses to post after post.  I love keeping this blog because I love your contributions.  I will be back in early August, if not before, and will be looking forward to hearing about your summer adventures and your plans for the coming year!  In the meantime, I hope that you will browse the archives when you are feeling the need for teacherly conversation, and I will certainly respond to your comments on old posts whenever I can.

Have a wonderful summer!  Good luck, good health, and keep in touch.

I hadn’t slept in 30 hours.  My husband and I are buying a house, and we’d discovered an error in our mortgage agreement at the notary two days before.  We should have seen it much earlier, but in our housebuyers’ exhaustion and overwhelm, we hadn’t paid close enough attention.  The next day, we’d learned that the error was irreversible because we hadn’t caught it in time.  I’d been up all night with the mortgage documents, trying to determine if there were other mistakes we’d missed.

I’d just heard from the bank, and it seemed that everything else was in order.  The impact of the error was not world-ending, but it was significant.  The greater problem was my feeling of helplessness in the face of the grinding real estate/banking/legal machine that we understand so little about, and the failure of those who do understand it (notaries, mortgage specialists) to protect us from its vagaries.

I was feeling put-upon by the universe.  I was also feeling like an idiot.  I could have prevented this, if I’d paid closer  attention.

Then Kalia walked in.  I’d written her a few days before to advise her that she’d failed her most recent essay and that, although she’s entitled to rewrite it, it’s unlikely that she’ll pass her English course.  So her appearance in my office was expected but not welcome.

Kalia was in my class last autumn as well.  She failed, because she didn’t come to class.  This term, she didn’t show up for the first two weeks, and then one day she appeared during my office hours.  ”If I come to class now, can I still pass this course?”

I furrowed my brow.  ”I don’t know.”

She stared at me blankly.

“Mathematically speaking?  Yes, it’s still possible for you to pass.  Our first essay test is next class; you haven’t done any of the preparation, but you’re welcome to try it.  You’ve missed one quiz but no other major assignments.  If you come to all the remaining classes, and hand in all the assignments, and do all the quizzes, and pass them all, then yes, you will pass.”

Her face broke into a beam, but I frowned and shook my head, and the beam froze.

“I don’t think you’re asking the right question,” I said. “Last semester you said, more than once, that you were going to make an effort and come to class and do the work, but you didn’t do it.  This semester has started the same way.  The important question is: what makes you think you’re going to do things differently now?  What’s changed?”

Her smile transformed from pleased to sheepish.  ”Yes.  I guess that’s the question.”

“You can pass this course, Kalia, if you really do change your behaviour.  If you don’t, you will fail again.”

Again, her face beamed.  ”I will.  I’ll come to class and I’ll do the work.”

But of course, nothing changed.  She did show up for the next class, but she hadn’t bought her books and hadn’t done her homework.  I stopped her on her way out and pointed out that just showing up and sitting in the room was not going to lead to success.  She eventually did buy at least one of her textbooks, but her attendance was spotty at best.  When she finally showed up in my office this Thursday, I hadn’t seen her in almost three weeks, except for a chance meeting in the hallway when she told me that she hadn’t come to class that morning because she “had to study for her psychology test.”  Her overall average was 10 points below a pass.

“I want you to help me with my essay…” she began, but I raised my hand and stopped her.

“Did you get my message?”  She nodded.  ”So you understand that, as things stand, you’re not going to pass this course.”

“But we still have the grammar test and the rewrite of this essay,” she said.  ”If I pass those, can’t I pass the course?”

“I don’t know,” I said.  ”I haven’t done the arithmetic.  I can tell you from past experience, though, that a student who has a 50% at this stage is unlikely to achieve a 60% by the end.”

She paused.  ”Can you calculate it for me?”

I stared at her.  I sighed.  Then I opened my online gradebook and typed in some numbers.  ”If you get a 60 on each remaining assignment,” I said, “you will get a 53% in the course.”

She deflated for a beat.  Then she perked up.  ”What if I get…”

“Kalia,” I snapped.  ”I am not going to sit here and plug in numbers for you.  I am also not going to help you with this essay right now.  As I instructed you and everyone, you should bring the essay to class with you on Monday and we’ll work on it some more and you can ask questions.  We have spent THREE WEEKS working on this latest essay in class, and you haven’t been in class for that work.  So you failed.  I’m not going to give you private tutoring on everything we’ve done because you couldn’t be bothered to come learn what you needed to learn during class time.  We talked at the beginning of the semester about what you needed to do to pass this course.  You haven’t done it.  You’re welcome to do this rewrite and do your grammar test and see what happens.  But I’m not going to re-teach everything I’ve taught for an audience of one.”

Here’s the interesting thing about Kalia.  When I tell her off, she doesn’t become angry or defensive or upset.  Instead, she nods, her eyes downcast, and smiles a little.  ”Ok,” she said.  ”Perfect.  Thank you.”  No sarcasm.  Just resignation.  She packed her essay up and left the office.

There are all sorts of arguments for why Kalia needs tough love, for why, no matter how harsh my response may seem, it’s really for her own good.  She needs to take responsibility for her learning and fulfill requirements and deal with whatever’s preventing her from doing the most basic things she needs to  do, or she needs to get out of school and come back when she can handle it.  Coddling her is not going to help her.  And so forth.

But none of these reasons are my reasons.  I didn’t snap at her because it was in her best interest.  I snapped at her because I was exhausted and she was pissing me off.  I wasn’t doing it for her; I was doing it because if I had to deal with Kalia right then, I was going to walk right down to Human Resources and quit my job.  And then where would my mortgage payments be?

Much like motherhood, teacherhood is held up to a terrifying amount of scrutiny in our society.  There is an expectation that teachers will be a strange cross between automatons and saints, that we will unfailingly do what our students need us to do.  (Here’s a post that’s been going around lately, detailing what that entails.)  And it’s true that if we’re good teachers, we WILL strive to do that.  We won’t always succeed, but we’ll do our level best.  It’s our job.

There will come a day, though, when we just can’t.  For me, Thursday was that day.  I couldn’t do what was best for Kalia; I couldn’t even decide what that was, and didn’t care.  I wasn’t capable of being a good teacher.  I just wanted her THE HELL OUT OF MY OFFICE.  If someone else had turned up that day, someone less infuriating than Kalia, I hope my responses would have been different.  But one way or another, they would have been limited, because I was THIS FAR from setting fire to my desk, cancelling my last two weeks of classes and booking a plane ticket to somewhere far away, never to return.

I hope you’ll forgive me for this lapse; I’ve forgiven myself, and I forgive you for any day when this has happened to you.  I don’t dispute that it’s essential for us to always, always do our best, whether it’s for our students, our children, our spouses, our friends.  It’s just that some days, our best isn’t very good.  That’s ok.  A good cry and 13 hours of sleep meant that the next day, my best was a little better.

That won’t help Kalia, but honestly?  I don’t know what will help her.  Maybe my outburst was just the trick.  If not, maybe someone else will know what to do.  I could spend some time here scrutinizing my behaviour, as if it were a mortgage document, scanning every line for errors.  I’m fully capable of such scrutiny, as you regular readers will know.  But: no thanks.  I dropped the ball where my mortgage was concerned, and there will be consequences, but the world will not end.  Kalia will survive too, even if I failed her.

Sometimes we get it wrong.  Sometimes we have no idea if we got it right or not.  We have to just keep doing what we do, and fixing what we can, and taking the consequences.  And trying to get a good night’s sleep.

Image by Adrian van Leen

I wanted to post this now because we have come around to that same time of the semester – the final couple of weeks – and my dread of infuriating student emails is welling up.  However, my perspective on this conversation has changed in so many ways.  In particular, I see my own role and replies entirely differently.  In the moment, I was so furious with and bewildered by the student that I was unable to step back from my own behaviour and evaluate it.  Please read and give me your thoughts: what am I doing wrong here?

Student: Hi,its concerning my topic for the oral I choose to do it on war to stop war in the world are poverty.

Siobhan: Dear Shayla: Your guidelines state that in your oral, you must teach the class a skill that you have.  Is stopping war or poverty a skill that you possess?  Please reread the assignment guidelines.

Student: Goodmorning ,it is concerning toodays class.Since last yesterday,I catch a flue which was catch by my relatives in my household.I woul like to know if i can met with you next week to review what I will be missing in todays class.

Siobhan: Shayla: I’m sorry to hear you are sick.  You are welcome to meet with me during my office hours next week to discuss what you’ve missed.  In the meantime, you still need to give me your topic for your oral presentation, as you will be presenting next Friday; please send me your topic as soon as possible.

Student: Hi,I wanted to know concerning the orall date can i present the wednesday  after?As i missed a class and didnt get to choose my oral date

Siobhan: Shayla: Your oral date and topic were due last week – you were free to email me with your date and topic at any time!  However, as Friday is quite full, I can move you to the next date.  In general, though, not attending class is not an excuse for not taking care of your class responsibilities.  Please send me your oral topic AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, as it is now very late.

Student: My topic is to change poverty  int the world because it sais if there was one thing you had to change what would it be .And thank you for being patient and giving me a chance to do the oral another dtae.

Siobhan:  I believe I already wrote you about that topic: I think you are confusing your argumentative essay with your oral presentation.  Your topic for your oral presentation needs to be to teach the class how to do something that you know how to do well.  It has nothing to do with the topic for your argumentative essay, which is to identify something you would change in the world and explain why.  These are two different assignments.

Student: Hi,its concerning two zero I have.I have a zero on quiz 3 and 4?And concerning the essay and oral,I will see you tomorrow and talk about it ,because I am quite confuse.I will talk to you 5 min before class if that’s okay with you,because after you’re class I have gym and the time of break is just enough for me to get ready.

Siobhan: Shayla: It is not clear to me what your question about the quizzes is.  You have zeros on two quizzes because you were not in class on the days they were given.  If you have a medical note excusing you from the latest quiz, you can bring it to me tomorrow.
As for the oral, I expect you are confused because you have not been in class when we have discussed the guidelines, nor as the other orals have been presented.  I will be happy to talk to you, but the time before class is not the best time; it would have made more sense for you to come see me in my office well before now.  You have missed a great deal of class time, and this is putting your chances for success in this course in jeopardy.

Student: Hi,I wanted to know tomorw can i see u before class in ur office for like 10 mins? or at 330 pm?

[Interval: I yank student out of class to explain again that no, she cannot come to see me in my office ten minutes before class time for any reason. The next class, the student is unprepared to do her oral presentation because she believes that her date is the class AFTER the extended date I agreed to above.]

Student: Hi,its regarding the argumentative essay we have to write my topic is going to be pauverty …Ihave told you that before,but you said it wasnt good but i saw on the paper in class someone chose it

Siobhan: Shayla: I told you (twice) that poverty was not a good topic for your ORAL PRESENTATION.  Poverty is a fine general topic for your paper.  They are two different assignments; I was hoping that by now your confusion about these two assignments would have cleared up!
There is no need for you to tell me the topic for this paper now.  We have done a great deal of work on it in class, most of which you have missed, and I will not be tutoring you about it over email.  I would suggest that you do the best you can with your first draft (which is due on Sunday night) and that you take advantage of the opportunity to come see me in person about making improvements for your final version (due the following week).  I don’t want to get any messages from you about this between now and Sunday – you are on your own!  The guidelines are available in our online classroom.

[Interval: several face-to-face meetings in which I carefully explain to the student that she needs to read the assignment instructions and my email messages, and COME TO CLASS, if she wants to have a clue what is going on.]

Siobhan: Dear students:  As you know, your final English paper is due by midnight this Friday.  Classes finish on Thursday.  As I explained during our last class, I will be in meetings and other engagements all day on Friday, and so will not be available in my office or by email.  It is therefore essential that you contact me with any questions BEFORE 6 PM ON THURSDAY.  If you contact me by email, it is essential that your question be brief and specific – I cannot review your whole essay for you.  If you have more general questions, please come see me in person during our final class period, when I will hold office hours specifically for your class.  (Note: even if your question is brief, it’s always better to come see me in person if you can.)  I will also be available for regular office hours.

Student: [sent at 11 a.m. Friday]: Hi,I did not get to see you thursday as I was still working on my paper ,I actually even redid another one.I was wondering can you just take a quick look and tell me what version would be best? [attached: two full-length essays]

Siobhan: [sent after the essay deadline has passed]: As I explained in a previous message, and in class, I was not available to answer any questions on Friday.  I hope you submitted your essay on time.  Have a good holiday.

[Interval: final papers are graded.]

Siobhan: Shayla: PLEASE READ THE MESSAGE BELOW SLOWLY, CAREFULLY, AND AT LEAST THREE TIMES.  Please do not contact me asking me to answer questions that have already been answered below.
It is essential that you do your English course again.  You have failed it this time for two main reasons:
1. You missed a lot of class time, and so did not learn the material you needed to learn, and
2. You seem to have a lot of difficulty reading and understanding instructions in English.  This includes both assignment guidelines and email messages.
I have looked over your final paper.  I know you worked hard on it, but it is not a passing paper. It is not properly formatted, your thesis is still not adequately supported, and your organization, especially your conclusion, still needs a lot of work.  However, the main problem is this:
In at least one spot, you have used words directly from a text without presenting them as a quotation.  You have cited the source but you have not paraphrased properly.  (If you look at the “Originality Report” for your paper on Turnitin, you will see this section marked in purple with a number “2″ beside it.)
As we discussed in class, using quotations properly was a major part of your task on this paper.  Using them improperly is a serious problem, and the usual result is that you get a zero on the paper and a letter goes into your permanent file saying that you have plagiarized.  However, I do not think that you deliberately plagiarized here – I believe that because you missed so much in-class time, you did not know how to do this properly.  I am therefore not going to put a letter in file; instead, I will consider this optional paper “not submitted” and will give you the same grade for your final version as you received on your original version.
I hope that next semester you will make an effort to attend all classes and to give more careful attention to the instructions you are given.
PLEASE READ THIS MESSAGE OVER AS MANY TIMES AS YOU NEED TO IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING I HAVE WRITTEN.

Student: [message 1]: Hi,I wanted to know what version of the assignemt u read because I have send about 4 assignment making a mistake only 1 is the gudd version the latest one.

Student: [message 2]: Hi,I just reviewed my essay and I do not see where I did plagirasim I went on turnitin and recheck with my text in front of me .Is there a possibbility of me scanning the text I have and show you.

[Interval: Siobhan writes several long, detailed, patient, tooth-gritting messages and deletes them all, settling on this:]

Siobhan: Shayla: I am truly surprised that you continue to send me messages.  Obviously, a plagiarized sentence is not the only reason that you failed this course, and the fact that you will not accept responsibility for this is extremely frustrating for me, as it is taking time away from all the other papers I need to grade – this is not fair to the students who invested a lot of time and effort throughout the whole  semester.  I will be at the college this afternoon at 4:30 for a meeting; I can meet with you briefly before that.  I am not happy about this.  There is not need for you to scan or bring anything.  Please let me know if you can come to my office at 4:00.

[Student is never heard from again.]

Image by Ambroz

When I first started teaching, I checked RateMyTeachers all the time.  I couldn’t help it.  We teachers would discuss our ratings  while trying to maintain humility and indifference.  In those days, there was an indicator for “hotness,” in the form of a little chili pepper icon.  (The chili pepper lingers on RateMyProfessors.com.)  There was a lot of pretending that we didn’t like our chili pepper, or didn’t care that we didn’t get a chili pepper.  There was also a ”coolness” measure, and if you got enough “cool” votes, sunglasses appeared on the little face next to your rating.  (The sunglasses seem also to have disappeared.)  We didn’t talk about the sunglasses much, perhaps because if you were under the age of 40, you were almost guaranteed to get a “cool” indicator.

These days, I rarely look at RMT, but occasionally I succumb, and then wonder why I bother.  If there are new positive ratings, I think, “Well, sure,” and promptly forget about them.  If there are new negative ratings, I become fixated on figuring out who could possibly have left them, and why.  This is a useless endeavour, and leads to bad moods.

Teachers and other education professionals often debate the validity of even formal student evaluations.  Recently, our college has given us the option of having the students fill out their evaluations online, and there has been a lot of heated debate about whether this compromises the results.  There are discussions on edublogs and in education classrooms about whether anonymous student evaluations of any kind have any value.  I think about these things myself, and the conclusion I have come to is that the value of student evaluations (whether formal or written at 4 a.m. after a kegger), like the value of grades, lies in what you do with them.

Consider the six most recent comments that have appeared on my RateMyTeachers page.

• “she is too strict. she has this crazy look in her eyes when she is mad. she is bias and judgemental” (1 month ago)
• “This teacher was a joy. She is the nicest and most patient teachers I had at X College.” (3 months ago)
• “most wonderful english teacher. recommended one hundred and ten percent.” (6 months ago)
• “BEST ENGLISH TEACHER IVE EVER HAD!” (1 year ago)
• “doesn’t give enough time for work.  makes us read too much.” (1 year ago)
• “Best!  Uses an innovative approach.” (1 year 3 months ago)

There are many attitudes I could take to these comments.

• I could stop reading them.  (Seriously, would that be so hard?)
• I could ignore them.  (Once I have read them, this is impossible.  Can’t unring a bell, etc.)
• I could focus on the good ones and assume that the negative ones were written by disgruntled morons who will never amount to anything.
• I could assume that I am a crazy-eyed, biased, judgmental, strict teacher who makes unreasonable demands, and that the students who like me have somehow overlooked this.
• I could declare that the very existence of RMT is an insult and that any information it contains is useless.
• I could cautiously examine the information that RMT provides and try to make dispassionate use of it.

The last is obviously the best approach, but also the most complicated.  What does it mean?  How do I make use of this information?

Here is an example.  A few years ago, when I was burnt out and tired, there were a few comments in a row on my RMT page that used phrases like “she seems bored with her job” and “she gets annoyed easily.”  These comments were hurtful.  They were also sincere, and, as I was mulling them over, I realized that they were true.  They were instrumental in getting me to examine whether teaching was still the job for me, and, if it was, what I would have to do to stop being bored and annoyed.

The comment above about “doesn’t give enough time for work” had a similar effect.  I knew, during that period, that I was rushing my students.  I was cramming long analytical exercises into the last half-hour of class, and it wasn’t working.  I was trying to fix this problem, but the comment spurred me to take even more drastic measures, and slash exercises or give them for homework, even at the risk of finishing class early.  It did not inspire me to give less reading, however, because … well, see posts like this one for some discussion of that problem.

The most recent comment, at the top of the list above, is one that I may have to set aside.  Yes, I do get a crazy look in my eyes.  (I have very large very pale eyes and I have been known to scare the bejeezus out of people by being a little chilly.  There’s not a lot I can do.)  No, I am not “bias,” at least not more than your average person, and probably considerably less, as overcoming bias is one of my major internal preoccupations.  And I would rather be considered strict than easy – I was far too easy for far too long – so students who don’t like that can lump it.  I don’t doubt that the student who wrote these things was truly upset about something I had said or done, but the reasons for that upset are not things I’m interested in changing.

As for the positive comments, it’s possible to enjoy them without taking them too seriously.  It’s nice when students like you, but it’s beside the point, as are words like “innovative” or even “patient.”  The only positive comments of any real value are those that say “I learned a lot in her class.”  Those sorts of comments show up only rarely on RMT, I’ve found.  Perhaps this is because students don’t learn a lot in my class, but I think it’s more likely that many of them don’t see this as the purpose of this site, or because they don’t realize what they’ve learned until many years later.

The main problem with RMT, I feel, is that it doesn’t ask the right questions – in fact, other than instructing students to give a score for “easiness,” “helpfulness” and “clarity,” it doesn’t ask questions at all.  This is one way in which formal student evaluations are superior: they instruct students to focus on specific things (even if students aren’t always clear on what those things mean.)  And of course, the best evaluation of all is an email out of the blue from a former student, or a conversation at the end of the term in which a student says, “I never understood X before, but because of you, I do now.”

Information is always useful, if we make it so.  RateMyTeachers, even if it is the online equivalent of a slam book or a bathroom wall, is still a source of information.  Like the internet itself, its contents are random and unreliable, but they are real reflections of real feelings.  We are privileged to have access to them.  It is up to us to treat them with the care and skepticism they deserve.

Image by Billy Frank Alexander

If you haven’t yet discovered Tavi Gevinson and her webzine Rookie, it’s time you did.  If you know any teenage girls, you need to send them a link to Rookie, because every teenage girl needs to think about the stuff Tavi Gevison and her writers think about.

In her original editor’s letter, Tavi explains that she did NOT conceive of Rookie as

your guide to Being a Teen. It is not a pamphlet on How to Be a Young Woman…Rookie is a place to make the best of the beautiful pain and cringe-worthy awkwardness of being an adolescent girl. When it becomes harder to appreciate these things, we also have good plain fun and visual pleasure. When you’re sick of having to be happy all the time, we have lots of eye-rolling rants, too.

Despite this disavowal, I wish every teenage girl I know would take Rookie as a guide.  Exhibit A: this article entitled “An Actually Useful Article About Dressing for a Party” and subtitled “…without any mention of your body shape or your style personality.”

Gevinson has been clear that Sassy magazine – a fond memory to women in my age bracket – is a major influence.  I loved Sassy, but what she’s doing is so much better.  Sassy was fun, and smart, and acknowledged that some teenage girls have sex.  It was revolutionary, but it was of its time (and it spawned, indirectly, the horror that was Jane magazine.)  Rookie takes what Sassy did and makes it fresh, immediate and interactive, which is exactly what an Internet mag should do.

(The fact that Rookie makes regular references to River Phoenix and [see video above] Stevie Nicks doesn’t hurt, though.  Do teenage girls know who these people are?  Is Gevinson really a 43-year-old woman in 16-year-old eye makeup?)

The mag posts three times a day and has monthly themes like “Transformation” and “Power”.  Sound all second-wave feminist to you?  Well, yes, but so much more.  For example, March’s theme was “Exploration” and included articles like “Literally the Best Thing Ever: National Geographic” and “How to Look Like You Weren’t Just Crying in Less than Five Minutes.”

The ONLY reason I wish I were fifteen again is so that this magazine could rock my world as hard as it should.

I know a lot of teenage girls.  Wait – I shouldn’t say that.  I don’t know them.  I spend a few hours a week with them for fifteen weeks, and maybe fifteen weeks more if they like me enough to look me up again.  They mystify me and enthrall me and make me crazy.  Why are they walking around wearing things that resemble pants but ARE NOT PANTS?  Why do they all, down to the very last one, insist on straightening their lovely frizzy hair?  Why are they all reading those awful Twilight books or, even worse, watching those awful Twilight movies because reading the books is too hard?  Why are they dating that boy?  Yes, that one, missy – he’s just going to drag you down!  And while you’re at it, do up your sweater!

And then I read Rookie.  I know some of the girls I know are reading it too.  It reminds me that teenage girls are just amazing.  Even the ones who aren’t reading it…even the ones who wouldn’t like it if they did read it…even the ones who are wearing those things that ARE NOT PANTS…they’re amazing.  There’s so much going ON when you’re a teenage girl.  Life is so full of STUFF.

No way I’d go back there again.  But Rookie is a delightful, painful, funny travelogue.  Spread the word.

I know what some of you are thinking.  Never!  Sacrilege!  No such thing!  These were not my responses.  I nodded, resignedly, and said, “I know.  I know.”

We do indeed have too many books.  How do I know this?  Because for days – nay, weeks – now, I have been ruthlessly culling books.  I’ve been pulling books off shelves and staring at them and saying things like, “Where did this come from?” and “Why did I buy this?” and “When will I ever, conceivably, read this again?”  The Husband has been doing the same, and we now have a pile of what looks like hundreds of books in the middle of the living room floor, waiting for the second-hand bookstore man to come and sort them and judge them and, we hope, pay us for some of them.

Purging books is a painful business.  Why?  Why is it so much harder to let go of a book, even a book we don’t particularly like or a book whose purpose has been served, than it is to dispose of most other things, even more expensive things – an article of clothing, a tchotchke, an electronic gadget?

A friend recently told me that she regularly tries to winnow down her book collection and can’t do it, because even the books she doesn’t like or has never read symbolize something: her independent intellectual life, which is so different from the life lived by everyone else in her working-class immigrant family.  She described pulling a collection of Joyce Carol Oates stories from a shelf – a collection she’s never read – putting it on the “discard” pile, and then pulling it back out and returning it to the shelf.  ”I bought it when I began university,” she said.  ”It was a book that signified the person I was becoming, a person who read contemporary American literary authors.  I can’t stand Joyce Carol Oates!  But I still have that damn book.”

I find myself feeling exactly the same thing as I stand before my shelves staring once again at that copy of Swann’s Way that I have tried to read four times.  On my last attempt, I trudged 300 pages into it before giving up.  Every time I do a book purge, I consider getting rid of it.  This time I was successful!  Why?  Because I have bought myself the newish Lydia Davis translation of Swann’s Way, and so I can still be the sort of person who has Proust on my bookshelf, and who can firmly believe that I will one day be the sort of person who has actually read Proust.

(Repeat for: Ulysses, The Voyage Out, about twenty back issues of Granta, Barack Obama’s memoir, and so forth.)

Other reasons I struggle when giving up a book?

• It has a personal inscription in it, even if a) I’ve never read the book, or b) I didn’t like the book, or c) I no longer like the person who gave it to me.
• It was given to me by The Husband, mostly because I know he will be peeved when he finds it in the “discard” pile.
• It might, possibly, contain an article, short story or chapter that I might, possibly, use in a course that I might, possibly, design one day.
• I loved it once, even though I will certainly never read it again.

One of the biggest problems is my collection of children’s and young adult books.  I keep some of them because I still love them  and can imagine re-reading them from time to time.  Others have sentimental resonance.  But I have far too many, including some I’ve never read all the way through.  I sometimes consider paring the collection down, but I have a fantasy that I will one day propose, and have approved, a project for a reading zone at my college.  This reading zone would be a quiet room full of books appealing to teenagers, and I would re-design my Preparation for College English course around it.  I would bring my struggling second-language readers to the reading zone and present them with shelves and shelves full of books that would instantly grab their attention because they are made to do so, unlike the dusty dun-coloured hardbacks in the library.  How can I get rid of these books when it’s possible that I can someday bring this project to fruition?  Never mind that it will never be approved, for a thousand reasons.  I need to cling to these books just in case.

I know: some of you will say, “Why on earth would you want to get rid of any of your books?  Who cares what the movers say or how much it will cost to move them?  Books are sacred!  Hold on to your books!”  (This is more or less what my father said to me on the phone this afternoon.)

But here’s the thing: I love books, and I find them beautiful, and I become very attached to some of them.  But they aren’t sacred.  They’re  things.

This seems to be a great point of contention for some people.  For example, I’ve been reading a lot of home decor magazines and blogs lately, and a lot of attention is paid to books as decorative objects.  This upsets some readers.  A lot.  Check out this post on my favourite design blog, Apartment Therapy, in which the writer argues for the practice of organizing books by colour, and some commenters respond with rage verging on apoplexy.

I’m not sure I could bring myself to treat books with quite that degree of objectification.  (Besides, I don’t think it looks all that nice.)  But there have been moments of my purge in which I have given myself pause because I have wondered if my house will look sad and empty because it will be less bursting with books.  If, god forbid, my house will look like less of a READER’S house.

And these moments have confirmed for me what I have suspected all along: books are stuff.  They take up space.  And the more space I devote to the ones I don’t really care about, the less respect I am showing for the ones I really love.  So I have to be ruthless to be kind.  Kind to myself, kind to our budget, kind to my house, kind to my movers, and kind to my favourite books.

Are you able to treat your books with both the love and the firmness they deserve?  When a book has had its day, are you able to let it go?  Or do you love your piles and piles of books as much as you love each book itself?  Do you wish you could liberate yourself from your mountains of books, or do those mountains make you happy?  I always feel lighter, if a little saddened, when a pile of books makes its way out the door.  I rarely miss a book once it’s gone, and in the age of Amazon, I can be pretty sure that if I do, I’ll be able to find it again.  If your home is full of books you don’t love, maybe it’s time to start saying goodbye.

But according to my movers, I’m no one to talk.

Image by Marja Flick-Buijs

A couple of years ago, a reader named “Viceroy” left this baffling comment on a post that had nothing to do with his observation.

I notice that your students, who appear to be 17 & 18 years old, are required to addess [sic] you as “Miss”. Is this a symptom of the Anglo-Saxon education system where the student is required to humiliate himself/herself every time the teacher is spoken to? I’ve been teaching now for 25 years, and no student has ever called me by anything other than my first name. Makes I think for a much more relaxed and mutually respectful atmosphere.

After trying to puzzle out what he was talking about, I replied thusly:

What an odd comment. My students are in no way required to call me “miss” – in fact, I and many of my colleagues have struggled for years to get our students to call us by our names, even going so far as refusing to answer when we’re addressed as simply “sir” or “miss.” Most of us have given up the fight, as they persist in calling us by these titles, with no name attached, no matter what we do. I now tell my students that I prefer that they call me by my first name or by “Ms. Curious,” whichever they’re comfortable with, but most instinctively call me by the catch-all “miss,” and I suspect some would be hard-pressed to tell you my name if you asked them.

(The commenter’s choice of username – “Viceroy” – probably deserves some parsing, but let’s not bother.)

This exchange came to mind this afternoon, as my friend Susan and I were playing hooky from our grading and having afternoon tea (scones! cucumber sandwiches!) at the lovely Montreal salon Le Maitre Chocolatier.  Susan, also a CEGEP teacher, mentioned that she refuses to answer her students if they call her just “Miss,” and that after a few weeks of being ignored, they cave and learn her name.  She especially loves it when they call her “Miss Susan.”

I’ve never been able to stick to my guns that long.  And the truth is, although I did try for years to get them to call me “Siobhan” – out of some sort of anti-authoritarian principle, I suppose – I have always felt a twinge of discomfort when they do.  I still hate “Miss” as a generic teacher name, but I’m resigned to it.  ”Ma’am,” on the other hand, charms me – I know some colleagues detest it, as it makes them feel old, but as far as I’m concerned, being old is an asset to a teacher.  And I do love “Miss Siobhan,” but when a student calls me “Ms. Curious,” that sits just right with me.  I sometimes wonder if I should instruct them to do so, and refuse to answer to anything else.

(At least one of my colleagues insists on being addressed as “Dr. _________.”  This has always struck me as insufferable, but if we were teaching university, I doubt I’d think twice about it.  Maybe I’m just a self-hating lowly CEGEP instructor.)

I believe we should all get to decide what others call us, but when it comes to choosing battles, this one seems less than pressing.  On the other hand, Susan says that when her students concede to call her by her name, it changes the tone in the classroom – the relationship becomes more reciprocal, and they seem to feel more of a responsibility to treat that relationship properly.

Do you have rules about how your students address you?  Do they follow them?

Image by Jakub Krechowicz

Along the way, someone said to The Husband, “Buying a house is one of those situations where you have to become an expert in something that you might do once, maybe twice, in your life.”  And this is true.  But there are some simple and not-so-simple things that most of us are going to have to do in life that we don’t learn about in school.

For example, the house that we finally found – a house that we totally love – is old.  It has some problems that will need to be fixed.  We will need to call an electrician, and a mason, and a contractor.  The electrician and the mason – well, fine.  But why is it that we feel the need to pay someone to install gyproc over the exposed insulation?  Surely that’s a fairly straightforward task?  For heaven’s sake, I was even talking about paying someone to paint.  I’ll have plenty of time to paint – I’ll be on summer vacation – but I wasn’t confident I could do a proper job.  I’ve come around on that one, but not because I’m sure I can do it right.  I’ve come around because I should know how to paint walls, and woodwork, and bannisters, and so I should practice.

Why don’t we learn things like home repair in school?  I know, there’s woodshop or industrial arts or whatever it’s called these days, but it’s not the same.  Beyond that, why don’t we learn the principles of designing a kitchen or tending a garden?  Most people will own homes at some point.  Most people would be better off if they could install a faucet or properly deal with a musty dryer (a task we found ourselves faced with this weekend, as though the universe is prepping us for the days ahead, when we won’t be able to call the landlord about ANYTHING.)

What else should be taught in school, but isn’t, at least in the schools you’ve attended?  Things that immediately come to my mind: meditation, cell phone etiquette (etiquette in general, for that matter) and how to counsel a troubled friend.  What do you wish you knew that no one ever taught you?

Image by Sanja Gjenero

In the meantime, please explore the archives! In the menu bar above, you will find the “Yearly Top Ten Roundups” page, which is a good place to start, or you can use the Category Cloud, the Top Posts menu, and the Search box on the right to find some reading material to tide you over…

Be well and work hard. See you in a couple of weeks.

Siobhan