Last-Minute Holiday Gift Guide

Amazon basically runs my life, y’all. Jonathan and I order from them, on average, twice a week, sometimes more. Amazon Prime two-day shipping has saved the day for us many times. I’ve decided to become an Amazon Affiliate to monetize this blog a bit. I may occasionally write about certain Amazon products, but I promise to never reference something that I haven’t bought for myself or someone else, and that I personally vouch for.

All of the products I’m going to write about in this post are eligible for Amazon Prime two-day shipping (we pretty much don’t buy something unless it is a Prime item). So while your present may or may not make it in time for Christmas, at least it will be very close!

These are things I’ve gotten for either myself or a family member for Christmas this year.

For Her

1. The North Face Women’s Apex Bionic Jacket,Kokomo Green
2. Ted and Jack – Luxe Classic Paisley Reversible Pashmina (Cobalt Blue)
3. KEEN Women’s Sienna MJ Canvas Mary Jane, Red Dahlia
4. Life is good Womens Marled Terry Crew Hello Sunshine Sweater, Slate Gray
5. Life is Good Women’s Crusher Half Full Wine Glass T-Shirt, Simply Ivory
6. Bed Head Tigi Self Absorbed Shampoo and Conditioner (25.36 Oz Each)

For Him

1. Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition
2. Anker Astro E1 5200m Candy bar-Sized Ultra Compact Portable Charger
3. Bose SoundSport in-ear headphones – Apple devices, Power Red
4. VIKINGS BLADE The Chieftain Safety Razor + 5 Swedish Platinum Super Blades + Gift Box
5. Polo Ralph Lauren Men Custom Fit Mesh Polo Shirt (Royal Purple)
6. Mighty Fine Guardians of the Galaxy In Concert T-Shirt

For Little Boys

1. Goodnight Darth Vader
2. Star Wars Figure Playset
3. Learning Carpets City Life Play Carpet
4. Melissa & Doug Pull-Back Construction Vehicles
5. The Snowy Day
6. Corduroy (40th Anniversary Edition)

10 Things I Don’t Care About

If you’re a regular reader of this blog and/or know me in real life, you can attest to the fact that I care, a lot, about a lot of things. I talk about these things in most of my posts. Today, however, I’m thinking about things that I don’t care about in the least. Behold:

1. I don’t care if you tell me “Happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”
2. I don’t care about plain red Starbucks cups.
3. I don’t care about who does or doesn’t stand up for the National Anthem.
4. I don’t care about transgender people using their preferred bathroom.
5. I don’t care if college and university faculties are liberal.
6. I don’t care that the media reports the facts, and that some journalism outlets also feature commentary that I may or may not agree with.
7. I don’t care that many young people think they are special.
8. I don’t care if someone receiving government assistance has a smartphone or a nice purse.
9. I don’t care about anyone’s immigration status unless they are a violent criminal.
10. I don’t care that English is not America’s official language.

What do you not care about?

How I’m Hitting My Stride As A Teacher

What determines a person’s workplace happiness, or lack thereof?

Is it your supervisor’s personality? Their management style? Your coworkers? The task you’re there to do? The amount of freedom you’re given? Or some combination of all of these?

I ask because I am happier at work than I’ve ever been. I’ve been reflecting on the reasons why.

I am teaching at such a sweet little school this year. Our school is small; only 320 students. I know just about everyone there, at least by sight, and by now they know me, too. Kids who aren’t even my students say hi and wave to me in the hallway. A kindergartner who I don’t know kissed my hand this morning.

 

image via Pexels.com

Even though my school is 100% free/reduced lunch, we don’t have a lot of behavior problems, which are two things that unfortunately tend to go together. This leads to most teachers feeling pretty happy to be at work, which makes for a cheerful environment to go to every day. Any experienced teacher can tell you that a school’s environment makes a huge difference in what it is like to work there. You can feel it and see it in subtle ways as soon as you walk in a building.

I’m also happy because I’m being given a lot of freedom to teach what I want to teach, how I want to teach it. If I decide to pull a group, I can pull a group; if I decide to push in, I can push in.

I don’t have someone breathing down my neck telling me I have to do guided reading at a table in the homeroom class all day. I think once my administrators saw that I knew what I was doing they pretty much left me alone to do it. Which I appreciate! Because by now I do know what I’m doing most of the time.

So I’m getting to teach ESL through really fun, rich content that’s the same things students are learning in their homeroom classes: 3rd grade social studies and 4th grade english/language arts concepts and 5th grade reading remediation (which doesn’t sound fun but is, in this case).

I love my students, and they love me back. Most are eager and want to learn. They are also needy. I am buying clothes and books and making social work referrals. But don’t count them out! I have a feeling our progress this year is going to be something to see.

Years ago I once said that I loved teaching ESL so much that I would do it for free. Over the last few years I lost that. I got bogged down with school politics and who was talking about whom and whose parents didn’t care and which teachers weren’t any good. In some ways I lost sight of why I became a teacher. I still knew why, intellectually, but I couldn’t feel it in my heart anymore. I needed a year away doing something else to come back to it refreshed.

But now when I am teaching about Frederick Douglass or the three branches of government, elements of poetry or phonetic vs. non-phonetic words, I am thinking: This is what I was born to do.

I know no one asked me, but if I have any advice to give new and/or pre-service teachers, it would be the following:

1. Pay very close attention to the vibe you get from administrators. That will set the tone of the school. Ask them about their management and evaluation style.
2. A school with a negative environment will kill your soul, and it’s almost impossible for one person to change it despite their good intentions. Visit the school before agreeing to work there, during a school day if you can. What do you see when you walk through the halls? How are adults talking to children? Do kids and adults look happy? This is important.
3. No matter what the school environment is like, make a work friend! You need someone to talk to about all of the craziness that happens on a daily basis.

I’m feeling grateful and blessed.

What do you think is the main thing that leads to happiness at work, and why? And if any young teachers would like advice from me about work, I’d be happy to give it!

It’s Hard To Go To Church In Trump’s America.

This post was also featured on Patheos’ Unfundamentalist Christians blog.

It’s hard for me to go to church these days.

It’s hard for me to give up my precious, fleeting family time to transport my toddler across town, stand in a room with people I don’t know and listen to a sermon that’s just a little too long. It’s hard to go by myself with my son when my husband is working, and it’s hard to go as a whole family on my husband’s Sundays off, when we would really rather be doing something else together. It’s hard to make the effort. Especially now.

The truth of the matter is that it’s hard for me to go to an evangelical church in the wake of Trump’s election. I don’t think I belong there anymore.

I don’t belong with a group of people that by and large believes Trump is worthy of being president.

I feel uprooted, disoriented. Homeless. The evangelical church is the body into which I was born and raised, where I was educated and how I came to faith. I’m not sure where to go next.

Knowing that 80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump, I was interested to see how the leaders at our new church here in Atlanta would handle the election aftermath. Would they be silent about it? Call for unity? Reference it obliquely? Or speak out against Trump’s nativism, racism, mysogyny, etc.?

On the second Sunday after election day, the pastor at church preached a sermon on living out the gospel in everyday life. I was cautiously hopeful that he would reference the obvious elephant in the room, but he didn’t get any more explicit than saying something like “our current cultural context.”

He made the point that the first human occupation was gardener, not soldier, that we can’t force other people to believe the same things we do, but that we can live out our beliefs in our daily lives. All pretty basic stuff, but the phrase “gardeners, not soldiers” stuck out to me. At the time I interpreted that to mean that it is not Christians’ job to be culture warriors. And I found it vaguely reassuring.

But as I got to thinking about it later, I realized that this phrase also seems to be discouraging of Christians’ efforts to take a stand against the worst parts of this upcoming administration. Obviously, I strongly disagree.

If there was ever a time to fight like hell for things that are true and right and fair, it’s now.

Before November 8th, I already knew that I was more forward-thinking than most evangelicals, that I cared more about equity and racial justice and public education than most. But I have been absolutely shocked to discover just how far removed I am from the evangelical tribe. And even more, I am embarrassed.

I am so embarrassed that calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” wasn’t enough to get evangelicals not to vote for him. That mocking a disabled reporter wasn’t enough. Or saying that he would deport millions of people, including citizen children. Or wanting to create a Muslin registry. Or admitting to, and then being accused of, sexually assaulting women. And those are just for starters.

Because these things did not directly affect most white evangelical Christians, they were able to disregard them. And that attitude makes me feel ill. The privilege is breathtaking.

I know that evangelical ministers have a difficult task in front of them in this moment. Regardless of their personal beliefs, many are figuring out how to pastor ideologically divided congregations, what they can and cannot say to avoid offending different groups of people in their churches. But this timidity is keeping me from seeing much of Jesus at church right now.

Jesus is with the poor. Jesus is with the oppressed. He is with the marginalized. Jesus is with the groups of people that Donald Trump’s supporters mock, shame and attack, whose schools and places of worship they deface.

Instead, I am finding Jesus during restful moments at home with my family. I see him in my classroom, where children are making breakthroughs, learning to do things they never thought they could, and becoming moral people who care about others. I see him in organizations that work on behalf of the downtrodden, and those that work to protect the environment.

I’m not sure where all of this is leading me, and leading my family. For the first time in my life, I am pondering concepts like “spiritual but not religious.” I know that’s not the answer, though.

I want to belong to a body of believers, a place to study and worship and learn more about God. I just think the evangelicals have lost me, and I’m not sure what comes next.

Why Do My Son’s Books Contain Only White People?

The other day while reading to Jonah, I noticed something that really disturbed me.

We were reading Policeman Small by Lois Lenski, a classic for toddlers and preschoolers.

See it?

I noticed the same thing in a Curious George book.

Crowds of people, and all of them white.

All of Jonah’s books aren’t like this, but too many of them are. And I’m not ok with that.

Part of the issue is that we have a lot of classic children’s books, written decades ago by white authors. Policeman Small was originally published in 1962, and the Curious George series was published in the 1940s.

There were plenty of black Americans and other people of color living in this country during that time, so that’s not an excuse, of course.

What bothers me the most is when I start thinking about the reasons why an author/illustrator might include only pictures of white people in his book.

Was the illustrator’s ideal of a perfect little town all homogeneously white? Did he just not think to include black characters in even the smallest way? Was this an intentional, racist decision? Did these illustrations reflect the reality the author saw around her?

As a parent I start to feel pretty troubled when I delve down deep into these issues. If as a rule my child’s books contain only white people, what lesson does that teach about what the world is supposed to look like? About what kinds of people should be included in a neighborhood, school, church or city?

Am I participating in systems of oppression by reading my child books that look like this?

In my mind this also harks back to the election, and the unsettling discovery of just how divided the U.S. electorate is right now. A quote:

“The biggest difference between the two parties is the urban-rural divide…Politically, that translates into race and identity as the main political dividing line. Rural and exurban America is very white, and generally inward-looking. Urban America is very diverse and cosmopolitan.” (Source: NBC )

Many Trump voters live in places that look a lot like these books, and that they want to keep looking a lot like these books. Or perhaps used to look like this and do no longer. We see where, and to whom, that attitude has led us.

And that’s not an image I want to present to my son as an ideal.

I’ve written before about the fact that my childhood did look a lot like these books. I experienced essentially zero racial or cultural diversity until I was about 13 years old, when I switched from private to public school. This is one area where I feel that my parents really fell down on the job. (Love you Mom and Dad.) I am determined to do better.

Jonah’s external environment is already going to be very different because of living in a diverse urban city. But Jonathan and I are committed to exposing him to diverse examples of all the different ways that people can look through the media that he experiences at home.

Jonah is going to be getting The Snowy Day , a masterpiece of children’s literature featuring a black main character, and a few other books by this same author for his birthday. My goal over the next year is going to be to diversify his collection to include more books featuring diverse characters.

Easier said than done, perhaps: Children’s books, particularly fiction books, are overwhelmingly white.

Do you have a suggestion for a diverse children’s book or series that is appropriate for toddlers and preschoolers? I’d love to hear it!

 

On A Lighter Note

Hello! I know it’s been a bit heavy around here recently. The blog has reflected the pit in my stomach that’s been there since the election. I know I’ll write more about that soon.

But today is a break in our regularly scheduled programming. Two wonderful things to share:

1. Our house in North Carolina is officially under contrast as of TODAY!
2. I created a delicious popcorn topping recipe tonight that I just have to share with you all.

I absolutely love popcorn. It has long been one of my favorite snacks, and I’m always looking for new, interesting ways to eat it at home that don’t involve a lot of fake butter and salt.

Tonight I had the idea to combine parmesan cheese, lemon juice and cayenne pepper to make a Mexican-style popcorn topping. Lemon juice and cayenne pepper are seasonings common in authentic Mexican foods. I didn’t measure anything, but just threw it all together in a bowl with some microwave popcorn. (My new favorite popcorn is Orville Redenbacher’s Naturals–it is only lightly salted and doesn’t taste like microwave popcorn at all.) And it was so delicious – spicy, tangy and salty. You can customize the spiciness level to your preference based on how much cayenne you use. This will definitely be a common late-night snack for me from now on. I hope you enjoy!

Spicy Mexican Popcorn

Ingredients:

• Microwave/stove-popped popcorn (recommended: Orville Redenbacher’s Naturals)
• Lemon juice
• Parmesan cheese (shredded or grated)
• Cayenne pepper

As you can see, the bowl is already half empty!

If you make this, let me know how you like it!

The Unbearable Heaviness of Right Now

Sometimes I feel like the weight of all the badness in the world is crushing me.

This is unusual for me. I would characterize myself as joyful much of the time. But sometimes…it just all adds up, and I feel like I can’t breathe.

Police shootings of unresisting black men. Climate change, and scores of wild animals dying because of it. What’s happening in Syria. GOP-led voter suppression. And now Donald Trump, who I fear will make all of these things worse through some combination of malice or unconcern. And, oh yeah, the significant rise in hate crimes since he was elected president.

pixabay.com

I’m all up in my feelings right now. I was reading this poem to Jonah tonight, and I about lost it:

Dear Father, hear and bless

Thy beasts and singing birds.

And guard with tenderness

Small things that have no words.

I believe it’s more important than ever to pay attention to what is happening, (plus I’m a news junkie anyway) but I think reading ALL of the news coverage of Donald Trump’s transition team, Steve Bannon, etc. is starting to get to me. If I keep gorging myself on all the badness I won’t be able to function. I need to feel like I am doing something on a larger scale to help make things better.

So here’s what I’ve done so far to be productive and “fight back” post-election:

• Donated and joined the ACLU to help protect human rights and free speech during a Trump presidency (they have a focus on immigrants’ rights)
• Donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center to combat hate and intolerance (they also focus on immigrants’ rights)
• Signed up to donate monthly to the World Wildlife Fund to fight climate change and protect animal habitats
• Asked for a Slate Plus membership for Christmas to support free speech and quality, independent journalism that holds Donald Trump accountable

I should have been contributing to charity before now. We didn’t really have the resources to do so until very recently with our move to Atlanta, but really I selfishly was loath to part with what I saw as “my” hard-earned money. God forgive me.

This isn’t much, but it’s a start. Next up is writing to my representatives in Congress, as as promised. I plan to start those letters by introducing myself, and saying, “Expect to hear a lot from me over the next four years.”

What are you doing to contribute positively since the election?

It Begins.

The racist, fascist extreme right is represented footsteps from the Oval Office. Be very vigilant America.

— John Weaver (@JWGOP) November 13, 2016

Reid spox: Trump selection of Bannon “signals that White Supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump’s White House.”

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 14, 2016

The country is reacting to the news that Steve Bannon, known white nationalist, has been named the chief strategist to president-elect Donald Trump. This is a fact.

Read an introduction to Steve Bannon and the alt-right here. 

Still want to tell me there is no reason to be worried?

For Those Who Are Not Ok

This post was also featured on Patheos’ Unfundamentalist Christians blog.

Well.

Donald Trump has been elected the next president of the United States.

How is that sitting with you today?

image via pixabay.com

As regular readers know, I teach ESL to 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th graders at an “inner city” elementary school in Atlanta. My 45 students are all Latino but one, primarily 2nd generation Mexican-Americans. And this week has been, by far, the worst since I began teaching seven years ago.

I’m not sure which was the worst moment this week:

1. On Wednesday, when 2nd graders who can barely speak English asked me why Donald Trump and other white people in America don’t like them, and one boy said brightly, “Mrs. Love, I’m white too, look!” as he held his arm up next to mine to compare our skin colors.
2. On Wednesday, when my 5th graders asked me very detailed questions about when and how their parents (and possibly they themselves) would be deported. “How do we get papers for our parents? Is it too late now?” “What do we do when the police come to our house? Do we try to hide or…?”
3. When I tried to offer reassurance that everything would be ok, these same students said, “You keep saying it’s going to be ok but it won’t be. It will be ok for you, but not for us.” And they are right.
4. On Thursday, when multiple 4th graders told me their families were planning to preemptively move back to Mexico or Honduras before January 2oth. These are places these children have never known except through brief visits, if that.

As a reminder if you’ve been living under a rock, Donald Trump has promised to deport anywhere from 2 to 11 million illegal immigrants, and has said that citizen children of illegal immigrants could also be deported. Don’t believe he said this? Look here and here.

Every single one of my students is a U.S. citizen. Though I do not know the details, I suspect that some/many/most of their parents may not be. (Do you see how the upcoming Trump presidency is already making me scared to be definitive in writing?)

What I am hearing from my children is twofold: 1) We are scared of Donald Trump and what he wants to do to our families and 2) We are shocked that people in America, the only home we have ever known, are ok with this happening to us.

image via pixabay.com

It is worth noting that I suspect my students haven’t encountered much racism in their lives up to this point. This part of Atlanta is overwhelming inhabited by people of color, and I had already guessed that that I was one of the only white people these children have known in real life. (Read more about that here.) Our school has two white students in it and three white teachers, including me. So this feeling of being an outsider in the place that is their home is entirely new for these children, and strange.

I watched the election returns in horror on Tuesday night. I will never forget the feeling of what a horrible, awful shock that night was – like a punch to the gut. I thought about *Maria, my 3rd grader who was so excited at the prospect of a woman president. I teach sheltered content 3rd grade Social Studies to Maria’s group, and our current unit happens to be on democracy and the three branches of government. Maria always draws a woman when asked to draw a picture of the Executive Branch. I thought about how disappointed she would be.

The nausea stayed with me for the rest of the week until about Friday afternoon. I had a hard time eating and sleeping. Wednesday was particularly bad. I cried off and on throughout the day.

And why was that? I know not everyone gets it. I’m seeing a lot of complaining on Facebook from conservative friends about “whiny safe-space liberals” and people being overdramatic. Even my husband, who is basically apolitical, bless him, encouraged me to try to relax and not tear myself up prematurely over something that hasn’t happened yet. I appreciate that.

But this is my response to those who can’t or choose not to understand why people are upset: If you have nothing to fear you don’t get to say that everything will be ok. Like my student said, we know everything will be ok for YOU. That’s not the point.

As a side note, I continue to be embarrassed by many of my fellow evangelical Christians, who overwhelmingly supported Trump. I just don’t get it. If a presidential candidate’s racism, sexism, misogyny and xenophobia are minor character flaws that you are able to look past, you are a) very privileged indeed and b) not at all looking out for the least of these as we are called in the Bible.

(Feel free to rail at me about how abortion is the worst evil our country has ever known. I am pro-life, for what it’s worth.)

So now what? That’s what I’ve been pondering since Tuesday night. I will be an ally. I will advocate for my students, their families, and the millions of others like them across this country. I will speak for them. I will write for them, starting with writing to my Senators and Congressmen this week. I will get more politically involved. I will be all in.

I will also hope and pray that everything will be ok, because I have this luxury. But I will work on behalf of those who fear things won’t ever be ok again.

*Name has been changed.

 

Still We Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

(Excerpt from "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou)