Category Archives: Going to School

Page, AZ

I’ve been thinking about Page, Arizona quite a bit lately. That’s because I read about the closing of the Navajo Generating Station, located on the Navajo Nation near Page. In 1972, Page was booming as the generating station with its three 775 ft. stacks was being built. The school population was also booming and I was hired to teach eighth grade literature. Through the years, I’ve told you a few stories about Page and there are more.

My parents took this photo at 4:45 A.M., August 12, 1972 as I headed west–Milford, Mi to Page, AZ–in Pippin the VW

I’ve been reminiscing about Page lately, but I think about education pretty much all the time. That comes from being the daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, and friend of teachers. Tomorrow many students and teachers are returning to school after the winter holiday, so I am thinking about them. I’m not sure what the students in my classes learned, but my year in Page was a goldmine of life lessons for me.

What I learned*

Consider how you label people. I was reading aloud one of the stupid memos from the office (see Up the Down Staircase, Bel Kaufman, 1965), which said something like “all the Indian children should go to the office.” E_________ , a Navajo, or perhaps more correctly, Dine, said, “I am not from India.” Got it.
Keep your own counsel. I was so enthusiastic and idealistic that I didn’t realize that it’s generally best to keep one’s cards close to one’s chest. I still have a little trouble with this one, but I am savvier than I used to be. Now you wouldn’t find me (without support from others, at least) asking the principal to let me have someone come in to talk to the kids about drugs. No matter that a number of the kids likely were more familiar with drugs than I was and that I despised drugs then, as I do now. It just made me look like a druggie/hippie, and it didn’t help the kids.
There is a place for decorousness. There is a uniform. Speaking of chests: I needed to work on a bulletin board one Sunday after I had been away somewhere in the country. On such journeys and under my camping outfit I did not usually wear a bra. I remember I was just wearing my trusty flowered thermal long-underwear shirt. As I was working on the bulletin board, one of my male students showed up. He was a nice kid—I forget his name, but I can almost see him. “Hi, Mrs. Schmedlen,” but his eyes were on the shirt. I had thought no one would be around, but I am still embarrassed about the encounter. Even now, contrariness makes me not want to wear the uniform. Still, I was raised right and I do know what uniforms go with which cultural encounters.
Beware of shopping baskets full of wine. Because school started in August and the North Rim (see Cookies on the North Rim and Ain’t No Reason to Go in a Wagon to Town) stayed opened until mid-October when the snows came, I occasionally still got up to see my Grand Canyon friends. In fact—shades of the Zeitgeist—twice that fall semester, Friday classes were called off early because of bomb threats. I never knew who called in the threats—student, teacher, administrator, or outside agitator. There were no bombs, no one was in danger, but I was able to head up to the rim early. I am mentioning this because I had become a traveler between the isolation of the rim and the fairly poor excuse for civilization Page was back then. My North Rim friend—everyone’s friend—Paula happened to be in a cheap wine phase. So, she asked me to stock up on Annie Green Springs to bring to her the next time I went up to the rim. Being an agreeable person, I went to Babbitts and picked up many bottles of cheap wine. I was just completing that one errand, so I don’t think I had anything else in the basket. Since Babbitts was the main grocery store in town then, it was not surprising that I met a student with parent in tow. I don’t think they failed to notice my shopping basket half full of wine. Maybe that’s why, some months later, after I took a day off to get Pippin the Volkswagen worked on in Flagstaff, a rumor surfaced. One of the kids told me that some kids thought I was home drinking to “celebrate the end of the war in Vietnam.”
Mental health days are occasionally appropriate. Like serious teachers everywhere, I got up early, worked hard all day, bought extra supplies, made materials, prepared for classes, and corrected papers. I used to correct papers and prepare lessons on the bed in my bedroom in the school system owned apartment I shared with the school librarian. As long as I owned those sheets, they carried the pen marks where I had done my school prep. Another thing I did with those sheets was get eight hours of sleep every night. I think if I hadn’t enough sleep, I wouldn’t have been strong enough to carry on. Maybe you are laughing a little bit now and maybe I am, too. I have by now done many more difficult things in my life than teach eighth grade literature. However, in my defense, it was the hardest thing I had had to do so far in my life and I think I acquitted myself well enough. I remember that when my mother was teaching she would on rare occasions take what she called a “mental health day.” Teaching is emotionally and physically demanding, and, yes, we teachers owe it to ourselves and our students to be up to the challenge. I think I took one mental health day that year in Page. No, it was not to get drunk to celebrate the end of the war in Vietnam. I don’t even remember the day specifically, but it was good to be able to follow my mother’s example.
Arm-wrestling was useful then, but is not currently advised. Because of my tom-boy (as we called it then) childhood tagging along with my four brothers, I had spent my share of time arm wrestling. It turned out I could usually out arm-wrestle the boys in class who challenged me. I don’t know how it started, but I do remember that almost all of the boys were taller than me and my arm-wrestling prowess seemed to give me a smidgeon of credibility. One day a likeable, talkative boy was goofing around too much. Holding on to his shirt, I picked him up out of his seat, told him to stop and put him back in the chair. He calmed down after that and was even friendlier to me than before. Another time, another charming, lively kid was goofing off around by my desk. I gave him a friendly poke with my pencil, but I was holding the pencil backwards, so I gave myself a little puncture wound and I still have the mark on my right palm to remember the incident. What am I saying–that violence is good? No, I was the only teacher there who wouldn’t use a paddle on the kids. I am saying that engagement on some non-academic level can break down barriers and build trust for both teachers and learners. I don’t disagree with rules that have been put in place to protect children. I think those rules need to be in place, but adults need to know what is reasonable, appropriate conduct for teachers, not ban them from putting a friendly hand on an arm or having a friendly arm-wrestle. This looks like a slippery slope that can be argued longer than I care to think about it.
I almost didn’t tell you this story, but I was encouraged to put it back in the narrative. The kids used to come up around my desk sometimes to ask and tell me things. Looking back, I think there was a certain amount of low-pitched pandemonium in my classes, but the desk routine plays pretty well in my memory, except for this episode. One time, S____, a Navajo with cowboy boots and bowed legs, was one of the kids around the desk. I gave him what I meant to be a jocular and affectionate mild little push on his arm and he fell down on the floor. What—from all my years of watching TV westerns—I had imagined were bowed legs from riding horses (maybe like Gabby Hayes) were something else. I now believe the child had rickets and I knocked him down as if he were a feather. I am so sorry. Sorry that I was so stupid and sorry that any child in the 1970s (a much better economic time than we have now, BTW) could be suffering from such a malady. I wonder if I have learned anything except that remorse is a stubborn emotion. Be careful and be tender, but I’ve found that a little difficult to keep in mind all the time.
Children need to learn how to control themselves. In the years before and after Page, I have seen many kinds of discipline. Discipline is still not my strong suit, and I have been glad that I have hardly ever had to apply overt discipline to an adult ESL student. Plus, I’ve seen strong disciplinarians who were kind, effective, and who always had the learners’ best interests at heart. I still believe what my dad once told me: that children need to learn how to control themselves and overly hard discipline by the teacher won’t help them to get there. Someone recently asked me, what does help children learn self-control? I think I have learned to be a quite self-controlled person, but I don’t have an answer for this question. I think maybe our experiences teach us things (e.g. stoves are hot), but I don’t think that gives teachers the right to be preemptively and overly strict to try to teach children life lessons. I don’t know; I just don’t like bullies. We all have to learn to control ourselves. I continue to work on it, with some success and with some failure.

Happy back to school, teachers and students!

September 1999

2 Replies

Awakening

In September 1999, a former adult ESL student of mine was found dead in the trunk of a car a few blocks from our school.

Today, thanks to the efforts of many, including the Arlington County (VA) Police Department’s Cold Case Unit, a suspect has been extradited from Guatemala to Arlington, Virginia. I don’t want to to write my former student’s name here (and certainly not his), but you can find them somewhere if you want.

I just want to tell you a little bit about her. She was young. She was sweet and funny. When our class walked over to the park for a picnic and games, she could really belt the softball (it might have been a hardball).

It might have been for Valentine’s Day, but, anyhow, she gave me a little redbird music box that chirped Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

I took the bird off my bookshelf a few minutes ago. I had thought the little bird stopped chirping years ago, but she chirped a few bars for me.

O friends, no more of these sounds!
Let us sing more cheerful songs,
More songs full of joy!
Joy!
Joy! (taken from a translation of Schiller’s lyrics at http://classicalmusic.about.com/od/romanticperiodsymphonies/qt/Beethovenjoytxt.htm)

Joy to you somewhere, my dear.

Ode to Joy redbird

Refugees, Part I

4 Replies

It probably goes without saying that I am distressed and angry about the divisive words of the extreme political right wing. I could name names, but you know those already, so I won’t sully this page. I do wonder, though, if a visit to Minidoka National Historical Site on a cold and windy day (such as when Tom and I visited) might make some ugly talkers rethink their support for a particularly ethnocentric and stupid idea. Minidoka, one of 10 relocation centers created in 1942 by FDR, had a population of approximately 10,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese. Throughout the relocation system, 120,000 people were interned.

Minidoka #3

Although some of my friends, relatives, and coworkers have long known that I stand somewhat left of center on many issues, others of you reading this may not know that. Now, I mostly want to write about music, trees, hikes, and my memories of my family. I wanted to write this post about traveling on the Going-to-the-Sun road. Not now. For weeks, I have been putting off writing about refugees, but I can’t in good conscience wait any longer. So, instead of writing about walking on mountain trails and beside blue lakes, I have to sit here and cry while I try to figure out what to say.

I am not, nor have I ever been, a refugee. The closest I ever got to being an outcast was when my students and, I guess, the school administration thought I was a communist back in Page, Arizona forty years ago.

However, I have had the great honor to work with refugees from around the world. Although I have discarded at least a ton of books and papers these last years, I have kept much (probably most) of the writing from the adult students. When I read the students’ words now, even after many years, I still feel the beating of their hearts.

The United States did not designate the Salvadorans as refugees, That’s a long story, but the thousands my school worked with were refugees according to definition on the website of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR): “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” Here’s what one young Salvadoran man wrote:

I want to talk about my country, it’s El Salvador. I miss my family and my friends. I want to see my mama. Also, I am missing my farm. I am missing my horse, and cows, dog, but I want to live in this country because in my country, we have war.

Mostly, the Salvadorans didn’t talk to me about war. They just moved ahead with their lives. One woman—I’ve forgotten her name, but not her—I taught in a family literacy class at an elementary school in Arlington, Virginia. In those classes, we were all moms and dads together and so things were shared that might not have been talked about in other venues. She talked about how they all slept on the floor because of the flying bullets. This woman let me see the residual pain behind her cheerful, can-do demeanor. She and her family prospered in Arlington, as did the young man who had missed his horse and cows.

The woman who made me the golden and ever-blooming flowers (below) told me about her flight through the Cambodian jungle. I think she was the person who told me about burying her child on that journey. Forgive me, there are so many stories, they sometimes run together. I need to share the stories to help dispel the baseless fears that demagogues spread.

flowers

At my school, the Arlington Education and Employment Program (REEP), we were always working on projects of one sort or another to help figure out the best and most appropriate ways to teach adult immigrants and refugees. For one project, I interviewed a young Somali woman. She talked about how one day she went to the market and by the time she got back home, her home and her husband had been blown up.

When our school was preparing to receive a large group of Somali refugees, we were advised by human resources experts that it would be culturally inappropriate for a woman to shake hands with a Somali man. The first time a Somali man walked into our computer learning center, I walked up and enthusiastically shook his hand, as he did mine. He was in a new land and—enthusiastically—beginning to make a new life.

These refugees have lost so much and then they come here and share so much pain, yes, but they also share their love and their hope with us.

One day I was sad in class because I was thinking of my mother and her cancer. One young woman told me that she would “pray for your mother in the holy month of Ramadan.” Thank you.

So many stories: They are pictures I keep in my heart. I think I will stop for now.

However: I want to say, these adult students were so brave and strong. Unlike the fear-mongering stories promulgated by the extreme right wing, these people didn’t want to kill me. They made food for my family and me. I loved them and they loved me.

Bits of scripture still rattle around in my agnostic brain. Refugees are not the fiends those wicked people say. Refugees—at least until they get on their feet—are the least of our brethren:

…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, `Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ (Matthew, Chapter 25, Bible, Revised Standard Version)

Merry Christmas

Report: Flora, Fauna, Music

6 Replies

Although, unlike the kids in my neighborhood, I am not going back to school tomorrow, I felt the need to write a report on how I spent my summer. Here it is.

Flora

We had enough rain (more than enough for the grapes and the Italian basil) and the weather was mostly moderate. After all these years of living in Virginia, “moderate” is my word for not so damn hot and humid for so long that I can’t stand it. Notable elements of the garden include:

the best crop of green beans since the early 1980s—bush and pole,
the best crop of green chilies in at least seven years—New Mexico style, not Anaheim,
crazy, prolific summer squash, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange’s “tromboncino”—the plants took over most of the garden until I finally hacked the vines back and offered the fruits to passersby,
tomatoes only pretty good—they suffered from being overrun by the rampaging tromboncinos,
Tom’s rose, “Awakening”—I had nothing to do with it, but I got to see and smell it (his moonflowers are just beginning to bloom in the night and they bring the sphinx moths, more on fauna, below)
green chiles

Fauna

Sometimes I have trouble separating the fauna from the flora. I like to think that is because I am an integrative person. Maybe that’s why I always grow my herbs, flowers, fruits, and vegetables together. Whatever the reason, my jumbled gardens have worked for me and for the fauna.

we had first the bumblebees, and then, slow to show up, the honey bees did come,
cabbage butterflies, skippers, red admirals, and, now, one monarch (I’ve had a jubilant crop of native milkweed—more than in years) I’m hoping more monarchs will arise from the jumble, and
cardinals nested by the porch, then disappeared, later the catbirds came, some wrens and gold finches, always the sparrows, and the crows still keep watch

monarch butterfly on zinnia

Special Sighting: Last week Tom and I camped at Loft Mountain in Shenandoah National Park. We took a short hike along the Appalachian Trail. On the trail, a long, lovely, lean timber rattlesnake crossed our path. He didn’t hurry and he didn’t rattle.

timber rattlesnake, Shenandoah National Park

Music

Because I am an integrative person (so I think), I have trouble separating the fauna and the flora from the music. This summer we had a very successful music harvest.

In June, we heard and saw Paul McCartney. I was amazed, no maybe about it. I kept thinking this old guy is going to need a break, but all he ever did was pause briefly to switch between guitars and the keyboard and the voice. Richer than Croesus or even Richie Rich, older even than I am, still, McCartney sang every song (some were old, some were new, some were even from video games) as if he meant them. He sang a cappella about a blackbird sitting on the edge of night. He told us that “we can work it out” and we believed him.
In early August, we walked to the downtown mall to hear and watch Garrison Keillor. This performance was part of his valedictory tour, “America the Beautiful.” I liked many parts of the show and, of course being an English major type myself, I am a fan. I have loved the way Garrison—may I call you Garrison? As a fellow mid-westerner I feel so close—walks slowly up and down the aisles singing songs with us. When we sang, “I’ve been working on the Railroad,” I was transported back to the car rides of my childhood and to singing with my friends in school or in lilac trees. Garrison sang, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Yes, here 70 miles north of Richmond and he sang, I do believe, all the verses. I want to mention that I knew at least parts of all of the verses. I think that comes from my latter-day abolitionist, overly righteous younger self and to my reading of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and To Kill a Mockingbird (many times) during my formative years. I will remember singing with you, Garrison. Thank you.
Last Saturday, Tom and I went up to Wintergreen Resort for the Blue Ridge Mountain Music Fest. When we are in Charlottesville, we attend every August. Each year we fall under the spell of the flowers and the butterflies, the blue hills, and the music that seems integral to the place. All the groups we heard sang and played with that wonderful precision that we’ve come to associate with old-time music and bluegrass. This year, though, it was the group, Balsam Range, that blue us away. I took a dozen photos hoping to catch the passion, the skill, the humor, and the love (sentimental, plaintive, but heartfelt) in their songs. The photos didn’t work out, so now I need to figure out what to say. In their own genre and in their own ways, the artists of Balsam Range seemed as world-class as McCartney. Like Garrison, the group sang a song about the Civil War. This time, though, the sensibility was from the Confederate side. It was a song about a young man about to die a few miles outside of Birmingham. He pleads with the listener to tell his mother that he had been a brave soldier and that he would miss that life he would never have with his sweetheart back home. As I learned time and time again from my refugee and immigrant students, it’s the people close to the ground (on either side of the conflict) that die in war–the farmers, the storekeepers, the women, and the children.

We are part of the flora and the fauna, the music, and the blue and rocky hills. We are integrative types, you and I, and, perhaps we are lucky to be here. We were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Mary’s Rock Shenandoah National Park

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới

4 Replies

National Garden, U.S. Botanic Garden

Last Tuesday Tom and I took Amtrak to D.C. In our day and a half in the city, we enjoyed many activities including dinner with two children, two museums (The National Museum of the American Indian and The National Gallery), four gardens (Enid A. Haupt, Mary Livingston Ripley, National Garden and Bartholdi Park of the U.S. Botanic Garden), and several big city meals. One of these meals was lunch at PHO 75 on Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia.

PHO 75, Arlington, VA

Wilson School

I think I might have mentioned before about my good fortune in teaching at the Arlington Education and Employment Program (REEP). Before you think, oh no (!) she’s becoming too elliptical again, let me explain the connection. One part of that REEP good fortune was all the great food that was associated with it. PHO 75 itself was in the strip mall just the other side of the gas station from Wilson School where we taught.

Phở is beef and rice noodle soup with a variety of fresh vegetables (and lime) added to it.

Phở

When it’s made in the traditional way (e.g. with real beef stock, no cutting up the noodles) phở is a delicious soup.

What I am remembering today though is not so much the taste of the soup, but the happy times doing good work with my friends. Sometimes we’d get the phở carry out so we could go back to school and slurp through interminable meetings. The slurping and the switching between chopsticks and spoon kept one awake and also (in my case, at least) kept my mouth full so I wasn’t always making comments, which sometimes annoyed a program coordinator or two.

The reason I am writing this post: It is the beginning of Vietnamese New Year (Tết). I remember my friends and my students—I counted once, all told I taught people about 85 countries—with love and respect.

The real reason I am writing this post: As a follower of the Gregorian calendar, I made my New Year’s resolution a little over six weeks ago. I resolved to be a kinder person. I’m working on it, but it’s surprising to me how often a nice enough person (like me) has to remind herself to be kind. I am happy that another New Year has come around so soon to help me to remember my resolution. Hot soup and warm memories also help in my resolve.

We had a snowstorm yesterday. It was nothing like the Northeast or the Midwest, but we did get several inches. Still, under a laurel bush, I saw a crocus in bud through the snow. A new year and spring waiting in the wings.

crocus

Veterans: A Friend Shares Her Story and a Man Gives Up His Hat

Book Report

55 Perforated Index Cards (6 x 4 ruled) 49¢

2 Replies

Today I am trying to discard a packet of notes I wrote for a paper on James Madison and his ideas of faction, separation in government, and related topics. I believe I wrote the paper in 1973, so you might wonder why I have retained the notes. Actually, there are several possible reasons. First, I remember liking the format of the packet: all the cards in the Wire-in-dex COLORCARDS (blue) are bound together like a mini spiral notebook. I admired this index card innovation and I hoped that it would keep my notes and my thoughts in order for a change. Second, until recently, James Madison was one of my heroes and so I have had a goodly pile of Madison paraphernalia to sort through and toss out. Other than this packet, all I have left is a (mostly unread) copy of James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Ketcham tucked away somewhere in our temperature controlled storage unit. From what I understood of him, Madison and I shared ideas about the nature of humankind. I admired the way he used these ideas to plan a government structure that could develop a strong (and, over time, increasingly democratic) society. Third, I think these notes reminded me of happy, idealistic times in Salt Lake City.

I wrote the paper for a year-long survey course called Main Currents in American Thought. I think I learned a great deal in this class, but I’m not sure because I’ve forgotten most of whatever it might have been. I took this class before computers had spread out into the world and even before photocopying documents became ubiquitous. Because of this, we students spent time reading various books and papers in a little room we called the Don D. Walker reading room (after our professor). I read lots of books in that room including, presumably, at least part of Main Currents in American Thought by Vernon L. Parrington. What I remember most and liked the most was reading Jefferson and Madison’s letters to each other where they talked about philosophy and politics, but also shared gardening information. You can now find Jefferson’s letters to Madison and others online at the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library at http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JefLett.html . One example is Abjuring the Presidency at http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefLett.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=111&division=div1 You can also access a variety of Madison’s papers from the Library of Congress’s American Memory project at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/madison_papers/mjmser.html

I guess I should tell you that back in the day it seemed like I was always trying to write papers on Madison. What I mean to say is that I was trying to write at least one good paper on Madison. I wanted to write a paper that clearly explained Madison’s well-reasoned, realistic, crafty, and humane ideas. That didn’t happen, but now with the ubiquity of original sources available on the Internet, Madison’s own words are widely available, so no one needs my somewhat tortured and ineffectual explications.

For years I was miffed that at least a segment of the populace American populace seemed to be aware of Thomas Jefferson, but didn’t seem to know anything about James Madison. Also, from my own experience, I think some people conflate the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and, furthermore, I am not sure if anyone remembers about the Articles of Confederation and all the trouble they caused. I think I am in danger of jumping on a soapbox about the lack of information, misinformation, and dissing of my hero, so I think I will stop soon.

I need to tell you that it is the slavery thing that has finally made me disappointed in Madison. Of course, I always knew that Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Monroe and others were slave owners. I only understood this fact in my gut, however, when I moved five miles from Monticello and 25 miles from James Madison’s Montpelier. Okay, I still admire Madison in so many ways, but I have to distance myself from him for at least a while.

Here’s a quote from Madison from my notes (without, alas, clear bibliographic reference):

As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust…so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.

I’ve just skimmed the notes one final time. Now I am going to stand right up and dispose of them in the recycling bag. I can’t even say good riddance. I think I am going to miss these cards, but, if I ever decide to write a good paper on Madison, I know I that I can find the resources online.

James Madison

Note: So far in my new blog, I have gotten the most reader response about cookies. So, next entry, I plan on writing about Grandma in Idaho’s filled raisin cookies. See you then.

Close to the Ground: Living Inductively

Lynda Terrill