Supervising Study Hall...Not the Glamorous Part of Teaching

Teaching is an art, and it's meaningful and rewarding and enjoyable most of the time.  Supervising study hall doesn't fall into the category of "most of the time".

And you may think that a person that makes my kind of salary would be thankful for monitoring a study hall, right.  You might think it's just an extra period of the day to accomplish stuff like grading paper, making lesson plans, etc...  You would be wrong, well not totally wrong but still wrong.  Study hall supervision seeing students not be students, and that's very frustrating.

In my classroom, I provide what I hope are activities and learning experiences that will help students grow academically and mature.  I'm not suggesting each lesson plan is worthy of a distinguished honor, but most students aren't following to sleep or complaining as if it's a trip to the dentist.  Study hall, though, for most students is 90% social time and mental break and 10% productive work.  And for many students, 10% is a stretch.  And for many of those many students, I have them in English III.  And for the really special kids, I have them in English III, and they are failing, and they still only socialize.  UGH!

You might say that I should get tougher - maybe allow no talking and constantly circulate the room and demand students be completely quiet and working on coursework or at least reading a book.  You might say I should prohibit students from sleeping or any other non-productive behavior.  I don't think it's my job to MAKE students work.  And even if I tried, it would be a foolhardy effort.  Kids that don't want to work are going to work very hard at not working. 

The addition of chromebooks hasn't helped.  Chromebooks are wonderful tools, but they are also windows to video games and movie clips and many other avenues of attention that are not school related.  Again, is it my job to monitor all chromebook usage?  It's not possible.

Generally speaking, I take attendance to make sure the natives are accounted for.  They aren't bad kids; in fact, they are very good kids.  Unfortunately, they are satisfied for less than their potential performance.  Getting C's is okay...for some students, getting D's are okay.  And for others, avoiding all work is okay and failing the class is no big deal.

I'd much rather prefer to teach another class and have more official work to complete versus monitoring a study hall.  YUCK!  I hope next year I am able to teach something else - perhaps Public Speaking first semester and second semester.  That would be a much better situation.

When Things Don't Turn Out Like They Should

For parents, we recognize that we aren't going to be perfect, but we believe that eventually, we will successfully assist our children in growing into adults.  They will find successful jobs, find successful spouses, have families and hopefully be close to us.  We can then watch them and help them with their own families.

For parents, then, it's supposed to end up like the storybook basketball season.  Right now the NCAA basketball tournaments are underway, and it's an exciting time of the year.  We see the joy and triumph of a last-second game-winning shot and all that goes with it.  The fans are screaming and jumping up-and-down; the players are hugging each other and smiling, and they feel all amazingly wonderful and happy.  Their work, it seems, has paid off.

But not every game ends like that does it?  Sometimes, the shot bounces away.  Sometimes, the best player gets injured or ill.  Sometimes, the player fouls out.  Sometimes, the game just doesn't go very well.  And at the end of that?  There are hugs and tears and disappointment and the kick in the gut that comes with loss.

Recently, my oldest son has moved away.  For several years now, he's struggled with life in general - tough relationships, lack of employment beyond entry-level wages, substance overuse and abuse.  The son I know and remember had a wonderful heart, and he was smart and creative.  He was handsome and athletic, even though his interest wasn't in athletics.  He loved music, and he had a great voice.  In junior high, I wasn't quite sure what mark he would make on the world, but he enjoyed reading and earned good grades and teachers had positive comments about him.

High school arrived, and without an interest in what often times are typical positive avenues for kids in our area - things like sports, drama, choir/band, FFA, academics - he started to fade from family and turned to friends and activities that weren't what most parents want for their children.  His Dad divorced his mom, and he eventually moved in with Dad to finish his high school education.  He did finish, but it was a struggle when it didn't have to be.  The work wasn't the problem, the level in interest in other things was more important; plus the group of friends he liked and associated with didn't place academics and their futures as a priority.  They weren't awful kids; they weren't evil.  Their interest, though, was fun and music and partying and video games.  

My son tried to start a band, and he even has played a little here an there over the years.  He recorded videos, and he showed he had talented.  The life of rock stars with making music and partying all the time appealed to him...it was music; it was partying; and it was fun.  It wasn't anything like his Dad - the guy that was a teacher, had two graduate degrees, and had a career.  It wasn't anything like his Dad who loved sports, and enjoyed music but wasn't into longboarding with a few beers and some music and maybe some weed and just enjoying the freedom of a blue sky and sunny day.

His Dad always tried very hard to advise him - that partying and music and fun were all well in good, but there was a time and place for those things that also needed to include some type of meaningful training and employment - including a job that had a decent salary, hours, and some insurance and other benefits.  My son, though, while good-hearted and talented didn't see a need for a career and house and family.  He just needed some simple job to earn a little money to buy enough for a simple place and enough partying supplies to enjoy life.

He's gone now.  I understand that here...home...there is nothing for him anymore.  His family doesn't trust him.  He has no car.  He has no money.  He has no insurance.  He cannot find a job.  He was recently evicted from his last residence.  And the relationship he's in is wonderful one day and toxic the next - a constant rollercoaster of happiness and violence.  In his mind, he thinks he needs to go somewhere new, make something of himself, prove himself, and return someday even if it's just for a visit and show he made it.  He thinks he's exhausted all his "bail outs" from his family and friends, and I'm sure a part of him feels guilty because of the relationships and bridges that he's had a hand in wrecking.

The substance use, overuse, and abuse are things he won't be able to move away from.  He believes he has mental health issues - problems with bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression.  And he's now under some prescribed medications which he believes are now helping him level out his emotions.  To my most recent knowledge, though, he still smokes and vapes, and drinks alcohol, and smokes weeds and possibly is still using other drugs.  I've tried to tell him that those chemicals can't possibly help any legitimate mental health issues he may genuinely need to battle.

I don't know where he is.  I don't know who he's with.  Intermittent messenger messages provide bits and pieces of his situation.  He tells me he's okay.  He tells me not to worry.  He tells me he will be back sometime after he's gotten his life together.  This isn't the first time that moving away to get a new start was the answer to his struggles, and he discovered that place too had booze, drugs, and chemicals there.  He's a few years older from that attempt; he had moved in with a girl.  He and the girl fell on hard times, moved back here...started to dig out.  The girl he was with tired of the partying and the ups and downs of their lives and ended the relationship.

And now he's with another girl in another relationship somewhere in Colorado.  They have nothing - maybe her SUV and some clothes and whatever they could pack.  The girl has two daughters, and my last contact indicated they were all heading to Colorado to visit the girl's mom.  I hear he's applying for jobs at nearby hotels.

He didn't even say goodbye when he left.  He didn't even say he was leaving.  I stopped by last Wednesday at where I thought he was staying with a buddy, and was told he wasn't home.  The next day my daughter said he had heard from him that he and his girlfriend were heading west to Colorado to visit her mom.  I knew when I heard that, he wasn't just visiting.  I don't know how it happened.  I thought he and the girl had broken up - again for the umpteenth time.  And lo and behold now I find out she and he packed up an SUV and left.

I'm hurting.  I feel loss - very similar to the death of close family member or friend.  My gut aches; my chest hurts; I often wake during the night and can't return to sleep.  I'm sure my ex-wife blames me for this.  I'm sure it was my fault that while my son was growing up I was too busy teaching, coaching, going to grad school.  Maybe she's right or at least partially right.  Maybe I should have done something differently; I find myself going over the years in my mind and trying to figure out the moment I should have stopped something or started something or done something differently.  You know how sometimes you hear how one event or one conversation or one thing different changed the course of someone's life?  I wonder what I missed...what I could have done differently.

I've tried to become more knowledgable about substance use, overuse, and abuse.  I know most everything I've heard and read suggests that he's an adult now, and he must decide how or if he wants his life to change.  I've heard and read how I'm not supposed to attempt to blame myself for his situation, but that's hard.

I love him.  I miss him.  I miss the son I once knew; I miss the son I know is inside under all the layers of other stuff.  I miss the son I know still exists - talented, good-hearted, musical, smart.  I miss having the storybook father-son ending that other dads get to experience.  I try to stay strong...to have faith in him...to accept the bits and pieces of information I sometimes receive from him or about him and try to be encouraging.  I pray for him.  I fear a bad ending while longing for a good ending.

In the end, we parents know there are all kinds of different paths to success.  I hope his current path leads to success and happiness and joy and finding the person I know he is.

Volunteering Is Great...Sandbagging Is A Tough Way To Do It

The Mighty Mississippi is flooding parts of Andalusia, which is part of our school district.  There was a post on social media during the week that called for volunteer help from the village, and being on spring break offered some available time to help out.  This was my first experiencing sandbagging, and I quickly learned that it is not easy.

We started Friday morning, and I showed up in my overalls and my gloves with my shovel and asked for guidance.  It didn't take long to figure out the basics of the task, so I found myself jumping in the "fun".  What I learned later is that someone figured out a better system than previous years, which was to use big PVC tubes within a crate to more easily fill the bags.  The first step then was to cover the six PVC tubes with sandbags, which consisted of opening the sandbag and sliding it over the tube.  After all six tubes were covered, we then flipped the crate to expose the openings for the sand.  With that second step completed, the third step was to use the shovels lift the sand from the pile into the tubes.  Once filled step four consisted of the crate lifted up off of the bags.  Step five was to carry the filled bags (usually about half filled) to folks who were tying the bags (step 6).  After some time bending over to tie the bags, someone decided to put the filled bags on tables to save the backs of the individuals tying the bags. 

I pause here because I later found out that a tight tie on the bags was very helpful, so while tying the bags may have been the least physical step, a tight tie was important later on in handling the bags.

The final step - step 7 - was to load the completed sandbag either onto a pallet or on to a trailer or truck that would then transport the bags to various parts of the village where they would be needed.

I filled sandbags like that from about 8:30 to 12:30 on Friday, and my back and legs suffered the rest of the day.  I was really tired, so watching NCAA tournament basketball in my recliner was welcomed.  Plus, Friday featured temps in the 30's, so I needed a hot, long shower to try to get the chill out of me.

I wasn't sure I was going to make it back for Saturday, but I pulled my sore legs and back out of the house and went back for more.  I should mention now that partnering up with someone to fill the bags really went much quicker and more effective than trying to accomplish the task myself.  So Saturday, I met a different partner, and we proceeded to once again fill as many sandbags as possible.  He left around 10 a.m., and there was a call to head to the sewer plant outside of the village to build a sandbag wall.  Having never participated in building a sandbag wall, I volunteered for that job; it was a break from the back-breaking work of filling sandbags.

While I don't think building a sandbag wall is rocket science, my guess is that having some experience helps, and there didn't seem to be much experience on the crew I was working with.  Like anything else, we muddled along until we finally figured out a rhythm and a method of building the wall.  The process was to lay down plastic, building the wall of sandbags up in a pyramid shape, and then cover the wall with the plastic.  I don't know if our wall was built well enough or not.  I guess I will find out.  The method seemed to be similar to stacking hay bales.  The sandbags were laid in layers and criscrossed with each layer.  If the river does get high enough, I hope the work we did holds up.

I stayed with this crew through the most difficult phase of the project, but eventually, more crew members existed than were needed, so I went back to the garage to build more sandbags.  I think I stayed maybe another ninety minutes before my body had enough.  I quietly tapped out and exited a little before 2 p.m.  The process of filling the sandbags actually went a little quicker when I returned from the sewer plant.  A one-person end loader was brought in which eliminated the need to shovel the sand into the tubes, so that part of the process was more effective and less challenging on the back.

It's Sunday now.  No sandbagging for me today.  I'm sticking to the recliner and tournament basketball!