When You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

My students are 12 - 13 years old. They're on the threshold - you know, still watching iCarly, playing make believe and sleeping with cartoon themed sheets and pillow cases - but toeing the line. They're starting to wear make up and curling their hair, experiencing life at such a heightened state that everything is something that could possibly end their very existence.

It's cute.

I like that they are on the threshold. They aren't afraid to be good at school. It's not too cool to be smart, yet. They don't ignore you if they see you on the street, and they openly admit their need for help, love and affirmation.

And, like 70% of the time, they have such innocent senses of humor.

Recently, I expressed my undying love for Thor to the class. This week, I received several valentines from Thor...notes were taped to my computer that expressed my love for Thor, my smart board was tagged with Thor's name and hearts...

It makes me happy to know that this really trivial piece of information brings them so much joy.

I better come up with another one, fast. Next week, poor Thor will be old news.

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Things I heard this week that made me happy:

- Ms. Hansen, can I schedule lunch with you next week? I really need to talk through some things, and you're the only adult in the building I trust.

- Thanks for making my first year at a new school so easy. I was really nervous, and your support and encouragement has been really helpful.

- It'd be really cool if you came on this summer trip with the organization I volunteer with. I wouldn't even get tired of having my teacher on my summer break because you're pretty cool.

- Can I hang out in your room? I'm having a really hard day. 

It's Just a Fantasy

So, we all have our little celebrity crushes. I mean, come on, we've all been faced with the question of "If such-and-such celebrity knocked on your door, would you run away with them?" And, generally, the answer is no.

And, I think, actually, that we're telling the truth when we say no.

But - here's the part we're not telling...

If this version - this character - of Brendon Urie appeared at my door and asked me to run away with him....? Yes. I'd go.

And it doesn't really matter because that's a fictional part of him so I can say yes without feeling guilty....(it's from this music video).

And if Chris Hemsworth came to my door? I'd slam it. I'd say, "Sure you're really cute but I'm just not interested, thanks." I would, however, be swept away by Thor. And ONLY this version of Thor. No other Thor will suffice.

The Day the Hansen-Johnson Family Went Vegan

I don't like to think of it as "eliminating more stuff from my diet." I like to think of it as...evolving.

There was a time in my life when I knew nothing about the way the body works. I didn't understand how our body broke down proteins vs. carbohydrates. I didn't understand the differences between sugars. I thought I needed milk to get calcium (you know, strong bones and all...). I thought lean meats were the only way to become lean myself. I also had no idea I has celiac, and so I also thought gluten was my friend.

Turns out, none of that is true.

Here's the quick and dirty facts list (and double/fact check me if you think I'm wrong, because I'll put money down that I'm not):

1. Our bodies are 100% herbivorous. We are not designed to eat animal products.

2. Animal products (all of them) make the blood acidic. If it stays acidic, we die. The only way our body can neutralize our blood is with the phosphate in our blood. The phosphate is attached to calcium.  We urinate out the calcium from our own bones...We drink milk, we get acidic blood, we lose calcium.

3. No other living creature on earth drinks milk after it's early stages of development. We are stealing milk from baby calves (which, by the way, get slaughtered almost immediately after birth. How dare they drink OUR milk!?).

4. The only good cholesterol is the kind our body makes itself. There is no cholesterol in plant products.

5. As soon as you eat an animal product, this is what happens to your blood. Yes. There is fat in your blood. This is how you get heart disease.

I don't want to go into the nitty gritty details, because I can't explain it half as well as the experts can, but if you really want to know the truth about your food (and even if you don't want to, you need to)...you should watch these two things:

Food That Kills and The Best Speech You Will Ever Hear

It's hard to change your diet when you've been indoctrinated to believe so many things about the food system. It's weird when your entire belief system comes crashing down around you. But, when the shackles of society fall off...you feel much more liberated.

Trust me. This makes more sense than anything I've ever experienced in my life.

2013 List of Champions

For whatever reason, I really hate the word "resolution." So here's a list of things I'm interested in accomplishing this year - but if for whatever reason I don't get around to any or all of them, I won't be a huge failure or anything like that.

1. Read (at least) 36 novels this year. *Some of you reading this are probably freaking out. This is an average of 3 books a month. For me, this is a piece of cake. I started this goal on Jan 1. It's Jan 8, and I'm already finished with my 3rd book. I've read over 1000 pages in the last week. I just rock that way.  

2. Travel outside of the country once this year. This goal is to appease my insatiable appetite for travel and my secret desire to be a runaway. 

3. Try 2 new things that I'd otherwise be afraid to try *like parasailing, hiking a volcano, speaking my mind at a staff meeting, travelling alone or speaking Spanish to a native speaker.

4. Find ways to be more social. So far, I'm failing at this goal.

5. Write in my journal at least once a month. I stole this goal from a friend. It is pretty good.

6. Live in the moment. I get easily overwhelmed by my anxieties over every.little.thing. I think keeping my nose stuck in a book at every moment of the day instead will help to keep me distracted. 

7. Create something beautiful. A piece of art, music, etc.

8. Help someone or something in a meaningful way (human, animal or environmental).

9. Tell people what I really think about them instead of just saying it behind their backs. If it's important enough for me to say it, I might as well say it to your face.

10. Become less afraid of doorknobs and telephones. You may laugh - but I have serious issues with both. 

Puzzle Pieces

Teaching has made me a different person. I see things from perspectives I have never seen things before.

I've been reminded that while, yes, teaching is hard...it's also very scary. I am in charge of the lives of students all day, every day, 5 days a week. But, that's something I already knew.

I'm seeing things from so many angles, I can barely handle it sometimes. Somehow, I have to be able to understand and accept the girl who has no compassion for others while simultaneously comforting and creating a safe space for the young man going through a serious identity crisis - sometimes while this girl is confronting the young man. I have to love the student who refuses to stand for the pledge as much as I love the student who wants to shove the U.S.A's conservative politics down everyone's throats.

And, to tell you the truth - that part isn't so hard.

The hard part is convincing other people that all of these different personalities and flawed youth and perfect youth and sensitive youth are all worth loving. The hard part is trying to convince other people to see how what they may be saying is (or could be) irreparably damaging someone else - even if that is not the intended consequence.

I'll burden you with my most recent plight: I feel like I am not hearing voices of compassion for those affected by tragedy so much as I am hearing demands being made by those unaffected. Now, I'm a grown up. I understand that we want and need to discuss our beliefs and opinions about guns and God or lack-there-of.

But I can't help but notice the missing voice in all of this - the people who might be getting tramped on.

I'm thinking specifically of Atheists - but I suppose the Muslims or Buddhists or any other non-Christian faith may fall under this umbrella - how those families must be feeling to be hearing again and again "lack of [CHRISTIAN] God has allowed for these things to happen."

The lack of a christian god is being used synonymously with "lack of morals" and "lack of being able to discern right from wrong" and "lack of self control" and "inability to empathize."

Do you think, out of the 26 families affected by the most recent tragedy, that there is not one family of Atheist or non-Christian beliefs?

What message are we sending those families? That their child deserved to die? That they were just bringing their child up in a way where something like that was just bound to happen in their life anyway...? That they are a moral-less people? That somehow, Christians have it figured out better than non-Christians?

I don't think a lack of God is our issue.

I think a lack of human decency is. 

Heads or Tails?

I have officially been teaching all by myself for a whole quarter. That's something like 43 days.

Today is a grading day because, naturally, quarter final grades are due. So, I'm back with funny student work to share.

First, I'll preface all this stuff with telling you that we read a novel in class called Finding Miracles. It was pretty good. Some students liked it more than others, but overall we were all able to connect with one character or another. Their quarter-final-assessment(s) were based on student choice. They were presented with 6 options and had to choose 2, and do one that was required. These things varied from "I am" poems to one pagers to mapping the story to short essays.

So, think of today's blog as a variety show of sorts. :)

Weirdest/most awkward questions asked to me this quarter:
Where to herpes come from?
What's an abortion?
Are Milly and Pablo (book characters) just hugging, or are they doing one of those "special-baby-making" hugs we learned about in science class?
Who are you voting for?
Do you like to go clubbing?

Most interesting things I over-heard this quarter:
- Finally! A teacher who understands our perspective.
- He paid me $20 to do his homework, but I failed it. Should I give the money back?
- I feel strangely attracted to (student name) when she's in a leotard.

Most unexpected reaction/s:
Me: Next quarter, we will be learning about the more technical aspects of writing - like grammar, spelling, paragraphs.
Class: Yes!!! (commence clapping and fist pumping).

Favorite misspellings:
Secret : Seakret
Learns : Leunns
Passionate : Passinate
Pablo : Poplo, Poblow
Adoption: Abdoption, Aboption

Favorite Mis-answered questions:
What is the resolution: Pablo and Milly start making out.

Pick any character (from any text) that you feel represents you. Who is this character? How are they similar to you?

- Juny B. Jones from the series Juny B. Jones. We are both funny and laid back about life.
- I am like the guy from The Fighter because of my brother.
- Green Lantern because him and me are both awesome.

Confessions made via homework:
* I'm tibetan.
* I'm adopted.
* I had surgery as a baby.
* When I got a cat, he made me wonder how I would be as a father.

Random pictures from the quarter:

Will They Know?

As a teacher in a city-school, I have my bakers dozen of kids that make me cry. They make me cry for different reasons. I cry when they exasperate me. I cry when they distract the class from learning. I cry when I think about the system that is failing them. I cry when they fail. I cry when they succeed. I cry when they cry.

Tonight, I have one young man in mind. I knew 5 weeks ago that this would be a student who I would cry over.

The first days, he was hesitant to do anything. I could see his frustrations with schoolwork boiling up into his eyes and spilling out in a variety of ways: tears, dancing and singing, throwing stuff, fighting. Everyday with this young man has been an absolute battle.

Two weeks ago, we had an open-notes quiz. He had all the notes in his binder, but they were so disorganized he didn't want to look through them. Slowly, we went through and pulled them all out and when he realized he had enough notes to get a B on the quiz, the biggest smile came across his face and he looked at me and said, "Oh. I can do this."

Yes, I thought. Yes - you can. You've always been able to do this. But for him to recognize that in himself was the key. It was a pivotal moment in our teacher-student relationship, and his relationship with his schoolwork.

Over the course of the next few days, he handed in all of his assignments. The effort he'd put into them was obvious, and he beamed at me as he handed them in.

"I bet these ones will be as good as my quiz!"

This young man is tender-hearted, but he's impulsive. Like most 12 year old boys, he acts before he thinks. He sees a friend in the hall, he's going to go to the hall. He feels like chatting with his buddy 6 rows over, he's going to get up and chat with his buddies. He hates the girl behind him? He is going to tell her, and when she comes back with "Boy, I'mma slap the shit out of you" he stands up and meets her request for battle.

This week, his impulsivity got the best of him.

5 weeks of piecing together the puzzle of this young man - so, so delicately - has been shattered. His eagerness and desire to please - to be included, to be heard in this world....those things took over.

He brought a knife to school. Kids were threatened.

It's heartbreaking. Just as we were making progress. Just as he was beginning to believe in himself, just as he was starting to understand that you can play the game of school without getting played yourself - that classrooms can be a place where we learn and grow and laugh and love and cry and live...

Over. Before it even started.

So I worry. I cry for him. I wonder - will there be another teacher in his future who will give him the time and space he needs to grow? Will they keep him in the classroom and let him know that he belongs there - not in the office? Will they let his behaviors keep him from learning?

Will they let his behaviors keep them from trying to teach him?