The Door's Open but the Ride ain't Free

In the midst the deepest, darkest, most sweltering miles of Sunday's Covered Bridges Half Marathon between Pomfret and Quechee, VT, I glimpsed both the tantalizing vision of an unexpected Gatorade stop and a new direction for this blog.

The school year is coming to an end, I have an entire book to write by November 1, and I'm....well, frankly, I'm a little bit nervous about that.

I've always been a teacher who writes. A teacher and a writer. I like the balance of that sentence, the weight of those two occupations distributed evenly on each end. I depend on the give and take of that arrangement; the influx of material through teaching and the outpouring of words through writing. When the school year ends next week, I will no longer be a teacher and a writer. I am taking a leave of absence in order to give this incredible opportunity, this book, my best shot.

For the next two years, I will be a writer. Full stop. Hear the clunk at the end of that sentence? It's as if the teacher jumped off the see-saw while that writer was up in the air, and bam. The writer is left behind, bewildered and a little breathless.

My entire life, I have dreamed of being "just" a writer, a real, professional, pay-the-bills-with-words writer. And now I am.

I am at once relieved and terrified, and the one thing I know for certain is that the coming two years will be an adventure.

I was worrying over the coming two years as I approached that lovely Gatorade station. Which did not, in fact, exist. I had conjured it into being out of my thirst and fatigue, and the mirage melted away just as I reached it.

Bummer.

As I checked myself for signs of heat exhaustion, I thought of another woman who is embarking on her own new adventure. Sherry is a writer I met through an amazing writer and literary agent  Betsy Lerner. Actually, I've never "met" either of them. Betsy's blog about the writing life is populated with writers whose work I follow, writers I admire and adore. A few weeks ago, Betsy shared the news of Sherry's new adventure on her blog, and as I made peace with that disappearing Gatorade station, I realized that Sherry is the perfect person to kick off my two-year stint in uncharted territory.

Fortunately, Sherry graciously agreed to share the story of her new path. Oh, and I finished the race without keeling over from heat exhaustion.

I will let Sherry take the reins from here, and I hope you will stick around to see where this is all headed.

My name is Sherry, and I am changing my life.

As I whimpered past the age of 50, I realized I’d spent the last 30 years doing the same ordinary things. Every. Single. Day.

I know many people who are in a similar rut: those who spend more than their share of evenings folding clothes in front of the TV, daydreaming about the world out there while they contemplate having that second bowl of ice cream.

So, in the last few months, I took the first steps toward a new life journey. I sold my house of 21 years, bought a condo, and lost nearly 30 pounds (with more than a few to go). And then I started pondering how I might shake up my life in a number of smaller ways. Thus was born, “The 52/52 Project: A Yearof New Experiences.”

As I turn 52 this year, I am embarking on a list of 52 things I’ve never before done—a year of weekly experiences well outside my comfort zone. It’s not a bucket list. Several of these are not events any sane person would have a natural hankering to attempt. Some will prove to be fun, while others loom as frightening. More than a few will surely end up embarrassing.

They range from training for a 5K (this for a woman who piles items at the bottom of the stairs so to avoid making more than one freaking trip up the steps, and who last ran nearly 20 years ago, probably up to the bar for last-call) to spending the night in a haunted house (I do believe in spooks, I do, I DO), to getting a Brazilian wax (just shoot me now).

Why now? Was the anticipation of turning 52 some magical moment? Likely not. But at some point in our lives, we either decide to continue sighing at the status quo or we embrace change.

I’ve chosen to embrace change, albeit with trembling fingers.

As a humor writer, a number of the experiences on my initial list were crazy, trivial items, primarily designed for a laugh. Some of those silly items remain there. Everyone should behave silly from time to time, and going outside our comfort zone certainly requires being able to laugh at ourselves.

But just a few weeks into the project, it began to evolve. Because I began to evolve.

The readers commenting on my new Facebook page, which chronicles my adventures, appeared to be charged and excited. A few called me an inspiration. Me? The middle-aged woman who never thought of herself as more than a cautionary tale—was now somehow an inspiration?

That inspired me to look deeper into myself and my project. I replaced a few of the more trivial line-items with more meaningful experiences. Most stories are still likely to draw laughs—especially my own self-deprecating laughter. Some will be more thought-provoking.

I hope to succeed at most. It’s possible I’ll fail at a few. But even then, I hope the experience will result in my changing and growing.

I hope you will laugh with me, cringe with me, and evolve with me, on this year-long journey.

Please join me in jumping the curb, taking a detour from the safe and secure cul-de-sac of our lives to visit personally unexplored territories.


But buckle up; it could be a bumpy ride.

Sherry Stanfa-Stanley is fond of saying she is a recent empty-nester who now devotes her spare time to caring for rescued animals. In reality, the grown children keep coming home and she caters to a bunch of spoiled and badly behaved pets. By day, Sherry is a communication director at a midwestern university, and by night she writes women’s fiction, humor, and human interest stories. Sherry’s work has appeared here and there, and now here… She received one of nine national fellowships in 2011 by the Midwest Writers Workshop. She is currently changing her life through 52 eye-opening, frightening and humiliating new experiences. Follow along on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/The52at52Project.

The Report Card Season of My Discontent

NB: I am reposting this essay as it is, yet again, report card season. Not the one that coincides with New England mud season, as indicated in this piece, but the one that coincides with the heat of early summer and an office without an air conditioner. It's always something.


This year, winter term report cards fall during the famous New Hampshire mud season, and I am discontent. The asparagus is beginning to heave its way skyward, the bears are emerging from their dens with cubs at their heels, and the earth is waking up from its long winter's nap. The last thing I want to do is tabulate point totals and write narrative comments explaining Dick’s low quiz scores or Jane’s lack of class participation.

It’s not as if I did not know this task was part of the deal – like tests, teacher evaluations and curriculum mapping, report cards are one of the less enjoyable aspects of a job I otherwise adore. I have worked in a few different schools, both public and private, and until recently, report cards demanded little more than a letter grade and maybe a sentence in which the teacher reports a fondness for Dick or Jane, that he or she is a pleasure to have in the classroom. Based on my mother’s recollection, one or two sentences were all my parents expected to find on my report cards when I was in school. However, parents expect much more than a line or two these days, and the pressure is on teachers to execute a very delicate dance, toeing the very thin line between outrage and constructive criticism, positive feedback and empty platitudes. This line – let me stress this - it is so very, very thin, and the implications when one oversteps said line are so very, very unpleasant.

The real meat of the report card lies in narrative section, and these words, as all teachers know, are where we must prove our mettle and succeed or fail in front of the audience that ultimately decides our fate: parents. The successful execution of this narrative demands that teachers act as writers, spin-doctors, therapists and jurists. These comments are treacherous territory, and each one requires careful planning, execution, and editing.

That said, I am also the parent of a middle school student, so I absolutely get it – report cards are a window on a parallel universe. We entrust our children to relative strangers for eight hours a day, and many kids spend more time with their teachers than they do with their parents. Report cards are a tangible verdict on all those stressful hours of homework, hard-won test scores and angst.

To that end, I do my best to throw that window open and offer parents the best possible view. Some love the view, others would rather close the curtains, but I offer it to them in case they want to take it in. The first paragraph of any successful report card comment must begin on a positive note, a sentence intended to ground parents in their happy place. Once there, I am able to follow up with a sentence or two about general concerns, buffered by a final positive sentiment - a lovely, soft topper on the delicious and nutritious criticism sandwich I've created. I then detail the overall trimester grade and how it breaks down in to category percentages such as participation, homework, composition, and assessments.. All that’s left is to add is a judgment-neutral transitional sentence to cushion the harsh reality of the numbers.

Paragraph two discusses specific issues – the student is capable but coasting, the student needs work on his organization, the student is absolutely killing me because she fails to bring her materials to class, the student tends to create a gravitational black hole of inattention in the back of my classroom…that sort of thing. The words must be backed up with specific examples, honest but safely distanced from anger, and absolutely free of wishy-washy language. Oh, hang on - a tip for new teachers out there: I have found that even the most well-intentioned and witty jokes don’t work in this context. Even if it made you giggle when you wrote it – heck, especially if it made you giggle, dump it. Trust me. It will go over like a lead balloon in the context of a report card comment.

Paragraph three is key to the success of the report card. The comment must end on a positive, hopeful, and enthusiastic note. I look forward to the rest of my year with your child and fully expect that he or she will mature into a fine scholar, that sort of thing. This final sentiment puts parents safely back in their happy place, and paves the way for a productive and non-confrontational parent-teacher conference.

Multiply all of my students in each section by the number of requisite paragraphs, and that's roughly 126 paragraphs of painstakingly constructed feedback. One hundred and twenty-six. Every spare moment outside of class time is consumed by report writing. I write after my kids have gone to bed, during lunch break, in between classes, before work over my morning coffee. Oh - another note to new teachers: I have learned to wait until after coffee to write comments. Before coffee is a very bad time to write report cards.

I could take advantage of a shortcut, if I'm so inclined. I could purchase this horrifying crutch, for example. According to the promotional literature on the website, teachers can "Save valuable time by simply inserting student’s name into the comment that best matches level of recorded achievement." Think of the time savings! If I opted for the timesaversforteachers.com method, my life would be so much simpler (“Why spend time writing your own?”)! The long season of my discontent would be reduced to a few hours of cut-and-paste convenience! Comments so bland as to be impervious to criticism! Pre-proofread!

All for just $29.95 and an abdication of my professional standards.

Thanks for the offer, timesaversforteachers.com, but I think I will stick with my inefficient and antiquated method of crafting unique reports for each student. I expect my students to show up to class ready to participate in their education; the least I can do is take the time to create a report card that genuinely reflects each student’s individual efforts, personalities, and attitudes.

I Can No Other Answer Make, But Thanks, and Thanks.

I teach my students to send thank you notes. My mother taught me to send thank you notes, and I am teaching my own children to do the same, so it only seems fitting that I should educate my students about the emotional weight of a sincere thank you.

A few years ago, I heard Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg comment in a radio interview - or maybe it was someone commenting on Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg - on the importance of thank you notes. Apparently, Jackie taught them to send thank you notes without fail, and even today, Jackie and Caroline's thank you notes are cherished for their warmth and sincerity, not to mention their historical significance.

So when I sold my book, currently titled The Gift of Failure, to HarperCollins, I set out to convey my gratitude. To every teacher, coach, pastor, parent, administrator, blogger, and reporter who caused the article "Why Parents Need to Let Their Children Fail," originally published at the Atlantic, to go viral.

The piece was published on a Tuesday, it was "viral" by Wednesday, and by the following week, the trajectory of my life had changed. Suddenly, pipe dreams were reality by the end of that month, I found myself with my dream agent and a book deal.

Therefore, I owe a hell of a lot of people thank you notes.

Every day, after school is over, and before my evening begins, I spend about an hour figuring out who shared my article, who took the time to tell their friends and colleagues about my writing.

I try to send real, snail mail notes, but you can't imagine how hard it is to find physical addresses for bloggers and reporters these days. School districts, yes. I can address something to a particular teacher or coach, care of their school district, but it's hard to get email addresses, let alone physical addresses, for most people.

Blogging Tip: If you'd like to be contacted with ideas, thank you notes, or free books, please make an address available. At the very least an email address, but even better, a physical address. Even if it's a PO box.

Gratitude, conveyed with sincerity and care, is underestimated in our society, but it's such a gift. It's been challenging to teach my children about its worth, mainly because developmentally, children are often such self-centered, empathy-challenged narcissists. But I will keep pounding away at that particular lesson until it gets through.

Because over a lifetime, there will be so many people to thank.

Between the Idea and the Reality

"Stranger and Stranger," by Maureen O'Hara Ure

(This is a re-post from last June, but year-end awards ceremonies are on my brain at the moment. Thanks again to Tea Levy for being brave enough to voice her words and allow me to share them on a bigger stage.)

Twice a year, we formally assess students' writing. I hand out a prompt and grading rubric about one week before the date of the assessment in order to give the students time to organize their thoughts in advance of the prompt. They then have two class periods to write their essay. It allows us to create a portfolio of writing samples from about second grade on, and the assignment also gives them some practice writing timed essays in class. Usually, the prompts are expository, based on the literature we have been reading in class - the mid-year assessment was about Great Expectations in the seventh grade and A Tale of Two Cities in the eighth - but in the spring, when the flowers are blooming, birds are singing, and attention spans are short, I opt for a more creative topic. 

This was the prompt I handed out last week:

Crossroads Academy’s core virtues curriculum is a central part of your education. Just as your education in math, literature and science informs your academic development, your education in the four core virtues informs your moral and social development. For your essay, please choose one of the virtues – justice, temperance, fortitude, or prudence – and write about a moment, experience, or event in your life when you relied on your education in the core virtues to guide you.

I love grading these essays. The students take it very seriously, and I am fascinated by their perspective on the core virtues, character education class, and the way students rely on the virtues to guide their actions. 

The essays were sublime this year, and I loved reading all of them. 

But this one...this one stuck with me. I was impressed with the writing, but I was also deeply disturbed by my part in her ordeal and the lessons that she and her classmates may have taken  away from the experience she describes. The author, Tea Levy, and her parents, have given me permission to share her words. Tea hopes that her words will help educators understand what end-of-year awards assemblies feel like from her seat in the bleachers. 

The Problem With Awards

In seventh grade during one of the last weeks of school, everyone headed down to Bancroft to attend the “culminating final assembly.” At the assembly, awards were given out to the students who had earned them during the year. I watched as nearly all of my classmates walked down to the podium to receive awards, but when the awards ceremony was finally over, my name had not been called. One of the teachers asked everyone who had gotten an award to come to the front of the room to take a group picture. When all of the award-winners had left the bleachers, three of my classmates and I were the only ones left sitting. The experience was devastatingly humiliating for me, but through my anger, I learned the importance of perseverance and optimism.

When my name was not called during the assembly, it made me feel inferior, as if my hard work had not been recognized, and my efforts wasted. I had done the very best I could on the National Mythology Exam, studied hard for the Grand Councours, and prided myself on my Latin poem, but after that morning the significance of all that seemed greatly diminished.

Suddenly I was angry. Angry with my teachers for creating what seemed to me at the time to be an exclusive and competitive atmosphere, but also angry with myself. I couldn’t understand why I was unable to be good enough to win or why everyone else seemed to be so much better than me. Optimism helped me cope with my anger. I had to remind myself that if I wanted to redeem myself, I would have to maintain a positive attitude. I reminded myself that the only way to have my efforts recognized in the future would be to remain as unfazed from this incident as possible and not limit myself based on my experiences.

The optimism I used to overcome this obstacle was linked closely to perseverance. My self-proclaimed failure gave me a new motivation to succeed that would push me through to the end of middle school. I wanted to prevail against the odds and become the perfect student. I quickly realized how unreasonable this goal was, but my desire to have my efforts acknowledged never faltered. I worked harder and concentrated harder and my work paid off. The first trimester of 8^th grade I received my first straight A report card. This achievement made me feel as though my perseverance had been noticed, and I was elated.

Although I still look back on that morning with dissatisfaction, the experience taught me many things. First of all, I acknowledged the fact that they couldn’t give prizes to everyone without making the whole thing seem like a joke. But more importantly, I realized how much I wanted my efforts to be rewarded and that I have the power to ensure that they are. 

Party Time. Excellent.

As we move in to June, and the end-of-year party invitations pile up in my school mailbox, I am forced to dig deep into my list of polite, socially-appropriate regrets. "Your party sounds lovely, and I so wish I could come, but I have my son's graduation ceremony that day." Or I have to pick my nieces up at the airport, visit my parents, attend a birthday party...insert appropriate excuse as needed.

I am an honest person, and while my default move is usually to stick with the truth, the truth of this matter truth is ugly. This truth, particularly when explained at drop off or pick up or in the moments between classes, is a box of unruly, writhing worms I can't contain once I lift the lid.

But this morning, while I was copying the day's class handouts, a parent expressed her disappointment that I RSVP'd regrets to what promises to be a lovely end-of-year school gathering. I inhaled, prepared to make a face of disappointment and utter some false excuse, but instead, the truth popped out. The moment was right, and if anyone had the gumption and self-esteem to handle this news, it was this particular parent, so I came clean.

I've been teaching for a long time, long enough to have become wary regarding parent-sponsored, school-related social events, particularly when the ominous descriptor "wine" appears with the otherwise innocuous pairing of "cheese." Don't misunderstand; I'm a huge fan of both the wine and the cheese, but a glass or two of chardonnay and the informality of a social occasion has the power to untether words and resentments that have otherwise been kept well in-hand. The email that a mom never sent - even though she really, really wanted to - about the injustice of little Janey's midterm C will re-surface at the party in the form of a casual, "Just so you know..." comment delivered with a smile as you swirl your baguette cube in the fondue pot.

At least I have some quality horror stories to share at non-school sponsored parties. The drunk mother who sternly reprimanded me in front of twenty other parents for a long and challenging homework assignment I'd assigned her son a month before. The dad who loudly outlined his daughter's negative opinions of Latin - the language generally and my class specifically. The mother who threatened - albeit with smile on her face - to report me to my boss if I did not ease up on her daughter in English class.

Make no mistake about it, these moments are party-killers.

So if you invite a teacher to your house this graduation season, don't take it personally if she or he responds with regrets. Assume that the teacher appreciated the invitation, and remember that polite regrets expressed on an RSVP card are preferable to regrets expressed angrily, under one's breath, on the way out the door.

Being on Time Means Being Early

I was watching Judd Apatow's This is 40 [again] last night with my husband in order to decompress from a troubling day, and was delighted to see my favorite scene come up about halfway through the film. The main character drops her kid off at school and the homeroom teacher greets her with:  

Teacher: "Hi - um, listen, Charlotte really needs to get here on time because she really just needs the extra time to settle in."

Mom: [mystified] "We are on time." 

Teacher: [deadpan] “Being on time means being early.”

Parents laugh at this line because they think it's a line meant to satirize the arbitrary and stupid rules teachers impose on parents. 

But as a teacher - the teacher in charge of sixth grade homeroom attendance, no less - I know the truth. I suspect that Judd Apatow just might have the soul of a teacher. 

This line is truly funny; and funny because it's true. 

When your car pulls in to the drop off area thirty seconds before homeroom and you push your kids out of the car at a rolling stop, that’s not on time.

When your child bursts through the school entrance as the minute hand hits the twelve, that’s not on time.

Let me fill you in a middle school student’s morning needs – and keep in mind, I have left out the superfluous stuff in favor of the essentials.

Let's say you drive into the school parking lot at 7:40, a full twenty minutes before homeroom. And let me just say here, well done, you. By the time your kids get out of the car with all of their belongings - backpack, coat, sweater, lunch, history project - it's 7:43.

7:43 First things first. Check zipper, hair, adjust potentially embarrassing adolescent bits, and do a final check for food caught in braces. Check in with friends. Have friends re-check food in braces situation and comment on outfit. Figure out who is absent and why, and recount everything that has happened over the hours since they last checked in with each other on Facebook and Google Chat (but not Twitter, because that's for adult dorks like Mrs. Lahey). This first chapter of the school day can easily take an hour, but as homeroom doors close in :17 minutes, there's only time for the vital information.

7:45 Enter middle school, go to locker, unload books, put lunch away, put math journal on the math teacher's desk, figure out what books are needed for the first couple of periods. In a perfect world, the student sees the loose papers and textbook being squashed under the weight of four other textbooks and organizes those items. Avoid middle school head's eyes as she proceeds to homeroom so she won't notice that students' skirt is too short or her locker is tragically and cataclysmically disorganized.

7:52 Close locker door, if physically possible. Check in with friends again on some of the non-vital issues not covered earlier.

7:57 Move toward homeroom. Return to locker, retrieve forgotten math book.

7:59 Rush out of homeroom for plan book squashed under textbook at the bottom of locker and look for that piece of paper with the French verbs for today's quiz written on it.

8:00 Slip in to homeroom as Mrs. Lahey gives a disapproving look, flips up the doorstop with her toe, and closes the door.

Keep in mind, this schedule is for the kids uninterested in playing foursquare or basketball before homeroom. Some kids really need this time to work out their heebie-jeebies and figure out the daily re-adjustments in the social pecking order that governs middle school. 

So when I mark your child tardy when they arrive as the minute hand hits the 12, I'm not [just] being a nitpicky hardass. First period is going to be a nightmare for the kids who rush in at 7:59. Their brains, bodies, and belongings will be disorganized, and it will take them the twenty minutes they should have had before homeroom to pull themselves together. 

Judd Apatow is right. Being on time does mean being early. 

Happy Birthday Ducklings!

P.S. Mother Mallard led her ELEVEN ducklings to water on the morning of May 24.