tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62248507977431061952024-03-05T03:11:10.173-08:00Exhausted but SmilingEmily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-24696921242208138752023-08-25T12:20:00.002-07:002023-08-25T12:20:55.878-07:00Girls and Their Bodies<p>Previously published on <a href="https://grownandflown.com/body-positive-communication-between-mother-daughter/">Grown and Flown</a> </p><p>I screwed up this weekend. My daughter told me a story, and all of my learning, all of my grownupedness, all of my feminism went out the window, and I was a teen again, living in my insecurity. I know better than that. I expect better than that. She deserves better than that.</p><p>The story: My daughter is 13 and went to the town center to hang out with a friend of hers. While they were walking around, a group of teenaged boys (according to her, much older) walked by and one said, "my friend thinks you're cute," laughed and kept walking. Here's the part where I screw up: She was clearly upset, and I said, "so what, that's nice." Oof. The look she gave me. I could see my failure as a parent, as a woman, in her eyes. It wasn't until later that I understood where my comment even came from.</p><p>Like most girls, I was hugely insecure in middle and high school. I hated my looks. In middle school, I looked like a child, while other girls were already womanly. I was tiny (not even 5 feet yet), and flat and strait, and my hair wouldn't perm and my nose was too big and my eyes took up my whole face. In high school, I suddenly grew curves and a C cup and thank God grunge was in and I could hide it all under huge shirts. No one could want me. I was sure of it. </p><p>None of these thoughts are or were unique to me. </p><p>And then I got a boyfriend and suddenly found my body and saw it was of use, and it became my everything. It was the thing that was attractive about me. Because it couldn't be my mind, or my ideas. Those hadn't changed. My body had. So I lapped up the attention. I broke up with boys and dated others. I laughed when men made comments on the street. I wore tight tops, and hoped for comments, saddened when they didn't come. I put all of my hopes in that body of mine. My mistake came in thinking my body had given me control. </p><p>But I gave that body away so easily. To their comments, their leers, their wants and needs. I thought by giving it up, I would gain something, though even then, even now, I can't tell you what. I starved that body. I worked that body into shape. I dressed it up and put it out for show as though the rest of me was useless. I thought that if a boy or a man loved my body, it meant he loved me. So I gave it away again and again, looking for love. But when I finally met the man who would be my husband and the father to my children, I had put that girl behind me. I had put my passions toward teaching and theater and friends. I had grown tired of separating body from mind, and had found a way to work them equally, to sometimes even like them both.</p><p>When I was pregnant, I became terrified that I would have a girl. How could I, with all of my past harboring squatting rights in my heart, raise a daughter? How could I strengthen her and keep her safe? How could I let her know her beauty without making that beauty all important? There are so many mine fields. How would I avoid them all?</p><p>Now that very daughter is going to high school next year, and she looks just like I did, and God, she is beautiful, and strong, and funny, and insecure, smart, and so much more worldly than I was at 13. And I am terrified. But I have brought her this far. We have almost finished middle school, and I have walked that fine fine line just above the minefield, only occasionally setting one off. But there is no right answer here, as much as I want to have one. I will make my mistakes, and she will make hers. And we will keep walking that line, hopefully together, for as long as we can.</p><p>She and her friends, her generation, have a different relationship with their bodies than I did, as a child in the 90s. They wear sports bras to school and show off their midriffs, but it is not for the boys. I believe her when she tells me that. She is comfortable with her body, in a way I never was. She thinks it's gross that a boy, 3 years older, would look at her, or say she's cute. Her body is not for him. It's for her. She is already so far ahead of where I was, and while it doesn't mean I have nothing to fear in the future, she's certainly starting in a stronger place. I think that's all I could ask for. </p>Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-92135875010565401622021-02-14T13:03:00.000-08:002021-02-14T13:03:36.139-08:00A Valentine for My DaughterI bought some plants the other day. Everyone scoffed because plants come to my house to die, but every so often I try again. I watch as they grow tiny buds, confident in their own regeneration, and bend toward the light. I breathe in their hope and their resilience. I tell myself that this time I will water and watch. I will sustain them. I will not let the weeks slip away as I have in the past. This time they will grow. <br /><br />The other night, when you asked me to help you fall asleep, I could have lived in the moments we spent together forever. I was so tired from my perpetual insomnia, and my COVID cough that lingers. But you gave me the gift of your gaze and we laughed and cuddled under your blanket and looked up at the lights dancing slowly across your ceiling, and my shoulders loosened and I could pretend that the rest of the day was nothing, erased, subsumed by the now. We were both so completely there. Just us. Just me and my mini-me. There was no fear, no judgment or anger at our helplessness in the face of the everyday. We were right where we belonged, in our small cocoon of time. It was perfection. But my body insisted I kiss you goodnight, break the mood, separate from you, even as my mind remained. Know that those moments will sustain me. I hope you hold them as close as I do. <br /><br />It is so easy to let the world hurt you, my love. What starts out as a tap on the shoulder, becomes a warning shove, and eventually an assault. Stand straight when you can, but falter when you must. We can not be strong forever. Our bodies know the difference and we must listen. You told me yesterday that a girl can’t do anything, can’t love anything, without judgment from another. I have thought of nothing else since you said that. Who is judging you? What are they saying? I could only sigh and remember how I thought I could never measure up. <br /><br />When I was in high school and even into college, I was sure that I was forever just the sidekick. People befriended me because I was friends with someone for whom they actually cared. I was Christina’s friend, Joanna’s friend, Jaime’s friend and so I had other friends. So I was surrounded by people, but not because of me, of who <i>I</i> was. I couldn’t imagine anyone being drawn to me. I saw myself as nothing, worthless. My worth came from finding the right person to align with. I was good at that. I don’t know when I realized that people were, in fact, drawn to me. That I had light. That I was smart. That came later. <br /><br />I built so many walls around my heart. But when it came down to it, I was never a very good engineer. There were cracks and crevices in those walls. They were forever breaking down. Water is stronger than you’d think and my tears could wear away my best defenses. I found sarcasm early on and wielded it as my strongest weapon. It was most useful against myself. If I mocked my weaknesses no one else could mention them. If I pretended strength, then that’s what people saw. I cried in the silent spaces, in my room, in the dark. I still can’t cry in front of others, even those I love. It reeks of weakness, and I must be strong. The generations of women in our family taught me that. They are and were the strongest people I know, yet sometimes I believe it is what holds me back the most. <i>You</i> are allowed to falter. Know that. As in all things, let balance be your guide. Too far toward strength, and you will push the world away, too far toward weakness and you will fall beneath its feet. <br /><br />Know that your body is everything it needs to be, and treat it so. I have watched as you grow into it anew each day, as you play hide and seek with who you are and who you want to be. You try on new styles and ideas, you give up leggings for jeans, skinny for wide legs, full length for crop tops. You don’t ask me anymore what matches. You have realized by now, I am not the one to ask. You are finding your flair, and with it your swagger. Your body too will change and morph and grow and shrink. You will find the parts you love and loathe, and those will change as well. But, let it always be you who fashions these labels. No one else should ever lay claim to your body or your mind. They are yours alone. Your body must be listened to intently. There are so many other voices competing to drown it out. It is so easy to listen to them all instead. But your body knows its hunger and needs. Let it whisper them to you. Feed your body when it asks and you will have the space to feed your soul. <br /><br />And baby, feed that soul. Find the thing that fills you up. That challenges you to push and work and glow. You are fire, sparked and ready to light up the world. Don’t be afraid of your heat. Use it and we will all be better for it. Strut across that stage and sprint the field and fill your brain and laugh and laugh and laugh. <br /><br />And know that I will be there, always waiting for your gaze to find me in the crowd, always ready to provide the light you need. <br /><br /> <br />Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-65218950883165037432021-01-24T15:58:00.001-08:002021-01-24T15:58:08.184-08:00COVID<p> I've never had the flu. My husband has. My son has. But I have never had the flu. When COVID found me I was woefully unprepared. It hurt. My throat, my head, my muscles, and my skin. My skin actually hurt. And I have been tired. So very tired. I can't shake it. All of my other symptoms have gone, but I am still so very tired. Yet, I know just how lucky I am. My whole family became positive because of me, which was unsurprising. My daughter (as she mirrors me in most things) has echoed my symptoms. She is the only one. She started with the sore throat, progressed to a fever and overall heaviness and cough. Hopefully in three days, her symptoms too will pass, leaving her with fatigue and a cough, but nothing else. Hopefully. </p><p>When the Connecticut Department of Health called me today, I was more than ready to answer all of their questions, and was humbled when they asked me about any and all help I might need. Did I need help accessing healthcare? No, my job has provided. Do I need help with rent or mortgage assistance? No. I can continue to pay my way. Am I concerned that I can not care for my loved ones? No. We are able. We are able. We are able. We are so very blessed. But for all those who are not in my position, I'm glad that we are counting. I'm glad there are people (even on the weekends) who are taking names and numbers. I'm glad that they are asking the right questions. And more than anything else, I am glad that there is someone in power who will listen to those data points. I am glad science and education are back in the White House. </p><p>For those who question, teachers are getting COVID. There are lots of us. There is mitigation of course. Masks and space and dividers help. But teachers are getting COVID. I could not teach for most of last week because of the weariness in my very bones, because if I sat up for too long I got dizzy. Because my fever made me cold all the time under layers and blankets. Because everything hurt. Because it hurt to talk. But I wanted to teach. I felt guilty not teaching. I felt like I was failing my students. There is an AP exam on the horizon. My twelfth graders are working on presentations. I still responded to their emailed questions. I still checked their progress. I still got paid, and I am ever thankful for that. But I also still felt like it was not, could not ever be enough. But as teachers, we often, if not always feel that way. We are never really enough. </p><p>My own kids were still working this past week, as well. Quarantined from school, they continued on. My daughter livestreamed into her classes and did her best to keep up. My son had asynchronous work, and livestreamed in for the read aloud at noon. They kept up. They pushed. They asked me for help. We fought over reading (for one) and math (for the other). But we pushed. We kept on. </p><p>Tomorrow I will livestream in and teach my classes. I am still in quarantine. I will do my best for my students, as always. I will be honest about my health, about my son (who will be by my side as he always is when I am home). I will check in on them all, their stress levels, their anxieties, their day to day well being. But I will do so with a new perspective. COVID is exhausting. I didn't know that weariness until this past week. I didn't really know what many of my students have known, have witnessed, have felt, until just now. I know it now. </p><p>It is a good reminder that frailty is always just a breath away. We do not know what is to come, or how we will withstand the moments of our lives. But we are able, more than we might know. We are blessed, and we are able. </p><p><br /></p>Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-83226386358817822562020-11-23T15:23:00.000-08:002020-11-23T15:23:32.295-08:00I'm fineLast night I lay with my son. Nightmare after nightmare rolled through him like seismic waves. I stayed with him all night. My alarm went off in another room and bleary eyed I crawled away. He did not notice me leaving. <div>And then in minutes, lunches made, and backpacks packed, I was walking out the door. We yelled our goodbyes across the house and my legs walked to a car I barely saw. My mind still in his room, my body still feeling his body, wiry and warm curling into mine. </div><div>It is dark outside, and pouring. My breath trembles within me and I am close to pulling over, turning back, calling in. I am tired, and this is all just too hard. But I press on. Slowly through the backsplash of the truck in front of me, slowly rounding the curve almost blindly, thankful that it is 6:30 and there is no one on the sidewalk or close to the curb. <div>I am there at the school, smiling beneath my mask as I listen to my colleagues, my friends, as they exhale their anxiety. I am an ear and a laugh. I am anything but the hug I used to be. I am my hidden smile. They ask about me, and I am fine. I am always fine. I share my night but lighten it, always. It was fine. I got some sleep. Tonight will be better. I am fine.</div><div>There is a boy outside my room. He is a teen, but now a child. His shoulders are up and he is tense. I chat about nothing and open the door. We talk about his college essay. We do not talk about his mom. The pressure. We talk about words written on a page and he relaxes. Then there are more. They trudge in, silently, and I think of every other year, of every other class that has never been this quiet. That has never been this still. They stare at me, at the wall, at nothing at all from behind masks. I call their names. They do not answer. I have seen them and they feel no need. They know I know. I stop. I breathe. I tell them that I see them. I cut open the gash that is festering. I let in the air. We need to talk. So they tell me. They speak their every pressing needs. We do not worry about the work. We will get to it. First we talk. They talk and I listen. I laugh and smile and tease. </div><div>I tell them about my night. I tell them about my beautiful daughter and how she sits there hour after hour staring at a screen, reminding her teacher in a classroom just a mile away that she is present, that she is more than just a voice. I share with them that since the start of the pandemic I have become obsessed with trauma shows. I have no time for funny. I want to feel, like there is not enough drama to fill the world from my small life alone. I am binging heartache so I don't feel my own.</div><div>I tell them I want a dog. I know that it might kill my husband, but there is a hole in my heart that has widened since COVID and the only thing that can fill it is a helpless furry creature who loves me and only me. I will not allow it to love anyone as much. That is where I am right now. </div><div>And as I share, I feel the lightening of the room. For a moment, we are all face to face, nothing in between us but the oxygen we share. For a moment we are back to what we were. </div><div>And then a hand goes up and the question is asked about the essay, about the word count about the due dates, and we are back. Reality closes in.</div><div>For now, I will live in that moment that we had. That moment where we all forgot the present. That will be the moment that gets me through the week. Because when you are the person that other people turn to, it's easier just to say I'm fine. I will sleep tonight. I know it.</div></div>Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-37654320671546538672020-10-10T05:43:00.002-07:002020-10-12T09:28:19.472-07:00Teaching in 2020<p>My birthday just passed. I am 44. I realized this morning that I have been teaching for half of my life. That is a weighty truth. Thousands of students have passed through my classroom in that time. Thousands of beating hearts heavy with the anxiety of growing up. I have been a part of that and them for a year and sometimes two. Some have become friends on social media and I get to watch them build their lives. I have been lucky. I have been lucky enough to have a job that is emotionally and intellectually fulfilling for 22 years. I have been lucky enough to work with teenagers who are curious and snarky and funny and exploding with personality (and hormones) for so long. I have been lucky enough to work with friends and colleagues who match me in intensity and excitement and who believe so much in the work we do that they have stuck it out in this ever changing, seismically shifting career of ours. I have been lucky. But this is tough. This is not like anything I have ever done. And yes, I know that this is true for everyone everywhere in every job. But most people do not have my job. Most people have not been that lucky. </p><p>My job, my career, is meaningless if the kids don't show up. But these days I have only shadows of kids. I have students whose masks have subsumed them. They have been overwhelmed and overcome. The masks cover their anxiety, blanket their trauma, and destroy their joy. I see few smiles, and hear less laughter. I am teaching to breathing avatars. Oddly, they are more alive when they are virtual, but barely. Without their joy, and candor, without their tears and hugs, without their arguments and drama, I am nothing but an automaton speaking into a void. I am exhausted. </p><p>After years of witnessing my students think critically about ideas in every form, I am standing in front of 15 pairs of glazed over eyes, who robotically take notes. After years of pacing around my room, bending down at desks, kneeling down in front of pairs and groups sprawled out in the hallway, I am a droning lecturer in front of neat rows of teenagers all facing front terrified to turn their heads to speak to the student to their left. Discussions fall flat. Relationships are strained if built at all. This is not my job.</p><p>And I am trying. Other teachers tell me, it would be better for me if I stopped caring so much. Don't worry that I won't get them to write as much, read as much, talk as much, think as much. Don't worry that they are getting shortchanged ever so much. It is out of our control. But I am not those teachers. If I become those teachers I fear I will never come back to me. Yet I know they are right. If I could leave my job at 2:15 and switch my brain to being a mom and wife, if I could leave my job at the door, I might feel better. If I could stop myself from volunteering for every committee that I think might make a student's life better, if I could just say no instead of always yes, I would have more time, more clarity, more sleep. But then I would truly be stuck. </p><p>I have been teaching for 22 years. I have another 13 years before I can retire, and I am too old, too centered in my life to leave. So I must find a way to love this job that I have been lucky enough to love until now. I must find a way to make my students smile through their masks and to keep smiling through my own. I must keep pushing myself to remember how lucky I was and how lucky I will be again. Because 2020 is not life. It is just one year. One year out of 22. I have to show up, if only so that my students will sense the fullness of my presence, and come out of the shadows to find their own. </p>Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-3911741475730353882020-06-16T07:33:00.000-07:002020-06-16T07:33:40.588-07:00graduation speech 2020<div bis_size="{'x':16,'y':8,'w':653,'h':18,'abs_x':208,'abs_y':145}">
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To the graduates of 2020, the year the world stopped.</div>
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I'm not sure about the world we're giving you. But I am sure about the generation to whom we're handing it off. I am sure about you. We have done a lot wrong here. We have remained passive when we desperately needed to act. We have watched as the rhetoric got angrier, and more hate-filled. We have listened to scientists tell us about climate change, and we have nodded and done nothing. I'm not so sure about us. But I say again, I am sure about you. </div>
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I have watched you grow. Some of you, I have taught for two years, but known for longer. Some of you, I just met this year, and some of you I only know to nod in the hallway. But I am sure of you. You are crusaders. You are passionate in your anger and your love. I have listened as you told me that the language of a book hurt your ears as well as your heart. I have listened as you told me that you wanted to see change in our classes, across the board. That there are not enough brown faces in your AP classes and your ECE classes. That there are not enough brown faces in the front of your classrooms. You have not held back when you cried out your worry for your LGBTQ classmates, who still, and always suffer the most from cyber bullying, from the type of bullying your teachers and adminsitrators don't hear. I have listened when you told me that that was all you wanted, someone who would stop, put their own stresses aside, hard as that might be, and listen. You told me about your relationships with friends being torn apart this year, and the questions you had about how you were dealing with your own relationships, and from this I know that you are asking the questions before we ever did. All of this is why I am so sure of you. You are identifying your weaknesses, so that you might learn from them. You are recognizing our weaknesses so that we may learn from them. You are growing and helping us to grow, and we are lucky for it. </div>
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You have weathered what we never had to. You lost your prom, your senior skip days, your senior prank and yearbook signings. These are not small things, though people may tell you they are. Ignore them. They are your rightful transitions, and you have lost them. You deserve to grieve them. Believe me, I have grieved them right alongside you, because I have lost my chance to witness you living those rites of passage. I will not get to sign your yearbooks and hug you goodbye, sending you off with a bit of my strength and hope for you. But know that I am sure of you. That I have every confidence that you will change our world for the better. That because you question everything, you will continue to grow and force the rest of world to grow with you. Your need for answers, and your belief that every one of your classmates deserves an equal chance to grow into this unfathomable world, makes me sure of you. You will vote, because you are sick of no one listening to your voices. I have heard those voices and they are strong. You will push and pull until our government represents all of the colors and languages you see everyday in Conard's hallways. You will be the teachers who change the face of our classrooms, and the lawyers and doctors and politicians and welders and plumbers and service men and women who change the face of our world. </div>
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We may not be handing you the best of all possible worlds, but you will go into it with a confident stride, and make it your own, and we will all be better for it. I am sure of that, because I am sure of you.</div>
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Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-10708492529534177972020-05-07T05:20:00.000-07:002020-05-07T05:22:28.520-07:00Transitions and Corona<div bis_size="{'x':16,'y':8,'w':653,'h':162,'abs_x':208,'abs_y':145}">
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<span bis_size="{"x":16,"y":8,"w":653,"h":161,"abs_x":208,"abs_y":145}" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The other night, I lay with my 7 year old son, as I listened to my husband and daughter fight about bedtime. She had asked for ten more minutes, and he had come up after eight. They were fighting for twenty minutes about two minutes. But it was never about two minutes. When he reached his limit and we both let her simmer down in bed, I went to talk to her. With tears in her eyes, she asked, "How fast will I have to speed walk to get to my classes next year?" I couldn't help but explode with laughter and hugs for her. She could have asked me anything, been worried about any number of things, but she was worried, at that moment, about whether she would get to class on time in middle school. I calmed her down, and told her she could call her cousin to talk all about it tomorrow, and we all went to sleep. But it made me think in a new way about all of this.</span></div>
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<span bis_size="{"x":16,"y":170,"w":653,"h":125,"abs_x":208,"abs_y":307}" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> My daughter won't finish fifth grade with her class. This means that she won't take a trip with her classmates to see the middle school and walk the hallways. She won't be able to say her goodbyes to the only school she's ever known. Her friends will go to different schools (some magnet, some private), and they won't get together on a school trip first to sign yearbooks all as one. These moments may seem small in the scheme of things, but each one represents one step in the huge transition from elementary school child to middle school tween. We have been so caught up in the day to day, that I had no idea that she was worrying about next year. </span></div>
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<span bis_size="{"x":16,"y":296,"w":653,"h":197,"abs_x":208,"abs_y":433}" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> It also made me think of my seniors. I teach twelfth grade English, and talking to my daughter made me realize the extent of what they must be going through on a whole different level. Their transition time has also been cancelled. They will not have "Accepted Students Day," before they commit to colleges. They will not have final bonding days and weekends that are so important as they say goodbye to friends they've known since elementary school. No prom or senior trip to blow off steam and energy that has been building toward these moments for so very long. They will not wander the schools with their yearbooks, lining up at teachers' desks asking for words of wisdom. They will not get final hugs from adults with whom they've shared questions and emotions and breakdowns. These are not small things. These are holes, that if filled would allow them to move to new places feeling ready and secure. I can see (when they check in with me virtually) that they are feeling neither of those vital emotions. And I worry about them. I worry about how this strange time will affect next year for them. How you leave a place and time is so important to how you enter the next phase.</span></div>
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<span bis_size="{"x":16,"y":494,"w":653,"h":125,"abs_x":208,"abs_y":631}" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> A few months ago, I mentioned to my teacher friends that my twelfth graders were going through the anger phase of leaving. They were blowing up their friendships with extraordinary intensity. They were shifting alliances and pushing each other away, and as their teacher, I found myself telling them how normal this is. They are getting themselves ready to leave. But I had the expectation that they would have the time to come back together, to stitch up the wounds, to stop the bleeding. But then, we all just left. How will that affect them? What will be the psychological impact of an uncauterized friendship? I just don't know. And I worry.</span></div>
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<span bis_size="{"x":16,"y":620,"w":647,"h":71,"abs_x":208,"abs_y":757}" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The more I think about these transitions, the more I think that they are similar to the stages of grief. But what happens when you are mired in the anger phase, or never get to bargaining because you haven't been given the space or the wherewithal to do so? How do you make it to the point of acceptance when you are abruptly taken from school and placed in a quarantine? My students are anxious and depressed. They no longer turn on their cameras or their minds when they come to my virtual classroom. They are disconnected, and aching for connection. I beg them to show me their faces each morning. Some of them concede. Others stay hidden. They are grieving their losses. And in my fifth grade daughter's anger each night before bed, I find the same grief. </span></div>
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<span bis_size="{"x":16,"y":692,"w":653,"h":197,"abs_x":208,"abs_y":829}" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> These transitions from fifth to sixth grade, from senior in high school to freshman in college, are so important to how we mature, and with lightening speed the pieces put in place to ease the way, have been taken from our kids. We have no easy words for them, because not one of us has been through this in just this way. There will be a lot of unexpected impacts of the Corona Virus. The effects of this moment in time on our kids going through the greatest changes in their lives is one that I had not thought about until now. But I can see them beginning to take shape in the virtual faces of
my students (those who are willing to show them to me). After twenty years of teaching, I can usually find an answer, but
across a computer screen, now, I can only send my smiles and little in the way
of advice. Just remember to get out of bed, I tell them, to go outside in the
sunshine, and to keep talking to each other and to me. I can’t provide them
with the closure they are begging for, the closure that they need, but am
hoping against hope that as a society, we’ll find a way to give it to them.</span></div>
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Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-56697862122744479482020-04-29T05:35:00.001-07:002020-04-29T13:01:53.179-07:00morning rant<div bis_size="{"x":16,"y":8,"w":653,"h":378,"abs_x":208,"abs_y":145}">
I think we all need to hear this right now. It's okay to say this is hard. I have so many friends who say, "I know I'm so lucky and shouldn't complain, but..." There is no but. You get to complain. You may have a roof over your head, and still be earning your wages, and have family in your home and heart, but you get to hate what is happening right now. Because, man, is this hard. My husband and I are working a room away from each other (when we said years ago that we could never work together) while the children try to do their own work and yet they are fighting and needing help and he is on a work call and I am trying to virtually teach (which isn't a thing, no matter what they tell you) and it is raining again and I have no more coffee and I don't want to wear a mask so I can stand in a cold, dreary line outside a supermarket for four items which will take an hour because of social distancing, and did I mention my kids were fighting again? I am exhausted and drained, and did you hear about Zoom fatigue? Yeah, I have that too. And, damn it, I am sad that I missed my Florida vacation, which is a ridiculously privileged thing to say, but I am saying it. I wanted that beach, and my skin to be warm and tan and to eat grouper sandwiches in a restaurant overlooking the water. And damn it I miss restaurants! I miss nights out without my kids. I miss hiring babysitters and overpaying them because they end up watching the neighbor's kid as well. Taking out food and bringing it to my kitchen table (half covered by an unfinished puzzle) and eating it while I stare at the mess of my house and knowing that cleaning it just means the kids will mess it up again, and trying not to care, and to enjoy my half warm food is just. not. the. same. So, say it. Say it loud and scream it into the void if you have to. I HATE THIS QUARANTINE. It is spirit and soul crushing. But look outside, right now, quickly (because it might be gone in seconds!). The sun is shining. Everything still sucks, but there is that. I'll take it.</div>
Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-61625808448412697112020-03-29T21:36:00.000-07:002020-03-29T21:36:38.268-07:00Midnight on a Corona Sunday/MondaySo, it's midnight and I've had a pretty horrible day. I was lying in bed tossing and turning, and I decided that probably a lot of people were doing the same thing, and maybe someone would do well to hear what I have to say right now.<br />
Today was tough. It rained a lot. The kids were inside all day, which meant we were inside all day. My daughter decided that the only thing that could possibly get her through all of this change was to own a bird, and own one now. My son decided that there was NOTHING in the world that could possibly make him happy, and my husband and I at some point decided that the ban on cursing in front of our children was lifted. We were done.<br />
And it's unlike me to really feel done, but as I lay there in bed tonight, I realized what it was. I have stopped laughing. I barely smile (and you all know that is not like me). And it's not because I fear the fate of the world. I know we'll get through this. It's because I fear that I am not only not doing anything particularly well right now, but I am doing it all particularly badly. I AM NOT a stay at home, home-schooling mom. I don't know how to teach my fifth grade daughter to find the area of the shaded part of the square using fractions. I don't have the patience to sit with my second grade son as he refuses to write a sentence of his informational writing assignment, even though two seconds ago he told me every word he needed to write down. My house is a mess, because it's always a mess, I am not using this time to write the novel I always wished I had the time to complete, my cooking has gotten no better, and the thing that I know I am good at...this teaching thing...for me has always relied on my being in the room where it happens. So now, hey, I am failing at that too. I just felt, this evening, that I can not do this for some "unknown quantity of time." And I got mad, and really sad, and I could not smile.<br />
So I cleaned. I went out to the car and drove to a pet store and bought my daughter a goldfish named Chickpea to take care of. I came home and helped my son rearrange his room and we all sat down and watched a silly show on tv. It didn't get better, but while I was busy doing all of those things, I realized I was breathing. The air felt a bit lighter, and my chest felt less tight.<br />
Obviously (it's midnight and I'm still awake), I didn't solve the anxiety of how we will make it through this new time (I refuse to call it my new normal...we will go back to the old way. I know), but I realized that maybe we all need to give ourselves a break.<br />
My daughter didn't get her bird, but was happy to have a fish.<br />I will never teach her math, but someone else will down the road.<br />
I will become better at virtual mom hugs and brightening your day over a computer screen, and your colleges won't care about these last couple of months, because, these are the months when THE WHOLE WORLD shut down. So, you will be fine too. We will hone the skills we have and do the learning together that we can, and we will all be fine. Because that's all we have to be. Not great, just fine. Until we're together, and great again. We'll get through this.Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-31092987083773833252020-01-14T07:48:00.001-08:002020-01-14T15:27:36.155-08:00The Piece of Myself I Didn't Know I Needed<div bis_size="{"x":15,"y":7,"w":652,"h":19,"abs_x":105,"abs_y":198}">
My Jewishness has long been a defining factor in my life, though I might not have said so in my youth. I grew up in a suburb of Hartford, on the side of town that houses a majority of the Jewish population. I lived near what was called "The Reservation," also predominantly Jewish (though all the streets boasted Native American names, not rabbinical), and my school included a large group of Jewish students. Almost all of my friends were Jewish, many of them attending the same Hebrew school as I did, all of us equally uninterested in our Judaism, but thankful for the shared history and the extra time to hang out with which Hebrew school provided us. We loathed going to services, dressing up, sitting for long hours at a time, reading a language we didn't understand, being crowded into seats next to family members who glared at us or shushed us in equal measure.</div>
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I read <i>The Diary of Anne Frank</i> in both Hebrew School and middle school, and understood a bit about the Holocaust, but didn't see how it pertained to my life. Here was a young girl in a terrible situation, but it could not have been more different from my own situation. Here was a girl surrounded by rapidly changing beliefs about herself and her family. Where once people had befriended her and played with her, she was suddenly shunned. She was surrounded by images that did not represent her own understanding of herself, and yet, had become accepted as the definition of who she and her family were (and somehow always had been...the figurative wolf in sheep's clothing). I felt for her, but didn't feel <i>like</i> her, so it was all somehow lacking in meaning for me. </div>
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In high school, I don't particularly recall learning much about the Holocaust, but I imagine we must have gone over it during history classes. I feel as though if I had read <i>Night</i> by Elie Wiesel it would have stuck with me. Looking back, I would hope that that novel, as eloquent as it is, would have made me reflect in a way that other books could not have. But perhaps I was too immature, thinking too much about my own social life and dramas to understand what others had been through so that I could be this complacent.</div>
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The only time during my youth that I ever felt "outside," or "separate," was during the Jewish High Holidays and during Hanukkah. Most years, when Yom Kippur came around in the fall, I would set my determination to fast for the day. My mother explained it to me as a worthy sacrifice, a time, once a year, when we could make ourselves uncomfortable for the purpose of reflection, and I liked the idea. But hunger usually won out over my lofty goals, and more often than not, by two p.m., I was sneaking snacks from the cupboards. I didn't resent my non-Jewish friends the day off from school, unless it was during the 2 1/2 uncomfortable hours spent in temple, when I knew they were fast asleep. I didn't even realize that most of the world did not get Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur off from public school. Most Jewish kids had to take the day off if they wanted to attend temple. I would not have then understood that there was a level of acceptance here that did not (and does not) exist elsewhere. I got through the day by thinking of the break-fast celebration that my family would have with a huge spread of bagels and lox and egg dishes, cream cheeses spread across the table, and brownies and cakes for afterwards. At the first sign of dimness in the sky, we would converge in the kitchen, mumbling prayers and grabbing food. The laughter and warmth made the day worthwhile. This is what I take with me from those days. I didn't think about the people not celebrating this holiday, nor wonder what they thought of me. That was a luxury for which I am now incredibly grateful. </div>
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Christmas time was always a bit strange, however. I understood, of course, that ours was not the religion of the majority (even if it seemed to be in my group of friends), but the barrage of Christmas trees and holiday music that began at Thanksgiving and continued into January always made me a bit uncomfortable. I smiled when I saw the occasional menorah, and appreciated the token Hanukkah songs at the Christmas concert (as it was still titled in the '90s), and was only the tiniest bit discomfited by the Merry Christmases that the teachers sang out in each classroom, as though we all celebrated this holiday, or as though the other holidays that we did celebrate were not important enough to mention. My otherness at this point was subconscious, there, but not yet frustrating. It lay below the surface, but just barely. </div>
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There were moments, of course, when my difference was thrust in my face. I buried these times, for the most part, allowing myself time to deal with them when I had matured enough to understand the motivations behind the comments. In first grade, a classmate called me a kike. I did not know what he meant, and I am sure that I just looked at him, confused, and walked away. I certainly did not ask my teacher about it. But I could tell by his sneer that the word was unkind, meant to belittle. I am not completely sure that even he understood the term. I am confident, however, that it was a term much used in his house along with other hateful epithets meant to make his parents feel stronger, better, more secure in their own relative superiority. Children don't come to these terms on their own. </div>
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I went home and asked my father about the word. He grew explosively angry, not defining the term, but telling me to punch him in the face if he said it again. I had to ask my mother, later, for the actual meaning. I don't remember her response. I couldn't empathize with my father's anger that arose from one small word. At six years old, I was secure in my world.</div>
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As a junior in high school, I got a job working as a counselor in the town camps. This was my first real interaction with high school students from the other side of town. It was the first time that someone was surprised when I told him I was Jewish. He looked at me differently for a moment, with a sort of appraisal, but it didn't feel negative, just odd. I was suddenly strange, exotic. But it became a story to tell my friends, nothing more. He hadn't seemed to be looking for horns, just changing his image of me, adapting to new knowledge.</div>
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The next summer, we had all become a bit more comfortable together, and that comfort bred a freedom of language. When I told my co-counselors that I had been accepted to Tulane University, one of them called it "Jewlane" with a smirk. I winced, but said nothing. It was just a comment, a fleeting moment. It didn't mean anything. I didn't think about the age old stereotypes that led to that comment: Jews and money; Jews and greed. Tulane was expensive. Was it greedy to go there? Was I conforming to type?</div>
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My parents always instilled in me that education was the most important part of my life. Grades and success were hugely important to them. Getting a C equaled failure in their eyes, and I was well aware of the expectation that I out-do my peers. This was true for all of my Jewish friends. We were expected to excel, to go to good schools, to push ourselves. We had to participate in sports and extra-curriculars and above all else, succeed. I didn't think about it. It was as much a part of my upbringing as the expectation that I eat healthy meals and be respectful to adults. My parents told me that education had always been important to Jewish people. I could see this in my community, but suddenly my success was being mocked. Suddenly my religion was a cause for embarrassment.<br>
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When I went to college, I surrounded myself with mostly non-Jews. My college boyfriend proudly wore a cross around his neck. I didn't talk about my religion. It set me apart. It was easy to ignore. When I walked across campus and was approached by a member of a temple just off campus, I shook my head when he asked me if I was Jewish. I can still feel the shame of denying my faith. It is a burning within me.<br>
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The summer after my junior year in college, my friend and I went to see the movie <i>Schindler's List</i>. I remember sitting in the worn down plush seats of the theater. The movie had been out for over a year, but I hadn't gone to see it. I didn't question why. He convinced me to go, and could feel the dread building. It was a nameless dread. Somewhere, deep within me was a young Jewish girl, hiding, and I was not yet ready to claim her. Halfway through the movie, the torture, deprivation, the absolute decimation of humanity broke me. I began to shake. My friend didn't notice. I clenched my entire body into a ball and trembled for the rest of the film. I couldn't speak. He looked at me, and I saw his gaze transform. I became a Jew to him in a way that I was not before. He was Christian. This was just a movie. For me, it was a turning point.<br>
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This didn't mean that everything changed, but that I began the process of accepting this part of my life, of questioning it as well. What did my religion mean to me? Did I believe in a God (absolute and terrifying? Generous and preserving?)? After college I moved in with a few friends, two of whom where Jewish, and we went to The Matzoh Ball (a dance held annually so Jewish young adults could meet). It was as awkward as you'd imagine it to be. I met and danced with who I can only imagine was the one non-Jew in the place. He had come with his Jewish friend. My parents scoffed, my friends laughed; I was more and more confused. What did I want out of my future? Could I truly abandon Judaism completely? Was there a part of me that had already made the choice?<br>
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But then I went back home, as I always did, for the High Holidays. I was surprised at the comfort and relief I felt. I was surrounded by hundreds of people who shared the traditions of my past. There was a deep, somehow innate connection, a tie that bound us all together irrevocably. There was, in fact, no choice to be made. I was home, not in the language being spoken (which I understood even less than I did as a teen), but in the unspoken language of faith. It became less about God, and more about family, heritage, and history. Here, we sat in a temple after so many had been destroyed by enemies of our religion. The sun shone through the stained glass windows and promised hope. There was not yet a policeman guarding the door, just my community clamoring to enter the sanctuary. Here was a place of absolute safety.<br>
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Now, when I bring my children to temple, there is a guard who smiles at me and high fives the kids. I look warily at the gun holstered on his hip. I cannot help but think about the rise of antisemitism around the world: Attacks in New York City, swastikas in schools, hate speech elevated to political rhetoric. Every year I declare my Jewishness to my students. This is who I am. This is who we are. I talk to them about my holidays. For each of the memories of which I am ashamed, I have created another memory of standing up, making noise, demanding change.<br>
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<li>The picture of the Madonna and Child came down from the middle school office wall after a meeting I had with the principal.</li>
<li>When swastikas were plastered across the walls of that same middle school, I spoke clearly and personally to my students about the physical pain I felt seeing that black sharpied shape on a place I held sacred.</li>
<li>I taught the book <i>Night</i> to my 9th graders with pride and calls to action, teaching about those who resisted as much as about those who were forced to succumb.</li>
<li>I teach all of my students to be not only an ally but a soldier for inclusion and understanding, to break down barriers, to talk to each other.</li>
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And I reflect, always, on the rhetoric of the powerful and the expected silence of the powerless.<br>
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Elie Wiesel said, "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." I chose sides. I chose strength. I chose to raise my voice. My mezuzah hangs as a proud identifier on my door frame and a menorah stands in my bay window for all to see.<br>
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Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-84561368101936117502019-12-31T08:16:00.001-08:002020-01-01T13:10:55.022-08:00a promise for the new yearWhen you have a child with ADHD or any set of initials that will follow him through life, you learn yourself anew. You find tiny triumphs and grasp them tightly, hold them high like the trophy he deserves. But you also learn exhaustion in a whole new way. His need is such that finding space to breathe is a luxury, that remembering yourself without him is harder and harder, that finding ten minutes to lift a weight, to type, to read, is a pleasure that holds you through the day. It has to.<br>
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When you have a child who struggles, you sometimes neglect the one who doesn't. The sibling who still needs but not as stridently. The sister who reaches out through tears and anger and kindness, trying to be seen. It's easy to divert your focus. To say, she is fine, will be fine, will land on her feet, is strong. It's easy not to see that she is hurting too.<br>
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When you have a child who is so close to your heart that it seems he lives there, it's easy to forget you have a husband who remembers who you were before. Who needs your time, your thoughts, your dreams as well.<br>
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How do you work it out?<br>
How do you balance?<br>
How do you choose who loses?<br>
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Each day is a question of losses and wins, and trial and error, of so many failures and forgotten triumphs.<br>
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Each day is a chance to hug and love and laugh, and remember joy.<br>
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I can not promise I have enough to go around, just that each day I will offer what I have to give, remembering, as I do, to save a piece for me as well.Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-74506772007726719482017-11-30T15:41:00.001-08:002017-11-30T15:41:52.127-08:00I am the kind of exhausted that stems from body, spirit and mind. It is the kind you feel in your bones. It is the kind that makes you question it all. Am I the woman for this job? Am I strong enough to parent and teach and exist as someone separate and unto herself? Can I also be a wife and a daughter? A niece and a cousin? Am I a sister if I barely see my brothers? Who is this person, after all?Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-47559257988415532362017-01-20T17:32:00.001-08:002017-01-20T17:32:25.467-08:00I Will MarchPeople keep asking me if I am excited for Saturday I don't know how to respond. Am I excited? No. I am everything else. I am nervous. I don't like crowds. I went to school in New Orleans and stood on Bourbon Street during Fat Tuesday once. Once. I am five foot nothing, and when I felt my feet leave the ground, I was terrified. There will be 1,000,000 people at the march in D.C., and I am still five foot nothing. I am frustrated. I don't like the cold. It is January. I will be outside. I want D.C. in spring, not winter. I am annoyed. I originally thought most of my friends would be making the trip. They are not. I am not a huge fan of busses or sleepless nights. I will be on a bus for 6 hours in the middle of the night. I am not excited. But I am going. Because I must. I will be marching with my mother. She grew up in the 60s. This will not be her first march. She marched so that I would not have to. But Saturday, we will march together. Because I have a daughter. She is lovely and bright and filled with energy. She had an "awesome" day today because, I kid you not, she had a math test. This excites her. She is and will be a force to reckon with, and she will never be touched or grabbed or violated in any way, if I have anything to say about it. But I am tired of turning off the news when she enters the room. Just the other day, her old school was on the news. She attended a Jewish Community Center school until she was in kindergarten. On Wednesday, someone called in a bomb threat. This was the case across the country, not just in our town. Friends texted me. They worried about their children, being walked across the campus. I imagined their teachers, acting silly, trying to distract them from the abrupt change in routine, trying to ensure they felt safe. My children were not there, and I felt relief, and guilt. So I will march. Because this, this new reality is not okay with me. I have watched my friends in other states post about incidents of antisemitism. In my naivety, I thought, "How sad, but not here. We will not have that sort of thing here." We pretend, you see. We are safe. We are in a blue state. I teach at a diverse school, in a diverse town. My children will never be called kikes, or find a swastika on their classroom doors. But just a week ago, someone made a swastika in the snow. It was later turned into a peace sign. But it did not negate the first iteration. This is why I will march.<br />
I am a teacher. A good number of my students attended the inauguration of a president about whom I have grave reservations. Will he protect their rights and their needs? Will he allow them to be curious, to question and contradict? Will there be security and safety for their parents who need it most? Or will he tweet away their safety? We have worked so hard to make them feel included, to feel they had a voice. Do they still? Will they always? I will march on Saturday to let them know that if I have a say, so will they. I will do what I can, what I am allowed, so that some day, they might choose to do the same. Some day, there will still be a place to make the choices that in my lifetime have remained a right. Some day, there will be a person in the White House who sees them as an equal part of this great nation, who allows them all the chance to live, to prosper, to thrive, no matter who their parents were. Someday, we will all remember that we are a nation of immigrants first and foremost, that women birthed this nation, and that children must not bear the burden of their fathers. <br />
I am a mother, and a teacher, and a Jew. This is why on Saturday, no matter my discomfort, in spite of my discomfort, because of my discomfort, I will march. And like my mother before me, I will do so, so that they don't have to.Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-23358594898045028812017-01-08T08:15:00.000-08:002017-01-08T08:15:53.220-08:00My PledgePreviously Published in Huffington Post on 11/09/2016:<br />
<br />
I don't think I can say the Pledge of Allegiance today. I teach high school students, and second period, when we all say the Pledge together, I will be sharing my room with my eleventh grade Advanced Placement Language and Composition students. I have spent the last three months teaching them about the power of words. I don't think I can use those words today. I don't think I have any words to speak today that will be good enough or strong enough to quell my fears, or to touch the unnamed fears my students must be harboring. I have brown skinned children in my class. I have blue haired girls, and muslim young women. I have strong women in my class. I believed that I would walk in today able to speak to that strength, able to hand to them an America that I believed in. But today, something has shifted, and I don't know how to form the words, to make them believe that I support this man. He has bullied, and shamed, and hurt so many. He has divided and belittled and served no one but himself. He is now America. As a teacher, how can I support that? How can I tell them that their America is still alive and well, when we have now seen another country rise up in our midst. The Trump country is one of ignorance, resisting intellect with wild abandon. The Trump country is one of ownership, of women's bodies, of guns and division. It is one of dishonesty again and again and again. It is anti-constitutional, even as he claims to hold up the second amendment. He keeps the press out. He holds no belief in the power of discourse. He is a one man government, who will surround himself with men like him, who would have gladly joined him in his "locker room," and they will laugh together at the world that they are raising, and the future that looks more and more like a past we have tried to forget.<br />
And perhaps that is the problem. We allowed ourselves to forget. We believed we were safe, because we had already created a sense of equality in our nation, we had already fought for civil rights, and women's rights, and marriage equality, and perhaps we forgot that each of those rights is not built on a cement foundation. That the wrong Supreme Court addition nominated by this man, can turn each of these successes into dust. Perhaps we forgot that we still need to fight. Perhaps we forgot that each of these victories left blood on the battlefield, but clearly not enough.<br />
So maybe I have found my words as I write this out. Maybe all I say to my students, is that we have to keep fighting. We have to hold on to what we have built, and not allow it all to be demolished by the many angry people who won their own small minded battle last night. <br />
We will fight for the words, for the language, for our beliefs that still can stand even in the face of this new America, which has risen from the shadows.<br />
My Pledge is this: I Pledge Allegiance to civility, to brotherhood, and sisterhood, and goodness. I pledge to protect those in my care and those who need my care. I pledge to support those fighting for my safety and for my ability to share these beliefs with the world at large. I pledge to love. One Nation. Indivisible.Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-74070489982584747652016-08-29T14:12:00.001-07:002016-08-29T14:12:21.356-07:00Oh Bon Appetit...You Lost MePublished August 29, 2016 at Huffington Post<br />
<br />
Dear Bon Appetit,<br />
You may have just lost me. I have been, until today, a lover of all things you. I subscribe to your magazine and gush over the pictures. My husband and I shout recipe ideas over the sound of our screaming children. "We should make this on Saturday," I'll say. He'll agree and offer to make a list of whatever ingredients we may not have in our pantry. We dream up dinner parties as we page through each new edition. And I love your emails. My husband and I race to forward them to one and other. "Subject: Tonight?" <br />
But I thought you understood me too. I thought we were simpatico. But now, I know, we are as far apart as Earth from the most recently identified planet with the possibility of life. You just don't get me. Today, I received this in my inbox: <a href="http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/family-meals/slideshow/30-quick-easy-school-lunches-pack-kids?">30-quick-easy-school-lunches-to pack for kids</a>. I got excited. My two children go to school. My two children need lunch. I need these lunches to be "quick and easy" as I am a teacher, who needs to be out of the house by 6:30. I do not have time to labor over the oven in the morning. I require speed and convenience. I assumed that was what I was getting when I clicked on your oh so tempting link. But, Bon Appetit, this time, you failed me.<br />
You gave me zucchini pancakes, and pinto bean and ham tortas. You gave me vegetarian sushi and fresh herb falafel. You gave me noodle salad with chile scallion oil. You were wrong on so many levels, that it became hard for me to click through the slideshow of insanity. It's not that my children don't like good food. Well, at least one of them inherited our foodie genes. My daughter eats raw oysters and crumbled blue cheese. She loves tuna and avocado sushi. But she is 6 and 1/2 and does not love spice. So, chili oil, maybe not so much. But it's not even the ingredients your recipes call for. There is nothing quick or easy, or even lunch-box-compatible in these meals. Is my daughter meant to know how to construct her own tofu summer roll out of lettuce, fresh basil, cucumbers and carrots, each placed neatly in their own adorable container? And when exactly are my husband and I supposed to have the time to be stirring in "t<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "graphik web light" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">hinly sliced scallions (green parts), toasted sesame seeds, and chopped peanuts" to my daughter's "quick fried rice"? This is, of course, ignoring the fact that my son eats only cream cheese sandwiches (to which you suggest adding sliced salami and pickles), or Wow butter and jelly sandwiches (because peanuts aren't allowed). So, forgive me if I'm not seeing how this relates in any way to me, or any mother I know, for that matter.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "graphik web light" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> It pains me to say, that you may have lost touch with us "normals." Our kids run around the kitchen island screaming, often naked, with a granola bar in one hand and their sibling's favorite stuffy in the other. Their lunches consist of basic sandwiches. These may include the gourmet turkey and cheese, with a vegetable/fruit pouch, and a bar of sorts. I have bought sandwich rounds (circular bread) so that I don't have to take the time to cut off the crust for my son. That is to say that our mornings are about survival. They are about getting out the door. They are about brushing teeth, wearing clothes that approximate the weather outside, and finding shoes. Because, god knows, the pair is never together. The right one is behind the chair, and the left is under the couch. Or upside down at the bottom of the stairs. Or under a bed in the wrong child's room. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "graphik web light" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> Perhaps Gwyneth Paltrow is now doing your editing. It is clearly no longer someone in touch with those of us who work, and don't have nannies. Because <i>we</i> are all about the basics. We are all about just making it by the skin of our teeth through the mornings. We are not making sweet potato and black bean burritos on a week day. I'm not sure who is.</span></span></span>Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-25834289225693159112016-08-15T06:13:00.001-07:002016-08-15T06:13:37.925-07:00The Great Divide<div class="MsoNormal">
Published at www.huffingtonpost.com 08/2016<br />
<br />
When I started teaching English, I thought the job was about
the books. Don’t get me wrong, I was
always in it for the kids, but I thought I was going to teach them to love
books. I thought I was there to instill
in them a love of Literature. But more
and more I realized that the books were the tools, the wrenches and pliers, and
it was my job to teach my kids to use those tools to build bridges between
the kids and their world.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More than anything, my students need to understand how they
connect to each other and how they can communicate that connection. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because, really, isn’t that the problem we have in our world
today? Watch the news. I dare you.
It’s awful out there. As the
divide between the police and the people they protect grows, as the divide
between those who have more and more, and those who have less and less grows, as
the divide between the cultures we understand and those we do not grows (even
as our world seems to shrink), the thing we are lacking is that basic human
connection.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so I try to teach my students to connect. It starts with connecting to me. From the first day of school, they learn my
life. I talk to them about my kids. I talk to them about my beliefs. No longer do they see a teacher who keeps her
ideologies silent. I am the first book
they learn. And because of that, we
connect. Then, they connect to each
other. We have discussions and
debates. We talk about the problems in
the world. We talk about the
possibilities in the world. We talk
about books, but we focus on how they connect to our world. What they can teach us about the people
around us, and how they can help us empathize and reach out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I grew up in this town.
I went to high school in this town, left for college and stayed away for
another 5 years, and then I came back to this town to teach. But, this town, my town, could be anywhere in
the United States right now. Every year
we grow more diverse, not less. Every
year it becomes more and more important to find ways to sympathize if not empathize,
to reach over the divide and find the similarity, the humanity, the “us” in the
“other.” When I was in high school in
the ‘90s, my school was mostly white. My
classes were homogenous, and my friends were as well. The connections were implicit. Of course, there were cliques. Of course kids were different from one and
other, but my high school photos show a very different group of kids, from
those of today. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Looking around my tenth grade English class today, my former
self would be shocked by the diversity. Just
shy of half the class are minorities, and the socio economic status of the kids
runs the gamut. This class is a
microcosm of the larger world. Yet, in
my class they work together, in our cafeteria they eat together, in our
hallways they mix and match in ways my younger self wouldn’t have thought
possible. So, the connections <i>can</i> happen. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem comes when they leave. Because though the world looks a lot like our
school, the adults in their lives, and the adults they will meet, have not
grown up going to schools like theirs.
They never learned to connect.
They learned to categorize and separate.
That is what they know. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, perhaps my students will be strong enough to overcome
instead of be overtaken. Hopefully one
of the tools they will carry out of this building will build the bridge for my
generation to walk over as well. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because, right now, all I see when I turn on the news is the
great divide.<o:p></o:p></div>
Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-56992739892289928082016-06-27T12:04:00.000-07:002016-06-27T12:04:35.862-07:00Lessons Learned<div class="MsoNormal">
The other night I awoke at one in the morning and lay tossing and
turning for an hour or so. Many things
raced through my mind as I tried to find comfort in my twisted sheets, but it
wasn’t until I got up in the morning that I realized what really woke me up. Another academic year is over. I have seen my seniors for the last time, and have watched them graduate into the lives they will lead; I have said goodbye to my younger students. This year is a hard one to let go
of, but not for the reasons you would think.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have been teaching for 16 years, and this was the first
year I spent any time on the computer searching for another career. This year marked my moment at the
crossroads. I looked closely at my
teaching, at my students, and at myself and wondered if there was anything else
that I could do. I never thought of
leaving education entirely, mind you, just pondered where I could be more
helpful. Where I could enact the kind of
change that would truly make a difference.
Because, in so many ways, and for so many reasons, I think we have
forgotten that that’s why most of us enter this profession. Yes, the job has changed. We have become data crunchers and curriculum
writers, editors, and re-writers. We have
become “accountable” to everyone and for everything, and the definition of accountability
seems to be constantly in flux. We have
been told to raise our standards, make our courses more rigorous, and always to
recommend every student for the toughest course possible. Everyone takes AP English, but no one learns
how to craft a letter to his boss, or craft a budget. All of these anxieties about EDUCATION as an
ideal, about EDUCATION as a concept, frustrated me and angered me throughout
the year. I lost two former students to
gang violence and blamed it on our schools.
I sat through mind numbing professional development and got
angrier. Nothing seemed to be helping
the students I most wanted to help. What
were we really doing here? What was I
doing at all? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But today. Today, I
think of my students, the ones who struggled and the ones who soared, and I am flooded with
joy at my choice of career. I know each
of these individuals. Over the year, we
have laughed so hard together (mostly at my life’s foibles, which I tend to
hold up proudly for them day after day).
We have created nick names and in so doing created trust. We have shared some brutally honest moments
in discussing our world and ourselves. I
have learned toughness from some and compassion from others. And I have watched them work, harder than
they thought they could. I have seen
them strive. In their last days of school, I saw their pride and
I matched it with my own, and I knew finally and completely that I should not be anywhere else, doing
anything else. I am exactly where I need to be, and this has been true all along.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not everyone was born for a profession, but I was born to
teach. This is my life’s blood and that
more than anything is the lesson of this year.
But even passion is a muscle that needs to be stretched. When we get too comfortable, it reminds us
through its throbbing pain that attention must be paid. So this summer I will read and revamp and
ready myself to attack another year with the emotion and excitement that comes
with this renewed dedication to my job.
And little by little, the concept and ideals of EDUCATION will change,
because so many of us are working from within our classrooms, in our own small
ways to make sure that every child within our reach has what he needs to lead a
life of excellence (whatever that may look like). It’s worth it to remember that by changing
the conversation in my classroom, I am changing the conversation in the
world. And that’s enough for this one teacher.<o:p></o:p></div>
Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-42713301348886464462016-04-05T10:28:00.002-07:002016-04-05T10:28:47.712-07:00Expectations of a senior<div class="MsoNormal">
Previously published on <a href="http://www.grownandflown.com/">www.grownandflown.com</a><br />
<br />
Last week, on a daily basis, my seniors counted down the
days and minutes until the end of the semester.
Daily they reminded me that school would cease to matter in 5, no 4, no
3 days and 100 minutes. Daily I reminded
them that I begged to differ. But I and
they knew the truth. Second semester of
senior year is something to be cherished.
It is something to be glorified.
They have worked and studied and waited, and now, today they will be
rewarded. Well, yes and no. I will still hand them an article to read and
annotate. I will still expect them to
think and discuss and write and, yes, work.
But the pressure is off. I await
their smiles as they float, weightless, into my room, and we will start the
class by breathing into this next phase of life. Because, in reality, for the last year and a
half, many of them have been holding their breath. I have watched as they filled out
applications, took test after test, bubbling in the bubbles, checking and
rechecking answers that grow more confusing the more they reread them, feeling
their future weighing heavily on their shoulders, more heavy for the
expectations of parents and teachers and administrators riding along. But today, the boys will stretch out their
long legs beneath desks that can barely contain them. They will lean back into their seats. The girls will smile and laugh just a bit
more freely (always more contained than the boys who can not help but put it
all out there, laughter too loud, but impossibly infectious), eyes glittering
with the future in their view. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I always avoided teaching seniors because of this time of
year. How would I keep them
interested? How would I keep them
engaged? As teachers, we crave the
carrot on the end of the stick, but what is the carrot for the second semester
senior? It is freedom. It is the world of adulthood. These are things I can not give them, and
only seem to be making more elusive as I force them to sit in my classroom, and
somehow be present for 48 minutes, when they could be sleeping. But what I have realized in the last two
years of witnessing "senioritis" is that my expectations, as they usually are,
were misguided. Yes, they are excited,
and impatient, and ready, so ready for the next phase of their lives to
begin. But many are also terrified, and
nervous beyond any explanation, and ridden with anxieties as they gaze into the
unknown. Because until now, they have
known what every minute of every day would hold. We have fed to them the routines that shape
them. Each day follows a pattern much
the same as the day before down to the minute.
They respond to bells and alarms and ref’s whistles and alerts on their
phones. They are trained to live in this
world of understood patterns.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But next year is a world where alarms will ring only if set
by them. Routines will change and
parents may not be there to remind them of their obligations to classes and
sports and clubs. They will oversleep
and forget and miss due dates and have to address professors and deans
themselves. And they are terrified of
who they are being somehow not enough to live this un-tethered life. Because no matter how much confidence we have
instilled in them, there is a tiny part in their brains, that says they are
somehow not ready, woefully unprepared. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, in my class, we will talk about expectations. We will read about authentic experiences, and
what it means to truly be in the moment.
We will write about their prepackaged expectations of college life, and
we will talk about the possible pitfalls of those expectations. Because life is about what we think will
happen paving the way for what will really happen. I will listen closely to them so that I can
find the words behind the words revealing their anxieties, and I will speak to
those with confidence and laughter, and I will let them know that they are
prepared. They are enough. And if for
some reason, they are not, there are protections in place, and homes and arms
ready to offer them what they lack. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
When it comes down to it, it is all about our expectations
after all. If our expectations are
realistic, then our reality will not surprise us with its sharp edges when we
fall. <o:p></o:p></div>
Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-19438830219945226132016-04-05T10:28:00.000-07:002016-04-05T10:28:02.662-07:00Mom-nesiaIt is amazing the amnesia (mom-nesia?) that hits at the end of most days. Consider this: We are on a family vacation with my parents. On Monday, my husband and father went to play golf. My mother and I stayed with my two kids, who are 5 1/2 and 3 years old. The day was pure insanity from the get go. There was screaming and toys were broken. There were tantrums and tears and punches and bites. Some from the kids, others not so much. We did not make it to the beach until 11, though preparations started much earlier. My mother adores my children, always and forever, until she has had enough and reserves the right to close her eyes, sigh, and leave them to me. She's earned the privilege of ignoring them at their worst, and then some. But I digress; by noon, I felt I had lived through three days at the very least, and there was so much time before the monsters went to bed...My 3 year old's horrible behavior continued unabated and when I finally cracked, it was the sand throwing that did it. Though that was the least of the problem behaviors of the day. I picked him up, put him in the wagon and dragged him back to the house (by the handle of the wagon, not by his sandy locks, though I was tempted), where he refused to nap for 45 minutes. When <i>we</i> woke up from our much needed nap...something had happened. The air had shifted. My chest felt suspiciously lighter, like it wasn't holding back the screams of generations of mothers. I could breathe, and looking over at my son, I noticed that he too felt it. He was giggling and suddenly I was laughing and there was a ball and toys and playing and merriment and when my husband got home and offered to watch the kids while my mom and I went out to dinner, I actually found myself protesting! <br />
I mention all of this, because, as every mother knows, it is not an anomaly. Every mother suffers from (sometimes debilitating) mom-nesia. It gets in the way of our drop offs, and time outs. It gets in the way of dinner reservations and drinks with friends. It is a problem.<br />
There are points during many of my days, when all I want is space to breathe. All I want is time away from my attention needing, constantly fighting, mommy calling, children. But by the end of a nap, or a glass of wine or a hug-cuddle-tickle session, mom-nesia kicks in again, and all seems right with my crazy little world. It is not news that we forget the pain and horrors of childbirth, but no one told me about the day to day forgetfulness that allows me to continue this job. Oh yes, there are moments...moments when I want to get in my car and drive. When I want to scream and curse and shake and growl. When I want to just give up. But then we are on a beach and they are running after each other and laughing. They are lying in the wet sand, letting the waves crash over them, and they are pure unadulterated joy and I can not imagine any other life. There are moments when we are in our house amidst a chaos of toys and they are moving chairs and stuffies and blankets and jumping and spinning and creating rules that make no sense to my adult ears, and I am entranced on the stairs, for once not waiting for the next shedding of tears, or the next scream, because I am seeing their hearts and loving their noise and I am thankful, so thankful for the now. And the screaming of five minutes ago, which was so intense and angry is just...gone. But the most amazing element of this psychosis (if it's not listed in the DSM, it should be!) is that when I do get away, when I take my husband up on the chance for a drink or a day off or moment alone, when the babysitter has been hired, or playdate arranged, mom-nesia really kicks in. The scene may be blissful; I am on a terrace, high above the sea, glass of white grenache in my hands, crab dip at my fingertips, and a confidant across the table. But I am thinking of their smiles, and that freckle above her right eyebrow. I am wondering if they are engaged or zoning out. Are they missing me or playing at a high pitch, mommy far from their minds? And when given the option for more time away, or time to go back, the psychosis answers for me. <br />
Take me home. Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-1243660319119005472016-04-05T10:27:00.001-07:002016-04-05T10:27:41.372-07:00This New Year's EvePreviously published on <a href="http://www.yellowbrick.me/">www.yellowbrick.me</a><br />
<br />
This New Year's Eve, you are six and your brother is 3 1/2. Your mom is 39 and your dad is 47. We will all be here together tonight , but unlike last year and the year before, we've decided to celebrate this one without any hoopla. This year will be just us. Our family, in our house. I may do some clean up of toys and perhaps even some vacuuming, but there will not be the chaotic straightening up that comes when people are coming over. I have done the dishes, so that we can begin defiling them again when your father gets home from work. I have warmed the extra room, so that we can all be together on the same floor as your dad and I cook, and that is probably all I will do right now. I have thought about putting up decorations, and perhaps we will do that in a bit, but right now, I am enjoying the quiet. The end of this year deserves quiet. <br />
It has been a tumultuous year in some ways, and yet, looking back, I cannot put my finger on any one thing that happened. We were in many ways, just us, a family, firmly ensconced in the middle class of a wealthy state in a relatively well off nation. We hit some financial bumps, where we questioned the way we were choosing to live, and while your dad and I got a bit snarky with one and other, we did not let it rock us. I have faith that your father will keep my accounts balanced in all ways figuratively and literally, and I reminded him of that when he needed it. I have faith in him. I have faith in us. There were days when I worried about you as you passed milestone after milestone. But, while relishing in each new success, your first soccer trophy, your first lost tooth, chapter books begun, and math equations finished, you didn't let a single disappointment mar your day. You have found your stride, and I am in awe of your pace as you wind your way through this life. I could spend time worrying about your brother's smash 'em bash 'em lifestyle, but I have chosen to seek comfort in his morning and evening snuggles, and his silliness. He is quick like his big sister, learning his ABC song, and recognizing more numbers and letters every day. He is very much three years old with his temper and his attempts to control the world around him aggressively, but he is also filled top to bottom with love for his family, and hugs and kisses, and quick "I love you" check ins, when he can't find one of us. As they were and are for you, his transgressions are easy to forgive. He would follow you anywhere, and you must remember this as you and he will be each other's touchstones throughout your lives. You will always be his first idol. Be careful with him. He is more fragile than he appears. We all are.<br />
Outside of our family, things were more driven by confusion and chaos. This is one of the reasons I am happy to put up our family shield, enclose us in our bubble and ignore the rest. There has been unrest everywhere I looked this year, and while I can't and won't shield you from it, we have kept it from you for now. Friends have gotten sick, and gotten better. Families have dissolved, and ties have weakened. My understanding of our small and larger world seems to grown foggier. There is so little clarity in the violence of our cities and suburbs. I pose question after question, and find no answers. But if there is any lesson I can take away from this year, is that it all comes down to where you choose to lay your faith. It seems to me the safest place to put it, is in the people you hold close, but never all in one person's hands. Because some will misuse it. Some will get greedy with it, assuming it can not be destroyed. But faith is tenuous at best. It must be cradled, and often rocked. It must be soothed when need be. It must be reminded that the one who holds it is deserving. It is a precious gift. <br />
So my beautiful daughter, this New Year's Eve, place your faith in me, and your father, but not only in us. Give some to the magic of your world. I am jealous of your forceful belief in the tooth fairy and Santa, but I am also jealous of your passionate faith in the adults of your world. You have given your teachers, and your parents and your grandparents the gift of being superheroes in your life. So, here's to your faith in all those around you. May we all regain a bit of it just by being near you this year, and may we all remain deserving of it always.Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-48330058679817377022016-04-05T10:27:00.000-07:002016-04-05T10:27:01.935-07:00Have I destroyed parenting for my younger friends? Previously published on <a href="http://www.yellowbrick.me/">www.yellowbrick.me</a><br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong. I don't believe that I am so important in the lives of my millennial friends that I am the deciding factor in whether or not they have kids. But I have been watching them, and I am wondering. <br />
My generation, those of us born in the '70s, seem to have the loosest lips when it comes to parenting. Some time in the last decade, people started telling the truth. We started talking about the sleeplessness, the frustrations and the reality that sometimes, even though, we love our children (and we do...we really really do), we don't like them at every moment of every day. Because frankly, they can drive us to the brink of insanity, and pull us back a moment later. <br />
But I worry. Because at work, my younger friends see my exhaustion. When they ask me about it, I tell them that Josh threw tantrums for an hour before bed, again...that Abby is 6 going on 14 and fights me with every ounce of her being, about nothing and everything. That every morning, just getting them dressed and out the door is a feat of extraordinary heroism. That Josh clings to me, as his nose runs, and he coughs his craggy cough, and I just want two minutes of me time to do a push up (just one) or read a sentence from my book or stare blankly at the television screen, but if I do leave him alone, even with his sister, within minutes (sometimes seconds) there will be screaming and the sound of something (someone?) falling. And most of the time I just want to scream. I tell them these things, and maybe I shouldn't.<br />
But it's not just me. I don't believe that I am that powerful. But there are blogs, and essays ad infinitum from moms and dads, preaching to the world about just how hard this job is...and strangely enough, these young 30 year-olds smile at my tired eyes, give me a hug, and put off having babies for another year, maybe two.<br />
Would I have done it, had I known? Would I have read all of these blogs, and still had my two monsters? I think I would have. But then, I even refused to read <i>What to Expect When You're Expecting</i>, because it was too honest for me. I didn't want to know what could happen. I figured I'd learn about it when it <i>did </i>happen. Now, the truth is so much harder to avoid. As a mom, I love that the truth is out there. I love that I can read about others going through what I am, and feel less isolated. I love that I can speak to my mom friends and hear about the horrors of their mornings, and somehow feel like I can make it through the day now, too. I especially love that when I did a search on the internet about why my three year old was refusing to swallow his food, leaving it clumped and chewed in his cheek for later investigation, I found story after story from parents experiencing the same thing. No one had an answer, but I no longer felt like my child was a complete freak. It was a phase, and he would get over it (which, thank goodness, he has).<br />
But are we giving these millennials too much information, or is it just enough for Darwin to do his thing? Maybe we need a bit more survival of the fittest when it comes to parenting? I don't know, but for now, I like that we're all talking.<br />
<br />Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-57184512572693023262016-04-05T10:26:00.002-07:002016-04-05T10:26:28.857-07:00Perfection VS Goodness<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Previously published on <a href="http://www.yellowbrick.me/">www.yellowbrick.me</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I was thinking today about stress and anxiety and
our never ending search for perfection from ourselves and those around us and
came across this quote by John Steinbeck: <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good” (<i>East of Eden)</i>. Steinbeck’s words stopped me in my tracks, as
they usually do. But I am an English
teacher and a writer and I am often left speechless by the language of the
greats. What if we taught our kids not
to be perfect, but to be good? What if
we could somehow got away from the competition, from the endless hunt for
excellence, and could teach them that being good was more important than being
better? How might that look? I think the world would look as it does
through the eyes of a first grader. I
think it would be beautiful. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I was watching
television with my daughter the other night and she asked why one of the characters
was having nightmares about school. I
said that she was worried about not doing well on a test. Abby looked at me as though I was crazy. “But she can just do better the next
time. The teacher will give her lots of
chances. They always do. They want her to do better.” I hugged her tightly and said that she was
right, of course she was right. Every
day is a new chance to do better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Abby has not
realized, yet, that she is already being set against her classmates in
competition. Her teacher sends home a weekly
math sheet filled with addition practice and asks parents to time their kids
and mark down how many they did in 5 minutes.
Abby has not thought to check herself against her classmates, to see if
she got as far as, or farther than her friends.
It would never cross her mind.
But soon enough it will. Soon
enough a friend will ask to see her work.
They will start comparing, and Abby will want to be better, or will get
frustrated that her friend completed more than three rows or five rows or
however many rows. Soon enough, doing
the work for the sake of understanding will no longer be acceptable. She will begin to seek perfection. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And really, I am
torn. I want her to be her best. I want her to strive for better from herself
always, because that will be her true education. But I don’t want her to lose the joy of
learning to the competition, because it is the rare soul who has both. Once in a while I meet a student who still
just loves to learn. I have one in mind
now. I taught him for two years and
always felt that he was not entirely of our world. He finds joy in everything, and the more he knows,
the more his curiosity grows. He is so
very present in all aspects of his life, and I am utterly in awe of this young
man. But I think he has managed this
love of life and learning in spite of, not because of school. He spent many of his school years in another
country, and came here for high school only.
Maybe this is why he does not have that edge, that sharpness, that ache
to be better than the rest. Maybe this
is why he is able to always float above the fray. He has not been taught to compete with anyone
but himself. At his very center is tranquility. And most of us, who can not claim this same
serenity, are drawn to the few who can.
It is so foreign, so mysterious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Because at my center
is a nervous ball of energy. It radiates
chaos that I must control and keep in check, but it also gives me strength to
keep moving, keep striving, keep working, keep competing. I can sense that Abby’s center is my own,
that she will have to search for peace to balance out her chaos. As long as she
knows she only has to best herself, that perfection ends the journey, and
goodness is the goal, then I will feel as though I too have done my best for her.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-67671259894910735932016-02-12T10:45:00.000-08:002016-02-12T10:45:54.309-08:00Don't Quit<div class="MsoNormal">
It is time to lift each other up. No one else will do it. If we do not praise each other, if we do not
remember that we are a community stronger in our numbers than alone, than we
lose. Our numbers are beginning to fall
as it is. All over the country the
numbers of people entering teacher preparatory programs are diminishing. You
can see it <a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/10/22/09enroll.h34.html">here</a>. Those in the profession warn others away, and
even our most well known and well respected educator, Nancy Atwell, told her audience that they
should not become teachers (<a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2015/03/award-winner-nancie-atwell-advises-against-going-into-teaching.html">here</a>). It is too hard, too unforgiving, too under-compensating. There is reason in all of this. But those of us who are already teachers, are
in it. We are here, and more than ever,
we need to remember why. So let me
remind you.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Teachers are the absolute best people I know. They are generous, giving up free time to
talk to any student at any time. They
will answer phone calls, respond to emails, edit student work, cover classes,
and make copies for absent teachers, even when they know there are a million other things that need
doing at that exact moment, all equally urgent. They will do
it all for no extra compensation. They
will do it all knowing full well that they make the same salary 15 years into
their job, as many professionals do just starting out. You would be lucky to meet one person who is as good, as understanding, or as open in any other job. I know this to be true.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps they are crazy.
Perhaps they should be fighting and refusing to do the extra pieces that
those above them keep demanding. Perhaps
they should teach their classes, close their doors, and watch the clock. Isn't that the perception anyway? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the teachers I know, and I consider myself blessed to
know so many, live and breathe their jobs.
We raise other people’s children along with our own, and know that each
one of them carries a piece of us wherever they go. That’s our compensation. We know that we are creating and molding and
changing and developing the people who will lead our country, as well as those
who will be its backbone and brain in our own lifetime. We are exposing them to ideas and dreams and
characters and passions they might not find if not for us. That’s our compensation. We are fighting for them when others will
not. We are fighting their apathy, their
anger, and their ignorance, and replacing it with energy, hope and knowledge,
and we are doing it even when we are at our lowest. Because we know that when we are not here,
there is no substitute for us. There may
be a body in our chair, but that body is not the one whom our kids rely
on. We know that, and we worry about it
every moment that we are not present.
Because this job allows for no true days off. <o:p></o:p><br />
This does not mean that we should not fight. This does not mean that we should not demand, loudly, that we deserve more because we have earned it. We should yell at the top of our voices, united in our volume, that test scores are numbers, and numbers are not the faces we teach, or the imaginations we spur, or the hope we inspire. They are only numbers and they change with the day. We should question. All the time. We should question the evaluators who have not stood in our shoes. We should question the ratings based on seven minutes of an evaluation that someday may determine our pay, or our "worth." We should remember that every day we tell our students to question the world around them, and we should do no less.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, teachers, feel free to get angry at the changes coming
our way. Rage at the initiatives, and
the meetings, and the lack of understanding of all you do, which comes at you
from all sides. But know that your
colleagues all over the country stand with you as you push and pull and work
those students. We are here too. Let us fuel your imagination when you feel
empty, as my colleagues do every day for me.
Let us be your backbone when you don’t feel like you have the strength
to stand up to one more parent, or one more principal. Reach out to us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
But don’t you quit.<o:p></o:p></div>
Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-19717405459945208412016-01-28T10:44:00.000-08:002016-01-28T10:44:01.710-08:00Insomnia and the Stay at Home Mother<div class="MsoNormal">
Published @ <a href="http://www.yellowbrick.me/" target="_blank">www.yellowbrick.me </a> December, 2015<br />
<br />
I told a friend of mine the other day, that just as the
saying goes, “You don’t know what you can do until you try,” there should also
be one that says “You don’t know what you CAN’T do until you try.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This summer, I learned what I can’t
do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t be a stay at home
mother to my two children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Physically, I can, but mentally, not so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can stay at home with one child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could do that for a while (and did this summer, much to my
surprise, succeed in staying home with my 3 year old with no mental detriment
to either of us).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But staying home
with both of my children was altogether too difficult a thing for me to master.<br />
I have mentioned this to other mothers my age, with kids of similar ages, and gotten lots of different responses, but without a doubt, it is always the mother who hasn't done it, who sighs and says "But that's the holy grail!" I smile and say that I guess it isn't for me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The funny thing about all of this, is that this shouldn't have come as a surprise. I have always loved working, and have never been great with needy people. This is not the best of all possible combinations for a stay at home mother. <br />
And yet, when I couldn't do it, and up until very recently, I viewed it as a massive failure. Deep in my mind, where my nagging insecurities hold sway over all else, I couldn't help but hear the chant of "bad mother...bad mother." Did it mean that I didn't love them enough? That they were somehow getting the shortest end of the stick by being my children? I have wanted to be a mother for my whole life, waited, getting more and more frustrated to meet the man who would be the father of my children, and here I was. I had achieved the dream! I had the husband and the son and the daughter. I had the house in the town where I grew up, near parks and playgrounds. But it somehow wasn't enough for me. Or maybe it was too much. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
This whole issue came as a surprise
to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a person who believes
that she can do everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a
little practice, I feel that I can be at least average at anything I set my
mind to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the daycare called
and said that we could take my son out for the summer, with his place for the
fall intact, I jumped at the chance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t often get to be the one bringing money-saving news to my
husband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a tiny seed of
doubt digging itself in in that aforementioned part of my brain, but I easily ignored it, as
summer was months away, and I am his mother, after all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This should come naturally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We went ahead and signed my daughter up
for camp for the month of July, leaving me with both children for two weeks
(yes, only two weeks…how could I fail at that?), before we took a family
vacation, and then we all went back to school and work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
After a few weeks of summer passed,
and Josh and I fell into an easy routine of lazy mornings, and swimming
afternoons, I was feeling pretty good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I could do this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
doing it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in the evenings,
that tiny seed of doubt began to grow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I would pick Abby up from camp, and the fighting would begin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, I rationalized, camp was
tiring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has always been
difficult when tired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This did not
foreshadow anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I stomped on
that larger shoot of doubt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
would be fine.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
As the impending weeks grew closer,
I tried to plan a couple of day trips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But if the whole point of this exercise was to save money, I couldn’t
justify more than a couple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would all just go to the pool in the
afternoons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could continue the
schedule Josh and I had already grown used to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Abby did not want to go to the pool. When I took her,
she got cold too easily and too quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She wanted to do indoor things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She wanted to stay home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She wanted the iPad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Josh
wanted to go to the pool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
wanted to blow bubbles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wanted
the iPad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It got to the point that
the night before, with no activities planned, I would start to get anxious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would lie in bed, awake, so
awake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am an insomniac by
nature, but never to this extent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Once a year, I go through a three-day streak of sleeplessness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this was ridiculous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every night, the same thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even when a doctor prescribed sleeping
medication, I couldn’t sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
was unheard of!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s odd is that
I wasn’t lying there thinking about, or worrying about my kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One night I just couldn’t get “The
Golden Girls” theme song out of my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Other nights I grew angry listening to my husband snore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I moved to the couch, but there were so
many sounds, and there was light everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But most nights it was just blankness, and no sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew it was anxiety when my heart
started speeding up the minute I lay down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I still didn’t tie it to my children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, rapidly, things got
worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because now, I wasn’t just
trying to entertain my children for 12 hours a day, but I was doing it on one
or two hours of sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
shaky, and short tempered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt
sick much of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything
made me angry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sounds and smells
were intensified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I screamed at
Abby for dragging her feet in the grocery store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The scraping sound was making me crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It filled my brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She seemed confused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t blame her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Finally I went to a sleep
specialist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He made me cry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hadn’t really done that yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He made me talk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hadn’t done that either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He asked me to point to the emotion I
felt most often, and I pointed, shakily, to scared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My finger seemed drawn there of its own accord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I finally admitted, “I am
scared…all of the time.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He asked
about my schedule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went through
each day since I had stopped sleeping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was not until that moment that I realized that the insomnia started
when I became a temporary stay at home mother to my two children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sat with me for 2 hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had expected him to tell me to try
yoga, to cut out caffeine and alcohol, and to breathe deeply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He told me to go back to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He told me to find me time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He told me it was okay not to be
everybody’s everything all of the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I didn’t sleep better that
night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wish it were that
simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But a couple of nights
later, when we were on vacation, and the kids were not falling asleep, I broke down
crying, and really talked to my husband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He listened, dealt with the kids, as he had been doing each and every
night since this began, and finally, that night I slept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I cannot be a stay at home mother
to my two children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can be a
working mom (I do that pretty well), and a wife, and a teacher, and a daughter,
and a person I am proud of in most respects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
But for me, the holy grail is balance, and I'm still trying to learn that lesson.</div>
Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224850797743106195.post-69725098384381021832015-12-28T10:46:00.002-08:002015-12-28T10:46:26.410-08:00Battle Wounds<div class="MsoNormal">
Published @ <a href="http://www.yellowbrick.me/">www.yellowbrick.me</a><br />
Before I had kids, I made all sorts of judgments about the
parents I saw around me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a
teacher, so I was always conferencing with and questioning the motives of my
students’ parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seemed
inevitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t believe the
choices they seemed to knowingly be making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How could they let their kids talk to them that way?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why couldn’t they control them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why were they over-programming their
kids?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why were they
under-programming their kids? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
imagined all of the things I would do differently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Couldn’t they see that they weren’t doing things right? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am now a parent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have two young children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am still a teacher, but parenting has changed the way I look at not
only the other parents I see, but also at the kids I teach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are so many choices we all make
each day, but trying to understand each other should be the first one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Probably the most important thing that I have learned
through this exhausting, yet wonderful process of motherhood, is that support
from my community is sometimes the only thing that makes a difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I cannot do this job without other
parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I cannot get through a
day without asking questions and telling stories, and laughing and swearing and
just drawing in and drawing from my community of parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This summer, I sat at the baby pool with my 3-year-old son
and watched a young mother with her toddler.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew the anxious look on her face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recognized my own expression from 5
years ago as I sat alone at the same baby pool hoping someone would welcome me
into the fold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t know how
to ask to be included.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t
know how to ask for help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was this
all supposed to just come naturally, as it seemed to for others?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How would I know if I was doing it
wrong?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It turned out to be a very
lonely summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, when I saw this
young mom, I moved closer to her in the pool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I smiled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
asked her questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was new
to town, and I gave her my number.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I texted her when I got home and told her that she could ask me any
question about the town or the schools or anything at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would help her any way I could.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though I wasn’t new to town when I sat
in that baby pool 5 years ago, I was new to mommyhood, and I wish someone had
done the same for me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We need to remember that parenthood can feel like a
minefield.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And no one should be
left to figure it out by him/herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have developed my community, but it took time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have found the other parents in my sphere
with whom I can laugh as we all just barely survive, but not everyone has, and
when they do what they must, and cast into the void that is the internet, they
do so at their own risk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is
so much criticism, so much negativity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
So let’s all use <a href="http://www.yellowbrick.me/">www.yellowbrick.me</a> to make the choice to extend the support I did to
my young friend at the baby pool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let us truly be a community of peers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let us remember that parenthood is the hardest and most
important job of them all, and that we have all stepped on a mine at one time
or another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll show you my
scars, if you show me yours!</div>
Emily Genserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06693516934636768442noreply@blogger.com0