golowd

 I am glad that Wisconsin received a waiver from No Child Left Behind. I sincerely hope that the new approach will work.  I have, however, some concerns. As an educator, I was taught the Piaget method in regard to how best to teach young children. Before the age of nine or ten young children don’t understand concepts of time or history. So it was with surprise when I read that “Previously first graders might have written essays about who they consider a historical figure. Now students will have to back up their opinion with evidence.” (WI State Journal 8-26) First graders?  Who wrote that standard and did they have any knowledge of how young children learn?  How is the first grader who can barely read going to find this evidence?  And as for history, I have experience in that field as well.  When I was trained to be a docent at the state State Historical Museum in 1986 we were told that in Wisconsin, fourth graders are required to learn about Wisconsin history. Fourth grade was chosen because before that time historical concepts are not easily grasped.  When young children came to the museum their experience was all “hands on.” I suspect most first graders think of grandma as a historical figure.  Will they be allowed to write about her?

Submission: an act of submitting to the authority or control of another.

Remember Star Trek-Next Generation? The Borg were an all powerful cybernetic race that consumed the “raw material” of planets.   I just submitted two manuscripts recently.  I couldn’t help but remember something a friend said to me a few years ago: “When I send off a manuscript,” she said, “it feels like I’m down on my knees begging for a sale.” 

“We are publishers. You will submit.”  Ah yes, the cruel world of publishing.  It’s a business, now more than ever. I realized, while I was trying to write a synopsis of my 367 page YA fantasy novel, that I much prefer teaching. Teaching bestows immediate rewards.  Now don’t get me wrong: I love to write.  But most publishers don’t want to see a 300 plus page manuscript on their desk—or their email box.  They want a synopsis.  Ugh.  I hate to write them.  How do you condense a novel into one or two pages?  

After working on this for a couple of hours I was so frustrated I had to watch my soap opera. (I would’ve watched Star Trek but it wasn’t on. I keep hinting that the DVD’s would be a perfect birthday gift.)  Really, Stephanie, a soap opera? Pathetic.  But I needed to escape that synopsis.  The rest of the day, my husband tactfully noted, I was a bit crabby.  Just a bit.  

The publishing world has changed dramatically since Madeleine L’Engle wrote A Wrinkle in Time.  In those days, an editor would take a chance on a new writer with an innovative idea: a new writer who might need nurturing.  Now a writer is lucky to find an agent who’s willing to do that, much less an editor.  Madeleine L’Engle’s manuscript was turned down at least 26 times by various publishing houses.  Perhaps those editors read the first page which begins:  “It was a dark and stormy night” and thought she was writing some kind of clichéd pot boiler. She was fortunate that a friend of hers knew John C. Farrar who subsequently read the manuscript and liked it.  At that time, Farrar did not even publish children’s books, but clearly he saw something in her manuscript that captured his imagination.  The book went on to win the Newbery Medal and has been in print ever since. 

We all dream of that kind of success but few of us will win national recognition. If we write to win awards, or write what’s popular at the moment, we will not write high quality material.  Only when we write the story our heart is bursting to tell will the writing get a review like the one Madeleine received:  “Fascinating…It makes unusual demands on the imagination and consequently gives great rewards.” (The Horn Book.) 

The down side to writing what’s in our heart, when we expose our inner most feelings on the page, is that it’s devastating to open that rejection letter from the editor that states:  “Thank you for your submission, but it’s not right for our line.”  Dear editor, you have just stomped on my heart.  

I finished that synopsis for the 367 page YA novel. It ended up two pages.  Not bad I guess. Now I will have it for every publisher that asks for such a beast.  I’ve done it. It’s done. I have submitted to the publishing world. Will they break my heart yet again?  Probably.  But I will keep trying—and submitting. I will follow the publisher’s rules to a T: formatting just the way they like; sending it in whatever form (email? Snail mail?) Query letter?  Sure thing.  One page synopsis?  Of course, no problem. (Never mind the manuscript is almost 400 pages) First three chapters? YES! This is my favorite request because you, dear editor, will actually get a chance to read the story. 

I will obey your main rule (Do not call the editorial office.)  I will even wait in vain for a reply I may never receive because you only respond if interested.   

Yes, I will do it all, because that is the life of a writer.  And that’s why the word “submission” is so appropriate.

This is the essay that won first place in the Go Big Read contest.  All entries were to express a reaction to the book, Enrique’s Journey.           

“I just want to be with my mother.”  It is the plaintive cry of the child left behind in Latin America.  His mother has “gone north” to America to provide the child with a better life.  She will send him clothing, shoes, even toys.  He will have enough money to go to school.  But all the child wants is to be with his mother.

Enrique’s Journey, Sonia Nazario’s heartbreaking story of one Honduran boy’s determination to be reunited with his mother, chronicles the dangerous journey he takes to “be with my mother.”  This is a part of the immigration story I knew nothing about:  children, some as young as seven, travel from South and Central America on the tops of freight trains, dodging bandits, border agents and corrupt officials.  If they are lucky, they reach the United States with all their limbs intact.  Many, getting off or on “the beast” lose a leg or a foot to the train. Some die. Rape is widespread. The lucky ones, like Enrique, find a gang member who will protect them.  If not, they can be killed by bandits or madrinas: civilians who help the authorities while committing the worst atrocities.   

 When I finished the book, I asked myself: why don’t these countries take better care of their people so they can earn a decent living in their own country? Why indeed.  This is where all of us must commit to understanding how the world economy functions and the role of the United States in it. 

As Enrique rides the train through Mexico, “It rolls through putrid white smoke from a Kimberly-Clark factory that turns sugarcane pulp into Kleenex and toilet paper.”

In Honduras“One factory, S.J. Mariol, hires only women ages eighteen to twenty-five.” The women stitch medical scrubs to be sold in the United States.  The work is hard.  By age thirty, most women are not suited for it according to the head of human resources.  Without the high productivity of the younger women, the jobs may end up in China.  “Older” women have three options to make money: washing clothes; cleaning houses or making tortillas. 

 And so, the single mother leaves her young child behind.  Enrique is five when his mother leaves.  The separation scars him, as it does all the children left behind.  When he is lucky enough to be reunited with his mother, resentment towards her lingers.  She feels he should be grateful:  she sent money so he would be better off. He received toys and clothes.  He was able to go to school.  Enrique does not see it that way.  “You’re not my mother,” he shouts at her.  “Grandma is my real mother.”

The disintegration of the family in Latin America surprised me.  The Catholic Faith alone, it seems, cannot hold together what economics has torn apart.  Large numbers of single mothers struggle to feed and clothe their children, and are unable to send them to school. 

It is a sad and heartbreaking truth:  a part of the immigration story many Americans know nothing about.  How can there be a new truth?  A way for single women to support their children in their own countries? There are no easy answers.  Debt relief for Latin America is a part of the solution.  More foreign aid, especially start up money for small businesses and stable, democratic governments free of corruption would help.  Some say U.S.policies that have supported repressive regimes have contributed to economic instability in Latin America. Such policies fueled inequality and led to poverty and civil war.

In the United States, employers also play a role.  Businesses out to pay the lowest wages find illegal immigrants are the ideal population to exploit.   In the 1990’s African Americans at cleaning companies in Los Angeles had formed a union and succeeded in obtaining jobs with good wages and benefits.  The companies ultimately busted their union, and then brought in Latino immigrant workers at half the wages and no benefits.

Who is hurt by the wave of immigration into our country? Once again, the discussion must return to jobs.  Surely those African American workers at the cleaning companies wanted the same thing Enrique’s mother wanted:  a good job to support their families.  This is what all parents desire.  We need to ask ourselves why this is so difficult.  Is it the fault of NAFTA?  Has free trade caused a race to the bottom in all countries when it comes to wages? 

Who benefits from this immigration?  Surely American employers, like the cleaning companies mentioned above.  Immigrants living in the United States send millions of dollars to Latin America.  Their families, who remain behind, benefit.  But wouldn’t it be far better if they could support their families while staying in their native countries?  No one wants to leave home.  Home is where the extended family lives.  Home is where you celebrate your daughter’s Quinceanera, surrounded by several generations of family.    

The next time you hear the musical accent of a Hispanic child, make no assumptions. Most likely, he is not “illegal.”  But even if he is here in our country without papers, realize that his family chose to come here for a better life, much as your own ancestors may have.  Realize, too, that economic forces far outside his family’s control have propelled them to our shores.

Most of us may think economics is a subject best left to university professors and politicians but it would behoove us to learn more about how our country’s policies affect the rest of humanity, not to mention our own jobs at home.  Understanding this will help turn a complex issue into a very human story.  And from the human story, perhaps a way forward.         

“The worst thing as a Christian is to go through life asleep,” says Padre Leo, a priest in Nuevo Laredo,Mexico who ministers to migrants.  Perhaps as world citizens, Christian or not, we too must wake up.

Ok. So, Wednesday, I take a sub job with a kindergarten.  I get a lot of those because a lifetime ago when I was working on my elementary education degree I took extra credits to be certified to teach the little ones. This was after I’d worked in day care while my husband was in graduate school. I loved the kids.  What’s not to love about playing most of the day, having a nap and a snack and a yummy hot lunch? 

I never went to kindergarten.  When I was five, we lived out in the country and a public school bus took my sister to the Catholic school in town that had no kindergarten.  When I was ready for first grade that’s where I went as well. But I’ve heard the purpose of kindergarten in those days was to socialize children, teach them their colors and numbers and the ABC song.  Maybe tie their shoes.  (I was well into first grade before I learned that.) 

Well, in 2012 kindergarten is a wee bit different.  These kids are expected to learn to read, learn the “hundreds” chart, count by fives, tens, twenties, etc., etc… They learn how to line up, stay quiet in the halls, “control their bodies” do morning “seat work” and on and on and on.  They are tested and re-tested. There is still play time and rest time, but nobody takes a real nap anymore.  There simply is no time.  I have to admit though, more than once I’ve let a child sleep who was supposed to be awakened for more work.  A lot of kids are sleep deprived and they need that rest.  I’ll be darned if I’m going to wake a five-year-old up from a much needed nap so he can practice writing his name. 

Back to my recent experience.  I had a class of sixteen of the most delightful children any teacher would love.  For five and six year olds they were very mature, smart and cooperative (that last attribute is a real plus for a sub.)  Nine of them were from Spanish speaking homes, but the kids were all fluent in English.  One was reading as well as any second grader.  That day I talked to a first grade teacher who’d been teaching for 40 years.  He feels that kinders are being given way too much age inappropriate work. We are pushing them too fast.  “Remember,” he said, “When most kids learned to read in second grade?”  Fortunately for me, the class I had that day were high achievers, not to mention really nice kids. 

The next day I was in a different kindergarten in a different school.  Whoa, Nelly!  Fifteen of the squirrelliest (if it’s not a word it should be. It’s the best word to describe these kids) children I’d ever encountered.  I wasn’t told, but quickly discovered, that some of them weren’t simply ignoring me—they didn’t understand English.  No one had informed me of this beforehand.  But even the kids who clearly knew English all seemed to be on another planet.  One little girl kept packing and unpacking her schoolbag. (Now there’s a term from another century.)   Two boys insisted on wrestling and just generally causing chaos.  These weren’t bad children (if indeed there is such a genre of kids).  They were simply very immature.  Somehow I managed to get them to do their work.  I discovered if I physically steered the kids who didn’t understand English and pointed to their work, they would, for the most part, do it.  But one of them just wanted to look at books all day. I sympathize.  I’d love to just look at picture books all day.  But we had reading, writing and math to learn.  This class did not even get a rest time.  At least it wasn’t in my lesson plans.  

At one point I was trying to kill five minutes before we went to lunch and they were all imitating a scene from A Charlie Brown Christmas. You know the one when Charlie is trying to organize the pageant and all the kids are dancing around in different directions, ignoring him?  I burst out in a rendition of “Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.”  It worked.  They became a group.  We sang it over and over.  Now loud, now soft.  Ended with a whisper.  Thank God for the years I taught day care.  Some five year olds are not far removed from their terrible twos.  But I have to say, for all the stress and expectations, I love ‘em.  There is nothing more rewarding than a hug from a kid, and knowing maybe you taught them a little something that day.  Even when the class is like that scene from Charlie Brown’s Christmas.

“I remember the day they burned the German books.”  It was the mid nineteen eighties and I was recording my mother’s memories of her childhood.  My mother was in her seventies and she was in the midst of some of the best years of her life. She had recently moved to Madison and gotten involved in activities that were not available to her in her hometown of Menomonee Falls.  I thought it was time to record the events of this amazing woman’s life before it was too late.  I needn’t have worried.  She lived to be ninety. 

I had just asked her what she remembered about World War I.  “Two things,” she said.  “Armistice Day.  A woman ran up to me in the grocery store and hugged me. ‘My boy is coming home,’ she said.”  My mother’s other memory was the day “they burned the German books.”  

The memory of that stayed with me over the years and finally nagged me into writing my most recent novel, Jingo Fever.  But the evolution of this middle grade fiction starts long before the 1980’s.  In fact, it begins when I was very young. 

When I was nine-years-old my father died suddenly of a heart attack.  My mother, even though in the midst of a deep depression, pulled up stakes, sold a portion of our small hobby farm and moved to the village of Menomonee Falls.  I was devastated to lose my life in the country, especially my beloved horse,Tex.  But my mother had to care for her two daughters, myself and my sister, Chris, who was just fifteen.  Mom couldn’t take care of our land and animals without Dad. 

It was shortly after the death of my father that I started making up stories.   I could not have articulated it back then, but somewhere in my broken heart, a writer was born. 

So, with the help of our social security checks, we survived.  Mom worked minimum wage jobs and as soon as Chris graduated she got a full time job.  We both worked as teenagers.  But I wanted to go to college.  I applied for financial aid, but because Mom couldn’t sell all the land we owned (no one wanted it) her assets on paper disqualified me from any “free money.”  However, I was eligible for a work-study grant.  

This is where my novel, Jingo Fever, begins to evolve.  I arrived at the UW-Madison in 1970 armed with some savings and my work-study grant.  Because I was a history major I was placed, most serendipitously, with Professor E. David Cronon.  I was young and naïve and did not realize the privilege I was about to experience.  Google his name to find out more about the late professor.  Suffice it to say, working with him was indeed a privilege.  

Professor Cronon was researching the political climate of Wisconsin during World War I.  He sent me to the Historical Society archives to read—on microfiche—newspapers from that time.  What I found was astonishing.  The civil rights abuses of German-American immigrants and others shocked me.  Every day, as I took notes on my 3×5 cards, and later as I typed them up for the professor, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Someone set up a machine gun across from the Pabst Theatre to keep German plays from being performed there.  A Molotov cocktail was put in the mailbox of a Monroe cheese maker.  Two German professors from Ashland were tarred and feathered.  

These stories, too, stayed with me for years.  Finally, in the 1990’s I began work on Jingo Fever.  But if it had not been for the Federal government helping my family, first with social security checks and then with a work-study grant, I might never have gone to college.  Never had the chance to work with a distinguished professor.  Never finished a manuscript called Jingo Fever.  I can’t say for sure, but my mother’s story alone might not have been enough to help me accomplish that.  I am grateful to this day for those opportunities that helped me achieve my goal of becoming a writer. 

I am reminded how lucky I was every time I hear that financial aid for college students is being cut.  Can we afford to risk that some future writer, scientist or professor may never have the same opportunity I had?  Can our country afford to lose the creativity, intellect and contributions of those future leaders?   Absolutely not.  We, as a nation, are better than that.  We, as a nation, invest in the dreams of young people on the cusp of adulthood.  Don’t we?

I check in at school at 7:15. Today I’m teaching twenty kindergardeners while their own teacher tests each one individually in another room.  Yes, even kinders have to be tested twice a year.

The teacher explains that one of the moms will be in at snack time to bring
cupcakes for a birthday treat.

A few of the kids are surly, having to put up with a sub.  I’ve only been in this class once before so they barely know me and of course I can’t remember any of their names.

After morning meeting, some seatwork, and a song or two it’s time to go to gym.  One little girl refuses to wear her gym shoes.  I use all the techniques the
University of WI education program taught me many years ago.  Positive reinforcement, yada, yada, yada….She is immovable.  The rest of the kids are lined up already and getting fidgety with the waiting.  One of the boys the teacher alerted me to—who I will refer to as Opposite Boy because he does the exact opposite of what I ask– is poking the kids in front and back of him.  When I ask him to stop, he continues the behavior.

I finally decide I have to get these kids to the gym.  I pick up Shoeless Jill’s shoes, grab her hand.   When I get to PE I explain the problem to the teacher. She assures me she will take care of it. Teachers are so nice to me. I guess they appreciate subs.  Meanwhile, Shoeless Jill grimaces at her.

Back in the classroom mom has arrived with cupcakes.  They are a home-made work of art. She has only one extra which she takes home.  While the kids are at PE I place
one cupcake and one napkin at each seat.  For a moment I take a deep breath, look around the room, admire the cupcakes, revel in the peace of the moment.

Suddenly, one of the older students, a profoundly autistic boy, races into the classroom, sees the cupcakes and smashes his face into one of them.  His special ed teacher is right behind, but he is too fast.  When they leave the room
the teacher advises me to lock my door.

I panic.  What now?  I’m short a cupcake. I head across the hall
and ask the other kindergarden teacher’s advice.  She gives me a handful of candy and suggests I ask the kids for a volunteer who’d rather have candy than a cupcake.  Ok.
This should work.  There’s usually at least one kid who doesn’t like frosting.
(Yeah, really.)  I look at the clock.  It’s time to pick the kids up
from gym.

Upon retrieving them, I find them in a better mood.  Shoeless Jill has her shoes on.  Opposite Boy seems to be ignoring me and right now that’s a good thing.  I think.  At least he’s not poking anyone.

Just as we enter our classroom, the autistic boy returns, and destroys another cupcake before his teacher can get him out of the room.  I forgot to lock my door.

This time 20 five and six year olds have witnessed this.  So instead of having snack I bring them all to the carpet.  I explain that sometimes special needs kids do things that are not appropriate.  Things they can’t control.  They look at me wide eyed, serious, as if they understand.  They do not look freaked out.  No one cries.  I am thankful for their resilience.  And for the fact that we include special needs kids in our schools and don’t lock them away.  I’m thankful that all kids can learn about these differences and needs.  And learn how to get along with everyone.  These very young children amaze me.

I ask for two volunteers who’d be willing to give up their cupcakes for anything in
the snack cupboard.  I get more than enough volunteers.  All is well.

Crisis over.  Kids are eating happily.  Well, most of them.  Shoeless Jill is shoeless again and Opposite Boy is poking his seatmates.  And it’s only 10:00.

Welcome to my blog. GoLowd is a combination of my maiden name and my married name. Furthermore, I am kinda’ loud. I’ll be writing about my love of substitute teaching (really, I’m serious), writing, history, and gardening, with a wee bit a’ politics thrown in.

On that subject. Well, on two subjects: teaching and politics. Today I subbed for the first time this school year. All day with 20 kindergarteners. Wow, do they have the energy. I’m not sure I’m young enough anymore to teach that age group. They are adorable though, for the most part. I love their non-linear thinking. Like today, in the middle of Math meeting when one little boy raised his hand to tell that he’s going to Disney World “sometime.” OK, but how does that relate to counting from one to ten exactly?

I had a particularly challenging little boy. I’m pretty sure he’d never been to preschool and didn’t get the whole “school idea.” He’d be fine for awhile, sweet even, then if something didn’t go his way, over went his classmates block tower. As we were trying to clean up to go to recess, he dumped out all the math counters just as his peers had finished picking them all up. Threatening him with no recess had no effect. He also had “sticky fingers” as teachers like to describe pint sized thieves. Wow, did he have me running.

But all in all, it was a good day. I love teaching. It’s that simple. The kids give me energy (well, most days anyway.) And when I connect with one child, one on one, and his eyes are alight with some new discovery, well, life doesn’t get any better than that. So it was with dismay on the way home that I heard, listening to my favorite progressive radio station, that Ann Coulter (of Fox News) made a really bizarre comment recently. Apparently she said something like this: Kindergarten teachers are “useless” (her word) public sector workers. What exactly is she talking about? She wants to do away with kindergarten? What does she think we do all day, play with clay? Color? Eat cookies?

In my next entry I will describe exactly what it is a kindergarten teacher does all day. In the mean time, I’d like to invite Ms. Coulter to the classroom in which I taught today and leave her alone with those 20 children. I suspect she wouldn’t last a half hour.