There’s a longing in the sound

On the weekend I walked with my family on the beach near the Quarantine Station at Pt Nepean. It’s an exquisitely beautiful place, with surprisingly few visitors, despite the sunny weather. We had the beach to ourselves.

All our contact with the crew of the Polperro has made us very aware of litter and beaches. My 10 year old put hours into creating a digital presentation to persuade her whole school not to drop litter – because litter dropped in the city gets washed into storm water drains when it rains. In Melbourne those drains come out in creeks and rivers that lead to the bay, where rubbish wreaks all kinds of trauma and havoc on our wildlife. Dolphins and seals get tangled in string, fishing lines and plastic bags. Food waste and dog poo introduce nitrogen to the water and deplete oxygen, killing marine life and plants and polluting the bay.

So as we walked we collected the rubbish we saw. This is what we collected over a 50m stretch of beach – and bear in mind this was not long after heavy rains that would have washed most of the rubbish off the beach and into the bay.

There was a lot of polystyrene, wrappers and bottle lids. Many, many  soft drink and water bottles (surely the biggest marketing con of all time, selling bottled water in Melbourne where the water quality is so good), bits of string, and random unidentifiable scraps of plastic. There was even a toothbrush (the mind boggles).

In the process we found a rope that seemed to be partially buried, and we set about trying to excavate it, to get it off the beach and make sure it didn’t wash into the bay and cause trouble for our curious marine mammals. It was in an area of the beach where boats are explicitly prohibited, so there didn’t seem to be any legitimate reason for its presence. We dug and dug for over half an hour, periodically pulling on the rope to see if we could shift it. Every time the rope gave a little we got excited, thinking we almost had it out, but there was always more buried.

Miss 10 worked hard, accumulating blisters, scratches and grazes as she dug and scraped and pulled on the rope. She is passionate about dolphins, seals and the bay, and she was determined to get that rope out. In the end we had to admit defeat, taking consolation from the fact that the rope was so deeply buried it was unlikely to wash into the bay. I was proud of Miss 10 for her persistence, but even more proud that she was able to admit that we just couldn’t shift it and walk away, despite caring so passionately and trying so hard. Learning to let go is not a core skill of mine or Miss 10′s, so this was a big achievement for her.

We took photos of the rope, and the rubbish, to add to her presentation, and reminded each other that at least there was a bag full of rubbish that wasn’t going to wind up in the bay. Still it was disheartening not to be able to remove that rope, and it left visible scars on her heart.

With the rubbish on the beach still uppermost in my mind, I caught sight yesterday of a full page ad in the paper trying to persuade us all that a container deposit is a “great big tax” and monstrously unfair. The container deposit is an attempt to encourage recycling using the carrot of a 10c reward for every container returned. This 10 cent deposit is apparently a terrible threat to the likes of Coca-Cola, who are throwing the might of their PR and advertising budgets at it with an astonishing ferocity. It beggars belief. They are apparently afraid that people might buy less bottled water if it cost 10c more, and hence chip away at their profits.

It’s a tale that plays on endless repeat throughout our environment and our economy. Nothing must be allowed to stand in front of the great God Profit. Not dolphins or seals. Not the environment. Not climate change. Rubbish on beaches is good for Coca Cola’s bottom line, apparently. I can’t tell Miss 10 about this. She would demand to know why we put up with companies like this, and I just haven’t got an answer.

Lately I’ve found

when I start to think aloud

there’s a longing in the sound

there is more I could be.

Birds of Tokyo, Lanterns

That rope we failed to dig up is a good metaphor – for every bit of environmental destruction we tackle successfully, there are untold amounts still buried. We just can’t get to it all. We lack the strength, the persistence, the political will. We can’t dig the rubbish out of our economy. But maybe we can eventually learn from people like my 10 year old. She is determined to save the world where older and allegedly wiser heads have accepted the way things are. She inspires me to take action. She inspires her schoolmates. Maybe our children are the road to change.

Maybe they can show us that there really is more we could be.

A part of life

I love anniversaries for the excuse to celebrate. Birthdays, wedding anniversaries…any excuse to get together with my loved ones and say “Hey, we’re doing well” or “Hell, we’re still alive!” is ok by me. But just as reminders to be happy roll around regularly, so do the anniversaries of sadness and tragedy.

The anniversary of my Dad’s death is creeping up on me, and although I haven’t had time to give it much space consciously, it lies heavily on my heart.

The death of a parent is a funny thing. All around me I see people much older than I am who still have living grandparents, and whose parents take an active role in their lives, yet I also know that many lose their parents much younger than I lost my Dad. It’s not shocking, demographically speaking, to lose a parent when you’re in your 40s, but the heart doesn’t consult statistics before it reacts. I knew my Dad was dying. His death was a release from terrible suffering, but I still miss him.

A year ago I was sitting in a meeting when the phone call came. There followed a flurry of people to notify and things to organise. As the year went on there were more and more things to sort out. We are still getting letters for him in the mail from companies we have never heard of, still notifying organisations who hold accounts for him or want to sell him stuff. But slowly the administrative burden has subsided, together with the shock.

Now we have grandparent days at school with a hole in them, and music concerts that he will never attend. Stories he won’t get to appreciate, and family celebrations where he won’t tell those terrible, terrible Dad jokes.

Sometimes I think I wasn’t the daughter he hoped I would be, and there were times when he wasn’t the Dad I wanted. Relationships within families can be complicated. There were so many conversations we never had, so many truths we never faced. In some ways I am grieving for the kind of relationship we never managed to create between us, and the things we never quite sorted out.

No relationship is ever perfect. I suspect no parent raises a child to adulthood without regrets. My oldest child is only 10 and my list of regrets is already too long to count (which is probably another post or 2… hundred). My relationship with my Dad wasn’t perfect, but he was my Dad, and I love him.

One year on from that shocking day – the day that I waited for, wished for, and dreaded – and I am past the shock and well into the grief. I miss my Dad.

Sticks and Stones

Oh, they’re only words. It’s just a joke. Drink a cup of concrete and harden the F up. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words? Words can cut me to ribbons, destroy my self esteem and make me feel less than human.

There’s been a lot of noise in the media lately about racism. There have been a lot of comments on the wild and untamed internet about how some people are too thin skinned, can’t take a joke, and “as long as we don’t let it change the way we see you, it doesn’t matter what we say.”

These comments show a remarkable, and entirely unjustified faith in the objectivity of the human mind.

Here’s the thing. Words have intense power, whether we want them to or not. A classic psychology experiment asks people to do a simple task with lists of words. Those whose lists involved age – simple words like grey and wrinkles – left the building measurably slower than those whose lists were unrelated.

A similar experiment used words related to rudeness, words like “bother”, “disturb” and “bold”, or polite words like “courteous” and “patient” and “behaved” and then asked participants to come to see the experimenter when they were done. They would find the experimenter talking to someone else. Those with the “rude” words interrupted the experimenter 64% of the time. Those with the polite words interrupted the experimenter just 18% of the time. Many of the polite group waited a full 10 minutes without interrupting.

None of these people had consciously changed their behaviour. These are examples of what psychologists call “priming”. What it means is that our brains are very easily biased and redirected.

Which means that every time I call someone an ape, I cause a minute – but measurable – drop in that person’s esteem in the minds of all of those listening. Every time I denigrate someone because of their race, I cause a minute drop in the public image of that race. And all of these minute drops add up over time to a torrent capable of carving out a Grand Canyon in our hearts.

Words are potent. Words shape our hearts, minds and opinions in ways we constantly underestimate, and may never truly understand.

Whether we are denigrating on the basis of weight, accent, appearance, height, race, or ability, every time we do so we chip away at the public image, and the self-worth, of human beings who don’t deserve it. Human beings who are just as kind, empathic, intelligent, and deserving as I am. Human beings who are just as fallible, crazy, and troubled as I am. Human beings who don’t need any extra weapons chipping at their fragile shells.

Sticks and stones may break my bones. But words? Words can really hurt.

The Itchy and Scratchy show

I don’t know if it’s even possible to convey the exquisitely intense agony that is a an allergic skin reaction out of control. If you have never had more than the odd mozzie bite, the idea of a half of your skin (the largest organ in your body) covered with itchy welts must make approximately as much sense as zapping off to the moon on your lunch break. Not something you can really understand, much less imagine.

Nonetheless, for the sake of trying to distract what remains of my mind from the fiendish screaming of the nerve endings all along my arms, I am going to try. This, you understand, is the easy end of the allergic reaction. It started almost a week ago and within 24 hours had covered my body, so that I looked as though I was in the early stages of elephantiasis. At that point my entire body was itchy, and much of my skin was swollen. Now it’s just my arms. Hallelujah.

But what does it feel like to get to the point where you are seriously considering removing your entire epidermis with a cheese grater, or possibly some coarse grade sand paper?

First there is the heat. Where the welts rise, the heat radiating off my skin could easily fry an egg, I’m sure. In the cold weather we’ve got now in my part of the world, this may be considered a bonus. I can always rely on my husband’s cold hands to provide some temporary relief.

It’s crucial to stay cold – actually getting warm, or being anywhere near a heat source, causes the itching to flare and my skin starts to glow a molten red. I try to rub rather than scratch, so as not to draw blood or leave scars, but despite that my skin is becoming increasingly tender from the constant friction. People tell me not to scratch, but half the time I don’t even know I am doing it. So I try to stay cold without actually courting pneumonia. It’s a fine line.

The itching itself is exquisite agony. It feels as though a thousand microscopic ants are crawling all over my skin. It feels as though each nerve ending is being continuously electrically stimulated. It feels as though I have clawed through my sanity. Rubbing provides an ecstatic counterpoint to the itching by temporarily overwhelming the nerve endings with a different sensation. Unfortunately it turns out that it’s impossible to rub every part of your skin simultaneously.

And then there is the look of the thing. I look like either a plague carrier or a victim of horrific burns. People have begun backing away from me in public places. I am an object lesson used to scare kiddies. “That’s what will happen if you keep scratching that mozzie bite!” or “That’s what you’ll look like if you don’t wash your hands!”

I don’t need to say “Boo!”, I just wave my hideous arms at them.

I can’t sleep, driven mad by the ceaseless stimulation, the feeling that something, or a million somethings, are constantly crawling all over me.

It is driving me out of my mind (never a long trip at the best of times). And yet it is just a rash. I’ve experienced chronic pain and I’d take the itching any day. It’s not life threatening, nor permanently disfiguring (I hope), and it is slowly getting better. So many people are coping with so much worse even as I type.

So now that I have given you some small idea of how I feel, it’s time to focus on the positives. On the people who get it. The students who ask if I’m ok. The colleagues who sympathise. My family who are putting up with my itchy, scratchy, twitchy temper. And to remember that even when we think we are alone in a hell of our own devising, there are people noticing and caring, if we will only let them.

Strength in Numbers

Allowing someone to help you is a curious experience. It is at once humbling, uplifting, and a surprisingly poignant bonding opportunity.

I am pretty sure I’m not alone in finding it very difficult to accept the help of others. For nearly two weeks I have been hobbling about on crutches, and reflexively saying “No thanks, I’m fine,” every time someone offers to help. Which is crazy, because there are some things that simply can’t be done on crutches – like carrying a cup of tea – and I work in a place where offers of help fall like snow in a blizzard. I love that I can’t lurch more than a few steps around my building without fending off half a dozen “is there something I can do?”s.

But there it is. I fend them off. I’ve written before about how accepting the help of others is good for everyone. It builds relationships and communities, and makes it easier for others to accept our help when they need it. It makes everyone feel better. There is no real downside. So I don’t understand why it can be so hard to say “thanks, if you could carry this bag for me it would be great!” or “I’d love a cup of tea.”

This week I’ve been making a conscious effort to accept more of those offers. Generally they are a minor effort on the part of the helper, and a great relief to me – like a student carrying printouts to class for me, or a colleague getting my lunch out of the microwave and bringing it over to the table. It has made life a lot easier, which is a fine thing when life is stressful both from crutches and wanting to claw my skin off as a result of a massive allergic reaction.

And praise will come to those whose kindness

leaves you without debt

and bends the shape of things to come

that haven’t happened yet

Neil Finn – Faster than Light

 

But why should it be such an effort? Why are we so determined to be independent and pretend to be invulnerable? Last night I offered help to a friend who will shortly need it, and she listed all the reasons why she wouldn’t really need help. She was prepared, she would be fine. And I have no doubt that she will be. But if I can push past the “I’m fines” and actually do something for her, it will help us both, build on our friendship, and make us feel a little more supported and a little more connected.

Recently a friend called and asked if we could take her kids to gym so that she could do kinder duty with her youngest, and I was thrilled. I frequently offer to do this kind of thing, as Andrew and I are lucky to be able to arrange our schedules so that there is always one of us available to do the school pick up and the drop off. But it’s rare that anyone takes us up on it. So it was delightful to feel that sense of connection and trust that comes with being able to do something for someone else. I have no doubt she would return the favour in an instant if we needed it and she was able to.

I think we place too much weight on being able to cope alone. We drive to and from work one person to a car, despite the environmental and social benefits of car pooling, because we don’t want to be a burden on anyone else, or to wait for anyone else. We become increasingly inflexible the more we do things alone. We build high fences and rarely speak to our neighbours. We don’t stop and chat to people in the street, because we are always hurtling down it in steel boxes with stereos blaring. On those rare instances we are out and about we have headphones in, discouraging interaction with the world and taking us out of the present moment.

We are a fundamentally social species. So many of our physiological responses are geared towards human interaction. We get oxytocin boosts from touch or even a shared smile that calm us and make us feel happier and more connected. And yet we constantly drive ourselves to stand apart, be independent, and cope alone, as though there will be prizes at our funerals for how little we leant on anyone else.

Which is sad, because I am pretty sure our funerals are delayed – just a little – every time we accept someone’s help.

Teaching – Why I won’t suck it up

Last night I posted this to facebook: “and for today’s $64,000,000 question: is it possible to teach in a satisfying, rewarding and effective way without feeling crippled by the workload?”

A touch on the self-indulgent, self-pitying side. Bit of a first world problem, you might say. The status attracted this comment: “So breathe, smile, suck it up and remember how lucky you are to be able to choose.” My friend also pointed out that I was almost certainly trying to do a full time job as a half time employee, and this was a life choice.

My first response to being told to suck it up is never pretty – particularly when I suspect it’s justified. But then I thought about the whole idea of  sucking it up. Essentially that means “sit down, shut up, stop complaining and appreciate where you are.” And it occurred to me that there are times when sucking it up is a bad idea. In the case of my toe, sure, it’s time I did suck it up and stop sooking about it. And certainly I am lucky – I love my job and am passionate about it. I have an awesome workplace and the students are astounding. I am incredibly lucky to be where I am, and that’s nothing to complain about.

But in the case of a typical teaching workload, I think it’s time we stopped sucking it up. It’s when we spit it out that we effect change. And if spitting it out only means that I talk, blog and tweet about how hard teachers work, that in itself may eventually change a few perceptions around what teachers do. There are still people out there who think teaching is a great family job – after all, you work 9-3:30, you only work during the school term, and the rest of the time is your own, right? (My apologies to all the teachers out there who are now turning purple and emitting steam from their ears.)

Last time I blogged about teaching it attracted a comment from a recent graduate about how unattractive the picture I painted of the teaching profession was to aspiring teachers. John complained that I made it look as though being obsessed with your work, having no work life balance and working yourself into an early grave was the only way to be a good teacher. “Are you not simply perpetuating the idea that to be a “good teacher” you need to work so hard it leads to burnout?”  

Unfortunately, under our current conditions, this is what it takes to be a teacher, as far as I can see. An experienced teacher for whom I have great respect replied to my facebook status with “ Nope the crippling workload comes with the job.”

But does it have to?

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead.

At my school a full time teacher teaches 14 periods per week. Our periods are 75 minutes long, which leaves just 5 periods per week to do all planning, marking, meetings, and extra student help. Most of the teachers I know are running extra activities most, if not all lunchtimes, and after school. They run extra-curricular activities, workshops for struggling students, and extension activities for advanced students. They stay late for exhibition nights, sports competitions, meetings, parent information nights, parent teacher interviews, musical performances and productions of various types. They stay late and arrive early to give students extra help. And in and around all of that they fit in all of the marking and preparation that never gets done during the school day, on laptops they have paid for themselves.

During the last round of negotiations the union “fought off” an attempt by the government to increase our workloads, but it has finally dawned on me that we need to do more than fight off higher workloads. We need to talk about what we do. We need to show the doubters how hard we work, and we need to fight for a lower workload, just to give us time to do justice to each and every student.

I teach a year 11 IT class of 26 kids, and every student is at a different stage in his or her learning. If I teach one middle of the road course then at least half of my students will fall by the wayside. So I put everything I have into providing options for every student – and I don’t always get it right. But the more time I have, the better the resources I can provide, the more I can differentiate the curriculum to meet everyone’s needs. Every week it comes back to the same problem – I just don’t have time to do it properly.

Before I was a teacher I had great respect for them, but no real clue about how hard they work. Nobody wants to be labelled a whinger, and we don’t have time or energy to go on about the workload anyway. And sure, every profession has its dead weights. Everyone is ready to tell a story about a teacher who didn’t bother. But maybe it’s time to start spreading the stories about the teachers who work themselves to the edge of burnout and beyond. Maybe we can change the world to the point where teachers are given precious time to do their jobs without burning the candle – and themselves – at both ends.

Martin Luther King once said: “Our lives begin to end the day we are silent about things that matter.”

I think this matters. So I am not going to suck it up. It’s time to spit it out!

Time for nothing

Gluten free bread, for those of you who have not experienced it, tends to be dry and crumbly. It can be lovely fresh from the oven, but the loveliness rarely lasts for even 24 hours. After that it is only good for toast. Fortunately a bakery near us does wonderful gluten free bread that is almost as good as real bread, but for some reason they always slice it very thinly, so that when toasted it becomes excessively crunchy and dry. Periodically I order a few loaves unsliced and stash them in our freezer, so that I can slice it myself and make it thick enough for a really tasty wodge of toast. (Thank you, computer, but “wodge” is too a word, so nyer.)

Yesterday as I was slicing off my morning toast it occurred to me that pre-sliced bread is something of a mixed blessing. A really thick wodge of toast is a very lovely thing that most of us never see any more, as we sacrifice this small luxury for the convenience of being able to shove a thin spongy thing into the toaster as we fly through the morning routine, getting ready to rush out the door. Slicing my own bread takes, maybe, 30 seconds, yet before I went gluten free I almost never bothered to buy unsliced bread. Which is a shame, because a thick wodge of toast is the best thing since sliced bread.

There are a lot of devices in our lives designed to save us time. Our houses overflow with the things. Dish washers, washing machines, dryers, power mowers, microwaves, food processors, computers, and even cars – each new model guaranteed to be faster, more powerful and, importantly, shinier than the last.

Yet so many of the devices come with a cost. We speed down the road in our cars so that we can squeeze in a trip to the gym to regain the fitness we have lost by driving everywhere. Our power mowers wreck our ears, our lungs and the environment, and ultimately save us very little time, since hand mowers these days are remarkably fast and effective. Ours must be at least 15 years old now, and it still does our lawn fast, quietly, and above all safely. (Although I did fall backwards onto our old one once, obtaining the worst bruising of my life on my lower back and buttocks in an act of clumsiness that will not surprise regular readers. On the bright side nothing was severed, as it undoubtedly would have been had I fallen onto some kind of power mower.)

It is a mystery to me where all this saved time has gone. For all our houses full of time saving devices, we are busier than ever before. Too busy for friends, too busy for family, too busy to stop and chat, too busy for mindful contemplation of our lives. Too busy, it seems, even to breathe deeply and admire the sunset. We ruefully acknowledge the downsides of our busy-ness – “I’m a bad friend. I just haven’t had time to call her.” “I worry I’m not spending enough time with the kids.” “I never get to spend time with my husband.” “Life’s just too busy.”

And you’re rushing headlong

you’ve got a new goal

and you’re rushing headlong

out of control

and you think you’re so strong

but there ain’t no stopping and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Queen, Headlong.

Over the last week I have been on crutches – physically prevented from rushing anywhere. I have been forced to slow down, and in chafing against it I have discovered how much of a habit hurtling has become. I think maybe it is a kind of drug. We seem to feel that time spent doing nothing is time wasted.  And in the process we have forgotten how to breathe.

Maybe it’s time to to spend some of that time we’re saving.