Blog Bits

I was about to walk into Kroger when a tweenager sitting at a table smiled and asked, “Would you like to buy a candy bar?” I said no and kept moving. Three steps inside, it hit me, and I went back out. “What are the candy bars for?”

She explained that her Energizers dance group is trying to raise money for an opportunity to dance at Disney World. “You need to work on your sales pitch! No one wants to buy a candy bar. Everyone wants to support the Energizers.” Her grandmother, sitting next to her, smiled and agreed. “So what should you be saying?” She thought for a moment and come up with, “Would you like to support the Energizers’ dance trip to Disney World?” I smiled and told her to catch me on the way back out.

I completed my shopping, a little embarrassed that I was “being the teacher” with a total stranger who had not asked for my advice. And I did, in fact, purchase a horribly overpriced Kit-Kat bar. But on my return trip, she said, “As soon as my grandmother gets back, I’m going to make a sign.” So she had been thinking about improving her sales technique. And as I walked to my car, I heard her saying to two different people behind me, “Would you like to support the Energizers’ trip to dance at Disney World?”

I’d like to think I helped her be more successful. I know I’m not a classroom teacher any more, but sometimes a teachable moment presents itself, and I tend to define “classroom” broadly. Retirement? Maybe someday.

Last week a colleague told a story that touched on her fear of growing old. She was afraid that, after menopause, absent the influence of estrogen and progesterone, her brain would wither and she would become stupid (her word).

Age is the condition for which the word “surreptitious” was created.

It happens gently. The cashier rings our order without making eye contact, and we realize we’ve become invisible. Wait staff our own age call us “honey.” The young man at the hardware store points us toward the aisle instead of walking us there. We can be in denial about some of these at first. It helps us ease in.

New technology grows complicated, and we catch ourselves thinking, “Why can’t they leave well enough alone?” The sassy vulgarity that felt honest and lively in our mouths grows stale as we hear it repeatedly from others. New movies made for a younger demographic do not entertain. Late night talk shows feature people we’ve never heard of with nothing new to say. The music of our youth becomes background music at a restaurant.

Then we start losing words. The name of an acquaintance. The title of a book. A term that we know we know. We laugh and call it a “senior moment,” but every forgetting summons fears of dementia.

So we may not notice at first that the diminishing edge of intelligence is supplemented by the increasing support of memory and experience. Because we’ve seen them before, we recognize patterns and weak spots in policies and people. We’re better at anticipating and preventing, better at patience, better at protest. We know what chances are worth taking. We’re harder to gaslight, quicker to forgive.

And eventually we recognize that we’re ready to slow down, to focus more on our own agendas and less on some institutional one. Do things on our own terms. Break some different rules. We mean it when we say we want more time for family. We say some good-byes and make friends with words like “former” and “emeritus.”

The keen edge of intelligence wears down a bit then, when we stop needing as much of it. Here’s the best part, though: there’s enough. No need for fear. Embrace it – surreptitously if you must, but embrace it.

The photo above is a teacher’s message to her students after being fired. I’m going to play devil’s advocate on this incident. Bear with me.

There’s good math behind the policy that no one receives less than 50% (thank you, Scott West). I adopted this practice myself for the last few years I taught. No one got less than 50%, and students who finally “got it” recovered faster from earlier failing grades. Were there a few who took advantage? Yes, maybe one or two over the years. (You will always have some.) Almost always, students who earned an F received one. Here’s where I differ: I did NOT give 50% for someone who handed in nothing. That remained a zero.

Schools receive funding based in part on how many students graduate. Failing grades cause students not to graduate. A grading policy of not giving grades lower than 50% will help students pass and graduate, and it will help the schools receive more funding. This policy is actually a logical move in the nightmarish assault on public education. It’s better for students (except the 50% for a zero part), and it’s better for schools.

And my final point. This incident as it’s being reported doesn’t make any sense. It looks like a tyrannical administrator fired a saintly teacher, but real life is seldom so black-and-white. We might want to consider that we don’t really know why this teacher was fired; we just know what she says. I want to stand with this teacher. But I also want more information about the situation.

This article suggests some of the complexity of the situation.