Hey! Teachers! Leave Them Kids Alone!

Well, it has arrived. The inevitable return to school.

My students, of course, have not returned to school yet. This is the mandatory preparation week during which teachers drag themselves back in to their classrooms and try to recall their login passwords and remember who "Hamlet" is.

I always have mixed feelings about this week. On the one hand, it's wonderful to get back into your office, to organize your day planner, and to have the chance to catch up with your colleagues before the students arrive and you really start running. On the other hand, it's incredibly boring. The only good thing about teaching is the actual time TEACHING ... it's the students who bring the life into the school. The rest of it, no matter how hard administrators try and how earnest they are ... is really pretty boring by comparison. For example, we spent yesterday going over school policy, procedure and ... get ready for it ... the new computer program that will assist us in organizing our markbooks. Boo-yah! And tomorrow, we will complete our mandatory eight hour First Aid course. I think that being trained in First Aid is important, and I absolutely understand why we are doing it, but ... it's going to be really sunny tomorrow, and I just don't wanna.

As a matter of fact, I was working up a pretty darn bad attitude about all of this back-to-school prep, when I remembered that I could be teaching in Harrold, Texas this year. Many of you will have already heard that Harrold is the first district in the United States in which teachers will be able to carry concealed weapons into the classrooms. Not to worry though. These teachers, according to the superintendent, must be registered to carry firearms and must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations. I guess that's how they are spending their preparatory week, if they have one. (Note: The superintendent has also stipulated that teachers must select ammunition for their guns that is designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls. Talk about reassuring!)

Now, this policy may seem ridiculous, even horrific, but the superintendent has an explanation for it. The town of Harrold is 30 minutes away from the closest emergency response centre, so the teachers need to be armed in the event of a school shooting situation. Seem reasonable?

Here's my problem with this explanation. The school district of Harrold, Texas, has a total of 110 students in it. I would never want to trivialize the possibility of a school shooting, as one cannot assume that any particular school is completely immune, but wouldn't it make more sense to monitor the tiny student population instead of bringing guns IN to the school? I don't know about you, but I can't think of one teacher that I have that would have instilled confidence in me as a student if they were packing heat. As my friend Graham recently reminded me, I had a prof in university who couldn't find her TELEPHONE in her office when it started ringing while we were having a conference. And I don't mean a cell phone, either ... I mean a late 70's model, 40 pound, plastic, land-line telephone. With a rotary dial.

Ah ... but the Harrold superintendent has ANTICIPATED the argument about his teeny, tiny town, and has clarified his statements. He is worried not about his students shooting each other, but rather about the school's proximity to a large, interstate highway, which anyone can drive down. So, in essence, he is worried about an anonymous maniac on the highway pulling over, coming into the school, and shooting students and teachers. Now, I am not 100% positive about this, but until I see proof otherwise, let's call this event ... unprecedented.

Of course, the considerable pro-gun faction in the United States is having a field day with this, particularly with the recent gun tragedy in a Knoxville, Tennessee School last week. But I can't help but wonder if armed teachers would have made this particular situation better or worse. It was a targeted attack - one student shot another and then fled. If a teacher, with rudimentary training in crisis management, had flung his bullets into the fray, would there still be only one victim? Would it have been clear in that split second, even to the best-intentioned person, who the gunman actually was, and at whom the gun(s) should be pointed?

I really think that if a school feels the need for increased safety, the kind of safety that can be accomplished only by armed personnel (and I have no doubt that there are schools that are concerned with this) then they should hire a highly-trained individual who will act as a security guard on campus. It is difficult enough for a teacher to build a rapport with their students, and it is tricky to squeeze trust through the barrel of a gun. Then again, Texas doesn't seem to be particularly concerned with teacher/student rapport; according to a recent report by the Human Rights Watch and the ACLU, 48,197 Texas students were hit by teachers or principals in the 2006/2007 school year. That's right, folks, Texas is one of 13 states in which corporal punishment is not only legal, but "frequently used." Doesn't this make the school in Harrold seem even more appealing? I don't know about you, but nothing about an environment where armed adults are allowed to hit students says "education" to me. And it certainly won't say "safety" to the students.

So, in light of all this, I will skip happily to school tomorrow in giddy anticipation of my eight hours of First Aid training, and I will welcome my boring policy meetings with a positive attitude. Because I know that somewhere, in a dark and scary place, some teachers are preparing for their school year on a firing range. And I, thank God, am not one of them.

Everything is Everywhere: The End of Anticipation

Just a week ago, my friend Melissa and I were driving across the southern tip of Texas. On one particularly long driving day, during which we had been passing through small town after small town in virtual silence, Melissa suddenly turned to me and said "everything is everywhere."

What she meant was that every town seemed to have the same stores in which you could get ... well ... everything. Each town that had 15,000 people or more also had a Target and/or a Walmart (often both) a "Whataburger" (this fast food chain was new to me) a "Church's Chicken," a "Sonic Burger" a "Home Depot" a "Walgreen's" drugstore and a "HEB" grocery store (HEB apparently stands for "Here Everything's Better.") And these weren't small stores, either ... they were gargantuan.

Yes, as we drove across Texas, everything was at our fingertips. Our trip to Target was a revelation; Melissa and I both bought much needed no-name sleeping pads for only 20 dollars! And to think that at Mountain Equipment Co-Op we would have paid at least 80 dollars for industry-proven Therm-a-Rest pads like a pair of suckers! Of course, the Target sleeping pads were useless. They stayed inflated for approximately 30 minutes, and those thirty minutes were pure hell; imagine trying to get comfortable on top of three half-inflated basketballs and you'll get the picture. But there was no need to fret about our purchases because there were a Target store every twenty feet, so returning them was a snap. Everything was, indeed, everywhere.

It is incredible to live at a time when everything we want seems to be instantly attainable. Within the confines of one store you can find organic soap, ground venison and potato chips flavoured like Kung Pao chicken. Online booksellers like abebooks.com have made my second-hand book hunting a quick and easy task. Heard a song you like on the radio? Don't want to wait for the next Harry Potter movie to come out on video? Don't feel like researching and writing that pesky essay? Get on the Internet and get downloading!

My brother told me recently that he asked his friend Casey to show him how to download movies and TV shows from BitTorrent, a worldwide file-sharing system. Colin was very excited to acquire commercial-free television, but Casey prefaced the lesson with a warning. "Are you sure you want to know?" he asked. "Because you'll never be excited about a DVD release date again. You'll probably never go to Blockbuster and scan the shelves to decide what you're in the mood for again. BitTorrent actually takes some of the fun out of it all."

When Colin told me this story, I started to think about the power of anticipation. Are we missing out on the excitement of waiting for something because, as Melissa pointed out, "everything is everywhere?"

The more I thought about it, the more I started to realize how much I enjoy anticipating something. I love the lead up to Christmas as much as I love Christmas Day. I know that November 1 to December 24 is a capitalist's dream come true, but I admit that I adore the twinkling lights, incessant carols, and wrapping the gifts that I have carefully chosen for family and friends. When I was a kid, the weeks leading up the Halloween were sheer bliss, full of costume-planning, pumpkin-carving and elementary school Halloween crafts. Really, the preparation was just as much fun as the night itself. And everyone knows that planning and getting ready for the high school dance can be the best part of what is often a long and/or humiliating night.

I remember one of the best lessons that I ever got from my fourth year theatre professor in the "Advanced Acting and Directing" course. I was struggling with a scene in which I had to passionately kiss a classmate who was a good buddy, but didn't inspire a ton of passion in me (nor I in him.) After watching us clinch and mash our faces together my prof pulled us apart and rolled his eyes. "Don't you get it?" he asked. "There's no interest here ... you're going in for the kiss too soon. Look at magazine ads that show a romance between a man and a woman. They're never actually kissing .... they're ALMOST kissing. Maybe their lips are touching, but just barely. It's the moment BEFORE the kiss that really gets the heart racing. Let the audience wait for it ... once you actually kiss the anticipation is over."

And he was right. It's those moments before a kiss, when you're not 100% sure whether or not it's going to happen, that gives you that twisty feeling in your heart. Those are the moments that I appreciate as a mid 30's singleton and that my married friends tell me that they wish that they could experience again. I would never want to go back to high school, but I do sometimes wish that I could recapture those pre-dance flutters. I can see how I try to keep anticipation alive in my adult life. I try to get my Christmas shopping done early so that I can appreciate the Peanuts specials, the cocoa and the carols without getting bogged down in the cranky crowds. And every year I host a pumpkin-carving party before Halloween, so that my adult friends and I can recapture the joy of scooping out handfuls of gooey pumpkin guts and setting our masterpieces aglow.

Melissa is right - everything is everywhere. As consumers we should look at that fact as an incredible privilege and treat it with respect and restraint. But perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we DESERVE the things that we get immediately, or whether we should actually wait for them. And if we do actually have to wait for something, we should try to enjoy the moment, because the anticipation ... like all good things ... will surely come to an end.

A Maighty-fayne Oddessy ... Making my way through Texas one Prepackaged Snack Cake at a Time.

I recently had the opportunity to spend a week in Texas, a state I had never visited before. The real purpose for the visit was to lead an International Baccalaureate teachers' workshop for four days. As my flight was paid for by the IB, I decided to explore Texas for a few days after the conference with my friend and coworker Melissa in the hopes of capitalizing on a cheap vacation opportunity. We didn't know what we would encounter, but we had a few goals; to spend our nights in my two person tent in state parks to keep costs down, and to spend time both on the Gulf Coast and in Mexico. In the end, we drove almost 1000 miles (that's 1600 kilometers for you metric-lovin' Canucks), listened to a lot of Johnny Cash and ate a LOT of gas station prepackaged snack cakes.

Before I left for Texas, I took stock of my preconcieved ideas about what Texas was like. They were as follows:

1.) Texas is hot and sunny and flat.

2.) People who live in Texas drawl.

3.) Everything is bigger in Texas.

4.) Texas is ragingly Republican.

5.) Texas simultaneously prides itself on its' gun culture and southern hospitality.

Deep, eh?

Well, after an exhaustive SEVEN DAY study of Texas, here are my reflections on my initial assumptions about the Lone Star State.

1.) Texas is hot and sunny and flat: TRUE ... SOMEWHAT. The weather and landscape of southern Texas is extremely varied, as is the weather (at least at this time of year.) At night we were downright cold once in a while, and once we had to tear down the tent at midnight and high tail it for a hotel due to 100 mph winds. (We learned the next morning that a tornado had touched down in the next town.) We experienced a torrential downpour, blistering sunshine and even saw a thunderhead develop, and drove through various desert and forest landscapes, flat plains and rolling hills. I would reccomend a drive across Texas to anyone interested in geography and/or varied topography... it is a ruggedly beautiful state.

2.) People who live in Texas drawl: TRUE. Not only did the people there drawl, but Melissa and I came back with hefty drawls of our own. It's true that we largely cultivated this ourselves for our own amusement, but when you drop those pesky consanants and draw out those vowels, everything is suddenly easier! Speaking with our Toronto accents now feels like some kind of post-face lift physiotherapy. The Texan accent also led to some funny misunderstandings; when asking for directions it took me a while to realize that I wasn't looking for a detour around a hospital, but rather the "DeTar Hospital."

3.) Everything is bigger in Texas: TRUE. Texas is a gigantic state - almost 24 million people live within its 300,000 sq. miles (metric-lovin' canucks ...700,000ish sqaure kilometers) - and everything within the state is sized to scale. I have never seen such big trucks and SUV's that are not part of a monster truck rally. (I seriously think that the state should just stop spending money on roads altogether as everyone is prepared to offroad at a moment's notice. Driving in Texas is like driving in a "Celebration of the Tank!" parade.) Any town with at least 15,000 people had a series of "big box" stores that truly lived up to the "big box" name. And the food ...the food was unreal. A small sweet tea is actually a gallon of syrup so thick that it is almost crunchy. One particular restaurant featured a baked potato stuffed with ... are you ready for this? A POT ROAST. I am not joking.

4.) Texas is ragingly Republican: UNDETERMINED. Certainly the four days I spent in Houston at the conference seemed to reinforce this idea; I made the mistake of watching both "The O'Reilly Report" and "Fox News," which is some of the most appallingly biased media coverage I have ever seen. One "anchor" actually punctuated a story about Obama with an eye-roll and a "sheesh!" But once we started talking to the locals, we often encountered sheepishness about the current government and an eagerness to point out to the Canadians that "We are ashamed of the mess we are in! We're not all Bush supporters!" We also saw a lot of paraphenalia supporting Hillary Clinton's campaign. Even in the very rural areas people seemed anxious to talk to the visiting Canadians about how upset and nervous they were about the future of their country, particularly with regards to the soldiers in Iraq and national healthcare.

5.) Texas simultaneously prides itself on its gun culture and and southern hospitality: TRUE. With the exception of one cranky gas station attendent, the locals we met were unendingly friendly and kind and open to conversation. At the same time were were amazed at some of the ATV's that we saw in state parks (specifically specified as NON hunting spaces) that were equipped with sharp-shooting seats on the top. All of the Wall Mart and Target stores have aisles upon aisles dedicated to guns - including a toy gun aisle in the children's section Everything that is for sale in Texas can be bought with a camoflage design: toothbrushes, Barbie dolls, school binders. EVERYTHING. We didn't see guns in cars, but we didn't go lookin' neither for fear of what we might find..

All in all, I enjoyed my trip. The small towns were much more enjoyable than the concrete jugle of Houston and walking across the border from Texas to Mexico was a real highlight. We met some lovely people and saw some truly beautiful sights. I don't reckon that I'd be headin' back anytime soon, but there are some maighty-fayne times to be had if you know where to look, y'all. (But I would still advise that you avoid them pot-roast potatos ... and them prepackaged snack cakes.)