I Killed Willy Loman

Yep. I did it. I killed Willy Loman. Now if you have ever read Death of a Salesman you are probably thinking that, no, he committed suicide, and I must be just as delusional as Willy to think that I had some hand in his death. (If you haven’t read the play, I promise, I didn’t really spoil anything for you. It is called Death of a Salesman after all.) Not only did I kill Willy Loman, but I didn’t even give him the dignity of a quick and painless execution. The death was slow and painful. It took weeks, in fact. How did I manage to murder this iconic character? I tried to teach him to sixteen year olds.

This is actually the second year that I’ve attempted to teach Death of a Salesman. It didn’t go well last year either, but I figured it was a first attempt, and this year I could try it again. I would have a new group of students, a new batch of tactics, and I would figure out a way to make my students connect with and appreciate this fine American classic. I would use all my resources and creativity, and they would get it, by God!

A girl can dream, right?

I tried every angle. I tried focusing on dysfunctional families, complicated father/son relationships, success, dreams, trying to fit society’s mold…if there was a theme in there I thought my kids could relate to, I tried it. What did I get?

*crickets*

“Wait a minute. Is he, like, crazy, or something?”

In my desperation, I went to books and the Internet, looking for someone who could give me tips. I did find one book in which the author bragged of his overwhelming success with teaching this difficult play. His approach was football. In fact, his unit was actually about football. The kids read articles about football, they discussed football, the final essay was about football, and somewhere in there they read Death of a Salesman.

Death of a Salesman is not about football.

It would be like teaching Huckleberry Finn as a unit about log rafts. As teachers we search for elements to which our students will relate, but you have to draw a line somewhere. However, now that I think about it, was I doing my students a better service?

At this point I’m resigned to the fact that this is a play that requires a little maturity. Sixteen-year-olds of today are going to have a difficult time relating to a failed, aging salesman of the 1940’s who is losing his touch with reality. These students have not experienced the cold cruelty of the business world, and have not quite reached the point where they fully realize that their parents are simply human, common and flawed, and not the superheroes (or supervillans) of their childhood. The themes in this play are still few years ahead of them.

So Willy, I’m sorry, I did my best. I will now allow you to rest in peace. Next year I will switch back to The Crucible. Nothing like some vindictive teenagers, religious hysteria and hangings to get your students involved in a play, right?

Arguements About Facts

As a mom that is in school and working full time, I regularly find myself missing the quality TV watching that I so enjoyed in my pre-mom life. I had been hearing about all of these incredible shows that I just had to see, but alas, homework, grading or playing My Little Pony would always take precedence.

Then I decided to train for a marathon.

“Huh???”

It’s true. Training for a marathon actually gave me an opportunity to start watching TV again. “How?” you might ask. Well, since both my husband and I work all day, and evenings were already packed with the afore mentioned homework, grading, ponies, etc… on weekdays the only feasible time to train was in the early morning. We’re talking four o’clock early, and since I am a 5’3” girl, and the area outside of my neighborhood isn’t exactly the safest, I avoid running outside when it’s dark. This left me with our treadmill, and I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to do eight miles on a treadmill, but it gets old. After a couple of excruciatingly long treadmill runs where the music that kept me so motivated on the road failed to be enough, I realized I needed something to keep my brain occupied and not concentrating on the monotony that was running on a damn treadmill.

My savior? Netflix.

Now I know that Netflix is Enemy #1 in many minds right now, but there is one undeniable fact about this service­ – it has critically-acclaimed TV shows on live streaming, an I can stream them straight to my phone. The one that I started with was Mad Men, and, yes, it is as awesome as everyone says. It made those hours of running endlessly on that revolving track to nowhere fly by.

There is a moment in one episode of Mad Men that got me thinking about my relationship with my daughter. Again you might be saying, “Huh????” I promise, it was not a moment that had anything to do with the boozing, chain smoking or womanizing. There is an episode in the second season where the character of Pete Campbell recounts the last conversation he had with his late father. It was an argument about whether or not someone they knew bred French Bulldogs or Boston Terriers. “An argument about facts, “ he called it.

I know these arguments. I have them often with my three-year-old. The first such disagreement that comes to mind is one that started as we were reading a book (the title escapes me) with a picture of a cow in it.

“What are these,” she asked, pointing to the udders.

“Udders,” I replied. “It’s where the milk comes from.”

“No,” she contradicted. “It where the poop comes from.”

“Nope. It’s milk.”

“Mommy. It’s poop.”

I would like to say that it ended there, but, no, I kept it going, trying to convince Olivia that an udder had nothing to do with excrement.

In a previous post, I mentioned a notorious stubborn streak that runs through my family, and it is in conversations like these that it rears its ugly head in both of us.

“Olivia, I promise, milk comes from these udders. A farmer comes and he squeezes the udders and the milk goes in a bucket...”

“Poop.”

“No. It really is milk, they just squeeze...”

“Poop!”

It is at this point that I know I will never win. Olivia has dug in her heels, and even if I took her to a farm and milked a cow with my own hands, she would still insist that it was just white poop.

I am unsure of what to do. While I find myself incredibly frustrated at her unwillingness to listen, anger gets us nowhere. It’s actually a pretty absurd argument to begin with, so any sort of reaction on my part seems equally as absurd. We find ourselves at an impasse.

However, there is hope. On our drive home yesterday I had a minor breakthrough. Olivia had just informed me that our cat, Max, was a girl.

“No honey, he’s a boy.”

“A girl.”

“Well, honey. Do you want to just pretend that Max is a girl?”

“Pretend? Yes.”

Argument over.

Now I don’t know if this is the perfect way to deal with this. It does nothing to address the hard-headedness that caused the issue in the first place. However, it keeps the argument from happening, at least for now, and that is important to me because the last thing I want is for my relationship with my daughter to be one that she someday looks back on as defined by a series of arguments about facts.

The Battle of the Century

I am not surprised by my daughter’s competitive nature. We come from a long line of athletes, and when I was growing up, it was not uncommon for a full-blown brawl to come out of a simple game of Uno. So when Olivia screams, “I GET TO BE THE FIRST ONE!!!!” or states with a snarky smirk, “I win. Sorry," I chalk it up to genetics.

There is one foe, however, that she has not yet managed to best, much to her (and often my) frustration. No matter how hard she fights, this opponent always wins. This doesn’t stop her from fighting though. Her mortal enemy? Sleep. Each night Olivia ponders new tactics in the hopes that someday she will overcome him. While there are nights that I am angered by this battle, I find that most of the time I’m fascinated with the way she experiments. Each night there is a new attempt or a revamped approach. In her head, this battle is actually one she thinks she can win.

Here is a list of some of Olivia’s favorites. While she may not use each one every night, they are the most common in her repertoire.

Tactic #1: I’m hungry.

This one is not new or original. I’m sure every parent has heard this from a child who doesn’t want to go to bed, so it’s no shock that this was the first one she tried. Unfortunately, we initially gave in, so even though we have now imposed a “No Food After Teethbrushing” rule, it is still her most common preemptive strike.

Tactic #2: I’m scared.

When Olivia realizes that the kitchen is closed, she explains that she is afraid to fall asleep. I want to take this one seriously as I know that this is an age when a fear of what is lurking in the dark becomes very real. But here is the thing; she sleeps with a lamp on. Coincidentally, she is also afraid of picking up toys, throwing her garbage in the garbage can and cleaning her room. “I’m afraid,” essentially means, “I don’t want to.”

Tactic #3: I hurt.

“Mommy, my ankle hurts.”

The ankle is where it begins. I tell her I’m sorry it hurts and that it will feel better in the morning. At that point ankle turns to wrist, wrist to back, and back to entire body. If she thought she could convince me that the bed hurt too, I’m sure she would try.

Tactic #4: So, tell me about your day.

I would find this incredibly charming, if it weren’t one in a litany of stalling tactics.

“Mommy, why are you a teacher?”

“Mommy, you went to school?”

“Mommy, when is my birthday?”

“Mommy, how can I determine if my experience of consciousness is the same as everyone else’s?”

OK, so maybe not the last one, but each question she does ask is carefully chosen to engage me in conversation and make me forget what time it is.

Tactic #5: Penga needs some exercise.

This one comes later in the battle, after Olivia’s eyelids have become as heavy as bricks and I’m amazed she is still awake. Olivia now knows that she needs to pull out the heavy artillery. She has learned that if she can keep a part of her body moving, she will not fall asleep. This may mean a tapping foot or turning over and over and over again, but more often than not she will take her beloved stuffed penguin, “Penga” for a jog around the bed or for a climb up to the window sill.

Tactic #6: Seated Silent Protest (Beta)

Number six made its first appearance last night, and it might be the most aggravating one to date. It’s quite simple: sit up, clench your jaw, and refuse to lie down under any circumstances. The sitting up keeps sleep at bay, and the silence gives me nothing to which I can respond. I can tell her to lie down, only to be met with a noiseless, scowling mouth. (Did I mention my family is known for a pretty wicked stubborn streak as well?) The only thing I have going form me on this one is that it is incredibly boring. The three-year-old attention span doesn’t allow it to last forever.

Bedtime definitely keeps me on my toes. As Olivia is constantly looking for new ways to cheat sleep, I look for new ways to counter her attempts in the least tantrum-inducing way possible. However, I am not the foe here. Sleep is the foe, and a foe with only one tactic, completely shut down the body. Thankfully, it is one that works every time, even if it takes a while.

A Lesson about Tone

A place for everything and everything in its place…What a lovely thought: clean counters, labeled bins tucked neatly into closets, precisely folded shirts resting in drawers that easily shut. I envision my house like this. Really, I do. But I am not this. I am chaos. I am stacks of paper and dishes. I am shirtsleeves peeking out of an overstuffed drawer. I am outgrown toys crowding a toy bin and stacks of unread books on a nightstand. I am clutter. This clutter extends to every corner of my home, especially my garage.

Because my garage is so cluttered, we can’t park in it, and because we can’t park in it, Olivia and I have a very dark walk to the car on early, winter mornings. She is not a fan of this walk. She often protests, wanting me to leave the porch light on. Sometimes I do, and after strapping her into the booster seat, I return to turn the light off and lock the front door. However, sometimes we are running late.

Yesterday morning was one of these late mornings, and Olivia became significantly more agitated with each cautious step across the dark porch. Holding my hand did nothing to calm her, and by the time we reached the car, she was yelling, “NO! NO! NO!”

Initially, I let her yell, thinking that once we got on the road she would calm down, but I was wrong. She continued, “NO! NO! NO! NO!” I finally responded, letting Olivia know that if she could not speak to her mother that way, and if she did not change her tone, I would be taking away the precious piece of Halloween candy that she was clutching in her hand. Without skipping a beat, her voice softened, and with an air usually reserved for the snarkiest teenager, she continued, “Noooo. Noooo. Noooo. Noooo.”

I learned two lessons yesterday. First, that my three-year-old daughter understands the concept of tone better than many of my teenage students, and second, that I better make my instructions to her pretty explicit, because this is a girl who can spot a loophole.

Vignettes

Currently my freshmen are writing a series of vignettes as we read The House on Mango Street. I asked them to write a single statement telling me what it was like to live where they live. Each vignette will then center around that statement. I'm writing along with them and getting a big kick out of it. However, my students don't seem as amused by my vignettes as I am.

My statement: I live in a home that is ruled by a three-and-a-half-year-old dictator.

Vignette #1:

“Mommy! Is it wake-up time?”

My morning started just like any other, with a three-year-old alarm clock at 6 a.m. I rolled over, crawled out of my pillow-top and down feather heaven, and stumbled across the hallway. I opened the door to find my little, blond-haired firecracker standing on her bed with a giant smile on her face.

“I’m hungry!” she announced.

I asked if she wanted cereal, toast, fruit, a muffin, pancakes, waffles…each option was met with a resounding, “No!”

Otter Pop. She wanted an Otter Pop for breakfast. I was too groggy to fight, so I compromised, an Otter Pop while she waited for her toast and fruit. It is times like this that I have to remind myself that I am supposed to be the one in charge.

Vignette #2:

“I’m the line-leader!!!!”

I hear this everyday. Every time we get ready to leave the house, walk down the hall, or even go to the bathroom, I hear it.

You see, at Olivia’s pre-school, they line up for everything. They line up to go to lunch, the gym, the playground, everything. At school, Olivia doesn’t always get to be the line leader. This is because at school, Miss Becky is the boss. However, at home…

“Mommy, you get in line behind me. Daddy, you are the caboose. Now stay in line sweetie.”

Yes, she called me sweetie.

My Favorite Picture of Olivia

It captures her beautifully.

Tales from Imperfection....

This year as my students write their papers, I have been writing along with them. Initially, I just wanted them to have a concrete example of what I was asking them to do, but as I got going, I remembered how much I like to write. I also found myself telling them a lot of stories, mainly about Olivia, that I need to document. So I started a blog.

I'm still a little unsure about the title. The reason I chose it was because often when I tell stories, they are about my misadventures as a mother or a teacher. I am a firm believer in being able to laugh at my own imperfections, and I'm sure that a large part of this blog will be me doing just that.