Peterson Family Update, #621

Firstly, the number is a random number and not meant to be anything too meaningful, unless you've got some fun theories you'd like to share.  Mostly, I've done a handful of these kinds of updates without necessarily counting how many there are.  Honestly, after the heaviness of the last couple of posts, I needed to do something a little lighter today.

Anyway, THINGS.

• We're loving our shiny, Chevy Volt.  We've driving around 600 miles so far, only using twelve gallons of gas or so.  AND our electric bill only went up by like $10.  
• Took my first test in my psychology class.  It's been lovely to have a structured learning experience again.  I've already picked out what I want to take next term.
• I broke my computer a week or so ago.  I seemed to tell this mostly to people that don't really use theirs, because when there was a lukewarm response, I had to clarify "No, it's like losing my phone" to get a larger response.  Two individuals actually offered me their own for a while because they never use it.  I don't understand this principle.  I did lose a couple of files that I would rather not have and a few pictures I had drawn, but I have resigned myself to this.  
• We ended up trading my computer and Andy's in to get a discount on the shiny new one that I'm writing on now.  We also bought a cover that is supposed to be super drop resistant.  I keep calling it the "Tactical Cover" because it looks overly tough, in my opinion.  Definitely not marketed to women, so at least there was no pink tax (and, yes, I have already put some unicorn stickers on it).  Our trade it was much better than either of us expected, which I still attribute to Andy's deal-finding talent.  
• Things are starting to wind down from summer at Skyward, meaning that I feel less frantic in small increments and overall more optimistic about the world--summer kicked my butt again, folks.  We have a couple of ideas for how to have some better balance next year (and some things that I can complain about when necessary, based on a better understanding of protocol).  Hopefully this means that we can get out of survival mode and incorporate some additional life components again, like game nights.  
• We took a pile of stuff to Goodwill the other day--definitely could fit more in our car than I had thought we could.  I'm tickled, too, to be able to have less stuff in our house.  The results of some good purging and tidying.  
• I do not understand why establishments that have single-seater bathrooms mark them as men and women.  If you lock the door behind you, WHY would you need to define one for one group of people and one for the other?  According to Andy, there usually isn't even a urinal in these and in any case, you lock the door behind you.  Put a diaper change station in both and take off the male/female placards.  Seriously.
• It seemed that the blog post "The Relationship Escalator" resonated with a LOT of people.  This has been my most-viewed blog post to date--I'm absolutely chuffed about it, actually.  We're all in this together, my friends.  For those of you who feel the pressure to follow steps for the sake of following them, I hope you find your own path in your own time.  For those unaware that they were reinforcing this on others unconsciously, please take this new awareness to treat people with grace.
• I'm so tickled that I can start pulling out my sweaters and boots again.  Hurrah for fall!

Otherwise, I leave you with this PSA for the day.

Darn right.

Going Back to Teaching?

Hello, my friends.  

I've had a few people ask me recently-ish whether I want to go back into teaching again.  In my own words (because I'm not sure what else I would use) I do want to put something out there as to my thoughts on this.  

Firstly, I want to identify why I didn't go into it in the first place, despite successfully receiving my degree.  Shortly before Andy and I were married, I was doing a lot of substitute teaching, with some retail work thrown in there.  The substitute teaching included Clinton, Heyworth, Bloomington (Dist 87), and Olympia, so I had a fair smattering of experiences between these different places, hoping that one of these would turn into something full-time.  The plan was that we were going to get married at the end of May, have the bowel resection surgery to better my Crohn's symptoms (since there were parts so constricted that they couldn't even put the camera through), recover over the summer, and be back in the classroom in the fall.  That plan emphatically did not work out, since the bowel resection did not go as smoothly as planned (more info here).  While I was recovering that summer, I had two separate offers for long-term subbing for individuals that were going to be out for maternity leave, the kind of experience/presence in a district that could certainly be a leg up in applying for a full-time position--once I realized that I genuinely couldn't take care of myself for eight hours, let alone a classroom of students, I had to turn both of these down.  I consoled myself that this simply wasn't the time.

After the recovery from the second reversal surgery, I was working part-time at Bath & Body Works while Andy was working at Skyward.  We talked about how he might feel if I were to apply, if it would be okay to work at the same place, and ultimately I decided to apply.  The reasons included but were not limited to the following:  I would be at a desk for the first six months or so, where I could better balance my energy while recovering but still be productive; it would make me look good to school districts if I elected to go back to teaching; I would still be teaching, just a different subject matter and age group than I was expecting; I would have my finger on the pulse of trends in education, based on my exposure to many school districts; and, more importantly, it was work that interested me and I felt I would be very successful in.  

Skyward has been good to us on a number of levels, particularly in their flexibility with my medical needs, but I won't deny that it can be a mentally exhausting job, particularly over the summer when schools are trying to make all of their changes for the new school year.  And as I grew confident in what I was doing, I felt much more assured that I could really do this.  I also saw firsthand how a lot of Illinois schools opperate, which I will elaborate on shortly.  Between these two main facets, I felt my desire to get back into the system slipping away.

I have a few friends who are or were teachers.  We've talked about a number of different things, trends in education and the unexpected burdens in addition to the basic understanding of developing and teaching lessons with their respective grading.  A couple of the newer teachers who found full-time employement found that their position was entirely uncertain from year to year.  As the low folk in the hierarchy, they were given the classes that no one else had yet taken in that department, possibly new classes year after year, if they were kept, and creating a new class from scratch is no easy feat--if you're teaching the same class again, at least there's something to start from.  So sometimes they were only a week ahead of the material they were teaching.  This is in addition to all of the club activities that they also expected to proctor and a heavy schedule of events to chaperone.  And with the funding concerns for education in the state of Illinois, the school couldn't afford much of a salary either, and these individuals, of course, had the student loans of a millennial, the mortgage payment without a house to show for it.  Yes, we've always been told it's not a field that you go into for the money, but there still has to be enough to pay the basics.

I feel my ire and disgust rise every time I hear someone refer to teachers as "glorified babysitters."  Summers are not a paid vacation--they can be mandatory summer school hours or professional development requirements that couldn't be squeezed in the school year itself and otherwise long hours trying to get ahead of developing an entire new class worth of material and pay for elements of it out of their own pocket.  Why would you continue to work somewhere where you're not appreciated and not adequately compensated for your level of education/expertise in a field?  Or a position where the lack of other employees hired means that you have to carry all of that missing work, subbing for your coworkers instead of having a planning period because there aren't even any substitutes?  How long until you burn out or find a position that may be outside of your passion but at least pays you?

Is it any wonder that there is a nationwide shortage of teachers?  

When people have asked me if I would consider going back into teacher, I've stuck to the answer of "not in Illinois."  There are some additional things to mention in this case.  These components are mostly from my own experience and the experiences of others, but here are some of the themes I've found.  

• The budget crisis:  I had one school ask me if there was a way to build an entire "back-up" schedule, just in case they wouldn't be able to fund any of their programs for the next school year, because they were wholly uncertain if they would get sufficient funding from the state.  Some schools weren't even sure if they could stay open.  Most of these in poorer areas, of course.
• How schools are paid for in this state:  since the state pays for schools based at least in part off of property taxes, areas in wealthy districts have a lot more money to work with.  Poor schools stay poor, even if they have more people, spreading out their resources more thinly between their students.  Rich districts have more resources per student and tend to feed back in on itself. Additionally, if you were a teacher in the suburbs, you might be doing just fine paycheck-wise, but trying to live in an expensive place, meaning that working at one of these districts may be out of reach in the first place if you don't have enough money to start with.  And then no one is applying to work in districts that really need them, coming down to the bare mathematics.  Poverty begets poverty, cycling back in on itself.  There are still schools in this state without WiFi.  There are still schools in this state without air conditioning.  There are schools with crumbling buildings but an iPad per student because of specific Apple grants--they have trouble feeding students lunch, but at least everyone has a tablet.  In a week, I could travel to one school that has two lunch options (specifically "take it" or "leave it") and another one where they have professional chefs and nutritionists on staff and have a pizza chain bring in pizza every Friday.  The cafeteria disparity is just a more obvious disparity, but there are many more subtle differences.  I have seen outdated textbooks held together by duct tape and prayers.  I have seen classrooms with forty students when there should only be around twenty-five.  I have seen districts that truly need more office staff but cannot afford to hire a second body or rely on a retired someone to help out occasionally.  I have seen schools with no kinds of programs to earn students college or vocational credit.  I have seen students sitting on a chair against the wall because they ran out of working desks.  And I have seen some districts where the students want for nothing.  As long as this funding is based off of property values, there is a huge inequity in our state. 

I know a number of teachers that have left education.  I know a number that have stayed on.  I don't judge either--there are good reasons on both sides.  To anyone thinking, "well, just pick a different state, then," I find that teaching teachers how to track all of the elements that they have to track for state reporting, as well as local policies for their lesson plans, and how they can reply back to parents demanding an explanation for a zero on work their child refused to do, well, I confess I'm a fair bit jaded toward the business side of education as a whole right now.  Illinois might have some specific issues, but the teacher shortage is a nationwide issue, with all of its relevant symptoms.  

The shortage of teachers itself puts more stress on the teachers that are there, meaning that there are more duties spread out amongst fewer people.  I could handle that for a short period of time, but I also don't want to be in a place where we cannot set realistic, healthy boundaries from the start.  Regarding the overall attitude toward teachers in general--a specialist who has gone to school and seen hundreds of clinical hours to get to that point--this societal impression subtly alters many interactions, and I reject the idea that people in certain positions (be it teacher or janitor or fast food worker) "deserve" to be poor.  These positions are a vital part of our society, and we rely on them to keep things moving smoothly.  Specifically for teachers, I can't think of any other position that requires this much schooling for this little pay or appreciation.  We need to break this way of thinking.

I loved talking about biology and literature and writing and watching students pick up on those concepts and apply them.  I loved nurturing their thinking and encouraging them and meeting them as people.  But for myself, the math of our budget, my overall comfort with where I'm at right now, and my distaste of that bureaucracy, well, my goals have shifted with it.  I'm avoiding burnout before it happens.  (Plus my license has expired.)  I will always be teaching, no matter what I end up doing, because I can't help myself.  That could be here, that could be a coworker, it could be a client, but I will always be using the skills I have learned to teach wherever I can.

If you would like to find out more about the teaching shortage, I would direct you to WGLT's ongoing series about the subject for some additional perspectives.  See also Time Magazine's recent article.

The Relationship Escalator

I learned a new phrase recently that I want to share with ya'll that my therapist introduced me to, basically a name for something that I already understood.  

SO, we're all aware of this particular expectation, that we date someone, become exclusive, marry them, have kids, and then head off into the sunset, achieving the official brand of being "successful" in our relationship and life in general.  My therapist called it the "Monogamy Escalator" and I've found other references referring it as the "Relationship Escalator."  This set of expectations is supposed to happen at some weird, steady pace where we go from one step to the next step, ticking off boxes for what we need to do at certain unspecified time intervals.  We beat ourselves up when relationships "fail" and talk about having not found "the one."  Gaps when we're not committed to someone, even if the alternative is staying in an unhealthy relationship, means that you're incomplete or, again, feeling like we've failed somewhere.  Falling off of the Monogamy Escalator seems to imply that you're not a successful person.  

I have met people that got married because it was "the next step," not because its what they wanted to do with their lives.  I have met people who have had kids because that's what they were "supposed to do next."  Strangers find out that I've been married for six years and are confused that we don't have any children yet, because clearly we're supposed to not only be right on that next step but also want that next step immediately.  It's as though being on the Relationship Escalator then also compels you to reinforce it to others, either because its believed or they don't want to ride it alone.

Credit to Draw Write Play--check out their comics!

Yeah, I reject the hell out of the Relationship Escalator.  

I know people that have never married and lived full, complete lives--my great aunt Theda comes to mind specifically.  She saw so many different places in the world and worked at the Bloomington High School library for years.  We always got books or magazine subscriptions from her at Christmas, which delighted me more the older I got.  I, in no way, think that she failed as a person for never marrying or having kids.  People don't need to be in a relationship to have value, but it definitely feels like society values you more if you're in a relationship, at least in part because you fit the pattern that is widely accepted.  In other words, it can be lonely to not be in a relationship because of some specific pressures that tell you that you should be, that you've failed to get on the escalator and are thus not "successful."

I know a few committed couples that are certain that they don't want children, and I respect their choice--they don't need me to validate it, but I would.  I'm sad for all of the condescending comments that they get along the lines of "you'll change your mind" or "it's different when they're your own" because clearly that stranger or family member knows what's best for their lives (~sarcasm flag~).  You know how much money you have for your own adventures when you never had to buy diapers or shoes that they're going to grow out of in two weeks?  It's not selfish to focus on your own goals; it's advocating for yourself.  Also, one of the best ways to decrease your carbon footprint is not to procreate.  

How many people cannot wrap their mind around someone choosing something that doesn't slowly move up in the prescribed path of the slowly rising escalator, it's mind boggling.  I've seen other people seek validation for their own actions by trying to get others to make the same choices as part of that, too, which gets really interesting, as though they don't want to be the only ones riding the Relationship Escalator or perhaps because they believe in it.  I've known people more lonely in their relationship than they would be on their own.  It's uncomfortable to not be able to label people with where their "correct" landmark on the escalator should be for their current age.  Maybe, just maybe, people don't all have to follow the same prescribed path?  

Sometimes, that relationship was right for part of your life but not for the next part--just because it didn't stay permanently does not mean that you failed or wasted your time.  Some people don't want to have children.  People remarry.  Some people don't want to be in a relationship.  Some people don't want to own a home.  And its none of our damn business.  They're not wrong for failing to live up to these contrived rules for how they should live their lives.  There's no trophy or high score for successfully going up the Relationship Escalator, meeting all the landmarks in specific intervals.  What do you actually achieve by riding it all the way to the top?  Maybe it helped you step out of your comfort zone and try some things, but maybe it encouraged you to make decisions that weren't what or when you really wanted in retrospect.  

I married Andy because I wanted to.  I wanted a partner to add color to a life that was already complete and help me share the load while also sharing his in turn.  But on the outside, it looks like I'm complacently riding the escalator, meaning that there are subtle and not-so-subtle implications (not from our parents, thank God), that we should be readying for the next step of having children or buying a house.  

I refuse to make a decision because it's what I "should" do or because it's "what I'm supposed to do."  I also need to be careful that I don't make decisions because I specifically don't want to fit the mold, making decisions for the sake of being countercultural.  This requires significant life decisions to go through a series of checks--am I doing X because I feel I "should" or it's the "next step?"  am I doing Y because I want to?  am I considering Z specifically to spite "the man?"  

Am I making the decision because it's what I want and what is best for me, or am I making it to please someone else?  That someone could be the amorphous idea of what society thinks I should be, what boxes that the world feels I should fit in.  That someone else could be Andy--in some situations, that's enough and in others his opinion is important but doesn't overrule my own needs.  I'm trying to get to the heart of what I want, weeding out the "supposed to"s and my knee-jerk reaction of making a choice specifically to be contrary.

For others, I extend the same freedom.  The Monogamy Escalator is the right path for some people and they are welcome to choose it for their own reasons, but it is not the path for everybody.  Taking a different path outside of that pattern is up to the individual--they're not a failure because they didn't fit in someone else's box.  People are not defined by their relationship status and are free to make decisions that are best for their health and happiness without condescending looks of people insisting that they should be moving toward X step or Y step.  How much useless anxiety this has placed on people, how many others have been pressured to stay in unhealthy situations, the miniscule reward for following the pattern for the sake of the pattern, it's not worth it, my friends.  And keeping in a relationship with someone or bringing children into a situation where it's not really what was wanted just to fit the mold, that's a way to harbor resentment and create unhealthy situations.  We don't have to ride the Relationship Escalator to be successful--we can be whole and have worth on our own and support others to do the same.  

A List of Small Joys

• When your car blinker is in sync with the car blinker in front of you in the turn lane
• When passersby accidentally walk to the same rhythm of the music you're listening to
• When someone stops by to talk to you after you've just completed a project/action instead of in the middle of one
• When someone suggests that restaurant that you've been craving all day as a potential dinner plan
• Going to the grocery store and not counting every item that went in because you know there's enough in the bank account to cover most anything the grocery store can throw at it this week
• Running into a friend when you're running low-pressure errands
• Your favorite spot being open at the coffee shop you frequent or similar space
• An in-depth conversation about one of your favorite books/movies
• A recommendation from someone whose tastes you trust
• Actually and intentionally sitting down to enjoy a good book
• The green lights favoring you for almost the whole trip
• When a stranger ahead of you offers their place in line when they haven't decided what they want 
• The smile of someone who receives an unexpected compliment from you
• A new update from someone that you follow online, be it a webcomic, blog, or whathaveyou
• A friend genuinely asking you how you're doing
• An invitation to spend time with people you enjoy being with
• Clean carpet
• New shoes
• Feeling hydrated
• A country highway with no one in front of you
• Your favorite sweater
• When the volume setting is at either an even number or multiple of five AND it's actually at the volume you'd like it to be
• An unexpected free evening
• Feeling confident in new clothes
• Finding someone that is reading the same book you are at the same time and being able to discuss it
• Someone pulling out of a parking spot just as you need one
• A good listener
• A hug that someone really means
• Having just enough of that last ingredient for the recipe that you're making
• Seeing someone pick up trash that wasn't their job to take care of
• Chairs that slide out smoothly and quietly in public places
• Your favorite brand on sale the exact time you were looking to purchase it
• Remembering to run the errand when you're out and nearby instead of after you return home
• A physical letter from someone that loves you
• When your friends are doing well
• Seeing those that you love talk about something that they're passionate about
• Laughing about an old inside joke
• Finding a new favorite artist
• When your lucky/confidence boosting underwear is clean on the day that you really need them
• When someone remembers your favorite food/beverage item and can either order it for you or suggest it
• Finding the item that you were looking for more or less immediately
• Realizing that the fear of an event was worse than the event itself
• That particular feeling when you see that person that was driving like an ass pulled over by a cop
• Donating, even something small, to a good cause
• Learning something new
• Clearing out items that you don't need to hang on to anymore
• When your shoes don't squeak in the otherwise silent hallway
• Pretending to sleep in the morning when you're not quite ready to talk to people just yet and being successful
• Having a cup of your favorite tea/coffee
• A friendly-competitive board/card/video game
• A rainy day when you don't have to be anywhere
• Starting the snowball fight
• The project you were working on turning out better than expected
• Finding that perfect gift for someone
• Those small moments where you start to see your hard work paying off when learning something new
• That instant where your understanding of a situation shifts from what you think is happening to fully grasping what it really is, rocking the foundations of your assumptions and causing reconsideration of other elements that you have long since thought were cemented and stagnant
• Recognition from another party of a job well done
• Creating a plan for the future that is directed but still vague enough to let life happen
• Checking chores and errands off of the to-do list
• When you can find your favorite pen
• No line at the checkout
• Finding your favorite stuffed animal again or a picture from a pleasant memory
• Surprise (welcome) kisses--can also include the pet variety
• Reflecting on the good things in your life
• Maintaining a balance between being aware of your faults to actively change them and blaming yourself for having them in the first place