I am often frustrated by my inability to get through to my students.  I wrote a note in my class book, “I often feel like a first year teacher; so much more to learn.”  I don’t know for sure how first year teachers feel, but I feel that I am not completing my task.

I think of myself as a student, and I remember my best teachers.  I have excellent models for teaching, so I try to remember what those teachers did.  In every case, the answer is that the students had to participate in doing the work, whatever it was.  For example, in the quilt club, to use a non school setting, the teacher showed her own work, and made a step by step presentation of how to do it.  Then the learners went to their machines and did the task, bringing it back to the teacher for comment. Sometimes, the teacher said, “No, this isn’t right,” and I had to do it again. But, the joy when she said “Nice work” was deeply satisfying.

In my writing classes, I use the class time for the students to write.  Then I read their work and make comments on each paper.  Next, I use that very work for examples of problems, or of good work — if I can find any — in the following classes.  In my four sophomore writing classes, our goal is a standard format five paragraph essay.  Alas, some students write three. In my three freshman classes, our goal is one coherent paragraph. Alas, some students write three.   I have said repeatedly, “A paragraph, for our purposes, must have more than one sentence.”  Alas, the one sentence paragraph is popular.  We have fairly good textbooks, but the students don’t do their homework.  I was shocked to learn that the students had never learned the basic rules of punctuation or capitalization.  Six of the seven classes meet only every other week, so in the six weeks remaining of the term, they will each meet only three times.  Then I must give an exam that they can pass.  It won’t be acceptable for them to fail.

Do I really want to spend that final week reading student work that is barely passable, and marking it with a passing grade?  Maybe not.  So, I am searching for an exam idea that all may pass and that will be easy for me to grade.  Perhaps a “fill in the blank” style reading.  Thus have I arrived at the feeling that it doesn’t matter much what I do.  I fight the feeling and keep looking for snappy ways to get the students’ attention.  I keep looking for the light to go on.  I keep hoping for a paper that shows that the light has gone on.  Of my 215 students, maybe 10 can write a coherent paragraph or essay, but they will still have problems with the verb tenses and sentence structure. Does this fact mean that I have failed to teach them how to write English?

In the midst of my feelings of failure comes a note from a former student: “You taught us so much more than English.”  What will my focus be for the final three classes?  Life skills, or proper capitalization?  Actually, knowing what deserves a capital letter and what does not is a life skill.  When is life at a comma, just a pause, or when a period, full stop?  When should we declare, when ask, when exclaim, and how do we know? All valuable life questions.  My choice at this juncture is to exclaim, “Onward!”

Julia is distressed by  the name of Mr. Obama’s campaign cartoon figure.  Mr. O’s “Julia” is faceless, shameless, and spineless. Why did Mr. O’s “Julia” take seven years to graduate from college, even though she had Pell grants and loans to cover the exorbitant cost of tuition?  She “chose” to have a child, but apparently she did not “choose” to have a husband. Does she know any of the research about fatherless children?  Poor Zach, he didn’t even get to go to Head Start.    At 65, Mr. O’s  “Julia” is drug dependent.  Is this a carry over from the days of her youth?  At 67, this “Julia” retires “comfortably” on her Social Security.  Where, Julia wonders, does she live?  Mexico perhaps, or Haiti?

Julia’s own Dear Husband worked for more than 50 years, paying 15% of his income to Social Security taxes for most of that time, in addition to federal and state income taxes.  Julia herself worked part time and temporary jobs while being a full time mother and homemaker.  They began to hear in the 1970’s that Social Security Benefits would not be available to them, but were barely able to fund any retirement accounts until the most recent few years.   Without a pension, they would not be able to own a house, or to go abroad to find work in China.

Julia notes that both she and her husband graduated from college, husband with advanced degree, without any loans at all.  However, their children are saddled with years of debt from their advanced degrees.  The cost of schooling has risen out of all proportion to the rest of the economy.  Is it because the federal student loan program increased the prices that could be charged?

Julia has had no health insurance since her Dear Husband retired.  His employer could not afford to continue the insurance plan, as it had for an earlier generation.  Is it because the insurance business has made the cost of medical care higher?  Julia does take one regular medication, and has noted, after all the years of paying the “copay” for it, that it is actually cheaper without insurance than it was with the “copay.”   When she goes to the doctor for the annual exam, Julia pays the clinic!

How long does Mr. Obama think his “Julia” will live?  When she is 90, will she still be “comfortable” on her social security payment?  Will she be able to have the medicine she needs at that time? Will she be regarded as no longer important?  Will her son support her, or will he have been killed in some far off war?  These questions are conveniently left unanswered.

The real Julia regrets that her name, a name with a long and distinguished history, is degraded by this campaign cartoon. But she regrets even more that her own beloved native land is deceived by the idea that people cannot stand up for themselves and be personally responsible. She further regrets that people have so ignored their spiritual lives, that they think so fragile an institution as a human government can provide for their needs throughout their lives. Dear Readers, Wake up!  Stand up! Speak up!

Today marks the one year anniversary of this blog.  When my daughter asked, “What is your purpose?” I answered, “Simply to START WRITING.”  Ann B. Ross, one of my favorite current writers says, “To be a writer, you must write.” So, I have used this blog as a way to write regularly. In my home are several of those portable file boxes full of stuff I have written.  I often made a good start, only to fizzle out in the middle.  All my life, I have wanted to “be a writer” and by this I meant, to be paid to be a published writer.  The realization of that goal is still to come, but meanwhile, I find the blog to be an outlet at least, and a beginning of discipline.  This medium is another aspect of the modern world that I find fascinating.

Last year at this time, we were preparing to go to China, now we are preparing to go home.  We had a “visa issue” last year, and this year, we have a “visa issue” again.  We’ll be making a trip to Hong Kong to resolve the issue.  Our son said, “Hong Kong might be fun,” and that is the way we have to see it.  The new high speed train from Wuhan to Shenzhen is now in operation, and we plan to use it.  We’ll visit some former students on the way and then go into Hong Kong to change our visas to the appropriate ones for volunteering.  Finally, we’ll fly to Beijing to start the training for the volunteer program.  After putting in a whole school year, the one month program will seem short, and then we’ll be on the way home.

One year complete, another beginning.  Here’s to living life as a continual adventure, to writing about the adventure, and to laughing our way through.  Raise a glass with me wherever you are.   Onward!