For My Mother (May I Inherit Half Her Strength)...

When I hear the word “teacher” I automatically think of my mother. Some of you know that she was my third grade teacher and have heard me tell stories of what that was like, even the time she came within an inch of giving me a detention. I tend to think the punishment would have been lost on me since I was already forced to stay after school and do my homework every day while I waited for her to wrap up her day, but that is neither here nor there.

I’ve watched my mother throughout her career as best I could. I saw the work that the rest of the world saw; the moments where she was pouring her energy into the education of children, the school assemblies and the conferences with parents. I also saw what the rest of the world does not see; lesson planning, cute bulletin board creations, the grading of papers and the completion of report cards, not to mention efforts to remain “certified” and the like. I learned quickly that being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs in the world and that while I have the capacity to instruct people, I do not think I have what it takes to be a teacher of children on a daily basis.

Grade structure here in Jamaica mirrors that which is used by the British; first form, second form, etc. First form is our equivalent of seventh grade and they measure it up until their fifth form. Should a student continue their education beyond fifth form, they enroll in a two year preparatory program which readies them for a test hosted by the CXC, the Caribbean Examinations Council. This is our equivalent of the SAT or ACT, however instead of one test, they take numerous tests on different topics (math, science, poetry, science, etc.) Once the exams are sufficiently passed they (hopefully) move on to university studies.

When I was here last month I helped with the grading of some English mid-term exams and they were studying the poem from which the title of this post is borrowed and I have chosen it because today I had a mere introduction to the life of a teacher and I am left with a simple question whirling around my head: How do they do it?

Some of it was easy, yes. Some of it was downright adorable as I timed and tested ten and eleven year olds on the pronunciation of letters such as a, e, f, g, c, and on simple words such as “an,” “too,” “two,” and “to.” They read stories composed with sentences such as, “I like to jump,” and they smiled proudly when they passed each level with less than three mistakes. Their reward for their hard work is a sticker and a “sweetie” (a piece of candy) for each test passed.

“Sir, how me do?”

“You only made two mistakes. You know what that means?”

“Me get a sweetie!”

“You passed two of the tests so you get two stickers and two sweeties! Good job!”

Then we bang fists like you see athletes do. It’s pretty damn cute, if I do say so myself.

Reading time being over, I switched gears up to fifth form English. This group meets three or four times per week and each time they meet their focus is different. Poetry is the focus on Mondays, Prose on Tuesdays and Drama on Thursdays. Today being a Monday the class was divided into three groups; each charged with the task of analyzing an individual poem. As I joined the class I began to feel my nerves kick in mainly because I had never been much of an English fanatic while in school so the potential that I might have to remark openly on poems I was reading for the first time was slightly intimidating. Let’s face it, I don’t speak the Queen’s English, Shakespeare I am not and I bastardize commas and semi-colons on these pages like it’s going out of style. Analyzing “Colonial Girls School” and noticing the caustic tone it directs towards colonials forcing their education on natives while utterly disregarding Jamaican history and heritage left me with more than just a raised eyebrow and a “Hmm,” - a response for which I am well known. I probably learned as much in that class period as any of the students.

The afternoon found me involved in what the priests call their “Personal Development” classes or “PD for short. It is in these classes they attempt to teach, explain and decipher the aspects of life which unfold at each age level. I decided to drop some knowledge with respect to accountability and consequences but it was much different bringing those topics to 12 year olds who understand it in the context of the classroom, at home, and with their friends, than it was to bring it to 14 year olds as we discussed them through the lens of teenage pregnancy.

I suddenly found myself wishing I was back in the poetry class.

Actually it wasn’t that bad. The concepts of accountability, consequences and the like are universal so finding their relevance wasn’t the challenge. The challenge sat in gearing the presentation towards varying audiences every forty minutes. It was a little jarring to make a jump from relating the topics in terms of not doing one’s homework to then discussing them in terms of perpetuating the cycle of poverty, but I think my discomfort had more to do with feeling like I was shooting from the hip with a group that seemed to be less than thrilled with what I was sharing with them.

Truth be told, these were some of the more exhilarating parts of the day and at the end of it all I was pretty sacked and in need of one of my famous power naps. As I lay on the grass looking up at the sky the day played back in my head and I realized that I had experienced a mere fraction of a teacher’s experience. This, in turn, led to me wondering how my mother has been doing this for so long. How on Earth has she been able to get up and do something like this day after day, year after year for more than twenty years? On top of all of this she helped raise me and my sisters, carved out a successful marriage with my father, and earned a master’s degree. Combine all of that with steadily deteriorating hearing and I’m left shaking my head and saying, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Maybe the secret is just to laugh as much as she does. Seriously, I don’t know anyone who makes my mother laugh as much as she does. It is not uncommon for her to be in hysterics way before the end of a sentence.

If it’s true that I am a 50/50 blend of my parents then I can hope to inherit half of my mother’s strength and if I do, well, I should thank that will be more than enough.

Oh yeah, and for all of you teachers who spend your time educating children in the classroom, Big Up Yourself, as they say here. Much love and respect.

J.K. Lee...

A very small number of you will recognize that name and if you are struggling to remember, it’s the name of the 9^th degree Tae Kwan Do instructor who had founded and ran the school at which I studied during my final year at Marquette. I really enjoyed those classes not because I had the chance to bust stuff up with my hands and feet but because I learned a lot about leverage, joints and how the human body works. I’ll get to the relevance of all that in a minute.

Today being my first day back I took a good deal of time reacquainting myself with the students of St. Vincent Strambi High School. Many of them remembered me and I was very happy to see them as well. Many of them had hugs for me while others gave me a mouthful for being gone so long, but it was lost on me since it was all in Patois; I hardly understood a word.

My morning was filled with roaming the school, sitting in on a class or two, figuring out what my daily schedule will be and adjusting to a school schedule. It has been so long since my day was composed of a succession of 40 minute blocks; it’s hard to keep in mind that 11:35am or 2:25pm might be significant. It is also jarring to be moving through the realm of high school and the priorities that go along with it; looking cool, the latest gossip in the halls and whether or not one can do something utterly stupid in any given moment. The good news is, these kids are right on track as normal teenagers, eh?

And with the usual order of gossip and high school popularity comes the requisite he said/she said business which typically climaxes in a crescendo of hormones, tears, and maybe even a tussle like the one we had today.

I don’t know the particulars; they seem to change with each person’s telling of the story. All I know is that I saw two kids get into a verbal exchange before a class and after having broken it up I sent them on their way and continued talking with students with whom I was reacquainting. One of the two former ruffians found his way to the classroom of the other and all hell broke loose. At the start of the incident my back was to the action and I had no idea it was happening and had it not caught the attention of the person with whom I was talking, I probably never would have known it was going down. By the time I raced to the classroom one teacher was restraining the instigator which made him an open target for the other one who appeared to be in some unbreakable trance of rage. Here’s where my opening reference comes in.

I raced in to grab the unrestrained one and his gangly arms were flying around as if he were some seriously malfunctioning robot. Something in my memory kicked in and I began to put a hold on him that I had learned in my classes. It’s a very simple move and it isolates the arm at the shoulder and gives one a great amount of leverage and control over someone else. As I tangled my arm with his and went for his shoulder my mind fired off the following thoughts in a nanosecond:

-In the States, doing something like this is not only illegal; it usually results in a lawsuit.
-I really have no idea what the laws are in this country.
-I don't want to get arrested for manhandling a student.
-Maybe something a little less aggressive will suffice.

I settled for a half nelson and it worked fine. All of those hours spent with friends practicing what we saw on TV wrestling came in handy.

I led our young fighter out of the school, across the driveway and past an open field where the other contender had been taken to cool off. The former tried to make a charge for the latter and I soon found myself hoisting this kid in the air by his waist with his legs churning; much like you see in a cartoon before a character goes speeding off. It was quite comical and I wanted to laugh but was afraid my laughter would piss this guy off even more.

I wish I could say the rest of my first day back in Bull Savannah was equally stimulating but I cannot. I barely stayed awake for it. That is less a reflection of the school and more a result of having been awake since 2:30am. It didn’t feel like another onset of anxiety, but for the life of me I could not get back to sleep. My mind was just churning a mile a minute and I have no idea why. Maybe I am just adjusting to the change of scenery. I was planning on getting up at 4:30am anyway (we had to drive here from Kingston and it’s not a short drive) but I sincerely believe that having those two hours of sleep under my belt would have done much to improve my stamina throughout the day and by extension, my observations and reflections of it. All I have right now is that I’m back in Bull Sav and even though the sun has not even fully set, I can’t wait to turn off this computer and get to bed.

Round II...

After an incredible visit home complete with a fun, old-fashioned family Christmas; as well as Patriots playoff games, college basketball, and lots of great family dinners, I am back in the land whose motto is, “Out of many, one people.” I took a hiatus from writing while I was home, save the entry about La Familia, but that had more to do with wanting to rest and not do much of anything. A few of you wanted more and I thank you for your enthusiasm and interest.

I did not think my day of travel back to the island could be longer than my trek down last month. Yesterday out did that one by a good couple of hours due to American Airlines and Jamaican customs. My day started early and I felt I was already behind the curve due to a brief and shallow sleep between the hours of 1 am and 5 am. Those precious four hours of sleep were not sound ones because my anxiety has been ratcheted up these last few days for various reasons. I have not been sleeping well and this was just one more night in a string of nights that are best described as mediocre. It all came to some sort of a climax when I woke up and I spent the first 30 minutes of my day just crying. I’m not entirely sure what I was crying about and in retrospect, it honestly doesn’t matter. There was simply a conglomeration of pressure building up inside and had this release not happened, I surely would have had an episode on the plane similar to Ben Stiller’s in “Meet the Parents.”

(Whether you find that admission admirable or insane is immaterial. Those of you familiar with my dance with anxiety know that after moments like that, I can tackle a day like a rock star. I don’t fully understand it and I don’t intend to. I just go with it. On with the show.)

I finally got around to putting my feet on the floor and scurried around the house grabbing a final load of laundry from the dryer, packing up that which was not yet in my luggage, and trying to eat some kind of breakfast. My appetite suffers greatly when anxiety comes home to roost, which, if you are familiar with the amount of food I am capable of putting away, is a touch ironic.

For all of my expedience and efficiency I was awarded with one of the slowest trips to the airport in recent memory. A little snow fell in Rhode Island during the night and apparently its presence had adversely affected people’s ability to drive. For those of you unfamiliar with modern rules of international travel, there is a 45 minute deadline by which you must check your luggage or else you are not permitted to board the plane. I had made my deadline by a mere five minutes.

So let’s recap: I slept little and poorly, cried a ton when I first woke up, and had come within an inch of not making my flights. The worst had to be behind me, right?

The first leg of my trip, a flight from Providence to Charlotte, NC, was really just a huge fog which lingered in the aftermath of the fore mentioned whirlwind morning which played in my mind like a montage from The Benny Hill Show complete with the zany horn music. (Some of you will understand that reference. Others will not. It’s okay.) I had three hours to kill in North Carolina and I successfully did so by finding some breakfast to quell my surging appetite which had magically come back to me on the plane; tying up some loose ends with some help from the free internet access in the airport, and then talking with my youngest sister before the next leg of my trip; a flight from Charlotte to Miami. As the plane took off my fatigue began to catch up with me and I spent the first half hour of the flight with my head pressed up against the wall of the plane only to wake up with a stiff neck and an imprint of the wall texture on my forehead – a canvass which is larger than usual thanks to the most recent shaving of my head. The remainder of the flight was uneventful and uncomfortable. US Airways has yet to catch up with the other carriers who have taken multiple rows out of their planes in favor of a bit more leg room.

Upon arriving in Miami I was met with the longest walk of my life from one end of the airport to the other. It’s shaped like a gigantic horseshoe and all of the terminals (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H) shoot out from the rounded portion of the structure. I arrived in terminal H and had to walk all the way to A. The most fun, and somewhat perilous, part of my trek was darting and weaving among an intense crowd of people who all looked like rejected tabloid fodder. A warehouse of Barbie dolls doesn’t have that much silicon and unless you have had your eyes tested with those drops that keep them from dilating properly, I really don’t see a need to wear sunglasses the size of window panes while you are indoors. That’s just me.

I probably would not be so bitter towards such an embrace of popular fashion had my experience getting out of Miami had not been so dreadful. A layover of just under 90 minutes was extended an hour only to be increased when the co-pilot, during his inspection, noticed one of the nose gear wheels was torn. This, of course, was not good and needed repair. The nose of the plane was elevated and the wheel changed; all while we boarded the plane and in so doing, the crew had inadvertently disengaged the pilot’s ability to steer the nose gear; a situation which was not discovered until we had already been pushed back from the gate. For obvious reasons, that needed to be rectified and by the time the wheels went up, it was 7:00pm and I was originally slated to land in Jamaica over an hour ago.

Fatigue found me again and I took in yet another power nap for which I am so famous. This time I assumed the position I normally take when napping on the El in Chicago – arms crossed at my stomach and my head hanging straight down. It tends to do a number on the neck muscles if you’re not used to it. My arrival in Kingston was uneventful right up until I got to customs. Apparently you need a copy of your itinerary when entering the country (a detail which was obviously skipped during my last entry) and when I didn’t have one, I went through a torturous scenario of obtaining one with the customs official. This easily tacked another 45 minutes on to my overall journey but according to the customs official, “Me would have been sitting ‘ere all night doing nuttin’ anyway, sir. You’ve made it more interesting. I’m just glad you was at the end of the line, not in da middle.”

Yeah, me too.

There was much rejoicing when I finally met up with my ride. There was even more rejoicing when I noticed he had a New England Patriots bumper sticker from their most recent Super Bowl victory. It immediately turned to much grumbling and griping over their loss to the Colts and exit from the playoffs. Turns out he’s from Warren, MA so we had plenty to talk about. I would like to say we took a quick trip through the mean streets of Kinston but to call them “mean” might be a bit of an understatement. Of course, any major city in an area has its bad parts, we just happened to be passing through all of them on the way to our destination and I vaguely recall seeing CNN footage from a war zone in the Middle East that didn’t look too different from this.

I was soon as my destination for the night; a former hotel called The Constant Spring which had been purchased by nuns half way through the 20^th century. It serves as their convent and sits on a gigantic compound which houses among other things, a school and a retreat center. So far, what I have seen of the former hotel is gorgeous. Complete with a swimming pool and a lush central courtyard, the look and feel is similar to that of a large Italian villa and much of the furniture which adorns the place is left over from its original purchase. The lobby (which I am lounging in as I write this) is a large, square room with tall French doors at opposite ends which let in a plethora of light. The 20 foot ceiling is supported by tall, square columns whose bases are decorated with low, stylized chairs and small side tables between them. Breezes pass through the room at any given moment and considering that I woke up yesterday to 27 degree weather, the change is most welcome.

Yes, folks, I’m back. I continue to meet fascinating people whose stories are as varied as the places from which the come. Since arriving I have met a Chinese woman who is also a native Jamaican and the one in charge around here. Sr. Goretti is her name and even though she is not even five feet tall, her presence looms very, very large. I have also had the pleasure of meeting a Canadian named Greg who is here helping in all things computers and he and I spoke “geek” for much of the day as he explained his plan of implementing Linux servers and desktops around here. (If that means absolutely nothing to you, don’t sweat it.)

Later today I will take in the taping of a radio program at the University of the West Indies and hopefully some more of this beautiful hotel. Tomorrow I make my way back to Bull Savannah and the great people I met last month. It will be a two hour drive just to cover a little less than 60 miles and we are planning to leave at 5:30am. At least the sunrise coming up over the Caribbean Sea will be fun to watch.