Thursday, February 24, 2011

This almost-a-year in teachers' college has taken me from someone who was so ideallistic and wanted so badly to change the system and help kids, to someone who sees schools as an horrendous child-processing mill.  The way that the University shunts us through the courses, not caring whether we develop as people, as teachers, as human beings, not really caring whether the people in the class have any interest in social justice, or fairness, or whether there is any real concern for furthering the betterment of society - something that I think should be inherent to the calling of teaching.  How can one even consider teaching without a desire to make the world that these little people are going out into a better place.

Last night the Pride Group met here, and the reality of being queer and young here really hit me.  I'm scared and I'm a grownup.  I remember being thrown out, and how horrible it was, and I was a legal adult, with friends to go to.  All I had to worry about was finding a job, money, and a place to live, and getting through university. 

I didn't have the rest of my growing up to do at the same time. 

I want to make a difference.  I don't want to just process people who are going to be ok no matter who is there. 

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

C-PTSD

So, I have a private blog, in which I talk about the realities of Having Complex PTSD, but it's worth knowing that it's something that I deal with.

It's often discounted, and people with it, are most often written off as odd, cold, or otherwise bizzarre, because of the coping mechanisms that they develop to.  Complex PTSD comes as a result of trauma that is ongoing and long-term, to the point where the victim feels that they will never escape, be safe, or otherwise be free of it.

There's basically 4 main mechanisms that people develop as a response to this trauma:
Fight - where you try to exert control over everything in your environment
Flight - where you try to keep moving/busy constantly
Freeze - where you escape into fantasy or addiction
Fawn - where you bend over backwards to accommodate everyone else

Most people use a normal combination of all 4 of these in crisis situations, knowing when to fight, when to capitulate, when to negotiate, and when to keep busy and just get through things.  A C-PTSD survivor has become fixated on one or two of these coping strategies, and so can't move fluidly between them.  Additionally, a C-PTSD survivor perceives any sort of negative feeling as having the potential to turn into that original nightmare over again, so it re-activates the defence mechanism.

Here's some reading:
http://www.pete-walker.com/fourFs_TraumaTypologyComplexPTSD.htm
http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php
http://www.nctsnet.org/nctsn_assets/pdfs/edu_materials/ComplexTrauma_All.pdf

Monday, February 07, 2011

Non-sense (or devlution?)

There are things that make sense, and things that have meaning, and they are not always the same things.

I've had an exterminator trying to trap this thing that's been living in the crawlspace.  Well, we caught it.  Only, not in time, and he didn't check the trap fast enough, so when I went down there, there was a dead kitty in the trap.

I came upstairs and cried for half an hour.  I cried off and on for most of yesterday.  I'm not ok with that.  I had a feeling it was a cat, and he told me it couldn't be,so I believed him.

I feel so guilty, for being scared of the crawlspace, and scared it was a skunk, and not checking it myself, and so on.

Last night when I went to bed, I had the wierdest thought of making a blood offering, just putting a smear of blood on a stone, and burning incense over it and making an apology.  It was a thought I couldn't shake.  So, today I went and did it, and I feel much better.

Not ALL better, but it's a way of trying to come to terms with it.

YES, I know it has no bearing on the cat, or no impact on the real world, but that's what ritual is for, right?  It's a way for us to reconcile things which we otherwise can't come to terms with.

Personal ritual makes all the more sense to me for that reason.

Anyhow, that's what I've got today.  Back to the homework.

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

My Phys. Ed. Autobiography


H.A.E.S[i] is Health At Every Size.  It is something that is rarely spoken about in schools, in a health curriculum, or in a single piece of the anti-obesity rhetoric that is behind the QDPA (Quality Daily Physical Activity), increased physical activity, “more movement”, “less screen time”, movements.  Not that there is anything inherently wrong about the ideals behind these things, but that for the students who are coming from a place of low self-esteem, and negative body-image, this kind of program could be a nightmare to be endured, and not the boon it is intended to be.   So, do I complain about the fact that this article[ii] is co-sponsored by a company that produces tonnes of sugared cereals and an anti-obesity research organization?  Is it more productive to endorse the message, given that I am entirely certain that getting more physical activity helps to stimulate a child’s brain?

I grew up without a television, I did have a “Merlin” electronic game, a computer, and of course, I had books.  I was a fairly active child, who did extremely well in school, to the point of spending most of my life in a gifted withdrawal program.  I was also fat. 

I was a competitive swimmer, winning 50 and 100m butterfly as well as 100m crawl fairly consistently from ages 8-13.  I taught swimming at 14, was a lifeguard at 15, biked to and from the pool (a 1-4 km distance depending on where I was working), downhill skied, fenced – epée since girls were not allowed to do saber, and hated myself the whole time for being “fat and lazy”.

I had the same teacher for P.E. from Grade 3 to Grade 8.  My  memories of public school gym class consist largely of Mr. Peel shouting at myself and Blair, as we walked around the 1km track, the two fat kids, “Run, fattie, run!”  I remember deliberately refusing to run, and knowing that he hated me.  I remember not being able to climb the rope, not being able to do the right number of chin ups for the Participaction Challenge, refusing to even attempt to crawl under the bench for fear of getting stuck, and generally, just hating the whole experience of Phys. Ed. 

I recall the shame of the change room, not wanting anyone to see me naked, knowing that I looked different, because I was fat, and had different sized clothes than everyone else. 

I hated Phys. Ed, even though I played actively at recess.  Which was odd, since I was an active kid.  We had a cottage, where I ran, and swam, climbed up sheer rock faces, and trees, swung from ropes, climbed ladders, helped build a roof, and generally did everything that any other kid would do.  I swam huge distances – I was the only kid at the Art Camp I attended, to be allowed to accompany the waterfront director on her swim across the lake.

I knew my body worked, I liked it, and I was usually happy in my own skin, but somehow, translated into that experience of “gym class”, all I felt was shame, discordance, and self-loathing. 

It took a long time for me to reclaim that feeling.: the freedom of being me.  The need to “be good” at things, to master certain skill sets, to achieve success is often counter productive to the goal of being active.  We, as curriculum leaders, need to make a decision as to which one is more important.  If we are going to encourage our students to make an effort to be more active, then we have to decide that it is activity for the sake of enjoyment of the activity which matters, and not activity for the purpose of mastery and “success”.  I was always quite driven, and wanting to be the best, or to do better was a big issue for me.  Learning to enjoy something just for the sake of enjoyment was hard.

A few years ago, my ex-spouse and I hand-dug a 12x21 semi-inground pool in our backyard because we could not fit an excavator in.  It was a lot of work, a lot of physical labour, and it really gave me an opportunity to re-evaluate my fear of physical activity, stemming from that dreaded gym class.  No one laughed at me.  No one hated me.  There was no censure, no shame, just a person, with a body, enjoying the interplay of muscle, the kinesthetics, the movement, the growing strength, the joy of motion, the soreness after a good day’s work.

Those are the things that we need to find a way to communicate to our students  - most notably, the joy of the body;  the pleasure to be found in movement, the excitement to be derived from building strength and perhaps skill, as well. 
When I first walked into the gym here at Lakehead, with the smell, and the sound, it was fear that came flooding back, and I wanted to run away.  The fact of my perseverance, and subsequent enjoyment of the classes, says a lot for the efforts of my colleagues, and for the desire  I have to learn ways in which to create a Phys. Ed. Program which is welcoming to students of all ability and capability levels.   When I was on placement, I specifically asked to be allowed to teach P.E., so that I could have the opportunity to face my fears head on.  I am not certain that I did an outstanding job, but it did give me the opportunity to be there, in the gym in front of the class, looking at these people, and trying to figure out how to make this not only the least traumatic experience for them, but also a beneficial one. 

I think, often, as with the rest of the subjects, we teach to the middle of the class, and this is another area, where we need to look at how we can service those on the margins.  Obviously those with special talents are most likely going to be getting some kind of outside assistance or encouragement, teams or other extra-curricular activity, but what about the ones whose skills are not up to the standard?   I don’t have an answer to this.  When we build co-operative games and assume that all the students are comfortable with their bodies touching, then we invite shame into our gym class.  When we mark out squares on the floor of our gym class without a thought for the fact that not all people are that size, then we invite shame into our gym class.  When we create an activity where students have to shimmy through a tight space, or squeeze through a hula hoop, or otherwise measure a body they might not feel comfortable with sharing the dimensions of, we invite shame into our gym class.  

In this article on fatness in teenagers,[iii] there is an obvious correlation between the differing lifestyles of contemporary teenagers, and those of previous generations.   It  references these additional stressors, and the lack of free time between jobs and school, and the need to “grab food quickly “ between the two, but makes no allowances for the accompanying stresses of the hurried modern life.  The 2010 Active Healthy Kids Report Card[iv] recommends 90 minutes of Physical activity per day, and no more than 60 consecutive minutes of sedentary activity, that children walk to school, or play outside.  These are excellent suggestions, but without a change in the economy, the need of parents to work two jobs, predations concerns, and other societal deterrents, much of this is not going to happen. 

Given the emphasis on literacy and mathematics, the concern for teachers, is how do we integrate these things.  With a single 20 minute QDPA, and twice a week Phys. Ed. Classes, there isn’t enough opportunity to get the students up and moving.  

I did a lot of physical activity as a child, and it very probably contributed to my good marks, and my academic success, but it wasn’t helped by the negative attitudes of my gym teacher, or society’s fatphobic zeitgeist.    I agree that there needs to be more physical activity, less computer time, less television time, especially given the desire to prevent Type 2 Diabetes,[v] heart disease, and other illnesses not related specifically to fatness, but to inactivity.  We, as a species, are designed to be in motion, and do not do well, confined all day. 

Health At Every Size is about the idea of being active starting where you are NOW.  The idea is to take yourself, in the given moment, and to work to be as active as possible, now. It is about working to eat food that is good for your body, and nourishes you.  It is about loving yourself as you are.  Not loving an idealized version of yourself, or a future version.     Being able to incorporate this element of self awareness and knowing  into a Phys. Ed. Curriculum that is based on enjoying activity, enjoying movement, and enjoying the feeling of being active is really the point of the whole endeavour as far as I am concerned.  Children need to learn skills to bring them into healthy, positive adulthood, and to be able to translate those feelings of self-worth, and self-efficacy into other areas of their lives.  It doesn’t really matter whether they can throw or catch a ball, but feeling like they can do something if they learn the necessary safety steps, follow reasonable instructions, and then set their mind to doing it – that’s a life skill worth nurturing. 





[i] Bacon, Linda. (2010). Health at Every Size. Retrieved from http://haescommunity.org/
[ii] Active Healthy Kids Canada. (2009) Active Kids Score Higher: More Activity Time Adds Up to Better Learning.  Retrieved from http://www.ophea.net/article/featured/active-kids-score-higher-more-activity-time-adds-better-learning
[iii] McPheeh, Jennifer. (2002) Weighty problem Retrieved from http://www.nnsl.com/frames/newspapers/2002-11/nov13_02fat1.html
[iv] Active Healthy Kids Canada. (2010) Healthy Habits Start Earlier Than You Think: 2010 Active Health Kids Canada Report Card. Retrieved from http://www.activehealthykids.ca/ecms.ashx/2010ActiveHealthyKidsCanadaReportCard-longform.pdf
[v] Seibert, J. (2010). Phys-ed class sweat pays off in the long run. Retrieved from http://my.hsj.org/Schools/Newspaper/tabid/100/view/frontpage/schoolid/3291/articleid/392461/newspaperid/3404/Physed_class_sweat_pays_off_in_the_long_run.aspx

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Police State? (or state your policy at least)

Why are police hiding their badge numbers?  If they are doing their jobs as authorized, then they should be unafraid of repercussions.  If there is some unofficial policy whereby harassment is acceptable, but for accountability's sake reprimands will be issued if officers can be identified, then there is a serious problem, and when a lack of visible police identification becomes a trend, that starts to become a valid concern.

Unidentified Officers harassing anarchists again?

Especially when police are bringing shotguns to a peaceful gathering.  We are entitled to gather together as citizens to discuss, quite frankly, whatever the hell we want to. 

I saw the police at the G20, and I watched the G20 videos with tears streaming down my face, because we, as Mommas, and crips left before people started getting beaten up and arrested, for the sake of the kiddos we had with us.  It was the police who were getting ugly, not the crowd, that day, and as anyone who has ever been in charge of a group of people knows, there are ways to diffuse tension in a situation, and ways to escalate it. 

The Toronto police could use some training in de-escalation.  How to talk to people.  How to calm people down, How to be a human being.  There wasn't any need for the way that they behaved that day, and there wasn't any need to bring a shotgun to an Anarchist Studies Conference.  It wasn't violent.  No one was in danger.   Their "gun call" was a spurious attempt to gain entrance into, and to violate the rights of those present at an academic conference.

A Conference!  A place where people posit new ideas, and discuss innovative theory.

*sigh*

At least it's sunny here.