Ask Mrs. Odie: Bully for you

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Mrs Odie

I got this question on my “About the author” page. I have to admit that a screen name of “Mrs. Are You Kidding-Me” puts me on high bullshit alert, but I’ll answer her question as if I’m taking it at face value.

“My question to you ( a serious one ) – As an educator how do you deal with bullying in your school district? From reading your blog your children are still very young correct? If your children are bullied by anyone how do you think you as a mother will handle that?

Do you think bullying transcends to blogs? Do you think you bully others in your blog? Or really is it all in fun for you?

I don’t deal with bullying district-wide, but I can talk a bit about what I see from the classroom I barely leave except to pee.

The kids have been hearing about “bullying” for so long, it’s become a punchline for them. Just as students will recite “Sharing is caring” in mockery of their sensitivity training, so will they also complain, “Mrs. Odie, Rachel is BULLYING me!” every time they feel annoyed by a classmate.

Even though I am anonymous, that shit is flimsy and I never want it said that I revealed confidential information about my students here. That disappoints me way more than you, because I’d love an outlet to vent. Students can and do go on-line and say the most hateful, slanderous things about their teachers. Most of the bullying I see in my school or hear about from my peers is students and parents bullying teachers. For example, a group of students told a substitute teacher if he wrote down their names for the teacher, they’d make up some stuff that would get him fired.

I had to intervene in several bullying incidents last year. Any time a student is awkward, tiresome, or different in a way the power pack deems unacceptable, that person is treated poorly. I go out of my way to praise kind, thoughtful behavior when I see it.

A girl came into my room at lunch crying her eyes out over a fight she’d had with her friend. Some of the “cool” kids stopped by too, saw her crying and gave her self-conscious hugs and empty words of comfort. Still, it was the right thing to do and I made a big deal of it to them privately later. It inspired me to see compassion. I was also happy to observe a few days later that the friends had made up and all was well again.

To some extent, it is human nature to exclude and isolate anyone we see as “different.” I see toddlers do it at preschool. It’s why we parents constantly check in with each other and Dr. Google to make sure our offspring are normal. The pain of being scorned by peers is nothing when compared to the agony of seeing it happen to your kid.

You asked me about whether I think that bullying “transcends to blogs.” What an odd phrasing. To transcend is to “rise above,” so how is a blog above my classroom when it comes to bullying? Physically? Spiritually? Morally? I’ll chalk it up to a case of that’s not the word you meant to use. Your follow up question, “Do you think you bully others in your blog?” is easy to answer. No.

Can blogs be used to bully? I don’t know. Maybe really powerful people could use their public forums to bully weaker people. The word “bully” is hackneyed. A bully is a person who has power over another and forces or coerces the weaker person. Power is the key to being a bully. I’m not forcing anyone to do anything, not even read what I write. Where’s my power? If my blog bullies people, then so does every gossip magazine, gossip blog, and unfavorable book review. If my blog had power to make people do stuff, I’d blog about my hot coworkers going down on me, or my kids eating vegetables.

Do I think my blog has the power to annoy, irritate, and confound? Absolutely! I’ve written a series of posts about a couple of bloggers I enjoy satirizing, but it’s a tiny percentage of what I do here. Each of them is far bigger and more powerful than I, so by definition I am unable to bully them.

I have nearly 300 posts on my blog and not even 20% of them are gossipy posts. Those handful just tend to get the most attention because humans adore gossip. I go to GOMI and join in the gossip quite regularly. I don’t comment on what I don’t agree with nor engage writers who disagree with me. I’m low drama. Some people love to pick fights. Not I.

I like to add my voice at Celebitchy and D-Listed too. I never go to other bloggers sites and abuse them in any way. Disagree? Sometimes. Argue with other commenters? Certainly. Ask leading questions? Occasionally. Defend myself? When I feel like it.

I love a good comeback. GOMI lends itself to that well, and I’m in good company there. Some of those women are hilarious. Others are horribly mean. On my blog, I don’t publish comments that make fun of a person’s face or body (style is fair game as are parenting choices). Homophobia or transphobia is not welcome here.

Thank you for these thought provoking inquiries. I am totally not kidding you.

Posted in Ask Mrs. Odie | Tagged , , , , | 23 Comments

Back, back to school again

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Mrs Odie

Everyone is asleep but me.

I don’t know how much time I have before Pringles nuzzles up to Viva, realizes she’s not me and raises the alarm of protest. I’ll work with what I have.

I finished On Writing by Stephen King. When I was nursing Pringles just now, I read his advice about some technical aspects (submissions, agents) that gave me heart palpitations. Am I too old to make money as a writer? Will I sell anything? Do I have what it takes? King recounts the story of his famous accident at the end of the book and the narrative is riveting. Sure, the most famous writer in the world hit by a van and nearly killed may be an inherently interesting tale, but I know people who are such terrible storytellers, there is no event they can recount without making me want to shake them by the shoulders screaming “STOP TALKING!”

I have told people I’m working on a book. The words “my novel” make me cringe. It sounds so pretentious. The only thing that would sound worse is “my screenplay,” given that I live in Los Angeles County where everyone’s “got a script.”

When Hilary Swank won her Best Actress Oscar, she gave interviews recounting a childhood of poverty wherein her mother believed in her career so much, they lived in a car while she went on auditions. Or maybe her mother just believed so little in working that there was nothing she wouldn’t do to help her daughter support them. How much is this “living in our car” story embellished? Her Wikipedia page says she dropped out of South Pasadena High School. Either her mom parked the car in a great neighborhood, or their financial situation wasn’t that dire. South Pasadena is literally one of the most expensive cities in an already absurdly expensive state. She could scarcely have chosen a nicer high school to drop out of.

The reason I bring up this swanky detail is because some people who become artists talk of childhoods where they got nothing but encouragement and I did not have one of those. Reading this, my parents would both likely protest vehemently, but it’s how I feel. They absolutely supported my writing in that they told me I was good. But they both made it clear they felt I would never be a writer. My father is too practical. There’s no money in it. Everyone in the world wants to be a writer. Find something that everyone doesn’t want to do. My mom wasn’t unsupportive, she was just busy. Busy remarrying, fighting with her stepdaughter, making remarks about my dad’s girlfriends, getting another divorce, dating, making remarks about my dad’s wife, getting sick. She’s supportive in her way. For example, when I complain about work, she’ll say “You should be a writer! You were always such a good writer!” Then she tells the story of how my fifth grade teacher made me write a book and she had it typed up, illustrated and placed in the school library.

The funny thing about my dad’s attitude is that he is a writer, and a very successful one. He’s always said the right things to me. It’s even possible that this “lack of support” is projection on my part. He’s very vocal about his pride in my career as a teacher. It’s a great career. Imagine that your children are grown and you’re chatting with someone at a party. “Oh, you have a grown daughter? What does she do?” “She’s a high school English teacher.” It sounds good, doesn’t it? What’s the other person going to say? “Oh, wow! A teacher! What a noble profession. Good for her.”

One of my readers commented on “Viva la Viva” that she loved and hated me. The love part is obvious, but the hate stems from the fact that she dreams of teaching and I don’t make it appealing. Let me go ahead and make it appealing, since I have to go back to it in a few days.

I love my job. It’s different every day. I don’t have to sit at a desk staring at a computer or sit in boring meetings. Some teachers think the meetings are boring, but at my workplace, we don’t have “meetings” very often. We have weekly collaboration time and I get energized by interacting with other teachers. And when there’s conflict and bitchiness, I enjoy that too because I love gossip. Some teachers don’t merely want to disagree with the policies or opinions of others. They want to stand up in front of 75 people, announce and flounce.

“Well I believe in our students right to their own personal head space, so I for one will not be complying with the policy,” hair flip, sit down, receive literal pat on back from coworker sitting nearby. I love peeking at this one guy during our meetings to see how long into the meeting he falls asleep. The chin hits the chest and out he goes. It’s hard to appreciate comments about my “professionalism” where the bar is set so low.

“You’re such a great teacher, Mrs. Odie. You’re never openly insubordinate and you stay conscious during staff meetings.”

I’m feeling guilty and indignant about my summer vacation. I didn’t accomplish anything I planned. I relaxed. I recharged. It was, well, a vacation.

Posted in Work Related | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments