Down Memory Lane 4 - Respecting Differences

A few years ago, I was flying from Dallas Fort-Worth to Denver.  On many such flights, people sitting inches from each other remain silent and just endure the crowded discomfort.  But, sometimes, you strike up a conversation with the person next to you - and it makes a lasting impression.  This was one such case.

I am not sure how the conversation got started.  Perhaps I was reading a children's book - something I do quite often.  At any rate, the younger woman sitting next to me and I got to talking.  She was a teacher; I had been a teacher and was currently a substitute teacher.  So we were discussing teaching and schools and school systems.  She was a devout Christian and taught in a private religious school; I am non-religious and have taught in private, public, and charter schools.  She was conservative politically; I am liberal-progressive.  In such situations, many topics are usually taboo.  We are, after all, in a situation where we will be together only briefly; why risk anger and accusations.  But we did anyway.  She was curious as to how people like me could support things like abortion.  She was interested in my reasons and actually respectful of them, even while disagreeing.  It turns out that she had gotten pregnant before marriage and had kept the baby (who had significant handicaps).  She couldn't imagine her life without him and couldn't imagine why anyone would get an abortion.  She believed in personhood beginning at conception.

My take on it is somewhat different from many liberal-progressives.  Yes, I believe that a woman should have control over her own body and her own health, which can be significantly impaired by pregnancy and childbirth.  But I also come at my views from an ecological perspective.  I believe that the current human population of the earth is well past the carrying capacity of our ecosystems.  We have altered the sustainability of many of those systems drastically, some beyond their capacity to recover.  [See articles about the Sixth Extinction, which some scientists believe is imminent.]  I think it is vital to our survival on earth that we do anything and everything we can to limit the population of humans on earth.

In addition, I believe that everyone should have the chance to live a life free from the devastating effects of hunger, lack of housing, lack of education, and lack of safety.  To live a life in such a manner requires a significant use of natural resources.  In other words, I would like to see it possible for anyone who works at it to live a life that was at least comfortably lower middle class, according to an American-style perspective.  With the world's current population, that level of consumption would exacerbate the current ecological problems.

One thing that I thought of later, that I have now added to my reasoning is that yes, she can't imagine life without her son.  But what about life without all of the other babies that she and her husband didn't have?  Most likely, since she and her husband had two children after they got married, they could have had more.  Do they miss the ones that they didn't have, due to birth control?  Do they miss the ones that she might have miscarried without even knowing it?  These potential children might have changed her life.  Does she miss them?  The answer is probably no.  Most women don't regret each and every menstrual cycle as a missed baby.

At any rate, it was a very respectful and interesting conversation.  I doubt if either of us changed our views much.  But it was encouraging to me to be able to have such a conversation.  I sometimes fear I am too opinionated to hear others out, but I think, in this case, both of us felt that we had been heard. So, I say, thank you to that anonymous woman.  Thank you for embodying the ability to disagree respectfully.

Poll: Have You Ever?

It occurred to me this morning, not for the first time, but rather strongly, that many of the students I sub for have very different childhood experiences from what I had.  That isn't necessarily bad, but it needs to be taken into consideration when we teach them.  So here are some questions that stem from my childhood.

1) Have you ever climbed a tree and sat in the branches a few minutes?

2) Have you ever played in a creek and made a dam across it?

3) Have you ever made a tunnel in snow?

4) Have you ever raised a farm animal for food?

5) Have you ever helped preserve food from your family's own garden for the winter?

6) Have you ever known everyone who lives on your street?

7) Have you ever blown the seeds off of puffy dandelions?

8) Have you ever sat on a teeter totter?

9) Have you ever camped outside with no tent?

10) Have you ever spent most of the day outside without parent supervision?

Note: I am not saying these things are all necessary or worthwhile experiences - just different.  My own children would probably answer no to most of these questions.  Very different lives.

Down Memory Lane - 2

One of my students was an adorable black boy, who had a bit of a stutter.  But more bothersome than that was his penchant to use inappropriate words in school.  I tried to correct him, telling him dutifully every time that, "We don't use those words in school."  Finally, I decided I needed to talk to his parents about the problem at parent/teacher conferences.

Me:  M****** has a bit of a problem with using inappropriate words in school.
M's Mom:  Well, I am just going to have to get the little f***er!

Ah, yes!  Now I see.

Down Memory Lane - 1

I finally had a classroom of my own, after being an assistant teacher for 1 1/2 years.  It was a 6th grade, which, at the time, was still in the elementary school.  One of the subjects we were to teach was sex education.  The curriculum was set out, but we were told that, at the end of each lesson, it would be good to have an open question and answer time.  So, I bravely followed the first lesson and, at the end of the lesson asked for any questions.

One girl raised her hand and said she had a question.  It was, "Was my mama a whore?"

I was completely unprepared for that kind of question.  The particulars of the reproductive system I could address, but I wasn't even sure if I was allowed to use the word "whore" in school.  But, it was obvious, also, that this was an extremely brave and urgent question, so it needed an answer.  Thinking as quickly as I could, I said that the first thing we needed to know was the definition of a whore.  I said that it usually meant that a woman was having sex for pay. 

She said that her mother was 13 years old when she was born.

Again, completely taken aback, I tried to put a neutral (and not shocked) face on.  I told her that, at that age, she was so young that she almost certainly wasn't having sex for pay, so that she almost certainly wasn't a "whore".

What I should have said, but didn't, since it wasn't part of the nomenclature then, was that at the age of 12, when she got pregnant, her mother would not have been able to give informed consent to sex.  If the boy who fathered her was much older, he should not have had sex with her.  If the boy was about her age, both of them should have had better supervision and information about sexual activities.

All in all, I think I handled the question OK and the girl seemed VERY relieved to think that her mother wasn't actually a "whore".  My guess is that kids were teasing her about her mother and perhaps also about her "bastard" status.

Now, back to the current day.  This question has informed my opinion that we need full and complete sex education, beginning even before children start puberty.  Sex education needs to include not just the nuts and bolts of the reproductive system, but also the emotional and social aspects of sex.  Perhaps 5th and 6th graders don't need explicit instruction in contraception, but they should at least be told that there are ways to prevent pregnancy and if they think they might need it, they should ask the school nurse.