Starting with my own experiences with bullying (being bullied particularly) and moving into my decision to become a teacher, it is always something I have felt strongly about. When I decided to teach middle school I knew I would be dealing with some bullying issues as this is a really hard time in student's lives. They are gaining some independence, they have more free time since they change classes, and have less supervision at lunch. They are also at a time in life when they are beginning to notice differences between themselves and others. For some reason this is when girls begin bullying the most. Boys tend to take longer to start that and I think it has more to do with testosterone and gender roles than girls. Girls will bully people who are different in the way they talk, dress, look, etc, etc, etc. I have always wondered why girls do that, but my own theory is that girls have more fear for those who are different, especially at a time in their own lives when they are insecure themselves.
In the school where I teach, I have noticed an interesting break from "tradition." No, it's not that we don't have bullying at all. That would be a miracle. It's that instead of the "minority" or "outsider" groups being bullied, those are the groups that are bullying others.
I learned last week about a student that is being bullied so horribly that she is afraid to come to school. She is afraid that she will continue to be bullied and that the bullies will retaliate now that she reported them. At this stage of life I have noticed that lots of students don't want to report bullying for fear of retaliation. The bullies, though, are not told who reported them. In fact, I heard the group talking in the hall yesterday about who they thought it was and none of them could figure it out.
It is probably good that I am writing this post a few days after-the-fact because I was a lot more emotional on Friday when I learned about what was going on. In fact, I started crying when the student's father told me. I have a habit of trying not to cry in public, but I couldn't help it. It brought up a lot of emotions in me that I didn't expect to feel again. Starting in 8th grade I was bullied by a group of girls. I still have no idea why they bullied me, but it didn't matter. They tried many times to make me feel like less of a human. I was very lucky in that there were other students who stood up for me and helped keep things from getting really bad. It didn't change how I began to feel about myself, though. I can trace many not so great decisions back to the feelings of inadequacy that began during that period of my life. It has taken years to realize that none of those feelings are valid, and that none of them define who I truly am. That was a time in my own life when I became more of an introvert. I have always been a bit introverted naturally, but that made it worse. Getting away and moving to another state for college where no one knew me or my past helped a lot. I was able to begin feeling like I was worth something again. I also had a good group of friends to surround myself with. Yet those feelings come back up whenever I see someone else going through what I went through.
The emotion, though, that I did not in any way expect was a feeling of protectiveness. What my family calls "mama bear syndrome." All I wanted to do was protect this student from the horrible experience she was having. It had apparently gotten so bad that this student's parents were thinking about pulling her out and homeschooling her. Luckily, we have a wonderful principal who does not tolerate bullying and ensured that the appropriate punishment was given to the bullies. I was and am just so upset for this student that I can't even seem to get my thoughts straight. This student is kind, beautiful, thoughtful, and a truly incredible person all-around. The fact that someone else would try to bring her down and make her feel like less of a human astounds me. Maybe it's because of my own experiences that I have absolutely zero tolerance for that kind of behavior. If I ever see it happening in my classroom my students see a side of me they never want to see again.
In the past I have had the opportunity to teach about the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s and I use Martin Luther King Jr;s "I Have a Dream" speech to talk about the way we treat other people. I use that speech as a way to show students that while we have come very far, we have a long way to go to achieve that dream. To achieve the dream of viewing another person as human no matter what they look like. Of not seeing people as good or bad, but simply as people who make choices. There are people who make bad and horrible choices. Those people are responsible for the consequences of their choices. I do understand that there are exceptions to every rule, but I feel like so many people are trying to be the exception instead of the rule. I have watched this group of bullies in our school play the victim so many times that it makes me sick. They instigate and instigate and then act like they did nothing wrong. It's bad that I can no longer have any sympathy for them or trust them in any way, but it's the way it is. There is an amazing Broadway musical called Aida. In one scene Aida, who is a Nubian princess who has been captured and turned into an Egyptian slave, is talking to an Egyptian soldier who is engaged to the Egyptian princess. The soldier is complaining that his life is so difficult and he is trapped. Aida turns to him and says "You are your own master. There are no shackles on you. If you don't like your fate, change it!" I have come to a point in my own life where I feel that this should be a life motto in some ways. There are many things I don't like or want to complain about, but why should I complain if I am not willing to change it. I am my own master. This is a lesson I try to teach to those students who are always blaming someone or something else for why they didn't follow a rule or didn't get something done. I know they are at a difficult age where those types of ideas and lessons are almost like speaking another language, but I don't think it is too early to learn them.
In the LDS the Young Women's Program (for girls ages 12-18) strives to teach a set of values. They include Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Good Works, Choice and Accountability, and Integrity. While I feel that all of them are very important, I wish that more emphasis was put on choice and accountability. I feel like it's the red-headed step child of the group (PS. I love red heads!) I feel that if more people took responsibility for their own choices there would be fewer problems in the world. But maybe that's the kicker. People don't want to be responsible for themselves. If they are, that means they have to accept their own mistakes and fix them. That can be really difficult. I'm not even perfect at that, but I am trying. I hear a lot of stories about people who just got "caught up in the wrong crowd," or "are really a good person," and I recognize that those things happen, but I don't think that means that they don't deserve a punishment for doing something wrong. Sometimes they need a harsher punishment to realize how far they "fell" and get back on their feet. Perhaps I am just rambling and idealistic, but I don't like to see other people treated poorly or able to get away with treating someone else horribly. I know that many people weren't taught the type of behavior in which others are treated with kindness and respect, but it is just really hard for me to see. I want to do more about it, but don't know what I have the power to do. So many times the bullies don't respond to any type of punishment, but.... I don't know. I wish that I had the means to provide more psychological assistance to both the victims and perpetrators of bullying as bullies tend to have their own issues they need to work through, but I don't.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Friday, February 26, 2016
Loss, Renewal, and Moving Forward
2015 was quite a year. It began like any other year, but ended unlike any year we have ever experienced. After our nephew was born things were progressing like any other year. We were closing in on the end of Jeremy's penultimate semester. **side note: I only know the word penultimate became my family read "A Series of Unfortunate Events" together and it was in the title of the second to last book.** In August we had gotten an email through our Adoption.com profile from a man in Washington who was considering placing his almost 1-year old boy. The mother had passed away and there were some complications in his life that made it difficult for him to be the father he wanted to be. Unfortunately he stopped contacting us before any plans could be made. We picked ourselves up and kept on trucking.
Then November rolled around and we got another email from a young woman here in Utah. She was looking to place her son that she would be having around December 21. We met with her and spent three hours at dinner just talking and laughing. We agreed that we wanted to move forward and began to make plans. We met with an attorney and got all of the initial paperwork filled out. Our hopeful birthmother was great about communicating back with the information we needed. As we got closer to the actual birth (which was to happen somewhat earlier than expected) communication became more difficult. She had never really answered her phone so we communicated mostly through text. Sometimes it would be an entire day before we would receive a text back, but we knew that she was very busy working. About a week before the date she was to be induced we stopped hearing back from her at all. I still scheduled maternity leave just in case, but we ended up not hearing from her again. We found out through Facebook (gotta love social media) that she had the baby. He was healthy and doing well. We still don't know if she decided to parent or had chosen another couple, but I have never felt like it was right to ask her. I didn't take the full maternity leave, but I did end up taking a week off. It was the week right before Christmas break began and I am glad I did take it. It helped me to take the time to grieve. I didn't expect to grieve or mourn or to feel the incredible amount of loss that I did feel. I don't want to downplay what women go through with a miscarriage, but I think I better understand the emotional journey the go through. It's like there is something hopeful there, something not quite tangible and yet tied to your heart nonetheless, and then it's gone. Without explanation. Luckily I have an amazing principal who understood and didn't require me to come back earlier than the end of Christmas break. I also work with an amazing staff who sent me a Poinsettia and a beautiful card that helped lift my spirits. After that first week, I also got to spend almost two weeks with my little brother, his wife, and their adorable little boy. They were kind enough to let me snuggle him to my heart's content. My family is also the kind that uses humor to get through difficult situations and there was so much laughter it made it impossible to feel sorry for myself. Plus, I have a hard time feeling sorry for myself anyway. I am an eternal optimist and instead of wallowing in self-pity for a long time (because I did wallow for some time), I picked myself up and moved on. We also had a great opportunity that helped us move on.
A week after we found out that the baby had been born, we got a call from an agency that we had considered working with, but hadn't finished applying for because the previous opportunity had presented itself. We decided to give the agency a try and were matched that same day with a young woman in Georgia. She was due at the end of February. We quickly made payments to agency and got set up with an attorney in the area. We called her and her mom weekly just to check in. Everything seemed to be going well. Then we got a text that the baby had come early, was healthy, and had come home with the mother. We asked if they were still planning to place and we told that they thought so. We tried calling the next day to determine if we needed to head out to Georgia, but never got through. We tried calling and texting, but heard nothing again. It was very hard to go through that again. Especially since, this time, I didn't want to take any additional time off. I have plenty of sick and personal days, but really want to save them for when we do get a child. That was a very difficult week and I feel bad for my students because I know that they could sense it. It gave me a bad feeling for how February was going to go. Normally I really dislike January and February anyway because where we live it is cold, snowy, and we don't see the sun for weeks at at time due to inversion. It also makes my allergies go nuts because all the "crap" in the air is trapped low so that I am breathing it in. Miraculously, though, January was over and February is almost there.
March always seems like such a change from the first 2 months of the year. It isn't necessarily warm, but we get out of consistent freezing temperatures and only have sporadic days of some snow that melts quickly. You can finally get outside during the day and feel the sun on your face. Plus, as a teacher, it means Spring Break is around the corner and the end of school and summer break is near! So there are definitely good things to look forward to. As I stated earlier, I am an eternal optimist. Sometimes it drives Jeremy nuts because he is.... well... a pessimist in my mind and a realist in his. He says that he hopes for the best, but plans for the worst. That can seem harsh, but it balances out my optimism when we need to look at pros and cons of situations. I also got some great news just before our first failed placement. I found out that I will be teaching at a new high school opening up for the 2016-2017 school year. They aren't even finished building it so it is truly brand new! They should have it done, or done enough to move in by the end of this school year. I still don't know what I'm teaching, but I know it will be a new and exciting adventure! I am hoping to find out soon so that I can start preparing and getting ideas that will help occupy my mind. I really hate being bored or having nothing to focus on. Jeremy would say it's that I don't like having something to obsess over, but either way the idea is the same.
I thought it would be a lot harder to write this post because there are a lot of emotions involved in the last few months, but it was easier than expected. The one aspect of this whole situation that I am really grateful for is that I don't feel animosity or anger toward either of the mothers in our failed placements. We have all been granted the gift of agency and we get to make our own choices. They will always affect others, but that doesn't mean that I get to be angry or upset that someone else made a choice I didn't like or that hurt me. I also feel like there is something even more right for us out there. We have grown through this process. Not only in knowing what to say and do, but as a couple. I am so glad that we made sure to support each other through the whole process instead of letting it drive us apart. Hopefully we can continue that with any new stresses that might happen with Jeremy graduating in May!
After a couple of weeks we decided that it was important for us to just move on with our lives and start "living" again. We started focusing on other things that we had been neglecting. Jeremy got back to focusing on school and looking for electrical engineering jobs for after graduation and I got back to focusing on improving my teaching and other small "stuff" that I needed to get done, but had been neglecting. It has felt really good to get back to life. We also decided to stop postponing a trip we wanted to take as a graduation/anniversary celebration. So we booked our trip and are looking forward to a few days sitting on beach doing nothing and worrying about nothing. I made sure to book a hotel that didn't offer WiFi so that we could completely disconnect. Now I just have to work on losing these extra pounds I have put on to get by swimsuit body ready!
Then November rolled around and we got another email from a young woman here in Utah. She was looking to place her son that she would be having around December 21. We met with her and spent three hours at dinner just talking and laughing. We agreed that we wanted to move forward and began to make plans. We met with an attorney and got all of the initial paperwork filled out. Our hopeful birthmother was great about communicating back with the information we needed. As we got closer to the actual birth (which was to happen somewhat earlier than expected) communication became more difficult. She had never really answered her phone so we communicated mostly through text. Sometimes it would be an entire day before we would receive a text back, but we knew that she was very busy working. About a week before the date she was to be induced we stopped hearing back from her at all. I still scheduled maternity leave just in case, but we ended up not hearing from her again. We found out through Facebook (gotta love social media) that she had the baby. He was healthy and doing well. We still don't know if she decided to parent or had chosen another couple, but I have never felt like it was right to ask her. I didn't take the full maternity leave, but I did end up taking a week off. It was the week right before Christmas break began and I am glad I did take it. It helped me to take the time to grieve. I didn't expect to grieve or mourn or to feel the incredible amount of loss that I did feel. I don't want to downplay what women go through with a miscarriage, but I think I better understand the emotional journey the go through. It's like there is something hopeful there, something not quite tangible and yet tied to your heart nonetheless, and then it's gone. Without explanation. Luckily I have an amazing principal who understood and didn't require me to come back earlier than the end of Christmas break. I also work with an amazing staff who sent me a Poinsettia and a beautiful card that helped lift my spirits. After that first week, I also got to spend almost two weeks with my little brother, his wife, and their adorable little boy. They were kind enough to let me snuggle him to my heart's content. My family is also the kind that uses humor to get through difficult situations and there was so much laughter it made it impossible to feel sorry for myself. Plus, I have a hard time feeling sorry for myself anyway. I am an eternal optimist and instead of wallowing in self-pity for a long time (because I did wallow for some time), I picked myself up and moved on. We also had a great opportunity that helped us move on.
A week after we found out that the baby had been born, we got a call from an agency that we had considered working with, but hadn't finished applying for because the previous opportunity had presented itself. We decided to give the agency a try and were matched that same day with a young woman in Georgia. She was due at the end of February. We quickly made payments to agency and got set up with an attorney in the area. We called her and her mom weekly just to check in. Everything seemed to be going well. Then we got a text that the baby had come early, was healthy, and had come home with the mother. We asked if they were still planning to place and we told that they thought so. We tried calling the next day to determine if we needed to head out to Georgia, but never got through. We tried calling and texting, but heard nothing again. It was very hard to go through that again. Especially since, this time, I didn't want to take any additional time off. I have plenty of sick and personal days, but really want to save them for when we do get a child. That was a very difficult week and I feel bad for my students because I know that they could sense it. It gave me a bad feeling for how February was going to go. Normally I really dislike January and February anyway because where we live it is cold, snowy, and we don't see the sun for weeks at at time due to inversion. It also makes my allergies go nuts because all the "crap" in the air is trapped low so that I am breathing it in. Miraculously, though, January was over and February is almost there.
March always seems like such a change from the first 2 months of the year. It isn't necessarily warm, but we get out of consistent freezing temperatures and only have sporadic days of some snow that melts quickly. You can finally get outside during the day and feel the sun on your face. Plus, as a teacher, it means Spring Break is around the corner and the end of school and summer break is near! So there are definitely good things to look forward to. As I stated earlier, I am an eternal optimist. Sometimes it drives Jeremy nuts because he is.... well... a pessimist in my mind and a realist in his. He says that he hopes for the best, but plans for the worst. That can seem harsh, but it balances out my optimism when we need to look at pros and cons of situations. I also got some great news just before our first failed placement. I found out that I will be teaching at a new high school opening up for the 2016-2017 school year. They aren't even finished building it so it is truly brand new! They should have it done, or done enough to move in by the end of this school year. I still don't know what I'm teaching, but I know it will be a new and exciting adventure! I am hoping to find out soon so that I can start preparing and getting ideas that will help occupy my mind. I really hate being bored or having nothing to focus on. Jeremy would say it's that I don't like having something to obsess over, but either way the idea is the same.
I thought it would be a lot harder to write this post because there are a lot of emotions involved in the last few months, but it was easier than expected. The one aspect of this whole situation that I am really grateful for is that I don't feel animosity or anger toward either of the mothers in our failed placements. We have all been granted the gift of agency and we get to make our own choices. They will always affect others, but that doesn't mean that I get to be angry or upset that someone else made a choice I didn't like or that hurt me. I also feel like there is something even more right for us out there. We have grown through this process. Not only in knowing what to say and do, but as a couple. I am so glad that we made sure to support each other through the whole process instead of letting it drive us apart. Hopefully we can continue that with any new stresses that might happen with Jeremy graduating in May!
After a couple of weeks we decided that it was important for us to just move on with our lives and start "living" again. We started focusing on other things that we had been neglecting. Jeremy got back to focusing on school and looking for electrical engineering jobs for after graduation and I got back to focusing on improving my teaching and other small "stuff" that I needed to get done, but had been neglecting. It has felt really good to get back to life. We also decided to stop postponing a trip we wanted to take as a graduation/anniversary celebration. So we booked our trip and are looking forward to a few days sitting on beach doing nothing and worrying about nothing. I made sure to book a hotel that didn't offer WiFi so that we could completely disconnect. Now I just have to work on losing these extra pounds I have put on to get by swimsuit body ready!
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