Back to School – I Am Barb Lee

Positively Positivity

Whew! I was really hoping to be back here long before now, but guess what? I recently returned to face to face teaching, with students in the same room for the first time in over a year. After working remotely followed by an accommodation due to a serious underlying illness (advanced lung cancer…yikes!) for the entire 2020-2021 school year, I’m in front of the kids again for real. Masks are required for everyone, so it isn’t quite the same, but I have to admit that it’s been a mostly positive experience for me to be back in the routine I was in for many years before my cancer diagnosis. In fact, I feel quite normal, and can even sometimes forget that I have a deadly disease. Add last week’s great scans to that equation and it makes for some happy times. But heck, what a struggle to get here, and believe me, I’d be a fool to think that it’s going to last. Which doesn’t mean I’m not going to enjoy the break until the next big cancer event, and that I won’t hope and pray that I have lots of time before that happens.

How did I get to this more comfortable place?

I got (and continue to get) the best medical care possible.

I asked for no sympathy.

I found new ways to do what I love.

I found new things to love.

I surrounded myself with positivity.

I didn’t (and don’t) let my illness define me.

Please click the links above to read previous posts on how I live successfully with a chronic illness that initially spun my world around and still continues to at the drop of a hat.

In this post, I will discuss point number five, surround yourself with positivity

Let me put it right out there: you don’t need people throwing around their own special brand of negativity when you’re already dealing with more heartache than most humans can handle. Do you know what it’s like to have a needle in your arm and lie in a tight, noisy machine while it scans your brain? Then to get out of that machine and get in a different one to scan most of the rest of your body? How about radiation? Ever had it? Or, think about what it might be like when you just want to live your life but you can’t because you have to do things to save your life. Now, add a negative person or two to that and aren’t you feeling extra super sucky? Yeah, I’ve been there, done that.

So, what do you do? The solution is simple to say, difficult to accomplish. Complicated, because the negative individual is oftentimes someone we love and we think we have to be “nice” and let that person chip away at us when our health woes are already doing that, because to get rid of them is “mean” and we just don’t dare cross that line. Listen, there’s no definitive proof in medicine that stress and unhappiness cause diseases and illnesses to fester inside of us. But last summer when I was in Boston for three weeks receiving radiation I was under siege, being called every ugly thing in the world by someone who claims to love me, and the emotional pain I was feeling was palpable. This was on top of being off my cancer medication and limping around Boston five days a week to get my treatments, being away from home, being masked several hours a day in heat and humidity, and wondering if the radiation was even going to work to save my life.

I know now that the radiation did its job pretty well, but five months later I had metastasis in my lower body, and guess what? The abuse continued. When I was sitting around a medical facility alone because of COVID19, too far from home, and fearing for my life again after a pretty good run at cancer, the abuse didn’t stop. I still remember that cold December night very well. I had just turned fifty-four. And I certainly wasn’t getting what I wanted for my birthday.

Alas, I have gained control of this situation since then. I was “mean.” I wasn’t “nice.” I had to avoid this hurt and pain at all costs, and I still do. I’m not much on sidestepping problems, but then I never had cancer to deal with. I danced around this blemish in my life and a few others that threatened to bring me to the ground. Sorry folks, it’s about me now. I can’t afford the abuse, any abuse. My goal is zero percent negativity, but this is pretty much impossible to achieve unless you never leave the house!

Truth is, I’m overwhelmed (underwhelmed?) by some of the adversity I’ve had to deal with on top of cancer. You would think people would know better. But some don’t. Does it still apply to say that whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger? Perhaps, but when you’re already dealing with something that has the potential to kill you, any extra adversity is totally unnecessary.

Say good-bye to it in the nicest way possible. And if you can’t do it nicely, it’s okay. You’ve earned the right to be “mean.”

Unhappy Trails

It’s hardly a secret that I spend a lot of time in the woods, near and far. International parks, national parks, state parks, town parks, any park. Long trails, short trails, no trails, any trail. The forest is my refuge, where I go for silence, reflection, exercise, clarity. I’m hardly the only person on Earth who practices this. Millions of individuals do. And it seems, as I’ve observed once again, that there are just as many people in the forest that don’t care about silence or reflection or exercise or clarity. Worse, the example that they set for their children says, the forest and the trees and those dummies in hiking boots don’t matter. Don’t worry about them! This land is our land, like the song says. Do whatever you want with it!

To me, no matter how much I travel, a road trip in the United States is the best thing that could happen to me. This summer, I was lucky enough to complete two. I can’t even count how many I’ve taken in this crazy life of mine. But I can count how many times I’ve been disappointed by the behavior of other Americans and their offspring: every single time. The ugly American is alive and kicking and exhibiting several other forms of bad behavior, too.

Here’s my disclaimer: I’m not a parent. I never wanted to be a parent. I will never be a parent. But I am a teacher. I’m that person that takes care of your children for you seven hours a day while you earn a living. I’m the person that gets your child through the least favorite part of their day, and I do it without yelling, swearing, or even being allowed to touch them. Meanwhile, you have them for the part of the day that they look forward to the most, and with all the tools you have on your side your children are disrespectful and you let them be. You bring them to my playgrounds, my refuges, my shrines, and you turn them loose to pollute the silence, the rules, the trees, the rocks, the dirt, and the water and don’t teach them to respect these things. My heart, folks, is broken. Broken like the carved trees and the trashed lands and the sacred air that is pierced with their screams that have no real purpose other than to make noise. But wait, I’m missing something here. The reason that they act like that is because you act like that. You set the example of bad behavior and they follow it. They don’t know any better because of you. Is there a solution? There is. Read on.

The world has places that are made for noise. Disney World. Six Flags. Rock concerts. Sporting events. Go to any of these places and you’ll look like a Scrooge if you aren’t yelling. I know, because I’ve been to plenty of concerts and sporting events, and while everyone is drinking and smoking and acting cool, I’m just enjoying the music and the spectacle and being quiet like I am on the trail. The point is that there’s a time and a place for everything, and the time and place for obnoxious behavior is not on a beautiful hiking trail.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I GOT IT. We live in a free country. You paid your twenty bucks for a week of touring a national park just like I did. Your kids are going to be brats once in a while. You’re going to be a brat once in a while. You need to let your hair down and decompress SOMEWHERE. So I need to stop complaining and mind my own business.

I won’t. Because the way you act goes against everything nature is meant for. Here’s a perfect example. “Mommy, do you think we’ll see some animals?” little Joey and/or Janey asks Mommy and Daddy. “Maybe!” Mommy and Daddy answer with gusto, as Joey and/or Janey pick up rocks and throw them here, there, and everywhere, stand at the top of a cliff and “practice their echo,” and slip and fall and howl for ten minutes because they aren’t following the rules of wild places. Any animal that would possibly want to come out of hiding to meet Joey or Janey would be of questionable character. Maybe a hungry grizzly? Get your camera ready!

The very reason you’re in the woods is negated by your rotten behavior. Get it?

Please, please, please don’t tell me that children have to scream and yell and crash into me to have a good time. That they don’t have to follow basic etiquette after a long week of being cooped up in school. That just because it doesn’t cost anything to walk a trail, the experience has no value and therefore, no rules. You’re wrong on all accounts. Every so often I hike with kids that know how to act because they have parents that know how to act and pass it on. And let me remind you, I see your kids at the worst of times and show them how to be on their best behavior.

Teach your children well. I do.

COVID19: A Teacher’s Perspective

Aside from writing my wildly popular blog (wink-wink), fighting Stage IV Lung Cancer, and continuing to figure out how to put my life back on track during the COVID19 crisis, I’m also a teacher. Yes, it’s my bread and butter, a major part of my existence, and I have my opinion on what direction this upcoming school year should be going.

Last week, my school system announced that we would start the new school year remotely and would reassess each new quarter. This news brought mostly cheers, with a smattering of jeers. Those same jeers have also been all over social media since March, many of them coming from parents, and aimed at teachers.

Listen mom and dad, I understand your duress. Now, understand mine.

For the purpose of safety, I was locked out of my classroom as well as my school in mid-March. That means that the only materials I had were whatever I had on my laptop, which suddenly became my forum for teaching my special ed students, all of whom are intellectually disabled and require any number of accommodations to be successful. Nearly one hundred percent of what I teach is on paper, with assistance from other live human beings, a Smartboard, laptop computers, and manipulatives. Suddenly, I and thousands of other teachers around the globe were thrust into a situation where we had none of our usual supplies to guide us in our pursuits to teach your children (and ours!) in the manner they deserve. Over the next three months we were told one thing, which we would start doing, only to have it change five minutes after we perfected it. We found new ways to do old things. They weren’t as good or as effective as the old tried and true way, but then again, when have any of us dealt with a pandemic that shut down the world? All due respect, but we didn’t reinvent the wheel, we made a new one, one that will come in very handy as we make our ways back to our mostly virtual classrooms.

I know parents have pressing woes to think about. Loss of jobs, childcare issues, health concerns. Here are just a few of the many woes of a teacher in September 2020.

Every single child that a teacher comes in contact with in the classroom, in the hall, at the buses, and in other common areas of a school building is a potential health threat. Multiply that by every single other individual a single child comes in contact with in or out of school and the risk balloons. Teachers know darn well that even though it’s a rule to wear a mask, school is for breaking rules. This never changed and it isn’t going to change now. The new “behavior” will be some kid who doesn’t want to wear a mask. How about kids with health issues? Teachers with health issues? Improper ventilation? Buildings not up to standards of cleanliness and sanitation?

Is your head spinning yet? Mine sure is. And those are just the tip of the iceberg. Did I mention that every single one of these things is also a risk to the health of your child…and you?

I’m not lazy, and get no particular thrill from making my paycheck sitting at my kitchen table. In fact, I love being in a room with my students engaged in face to face lessons. Love to see their hard work all over the walls and hear their excitement when they get a question right or learn something they didn’t know before. No, sitting in front of a computer is no match for that and it never will be. But the risks involved in putting hundreds of adults and children back under one roof is too overwhelming to even imagine. We’ve already seen the results of the rush to “get back to normal.” How many more examples do we need? I also understand the concerns about students falling behind. But what’s the alternative? Keeping a virus circulating instead of being realistic and following the rules until we can all be safe? Teachers writing wills and obituaries? (Yes, this is real!) Pretending that COVID19 is fake and invented for political purposes? See-through shower curtains between us and students? (Don’t even get me going on this one!)

The hopeful news is that we now have a starting point, due to the hard work of many dedicated professionals and savvy parents who worked together last spring. Now, we will be allowed into our rooms and buildings to get what we need to be more successful in this unprecedented time. No, it’s not going to be the same, at least not for the time being. But we will figure this out and in the end, being safe is better than being sorry. It’s the rule we’ve always been taught. Why change now?