ThePluckyReader

America’s Political Battleground – Public Schools

August 25, 2022

Originally posted on medium.com

Increasingly, schools, teachers, and students are becoming mainstream media’s focus in an unprecedented way. Buzzwords and phrases like Critical Race Theory (CRT), Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), and school choice have worked their way into an increasing amount of Facebook posts and trending tweets. And curriculum, teacher efficacy, and parent involvement have been called into question seemingly out of nowhere.

So what is going on?

“Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.”
-Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors

While this may seem like the flippant statement of a rockstar, many sources support this very idea. In his 2008 book, Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter, Rick Shenkman comments on how American voters have a much more powerful voice since the advent of television but are also vulnerable to manipulation as a result.

Exactly how vulnerable to that manipulation are we? Reporters from Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook’s internal presentations stated explicitly, “[our] algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness.” In a world where each share brings visibility, and each click puts money in somebody’s pocket, this exploitation has enormous implications and an even more significant impact.

With the widespread use of social media, politicians and policymakers have seen an opportunity to ensure that they maintain their political power. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok — these platforms are all exploited to meet potential voters and cause more division amongst voters.

The main topic of this current division is public schools.

And it makes sense; it’s low-hanging fruit. According to Research.com, about 90% of American students are enrolled in public schools. This is the single most unifying factor of American voters. So public schools — and the children in them — have become the latest political battleground, a way for politicians to claw to maintain their footholds in society and their relevancy in an ever-changing world.

As far back as 1997, a group of educators argued that schools would be most successful if they were to integrate and combine academic, social, and emotional learning.¹ Fifty years before this book, however, was an arguably more influential article that argued the importance of social-emotional learning.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow published an article in Psychological Review in which he introduced a concept — that he later refined over the following decades — known as a “hierarchy of needs.²” This hierarchy has admittedly been misquoted and misrepresented in several textbooks throughout the years,³ but his actual writings represented the foundations of social-emotional learning. In his writing, Maslow outlined what he perceived to be the basic needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. He saw these as the “basic goals of human beings”.⁴

In broad terms, Maslow theorized that people’s most basic need was the physiological domain, which includes food, thirst, sleep, and even maternal behavior. Next came safety — being in an environment not threatened by wild animals, criminals, or the elements. For children, this also means stability, including having a semblance of routine.

After those needs were met, then love needs were next important — he also noted that love needs were the most common cause of maladjustment. After love came esteem, which he divided into two categories — the need for achievement and the need for respect. And finally, one can achieve self-actualization.

Along with these needs came Maslow’s preconditions — a set of prerequisites — nonnegotiables required to meet a person’s needs. These include the freedom of autonomy (to speak, act, and express oneself) and the freedom of inquiry and expression (seeking knowledge, defending oneself, seeking justice).⁵

It is clear that Maslow knew in 1943 what modern researchers are still confirming: meeting a child’s social and emotional needs is the best and most sound way to improve education. As Susanne Denham and Chavaughn Brown point out, students learn in social settings and “in collaboration with teachers and peers, and must be able to utilize their emotions to facilitate learning”.⁶ In their 2010 study, they provided clear data indicating obvious connections between SEL and favorable academic outcomes.

Yet, with the abundance of data available to support the need for SEL, policymakers — like those in Oklahoma who drafted SB 1442 — are aiming to remove SEL from school curricula.

“Policy makers need to understand what researchers and educators already know: Social-emotional learning helps create more engaging schools and prepares students for the challenges of the world”.⁷ While Weissberg and Cascarino are exactly right, I fear they may be missing an even more glaring idea.

Policymakers already know this and understand this. They have access to all of this exact same data. They can see that teaching students to be empathetic learners with emotional intelligence is the best way to lead American students to better education. What conservative policymakers — the frontmen behind hurtful bills like that in Oklahoma and the harmful “Don’t Say Gay” Florida HB 1557 — also know is that “empirical research on the relationship between empathy and political attitudes indicates that empathy is positively correlated both with liberal ideology in general and specific liberal policy preferences”.⁸

In fact, in a 2016 Pew Research Center Report, “registered voters with a college degree or more education” favored Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by 23 percentage points. And in 2018, according to The Atlantic, the “diploma divide” was still apparent. At the time, 61% of non-college-educated white voters voted in favor of Republican candidates, compared to the 37% of non-college-educated white voters who voted Democrat.

Interestingly, this diploma divide doesn’t exist because people go off to college and suddenly become liberals (though some of us do — myself included.) The Atlantic asserts that it results from college-educated white voters finding they “can’t fully support the [Republican] party anymore.”

With this information, policymakers and politicians have turned their sights on public schools, using children as weapons and pawns in their own political war. Immediately, they are passing bills and attacking topics Critical Race Theory and Social-Emotional Learning — which have been established to teach empathy and understanding. They are writing policies to make students feel uncomfortable and to make sure their lowest level needs aren’t being met.

They are using legislature like Indiana’s HB 1134 and Louisiana’s HB75 to make teachers — of whom society already asks too much — do more and more work until they are ineffectual as educators.

Policymakers are securing their places within American politics immediately by passing this legislature and using social media to put it in front of the average consumer. They are using media manipulation to make sure their constituents remember them on voting day.

But they’re also launching a long-term attack on schools, hoping to break a system that was already flawed at best. They’re using the political power they have to ensure that the 90% of students enrolled in public schools don’t have access to high-quality education. They’re doing so by refusing to meet students’ social and emotional needs, tying teachers’ hands with subpar curricula, and making teachers’ jobs so unbearable they quit because of the pressure of their workload.

Policymakers have seen the data that college degrees and empathy lead people to vote for legislature that helps others rather than continuing to listen to harmful conservative rhetoric. As a result, they’re trying to guarantee the future of America doesn’t have access to proper education, empathy, and ultimately success on a global scale. All to secure their places as career politicians until retirement.

Schools have become America’s political battleground. Has anyone stopped to consider the children inside?

Elias, M.J. et al., Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators. (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development), 1997.
Maslow, A. H. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review 50 (1943): 370–96.
Winninger, Steven, and Antony Norman, “Assess Coverage of Maslow’s Theory in Educational Psychology Textbooks: A Content Analysis,” Teaching Educational Psychology 6, no. 1 (2010): 33–48
Ibid.
Ibid.
Denham, Susanne A., and Chavaughn Brown. “‘Plays Nice With Others’: Social–Emotional Learning and Academic Success.” Early Education & Development. Informa UK Limited, October 7, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2010.497450.
Weissberg, Roger P., and Jason Cascarino. “Academic Learning + Social-Emotional Learning = National Priority.” Phi Delta Kappan. SAGE Publications, October 2013. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171309500203.
Morris, Stephen G. “Empathy and the Liberal-Conservative Political Divide in the U.S.” Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID), February 28, 2020. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v8i1.1102.

Seven Years

January 28, 2022

What can you do in seven years? A lot, honestly. In my life alone, the past seven years have seen tons of events: I worked in three school districts, I finished my masters degree, I moved into three different houses (maybe four? The timeline is a little blurred.) I watched my wife graduate from medical school, go through residency, and begin her career as a doctor and medical educator. I played Carnegie Hall–twice! I became a parent.

I did a lot. A lot. And it’s not until I start to make a bullet point list that I start to see just how much my life has changed in seven years; just how productive my life has been.

But in those seven years, I did not find productivity in the area that matters the most: writing. Sure I’ve written casually, here and there. In the past seven years I’ve finished two manuscripts. I know that that is two more manuscripts than many people write in their entire lifetime. But I’m a writer. That is the way I label myself. I am a writer first, and everything comes second–at least when it comes to my career goals. I am a writer, and then I am a musician, an artist, a teacher, etc.

Last week I finished proofreading and editing my manuscript for We Were Giants, my second full manuscript. It’s a story that means a lot to me. I discovered my love of art through this book. When I began writing it, I was not an artist, myself. Hours of research for my characters, however, led me to discover my own passions for art. And that, alone, is a perfect example of what books can do for us. They teach us about ourselves in unexpected ways. I just didn’t realize that were true if you were the author, too.

I finished writing that book in 2017 and promptly took a break from writing. I had in the span of three years written two full manuscripts and completed a masters degree–including a thesis. I was out of words and needed break. I just never expected my break would last so long. I have worked on several projects since then, don’t get me wrong. Some of them have real promise; I just haven’t been able to commit to them the way they deserve. But from writing the last word of the epilogue of We Were Giants to last week, nearly five years have passed. Five years that I have left these characters unresolved. Seven years that I have left commas that don’t belong, spelling and grammatical errors, and plot lines that make no sense. Seven years that I have called myself a writer, and done nothing with this completely finished work.

So I got to it. I exported my book to my Kindle and I read through the entire thing for the first time in seven years. I rediscovered my characters. I fell back in love with them. I cried with them. It was like an entirely new book to me. I had fresh eyes and more experience behind me. I had a refreshed spirit for Cade and Isaiah and everything they were going through. It was like meeting them for the first time. And it was delightful.

I was hard on myself at first for letting five years pass so easily without paying attention to my beloved creation, this book that I cared for and loved over two years. This manuscript that filled every corner of my existence for so long. I had just let go. I had just let it lie forgotten.

But I’ve found a new outlook. I’m not angry at myself or hard on myself anymore. Their story’s not over yet, and mine’s not even. They needed a break and I needed a break. And here we are, reunited and ready to take on the world.

So let’s see where Cade and Isaiah take me. Their story is seven years in the making. Let’s see how they change the world. I’m ready.

2021 in Review

January 4, 2022

New Year’s has come and gone, and now I’m looking down the long tunnel that is 2022, with its unknown twists and turns, waiting to once a gain throw me for an unexpected loop. I used to to love New Years Day—it meant possibility, it meant hope, it meant change. But as I’ve gotten older, all it’s seemed to mean is more and more uncertainty.

One thing I can always rely on, however, is books. Books have, and always will be my comfort zone and my safe space. I will always have a home in books, a warm place to snuggle in and feel safe. Even when the story itself is unpredictable, I find comfort in the smell, the heft, the feel of a book. And in 2021, when everything was strange and new and unpredictable, it’s clear that I found comfort in my familiar retreat. I lost myself in 50 books. 50 beautiful, wonderful, heavy stories. 50 chances to live a new life entirely different of my own. So here is my 2021 Bookish Year in Review.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin – This book was the first book I read in 2021, and it has stuck with me for a year now. I think about it all the time. I wish I could re-read it for the first time all over again.
The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel – We read this for a book club. It is not something I would have picked up for myself, but I’m glad that I did; it became one of my favorite books of the year.
Nothing But the Truth by Avi – I read this with my students. It was fine. Not my favorite class read, not by far
Monster by Walter Dean Meyer – This, on the other hand, is one of my favorite class reads. It was complex and beautiful and heartbreaking. My students loved it, and I did too.
Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin – I had attempted to read this book several times before it finally stuck, and when it did I couldn’t put it down.
Accidental Presidents by Jared Cohen – Another book I wouldn’t normally have picked up on my own, but I heard it mentioned on What Should I Read Next? and it sounded incredible, so I picked it up. I’m so glad I did. I was fascinating, and I feel smarter.
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan – I finished it, but it was a slog. I have no desire to read the rest of the series; I just found nobody to be truly redeeming.
The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams – Every so often, I try a romance novel to see if I like them. I still don’t.
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – I could write thousands of posts about this book, alone. It’s my favorite. This is probably the 15th time I’ve read through this book and it never gets old.
Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston – Okay, I lied. Maybe I do like a romance if it’s well-written and adorable as hell.
Don’t Overthink It by Anne Bogel
Fifty Words For Rain by Asha Lemmie – Oh. My. God. This book haunts me it was so good. I want to read it again right now. Seriously. Go get it. Read it. Thank me later.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jessmyn Ward – This rings every one of my bells for a book I love, and I was captivated by it. It made me cry hard. A lot. Every tear was worth it.
Strange Love by Fred Waitzkin – I’ve already reviewed this book and said everything I wanted to there. I loved this book. It was a lovely read.
Behind Blue Curtains by Lizzie Hershberger with Molly Maeve Eagan – Not only was this book so, so, so good, I got to chat with Molly Maeve Egan about it and the writing process. It will forever be one of my favorite experiences.
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid – TJR could write a story on a napkin and I’d want to read it 400 times. She’s so freaking talented. This book was no exception.
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling – Listen to it on audio. It’s so much better that way.
Half Sick of Shadows by Laura Sebastian
The River by Peter Heller
Celine by Peter Heller – Of the two Hellers I read this year, I preferred this one. But I liked both books.
Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave – This was another reread. It’s so good. I will always love this book.
The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner – So many people in my life told me to read this book, and I’m so glad I did. It was so, so, so good. I don’t even have words to describe how it consumed it.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett – Oh my god. This book. Y’all. It messed me up in all the best ways. Brit Bennett is a genius. And she’s also super sweet; she did an event with my library and chatted with us through Zoom. It was a delightful. She is a delight and this book is a gift.
The Parish Library by Janet Skeslien Charles
Beach Read by Emily Henry – Another romance recommended by a friend that is by far the least romancey romance I’ve read.
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
Sourdough by Robin Sloan
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid – Another re-read that I loved so much the first time I couldn’t even finish typing the review I was writing, because I had used amazing so many times, it had lost meaning.
Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
A Promised Land by Barack Obama – I had to listen to this on Audio over the course of months. It was so much. So. Much.
Little Gods by Meng Jin
A Sky Painted Gold by Laura Wood
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mendel – I love the way this author weaves together storylines and allows people’s lives to intersect for mere moments. It’s a beautiful way to craft a story.
Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon – In the words of a friend, “Nicola Yoon hasn’t let me down.”
The Other Eintstein by Marie Benedict – I gobbled this book whole. It was great!
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon – I love Chabon, but I have to read him slowly.
Final Girls by Riley Sager – Oddly enough, the perfect airplane read
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Morena-Garcia
Circling the Sun by Paula McLain – This book is perfect on audio. Highly, highly, highly recommend.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand – Another re-read. I’ve reviewed this one in the past.
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – I’ve probably read this book at least 20 times. I’ve read it every Christmas Eve since the 7th grade
A Killer Among Us by Charles Bosworth, Jr.

And there we have it. A year of comforts. When I started to feel off-kilter and lost, I turned to a book I’d read before. This year I re-read more than I really ever have before, and so much of that is because of the changes in my life and the unsureness I was feeling about life in general.

I’m grateful for books and the comfort they bring. And I’m grateful for change and the opportunity it brings. And I’m grateful to have an abundance of both, even if it’s scary and makes me feel like I’m totally out of control sometimes.

So here’s to 2022, and the changes and the books that it holds. Let’s see what the future has in store!

Replacing Required Reading – To Kill a Mockingbird

July 20, 2021

This week I’m attacking a much-beloved classic; a book that has been challenged many, many times in its history. It has had to go up against many a school board and pearl-clutching soccer moms who felt children should not be made to feel uncomfortable and exposure to adversity should be kept to a minimum. Gauntlets have been thrown, yet To Kill a Mockingbird has come out on top time and time again.

And for good reason. It’s a good book.

(After my Great Gatsby post a good friend of mine called me to verify that I didn’t, in fact, hate Gatsby. She was afraid our friendship had all been for naught and that this meant the end. So, I guess I’ll put up front that I love To Kill a Mockingbird. I have very fond memories of reading about it. In fact, I posted about it once during banned books week. You can find that post here.)

However, many of the reasons I want to replace Gatsby hold true for To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s antiquated, it’s from a perspective that doesn’t totally represent modern America, and while it still has a revered place in literature, it may not be the best pick for a 9th grade classroom anymore.

I will say, Mockingbird has some things going for it that Gatsby was totally lacking. For one, it was written by a woman, which is a rarity amongst books taught in public school English programs. In Louisiana–at least when it comes to the middle school curriculum–women comprise between 10-15% of the voices students are exposed to. According to The Ultimate AP English Reading List only 2 of the top 10 most frequently referenced books on AP Exams are books by women (neither of these books are To Kill a Mocking Bird, of course.)

To Stop for Rainbows

July 6, 2021

Last weekend, for the first time in weeks, it rained here in Louisiana. It was glorious. I am definitely a cliche when it comes to rain; I find it beautiful and calming and relaxing and wonderful. Especially when I don’t have to drive in it or leave my house and be incovenienced by it.

What I’m saying is I love rain when it rains on my terms.

But this rain was on my terms. The raindrops were cold–a needed refreshment in this scorching heat–and it was exactly the right amount, not too heavy and not too light. It also stopped me from having to go outside and melt my skin off to water my garden, which is only a problem because I’m inordinately lazy, and not because it’s actually a bother in any real, significant way.

My son, however, has a very different relationship with rain. When rain is on the horizon, he gets nervous and I have to spend a long time calming him down and preparing him for oncoming rain. And as he develops more language to express his feelings and his reservations, he is more vocal about his displeasure with impending rain. So I knew that this weekend would be no different. Friday when the sky darkened and the air was fragrant with that beautiful, indescribable smell of rain on the horizon, I knew that we would have to have our familiar rain prep conversation.

To his credit, my son took it much more in stride that in rainstorms past. Maybe because we only experienced gentle summer showers, or maybe because he’s maturing, or maybe because three is a really complicated age and next time he will be an absolute mess–but for whatever reason, he was more contented than usual.

When the rain had finished on Friday, we were treated to true, beautiful magic, and I got to experience the world through the eyes of a toddler.

My son loves rainbows. To this point, we had only seen rainbows as illustrations in books and represented in various media together. But when this rainbow arced down seemingly across the street from us as we waited outside the restaurant we had just left, the world stilled and my son open-mouth stared at the gift that had been placed in the air for him and him alone. That was nobody else’s rainbow. It was for him.

Who was I to argue with that?

Normally, my son is a blur–energy personified–bouncing from place to place, and comes with his own tailwind. But for just a moment, time stood still around him as he saw this beautiful view. (Seriously, the picture doesn’t do it justice.) His eyes filled with genuine glee and his mouth curved into a big, goofy grin. And if this picture inspires anything in you, then you can’t imagine how moved you could be by that look. (Surely I say this from a place of unbiased observation.)

Within a few moments, it disappeared, and with it, so did the magic. My son was back to life in fast-forward and the the stillness of the world dissipated into the cacophony of traffic and wind and outdoor sound systems. We went to Barnes & Noble, bought more books than I intended to, and went home for the night.

But there was still magic to come.

Sunday evening while we were driving, we were on the highway. There were no cars around us, we were listening The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on audiobook as a family, and overhead the most vibrant and beautiful rainbow I’ve seen in my entire life appeared. I didn’t have my phone (I know–who leaves home without their phones?) so I didn’t get the catch the moment, with that soaring beautiful, Technicolor, double rainbow. It arced all the way across the sky and stopped me in my tracks.

My wife snapped this photo from her phone later

So I did what any responsible parent would do. I pulled over on the side of the highway, held my son in my arms, and let him stare up at the rainbow for as long as he wanted.

“It’s so pretty,” he uttered over and over, as if every time he looked at it was the first time. “It’s so pretty, daddy.”

We stood there in the cool, damp air, the wind blowing around us, staring at the sky for possibly seconds and possibly years as we both appreciated the beauty and the wonder above us. It’s not everyday you get to see something quite so beautiful. We chased that rainbow all the way home, with the radio off and sitting in contented silence as the ribbon of colors stretched out infinitely before us.

I will never regret pulling over to look at that rainbow; I will never regret the minutes we stood staring up at the sky on the side of the road in knee-high grass getting eaten up by mosquitos. I will never look back on these two photos with anything but fondness in my heart.

Because life is too short not to stop for rainbows.

Replacing Required Reading – The Great Gatsby

June 28, 2021

A couple of months ago, one of my friend texted me. She’s a high school English teacher in Texas, and though she is every bit as qualified as (if not more qualified than) I am when it comes to the pedagogy of teaching English and literature, she often comes to me when she needs help solving a problem with literature or connecting with her students. I appreciate that she values my opinion, and I’ve always valued the conversations we have about books and teaching and life in general.

The theme of this conversation was her displeasure with teaching The Great Gatsby. I personally have never taught Gatsby; I’ve only taught English at the middle school level, but I can imagine what drudgery it could be from year to year. The students she teaches are not very different from the students I have been teaching for the past ten years. The nouveau riche lifestyle of the New York elite described by F. Scott Fitzgerald is not something many of my students could even begin to connect with without a lot of scaffolding. It would take a lot of front loading and relevantizing (I’m positive this is a word) in a way that many students would lose interest before they even cracked the cover.

And then working through the language, explaining the ideaology of the spoiled elite, and making sure you harp over the symbolism of that green light so that when those students are 36 years old and remember nothing else about the book, they remember the green light (trust me, it happens. It’s a tale as old as time. Most of the people who where in my AP English class only remember the green light and that there was a character named Daisy. I’ve now exhausted the list of things remembered from Gatsby.) And while I’m confident my friend teaches this book very well and addresses the important themes, and works very hard to make this book something more than just some fleeting book in the lives of her students that only crops up as a recovered memory when they think of the color green, she felt it was time for a change.

Review – Strange Love by Fred Waitzkin

June 11, 2021

I get some of my best reading done on an airplane. I don’t know what it is about it. Maybe it’s the weird stasis of being in the air. There’s not much else you can do. There are no pressing concerns; there are no deadlines. Time has no meaning in air. It passes as slowly and as quickly as it chooses—not to mention the pesky changing of time zones as you go. You never quite know where you are. I’m sure there’s some kind of existential metaphor there, but I’m not getting into all that today.

This weekend, my wife and I stole away for a weekend trip to Charlotte to celebrate our 10th anniversary. It was an unexpectedly wonderful trip; we were surprised by just how much we found to do on this surprise trip. (COVID travel restrictions cancelled our original plans and we chose Charlotte by essentially throwing darts at a map.) But we had more fun that we could have imagined. We will definitely be returning.

And as the plane was transporting me to North Carolina, a brilliant author was transporting me elsewhere.

We were seated at a weathered picnic table on the beach behind the Fragata Lounge with a view of old fishing boats tossing on their moorings in the wide bay. The high tide was practically touching our feet. Rachel was across from me talking in Spanish with her aunt, a few cousins, and some others. She had wanted me to meet her family.
Strange Love (3)

One of the things I love most about Fred Waitzkin’s writing is his ability to transport me to other places. He paints a scene in his opening paragraph that, even with an economy of words, plops me in the middle of a story. His stories are immersive and masterfully woven.

A few years ago, I reviewed Waitzkin’s Deep Water Blues, and enjoyed every second of it, so I was excited at the opportunity to read Strange Love when it was presented to me. In fact, I didn’t even read the description when the email came through, I just remembered the incredible experience I had with Deep Water Blues and knew that I wanted to read whatever Mr. Waitzkin had to offer me.

Strange Love is a complex, quiet story. A narrator who remains unnamed, two sisters who are opposites sides of one coin, and complicated stories of love and loss are spun together in such an intriguing way that when the book ends, you’ll both feel satisfied and want so much more.

One of the things that sticks out to me as brilliant about Strange Love is the dual storylines that weave throughout this story. While Rachel is telling her own story of her sister, her mother, her nephew, and her own life, the narrator weaves his own tale in, dropping the life of a former writer, a has-been who has lost more than he could ever hope to regain. He’s lived his own tragedies that could never amount to Rachel’s, but preoccupy his own mind.

As a reader, I was invested in both stories equally. I wanted to know about the narrator’s story just as ,ICG as I wanted to know about Rachel’s. I was intrigued by both, the story of potential that felt tied to a failing lounge and family obligation, as well as potential fully met quickly fizzled out.

For readers who are more sensitive, I will caution you. There is nothing explicit, but Rachel’s story is heartbreaking. It will take its toll on you. It will find the deep places of your heart and rip at them, just a little bit. And—if you’re like me—you’ll love it for that exact thing.

Take a moment, allow yourself to be plopped into the middle of a story, stay a while with some characters who need some love. Enjoy a new culture, and enjoy Waitzkin’s description of island life. He clearly has a love for it; he shows it so beautifully both here and in Deep Water Blues. And allow yourself to become immersed and invested in Rachel’s story. I recommend it.

Plucky’s rating?
4.5/5 stars

Yours,
The Plucky Reader

Identity Crisis

May 26, 2021

Today, the sky is gray; the clouds hang low and rain is threatening to pour again, for the 19th day in a row. The air smells damp and somebody nearby is smoking a cigarette that makes my head hurt. Despite all of that, today is beautiful. Today I am filled with hope and joy and some emotion I can’t identify. For you see, today I have begun the final countdown to summer break.

This summer is not just any summer break, mind you. This summer, I am a father—to a rambunctious 3-year-old, no less. This is the summer after my tenth year of teaching. This is a summer to celebrate.

It is also the first summer of the rest of my life as I take a step out of the classroom—out of education entirely—and move into a new career. My path has taken a new trajectory, and honestly, I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it.

That’s not to say I’m not excited. I am excited. This was a choice I made, a chance I willingly took, but it’s still terrifying. I have spent 10 years perfecting my craft. I’ve gone to hundreds of hours of workshops to improve my classroom management, my students’ engagement, my content knowledge. I’ve presented at workshops and mentored and coached newer teachers. I was on the path to educational greatness—or at least tremendous success.

So what changed?

In short? Nothing. And everything.

I still love teaching; I can’t even imagine what next year is going to look like when August rolls around and I’m not filling our house with school supplies to be used up by the grubby hands of teenagers hellbent on eating every Dixon Ticonderoga I own. (Seriously, where do all those pencils go? Every one of them goes through an entire pack of 84 pencils by October.)

I can’t imagine not sitting in in-service training while somebody—who is not as knowledgeable in my content as I am—tells me how to deliver the same content I’ve been teaching for the past three years. What will I do when I can go to the bathroom whenever I want? What happens when I’m no longer a Pavlovian slave to the bells that dismiss students and dictate when I eat, when I pee, when I go home?

These are all questions I have asked myself hundreds of thousands of times on end. And the honest answer is: I have no idea. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s going to be like or how I’m going to feel, or what I’m going to do, or who I’m going to see. All of my friends are teachers, for crying out loud, they’re not going to be able to meet me for lunch (another thing I’m really looking forward to.)

But I’m still taking this leap and trying something new. Exciting and terrifying as it may be.

So what am I doing now that I’m not teaching next year?

Technically, I’m making soap. Shameless plug: you can find my book and pop culture-inspired soaps at www.epiloguesoaps.com.

And I’m really excited for that! I have so enjoyed experimenting with my designs, combining my love of art and reading with soap making. This summer’s release is going to be a lot of fun; I’m excited for the big reveal that’s coming.

I’m also going to be reviving this blog is a real way. I know I’ve said in the past that I’m going to be more structured about posting, only for that promise to be broken. Multiple times. Because I’m the literal worst.

But I’ve actually scheduled writing time. I’ve started planning themes. I’ve started prepping for my summer reading. I’ve made habit trackers in my bullet journal and everything. Writing is going to be a main focus of mine, again, not just something I do whenever I’ve got 13 seconds between work and picking up my son from preschool.

As writing goes, it actually has made it’s way back to my priorities, where it belongs. I’ve been working on a new book; I’m 20,000 words in and always moving forward. It’s been so long since I’ve been this inspired to write.

I’m also going to be shopping my completed manuscripts back out to agents or publishers. I’m going to be considering self-publishing. I’m going to be editing one of my manuscripts so I can fix some plot holes that hindsight revealed to me.

And I am so excited for this opportunity!

Never in 100 years did I dream that I’d have the chance to quit my job to become a full-time creative. Writing, soap making, designing shirts for my mom’s company. So many things that are right in my wheelhouse, but that I never would have pursued before.

Because it took me until I was 33 years old to realize that security may not actually be the most important thing after all. Maybe limiting myself, pushing myself into this box, fitting into the space that I knew I could fit into because it provided a steady paycheck and benefits and standard hours, maybe that was more damaging than it was helpful.

Maybe what I need is to just go for it. Maybe this is my turning point. This is the point in the biopic of my life during which Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” plays in the background, the colors change from muted to bright, and I’m running up a staircase (for some reason?) with a big grin on my face and my proverbial trophy held high above my head. Maybe this is the moment things change.

And maybe I fail miserably, and I’ll be thankful that I have a teaching degree to fall back on, that I have a career I am passionate about that I can still return to. Maybe it’s nice to have a safety net.

So while I may not know who I am when you strip away my title as teacher, and pull me out of the classroom, and take away my curriculum, I do know that I’m excited. And this is not a crisis of identity; this is a chance for reinvention.

I’m exciting to meet the person I’m going to be a year from now. I can’t wait to meet him.

Yours,
The Plucky Reader

Some Books By Black Authors You Need To Read

February 14, 2021

I do not claim to be the authority on black authors. Far from it, in fact. I know that my exposure to black authors is not as wide as it should be. And as much as I’d love to blame the gatekeepers of publishing for that (it is, in part, their fault) I also have to blame myself. Books by black authors are out there; I have to do a better job of being intentional in selecting more books by diverse voices.

However, I do want to linger for a moment on my comment about the gatekeepers of publishing. For the past several years this has been an ongoing conversation amongst bookish people. The people over at Book Riot talk about it often, bloggers mention it often. It’s not a secret that publishing is almost exclusively white. In a 2019 study published to The Open Book Blog 76% of the publishing industry as a whole was white. To be fair, this includes publishing staff, review journal staff, and literary agents. But it’s still more than an overwhelming majority. That means (and I know you are capable of understanding this without my help, but humor me) that less than a quarter of the publishing industry is comprised of people of color.

So as part of my pledge to be more intentional in picking books by diverse authors, and in celebration of Black History Month, I’m dropping a list of my favorite books by black authors. This list is in no way comprehensive, definitive, or even all that Earth-shattering. But it is a list of books that I love by authors who are incredible. If you’re struggling to find new voices, maybe this list can provide a jumping off point for you.

And maybe you can leave me some suggestions in the comments to help me grow my list, as well. This year I’m expanding my horizons as much as possible and I am open to any suggestions I get.

But here, in no particular order, are books by black authors that I highly recommend.

Love you. Mean it. Make Good Choices: Lessons My Students Taught Me

February 9, 2021

(content warning: adult language)

“Love you. Mean it. Make good choices.”

I tell my students this every day as they leave my class. I am actively and acutely aware that I may be the only person who tells them that they’re loved, so I make sure to say it every day. And it makes a difference. Even I didn’t know just how much of a difference it made in the beginning. Not until one day when a group of my students lingered after dismissal.

“Did y’all need something?” I asked as I packed my stuff and prepared to leave for the day.

“You didn’t tell us you love us,” one of them said, expectantly. “We can’t go until you do.”

I could feel a broad smile spread across my face. I honestly had never realized just how much it meant to them. It was just something I started saying–and very recently at that. I meant it, of course. Every single time, I meant it. I did love my students. I still love all of my students. Every single day, I say a prayer for all of my students, past and present. But I never realized my saying it made such a difference to them. Not until Gabby spoke up.

She didn’t know it then, but she changed my life that day. She made me realize just how much power my simple words have. She made me see what a difference I was able to make in somebody’s life. Gabby helped me see how small gestures can add up to great things.

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