The First Day of School
I arrived at the school bright and early only to find that I wasn’t supposed to start yet because the DC Public School offices hadn’t called me to come in and receive my letter and all that blah, blah, blah. Question: how the hell was I supposed to know that I was supposed to, and why didn’t someone tell me? Then it occurred to me that I still work for the DC Public School system and it’s normal to find out information in this manner. I decided to stay for the day just to observe the class, and oh, what a day it was. I entered the classroom only to find that it needs a COMPLETE makeover, which I am prepared to do. Nothing about the room says four year olds learn there except the size of the furniture. The centers are pretty much non-existent, although there are materials to have them….and the children……the children are OFF THE HOOK which is completely understandable since they, from what I hear, have had no structure all year. At the same time, they are the most loving bunch of four year olds I’ve ever encountered. That’s why my emotions were so mixed up all day. They went from loving and hugs to me wanting to scream my head off (which I didn’t) because of all the disorder in the classroom. The interesting thing about that is only eleven of them came to school yesterday. I kept telling myself that there are seven more…..wow. With some order,a better environment, and MANY activities, I’m sure everything will be fine. I guess the great thing about it is once they go to lunch, have recess, and then come in and take their nap, it’s then time for the little crumb snatchers to go home. And, their lunch begins at 11:30 a.m., so this should be interesting.
Funny moments of the day:
There was a small doll in a wheel chair and I asked the children what happened to her and a little girl jumped up and yelled “Ms. Aneesah, she got SHOT!” It wasn’t what she said, but the way she said it…I had to hold in my laughter which was very hard to do.
One of the little girls kept complaining that her feet hurt. I noticed that her shoes were too small for her, so when her mother came to pick her up, I told her about the problem to which she said “Oh, Ms. Aneesah, I tried to tell her, but she wanted to stick her size 10 feet in some size 7 shoes because they matched her tights, so she needed to learn her lesson.” Then she turned to her daughter and said, “I bet you won’t wear them tomorrow will you?” The things girls will do to look good…lol.
One little girl’s mom came to pick her up and asked her daughter, “Oh, who is this?” (meaning me). The little girl looked at me and said “She’s my new teacher and my new god-mommy.” I’m like, HUH??? LOL…
There was a moment during movement time where the teacher’s aide put on some slow music for the “partner slow dance”, which is TOO CUTE! One of the little girls dancing with me tried to spin me and hit me with a dip….I’m like, ummmmmm….LOL. It was way easier to spin and dip her, but she never wanted to stop spinning.
There were more moments, but these are the only ones I can remember. I am going to put a notebook in my pocket and jot them down from now on.
So, I’m going back today only because my aide asked me to, and I don’t mind because I definitely enjoyed my day yesterday, and this will give me the opportunity to meet the children who weren’t there. Oh, and my aide is absolutely wonderful. She is a true sweetheart, I tell you. She’s great with the children and I can tell she’s a hard worker and we really mesh well together, so I’m definitely thankful to Allah (swt) for that.
It was definitely an interesting day, and I’m sure today will be just as fun :).
An honest hour
The other day I had a thought that I’ve never had before, which was that I wanted to stop covering my hair. Then, an hour later, I turned back to my normal self and came to my senses. But, for one full hour, I truly considered it. It wasn’t that I wanted to stop covering in an effort to denounce my religion or anything, and in no way do I feel "oppressed". I just hate the fact that I want to style my hair, but am forced to always rock a ponytail because of my scarf. I know that is a horrible reason for wanting to take the scarf off, but it was the honest truth. Four years ago, I decided to loc my hair and I love them. I love them even more when they are curly and cute. I can’t curl them because once I pull them back into a pony tail and wrap my hair, they flatten out, which sucks, which means if I want to "cuten up" I have to wash my hair on a Friday or Saturday night so it's nice and wet, roll it, and let the curls fly the next day while I'm in the house. Which means I would have to cancel all plans for that day so I can be curly and cute in my house...I know this may seem a little crazy to some of you readers, but I'm just saying what I felt. After my hour was over, I thought about other Muslim sisters and wondered if anyone ever had the same thought or a related one regarding something else they felt they couldn't do. I mean, I started the everyday covering in 7th grade, so it's been a long while (16 years) since I went out the house without my scarf on, which is why I'm wondering if that's where the brief breakdown came from.
I just wish there were certain weeks or months in the year when it is mandatory for men to stay indoors so women can go out and feel the sun on their skin and the wind in their hair.
Anybody ever felt the same about this or something else?
Interesting Article
I'm not married, but I really enjoyed reading this article...
What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage
By AMY SUTHERLAND
AS I wash dishes at the kitchen sink, my husband paces behind me, irritated. "Have you seen my keys?" he snarls, then huffs out a loud sigh and stomps from the room with our dog, Dixie, at his heels, anxious over her favorite human's upset.
In the past I would have been right behind Dixie. I would have turned off the faucet and joined the hunt while trying to soothe my husband with bromides like, "Don't worry, they'll turn up." But that only made him angrier, and a simple case of missing keys soon would become a full-blown angst-ridden drama starring the two of us and our poor nervous dog.
Now, I focus on the wet dish in my hands. I don't turn around. I don't say a word. I'm using a technique I learned from a dolphin trainer.
I love my husband. He's well read, adventurous and does a hysterical rendition of a northern Vermont accent that still cracks me up after 12 years of marriage.
But he also tends to be forgetful, and is often tardy and mercurial. He hovers around me in the kitchen asking if I read this or that piece in The New Yorker when I'm trying to concentrate on the simmering pans. He leaves wadded tissues in his wake. He suffers from serious bouts of spousal deafness but never fails to hear me when I mutter to myself on the other side of the house. "What did you say?" he'll shout.
These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but in sum they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted — needed — to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who wouldn't keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.
So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. By nagging, of course, which only made his behavior worse: he'd drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.
We went to a counselor to smooth the edges off our marriage. She didn't understand what we were doing there and complimented us repeatedly on how well we communicated. I gave up. I guessed she was right — our union was better than most — and resigned myself to stretches of slow-boil resentment and occasional sarcasm.
Then something magical happened. For a book I was writing about a school for exotic animal trainers, I started commuting from Maine to California, where I spent my days watching students do the seemingly impossible: teaching hyenas to pirouette on command, cougars to offer their paws for a nail clipping, and baboons to skateboard.
I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.
The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.
Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I'd kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.
I was using what trainers call "approximations," rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior. You can't expect a baboon to learn to flip on command in one session, just as you can't expect an American husband to begin regularly picking up his dirty socks by praising him once for picking up a single sock. With the baboon you first reward a hop, then a bigger hop, then an even bigger hop. With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.
I also began to analyze my husband the way a trainer considers an exotic animal. Enlightened trainers learn all they can about a species, from anatomy to social structure, to understand how it thinks, what it likes and dislikes, what comes easily to it and what doesn't. For example, an elephant is a herd animal, so it responds to hierarchy. It cannot jump, but can stand on its head. It is a vegetarian.
The exotic animal known as Scott is a loner, but an alpha male. So hierarchy matters, but being in a group doesn't so much. He has the balance of a gymnast, but moves slowly, especially when getting dressed. Skiing comes naturally, but being on time does not. He's an omnivore, and what a trainer would call food-driven.
Once I started thinking this way, I couldn't stop. At the school in California, I'd be scribbling notes on how to walk an emu or have a wolf accept you as a pack member, but I'd be thinking, "I can't wait to try this on Scott."
On a field trip with the students, I listened to a professional trainer describe how he had taught African crested cranes to stop landing on his head and shoulders. He did this by training the leggy birds to land on mats on the ground. This, he explained, is what is called an "incompatible behavior," a simple but brilliant concept.
Rather than teach the cranes to stop landing on him, the trainer taught the birds something else, a behavior that would make the undesirable behavior impossible. The birds couldn't alight on the mats and his head simultaneously.
At home, I came up with incompatible behaviors for Scott to keep him from crowding me while I cooked. To lure him away from the stove, I piled up parsley for him to chop or cheese for him to grate at the other end of the kitchen island. Or I'd set out a bowl of chips and salsa across the room. Soon I'd done it: no more Scott hovering around me while I cooked.
I followed the students to SeaWorld San Diego, where a dolphin trainer introduced me to least reinforcing syndrome (L. R. S.). When a dolphin does something wrong, the trainer doesn't respond in any way. He stands still for a few beats, careful not to look at the dolphin, and then returns to work. The idea is that any response, positive or negative, fuels a behavior. If a behavior provokes no response, it typically dies away.
In the margins of my notes I wrote, "Try on Scott!"
It was only a matter of time before he was again tearing around the house searching for his keys, at which point I said nothing and kept at what I was doing. It took a lot of discipline to maintain my calm, but results were immediate and stunning. His temper fell far shy of its usual pitch and then waned like a fast-moving storm. I felt as if I should throw him a mackerel.
Now he's at it again; I hear him banging a closet door shut, rustling through papers on a chest in the front hall and thumping upstairs. At the sink, I hold steady. Then, sure enough, all goes quiet. A moment later, he walks into the kitchen, keys in hand, and says calmly, "Found them."
Without turning, I call out, "Great, see you later."
Off he goes with our much-calmed pup.
After two years of exotic animal training, my marriage is far smoother, my husband much easier to love. I used to take his faults personally; his dirty clothes on the floor were an affront, a symbol of how he didn't care enough about me. But thinking of my husband as an exotic species gave me the distance I needed to consider our differences more objectively.
I adopted the trainers' motto: "It's never the animal's fault." When my training attempts failed, I didn't blame Scott. Rather, I brainstormed new strategies, thought up more incompatible behaviors and used smaller approximations. I dissected my own behavior, considered how my actions might inadvertently fuel his. I also accepted that some behaviors were too entrenched, too instinctive to train away. You can't stop a badger from digging, and you can't stop my husband from losing his wallet and keys.
PROFESSIONALS talk of animals that understand training so well they eventually use it back on the trainer. My animal did the same. When the training techniques worked so beautifully, I couldn't resist telling my husband what I was up to. He wasn't offended, just amused. As I explained the techniques and terminology, he soaked it up. Far more than I realized.
Last fall, firmly in middle age, I learned that I needed braces. They were not only humiliating, but also excruciating. For weeks my gums, teeth, jaw and sinuses throbbed. I complained frequently and loudly. Scott assured me that I would become used to all the metal in my mouth. I did not.
One morning, as I launched into yet another tirade about how uncomfortable I was, Scott just looked at me blankly. He didn't say a word or acknowledge my rant in any way, not even with a nod.
I quickly ran out of steam and started to walk away. Then I realized what was happening, and I turned and asked, "Are you giving me an L. R. S.?" Silence. "You are, aren't you?"
He finally smiled, but his L. R. S. has already done the trick. He'd begun to train me, the American wife.
Amy Sutherland is the author of "Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers" (Viking, June 2006). She lives in Boston and in Portland, Me.
Adventure off Exit 16
Last night was a very interesting night. Have you ever had one of those moments where you are pissed at yourself for being in what I like to call an "avoidable situation"? Well, I had one of those, and here's what happened:
So, I went to Kesha's baby shower yesterday where I had a wonderful time. My best friend's birthday is Tuesday, so I had to finish putting together her birthday gift basket and one of the items I needed was at Annapolis Mall. I wanted to get there before it closed, and you know me, I couldn't just wait until the next day, so I raced out after the baby shower down Route 50. I got the gift, which it took a little longer than I had anticipated, but was fun. (I'll tell you all what it is later...I don't want her to read it before her birthday.) I got back in the car, and got back on the highway headed home, which is where my adventure began.
About five minutes after I got on the highway, I happened to look at my gas meter and noticed that I had NO gas, well, at least it was very close to the empty line. I was at least a 20 minute ride from home, so I had no choice but to get off the highway and find gas station. I took the nearest exit, which was exit 16, just assuming that there is a gas station everywhere...WRONG. I drove off the exit and saw nothing! I didn't have enough gas go get back on the highway and drive to the next exit, so I decided to drive for a while (during which my car started to inform me that I had low fuel and making that annoying beeping sound) and find a gas station. Oh, I found a gas station all right. Some old back woods country market/gas station/law office which was CLOSED. Closed at 9 p.m.??? So, imagine this: I am sitting in the middle of nowhere at some back woods gas station in a serious panic because I don't have enough gas to drive around and try to find another gas station AND I realized that I didn't look at the exit I took off, so I can't even tell anyone how to find me. I figure I would have to sleep there overnight until whoever owned the joint came and opened it in the morning so I could fill up.
I called Amatullah, who is my hero (I swear), and I told her the name of the street I was sitting on and this chica found me and brought me gas. The first gas container's nozzle was too short for my car. You all should have seen us out there trying to get that gas in my car. Gasoline was all over our hands and everything. It wasn't working, so she decided to leave and get a gas container with a longer nozzle. So, this time, I had to sit in my car and wait for her with the windows down cause I didn't want to breathe in the fumes from the gasoline. I didn't go with her, because I didn't want to leave my car and come back and it was gone for whatever reason. All in all, she returned and we finally got the gas in my car, which was great. Three hours folks...three hours of my evening wasted because I failed to check my gas meter. It was definitely an "avoidable situation"!
So, what have I learned from this? Note the following:
- Listen to my father who always tells me to never let my gas meter go under half a tank.
- Keep bottled water in your trunk always (It really came in handy when I needed to rinse the gasoline off my hands.)
- Get a cell phone charger for my car. My cell phone was fine last night, but if the battery was low, I don't know what I would have done.
- Always double check things.
- Continue to be good to people cause you never know when you're gonna need someone to find you and bring you gas!
THANK YOU, AMATULLAH!!! I'll owe you forever, I swear!
