Old-school teacher learns new tricks...

More at home in a classroom with chalk and paper, I am a relative newcomer to social media. It was with a naïve and rather gormless view that I approached blogging and Twitter. My mind was an empty vessel - so much to learn…  Kerri Sackville’s Twitter course was invaluable - full of sensible advice and practical tips. Why then do I still find it a bit scary?

I am no shrinking-violet - one can’t survive the slings and arrows of a high school for twenty years without gaining a tough exterior. One can’t be too precious standing in front of a classroom of bored, eye-rolling Year 9s, who would rather be doing anything else than deconstructing a piece of text. One can’t be self-obsessed when a room of Year 12s pin you with their anxious gazes, relying on you to guide them through the biggest exam pressure they have ever faced and on which much can hinge.

So I've learnt dealing with very bored, very cool teenagers to be a bit blasé about myself and my image, not to take me too seriously...if I have a pimple on my face when I leave home in the morning, I expect soon to have a student asking, “Oh miss, you’ve got a big pimple on your chin!” Thank you for that, Amber. (Aren’t adolescents supposed to be the ones with troublesome skin?) And when I've been a bit radical with my hair, sure as anything before long I will hear, “That’s different Miss but I prefer your normal hair.” Thank you for sharing that, Jayden. Or if I am away and a young, gorgeous relief teacher takes my class, “Miss we really liked the new teacher we had yesterday. She/he did fun stuff!” I could tell you had fun class, the desks and chairs were rearranged and there were paper balls all over the floor. The young can be so casually brutal!

Along the way I've acquired a certain tough confidence, with several children under my belt and two husbands (not at the same time), a nice family and true friends. I feel quite privileged, even blessed in life's lottery. The modest success with publishing books for adolescents when I was young thrilled me, though as all writers know, one can never be complacent about publishing. (Penguin recently rejected my manuscript for ‘So Not Funny’). 

Tough and confident enough to follow everyone’s advice and release my manuscript as an eBook, open a Twitter account and begin blogging. Yet it's tricky being propelled into a world where norms are new and rules are different. It's like comparing a blackboard with a new interactive white board - a daunting new tool - great but challenging to master. Cyberland is a hazardous playing field: New friends abound yet you can offend them with the hasty tapping of 140 characters. The irony you thought was witty is taken literally, leaving the recipient thinking you’re rude. You can be unfollowed and left wondering “Was it something I said?” And try as you might to shrug it off, you can’t help analysing your comments with all the paranoia of an insecure narcissist. 

Social media expert Jodi Gibson was so reassuring and inspiring that I am going to continue my little cyber trajectory because, apart from flashes of self-doubt, I've learnt it's about fun. I enjoy the diverse blogs I read (too numerous to list!) I am constantly surprised and touched by the wit and cleverness that dwells in Cyberland, by the kindness and wealth of experience and knowledge that lie within a keyboard’s reach.

As Garfield once said, “That’s enough of me talking about me, now you talk about me… err you." What’s your experience with social media, was it smooth, or are you still navigating your journey through Cyberland? Are you having fun in the process?

A Curvy Girl in a Skinny World

Another couple of months have elapsed on my tardy blog site *guilty sigh* but something happened this week that has propelled me to write another blog post. My teenage daughter wrote a story for an English assignment at school on the topic - a 'coming of age' issue and I'd like to share it. It's quite a powerful look at a teenage girl's view and while it isn't autobiographical, it's an eye-opener into the pressure girls feel about their bodies.

Surviving Meal-time

I glare down at my dinner plate, the thin gold outline faded and scratched away in some places. I still remember the day mum bought them, she thought they were elegant, “Ladies eat off fine china, Violet!” I think I was twelve at the time, not knowing that one day I would dread the simple normality that is the typical family dinner scene.

Mum had taken to forcing the family to eat at the table recently, just my luck. She thought it would help us ‘bond’. I must admit I did admire her persistence – the way she would force us to tell everyone about our boring average days - every mundane activity in it, even if the most interesting part of your day was the fact that you found $2 on the footpath! She listened with such great enthusiasm and interest that I realised one of mum’s most endearing qualities was the fact that she did care. More than I thought was possible, maybe even a little too much some times, but I guess that was her job.

Lucas was rattling on about how uni was and all of his assignments and I put in my best effort to look interested. I put on my most captivated face yet everything he said was empty, meaningless to me, blurred by what I was really focusing on.

I found myself staring down at my plate again. I concentrated, strategized the different ways I could get out of my predicament without being exposed. I felt a cool wet nose scrape against my knee, finally! I rejoiced. I sneakily sliced my meat in half and in a heartbeat slipped a piece under the table to my loyal awaiting dog, Max. He at it in just two seconds, so appreciative of food, so simply made happy, I wonder if I will ever be like that again. Just as I brought my hand back up to continue my facade my mother’s head turned to me and she stared at the unusually large amount of food still left on my plate. She gazed at me disapprovingly, puzzled, her eyebrows scrunching.

“Are you feeling alright love, why haven’t you eaten your dinner?” Her voice speaks confusion but her eyes radiate concern and displeasure.

“I’m just not very hungry, maybe I’m coming down with something,” I lie terribly, unconvincingly and she stares, suspicious.

“Maybe just have a few more bites, for me?” she says, batting her eyelids.

I swallow slowly, deeply, dreading what I must do. Of course she would never understand what it’s like, how hard it is to hate every fibre of your being. I breathe steadily, ensuring I don’t reveal myself to her watchful eye. My heart beats fast, hard and uneven. My stomach swells and churns with anxiety. If she knew what I was really trying to do I think she would have apoplexy and send me off to counselling or rehab. She would worry, over-thinking the situation as mums do best.  I give her an empty smirk, giving in unwillingly. The kind of smile that doesn’t reach your eyes, the insincere kind. I pick up my fork and stab a piece of steak and potato and take the plunge. It’s short-lived and over in moments but all I hear in my head is every girl at my school ringing and chanting and bouncing around in my brain,

 “A moment on the lips forever on the hips”, “boys don’t like curvy girls”, “thin is in”!

My head spins, lost in a daze. It’s almost as if I can physically feel the fat cells desperately clutching themselves to my thighs, my hips, my arms, fighting against me, tantalising, torturing me. It feels like worms crawling and squirming under my skin and it makes me want to claw at my skin and rip them out. I stand abruptly my chair scraping against the floorboards awkwardly and abruptly. I do not dare look at any of my family in the eye, for fear they’ll see my eyes swelling up, like the coward I am.

“If you’ll excuse me I don’t feel very well!” I exclaim and storm out of the room. I dare not look back at their confused loving faces.

I slam and lock the bathroom door and let my shaking body sink onto the ice cold tiles, they’re so cold it stings, but that’s okay, the pain distracts and numbs me. I let my head rest on the toilet as clutch to the porcelain bowl.

I wonder if when I was twelve and I was buying dinner plates with my mum I would ever know that I would resort to this, turn into this lifeless girl. Hating yourself should never be an overlooked trait. If the twelve year old me saw me now, she wouldn’t understand. She would think that it would be ridiculous to starve yourself to lose weight. She would say that Violet, everyone has their imperfections and if everyone carried themselves as the lifeless pale sticks that we call perfect she would rather be the version of herself she hated most, than the socially constructed monster that so many girls turn morph into. She would look at you with confused, innocent eyes and say that no one should have to go through that, because no one should.

If the twelve year old me met me now she wouldn’t like me. She wouldn’t understand why I was putting my fingers down my throat right now. She wouldn’t understand any of it. But that’s okay because that’s how I’d like to remember her, uncorrupted, safe. 

Pondering on blogging...and what constitutes bullying?

It’s been months since I wrote my first and only blog post and if I’m honest with myself, it wasn’t much of a blog post. I’ve been reading quite a few blogs during these past few months and I must say I am impressed with bloggers generally and specifically. They give up hours each week to share their thoughts and ideas, usually without any notion of gain other than to entertain others, offer support to others and empathise with others. They offer insights and observations and have that knack, (it’s quite a talent actually) of turning the trivial and inconsequential into something interesting, or in the case of serious subjects, highlighting important topics and issues. I could wile away many hours in the day (if I didn’t have to work) reading and commenting on a range of blogs.

In terms of my own blog-journey, I don’t know if I’ll keep on blogging myself, not sure I have anything original or particularly illuminating to say, but I do like connecting with people – these cyber-world strangers - who I can see aren’t such strangers when you’re reading their words regularly - identifying with them and when time permits, writing comments on their posts. This engagement creates another dimension to life – a sort of holistic connectedness to the wider community. Besides, it’s fun!

I know it’s a rash and rather pathetic admission but I don’t actually know how to embed a picture into a blog (realise it is Technology 101 and alas, I am an old-school kind of an English teacher). I don’t envisage much success in the blog-world and it sounds defeatist I know, but as I am okay with words, I’ll stick to these for the moment.

I intended to write about my teenage daughter (nickname - Poppet) in a flippant kind of vein, but for the moment I want to write about something more serious, something I’ve encountered as a teacher (and parent) – bullying.

Bullying

Like all parents of teenagers, I live with how hard it is to actually be a teenager. I think it’s always been hard - fraught with insecurity - attempting to fit in, yet wanting to be an individual - all the time trying to work out who you are.

And I know bullying is talked about a lot, it's almost a kind of buzz-word that everyone knows is bad, and a traditional and current problem for kids, teenagers (and by association parents and teachers). Bullying can take many forms. There is the overt, in-your-face taunts in the playground, name-calling and blatant verbal abuse that make the victim run and hide in the toilets, or take refuge in the Library, where you hope no one will notice you pretending to work on the computer or alone in amongst the shelves, waiting for the bell. This type of bullying seems easier to spot, and deceptively easier to control: Someone tells the teacher, the teacher rounds up the bully, punishes the bully and makes her/him apologise to the victim, comforts the victim. End of story. Not.

But we all know bullying can be less physical, more subtle…just as painful. The text or post that makes someone feel bad, such as the text that says the teenager’s new hairstyle is “ewww”…just a simple “ewww” can wreck her life for a day or two. And there’s the ambiguous comment suggesting to a not so confident teenager that she shouldn’t have worn that skirt because she’s “just not skinny enough”. Sub-text – You’re fat, you’re ugly, not good enough.

Now some might argue that comments like these aren’t really bullying at all, they’re just nasty, thoughtless opinions. It’s true they are nasty and thoughtless and they do really say more about the person who delivers them, than the victim. I think if the individual thought about how much her/his words would impact on the recipient, perhaps they might think before delivering such throwaway comments. But this gives them the benefit of the doubt, when we all know sometimes there is a deliberate intention to wound; this is the goal. The experience of a friend’s very tall fourteen year old daughter springs to mind. It was said by a boy at a disco, who walked past her and said with a glance, “You’re not just tall, you’re freakishly tall!” If the boy knew just how devastated the girl felt – not just at the disco but later when she cried into her pillow – I doubt he would have said it. Some things, although they might be true, are better left unsaid.

I recall vividly the misery of a student in term one in Year 7 - a little chubby and not particularly pretty or bright but a sweet-natured girl, brimming with enthusiasm at being in High School. Before the first month was over she was being called “fat”, “ugly” and “dumb”.  As a teacher of course I acted on this - disciplined the perpetrators, counselled the girl, but nothing I said or did could erase the wretchedness and loss of innocence that this casually inflicted unkindness created.

I think all of our mothers and grandmothers have uttered that truism – “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” – at one time or other. But perhaps we humans aren’t perfect, at times we all have the capacity for thoughtlessness, envy, unkindness. Perhaps it is acting on these negative traits that creates bullies...

I think bullying is when there is an unequal level of power amongst individuals and that any sustained nastiness levelled at a child (or adult) constitutes bullying...anything that erodes and undermines the confidence of someone else is a form of bullying. Or is it? We want our children to be strong and resilient individuals, able to withstand criticism, but as parents when they’re sad, we suffer with them.

I was going to write about my daughter’s exclusion from a party but I think I’ve already written to much in this blog…perhaps I will do it next time J

What are your thoughts on bullying? Has your child/children been on the receiving end of any negative words or actions?

Lee-Anne 

Debut

Out Damn Blog! Out I Say!

Probably a weird name for a blog but when I decided to begin blogging I checked out the names and so many of the good ones were already taken. My particular favourites - To blog or not to blog and A blog by any other name had already been snapped up - you have to be fast and I am slow. So it’s Out damn blog…. And I know that loud, cursing title makes me sound as if I have an anger-management problem (or am a bit mad like Lady Macbeth) but anyway, it hasn’t been taken and I’m baggsing it. It sounds like I have an obsession with Shakespeare which isn’t true, more that while teaching it over the years some of the catchier lines have imprinted themselves on my jaded brain. Besides, I can’t think of anything particularly clever or original and I think this name conveys my assertive determination to write a blog.

This is my debut blog and I rush to make a disclaimer to anyone, everyone, (particularly my daughter - Precious Poppet), who I may offend inadvertently (or even advertently) as I write in this blog. My daughter is called Precious Poppet for two reasons, one because she is dear to me and two because she is a high-maintenance kind of girl, a teenager, (poppet is a baby nickname). I hope she won’t sue me when she’s older and realises that her mother has been writing about her, sometimes…err often, in a deleterious light (albeit under a pseudonym). I know it’s been done in America (children suing parents), and I could be wrong but so far I don’t believe it’s happened here in Australia. I really don’t want to be a test case - it wouldn’t reflect well on me as a diligent mother. There’s no point anyway, I’m not rich.

I’ve read lots of blogs and am impressed at the range of topics discussed and insights revealed; it’s amazing the way some people can make the detritus of domestic life so fascinating and funny. I’m not sure I can do this but I think blogging will be fun, unlike exercise (apologies to all those fit people, but it’s just so hard), or alcohol, which is effective and palliative at curbing tension, but which you shouldn’t really overdo; (reading ‘High Sobriety – My Year without Booze’ and it really gets you thinking). I like the diary aspect of a blog; it’s a kind of public journal, where you can engage with others and air all manner of things - get them off your chest, hopefully in a healthy purging and maybe at times, entertaining way.

Anyway, I am taking the blogging step…tentatively poking my toe into cold, deep water – it can’t be that cold and deep when you jump in, surely?