So. I’ve been back to school for Two Whole Days and my routine is completely screwed up and I couldn’t even mentally TRY to sew last night, even though I technically should have been able to, and some of that might have been because the girlchild was ranting at me because I made her go to bed in a strong-arm parental way. BECAUSE I’M THE MOM DAMMIT.

If you don’t like run-on sentences because they offend your grammatical sensibilities, you should read some Faulkner with a glass of wine. Then read some Hemingway with a cold beer. Then make a decision. I did. There are too many carbs in Hemingway.

The new word in education that has been forced upon us in the last few years is RIGOR.

I groan when I hear it. All I can think is rigor mortis…stiffness caused by death. You know. I see dead people. And that chart above makes my brain skitter. You know, like when you’re trying to do complicated math and your brain objects? And it sort of skitters off, like the spidery things in Alien or Aliens or Alienses (isn’t that the name of the 3rd movie?).

That is exactly what I feel like when they start talking about Increasing Rigor. I grit my teeth and my brain gets sucked out by one of those things and I try not to obviously wander off.

It’s supposed to mean holding kids to high standards and expectations and all that, even though we’re not yet being subjected to merit pay, and when we are, only the teachers in the schools where parents pay attention to their kids’ grades will get any money. The rest of us will pay the state to come to work every day.

Yup. It’s been a rough two days. It will get better. We have to be mean and demanding and expecting for a while until they realize it’s not still vacation and they’re not having a bad dream with their teacher in it.

But meanwhile I have to listen to high-level people in education spew about rigor (not mortis). I get the high expectations thing…I don’t water down what I teach because I teach in a neighborhood that is challenged and diverse ethnically and socioeconomically. They work hard. Many succeed.

Please go HERE to see the rigor mortis picture that used to be here. I found that too many people were coming here just to see that picture and it’s not mine anyway and I’m not even sure it’s THIS guy’s, but he can have my traffic back. I still like “ur doin it wrong.”

I love that rigor is another word for “chills” in Dorland’s Medical Dictionary (because that’s what that word gives me…horrendous chills), and that in most of the online dictionaries, it means “strictness, severity, harshness, especially in dealing with people.”

It’s my observation year. That means the administrator in charge of me needs to come in and do some formal and informal observations. I’ve never had so many observations in one year, and what’s amusing is that I think I’m rocking it every time…and I am. It’s not because I’m clueless and I really suck, but because the kids are paying attention (even to mitosis, of all things…probably because I mentioned sex…aSEXual reproduction). And yet she still keeps coming in. Like she’s looking for something to be a problem. And I don’t care. At all. I used to stress and now I don’t. Is that rigor? I’m teaching. Leave me to it. My kids will remember stuff. Not all of it. But enough.

Rigor.

Then they talked about our being Warm Demanders (no kidding) as teachers.

I need to make more art. This eduspeak is driving me bonkers. I need to set limits and come home and get some quiet time and read a little and then be able to sew. I need to exercise regularly.

I have not read this book. She obviously doesn’t agree with me. Well. Rigor is NOT a 4-letter word. It has 5 letters, sometimes 6 (rigour, if you couldn’t figure that out). Most of the swear words I use also don’t have 4 letters.

I wasn’t going to do a resolution, but I am now. My resolution is to avoid rigor mortis in every endeavor. Move it. Get it done. Walk away from the staff meeting and drop all those words that mean nothing onto the pavement. Turn the music up louder so that the voice that is ranting and raving in my head about the newest whatever-I’m-supposed-to-do-and-be-and-fill-out (you don’t even want to hear me go off about the other key word: DATA) will just fade out. Turn that raving maniac into someone who can draw and sew and walk away from the crap.

Wish me luck.