What Misfits Wish Their Teachers Knew (Guest Blogger – Courtney’s Voice)

July 22, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 6 Comments

Courtney’s Voice is the online manifestation of a young lady who has wrestled with more in 18 years than many of us do over a lifetime. Rather than hide it away and use the magic of the interwebs to paint a shinier picture of herself and her world, Courtney lays it all out in brutal honestly – right or wrong, hurting or healing, accepted or attacked.
Sometimes it’s rather poetic, and others… painfully blunt. Often it’s both.
While I don’t claim to fully embrace everything Courtney has to say about every issue, I’ve come to rely on her for an unfiltered perspective on things for which teacher school couldn’t possibly prepare us. I love her transparency and willingness to struggle publicly in order to make it a tiny bit easier for other teens or young adults to confront their demons or accept their differences.
And it does.
I asked Courtney if she’d be willing to contribute a guest blog on the subject of “What I wish my teachers knew about me,” primarily from the point of view of the misfit or misunderstood. I’m in no way suggesting teachers consciously neglect ANY of our kids or have some secret malice towards those we don’t quite understand. Honestly, the fact that we connect with as many as we do is something of a miracle, given the generational differences and sheer numbers in front of us every day.
But none of us are omniscient, and none immune to the frustrations or failures associated with carrying responsibility for kids we don’t always ‘get’. This is not a lecture, but a reminder of what we so easily miss if not ever-watchful and ‘tuned in’ to our little darlings. It’s as a reminder of our calling.
Thanks, Courtney. I’m glad you’re here.

Hello. You don’t know me, you probably don’t even remember my name, but I’m your student.

I’m that eager beaver over achiever who sits in the front of the class and raises her hand for every question. What you don’t know is that the pressure my parents put on me, and that I put on myself, is starting to break me. When you “talk” to the troubled kids, I often wish it were me you were talking to so I could open up about how much weight is on my shoulders.

I’m that kid who sits in the back, slouching and you don’t think I’m paying attention. Truth is, I am trying really hard but my effort goes unnoticed. Teachers constantly tell me to try harder and it makes me want to give up because I feel like I am not good enough.

I’m the class clown, always loud and making inappropriate jokes. You try your best to hide how you really feel about me, but you don’t realize my jokes are me crying out for attention. Maybe I am unheard at home and enjoy that people listen in class. Or maybe I am hurting and use comedy as a way to cope. It is my way of yelling for help without having to say the words.

Sometimes I think that making others laugh will somehow mute my pain.

I’m that quiet kid who never speaks. You call on me, but barely hear my answers when I give them to you. Sometimes you look at me like you pity me. But I don’t want your pity; I have social anxiety and you put me in a tough place by forcing me to answer in front of the entire class.

I’m that girl that dresses like a guy and prefers a different name from the girly one I was born with. Or I’m that boy that likes other boys even though it means getting beaten up in the locker room because everyone thinks I’m checking them out. Or maybe I’m that girl who just isn’t sure if she likes girls or guys. And I am just starting to come to terms with who I am.

It’s been a long journey of self-discovery, and all the kids around me make me hate myself because they don’t understand. I cower when you call on me because I don’t need any more attention brought to me. They ask me why I’m the way I am, or lecture me about what is “right.” I’m tired of trying to explain that it’s just who I am. I can’t help it, or explain it so they’ll get it.

All I want is for someone to care, and for my feelings to matter, even if they don’t agree with them.

I’m that kid who can’t even fake a smile for the jokes you think are so funny. Every day I walk in looking like I haven’t slept in days, and often I haven’t. Depression has set in with me and I just can’t make the effort.

Every student, no matter how they behave, has a story. We all go through things we wish others would see.

That misfit student you can’t seem to put your finger on? The one that gets on your nerves for being silent, or for being too loud? They are screaming in one way or another for your attention. Sure, they may be cold with you at first when you try to talk to them or you try to get them to have a one-on-one conversation. But don’t walk away. Don’t give up on them.

Honestly, they need someone to try for them, to fight for them, to show them they matter. They want you to know that they are struggling, whether it’s stress over college and the future, or whether they’re worried they won’t have food on their plate tonight.

Some are being bullied so badly all they can think about is how much easier it would be if they were no longer here. Others may be worried about just passing so they can go to the next grade.

I have been all of the students I listed above. Each year I tried a new persona as a way to cry out for help when none of the other ways worked.

Luckily, my 6th grade year, I had a teacher who genuinely noticed how “off” I was. She saw that I was pressuring myself too much while also battling social anxiety. She’s the one who encouraged me to write as a way to cope with my feelings, and to be more vocal. It was obvious to her that I didn’t have a voice, and she thought that writing could be my voice.

She was an English teacher, and after a few assignments, she came to me after class one day. “Your writing is raw and emotional in a way I haven’t seen in a while.”

Simple words, but for me they held so much meaning. To me, it meant that the feelings I poured out into everything I wrote were being heard. After that day, I began to pour myself into my assignments even more. I started showing her poems I had written that were just for me. I opened up to her and talked to her about the serve depression I was facing, all because she took the time to acknowledge my feelings; to acknowledge me.

Years later, I connected with her on Facebook and explained to her just how much of an impact it had, her taking time out of her day to encourage me and comfort me. Little did she know that simply talking to me would lead to that voice being amplified by that writing she had pressed me to continue. There was no way she could have known that it was because of her that I would start writing and speaking up against the injustices I faced and I have watched others face.

Taking just one minute to talk to your students really can change their life.

Sometimes we just need a boost. Every now and then we need a shoulder to lean on and an ear to talk into. Just because we don’t come to you first doesn’t mean we don’t need you. Sometimes we just have our own ways of trying to get your attention. Sometimes we think we don’t want your attention, even when we do.

Don’t think that we don’t care about what you say, even if we do have an attitude. Sometimes we simply can’t admit to needing the help. But your words run deep and ignite things inside of us. Teachers are inspirations. Use that power for good.

I was a misfit. Fitting in just wasn’t something I could do. I was suffering from serve depression and anxiety. But my recovery started with one teacher who took the time to understand me and talk to me, even if she didn’t believe in everything I did or support all the causes I did. Her taking the time to say, in so many words, “Hey I care,” helped me to realize there are people out there who will listen and there is a reason to keep fighting.

RELATED POST: Can We Talk? (Weird Kids Edition)

State Testing: The Ultimate Solution

July 10, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 5 Comments

Oklahoma is rewriting standards for the 143rd time in the past decade – each time ‘raising the bar’ even higher than the time before, we are assured. National struggles continue over Common Core in all its manifestations and retitled remnants. Should we move to the ACT to save money? Is it better to grade writing exams with crappy software or crappy temps rounded up on Craigslist? Should we punish 3rd graders for not developing at a pace of our liking? Stop high schoolers from graduating for their test scores? Devalue teachers who take on tough classes and work in the most challenging districts? The rhetoric alone gives me a headache.

We’re can’t even agree on WHAT we should be measuring – which subjects, which skills, and at what level. Should we one day solve that (we won’t), we’ll still have to reach some sort of consensus HOW we can evaluate whatever it is with any sort of accuracy or consistency (we can’t) – and all at lowest-bidder prices.

Fear not, my Eleven Faithful Followers – for I am about to reveal to you the final truth regarding this matter. I am confident my solution is both eloquent and attainable, for that is how I roll. You might want to sit down for this.

To hell with the tests.

Seriously, $&%# ‘em. I refuse to care about them one way or the other anymore. I’m tired of watching good teachers with missionary zeal end up stressed out and derailed due to the pressure of some stupid state test and its randomly shuffled cut scores. I hereby revolt against the entire process.

Parents are already opting out in some places, and a few brave teachers in Tulsa Public have refused to administer anything they believe is bad for their kids. I applaud each and every one of them.

But what I’m instituting is more basic. Starting today, we universally refuse to worry about tests or testing. When they happen, they happen. Our kids will do well, or they won’t. Our schools will shine, or they won’t.

We must no longer give even tiny little damns.

You didn’t go to teacher school to improve test scores – none of us did. You, like the vast majority of your peers, signed up to save the world – or part of it, anyway. You became a teacher because you love kids, and history, or music, or art, or math, or literature, or some other life-altering something. You signed up because you care.

Silly idealist.

You may teach a high stakes, heavily tested subject, or something marginalized as ‘extra-curricular’. Maybe you coach, or sponsor, or organize, or publish. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you just show up and teach your tired old butt off every day and that will just have to be enough.

But you signed up to make a difference. You signed up to teach kids.

So let’s teach. Let’s love our kids where they are and who they are, without concern for where they stand in relation to someone else’s legislative pablum. We’ll challenge them, and push them, and demand great things of them no matter WHAT their circumstances or gifts – but I’m no longer willing to frame anything important in terms of state standards or national goals. I’ll work for my clueless lil’ darlings, and I’ll do it because I like it. I don’t care about the rest.

So to hell with the tests.

Most of the time, if we just teach the way we know we should, the kids will do fine on the tests anyway. But even if they won’t, as soon as we begin to focus on things BECAUSE they’ll be on the test, or rush through content BECAUSE the test is coming, our priorities drift away from our calling. Testing puts us in an adversarial role towards our weaker students, and rewards ZIP codes over zeal.

Testing is anti-learning, and anti-education. It doesn’t even $#%&ing work the way they keep pretending it does.

I can’t prevent lawmakers from labeling my kids as losers, or failures, or stupid, but I don’t have to be the instrument of such blasphemy. Bill Gates may excoriate my darlings for their lack of college and career readiness while Sir Michael Barber shakes his mass-mandated little fingers at them for their reading scores or their lack of interest in Algebra II – but I don’t have to help.

I don’t have to abuse my kids to please lawmakers or publishing companies. I refuse.

My students are awesome. Some of them are lazy, but that’s fixable. Others lack certain skills or critical content knowledge, but I’ll ride their behinds until they progress. They’re amazing, even while they make me crazy. They’re perfect, even when I have to kill them dead in front of God and everyone in order to get their attention. Give me those tired, poor, muddled classes, yearning for a ‘B’.

I love them.

What will happen to my kids if they don’t pass their state tests? They might have to take them again, which kinda sucks. If not, there are a dozen alternate ways to graduate. Generally, as long as the children are suffering, hate anything involving learning or school, and replace natural belief in their own possibilities with a deep loathing towards their truest selves, the state is satisfied.

I don’t want students to go out of their way to fail the damn things, but neither will we divert meaningful time or energy into passing them – the trade-off is simply too great.

If this is a calling, then let’s do it as a calling. That’s why we put up with the crappy conditions in some places and the degrading pay in most. It’s why we’re so tired, and why it’s sometimes hard not to become jaded, or bitter, or simply give up and go through the motions.

If this is a calling, then let’s do it as a calling. Make a difference, help kids, pour yourself out in a desperate effort to light a few more fires. Look your broken ones in the eyes and tell them that the world is a liar, and that they’re amazing, and beautiful, and powerful, and smart. If you can’t – if you’re afraid because someone’s pressuring you over test scores, and that’s the priority – then why are you even here?

Seriously – go get a real job. There are better gigs. Some even pay.

Let them fire you. Fire ALL of us. Well, the good ones, at least – the ones unwilling to play that game, even a little. The ones who’ve decided to follow their calling until they’re shown the door.

Let those principals and superintendents reach out to that long line of people desperate to teach public school in Oklahoma, or Texas, or wherever you are. Around here, that line consists of something like… zero people.

OK, that’s not entirely true – there’s that pompous unshaven guy with all the degrees who spills his coffee everywhere, and that weird chick with no concept of personal space or social cues. I guess they could hire both of them. But after that, their options are pretty much exhausted.

The rest of us aren’t going to worry about the tests, no matter how many times they’re revised or how high a ‘bar’ some legislator thinks they’ve set. Our bar is higher anyway – and so much better.

If they don’t like what we’re doing, they can find someone who will cooperate. We’ll sell shoes or fix computers or work in our brother-in-law’s insurance office. More money, less stress.

To hell with your tests. I don’t care about them, and I won’t play along any more. I’ll no longer compromise my calling or my kids to cater to the rhetoric of liars and fools.

And neither should you.

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“Why Teach?” (Response to #OklaEd Blogger Challenge)

June 28, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

#OklaEd blogger extraordinaire Mindy Dennison recently issued a challenge to fellow edu-bloggers to address the question, “Why Teach?” She’s already received a dozen quality responses taking a variety of approaches – including my personal favorite so far from the Marauding Mentor. MM details many common reasons for going into teaching and finds them delusional at best before concluding – “…but we need you…”

I appreciate the many posts about how rewarding and fulfilling teaching can be. I’m thankful for so many out there who connect with, nurture, and challenge their students throughout each year. I’d have to agree that’s the primary energy on which we feed – those little moments of success, of insight, of realization. It’s not particularly selfless; it’s simply swell when you manage to say or do just the right thing to help some young person’s day suck less than it otherwise might.

It’s less swell when you fail, but still…

The biggest reason I teach is that it needs to be done, and no one else will do it. Don’t misunderstand – there are many, many people across the state and the nation teaching. Many are amazing and will never be recognized as such. Others are largely dead weight but between systemic problems and teacher shortages, we have little choice but to keep them. Most are somewhere in between, depending on circumstances, and can be good when the spirt moves or the situation promotes such. They rise and fall with the pressures of their reality.

But there aren’t enough. It’s a running joke with my superiors when I’ve yet again managed to stir someone’s pot or complicate an otherwise simple situation (I simply do NOT understand how this occurs so regularly!) that I freely submit to their wrath and invite them to start interviewing that long line of highly qualified professionals who desperately want my job.

Because no one wants it, you see. So I keep stirring. For the children.

(Actually, several probably do want my job – I have a sweet gig, teaching-wise. But they’d all be coming from other teaching positions, keeping the net shortage the same and merely shuffling the particulars.)

The fields are ripe. Teenagers are a huge pain in the ass, but they’re not all as stupid as they’d like for you to think. Many of them are quite entertaining if you let yourself see and hear them, and far more than you’d think are hungry for an adult with a reasonable sense of professional boundaries to show even token interest and affection for them.

Many have the potential to be rather smart, if driven to be so. They won’t wander there on their own, thus ruining decades of anticipation regarding the miracle of technology changing education forever as students hungrily devour knowledge according to their individual interests, but most will meander along the trail with some success if you stay focused and on your horse and have a good pedagogical cattle dog.

I kinda lost that metaphor along the way. Hopefully you get the idea.

So we teach.

I’m smart and capable enough, but not as naturally gifted as so many others who don’t even consider this as a serious career. They don’t want it, or don’t ‘get it’. So I do what I can do, and over time I’ve become reasonably good at it. I must. We must.

Because the need is great. One of my favorite posts on this topic was, of course, written by me. The Spartans at Thermopylae were outnumbered and outsupported by the Persian hordes storming their shores. But they stood in the gap for as long as they could – not from any delusion of winning, and not because they could guarantee it would change anything substantially. They did it because it was the thing to do. They couldn’t control the outcome, but they could damn sure go down swinging.

Come home with your lesson plans or on them.

I’m not comparing a little high school history teaching to the kind of dramatic sacrifice made by the 300 (of course I am), but I do believe we’re too easily distracted and derailed by talk of reform and assessment, of structure and standards. We lament funding and formats and charters and TFA and technology and teacher school and sometimes I just don’t even care about ANY of it.

What difference does it make what names, hair color, or preferred weaponry each Persian brings with them? Do we honestly believe there’s some strategic scenario in which we win? Some combination of lobbying efforts and public enlightenment that turns this one around for those in the gap? Occasionally we can sweep aside an Ephialtes or celebrate a Dienekes, but that’s not why we stay.

We teach because we believe.

Kierkegaard spoke of an essential “leap to faith,” but such terminology is a bit presumptuous, even for me. Being in Oklahoma, we could just as easily go to Scripture, where “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11.1, NIV).

Both of these capture the idea that our convictions don’t stem from having a pretty good plan. They’re not the result of measured goals or cost/benefit analysis. They’re certainly not based on having the slightest idea where we’re going or how this will turn out.That’s what makes it ‘faith’ – it’s terrifying and futile and probably wrong, but we commit as if we know know know know KNOW what we’re doing makes sense.

I teach because I choose to believe. I choose to believe in my kids and their possibilities, even as I recognize we’re going to lose some of them. Probably most of them.

But not all of them.

We must save enough to hold the gap. We teach because someone has to stand here next.

Given that we’re talking education, I should probably quote a book:

“We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law, Byron, Tom Paine, Machiavelli, or Christ, it’s here. And the hour is late. And the war’s begun. And we are out here, and the city is there, all wrapped up in its own coat of a thousand colours…
For if we are destroyed, the knowledge is dead, perhaps for good…
Right now we have a horrible job… It’s not pleasant, but then we’re not in control, we’re the odd minority crying in the wilderness. When the war’s over, perhaps we can be of some use in the world.”
“Do you really think they’ll listen then?”
“If not, we’ll just have to wait… A lot will be lost that way, of course. But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them. It can’t last.”
Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

I pride myself, however, on spreading my wisdom and insights with all peoples equally – profound, and yet so very accessible. So, rather than look to Existentialism, Literature, or the Word of God, I’ll conclude with R.E.M.:

All the people gather, fly to carry each his burden – we are young, despite the years.
We are concern; we are hope despite the times.
All of a sudden, these days, happy throngs – take this joy wherever, wherever you go.

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Teach Like You

May 19, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 3 Comments

I’m a fairly narcissistic fellow. I don’t mean to be, it’s just that I’m vain and self-absorbed. At least I have the skills, style, and cojones to make it work for me. I make no apologies; every rose has it’s – oh, are you still here? I hadn’t noticed.

There’ve been a slew of books and workshops in recent years promising to help you teach like a pirate, like a rockstar, like a hero… I received something rather spammy recently promising to help me become a more exciting presenter and unlock a fabulous career leading teacher workshops. Just call Robert in Wisconsin at ###-###-####!

I’m not knocking any of these books or workshops. I haven’t read or attended any of them, but I see happy teachers carrying on about them on Twitter and such… they sound great.

Except the one with Robert in Wisconsin. WTF, Bob?

It’s just that I don’t want to be a pirate, or a rockstar, or a hero. I want my kids to learn a little history, ask some better questions, and maybe learn to like reading a little. And I want to do it as… me.

I’m pretty entertaining, and I have a degree. That should buy me some leeway, yes?

Of course, you don’t need to buy books or go to conferences to hear how you should be doing everything differently. There are no shortage of researchers scolding us for forcing our kids to recite from their McGuffey’s Readers and practice multiplication tables on their chalk slates, or whatever it is they think we do.

Seriously, if I read one more heavily-footnoted interview with yet another person who’s discovered that worksheets have limited effectiveness and some people are boring when they lecture, I may become violent. Can we steer some of the funding for these redundant studies into something more useful – maybe fresh blue ink for the mimeograph machine or another History Channel Documentary on VHS?

They’re not all bad, of course. Many make some fascinating observations and connections. They challenge us to reconsider some of our assumptions about kids and how they learn, or ourselves and how we teach.

I’m a huge fan of rethinking what we do in our classrooms. I make a decent living leading workshops and peddling my teaching philosophy, sometimes for edu-entities and sometimes just as lil’ ol’ me. We should ABSOLUTELY step out of our comfort zones from time to time. It’s unforgiveable to plan our class time around what we have saved from LAST year rather than what might work best with THESE kids THIS year.

And there are some GREAT teacher books! That ‘Weird Teacher’ one has me so challenged and encouraged and validated all at the same time that there were actual tears at one point. Occasionally I’m even inspired by something shared by state edu-staff, or my own district superiors. Turns out there are a bunch of really smart, experienced educators around who love helping the rest of us impact our evasive darlings.

Sometimes their ideas are better than mine. And sometimes research is right about stuff. I have much to learn about some of my students and how they think, feel, and perceive – so here’s to training, challenging, changing, and reviving.

BUT (and I have a big ‘BUT’)…

I hereby declare my official hostility towards anyone who gets paid to tell teachers they’re doing it wrong. I don’t care if they’re researchers, reformers, authors, or bloggers – kiss my class agenda, edu-snobs.

My ethical obligation to regularly seek better ways to reach more kids more deeply does NOT validate your desire to lecture me or talk down to me or my comrades. Quite honestly, if your research and ideas and pedagogy are THAT great, you wouldn’t need to be so condescending about it – we’d run to you hungry for more.

Which, by the way, is pretty much what many of you keep telling me about my teaching methods. You know – if I were doing it right, I wouldn’t have to work so hard to coerce and browbeat them… like you’re doing to us?

You see, sharing ideas, stories, successes and failures, speculation and goals, are what professional development and collaboration and edu-blogging are all about. Maybe this time I’m at the front of the room and next time you’re showing us something your kids created, but at no point is it about being better, or smarter, or anyone ‘fixing’ anyone else.

Because at the end of the day, teaching is as much art as science. It’s as much educated guesswork as strategy. Given that you’re you and I’m me and that quirky new girl is the quirky new girl, consistency may be limited.

More significantly, my kids are my kids and your kids are yours. We may be in different rooms, different districts, or even different states, confronting different cultural variables, working with different resources, building on very different backgrounds and expectations… we’re lucky we ‘speak the same language’ at all.

When I’m in my classroom, my number one ethical and professional obligation has absolutely nothing to do with your studies, your strategies, and sure as hell not your tests – mandated or not. I’ll certainly consider the input of my department and my building leadership, but even those should take a back seat to what I think and feel and believe will be best for MY kids, today, right now.

And you have the same obligation.

I hope you play along in my workshops and that you consider my thinking, just as I appreciate yours. I hope you’re open enough to risk and change and stepping outside comfort zones to evolve as an educator and a professional, even when you’re getting by just fine already.

But when it’s go time, follow your gut. Do what you know is best for you kids, now and down the road. Do it however you think will best work for them, from you. Don’t think about your evaluations, your VAM, your scores on this or that assessment, or even your career. If there’s testing to consider, then consider it – but not at the expense of what your gut tells you is best for your students.

We’ve become SO comfortable doing things we know are bad for our kids because they’re ‘required’. Maybe we’re afraid, or maybe we simply hide behind what everyone else is doing. Is this such a rewarding career in terms of money, power, and glory, that we’ll sacrificing the very things that made it matter to begin with in order to keep it secure? Must be a helluva extra duty stipend.

Teach like a rockstar if that works for you – or like that Freedom Writers lady or Marzano or To Sir, With Love. Challenge yourself and those around you to evolve, to up our game, and to WIN THEM ALL somehow.

But don’t you dare do anything that doesn’t ring true in your gut because I told you to, or because it’s required. Don’t you dare dismiss your inner strategist because what you’re envisioning might be stupid, or doesn’t align with something official, or might get you into trouble.

We’re trying to save kids in an unsaveable world. We’re trying to do the impossible with the insufficient. I’m not sure how many ‘right’ ways there are to attempt such madness. I’m confident the ‘wrong’ way is to try to do it as someone else.

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Sneeze Seven Times

May 13, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

There’s a story in the Old Testament which –

Oh. Don’t worry. I’m not going to say anything particularly evangelical. This is one of them there ‘Bible as Literature’ moments. It works the same whether you’re a Sunday-go-to-Meetin’ type or a backslidden heathen of some sort. Just work with me here, people.

There’s a story in the Old Testament which has always kinda done ‘spoke to me’. It involved the prophet Elisha, who was one of the heavies. Following in the footsteps of Elijah, he was a high-octane, kinda-scary weird-guy-in-the-wilderness type prophet. This was the guy who, when mocked by some young men for being bald, had God bring two bears out of the woods to maul forty-two of them to death.

Not judging here, just saying this isn’t ‘Distant Stare’ Jesus with toddlers on his lap. This is an OLD Testament guy.

So Elisha has shown favor to a man and his wife, who have in turn taken him in from time to time (II Kings 4). He promises the woman she’ll have a son, which she has trouble accepting, as her husband is a tad ancient. The woman nevertheless spawns a lad, which makes her pretty happy, until one day the kid dies out of the blue from a brain aneurism or some such thing. Pretty tragic stuff, especially after his seemingly miraculous arrival.

The woman hunts down Elisha and begins chewing him out – rather bold, given his recent bear activity.

“Did I ask you for a son, my lord?” she said. “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?”

Elisha’s reaction is interesting. He reacts with urgency – almost a touch of panic:

Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff in your hand and run. Don’t greet anyone you meet, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy’s face.” But the child’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.

There’s a lesson here about stubborn supplication, but that’s not where I’m going with it this time. I also have to wonder about a miracle baby who dies young then gets alive again in terms of the foreshadowing, but… also not where we’re heading on this occasionally inspirational but essentially secular edu-blog. (See, I told you it wouldn’t be evangelical! Trust issues, much?)

Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”

So THAT’s discouraging.

When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord. Then he got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out on him, the boy’s body grew warm.

Set aside your 21st century terror of perverts lurking around every corner and visualize a holy man laying himself down in the shape of a cross to redeem another. The Old Testament LOVES these echoes of the New, for those of you who ain’t currently redeemed and thus aware of such things. Steinbeck and Kingsolver got nuthin’ on Jeremiah when it comes to Biblical allusions – and his were preemptive!

Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out on him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.

There it is. That’s the part that gets me every time. “The boy sneezed seven times… and opened his eyes.”

What a messy, embarrassing way to come back to life. I hate sneezing – it’s almost as unbearable as the hiccups. What kind of cruel universe would even allow such developments in the human beast? Forget wars, racism, greed, and lust – sneezing and hiccupping are THE WORST.

Compare this to something far glowier, like Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, or emerging himself several chapters later. The rays of light, the music, the angels in the background, maybe a goose pimple or two. Instead, here, we get snot hitting your arm while you try not to flinch. Yuck.

If you think about the things in your life, or your teaching, or your marriage, or your child-rearing, or whatever, which have brought you the FURTHEST towards real understanding, real breakthrough, real life… are they the glowy happy times, or the messy chaotic what-the-freaking $#%&* times?

The things that really wake us up or propel us into lifier aliveness are often awkward and embarrassing. Literal birth itself is a disgusting mess no matter WHAT sort of shiny rhetoric you throw at it; how appropriate, then, that rebirth be at least somewhat problematic.

And that’s OK.

Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite.” And he did. When she came, he said, “Take your son.” She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took her son and went out.

Finally, it’s a nice ironic flourish that life returns through sneezing in this story. Our customary “Gesundheit!” or “Bless you!” when another sneezes is generally thought to stem from the fear their spirit might shoot right out of their body. This is the precise OPPOSITE of that – what we in the business call “a lil’ twist.”

Then again, sneezing was also sometimes interpreted as a sign of blessing in the ancient world – the PAGAN world, that is. You probably remember that Telemachus fella’ from the Odyssey sneezing and making Penelope laugh. She recognized this as an omen that her enemies would all die at the hands of Odysseus – so, good times on that! But that’s MUCH less cool as a final not-even-a-twist AND tends to push the Old Testament closer to the camp of other ‘ancient’ literature or mythology. I’m not sure I want to do that here. Josh Brecheen would flip!

Either way, remember when you’re feeling awkward, or foolish, or pretty sure you’re screwing up, that life and growth happen in those sneezes, and by extension in those hiccups, messes, foolishness, and failure. Death was not only certain – it had arrived, and already done its damage! Yet somehow, through enough involuntary snotting and convulsions, the miracle returns. Life is back, and requesting a tissue.

May your world bring you effective sneezes.