It's a dog's life

     Maybe it's hard to believe, but even teenagers enjoy being read to. All this week, I've been reading aloud to my 8th graders. Just a few pages a day, with tangential discussions and explanations tucked onto the end. After all, I teach reading and writing to Emergent Bilinguals.

    Emergent Bilinguals is the current nomenclature for students who are learning English but learned another language first. Last year Texas called this group English Learners--but isn't every student an English learner? I mean, I think I'm still an English learner... Previous to that, they were called English Language Learners, but for some reason they jettisoned  the word Language. You know, because. Just because. Before that? ESL, which is English as a Second Language. Still-regardless of the confusing change in title, my group is still made of kids who are new to the country and new to the culture.

    Emergent Bilinguals-or, as I like to refer to them--"my students," generally lack some cultural context for our reading passages. So I find supplementary texts, have them do some research, and search for universal truths in Pixar films or Marvel movies. No exaggeration-I teach them what the fictional tool of a flashback is by showing them the scene from Ratatouille in which Anton Ego is transported  back to his childhood by a taste of the aforementioned dish. Yes, it really zooms through his eye back to a scene of his mother comforting him as a young lad who has just wrecked his bike--said comforting done with a plate of stewed tomatoes and zuchinni. Talk about immediate understanding of a concept....

    But this book my kids understood quickly. This book they connected to immediately. This book they listened to enchantedly.

    It's about dogs.

    My Life in Dog Years--by Gary Paulsen. The premise is simple. During the author's adventurous life, dogs have played an outsize role. Saved his life--both physically and emotionally. Helped him connect with other people in his life. Inspired him to set goals true to his own untamed heart.

    So we've done a little research on hunting dogs and dug into some puzzling idioms--
from the wrong side of the tracks" and the like. But the context of loyalty and devotion and purity of spirit that dogs represent-that is already there. We call it background knowledge. It slumbers in our hearts already, only needing awakening by a slobbery full-tongued kiss.

    A playful yip.

    An exuberant tail a-shiver with unquenchable excitement.

Talking 'bout my generation

         Boomers v Millenials-how many times in the last few years have I seen this headline? Enough to know that boomer is shorthand for stodgy entitled old whiners who accumulate as much power and money as they can, and millenial is shorthand for milquetoast entitled whiners who obsess over avocado toast and are too lazy to work real jobs. Meanwhile, life goes on as always for Generation X-the forgotten cohort crammed in between.

        Shouldn't surprise us, really. Gen X is used to being overlooked. We grew up alienated and suspicious of both parents and corporate culture. Remember Lloyd in Say Anything? Totally leery of being commodified: 

      "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed."

    Maybe we don't have as great a line as the Boomers' Brando in The Wild One (to "what are you rebelling against, he sneers 'Whaddaya got?'"), but we do have Bender from Breakfast Club with "Being bad feels pretty good". We watched the Boomer generation go from hippie to yuppie, and lost our idealism early on just as grunge was exploding from garages in Seattle. 

     No end of Gen X memes went around during the pandemic a couple of years ago, based on the point that we are the ultimate survivors. Used to isolation, the first real generation of latchkey kids who come home to an empty house after school, scrounge a sandwich and some chips, and watch mindless TV for a couple of hours. 

    Our attitude is minimalist-we pretty much invented "whatever." Our cynicism is legendary, part Han Solo in the 1st Star Wars and part Venkman in Ghostbusters. The originators of memes, dealing in snippets of pop culture to encapsulate the drudgery of Every. Single. Day. 

    Boomers, Millenials, all the rest--Generation Z or Zoomers, and the newest Generation Alpha--can ignore us, but we are still going about the daily grind. Still, even despite it all, optimistic deep down. 

Still trying to follow Ferris Bueller's Rule:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” 

Trimming the Tree

     Not only has Christmas always been A Big Deal to me, but preparing for Christmas is also a major part of the year. Setting up music playlists and adding holiday fare to the menu are as sure as shorter days and darkened skies.

     But one of the chief signifiers of the Yule season is decorating for it. Childhood traditions were changed and strengthened with the establishment of my own family (House of Barber, established 1987), and we grew to have our own customs. For example, the kids and I put up the tree and decorated it, and Stacey took it down after Christmas was over. For example, we kept every craft and trinket created or bought by the kids and put them on the tree. Some more sightly than others. Yes, paper plates with faces drawn on them in Flair pen, I am looking at you. 

      But with the exodus of all the kids to lives of their own, I have kept decorations simple the past few years. Putting up a tree and hanging decorations is no longer a production to be staged, but is more of a seasonal reflection. The Christmas tree is a backdrop to the season instead of the focus. Accordingly, we tend to emphasize peace and clarity rather than excitement and chaos.

      This goes along with our calmer celebrations. When the kids were young, especially in the Pelham house, we would have a Christmas crammed with people, with gifts, with food, with music, with too much of everything. The day after Christmas was usually a day for sleeping in and watching TV, coming down from the rush of the couple of days of hectic activity.

       Much as I miss the stir and bustle of Christmas long ago, I revel in the newfound peace and tranquility of the season now. There is more to Christmas than feast and hurry,  more of value than a floor covered in torn wrapping paper and presents piled on all the tables. More than a fridge full of casseroles we will labor to finish in a week, before we grow heartily weary of dressing and sweet potatoes.

      So welcome to the new Christmas at the House of Barber.