I read Payne Hollow yesterday, and felt very content afterwards. That seems very close to paradise...steady hard work, outside, with the rhythm of the seasons, combined with art and music. The older I get, the harder it is to stay indoors. And the harder it is to neglect my violin in favor of hours of babysitting teenagers. They need my centeredness and borderline inappropriate humor and they are learning. That's why I'm there, but I'm drained each day, too drained to take care of myself. A change is coming, for sure.

I was notified today that my program is up for Level 2 Review (or something like that) because it has had low enrollment for the second year in a row. My numbers are up this year, but not by enough. Being on Level 2 means that I am now required to do a bunch of things to try to attract more students to my program. Here are the problems:

- money, money, money: every student who comes to my class instead of staying at his sending school (even if he has 5 study halls) decreases head count at the sending school. This means money comes into Portland and out of the sending school, and potentially risks staff reductions at the sending school (if lots and lots of students are coming to PATHS)

- stigma: guidance counselors still want to send us mostly the kids who are causing a real problem in the sending school. Not all counselors, but many. Some of this is related to the money problem, though. The fact is that there are lots of students who never hear about PATHS as an option. The assumption is still (despite our work to the contrary) that only kids who aren't going to college should go to PATHS. In my class, that's certainly not the case.

- graduation requirements: kids need more and more seat time at the sending school in order to graduate. So far (based on the math skills of my kids), the extra seat time is not translating into more material learned, but those are the State's requirements.

I've tried letters to guidance counselors and those haven't worked. My remaining options are: 1) catching interest of parents, and 2) catching interest of students. Since many of my students aren't the most social, the best option for recruting via student word-of-mouth is probably...MySpace? Technically illegal, since they're under 18 and thus can't technically be on MySpace, but they all are. How to appeal to parents? Mass mailing? Newspaper ads? Airplanes towing banners? Hmmmmm.

The thing that kills me is that if I ran a "class" where students came to surf the Internet every day for 2 hours and got 6 credits for it, my classes would be full. When I started teaching, I had a lot of tough kids who were just there killing time. Finally, after 3 years of revamping the program, this semester I have 2 great classes of kids who are doing real work. Just not enough of them.

The irony is that I've been lukewarm about continuing with schoolteaching due to the physical toll it takes on me and the feeling that I am not living my unparalyzed days the way I'd like (playing more violin, being outside). So "if you don't boost your enrollment, your program will be cut" is not a hugely motivating argument for me. But in this case, it's not about me...it's about the kids who could benefit from the program, whether I'm teaching it or not. What if they never get to come, though, because of money, stigma, credits, and whatever else? Maddening.

I'm too giggly today, the first day I've felt alive since I started getting sick last week. This does not help in terms of classroom management:

M: "@#*&*(*!"
Ms. Green: "M, watch your langauge"
S: "yeah, @#$% M, watch your language"
Ms. Green: "S!"
C: "He can't watch his %#$%^ language"
etc.

And I was really, really trying not to laugh, because they only do this so that I'll tell them not to, but my lips kept twitching upward until I gave up.

Enter: teacher #2. Sits down with Ms. Green and students.

Teacher #2: "Valerie, I tellya, I'm having a day...@##$% those..."
Ms. Green/Valerie (laughing): "Watch your language!"

I'm still laughing now, and it's 3:00. I give up.

Today I had a lunchtime conversation with another teacher in my cluster. We talked about strategies for my low enrollment problem. Again I found myself having the discussion about students learning to think vs. learning to use tools. More kids would come to my class if they were there to just learn to use tools...but that's the least interesting part of my curriculum to teach. I don't think I could keep my brain interested in teaching kids to only use tools. And when I'm not interested, I get sluggish and unmotivated.

The other half of my job (maybe the "bigger" half) is being a good person. Being a coach, a guide, helping kids navigate their often messy lives and helping them plan for the future. Developing kids' social skills, always a challenge in my class. In some cases, teaching lessons that other kids learn at home from parents. Taking kids seriously but not taking myself too seriously. This stuff, I know I'm pretty good at it, still improving, but already good at it.

I do enjoy the coaching part of teaching, but it wouldn't be enough to hold me there if I were teaching a curriculum that made my brain bored, so it's time for me to figure out what my market is and how to sell my curriculum.

I remember the moment: I was reading The Contrary Farmer. In it he was describing how he gets a cow used to being in the milking yoke: he can't just put her in the yoke, because she'll freak out and then he'll never be able to get her into it ever again. So instead he leaves it open and puts her food on the other side of the yoke, so that she has to put her head in it to reach her food. After a few days of this, he closes the yoke and she continues eating, hardly noticing that she's in the yoke. That's sometimes me, I thought as I read, that's me when I need to be eased into a big change. I can think I'm all complicated, but actually I'm just like a cow. Fabulous! (I briefly considered updating my match.com profile heading to read "must be good with animals", but...didn't).

Lately I've/the cow has been balking about the tiny house. I've been giving myself little nudges in the direction of the tiny house, but for some reason I'm resisting gathering materials and resisting going to the December design class. Feh. I'm still stewing over what it means about my life choices. This is all wicked exasperating.

Over the past week I've been trying to give myself a bigger nudge in the tiny house direction by moving out of my apartment and into the smaller apartment downstairs. I've even been procrastinating about that. So yesterday I finally thought, OK, to motivate myself I need to make my current apartment seem less homey and the downstairs apartment seem more homey. How? Answer: move the plants. Move the kitchen stuff. It's working, thank goodness. With plants downstairs and pots hanging from the wall, the downstairs kitchen is feeling good. And without plants, the upstairs is seeming a little naked. Now I'm motivated.

It should not be this hard to create change in my life. I'm not sure why I'm so, so opposed to it, more now than usual.

Bonita is still adjusting to the new apartment. It's hard for a kitty who can't see very well to be in a new place, especially one still filled with boxes. Mostly she's just been puking a lot. But today she's finally jumping in and out of empty boxes and chirping and trying to pounce on me and tearing through the apartment. I guess she's figured out where everything is.

Two words about the cat puke: wood floors. Finally! No more white carpet.

I've been meaning to go to City Hall and vote but the last two weeks have been crazy, and I know I can't vote on Voting Day. On Tuesdays I barely have time to eat, let alone go to the polls, so today I finally called up the City Clerk's office and requested a ballot. Oh, how I wish this were San Francisco, where I could register as a "permanent absentee voter". Once I did that, the ballots arrived at my apartment before every election. Not so in Portland.

In any case, in a day or two I will have a ballot! Yay.

Today I returned from making charcoal in Falmouth and got to work making a few design changes in the hoop houses (finally, after 4 hours, I finished...and they're beautiful). As I was trimming some wood strips with the circular saw, my neighbor's brother approached. "I brought you something," he said, and handed me a set of very pretty lacquered chopsticks. (Note: there are 2 sizes in the box, not sure whether these are for my hair or whether he was angling for a dinner invitation? And if the latter, who gets the bigger chopsticks?) "For the woman who has everything," he said. Um, yeah....more like the woman who is trying to get rid of everything. Oh, the irony.

After riding the Mongoose/Xtracycle all summer, I wasn't quite satisfied with the Mongoose, so when I heard that Summerfeet Cycle Tours was selling some 3- and 4-year-old bikes, I called up to see when I could take a look. Today was a freaky warm, sunny day--I had stripped down to my T shirt by the time I arrived in Westbrook. One spin around the block on a Trek 73.5 (?) confirmed that it was far better than the Mongoose. An easy sale, and a fun ride home with both bikes!

Wow, what was today's weather all about? Warm, sunny, Bonita outside chasing her tail in the crispy leaves...pretty soon I won't even need the hoop houses. But yesterday I finished getting them ready, and today they were hot and steamy. I planted lettuce, shiso, and herbs. This year I set them up together as one long house with 2 doors. In their new spot, they'll get more Spring sun than last year, and with my new design, they won't be flapping open in the Winter winds. I hope.