Dismantling a Dangerous Narrative

 My journalism class is putting together a thematic magazine for their final projects. One group is doing a magazine called "Equality Daily". They will highlight and discuss inequalities towards people of color, women, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ+ community. Pretty amazing, right?!

One section of their magazine is called “What We’re Reading” and they are writing book reviews. I was having a conversation with the group about this and I mentioned that I just read a book about a woman’s experience with having a disability in today’s world. One of the girls said, “Mrs. Laniel! Will you be our guest columnist and give us a book review on that book?” How can you say no to that?! So, I wrote it up and decided that I not only wanted to be featured in their magazine (So dang cute!) but I wanted it to be in this little space on the internet. Enjoy!

Dismantling a Dangerous Narrative

Book Review: by Mrs. Laniel

            An incredible book was recently recommended to me and it is one of those “this is changing my life” sort of books. Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig is a series of memoir essays describing her life in a disabled body. 

            Her experiences illuminate the many ways our society isolates, erases, simplifies “normal”, and silences those in the disability community. She says in her book that she wants to complicate the traditional tropes about what is “normal” and acceptable in our society; not only in how we treat those with disabilities but how we view our privileged, able-bodied selves. The lines around what it means to be disabled, able-bodied, showing kindness, and the reality of accessibility are meant to be blurry, gray lines even though we have been taught that they shouldn’t be. She reminds us that a whole group of people has been marginalized and we have marginalized them because our reaction to disability is learned, not innate. This book helped me understand that we must dismantle the ableism narrative and oppressive culture we have created for those with disabilities. We must add our own complex stories to the over-simplified and non-inclusive narratives that exist.

Another important lesson that I take from this book is how we view kindness. We have been taught over and over that people with disabilities need able bodies to survive. Because of this, we overtly (and often through viral videos) praise the able-bodied “hero”. We must change our selfish outlooks in how we praise the “kind helper” as the heroes of the story because their able bodies helped a disabled body. We instead must put a spotlight on the disabled body and seek to understand their needs and not assume that the able-bodied “heroes” are the only characters in the story.  

While Taussig’s disability is more visible because she uses a wheelchair, her advocacy for those with less visible disabilities is loud and clear. She tells us that we must not perpetuate the idea that every person in a wheelchair should walk in order to be “healed” in order to be valued or deemed successful and a contributor to our society. The pity and lack of understanding we have as a society towards the disabled community is nothing less than criminal. 

Taussig gives voice and language to her readers to advocate for a more inclusive and informed view of disabilities because they affect all of us. Every day. All the time. All of our bodies hold an abundance of strengths and frailties and as she so elegantly stated, sometimes those are one and the same. 

The Outsiders

Ahhhh, The Outsiders.

 My favorite time of year! 

I get to read this book for the one millionth time 

and introduce 130 young adults to it for the first time. 

It's kind of awesome. 

S.E. Hinton's classic changed my life and I am always grateful when it changes my students' lives. This book showed me real people with real problems and I remember, vividly, thinking about how Ponyboy or Johnny's fate would have changed if

a...or...b....or....c...would have happened...

I remember connecting with the theme that "it's rough all over" and applying it when I met people who were different than me. 
  I attached myself to this family and I loved them.
 I still do.  

{Of course the movie version didn't hinder my obsession. I mean, hello!
 These boys were dreamy!}

Before starting the novel this year, I gave the kids a set of questions to get them ready for some of the themes that emerge.

 One of the questions asked them to describe a time when they have felt like an outsider. 

I wasn't  ready for the answers I got.

They are raw, heartbreaking and an accurate snapshot of what our kids go through. 

They reminded me of why I do this job and 

why these are my kids and 

why I pour my heart and soul into them.

I wanted to share some of the answers I got to remind us that kids aren't dumb. 

They are fully aware of how the world works and at this age, being an outsider is reality. 

I think, as adults, {teachers or not}

 we need to remember to love on them whenever possible. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I always feel like an outsider. People really don't like me nor do the act discreet about it. Rumors are passed around a lot about me and no one ever thinks about how I feel about the situation.

It's extremely hard to fit in and I was considering suicide at one point.

A time when I felt like an outsider is when all my best friends have boyfriends and I don't. Not that I need or want a boyfriend, but it's like my best friends are taken away from me. 

I have felt like an outsider a lot in my life, especially when I move or when my friends start hanging out with other people all the time.

It just makes me feel like I am unwanted and unnoticed.

A few years back I remember looking in the mirror and seeing a face that was plump and squinty eyed. Everyone else's face was skinny and they all looked good.  I made myself feel like an outsider and wouldn't accept the way my face looked.
{This was written by a boy, btw...girls aren't the only ones...}

I have felt like an outsider and I felt angry, sad and useless.

Often times when talking to a group of adults, no matter how intelligent you are, teens are seen as inferior and are expected to show respect by acting as if inferior therefore being pushed to the bottom, or outside a group of people.

I feel like an outsider every time I go to my bus stop in the morning. Everybody else is talking to their friends and I just stand there.

I feel like an outsider every day in math because I know no one in that class.

A time when I felt like an outsider was when I moved to my new school, neighborhood and church.

I usually do I guess. Everyone does. Like today, my entire group of friends got invited to watch the premier of Pretty Little Liars at who I thought was my friend’s house...

 I must not be good enough for her. I am always left out no matter how hard I try. I guess I am just everyone's last choice.

I feel like an outsider because my parents are divorced and sometimes I wonder why I got this life and why I can't have a normal life or be like other people.

I feel like an outsider at lunch. I think I sit with the popular group but I am crammed on one side of the table and no one really talks to me. So, I'm probably not accepted.

 I feel like an outsider when I tell people I live with my grandma and grandpa because everyone else lives with their parents.

I've felt like an outsider many times simply because I am shy.  No one talks to me because I don't talk to them. I try, but it's really hard.

I feel like an outsider 24/7.

Middle school is rough. 
Figuring out where one fits in and how to accept harsh realities is not easy. 
At all.
I hope my kids let The Outsiders teach them about places in their lives that they can "stay gold", that they watch a sunset and see purity, 
and that they experience the truth that they're not alone.

Add caption

The time I threw The Gingerbread Man book behind my filing cabinets...

As many of you know, Brian and I have chosen not to have kids.
{I wrote a little bit about this here.}
It's a complicated, layered decision that was {and still is!} filled with emotion, contemplation 
but ultimately, peace. 
We knew at the beginning of our relationship that this was a part of our story and we have gone through many ups and downs with how this "defines" us and how we "fit in" {or not...} with many of our friends' lifestyles and stories.
Our decision has nothing to do with infertility. I actually can't imagine what it would be like to have a strong desire to have kids only to find out we couldn't for some reason. 
I can't relate with those that have suffered in this way, but I can relate with the feeling of  
"One of these things is not like the other..." at any given park, neighborhood party or family style restaurant.
So.
When I happened to read The Gingerbread Man fairy tale with my ELL Beginners at school, 
I lost my shit.

{I teach ELL's because there  is a large refugee population at our school and these kids are in the process of learning how to  read and write in English (hence the children's books) and I am teaching them. Yikes. This "yikes" is a whole other blog post... }


Chances are I have read this story before, but I never saw the story from the couple's 
point of view. 
And when I did, I felt very strong emotions of anger and sadness for the message that I saw being communicated. 
Here are some excerpts of the book that really set me off:

The couple had no children, and being lonely, the woman decided to make a boy of gingerbread. She carefully mixed the batter, rolled out the dough, and cut out out a very nice gingerbread man. She added sugar icing for his hair, mouth, and clothes, and she used candy chips for buttons and eyes. What a fine looking gingerbread man he was! The old woman put him in the oven to bake. After he was fully done, she slowly opened the oven door. Up jumped the gingerbread man, and he ran out the door saying,

"Run, run, as fast as you can!
You can't catch me!
I'm the Gingerbread Man!"

The old woman and the old man ran after him, but they could not catch him.

And right when he stood still. Snap! went Mr. Fox's jaws right into the Gingerbread Man until he was gone.

So this is how I read it:

The OLD couple, for one reason or another, had no children. 

They were LONELY.

{Ugh! These words! Old AND lonely!? Ugh!}

The woman thought, hey! I believe in magic! Why can't the magic that happens in the movie The Odd Life of Timothy Green happen to me? I'll bake a kid! 

Lo and behold, it worked. 

It freaking worked. 

At last. 

They had a child of their own.

{Albeit he's a gingerbread MAN, not a boy... but whatever.}

But then, the little brat just ran away.

He was so ungrateful!

He didn't care who his parents were!

The poor old couple went chasing after him, but he kept running.

Then, after a round of close calls, his luck runs out when a sneaky fox 

ultimately eats him.

And he's gone.

And that's it. 

That's the end of the story. 

 
Seriously.

I finished the story feeling profoundly sad for the couple. First, they were depicted as "old and lonely" and then they lost their magic child.

I also didn't understand what I was supposed to learn from the story; was it that the fox is sly and cookies are to be eaten? 

Maybe.

But I also thought, wow.

 The message of being childless is treated so, so, I guess, icky in this story.

Sure, I am taking this personally.
Sure, I know this is sort of ridiculous.

But for me, it compounded the feeling that our society doesn't know what to do with people that don't have kids. We might as well try to bake a kid--but that won't last--that's not realistic--so we keep chasing that which eludes us...

After I finished the story, I sat with my ELL students staring wide eyed at me.

 I think this was because during the story I kept saying things like

"This is a terrible story!"

 "What is happening!?" 

"This poor couple! They are in every picture chasing, chasing, chasing!" 

"What a little brat this gingerbread man is!"

"What? He's dead? Really? Come on!!!"

I then told the kids that this is not the type of literature we will be reading in this class. 

It's garbage. 

When the bell rang, I threw the book behind my filing cabinets. I guess I didn't have it in me to throw the book away, being a literacy teacher and all, but I needed it out of my sight. 

And fast.

I don't know if I have over reacted--I probably have...

But I think that there are just too many layers of life to assume that being childless is simple or easy. I think I was left feeling  infuriated after reading The Gingerbread Man because these layers are often overlooked and I feel protective of couples  that don't always fit in--those that chase magic, even if it seems silly, and those that lose what they have hoped for to a sneaky fox. 

The time my life flashed before my eyes.

So. 

My computer almost died...like the closest to death it's ever been... 
like I have been in a panic/ devastation mode for the last 72 hours.
In fact, my life literally flashed before my eyes the moment it crashed.
It flashed even more when the tech master at school said that basically it was a 50/50 chance that my documents would be saved.
Yeah, 50/50.

I could barely comprehend the possibility that ALL of my documents, pictures, EVERYTHING

could be gone--forever.

During the last 72 hours, I have really been trying to keep an optimistic perspective, but 

I kept thinking how these damn machines hold so much of me. I have a folder called "My Writing" and one called "My Journal" not to mention all my work documents--some of which are truly irreplaceable. 

Of  course, the fact that the "My Pictures" folder could have disappeared, made me cry.

Yes, some of these things are backed up--from like last October--I think. 

We have an external  hard drive we use for this--but obviously, we don't use it enough.

So, as I dream about being here:

I'll wait for you while you go back up the data on your computer--right now--I mean it. 
GO!

Okay, I feel better.

As I have been grasping for perspective, I have also been  entwined by the magical words of Tony Johnston who wrote the book Any Small Goodness. I've blogged about this before because I read it to my students. 
As I am reading it again, I am overwhelmed with the beauty of this story.

Arturo, a Mexican teenager, is finding his way in the L.A. barrio with his family.

Johnston has a way with language that captures the beauty and purpose of  the 
written word perfectly.

Today he opened us up to this life lesson:

Love each other.

Help each other.

As I cussed counted to 10 as a way of calming my panic attacks, I tried to remember that our purpose is connected to these words. Through life's twists and turns, through devastation and celebration we must still 
love each other and help each other--with or without a computer. 

I am going to really try to find new ways to live this out--ways that might stretch me and cause me to see a broader perspective of life.
I'll keep you posted on this one.

Actually, I guess my first way to live out the "help each other" is to remind you to back up your computer's data.
Trust me.

We have incredible stories to tell...

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is a deep, complicated, beautiful novel about one family's experience with loss on 9/11. The novel was turned into a movie and it was surprisingly wonderful. They seemed to capture the essence of Foer's story  in such a way that moved me to tears, caused me to feel that deep tug of  sadness and yet there was a hopeful edge that reminded me that 

we are all so very connected.

Even though 9/11 and all the events surrounding it reaches the depths of despair in such a way that is incomprehensible, there is a sense of "common experience" of 9/11 that Foer and the movie makers truly captured. There is a level of reality that is not always realized in fiction.(Even fiction based on true events.) The story was messy, complicated, surreal, endearing and allowed us to feel our humanity.  It had elements of relatability that I appreciated.

It not only remind me that as a nation we were all a part of the Tragedies of 9/11 but that we, as humans, have the potential to be connected by incredible stories.

Our stories may not be as stark as the 2,996 incredible stories that could be told from the 9/11 attacks but we all have incredible stories to tell. Our stories are also complicated, deep, messy, endearing and often surreal. Their powers lie in the ability to teach others about life and how to navigate

through triumphs and tragedy.

 It takes courage to tell our stories, but I think when we do, we connect to each other in a way that helps us feel less alone, less afraid and more able to survive in an unpredictable world where everything around us feels extremely loud and incredibly close.

“You is kind, you is smart, you is important.”

I read The Help last summer. It was amazing. I watched the movie today, and I am in awe.

I don't really want to get into a full review of the movie or the book, but I feel the need to get it out there that this is one hell of a story that I think everyone should experience.

After reading the book I remember experiencing deep admiration for a gutsy story like this to be told. Kathryn Stockett showed us what life was like for “the help” in the 1960's in the Deep South. It was filled with humiliation, injustice, strength and enormous amounts of courage to survive. I was inspired and informed; changed, really.

Today, as I sat in the movie theater I was in awe how these women who had begun to change my life last summer, were doing it again. I am always a bit leery of a book becoming a movie and it being “ruined” by Hollywood, but today I was moved in a way that took me by surprise.

From beginning to end, I was on a rollercoaster of chuckles, hearty laughter, small tears, big tears, and an occasional gasp. This movie brought back all the women I loved so much in the book. And now, just as when I finished reading The Help, I’m left with a lasting heartwarming glow. I also left wanting to continue to learn from them about the courage it takes to speak truth.

I think the highlight for me, the miracle I saw today, were the words of one of the main characters, Abileen, and what she says to her girl Mae Mobley. She says, “You is kind, you is smart, you is important.” Every time it was said, tears instantly streamed down my cheeks.

Despite the circumstances for Abileen, she knew that these simple words could influence Mae Mobley to be stronger than her surroundings. She could be who she was meant to be because of the truth being spoken to her.

I am grateful for this miracle today as I enter into another year of teaching. I happen to be in a place where I can speak truth to kids about who they really are: they are kind, smart and important.

I can only hope that the women of The Help continue to inspire me to not only have courage, but to speak truth to those who may not hear it otherwise.