You Are Correct, Sir!

Mistakes are proof you are trying... if you fix them.

From a teacher friend of a teacher friend:

So this is a new one: I had a parent email and say that her daughter came home and said that one of the kids in our class goes to the nurse often because he has rabies. [The mom] said she’s pretty sure that isn’t the case but wanted to make sure and assumed that the rabies was being properly treated.

Dear Readers, the child has diabetes. But there is a parent in the suburbs of the Twin Cities who believed the school nurse could be treating rabies on the daily. Luckily, the teacher could assure the parent that the DIABETES is being handled properly. Correction made.

Last week I wrote about Logical Consequences, and I don’t know about you but I have been ruminating on that subject over the last few days. I subtitled that piece, “FAFO” and have been rather amazed at the couple of ways I’ve heard that term bandied about ever since. First of all, on my social media platforms the consensus seems to be that those of us who saw this coming are livid that we all have to do the “finding out” when the people who voted in this administration decided to “fuck around.” Secondly — in the kind of bananas kind of horror that rules our country now — our Commander in Chief used the acronym on Truth Social in an apparent message to Columbia. Super world-leader-y energy there, well done.

I was also flung back into my own thoughts in church last Sunday, as the sermon was centered around the responsibility we each have to share our gifts with the world. At one point, and I really don’t remember how it came up (sorry, Pastor Jason), but the phrase, “Correction is an act of love,” was said and gave a jolt of adrenaline to my system. I’m not going to lie, I know Jason reads this column sometimes and I did wonder if he was responding directly to me. After that brief moment of narcissism, I began contemplating the connections between individual gifts + the state of our nation + the corrections to be made.

On a very basic level, my job involves constant correction:

Good morning, did you make your lunch choice? Better do that!

Did you visit the nurse? Hustle down before the bell rings!

Thank you for being safe in the hallway! (as the runner sheepishly slows to a walk)

Write the word “rainbow.” (students hold up white boards for me to see) Yes, but what vowel team are you missing? Yes, but that “b” should be lower case. “Great job, please make the “r” the same size as the other letters.

Please put the scissors away, we don’t need them for Reading.

35 is not a multiple of 9. Yes, I’m sure.

(To student staring into space) What should you be doing right now?

(To student asking me what we’re doing right now) Ask your partner what the directions were.

No arm wrestling at the lunch table. Please don’t run with your lunch tray. Go pick up that piece of broccoli you threw.

23 is not a multiple of 3.

As I tell my students, I don’t give assignments and make corrections in order to be a horrid monster, hoping that they will tell terrible tales of me in years to come. This generally makes them laugh, and they can admit that I do appear to have a reason behind the tasks I give them, and that when I help them fix mistakes they learn from it. We talk every day about how they should be proud to make mistakes, because it gives them a chance to correct the mistake, thereby solidifying the knowledge in their brains. That’s science, y’all. Teaching is an act of love, therefore correcting is an act of love.

Dan (the husband) and I have discovered that, while it isn’t always comfortable, we are better parents and spouses when we force ourselves to listen to [gentle] correction occasionally. Dan points out when I fly off the handle over Billy forgetting to take out the garbage or clear his place or pick up his socks, and I am often able to apologize to Billy and talk out my frustration (much more effective) (also it is way harder to have patience with one’s own children as opposed to everyone else’s). I alert Dan when he forgets what it was like to be a young person with raging hormones that don’t assist with decision-making and does some off-the-handle flying of his own. We weren’t always great about giving/receiving correction from each other — and it can still be a struggle — but helping each other navigate parenting (and simply having emotions) is, again, an act of love.

Some mornings, when I’m unenthusiastically mouthing the Pledge along with my class, I think about my love of my country. I think of the values I see lived out by Americans whom I admire: confidence, generosity, independence, empathy, creativity, innovation, care for nature and pets and children and the elderly and each other. Are these values overshadowed right now? Absolutely… unless you look closely.

I still see these values in my community — in the theater space I’m inhabiting, in my church, in my coworkers. We are checking in with each other, making sure we’re ok. That’s ok for right now. Some of us are on the mat right now, and need a hand up. But as patriots — citizens with a true love of country — it is time to make corrections. We need to give time and energy to the aspects of society that make us better (why does the library always pop into my head?) and stop giving oxygen to the fires being set by those who wish to burn us out.

My friend Adrianne has been writing about “Joy as Rebellion” and DAMN. Give yourself a moment with that. As far as a mantra for course correction, we could do a lot worse. I feel that we have moved so far afield from Michelle Obama’s, “They go low, we go high” moment, and we need to be more aggressive. They wage a war against the poor, we accelerate our action around food and health care deserts. They try to split us and sort us into ethnic/religious/political groups, we create safe and social spaces for community members to get to know each other better and build support systems. They try to take away our Roast Beast, we sing a weirdo song around a giant tree in the city center. REBEL WITH JOY, Dear Readers.

Thanks for reading.

Love, Susie

Artwork by my talented friend Jenn… find her at @Jennspired