28 June 2026
I went to dinner at the home of my high school lang arts teacher last night.
How I got there is the first part of the story.
I don't leave my house, generally, unless I'm being paid. That means I leave to go to work. I like my house. I like sitting in the living room and reading. I like sitting here in the dining room and writing, even if it's garbage. I spend my time outside of my house teaching and mitigating social relationships between preschoolers, for which I am paid.
I deliberately keep my friend circle small. My friends from high school recently moved back from Texas, and they are relentlessly positive, active people who leave their house. I respect that, and that's not who I am. I have to be bullied out.
They received an invite to the Starkey home for dinner, and somehow Jim and I were also invited. Jim begged off, as he was not one of their students, and is even more awkward than I am. He's not rude, he's just awkward and age has made us both homebodies. The choice caused some friction, but we've been together for 100 years, and we got over it. Also, the A/C died yesterday and he actually did have to stay home to talk to the A/C people. It's currently 78 degrees in my house. Sleeping last night was a bit rough, but it's a first world problem so keep it in perspective. They can't make a house call until Tuesday. Yay.
I agreed to attend, even though I tried desperately to prove that I had not been invited in the first place. This is a me issue, exacerbated by being left out of social gatherings in my youth. I literally argued with Mike that I was not invited, so why was I going? And what time? And where to they even live, I have no address---if I was invited I'd have an address, ipso facto: not invited.
Clearly, the fact that it was a friend from high school attending a dinner hosted by my high school teacher exacerbated my already severe social anxiety issues. Issues that I am not interested in working through, because that would mean I have to leave my house and talk to people and not get paid to do so.
I have no idea how to hold a conversastion. I know how to teach and build community and a collaborative theatre. That is not having a conversation.
I feel like I used to know how, because I could talk with people posessed of different viewpoints than my own, and we would both be reasonable.
Society decided we don't do that any more, and since I like being alone, anyway, I became OK with that.
However, these are like minded people. We all share the similar histories and philosphies.
I got over myself and decided to just go. It would be good to see the Starkeys and spend time with them and Mike and Melinda, and I likely wouldn't have to worry about my conversational shortcomings as they are all pro level conversationalists.
So part two of the story; I attended and all my fears were unfounded. I was welcomed. I enjoyed listening to their stories about their kids, about teaching---I learned she taught for 44 years. This seems impossible, I know, but when she retired from teaching high school after 33 years, she then "taught" as a TIR mentor at Metro for 11 years.
And she's still the kindest human I know. Not angry. How does the relentless BS not make someone bitter and angry? The system was screwed when she was teaching, yet she still believes one person with a heart can make a difference.
While she talked my mind wandered a bit, as it does...
I have been dismantling the BS at Littleton, piece by piece. I can track when it started, I accept my role in my own demise but that's not at the core. The core is I lost my heart. I stopped believing I was making any positive difference at all. I left there completely angry and hateful and panicked over paying my mortgage. Again--you've seen this thread in my life: money dictates my every move.
Working at Hinkley was of course, an entirely different set of district and building BS issues, but I held on. And even though they didn't give me my years, I still made $10k more than I had at Littleton. I worked through Covid. I forced myself into what mattered, what was right for the kids and held on as long as I could. I argue it transformed me in many ways. If money was truly what I loved, I would have stayed. So I got that going for me.
Now I'm rebuilding a department in what may be a fool's errand, but I'm doing it with my full heart, and $8k less a year because DPS did not give me my years.
K. Starkey knew I cared, even when I'd given up hope. I was perplexed by her relentless love until it broke through last night.
She was my teacher.
It's that simple.
Good teachers see you. They see your heart.
I have former students who I will never forget, and I hold in my heart even as we are no longer in contact. I saw their hearts. I know they will always do the right thing.
The right thing is never the easy thing.
The right thing cannot be done if you have no heart.
That was a pretty big takeaway. Yes, I used that word, be grateful I didn't tell you we're going to unpack my thesis together, jigsawing small group work and then writing our findings on sticky notes to be placed on pieces of butcher paper stuck to the library walls, each with a word at the top like "Deliverables", "Learning Objectives" and "Student Facing Color Schemes".
Ok, that was for teachers.They get it. Hi guys! Thanks for reading. Love you.
Am I on part 3? "Actually listening". When Kathy talked about mentoring a teacher in Aurora who had been called out for teaching a "full book"--The Red Pony--her heartbreak was palpable. She was shocked that any district would punish a teacher for assigning a book--a book they were reading in class.
I taught in Aurora and am well aware of that strategy---they use Study Sync which pulls excerpts from novels, and lang arts teachers are to use those. Not full novels.
Gratefully, I am not a lang arts teacher, and I have proudly forced freshmen to read The Odd Couple, Romeo and Juliet and The Crucible for many years. My mid level kids read The Misanthrope and A Servant of Two Masters. I honestly haven't taught Hamlet in a minute, but I hope to get to him with my upper level kids next year.
Here's my experience: they read. They listen and follow along because we read in class and I can see you with my eyeballs and I know if you're following along. My kid with a sixth grade reading level held on through Theatre 2 this year and performed in the Odd Couple! Granted, my behaviors are not as severe as the core classes, so it's "easier" for me to force the reading issue. If you don't want to read, I don't make you---but you must follow along. And I learned that many of the kids who do not want to read are actually very good readers once they're pushed into doing it. They just don't want to.
So my limited research suggests that Aurora has stopped reading novels because the kids don't want to.
They're using "teach to the test" as an excuse, because the kids clearly only read a few paragraphs for the SAT. But aren't you teaching them to cheat, and cheating them yourself?
Of course you are, because people who like to read don't always know it immediately, and if they read they might discover the world around them and become curious about other cultures and history and we can't have that.
There's a lot to unpack there that is not relevent right now, so we'll table that discussion for the next facultry meeting.
Where was I?
Dinner. Was lovely. I'm glad I went. I'm glad my friends gave me a ride. I enjoyed talking with them about the horrors of math en route to the Starkey homestead. I am unsure how I even have them as friends, as my conversation skills amount to occasional explosions of internal thoughts that should not be spoken, let alone spoken around people who are listening. They seem unfazed.
So thank you Mike and Melinda. Thank you Kathy and Jim for your gracious hospitality and engaging stories and stunning artwork.
Scene.
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