My Near Death Experience With White Water

I'm glad I'm saved and I'm glad I'm a praying woman.

Last week I went white water rafting for the first time. It was a part of my NCCAT experience with my Kenan Fellowship. If you really know me, you know that I've almost drowned 2 times (kinda 3 if I count Cali but that's another story) and you know I have issues with water because of this and that's why it took me 3 hours to pass the swim test at UNC just so that I could graduate.

Back to last week. I really wanted to enjoy this experience because I knew that I probably wouldn't do this again. So when we were given the option to go with the "timid" group or the "adventurous" group, I chose adventurous (in hindsight I should've asked for a working definition of "adventurous"). Before I stepped foot on the raft, I had already said about three prayers. I was prayed up and ready to go.

When we got ready to get in the raft, me and another fellow looked around to see who was going to ride in the front. Since no one else wanted to be up there, Stephanie and I decided we'd do it. So we're going down Nantahala River. The water was very cold, about 52 degrees. The air was cool due to the shade from all from all of the flora;) The river had a few calm, slow paced spots. But every once-in-a-while, the speed would increase and the waters would get rough. The cold water would splash against us and send sharp chills over our bodies when we'd dip or when the instructor would have us spin or bump up against a rock. Felt like an adventure to me!

Well, our instructor spotted a huge, pointy rock that jutted about 6ft out of the water. It wasn't straight up and down; it was more like an incline. She said, "I've never tried this rock before." And she added something like, "We're going to today." Stephanie and I looked at each other like, "Really?!? We don't need to be trying nothing new." We rowed towards this miniature mountain, and the instructor yelled, "Lean in." That's what you're supposed to do to keep from being tossed out. As we hit the rock, Stephanie and I leaned in, but because of how we hit, the left side of the raft turned upward and the impact tossed both me and Stephanie into the air, knocking us both into the river.

I remembered going into the water. I started flailing my arms upwards. My hands walked the bottom of raft and I realized three things: I'm trapped under water underneath this raft, I just had a baby, and I'm about to drown because they aren't going to see me. I remembered trying to move my hands so that I could find the edge of the raft and come up for air. Finally I reached a rope that ran alongside the raft and I pulled myself up with one hand. I heard people shouting, "Swim!" Someone in the raft, Carrie, grabbed me but I kept feeling myself being sucked back into the water (mind you the river current is still forcing us down the river). Carrie said she was trying to reach her oar to me but that I was still holding onto mine (which I didn't remember). Carrie threw down hers and then took my oar from my hand. She then attempted to pull me up by my life jacket. She was pulling hard but I wasn't coming out of the water. "Grab her!" I heard someone shout. I yelled, "I'm not in. Don't let me go!" Then our instructor shouted, "Kick your legs!!" I started kicking and Carrie miraculously pulled me out of the water by the shoulders of my life jacket. Later Carrie said that I should've seen the look of terror on my face. I thought, I knew my face was looking crazy because I thought I was going to drown!

Once I was in the raft, I was facing the opposite direction of everyone else. I started looking around for Stephanie and I noticed she wasn't in there (mind you I'm disoriented at this time). I turned my head from side to side asking, "Where's Stephanie!?! Where's Stephanie!?!" They told me she was rescued by another raft. Then I looked back and saw my crazy instructor. Why did she say, "That's why you're supposed to lean in!" I almost cussed her out! I'm bout to drown because you had us doing a trick that you never tried before against this dag'um mountain and you gone blame me, the English teacher who's rafting for the first time in her life? Really!?!" I had to spin around to face the front before I capsized the whole raft trying to get to her. Then I thought, "This is

why black people don't go rafting!"

A few minutes later we pulled over and got out of the raft for lunch. One of the fellows who was in the raft behind us told me that her instructor knew what was about to happen to us. He said something to the extent of, "She (the instructor) is doing that wrong. The two in the front are going to end up in the water." And low and behold we did.

I'm so thankful I said my prayers before I got in that water. It was the grace of God that pried me from the death grip of the Nantahola River. I will never go rafting again! I don't like adventures that much. Now, I did enjoy the experience and there was some amazing scenery, but I'm good.

Teaching Inference

Last night while reading Zion his bedtime stories, I had an epiphany for a lesson on how to teach inference. We were reading "Good Night, Gorilla" by Peggy Rathmann, which is similar to "Goodnight Moon." At any rate, some of the pages didn't have words (well I think I can write a children's book!), so I started making up things to say. For example, the zookeeper husband didn't know the animals were out and had followed him home, right into his bedroom. The wife had to get up while the husband was asleep and walk the animals back to the zoo. As she's walking, her head and shoulders were drooping, and all the animals were in single file trudging along right behind her. There were no words on this page. So I said, "He always do this. Why do I have to be the one to take these animals back? How many times have I told him to check his keys because that gorilla is sneaky?!?" In the book, the gorilla steals the zookeeper husband's keys and lets out the animals after he passes telling them, "Good night."

Once we finished reading, the idea came to me that this would be a great activity to help students develop their inference skills. I could give them a picture from a children's book or any picture without words and tell them to create the story using what they see. It would be interesting to hear what the students come up with.

I'm sure this idea isn't new, but I've never tried it before and my students always struggle with making inferences.

I'll try this next year and report back on how well it goes.

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Me Geeking Over a Student Response

I'm sitting in my kitchen, this beautiful Saturday morning, grading tests. After grading a few and feeling disappointed, I came across one that made me stop and create this post. This 9th grade student had a very good answer to one of the questions.

Here is the short answer question: Pick a symbol to represent Claudia from The Bluest Eye, and explain how she and the object you've chosen are similar.

Here is my student's response: I feel that Claudia is like cheap bleach. I say that because if you ever use cheap bleach on white clothes, which is like giving Claudia that white baby doll, she would destroy the baby doll, just like bleach would destroy your clothes.

After reading so many responses that just missed the mark, this was a breath of fresh air and gave me the energy to grade a few more tests before taking a break.

"Love the Way You Lie"

At first I didn't think I was going to like Eminem and Rhianna's new song "Love the Way You Lie." I had read CNN's article "Eminem and Rihanna's New Video: Is Domestic Violence "The New Normal?", in which Carol Castello criticizes Rihanna for being a part of a video with lyrics that critics say "are violent and offensive to women?" I must admit, at first, I was a lil disappointed in Ri-Ri. But unlike most people, I don't believe everything I read, so I decided to read the lyrics first and then watch the video to make my own judgment.

I got through the first two verses of the song, and I could see how someone could argue that the lyrics promoted domestic violence for both men and women. Maybe "promoted" is the wrong choice of words here. At this point in the song, domestic violence isn't promoted but it's okayed . Take for instance these lines,
"Hi>gh off of love, drunk from my hate,
It's like I'm huffing paint and I love it the more I suffer, I suffocate
And right before I'm about to drown, she resuscitates me
She f***ing hates me and I love it.
Wait! Where you going?
"I'm leaving you"
No you ain't. Come back we're running right back.
Here we go again
It's so insane cause when it's going good, it's going great
I'm Superman with the wind at his back, she's Lois Lane"


The speaker appears to love the pain that's killing him because his girl always brings him back to life, and he loves that. Yes they have bad times, but they aren't bad enough to make him forget about the good times. These lines were problematic to me because this is the classic argument of some abused women. They don't want to leave because they keep remembering all of the good times shared with this other person. And at some point in the relationship pain becomes a pleasure.

Then comes the chorus which seems to "okay" these fights, as well, between the speaker and his girlfriend as Rihanna sings,

"Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
But that's alright because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
But that's alright because I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie"

In essence the chorus says it's ok for the speaker to watch the woman suffer from physical and verbal pain because she actually enjoys it. This is not good. The woman condones the violence because she likes it.

And then comes the third verse, which completely changed my whole perspective of the song. In this verse, the speaker apologizes and recognizes that both of them are at fault:
"Now I know we said things, did things that we didn't mean
And we fall back into the same patterns, same routine
But your temper's just as bad as mine is
You're the same as me
But when it comes to love you're just as blinded"

I didn't really like this at first, because this mode of thinking does exactly what the lyrics say, puts this violent relationship back in a pattern of fight, forgive, fight and forgive, without improvement. So again, the speaker is seeming real apologetic, but then something happens. Towards the end of the verse, the speaker stops addressing his girlfriend and starts to speak as if she's not there. He goes from "I told you this is my fault, look me in the eyeball" to "I apologize even though I know its lies
I'm tired of the games I just want her back." A mental shift occurs. Then he goes into this crazy rant,
"I know I'm a liar/If she ever tries to fucking leave again/Im'a tie her to the bed/ and set this house on fire/I'm just gonna . .

"

To me, by the end of the song, the speaker shows that he's crazy, a certified lunatic if you will, and that he hasn't changed. At this point, the speaker reiterates that no matter how many times an abusive person apologizes, he or she hasn't changed. The bad behaviors are still there.

When the chorus comes back in, it becomes evident to me that Rihanna's voice represents how women lie to themselves to help them believe the lies of an abusive man. And if you keep reading into what is being said, the woman sounds crazy saying "I love the way you lie." Who, in their right mind, loves the way a person lies to them? Nobody, but when a person is in an abusive relationship, that's kinda what they tell themselves. For example, when a man says, "Honey, I'm sorry and I'll never do it again," and a woman believes this, in essence she is saying, "I love the way you lie to me," completely blind to what she's accepting.

Whew! I did all of this off of the lyrics, before I even saw the video. I love this song, but unfortunately, I don't think people are going to listen to the lyrics to understand how deep it is and to understand that neither Eminem nor Rihanna are glorifying domestic violence. And the hook is so catchy that you can sing it without even thinking about what you're saying and convince yourself that lies are good. I mean, it's not the artists' fault that most people don't think, so I don't feel that they should've made their song easier to understand or dumbed it down. Hopefully this song will open up opportunities for people to discuss domestic violence and maybe save someone's life.

It's interesting to see this collaboration between Eminem with his violent past, both lyrically and actually, and Rihanna as a victim of a recent violent relationship.

SN: I like the video. Especially the symbolism of the female playing with fire, but I don't like how the video ends. I like the idea of ending with the house burning and then possibly fade to black versus the couple cuddling. Maybe the video comes full circle, closing the way it opens, to show the cycle perpetuated in these types of relationships. I dunno, but I still appreciate it.

On Second Thought . . .

Earlier I published a post titled "Wake County Protesters, You Picked the Wrong Battle." I criticized the NAACP and other community leaders for protesting against the end of the diversity policy in Wake County schools. It was hard for me to be up in arms about what's going on in Wake when I've taught in a racially segregated school for the past 5 years. I found it to be a little hypocritical for me to be upset.

But on second thought, what's going on in Wake is a tragedy. Anytime you blatantly say you want to end a diversity policy--not make revisions, adjustments, nor improvements--but end it, it looks really bad and racist. If the diversity policy is taken away, it will create schools for the haves and the have nots. It will create difficult learning environments for the have nots because more complex social issues will be overly represented, teacher turn-over rates will probably be higher, and the current academic progress will probably take a turn for the worse.

However, I do think changes need to be made to the diversity policy; some of the opposers' arguments are valid. The hour long bus rides and the constant switching of schools to balance the population are two of the biggest issues that I hear the most. I live in Southeast Raleigh, and the students who live in my neighborhood are supposed to attend Apex High School. They have to ride past Southeast East Raleigh HS, which is walking distance from us, everyday to head to Apex. I guess diversity comes with a cost.

All in all, taking away the integration plan is going backwards rather than forwards. The benefits of the policy do outweigh the costs. C'mon Wake County. I really need you to get it together.