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I teach middle school.  6th grade in fact.  That year in which each child sheds off their baby skin and somehow, often precariously, blossoms into a teenager.

I say “blossoms” cautiously.

Sometimes it’s not so beautiful.

Sometimes it’s really tough.

As a language arts teacher, I have the unique opportunity to pair students with art– in all it’s various forms– that speaks to these ‘tweens’, to their needs, to their hopes, to their vast insecurities.

As part of a science fiction unit, we recently watched the classic Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder”.

This is the episode in which a woman, wrapped in bandages and trying for the eleventh unsuccessful time to change her appearance so that she might look “normal” ends up being, after much suspense,  beautiful (by our standards) but is living in a society in which the norm is ugly (also by our standards).    The episode teaches all about suspense and climax and irony and resolution.  It is intriguing and almost dangerous and is a wonderful little teaching tool.

It also teaches a critical lesson about beauty and self-esteem:  beauty can be manifest in many ways and forms and is, like so many things, contingent upon the societal norms and cultural preferences and, of course, the times.

This is a lesson that I, unfortunately, am still learning.

It seems strange to me, and a little embarrassing in fact, that I am learning basic self-esteem skills along with my 12 year old students.

Recently during our bi-monthly, school-wide character development lesson, I was talking students through using positive affirmations and turning negative self-talk into positive self-talk.

I am still working on this with my therapist.

Often, unsuccessfully.

Sometimes I wonder if I am choosing texts and art and themes to teach my students acceptance or whether I’m subconsciously trying to quiet my own disparaging self-talk.

Still, I always feel good about sharing these self-loving ideas with them.  I don’t remember many people sharing these ideas with me.  I just remember the pin up girls in Teen magazine and my grandmother practically shrieking at my acne.   I remember developing early and feeling like the big girl in class.  I remember thinking that no boy would ever really love me.

It’s sad.  Pitiful what we go through.

And why?

Now, as a mom, I’ve had to sing, whether I feel like it or not, a different tune.

I’ll be damned if my boy doesn’t love himself for who he is.

Still, how do I teach that lesson when I don’t always practice it myself?    When I have an inherent distaste for all of my shortcomings?

(I should say that there are also times, however, when I am full of absolute, delicious conceit.  It’s a strange dichotomy.)

I suppose I should try my best to learn from these texts that I teach.  From the girl who claimed that there was no freckled flower, no flower like her, only to find the freckled tiger lily; from the boy who hated his poor boy’s jacket, hated it with a passion, only to realize that he was lucky to have a jacket at all; or the woman in the bandages lamenting, just about ready to kill herself, because she didn’t look ugly like the rest of them.

I suppose that no matter what’s inside I put on a brave face.  I smile.   I celebrate.  I model self-love.

Just like I do for my 6th graders.

Basically, I try to be, at least on the outside, what I want Silas to be.

I shed off my self-loathing skin and somehow, perhaps precariously, I blossom into a woman of power and confidence.

I use the word “blossom” cautiously.

Because sometimes it doesn’t feel beautiful.

Sometimes it’s just tough.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.