classrooms like slums

CSUS, the state college where I work, has been afire with acrimony this semester. Faculty accuse the President (Alexander Gonzalez) of mismanaging the budget and overwhelmingly voted "no confidence" in his direction. The President and many alumni accuse the faculty of being short-sighted and interested only in their own salaries.

As an English lecturer at CSUS, I don't have time to investigate the ins and outs of those claims. But I can illustrate a little of the reason for such low morale and cynicism on campus.

I share one office with four other instructors, all conferencing students simultaneously. We five share one computer, one broken printer and one phone. When we arrive for 7:00 a.m. office hours, our building’s door is often locked. When we bring in a space heater to ease the winter chill, we are chided for unnecessary energy use. When we arrive at our classrooms, we find wires dangling where clocks should be. When there is a clock, it reports its own, unique time of day. When we write on chalkboards, we do so with tiny chalk-stubs and no replacement boxes. When the classrooms have whiteboards, there are no dry-erase pens. When we bring transparencies to class, we find no overhead projector. When students file in for the first day of class, they find broken desks and chairs stacked precariously, artistically, in the front corner of the room, and must lean against the wall or squat on the floor.

I ask my students to judge their education by the quality of our academic dialogue, but they are not fooled. Our classrooms and offices are slums and the landlord isn’t proud enough of what happens here to fix it.

Reading Lolita in Sacramento

Two summers ago, my 15-year-old son sat at the kitchen table reading Vladimir Nabokov’s book Lolita. About 14 pages into the thing, he put it down in disgust. “Jeez, what kind of parent are you? I can’t believe you’re making me read this!”

I was not “making” him read it. My son and his friends had started a book club as eighth-graders. They planned to read three books every summer, with me as facilitator. Coincidentally, all their choices that first summer were banned or challenged books: Catcher in the Rye, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Of Mice and Men. So they remade themselves into the Banned Books Club, the bad boys and girls of the library.

In their second summer, when the local children’s librarian got squeamish about their club name, we moved our meetings from the library to Giovanni’s Pizza and became the Banned (from the library) Banned Books Club. This was better yet. They were real readers, making their own choices, holding lively and funny talks and eating a lot of pizza. Getting kicked out of the library was an added benefit. I approved.

In their third summer, wanting to up the ante, they decided to read Lolita. Now, I see myself as a mom who supports her sons in reading against the grain. I think books are dangerous, in a good way. But when the group announced its plan to read that book, I felt a great big balk coming on. Was I really going to read Lolita with a bunch of 15-year-olds? Was I going to discuss a grown man’s rape of a 12-year-old with teenagers at a pizza parlor? I e-mailed the parents, and they all gave their OK. (Thanks a lot.) I told my son I was uncomfortable with Lolita, since it was, well, you know, about pedophilia. His response: “Wait, you encourage us to have a Banned Books Club and then you tell us what we can and can’t read? Really, Mom?”

He had me there. The kids read the book. Over pizza, they shared their disgust for Humbert. They thought that the topic was creepy, that the book was often difficult to understand and that they had never experienced such dark material written in such a humorous voice. Absolutely nobody in the group concluded that pedophilia was a good or strangely funny thing, though they did conclude that Lolita was a good and strangely funny book. They were smart readers. They saw the difference between art and life.

I believe that reading is an earned pleasure. If my sons will do the very hard work of reading a good, challenging, complicated book, then they certainly have earned the right to discuss the content of that book with someone who will respect their ideas. I think that we can help intelligent, responsible adolescents to grow into intelligent, responsible adults when they are allowed to safely confront disconcerting ideas in books they are ready to read and then discuss them with adults they trust. I believe in teenagers who read banned books, and I believe in the adults who read with them.

Moroccan supper for boys and moms

Every year my sons' high school has a mother-son dance. To attempt to take at least some of the dorkiness out of it, we always do a mother-son dinner on folding tables in our front yard beforehand, at which 40 dads plate the food and serve and clean up for their partners and kids. This year was great, partly because my family prepped so much of the food in advance.

We served Lemon Honey Wine Punch (for the moms), Pistachio Couscous and Moroccan Chicken Arugula Salad with Pita.

Here's how it went.

For the Lemon Honey Wine Punch, I combined 2 bottles of an inexpensive Spanish white wine with half a bottle of vodka, a can of Trader Joe's honey, four ziploc bags of frozen Meyer lemon juice, a whole lot of halved kumquats, and sliced blood oranges in a Sangria jar a day in advance. Right before the party, I added a liter of club soda and another of seven up. We served the punch over ice and it was very good on a hot Sacramento evening.

For the Pistachio Couscous, I cooked whole wheat couscous in chicken broth with added tabasco, rather than water. I chopped and blanched asparagus and carrots for color, adding them to the cooked couscous. For each large casserole pan, I ground up and added a bag of pistachio meat. I seasoned it with ground cardamom, garlic, salt and pepper. At the last minute I added chopped scallions and parsley.

For the Moroccan Chicken Arugula Salad, I boiled bagged, frozen chicken breasts (dirty little secret) and then shredded them and refrigerated them overnight in a dressing of meyer lemon juice (frozen from last season), garlic, salt, pepper, honey, white wine vinegar, orange juice, chicken broth, currants and raisons. I tossed the chicken and dressing the next day with arugula, mandarin orange sections, mint leaves and chives. I THINK that's it! It got a little crazy with additions to the chicken so I am not promising that is it exactly.

But the dishes went over well, even the boys cleaning their plates.