Just Another Starting Point

“The feeling is less like an ending than just another starting point.”

Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

Today is my last day of school for a couple of years, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm excited to be a full-time writer, of course. I've dreamed of that my entire life. However, the cycle of the school year, the give and take and ebb and flow and advancing and receding of school and adolescence has become the driving beat of my life, and as that low bass thrum recedes into the distance, I am left without a percussion section. 

While I finish up my meetings and search for my new beginnings, I am going to post another mom's new beginning. I first read this piece over at Isabel Kallman's fantastic site, AlphaMom, last week. It then popped up in Sue Scheff's wonderful blog on parenting, and most recently, one of my favorite blogs about parenting older kids, Grown and Flown. It's a piece that must have taken a lot of bravery, and as I step off into my own future, I am proud to post this mother's story. 

Thanks to Isabel Kallman and the author of this piece for allowing this story to be posted wherever parents might find some comfort in its message. 

Filling in the Blanks

When I introduce myself from here on out, I am supposed to say, “Hi, my name is ______________, and I’m an alcoholic.” That’s the first step, according to the brochure some nice woman handed me as I entered my first AA meeting day before yesterday.

As I have left that space in my introduction blank, it’s fairly obvious I’m not all the way there yet. That step, and all the subsequent ones I’m going to have to tread, are not entirely clear to me yet.

It’s not that I have any doubt that I’m an alcoholic. I know what alcoholics look like, and they look a heck of a lot like me. And my mom, and my aunt, and my grandfather, and my cousin, and my great-grandmother. I am well-acquainted with alcoholics, and the specter of all those slurry words and empty, glassy stares loom large in my childhood memories.

I hated it. Hated them sometimes, and I swore that no matter what, I’d never end up like them. I’d never allow my children and grandchildren and nieces and great-grandchildren to equate me with “alcoholic.”

For a long time, I simply avoided alcohol, figuring that would be the best way to circumnavigate my inheritance. In high school and college, I was everyone’s designated driver, the responsible one who, as a bonus, could lord all that moral superiority over my drunken classmates, mother, and grandfather, knowing I was above all that. I would never be like them.

When I had my own children, and it came time to deliver an ultimatum to my mother – she’d have to choose, alcohol or her grandchildren - I had already begun to slide down the same slope she’d traveled. I knew I was slipping, and I knew where that slope led, but to reveal that reality to anyone else would be to admit I might just be like my mother, and I was too angry at her to allow any such comparison.

When my children were young, avoiding that comparison was easy. My children were too little and too oblivious to comprehend how many glasses of wine I’d had. I figured I’d get the drinking back under control by the time they were old enough to be observant. Because, of course, I could stop any time I wanted to.

I just didn’t want to.

This year, we started to talk to our oldest, very observant child about alcohol. We were matter-of-fact and blunt. Alcohol has had a tight and devastating hold on both sides of his family for generations. We told him that it’s going to be very important for him to pay attention to his drinking. To know the difference between social drinking and problem drinking.

Yes, very important, I repeated, as I sociably sipped my wine.

Three days ago, sociability slipped into problematic which slipped into unconsciousness, and I was careless enough to let that happen in front of my entire extended family. I’d like to say my observant eldest child did not notice, but I have no idea. I don’t remember. That’s a blank, too.

The next morning, my father informed me that I’d have to choose - alcohol or them - and I chose them. I cried, threw up, showered, and drove to my first AA meeting. My husband offered to go with me, but I knew these were steps I’d have to take alone.

When I walked into that church basement, packed with one hundred other alcoholics, I wasn’t fooling anyone. No introduction was needed; I was simply one of them.

This weekend, over a dinner without that problematic glass of wine, I will have to look my son in the eye and say the words that fit into that blank up there at the top of this page for the very first time. While I am scared to death, it will be a relief. It will be the end of ten years of sliding and the beginning of my journey back uphill.

My son introduces me to his friends as many a lot of things – mother, wife, writer – and I I’m incredibly proud of those labels. Proud enough that I refuse to allow this newest label to obliterate everything else I’ve worked so hard to become. I’ve finally done the math and figured out that the only way I get to keep those other identities is to admit the word “alcoholic” to my list of identities.

Because when my son is my age, I want him to be proud of me, particularly if our mutual inheritance grabs hold and threatens to drag him down. As his mother – particularly his alcoholic mother - the most important gift I can give him is the power of my example to guide him if he ever stumbles upon the treacherous terrain of our family’s well-worn slippery slope.

Middle School Rules

This morning during drop-off, I cut across the playground on my way into the administrative building on my way to deliver some papers. I was in my own head, thinking about all the report cards I have to write and the endless year-end details on my mental to-do list when I overheard a lower school student ask a question that so perfectly summed up the middle school experience. A group of students had pulled together to organize a game of foursquare, and a fifth grader sized up her opponents - a mix of middle school and elementary students - and asked,

"Are we playing regular rules, or middle school rules?"

Ah, yes. Middle school rules. Different from the regular rules. Elusive, slippery things I'm only beginning to master, and I have spent the past five years as a professional middle school referee.

The work of a middle school teacher and referee becomes particularly challenging - and important - in the last weeks of school, when the chalk lines on the playing field are faded from use and the adrenaline runs high in the players. A lot of rules get broken in the last weeks, and while I am usually a stickler for those rules, the ones concerning classroom management, I've been breaking some of them myself in order to adapt to the changing dynamics of this game's final minutes.

This week, I had to pull a kid out of class so I could talk to him about the number of yellow cards he'd amassed over the past couple of days. He was on the verge of being ejected from my classroom and I was beside myself with frustration. I'd needed to speak to him the day before, but I broke my usual rule of immediate feedback (kids understand consequences best when they follow immediately after the action) and put our discussion off for a day. I needed to sleep on my frustration with him. Okay, I admit it. My anger. I was angry with him, and I knew that if I spoke to him when I was angry, I would muck it up. This would be my last opportunity to speak with him and effect some sort of change in his behavior before we part ways for the summer. If I botched the talk, he would be mad at me, I would be mad at him, and the rest of our time together would be a power struggle. I've been there before. I've tried that play over and over again, and I know for a fact that we'd both lose. It's a dud of a play.

I called the student into my office the next morning. His defensiveness was immediate and apparent. He knew he was about to get in trouble, and he was not going to look at me or acknowledge that he'd done anything wrong. I could see that in the first seconds, even before the first word came out of my mouth. His shoulders were rigid, he was looking past me, not at me, and his lips were set in a sort of angry grimace. He licked his lips and set his teeth.

I took a breath and told him that I wanted to talk to him not as a teacher but as another human being. He'd really upset me the day before. I'd asked him repeatedly to cooperate and work with the group, and the final time I'd spoken to him, he'd laughed with a friend. I asked him to imagine how he would feel if he'd asked one of his classmates to change his behavior, and that classmate had whispered with another student and laughed.

He began to deny that he'd laughed, but his voice trailed off into silence.

I said I could not help but assume that he was laughing at me, that I believe he would have assumed the same thing had the tables been turned. I then confided that I'd gone home that day so frustrated that I went out in the yard and weeded my gardens rather than work on my writing. I felt disrespected and hurt.

He exhaled. His shoulders came down, his jaw relaxed, and he looked right into my eyes.

And he saw me.

Until that moment, I was the mean teacher who ruthlessly imposed rules on him, and embarrassed him in front of his friends when he got too rough on the playing field. However, when I helped him understand how his behavior made me feel, he saw me as a human being worthy of respect.  Not because I'd demanded it, but because I deserved it.

And what's more, he knew I'd recognized the same in him.

An emotional soundtrack did not swell up from the corners of my cramped middle school office, the student did not leap up on a desk and address me as "O Captain, My Captain," but it was an important moment for both of us nonetheless.

The rules of middle school are like that. Some days, they work great, and everyone understands the location of the bright white line between fair and foul, foul and fair. Other days, we know enough to toss the rules in favor of a system that will work for all of us: the players, the referees, and the object of the game.

The Door's Open but the Ride ain't Free

In the midst the deepest, darkest, most sweltering miles of Sunday's Covered Bridges Half Marathon between Pomfret and Quechee, VT, I glimpsed both the tantalizing vision of an unexpected Gatorade stop and a new direction for this blog.

The school year is coming to an end, I have an entire book to write by November 1, and I'm....well, frankly, I'm a little bit nervous about that.

I've always been a teacher who writes. A teacher and a writer. I like the balance of that sentence, the weight of those two occupations distributed evenly on each end. I depend on the give and take of that arrangement; the influx of material through teaching and the outpouring of words through writing. When the school year ends next week, I will no longer be a teacher and a writer. I am taking a leave of absence in order to give this incredible opportunity, this book, my best shot.

For the next two years, I will be a writer. Full stop. Hear the clunk at the end of that sentence? It's as if the teacher jumped off the see-saw while that writer was up in the air, and bam. The writer is left behind, bewildered and a little breathless.

My entire life, I have dreamed of being "just" a writer, a real, professional, pay-the-bills-with-words writer. And now I am.

I am at once relieved and terrified, and the one thing I know for certain is that the coming two years will be an adventure.

I was worrying over the coming two years as I approached that lovely Gatorade station. Which did not, in fact, exist. I had conjured it into being out of my thirst and fatigue, and the mirage melted away just as I reached it.

Bummer.

As I checked myself for signs of heat exhaustion, I thought of another woman who is embarking on her own new adventure. Sherry is a writer I met through an amazing writer and literary agent  Betsy Lerner. Actually, I've never "met" either of them. Betsy's blog about the writing life is populated with writers whose work I follow, writers I admire and adore. A few weeks ago, Betsy shared the news of Sherry's new adventure on her blog, and as I made peace with that disappearing Gatorade station, I realized that Sherry is the perfect person to kick off my two-year stint in uncharted territory.

Fortunately, Sherry graciously agreed to share the story of her new path. Oh, and I finished the race without keeling over from heat exhaustion.

I will let Sherry take the reins from here, and I hope you will stick around to see where this is all headed.

My name is Sherry, and I am changing my life.

As I whimpered past the age of 50, I realized I’d spent the last 30 years doing the same ordinary things. Every. Single. Day.

I know many people who are in a similar rut: those who spend more than their share of evenings folding clothes in front of the TV, daydreaming about the world out there while they contemplate having that second bowl of ice cream.

So, in the last few months, I took the first steps toward a new life journey. I sold my house of 21 years, bought a condo, and lost nearly 30 pounds (with more than a few to go). And then I started pondering how I might shake up my life in a number of smaller ways. Thus was born, “The 52/52 Project: A Yearof New Experiences.”

As I turn 52 this year, I am embarking on a list of 52 things I’ve never before done—a year of weekly experiences well outside my comfort zone. It’s not a bucket list. Several of these are not events any sane person would have a natural hankering to attempt. Some will prove to be fun, while others loom as frightening. More than a few will surely end up embarrassing.

They range from training for a 5K (this for a woman who piles items at the bottom of the stairs so to avoid making more than one freaking trip up the steps, and who last ran nearly 20 years ago, probably up to the bar for last-call) to spending the night in a haunted house (I do believe in spooks, I do, I DO), to getting a Brazilian wax (just shoot me now).

Why now? Was the anticipation of turning 52 some magical moment? Likely not. But at some point in our lives, we either decide to continue sighing at the status quo or we embrace change.

I’ve chosen to embrace change, albeit with trembling fingers.

As a humor writer, a number of the experiences on my initial list were crazy, trivial items, primarily designed for a laugh. Some of those silly items remain there. Everyone should behave silly from time to time, and going outside our comfort zone certainly requires being able to laugh at ourselves.

But just a few weeks into the project, it began to evolve. Because I began to evolve.

The readers commenting on my new Facebook page, which chronicles my adventures, appeared to be charged and excited. A few called me an inspiration. Me? The middle-aged woman who never thought of herself as more than a cautionary tale—was now somehow an inspiration?

That inspired me to look deeper into myself and my project. I replaced a few of the more trivial line-items with more meaningful experiences. Most stories are still likely to draw laughs—especially my own self-deprecating laughter. Some will be more thought-provoking.

I hope to succeed at most. It’s possible I’ll fail at a few. But even then, I hope the experience will result in my changing and growing.

I hope you will laugh with me, cringe with me, and evolve with me, on this year-long journey.

Please join me in jumping the curb, taking a detour from the safe and secure cul-de-sac of our lives to visit personally unexplored territories.


But buckle up; it could be a bumpy ride.

Sherry Stanfa-Stanley is fond of saying she is a recent empty-nester who now devotes her spare time to caring for rescued animals. In reality, the grown children keep coming home and she caters to a bunch of spoiled and badly behaved pets. By day, Sherry is a communication director at a midwestern university, and by night she writes women’s fiction, humor, and human interest stories. Sherry’s work has appeared here and there, and now here… She received one of nine national fellowships in 2011 by the Midwest Writers Workshop. She is currently changing her life through 52 eye-opening, frightening and humiliating new experiences. Follow along on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/The52at52Project.

The Report Card Season of My Discontent

NB: I am reposting this essay as it is, yet again, report card season. Not the one that coincides with New England mud season, as indicated in this piece, but the one that coincides with the heat of early summer and an office without an air conditioner. It's always something.


This year, winter term report cards fall during the famous New Hampshire mud season, and I am discontent. The asparagus is beginning to heave its way skyward, the bears are emerging from their dens with cubs at their heels, and the earth is waking up from its long winter's nap. The last thing I want to do is tabulate point totals and write narrative comments explaining Dick’s low quiz scores or Jane’s lack of class participation.

It’s not as if I did not know this task was part of the deal – like tests, teacher evaluations and curriculum mapping, report cards are one of the less enjoyable aspects of a job I otherwise adore. I have worked in a few different schools, both public and private, and until recently, report cards demanded little more than a letter grade and maybe a sentence in which the teacher reports a fondness for Dick or Jane, that he or she is a pleasure to have in the classroom. Based on my mother’s recollection, one or two sentences were all my parents expected to find on my report cards when I was in school. However, parents expect much more than a line or two these days, and the pressure is on teachers to execute a very delicate dance, toeing the very thin line between outrage and constructive criticism, positive feedback and empty platitudes. This line – let me stress this - it is so very, very thin, and the implications when one oversteps said line are so very, very unpleasant.

The real meat of the report card lies in narrative section, and these words, as all teachers know, are where we must prove our mettle and succeed or fail in front of the audience that ultimately decides our fate: parents. The successful execution of this narrative demands that teachers act as writers, spin-doctors, therapists and jurists. These comments are treacherous territory, and each one requires careful planning, execution, and editing.

That said, I am also the parent of a middle school student, so I absolutely get it – report cards are a window on a parallel universe. We entrust our children to relative strangers for eight hours a day, and many kids spend more time with their teachers than they do with their parents. Report cards are a tangible verdict on all those stressful hours of homework, hard-won test scores and angst.

To that end, I do my best to throw that window open and offer parents the best possible view. Some love the view, others would rather close the curtains, but I offer it to them in case they want to take it in. The first paragraph of any successful report card comment must begin on a positive note, a sentence intended to ground parents in their happy place. Once there, I am able to follow up with a sentence or two about general concerns, buffered by a final positive sentiment - a lovely, soft topper on the delicious and nutritious criticism sandwich I've created. I then detail the overall trimester grade and how it breaks down in to category percentages such as participation, homework, composition, and assessments.. All that’s left is to add is a judgment-neutral transitional sentence to cushion the harsh reality of the numbers.

Paragraph two discusses specific issues – the student is capable but coasting, the student needs work on his organization, the student is absolutely killing me because she fails to bring her materials to class, the student tends to create a gravitational black hole of inattention in the back of my classroom…that sort of thing. The words must be backed up with specific examples, honest but safely distanced from anger, and absolutely free of wishy-washy language. Oh, hang on - a tip for new teachers out there: I have found that even the most well-intentioned and witty jokes don’t work in this context. Even if it made you giggle when you wrote it – heck, especially if it made you giggle, dump it. Trust me. It will go over like a lead balloon in the context of a report card comment.

Paragraph three is key to the success of the report card. The comment must end on a positive, hopeful, and enthusiastic note. I look forward to the rest of my year with your child and fully expect that he or she will mature into a fine scholar, that sort of thing. This final sentiment puts parents safely back in their happy place, and paves the way for a productive and non-confrontational parent-teacher conference.

Multiply all of my students in each section by the number of requisite paragraphs, and that's roughly 126 paragraphs of painstakingly constructed feedback. One hundred and twenty-six. Every spare moment outside of class time is consumed by report writing. I write after my kids have gone to bed, during lunch break, in between classes, before work over my morning coffee. Oh - another note to new teachers: I have learned to wait until after coffee to write comments. Before coffee is a very bad time to write report cards.

I could take advantage of a shortcut, if I'm so inclined. I could purchase this horrifying crutch, for example. According to the promotional literature on the website, teachers can "Save valuable time by simply inserting student’s name into the comment that best matches level of recorded achievement." Think of the time savings! If I opted for the timesaversforteachers.com method, my life would be so much simpler (“Why spend time writing your own?”)! The long season of my discontent would be reduced to a few hours of cut-and-paste convenience! Comments so bland as to be impervious to criticism! Pre-proofread!

All for just $29.95 and an abdication of my professional standards.

Thanks for the offer, timesaversforteachers.com, but I think I will stick with my inefficient and antiquated method of crafting unique reports for each student. I expect my students to show up to class ready to participate in their education; the least I can do is take the time to create a report card that genuinely reflects each student’s individual efforts, personalities, and attitudes.

I Can No Other Answer Make, But Thanks, and Thanks.

I teach my students to send thank you notes. My mother taught me to send thank you notes, and I am teaching my own children to do the same, so it only seems fitting that I should educate my students about the emotional weight of a sincere thank you.

A few years ago, I heard Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg comment in a radio interview - or maybe it was someone commenting on Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg - on the importance of thank you notes. Apparently, Jackie taught them to send thank you notes without fail, and even today, Jackie and Caroline's thank you notes are cherished for their warmth and sincerity, not to mention their historical significance.

So when I sold my book, currently titled The Gift of Failure, to HarperCollins, I set out to convey my gratitude. To every teacher, coach, pastor, parent, administrator, blogger, and reporter who caused the article "Why Parents Need to Let Their Children Fail," originally published at the Atlantic, to go viral.

The piece was published on a Tuesday, it was "viral" by Wednesday, and by the following week, the trajectory of my life had changed. Suddenly, pipe dreams were reality by the end of that month, I found myself with my dream agent and a book deal.

Therefore, I owe a hell of a lot of people thank you notes.

Every day, after school is over, and before my evening begins, I spend about an hour figuring out who shared my article, who took the time to tell their friends and colleagues about my writing.

I try to send real, snail mail notes, but you can't imagine how hard it is to find physical addresses for bloggers and reporters these days. School districts, yes. I can address something to a particular teacher or coach, care of their school district, but it's hard to get email addresses, let alone physical addresses, for most people.

Blogging Tip: If you'd like to be contacted with ideas, thank you notes, or free books, please make an address available. At the very least an email address, but even better, a physical address. Even if it's a PO box.

Gratitude, conveyed with sincerity and care, is underestimated in our society, but it's such a gift. It's been challenging to teach my children about its worth, mainly because developmentally, children are often such self-centered, empathy-challenged narcissists. But I will keep pounding away at that particular lesson until it gets through.

Because over a lifetime, there will be so many people to thank.

Between the Idea and the Reality

"Stranger and Stranger," by Maureen O'Hara Ure

(This is a re-post from last June, but year-end awards ceremonies are on my brain at the moment. Thanks again to Tea Levy for being brave enough to voice her words and allow me to share them on a bigger stage.)

Twice a year, we formally assess students' writing. I hand out a prompt and grading rubric about one week before the date of the assessment in order to give the students time to organize their thoughts in advance of the prompt. They then have two class periods to write their essay. It allows us to create a portfolio of writing samples from about second grade on, and the assignment also gives them some practice writing timed essays in class. Usually, the prompts are expository, based on the literature we have been reading in class - the mid-year assessment was about Great Expectations in the seventh grade and A Tale of Two Cities in the eighth - but in the spring, when the flowers are blooming, birds are singing, and attention spans are short, I opt for a more creative topic. 

This was the prompt I handed out last week:

Crossroads Academy’s core virtues curriculum is a central part of your education. Just as your education in math, literature and science informs your academic development, your education in the four core virtues informs your moral and social development. For your essay, please choose one of the virtues – justice, temperance, fortitude, or prudence – and write about a moment, experience, or event in your life when you relied on your education in the core virtues to guide you.

I love grading these essays. The students take it very seriously, and I am fascinated by their perspective on the core virtues, character education class, and the way students rely on the virtues to guide their actions. 

The essays were sublime this year, and I loved reading all of them. 

But this one...this one stuck with me. I was impressed with the writing, but I was also deeply disturbed by my part in her ordeal and the lessons that she and her classmates may have taken  away from the experience she describes. The author, Tea Levy, and her parents, have given me permission to share her words. Tea hopes that her words will help educators understand what end-of-year awards assemblies feel like from her seat in the bleachers. 

The Problem With Awards

In seventh grade during one of the last weeks of school, everyone headed down to Bancroft to attend the “culminating final assembly.” At the assembly, awards were given out to the students who had earned them during the year. I watched as nearly all of my classmates walked down to the podium to receive awards, but when the awards ceremony was finally over, my name had not been called. One of the teachers asked everyone who had gotten an award to come to the front of the room to take a group picture. When all of the award-winners had left the bleachers, three of my classmates and I were the only ones left sitting. The experience was devastatingly humiliating for me, but through my anger, I learned the importance of perseverance and optimism.

When my name was not called during the assembly, it made me feel inferior, as if my hard work had not been recognized, and my efforts wasted. I had done the very best I could on the National Mythology Exam, studied hard for the Grand Councours, and prided myself on my Latin poem, but after that morning the significance of all that seemed greatly diminished.

Suddenly I was angry. Angry with my teachers for creating what seemed to me at the time to be an exclusive and competitive atmosphere, but also angry with myself. I couldn’t understand why I was unable to be good enough to win or why everyone else seemed to be so much better than me. Optimism helped me cope with my anger. I had to remind myself that if I wanted to redeem myself, I would have to maintain a positive attitude. I reminded myself that the only way to have my efforts recognized in the future would be to remain as unfazed from this incident as possible and not limit myself based on my experiences.

The optimism I used to overcome this obstacle was linked closely to perseverance. My self-proclaimed failure gave me a new motivation to succeed that would push me through to the end of middle school. I wanted to prevail against the odds and become the perfect student. I quickly realized how unreasonable this goal was, but my desire to have my efforts acknowledged never faltered. I worked harder and concentrated harder and my work paid off. The first trimester of 8^th grade I received my first straight A report card. This achievement made me feel as though my perseverance had been noticed, and I was elated.

Although I still look back on that morning with dissatisfaction, the experience taught me many things. First of all, I acknowledged the fact that they couldn’t give prizes to everyone without making the whole thing seem like a joke. But more importantly, I realized how much I wanted my efforts to be rewarded and that I have the power to ensure that they are. 

Party Time. Excellent.

As we move in to June, and the end-of-year party invitations pile up in my school mailbox, I am forced to dig deep into my list of polite, socially-appropriate regrets. "Your party sounds lovely, and I so wish I could come, but I have my son's graduation ceremony that day." Or I have to pick my nieces up at the airport, visit my parents, attend a birthday party...insert appropriate excuse as needed.

I am an honest person, and while my default move is usually to stick with the truth, the truth of this matter truth is ugly. This truth, particularly when explained at drop off or pick up or in the moments between classes, is a box of unruly, writhing worms I can't contain once I lift the lid.

But this morning, while I was copying the day's class handouts, a parent expressed her disappointment that I RSVP'd regrets to what promises to be a lovely end-of-year school gathering. I inhaled, prepared to make a face of disappointment and utter some false excuse, but instead, the truth popped out. The moment was right, and if anyone had the gumption and self-esteem to handle this news, it was this particular parent, so I came clean.

I've been teaching for a long time, long enough to have become wary regarding parent-sponsored, school-related social events, particularly when the ominous descriptor "wine" appears with the otherwise innocuous pairing of "cheese." Don't misunderstand; I'm a huge fan of both the wine and the cheese, but a glass or two of chardonnay and the informality of a social occasion has the power to untether words and resentments that have otherwise been kept well in-hand. The email that a mom never sent - even though she really, really wanted to - about the injustice of little Janey's midterm C will re-surface at the party in the form of a casual, "Just so you know..." comment delivered with a smile as you swirl your baguette cube in the fondue pot.

At least I have some quality horror stories to share at non-school sponsored parties. The drunk mother who sternly reprimanded me in front of twenty other parents for a long and challenging homework assignment I'd assigned her son a month before. The dad who loudly outlined his daughter's negative opinions of Latin - the language generally and my class specifically. The mother who threatened - albeit with smile on her face - to report me to my boss if I did not ease up on her daughter in English class.

Make no mistake about it, these moments are party-killers.

So if you invite a teacher to your house this graduation season, don't take it personally if she or he responds with regrets. Assume that the teacher appreciated the invitation, and remember that polite regrets expressed on an RSVP card are preferable to regrets expressed angrily, under one's breath, on the way out the door.