On the Burmese and cold weather and peer pressure and coats...

It's cold here in Kentucky. It's not Michigan-cold, but it's cold. I actually moved away from Michigan because it is so darn cold. And I hate snow. I hated waking up on cold mornings to the sound of my father clearing the snow and ice off of our cars from the night before. Sometimes, I'd just hear the sound of scraping and pounding. Other times, it was scraping, pounding, and muffled profanity. Other times, it was the sound of my father stomping his feet just inside the front door to shake the snow off his boots before coming up the stairs to wake us up to help him clear off the cars. I'm not a fan of snow.

I think it's pretty safe to say that the majority of my students have had relatively little exposure to cold weather. Many are from Thailand. One is from Cuba. For many, the norm was not to wear shoes. For Westerners, this seems to bring about an "awwww" moment... people should wear shoes, for crying out loud. And if they don't, it's because of poverty. I'm not so sure that this was the case for my students. I know that many of them lived in poverty, but their shoelessness was less a reflection of that and more a reflection of the hot climate. Why wear shoes?

So my students arrive in the United States and the shoe expectation is a bit of a shocker. Most of them prefer flip-flops. Year-round flip-flops. Oftentimes, even if they wear flip-flops, I realize that they've kicked off their shoes in the classroom and are running around shoeless. Every October or so, I take the kids to the FRYSC to get them shoes if I see that they don't have anything close-toed. Our amazing FRYSC has gotten shoes for my kids to appear out of the blue. We usually have to provide them with socks, too.

And then winter rolls around, and it's coat time. This year, I took all of my students to the FRYSC at once and we had a coat giveaway. EVERYONE got a new coat. So I know they all have coats.

And now it's cold. And many of them won't wear their coats. I honestly teeter between saying, "Well, I got them the coats. Now it's up to them to wear them" and "No one is at home to tell them it's cold, so they should put on a coat, so I need to remind them." This week, I was in the latter camp.

By Friday, we were in a bit of a situation. Not only were my Burmese students not wanting to wear their coats, but the non-Burmese kids had picked up on it, and for whatever reason were deciding they didn't want to wear their coats, either. I was in the middle of an anti-coat revolt in my classroom. Peer pressure was taking over my classroom and not in a good way.

Maybe I should just give up the fight. Why is this bothering me so much? I don't know. I'm thinking that it has something to do with that mothering thing about wanting my "kids" to wear their coats so people don't think that they don't have them? I have no idea. I want to protect them from themselves a little bit...when they get cold, they are more susceptible to illness, and they don't need to be sick. And I don't like to get sick. And when they get sick, I get sick? I know they are clueless about the weather here. They don't have it ingrained in them that you just wear warm things when it's cold outside (although that would seem to be intuitive).

So here's the irrational teacher admission. I don't have many of these moments in my classroom, but I think I'm there. My control-freaky self has taken over, and I have now threatened my kids to make them wear their coats. That's right. They have to wear their coats, or they will lose a stick (this is the "money" of my classroom). And on Friday, I took it one step further. They'll also have extra homework on Monday if they don't wear a coat.

Oh, crap. I've heard it said that you shouldn't have a confrontation with teenagers unless you are sure you are going to win. And once you've gained some ground, you better hold on to it, or you'll lose what you've gained and then some. I'm thinking I'm trying to play king of the mountain with a bunch of kids standing on top of the mountain with their arms crossed. Not only am I not gaining ground, but I'm probably fighting a losing battle for no reason other than that once I've started the fight, I better keep it up until I win or die trying. Wrestling the gorilla, once again.

Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing might just be because they are teenagers and coats aren't "cool"? I mean, when I was a kid in Michigan, it was okay to wear a winter coat, but you weren't cool if you zipped it up. So maybe I'm fighting a losing battle against teenagers who are just trying to be cool? And what teenager isn't?

Onward.