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- [00:01]
Apple Representative
The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running, swimming or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations. IPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.
- [00:30]
Rosetta Stone Representative
As we approach the end of the year. I'm thinking about the next Next year is the year I finally make my Spanish better than my 9 year olds. Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program available on desktop or as an app, and it truly immerses you in the language that you want to learn. I can't wait to use Rosetta Stone and finally speak better than my 9 year old who's been learning Spanish in his own way. Rosetta Stone is the trusted expert for 30 years with millions of users and 25 languages offered. Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean. I could go on fast language acquisition. Rosetta Stone immerses you in many ways. There are no English translations, so you can really learn to speak, listen and think in that language. Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach today. The Moth listeners can take advantage of this Rosetta Stones lifetime membership for 50% off visit rosettastone.com moth that's 50% off. Unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% off@RosettaStone.com moth today.
- [01:39]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature. For the Moth listeners, Audible is offering a free audiobook to give you a chance to try out their service. You may like listening to Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish, a novel written and read by the late David Rakoff. To try Audible Free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audible.comthemoth that's audible.comthemoth so we've got two stories for you this week, and they're both from our Story Slam series, which you know by now is our open mic storytelling competition. And we have Moth Story Slams happening in cities all across the country these days. But the story we're going to hear first today is from Michaela Bly. It was told at a Grand Slam here in New York City last year. The theme of the night was fish out of water.
- [02:53]
Michaela Bly
A week into the school year teaching third grade, I already know that I'm in over my head. It's my first year at a new school. It's a progressive private school. But I'm an experienced third grade teacher. I know third graders. They're adorable, they're cuddly, they love stuffed animals and so do I. And this class is different. The girls are great. They're actually running a ste stuffed animal hospital. So I can do that. But the boys have a war game, and it's not the kind of war game little boys always play. War. That's clear. They don't have just a war game. They have an army. It has a hierarchy. It has a real enemy. The enemy is the homeschool kids who share the park with us at recess. And when they're not in battle, which we're desperately trying to stop at recess, they're preparing for battle. They're training in school. Seriously. It takes over our year when we line up for lunch. When you line up for lunch and you're in third grade and I'm a third grade teacher, I say we don't push, we don't talk. I have to say, we don't shoot each other point blank in the forehead because that leads with these guys to strangulations and punching and I have to separate them. And then at free time, they tie each other to chairs with construction paper and practice interrogation techniques, which leads to strangling and punching and separation. They draw battle strategies and they use up all my red markers because the sprays of blood are so overwhelming. Now, that's one thing. Free time is one thing. But then it gets to class time. And I say, this is what we're going to do. And the girls go ahead and do it, and the boys say no. They're busy doing tactics, ground tactics, and they don't say no rebelliously. They say it like patronizing, like, why would we do third grade when there's a war? I'm lost in all of this. I am a teddy bear kind of teacher, and I'm not a drill sergeant. I don't know how to stop them from constantly punching each other. And the school's lost, too. It's a lovely school. We believe in cooperative discipline. We think that kids should do what they're interested in. Except in this case, what they're interested in is taking the homeschoolers hostage. The parents try to help. They have the kids play their game on the weekends so that it doesn't disrupt class. But it backfires. They show up on Monday in fatigues and the whole thing starts all over again. Now, this is not a draft. This is conscription. It's not involuntary. And they don't let everyone into the army. There are a couple of boys who aren't in the army. One of these boys is Robert. Robert is younger than everyone else and he has a baby face. And the other kids, the other guys talk about choke points and recon. And he wants to talk about the most useful aspect of the new Apple operating system, which I also kind of want to talk about. It's the space bar where you so. But he wants to be in the army. It's the only game in town. It's really. Most of the guys are doing this. So one day I overhear this conversation where Robert says to Greg, who's one of the generals, can I be in the army today at recess? And Greg says, sure, you can be a suicide bomber. Robert says, why? And Greg says, because everyone wants you to die. I go straight over to Greg and I say, you do not talk like that. And he looks at me and it's like he's looking through me and he turns around and ignores me. I feel like I'm not spending my time with 9 year olds, I'm with mercenaries. And it's getting to me. I mean, when you spend eight hours a day, five days a week in something, you start to feel like it's your reality. I'm crying after school. I start my countdown calendar for the end of the year in March. I just want to be with kids. I understand again. Finally, it's April, it's recess. I'm on patrol. We have to patrol because even if the homeschoolers aren't there, they find hidden pockets in the park where the teachers can't see and just wail on each other. So we have to patrol the perimeter. So I'm doing that. And I get to the sand pit, which is this deep pit you can't really see inside unless you're standing right there. And there's Robert, my apple kid, kneeling in the sand execution style, holding his own hands behind his back with his face in the sand. And three guys, high level military personnel, are starting to bury him head first in the sand. And I snap. I go hot and cold. And I jump in the sand pit and I haul out Robert. He's got sand in his hair, he looks kind of dazed. I mean, he thinks he's playing. And I tell the three guys, go. And I line them up against a fence out of sight of the other teachers. And I got a rage in me that I have not had before. I haven't seen anything like this from nine year olds before. And I say, when you misbehave as third graders, I act like a third grade teacher, I call your parents, I give you time out. But when you do something like what you were about to do, you're being cruel as people. And I don't feel like a teacher. I don't know where this is coming from, but I keep going. I keep and I say, and I don't know what I do when I'm this angry as a teacher and I don't feel like a teacher. And they look at me and I can see that they're really listening for the first time. And I start to get a little into character and I say, if I ever see that again, I don't know what I'll do. I just don't know. There's real fear now. I don't feel like a teacher, I feel like a general. And then I say, and by the way, we never had this conversation. Now I am a general who has gone rogue. And they're looking at me like that, not like a teacher. And so for the first time I can look at them. And they don't look like mercenaries, they look like little boys. I'm playing their game better than they do. And I know that from now on this game is going to change. My game is going to change. You can't be a teddy bear teacher when there is a war on. And so I can stand back and be myself. And I stand back and I say the thing that third grade teachers for time immemorial have said to kids to let them know after they get in trouble that it's okay that we still love them. And I stand back and I'm myself again, except different and dangerous. And I say go play. Thank you.
- [10:40]
Dan Kennedy
Michaela Bly was a third grade teacher for several years. She now does all kinds of work with, for and about kids, including writing plays. She, thanks to this story, is a moth grand slam champion now and she's also appeared in other storytelling shows including the Liar show and Ask me. She can be found on her bicycle all over New York City or on Twitterbly. That's sign M B L E I. The next story we're going to hear today is by Diane Castilla who told this story live at a story slam in Chicago last year. The theme of that night was competition.
- [11:25]
Diane Castilla
I've never been a particularly competitive person and when it comes to my sister, it's best not to even try. She is the luckiest person I have ever known. Always in the right place at the right time. She married into money, so she can buy anything she wants. But she wins everything or uses points or has it bequeathed to her. She plots out her life step by step follows that plan, and that works. The hand of faith seemed to lovingly caress her instead of slapping her upside the head, which, as far as I know, is its job. Because of all this, my sister has developed a life philosophy that's simple and airtight. Good people make good choices and therefore have good lives. Now, in my circles, in my circles, life is more like a series of rough drafts. So over time, my sister and I drifted apart. But then we started having kids. And I thought, well, maybe this is something that will bring us together. In fact, our daughters were born within months of each other. She had twins, I just had the one. And for a while, things really were better. But I soon discovered that perfect people have perfect children. My sister's daughters tested as gifted in school, where the star athletes for every sport they went out for really talented artists. I mean, you name it. Meanwhile, my daughter was racking up labels of her own. Add, ocd, mood disorder, you name it. It's hard to describe how toxic the effects of these challenges are on one so young, and how far reaching their effects. School is a nightmare, sports are out of the question, and even extracurricular activities really just don't take. But the worst is the social ostracism. And that's the one thing that as a parent, you can do absolutely nothing about. When my daughter was 10, she mentioned suicide for the first time. And so we had to take her for an emergency appointment with her psychiatrist. Now, I had an infant at the time and couldn't get a babysitter at such short notice, so I had to ask my sister to help out. Now, she had a tennis game scheduled, and those are sacred. So I had to really make my case and tell her, you know, what my daughter had actually said. And to my surprise, she was very compassionate and actually apologized for having kind of turned a blind eye to the struggles my daughter had had for years. That's okay, I told her. You know, it's so hard to know how to handle situations like this, but if you could just ask about her from time to time, you know, it would be such a bomb for me just to be able to talk to you about this. But for whatever reason, my sister never mentioned my daughter after that night and would avoid any Discussion of her the year all three girls were set to graduate from junior high school. My sister sent out an email to me and a bunch of other people in February asking us to hold the date for their graduation party. You know, like you do for weddings. And the email read as follows. Please hold June 10th for Amber and Tiffany's graduation from Junior High School. In their three years there, they have made the dean's list every single semester, typically earning straight A's. They've participated in sports year round, usually as captain and sometimes juggling more than one at a time. This year, they took on the additional challenge of being confirmed at our church. Through it all, they've maintained a large group of the right friends who share their same values. Now, I love my nieces and I'm so proud of them, but I read this email and I thought, we cannot go to this party. It's just going to be a list of their achievements and awards and full of their friends. And my daughter will not be able to handle it. And of course, neither will I. So when the invitation came, I threw it away. I never told anybody about this, not even my husband. I mean, what kind of person boycotts a child's party and their nieces? As luck would have it, my daughter found the invitation in the recycling bin and asked me about it. And I said, oh, we can't go because we are going to the beach that day. Now, my daughter hates the beach and was at the age where she'd argue with everything I said, but she just looked at me and didn't say a word in protest. Well, the day of the party arrives and it is lousy. It's overcast and rainy and cold. And so my husband and my other kids were like, we're not going to the beach. But my daughter astonished me by getting up early, getting food together, pulling out the beach stuff, even packing the car. So the two of us got in and drove to the beach. And we got there and the weather was even worse, but pulled out everything, laid out the beach blanket and sat down and watched Lake Michigan. Now, I thought my daughter would retreat into her ipod or maybe even just stay in the car, but to my surprise, she sat down and curled up against me. I mean, she was almost a full grown woman at 14 and she was practically in my arms. And we just sat there and watched the water until it started to rain and then we sat there some more. To this day, I don't know why neither one of us made a move to leave, but I guess we're thinking the same thing. Sooner or later, this has got to stop. Thank you.
- [17:45]
Dan Kennedy
Diane Castile is a freelance writer and storyteller who lives in Chicago. Her jeffered past includes careers as a journalist, marketing consultant, nonprofit executive, and communication director for technology firms. Along the way, she picked up an MBA, completed the University of Chicago's Great Books program, and studied improv at the Second City Conservatory. This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com, the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature and featuring audio versions of many New York Times bestsellers. To try Audible free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audible.com themoth and just wanted to mention before we go the Moth Main Stage is coming to Berkeley's Zellerbach Auditorium on Monday, October 28th as part of the Bay Area Science Festival. For tickets and for a list of all of our upcoming tour stops, visit.
- [18:48]
Michaela Bly
Themoth.Org Our podcast host, Dan Kennedy, is a writer and performer living in New York and author of the new novel American Spirit. Available now.
- [18:58]
Dan Kennedy
Thanks to all of you for listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York. The Moth Podcast and the Radio Hour are presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public@prx.org.