Poshdeluxe

residents of pants world, today it is my absolute pleasure to present to you: miss jessica beck.

not that you need any further introduction after that picture, which basically says everything you need to know about jessica, also known as “red” and “fancy kitty.”

i met jessica in the summer of 2002 via our small group, part of ecclesia (the church we both attended). it still amazes me that jessica actually wanted to be my friend, since she was, at the time, best friends with the boy i’d recently broken up with. heaven knows what kind of images she had of me, but i *can* tell you the image i had of her– a beautiful, poetic girl with waterhouse tresses of red hair. see, i’d sort of stalked her online via a site called make-out club, the totally ridiculous precursor to myspace (was that just a houston thing?). jessica had these pictures up that she’d created by laying her face on the scanner, resulting in gorgeous images where she appeared suspended in light, her floating hair framing an angelic face, caught in a dream.

as i got to know jessica, i realized that she WAS that dreamy, beautiful girl i imagined… and yet she could also be tough as nails. one minute, she was squeeing over a kitten, and the next, she was smoking outside with the boys. we referred to her as “punk rock penecostal,” derived from her propensity for long skirts, her flowing hair and a massive cigarette habit.

it didn’t take me long to realize how lucky i was to share a friendship with jessica– finally, i’d found someone as cheesy as i was (am)!!!! in fact, perhaps even HOKIER! this was an AMAZING discovery. like me, jessica is famous for saying incredibly cheesy, emotional things usually reserved for, you know, episodes of “full house.” whereas i have my trademark, “I LOVE YOU GUYS!”, jessica is renowned for the night on sixth street when she (having consumed a few rounds of her favorite drink, malibu & diet coke, known as “cake in a cup”) said, after a discussion about the group’s next move, “let’s go some place where we can all be friends!!”

seriously, she really said that.

me and jessica, doing what we do best: BEING CHEESY AND LOVING IT.

when i moved to austin, i was sad to leave quite possibly my most girlie friend behind. fortunately, jessica decided to move to austin in the summer of 2006, and, since then, she’s given me a run for my money in the “cheesiest person on earth” competition.

with that said, you have to understand that underneath all of that hokeyness, jessica is a warrior. she’s a fighter. she’s got amazing reservoirs of strength. and she needs them, because she’s a teacher. in fact, over the past few years, she has dedicated her life to helping students achieve their potential. teaching has become her passion, and rarely have i seen such dedication and endurance, such courage and creativity, such love.

to be honest, there have been moments where i haven’t liked sharing jessica with the school district (and girlfriend DOES need to take a break now and then, ahem). but i’ve slowly realized that she has found a way to use the gifts i so admire about her– her compassion, her intelligence, her humor, her incredible way with words– to inspire and empower and educate, really educate, kids that need it the most.

now, before i get even CHEESIER, let’s get started!

 

 

so, jessica, let’s start at the beginning. tell me about yr family and yr childhood in ohio. what are some of yr favorite memories from growing up?

i grew up on lake erie in a small town. i feel connected to ohio in the way that you might feel connected to louisiana, because my roots are there. until recently, most of my family lived there, and i would spend weeks every summer at my grandparents’ house.

i have a TON of favorite memories, mostly because i loved being around my family. i would spend weekends with my grandparents, running around their huge backyard and swinging. they had this huge swing hanging from a tree. i’d also play dress-up and dishwashing… which didn’t strike me as weird until just now, but i’d basically fill a whole bin with water and “wash” plastic dishes for hours. my grandparents also had a ton of vintage instruments, like an accordion and bongos, and i’d have parades with those. tea parties on their porch, making cookies, blowing bubbles with this HUGE bubble wand–all things i did at my grandparents’ house.

my great-grandmother’s house was a free-for-all. i’d sneak to the attic and look around sometimes. she taught me how to play rummy and checkers. she also smoked, and sometimes i’d sneak after her and smoke the butts. and i dialed the operator from her house just to talk. other times, i snuck down to my great-grandpa’s bar and chugged root beer from the mini-fridge. aah, grandma’s house.

little jessica, chillaxin’ at grandma’s.

on weekdays, after my father had gone to work, even when she was pregnant, my mother and i would go to the beach in the mornings and build sand castles and collect beach glass. we used to go to a private beach with a raspberry bush at the top of the hill, and we’d sneak raspberries on the way down. i would play in the water until it got too sunny for my mega-fair skin, and then we’d go home, where i’d eat lunch and watch sesame street before my nap. some afternoons, i didn’t want to nap, so i’d have sleepovers with all of my stuffed animals.

at school, we had a lot of fun on snow days pretending that big sheets of ice were actually crystals. but we could only play at recess if we wore our boots and snow pants. that’s a fun, uniquely northern memory. i was good friends with the milk lady, and i talked to her every day at lunch. and i am still in touch with my kindergarten teacher, who took me out to lunch every time i visited town. she had all of the girls over for a tea party after the school year was over, and i loved her gumball machine.

mostly, i was a quiet girl with not many friends. i read lots and lots of books, and i got along better with adults. i had one-person dance parties in my bedroom. there was a boyfriend named darryl in the first grade. his girlfriend didn’t like him anymore, so she gave him to me.

you and jay are incredibly close– in fact, we used to refer to you guys as the “v.c. andrews twins” (JOKING, of course). did you guys ever have a period where you bickered? how has yr relationship changed over time?

i HATED my brother when he was born and wouldn’t talk to my mom when we visited her in the hospital. eventually, my mother had to have a talk with me about how “we have to love the baby, or the baby will die.” so i started doing things like sharing my smarties (he had no teeth) and throwing cold bottles of formula at him in the playpen when my mom was getting dressed.

jay and i both didn’t really have any friends when we moved to texas, so for awhile we just had each other. but after the adjustment period, jay and i began our intense sibling rivalry, which may have involved chasing him around the house with scissors and knives and locking him in closets. i remember being so annoyed by him. but jay has always been really sensitive, so i would mother him a lot, too. my family called me his second mom.

the beck siblings, taking a brief break from their rivalry to look just plain adorable.

when i got to high school, jay and i rebelled a lot together. i smoked my first cigarette with jay. he was a skater, so he had more access to things–whereas i was the Good Kid, so i was our cover, and i had a driver’s license. eventually we started going to the local coffee shop to hang out with the other bad kids to smoke. we had the same group of friends, so we ended up doing a lot of the same things together, like going to the same parties. he took one of my friends to prom, and she came back from college to take him to his prom. for several years, we shared the same adolescent world.

we still spent a lot of time together when i left for college. we both went to the same church, so we had the same friends again. he was having some trouble at home, so he’d come spend the weekends with me. when he moved to austin, i would bring friends to visit him, and we’d have homework weekends at his apartment.

things changed–a lot–when he became diabetic. he had to learn how to manage his illness. he’s the baby of the family, and i’m the independent firstborn, so i’m always pushing him to do things for himself. a few years later, he started dating the girl he’d crushed on for almost ten years and moved to chicago to be with her.

his move was really hard on both of us. i remember coming to see you, sarah, at trudy’s that afternoon, and i’d been crying for hours. but really, what’s changed our relationship the most is his transformation into a man. i know that sounds really cheesy, but he’s trying to make it on his own without his parents and big sister hovering over him. he wants to marry christina eventually, and he wants to work successfully in film, and to do these things, he’s having to carve his own way for awhile.

brother and sister, as close and as cute as ever.

today, i visit jay in chicago about twice a year and talk to him on the phone. i got him to join facebook, which was a major feat. christina and i are friends; we shop together and stay up talking sometimes. i have a dream that one day we’ll all live in the same city, and our kids will grow up together, close and supportive like jay and i were.

you made a pilgrimage to ashtabula (sp?) a few years ago. how has it changed? how would yr life had been different if you had stayed there?

the most startling change is that my old house is now abandoned, and the garage my father spent years trying to fix up is condemned by the city. in fact, a lot of old buildings i loved growing up are condemned.

we lived in the harbor when i was growing up, and i had a strange realization several years ago that we lived in the bad part of town. i was only allowed to stay within a one-house radius in the front yard because the neighbors on one side had a dangerous pit bull–he was eventually put down by the city. but i realized that not everyone has a childhood story of the local pit bull taking off the head of the neighbor’s chihuahua. gross, right? that was how it went on my block.

ashtabula is deteriorating, like most small towns in the midwest. people don’t have jobs, so they leave. my grandparents can’t sell their house anymore, because no one is moving there. recently they consolidated all of the high schools into one and tore down the old ones, like my mom’s. all of the stores i frequented during summer vacations have closed down, and they are about to shut down the mall they built right after we moved away.

if we’d stayed, my parents would have really struggled. we didn’t have any money there, and we would have continued to try making ends meet. i wouldn’t have had the education i received in texas, and my urban experiences would have been different. cleveland and erie, the closest big towns, are over an hour away from ashtabula. on the other hand, if i’d stayed in the hood, maybe i’d be more gangsta. or maybe i’d be living in a trailer with three children and a meth-addict husband. who knows?

papa beck, jay and mama beck.

one of the first things people notice about you is yr gorgeous red hair. did you have any redheaded heroines growing up, like anne of green gables?

anne of green gables WAS my heroine. i felt like she was me if i’d been born 100 years earlier. she got teased because of her hair, and she was really dreamy and just ADORED diana, like i adored my friends. i kept waiting for gilbert to show up…

in some ways, i still feel like anne. i became a teacher, and i’m a writer too. and i’m still all dreamy and idealistic about things.

when you grow up as a redhead, you automatically notice the other redheads. my mom would always point out the other redheaded kids to me, and my midge barbie doll was my favorite. i’m sure everyone has something like that, even if it isn’t so visible like mine.

ginger twins: kc & jessica, ready for the ladies of the 80s sing-along in 2006.

tell me about spending yr teenage years in kingwood, the suburb of all suburbs. what was that like?

firstly, my family has never had money. i feel like i always have to qualify myself when i tell people “what part of houston” i’m from. i’m 27 and still driving my first car, which i bought for myself. my dad, for a long time, worked two jobs to put my brother and me through college.

there is definitely a sense of the haves and have-nots. some kids owned some really nice cars, and certain brands of clothes were “required” to be cool until we got to high school. remember z. cavarrici?! moreso, there was definitely a sense of privilege. it was clear that the middle schools were zoned so that the rich kids went to one, the poor kids to another, etc. so many kids went on cruises during breaks, and so many parents invested thousands of dollars into their kids’ extracurriculars. instead of a huge group of kids, there were lots of smaller cliques, and i didn’t fit into any of them.

we spent enough time growing up there that i can’t really separate my adolescence from where it took place; it just was what it was. but i do see, in retrospect, what a shock it was, coming from the bad side of the tracks to kingwood. back home, my childhood friends were getting pregnant at 14, which didn’t happen much in kingwood. the kids in kingwood knew more than i knew, like how to carry and borrow numbers. i picked up everything pretty quickly, but i think it took a long time to adjust socially, and i didn’t get everything about being in the suburbs until 6th or 7th grade. additionally, my dad was unemployed for six months as i transitioned into high school, which was hard. that was the beginning of $200 choir dresses with the bridal slips to boot, and i remember what a strain it was to keep up with the joneses at that time.

jessica and friends at the freshmen dance. what is UP with those signs? i mean, i get the fish reference, but…

when did you first discover yr passion for writing? what sorts of things would you write?

my mom says i’ve been writing since before i could write. i was the only four year old telling people that i planned to be a playwright. i loved telling stories when i was a little kid, and i told them non-stop. seriously, every word out of my mouth was a story.

so, i guess in that sense, i never really discovered my passion for writing. writing is just something i have always done and didn’t start taking seriously until middle school, when i started winning competitions. i would show up to sleepovers late, because i’d have to finish a story first, and then i’d bring it to the sleepover for my friends to read.

high school jessica, her mind overflowing with stories and angsty poetry.

when i got to school, i started focusing more on poetry and won some district thing with that. but once i got to college, i stopped trying to get published or win contests. i got published in some internet literary mag in college by accident. i’ve started writing again recently, partially with the intent to publish a teacher memoir thing, at the encouragement of someone who worked in publishing for awhile. but it hasn’t gotten very far.

you and i both spent significant portions of our lives in houston. tell me some of yr favorite things about the city.

my favorite part of houston is the area where i used to live. i could walk to the menil and cafe artiste (rip) in less than five minutes. my favorite day included brunch at artiste, a little bit of looking at art, then laying in the park and reading. i miss chapultapec (late night mexican food), brasil & agora (coffee shops), and the angelika (movie theatre). i like the diverse neighborhoods, too, and i loved hanging out on my huge porch and watching people walk by.

what made you decide to become a teacher?

okay, i’ll give you the honest answer–the lack of writing jobs. it took me four months just to score a position at pier 1 (yay, crappy job market!), so it was completely fortuitous when i got a call from alta, where erica campbell was working at the time. i’d sent my resume, and they were really impressed with my work at UH. during my time at UH, i’d worked in the writing center and taught some sections of freshman composition. i’d also advised on some of the freshmen writing portfolios, so it looked really awesome and professional to them. they offered me a grown-up salary, so i took the job. i figured if erica could do it, i could.

i STAYED with teaching because it’s the most amazing job ever. i get to give my gift, writing and language, as a gift to others. and they get to use it to change their own lives. and then i get to watch them do it! and sometimes they say thank you.

ms. beck means business! (in her classroom at alta)

you spent yr first two years teaching at alta, a houston charter school. tell me about yr time there… the highs, the lows, the everyday experience of working with inner city kids.

alta was officially shut down this year after three years of not meeting Academic Yearly Progress (AYP). they primarily served kids who weren’t being served at their home schools. maybe they’d been suspended? maybe they dropped out or went to jail. maybe they took a year off, because they had babies. i taught those kids.

i really loved my kids, even when i didn’t like them, and i hated when they’d disappear because i didn’t know what happened. did they drop out again? did they get arrested? sometimes i found out, sometimes i didn’t. and then sometimes, i helped them get jobs, like when i taught M. or i got invited to their baby showers, like J’s. or their going-away parties when they went back to mexico.

the lows happen for two different reasons. either one of your kids is in trouble–trouble bigger than you can control, like they had a gun in the car when the drug dog came to visit–or the administration is being difficult. i had some great and not-so-great admins in my first few years. my first principal was AMAZING. she really encouraged my energy and my creativity, and she was honest. (plus, we got drunk and went dancing together when we were at a conference.)

i walked away with my most favorite thing, and i carry it in my purse: a note from one of my girls. she told me i’d inspired her to be a teacher, and that i really made her like school again. i still get all nerdy and teary when i think about it, and i read it on crap days.

i’m still so amazed that you not only survived that job but managed to flourish. truly, truly amazing.

proud teacher with her alta graduate

teaching seems like one of the hardest, most challenging jobs in the world. how do you sustain yrself?

i don’t! hahaha. well, i drink a lot of margaritas. in the summer i run away from home by traveling a lot. and my first year of teaching, i learned to “leave it at school.” that doesn’t mean grading. that means, when your favorite kid goes to jail on two counts of attempted murder, like my favorite student/poet did, you don’t carry it home in your heart like an open wound. you take it for what it is, and then you go home and decompress. with whiskey.

what sort of goals do you have for yr students? for yrself?

my ultimate goal for my students is to make them good communicators. i want them to be articulate, vital parts of their communities. it sounds cheesy, but i want them to have opportunities! some of them don’t know that, as children of immigrants, they can even go to college. others think they HAVE to join certain gangs and go to jail like their uncles. i want to show them something else, something better.

MY goal… i haven’t really thought about it in awhile, ha! quite frankly, my most immediate goal is to travel a LOT and AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. i’ve been thinking about teaching abroad in two years. i guess i want to start working toward getting published again. i have no aspirations to climb the educational ladder to become an admin, but maybe i’ll go back to grad school soon. i have been considering it. i know that i’ll always work in some capacity with kids.

since you moved to austin, you’ve been working with junior high students. how does that compare to yr alta experience? what about to yr own junior high experience?

uh, junior high is WAY harder than recovered drop-outs. these kids have HORMONES. they cry and throw tantrums, but then they act like tiny adults. i don’t have the same rapport with middle school kids, but i can do more fun things with them, like vocabulary games, and they don’t roll their eyes over it.

MY junior high experience was much more sheltered. i didn’t stop playing barbies until the end of 6th grade (albeit secretly). and we didn’t have “cyber bullying.” today, a lot more kids take their conflicts to school and confront each other. we had fights when i was in school, but not so frequent, and not over the internet. and the gang thing was so nonexistent that i convinced myself that they were an invention to control kids.

no, these kids aren’t in junior high… this picture is from a camp where jessica worked one summer.

how do you structure yr curriculum to keep students interested and keep the material relevant?

lots and lots of projects and hands-on things. we do choose-your-own projects, and we make life-sized drawings of the characters we read, and we write/read about real things, like parents leaving home and having hard-to-pronounce names. grammar is a speed game, where they compete for points.

i have an incentive program set up in my classroom, too, which motivates them, even though they snort in september. by may, they’re dying to get that last point for the grab bag. and i have kids who save up their free homework passes until the last report card cycle.

 

most importantly, i connect with them. i force them to know that i care, even when they’re sick of hearing it.

in yr opinion, what are the main issues facing american education? how do you think they should be solved?

education is such a mess that it’s hard to pinpoint one thing. for that, you may thank No Child Left Behind.

ultimately, we need to get rid of high-stakes testing, and we need to assess our kids differently. people talk about the financial angle of testing differently, but it’s not like we’ve received adequate funding to implement NCLB, either. we need to recognize that kids learn with a rich environment instead of trying to sterilize education. our kids have multiple intelligences, but we continue to test them with a pencil and scantron, which doesn’t meet their needs at all.

and high-stakes testing is why we’re afraid to take risks with education. we’re afraid to take field trips, to do interesting projects, to try something new and fail at it and have it reflect in test scores. then kids don’t pass to the next grade, and teachers lose their jobs.

i’ve heard yr future plans include becoming a cat lady. please explain this.

i feel like i need to say IT’S A JOKE, because it mostly is, and i find that people get creeped out by my cat lady-ness, which is kind of dumb.

BECAUSE IT’S AWESOME.

we’re getting a big mansion, right? all my girls, like in the ashlee simpson song. except we’ll be 40 or 50, and we’ll have a lot of cats and wear crazy big hats. we’ll drink martinis all day and dress up our cats in monocles and top hats and fancy gowns. i think there’s a plan to make jewelry, and i will also write to sustain us.

we’re not going to be like creepy emily dickinsons (i love you, emily, no offense). we’re going to be like the dark and mysterious brontes, but we’re going to have more fun and have way more cats. and drink more.

the early signs of jessica’s cat ladyness– mia and annie.

you are one of the squee-est people i know. give us yr top squee list.

in no particular order:

1. puppy taxis! where little dogs ride around on big dogs
2. when my kitten gives her toys a bath!
3. little animals all alone in the big, scary world, and they just want a hug!!
4. pet picnics and pet parades
5. little kids who talk and act like tiny adults! because they have SERIOUS BUSINESS to do (see: naomi)
6. any pet with serious business to accomplish, like hunting a ball of tape or chasing a shoelace
7. baby and pet bellies

this list alone made me tired from freaking out.

that list exceeded my expectations. you are amazing.

speaking of squee, BABY JESSICA!!!

ok, on to the poshdeluxe questions!

what is yr secret power?

my memory. i have the ability to remember really obscure things from a long time ago, like whose hair i braided during a movie in the first grade (leslie).

 

do you sleep in jimjams? what kind?

i have a vast collection of jimjams–flannel pants, cotton pants, t-shirts, tank tops. during a phase in college, i wore ONLY jimjams during the school day. this summer, i’ve been all about tank tops to bed.

 

what is yr #1 favorite food?

i’m a big fan of mac and cheese, but my favorite food is my mom’s apple pie. i have my own version, but i only bake it at my parents’ house because i need her guidance. my secret is that i chop up my apples into smaller pieces…

what is yr top restaurant recommendation in austin? what’s the best thing on the menu?

since i’m the resident vegetarian, i recommend mother’s. they have amazing butternut squash ravioli, even though it isn’t listed on the menu. for dessert, i recommend going across the street to asti, although they no longer carry their amazing white chocolate rice pudding. the former chef took the recipe with her.

tell me about yr top area of expertise.

writing and editing. teaching has refined my ability to help people craft their own writing. i’m pretty intensely critical, which i think makes me a good writing teacher. i don’t like to give my friends writing advice until they understand that about me–and even then, sometimes i think they’re a little surprised by how much i tear up their writing. but i’m a hypocrite, because i rarely share my writing unless i’m pretty confident that it’s good.

uh, i can’t believe you didn’t mention kitties. but ok.

jessica is also an expert at looking FIERCE (with tim on my birthday, 2007).

 

what was yr favorite item of clothing as a child?

when i was five, i had a pair of pink pinstriped jeans. i loved them so much that my mother had to get rid of them when i wasn’t at home. oh, but i noticed.

what was yr favorite toy as a child? (the moody bonus question)

well, when we moved to texas, i actually had a Barbie Closet (the utility closet upstairs). think buckets of barbie dolls and accessories. my sock drawer was a barbie apartment.

what do you plan on doing when you’re 80?

my life is so different than what i’d plan that i have NO IDEA anymore. but i like the idea of having a garden, making cookies for my grandkids, doing things with them that their parents would hate–like taking them on motorcycle rides or something. i would like to travel enough to write about it.

if you could assemble yr own ocean’s 11, who would you pick and why?

this is a hard question to me. okay, sarah, you would definitely be our time keeper. you’d keep us on schedule. my teacher friend melissa would be my co-strategist, because we always lesson plan together. i’d pick my friend kate to tell it to me straight when something isn’t going to work, like taking a certain getaway car or whatever. my friend erica would advise our fashion choices. i think my friends trey and cheska have probably seen enough heist movies to have good ideas. plus, cheska speaks french, and trey is good comedy relief. jay would film the documentary, and henri could narrate. josh katz needs to get us out of jail. my friends krista and blake will come along for moral support.

jessica, erica and i dressed up as josie & the pussycats for halloween, 2002. we could totally pull off a bank heist together.

what is yr best karaoke song?

i’ve gotten away with never singing a song at karaoke, but i guess i would be best at journey, foreigner, or new kids on the block. because i’m good at these songs!

do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? who?

anyone famous with red hair, from pippi longstocking to molly ringwald. for awhile, people kept telling me i look like lauren ambrose. i’ve gotten liv tyler before because of my face shape. i used to babysit for a girl who thought i was the little mermaid; she always told me to bring sebastian next time.

tell me something scandalous!

sometimes, your teachers don’t grade your work. sometimes, even if you spent an hour on that worksheet, it will go straight from inbox to recycle bin. it’s called the circular file, or file 13. that doesn’t mean your teacher loves you any less, just that he/she is really stressed out! maybe they’ll glance and give you a handwriting grade, or maybe you’ll get a participation grade for the day. or, no grade at all. and i certainly do not do that… on the last day of school, i spent hours grading each of the 160 final exams sitting on my desk. yes, ma’am.

i KNEW it. i KNEW IT.

jessica, thanks for this wonderful interview. it was just as sweet and honest and touching as i’d hoped it would be. now, LET’S GO SOME PLACE WHERE WE CAN ALL BE FRIENDS!