all in red.

Return of the Carpet Wetter

2008-04-19T10:21:00.002-04:00

This was a long week at work. I'm organizing a three day retreat to DC for 40 women from my boss' District which involves a variety of irritating arrangements including but not limited to: a luncheon, a dinner, a reception, tourist materials, a "goody bag," hearing/press information, bus transportation, a planned shopping trip, a hotel, and 75 Member letter invites to some of the aforementioned events. I do not know how this became my responsibility, but it has, and I am begrudgingly taking care of it. I need a raise.

In the midst of preparing the lengthy list of Member letters for the luncheon, I notice on my boss' schedule that a group of 40 seventh graders from the District are visiting and that I am staffing the visit, which entails a lunch and a photo opp and maybe a small tour of the office. Normally I revel in the opportunity to work with kids but I was not in the mood.

I wait outside the hearing room where the kids are supposed to eat, knowing full-well that my boss may only be able to stop by for 5 minutes so he can go vote and go to a mark-up, and that I will be the sole entertainer of the kiddies. I can hear them from around the corner. Lots of "shushing." They are all tucked in to their sweater vests and pleated skirt polyester uniforms and I introduce myself and create some guidelines for them to arrange the chairs in the hearing room into cafeteria-style-dining and get their boxed lunches from the table.

And I'm looking at the kids thinking "I could swear I recognize some of you..." and then laughing at myself because of COURSE I don't recognize them. But then wait, they are in seventh grade from my old town, and how many years ago was it that I taught the third grade...?

I ask one of the boys who is helping move the chairs: "Is your name... Rashan?"

He stops dead in his tracks. "MISS _______?"

I start laughing."How many of your kids are from P.S.___?" I ask the principal. Four of them raise their hands.

Turns out 2 of them are my old students from my first year of teaching and two of them had my best-teacher-friend in the fourth grade! They were utterly fascinated as to how I ended up going from teaching to working on the Hill. I emailed my friend from my work-Blackberry to let her know that sitting next to me eating a boxed turkey sandwich lunch in the Hearing room in my office building was Juan, the boy who stood up and peed on her reading rug in protest when she wouldn't let him use the bathroom one day for the fourth time. Fortunately Juan is potty-trained now and rather mature compared to his former days. He must have been held over once since he was now in the same grade as some of my old kiddies. It made my day.

The boss came in and did a little intro and Q&A with the kids. Slightly more sophisticated questions than the kindergarten kids. They talked about violence in the community, how to talk to your leaders about improving safety, and when they could vote for him in an election. Then he left to go vote.

I took the students in groups of 10 to the boss' office to look at his photos and awards and trophies and sit in his chair, etc. They asked about my job and the difference between the House and Senate and if they could see my boss on-screen since they have a TV of the House floor in his office and were voting at that time. I showed them how they record the votes on-screen and explained how they were voting to pass an education bill on improving access to student loans. We talked about the tunnels that connect the buildings and how there is a special subway that connects the House and Senate buildings to the Capitol.

By the time I had helped them clean up and escorted them to the exit so they could head over to the Air & Space Museum I had completely moved on from my grumpy-work-mood and was feeling like I have the most fantastic job. I guess I didn't have to wait a whole year to have something to post about after all.

When Do I Get to See the Ninjas?

2008-04-14T20:17:00.003-04:00

It's been almost exactly a year since I've last written, and a couple of really random people have asked me why I never write anymore so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I'm in a totally different universe from the last time I posted... I've been living in D.C. since January after finishing up my Education Policy MA and now I'm a Legislative Aide working on Education, Labor, Housing and Environmental issues (Lord knows how they decided I was qualified for the latter end of that portfolio, but I'm learning fast).

This could not possibly be more different than teaching (duh) -- and it definitely is not as rewarding -- but it is possible that I might actually "like my job." You know, in an everyday kind of way where you wake up in the morning and don't have that pit-of-your-stomach dread. It is bizarre. This is not to say that I didn't like teaching, or that my new job doesn't come with its own set of crap (still working far too many hours for far too little pay), but there is something to be said for not getting spit on, cursed at, or having a chair thrown at you during a typical work day.

While I don't spend my days in schools anymore, but I did however have the opportunity to visit a seriously impressive charter school with my boss in his District last week. The facilities were damn near sparkly, the teachers (2 per classroom) were seriously on-point, and during Community Circle, a class of third graders put on a poetry performance and a short play that were excellent. My boss spoke to a kindergarten class on what it's like to be an elected official and the kids asked precious things like:

"What kind of clothes do you wear to work?"
and
"Have you ever met Martin Luther King?"
and
"Who is your favorite wrestler?"

That last one cracked him up and then some kids started calling out their favorite wrestlers and the other kids would go "Ohhhhhhhhh!" when they heard one of their favorites. All very cute and I really forgot how tiny 5-year-olds are. This group was particularly impressive, sitting still on the carpet for almost 45 minutes -- I don't know how they did it.

One of the things that sort of lingers in the back of my head at my new job, where instead of working with kids, I meet with people who work with kids and get jealous of the cool things they are doing, is wondering at what level people can really be effective in improving schools. Teaching is the obvious answer and I guess I've realized that even though I wasn't half-bad at it, I just am not cut out for a lifetime in the classroom. Being a principal is something I could see doing when I stop getting carded at bars (I don't care how many people tell me I'm "old enough" -- I just can't imagine parents taking me seriously until I have some gray hair or don't wear Chuck Taylors on the weekends).

When I meet with non-profits from my boss' District, or children's advocacy organizations or people from the City or State D.O.E., they say that it's great having someone working in Education Policy that has experience on the ground in schools and how that provides invaluable insight, yada yada yada. And I don't argue that, but what is policy at the Federal level really "doing?"

Other than the disaster that is No Child Left Behind and the annual appropriations funding show-down that I worked on in March, the things that happen at this level of government feel very removed and abstract to me -- numbers and dollars and formulas and legalese.

I hate to end abruptly, but How I Met Your Mother is about to start, and I'm not sure how much I can write on here without somehow getting in trouble at work and/or fired. I may need to come up with something else to ruminate on... perhaps by April of 2009.

Did you know...?

2007-04-17T13:17:00.000-04:00

That dating back to 3500 B.C. there are paintings on the walls of Egyptian tombs with men wearing "astralagi," which are ankle bones of various animals that were used as dice for gambling? And that "loaded" astralagi have been found as well, implying that they tried to cheat each other out of winnings, even back then. Gamblers who were caught being dishonest were then forced to work on the pyramids to repay their debt.

This ranks in the top 5 of the most interesting or enjoyable occurrences and discoveries of the last few days, including (in no particular order):

1) Upon paying the overpriced rate of $1.00 in an NYU vending machine for a 3-pack of Peppermint Patties, the very same vending machine that has eaten my money numerous times this semester when I go for much-needed-snack-break during Stats, the machine gave me two packs instead of one! I gave the extra one to a kid in my Stats class and now I think I have good vending machine karma coming to me. Watch out, SunChips!

2) There is a homeless man in the W4th Street subway station who stands at the fifth column by the downtown local E/C track. He has an assortment of hefty bags and duffel bags, a tall wooden walking stick, wears a red bandana, and talks on the payphone. I was actually under the impression that he was really talking on the payphone for quite a while, until I realized he has been there almost every day for the last 2 or 3 weeks and that if he had enough quarters to talk for such a long time he probably wouldn't be on the subway platform for days and nights on end... This made me sad, because he's actually talking the whole time, nodding his head and smiling, and I wonder if he really is trying to get in touch with someone.

3) I took a fantastically wet walk home in the Noreaster on Sunday morning. I had my headphones on, and an umbrella that kept inverting, so I decided just to close the umbrella up and get wet. There wasn't really anyone on the sidewalks and my slip-on shoes were filled with water, so I hopped around in puddles singing along loudly to Maximo Park on my headphones until I ran into someone I knew from high school on 5th avenue and felt a little sheepish since he totally caught me singing and skipping around like a 7 year old. It seems that you run into people an awful lot considering how big the city is. By the time I got home I was soaked through all four layers of my clothing, and my shoes are still not dry as of this morning.

4) I learned that there is a place near school that has delicious Thai food in huge portions for not that much money, and that it has been about 2 blocks from the department office where I work, all year long, unbeknownst to me. I will now eat Basil Udon approximately 2-3 times per week, until 2057 when I finally finish this endless doctoral program. By then, the very skinny women who waitress there will surely not only know me on a first name basis, but also offer me a discount on the lunch special, considering my longstanding loyalty and the inevitable noodle-cost-inflation that will occur in the upcoming fifty years. I will also be 78 by then so I might need to ask them to deliver instead.

5) Aforementioned gambling trivia-facts from a book I'm (supposed to be) reading right now (instead of writing in my blog) about the politics of gambling for my policy class.

12:54 am

2007-04-11T00:54:00.000-04:00

I had a 2nd interview today for a summer job I REALLY want, working with high school kids on leadership & public policy issues at a summer camp program in the Bronx. I'm trying to figure out a way I can write about it without getting into issues of privacy, especially since high school kids are far more Internet savvy than my sixth graders were... The 2nd interview required that I do a demo-lesson for a small group of "alums" from the previous summer's program. I came up with an activity on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which was only allowed to be 20 minutes long, and was to be followed by the students interviewing me for 20 minutes, and finally, 10 minutes where I could interview them.

It only ended up being four girls for the lesson plan, which made it possible for me to cram my somewhat extensive activity into a measly 20 minutes and actually have all members of the group participate. I was VERY impressed by these girls [is it mostly girls in this program, I wonder?]. They come from a number of small high schools in the Bronx, part of the "small schools movement" that I have become rather disenchanted with after my experience last year in a "small school" with a social justice oriented mission statement with a rather disappointing end-result. But these young ladies made quite an impression on me. I designed a role-play activity where they were each assigned the role of someone with a different socioeconomic background, career, marriage-status, and quality of health insurance (a doctor, a banker, a teacher, a single unemployed mother, etc.) I was "the doctor," and they all needed a "life or death" operation, which would be costly enough that even those of them who had insurance would have to pay some money out-of-pocket. I asked them if they thought the doctor should be charging the same amount of money to each of these patients, despite their different levels of resources, and we linked our discussion on the fairness of charging the same or different amounts of money for surgery to the idea of "equity."

At this point, I realized only about 5 minutes had passed, and that I was going to really have to get into the whole Campaign for Fiscal Equity history & their recent progress with Gov. Spitzy. I hadn't really imagined I'd have enough time for this, so in my head, I had only half-considered what I would say. Fortunately, I'm reading about the CFE in 2 of my classes right now, so I put together a quick overview of the background of CFE on the fly--the basic arguments for equally distributing money across school districts vs. letting the wealthier districts continue to have better funding because they have more tax revenue, and how this related to our discussion about the "life or death" surgery. To my relief, they totally got it. I realized that they had probably already learned about CFE last summer, since they were prepared with such intelligent remarks as:

"That is a difficult issue to think about--if I was a rich parent, I would probably be pretty upset if my tax money was going to help a kid that wasn't even mine, but at the same time, maybe I would have some perspective and realize that kid might need the money more than my kid does."

or

"I wonder whether giving the school more money would help, because sometimes schools don't spend their money well. They buy all these books but don't fix the leaky holes in the ceiling."

or [my personal favorite]:

"Maybe instead of taking the money from the rich people, we could use some of the government's money that is spent on bombs and the war on something more useful and important, like educating our youth."

At that point I just wanted to get up and hug them all and say PLEASE HIRE ME. My other options for summer employment include teaching summer school (Lord, save me if I decide to do that), or sitting on my butt in a coffee shop all summer grading papers online for a pittance of a paycheck.

When they interviewed me, the girls were so professional and earnest, it was great. They were taking notes on a graphic organizer as I responded, and politely took turns asking me things about my teaching experience, my leadership skills, what I would do if I caught a high school student on MySpace instead of doing her work one day, and how I would break up a fight if one happened. Then I got to ask them about their experiences and when pressed for their "most and least favorite" experiences with the program, they kept referencing how much the program had taught them about their potential and saying things like: "now that I've been here all year, I understand the importance of understanding multiple points of view, supporting my beliefs with facts and reasoning, speaking my mind, and making sure my voice is heard." It was like watching an infomercial for a self-help & personal liberation workshop (you know, since I've seen so many of those).

I have to wait a few more weeks to hear back about this job, but I'm hoping for the best... I miss working with kids, and it would be refreshing to write about kids doing & saying great things instead of kids strangling each other and throwing books out the window.

Pee-pee, Dinosaurs, Pregnancy, & Loehmann's.

2007-02-09T11:19:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was MFT's birthday, and we all went to celebrate at a restaurant with delicious Latino food in midtown. My old principal [yes, that's right, he's cool enough to invite to a birthday dinner...] and some of my old colleagues were there, which was great because I haven't made it up to visit yet in February, and it's looking like I wont have time to until March. After everyone had a drink or two in them, we started to talk about the kids, which was a combination of shocking [if that's possible anymore], charming [rare], and totally depressing [but not at all surprising].

Apparently, this week, one of the new sixth graders [they are all "new" to me, since I don't really know them], asked to go to the bathroom, and the teacher said no. So he decided to pee in his Poland Spring water bottle. And then, he thought "why not see if my friend William will take a swig of my urine?" And William unknowingly took a giant gulp of pee. How this all happened with out the teacher noticing, well, that's another issue altogether. But I guess when they both ended up in the principal's office, the kid who DRANK the pee was pleading with the principal not to get the other kid in too much trouble because it really wasn't too big a deal. "It didn't even taste so bad," he insisted. William wanted the other boy to "just go to detention for a few days" whereas my principal was saying things like "you know you could go to JAIL for this!" [appropriateness of this comment is debatable... I'm just tellin' it like he told us at dinner]. And the kid who did it is actually normally a "good kid" and couldn't stop laughing about how funny he thought it was. The thing that really gets me is that this kid actually took his you-know-what OUT of his PANTS in CLASS and then peed in a water bottle! How does this kinda thing happen when a teacher is in the room?

In other news, T-Rex is apparently out of control. I mentioned in January that when I last saw him he was listening to some song called "Hot F*ck" or something like that, and being all aloof and too-cool-to-talk-to-me, which was sad. He got in some giant fight a little while ago and my principal keeps telling him he's going to have to call ME to talk about it, and then he's like "Oh naaaaw, G, don't call her she'll get all disappointed and sh*t" which is pretty hilarious considering he pretends that I am no longer of any importance to him. I like the idea of having power from beyond.

But the biggest and most depressing news is about Mel. [You may remember Mel from this time last year, or if you don't, here's one refresher [scroll down to the last post waaaay at the bottom of the page], and here's another--incidentally, rereading these old postings was a tremendous reminder as to why I am no longer teaching]. Melanie holds the all-too-prestigious title of being the only student in my three year teaching career that I was not able to win over, despite endless attempts.

Apparently Melanie is back in NYC. She is not at my old school, but still in the neighborhood. And she is pregnant. Very pregnant. Mel's 14 by now, maybe 15, [and still in the sixth grade], and just as she told us last year, "If I get sent to Jamaica, Ima just end up pregnant like my sister." She wasn't lying. I guess her mother, who is very sick, lives in Jamaica. And her father, who is a lunatic alcoholic, lives up here. He was the one who said it was "her fault" last year when we found out she had had sex with something like 8 of the boys in the 8th grade, and then said that she was forced into it, but no one [including her father] would believe her, which is awful. Of course, she wouldn't talk to me about this, because she thought I was, I think the term she used was "beasted." I have resisted the temptation to inquire as to the meaning of the term.

This was, I believe, the catalyst for sending her to Jamaica in the first place. I guess one of the 8th grade boy's girlfriend had found out and was threatening to "knife" Mel, and so every day in class, I had to lock the door from the inside to make sure no crazy 8th grade girls came inside to hurt her. Keeping Mel inside my classroom was always a challenge, and sometimes I kind of just wished she would leave and stop torturing me, so locking her in was not pleasant [you know, in addition to the fear that some knife-wielding 8th grade girl who was 3 feet taller than me wasn't going to burst in at any moment].

So Melanie's having a baby. The notion of her being responsible for a child is completely horrifying, and when I started to think about it last night at dinner, my old co-teacher and I were having a hard time not getting teary-eyed. I guess when they are in middle school, you can have the "idea" of bad things happening to them in high school, and a lot of the time you can predict, as sad as that is, the select few who will end up dropping out or having babies, and which ones will grow out of whatever attitude they are sporting at the time, or just coast through on natural smarts, or really sincerely care about school and impress the hell out of all of their teachers. But when you are only teaching them in middle school, you don't necessarily get to "see" those outcomes, and you can naively reassure yourself that they will all probably be just fine, dismiss the horror stories as being unlikely. I mean, you go visit your old third graders, some of whom USED to be nuts-o, at their new boot-camp-charter-school and they are doing pretty phenomenally, so anything can happen, right? I just wish "anything" didn't have to be Mel having a baby.

I'm sorry to digress in such a depressing direction... And honestly, it's noon on Friday and I've been up for three hours and haven't started my schoolwork yet, so it's time to get going on that.

I'll leave you with an "Overheard in NY" comment that I witnessed in my policy class the other day. This was said by possibly the most annoying girl in my entire university [she's the kinda girl who makes me question whether I want to be in grad school anymore], to the girl sitting next to her, who is Chinese, and doesn't speak English very well yet.

"Oh my God, Ming! You've never heard of Loehmann's? That is like THE best part of America!!"

Wendy's Not a Miracle Worker

2007-02-07T11:34:00.000-05:00

Good morning friends... I have reached a level of procrastination that I had previously thought unattainable by someone who claims to be as compulsive as I am. It started with the furniture rearranging, which is nothing new for me: shifting the bed away from the window for "practical reasons" [i.e. the unbearable cold], noticing the now-uneven distribution of furniture in the room thereafter, and then deciding you might as well just find a new place for your desk. Of course, when you move your desk and your bed, you are likely to find an assemblage of dust bunnies that you should probably vaccuum, except it's almost midnight and your neighbors [who are probably already irritated by the fact that you are sliding furniture around on wooden floors late at night] might not like the vaccuuming, and you aren't really a fan of vaccuuming yourself... Maybe leave that for tomorrow.

But now your wheels are turning. What about that plan you had to move all of your DVD's and videos [that's right, videos! you aren't one of those suckas with cable and DVR/Tivo]off of your bookshelf to make room for the rapidly accumulating pile of journal articles and photo-copied book chapters that your professors so kindly post on Blackboard sites for you to print out and that you have devised a theoretical filing system for in your head, in class the previous day? You should probably do that now, you know, since you are awake and all, and grad students don't really need to wake up early in the mornings.

This necessitates unplugging and rewiring all of your stereo and music equipment, so you can pile it next to your TV instead of under it, so that you can put the movies underneath. And what are you really doing with that 6 CD changer anyway? When was the last time you used that thing? [because contrary to your lack of technological progress in recording television, you are quite state-of-the-art with your music playing and prefer the iBook or iPod to the CD anyday]. You decide to sell the CD player on Craisglist. When you open up the CD carousel, you find the first Strokes album and the Police's Greatest Hits and realize just how long it's been... And what about all that other crap you found under your bed that you don't really use anymore. You could probably sell that on Craigslist too, right?

Once the TV and stereo are rewired, and the movies have been carefully arranged in a row, you set out to create "for sale" postings on craigslist for your CD player, your old rollerskates that you never use, and the classical guitar with the broken tuning peg that has sat, unplayed in the corner of your room for years. You could really use the cash. You also realize that maybe putting your movie collection right there under the television where everyone can see it might be kind of embarrassing, owing to the fact that in addition to having things like The West Wing, and Hotel Rwanda in your collection, you also have Felicity, Mean Girls, and the first season of the OC, and perhaps should consider getting some more "high brow" viewing materials to balance things out a little bit. You know, to preserve your "image."

It's now 2am [not "now" but you know, "then" in the timeframe of this story]. You have not completed copy-editing the manuscript for your adviser, nor have you read the four articles on social stratification for your class tomorrow, or graded the online discussion postings for the grad course you are a TA for. But your apartment looks great. And you are wide awake.

I had intended to post about seeing Wendy Kopp speak at a "social entrepreneurship" presentation I attended last week. It was the first time I had seen her talk, and it reminded me of the beginning of teaching, when things like making charts and designing a "behavior management stoplight" to track student behavior were still exciting... The woman who introduced Wendy kept reinforcing the idea that Wendy wasn't a "superhero" or a "miracle worker" [just because she created the national organization Teach for America when she was 21, an extension of her senior thesis at Princeton]. Her point was, that people "just like you and me" can do tremendous things if we devote ourselves to doing them. Before I started grad school, I had kind of hoped I could be one of those people doing tremendous things, but right now, I'm having trouble just getting my reading done before class starts in an hour.

I'm Too Sexy for the Movies

2007-01-18T20:33:00.000-05:00

I'm at MyFavoriteTeacher [MFT]'s house in the Bronx for a mid-week sleepover, watching the Justin Timberlake episode of Saturday Night Live. He and Alvin & Chipmunks are singing the Christmas Song. "Meeee, I waaaaant a huuuuula hoooop..."

Today, I took a trip up to my old school to visit MFT and the kiddies, who finished up the state ELA exam yesterday, and were rewarded with a field trip to the movies. One group went to see Dreamgirls [the kiddie verdict: it was too looooong, but Beyonce was hot] and the other to see Stomp the Yard [the kiddie verdict: that sh*t was hot!] Of course, there were a select few who were "left behind" for various reasons. I asked Isaac why he didn't get to go on the trip, and he responded "They said I'm too sexy for the movies, Ms. G," which was pretty much the best reply he could have given me, although I'm fairly sure it had more to do with the fact that he was swinging around a broom handle at one of the girls for the greater part of the afternoon. Why there was a broom handle floating around the halls with no "broom" attached is beyond me.

Before MFT's group returned to school, I went down to the cafeteria for the late-lunch of the group who got back first. I received my typical welcome [read: screaming OH MY GOOOOOOD MISS _________ COME BAAAAAAACK WE MISS YOU, followed by an onslaught of very clingy hugs, which made me glad I got a flu shot]. They have a new math AND a new ELA teacher now, the second of each of the school-year, and I guess they have now come to think of themselves as pretty "bad-ass" because of this. "How was the test?" I ask, "It was eeeeeasy!!" they insist, which is generally not a good sign. "I hear you have a new math teacher now?" I ask. "We're rude!" Ellonie explains, and a number of them concur. Even though I know they are perfectly capable of being rowdy and obnoxious and hyperactive, I cannot really concieve of them as being the total whackos that they have apparently come to be this year. Last year, they could keep it together under the correct supervision, and were generally "good kids" underneath the craziness. But the descriptions I have heard this year, even from teachers who knew them last year, are really disappointing.

T-Rex had his brand new shiny nano, in electric blue, and was walking around with his headphones on, so I tapped him to say hello, and asked to see his nano. He was listening to a song by an artist named "Hot F*ck" and so I opted to hand it back to him instead of browsing his music library. Then, I noticed that Chanya was sitting at a table nearby and had not come over to see me. I sat down next to her at one of the long cafeteria tables and said:

"Um, helLO!?" and she replied, "hey."

I looked at her stunned, like Where Is My Enthusiastic Screaming Hug?

"That's all I get? Where's the love?"

Ellonie came over and said "Don't listen to her, we still love you" and I raised my eyebrows at Chanya.

"I don't know, my 'closest' student doesn't seem to miss me at all" I said, with a pouty face. So Chanya got up... "hold up one second..." ran about ten yards across the cafeteria and did a flying running squealing "HIHIHIHIHIHIII" and after hugging me, promptly dropped the enthusiasm, lost the grin, sat back down, said "What up Ms. G?" and went back to her headphones. I think she's gotten over me. She got braces, and seems a little more subdued than she was last year. She doesn't write me emails anymore either. I feel like I've been dumped.

In general, the school seemed relatively calm. This may have been because the majority of the seventh grade was on a trip, returning from a trip, or chilling in the cafeteria after a trip, and not having to participate in any remotely academic activity. But nonetheless, the visit didn't have the same sense of chaotic urgency as my last visit. My principal seemed tired, the AP was nowhere to be seen, and rumors that he took an "unvoluntary leave of absense" travelled the halls. A few teachers told me that they were leaving next year, and my oldest friend teacher who I taught with at my first school [not to be confused with MFT], got engaged! Then, my principal invited me to attend their brief staff meeting, because MFT and her kids were not back from their trip yet, so I got to sit in on a staff meeting congratulating the teachers for surviving test week and bracing them for some "scary visitors" in the upcoming weeks. For me, sitting in on a staff meeting is a surefire way to remind you why working in a school is a drag, much more so than socializing in the cafeteria, which is most people's least favorite situation.

Well well, MFT is telling me to wrap it up so I can watch JT perform "Dick in a Box" on SNL. Time to go...

Happy Birthday No Child Left Behind!

2007-01-12T00:42:00.000-05:00

You are five years old, as of this week. Around this age, if you were in any of the public schools I taught in, you probably wouldn't know how to read. And then in a few years, you might get held over in the third grade because you couldn't pass the damn standardized tests, and then you'd get older and older, and since the woman hired to give you "extra help" services like reading remediation would end up doing class coverages for absent teachers and eventually probably filling the position of someone who quits in October, you'd continue to fail the third grade until they decided you were too big and too angry for third grade, and to just push you along a few years until finally, you were so behind and so frustrated with school, that you'd decide to drop out. Below, please find my extensive rant about NCLB and why I hope it does not make it to its sixth birthday.

In my favorite course this semester, which was a seminar on the issues in education research, we read two books about the infamous No Child Left Behind [NCLB] legislation. Both of them were a compilation of various essays on different aspects of the bill, and the first one, titled "Many Children Left Behind," [ed. Deborah Meier] was anti-NCLB, while the second one, titled "Within Our Reach" [ed. John Chubb] was about how NCLB, with some modifications, could be an excellent path towards improving our nation's public schools.

In sum, NCLB promises to achieve 100% proficiency in ELA and math by the 2013-2014 school-year, through increased standardized testing accountability, ensuring that all students have access to quality teachers, and adequate funding across school districts. Critics of the bill explain the infeasibility of this promise, citing the bill’s under-funding, the detrimental effects of “teaching to the test,” and the overly punitive nature of the financial penalties placed on schools that do not reach the unrealistic performance targets set in place by NCLB.

There are numerous paradoxes central to the stated goals of this legislation, from the fact that it aims for 100% proficiency on norm-referenced exams (which by their very nature require 50% of students to fall below the norm), to the “diversity penalty” which basically makes it more difficult for schools with more diverse populations to reach performance targets, since the failure of even one group means the school as a whole has "failed." As a result of NCLB, some schools which were not previously considered in need of improvement have been re-classified as failing, and many schools have engaged in dishonest practices such as under-reporting drop-out rates, or denying enrollment to students who would potentially bring down their testing average.

On the other hand, those in support of NCLB claim that with some improvements, the bill could prove successful in repairing the public school system. Chubb, et al., make four key recommendations for the improvement of NCLB. First, they suggest that state standards should be aligned to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments so that there are uniform benchmarks in achievement for all schools nationwide. Second, they feel that the present system of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) needs to be augmented so that all schools are following a trajectory that will allow them to meet 100% proficiency by 2013-2014. Third, the authors recommend that the mandate of a “highly qualified teacher” in all classrooms be adjusted to redefine what constitutes “highly qualified” to include possession of a bachelors degree and either an undergraduate major in the subject they teach, passage of a rigorous content examination in their subject area, or, in the case of veteran teachers, statistical analysis that shows they have achieved adequate gains in proficiency for their students. Finally, these authors recommend that NCLB establish independent agencies to arbitrate (and inform parents about) school choice transfers and supplementary educational services (SES) for students in failing schools.

While these recommendations do appear to strengthen some of the existing weaknesses and failures of NCLB, they do not address a number of the concerns critics have with the bill. For one, standardized testing is not necessarily an accurate measure of student achievement. Chubb maintains that present methods of testing take into account fairness, bias, and validity, but fails to cite any evidence to support this other than referring the reader to another chapter in the book, which also does not explain how testing agencies eliminate bias and increase fairness in testing. Secondly, the authors do not recognize that punitive sanctions detract from existing shortages in funding for schools in poor districts, or that the bill is grossly under-funded to begin with. While Meier, et al. claim, “current requests for funding NCLB… fall as much as $12 billion short of the requirements of the legislation,” Chubb, et al. say, “the direct costs of NCLB are fully funded, as the Government Accounting Office concluded in May 2004.” The former data came from a professional of educational finance who [presumably] did research on the subject, while the latter data came from a governmental source, which may have vested interest in claiming the bill is adequately funded.

Chubb, et al. give the impression that schools that have previously not met performance targets are failing to do so because there have not been sanctions in place, or for lack of trying to do so. Is it possible that the reason schools do not set performance targets that would put them on a trajectory towards 100% proficiency by 2013-2014 is because they know it is not feasible? NCLB does not, at any point, suggest HOW schools in underserved communities should go about addressing the plethora of social issues that these communities face, such as inadequate housing and healthcare, unemployment, and families with limited occupational and educational attainment, factors that have been connected to student achievement by researchers for decades. Merely “demanding proficiency” does not make it so, and the threat of sanctions is a tactic designed to scare schools into compliance, without recognizing the reasons these schools are struggling to achieve. NCLB aims to increase the federal government’s power to punish schools for poor performance, while avoiding any federal responsibility for how to achieve this performance, or how to pay for it, given the existing inequities of public school funding and the other social issues plaguing underserved communities.

I would suggest that perhaps the "real goal" of NCLB is to discredit the public school system so entirely that the government can say "see, even with all of this money and reform effort, public schools just CAN'T WORK, and therefore we should privatize the whole system!!" Because to be honest, if you were seeking to discredit the public schools, what would be a better way to do that than to set up a host of completely unreachable goals and requirements, and then when they are not reached, point to their failure as evidence that a new approach [privatization] is necessary. The bill is filled with privatization pushes already--from the fact that test-prep is a HUGE industry that clearly in high demand when testing is high-stakes, to the sanctions that require schools not meeting their performance targets to offer tutoring services, which are often offered through private companies. The bill was initially proposed with school voucher options, but those were removed because the bill wouldn't pass with vouchers included.

In any case, I'm signed up to take a Public Policy course this semester, and I'm thinking that NCLB might have to be my policy-of-choice to analyze [since clearly I can ramble on about it endlessly].

Stay tuned for next week, when I will be visiting my sixth graders again...

Teacher Man

2007-01-09T00:16:00.000-05:00

I had but four goals set for myself during winter break: painting my kitchen cabinets; reading Fortress of Solitude, Nickel and Dimed, Teacher Man, and about four issues of the New Yorker piled on my night-table; affixing the missing buttons to an assortment of my clothing; and completing one of the many short stories I have started in the last two years. I have completed only 1 and 1/4 of these goals. The kitchen cabinets, well, they were painted within the first two days--before Christmas even--as a time-filler on the night I waited up for my brother's plane from California, which was delayed for about five hours on the runway. Much to the dismay of my parents, who on several occasions reminded me of the critical importance of sanding furniture before you paint it, I did not sand the cabinets prior to painting them black. The way I see it, I really keep very few things in the cabinets that I access on a regular basis, and I'm thinking the paint will stay on there just fine, save for the little spots where the door touches the frame; those are totally f*cked.

In a far more rewarding experience, I have just finished "Teacher Man" by Frank McCourt. Having read and loved his two earlier novels at the insistent request of an ex-boyfriend ["Tis," and "Angela's Ashes"], I had meant to read "Teacher Man" when it came out last winter. But at the time I actually was a teacher, and quite frankly, entirely disinterested in reading books after work. This book was fantastic. It was interesting to hear McCourt's own self-deprecating remarks on his teaching skills, all the while knowing he was a highly regarded English teacher at Stuyvesant, a, if not "the," top public school in NYC. His tales of dealing with distracted and disinterested students who startle you with poignant observations when you least expect it made me incredibly nostalgic for teaching, and for the first time since the summer, I actually wonder whether I'll end up back in the classroom again, even though that really wasn't the game plan. Read this book! Even if you aren't a teacher, it's brilliant.

Despite the fact that I only accomplished a small fraction of my stated goals, I have managed to consume a record amount of ice cream and watched the old Aaron Sorkin series "Sports Night" in its entirety.

Today, my old roommate Jennifer was in town from California, and I requested that we go out for dessert this afternoon. We realized, upon consideration, that there really are not many places to get a good old ice cream sundae in NYC. I mean, there's Coldstone, and Ben & Jerrys, but those aren't really "sit down" places. There's all of those chain restaurants, Uno's, Applebee's, etc. where you can get brownie sundaes, but really, who wants to go there? A friend suggested Serendipity, and my initial reaction was "will my life become the subject of a poorly written romantic comedy if I choose to eat dessert at Serendipity?" Braving this fear, Jennifer and I met in midtown, where I have had the misfortune of travelling to twice in the last week, sat in the back by a gigantic and elaborately decorated Christmas tree, and consumed monstrous ice cream sundaes. She wisely chose the fruit sundae [you know, a "healthy" sundae], while I decided to indulge in the "can't say no" sundae, which included a slice of humble pie [peanut butter pie with graham cracker crust], hot fudge, and bananas. We rationalized these choices by selecting frozen yogurt instead of ice cream as a base and drinking tea with no sugar on the side, because when it comes down to it, it's really not about the ice cream, per se. These sundaes were delicious, despite the fact that they cost about $13 each and we ate them in the company of a variety of women with very tiny purses and an assortment of tourist-accents. Next time I go there [because if my life is indeed going to become the plotline of a romantic comedy, surely it will come full-circle by a second visit to Serendipity, where I realize that our waiter, who was quite pleased that we did not order the cliched "Frozen Hot Chocolate," is my long lost soulmate], I will order the sundae that comes with a giant slice of blackout chocolate cake underneath it. I'm considering the possibility that 2007 may be the year where one eats sundaes in lieu of dinner.

My day culminated in the first meeting of an intersession class I'm taking as a pre-requisite to taking classes in the policy school. It is essentially American Government 101, which was basically an overview of all of the terminology they sling around on the West Wing, except instead of being packaged amongst witticisms and clever dialogue, is delivered by a young professor getting over the flu who speaks at an alarming rate which I am barely able to keep up with while taking notes. The class is in a giant lecture hall, meets four nights in a row, and is followed by an exam this Friday that will surely merit a giant happy-hour-reward afterwards.

I know it is out of the ordinary for me to post about mostly non-school-related matters [or post more than once a month, these days], especially ones so mundane as to include full paragraphs on ice cream sundaes and what-I-read-over-break, but I'm thinking it's time to get back into the habit of writing. Feel free to disregard it entirely.

Since You Been Gone.

2007-01-02T23:35:00.000-05:00

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that "Fastred1" is my brother [?]... No, my blog has not died per se. More like it has taken a long restful vacation for recuperation. And apparently, during this hiatus, Blogger has changed over to some new Google format? I'm not sure what this means exactly, except for that it is somehow linked to my Gmail account now which makes me wonder, is Google planning on purchasing everything for sale in the universe of internet services?

The real reason I haven't been writing, asides from the obvious fact that I am not teaching, and therefore lacking in entertaining adolescent anecdotes, is that I'm not sure what I can write about in the realm of education that will be even remotely interesting for other people to read and not completely depressing and cynical. I continue to visit my former 6th graders in the Bronx about once a month, and I also visited a handful of my third graders from my first year of teaching, who are now in 6th grade at a charter school in Brooklyn. A former colleague of mine helped open the charter and took some of our kiddies with her.

I visited both schools within the span of 48 hours, and it was like night and day. At my old school, the children have quite literally taken over the halls. At any given moment, T-Rex and an assortment of hyper-sexual girls can be found roaming the halls, cursing, pushing each other around, hiding in the bathroom, ignoring the security guards, etc. They have found a replacement for the teacher who has my old students that quit. He is from England, and Shamra wrote me an email about him saying "Ms. ______, a new teacher has started teaching us ELA and he's from England and we can't understand anything he is saying. We miss you, Ms. _______. We could understand EVERYTHING you were saying." This, while flattering, just makes me feel sad. From what I have seen, there are a handful of new teachers at the school that are really great, and getting things done in the classroom. One guy, who actually taught his demo lesson in my classroom last year when he interviewed, is working with an all-girls class on writing personal narratives, and when I visited, I sat in on the class and was impressed. But from what MFT tells me, this is not the norm. About 6 teachers have quit mid-year, and have been replaced by people who were excessed and sitting in the district office waiting for openings.

When I visited the new charter school, which is known for its somewhat controversial behavior management tactics [namely that they are notorious for enrolling smart inner city kids with "tough" attitudes and basically putting them through "manners boot camp" and getting impressive results, but some question whether their tactics are dehumanizing or unethical in their harshness]. This network of charters is also known for producing high levels of achievement with low-income school populations, both in standardized testing and in graduation rates and higher education enrollments. I had braced myself for the worst, picturing some kind of robotic classroom setting and children who had been stripped of their personalities participating in rote drills. My favorite teacher-friend from my old school came with me, on a freezing cold day in December, to visit with our former students [I had taught them in the third grade, she in the fourth].

Fortunately, I was, for the most part, pleasantly surprised. The school is housed with in a larger building, just like the middle school I taught at last year, and from what I know about the rest of the schools in the building, they are pretty rough. We walked all the way up to the top floor, and learned that the students were finishing up a practice exam. The hallways were dead silent, which I generally find to be an eery quality in a school. But since it was a testing period, I guess this was appropriate [Later on, when regular classes were in session, we saw kids singing and chanting math rhymes and eavesdropped on music class with a full band of sixth graders playing instruments]. A teacher appeared in the hallway with her class, and they walked in one straight single-file line, down the center of the hall, and each of them turned on a dime, a perfect right angle, as they entered the stairwell. The boys were in suits, the girls in dresses. Apparently Friday is "professional dress" day. This was a little creepy.

We found our old colleague, and she was able to come into the hallway to speak with us, leaving her students quietly finishing up their practice test. She said they'd be out in 5 minutes for lunch and that we could all go downstairs together. When they came into the hallway, I saw three of my now-gigantic students and they asked their teacher if it was ok for them to come over and say hello to us. They were all taller than me and looked like little grown ups in their professional outfits. Paula started jumping up and down when hugging me and we almost both fell over. It was cute.

My friend and I, and about 8 of our old kids sat and ate lunch together in the cafeteria, which was shared by one of the other schools, and the environment on our side of the cafeteria vs. the other side was so completely distinctive that you had to wonder what it was that prevented the kids we knew from acting like the kids in the other school. Our former students were amazing. They showed us their writing, and their vocabulary lists which so far surpassed the sixth grade vocabulary I taught last year that I was embarrassed. They told us about the awards ceremony coming up, and the cool elective classes they take on weekends and how they love their teachers like they are family. I asked the kids if they minded that the kids from the other schools were being loud or rowdy in the hallway or at lunch and one of my old students said "Not really. I know they aren't climbing the mountain to college." I guess that is part of the behavior-brainwashing I've heard about...

I ran into Shavon on the lunch-line, from my second year of teaching, all dressed in a little shirt & tie and I thought about the day we sat in the cafeteria and he cried and said he wished he could go to a school where things weren't crazy all the time and from what I saw that day, he had managed to do just that. Unfortunately, my old favorite Demetri had transferred to another school after last year, and Tommy had apparently gone back to living with his real parents in the Bronx after his foster dad had become sick and was not well enough to take care of him. His foster dad was basically my right-hand man my first year of teaching, coming in and sitting with Tommy on his "bad" days, and tearing he and Demetri apart when they fought, if I couldn't do it myself.

After lunch, we got to see some behavior-management-in-action. There was a fifth grade boy, who we didn't know, sitting on a chair in the hallway, looking at the "school motto" which was basically a pledge of rules for the students to follow. He had a stack of about 100 sheets of looseleaf and a pencil, and he looked totally pissed. There was also a masking taped "X" on the floor nearby. His teacher came into the hall and dramatically told us how this little boy had stood up during the practice exam and thrown a crumpled up piece of paper at a classmate, and that his punishment was to recopy the pledge until all of the paper was full. This teacher, and the teacher we knew there, did a little back and forth banter, chastising the child in kind of a joke-y way, how they were disappointed, etc. She also explained that the masking tape was a mark to show where he had thrown the pencil she had originally given him. It was "evidence." The boy was basically silent through their banter, and continued to look very unhappy.

So here's the thing. I wonder whether this boy is actually going to fill up 100 sheets of paper with the school pledge, and what happens if he doesn't. I wonder who can "force" him to do that, or if at a certain point in the process, the teacher changes her mind and says he's done enough and maybe he goes to detention or something? Apparently, there is an extended-day detention in the evening after school ends for kids who have not behaved or are missing homework. I'm not sure I take any issue with the punishment, although it is a fairly pointless exercise. I just wonder whether it is effective. Will this kid think twice the next time he wants to act out? Apparently, according to our friend, it works. And based on the fact that they have about 35 kids in each class and virtually no behavior problems by the time winter rolls around is decent proof of this phenomenon. Is this the only way to get results? I've heard tales of misbehaving kids having to turn their uniform shirts inside out and none of their classmates talking to them. Is that humiliation? Is it only humiliation if the kid is so proud of their uniform shirt that they are upset when they cannot display it properly? Does it take something this extreme to manage tough kids?

There is an ongoing discussion both in schools and in grad programs on education about what "works" for inner city kids. I have worked in two places that have definitely not "worked" and visited about a half dozen other schools that have not "worked" to varying degrees. The only schools I have seen that have "worked" have had one thing in common: A staff that is essentially willing to give up their entire lives in order to serve the school & their students. They work from 7am till 5 or 6pm on weekdays, teach Saturday school, and do lesson planning and staff meetings on nights and weekends. They may be paid more, but only to scale of the extra hours they work. They are relentless in pursuing their school's mission, and the most crucial thing is, this is consistent across every single teacher and administrator in the school. There is staff support from administrators, and staff collaboration across the disciplines. Lesson planning and behavior management is shared and uniform across the school. In the schools I have taught in, there were always a handful of excellent teachers who were willing to go the extra mile, but this was generally so severely compromised by abusive administrators or teachers who never pulled their weight or used their contract to get out of anything they saw as "extra work" that it created an environment that was neither collaborative or conducive to wanting to put in extra time, especially since you were rarely given any kind of recognition for the extra effort. Who wants to hang around for extra hours in a building with an unpleasant or hostile environment? Who wants to collaborate with unfriendly staff members, or share their hard work if there is no reciprocation?

What I wonder is, is the only way a school can be successful in meeting the needs of underserved communities by having teachers who need to basically sacrifice their whole lives? If so, where can you find enough teachers like this to staff an entire city of public schools? And even if you could, is that kind of model sustainable for more than a few years, when these teachers inevitably burn-out from the hard work?

One of my professors suggested that if public schools had enough money, they could afford to pay two people to do the job of one person in a school. I guess he was implying that these hardworking teachers could halve their hours and share responsibility, thereby avoiding burn-out. But I'm not sure that two people could achieve this goal--part of what was so amazing about the kids in the charter school we visited was the intense bond they recognized between themselves and their teacher, and their awareness that the teacher was so entirely devoted to them. I don't know if two people could be consistent enough to create that same bond. On the other hand, would a teaching job requiring an 70 hour week be worthwhile if the salary was comparable to other professions with insane hours and stress? I don't know if a six figure salary would eliminate the "burn-out" factor, although I suppose it would make rationalizing the job easier.

Basically, after seeing both of these schools, and having always been in favor of public schools, I wonder whether public schools have enough autonomy or funding or man-power to create consistently effective schools, and whether there will ever be enough "amazing" teachers to fill the schools that need them. I'm not saying I don't think public schools can "work," since there are obviously many examples in NYC and elsewhere of inner city public schools that "work," but the common characteristic between all of these schools seems to be a staff that is willing to go above and beyond what is required of them by a teaching contract. And in my last school, our staff appeared to be on board with this kind of devotion, but mostly jumped ship by November, and many of us left at the end of the schoolyear to pursue other areas of education [myself included]. I have to wonder if I would have left if the rest of our staff had been willing to put in the time and effort as the handful of us who were not constantly using our contract to avoid extra responsibility. How can you really know for sure that a teacher is any good until you put them in the stressful environment of a public school and see how they react?

I think the other reason I haven't been writing is because most of the things I am thinking about schools are just plain depressing. I think the length of this post makes up for the last two months that I have not written, no?

Reporting Live from the Bronx

2006-11-03T15:50:00.000-05:00

I’m sitting in the AIS classroom of my old school right now, as My Favorite Teacher [MFT] teaches a lesson to 7 seventh graders on “tion” and “er” endings. Most of them are reading on about a fourth grade level. “I’m going to read a word, and after I say it, you are going to say it with me. SUB-SCRIP-TION... What word? SUBSCRIPTION. Good. RE-CON-SID-ER… What word?” and so on and so forth.

I got here right before the seventh grader’s lunch period, and managed to locate some of my old favorites almost immediately, since they do not spend very much time in class, but rather prefer the bathroom and the stairwell and other places where not-so-much learning is taking place. MFT had informed me that a few teachers have quit or are in the process of quitting, and that the woman teaching all of my old kids ELA was leaving because my former students were being so horrible. This is really disappointing.

I ran into my principal and AP at a Mets play-off game [small world] and they told me how my kids keep coming to the office asking about me and saying things like “this new lady doesn’t know what she is talking about. We miss Ms. _______ [me]. We would listen to her. I don’t wanna listen to this lady,” etc. etc. This makes me feel good, but also a little bit terrible like there is nothing I can do about it but visit and it is entirely arrogant of me to think that I could come up to school and make any kind of difference just by visiting. It’s just so sad that things are falling apart here. The seventh graders have lost their hall privileges and teachers have to rotate from class to class like we did last year, and apparently one of my former girls has been giving blowjobs to the rest of the grade and this is causing drama because she has withheld her services from one of the boys and he is angry. Asides from the fact that it is disgusting that seventh graders are having sex, I can’t believe that this girl in particular has devolved into this role and I wonder why we can’t teach sex-ed in middle school.

I spent some time with Shamra in the hallway while the AP was reaming out her class [he is covering them for the day since their ELA teacher has quit], and she told me a story about the AP telling some boy he was going to “F him up” and that he said this other girl’s parents didn’t love her, which I’m fairly sure is not true. I could hear them all yelling on the other side of the door so I tried to keep out of sight but a few of them stormed out of the room, angry that he was keeping them during lunchtime, and when they saw me it just made things worse since when any teacher is mad at you and you see another teacher who isn’t mad at you, you automatically feel so incredibly fond of the teacher who isn’t mad that you fawn over them as if they are the nicest person in the world. I know that these kids don’t really remember what things were like in our class when I taught them, but I guess the unconditional fondness is easier in hindsight.

I ventured down to the cafeteria, which is always a bold move, and was by far my least favorite part of the day as a teacher. Even just dropping off and picking up kids was always slightly traumatic. The girls from my advisory came shrieking across the room to hug me and tell me how their new advisor doesn’t let them play any games or talk to them about their problems and I receive a lengthy dissertation on the state of mean-girl-gossip at school.

I sat with T-Rex over in the corner with his two bad-a$$ friends Jim and LaShawn. They had their greasy pizza trays on their laps and were talking about the sneakers they wanted to buy and T-Rex said he’s all done with baseball because “that sport is kinda whack and slow” and now he’s into basketball. Jarod and Orlando told me about how they are stuck in an all-boys class this year and Jarod asks “Ms. ____ did you do that on purpose cause I flirt too much in class?” and then says that Orlando’s girlfriend is from a different school and she’s “ugly and retarded.” Orlando says “She’s not ugly!” and Jarod replies “See! You didn’t say she wasn’t retarded!” Then a carton of milk flies towards our table, narrowly escaping my arm, and I decide to go sit with the girls.

Cammy and Chanya [who referred to me as an "original G"...] tell me how their math teacher quit and how the new guy is worse because he is “too orderly:”

“He sweeps in between EVERY class!”
“He doesn’t even have nothing on his desk!”
“I don’t even know where he keeps his stuff!”
“He thinks math is fun!”

ME: “Does he teach math well?”
THEM: “Well, yeah.”

I ask about the old math teacher… “Wasn’t he the one you all thought was cute?” and they get all giggly and blushy and say “Oh you don’t even know, when he smiled at you with those dimples it was like ohhhhhhhhh.” I asked why he quit and they said the class was too crazy and I wondered why they couldn’t even behave for a teacher they had a crush on. Then we talked about the length of my hair for an unusual amount of time [they can’t seem to get over the fact that it has grown…]

I moved over to where a bunch of girls from my old homeroom were sitting and when they started complaining about their ELA teacher [who I’m beginning to gather they do NOT know has quit] they said they hate her and I wanted to know WHY. They said she doesn’t do read alouds or shared reading like we used to [that was their favorite part of the day by far] and there aren’t vocabulary lessons [I always thought that was boring but I guess you get used to routines?] and finally, that they have been learning about the Harlem Renaissance for 2 and a half months and they are “totally sick of Harlem.” It’s hard to hear student perspectives on teachers and know whether they are full of crap or actually have valid complaints, especially when I don’t know these new teachers at all and have no basis on which to judge them.

Finally, I visited with Kenny and Arana and ask them about their super awesome after school program downtown on the Upper East Side and they seem to really be enjoying it—they didn’t seem to have any complaints [since I’ve never heard either of them complain about anything ever] and then lunch is over. Sheniqua takes my arm and leads me down the hall without telling me where we are going, and we arrive in the doorway of her classroom. She says "Ms. _____, our teacher is out today, and so you can teach us." The AP is inside since he was planning on covering the class for the period, and he say: "Yes, if you want to you can totally teach!" with bright hopeful eyes, and I am tempted but deep down inside know that fifteen minutes into the period when the novelty wears off the kids will go back to being their crazy selves who remember what things were "really" like when I was their teacher and it will be even harder to leave. Plus I have nothing to "teach" them. So I politely declined and came back up here to sit in the AIS room and listen to the phonics lesson and write for a bit.

I’ll write more when I visit again in December… Until then…

Recent Literary Correspondance

2006-10-02T20:59:00.000-04:00

The following are selections from the very adorable emails I have been exchanging with some of my sixth graders [ok I guess they are 7th graders now...]:

*****

i am happy to hear that u will be visiting in september and i can't wait to see you. I also can't wait to see [the principal] and all of my other teachers. the beach i went to is in up state PA and is really long drive. but it is really fun and is on a really big mountain that in the winter you can go snowboarding and skiing. i might go. i hope that the surprises are really fun because school can be boring sometimes. well have to go and finish packing my pack. bye tell your brother that i said hi.

***

Hi ms ______ i really have missed you b/c the teacher i have right now is so anoying she teaching us like we stupid or something i reall y wish that we had you again everybody is saying that im my class this year we really miss you .well talk to you later

***

school started and alredy some kids are suspended and there are alredy fights and such. [the principal] is almost ready to make us stay in the classroom instead of walking and switching classes because some kids can't walk in the halls properly. I wish u were my english teacher still because my english teacher now has gone crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! she is now grading us on everything we do. And when we r in groups, if 1 person is talking the whole table loses 2 points. She grades us on what we wear, what we say, what we do and other things that u r actually suppose to grade us on. Even shameeka, micha, cici, and mia think she is crazy. and kind of scary. She smiles for everything
well have to go to a jamaican concert
adios amigos
bye bye

***

i am going to start my afterschool program on october 4th. i think kenny didn't start.[the principal] was mad and he had a meeting with all the teachers of the school and they have made a rule that people can only go to the bathroom on certain times and also there was a very serious fight outside of the school 3 or 4 days ago and the police had to come to investigate. the police also had taken one of the 2 boys who were fighting. so maybe thats why [the principal] was mad. i was sleepy because my mom comes late from her job and so i have to sleep a little late. ok bye please reply

***

nice to hear from again i was so happy to see u at the
school. Wanda's in my class and to me our teacher is'nt strick she gets
on everyones nerves and she like to get her attitude for no reason at all and
she make me sick by doing that. In ELA class the teacher is reading a book
about Walter Dean's life.I'm reading Venis and Serena because they said
i look like Serena so i wanted to see how her life was when she was
smaller.Other than that school is good and i try to keep the kids quiet so
we dont loose our oppotunity in the hall way but the boys mostly dont listen
that make me mad but i would try my best to pay attention and be careful
with what i'm saying.

***

the work in 7th grade is about the same like 6th grade because we do the same work. micha said hi and she said that she wants u to be her teacher again because she don't want ms.____. micha aso wants to know how ms._____ lives in harlem and can't do a simple dance named chicken noodle soup and she said that he teacher never heard of it. do u know how to do it. well bye bye.

*****

In sum, I better get busy learning how to do the Chicken Noodle Soup Dance... Anyone who can help me out with that? I miss those kiddies...

"The Trouble with Ed Schools"

2006-09-19T22:19:00.000-04:00

In my departmental seminar today, we discussed David Labaree's "The Trouble with Ed Schools," a sociological analysis of the problems in schools of education in the United States. Labaree is a professor in the ed school at Stanford University, and in sum, he attributes the "trouble with ed schools" to a number of key points:

1) Teaching is a "low-status" profession, owing to the fact that it has historically been "women's work" [leading subsequently to lower salaries], and while teaching is one of the most difficult professions, it is somehow mistaken as being "easy" by a large part of society. Teachers are working against tremendous odds, with "clients" whose attendance is compulsory and not voluntary. Unlike other professions, teachers are expected to "demystify" their profession and actually teach children how to teach themselves. One would never expect a doctor to teach a patient how to operate on him/herself, or a lawyer to teach his/her client how to defend him/herself. However, owing to the content that is taught [especially in the lower grades], society sees the knowledge that teachers are responsible for transmitting as being "common knowledge" and therefore they are not given credit for their intellect. And of course there is the old saying "Those who can, do... Those who can't, teach," which basically reflects the notion that society feels that "applied" knowledge/skills are of higher worth than "pure" knowledge, or "learning for learning's sake." Lastly, there is no "rule book" on how to be an effective teacher, so the idea of teacher-training is far easier said than done.

2) As a result of this "low-status," ed schools are relegated to second-rate status with in universities. Historically, market pressures that demanded more qualified teachers to meet a rapidly expanding school system forced the quality of teacher-training programs downwards in the earlier part of the 20th century, and ultimately, by making the attainment of teaching credentials easier, the quality of teacher-training lacks rigor and consequently lacks respect in the realms of academia.

3) Labaree goes on to discuss the problem with ed schools in their training of educational researchers. In addition to the fact that educational research is often qualitative instead of quantitative [how do you quantify children really...? unless you're a proponent of test scores], it has been deemed a "soft" science. Combined with the "pure" instead of "applied" characteristic of education as a discipline, it is a double-edged sword that relegates the status of educational research to an even lower position on the totem pole. Top that off with the fact that the results of educational research have been largely inconclusive or contradictory over the past century, and it's no wonder that politicians and lawmakers see educational research as not-really-relevant to their policy making.

Reading this book at the beginning of a educational research doctoral program was depressing for many obvious reasons, which I won't elaborate upon. But while reading, Labaree did clearly make a case against ed schools. One thing that particularly resonated with me was his discussion on the difficulties in training teachers to become educational researchers. Labaree explained that while teachers are obvious [and practical] candidates for careers in education research, due to their anthropological experience and personal dedication to the field, they are also highly resistant to training in the field of research. First and foremost, they hold on to "teacher values" which place the personal over the intellectual, the experiential over the objective, and the specific over the general. He also noted that many teachers who are products of teacher-training programs [rather than a disciplinary or liberal arts bachelors degree] are lacking an academically rigorous background, and start with a disadvantage intellectually at the grad level.

As a teacher-turned-educational-researcher-in-training, I was immediately alarmed by this chapter. I think a large part of the problem with educational research is that it is too general and abstract and completely detached from the classroom to have any real meaning to teachers and any truly positive impact on students and learning. Obviously Labaree would say I am exactly what he is describing as a resistant grad student. But I would argue that educational research should not necessarily strive to be so broad and far-reaching, and perhaps specific, field-based, "personal" research on a school-by-school [or even class-by-class] basis would be far more effective in creating positive change in schools.

I asked Labaree about this part of his book, explaining that I was a teacher for three years who did have a liberal arts degree [owing to the fact that I was a Teaching Fellow and didn't do my undergrad in education], and then basically stated what I wrote in the previous paragraph. He acknowledged my point and said that "of course" teachers are excellent candidates to become ed researchers because they possess the combination of personal/experiential knowledge along with the research training... And by the time he was done speaking, I wasn't sure if I had really asked him anything. I am troubled by the idea that I need to be indoctrinated into academia in order to be a successful researcher if it means relinquishing my perspective as a teacher. Labaree pointed out that this duality would enable me [and others in my position] to "code-switch" when talking about educational policy to teachers and to lawmakers.

But the true issue I took with our class discussion was a question that another student asked Labaree about what he proposed as potential solutions to the troubles with ed schools. He said that he is an "armchair analyst" and an academic and that he does not claim to have any solutions to the problems with ed schools. Immediately I started to get angry, as he completely dismissed any responsibility on his part towards helping to reform the educational system. He said "it was not his concern" to reform ed schools, and that he wrote the book because the subject matter was troubling to him and he wanted to explore it further.

When we hung up the phone with Labaree, our class got into a rather heated discussion on whether or not it is acceptable to be a researcher/analyst/critic with no ambition for reform, policy, or even a suggestion of solutions. I find it problematic that so many academics in the field of education do not take their analysis and expertise of the field to the next level, namely taking action in educational reform. A discussion ensued on the value of "pure" research and how we were being critical earlier that knowledge for knowledge's sake is not given more value in society.

A student with a background in mathematics mentioned how often times pure research does not know its goal at the onset, and how exploration is a crucial part of science and learning. While I agree that there is merit to this notion, I am not arguing that there is "no value" in pure research, but that it is not sufficient to stop there. What a shame to think that some of the most insightful and educated scholars in the field do not want to trouble themselves with taking action in the field they claim to be so passionate about. I would argue that Labaree himself contributes to the "trouble with ed schools" by excusing himself from participating in social change and remaining "in his armchair."

[Incidentally, to his credit, Labaree is the one who penned the phrase "so much intellectual fiddling while the classroom burns," which I have temporarily borrowed for my own use].

The Kids are Alright

2006-09-18T15:14:00.001-04:00

I dragged my lazy butt up to the Bronx this morning [not until about 9:30am, but still, that seems early now] to visit my former students and colleagues at school. Seriously, I don't know how I did that job for three years. After two hours in the halls and cafeteria, I was wiped out.

The first kids I saw were Chanya and Cammy, who came flying down the hallway at warp speed with their arms up in the air going MISS _____!!! WE MISSED YOUUUUUU! which was very endearing and cute and they immediately launched into a detailed account of the drama they are involved in this week, including but not limited to the new "hottie" ELA teacher [or was it math? not sure], how Tasha is STILL in their class and should have "never passed the sixth grade," and how Shantia moved away, but now Dena and Shonelle are trying to "front with them." They made it very clear that now that I am gone, "nobody listens to them!!" I am quite sure that this isn't the case--or at least that the reason they miss me is because I was a total sucker and let them bombard me with adolescent drama and doled out encouraging advice while letting them skip class--partially because it makes for good writing material and partially because I remember how NO ONE would listen to me when I was little and you feel invisible when you are in junior high. A side note... apparently Chanya was placed in the sixth grade during week one and somehow, miraculously, was promoted to seventh grade by week two. Boy she must have learned a LOT in those first four days!

Chanya and Cammy disappeared into the bathroom and along came T-Rex who is at least six feet tall now. Apparently he broke his leg this summer and couldn't play baseball and I told him "at least now you have a cool walk" because he kinda dragged his leg like he was all gangsta-ish. He said his new teacher is a man and "doesn't like him" they way I did. Which was interesting considering I spent so much of my time last year dealing with disciplining him. It's always amazing to realize when a kid has noticed that you are "dealing with them" because you care about them and not because you are just mean. Hindsight is so romantic and nostalgiac for children--they have no recollection of the bad stuff.

Nat was still in his giant sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head and the sleeves down over his hands even though it was about 95 degrees in the building,and when I went to shake his hand, I insisted he pull his sleeve off of his hand for an actual handshake and he got all bashful and shook his head no--I think I embarrased him. Jarod, who has not grown at all, stood on his tippy-toes and tried to show me how he was now my height and he kept using Orlando's shoulder to jump up in the air so he was taller. Orlando told me all about his track medals he won this summer and he shaved his head [no more braids] I suggested perhaps it made him run faster and he was thrilled with the notion that his head was now more aero-dynamic. Kenny must have hugged me six times and apologized profusely for not emailing me more often because he was too busy with his homework. I met some of the new teachers who seemed nice and overheard a story about a confiscated note talking about sixth graders f*cking. Glad to see some things are still the same...

Mostly I had to explain to my homeroom kids why I wasn't teaching anymore. I explained how I am in school now as a student and that by the time I'm done with school, they wont even be in middle school anymore [God save us if they still are], and so even if I came back to teach there, they would be in high school already. This seemed to work as an explanation but I felt guilty since I was basically lying to avoid having conversations about why I left teaching which is clearly bothering me a lot since I have been dreaming about my students constantly. I suppose I could channel this guilt into concentrating more on my work and getting involved in schools in some other capacity while I'm getting my degree, but it is ultimately sad to think that I wont have my "own" students anymore. I'll stop being such a whiner now.

After checking out my old classroom, I visited with a bunch of my girls in the sweaty sweaty lunchroom, pissed off the new "dean" at our school [where was she last year?!?!] because I caused a significant amount of chaos by walking around the cafeteria with something of an entourage of former students hanging on me. Finally, I broke up an almost-catfight, visited with MFT in her "office," chatted with my principal, and hit the road to come back to school and do my work.

And now for 50 pages of Das Kapital [thankfully, not in German].

Professional Reader

2006-09-10T23:04:00.000-04:00

The lifestyle of a graduate student could not possibly be more different than the lifestyle of a public school teacher. The lack of structure in terms of scheduling [I spend very little time actually "in class"] combined with the fact that my primary respsonsibility is to read about 500 pages every few days and there is little to no accountability insuring that I get this reading done other than my own interest in being well-educated and getting something out of my degree, makes for a very self-disciplined regiment of alternating reading for prolonged periods of time with engaging in just about every form of procrastination known to man. While I am sure that those who work in offices employ these procrastination/time-killing strategies on a near-daily basis in order to get through the day, as a teacher, I never had the opportunity to really test the limits of my time-wasting abilities. This is compounded by the fact that a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of snood.com, which is wildly reminiscent of my underdgrad experience, which featured Snood in almost direct proportions with other forms of indulgence not-appropriate-to-discuss on a blog about education. I am exercising an enormous amount of self-control in not purchasing the full Snood program, instead limiting myself to the free-trial which I sincerely hope will expire in the next day or so.

Other preferred forms of procrastination include [and I'll limit myself to the Top 10]:
1) Reading excessive accounts of current events on the internet from various perspectives and being disgusted with world affairs
2) Painting my nails
3) Sending text messages about minutia
4) iChat [which I may have to delete from my computer]
5) Adding tedious html code to my MySpace profile
6) Daydreaming about iced coffee
7) Purchasing and consuming iced coffee
8) Checking my email and thoroughly outlining aforementioned activities to my friends who work in offices
9) Watching episodes of the West Wing that I have already seen
10) Brainstorming possible ways to blog about not really doing much of interest

Additional suggestions are welcome!

You see, the real problem is not that I am disinterested in the work. In fact, I am reading books that are really very interesting and feel like the amount of information in my brain is exponentially increasing at a rate I have not experienced, well, probably since my first year as a teacher. But the fact is, that in order for me to truly retain information that I am reading, I kind of need to copy it down. And my notetaking skills are a bit on the compulsive side, so this is very time consuming. This means that my reading-rate is very slow, and I get very impatient, especially when I feel compelled to Google any term/movement/phrase that I am unclear about, or just need some more context [my Sociology days were so long ago... need some refreshers sometimes]. Then as soon as the ol' laptop gets opened up, the distraction begins.

I have been doing most of my work on campus, because being in my apartment opens up a whole new set of procrastination activitiies involving cleaning and rearranging which would probably push me below reasonable productivity levels. There is a beautiful student center with an outdoor deck which makes for a nice place to read and drink iced coffee and listen to freshman complain about their roommates and how all the boys they like are gay [which the girls are very upset about and the boys are supremely delighted] and isn't there a lot of fat in a salad when you add bleu cheese? They come and go in waves as their classes run through-out the afternoon, and I pretend I have my own outdoor office with a view of the park. I should not complain.

I am greatly looking forward to visiting my former-sixth graders at school on Wednesday, hopefully curtailing the guilt-dreams I continue to have about them on a regular basis.

And now, having participated in Procrastination Stragegies #1, 3, 4, 9, & 10, I am going back to reading Margaret Archer's "Social Origins of Educational Systems," which outlines the history of domination and assertion in the educational systems of France and England in the 18th and 19th century [sounds scintillating, no?]

Back from the West

2006-08-31T23:52:00.000-04:00

I returned this week from a two-week trip across the country. My brother and I took one week to drive from New York to Los Angeles with stops in Cleveland, Chicago, Omaha, Colorado, Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, and finally, L.A. I had reached a point where I was feeling "bored" with NYC, which is kind of ridiculous when you consider how many things there are to do here, and it quickly became apparent that there is even less to do in, say, the desert, or large parts of Nebraska and Utah. However, the trip was a perfect break from life, and after seeing the middle of the country and spending a week in L.A. and San Francisco, I came back to NY completely refreshed and ready to start school.

I have been emailing with a number of my sixth graders who gave me their email addresses in June. Little Kenny won an award at his summer program [I think I mentioned that previously... no?] and wrote to me in all capitals "I LIKE WINNING AWARDS IT IS FUN AND I CANT WAIT TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL AND I WILL SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER AND IT WILL BE GOOD TO BE IN THE SEVENTH GRADE" [I'm not sure he's processed that I'm not teaching there this fall...] Others were less enthusiastic but similarly lacking in punctuation, and sadly, lacking in all sorts of grammatical skills I thought I had instilled in them through out the school year. For the love of God, Subject-Verb agreement kiddies!! Sheniqua is very excited to be in the same class as CiCi, and one girl, who completely "hated me" all spring, has written me about four emails about summer camp and how she has organized all of her school supplies by color and written the subjects in block letters on the top, in permanent marker [something we spoke about in the fall when she wrote on her notebooks in magic marker and it stained her uniform shirt]. Strangely, a number of the students who have written me back about their summers are the ones who were not very fond of me when I was their teacher. Funny how a few months can blur the school-year into a positive experience and make you "miss your teacher."

I know I miss my kids more than I'm even aware of because they keep popping up in my dreams. Only instead of having back-to-school anxiety dreams where I arrive to the first day of school and find I have to teach 35 infants whose names I don't know with no assistance [a particular favorite from last August], I have dreams where we are all sitting in the auditorium of the school and they are with their new teacher and she is yelling at them and I want to go rescue them but they aren't mine to rescue anymore. Isn't that pathetically sad? I mean, can't I have dreams that are at least somewhat symbollic or metaphoric instead of this obvious nonsense?

I had my departmental orientation today, which I had thought was a reception, and therefore assumed that we were free to arrive at our own convenience, have a snack, meet some of our future classmates and professors, and then depart. I arrived twenty minutes after it started, only to find my future classmates and professors formally introducing themselves at a large conference table. Always good to make a first impression by showing up late! Fortunately a few others strolled in behind me so I didn't harp on my lateness for very long. I spoke with a few girls in the Masters program [Apparently there is only one other girl starting the PhD program with me, and she was not there today], and met with one of the professors who had convinced me to choose their program through a series of persuasive and charming conversations in the spring. Everyone seemed very friendly and I was relieved to already know my way around campus and have purchased most of my books which now sit ominously on my bookshelves.

I remember that as an undergrad [and also while getting my Masters] I continually bought all of the books on the syllabus and read maybe 25% of the required reading, only to sell back the books, virtually unread, for a fraction of the cost I had purchased them. This time, at the cash register, I swore to myself I would do all of the reading [or at least more than I have before] and not feel like such a jack-ass for spending all the money on books I didn't use.

I have been in touch with my colleagues from last year, and they started up the school-year today with Professional Development. The kiddies arrive on Tuesday. The staff has doubled, including a new AP and a Dean of Discipline [boy could we have used her last year], and MFT and another teacher who I have worked with since my first year in teaching are both doing out-of-classroom positions, which I think will help the school organizationally but I sure hope my principal was able to find quality teachers to replace them in the classroom. Apparently there are eight first-year teachers, and only five returning staff members from last year. I promised I'd go visit sometime in the next week or so.

I'm not sure I'll be posting again till after I visit my former students... so,
for those of you teaching, good luck next week!

Okay, I Get It.

2006-08-07T09:41:00.000-04:00

I understand that people see my leaving teaching as some sort of "cop out" or that I am abandoning my kids. Yes, I know this. I feel terribly guilty about it, as I have expressed multiple times on this blog. But in all honesty, classroom instruction is not what I'm interested in as a career. I am a decent teacher, [relative to the amount of experience I've had... I'm certainly not even remotely close to being a veteran or expert, but I've had my moments], but I am more interested in the bigger picture. I don't make any grand claims to be able to "fix public schools" in my lifetime [and I apologize if I sounded like I thought that], but I also don't think that it is fair to say that going to graduate school does not qualify you to engage in policy and reform. I don't mean that once you get a PhD you can go back to teaching grade school or middle school [or even grad school or college] but you are suddenly better at it. I have my Masters in Teaching and to be honest I don't think it did a damn thing for me except change my payscale and make my certification permanent. [On a sidenote, what that says about Teacher Certification is a whole other story....]

I'm not going back to school to learn how to be a better teacher. I also do not plan to become a principal, or I'd be getting an Administrative degree, not a research/policy PhD. I'm going back to learn how school policy works, to gain research experience in order to be able to back up policy ideas with sound research, and to learn more about the history of educational reform in order to avoid "repeating history's mistakes." Ultimately, I want to be involved in writing policy, consulting lawmakers or politicians on their policy, or headstarting educational reform programs in a major city. I find it kind of sad that some of you have left comments expressing that pursuing this as a career is essentially "a waste of time." I know that three years of teaching experience does not make me an expert, but it also doesn't mean that I am completely ignorant to the problems of public schools, or that I will not remain involved in public schools when I work on my degree.

It sounds like those who discourage getting involved in policy are suggesting that you just stay in the classroom and continue to focus on the kids you can reach as a teacher. I see incredible value in this, and my complaining about teachers was not at all meant to insult those teachers who are doing their jobs. It is definitely the case that we are left thinking "a bad teacher is better than no teacher" and that there simply aren't enough qualified teachers out there to take the place of the incompetent ones. What I don't understand is, then why is pursuing a career in educational reform where one might design a program or policy to change the "appeal" of teaching in underserved communities or work on increasing teacher retention rate with further incentives not seen as a valuable path to choose?

I realize that in this area, some of us just may have to agree to disagree--further, that if you are the kind of teacher that is out there reading other teacher's writing, or keeping your own teaching blog, and involved in educational issues, then you are probably NOT the kind of teacher who I was referring to when I spoke about incompetent teachers, so I should hope that you would realize that I wasn't trying to insult you personally, or insult the profession as a whole, but rather to insult a framework that allows inadequate teachers continue to teach with no real consequence or action taken to improve them or move them out.

My question to you is, if you agree that public schooling is in need of improvement, and if you are troubled by poor administrators and teachers, what do you propose we do to improve on these issues? I know continuing in the classroom as a teacher is obviously a great way to reach your own students, but what about the rest of the students who might not be lucky enough to have a good teacher? Shouldn't someone be addressing that situation?

In Response to The Previous Comment...

2006-08-06T01:36:00.000-04:00

Dear Chaz,

First let me say, that I think you misinterpreted my posting. I am very pro-public-school. I have never expressed support for voucher programs or even charter schools, and I fully support the efforts of public schools, having spent the last 3 years teaching in 2 very challenging inner city public schools. What I meant by my remarks about my sixth graders who attended a private school SUMMER program [on scholarship] is that it is a shame that these amazing students that I have taught do not have access to small class size or a classroom ALL THE TIME where behavior is under control merely because they are not able to afford to live in an area where the PUBLIC schools are better and that PUBLIC schools should be able to provide an environment like the one they experienced this summer. I don’t know where you teach, but the conditions in the public schools which I have taught are certainly not ideal for any student. I was not saying that all children should go to private school, but that public schools are frightfully inadequate and in need of improvement, and that this will be very apparent to students who attend a private summer program [which, btw, is designed for public school students from low-income areas as an enrichment program] who return to their public school in the fall.

Secondly, any teacher who claims that tenure is having a positive effect on the public school system is out of their mind, or has been very lucky to work with a great staff. While tenure does protect teachers against malicious and unfair principals [like my first school], it also protects inadequate, lazy, abusive, and ignorant teachers from having to do any work at all. I am not just imagining this—it is a perspective shared by the 50 or so teachers I know personally, who are teaching in hard-to-staff public schools through out NYC. Teacher tenure would be very different if the evaluation process of teachers was not so entirely superficial and subjective, and if it didn’t take insanely egregious violations of the rules in order to be fired. From what my last principal explained, you need to get three “Unsatisfactory” ratings in a row in order to be fired! That means three years of general incompetence to lose your job or face any kind of consequences! I am tired of teachers who cannot string together basic sentences, arrive to school late every day, and live by the motto of “that’s not in my contract” in order to avoid doing anything they see as a less than desirable task. In no other line of employment would an employee get away with such significant neglect to the responsibilities of their job without getting fired.

Finally, I take personal offense to the fact that you called me a “three year teacher” as if I am forsaking education for a posh job somewhere to sit on my ass and do nothing—I am not leaving teaching because I don’t like it or “can’t handle it”—I’m leaving with the intent of getting an education degree that will qualify me to work in policy and work to reform a broken public school system and plan to stay involved in public schools for the duration of my career.

I am not trying to argue with the struggles that the union goes through for quality teachers who are victims of the system, but I find it hard to believe that you have not worked with teachers who are protected by a union who do not deserve to even be called "teachers."

I don't know what a "blogroll" is but you can certainly feel free to take me off of yours.

The D.O.E. [Screwing me over from beyond]

2006-08-01T12:40:00.000-04:00

I'd like to talk for just one second about how the D.O.E. upon receiving my resignation [as per my principal's request] terminated my TransitCheck metrocard. OK yes this sounds reasonable, except for that my resignation is not effective till the first day of school, AND they are still deducting Metrocard money from my paycheck in August. Apparently, in order to get this money back, I have to GO to the D.O.E. and personally request a refund in September [but no earlier], OR, I can fax them or mail them a request [which generally means they will deny receipt for an indefinite period of time. So for the first time in 3 years, I bought a Metrocard at a machine and DAMN they have gotten more expensive! I guess I didn't really think about the cost when it was deducted from my paycheck but $24 for a weekly! Yikes.

The new job teaching Fellows in training: I'm not sure how much I can really talk about it without betraying the confidence of my students/Fellows, but suffice it to say, our conversations about race, class, ability, and gender in and out of the classroom environment have been insightful, productive, and at times, controversial. The Fellows themselves are a diverse bunch, and I am lucky enough to have a group that actually likes each other enough to have meaningful class discussions on sensitive topics without getting all worked up or angry with each other. From what I have heard, this is not the case with all of the classes this summer, so I feel very fortunate.

But frankly, this makes for boring blogging material.

I visited a few of my best and brightest 6th graders at the private summer program we helped them get in to. The visit filled me with mixed feelings of delight and rage. Delight that my favorite kiddies who had worked their butts off this year were getting access to private-quality education [not to dis on public schools, but I'm not sure how much "gets done" in the way of Social Studies and Science in any of the schools I've taught in...] and the quiet, air conditioned, small student to teacher ratio in this beautiful building... it was great! They were so happy to see us and little Kenny [who I fought tooth and nail to get in--there was a question about his academic abilities and I reassured them that whatever he lacked in writing skills he made up for with sheer enthusiasm] is a total favorite among the staff there so that makes me smile.

The rage: when these kids go back to our school in the fall, they are going to be shell-shocked. Granted, they will continue to participate in the program during after-school hours and next summer, but how is it fair that not ALL schools and ALL kids have access to this type of learning environment. Why would any teacher who could teach there ever want to teach in the Bronx at my school? And listening to the women outside pushing their strollers and saying things like "But I don't understand why Mark got us a garden house when I wanted a beach house..." that was just a bit much for me.

There is peace of mind in the fact that after middle school, those children will basically have secured entry to the high school of their choice. Which is more than I can say for the third graders I've left behind [can you tell that I'm feeling the teacher-abandonment-guilt? because I really really am]...

I've been thinking alot about my old third graders who are probably gigantic by now and are entering MIDDLE SCHOOL! I still have their baby-faces on my fridge and while I look the same [save for the increase of bags under my eyes over 3 years of teaching] they are probably a foot taller and all adolescent-ish. I wish I had a way to contact them without going to the school and running the risk of interacting with Principal Darth Vader. But I'm worried about them.

I heard that Adrian [who gave me my first true exposure to violence in the classroom when he threw a chair at another boy who "took his pencil"] is back to his old ways, terrorizing the school with his gruff voice and little chubby cheeks. I miss that kid. Liz and I spent two years trying to make things happen for him, working on his anger management skills, talking him down from temper tantrums, helping him deal with the death of his father, reminding him of the significance of his schoolwork. And all for nothing it seems. Apparently his 5th grade teacher was less than successful with dealing with him, and dismissed him as a "thug."

I say this to remind myself of the importance of bringing inspired, compassionate, and driven classroom teachers into NYC schools [which I can truly say, my class of Fellows fit this description, tenfold]. I'm beginning to think that one of my research projects is going to have to focus on the negative effects of tenure in the public school system [I never thought I'd be so anti-union, but it's happening...] and how we can truly seek out accountability for abusive, neglectful, and ignorant teachers and administrators. I have no idea how to begin, but the more I study educational theory, the more I find myself blaming teachers, despite my knowledge of how hard the job is.

Becoming "Like Them"

2006-07-12T15:30:00.000-04:00

I have dedicated this week to preparing to teach this course next week, and after about a zillion hours of reading course materials, I took a break to watch "Spanglish" with my mother. I had very low expectations for this movie, although I didn't really know anything about it except that the title seemed like it might be mildly offensive and Adam Sandler movies are generally pretty stupid [that is, post-Happy Gilmore, which I thought was hilarious when it came out]. But it is my mother's living room and I needed a break, so we watched it. And once again, I found myself thinking "isn't this just the perfect time to see a movie like this?"

The movie, to put it shortly, is about a Mexican woman and her daughter who leave Mexico for California in order to "find a better life" for the daughter. The mother puts the daughter's needs far ahead of her own, works for a wealthy white family [Tea Leone is an incredibly annoying high strung self-appointed Messiah type, and Adam Sandler is the sensitive chef-husband who deserves better, yada yada] but the reason I mention it is because the mother struggles with the desire to send her child to private school on a scholarship, because while she wants her child to succeed in "mainstream society" [i.e. dominant white middle class culture] but she does not want her daughter to lose her cultural identity and become "one of them." She says at one point that she can only see two possible outcomes: her daughter being "odd" or her daughter "becoming like them."

I think that this relates to a common misconception that teachers who come from the "dominant" culture have about the students they teach from diverse backgrounds. There tends to be this attitude that the teacher is teaching the student how to accomodate and assimilate into the dominant culture, and that this is the desirable outcome for all students, to "become like them" and be successful. This notion not only assumes that dominant white culture is superior to other cultures, but that every person "should" aspire to be a part of the dominant culture.

Furthermore, this idea of cultural superiority infers that being educated or successful is synonomous with being white or middle or upper class, and that one cannot maintain their own cultural identity and their own values and succeed in today's society. Teachers who go into teaching with these attitudes are missing the point. It should not solely be the job of the student to do all of the accomodating in the classroom in order to succeed, but rather the job of the educator [and the educational system... or even the community as a whole] to do part of the accomodating: adapting curriculum to reflect the diversity in the classroom, embracing and valuing the diversity of the students, and learning themselves, as teachers, about cultures they may have little firsthand knowledge about.

This is clearly not a "new idea." Schools and educators everywhere preach about "Multicultural Curriculums" and "Diversity in the Classroom" and on and on and on but I have to say, in my experience, the actual implementation of these ideas is total bull. Just because NYC chooses a bunch of books for classroom libraries that feature people from different parts of the world doesn't make the curriculum "multi-cultural." It is so much more than the texts and even the lesson plans. And I'm not trying to be all high and mighty and claiming to have any of the answers as to how to "teach" teachers appreciation for diversity, or even saying that I did a good job at using a multi-cultural approach to ELA in my classrooms, but my point is, if I even have a point, that the problems are so huge and systemic and complex that it makes my head spin.

I guess this is a good sign, since I am about to embark on a 5-7 year experience as someone whose job it is to think and talk and read and write and advocate these very ideas, and I am very excited to devote such a serious amount of time to it, but at the same time I am completely terrified that these ideas, while not in the least "radical" ideas, all eventually lead back to the same grander [and occasionally more radical] ideas of politics and sociology and I can't help but think that if there was actually "a solution" to problems like these, wouldn't someone have come up with it already? I hate to have a defeatist attitude like that, and obviously I don't really feel that way or I wouldn't be setting my life up to pursue educational reform as a career, but the task seems truly daunting.

I Guess I'm Not Finished Just Yet

2006-07-10T23:12:00.000-04:00

They say that "good" teachers are life-long learners. I have been doing a lot of thinking about teaching since the end of the school-year, while preparing to teach this course on diversity in the classroom, maintaining/appreciating cultural identity, educational inequity, and teaching in under-served communities. Since I will be teaching New Teachers, I have been reminiscing about my pre-service training with NYCTF, trying to put myself back in the frame of mind I was in before I started teaching, and I have to say, part of me remembers it like it was last week, the utter pit-of-your-stomach-terror of teaching for the first time, combined with the tremendous frustration of navigating the bureaucracy of the Dept of Education and the pending sense of doom combined with this great bubbling excitement that I was about to start something completely new and consuming and different and challenging like nothing I had ever done before.

I remember one of my summer professors asking us to recall the last time we actually were "taught" how to do something new. I put that in quotes because I think most educated adults become self-teachers, and don't really receive instruction on how to do new things, but rather read instruction manuals, do trial and error, follow their instinct, etc... I don't even remember what I said as a response to this professor, but this week came a very timely example of me being the learner and not the teacher.

This August, my brother and I are taking a cross-country road trip to Pasadena, California, where he is moving to pursue a new career/education in Industrial Design. I am going out there partially for the vacation, partially to help him get settled, partially to see some friends in L.A. and S.F. and then fly back to begin my new life as a grad student. The catch: the new car my brother is buying has a standard transmission, and I have only ever driven automatic cars. My first stick-shift lesson was yesterday, with my father, in a Volkswagon similar to the one my brother is buying. We went up to a local high school parking lot in my hometown and I re-lived being 16, practicing for the Road Test, struggling to make the car move smoothly instead of jolting forward and burning rubber and making unpleasant noises.

On the way to the parking lot, he was explaining what he was doing while driving--press down the clutch, shift into first gear, begin to release the clutch and when you feel it "catch" slowly begin to press the gas pedal... When the engine begins to rev quickly and the RPM starts to increase above the 20-mark, you need to shift into a higher gear... give it some gas, press the clutch, shift into second gear, release clutch, more gas... and so on and so forth. I explained to him that I was not sure I could really understand what he was saying to me without actually trying it myself [ahhhh, the value of HANDS ON LEARNING] and that I appreciated him saying it out loud, but without me either A) trying it on my own, B) seeing it in writing, or C) repeating the order of each direction, I would not really learn what he was trying to teach me.

At this point, just before I got behind the wheel, I made the connection to teaching to different learning styles and my instinct was to launch into a full blown conversation about how TIMELY this all was, and how I was going to use it as an example in the class I am teaching starting next week and how I really couldn't remember feeling this unable to do something or struggling to learn anything and it felt bad. Very very bad. But I also realized I was procrastinating in order to put off the challenge of learning.

While the lesson itself went well, after about a half an hour of circling the parking lot, driving up a small back street, turning into a gravel lot and practicing starting up on an inclined surface "without moving the gravel" {my Dad's words], I was exhausted and really wanted to stop. Part of me kept thinking "You want to learn this! You NEED to learn this or you cannot go on your trip!" and the other part of me was thinking "This is hard and I'm tired and I want to stop now because I am not good at this."

I couldn't help but think of how my students must feel when they are struggling with a concept or a skill or a text and the teacher just keeps on going and going forever and the student begins to act out or just refuses to work or goes off task or gives up and how from my point of view, it is a manageable task that the student is perfectly capable of doing, but the student doesn't feel that way and wants to stop. My Dad was fully convinced that after my first lesson I was going to drive him, on the highway [!!] to Costco so he could pick up some things and give me some real road-experience. "Hell no," was my response. Maybe next time.

The End.

2006-06-28T16:45:00.000-04:00

In approximately 1 hour and 46 minutes [ok more like exactly 1 hour and 46 minutes] I will be done with my career as a public school teacher. I've met with my principal, gotten my [very complimentary] Year End Review and my paystubs for the summer and submitted my last per-session timesheet, washed the chalkboard, packed up all the classroom books, pushed and stacked all the furniture up by the window, given away all of my teaching supplies, distributed my teacher-games to deserving kiddies, tossed half empty bottles of hand sanitizer in the trash, eaten 2 bagels for an end of year breakfast and lunch, discarded my inverted crappy umbrella which died this morning on my very last long rainy commute, and given about 48 hugs to sweaty sixth graders wishing them well.

I'm not sure that there will be much reason for me to post here anymore--I have signed a confidentiality agreement for my summer job teaching new teachers at a college and I'm not sure how to truly disguise it well enough to not "get caught" or get in some kind of privacy-related-trouble. But I'm sure at some point, perhaps after visiting my kiddies at their Summer Program or visiting my old third graders at their new charter school, I'll do a little recap. Until then, enjoy your summers, teacher folks... I know I will.

Oh, We're Gettin' There Fast

2006-06-27T21:37:00.000-04:00

It goes much faster when you are near the end. I clearly recall the day after April break, sitting in front of a calendar and counting off the weeks and "days actually teaching" and thinking "this will be here very soon" but not really believing it.

NW is inded in the Rubber Room, counting her days like the rest of us. You know it's sad, but she will probably just end up with a "U" rating and get a new job in some other shit school where she can curse out someone else's kids.

On Monday we took a very long coach bus ride up to Bear Mountain in the rain, slopped around in puddles, ate Doritos, climbed on wet monkey bars, broke up some fights with kiddies from another school, gossiped about who is dating who [ewwwwww you wouldnt believe how gross my homeroom couples are these days] and drove back very late because 2 teachers [NW's husband and our permanent sub] took a long hike up a mountain and came back an hour late. Guess that No Watch thing is contagious.

Today was game day. All day. I packed about 50 boxes of classroom library book and gave away my school supplies to MFT who said it made her very sad to see me foresaking all of my teaching goods. My homeroom played End of Year Jeopardy with categories like [am I repeating myself?] Name That Student in Our Class, How Well Do You Know Ms. ____? and Name That Teacher. They loved it. I gave away Tootsie Pops and school supplies and hand sanitizers as prizes in true teacher form.

They also filled out their Teacher Report Cards where I make them "grade me" and statistics were fairly positive. The most negative thing a handful of kiddies said is that they already knew some of the stuff we learned from 5th grade, or that I was strict because I gave detention for not wearing your uniform 3 times or not doing homework which is really not debatable. Only 2 students out of 48 claimed that I did not "care about what they thought or felt" and I know just who they are and to be quite honest, I do not care what either of them think or feel at this point so they are correct.

I signed some "Slam Books" [they still make those!!] today, gave out my "teacher email address" and broke about 4 of my fingernails off making boxes, but had a very good day. After school I went with my principal and another principal from my school to a Teacher Hiring Fair in Brooklyn and WOW it was disappointing. I spoke with some really unbelieveable morons. It made me fear for the youth of America and when the principals said "there is no way I'm attending the 'Desperation Fair' in August" I truly sympathized. While I am all for stricter hiring and firing standards, and weeding out the abusive and neglectful and ignorant teachers, I'm fairly sure there are not enough decent ones to replace them!

Tomorrow morning is our breakfast party 1st and 2nd period [my homeroom kids] and then an awards ceremony and lunch and the kidddies go home and we stay till 3 to kill time and gossip and meet with our principal and get sentimental about summertime and the days of yore.

I Heart Central Park

2006-06-23T22:22:00.000-04:00

Going to Central Park was a giant 180 from the day before. I went in determined to have a good day. I basically decided that no matter what happened, I was going to be positive and cheerful and have a fun day. And it worked! The kids had a great time at the park, and my brother came along and played sports with the kids and I watched them play basketball against another school and we ate lunch and sat in the sun and it was just great. Despite 2 tiny incidents with the NYPD and another with an art student photographer and his blonde model.

The cops were all over us. It was a little embarrassing how obvious it was. This cop on a bike sat right behind me while I watched my kids play basketball and circled the fields where our kids were sitting and eating and playing. At one point, Nat was kind of sitting on this fence and bouncing on it which made it bend and I didn't notice until the cop was telling him to get off of it. But this somehow later led to 2 cops accusing our kids of destroying a different segment of fence and how "these types of things" are what leads to schools not being allowed to return. He insisted he saw it happen with his own eyes but could not point out who did it or when they did it, and I had all the boys playing on the courts while it supposedly happened, and he says it was a boy. So whatever.

The incident that I thought was far more frustrating occurred when I noticed this lame hipster photographer talking to 2 of my boys on the court and taking their picture with his blonde model friend. I walked over, being a protective Mommy-Teacher, and asked what was going on and they said:

"Oh we are art students and it's for our portfolio."
"Well, these children are minors and their parents aren't here to consent you taking their photograph..." [still taking pictures while talking to me]
"Oh that's ok. We aren't publishing them anywhere, just keeping them for ourselves."
"I'm not really comfortable with this--they are just children and you don't have permission."
"Oh don't worry! They wont be seen by anyone."

In the meanwhile, they are asking the kids, who are all starting to come over in excitement that there is a "model" here in their midst [she was just this kind of average looking skinny girl with a lot of makeup on] and he's asking them "now I want you to look at her like you think she's really beautiful" and I'm raising my eyebrows and can NOT believe he is still taking the pictures. What a nerve! I just thought the whole thing was kind of objectifying my kids like they were worshiping this girl and it was just icky.

I eventually pulled them away and called my co-teacher who was over on the Great Lawn to tell her what happened and she was like WHAT?! and went to talk to them about it and made them promise to discard the photos and got in this whole legal argument with them. They were unbelievable and unlikable all around.

Today I told my kids that this is my last year of teaching. The morning class took it ok--they took my work email address and I collected their emails and promised to write them over the summer and visit next year. My homeroom was a little more dramatic. Sharia started clapping when I told her I was going to get my PhD, in this weird like "You Go Girl" kind of way that made me feel kinda silly. Then Wojema told me that some email addresses are "Sconex" emails? Which she explained meant that they were "fake" emails but I just looked up Sconex and it's like a high school MySpace so I have no idea what that's all about.

After work we had our staff End of Year Happy Hour uptown which led to copious staff gossip and my principal talking to me about how he wanted me to work for him in some capacity next year which I think is somewhat appealing but I'm not sure it's going to happen on my end.

Monday we are heading upstate-ish for Field Day in a park. This time I'm bringing sunscreen and keeping Nat away from the coppers.

The Teacher is Annoyed with the Pupils

2006-06-21T17:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first of 2 days of Washington DC trips for selected kids in my school. I opted not to attend either of these trips since I live too far from school to get here for 6am departure time. But many of my kids went on one day or another, and many staff members went as well, leaving behind a whole mess of chaos and coverages and class break-ups.

Yesterday, Chanya was in the hallway while I was teaching the other class, and she was tying her shoe on one knee and got slammed in the forehead with the large heavy swinging doors. She started screaming and was bleeding all over and repeating SOMEBODY HELP ME! I'M BLEEDING! and I saw 2 other teachers out there so I did not go out to help.

Later on, she was in my room crying and I hear her say to her friends "And Ms. _______ [me], she's supposed to be my closest teacher and I'm screaming and yelling for help and bleeding and she sees me and doesn't even DO anything about it."

OUCH. I felt awful. I obviously would have helped if she was not being attended to by other adults but I was teaching and she was being taken care of! She's right though, I should have helped her. Her friends were explaining to her that I was worried and couldn't leave the classroom and saw she was being helped but she wasn't having it.

Apparently there was blood EVERYWHERE. Her mother came and Chanya told me she "still loves me" but she felt all disoriented and couldn't remember anyone's names. I wasn't sure if she was being dramatic or silly but I thought she seemed genuinely confused and shocked and kept crying and saying "what's his name again? the light skinned boy who teaches the all-boys class?" and I'd tell her his name and she'd be like "I only remember like you and 3 other people." I hope she doesn't have a concussion, because that is what it sounds like to me.

I called her after school and she did go to the Dr. but he said she was fine and the memory loss would only be temporary. I am skeptical of this diagnosis. Today, Chanya is still weepy every 10 minutes and one minute she is all lovey with me "oh you called my house to check on me, thank you Ms. _______" and the next minute she's scowling because I wont let her go to the bathroom a third time before lunch. I wish there were no bathrooms in my school. Whether or not kids get to use the bathroom is basically the largest disruption to my day.

Today my co-teacher went to DC [which also meant I had to reschedule our trip to Central Park which interferes a lot with my lesson planning--now we have lost 3 days of play rehearsal b/c of kids on trips and they are supposed to perform on Friday!] and a number of kids were out so we combined BOTH of my classes and I had 32 children who were all very unhappy to be here b/c they weren't in DC and it's hot and they hate the people from the other class and I had to teach them pretty much all day long.

I am very close to bringing my own damn AC from my apartment on the train all the way here and installing it in my classroom. The heat is oppressive, we have no fans, the windowshades are broken, and some windows don't even open. And we're on the 3rd floor. I think that must constitute child abuse somehow.

I planned multiple periods of teacher-created Charades [kids were very confused, didn't understand how to act out names or titles of things and got frustrated and kept yelling out], Jeopardy [oh my god you would think I was pulling out their teeth they were so damn upset the whole game that someone was cheating or I was being unfair or they didn't get enough time to answer or blah blah blah, all over a stupid lollipop prize!], and finally, the Science teacher brought in Mad Hot Ballroom [I LOVE that movie] but it didn't work in the DVD player. And during 37.5 minutes, I tried to explain the guidelines of our Central Park trip and they were all "but I dont WANNA wear a uniform shirt" and "Why can't we go to McDonalds?" and "I want to bring my Gameboy!" and "but our other teacher lets us bring headphones!" and I basically said "If you don't like the rules, don't come." Man I am angry with them today. I feel like a stupid whiney mother "these ungrateful kids." I don't want to take them anywhere but I certainly don't want to have to TEACH them again. My brother is coming though [much to the delight of my female students who have already decided they like him] so that will make it better? Maybe?

I haven't seen NW [cursing-clockless-teacher] in a few days so I'm assuming she got fired or is at the Regional Office waiting for a final decree on her employment status. Her husband is still here but he does not make eye contact with me which is strange because we never had any interactions, negative or otherwise, regarding this situation. I guess it's like he said to our principal "You disrespect my Queen, I don't have to give you respect."

I'm SO over teaching.

Code Yellow

2006-06-16T17:21:00.000-04:00

I would normally spend a few paragraphs on the joys of Spirit Week here at school, where we have mismatched our clothing, participated in Twin Day, worn Crazy Hats, and today, put on all of our things backwards and inside out. Or maybe discuss my poor girl who got jumped after school, dragged across a parking lot, kicked in the face and stepped on, or perhaps the fire that started across the street on the way to work this morning, or the woman from the Drama program that is working at our school getting assaulted on the way to work today. But instead, I'm going to skip all that in favor of reiterating perhaps the most egregious offense I have ever seen a teacher partake in during my teaching career. And believe me, "most egregious" is saying quite a lot if you've known the staffs I've worked with for the last 3 years.

You remember clock lady, right? Or more accurately "I can't be on time to teach your children because I don't own a watch" lady? Well, I've always known she was a bad seed. Let's just call her NW, for "No Watch." But recently, I had been hearing about her being particularly mean to my homeroom. I dismissed it at first, assuming this was typical "she's mean, she doesn't like us" whining. But then I was told that she had called the girls in my class "ho's" [sp?]. This got my attention. I asked for more information from the class, who was dreading her coming to teach them the following period and I learned that she had told them to "shut the f*ck" up" and called another Social Studies teacher a "fake a$$" teacher among other things. I promised to take care of the situation. I recalled last year, when I got a school aid fired for physically pushing around my third graders. I went to my principal and mentioned the namecalling and he said "go get the girls who complained and have them write up a statement before the end of the day."

As I approached my homeroom, five minutes before I was due back to teach, I hear NW speaking loudly saying "You are like a bunch of second graders. You are going to fail my class. You belong in Special Ed." I freeze. This isn't going to be pretty. I peek my head in and there are THREE teachers in there: NW, NW's husband, who got her the job here and teaches Special Ed, and another Social Studies teacher [not Fake A$$ but the other one, a male]. NW and Mr. NW are standing in front of the room and NW is loudly preaching words of malcontent at the kids "y'all are crazy in here... you can't expect to pass if you are going to wile out like that."

"Excuse me," I say kind of meekly, "Sorry to interrupt but I need Sonya and Sharia for a moment in the hallway"
"Well isn't THAT just a coincidence. They are two of the biggest problems in this class."
"OK I will speak--"
"And your class has been OUT of control, and I think it's time that you take notice and start stepping up to the plate to take care of it."
"I just need--"
"You just come in here thinking that it's not your problem and don't even realize that your kids are in the hallway all period and they wont listen to a word I say. They listen to you, why not me?"
"The principal wanted me to take the girls--"
"I don't care about that. It's time for you to take responsibility for your problem and--"
"You do not need to yell at--"

At this point, Sonya and Sharia are at my side and my students are yelling out "Stop interrupting Ms. ______! Don't talk to her like that! Ms. _____ she's crazy! See?!" And I give them the "Hush I'll take care of it" face/gesture and they try to quiet each other down and I turn to walk out of the room with the 2 girls and NW goes "Don't you walk out of here!" and I do. Which may or may not have been the right thing to do or the professional thing to do but I'll be damned if NW is going to yell at me and not let me finish a sentence in front of my whole class. The students are all going "OHHHH she dissed you" and "deaded" and I feel a little bad but I need to explain to the girls about writing the statement.

When I re-enter the room she is still yelling. Eventually I persuade her to leave, quietly repeating "I will speak to them about their behavior." And when she leaves, I discuss the idea of composure and legitimacy to my students, and how they will be listened to and sympathized with much more easily when they calm down and speak articulately. Most of them understand this but some are just too upset.

About ten minutes later, the principal enters the room with NW [and while I'm not sure that would be the way I would have approached it, in front of the whole class with the teacher in question, that is how it was done...] and asks Sharia to explain what was the matter. She explains in detail, quite articulately although a little teary-eyed, how NW called them all hoes [ho's?] and how she said Sharia was dancing herself to hell and how she mocked Sharia's dancing from the assembly the other day saying it was like a stripper dance and how her imitation was "just wrong." And how she called the other teacher a "fake A teacher" [I love when kids omit curses all cute like that]. The principal asks NW what she has to say to this, and NW launches into a tirade on how bad the class is. He says, again, that is not what he asked her and is the information Sharia gave accurate? And NW says No it is Not. The whole class FREAKS OUT screaming YOU ARE A LIAR!!! and the principal and I calm them down but NW isn't having it. She starts to do the same thing to the principal that she did to me! She is not allowing him to speak and he keeps saying "Excuse me..." and she keeps talking over him and finally he says "We need to talk in the hallway, this conversation is over" and she WALKS OUT OF THE ROOM!! And runs down the hall away from him! Another teacher who was in the hallway said that in order for him to stop her he had to basically call out "I am your boss and you need to come talk to me now"

The kids are alright. They know it was not their fault although I did have to remind them that their behavior was a little bit out of line and that they need to stay in the classroom during Social Studies and that NW's inappropriate treatment does not mean they can be all crazy whenever me or the math teacher are not in the room.

Meanwhile, I guess Mr. NW had a little meeting with the principal because he had called some kids names when they wouldn't get on line and said "Were you raised by crackheads or something?" I'm sorry, but for two supposedly enlightened hippy rasta types they are just full of crap! I have never known such phoniness in my life! OK maybe that's an exaggaration but it makes it far worse that they claim to be all hight and mighty and zen and then are truly a$$holes. So Mr. NW tells the principal things that he wrote down on post-its and a colleague of mine saw them in the office. He said "You disrespected my Queen so I'm not going to give you respect now" and other similar remarks.

Today [this was Wednesday] the principal came in to let me know that if NW was seen anywhere near my classroom that I needed to send a student to him and have a code word. He suggested Code Yellow. I said "doesn't that seem a little suspicious?" I recommended the code be "Do you have any paper towels we can borrow?" He liked that.

If NW doesn't get fired I will have lost all faith in public schooling.

It's Fun To Stay at The...

2006-06-13T18:03:00.000-04:00

Y

M

C

A.

Marginally fun, really. It was a Girls Only Trip. [Boys stayed behind for their "Empowerment Conference"] We waited about a half an hour for the buses to arrive, MFT and I loading up the one bus that was on time with our respective Advisories and letting them get all silly in the bus. Copious fretting about bathing suits and skirt lengths and hair-do's getting wet and when we arrived, the big shocker: "You cannot wear a t-shirt or shorts over your suit in the pool."

You would think we had required them to swim naked. It was a strange mix of girls who were angry that we made them wear one-pieces or tankinis, and girls who kept their shirts firmly clamped to their bodies and opted not to swim. I remember the fear of adolescent bodies--there are so many insecurities for girls: am I too fat? too skinny? have a flat chest? have a gigantic chest? This in addition to some, um, grooming issues, that should best be discussed by their respective mothers, made for an interesting locker room scene. I was impressed with some girls abilities to be very kind and sensitive to other's needs, forming towel "shields" for others to change behind or lending a towel to a girl who was embarrassed and hadn't brought her own for the walk to the pool.

However, once they were in the water, the insecurities slowly vaporized. The confident girls went in first and the rest slowly followed, all donning neon bathing caps that they wore color-coded by Advisory Group [this was their choosing... team spirit I guess?] We were asked to watch in the Waiting Area behind a glass door which felt removed but alleviated our supervision responsibilities and let the life guards do their work. There was one mention of a girl trying to drown another girl. I think this was fictionalized but I cannot be certain.

Afterwards, we attended a fairly dull workshop which was more of a "let's listen to this guy talk and not really pay attention" and would have better serviced our girls had it been facilitated in a small group setting. I even think that having them run around on the playground for an hour might have been more valuable.

When we returned to school, we were served pizza courtesy of our principal and that was delicious except for this nasty girl who I had never had the pleasure of interacting with before was squirting water on other girls and when I intervened she told me to "get the f*ck out of [her] face" and my girls were like "oh no you did not just talk to Ms. ______ like that" and I could not get this girl to give me any respect which was frustrating and kind of ruined my day. I got over it when MFT hosted a full school game of Simon Says [teachers first, I won!] and then kiddies. I hate when a kid gets the best of me. It makes me feel tiny and immature like I'm in sixth grade again. Even when I use the line "Do you sincerely think that my feelings get hurt when sixth graders are 'mean' to me?" Because you know, that shouldn't bother me.

After dismissal, the staff met upstairs for a debriefing. Somehow we transitioned from how the day went to our principal lambasting us for lack of professionalism. He is not wrong. There has been an overwhelming feeling of "that's not my problem" going around school these days. On trips, teachers not paying attention to or cleaning up after their kids, lack of overall teamwork and neglect to our "mission" statement which sounds corny but it is true. Teachers just have this way of not pulling their weight and kind of disappearing into the background that goes relatively unnoticed by administration, or if it is noticed, it is not dealt with because quite frankly, there are no consequences for teachers! I mean, there is always the "U" rating or a letter in the file but it takes extremely egregious behaviors to merit the "U." There are empty threats but they always sound so ridiculous like we are being treated like children. It is the same thing as a behavior management system with kids--it's all smoke and mirrors. What can you really "do" to a child or a staff member who does not do what is expected of them? And in the case of staff, teachers are so frequently treated with a lack of professionalism characterized by threats of demerits and letters in files that they begin to resent the profession and become less and less likely to do what is asked of them. And at whose expense? The kids, of course.

Kids are messy. They are disorganized and flighty and silly and at times, disrespectful. But teachers are supposed to be ADULTS. We are not supposed to curse at children [complaint number 1 by principal] or be disrespectful to one another [complaint number 2] or generally shirk responsibilities that are expected in all jobs. In any other profession, if you were asked to do a mindless task that you thought was not important by your boss, you would do it. You might complain, but you would do it or else get "in trouble" or perhaps after a while, get fired. But in teaching, teachers get away with blowing off so many of their responsibilities or completing tasks long past when they are due and nothing really happens. In my old school, our principal, Darth Vader, would make your life hell if your bulletin board was a day late. This sucked. But in Darth's school, everything got done on time and nothing was overlooked. We all hated Darth, and our productivity was motivated by fear [or at least mine was] but at least things were organized. If you didn't pull your weight, you got crap for it. There were of course whole factions of the staff who were perpetually in the dog-house with Darth Vader in charge, so they pretty much didn't do anything. But us newbies, we were kept in line. I don't want my very nice principal to follow the lead of Darth and go all mean and nasty on us, but he does need to forge some kind of relationship of authority and power with his staff or else they will walk all over him.

I couldn't help but feel guilty during his speech on professionalism, paranoid perhaps that I had been guilty of not giving someone their due respect or saying something inappropriate to a child [after all, I was complimented on my subtle dissing skills just last week by Chanya...] or not communicating well with staff members, but to be honest, I think I am too guilty to not pull my weight, too OCD to let things slide, and far too controlling and impatient to leave things to other people and not pull my weight. There does come a point in the year though when you just think "Why bother bringing this up? What can happen with two weeks left?"

I'm sorry, I got home and had a bloody mary to shake off that principal chat and I think it made me a bit too chatty.

Cheers*

Jaws of Life

2006-06-10T17:16:00.000-04:00

I own a big tough bike lock. It's one of those chains that you can put on your waist while you're riding, and it's fastened by a Kryptonite lock that is known for it's ability to deter bike thieves. It's intended to resist even the strongest of bolt cutters. It is worth far more than my bicycle.

On Friday, I was out to dinner in my neighborhood, on bike, and when I went to unlock the chain from my waist, the key broke off in the lock. The chain weighs about 20 lbs. And it was not on loose enough to slide over my butt. So there I am on Clinton and Park Aves with a 20 lb. chain locked to my waist.

My friend and I biked over to the Clinton Hill/Bed-Stuy precinct. The cops were friendly, suppressing their laughter over their corny joke "now you can say you've been locked up at the precinct" but pointed out that they did not possess the tools to remove the chain from my waist and had to phone in for the Special Emergency Unit to cut the chain off using the Jaws of Life. "It might be a little painful" they warned.

The Special Emergency Unit arrived in about 10 minutes, poking a little fun at me but being pretty friendly overall. Much better experience with cops than I have had previously. They pull out a bolt cutter that is the size of my entire upper body, rev up a motor that is larger than a lawn mower, and chop the Kryptonite lock off of my waist after the second attempt. It was slightly terrifying but overall far less emotionally taxing than I had expected it to be. And then I spent the rest of the night telling and retelling my Jaws of Life story to everyone I ran in to.

This weekend I'm at my 5 year college reunion. After a full day of P.D. at the Botanical Gardens which was video taped by a CUNY grad student contingent doing research on single-gender classrooms [a little unnerving but ok overall] I took a personal day on Friday and took the train upstate to school. There has been a steady flow of alcohol and food for the last 24 hours, and we are staying in upper classman housing which is kind of nice--I am rooming with 4 of my friends and having roommates for 2 days is actually fun. I can see them setting up the big tent for our class dinner from my bedroom window.

I will only be a public school teacher for 2 and a 1/2 more weeks.

Best teaching anecdote of the week:

Chanya to Cammy during Advisory:

"When [another ELA teacher] disses you it's mad obvious and you're like OHHHHH she dissed you baaaad. But when Ms. _______ [me] disses you you're like Wait, What Did She Just Say? And you have to think about it for a minute and then you're like Oh She Did Not Just Say That! She totally dissed me!"

I laughed for five minutes. I'm so proud.

It Rains At Starbucks.

2006-06-07T21:49:00.000-04:00

I’m sitting in Starbucks. It is pouring outside, and I’m killing time while MFT attends a writing class because I am staying at her house in order to get to our full day of PD at the Botanical Gardens tomorrow without a 20 minute walk from the train in the rain. At first I was all “Stupid Starbucks and their fancy expensive drinks and pay by the hour wireless internet” but now I am more “wow that espresso is strong and damn I just completed the last 10 of 16 promotional portfolio cover sheets complete with grades for each marking period, brief narratives on Assessments, Writing, and Homework, attendance records, and statements on their emotional and behavioral progress during the school-year. I feel like a paperwork-superhero. Caffeine is ridiculous.

Today was the first annual Female Empowerment Conference at my school. The boys went to the YMCA to swim and the girls got all dressed up in professional clothing and attended 4 workshops about future careers, attending college, communicating with other females, and other such topics about growing up female in a male-dominated society. I think that the day was a tremendous success, especially when judged in comparison to most other events my school participates in which are more generally characterized as chaotic, disorganized, and disappointing. Lunch was catered. My co-teacher’s girls performed a dance during the luncheon. Two of my friends came in to present a future careers workshop in the afternoon and we talked about career options, what you do during the day in an office, and the merits of working “for profit” vs. “not for profit” and how neither is “morally superior” but how some people might choose to work in public service to make the world a better place and how it makes them feel good too, but there is less money and financial comfort in these fields than more business oriented or corporate careers. Then we played Careers Charades which was cute.

When discussing my careers since college graduation, I mentioned that I am going back to school full time next year, not really thinking about how I hadn’t told my kids that yet. Chanya and Cammy reacted strongly, which made me feel good. Chanya likes to point out to me the thing I have reiterated since January when she came into my ELA class: “Ms. ________ spends more time with me than any other student at our school because we have Advisory and ELA together.” This has proved to be great for our relationship after the initial struggle to get her to trust me and discuss her problems and drop the B.S. drama every day. She and Cammy made me promise to visit and after the workshop were writing me notes on the board that said “We Love Ms. _________” and “PS We love you A LOT” and “Ms. ________ is the best.” This made me happy because those girls can be a handful and I’m flattered that they see me as someone they can trust and come to with their problems. I always think I’m kind of a hard-ass with them because they are the types that are constantly melodramatic.

I am now at MFT’s house and need to stop typing and just cut and paste this rambling thing…

The Week of No Teaching

2006-06-06T21:25:00.000-04:00

That's right. This week I am doing absolutely no teaching. We visited the Intrepid Museum on Monday, via subway. This was an insanely large amount of walking between the closed subway station on our end and the 5 avenue and 4 block walk on the midtown end. We were very tired. Adrian and T-Rex were surprisingly among the best behaved. I think they consider going on trips to be an actual [albeit rare] privilege and therefore take the repsonsibility quite seriously, while others brought headphones and so much candy that I could practically see their teeth falling out of their heads as they stared open-mouthed at the navy fighter jets on the top deck of the ship.

We also went rock climbing on the Hangar Deck. Brianna and her long as hell legs managed to outclimb all the boys and girls. T-Rex was too afraid to go higher than 10 feet. Adrian could barely mount the first pegs on the wall. Brianna was given a "challenge climb" on the adult side and managed to scale even that on her third try. Chanya screamed like she was being murdered at five feet as soon as she looked down and then when she returned to the ground immediately insisted on going a second time. They loved it.

The planes were kinda boring [or maybe I just don't like military-type-stuff] but the control room of the ship was interesting [and smelly] and the McDonalds was a little hectic [we had to stop one kid from ordering a 20 piece chicken nugget meal. Poor buddy is probably bordering on 300 pounds already. My feet are still recovering.

Today was a half day which culminated in a pile 0f 16 promotional portfolios that need extensively detailed cover sheets. And report cards. And updating 50 cumulative records. Yawn Yawn. Is this really the kind of stuff people in offices do all day long every day? Yuck.

Tomorrow is the Female Empowerment Conference.

Thursday is a full day of PD at the Bronx Botanical Gardens.

And Friday I'm outta her for my college reunion.

Ahhh, the Week of No Teaching

After work I met with my PhD adviser and chose classes and began to get myself all worked up for grad school but the highlight of the day, by far, was watching Mad Hot Ballroom. I think watching an inspiring movie about public school kids [and I'm not talking "Dangerous Minds" or some silly thing like that which of course has its place... I do love Drumline... but a real-life story about the little ones in NYC public schools] is just what one needs in June when they are about to pull their hair out. Now, I am honestly starting to panic about the limited amount of days that I have left with my students.

I have put up my very last bulletin board [selections from our Poetry Blog], and prepared my students for their very last test [vocabulary, kinda boring] and our Poetry Performances were sweet [if you are lucky I might even send you the video file of them performing...], and some [not most] have really become little ladies and gentlemen, ready for the 7th grade. I think that when it is all over I will probably be able to look at the experience more fondly than I do in the right-now. I will say things like "those were the most important years of my life" or "those kids were really something special" or something else of equal corny-ness. And it will be partially true, I think I will miss the connections you make with the kids you really know, the ones that seek you out specifically when they have a problem and laugh at your jokes and freak out when you change your hair color every 6 weeks [ok maybe that's just me]. I started planning my End-of-Year jeopardy game which features categories like "Name that Student" with riddles about each kid, and "How Well do you Know Ms. _____?" with questions about me, as well as more academic related categories. And it made me think about how many dynamic, charismatic, and unique personalities I have in my homeroom especially. And also wonder about Melanie in Jamaica and wonder how she's doing. And what poor souls will have to deal with T-Rex and Adrian next year.

And of course, I can go visit. I will see some of my kiddies in the Summer Program they were accepted to. I also want to go visit some of my third graders who were accepted to KIPP schools starting this year. I can come back in the fall and help them out in the year two launch or [more realistically], just go by to say hello. But visiting is not the same. I know that I can't do this job for another year, at least not right now, but I bet I'm going to feel very guilty and nostalgic about it for a while.

Despite the "closure" tone of this post, it's not the last one of the year... Too many trips and events are upcoming and bound to provide some interesting writing material. I think it was just that damn movie and it's feel-good-ness.

I know what you're thinking...

2006-06-01T22:09:00.000-04:00

...she's overcompensating. Twice in one day? Yes, it's true.

I just arrived at home, at 10pm, from a long day of work. After my regular school day, I commuted to a four hour orientation for the grad course I'm teaching this summer. It was actually not as bad as it sounds--answered a lot of questions that I had about the structure of the course and the people who are teaching the course are all very well educated and interesting. I've been kind of craving discourse on educational topics lately, some kind of warm up for going back to school. I think it is going to test my abilities to remain neutral in a classroom environment full of strong personalities, some of whom I may not agree with. I am also excited to facilitate grown up discussions about topics I am passionate about.

But this is not why I decided to write.

Upon leaving orientation at 8pm, thunder and lightning were crashing all around us as we waited for the shuttle to the train station. A number of us waited for the shuttle and then the train which was apparently having mechanical issues [always nice to hear when you are on an elevated metal train during a lightning storm], and I left my iPod at home today and all I could think was that here I was stuck on a train with the person who interviewed and hired me and 3 of my new colleagues and I was wet and tired and had a long commute ahead of me. And we sat for about 15 minutes just waiting for the train to move. But the conversation was actually quite engaging and I spoke with my colleagues about PhD programs and educational research and a whole bunch of nerdy stuff. And then Mr. Magic boarded our car.

From the get-go you could tell that Mr. Magic was not your ordinary subway performer. He was loud and garish, long curly greasy hair, magic top hat, clown pantaloons, a "magic box" which he afixed to the subway pole and proceeded to get up in everyone's face with his blue magic wand [no that is not a euphemism] which most people were resistant to hold on to. First, he made a fake rodent jump out of a box that was seemingly empty. Then he came over to me and my colleagues and one of them took the wand and tapped on this "empty" bag and then he takes it and actually GRABS MY LEGS and swoops the bag underneath my legs 2 times and with a flourish, produces a pair of red thong underwear which he tosses on to my backpack which was on my lap. I do not know how to react to this. If I was not in front of my new colleagues [including the lady who hired me] I might have told the guy to f*ck off for touching me and then pretending to steal my underwear, or pushed him away or something but instead I was just stunned. Everyone was pretty embarrassed. The lady who hired me was laughing so hard she was bright red and the rest of us were just jaw-dropped.

He moves on to the guy next to me and when he taps his wand on a metal bowl, a motherf-ing bird flies out of it and onto his shoulder. All I could think was what if I happened to have severe bird phobia and had a panic attack or something? Needless to say, the entire routine was very invasive and uncomfortable and we did not give him any money in his magic top hat. Then one of my colleagues remarks "I wish we could have given him a workshop evaluation like the one we just filled out" and we giggled and I think in the end it was a bonding experience for us all, but I still feel kind of icky about that sketchy underwear on my lap.

A word of warning: if you see Mr. Magic on the train, pretend you are sleeping.

Yes.

2006-06-01T22:07:00.000-04:00

I am on my lunch break. Lately, once I get home, the mere idea of writing about work gets me all sorts of irritated and I decide to put it off and then it's suddenly a week later and I haven't written. All with only 3.5 weeks to go!

My new classroom attitude is to just say Yes to everything.
Can I go to the bathroom?
Yes.
Can I get some water?
Yes.
Can I go get tissue for my nose?
Sure.
Can I go ask Mr. ____ something?
Yes, go for it.
Can I go ask Ms. ______ for the Math homework?
Yes indeed you can.
Can I punch Adrian?
Please do, thank you.

It has made my life easier and while I'm sure this philosophy would not have been a good idea in say, March, it is working wonders for late May/early June. Just go do what you gotta do and make it snappy.

We had a "fake" fire drill today. I know, fire drills are supposed to be "fake" since they are not real fires. But this time, there was no drill scheduled and no principals in the building and the alarm goes off and we all slowly leave only to be yelled at to come back in. I'm sorry, but isnt the idea of a FIRE ALARM to alert us of a potential emergency? What if it was a real fire? If it was, wouldnt it be unscheduled?

It is very warm here at work. No AC, no fans, no working windowshades, and we are on the third floor of an old, poorly ventilated building.

We are practicing our Poetry Performances for this Friday, and then we will launch a brief Readers Theatre unit where my classes will perform skits from Louis Sachar's "Sideways Stories from Wayside School." I got it online from Aaron Shepard's Reader's Theatre site... I can get you a link if yer interested.

The morale is low here. We are hot, cranky, and they are about to close our subway stop for construction "until further notice" which means we will have to walk about 12 blocks from the train and leave earlier for work each day.

Next week is teaching-free with a trip to the Intrepid, a half day and full day of professional development [the latter of which we will be at the Botanical Gardens all day, nice!] a Female Empowerment Conference, and my personal day to go to my 5 year [!!] college reunion.

There are impatient eyes looking at me to use this computer, so until next time...

Dear Blog,

2006-05-24T18:19:00.000-04:00

I am sorry that I have been neglecting you, but lately it seems like everything I have to write, I have already written. Which is fitting, since I am in the final five weeks of my kiddie-teaching career, but nonetheless, I feel guilty.

We have been going on lots of trips lately, today to the Hall of Science, and yesterday to the YMCA. I have brought the crazies with me on both trips, and it has actually gone fairly well. At the Y we had a morning of playing on the Y playground, swings, slides, I even organized a game of kickball which was pretty great. There was a minor incident where one girl stole another girl's lunchables, but overall, smooth sailing. Adrian gave me such an impressive performance that afternoon that I gave him a trip slip for the Hall of Science, and again he impressed me!

We had a strict bus driver for today's trip and he kept the kids in check, even when they were battling by singing every hip hop song released between now and 2004. I remained positive all day, even when there was a lot of chaos and the kids got a little whacky with racing each other homeroom vs. homeroom while we were eating lunch outside. The ice cream truck man gave me free ice cream for "being a teacher" and then asked if I had a boyfriend and how old I was and "d@mn girl you look too young to be a teacher" and when I explained I was 27 [when the hell did that happen, btw?] he held up his t-shirt with his ice cream man phone number on it and said "girl you should call me." My co-teacher suggested it was not a bad deal--free ice cream! And a man with a car and a job. It does sound like a sweet summer boyfriend, no? I thanked him for the chocolate crunch Mr. Softee cone and went on my way to judge the races.

T-Rex even joined us, and I sat with him on the bus and talked about baseball and how he should play for high school but first he had to get to high school... he seems to understand that, and asked about his progress and I explained what we had left for the year as far as assignments. He will probably get a better grade than a 36, which was his last report card grade, but I can't imagine him passing. It will be very sad and challenging to leave him behind so he will be 14 in 6th grade and even more gigantic. Poor buddy.

When we returned to school, the students who had stayed behind because they had forgotten money or trip slips had gotten themselves into a bit of trouble. Apparently they had ransacked the classroom they were in all day with the sub, and rifled through a teacher's desk and were accused of stealing magazines. They steadfastly denied this and the 2 kids who "told" on them are not the trustworthy type [one is the girl who stole from me all through the fall] so I do feel badly for them but seriously, I have no problem imagining the madness that ensued with the 12 kids left behind from 4 trips in the building, all in one room, with nothing really planned as far as teaching goes. I think they will probably work harder to get their act together for our next trip, no?

In other news, I was hired to teach a grad-level class this summer, for new teachers. While I'm not sure I'll be able to write about it, given that new teachers are web savvy and I don't know how well I can camoflauge it and still keep it interesting, it does mean that I'm not done teaching for good... It also means that I will not be a complete bum this summer, and with that an a job as an "Online T.A." [read=grading papers from home for a professor], I think I'm set for employment with minimal commitment.

MFT and I calculated that there are technically only 15 "teaching days" left this year, when you consider how there are trips and PD days and conferences and the like. That sounds entirely manageable, dontcha think?

I'm Sicka Being Nice to all Y'all

2006-05-17T18:38:00.000-04:00

While Sonya was forced to give a public apology to me during lunch in front of the whole school [which she did quite sincerely], the rest of the school was all "Sonya that's WHACK, you don't disrespect Ms. _______, she's cool." That made me feel all "teaching is a great job."

Then after lunch Anna was convinced that she needed to fight a girl named Xayvia from another class. [I know, what the hell kind of name spelling is that?!] and I told her to take a seat and not leave the room and take a few deep breaths and calm down." But she was all riled up and went to her locker to get out a skull cap and tie it on her head and I am standing right next to her asking her to take it off and realizing that she must be tying it on her head to protect her hair during a fight. I'm waiting for her to get out the vaseline for her face and she starts cursing in this crazy high pitched voice:

"I'm sicka being nice to all y'all n*ggas and I'm not gonna play no more!" and she keeps repeating it in an increasingly high pitched voice, with some subtle variations like "I'm sicka being f*cking nice to this whole motherf*cking class, y'all n*ggas gotta give some respect" and I'm just sitting there going "Anna... Anna... Anna..." in a calm tone of voice like she is not freaking out and scaring the hell out of all of us.

Then our school aid takes her into the hall [upon my request] and the whole class wants to watch her through the tiny a$s window in the door and I threaten to cancel yet another field trip if they don't sit down and write their damn poetry. I win.

Tomorrow I am hosting 1/2 day of detention while my good kids and my co-teacher's good kids go see Akeelah and the Bee. I am quite jealous, having planned this trip and then having cancelled it for my kids and my co-teacher is still going. I wish I could just take a sick day and go to the movies by myself.

We counted today: 29 days of school remaining, 9 of which are either trips, 1/2 days, professional development days, or me taking a personal day to go upstate to my college reunion. Nice!

FWB

2006-05-16T21:39:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know, it's been a long time since I've written. I'm sorry, but this "F*cking White B*tch" has been busy. Indeed, that is what I was called this morning by my favorite MySpace meanie-pants Sonya. It wasn't to my face or anything, more at the classroom door which she was pounding on because I wouldn't let anyone in to drop off their things before they went to gym, which they were already late for. I called her out on it, calmly, after watching her run in fear down the hallway with her two friends Jenny and Brianna. She flat out denied it and my principal did all the disciplining for me. I got Jenny and Brianna to corroborate my end of the story and that was that. No Sonya for the day and apparently she is getting suspended [!!] and has to do a public apology [!!] We'll see about that. Personally, I just wanted to make her cry.

Seriously though, in the countdown to freedom, which sounds not unlike a GW Bush platitude, I have been suffering from severe allergies, taken sick days for a fever [which was somehow a result of the allergies], watched an excessive amount of West Wing, planned a few field trips and cancelled some others [bad experience on the 2 train with my homeroom acting like crazy-pants whackos and throwing their garbage on the platform out the open train doors, sticking limbs out of the train while it was in motion, cursing at strangers, blah blah]. Needless to say we will not be taking the subway again.

In other news, little Kenny has continued to both delight and aggravate me. I feel like if I cannot handle Kenny, I no longer deserve to be a teacher. This morning he came to me, wide eyed and eager:
"Ms. ______ I have a science question!"
"Yes Kenny?"
"OK, so if Maaaars is moving, and it's spinning kinda fast, does that effect the wind on Earth?"
"I'm sorry Kenny, can you say that again?"
[He repeats]
"You know Kenny, I really don't know. You should ask the Science teacher that one..."

He also decided it would be a clever idea to SING his last poem when he shared it with the class. It was a poem about rain. He sang most of the words while my class took painful measures not to laugh at him. I was impressed with their composure really.

In poetry, we are having quite a good time, putting together recitations of poems that sound like rhymes and songs, which the kids have taken quite kindly to, singing and rapping and making beats on the desks with their palms. It's impressive. We have also started our own poetry blogs online which they LOVE doing and I'd post the link but it uses all their names and our school's name too so no can do. One poem, while very sad and telling, was really kind of moving and I'll post it here before I go watch tv and do a last count-up on "Countdown to Freedom."

MY DREAMS, By Brandon

People ask me what are your dreams
my dream is to become the worlds'
greatest baseball player ever to live
and my dad always says shutup
you fool and I get mad and when
ever I say the Yankees are going to lose
he tells me to shut up and get out.

people ask me what are your dreams
my dream is to become the best WWE
superstar and my dad always says you
fool do you want to get killed
so then I say STOP TELLING ME WHAT I CAN'T DO!
And after that I get a beating and he will say
it's because I can't fight.

people ask me what your my dreams
my dream us to be what ever my dreams
tell's me when I grow up and my dad says that's my
boy!

Mind you, I spoke to the guidance counselor and the principal about the poem, as we are mandated reporters of child abuse, and it turns out he is ok ["ok" being a relative term for his situation I suppose] but I was so impressed with his ability to use poetry as an avenue of expression and while he is not one of my kids who generally succeeds in ELA, he really just "gets it." The other kids left him great comments on the poem. Blogging at school. Sweet.

The Spring Grinder

2006-05-04T21:30:00.000-04:00

Tonight was our school's Spring Formal. MFT was the primary organizer, and she and I and another teacher stayed after school to set up the massive amount of snacks and ziti and soda and helium balloons in the gym. We had a DJ come in to play radio-edits of hip hop and slow-jams and we all got jazzed up in our dance shoes and party dresses. But the children, they truly blew our minds. In addition to the three piece suits, pinstriped blazers, baby blue and pink ties, ball gowns, baby phat coats and sunglasses, mega high heels, halter tops, cleavage boosting, wedding/prom frilly get-ups, I have some spectacular footage of little Kenny doing some two-step by himself on the gym floor, Chanya gyrating like she was trying to shake a whole lotta water off of her body with out a towel, Laquan in a pimp-daddy black and white striped suit with white patent leather shoes and gold buckles battling with a kid half his size, and the Incredible Hulk looking like a 30 year old man posing with teachers in a black suit and red-on-red tie and dress shirt. The kids had a blast, and while they managed not to grind on each other too much, there was a lot of shaking and vibrating that might have been mistaken for epileptic seizures were there no music in the background. I don't know how they learned to dance like that but they are good at it and it's kinda yucky. I would post those videos somewhere but I fear they'd end up on YouTube and I'd end up in jail. Sorry...

We also had a Shakespeare-for-kids performance at our school today which was colorful and lively and mostly enjoyable but it did go on a little long at the end and some of the kids got restless and whiney. It was great to hear other's analyses of A Midsummer Night's Dream and the themes and lessons of love and life. It didn't help that our Parent Coordinator fell asleep three times and the kids all saw her and she said "I can't help it--It was boring!" Very mature.

I did very little actual teaching this week between an excessively lengthy three part assessment we had to administer to our kids and these plays and this group of actors that are coming in weekly to do community building and advisory-type stuff with our kids through dramatic arts. It made it feel like June. In time, in time...

Tasha is a Poet

2006-05-03T18:19:00.000-04:00

Things have been busy as the 8 and 1/2 week countdown continues... My kids have been decent, with the exception of the 37.5 minute crew who are off the chain. Brandon is closely resembling Joey Pigza in the book we are reading Joey Pigza Swallowed a Key. Jim kicks all of the furniture and runs to the window or the door screaming FIGHT whenever he hears a loud noise [even when it is his own foot, kicking the chair]. Brandon felt Tasha's breasts the other day right in front of me and then looked at me wide-eyed to see if I noticed. I had to pull him in the hall and discuss inappropriate touching while he spazzed out and couldn't stand still. Ally stole 6 dry erase markers and 2 post it pads from the classroom. Stevie blew spitballs at the girls. They are all sharing books so they cannot concentrate in such close proximity. Joey Pigza would be proud.

Highlight of the past week:

New Sub allowed Tasha to check her MySpace account on his laptop, a move of such utter naivety that I was unable to react appropriately when she told me about it. She pranced into the staff room during one of my preps and wandered over to New Sub saying "You are my favorite teacher, and you did me a favor that NO other teacher would do for me" and he was kind of teasing her about blackmailing him in exchange for good clasroom behavior and I finally asked the question: "What did you do for her? When he explained I was like "Oh really? You are right. No other teacher would do that for you Tasha." I refrained from explaining the fact that Sonya had produced her Sex Poem from MySpace just a day earlier.

However, to New Sub's credit, he then proceded to have the most pleasant intellectual conversation with Tasha that I have ever witnessed her engaged in. He was pulling up poetry on his laptop and having her read it aloud and discussing the meaning of each poem. He ran the gamet from silly poems to Shakespeare, and she was quite eloquent in her delivery and analysis, despite the fact that she is, at best, on a 4th grade reading level. She spoke in a tone foreign to the Tasha most teachers are familiar with and I swear she went a whole half of an hour without sucking her teeth or rolling her eyes. So maybe letting her check MySpace was worth it. I cannot wait to look her up...

My co-teacher and I [she has them for Math] are planning about 6 field trips between now and June 28th. We are going to the Museum of TV & Radio, the movies [Akeelah and the Bee, if we can find a d@mn theatre that plays it before 1pm], the Hall of Science, the Intrepid, the Botanical Gardens, and I think one or two others. I do not want to spend one full week in the building before the year's end.

In other good news, Melanie is officially discharged, and T-Rex, in an act from above, has "turned over a new leaf." You see, we have started a Junior Knicks basketball league and each participant is required to fill out a progress report, daily, monitoring their behavior and academic performance. T-Rex knows he's totally f*cked without my approval. So he is actually doing his work, and remaining relatively calm throughout the periods I see him. He usually falls off at the end and does some ridiculous thing like run out of the room honking like a donkey. But for the most part he is respectful and under control. In essence, I love the Junior Knicks, and I have just learned that my 37.5 minute terror boys Brandon, Jim, Richard, and Stevie, are all participants! Just need to get a box on that progress report for that class period and we are all set. Anyone have an official "days left of school" count that has taken into account the clerical and PD days?

Get Outta My Space.

2006-04-25T20:39:00.000-04:00

Sonya has found MySpace. And apparently she found a lovely poem on it called "Why Sex is Like Math" and then passed it around to my homeroom. On the 2nd day of our poetry unit, I suppose I should be proud? I confiscated it from Adrian. He put his head in his hands and said "f*ck." I knew I had gotten a good one.

Here is the text of this phenomenal piece of literature:

S*X IS A TEMPTATION
CAUSED BY A SENSATION
WHEN A MAN PUTS HIS DICTATION
IN A WOMAN'S VENTILATION
DO YOU GET MY CONVERSATION?
OR DO YOU NEED A DEMONSTRATION?

SKY IS BLUE
WATER IS WET
I'LL MAKE YOU C*M
I'LL MAKE YOU SWEAT
PRESSED AGAINST MY BODY
MOVIN UP AND DOWN
SLOWLY BUT FIRMLY
WE WILL MOVE THE GROUND

S*X IS EVIL
S*X IS A GAME
ONE NIGHT OF PASSION
NINE MONTHS OF PAIN
BABY'S A BASTARD
FATHERS A GIT
ALL BECAUSE THE CONDOM SPLIT!

S*X IS LIKE MATH
YOU SUBTRACT THE CLOTHES
ADD THE BED
DIVIDE THE LEGS
AND HOPE YOU DONT MULTIPLY!

ROSES ARE RED
GRASS IS GREEN
OPEN YOUR LEGS
AND I'LL FILL YOU WITH CREAM

HICKERY DICKERY DOC
DIS B*TCH WAS SUCKIN MY C*CK
THE CLOCK STRUCK TWO
I DUMPED MY GOO
AND DUMPED HER AT DA END OF THE BLOCK!!!

S*X IS GOOD
S*X IS FINE
DOGGY STYLE OR 69
JUST FOR FUN
OR GETTING PAID
EVERYONE LIKES GETTING LAID

S*X IS EVIL
S*X IS A SIN
SINS ARE FORGIVEN
SO STICK IT IN!!!

Underneath, there were a number of statistics involving the amount of calories involved when you participate in various sexual acts. Then a curious point system with variables like "soft or hard?" and "rough or gentle? [rough means it hurts]."

I have no further comment.

Brief Political Insert:

2006-04-24T22:47:00.000-04:00

I'm doing some volunteer work for a candidate in the Democratic Senate Primary this fall. His name is Jonathan Tasini and he's running against Hillary on the anti-war, pro-labor ticket. I have done some work on his Education Platform, and published an education position paper ,here on the Tasini for New York website... You should check it out! [Unfortunately, I am registered as an Independent, so I am unable to vote for him myself... but you should!!]

It's Not Even Interesting

2006-04-24T17:48:00.000-04:00

Coming back to work today was on the painful side. It's not that the kids were so awful [they kinda were] or that the wake up time so obscene [it definitely was] but more that there is just no progress at our school [there just isn't]. Almost immediately we resumed the chaos from when we left 2 weeks ago. The gym was locked [now can you tell me why on earth the aid who is in charge of bringing the kids up from breakfast to morning line up every day would not have a gym door key? Because he does not.

So we sat in the halls for 15 minutes and a fight broke out.

Mostly the kids were just not in the mood to be there and the classroom was freezing and everyone kept falling asleep. But we started our poetry unit [the most interesting unit of the year, for sure] and "Bud, Not Buddy" by Christopher Paul Curtis who I think is an excellent children's author.

Melanie was not here, as promised. I did not take this to mean she was in Jamaica till I was in the secretary's office and Melanie called from Jamaica so her mother could confirm her arrival and discharge. I still want those discharge papers in my mailbox before I relax about it.

I think Cheerleading might be finito. The girls cant seem to drag their lazy butts to practice and I'm not really in the mood to make them. I had them all take a letter home confirming their participation and if I don't get a good response, I'm calling it quits and doing per session work for my principal. Really easy administrative stuff that I will relish after a long day of teaching and is well worth the money.

Top 5 Songs of April Break [that's for you, B]

Warning Siren Tiefschwarz [featuring Matty from the Rapture]
Easy Love MSTRKRFT [this was free on iTunes for a bit...]
At Last I Am Born Morrissey
Animal Battle Saliva Slingers [remixed by Joseph Francis Machine]
Tokyo The Debutantes

I'll leave you with an excerpt from a rap called "Pencil" written by a girl in my homeroom:

it doesn't have a back
it doesn't have a back
it doesn't have a back to the pencil the pencil

when it's time for a test
when it's time for a test
your gonna need a pencil a pencil a pencil
a P-E-N
a C-I-L

a pencil a pencil

[there are more verses but I'll spare you]

Peanut Butter Jelly with a Baseball Bat

2006-04-13T11:48:00.000-04:00

They managed to maintain their mostly endearing qualities through out a long and painful trip to the Bronx Zoo. MFT and I shared a big yellow bus, our two homerooms "battling" with freestyle rhymes to try and "dis" the other class. [Note: I feel compelled to put words like battle and dis in quotes to avoid sounding like a really lame white person which I'm pretty sure succeeds in doing the exact opposite] I'm pretty sure Sariah is going to be a professional diva someday--she led the group with the rap she made up for our class in December, while my class kept the beat and danced in the background.

A sampling [with the name of my school deleted]:

"When we walking down the street,
people wanna meet us.
Even blind people on the bus,
notice us.
We got knowledge
We go to college
Yellow shirt, blue shirt
You don't see no dirt
'cause we _____ everyday
We gonna stay that way"

Then we moved on to the strangely appealing Peanut Butter Jelly song which got everyone pretty riled up and loud. MFT and I got them to sing Row Row Row Your Boat in a round, and they sang their own interpretations of The Wheels on the Bus. But the "battle" got a little crazy when they started quoting songs and slapping the bus seats to beats from songs which they changed the words to in order to insult each other. By the time we arrived at the zoo, I was confident that my homeroom is superior [although MFT's homeroom is mostly my Advisory girls, so I like them too].

I was hoping to take my group off on my own, with Chanya's mom [one-eyed-scary-lady] as a chaperone, and avoid the masses of other kids from our schools. But our parent coordinator somehow caught my class up with 2 other classes and I was stuck in the chaos all day.

A brief sampling of events from our trip:

1) Despite directions on the entrance sign to "World of Darkness" that indicated a 1:3 adult to student ratio, a mandatory volume control [these animals are particularly sensitive to sound and vibration], and an extreme darkness warning, our 3 classes charged inside, virtually unsupervised, and began to scream at the top of their lungs, running like mad through the 100 yard pitch black hallway filled with bat exhibits. It was bright enough outside that you couldn't really see anything inside at all and there we are trying to "chaperone." Most of them ran through at lightning speed while others had to be rescued afterwards, lingering in the corners of the bat windows. I could swear I saw 2 of our kids making out in a corner.

2) The Woman With No Time [new teacher] was taking her kids around asking them to pick up samplings of nature, including flowers, rocks, dirt, and twigs. One of her boys pulled up a bamboo shoot and like 10 of them stole daffodils. Isn't the park a nature preserve? I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to take the nature home with you. I mean, what's next? "Honey, go get one of those mice from the Mouse House... They wont notice one missing, and we can analyze its bone structure when we return to class!"

3) Chanya's Mom threw a tantrum [truly, she stomped her feet and clenched her fists] because we didn't go to the butterfly house because it cost money and our kids spent all their cash on junk food for lunch. "But I. Wanna. Go. To. The. Butterfly. House." I had to take her aside and say "We cannot go to the Butterfly House because not all of the children have money left over and it has to be fair for everyone." She pouted for the rest of the trip.

4) Brandon spilled hot chocolate. On a baby. No joke. He was horsing around with Laquan and then tripped and spilled it on a baby. I was not there for this, and it's a good thing because I might have killed him.

5) In the Reptile House, we saw a giant snake, probably a Boa Constricter? This boy Jesse was banging on the glass like a moron. I don't know him very well, save for stupid things like that that I see him do in the hallways sometimes. I went up to him and said "Haven't you ever seen Harry Potter, Jesse?" "Uh, yeah." I raise my eyebrows at him. "How are you certain that I don't have magical powers that will vaporize this thick window of glass and send you tumbling inside to chill with the boa?" "You don't have magical powers. Whatever." But he stopped. I think I made him a little afraid.

Be back in approximately 12 days when my vacation is over and the 9 week countdown to the end of the year begins.

Alert: Positive Sentiments About Teaching To Follow

2006-04-11T17:19:00.000-04:00

Tuesdays always start off wonderfully with MFT and I in the gym playing games with our advisory. In the absence of any equipment but a kickball, we decided to play... you guessed it! Kickball. I was amazed, if not alarmed how few kids knew the rules. Having spent a significant portion of my childhood in the street playing kickball or on a baseball diamond trying not to get my a$$ kicked by mean boys who wanted to pitch at my head because I was a girl, I knew the rules of baseball/kickball/stickball/softball by just about the 1st grade. I'm not sure our kids actually do anything in gym other than sit around or play double dutch. The boys and girls take gym separately and I think only the boys play any real organized sports. Consequently, the game was a hilarious disaster. We had a few boys playing with us since 2 teachers were out and the boys begged. They were helpful in reminding the girls not to run the wrong way on the bases. Most of the girls thought you had to slam the ball down on the base to get someone out, that you could reverse the direction of base-running to score a run, or that you could actually "lap" someone on the bases and pass them by, if they were running too slow. We played one-out innings and they really liked it. I'm going to suggest a rotating regiment of that and capture the flag for the remaining Tuesdays of the year. MFT wants us to be our school's gym teachers next year... I think I'd consider foregoing my PhD to be partnered with MFT as an all-girls gym teacher. I love it.

When I started off with my homeroom, preparing for the TV Newscast presentations they were doing, the day seemed like it might be headed down the tubes... Kenny, the preciously nerdy boy who plays the recorder and speaks in long long vowels, had worked very hard on his 1-2-3 Local News sign for his desk, and while he is very bright, he is not the best artist. Sonya, the little meanie-face that she is, and her evil partner Adrian [a boy with as many pairs of Converse as evil tendencies] say to Kenny "Your sign is ugly--we want to use this one instead," and grab his sign. Kenny is shocked and goes to grab his sign back and they start taunting him and Sonya crumples the sign up and then gives it to Adrian who runs across the room. Kenny gets up, crying and bright red, and starts chasing Adrian who is shrieking like a girl. I intervene and take the crumpled sign and pull Sonya into the hall and I'm so angry that I want to just step on her. "You are just so unbelievably MEAN!" I say. "He stabbed me with a pencil" she lies. "Sonya, I saw the whole thing. Don't even bother lying to me. Furthermore, do not expect to come with us to the Bronx Zoo tomorrow, and plan to spend your lunch period drafting a public apology to Kenny." "Whatever, I don't wanna go on that stank trip anyway." "Excellent, it's settled then. Send Adrian out here to speak with me." I have roughly the same chat with Adrian. We go to lunch, planning to present our TV Newscasts after lunch, with the principal in attendance.

Let me tell you, these kiddies blew my mind with their presentations. In something of a gift from above, the Superintendent appears in my classroom with the principal to watch the presentations and take pictures. They were both grinning ear to ear at the cuteness of my students, many of whom were dressed "professionally" in full-out suits and skirts and heels. Sariah did a celebrity interview with Josh, who played "Jay-Z." Laquan sang his group's theme song "This is the Gheeeeeettto News at Five." Brianna interviewed Donna posing as Keyshia Cole [admission: I had to google that to figure out who the hell she was] and Brianna goes "Come on Keyshia, don't you wanna sing us a line from your hit single?" and Donna is mortified and shakes her head no. "C'mon Keyshia, we're on LIVE TV" says Brianna. The class was in hysterics. Jenny was interviewed as Tyra Banks and was asked to demonstrate her famous catwalk strut, which she did quite eagerly. Other students included rather professional deliveries of various local and world news, including Brandon who was decked out in a full suit and tie and gave a weather forecast that included high/lo temps and cold/warm fronts for the next ten days.

It was amazing to see them go above and beyond what I expected of them, and gives me confidence that my Readers' Theatre unit planned for June might just actually work. Even my other class, which I expected to be a total disaster, pulled off pretty good presentations. They were less comical and creative, but they were not disastrous in the least. T-Rex and Melanie even took part! Melanie had her whole local news transcript written out for me in neat cursive writing and was afraid I'd be disappointed that she was not professionally dressed. I handed out the April Break HW assignment since we are on a trip to the Zoo tomorrow and Melanie reminded me that she would not be returning after break so she didn't need one. I gave it to her, just in case...

I plan to only leave Adrian and Sonya behind tomorrow for the trip [unless there is some kind of special "Mean Kids" version of a Bronx Zoo field trip where you get to dangle them over the lion cage and watch them squirm...] I seem to recall the last time I wrote a positive teaching-is-inspirational kind of entry, the kids came back like whackadoos the next day and shattered my delusions of grandeur, but I'm hoping for the best, and after vacation is our poetry unit which will undoubtedly provide endless writing material.

My Only Hope...

2006-04-10T18:51:00.000-04:00

...is that on Wednesday, when we take our whole school on a field trip to the Bronx Zoo, as we pass by the grizzly bear pens, I can toss in T-Rex and pretend like nothing happened. [Not that I would ever be stupid enough to take T-Rex on a field trip...]

Just last week he said to me, in disbelief "Ms. _______, I'm taller than you!"

[The hilarity of this comment should be apparent since my nickname for him is T-Rex and I am only 5'2"]

I have really had it with the whole damn school. Even cheerleading has become a pain in the a$$--attendance is low, most likely because we did not practice last week since there was choir dress rehearsal, and also because I'm a horrid b*tch by 3pm after 37.5 minutes with the crazies and a full day of teaching and sometimes I am just not the friendliest coach for the first 15 minutes of practice]. So only 6 girls showed up today. And I had a video camera, courtesy of MFT, which I video taped their dance to MIA and played it back for them on my iBook and it was very cute. They are totally embarrassed to see themselves dance. Tomorrow morning we are having an emergency Cheerleading Meeting to discuss whether the squad will continue and I swear if they don't, I'm taking the $54 we made at our bakesale and buying myself a giant bottle of vodka.

Making a big decision about grad school this week--a choice between a better school with no funding, and a still pretty-good school with a sweet fellowship offer. I think my fear of collassal and eternal debt will have to override my romanticized views of the ivy league.

All I Said At Work Today

2006-04-05T18:03:00.000-04:00

"No, you may not use the bathroom"
"No, you may not go get water"
"No, you may not go to your locker"
"I told you that once you destroyed and lost the tenth hall pass I made with my OWN supplies, that you would no longer be leaving the room..."
"I do not want to hear an excuse about why your homework isnt done"
"I need everyone's attention so that I can give the directions"
"I'm waiting... I'm waiting..."
"I'm not going to speak while you're speaking"
"I need you to take a seat"
"Please raise your hand before speaking"
"I cannot hear _____ because others are being disrespectful"
"I do not have extra pencils or pens"
"You need to come to school prepared with your own supplies"
"No, Ricky, I do not smell a fire in the hallway"***

***{So that last one... there actually was a fire in the stairwell. Did the fire alarms go off? No. Did I believe Ricky? No. He sticks his head in to ask about candy and cookies and goblins on a fairly regular basis so the "fire" question seemed like "boy who cried wolf" to me}.

I have to wonder what the school-report-card-people will say. They rated my last school very highly which was a farce. Only we maintained the illusion of order at my old school because my principal was a tyrant. She was able to make the school seem successful based on fear and intimidation. Here, we rely primarily on chaos theory and the laws of gravity and motion... a Murphy's Law kind of attitude.

The one grand success was with the Eternally-Late-I-Have-No-Watch lady... Ten minutes before she was supposed to cover my class, I sent a post-it to her room with a child saying "Just wanted to give you a heads-up... You are scheduled to cover my class in 10 minutes, at 12:20. Thanks!" And it worked. She was on time, and I thanked her and said "I'll be back at 1, when class ends." She actually thanked me for being helpful. Interesting.

In 37.5 minutes, Brian was not in attendance because he tried to stab a kid with a thumbtack during 8th period. Tasha may or may not be "in love," something detected by MFT and I as a possible reason for her cheeriness. Yesterday, whilst Melanie was mocking me in the hallway [ohhh that pissed me off], Tasha says "Melanie, just fucking go to class, dammmnnnn, girl. You got some attitude and Ms. ______ never did nothing to you." Despite the foul language I was quite grateful to have her on my side. Melanie, of course, did not go to class regardless.

I Need to See the Commander in Chief

2006-04-03T17:50:00.000-04:00

I have just suffered from some sort of lapse in consciousness in which my brain and body were replaced by some other, more refined, and less socially conscious being... During this lapse, this other person transported my body from the train to Banana Republic, using the rationalization of "you got out of work early because cheerleading was cancelled... you need to kill time before your second job!" and bought a stripey shirt on clearance for $13.99... Then, as if this creature had not exerted enough control over my life, it dragged me across the street to a warm and pleasantly lit coffee shop called "Starbucks" where it claimed "You can use their internet and their bathroom and not pay a dime!" but little did it know that I cannot resist the smell of chocolate and coffee combined and somehow I ended up buying a Vanilla Latte. The people there seemed irritated that I did not title my drink size appropriately and I didn't use their internet after all and the bathroom was pretty rank...

Suddenly, when back on the sidewalk, I snapped into consciousness again and then chastised myself for about 15 minutes on the evils of Coffee Empires and Sweat Shop Labor and I tried not to enjoy the latte [or the espresso brownie, but that was really hard to ignore]. Working in Chelsea is no joke. It's no wonder they produce so many yuppies over here.

I dressed very business-y today and prepared myself to inform my principal of two clear declarations:

1) If Melanie is not removed from my room/our school by the end of the week, I am calling either ACS or filing a grievance with the UFT.

2) I am not coming back next year, because I'm going back to school at Teachers College. Full time. And any work that I do will not be with children. At least not for a while.

Instead, I was a wussy-face and hemmed and hawed about the Melanie thing ["she'll be on a plane to Jamaica by April 18th" and "we transferred her but her parents refused" were the statements]. I'll return to the grievance threat if she's not gone when I get back from April break. Which is going to happen, I'm 99% sure of it.

The folks who do "School Report Cards" are coming to our school in the near future to "grade" us. It is not going to be pretty. I'd mention the site but I don't want any google action to lead them here...

Scorer #318

2006-03-31T15:59:00.000-05:00

From this point forward I would like to be addressed as Scorer #318, my new identity according to the Department of Education, for whom I scored 6th Grade NYS Math Tests all day Thursday and Friday. To be accurate, I actually only spent approximately 3.5 hours of the 13 hours doing any real semblance of work. This is not because I was lazy but because the Regional people in my region are so grossly incompetent that we did not have the materials, space, or instruction necessary to work for the majority of the time we were there. Upon entering the school that my region was assigned to for grading, we were given an index card with our name, training room #, scoring group letter, and lunch group number and told to proceed to the school cafeteria for breakfast, which consisted of bagels tasting the way I imagine the styrofoam plates they were served on tasted as well as corn muffins which they ran out of before I could grab one, pineapple/orange juice which I avoided, and coffee which tasted similar to turpentine with sugar.

When my colleague and I, who signed in together and therefore were placed in the same room, arrived at our initial room [rooms were numbered not according to the actual room number, but with seemingly random signs -- our room which was 631, was actually on the 4th floor in room #421, next to regionally named room 645 which was actually room #423, or something like that]. We were in a science room of sorts. There were an estimated 25 plants in planters, 6 fishtanks with assorted tropical fish, and a bunny rabbit chewing celery blockaded in the corner. There was no desk space and about 10 chairs for 20 people. We sat there for an hour before anyone addressed us and then were told that we would be moving rooms since this wasn't "ideal" for training or grading.

We moved on to a regular classroom, where we waited another 45 minutes for training materials and then were asked to give up our training materials since the Region didn't have enough. Our trainer refused to have us do that. Then we were moved to another room for grading, where we were given a "table leader" and waited yet another hour for tests to grade. By this time, it was 11:30am [over 3 hours after we arrived] and the first lunch group was sent to lunch. Our lunch came late because Lunch Group 1 ate all the Regional lunch and they had to make more nasty sandwiches for us.

We got pizza instead and drank giant sodas and enjoyed the sunshiney sidewalk, noting the chicken slaughterhouse down the road where there were hundreds of chickens in cages, squawking, and vowing to become vegetarians as soon as possible.

The afternoon was only 2 hours long although they did require us to work the 37.5 minutes [the loudspeaker announcement threatened to "tattle" on anyone who left before 3:17.5pm].

Today was even worse, as we completed all of our grading by 11am and were told we should remain in the building "or else" in order to be trained on "Quality Control" [never happened] and fill out "Reflection" surveys on how this test scoring could inform our teaching.

Overall the tests were pretty poor--kids needed to find the area of someone's yard given the length of the sides and some would write things like "If you add up the numbers you get 120 but I think that the man would need like 50 seeds for his yard since 120 is a big number." One kid drew little boxes on the page that looked like "1 unit" to him and then counted them up and said "when I filled it out it was 97 units and I'm guessing that each unit needs a seed so that is how many seeds I would buy at the store." All the kids actually needed to do was take the measurements of each side and multiply to find the area. Woops.

The biggest debate was over a question about perimeter that asked you to draw a rectangle on a grid with a certain perimeter and explain the lengths of each side. Some scorers thought you should get a point just for having a rectangular shape on the grid but my table maintained that you should know the shape of a rectangle in kindergarten and should not get points for shape recognition alone.

Note to Scorer #121: learn how to fill in a godd*mn scantron bubble. It's not that hard.

But the grand finale to the two day Scoring-Fun was my trainride home today in which 2 girls who looked like they were in eigth grade, one of whom was carrying a baby, got in a screaming fight with a man who was clearly a little bit crazy and unstable on the train who was carrying a bike with no seat and one wheel and screaming about nonsense and Jesus. Somehow the fight escalated into a "you're not my Mama" [Crazy Guy] and a "F*ck you at least I'm somebody's Mama" [8th grader]. The whole train got involved:

High School Boys: Yo man here's $2, chill out.

8th Grade Girls: He needs that cash to get himself a job, yo. Shut up we don't wanna hear your a$$ shoutin all day long.

Crazy Person: Bless your soul child your baby needs a real Mama

8GG: Sh*t I'll f*ck you up my baby has a good Mama your Mama didn't raise you right

CP: I bet you don't even know your baby's Daddy name

8GG: I'll slap the sh*t outta you you f*ckin bum I know my baby Daddy name is Lashawn Davis so f*ck you motherf*cker

Rest of the train: Ohhhhh dis, that bum dissed you girl

CP: I pity your child how old are you girl?

At this point the Crazy Person throws the $2 he was given at the girl and says"I think you need this more than I do"

Rest of the train: That bum gave you money girl! You must feel cheap now!

Lots of hooting and hollering and banging on the seats, me and my new best friend--the women next to me--are muttering about how we cannot believe this is actually happening. A man in a business suit gets up to leave the train...

Man in suit: Girl I came from a place like where you are now and look at me now I own my own company and girl, who you trying to dis on in your godd*mn pajamas on the train carryin' a baby around when you like 14 years old. I bet this man here [referring to Crazy Person] has a better future in store for him than you do, disrespecting strangers like you all Queen Sheeba. Shut your mouth and give the rest of us a rest.

Applause, hooting, laughing

Crazy Person leaves train and 8th grade girl tears up the $2 and throws it at the closing train doors, cursing loudly at him.

8th Grade Girl: Sh*t let's get off this train dawgs, this sh*t is rank, I'm out.

Girls leave train, and the rest of us sit, laughing, wondering what the hell just happened.

End Scene [and week].

Flava Flav

2006-03-29T17:59:00.000-05:00

Melanie is back. In good form, but still, I can't imagine this will last long. I have had many students who were "moving away" indefinitely, but none that were legally obliged to leave so we will have to see what happens. According to the principal, they are "working on it."

My real gripe today was with one of our new staff members who is very late to cover my class every single time she has them. And I continue to ask her to be on time and she says "I don't have a watch." I'm sorry, but how old are you? You don't have a watch? Then go buy one! So I reply "Well that is not really my responsibility to get you a watch. You need a classroom clock." She says "Until someone gets me a watch or clock I wont be on time." And I say "Well there is a schedule, and right now I am entitled to my prep time so you are going to need to figure out a way to be here at the time you are supposed to." But she insists "I have only been here two weeks. Don't you care? I don't even know when I'm supposed to be here." And she keeps laughing in this way that makes me want to hit her or something. She is this laid back Zen-type person that really couldn't be more opposite of me and I thought it was clear that I didn't think it was funny but she seemed to think it was "beyond her control" to be on time. So I retaliated in the most childlike fashion I could think of. I tattled on her to the principal. He was incredulous that she was being so irresponsible and immature and said he will handle it. We'll see about that. It has been suggested by some of my more clever friends that I buy her a ridiculous neon watch, or a large clock to hang around her neck, a la Flava Flav. Give it a week, I just might...

Dear Tasha,

2006-03-28T19:03:00.000-05:00

Yo Tasha I am very serious about going out with you I want to go out with you because you are the girl I want to be with my whole life and If I go-out with an other girl I will love you more than her and you are very sexy and you will be my one-true love and if--

***

What was I thinking confiscating this note before Brian finished writing it?! I had no idea he was a love-letter-writer but apparently he has written many this year, and usually while other teachers have been teaching and caught him. This prompted Jarod to really embarrass the poor boy and tell me all the girls that have been the subjects of these letters. I especially like how he really followed the RAFT response format that we taught for ELA test prep... Creating a thesis and then backing it up with a "because" statement. I'm so proud.

Then Jarod tried to give me a hug and Brian was like "he is always trying to hug all of the teachers he has a crush on." I had to pry myself out of his grips.

No Melanie today. Cross your fingers.

Stay tuned for excerpts from the fantastic Editorials my class wrote this week.

She's Baaaaaaack

2006-03-27T18:07:00.000-05:00

This morning in the gym I was [not really] surprised to see Melanie, in line with her class, sporting new braided extensions, looking suspiciously happy and in full uniform. I gave her my best good morning smile and then went to the Parent Coordinator and the Principal and made my discontent very apparent.Their responses:

"I don't know, she's just here..."
"I guess this is for the best--Jamaica wouldn't have helped her."
"I mean, she is supposed to be at another school but what was I supposed to do?"
"I'm sure she will be on her best behavior, she is very scared of those girls who are after her."
"Don't' worry, she probably wont leave your classroom today; she's too scared."

Um, thanks. All I need is for the additional concern of her being sexually assaulted by boys or physically attacked by girls when she flees my room because she's not in the mood to participate in the shared reading. And then I'm liable. I am going to give it 2 days to be resolved and then I'm threatening to call ACS or the UFT myself. I'm so sick of this incompetence. Mel was fine in class today, mostly because I treated her like an angel and felt a lot of sympathy for her, which I normally do until she turns all demon-lady on me.

We worked on laptops today for the first time, comparing and contrasting the websites for the major NY newspapers [Times, Daily News, Post] and talking about the priorities that different newspapers put on different kinds of news. It was actually a pretty intellectual conversation and the kids were into it because I let them play around with video clips afterwards.

The funniest part of my day was when I went to the teacher's cafeteria [shared by all 4 schools] to pop some popcorn, and a teacher from the upper grades was exiting as I was entering. As she held open the door she looked at me kind of skeptically and said "Wait, are you a teacher?" to which I replied "Yeeeeees..." And a number of other staff members started laughing [none of whom I knew because it was during the 8th grade lunch period]. Apparently she thought I was a student! I'm sorry, but I may look young but not like middle school kid from the Bronx young. On many many levels.
This happened once before when I was entering the staff bathroom on the first floor and I kind of brushed it off thinking that she maybe thought I was a visitor to the school and not a staff member.

We are planning a Spring Formal for May. It is going to be heeeeee-larious. I can't wait.

Fin.

2006-03-24T17:41:00.000-05:00

As it turns out, the story about the girl who had sex with between 5 and 9 boys is far worse than I thought. To begin with, Melanie finally confessed to our Parent Teacher coordinator that she did not willfully have sex with these boys, but was forced. Now first of all let me say that this makes me want to die inside. I can picture her all antagonistic and goading them on "Yeah I'll do it, watch me! I don't f*cking care!" and then suddenly finding herself in a house with big grown boys and not being able to get out of it. It makes me incredibly sad and sick to my stomach. Her parents seem to think that it's "her fault" for not being in school and are not being supportive. The police, who came to school to find and possibly prosecute the older boys, say she needs to switch to a detention center for girls like Melanie who need much more help than a public school can give her. But instead, her parents, who are already involved in trials with ACS [children's services] decided that they are just going to ship her off to Jamaica back to her mother who is very sick. You would think that since they completely don't give a crap about her they would relish the idea of her going to a detention center but I guess they want to rid themselves of the legal ACS issues so they are just having her leave the country. And poof, just like that, there will be no more Melanie. I feel like I should have some sense of relief, since Melanie is literally the only student I've ever had that I just cannot seem to win over no matter what I do. And now I won't have to deal with her anymore. But instead I just feel tremendous guilt and sadness that she will grow up unloved and all f*cked up with no prospects and no-one to help her become a trusting and productive person who functions in society. It is totally depressing.

After learning that news I thought for sure the day was going to be awful. And while T-Rex pulled his general shenanigans [laying on the table squawking like a chicken, trying to trip a teacher from another school in the hallway while we were all at the bathroom, breaking people's pencils] and Class From Hell was typically annoying, my homeroom filled me with great happiness today in a very old-school I-Like-Teaching kind of way I haven't felt in a while. First of all, they are writing fantastic editorial articles about the president sucking, school lunch being unacceptable quality, unfair school policies like No-Cell-Phones, metal detectors making them feel like criminals, and on and on... I edited all 50 essays today and got them back to both classes which was more work than I've done in ages.

I also complimented my homeroom on their respectful and considerate behavior this week, mostly because they were very sensitive to the fact that I was having a bad week since they knew I was out last week for a funeral, and they kept saying things like "Be nice! We like Ms. ______, let's give her a break" and that just made me feel like all my hard work trying to earn their respect had paid off. They clapped when I complimented them. And I sent them off for the weekend with a smile on my face, which is a welcome change.

"I've got the same shirt on for two days in a row..."

2006-03-22T18:06:00.001-05:00

I got to work an hour late today because of a transit incident [you really aren't allowed to do that in a school]. Had to teach the Class From Hell for three periods and while T-Rex had made a solemn promise to behave [his birthday is on Saturday and the threats loom for no presents and party at home], and was in uniform, he was only partially able to keep it together. We started off on a decent foot but Mel just had to ruin it and I was calm but in such a lousy quiet mood that she had to be really out there to get under my skin. She actually said "Ms. _____ you are NOBODY. Nobody cares about anything you have to say at all," which for some reason really upset me far more than any other crazy crap she's done because you know that means someone at home says that to her. By the time it was lunch I was just feeling like I wanted to walk out of the building and if MFT doesn't get back from Jury Duty soon I swear I'm going to quit.

But then I had my homeroom--and cross your fingers because I'm on a prep between 2 periods of teaching them--they were sweet and cute. They did their work and were being pleasant and calm and Adrien was a little silly today because I guess some eighth graders tried to steal his shoes in the stairwell on the way up from lunch and he was upset. They were slip-on checkered Converse [combined, he and I own more Converse than anyone I know]. So a few kids in the class kept looking at him and kind of smiling while he was reading aloud from SLAM and finally he looks up and pauses and says "Ms. ______, is there something wrong with me?" and I burst out laughing and turned kinda red and was like "What? Why?" and he said "People keep looking at me and laughing," and my other kids explained it was about the shoes and we all giggled and I told them they were awesome and that they cheered me up today and then I left them for a period with the new sub so we'll see how that goes in about 15 minutes.

The sub was 10 minutes late so I was hovering in the doorway with my laptop over my shoulder and about 15 kids from the older-kids school came flying up the stairs with their hoods pulled over their faces so the cameras couldn't ID them and they were pounding on the walls and shouting and I was actually afraid and closed my door and hid inside the room. Being scared of eighth graders is not a good feeling. The building is out of control. Right now while I'm hiding in the staff room on my laptop with the lights off there is a constant screaming sound reverberating off the walls and I'm hoping no one asks me to ID the kids who were yelling and pounding because to be quite honest I don't want them to jump me after school or something.

forty minutes later...

While my students weren't able to "behave" last period persae, I am both pleased and frightened to report that the regular schoolday is almost over, and I am in the staff room again, "locked in" by our principal because apparently we have gone into "lock-down" mode and all students and teachers are staying put while they do security sweeps of the building. Technically, 37.5 minutes is supposed to start now, but I guess it is postponed till this drama is over. Lots of walkie talkie static and security, a lot of yelling and stomping, and I have no clue what is going on although I suspect it relates to the stampeding gangs of eighth graders from earlier today. But I'm locked in with my iBook so I'm not going to complain. Oh and I forgot, Kenny brought his "recorder" to class today. He is taking music as an elective. He played it in class and I almost died of embarrassment for him.

Work, work, work.

HUH HUH, HE SAID "COT"

2006-03-20T19:39:00.000-05:00

The boys in my 37.5 minutes cannot get over the use of the word "cot" in the book we are reading. In Holes, the boys sleep on cots at Camp Green Lake. Apparently this word sounds far too much like the word "cock" for them to handle reading it aloud. Today they talked about a cot that smelled too bad to go near, and how no one would want to share their cot with anyone. Imagine the hysterics. Brian also taped those little stickie post-it things they make with colored tabs for use as dividers or bookmarks all over his face and on every fingertip as "fake nails" until I swear I almost picked him up and tossed him out the window.

I was out for a few days last week and I missed our field trip to Madame Tussauds [they still got to go with out me, thankfully] and didn't get to give them the pizza party that they had almost earned with 100% uniforms every day that week. But I have no real way of knowing if they maintained the 100% when I was out so I told them one more day and then I'd get the pizza by Friday. Then they were pretty much all around jerks today, which is unusual for my homeroom, and I wished I had never promised them any pizza because quite frankly it's expensive and I don't want to pay for it. My principal mentioned he would bankroll the party for us but I bet he's forgotten.

The real thing I missed is that one of my girls apparently had sex with anywhere between five and eight eighth graders from the school we are housed in. That fact alone is totally f*cked up but I guess she also "threw some juice" on an eigth grade girl [somehow this is related, I'm not sure how] and about a dozen eighth graders tried to hunt her down all day Thursday because they wanted to kill her. I don't doubt that they actually planned on killing her. The parent coordinator shuffled her around from class to class to protect/hide her and she has not showed up for school since Thursday. They even got her stepmother up to school [I didn't even really know she had a stepmother] and they are discussing switching her to another school which makes me sad [another school will not help her, unless it's a school for other girls with her kinds of problems] and secretly, guiltily relieved. Girls like her need so much more help than a school like mine can give her. Or any school for that matter. It makes me sad in a sick to my stomach the world is totally f*cked kind of way.

[Incidentally I have no idea when I started censoring out curses in here--what's up with that?]

My Favorite Teacher is at jury duty this week and I swear if she doesn't come back soon I'm going to have to quit.

My School is a Sh*thole

2006-03-13T18:41:00.001-05:00

I know you aren’t supposed to say things like that about buildings filled with children, but seriously. It’s the truth. First of all, the building actually is falling apart. There is a hole in the floor of my classroom, the desks are all broken, the chairs are missing feet so they wobble and tip over when kids put them up on two legs [which is probably how they came to miss their feet to begin with]. There are no shades in the windows so it’s like an oven when it’s sunny out, there is no AC in 95% of the classrooms, and the building is generally filthy—lots of food garbage, spilled drinks, the occasional unidentified puddle that may or may not be a body fluid. It’s totally rank.

It’s been fairly lowkey with T-rex outta the building for a few days on suspension, and Melanie was out on Friday for her meeting with child services I think. She is truly the bane of my existence these days. On Thursday she spent a good half of an hour screaming in the classroom “MISS _____ I NEED TO USE THE BATHROOM” over and over while I ignored her, having already explained that she could use the bathroom when she finished her work, and she ultimately walked out of the room and when she returned was all “I ain’t goin’ to no f*ckin’ detention. I HATE all the f*ckin’ teachers in this place they all can kiss my a$$,” and I just pretended I didn’t hear her. We have a new Parent Coordinator who wants to help out and she is really great but I don’t think she understands the scope of Mel’s family, whom I have yet to speak with or even try to call after hearing some bad stories.

Friday when T-rex and Melanie were both out their classmates were so excited to have a day without them that they kept calling me over and saying “See! We are a good class! It’s Mel and T-rex that ruin it! It’s no fair, they are the worst.” And of course they are right. Somehow Mel and T-rex are able to incite riots in the classroom with their electric presence.

In other news, one of the boys in my homeroom, Jarod, appears to have a crush on me. He’s a nice kid, really. Use to be one of my favorites back in September before he started getting a little bit show-offy and dancing a lot. I started to call him Disco around December when he kept dancing in the halls after lunch. Last Wednesday it was “Hey Ms. ______ how you doin?” My response “Um… good morning?”[see red-hair reactions from last week]. Then on Thursday it was “Good morning, Ms. ______” all putting his arm around my shoulder and grinning. This led into “Hey Ms. ______ I’m almost as tall as you now!” to which I explained “Yes, Jarod I bet you’ll be about a foot taller than me by the time you hit 8th grade.” He grins. “But I could be three inches taller by tomorrow,” I add on. “How can you do that?” “Tall shoes,” I say.

Friday I was wearing boots and Jarod took this to mean that I had dressed up for him “Morning, Ms. _____! You wore heels for me today!”

The rest of the class seems to think this is hilarious, mostly because I give him such entirely puzzled looks of mock horror whenever he walks over to me that I must look appalled by the entire thing. I can only fear for his female classmates once he’s in high school.

Was there something in the breakfast cereal?

2006-03-08T18:21:00.001-05:00

Before school started there were two gigantic fights where our parent teacher coordinator was kicked in the head and our assistant teacher was thrown on the floor. T-Rex was included, as well as The Incredible Hulk child who is like 14. Then, our new substitute comes in to teach social studies for my kids. And I get them all settled and threaten them with no field trip [we are going to Madame Tussauds next week after the Big Math Test], and I leave to go check email and learn that I got into one of my preferred grad school choices [nice!] and then see Nat and Laquan in the hallway in front of the principal's office where they have apparently been sent because they got in a fight IN the room. I can't imagine how that happened. They sit nowhere near each other. Apparently, Laquan threw Nat's pencil out the window [nice one] and then they f*cked up the room bigtime. I was really disappointed in them. And kind of shocked. There has NEVER been a fight on my watch in either class and I am not about to let it start now in March.

All six boys who fought today got three days suspension which is not the norm--but I think by the time my boys fought, and in the classroom no less, he was just pissed. They will be out of the building till Tuesday.

My very cherry red hair which I dyed last night produced a variety of super enthusiastic remarks including but not limited to:

What happened to your hair?
Did you get a perm?
You look beautiful.
Hey there lady, how you dooooin? [think Joey from friends]
You look pretty, Ms ______
Is your hair red?
You dyed your hair!
Oh my gawwwwd you look like a punk!

This was very different than the third graders who would flip out and not understand why I had to change. Ever.

I just got back from giving a lecture on essay structure to one of the college classes at my night job. Some of them were incredibly inquisitive and asked questions about paraphrasing and format and attribution while others preferred to talk the whole time and think I could not hear them. The essay topic was interesting--analyzing the paradoxical relationship between American freedom after the Revolutionary War and the rise of slavery. Basically the idea that Americans "bought" their independence by oppressing a whole race of people. Talking about grown up ideas as a teacher! I love it.

Retraction:

2006-03-07T17:20:00.001-05:00

What I said yesterday, about how children are rejuvenating and inspiring? I guess I should have mentioned I had been out at happy hour beforehand and perhaps my enthusiasm was for the beer and not the kids. Because today, those mother f-ers proved me wrong.

I started my day rather unusually, having prepared a thermos of hot chocolate for my early preps only to find there was no hot chocolate powder in it. I have since checked, and the empty wrapper for the mix is in my kitchen garbage, and I clearly recall putting powder in the thermos last night to, you know, streamline my early wake-up-and-leave process. But somehow the water and the milk made the chocolate disappear. This was upsetting, as Cammy, who I met over the summer and wrote about even back then, and who is in my advisory, came into my classroom crying 1st period, just as I was about to settle down and grade some Fairy Tales and drink my hot-water/milk-no-chocolate. [OK I was actually going to go to the teacher's lounge and check my email but whatever]. "Do you have a minute?" she asked. Of course I have a minute. I mean, Gmail isn't going anywhere. We talked for 40 minutes. I do not think I was able to help her out at all but she seems to be having problems with girls picking on her and trashtalking her and it's so strange because she is totally likeable and pretty and seems like one of the "popular girls" and I know she can trashtalk right back at these girls but they are winning. They hate her. And I know why.

Cammy has the fantastic talent of knowing how to "turn off" her attitude when talking to adults. She can be in the middle of a knock down drag out screaming match and turn to you and in the sweetest voice say "Ms. ______ so-and-so is really hurting my feelings" and the teacher is like "So-and-so is that true?" and the other girl is all "Mother f-er I don't give a sh!t what the...." and who does the adult side with? Cammy. This pisses the others off to no end. And she knows it. I guess it is kind of unfair but it is natural for a teacher to want to talk to the kid who is calm and mature and not the screamy-meanie-face.

Cammy told me all about her family in Jamaica and her puppy Sparkle-something and how popular she was in elementary school in Jamaica and she had a "crew" who would "bust some heads" if she asked them to. I guess she is lacking that here and she kept crying and talking about how she had no friends and it hurts so bad that she cries every night. So I tried to recall for her my elementary days with my mean gym teacher and the girls who used to torture me every day and how I wanted to stay home sick every day from school or just read in the girl's bathroom and how once I went to middle school I met new girls who were nicer [actually, they weren't much nicer... I didn't really meet anyone nice till high school] and how things will change even if she doesn't feel like they will. But then she got upset about how she misses her mother and how when her mother sent her to the Bronx she wasn't told it was a "one way ticket" and now it had been 3 years and she hates it here. I just felt like that adult who wants to be like "I promise when you are older this will all seem unimportant" but that is honestly the crappiest thing you can say to a kid so I tried to brainstorm ideas for "better friends" for her and that might have helped so she calmed down and went to class 2nd period.

Later I saw the boy whose mother was killed by a drunk driver 2 weekends ago and I almost started crying--for two days now he has been wearing a shirt in memorium of his mother, all these pictures of her and rest in peace and her name and birthdate. He is just the sweetest kid and I wanted to hug him and put him in my pocket and take him to Disney World but instead I said "We missed you while you were gone! That is a really great shirt--I'm sure your mom would be really proud to see you wearing it." And he thanked me and hugged me [awwww] and went to lunch.

So those are the sad kids. They are not the ones who prompted the Retraction. It was my Class From Hell [CFH]. CFH was out of their minds today. They had apparently had a great morning for their other teachers which is usually the kiss of death. No class has a good day all day. I couldn't get them to start their work and almost immediately everyone wanted to go to the bathroom. T-Rex [I am SO pleased with this nickname], Melanie, Chanya, Danny, and Eli almost forced me to tie them to their chairs. T-Rex stole people's supplies and broke them, Mel left the room three times and then cursed at me in Patois, Danny threw at least 20 paper balls at Mel and Eli, T-Rex got out of his seat [I think he's grown--must be over 6 feet by now] a dozen times to bother people all over the room, and I remained calm. But when you have Mel leaving the room and no visible consequences, the others are like "Why can't we leave the room? No fair!" I explained that Mel was having detention with me tomorrow after school, and last period today, and at lunch the next day. But when Melanie hears this from Chanya she's all "I'm not going to no stupid detention, whatever!" and I whisper, "Well, you can think that all you'd like, but you will be there. And it is going to be wonderful." I don't know why I provoked her like that because that prompted the third walk-out. I locked the door behind her and she banged on it for 15 minutes before I came to the door and said "You may come back in, but when you are in my classroom, you need to obey my rules." She was like "OK I will, I promise." And she did. But this was only because there were 15 minutes left in the period and she thought she could get out of last period detention with me.

Instead, I gave up my last prep, sat and tortured her with boring what-are-we-going-to-do-to-fix-this-problem talk. She hates it. She has had these talks since 2nd grade and they do not phase her. Or more accurately, they phase her for about 15 minutes and then she's back to normal. The deal is, she keeps it together for the 3 morning periods I have with CFH tomorrow morning, she gets out of lunch detention. But she still has after school detention [because let's face it, do I want to give up my lunch? not really].

Then, to top it off, Brian in the 37.5 minutes actually pushed me out of his way to try and chase this other kid and I was really pissed but almost like "why didn't you push me harder so I could go home?" and said to him "you just made a really big mistake, Brian" and got the principal and he was removed from my room. I'm 99% sure nothing will happen to him for pushing me.

How fast does light move?

2006-03-06T22:17:00.000-05:00

At Community Circle this morning, little Kenny comes up to me with a frantic look on his face:

"Which is faster, Ms. _______, the speed of light or the speed of sound?"
"Light travels faster. Think about a thunderstorm--first you see lightning, then you hear thunder afterwards. The lightning is actually what makes the crashing noise, only since the light travels faster, you see it before you hear the sound it makes."
"Oh OK I think I get it! Can you excuse me for a second?"

Except that when he talks he kind of drags some of his words out like he has an accent, but he doesn't. [i.e. the speed of liiiiiight or the speed of souuuuund?" It is very rhythmic but makes the class a little impatient when he reads aloud or volunteers in class.

After our chat, Kenny runs across the gym to find his friend and using wild gesticulations, he explains to his friend that his teacher [you know, the one who knows everything] explained the speed of light and sound to him and how he KNEW he was right about which was faster.

The large smelly boy in the class from hell has brought in an air freshener which he puts on the windowsill all day. I don't know if this was his idea or his homeroom teacher's idea, but T-Rex of course had to remark today "Yo S_____, that air freshener aint workin.' Take a shower already!" and people laughed and it was painful. But seriously, does he take showers? We met his grandfather at P/T conferences and he was pretty smelly too. Maybe it's a genetic thing.

In my afternoon class, Jarod had an embarrassing moment when he was reading SLAM aloud and came to the name Ducky and accidentally said Dicky and the class lost their shit. They could not get it back together. Kara, this girl who sits next to him and is usually incredibly quiet was the most hysterical and kept kind of mumbling "he said Dicky haaaaaa" until I finally was like "Are you OK?" and she got a little frightened and quieted down.

The latest with my dramatic ladies in that class is that they have all discovered the joy of puberty and are very proudly asking me to use the bathroom because they are "on their period" and of course half the time they are lying [I swear I'm going to start keeping a calendar of cycles to catch them in a lie] and I can't really say that they can't go because if they aren't lying then that's just cruel. Tricky girls. Then they need to go to the nurse and borrow tampons from her or whatever and it takes forEVER for them to return to class.

I have to say though, [because I rarely do] that I really do love working with kids [50% of the time]. There is something rejuvenating about it and making kids laugh, that is just the best. Sometimes when I leave work, I walk along side some of my students who are headed towards the train [who are probably very embarrassed about this]. Today, I passed a group of older kids who were smoking pot and blew it in my face, and I overheard a sweet girl in my homeroom say something about "going to juvi for life" and I said "Oh no! You are going to juvi for life?!" and she was like "No, Ms. _____, I was just playin'" and I kind of teased her about silly things she could have done wrong to go to juvi like not doing her homework and she was all "Ms. ____ you can't go to juvi for life for not doing your homework!" "Really? You can't?" They giggled for 2 blocks. And I got on the train remembering that kids are very funny and all their immaturity during class is appropriate because they are supposed to be immature.

Lastly, blogger added keyboard shortcuts for html text code which is really f-ing sweet [hence new enthusiasm with italics in this post].

Who do you go out wid?

2006-03-04T12:35:00.000-05:00

Unfinished note confiscated on Friday:

Who do you go out wid Tisha?
What do you mean?
Who is your boyfriend des if you have one
I don't have one.
I'm so surprise. ask stephanie is she found one sence she broke up with richard?
nope, she doesn't.

They are no longer phased when I take these notes. I doubt they imagine me sitting at home typing them up and posting them on the internet, but the fact that they have these secret love lives is fascinating to me.

Friday was a day of girl drama in both of my classes. First, Melanie LOST her shit in my classroom. She was marching around the room and refusing to take a test [which she ended up getting an 85 on so I don't know what the hell her problem was] and then we did our group poster presentations about news media and she got right over my shoulder to try and read my gradebook and I said very sternly "You need to get your nose out of my face right. now." And she said "WHATEVER FUCK THAT SHIT!" and stormed out of the room. I no longer try to block her from leaving because it's a waste of my time and I know that lunch detention with me is like the worst possible torture for her. So she came back after being found by another teacher and escorted to my doorway and when I informed the class that the four students whose names were on the board for behavior issues would be spending our Friday Game Time writing me sincere apology letters explaining why their behavior was unacceptable or else they would be spending their lunch period with me, they actually managed to pull it together and write the letters. Mel and T-Rex are naturals at the apology letter thing, probably having written them since kindergarten. They know exactly what to say even though it is a load of crap. And honestly I should have given them the lunch detention anyway because the letters don't really mean anything but I have only 1 prep on Fridays and really wanted to have my lunch kid-free. The other two girls were having some serious problems writing me a letter that didn't include things like I DONT KNOW WHY IM IN TROUBLE. I DIDNT DO NOTHING. YOU ALWAYS PICK ON ME AND ITS NOT MY FAULT. WHY DONT YOU GET OTHER PEOPLE IN TROUBLE? IM SORRY BUT ALSO I DIDNT DO ANYTHING WRONG BUT I DONT WANT LUNCH DETENTION. I made them write and rewrite until I got a letter that at least 'sounded' sincere even if it was completely fake.

In the afternoon in my homeroom, two girls who are generally very loud but usually under control when I am teaching got in a giant screaming match about their newspaper poster presentation and were seriously screaming and would not calm down despite my numerous attempts to settle them down and finally the principal, who happened to be next door listening to a publishing celebration, came in and dragged their loud asses out of my class for a minute to calm them down.

The kids are still liking SLAM! by Walter Dean Myers although the excessive kissing talk is getting them a little riled up. There is a lot of "oh no she did-int" and "mmm hmm girl" and "yeah you tell him" commentary during the sassy scenes of bickering between the protagonist and his on and off girlfriend. They get all squirmy about the kissing but I know they secretly love it because I clearly recall hiding in the library stacks in the sixth grade with my other nerdy book friends reading 'mature' Judy Blume books that we were too embarrassed to check out. I guess they just don't really want to read about making out in front of their teacher or the other kids.

37.5 Minutes: Live

2006-03-02T17:24:00.000-05:00

Scene: the smallest classroom in our school, 2:20pm, hallway is filled with approximately 200 sixth graders running, fighting, yelling, not going where they are supposed to go unless you physically put them there

Brian enters the room...

ME in CHEERFUL voice: Hello Brian! I'm so glad you are on time today! Come on in!
BRIAN in LOW voice: I'm supposed to be in choir. I'm going to steal Alloya's backpack.
ME in affected PERPLEXED voice: Wow Brian, that doesn't sound like good decision making to me. Why don't you come in and sit down?
BRIAN in UNINTELLIGIBLE grumble: Asodignosgngrrrrr
ME in fake CALM voice: Brian, I need you to take a seat, over by the front of the room, and take a copy of Holes on your way over there.

[At this point I turn around to see that three girls have started sweeping and rearranging desks because their English teacher told them if the room was not clean that he would give them all detention. I ask them to stop. Four times. They are belligerent. I am mean, I have officially left the realm of calm teacher and am on my way to danger-town where I might even yell, something that I have not done since about October, despite craziness levels. I slam the door].

BRIAN in INSISTENT then MELODIC voice: Choir is going on! I need to go there! How else can I sing laaaaaaaaa laa laaaaa?
ME in subtley PISSED OFF voice: We have been over this a number of times Brian. You will go to chior at 3pm for the second rehearsal. Please take a seat.

[Brian runs to the door, flings it open, turns around to give me a giant grin, and James walks in and the doorknob smacks into Brian's waist and he falls on the floor]

BRIAN in PISSY CUSSING voice: Mother f-er that hurt! I'm hurt! I need the nurse.
ME in EERILY CALM told-you-so voice: Brian, now if you had been in your seat where I asked you to be, this would not have happened. Please take a seat.

[Brian runs towards the window, grabs Alloya's backpack, and hangs it outside the window in the snow. Her hat falls out, down three floors to the screaming students who have been dismissed already from other schools. Voices from below: "OH SHIT DAWG IT'S SNOWING HATS!" "GIVE IT TO ME, DAWG!" "AWWW SHIT, IT'S A GIRL'S HAT YOU WANNA GIRL'S HAT YOU FAGGOT?" "SHUT UP, B, YOU THE FAGGOT." I shut the window, hard, like it actually makes a slamming noise and shakes the room. The teacher whose homeroom is in this classroom comes in]

ME in NO LONGER CALM AT ALL voice: Brian, there is no possible way you are going to remain in my classroom today. Come with me.

[I reach out to link his arm in mine/drag him out]

BRIAN in WHINEY I'm-in-trouble voice: Get off me.
ME in I AM A VERY SERIOUS ANGRY TEACHER voice: This is not an option. You can come with me across the hall to the Principal's office or I can get security to physically remove you.
BRIAN in LITTLE A-HOLE voice: Whatever. I'm going to choir.
ME in THAT'S FUCKING IT voice: I am done with you.

[I take Brian's shoulders and turn him towards the door, march him out of the room, into the Principal's office and get right in his face like a real crazy person]

ME in a I'M ABOUT TO KILL YOU voice: Brian, I don't often get "done" with students, and I like to think I'm a reasonable and fair teacher. But you have CROSSED the line and I am finished with you for the day. Stay in here until he [the principal]'s back. If I find out you left, you are going to regret it for at least a week, when you spend every lunch period and every detention period with me doing tedious boring work that will be designed specifically to make you feel incredible guilt for having ever questioned my authority. Clear?

[I don't even wait for his answer, I storm out of the room and leave him there looking all "doh" like he didn't really understand anything I did. After 37.5 minutes are over, I go find him and we have a calm talk about what the hell his problem is and he promises to improve. No idea where Alloya's hat is but for some odd reason she didn't say a word about it, like it never happened. Maybe she doesn't like hats?]

Clean Teeth and Body Fluids

2006-03-02T17:23:00.001-05:00

To my great surprise and delight, a trip to the dentist found me with no cavities. I hadn't been in 2 years and the dentist kept asking why I had waited so long to which I replied "I hate the dentist." He said "Oh thanks, that makes me feel good." So at the end when he said I had no cavities I accused him of lying to me in order to change my opinion of the dentist. Like maybe next time he'll say "Actually you have 43 terrible cavities that I should have drilled last time." What a relief.

In the Class From Hell (CFH) this morning we were all supposed to bring in newspapers. The plan was to examine how they are organized, compare the different formats, see "what's inside." Unfortunately the cover story on the tabloids was the terribly depressing and intrusive coverage of that poor woman who was raped and murdered in Brooklyn [I cannot believe how insensitive the press is being towards this story--I mean, this girl's family is having to read about all of these gruesome details, is it really necessary? I hate the media]. A few girls were reading the coverage of the crime scene and called me over going "What's this word, "semen?" I pause and consider a variety of responses, including "Go ask your mom" and "I have no idea." I decide on "It's a body fluid." They take this answer very well, not inquiring any further but instead saying "SEE!! I told you Ms. ______ would know. She knows everything!!"

Admittedly I was pretty happy that they did not know the word. I'm sure they know it by other terms, but their sheltered condition on that particular term pleases me to no end. I also like that these girls think "I know everything." I mean, of course I do!! I'm just glad they have caught on...

T-Rex had a horrorshow of a morning, refusing to do any work, stealing everyone's supplies, hitting a girl with her ruler and trying to pour white out on her hair, repeatedly getting out of his seat to take things from other students and throw them across the room, and whenever I'd write up a warning for him he'd be like WHAT THE FUHHH? WHUD I DOOO? THIS IS BULL" and I'd just shake my head and give him a mean look. Finally I dragged him out in the hallway and discussed just how much larger he would be than the incoming 6th graders next year and how it would feel to be stuck with them for the whole year, little scrawny tiny kids, and T-Rex being 14 and already almost 6 ft tall!! He asked me for the assignment we were working on and did a little bit of work and then screwed around again and I gave him detention. There was not enough room on the detention form for me to explain all of the reasons he had detention so I had to fill up both sides with writing. It felt good.

Just a sidenote, on the chalkboard in the "teacher's lounge" a child wrote up:

"www.voodoo.com go to voodoo doll, then ounce you get their click on ex-friend type in Brandon as the name and put pins in it and set it on fire!"

Glad to see we are using constructive forms of anger management, and Internet literacy combined!

Lastly, apparently there was a major conference in the principal's office today about how some of our female students were having sex with boys at one of the female student's houses. One of these ladies is in my CFH and another in my Advisory so that just fills me with Ewwww and Ugggghhh and Noooo! These aren't even the same girls as the ones who wrote the pregnancy note, so I guess sex is just "what you do" in sixth grade here at my school. These also were not the same girls who didn't know what semen was, so maybe we have a little differentiation in sexual maturity. Or maybe the girls having sex don't know what semen is either.

You Know You Dig My Youth Large Sweatshirt

2006-02-28T19:29:00.001-05:00

Upon arriving at school today, I immediately regretted my choice of clothing, as it was easily 40 degrees Fahrenheit in my classroom, and the gym, where we played Red Rover, Mother May I, and Red Light Green Light 1,2,3 was pretty d@mn cold too. I fantasized about hot tea and nebulizer treatments while My Favorite Teacher [MFT] gave directions to our Advisory Groups and I sat in a chair and watched. And suddenly, it occurred to me... We have school gym uniforms sitting clean and unworn in boxes in the office and storage closets! So I asked my principal to wear a sweatshirt and while I was extensively made fun of for choosing the smallest size [Youth Large] they had, I was very comfy, drinking English Breakfast Tea in the newly formed "staff lounge" which is actually a bunch of broken desks, the computer that was moved out of the principal's office, 2 bookcases, and only 2 chairs. It's kinda ghetto but I like the emptiness factor. Much less cramped than the office.

Student reactions to my appearing in the doorway of the classroom in a school uniform sweatshirt, nice dresspants, very dirty old converse sneakers, with a scarf around my neck and a big ol' inhaler hanging out of my pocket:

1) Ms. ______ you look like a kid!!
2) EWWWW why are you wearing gym clothes?
3) Laughter. Loud, loud belly clutching laughter.
4) Shut up! I think she looks nice!
5) That shirt's smaaaaall, B! What is that kid-size or sumthin?
6) Awwww Ms. _______ has a cold. You gonna be absent tomorrow? Nice. No homework for me.

I explained to the class that any Vacation HW essays that are not handed in by the end of the week will be failing papers and students will serve Detention next week as a result. I read one girl's essay on a fairy tale from a different point of view, and I think she was using Cinderella from the P.O.V. of the evil stepsister, featuring ME as the evil wicked sister witch "from the Irish Land," and a girl in our class as the princess/Cinderella, soon to be marrying Lil Bow Wow. I trashed their wedding and ruined everything! I was honored to hold so much power.

Then I had them read part of SLAM! independently because there was a rather explicit make out scene involving a girl sitting on a boy's lap and kissing his face all over and I didn't want to endure the awkwardsness that would inevitably ensue as a result of reading it together. There was a lot of muffled EWWWW and OH ma gawwwd! and Tee Hee gross going on during the reading and I sat and tried to perform restorative surgery on our pencil sharpener using a paper clip as a screw driver.

Brian came back to school today with a sling on his arm, and I told him he was obviously just trying to be like Evan, who has had a cast for about a month now. Evan is a lefty and taught himself to write with his right hand and now has pretty amazing handwriting with both hands! Brian apparently attended our Winter Break Tutoring Sessions [no I was not there, thankfully] and on his way home fell and split open his entire hand in a gory bloody mess. And James, of my 37.5 minutes, called the ambulance for him! I was very impressed. Poor kiddies in their arm slings. I then learned that Brian is a lefty too! But fortunately this was his right hand that was injured so no handwriting training is necessary.

I decided, that if I didn't have such a long commute and didn't have to wake up at such an unreasonable hour, then I might actually *like* my job [using a very broad definition of the word "like"].

And yes, Andy, the sun being up was actually the best part of my day, something you can only truly understand if you have been walking down the cold dark rat infested street at 6:15am all winter. The daylight is really quite amazing.

Nebulize me.

2006-02-27T18:36:00.001-05:00

Being back at work is dreary. I'm dreary, the kids are dreary, the building is dreary, the neighborhood is dreary. I brought my laptop to work today in order to facilitate our "Introduction to Media" lesson. I downloaded podcasts of video news and radio news and brought in some newspapers and we compared the different mediums and the advantages and disadvantages of each. I even brought in my little Duets speakers so that the sound could be projected over the dull roar of my classes. The kids reacted less enthusiastically than I had hoped, preferring to throw paper balls at each other or laugh at T-Rex falling out of his chair every five minutes. Melanie had a good day which was a relief. She greeted me with a HUG at line up and her only complaint was that she didn't do her vacation homework reports. But she had a fairly pleasant disposition all morning and didn't run out of the classroom. However, all afternoon she was seen running the halls screaming, so I guess I got her at her best point and then she plummetted back to the danger zone.

At lunch, my co-teacher made a new seating chart for that class and we have discussed the various advantages of putting a smelly kid by the window and surrounding T-Rex with quiet children and not allowing certain other students to be anywhere near the doorway. I have little faith that this will improve the behavior in that awful room but one can hope.

Unfortunately, despite my neverending cough that is accompanied by a serious breathing problem and the fact that I didn't really "sleep" last night so much as "lay down and agonize about the end of my vacation" I still had to endure After School, Cheerleading, and my Tutoring job [they sent me a letter congratulating me on becoming an "Adjunct Professor"!!] till 8pm. Right now I'm at the tutoring site, typing away on my iBook with a very poor wireless signal strength, drinking a Naked Juice Smoothie that was incredibly over priced and isn't really that good, hiding underneath my big purple hat puffing on an inhaler like it's a life raft [kind of a jumbled simile--I realize you don't puff on a life raft]. I'm fairly close to deciding to go to the ER and get nebulized, a term I may have unduly made into a verb but I'm ok with that.

Cheerleading was better than expected, since I figured not being able to breathe would really impede my ability to teach the girls how to dance. But since I had my computer I hooked up the mini speakers and played the music through iTunes which was SO much louder than the crap stereo we usually use so they could hear the beat better and that was great. There's this one girl who I keep forgetting her name and she is just a real mean weirdo. She is kind of creepy and giggly all at once and she picks on the other girls and their dancing and she is AWFUL at the dance herself so it's kind of ridiculous. I called her "Meanie" ["Hey Meanie, can you stand in your place in the row please?"] today since I couldn't remember her name which I guess makes me a meanie but whatever. She is very close to being the first girl to get kicked out. And I have some bad ass girls in that group so she really should be able to get it together; the rest of them are doing pretty well since they like the dancing part so much.

Best news of the day: The SUN WAS UP when I walked to the train in the bitter horrific cold.

let's have bizarre celebrations...

2006-02-17T16:56:00.001-05:00

Last night was parent teacher conferences which lasted for what seemed like an eternity. We had a kind of poor turn out for my two classes and I realized that 90% of my kids are practically identical to their parents. Made a few kids cry, as per usual for teacher confs.

Today they really made me work for my money--I had some serious issues with Mel who tore up her test, ran out of the room, threw a temper tantrum, came back in, ran back out, washed the chalkboard for 30 minutes while we read, drew a dragon on her desk and started speaking in Patois which I am beginning to understand since a number of my kids prefer to curse in what they think is "code" language. I gave her lunch detention which she refused until my principal forcibly put her at a table in the back of the cafeteria with me where I made her take her test, helped her with the words she didn't know [she claims she didn't know the vocabulary because she was 'absent' all week but in fact she was not 'absent' just spent most of the week running in the halls during my class] and we had a bit of a heart to heart about her attendance and her success in the 6th grade and respect and all that. I think it may have sunken in for an hour or so but who knows if it will last through vacation.

In the afternoon I finally shut down this stupid game the whole damn grade is obsessed with where if you say a word that starts with the letter B you have to scratch your chin and if you don't the other person can slap you in the face. I think Shaquan invented this game or at least introduced our school to it and it is catching on like wildfire but it's such a STUPID game. I mean really, hitting each other in the face? I banned it during our field trip but today I really had to make it clear that I was going to lose my shit if they didn't stop and so they did. We had 'game time' in both classes anyway and I was like "the B game" is not an acceptable activity during game time. And it worked because nobody wanted game time to be shut down.

And now I'm home and it's time for a week of no children whatsoever and most likely no writing whatsoever because no one wants to read about my visit to Long Island or the kind of snacks I like....

little miss steinems

2006-02-15T20:51:00.001-05:00

In response to a series of lessons on the role of gender in fairy tales, I have discovered the brooding feminist in a few of my girls. Below are some excerpts from their work:

"I think these roles of women and men in fairy tales isn't "true to life" because only some men can defend themselves much less defend women and women are much better than some men. For example, some women can be boxers while some men just sit on the couch and eat junk food and watch tv. Another example is that women can live through almost anything while some emotional men sit down and cry."

"The roles that men play in fairy tales are not true to life because in real life, women are the ones that rescue men when they need to eat, sleep. I think that the role women play in real life is true because women are always doing things to satisfy their other partner's lifestyle. I know people and the bible say that women are made from men but if it wasn't for women who would nurture them and feed them and give men somewhere to sleep. It can only be women."

I am beaming with pride.

****

Today while reading SLAM! my homeroom was being kind of obnoxious and correcting each other about the pronunciation of things. One boy was having trouble with the word Regis and I kept saying "Reee-jis" and he kept repeating "Rehgg-iss" like three or four times. Then another girl was reading and the "Rehgg-iss" boy started to correct her and a third student goes "What the hell you can't even pronounce stupid Regis and you all up in her face about the word 'legitimate'--at least that's a hard word and the teacher wasn't all repeatin' it over and over again, daaaamnn you an idiot." And instead of getting angry I almost started laughing and had to bite on my lip exceptionally hard.

My Gothic Valentine

2006-02-15T20:48:00.001-05:00

This morning a large portion of our staff did not arrive on time due to serious snow plowing issues in the neighborhood. The roads are still terrible up here and there is no where to park and everyone is stuck in the middle of the road honking and kids are throwing snowballs at each other and it's like a warzone. So My Favorite Teacher and I share the gym for Advisory on Tuesday mornings, as I've explained previously. But she was outside parking and no female teachers had arrived so basically it was me and 100 girls in the gym. I played Duck Duck Goose with some of the ladies and when My Favorite Teacher [MFT] arrived, we organized a GIGANTIC game of Red Rover Come Over which was fantastically fun. They were all laughing and falling on the floor and it made me love teaching. Temporarily.

Then I had 2 preps full of homemade brownies, ordering shoes online, redeeming credit card rewards, and overhearing a conversation on inappropriate touching between a student and the principal.

Valentines Day at school has proved to be kinda unbelievable so far. The older kids in the other school are really decked out in red and pink and carrying around flowers and candy and shiny balloons and all gaga. My kids are more subdued, and don't understand why I'm not dressed in red or pink [I said I only like to wear black and they asked if I was "gothic"] and they are just eating a lot of candy.

Our principal also ordered us pizza which we are waiting for right now. I suppose I cannot really post this FROM work but that is where I am right now, using Gmail chat [what a magnificent development in technology!!] with MFT across the office about how it is really annoying that someone brought a kid in trouble up here for lunch and we can't really talk out loud about anything interesting as a result.

Pizza time.

dig me out.

2006-02-13T21:45:00.001-05:00

They do not have shovels in the Bronx. Or plows I guess. One would think these resources would be universally available, but apparently not. The upside of this? I had 12-14 kids in each of my classes today and only 6 during Extended Day and my electives were cancelled. The downside? I discovered my snow boots are not water proof. At all. I guess I should not have presumed that $14.99 boots from Target were capable of blocking out ankle deep slushy puddles but having wet feet tonight at the first day of my Writing Coach job [mega boring so far, and I apologize for using the word "mega"] really was unfortunate.

Work was bearable--small class size and my kids cleaned my classroom when I was out on Friday, washed the board and organized the bookshelves and were all cute and "WE CLEANED FOR YOU AREN'T YOU PROUD?" which made me smile. During the 37 1/2 minutes [there has got to be an easier way to refer to that] I only had 6 kids and James commented that he was the only "bad kid" there and didn't I wish that he had stayed home too and that made me sad because I actually really like James so I gave him a lot of reponsibility and he made a good attendance and book monitor and did not attempt to toss me out of the way of any doorways. It was sweet. No Brian which was actually the biggest difference. Last week he spent 20 minutes trying to hang out of the window and get our attention, the funniest 5 minutes being when he dangled his arm out the window with a $10 bill in between his index finder and thumb going "la dee da daaaa" and yelping whenever the wind blew. I really wish he had dropped it.

Valentines Day in Elementary Schools was always kinda fun--certainly better than V-day in an office. I am curious to see how Middle School-ers take it considering half of them are having sex and the other half still believe in cooties. Today during our new shared reading book [Slam!, by Walter Dean Myers] there was a scene with kissing [ewwww!!] and it actually mentioned a tongue "darting into" someones mouth and I swear the girl reading almost died of embarrassment. I wish I had known the scene was coming but unfortunately I was not responsible enough to read ahead. I am hoping that the book does not venture into any more sexually mature material because I will be really annoyed that it was given to me by the principal when I asked for class sets of books from the basement.

Best news of the day: the VP shot someone while hunting. Haaaaa.

Conduct Comment No. 4782453: Student will not shut the f*&% up

2006-02-09T16:36:00.001-05:00

Report Cards are due this week. And bulletin boards. And there's the whole schedule overhaul [which I managed to not have to plan myself!] which means I have 37 and a 1/2 minutes with 10 kids who need small group instruction in a very small room trying to read the book "Holes" by Louis Sachar with very little success. We read 2 pages the first day because I spent the majority of the time trying to get Tasha and Jim inside the classroom and then basically acting as a hockey goalie in the doorway, blocking them from exiting by physically standing in front of them and not allowing them to pass. They are both significantly larger than I am. Tasha was upset because Trisha [an old 'fave' of mine] had her keys. Jim had lost his wallet in the gym at 8am. Neither could calm down.

Then there was Brian who insisted that choir practice was going on next door [hallucinating? I'm not sure] and since I wouldn't let him go check it out, he decided to SING the entire rest of the period. Even when he wanted to read, which I thought was a good sign, he tried to SING the book Holes. I also have a girl who was in my old class who used to steal from me, so that's nice. She misses me apparently so I'm hoping that translates into her not stealing from me anymore. Cross your fingers. Lastly, there is Steven, who threw pencil tips and paper at people the entire period and then asked me to sign a piece of paper saying he behaved to take home to his parents. I laughed and raised my eyebrows and said Try Again Tomorrow, Buddy.

The day redeemed itself with Cheerleading, which now meets twice a week for an hour, after the 37 and 1/2 minutes in one of the larger classrooms. We stretch and do jumping jacks and listen to the minimal selection of hip hop I own which I made a cd of [makes me feel like an old lady, really] and then I teach them the choreography to a dance to Bucky Done Gun and hope that they do not here the part where my brother's friend bleeped out a curse or notice that the song is kind of about sex. So far so good--since I have a really crummy $25 cd player from the discount warehouse near the Atlantic Center you can't really hear anything over our clapping and stomping.

We've started using scantron report cards which are mostly easier except that they give you a host of about 200 conduct comments to choose from, none of which can really sum up a student like Mel or T-Rex. Then you select Performance and Academic comments which are equally vague because they are all based in Dept of Ed language with standards like "Student is approaching standards in elaborating on literary ideas and analyzing literary concepts." It would make more sense to say "Student is struggling with understanding what he/she reads." I mean, who do they think is reading these report cards and trying to make sense of what the comments mean? Not other educators, but regular people who do not know the language of curriculum standards.

Then we were asked to grade the students using three different grading systems: 1 through 4, which is the standard we usually use, and then 0 through 100, like a percentile, and then E, S, N, U, F which is like my elementary school grades were when I was little and I guess kind of corresponds to 1 through 4 but seriously, is it necessary to grade them in all of those ways simultaneously? The idea is I guess that some parents don't really know how to interpret the 1 through 4 so we are giving them standard percentile grades that are more traditionally understood by everyone. I think the whole thing was just a giant waste of time.

The best part about school this week has been the discovery of these chocolate chip cookies they bake in the student cafeteria which are only good for the first 10 minutes after they come out of the oven and cost $1. They are a day brightener for sure.

killing time before the OC

2006-02-02T20:56:00.000-05:00

your new myspace quote

im a pile of empty threats

2006-02-02T20:22:00.001-05:00

I spent all day long threatening to take away tomorrow's field trip to see 'Hoodwinked' from my students, which was minimally effective. The movie is going to suck [we read the NY Times review in class today in a lesson on point of view and movie critique and I made what I thought were some compelling points about differing opinions and persepectives but I'm not sure it was the best idea to read a crap-review of the movie we're going to see when using said movie as incentive for good behavior]. The real nightmare is that at the end of the day when I decided to take all 24 of my kids with us, I realized that I still have no chaperones [anyone wanna go to an early matinee with 90 sixth graders tomorrow?!] and we are taking the subway which is terrifying.

There are four classes going but we are going to take the train separately to avoid mass chaos. I required 100% uniforms including ties for the boys [which they HATE] for trip-attendance and I don't really distrust my homeroom kids the way I do my other class, but I have this vision of Alana or Aubrey or Soyini or Shamariah just kind of wandering off or trying to hit each other and accidentally impailing a civilian and me having to call the cops. We are going to Harlem to see a matinee and have all this extra time which will inevitably involve over-consumption of movie snacks which are ridiculously expensive and lots of bathroom trips and me having a quiet nervous breakdown and counting heads over and over and over again.

The only student that my co-teacher [the homeroom teacher of my other class--she teaches both of our classes math] and I are not taking with us is Melanie. I don't really want to take T-rex either but since I don't technically have to watch the other class it wont be that bad except for the principle of it all which is how the hell can T-rex OR Mel or Danny or Chanya for that matter come on a field trip after all the crap I have put up with since they've been in my class?? Unfortunately, in order to leave them behind, we need to find teachers who will agree to babysit them for the day which is no easy feat. I have taken a number of kids for other teachers when they have gone on trips and for some reason am unable to say no when asked. But I only take visitors in my homeroom because I know my kids will back me when I am all tough and I-don't-take-shit-from-bad-kids with the bad-kid-guest whereas in my other room, clearly I do take-shit-from-bad-kids on a daily basis so the strategy is less effective.

The behavior and attitude is getting kind of monotonous and exhausting and I feel myself just kind of giving up in my other class like I just want them to sit and leave me alone and I don't really care if I can accomplish the same level of learning as we do in my homeroom. I hate to truncate lesson plans or discourage group work because I know that's not the good teacher-ly thing to do but I can really only tolerate so much before I just want to lay down and go to bed right there on the table with the broken computers that have no monitors or throw T-rex's big-ass sweatshirt out the open window or grab Mel's straight up alfalfa sprout-like pony tail and swing her around by it. I know that these arent the types of things one wants to read about public school teacher's inner thinking and now that ACS is you know "cracking down" I should be wary of making such cavalier comments, but honestly there is just a point where I have to remind myself that I am in one of the top ten "official" worst schools in New York City and I should feel good about just going in every day and not losing my mind.

I was talking about this with our literacy coach and another teacher today and found out that just the other week, a number of kids from the school we are phasing out were caught smoking pot on the stairs of the school and that the reason students are no longer allowed to bring any kind of bottles [glass or plastic] or any unsealed beverage into the building is because a bunch of kids were caught completely shitfaced at school having snuck vodka into class in soda bottles. Granted, I recall doing this myself in high school before a field trip to see Old Man River [we actually drank the vodka in the bathroom by the auditorium before getting on the bus at 8am, yuck] but I was 17 and these kids are, well, I guess some of them might be 17 at this point but they are still in junior high school.

just chillax.

2006-01-31T20:54:00.001-05:00

That is the expression going around my homeroom these days. Yesterday when I got all in a fuss about Adrien being crazy, Keemah was like "Ms. _____ just chillax." I was so shocked that I actually took her advice and chillaxed. Or I think that's what I did.

Our YMCA field trip was canceled today, due to the facilitator being stuck in bed sick. This was a grave disappointment to my kids, as well totally devastating for me, as I had no lesson plans and no real desire to teach. I spent my advisory period in the gym with My Favorite Teacher (MFT), as we have started to do every Tuesday morning so the advisories that are normally stuck in the gym can have a classroom with desks for a change. We ran relay races. It was incredibly fun, and I mean that in the most sincere sense. I monitored the starting point and the other teacher monitored the 'turn around' point and we picked random teams and had them run then run backwards and hop and skip and sashay [sp?] and link arms back to back and spin around ten times then run and it was amazing to see them all having so much childish fun. They never act like children. We all laughed until our stomachs hurt and then MFT and I raced the kids and we played telephone and some other silly games and this was all wonderful till the principal came in to announce that our trip was canceled. Boo. My kids thought I was just joking.

Both classes basically refused to work. During shared reading Laquan fell so deep asleep that when I went over to him and had him stand up so that he could wake up a little bit, he actually fell asleep and fell over while standing. It was very funny. I had the class do jumping jacks to wake everyone up. After forcing them to do some reading and vocabulary we played "20 questions" and they had a hard time getting it at first but got better after a while with understanding how to narrow down the guessing with broad questions at first to eliminate whole categories.

In my other class T-rex brought a cellphone to school [prohibited] and it went off in class and I took it from him and almost decided to answer it but then dramatically claimed that I was hoping to get a new cellphone and I really liked his ringtone and thank you so much! He panicked and I really set him off to have a bad period which was my own damn fault but I can't help myself sometimes.

By the time I left work I was exhausted and I'm very excited to go to a boring workshop tomorrow. On my way out of school I noticed that the school we are 'phasing out' has not changed their bulletin boards since December which really doesn't matter to me but it is all still Christmas themed and there are eighth grade bulletin boards that feature construction paper cut outs of stockings with "Holiday Wishes" on them, i.e. "I wish I could meet my birth father" or "I wish I could get a new P.S. 2." I swear we had more rigorous boards out of kindergartners in my old school. Then I took a look at some of the artwork featured year round, which is laminated and dated by the artists that I imagine passed through the school at one time. They are decent drawing pieces but the captions! The one closest to the exit is a large portrait of a young girl, black and white sketch, and the caption is "This is a woman who has just gotten liposuction." What?! In addition to the fact that I don't understand how that is what it is a picture of, why would that be a choice of caption? And why is it hung by the main entrance?

To end my day, I went to the first staff meeting at the college I will be starting work as Writing Coach at [how is that for the most poorly written sentence about becoming a writing coach...] which had free food [nice!] but was 2 hours long and I had to fill out tax forms which I never understand and we workshopped some scenarios on college level writing assignments which made me realize that teaching writing is basically the exact same thing in elementary school as it is in college. The people were really nice and smart but man professors can talk. We went way over in time and had to cut the agenda short because everyones' group presentations lasted forever. So I had a 12 hour day but I'm going out for a drink now to recover.

the teachers are afraid of the pupils

2006-01-30T18:44:00.001-05:00

"I know you ain't talking bout my father. if my father was f*cking other men how come I have 3 sisters and 3 brother. maybe your father does."

"Your father got raped and had your brother and sister and then married your mom to cover it up."

"How can a man have a baby and my dad is not married to my mom back to you."

"Mother

F*cker"

***

This note, while a tad on the offensive side [and completely retarded, as one of them pointed out] was sent between Josh [not surprising] and Staci [complete shock!] today during what I thought was one of the most interesting class discussions we've had all year. You wouldn't know it, since the class was out of control talking today [my homeroom has somehow exceeded my other class in annoyances], but we were discussing the Role of Women in Fairy Tales. I read excerpts from Snow White, Rumpelstilsken, and Cinderella, then we described how the female protagonist were portrayed [beautiful, victim, abused, sad, kind, helpless, afraid, needy] and then how they are all saved by a strong handsome valiant prince. I asked them if this was a fair or accurate portrayal of women and the people in class who were interested were totally enraged:

"Women don't need a man to survive, they are not helpless"
"Sometimes women need men. To carry things. Men are stronger."
"I'm stronger than you!!" [Najiwa to Jordan, completely true]
"You need a man to have babies."
"You need a woman to have babies too you idiot." [I guess the note writers weren't listening to this part of the conversation]
"These stories were written in the olden days and women and men were different back then."

[I interjected: "Were they different back then or did people just think about men and women differently?"]

"They were just thought about differently I think. Right?"

We moved on to my final question which was "What message do you think fairy tales send to young children? Do you think children should be reading fairy tales?"

"They tell kids that girls need a man to save them. That's whacked."
"The remind girls that they need boys. And they do."
"They make women seem like they have no self esteem."
"They show men they need to rescue women."
"Why aren't there any black people in fairy tales?"

***

I was really pleased with all the questions kids came up with but sad that so many of them could not keep it together to raise hands or participate without falling all over the floor and passing notes, but I had them write about our discussion for homework so I guess I'll see how much they retained and comprehended.

We had a workshop after school to learn Great Leaps this kind of stupid reading remediation program that my old school used. This workshop was so incredibly boring and unnecessary. The woman actually told us that "you need to have kids read from left to right" and "don't call them stupid if they don't know a word." I spent the whole time passing notes with My Favorite Teacher and getting the evil eye from my literacy coach who was sitting right next to me and definitely knew I wasn't paying attention. The facilitator kept saying "Did the child 'make a great leap'? after we practiced administering the program to each other and of course full grown adults were able to score perfectly and I muttered "Yes I think I made a big-ass-leap" and my whole table started laughing and the facilitator seemed irritated and I realized that I am just like my students and should not complain so much.

Tomorrow we are going to the YMCA for a field trip on Developmental Assets that some other classes went to today and said was great but it's supposed to rain so I think we will be inside which is just too bad.

they lie about the 26th of january

2006-01-26T19:10:00.001-05:00

It's really not so bad! In fact, work has been feeling "boring" this week which is maybe a good feeling but a little unsettling. Today was filled with children saying amusing things that depending on my mood I will take in humor or aggravation. Chanya said during our Martha's-moving-to-Connecticut-bagel-party during advisory "yo y'all--Ms. ______, that lady can TEACH. I mean, you dont know how ta read, you go ta her, and she will TEACH you that stuff." I took out the little stereo we use for cheerleading and fussed with the dial a bit and kept pretending I liked really bad country swooning music, and they had me put on 105.1. It is hilarious how they get all riled up by music, dancing and whooping. Chanya and Ashanna were like "Get up Ms. ________ we're gonna show you some moves..." and they did a little routine for me with their bagels in their hands. They can be so cute when you aren't trying to get them to do something they don't want to do.

In class later, I tied Laquan's tie for him as he was struggling with it like a noose, and Jarod goes "ohhhhh Ms. _______ has a
boyfrieeeeend" and I gave him a puzzled look like was he accusing me of going out with Laquan because that's kind of inappropriate, so he said "you know, because you know how to tie a tie" and I said "actually I learned that all on my own from waitressing in college." [I didnt want to get into the fact that girls can wear ties too... I'm not sure they are as gender flexible as one might hope with that kind of thing. I showed them an article in the Metro the other day about a boy who protested his school's uniform policy because he wanted to wear shorts and didnt think it was fair that girls could wear skirts and boys couldn't wear shorts. And he won. He had the ACLU back him up. The kids were all OH MY GOD HE WORE A SKIRT and I kept
trying to explain that it was a fairness issue but they were not having it].

This one child named Ricky who I would venture to say is "the worst" kid in our school and is definitely mentally imbalanced keeps coming by my classroom and sticking his head in the door and going YO YO MISS _____!!! YOU GOT ANY CANDY?! and then he raises his eyebrows all dramatically and cocks his head to the side and flips his eyelids inside out and I look at him like he's crazy and then he leaves. My kids all think it's funny and then even more funny when I react to him with a blank stare, and I don't want to degrade the kid or anything but seriously what is he talking about? His teacher says he sometimes steals post-its, flips his eyelids inside out and writes GOT ANY CANDY on the post-it and sticks it to his forehead.

Unfortunately, there was one very sad story today--I believe I wrote about the goth girl who came to our school in November? Well I had her for about 2 weeks and then we reorganized the classes and since she reads on a 2nd grade level and is 14 and in sixth grade, she was put in the CTT (special needs) class. I guess her Dad is a drunk and her mother is not around and she is fiercely depressed, because she was found with giant cuts on her wrists all the way up to her elbows and my principal took her to the hospital and she was put on 72 hour suicide watch. Her parents didn't respond to my principal's urgent calls till after midnight which is so indicative of why this girl is so sad and depressed in the first place. I want to send her a card or something and tell her I really think her black nail polish is cool and get her some punk albums or something but I'm not sure she'll be back for a while. That is the kind of thing that kills me about work, when you just can't help someone at all and they are so far into a bad place when they are that young.

[insert abrupt and insensitive topic transition here]: The day culminated in my getting an 'extra' job [you know, since I have so much free time on my hands], as a writing coach at in a continuing education program starting next week. I really do not need a second job. At all. But next year I will need that kind of part time work so while they were offering I had to take it. I am going to be working two nights a week tutoring adults writing college papers and I'm pretty sure I am going to regret taking on a new responsibility but at least I'll save some extra cash.

in lieu...

2006-01-24T18:41:00.001-05:00

... of posting about the mental breakdown that caused a teacher to leave work indefinitely, the totally loud and inappropriate phonecall my principal had with a parent on the phone today, and the fact that Kariem told me that Soyana said she was gong to "kick him in the balls" and then got wildly embarrassed and ran away from me, I plan to spend this time feeling gleeful about next week [when I will go to an ELA workshop on Tuesday, a field trip to the YMCA on Wednesday, and a field trip to the movies [Hoodwinked, for our unit on fairy tales] on Friday!!!! and also trying to figure out how the hell to get my blog back to normal colors. And Fresh Direct sent me an extra bottle of wine by accident, so I really have nothing to complain about for now.

PS BLOGGER IS RETARDED

2006-01-23T21:02:00.001-05:00

I don't know what happened but my blog template vanished and now I'm stuck with this generic crap one and it would be ok if I could get the colors to change but for some reason they are not in standard html code but instead some kind of random three digit color code that doesnt alter even if I switch it manually. If I try to switch to other templates it gives me this strange combination template of like 5 different color schemes that is really very ugly. So I guess I'm stuck with it this way. Please don't judge me.

THIS IS NOT THE STORY OF HOW I LOST [AND FOUND] A BRAND NEW IKEA COUCH OFF THE BACK OF A TRUCK ON THE L.I.E.

2006-01-23T18:29:00.001-05:00

I mean, I would tell it, but it really got far too much airtime out of my mouth this weekend.

Of course, it would be far more interesting than anything I have to say about work today. I would recommend skipping this entry entirely unless you are incredibly bored at work and need something to do or yawn at. The highlights included:

1) A professional development meeting that lasted an hour and 40 minutes because we were discussing the new length of the schoolday which is being lengthened by 37 and a half [!?] minutes under the new contract and therefore alters the entire day's schedule. I emailed three proposals of a new schedule to my principal 2 weeks ago [so much for not getting involved] but instead he brought the issue to our meeting today where we batted around a bunch of ideas and ultimately settled on a slight variation of one of the things I suggested in the beginning. And he's trying to get us to stay an extra five minutes again to compensate for our "transitional issues" which sounds more like some kind of relationship issue than a UFT bartering point but whatever.

I talked my ass off at this meeting which may have been annoying but perhaps the only way I could stay awake and while I likely overstepped my boundaries a bit I don't really care. While you might say this is indicative of the fact that I should go into adminstration, I prefer to think it means I should quit teaching and write a really bossy-sounding book about what is wrong with public schools. Which is what a lot of people in my position do but it seems like no one ever offers any kind of solutions. I was reading Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation which is kind of what my personal statement for grad school was based on and while he makes some incredibly astute observations and has brought the horror of public school conditions into the public eye, the dude never suggests any possible solutions to anything. [How often do you think he gets referred to as "the dude?" Not nearly enough I bet] He goes on an on about how the language of curriculums and school bureaucracy is overly corporatized and children are put into a rigid environment that stifles learning and emotional growth and yes of course this is true but has he met Melanie and T-Rex?

Kozol is especially critical of very "militant" behavior management systems because he thinks it's reminiscent of totalitarian regimes or something. Sure it's creepy when kids give some kind of hand salute to signal that it is time to be quiet but I would prefer a little clapping signal or raising 2 fingers or flickering the lights than screaming my head of to shut up. He was a teacher for a number of years but he writes like someone who has never had a chair thrown at him by an angry 8 year old. I think I have gotten a little off topic here.

2) On the train home I was reading Revolutionary Road [such a good book!!] by Richard Yates and listening to very very loud music to drown out the other commuters when I noticed that there was some flash photography going on right next to me. It turns out there was a girl who was probably college-aged reading a tabloid article about Kimora [Russell Simmon's wife] and taking photos of the photo of Kimora wearing this shiny giant necklace. Incidentally, these were basically photos of her cleavage since that was where the necklace fell, so that was pretty funny. She didn't seem remotely self conscious about this.

WHILST IM FEELING POSITIVE

2006-01-20T17:07:00.001-05:00

I thought it best to write. This was by far my favorite week of teaching all year. I know it's testing week, but it was just fantastic. My kids were being real a-holes to all of their other teachers and when I'd come in the room they'd be all WE LOVE YOU WE MISSED YOU because I had the Uno and the charades and whatnot so I was their fave.

We had Game Day this morning and I took pictures on my phone to document that these little demons can actually be quite cute when they are having fun and take pause from screaming in eachother's faces NO PARK PLACE IS MINE B*TCH, IT'S PROFESSOR PLUM IN THE DINING ROOM SHUT UP IT IS NOT, OH I JUST HAD TWINS!! [Monopoly, Clue, Life, respectively].

Then we were set to have movie afternoon in the auditorium and while it was supposed to be Limony Snicket, for some reason we watched the first hour of X2 instead which was wildly inappropriate and when they cursed or made sexual advances at each other [a common occurrence], the kids went whacko screaming and whooping and all I could think was that I know they all curse constantly and some of them apparently are more sexually active than the teachers so I don't see what all the fuss was about but I definitely saw some hand-holdin' under puffy coats in my "bad" class which I raised my eyebrows at and they got all embarrassed.

On Monday, real life will sink back in when I have to actually teach them things, but I'm keeping Game Day as incentive for the last 20 minutes of every Friday. It will likely be about 5 kids in each class playing while the rest sit and watch but I'm gonna try it anyway.

THIS COMPUTER FITS LIKE A GLOVE

2006-01-19T17:23:00.001-05:00

That was passage 1 of 2 today, a technological theme, comparing this boy who wanted to be an inventor to this other man who invented a computer "of the future" that has the monitor implanted on the interior of sunglasses, the hard drive sewn into your fanny pack [does this mean we all have to wear fanny packs in the future? im not sure I'm into that], and a glove you wear as a keyboard that you type on using "thumbcode." That was kinda cool--each letter of the alphabet corresponds to a different segment of your finger and then different arrangements of fingers have different sets of letters. I fear my typing skills would sadly worsen with this method but at least I'd be wearing a sexy fanny pack, right?

My kids are all pretty much in love with me this week because instead of teaching after the exams, I let them play charades and 7-up [a game of sheer brilliance primarily due to the fact that you must remain quiet in order for it to be successful], and brought in some decks of Uno cards covered in 3rd grade germs from last year, and while they were unable to play games with out shouting in each other's faces YOU SUCK YOU CHEATED IM NOT PLAYIN WIT' YOU IM GONNA KICK YOU IN THE FACE IF YOU PLAY THAT DRAW FOUR CARD DICK WHAT WHAT YOU SKIPPED ME OH SH*T IMA GONNA REVERSE IT ON YOU it was nice to see them enjoying themselves and even T-Rex and Melanie were able to control themselves. And by control themselves I mean they only TALKED about kicking people in the face instead of actually kicking them.

Yesterday I confiscated a fortune teller from Adrien who almost peed his pants in fear when I asked him if he wanted to tell my fortune or maybe his mothers? I spotted the words "d*ck sucker" from across the room and the poor boy just didn't have quick enough reflexes. While I have shared this Dirty Fortune Teller with a number of people already, I cannot restrain myself from posting the list of fortunes for everyone's reading pleasure:

1) You eat the box [i was impressed with the lingo here. i dont think i knew about 'box' in sixth grade. especially eating it]
2) You r going to- [this one must have been in progress when I confiscated it]
3) You love Omar and yall going to get marry [I wish I knew Omar but my suspicions tell me he is not a pretty fella]
4) You suck d*ck [simple, to the point]
5) You love Ariana [I really DO love Ariana. She's so nice!]
6) You will be a d*ck sucker forever. [When showing a girl I just met this fortune teller this is the one that came up. Really nice manners on my part]
7) You and Solina fuck every day. [Yuck]
8) You are going to be rich. [I don't know where this fits in but it feels more like my sixth grade experience so I like it]

Today I read a blog that was way funnier than mine. I'm not such a big fan of the "n" word but somehow it added a bit of authenticity that made me laugh out loud. Besides, I'm an easy audience after work.

BIG TEST PART I

2006-01-17T19:36:00.001-05:00

That test was HARD. For some reason these tests always have passages about FARM ANIMALS or other rural nonsense that my Bronx children really do not understand. Today's passages were especially ridiculous, featuring a passage about a girl in Africa who lives on a FARM who gets sent to boarding school [how many public school kids know about that?] and is a runner and ends up saving a cow and a cow-baby [see even I am not comfortable with farm talk] with her skills in taking care of animals in childbirth. There were multiple choice questions about the organization of the passage like "The author presented an idea, discussed details, and then reflected upon past decisions" or "The author flashed back in time, presented a theme, and then analyzed an argument." I'm sorry but what the hell is this the GRE's?!?!

Then there was a passage about the history of "Wind up Toys and Automatons" which not only discussed various inventors and philosophers and their contributions to automatons, but also actually asked "Which inventor of automatons based a creation on purely philosophical intent?" THEY ARE IN SIXTH GRADE. I don't know what the hell they are talking about.

Next, they featured a 2 and a half page bio of a "pediatric dentist" who became a "zoo dentist" after doing special work on the dental x-rays of a Bengali tiger. Where do they come up with this stuff? How about a fairy tale or a story about a kid in Brooklyn on a bike or something? Even a story about a Grandma in suburbia will do but enough with the animals and the country!!

Finally, there was a fable about "The Incautious Fox and the Foolish Wolf" and they mentioned the "paring moon" and the "diminishing moon" and then asked a question about the meaning of "diminishing" in that context and the correct answer was that diminishing meant "shrinking" but the moon does not shrink!!! Any child that had a remote knowledge of science would be confused because while they did mean the light was diminishing or getting smaller, the moon itself did not "shrink." Another option was "rolling" and then the other two were words I can't recall that were definitely wrong choices.

To top it off the Regional Testing Lady [I'm sure that isn't her actual title] came by at 1 minute remaining and said that we get 55 minutes instead of 45 which seemed a little sketchy but apparently there was a "Memo" from the state? Sounds a little unusual to me. Good thing though since this test was so long.

The rest of the day we played charades and read our mystery novel and they were a bit on the crazy side but that's to be expected. We also canceled Extended Day all week in favor of three days of staff meetings which may be productive--not sure yet. We discussed latenesses and punctuality in the morning and our new behavior policy and we will have to see how it works out tomorrow but I'm guessing we still get 7 outta 13 teachers on time at Community Circle. We'll see.

JUST FOR THE RECORD

2006-01-12T20:24:00.001-05:00

I had a pretty good day today! The following comments were made about me by my students:

"Oh you can tell her... You can talk to Ms. _____ about anything!" [Cammy to Chanya, after the rest of the girls in my Advisory learned that Chanya had told me about how she saw her friend get hit by a truck yesterday. He is fine, so we are allowed to refer to it cavalierly, and also, apparently, I am totally cool].

"Ms. ______ is the funniest teacher. She should be on TV." [Brianne to Najina, when she heard another student say "Oh my gaaaaaawwwd" to me in a pissy voice and I responded "Really, I'm not religious, so that God stuff has no effect on me."]

We also had our School Based Leadership Team meeting which is me and a few other teachers and my principal and we talked about making up a progressive discipline plan [progressive meaning steps of consequences, not leaning to the left] and having no Extended Day next week for the kids and having staff meetings instead since it's a testing week for ELA and the following week we have to implement a new schedule as per the new union contract. We had assumed [for no reason whatsoever] that the scheduling aspect of adding 37 and 1/2 minutes to the schoolday for 10 to 1 student to teacher ratio tutoring had been all figured out by the principal but it turns out he didn't so much think it through as just say we'd add it on to the day and then have Electives after school following the 37 and 1/2 minutes. This will not work for a number of reasons which I don't feel like explaining right now but I think I'm going to avoid getting involved in planning the next phase of Extended Day.

Now if only I could keep Melanie from running out of the room and cursing loudly in class we'd be on the road to success...

YOU KNOW WHAT I CANNOT DEAL WITH?

2006-01-11T18:55:00.002-05:00

Eleven year olds that think that joking around that they are pregnant is cool. I took a new and exciting note from one of my girls today in which she and another of my girls were writing the following:

***

Yo beeeotch im totally pregnant
NO way you lyin'!
No I'm dead ass. aint got my period in 2 times
You just playin' like i was the other day.
No im not playin'! im dead ass. this sh*t's for real
you know who the daddy is?
Yah it's J____. he the only one i be f*cking
J____ i knew it would be him. you for real? you tellin him?
im not kidding girl.
you lyin
im not!

***

I caught her drawing a picture under this note. She didn't write it today becuase the girl she was writing to wasnt here today. I showed the note to the principal and he said to call her mother and when her mother came up she was smacking the girl in the face with a notebook and the girl did not even flinch or cry and it was really very sad and I had a hard time not crying in front of them all. How do you smack your kid right in the face over and over in the principal's office? So I guess her mother wants to send her to boot camp for a week to get her into shape. She went last summer and hated it so that's the big threat. 4:30am exercise and "lockdown." She is eleven and having sex! Her mother says that is not possible but I heard her talking in Advisory today saying she really liked going to Queens because thats where her man was and I thought she was making it up but now I'm not so sure...

Yesterday I almost lost my mind when Danny was throwing things at all of my kids and refusing to relent, move his seat, talk to me, do any work, relinquish the many items he was throwing or playing with, or stop slamming a locker door shut over and over. At the end of the period T-Rex and Melanie were threatening to beat him up and I was pretending I didn't hear them because all I could think was JUST GO KICK HIS ASS SO I CAN MAKE YOU ALL LEAVE MY ROOM FOR THE PERIOD but no such luck. Right before the period ended I asked all the kids to round up all the paperballs on the floor that Danny had thrown at them and there were about 30 total and so I gathered them in a basket while saying in a super cheerful voice "Danny I cannot wait till your Grandma comes up so that I can show her all the great things you did in class today!" and while my back was turned he actually put on his coat and ran out the door and tried to leave the building. I lunged towards him to catch him but missed.

His grandma is pissed. But the real thing that made me angry was that during Extended Day, our school aide had him delivering the after school snacks!! Him and T-Rex both, who I had just spent 45 minutes of my prep dealing with and speaking to their mothers. I was furious. I talked to the aide and asked if he knew who selected the students for snack delivering and he said "Oh I just have the detention kids do it" which I remarked was really very unfair because it was a giant reward to let them do that and they were supposed to be in detention. And he was like "No I'm making them work." So I explained that their classmates were all in class, doing test prep, and instead of being punished, the detention kids are getting to play delivery man and also disrupting every classroom they go to by being loud and obnoxious. So he nodded and I think he gets it. We'll see next time I guess.

MODERN DAY SLEUTH

2006-01-09T19:27:00.001-05:00

I think I have decoded the mystery of the screenplay note. I confiscated a second one on Friday.

CiCi: Iam bored and why chanya wrote that to mia?
Anti-Chanya is still my friend but now really
Lashawn- me too
Nikey- I don't really like that bitch becaz she always thinks she's write and she damn well know that she wrong
CiCi- She's always complaining about jamaal and obri or who ever and that's annoying. Lashawn when you comin 2 my crib?
Anti-that is the same reason I dont like her that much.
Lawshawn- me too she's f*cking annoying. i f*cking hate her i dont know sis.
Nikey- the think I dont like about her is that when you talkin to somebody she comes out of no where and talk about jamaal and her other boyfriend and guess what we didn't even ask her shit about them. and she also talk too f*cking much.

***

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. I swear I wrote this exact same note in junior high. Interestingly, attached to this note, which I confiscated out of CHANYA'S HANDS [were they framing someone to be caught writing about her? so mean] it says

"The reason I'm not your friend is because you talk alot [and you do talk about people, Tasha, etc] and you say you don't but you do and I just don't want to get any porblems with the b*tches in this d@mn school."

***

I like that note. I am not sure who wrote it but I think I may have decoded the nicknames... I told them I was really enjoying their notes and that I was starting to think I could publish a book and if they were going to pass notes in class they needed to at least get a little better at it and instead of reading it in class I just tucked it in my back pocket and kept tapping it whenever I walked by the table. Isn't that mean!!

***

Today we had PD with a guy from the YMCA who talked to us about Developmental Assets which is this program that sounds fantastic but I'll drop dead in shock when we actually implement something instead of just talking about it and saying "Yes that sounds fantastic I'll get right on it..." A few of us also expressed some frustrations about staff lateness and safety among students and consistency in disciplining the students which we'll have to see whether that makes any difference.

The state ELA tests are next week and I'm losing patience with test prep. Even my 'good class' is making me a little crazy and the only thing making my other class slightly more bearable is that Isiah has been suspended and housed in another class for 3 days. I'm hoping this change is permanent because honestly, when we profiled our student population we decided that we had 10 students (out of eight total homerooms) who were really the problems and guess how many of them are in my 'bad class?' THREE. I think that is a little imbalanced. T-Rex and I are doing a little better. I do a lot of whispering to him, trying not to freak out when he acts like a maniac. And Melanie is just kind of like having a hand grenade in class, a hand grenade that responds really well to positive reinforcement but will lose her f*cking sh*t if you wont let her pee.

Chanya is actually moving up in the ranks of annoyance which made me feel kind of good when I read that note about her which is so juvenile of me but I think we have all earned the right to be juvenile at least in our heads when we are dealing with Laquan making animal noises and Anna 'has her period and bad cramps' for like three weeks and keeps telling you she has to go 'change' and kind of winks just because she wants to spend a half an hour in the hallways playing around.

I am going to retire to other forms of writing for the evening as I feel I am complaining too much and no one likes a whiner.

2006-01-05T18:39:00.000-05:00

Also, this made me giggle.

Ima be alone foreva.

2006-01-05T18:05:00.001-05:00

CiCi: So you're not single?
Mesha- LOL your funny
Lashawn: who [with double underlines] me?
Mesha- No, CiCi
Lashawn- I'm single sniff - 5
Mesha- it will be alright you will find one some day
CiCi: yall so funny :-) Ima get Tayler !!!
SB you making it sem like I'll get one when I turn 99 and you still like Tayler
Misha- No Im saying that this year you will get one. what you still like TAYLER?!
CiCi: Hell no!! If I kissed eddy why would i like Tayler? :(

****

There are many confusing things about this note. First and foremost, I confiscated it from Shanika in my classroom the other day. There are no students by those names in my class. And each line has the students' name before it like it's a screenplay. Now, there is actually a Mesha in my class but she has never done a bad thing in her life and that is not her handwriting. There is a Tayler too, but I don't really think he's much of a ladies' man and Tayler wasn't one of the authors of the note. CiCi isnt even short for anyone whose name is on my roster I dont think. Maybe these are code note names? No idea. And what the hell are they talking about?! They are in sixth grade! And they are worried about being alone forever?! It's bad enough that I keep hearing rumors about one of my girls sleeping with 5 boys over vacation. It's all kinda yucky and alarming.

This week has been really fucking rough. I spent a half hour physically blocking the door so that Melanie and T-Rex wouldnt leave the room. I was literally leaning on the door, teaching boring old test prep while Mel shouted in my ear IMA GO TO THE BATHROOM RIGHT NOW. I DONT CARE IF YOU ARE IN MY WAY. GET OUT MY WAY. I GOTTA GO. I DONT CARE CALL MY FATHER HE WONT CARE ARREST ME I DONT CARE WHAT THE HELL THIS CLASS IS BUSTED LET ME OUTTA HERE. ILL RIP UP ALL YOUR STUFF I DONT CARE YOU CAN CALL THE COPS ILL DO IT ILL DO IT LET ME OUT RIGHT NOW.

I kept repeating very calmly [because I am too tired to yell and I tried it in this class and it just doesnt work] "I will let you go to the bathroom as soon as you take a seat and raise your hand without calling out." And finally after 30 minutes of leaning on the door and using Tayler's book because I couldnt cross the room to get my own, she finally sat down. And immediately put her hand up and I mouthed "just a sec" at her a few times to piss her off while others were answering questions and then I very dramatically was like "Melanie do you need something?" and she was like I NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM and I said "Oh why didnt you just ask? Go right ahead." I cracked myself up. I am lucky that worked or I would still be leaning on that god damn door right now.

The reason I was so belligerent about her leaving the room is that earlier that period, Chanya had walked out of my room without asking because she wanted to pee and I wouldnt let her because she always leaves for a half hour when she goes. And it was only 8:15am and I was like Dear Lord This Is Going To Be A Long Day. So T-Rex and Isaiah wont sit down, Chanya has left the room and I have told her that she cannot return without a signed note from an adult explaining why she has been gone for 30 minutes without my permission to leave and I'll be damned if Melanie is leaving without my permission. I was basically thinking HIT ME IN THE FACE SO I CAN GO HOME AND TAKE DISABILITY LEAVE but no such luck.

Later on I hand back their old tests and Mel is standing up and yelling WHAT THE F*CK I WILL RIP THESE TESTS UP AND I DONT CARE YOU WATCH ME I WILL RIP THEM UP YOU DONT BELIEVE ME WATCH! And she rips up the first test I give her and throws it in the trash and I ignore her and go get the folder I had put on her desk for the tests and when I get to her other tests I don't hand them to her I just put them in the folder in my hand and this makes her crazy and she is yelling GIVE ME MY TESTS I WONT RIP THEM I PROMISE I JUST WANT TO SEE THEM COME ON NO FAIR... etc etc and I whisper to her "I dont really think I should give these to you, do you?" And she is kind of sad by this I guess because she goes to the trash and tries to get her other test out and then says it's all dirty and I shrug and say "Thats ok I dont really need it because I have the grade written in my grade book." And she is surprised that I really didn't care. So she sits down and puts her head down and falls asleep and that is the last I hear from her till the principal comes by at about 5 minutes before I am supposed to switch over to teaching my advisory group and says "Here's a practice test to give them before lunch" and I am thinking NO F*CKING WAY IM NOT STAYING HERE AN EXTRA PERIOD but thankfully we are going back to our homerooms to administer it.

In my homeroom I learn that not only is this test a test we already took in December [and this is intentionl... no idea why] but half of the copies are missing pages so I postpone it till after lunch and I feel serious LOVE for my homeroom kids for not being such maniacs.

Later that day another ELA teacher tries to block the door when of her boys tries to leave after me telling her about my morning with Melanie only her boy actually flings the door open and knocks her into the wall and now he's suspended for 3 days.

I have not had a full prep since practically November because everyone is always late to cover classes and I'm basically ready to file a grievance against staff members.

At least tomorrow is Friday.

Mooooooo

2005-12-22T18:34:00.001-05:00

I know everyone has their transit-hardship tale of woe, but I am pretty sure I should be given a Transit Superhero Medal of Honor for traveling three and a half hours each way, from Brooklyn to my school in the Bronx. I only did it once [staying overnight in the Bronx for a night], taking the LIRR from Flatbush to Jamaica, another LIRR train from Jamaica to Penn, a walk from Penn to Grand Central, a Metro North train up to the Bronx, and another 15 minute walk from the train station to my school. I took Tuesday off in favor of a Transit Strike Mini Break Mimosa Breakfast Party with the lovely Debutantes, but Wednesday I left the house at 6:30am and arrived at school at 10am, just in time for the schoolday to begin.

I just got home from the return trek, and the strike is 'over' although I'm not sure it will be all better for me tomorrow in the AM rush since I leave so early. The way home tonight was more painful since they herded us like cattle up and down 34th Street from 7th Ave to 8th Ave THREE FRIKKING TIMES at a power walk speed to enter Penn Station. I did get to read a lot of Harry Potter, but the worst thing of all: my iPod was broken this week!! I feel the entire ordeal would have been far more bearable if I had been able to listen to my headphones while traveling.

I stayed at a work friend's house in the Bronx, and we went to the movies after school and had some teenagers kicked out of the theatre who were yakking away, climbing over the seats and actually THREW CANDY AT ME. We were pissed. Later that night, we had our impromptu staff party at a bar in Harlem which was pretty fun even though only about 7 of us were there. I had fancy drinks called Chocolate City and Peach Cobbler. The live band played Let's Get it On and the singer serenaded me, putting a little spotlight on me as the only-white-girl-in-the-bar. My coworkers all suddenly appeared to have digital cameras and camera phones and I assure you the moment was commemorated thoroughly with pictures of me blushing and trying to hide under our Literacy Coach's coat and a large man with a Doughboy tshirt on singing Al Green while holding my hand. It was very funny, although I reserve the right to change my mind on that opinion once I see the pictures.

At school today, we had our Holiday Celebration Performance 8th period, which featured our newly formed Gospel Choir which sings boldy in the face of the Separation of Church and State Rules. Oh yes, we heard Away in a Manger, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, and it was Jesus everywhere. The man teaching choir is the same man who gave my students worksheets from Bible.com in the fall so this is not surprising. Then one of our teachers sang O Holy Night which is by far the best Christmas song of all and always makes me want to cry. The kids need more of this kind of community building fun performance based stuff but we need to get a soundsystem that is better than a microphone up to a tiny boombox over a loudspeaker because that is just insulting to musicians everywhere. School was manageable this week though, with delayed openings and some in school suspensions of some of my key players. In the final minutes of ELA this afternoon Chanya asked me: "Are you part black or Puerto Rican or Dominican or something because you got shape!" Damn blue jeans. She insists it was a compliment and I'm sure she meant it as one but I couldn't help but think "ah, yes, my butt does look rather prominent in these jeans..." First [and last?] day all year I've worn jeans to work. I also confiscated little Danyella's torn pages from her notebook which she was tearing during our shared reading and it said BITCH BITCH BITCH MOM YOU ARE A BIG BITCH I HATE YOU and she was very upset that I was going to read it or call her mom but instead we chatted about appropriate times to write in a journal and I gave her the pages back with a warning. Aren't I nice and fairminded? Yes I thought so too.

But really, I had some fun with my kids this week. Maybe it was the blue-jeans casual atmosphere and the transit strike lowered attendance and the fact that my good mood was fairly unbreakable due to pending vacation time... But I was just a dancey pants nicey nice teacher for the most part. [Except for the times that I wasn't, but I'm trying to block them out in favor of a positive heading-into-vacation attitude].

I am thrilled to have only one day left before break [possibly none if I can't get to work in the AM] and hope to take a serious break from thinking about, speaking to, dealing with, planning for, disciplining or looking at anyone who is in the age range of 10-13. Please be advised of these restrictions.

HI MOM, IT'S ME, T-Rex...

2005-12-18T16:11:00.001-05:00

...I am leaving you this message because I had to spend the day in a different classroom because in my old class, I was disrespectful to my teacher, disruptive to the class, and could not stay in my seat or do my work or stop yelling inappropriate things. Then today in my new class, I did the same thing all over again. My principal said he might have to suspend me to a different building if I cannot change my behavior. He and my teacher wanted me to tell you this. Please talk to me about my behavior when you get home from work tonight.

***

That was the message I had T-Rex leave his mother on her answering machine this week. Then we wrote the whole statement down on paper so that he could have it signed by one of his parents, along with a sheet for him to write out "Three Promises About My Behavior." Momma showed up at school the next day and she was PISSED. We had a long talk in which I reiterated some of the particularly 'special' things that Travis had done throughout the week.

Between T-Rex and Melanie I spent most of my week incredibly angry about our reorganization. Melanie had a bad start to her week, calling me or the school or something that was happening "beasted" which I didn't completely know what that meant but it seemed offensive. She stomped out of the room a few times, overturned her desk once, and when I finally had a private talk with her in the hallway she screamed "HELP SHE'S GONNA KILL ME" to everyone passing by. Unfortunately I did some voice raising and yelling and I hated myself for it. Now I'm back on the whisper tactics where they get all uppity and loud and scream in my face and I whisper all of my responses really calmly and it freaks them out and makes them sound crazy.

On Friday, we took a trip to the Sony Wonder Technology Lab which was awesome because I only had to really deal with my homeroom. The kids loved it and they spent the busride singing, teasing each other, and yelping everytime the bus went over a bump. It was totally fun. Even though I was sad about not having a transit-strike-mini-break. Still hoping for one on Tuesday...

Things improved somewhat after T-Rex's mother was in, mostly because I kept looking at him like YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FRIKKING KIDDING ME everytime his behavior started to slip and he kind of realized that he was about to get suspended and backed off. He's actually a nice kid he is just a follower of bad kids. He told me he wants to be a professional baseball player and we talked about how in order to play sports in school you need to pass classes and not get detentions and suspensions and I told him about how I used to play baseball. He's a catcher. We talked about bad knees.

Then Mel and I had a good day and I sent home a 'positive note home' and she was psyched. So we are trying to maintain that. I tried to give Adrien a similar note after a good week... but at the end of the day on Friday he flipped out on Shenae [whose mother is mad at me for giving Shenae detention for repeatedly violating uniform code] and they started cursing each other out across the room and he was calling her a psycho-bitch and I said "Adrien, I have to say you are the only one who sounds unstable right now" because he was screaming and kicking his desk and I was whispering which made him seem ridiculous. So I took back the 'positive note' and tore it up, threw it in the trash and had the class line up to go home. It was very dramatic.

This is the last week before vacation and I'm relieved. After break is always a good time to come back and have a fresh start, perhaps some kind of super cheesey elementary school behavior system where I put up all of their names and give them smiley faces coded green/yellow/red depending on how their behavior is and link each color level to specific consequences. My homeroom wont need it but Class From Hell does... Just crossing my fingers for a transit strike and a windfall of fantastic Christmas presents followed by a shopping spree and I'll be all set for 2006.

REPORTING FROM THE PALMS

2005-12-11T09:25:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting in the lobby of a hotel in Tampa Bay, where I have travelled for the weekend to go to a wedding [Hawaiian themed?!] and I am the only one awake this early because I was a party pooper and went to bed at midnight. Everyone else went along to the tiki bar which in my experience from the night before involved a dj wearing a polar fleece, a santa hat, and playing Aerosmith and Vanilla Ice. Florida!! Yeah!!

This week was an especially trying one at work, and I called every parent of my new class to introduce myself. 3/4 of the phonecalls were positive, and the others regaled tales of horror. For instance, T-Rex, my six foot tall boy in the Class From Hell, drawing all over himself and his tablemates in black Sharpee marker and refusing to hand over the marker, Melanie, with Punky Brewster pig tails and the loudest voice I've ever heard, and T-Rex trying to leave the room without my permission and me having to physically block the doorway to prevent them from leaving, a gigantic food fight in the cafeteria which resulted in over 20 trays of food upturned on the floor and my homeroom kids feeling very upset about the milk on their pants [I did a 'relaxation exercise' with them afterwards]...

Fortunately, my kids were not involved in the food fight, or in the really scary fight that broke out during the chaos between school and extended day, where a student from another school was threatening one of our kids and when he was restrained, punched our paraprofessional AND our principal. I mean, when you punch the principal, where do you go from there?

I reached extreme levels of frustration when after offering to take on 5 extra girls for cheerleading [putting me at the highest enrollment for after school] and those girls being some choice selections that were truly a giant favor for my principal, then losing our space for the 2nd time [they double booked the cafeteria] and being left in the hallway for 40 minutes by the principal who was dealing with the punching adults fight. So the girls start acting out and I get angry and have to settle them all down and remind them that cheerleading is a PRIVILEGE but of course it's not their fault we lost the space. I dont even know whose fault it is but I was mad. I also gave up 4 preps this week to fix the after school schedule which was a ridiculously tedious job. Basically, we are having large problems with punctuality, organization, and teachers who do not respect the authority of our principal at all, coming in late, not helping monitor children at line up, sitting in the office or making copies when they are supposed to be helping with other things. I have to say, while I don't miss Principal Darth Vader at my old school, I couldnt possibly imagine the willful ignorance of her directives that happens on a daily basis at my new school. It's frustrating.

But it's the weekend and I'm 20 yards from the beach so I'm going to go find some coffee and enjoy Sunday.

Do you brush your teeth? Circle Yes or No. And Don't Tell on Me.

2005-12-02T16:54:00.001-05:00

That is the note that began my day, confiscated from Brianne during their first quiz which I had to yell a little bit to get them to shut the hell up so they could take it.

I also confiscated T-Rex [aka Clucking Chicken]'s keychain which said "My foot needs to meet up with your ass." And a cellphone that was playing One Two Step [see there's an underlying theme here...]

One of the teachers had her cellphone and wallet stolen this week by one of her new students. Amazingly, the girls who did it were stupid enough to take pictures of THEMSELVES on the phone, tell everyone they knew they had found a phone, and walk around on the street near the school with it, talking on it. They threw all of her credit cards in a pile of mud, stole her metro card, eighty dollars in cash, and then ditched the phone when they got caught by a staff member near the train. They showed zero remorse and are getting suspended for a week. They didn't even cry. One girl was like "Oh, sorry. I guess I'll give you back your twenty dollars" [they split the 80 four ways].

And the newest development in the building we are housed in which has four schools, is that the three new schools are having rival gang wars in which they all jump each other in a big mob at dismissal. All the new schools with the sixth graders had changed our dismissal time so that our kids could get home before the bigger kids were dismissed but apparently they just figured out a way to fight each other instead. Today, about 50 kids charged down the street by the train while I was walking and talking on the phone with my mom, and some of them stole produce from the outside of a deli and catapulted tomatoes at each other, whilst others brandished plastic bats and wooden sticks kind of like hockey sticks. I told a police officer on the train platform and called my principal to inform him of the ongoing drama but he has already made a school-wide speech about ending this gang stuff [they are ELEVEN!! shouldn't they be jumping rope and playing with Yu Gi Oh cards instead??!!] and I guess it didn't really sink in. I felt a little guilty about telling a cop on them but I also felt a little scared that 50 giant boys were rampaging down the streets with makeshift weapons and flying produce. I mean, come on.

Needless to say, it is Friday, and I am not going to think about work all weekend. Starting now.

STOP ME STOP ME OH STOP ME

2005-12-01T18:36:00.001-05:00

Picture yourself in a room full of 25 sixth graders, trying to read aloud from a book called The Watsons Go to Birmingham. From a seat by the window, a boy starts clucking like a chicken, then burping loudly. From a seat in the back a girl yells SHUT UP YOU IDIOT. To your left, a boy stands half on his chair, half on the floor, and flaps his elbows as if responding to the chicken cluck. Then chicken clucker blurts out RASTA MON!! and ten people start giggling. You stand there, patiently, repeating the words "I'm not going to continue reading until it's quiet... I'll wait..."

Is this a classic teaching anxiety nightmare? Alas, it is not. This is what I have been living with all week long in my new classroom full of maniacs. I am trying incredibly hard to not lose my calm with them but I am really f-ing close to flipping my lid. Today, I engaged in a back and forth about going to the bathroom, interrupted a girl who was singing One-Two Step while I was assigning the homework, and had to ask someone twelve times to stop tapping their pencil and stay in their seat. I threatened phonecalls home and detentions but refrained from giving them so that I could save the big stuff for next week which will surely be worse. You see, in September, you have the energy to whip a new class into shape and be enthusiastic and relentless. In the interim between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there is no such energy to be exerted. It is completely unfair. And it seems that NO ONE is enjoying their new classes which is exactly what I knew would happen.

I am so done with teaching.

This does however make me appreciate my homeroom class a bit more. It's a combo of old homeroom kids and a handful of kids from my other class section, which was dissolved. Adrien has shown some improvement and everytime I walk into my homeroom I actually declare loudly I MISSED YOU GUYS and they all get kinda giggly. But still, they are testing my patience as well. We started having 'snack' in after school and that makes them a little nutty [we havent resumed regular after school electives since the UFT debacle]. While I was waiting for the train today, across the platform runs Jarod, stripping off his coat, uniform shirt and hat, and flexing his 'muscles' and going WHAT WHAT YOU WANNA MESS and then he sees me on the platform, turns scarlet, and puts his clothes back on. I was looking a little silly myself, tapping my feet and humming along to a Debutantes track Abby sent me the other day [which is awwwwwesome].

I am also completely enthralled with Harry Potter [about 5 years late, I know] and I'm on book 2. It is my escape from reality on the train. If only I could turn chicken clucker, singing girl, and SHUT UP lady into little field mice and be done with it.

YO MA-MA

2005-11-27T14:29:00.001-05:00

Lately, I have been living in a delusional fantasy-land in which Martin Sheen is the President of the United States, ably backed by Rob Lowe, et. al, navigating domestic and foreign affairs with their witty banter and diplomacy. I have taken to watching the West Wing via Netflix. It has gotten to the point where occasionally, when current events or politics come up in general conversation, I will begin to reference something I "heard in the news" only to realize it is actually something I watched on West Wing. I am presently up to the second season [also known as "the season when the men need better haircuts"], and my most recent confusion was when coworkers and I were talking about the census and I said "Oh just heard something about the census recently, about the effectiveness of sampling versus door to door..." and then realized, no, that was actually an episode of the West Wing. I think that until the government starts behaving less heinously, I will maintain my delusions. Over Thanksgiving, my brother and I watched the Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes and I took a particular liking to Yo Yo Ma's performance of Bach's Suite in G Major which I am downloading from my father's cd collection as I write this.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the dreaded reorganization, which has since been changed so that I will not be working with my old friend & colleague Mr. W, but instead another new teacher who I pray will tolerate my obsessive organization and not touch my things.

My principal had the somewhat foolish plan to just 'send all the kids into the hallway with their things" to switch classes during the schoolday, and then "have the kids help" the teachers move their classrooms around. I vocalized my opposition to the idea and came up with a 2 day plan involving the kids taking home ALL of their things on Wednesday afternoon and coming in on Monday to go to their new classes, and the teachers getting an extra prep to move their classrooms around.

I have assembled one class of students who I have already been teaching, a combination from both of my old class sections. The other class section is made up of all kids I do not know in the least. I am somewhat scared of them since this group includes the girl from the take-off-your-shoes, extensions, and school uniform fight from a few weeks ago [she is also in cheerleading so I have met her before but she's been in detention every other week since then instead of being in cheerleading], and 2 boys who are kind of legendary.

I'm also losing some of my old behavior problems but I wanted to keep them -- I want MY bad kids, not someone else's bad kids (Devil you know...). No fair. I don't really understand why my principal thinks that this is going to solve any of our problems. If it's the same kids and the same teachers, just in a different arrangement, we will certainly end up with the same problems, if not immediately, then in a few weeks or months. I guess the main problem is that our adminstration has seemingly no foresight for chaos and is perpetually disorganized. I am sick and tired of covering other people's classes when they are out, losing half of my preps for late teachers, and dealing with other people's poor management skills that carry over into my class time. I hate to be such a bitch but I'm just done. I am very excited that this is my last year in the classroom and with that mentality, I can make it through the year. Hopefully.

If I wasn't applying to grad school and relying on this third year of teaching on my resume, I would consider finding a new job before the year was over. Drastic, but perhaps better for my health and sanity.

BUY THIS CAR TO DRIVE TO WORK. DRIVE TO WORK TO PAY FOR THIS CAR.

2005-11-15T18:14:00.001-05:00

Every time I think we've outdone ourselves, a new paragon of ridiculosity ensues. This week, the new plan is REORGANIZATION. I know this is not a new idea, but with the knowledge of my school as perpetually disorganized and behind schedule, I assume any warning about a major change will operate on a significant delay. Let us hope that this is the case with the REORGANIZATION. Which means that I will no longer be partnered with Miss First Year, but instead with a teacher I've worked with for years since he taught at my old school too, Mr. W. That part will be nice. The parts that are not so nice include the fact that they are 'dissolving' two classes, one of which was Mis First Year's class, and therefore I will be teaching a brand new class section starting possibly as early as this coming Monday. I doubt that this will be set into place so quickly but we'll see.

This also means they are changing around the entire daily schedule which we are all just getting used to. And we are changing our entire after school schedule which is just going to be chaotic no matter what. If they take away my cheerleading group I'll be pissed. We are just left in limbo with out knowing when anything will change and what it will change to which makes me crazy.

The new class section will comprise of some of Miss First Year's homeroom class and a number of kids from other class sections which are being switched around for "behavior reasons" [MEANING: their teacher can't handle them so give them to people who might be able to... MEANING: I am a sucker for new bad kids right before Christmas]. All this time I've been thinking I was so lucky to not have to deal with some of the real crazies in the school and now I'm going to be stuck with em I am just sure of it.

Furthermore, he is switching two other sections into CTT or Collaborative Team Teaching positions which means there will be some very unhappy staff members because frankly the new combos are not all going to be happy with their pair ups. I am relieved, very very very relieved not to be one of the new CTT teachers because I think I'd have to quit if I had to share a classroom space with someone and relinquish what little control I have over my environment all day. But I am envisioning a new class section full of kids who fight and swear and talk back and can't read. And I've just gotten my kids to get their routines together and know what to expect of me and even if no one else can manage my homeroom section [which will also be modified to move around some bad kids even though I don't want to trade anyone] I can and I don't think moving around the bad kids is going to solve anything, especially if it's done in the disorganized fashion we've done everything else in the school.

That's enough ranting for today. And I didn't even get to the Parent Teacher Conferences we started today...

THANK YOU, VETERANS

2005-11-11T09:15:00.001-05:00

Seriously. This day off is swell. Granted I couldn't sleep past 8am and my eyes kind of hurt as a result of that and the dry dry steam heat in my apartment. And my Netflix is late which makes me unreasonably angry. [My West Wing Marathon Plans are Ruined!!]. But a three day weekend!!

Yesterday was equally as crazy as the rest of the week. I had extra random kids in both class sections: This kid Tyler who apparently fought 5 girls in his class at line-up so we got him as an extra special present for the day. And of course the new girl who it turns out is actually Latina, as carefully deduced by her last name which we learned yesterday, but yesterday she also wore a studded punk rock bracelet with a spike in it. Yeah! The kids seem to really like her. I wonder if once she starts wearing the school uniform [which is required] she will like tear off the sleeves and get a spikey hair-do or something, you know, to keep her individuality. My favorite colleague, Miss M, says that in Advisory she claimed that she 'was a little bit arrogant' which is kind of a self aware thing for a 6th grader to say. By next week we should have one less full class section and 4-5 extra kids in each of our other classes. Makes me kind of nauseous to think about it.

First period yesterday I was asked to cover the team-taught class [because a teacher was absent], but by myself. And wow there are some interesting children in there. I am afraid of 50% of them and pity the other 50% for sitting in the same room as the others all day every day. I was told that I needed to cover the class 5 minutes after it started so I had no preparation time and had to wing it which is just about the worst thing you can do with a group of challenging kids. I managed not to lose my cool the entire period which I think surprised them. I could tell they really really wanted me to yell at them and I refused to. So there. I just did a lot of pacing and deep slow breathing.

Later in the day, I was teaching next door to my homeroom class when out of nowhere came a piercing shrieking riot-like sound that endured for nearly 45 minutes through the wall from my classroom. The kids in the room I was in kept looking at me and mouthing WOW and I kept shaking my head in mock disbelief. I knew it must have had to do with the mouse from the day before but I couldn't imagine what was going on in there. I sent one of my kids to the office to have someone go intervene and calm my homeroom down and the noise subsided temporarily after I heard some stern yelling.

When I finally went back next door to teach Extended Day [which has temporarily been suspended in favor of "Homework Study Hall" until this Union Nonsense is resolved] I entered and a hush fell over the room "SHHHH Ms. ______ is here!!" about five kids yelled. I don't know what I've done to command this respect [or fear] but whatever it is I am really glad for it. The room truly looked like it had been ransacked by thieves and then ravaged by a hurricane. The books were off of the shelves, the desks were half emptied onto the floors, the desks and chairs were all moved from their spots, the teachers desks were pulled away from the wall, kids were sitting on the library table and on top of their desks and the teacher who was teaching them was just kind of standing there in shock. I gave a very melodramatic jaw dropping look around the room and without saying anything started to clean up. I asked if maybe we thought we were being a teensy bit dramatic about a small mouse and perhaps if we understood now why we can't sneak snacks inside of our desks and got a lot of "Yes Ms ______"s and sullen nods. Then I reminded them that there is a low bar on the front of their desk that could serve as a mouse-free footrest and they put their feet up and did their homework for 45 minutes.

Everytime someone started to talk or fool around I'd say something like "You want me to move your desk over there into Mouse Country?" [referring to the area by the door where said mouse had appeared] and the student would be like NOOOO and kind of shriek and giggle and then go back to work. They better kill that f-ing mouse before Monday or I'm gonna be pissed.

Time for a tv-marathon of gargantuan proportions.

HOLY UNION

2005-11-09T19:19:00.001-05:00

Just today, a number of rather incredible things happened. For starters, all hell has broken loose between the staff and the principal. Not everyone, I guess, but apparently some complaints were made to the union regarding our working 30 extra minutes per week without pay and as a result, we have to rearrange the entire schedule, reapply for our own after school jobs, break up one class section so each has an extra 4 students, and one person is going to start team teaching with another, which I don't know who but if it's me I might seriously have to quit. There will be no sharing of teaching for me. I think this is code for "Let's take all the classes that are under control and give them some real pains in the ass so that other classes that are out of control can be, you know, a little bit less out of control." In other words, gimme some more crazy kids!! I've taken 'em every other winter, why stop now? We learned about all of this in an emergency meeting held after after-school, which ironically, we were not paid for.

Other more endearing kindsa things have happened however...

This afternoon, we were doing a reading comprehension exercise with newspapers when out of nowhere, Jane asks "Why is everything made in China?"

"Well," I say, trying not to be TOO political on them "companies can pay people less in China for the same work, so sometimes they decide that in order to make more money, they will have their product made overseas so that they can pay them under a dollar an hour instead of like $6 or $7 an hour like they have to in the US." [I guess that was a little political, but I couldn't help myself]

"BUT THAT'S NOT FAIR!!" like five kids shouted simultaneously... Ah, the breeding of small revolutionaries. I love it. I replied "Well I agree with you." but I think since I didn't say "That's right. " or "Yes that is true" I am off the hook for being political, right? Maybe not.

We also read an article on Curtis "50 cent" Jackson and they made fun of my non-ghetto pronunciation of Fifty instead of "Fiddy."

Shortly afterwards, Isiah and Kadra claimed to see a mouse run across the classroom and we all had to put our feet up for the rest of the afternoon.

And finally, in my other class section, I got a new student who [I am fairly sure] is white? And had her fingernails painted black with a black hooded sweatshirt and skater shoes on. I was taken aback. I hope that she doesn't get teased for being white like some of the lighter skinned Latino kids have been in the past.

Then on my very long trainride home, I ran into a kid from my old school named Cheyanne who was one of Liz's kids and we chatted and she is doing well and it made me feel all old and teacher-y.

Million Little Pieces

2005-10-31T19:40:00.001-05:00

I'm reading a book called A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. It's about rehab. I find that I read a lot of books about rehab and I don't really know why that is. They are depressing and hard to read. On Thursday, I was sitting on the train home from the Bronx and a woman tapped me and said "do you realize that you two are reading the same book?" pointing to the woman next to me. "I just finished it this morning... Oprah's Book List!" I was embarrassed about the Oprah thing. What is Oprah doing recommending books about rehab? And then she got off and the woman and I sat kind of awkwardly not wanting to talk about the book.

The next day, on the way home from the Bronx on a different train, I noticed someone next to me reading the same book again! So I tapped her and said "Hey we are reading the same book," and she said "That's so strange, that happened to me yesterday too..." and I said "Me too!" and we looked at each other... But it was not the same woman from the day before. I guess it is just a popular book but come on that is a pretty big coincidence, isn't it?

This morning at line up before school there was a knock-down-drag-out fight between two girls. Actually, they didn't really get to fight, but one of them took off her shoes, stripped down to her gym shorts, pulled out her earrings and took off her weave [!!] and was screaming like she was going to kill someone. In the process of breaking up the fight, 2 teachers were hit in the face [accidentally] and the girl who had lost her mind actually TOOK DOWN the principal onto the floor in his attempt to restrain her from going back after the other girl. Apparently the cause of this fight was because she heard that the other girl had spread a rumor that she was a virgin. I'm sorry, but you are ELEVEN!! We had a long talk in Advisory about the cause of this fight and I was left feeling disturbed, especially after last week when I found out one of my girls may or may not have had an abortion.

Needless to say, school has been really upsetting. I guess that is why I'm not really writing about it lately. And in addition to upsetting, it's completely annoying. I want my own classroom and I want other people to stop making a mess in my room and getting my kids all out of control and then leaving me to clean up the disaster. And there is no systemized procedure for anything at all and the tone of the school is just getting kind of desperate and tense. So I think until further notice, [in other words, until someone does something cute or horrendous enough to write about] I'm taking a break.

I'll leave you with the note I confiscated from Wakeema last week:

"Dear Shaquan,

Kadra really like you a lot. If she tells you that she likes don't tell her she's ugly because she-"

And then I took the note before she could finish. Which is too bad because I would have liked to have read more.

GRID FROM HELL

2005-10-19T20:14:00.001-04:00

My principal and I are trying to work out the Extended Day Schedule. Unfortunately, we are working within parameters and restrictions that are more complicated than any GRE problem I ever tried... For example:

*There are 200 students to be scheduled, and 14 teachers
*Each student chose their top 3 preferences from a list of 12 electives taught by 12 teachers, and we guaranteed their placement in one of their preferences
*We meet Tues/Wed/Thurs and want one day for Electives and 2 days for Academic courses after school
*There are only 9 classrooms, and then 2 small gyms. There are 13 classes on Tues/Wed and on Thursday we cannot use the gym because they are all academic courses
*Academic courses are designed for either remediation or enrichment, as well as divided into ELA one day, Math another day
*Only the math teachers can teacher math, only the ELA teachers can teach ELA
*The other teachers [Soc St/Sci] can only 'kinda' teach ELA or Math but will have to anyway
*The Soc St teacher can't manage kids to save his life
*Just because a kid needs remediation in ELA doesn't mean he needs it in Math, and vice versa, so they cannot just be split in half by level of proficiency
*If they chose an elective that meets on Tuesday, they need Wed/Thurs academics, if they chose an elective that meets on Wednesday, they need Tues/Thurs academics

I spent nearly all day working on this catastrophe with the principal's help while he was not dealing with students who were fighting [there were 4 fights today] and a student who falsely accused a teacher of "jacking him up against a wall and beating him" then denied it, apologized profusely, and begged not to get kicked out of school because he said he would be sent "to a home" because "last time he got kicked out of school" that's what his mom threatened. Turns out he got a teacher fired in his old school with a similar accusation. Wow.

On the way to Columbia after this exhausting day, I had to walk from 125th and Lenox where the 2 train runs, to 120th and Amsterdam where the professor's office was. On my way, I encountered a police bust/chase of some sort involving 8 squad cars, 2 unmarked, blocked intersections with undercover cops in bulletproof vests surrounding a building, and a cop car getting up on the curb on 123rd to avoid a one way road and nearly running me and 2 other people over. Made it out of there in a hurry while on the phone with Jaime, spoke with professor for about a half an hour and found out that they are only taking 2-3 new people in the program I am applying to this year, and felt a little disheartened but otherwise the meeting went well so I'm not going to stress about it since stressing is kind of pointless.

STEALING AND PEEING

2005-10-17T20:34:00.001-04:00

Aliya stole more of my things today. I don't know if I wrote about the last time she stole things from me, but this time I was pissed. She stole my tiny orange handled scissors, some hand sanitizer, and another giant post it pad. She completely denied it. I called her mother who told me that she steals everything and lies about everything as well. Which is a great thing to hear about a student but at least now that her mother has told me that I can just assume she is lying all the time which is kind of a nice luxury to have as a disciplinarian. I also had to fight with Adrien to hand over belt he was swinging around and was overheard saying "Oh you better give me that belt" which is not the best thing to have overheard out of context, in the hallway of a school.

Later on that morning I was on my prep in the principal's office and the principal and a security guard come in to check out the surveillance tapes from the hallway cameras which apparently you can do on the principals computer [wowowow big brother]. It turns out there was a confusing incident by the water fountain near the gym. A fairly tiny sixth grader was caught on tape eying the water fountain then the camera then the water fountain then the camera, untucking his uniform shirt, hoisting himself up over the edge of the water fountain and PEEING IN IT while giving sneaky eyes to the camera. And then he was caught by the female gym teacher. We watched the whole thing on the computer which has no sound and so it kind of looked like a silly 20's silent film, complete with extreme facial expressions from all involved.

I also had a fellow ELA teacher observe my Book Clubs lesson which was good I guess except for it was strange to have someone observe me and take notes on everything I did like he was supposed to copy it when I don't feel like I am such a veteran teacher that I should be copied. Apparently he is a bit lost though...

As for the GRE, it is now over and I am both relieved and pleased. Next step, meeting with a professor on Wednesday who is the head of a PhD program I'm applying to. Scaaaaary. Cheerleading starts tomorrow and we are launching our Recycling Program this week! Busy times...

2 IS NO LONGER MY FAVORITE NUMBER

2005-10-14T17:03:00.001-04:00

It has held that title since the third grade when we declared Magic 2 and that green M&M's meant homeruns in softball. But 2, I am through with you.

One of the glories of working in the Bronx is my oh so long train commute. I leave my house at 6:20am and catch the 2 train at Atlantic Avenue at 6:28 every morning unless it's late and then, you know, it's like 6:32 or 6:33 instead. If I can catch it way towards the back of the train, I get a seat right away and I even get the opportunity to sit on an end seat, particularly desirable during rush hour and when it rains, for hanging your umbrella over the edge [more on umbrella courtesy later]. Then I spend approximately 65 minutes on the train, all the way up up up to the Bronx. The last leg of the trip is above ground which is nice, although today it was STILL DARK when we got above ground which was a little bit depressing.

Generally I am zoned out in my GRE book and listening to music very loudly as to block out all offensive parties but this past week or so I skipped the headphones to focus on GRE math. As it turns out there is a whole plethora of things going on around me on my commute, that I had previously been oblivious to.

On Wednesday, I was doing Lines and Angles and the questions were about transversals cutting through parallel lines so it looked kind of like a small crosshatch. A little girl sat down next to me and asked "Are you playing tic tac toe?" I laughed, her mom laughed, her brother laughed. She said "Whaaaaaat? That's what she's doing." Her mom told her to leave me alone because I was doing big-girl-college-work.

She did not relent.

The train stopped between stations and we sat there for about 10 minutes, crowded train, and I finished the section I was working on and looked over at the girl. "You want to play tic tac toe?" "Yeah!" The mom kind of looked at me like she wasn't sure if I was being nice or a crazy person about to abduct her daughter. The little girl, as it turned out, had NO idea how to play and so I kept having to force her to win by telling her which box to put her O's in. Then her brother was like "You're not very good at this." And I looked at him with a mean teacher face. When I tired of tic tac toe, we exhausted a long list of topics including but not limited to: Carebears, Rainbow Brite, Dogs, Dad hitting her Dog, the ABC's [sung for me, 2 times], how to spell Theresa [her name], her kindergarten teacher, her birthday, my video collection when I was 4, her Carebear umbrella, her dog biting her Carebear, whether or not there are Carebear Doctors and why she has never seen one if I insist they exist, Teret's Syndrome [her brother has it], chewing gum that's stuck on the bottom of the subway bench [her brother did it], and Holidays.

When Theresa got off, I put on my headphones and a little while later, 2 women get on and I realize they are my best friend from elementary school's mother, and my old babysitter's mother [they are neighbors]. I hide and dont say hello while marvelling at the coincidence of them appearing on a C train [did I mention that we were stuck for 45 minutes and I switched to the C at Times Square? That sucked too] right as I was passing through.

Today, today was the kicker. I had just finished the final section of Math in my GRE book, the one on Probability and Counting Patterns, and I was checking over the answers. A girl with a Bar Harbor shirt that said "Bassturds" and had a picture of a Bass fish pooing, leaned over me to look at the subway map. Her teeny umbrella had a long dangly cord that at one time must have been a cord to hang up the umbrella but had since broken and hung as an 8 inch string. She was leaning right over my lap, swinging the umbrella which was getting my GRE book wet, and the cord must have hit my book, my hand, and my face at least 5 times. I kept swatting it away and looking up at her like WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? and she didn't notice me at all. Finally I tugged on the string and she looked down like "What?" and I looked at her like "I'm going to effing kill you if you don't move your umbrella." She didn't say anything and I was kind of incredulous that she was so unaware of what she was doing. I pointed at my wet book and the cord. Blank look in return.

I kept going over like 50 obnoxious things I could say to her to convey how pissed off I was but instead let my anger fester until she started tapping on the railing next to my ear. And then she was tapping ON MY UMBRELLA handle!!! I took a deep breath and stood up, grabbed the umbrella, and gave her a nasty look. The guy next to me laughed. She took my seat. It was tempting hang over her and get her lap and her lame Bar Harbor shirt all wet but instead I moved to the door and realized, hey, I'm actually at my stop already, and got off. I got off the train and called like 5 people to vent and no one picked up [they are lucky I suppose].

T minus 20 hours till GRE.

BAKEBAKEBAKE

2005-10-13T13:37:00.001-04:00

Wednesday my Advisory held their first bakesale and while I almost died of exhaustion working from 8am to 1:15pm with no breaks or preps and working straight through lunch, we made $100! I got to see some of my girls in top form, dealing with customers and managing money and organizing a flood of sugar crazy sixth graders. Not only that but they all brought in the baked goods they promised! Cammy and Jessica were especially impressive and took on much more responsibility than I expected. I think I'm going to reward them with breakfast on Friday morning during Advisory.

It has just occurred to me that this is the fifth form of procrastination I've employed this morning in an attempt to not study for GRE so I need to go.

Sixth procrastination form may be sketching a preliminary design for the Ark.

RECAP:

2005-10-11T18:43:00.001-04:00

1. Principal laid the smackdown last night with memo full of directives that were not specifically addressed to anyone in particular but were SO specific in their content that he was clearly talking to individual people. Fortunately I was not one of those people. Highlights included punctuality, bringing breakfast to Community Circle/Morning Line Up, games instead of instruction during Extended Day, hall passes, and incorporating Words of Inspiration to daily lesson plans [ok that last one applies to me but it applies to all of us I think]

2. The para-professional who teaches my kids music once per week was talking about God the other day to my students when I walked in to grab some papers to grade. I brushed it aside, chalking it up to random/bad timing. Then today he came in and asked me if I would distribute the graded papers he had done with my class and when I looked to see what they were it was a reading comprehension passage from the BIBLE which he had gotten off of BIBLE.COM. WHOOOOOOAH. I was kind of incredulous because I thought everyone knew you couldn't teach Jesus in public school but I didn't want to be the one to tell him that so I went to the Principal and showed him the worksheets and he said he'd already said something to him about no-God-in-school and I guess he didn't listen. Wow. This definitely rivals the Church vs. State anxiety I had last year when a third grader asked who the first people on Earth were...

3. The GRE's are this Saturday. I want to throw up.

4. My advisory has their first bakesale fundraiser tomorrow at lunchtime to raise money to buy recycling bins so that we can start a recycling program at our school. Yeah! Time to bake cookies so that when all of my girls forget to we at least have break and bake Nestle Toll House...

WHITE OUT

2005-10-09T12:43:00.002-04:00

If there is one school supply that drives me crazy, it's white out. Sixth graders are obSESSed with white out. They have just started using pens and that means they make mistakes and cant erase so what do they need? White paint to slobber all over their notebooks, stink up the room, and make their notebooks all sticky and messy. I am considering banning it from the classroom unless we are publishing writing pieces. I was a little tyrannical this week, as some of the kids have started getting a little crazy and doing things that are just completely out there. Adrien got up in the middle of his classmmate's Book Talk [oral presentation on a book], walked to the front of the room, took the book out of the kid's hand, and walked to a new seat in the room to sit down. I looked at him and in a pretty loud voice was like "You're kidding right?" and he was completely confused. "You just took a book out of another student's hand while he was doing a presentation, and then moved to a new seat?" He proceeded to argue with me which I do not respond well to and I had to pull him into the hall and discuss the many things that were wrong with his actions while he LAUGHED about it which made me even more angry but I managed not to lose my cool and then completely forgot to call his mother that night which sucks.

The saddest part of the week was seeing a kid in handcuffs in my hallway. He is this boy who looks like 18 [i think he's like 15 already] and still in the sixth grade and got in a fight in the cafeteria and was dragged upstairs by security who couldn't control him so they put handcuffs on him, the plastic kind like they use at protests, and he was flailing and spitting and his eyes were all bloodshot and he looked like a grown man. I didn't see how the other kid looked after the fight but I don't imagine it was pretty. Now our Principal had promised public apologies for these kinds of incidents in order to discourage fighting and make students accountable for behavior. I've now heard about 10 fights and have yet to see a public apology. Another fight broke out that same lunch period between one of my students, Nathan, and another kids I don't know named Jose and in the drama of the handcuff fight, the two other fighters were tossed in my classroom to 'keep an eye on them.'

So we talked about fighting and how their old schools were when they fought [ignored it or called parents, never did anything to prevent fights in advance like respond to bullying complaints] and what their parents thought of fights [they beat me or they don't care], and if they've noticed that our school IS someplace where the teachers care about these problems and aren't going to ignore complaints or let fights go unnoticed. They resolved their issue which was ridiculous because it was all based on both of them hearing a rumor from this kid Robert who is kind of a tool, who was telling them both that the other person was 'talking smack' about them. Agh. So then Jose says to me "You know Isiah is my cousin?" And I ask him "Really? What does Isiah say about me as his teacher?" Jose smiles [for the first time]. "He says your pretty cool. You're not all loud and shit. I mean, stuff. Sorry."

"Well Jose," I respond in a somewhat mocking tone of voice, "I am pretty cool." I dramatically pause. "But not about fights. I think they are pointless and immature and don't solve any of your problems. I'm not going to sit here and yell at you about it because I don't think that will accomplish anything, but I am going to make you both shake hands and if you don't do it nicely I might try to make you hug it out." They both look horrified. I laugh. They laugh. Handshake. Have no idea if they are still not getting along but I enjoyed our discussion immensely, and now know that no matter how much I harass Isiah about his pain in the ass behavior, he still thinks I'm "pretty cool."