the furniture wars

First and foremost: I'm alive!

That much was probably obvious. Less obvious has been that I'm still teaching. In fact, I'm teaching the perfect tenses right now, and Greek mythology, and how to craft a strong thesis and write a timed essay in under 40 minutes. So I'm doing all types of real teaching, as opposed to the BS-y fake teaching I did last year. This is not to say that I'm doing any of it well, but they say that comes in the third year.

The big drama at work is furniture-centric right now. It's sparked hours of ranting and raving, so I'll try to pare down to the bare minimum here. What you need to know is: our desks suck, and they suck hard. So, the five of us in the farthest-back rooms have fought and wheedled and coerced and gotten tables for most of our rooms, which rule.

About a week before the winter mini-break, we get this memo saying we are getting BRAND NEW DESKS AND CHAIRS for students and teachers and every single room that coming Wednesday!

Pause right here and remember that my school holds about 3600 students at any given time. How many desks and chairs is that, to move in one day?

So they give us these little paper signs, about five flourescent orange reading REMOVE and five flourescent pink reading DO NOT REMOVE. They are only for student and teacher desks as - this will become important - nothing else is to be removed at this time. I take it upon myself to coordinate the five rooms and make sure everything is labeled how it needs to be; this takes about half a day with all the attendant copying, taping, and phoning of off-track people, as we rotate these rooms in "pods" of three teachers for any given pair of rooms. This makes sense in a track-school kind of way and someday, if you are very lucky, I will explain it.

All through break I can't sleep for these vivid and recurring nightmares that I will come back to my room and it will be empty, or that my huge beautiful library tables will have been traded in for cheapie uncomfortable desks. When we come back and I find my room untouched, I am hugely relieved. Riley's room, next door, is a little different. They've taken out her 40 student desks and replaced them with 30 new ones. They've left her teachers' desk, as requested, but they have also put in a new teacher's desk, upside down, next to it. She puts in a maintenance request, but nobody comes for it.

Cool.

A week later, Friday afternoon, and we're still in our rooms at 5:00 for some god-unknown reason. Good thing, because some dude in a coverall sticks his head in and is like, "I'm here about the new furniture?"

Whaaa?

So we are insistent. We DO NOT want new furniture. We watch as he writes DO NOT REMOVE EXISTING FURNITURE in caps all across the instructions on the door. As an added precaution, I leave Mr. Junior Bacon Cheeseburger with what I hope is the cheerful but stern message, "Thank you for NOT removing my tables!" We leave feeling fairly secure that our directions are clear.

Come Tuesday, we enter through my room, where everything is still aces. Riley's room, however, now contains 40 student desks, her old teacher desk, her new upside-down teacher desk, and still a third teacher desk, shoved into the back corner of the room, blocking the fridge, microwave, and door into my room. Mysteriously missing is this amazing wooden table that I swore on several holy books that I would protect as it belonged to our insane dean. This is another story, and a pretty good one at that, but just now the (table-shaped) hole in my heart is too fresh a wound. I have been in alternate stages of denial and rage about it all week. That was my perch, man. My perch.

Riley is more or less just livid. We spend half an hour before school moving seven student desks and one teacher desk outside. The other one is too deep in the room, and too heavy to turn right-side-up. We throw a tablecloth over it, and it slumbers there still. She makes another maintenance request. From this we learn:
-Maintenance is angry that the new desks are outside, regardless of the fact that her room was so crowded we physically could not move around.
-We had been scheduled, all along, to receive our new furniture in this second wave. This second wave that not one teacher in the entire school was informed of.
-Riley's first set of new desks, then, was not actually supposed to be hers. It was in her room as "storage," despite the fact that her room is clearly in use, and that we are literally next door to a completely empty, abandoned wood shop.
-When they came the second week, they did not just add 10 desks. They took out the 30 desks "stored" in her room and put in 40 brand-new ones.
-My perch has been taken to salvage.
-As we were told all furniture taken from those rooms went to salvage, we can only assume this includes the 30 week-old desks that were removed to make way for this fresh batch.

Mr. JBC says:

somebody has been knitting too much

Look at me! I'm Dmitry!

photos photos.

Lots of stuff going on since my last post. Unfortunately I can't seem to get it down; I've written a couple of posts and then not finished or posted them. My camera has been up to some funny business lately, mostly of the "let's look blurry and 70s" variety, but this should give you the general idea of what I've been up to, apart from work, lately.

the mysterious disappearance of mr. cheeseburger

...and the overdue return of me.

First things first: Mr. Cheeseburger was my beloved piggie placemat, bought at the $3.99 store and named by my morning ESL class after I vetoed "Bacon" as too insensitive. Mr. Cheeseburger was taped to the door beneath a laminated speech bubble on which I wrote the day's most important announcements, which students faithfully read until the day the tape came loose and the maintenance staff saw fit to THROW HIM AWAY. I have done my mourning, and some day I hope to welcome Mr. Junior (Bacon?) Cheeseburger into my classroom. Until then, announcements the old-fashioned and oft-ignored way.

This is the logo of the restaurant where we had pretty decent Mexican food while I was visiting folk in New York a month or two ago:



Unfortunately, F13 is not just a brand of tasty Southern California Mexican cuisine, but also a brand of violent Southern Californian Mexican gang. I should be both broader and more specific: it's an extremely violent Latino gang in South Central Los Angeles, with ground zero being my high school. Two weeks ago, my SLC lost a former student - a close friend of many of my students - to eight shots to the chest, resulting from his involvement in Florencia. Since then, I've spent a lot of time and energy trying to ascertain how my students feel about it. At first they seemed callous, inured to violent death; they wore RIP gear (buttons, t-shirts) screened with the student's photos and told each other "if you get shot, I'll wear your t-shirt." Then they started showing me cell-phone footage of candlelight vigils and dropping off asleep in class, explaining that they'd washed cars all weekend to help the mother pay for the funeral. They felt something; I felt relief, knowing that at least we could start to have a conversation. Then, abruptly, I started finding tagging everywhere - out on the quad, in my pristine classroom - saying RIP "SHADOW" and, disturbingly, F13. The conversation is a gentle "maybe you should clean that off," with a rag and a bottle of mandarin orange spray cleaner extended, and while the wiping-down is happening, a suggestion that his name was not in fact "Shadow" but instead E., and that we should remember him for who he was, not where he was from, and that perhaps Sharpie on my tables was not the best way to memorialize him - perhaps this week's biography assignment would provide a better outlet? So far no takers on the biography, but a slowing in the F13 grafitti. If I prayed, it would be that none of my boys - my beloved softies who hang at the donut shop after school - will follow E.'s path in some kind of sick martyr fantasty. It happens all the time, but I hope that I never have to see it. I have been keeping my door open even when I usually close it, but I am resisiting the urge to run out and hug them whenever I see them. We get along because I humor their mistaken notion that they are tough, and I do not want to undermine this relationship.

The nines are starting literature circles, and they are also on my last nerve. They have done some really good writing lately, and they seem really interested in learning the hows and whys of writing, but reading is a whole other animal, one they eye with suspicion and fear. Picture, if you will, the classroom as a cave painting, with crude spears pointed at the object we call Book. It is going to be a long three months of identity and mythology.

My credential is finished tomorrow, HEY HEY HEY, provided I sign over $4000. I went shopping today so I might have a recent memory of what that feels like.

Attended - and presented at! - a Program conference in Las Vegas the other weekend, wearing handmade snarky anti-Program t-shirts, and was confronted about this on camera by The Program's Los Angeles Executive Director. Fortunately the snarkiness is of the direct-quote-that-is-so-insanely-stupid-it-needs-no-further-commentary variety, and I had little to explain. Executive Director Man pretended he thought this was "Great! Really.....just Great!" and that was that, and all of the t-shirt posse was semi-famous thereafter. Vegas sucks but we went to Cirque du Soleil, where you can enjoy a martini and a bucket of popcorn while watching the acrobatics. The only drawback of this is you have to go to Vegas to partake.

new york.

If I posted at all regularly, you would probably have noticed that I have been gone for the past week. At the moment I'm taking advantage of JetBlue's free wireless while I wait for my plane to start boarding, which should be happening any minute now. Thoughts on travel:

It is SO. SO. SO. easy to sort out the New Yorkers from the Angelenos on these flights.

I'm without lipgloss and am a little stressed about it. They confiscated it because it was a gel. I hold that it is really pretty close to a solid - it comes in a little pot and cannot be poured, but must be warmed up and applied with a finger, like Carmex. It has honey in it so maybe they were afraid I would try to feed it to a baby or something? The exchange went like this:
Airport chick: I'm going to have to take this.
Me: That's considered a gel?
Airport chick: Well, anything with this consistency.
Me: They let it through on my flight out.
Airport chick: They probably didn't catch it.
Me: (silently) And it didn't blow up then, did it.

So now I have no lipgloss. Whine whine whine.

Boarding!

new indignities, haircuts

So I went off-track a couple of weeks ago; around the beginning of the month, I guess. I've been subbing a couple of days a week for trusted friends with lesson plans, knitting a lot, and bumming around since then. Here I distill the last month or so into several points of interest:

BOLT CUTTERS! My classroom was broken into, three days before the end of the mester. They took my new printer, then went through the connecting door to my friend's classroom and took her new printer, her old iBook, and two LCD projectors. (They also took DVDs of Scarface and Fahrenheit 9-11, but left Hamlet, Indiana Jones, and a few others.) How did they get in, you ask? Why, the very same way the broke into this same room back in June! They used bolt cutters to snip through the heavy-duty metal screen over my windows, reached in, popped the emergency release, and then forced the window. It could have been much worse, as there was no vandalism. In fact, they were (relatively) very polite, stacking the materials that used to live on top of my printer neatly, with the larger books on the bottom all the way up to smaller note pads and things up on top.

MORE BOLT CUTTERS! The very next weekend, two days after I had vacated the classroom, it was broken into again. This time, they entered by snipping Riley's window screen, though they could have saved themselves some work and gone through my as-yet-unrepaired window once more. This time there was nothing left to steal, apart from various markers and batteries, so they busied themselves by throwing books and papers all over the room and tagging all the tables in marker and the glitter paint I keep for art projects. From this experience we have learned a number of things indirectly: that our campus cops are totally inept, that rooms at our school are broken into every single weekend, and that The District has told us that instead of the 28 security cameras they have been promising us for years, we will instead be recieving five (5) security cameras, at some as-yet-undetermined date in the future. I can't even laugh at the ridiculousness of this number as I don't think I will live to see the day. It just took several years - my guess is five - to complete the building of new bleachers, for crying out loud. The PA system has been "in the works" since I started, and someday we're supposed to be getting phones in the classrooms, too, and then and then and then... No. No, I will not only no longer be working at my school when we get these things, but I will in all likelihood no longer be breathing.

FLEAS! I was subbing for my friend Jackie the other days and maintenance came in to talk to me about the Flea Problem. I was like "Oh, is that where these bites on my arm are coming from?" I mentioned it to Riley, who used to teach in those bungalows, as they are uncarpeted and I did not know where the fleas could be living. Her response: "Probably on the dozens of feral cats living underneath them."

THE PROGRAM! It sucks this year, and seriously, no one should ever join it again. It's strayed so far from its ideals that it has no idea what it's doing anymore. Despite all this, I may be going to the Desert Mini-Conference in Vegas in November, mostly to roll out to Vegas with my crew, and to see the lovely Miss Amelie.

YOUTUBE! Seriously, being off-track and not having an existential crisis is awesome. I am all caught up on several seasons' worth of terrible television (ANTM, Pimp My Ride) and have become obsessed - OB.SESSED. - with Demetri Martin.

HAIRCUT! I was all, ugh, look at all this hair. I felt middle-aged and kind of blockish, like my head was made out of Duplo or something. So I marched up to Ye Olde Hipster Barber Shop and managed to get the stylist who is not only from my hometown, but who used to date this kid a year beneath me who I was totally convinced was gay all through high school. (I'm not sure my mind is changed by this experience.) We badmouthed Salinas for awhile and I admired her little bumblebee tattoos, and it was altogether an enjoyable experience. Anyway I look loads better now.


MAKIN' STUFF! I made a cover for my lappy, which I love, despite the fact that I had already started making it when I realized it has APPLES all over it. AUGH. I just think they're really cute, is all. Also, I made this belt the other day. It is crazy long and I might have to change that, but I still think it's super cute.




THE MAJOR! He is the king.

i prefer not to

*Grades are due tomorrow. They're in the system but it's not showing that they've gone through. 85% of my freshman class is failing - not because they can't do the work, but because they don't have notebooks, so the work disappears, and when grading day comes they have little to nothing to show for themselves. They're really pissed off, but in no way is this notebook thing news to them - I refuse to touch loose paper this year unless it's a final draft of an essay or a project. It's made my life immeasurably better and their grades so, so pathetic. On the plus side my entire morning class is passing - everyone between a 70 and a 91 percent average. This is basically unheard-of for me and I'm really thrilled.

*A lot of money in The District seems to come from court settlements. For example, Rodriguez money, allocated for new teachers, ensured that we got technology like laptops. Williams money is supposed to ensure that students have textbooks that they can bring home if they want, and never have to share, in addition to other educational sundries. Williams money, however, is not spent of books, but instead on a team of what I like to call "scouts" or "spies" who come into our classrooms unannounced, write up how we're effing up on a secret clipboard, and then turn this in to administration. Last time Williams popped in I got two visits: one to tell me that I was out of compliance if I simply had 25 texts for 25 kids, as they had not signed the little white checkout cards that make things legit (nevermind that I don't use the textbook. Ever.) The second one was a silent visit. Today we got the spreadsheet of violatons and my room is listed as one that has "air fresheners and/or aerosols" which could endanger the students. Gee, you mean like the creeping mold the smell is supposed to mask? My homie next door is on the list for having boxes stacked too high. No joke. Thing is, I keep mine stacked that high, and no write-up. They're empty boxes, lest you worry they could fall and injure our flocks. We keep them so that we can pack up and move our books - the ones we buy out of our own money, mind - every two to four months, when we either switch rooms or go off-track.

God forbid that Williams money go toward permanent, non-mildewed rooms for each teacher.

*Bonus item: my favorite Williams citation was for a "daisy chain of surge protectors." Who comes up with this shit?

*For a while I thought about staying at my job but quitting The Program, which is getting more intensely fascist and data-driven with every passing second. Then I decided it would be better, or at least classier, to be the modern-day Bartleby of South Central. I won't go out in a blaze of glory like I used to; I will simply "prefer not" to track and return any standards-based data, in the same way that I "prefer not" to teach my scripted program unsupplemented and verbatim. If you prefer, I am doing things the Office Space way. In particular I'm thinking of "I'm just not gonna go anymore."

excerpts from my personal hell

Time for a new character in the ongoing saga: Idiot Assistant Principal, who is Idiot Counselor's boss and my observer. Ms. IAP came in today to observe me as part of the STULL process, a process which reflects both on me as a teacher and my school overall.

It was a rough period to begin with. I'd had a rough morning, and third, my freshmen, were looking to make things tough for me. As I may have mentioned before, we're in the middle of a chapter of Freakonomics, the one about why crack dealers still live with their moms, and it's long, and they don't really feel like reading, and they are letting me feel that in a large way. We cannot, simply cannot, listen as our classmates read out loud, so I'm like, "Okay guys, this isn't working, you're in groups now." We read the focus questions on the board, and they let me know that they know what they're looking for, and we start reading. Or at least, 60% of the class starts reading. It is at this point that Ms. IAP walks in. I spend the rest of the period monitoring groups, trying to keep the noise level down so people can read, and setting up the new groups since these kids clearly can't choose their own seats effectively. I ask enough questions to make sure that my kids mostly know what they've read today, and that's that. Pretty typical rough day in a 9th-grade classroom.

This is how the meeting goes after class.

Idiot Assistant Principal: First let me say that I just love your room.
Ms. L: (mentally) Shit.
Idiot AP: (deep breath) You know, as long as I taught, I found that reading in groups never worked. You really should have them read as a whole class.
Ms. L: Actually, that wasn't working. That's why we moved to groups.
Idiot AP: I see. Well, sometimes we try experiments, and they don't work. That's OK.
Ms. L: It wasn't an experiment. It was a class. It was a rough day, but we'll rework it and we'll come back again tomorrow.
Idiot AP: Mmmm hmmm. Well. I couldn't really tell what was going on at all.
Ms. L: (wondering why she neither asked the students nor looked at the board but deciding against asking.) You know, I'd also like to note that this class doubled in size last week.
Idiot AP: In week four? Were they all new students?
Ms. L: No....some classes were collapsed. The students came here. I went from thirteen to twenty-six on one day. So part of the problem is that half of these students know each other and the norms and half of them are just trying to figure things out. Essentially it's week one again.
Idiot AP: Oh. the collapsed classes, to create the Strategic Literacy.
Ms. L: (mentally) Which my department had to lobby for for months...
Idiot AP: That was me. I didn't get the information in a timely fashion. I knew it would affect classes in some way...
Ms. L: (mentally) So this is where you acknowledge that you essentially brought this behavior upon me.

(long pause)

Idiot AP: Have you ever heard the expression, "Don't smile before December?"
Ms. L: Yes. And I don't believe in it. If I am not who I am, my students can see that, and they do not respect that, and I do not blame them. I'm not there yet, but I am trying to find a way to manage my classroom without becoming frightening and authoritarian.

(long, long pause)

Ms. IAP: Frightening and authoritarian... (taking notes on clipboard) ...That's funny.


Yeah. Funny funny. Funny notes going in my file.

why most people are incompetent

As a new ESL chairperson, you will probably attend many meetings about moving students to a lower level of ESL. This requires a great deal on everyone's part, including reassessment, multiple parent meetings, and the presence of the counselor, the school psychologist, the teacher, and the bilingual coordinator. You will realize, via your own experience and those of others, that students in too high a level are mostly a problem in levels 1 and 2, where students take their other classes in Spanish. The difference between a 1 and a 2 is huge; 1s often can't communicate in simple sentences, or sometimes even words. It is more a basic comprehension and naming class. Students at the other end of 2, however, can write full paragraphs, albeit fairly simple ones, and can ask questions and answer them in English. A 1 in a class full of 2s is doomed. The advanced levels, 3 and 4, are wholly different. They take all their classes in English, and they often speak fluently if not academically. They can read simple texts independently, and more complicated ones with support. My 3s, for example, are reading Holes as a class. This is not approved by The District- in fact, it is specifically discouraged - but it is teaching them how to handle literature that is not in tiny bite-size pieces, and it is a heck of a lot of fun. The problem we have in advanced, mostly, is mainstreamable kids being placed in ESL because they don't write well and they speak some Spanish at home. Realistically, that probably describes about 70% of our school's population, if not more. These students seem disproportionately to have behavior issues or chronic absences. Gee....wonder how they ended up in ESL?

I have four of these students in one class. Two are serious, costant disruptions - think old Tasmanian Devil cartoons, with all the whirling and grunting and howling, only without the recourse of burying them in the col', col' groun' - one is chronically absent, and one spent most of last year in juvy, and now emits periodic beeping sounds from the general vicinity of his ankle. These are really good, smart kids, and they perform just as highly as my mainstream classes have. They're just "issues," so they're here.

This is what happens when you place kids in classes they're way, way too advanced for: they start out great, because it's so easy. Then they shout out all these complicated answers that intimidate the less-proficient students, preventing them from speaking out in class participation or in protest over any kind of inappropriate antics. Then they get bored with that, and they either a) start ditching, or b) scream, throw things, pick fights, sing innapropriate song lyrics with your name inserted, steal sodas and boxes of pencils, throw each others' notebooks in the trash, and generally wreak havoc. If you're very lucky, as I am, you have them for two periods, so they can ditch one and then go aggro during the second.

This is what happens when you decide to get these kids moved to classes where they can actually learn something. You go to last year's department chair, now part of an entirely different department, and ask what needs to happen. She taught mostly 1s and 2s, so she defers to bilingual. Bilingual gives you a form for their parents to sign. You write a letter explaining the change and the form, which bilingual helpfully translates, also making calls home to inform parents that these documents are on the way. You give your idiot counselor the heads-up that these changes are coming his way and that they are priority one, then retire to your room, where you fill out the forms entirely and highlight where they need to be signed. You give them to your students, you explain them to your students, and you send them home.

Every day, you check in with your students, who, it should be noted, have been asking how they can be switched out of ESL since day one. Did you bring the form? They forgot the form. The form is at home. The form is in their locker. Yeah, they have the form right here - psych! Wait, which form again? Meanwhile, their behavior and truancy worsen.

Eventually one form comes back, and you put it in Idiot Counselor's box with an ugent note re-explaining the situation, as Idiot Counselor is never in his office and needs everything in writing in any case. A day passes. The student becomes belligerent, calling you a liar for saying he'd be moved, and accusing you of fabricating the entire thing. The other students, who have still not brought back their forms, vascillate between accusing you of trying to get rid of them because you hate them, and trying to keep them in ESL because you hate them. Eventually, three of four forms are back, with the fourth student no longer showing up to class. You take the remaining two forms to Idiot Counselor, who is IN HIS OFFICE! as Attractive Counselor is there flirting with him instead of working.

You: Hi, Mr. I.C. I have signed mainstreaming forms for students B and C here for you. Did you get that form about Student A?
Idiot Counselor: What? No. No, I lost that.
You: Hmm. Well, I left it in your box. I made a few extra copies, though; I can bring you one if you need it. They all need to get mainstreamed ASAP.
Idiot Counselor: Wait, mainstream? I can't do that. That's bilingual.
You: Hmmmmm. Well, the forms came from bilingual, so you're authorized. Did you want another copy for your records?
Idiot Counselor: No, you've got to take it to bilingual. They need to change the classes.

At bilingual:
You: Hi, Ms. B.C. I just came from Mr. I.C. with those mainstream forms. Here are the originals, except this one. He lost the original there. He says you need to make the change.
Bilingual Coordinator: What?
You: He says -
Bilingual Coordinator: He is the counselor.
You: Well, I -
Bilingual Coordinator: It is his job to help these students. His only job. He sends kids here, and I don't have the authorization to change classes. Go back and tell him that he needs to make those changes, or I will talk to his Assistant Principal. No, I'll have Title 1 speak to his Assistant Principal.
You: (thinking this is probably not going to get you what you want) Sure. I'll tell him as diplomatically as I can.

(Head back to the other buiding. Bearing in mind that you are trudging back and forth in 90+ degree heat, carrying 100 unstapled, single-sided copies of the "Why Drug Dealers Live With Their Moms" chapter of Freakonomics. Thanks, Title 1!)

You: (speaking slowly and overly sweetly) Hi again, Mr. I.C. So, Ms. B.C. says you're authorized to make the changes, and that she doesn't have clearance for that. Let me write the info down for you.
Idiot Counselor: Oh, okay. Just write down their names. That's all I need. I can figure out everything else.
You: (writing down every piece of semi-pertinent information you can think of) Hmm. You're probably not going to get to this tonight?
Idiot Counselor: (laughing)
You: Right. Well then. I'll come by in the morning with that copy of Student A's paperwork. If you should find it, though...
Idiot Counselor: I can't just make these changes, though. I need authorization from bilingual.
You: (wondering where he thinks the forms came from)

Back at bilingual:
Bilingual Coordinator: Where does he think the forms came from?

Tomorrow I will be in that office about every 10 minutes. I'm learning very quickly that the only way to make things happen is to make people sick of hearing about them. I put this theory to the test by having every single student repeat the question we were trying to answer in class today. That's right, twenty-eight times. You had better believe it worked, too.

In conclusion, if you ever become a teacher, try not to care about your students' education. It will cause you nothing but headaches and lost time.

i am lame

...because I have been meaning to post forever, but I'm just too exhausted at the end of the day. A few brief updates: I've been getting to work around 6:20 every morning and leaving around 8 at night, not least because it's just too hot to function at home at anything above a reptilian level. It does not look at all likely that I'll be running this half-marathon; again, I'll probably pull out and run one at a later date, and donate a bunch of guilt money to the cause. My reading challenge is going well; I'm beating the kids, but not by much. Better, though, is that I've read over eight hundred pages in the last two weeks. This, along with the now-traditional Saturday night beer n' swim in my friend Tiff's pool, is what is keeping me sane. I am spending way too money on iTunes and Dr. Pepper.

Other updates: I had my Round Zero Program Meeting tonight and I am already about done for the year. I had eight new freshmen added to my English class today. I have twelve female students in total, all day. I made my first parent phone call today. Riley and I are planning, and teaching, a tremendously ambitious unit on persuasion. Our kids are not really on board, themselves being not terribly ambitious on the whole. I made my first parent phone call this afternoon. I have been killing myself trying to get four ESL students reclassified as mainstream. I have just been killing myself, overall.
Witness! Room Five Thirty-One!

1. Aaron is reading more, too - all of my favorite books.
2.You wish you hung out in my library.
3. Yeah...how much CAN you read? Plus, postcards.
4. Up close.
5. That's a whole lot of felt.
6. The Throne of Power.

new, new, new.

The new year started. That's where I've been.

I kind of have some new jobs. For example, you may remember that I am the new department chair. I am also on some new committee that charts the course of our professional development to make it less useless. I am newly a 9th grade teacher. I am newly a decent teacher, I think. Not good, but at least approaching decent. For a second-year. By my school's standards, a veretan.

My new room is so, so great. It is, in the words of my ESL 3 students, "quiet, clean, smart, and big." I am especially proud of the library and the expectations wall. I will put up pictures ASAP.

My new students are phenomenal: sweet, dedicated, and gifted. I adore them. Unfortunately I also have some old thorn-in-my-side students who have failed the class three times and have no intention of trying to pass this time. These are not the ones who just don't get it yet, who I can work with. These are the mounds of flesh who sit there staring at the ceiling, pushing each other, etc. I also have a few true jerks. Fortunately, they are misplaced in ESL, and it's now well within my power to fight to get them moved out of ESL and into mainstream English. It's better for them, which is a great cover for the fact that it's way, way better for my other students and me.

I have some new strategies. A for instance: in my somewhat limited experience, requiring outside reading is not effective. This year, I decided to up the ante a bit and challenge my new freshman class to out-read me, page for page. There are fifteen of them, and only one (busy, exhausted) me. The idea is that they will buy in, and that I will then be forced to read, which makes me happier than almost anything else I could do with my "downtime" but almost never happens. The buy-in is initially overwhelming, and they read several hundred pages this week. I started off my campaign with a bang as well, reading Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days cover-to-cover this weekend. Highly recommended, both the book and the all-in-one-go plan of attack.

Ummm I don't sleep anymore. That is not new.

Also I still hate it down here. The heat makes me so sick every day that I feel like throwing up. Clearly I am not going to be able to run this half-marathon. I am still In Training though, in case the temperature plummets or something. Otherwise I will just donate a bunch of money to my hardier friends and lie in the bathtub crying. I am not even joking.

by popular demand

you may, should you desire, make your donation to my half-marathoning here. Just scroll on down and search by my first and last name. I also have paper-type forms, or at least I will, just as soon as I undo the organizational damage we did by cleaning house this weekend. The place looks awesome, though.

and other quarter-life crises.

Let's see. You have graduated from college, gotten engaged, entered a field and taken a position for which you are woefully unqualified, and gotten a big gnarly tattoo. Two actually. So what's next?

All type of things, as it turns out. I went out to Old Town Pasadena (the O.T.) this weekend and bought myself some crazy expensive new toys, in the form of a new macbook (the extra a-spensive black one, no less) and a printer/scanner dealie and a nano, the latter two of which were more or less free after my educator discount and the "we're unveiling a new model soon"-style promo. Technically this wasn't all that frivolous as my work machine, always imperiled, is down at the moment, and the Major has ripped several keys off my iron-age Dell, which weighed about seven stone to begin with. But yes, I do feel cooler, thank you for asking. It even has a built-in camera that does all kinds of nonsensical effects. Observe:















Then last week I did a phenomenally stupid thing and allowed a colleague to peer-pressure me into signing up to run the Disneyland half-marathon. No, unfortunately, your eyes do not deceive you. She's just so efficient; she asks you if you're into it and then while you're still on the mild high of being a great person, before the reality kicks in, she's whipping out the registration form and offering to fax it in for you and that's that. Anyway, my first action upon realizing what I'd done was to turn around and peer-pressure a bunch of other friends an colleagues into joining us, so that between her peer pressure and mine, our posse is seven deep. May and I have already begun sort of pre-training in the form of edging around the Silverlake Reservoir and realizing just how very out of shape we are. I have budding shin splints today, but as of tomorrow evening, I'm back out there, hopefully up at Griffith Park, where the ground is more forgiving. Anyway, I have until the beginning of September to get myself into some kind of working order, and raise $1,900 for AIDS research to boot. You hate AIDS, right? Right. So sign up and send me some moneys. You will be giving to a really worthy cause, and contributing to my running a long, hot stretch of asphalt in the OC in the late summer, too. What more could you want?

We're in the home stretch of this school year, with the new one starting up July 5th. I'm alternately excited and....excited. I love, love, love my kids, but I'm such a different teacher now that I was at the start, with such higher expectations, that every day kind of hurts me now, since these kids are operating by my much older, much lower academic and behavioral expectations and there's not a hell of a lot I can do about it at this point. It's really frustrating. I'm trying to plan tightly and harness my inner badass and still get this current group of kids through final writing projects at the same time. Not to mention that grades are due, and my credential is in jeopardy until I get one elusive piece of paper, and on and on and on. I have to switch rooms at the break, too, but I'm going to the coveted 530s, right next door to my friend Riley, unless I have jinxed it by typing it down before my stuff is actually being dragged across the threshold. We'll see.

disheartened

While I was out of the classroom 2 weeks ago, one of my favorite seniors (with "favorite" here meaning not "one whom I like better than the others," but instead "one with whom I have better-than-average repoire") tagged the hell out of my room, beginning with chalk marker on the balcony outside and continuing inside with chalk marker on the board-runners and my flowerpots, Sharpie on the blackboard, the ESL texts and the bilingual dictionaries, and carving into the side blackboard and my own personal stapler, which sits right on my desk. I know it was him beyond the shadow of a doubt, but I can't really exactly prove it, so we had this "I hope you would be the one to remind the other students that this is a space we share" conversation, subtext "I know damn well it was you and you had better not set a toe out of line," though I really was sincere in that I would hope he would be the one to check himself, and until 2 weeks ago I would have trusted him with the world. I feel like he's actually pretty ashamed, and the whole class has been better since they came in and were treated to my seething narrative of the "scavenger hunt of rage" on which I had embarked that morning. It hurt, though, in a personal way that teaching, really, should not. I thought I could not be angrier at or more exhausted by a student I trusted.

Then, this morning, my intermediate ESL class engaged in a mass cheating campaign, resulting in their sharing the entirely wrong answers when I know very well from their previous work that individually, they could have gotten the right ones. The second-highest grade, in a class of 20 students, was a 71.

Then my borderline-failing seniors decided to take the day off for Senior Ditch Day, rather than workshopping their theses and developing support. They'll be gone Friday too, and the essay's firm due date is Monday. I will be at graduation in three weeks and I am beginning to fear they will not.

Then in sixth period my favorite advanced ESL kid, the one I am always defending to other teachers and working my ass off to pull up in terms of literacy, got into a fistfight with another of my students. In my classroom. On my watch. Ever seen two people you care about, who you are physically and intellectually responsible for, start punching each other in the face?

Then, once we'd gone outside and one of them had cried and I had tried not to, and after they had tried to blame me because one had stolen the other's pencil and I had not even done anything about it, I came back inside to the rest of my students laughing and reenacting. "That was tight, Miss."

Linda told me early on that sooner or later, they will break your heart, and only then will you find your toughness as a teacher. She said it happened to her during her first year when (get this) they stole her teddy bear. It is funny the things that set us off, the straws that break the camel's back. We will see who I am when I walk into the classroom tomorrow. And take pity upon the students who have me for the next school year, which begins in just under one month.

Mr. Jesus pays a visit

Between my PACT, professional development, and required portfolio maintenance, I've found myself out of the classroom four of the last ten days. Additionally, we had Memorial Day off, so I was already pretty disoriented when I found out that I'd have a formal observer in from The District to watch how my scripted ESL program was being implemented. It reflects on the program itself, not me, but it's still been a pain in the ass to have her there in the back of the classroom typing down everything that anyone says. So far she's been there for two straight days, and she's scheduled for one more, for a total of about 7 hours. Argh argh argh.

On one of those on-campus off days, I had the evil luck to get Mr. Jesus in my classroom. I hate Mr. Jesus for perhaps obvious reasons, and I have done since I met him last September (back then we called him Mr. Church.) Though other teachers request him because he will make sure the kids do not trash your room, I don't want my kids preached at, I don't trust anyone who has "met" me upwards of fifteen times and still does not recognize me, I don't particularly enjoy finding propaganda leaflets tucked into my library books and left on my desk, and I just plain hate the way he so expectantly calls out "Teacher!" when he's subbing next door and he needs me to drop everything and go deal with my neighbor-kids or something. So I'm running late for my PD and trying to get my kids to take out their books and study, and in walks Mr. Jesus. The agenda is up on the board, the other classes have photocopied letter/checklists stapled to their assignments, and this class knows they are supposed to be studying so I figure at least nothing can get effed up. I am politely laying out the way I want the day to run while I shove all my files into my stylish milk crate when he, sitting at one of the student desks right in front of my teacherly one, cranes around to look at the class.

"This class is amazing," he barks. "They are just looking at us. Shouldn't they be studying?"
Bear in mind, it is 7:40 in the morning on the first day back from a 3-day weekend. Yes, they are slow to start, but this is not unusual. I express this to Mr. Jesus.
"No, really!" he continues. "I have never seen anything like this! Are you all in Special Education?"
I just freeze at that one, and all eleventeen thousand responses roll through my head at once, but all I can get out is a slow "Excuse me?"
He turns around to address my kids again. "I said, are you all in Special Ed?"
My kids do not respond, as they are all frozen as well and just staring at me. I get out another Excuse Me, followed rapidly by a truly angry rush of words about the complete inappropriateness of that statement, and how I don't even know what that means, and that my students simply lack motivation as it is very early on a Mondayish morning, a feeling which I am sure he understands. He can tell I am pissed and starts backpedaling, talking about how he knows how they feel, and he is that way all the time himself, blah blah fucking blah. My kids, who have heard the term "lacking motivation" before, are sort of angrily chorusing "Yeah, yeah!" while I am telling him off. Later on that day, I hear them telling this story to their friends. It goes something like this:
(rapid Spanish)
Excuse me?
(more rapid Spanish)
Excuse me?!?

I dealt with the aftermath of the whole incident for the rest of the week. My kids were really upset by it, especially the five or so who really do have IEPs and deal with stigma all the time. What really surprised me was that the rest of my students were upset not at the implication that they were SpEd, but that SpEd was in this case synonymous with stupid. I think it's partly because they are all friends, and partly because they deal with the stigma of being language learners, but either way I was really impressed with them, and we talked about it, and it was a good Program Moment all around. Plus I got to yell at Mr. Jesus, so maybe he will remember who I am and stop introducing himself to me, the creep.

Speaking of creeps, our incompetent and creepy-as-all-get-out counselor has taken to coming to school obviously intoxicated and wearing shades in and out of doors. This is against dress code. They are Prada though, spawning lots of devil wearing Prada jokes, along with less sophisticated exchanges such as the following:
Me: What, so you've never worn dark shades indoors?
My co-chair: What, you've never shown up to work still drunk?
Me: What, you've never been hung over for eight straight days?

I am insanely proud of my seniors today. We've decided to spend the rest of the year on response to lit, as almost all of them are going to state or community college in the fall. When I asked them to brainstorm questions they had about essay writing and asked if they felt comfortable writing a thesis, they asked, "What's a thesis?" Ho boy. So that's where we've been living. Additionally, they had expressed that I was not challenging them enough, which was true, so our texts for this essay are short stories which I read in college, under the assumption that if they can master these texts and write coherent essays about them, there is not a lot they will not be able to do. (Although I will cop to letting them write on Esperanza, although it was optional reading which we did not discuss in class.) Anyway, today we finished prewriting and sat down to really "answer the question," and after many times handing back the paper with a "Yes, but WHY?" or "Yes, but HOW?" and one serious conversation beginning, "If I can write a good essay without a thesis, how come I have to have one?", we finally got some theses down. And they kick ass. My favorites, slightly paraphrased (in response to a prompt about how environment affects minorities living in mainstream American culture):

The narrator of Maxine Hong Kingston's "No Name Woman" is traumatized by the stories she is told by her family, making her unlikely to become a wife or a mother.

In Sandra Cisneros's "The House on Mango Street," Esperanza is never truly the girl she wants to be, because she is ashamed of the places and people she comes from.

I dance, dance, danced around after those.

check the timestamp

it's done.

i didn't check it at all. no proofing, no idea check, no grammar check, no "did i get rid of all my [[explain this bit?]] brackets." nothing.

cross your fingers that i don't get pulled from my classroom. woot.

oh yeah

Also, I took the day off to work on my credentialing paper, due this Friday. You can see how hard I am working. I can't stop imagining my students behind my desk defacing my photos and stuff. Maybe playing with the lighter (which, though it is deep within my desk, I neglected to lock up yesterday. Dammit.)

No paper = no credential.

This thing is a nightmare.

the view from the chair

So there's this woman in the ESL department, let's call her "Linda," who has been crazy supportive and wonderful to Rachel and me over the last almost-year. She was my next-door neighbor before I moved back upstairs. She's been an invaluable resource. Only, I hate her.

OK, maybe not hate. But things have gotten weird. Historically, Linda has butted heads with the head of our SLC. They just don't get each other. SLC head is an activist for our students, very in-the-trenches. Linda is a teacher, from now until death, and she makes this known whenever possible. You wouldn't think this would be a conflict, but that's because you are neither a teacher nor an activist.

Anyway, the ESL department has always been housed entirely in our SLC, CALA. For the upcoming year, it is being split between CALA and MPA. But Linda, frustrated with our current and soon-to-be-changing-anyway leadership, pulled a fast move and, without telling anyone, got herself switched an entirely different SLC. This has ramifications for everyone, students and teachers alike. Already, I am unhappy.

Imagine my surprise, then, to see that instead of being given the ESL co-chair position unopposed, as is usually the case when someone steps up for a thankless job, I am running against Linda. And imagine my further surprise when, instead of being at the ESL department meeting where we are voting on department chair, Linda instead attends the English department meeting where, I am told, she tells everyone that she would love to run for English department chair, if she were not already the chair of the ESL department, and that next year the two departments should be merged.

What the fuck?!?

Anyway I found out yesterday that I am, in fact, the co-chair, and that our most excellent frat-boy/hardass Rene is the chair, as I'd thought all along. And I can tell you that if I have anything to do with it, we will be working very closely with the English department, but we will not be merging. There's so much drama and political infighting there that I feel the focus very rarely strays back to the students. The strength of the ESL department has always been that, as a closely united front, we don't have this problem. Or at least, we never have before.

ch-ch-changed back

This just in: one of our teachers, slated to move to A track, has been accepted to teach in Japan this year. Now, Rachel is moving to A to teach his classes, I am moving in to teach Rachel's classes (and reclaiming my chair), and we're hiring a new English teacher for the nines and tens I was assigned yesterday. As the new year starts in 5 weeks, I strongly suspect we will be finding a Program newbie to start late, as Rach and I did last year, and still have not recovered from.

I swear, this place is run by monkeys.

ch-ch-changes

Today I found out, in rapid succession, that

1. I had been voted the B-track ESL department co-chair

but

2. I cannot be the ESL co-chair

because

3. I no longer teach ESL, but instead four periods of 9th grade English, and one of 10th.

Fuck fuck motherfuck.