Reviews

For the first time in my teaching career, I had a personal friend sit in while I did my thang in front of the class. I was nervous for the first thirty seconds and then seeing the faces of lazy, unmotivated students put me right into gear. I used my normal bag o' tricks to get the class workin': far off surveillance, close surveillance, walking in and out of aisles, eye contact, verbal cues. Anything and everything to get 100% engagement in the lesson.

Immersed in the zone, I completely forgot about an observer. My beady eyes were busy scanning their papers to spot out the glaring, blank white ones. But admidst eagle hawk duty, I cracked a couple (literally, 2) jokes and ended the class by having them share their personal essays. I ended with a smile and scooted the kids on out, feeling victorious of a lesson gone well. I turned back to my friend with high hopes of two thumbs up only to hear,

"Wow, you're really mean!"

Wha~! I mean...but...they're kids! 12 year olds! Hormonal! You saw the knuckleheads! I threw out my best excuses but all to no avail for I heard back was "nazi", "micromanager", and just plain "scary".

Actually it was a good thing that this occurred because it kicked my butt into applying for a Master's degree in Education, emphasis on teaching Reading/Language Arts. Because they're aren't any Teaching English for Dummies book available yet.

PENIS!

In high school, I never played games that involved yelling out male genitalia in increasing decibels. In fact, I wouldn't have even been able to mouth the word. This was because I was a good kid. And a loser.

But being back at school, at middle school of all things, has rendered me less fragile, less delicate. I've seen enough crass words, drawings, and notes to last a lifetime. That flustered, genteel high schooler is long gone and now replaced by a new woman unafraid to be blunt in the face of vulgarity.

Last week I had a literature group circle assignment where each group member was given a different job. Somehow my resident tagger, Jose, got nailed with the perfect job: ze Artiste. He was to draw a picture depicting the poem "The Highwayman". Upon looking over his shoulder, I grew furious. The most obvious crime was that the paper was bordered with gangster bubble letters that I couldn't make out. Then on the drawing of Bess, the main character who shoots herself to warn her love, was a picture of a penis!

I walked away and gathered my thoughts as to what the key points to my tirade would be. In my head, I rehearsed saying, "Jose, what would future employees think of such a drawing? First, they would think that you're some gangbanger who would tag all over the company's property! And a penis! They're going to assume that you're some kind of a pervert! Is that what you want others to think? That you're a perverted gangster?!"

But here's how the actual conversation went.

Me: Jose, I need to speak to you after class.

Jose: What! I didn't even do nothin'.

Me: (stoically waits until everyone leaves) Can you explain this drawing to me?

Jose: Well the letters here (points to gangster bubble letters) say love because Bess was in love with the Highwayman and here (points to other gangster bubble letters) it says madness because the Highwayman went all crazy when he heard about her death.

Me: Oh, (cough) well, I couldn't read that. But what about this PENIS!

Jose: Ah mang, that ain't a penis! It's her arm! See that's one of her fingers reaching for the gun and that's the rest of her hand.

Me:

Jose:

Me: I apologize Jose. I see that you've really understood the story. Thank you for explaining this to me. Do you need a pass to your next class?

Jose: Yes. Sorry Ms. Won. I won't draw no more.

So not only am I the pervert, but I'm a dream killer too.

Food for Thought

There are few things as sweet as the simple pleasures awaiting you at home after a long day of work. For me, that entails kicking off my heels, changing into breezy shorts, and then going out to the balcony to be greeted by this lovely sight:

It's my garden! Well, it's a few lettuce leaves and parsley but any growing greenery counts as a garden in my book. When there are a pile of things left on my to-do list, gently brushing this fragile crop with my fingertips tickles me with joy. It's fascinating to see the mere combination of dirt, water, and seeds yielding into something substantial to fork into my mouth. I'm usually more concerned with the consumption of food, but the production of it, I'm beginning to find, is equally interesting. Where is our food coming from? Who or what dictates the availability of healthy, fresh food to different neighborhoods and schools?

These were precisely the questions that 2 adorable ten year olds named Sadie and Safiyah asked themselves as they embarked on a documentary titled, "What's on your plate?". Together they visited and researched what teens are eating in New York and I took 3 students with me to see it at the Hammer Museum.

Do I think that watching this documentary will change the way these students eat? Most likely not. As a matter of fact, right after seeing this together, we all went to Diddy Riese for fatty ice cream sandwiches. But in the current times where the new generation has a lower life expectancy than the current generation due to the high rate of obesity, I know that only kids have the power of bringing about a change. Maybe one day they'll reach for the organic apple instead of the cheaper one. Maybe they'll start going to the farmer's market, and encourage those around them to do the same. Maybe they'll start demanding healthier school lunches and do the same for their children. Just maybe.

(Meanwhile...these will be the end of me)