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)

The Blind Side

A recent project I had students complete involved choosing a movie, ANY movie, and analyzing what the message of that movie was. Their movie choices turned out to be very revealing. My sweet, innocent students dove for Dumbo and Toy Story while the more advanced ones asked me if they could choose The Hangover. The movies ranged from My Girl to District 9 and everything in between.

Now I have one student whom I would describe as challenging on most days and unloveable on the worst. She's this giant sulking mass of a girl whose first instinct is to glare at me while sitting sideways in her desk. At one point, I snapped and said, "I'm sorry! Did I do something to offend you because you're giving me an attitude for trying to help you make up the credit for the work that you'd otherwise be failing!" Much to my surprise, she had this puzzled look as if she wasn't even aware of giving me the look of death a minute ago. Her expression softened and in that fleeting moment of repenting embarrassment, she looked more like a 12 year old girl as opposed to a hard worn woman.

She had chosen the movie The Blind Side which I finally got to see. As I saw the movie, I couldn't help but think of this student who I am slowly but surely giving up on. In my growing shame at the montage of moments where I had used her behavior as an excuse to turn away, I wondered how many others had given up on her. How many others got pricked by her thorns and learned to stay away? How many incidents conditioned her to always be on the defensive?

As the credits to the movie started rolling and the actors behind the characters were revealed, the photos of the real family were shown. Fantasy melted into reality, and I couldn't help but wonder why she had chosen this movie. What is her real story?

Just in time

Wow.

I had an on-campus Professional Development meeting with other English teachers. That means I was only couple rooms away from my classroom while all hell broke loose. There was a substitute who valiantly tried her hand at wrangling my beasts. When I came to pick up some papers after school, she tentatively escorted me to my overhead projector. She explained how my 5th period weren't listening at all, so in frustration, how she had slammed her fists down. Hard. On the glass of my overhead projector.

I now own a new overhead projector. My old one is resting in peace somewhere in old junk graveyard with angry shards of broken glass adorning the top. Spring break anyone?

We run LA

If you told me last March that I'd be running the LA marathon a year later, I would've questioned your sanity. So when I was asked to help out with a program called Students Run LA in September I made it perfectly clear to the teachers and students involved that I would not, under any circumstance, be running 26 miles. I'd simply be running the practice runs with them until my feet wore out and I inevitably hit the wall. 

And my feet did wear out. I did hit the wall. Multiple times. I even fell flat on my face and have a scar in the shape of North America to prove it. But the only reason why I decided beyond all logic to actually run the marathon was because of the kids. About half were former students and seeing them on a weekly basis, watching them creep up their mileage from 2 miles to 14, and then to 20 was nothing short of amazing. But they got tired waking up for 6:45 am runs, they looked longingly at the 7 elevens and Starbucks we passed during practice runs. Some of them followed in my footsteps and body slammed into the concrete sidewalk. But they all got up...and ran. All nine of them safely and soundly finished the marathon this past Sunday. And I couldn't be prouder.  

Una grande racista

I was so frustrated with my 6th period yesterday that I was beyond formulating speech. In the eye of the storm of needy kids, talking kids, and kids with a never ending supply of stupid questions I stood with my hands balled up to my sides, and slowly but surely emitting a low guttural roar. I eventually snapped out of it and helped each kid at a time and extinguished the disastrous fire known as "teaching students to write an essay". But a mental note was duly taken and today I came armed with a new seating chart and gleaming fire in my eyes.

"Sebastian over here. Sergio to this seat. Gabriel go over to that corner seat there and, Abraham you are sitting at the last seat in the last row," I chirped as I happily pointed each student to their exiled locations.

That's when I heard Sebastian said, "It's cuz I'm Mexican".

Normally, I would have either set the student aside to have a serious heart to heart with or have written up an ice cold referral. Call me cheerful, but I didn't take this comment to heart at all.

"That's a very interesting observation Sebastian. Let's see now, I chose a profession that involves teaching and interacting with students of all races. Right now about 90% of my 150 students are Hispanic and what I do on a daily basis is to help those students learn and eventually become successful members of society. Why would I do this? Oh, obviously because I'm a huge racist! You must be right Sebastian. Thank you for your insight."

The class twittered away as Sebastian learned the ever so valuable lesson of keeping one's trap shut. And that was that.

It's funny how it's always the students who aren't doing well academically who like to pull out the racist card. You didn't get credit for the homework you didn't do? Your teacher must be racist! I'm finding that when dealt with this card, it's best to lightly flick away this stupid accusation derived by an equally stupid thought process.

The way to really impart the overeager racism detectors is to be on them even more. Harass them, pester them to the point of crying uncle. See if they did their homework. Keep them in for lunch detention if they didn't. Write and call home so often that you get to on a first name basis with their guardians. Get called a racist a couple more times. Do all this in the hopes of those students waking up one day and realizing that someone who spends this much time torturing them to do better does it because she cares.