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.

Life of the ridiculous

It's only Tuesday but I've seen my fair share of the silliness and insanity that pretty much sums up what I do for a living. It ranges from the inappropriate ("Ms. Won, come sit on my lap and tell me all that's bothering you" said by a FEMALE student) to the downright bizarre ("I love my parents-I'm always cuddling with them, sometimes I even sleep in their bed!" exclaimed a male student). Maybe this is some elaborate plot planned by all of my students to drive me to the conviction that all seventh graders have lost their marbles. 

EXHIBIT A

Now I've seen students clumsily trying to write with one of those jumbo pencils before. Usually I give the disapproving eyebrow and tell that student to use a different writing instrument. But when I saw this particular goofball walking towards my class with this torpedo sized, 3 ft GIANT crayon, I gave 3 sharp finger snaps and said, "You better park that thing right in front of the door!"

"But Ms. Won," pleads goofball, "It's my piggy bank too! I can't just leave it out here!" 

"I said PARK IT!!!"

My only question is, if it's not for children under 3, then how did this student manage to get ahold of it?

Field Trip!

Last Monday while I was most fervently celebrating President's Day, I had the honor of taking a former student and her mother to a Korean market. It all started when she, a Hispanic student, surprised me by describing a Korean side dish of roasted seaweed speckled with salt. One day for lunch, I made 2 batches of rice and brought a whole packet of seaweed and we shared a lunch of seaweed "cigars". When I got a chance to talk to her and her mother after school, I enthusiastically offered to be their very own Korean tour guide to the market.

We met at the market and started in the produce aisle. I started off easy with unassuming lettuce, cucumbers, and then throwing in a packet of sesame leaf to wrap marinated meats in. Then I went in for the kill when I saw cute little Korean ladies offering samples of side dishes.

The first was RAW marinated squid in a spicy sauce-

Breath not bad enough? Try this spicy GARLIC stem!

When I saw this student reaching for packet of rice cakes, gushing, "Oh my gawd Ms. Won, I love these," my eyes glistened with pride. I told her that my mom would love her.

It was the most fun I had at a Korean market. The only problem was that she came to school next day, pale and frail, confessing how she felt sick from all the samples we tried. She went home early that day and threw up. And that was my first and last field trip to the Korean market.

Three Cups of Tea

You might've read, or seen this book at the best seller's section. Greg Mortenson's long journey to give the gift of education to the most impoverished regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan sheds new light on the value of education. He taught me that the power of learning can be greater than that of warfare, violence, and even money. It's a refreshing solution to the tragedies happening everyday in Haiti, Uganda, and countless other places. Here's an interesting insight into improving the general well being of struggling villages:

"Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities," Mortenson explains. "But the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they have learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene, and healthcare, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls."

"If the girls can just get to a fifth-grade level," says Mortenson, "everything changes."