Reality Sets In

I spent the first three weeks of the term teaching my Transition to Algebra class how to graph a line. We did it over and over again. I took them to the computer lab to work on virtual geoboards (http://nlvm.usu.edu). Then we practiced the slope, midpoint, and distance formulas over and over again. Finally we had a test. I was so happy when I got the tests graded! It was the first time all year my Transition class has gotten more than one or two A’s or B’s on a test. I think I had about five A’s. Hurray! I was “fin’ta” blog about this remarkable feat last Tuesday, when fittingly enough, our power went out while José and I—at his suggestion—were in the middle of watching the original Halloween movie.

The next day (last Wednesday), I found a note in my 3rd Block Algebra II class. I picked it up but deliberately chose not to look at it right away. When I finally read the note, I saw that it contained a cartoon of me discovering my broken bicycle (the rear wheel mangled, precisely where the actual damage was done) and a thought bubble coming out of my bearded, cartoon head, “Oh my God! I’m going back to Africa.” Now when the vandalism on my bicycle first happened, one of my students instantly came to mind. “Sajak” failed my class first term with less than 50% because he simply chose not study or do the work. Well for quite a while now, he has been downright hostile to me. Even if I just stood next Sajak, he would scoot over in his chair as far as possible away from me or even move to the next desk over until I told him to stay in his own chair. Once I asked him, “You don’t like me, do you?” He said, “No, I really don’t.” I asked him why, and he didn’t have an answer. So I joked, “Is it because of my beard?” He laughed at that, but it didn’t seem to relieve the hostility. I asked him if he liked his other teachers. He said he did. So I asked why he likes them and he doesn’t like me. He said, “I don’t know. ‘Cause they know how to teach, and you don’t.”

The same morning I found this note, the school counselor had come to me during my planning period and told me she had an irate parent in her office and asked what was going on with Sajak. I told her about his hostile attitude toward me and how he was failing my class because he was not doing anything. She told me that Sajak was a good student, the first in his family to be graduating high school, and if I knew where he came from, I would be impressed. She also said his mother was a most “obnoxious woman.” Well later that day I found this note on the floor right in front of Sajak’s desk, after I had moved him to the front row. It was right there, plain for me to see, as if he wanted me to find the note and know that it was him.

The next day after that (Thursday), I spoke with the principal, told him about the note, how it seems related to the person who vandalized my bike, and who I think wrote the note. When he got Sajak’s name, he chuckled and said his mother had been in to see him a few times, trying to get his grade changed. He had held firm and told the lady the grade will not be changed. Her son will just have to take his 45% and fail at the end. He told me Sajak can just sit in class and sleep, as long as he does not disturb class. And he told me he would look into the issue of who vandalized my bike. “Some of them know who did it, and we’ll find out,” he assured me. But to this day, nothing has been investigated. In the same class Thursday, I sent Sajak on an errand, hoping it would make a difference in his attitude toward me. But onn Friday, I had to write him up for talking back to me. “That boy got issues,” I believe were his final words. This week Sajak has been serving ISS.

On Saturday, José drove me up to Memphis to get my bicycle wheel repaired. It was very generous of him to do so, as he had no other reason to go that way at all, and it was all I could do just to get him to let me pay for gas. He said it would be an “adventure.” Well I ended up having to buy a whole new wheel altogether ($65 plus tax). When we finally got back, I found that the bicycle frame is actually bent just enough that the wheel is still out of alignment. Frustrating! Not sure how that is going to get fixed.

Along the way there and back, José and I talked quite a bit about his two favorite topics (besides Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all manner of b-movies that is): politics and philosophy. José is a conservative Republican Protestant from Oklahoma, an analytic philosopher and a self-styled “patriot” with elitist leanings—so we had lots to debate. He and I have some pretty different views, but I do give him credit for his good intentions and intellectual integrity. We talked about the upcoming elections, election procedures in general, political parties, whether a corporation deserves the same rights to make political contributions as a human being, the nature and existence (or not) of “altruism,” etc.

Later that evening we drove an hour or more south on Hwy. 61 to attend a Guy Fawkes Night party with a few Teacher Corps-mates. There was a bonfire and some gleeful burning of students’ work. Stories were told of racist football officiating, etc. Z Baby showed me pictures of her 15 year-old, smart, pretty, cooking & cleaning, piano-playing, varsity soccer-playing, more perfect than perfect Mormon sister. I joked about “wait[ing] for her” and asked if it would be alright to start writing letters. (When others objected, Z Baby pointed out that her own parents are 12 years apart in age.)

Actually I spent most of the party hanging out and talking with “Bliss Lady Detergent.” This summer, during our summer classes at Ole Miss, Bliss Lady was one of the more socially awkward college graduates I have ever met. Let’s be honest: She would apologize about five times every time she opened her mouth (“This is really stupid, but…”) and then ask whether it was “okay” to do something in the classroom. I remember wondering how she would fare on her own. I mention all this in order to note a most remarkable transformation. Now granted, I have never actually seen the Lady teach, but it seems to me the experience has really been good for her confidence. She teaches at a school that one of our colleagues has already quit from. Rather than complain, she interjects in class, last time we were up in Oxford, to say a positive word about another Teacher Corps colleague who also teaches at the same school. “Can I just say…”: She mentioned to everyone how Z Baby has been working with her students after school, not to take credit for herself or talk about her own situation, but just to make her classmate look good. That was awesome. Even asked point blank, it is hard to detect a sour note in Detergent’s teaching tale. Sure, we all have our frustrations, and she was blunt (but not bitterly so) about her administrators, but I have to say I am thoroughly impressed by this girl and how she seems to be taking everything calmly in stride, how she continues to “love” her students and give it her all. Keep it up!

I dub her “Detergent” because she spent half the party (okay, not literally) washing dishes. (I, on the other hand, have spent my entire teaching career perfecting the art of going extremely long stretches without washing / folding / ironing my laundry.) “I don’t do nothing gracefully,” she said. “Oh, doing nothing is easy,” I grinned, stretching my arms back and yawning. “I have no social skills,” she fretted, as her roommate shooed her out the door to join the s’mores makers around the fire. Her “office” is literally a hallway closet with a computer on the floor.

Later that evening, L.D. would ask me in the nicest possible way not to put my shoes up on the sofa that belongs to her superintendent. I was in the living room, half-asleep on the sofa, when I heard another classmate say from the kitchen, “I love A. He’s a great person, but…” followed by some commentary on my personal grooming. Haha! Later the same group of classmates and José got into a heated political debate that ended ugly—and suddenly it was time to go, under slightly awkward circumstances. In an impulse of tenderness, I tapped the sleeping Bliss Lid on her shoulder to say good-bye. She woke up disoriented.

José was pretty upset by the political discussion that had turned out badly. It was mildly uncomfortable. Then on the way out of town, we got stopped by some cops who asked to see license and registration, then joked that the car was stolen. José was pissed! He drove a few miles down the road silently, stopped, got out of the car, screamed, “I hate this f---ing state! I hate everyone in it! F---!” Then he got back in the car, said he was feeling better. I talked him down from his anger a little bit, and then we ended up discussing politics and philosophy some more, the rest of the way home.

So I have a Teacher Corps quiz for you. Read this article from the Onion:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39341
Which teacher (see the end) do you feel more like at this point? Recently it has felt like reality has set in at my school. My students complain that I give them too many tests and quizzes. I get frustrated by their poor attendance and lackadaisical attitudes half the time they are there. Last Thursday, my average class attendance was literally about seven. Apparently there were a couple big extracurricular things going on, but there had been no warning given to those of us teachers not already in the know. My students said all their other teachers decided not to teach anything new. “I’m not your other teachers, am I?” I told them. “We know you’re not our other teachers! We knew YOU would teach new things today, anyway.” I made some quip about the absenteeism and how you learn so much as a new teacher around here. “It’s just getting started!” they laughed.