Pinkeye Robot

Switching to Vox

2007-11-06T15:08:00.000-06:00

I am switching my blog host to Vox. My reasons are that Vox is technically superior, specifically in the areas of privacy, multimedia, and blogger communities. I plan to include more photos in the future, as well as use real names, rather than pseudonyms. You will need to be registered as my friend on Vox in order to read my sensitive posts (such as those mentioning real names).

http://pinkeyerobot.vox.com/

If you are already a Vox member, please add me to your friends, and I will add you. If know me but are are not a Vox user, please register and I will add you to my friends, so that you can see all my posts. All you need to do is submit your email & password, confirm, then add me to your friends.

http://www.vox.com/

This blog address is officially discontinued. I will no longer update here. I have transfered all my archived posts to Vox.

Good to Gone

2007-11-06T08:48:00.000-06:00

This is a required blog post. I chose two related topics from the list of several “suggestions”: What should be the goals of MTC? and What are the qualities MTC should look for in an applicant?

I believe the number one goal of the Mississippi Teacher Corps should be to train dedicated, top-notch, career teachers. I mention the “career” part quite pointedly, as that is precisely what we are failing to do. I think it starts with recruitment. I sometimes wonder if we are recruiting the wrong sort of people, at least on that front. Most of our recruits are too young to know what they want to do, so they just end up trying teaching for a test drive before they know any better. They never really chose teaching. They simply had no better ideas, so they ended up here. Therefore, even if they have a good experience, which is not altogether likely, because teaching is tough and these schools are tough, our chances of retaining them in the teaching profession are slim at best. Frankly, I think our recruits are too young for this mission. They are great people, with great academic and service records, but for the most part, they have no idea what they want to do with their lives, and they certainly feel no commitment whatsoever toward teaching as a long-term career. So why, then, does the State of Mississippi invest thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars on each one of them to receive a teaching degree so many of them will never even use? The applicants should be asked tougher questions about their reasons for joining Teacher Corps and their future plans: “What brought you to the decision to apply to Teacher Corps? What other opportunities did you apply for or consider? Where do you see yourself in five years?” If the answers to those questions are insincere or inconsistent with an honest desire to make a career choice out of teaching, I believe Teacher Corps should pass on that candidate. Doing something because you have nothing better to do—even coupled with some vague desire to help people—is not a good enough reason, no matter how good you look on paper.

Yes, Teacher Corps is a pipeline supplying good teachers to schools that otherwise have a lot of trouble recruiting decent teachers. That is an important function. But as it stands, the benefit is short-term only, in most cases, and the investment is completely wasted once the teacher leaves for some other career. The fact is, good teachers, especially in certain subjects like math and science, are in short supply, not only in Mississippi, but all over the world. Therefore, the true benefit of Teacher Corps is measured by the average quality of its teachers times the number of teachers it trains times their average length of service in the teaching career. The last factor is decidedly lacking in Teacher Corps. It could be much better if Teacher Corps redirected its focus in that way.

Dr. Mullins often encourages us not to leave teaching altogether until we at least try teaching at a better-run school. I agree with that advice, and I plan to follow it myself. I also feel strongly that Teacher Corps needs to redouble its efforts to support the teachers it has. Some support is there, I give you that, what with the second-year mentoring and Ben occasionally calling people, and whatnot, but it is far from enough support in extreme cases. Mullins is fond of talking about “improving the percentages.” So Teacher Corps should do the same thing. The better it supports its own teachers, the better the chances that those teachers will not only finish the program, but remain in the teaching profession. I wrote a recent blog entry in which I praised Teacher Corps in supporting me through my depression, but I also critiqued the administration for doing nothing to support its teachers who are going through state evaluations at their schools. I still feel just as strongly today. Since Ben and Dr. Mullins are so fond of Good to Great, I will mention a principal from that book. This is my “red flag.” You need to get on this, Teacher Corps. You need to be proactive. You need to support teachers who go through tough times, even before they ask. You especially need to recognize special circumstances that place unusual strain on your teachers, and you need to get informed about the situation, starting from day one. You need to call those teachers—before it ever gets so bad—and counsel them. And stop blaming them when they finally leave! Everyone has their limits, and bad feelings only harm the organization. Look at your own responsibility, when you had the resources to help, yet you stood by and did nothing. Dr. Mullins never even spoke with her!

Fast Times at E->st Side High

2007-11-05T20:22:00.000-06:00

Snap (v. trans.) (us. followed by “on”): To speak harshly to an inferior; to reprimand with an aggressive tone; to lay into; berate; put in one’s place; chew out. Usage: “He fi’n’ ta snap on you!” Ever since my first year or so teaching in Namibia, I have intentionally used yelling and aggressive tones of voice toward my students—no matter how seemingly well-justified—very rarely. I enjoy employing the calm and rational side of my personality more, and it seems more effective on a routine basis, anyway. My feeling, based especially on my first year of experience in the Peace Corps, is that yelling and slamming things very quickly loses its power and becomes a joke to the students. That said, I also recognize that among my black students in the Mississippi Delta, a student who otherwise ignores my warnings and acts in an argumentative, insubordinate manner will often shut up and listen respectfully as soon as I “snap on” him. I think it has to do with a difference between my white, middle-class culture, and their black, lower-class culture. The tone of voice, volume, and assertiveness in speaking can be more powerful in conveying the meaning of a reprimand than the actual words spoken. Sometimes I wonder if perfecting my timing and technique of snapping on students might be the next step in my evolution as a Mississippi Delta teacher. The Algebra I teacher next door to me, who is very well-respected around the school, seems to use the “snap” as her primary tool of classroom management. She has the ability to affect such an imperious, matriarchal tone of voice when she says, “Excuse me!” that her students very quickly fall into line. I know because I hear it through the wall during my planning period. However, I also know that snapping on students can be over-used. My students often complain about one of the English teachers for snapping on them too much, even on the students who are normally well-behaved, and I feel she loses some of the respect they otherwise feel for her because of it.

Because I am still not completely comfortable knowing when and how to “snap” for maximum effect—and because speaking so aggressively feels like a weakness to me, an ambiguous fit, if you will, to my conscience, experience, and personality—I plan to continue using gentle yet pointed verbal warnings and detention slips as the bread and butter of my classroom consequences. I most often call students to “step into my office” or “come sign your warm fuzzy note,” so as to speak to them as an aside. I find that more effective than writing naughty names on the board, as I did last fall, or bringing the detention slip to them at their desk, as I did last spring. When I am at the board and a student is talking out of turn, I sometimes even find myself saying, “Thank you, ________, for not talking while I’m talking!” No one can argue with that. The point is to lower the stakes of any potential confrontation; the issue is between me and that particular student, with less opportunity for the student to demonstrate their toughness to the rest of the class.

“Hobbes” (as I shall call him) is if one my most ridiculous students ever. First of all, he’s fat. The other students tease him for it, which I try my best to squelch, but honestly, he has such a jolly personality, he’s as likely as not just to laugh along with their teasing. He’s not ugly for it, just goofy-looking. Not only is he fat, but he’s hyper, and on top of that, he has a booming voice. The other funny thing is, he has this obsession with decorating things—from coloring his assignment with markers to papering the door for homecoming weekend—but he does a terrible job of it. He just over-does everything and makes it look untidy and cluttered. Again, the other students tease him for doing so much work to make something look so ugly. I just chuckle inwardly and let him do his thing. Honestly, I love him, but Hobbes can really be a bit of a handful because he is, as I say, quite energetic and loud, and like many students, he always seems to have to have the last word. He’s good at heart, though.

So I had an eventful Friday and Saturday. During fourth block, which often gets disrespected on Fridays, a student was called out for something or other to do with the band. It was Hobbes. He was gone quite awhile. When he finally returned to us in the computer lab, the period was mostly over, and he had a can of soda and a bag of chips in his hands. I told him not to come in with that stuff, but another student apparently asked him for the rest of his chips. So, without further ado, he grabbed the other student’s backpack and ran out the door! I went to have a word with him for leaving the classroom without permission, but just as I began to speak, he spotted another student down the hall, breathlessly asked permission to speak to him, and without waiting for a response, he ran down the hall to chat with the other student for about 30 seconds before returning to me. Well, when he got back to me, I really laid into him like never before. I let him know in no uncertain terms who his boss is when he gets in my class, and it sure as heck ain’t him. Every time he opened his mouth, I just raised my tone of voice another notch, and I let him know in every precise way how he was wrong. Then we went back into the lab, and after just one more mention of his name, he almost completely finished his assignment, despite being absent for a large chunk of the period. When another student in the room, who was apparently allowed to be in there, although she was not a part of my class, began to talk out of turn, her friend warned her, “Mr. A gonna snap on you!”

The principal was gone all week. Apparently his mother is on her death bed. So the halls have been a little less well-patrolled during class breaks. I spotted a former student of mine pushing a girl down the hall between third and fourth block, so I shouted his name and wagged my finger sternly at him until he let go. There was as a strange electricity in the air and a gathering crowd around the main hallway intersection. No other teacher was around at the time, so I did my best to shoo the students toward their classes and felt vaguely fortunate to do so without incident.

After school, one of my repeating Transition to Algebra students came to me, asking to get the hat belonging to his friend (whose face I recognized but not his name), which was left in my classroom. They caught me while I had a heavy case of calculators in my hand, so I told them to wait while I put those away in the library. When I returned, they were arguing over a CD player in their hands, which according to district policy they should not have had at school in the first place. When I began speaking to them, now outside my locked classroom, the friend of my student was acting kind of strange and disrespectful. He started out mimicking me, repeating what I said, then he began pretending he couldn’t hear what I was saying. So finally, I told them, “Bye, talk to me on Monday.” I wasn’t about to deal with that crap on a Friday afternoon to help them retrieve something that I never even took from them in the first place. I still had to get my things out of my classroom before I could leave for the day. So as I unlocked the door, this other student tried to push his way inside to get his hat. Maybe I could have backed down, avoided the confrontation, let him take his hat, and written him up for the whole thing afterward, but just because of his rudeness, I felt stubborn and wasn’t about to let him trespass into my room! I stood in the door and held it firmly with my arm blocking the way, as he tried to push his way past. I kept telling him over and over to leave, but he refused and kept trying to push me out of the way. He didn’t give up until I finally pressed the intercom button and told the office staff I had a student in my room who refused to leave. He kind of sulked off after that with a belligerent look on his face. When I saw him in the hall a few minutes later, I asked him to tell me his name, but he just shook his head rudely and muttered something stupid, like, “I don’t remember.” Of course I wrote a discipline referral about it all, and Mr. Bic, the assistant principal, told me he would suspend the student for a week, maybe more. Still, the incident was a little bit upsetting, just because it was the first physical confrontation (besides the odd thrown pen or roll of toilet paper) I have experienced toward my person since I have been at the school.

I was scheduled for duty Friday night for the football game. It was my first time to work the back gate, which turns out to be quite a different experience than the front gate, for several reasons. First of all, you can see the action on the field better. It is also much less busy, and the ticket sellers and ticket takers are positioned much closer together. So it works out to be a bit of a gab session, as you might imagine. (And if you don’t imagine, then you haven’t got a clue.) An ambulance came at one point, then left. Apparently the player turned out to be okay. On the baseball field next door, a crowd of young boys began playing a disorganized version of tackle football with an empty plastic bottle. I was about to call Coach C to let him know, just in case we should chase them off or something, when the other teachers scoffed and told me not to bother. Next thing we know, the sheriff deputy who earlier had muttered something resentful about “babysitting” was over there, shooing them away like pigeons. And one of the teachers mentioned that during fourth block that day, 5 girls and 6 boys were caught in the girls restroom in the science building. The other lady shook her head, laughed, and exclaimed, “That means one of them had two!”

Saturday morning, I got up early to meet two of my best students for the drive up to Oxford. I met “Sonya” first. After some fumbling around trying to make out the mostly-missing addresses in the predawn darkness, I finally managed to wake up the right dog, who barked at me loudly, and her mother came out. She asked if she could follow me to the other girl’s house, just to see us off. I said, sure, no problem. When Sonya came out, she acted embarrassed, but explained it was because of “what happened with the other teacher.” When we got the Gretchen’s house, once again it was a little hard to make out which house it was. I called her cell phone, and she clearly had not woken up yet. She claimed her alarm never went off. So, after waiting in the car and watching the darkness turn to dawn, listening to the early morning music turn into the weekend news on NPR for about 20 or 25 minutes, Gretchen finally appeared, with her hair done up all nice and pretty.

We stopped at Cracker Barrel in Batesville along the way, because that’s my favorite place to eat breakfast (no matter what time of day it is). I always get the same Country Boy Breakfast there, with steak, scrambled eggs with cheese, biscuits with gravy, grits, and fried apples. The server who seated us made a big deal about Gretchen answering so emphatically, “Non!” when he asked us “smoking or non.” I think he was trying to flirt with her, but she pretty much ignored him. The girls wanted to know such pressing questions as, what kind of music do I like, and would I go for the art teacher (if she weren’t married with three kids already!). After seeing the campus, we had some extra time before the game, so we browsed the Square in downtown Oxford. Gretchen gawked at the $200 jeans in a boutique, and somehow, we got to talking about what they like to read, which are of course the trashy gangsta novels so popular with the kids nowadays, the ones with such mystifying titles as G-Spot and the like. I was beginning to see my first hint of their real, um, teenager sexuality. I naively thought of them as being a bit above all that, you know, more sheltered and everything. But everyone has their trashy side, I guess, especially at that age. I was a little relieved to hear Gretchen say she didn’t plan to have kids until she’s 27.

Dr. Mullins was able to meet us at Ole Miss and show us the chancellor’s office, brush the cockroach off the James Meredith monument, take a photo op with us, and rattle off statistics about African-American students at the university. Afterwards, Sonya commented that he seems like a nice man, and I agreed. “He’s a great man,” I added. Despite that, I felt more self-conscious than ever about the whiteness of Ole Miss. Nearly all the fans gathered there, every student in the band, every cheerleader save for one guy, every tailgater, and at least 95% of the student portraits hanging in the Student Hall of Fame were white. I even spotted a flag featuring black and white stripes, with a red cross-out circle over it. I wasn’t sure the precise meaning of the banner, but it seemed ominously anti-integration, and it made me cringe. The girls didn’t say anything, but I wondered at times if they were noticing the same things.

The game was a bit of a dud, and the girls, not being football fans particularly, were eager to leave by halftime. Afterwards, several of us Teacher Corps brought our people together at a pizza place on the Square. My girls, who were a little disappointed to see there were no boys of their own age and maturity, “dumped” me to sit at the other table. I had fun with it. We talked about the goofy Teacher Corps alum who used to teach at my school, told the students he kept his son in the dumpster, went to Japan for a year, then came back and teaches at the same school with a couple of my classmates now. I told my story of the time a couple weeks ago, when I arrived at school in the morning to find my door wide open, a window open, and my computer still on. A mysterious thick fluid lay in spots on the floor beside the computer, and confirming my suspicions, I found some pictures (through a proxy site) of a black woman sucking on the penis of a black man on my Internet browser history! Afterwards, the girls commented that “the future Mrs. A,” as Sonya called her, was "really nice," but her boys "had no manners" at all. They said it looked like one of them spilled his tea on her on purpose, and they thought she was gonna snap on him, but she just said, “What happened?” As we finally made our way back toward the car, the girls told me how much fun they had and said we should do it again every Saturday. I laughed and told them I enjoyed it, too, which is true.

Gretchen must have had a late night. Not only, she slept through her alarm that morning, but also through most of the game, and most of the way home, too. That left me lots of time to talk with Sonya on the long drive home. I started out by asking her what she likes to do, besides homework, that is. She’s the only student I ever saw who actually cheers when homework is assigned or a quiz is announced! Well, she started telling me about her boyfriend, and for whatever reason she really opened up to me. It came out that her boyfriend “goes both ways,” as she put at first. He’s bisexual. His mom kicked him out of the house when she found out, he dropped out of high school, and now he lives with some guy he’s involved with. Hearing about that situation, I told her to make sure she protects herself with him, “You know what I mean, right?” She kind of squirmed a little bit and admitted that although she tried to use a condom, he has sometimes “put a hole in it” so that it breaks. I said, “What?!?!” I tried to be understanding of how she feels, but I couldn’t help myself from telling her, over and over, that she really, really needs to get away from that guy. He clearly does not have her interests at heart, if that kind of stuff is going on.

Now, Sonya is the most quiet, shy, unassuming, responsible student you will ever see in a high school. I told her the good I see in her, what a blessing she is to our school, and what a bright future she has ahead of her. But that $#%! I just told you, that’s not even the half of it! We got to talking some more, and it turns out that she was the very student who Mr. _______ got fired for earlier this year. It happened at a football game. He said something about, if she were his age, blah blah blah, and then they got to flirting, and then he invited her back to the ISS room, and they made out back there, and according to her, they did just about everything but actual sexual intercourse while a male student stood watch outside. Eventually, someone convinced her to report the incident, and now she worries that Mr. _______ must hate her now, and what’s gonna happen if she sees him at Wal-Mart. She said it’s not really his fault, and I told her, no, it is. It is his fault! As a teacher, he knew it was wrong. He knew better. He way, way crossed beyond a line he should have never gotten close to. Every teacher knows it is not only unethical but illegal. I asked her if it ever happened with anyone else. She said it happened with a couple other girls last year, but they never reported it.

“I’m so weak,” she said. “I wish I had you over my shoulder when I make those decisions,” she said. And I went home that night feeling like somebody kicked me in the gut. “So much goes on around here, I don’t even know!” I told Gretchen after dropping Sharon off. “Tell me about it,” she said. This is one of my best students ever, and I’m worried she might get HIV/AIDS.

World of War

2007-11-01T00:25:00.000-05:00

This has been the best week of the school year for me. It all changed when I decided to stop playing World of Warcraft. I was fooling myself to think I could somehow indulge my computer games addiction while balancing it against the demands of my profession, etc. Playing that stupid game every available and unavailable hour of the day was sapping all my energy and perpetuating my depression. Computer games are my only addiction, I tell you. Always has been that way for me. Now that I have deleted WoW from my hard drive (and stopped taking Lexapro), I have started to catch up on sleep, my energy levels have returned to normal, and my outlook has improved quite a bit. I have been productive during my planning period, grading papers and whatnot, for the first time in quite a while. I still have a long way to go to catch up to where I should be in various responsibilities, but at least I am now moving in the right direction.

As the year marches along, people occasionally ask about my plans for next year. As it stands, three alternatives stand out in my mind:

Teach in New York City. I love cities. I love subways and skyscrapers and urban grit, and ever since adolescence, I have felt drawn to the Big Apple as our biggest, most important, most cosmopolitan city. I want to live there for at least a few years before I die. It would also be a good way to finish off my student loans by teaching in critical needs schools for three more years. It could be a public or charter school.
Teach in an international school, anywhere in the world, from Cairo to Bangkok to São Paolo. I refer of course to those private schools that typically cater to the children of diplomats and the like in capitals and other important world cities. I think it would be a blast! I would meet more of my favorite kind of people: world travelers. I would travel and see more of the world. I would probably even become a better teacher and at least get a different perspective teaching children of more educated parents, in a well-run, ambitious school.
Join the Marines. Crazy as it sounds, I am still thinking seriously about the military. I am something of a moderate pacifist, at this point. I opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, but recently I have come around to believe that, now that we got ourselves in there and overthrew the previous government, we have a responsibility to leave it in peace, not in chaos. What draws me is the danger, the adventure, the challenge (completely different in many ways from teaching), and the moral ambiguity of it. The way I justify it is this: The war is happening, with or without me. People are going to be holding those M-16’s in their hands, with or without me. Might as well be me. I think I have a slightly more developed sense of moral conscience than the average G.I. Joe. I might have something important to say at the end of it all, and I have the writing skills, as well as the conscience and the passion to do so. So it might as well be me.

Teacher Corps has been very supportive of me as I have struggled through my recent depression. I am grateful to Dr. Mullins and Ben Guest for taking an interest and helping arrange for me to seek treatment. Even Dr. McConnell sent me an encouraging note. I commend them for this.

That said, I take issue with Teacher Corps. We recently lost one of our best teachers. Much as I teased her for being “perfect,” the fact is she was not. None of us are. But as a pure classroom teacher, you will find none better, anywhere, ever. I respect her as a friend and a colleague. Now she is lost to the teaching profession forever. Anyone who questions her decision to leave, I say, you go and become the best teacher in Teacher Corps, then get put on an “improvement plan” (in truth a preliminary step toward firing lazy, incompetent teachers) for completely scandalous reasons, then let’s see how you feel about your job! It burns me that some of my colleagues feel judgmental toward her leaving. It also burns me that Teacher Corps as an organization is apparently doing nothing to support our teachers who are going through state evaluations. This became abundantly obvious when Ben was asked last Saturday if there is anything we should know if, say for instance, the state were coming to take over our school. He had no effing idea! The Teacher Corps administration has left some good teachers to the wolves, and they bear some share of the responsibility if things go badly. In my opinion, losing one of our best teachers to the profession entirely is a far greater harm and a greater tragedy than the loss to a few students when she picks up and leaves in the middle of the year. Teacher Corps should have been supporting her and her colleagues from day one, before it ever came to any of this. Our professor is just a phone call away from the state superintendent, for crying out loud! How does this happen? You should do your homework and support your teachers, Teacher Corps—even if they are too proud to ask—just like you supported me. Not that Teacher Corps necessarily could have prevented this. Ultimately, it was always her decision to leave. But it is also clear that the Teacher Corps administration did nothing to help and likely only made the experience more miserable for her once she decided it was time to go. And that, to me, is a damn, damn shame!

All My Lovely Lovelies

2007-10-31T20:51:00.000-05:00

I love my students. I've been noticing that a lot lately. Sometimes I call them my “beautiful chldren” and want to hug them all. I never used to feel quite that way about teaching. I used to be a lot more cool and strictly down to business, but starting last spring and continuing this fall, I have come into a more natural balance between inner affection and outward professionalism that feels just right to me. Now, seeing the good and the beauty in each of my students, watching them mature, learning their stories whenever possible, and coming to appreciate the uniqueness that makes them each human is one of the best parts of being a teacher. Oh, I am still down to business most of the time during class. The classroom is a busy place, so we don’t usually have a lot of time for idle chit-chat. I just like being around the students and enjoy the less formal opportunities that come along as they do.

For example, yesterday morning, just as I was about to start my first block Algebra II class, an announcement came over the intercom that all eleventh graders were to meet in the gymnasium to take some sort of test. As that removed 80% of my class, it seemed pointless to hold a normal class session. So after watching the Channel 1 broadcast in more blessed peace than usual, I broke out the games, and we spent the entire period playing Set, while one of my students got caught up on some of her homework. It was fun to interact with my students in the smaller group and more casual atmosphere. I learned that one of my good students in that class is extremely competitive. She kept having to play me over and over again, trying to beat me, talking trash and asking how I could sleep at night, finally resorting to calling me a “cheater” at the end for no other reason than because couldn’t beat me. It was all in good spirits, though. It was fun to see the other students, her classmates since grade school, chide her for her competitive spirit. They joked that she competes with her sister in brushing her teeth in the morning!

Part of enjoying my students has been feeling comfortable with them and allowing my sense of humor to come through. For instance, my students never cease to complain about the dark smudges left when I touch their papers, as my hands are usually covered dark with whiteboard marker dust. In return, I joke with them that my fingerprints are actually quite valuable, because someday I will be a famous criminal. Today, when someone complained that I left their paper black, I answered, “That’s because I’m black." That got a good laugh from everyone who heard it. (I must admit, I'm rather proud of that one. Given the context of race as a white teacher in an all-black high school, it was one of my best one-liners ever!) The next block, one of my students tried to play a trick on me. Several students had been asking for more graph paper. I was telling them okay, as long they bring me some of their trick-or-treat candy the next day. (I was kidding about the candy—mostly!) Well this one student, normally one of my quieter and more studious, started to ask for more paper, but when I got to the part of what are you going to bring me tomorrow, he said, "Nothing!" and whipped out his paper that he had saved from yesterday. I said, "Haha! You're so funny, you get detention for gum!" Which was true, he was chewing gum. But his neighbor thought my come-back was funny enough to repeat it to the rest of the class. I never used to joke like that. It sure makes the workday more fun though! I believe the students enjoy and respect it more, too.

I really do believe there is something good and beautiful in each student. Hey, don’t get me wrong, some students are certainly easier to appreciate than others! But a student who does nothing academically in my class sometimes gives me the best compliments and responds well to any positive remark on my part. Or the student who got sent to alternative school last year for beating up another student turns out to be one of my best, most respectful students, one of the true pleasures of my day. Even those students who give me nothing but a pain in the butt most of the time occasionally have their moments when I just feel like hugging and kissing them.

One of my students today told me I should have kids of my own because, he said, “You’re a good roll model for me.” I laughed at first, then thanked him. This particular student has a tendency to try to butter me up, and I’ve told him as much. Still, I guess I tend to believe there is a kernel of truth—whether irony or hyperbole—in just about everything anyone ever says. No matter how facetious or insincere, it still comes from somewhere. So I choose to believe he really meant the compliment, although I also take it with the appropriate skepticism. On a similar note, I am looking forward to taking two or three of my better students to Oxford this weekend with Dr. Mullins’ football tickets. My best student from last year already turned in her “why I want to go see Ole Miss” letter to me. She mentioned that one of her reasons is to go with her “favorite teacher.” Of course that makes me feel good! I really enjoy having these good relationships with my students who often are far from perfect, but altogether loveable.

Evolution of a Desk-Sitter

2007-10-09T16:38:00.000-05:00

One big way my teaching style has changed is that I have become a much more relaxed classroom manager. The style I brought from my experience in Namibia was a very strict, shut-up-and-listen sort of approach born largely out of the fact that there, my students were speaking in their mother tongue, which made it difficult to impossible for me to judge the appropriateness of their talking. I am now willing to tolerate a fair bit of talking, as long as it remains appropriate and at a somewhat reasonable volume level, and the students listen while I am talking to them. Both ends of the spectrum have their advantages and their disadvantages, and the trick is to find the happy medium that is most comfortable and useful. I find that the stricter approach is easier to enforce consistently, while the less strict approach is easier to maintain participation and enthusiasm.

I was about to say I have allowed the classroom management pendulum to swing too far in the other direction this year, but that's not really it. Truth be told, my classroom management is none too good right now, not so much because of a stylistic shift, but because I am just barely hanging on in every aspect of my life. The depression mentioned in earlier posts is still very much in force, and it affects my productivity profoundly. It is all I can do most days just to show up, so the legwork (i.e. paperwork, follow-through, and phone calls) necessary to be a really good classroom manager are just not getting done. I think my style would be sound enough if I were more productive on the back end.

My teaching style has also changed in how I choose to spend class time. Basically, I spend a lot more time waiting for students to do something, and less time telling them how. I often alternate between an example that I work out on the board and a "try now" example, for instance.

Recently, my school purchased several Texas Instruments Navigator systems. The Navigator is basically a semi-wireless network for the TI-8x graphing calculators. My favorite feature of the Navigator system is the ability to do "quick polls," which are basically instantaneous question-and-response's you can send and collect at any time. All I have to do is point to a problem, press quick poll, and tell the class to type on their calculators what they think the answer is. Their responses show up instantly on my computer. It is sort of like using the individual white board panels to have students respond and hold up their answers, but with several significant advantages. On the Navigator, you have a way to mark the correct answer and get an instant count of how many got it right. Another huge advantage is that the responses are permanent, and you can see them all from one place. You can save the results to use as a participation grade. You can give very immediate, individual feedback without having to walk around the room all the time. In the time it takes to walk over and look at one student's paper, I can tell at least four different people exactly what they did right or wrong without even leaving my computer screen. It even helps me to distribute meaningful praise! Indeed, the Navigator system has changed the way I teach, as I now spend more productive class time actually sitting down, waiting for students to respond and giving them feedback! When combined with specific praise (writing names on the board as "stars" of the day works for me), this style seems to help the middle "third" of my students stay more engaged and more motivated during the lesson itself. And I stay more in touch with exactly how many students are "getting it."

Unfortunately, many of my TI classroom calculators were stolen while I was absent the other day, but I still have the Navigator system itself. Lots of theft and stuff has happened at the school lately. Other teachers had a laptop and a desktop computer stolen, and the library was broken into just yesterday. Frustrating!

Kill Yourself

2007-10-03T21:29:00.000-05:00

Is Teacher Corps making a difference? My gut says no.

Have you ever heard of the Law of Thirds? The Law of Thirds says there are three distinct groups of people. (The relative proportions may vary, but we call them thirds for shorthand.) The law of thirds pertains to teachers and leaders of all sorts. According to the Law of Thirds, the first group of people will be successful no matter what you do. You simply usher them from one success to another. The middle third are the ones you can do the most to influence. They need your influence and are receptive to it. Then you have the bottom third. These are the one who cannot be helped. Some people are simply too stubborn or lazy or stupid to change, no matter what you do. You can sing in falsetto, and they won’t listen. You can parade naked ladies, and they won’t pay attention. (Of course, I exaggerate, but you get the idea.) A school is a culture, and cultures act a lot like people. They have to want to change! Teacher Corps attempts to help the students of Mississippi by sending new teachers to the worst of the worst schools—cultures of failure, to put it bluntly—and expects what, exactly?

There is a mythology at play here that needs to be addressed. Popular culture circulates an unrealistic archetype of the individual altruist hero single-handedly turning an entire village, classroom, or school, on its head. It is an appealing notion. Send one Peace Corps volunteer to Africa and you can change an entire village. “Sustainable development” is the catchphrase. And you know what? It is complete hogwash! There is a kind of idealistic hubris to it, as if we select few know something the rest of the world does not, indeed the very secret to happiness. As if all we have to do is whisper it in someone’s ear, and all will be well! The lone, amazing teacher who changes everything is a feel-good story, to be sure, but it is the stuff of movies, not everyday reality. “Stand and Deliver” and movies like it are only loosely based on reality, at best, and only present the entertaining, Hollywood side of the story. Many of them are completely fictional, and those based on true stories are at best one in millions: Rare, and in some cases (such as Stand and Deliver) dubious upon closer inspection. Miracles are just myths, and no one can measure up to a myth. People and cultures are the way they are because of forces much larger than the influence of one individual (not to mention itinerant) outsider.

The fact is, every Teacher Corps teacher is temporary. The other teachers, the principals and superintendents, the parents, and even the students, will all be here long after we are gone. The thefts and the fights, the inane interruptions over the intercom and countless interruptions to the school day, students wandering the halls all day long, the aimless leadership from the top down, and the almost contagious apathy were here before us and will also remain.

As unpopular as the “troop surge” in Iraq has been domestically, it makes sense to me. If our soldiers are to be engaged in Iraq at all, sending adequate numbers is elementary. You cannot win a war if your soldiers are spread too thin to control the situation on the ground. I wonder how different Teacher Corps is. How much change do you really expect to make with 20-30 new teachers per year in an entire state? Each of us is but one of many teachers. We are one out of at most three Teacher Corps teachers at our schools. We are temporary, we are outsiders, and we are outnumbered. There is no way we are going to change the schools.

By the phrase “making a difference,” I think of something big, something lasting, something systematic and world-changing. On such terms, my answer is no. We make our differences on a small scale. There is no doubt in my mind that I am a better teacher than my students would have had for Algebra II without me. I also think I have made some positive influence (just by my presence, reminding them that “Kill yourself!” is not a respectful thing to say, teaching them how to play chess and Set, etc.) in the lives of a few students. I love my students (some of them more than others) and I think a few of them may even love me back in their own, mostly unspoken ways. But those are exceptions, and those students who love me most are probably the ones who would have succeeded, even without me. I have not set the world afire, nor will I.

resignation U.S.A.

2007-09-05T22:07:00.001-05:00

if i leave this voicemail on the wrong
machine, would you do me the kindness

to publicize it anyway? i never meant to
plead guilty, dog fighting is a terrible

thing, and i never used testosterone.
it’s a world of neurotransmitters and

decline of an empire: this is beer. she keeps
herself groomed. we used to read out loud in

bed and sing each other songs. because i’m
29, and you’re 20, you are entirely too young

to say “love of
my life” at all.

Random

2007-09-05T00:44:00.000-05:00

Probability can easily lay claim as the most misconstrued concept in mathematics. Random means random. Some number, between 0 and 1 represents the likelihood that an event will happen. Simple as that. Probability is the knowledge of uncertainty. It is not that hard, but it can feel a little counterintuitive unless you think very clearheaded about it.

How many times must we hear otherwise intelligent, educated individuals say things like, “Mr. ______ should go the casinos, he kept rolling 7’s!”? Complete nonsense! Past results have no bearing whatsoever on future results. Humans are super pattern-finding machines; we see patterns even when they don’t exist! Thus some people cling to irrational notions of lucky or unlucky streaks. Past results are next to irrelevant! We only use sampling to estimate true probabilities when the true probabilities are otherwise unknowable, which is far from the case with simple dice. Others cherish the ill-conceived notion that the numbers should “even out” somehow. Again, the past results are irrelevant. We would only expect the results to exactly match their true probabilities as the sample size approaches infinity. Because we will not be sitting here rolling the dice until the universe ends, you should not expect the numbers to “even out” necessarily!

I love probability as a concept, so it pains me to witness these fallacies uttered like ignorant grunts by my colleagues in education, some of whom actually teach high-level mathematics! Some mathematicians see geometry, ratios, or calculus in everything. I see probability. Randomness is everywhere. Randomness is beautiful!

Cutting Myself to Size

2007-09-04T23:47:00.000-05:00

“Poor coping skills” and “unrealistic expectations”: These phrases from the pamphlet in the doctor’s office, hung in the self-serve info rack beside old college standards like alcohol abuse and STD’s, haunt me like the truth. The nurse handed me a questionnaire in order to quantify my depression: 13. The fine print said “16+ SEV,” so color me on the high side of moderate, three shades short of a clinical emergency. Later the doctor came back just to tell me, “We need to change how we think about depression. It’s not a character flaw.”

A day or two after I posted my last blog entry, I got a phone call from Dr. Mullins. Not only is he the founder of Teacher Corps, but he is one of the best professors I have ever met. Dr. Mullins is tremendously respected by everyone. He is also a busy and important figure at the university; his office is next door to the chancellor himself. So it meant a lot to me that he personally took the time to call me. He urged me to see a doctor, and he offered to help me set up an appointment at the university. His personal attention helped me change my mind about seeking treatment.

When a person suffers from heart disease or cancer, we rarely waste time burdening one another with shame over the poor choices which led to the disease, even when diet and other lifestyle choices such as smoking or (lack of) exercise may have been strong contributing factors. Rather like obesity, however, depression carries the stigma of a disease often seen as something a person brings upon himself. It’s not black and white, though. Yes, circumstances can lead to depression, and decisions such “poor coping skills” can also contribute to its onset and severity. But consider this: I have a relatively fast metabolism and am known for eating a lot of food very quickly. Despite some occasional good intentions, I go through periods where I eat nothing but repetitive junk food and exercise very little, yet my body weight fluctuates only marginally. If I were born into another body, making the same choices, I might very well be fat. Likewise with depression. The same circumstances, the same choices, which for some people may be well within the range of normal and healthy, for me occasionally compound upon themselves into an uncontrollable tailspin. Cause and effect is such a tricky thing when it comes to body and mind.

Up until yesterday, I was avoiding all my friends and family. I felt ashamed of myself. Yes, I recently posted on this blog a very pointed account of my depression, but otherwise I told no one, talked to no one. When my parents called, I let it ring. It was so hard to face up to reality, to confess all the messy piles of unaccomplishments that clutter my awareness. It all seems so eerily similar to past episodes of personal collapse, which I now so strongly regret. To admit my present downfall was to accept an almost hopeless, seemingly permanent, shame-ridden vulnerability. How do you think I dropped out of high school and earned a 2.7 GPA in college? Could it be that nothing changes?

There was a time in my life when I vowed to myself never to play another MMORPG. But this past June, during one of several passing suicidal lows, I caved in once again and started playing World of Warcraft. A classmate here in Teacher Corps plays, but she is Little Miss Perfect. She claims she never plays WoW until all her work is done, and I believe her, but I am not that strong. I play to escape. Just an hour or two, I tell myself, then before I know it that becomes all evening and just another wasted day. Computer games are my only addiction. It is escapism in the purest form, the total of evacuation of the mind, an alternate attention with goals and decisions, losses and victories completely devoid of all reality. This is my fun little elephant in the room, the “poor coping skills” read to me like an indictment in the doctor’s office. In my own defense, the depression and the disappointments, the bottom-scraping lows, came first. (Unfortunately, I have selected a particularly unglamorous demon. Some of my favorite music is about heroine addiction, for instance, but online games are interesting only to gamers, and there is something cartoonishly lame about them, even to me. Perhaps it is best this way, however, as it wastes only my time.)

I consistently aspire to be much, much better than I actually am. It is a bad habit of my idealistic youth, perhaps. The problem is my almost inexhaustible believe in myself, and an absurdly optimistic view of my all-too-human weaknesses. I am ashamed to admit what seems so silly in moments such as this, but the truth of the matter is, my list of resolutions at times of new beginnings is literally longer than I can ever remember. As a result, I often cycle between boundless optimism and semi-defeated self-recrimination, because I never take the time to reconcile my ambitions to my limitations. In our leadership class, we read biographic profiles of renowned leaders in education. The number one thing that struck me, the thing which separates them from me, is “drive.” The thing can be put no simpler than that. Drive. It strikes me as a profound revelation. That is what great individuals have, and I lack! Oh well. I should probably get used to it. I mean, let me be honest with myself for a moment: I enjoy my do-nothing time way to much to accomplish nearly as much as I often would like to imagine. Why has it taken so long for me to realize this? So how do I balance my dreams and ideals against this newfound realistic view of myself? It’s hard!

The other part of the “unrealistic expectations” indictment has to do with love. We all want it. Some of us want it all. For some people, everything seems to go according to plan. They get married, have kids, get a mortgage, etc. Take my brother and sister, for instance. Once again, I am the misfit of my family, the one my mother worries whether she is going to get any grandkids out of. I think those people are the realists, who do not expect love to be perfect. They find someone roughly compatible, and they just get on with business. Then you have me. Perhaps I expect love to be too perfect, you know… to complete me and fulfill my every need, etc. As a result, I can feel incredibly lonely while feeling attracted to almost no one around me. Holding out for what? And it makes me ultra-vulnerable. As recently as last month, I was still grieving a relationship that ended a year and a half ago! Sick.

This current depression roughly coincides with a pretty fundamental shift in perspective for me, a sadness as deep as any loss. My whole life, I grew up thinking I would someday find “the one,” and everything would be just right, and we would have our 2.3 children in a perfect portrait of domestic bliss. I really believed that, like the pious prayer believes in God, I believed it. I had to. It was my dream. Then a few months ago, I began to doubt, and it was more than just some passing cloud this time. The weight of the evidence seems greater for the side of disbelief. My standards are too high, there is some flaw in the way I relate to love itself, I am unwilling to compromise something essential, etc. The halfway-plausible explanations are long and exhausting. Whatever the reason, I have lost faith in the dream. My love life will be more difficult, perhaps more itinerant or less complete, or simply less altogether, than my childhood dream. What a sad, sad thought. I miss love, I miss sex, real sex, on a more than daily basis. And I look forward to nothing. For the first time in my life, I imagine the next few years of my life hand-in-hand with no one. And that depresses me. How can it not? Perhaps I will someday pass through this dark passage of disappointed expectations and discover something less idealized but more than halfway satisfying on the other side. That’s what age is for, right?

I am talking to my friends and family again. I am telling the truth now, and I am feeling better. For about seven days now, I have been taking a drug called Lexapro. Today, I actually almost felt like getting up in the morning for the first time in memory. My mother is making plans to visit me later this month and help me out “until you get to feeling better.” My friend convinced me not to feel ashamed about accepting help when I need it. I will do better with the depression this time, because I have listened to my friends, I am accepting help, I am willing to change my thinking. I maintain my resolve to finish what I started.

Still, I look back at my own blog and realize I should have started this drug in April or May. Witness this! I feel like I have been sleepwalking through the last five months of my life, broken only by occasional moments of lucidity. Where were my friends back then? You have to casually mention semi-credible thoughts of self-harm to get anyone’s attention. And that ain’t hardly right.

she says

2007-09-04T18:51:00.000-05:00

you were wearing striped pants and a tie,
she says. that should be a poem, i say, and i lie
to myself over and over, the thankless job
of reassurances. our sentences, long
and unfinished, are fragments of memories,
somehow two instances of the same time or figurines
captured in soapstone and touching only perhaps
where they never should have. seconds elapse
and then she adds, returning us to now,
i never know what to say out loud.

string of disappointments

2007-09-04T17:29:00.001-05:00

i clean my floor like roach remains
get stomped on exploded
and carried away by ants eating
nachos at baseball games

i see white like empty pages
wadded up and thrown away
my enemies are heartbeats
of everything you want but never do

i play fingers to the brain
like a mental game of
chicken forsaking impossible
ideals and a mother’s unlucky love

i hold freedom like irrelevant
receipts in my back pocket
and the girls who wave good-bye
she has hugs for everyone but me

Staying Alive

2007-08-23T01:01:00.000-05:00

This is my second or third attempt to write this. Every day at school, I think of some anecdotal evidence of how much nicer it is the second time around. I should write something flowery about how good it is to feel known at my school, not to have my guard up all the time because I know what to expect, the various former students who greet me and make me feel like something got through, the greater warmth and camaraderie I feel toward my colleagues and my greater openness toward and acceptance of the experience as whole, as I have gotten past the initial culture shock, etc. It is good to be back, and perhaps someday I will find it in me to bore you with the details. But that day is not today.

Despite my good intentions, every time I try to write this blog, nothing really seems honest but the deep, dark, and unspeakable. The truth is, I feel like a man with two faces. I wear a mask at school, and if you knew me there you would hear me say that things are “awright” what seems like a 1000 times a day. But underneath the mask, there is a bleak portrait nobody sees. Only I know how tenuously I have it held on right now. The truth is, I am a man with no complaints but a ton of despair. There are moments when I go to bed thinking of ways to die and can barely find a reason to get up the next morning. And it feels like no one but me can possibly understand this.

A week ago, I wrote this about my depression: I feel half-paralyzed. Nothing really seems worth it, and I float back and forth between my just-enough workaday reality, and a zombie-like solitary existence in which the days pass, dressed down to my underwear and sweating in my ill-conditioned apartment without meaning or consequence. The lighter stages of depression can feel like a drug, a creative tidal zone of the moods filled with delicious introspection, but the deeper, prolonged stages such as this are simply ashen.

You know, people say that exercise mitigates depression, and I suppose it is true up to a point. But they do not know it as I do. Even a month ago, as I bicycled 60 to 100 miles a day surrounded by beautiful, unfamiliar landscapes and new experiences, approaching the climax of a noteworthy adventure and one of my greatest tangible triumphs, I recall several distinct moments of absolute despair. Just a day and a half before I reached the final destination of my 1000-mile journey, I remember sitting as a spectator in a dark corner of a cramped backpackers hostel in Inverness, Scotland, watching with detachment the younger twenty-something travelers. Even the girl in dreadlocks and the dainty little feet sleeping on the sofa in front of me seemed to have someone to be there with, everyone but me. That night, I remember entertaining a brief suicidal fantasy of leaping to my death off a rugged North Sea cliff the moment I reached my goal, as a sort of ultimate stab of existential despair in the face of triumph, as if to say, “See!”

There are moments when the restless soul in me longs to run off and join the military. What’s the worst that could happen? Exactly. It’s a kind of death wish, but it makes a certain rational sense, almost. After all, nothing informs a person like real experiences, and there is no experience, for good or for ill, like war. Who am I or anyone to sit on the sidelines and criticize the war if they have never been there, experienced the life and death stresses of a soldier in place where the enemy looks just like the innocents? I hear these hard conundrums of the military reality, and it speaks to me. I want to know, to see, to experience, and I have my whole unhappy life to throw away.

Instead, I just carry around inside my mind a gun-to-the-head cartoon, a sort of imaginary tattoo of private retreat. The image comforts me, like a prayer to no one that my unhappiness is not without limit, a secret reminder that my angst is so ultimately meaningless, it is actually optional.

As I stop to ponder the matter, it is surprising to me how little thought I have given as to the cause of this depression. Then it occurs to me it is probably not at all unusual for someone suffering from depression to lack the insight, in the midst of it, to cure himself. I guess I think of this as my early-onset midlife crisis. At some point, a person gets old enough to realize his youthful dreams and ambitions will almost certainly go largely unfulfilled, and this causes no small amount of discomfort as one reconciles expectations with reality. At some point it hit me a few months ago: Loneliness is actually normal. There is probably no one out there who can change this for me. Whether by choice or by nature, my path in life is an exceedingly lonely one, and this is not exactly as I had imagined it. I also went on to realize that half the things I tell myself are lies; I never do them. I may never write that first novel, learn a foreign language, or play the piano better than when I was 17. All of these realizations sicken and disgust me.

And what am I even here for? I have set myself to the task of becoming a teacher, but I’m not even that great at it. I pass for adequate, certainly, and many times better than the alternative in some cases, but that is just because I give half a damn and know my subject inside and out—not because of anything about teaching itself that I do outstandingly well. Sometimes I feel more uninspiring than should be physically possible. And I never keep half the promises I make to myself, even as a teacher.

I originally set about to write in response to: Compare your first week(s) of school this year to last year. Well it has been more comfortable. Better in so many ways. Yet I barely care at all. I barely want to exist. I find myself conducting business in the most perfunctory way I know how. So many good intentions are already sidelined. So I do what I call damage control. Who was it who said that 90% of life is just showing up? Well that’s all I’m really doing at the moment.

I know enough to recognize I am suffering from a diagnosable condition, a kind of disease if you will. But I've experienced this before. And I feel a good deal less than enthusiastic over the prospect of medications or therapy sessions for it. What do I do? I force myself to get up and go to work each morning, that’s what I do. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I tell myself that nothing lasts forever.

Success Story (where it should be posted)

2007-06-29T14:51:00.000-05:00

In education, people like to talk a lot about how classrooms should be “student-centered.” Oddly enough, however, when it comes to the way we evaluate teachers, we typically think of our successes and failures in a teacher-centered vacuum, as if the students themselves had little or nothing to do with the process. My success and failure stories are basically a bold and resounding refutation of any such notion. It is the students who learn, and the students who, ultimately, bear the responsibility for their own education. As a teacher, I have a job to do. My job is to present an opportunity, to open the doors of education as wide as I know how. But it is the students who must walk through. I cannot carry them.

Not teaching a state-tested subject, I have no quantified results to point to and justify myself as a good teacher. The evidence of my success is subjective and entirely non-standardized. I have only the word of the next teacher down the line, the calculus, pre-calculus, and trigonometry teacher at my school, who once informally told me good things about my former students. I have nothing else to go on but my own instincts.

So I write about my own subjective feeling of success. As such, my other Algebra II class comes to mind, and not merely for the sake of symmetry. This past spring, 3rd block Algebra II was my failure story, but 1st block Algebra II was hands-down the best class I’ve ever taught, bar none. They wanted to learn. They were respectful. They listened. They tried. And they learned. And what do you know, the majority of them (i.e. all those who really tried) passed—a remarkable fact in itself! I loved them, and they loved me. I pushed them as I try to push all my students, and they respected me as a tough teacher.

But I cannot take credit. It was the students. By some accident of the school schedule, I got a lot of our best students lumped into that one class, and that’s the honest truth. One of my girls would literally cheer every time I gave homework or announced a test! Another girl, a ninth grader, got a perfect score on her state Biology I test—and neither of these were even my best student! One of the boys, English was his favorite subject. He said Algebra II was the hardest class he’d ever had, but he still tried, and he passed. I’m proud of all of them. The fact is, I had so many really good students in that class that they outnumbered the underachievers. The class tone was positive because of them, and I had to do so little to maintain it.

Last Christmas, my sister gave me a dozen white Beanie Baby teddy bears embroidered with the logo, “I [heart] Mississippi.” Apparently, they came from the surplus stock of some sort of Katrina fund raiser. Anyway, I used the Beanie Babies for a guessing game at the beginning of the year. A few of my students asked if they could have one, which I just answered with some vague deflection. At the end of the year, I decided to reward my best class by giving out these bears as rewards. I asked my students to come up with funny and not-so-funny award nominations to give each other (not unlike Teacher Corps summer school)—then I had fun choosing among them and making up my own titles. Then I gave the bears away to my most deserving students, and they really seemed to appreciate it.

My Student of the Year was an adorable 11th grader. Despite the respectable competition from her classmates, “Gretchen” always managed to get the highest score on all of my tests except one. Early in the semester, she won me over by asking me to attend her basketball games. No one had actually invited me to watch them play before. She would wave to me when she saw me in the stands, and so I kept coming to her games. At one point, she came to see me after school to apologize. She had not realized that I had to walk home after the games, and so she felt guilty for asking me to come! She was such a nice girl, one of my favorite students ever. She is really smart in math, but I worry for her because I noticed her writing is pretty poor. I worry that her poor grammar may hold he back a little bit when it comes to the ACT, college, etc. Then again, she will do fine in life, because she is quite bright and has a great attitude.

At the end of the year, some of my students in the class wrote “we love you, Mr. A” messages on the board. I wrote a message telling them they were my best class and I really enjoyed teaching them, which was the honest truth.

Suggested Blog: What is the impact that this experience has had on your life?

2007-06-29T14:29:00.000-05:00

When I was in Peace Corps training in Namibia, we were visited once by a group of veteran volunteers who were about to conclude their service. One of the volunteers wore dreadlocks and tattoos, talked about how she was deciding whether or not to marry her village chief (who already had four wives!), etc. When one of my fellow trainees asked how the experience had changed them, all the other volunteers gave reasonable responses you don't necessarily tell funny stories about. This one girl, the one who was contemplating a polygamous marriage into a Himba village, where the women go bare-breasted, paint their skin with red ochre, and plait their hair with mud, she claimed quite adamantly the experience had not changed her at all! It was pretty funny.

Well, at the risk of sounding like that crazy Peace Corps girl, I feel like I am pretty much the same. (If anything, I probably looked even more like a "deranged hitchhiker" last summer!) My goals and plans have not really changed: I plan to continue teaching. I want to move to New York City when I finish MTC. And after a few more years teaching high school, I plan to apply for Ph.D. programs in mathematics, with the ultimate goal of teaching collegiately (or perhaps in a math and science academy). If anything, my plans have solidified.

Mostly, I feel one year older, and nothing really big has happened. I simply plodded forward on the course for which I first set out, to obtain my teaching certification and a free master's degree. Some students have benefited from my being here, and some have not. I am probably a better teacher than I was 12 months ago, but the difference does not seem as dramatic as I wish.

Mind you, I taught before in Peace Corps, so my experience is not necessarily typical. I have noticed in my classmates a rapid growing-up over the past 12 months. The glow of youthful optimism is dimmed slightly as one realizes one's own small insignificance against the big, hard world. You cannot solve every problem, and you cannot be and do everything you once dreamed. Many of your students will most likely fail, no matter what you do. But there is also a resilience that comes from sticking it out. Your ideals become tempered by the experience of reality, and in the end, you are stronger for it.

The biggest impact of Mississippi on me, personally, has been cultural and environmental. I once told someone, "You have to forgive Mississippi before you can love it." In all honesty, I have not been as open-minded toward Mississippi as I probably should. One of my goals for next year is, with guidebook in hand, to seek out more cultural, historical, and natural highlights of the state. Doing so will most likely mitigate one of my least favorite things about being here: I feel like my town and the state has so little to offer me socially, recreationally, and culturally.

I think it is one thing to know that a place like the Deep South, and especially the Mississippi Delta exists, but it is quite a bit something more to live and experience it. For instance, one of the hallmarks of the developing world is that things in general do not work like they should. The Mississippi Delta shares this characteristic to some extent. Even well-established legal principles, such as the separation of church and state or the desegregation of schools, do not necessarily apply like we expect.

I have not made out-of-school friends in Mississippi as I probably should. So another goal for next year is to get involved with something of interest that will get me interacting with people completely outside of school or Teacher Corps.

Suggested Blog: How to deal with difficult administrators...

2007-06-29T14:21:00.000-05:00

My advice when it comes to administrators is pretty simple: Do NOT confront them. Do not let them know you think they are incompetent, lazy, sexist, unfair, etc. Show them nothing but respect. Bring them gifts, if it helps. Make them like you.

This goes for all administrators, but especially difficult ones. Why? Because you want them on your side. You want them to think you are a nice person and a decent, sincere teacher. Usually just staying out of their hair and seeming like you do your job is enough. Then just pretend as if they do not exist. If they are no good, you want them out of your business. Keep them thinking you are a good teacher, then have as little to do with them as possible.

Most incompetent authority is in constant fear of being found out for how incompetent it really is. For this reason, bad leaders are hypersensitive to anything even remotely resembling criticism or second-guessing. Therefore, if you have a better idea for something, speak privately and give them the opportunity to feel like it was theirs. Do not confront your administrators with their incompetence, especially in front of witnesses, or it will only go badly.

Of course, there will be difficult things that may happen to you because of inane decisions or policies of your administration. Please do not make things worse by complaining. Just roll with the punches. If you must, must say something (as in you cannot possibly teach the classes they ask you to), do so in the most respectful way you can possibly imagine. When the need arises, be firm without being difficult.

There is also the possibility that your administration refuses to back you up on discipline. Unfortunately, this is quite common. If it happens, bend the rules if you need to so that you can get your classroom under control. If your administration refuses to help you with discipline, you need to come up with last-resort consequences you can enforce on your own. Do what you gotta do. If that means kids standing outside, or whatever, so be it.

My advice is simple and obvious to some, but nevertheless, it always blows my mind how many young, new idealistic teachers get into personality clashes with their administrators. Perhaps the sudden change of environment is worth noting: College professors are generally confident individuals who can usually take criticism without bad feelings or petty reprisals; your new bosses, probably not so much.

A Love Letter (unreplied)

2007-06-25T23:22:00.000-05:00

There is something to be said for airports, for their hustle and bustle and their clever anonymity, the shuffling about of such crowds of strangers in their massive loadings and unloadings, the vast rows of empty chairs and the crowded escalators, for the eavesdropping on random conversations and the people-watching, etc. Do you ever wonder, if you could just switch places with someone you see in an airport and go wherever they’re going—if you could somehow wind up in the arms of whoever’s waiting for them on the other side—what would that be like? The other day, after we said good-bye and you dropped me off at Sea-Tac on your way to yoga class, after I worked my way through security, past the girls’ water polo team and all the other strangers, I plugged into my iPod and paced up and down the “A” concourse. Outside the expansive windows, the comings and goings of the gigantic machines matched my restless mood. I boarded the underground automatic train to the “S” terminal, but it was the same over there. The view of Mt. Raineer was squeezed between two massive corrugated metal airline hangers, and I walked around in circles.

The other day, my friend Stephen led me on a pilgrimage up Mill Creek Rd., beyond the state line into Oregon, and on up Tiger Canyon Rd., where it winds spectacularly up into a relatively remote section of the Blue Mountains (less than an hour's drive from Walla Walla). He pointed out a white cross marking the spot where the grandson of a former professor, perhaps aflicted by a touch of teenage bravado, had driven too fast, too close to the edge of this gravel, cliff-hugging mountain road—and we commented on the Byzantine laws and liabilities which prevented the nearest ambulance (in Walla Walla) from responding to the accident, as it was based in a different state. Further up, we stopped to inhale the mountain panoramas from a wildflower-speckled meadow, and still further, we stopped upon a grassy bank beside a babbling brook to enjoy sandwiches, not far from the South Fork of the Walla Walla River.

The two of us hiked a ways downstream from there, and as we trudged over still-unmelted patches of snowpack, me falling through the little ice-melt tunnels down to my knees on one or two occasions, Stephen told me tales of his professed “soul mate,” Ted. Stephen and Ted were roommates in college, and to this day, Stephen tirelessly relates how peacefully he slept whenever he could hear Ted’s breathing, whereas he couldn’t seem to fall asleep at all if Ted was not there. Then Ted married a jealous wife, and (to make a long story short) Stephen barely saw Ted for the next 40 years.

Several weeks ago, I watched on TV a BASE jumper climb out the window of a Manhattan hotel and leap to the street below, landing calmly beside a yellow taxi cab. I became fascinated with this image and how similar it seems to suicide, as if the parachute itself is a mere inconsequential detail. Either way, I feel an almost kindred spirit with those who choose to leap from such great heights. A daring celebration of life in all its possibilities or a desperate act of self-annihilation, they seem like two sides of the same coin to me.

Tameka [not her real name] was one of my brightest students this year. Once, when I was gone for a conference, she was the only one out of all my Algebra II students who successfully decoded the cipher message I left for them to work out. But she also had a pretty annoying attitude most of the time, and it only got worse as the year dragged on. I think I was too indulgent of her disrespect at times, perhaps because I liked her fierce, independent spirit, but mostly just because I was so happy she was participating and doing her work when no one else would. She was so transparent, though. I think she acts all tough and in-your-face to impress her underachieving, ghetto friends—and perhaps she even lacks the social skills to present herself in any other way—but she really did want to learn.

Toward the end of the year, Tameka began telling me a story of how she was pregnant by another boy in the class. My guess is that Deonte and Tameka really did have sex at least once, but she was probably never actually pregnant. Anyway, she took to saying all kinds of provocative things, like how they were going to get married and take a honeymoon to the Bahamas, etc. For his part, Deonte was no dummy. He was lazy as hell in my class, be he always had such a pleasant, easygoing demeanor it was impossible for me not to like him anyway. He was mostly unflappable, but any idiot could see that Deonte was aloof at best to Tameka’s exaggerated demonstrations. She would brush up against him or touch his arm until he would finally rebuke her. “Don’t touch me,” he would say, and she would answer, “That’s not what I said when you put your…” The whole things was pretty hilarious—if it weren’t so sad.

Recently, Stephen had a dream about Ted. In the dream, the two of them went out for dinner, and at the end of the meal, Ted announced that he was splitting up with his wife and ventured to ask if Stephen like to share a house with him. Then, in the dream, Ted got up and kissed Stephen lightly on the cheek before leaving. The dream ended there, and Stephen awoke to the disappointment of realizing this breakthrough with Ted, what he wanted more than anything else for over 40 years, was only a dream.

This vacation has been really good for me. It was good to see you again, and a part of me wonders if I didn’t halfway on-purpose miss my flight that afternoon to make it possible. But whatever. As I pace circles around airport terminals, I sometimes feel an almost physical urge to run and stowaway somehow on one of those departing jets, as if to say: Take me with you, anywhere! Reshuffle the cards of my life one more time—or as many times as it takes! Someday, I hope the Tameka’s and the Deonte’s of this world find what they need and figure their stuff out. I wish I had some wisdom to offer them, but I don’t.

The Unapologetic Atheist

2007-06-25T19:50:00.000-05:00

This summer, Richard Dawkins has been my recreational reading companion. A renowned atheist and science writer, Dawkins most recently wrote a book called The God Delusion—just the sort of book, in the words of an awesome old woman I met on an airplane, I don’t want to be waving around in Mississippi. Me, I have a more than casual interest in atheism and the separation of church and state. Last summer, as a non-believing outsider coming to teach in a Bible-thumping state, I wrote a passionate, very personal blog entry in support of religious tolerance. I remain a First Amendment fanatic, and by the way, I believe it is a travesty of the broad-minded principles enshrined in our Constitution that “In God We Trust” has become our official national motto, minted on our money and posted, by law, in Mississippi classrooms. (Don’t tell anyone, but I broke that law all year long! Consider it my small, symbolic act of civil disobedience. It wasn’t hard. If I were a little less thorough, I might never have found my copy, broken as it was.) Today, I pause to reflect once again upon religion, particularly in response to Richard Dawkins, balanced against my profession as a public school teacher in the community context where I teach.

My critique of The God Delusion is a that, by its strident tone, the book serves largely as sermon for the converted (so to speak). It fires me up, though! Many of the arguments Dawkins puts forth are familiar to me because, as a life-long (well, since the 6th grade) atheist, I thought of most of them myself. However, he does make a few points which I find intriguing. Particularly, he causes me to reassess the singular deference we give to religion. He calls it “underserved respect,” the fact that, as soon as anyone invokes the name of religion, no matter how preposterous the beliefs themselves might be, polite company must instantly bow to religious deference. What makes religion deserve such respect?

The fact that God cannot be proven not to exist is, after all, a baseless claim to legitimacy. As Bertrand Russell once pointed out, we also cannot prove that a small “celestial teapot” is not orbiting somewhere out there in the Solar System, but the idea itself is so unlikely as to be unworthy of our consideration, and furthermore, Dawkins goes on, just because we are uncertain about the existence or non-existence of something does not imply a 50-50 chance of its existence.

Furthermore, the claim often made that religion forms the basis of morality is equally without merit. Read any respected figure from history, even from as little as a few decades ago, and often their comments and language about politically sensitive topics seem to our modern ears vulgar, at best, often blatantly sexist, racist, etc. The point is, the moral consensus of society changes with the times, and in our present day is changing quite rapidly, far outpacing the churches themselves, let alone the sacred canons of religious texts, which have remained static. Religion is not the source of morality; it is actually irrelevant or if anything, generally resists the changing of the times, otherwise known as moral progress.

Yet, when it comes to religion, we are silenced. In any other realm of conversation, even politics to some extent, if we believe someone else mistaken in their beliefs, we feel not only justified, but often we even feel a duty to disabuse them of their mistaken notions. As if that were not enough, we have, at least in America, a clear popular bias against non-religiosity. Faith is in. Not only must we defer to religion in all aspects, public and private, but despite all that we know, despite the clear and overwhelming majority of elite scientists being atheists, it is taboo in most of this country to admit atheism as a personal belief. Arguably, due to the rise of the religious right as a significant political force, we have even become, in recent years and by small degrees, a more theocratic nation. Yet Dawkins believes there are more atheists in America than there are conservative Jews, despite our obviously wielding far less political power. Why are we so silent?

To my point: I do believe, almost militantly, in a strict separation between church and state. Government should never, by any means, promote or inhibit religion, even by implication. This means no prayer, no Ten Commandments, no mention of God whatsoever in public schools (or in Congress, or in the Supreme Court!), not because government is saying people should not pray or read the Bible, but simply that government should not touch upon religion in the slightest degree.

I also believe, however, that society, indeed the human race as a whole, would be better off casting aside the shackles of ignorance that are packaged in the name of religion. Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried,” and I believe there is a pithy truth to that. But part of the reason democracy is so lousy at times is due to its ultimate decision makers, its citizens, being so ignorant. How can a democracy not be impaired by the fact that so many of its citizens are (1) poorly educated to begin with, and (2) blatantly inculcated with false and irrational beliefs without even so much as a credible choice? We live in a society where ignorance and delusion still rule unchallenged.

And let’s be real. Religion is hardly harmless, is it? Look at Northern Ireland, the Middle East, the Old Testament, all over the world and throughout history: Religion is the number one cause of us-vs-them-ism, the primary source of conflict between groups who are often otherwise indistinguishable. Nobody ever fought a war to say there is no god, but okay, suppose we forget for a moment about jihads and crusades. What about guilt? How many recovering gay Christians do I know? Fear of eternal damnation, ostracism, and spiritual bullying not your poison? What about the entirely sincere, justified (in the minds of the killers) murder of abortion doctors, or just as perniciously the outright hostility to certain promising avenues of medical research, namely the ban on stem cell research? Research! On cells? I mean, these are cells, people, not human beings! Don’t even get me started on so-called “creation science”! And finally, there’s my personal favorite, the environmental policy of Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior: “We don’t have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand”!

Mind you, not all religious people are nuts. Most believers are perfectly nice, well-intentioned, and at least outwardly sincere. Some are even quite tolerant. A blessed few may even go so far as to admit the subjectivity of their own beliefs, the inevitability that others of no less moral value will come to entirely different beliefs. Others may even look the Ultimate Question in the eye and choose to turn away, succumbing instead to the comforts of familiarity. But these individuals become more and more rare as we move down the list, and none of these descriptions in any way imply the correctness of faith itself.

Rather, faith, by definition, is the opposite of reason. One cannot, without some degree of inward insincerity or simple lack of intellectual fortitude, reconcile faith with reason, because faith is believing something without evidence, in spite of reason. Therefore, while faith usually seems harmless in the form of the individual church-goer, it is by its very nature opposed to the principles of science. Faith is the mind-killer.

(Dawkins, you devil! My long-dormant hostility toward religion has been rekindled.)

As a public school teacher in an enormously conservative religious community, my beliefs and principles are placed in delicate balance. Even my time in Africa did not prepare me for this, because there it was always someone else’s country, and besides, that was the Third World, anyway. (More to the point, there were no fundamentalists to speak of in Namibia.) But here, this is America! My America, too! We live under the same Constitution. Yet, here, we see that community standards are actually stronger than the Constitution itself, because in order for a practice to be stopped, someone with standing to bring suit must first cry fowl. Granted, the religion at my school is really not so egregious as it is in most of the Delta. Even so, I find myself seriously pondering whether or not to request, privately, that we stop opening required school staff meetings with prayer. Even I, steadfastly and courageously atheist as I am, hesitate to stick my neck out, even that far!

The even more delicate point is how I relate to students. How should I answer when a student innocently asks about my religion? To state my position without elaboration, when asked directly, is almost certainly within my legal rights. But is it right, right? I prudently decline to discuss the matter whatsoever, but doing so leaves me feeling dishonest and bullied by the majority. I am well aware of the conservative Christian hatred for atheism, and so for good reason, I am wary of putting my beliefs on display in the context of my adopted (for now) community. I am assumed, like everyone, to be Christian, and because of my position, I am all but precluded from stating my contrary, exceedingly unpopular opinion. The silence fills me with loathing.

Trickier still, to what extent should I exert editorial influence, as a teacher, over the religious expressions of my students? In one instance, during some free time after testing, I asked a student to erase a religious message he had written on the board. In another example, however, I tacitly approved a student who had written a religious message on a poster assignment, influenced admittedly by this student (one of my favorites) clearly seeking my approval. I have reflected on both of these cases and alternated between which (or both) I believe to be right. Yes, students have the right to hold and profess whatever beliefs they want. They are merely citizens, whereas I am an employee of the state. However, no teacher is under any obligation to provide students with a platform to promote their religious views in class, and arguably any editorial discretion allowing a student to do so in an academic, public school setting is an implied state endorsement. The First Amendment case law about religion is very confusing and often conflicting, but it seems to me both stances are within the foggy gray cloud of the probably legal. But what is right?

Failure Story (where it should be posted)

2007-06-23T11:02:00.000-05:00

I failed to manage my 3rd block Algebra II class effectively this past spring. When I think back on it and try to identify why things went wrong, it is hard to accept full responsibility. It was just a bad group of students, I prefer to tell myself. After all, none of my other classes, whom I endeavored to treat the very same way and largely did, were ever so bad. Perhaps there is some small truth to these self-absolving thoughts, but in all honesty, I know I f***ed it up.

What was so bad about it? Well, the majority of students failed. All the seniors put their heads down and stopped trying. There were times toward the end of the term when the entire class, with their lack of participation and general bad attitudes, all but prevented me from teaching. There was constant teasing and put-downs-manship that lasted the whole term long. And, selfishly, I hated teaching that class.

Probably the first bad move I made was letting M-(girl) sleep and not do anything. She was hardly ever in class anyway, and her name was familiar to me from the in-school suspension and administrative detention announcements. Although her younger sister had done well in my class the previous term, M-(girl) came into my class with an unmistakable I don’t give a crap about you or this class scowl on her face, and so I reflexively did nothing when she put her head down the first day, and every day afterward. I stopped caring whether she was in class or not. No, I correct myself: I would actually prefer she not even be there. Mind you, I was under the delusion for some time that I was able to get away with this bad precedent—and M-(girl’s) spotty, at best, attendance certainly contributed to the perception—but eventually it did catch up to me. It made me reluctant to call anyone else out in class when they began to zone out and put their heads down, until finally, toward the very end, it became such an epidemic I had to do something or I would literally have no one left to teach!

Back when I taught in Namibia, the teachers at my school rotated, and the students stayed put. Some of the other teachers were so unconscientious about their duties that some the classes were unsupervised half the day, anyway. So I got pretty used to having no real control over the initial physical classroom environment. Here in Mississippi, with a classroom of my own, I tried to do it right, and of course that means a seating chart. Only I never really liked making a seating chart, and it seemed to me, when things are good, you don’t even need one, but when things are bad, it really doesn’t make that much difference, anyway. Well, at my school, we run a 4-by-4 block schedule, which means that every semester is a new, fresh start. So for the second term, I decided to experiment without a seating chart at all. Now, this is not to say that I would exert no authority over their arrangement whatsoever. I would make the students sit in the first three rows by three columns (I called it my “magic nine” square) if they left a lot of those chairs empty, and I would sometimes move one or two students to respond to specific problems. It happens all the time in college classes, and it’s largely true in high school, as well: Students decide where to sit on the first day of class and, unless forced to do so, barely move at all for the rest of the year! Did my lack of a seating chart contribute to bad classroom management? Perhaps. Certainly it was a risk, yet still I doubt whether it was a major factor.

What probably did contribute to the problem was my utter failure to contact parents adequately, if at all. I have a phobia about telephones, and I blogged several times about this problem throughout the year, yet I never managed to overcome my thinly-veiled procrastination and pick up the damn phone on a consistent basis. I caught some flak at the end of the year for my high failure rate because of this. I hated being told I had not done my job. As unfair as that accusation seemed, I had to admit there was a small sliver of truth to it. So hopefully that shame will motivate me to do better next year.

Finally, there was the Rivalry. T-(girl) was one of my brightest students, period. She always did her work, even while she pretended to hate the class. One time, while I was away for a conference or something, she was the only student who actually solved a cipher puzzle I had left behind for them to work on. But she was so ghetto, too. She always, always, always had to act the part like she was all tough and disrespectful and narrow-minded lazy to impress her ghetto friends. She was a walking contradiction: A great student—and a great big pain in the butt. I tried to convey to her that she could go anywhere, do anything she wanted in life, but she would need to loose the attitude to get anywhere nice. When I would talk to her about her behavior and attitude, it seemed like I was talking to a brick wall. Well, T-(girl) and her ghetto friends led the way in a class-wide rivalry against J-(boy). Now, J-(boy) was no little angel himself. He was a big-head little S.O.B. who was lazy and insolent toward me. His dad was something-something in the community, and his parents even admitted that they spoiled him. Anyway, J-(boy) would get into little put-down teasing games with almost everyone else in the class. It was all sort of under my nose, yet it was done with whispers and unfamiliar slang (e.g. “Star Crunch” after the Little Debbie treat, for a black person with acne) and behind my back. Even when I knew this was going on, it was difficult for pick out specific instances of the back-and-forth teasing, so I had a difficult time applying consequences for it. Then, of course there would always be an argument from J-(boy)—which the class would cheer—or T-(girl) and her friends if I did write a detention, which often led to an office referral, which would lead to ISS. It didn’t matter. At one point, I was asked to attend a conference with the principal, vice-principal, and J-(boy)’s parents. The parents had calmed down a little bit by the time I was brought in, but apparently they were steaming mad about their son’s grade (he had like 50% because he didn’t pay attention in class, didn’t do homework, and didn’t study) and the notion that he was getting picked on. Now, to be fair, he probably got in trouble more often than the rest of the class before this conference, probably because he was the only one on his side of the rivalry. Anyway, after the parent conference, my discipline bias probably swung a little bit the other way, and I am not really happy about that, either. It was such a difficult and persistent problem, and I’m not really sure what went wrong, and how I should have been able to stop it. It’s not like I didn’t do anything! I gave out several consequences (detentions or referrals) a week for this very pattern, yet it persisted throughout! I just don’t know.

What am I going to learn from this failure? (1) I will be more consistent about what I allow and do not allow (especially in terms of non-participation), so as not to set any unsustainable precedent within a class. (2) I will not try to treat every class the same. Some classes can handle more freedom, and some cannot. I am thinking about ways I can actually write different rule sets, according to the maturity of each class—because they are not the same. Perhaps I should have even implemented a seating chart for 3rd block halfway through the term, even if just to symbolize in my own mind how the classes were not the same. (3) I need to keep in better contact with the parents. It will only actually make a difference in some cases, but it needs to be done.

Required Blog for EDCI 602, Pt. 2

2007-06-22T21:25:00.001-05:00

When a student is able to perform a given objective in class without any problems, gives a questionable effort on their homework, then fails the objective entirely on the subsequent test, did the teacher do something wrong? This happened to me in regard to solving absolute value equations and inequalities. In order for summer school, in its condensed format, to work, 100% effort on the part of students is absolutely essential. We just do not have time to keep doing things over and over again, as one might do at times during the course of a normal school year. Already, we are covering only about 70% of the state objectives over the course of this three-week summer course. Could I have presented the material in a better, more stickable way? Perhaps. But how? How do you explain absolute value equations—splitting each equation in two because the part inside the absolute value might be positive or it might be negative—with blue Play-Doh?

One goal which has been reasonably successful has been my efforts to get the students to add and subtract with negative numbers correctly. I taught them a pneumonic trick about like signs and difference signs which the Algebra I teacher at my school uses, and this has given the students a frame of reference if we have to stop and correct a mistake. They seem to be remembering the rule fairly well, even if they forget to apply correctly sometimes. Part of the reason this has happened is because it happens so often. Negative numbers occur all the time in algebra, so it there are plenty of opportunities to reinforce this baseline (pre-)objective. My co-teachers have followed my example to some extent, as I have heard them referring to the same rule once or twice.

The most striking example of how we have differentiated learning in our classroom has been to use our club activity time to offer extra tutoring to a student who is really far behind. This has met with limited success. I suspect this particular student has a learning disability, as she is extremely slow to answer any question related to class, no matter how basic. She needs far more help than we can offer her in summer school. We have spoken to her mother, who seems to hold delusions that this child is going to squeak through Algebra I this summer so she will not have to take two maths her (upcoming) senior year. She failed our first test, which was little more than basic operations and exponents; she is going to fail the state test without a prayer unless she gets a full-time, private tutor. That is the sad reality.

I believe my procedures have been effective at imparting information and keeping students involved and listening to abstract math procedures. They are often somewhat one-dimensional, lacking a certain amount of creativity and multi-learning style approaches that arguably would improve student retention. This is one of the major areas I would like to improve.

My Required Blog (Can You Tell?) for EDCI 602, Pt. 1

2007-06-15T00:16:00.000-05:00

Basically, my co-teacher (for Algebra I) and I chose our objectives by first coming up with a list of topics (i.e. objectives, but less formally) we felt were most important to cover during the summer school session. Early on, we made our initial list of lesson topics mostly from our experience as Algebra II teachers over this past year, then we compared that list both to the state Algebra I frameworks, a sample exam, and the list of lessons taught for this course in last year’s summer school. We had to do quite a bit of paring down, since our summer school this year is only three weeks, whereas last year we had four weeks. Looking at all these resources, we were forced to make choices, because it is simply not possible to cover the entire exam / framework in just 14 school days of four periods each. We ultimately relied on our experience as teachers to decide how to make these prioritizing decisions, emphasizing areas we feel are within our greatest ability to make the greatest impact, topics such as graphing and general skill with word problems, etc. For instance, because of the ubiquity of student errors when dealing with fractions, negative signs, and so on, we felt it was worthwhile to start off with several lessons of review of these basic (pre-algebra) skills.

From our list of lesson topics, we then assigned each topic to a class period. We combined some topics in the interest of time, and we expanded other topics which, from experience, we thought may require more time investment. We worked this out until we had filled all our 56 times slots. Then on the day before summer school was to begin, we learned that several periods which we thought were going to be taken up by testing were, in fact, not, so we simply decided to put our four newfound spare periods at the end of our schedule, with the objectives to be determined as we feel the need arise.

Because of our rotating teaching schedule, our orders to adhere strictly to the “master” schedule for observation purposes, and the practical concern that teachers should know what and when they are teaching well beforehand, the entire summer school course is mostly planned out pretty rigidly at this point already. However, we have left at least one “review” session before each of our four unit tests, as well as the four “spare” periods (from the non-happening testing, mentioned above), which give us the opportunity to spend more time on problem areas that come up along the way.

Hey first years! What to do this summer (besides sh*t your pants)

2007-05-28T18:00:00.000-05:00

Just kidding about your pants. Relax! Be cool. There is plenty of time for worries later! Seriously, it is impossible to prepare completely for your first year teaching, and the best thing you can do is approach with a clear and refreshed frame of mind. You just graduated college, most of you. Give yourself a break! And don’t let Ben scare you too much. Yeah, teaching your first year is really tough, especially where you are going, but it’s going to suck no matter what you do this summer. So relax a little! Honestly, you don't even know enough about who you are as a teacher to plan good lessons yet. And that’s okay. Enjoy your summer while you can. Do what you need to do for Teacher Corps but try to enjoy your time with classmates and us second years. Remember, you take them for granted now, but you will not be seeing most of these wonderful people too much once the regular school year begins.

My other advice, aside from everything you will hear 1000 times this summer about planning lessons and preparing your classroom discipline, is to get into your classroom as early as you possibly can. Chances are, you may inherit a room that has had a lot of turnover in the past. Teachers come and go, and they leave all kinds of useless and forgotten crap behind. You may have 15-year old computers or a random assortment of yellowed workbooks no one has looked at in 20 years, plus 12 popcorn poppers stacked in your cupboard. You really never know until you look in your room. It may take some work to get it halfway organized and uncluttered, that’s all I’m saying. Most schools will not give you enough time to deal with this, because veteran teachers already have their rooms set up they way they want, from the year before. And if you plan to make posters or anything else to put in your room, try to get that ready in July, before you move to your site, so when you do get there, you have time to clean up and throw away and organize.

Further musings on the topic of organization: One of the mundane struggles of the teaching life is the enormous amount of paper you have to shuffle through on a daily basis. Frankly, if you are anything like me, you probably have no idea how to organize all this until at least halfway through your first year—and by that time, you are too busy and burned out to care about a little clutter. My desk was an absolute, primordial mass of papers piled on top of each other that grew bigger and messier throughout the year. I would actually tell students not to leave homework papers on my desk because I might not find them! Aside from homework, quizzes, and other assignments you take up, which of course piles up alarmingly quickly if you let it, you will receive endless announcements, lists of students absent for various and sundry reasons, memoranda about many useless topics, lunch menus, calendars, and well, you get the picture. Personally, I recommend an accordion-style file folder for carrying student work back and forth between home and school and the local McDonald’s—wherever the inspiration to grade papers strikes you. For all the other crap, you’re on you own. If you are the type for it, you might try asking a mentor teacher at your school (if you can find one!) what papers are important to keep and how to organize them.

observation heartache

2007-05-21T23:02:00.000-05:00

hold me against the sweetness
of your breast and whisper your
forgiveness promise me honey
moons in tropical locales and
take me to Houston when you leave

love me with the secrets and broken
lives of schoolgirls caught writing
****************He does not care about me
1000 times on the notebooks of God our

bodies tuned to the impulse of pregnancy
and backstreet impromptu posturing the
candor of life like What should I do? from
parents and babies without daddies

cholesterol yes

2007-05-15T01:49:00.000-05:00

future portrait perfect self or the mega-collapse
of sky-scrapers, the wretched lawnmowers and
guns in every direction, some one-word messages
for all those in search of easy answers, like old cars

or God, that noisy ceiling fan or this silent bedroom,
regret, the heavy sound of doors closing, that dear,
you forgot something even if you wanted to, to
those about to leap with and without parachutes

just say something, anything, bring solidarity to this
thin retreat and explain to posterity our reasons
in a sympathetic light, for everything worth anything
was summed up on a Wendy’s wrapper today

the future is sentences without words, a friend who
never writes back and a self-implosion waiting to
happen anyway, so just “Do What Tastes Right” and
toss it away: there are 256 ways to order this hamburger.

On the Topic of Mental Health (Namely My Own)

2007-05-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

It’s not been too good lately. Frankly, I’ve been pretty depressed for the past month or so. You know this is true when self-destructive images begin to enter your fantasy life. My sleep has become extremely irregular. And to say my self-motivational powers have wavered would be something of an understatement. How can this be so?

Pattern recognition: I notice in myself a tendency to become depressed in anticipation of significant transitions. As one phase of my life (such as my first year as a teacher in the U.S.) draws to a close, I begin to look back on it with regret, as I realize I have not been or done half of what I once imagined in my most idealistic fantasies. It’s like you dreamed as a child that you would one day do something special, and then the time of action comes and goes before you realize you never did it. What a sad thought.

I used to have a recurring nightmare that I was still in college, and I was trying to right my ways academically. Then in the dream I would realize in a terrible panic that there was some class I had forgotten to attend all semester. I guess the nightmare has stopped by now, only to be replaced by this recurring depression.

From my present perspective, it seems I have gotten another year older without getting any closer to anything important. I am not entirely convinced that I am better teacher now than I was 12 months ago. Yes, I have jumped through a few hoops and improved my on-paper credentials, but who is to say my actual classroom work has improved? Not me.

There is probably a social element to most episodes of situational depression, and yes, I have allowed myself to become increasingly isolated in the last month or two. Because I tend to be a loner somewhat anyway, it is very easy for me to fall into this. I am shy to initiate social contact, and I generally enjoy my time alone, so outside of some situation or special relationship propelling me into regular, meaningful social contact, it is easy for me, when surrounded by relative strangers, to become quite isolated. Next year will most likely only be worse, as my roommate and MTC classmate are both leaving town, and there will be no replacements from within the program.

Things seem bleak indeed—probably irrationally so. From where I stand now, it is hard to see anything getting much better—socially or otherwise—within the foreseeable future. Nothing but another year of unhappiness to look forward to. What’s wrong with me?

This past weekend was a brief reprieve. On a hint of suggestion, I had gone to the trouble to catch a ride up to Oxford to attend graduation (of my roommate and other second-years). It was surprisingly well worth it. The social aspect of the occasion was affirming and improved my mental state considerably. I was the only first-year not attached to a significant other, and a couple second-years just sort of showed up for the free food afterwards, so when it came time for introductions at the reception, I got introduced as somebody’s friend four times in a row! I guess that made my day, stupid as it sounds. And it was fun to meet Moda’s Columbian grandmother afterward; she’s quite a character!

The job is grinding to a sad, chaotic close. Last Friday was probably the worst day of the year so far. Tons of teachers were absent, and students were wandering the halls almost at will. I had to cover a “science reasoning” class (the holding class so these students don’t f**k up our state biology test is what that really means) during my planning block for one of the absent teachers. The children were zoo animals, and one of them ended up throwing a pen at me before I finally called the vice principal, and he dealt with them by sending them out to work on the football field (in preparation for Saturday’s pre-prom football jamboree) as a supposed punishment. Lately, my third block Algebra II class has become my true bane. I hate teaching that class even more than I hate teaching Transition to Algebra (the holding class so those students don’t f**k up our state Algebra I test)—and that’s saying something. I have maybe three people in the entire class passing. They have really terrible attitudes. They do nothing but complain, even the relatively good students among them. A couple weeks ago, they went through a phase where, to the person, they absolutely refused to participate in class at all or answer even the simplest question. Last Thursday, they all tried to skip class by going to another teacher’s class to supposedly help with the prom decorations, even though she explicitly said they could only come there if they had nothing better to do. I had to round them up, and they resented me for it. Imagine that, the novel concept that you should be in your class during the designated time!

And that’s all I got to complain about—for now!

What Makes a Hero

2007-05-13T02:51:00.000-05:00

Spider-Man is my favorite super hero. Superman is too perfect, too powerful, too everything. Batman is too aristocratic, and his villains are just goofy. Of all the well-known comic book series to generate major spin-off movies and television series over the years, Spider-Man is by far the best, for one simple reason: The characters actually have some dramatic depth. Spider-Man is the most human. All his powers are limited. He always seems to be the underdog in every major fight he gets into, but his primary asset is just his resilience. He has pluck and determination. He constantly gets smashed against a brick wall a few times before he finally seems to pick himself up, as if to say, “Hey, I’m Spider-Man, gosh darn it! I’m better than this!” Spider-Man has regrets. He makes mistakes. He is in love. He is a good person torn to pieces by a secret identity, an awesome responsibility too big for his shoulders. We love him for all of these reasons.

He is not perfect, but Peter Parker is a good-hearted person. He is humble and loyal. This is my biggest grip with the new Spider-Man 3 movie: The dark side of Peter Parker / Spider-Man is anger and revenge, perhaps a touch of envy—not vanity. See, he can fight crime all day and still never bring his uncle back. He is misunderstood, and that hurts. His relationship with Mary Jane constantly suffers, not because he is too self-absorbed to pay attention to her, but really for the opposite reason. He is simply too busy with the responsibility of his double life as a crime fighter to pay attention to his own love life. The dark Spidey in this new movie is too dumb. The alien suit is supposed to be powerful, not petty. The scene where Peter Parker dances in the jazz bar to get revenge on Mary Jane is not just painfully over-the-top, it totally misses the point. Peter Parker would never act that way, dark side or not. He is just not vain. The suit was supposed to make him more aggressive, not a laughable jackass.

Thankfully, the movie begins to redeem itself shortly after its most painfully stupid sequence. A more believable dark side comes out when Peter unleashes his anger at the bouncer, and in a berserk fit of ‘roid rage, indiscriminately knocks Mary Jane to the floor before finally coming back to his senses and realizing the horror of what he has become. The real Spider-Man steps forth. Some may rightly criticize that the movie had too much going on to do any of it well. The first half of the movie was plodding and unconvincing. But the final battle, with good Spider-Man and good-turned-bad-turned-good-again Harry Osborne teamed up against the evil twin of Spider-Man and the misunderstood criminal-cum-flying pile of sand, made it all seem worth it. It was a satisfying conclusion to a movie that fell well short of what it might have been. And I love how the re-found Peter Parker finally forgives the man who shot his father. This is what Spider-Man is really about: character in the face of adversity—not some cheesy American flag waving in the background as Spider-Man comes flying to the rescue.

Success and Failures

2007-05-06T20:09:00.001-05:00

Last Friday, I got a ride home from school with the veteran calculus / pre-calculus / trigonometry teacher from my school. Her classroom is always immaculate-looking, but people say she has no classroom management. She seems competent in the subject; one time she told me she had taken every math and science course offered at Delta State. A middle-aged white Mississippian, she is the longest-tenured math teacher at my school. Because our district buses students between the two high schools for certain classes, her AP Calculus class is a pocket of whiteness in our otherwise black high school. Due to our 4x4 block schedule, she has some of my former students this semester. On the drive home, she told me how my former students really knew how to solve quadratic equations, factor, etc. She said she was reviewing to see what they knew, and they were answering questions left and right, telling her “Mr. A taught us that!” Of course, the students she has are the ones who did reasonably well in my class, but still it feels like a success story. Because I do not teach state-tested subjects, I receive no objective outside evaluation on how I am doing, as a teacher. So the best compliment I can receive, I suppose, is when another teacher tells me how well-prepared my students are for the next level.

The bad news is that I have a ridiculous number of students failing. Probably around 2/3 are failing. Most are just not trying at all. They tune out. My third-block Algebra II class was in revolt a during state test week; the entire class refused to answer questions or participate at all, so I had to call Mr. Bic to come and have a word to them. They want to have free time and say my class is too hard. Well, I plan to forgive a few assignments, as I have done in the past, which will help those who are on the threshold between passing or failing, but I plan to stick to my guns on those who have truly earned their F’s. (I’ve already signed my contract for next year. What are they going to do, fire me?) Almost all the students who are failing have many assignments missing. A few of them will pay attention and do something well every once in a while, but their efforts are so inconsistent that they fail the tests. It is so frustrating when you teach your heart out, and every day when you ask a question or give them a problem to look at, the majority of your students will take one look at it and say, “I don’t know how to do this!” But they never study. The ones who are failing are the ones who do not take notes.

So my principal is on my case. He says I need to contact parents. Which is true, I suppose. I have not contacted parents much at all this year. Afterward my little conference with the principal, I ended up talking with the art teacher. You would think art is an easy subject to pass, right? Well apparently she has a lot of students fail, too. So I was talking with this teacher, and she told me she has even had the superintendent on her case, telling her she needs to call parents. But she said exactly what I was feeling: These children are adults—or very nearly so. To the parents, “I have 100 students, you have one. Can you call me?” And if the parents really cared, why do they wait until the end, when the report cards and progress reports have been issued on designated days, noted on the school calendar, every four and half weeks?

Then I had a conversation with my roommate about this. Apparently he has done a lot of home visits. He talked about breaking down the barrier between home and school, and he described the priceless look on a students, faces when he showed up on their doorsteps. He claims it has made a difference. It puts me to shame.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of apathy...

2007-04-24T23:48:00.000-05:00

To put it quite simply, the details of my life embarrass me. Got stranded at a laundromat the other day and had to call a friend to pick me up. I sat there with my arms folded, trying to concentrate on my iPod, while an attention-starved boy got yelled at and yanked by the arm. I called my roommate a few times—no answer. Waited. The boy started tapping me on the shoulder, telling me unintelligible secrets such as how big his dad’s truck is. If you were there, you would have been fed up with CNN, too. And you would have thought to yourself, as I did, what a shame it is that so many parents suck so much. This poor child whose only crime was a little energy and craving attention, is tomorrow’s classroom management headache and worse. It just made me want to get out of there. So finally I called up Wishlist Lady and next thing you know she calls me back to say she is on her way. It was an awkward sort of meeting, considering the recent break-up vibe, which caused me to feel all the more uneasy for unofficially asking such a favor.

But none of that is the embarrassing part. An online course (which I started in January but never finished) is all that stands between me and $3000. Now I need to find another and do it up double-pronto but frankly feel so paralyzed by this recent streak of shame and apathy, I can barely even bring myself to look. I have an assignment that was supposed to be due last weekend: Create a web page. Easy! Not even started. Mr. B is certainly disappointed in me. I need to turn in a lesson plan or two for this MYP junk but I… honestly… I have a hard time just forcing myself to sit down and face all these things I should do. I barely succeed in getting up and putting a tie on each morning. I am completely disappointed in myself as a teacher and a professional right now. I am truly just getting by. I feel like such a pretender.

I spend most of my time—truly an enormous amount of energy—escaping. My most recent drug of choice: Sid Meier’s Civilization IV. That epic computer game series has gobbled up more of my life in a strangely wasteful yet edifying way than I care to admit. Ruling the world on my computer screen has left precious little time to contemplate the finer points of “reality.” Still, it strikes me as some mild surprise that I have reflected so little upon this recent turn of prevailing mood. It has been said (by Einstein, no less) that “compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.” (I know this because of Civ IV!) A similar hyperbole might as well be said for the compounding effects of depression, apathy, shame, procrastination, and escapism. Where does it all come from? Who cares? The thought of wining any more about my feelings is making me sick to my stomach. I think I am going to go found Hinduism and build the Pyramids. See you at the end of the world!

Explorers, Pt. II

2007-04-01T11:32:00.000-05:00

Someone gave me a mysterious gift subscription to National Geographic. I have no idea who it was; the magazine just started showing up in my mailbox a month or two ago. But it was an excellent gift! I love NG. That magazine, along with Smithsonian and my trusty dictionary, accounts for nearly half my high school education, when I think about it.

Last weekend, on a flight back from Atlanta, I read with quickened pulse about polar explorers and their gripping close encounters with death as they attempted to reach the North Pole by foot in the dead of winter. Earlier that same day, in her closing remarks to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 2007 Annual Meeting, astronaut Eileen Collins—first woman to pilot and command an American spacecraft—spoke about “leadership lessons” to be learned from the Columbia shuttle disaster and the subsequent “Return to Flight” mission, which she commanded. At the end of her talk, she showed a can-you-name-this? slide show of famous geographic features of Earth pictured from orbit. It was inspiring. In the question-and-answer session afterward, I stood up and asked if America will ever, in our lifetimes, give space exploration the priority we once did in the 60’s, and if so, what would have to change in order for that to happen. She had no quick answers. She mentioned that some members of Congress are interested in the space program only so we can keep ahead of the Chinese. She justified space exploration as a source of scientific discovery and technology, and she encouraged us, as teachers, to inspire our students.

As I sat there on my flight, flipping through National Geographic and wishing I could be one of those polar adventurers or astronauts, pushing against the boundaries of collective human experience and individual human will, I came to realize something. These people are professionals, and perhaps this has always been so. After all, if it were easy for amateurs to make remarkable ventures into the unknown, someone would have done it already. Certainly Lewis & Clark, Columbus, Magellan, and Polo—just to name a few—were all professionals in their own times. All of them dedicated years of their lives and considerable resources to the ventures which immortalized their names. So where does that leave the rest of us?

I may never, in my lifetime, break away from the footsteps of others. Everything I have ever done or ever will do has been done many times before. But there are other ways to explore: (1) I can pursue personal exploration, by traveling and reading, by doing uncomfortable things in uncommon ways—by writing about them. (2) I can teach, and by teaching hope to inspire a few individuals of the next generation, who may someday become the explorers of tomorrow. Even if none of my students will ever become the next generation of astronaut, they can still be personal explorers. They can learn to see the world with wonder and curiosity. They can learn to see the world as offering almost limitless possibilities and variety far beyond the immediate surroundings they know. Seen in that light, teaching becomes an awesome responsibility. I almost choke up when I think of it that way.

I think I want “explorers” to be a theme of my classroom. I know I am doing a piss-poor job of enhancing my students’ curiosity, but I want to do better. I think I will start bringing my old copies of National Geographic to the classroom and offering them as an in-class extra-credit reading opportunity. I might give the students some bonus points for every article they read and turn in as a short written report. I think I will require them to find two new vocabulary words in each article, look them up, and include the definition with an example sentence. Also, I just need to live up to the ideals of the IB Middle Years Program and look for more inspired contexts to make my lessons more relevant and interesting. I need to hold that theme of “explorers” high in my mind at all times, because it is something I feel passionate about, and it is something I can learn to impart to my students as I improve myself as a teacher.

The NCTM conference was awesome, by the way. I suppose I should be grateful to my school for paying my way there. My colleague said it was her first time to go in 15 years! But it actually made it harder to come back. Being in Atlanta with 14,000 other math teachers, sitting in on those sessions and realizing those teachers, while accomplished in their professions, are mortal just like me—and I could be doing the same thing in a few years—and strolling across the exhibition hall bigger than three football fields, made me realize how much I am sacrificing to be here in the Mississippi Delta. I mean, I like my school alright. It’s not perfect, but there is plenty to like about it. I get along with my administration, I admire some of my colleagues, and I like most of my students most of the time. I just hate living in the Mississippi Delta. It has so little to offer me, in terms of culture and intellect, in terms of exciting recreational opportunities, etc. I want to live in New York City—or abroad. I visited a recruiting booth for international schools (essentially where the children of diplomats and other expatriates enjoy Western-style private education in capital cities all over the world) and woke up the next morning exited about that possibility. Then I visited a booth for the Fulbright Teacher Exchange and got even more excited about that. I suppose the Delta has its charms if you really want to be generous about it, but it is a very, very small world. The rest of the world has so much more to offer me. In that sense, I look forward to the end of these two years in Mississippi about as much as anyone, but perhaps for different reasons. I am a math teacher, and I love my job. I even like my school. I just hate where I live.

Lately thoughts have turned to the summer break. We have to be here for summer school in June, then we have the month of July off. One of my favorite ideas recently has been to find a fishing job in Alaska. I know it would be hard work, but in my mind, I crave that experience of something new and challenging, something physical, in a place and setting I have never really been before. Plus the money might be nice. But I have no idea whether I could find a job within the timeframe I need, as a deckhand (because I really do not want to work as a fish processor in the bowels of a factory fishing vessel) with no experience. Then this week, as an indirect result of my signing up for the Fulbright email list, I stumbled upon a summer program sponsored by the East-West Center for teachers to travel to Cambodia this July and participate in cultural exchange. I have long thought how much I would like to visit that region of the world, and this sounds like the perfect opportunity. The only problem looks like the price tag. Besides the flight to Bangkok, which I would have to come up with, the program comes at a $1500 price of admission (covering most expenses while there). Then the idea came to me to ask my school, particularly the IB Middle Years Program magnet grant money, to help pay for it. After all, we are supposed to be promoting internationalism as part of the program, and that is precisely what this summer program is designed to do. And would it not look really good for our school to say we sent one of our teacher’s all the way to Asia for staff development? So I plan to pitch my proposal soon this week. Wish me luck!

Explorers, Pt. I

2007-03-29T03:55:00.001-05:00

If I could travel back in time to take part in any historical event, I would choose the Corps of Discovery of 1804-1806 (better known today as the Lewis and Clark Expedition). Arguably, a peaceful military operation has never been more successful. They say the expedition only clashed once with Native Americans and lost only one member (apparently to appendicitis) over the entire journey. There was something romantic and bold, something quintessentially American, about that mission and what it accomplished. Can you imagine seeing an entire half of the continent that few white men had ever laid eyes upon? The Lewis and Clark Trail passes within about 20 miles of my hometown in Washington State. I have followed their path by pedal, sweat, and roadside marker for hundreds of miles to the mouth of the Columbia River. So when I came upon the grave of Meriwether Lewis two weeks ago—where he died of two mysterious, apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds at an inn called Grinders Stand along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee—it felt like hallowed ground. I wrote in the guestbook, “I feel like I have an affinity for L & C.”

My own expedition got off to a rocky start in Nashville when my front shifter lever broke clean off within two blocks of the state capital building, and 15 minutes later, a pannier fell clean off as I crossed an urban overpass! It was a Sunday and my plan was to bicycle 450+ miles, unsupported, in time to catch a bus home by Friday. Expecting none of the shops to be open that afternoon, I was not about to stay in Nashville overnight for such a trivial emergency. So there was nothing much to do but strap on another bungee cord, turn a screw or two, get back on my bike, and keep pedaling. After some 15 miles or so working too hard in too low of gears, my ride took me past an impressive, castle-like high school in the southwestern outskirts of suburban Nashville. Built but a couple years ago, immaculate with its landscaped driveways of smooth, black asphalt, its huge reflective windows, neo-gothic turrets, and every imaginable sports facility in full splendor, the school made a startling impression upon me upon me after so recently reading Savage Inequalities. Then I finally got the idea to remove the front derailer altogether. At least I could choose which sprocket to put the chain on manually, rather than wrestle in mid-gear with a malfunctioning mechanism lacking its essential counter-tension. It would appear that sometimes, in an imperfect scenario, the best immediate solution to a difficult problem is to amputate the affected system altogether. My choice of gears remained slightly limited yet—never mind an annoying propensity for the chain to fall off at random intervals several times a day—perfectly functional for the remainder of the trip.

The Natchez Trace Parkway follows the route of the original Natchez Trace, a frontier road built by the U.S. Army, largely along existing animal and Native American trails, in order to connect the “southwest” settlement of Natchez, on the Mississippi River, to Nashville and the rest of the then-settled frontier lands. For a few decades in the early 1800’s, the road was an important link between the United States proper and the mouth of the Mississippi. It was traveled by many, most notably by “Kaintuck” boatmen from the Ohio Valley who, before the age of steamboats, had no way to travel upstream once they arrived at the end of the Mississippi. So they sold their boats for lumber and returned home overland—over hundreds and hundreds of miles, crossing mud, rivers, hills, swamps, and Indian lands, braving weather and wildlife, horse thieves and horseflies—by foot. One sign claimed an estimate of 10,000 Kaintucks traveled the Trace in its heyday—an astounding number for the time! My journey, while ambitious and unusual by the standards of my peers and colleagues, seems rather tame by comparison. There I was with my Gore-Tex rain gear, an ultra-light REI tent, and a bicycle rolling smoothly over a long, smooth ribbon of asphalt conveniently marked at every mile so as to never me wondering at my progress—and I was miserable!

Somewhere along the way, I met a traveler from Manchester, England. He was a funny bloke—the stereotypical aimless adventuring working-class Brittan abroad—chatty as hell. We had a somewhat one-sided conversation touching on whether the hostels in America are any good (apparently they are), whether “English Toffee” is really English or not (inconclusive), and how polite Americans are—except that drunk guy back into Memphis who called him a “f-gg-t,” whom he punched several times and ran over his toes with the rental car. “I’m not really the fighting type,” he grinned, “but there comes a time when you just got to get your punches in!” Somewhere in that conversation, along some slightly unnecessary turn-out atop a low bluff overlooking (yet more) lowlands of rural Mississippi, my red and white LED’s flashing to remind me how late and dark it had become and how many miles were left to go before camp that night, he made some passing self-deprecating remark about “retracing other people’s footsteps.” That phrase haunted me for days. Because it’s true, isn’t it? But what more is there?

I knew it would be difficult, but I was woefully out of shape. I had done this sort of thing before, and I knew, setting off, I was not conditioned for the exertion like I was before. But it was even more grueling than I expected. The hills of Tennessee punished me, and every full day ended well after sunset. The mileage was enormous for the kind of fitness I was in. Sometimes it felt like I was going to droop over my handlebars and actually fall asleep on my bicycle! The first night, a heavy dew got my sleeping bag damp even inside my tent, and the next morning, I got my top-heavy bicycle leaning the wrong way, fell over and bruised my knee. The next night, after a long day riding, I stupidly opened a restroom door in such a way that it swung into the side of my head, hard enough to draw blood. In short, it was hell, but I loved it.

At Witch Dance, I met a thin, effeminate version of Billy Bob Thornton returning from a visit with his mother. We had a brief midnight conversation outside the restroom facility, as he leaned against his car with arms hugged tightly across his chest. Describing my trip, I mentioned the irrational fear of the unknown that creeps into the mind while bicycling through darkness. With a sheepish grin of admission, he said at least I don’t get spooked inside my own house at night.

Friday morning—after a short rest the night before interrupted by the mischievous rummagings of a masked, camp-raiding raccoon trying to sneak into my packs—I set off so early, and it got so unmercifully cold and windy in those darkest hours before dawn, it brought me to my lowest point both mentally and physically for the entire trip. I got off my bicycle along a section of the “sunken” Trace (really little more than a deeply eroded gully) and it felt like a dagger of fear in the complete darkness, the isolation, the half-imagined wilderness. Much later that same day, on the bus ride back from Natchez, a brief cell phone conversation with a friend reminded me of previous resolutions to take a more leisurely pace. But I had come to realize along the way that the extremes, the suffering in fact, is part of what I enjoy about these solitary adventures. Perhaps it’s a spiritual cleansing of sorts.

The road has many stories, and only a few of them are told. Some are all but disparaged. The Native American mounds are described in the politically-dated language and patronizing tone of yesteryear, and the condition of many facilities are remarkably shabby—a sad commentary on the budget-impaired state of our National Park Service. Still there are some worthwhile sites, and I took the time to stop at nearly ever place of consequence and try to imagine the world gone by. Near Natchez itself is the second-largest Native mound in North America and a fascinating inn-cum-plantation restored with presumably historically accurate furnishings. In one museum-laid bedroom, I became fascinated by what appeared to be a reproduction of an actual Victorian-era board game called “The Game of Human Life,” which by act of Parliament, purported to build morals and character, presumably by causing one to aspire, by some roll of dice, to become the “Immortal Man” rather than the “Dissolute Youth.” One nearly idyllic day near the border of Mississippi with Alabama, I stopped to photograph the shapes of broken granite, dappled sunlight, miniature wildflowers, and a discarded bear can near the mouth of a now-polluted spring cave. When each day is consumed by the basic physical necessities of expending calories and fending off the elements, such moments are profound.

Personal Renaissance

2007-02-22T23:04:00.000-06:00

Today was a good day, and I have so much to say. My students think my class is hard; they say I never give them a break, ask hard problems, assign too much homework, etc. But several students have told me lately they will have me next year, and they hear my class is fun. Even some of my worst, most disrespectful students from last term say hi to me now when they see me in the halls or outside of school. I take these as signs that I have laid the right foundations.

I believe that teaching is a great profession, in part because so few jobs on the planet are so intrinsically correlated to the personal virtues of the practitioner. A great lawyer, for instance, can be just as petty as he or she may please, and still do good work. But a great teacher is, almost by prerequisite, a fantastic human being who truly cares about the common cause of humanity. A flawed character is rarely such a hindrance, plainer for all to see, than in the classroom.

Some of my classmates are feelers, naturally open-hearted. They tend to build relationships relatively easily and know their students well. They feel sorry and consequently have a hard time enforcing rules. I have the opposite problem. Due to my personality, my tendency is to gravitate toward rules and principles, perhaps at the expense of feelings. In the past, it has been difficult for me to love my students in anything more than an abstract sense of moral duty. Yet I believe in balance between principle and feeling, and recently I have felt myself starting to melt. I missed them last weekend!

Like all forms of love, loving my students is more vulnerable, yet ultimately a truer, more rewarding, position. I like to think this is part of my natural evolution as a teacher, but I also credit the development in no small part to the unique beauty of “Gretchen.” She is the one who hugs me for coming to her basketball games. When my mother came to visit, she was the one to smile the biggest and lead the cheers, “Give it up for the mom!”

So today, I told a white lie. (This is pretty unusual for me.) Gretchen came by my classroom after school to copy down the homework assignment and casually asked me if I liked her “performance” for the Black History program. In truth, I thought it was a pretty pedestrian “interpretative dance”—or whatever you call it. Gretchen does many things well, but dancing apparently is not one of them. More importantly, I am glad she had the confidence to try such a thing in front of the whole school, and I want her to feel good it. So I said, perhaps a little lamely, “Yeah!” and I smiled.

I also love T-Rex. She is probably my most brilliant student. When I was gone on Monday, she was the only one who actually sat down and cracked the secret code I assigned them to work on. But she also has attitude. She constantly says provocative things like how much she hates my class, how she’s going to drop out of school, etc. Actually, I think she loves my class, because she always does the assignments, she answers all my questions, and whenever I slip in the slightest way, T-Rex is the first to get on my case, telling me, “I used to think you were the only one around here who had their act together.” The other students know she is brilliant, and she rubs their noses in it. Sometimes she is right; the rest of the class is just being foolish. But she really just shows no respect. I guess there must be some reason why she has this attitude. Perhaps it is simple attention-getting. I wish I knew how to get through to her. I am not very good at talking to kids and figuring out what they are really thinking. I just talk sternly and tell them they are out of line. I pulled her out in the hall to do just that today, and when we went back inside, she put her head down sulkingly. But this is why I know she loves my class: She can’t stay mad at me for very long. After about ten minutes or so, she was participating again.

Even my ideas are starting to flow better. Take tonight. I got the idea to teach a “Homo Faber” (mankind the creator) unit later this spring about the sometimes tragic consequences of mankind’s creations. (Well, it’s not exactly a brand new idea to me, but it is coming together in my mind better than it did before.) We will examine the o-ring data for the Space Shuttle Challenger. And we will spend an entire block watching my favorite movie, Koyanasqaatsi. Fun! At least some of them might be provoked. You never know unless you try. That is one my new mottos, as a teacher.

I have all kinds of ideas tonight. I want to talk to my students tomorrow about the Black History program we had today. In that hour-plus program, there was precious little “history,” let alone substance of any kind. It was really more of a celebration than anything. But one student gave a speech about black men in prison that really awakens a passion in me. The disparities between men and women, among African Africans, are staggering. There are something like five times more black women than men in graduate and professional degree programs. You don’t even have to look that far. My “A” students are all girls. My PASSING students are almost all girls. Never mind the incarceration rates. Successful black women complain that there simply aren’t enough good, educated black men to go around. This is a perfect-storm convergence of race, class, and gender. There is a profound sickness here, a crisis of epidemic proportions that simply is not getting enough attention.

Lately, in Dr. Mullins class, we have been talking about what makes a good (high school) principal. On Saturday, our guest speaker, Dean of the School of Education at Ole Miss, told us the number one quality of a good principal is “courage,” which he illustrated as the fortitude to suspend your star quarterback on the eve of a big game. Later, Dr. Mullins polled the class and wrote up on the whiteboard board all the essential qualities of a principal we could think of. I never really considered it before, but I am seriously mulling it over now: “Principal Corps”—or something like it—that is. Because I identify myself as pretty strong in a lot of those characteristics we listed, so much so that I began to wonder if I would actually make a better principal than a classroom teacher. One certainly has the opportunity to affect a bigger change in that position. Certainly, there would be drawbacks, namely the increased responsibility and all that entails, the constantly having to resolve conflicts, and losing the intrinsic rewards of direct classroom interaction with students. But leadership has its own rewards. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to come back as principal of the school I teach at now. I think I might have heard a call last weekend. Maybe. I have plenty of time to think it over.

She Needs a Valentine

2007-02-13T23:41:00.000-06:00

I used to work on school stuff from the moment I got to school at 7:00 in the morning until I left nine or ten hours later in the afternoon. Recently I find myself spending large portions of my planning period browsing the Internet, clicking on the various news headlines on Yahoo! front page, reading investment advice, updating my blog, doing my assignments for an online class, etc. Today I walked outside and looked at the birds and the rain puddles, the decrepit remains of some parade floats parked behind the school for who knows how many years. At home, I buy stocks for my new IRA, clean and cook, take out the trash, discuss with my roommate the issue of our Internet turning off and on with the whim of his noisy computer fan, and make miscellaneous phone calls to people queued up to hear from me. I told one of them I feel in the midst of winter doldrums. Or call it spring fever. Basically I feel like doing everything but school these days.

Sometimes the weather is warm, then the next day it turns cold again. The locals say Mississippi is like that. Today a co-worker who was giving me a ride home told me of an April several years ago when they went from 80-degree temps to snow within one week!

Is it possible to have a harmless crush on a student? I think so. I’ll go to 123-baby-names.com and find a pseudonym for her: Here, I’ll call her “Gretchen.” So last week, it came up in class that I should come watch her play basketball. It was the last home game of the regular season, and I was feeling a little guilty I had not made it out to any of the basketball games yet (mostly due to my transportation situation). So I showed up. She saw me during the pre-game warm-ups, called out my name, waived and smiled. She went on to play the whole game, scored 25% of her team’s points, and won. I enjoyed it. Now, I had another good student on the girls team, as well as a few students I know on the boys team—and it was good to cheer for them too—but I’ll be honest here, it was Gretchen in particular I felt most fondly for. The next morning, she thanked me for coming to the game, and I replied, “I didn’t know you were such a star!” But she is. Gretchen is one of the best students I’ve ever had. She’s a teacher’s dream: Smart, hard-working, participates in class, polite and respectful. And she has gotten the highest score on each of the tests I have given this term. So this week we host the district playoffs. Monday, the morning of the first round, Gretchen told me she probably wouldn’t be playing much that night, as she was not feeling well, but for some reason I showed up anyhow. And she played. She did well. And we won. She didn’t seem to notice me before the game this time, and at one point, she took a tumble on the court diving after a loose ball, colliding with another player. I found myself feeling worried for her and mostly just wanting to express sympathy and encouragement. I couldn’t believe the disinterested manner of the white physical trainer who took his time coming to her aid, only to pull her up gruffly by the elbow. But she seemed fine after a spell on the bench and played the whole game afterwards. During the boys game, after the girls came out of the locker room, she spotted me from across the gym, waived, held up nine fingers to tell me how many points she scored. I held up my hands and clapped for her. Today, at school, she told me she wanted to talk about something personal after school. “Well, not that personal,” she said. So after school, she found her way to my classroom, and I asked her what’s up. She asked me why I walked home after the game. She told me I just about had her crying for making me come to her games only to have to walk home at night. She said she was going to have to start taking up donations to buy me a car, “dead serious!” (Can you imagine that?) I think the thing is, Gretchen is cute and all, for sure, but it’s not like I have the hots for her exactly. I’ve just never had such a perfect human being, as a student, actually show an interest in me, as a person. I am touched, and I like her back. Tremendously.

Play Widit / Get Saved

2007-02-13T21:44:00.000-06:00

i am addicted to
asphalt and temper
tamtrums this
soilthat neverdries
and driving the wrong
way in parking lots
paying too much for
cable TV not to
mention childbirth on
the street named twiceas
far without candy… these
1000 subtle variations
of i don’t know are
taking up space in my
comfort time alone with
my beer

There’s something pretty beautiful about that
wreck we kept our life’s work in She speaks of
unconditional love which to me is surely exaggerations
and some redundant use of the word “after…”

the children of divorce & a tenfold stagnation:
If you have civil rights and half a dozen other
convenient Excuses, behold: She held a bird in her hand

There is a museum for white people Called (quiet)
who wants to know what happens here in
Wintertime and everything i don’t have is forgiveness

Everytime my Minister decides, an airplane, the Poet of our Time,
throws unfinished homework all over our backyard, in flames.. She
waits here for answers until the time expires, listens to the music

for lovers, the Stopsign killswitch weirdline slamstep, One
beer after another Ambushed by crawlers on the way
to my bicycle, Hey, you Don’t know much about God, huh?

There are nanoseconds on my dishes Biting off pieces
of corn chips and decades on classroom management supplying
us with bad ideas: She knows a thing or two about hand guns

We want to think bigger. Get the nowhere wrapped out of us
So if you have had enough basketball, volunteer
duty picking up pieces of trash at the end of the day, just

Take your nervous breakdown day off today and meet me picking
cotton off the road out by the casino crossing and We’ll type the
meaning in afterward. Because they were all thoroughly uninspired.

Children of Men

2007-02-12T10:30:00.000-06:00

Saturday night, after class, I went with a group of classmates to see the new movie Children of Men at the cinema in Oxford. I thought it was an excellent movie. Children is graphically violent at times (although perhaps not exceptionally by today's standards), yet even more unsettling as a social statement. We all left shaken. Children depicts a near-future post-apocalyptic world brought on by the inexplicable infertility of all the world's women. But the premise of infertility is just a vehicle for a far more apt message. The movie depicts a xenophobic British government--the only world government left standing--deporting all foreigners, caging them, putting them in concentration camps. A currupt terrorist organization clashes with the government, fighting for humane treatment of the foreigners. This movie deals with dark themes all around, including assisted suicide, but mostly it addresses xenophobia and the swift yet massive erosion of human rights that might happen in times of crisis and fear.

I find the movie compelling because these two themes are among the most perturbing trends in America today. On the drive to Oxford Friday night, I saw a billboard in Batesville that said something to the effect that Harry Truman and the Enola Gay had the solution for that Iran/Iraq problem. Then this morning I saw this article on Yahoo about torture on TV. These are symptoms. That Abu Gharib was not any bigger scandal than it was, the fact that George W. Bush was still re-elctable even after those abuses and the policies which allowed them had been exposed, further indicts this new, cruel face of America. I am concerned that, in response to 9/11, terrorism, etc, America is drifiting not only toward an us-vs-them xenophobia but toward an unacceptably casual view of torture and a sad lack of respect for human rights.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070211/ap_en_tv/tv_american_torture

MYP Learner Profile Word for Today: "Reflective"

2007-02-03T23:00:00.000-06:00

A few thoughts from Dr. Mullins’ class last week:

The word “is” is a linking verb, which is transitive, not intransitive. And no web address can possibly have an “@” symbol in it. These funny mistakes were made by an intelligent man who runs a reading institute and whose brother famously made a fortune selling a web browser.

A classmate raised the point that “there will always be someone flipping burgers at McDonald’s.” I would argue that there is no technical reason why we really need people to do most manual, minimum-wage jobs. We live in an age where computer technology is becoming sufficiently advanced that if we really devoted enough brains to the task, we could build machines to accomplish most menial chores, not the least of which includes flipping burgers at McDonald’s. In a sense, minimum wage is really a form of welfare for those whose education does not enable them to find meaningful employment doing anything else. It is not that we really need someone to flip those burgers, the problem is that we have so many people who need that job. Consider this: The more advanced a society, the more specialized and educated its citizenry must be in order to create the efficiencies that enable leisure, art, and luxury. But a society with disparate education will create an intellectual underclass, and these under-educated citizens have to do something. An ideal society, where everyone received the best possible education, would have a much smaller number of people in need of minimum wage labor. They would be doing much more valuable jobs (creating, managing, maintaining, teaching, serving people, etc.) and technology would take up the slack whenever the minimum-wage labor pool becomes so small that (gasp!) wages for simple tasks actually go up. Yes, in a sense, there will always be a lower class, but only because wealth is purely relative. What we consider poor would be wealthy in any other century, not to mention lots of other countries even now! There will always be some who benefit more and some who benefit less, regardless of the system in place. That’s just human nature. But I believe it is theoretically possible to raise the standard of living across the board and lessen the gross disparities that presently are growing. How? By perfecting education for everyone! How else?

Since before Teacher Corps began, two of my favorite ideas for reforming education have been to (1) fund schools at the state and federal (rather than local) level and (2) pay teachers more, so as to attract top talent, and link incentives to performance and hard-to-staff areas. Well guess what? It turns out I wasn’t the first one to think of these things, after all. None other than the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce has weighed in on these issues and more, in their report “Tough Choices or Tough Times.” (They also proposed several other dramatic changes, such as restructuring high school so that most students leave at 16 to enter junior college, starting high-quality education as early as age 4 (3 for low-income kids), and communities contracting with outside operators to run their schools.) So it appears that change requires more than just a brilliant idea. Imagine that!

Turn It Over (I Apologize Ahead of Time for the Lameness of This Post)

2007-01-23T20:57:00.000-06:00

The Mississippi Delta is almost completely flat. When it rains, there is nowhere for the water to go. It seeps slowly into a soggy soil that seemingly never dries, forming standing puddles in the streets and schoolyards that linger for days at a time. You learn to watch your step; a person can adjust to anything.

Our so-called “4x4 block” schedule has afforded me the advantage of a fresh start with a whole new group of students. It really is a lot like getting two years teaching experience in one. And while this is actually my third year of classroom teaching, this month marks the first time I am actually teaching the same curriculum over again. I have refined my teaching style a bit, tinkered with my discipline policy, and become more energized, more on top of things, more, well, happy—and in search of good ideas. So things are good. Every now and then, I even leave school on a high at the end of the day, feeling like I am actually good at what I do. Not always, but sometimes.

Well, for one thing, I have stopped worrying so much what is going to happen to me if a large number of students fail. Our principal actually told us in a staff meeting last week that he was pleased with our failure rates, that we were not passing kids who deserve to fail.

I think I also have a better group of students overall than I had last term. My Transition kids—being of a somewhat more appropriate grade level for the class—are not nearly so recalcitrant and hardened in their f-you style indolence as they were last term. And my Algebra II first block class is an absolute dream. I have so many good students (relatively) in that class that it almost blows my mind.

I stopped writing names on the board as a negative consequence. Instead, the name on the board is an honor. The kids argue and compete for it. For negative consequences, I administer a couple verbal warnings usually, and then I give a detention, which I conduct twice a week. For detention, the student has to copy my paragraph, “Respect According to Mr. A,” four times—more if necessary. It seems to work alright.

One of my favorite changes has been the way I grade homework. I used to let it pile up and then in desperation assign them all completion grades whenever I needed to have grades ready. Now I grade every homework assignment, 60% on completion and 40% on correctness. But I only check two representative problems on each assignment—chosen by me randomly after the assignment is turned it—which makes the prospect of grading them very manageable. I have gotten so I can plow through a large stack of papers with relative ease.

I continue to struggle to find inspired ideas for my teaching sometimes. Things usually go well when my ideas are good, and things go so-so okay when my ideas are a little flat.

Restless Soul

2007-01-04T02:44:00.000-06:00

I’m drinking a beer at 1:30 in the morning. First day of school is tomorrow (i.e. today). I’ve got a lesson plan in my head, a syllabus I spent four hours on, and a whole stack of exams left to grade before dawn. “Graduation Day” plays on my trusty iPod.

Just this side of Arkansas, José stopped the car at 2:00 last night so I could kiss the ground of Mississippi. My sister gave me an entire bag full of Beanie Babies with “I [heart] Mississippi” embroidered on them for Christmas. And believe it or not, I feel strangely confident.

I think I figured something out this holiday. Why I end up in places like Mississippi. Because I prefer the stark loneliness of this relative isolation and the vague, hopeful promise of a foreign experience to that smothering loneliness, the vague drowning sensation of home. I mean, it’s great to see the nieces and nephews and all. And it was great to play Boggle, that train game called Ticket to Ride, and shoot Nerf darts at my nephew. You try to appreciate the drama of family and enjoy the happy parts on the surface. But no one really sees me completely for who I am. So better to be unknown—with people I can still surprise. Ever since my time in Africa I have become fascinated with a concept I call “portals”—the way our very identities seem to change so profoundly as we pass between wildly different environments. Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest becomes even more staggeringly beautiful every time I leave and come back. And it was great to see my friends too. How do you explain? Playing Wii tennis in a crowded living room, traipsing around the tea shop glories of Seattle and Tacoma with an encyclopedic tour guide. Chatting with former girlfriends in some vague magnanimity tangentially related to the Christmas season and all. Blah blah blah. But not one person completely listened to my life and answered these three essential questions: Am I still important—really? Do you still believe in me? And can it—can I?—get better? The world is filled with immense loneliness, and no one knows how to talk about this. On the airplane back to Little Rock, a woman beside me read a romance novel about demons making love.

At home, they treat us like children, and that is what we become. Emotional babies with every physical care provided for. Now we return to the real world—foreign as it is—and become adults again. And actually it feels a whole lot better than we thought it would. At least I think so.

My New Year’s resolution: Be more creative. Less complacent. Plan better. Push myself. Become the teacher I want to be. Tomorrow we start the year off with a game of 20 Questions. They have to guess what’s inside my box full of Beanie Babies! (Thanks to D.L. for the idea.)

Breaking the Silence

2006-12-20T06:52:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I defied my principal: We ate Rotell (a cheesy dip) on the “D.L.” on the last day of class. And earlier, a student threw a roll of toilet paper at my back. Overheard in Transition last week: “I was a crack baby,” “I’m taking anger management,” and “Man, I should be in Algebra II!” My students told me not to bring the Rotell; they were convinced I couldn’t make it!

I found a student typing this in the computer lab a couple weeks ago:

I hate this class. I hate this world. I hate Mr. A_ because he gave me this hard work to do and I can even do it. I hate school tomorrow I am going to drop out. I hate Cleveland MS I hate algebra I hate my hair. I hate this life I want to move to Pakistan! So I can kill myself then I won’t have to get mad at nobody anymore. I want to stab myself in the brain letting all my gut and sense waste out. I am useless. I hate school I ahte my life [sic sic sic]

I turned it in to the V.P. Last week the same student almost came to blows with another girl in the middle of class; I had to block the doorway between them to keep the two from getting back at one another. Imagine class after that happens! She has cussed me out, she has erased names off my board, she has been in and out of suspension all semester long. But I love this Little Mermaid. She can be my best student in that class when she feels like it. And this morning she wanted to hug me and told me she missed me.

Lately Detergent and I have grown closer. We even watched a movie by that title (i.e. “Closer”) together. It was not really very good. I like the way she sleeps on the floor in order to avoid the routine of waking up in the same place every morning. She’s always asking, “Do you see what I’m saying?” to which I always answer, “Sort of.” It makes life interesting. When I tell her not to blame herself too much for things at school, she hates it. She can’t decide how many layers of armor to let me see past.

Since my last post, I have been to: Little Rock (a five-mile hike in the middle of the night), Los Angeles, Honolulu, Dallas, and Savannah, Georgia—far too many adventures to fit inside this humble blog! In Hawaii, I saw Air Force One take off. I watched sharks swim casually in circles around the fish ponds of a hotel. A hot surfer chick insisted I hold on to her leash and let her paddle me to safety away from some so-called “rocks.” Saw my younger cousins the Marine and the 96 percentile MCAT-getter at their mother’s remarriage. Ate orange-flavored chicken at Panda Express and loved it. Watched an old man on the beach at Waikiki apply sunscreen to his same-age wife and kiss her shoulders tenderly when he finished.

In Savannah I followed a random artsy, secondhand clothes-type girl down the street and into a cemetery. She was an intriguing character to say the least! In this Revolutionary cemetery, in whose crypts Civil War soldiers once sought refuge, she walked in zig-zags, and it became an ever-fascinating game for me to follow at some neutral-looking distance and half-pretend to take photos of the tombstones and Spanish moss. Yet when I turned to leave, she suddenly came my way and walked past me, then turned down a pointless ally—as if daring me to follow. We had spoken not a word to each other the entire time. I wish I had at least asked to take her picture or something. That’s my problem when I travel: I’m too silent with strangers.

Later that evening, one of my best friends and mentors at school went out drinking with me at an English-style pub beneath shelves and shelves of hand-painted beer mugs in the shapes of famous Brits. (The bartender claimed the ceramics cost $300-$1000 each!) Mr. B is the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program coordinator at my school. A white man nearly my father’s age, he taught for ten years at the other (majority white) public high school in town. His students there had all kinds of success in state competitions, but to make a long story short, he heard the calling and decided move on. I respect him massively. Besides a teacher, he is also a runner, a photographer, a motorcyclist, a Methodist minister, and a connoisseur of the $80 “ashtray” (as another colleague would later put it). The two of us together had barely managed to find “ShopSCAD” beneath the giant brass letters of Savannah College of Art and Design. But we couldn’t manage to persuade the shop attendants to sell us the giant light-up Americana sign arrow propped against the wall.

We went to Savannah, courtesy of Federal grant money, to attend an IB Middle Years Program training workshop. It was good. This MYP thing is all about holistic education; it emphasizes context & creativity, community, responsibility, internationalism & multiculturalism, curiosity & reflection, etc, etc. Once it really sank in for me what this program is all about, I realized everything that MYP champions are the very elements most lacking from my teaching. So I feel motivated to give this thing a shot and plan a couple MYP-style units for next term. By the way, this Federal grant driving the MYP at my school, according to Mr. B, was written (before his time) with the premise that MYP will actually drive white parents to send their children to our school for the superior education. (Hah!)

The day we came back, we had a surprise (to me!) school-wide debate that took the entire 4th block. The students debated abortion. Neither side debated intelligently at all. The “debate” consisted mostly of the two sides reading prepared statements at one other they probably copied off the Internet. Their challenges to each other were little more than asking the other side to define terms no one had even mentioned yet. It made me feel sad but also slightly relieved in a weird way to know that I am not the only teacher who has a hard time getting students to think.

At the end of the debate, students booed the principal as he took the floor to make announcements. Ever since then, I have made it a special point to greet him warmly and quietly show how much I appreciate him.

So today—or rather yesterday, technically—was the last day of school. Next January is a whole new year, starting fresh again with all new students. I’m not sure which is greater, my eagerness for the fresh start or the responsibility and my fear of f-ing it up.

We had a 60% day to finish up exams today. After the last block, the kids were supposed to dismiss orderly, get their sack lunches from the cafeteria, and return to the classrooms until the dismissal bell. But of course it never happened like that. The whole school rushed the dining hall at once. My students who returned—about a third of them—said it was “rough in there.” The we sat for nearly thirty minutes until it was time to go. I just relaxed and enjoyed the end of the year listening to my students talk. They laughed about eating Hot Pockets and Cup-A-Noodles at home and joked whether you are “black” or not if you don’t like all the soul food like collard greens and “CONE-bread.”

Just Another Day at the Office

2006-11-15T21:15:00.000-06:00

Watched my principal get into a shouting match with a cheeky student in the hallway between classes. Still think he is a nice, decent person, but my respect for him as an administrator is fading.
Sang “Happy Birthday” to one my students at the end of the last block. This arose from their curiosity after an afternoon announcement yesterday as to whether I could sing or not. (In fact, I did sing in select choir in both high school and college.) Students were impressed!
One of my favorite students informed me that she will not, after all, be moving to Ohio at the end of this week, as she had informed me yesterday. She can be a handful as far as her attitude at times, in that loud, impudent way we have all come to know and expect, but she is also one my brightest. I really love her, and I would be sad to see her go. Today she did a fabulous job “teaching” another student how to do polynomial division at the whiteboard. She is the best student I have, when it comes to playing the teacher role.
Transition has descended into en masse disrespect, verging on outright chaos. Today they were whistling and so on and so forth while I was trying to give them a make-up test for the one that every single student in the class failed on Monday. So much for the success story I wrote about last Saturday.
Made lots of jokes during my last block class. One of my favorites: Previously mentioned favorite student stopped short when she realized she was about to reveal something about herself she would rather not. “You can tell me later,” I joked. It was funnier in the moment.
Tried a group-based homework review that we did in Dr. Dougherty’s class one time. The students divide in groups, discuss a problem and prepare to present their solution and explanation. Then the teacher picks one student (I rolled a die) from the group to present, so the group has to make sure everyone understands. It seemed to work pretty well. I should probably do stuff like that more often.

1000 Empty Check Marks: The EDSE 600 "Stick to Your Guns" Blog

2006-11-15T20:44:00.000-06:00

So Ben asked us to apply our classroom consequences “every time” for two weeks and then blog about the results. The thing is, I really do apply my consequences (and, to an admittedly lesser extent, rewards) pretty consistently—at least in name. This has never been a problem for me. The problem lies in the secondary consequences.

At the beginning of the year, my assistant principal encouraged me to write the students up if they refused to do the punishments I assigned them. So I did, and those students got ISS. The students resented me at first, but I got off to a pretty good start laying down the law and asserting order in my classroom. Then about halfway through the first nine-week term, I found a letter in my box from the same assistant principal. The gist of the note basically implied that I was not really doing my job, like the other teachers, because I was sending the students to him without calling the parents or doing other interventions first. I guess he felt I was putting the burden of parent contact on him. Fair enough, I suppose.

It is hard to explain what happened next. In a word, I failed. I was already feeling pretty guilty about not contacting my students’ parents from the very beginning. Then my telephone phobia kicked in for real, and the inertia, the enormity of the task before me, and the burden of the guilt itself all combined to paralyze me, and the one, main thing I did not do that I should done all along got even worse. I stopped writing the students up for ignoring my primary punishment, and ever since then, there has been a slow decline in my classroom management. The decline has been slower than you might think—in part because I was doing a lot of other things well, I think—but still a decline. Another thing that partially saved me was the fact that most of the students who got a lot of check marks beside their names in class were the same ones who would just carry on and on until they did something that deserved a straight office referral outright.

I have spent all this school year feeling pretty rotten about this one failure on my part. I stopped blogging for a while. (What was the point? Wallow in guilt for the whole world to see?) And by the way, you might think that the first phone call is the worst, but not really. The second and the third and the fourth phone calls require just as much effort to overcome whatever it is—my phobia? my inhibition?—as the very first one. Every day, I would get home, crash, forget about work for a while, then before you knew it, it would be too late to be calling people, then I would go to bed, get up in the morning, get ready for class, teach teach teach, until it was time to come home, crash, and then start the cycle all over again. It was so easy to put it off, day after day. Anyway…

So when we got this assignment, I knew what I was supposed to do. In order to carry out my consequences, I need to be calling parents. If they STILL refuse to do the punishment required, then I can write them up. Results? Well, I just now called half a dozen parents. We’ll see how it plays out from here. Did you see that? I just called half a dozen parents! And it went alright. Major victory for me! Now, I’ll be the first to admit I should have done this a long, long time ago. But hey, that’s a start, right? It almost amounts to a moral victory at this point, since (being on 4x4 block schedule) there are really only about three weeks left before I start all over with a new group of students. Hopefully, I can proceed in this vein of overcoming a deep personal inhibition on so many levels and carry this small bit of momentum into next term. And who knows? Maybe the seventh phone call will be slightly easier. Sort of like answering tech support phone calls for a living was panic-inducing for the first month or so, then routine after that.

EDSE 600: Classroom Management Recap

2006-11-09T23:45:00.000-06:00

My biggest frustrations are:

Students who sleep, eat, pass notes in class… because…
they care about my class less than anything else on Earth
High failure rate
Poor attendance and constant, unforewarned interruptions due to intercom, extra-curriculars, etc.
Slow pace of content instruction due to student deficiencies in some skills plus above-noted frustrations

Some things shamefully lacking:

Parent contact
Consistent bathroom procedure
“Tissue” and pencil-sharpening procedures, etc.
Preset time limits on quizzes & activities
Prize-giving for tickets reward system
Secondary consequences (due to lack of parent contact)

Some things abandoned without regret:

Red-Yellow-Green “traffic signal”
Hard-assness re: pre-bell craziness & a little in-class talking

The main thing I need to be doing but am not:

Parent phone calls

Some other adjustments I could stand to make:

Get back to more cold-calling (or ask-pause-call) rather than loudest unrestrained screaming out method (“I said that first, Mr. A!”)
Use a timer
Stamp warm-ups

Some unexpected positive developments:

Sense of humor in the classroom
Feeding off their energy when the class does respond
Hmm… Was there something else? Do witty comebacks count? Students who sometimes greet me back? The fact at least no one has physically assaulted my person?

Some things I am doing quite well:

Classroom presence
Administering consequences (at least nominally)
Starting and ending class procedures
Handling student outbursts, disrespect, etc.
Always keeping my cool & never taking anything personally

Overall I think my classroom management plan from the summer was a little, well, optimistic. I am certainly not doing everything as I said I would. But also it was a bit more strict and tight-laced than I feel like running my classroom now. I have become a bit less rigid (call it “structured” if you like) since then. There are good and bad sides to that. Right?

But anyway, I feel fairly well in control of my classroom most of the time, despite everything I am doing so poorly or not doing at all. I just wish I could get kids to listen. No amount of writing their names on the board can force them to do that. Some parents can make them pay attention and learn, but those are mostly the kids who are already doing well anyway.

There are good days and bad days.

Reality Sets In

2006-11-07T18:56:00.000-06:00

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.

Photos Online

2006-10-27T23:23:00.000-05:00

I recently discovered the impetus to complete a long-intended task of posting my photos online for all those who wish to browse and peruse. I personally think they are very interesting. Never mind the scenery! Ever wondered what yours truly looks like with/without beard, dread locks, etc.? Well here is your chance!

http://picasaweb.google.com/globaljunkyard

I have lots of photos from Africa, the ex-gf (unavoidable), and my relatively recent bicycle trip around the perimeter of Washington State. I wish I had more of my high school right now and Mississippi in general. Certainly more will follow eventually.

Irrational Numbers

2006-10-27T01:00:00.000-05:00

This week, I began corresponding with a woman ten years my senior. She remains a mystery to me, and in a way this nascent friendship, whatever it is, is also mysterious. One day this week, I actually felt like there was a reason beyond pure must-be dread to get up in the morning. I randomly woke up some time in the early hours of the morning, casually checked my computer, which had been left carelessly on, and found a late-night message from her on my email. I never really went back to bed. I ate breakfast and washed some dishes, took a shower, did some stretches, listened to music, and reveled in a pleasant, sleepless buzz in those last pre-dawn hours before leaving for work. I have no idea where this correspondence is leading, if anywhere. What I feel is an insatiable craving for attention, some reason to check my inbox every day, someone who actually takes the time to write to me and me alone. It hardly even matters what she writes, and yet it does. I keep asking her to tell me more about herself. She always says she would love to—when she has time. Instead, she writes about herself in sweeping, inscrutable generalizations. I wish she would tell me a story or something, because what I really want is to get to know a real person, who wants to know me too, not some list of exuberant, self-selected adjectives that describe her.

Since that day our correspondence has faltered slightly, under some strange ambiguity of who was supposed to write next: Her promising to write more later and somehow not really prompting me to make a direct reply; me waiting, trying to figure out what to say next and how to respond. The illusion of immediacy has flickered, and the mornings have returned to their usual sleepy dread of me dragging myself out of bed, without breakfast, at the last possible minute.

After a phone call from me begging a ride home from school today, Merry D. and I got to talking about his own topsy-turvy week, the recent crisis of conflict between his personal life and (relatively unhappy) professional life. An off and now on-again girlfriend has made an offer-slash-ultimatum, and for a few days he was barely able to sleep, sorely tempted to up and leave this program altogether to join her in San Francisco. For now, he has made a counter-offer and recommitted himself to seeing out the year. I told him he is making the right choice, and then we drove a couple miles south on Route 61 to try a restaurant called Catfish Cabin. We were both surprised by the quality of the fried catfish, fried, fried, fried & deep fried corn on the cob / okra / shrimp, hush puppies, and sweet tea. The Dukes of Hazard played on the TV above our heads, but the atmosphere was subdued, as our fellow diners, some silver-haired white ladies and, at the end, a middle-aged sheriff with a hefty gut, ate quietly. Like so many establishments in Mississippi, the place was charming in its backwardness and nostalgia, yet conspicuously mono-racial. After paying our checks, we tooled back up to town to try a local doughnut shop-slash-watch repair. Merry, impressed by the fact the proprietor (?) was Asian, spotted me 79 cents for a cream cheese pastry, and then we made our way back to his apartment. I read a rough manuscript lying on his cluttered coffee table, a travel tale written by a friend of his who is teaching English in Korea. Her descriptions of a world-traveling odd-couple, those random encounters with strangers of all types on foreign forms of public conveyance, tickled my latent sense of wanderlust and awoke in me a familiar, youthful day dream of drifting around Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia for years at a time, just to experience the world at large, romantically stopping here and there just long enough to earn my passage to the next destination. Is it possible a part of me abhors stability—the horrible dread that this is all there is?

Today at work I was only vaguely aware of the act of vandalism done against me the day before. I did mention it to two coworkers whom I respect. One of them, a grey-haired motorcyclist, white, who is in charge of our fledgling IBO Middle Years Program, offered me the use of a closet to store my bike in at school, once I get it fixed. The other, a black woman who teaches Speech & Debate across the hall from me, blurted, “I’m thinking of leaving, myself!” And now, my newfound cyber-pen pal finally tells me a story of sorts, an explanation of why she quit teaching so many years (?) ago—because the sad statistics began to have faces of children she came to know and love: “I just couldn't find that magic place that is close enough to make a difference but distant enough to protect me.”

And me? I love my students, in my own, perhaps slightly out-of-touch way, but today was a disaster—one of the worst periods teaching since the first couple weeks of the year. My fourth block Algebra II was in open revolt today, after I was quite blunt with them how their average score on a recent test was well below 50% and a good 25 percentage points below my other period of the same class. Perhaps I was in a bad disposition about what happened to my bicycle yesterday. Anyway, they accuse me of going too fast, not understanding “the Mississippi way of teaching,” etc. Someone actually said, “We don’t run around barefoot like those kids you taught over in Africa!” (What the heck does that mean? What does it have to do with anything?!! And if they only knew!) I maintain that I have in fact given plenty of time to the material—that 5/8 of the course is over and we have barely even touched on anything that is not supposed to be taught in Algebra I—and that their poor performance in most cases is due to their lackluster attitudes, as illustrated in part by the fact that other students taking the same course from the same teacher at the same time did so much better. The danger I want to avoid here, the reason I am so unyielding, is about maintaining high (or, rather, reasonably not-low) standards. I feel like it would be not only a joke, but a disservice, to teach a so-called Algebra II that was hardly more than a rehash of Algebra I. When it seems like my students are not paying much attention in class, then do poorly on a test, the thought occurs to me that they need to learn the consequences of their lack of attention, and I’ll be darned if I let their lack of effort (even if it sometimes constitutes the majority of the class) hijack me from teaching the breadth of the curriculum as it was intended. Am I right here, or wrong?

She says: “It sounds to me like you have it in you to REALLY make a difference. I wasn't that strong and gave up.” Thanks, but I really do not feel like I am making much of a difference at the moment. Still, I can and will carry on.

Lovely

2006-10-25T17:51:00.000-05:00

Today when I got out of school I found that my bicycle had been vandalized. It was securely locked to a pole, but the wheels and fenders were all bent out of shape, as well as the seat post knocked out of alignment. It looks like somebody kicked it several times; I really cannot think of any other plausible explanation. Of course this is pretty disappointing. I just called my principal as soon as I got home to see if anything could be done. He said he would check with the district office. I mean, if a teacher had their tires slashed at school, are you really telling me nothing would be done to try and catch who did it?

This is the sort of incident that really makes you feel pretty bad about doing what you are doing where you are doing it. The sort of thing that makes people want to quit altogether and just go home. I am not going to quit, but my immediate feelings are: (1) I wish I could find out who did this so I can press charges. (2) Damn sure I am not sticking around Mississippi any longer than I have to.

In the end, I will probably just have to let go of the bad feelings and move on.

So Long, So Wrong

2006-09-30T02:00:00.000-05:00

My teacher persona: 180 degrees different. I’ve stopped fighting the battle against a little talking. I’ve found my sense of humor. Most of my students seem to like me now. And I like to think we get more done than ever.

By now, my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in Namibia feels so far away and so long ago, it almost seems like something that happened to another person. I hate it when people ask about my time in Africa, because sometimes, when I have to explain myself, the whole thing almost seems like two wasted years, and I was a pitiful teacher, with nothing to show for it. But the reality is, twelve months ago, I was in Africa. I know there is this stereotype of Africans or foreign students in general that they are all over there sitting cross-legged under a banana tree or something, hunched over their meager writing tablets and very eagerly awaiting instruction, and whatever, but that is basically bullshit, and certainly nothing was further from the truth in my experience. As a teacher, where the majority of my students were at least 6 grades behind where they should have been in every essential academic skill, where the boarding school hostel was worse than a prison, etc., etc., the situation was so hopeless, so absurd really, I think it is almost impossible to compare my experience there to any school in the United States—the Mississippi Delta included. It made me a pretty tough costumer, battle hardened and stern. When my fancy-pants liberal arts-grad mentor teacher this summer labeled my teaching style “militant,” I finally retorted, “If you came from where I come from, you’d be like this, too.” To his credit, he agreed. An ex-something writes to our PC newsgroup: “still processing through some of the bad habits I acquired in Namibian schools and reinventing myself as a kindhearted teacher,” and I have to agree with her. My entire teaching persona, my tactics and expectations, were built around keeping the 95% in line in order to teach the other 5% who cared. And by the way, language alone makes a world of difference. There, I had to squelch almost all talking, because the children would speak in their mother tongues, which of course I did not understand.

In the last few weeks, my classroom persona has changed so dramatically, I actually find it rather difficult to articulate in words. Basically, my disposition has become more like the best parts of me in real-life. I am more and more relaxed and pleasantly calm, to the point of near indifference, and because I spend a lot less effort telling the kids to shut up, I spend more time listening to my students. I have become more responsive and developed friendlier relationships with almost all of my students. (Students have such short memories!) Overall, I have to say I have become the teacher I always wanted to be. Who knew all I had to do was loosen my grip a little? (Okay, a lot.) There is an expression in ice hockey that a player is gripping his stick too tight (meaning he has lost his touch), and I think the same can be said of teachers.

Our fearless Teacher Corps leader, Ben Guest, has given us an assignment to spend two weeks enforcing our rules and consequences “every time” and blog about the results. Now, never mind the impossibility of objectively applying rules “every time,” as two reasonable people can disagree about the application of a defined set of rules to a football game, with the benefit of video replay, let alone some momentary judgment call by a teacher, one person against a room full of twenty or more rambunctious adolescents. Simply put, the Guestian model of classroom management focuses merely on a Pavlovian concept of behavior: Reward the good behavior, and punish the bad. For the record, I appreciate Ben, and there is a lot to what he has to say. But give me a break. There is a lot more to classroom management than electric shocks and doggie biscuits. Say, for instance, building a positive rapport with your students, conveying that you care about them, and setting expectations that are both reasonable and productive. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still enforce rules. But I think my expectations are a hundred times more productive now than they were before. I enforce more on substance, and I let the little banter and stuff go.

Another big adjustment that has been very successful has been to give a short quiz twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday. In the present incarnation, my quizzes (or “Opportunities” as I call them) are easy to grade, since they consist of basically one or two problems, on a pass/fail basis (they have to get 90% or get a zero and retake it). These little quizzes have proven so invaluable as a regular, routine assessment, it is hard to understand how I ever thought I was teaching without doing this! This is holding the students much more accountable to what I need them to learn than, say homework (easy to cheat, hard to grade, and easy to procrastinate) and the infrequent test or long pop quiz. Committing to this twice-a-week schedule really keeps my pulse on the students’ achievement, and actually seems to help them stay motivated. My wall of “Excellence” has started to run out of room lately! My high expectations (basically perfect or you retake it) do often result in a lot of retakes, but that does not bother me. If they get a “retake” grade, the students have to come to me after school. (If they don’t do so, it simply reflects a true lack of effort. If they do, they will not complain when they start to see those 100%’s on their progress reports!) When they are ready, I tell them to put everything away, take out a clean sheet of paper, and then I give them the exact same questions all over again. Am I worried that they will memorize the answers? Not really, because they still have to show their work and all the steps of the process. If they can memorize all that, it is basically the same as doing it! And because the retakes are just the same quiz over again, it makes my job very easy. There is no penalty for retaking an “Opportunity,” no matter how many times you have to do it (except no longer eligible for potential bonus points), because the emphasis is on getting it right, no matter how long it takes, not on catching them getting it wrong.

Not to say everything is perfect, but things are definitely getting better overall, week by week. I had a fabulous lesson this week with my Algebra II classes. I took them on a “field trip” out into the hallways, where I had them graphing parabolas on the grid lines of the intersecting floor tiles, marking their points with random little green plastic cubes I found in my classroom cupboard. The students really seemed to enjoy the change of environs and medium, and their ability to accomplish the objective nearly exceeded my expectations. By the way, it was a revelation for me to see exactly how many students go up and down the halls all day long at my school (proving this is the Mississippi Delta, after all?!?!), but it was cool to be out there having math fun for everyone to see.

EDSE 600: Understanding Poverty

2006-09-15T18:51:00.000-05:00

Dr. Ruby Payne’s expansive definition of poverty includes the shortage (or potential shortage?) of emotional, mental, relationship, and support resources, etc., rather than merely financial resources. A Framework for Understanding Poverty elucidates the cultural traits of poverty that may not be understood by members of the middle class. There are many aspects of her generalizations (stereotypes?) that ring true to my experience teaching in the Mississippi Delta, such as the predominance of the “casual register” of speaking, loud noisy-ness, ownership of people (e.g. in response to question about “most-prized possession”), distrust of authority, a certain amount of disorganization and focus on the present, etc. Again, one of the most powerful points the author makes is that economic class is not simply a matter of having money or not having money. For instance, the so-called “hidden rules” of class (such as how to keep your clothes from being stolen at the laundromat or bail someone out of jail vs. how to set up a retirement fund and enroll your kids in soccer camp), as well as the various cultural and relationship ties, make it exceedingly difficult for someone to move to another economic class without someone to sponsor them and/or leaving behind old relationships. The book ends with a bit of psycho-babble about how the cultural traits and living conditions of poverty lead to cognitive deficits, such as the inability to identify consequence and put things in order. Accordingly, these poverty-linked cognitive deficits ought to be directly addressed at school, rather than diagnosed as special ed.

Certainly, A Framework for Understanding Poverty has made me take a second look at my own perceptions of my students. I know there must be students living in poverty at my school. But I also wonder how much the culture of poverty (“ghetto,” if you will) pervades my school regardless of how much money comes home. While the book has caused me to pause for thought, it will take some time for me to absorb everything I read and deliberately implement any of it in the classroom. Besides subtly informing my classroom management, the idea of making a thematic unit about personal finance (esp. the evils of predatory lending in all its forms) has occurred to me, perhaps with a little discussion about the “hidden rules” of middle class thrown in for good measure.

For now, I just crash-land on my bed at the end of the week and wake up an hour or so later, so disoriented I can’t even remember what day of the week it is or whether I just overslept something really important.

Good New$

2006-09-05T18:50:00.000-05:00

Despite yesterday’s excessive self-recrimination—and despite the written Job Discrepancy Form found in my mailbox at school this morning (for not turning in a Fixed Asset Form last Friday, which was mentioned to us approximately once, without any subsequent reminder)—today was a good day.

The principal came to my classroom this morning to deliver a copy of a letter which informs me / my school / the district that I have been selected for a $5000 “REACH” award. Hooray! This develops out of an application I had to drive down to Jackson and hand deliver last month in order to get it in on time. Well, I guess it was worth the trouble. It looks like I get $2000 in December and the other $3000 when I finish the school year, but I have to submit a variety of paperwork, attend a workshop or two (Yippee! Substitutes, anyone?), etc.

Today we had our regular Tuesday after-school staff meeting. Every other week or so, we spend time on professional development for our IBO Middle Years Program. Today, we made hot air balloons out of tissue paper. I was in a group of full-figured black women ranging in age from my own age to that of my parents. Being white and male and not from around here, I was the exception to my group, but it was a nice team-building activity. I learned that the inclusion teacher who often visits my classroom, for instance, once almost married a Zambian man and was about to move to Zambia, learn the tribal language, and all that business, before she finally broke off the engagement. Oh yeah, and I won some Vis-à-Vis markers for reciting the five areas of interaction.

On the way home from school today, I made a stop by a neighborhood corner market to visit my student Mocha. In class today, I had passed around a paper so my students would write down their extra-curricular activities, such as band or football, as well as their position and uniform number or instrument, so I could pick them out of the crowd when I go to see a game or performance. Well that lead to a brief exchange with Mocha about how she works after school at her parents’ store and where that is. As she was describing its location, she mentioned “where the bad people are.” I told her not to say it like that, but I knew exactly what she was talking about. The street is definitely in the ghetto part of town. The visit was not something I planned ahead of time, just an idea that struck me as I pedaled home. Mocha seemed really proud to lead me to the adjoining shop and introduce me to her mother as Mr. A, her Algebra II teacher. See, Mocha and I had our troubles during the first week of school. She hated my strict rules, which I have since eased up on somewhat, and I think she even got ISS for her attitude with me. The next Monday, however, she brought me a very nice, written apology, and ever since then Mocha has been one of my best, model students. It was really great to be able to tell her mother face to face, and praise how bright she is, how happy I am to have Mocha in my class. So, look, I contacted a parent! All on my own! Yay!!

Destination: Procrastination

2006-09-04T18:00:00.000-05:00

Do you recognize the subtle distinction between the terms “computer game” and “video game”? I do. I have never owned a Nintendo, Sega, PlayStation, or X-Box of any kind, but having grown up on the likes of King's Quest, Ultima, and Civilization, I have a weakness for the kind of games you play with a keyboard attached. Some people smoke. Some people watch too much TV. Some people hang out in abandoned parking lots, have irresponsible sex, get stoned, jump out of airplanes, eat too much, spend money, etc. I play computer games.

So we made it to Labor Day. Almost a month of teaching is done and over. A stack of imperfections to contemplate, but it could have been worse. A lot worse. I have decided to give myself credit for the parts of my classroom management that are going right. The kids are getting more and more used to starting the block off how I want them to: Quietly in their seats and working on the warm-up by the time the bell rings. And I spend very little time in class fighting the discipline battle. Still the occasional, “Go back where you came from!” out of the obstinate, but they get ISS.

Still, I feel almost lucky that things are going as well as they are, because there are a lot of positive things I could be doing much better. I have awarded class points consistently, but the promised benefit of a party (for 200 points) is so distant at this point as to seem unlikely to motivate much. Still, the students do care at least a little bit, because occasionally they will remind me that they have been good and deserve another point or two. Unfortunately, no class has earned a Friday Fun Day since the first week. I really do look for moments to reward my Transition class with points, but the thought occurs to me that I may be too stingy with my Algebra II classes, because I have higher expectations for their behavior. I know I have not done very well with my individual rewards. I have given out a few tickets, but awarded no prizes yet as a benefit of receiving said tickets, so the students still have barely any idea what they are for. Shame on me. I have a couple boxes of chocolates sitting my refrigerator, intended for the secretaries and the janitor lady who sweeps my classroom. But the gifts have been sitting there for weeks now, because, out of shyness and what? busy-ness? I cannot bring myself to give them over. My Students of the Week still have not received any tangible recognition of the honor. At first, I planned to post their pictures in class along with a short bio they prepared, but now I think I just want to print certificates to give them. Still hasn’t happened though. And the worst part? I still have yet to pick up the phone and dial a single parent.

Now playing: Lacuna Coil, “Self Deception.” I picked up this CD at Wal-Mart for 9 bucks the other day, and now I have it on repeat play. The insert booklet art includes goth chick frontwoman Cristina Scabbia squatted with a long fold of black satin falling between her open, naked thighs.

Liar, you tempt me.

Oh, I don’t know what to do.
No guilt is in my heart.
I don’t know what to do.
I’m not the reason.

I wish I could say all that. But I feel like I am the liar. I know exactly what to do, I just have not done it. And the guilt is in my heart.

To be fair, everything I listed above as things I wish I were doing better are things I have never really done before, despite my two years experience teaching in Africa. There, there were no parents. And I used to just toss candy around; my rewards were never so idealistically, systematically arranged. At least I admit my weaknesses. I console myself with the thought that as long as I am still improving and trying new things, even if I am not doing everything perfectly, at least I am heading in the right direction. Right?

Do you sense a regression since my last post? Well, I reneged on my resolution and brought work home with me this weekend. Progress reports are due this upcoming Thursday, and I plan to give tests on Tuesday and Wednesday. Got a stack of grading and phone calling to do between now and then. Still have not touched it. Thus the guilt. Reminds me of school, as a student. The difference is that, come tomorrow morning, there will be no skipping of class. I refer to this as “bend without breaking.”

I got a memo in my mailbox Friday from Mr. Bic. He started off by thanking me and congratulating me for a job well done. Then he got down to business and told me to stop writing up kids for failure to complete the punishment I assign them. He went on to imply that I am not doing my job, like other teachers are, because I am not calling the parents myself first. Well, forget that he was the one who told me I could write them up for this in the first place. He is right, in a way. And at least he said it in a nice way.

When you get right down to it, I hate telephones. Sometimes I can picture myself picking up the phone and having a conversation with these so-called parents of mine, telling them how their son or daughter is or is not doing this or that in my class, encouraging them to exhort their child to try harder, etc. I can read over my blog from the summer and note my earlier optimism about how I was going to contact parents proactively, and when I picture it in my mind, it seems almost easy. What was I thinking? Nothing terrifies me more than telephones. I think I have a bona fide phobia of talking to the wrong person, calling at the wrong time, and saying the wrong things. The disembodied voices without context and a shyness I never got over. Just answering the telephone all day long for a tech support call center was one of the hardest jobs I ever had (besides teaching)—at least for the first month or so. I underestimated how much this is still a hurdle for me, and I realize now how intensely I have been avoiding the task, making excuses for myself and considering myself too busy to make some calls today. Perhaps I need to start really small. Like, say, the kids who fail to complete my punishment.

Escapism: In response to nebulous dissatisfactions, I turn to an alternative reality, a stimulus so strong that I actually forget about the real reality which depresses me. I despise card games and first-person shooters; they bore me. I consider myself Teh Thikning Mans Pwner: If it doesn’t have a story or statistics or strategy, then I am not interested. It has to be something I can put my mind to. Something immersive. Like role-playing games. Or strategy. And now you know the truth of how I pass the days, outside of school.

To be sure, I celebrated the opening weekend of college football in style. Traveled to Rosedale with the Merry D. to watch my high school get whooped up on Friday night. It was an exercise in offensive futility: Our Trojans turned it over at least 6 times. But the defense played valiantly, and we held the opposition to zero offensive points for the second half. I can hardly wait to make a little speech in Algebra II commending my cornerback’s defense and praising their commitment, even in the face of despair, esp. a goal-line stand in the waning seconds, with nothing left to play for but pride. Also talked the same company into joining me the next evening, an unusually comfortable, beautiful Saturday in the 70’s, to travel all of a few blocks from here to watch Delta State’s football opener. The opponent: West Virginia Tech. The final score: 61-0 to the green and white Fighting Okra. We have a pretty good local Division II football team here, apparently. It looked a little bit like college players against a high school team, and the score was 45-0 just at the half! Afterwards, the Merry D. and I sought to lighten our souls at La Cabana and their 32-oz. draft beers. It was a lot of beer. We had to walk it off afterwards, so we made an impromptu trip to Wal-Mart, where Merry claims I said the f-word in front of one of my students. Oops.

Last night he and I got together once more and traveled down to Leland to have supper with a couple other Teacher Corps classmates who, like Merry, also happen to be graduates of Williams College. Hooray for Williams! I friend you. Merry cooked butternut squash soup, which tasted splendidly like pumpkin pie, and someone else made some pasta with bacon in it. Yummy! It was a deliberate Sunday supper get-together, filled with every intent to become a tradition I want to be a part of. The camaraderie, the sharing of stories, lesson ideas, frustrations, etc., took place casually, with a sense of humor, in a way that was lacking in Oxford last weekend. Afterwards, we made a midnight run to Dodge's Fried Chicken (a gas station) in order to buy ice cream treats. We stood around in the parking lot, making fun of people who hang out at gas station parking lots, until we realized that we were those people, and then we left abruptly.

But the loneliness remains. I would not be so preoccupied with leveling up my Morrowind character of late if everything were peaches and ice cream wonderful. At least I am not playing Second Life or Eve Online. I have not played today. But I have not really done any work either.

Ben Guest called out of the blue just now to check up on me. He asked how the contacting parents is going.

Circa Last Weekend

2006-08-30T23:59:00.000-05:00

My first-ever pep rally happened last Friday, and this is what it was like: The band blasting rousing rally anthems—deafening. The dancing majorettes in their yellow gym shorts demonstrating impressive muscle isolation in the most sexually suggestive manners imaginable. My student “BMW” dancing with the hugest smile on her face. Astounding amounts of noise and barely-contained chaos, enough volatile enthusiasm and undirected youthful energy to rattle the gymnasium. Flailing arms and legs and horns and drums, the shreds of disintegrated banners the only remnants, at the end of the day, of these impromptu mock-battles between juniors and seniors. It was simply amazing. I could hardly figure out whether to smile in wonder and pleasure at it all or worry about someone getting hurt. In those few minutes of anticipation, while we waited for our hall to be called to the gym, my student “Mocha,” one of my loudest but smartest, most mature students, asked me why I talk so softly. I explained how (1) I want to be calm, and (2) it forces people to listen instead of making noise. She tilted her head and admitted, “I never thought of it like that.” Another student wanted to know if everyone from Walla Walla talks that way.

The weekend in Oxford was vaguely, mildly disappointing. Somehow I imagined there would be more socializing, more hanging out and swapping war stories over a cold one or two out on the Square on Friday night or something. But everyone seemed too tired, too wrapped in their own problems. And we (still?) seemed to be putting a brave, reserved face on things. There was too little in the way of humor and group camaraderie to go around. Was it just me? There was a little complaining, a horror story or two, but what I miss most—and perhaps it will come with time—is the perspective to laugh at our problems and feel inspired by each other because we are dealing with the same stuff. Instead, we were all still counting our blessings and/or no one wanted to lose face. Except Dignity Peel. Her greatest accomplishment: “Not quitting.” I love that kind of brutal honesty. I felt exactly that way for my entire first year in Peace Corps.

The past two weeks have been up and down. There are plenty of little headaches, to be sure, such as the endless paperwork, and students stealing petty things from me. Like my aqua blue “gel” pen, which I found, and the girl who denied denied denied it even though I saw my pen sitting on her desk five seconds earlier. And the back page from my hall pass, which has simplified my bathroom policy considerably. Student: “Can I go to the bathroom?” Teacher: “No.” Student: “Why?” Interestingly, the students have been reasonably trustworthy so far with the calculators. I only had one set of batteries stolen so far. I confiscated my first CD player today. My good friend, Jay-Z, the one who brought his mom that first week of school and then talked with me until 4:30 that afternoon, has been showing up late to class, ignoring the punishment I give him, and now his mom will have to come back to school to pick up his CD player. He is not a bad kid, when he can be bothered to show up and try. He thinks because I “talked” to him about his behavior, he should not receive a consequence. He is just one of many. Got hit in the back by a wad of paper on Monday. Wrote up who I thought it was. Then Mr. Bic came in and lectured the class about being “ignorant” and how it was a felony to assault a teacher, whether it hurts them or not. Classroom management is not my biggest concern, however.

Highlights have included a couple days when I have been able get my Algebra II classes up and working examples, graphing linear equations and inequalities on the board, helping and teaching each other, as I simply sit back and take pride. The students really enjoy it, and they seem to be learning a lot from each other’s mistakes. I am trying to make class more like that, as much as possible. I tell them my arm and voice are tired, so they need to help me teach.

My biggest concern is that literally no one is passing Transition to Algebra at the moment. And most are failing Algebra II. Even when the class sessions seem to go well, most of my students do extremely poorly on their quizzes and tests. Just got my student’s data sheets from the office this morning, so I hope and plan to make a number of phone calls within the next few days. Hopefully that will make a difference. I mean, 19%?!?! Are you even trying? How do you say WAKE UP?!?!

But about the weekend, I must say, Ms. Monroe, you rock! (1) Love the way you became “such a hard ass” and “put it in writing” about late work. Now people like me will be less likely to turn in stuff late. We hope. Seriously, I like the way you admitted a weakness and addressed it with a written policy. (2) When you had us talking about our problems and then you told us to think of one thing in our control that would “make a world of difference,” that was brilliant! Excellent conclusion, segueing into the next segment by having us make resolutions and release our imaginary balloons. Keep on, Ms. Monroe! You should be a teacher! My resolution? Make those damned phone calls.

The weekend was framed on Thursday before and Monday after by outings originated by War Gecko and her harmonica-playing sidekick, Moses Miller. Accompanied at times by an ex-TFA, tall and lanky, a singular dancing spectacle in his Blues Brothers get-up, getting down and grooving good and low, foot-tapping and shoulder shaking with his shades on and cigarette dangling—people getting their pictures taken with him. The guy who moved to the Mississippi Delta in order to manufacture protein from catfish skins. And the French tourist she talks to in her Peace Corps French, who came here for the blues. Gecko ordered fried green tomatoes for me.

Overall, this week is going much better than the previous few. My outlook has changed considerably for the better, thanks to a deliberate decision, on the advice of Gecko, not to bring work home with me. I never did it anyway. Now, because I am not packing anything home with me, I actually get more done, because I force myself to do a little grading or something in the afternoon before leaving school. And now my time is truly my own. Unburdened by the guilt of procrastination, my feelings toward school have improved quite a bit. I actually spend some time thinking about my classes after I go home, which is a step in the healthy direction.

A Blogger's Regrets

2006-08-30T23:36:00.000-05:00

One writes a blog—and by “one” of course one refers to oneself (a.k.a. “me”)—with the notion that it goes out there on the big, wide, anonymous Internet, a tiny insignificant speck upon the pavement on which the blinding blur of the Information Superhighway takes place, where it may or may not be happened upon by some almost random, semi-anonymous assortment of broken-down individuals who choose to contemplate (or not) the trace my dried, shiny worm slitherings have made across the concrete, at their leisure. Take it or leave it. The mere fact of its existence, that orange rectangular button on my computer screen which says “Publish,” is in itself an act of constructing meaning out of my essentially meaningless existence. So I write for an abstract, outside audience. A song in the shower, or a cry in the darkness. Not for you. But for who you might be. For everyone and no one. And yes, for myself. When in fact this blog is part of a family, a very televised, public forum for a few interconnected individuals who know each other face to face yet here read each other’s diaries out loud and may occasionally recognize themselves mentioned therein, sans flattery and polite unsaids. What a strange phenomenon. Here’s to awkward conversations and apologies to housemates and classmates everywhere! My apologies.

The Students Respond

2006-08-25T02:21:00.000-05:00

1. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Please explain.
· I would see myself in college and out of my mom house.
· I see my self working in a store.
· Atlanta, Georgia.
· In the Navy.
· On T.V.
· Well I really can’t tell where I’m going to see my self in five years. But I really want to move out of Cleveland.
· I see myself in college getting my degree in early childhood education.
· I see myself in law school. I want to be a lawyer or judge.
· I see myself becoming a doctor or nurse because I want to have a good job.
· In the military and attending college.
· Graduate of ASU (Alcorn State University) hopefully gettin ready to attend medical school.
· A junior in a university, because I am going to ICC for two years first.
· I see myself as a registered nurse at Bolivar Medical Center. I also see myself engaged to the most cutest, richest, and funny guy.
· Just getting out of college and have a family.
· I see my self graduating from A Trade School & getting me a house with a family.
· I see myself graduating from college with a masters degree or in the NFL.
· I c myself on tha t.v., makin paper stack.
· Welding in a city way across the country.
· In the next 5 years I see myself getting ready for grad school to be lawyer. I will be in the lovely state of Louisiana.
· As a diesel technician. Next year Im going to UTI and learn my trade as a diesel technician.
· Working as a nurse either with my dad or my older brother once he becomes a doctor.
2. What is the hardest thing you’ve had to overcome?
· The hardest thing that I’ve had to overcome was the death of my grandfather.
· My school work is the hardest things for me.
· Telling my mother the truth through something bad I did.
· When my stepmother pass away.
· The death of my grandfather.
· The hardest thing I have overcome was riding a ring of fire at the fair. I would always turn away from it. I always wanted to ride it, but I was scared.
· Passing Spanish 1.
· When I had to go to the hospital in Jackson.
· My grandpas death.
· My fathers death.
· The hardest thing I’ve had to overcome is my aunt dying.
· My brother dying and a lot of hard breakups.
· My biological father.
· My parents divorce.
· The hardest thing I’ve had to overcome was worrying what people think and knowing I do not need 50,000 friends.
· The hardest thing I’ve overcome is when I found out that my aunt have cancer.
· My fear of heights.
· The time when I have to have surgery on my leg.
· My mom & dad breaking up!
· The death of family members.
· Being black.
· Lazyness.
· The hardest thing I’ve had to overcome was the death of my aunt Vivian. She was like a second mother to me.
· One of my older brothers died of cancer when I was one year old and last year my other brothers and my father told me what he was like.
3. What is the best thing that has ever happened to you?
· Getting to sing in a school play.
· The best thing that ever happened to me is when I can go anywhere I want to go.
· When I had a baby girl.
· I passed Spanish 1.
· When went spent some time with my godparents.
· When I made it to high school.
· My family gave me a birthday party when I told them not to.
· Having my baby.
· The best thing that ever happened to me is to live to see my 12th grade year.
· My family being there for me and getting the job I have meeting my friend Pee-Wee cause she is always there for me and very down to earth.
· When I won highest average.
· The best thing that has ever happened to me was when I get awarded or recognize & when I was born.
· I got saved.
· The best thing that has ever happened to me was when I met my minister Bro. James Hadley because he does so much for me.
· Having a great mother. She helps me out any way she possibly can.
4. What is your most prized possession? Why?
· My dog I love her.
· My cell phone why because I love to talk / text.
· My child.
· My most prized possession is my neise. I love her so much. She my first neise. We are closer than ever.
· Life is my most prize possession, I don’t know why.
· My cell phone. Because my life experiences are in there.
· There’s no reason why because I’ve never had a prize possession.
· My voice.
· My daughter. She’s my pride & joy.
· My heart, because with everything I do I put my heart into it. Always I’m not a materialistic type of person.
· My trophies because I worked hard for them.
· My trumpet. It is the only thing that is all mine and no one can take it away from me.
· My little brother is my most prized possession.
· That would be my SON!!
· My family because without them there wouldn’t be anyone to motivated me to do right.
· My most prized possession is my poem book given to me by my grandmother.
· My most prized possession is my suitcase at home, cause it contain some things that I need.
· My most prized possession is a quilt my grandmother made me.
· My knowledge is my most prized possession because it helps me colt with life.
· My most prized possession is my cell phone and my puppy Gizmo.
· My car. It was a gift from my aunt and uncle.

The Zombie Walk

2006-08-21T22:18:00.000-05:00

Just finished reading all the new blogs from my classmates. I have to admit I found their frustrations and sufferings strangely comforting. The early optimism was making me feel downright inferior.

Things are okay. I mean, I am surviving. Putting one foot in front of the other, and getting through each day. My class periods are really not too bad. My classroom discipline problems are manageable, and my vice principal, Mr. Bic, truly backs me up. I still have the occasional student mouth off to me, but I always write them up, and a day or two later, they are out of my class, serving in-school suspension, which they tell me is a real punishment this year. I feel like I have actually lightened up quite a bit since the first week, and things seem to be going smoothly, albeit more relaxed-fit than I initially imagined, with my two Algebra II classes, which are small. (For them, I actually discarded the whole traffic sign thing, but I think it was still effective in getting my point across. These older students are able to follow my expectations, more or less, in a more adult, reasonable way, without so much prompting.) Other teachers at my school, both black and white, seem pretty supportive. I have met with a couple parents already, but so far the meetings have always gone well in the end, and the administration has always supported me. So I have no complaints, really. I feel lucky, to be honest. Oh, my Transition class remains a challenge, but half the time, the kids who are most disruptive are in ISS anyway, so the problem is more to motivate those who remain.

The problem is apathy, and sometimes I wonder how much of my students’ apathy is correlated to my own. Mr. Sharp Shooter called me out of the blue tonight to ask how things were going, if I was “having fun.” I hesitated just for a moment, and then I admitted no. I am not having fun. Of course, I always have something prepared to present to my students each period, some crappy lesson more likely than not thrown together at the last minute during my first-block planning period, a little warm-up, some lecture examples, and an assignment to get working on while I circulate around. An hour and a half of that times three, and we call it a day. I mean, I have been reasonably prompt in grading tests and quizzes (despite that stack of homework lying around here somewhere), but beyond that, I feel like I am actually doing a pretty crappy job as a teacher. “Uninspired,” is how I explained it to Shooter. In short, I am boring the hell out of everyone.

Each day, it never seems to matter what actual time I leave campus. I still get the same amount of work done after school, which is zero. I pack my bags full of high hopes of ending the cycle and having a kick-ass lesson prepared and all my various paperwork caught up on by tomorrow. But it never happens. By the time I get home, the last thing I want to do is think about school. Most days I never even manage to unpack my bag, and I end up watching hours on end of Law & Order instead. Thank God for my long first-block planning period, huh? Getting to work at 7:00 and not having to teach until after 9:30 is saving my life. Or perhaps I am abusing the luxury. I always was a procrastinator.

In the morning, it is difficult to get up, and I usually sleep in more than I hope—not from sleep deprivation but simple lack of enthusiasm. I actually dread the day. And it is different: Not dread of the kids or parents or discipline problems. Just dread of life. The responsibility of living, working, of breathing, of riding my bike there and back each day. Not looking forward to much. Just vaguely dissatisfied with life as it is, and not sure how exactly that is going to change anytime soon.

“Sounds like depression,” an outside friend told me over the phone this weekend. He’s probably right. But for the first time in a year or two, I have had passing thoughts questioning my decision to be a teacher. I feel like I am doing such a lackluster job and feel so uninspiring. And I am really not enjoying it too much. But this will probably pass. I know it will. I can bend without breaking, right? Sometimes I think it is okay not to be teacher of the year for a while, as long as you persevere and get better in the end. At least that is what I tell myself.

Introducing: The Prettiest Cowboy

2006-08-12T12:36:00.000-05:00

Take a look at The Prettiest Cowboy in the Delta if you are at all curious. Mostly it contains some poetry I have written over the years. The hope is that self-publishing will inspire me to start writing more.

Two poems that accurately reflect my experiences in Africa:

Enjoy! Or not. Whatever.

2nd and 17

2006-08-12T12:23:00.000-05:00

Wow! One week done. (Just 17 left before Christmas!) Pretty overwhelming. Lots of new things to get used to, like the creepy, annoying intercom system, for instance, that could blast out at literally any moment of the school day. Like teaching a “block” schedule, 90 minutes at a time. And kids that talk back too much, basically tell you off and say your rules are wrong. In Namibia, my students were completely apathetic, nonverbally stubborn, or just doing their own thing, but they never really gave me lip the way American students can. Were they more respectful? Debatable. But they did not verbally challenge me the way my students have done already here.

My first few days were a challenge. I felt unprepared for the first week of school, having barely stepped into my classroom before the weekend of. As I wrote on one our many evaluations, I think MTC should have cut out the last week of summer training, which was pretty unfocused and repetitive, and sent us out early to do whatever moving and settling in and preparing we needed to do. As it was, I barely had time to go home, pack up all my stuff, and get back here before teacher orientation, which lasted all week with barely any time to do anything except sit in meetings all day long for five days straight! As it was, I never could have gotten my stuff moved here or my classroom cleaned up and halfway organized before school started without my Dad’s help. Well my unfamiliarity with the system and lack of preparation—not from laziness but from lack of time and not having been here before—has led to a lot things I learned over the summer about lesson planning and so on and so forth just sort of flying out the window. I went into survival mode almost immediately. My first day did not go especially well, and neither did the second, or third, or fourth. Just draining. The classroom was a battle of wills more often than not.

On the bright side, I continue to be reasonably impressed with the way my school is being run this year. (Then again, I have pretty low expectations, based on my previous teaching experience!) Most of the other teachers seem decent and interested in helping me get adjusted. My principal is the same as the school had two years ago. Sometime I should email Jaws and ask how the G-Man was for him, but he seems pretty okay so far. He is very kind and soft-spoken, but seems to get the point across as far as being serious. I just hope he is as serious about the big things as his talk, or as he is about little things, such as the students always walking on the right side of the hall! I especially like the vice principal, Mr. Bic, because he has been very no-nonsense, supportive, and respectful. He came to observe and talk to my classes a couple times already. He backs me up with detention and in-school suspension (ISS) and seems pretty reasonable to work with as a colleague. He is from Rosedale, near here, spent some time in the Army, and this is his first time at our school. I like him a lot. I even like the secretaries at the school so far, a LOT more than I liked my school secretary in Namibia. I think I am going to try the bribery (by way of chocolates, etc.) Ben recommended, which I failed to do but probably should have done in Namibia. I guess I selfishly thought I was the volunteer there, and they should be appreciating me!

My students have complained a lot about my traffic signal system this week, although it is not really clear whether they hate the signal itself or just the rules that it signifies. Well I started off pretty strict and stayed pretty strict most of the week, for all the good it did. Unfortunately I am still struggling to learn names, which hampers my discipline significantly. I have a seating chart but rely on it too much. I am planning to take pictures Monday, with the hope that it will also help me learn names. Students for the most part have not complied with my copying paragraphs punishment (as expected), and I have been assigning detentions for that. At this point, it is unclear which is the lesser punishment, the copying or the detention, so I think I am going to make a few slight adjustments to the system: (1) 3 paragraphs instead of 5 for each check mark. The paragraph they have to copy is pretty long, and for most people, 3 would be most of a page, front and back, handwritten. (2) Hold my own detentions instead of sending them to Mr. Bic. I have no problem doing this, as I will always have stuff to plan and organize after school, anyway. This will allow me to enforce: (3) They are not released from detention until they copy twice as many paragraphs as they had to do originally. These three steps combined should get the point across. The consequence behind the consequence has to be clearly worse the step before it, otherwise students will simply act worse in order to proceed to the lesser consequence beyond. From the talk I hear, that was the problem with detention and ISS at our school last year.

Thursday afternoon, an Algebra II student, a senior, came to talk with me. He is in my 4th block, which unlike my 3rd block Algebra II, has remained pretty stubborn about my rules. He and I had a long conversation for almost an hour and a half. He complained about me being “uptight” and I explained that I will remain firm on my expectations, although I will listen and take into consideration those who come to talk to me respectfully like he has. He spent a lot of the time telling me stuff about how other teachers did things but also about himself. I learned a lot about him, actually, how he grew up with no father around, how he might be an expecting father any day now, and how his aspiration is to attend culinary school up in Memphis after high school. He is a football player, a running back, but apparently ineligible this season because, according to the story, he was worried about something happening to his mother last semester, and so presumably his grades slipped. He seems like a reasonably intelligent and decent guy who, like most teenagers, does not always take things as seriously as he should.

This is the same student, by the way, who earlier that day had brought his mom to observe the class. That was a shock! Never before had I seen any parent in my classroom, let alone an unannounced visit on the very first week of school. So apparently my little friend had complained to his mom, and she had come to see for herself what this Mr. A was all about. Well when she came in, I introduced myself politely, and she frowned less. She introduced herself as my student’s mother, and I invited her to take a seat at the back, which she did. I went on with my lesson, a little nervous inside, having no idea what this lady was like or how she would judge me. But surprisingly, everything was fine. The class behaved better while she was there. (Surprise, surprise!) Mr. Bic happened to come in then, as well. He said a word or two with the class, and then the parent also asked to say a word. She told the class to give my rules a chance and gave me a vote of confidence before she left, which is somewhat reassuring. Not that it helped the class behave much better after she left, but at least the adults are still behind me.

So my schedule:

*planning period*
Transition to Algebra
Algebra II
Algebra II

It sounds like a short day, but remember, these are 90-minute “blocks.” We start at 10 before 8 and end at 10 after 3. Fortunately, my hall is on first lunch, which means that I get half an hour between 2nd and 3rd blocks, instead of my 3rd block interrupted in the middle. At first I thought first block planning period would also be nice, but most of the other teachers seem to prefer having planning period in the middle of their schedule.

I lost a lot of sleep Thursday night. Lesson plans for next week were due the next day, and all the good and the bad from 4th block that day still haunted me through the night.

Then it was Friday, the end of a week that was frankly even more difficult than I expected it to be. I had an opportunity to reward my 3rd block Algebra II with Friday fun time. They seemed to enjoy it, and so did I. Of the three blocks that I teach, 3rd block has been the real bright spot for me. They have really been no problem, ever since day two, so it was nice to reward them. I guess I lightened up a bit on Friday overall, which may have helped things go a little more smoothly. Still had to write up a bratty girl in Transition to Algebra, but I loosened the reigns a little on the 4th block big kids, and things went better. I was actually less strict than I would like to be, but I left school at the end of the week feeling much better than I did throughout the middle of the week. As most traditional teacher advice will tell you, it is okay to start off a little too strict so you can loosen up later. Now I just need to find the proper balance, and I will probably loosen my expectations just a little bit as far as what happens in the classroom before the bell rings. The adjustments I have in mind for the consequences should help. And I will learn their names! I have to.

Since my life is still so unsettled—by which I mean living in an apartment where I have no intention to stay any longer than necessary, with a kitchen that is barren and unclean and my bedroom stacked with boxes upon which I type this blog on my computer—I have limited my food intake to one meal per day. After school, I reward myself by stopping somewhere to eat out. I gorge myself with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all rolled into one, and then I roll on home on my bicycle, in the middle of the sweltering heat and soggy humidity of Mississippi August. My favorite place is Backyard Burgers, which according to the website, has it roots right here in Cleveland, MS. Not very conveniently located up busy Hwy 61, but hands-down the best franchise burgers you will find anywhere—avail. with delicious hot cobbler with ice cream—yum! One of my favorite things about moving to Mississippi is the food. Oh, and La Cabaña, with its 32-once draft beers and fajitas with chips and salsa, as also not a bad way to kick back and enjoy the end of the school day!

The first week was harder than expected, but I still feel lucky to be in Cleveland. And I have hopes that things will get better in the classroom. I will find my feet eventually. I will do better, and my students will adjust some. Hopefully.

the iFan

2006-08-03T20:51:00.000-05:00

So I arrive in Cleveland with everything I own loaded on a Penske truck which is probably somewhere in New Mexico right about now--on its way here but with nowhere to go. Slow José Limbaugh (not his real name): Still in Oklahoma. So I crash with The Merry Doorman (also not his real name) at the last minute, and a few short hours later Merry D. and I are up and at ‘em again, our first day of new teacher orientation for the district.

The local coffee house: A place to plug in my computer. A few small gestures around the room acknowledge an external, cosmopolitan coffee-shop culture: Clocks purport to display the current time in Seattle and Tokyo--as well as Cleveland. A U.S. map displays the names of random individuals with itty-bitty Post-Its appended to places like Los Angeles and Indiana. And yet the ever-present Delta dichotomy, this unadulterated whiteness, hangs over everything like a creepy, unacknowledged guilt: A framed print of a cotton bloom hangs over the white women with their reading glasses. And the white college-age baristas with their odd combinations of beaded necklace and too much make-up. The white men who stand around with their booming voices and their RC Cola polo shirts. The silver-haired gentlemen leaning back cross-legged in their gym shorts and white undershirts. Of course the now ever-familiar “In God We Trust” is neatly framed and hung beside the menu. And the hours: Closes every weekday at 7pm. Closed all day Sundays with a sign that reads, “See you at church!”

So I hear about this meeting to be held later the same day at my school. Rumor has it that new teachers will be introduced. Surprised how many cars fill the parking lot. Also impressed by the number of students milling around. And I feel conspicuously white. Internally I debate whether I am too underdressed for the occasion: Not judging by the students and a lot of the adults, frankly, but definitely, judging by the superintendent himself in his natty pinstripe suit and shiny silver tie. Inside, the cafeteria is smaller and older-looking than I would have imagined, but the collection of world flags hanging from the rafters instantly catches my attention. For a while, I look around hoping to find the Namibian flag, but I eventually give up, surmising the collection is probably too old for Namibia anyway. Then the opening prayer moves me more than expected, and an almost “amen” even escapes my lips. Oh, and by the way, it turns out this is really a booster club meeting. Football coaches are introduced to rousing ovations. Speeches are made. Some good speeches. The head coach emphasizes the importance of academics, promising, “The wins will come.” The turn-out is strong and supportive. A girl asks me if I am going to be teaching there and what subject. A woman calls me out by name and introduces herself. I enjoy the meeting. It seems spirited and very supportive of school success. Fund-raising is discussed a great deal, but it seems legitimate and purposeful. Academic departments got over $2000 in booster club grants last year for purchases! The school painted walls with booster club money, because as one speaker put it, “They aint doing it for us over there on the other side of the tracks, so we gotta help ourselves out over here!”

Drove down to Jackson yesterday to hand-deliver an application for something. It was my first trip south of here much. Enjoyed it immensely. I felt my appreciation for the Delta aesthetic begin to take hold: The wide-open roads. The parched bushy soybeans and tree-lined cotton fields. The dilapidated mobile homes next to impossibly optimistic town slogans. And the occasional cypress-lined bayou--polluted as it very well may be by an effluvium of fertilizer and pesticide run-off--strikes me as almost heart-breakingly beautiful. I need to explore a place on my own for this love, this adoption process, to begin.

In fact, ever since I left my family from Arizona to start the new school year here in Mississippi, I have noticed a lift in spirits. It seems to be a trend in my life that I often experience a period of depression in anticipation of a really big change in life--even change I may long for. It happened when I was about to leave for Peace Corps, in the few months before leaving Namibia, and to a certain extent, all this summer in Oxford. I guess I feel a combination of regret, anxiety, and loss at these times--fear that the future may never live up to the past but also that the mistakes of the past may never be corrected--a sense of passing through a one-way portal beyond which I will never be the same. But there is nothing I love more than a new beginning--when it finally arrives!

And one more thing: I finally seem to have broken free from the lingering phantom-grip death-chill associated with my not-so-recent break-up. Possible reasons include: (1) Change in circumstance. (2) Thinking my way out of it by asking myself, if she came to me today and said, “Oh honey, that was the worst mistake of my life, will you take me back?” . . . would I? and (3) Feeling my way out of it by wallowing in the self-pity so long that I actually got tired of it. Whatever the case, I feel ten tons lighter now. Congratulations to me!

I gassed up before leaving Jackson. A white-haired old white man (an older, less refined version of the Ole Miss mascot, come to think of it!) and his dour-looking teenage grandson just sort of stared at me from behind the counter as I paid too much for a bottle of water. It only took one or two wrong turns, yet as I wandered through unfamiliar ghetto streets, past rusted-out, overgrown processing plants and rotted-out houses with unmowed lawns, Jackson impressed me as having all the urban grit of a city ten times its size with all the sophistication and bustle of town one tenth its size. But I only saw a few streets of it for a total of maybe half an hour.

José arrived around midnight, and it took me half an hour and a sweaty shirt (even at that hour!) to load all the assorted belongings I had at stashed Merry D’s place into my rental car. When I arrived, I noticed José’s head peaking from behind a darkened window but thought little of it until he came out to meet me and told me the power was shut off somehow while he was gone. “How do you feel about a late-night run to Wal-Mart?” he asked. (This may have been after I virtually turned my suitcase upside down right there in the parking lot, looking for my flashlight.) So off we went to Wal-Mart, where the late-night environs led me to recall not-so-nostalgic times working at Fred Meyer, and Jose one-upped me with tales of a former telemarketer. We found: A lantern-style flashlight. The iFan personal cooling system (3 AA batteries not included). Picture a blue plastic toy fan vaguely shaped like an iPod. A lanyard cord holding it around your neck. Sleeping like that half-naked in a sweltering apartment with José’s chubby legs protruding at various angles from his whitey-tighties because the bedroom across the hall is simply too filthy to be slept in.

Quick, who can spot the Peace Corps Volunteer in this picture?

Play the Role

2006-08-01T12:51:00.000-05:00

One thing my students would never guess about me but I wish they did: I cry at movies.

Even as my plane to Seattle punches through the prevailing cloud cover, revealing the spectacular, angular peaks of the Cascade Mountains, the final scenes of our on-board Disney entertainment play out: A sometimes Antarctic adventurer returns to the site where, months before, he was forced to abandon his sled dogs, and after a tense Hollywood moment when we are left to speculate the unthinkable, his dogs come bounding over the snowy hill to leap into his grateful, parka-enclosed arms. In these sentimental moments, torn between the scenery of our final approach into the Emerald City and the final resolution of this movie, I am struck with a palpable choking sensation how close I am to you know who, our nearest physical proximity since we broke almost six months ago. But there would be no tearful reunions awaiting me this time--just regular life. After the long walk from the gate to the baggage claim, I complained to my parents about my back pain and told them about the retired couple who sat beside me on the plane, returning from their cruise in the Mediterranean. How could I possibly explain this stupid, sentimental movie or what it felt like to be in Seattle now, knowing that SHE was out there somewhere? And how do you know two people your whole life--take your very DNA from them--and still have less to talk about with them than one person you only knew for two years and barely even speak to anymore? We talked about the weather.

The night before, my classmates and I had gathered at the Downtown Grill in Oxford, Mississippi, to celebrate the completion of our initial summer training. Awards were bestowed, mostly of the tongue-in-cheek nature. Mine was for “Most Laid Back With a Beard,” which, it might be added, is not saying so much, considering mine is by far the most profound beard in this year’s crop of Corps. Admittedly I was somewhat jealous not to win the “Most Likely to Walk Calmly Out of His Burning Classroom” award, but I choose to look at the bright side and take the award as evidence that I possess no glaring social flaws I was previously unaware of. Or perhaps my social flaws were actually SO glaring that no one had the heart to poke fun of me so publicly. Whatever the case, I feel vaguely flattered by the award, because I want to be easy-going and all that. Strangely I feel guilty, though, and wonder if my family or my students would nominate me for the same award.

Then there was an after-party. After a lengthy period of phlegmatic mellow-ness during which one or two beers may have been imbibed, my classmates were introduced to the illegitimate dancing skills of Mr. A. That is to say, some lucky few caught a rare, probably surprising glimpse at a more energetic, less inhibited aspect of my personality. Comments afterwards confirmed the remarkableness of this alcohol-aided transformation.

Been thinking a lot lately about the different roles we play and how different people see us differently, depending on the context of how they know us. Troubled how my reputation as laid-back or “nice” (from TEAM) does not seem to reconcile with the perceptions of my students or co-teachers during the summer school in Holly Springs, where I was called "militant" (somewhat unfairly I think) and worse. I do believe there is no one correct teacher personality, that the key is to find the teaching persona that works best for you and fits true to your personality. But this summer has been a wake-up call. I do not want my students to hate me. (Then again, I would rather have them hate me than an out-of-control classroom or students not learning.) What I really want is to carry my authority well--gentle but firm. I am naturally all-business and no-nonsense as a teacher, but I want my students also to see my humanity and know that I care about them. Why is that so hard for me?

A family get-together in Arizona: Six fair-skinned little munchkins who know me as uncle. Two married siblings who know me as their baby brother. One former classmate who knows me as brother-in-law. We “talk to Jesus” a lot and eat vegetarian food. Drive around and get short with each other. See the Grand Canyon in all its crowded, sweltering, visitor center glory. You know, the usual. I play the roles, and my sister teases me.

On the drive back to Flagstaff, I remark to her how similar the scenery is to Namibia, and suddenly I am overcome with nostalgia for that life I left behind. There was something very simple about the Peace Corps lifestyle, something comforting. There was nothing you could do, no decisions to make except where to go during the next school holiday. Everything was out of our hands, even transportation, so in a way, there were no worries. Just meet me in the capital next weekend, and together we look forward to our freedom at the end of these two years.

But here I am: Free. So this is what “readjustment” feels like! We play ping-pong in the morning and then they drive me to the airport. I finally roll into Cleveland, Mississippi, at 3 in the morning and crash on a classmate’s floor.

Leaving Church (to the Believers)

2006-07-20T14:33:00.000-05:00

For the record, I was raised in a strict Christian home. More precisely, I was raised within a unique sect of Christianity called the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church which has its own distinct subculture. In my household growing up, there was no drinking, smoking, dancing, wearing jewelry or make-up, going to movie theatres—or even public schools for that matter—or watching TV on “the Sabbath” (which was Saturday). In fact, until the age of 22, when I graduated from an SDA college and left home to attend law school at a public university, virtually 100% of the people I ever knew in my life were Seventh-day Adventist! Those who know me very well are of two sorts: (1) They also come from the SDA subculture, so they know what it is like, or (2) they learn a lot about SDA-ism from me, because like it or not, it is completely inseparable from my family and my growing up. But I am not Christian.

At an early age, I questioned whether this thing called God was real. In the fourth grade, I began wondering whether there was really anyone up there listening to our prayers, or whether we made all this up just to make ourselves feel better. From my own experience, I could identify absolutely no solid evidence to rationalize a belief in God, the afterlife, etc. Of course such questions, while liberating on the one hand, were also unsettling on the other, because they implied the dismantling of virtually everything I had ever known or been taught, not to mention going against the social framework of my entire existence. So at first I decided not to rock the boat. Keep singing the Sabbath songs, keep dreaming about the pretty girls at church, and everything will be fine. But it was not fine. Within a year, I began to feel dissatisfied with the conclusion I had come to. I realized that my position was not genuine. So later my sixth grade year (having skipped fifth), I entered a baptismal class, fully intending to get inspired. I did not get inspired. The answers were unsatisfying: Highlight passages in the Bible because it is the right thing to do. Follow this and that rule because that is what the highlighted text obviously means. Do all this and God will reward you with Heaven, but if you fail to accept his so-called “Grace,” he leaves you deader than dead. Got it? Well, no. It felt like a waste of time, and at the end of the class, I was the only person from my group to elect not to be baptized. And I have never looked back.

Some of us are atheists because we believe it is the most rational conclusion based on the evidence before us. Given the almost unlimited variation of religious and spiritual beliefs that exist in the world, it is amazing to me how many people seem to think only one of them is absolutely correct. Those who choose to look with an open mind sometimes take this as evidence that there is some spiritual truth underlying it all. I personally believe it merely indicates that religion serves evolutionary, adaptive purposes on the societal level, such as general social cohesion, justification for hierarchy, mobilization for extraordinary acts of collectivism (such as war, migration and expansion, even social movements such as temperance, abolitionism, and civil rights), and perhaps most importantly, the potent reinforcement of basic moral rules which allow people to live side-by-side without utter chaos and violence ensuing. In its less organized form, spirituality is a coping mechanism for our finite but sentient minds to comprehend a harsh and infinite universe.

Please note: I am not trying to denigrate any particular belief or even define any set of beliefs restrictively, but rather to lay forth the purposes these social phenomena serve, which to my mind explain their very existence. I personally find religion aesthetically meaningful sometimes, not to mention a useful mode of talking about ideals: My classroom management plan describes the positive learning environment as a “sanctuary” and a “Church of Knowledge.” I could go on and on, but I should spare you all my Atheist Manifesto. Apologies if my views offend any readers. If you are Christian or whatever you believe, more power to you. Keep on believing! The only thing that offends me is intolerance.

Which is the whole point: Religious tolerance is a really big deal to me. As teenager, I was forced to attend church, which I despised. I was forced to attend a private religious academy, which I also despised. And so on. My mother would worry herself sick to find me listening to rock music. And I could get in trouble just for going to the mall on Saturday. At first, I was just bitter, bitter, bitter. I hated everything. But over the years, I slowly came to learn tolerance within myself. As I came to befriend more and more Adventists of various viewpoints and characters, and as the immediate restrictions to my freedoms began to lessen, I eventually came to see that quality, moral, beautiful individuals—including, in time, my own parents—exist within this religion I despised so much. Having come from where I came from, and having reached this point, it would be beyond hypocrisy for me not to practice tolerance. But I also expect tolerance from others. You go ahead and believe what you believe, and I will do the same. If you ask me, I will tell you what I think. But it ends there. Your rights end where my nose begins, as they say.

So here we find ourselves in the so-called “Bible Belt.” Certainly not the first time I find myself surrounded by Christian beliefs I do not share or wish to take part in. Just as in Peace Corps, I enter the situation briefed as such: (1) Everyone will essentially assume you are Christian, (2) people will find it odd if you are not Christian, to the extent that it may not be advisable to announce yourself as such, and most pertinently, (3) attending church is an excellent way to gain entrance into your community. Now I do not disagree with any of this advice.

By the way, I found the argument on another MTC blog about point (3) rather interesting, but somewhat off the point and perhaps even unnecessary. On the one hand, I can sort of understand how someone might be offended if you advocate insincere church attendance with words like “entertaining.” But few people indeed would wish to shut you out of their church just because you are not a member already, as long as you show proper respect. The element of disrespect implicit in specific words like “entertaining” was clearly at issue, but it is unclear how many church members would actually prefer nonbelievers to stay out of church altogether if they have no intent to convert.

The point remains that church performs a major social function in these communities. And according to Ben, if you do not attend the black church, the assumption will be made that you attend the white church. The obvious conclusion has been put to us, and undeniably this is great advice for someone who is sort of agnostic or does not have strong feelings about the matter. It worked for plenty of people in Peace Corps. But it is not me. I just cannot bring myself to do it. As Ben points out, nothing is more annoying to me than listening to people talk nonsense, which is exactly what church feels like to me. So I choose to be myself and leave church to the believers. Trust me, we will all be happier that way.

I will: Be the best teacher I can be. Attend football games, basketball games, the school play, the catfish fry, etc. Love my students. Praise and affirm them. Contact parents pro-actively. Continue to believe in the sacred separation of church and state. Be honest when confronted.

I will not: Pray. Attend church. Say the “Pledge of Allegiance.” Hang “In God We Trust” on my classroom walls. Announce my beliefs for no reason. Try to convert anybody.

The Policy of Truth

2006-07-18T23:28:00.000-05:00

All summer here in our Teacher Corps training, we have been exposed to a number of experienced teachers who take the notion of lying to their students quite lightly. Sometimes, such as today, lying has been recommended to us as a way to avoid unwanted attention. What’s more, our assistant instructor has routinely entertained us this summer with the “harmless” stories (lies) he used to tell his students. Now I have absolutely no doubt that Jaws is an excellent teacher. He may be a better teacher than I will ever be—who knows? And his students probably enjoyed the tall tales he would tell them.

But I abhor inconsistency. I prefer actions to be governed by principles, and the more concise and consistent those principles can be, the better. Now, my position of absolute honesty is a peculiar view to say the least, one not necessarily shared by many others. I realize that. But my tolerance has been exceeded. I have heard so many teachers, good teachers, advocate dishonesty so many times this summer, and have disagreed on some vague, unspoken level, so many times that finally I have to take issue, realizing almost no one else besides me probably even cares.

When at first I look inward to justify my stance, I recall intensely personal affirmations that have come from my closest acquaintances. I believe that on one-to-one terms, my honesty, my integrity, while not necessarily recognized at first glance, eventually becomes more and more evident and increasingly valued by my friends as the relationship matures. In that sense, I think of honesty as an investment. Often it is easier, in the short-term, to be a little bit less than honest. Maybe you just want to smooth things over, for yourself or for others. You take the easy way out, or maybe you just want to protect someone’s feelings. Whatever the case, the truth eventually comes out, given enough time. You hear the snickers. You see the tell-tale signs. You hear it from so-and-so’s friend what she was really thinking all that time. Remember how much more you resent finding it out like that? And how do you respect the person who hid the truth from you? Dishonesty, no matter how small, once uncovered erodes trust, and trust is a fundamental element of intimacy, not to mention respect.

Even in humor, dishonesty can be risky. I remember one time in college, I had a poetry writing class with a girl I considered attractive. I had come to have a mild crush on her, felt a sort of kinship even, because I admired her writing. Frankly, she was one of the best writers in the class. (Well, besides me of course, hah, hah!) Well one evening, she and I happened to be in a computer lab at the same time. She was hanging out with a friend at a station near me, when she made some playful comments, addressed to her friend and supposedly out my earshot, about me being cute and her liking me. Well perhaps I should have known better, but I believed her. I wanted her words to be true, and so I gathered up all my courage, and I called her a few days later to tell her I liked her too, and what do you say we go out some time. Well imagine both of our embarrassment when she had to tell me, Oh, I’m sorry, I was just kidding! Certainly she meant no harm. She completely expected I would “get it,” right? But for whatever reason, I didn’t get it. And in the end, both of us felt bad about it. Was it worth it? On a similar note, a couple veteran teachers have warned us that our students probably will not understand irony if we reply with sarcasm in class.

On a more abstract, general level, I see honesty as a right, a basic human right each of us are entitled to as part of the dignity of being human. To feed misinformation is to taint someone’s perception of reality, whether physical, historical, or social. You never completely know where the ripples may end, how long your audience may go on believing your untruth and how much that could impair their judgment. To tell a lie is to steal, to impinge on an individual’s right to make their own judgment about what information is relevant and how to act upon it appropriately. At the extreme, dishonesty can even stunt an individual’s intellectual development, because no one can make rational judgments from faulty information. Every person has a right to make their own choices, and if they break laws they suffer the consequences, but if you misinform someone, you ill-equip them, you rob from them of the prerequisite knowledge, the raw materials if you will, necessary to make a choice in the first place.

Now obviously, some may argue, whether your students think you are married to Hulk Hogan or not is hardly a crime. On the surface, of course, they are right. No immediate harm will come of it. But remember as Teacher Corps we are among the few people of our particular demographics—racially, geographically, educationally, etc.—that many of our students may ever know so well. To a certain extent, we are representatives of a reality outside their everyday experience. What right then do we have to tease them with cartoonish depictions of how the other half lives? Essentially to do so is to take from them an opportunity to learn something valuable, a mini-social studies lesson, if you will, about someone whose personality and character every weekday morning is plain for them to see (and hopefully respect). Jaws writes about how his students refused to believe when he finally told them, quite truthfully, how he grew up in a lighthouse, without a TV. To me that seems sad. After so many “harmless” lies, his students were unable to learn something unique and valuable about their own teacher, something so far, far away from their immediate experience of the world. It could have been an interesting conversation for everyone, but instead it was just another tall tale, one of many apparently.

Furthermore, it is ethically vapid, without serious justification, to demand honesty from our students if we are not prepared to be honest ourselves. Do we expect situational honesty from our students, or absolute honesty? I for one expect absolute honesty from my students. It does not matter to me whether they are cheating for my test or another teacher’s test, it is wrong. Well then it is only fair that I reciprocate. Authority gives us the right to set reasonable and justified expectations and consequences, but it does not give us the right to hypocrisy, no matter how harmless it may seem. Arguably our position of authority carries a greater burden of honesty, because our audience, being younger, less educated, and less wise to world, is less capable of sorting out the truth than our peers would be.

There: I have laid out my principle and my arguments for upholding it. Obviously in particular, conflicting scenarios, the application of principles can become stickier. I mainly wish to change the basis of discussion from: What can you tell your kids to deceive them in funny ways that will also serve your own purposes, as a teacher? -to- In light of everything, do your legitimate interests as an authority figure but also as a vulnerable human being truly outweigh the risks of dishonesty, bearing in mind that the full price of dishonesty can be unforeseen?

Perhaps the answer sometimes is yes, go ahead and lie. If it makes you feel safer, maybe you do tell them you have a husband. But in my opinion, to do so wantonly and without thought or reflection, is irresponsible. Generally, a more attractive, straightforward alternative to inappropriate probing from students is simply to say that entire line of questioning is inappropriate. End of story. However, an exam-proctoring tactic I recently heard, and considered it pure genius by the way, involves an implicit deception: Mark the top of each test with a different color marker, red, green, blue, orange, etc., and then very carefully instruct each student to be sure they write down which color mark they have on their test—even though their papers are all exactly the same! I think I will probably use that trick this year, and that will be the closest I ever come to lying to my students. If they ask me where I live, I will probably tell them straight up. If they ask me how old I am, I tell them. I plan to answer all their appropriate questions at an appropriate time. I was thinking about having a regular sharing time at the beginning of class, just to take a couple minutes, only every now and then, when I ask a student to tell me something about themselves, and then in return they get to ask something about me. I want to know about them, and they want to know about me. Only fair.

But that’s just me. Every teacher is different. My personal strengths are clearly different from Jaws. I intend to be good at what I know, and honesty is one of those things.

EDSE 500 TEAM Self-Video

2006-07-16T11:29:00.000-05:00

I hate to say this, because it seems so self-satisfied, but actually I enjoy watching myself teach. I feel like I am doing a lot of things right, and I am pleased with the demeanor I have in the classroom. I am relaxed yet confident, do no over-talk, give lots of encouragement, praise, and thank-you’s for student participation, and take ownership of my own ignorance and mistakes when they come up without making myself look stupid. Although my lessons often involve a lot of direct instruction, working through procedures by example, as is typical for my subject at this grade level, it has become second nature for me to involve students in my lectures extensively, particularly by asking a lot of questions and inviting confident students to work examples on the board. Particularly in combination with cold-calling, this style seems to work fairly well for me most of the time.

Friday was the end of our week of so-called “TEAM” teaching evaluations. For the first time, our teaching was being evaluated for an actual grade. At first it was pretty frustrating, as I complained so bitterly in the previous post, but by the end of the week I guess I was getting better and better at dancing the dance, and I received 97% on my final two days of evaluation. Hooray! Well Friday was also my day to be videotaped.

I seem to have a good self-awareness I suppose, because when I watch a recording of myself teaching, it replays almost exactly as I remember the class session. No surprises, except the weirdness of hearing my voice the way others hear it, which is goofier, higher-pitched and more nasal—but in a loveable sort of way, right?—than the way it resonates in my head. Also I noticed that my butt looks more bean bag-like than I ever imagined, at least in those particular Dockers I was wearing that day. This after bicycling 1500 miles in a little over three weeks, just two months ago! Oh well.

Also my teaching voice is not very loud at all. I think this is a good thing, a little teaching trick I learned with experience. When you more or less shout to your students, it sort of gives them the okay in a way to make more noise, because they know you can still be heard regardless. But if you talk to your students with a very normal conversational volume, they have to stay quiet in order to hear what you have to say. It works! It also helps you maintain an aura of calm control.

The biggest problem with my lesson was my excruciatingly slow pace of ending the warm-up and set-up. The (admittedly short 40-minute) period was half over before we even began the activity that was meant to be the actual body of the lesson. The warm-up was particularly problematic, even though it consisted of only three problems. After walking around to check their progress (which was excellent), I asked several students individually to share their answers on the board. At first I felt comfortable doing this, because my lesson plan was not overly ambitious for time. But it took the students much longer than I imagined to write out their work. The whole thing took substantially longer than it should have. In a realistic setting, this would have been a classroom management problem as well, because students had finished their work already and sat for several minutes while their classmates were writing so slowly on the board. I had a sense at some point during this segment of the lesson that my time management was not going well, and this is consistent with the feedback I received from the veteran teacher who observed me. She suggested that, if all students were doing well with the work, as they were, I could have just asked the students to write their answers only, as opposed to all of the work, on the board. Advice well taken.

My set-up was also a bit long, but I feel like this is more understandable, as I was recapping the whole week’s material for the “test on Monday.” I also revisited my set from the day before, as there had been a question as to what the I for electric current stands for (actually a French word, intensité). I received positive feedback for researching and coming back to the class with the answer to that question. Overall, I think it was okay, I just needed to hurry up the transition out of the warm-up to begin with.

The main of my lesson was a review activity based on the “I have” / “Who has?” concept. You pass out cards with numbers on top. Each card also has a question that generally begins, “Who has my number . . .” with some arithmetic operation to perform. The cards thus link to each other, creating a chain. Students have to work out the arithmetic to see if they have the next card. Only my activity was a bit more challenging, because it was using arithmetic operations with complex numbers, the topic of my unit for the week. I think I did a good job of explaining the activity, asking for questions and allowing good wait time (which eventually did result in a request for an example), and also setting my expectation that the students work out every instance of complex multiplication and division on paper. Somewhere in the middle, there was an error in the cards that I made, and I probably could have jumped on that mistake much sooner. However, it worked out okay, because one student was able to suggest that he had a card similar to but not quite the correct answer.

I think I have consistently allowed pretty decent wait time when I ask questions, but I see that I am just a couple seconds away from ideal. I will try to wait even a little bit longer, because there seems to be a significant value difference between, say a wait time of 5 seconds and a wait time of 7 or 8 seconds. I forgot to time my actual waits. That would have been interesting. I do see that they are not bad, but just a few seconds on the short side.

One of my classmates commented about me saying “’kay” a lot in class that day. After watching myself, I do not really agree that it was excessive or distracting. I responded with “’kay” a number of times in between pauses while students were explaining their work, but only in order to give encouragement and prompt them to continue. I honestly think it was constructive okay-ing and not distracting.

Too Legit to Quit

2006-07-14T00:49:00.000-05:00

I love teaching math. I get a natural high out of explaining something as clearly as possible, especially if my audience seems to “get it.” And coming up with the explanation itself, and examples to back it up, is all part of that system-construction my “Architect” personality is purportedly so keen on. I especially love capitalizing on impromptu teaching moments. This week we have been “TEAM” teaching to a group of our peers and a different veteran teacher evaluator each day. Well, today, one of my *students* came up with a different way to simplify a radical in the denominator than another student had presented on the board. A Spanish teacher, she was unsure of her answer, but I encouraged her and asked her to write her work on the board anyway so we could have a discussion about it. Well it turns out that she had gotten a “different” answer just because she had not rationalized the denominator. Both students were right. She got a self-esteem boost, and the rest of the class got to see more than one approach. I got to teach them how it was okay to be different “as long as you follow the rules.” In short, everybody wins. I love moments like that.

I realize I may not be the most entertaining teacher that ever stepped into a classroom. I never sing or dance or tell "harmless" lies about the snake that lives in my desk drawer or how my baby son lives in a dumpster out back because “that’s where the food is.” I try to be good-humored, but I hardly ever crack a joke, and once or twice, my observers have even commented on my supposed lack of voice inflection. But on the flipside, my observers have more often praised my calm, controlled, and no-nonsense persona in the classroom. In fact, Jaws (inventor of above-mentioned lies) today commented to our group how I was not dancing around, raising my voice, or “clown” teaching, yet somehow managed to keep the class engaged just on the strength of my lesson, direct as was. Well, I like to think my love—my deep respect and appreciation, really—for my subject comes through in how I teach. My students may not like math a lot of times, and they may not even like me, but by golly, as far as I can help it, they will at least learn something. And treat it and us and everything and everyone with respect. That’s all I ask.

Personally, I am not a big fan of rubrics. In their worst form, such as the one used for our grades in this demo-teaching, rubrics reduce evaluation to the ticking off a checklist, an empasis on form as opposed to a holistic evaluation of overall quality and effectiveness. For instance, most any experienced math teacher will probably tell you that a plethora of examples is absolutely necessary in teaching math. However, for these evaluations, I receive a much better grade by cutting short my examples for the questionable value of restating my objectives for the umpteenth time, and so on, going through the motions so my evaluator can check off whatever she needs to on that little form. Now I do think there is some value to wrapping up a lesson at the end, but there has to be some middle ground. Teaching the body of the lesson effectively is a lot more important in my opinion than always leaving enough time before the bell to sum it all up.

Furthermore, rubrics do not magically remove subjectivity from the evaluation process. Our evaluators this week have demonstrated that. For instance, I got docked one time for “subject matter knowledge” just because I did not refer to the origin as the ordered pair (0,0) instead of just “zero,” when in fact I was only talking about the x-axis at the time and had not even started talking about the y-axis yet. I mean, give me a break! Was it really so confusing? Do you think I graduated with a math degree—and received a Certificate of Excellence for the Praxis II exam—and still do not know what (0,0) means? Jesus.

My worst experience this week came when I conducted a little “debate” in Ms. L’s classroom concerning whether imaginary numbers really “exist” or not. Well, she was not amused, to say the least. She really tore into me, told me I had not taught to my objectives at all, said that it was worthless even to attempt a debate unless you spend half the term preparing for it, etc. She basically left me with two impressions: (1) Terrible, terrible lesson. (2) Never, ever, try to pull that shit again. Then, a thought of my own: (3) What a vicious, opinionated woman! I mean, she even went so far as to tell me I did “not teach anything.” Frankly, witnesses would probably agree that I "caught the brunt of it," and to me, her attitude seemed almost personal. Another classmate after lunch turned up late and ill-prepared, and her words toward that were actually gentler than she was toward me! Well obviously that was pretty hard to take. I was really quite proud of my lesson that day, and she made me feel ashamed of it. One of my classmates told me today that she had really liked my idea for the debate and did not agree with Ms. L at all. That helps me feel a bit better.

I do think it was a good lesson idea, if perhaps challenging for the students and arguably ill-timed or overly ambitious for a single class period. Risky, in other words, and in this imperfect world of rubrics, it would seem that risk never goes unpunished. However, I do think there is a lot of value in students conducting their own higher-order thinking as much as possible, which is the whole purpose of holding an informal debate, even when their understanding of the topic is unsteady to say the least. We got down to what makes a number a number, and we had people arguing about what infinity means and whether you can fit pi onto the number line, and so on and so forth. Which is the whole point. Imaginary numbers are not really that difficult. The hardest part about them is just the concept, and our natural tendency to reject ideas that challenge our flat-earth notions of what is and is not. Imaginary numbers, after all, seem made-up and, well, “imaginary.” It is hard to see where they come from or what good they do. In short, it is hard to believe in them. And that was the point of the lesson—to open minds. Is that really NOT TEACHING???

Sorry for the rant. I do love teaching. And I do want to be the best teacher I can be. But the rest is just nonsense.

By the way, last night’s pity party was by no means a hint that yours truly is remotely considering dropping out of Teacher Corps. Where else would I even go? No, just like Peace Corps, I am here for the two years at least, no matter what. By “temporary,” I just meant two years in Mississippi instead of, say, five. But what an embarrassing drool of self-pity, huh? At least it was honest. Basically what you get after two or three illicit beers alone in the dorm room while my neighbors are presumably out on the town, chatting as they will and casually making fun of their missing classmates’ social awkwardnesses in various cafes. Anyway, it helped me understand the emotional commitment I feel toward buying this house, even as time grows short and my potential roommate understandably begins to look for somewhere else to live. It lays it out for all to see what caused me to hesitate about coming to Mississippi in the first place. The way I see it, if I felt afraid of the loneliness, surely someone else has felt or will feel the same thing. So why not be the first to admit it? Don’t get me wrong, I really, really like most of my classmates. But none of them are my soul mate so far. And our age difference is not nothing. I still think about what’s her name, can picture her making love to her new-found what’s his name all Saturday mornings in Seattle. Painful. And lonely.

But teaching is good.

A Long, Long Way from Everywhere

2006-07-12T21:11:00.000-05:00

Just before I received my acceptance from MTC, I had resigned myself to disappointment. In the depth of uncertainty concerning various applications no longer in my hands and recently coming off the break-up of the long-term dating relationship that got me through Peace Corps, I had begun to explore the possibility of starting over in a far-off, adventurous place, some place like Alaska. Alaska coalesced in my mind as a place of wondrous vistas, mind-blowing backpacking, and backyard ice hockey, a fairy tale land of like-minded souls drawn as I was to the obvious mystique of Alaska. Furthermore, unlike Washington, Alaska appeared to be a state with a viable certification route where I could begin teaching right away this fall. In fact, I was just about to send an application for a job opening in Fairbanks and truthfully speaking spent a lot of my free time daydreaming about what Alaska would be like, when I received my acceptance from Teacher Corps.

My hesitation to commit to Mississippi Teacher Corps initially had nothing to do with teaching in Mississippi or the quality and value of the program itself. I was convinced a long time ago about that, and MTC was the first program I applied to as my Peace Corps service was winding down. To put it frankly, I was afraid of loneliness. Mississippi is a long, long way from everywhere and everyone I knew before now. And it seemed even further from the idealized Alaska in my mind. Fresh off a break-up, I pictured Mississippi as a place of woes, a cultural, social, and environmental void where I was likely to find little to do besides teach and swat at mosquitoes, and even less in common with virtually everyone around me, white or black.

There are times when it becomes almost painful to sit in a deli or a bar with my younger classmates and have a casual conversation about the future, and never do I feel our age difference so keenly as when they talk about the opposite sex. (Okay, the one other thing that grinds me is the people who want to go to law school after this. Fools! The two oldest and presumably wisest of us in the program have been there, done that, and come to regret it.) Still, it happens to everyone: When you are closer to 20 than you are to 30, your partnerships are still experimental and expendable somehow. You recover more easily, because your whole life is before you. But as you—and by you of course I refer to myself—creep closer and closer to 30 years old and beyond, you start to compare yourself to the people you know, the classmates of yours who were married several years ago, your siblings and how old they were when your nieces and nephews were born, your own father and how old he was when you were born, ten years after your sister. You start to project, if you had children now, how old would you be when they are . . . and your constant back pain depresses you, as you begin to wonder whether you will still feel young enough to teach your daughter how to kick a soccer ball someday. You begin to long for commitment—stability, really—along with companionship. And in your sadder moments, you even wonder what is wrong with you, to be so old and still so alone.

The last time she had much to say to me, my ex-lover wrote gushing sentences about how we are both in exactly the places we should be. “Give it time,” she says. But she is not in Mississippi, nor is she alone.

When my classmates ask me why I am thinking of buying a house in Mississippi instead of renting, I usually present the same, dry rationale of it being a sound financial decision, as long as you stay in one place for at least two years. Anyway, “I’m not thinking of this as two years and I’m out,” I tell them. But more to the point, buying a house is a way to reconcile myself to this place and my time spent here. In a way most of my colleagues cannot, I know exactly how long two years is. It is a long, long time to wait for something to end. Then of course you get busy, and stuff happens, and all of a sudden, it goes by quickly too. But right here, right now, I cannot bear the thought of spending the next two years of my life in Mississippi, just to get through it. This house that I’m thinking of, this beautiful English Tudor, built for a Jewish merchant family to the original plans of a local architect, having passed through just two owners since its construction in 1930, this house I could never afford anywhere in America besides Drew, Mississippi, is my lifeline. It means taking ownership not just of a house but of a place and an entire experience, the next two-plus years of my life. And somehow, if they could see for themselves its high ceilings and spacious rooms, the generous woodwork and hardwood floors throughout, the loving details of a by-gone era and the sun filtering through the back windows, looking on to the birdbath in the back yard, they would love it as I do, and know for themselves why I must buy it.

But the details are yet to be finalized. The deal could fall through yet, and if it does, I will probably default to renting and perhaps even take it as a sign that my time here in Mississippi is meant to be temporary.

The Architect's In Charge

2006-07-07T04:04:00.000-05:00

INTP “The Archtiect”: Architects from a very early age are preoccupied with spatial relativity and systems design. But INTPs must not be thought of as only interested in configuring three-dimensional spaces such as buildings . . . they are also the architects of curricula, of corporations, and of all kinds of theoretical systems. What is important is that the underlying structures . . . be stated correctly, with coherence, and without redundancy.

They regard all discussions as a search for understanding, and believe their function is to eliminate inconsistencies, no matter who is guilty of them. It is difficult for an INTP to listen to nonsense, even in a casual conversation, without pointing out the speaker’s error. Architects are, however, even-tempered, compliant, and easy to live with—that is, until one of their principles is violated, in which case their adaptability ceases altogether.

Architects are rare—say one percent of the population—and therefore not to be encountered in ordinary places. This type of Rational is the logician, the mathematician . . . that person given to any pursuit that requires . . . systems analysis or structural design. It is hard for some types to understand these terse, observant Engineers. However, they can be excellent teachers, particularly for advanced students, although here again they rarely enjoy much popularity, for they can be hard taskmasters.

Architects limit their search to only what is relevant to the issue at hand, and thus they seem able to concentrate better than any other type. Architects can also become obsessed with analysis. Once caught up in a thought process, that process seems to have a will of its own, and they persevere until they comprehend the issue in all its complexity.

The above is excerpted verbatim from the paper Ben Guest gave us to interpret our Myers-Briggs personalities at the beginning of the summer. Never has it seemed more true of me than now.

Recently started obsessing over my classroom management policies for next year. Spent the weekend backpacking in Tennessee thinking about it over and over. Absolutely could not sleep my first night back in Oxford. Finally set to work on classroom management plan in the middle of the night and many hours later started to feel better. Tired now. But the same thing happened today. Felt all out of sorts this afternoon, because my procrastination about house-hunting was distracting me from the project really on my mind. Finally drawn into classroom management plan later (which is important, although other things are probably more urgent) and felt highly alert and motivated ever since. Well it is now almost 3 in the morning. At least something productive is coming out of this.

Classroom management plan is almost done. A rarity for me to have an assignment completed more than a week before it is due! Still lots of classroom procedures to work out in detail, but the five required for this assignment are documented and more. Came up with a traffic light idea to communicate my expectations for what students should be doing in terms of noise, movement, and materials: Red Light for test & quizzes, Yellow Light for active listening, Green Light for work and cooperation, and Checkered Flag for dismissal procedures. It may seem a little juvenile for Algebra II students, but then again it seems like a very functional (i.e. concise and precise) way to communicate important expectations I never quite bothered (or figured out) to codify so explicitly before. Stole the Student of the Week idea from Jaws and gave the SoW a lot of privileges and responsibilities to be my special helper for the week. My consequence list is an amalgamation of different ideas: Ben’s no-limit checkmarks and corresponding writing assignments, Jess and Lily’s copying of meaningful paragraphs (about my one big classroom rule, “respect”) instead of single lines, and an intermediate consequence of detention (run by me if necessary) between copying paragraphs and going to the office.

Also wound up with a several huge ambitions I will have to work very hard to maintain: (1) Calling parents a lot, especially at the beginning of the year to establish rapport. This is very difficult for me, because I am shy and absolutely detest telephones in general, especially cold-calling. (2) Documenting every single instance of discipline action, even warnings, with all the why’s and what happened’s. This seems like a lot of work, but it should be manageable as long as I can figure out some efficient system to keep records on the computer and never, ever fall behind in the updating. (3) Giving lots of praise. Even included “Praise Motivates” in my philosophy statement. The trouble is, although I am indeed a big believer in the motivating power of praise, I am actually pretty terrible about putting it into practice. I tend to notice deficiencies and inconsistencies much more acutely than I pay attention to things that are actually going well. I think I also need to remember to give very specific praise to individuals. “Good job,” is nice, but obviously it means a lot less than, “Tyrone, whenever you come to the board, you always explain yourself so nicely. I can tell that you will go far in math! Have you ever thought about becoming a teacher or an engineer?”

Today we began to receive “Nonviolent Crisis Intervention” training from Zed’s wife, “Little Datsun,” and her strong-willed sidekick, “Big Bow-Wow.” Had a big problem with the way they seemed to discuss classroom management as an endless stream of moment-by-moment, “every kid is different” encounters. That goes way, way against the message we have been told over and over again this summer, which is, “Be consistent!” I guess their message was about defusing potential situations with empathy and understanding, and so on and so forth, but they actually seemed to be telling us to be the opposite of consistent. I cannot buy into that, and it makes it hard for me to listen to their lectures, because it seems so contradictory. Personally I think there is a place for empathy, but not at the expense of consistency. If a student sleeps in my class, he gets the consequence. No matter what. No matter who. The same consequence for the same crime, every time. Maybe you talk with the student after class to try to understand the problem and everything but you still give the consequence. That is consistency. Any thoughts?

EDSE 500 Video Self-Observation & The End of Summer As We Know It

2006-06-30T18:03:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I recorded myself teaching on video. It was only a review lesson with a very straightforward plan: Go over the questions from our last test. Honestly I do believe there is a lot of value in reviewing test or assignment questions students have already seen, because just getting the students to think about the work is half the battle. Taking a test is a good way to make sure everyone at least gave it a try. It might seem sort of dull to think of teaching this way, but every test opens a door to learning. Reviewing the test afterward is a good way to make sure everything is in order. Although the students were not exactly entertained by my teaching style, I feel somewhat justified in my approach, because they did significantly better on the final exam than they did for the test which I reviewed so meticulously with them.

I misplaced my cold-calling cards the other day, so my student participation largely relied on volunteers. Unfortunately, that meant only a few students were actively participating as much as I would like. Other than that, I was actually fairly pleased with what I saw of myself on videotape. I think my class time utilization was very down-to-business, patient, and thorough. I was fair and consistent with my classroom discipline. I questioned students well. I kept a calm and polite but very no-nonsense, businesslike teaching persona. All of those things come fairly natural for me at this point, and I am satisfied with all of these characteristics.

It never occurred to me before, but upon watching myself on film, I realized that my teaching style is very similar to my dad. Not to be complacent, but actually I feel pretty okay with that. I took two quarters of business law from my dad in college, and I definitely consider him at least in the 80th percentile as far as teachers. Nothing flashy, just honest, well-organized, high expectations, and no bull$#@! One could do worse. I think I am one of those teachers who runs a classroom where the students probably learn a lot (if they want?) but might often resent it at the time, because I give a lot of homework and rules and do not particularly razzle-dazzle entertain them every period like Moda might. But more on being liked or not liked later.

Speaking of Moda, my usual second-years were gone yesterday, so I was evaluated by another second-year who is not usually in my class or even in the same subject. He praised most of the same things I liked about my teaching. He wrote “great teacher presence” on top, “lots of participation,” and “fairly good student behavior — they’re just bored from not writing anything.” Fair enough, that last part. He especially liked my “mini-lesson / review” of how you subtract the exponents when dividing common variables. On the other hand, he had a number of quibbles with our classroom procedures that were not completely in my hands to begin with, and he also noticed some note-passing that slipped past me.

After I had watched the video of myself and set it up for the teacher who needed it after me, I returned to my own classroom. It was the last period of the day, and students were starting to finish their exams, which they had begun writing the period before. Dewey Boy had been in charge, and students were constantly getting out of their seats, often several at a time, casually shuffling around to hand in their exams and pick up a survey to complete. In my opinion, this is totally unacceptable for a testing (or really any independent work) environment. After a few minutes of it, I had become uncomfortable enough that I took it upon myself to change the procedure mid-stream. I started to tell the kids to stay in their seats and raise their hands if they were finished. Just as I was doing so, a couple boys in the back row started to get up. Unfortunately, I snapped at them. For the first time all month, I raised my voice, “Sit down!”

Well of course my least proud moment of summer school happened to come at the same time we handed out surveys. A solid third of the class wrote very harsh things toward me personally. One wrote “in other word just quite Mr. A” and another one wrote “Mr. A – Terrible” under an ugly face! Of course it bothers me.

This is not the first time I have won an unpopularity contest as a teacher. At the beginning of my second year of teaching in Namibia, the ninth-graders whom I had taught the year before groaned loudly and conspicuously when it was announced that I would be teaching ninth-grade math that year. No one did that for any of the other teachers. But things were different then. As I wrote already, I spent that first year actually resenting the students, which is not at all true now. I just wish the students could understand that asking a lot of them and being uncompromising comes from a sense of responsibility and caring, not at all from anger or hatred.

At the end of the period yesterday, “Tad” asked me if I had something against him. I assured him no, and indeed I quite liked him. He said he and I had a problem all summer long. He asked why I gotta be so strict. I explained to him that every teacher is different, and I have my rules the way I do because I want everyone in the class to be able to concentrate. If I allow students to move around and make noise as much as they want, other students will not be able to concentrate. To my surprise, Tad seemed to accept my reasoning fairly well. A couple minutes later, I came back to apologize to Tad for yelling at him to sit down earlier. I explained that I did not mean to yell, but that it just slipped out as he stood up while I was starting to talk. After our talk, Tad seemed to feel more okay with me, and we even bumped fists, together with Dewey Boy, outside after school.

On a related note, a girl whom I had sent to the office a day or two before for challenging me and swearing in class, came to me after dismissal and apologized. On Wednesday, the day after the discipline incident, I had praised her neat work on a calendar project we were doing in class. Her partner, one of our more rowdy boys, caught onto my praise and bumped fists with her. I seconded by offering my own fist to bump. She seemed touched, said “Ahh!” and gave me a shy fist.

Today, we were all done with our tests and everything, so we basically just played games all day. Dewey Boy spent the first period trying to teach them a couple team building games, but we had to leave the hallways after other teachers began to complain about our noise. During the next three periods, I taught five boys in the class how to play Settlers of Catan, which is my favorite board game. I was actually surprised how well the game went over. Most of the boys who came over to see the game got interested in it. They learned it fairly quickly. And those who played really seemed to “get it” and enjoy the game. Behavior was pretty good. They helped me put the game away pretty nicely at the end, and I only had to tell them once not to grab cards or roll the dice too soon when they got over-eager. Overall, I was pleased to end the summer school on a good note. And Settlers of Catan is a lot more mathematical than most games, disguised under a lot of fun as it may be. At the end of the day, I made a point to shake hands with each student as I dismissed them.

EDSE 500 Group Work

2006-06-25T14:12:00.000-05:00

Thursday morning, after watching my colleague, Dewey Kid, teach, our instructor, Ms. Monroe, was about to commit to come back for 3rd period when I mentioned that we would be doing group work during 4th period. Asked if I would prefer she come 3rd or 4th period, I waffled. “It’s up to you,” I said with an accommodating shrug. Then, after a moment’s reconsideration, I added that group activity is probably an area where I need more improvement. So she came to observe my 4th-period lesson.

The idea for my lesson was to have the kids build up to the Pythagorean Theorem sort of semi-inductively using the old classic manipulative stand-by’s of cut-outs and glue. Each group was supposed to make right triangles by placing, corner-to-corner, squares I had pre-cut for them out of graphing paper. The squares were cut so as to make combinations of 3-4-5, 6-8-10, & 5-12-13, the numbers so chosen because their squares add up perfectly in the Pythagorean Theorem (e.g. 3*3 + 4*4 = 5*5). A series of questions on a worksheet was supposed to lead them to the general equation for the Pythagorean Theorem.

Ms. Monroe praised the idea for my lesson and the questions on my worksheet. Suggestions for improvement, as I expected, lay mainly in how I managed the activity. One of the most important suggestions she gave was not only to explain every detailed instruction for the activity, both orally and in writing, but to demonstrate exactly how the activity should be done with an example before even separating the students into groups. I think I did try to explain the instructions and show with a drawing how the kids would put the squares together to make a right triangle inside, but I need to focus on explaining even more thoroughly and minutely, from beginning to end, as well as showing a tangible example of what the end product should look like. As Ms. Monroe observed, I circulated around the classroom well but spent too much time explaining and demonstrating to the students after they were already split into groups and starting to make messes with glue.

One of the other problems with the activity was that the individuals in the groups were not generally staying on task. Suggestions for improvement included: Split the students into smaller groups. Make sure the kids have something to do when the project is finished or while others are working. And assign pre-defined roles, possibly by random drawing. I will keep all those suggestions in mind for the future.

Another problem Dewey and I discussed regarding group activities in our classroom is that we had no system of group rewards or consequences in our rather bare-bones classroom management system. We were left trying to pick out individuals to punish, when actually it is a class-level noise and chaos that becomes problematic. At Ms. Monroe’s encouragement, Dewey and I decided that night to implement a class point system. Points can be won or lost, according to the teacher’s judgment of how the class, as a group, behaves. After enough points have accumulated, students can vote regarding how to save or redeem the points: Possible redemption prizes include a class-wide homework pass, a “math-free period” for music or outside games, and a class pizza party. Friday was our first day to implement the plan. I felt it worked well during our first two periods, but we sort of lost our way with it when Moda taught 3rd period with his usual loosey-goosey management style and did not utilize the system at all. By the end of 2nd period, the class had earned four points. By dismissal at the end of the day, we were back down to zero again.

Part of what makes it difficult for me to manage students working in groups is that I sometimes do not have a clear idea of how I want to kids to work. I just want them to work cooperatively, productively, and within a reasonable amount of noise. Perhaps it is too much to ask for them to do all that without more specific routines and instructions. I suppose I like the idea of defining roles within the groups, but it seems like something I will have to give a lot of thought between now and then as to how the roles should work, how I will monitor them, and what even to call them.

Lines in the Sand

2006-06-19T23:38:00.000-05:00

Last week, our class had a boy dismissed from summer school. “Andy” had simply not taken us seriously when we said that each tardy after the first equals detention or that coming to school the next morning without your lines (punishment) finished also equals detention. By policy, a fourth detention earns expulsion from the summer school. It was more of a mess than it should have been, however, and the principal kept coming back to our classroom to speak with us several times throughout the day. At one point, Moda and I both had to leave the classroom and accompany the principal to the office to talk with Andy’s mother. Understandably, she was upset, and so she put up a fight about it. Apparently, Andy had not been taking his detention slips home, and we did not have copies to show her. The moral of this story: CYA and document your $@#!!

Then on Friday we had another boy cuss me out after I assigned him detention for failure to participate. When Moda escorted him out of the room, apparently the boy kept on running his mouth and even threatened me physically! Afterwards, Moda told me that the boy recently had an uncle pass away. Still, we agreed that circumstances did not excuse such defiance and verbal aggression, so the boy was not back in school this morning.

A year and a half ago, if you told me that my two biggest classroom management concerns would be expelled within my first two weeks of teaching in a new school, I would have said dream on! Now, it just makes me a little sad. Somehow, I could see a small sliver of myself in each of those boys. Moda used to call him an “@$$hole,” but I defended Andy. I guess I found it loveably pathetic the way he used to compensate for his lack of confidence in math by posturing and talking about basketball, the way he would try to get on my good side by making eye contact and asking me out-of-turn questions as I sat to the side, observing other teachers. I take it as a sign of the progress I have made, both as a teacher and as a person, that I can say these things now. Back in the bad old days, I used to resent my “learners” in Namibia so much that I actually dreaded leaving my house most of the time! It took me a long time to learn any better. Now it sounds trite, but it really is all about loving the person, hating the behavior, and not taking any of their bull-$#@! disrespect personally. Because it is not personal. Kids are just kids, loveable in their imperfect humanity.

Recently another Teacher Corps rookie interrupted my interminable rambling to ask me, “What was (so) difficult?” about my Peace Corps experience teaching in Namibia. What was it? Externally, it was the entire culture of the school, the any excuse not to go to class mentality. It was the way my students so quickly figured out that nothing would happen to them if they blew off my detention. The administration was, to put it perfectly bluntly, indolent, inconsistent, and virtually indifferent when it came to discipline issues, or just about anything else for that matter, and the parents were literally a hundred kilometers away in many cases. The students were generally far, far behind where they should have been, academically, so much so that I spent my first week of summer school here in Mississippi in awe of how competent the students are! But my attitude is what made it worst of all.

Today we received a pep talk from Ben, our super- (some would say un-) human program manager, who urged us to be less “polite” with the students. There was some blah-blah about not seeming “weak” and so on. Well, I thought his advice was a bunch of hooey. There is a big difference between being polite and being soft on rules! I raised my hand to suggest politely an alternative perspective, but he refused to take questions until the end of the session. By the time he finished, all I had left to say was, “Do you have any positive feedback to share with us?”

When I first walked into a classroom, all I knew about classroom management was to start off “strict and mean,” but actually I had no idea how to go about doing that, especially when I was literally on my own. I tried very hard not to appear weak, but what happened is that I spent the whole first year feeling mad all the time, because I was trying to assert rules and expectations without a system of consequences standing behind me that I could count on in any way. For lack of a better system, I ended up trying to intimidate the students into submission, which led to several memorable confrontations. Let’s put it this way: More then one broomstick met its demise at my hands that year, cracked hard across desktops. One time, during the lengthy end-of-term exams, when most teachers were huddled in the staffroom ostensibly “marking” their exams while the students ran amok, I found a full-grown ninth-grade boy carrying a stick around the school grounds. Of course, the boy refused to give over the stick, which I considered a weapon. I told him several times in my best, stern teacher voice, “Give me the stick,” but he just stared me down and refused. A crowd gathered. I put my hand on the stick. Still he refused. I continued to tell him to let go. I tugged at the stick, but he held on even harder. It was me against this full-grown boy, locked in a physical battle of wills in the middle of that dirty sandlot schoolyard, with a crowd of a hundred students watching. My heart rate was racing, and the only thing on my mind was not to back down. All this because there was no system, because I did not know the boy’s name, and because I did not want to appear weak.

The other night, a second-year and I made a toast to Ben, to the dismay and chagrin of one of the other second-years. She and I are both former Peace Corps, and perhaps that gives us some of our perspective to see where Ben is coming from. He works hard and expects the same of others. He is totally devoted to Teacher Corps. But he is not there to support us emotionally. He sees rules and order as utterly essential, to the point of coming off heartless. But he is consistent. He listens to ideas and works hard to implement the ones he likes. So what that he reputedly keeps his spare change sorted in separate jars for each denomination? He is who he is, and he is good for Teacher Corps. Even if does he state his opinions as though they are fact.

Bad classroom management is very stressful. It will eat you alive. Prolonged stress ultimately wears away at you, body and soul, eroding the very fiber of your character, until you either flee the situation altogether or you end up doing things you later regret. During my first year of teaching in Namibia, I honestly felt more like a soldier in a war zone than a teacher! For the first time in my life, I felt like I could somehow empathize with the perpetrators of military massacres! I could watch a movie about a Nazi concentration camp and see parallels with how I was handling a group of students, trying to get them to rat each other out! Most of my students hated me, and nobody suffered more than I did.

Here is my thing: There are at least two very wrong paths a rookie teacher can go down. One is to be too reluctant to dish out consequences, out of fear, if you will, or perhaps more accurately, out of misplaced compassion. This is probably the most likely mistake among my colleagues, and so I can appreciate for that reason Ben’s little speech, as wacky as it seems. Another approach, equally harmful, however, is to try the intimidation tack and ultimately end up blaming the students for their chaos and “disrespect.” Both arise out of a lack of clear rules and consequences or the unwillingness or inability to enforce them consistently. Both are bad, bad, bad.

In my evaluation today, Jaws praised my firm, consistent use of classroom “consequences,” in spite of my liberal use of polite language. I have come a long, long way, if I do say so myself.

EDSE 500 Questioning Technique

2006-06-19T20:01:00.000-05:00

Last week, I first tried the so-called “cold calling” questioning method of pulling randomly shuffled name cards, but the lesson was a flop. I was trying my best at the time to work outside my comfort zone, so to speak, and teach a lesson based on induction. However, because the entire lesson consisted of a single activity, and because my pace in leading them trough that activity was entirely too slow, the students became bored and disengaged. I also had trouble leading them by the nose like that into the unfamiliar territory of inductive thinking. What, you are not going to tell me what to do? Terrifying! In short, the kids were not exactly buying into what I was trying to accomplish that day, but I doubted whether the cold calling cards had anything to do it. So I wanted to give the questioning technique another try, this time with a more deductive lecture that we would all be more comfortable doing.

In short, it worked. The kids who usually volunteer to answer every question still got their chances to answer a question or two, but the cold calling technique really seemed to help get a lot more out of those who are usually reluctant to talk. I made a point to tailor each question in such a way that no student should be completely stumped, yet the answer to one question would often lead directly into the next question (and another student). I meticulously thanked and praised every student after they had answered, which hopefully will encourage the shy ones to volunteer more often. In fact, when I later asked for volunteers, I was happy to acknowledge the hand of one of my shier students who hardly ever raised her hand before. Furthermore, when I drew the name of a boy asleep in the back row (once I had written his name on the board and shaken his arm to wake him up), the questions actually seemed to revive him, and he never seemed to get drowsy again for the rest of the period.

Today was also the day of my big scary evaluation from Jaws. In our feedback session in the cafeteria afterwards, at a big round yellow table still wet from being wiped down from the after-school lunch rush, he commented that my questioning technique was among the strengths of my lesson. I definitely plan on using “cold calling” name cards this fall. Hooray for Teacher Corps!

The Cleveland Talks & My Dirk Habits

2006-06-09T23:24:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I took a day off to drive down to Cleveland and meet with the high school principal. “Cobra Cranberry” (*) seemed like a pretty good guy. He appeared friendly, sincere, and articulate. Also impressed with the school secretary; she seemed friendly and efficient. I was early for my appointment and had to rattle the front door to have a school janitor let me in. A few young black kids were walking across the school grounds wearing book bags, and a white police officer stopped to question them. Once inside, I met a young, slender man from Greenville with a casual way of dress and demeanor that frankly reminded me of so many of the young male teachers I knew in Namibia. The secretary, after first showing us to sit down, later came back and apologized for not introducing herself. After ten or fifteen awkward minutes during which the FedEx man came and went and the other young man revealed that he was also hoping to get hired to teach math there, Cobra finally arrived. With his football player dimensions and coach’s black tee & sweatpants, he flashed a great big smile, said, “You must be . . .” and after only a momentary pause, remembered my name. He showed me into his office directly and seemed to like what he saw of me. He commented that I looked like a math guy. When the interview was over, I mentioned that my predecessor, “Pickled Jaws,” (*) sends his greeting. (Actually he blatantly told me to drop his name. It worked.) Cobra’s face lit up, and he instantly offered up another hearty, gigantic handshake. As I left, the other prospective teacher was outside again, chatting with the UPS man.

It was a weird trip. I almost got stranded at a realty office earlier that day when the car I borrowed from my second-year mentor (see below) refused to start. The heat was sweltering inside the car, as I sat there sweating in my dark dress pants and tie, turning the key over and over again to no avail. Fifteen minutes later, after I had already tried fruitlessly to call the car’s owner and my dad in search of ideas, and not to mention the realty office secretary had gone around back to look for a sweaty man who might know something about cars, finally the car sprang back to life. The same thing happened a couple more times during the trip, the most frightening example being after I had stalled the car in a busy highway intersection and could not even find the hazard flashers on the unfamiliar dashboard. What a strange day. Probably the mystery has something to do with the electronic theft prevention circuitry in the key and ignition itself.

Anyway, apparently the school district had more or less reserved a spot for me at the middle school, unbeknownst to the high school principal, who had called to schedule an interview with me last week. So now that the high school seems to want to hire me, the school district personnel office has to approve. Last week, I found out that the middle school has partitions instead of solid walls inside the building and will have its third principal in three years, which only strengthens my preference to teach at the high school.

This week we started our summer school teaching. A couple days ago, I taught my first lesson and got evaluated by a second-year who has a somewhat different classroom management philosophy from the paradigm I had been working from. I tend to be fairly strict about classroom noise and do not allow students to blurt out whatever comes to their minds. “Priority Moda of the Wise Belief,” (*) on the other hand, truly seems to enjoy teaching, and I admire his lesson delivery quite a bit. He lets kids make, as he sees it, whatever verbalizing they need to do in order to process the topic at hand. His somewhat negative evaluation caused me a fair bit of self-doubt in the ensuing 24 hours. Do I really have a good reason, after all, for being so strict? Could I be more effective with a more tolerant approach? Sometimes it is said that you should be yourself, but could it not also be true that I am the way I am simply because it is how I learned to survive teaching in Africa and because it is more familiar to me, rather than because it is the most effective possible way to teach? Could Moda be right that my strictness is causing unnecessary student-teacher friction and student disengagement, or is it really, as I initially perceived it, more a matter of two markedly different teacher expectations clashing when placed back to back in the same classroom, with the same students?

Well, today I taught another lesson, and it went much better. The friction that was previously noted as, “You have a negative attitude,” by one of my students, was gone today. I was able to establish a much better rapport with the kids by asking them what fun or exciting things happened yesterday, joking that Dirk Nowitzki was my cousin, and using the NBA playoffs as a theme for my set. I established a better system for hand-raising in class. I told them, if I raise my hand when I ask a question, you have to raise your hand and wait for me to call on you before you answer. But if I ask a question with my hand down, you can answer all at once, right away. It worked fairly well and gave me a lot more flexibility to enforce my rules without becoming internally inconsistent, although I did sort of forget to raise my hand once or twice before asking questions. Moda continued to tease me for my so-called “militant” style, but he actually acknowledged today that classroom management is one of my strengths. The weakest aspects of my lesson were that my board writing became a bit disorganized, and I focused too much attention on just a few students who were eager to participate without drawing shyer students into the discussion or even assessing very well whether most of the class was with me. The former is an unusual problem for me, easily fixable, and probably due today to my experimenting toward a more horizontal, student-centered type of lecture environment, where students themselves work and explain examples to each other, etc. The latter is a deeper problem, but an easy trap for almost any teacher to fall into. You get in a rush, or you get flustered, or whatever, and you just start calling on the students you know can come through for you. I should probably take the suggestion of Moda and carry a class roster / seating chart with me in class, so that I can more consistently call on all of my students and check off their names as I go.

* Random name generators are great fun! Make up some weird-sounding abbreviations for all your acquaintances and enter them at http://www.bandnamemaker.com/generator/. Just disguise their names a bit and go ahead, trash your friends and coworkers with impunity! (**)

** The author makes no warrantees, express or implied.

EDSE 500 Focus Paper Reflection: White Academies

2006-06-04T21:14:00.000-05:00

This assignment for Ms. Monroe's EDSE 500 class is to read and comment upon a "focus paper" from last summer's class. Curious about the white private schools I knew already to be common in the Delta, I chose to read Elizabeth Savage's paper, called "The Preservation of Segregation: The Philosophical Necessity of White Academies in Mississippi." Actually I read more than one paper from the group about Mississippi's historic and continuing efforts to resist racial integration in its schools, but I felt this one gave the best historical overview on the subject.

http://www.olemiss.edu/programs/mtc/focus_05.htm

Clearly Mississippi has a long and tortured past when it comes to race relations. We all knew that coming in. What boggles my mind is how successfully and for how many decades Mississippi, despite very contrary mainstream opinion in the rest of the nation, has been able to dodge integration in a very substantial way. To this day, apparently a very large percentage (how many exactly?) of white students attend schools that are either all-but-exclusively white or at least majority white, while a corresponding percentage of black students attend school that are exclusively black. This happens even in areas where money is tight and blacks and white are geographically separated by a physical space no larger than a line of railroad tracks. Of course this is largely facilitated by the existence of white private schools called "academies." What I did not know is that many school districts serving almost exclusively black students are often controlled by white superintendents and/or school boards who allegedly are more invested in keeping costs down and maintaining the status quo than they really care about the (black) students' best interests.

The school district where I am going, in Cleveland, is a fascinating exception unfortunately not mentioned in this particular paper. In Cleveland School District, a dual public school system still exists. Even though the town is fairly small (pop. 15k), there are two high schools, two middle schools, and two elementaries. The East Side, where I will be teaching, is all black. The other side of town, just a skip and a hop away on the other side of the highway, is 60% white. All the university professors and USDA researchers of course send their kids to Cleveland High School on the white side of town. Again it simply boggles my mind that in the year 2006 in the United States of America, this kind of segregation is legally still allowed to exist. By what mechanisms is this duality perpetuated? One of my predecessors suspects that the outgoing superintendent is leaving primarily because he had advocated unification. I suppose it is all about local politics. Still it seems like one good lawsuit could really crumble the whole stack of cards--but of course that would require someone with a lot of courage and standing to make a case and a good lawyer interested in the publicity--not to mention it would probably result in nothing more than the foundation of another white academy.

Still, I learned a lot from this paper. The Legal Education Advisory Committee, which succeeded in passing 40 pro-segregation statutes in 1954 alone, the FBI thug-like State Sovereignty Commission, and the present-day Council of Conservative Citizens with honorary members like Senator Trent Lott, were all news to me. Eye-opening. Basically the efforts to resist integration are extremely deep-rooted and as outside pressure against segregation has increased, conservative (i.e. racist) Mississippians have simply become more ingenious in maintaining the status quo of racial separation. This has been going on for decades, and it continues surprisingly well unto this day. The very existence of white academies leads one to question where exactly the "progress" Dr. Mullins mentioned several days ago is coming from or leading. Without true and honest integration--until each and every citizen feels their own family invested in the quality of each and every school--how much progress can really be made?

Reflecting on this paper reminds me of the movie we watched in class the other day, "A Tale of Two Schools." A white school district administrator from the Mississippi Delta school featured in the film at one point commented how they did not want to get taken over by the state. She said something to the effect of, "That happened to us last year, and we NEVER want that to happen again." Suddenly, I wonder if she genuinely wanted to see the kids succeed or if she simply hated the outside meddling.

On the way back to Oxford this evening, Zed told an anecdote about a neighbor on his street. As he was moving in, the neighbor commented how relieved he was that no more "niggers" were moving there. Zed said that since then he has become friends with that neighbor and claims the guy is actually a pretty nice "character." I pointed out that plenty of nice, friendly (to us) people are also racists.

Delta Debut

2006-06-04T19:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I used a firearm for the first time in my life!

My summer roomy, Zed, drove me down this weekend to meet his wife and see his house in Leland, which is about 30 miles south of Cleveland. Actually it was not really very clear to me beforehand for some reason, but the other purpose for my presence on this trip apparently was to help Zed & wifey move. I primarily agreed in order to get out of Oxford and see the Delta for the first time. Another classmate, JD, also came along with us, largely in order to go house hunting. He and I got into a heated debate over Mexican immigration on the way down, which was rudely interrupted (haha!) every now and then by Zed pointing out and explaining the various cotton gins and other agricultural curiosities we passed along the way.

Anyway, after a number of large pieces of furniture had been carried by the ex-offensive lineman and I from the old house to the slightly nicer house with central air next door—not to mention JD had edged out another classmate (unbeknownst to her) for the house across the street—Zed cracked his huge goofy smile and asked if we were ready to go shooting. He quickly gave us a 5-minute crash-course on how to load and unload the shotguns, how to aim, and (most importantly) how to set the safety on or off. Then off we go in his (rather pimpin' it must be said) '87 Chevy Caprice. Just before leaving, Zed casually mentioned, "I hope no one calls the sheriff on us." So of course, that gets me thinking, "Oh, @&*#! What have I gotten myself into?" But we are practically already cruising down the road at this point, so I just keep quiet and hope for the best. We take a turn off the main highway, and drive for perhaps a mile, until we come to a bridge over a large, brown, turgid creek. Pretty much just your typical bridge on your typical country road in the smack middle of your typical cotton-growing South. Zed stops the car, and I dutifully pile boxes in my arms containing orange skeet targets and shot gun ammo.

The first report was shockingly loud. After that and after the first couple cars drove by, returning Zed’s friendly wave, my nervousness subsided a bit and I even ventured to try one shot at a branch sticking out of the water. Then it was JD’s turn, and even Zed, who has a deer skull named Stanley peering morbidly over his living room, advised him not to shoot the turtle he was aiming at--which to be fair did look a lot like a small piece of wood floating down the creek. I was still a little bit nervous at this point, and I felt a strong urge to stand about 20 yards behind the person who held the gun. This created an interesting sensation when another car would pass by every now and then, because of course I had to stand even with the shooter in order to stand aside for the car. After I started to get the hang of flinging clay targets over the water with a plastic throwing arm, I finally decided to take a shot at the moving targets. After about 3 or 4 attempts, I finally got the hang of holding the gun against my raised shoulder and looking down the sights so that the little red light sat right between the two little green lights. I said “Pull!” and somehow managed to follow the arching orange disk with my sight and pull the trigger appropriately. The orange round thing shattered into a very satisfying shower of very much littler orange things, and Zed, feeling very proud of having taught me to be a real Southern man, congratulated me with a big high-five. It was a very thrilling moment, but I didn’t want to push my luck. I was done for the day. A few empty shells later, JD had also hit his first target, and we packed it up.

Today, after the others got back from church and we were sufficiently nourished with hamburgers and Cokes, we drove out a short way to a tiny town(?) called Holly Ridge for a free blues jam. As soon as we got there, I knew I had really arrived in THE Mississippi Delta. At a quiet crossroads, an ancient grocery store with one ancient gas pump was the center of attention. A small crowd of surprisingly mixed race and age were standing around and seated across the road from the store, in front of which a casually seated old black man called “Model T” Ford would occasionally take a break from his blues guitar jamming for “Jack Daniels time.” Not long after we got ourselves comfortable with cans of Budweiser under a tree for shade, a large group of black middle-aged motorcyclists thundered up and rumbled slowly, ostentatiously past us before parking in echelon across the way. The music was pretty good. The scene was priceless. Old women danced suggestively around the drummer while white folks with a New Jersey Devils hat ate boiled crawfish and motorcyclists with black leather vests and bare brown bellies stood around with their arms folded, smiling. It was the smack middle of a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon in rural Mississippi, and it seemed impossible not to feel happy.

Ole Miss This Someday

2006-06-02T19:20:00.000-05:00

First impressions of Mississippi: (1) The people who warned me about the humidity were right, but I think it will be okay once I get used to it. I bet July will feel killer hot though. (2) The people seem proud--in a good way probably. People seem to feel genuinely (not arrogantly) proud of Ole Miss, proud of Oxford, proud of their culture in general, proud of their history (the good & the bad of it), proud of their food, proud of their sports, etc. (3) People for the most part seem pretty warm & friendly. Complete strangers have offered to help me when I look lost or confused. Very little sense so far of the black-white culture divide I have heard about, but mostly I have been sheltered under this little on-campus Teacher Corps community. Did get one interaction today with a couple friendly white Mississippian students who looked at me a little funny when I explained that we were going to teach in the Delta and who asked, "Why are you going there?" (4) People seem to take sports kind of seriously down here at Ole Miss and in Mississippi schools in general. Even the Teacher Corps seems to have a little of that sports-competitive culture to it, with a tradition of first- vs. second-year sports competitions during the summer. Perhaps it is my own background (small private Christian schools with virtually no competitive athletics to speak of) that is more unusual however.

We have an exceptional group of individuals here in the Teacher Corps. These are the best and the brightest and most motivated out of hundreds of applicants. Apparently we had a 9% acceptance rate this year, which makes me feel pretty special, to be perfectly honest. I know for dang sure I never would have made it into this group if it were not for my Peace Corps service. He have a Harvard Law grad, at least a couple Eagle Scouts, and 30% of us have worked in a homeless shelter before. Surpisingly there is only one other RPCV. We also have a lot of athletes in our group. One of our classmates even played on the Ole Miss women's basketball team.

At the same time, I feel like I have a lot of age & experience (esp. from Peace Corps) over most of my colleagues. I am literally the oldest person in the group, which was starting to make me feel pretty old until one of my classmates could not believe I was any older than 24. I'm actually 28! The majority of my classmates literally just graduated like a week ago from undergrad. That seems insanely young and naive to me. I have a feeling that for most of these folks--even though they are fabulous and many have great short-term experiences on their resumes--the next two years are going to be the most trying times of their lives, and most of them are not really aware of the completely. I mean it is one thing to be told the next two years are going to be the "most difficult" but also the "most rewarding" years of your life, but it is another thing entirely to actually walk through the fire. None of this is to say they will not be fine. I think everyone in this group can handle the challenge, and I certainly hope everyone stays for at least two years. I just have a sense that a lot of us are really going to get a rude awakening in a couple months or so--just how hard this teaching in a difficult environment can be until you start to get the hang of it and all.

The main thing that does bug me about Teacher Corps candidate selection is how many of the participants seem to think of it at some level as an intermediate time to decide what to do with life. I mean hello! We are being trained as professional teachers. Why is that not good enough? There should be more people really committed to the idea that they are going to be long-term teachers. It almost seems immature to me that people seem to think they just trying teaching out and maybe do their part for a couple years or so before moving on. That bugs me about Peace Corps too. I had so many colleagues who were probably better teachers than I was in Namibia, but I am virtually the only person from my group who was not a teacher before but plans to continue teaching. (Is there one other? Kris?) Maybe I am being too harsh. I hope that most of us continue to teach even after Teacher Corps is over.

Teacher Corps the organization has been pretty awesome so far. Ben Guest and Dr. Mullins are both very passionate--with very different personalities but completely devoted to Teacher Corps. I was touched on the first day we met how Dr. Mullins literally teared up when he got to talking about the impoverished kids we are here to help. The pride in the program is clear, and they tell us that the education faculty actually fight over who gets to teach the Teacher Corps classes.

Recently started reading How to be an Effective Teacher: The First Days of School by Wong & Wong, one of the free textbooks we get handed out for free and raved at about and then never mentioned again (from what I hear) here in Teacher Corps. The book has really got me thinking about how much I can and should do to improve the attitude and mood of my classroom. I have started to make a checklist in my mind of things I would like to do better, so let's see if I can get most of them down here so I can hold myself accountable later: (1) Smile more. Practice smiling in the mirror if I have to. (2) Say please and thank-you even more. (3) Shake kids' hands more. (4) Generally praise kids a lot, lot more. Criticize them less, and more privately when necessary. (5) Ceremoniously welcome kids on the first day of school (and ideally parents as well near the beginning of the year). (6) Create a welcome sign at my classroom door. (7) Post inspiring mottos at the door and all around the classroom. Continue to say the "Pledge to Myself" every day with homeroom. (8) Keep an eye out for any possible role models (famous or local) the kids would admire and aspire to in a positive way. Do my best to get them some sort of access (field trip? class visit? autograph?) for any such role model. (9) Constantly look for other ways to make my classroom, teaching persona, and procedures more inviting toward the kids and their learning.