Heat

It's 106 today.  It was 107 degrees yesterday as I passed a bank clock at 5:15 p.m. on the South side of Oklahoma City.  I waited in traffic with the other schmucks, my air conditioner blasting slightly cooler air than what you'd find outdoors, sweating from the top of my melting hair to the bottoms of my low heeled pumps.  On the South side, you'll find about 60% of the people in their cars lack a/c.  Their windows are wide open, they drive fast to encourage air flow and have short tempers.  Their hair tends to be dirty with pollution and skin is more tan, at least on the window side of their ride.

I stayed on the city streets, skirting the outskirts on my way home.  If I took the highway, I would be more cranky, sitting in a traffic jam with hundreds of others, all inconsiderate and cutting in front because their destination and time are so much more important than my own.  Sigh.  It happens more in the summer.  People get more aggressive; either that or I just notice it more.

During the summer in Oklahoma I either head north for a couple of weeks and find a place to hang out that is both cool and near water, or I simply dig in and wait out the heat inside an air conditioned house/car/office/world because I cannot take the heat.  It is depressing, like seasonal affective disorder in the summertime.  Too much sun; too much heat.  Not enough snow.  Last year we had 63 days in a row of over 100 degree temperatures. Everything not inside died.  This year I planted cucumbers, basil, and a ton of other decorative plants under the porch awning where they are more or less protected from the sun.  As long as they are watered every day, they should live. Should. Except that (as my friend Laura says) it's like a pizza oven out there. We only had one day where it snowed and I felt more alive than usual.

The heat makes people a little crazy too. In the years that I have made my cell phone number public, I have never had a crank caller. I have never had hang ups and I have never had anyone sell my number to a telemarketer.  Only this week has anything strange happened.  I got a text from an Oklahoma City cell phone number.  It said "Can you Send meme pics of your schnou" with no regard for basic grammar. I'm not sure, but I suspect that it is from one of my students. Yes, I just berated someone's grammar before their poor choices.

I have been directly approached by college students and former college students for anything from sex to romance.  There is this rule that every educator knows and every educator follows or they are taking advantage of the power they have over that student, either by their grade or by the regard with which the student holds them. Generally speaking, you're a low-down dirty dog sun of a beeswax if you have sex with your students.  You just are.  Think of Mary Kay Latourneau, John from Oleanna, and any number of other scandalous rotten teachers. And that's just the female ones.  I have seen my share of both female and male professors in relationships with students.  There is a sense of decorum in waiting until after grades are turned in but not everyone who begins a romantic entanglement with a student has the ethical fortitude to do so. Me? I have to watch my own reaction to such activities. My fingers itch for a stick. My advice to all teachers everywhere is this: Don't f**k your students.

In no way am I interested in sending pictures of my schnou, nose, the crack of my butt or the crack of my cat's butt across the interwebs for the personal or public entertainment of another without payment.  I didn't respond. It's not that I don't have anything to say to the request.  I'd like to respond with "May I have your credit card information?" or perhaps "You are obviously in need of some higher education.  May I direct you to my English class instead?" or the classic "What the hell is wrong with you?", because this really is horrifying.  Then I wondered if I could look up some strange medical disease dictionary and forward those. Yes, I have a mean streak and do not like to be messed with. Must be the heat.  I settled on ignoring it.  If the person texts again, I will track them down and call their mom, girlfriend, wife, or clergy member and embarrass them.

This one is free, but the arm, leg, and schnou will cost ya!

During the course of writing this blog post, my dog has been outside. I have to get a pancake turner and scrape him off the sidewalk where he has melted around the edges.

It's that hot.

Liberal

Yesterday, I took a group of 33 kids to the Oklahoma City Zoo.  I wrote a grant in September to take them and the Friends of the Zoo paid for the trip, including admission and the cost of the bus.

The kids didn't have to do anything special to get to go.  They were selected on the basis of their good attendance and lack of failing grades.  They averaged about a "B" on their report cards. They also didn't have any mark on their record regarding poor behavior.  It was truly a reward as they didn't know they were selected until we sent home the permission slips last week.

And what a delightful time! I took them as far around the zoo as I could in the time we had.  We took sack lunches from the cafeteria and ate in the courtyard.  The kids wandered in and out of the ice cream shop and the gift shop.  The zookeepers and attendants complimented them on their politeness.  Several bought small trinkets for their moms.

I just loved watching their faces as they petted animals and as we slid down the slides together.  Since I'm at the zoo frequently, I narrated the animals we encountered, citing the punishment of Prometheus when we came to the vultures and never even stopping to breathe in the reptile house because I talked so much.  Then we had an hour long program on how to train animals with the education department and a demonstration with a prehensile-tailed porcupine. Back at school, we wrote thank you notes and talked about our experience. I wonder if I wasn't the one who was impacted the most.  Most of my kids don't have insurance of any kind and some have a parent who has been deported.  None of the politics in American life are their fault. They are the ones left to deal with it.

After school, these kids will go back to their lives of working on the weekends- most have jobs or do child care for their parents- and of not always having enough to eat. I can tell though, that these kids are loved.  Poverty does not necessarily equal neglect and my students, my children, my kids yesterday were complimented by the director of education. She said that a different group of students had been through earlier (I won't mention which group, but they were from Edmond), and that she would without hesitation prefer to have our group back any day. And that we were welcome to do so.

A few weeks ago, I got into a discussion about politics with a conservative person. I love this person and ended up changing the subject to preserve the peace.  Yeah, that's how much I love my cousin.  I mean him.  I mean, this person.  :O I said that President Obama did me a favor when he put a cap on how much of my income could be taken by the student loan people.  He argued that when I signed the student loan papers, I knew what I was signing.  Actually, no, they do not give you that information when you sign the contract and most people aren't educated enough to research or discern that information prior to going to get their education.  Lenders take advantage of that fact at the outset.  But my uh, discussion partner differed, saying that in changing that law I was in fact hurting the economy.

So many others will get through college the same way I did.  If I didn't sign those student loan papers I would not have the skills or knowledge (or credentials) I have today.  In his mind, it's not an ass-raping, it's just good business.  But if people don't get student loans, they cannot go to college.  Fine, he said, then they don't go.  But I don't think he has thought that far down the line.  Those who cannot afford it are historically disenfranchised anyway and this would perpetuate the cycle.  He said I was a liberal and that I'd spend my life giving away other people's money.

Yesterday, I took 33 children with me.  The grant was only for 30, so I paid for the other 3 out of my own pocket.  The money I earn as a public school teacher in one of the poorest schools in the state.  I have no working technology in my classroom, save a chalkboard and white board.  I and my two English department colleagues are expected to save our school from being part of the state takeover which will occur if we don't get them passing scores on the end of year tests.  And for this I make less than $33k per year.  And I'll pay my student loans.  And I provide all of the things that the district does not. And I get to be a part a greater good, something bigger than myself. Yes, my salary comes from the taxpayers and I think it's money well spent since most of it goes right back where it came from.

You want a definition of liberal? That's liberal.

Pretty Well Settled

I had 12 students show up all week for lunch detention.  We finished Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and all present agreed that it was the best book that they had ever read.  Six girls, six boys.  Most of them are low-level readers.  I am so happy.  Sometimes other teachers pop in at lunch just to behold the sight of these kids and I engrossed in our book and happily munching on cafeteria fare.  Some of these kids believe they will never be good readers.  Some of them don't follow the book so much as listen to my narration. That's ok too and that's also why I read it out loud.  They are interested in stories and in this book.  Every day they tell someone who was absent what is going on. It's normal and natural and this, I believe, is the way to encourage literacy. This part of the day is what reminds me why I got into teaching.  The big question is "What are we going to read next?!".  I offered the other Alexie book, Flight, and also The Hunger Games.  They picked Flight.  I'm not sure how they will like it since the story line is much different than the first book, so I offered to keep Hunger Games as a backup in case we decide to abandon the book.  I also tweeted Sherman Alexie to let him know how much we loved the book.

My regular classes are going well.  My 8th graders- cynical as they are- are just finishing and enjoying The Outsiders.  They like it and have done a good job so far.  They are impatient with reading and resist doing more than a chapter a day.  We are working on the attention span. I'm not sure if they know that part of it. Next up is Walter Dean Myers.  While Alexander Nazaryan may decry the usefulness of Myers, and insist that students would benefit more from Homer and Aristophanes, I advocate first getting children interested in reading.  Yes, perhaps Lysistrata with its overt sexual humor and Martial's epigrams are somehow elevated to high art and of benefit to readers, they can't get there from here.  I'm scaffolding.  Perhaps at the end of the year, as a reward. But until then, until my students understand how to approach a reading at all, I want them to learn to enjoy learning how to do that and Myers can help us farther along with his accessible language and stories that my students can identify with.

My 7th graders, having just finished up with an expository writing unit, are now eager to return to literature. They are perusing Virginia Hamilton novels and will seen become engrossed in the stories of early African Americans.  And for me, I have offered a school-wide initiative to help us get on the same page with vocabulary.  I'm selecting a word every week for the school, and we are putting it up on the marquis.  Then the word, definition and an example will be read every day with the morning announcements and the other teachers will join in to help reinforce the lesson.  I like it, overall. The faculty are seemingly behind the idea as well so we'll see how that pans out.  The first week was a success.

I have had some trouble with the construction.  I've had bronchitis twice since it began. I was sick over the whole holiday and have had to stop running.  Let me say that again: I had to stop running for the time being.  Running is how I stay in shape and it's how I keep my asthma in check. I cannot and should not be exposed to a dangerous work environment and I tried pretty hard to ignore or deny the implications.  But my last trip to my doctor- where he advised me to find a different job while giving me a steroid shot in the butt- that made me see the light.  The remodeling is going on all around us, and all precautions have been taken.  We are stuck with just dealing with the dust, mold and noise.  And probably some asbestos too.  There was a public meeting to address health problems for students and faculty and the companies told us we would need to transfer. That's what the environmental officer said, anyway. I met with my principal and we decided that if I can't get someone in one of the adjoining buildings to trade with me, he will transfer me to another school.  I'm just getting going in this school; why would I want to switch in the middle of the year? I feel as though I am part of things there and part of the force that will get us past the CRT gatekeepers at the end of the year. I'll keep you posted, but it's most important to be able to breathe and I'd rather just work with people rather than any litigious entities.

But what about my kids? Where can they go? How can they even know to ask?  To be continued...

The Student And The Teacher

I've come home, gotten something to eat and washed my face.  Took out my contacts and stuck on my nerd glasses. Thought about my week.  Thought about what I want to write.  Thought some more.  Now that I've had some time to get used to my new environment, it's important to reflect on my experiences so that I can respond within acceptable parameters rather than going off half cocked about something without thinking about it.

In public school, there are three basic components that a teacher has to deal with: the students, the curriculum and the administration.  I guess these components are present anywhere you go, but as a college teacher, I had much more control in both the student area and the curriculum area.  After awhile the administration trusts you with the curriculum and you do your own thing.  In public school, you have file lesson plans.  I doubt anyone *looks* at them, but for whatever reason, teachers still have to file them electronically.  Also, if a student annoys me enough in college, I don't have to put up with them.  People pay to go to college and generally want to be there.  Children in 7th and 8th grade in a poverty-ridden area might not necessarily think that this is the most important place to spend their time- as opposed to hanging out with friends or working.  So part of my job is to convince them of the importance of education.  I do that through the environment that I create, the routine that I establish and the values I emphasize in the classroom.

In any case, the curriculum in question here is the easy part.  It's one the district bought and the teachers follow, though how closely is anyone's guess.  My guess is that many of the teachers in my school try to follow along.  The script is actually a daily one, down to what words students need to learn and how to approach lessons.  I'm just a little taken aback with the assumptions of a corporation (Pearson) attempting to enter into my classroom and tell me what students need and what to say to them.  You know what? I can figure that part out since I'm a human being with eyes and ears and the capability to interact with my kids.  So I'm adapting the curriculum.  I'm accomplishing the same goals, which I am tying to the core curriculum standards recently adopted by the state, but it's more tailored to my own students.  I think it's ok.  I am new and teaching seventh and eighth grade English, the sixth/seventh grade English teacher and the eighth grade teacher are both new to this school.  We do not have a department chair as she is out sick until December and the only other person in the equation with any experience teaches the remedial classes.  Nobody around us has any experience with this curriculum.

And really, I don't mind.  I like looking at the materials and making up my mind what I want to do.  There is a thing called the Scope and Sequence and it gives a general overview and order of the units I have to teach.  For the first year in this school, I'm not going to do anything fancy or get all crazy on curriculum development.  That's what summer is for.  Don't worry, I won't break any kids.  This week, a representative from the curriculum provider came by the school.  She remembered me from the half day of training (the last of three days of training) that I received and wanted to check on me.  I gave her a three-minute tour of what I was doing and she seemed pretty positive, saying that from what she could tell I went beyond the required stuff.  I guess she will come back some other time.

The students are quite a tricky bit to the job.  These are middle school kids, so everything is extra dramatic.  They are also quite tough from an exterior point of view.  But I know they are just kids.  They are 12, 13 and 14 years old.  Hell, my cat is older than any of them.  I can't be specific of course, but I can speak in generalities about the students I serve .There is always that requisite kid who is way bigger than everyone, has to shave by noon and tends bar down the street at night.  He's there too, but he's not in my class.   I teach some very full classes.  If you don't know how Oklahoma public school runs, our hours and obligations are negotiated in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and we are in the building at 8:40 a.m. and out by 4:20.  That's the contractual obligation.  So far, I haven't gotten there any later than about 8:15 and I don't leave sometimes until 5.  Last Tuesday was Open House, and I left work at 7:15 p.m. I also came in days before school started and on the weekend before, to set up my classroom and figure out the first days of school.  Anyway, I teach five sections of class and have (theoretically) two planning periods.  Those plan periods are used to catch up my grade book, talk to administrators and attend meetings for my department and grade level.

Last week, I used two of those time slots to attend disciplinary hearings for kids. The first one was a kid who really has nothing- a home, parents (jail) or much of a future.  Just a lot of pain.  I have reported defensive bruising on his arms and  his eyes have the wildness of a child too long unloved. He won't stay seated in the classroom for long and is very sensitive about how I speak to him. I take too much class time to help him and explain lessons for him again.  I know he doesn't need it because he is not academically deficient in any way.  He just needs attention.  He earned a disciplinary hearing by annoying the shit out of a less sympathetic teacher.  The way she spoke to him, belittling him, bothered me.  When it was my turn, I praised him for his efforts to make improvement in my class and left out the parts where he took inappropriate actions.  Of course he did inappropriate things.  After the hearing I had to go into the ladies room and cry for a minute.

The second disciplinary hearing was one that I called.  Just a kid thinking he is tough and that the rules don't apply to him.  It's not ok to listen to an iPod at school, nor is it acceptable behavior to chew gum in class.  Last week, he was doing both.  Normally, I'd ask for him to spit out his gum and to hand over the iPod.  I am supposed to turn them in to the office, but usually on the first offense I give the phone or electronic equipment back at the end of the hour as long as the kid doesn't get into more trouble.  This guy said that he would do neither, so I took him to the Assistant Principal.  Same response.  We both had to write up reports on him.  This week, he wouldn't stop with the outbursts, interrupting others and bothering students.  I held him after class and talked to him (for something like the third time that week).  No change in attitude.  So I took him to the office.  As I was looking for the Assistant Principal, he cussed at the secretary and that was all she wrote.  At his hearing, he looked like a prisoner at sentencing. Since it was my meeting, I opened by telling him that I think he is very bright and a good reader when he focuses on his work.  That I thought he could do well in my class.  He looked surprised but it's an age-old tactic: praise the person and address the behavior.  Once he didn't feel so threatened, I think he could at least hear what we had to say.  He will have a week to contemplate his choices.  I'm not certain if he just doesn't want to be in school or if he's just acting out.  I may never know and perhaps it's better that way.  On the way in to the meeting, I asked a friendly teacher to come to the meeting for moral support.  She sent me a text that night that said "You kicked ass today!".  It made me feel really good after an exhausting day.

The truly tricky students are my female students.  Last Wednesday in my first hour eighth grade class, a table of girls asked me if I had gotten ready quickly that morning.  Did I have to drive far? Did I get enough sleep at night?  I thought they were sort of being catty and ignored the questions.  The girls seemed to shut down and lose their enthusiasm for the writing exercise we were doing.  Then they seemed to become just a bit hostile.  Very subtle, with the eye rolls and the looks they exchanged.  Boys will throw stuff or protest loudly. Girls will kill you by glaring daggers into your back.  The situation puzzled me, so I had dinner with my friend Charlotte.  Charlotte is retired. She was an elementary school principal and worked with me at the community college for some time.  She's the one who decorated my room and bought my supplies and vocalized some of my fears.  She's my Oklahoma mom.

Over dinner I asked what she thought I could do.  "Oh", she laughed, "Those girls want to know about you.  They admire you and want to be like you."
I've never been one to attempt to be a role model.  "I mean, are you sure?"
"Yeah.  Just be honest with them.  They'll take the good parts and leave the rest."
I had to think about it for awhile. The students so far have asked why I wear heels, why I cut six inches off of my hair, how far I drive to get to school and if my eyes are really blue.  And what TV I watch.  Hmm.

So the next day, I wore my best zebra print flip flops.  I am one of the only teachers who wears something besides flip flops and I'm pretty proud of it.  But these students do need to think of me as a person and not just as some standoffish white lady who punishes them with reading and writing and never cracks a smile.  It just so happened that one of my first hour girls had on a zebra hair bow.  She loved my shoes and I complimented her on her bow.  Before class began, they asked me small questions and I answered.  Yes, I love teaching here. I love to wear heels because they make me taller, even though I'm already tall. I don't watch television. And even if I did, I wouldn't watch Jersey Shore. I read books. Sometimes I feel very white.

The rest of the week, those smiles returned and they more or less concentrated on their work.  Thank you, Charlotte.

For the most part, I'm still instilling routines into my students' brains.  Routines of what to expect from me and what I expect from them.  And hopefully, what they can expect from themselves.  My favorite part of the day is "Duty".  I go to the auditorium and stay with the kids while they wait for their buses to arrive to take them home.  I get to ask kids how their day was, offer some encouragement, a smile and a wish for them to have a good evening.  It's a nice feeling to walk into the room and be greeted by students and to feel a part of a small community.  My students are teaching me how to teach them.

My administration is having a learning curve too.
I still do not have a contract and until yesterday, there was no way to sign on to the web portal for attendance and grades.  I am not getting paid yet and probably won't until the end of the month.  There was no internet access in my classroom until today when I pirated the right cable and fixed it.  And I won't get to do my "Competency Hearing" with the state department until September because for August, they couldn't get their shit together.  This is probably the least tangible and most distressing detail of the job. Technically, I could be said to be either "volunteering" or "wasting my time".  I have verbal assurances that I will get paid, even if my contract is still sideways.  I don't have much choice but to wait and see what happens.

So yes, a week of processing and of reflection.  I love having to adapt to a new environment.  Not everything is going well and that's ok.  It's a challenge to figure everything out.  And now I must change gears and move in a different, more familiar direction.  Monday my dissertation is due to my adviser and I simply must spend the weekend in revisions.  Thank God the topic is infinitely fascinating. But that's a post for another time...