onions

Spring break cannot come soon enough.

First, this article is ... um ... funny?

This week has been hectic, in part due to taking the whole weekend off from work and driving to New Orleans with Mike. Was a nice reprieve/distraction, and after waking up beside the sunrise at 9 am and arriving almost two hours late to the marathon, I jumped right into the flow of feet on mile 13 and finished the race without too much pain. Then back to reality. Final exams, poetry slam, consecutive nights with no sleep, unnecessary MTC work (I'm making a powerpoint on 'le petit prince' - wtf?!), BH's last week of rehearsal before his audition this Sunday and a mountain of ungraded assignments. This is the farthest I've let myself slide in my grading, and is terribly unfair to my kids. Then again, I bend over backwards to help them pass in any and every way that I can - maybe sooner or later they need to learn to do the work the right way the first time around and not always depending on being bailed out come crunch time. Regardless, I have been and will continue to, hear their gripes this week and next.

I cried for the first time in my classroom this morning.

Already an emotional land mine after not sleeping since, hmm, Tuesday ... I think ... I was in rare form today. If any class was going to make me cry, which isn't something I do too often (although it doesn't take much to make me well up), it would probably be my fourth & fifth period class. The cane to my other tenth grade class of abels. Overfilled with the disinterested, angry, academically challenged or just plain goofy, I've given out more detentions in this class alone than there are catfish in the delta. Detentions that mean nothing, but thats another story. Between farting, cursing, flirting (hitting/poking/grabbing) and sleeping - it amazes me I get anything accomplished at all with this crew. Only yesterday I went off on them while a shy, self-conscious kid who's mother recently died was practicing the poem he would be reading at the slam after school. It had been very difficult to convince him to give it a try, but he was excellent once he gave himself up to the reading. I could tell he was nervous, but he was picking up the pace just fine when he read the line, "A May song should be gay". This erupted laughter and comments of disgust from the rest of the class, shouts of "faggot" and "man, i don't want to hear this shit". The student reading couldn't finish, and I was pissed. I went off, swore about as much as I could, and talked a whole lot of shit to 'my kids'. I had had enough of the immaturity act, and told them exactly what I thought of their behaviors. It kinda worked, they all participated in the rest of the post-poem review, but I'm still half expecting a phone call from a parent. Anyway, today, in front of this same class, exhausted, I attempted to explain why one of our group is no longer with us. DW moved to our school this year from another Delta town, after going through a very difficult spell with chemo. She had been mocked and ostracized at her old school when she returned hairless. Clean for over a year, I would have never known she had even had anything more than the flu if she hadn't told me early on. She became involved in our school, made a lot of friends, joined the cheerleading team ... and then this week, found out it was back. A lump in her chest. She had been losing weight, and her demeanor seemed to change overnight. After speaking with her and her mother (about 45 minutes of worried tears and earnest smiles), we thought it might be a good idea for her to tell the class, since many didn't know her history. She didn't want to, but wanted me to once she left. She left last night. So today, I gave it a shot.

They were silent. For almost fifteen minutes straight, I rambled about cancer, strength, friendship, taking advantage of today, living your life how you want to be remembered. I spoke about my sister who has brain cancer, about responsibility and courage, and how childish their attitudes are for the most part. I wasn't interrupted once. I was sure I would get comments when the tears started dropping, I even laughed at myself in surprise - not having expected this to happen at all - but even then they just sat and, really for the first time in that class, I had their undivided attention. It wasn't about me, it was about one of them - whose empty seat seemed filled in that moment with her absence. The bell cut me off. Tomorrow we're going to make her a card, and I hope to drop it off on Monday in Jackson.

And only last week a student in another class, angry after I told him to stop talking and get to work or leave the room for the fifth or sixth time, had told me that "the problem with all you new, white teachers is ya'll care too much". According to him, we should just let them fail if they don't care, and not try to get them to work if they don't want to. I wish I cared more, and I think I care more than most.

I can't think straight. I've been cooking all night (crabcakes and fruit salad) for some riduculous senior-class birthday celebration. I'm tired, getting sick and have made the hefty move towards establishing some sort of personal life, perhaps, recently and thus am miles behind my work.

I'm done for the night - I need a good dream right about now.

Below are two poems written by eleventh grade students of my mine. We are reading 'Fallen Angels', by Walter Dean Myers and I did about a week of Vietnam War prep leading up to it. One activity had them each reading short pieces of non-fiction written by war veterans and then, coinciding with a lesson on mood/tone, writing original poems based on their reactions to the prose. I had done a short unit on different forms of poetry not too long ago, which didn't go over as well as I had hoped. These two seem to have gotten something out of it at least.

Heaven’s Door
by LT

I couldn’t believe it
we were fighting to repel attackers
. . . scared?
in a desperate fight for our lives
total darkness
. . . really scared
who’s “us”?
KIA, MIA
Tet raged on for days
close to death
shadows heading straight towards my bunker
K-9, 50 cals, M-16s
LOADED!
they were depending on me
knocking on Heaven’s Door


Forgiveness
by OR

hasten the rescue …
reinforced by rituals …
the most nightmarish sights I had ever seen …
rage, crying, yelling and moving …
shot through the back of the head …
getting caught up in the emotions …
my mind had finished processing the horror …
powerful feelings of God’s wrath …
blood soaked dressing …
it was kill or be killed …
I was so full of rage …
forgiveness is a powerful grace …