"Freedom's just another word ..."

Not even sure if I am still required to blog, but what the hell ... I feel like procrastinating and old habits die slowly.

Friday I had about 5-10 minutes at the end of class, after textbooks were distributed, so I wrote the following quotes on the board and asked my students to respond however they wish ...

"Responsibility is the price of freedom" ~ Elbert Hubbard

"Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it" ~ George Bernard Shaw

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing the earth" ~ Frederick Douglass

I got a lot of responses that weren't much more than a rewording of the quotes themselves, but a few had a little more insight.

• I think Frederick Douglass is talking about those men who are sitting back and waiting for freedom to come to them without wanting to go out and work for it. They don't realize that laying down doing nothing can only hurt them in the long run. If you go out and work for what you want, good things will eventually come your way. Claiming what isn't rightfully yours will not get you to the end of the struggle, and will hold others back also. Putting forth the effort and doing whatever it takes the right way will. - JJ
• Elbert Hubbard was trying to say that without responsibility how can there ever be true freedom? Freedoms like those we have in the United States are there because of many responsible and hard working men. Without these men taking the initiative to make sure our country is free, where would society be? Decisions made have to be thought out in a mature and responsible way. For example, if our country was run by an irresponsible person who made bad decisions and didn't protect our country then we would lose our freedom. Freedom is very precious and something that doesn't need to be taken lightly. It give us the choice to decide right from wrong. - SC
• Most men would like to see changes made but don't want to put in the work to see it done right. They would rather tell someone about what needs to be done and then wait to see what they plan to do about it. They are not being responsible for their world. They don't want to put in the work to actually make a change. - JL

Blackwell Blog #3

One of our greatest methods of assessment has been something that is unique to our summer school structure, having multiple instructors in one classroom enabling us to pull a student out of class if they need individualized instruction or extra help. We did this for all of our kids, and no more than once or twice a week for a period of no longer than 5-10 minutes. So they didn’t miss much of what was being covered in class, while we could directly see where they are each at and how far they have each come. Furthermore, having so many of teachers allowed us to get to know each of our students very well, very quickly while still being able to plan and teach effectively.

The official ‘assessment’ came in the form of a pre and post-test that mirrored one another. Our students did better than we anticipated on the pre-test, but still missed a lot of what they should know by eleventh of twelfth grade. There were a few students' that considerably underperformed, on both exams, and I feel that we failed them just as much as they failed, or almost failed, the class themselves.

In addition to these more formal assessments, we were fairly consistent at assigning homework each night – sometimes from multiple instructors. I gave little to no homework during the past year, and hope that I can next year but am not keeping my hopes up. Again, the nature of the beast has changed due to the dynamics we have here at Holly Springs, but nevertheless we have been able to see how much more material can be covered and much deeper the students’ level of cognition runs when they are responsible for work both inside and outside of the classroom. In addition, we are teaching them just that – responsibility; how to be accountable for their own education and make it a priority. What we could have done better would have been to improve our own accountability and resposibility by keeping better track of homework assignments for absent or tardy students.

A failure could be our lack of parent-contact and absence of an official progress report. While we could easily blame this on the short duration of our Holly Springs tenure, it still should have been done. Because of this, we had several students very close to not passing our class in the final days of summer school, all of which claimed to have thought they “were doing fine”, and a few others who did, in fact, fail. This, to me, is almost unacceptable in a summer program such as ours and shows that somewhere along the line, somehow we as teachers didn't give these couple of kids what they needed, and what we had the ability to give.

As for individual students, the first is easy. We had one particular girl who came in the first week of school and did nothing but put her head in her hands and scowl the entire morning. She was not rude at all, but never participated in class voluntarily and rarely provided anything when called upon. We kept on her, involving her in a non-intrusive way, and by the middle of the second week she had started to open up, raise her hand occasionally and participate in class. She told us she is shy, and doesn’t know anyone here, and agreed that her reluctance to take chances on answers or jump into the mix may have contributed to her having ended up in summer school at all. By the end of the month, she was laughing and joking along with us. I think this month helped her out quite a bit, with confidence in the classroom and socially as well. The other individual who made great strides was a young man that we paid special attention to during our out-of-class individualized sessions. I spoke with him more than any other student, and our other instructors all pulled him aside often as well, as he needed the most help. He was eager to learn, and willing to try. However, his basic skills were so low it was difficult for him to keep up with the rest of the class. By pulling him out occasionally, giving him multiple opportunities to get something right or done, and working with him one-on-one, we could directly see the “light go on”, and were ecstatic to see him begin to answer questions correctly on quizzes, in class, and eventually on our post-test. These were objectives that he did not know at all prior to this month, and he at least has a basic understanding of now.

Overall, as was the case last summer, both us and the students got a tremendous amount out of our experience at Holly Springs. The students get instruction more intense (especially for the 1-2 person classes) than they may have ever received in their lives, more attention than they are used to for sure. A lot of material is crammed in, but because of this they are able to experience the entire spectrum of a course in one McSchoolYear. As for us, I enjoy getting to know the kids, and getting to know myself as a teacher better - still fixing some things, changing some others. Because we are around so many other great instructors, I’ve picked up many tips that I will hope to implement come August in my own classroom and was given feedback as to how I can improve what I already am doing. If only every school was run like this school, then students would actually start learning.

Success Story

SUCCESS STORY:

My success story, like my failure story, has a name. We’ll call this one “Ryan. It’s nice to spend some time thinking of successes from this past year, especially since there are so many negative problems to dwell on. While my successes may seem minor in comparison to my lengthy litany of failures, this one in particular I would say is rather large.

I knew of Ryan before I ever was introduced formally. Ryan has a commanding presence, a large guy with his mini-dreads sticking out like a tamer version of Coolio. He always seems to be in the middle of things, good things, and is involved in nearly every aspect of out school extra-curriculars (except for sports). Most of all, however, I knew Ryan as the kid who took the trash out at lunch. In a chaotic cafeteria where most students leave their trays behind, throw them in the trash with their garbage, or stack them in precarious towers, it is rare to see someone going out of their way to help the lunch workers. Every day, I would see Ryan dragging full garbage bins out the back door and emptying them into the large dumpsters found there, before dragging and bagging the empty trash cans back inside. Nobody really thanked him, in fact, a lot of the kids would make condescending comments to him because of his good will. So you can see why I was glad to see him come walking into my room late in the fall one afternoon.

It started off as curiosity, I think. He said hello to other students in the room, then eventually introduced himself to me. Somewhere in the midst of the pleasantries, he mentioned that he was really interested in acting but that there wasn’t really any opportunity for it around here that he knew of. Without thinking, I offered to talk to him more about his options and he agreed to come after school (his mother was a health teacher, so he was after every day anyway). That afternoon, I learned that while not a great student academically (B’s, some C’s), he has a ton of talent theatrically. He told me stories with flamboyant gestures and laughed with me through impersonations of students and staff at our school. He has a ton of charisma and great energy. I encouraged him to pursue acting in college, being a senior and starting that whole process, and he said he planned on it. So we sat down at the computer and started researching schools with good theater programs.

Over the next week or two, Ryan and I put together quite a list, contacted schools and began filling out applications. There was one in particular that he really got a good feeling about; AMDA (American Music and Dramatic Arts Academy) in New York City. We spent a lot of time on his essays, probably a week of after school sessions and more time than he claims to have ever worked on one thing at a time before, then began looking for short monologues to perform for his live audition component of the application which would take place a few months later in Nashville, TN. While I was struggling to get any of my students in class to come after school for help with work that would decide whether they passed or failed my class, Ryan came willingly every day to rehearse. I felt like a teacher for the first time, he ate up my feedback and advice to eagerly. He listened, and applied. In class, I may get students to sit and stare quietly, but it’s rare that I see anything retained. Ryan let nothing go and, while he was already a great actor, I saw his mastery of the selected monologues grow and grow. When it came time for the audition, I took him around town and made him perform impromptu at local businesses for patrons and workers alike to get a feel for acting in front of strangers.

And he nailed it; for them, and for the school audition. A few weeks later, he was accepted and elated to be heading to New York City next year. Since then, I have seen Ryan get all kinds of attention from the school and community. He instantly became popular when people learned of his post-grad plans, largely due to a wonderfully written newspaper article on him that ran multiple pages and was posted in the library and the front hall by the main office. He deserved it also, more than most. I began helping him research and apply for scholarships, several of which he received. It was incredible to see his excitement, and sometimes apprehension of course, to do what very few, if any, from his community had done before. In addition, this spring Ryan has helped backstage at a local community theater which is running a play soon that I’ll be performing in. He has not only learned very much from an incredibly knowledgeable and experienced cast and crew, but broken racial barriers by becoming involved in what is traditionally referred to as “the white theater”. I have watched his confidence blossom, and cannot wait to hear how he fares in the Northeast this fall.

So, while there were more than a few students that I allowed to slip through the cracks, I believe I was largely responsible for helping at least one student up through the rafters. If he succeeds in this pursuit, which I strongly believe he will, he can do so much for his community and those that will follow behind. It does make me feel good to know that he may not have had the courage, the vision or the motivation to reach this dream of his if I hadn’t helped him. Though I am always quick to point out that he found me, and I just answered his questions. He is a perfect example of what can be accomplished with hard work, belief in yourself and someone else to believe in you as well.

Failure Story

FAILURE STORY:



Anyone that has been reading my blog might recall a post titled Breakfast Club, which started off with the question, “What can I do for BG?” – well, more than two months later and with sufficient time for reflection that answer is a resounding, “not enough”. For the sake of this assignment, I’ll call him “Billy”.
I’ve had countless failures this past year, some minor and others I would consider major. I failed myself, my students, my school and the corps on more than one occasion. There were days I didn’t lesson plan, days that I found time-fillers to help the periods pass more quickly, times when I didn’t help a student because I was too busy, or too tired. Every one of my dropouts I consider a failure – no, not them; me. A few I was able to keep from dropping out by becoming more involved in their lives, going to their homes and calling them on a regular basis. And there were a few I managed to convince to come back after they had already dropped out. Those aren’t my failures. My failures are the ones that I let go. The ones that I didn’t have the motivation, the energy or, I guess, the compassion to care enough to do everything in my power to convince them that what they’re doing is not a good idea. Some were behavior problems, and I allowed myself to feel relief at their permanent absence. Then there was the guilt – all that extra work involved with getting a student who is so far behind in school that their own child is close to the same reading level as they are can become overwhelming, like the behavior problems, and you are almost glad to see them leave. Until you let yourself remember that the price for their academic apathy is far more costly than a little larger dose of stress in your life.
I can rattle of a number of my dropouts, but Billy is the one that hits closest to home and what I would consider my greatest failure this past year. And he hasn’t even dropped out – yet. I met Billy the first period of the first day of school. He seemed shy, had a nervous laugh and he veiled the transition between assumed nonchalance and humbled obedience when it came to class-work less noticeably than most. Coaching football, I quickly found out who my players were, and was surprised to find out this tough, athletic-looking kid wasn’t on the team. It didn’t take much convincing, just a five minute conversation after class one day, to get him out there in pads. Apparently he had played up until this year, but wasn’t sure if he wanted to or not. Much later in the year, I found out it was because he had to “work” most nights, the non-legitimate kind of work, and that kind of work conflicted with football in several ways. He was talented, but arriving late he naturally had to prove himself to earn a position. In addition, he played safety behind arguably the two best athletes on the team. Slowly, I saw the other side to this shy guy. Bobby would sulk at practice, often scowling at anyone who caught his eye, openly ridiculing and questioning coaches and other players on the team, taking his pads off and refusing to practice at times or simply sitting on the sidelines and refusing to talk or move at all other times. This all stemmed from his perception that he should be starting. One day he even threw a trash can and his helmet onto the field. In his defense, the head coach put up with this act – from Billy and others. Needless to say, the season didn’t go very well, and eventually Billy quit (as did many others) – despite my protestations.
With more time after football season, I began offering myself before and after school for extra help. By then I had noticed Billy was far behind academically. He could barely read, and his writing was what I would guess a first grader could produce. He was relatively polite in class most of the time, aside from the occasionally storm-out-of-the-room temper tantrum when he would quickly get discouraged or frustrated due to something in class or in his life that was on his mind. Some days, many days, I think he got very little out of class because he couldn’t understand what we were doing and I was busy helping out the rest of the students. I think I considered it a minor victory that he even came to my class, seeing as how he skipped most of his others. After Christmas, Billy started coming to school less frequently and often late. Soon he was skipping first period completely so I would only see him in the halls. I would constantly corner him and explain how important it is he, of all people, should be in class every day … and he would nod, and agree, and promise to start coming. He didn’t. So I made another offer, to pick Billy up every morning before school (along with another studentwho was also on the football team and a terrible reader) and have them read for a while, out loud to me and to themselves, before school starts. This is where I failed Billy.
He was immediately interested, even enthusiastic, and I could tell he really did want to learn how to read better. More importantly, I had shown an interest in his well-being that he may not have seen from anyone else - certainly not from a teacher. For the first week I was at his apartment every morning and we would get to school with plenty of time to read children’s books, so much more on his level but wounding to his pride to read in front of his classmates. Then I had him for class, so he was there, and making up his missed work while staying on top of new work. It also helped me to get to know him much better, to learn things like his mother’s encouragement of selling drugs to pay bills, his two kids (he’s only 17), his father (whom he has never met) in prison, and the fact that he has nobody in his life who expresses what I would call warmth or love. From what I’ve seen of his mother, she is abusive, neglectful, disinterested and on drugs herself. There were many days that I wanted to adopt Billy, picking him up in the morning and hearing his mother's berating first hand, thinking that getting him out of this environment as his only viable way of “succeeding”. Getting so involved, waiting in his living room in the morning and driving around with him before school started, helped me to put in such incredible context why, or how, he has gotten to where he is now ... or perhaps more clearly, not gotten.
Then things started to fall apart. I missed a lot of days of school, so he had nobody to pick him up and would be late for school if he even went. There were other days that I myself was running late, squeezing in those last few moments of sleep or preparation, and didn’t have time to pick up Billy if I didn’t want to be late myself. I started getting no rely at times when I would show up at his apartment and nobody would answer the door. His phone numbers changed often that I could never get a hold of him. I tried to engage him in the classroom, when he was there which was less and less frequently, but it seemed he had given up. Whatever spark he had when I first agreed to pick him up because I cared that much that he have time to focus on reading was now slowly fading away. He started getting into fights, getting suspended, and developing a very negative reputation around the school. This hurt me, because I knew what Billy was capable of and what he wanted to do. But I wasn't helping him any longer, at least not as much as I could have been. I had let the window of opportunity to pass. My own school work, lesson planning, personal life and other students had taken my attention away from him. Instead of bailing water out and trying to keep his boat afloat, I let Billy sink. I would always have good intentions of doing more for Billy but never quite getting around to it. And so, in the end, I was doing to Billy what so many others have done to him, what life itself has done to him; shown him that nobody cares about him, that he is a lost cause. I had, in his eyes at least, given up on him. We had talked about working with Habitat for Humanity together when I discovered he was interested in carpentry – Habitat has a worn place on my to-do lists, permanently putting it off every weekend. Its gotten to the point where we both became uncomfortable with each other, perhaps for different reasons, and almost had an unwritten agreement not too look into the others’ eyes, to keep conversation impersonal and only offer the standard words of encouragement or guidance. He stopped coming to class completely the last month of school, and I stopped chasing him to keep on track. I let him go.
It kills me now to know with pretty good certainty that he won’t be back to school next year. He had spoken of Job Corps, which may be a decent option if he does pursue it. He won’t go to summer school, even if he could afford it, and he already is old for his grade. Like so many others, his potential is staggering. The question is, am I going to do what it takes to get them to see this potential without allowing his world consume mine and burning myself out? II've often thought that if I had hoards of money, I might have adopted Billy, and a few others, and some more next year, too. They need so much, and I can give them so much. Opportunity. Attention. I just get tired, and overwhelmed. There are so many Billys. And now, this Billy is out in the streets and finding the support there that cut him loose from the classroom.

Feels Good

Here are a few letters that I was given by students at the end of the year which I've been meaning to post;

Thank you Mr. D,
Thank you for taking out time when no one else would. Thank you for believing in my vision with me. Thank you for pushing me to the limit. Always stay in touch. I will never forget what you have done. Thanks again and May God bless you. See you at the Grammies.
-B.H.


What's up Mr. D.,
I am writing you to let you know that I appreciate you for motivating us in everything we do. You are a good teacher adn we are thankful to have you. Your willingness and hope that you have instilled in us will last forever. I want to leave you with the fact that I will give back to the community and will do my best to be the best I can be.

Once again, THANKS! THANKS!!! THANKS!!!

- JW


Dear Mr. D,
I just wanted to thank you for one of the greatest English classes in my life. It was very simple and you knew how to put it for to make it easy. I want to thank you for some priviledges you gave us that no other teacher gave us. I loved the way you made jokes and the way you taught us. We had a good time coming to your classes and we didn't have to skip. Thank you for a good class period.
Sincerely, DL

Blackwell Blog #2

Blackwell Blog Dos

As always, with teaching comes a considerable amount of learning. This was especially true during the past few weeks of summer school, as I began to see all of my flaws (and some of my strengths) exhibited by the first years I had been observing in our classroom. It was not without a dose of hypocrisy that I would sit down after a lesson they taught on Subject-Verb Agreement or Figurative Language and go over what I feel they should do differently; much of it is the very same critiques that I’ve received from others and am constantly giving to myself. Speak clearly and be consistent. Slow down, check for understanding, keep everyone involved and relax. Vary the presentation of material, be energized if you want your students to be as well, always have something for them to be doing and not just listening. So, in their mistakes – natural being the first time some of them have ever gotten in front of a classroom – I see my own tendencies and in my efforts to correct their delivery I am also reminding myself that these are all things I should be working on as well.

As far as my own performance is concerned (and it is a performance, isn’t it – I always have felt like I was impersonating a teacher as much as any other role I’ve ever assumed), I feel stronger, more confident and much better adapted to the climate of your average classroom than I was at this time last year. Running the gauntlet this past year has bruised my body some, but I’ve come out a much better teacher and I believe a better person. Where it took my months to break through to my students last fall, it only took days this summer. Where it would take hours upon hours to lesson plan last summer, it rarely takes more than an hour now. Now, this will be different come next fall when I am lesson planning for an entirely new curriculum, but I am sure the skills and techniques I’ve acquired will translate quite a bit.

Most of my lessons, and our lessons as a group, have been successful this summer largely due to the supportive environment of our summer school program but also because of the energy and enthusiasm of our students. They want to learn, listen and participate. Granted, we lead and they follow, but they are heading in the right direction all the same. More so than usual, I’ve found discussion and group interactivity more successful than anything else this summer – perhaps the nature of the beast of forcing children to attend school during what is traditionally their months off from school. Least successful is easy, independent work. That is why most of them are here to begin with. Whether it’s due to low reading comprehension skills or lack of background knowledge, they lose focus, motivation and understanding when they are left to figure something out entirely on their own. This, however, is getting better.

To go along with learning goals, our instructional procedures and policies have worked very well also. Again, the credit for this cannot be taken entirely, if at all, by us – but instead must be attributed to the supportive and well-oiled summer school administration. It is so great to feel respected, and again, supported. To have school policies that make sense, are explained, and are backed up. With a year under my belt, I have a much better idea of what works and what doesn’t, without having to take someone else’s word for it. This eliminates so many problems and issues that I had to deal with last year daily.

Finally, differentiation is one of my biggest foci, but also my greatest challenges, in the classroom. How do you teach to twenty children all on extremely different levels of learning. How do you keep this one from getting bored, or this one from getting lost? It’s much easier with four teachers, and we’ve started to pull students out of the room one at a time to give them individualized instruction on what they are not grasping or need the most work on. This is based on test scores, writing samples, and their ability to read aloud and comprehend. For some of our kids, this is a brief check on how they are doing and review of their weaknesses. For others, we take almost ten minutes to slowly review what it is they are not clear on, or to have them read aloud to us. This is about as individualized as you can get, and as far as pure differentiation, both myself and the other three teachers in our classroom continue to strive to bring in varied styles and activities to engage as many of our students as we can as often as possible.

Reflection Blog

In the parking lot of Wal-Mart last night I bumped into a former tenth grade student of mine, a girl who dropped out back in October just three months into the school year. She had gotten into several fistfights during those three months, one in my room, and was failing all of her classes, including mine. She could barely read, was late to class every day, and had at least one child to my knowledge. We didn’t have any problems, but neither did we have any sort of relationship besides the typical student-teacher. Basically, I never got to know her and I feel that she never got to know me.I said hello with a little apprehension, as she was with what appeared to be her friends and wasn’t sure if she would even recognize me. She did. She ran over with a huge smile and gave me a hug. We talked about the class a little, she repeated again and again that she plans on going back to school next year and eventually graduate and then she went back to the her cereal aisle and I went to look for orange juice.

That brief interaction is a good point to begin a reflection. Seeing her, I thought of my classroom back in October and how much it had changed since then; how much I, too, had changed. I wished silently she could have been there through the year, to benefit from this change, as I was overwhelmed and burnt out every day from August 1 practically through ‘til December break. Those days, I woke up with ‘the dreads’ every morning, mechanically throwing on wrinkled clothes and rushing out the door. Some days I had a lesson plan, some days I had something resembling a lesson plan, some days I had nothing at all but a few ideas. Every day I was still exhausted, out of breath and barely awake by the time the bell for first period rang. I would barely survive period by period, routinely coming face to face with situations that I hadn’t anticipated and having to improvise on the spot. It was exhausting, and I would check my watch in a frenzy every five minutes. When the final bell rang, I would try to run around to the different offices in our school to try and turn in all the paperwork I needed or ask all the questions I had before they started locking the school – which happened pretty much right away. I’d go to football practice, which would be frustrating at times but definitely a reprieve from the day, and get out with just enough time to eat, shower and attempt to grade/plan for the next day … which often resulted in me falling asleep on some floor or couch with unfinished work to do. I had no social life, and I was always stressed out.

As the year progressed, I stopped worrying about all of the ridiculous things I was asked to do by my school and became more efficient in my lesson planning. Football ended, so I was granted more time to work with students after school. Because of this, and a conscious effort on my part, I got to know all of my students better through the winter months. I gave them rides home, visited with their families, called often and did as much in the community as I could. I invested myself more in them, and as a result a lot of my problems in class eroded. I relaxed, and so did they in response. I was still very busy, but not overwhelmingly so – at least not all of the time. By the time spring rolled around, I had built a strong relationship with most of my students, some more so than others, and several school and community members. I smiled more, ate breakfast more, slept in my bed more and was even able to exercise from time to time. I still never ironed. I realized how much of the kids behavior is a reaction to my own vibes, or emotions, or level of preparedness. I lightened up considerably, and stopped taking everything so personally. By the time the end of the year came, I was actually very sorry to see them go. I had made the difficult decision to leave several months ago, and was excited about next year, but nevertheless it was heart-breaking to think how far I had come with them, the school and with myself … only to leave. I’ll miss sitting with CW at lunch every day, asking me “Where da guac at?” or “Am I on mute still?” and then pulling 4-5 hamburgers he had stolen out of his pants pockets. I’ll miss QR sucking her teeth and rolling her eyes at me one minute, then laughing and telling me she loves me the next. I’ll miss making fun of the kids, and them making fun of me. That right there might be the biggest difference between the beginning of the year and the end, we started laughing more. I hated to tell them I was leaving. I felt like I had betrayed them, that I was going to be seen as a phony and all I accomplished over the year would be wasted. But I’ve seen students around town since then, have talked on the phone to others, and feel like they understand, somewhat.

There were a few specific things that I wanted to touch on in this blog, prompts from Ben.

How do you prevent first-year burnout? Nothing new; prioritize, manage your time, and be flexible. Relax, learn to laugh at yourself and not take things so personally or seriously, and find small ways to make every period of every day enjoyable. Getting to know your kids really well will help tremendously in that regard. There are the usual tips; try to sleep at least 5-6 hours per night, eat three meals a day, and have some outlet (television, books, exercise, music) that is not school or MTC related. You can’t do it all, but by caring and being there to simply talk and listen to your students you will be helping them in significant ways.

How to deal with difficult administrators...This is a tough one. I had a very, very difficult administration. I didn’t deal with them well. I have never been great with authority figures, particularly when I don’t respect them or what they do. Repeatedly throughout the year, our admins made decisions that I saw as either completely arbitrary or directly harmful to the students and the school as a whole. Rather than listing all the reasons they were miserable, I’ll just say I can’t come up with anything good they did. I was confrontational at times; that didn’t work. It only made my life more difficult. Sometimes, I guess, you have to smile and nod or just keep your mouth shut.

Some things I learned this year … I would say to live in the community that you teach at, and in the neighborhood if possible. This goes along with getting to know your kids as much as you can, and them trusting you and feeling that you genuinely care about them and are not only trying to help them but will help them – sometimes despite of them. And get to know your problem kids first. However you do it, by getting them to come after school or pulling them out into the hall during class or grabbing them quickly before or after class – just build that rapport as quickly as you can. Be genuine. You should care about these kids the most, because if they are acting out then in some manner they need more than most of the other kids. Call home, often. Get to know parents as well as kids. Get involved in the school and community. Go to parades, eat and shop where your students’ families do, get gas near their homes, go to their games and shows – I loved seeing my kids outside of school, and they love seeing you too. And finally, no matter how hard it is, it always gets easier. You will want to quit almost definitely at some point. Well, you knew it would be hard. Just keep on getting out of bed, keep on smiling and before you know it the year will be over and you’ll have learned much about yourself, probably much more than you were able to teach.

the june bug

Didn’t I learn anything at all from this past year? Well, yes, but apparently not time management. Once again, I’ve managed to over-commit myself, a cardinal sin in the teaching profession – particularly when you are just starting out – and am feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and behind in my work. This is the summer – I’m supposed to be sitting by Sardis and relaxing! Fortunately, the first week of summer school at Holly Springs has passed, and with it the bulk of my teaching responsibilities. However, there are still a number of assignments, tests and commitments that must be done or met in the coming weeks. Nothing in and of itself too intimidating, but factor in a daily two-hour commute back to the Delta and nightly three-hour long play rehearsals and you’re looking at a recipe for burnout. I think I’ve pulled more all-nighters this month than I did all spring. And I’m making it, somehow, but my car isn’t. After a weekend of abuse at Bonnaroo, it’s telling me to give it a break. Last night, post-rehearsal, my car wouldn’t start, again. I jumped it, again, and this time decided on bucking for a new battery. So under a midnight moon and swarmed by blood-horny mosquitos I put in a fancy new battery and breathed a sigh of relief when the ignition kicked in smoothly moments later. I had been panicking about making it to Oxford to class the next day, having already missed my allotted one in order to sleep in a field with 100,000 other sweaty, happy people with Sting, Ben Harper and Widespread Panic serenading us in Tennessee. After a brief nap, I was awake again and packing the car to make the drive north up Route 61. Never happened. Within a few miles of Leland, my car (which started just fine) began to lurch and I watched while the RPMs raced and my speedometer slugged. Having been witness to the death of one vehicle in similar fashion already this week, I turned around and went back to Leland. Guess I’ll be losing some more points off my grade.

So now I’m sitting here lesson planning, exhausted and sweaty, and waiting to hear how much damage was done from the shop downtown. I’ve got to somehow get to Oxford tonight, or at least by tomorrow morning, as well as make it back and forth three more times until show-time this weekend. My account is looking like a fourth graders piggy bank penny savings, and I have some rather hefty expenses taunting me on the horizon. On that note, how about some advice for the first years; Don’t over-commit yourself. Obviously, do as I say not as I do. This is a lesson I’m still trying to learn myself. You can’t save every child, you can’t start or join every club/team, you can’t make every lesson plan revolutionary or grade everything you collect, you can’t have much of a social life (or at least one similar to what you are used to most likely), you can’t read all of those books you’ve been meaning to read, or watch those movies you’ve been meaning to watch, you can’t talk to friends or family for hours on the phone making it tough to keep up with them all, and you can’t get out and enjoy the Delta as much as you’d like. Now, you can do a portion of all of those things; all in moderation. And that’s just what you have to do. Learn how to say no, prioritize and be organized. I felt I needed the occasional jog, several hour long phone call, good book and time-consuming extra-curricular in order to stay sane. But it’s difficult to find the balance.

And while we’re on the topic of busy summer’s, how about a few things I would do if I were a first year – which, actually, are things that I will be doing since I am, for all intents and purposes, a first year due to school switching. Get housing early, as soon as possible, and make as many trips to your new house/apt as you need to in order to get as much of the furniture, appliances and utilities as you can before the school year begins. You will be busy this summer – good. Get used to it. The busier your summer is, the more prepared you will be for the fall and the more you’ll have gotten done now that you won’t have to do later. Per housing, I would recommend living in your school community if possible. I would have preferred this. Also, get your syllabus written, at least a basic version, and plan your first couple weeks of lessons. Not the Monroe lesson plan – just basically what objectives you plan on covering and what exactly you’ll be doing to fill the period. Also, have a BUNCH of filler exercises/activities in a folder and ready if you need them. This can range from ‘get to know you’ games to mini-lessons (such as a short story to read and respond to for English), sudoku’s, word games, trivia, etc. To go along with that, plan out your whole year as much as you can (again, just what you want to be covering each term so you have a general outline). And an MTC tip, get your teacher corps work done ahead of time if possible. You don’t need to turn in stellar work, but do make sure you turn all of the assignments in. They are easy to lose track of, or ignore, and that will catch up with you.

I’ll be moving to Moss Point in July, after I get back from Costa Rica, and starting over new as well. I’m teaching a new grade, so new content, and have a new set of rules and policies to familiarize myself with. I’m nervous, and excited. I’m heading into my second, first year.

Blackwell Blog #1

The goals that I approach each new lesson with are various, but all grow in the direction of the objectives I’ve established for that particular class period. These objectives themselves take some consideration, as they must be both attainable and challenging - as well as interesting and relevant - for the grade level that is being taught. For our summer school students at Holly Springs, we’ve decided to focus primarily on the English II objectives (as we have a mixture of II-IV). This ensures that those still in that critical year of state testing will receive all of the instruction they need to succeed in that venue. In addition, I’ve found that many of the basic benchmarks provided for English II by the state of Mississippi are quite analogous to those you would find in English III & IV. We will bring a little bit of the other into the classroom, when we do lessons on American Literary Periods (III) and an overview of British Literature (IV). The idea with this is to target those in III and IV specifically, while introducing concepts to the English II students that they will see sooner or later, anyway.

Practically, one or two objectives/goals are the rule. These are clear, concise, and limited to the ‘mastery’ of one specific benchmark or an isolated (if that’s even possible) element of the standard high school English course. My lesson plans tend to follow similar patterns; an inductive set that engages the students with the material to be covered later in the period in a creative or abstract way. A particalur inductive set that I have already used was to pose a question on what the class feels the definition of ‘romantic’ is. They shared their responses, and then we went into a discussion on the Romantic Period of American Literature. I told them to keep in the back of their mind what they felt ‘romantic’ meant, and that we would come back to it at the end of the period. They, thus, came up with a new definition on their own based on the characteristics of the period. In addition, we discussed logic and creativity by using Starbursts – such that each student was asked to provide a logical use and some creative uses for it, then connect these to what we have learned about the Romantic Period and draw their own conclusions.

This leads into the procedures, which can be broken up into; presentation/identification, discussion/engagement, and finally practice/use. One of the more difficult aspects of lesson planning is meeting these goals for the varied needs of your students. In a classroom of 20+, which we are fortunate enough to have, there are 20+ different levels of prior knowledge – much of which we are just now beginning to see. Thus, I always try to present my material both in a very clear, logical and common sense fashion while inserting ‘interesting’ tangents or more critical analysis for the students that may be a bit more advanced in the classroom. To go along with this, students should always be doing something. Note taking is good, but graphic organizers are better. Worksheets are ok, but activities really get them involved with the material. And always, or almost always, I incorporate some sort of reading comprehension into the period if I can (and if I can’t, then for homework). Reading is essential for all of our students, and most of them I’ve found need attention paid to this more than anything else.

Thus, by keeping appropriate goals, we should see our students develop throughout the course of the next month. The pre and post tests should evaluate this. In addition, we’ve decided to spend some time every day with a couple of students (so that they are all met with at least once per week) in individual instruction /tutoring. We have writing samples that we will be looking at closely with them and isolating their specific problems or academic issues. I’ve seen students in the past really take to this method and their progress sky-rocket.

China King

I'm going to save most of my end of the year reflection for my next post, because I would like to piggy-back onto my last post before I follow the crumbs I dropped all the way back to August 1.

But first, the school year has ended; it feels so good to say that. It's been a long year, but it's gone by quickly. The year has been filled with apparent paradoxes, so what better way to describe it than one giant mix of uncomfortable juxtapositions. There were times I wanted to quit. Never seriously, but I had my moments of sitting alone in my room with all the lights off in the early hours of a weekday morning with work still hounding me and my sense of self-satisfaction buried under caffeine, deadlines and failed commitments. I didn't feel like I was accomplishing anything, aside from allowing myself to get consistently overwhelmed, behind in work and frustrated. But I loved my kids; I hated the way they acted sometimes, or didn't act - "real talk, Mr. Doyle", but I never stopped loving them. That love grew deeper and took root as the year progressed, which made it all the more frustrating and the guilt that much sharper when I felt like I was failing them or at a loss for ways to help them succeed. Despite all of that, I was able to make connections and encourage relationships that went beyond the blackboard with a good number of my students.

So, to continue the ramble in my previous blog, I met up with a few students yesterday afternoon at China King. School has been out for a week now, and I've bumped into some of them at Sunflower getting groceries or in WalMart and brought up the lunch idea. I called about 10-12, but was only able to reach half that many due to disconnections and terminated phone plans. It sunk in just how difficult it'd be to keep in touch with some of my students, with numbers and residences changing so often. I had my phone number on the board all week, so hopefully a few take me up on keeping in touch. There ended up being six of us present to suck down all the egg-drop soup and chicken fingers you can eat. Once the discussion moved past whether or not some asians eat animals that are commonly pets or pests domestically, we began in on their plans, and goals and paths to reaching them. We talked about the emphasis on race and existence of racism in their lives, and throughout the country/world, and why things might be the way they are. At times we shouted trying to make a point, drawing attention from white and black diners around us, not caring who heard what we had to say aside from each other. These were some of my favorite kids - QR, BW, LT, DF and AA - and it was incredible to see them think these problems through, to really not just look at me, but into me, both when I spoke and when they spoke to one another. If only I could do this with all the kids, and more often. If only their classes were smaller. It seems so obvious, that if we ever expect to reach true equality, in public educational offerings at least, there needs to be inequal funding - with those in need getting MORE aid and not less than schools in more supportive communities that have other means of providing for their children's "education", in all its meanings. I teared up more than once during lunch, especially when we started to talk about how I was not coming back next year. And I pulled a few tears from their stoic grins, too.

I could have sat there all afternoon, as it was we were there for two hours, but I started to sense that they all had other things to do when the cell phones came out and texting commenced. DF and AA asked if I could drop off some books at their homes some time this summer, BW's big barrel-chested father asked if I could help him learn how to read, between swigs of Budweiser, while I was dropping her off (he drives trucks and never graduated from high school) and LT will definitely hear from me before his trip to Canada with his Earthwatch research team in two weeks. There are so many others I wish I could have talked to, saw at least once more, and its finally settling in that there are so many I won't be seeing again no matter how much I'd like to. I'm excited about next year, but these kids have a way of affecting you. I guess, its not just that they are kids and dependent on us all for so much, but I've never been in a situation where I was around so many of the same individuals consistently for so much time ... well, at least not since I was in high school myself. In college you have your core friends, while everything else is in semi-constant flux, and they are people who obviously affect you. College was longer for my than most, and towards the end, more reclusive. There is no place to hide in the classroom, sans not going - a choice I made too often this past year - and you are completely exposed to the critical eyes of so many judgmental little Caeser's, much more likely to condemn you than to spare you from the lions. It's so much more fun to watch the lame teacher squirm in the powerful grips of a wild animal.

I guess this did become a bit of a reflection, but I do have a lot more to say and am without the motivation at the moment to do justice to the emotions I've felt, and still feel, throughout all the cumulative experiences of the past year. I fell asleep on the couch in our sunroom again, and am starting to enjoy waking up with the sun and the birds. First day of MTC in Oxford is tomorrow, which will be a nice change - I'm looking forward to being more of a supervisor this summer and having time to prepare for twelth grade English and Drama next year in Moss Point, as well as help the new class of teachers as much as I can ... and, as well as falling asleep to the fireflies, waking up to the pink reflection in Sardis Lake and bathing with the dawn. Will be a busy month, with the play scheduled for the third week in June necessitating commutes back to Indianola nearly every other day for rehearsal.

caste in the classroom

A few Fridays ago, the junior girls were on a field trip to the levee so rather than continue reading “A Raisin in the Sun” with no more than five students remaining in either of my eleventh grade classes, I let them work on make-up assignments, extra credit and we had those kind of conversations that crop up at the end of the school year.

At one point, I asked a question that I had been curious about for a while but never had explicitly addressed to any of my students before. I had a feeling I knew the answer, but wanted to know what they felt. I asked whether or not they ever hang out or interact with any white teens, or white individuals at any rate, aside from their teachers at school and as their paths cross in common spaces such as Wal-Mart. A couple had co-workers at places like Sunflower or Sonic, but in both cases this was their store manager. Aside from that, their answer was a resounding no. I asked again in my next period, and got the same response. How is this possible? Granted, white is the minority at approximately 30% of the town’s 12,000 residents, and the dual school system, private ‘segregation academies’ and public schools, as is the case in most Delta towns, remains almost entirely segregated by race … in 2007. Over, and yet apparently only, fifty years since the White Citizens Council, a ‘white-collar Klan’, was ominously founded in Indianola at the same time Brown v. Board of Education was passed. Still so separate. There are both nice and run-down white neighborhoods and nice and run-down black neighborhoods, each with their own gas station/general stores, their own playgrounds, their own community centers … there are white bars and black bars, black churches and white churches and, as already stated, white schools and black schools. None would be so crass as to publicly limit the crossing of such visible racial lines/barriers, lines visible only in the color of the skin on those that hide behind them, but their open declaration is in the quite obvious sweeping lack of exceptions.

For some reason, I imagined kids being a little bit beyond this historical sense of opposition, and maybe they are. Yet my students and those at Indianola Academy, 15-18 year-olds, live in the same town yet never interact with one another - follow suit from the wonderful example set forth by the adults in the town. Their sports teams don’t play one another, ever. Very few community events are publicized in both communities. I've recently been cast in a production of Agatha Christie's 'The Mousetrap' which is generally referred to as "the white theater" in town. That very visible, unacknowledged line. Is this the fear I talked about last week with one class? I asked the guys I was sitting with in the classroom what they think would happen if I attempted to organize an after-school group or program open to both schools, the natural first reaction;

“Where would it be? They wouldn’t let us over at their school and they’d be afraid to come to our school.”

The guys all expressed interest in ‘talking to a white girl’ their own age, many never have, and eagerly echoed one another’s enthusiasm for such an endeavor. I wondered silently if guys from IA would feel the same way towards black girls, or if black girls would feel the same way towards white guys and vice versa … and why. They joked, but eventually they began to say things like “For real though, I think one school for everyone would be better. Them white kids studyin’ all the time and stuff would make us all work harder or we’d look bad.” This was obvious, their sense that all, or at least the majority, of the white kids were smarter than all, or at least the majority of the black kids. If you ask them why, the answer always comes back to money and opportunity. I mentioned how much more money one school system would have at its disposal, for better facilities, better books, etc. but then asked them how the kids in honors classes here would feel if suddenly they were displaced by mostly white kids, or how the white kids on IA’s basketball team might feel if most of them didn’t make the team here when put altogether. I was careful to note my gross generalizations.

“That’s life," DR replied, "I guess they’d have to work harder if they wanted to prove theyselves.”

Lassos & Tasers

Been a busy month, and a quick one. The first few weeks was a flurry of state test preparation; instructors trying to cram every last bit of knowledge into the brains of our kids before offering them up to a higher power. I hated administering the test more than I hated preparing for it. It seems such a damned waste, to spend so much time drilling and training our children rather then helping them really have a valuable and valued education. Pass the test, pass the test, pass the test. My students, for the most part, cannot comprehend what they read. They can read, but they don’t understand. This is true for so many aspects of their education; they can do, but there is no deeper cognizance of what they are doing or why they are doing it.

While not testing, we festered in the loud, hot and musty gymnasium for the rest of the day. I don’t even want to attempt to estimate the amount of time wasted in the gym throughout the course of this school year, educational time most of these kids can’t afford to waste. At one point, we spent a whole afternoon in the dry spring heat practicing a welcoming outside in the school’s front parking lot for the “pioneers of integration” in Indianola, who were to come the following morning. I might have been one of the few people there glad I was getting a tan, and I couldn’t help but wonder at the irony of celebrating the anniversary of integration at a public school that is nearly 100% segregated; no longer legal, but definitely social. The only white I saw in the sea of students was their white uniforms and the few interspersed TFA or MTC instructors probably all wondering at the same things. Is this what those pioneers expected years ago when they first walked into the front doors, in those moments before all the scared white students walked out the back doors to start their own schools or moved to other communities that are more homogenous? Recently I had one of the best conversations of the year in one class. We talked about fear being the opposite of love, and the greatest impediment towards social progress. I didn’t let them answer without thinking, asking why, why, why until they got frustrated with me … but also got to the heart of the matter. People don’t just hate, they fear. And the only way to overcome that fear, is to love. Or something like that. Before the bell rang, one girl raised her hand and asked innocently, “Mr. Doyle, why ain’t white people in Mississippi as cool as you is?”

I told her I’m not cool; I’m a teacher.

Post-test has been a struggle, too. I’ve lost another 2-3 kids per class who have essentially stopped coming to school. I started the year with over 30 students in all but one of my classes. These days, my classes usually have fewer than 15. That’s half that have dropped out, or are consistently absent or skipping (and naturally, failing; the passive drop-outs). The students that are present, “aren’t fi’n to do no work anymore”. They do end up working, but I spend at least 5-10 minutes at the beginning every period lecturing and getting them on task. I had, for the most part, succeeded in getting my classes focused in the past couple of months. I’m trying out a short journalism unit in one class, with the end result a class generated newspaper (our school does not have one). Articles are to be written outside of class. I hate to have low expectations, but I don’t think I’ll get more than a couple turned in.

Off to New Orleans for the weekend to groove to Damian Marley, John Mayer, John Legend, the Allman Bros. and others at Jazzfest. Just a couple of weeks left of school. Life goes by too damn quickly. I’m not ready to say goodbye to these kids, but I sure am looking forward to this summer, and all that goes after.

Raisin in the Rain

“Wake up in the morning and I ask myself …”

Last night I chaperoned my first field trip, aside from away games in the fall, and will admit I was more than a little apprehensive of being responsible for a group of students after school hours. My costume is half-way off then, and so is theirs. We had sixteen in all, pants sagging or skin tight, caps and pumps on, busing them all over to Greenville for a nighttime performance of ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ put on by the Delta Center Stage.

It started with a deluge and a detour. The sky opened up just as students started to arrive in front of the school to meet the bus. Girls screamed and ran for cover with permission slips held over their heads. Everyone was wet and out of breathe when we pulled out of the parking lot after waiting for a few stragglers. Two of the girls brought their babies with them. Both children were at least three, while the mothers couldn’t have been more than 17. Then, our driver remembered he left a crock-pot of potpourri on his oven with the burner on low and had to “stop by quickly to make sure the house don’t crsip” – ten minutes later, far more time than I’ve ever spent turning off a burner, we were back on the road.

The kids were fine, and I was glad RJ came. RJ had a stroke a few years ago and is now confined to a wheelchair. It’s his senior year, and he only comes to school for half a day at a time because he needs to rest in the afternoons. His body is frail, and one side is almost completely limp. When he is in school, he is often stuck in the office with his aunt who works as a secretary. This means he sits in the side room where angry parents who have come in to meet with our principal must wait, or where students who were tossed out of class stagnate. Not a great place to spend your days to say the least. Around December I started meeting him during my prep period and wheeling him down to my room to hang out for a while and get away from all the negativity. He’s a great kid who never complains, but you can tell his condition wears on him.

We got there just in time to find our balcony seats in the old high school auditorium. The first half was alright, dragging in places but I was impressed by more than one of the actors/actresses. The kids were more impressed with the bathrooms, which had couches in them. They were pretty respectful, keeping the talking to a minimum, but we had the whole balcony to ourselves so it didn’t really matter. Just before intermission, I heard some chatter and hushed them a couple of times. When the lights came up, I walked up to the back row where most of our students had lined themselves against the far wall. Both babies were sound asleep. Then I saw a couple of the girls were crying and on their cell phones. While I worked my way between wooden seats, one cried out and collapsed to her knees sobbing hysterically. The others rushed in, forming a circle of hugs and questions. The most I could make out of it all was that someone had been shot that a few of the girls new, one intimately. We worked our way outside to get some fresh air in the hopes of calming them all down and figuring out what was going on.

Outside, the hysteria rose as the reality of the situation sank in. A girl’s boyfriend had committed suicide; shot himself through the heart. Her sister had called to inform her. Girls sobbed in each others arms while the guys stood by in silence or held onto them and attempted to offer words of consolation. Other families attending the performance who had also stepped outside for some air stared out our group, huddled in the rain that had turned soft and gentle and was now more of a mist than anything. I did what I always do when I’m nervous; act busy. I bought them some bottles of water, since one girl had started hyperventilating and I knew she had asthma. The police officer/coach who had driven the bus confirmed her sister’s phone call. I made a few phone calls and offered some words of my own. Eventually, another teacher in attendance offered to drive the girl back home, along with two of her friends. We all eventually filed back inside and up the dark stairs to our seats, the show well into the second half post-intermission, and sat in the dark each thinking our own thoughts but none really paying attention any longer. Aside from a few sniffles and whispers they were silent. A few fell asleep. My head started to nod as the play dragged on. It wasn’t until after 10:30 that we piled back onto the bus and headed home, while the rain picked up outside and whistled with the wind against the thin glass windows, and it wasn’t until after 11:30 that I dropped off the last of the students at their homes and headed back home myself.

Mike was passed out on the couch and rose to talk some nonsense before dropping back down to spoon the cushions. I didn’t make it much farther, collapsing on my bed fully dressed only to wake up the next morning with just enough time to throw on some clean clothes and run out the door.

Breakfast Club

What can I do for BG?

Last Tuesday we had the first half of the English II state test, the written portion, so the days leading up to it were fairly filled with informative essay prompts and writing practice. On Monday, BG's seat was vacant during first period. This is not a surprise. I have his section for back-to-back periods, and he is rarely there for the first one and maybe 50% of the time present for the second period. At the sound of the bell between periods, the kids get a break to stretch their legs and their lungs so I open the door and let them out - only to see BG leaning up against the outside wall beside my door, ballcap on and shirt untucked (and even worse, unironed), trying to casually avoid eye contact.

"How long have you been standing out here?"
"I just got to school."
"How do you expect to pass if you always miss first period?"

He shrugs. Months ago I had attempted to find ways to get him to school. I felt bad for him. I knew him as a teacher and a coach, in fact, he was one of my Killer DBs. So I learned quickly that he has a terrible temper and was apt to lash out at teacher's or students at the slightest provocation, is extremely insecure (though not at all conscious of this), and way behind where he should be academically. If you're talking national standards, he reads and writes around a second/third grade level ... and he's being asked to do tenth grade work. We've had many talks throughout the year - on the football field during practices, on the bus to or from games, during class or in the hall after an outburst - and I see that he really is just a scared, confused and sometimes angry kid who has no positive role models in his life at all. I've dropped him off at his apartment, met his mom and for a while had her permission to pick him up at their apartment on my way to school so I could make sure he got there on time as well as help him with his reading in the morning before other kids showed up. That didn't last long. Some days nobody would answer the phone (which is usually disconnected) or the door when I got there, some days they would let me in and I would end up waiting forever for him to get ready making us both nearly late for school and at one point he got kicked out of his house by his mother for throwing a television at her, apparently, so he was bouncing around between friends' houses.
Needless to say, he came to school very infrequently during those few weeks. I shouldn't talk. I was also missing too many days or running late too often, so it wasn't always his fault.

I still try to get him in early at least a few days every week. Just last week, I picked up another one of my breakfast club students and left him in the car while I went to knock on BG's door. His mother let me in, then began to scream into his room (where he was 'asleep' while his television blared sportscenter highlights loud enough to make most people deaf) to get up. She cursed at him, called him all sorts of shit, and even threw a shoe at him. I sat in the living room waiting, about 30 minutes, looking at a few family photos and mostly just staring at the wall. While I was waiting, I could hear his mother berating his younger sister in the other room - at one point coming into the living room to get a belt and then returning to the back room where I could hear the whacks and the crying. She demanded angrily that the girl spell out words like 'shell' or 'she' (evidently she had a spelling test that day - she couldnt have been more than ten years old) and would hit her or yell even louder everytime she got a word wrong ... which was everytime.

"How the hell you gonna keep sayin' c when I just told you it were s! Shut up with that crying an' get it right 'fore I tear yo' butt up, girl!"

Eventually, BG emerged with his head down apparently ready to go. No wonder he reads at a such a low level - no wonder he has such a temper, so many insecurities and is so fragile. I did get him to go to school, which he wouldnt have done if i didnt pick him up, although, since I had to wait so long, we didnt have any time to practice his reading - or the other students'. He told me he was fittin' to leave early anyway - and he did. I waited for close to an hour in his house for him to come to just one period then walk home. The mountain this kid has to climb to even get close to where he can pass or graduate is so high, and the hill so steep - nobody would be surprised to see him give up and fall. Especially when he won't even look up himself.

On Monday before the state test, though, I pulled him into the room before the bell for second period rang so that I could get him up to speed with what the class had been doing first period; informative essay practice, same thing we've done all year long so that by test time tomorrow it should be second nature. He sat down quietly, still avoiding eye contact, while I explained the prompt, gave him a pencil and let him get to work.

Informative Essay Prompt: You're teacher has given you an assignment to write an informative essay. Think about people you consider to be interesting. Write about why you consider these people to be interesting. Be sure to explain your reasons with details.

I let him be and circulate around the room, coming back from time to time to make sure he's on task. After about 15 minutes, I ask to read what he's written so far. He slouches down in his chair, and looks down and away without saying a word. He has a paragraph written, if you can call it that - about six-seven written lines entirely without punctuation save for two lonely apostrophes - but it's what he's written that gets my attention.

one Person that interest me is my mother why cause she always hard on me cause she want better for me she want me to pass high school but that not going to happin cause I am all ready know I didn't pass and thats going to hurt her second Person that interest me is my teacher Mrs. Doyle why cause he's the type of teacher that care and want you to do better for yourself and make the right choice in life and school

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I take a deep breath and am about to tell him how good this is, then show him where he can make his run-on into shorter complete sentences and form paragraphs, when I see that he has tears falling down his face. He isn't making any noise, just sitting quietly and still looking down at the dusty tiled floor. And in a matter of seconds, while I am trying to find the words to comfort him, he gets up quickly and pushes his desk hard to the side so that it slides into the person next to him and then falls to the floor loudly. His desk is right beside the door, so before I can react he's outside and rounded the corner of the English wing. I left the class, ran around the corner and called to him but he ignored me and kept on walking away. I didn't write a referral, and have spoken to him since. He told me how he is up late most nights til 2-3 AM selling marijuana, he swore he wasn't smoking it or selling coke or anything harder than pot, so that he can buy his food and clothes - his mom hasn't worked for years (he laughed and shook his head as he said it), so he has to buy anything he needs/wants himself. He doesn't see his dad much, even though he lives in the same town - he's been in and out of jail, mostly for drug related offenses. We talk about the importance of finishing off the year, even though he will not be able to do anything to pass a single one of his classes (aside from getting straight 100s this nine weeks) and he agrees to write letters to his teachers apologizing for his poor work this year and promising to do better next year - "Oh, I'm coming back Mr. Doyle, don't worry. I know I can do it." He's already a year or two older than most tenth graders.

He also tells me that what he really wants is to get away and live someplace else; "I don't like it here. Everyone be all up in your business" What he means is he wants a chance to start off fresh. I ask where and he tells me Virginia. Why? "I don't know," he says. "It look real nice on TV, like, their school is clean and stuff and its mixed."

Later that day much of the school is stuck in the gym for another senseless mock-test, and he comes over and sits by me where I'm reading alone on the bleachers. He's all smiles, just off a defeat on the court and joking with a girl sitting beside us. A few minutes later, he's got his arm around another teacher and they are both laughing - the same teacher who earlier in the year told me she was afraid of being in the same room with BG.

I almost wish I could adopt him; mentor a 17 year-old ward when I can hardly take care of myself. He really does want to do well, to work harder and make better choices ... but its just so damn hard.

On another note, CW surprised me with his response to the same informative essay writing prompt mentioned above. CW is a big, hulking, 260 lb. mean-looking linebacker originally from New Orleans who manages to even display a grimace when he smiles. After Katrina, neither his mother or father, who were never married and whom he bounced between for the first 15 years of his life, were able to support him so he was sent to live with his grandmother, a stooped woman he had only met once before, in the Delta. He's been here since the storm, and hasn't had any contact at all from either of his parents - needless to say he isn't happy about the situation. He spent the first two months of school in Alternative because of a pretty serious fight, and has been suspended 3-4 more times since then. I like him, most of the time, and he is one of my smarter students when he isn't asleep in class. Anyway, earlier this year when I had them researching for a response on the artists of the Harlem Renaissance - he called me over to his computer to spit out in adolescent disgust, "Nah man, I don't want to write about this shit." He had discovered Langston Hughes was gay. I told him to focus on the poetry and the artist's work, and keep his comments to himself. More recently than that, you may recall a blog titled 'Onions', in which a quiet student in my class was reciting a Hughes poem and, after declaring "A May song should be gay", was rudely interrupted by several students laughing and making homophobic comments. The most vocal of the hecklers was CW. I laid into them all for a while on their intolerant attitudes and base insensitivity - and at least got them quiet and got their attention. Fast-forward to the Monday before the writing portion of the state exam when we are practicing informative essays. Here is an excerpt from CW's; he chose Martin Luther King Jr., Michael Jackson and, you got it, Langston Hughes as his three 'interesting people'.

James Langston Hughes was one of the world's most notorious poets. He had the language of poetry down to a science. He had a rough childhood because his father and him were not on the same page. He wrote children's books, novels and newspaper articles. He also wrote books of poetry and he recieved an award from the NAACP for his writings. I think he is interesting because he is a great leader, and he wasn't afraid to be different.

I wanted to hug him. Also, you might find it interesting that he had originally selected Reggie Bush as his third 'interesting person' and crossed the footballer out to be replaced by the King of Pop. Wheels are turning, however slowly, and by-Zeus something is being learned. They may not all pass the state test and they may not all graduate, but the wheels are turning and something is being learned.

“Do they have malls in Canada?”

Walking from my car to my classroom yesterday morning before school, halfway between my disparate worlds - still wearing flip-flops and a backwards baseball hat while straightening my tie and tucking in my shirt - I heard someone call my name and turned to see LT grill-grinning and running towards me as he pulled out a packet of papers from his bag;

“I got accepted Mr. Doyle!”

Months ago, I got a letter in my box asking me to nominate a few students for an Earthwatch Fellowship. EarthWatch provides scholarships for high school students to participate in 2-3 week long summer research expeditions in North America, Hawaii, Costa Rica and the Caribbean. I spent some time thinking about who might be a plausible candidate (not many) and who would actually take the time to apply (even fewer). I nominated a couple, and out of those I nominated only one actually opted to fill out an application and spend some time after school working on his essays. His transcript wasn’t stellar, barely passing several of the key subject areas, so we spent a lot of time editing and re-writing his essays (like most of my students, he’s way behind where he should be in reading and writing) and to be honest, I didn’t think he had much a chance. Last month, I received an email telling me LT was one of 300 Earthwatch fellow finalists – he had no idea, not having received the notification that had been sent to him in the mail. The letter he showed to me yesterday, beaming with pride, said he was one of 82 high school fellows selected out of all the applicants nationwide for an all-expense paid research expedition. Never having been out of Mississippi or on a plane before, LT will be flying to Churchill, Manitoba in central Canada this summer to study the wetlands between boreal forests and arctic tundra. Later, during my prep period, I could feel the fear and excitement from LT as I showed him where he would be (right on the Hudson Bay! Strangely, I have a map of Canada on my classroom wall - as part of the Ramp-Up curriculum I received this summer but haven’t been able to use) and read out loud the waiver warning of “the highest concentration of polar bears in North America”.

As thrilled as I was for LT (and slightly envious – I want to go to Canada, too!), the elation paled in comparison to what another student accomplished earlier this month (and which I’ve been meaning to blog about). You might recall in past blogs the mention of a BH, who was preparing for an audition with AMDA (The American Music and Dramatic Arts Academy) in New York City … BH used to stop into my classroom earlier in the year from time to time to chat after school, being a senior and thus not one of my students, and we soon got around to talking about his interest in theater. There is hardly any opportunity for him to explore this interest in our community, but he has done what he can and from what I’ve seen he has a lot of talent. We spent some time researching a few schools and programs, and put together a few applications. The focus of his attention was on AMDA, and these essays we spent the most time on. Once sent in, the next step was to select and rehearse two short contrasting monologues (approx. three minutes long), which he would have to perform at a regional audition in Nashville, TN. We eventually settled on a passionate soliloquay on racial inequality from ‘Statements’ by Athol Fugard and a comedic one-act by David Ives. For several weeks, nearly every day after school in my classroom we practiced these monologues, eventually bringing in other teachers or driving around to local businesses for ‘mock-auditions’. We had a lot of fun, and it was amazing to see his improvement. I pushed him, but this kid has a ton of natural talent. He headed up to Nashville with his mother on a Sunday for the audition, and called immediately after to let me know how it went. He told me about all the other applicants he met in his typical upbeat manner, but I could tell he was a little distressed about something. When he got to telling me about the audition, he paused … “He cut me off Mr. Doyle!” Halfway through his second monologue, the Fugard piece, the far better one that we saved for last to really give them something to remember, the judged looked up and cut in with a “Thank you, that’s enough”. It didn’t necessarily mean anything, but it didn’t seem like a good thing. They said they would call him within a couple of weeks.

Over spring break, while I was in the car driving back from several days that took my mind nearly entirely away from school, I got another call from BH; “I just wanted to thank you for all your help Mr. Doyle, you know, even though it didn’t work out – got a letter today saying I didn’t get in.” I paused, crushed, then recovered enough to go on and on about how much he must have learned from the whole experience and to not give up on what he wants to do just because this door may have been closed. He let me talk for a few minutes before interrupting with, “I’m playing Mr. Doyle; I got accepted!”

In a town where very few students go on to college, very, very few go on to four-year institutions, very, very, very few go out of state for school and probably none before have pursued a degree in the theater arts at such a reputable school – this is huge. Perhaps for the first time this year, I truly felt like I had actually made a considerable difference in at least one kid’s life.

I haven’t been the best teacher in the world this year. In fact, I haven’t even really been close to the best teacher that I know I can be. I do get excited and passionate in the classroom. I’ve gotten through to a lot of my kids that need a lot of direction in their lives and made some pretty great connections. I know they know I care about them very much, and we have a lot of fun – even when we’re reading or writing essays. But, I’ve missed a lot of classroom instruction when I’m not prepared or when I feel as if I am letting go of aspects of my personal life that are too important for me to entirely abandon all at once. So there is the guilt, battling dissatisfaction. Maybe it’s a selfish tendency. In addition, I’ve never been the “yes sir/ma’am” type, and have found it very difficult to acquiesce to ‘authority’ when I don’t approve or believe in what I’m being asked to do – which has made for some rocky professional relationships and not a very warm work environment outside of my classroom. I’ve learned a lot about myself this past year, some positive and some negative, and am looking forward to the end of May and a chance to put this chapter behind me so I can start focusing my attention on getting it slightly more right the next time around.

Big positives, like helping LT or BH, plus all the little acknowledgements doled out in smiles, laughs or nervous thanks do give the year some sense of accomplishment despite all the daily frustrations. Still, I’ve got a lot more to learn and, hopefully, a lot more to teach.

For the moment, I’m going to go see if I can find the snapper I picked up on my way back from Jackson this morning. The jay-walker was in the middle of Highway 49 and running the risk of getting squashed under 80 mph tires when I swerved to miss him, pulled over, and ran barefoot back along the gravel to rescue the ungrateful, hissing reptile. While I’ve been typing, there have been periodic thumps from the living room that I’m guessing are his attempts at escape. The rain has stopped so I’ll drop him off along the creek before going for a run and burning off some of this apprehension I’ve accumulated so far today. Next half-marathon is less than a month away.

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 …

... my middle name

she bring me love love love love, crazy love.
—Van Morrison

To Be Read In 500 Years
by Albert Goldbarth

If they're right, the whizkid physicist-theorist thinktank guys,
suggesting that every acted-on decision of ours produces a brachiation
in the timestream (therefore, two simultaneous independent futures:
for example, one extending from my use of "brachiation,"
one extending from my almost-use of "fork," so that
tomorrow-"b" and tomorrow-"f" are equally real in parallel
and coexistent tracks), there may be, secretly among us,
a few—or even entire populations—of backward travelers
in time from not just one, but many, "alternamorrows,"
so different from ourselves, it's like the thought that bitch-ho' rap
and the sublimities of, say, Chopin are kin enough to both be
reproduced by variant patterns within the same 88 keys:
in one
of these futures, everything essential, every attribute of humanness
even minimally desirable, is relegated to mind alone
—we look like cumulonimboid dendrite-structures
that have flowered out of small deflated flesh-pods—
and the reproductive function of the species now
is entirely exocorporal, a matter of frozen protein combinations
and gestation-sacs of complex bioplastic;
in another
of these futures—it's an after-we-squander-the-oil-deposits world
of post-apocalyptic, bare-subsistence living—a day
is a matter of thinning, granular soil: leached,
defiant of yielding to our human need and its desperate threshing
—that, and a rumor from over up north that dog troops
of marauding goons are on the march with pillage and worse
asquirm in their eyes—and there, and then, all softness,
all of anything without "survival value," has been bred out
of the race, so "interpersonal relationship" is no more
than a reflex of the genes;
or, au contraire,
another future makes an ornate, public fetish of the wooing game
—a codified fantasia of modes of address and rank and dowry
and clan and feather-on-cloak-by-depth-of-genealogy, etc.—
to a social architecture of such overmuch extent that, while it's all
intensely focused on the establishing of a betrothal-pair, it's
all at the same time so bound up in duty and cultural sanction
as to be even more devoid of anything personal—anything soulful
and open to flutter—than the future I've described
of petro-aftershock ...
and therefore none of these baffled representatives
encamped in our twenty-first century can understand,
can "get," the thump, the cupid-zing, the woe and the wow,
in our songs and poems, especially the songs, especially the glowing
uranium dump that malingers all night at the bottom of the blues,
oh especially the blues, especially let her light shine down
on me, especially by the waters of Misery Avenue, let's not forget
Heartbreak Hotel, let's not eschew its transient cast
of cinders-and-ashes clientele, but also the songs of tra-la-la
and marital abidingness, of how sometimes a body fits a body
as indivisibly as waves (or it could be particles) fit light, the poems
address this too of course, the let me count the ways, the roses
in their fragrant and meaty botanical abundance, and the doves,
let's not forget the doves, the old thou art a summer's day
and thy breasts are of wheaten beauty, let's not dillydally
in recognizing
the wedding under the laws of God, let's not exempt the quickie
under the snooker table, the flame in the bones, the one name
drummed
in a bruising tattoo on the heartskin, they don't comprehend this
sugartit thing,
this sonnet thing, this sky held in the mirror pools
of the Taj Mahal on a day of slowly promenading couples
thing, these people of the future as I've imagined them don't have
the apparatus of leisure we've had, in a special lotus of time
that's been vouchsafed to us, a mythos, a sequestering in which
this serotonin and this opium are grown to a lyric degree, they
wouldn't
understand me sneaking out at 5 AM to pat that ten-dollar valentine
tenderly into place beneath the wiper-blade of Phyllis's swayback
Dodge
(with the fishtaily brakes and the fanlight crack in the windshield),
they
don't know the drive-in, the down at the corner, the boardwalk,
the bridge,
the places where it happens and where we commemorate it,
also a night
of blind and driven howling I pulled like an hours-long ebony scarf
from the deeps of my brainstem once on Morgan's lawn, so sweet
it is, this ineluctable thing, this please let one of the harder sciences
objectify
the biochemical basis of our here-do-that-to-my-earlobe-another-time
thing, down by the riverside, at the gates, behind the stadium,
and Skyler my wife with the basement tiles and cowboy pajamas,
she lift me up, she bring me the dominions of the morning
and the thrones of the moon, they've never once experienced this
impossible night of her wanting him down to the vitamins
and the pepsin and the aura and the spit, and how she bring him
the molasses and the escrow and the skidmarks and the holy church,
the rock and the water, the star and the stain, together we heard
the otherworld hosannas of wind in the alders, not to mention
karaoke screech, the Gregorian chant and the triple-x rebel yowl,
it requires a certain coddled recipe of history and maybe economics
for this psychic condition, this giddiyap of the hormones
and the industry they generate, the castles and the sly decolletage,
I wanted to read her the works of Montaigne and Cervantes
and Emerson
and I wanted to slip her some tongue, I was enrolled, I stayed
the course from my first day in Agony 101 to my post-doc,
they will never
be burned by this ice, they will die without knowing the thirst
in this river, she bring me the spackle, she give me the flying tackle,
he build her up, he tug her plug and she drains, she becomes
a puddle of ouch, she hit me with the hoodoo, with the magic spell
and the candle, they will never know this candle, yeah
she lead me up the towpath got a diamond in my nose, she dress
in ermine and sable, she barefoot in the grass, I tossed,
I thought of words like chivalrous and serenity, I spied on her,
I wanted to kill for her, she bring me the cherry wine, the toxic waste,
the whole wheat and the half-shell, they will never eat of this fruit
and suffer its consequences, never beg for its juice, its family root,
she be my guide, she interlocutor, my Beatrice-and-Virgil
(and me behind
in my Dante sandals following her shake-that-thing on the stony path),
my rash, my silty unguent, she rob him, she rock and throb him,
she greet him in his guise as the charioteer of the sun in its vast
celestial passage, in the centuries forthcoming they will never know
this honeycomb of confusion and its confected delight, it happens
in the jazz bar, at the casbah, in the synagogue, under the sheets,
she lift me higher, she be my desire, she build me, she give me,
in the sand dunes, hot hot summer, on the roof, yes here, now here,
a little lower, she feed me, she give me, she lift me, she need me,
the sound of the continents as they first tore apart and the surge of
the oceans,
the music of that, the songs especially but also the poems, she take me,
the rosins of craving, the tables of lust in its periodicity, they cannot
and cannot and cannot partake of this feast and the terrible emptiness
that follows, she make me, she lift me, I freely give her one grand
opera rose
and hiphop dove, she under my skin, she knife in my mind,
this thing,
oh this millennial and hallucinatory and radiant thing, she bring me,
she lift me, she take me, she bring me love
love love love crazy love.

A friend of mine said it best in an email I received this morning ....

"Happy Wednesday! For me, every day is an opportunity to express love and be loved"