The Lion Queen

Don't mess with the Queen!

I have a friend who likes to tease me, saying I've been operating like a wee little pussycat though a lion lies within.

Well, today I roared...and five hours after school let out my teeth are still bared. You see, there's this student who has by and large taken his entree to high school to be 9 parts fun and 1 part work. Now to give him credit, he has turned in some assignments and they do show evidence of him paying attention from time to time, but he thinks he's slick.

How slick, do you say?

He thinks he's Delancey Street Shell Game Slick or Taxi Driver In A Far Away Place Snagging A Juicy American Fare Slick or I-Think-My-Teacher-Is-So-Stupid-She-Won't-Notice-Me-Blatantly-Cheating-Slick. BLA-DOW! I am sure there a lot of people who might not rate what happened next as high octane (after all, as another student informed me, "My teachers used to curse at me ALL the time"), but I was heated. And trust me, the whole class knew it. This little boy who doesn't KNOW me had the unmitigated gall, the untethered temerity, THE NERVE to cheat!!!

Now of course, upon reflection I probably should have handled the whole affair with much more aplomb and dare I say, finesse. On the other hand, I do remember experiencing a twinge of envy when I heard a student saying "Are you kidding me? I can't be late to Ms. So-and-So's class!..." because he knew she didn't play and he had to be on his game from jump. While I rarely have students come late and I do start work immediately, I've struggled to land a pace that inspires students too cool to be rushed and accommodates those who genuinely need a bit more time to process. It can be frustrating, and I am finding my generally accommodating demeanor to be a hindrance. This kitty has got to go somewhere--for real. There are way too many things to teach over the next 168 days for me to be putting up with laziness or other foolishness. Really!

I love classrooms because there are a zillion things to work on all the time, and finding the balance is like the ultimate Tetris game. Let's just say challenge inspires me. If I move at just the right pace, I will not only keep students engaged but I will maintain the balance of power (such an ugly, necessary word), use precious time on what matters, and give students a well-needed sense of urgency. Yes, urgency, because high school is a short ride with a looooong playlist--trust me, you don't want to know how many graduate without basic essay-writing skills. You just DON'T. Then there are the matters of making every lesson accessible to multiple types of learners, me being constantly reflective about what works and what doesn't, maintaining routines, and of course, breathing.

Still and all, I am delighted by what's possible--that silly, cocky freshmen who say things like 'these words are booty' when I give them SAT vocabulary will write circles around their competition on college apps; that their thinking will become sooo flexible that standardized tests are to them what a 2-mile run is to a cheetah; and that at least ONE student will say 'Ah HAH!' every say, week, maybe? Hmmm.

My students groan and talk A LOT about what they can't do, but all I can hear right now is my roar.

Carrots and Cousins

Yesterday was another sprinkled with challenge. Just as I attempted to begin my commute home with a time of solitude and sulking, my principal cheerfully invited me to "meet with a group of colleagues" in a classroom smack dab between mine and the exit. Oomph. For a lot of reasons I saw that it would be good to show my face, so I went.

As we all know, theory is the handsome cousin of practice, so things got dicey pretty quick.

The bottom line was we needed to agree on the bottom line, which was somewhere near a happy place where we consistently, fairly AND cooperatively worked to raise the bar for students and teachers.  Not only raise the bar but hold it in place and regularly inch it up as we see fit. In either case, I reached my limit before it was all done. I came, I saw, and I was conquered. And I remain frustrated because I love this work for the same reasons I could begin to loath it--the jumbled, contradictory, messy, emotive nature of human beings. Whether it's teenaged boys defying a school uniform policy, a career politico stumping for office or a two-year-old one breath from a tantrum, one thing rings true: To live is to struggle. The carrot on the proverbial stick I need to hold before my eyes is: Will I struggle for a solution or for MYSELF? And yes, in case you are wondering, I do consider each option the polar opposite of the other.

Nonetheless, in this moment I am still for the larger good, believing that much, much more is not only possible, but DO-able to make humans less human and more HUMANE. I hope I feel such a way next week, next year and next decade.

Really I do.

Got glue?

Tired. Coffee effects last about 20 minutes if I'm lucky. Lunch I so smartly packed Tuesday night and wisely carried in on Wednesday morning is still waiting (in the staff fridge) for a 10 minute microwave-finding-and-leftover-scarfing mission.

Hopefully, if I find all the king's horses and all the king's men to tend to my issues this weekend they'll do a better job than they did with HD.

Yet, there are many miles to go before I sleep...or just drop my face onto the keyboard, whichever comes first. Now, to make it through this Friday that's coming no matter what  I do.

The spirit vs. the letter

Last week a student protested my use of the phrase "having beef" as we discussed Romeo and Juliet. She said, in slightly different terms, that I should be using more academic terms, rather than those she hears everyday. I guess I encroached (academic word!) on her territory. I told her I appreciated her concern, that the phrase under scrutiny is one I use when talking to my own friends, but that I would curb such dalliances (another!) moving forward. Later during that same class she eagerly took down definitions of the words tactile and amorphous, which I happened to use in passing (but not because of her reproach, I don't think). As they wrote the definitions, I said these were words they should know and if they found use for them in their writings "that would be smooth," which drew a chuckle from another corner. I had slipped again!

I think she ignored me that time, and probably even pursed her lips in disgust.

The fact of the matter is that language delights me to no end. Be it formal or informal, I rather enjoy phrase twists, multiple entendres, and ironies--all of which slang often includes. So do the writings of Anna Quindlen, Christopher Hutchins, V.S. Naipaul and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. These sweet somethings are probably why editing holds a special place on the left side of my brain. They might even be (part of) the reason I write. I will even go so far as to say they are reason enough for me to claim myself a GREAT English teacher someday--once I get a few kinks worked out. 

One time, a friend with a fashion background looked at a pair of my shoes and mentioned they were boot-simulators, which tickled me to death. It was the first time I had heard the phrase, but it pleased me that it made perfect sense the instant I did. It was love at first hearing, if you will. I know: Weird. Nerdy. Whatever. Some people love cars like that and you don't judge them, so why look at me funny? It was a great use of words, I tell ya!

For too long, my house dictionary had fallen prey to my space-challenged shelving system, and had to hang uncomfortably behind a bookcase until the happy day that I got fed up with not seeing it whenever I wanted to. According to that important book, I am a logophile: noun. 1. A lover of words. [Emphasis added]. 

I am good with that, and so be it. 

I will probably have to discuss this seeming disparity to my student at some point this year--with gladness, because I really do appreciate that she wants her English teacher to "speak proper English," but I am not just an English teacher. 

Know-whut-ahm-sayin'?

Oh, JOY....

Today, I learned that a colleague celebrates Friday Eve, which is a completely credible entry for the Teacher's Lexicon. In this case it's even more appropriate because we begin a four-day weekend at 3:00 tomorrow. Perhaps it is student anxiety about not seeing their teachers for so long that explains the number of fights that broke out today. Perhaps.

In either case, fights in the hallways are one of the many things for which NYC schools are known, and not without reason. City kids have to be sure they can hold their own in the face of perceived or real threat--that's just thw way it is. Nonetheless, there are still adults AND young people who genuinely pursue learning every day in all kinds of NYC school buildings all over this magnificent city. Today, JH gave me quite the boost when he came to me after a particularly tough class meeting to say "I think I got it while you were giving the examples."

I hope he saw my heart skip a beat as I was answering another teacher's question, erasing and looking for a stack of stuff, but  I doubt he did. He thought he GOT IT, which means he was THINKING, which means he was LISTENING, which means he CARED enough to pay attention.

For those of you in the studio audience who have ever met and/or engaged in a conversation with a teen male on anything other than video games or sports, you will understand that this is big. Really big.

But WAIT! It gets better. The teen male in my life texted the following to me not an hour later: "3.8 GPA. Just sayin..." He got one B ("I don't like English. That's why.") and the the other grades are As and A-plusses.

YES!!!!!

This Magic Moment

The other day I learned that my 7-year-old best bud, who is in second grade, is on a 7th grade reading level. Seventh. Grade. Seven. Years. Old.

While there are likely many children doing similarly remarkable things, his story makes me quite happy, especially because last school year he was enrolled at a charter school (that shall remain nameless) run by people who all but handed him his hat and invited him to leave the stratosphere, and most definitely the school.

You see, my best bud is a VERY spirited young man with a steel trap of a mind, which he uses at the whim of his 7-year old emotions. Like just about any child, if he senses that one adult or another has dismissed him as a bother, he doesn't regard the matter fondly at all. At this nameless school, it seems the administration, which was heavy-laden with fresh-faced college grads who were both upwardly mobile and clueless, refused to reach beyond their OWN emotions and get to my buddy's extremely hungry mind. Too often and out loud they wondered if there were there problems at home, with his family or his very existence.  Never once in all the meetings his mother moved heaven and earth to arrange did they consider their own ineptitude, forged by inexperience, bigotry and good old-fashioned classism. My bud's mom told me about the scads of cash the parent body raised and the parental snubs that threatened budding friendships naturally formed during my bud's first grade days. Every time she told me of another incident, my skin crawled and my fingers twitched, wanting to write a tell-all in the local paper.  Rather than engage my vengefulness, my bud's mom held on, got him some support AND moved him to another school where being Other Than White and Monied was not a punishable crime. It was at his new school that he began to flourish like Michael Phelps, and his superfast mind was respected and understood as tough to manage in a 7-year-old body.

I believe an important take away is that while charter schools CAN be a good thing, they are NOT the answer. Quality education is to charter schools what fluffy pancakes are to a whisk--if you don't know what you're doing, you'll get flat results. As with all organized efforts involving humans (because the animal and plant communities just don't HAVE these problems), a school's quality really rests on the emotional, psychological, intellectual and spiritual health of its leaders. As they say, fish begin to stink from the head.

I believe another important tidbit this story offers is the ageless truth that ugly isn't divinely favored. On the first day of school this year, this stinky school experienced an unfortunate occurrence, forcing it to close its doors.

And it just so happens that the day I learned of my bud's Olympic reading feats was the same day I learned of the closing.

And I smiled. A lot.

Mission: Possible

My mission for this year, which I have chosen to accept, is to get my students to read, write, think, speak and listen in a manner consistent with post-high school readiness.

It's a good thing I'm not afraid of the Big Bad Wolf. At ALL.

We begin Romeo and Juliet on Monday (not my first choice at all, but there has been some unattractive snafu with book ordering. I REALLY wanted Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun), and as of this moment, I am in no small amount of denial that has caused me to put off planning--not to mention my desire to enjoy what amounted to a rather pleasant Saturday. ANYWAY, the time has come; I must go big or go home, and the latter is not an option at all.

So for Monday, all I need to do is:

• Plan an air-tight week of lessons to get 6 girls and 36 boys on the same page as we embark on a quest to discover how identity (my chosen theme for the year) seems to impact the motivations of the Montagues and Capulets and similarly, the motivations of my very students;
• Plan such that I can achieve this air-tightness with or without technology. This is important because as of this moment, I have not yet received a laptop with which to use my absolutely magnificent SMARTBoard, which is mounted very conspicuously over the EXACT portion of the good old-fashioned chalkboard that I would love to be able to use in the absence of digital technologies, which I would also love to use. (On Friday, the AP said he'd like me "to use the SMARTBoard every day." I second that motion.);
• NOT become unglued thinking about the many ways the above two bullets can go wrong.

Sounds do-able.

P.S. Like my poster? Two of my kids (not students, biological) helped me color it by hand. Coloring never gets old.

The students are coming! The students are coming!

In less than eight hours, I will embark on the ACTUAL first day, featuring kids fresh squeezed from middle school. Today I finished a book that I hope will inform what I do well this year. It's called READING DON'T FIX NO CHEVYS: LITERACY IN THE LIVES OF YOUNG MEN. Great, great, great book saying some really important things about the way young men deal with information gathering. The Big News is that what teachers of English have been doing for years has very little to do with what many young men care about.
Do we discuss cleverly subtle canonical works or have them research topics that get them genuinely excited? Do we lecture at them about how they had better appreciate Shakespeare, or have them research the points of intersection their lives and Billy's plays have in common? Or is it even mandatory that Billy be a part of a class intended to prepare students for life beyond high school?
Did I mention that one of the first things the assistant principal told me when we first met is that this high school is 90 percent boys?
Of questions there is no limit. OK, I'll check in again from the other side of today, if I still have brains left.
Ciao for now...

On pitbulls and progress....

I first noticed the vigorous head nods, perhaps reflexive and a part of a standard listening pose, or maybe not. Turns out what I was seeing was the canary in the mine.

Did I ever mention that the most troublesome people group in education is NOT the kids? Had my departmental meeting today. BOOM! What do you get when you give a high-strung (and insecure) pit bull caffeine and a task to perform in concert WITH other (not necessarily shy and retiring) dogs? CRASH!!! You really don't want to know, trust me.

And I will move on...to the highlights:

The principal embarrassed me in front of the staff with a story of how she wished she had a camera to capture my face when she first showed me my class;

I met more funny, experienced, helpful and nice co-workers;

A few of those co-workers seemed genuinely pleased with my neurotic efforts to decorate my room, which was quite nice.

Despite the challenges, the departmental meeting DID yield a product, though it is still in development.

Did I mention that the first day of school has long been a source of bittersweet euphoria for me? Though every summer I mourned the incremental shortening of days as of June 22, everything from pencil sharpeners to new packs of pens made me downright giddy. It still does! This time I will actually KNOW what the teacher is like--the anticipation of which used to keep me awake on First Day Eve--but that brings little comfort under the inevitable scrutiny of 60-odd pairs of eyeballs. YIKES. N-E-way...

Now BACK to focusing on the First Day Prep for the other students in my household, for we are many. More from the trenches later.

Zero and counting...

I managed to get a sign up outside my door on Friday. It took much more effort than I willing to admit. Tomorrow I go in for teacher orientation and will hopefully get answers to the plethora of questions I have about logistics, statistics and everything in between. The one thing I believe will never get old about this is there is ALWAYS something to learn.

Though I never met with the teachers in my department, I do have a good deal of my lessons for the first several days written out, though much of it is on mental sheet of paper. I hope I will have a chance to meet with the other English teachers tomorrow. Or Wednesday, which is the last day before students fill the halls. Also wondering about the best garb for day one, though I am completely resolved that it will be nothing less than "don't even TRY me; for real."

OK, now to get more of those words from that cerebral document to the real thing....