You can see it from Mississippi.

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Here are two stories about a teacher I've heard first hand. I'm going to call her Mrs. Adams.

On the first day of school Mrs. Adams told her students that she would take them to the office and paddle them (it's legal in Mississippi) for misbehavior, to which a student responded, "My momma told me to hit you in the face if you touched me." Mrs. Adams remained calm and waited until students were on their way out of the room to deal with the situation. While the class was walking out the door, she told the student in question to wait. As soon as everyone was out of the room and said, "Stand up! It's time for you to be a man. You go ahead and hit me in the face. Go ahead. I can't wait 'till you do, 'cause when you do they're going to have to pry me off of you. The po-lice can charge me, that's fine. The only question is whether the charge will be aggrevated assault or murder. And then I'll be sitting in my cell just thinking to myself, 'Is he dead?'" She hasn't had many problems with him this year.

Yesterday Mrs. Adams had a parent came in after school to address concerns about something Mrs. Adams said to her daughter. The student used to be one of mine (before we went back to self-contained classrooms). As I understand it, the student's mom claimed that Mrs. Adams had called her daughter a liar. The mother was expecting an apology. But, as Mrs. Adams put it, "She didn't realize I'm not workin' with a full deck." Not surprisingly, the two got into an argument, which quickly escalated to yelling and the parent "jumping" at the teacher. At this point another teacher saw what was going on and rushed in. The second teacher, usually shy and reserved pulled some bass out of her timid voice and yelled at the other two. She told Mrs. Adams to sit down and the parent to go to the front of the school. Mrs. Adams sat down and the parent left, perhaps realizing that Mrs. Adams' was actually ready to throw down. Had the two not been separated, there would definitely have been a fight between these two juggernauts. Mrs. Adams told us that she would absolutely would not have backed down. Plus, she's in the theacher's union, so she'd be protected legally.

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Here's a picture from yesterday. This is my school's first annual 'Fall Festival.' I was working the football toss, which raked in $50 worth of tickets. It was basically the "who's the most macho" booth. The easy, medium, and hard targets to hit were labeled "Michael Vick," "Tom Brady," and "Daunte Culpepper." Starr will probably post something about his fantasy football prowess if I don't qualify that order. My kids are all obsessed with Michael Vick, one kid in particular. He even wrote a paper about why Michael Vick is better than Tom Brady. I egged him on to get him to write more by saying, "What about Vick's injuries? What about the Patriots' streak?" Now whenever Vick has a bad day I make sure to mention that to him, etc. The booth was just another one of my anti-Vick games I play with him.

Anyhow, this was a 12 hour workday. 9 staff members were absent the following day because we were so beat. On the other side of the camera is the whole festival. I was in the back.

Oh, and that tie is some cheap clip-on tie that my school gave me to give away as a prize. It wasn't a very popular prize. I bet it would fare better at UVA.

Posted by at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I came home from school on Friday and my roommate called me in to see CNN's Crossfire show. Jon Stewart was the guest and instead of plugging his new book, he tore into the format of the show and Tucker Carlson. Any further description won't do the clip justice. Watch it.

Jon Stewart On Crossfire

(transcript of show)

Posted by at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

In the midst of all the awfulness that life has been serving on a daily basis I start thinking about being home. I could be working in the California Assembly, Senate, or maybe in one of those coveted positions in the executive branch. I could be playing on Excel every day, making projections, advancing events for public figures, and going to political events all the time at night.

Anyhow, today a kid came up to me today and handed me the below brochure and post cards from home. I was dumbfounded. He informed me that he got them when he visited the desert and that I could keep them. It was somehow odd that post cards from somewhere I'd lived my whole life were so special to me. Maybe it's because I never expected it in the middle of teaching a lesson in the Mississippi Delta. I don't know if it's a good thing. On the one hand, it brightened my day. On the other, I was happy to be face-to-face with something other than teaching and Greenville. Maybe it was good overall because it made me smile.

I've decided to post them for others from the Coachella Valley who are stuck away to come back to someday and look at. Maybe it will bring smiles to others' faces too.

(Me and Lindsay in Joshua Tree Nat'l Park)

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October used to mean that it's time for World Series playoffs and a flu shot. Now it means it's time for World Series playoffs, a flu shot, and everlasting bad days at work ... if you're a first year teacher. According to the graph to the right, disillusionment begins to set in for first year teachers. The disillusionment phase is described as:

After six to eight weeks of nonstop work and stress, new teachers enter the disillusionment phase. The intensity and length of the phase varies among new teachers. The extensive time commitment, the realization that things are probably not going as smoothly as they want, and low morale contribute to this period of disenchantment. New teachers begin questioning both their commitment and their competence. Many new teachers get sick during this phase.

Any of the people I've somehow managed to keep in touch with can tell you that nonstop stress and work is my entire existence. As for low morale and things not going my way, I may have hit bottom yesterday afternoon.

Let me back up to Wednesday to explain that story. Things were clearly not going well, especially with one of my classes. I attribute this first to my age. Students see me and expect me to let them do whatever they damn well please. They don't see me as a teacher. When I don't let them get away with what they want, I employ sequential consequences in hopes that they will get the message that I'm there to teach and they are there to learn. Weeks of this should have resulted in a class that is manageable, just like TFA told me, right? No, not these kids. It turned into a constant battle between them and me about me being too strict. Kids openly challenged me and complained to administrators or parents. There seem to be other factors into the madness, but not respecting me is the most significant. It got to a point last Wednesday where my principal said that we should go back to self contained classrooms (teacher teaches ALL subjects). We had a week to see if we could turn things around.

So, on Thursday my team teacher and I made changes to the classroom policies to show the children that we were willing to work with them. We in turn had a discussion about our expectations for them and theirs for us. Things seemed to be good. Thursday's instruction went very well. Students were engaged and learning in groups. Friday was similar, though students were testing the limits once again.

Here's where things took a dive. We were playing kickball Friday afternoon and there was an injury. It doesn't look like it's going to be a huge deal, probably just a bruised shin. Anyhow, while the injured student was crying on the field I had to take both classes into my team teacher's room and wait for my team teacher to return. When we got in there it turned into the scene from Kindergarten Cop when the kids go crazy. Students were running around, yelling, screaming, the whole deal. I raised my voice and told students to sit down and be quiet. I tried to isolate pockets of misbehavior, but nothing was working; it was chaos. At this point I got pissed, threw the dodge ball against the wall, and screamed. This turned into Mr. Hughes throwing things at students, though the ball didn't come near any students. In retrospect, I might have tried simply starting to write names down for later parent calls. But, seriously, I'm still very new at this. I guess I can do that next time.

Yesterday after school let out I began to wonder whether I would have a job or not next week. I also wondered if I even wanted a job next week. As it turned out, both classes will definitely go back to self containment. We'll see how it goes from there.

Oh, and I do feel like I might be getting sick. I've also stopped shaving.

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