Friday, March 26, 2004
Cold Comfort
You're going to have to trust me when I tell you this: 60 pounds of dry ice is too much for one man.
That is all.
You're going to have to trust me when I tell you this: 60 pounds of dry ice is too much for one man.
That is all.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
The Vet: R.I.P.
This morning at approximately 7:00 E.S.T., Veteran's Stadium, the first baseball park where I ever saw a major league game, will be demolished. As a lifelong Phillies fan, I have fond memories of the Vet, despite its well acknowledged shortcomings as a baseball park. Yes it was ugly, yes it was too big and had poor sight lines, yes it had too few urinals...but it was the Vet! The only place I got to see Mike Schmidt play, before he retired, and I grew up in a state without a team of its own.
Maybe my memories on the subject are overly tinged with sentimentality. After all, every time I went there it was with my father and/or grandfather, and thanks to the latter's connections, I was given the chance to watch the game from the Superbox once or twice. But I'm still going to miss the Vet and all the things it represented. And when they knock it down tomorrow morning, the part of me that is six years old forever and loves baseball, all its promise and symbolism, will be crying. Because it just won't be the same once they knock down that park. Nothing ever is...
This morning at approximately 7:00 E.S.T., Veteran's Stadium, the first baseball park where I ever saw a major league game, will be demolished. As a lifelong Phillies fan, I have fond memories of the Vet, despite its well acknowledged shortcomings as a baseball park. Yes it was ugly, yes it was too big and had poor sight lines, yes it had too few urinals...but it was the Vet! The only place I got to see Mike Schmidt play, before he retired, and I grew up in a state without a team of its own.
Maybe my memories on the subject are overly tinged with sentimentality. After all, every time I went there it was with my father and/or grandfather, and thanks to the latter's connections, I was given the chance to watch the game from the Superbox once or twice. But I'm still going to miss the Vet and all the things it represented. And when they knock it down tomorrow morning, the part of me that is six years old forever and loves baseball, all its promise and symbolism, will be crying. Because it just won't be the same once they knock down that park. Nothing ever is...
Saturday, March 20, 2004
Watch out Jim Calhoun...
The past two weeks, Underwood High School had hosted its own unique version of March Madness in the form of an intramural basketball tournament between the 16 freshman homerooms. The idea was conceived by the administration as a way to get students to show up on time, and I have to say...it worked. The freshman class had never been more excited than while discussing this event.
Since I happen to have my very own freshman homeroom, this meant that I had been thrust into the role of "coach." Not that the job was really necessary or required. My homeroom students, regardless of any problems some of them might have conforming to my comparatively conservative position on appropriate classroom behavior, are excellent basketball players. My job, as I saw it, was to show up, offer encouragement, and provide much needed early morning sustenance in the form of Tastykakes (or their cousins, Tastydonuts). People may have chuckled at first at my pastry bearing ways, but by the end it was clear (in the words of another teacher) that "that white boy really had his team together."
I can't claim any real credit for it. Although I will note that my tactics, even if they never helped, certainly never hurt my players' chances. Because last Wednesday, about a dozen of my students showed up and dominated the opposition in the championship match, with a score of 36-12. It was beautiful.
I can only hope that the strong sense of camaraderie that has developed among my homeroom will last beyond the tournament and the inevitable game against the faculty.
Now my students have been asking the million dollar question: Will I be participating in the student-faculty matchup?
I haven't decided yet, so if you have thoughts on the subject feel free to send them along.
The past two weeks, Underwood High School had hosted its own unique version of March Madness in the form of an intramural basketball tournament between the 16 freshman homerooms. The idea was conceived by the administration as a way to get students to show up on time, and I have to say...it worked. The freshman class had never been more excited than while discussing this event.
Since I happen to have my very own freshman homeroom, this meant that I had been thrust into the role of "coach." Not that the job was really necessary or required. My homeroom students, regardless of any problems some of them might have conforming to my comparatively conservative position on appropriate classroom behavior, are excellent basketball players. My job, as I saw it, was to show up, offer encouragement, and provide much needed early morning sustenance in the form of Tastykakes (or their cousins, Tastydonuts). People may have chuckled at first at my pastry bearing ways, but by the end it was clear (in the words of another teacher) that "that white boy really had his team together."
I can't claim any real credit for it. Although I will note that my tactics, even if they never helped, certainly never hurt my players' chances. Because last Wednesday, about a dozen of my students showed up and dominated the opposition in the championship match, with a score of 36-12. It was beautiful.
I can only hope that the strong sense of camaraderie that has developed among my homeroom will last beyond the tournament and the inevitable game against the faculty.
Now my students have been asking the million dollar question: Will I be participating in the student-faculty matchup?
I haven't decided yet, so if you have thoughts on the subject feel free to send them along.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
A compliment and a comparison
Part 1: One of the kids in my homeroom attempted to sit in on my last period class today. Unfortunately he did so to avoid going to his math class. In an attempt to understand his reasoning, I asked him what they were learning.
"Nothing." he said.
"C'mon," I replied. "That's not true. You always learn something in math! Even if it doesn't seem that way..."
"Nope. She don't teach nothing."
"You know," I said. "Some people say the same thing about me."
"That's not true," one of my students replied. "Even if its boring at least you teach something in here..."
It was the closest thing to a compliment I had heard in a long time. The credibility of its source was slightly undermined when he fell asleep for the majority of the period and had to be woken up five minutes after dismissal.
2. One of my closets friends at Underwood is the school psychologist, Dr. Piaget. Given the stresses of first year teaching, the appeal of having a psychologist as a friend is understandable. But I consider myself particularly fortunate (some might say uncannily so) to be placed at the same school as Dr. P., who in addition to being a highly qualified behavioral psychologist is also a close family friend who has known me since I was in utero. (Believe it...or not!) In any case, Dr. P's son lives in Tel Aviv, a city which has been in the news lately and not for the most positive of reasons. Apparently a few hours after the last terrorist bombing, the son called home to let his folks know he was ok. When Dr. P. expressed some concern he quipped that "where I am right now is safer than where you are, so don't worry!"
Cold comfort, if you ask me...
Part 1: One of the kids in my homeroom attempted to sit in on my last period class today. Unfortunately he did so to avoid going to his math class. In an attempt to understand his reasoning, I asked him what they were learning.
"Nothing." he said.
"C'mon," I replied. "That's not true. You always learn something in math! Even if it doesn't seem that way..."
"Nope. She don't teach nothing."
"You know," I said. "Some people say the same thing about me."
"That's not true," one of my students replied. "Even if its boring at least you teach something in here..."
It was the closest thing to a compliment I had heard in a long time. The credibility of its source was slightly undermined when he fell asleep for the majority of the period and had to be woken up five minutes after dismissal.
2. One of my closets friends at Underwood is the school psychologist, Dr. Piaget. Given the stresses of first year teaching, the appeal of having a psychologist as a friend is understandable. But I consider myself particularly fortunate (some might say uncannily so) to be placed at the same school as Dr. P., who in addition to being a highly qualified behavioral psychologist is also a close family friend who has known me since I was in utero. (Believe it...or not!) In any case, Dr. P's son lives in Tel Aviv, a city which has been in the news lately and not for the most positive of reasons. Apparently a few hours after the last terrorist bombing, the son called home to let his folks know he was ok. When Dr. P. expressed some concern he quipped that "where I am right now is safer than where you are, so don't worry!"
Cold comfort, if you ask me...
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Holla at my back!
There is a young lady in my last period physical science class who is what people used to call a real pistol. Nowadays they would probably call her something a lot less polite. If you were to ask me about her performance in my class, I would tell you that she was rather bright and liked volunteering in class because more often than not, she got the answers right. I would then proceed to demolish this rather friendly portrait I had created by mentioning that this girl has a dangerously volatile temper and actually had the gall to cuss me out for 5 straight minutes at the start of the semester. I guess I deserved it for asking her to move her seat...
In any case, it turns out this young lady is a cheerleader, so clever fellow that I am, I decide to chat with the head of the cheerleading squad the following week and lo and behold: a noticable upswing in behavior.
But the old saying holds true in the end—you can’t get the leopard to change its spots. Today, at the end of class, she decided to interrupt my discussion of the homework for the coming evening, claiming that if I didn’t hurry up, she’d start cussing.
I didn’t take too much longer with my spiel and let my students out within a minute or two. The way some of them act though, you’d think the world was ending at 3:05 and if they didn’t leave my classroom before then, they would never see their friends or loved ones ever again. So I pull the girl aside, and I explain that while she is one of the brighter students in my class she has to watch her temper. Even if one can’t always controls how one feels, one can control how one acts.
“No, I can’t,” she said. “I was raised to speak my mind, and if I get frustrated, I’m gonna cuss you out!”
I stammered a few words in reply...after all this time, I still have trouble accepting the blatant disrespect. She had put me on the defensive and in this game, defense equals defeat.
Despite a feeble attempt at rational argument, the end result was her storming off (on crutches no less, due to a previous injury) to meet the ride she was so sure would not wait for her another two minutes while we were talking about her success (or failure) in my class!
She would not listen.
“Holla at my back!” she yelled as her friends commended her for “givin’ your teacher shit even while you’re on crutches.”
“Holla at my back!”
Some would claim that the fault lies with me. That my rules or consequences are not strict enough...that I have been overly lax in my treatment of this student. While there may be some validity to this, I also feel this case unfortunately justifies my already pessimistic conclusion about the state of modern urban education. If students like this girl can not stomach their pride and recognize that there are people in this world who have more experience than they do and may actually know about the subjects that they teach, then there is no hope for America’s children.
The source of this delusion...that all authority figures are necessarily buffoons, charlatans, or tricksters...is perpetuated through a variety of means. Until we as a society can break down that perception, I and my fellow teachers will have no other alternative but to keep hollerin’ at the backs of our students as they hobble down the halls away from their own future, blindly celebrating a victory whose transitory nature they may never ultimately perceive.
There is a young lady in my last period physical science class who is what people used to call a real pistol. Nowadays they would probably call her something a lot less polite. If you were to ask me about her performance in my class, I would tell you that she was rather bright and liked volunteering in class because more often than not, she got the answers right. I would then proceed to demolish this rather friendly portrait I had created by mentioning that this girl has a dangerously volatile temper and actually had the gall to cuss me out for 5 straight minutes at the start of the semester. I guess I deserved it for asking her to move her seat...
In any case, it turns out this young lady is a cheerleader, so clever fellow that I am, I decide to chat with the head of the cheerleading squad the following week and lo and behold: a noticable upswing in behavior.
But the old saying holds true in the end—you can’t get the leopard to change its spots. Today, at the end of class, she decided to interrupt my discussion of the homework for the coming evening, claiming that if I didn’t hurry up, she’d start cussing.
I didn’t take too much longer with my spiel and let my students out within a minute or two. The way some of them act though, you’d think the world was ending at 3:05 and if they didn’t leave my classroom before then, they would never see their friends or loved ones ever again. So I pull the girl aside, and I explain that while she is one of the brighter students in my class she has to watch her temper. Even if one can’t always controls how one feels, one can control how one acts.
“No, I can’t,” she said. “I was raised to speak my mind, and if I get frustrated, I’m gonna cuss you out!”
I stammered a few words in reply...after all this time, I still have trouble accepting the blatant disrespect. She had put me on the defensive and in this game, defense equals defeat.
Despite a feeble attempt at rational argument, the end result was her storming off (on crutches no less, due to a previous injury) to meet the ride she was so sure would not wait for her another two minutes while we were talking about her success (or failure) in my class!
She would not listen.
“Holla at my back!” she yelled as her friends commended her for “givin’ your teacher shit even while you’re on crutches.”
“Holla at my back!”
Some would claim that the fault lies with me. That my rules or consequences are not strict enough...that I have been overly lax in my treatment of this student. While there may be some validity to this, I also feel this case unfortunately justifies my already pessimistic conclusion about the state of modern urban education. If students like this girl can not stomach their pride and recognize that there are people in this world who have more experience than they do and may actually know about the subjects that they teach, then there is no hope for America’s children.
The source of this delusion...that all authority figures are necessarily buffoons, charlatans, or tricksters...is perpetuated through a variety of means. Until we as a society can break down that perception, I and my fellow teachers will have no other alternative but to keep hollerin’ at the backs of our students as they hobble down the halls away from their own future, blindly celebrating a victory whose transitory nature they may never ultimately perceive.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Behind Locked Doors
Every so often I volunteer in the Underwood High School Discipline Office. The school has two chief disciplinarians, Mr. McDonald and Mr. Cogan. Both have been in the business for years and are quite skilled in their work. And let me tell you the task is not an easy one. They have a large office in the basement, one that is twice as large as the standard classroom. There is a reason for its size. Dozens of students are sent down for discipline each day for every conceivable reason, ranging from the minor (wearing a hat in violation of school dress code) to the extreme (smuggling drugs...or trying to through the metal detectors). According to Mr. McDonald, the same kids come in everyday. It's a veritable gallery of rogues, the same lineups of usual suspects on an unceasing rotation, in the door, out the door, in the door, out the door, and so on. And that's not even including the kids who come in asking for a key to the bathroom. Everyday. Like clockwork, or so they tell me. And that despite receiving the same answers every time. There is no key to be found in the discipline office.
Originally I only visited when there were discipline problems that needed to be resolved in my classes. Now I go down there in search of management strategies. The students remain challenging and defiant in my classroom, and no one proves quite as effective at asserting influence over the student body as the school police and the disciplinarians. They have a keen grasp of power, how it works and how to wield it. And for some reason their threats seem to stick where mine slide away off the Teflon coating of my students' apathetic disdain. We have a symbiotic relationship, the disciplinarians and I. They let me stick around and watch them work, and in exchange, I file paperwork or sign suspension slips. Doing what needs to be done. In some ways being a disciplinarian is a far more straightforward job than being an educator. And despite having to deal with the very worst of the students...the violent, disruptive, or criminally insane...at the end of the day, the work stays at school. How they get through the day, I'm still not sure. Maybe it's good humor, cynicism tempered by amusement at the addled and looking-glass cracked view of the world the students hold as the enter the office. Students who swear so much they don't know they're cursing, or present a story with bald faced contradcitions so blatant and so insurmountable, that most outsiders simply could not understand it. No...there is no clearly obvious key to their battle hardened determination, at least, none that I can see in the discipline office.
As I was filing suspension notices on Monday, for example, we had one student who had been sent downstairs for insulting a teacher after she asked him to put his comb away during class. I was there along with Mr. McDonald and Ms. Wintergood (a math teacher who has a long history of volunteering with the disciplinarians), and we listened to this story with amusement as he told how the teacher obviously was trying to "play him." It wasn't the rule, he claimed, that made him so angry, but the teacher's means of enforcing it. She was trying to be smart, through her words and body language. (Being smart, as I have mentioned before, is a derogatory thing in the context of Underwood student culture. The nearest I can translate, it means "rude" or "insulting") I sat there marveling and trying desperately not to intervene as Ms. Wintergood elaborated on the ideal nature of the teacher-student relationship.(i.e. If a teacher asks a student to do something, they should do it...especially if it involves calssroom management.) Eventually I chimed in with one comment: Not all teachers are out to play you. We are trying to work towards a greater good in our classrooms. But this comment only provoked scoffs from the others in the room: chuckles at my idealism and naivete from the veteran teachers and grumbles of stifled belief from the youngster. I thought I could unlock this student's potential, but he was a senior, and there was no key in the discipline office.
Finally that day, Mr. McDonald took me aside and showed me something fascinating. "You know what, Mr. _____ ?" he began. "Let me show you what the students at this school are capable of and why security is the way it is around here." He walked over to one of the two smaller rooms adjoining the main office. He unlocked the door and revealed it to be the storage room for confiscated cell phones, CD players and other such contraband that students attempt to bring to school through the metal detectors.
"Mr. _____, let me explain. The kids from the south or far northeast parts of the city, they are never late. They take the bus every day, they have a set itinerary, and even if it takes them an hour and a half to get to school, they get here on time. I would strongly prefer to let these students carry a CD player with them on the bus. They deserve to listen to some music during their trip. But I can't do that. And you want to know why?" Here I said it was because students were using the players in class rather than studying. And I was partly right. But there was more to it!
"No...we can't let CD players in because kids were using them to smuggle razor blades into the school." Apparently, some genius figured out that if you take the batteries out of a standard size CD player, you can use it to smuggle in a 5 pack of razor blades. All of the CD players in his office...9 mailing crates worth if you can believe it, the thought that they could all be bringing in razor blades to the school seems both absurd and terrifying. Impossible and yet intimidating, all at the same time. So now they confiscate them at the door, along with the cell phones which were being used to sell dope.
"But it doesn't stop there," McDonald continued. "Now kids are still smuggling in razor blades, they just hide them in their mouths."
It was about then that my jaw really hit the floor. The raw violence in this world, this blackboard jungle, the fear and hatred that must exist such that students would be driven to smuggle razor blades in their mouths to a place of learning. I pondered this as I watched Mr. McDonald take the CD player he had used to demonstrate the razor smuggling and place it gingerly back in its crate. Here in the United States, we live in a civilized world, a sanitized world, an idealized world of idealized dreams. The bloody savage side of human nature is still very much alive beneath the surface, and I can see it in the youth. Just a week ago, there was a shooting outside Underwood. No one was hurt, thankfully, but the kid was a repeat offender who was involved in the death of an officer (to a heart attack following a struggle) the year before. And now he's back, this time with a gun. One of my students shot himself a few weeks back. He showed up for the first time in weeks in my class on Tuesday. He's gone again. And who knows where? What is one to do in the face of such tragedy? Each day I ponder this question and look to my colleagues for inspiration. I think the disciplinarians may be on to something with their three ring circus view of the immature barbarity around them.
Still, as I watched Mr. McDonald relock the confiscated materials locker, one certainty was confirmed. There is no quick fix to the problems of the Underwood High School community or similar communities in cities across the country. There is no easy way to bear the pain. There is no key to success to be found in the discipline office. Just new insights, new possibilities, and a few new ideas that I might incorporate into my own preexistent attitudes and maybe become more capable of controlling the frustrations of both myself and my students.
And with that thought in my mind and our conversation ended, I bid farewell to Mr. McDonald and the discipline office, and left to unlock my classroom for third period.
Every so often I volunteer in the Underwood High School Discipline Office. The school has two chief disciplinarians, Mr. McDonald and Mr. Cogan. Both have been in the business for years and are quite skilled in their work. And let me tell you the task is not an easy one. They have a large office in the basement, one that is twice as large as the standard classroom. There is a reason for its size. Dozens of students are sent down for discipline each day for every conceivable reason, ranging from the minor (wearing a hat in violation of school dress code) to the extreme (smuggling drugs...or trying to through the metal detectors). According to Mr. McDonald, the same kids come in everyday. It's a veritable gallery of rogues, the same lineups of usual suspects on an unceasing rotation, in the door, out the door, in the door, out the door, and so on. And that's not even including the kids who come in asking for a key to the bathroom. Everyday. Like clockwork, or so they tell me. And that despite receiving the same answers every time. There is no key to be found in the discipline office.
Originally I only visited when there were discipline problems that needed to be resolved in my classes. Now I go down there in search of management strategies. The students remain challenging and defiant in my classroom, and no one proves quite as effective at asserting influence over the student body as the school police and the disciplinarians. They have a keen grasp of power, how it works and how to wield it. And for some reason their threats seem to stick where mine slide away off the Teflon coating of my students' apathetic disdain. We have a symbiotic relationship, the disciplinarians and I. They let me stick around and watch them work, and in exchange, I file paperwork or sign suspension slips. Doing what needs to be done. In some ways being a disciplinarian is a far more straightforward job than being an educator. And despite having to deal with the very worst of the students...the violent, disruptive, or criminally insane...at the end of the day, the work stays at school. How they get through the day, I'm still not sure. Maybe it's good humor, cynicism tempered by amusement at the addled and looking-glass cracked view of the world the students hold as the enter the office. Students who swear so much they don't know they're cursing, or present a story with bald faced contradcitions so blatant and so insurmountable, that most outsiders simply could not understand it. No...there is no clearly obvious key to their battle hardened determination, at least, none that I can see in the discipline office.
As I was filing suspension notices on Monday, for example, we had one student who had been sent downstairs for insulting a teacher after she asked him to put his comb away during class. I was there along with Mr. McDonald and Ms. Wintergood (a math teacher who has a long history of volunteering with the disciplinarians), and we listened to this story with amusement as he told how the teacher obviously was trying to "play him." It wasn't the rule, he claimed, that made him so angry, but the teacher's means of enforcing it. She was trying to be smart, through her words and body language. (Being smart, as I have mentioned before, is a derogatory thing in the context of Underwood student culture. The nearest I can translate, it means "rude" or "insulting") I sat there marveling and trying desperately not to intervene as Ms. Wintergood elaborated on the ideal nature of the teacher-student relationship.(i.e. If a teacher asks a student to do something, they should do it...especially if it involves calssroom management.) Eventually I chimed in with one comment: Not all teachers are out to play you. We are trying to work towards a greater good in our classrooms. But this comment only provoked scoffs from the others in the room: chuckles at my idealism and naivete from the veteran teachers and grumbles of stifled belief from the youngster. I thought I could unlock this student's potential, but he was a senior, and there was no key in the discipline office.
Finally that day, Mr. McDonald took me aside and showed me something fascinating. "You know what, Mr. _____ ?" he began. "Let me show you what the students at this school are capable of and why security is the way it is around here." He walked over to one of the two smaller rooms adjoining the main office. He unlocked the door and revealed it to be the storage room for confiscated cell phones, CD players and other such contraband that students attempt to bring to school through the metal detectors.
"Mr. _____, let me explain. The kids from the south or far northeast parts of the city, they are never late. They take the bus every day, they have a set itinerary, and even if it takes them an hour and a half to get to school, they get here on time. I would strongly prefer to let these students carry a CD player with them on the bus. They deserve to listen to some music during their trip. But I can't do that. And you want to know why?" Here I said it was because students were using the players in class rather than studying. And I was partly right. But there was more to it!
"No...we can't let CD players in because kids were using them to smuggle razor blades into the school." Apparently, some genius figured out that if you take the batteries out of a standard size CD player, you can use it to smuggle in a 5 pack of razor blades. All of the CD players in his office...9 mailing crates worth if you can believe it, the thought that they could all be bringing in razor blades to the school seems both absurd and terrifying. Impossible and yet intimidating, all at the same time. So now they confiscate them at the door, along with the cell phones which were being used to sell dope.
"But it doesn't stop there," McDonald continued. "Now kids are still smuggling in razor blades, they just hide them in their mouths."
It was about then that my jaw really hit the floor. The raw violence in this world, this blackboard jungle, the fear and hatred that must exist such that students would be driven to smuggle razor blades in their mouths to a place of learning. I pondered this as I watched Mr. McDonald take the CD player he had used to demonstrate the razor smuggling and place it gingerly back in its crate. Here in the United States, we live in a civilized world, a sanitized world, an idealized world of idealized dreams. The bloody savage side of human nature is still very much alive beneath the surface, and I can see it in the youth. Just a week ago, there was a shooting outside Underwood. No one was hurt, thankfully, but the kid was a repeat offender who was involved in the death of an officer (to a heart attack following a struggle) the year before. And now he's back, this time with a gun. One of my students shot himself a few weeks back. He showed up for the first time in weeks in my class on Tuesday. He's gone again. And who knows where? What is one to do in the face of such tragedy? Each day I ponder this question and look to my colleagues for inspiration. I think the disciplinarians may be on to something with their three ring circus view of the immature barbarity around them.
Still, as I watched Mr. McDonald relock the confiscated materials locker, one certainty was confirmed. There is no quick fix to the problems of the Underwood High School community or similar communities in cities across the country. There is no easy way to bear the pain. There is no key to success to be found in the discipline office. Just new insights, new possibilities, and a few new ideas that I might incorporate into my own preexistent attitudes and maybe become more capable of controlling the frustrations of both myself and my students.
And with that thought in my mind and our conversation ended, I bid farewell to Mr. McDonald and the discipline office, and left to unlock my classroom for third period.
