Do You Understand What I'm Saying?

Community begins with shared agreements,
We create the world for our kids.
We create the space -- too many prisons; not enough colleges:
Who is in each of those two locations? Look at the statistics.
You come out and help our community.

Imagine consequences beyond punishment --
Include rehabilitation.
Include the arts.
They're hungry to make human-to-human contact.
We can't write off anybody.
That's what we do in this culture.
His English teacher once told him he'd never amount to anything.

Real confidence,
Real wisdom,
Real awareness.

"I'm either gonna be a prey or a predator."
The only choices some kids feel they have.
You have to give them a sense of their own beauty.

We have to let them make mistakes,
Teach them how to be balanced and
How to relate to human beings.

What we're doign is not working.
You understand what I'm saying.
Everybody is worth fighting for.

The arts are the single-most important thing to cutting the violence.
We have to respect each other.
It starts by respecting our kids.

Cell phones rings. Babies cry. Muttering. Talking. Whispering.
Echoing through the small middle-school gym.
Yelling. Screaming?
Outside leaks in through the open doors.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

If we don't learn how to draw out the beauty in our young people,
They will turn that beauty to violence.
Some of them will turn that beauty to violence.

We have to listen to them
Because they are telling the truth.
They deserve to live.

Do you understand what I'm saying?






Maybe I'm breaking the first rule of publishing by publishing this rough, rough draft, but I wanted to get it up so I could work on it. I saw Louis Rodriguez speak at a local middle school a week or so ago, and this is a "found poem" from the notes I took. Some of the lines are quotes (or as near as I could get with my pen and program). Some are impressions and paraphrases -- they are my notes.

It was an amazing speech from a man who survived la vida loca in East L.A. and is now a critically-acclaimed Chicano poet and author. I purchased his memoir, Always Running. It is as disheartening as it is heartening, because these kids are dealing with the same things.

If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem. The problem is, I'm not exactly sure which side I fall on. Do I toe the party line too much? Are my standards good and high? Am I too concerned with the standards? Have I been sucked into the high-stakes testing model? Do I connect with them enough? Do I give them enough opportunities to share? Do I give them enough options? Do I? Am I? Can I? Do I? Over and over. Will I ever know if it's enough?

While We're on the Subject

I got a note from a Student today. Her Friend is afraid she might be pregnant. There was some, er, spillage so she took some birth conrol pills. But Student told her it might not work, so now Friend is worried. What do I think?

Well, I wrote back, it depends on a lot of things. Is Friend on birth control? Did she take the morning after pill, or just some random birth control pills? Yes, the morning after pill is a high dose of birth control, but I have no idea what the dosage is. The best way to be sure is to take a pregnancy test. The over-the-counter ones are pretty good, especially if you wait five days after the incident to allow the body to build up the pregnancy hormone to detectable levels. Beyond that... Well, if Friend is sexually active, she could get pregnant. Finally, please ask me if Student or Friend have any more questions or concerns and I will do my best to help. (Yes, I know everything and no, I don't plan on dispensing advice but I can provide basic facts, an ear, and referrals to other professionals.)

Student is the last person I would have expected to ask me for help. She's got some attitudinal issues -- I've caught her writing nasty messages on detention slips and the like. She's dropped hints of partying in some assignments that I have felt obligated to report to our drug/alcohol counselor. So to have her ask me something so personal is heartening, and I'm glad she asked rather than deal with uncertainty.

You know, I said something to another boy the other day who's been absent and is missing work. He said part of it was some personal issues. I made sure he was OK and knew that he could talk to me about problems -- if he wanted to. I could also help him find someone to talk to if he didn't want to talk to me. He seemed honestly grateful. He sits next to Student; maybe she heard that and took it to heart.

There are a few other things I wish I would have mentioned, so I hope she comes back with more questions. If not, I at least got a converstion started. I tried to be honest (yes, she could be pregnant) without being mean (what do you mean she just took some pills? is she dumb?) or judgemental (well, what do you expect to happen if you have sex?!?).

I guess it's the same-old same-old: you never really know how much you affect your students. Which is OK. I'm glad to be there.

The Shell Game

I usually don't like it when my kids get suspended. I know they (most) often deserve it and I know that schools need some serious consequences, so I don't raise a fuss. But I still regret the poor choices that my kids make and try to help them make better choices in the future. But sometimes... sometimes.

I got a suspension notification for a child that I just don't like that much. He is quiet and often appeared well-behaved, but appearances can be deceiving. He was a liar, and a damn good one. I figured out awhile ago that he cheated on most of his tests and assignments and that I had to watch him like a hawk. Even when confronted with evidence, he would lie about it. Bold-faced lies. He had obviously learned (long, long ago) that adults will back down if he appeared confident. I had an extra year to figure out his tricks, so I started this year ahead of the curve.

And you know, I think he is very low-skilled. I think he was (is) embarassed by his lack of academic (and English) knowledge, and learned to cheat to cover it up. Eventually, he got better at cheating than at learning. So now he just cheats and is too scared to think. I tried, really I did, to change my thinking about him and treat him with all kindness and openness. I tried to encourage him to open up to learning and trying new things. We won't see if it would have worked out, though.

Suddenly, a day after the suspension, I got a drop form. It struck me as strange, and I happened to get the back story. It turns out he doesn't live in our neighborhood so he got booted to his "real" school. He's gone to my high school for three years; there is nothing "real" about this other school. Furthermore, will it do any good?

It is alleged that he was seen by the police breaking into neighborhood houses. (He, of course, denied all allegations.) We want to clean up our school, though, so we got rid of him. Did we rehabilitate him? No. Did we get him counseling? No. Have we changed in any real way the type of education he will receive? No. We just shifted him one school over.

A few years ago, my friend Cat went to a meeting in my former town, looking at the test scores in one particularly poor-performing school. Well, their scores went up! yay! But, when the entire district was analyzed, it turns out it was all a sham. Some students had left the school, but their scores didn't rise; their scores followed them to their new school. It's a shell game. We move the cups around, but the nut doesn't change.

So my kid? He's been moved. In this town, it could have some real consequences for him. With the new information we have, it's conceivable that he is dealing or holding, and the new school might have a whole slew of rivals in it. And there's no way to tell what happens to him -- unless I read something in the news.

Oh, but we've improved the climate at my school! yay!

The Parent Trap

Have I told you about my kids with kids? I don't think so.

Teen pregnancy is a big problem in my town. I started to realize just how pervasive the problem is year when my kids told me I was the same age as their mothers. I am not old enough to have a child attending school. I would have had to have a child when I was 16--which is just what these kids are doing. And it's not just them, it's their parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, siblings, half-siblings. Yes, lots of those in that last category because (surprise, surprise) they get divorced a lot too.

Now, I'm the last person to judge a well-deserved divorce harshy, but you think someone would see the trend. When we get married and have kids in high school, our relationships tend to not last. Maybe it would be better if we waited before starting a family. No? Even those who wait until after their high school graduation to get married still get married young and have kids almost immediately. Their children have no self control, no respect, poor language skills, an inability to act civilly and politely in public. Anyhthing to do with young, immature parents? No? Hmm.

So this year I noticed that one of my students is pregnant. Another one, a darling, vivacious girls, told me that she had a son. A third asked to see the nurse because she was having headaches since her epidural. Then just on Friday, a fourth mentioned her daughter and showed me a picture. Then sat down and had a very high school conversation about the boy she thought was her boyfriend but he kissed his ex-girlfriend and then kissed her and the ex is sick so that's really gross, and. Well, you get the point.

Obviously, there is a cultural issue here. Parents and grandparents are ready and willing to babysit the children while their kids finish school. It's just not that unusual. Some students can see how it might be a drag on resources and hurt and education, but not many of them. Certainly not enough to put an appreciable curb on the problem. I know freshman teachers who have 4-5 pregnant girls in their classes.

Which begs the question: is teen pregnancy really a problem? I recall subbing in an English class a couple of years ago and the students read Toni Morrison's interview where she advocates teen pregnancy. That is actually a simplified version of what she said, and how most people interpret her answers. What she is actually advocating is a totally new system where teens do have children, and jobs, and all those life things that they want, and the community supports them. Of course, as they age, they take the place of the people who watched their children. They can return and get an education. It's a totally different mindset and it would take a revolution to establish.

So, is it a problem? Yes, I think it is becuase this town does not have a comprehensive system for supporting teen parents. The schools and community are not churning out responsible parents. It is not creating well-behaved, loved, creative children. (Yes, many children are well taken care of, but many are not.) Look at the number of children turning to gangs if you doubt my statements. The literacy rate is staggeringly low. Do I need more examples?

And I don't believe that all the girls really want to have kids. I am sure there is plenty of date rape. Obviously, birth control isn't a big thing. Abortion is univerally despised. And so here we are, with all these kids falling into the parent trap.

It's Going, It's Going...

I've been working with my students on rhetoric. Our state is really big on rhetorical devices and The Three Appeals (not they will so blatantly quote from Aristotle) and analyzing political documents, bla bla bla. Of course, it really is a very useful tool for my students. Of all the craziness we stuff down their throats in language arts, persuasion is the one thing that they will not be able to avoid in their lives. As it is, they are constantly bombarded with persuasive messages: buy this, wear that, go here, don't this, do that. How much better would they be as adults if they could decipher is someone was developing an appeal based on emotion or logic or if the speaker was even credible. How better would their lives as workers be if they were good at selling their particular goods and services to -- well, each other, but still. Imagine a generation would could analyze political commercials. Ahhh, it would be heaven.

Of course, they still resist. They think it's all irrelevant, even the relevant stuff.

But, I put together this whole deal based on the Declaration of Independence. I collected seven other declarations (the Declaration of the Rights of Man the the Citizen, the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen, the Working Man's Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Sentiments, the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Declaration of the Rights of the Child -- I really wanted to use the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but 11 pages is just too long). For each of the seven, I wrote margin questions to guide their reading. In groups, read your declaration, compare to the Declaration of Independence, make a poster, share.

They missed a lot. Many of them just can't read closely. I didn't do a great job getting them to make connections between all seven, but it was a pretty good start. I got the groups to read and work together. A few groups were totally off, but most of them did some solid work. Basic, but good.

And then, the piece de resistance: a little thing I call the Declaration of Independence Redux. Oh yes, my students will write their own declarations. It's perfect for them. It's exactly what their age wants to do. It wants to declare independence and take on the ills of the world. It's brilliant, I tell you, brilliant!

Today, a few of them told me out-right that they thought it was a great idea. Most of them just got to work in class. They were talking to each other about ideas, writing, brainstorming. Oh, I'm no miracle worker. There was some sluffing off and some procrastination, but there was some serious excitement, too. And they weren't just writing about the dress code and the tardy bell; they were writing about the economy and the environment and abortion (they have some pretty close-minded opinions about some of this stuff, but I promise to not hold it against them). This is weighty stuff.


...It's not out of the park, but got at least one RBI out of this unit.

Picklicious

As I type, I have eight 1/2 pint jars boiling away in a pot on the stove. They are packed with chow-chow, a Southern pickle relish that is a mixture of coarsely chopped green tomato, red and green bell pepper, onion, cabbage, and in this batch, cauliflower (celery is another potential ingredient). I got the idea to make chow-chow about five years ago, but as with many of my projects, I never got aorund to doing it. Not completing the project and forgetting about it are two totally different things, however.

So, as I faced a pile of tomato plants slowly dying from white fly (and other?) infestations and cooling evenings, I decided to cut my losses (ha ha) and harvest my green tomatoes. What does one do with green tomatoes? Chow-chow, of course. (Especially if said green tomatoes are small, stunted tomatoes and not of an appropriate size for slicing and frying.)

So, today I dusted off my canning supplies, got a new jar of apple cider vinegar and a box of jars, and got a-chopping. Some Web sites will tell you that a food processor is your friend for chow-chow, but none of my true Southern-food cookbooks agree. They say you get the best results and best taste from hand chopping. The processor releases too much liquid.

I chopped. I piled in a pot. I added vinegar and sugar and some salt. I boiled and stirred. I poured some pickling spice (sans clove -- I dislike clove) into a cloth bag and dumped it in the pot, too. Then, I started up my spaghetti pot with a rack in the bottom of it with jars and water for sterlization. The pot is about an inch too short, but I can just get it to a boil without boiling water over the entire stove. In a smaller pot I boiled the lids and tongs and funnel and magnetic thingy.

And then I waited for it all to come to a boil. *yawn* I used to have a HUGE pot to do this in, but it took two hours to get all that water to a boil, so I jettisoned it awhile ago.

Finally, everything appeared ready. I drained, funneled, and capped. Back in the water to process. As the pickles were processing, I realized that I've never made pickles before. I've made jam, but not pickles. Hmm. Maybe I should have shown more trepidation about this whole process. Oh well. It's too late now! The pickles are now out of the water and cooling on a rack. It sounds like the tops are getting sucked down. I'll know in a bit if I can put them on the shelf or if they need to live in the refrigerator. Regardless, I also have some shell beans from the farmer's market that I think will be delightful with the chow-chow.

Mmm. Chow.

Why Don't They Look?

A kid was transferred into my class during the last week of the quarter. The grade that showed up on his little transfer sheet was a C+. The kid shows me this. Cool.

I put grades in, but he is not on my computer screen for grades. His grade will be input by his previous teacher. There is some deadline for switching and who is responsible for grades. Whatever.

A few weeks later, the student asks me about his grade, because he didn't get one, and it's important for his sports eligibility. So, I start to dig. Go see his previous teacher -- yes, he did put in a grade for this student. His actual grade? An F. 59.34% or something. So, where did this C+ come from?

Well, the grade is there and because I am not the teacher responsible for the grade, I can't change it. This kid had a piece of paper that said he had a C+, but the grade in the computer gradebook and in the computer report card is an F.

What the?

How should I handle it? Take his transfer grade or his actual grade? Why would you lie so much on a transfer grade report? I can see rounding up to a D, but a C+? This kid was told he had a C+ a few days before the quarter ends, but oops! Just kidding -- it's really an F.

Seriously people. Not cool.