dearest daughters & son

teaching is great. today.

mostly because i'm not teaching. in fact, i'm blogging.

it's the last day of school before winter break so only half of my students are here to begin with; plus it's just impossible to teach on a day like this. add to that the fact that i have to pack up and move out of my classroom by the end of the day. if i'm not provided an acceptable environment to teach in because i have to pack up all of my things, then i can't teach.

equals chaos.

don't tell them, but i am feeling this teeny, tiny, flickering of a feeling that i'll miss some of these kids over the break. not too much, but a little. i've spent the past 16 weeks with them!!!! even the obnoxious ones are sweet from time to time. one student who gives me a really hard time (a textbook case for attention deprivation) and who i just yelled at to "knock it off" came up to me to ask why i hadn't tried the cake he brought yet. he brought it for me, he said. so i did and now he's stopped punching girls and bouncing a basketball off the walls. they're such a sensitive bunch.

and they still give hugs too! like i'm a kindergarten teacher! "miss, is it okay if i hug you goodbye?"

sometimes i have to remember that they are just kids. and appreciate them as kids if i can't appreciate them as students.

Warning: Whiny Blog Ahead

So, I'm sick at home for the second day this week. I'm feeling tons of guilt about not teaching "my children". I stayed home sick last Friday at the first sign of cold symptoms, hoping I would beat it by staying in bed all day. And I thought I did.

When I returned to school on Friday I was actually excited about a WHOLE new week, a new start with the kids. But then I lost my voice. I tried to "teach" on Tuesday and showed a movie, but each time I spoke my voice and energy was sapped. (Then I went to "support" my husband at a launch party for a video game he's working on, which may not have been the best health decision, but I just HAD to party with the cast of "Heroes" and Llyod from "Entourage"... to support my husband, of course).

I actually went to school on Wednesday morning, but without a voice wasn't going to do much good for the students or myself, so went home. And still without a voice, I'm home sick again today. Going to the doctor who will probably just prescribe me antibiotics, but if nothing else will give me a letter to take to school to "excuse" me from work; they are particularly suspicious of sick days taken around weekends and holidays.

The reality is that I just can't teach. If I had almost any other job, I could still go in and just mime things. On the other hand my guilt and perhaps the fear of being scrutinized by administration tells me I could still go in and instruct in some manner. But 99% of my job, unfortunately, is telling students to sit down, listen to directions, get on task, don't kill each other, don't throw things at me, put ipods away, pick up your trash, etc. So, what's the point? I could go in and do that. Or I could not go in and have a sub sit there with the students and not conduct the lesson plan that I prepared for them anyway. Either way no learning happens. This way, I reason, I'm at least resting. Arrrgh.

And this isn't to mention my usual and daily frustrations with teaching in a public school. How do I teach students PowerPoint without computers? and when I get them access to computers for one class period, how can they finish a presentation? practice it? and then where's the LCD projector for them to present their work? Meanwhile, I'm sick, we're a week behind schedule, I hate this unit I have to teach, teachers are just as clique-y as their students, and turns out, though I like them as people, I don't like teenagers, they don't make me laugh and I'm not the educator I'd hoped I'd be.

Might be the cough syrup talking.

Not much to say about them.

They're still driving me crazy or I'm allowing myself to be driven.

Regardless, here are some photos of my classroom that's getting cuter and therefore more enjoyable to be in for several hours with 9th graders.

my desk

continuing clockwise around the room, the white boards and my makeshift "bulletin board" aka paper taped to a wall with a border around it

the back of the classroom, cabinets that I covered with paper! and borders!, two of which were locked when I got here, my one window that doesn't open and creates the effect of a solar eclipse every time a delivery truck drives by; also blue thing in the back, yes, behind all the crowded desks is a LOUD and space consuming air conditioner

and from the back of the classroom... crowded desks from this angle, the door to the outside world and my desk again

closeup of my clothesline innovation with an "identity bag" assignment on it, hanging above those beautifully covered cabinets!

 

the accepted, adopted, approved "chalkboard configuration", stars for A students with special ones for A+ students, and, of course, the WC penant

I put them in rows.

Your honor (a.k.a. Katie), I submit to the jury my defense (for not posting any schoolhouse anecdotes):

1. During the day, my energy is sapped by 90 - 9th graders, thus, rendering me unfit to do anything but watch Top Chef and Project Runway marathons when I get home.

2. Except for a lot of classroom management, there's not much in my classes thus far worth going to Bloggytime over.

and

3. I've been struggling with the ethics of the degree to which I should or should not talk about what goes on in my classroom/at my school out of concern for both my job and the privacy of my students.

Now, all this does not mean that if you ask me I won't tell. Nor does it mean that those closest to me don't catch an earful about what such-and-such student did or said from time to time. But, to publish specifics or even anything that would indicate where exactly I teach would toe the line.

That being said, I did move my students from "team"/table seating arrangements to rows. That. Face. Forward.

I know it sounds like a "Duh, Lauren", but coming out of a "social justice" (*eye roll*) program which shuns the "institution" in all it's institutional institutionalities, I wanted to embrace a more cooperative learning environment.

And students wanted to embrace more of a, hmmmm, talkative learning environment.

So, rows. And Ms. Gibbs means business. The answer for now. At least the answer for my sanity. Which is perhaps why I mustered the energy to present my case to you today.

You're much more than a trunk.

I'm enjoying my last days of summer in front of the television.

Don't worry it's ALL educational; mostly TLC, Food Network, HGTV and, most importantly, PBS.

I just finished watching Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and am feeling very nostalgic. He just sang a variation of a song about being "much more than" your looks or possessions or feelings. I think the original version talked about being "much more than your anger" and one of his snippet of wisdom books for adults mentions being much more than one's job. But since Mr. Rogers just finished reading a book about an out-of-place giraffe, this version went like this:

You're much more than a neck.
And you're much more than a trunk.
A chicken's much more than a peck.
And there's more than a smell to a skunk.

Thanks, Mr. Rogers. Now I'm feeling much more than a macbook, a food processor, a LAUSD employee and a couch potato!

More Mr. Rogers nostalgia.

More coherent today.

I guess what I really wanted to write about yesterday was not only frustrations about being an inept educator from time to time, but also about the reason behind why marches and demonstrations like those that took place yesterday in Los Angeles have and need to happen.

I just didn't have the fodder.

Consider my fire fueled.

Last night "non-lethal projectiles" (a.k.a. rubber bullets) were used to disburse the apparently "unlawful assembly." According to Police Chief William J. Bratton:

[...] "certain elements of the crowd … began to create a series of disturbances."

During that activity, Bratton said, "Missiles were being thrown at the officers, and officers [were] responding."

Missiles? Riiiiiight. According to NPR which I listened to this morning on the way to school, the police were pre-assembled in riot gear. Only one person was arrested for this "series of disturbances" and more than a dozen people were injured, including reporters.

Okay, so there's the police issue, which is heavy on my mind considering the recent 15 year anniversary of the 1992 "riots" (uprising) which we'll be discussing in my U.S. History class at the end of the week to culminate our Civil Rights unit.

But, what gets my goat more is the general sentiment expressed by a coward of a man on NPR this AM who, granted, gave his name, but not the Los Angeles City department he works for (because he knows I'd sent him hate mail): "I'm sorry if you're poor, but your revolution is not here; it's in your country with your corrupt dictators." He also talked about how Los Angeles is overcrowded and how our schools used to rank among the top in the country (in the 1940s, mind you), problems for which immigrants are apparently responsible. Oh, right and also: "They should have rounded them up" at the march yesterday. "What's going on here," he says "is brown supremacy." (Did he really say that?!?!)

What is frustrating for me are that there are certain truths in what this man and others like him say; it is a logic that one can easily be sucked into. But his analysis is superficial; it does not take into account the factors of globalization (HELLO?!?!?!), our own countries labor and economic history, race, California's history/agricultural economy, neocolonialism, cultural imperialism, etc., etc., etc.

Yes, there should be revolution in 3rd world countries (yes, I'm using the term "3rd world" because I'm reading The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, part of Zinn's People's History series, highly recommended, which legitamizes the term, as it is a better descriptor of the role of these nations in the world than the deficit-thought laden term of "developing world." end mini-rant.) Yes, there are corrupt dictators. Yes, Los Angeles is crowded. Yes, schools are worse.

No, not all countries from which immigrants come (documented or not) have corrupt dictators. No sir, the revolution is here. Our 1st world, capitalist, neocolonial influence is directly connected to the conditions in other countries. Where do we get our corn? Where do we get our bananas? Where do we get our soy? Our Starbucks? Whose land, whose self-sufficiency, whose self-determination in whose country is lost when the forces of globalization and multinationals move in? Not mine. Not yours. The revolution is not with the "corrupt dictators" but with the government and people who collude with those dictators, who supply them weapons and who put them into power in the first place, because the United States had something to gain for it.

Thank you.

Next question.

Why is Los Angels overcrowded? Is it? Or is it just overcrowded with undesired "brown" people. Why is any urban center overcrowded in the United States? That's where the economic opportunity is. For everyone, not just for you, Mr. Jerkface. It's cheaper than the suburbs, or at least it was; it seems as cities undergo gentrification, the urban-suburban divide may soon switch to reflect older world cities, like Paris, where the poor were pushed out to the suburbs while the wealthy moved back in. Historical discriminating real estate practices (i.e. covenants, red lining, ghettoization, commercial investment or lack thereof) are also culprits in the development of housing and settlement patterns.

Why are schools worse? Or are they? They still "work"; they still do their job of providing a labor force. If you graduate students and send them to college, especially brown and black ones, who will clean your house? Who will serve you fast food? Who will harvest your strawberries? Not to mention the critical thinking skills that are deprived students when standards-based curriculum reigns supreme. But, why would we want critical thinkers? Then they would criticize our economic system, racism, schools, the government, even. And God forbid any of those brown and black kids become leaders. I mean they can become community leaders and we'll write a piece in the paper about them, but not CEOs or governors, maybe president, but only because a black man is a better option than any woman.

Okay, and not everyone at the march was an undocumented immigrant. So, I dare you. Go! "Round 'em up!" Then, who will work in the fields tomorrow? Landscape your yard? Sew your clothes? And! Not all undocumented immigrants are Latino. If you're rounding up the Latinos, then I'd like to see you get the Canadians too, the Irish and the rest of the visa-overstayers (read: not the people crossing deserts or jumping ever-expanding fences, monitored by ever-more border patrols) who comprise the majority of "illegal" immigrants.

And "brown supremacy"?!?!? Come on. Really?! I don't even know what to say to that other than that I am guilty of thinking brown babies are cuter than white ones. Whatever sliver of the black and brown community that really believes that brown and black peopel are superior to whites, still comes up against a racial and economic system in the United States which every day tells them otherwise. Look around, people. Get out of the Hills, get off the beach and head east or south. Take your pick; just head somewhere out of your ass.

End meta-rant.

Public v. Private

While there are many great aspects of living in University housing here at UCLA (it's exclusively grad housing, it's new, convenient, there's parking and my permit is good on-campus too!, close to a good neighborhood with tons of places to eat, etc.), it is nevertheless institutionally provided housing. As such, my apartment complex seems to fall under more stringent regulations or, at least, regulations that are more stringently monitored. For example, we have quiet hours, no doormats, guest policies, etc.

We also have fire drills. At 5AM. We have fire drills at 5AM. At 5AM, we have fire drills. If you missed it, that was me complaining. And I believe that will suffice.

When I arose from a restful slumber at 4:59AM to visit the facilities, I did not anticipate the piercing sound that would interrupt my visit. These things we can not anticipate in life. Though perhaps my subconscious heard it coming; if only it had woken me two minutes earlier so that I would not be caught with my pants around my ankles.

Thanks to my four years of Wellesley fire drilling sessions (often provided compliments of the notorious popcorn burner), I can get out of a burning brick building in no time flat. Armed with weather appropriate clothing and towels (to help one breath should the air be filled with smoke), hundreds of Wellesley women are able to evacuate their rooms, day or night and in any manner of weather (though ususally enduring freezing temperatures) in less than 5 minutes.

Herein lies, I find, the ultimate difference between public and private education: I observed no more than 15 people (from a approximately 300 person building) evacuate my building from the exit on my side of the building. Peering through the gate into the courtyard, I saw at least five people wandering around inside. One of my fellow prompt evacuees said that her roommate decided to hide in the bathroom. (How does one hide from a fire, exactly?) And we were outside for a good 20 minutes whereupon people were still exiting the building.

Maybe it was the early hour of day. Maybe it was the slower West Coast pace of life. Maybe it was apathy. Maybe the nice weather served as motivation to prolong the fire drill so that we could all spend some time in the pleasant outdoors. Maybe those at public institutions are more critical of "The Man" and refuse to be sheep, herded by superfluous rules that reinforce the hegemony. Or maybe people who go to public institutions are just a little bit slower on the uptake.*


*Having attended both public and private institutions, I allow myself a bit of room to judge, on a generalizing scale of course.