The light at the end of the tunnel

Snippets here. Snippets there.

Figments of a past life.

"Jenny asked me what her bra size was."

My words, scribbled on a slip of paper, a half year old.

At the setting, within my classroom, Jenny's request was completely inappropriate. And I responded to her, unamused and displeased, telling her that the question was vulgar to me.

I now no longer suppress a chuckle as I think back to the absurdity of such a question. Just a sample of the many outlandish situations I had encountered as a pedagogue of 100 ninth graders in the midst of hormone-raging puberty. I sure didn't expect to experience these episodes when I first applied to become a New York City public school teacher.

You are probably waiting for me to regale you with more entertaining stories of the crazy things that students have done within the confines of school. Unfortunately, I will not for the time being. I've written some in previous posts already. Ask me for more in person. I usually tell a number at parties.

But I'll recount them with a nostalgic feeling--as a former teacher, someone who is now separated from the education system that was so central to my identity for two years. For with the end of my second year came the termination of my commitment to my alternative certification program, allowing me to choose whether I wanted to continue teaching or quit. I opted for the latter. To leave behind the community that I was part of. I abandon my colleagues with a heavy heart, to leave for them the task of teaching the children that I ditched in order to "ascend" to the next stage of my life.

In my precious last days of teaching, I lowered my facade of sternness to become "real" with the kids. I wanted to know whether they had learned anything during the course of the year. It was my way of knowing whether I had "made a difference." To that end, I gave them an end of the year survey. I told them to be honest in their responses.

Here are some choice exerpts from the survey

Some students offered me some advice:

"You should kick out the distractions in the classroom, b/c it takes away learning time."

"Just be patient--but don't let the kids out of control either."

Others commented on my demeanor in class:

"You need to laugh a little"

"Nice meeting you :) & You should smile more :)"

"Be funner, smile more"

There were students whose lives were impacted by class:

"Misterteacher helped me not pollute"

"The teacher helped me build character inside and outside of class."

And others enjoyed my class and my teaching style:

"I had a great teacher."

"This yr I think I learned a lot more than my middle school so I'm glad I just need to get better as the years go by in science"

"Rock on Misterteacher I'll miss you as a science teacher and how you used to be so sarcastic and serious all the time."

The end is near

May has arrived. We have some 30 odd days left. The weeks go by at a snail's pace. I teach, going through the motions which come more easily to me now. Yell at kid for eating slim jims in class here, explain concept about global warming there, give teacher look every 10 minutes to kids in the back to shut them up. On the bright side, the kids are still much better than last year; I still get moments of silence every so often. Unfortunately, they also know a little bit more about me. One stray letter envelope revealed my middle name to one particular ragamuffin who cast a glance. And now my students have not let me forget it. I was absent the other day and when I came back I found my full name (first, middle, and last) sprawled against my whiteboard in black marker. The moment they find something they can use against you they are merciless. I cursed the kid who started this outbreak under my breath and set my mind to teaching for the day.

In spite of all the pains and aches I've gone through, there are moments where I get the feeling that I will miss teaching next year.

It is the last period of the day. I scan the room wearily looking for students off task. My eyes lock onto "Jason", who is aiding and abetting several other students in distracting themselves from completing their assignments. Jason is the class clown, with a mouth that does not know how to shut up. I glare at him as I walk over ominously. He meets my stare with a bright smile.

"Misterteacher, we have a basketball game today against [rival school]. I see other teachers at games, but I never see you. You should come."

"Uhh... [I haven't eaten lunch at this point and feel a bit hungry] I'll get back to you. Maybe I'll come."

I really don't want to go. I'm a bit shy and don't want to go somewhere where I feel like I'll be vulnerable to the insults of students in the crowd who hate me.

I have to take care of physical needs first. When school ends, I go off to the local dumpling place and grab my lunch. I try to forget the invitation, but I can't shake it off.

If I go, I'll be supporting my students on the team. If I go, I might find myself in an unfamiliar crowd. If I don't go, I'll feel guilty snubbing Jason. If I don't go, I can grade some more papers or at least vegetate on the computer.

I come back to school. I tread slowly, my feet dead like lead weights. I force myself to the gym. I see a colleague and walk on over to our school's cheering section. I sit down and watch the game. The game has stopped due to a time-out. I look for Jason among the uniforms.

Jason is on the bench. He glances over meeting my eyes. A hint of recognition flashes in him.

"MISTERTEACHER!" Jason shoots out. He comes over to me with a big grin and gives me a handshake.

I smile sheepishly. Jason walks back and the game resumes.

Our team is blowing out the rival team. The upperclassmen are scoring on an array of layups and jumpshots. Their defense is stingy, yielding few points to the opponent, and capitalizing on steals and blocks to score on fast-breaks the other way. With victory in sight, the coach decides to put in the freshmen.

The freshmen are awful. Their handles are sloppy and their shots are ugly. Thank goodness that the upperclassmen were so good to give us a cushion. Jason goes in and immediately gets his pass stolen within a minute. In his next possession, he shoots an airball.

It's hard to watch.

Jason gets the ball again. Not one to be cowed, he hoists up a three-pointer. Miraculously, it swishes in. We erupt in cheers. He does a little dance to indulge himself and the crowd. Personally, I think he should go back to playing defense because his team is playing 4 on 5.

The next time-out is called. Jason comes over to me and says, "That was for you, Misterteacher."

My face reveals an involuntarily smile. I point at him with my two index fingers.

He points back at me. At that moment, I feel my cheeks go warm. I guess I am feeling really proud of Jason. I also am proud of my other students in the game, Jeremy and Leon.

I'm glad that I went to the game. Later in the month they make it to the championship game and I attend. I cheer them on even though they lose.

Upon reflection, what I appreciate was how Jason was able to break through my maladjusted, unfeeling crust and draw out the old Misterteacher, the one with hopes and dreams, reminding me why I went into teaching into first place. And I'll never forget that. Thanks to an innocuous invite from Jason.

Quid pro quo

The resilience of the human spirit is a refreshing thing.

I am a cynic. Some people, if they knew the true shades of my character, would characterize me as a brooding two-faced misanthrope. I say things to people when I don't mean them at all, only because they seem to be the right thing to say. I smile when inside I am angry, absolutely spiteful of vitriolic hatred. I like to pretend I am something that I'm not.

In other words, I'm a fit for teaching in an inner-city school (sarcasm).

Today was a complete disaster. Students were presenting their transparencies that they had prepared detailing examples of people using fish-farming to alleviate hunger and poverty in developing countries. During these presentations, the distracting rattle of conversation was expressively audible despite my shouts for quiet. I was tired, it was late afternoon, and my energy reserves were running low. The unexpected robustness of the defiance to my pleas for quiet made me so angry that my mental switchboard became oversaturated. I became so livid from frustration that I couldn't scream or think clearly any more.

The sharks, smelling blood, swam closer. The conversations continued without any hesitation. For once, I broke character and screamed at them at the top of my lungs,

"IF YOU CONTINUE TO TALK AND DISRESPECT ME, I WILL GIVE THIS CLASS A QUIZ!!!"

You'd think that they'd stop, but they didn't. I wanted to follow through with this quiz, but I could no longer think coherently at this point. Even worse, being the needy kids that they are, I had at least 3 students calling out my name during the presentations--

One needing to go to the bathroom,

one needing to get a pencil,

and one needing to get a handout because she lost the handout yesterday.

An unknown student started making high-pitched hyena-like noises. Once they realized that these noises irked me, the rest of those kids started chiming in, a chorus of squeals echoing through the classroom. Of course, they utter these noises when I'm not looking at them, shutting up as soon as I look in the direction of the perpetrator. They were like gnats on an elephant, painfully biting without fear.

So what did I do? I was furious. My heart pounded and I felt my face turn red. But I was rendered immobile because I was overloaded, pushed past the breaking point. I could no longer yell. Thus, I had to endure a painful twenty minutes, rendered incompetent and humiliated. Then I had another equally as bad class, the hyenas licking their chops in eager anticipation as they pounced on their teacher in his weakened state. But the bad feelings from the first class lingered longer than those of the second.

At the end of the day, when I finally regained my senses, I deliberated on which of three choices I should proceed with.

Option #1: do nothing and hope for a better day tomorrow --> I'm no longer naive enough to believe that this would work.

Option #2: refer the students who I believe were causing the disruptions to the dean --> while I have a good idea who was to blame, students would accuse me of being heavy-handed and unfair. Being the pathological liars that they are, they would vehemently deny that they were the perpetrators of the chaos.

Option #3: Bring down the hammer and blitzkrieg their asses!

In the end, I felt compelled to bring down the hammer. Never before in my teaching career have I resorted to such a measure. My teaching fellows advisor, who had introduced this concept in training, told us to utilize the calling the homes of the ENTIRE class only when all other things had failed. But as they say, "desperate times call for desperate measures."

I pulled out my phone and thumbed through the school's student directory. I proceeded to call the homes of twenty students in that first class. I did not discriminate, calling not just the disruptive students but also the students who behaved themselves. What I did calibrate was the message that I told the parent, from the commonly heard "your son/daughter is a disruptive influence in class" to a more rare "your son/daughter, while being in a bad class, is paying attention and doing the work necessary."

In addition to commenting about behavior, it was quite appropriate to update parents on other tidbits of their son/daughter's academic progress. Many parents were surprised that their offspring was not the poster-child of academic success that they thought they were.

One conversation went along like this:

"Your son has done one out of the twelve homeworks due in my class."

"Really? I ask him everyday whether or not he has done his homework and he tells me that he did it at school or he has no homework."

"Well, your son is lying to you."

*GASP*

I think I ruined someone's weekend plans. Nothing like some vindicative justice to make me feel better.

Fancy Things Club

This stretch of the year, in between February break and April break, is notoriously killer. I just know that if my classes were in the state of chaos that they were in last year, I would have developed a nervous involuntary tremor (a tick) by now. But by the curious powers of fate, the ship I captain has remained upright (although it has sprung some leaks and lost some crew on the way). As I strut into my classroom, my kids eye me with some trepidation and stop (or at least tone down) their misbehavior. The continued order and structure that exists precariously in my classroom alleviates some of the stress in my life, allowing me to maintain my sanity.

At times, there are attempts to inject some civility into the greater entropy of the school. A group of my colleagues recently started a weekly book club. I imagine that it happens like this: they sit down and spend an hour discussing a piece of literature (A Thousand Splendid Suns being the first book that we were expected to read). I suppose they eat crumpets and caviar too. They might also sip on some red wine, while they analyze the themes, motifs, and symbolism found in the novel. Of course, they must do this all in character, wearing the garb or costume that is representative of a character found in the book. After reaching a mutual consensus on the topics at hand, they adjourn their meeting with a secret handshake and decide on which chapters to read for next week.

We also receive "words of the week" sheets in our teachers mailboxes. On these handouts are a series of vocabulary words that we could use in our speech to encourage students to expand their diction from the everyday "f*ck", "sh*t", "motherf*cker", n-word, "OD", "snitch", and "dead-ass". I am going to admit to you that I actually look forward to getting each set of words. Immediately after grabbing hold of the sheets, I look over the new words of the week, and pick some words to use in my conversations with students and teachers. So far I've used "conjecture" and "defenestrate". Guess which one I've used when talking to a teacher and which one I've used when berating a student.

Collective blame

I am utterly disgusted. Ridiculously angry. I haven't been so furious in a long time. I'm angry at myself and I'm angry at the world.

A student of mine pulled a knife on two other students in a neighboring classroom yesterday.

I know this student. She is a sweetheart. Quiet and never caused any trouble before. Out of all my students, she would be one of the least likely candidates to be brandishing a knife with the intent to kill. I am shocked numb.

But my mind tells me I shouldn't be surprised. Things like this CAN happen. She was sick and tired of being teased because one of her arms was smaller and misshapened. She was defending herself against the bullying of two nitwit imbeciles who did not hesitate to throw verbal daggers at her, pushing her past the breaking point. Couple the agony with the pain of a household in discord. Little wonder she came packing a knife to defend herself--the frustration of a cornered victim, with plenty of anger, nowhere to run, nowhere to release it.

The dam burst.

And I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything to stop this. I didn't NOTICE. She was being BULLIED and I just let it be the case, being my cynical, smug self.

She was immediately apprehended, the knife pried from her hands, replaced by handcuffs. Escorted to the police precinct, treated like a common criminal.

And the tragedy is that it didn't have to be this way. If someone just acted, someone just said anything, she would be right here in my classroom this afternoon, listening earnestly as usual.

But no one did.

How am I supposed to go to sleep?

Teachers need hugs

3 PM. The end of a school-day. It also happens to be a Friday. The end of a school-week. Time for celebration? No. I don't have "Hallelujah chorus" playing in my head. Rather I'm tempted to drown my sorrows at the neighboring waterhole.

I don't think I'll do that though. What I really need is to go away. I want to retreat to somewhere secluded and disappear. Just stare at the grass and vegetate. I guess it comes with the loneliness of having to bear a burden by myself. I have to maintain this image of being someone's who is an authority figure all day long. Projecting an illusion that I'm put together. It's pure theatre. The strains of this load wear me away to exhaustion.

To be frank, I'm trying to preserve myself. To maintain some coherence in who I am. It's not easy to be yelled at by adolescents all week. To be heckled by kids demanding pens, pencils, and paper from teachers as if teachers are magical genies of the lamp (a sizable proportion of my students show up to class without any paper or writing utensils). To watch miscreants throwing paper balls (and even my pencil sharpener) at one another and misogynists hitting their female classmates with abandon.

Sometimes students push me to my limits. Last week, I had a student sufficiently do so. I pulled him aside and put on my meanest ghetto impression:

"When I get you in trouble, I will make it hurt, yah hear? I will put your ass on a GRILL, you know what I'm saying?"

I said this in a menacingly low voice.

The student nodded silently, with an apprehensive expression on his face. His eyes faced downward, not meeting my glare.

I think the biggest change from last year to this year for me as a teacher is that I'm no longer afraid of my kids. I've become jaded--been there, done that, you're old news. When kids threaten me, I respond with pointed verbal barbs and a twisted smile. For instance, the other day, a kid screamed at me, "I'm going to sue you."

"Oh yea?" I responded with a tinge of anger. "Then SUE me."

The absurd no longer terrorizes me anymore. Yesterday, I walked through a police crime scene outside my school, witnessing two kids being put away in handcuffs. My sole concern was how I could leave the scene as soon as possible, without being held up in the shuffle (I had to meet some friends for burgers). As kids were being locked up by the cops, I walked away to the subway without a guilty conscience, sufficiently dehumanized by my dealings with them. Only today did I find out that the police presence yesterday was a response to a huge brawl between kids from neighboring schools that had taken place minutes before. Luckily, I avoided the meelee.

I sometimes imagine myself as a prison guard. I walk around with a slow deliberate gait. Sometimes all I have to do now is look and mischief stops. I have a reputation; kids say, "Watch out, Misterteacher's here. He gets hard on you." I feel that I do horrible things, but I go to sleep soundly as a baby at night. Actually I don't. I twist and turn, wake up bleary-eyed in the morning and do this again.

What keeps me going on?

Today I got another nugget of encouragement. A fellow teacher came up to me and told me that the kids told her that they think I'm an efficient teacher. That I keep my class running smooth and that they appreciate my structure and organization. Kids quiet down in my class because when Misterteacher thinks the class is loud, he doesn't yell. He shuts the hell up and stops teaching. And the kids respond by quieting down.

Brought a smile to my face. I'm doing something right. Giving them tough love. The kids joke with me and I can joke back now. Smiles occassionally crack on my face. I've been building relationships with many of my kids. I think that I'm going to miss them next year.

Now some advice for the reader: if you know any teachers out there, especially ones that are a bit down and lonely, I advise you to do this: give them a hug. A nice bear-hug. They really need it. A little token of affirmation can go a long way to cheer up someone who sometimes faces nothing but jeers and insults. Teachers put up with a lot of crap.

Valentine's Day

I've decided to update my blog after a "short" hiatus.

To mark an occasion that I absolutely abhor: Valentine's Day.

If there is but one holiday that the kids take the most seriously, it is this accursed "holiday" (otherwise known as a fabricated excuse for card companies to sell to the duped masses). You'd think it'd be Christmas or Halloween, but it's not.

I'm preparing myself psychologically for a day full of couples in the hallway making out, candy wrappers being left on my floor, pathetic roses being swapped, and poor kids crying because they didn't get a valentine (sucks to be them). And worse of all, learning has been sacrificed for hormones.

I shudder to remember one moment last year, when one of my worst students (a pot smoker with an attitude problem [she's reformed this year, but that's a different story]) had her boyfriend BARGE into my classroom while I was teaching and hand her a bouquet of roses. The boyfriend didn't even go to school here. And the class spent 10 minutes ooh-awwing her good fortune, completely derailing any attempt at teaching.

I am going to count how many times I want to barf today.