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Last night in my Methods class, my professor began a critique of D.O.L. (daily oral language – total garbage) by explaining that “D.O.L. is not a hardcore punk band, that’s S.O.D.,” which I think was lost on everyone but me.
At the break I asked if he could remember what S.O.D. stood for, to which he replied, rightly, “Stormtroopers of Death?”
It was a fine moment.
And really, in a classroom full (okay, there were four of us) of preservice Language Arts teachers, doesn’t it just make sense to invoke a band whose catchiest slogan was the very tongue in cheek “Speak English or Die?” I think so.
Today was the first day of student teaching with the added benefit of real live students, who, in keeping with American tradition, returned from their summer break on this first day after Labor Day.
I sat at a desk and observed, introduced warmly once per hour by my cooperating teacher.
Regular readers of this blog will recall that I come from an E/BD background. Let me tell you this. I was kind of freaked out today by how normal and polite the students were. It was great. Some of them even made small talk with me, asking questions about where I go to school, how long I’ve been in school, when and for how long I’m going to teach them. Did I already say that it was great? I barely heard any foul language or gang talk all day, and believe me when I say I was listening out for it: I’ve been trained to.
And a damn good thing, too, because I couldn’t sleep for shit last night, thinking about this whole experience. Today, coming into something approximating lucidity, I realized that I couldn’t put a finger on what exactly had me so terrified. Certainly it was enough to give me nervous stomach once I got within a block of the school, but even so, I knew I was only going to be observing today, so why all the terror?
I know that there will be nights when I’ll be writing about what a hard day it was, but right now, I’m just thrilled by this whole experience and the promise that it holds for my students and I.
Finally, I touched base with my supervisor as provided by the university. She made it clear from the beginning that she is uncomfortable with the title of “supervisor”, and after acknowledging that she, the cooperating teacher, and myself are all kind of unorthodox in our approach to teaching, we launched into a ten minute discussion about educational philosophy as it relates to urban learners. She seems brilliant, and I’m excited to learn more from her.
Not only that, but she offered some lesson plans for Catcher in the Rye, so that can’t hurt.
Summer is a lean time for those educators among us who aren’t salaried, so it’s nice during those dark times to at least find solace in a line graph of blog visits. Yesterday all you internerds could have been clicking on sites about fixed gear bicycles or cats with captions, but you clicked on my blog 56 times. So thank you. It’s almost enough to make me thing I should add a PayPal option or start soliciting advertising, you know, since I’m not making any money (until January, when I finish student teaching…), but how could I exploit you as you’re jettisoning me into internet fame?
I couldn’t.
Instead I’ll remind you again to check out the pages up above there, specifically the Teacher/Educator Drink Specials and the Presidents’ Corner. I update those every now and again, and it’s all for you.
I promise.
If you live in the Windy Broad-shouldered City That Works, you probably have an RSS feed of Pitchforkmedia.com, but just in case you missed it, point your browser this-a-way for info on the Hideout’s 10th annual block party.
Or, if you’d prefer to hear the condensed version, here we go: Not only is it a 10th anniversary party, but also a 25th, commemorating the number of years Chicago label Touch and Go has been in existence.
What does this have to do with education, you ask?
Again, from Pitchfork:
Best of all, all fest ticket profits go to three Chicago-based organizations: Literacy Works, Tuesday’s Child, and Thomas Drummond Elementary School’s Campus Park Project.
The man behind the Hideout, Tim Tuten, is a guy I’ve met only once, but I have it on good authority from a mutual friend that he is passionate about education, and, if memory serves, a former social studies teacher himself. One thing is for sure, based on that short meeting: he’s a hell of a nice guy.
And he runs a nice club, so if you’re up for supporting a good cause or three, enjoy the musical stylings of Bloc Party, Cinematics, the 1900s, Andrew Bird, The Frames, Mucca Pazza, Golden Horse Ranch Square Dance Band, ArtBrut, Cass McCombs, and Dan Deacon, not to mention the offerings of the Chicago Short Film Brigade, cart your ass on down to 1354 West Wabansia on September 7 and 8.
It’s the next best thing to a teacher happy hour.
It was Wednesday before Winter Break, and I had taken Thursday and Friday off, so it was my last day. That evening I was to board a plane for California, to spend the winter holiday in the southern part of that state with my wife’s family. It was going to be sweet, and all I had to do was coast through this last day – no problem.
I was in the gym, responding to some tussle or another. If memory serves, it was a fight between a guy and a girl, something that happened a handful of times last year, usually right before some larger, more volatile incident. This day was to be no different.
Bill (I’m using fake names here) was a student last year who couldn’t seem to stop getting into gang fights at school. One time I watched feebly as two students threw tables and chairs at him from across a classroom, the table leg striking the whiteboard behind him before tumbling upon him as he ran out of the room. A nice enough kid under the right circumstances, but at the same time, apparently the kind of kid that you might end up wanting to throw furniture at.
I come out of the gym and return to my post in the lunchroom, at which point Bill is starting to get into it with another student. We’ve learned to read the signs by now, the posturing, the “on my Momma” or “on my nation” qualifier tagged loudly to each major point, and so I get Bill to come with me out of the lunchroom. He knows the deal by now, too, and so he’s cooperating, but then he tries to double back and run back in there. When I put myself in his way in an attempt to prevent him, he steps up to me and cocks his fist like he’s going to swing on me.
I’m a flincher. Could be I have good reflexes, more likely it’s because I’m a pussy, but I’m a flincher through and through. I move out of the way, giving his arm a wide berth. Our very excellent liason officer is in the foyer as this is happening, dealing with the fallout from the earlier gym situation, and through steel-reinforced glass and down a hallway sees this happening. From his vantage point, it looks like Bill is swinging on my supervisor, who is standing nearby, so he comes running, grabs the kid, and pins him against the nearby elevator door. I’m something of a pacifist, an ideology that has suffered some since I began my job, but as this kid was about to hit me, and there’s no weird racial dynamic between cop and student (both are black), I’m fairly satisfied with the way things are working out. No problem. I’ll be in Long Beach in no time.
At this point, the best thing I can do is to remove myself from the situation, so I return, again, to the lunchroom. Unfortunately, the architecture of the building is such that the kids in the lunchroom have a bird’s eye view of everything that’s taking place in the hall. Even more unfortunate is that after the officer takes Bill to the foyer, Bill absconds, shirtless, running towards the apartment complex across the street. The officer calls for back-up, and in short order, no less than ten squad cars descended upon the school from every direction.
One of the students in the lunchroom is Trevor (again, not his real name). He’s a nice kid whose behavioral episodes are few and far between and directly linked to the fact that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. He sees all the cops milling around, laughs nervously, and says, “man, let me OUT, I’m going home.” I know Trevor pretty well, and remember his disorder and that he told me once that he didn’t want to go to a regular high school because he doesn’t like crowds. I walk him to the door, and the whole time he has this nervous smile and look of absolute wonderment on his face.
He asks for a bus token to get home, and I remind him that since, technically, he’s walking out, our policy prevents us from giving him a token. Unsatisfied, he attempts to argue the point with our director, who stands firm. Eventually the Sargeant (the guy in charge of all of the School Resource Officers, who has since been dismissed on charges of embezzlement, but still one of the best cops I’ve ever encountered) steps over, says calmly, “C’mon, man, he said you’re not going to get a token, it’s time to go.” Trevor feels his case is righteous, and attempts to explain.
I have to speculate a bit about the what how and why at this point, as I’m stooped over a sheet of paper signing Trevor out of school for the day. My guess is that another officer, unhappy upon seeing his Sargeant being defied by some punk kid, and perhaps under the mistaken yet understandable assumption that this is the kid he was called to the school for, walks up to Trevor and, along with two other officers, starts beating the living shit out of this poor kid.
School personnel are absolutely powerless in these situations, and it’s maddening. All we can do is stand by and watch as this kid gets brought to the ground, and eventually put in a squad car, where he is charged (!) with disorderly conduct or some bullshit. It’s a tough situation to be in, because we depend so heavily upon the police–and we’ve been lucky to have some wonderful officers at our disposal–we’re not in a position to tell them how to do their jobs.
I am completely traumatized by this, such that another staff sits me down to make sure that I’m okay. As we’re sitting, we can hear the news helicopters hovering overhead (thankfully, the incident does not make the news).
Trevor’s assbeating was witnessed by at least one entire classroom full of students, and all of them, no matter how macho, seemed frozen in their reaction. It was as if a depression had fallen upon the building, and we were all there together, reeling from what we’d seen and been unable to stop.
I need to take a break from our usual theme to relay some bad news.
Local barista/cyclist/cartoonist Eric “The Vegan Ninja” Lappegard passed away Monday July 23, 2007 at 3 a.m. due to injuries sustained during a car accident a couple of weeks ago.
All of the pertinent information is available on his website, www.ericlappegard.com.
Eric was a wonderful person and will be missed.
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
A huge learning gap persists between Minnesota white students and students of color. Basic skills test scores are as much as to 40 percentage points lower for some minority groups. More than 90 percent of white teens here earn high school diplomas, compared with 64 percent of American Indians, 63 percent of African-Americans and 55 percent of Hispanics.
Studies show that integrating school programs by race and income helps boost achievement for disadvantaged students. And since so many schools have resegregated because of housing patterns, it is crucial to also do a better job of educating students when they are in racially isolated settings. The state and school districts should remain committed to both. The Legislature must continue to offer financial incentives for integration; at the same time, districts must focus on improving minority-student achievement.
Academic achievement needs to be the highest priority, no doubt about it. I would also emphasize that while integration boosts student success, it can’t help but make students better people as their sphere of cultural understanding is widened.
Be sure to check out the newest addition to Doing It For The Kids, The Presidents’ Corner, which is totally clickable up there and to the right a bit.
The idea is to explore, president by president, what these clowns had to say about education. After all, how much do you really know about Grover Cleveland?
Categorize under funny, depressing:
The other day a busload of high school students was all set to go on a field trip from summer school to a nearby park. When they found out which park, they emptied the bus, citing their own safety – they were concerned they would get shot.
From an article entitled, Pedagogy of the Pissed: Punk Pedagogy in the First-Year Writing Classroom, by Seth Kahn-Egan, from about 1998.
My course for next spring, “Writing about Punk Rock,” asks students to write and read extensively, looking at their own rebelliousness (the first paper assignment asks for them to describe and think about a situation in which they behaved subversively) and the rebelliousness of others (we will spend much of our class time examining punk music and lyrics, as well as reading about major figures in various punk subgenres). Their readings and their writings for most of the course will focus on finding the point where passionate advocacy ends and lunatic ranting begins. Their final essay will ask them to construct a subversive text, to call for action on an issue or against an institution that concerns them. The format of their original punk texts will be open-they can write songs, articles, letters, whatever. They will be able to work individually or in groups. They will need to decide how best to say what they want said, to do-it-themselves. The course will challenge students to take action.
This is the kind of thing that needs to happen more in the classroom. Not necessarily because it’s “punk” (although that’s how I found it), but because it is creative and risky. Granted, in the hands of the wrong teacher, this would essentially be a wasted unit, but I think because the author is challenging students to take action, with his help they will rise to the occasion.
Given my experience in the punk world, I’m glad to see that students will be “finding the point where passionate advocacy ends and lunatic ranting begins”.
