It was
while sitting in a lecture on cultural responsiveness, watching my true
identity dissolve into a puddle of white privilege that smelled surprisingly
like Elmer’s glue, that I realized I haven’t blogged in awhile and sought to
remedy the situation. Of course, it’s no good now; anything I write will smack
of loathing for the organization that can put me through this mind-numbing
torture. My thoughts the past half hour have gone something like this: “wait,
did I just get more racist? How can I
tell? Hang on, maybe it’s localized to small parts of my body. Maybe just my
elbow is racist. Or my thumb. I have to gnaw it off. Now. Before it spreads.”
Instead of
digesting my own organs, I will blog to relieve the mind-numbing tedium of
required professional development.
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| Morgan Freeman knows. Today, when my IB students questioned how I knew where to find research studies which they couldn't find, I told them, in Morgan Freeman's voice, "I'm known to locate certain things from time to time." They loved it. |
For the
past twelve hours, I have been either at school, in a faculty meeting, or
embroiled in this cultural responsiveness training. I have two more hours with
TFA and it’s anyone’s guess whether I will make it through without being kicked
out of the program. I have so far shouted out “Democrat!” in response to a
question about Barack Obama’s ethnicity, stuck up the wrong finger when we were
asked to raise one to show whether we had a talking buddy, told everyone in my
vicinity that nationality is a construct just like race and clearly the
speaker’s question is a trick, and am currently tossing balled-up pieces of my
nametag at my friend. They aren’t reaching him. I’m a rotten shot, though I
practiced with my favorite blerds yesterday during our trashketball review for
our test.
Other
things I’ve accomplished recently: played therapist to several distraught
students, wiped out an ant infestation, engaged in college guidance for my
favorite undocumented student, called 63 parents to let them know their darling
offspring spend an hour and half with me a day and are they sure they feel okay with
that, graded something on the order of 1,200 pieces of paper, created a bomb-diggity
lesson plan on the brain for tomorrow (brain hats! Brain hats and neuron-firing
games and homunculus man races), and given show-and-tell on Judaism in the
world history classes.
If you had
three minutes to explain your religion, what would you say? My spiel went like
this, based on what I knew they’d be interested in:
Same G-d,
just the first half of the bible, Jesus was a cool guy but I don’t believe in
his divinity. Every 25 hours I shut down for the Sabbath—no work, no
electricity, no driving, just food, prayer, friends, reading, and long walks.
And yes, I see your hands and I know your question, my grandparents survived
the Holocaust but most of my great-great relatives were murdered, so I’m pretty
much a walking miracle. Questions?”
They loved
it. Perhaps every piece of content should be delivered by an authentic example
who elevator-pitches it in three minutes and then leaves while they’re still
off their seats with questions.
After
school, lots of people pop in and out of my trailer from the district—heating
and cooling people, plumbers, internet and technology experts, etc—the whole
gamut of people it takes to keep my trailer just barely operating. Usually I
offer them some of the candy I’ve saved as a treat for my kids, and we banter a
bit about the weather and such. Sometimes we go a bit deeper. Recently one person explained to me why our education system is suffering:
“We need to
bring that whoop ass back.”
“Excuse me?”
“Can’t hit
the kids anymore. That’s the problem.”
“Well, most
of them are big enough to hit back. So I don’t think it would work.”
We amicably
agreed to disagree, swore eternal friendship over a can of tepid coke and a water bottle, and left it at thinking each other hopeless with children.
Besides
that, things are calm in the world of second-year teaching. Not one student has
thrown a major fit yet, they generally do their work, and on the whole, we have
a rollicking time exploring psychology together. I’m afraid it makes for much
less interesting stories, but a much better educational environment. If
anything changes, I’ll keep you posted. Until then, we have a nervous system
and endocrine system to memorize and lots of sensory tricks to play on students
in order to get them thinking about biology’s effect upon behavior. So long!
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