Could Not Be Happier

The kids can smell freedom. The teachers, too.
Okay, this isn't strictly accurate-- often I LOVE my job.
But it's been a tough ride.

In the movie Mean Girls, there’s a line where the principal quells a riot and then says, “I ought to cancel your Spring Fling.” Here at Crazy Times Charlotte High, we’re waiting to see whether our riot today will mean a cancelled Spring Fling tomorrow. 

Everyone’s praying not; the pep rally was cancelled today because lunch evolved into a full-on rumble (a teacher who works in a main campus building told me she locked her door, she was so nervous). Luckily, out in the trailer park we don’t see much action; the first I knew of the fights was when the principal cancelled the pep rally over the loudspeaker due to “lunch disturbances” and put us on “restricted movement.” A bunch of my students stayed to hang out during lunch, and when one senior was asked if she’s going to prom, she responded, “No! It’s our school, it will be too ratchet.” I protested then that our school's a fine place, but now I realize that was exactly the same time as a riot was taking place on the quad. Can’t nobody wait for spring break!

Everybody Run!

Breath! Ignore the large wasps,
balls of paper being thrown around,
and regularly repeated profanity. Focus! 

There’s a lot of gallows humor involved in being a teacher at a school like ours. While the trailer park teachers went for our ritual Friday-survival congratulatory roulette beers this week, we started talking about how to make sure our pregnant students still get the work they need. One teacher asked what would happen if they went into labor in our trailers, and suddenly we were off on a riot of hilariosity that only other teachers will find funny. Or understand.

-You’d probably get marked up from “developing” to “proficient” in classroom leadership.

-If you deliver it and teach the baby to read within a day, you’ll get marked “accomplished.”
 -“Distinguished” is saved for if you also teach the baby to tap dance.  

-I’d think mere delivery would be enough.

-Yeah, but you have to show data that proves your delivery was consistent.

-And that you’ve involved all your students in the process. Stations, perhaps?

-What about differentiation? Deliver this baby in an ADHD-friendly, SIOP-friendly, learning-style differentiated manner, or it doesn’t count!

-Nope, that’s not proficient unless you put some cross-curricular planning in. Maybe if you invite the health class to watch?

-Remember to show evidence of delivery!

-Probably if we showed up to the front office with our hands all bloody, they’d take it as evidence.

-Yeah, but they’d want to know if you called security, first, before they did anything about it.

-And whether you shared your newfound knowledge with your peers.

-That’s it. If my girl gives birth this month, you’re my first call.

Speaking of data and of the miracle of life, I’m going to keep a journal of everything I kill in my trailer and submit it humorously at my summative evaluation. First on the list: a wasp and a half.

You see, Friday a wasp got into my classroom, and in a fit of half-panic, half-humor, half-it's-Friday-Fun-Day, half-fractions-are-clearly-beyond-me, I laughed, "everybody run!" So they did (most of them already had, to be perfectly honest). I did too. That wasp scared me.

My kids are good at this.

A super-tough teacher from across the hall came in, slammed it on the floor with his clipboard, and told me to step on it. I did, gingerly. And when the second wasp buzzed in, I was ready. I leaped onto the desk, slammed it to the floor with Our Human Legacy: World History Through Time, and squished it with my shoe. Everyone cheered, and a student carried it triumphantly to the bin.

Oh, Friday fun day. Oh, for another week in the bag and spring break around the corner!

The Purpose of Revolution

My students are writing essays on the purpose of revolution. Well, right now they’re just in the planning stages. They revolved through the room, hitting stations with different documents about revolution in history (French, Haitian), now (Arab Spring), and then thinking about it in their own lives. I told them so many anecdotes about my own rebellions in school that I wondered whether they would get ideas, but it was only my 4^th block (who have become my favorites for their boisterous hilarity) that realized they, too, could stage a coup and seize the power. I talked them down pretty quick; I’ve had too much practice on my own.

All my classes were remarkably well-behaved. 4^th block I’ve solved major problems by locking my door at the ring of the bell, and only letting in students with injunctions to “sit silently” when it’s convenient for the rest of the class. They have to go back out and try again in three minutes if they fail to sit silently, and while you would think that would be a great way to enhance a skipping problem, I have some unexpected allies. The area outside my trailer is now buzzing with bumble bees. Perfectly harmless, furry big bees that the kids are terrified of and will do anything (even behave well) in order to escape. I think they fill the trailers with a pleasant vernal atmosphere.

So today every class made its circuits from Arab Spring blog to Three Estates cartoon, gently exchanging “cállates” with the pull-out Spanish group instead of their usual all-out bitch-fests about differentiation (of course, in my fourth block instead they always try to get them to teach them Spanish—oh fourth block whom I love for your disruptive friendliness!). Two students who have never done a lick of work before, in two different classes, turned in full answer sheets. Tomorrow they will begin their writing.

Ms. W will allow one day of recovery credit if you create an
epic movie about what you did while skipping school. No illegal
activities allowed onscreen.

Students also took an open-notes quiz to check how well they’d copied French Rev lore and were prepped for their essays. Told ‘em to write me a note if they weren’t there on the days we studied this. Received many excuses but fortunately went back through my records to sift the lies. Got a bit tetchy with the number of kids who said they weren’t when they just hadn’t taken notes. Wanted to get creative in response to student notes like the one below:

Ms. W I'm sorry I wasn't here.

Options for response:

-I'm sorry too. F.

-Why not try coming, then?
-You skipped 22 days of school. Unfortunately, the day we took notes for this quiz wasn't one of them. F. 

-No worries, why don't you take the rest of the semester off, too?

-I'm sorry I can't grade this-- I have better things to do. Just like you, apparently.

What I went with:

-Checked my attendance records. You were. F. 

P.S. See me for recovery for your 22 absences.

A more heartfelt note:

Ms. W may I take this over because soda went all over my paper so I couldn't bring them they at home. Can I redo this because I don't want my grade to go down in this class.

Yes, girl! You may.

I Can Buy All the Jayz

This week has behaved much better than last. It seems aware of its place as the first in the spring calendar, and is taking its job seriously.

Students created adorkable French Revolution interviews. My favorite? The one entirely in Spanish, where they acted out the beheading of King Louis so thoroughly that I could understand the entire story even though it was in a foreign language. Oh, and the very studious girl who quietly made herself a fake mustache to wear as a nobleman and stuck with it the entire day. Wait, also the bloopers! Like when Juan (not his real name) stares at the camera, asks, “are you filming? Wait, what? Aaaaaaah! I can’t take it anymore!” in mock horror and runs offscreen holding his head in his hands while the other kids shout, “come back! Ms. W’s going to see this, you know!”

A girl trying to figure out where she’d rank in Old Regime France asked, “so, the clergy would be like the celebrities, and the 2^nd estate would be like me, and the third estate like the homeless?” That gave me pause— “No, the 2^nd estate were nobles, really really rich.”  

“I can buy all the Jayz,” she told me.

The kids love shoes. Why do they love shoes?

“Yeah, but can you buy a small country?” I asked her. The kids guffawed and got it. Still hit me for a loop when I think about how she lumped herself into the middle class and how I assume, and assumed, that any student at my school is in the lower income bracket, because otherwise their parents would use that money to get them the heck out. But then, I guess they might be spending it on all the Jayz.  

Two of my best and brightest started dating. I surprised them holding hands as they walked to school this morning. They chose my class to get into their first official lovers’ tiff:

--Napoleon was upholding the values of the French Revolution! He gave them the vote and everything!

--He gave the men the vote! But that doesn’t mean anything. He was really just in it for himself. He made his own siblings rule Europe!

--Ms. W, this is our first fight. And it’s your fault.

Children, I plead a joyous guilty.  

To My Teachers

Last week was tough; this one is much better. In fact, last week I called home in tears so often that my dad worried about me enough to call me. I, too, was worried about walking back into the classroom on Monday. I wondered whether my students would look at me differently, now that they’d seen me physically defied. Was the respectful teacher-student relationship completely abrogated?

Driving to work Monday morning, I thought about how to cope with the day without having a meltdown. How to teach without crying, or delivering scathing remarks, or shutting down completely and operating as a husk of a person?

I hit upon my usual method of coping; pick the person whom I would most want to be like in this situation, and fill myself with them until I can bring my own self back. Pretend that they’re watching over my shoulder, commenting, and do what will make them proud. I cast around in my mind: who would know exactly the tone to take with recalcitrant, disrespectful, or angry students?

My teachers.

Of course. I breathed deep into memories of Rebbetzin M gently chastising me for writing a too snarky newspaper column, Rabbi G catching me the first (and only) time I ever cheated and my deep shame in his disappointment, Rabbi E rallying us into continuous, never-ending enthusiasm for learning, Mrs. M massaging my shoulders encouragingly when I freaked out in my very first high school history test, Mrs. W’s superbly commonsensical teacher-tone guiding us into correct behavior, and G ignoring my impetuous need to test every prank that I’d ever read about in his class in favor of my developing literary soul. My teachers.

I walked into my classroom unafraid, certain that even if my teachers never had to deal with students quite like these, their sense of human dignity and respect for human growth would apply nonetheless. I remembered what my principal told me once, after I’d facilitated some shenanigans and he’d given me candy and made me walk the school grounds with him and his pedometer as punishment (mine was a weird high school experience): Teachers must forgive students every single day.

Ha! This sign should hang in the school I teach at.

Thank you, teachers o’ mine. I am beginning to realize that teaching requires the utmost greatness of spirit. It is giving me visions of a person I never thought myself capable of being. Something to work towards. Maybe someday to become. But until then, I am safe, emulating you.