National Day of Silence

The National Day of Silence is a movement protesting the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people and their allies, with a focus on those people who are students in secondary schools.

"I have written on the board that my deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by harassment, prejudice, and discrimination. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices."

Let's see how it goes...I am a bit nervous.

My 1st period is taking well to it. They are all just so needy. I am writing notes on post-its.
Pretty damn good though.

2nd was fine; self-starters, did work, turned it in.

3rd, my smarty-pants honors kids. I basically taught the first few stanzas of 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' to my class in complete silence. I appointed one girl, via post-it note, to lead the class in what I like to call an "exploration." For those of you who are familiar with this poem, it can be pretty annoying and pretty repetitive and pretty hard for a bunch of high schoolers. It ruled! They would get on a kick with a line like:

"The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window pane-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys..."

I would hear them say some good stuff then frantically write things like "Prufrock v. Haze" on the board or "animal?" Then, if someone was on a healthy track of exploration, I would point and smile while doing something that resembled the "roll 'em up" movement of "Patty Cake." They really enjoyed it. In fact, they enjoyed depending on one anther so much, most of them asked if I would be silent on Monday and let them work through the rest of the poem. Maybe I will. It was awesome to leave them to one another's brilliance and only minimally guide them.

5th Period, which is the class I have given up to my team teacher because they have become so completely despondent, had a really hard time getting started. They apparently cannot read.
Instructions are on the board and such. I silently sent one kid to another silent teacher's room because he was being disrespectful to me by talking. I had to threaten with write-ups.
My team teacher just sat silently at my desk the entire time...maybe that would have been a better plan.

6th Period is my favorite and they were beautiful. They let me know how painful it was for them to have to remain quiet and actually do an assignment alone, without me, but they were great. Respect.

8th Period is currently blowing my mind. This class, at the beginning of the semester, was full of all the delinquents. They have been removed from the counties educational system. This group of kids is one that is exhausting; probably the absolute worst group to have at the end of the day. The want to push my buttons, they want to talk, they want to make me talk until my voice disappears into germ-infested thin air. Then, they have these days where they blow me away. I had a talk yesterday with this class to prepare them for the responsibility that I was putting on their shoulders today: respect. All I want them to do is understand that this is important to me, this day is not about me, but it is important to me and it is important to me because I care about them. I got Mama Courtney on them yesterday. I didn't think they would get it. I took many preemptive measures: writing a huge note on the door telling them to sit down and be quiet and get to work, writing 'So & so needs a place to sit, may he come into your room?' on post-its in order to be able to deal with the situation efficiently and quickly, as well as moving some kids to different areas in the classroom (identified, of course, with post-its).

It seems that I was wrong to judge and they have really shown me that they can be quite the opposite of the hateful worm-eaters that they were when I first met them. Not only are they being quiet, but they are really doing the work! I look at them and see brains working inside their heads. I am so proud!

Reflections:
While all the students in the school recognized that certain people were not speaking and greeted us with "oh yeah, you can't talk today" I feel like the point was muddled a bit. Just as the kids look at my choice not to speak as a matter of can or cannot; in their minds everything, even passions, are dictated by rules, guidelines, or boundaries. I had the whole Day of Silence statement on my board, I wonder how many really read it? I have a fact sheet on my board printed on hot pink paper that gives statistics and key findings on the amount/types and under what conditions LGBT students are oppressed or harassed. It also lists ways to work together and create a safe environment for everyone. I counted three kids who read it; I teach 130. Maybe it's because of small details such as this, or the reality that is high school, but I find myself questioning whether or not a movement can take place on this level. This doesn't seem like much when I think of the Little Rock 9 and James Meredith. Not that I want fires and violence, but the peaceful side...the hearts in the movement. Maybe it is here and shame on me for selling this one short. This quest for satisfaction seems rather impossible though. I want to make a difference and I want to affect lives,help people ya know?
I always thought that high school is a great place to start because these guys and girls are just on the cusp of becoming grown, they will have passions soon, but they don't yet; they will work hard soon, but they lament the idea of working now. I guess the fact that I am teaching pre-cusp is frustrating at times. One of my kids is currently trimming the extra pieces of paper (the annoying tiny pieces when ripped from a spiral notebook) off with scissors because I don't like paper fringe...that's dedication. Today, overall, has filled me up quite a bit. Now, bunches of kids in black are filling the room across the hall for a meeting to reflect on the day. Wait, they are blowing up balloons...I guess they are gonna pop them in order to break the silence or something. Ha!

We shall overcome some day

Today is the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. This is one of my favorite speeches that Robert Kennedy gave. He was standing in the back of a pickup and didn't look at the piece of paper in his hands, not even once.
It made me cry on the way to work this morning...what am I gonna do with all this passion?

"My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote, 'Even in our sleep, pain which we cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grade of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the Unites States in not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion towards one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer in our country, whether they be white or whether they be black...Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world."

I wrote it on my white board to remind my kids not to forget.

Shake the dust off of your wings

My absence on this edublog is not due to lack of reflection, lack of motivation, or lack of material. I am, of course, responsible for what I make of my time throughout the day, but this time I am going to pass the buck to a tornado, being homeless, and another heart-breaking, unfortunate occurrence. Many folk's have taken a stab at why the tornado zipped through my place of residence, my favorite being: God hates gentrification. Either way, that spinster really left his mark. I have been without home and without my personal belongings since March 15th. If you Google "Atlanta tornado" I am sure you will find some tornado memorabilia or maybe a description of how "it sounded like a freight train," you may also take a gander at my loft building and what remains. I was in Boston crying because my home was on the television and my little cat man was stuck on the 4th floor all alone. I saved my cat four days later...he's a survivor.

Life has been full of inspiration and desperation and I have been writing, but not on this Internet thing...it's all been a little too personal. Teacher life is difficult while trying to balance human being life. Life and teaching and tornadoes and personal disasters make me daydream of Spring Break and airplanes. I have had to leave work early because my emotions overtook me, wear dirty jeans to work on a Monday (there is no such thing as a casual Monday!), call FEMA during my planning period, and attempt to grade 130 essays although there are many other things that I would rather be doing.

Meanwhile, my students have been providing me with plenty of exciting material: getting arrested, searched, suspended for using Xanex, passing out in class, and, the most exciting thing in a student's life...PROM! However, the most exciting school-related event in my life and the event that deserves to be posted got me a day off of work! A week ago my VP approached and said to me, "You've been served!" As he quickly flashed an approving, "I've always wanted to say that" smirk, I studied the very first subpoena that I had ever seen. Funnily enough, the subpoena had my name on it. I had truly, been served. I was to "drop all other responsibilities and appear as a witness" for a moron of a student that wrote "F*ck Lov3" on a quiz. Let's call him Wally. Wally was 19 years old and in my 10th grade World Lit class, his average was a 3, he once told me that he was a 'supremacist' but did not specify what group he advocated for, was involved in gang rape earlier in the year, and witnessed a suicide two years ago. It's like Dangerous Minds up in my world, ya'll! Knowing these things I still tried to believe Wally was a good kid who wanted to learn, but even more I wanted to show him that I cared. I am the one in the crowd with rose-colored glasses and smelling of patchouli; that new teacher that things all kids want to learn, the system has overlooked them, their parents don't care, and all they need is love. Well, I hate to break this to you John and Paul, but Wally needed a lot more than love. Wally is now banned from ever enrolling in a school in my county again and, in fact, has a restraining order against him. That is not what I became a teacher to do. Not at all. Lesson learned...some kids are just here because they truly have nothing better to do and do, in fact, have trash bag personalities.

I have somehow, with a lot of help, made it through these past few weeks and Spring Break will be upon me after I drudge through tomorrow. After Spring Break I plan on getting back on track with this blog thing...it'll come in handy one day and I need to regain my focus, get my life back from Mother Nature.

Good things are happening with my Journalism class...it will be an exciting time to reflect upon that.