"Dulce Et Decorum Est"

As I move forcefully into the finality of my first year as a teacher I am trying to find time for reflection. There are moments that my gaze will catch a particular grease stain on my bulletin board and I begin fantasizing of my summer yet to come, the half-finished books that I will conquer, the yoga that I will master, and, most importantly, the kids that I will not be responsible for.

This year has most definitely been filled with the most unpleasant of events. My advice to any new teacher is to make sure you try your damnedest to have your life looking as nice as the most meticulously manicured lawn.

The urban twister took me by surprise, losing my most significant kitty companion has left me lonely, being in one living situation after the next has made me feel even less grounded than usual, and the occasional bandits that somehow weaseled their ways into my life made out with years of soiled memories and pieces of me left me heart-broken and disenchanted with the goodness my daddy so often told me about. I bid them farewell and my foundations farewell with the all the grace I could muster, I cried on the way to work listening to political pipe dreams on NPR, and somehow...somehow...dried my tears, mustered my courage, and faced those hooligans, their unforgiving and impossible to satisfy parents, and my administrators who were all too busy to observe my teaching, but never to busy for the occasional, "Why, shouldn't you be wearing a nicer pair of slacks?"

No contest: the most difficult thing about teaching is getting yourself in order.

Even the most organized of professionals can't find enough hanging files and color coded stickers to keep the mess out of his/her life. I guess you just have to fight it and keep going. What else would you do? Give up.

I felt enough like a Baptist preacher telling kids that each test was important and that research skills would get all of them far in life, knowing damn well that most would only need to research the nearest pizza delivery spot. There's no way I could have begged them not to give up and quit myself.

As much as they weighed my heart my down, at times, they were the only thing that kept me going. God, or whoever wants people to make life easier on the rest of us, bless their stinky little hearts.

High School Daze

Summer break starts in two weeks and I have had a revelation:

Teachers Deserve a Summer Break!

There are many people in the world who, sitting behind their cherry oak desks, sipping on their grande non-fat latte's, gripe about how easy teacher's have it because we get the summer's off. I invite these people into my classroom for a day...if they could take it. My students would eat your up and barf you out, then throw you at thier friends and laugh. So, instead of going nuts on anyone in a 10 foot radius because I am forced to teach 12 months out of the year, I am going to visit my best friend in Austin, TX. One way ticket! Maybe I'll fall in love with the town, listen to some banjos, see bats in their natural habitat, road trip, swim in spring-fed pools, jump off rocks, and get back to my mother. I need a break from snot, saggy pants, kid's dumb senses of humor, people saying my name on repeat, peole needing me so much, being disappointed, wanting more money, waking up insanely early, wishing for more effort, raising my voice, grading papers, faculty meetings, awkward work events, "dressing up," talking to parents, making sacrifices to stubborn copy machines, counseling colleagues, dealing with the politics, and basically just working harder than I ever have in my entire life. I deserve it damn it.

My brain has been working in spurts (ahhhh, sprinklers! Summer! Bliss!) so I will share recent events in a like manner.

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week which means nothing except we get cupcakes after school and corny poems that the PTA comes up with. It's real cute.
I must be a badass teacher lady though because this week I got two $50 tickets to a Braves game from a student, homemade brownies sans laxative, a really kind thank you card, and a plant for my room. Pretty cool. I also only worked three days, one of which being casual Fridays which aren't real work days. If I could wear jeans every day I would never feel like I was really working! Ha.

Yesterday I had an interview with a Peace Corps recruiter. While the Peace Corps is an option I am always reminded that there are more. I probably won't be able to travel to South America with the Peace Corps, which is what I would like to to first. I did catch wind of a job/volunteer opportunity for next year in Honduras and a huge part of me wants to do it. There is also a summer camp. I think that the best option for me is to stay here one year and make money, save it all, then begin my voyage be it with Peace Corps or at an International School.
At the Peace Corps office there was a picture of George W. on the wall, it gave me the creeps and I wanted to leave. I know that if/when I do Peace Corps it'll be Obama or Hillz on the wall, which will make my uneasiness slip away.

Oh oh, oh! I got my first rumor today! Apparently I am the first pregnant lesbian teacher at my high school. Not saying a pregnant lesbian is impossible (I am no moron), but I would like to point out that high schoolers are even sloppy with their rumors.

Five full days to go then vamos!

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.

Superman that Shawty?

Ah finally! I have reached my breaking point. I have come to realize that while all those that come before me have more knowledge and experience, those that come before me simply are not me. I have been following very large footsteps, that my feet kind of slosh around in and slip side to side because of all the extra space, since the beginning of the semester. I have been teaching lessons that bore me to ensure I teach the standards and cover all the material. After a brief hiatus in the mountains of North Carolina followed by a walk with cows and chiggins in the fields of South Carolina I have come to realize that the only way I will enjoy my job is if I grab my job by the balls and do things my own way.

Welcome to a Russian Literature unit! I know next to nothing about Russian history and had to figure out a way to get around a crash course on a history that could have possibly taken the entire length of the unit. So we are doing a study of the culture through the literature! Ta Da!
Today was great too! I asked students on Friday to journal about what they identified with, what culture(s) they come from, what are specific characteristics of that (those) culture(s) and then for class today each student came equipped with a printout of song lyrics. After a lengthy and rather enlightening discussion about my student's very unique cultures we came to the song lyrics. Now, we are doing a study of culture through literature, and song lyrics are, by definition a type of poetry, right? So, how does one feel if his/her culture is being represented by people singing about "Superman(ing) that ho!" or "shaking that laffy taffy?" My students were as baffled as you may be. They found it hard to connect or feel like they were being accurately represented by this writing that degraded women and, frankly, made no sense. They did, however, find it rather hilarious to hear their wise old teacher say "Superman that ho" and "Shawty."

Tomorrow they write lyrics that are true representations of where they come from and who they are. I am excited to have them writing again. I am glad to be back!

My resume is slowly trickling into the NYC school system and I visit Boston next week. I am scoping out the land...trying to find where I fit best. I am also very interested in going back to school sooner rather than later. If any of you know of any ways that I can go to graduate school for free to obtain a Master's in African American Studies pray tell. I am not ready for that PhD. just yet.

Leap Year

I decided, it seems, that because this is a leap year I will simply skip over the month of February as far as blogging is concerned. Truly this past month has been a demon hell-ride and I am clenching the coattails of my colleagues and begging for help. Influenza has struck down many a student which is great because less students make for smaller classes and that means easier days for a variety of reasons. While this outbreak of funky boogers was serendipitous it was also a bit of a drag when my planning partner and teaching partner was bed-ridden for 9 days in a row. Now, while I do consider myself skilled enough to go into any situation and take charge or to be flexible and "wing it," I have learned that I can only do that for about, um, two consecutive days before throwing up in my mouth every time I step onto school grounds. Last week was hell; winging it is no good. Here, I will share just a few little road bumps from last week: a student of mine was arrested for selling prescriptive meds, colleagues put white out over my name on the library reservation sign-up sheet, I got my first student suspended (he totally deserved it...nine times over), every employee of my school had a nice lil' passive aggressive email in their inbox from one upset wrestling coach because the newspaper of which I am the adviser for 'forgot' to mention his team, a crown completely came out of my mouth (I was eating taffy...so what), I stayed at work until 8:30 at night one night editing embarrassingly second-rate articles to print in the paper, the whole while pushing away my desire to ring the necks of every single one of my cocky newspaper staffers, and I got a nasty email from the man down below for missing a meeting.

One thing I have learned about being a teacher is that you can't take shit. Not from the students (most don't give it ) or from the eclectic mix of absurd people that you work with. Luckily I have some friends who have my back and can be like, "Yo wrestling coach! Lay off the new girl or I'll show you how to make a Half Nelson count!" and also I am no wuss. I am actually becoming less and less of a wuss every day when I realize that if I don't stand up for myself then no one will. Sometimes I catch myself humming "We Shall Overcome" in the middle of the day as I fight my own battles.

Oh, and heck yes Black History Month! My school is getting together a pretty fantastic program for next Wednesday and I am very excited. I think I have (possibly...maybe) decided that I want to go back for a masters in African American history/literature before going back for a PhD. One thing that is for sure though is that I wanna go back.

Last week I was at Emory listening to Salman Rushdie discuss the relationship between autobiography and fiction and just being there made me crave that school-type scenario again. I don't like being the one doing all the talking...I wanna listen too. It seems I talk more than I listen every day which is a shame...it is just he way things are working out right now.
I am trying to find alone time to read a bit, and right now I am reading Midnight's Children by Rushdie (yes I was inspired by his lecture). I was also inspired to get back up and write something tonight. He says that we are a "nation of forgetters." I don't want to be one of those. I wanna remember the details and take the minutes of my life. Hello again reflection and blogging.