End of the semester! The first semester is the long semester so I am pleased that it has finally come and gone. I put together a packet of the "best" sonnets of 2007 and stuck a copy in the principal's mailbox today. Sure, it felt a little self-promotional, but I am feeling that I have no choice if I am going to attempt to create a new position for myself. In looking over the number of students who completed the assignment, challenging though it was, I felt pleased because the completion rate was pretty high given the challenge--typically more give up and quit than actually try and muddle through. I was pleased by the outcome. Sharing the sonnets out loud was a real pleasure. By taking the names off of the work and distributing copies, the kids were all interested in trying to discover who had written the good ones. They were so attentive and gave wonderful and constructive feedback to the authors. Also, they really were proud of themselves for conquering something that they initially found so perplexing. My favorite ones mirrored Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 with a real urban school flavor--shall I compare thee to a pair of new Jordans? Or my love is like macaroni and cheese?

As a review for the final exam (which will take place tomorrow), we played Jeopardy today. I am always astounded by how competitive and excited the student become when we play these games. They bicker over the rules, they are sure that I am biased towards the opposite team, the points aren't fair or aren't elaborate enough... it's so funny. Meanwhile, I get a decent chance to look at what I think has been learned and what has been missed completely. It seems to me that the debate unit sunk into their brains as did the sonnet and poetry unit while the library skills and bibliography know-how seems to be lost by the wayside. Vocabulary and grammar are somewhere in between. As unbelievable as it may be, several groups of students STILL were not able to tell me that a noun is a person, place, thing or IDEA. I fear that the exam will be too long and too difficult for a great many of the kids but I also think it is a very fair assessment of the material that I've covered and will show me how much has been absorbed. I am pleased with it overall.

One of my students had a horrific meltdown this week. Her mother is in a coma from a car accident, her uncle was shot by a cop and her father recently had a leg amputated. It's hard to believe that this is true, but according to her advisor, it is indeed. No wonder she is not so keen on school. This is one of those reminders about just how irrelevant school can be for so many of these kids. They have so many other kinds of traumas and other responsibilities to contend with. Last Friday, one of my students was freaking out because she was going to be late to pick up her brother after school and it was snowing. Another student is struggling with a serious drug addiction while his father seems to be abusing him and is an alcoholic--the poor kid was already removed from living with his mother because she abused him too. Such disasters. It's hard for me to take any of the academics seriously when looking through this lens.

I told one set of parents who came up today that I thought their son was dangerous--he seemed indifferent when four teachers told tales of him nearly blinding students as he throws things across the room. He admitted to an anger problem but did not seem to want to do much about it. He is so manipulative. I felt sorry for his parents. Actually sorry for them because clearly this boy is not going to fulfill their hopes and dreams.

Ah, the sonnet. What could be better than watching my students clap their fingers together or stomp their feet trying to dicern where the accent falls in a word? What is more refreshing than watching students count syllables hoping that they will add up to ten? What better than watching as they smile when they finally figure out what ABAB CDCD EF EF GG means? Or wagging their fingers shouting "it's a rhyiming couplet," pleased as punch that they know what that means? Or giggling when I say, "thou must deposit thy gum in the receptacle." These are the days when I love my job. Kids love poetry, for some reason, they aren't turned off by it, they like the idea of it and they feel that they can do it. Sure, their poems are trite, but at least they are trying. How many adults sit down and write sonnets at night? Better still, I hear them in the hallways, correcting each other about the patterns, teasing each other about inept rhymes. I'm hooked. I even got a few to admit that Shakespeare was the original G. Now that's progress.

How can you be pro-union and still hate the fact that you and the shitty teachers get the same deal? Instead of kudos thrown at me via a last minute request to "update the staff" on the great work that I've been doing, why not shove a letter in my file --I would prefer commendation to public praise anyday. Besides, public praise is ultimately just public humiliation since my peers look at me with razor glares and I'm left feeling like the nerds I pity in my class. If I want to leave this place, which I clearly do, why can't I have support and help from the administration? Is it THAT hard to write a template with boxes to tic when someone does something right? They certainly are fast to get something in when a teacher screws up. The system blows. I bust my last gut working to meet with teachers, co-plan, follow up on concerned students, lead imaginative and creative projects, in short to exceed expecations, but I am seen as no different from the teacher who kicks her heels up and surfs the online shopping sites all day between her classes of five students. Sure, I stand out within my school, but not in NYC and I want OUT! HELP!!! I am trapped in a school where there is no place for my drama productions. But there is certainly plenty of drama.

How do you teach people that some reasons are better than others? How do you get students to realize that their actual opinion is less important than their ability to represent the resolution for their team? I tried with "women should quit their jobs after they get married," because I knew it would get a reaction. It did. But I could not get them down from the reaction to try and argue the affirmative case. The girls flatly refused. I said, girls, come on!! You know I don't believe this but it's the job of the affirmative case to PROVE the resolution. Ay, yay, yay. There was certainly a lot of shouting in the classroom today. Security looked in several times. They probably thought I was strangling someone.

My afternoon was filled with helping students fill out their college applications. For some, it was the first time they had ever addressed an envelope (they have to hand their teachers rec letters and envelopes). The online generation. Wow. It amazes me how daunting this process appears to be for them. On the other hand, I edited one student's personal statement and it was so good that I had tears in my eyes thinking of her in college next year. This will all be worthwhile.

My late afternoon was spent grading these stories that kids wrote ina project where I collaborated with the science teachers. It was the life of a carbon compound and the kids had to have it cycle through millions of years into various states (as sugars or fossil fuels) until it winds up in their bodies at the end. Some of the stories were hilarious. My job was to help them make the stories creative by making the carbon into a character. Lots of the carbon particles sounded like pimps, others like bored and restless teenage carbons looking for love, a few were excited to get excreted from the butts of dinosaurs. Ah, teaching.

Oh I forgot. Security is likely to come for an inspection this week. These guys and gals are not the most educated bunch but for some reason it is part of the security check to read and review the bulletin boards. They are supposed to look for errors. So, none of the telephones work should we need to call for help. It takes about ten minutes to get out of the building during a fire drill, hmmmm bacon, we have no place to send students who are disruptive, but our bulletin boards will be squeaky clean. Years ago, I asked what the rationale was for the security inspectors evaluating bulletin boards and as I recall the response was that mistakes indicate a lack of motivation on the teacher's part and therefore, an increased likelihood of student disruption. I swear.

We received an email reminder that said "as always be sure to" and then listed all of the things that never happen at our school. Such as the deans patrolling the halls during all periods. This never happens. Ever. The only reason I can ever find a dean is because one of them keeps coffee in my room and so I have access. Otherwise, you are as likely to find a student who likes to read. A winning lottery ticket. A singing dinosaur.

Brainstorming the castle.
What comes to mind when you hear the words "water," "debate," and "document?" For my students, the responses included, "your balls in my mouth," "poop," "camel toe," and "turkey." Yes, indeed. Welcome back. It's always an exciting time when the students have been home and we have to remind them how we behave in school. There is always someone out to sabotage the lesson. Still, while playing musical brainstorm (they roam around to the hip hop beat adding thoughts to posters with the words on them)...I found myself laughing at the sexual obsessions of teenagers everywhere.
I scooped up a good note today revealing what is on the mind of many while I wax forth about the merits of the adverb. I'll copy its contents later in the week.
Knowing as I did, that today would be icky, I tried to plan a relatively unimportant lesson. All I wanted my students to be able to puke back by the end of the 46 minutes was what unit we'd be starting and what did they hope to get from it. I think I managed to pull that off. But these returns are so jolting. I've forgotten, ever so briefly, how to juggle forty requests. I've forgotten how to hear "I want your praise" when someone shrieks "I answered that question first mother fucker so shut the fuck up." Sigh.
When asking one student to throw out his gum, he shouted, "I'll swallow it. That's right miss, I swallow." Oh, the chuckles that ensued. Oh, how my sense of humor differs tremendously from theirs. Oh, how long the year can feel.

Thanksgiving was a momentous occasion at school. Our school's tradition is to have everyone bring in what they can and we host a feast in our advisories. There, we ask the students to say one thing that they are thankful for. It's one of those rare, meaningful days because inevitably a student says that even though most of the time she thinks that the teachers are "wack" and that the school is stupid, she doesn't mean to be so "mean to yas all the time and really you people are" her real family. There were multiple sets of liquid eyes. Seniors were coming around begging for letters of recommendation and it was exciting to think that maybe, just maybe a decent percentage of these "ghetto" children would not only break the cycle of poverty by being the first in their families to graduate fro high school, but also be the first to be admitted to college. Whether or not they are capable or able to withstand the full four years (or two for more technical programs) of college is anyone's guess. I don't think we can hold ourselves responsible for any of this. We can only cross our fingers and hope for the best. I had several students come to tell me that they missed my class and that they might not have told me at the time, but that in my class, they learned a lot, in fact, they learned how to think and to write. They miss my laughter and my sensitivity. Now, how's that for rewarding? My response of course (after regaining my composure) was to say, "but all you ever did was complain and tell me how boring and terrible I was?" To which one student replied, "I'm a teenager, Miss." Fair enough.

These rewarding moments seem to be timed so as to appear before vacations, as though to seduce us to return. Of course, the re-adjustment to work is always chaotic as the kids have lost their routines and seem to want to punish us for leaving them. Or perhaps we are out of touch with the level of stress that we've adjusted to most of the time. We've remembered our true selves, read a novel for fun, enjoyed the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine, maybe even gone to a movie or two. We're unprepared for the swarming of complaints, the shower of nasty words, the filth of the dust, the invisibility of the ghetto is so quick to re-appear when you have no choice but to visit.
The love/hate balance is back in place I suppose.

Thanksgiving is around the corner and I need to stop and give thanks. It's two in the morning and I can't sleep. I am worrying about xeroxing a take-home AP exam practice for my AP students. I am worrying about finding the time between now and 8 am to buy 4 liters of soda and cups for the Pizza Party I am throwing the kids who did well in my Harbor Humanities class. I am worried about not having a hard enough Thanksgiving homework assignment even though no one ever completes what I do give them. I am worried about not having completed the meeting with my boss to address problems in our programs for the next semester. I am worried about the letters of recommendation that I have to get finished so kids can apply to the colleges of their choice. Did I remind people of the training I'd be out for the week we come back? I am thankful that I slept last night since tonight doesn't look so promising.

Movin' on up?
This week announces the big deal what we've all been waiting for news--we are out of Bushwick. ETA--2008. Optimistic hoorahs abound and cheery faces of former employees determined to make this their last year are reinvigorated and zealous in their beliefs that a new building in a new, theme-appropriate setting will serve as the deus-ex- machina to this Greek tragedy. Yours truly remains somewhat cynical and befuddled. Sure, I think the move will be a good one for the school. When the move actually happens is another story and having worked on minor home improvement projects I can say with a tad of authority that I find the move in date unrealistic at best. There are claims that the school construction department has already reviewed the building and given their priliminary cost estimates and made their best guess. True or false, the bureaucracy that is the Department has little of my faith and none of my trust.
Next, comes the question-- will we continue to serve the Bushwick community when we are no longer in Bushwick? Should we? The public word is yes, of course, we are devoted, dedicated and loyal to the community that we've served for the past four years, but again, I reserve the right to see. The students are either excited to move or refusing to go and parents are concerned about safety in the new location as well as the fears about transportation.
The best news so far that I've heard is that as our new location is somewhat challenging to traverse, our new start time will be 9:30 am, ahh morning jogs.
While it cheers me to see my fellow worker bees so delighted with the prospects of working toilets and proper lighting, I remain puckered, too tightly wound, and frazzled. It's hard to pinpoint why this is exactly, perhaps I am no longer a believer and this is the ultimate clunk over the head for me that I must move on. Not that I should but that I must.
Perhaps my indifference suggests that while the school is finally growing into its mission, I become less and less alligned with its goals. The theme doesn't seem to fit with my talents suggesting I'd serve better elsewhere. This new plan (in the making) to become a technical school (that still pushes higher education) strikes me as inane and I want nothing to do with it. I despise the idea of teaching an English class based on reading how- to manuals for electric drills and power saws. Nope, it's time for this spotted apple to find a new orchard. Know any farmers?

My co-worker is reading catch-22 and says she is reminded of life at school. Sure, you can have a desk. There is one in room 226 that is not in use. But you need the key to room 226 to get the desk and that person is not here. No, I haven't seen that person in weeks actually. But if you see her, get the key and you can have the desk you need.
This is in fact a real situation. It's a lot like trying to order bookshelves. Sure, we can have them but only if we go to IKEA ourselves to get them. And no one will provide us with a van or transportation but we are welcome to go whenever we like.
Oh yeah, and we already spent the english department budget money before we were told what our budget amounted to. Then again, I got paid to cover a class today but the entire class cut. They never even walked in the hallway. It was as if they knew I would smell them out qne make them come in and work.
Last night, we stayed until about 7 re-arranging the room to try and avoid fatalaties. When we tried to warn our bosses that someone might die because each day the bookshelves were tipping and almost falling over I believe the response was something like "What do you want me to do about it?" Granted, our poor bosses have way too many fish to fry and I do realize that their jobs are as chaotic and surreal as ours but this is a sincere safety concern and we really need some help stabalizing or replacing these teetering deathtraps. If a child dies, we will be blamed and fired undoubtedly. Anyway, there we were using a broom to try and hang posters from just below the ceiling because there was no ladder and if we asked for one we'd never get one. So we stood on a shaky table and prayed that it wouldn't collapse as we attempted to post evergreen reminders to our students about what a verb is and how to write a summary and so on. My collegue appropriated a desk from another floor and worked in earnest with two other students to work a miracle in the room and it does look so much better. It certainly lifted my spirits today. One student even noticed.
Students stayed after school to get caught up today and a few helped me with odds and ends, did some grading for me and I left at about 5 again. These are long days for someone who gets up at 6 and leaves the house before 7.
The only way I can manage to teach my kids about subjects and verbs is to try a sentence involving some devious behavior. Oh well, whatever works. Thank God it's Friday tomorrow because the spotted apple is going to Los Angeles. A sunny goodbye for the weekend.

Today a student was more upset about getting his shoes dirty than he was excited about an opportunity to participate in team building activities in the park. Later, he lost his earring and told me if the principal didn't buy him a new one, he would "kill his family." The kid is such an angry mess. The weirdest part is that he is an angry drama queen. I am not sure that he is out yet to himself, but it is the oddest, stereotype destroying vision to see this effeminate boy who is obsessed with clothing but the clothing is the whole baggy pants, jordans, and fake diamond earring look that is ghetto fashion.

My classroom was a million degrees today. It was impossible to get adults to function let alone teenagers. Most of the kids in my room had their heads down on the desks after about ten minutes of class. I was trying to introduce the concept of a literary analysis essay which is a pretty tough concept for these guys. But I didn't have a fighting chance. Is it too much to ask for the most basic of climate control?

On the other hand, I did learn a great new phrase. "when you look in the mirror as you get dressed, do you get jigged?" Apparently it means excited that you look good. Hmm.

My AP class is a joke. But it's not a funny one. I shouldn't have to stop all work so that they get their personal statements for college done now should I? Did MY AP teacher do that for me? Hell no, I had college applications due on top of all the regular school work that was a typical part of a high school education. Around here, we're supposed to jump for joy if a child turns in an assignment consisting of a paragraph. Of the originial 25 kids, my AP class now consists of 8 students. The rest dropped out. I've barely required work. We've read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Pride and Prejudice, and we are now starting Hamlet. This, I think, would be a NORMAL reading pace for a non-inner city school. But of course, that is not what it is. These kids are used to four books a year, never taking any reading home, never doing homework and getting A's if they write so much as a paragraph. I am asking for five page double spaced times new roman 12 point papers. But I've only asked for two of them. And I've stopped asking anyway because I realize that at the end of the day, I care more that they get into college. But will they be able to handle it? It is going to be such a major adjustment for these guys. They are tough though and they are motivated. Which is why I am doing ten lessons on how to write a kickin' personal draft and workshopping the entire classes first drafts. Most applications are due Dec 2, so we'll get serious after that. I hope. They still have weekly vocab quizzes so that's something isn't it? Did I mention that their P&P rough drafts were due last Wednesday and I got 4 out of 8 and two totally incompletes? This would not work in college unless the course was taught by a sucker TA with a penchant for extention granting. I didn't put up with any of that shit when I taught at Boricua and that was community college. Maybe I should get my PHD so I can be treated better.

The WHY ask why edition of the spotted apple

Last week, I worked from 8 am until 4 pm without a single break except to down an apple while gathering a train pass. I did this Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesday, I had to scramble together an agenda for a department meeting. The whole department meeting calendar is completely out of wack now that people have actually had the courage to say that it is not fair that we have six thousand meetings that go way beyond the scope of the teaching contract that we are supposed to follow. Not that any of those days where I taught all periods in a row count as legal either. After preparing for my teaching blocks, I spent all the afternoons running "team building" courses in the park. Woah. I came home with feet so heavy I had to hire movers to carry me inside.
I have to GET OUT... I must get my resume updated and start spreading the word. word. If I don't, I'll be right back next year and no sir ee bob. I can't handle another year of the sheer and total chaos that is our school.

Why, for example, is it that our boss demands meetings, insists on the importance of them, as well as professional development, and then, when the contract actually designates a day for these events, he chooses to have the staff play a game of water polo? How about using that entire day for PD? Lots of departments are going out for pd from other places, which in my mind, is REAL pd. The English department is getting training on a specific methodology to teach writing a paragraph for example. A perfectly decent use of time. No need to play games. Offer game time to people who want to hang around after hours. Not me in other words.

And why, why why why, is there a meeting tomorrow when there is no real plan for what to have a meeting about? In fact, I got an email tonight telling me that I was presenting at the meeting tomorrow. Not possible as I will not even be in the building because I am finishing the "team building' and putting in yet another all day of teaching without a break to catch my breath with.

Finally, why is it, please, that the copy machine NEVER works in the morning and my classes start at 8? WHY?

It's Halloween. I had about ten kids in each class and about twenty this afternoon when we went to Hyland Park to play "surviving" games. Mostly, it was about teamwork, trust, and communication and what happens when one or all of those things is taken away. It was pretty fun and the weather was perfect. I was supposed to come home and run but everyone is bailing on class tonight. Andrew is too stressed about work, Sonia wants to have fun, Sara wants to have fun and I feel like sitting around and going to bed early. I'll run tomorrow. Most of my students know what an adjective is by now, which is something.

Because so many kids were absent, we watched a movie on survival techniques. It was hilarious. These redneck good ol' boys showing off their outdoor skills. But the kids were pretty into it. Then, of course there was Earl. Who decided to go off. I can't even repeat what he said. Basically it was a rant against the "rich teachers with their fancy lunches" and what can we possibly teach them about survival? "Miss, give me five bucks and the streets and I'll survive. Doubt you would." He has a point. I just wish he would learn to utter it more appropriately. Sigh.

A parent asked me if I was single and if so could he ask me out. I swear to God. The guy spoke about three words of English. It was hilarious. I can't make this shit up. I had a long line of parents waiting to yell at me because their children failed my class. Great. I got to work at eight, taught all day, tutored six kids after school. went to conferences and now it's 9 pm and I have to start all over again tomorrow. These are the days when I hate my job. Some lady sat in my room for the whole period and observed me. It make me nervous because I know she's the boss of the boss. Why can't people just leave us alone and let us do our jobs? I'm trying a new seating arrangement tomorrow to try to get more kids to pay attention. I wish I was a television set.

Work to Rule. Apparently this is a pre-strike phase associated with labor workers doing their minimal before going out on strike. Apparently, this is what our principal thinks we are doing since we refused to agree to his proposal. This is the first time I've ever felt personally insulted by my boss. 8 of us work an extra hour a day and he wants the rest of the staff to vote on whether or not I should wait around an extra hour to attend a meeting unpaid. He is upset because the staff doesn't want to vote on that because they feel that it's not their right to determine what is right for somoene else? I think he should be delighted that the staff is unified and respectful of each other. To me that shows a tremendous sense of unity, much more so than the divide an conquer mentality of his proposal which is a union-buster of an idea if I've ever seen one. NONE of this has to do (really) with whether or not I'd put in an extra hour. I put in tons of extra hours all year, in fact, I rarely leave before 5 and I am always there by 7:30, but that is MY CHOICE. As soon as someone mandates me to be there, it is no longer acceptable. Especially at the rate of pay I currently earn and the lack of respect my job receives at least within the system. There is a reason we have a contract, and I am so grateful to tbe teachers who fought for it. I realize that these small schools are attempting to break up the union and I only hope that the young, naive, or temporary teachers who intend to leave the industry soon enough don't screw it up for the careerists. I certainly won't. I feel dissapointed in my leader and bummed that he is being petty. I cannot see his pov. I am trying but I sincerely don't see where he is coming from. Why does he think these meetings are so important? It's much more important to me to teach, to see students, to have clubs after school, not to have face time with him or be lectured to about time cards and lateness policies or whatever other inconsistent and unclear system they are trying to put in place. It's simply not what makes us a good school. We're good because the kids come first. it was a sad moment today, and I hope he will calm down and rethink his strategy and not bark at us tomorrow as he did last week like we are children in need of a spanking.

'There's a boat in the middle of my LAB so.." this is how my co-worker starts explaining to me the frustrations he is having with trying to run his biology class. The "marine tech class," come on now, spade is a spade..shop class, didn't get the rented space that they were counting on and so as a result they have reclaimed their old classroom which was turned into a science lab in their short-lived absence. It's a mess, and it's one of so many messes caused by the "small school"=shove lots of kids into an old building, break it up by floors but leave them overcrowded, "solution" offered by the DOE. Other problems include...communal urinals that will leave us all deeply scarred for years to come, desperate measures for teacher privacy including attempts at using bookshelves as room dividers. This is bound to get us all killed or fired as the shelves aren't stable and threaten to come tumbling down any moment now. Did I mention the microwave and coffee pot hidden behing the book shelf as a last ditch attempt at "community" amongst staff or at least a little "break"--mind you this required walling off an entry so that teachers could come in and out of the classroom without distrubing the class that is in progress. Yes, we are completely without space. There is no brilliant solution, unless, as I am convinced some Japanese architects could come in and consult with us on how to Tokyo-ize the school. Beyond this, there is no hope.
Each morning, I have to "reset" the desks from rows to groups of five and then the afternoon teacher has to place them all back into rows again. We have no space for out posters and have hung a clothes line across the window in a vain attempt at finding a spot to hang our reinforcing lessons. It is total madness.
But it's not as bad a having a hlaf constructed boat in the middle of your lab, so I can't really complain now can I?

"There's a boat in the middle of my lab room," hence my poor co-worker G. cannot conduct his science classes very effectively. This is because our "boat-building" course, hey, let's call a spade a spade, shop class, was not able to move to another facility as planned and once again our over-crowded, triple-teacher to a classroom situation has rendered the day absurd.

Are other floors this crowded? Well, the newest school to the campus, the school that presently has only a 9th grade class, as with us, they will grow a new class each year. They have a HUGE floor. We were given no additional space because we are moving "any minute now". This has been the story for four years, and I'll give an "A" to the first bureaucrat to get us out of the hell hole that is our present state.

There are tensions among the staff and the principal and a.p.--our scheduled is taking advantage of the "we're a small school" philosophy and requiring beyond "above and beyond" and people are feeling pissy about it. Rightfully so. People above and below us are paid for extra meeting time while we're supposed to come because "face time" is important. Once in three years, I learned something from one of these meetings. But I forgot what it was. Most of the time, someone barks until we wimper and cover our ears with our paws.

Not that the teachers are a bunch of heroes either oh no. In the teacher's lounge today, I watched as our tech rep, my personal hero, debugged a computer because someone had been downloading crap videos and who knows what else. Earlier in the week, I watched a teacher print 200 pages of nonsense using up a laser toner while the teacher behind her waited to print out...her real estate prospects. Thank G. for the union?

Yes, because without the union, our boss would require daily face time until, who knows? 6:30 every night and there would be nothing I could do about it. As it stands now, our union is getting fragmented and the whole divide and conquer approach makes me nervous. How kind that they are willing to negotiate so that we don't have to come in on MLK Jr. day. Can you say distractor anyone?

My students, meanwhile, think I am an evil cow for imploring them to learn vocabulary words, read outside of class, and yes, dare I say it, think for themselves. Worse still? Act civilly towards one another. Yikes. Today was mild though because many of the louder cagey children fled the coop.

I read in the Times this weekend about some neighbors who, after much coaxing from a reporter, admitted that a certain student (later indicted for a crime) had "practically dropped out of high school,". The article went on to claim that people saw this child as mean spirited, vengeful and aggressive. Why is it acceptable to read about a kid practically dropping out of high school and in the same breath telling schools that they have no right to isolate disruptive, violent, aggressive children or suspend them or re-locate them to a facility prepared to deal with them? I don't get it. This is why our classrooms are such messes. We have to have every single kid come in, day after day, no matter how disrespectful or how many times an offense has been enacted. The best we can hope for is a two day suspension, which just makes everything worse because he (yes, almost always he) comes back even further behind and more angry.

I have a student, much like the one described above, who hates women. He is a totally different person with a male teacher but with me, he is rude and downright vile. I hate having him in the room because I can't wash his mouth out with soap and it makes me sick to listen to him. But he'll be there again tomorrow and the day after that and the following week too.

Teachers come to my room to make coffee in the morning and we share a small refrigerator. There is a steady steam of coffee traffic and the kids are all begging for some by 3rd period. Again, if only we could have enough space for a little privacy.

But we can't, and I wonder if we ever will.

Everyone has a DOE e-mail address. No one uses it. Think of the 8 track. Or the station wagon. Now think of the quill pen and the bottle of ink. Now you are nearing the utility factor of the DOE email address. Today, the Principal informed us that we had to access it. Not on a regular basis, but for an experiment. This meant calling the help desk. The DOE help desk. Picture a mail order catalog company that has nothing to sell but loads of investment capital. Bluetooth wireless headsets and ergonomic chairs and way too much time on their hands to actually do anything. Picture row after row of these cubicle tie wearing, robots. Picture them asking you for your password when that is what you are calling to get. Picture them telling you that they can't hear you as you SHOUT your name in the teacher's lounge causing whiplash to everyone who is in the room attempting to get their own work done. Picture the futility of it all, thirty minutes later when you log on only to discover that you have no e-mail. Try changing your password for the next time you have to do this. I dare you. It can't be done.

After school a student and I sang the twenty-three helping verbs as a way to make sure she was ready for her quiz tomorrow. It was the perfect end to a perfect day. All four of my classes went well. Was it that the book on tape was better to listen to than my reading voice? Was it the clipboards nailed to the wall that my collegue drilled in for me before I'd even arrived at school? Was it just my attitude? I did decide not to let things get to me. I decided that what mattered most was not that every second was a learning moment, but that the chaos was controlled. I let some of the foul language slide, I let some of the innappropriate behaviors go in the name of getting some of the work done. And some of the work did get done. Not all of it. Not enough to compete with the rest of the world, the one outside the lives of kids who are more worried about violence than numbers, but enough to make me take stock a moment and say, yeah, this was a good day.