Wandering Out of the Vast Wasteland

Okay, so my television shorted out about a week ago after only eighteen years of trouble-free service.

Up to nowI have resisted the desire to get cable or to go with a big Entertainment System, but there are a few shows in particular that I like to watch, either for their entertainment value or because I learn something from them; but, truth be told, there are a lot of hours a week the thing is just running as wallpaper. The TV is on, and it keeps me company in the evening, while I'm on the couch with the laptop, either working, reading news & political sites, visiting sailing bulletin boards to chat with my friends, or just wasting time. I spend quite a few hours a week on line, just surfing around.

So I've decided to let the dead TV collect dust for a while, and observe what I do with the time. I've already noticed a few differences:

1. I'm sleeping more hours per night: I usually stay up 'til around midnight because there are shows on that I think I want to see. Thinking about it there really isn't anything important on David Letterman that I'd be missing. Now, I'm falling asleep about two to three hours earlier, so I'm feeling more completely rested when that alarm goes off at 5AM.


2. As a result, I get up right away instead of hitting the snooze and calculating how late I can stay between the sheets.


3. I've been getting out of the house earlier, and into my classroom 30–45 minitues earlier, sometimes right when the alarm system shuts down at 6AM, to get in a good solid hour of planning/preparing before kids start showing up on campus. One day last week, I use that hour to put together an entire lesson on Powerpoint that I gave the same day that enriched the novel study my juniors are engaged in.


4. I'm a bit more clear-headed during the day, esp. in the mornig (I'm not a morning person. I think this has actually helped).


5. I'm reading for pleasure a bit more. I used to sit on the couch with the TV remote in my hand, glance over at my bookcase and think that I'd like to spend a relaxed evening behind a book instead of in front of the idiot box; the other night, I actually did.

To be honest, I'm also viewing more movies in the evenings on my laptop, so my video addiction, if you can call it that, is still being fed to a degree. And a week really isn't a long time. But I haven't had any desire to take my tube to the repair shop yet, so for now, I'm going to let it remain blind and mute.

I'll be updating. I know you'll be waiting for my capitulation, just to justify your own television addiction. While you're waiting, why don't you pick up a book?

Pulling Strings, but not Punches

So I started off my 6th period class by telling each student what I liked or appreciated about his character or personality, and with encouragements to push him on to whatever his next level is, as I see it. Some of those students are in their 3rd year with me, and I know them well enough to have unique insights into them. Down each column of the room, student by student. Less than a minute for each person. That took the majority of the class period.

Then some of them wanted to tell me about what they appreciate about me, or the way I run my class, or the way I treat them. I didn't ask for anything like this, but I thought they had a right to their opinions, and it certainly was the right moment, so I sat on the edge of a table in the front of the room and let them have at me. Several students (more than I expected) had something complimentary to say, and as it go rolling, new hands went up as they took advantage of the opportunity.

It was a powerful moment. I received many unexpected insights, and a few responses that validated much of my approach to the student-teacher relationship, my expectations for deep thinking instead of busywork, my helpfulness to them in their task of learning, or my availability to them concerning their academic challenges or willingness to be a confidant to listen to their personal problems and offer advice. It was all very touching (poignant is the official vocabulary word). The one I cherished the most was the simple "You treat us like real people." Not everyone volunteered; maybe half the class. I looked each one in the eye when I thanked them

I wanted to break the bad news to them sooner, but I had to let them have their say, and that left just three minutes in the period for me to tell them that today would be our last meeting, and briefly explain the unpleasant truth about life that sometimes there operate powers beyond our control. I figured this way was better than telling them at the beginning of the period, giving a three-minute explanation of why, and then having forty minutes of awkwardness to get through. And part of it was selfish on my part: I was counting on having the rest of the year to say those things implicitily. With just one class meeting left, I had to use it to give that one thing to them. I saw no other way. When time is short, you tell the truth.

When the bell rang, no one moved, because our business together wasn't quite done. A few students asked if I had any room in any of my other junior classes, and I encouraged them to go staight away to their counselors (just twenty-five feet from my door) if they were serious about wanting to go to June with me. A handful did, and a couple of them actually walked out with new schedules.

About five o'clock, I'm in my room with another teacher, helping her edit an application essay for a summer seminar, trying to get my mind off the disappointment of the day and reconciling myself to the reality of my new situation, when one of the counselors popped her head in the open doorway and asked, "Did you hear?"

I thought she was referring to the loss of my class, so I shrugged my shoulders and scrunched up my mouth to express "Que sera, sera." She realized that I was behind the information curve, so told me that the AP was able to find someone else to take that sophomore class, and that my juniors weren't going anywhere but back to me on Monday.

You could have knocked me over with a horribly-written first draft essay. Of course, my first response was relief. Then laughter, at the now-unnecessary mental and emotional anguish I (and they) had gone through that day. Then appreciation for the dedication of our AP, who really went the extra mile after I came to him to explain my disappointment earlier in the day. He didn't have to do anything about it: his problem was solved the moment I said "If it has to be done, it has to be done" that morning.

So it will be business as usual on Monday, except that I will be bonded even more closely to those young people who walk over my threshold after lunch. There won't be any more emotionally comfortable pretending: we will know a particular truth about our experience together, a truth that has been spoken, and now cannot be unsaid, and cannot be denied. We like each other. They are my students, and I am their teacher.

And that ain't nothing.

I'm Feeling the Carpet Being Pulled Out from Under my Feet

The assistant principal called me during class today. Another teacher's resignation has caused a reshuffling in the master schedule.

This means I lose my 6th period juniors, and pick up someone else's sophomore class, because that teacher needs to coach 6th period. Who gets my 6th period, I don't know yet, but I'll have to call back and find out so that I can tell my students. They're sure to want to know.

This is my favorite class. I look forward to them all day. I have students in that class that I had in middle school, and in 10th grade, and have invested myself in. For years. We've bonded. We're friends. They're easy to teach. We understand each other. I'm completely disappoiinted, and I know that they are going to be even more disappointed.

UPDATE: I just went in to see the AP. We looked at the master schedule together, and saw that there were very few options. One possibility is that a certain other English teacher is willing to take on this orphaned 10th grade class. But it would mean that he picks up a third prep (he'd be planning for three different subjects: in this case, his day will bring students in three different grades into his room). Three preps is legal, but normally our admin. tries to only burden us with two when it can.

If I can talk the other teacher into taking on this additional prep, I'm out of the problem. But now I have to go to him and ask him to increase his workload so that I can keep the continuity of my classes, an act that is motivated by an admixture of concern for my students, and obvious self-interest. I won't push him too hard, but I've got to at least try.

UPDATE: Nope. I can't change the course of the meteor, so I take the hit. Damn.

Curtain Rises

My student teacher to be has hijacked my class this week to do a very creative lesson on Julius Caesar. Productions companies with directors, actors, sound effects people, artists. It's been controlled chaos all week (sometimes no so controlled). A whirlwind of activity, with us conferencing during my prep. period, doing on the fly adjustments, creating assessment tools, etc. And this doesn't count the two dozen e-mails that have been traded leading up to this, putting me in the place of consultant on retainer. I guess I'd better get used to it: she wants to be my student teacher in the fall, and I want that, too.

Today the kids presented their altered (modernized into a current storytelling genre) scenes of the assassination of Caesar. The kids' performances were actually good, and the effort they'd put into their work was apparent. There is another class to go today, so we'll see how it goes.

One thing is for sure: I don't have the energy to live at this level on a consistent basis.

A World Without America? No Thanks, Comrade

In Europe, were Anti-Americanism is becoming a common attitude, America has been called "the greatest threat to world security." But there are those in the UK who see Britain and America as sharing a unique relationship: America is the product of the democratic ideals of England, a democracy freed by it's rejection of stifling effect of socialism, supplied by its abundant natural resources and fired by its spiritual vision of optimism, purpose, and inalienable rights bestowed by a Creator (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not transitory rights given by the whim of the state, but rather "inalienable" rights bestowed to every man by the Creator; as such, the state cannot revoke them) that results in a dignity for the individual unseen in the history of the world.

In that vein, the people at http://www.britainandamerica.com. has started an intriguing ad campaign titled "A World Without America" to remind us what that world might look like wthout the Statue of Liberty's torch shining to the world.

Here's the video (2 min.)


This short video delivers the message, but one could go on and on about the effect of a world wihout America. The purpose is not to claim that we're perfect, but rather that America has been a force for Good in the world that far outweighs its occasional stumbling and failure to live up to its own ideals, and is, in fact, an engine for technological innovation, the establisher and guardian of free peoples, the compassionate hand of relief for the poor and downtrodden of the world, and the best shield against Middle Eastern and Asian domminance Europe has.

The bottom line: a world w/out America is a world with more disease, more poverty, more danger (and more tryannical rule).
Thank, Chaps.

Wakeup Call?

By mistake, I picked up a pound of decaf at the store, and didn't discover it until I'd already opened the package.

What in the world am I going to do with it?

Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

I'm at my desk (unusual). The students are quiet (unusual).

My sophomores are taking the California High School Exit Exam. They're with me for three or four periods both today and tomorrow. They must pass the English and Math sections of this test before being granted a high school diploma. About 80% pass both sections as sophomores the first time; if not, they get two shots per year at it in both their junior and senior years, and virtually all of the remaining students pass both sections before their caps and gowns arrive in those little plastic bags.

Unlike the state testing, students realize that this test has real consequences for them, and so take it seriously. Some are very worried about passing.

All in all, the test is a good thing: students should have certain basic skills to hold a high school diploma, and it just might be a conflict of interest to let individual districts decide who is proficient and who is not. Reminds me of Garrison Keeler's Lake Wobegon, where "…all the children above average." Figure the paradox in that.

My new aides have been coming in today, and because of the test, I have had time to sit and orient them to the gradebook & cetera. An unusual luxury. And since sememster grades are turned in, I really have nothing pressing do, which is why I can sit here and blog in class. Oh, I could be straightening my files, or previewing an upcoming unit, but at the beginning of the term there aren't many Liliputians tying down Gulliver quite yet, so I can still scratch my nose if I want.

More Aide Talk

Just for the record: the aides I have now are terrific. I don't want to short-change anyone. I went through my first few years thinking "I can barely keep up with what I need to do; how am I going to manage a teacher's aide, too?"

I didn't seen the irony of that thought then. Now I think good aides are a Godsend.

Well, The Meeting took place at lunch. Sara had a whole Powerpoint presentation she's put together the night before ("It only took me a couple of hours," and that on a finals night) ready to go: she'd e-mailed herself a copy and burned a copy onto CD as a backup. At lunch, she commandeered my laptop, set up the LCD projector, and gave the new aides the essentials. I only made a couple of brief comments. The other girls were very interested.

Get this: Sara has no intention of leaving. She'll be coming in on Fridays, volunteering an hour to manage things, organize, see what needs to be done, leave notes for the other aides, and generally preside over the paperwork end of my classroom in absentia, all while being an aide for another teacher this semester: Paul, you're going to love her. Oh, and I'll get a couple of drop-ins per week during lunch or after school, or whenever she said she'd be here.

I used to think I had a great aide one semester who'd take papers home to grade. But now the dedication bar has been raised considerably. Truth to tell, I really don't want to lose her, but it's only fair to give others their shot.

I had her leave the presentation on my hard drive, and I added some screen shots of my gradebook with some step-by-step instructions. I'll see how it plays when I'm done.