Welcome To The 21st Century

Seldom does a week go by that I do not mentally reevaluate my motivations for entering the teaching field. "Field" seems an appropriate choice of a descriptor. Most times I'm somewhere beyond "right field". A few times I'm just ahead of a curve ball. Okay, enough with the baseball metaphors. At the high school where I ply my trade football is king and baseball metaphors would be considered heresy.

I watch many of my students going about their school lives which are seldom different then their lives outside of school. Often I "ride herd" on "gangers". I'm amazed at how early in their lives they have discovered the power of the almighty buck! Each have let me know, in their own way, that longevity in a career is not important. It is what you can score now and how many people fear them.

So far this year, fear is an illusion that many try to maintain. Most of the guys that pass through my aging portable understand that I own the territory inside the metal walls. As long as they attempt to respect others in the trailer then they will receive respect in return. They also will receive a safe place to be themselves, leaving their adopted street life outside. Sometimes, one will take a little longer to learn what being inside the portable offers. Sometimes, one never learns. Que, would be one of the "hard learners".

Que, has been on earth for only a short 16 years, but he has grown a very long rap-sheet. Small offenses such as candy bar shoplifting to larger offenses including the shooting of a convenience store clerk. He and his partner in the shooting were not out to rob anyone. The soul purpose of the crime was to have a "street-rep". Fortunately the clerk survived his two wounds. It seems that Que lives his whole life on probation. He refuses to publicly acknowledge his gang affiliation by name, but a little research eliminated most local gangs. The common belief is that he belongs to the Rollin 60's.

"Where you been, Que," I asked, as he came into the classroom? This was the first time in many school days he had come to school.

"Oh, just hangin', you know with my boys," he said. His dilated pupils betrayed the preschool activities he and his "boys" participated in on this dreary Monday morning. He lasted for a whole twenty minutes into the school day before he disappeared from the campus.

For the three school years I've known Que seldom has a day passed that I haven't thought of what reasons keep driving him back to my portable classroom? Until recently I believed that deep inside of this lanky teenager was hidden a good kid searching for freedom. A freedom from what life had dealt him. Somewhere in the world a man walked a street without ever knowing this son.

In the same Section 8 apartment that Que lives was his mother. Sometimes she worked two jobs, but more often then not she entertained a string of potential husbands. What she thought of as potential husbands always were just strangers hoping to remain strangers. Perhaps, Que returns to the government school portable because it is the only stability he has in his life? Or perhaps, he returns because he believes he has me "snowed" into protecting him from the school administration? Maybe it is due to the fact that I like him regardless of the stupid and/or criminal events he commits in his world? After the shooting of the store clerk my sense is that I no longer believed that a small part of Que wanted to do right or good.

After a fight just off the high school campus about four weeks ago Que had not returned for three weeks. Mostly he feared being beat by others at the school if he was not with his "boys". He hid in the open with his Rollin' 60's leader. It was my knowledge that the leader and the followers met each Wednesday night to discuss possible "adventures" they could execute in the coming week. They always met at the leaders' girlfriends' house. According to my sources it was because the leader believed the police could never figure out where they met. Last Thursday Que had a juvenile court date that he had to keep. He had talked for most of the school year about the day when he would finally be off probation. No more probation officer coming by the apartment, no more pee in a cup, and no more Thursday night group meetings.

On Que's joyful yet fateful Thursday morning he entered the judge's courtroom for what he knew would be his last time. The judge shuffled through the file folder labeled with Que's name. She made several comments about his semi-good attendance at the weekly group meetings and the reports on the probation officer's home visits. She inquired if he was looking for a part time job? How he was getting along with his mother? Then the subtle but all important question about school.

"You been attending school as I ordered you to do," the judge asked?

"Yes your honor," Que said.

"Do you ever use computers at school to help you with your school work," she asked?

'Not really. Just pencil, papers, and books," he said.

"Well, you know we use computers a lot around here. Like getting reports on attendance," she said.

Que began to develop an idea that things weren't going his way today.

"Well, the report states that you haven't been in school for almost three weeks," she read.

My sense is that Que will be in school at the first of August. That will be about the last day of his summer long incarceration.

I'll spend some of this summer examining my motivations for teaching, before I return in August.

I'VE SEEN THE FUTURE

I've seen the future and it's back there. Back there could be in my past, but I do not think I will find it hiding in my secrets. I sense I find it each morning from the cab of my old pickup truck. The students begin arriving at high school around 7:00 A.M., about an hour after I do. After reading the little, nothing local paper I sit and delude myself into believing I'm psyching myself for the day. I enjoy reading the daily gripe column by a local reporter that obviously nurtures a long ago deep seeded negative reaction to school. This diagnosis will be as close as I should get to playing a doctor. I'm just a lowly behaviorist trying to make some kid's government school experience count for something.

Anyway, back to why I really sit in my truck watching the student herd migrate onto their eighty-eight acre preserve for seven hours out of the day. I watch the daily formation of the gangs, groups, cliques, teams, and outcasts gather along the driveway between the main building and the school annex. The parade of cars, trucks, and buses searching for a brief drop-off point or a choice parking spot. The girls playing games with the boys. Games that the superior maturing girls use to manipulate their immature boyfriends. Such games that consist of the type clothing that is worn to entice the boys, looks that are quickly cast to another boy that is sure to lead to a physical confrontation, or just the joy some girls have in ignoring any boy that desire their attention.

All of this is being offset by the boys games to strut, lead, follow, or "out-cool" the others. The male games mean little or nothing to the girls, but the boys from generation to generation never give up the hopes of impressing the right girl through the right move at the right time. I tried it, my friends tried it, and all males before me and after me have tried or will try, usually through desperation and immaturity.

An outsider can not visually separate the special education students from the regular education students during this morning ritual. Of course, the very disabled students are not part of this parade. They have their own morning rituals that I may explore at another time.

My portable classroom, in the midst of the government school trailer park, continued to be a haven through-out the school year. A haven for SPED'ers and regular education students. The one thing these students had in common all year; the portable was a preferable social situation compared to the one they existed in outside of school. Their extracurricular social lives can consist of; single-parent families, gang affiliations, petty criminal activities, felony criminal endeavors, periodic arrests, creative use of spray paint (tagging), writing the next million seller rap song, drugs, alcohol, searching for a place to eat and/or sleep, coming back to the campus after school to hang out, or sometimes stopping by my home to see if I'm an ass outside of school, and possibility many others not listed here.

I've neglected adding posts to this blog much of the past school year. Seldom does a day past that I do not think of writing. Each time I conclude I am gathering thoughts and experiences for new postings. At times I conclude I'm lazy. Surely it is a combination of these and many other factors. For several years I've seen the future as it parades in front of me each school morning. The future is the past as the past is the present. As the population of this government school grew from one-thousand-nine-hundred last school year to the current two-thousand-two-hundred, it will expand to two-thousand-four-hundred in the fall.

Through-out the school year I've mentally filed tales or stories I have every intention of writing about through the summer. By far, the situation of the ever exploding school population is my deep well of tales. Again, I must say, "I've seen the future as it parades in front of me each school morning. The future is the past as the past is the present."

Back In The Saddle Again

I've purposefully been away from this blog since March. I'm back for better or worse. During this break I have kept track of events affecting some of my students; graduations, birth of a baby or two, shootings, robberies, house fires, visits by former students, and so on.

Let's begin with graduations. Two of my students, a brother and a sister, graduated in May. The sister with a real diploma and the brother with a SPED diploma. To their credit it was a tight race until the end or the beginning, depending on your view of education and life. The sister is convinced she is on her way to law school. Her brother is convinced he is on his way to prison. Their grades are quite equal which is not good news for the sister, Tamala. Brother Jose cared little about grades and more about social activities and skipping during his four year stay in high school. Tamala ran hot and cold with her studies during the same four year period. If a club trip to New York was in the works then her grades improved. Otherwise, boys and love were her priorities.

Jose began a period of intense worry around the first of May. He fretted daily about graduation. Each morning he came to me with the same question, "You heard anything about my graduation?"

Each time my reply was, "You're graduating on the 25th with the other seniors."

He failed to grasp the idea of a SPED diploma. You showed up, you're graduating, in accordance with your I.E.P. goals. I suspected, like others, his concern was more about being slapped by life after high school, e.g., job, living arrangements, responsibility for himself, adulthood, etc.

Tamala continued to be convinced she was on her way to law school. Somehow she is skipping over the first four years of college and the soon to be birth of her baby. Talk about being slapped by life.

I read in the local paper about an apartment fire in a complex where Emo, my goth student lives, in the middle of June. The fire began in a bush outside of his bedroom window. It engulfed the Section 8 apartment that he, his mother and her boyfriend occupied. Fortunately, the firewall stopped it from spreading to the other apartments. The cause of the fire has yet to be released, but I have my suspicions.

Roosevelt, a former student from three years ago, dropped by my house several times this summer. Sometimes with the mother of his daughter and the daughter, mostly by himself. Each time he bragged about his current job and how good a job it was. It didn't occur to him that he was sitting in my house at 10:00 A.M. which should be prime employment time. I patiently wait for his maturity to catch-up with him being a father. I'm still waiting. So is he.

I've tracked several news reports of home invasions, drug deals gone bad, drive by shootings, and car pursuits by the local police. Many involving the immediate families of my students. I vaguely question myself how these activities fall into No Child Left Behind and the government school system.

School begins in a week and many of my student will again search for a place they can find some moderate safety, if not a glimpse of a better future then their present environment. My portable classroom will again become a haven for a mere 180 days.

That leaves only 185 days in the year for them to find a way to survive life.

Happiness Is An Extreme

So many souls I encounter in the field of education are pursuing happiness. It may be the happiness of “molding” young minds, of meeting the goals of No Child Left Behind, of receiving a paycheck, of pleasing administration, of being in control of something, of, of, of… and so on. Somewhere inside of me I’m sure there is a quest for happiness. I’m also convinced that happiness is an extreme. The other end of the spectrum is as vague to me as the definition of happiness. Not yet have I encountered a person that has achieved happiness. There appears to always be something missing or something else to pursue. My students often expound on the things that could make them happy. Their happiness meter may peak with the acquisition of a new girl or boyfriend, acquiring the same type clothing their peers are wearing so they can also be individuals, planning a party that seldom materializes, a daily breakfast, a caring parent, a parent, and so on, and so on.

Jerry's happiness goal is the National Football League. Regardless of the number of times we discuss the relatively few players in the NFL compared to the population of the country, he has no appreciation of the long shot against him playing professional football. He also sees no connection between playing in the NFL and not playing football in middle school and now not playing in high school.

Taylor's happiness goal is to continue as a country boy with minimum responsibilities. The last of this is in direct conflict with the pending birth of his baby by his fourteen-year-old girlfriend. Taylor makes no connection between earning a high school diploma and securing a descent paying job to support his new baby.

Tamela's happiness goal revolves around "true love". In this case her boyfriend, Won-Ton-Soup, of five years is the one she keeps going back to after they breakup. However, Walter, is the one she likes. Walter is her boyfriend's friend. They hang together, they steal together, they get high together, all three dislike Tamela. Her happiness goal continues to be elusive even after telling Walter she likes him.

Every month for the past two school years my happiness goal has been to think about leaving teaching. I know I'm exaggerating, but the amount of useless, government imposed documentation continues to rob me of my enthusiasm. Each time I sink into the paperwork doldrums one of students seems to pull me up. This time I can thank Donald. He is severely disabled, can't talk, and I suspect has no comprehension that he is in school. He has been away from high school for about six months and I expected he would never be back. Children's Services had placed him with his aunt in another town some 60 miles away. I was surprised that his mother had arranged a parole from the state prison and had been awarded custody again. She walked him to school today. He stood in the hallway grasping a pencil in his left fist. He loves holding pencils. I saw him and he reached out with his right hand, and grabbed my coat.

"Hello, Donald," I said.

"Ayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," he replied! After the ear-splitting greeting he followed me into his classroom.

Donald dedicates most of his school day walking around the CDC classroom looking at different objects. Sometimes, those objects are other students food. Once a food object is spotted most often it will disappear into his mouth. The other students get upset and then take food from their fellow students. A vicious cycle of survival.

Donald's mother frequently is incarcerated. Her drug problem and her complete lack of resistance to follow the desires of other people often leads to trouble. I've talked to her several times when she brings Donald to school. Sometimes, he will ride the SPED bus if she is able to awake in the early morning. My conversations with her has led me to the realization that the only difference between her and her beloved son is that she can talk, somewhat.

Donald lends some degree of happiness to my life. I walk with him down the long hallway each morning. During the escort I talk to him about the beautiful morning, him being in school, his pursuit of education, how cool he looks, but I do not mention his frequent lack of cleanliness. His mother has considerable difficulty in this area. Donald doesn't seem to mind the aromatic disorder he leaves behind. During our walk he smiles each time I speak. Approaching the double steel door that divides the long hall he always becomes fascinated with the push bar. His free hand pushes the bar several times. I suspect to hear the loud noise it produces. Then we continue our trek to the CDC classroom. Donald appears happy in all of his situations. I wonder what his extreme in happiness could be?

Bo Man Tim seeks happiness in power. Gang power. Know one working in the school knows for sure what gang he his affiliated with, but the common belief his that he is a member. I watch him on the sidewalk between classes and during lunch. He holds court as various and numerous males pass by offering the "secret handshake' and mumbling "important words". Their free hand holding the sagging pants up around their plumbers crack. Bo Man Tim appears to spend more time on out-of-school-suspension then he does in school. I've been entertained by his mother during several telephone calls. I suppose it could be safe to assume she is "snowed" by her baby boy. She frequently tells me how much Bo Man Tim loves the high school, how he wants only to graduate, and she believes he is a genius. I gather that his extreme happiness is remaining an innocent child in his mother's eyes.

About two weeks ago I knew I would achieve happiness because Spring break was beginning on March 19th. My anticipation grew with each passing day as I counted down toward happiness. It came and I knew I was going to do wonderfully fun and relaxing activities. By the 21st, Wednesday, I began to feel a lack of any happiness and then the realization began to grow that I would be happy on the 26th, the first day of school after Spring break. I walked Donald down the hallway this morning telling him about the wonderful day he was about to have. I passed Bo Man Tim and his court. Happiness is an extreme that know one ever reaches. That is probably the best we can hope for. If you are reading this, be extremely happy, sort of......................

Scary

I've known Scary for a little over three years. At times it feels like ten years. My professional life would be so much easier if I disliked her. I don't. Scary is a loud, rude, overweight, intelligent, black, nineteen-year-old girl. She resides with her grandmother and great- grandmother in a trailer. The trailer is located in the country, exactly where Scary thinks it should not be located. Her baby was born in January 2006 just three months before Scary quit high school.

Her mother was released from prison two days before Scary's eighteenth birthday. A special birthday gift that Scary didn't need. Her mother moved into the trailer with promises of starting new and being a positive part of Scary's life. The old adage of "a day late and a dollar short" would apply in this instance. Scary gave birth under the same circumstances her mother had; unmarried, barely eighteen-years-old, fathered by a boy that also dropped out of school, with neither one having prospects for a job and no desire to be employed.

I first met Scary at her annual I.E.P. meeting as she was getting ready to be promoted to the ninth grade. Her grandmother attended along with a bevy of "feel good" middle school teachers excited that Scary was going to high school. The excitement was firmly based in the joy that she would no longer be in their snug brown brick, neatly manicured government school. Perhaps I'm to jaded by the battles I encounter daily in a large urban high school, but I've long thought that middle school teachers are comfortable in their "save-the-whales" mentality. They seem to believe all students are buying into their utopia of educational bliss. A place where I.E.P. meetings last three hours or more. Where goal sheets can number thirty or more. Parents, teachers, social workers, therapists, distant and near relatives all contribute to a life plan that goes beyond high school where every child attends college, graduates, and become world leaders in medicine, education, politics, science, and technology. However, every now and then, or more often, a student like Scary upsets the cart. A student that does not give a damn what adults think is in their best interest, goal, or life path. These students are going to do what they want, whenever they want, according to their own mysterious and unorganized plan. At times they go along with educational teams just to get away from the team. They can speak the right words, agree at the right times, and nod their heads to make adults feel comfortable, then move on to the next team.

Scary entered high school with a loud, boisterous fanfare. She was sent to her principal's office four times in the first three full days of school. By the third week she was a self-contained fixture in my class. After three school years, numerous Behavior Intervention Plans, more meetings then I care to remember, that made all of us feel we were striking a blow against behaviors that impeded Scary from being successful in high school her plan became visible. For a full nine months her plan became more and more visible. Then in January 2006 the cycle began all over again.

Her son was born with little difficulty for Scary. Her grandmother provides most of the paternal care. The father comes to visit Scary on weekends, by bus. Scary is not welcomed at his parents home in the neighboring town. Both of these two young "parents" have been arrested frequently for such things as disturbing the peace, shoplifting, and other petty crimes. Department of Children Services appears ineffectual to aide the new baby. I saw Scary one evening walking on a street in the local projects dressed for financial gain. I do not know what she was up to, but it could not have been anything good?

As most teachers believe, students leave school, and few ever return to provide updates on their successes and failures. Scary had not contacted me for nearly a year, but I had received updates on her family's welfare from various sources. Then one busy, negative behavior ridden Wednesday one of the assistant principals approached me with a FAX in his hand. A local section eight housing complex was requesting a letter of reference to assist Scary in securing an apartment. The principal decided it was me that should compose a masterpiece of verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, and pronouns that would surely sway the apartment complex manager in giving Scary, her son, and new daughter a comfortable apartment away from the country life she hated. It was suggested that in would be more effective if it came from me and not on government school stationary? I thought differently. I composed the letter, a full three paragraphs long. My aide read the finished product and commented, "This is really good. You wrote three paragraphs and didn't say anything." She was correct. However, it appeared to be a glowing recommendation. The assistant principal and principal received their copies just as the FAX was completing transmission to the apartment manager. The principals were not happy, but Scary was, the manager was, and I had done my job, hopefully, with a final contribution to Scary's life plan started so long ago in middle school.

Scary moves into her new home on the first of next month.

Easy Off, EASY I.E.P.

I enjoy computers. Going places on a whim intrigues me. Being able to surf cyberspace takes me places I probably never will go to in person. Collecting information from thousands of sources is remarkable. Some of it may even be accurate? I find web based programs amazing in their convenience. Even now I'm enjoying writing this using Google Docs & Spreadsheets. However, when a government agency embarks into the use and exploitation of web based programs my amazement dwindles. This brings me to EASY I.E.P.!

On the surface I have no major difficulties with EASY I.E.P. The idea, perhaps the dream, is to have Individual Education Programs, (I.E.P.), readily available via computers on the web. Gathering together all meeting participants, hovering around a computer, discussing new goals and objectives for a Special Education student is noble. Noble if the computer is working, if the internet is available, if EASY I.E.P. hasn't suddenly assigned your student to another teacher, and if everything prints after all participants agree on the final I.E.P. These are only the major "ifs"! Let's not forget the overwhelming motivation for any system to sign-on and use this program. It's cheaper then the one previously used which was in use because the first computerized I.E.P. system crashed when the company suddenly disappeared.

The Sasquatch family is punctual. They are also large humans with long hair and a 15-year-old daughter that they have very little understanding of the things she wants to do and the things she does do. "Lolita" needs to please any young man that shows an interest in her. They have came in through her bedroom window late at night. She has gone out her bedroom window late at night. At times she has stayed inside her room and they have stood outside her window. All of this aside, she is a very sweet, friendly, and caring child that thrives inside a very poor family. A family more concerned with how to receive the next government check and if they have a lawsuit against anyone or group.

The whole family showed for the scheduled I.E.P. meeting on the coldest January day we had experienced in years. Daddy Sasquatch entered the assistant principal's office and announced, "Those idiots don't know a damn thing! Global warming my ass."

Momma Sasquatch agreed with, "You damn right man."

The whole family settled into the available chairs. Dad, Mom, two little girls, two little boys, and of course my student "Lolita". I turned the computer cart so the parents could see the magic of EASY I.E.P. The first page of the document was visible on the screen. The Sasquatches leaned in unison toward the screen. They were fixated on the scanning pixels of the I.E.P. document.

"Okay, this is the first page of "Lolita's" I.E.P.," I said.

"How much did this contraption cost," Momma Sasquatch asked?

"Huh....I never thought about it," I said.

"A damn lot I bet," Daddy Sasquatch said.

"I suppose so."

"Can you get that internet crap on it?"

"When it's hooked to it, sure."

"Show me that gambling place we get over at Momma's sister's trailer."

"I'm sorry, but we can't do that, we're here to develop your daughter's annual I.E.P." I said.

Momma Sasquatch said, "Oh, whatever you come up with is okay. Just keep her from behind the school with some boy. She ain't gonna get pregnant doing what she does with those boys. Keep her away from the dark ones, too."

I'm seldom at a loss for words, but this was one of those times. It didn't occur to me to go on to the second page. One of the little boys jump up and ran around behind the computer cart tripping over the power cord and severing the lifeline for EASY I.E.P. The screen went black, the hard drive whirled to a stop and the printer cartridge danced from one side of its track to the other trying to shutdown.

"Get on back to your class girl. We got to get going," Daddy Sasquatch ordered my student and the rest of his family. They left in the same order they had entered. After they were situated in their new Ford van they drove off.

Some days later I finished "Lolita's" I.E.P. and sent it home with her for Momma and Daddy to sign. I'm still waiting for the return. "Lolita" never misses a day of school. She bounds off the short bus with the biggest smile I've recently encountered from a student. She loves school, classes, school buses, school food, boys, and her family. Sometimes EASY I.E.P. is just to easy.

Anarchist, Emo, Loser?

Joe wants to be different. His MySpace site states his current beliefs; "Anarchy, EMO, Loser, Faggit, Call Me What You Want!" He changes his pictures on the site almost daily. Also, his "beliefs" change almost as frequently. He dedicates considerable time in my class attempting to discuss MySpace with a fair sprinkling of less than accurate information about Hitler, terrorists, politics, his championship BMX riding skills, the failures of public schools, etc., etc., etc.

Joe is of Middle Eastern descent, 5' 2" tall, approximately 200 pounds, generally dresses in black, and uses markers to write LOVE - HATE across the tops of his fingers. His makeup, when he can smuggle it past his mother in the mornings, is black eye shadow and black mascara. He strives to be Gothic without ever stating he is Gothic. It is fine if others call him Gothic because then he prides himself in others recognizing what he wants to be in life. Doing any school work is out of the question. Failing is a badge of honor proclaiming how others see him. I do not want to lose sight of Joe's intelligence masquerading as a Goth inside his behavior. I like him very much and he knows I do.

Joe rolled into my portable during fourth period today. Sitting himself next to me at the large white library table I utilize as seating. Sometimes, I feel like Grandpa Walton and then at times I feel like Al Capone holding court. Surrounding myself with the students assigned to me has eliminated many of the negative interpersonal behaviors that cause them to come to me. I shoved a folded note to my right for Joe.

"What's this," he asked?

"Looks like a piece of paper," I said.

"What's on it?"

"I wrote you a love note."

"Oh, sarcasm," he said opening the note.

I had written a small spelling lesson based upon what I had read on his MySpace page;

ANARCHIST not ANARCHY
FAGGOT not FAGGIT

Joe you can't be an ANARCHY, but you can be an ANARCHIST.
If you're striving to be something else then you can't be a FAGGIT, but you can be a FAGGOT. However, regardless what people think you are, you remain Joe.

He had no comment about about the note. However, he did have something to say about his MySpace site.

"Have you looked at my MySpace?"

"Why would I waste my time?"

"All teachers are nosy."

"If you didn't want people to see your site then it wouldn't be there."

Some of the other students joked about what he had said about teachers being nosy. We both ignored them. Joe understood that I had taken time to read his writings and perhaps I did so because I am interested in his well being.

It's now been two days since the note exchange. I just checked Joe's MySpace site. The spellings and usage have been corrected. More importantly though the picture of him giving the world "The Finger" while wearing a mask has been replaced by a picture of him giving the world "The Finger" without a mask.

A very small victory for him in what I hope is a long life.

ANNIE and the GREAT FIRE ALARM CAPER

I adore hanging out with Annie. I suppose I should clarify that statement? Each school morning around 6:45 A.M. I walk out to greet the first SPED school bus arriving at the high school. There are three students on the bus, but only Annie burst from the opening doors with a wide-eyed excitement of a person seeing the place for the first time. Each morning she looks out at the building as if it is the first time seeing the place and "coos", wearing her jacket hood over her headphones. Headphones that are not connected to anything. She decided years ago that these headphones would become a permanent part of her fashion style.

After the other two students have departed the bus Annie will stand and wait holding her hand outward. Waiting for me to take her hand and escort her down the two steps. She smiles and looks around at the school seeing it for the first time and stepping down like a Southern Belle making her debut. Running ahead of me she burst into the cafeteria, stops, looks around and takes a seat at one of the long white tables. These are the same tables that everyday at lunch she eats the white chunks of tofu her mother sends for her lunch. I do not think that Annie likes tofu. She shoves each one of the two inch square chunks into her mouth and swallows after very little chewing. Her mother long ago decided that 5' 10" tall Annie needed to lose some of her 110 pounds and become more healthy. Just last week though it was discovered that after eating tofu for lunch for months, plus the giant pretzels and donuts offered to her by other students and some teachers she had gained 15 pounds. She looks and acts very healthy.

Perhaps, I should mention that Annie is autistic. She explores the world around her from inside her own world. I adhere to the theory that she is locked inside herself and may be struggling to communicate with the stimuli around her. More importantly to me I find her to be a wonderfully, delightful young student. Sometimes she will say hello. Mechanical gadgets attract her like a moth to a flame. She loves turning fans, lights, and such on and off. Laughing loudly, when these items surge into their action, the excitement is very entertaining to her. It is so easy to become bogged down in describing Annie's autism. I do not want to write an educational observation narrative.

One unusually warm January morning I had assisted Annie off the SPED bus and we were sitting at the cafeteria table. She behind me as I sat looking out the glass doors waiting for other students and teachers to arrive. I was enjoying a good monologue with Annie, occasionally turning my head to direct the words toward her. Questions that would not be answered by her.

"Did you have a good weekend Annie?"

No answer from the other side of the table.

"Don't you think it's hot for January?"

No answer from the other side of the table.

"Are you going to have a great day?"

No answer from the other side of the table.

"You're very quiet this morning Annie."

The fire alarm startled me. Jumping up I saw Annie standing next to the wall mounted fire alarm switch. It was pulled down, she was holding her headphones even tighter against her head, and she was looking around trying to find the source of the loud obnoxious noise. I ran to her to console her hopefully out of the fear racking her brain. I stopped the two other students from going outside while I frantically tried to get my key out to open the office and call the fire department. They needed to know it was a false alarm. However, everything was working against me trying to report. The keys were trapped in my jeans pocket, Annie was scared and shaking, the other two students continued to insist it was a fire and wanted outside. To the department's credit the firemen arrived in approximately six minutes. I looked at the four brave firemen burst into the cafeteria ready to save lives and structure!

After trying to explain to the firemen, I was not being very successful. I tried getting the two other students to calm down and stay back some distance. Annie was still shaking badly and looking around. One of the firemen succeeded in shutting the noise off.

"We're going to have to report a false alarm and someone is going to be in trouble," the lead firemen said.

"Well, I understand. Perhaps you need to interview the culprit?"

"Yes sir, we'll need the name of the student that set the alarm off."

I turned Annie around and faced her toward the fireman. "Annie say hello to the fireman."

"Hellooooo," she complied.

"Hi young lady," the fireman said.

"Hellooooo," she said again.

He looked at her and then at me. "Autism," I said.

"Oh. Well, I guess we've done all we can do here. Watch her closer."

"I will."

Annie and the Great Fire Alarm Caper came to an end except for some paperwork I had to complete. Annie was very subdued for quite sometime. She walked a wide birth around all mechanical gadgets for the rest of the day.

Occasionally You Get Fooled

Occasionally you get fooled when experience suggests that what you can expect is for a parent not to show for a meeting. Or you can suspect a confrontational exchange in how the government school and every teacher has failed their innocent, precious child. I wondered which case it would be this morning? Or would it be a new scenario?

Mr. "Smith's" son is a junior in high school. A fine young man that was not always so fine. In prior schools he frequently initiated fights. Joshua is more then vaguely familiar with alternative schools having been sent away several times by beleaguered government schools attempting to control their environment.

This father showed for the behavior meeting ready to defend his son. Generally, defend would imply an adversary which was not the case. He defended his son because of love, caring, and compassion. He freely told of family difficulties such as a mother fighting her own demons, an older brother hopefully completing an incarceration of four years, and his son now in our high school trying to overcome temptations of being a teenage male. Joshua is not much different then any other teenager. He loves his girl, his car, and his saggin' pants. Perhaps not in that order. Joshua's father is more concerned that his son believe he was on the his side. It appeared he and his son have a long history of the boy doubting his father's support.

Mr. "Smith" loves his son. He politely defended him to the principal that had suspended the boy for three days from high school, "I've taught my son not to start a fight, but to defend himself if he is attacked."

The principal is also a self-ordained southern preacher and has slowly came to the belief that he can "save" students from themselves. However, it should be noted that only select students are worthy of being "saved". The principal will deem which are to be blessed. "I understand what you say, but he was involved in a fight. He should have made the decision to walk away after being hit.", the principal said, leaning back in his desk chair.

I watched more then listened to the exchange between the father and the principal/preacher. Mr. "Smith" wanted badly to be a hero in his son's eyes and the preacher absent-mindedly pushed the buttons on his desk phone appearing to be detached from the situation. Mr. "Smith" attempted to explain the relationship he was trying to repair with his 16-year-old-son before it was to late. The principal wanted to get to the homecoming pep rally.

I do not want the principal to appear in a bad light. He has put in over thirty years as a teacher and assistant principal, seeing his share of troubled students and troubled parents. He found a voice for his frustration in his religion, perhaps a voice speaking more to his own mortality then the needs of a student in a government school?

The meeting was a short one, only twenty minutes or so. Mr. "Smith" wanted to continue talking with me as I walked him to his car. He wanted me to know how much he loves his son struggling to find common ground for them to share, e.g., football, working on cars, going to drag races, and etc. All the things a man of the 60's and 70's excelled in and wanted to share with his son. He only had one request of me, "Could you please find a way to let my son know that I stood up for him?"

I reassured him of this and watched him drive off in the 60's muscle car that he was trying to restore with his son's help.

I'VE SEEN THE LIGHT

Thanks Hank for giving us the above title. Six portable classrooms were moved this fall. One of them was mine. The logical plan was to move them during the fall break. That was the plan. However, the movers had other plans. They did not start until the last day of the break. Their excuse was they could not find the most prominent 88 acres, with an unusually large series of tan block buildings, setting next to an Interstate exit, holding 2300 students, in the middle of one of the fastest growing cities in the South.

Of course, the move started the day all students returned to the campus. My little band of students were shuffled off to one of the two school cafeterias. The promise of being inconvenienced for only one week rang in my ears for the next two months. It was true that the move only took one week. However, because these twenty-year-old trailers were moved, they had to be brought up to state and local codes. This procedure involved approximately nine different special teams of workers and inspectors. These groups never seemed to be following a single game plan nor could they communicate with each other. So, as the cold of winter swept into the geographical bowl housing our fine government school, we all sat looking out through the glass walls of the cafeteria. Frequently amused by the circus we witnessed, more often we saw no human workers for days. I did notice that many mornings around 6:30 A.M. a county government truck parked beside the relocated trailers. The driver would get out and lean against the side of the rusted, white truck. He sipped his foam cup of coffee until it was gone and then he was gone.


Finally the trailer passed codes and so did my students. We were back inside our little escape pod. Allowing them to escape at times from the reality of a government school. I would like to think that our new location in the courtyard of the Principal's proud football champion school brought new and unexplored behavior problems. However, many of the faces are new, but the problems are the same. Now the problems are surrounded more closely by neighboring trailers. The place has become known in short order as the trailer park. I appointed myself the Acting Mayor/City Manager.

The power may go to my head as I design the sidewalk supervision schedule for the other teachers.

So far the sidewalk continues to be safely attached to the ground.

The Dead Kids Of MySpace

I've been away from this blog for the first semester of this school year. I would like to write that it was for some noble cause. Alas, it wasn't. Our high school population increased by approximately 300 children this year. As the population increased the negative behaviors increased.

As all teachers I work as my struggle with (NPLB) No Paperwork Left Behind increases. We can't leave any child behind without the appropriate paperwork. I've watched the influx of additional Bloods, Cripps, Goths, locally grown gangstas, and imported thugs from outside our borders. They all attempt to stay below the administration radar, sometimes with success. More often they rise to be noticed. At this point most of them pass through my classroom.

With the increase of individuals that stay with me for shorter and shorter periods of time my work load has increased. Additionally, the Atlas Program was dropped into my lap without an invitation. Arranging services for this most transient, (homeless), of students has evolved into a full-time vocation. This group of students come with behaviors that few other students possess.

I've also became aware of several students availing themselves of the "wonderful child friendly environment" known as MySpace. Many of my students, especially the gangtas' and the Goths, have become very involved with this website. It appears that the exchange of cryptic information among fellow group members is the priority. They all seem to be unaware of strangers invading their world; dangerous strangers. When this subject is brought up to any of them the reply is always the same, "No one can get by me."

All of them dismiss the possibility or probability that they can become an addition to THE DEAD KIDS OF MYSPACE. I've forwarded this website to most of the parents of my students and to fellow teacher and administrators. Few have even noticed what I consider as the important message at this website.

There appears to be no neutral ground in the battle to educate. Now the battlefield has no boundaries. We as teachers appear to be always playing catch-up in the attempts to educate with some knowledge beyond standardized tests. The Dead Kids of MySpace are obviously beyond our grasp, but perhaps their sisters, brothers, friends, and peers could be pulled back from the oblivion. We often lose the battles and hope against hope that we win the war.

SO? I KNOW!

Mandy is a wonderfully delightful freshman student. Describing her as a “country girl” does not even come close. She has a simply infectious personality and a sly smile. Whenever she enters my portable classroom it is always with a loud greeting for me. When I look at her she gets embarrassed, turns her face away and states, “Don’t look at me.”

“How was your weekend Mandy,” I ask each Monday at lunchtime? Without looking at me she generally goes into great detail about helping her mother clean the house, going to a hardware store with her mother’s boyfriend, and always ending with the time she spends with Troy. Troy would be her boyfriend of over two years. Mandy is fourteen, perhaps going on twelve-years-old. She appears to want to dress as the other girls in high school, but her family lacks the funds. At her age she continues to retain childhood “baby fat”, but is slowly changing. She is one of the many that come through my classes during the day that have not been diagnosed as needing Special Education services, but perhaps should have been? Today, Mandy quietly informed me she is two or three months pregnant.

Troy is eighteen-years-old and desperately trying to “hang-in” at high school so he can graduate with a Special Education diploma. He has many influences outside of school that try to pull him in many directions other then school. His mother died during his birth. His grandmother who has custody of him mostly raised him. Troy’s father lives in the next block. They spend some time together on weekends. His father married his girlfriend one month ago. Troy would never admit his feelings about his father’s marriage, but it hit him hard. In Troy’s world he enjoys bicycles, go-carts, scary movies and hates cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. He unquestionably loves Mandy and she loves him.

Mandy’s older brother, Gordon, is Troy’s best friend. The three are seldom apart. Some people believe that Gordon suffers from a severe speech impediment. Gordon does not think that he suffers at all. Gordon prides himself on being a redneck. Not in the historical meaning, but in the sense of what it has evolved in to. He likes pickup trucks, hunting, camouflage clothing and dipping snuff. Gordon, above all, loves his sister Mandy.

I struggle daily with Troy trying to understand the daily assignments from his different classes. We try to decipher math, define English, and not damage the world through environmental science. I live inside the delusion that he will pass the Gateway exams in all areas and not become one of the children left behind.

I’ve read through No Child Left Behind several times. Seldom do I find myself at odds with the “ideals” of the law. As much as I look through it I have yet to find Pregnant Mandy, Eighteen Troy, and Speech Impaired Gordon. They are not in the writings, but they are in schools all over the country. They get up every morning in dismal home lives, trudge to a school bus stop, wait for their ride, and come to the only place they may feel a degree of safety and acceptance. Will they be left behind? Probably, according to the law. Will they get something from the school environment that may help them in life? I have no doubt they will. What each gets remains a mystery to me. I knew, after many years of being away from the schools I attended, what I came away with to help my struggle through life.

“How does your mother feel about you having a baby Mandy,” I asked?

“She’s okay with it. She’s kind of wrapped up in her own thing,” she said.

“How do you feel about having a baby?”

“Troy and I are so happy and in love.”

“You going to stay in school after you have the baby?”

“Of course. Troy won’t graduate, but he loves me. We’re never going to have a million dollars, but we’re going to have each other and our baby.”

“It’s going to be tough out there in the real world, Mandy.”

“So? I know!”

“Yeah, I believe you do.” I said, as she left for fifth period health class.

CHANGE

Change is fine as long as you’re not there when it happens! It’s moving week at my school. The county threw a bone to one of the oldest high schools by allocating building and renovation funds. Originally, the newest high school in the county (five years old) was to receive a major renovation and upgrade. The cries from the PTO parents and the demonstrating at the school board meetings resulted in additional funds for my school. A band room expansion, a couple of science labs, and a brand spankin’ new school office, and perhaps even air conditioning for the gym.

The result of this decision was the impending movement of mine and four other portable classrooms to make way for the construction crews and equipment. I understand the necessity of making way for progress. Originally, the principal wanted us moved to the northeast section of eighty-eight acres, just beyond a parking lot. Out of sight, out of mind. This was the plan until it was pointed out by an assistant principal that the students had only six minutes to walk to the other end of the campus when changing classes. The time was measured and it was discovered that ten minutes was required.

Okay, new plan. Now my twenty-one year old portable would be located just behind the second largest building in a parking lot. This was fine until it became evident that parking for football supporters would be greatly decreased. The final placement suggestion had always been referred to as the, “There is no way I’m having portables parked in my damn courtyard!” principal’s decree.

I’ve walked among the two-foot tall wooden stakes driven into the school’s courtyard. Each one outlined by spray paint on the grass marking the corners of each of the five portables to be moved. The county maintenance department has decreed that the only placement suitable shall be the courtyard. I’ve counted the trees to be cut down and they only number fourteen.

This Monday morning is the first day of the fall break. No students are around. No teachers. Not even football supporters are present. I walked through the courtyard this morning with my camera to begin recording the “Great Move of 2006”. Many of my students wanted to see how it would all be accomplished, but live to far away to be there. I quietly whistled “They Paved Paradise and Put Up A Parking Lot” as I snapped digital pictures of the portables, the courtyard, and the trees. It was 10:00 A.M. in the morning and I was alone. No movers, utility workers, wire stringers, or lumberjacks were present. The migrating geese flying overhead and me enjoyed the fall morning. I wondered how many days it would take to relocate five classrooms? Luckily, we had placed all breakables, e.g. computers, monitors, and televisions on the floor so only the unbreakable items could fall on them when the move came.

It was decided that it would take two weeks beyond the one-week fall break to complete the move. The principal decided to attend two training conferences during this time. When he returns I’m sure the move to the courtyard will be his original idea and the portables will look just wonderful where they are.

Change is fine as long as you’re not there when it happens!

THIS IS MY DEN!

“The ink is black, the page is white, together we learn to read and write”, so the song goes. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if most of education was about education? As my dearly departed daddy always told me, “I get you school books and send you out to school and what do you do, you eat the covers off the books.”

I have several cover eaters that meander through my portable during the school day. At times it is difficult to scratch the veneer and expose the child longing for aid of some type. Their veneers are very thick. Consisting of coatings of years of neglect from their families, their “government schools”, their neighborhoods, the NEA, the Earth, the solar system, the universe, and on and on; get the picture?

Robbie is a transplant from Detroit. A tough kid from a tough group home and toughened long ago by a physically abusive father. Robbie’s mother finally escaped her own abuse by moving south. No one, including the government agency entrusted with protecting children in Michigan, followed up on where Robbie had moved. Robbie’s final veneer layer is his own sense of humor. He makes jokes, sings songs, and banters with his peers, but always with an eye on the nearest adult to spot any forthcoming retribution. He doesn’t find much in our school and none in my classroom.

Robbie tries to test boundaries in his new school and my little classroom is no exception. He and I have struggled for most of the first four weeks of school with boundaries. On the surface he wants no restrictions. However, at the same time, he wants me to be a boundary. Robbie lies about everything. He lies when the truth would serve him better. His female teachers all think he is bonding with them. Bonding is not exactly what is occurring.

Robbie has some unusual views about girls and women. Without attempting to be an amateur psychologist it could stem from the abuse he witnessed thrust upon his mother by his father. The identical abuse that his younger sister endured as well as his own abuse. Adult females are inferior to him and if he wants to touch them, then it’s his “right”. Female students are all his “b_t__es”. Pity the lone female student that says hello to him. They immediately become his “girlfriend”. Of course, they have no idea they have become a girlfriend.

After some confidential teacher re-education his female teachers now understand he is not being friendly and admiring by just wanting to be near them. They have relocated their desks from corners to an area allowing egress from each end. Additionally, they have made efforts not to be alone with Robbie, all but Ms. “I Can Control Any Situation”. The attack came out of the blue, but only to her. She and Robbie were laughing, joking, and being “friendly”. He wanted to share his lunch with her. Robbie managed to trap her in the corner behind her desk. He over-powered her and groped several areas of her body before her screams bought the theater teacher to her rescue.

Robbie now resides in a more restrictive alternative school where he is comfortable and has exhibited no further violent behavior to this date. The teacher has returned to teaching. Her students are impressed with her new classroom technique. She can now walk a circle around her room from both ends of her desk.

If education was created for the student what was created for the teacher? I often lull myself into false beliefs that I can reach any student, given the time and opportunity. My weapon and bruise collection attests to my many failures. It has been explained to me by administrators that a portion of my responsibilities are to offer classroom management techniques that help protect the teacher. Of course, they are not to know that is what I’m doing. Many teachers are more territorial then a mother bear protecting their cub and would not appreciate my intrusion into their den.

"The ink is black, the page is white," wouldn't education be even more wonderful if it was that simple?

A NEW YEAR 2006-2007

SUMMER CAMP

At times I fondly remember the two weeks I escaped to summer camp in the sixties. A true summer camp unlike the summer camp I experienced in the late sixties by invitation of the U.S. government. The two camps had much in common; e.g., heat, insects, long hikes, rifles, and inexperienced leaders. What they did not have in common were the goals of making winners from the participants. My counselors-in-training believed in competition. The teams were taught that competition was good and losing was not. If it was target shooting, hiking, horseback riding, pie eating, basketball, or being the first up in the morning, competition was good. The camp was based on the Camelot theme, which I understood was a love story and a triumph of good over evil. The leaders at the government camp believed lies, deception, inflated numbers, and the lack of a will to win was the course. But, enough of the trip down memory lane and onto summer camp 2006.

My guys, male and female included, experience a summer camp that I could not have related to as a child. Their camps are the streets of the ‘hood. Their friends come and go from various arrests, dealers deal, parents continue to try to survive, often losing track of their children on a daily basis. Fights that occurred over the summer break from high school often are not resolved and the animosity carries on to the school campus. New gang alliances are formed but short lived. Students in state’s custody are transferred into foster homes far from their families and friends. Of course these transferees have to establish their turf and reputations. Couple this with an increased student population from an over-crowded 1745 students to a really over-crowded 2300 students and a melting pot of testosterone driven educational conflicts sets the stage for the first week of school.

My first three expulsions consisted of two returnees from the previous year and one recently relocated state's custody student. All three were zero toleranced, with one being a product of a knee jerk domino theory of educational discipline. I see the sadness in losing this student for the school year, but I also see the humor in the circumstances. Briefly, I hope, the story goes like this; the student was happily adjusting to a new school year in English II. In short order he and the second year, newly married teacher exchanged differences on what he should do in class. He finally told her “This is all bullshit!” She informed him he was to leave the class and report to the sophomore principal. Before leaving the classroom he picked up an imaginary shotgun, cocked it, pointed it toward the teacher, and pulled the make believe trigger, exclaiming, “Bang!”

There were several courses the teacher had to address the situation. The one chosen by her would not generally be considered as an option; she called her mother. Not being privy to the conversation I can only assume she was scared and conveyed this fear to her mother. Mom being very good friends with the county sheriff called him to pass on her daughter’s fear about this student. He in turn called his friend, the school superintendent. The superintendent not interested in having any irate parent complaining in his office or to another government official’s office called the school principal. The principal’s last desire is to have any parent or the superintendent making waves so he in turned called an assistant principal. This principal was not in charge of the student, but quickly gathered the School Resource Officer, that happens to be the son of the sheriff and both of them converged on the office of the principal of the sophomore class. The result of this meeting was a campus all-points-bulletin search for the student. This two-hour search resulted in the knowledge that the student had gone home and was fast asleep in his room.

The result of the circle of authority was the child being banished to the county alternative school. I know this child well and he couldn’t care less which school he is assigned to, he attends when he wants to. His parents long ago resolved he could raise himself. This should result in an identical success story of their older son. That would be the son currently serving seven-and-a-half to fifteen for breaking and entering. My student worships his older brother.

The younger of the remaining two students only cursed a teacher and walked upon that teacher with a closed fist. A zero tolerance for threatening a teacher was the result. The reality of the situation was that his gang leader had been found living out of zone and was transferred to the correct school allowing this student to step-up and be a leader. This is a game played by many principals in an attempt to rid their schools of undesirables. (Check Mate!)

The last student committed the most serious offense. He was bumped in a breakfast line before school. A crime committed by a member of one of the most notorious gangs in any school, the band. This band member further enraged the student by apologizing, which resulted in the band member being attacked from behind. The band member and the state’s custody student both had to go to the hospital, the band member from the injuries inflicted from the beating and my student from a broken hand.

Oh, did I mention that only one of these three students is a special education student? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…………….

This is only week one of the 2006-2007 school year and already the lessons from summer camp are being transplanted to school. I look forward to week two and the chaos that accompanies my teaching position.

I miss camp.

RAPPIN' IT UP

“It’s 9:30. Where have you been Ron?”

“I was out late dude. You know, taking care of biz”

“Shouldn’t you be in second period taking your final exam?”

“Damn dude I forgot all about it. It don’t matter. I’m probably not passing math anyway.”

I’ve known Ronnie since the sixth grade. Even then his mother thought it would be cool if she had him wear a “grill” of highly polished stainless steel over his upper teeth. I always called him Ron instead of Ronnie. It tended to make him feel more like a young man.

Ron and I had fought the grade battle for several years. He understood he would never be an “A” student and I understood he would always be a “C, D” student. I always stressed schoolwork when we talked. More importantly he knew he needed to be a young man instead of a street thug. Most of the time he failed at his schoolwork, but seldom did he fail to be a young man.

When others saw him on the street, they saw a thug. He usually dressed in very dark, baggy, and layered clothing. His hair worn in long braids. Most often he has a hood dangling on the back of his head. His crowning glories are the dark glasses hiding his eyes and the shiny grill reflecting out of his mouth. All of this camouflage did an excellent job of hiding a good-hearted soul mostly missed by the casual observer.

Ron struggles with the street. He struggles with a very religious mother. However, he mostly struggles with himself. In the hood, everyday, he sees quick money and friends disappearing either into jail or the graveyard. Thanks to the influence of this and his family he has a small tolerance for Caucasians. Several times he let me know that Caucasian was a funny name, “Sounds like a pair of shoes. Yes, I would like to have a pair of Caucasians in size twelve.” Then he would laugh making the sound of air leaking from a tire.

“Good morning Ron.”

“Morning man,” he replied each morning entering my portable classroom. I don’t remember him ever having breakfast before coming to school. So each morning he microwaved Ramon Noodles, chicken flavored, before heading out to English One. During three years in high school he tried passing English without ever getting close. However, he never quit attending the class. Each year I had to argue with his teacher not to socially pass him just to not have him in class the following year. As the end of year four approached, he proudly possessed a 71 in English.

I watched on a very fine Sunday afternoon as he walked across the graduation stage. I honestly thought he was taller. Afterwards, as I leaned against the exit door watching the graduation crowd of students and families, I saw Ron being hugged by his mother, older brother, and stepfather.

Seventh grade was the pivotal point in our relationship. Ron was small in stature and large in mouth. Ms. Ellison was and continues to be a stodgy English teacher. She rules her domain. That domain being her classroom and the students are her minions. They must all fit the mold of hard working, respectful (by her definition), and most importantly quiet. Ron could not comply with one of these demands let along all three.

Right after first class began my classroom door was flung open banging against the wall. Ron came running in with tears beginning to fill his eyes. Close on his heels marched Ms. Ellison. Her tan corduroy pants “zipped” as her legs moved her forward in pursuit of Ron to further punish him.

“He is not to be in my class again. He cannot behave. He’s nothing but trouble. Do you hear me Ron? You’re not to come into my class again!” I wanted to tell her that the yelling was unbecoming to a teacher, but I was more concerned with Ron then an irate English teacher.

“You’ll have to leave now Ms. Ellison you’re interrupting my class. We’re just getting ready to listen to the announcements.” She wanted to continue berating Ron as I escorted her out and closed the door leaving her to stare at the door.

By the time the morning announcements were completed Ron had settled down to his normally talkative self and the rest of the class had forgotten the incident. They were in the process of pooling money they had collected for two days to contribute to another of the many fund raising activities schools engage in to help the school. As I recall they had collected around ninety-five dollars. The “popular class leader” presented me with the money. I completed a receipt for the school secretary and placed the money in a brown envelope. The class leader stood next to my desk waiting to take the envelope to the office.

“Ron, can you come here a second? I need you to do something for me.”

“What you need man?”

“Please take this envelope to the school office for me.” By the expression on the class leader’s face, this was a complete surprise to him. It probably was no more a shock to him then to Ron. I suspected it was the first time he had been placed into a position of responsibility.

“Don’t take to long Ron. We got a lot of work to do this morning. You have to catch-up if you’re going to be with me for the remainder of the year.” Ron returned within two minutes and took his place in the class. The office staff later sent me a note asking if it was proper to have Ron bring money to the office. I simply noted on the yellow paper, “You got the money didn’t you!” I heard nothing further. The principal agreed, with the insistence of Ms. Ellison, Ron should remain in my class during first period.

Here in high school, four years later, as I lean against the exit door watching the graduation crowd of students and families, I watch Ron proudly being hugged by his mother, older brother, and stepfather.

HOLDING BACK LIFE'S DANDELIONS

(Roosevelt Revisited)

The heat of the summer is easing onto the Cumberland Plateau, public swimming pools open Monday, there have only been three newspaper reports involving my students, most of the hail damage from two months ago has been repaired at my house, and I have managed not to drive by my high school. During the summer break I make it a point to take alternate routes when I leave my house to avoid driving by the government school where I teach. This is difficult to do when you live less than sixty seconds away. Another difficult task to accomplish is avoiding current and former students. By my last count there are forty-one students living within a two-mile radius of my house. However, except for a few incidents I seldom encounter them during the summer break. Then there is Washington.

My personal joke has long been that Washington is the son I never wanted. He was a three-year freshman until he turned eighteen. Then, as his mother expected, he dropped out over a year ago. It had not mattered that his girlfriend was going to have a baby, that he did not have a job, he was jailed at the time, and was turning eighteen going on ten-years-old mentally. All of this aside I like Washington.

I despise mowing grass. This must be a holdover from my childhood, but I have not bothered to analyze it to deeply. Weed-eating, on the other hand, brings me a degree of pleasure. I suppose the violence of the whirling plastic string impresses me, so about once a week I beat back the invading weeds in the yard. There may even be a correlation between weed-eating and teaching, but I don’t want to get to psychologically involved and spoil the weed-eating.

Through my safety goggles I watched the dandelions sacrifice themselves to the spinning machine. I felt the stick strike my side and turned to see Washington standing in my driveway. He was not alone. In his arms he held his eight-month-old daughter. This was not the first time I had met Mia. Washington, his unmarried “wanna-be” bride, and Mia had visited their former high school several times. This was however the first time he and the baby had come visiting at my home.

“What’s happening dude,” he ask while shifting Mia to his other arm?

“Just baking a tuna fish casserole.” This was not the first time he had heard me say that, but it always caused him to laugh. This time was no different. “What you doing Washington?”

“Me and Mia are just out cruising.”

“Where’s her mother?”

“She had a doctor’s appointment.”

“Shouldn’t you be with her?”

“No man. She told me to take Mia, that she would be fine.”

“Huh uh…… you always believe what she says?” I didn’t feel like explaining some things today. How it would have been appropriate for Washington and Mia to wait at the doctor’s office and that maybe he should shade the baby when they’re out in the bright sunshine. “Let’s rest over here,” I said moving toward the shade of a tree.

We sat down at an old picnic table and he eased Mia down to the surrounding grass. I watched her hesitate to crawl and instead she stared at the blades of grass as only an infant can stare. Washington pulled a cigarette out of a crumpled package and flicked his BIC lighter. He was unaware of anything Mia was doing at his feet.

One thing I found useful when dealing with former or current students, on a personal level, was knowing the answer to questions before I asked, “How come you’re not at work?”

Mia and her mother lived with her mother and grandmother while Washington resided at his mother’s house. The two houses were only a block apart, but could have been light years away from each other. “I had to take-off while Christy went to the doctor’s.”

Washington was not above telling me an untruth. He had not been employed for three weeks. He and a group of friends, all but him under the age of eighteen, were involved in a fight at a local Wal-Mart parking lot. Washington was arrested after hitting one of the kids a glancing blow with a hammer. He was incarcerated in the “big people’s jail” while the other participants all went to juvenile detention. He was unable to find anyone to “go bail” until his mother convinced her live-in friend, Julie, that she had to do something for her granddaughter’s welfare and father. His court date was still three weeks away. Because he was locked up for three weeks the local faux Pottery Barn had filled his position with another of my former students.

“How are Christy’s GED studies going?” About a year ago she decided it would be better if she worked on getting a GED diploma instead of getting up so early and being confined to a government school all day. If I had a dollar for every former student that decided a GED was the route to go and failed to achieve the goal my retirement fund would be very bloated.

“She’s going to get back to it when Mia gets a little older.”

“Are you still living at your mom’s house?”

“Yeah, just until I get my own place.” He knew as well as I did that he would live with her until she or her friend couldn’t stand having him around any longer. Mom’s friend Julie was the catalyst for him being evicted earlier. She did not like having others in the house. Before Julie moved in she often said Washington was a “wonderful boy” and how much she wanted him around. Afterwards he became a pest and was forced out within three weeks. (Love is a many splendored thing!)

We chatted about former students and friends, what he wanted for the future, where he expected to be in five years, the odds he and Christy would ever marry, how much fun Mia is, how Christy’s mother still didn’t like him, but adored Mia, and how his maturity is delayed in coming. The one subject that was long in coming was the real reason he had come to visit me.

My gas weed-eater was cooling down and would need to be re-primed before starting. The weeds were getting a reprieve while we talked. The host of a local PBS garden show frequently says that a weed is anything that grows where you don’t want it to grow. By that definition a rose could be a weed, thistle could be a weed, and Washington could be a weed in his mother’s house and in Christy’s house. At times I sensed he felt lost in life. Like many teenagers he was searching for a direction, a purpose, and perhaps even guidance from others. All of these are especially difficult for Washington to attain. His mother should be a source of guidance, now more then ever, but her life was slipping by and perhaps she felt the need to choose between her needs and his?

“I was wondering if I could float a loan from you. I need some gas so I can get back to the doctor’s office.” I chose not to mention if he had stayed at the office then he wouldn’t need gas money to return. I understood that he just needed to come by and talk. He did not need criticism or a lecture.

“Let me see what I got.” I left him with Mia and went into the house. My billfold was on the table next to the window looking out onto the backyard. While I counted out some dollars I watched him pickup Mia. He held her, said something, and kissed her on each cheek. Perhaps there was hope for him yet? Somehow he had a capacity for love that frequently he hid from the world.

Outside I passed him the money. He didn’t count the bills. I held Mia while he crumpled them into his shirt pocket. Mia is a beautiful child with long, dark, curly hair and infectious smile. Much like her father’s smile. He assured me that he would see me soon before he drove away in the rattle-trap old Thunderbird.

I returned to my weed-eating knowing all I can do is delay the growth of the dandelions. Hopefully, Washington is only delayed in his growth.

WAYBACK MACHINE 3

Trip Three – To August 2005 Through May 2006

When you least expect, the school bear sneaks upon you, and bites you in the educational behind. Sometimes, I knowingly invite the bear to try and devour me. The very last thing I ever want to do in my portable classroom, in the government school, on county taxpayer property, is to restrain a student. I only recall doing the “restraining deed” on two other occasions. On this occasion I tried every educational re-cue, (I love technical education stuff), trick in my bag and failed.

“You’re doing this because my kid is black,” the angry father yelled at me. We had both been summoned to the principal’s office due to the events of the previous day.

Ernest, a tall, lanky, loud, likeable kid had been assigned to my classroom sometime during the last month. He could not manage to be quiet during any class. Eventually, it wore one of his teachers down and he was issued a discipline report and sent to his principal’s office. The result was his assignment to me, during second period, to work on classroom social skills. I like Ernest. He is funny, smart, and a challenge. We generally get along well. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Ernest and his relationship with some other students. It is safe to say that he is not “cool” like the cool guys think they are.

Ernest is never dirty. He doesn’t seem to care how he dresses to come to school. Mismatched clothes could easily be his trademark. However, his hair has yet to meet a brush or comb it liked. He is never dirty just disheveled. Talking loudly is the one trait he possesses that agitates his peers. This skill is what led him to being restrained, to protect him from another student attacking and partially to get him away from my face.

“You’re doing this because my kid is black,” again the angry father yelled at me!

“Sir, that is not the case,” Ms. Wilson, Freshman Principal, said trying to calm the man.

“What else could it be? He’s a white man trying to teach my son.” He waved his hand in my direction both recognizing my presence and dismissing me at the same time.

“Okay, I understand your anger, but let’s look at the facts.”

“The facts are that he laid his hands on my son!”

“Sir, he probably was justified due to the circumstances,” Ms. Wilson tried to continue.

“It ain’t right. No white man should lay his hands on my son!” I watched, without comment, while his anger increased. It appeared he was less into defending his son’s honor and more into enjoying being the center of attention and being in charge.

“Okay, we’ll bring Ernest in and listen to his explanation of the events,” she said.

“He doesn’t have to be in here. I already heard his side. This white man ain’t got no right laying his hands on my son!” It was quickly becoming evident that this meeting was going nowhere, except perhaps to a due process hearing. I was shifting in my seat wanting to get back to my students. I stood to shift my position around, not to leave. Ernest’s father misunderstood. He rose quickly and moved close to my face.

He pointed his finger within an inch of my face and again yelled, “You’re doing this because my kid is black!”

“No, it’s because your son acted like an idiot,” I said. He swung his arm back forming a fist.

I enjoy wearing hats. My favorites are fedoras. They are long ago out of style, but appear to be making a comeback. I tend to wear a hat on rainy days. Umbrellas are inconvenient for me to carry. I’ve lost enough umbrellas to supply most teachers in my high school with one. So there I stood with my hat in my hand waiting to get punched by the irate father of one of my favorite students.

His fist was beginning to move toward my head. All I could do was toss him my hat. This caused him to hesitate and grab the flying hat in mid-air. What it really did was allow me the time to side step him, placing my left leg behind his left leg, forcing him backward and down to the floor. I stood over him. I offered my hand to help him back to his feet. He looked up at me and offered me back my hat. He took my hand and I took my hat.

“Let’s all calm down,” Ms. Wilson said revealing the panic in her voice.

“We’re okay. Right sir,” I asked?

“Yeah, we’re fine,” he said while straitening his jacket.

“I’ll talk to Ernest about working on his temper,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to Ernest coming back to my class. He’s a good young man.”

Ernest graduated this year. He wasn’t the head of his class nor was he at the bottom. His father sat behind me during graduation. He is a proud man. Ernest is the first, in several generations, of this family to graduate from high school. Already he is working at the local flour manufacturing plant where his father has worked for fourteen years.

Sometimes the bear bites you and sometimes you bite the bear.

WAYBACK MACHINE 2

Trip Two – August 2005 to May 2006

Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do, so the old song goes. Glenda is a wonderfully hard working, dedicated, and inspired English teacher. The bad news is that Glenda is a wonderfully hard working, dedicated, and inspired English teacher. The really bad news is that Jack was enrolled in her first period class. She has only been in the high school trenches for three years chasing the elusive “teacher tenure”. Sometimes, before school starts, I drop by her room to discuss the progress of several of my students in English. Our conversations always turn toward Jack and his “attitude”.

“All he does is sleep.”

“He does have his own agenda,” I said.

“What can I do? He irritates the crap out of me!”

“Does he disrupt your class?”

“No, not really. He seldom is awake long enough to talk to anyone.”

“Well, I guess that could be good news.”

“Good news? His principal is no help. He talks down to me and tells me I need to be creative in teaching Jack.”

Part of my unofficial duties, as instructed by this very principal, is to assist some teachers with classroom management. I shouldn’t let any of them know what I’m doing, but none-the-less, I should assist them. This is not really a problem. Most other teachers don’t consider me a teacher. I’m just the guy that relieves situations in their classes by taking problem students off their hands for a period of time.

I don’t think that Glenda believes she knows everything about teaching, but she has at least one thing in common with most other teachers, she is territorial. She owns her room. However, I understand the principal owns “her” room and she occupies it only at his discretion. The teachers that change rooms at the end of each school year can attest to this. There appears to be no rhyme or reason for this moving, but if you teach Math and English in this high school, be aware as May nears.

“Perhaps, if you send him over to my portable for third period we can help him with his assignment?”

“I can do that? It really would help me out, I mean help Jack out.” Her justified frustration was barely hidden.

“Sure, let’s try it for a couple of days. I’ll clear it with his principal.” Of course I didn’t have to clear anything. If it keeps a student or teacher out of his office it will be okay.

“I don’t think Mr. Smally likes me?”

“Don’t be silly. If he didn’t like you, you wouldn’t be teaching here for the past two years.” I didn’t want to inform her that she seldom crossed his mind unless one of her students landed in his office for discipline. “You know, you might want to move your desk a little?”

“Why?”

“If a student gets really upset and comes after you where would you run to?” She looked at the placement of her desk and realized that one end was against a wall that allowed only one route for escape.

Her mental light bulb flickered on, “Yes, yes, I see what you mean.”

I left, heading for my portable classroom, while she began tugging on her desk. If I had one “gentlemanly inclination” I would have offered to assist with moving the desk. I walked on. The thought briefly crossed my mind, at a future date, of letting her discover another misplacement of her desk. Away in a corner quite removed from the students. Many students will interpret that she is trying to stay far away from them.

Two mornings later we discussed Jack returning to her class. She was unhappy with this decision. “Is he going to continue sleeping?”

“Probably.”

“I graded the work he turned in from his stay in your class.”

“How did he do?” I knew the answer having looked over his work before I slipped it into her mailbox.

“He did okay. I think he got a 81 on one paper and 76 on the other?”

“Not bad,” I said. I did not want to argue with her that he had scored higher and perhaps she was grading him more harshly because of his “attitude”. Also, I didn’t bring it up because Jack didn’t care what grade he received.

Jack and her continued the Tic-Tac-Toe game most of the year. He won many of the battles and lost the educational war. He will be taking English One again as a second year freshman. Glenda also lost the classroom possession war.

“I have to change classrooms,” she said. Angry would not be a fair description of her reaction to the news. Ballistic would be a better verb or adjective.

“Where you moving to for next year?”

“They want me to take Mrs. Baylor’s room. She’s moving to my room. What damn good does that do?”

“I don’t know. The principals seem to have their own plans for where teachers teach from each year.” Again I let the opportunity pass about who controls (owns) the classrooms in the school. I didn’t even feel like reminding her it wasn’t where she taught, but what and how.

“I told them I wasn’t moving unless I got Honors English next year. I’ll quit if I don’t get the course.” She didn’t seem to understand that she was five or six years shy of getting an honors class. Without tenure and several more years teaching at this school she was not getting an honors class. It is not your ability to teach, but how long you’re here that counts.

I recalled she was going to quit after her first year because she did not have first period planning. At the end of the second year she was going to quit because she didn’t get along with the inclusion teacher assigned to her. (The inclusion teacher made the mistake of thinking she owned the room.) Now she was quitting if she did not get Honors English and was being forced to change classrooms.

My belief is that she will be back, in her new classroom, in August. Glenda is a wonderfully hard working, dedicated, and inspired English teacher. Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do with a lover, but Breakin’ Up Is Impossible To Do with your dream of teaching!

WAYBACK MACHINE 1

Trip One - To The School Year August 2005 - May 2006

This was year three for Connor in high school. More accurately he was a third-year-freshman. Generally this is not something to be proud of, but for Connor he was just marking time until his eighteenth birthday. Due mostly to his miserable home life he took everything negatively and personally. If a teacher attempted to be nice to him it was because it was their job. If a teacher was not nice then it was because he was white, because of his age, because of where he lived, because of prior trouble he had been in, because, because, because, etc.

Connor felt comfortable in the haven of my classroom mostly because my demands of him were subtle. I expected him to be a young man. He was expected to accept responsibility for his actions. Sometimes he was successful in these expectations and sometimes not. The man he encountered in the classroom in August was the same man he left each May. Consistency in teaching is greatly underestimated. Or maybe it was because I am three times his size?

Like many Special Education students he had become an expert at avoiding schoolwork. In fact they may dedicate more time at avoiding schoolwork then if they had gone ahead and did the work. I tried for three years to find the one thing Connor was good at in the world of academics. He had great difficulty reading. Anything beyond 8 times 5 was lost on him. He could not find America on a map. He didn’t know, nor did he care, who was George W. Bush. However, Connor does have an aptitude for auto repair. More precisely he could repair tires rather quickly. Unfortunately he could not pass the prerequisite course to enter auto repair. No Child Left Behind has tainted even the meager vocational offerings of the government school. The federal mandate says that students like Connor should be destined for college.

During the summer breaks he carried bundles of roofing shingles up ladders for his uncle. This man was not really his uncle, but had been involved at one time with Connor’s mother so he continued to refer to him as his uncle. Connor did not have steady work with his uncle. It was always determined by how much his uncle drank the night before. Most days Connor lounged around the one-bedroom mobile home during the day smoking cigarettes that his mother provided him. To my knowledge he had not developed an interest in illegal drugs. I assume due to his financial state more then a moral belief. All told Connor is not a bad “kid” just a product of his environment.

Mrs. Bessemer was part of a package deal. She and her husband had been hired to teach at the beginning of this school year. Most likely her husband had been rehired because he coached baseball. Number three of four sports in this school, but a sport no less. Incidentally he teaches World and US History. She teaches Special Education Inclusion English. Conner immediately fell for her. He was convinced that she was the new love of his life. She is very religious, very nice, very naïve, and very cute. Connor enjoyed having her lean over his shoulder to help him with an assignment he had no interest in completing. The one educational accomplishment she provided him with was an increase in his attendance. For whole one-and-half semesters he did not skip her class. He was not passing, but at least he was there. Then came the big announcement.

I wasn’t in the inclusion English classroom, but it was reported to me by eight students that Connor didn’t take the news well. All of the SPED students were in a small group for extra instruction on the daily assignment from the regular education teacher.

“I wanted all of you to know how happy I am,” Mrs. Bessemer said. “Barry and I are going to have a baby.” Knowing her fairly well I assume she was giddy in making the announcement.

“Mr. Bessemer is pregnant,” Sheila ask?

“Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Bessemer said while giggling. “God has blessed us.”

Mrs. Bessemer is the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher from a very small Tennessee town twenty-seven miles to the east of Nashville. Far enough away that she feels she and Barry are living independently and close enough that she can visit her father a mere six times per week. Her husband had taught at our high school two years earlier. When No Child Left Behind decreed that a GED student did not count toward graduation numbers for any government school, he left. As I recall, he dedicated a large portion of his teaching day to exploring the Internet and flirting with female students. Now he doesn’t spend as much of his time exploring the Internet. He discovered religion when he discovered his twenty-one year old bride. Now she was transforming him into her father.

It is safe to say that Connor did not take the big announcement well. He ask to be excused to go to the restroom and did not return to the class that day. Mrs. Bessemer wrote him the dreaded “pink slip” disciplinary report and forwarded it to his principal. The result was Connor receiving two days In-School-Suspension for skipping class. This set the course for him to destroy what progress he had made during English class.

Three days later he was assigned to my class all day for violating additional school rules; e.g., smoking on campus, skipping other classes, leaving campus, and cursing Mrs. Bessemer. She had denied him permission to leave class at which point he stood up and declared, “I don’t have to put up with this s*#^”! He slammed the classroom door leaving his former favorite teacher’s class and further exclaiming, “You can’t tell me what to do b*^#h”!

“I can’t have him in my class anymore,” Mrs. Bessemer said, explaining her fear to me. “He threatened me.”

“Well, he didn’t really threaten you,” I said, trying to calm her.

“It sure feels to me that he did.”

“His feelings were hurt.” I decided at that point to be a little more graphic with her. Perhaps part of me wanted to see her shocked, perhaps I just wanted to defend Connor’s position. “You know he has the [hots] for you?”

I do admit the redness that swept across her face was worth it. “Doesn’t he understand I’m married, pregnant, and his teacher?”

“Oh, he understands that. He also understands that in his mind you are close to his age and treated him very nice. Most women he has been around have not treated him very nice.”

“Well, I can’t have him around me after he threatened me.”

I understood she was not going to be receptive to Connor returning to her class. Everything she had been exposed to in “SPED 101” was lost on her. She was married, pregnant and scared of a student. The opportunity for her to make a difference in this student’s life was gone.

Connor “graduated” this year with a Special Education diploma. It is referred to as “not a real diploma” much like a GED is referred to as the “Good Enough Diploma”. The Bessemer’s world will be changed forever in August, after the birth. The unfortunate loss was the opportunity to maybe increase Connor’s English skills to the sixth grade level. My sense was that that Connor had been left behind years ago and we had missed the last chance to free him from the anchor of his life.

A REAL TEACHER, TEACHES

The semi-annual “catered” faculty breakfast time has arrived. The end of the school year brings forth the caring and the compassion of the school system. The faculty breakfast was a time to acknowledge some things from the year, such as, most of the year a few of the teachers have been nursing a Secret Pal gift exchange, school computers have kept track of the teachers that did not miss any days. (The way I calculate the number should be two.) It is also the time for our leader to step up to a microphone and tell us what a wonderful job we’ve done. Thankfully, most of the speech is drowned out by the sounds of the flatware attacking the food from a local Shoney’s restaurant. Platefuls of biscuits, eggs, bacon, sausage, and sweet rolls daring my newly inserted cardiac stents to try and stay open and unblocked. The food is being devoured by two hundred and some odd people wanting to be set free from their 180-day purgatory.

Officially it is a teacher workday. Students are out of school and told to return the next day, but only long enough to receive their report cards. So, my calendar math goes something like this, no school Saturday, Sunday, Monday (Memorial Day), and Tuesday, but the students are expected to return for five minutes on Wednesday, the last day of school. (2 Long + 2 Wait = 4 Summer)

I would like to think that it is a time for reflection on the past school year. I would like to think that, but the only reflection I’m having is how long it will take me to walk to my truck and escape for the summer. There are people I’ll miss seeing everyday during the break, three to be precise. Not one of them will be a teacher. Holding the number one place on my list is Mr. Benjamin, day custodian for the main building. He is 84-years-old and has not missed a workday since I’ve known him.

Five mornings each week, starting at 6:00 A.M., he pushes his cart through the hallways. Cleaning restrooms, sweeping entrance rugs, washing glass on the entrance doorways, but most importantly he dispenses a smile and a “Good Morning” to students and teachers. Each morning after reporting absences and checking my mailbox it’s time to stop for a brief moment and talk with him. Our conversations always begin the same way, with a handshake.

“Good morning sir.”

“Morning young fellow,” he always replies while we shake hands.

“I see you’re learning from me. Hiding out in the open is the best way to hide.” Our stale joke continues each day.

“You must be slipping. I saw you sitting in your truck yesterday afternoon.”

“Well, I have a lot to learn from you because I didn’t see you.” We both laughed while looking up and down the four hallways that intersects where we’re standing.

I’ve come to value Mr. Benjamin. Not for wit and wisdom, but for his presence. Most days I’ll have a newly assigned student to my classroom walk with me when I make my morning rounds. One of our stops will be to talk with Mr. Benjamin.

“Good morning sir.”

“Morning young fellow.” Mr. Benjamin replies.

“This is Mr. Washington. He’s one of my fine new students.” Mr. Benjamin reads the students very well sometimes offering his hand or sometimes just greeting them with a “Hello”.

“You in some kind of trouble young man?”

“No dude.”

“Most of the time you’re in trouble to be walking with this man.” Mr. Benjamin never pushed the point with any of my students. He just stated the facts as he saw them. “You hiding out in the open again?”

“Not this time. I’m just getting my mail,” I said.

“That’s the best way to hide. Act like you’re doing something.” He laughed the old man’s laugh. A laugh of knowledge without making it seem he had it.

“I believe I learned this from you.”

“No, you just fine tuned the skill.” He laughed again and gave the young student the once over again. “How you keep those pants up son?” Mr. Washington pulled his sagging pants up on his hips.

“Their okay. It’s just me being me.”

“You’re not being you son. You’re being everyone else.” I noticed the look on the teenagers face and guessed Mr. Benjamin’s words were not lost on him.

The cart started to move toward the next restroom that needed cleaned. Mr. Benjamin looked over his shoulder and said, “See you later young fellow.” I understood he wasn’t talking to me.

“See you around old dude.” The comment came from the student, but with no disrespect.

Mr. Benjamin stopped and turned toward Mr. Washington. For a brief moment he gave a look of a man that understood that someone a fourth of his age might have a chance to be successful. Successful in spite of the world he was growing up in.

“Remember young fellow listen to this man here.” He nodded toward me and turned to roll his cart on to its destination. “Where ever you go in life young fellow be careful, school food is still school food.”

Kanawha Falls
Glen Ferris, WV
(Nothing To Do With SPED. I Just Like The Picture)

Solution?

Science Question: How Much Does A Ford Taurus Weigh?

This has nothing to do with my class of sometimes lost academics. As the close of school nears I find myself frequently standing outside my portable. I don’t stand far away. The decayed pressure treated deck does well to support my bulk. I keep the metal door with the stylish plexiglass window propped open with my foot. This stance allows me to hear the conversations flowing around the class and to watch the students traversing the paved street between the annex building and the main building. At times it even allows me to dream about making a dash for my truck across the parking lot and escaping.

However, this time of the school year is bitter sweet. The seniors are mere days away from graduating after clawing their way to the top of the academic heap, only to find themselves at the bottom again out in the real world. Many of the familiar ones I have a few memories of seeing daily. The vast majority of them have never darkened the threshold of my classroom. The two lovebirds leaning against the hood of the dirty black Honda SUV perhaps should have spent some time in my class, but it was to late now.

The supreme mortal sin a student can commit in high school is to park in a teacher’s reserved parking spot. The second worst sin is to allow the teacher to discover your identity after they have parked across the parking space effectively blocking the intruder in for the day. The third on this list is for the student to be enrolled in said teacher’s class. Many teachers view a reserved slot as one of the few perks of a difficult job. I enjoy having my own parking space, but other job perks are more important and more elusive. Now back to the lovebirds.

The blue Ford Taurus had blocked them in earlier in the morning. They sat on the Honda hood, holding hands, and trying to figure a solution to their dilemma. I had watched them for over ten minutes. They had walked into the annex two times I’m assuming to ask if anyone knew the owner of the Taurus. I deduced they had been trying to sneak away from school, but had been foiled in their attempt by some “rude” teacher. A friend of theirs came by, looked into the Ford, said something and walked into the annex. He was back in a few minutes without any help for the couple.

By this time I observed the dark haired girl beginning to show anger. She no longer held her boyfriend’s hand. He attempted to kiss her cheek, but she pulled away. Her words were lost to me as a pickup truck with the normal “boom, boom, boom” sound system passed by the parking lot. My guess was another student skipping out early trading the ability to sneak for the hope of being cool. When I looked back toward the couple the girl was pointing her finger at the boy’s face expressing her angry desire to leave.

I looked at the Honda SUV with its six-inches of ground clearance. I gazed at the curb behind the SUV and judged it to be three inches tall. The angry girl was separated from the freedom of the street by a mere three inches. Briefly, I thought the solution had occurred to the girl. She walked around behind the SUV standing there for about twenty seconds staring down at the curb. Then she kicked the spare tire mounted on the back of the vehicle and returned to the front of the SUV to point her finger into her boyfriend’s face, again.

Then a solution came to them both almost at the same time. They kissed each other and proceeded with their plan. I suppose at moments like these a school should have the right to reexamine the awarding of a high school diploma. Perhaps a portion of high school credits should encompass a student’s ability to be prepared for the “real” world? At the very least the awarding of a science or physics credit should be reassessed. The two students took their places at the front and back of the offending Ford Taurus. For a reason that completely confuses me the young graduating senior girl posted herself at the front of the Ford. (I apologize for my politically incorrect maleness. Not really.) The boy took his place at the rear. Women’s lib is alive and well in 2006. They both bent forward and grasped the Taurus. The girl nodded her head three times and then they both jerked upward on the car. They had come up with a solution. Not a good solution, but a solution.

The boy’s face displayed surprise. My sense was the surprise was not from thinking the car might really float up in the air and be displaced by the couple, but from the pain that was now radiating down through his back. The girl fell over on the hood and quickly rose to shout something at the boy who was trying to stand erect. Perhaps if they had lifted with their legs? Her anger became more evident as she struck the hood of the Taurus with her purse and stomped into the annex. The boy was left behind trying to figure out why the car didn’t move and his back did.

I didn’t have the joy of seeing how the science experiment ended. I assume the teacher came out at some point and drove off. My hope was that these two were not to late for their appointment, graduated happily, and faced their destiny successfully in life beyond high school.

Science Question: How much does a Ford Taurus weigh?
Answer: Enough.

SO LONG, FAREWELL, GOODBYE, BB

As most teachers can testify students come and students go. Occasionally one will linger in your thoughts after graduation, that special academic scholar, the class leader, a star athlete, an outstanding musician, or a student that brightens your first period each day. This year the student that I will miss is none of these. Most of the time BB is a pain in the rear. He seldom spoke English. Screaming to get your attention was his favorite form of communication. Spaghetti O's is his lunch of choice every day. Standing a mere five feet tall, with very thick glasses, most teeth missing, and the worst chapped lips on the planet BB had the general look of a 70-year-old-man. Oh, did I mention his bowed legs?

At 6:20 A. M., every school morning, the yellow short bus deposited BB on the sidewalk outside of the school annex building. Some mornings he would leap from the bus and run head long into me, screaming, "BB, BB". We would hug before he attempted to explain the toy soldier he always carried. Frequently it was the same soldier. He tried to explain something different about the toy. Then with the abandonment of a puppy, I stopped existing, and he would run into the annex.

Some school mornings he chose to ignore me. He acted out imagined anger that went on for hours. By lunch again he ran headlong to get a hug. On some days he would "hide" under the cafeteria dining table until I acknowledged his prank. BB will graduate this year at the age of eighteen. His grandmother and lifelong guardian decided BB would travel America with her husband and herself in an RV. BB could stay in high school until he turned twenty-two, but the time has come for him to see America.

At 8:30 A. M. I watch from my portable classroom as BB slams through the glass annex doors running to get aboard the yellow short bus. BB participated in the school-to-community work program. His favorite job sight was the Food Lion grocery store. He was also a favorite of theirs. On the event of a man making fun of BB while bagging the man's grocery the manger refunded the customer's money and told him not to return to the store. With the help of a job coach BB loved to work. His favorite assignment was moving food carts back into the store. He was a vision. His five-foot, one hundred pound frame trying to maneuver a string of fifty carts across a busy parking lot was entertaining to the customers. He never lost control of the carts. The parked cars were always safe.

The lesser memory I have of BB is his attendance at the senior prom. The gym is not air conditioned, but it was beautifully decorated. The decorations were lost on BB. He quickly stripped himself of the tuxedo jacket. He “disco” danced and watched the girls. He consumed twenty-three cups of punch drink. He threw up and then fell asleep on the toilet in the restroom. It was a wonderful prom for a graduating senior.

I would like to bask in the glory of my collective teachings I’ve imparted upon BB. I just can’t recall any. However, I can bask in the teachings of BB, like how to smile at 6:20 A.M., or how to bump a lunch line without upsetting the “normal” students, and the way of making people on a job site appreciate how much different their lives could be, or hugging just for the sake of hugging, and how much I miss playing with toy soldiers.

BB is graduating on this fine Sunday from high school. I’m not sure the high school will ever be the same? I know I won’t be the same. He and his family sets out to see America on Monday. Be prepared America, BB is on his way.

RIMSCAPE IS NOT AN ONLINE FANTASY GAME

Rimscape is not an online fantasy game. It is a reality.

One of the saving graces of being an emotionally disturbed genius is creating your own reality and then living in it. I first encountered Lucas while he was sitting cross-legged on the gym floor silently refusing to participate. His principal had approached me to "help" Lucas by tricking him into dressing out for Wellness. The class use to be called Physical Education. No one in a government school should physically tax students. So the name was changed to Wellness. I suppose this new name is used to encompass the total person and to aid them into becoming a well person. Never mind that Lucas could not walk from one end of the campus to another without resting. The long tenured Wellness teacher has no tolerance for non-conforming students. Looking at my class list throughout the year testifies to the idea that non-conforming students quickly come to my class for the semester from Wellness class. Lucas is about as far from conforming as a student can become.

My first encounter with Lucas was very quiet. He may have had a lot to say to me, but he didn't. I left him sitting on the "Wellness" floor after telling him he could drop by my portable haven when he wanted. The principals expects me to make a difference in these student's lives and intercept them before they make it to their office again. I did not see Lucas again for one month.

Checking my teacher's mailbox on a Tuesday morning has become a behaviorist treat. On Mondays I find the normal bureaucratic pabulum. This includes edicts from the school board, and the school department chair, and from the liaisons in the Special Education department at the central office. Is there a commonality between the Central Party from the Cold War days and the central office we all answer to now? In my mailbox on Tuesday mornings are the referral sheets from the principals to "help" the students that had occupied their offices on Monday afternoon.

Tucked in with the other notes was a brief note instructing me to check in with the Honors Geometry teacher, Ms. Bottomline. Lucas is a student in her fourth period class telling me why I should check with her. The vision of him sitting on the gym floor not communicating clashed with my previous impressions of Honors Geometry. I could not and didn't care to argue with Ms. Bottomline's teaching style. She has been teaching the same class for twenty-six years. She teaches to the test, producing very good standardized scores and students. If anything is positive about Lucas it's his non-standardized persona.

After checking when her planning period was scheduled I entered her doorless room at the beginning of third period. All of the classrooms in the main building of the high school are doorless. The school had been built during the seventies trend of open classrooms. A time when the belief was that teaching crossed from one teacher to another and one student to another. Teaching by osmosis was a trend whose time long came and went. Now the school board was funding one door at a time enclosing each classroom. This year alone, one door was funded. It was not in Honors Geometry.

"How are you young lady," I asked Ms. Bottomline? My approach to each teacher is different. None of them view me as a "real teacher". Ms. Bottomline sometimes responded well to my good old country boy personality.

"What can I do with Lucas?"

I looked at her feigning my innocence, "What's he doing?"

"Nothing except drawing weird characters for some sort of computer game." Her desire to have him out of her class was barely masked by her anger for a student not conforming.

I had been quietly following any progress Lucas was or was not making in his classes for the past month and I knew the answer to this question. "How are his grades in Geometry?"

"He won't write notes, won't work in group. He won't even help on class projects!"

Okay, it's tooth pulling time. "But, what kind of grade is he making?"

"He's failing the class. He has no grades for anything except tests."

"How bad are his tests grades?"

The loudness and indignity mostly disappeared from her voice. "He gets one-hundred on all of his tests."

I could have replied in many different ways. I chose the politically correct response. "So you've found a way to penetrate his diagnosis of Emotionally Disturbed and teach to him?"

"But he's not doing any of the work I assign."

"So he doesn't participate and still makes hundreds on all tests?"

"Right, but that's not fair to the other students." I wanted to say it appeared that she thought it wasn't fair to her as a teacher. This student was absorbing everything that came from her and was spouting it back on the tests achieving perfect scores. This was not the time to expound on my belief that fair meant each student gets what they need to be successful. They do not get what everyone else has.

"Is there a chance that you could grade him on his tests scores and disregard everything else he is not doing?"

"That wouldn't be fair."

"Would your life be easier," I asked?

"Well, yes."

"And we would be compliant with the accommodations listed on his Individualized Educational Plan?" I was trying to guide her into being compliant with the law.

"It says he doesn't have to do assignments, but just take tests?"

"No, it says we will accommodate his unique disability. We should attempt to guide him during his high school career trying for academic success."

"Well?" She wanted me to say I could take him out of her fourth period class and shelter him in my classroom. I was not prepared to do that just now. However, I knew in the near future Lucas would become a permanent fixture at one of my computer monitors during fourth period. What I did not foresee was Lucas attempting to drag me into his Rimscape computer world. He would begin to share daily with me the "exciting" world of a computer game "reality". The game Lucas stayed up most of the night exploring. Exploring his reality and trying to ignore his twin brother's form of computer reality inside the same Rimscape world.

The only reality is the one we live in. Perhaps it is Rimscape? Perhaps it is the government school system. Perhaps it is the one we nurture with our students while we attempt to demonstrate that many things are important in our lives. It might even be school at some point.

Reality? What a concept.

The Family That Attacks Together,
Generally Are Jailed Together

It should be that a teacher could be shocked from time to time in the course of their daily class gatherings. To be true to myself I'm jaded. I believe my actions on behalf of my forgotten students speak for me. My collection of students has generally spread carnage in their regular classes. Administrators and teachers in this over-populated high school view my program as the last stop for their 'hoods and huns" before expulsion from school. My view is that of a halfway house preparing these students to return to the general population. The students, all of them, see my classroom as a safe haven sometimes from teachers, from administrators, but mostly from their life outside of school. It is probably all of these interpretations. My greatest ally and my greatest nemesis is the No Child Left Behind Program. A program developed by the feds for their government schools. This barely successful law makes it very difficult to get rid of a problem student.

Now, to the days event that continued to add to my education in family values. The family values that are in stark contrast to the values of a teacher born and raised in the fifties and sixties.

"Good morning Marty," I said.

I watched the normally grumpy student come into his first period class. I wondered if this was the week he was speaking to me?

"Hey dude," he replied. This must be the week. He sat, looking around the empty room. My assumption was that he was waiting for an audience larger than one.

"We missed you yesterday."

"Yeah, I wasn't here." His attention and clarity were amazing. He didn't have long to wait. Four of his morning classmates came in wanting nothing more then to go to sleep. Each one perked up a little when they saw him sitting at the table. If Marty knew the truth about the way his posse talked about him when he was absent he would still tell them outlandish stories, but he would dislike each fellow student even less then he did now.

"Man, me and my boy was chillin' out at my mom's place Tuesday night. I was in court all day yesterday. Somebody put a knife at my throat I don't want to press no charges. My old lady pressed them. I just wanted to take care of them myself."

After so many years of hearing this type of English drivel come out of their mouths I'm sad to say that I understood all he was saying. I knew I did not have to become part of the conversation to collect all of the information. Perhaps even some information the juvenile court judge did not have. I appeared to become absorbed in my morning paperwork. All five of them quickly forgot I was in the room.

"I was hangin' with my boy when Caesar, his step mom, sister, and his old man pulled up in our yard. I went outside. Me and Caesar hang together. Before I knew what was happenin' all four of them knocked me to the ground and Caesar had a knife at my throat. He told me he was going to kill my white ass. One of the neighbors called the cops. My old lady didn't. When they heard the cop cars comin' they all got in his step mom's car and got the hell out of the yard. The cops got them over in the next block and arrested all of them. I had to go to court yesterday."

I would hear the story several times throughout the school day. Each time a bit of embellishment was added by Marty. By the end of the day I had pieced the story together. Marty has a girlfriend, Angel, he is on the outs with since the weekend. She had a relationship with Caesar before she moved on to Marty. Marty had decided to move on briefly to Tiffany, just for a weekend, then back to Angel on Monday. However, Angel had decided to get even with Marty. Evidently she had called Caesar to inform him that Marty was going to kick his ass the next time Marty caught him on the street.

It is safe to say that marijuana was involved in both camps. Caesar dealt drugs and used them with his whole family. Marty, on the other hand, gets his stuff from Caesar. All of the participants were high. When Angel told Caesar his step mom became worried that her best salesman would be injured so she gathered the whole family together and drove over to Marty's rented house.

Marty had been inside his house with a friend smoking marijuana. His mother was in the back room of the house drinking with her current boyfriend. She could not have called the police even if she had heard the attack. The next day in court she could not string together enough of the facts to press charges.

Thankfully the police pressed charges for reckless driving, driving under the influence, juvenile probation violation, and driving without a license. Caesar's whole family managed to get locked up until a future court date.

Marty was inconvenienced having to go to court. A small footnote, Marty did lose his stash to his friend that was smoking with him. This brave soul ran out the back door when the attack began taking Marty's stuff with him. Perhaps the worst punishment any of the characters received would be Marty's misfortune. He got Angel back.

How To Steal A Car And Get Caught

I listened as the disheveled high school boy related how he was going to sue the high school. My feet shuffled under my desk in uncomfortable anticipation of leaving in the mid-afternoon. "I fell up the steps," Conner said.

Eased back to the conversation I looked at him as if I knew what he was talking about. "Why do you need to sue, little fellow?"

"I fell up the steps," he restated.

Thinking about what steps he could have fallen up or down on the level land, where the one-story inner city high school was constructed, I watched him bend forward and fold his left ear over to demonstrate the extent of his injury. I half-looked at an injury I could not see and at the same time presenting a look on my face of sincere interest.

"Over next to the science lecture hall."

"Where?"

"Right over there," Conner pointed to the wall of my portable building. Somehow, this high school student, the pride of his family, had found the only place on campus that could be called steps (two) to fall up.

"Did it embarrass you?"

"No, not really. It was during lunch."

The thought passed through my mind how falling in front of many students was less embarrassing then falling up two steps when you're alone? It was quickly replaced by his voice continuing on with the story. "It hurt me right behind my ear. It hurt all night."

"Concrete and human heads are generally an unfair match." I said.

"Wow, you can say that again, but don't. It still hurts," he said, while rubbing behind the opposite ear. I watched him rub the wrong ear and wondered what the real story was?

I would not begin to know the complete story until the School-Resource-Officer approached me. He is a somewhat effective young policeman in a government school setting. "Did Ashton attend all of his classes yesterday," he asked?

"To the best of my knowledge," I half-heartedly assured him. "However, if you need some information about what's going on around here I'd pull him in for a talk."

"Probably a good idea." I watched Officer Burns walk down the wooden ramp leaving my aged portable classroom. He is generally a man of few words and I suspected few original thoughts. Always on his desk was the school and sheriff's department book of rules and polices, along next to a Nintendo game controller. I wondered if he was ever a street cop? I'd heard rumors that he was very good at playing Grand Theft Auto on his game console.

Less than fifteen minutes later I watched the policeman escort Ashton into his office. I was sure he could extract any information he needed and probably some he didn't. Still I had not connected the sore ear, falling up stairs, and the current incident being investigated. Enlightenment would be forth coming to me within the next thirty minutes.

Almost to the minute, Officer Burns opened my classroom door and allowed Ashton to enter. The SRO leaned into the opening and asked to speak with me. "What can I help you with, sir." I said exiting my portable.

"Do you know these five kids?"

I looked at the paper note he cupped in his left hand. I also noticed his right hand resting on a 9mm pistol on his belt. My sense was that he felt safer in that position while on school grounds. "Sure, I know all their names and at least two of them have spent considerable time in my behavior class."

After I gave him their last names he told me what had occurred, thanked me and again walked down the ramp from my portable. Now the story was getting interesting as I began to put the pieces of the puzzle together. It went something like this.........

During first period two days earlier, Conner, Angelina, Kasey, and two other non-descript players had decided that a joy ride, in a stolen car, was what they needed to break the boredom of a grueling high school schedule. So, being inventive young souls, they found a rundown Mazda to fulfill their desires. The Mazda belonged to a friend of Angelina, Cybil Livingston.

Cybil would never be mistaken for the sharpest tool in the high school shed. She drove much to fast onto the student parking lot daily, because she could not decrypt the instructions on her alarm clock. Bounding from the tiny four-door import she always tossed the car keys on the dash in front of the steering wheel in plain sight of one thousand and ninety seven other students, most itching to leave campus during the day. Sometimes, Cybil would comment how good the gas mileage was for her misfiring little Mazda. If she knew the truth, several students borrowed the car daily and some of them even replaced the gas they used.

Angelina was the leader of the Grand Theft Auto gang. She wanted to smoke a cigarette, pickup a soda, and just ride around. Conner was not interested in stealing a car. He was interested in Angelina. Going with her meant there was a slim chance he could get closer to her especially in a small, four-door Japanese car. He never gave the three other students a second thought about being in the car.

If you're out having fun during second period of a mundane school day, why not speed? Why not speed on a wet two-lane country road? Why not speed on a wet two-lane country road and pass a cigarette around to five people? Then the cigarette took a tumble from the waiting fingers of the driver, and Conner attempted to rescue Angelina from imminent harm. Kasey reached from the rear seat to grab the steering wheel. Of course, the automobile was not out of control until Kasey jerked the steering wheel into a hard right turn. This solved the problem of the hot cigarette in Angelina's lap. It dropped from the seat to the roof as the car tumbled over.

"I hit my head on the roof. Dude, it still hurts," Conner said.

Mustering my concern I ask, "Are you all right?"

"I guess so."

"Which hurt more, the car wreck or falling up the steps?"

Conner, looked at me and you could almost hear the gears turning in his brain. A glaze crossed over his teenage face and he said, "You figured it out, man!"

I didn't belay the point, because now Conner understood his story of falling up the steps to cover what really injured his head wouldn't float. He had dedicated most of the night creating and fine-tuning a story to account for his injury. Again, the point had been driven home to him that it is always easier to tell the truth. You don't have to remember as much.

The ending to the great Grand Theft Auto caper was not written for another three days. All of the participates, except Angelina, received three days suspension out of school and the strong possibility all would be charged by the local authorities. Angelina was transferred to the area alternative school mostly due to her long record of infractions. Conner took his three days out of school in stride, sleeping late each day, playing Grand Theft Auto on his Playstation, and generally going and coming as he pleased. All believed their partners in crime were “kool” anti-heros.

Conner, returned on day four with a warning from his principal that one more infraction of the rules would result in his immediate transfer to the alternative school where Angelina now pursued her education. He lasted ten minutes into the beginning of the school day. He managed to become angry; the reason still remains unclear, and stormed out of his first period class. He now gets to pursue the "love of his life" at the alternative school. I hope Angelina's very large boyfriend, that attends the same alternative school, understands.

The Whales Are In Danger!

Morris doesn't have Downs Syndrome. His diagnosis states he has this disability, but with all due respect to his mother, doctors, grandmother, and late father, the rest of us have Downs Syndrome and Morris is the "normal" one.

He graduated from high school in 2005 after turning eighteen, but will continue his education until he is twenty-two. He participates daily in a non-paid work program. I see him frequently in the morning getting on the yellow short school bus to be transported to a burger place one week and perhaps a grocery store the next week, and then maybe to wrap eating utensils at a pizza place the next week. He often says his favorite work places are the restaurants. His favorite food is chicken. The fondness and capacity he has for the Kentucky Colonel's creation, extra crispy, is astounding. Perhaps there is a research study somewhere attempting to discover the allure that chicken has for some people with disabilities? Regardless, he loves his chicken.

What he doesn't love is anyone with a disability. He does not like to associate with "them". Many times he has told me he does not have a disability he's buff. All 5' 2", 273 pounds, black hair, muscle shirt, and sagging pants, buff. The only time he seems to overcome another's disability is when a young lady in his class or work program becomes his girlfriend. He is a buff ladies man with frequent girlfriends. Not the going out on date type girlfriend, but the standing on the school sidewalk before lunch waiting on them, then chasing behind when they don't stop on the way to the cafeteria.

For the most part our conversations go like this;
"Good morning, Morris."
"Good," he replies.
There was a time when he was assigned to my classroom for a brief two week period for the whole school day. He had assignments from other teachers to work on during the day. However, the only assignments he would attempt were math. Probably because he got to use plastic checkers to count.
"Morris, what is six minus three?" With a box of checkers dumped on the table in front of him he would separate six of them. Then he began taking one away at a time until he had the answer.
"One....................."
"Two....................."
"Three..................." and so on regardless of the the problem being solved. This loud counting went on for three periods each morning. Over and over and over and................................

Then lunch time came. His internal clock went off each morning at 11:15 A.M. "It's time for lunch." The excitement in his voice was undeniable. At that announcement he took out his insulated lunch bag from his wheeled book bag. The only thing he ever transported in this book bag was his lunch.

After opening the lunch bag he carefully laid out his lunch in the following order on the table;
Chicken sandwich
Fruit cup
Two cookies
A carton of milk
Two bite size candy bars.

I remember as a child my mother telling me to chew each bite 32 times for good digestion. Morris was not counting, but he intently stared at his sandwich after each bite while chewing a certain number of times. This went on until his lunch was consumed and washed down with the milk. Then he returned to his assignment;
"One................"
"Two..............."
"Three............."

There was a time, right out of college, when I was surely in the "Save The Whales" mode of education. I and my classmates were going to change the academic world by enlightening each and every student. I must have a small piece of that remaining deep inside. From time to time I know I'm going to make a difference in Morris' life. The latest time came during one of his sidewalk waits for a current girlfriend. I was returning to my portable classroom and could not help but pass him. He didn't look in my direction as I passed so intent was he on waiting for a girl.

"Hello Morris."
"Good," he said.
"That's not the appropriate answer, Morris. When someone says hello you should reply, Hello Mr. Best."
He looked at me through his glasses and with extreme lucidity he said, "What if it ain't you?"

With all due respect to his mother, doctors, grandmother, and late father, the rest of us have Downs Syndrome and Morris is the "normal" one. In a flash of clarity I understood I had been put in my place and teaching was on a long lunch break.

Shackles?

Why Are Shackles Inhuman?

I'm an old "fuddy-duddy". In my time on this spinning rock the definition of shackles has changed many times in my cerebral dictionary. I read The Diary of Anne Frank and understood the shackles that are imposed mentally and physically, many times by others. Then I see some of my students out in the "hood" and I grasp the concept of environmental shackles. On a daily basis in the classroom I'm slapped across the academic face by the shackles created from missing parents, single-parent "families", and just plain uncaring "parents".

Of the multitude of governmental shackles thrust upon citizens No Child Left Behind has tightened itself around the academic wrist of some students that need reality. Not the "reality" of the SAT score, the "insistent reality" that every student should attend college, and surely not the "reality" that if you score a certain number on a standardized test then your life will be set firmly in success.

What about the young mind that can take a lawn mower engine apart inside their head and even put it together again, or the hands that can transform a stack of lumber into a dining table, and the young souls that small children relate to in the realm of child care? It is so easy to expound on the lack of teaching knowledge and virtues when students don't pass into a standardized life, such as the students that have no family support, the ones that exercise their math skills counting the days until their eighteenth birthday and can quit, or the ones that find a "reality" in the quick buck mentality of the streets, and the ones that receive their esteem from developing a "street cred". A student that shoots a store clerk twice just to have others look at him with "respect".

Many teachers find themselves in the quicksand position of teaching to the test, especially in the core classes. Mostly, what is missed is that life after high school is the test. There was a time when public schools were more then a babysitting service. They were the focal point of the community. The pride of the richest, poorest, and all falling between these two. Now these institutions have morphed into government schools. Controlled by the State Department of Education. A government agency that has never educated a student and never will, but exercises a strangle hold on local school boards through the disbursement of federal money. It is not so much that school systems need federal money as they want federal money.

Technology is the current emphasis and watch word. The more computers and related hardware that can be crowded into a classroom then more education that must be taking place. The real technology of the classroom is the cell-phone, text messages, and iPods. Of course, the one thing that just about guarantees placing a teacher in a dangerous, confrontational position is demanding that a student give up their cell-phone if caught having it out during class or outside of class. This teacher is also expected to disregard another teacher just outside the school building using their cell-phone while trying to reason with an angry student being told they can't have their cell phone back.

"Hey, I'm Thomas, but my boys call me Street."
This new student had transferred in today from another county system that suggested with his difficulties there with academics and the court system he would do much better transferring. His family, an older sister, took the hint and moved out of the jurisdiction of that court system.
"Have a seat. Do you have your class schedule yet?"
"I lost it man."
"You lost it between the guidance office and here?" A distance of about 246 feet.
"Guess so."
"Well, I'll get you another one."
"Don't matter, I'll just lose it too."
I looked at this student. He dressed like most of the others. Sagging pants, oversized t-shirt with a cryptic advertising message that only a street kid cared to understand, a shiny "grill" covering his upper teeth, and a large chain around his neck with a fake medallion hood ornament from a Mercedes attached. The more he tried to dress to be different and cool, the more he looked and acted like the other students.
"Where do you live," I asked?
"You know, over in the 'hood."
"What grade you in Thomas?"
"Don't matter. They call me Street."
"I don't use nick names in this class."
"I don't give a damn about this class or this school. I'll be eighteen in two months and I'll be gone."
"What are you going to do when you're out of school?"
"What I always do. I make money. I don't need no loser job like yours."
"I see. Then you have a plan."
"What I always do, dude."
"Do you want to get another copy of your schedule?"
"No, dude. I'm tired. I been up all night. I need to rest." With those enlightening words he pulled the hood on his Jordan jacket over his head and fell asleep. The other students in the class looked at me with the same expressions on their faces that was now being hidden by Street's hood.

This kid has embraced the shackles of his life. No Child Left Behind, more technology, teaching to the test, and government school plans mean nothing to him. He has a plan, an agenda for life and knows he is not going to be left behind by the street. At least for a short period of time.

It's The Time; Of The Season....

Well, well! It's the time of the school year when the four principals have had enough. Of course, that means they are tired of seeing the same few students out of two thousand, in their offices, day after day.

Unfornunately for me and my wonderful Educational Assistant we do not have the same luxury of moving them to one room all day long. The principals talk a good story during the rest of the school year; Value Added, N.C.L.B., Gateway test scores, and the educational well being of all students. In the end let's send them to the portable classroom at the greatest distance from our offices. Additionally, let us smile at the teacher while we "include" them in the discussion of students well being. Then, when all is said and done; let's send them to the portable classroom at the greatest distance from our offices.

Due to the lateness of this post I will pass on the glorious stories, for now, that each new student uses to describe themselves on their path to world domination; The Female Black Leprechaun, Fat-Boy Gansta, The Model, I'm Eighteen and Free (Almost), School I Don't Need No School- I'm Short.

Perhaps, I'm "fried" by this time, but standardized testing is only two weeks away. Of course, none of us teach-to-the-test! A complete education for each student is number one priority. All students must go to college. Warning Will Robinson- Danger, Danger!

Later.......................

Time Tempers Educational Gusto!

Since my last posting many events have occurred with some assisting my students to mature and some leading to the hospital or handcuffs. The hospital event should have been the most traumatic?

Zorba the Geek is an unusually short, thin, and very loud teenage boy. His most pressing goal in life is to be just like his older brother. The brother that was released from jail in November after doing 11 months - 29 days for breaking and entering.

Zorba the Geek has not passed a class in two years. However, he does know everything about everything and freely tells anyone. His parents long ago washed their hands of educational accountability for this son. Additionally, teaching manners were never an important priority. He cannot help but interrupt any conversation he hears explaining how his knowledge of the subject is the best knowledge. It does not matter if his information is correct or not. Now on to an event that should have impacted his life. Life's jury is still out on how it impacted him.

Just before Christmas Break, that's right, I did not say Winter Break, Zorba the Geek decided another way to prove his street credentials was to ride along with a “known” drug user and seller to consummate a deal. The location of choice for these two “wanna-be” criminals was a house owned and operated by a local “group” of Asian youth.

As the story goes his companion suggested it would go much easier if Zorba stayed in the car while he finalize the deal. Of course, Zorba new much more than anyone that offered advice. While the deal was going down he took the opportunity to “talk his trash” to the lead Asian's girlfriend. Obviously this would not go unnoticed. Three of the “homeowners” decided to correct Zorba's manners with the use of a brick. Two of them held him down while the leader crushed his head with a brick.

The good thing about Zorba's companion was that he returned to find Zorba lying in his own blood and called for help. Zorba was taken to the local hospital which was not equipped to handle the severity of his injuries. He was life-flighted to a much larger university hospital and died during the flight. The paramedics were able to revive him and after admission he was placed in a chemically induced coma for the next month.

Zorba remained out of school for over three months. Upon his return I've observed him during class many times. Perhaps it is my cruelty, perhaps my thick skin, or perhaps I'm right. After sustaining what should have been a Traumatic Brain Injury I see no change in his behavior or academic skills. I like to think it is a credit to the hospital staff, but my cruel side believes the brick had little to work with and injure.

Since his return to high school he continues on as before. He attempts no assignments, skips class freely, smokes whenever he desires, knows everything about whatever anyone is speaking about, and draws out any anger from his peers that he can find.

As we approach a week of Spring Break, Zorba the Geek has an extra week out of school for smoking on school property. My sense is that this child has been left behind by his family,
peers , school, and himself.

More on other events having occurred during my period of not posting, later....................

Now Reality Returns

The holidays are over; now reality returns. Reality! What a concept the comedian wrote. For reasons that escape me I have neglected this diary for most of a month. As a welcome return to my high school scholars the doorbell rang this past Saturday morning. I could see a silhouette through the dark green curtain covering the oval window in the door. I suspected the identity of the silhouette waiting for a stranger to open the door.

The previous Monday a new student had transferred into the school. His mother had moved him and herself into a very low rent district of town perhaps one step ahead of the law. Matt is a pleasant young man with an unusual hairdo. He tends to comb his wet blonde hair forward toward his eyes. As it dries, laying flat on top of his head, the ends curl upward on his forehead. In an attempt to completely cover his young babyish face he tries to grow a beard on his chin. The wispy hair does little to cover his chinny-chin-chin. The one thing he has going for him; he is smarter then my average SPED student. In his last school he had been placed in an honors English class. The only reason he failed the class were the thirty-five days he occupied a cubicle in the in-school-suspension portable classroom.

Through the green curtain I saw the curled hair on his forehead. He was looking down at a folder he held in his hand. I unlocked the door and swung it open. He looked up and was ready to say his memorized speech. However, the best he could muster was a shocked, “holy shit”!

“It’s good to see you also Matt,” I replied to his surprised words.

“I a, I mean a, I didn’t know you lived here?”

“Well, well, surprise to you. What can I do for you?”

Before he answered I knew why he was at my door. He was completing a probation period imposed by the local juvenile judge. A lady that had ran on one platform and like
many other politicians had changed after winning elections. His sentence was a year’s probation as long as he held a job. Otherwise, if he lost his job, he would finish his sentence in the juvenile detention center. The job was selling local newspaper subscriptions with most of his salary going to pay court cost. He had been blanketing most residential areas of this fast growing town.

“Okay, here’s your free newspaper. You want to buy a subscription? You can get a five-day a week subscription for $10.00 a month, or Saturday and Sunday for $8.50 a month, or you can just make a donation.”

Matt had not looked at me from the time I opened the door. He stood there with his sagging pants, Artic Polar coat, untied Nike shoes, and hairy chin waiting for me to choose a subscription.

“How much longer are you on probation,” I asked?

“Four hundred dollars worth.”

I wondered about the legal lesson he would take away from his probation experience? My guess was the same lesson he garnered from his prior two probations. Briefly a picture crossed my mind. A picture of him appropriately clothed, in honors English, passing with a solid A, and colleges lining up to offer him scholarships.

“How about a donation,” I asked?

“If that’s what you want to do.”

Leaving him standing on the small concrete porch I fished fourteen dollars from my wallet. “All I have is this,” I told him over my shoulder.

“Whatever,” he said.

My ideal picture of the future was quietly shattered and replaced with a mental slide show of poverty, despair, evictions, minimum wage jobs between jail sentences, several children with different partners, and no high school diploma or college degree. He pocketed the fourteen dollars and walked off down the street to the next house.

“Thanks man. See ya Monday.”


…………I could be wrong?

FEW WILLING TO CHANGE JOBS WITH TEACHERS

Published: Monday, 01/09/06, Nashville Tennessean

There are days when I'm glad I chose writing as a profession and not, say, teaching school children. As a writer, I have solitude as a constant companion during work hours, with only that fickle lady, my muse, to deal with. But even she can be wooed with fresh coffee. But look at what public school teachers have to deal with. I'm thinking specifically of a recent incident at a Clarksville middle school where a teacher laid a hand on a student's arm to prevent him from leaving the class without his permission.

The incident became big because the student's mother chose to make it so. A complaint was made, charges were filed, because "strong force" she said had been applied on her son. And so it came about that a hand on an arm became tantamount to assault, and a teacher, 34-year unblemished teaching record notwithstanding, received a reprimand and the incident became front-page news at the local daily.

I sometimes wonder how public school teachers find the will and motivation to continue doing their jobs. You have to hope that most of them, or at least some, found their way into this, one of the "noble" professions, for the right reasons: to make a difference, mold impressionable minds, impart education, be a catalyst in at least some students' lives. And you wonder how long it took for them to feel deflated by some of the realities of their job.

Look at what is on their plate: A low starting salary and a continuing one that is hardly commensurate to their qualifications or the work they do; a society that expects miracles from them; raw material to work with that is diverse in every way imaginable — diverse in terms of ethnic and religious background, and diverse in terms of socio-economic background — kids who come from low-income, unsupervised households; kids from middle-class households who are unsupervised because their parents are too busy; kids from the other end of the spectrum — from households with high-strung parents who over-manage and over-schedule their kids' lives.
And let's not forget the federal standards that ask teachers, in effect, to put all these different kids onto the education assembly line and produce products with a decent education. If you ask me, teachers ought to be paid a king's ransom.

But I haven't yet come to that category of Obnoxious Parents, a category that needs a couple of paragraphs, and can't be dismissed in a sentence or two. Apparently, there is a new breed of parents that has sprung up in recent years; a breed that has taken parental involvement to new heights, that sees their child being always in the right and school authorities in the wrong, and that is combative and confrontational with teachers.

Time magazine carried a report on this trend last year, and asked teachers to name the hardest challenge they faced in their jobs. The answer was not limited resources or standardized tests or unruly students but dealing with parents, which is saying something.

As a parent of two school-going children, I know the difficulties. You want to stay involved in your child's school and life because the times demand it. For an increasing number of parents, however, it seems to have gone from simple, lower-case parental involvement to bold-type, upper-case PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT, often to the detriment of the child.

Part of being a columnist is to be negative, and I don't want to be unduly that. I know that there are fine teachers in every school district and motivated students and moments of quiet glory when things click together marvelously. But when members of the public sit around and tut-tut about public school education, as we sometimes do, we would do well to remember that schools can only be as good or bad as the societies around them, and reflect, in a way, what goes on outside — parenting styles, attitudes toward education, the after-school hours kids spend on multiple media sources thus hampering their education, and much, much more.

Public school teachers can't tread on water, but we sometimes expect them to do just that.

Everyone Needs a Place for Their Crap!

If your stomach is weak from the virus that is running rampant through the local classrooms then this recount of ten minutes out of a day dedicated to No Child Left Behind is not for you.


“Where do we store our crap?”

I looked at the 17-year-old-girl sitting across the table from me. It had been several months since a question from a student had thrown me. However, the confusion on my face had to be evident to her.

Shalay stared at me desperately waiting for words of explanation and wisdom. For reasons that did not escape me I was her favorite teacher. Not that she liked me, but she respected me because I never deviated from my stance with her. Young ladies act like ladies and young men act like gentlemen. Sure it is my interpretations of young men and women. However, I feel confident in my formative years of development.

“What crap are you talking about?”

I was sure her concerns were for her worldly possessions that she daily left in the singlewide mobile home. A mobile home she shared with her grandmother, great-grandmother, two sisters, one brother, but not her mother or father. Her mother was half-way through her second jail term for drug use and sale. It was anyone’s guess where her father was or who he was. Oh, did I forget to say that in addition to the above-mentioned people her 11-month-year-old baby also lived there? The father of the child, one of the finer alternative school students in Nashville, sometimes visited. Having him visit was preferable to him moving into the two-bedroom mobile home.

“You know, Poop!” she said with a small flash of embarrassment on her face.

For a fleeting moment I thought she was making a joke out of some comment by another student in the classroom. Then I realized she was asking about bodily functions. Perhaps I should have brushed the question off and discussed it later with her. However, the teacher reared its knowledgeable head inside me. I was sure this could be a biological, No Child Left Behind, Value Added, inspirational, educational moment. In a few minutes I would learn it was nothing more then the dying gasp of a delusion about saving the whales left over from my college career.

I easily slipped into my finest special education science teacher persona. My explanation was masterful. Employing graphic, but not obscene, details of the digestive system ending with a wonderful analogy of a school book bag and the colon. I leaned back in my padded desk chair and looked at Shalay’s newly educated face. Yes sir, what a lesson! The gazed on her face did little to confirm my posturing. It was a vacant and yet confused, This Child Left Behind, Little Value Added, uninspired, non-educational gaze.

“I thought it was stored in your testicles?”

I tried to shuffle around in my chair to avoid the question. This was not to be. Her gaze followed me no matter which way I turned. She could easily have been one of those paintings in your wealthy aunt’s house whose eyes followed you everywhere. My whole teaching career came down to this impromptu biology lesson.

“Ain’t it stored in your testicles,” Shalay asked again?

The two guys sitting quietly at the second table could no longer be silent. Their laughter exploded across the tables and washed across my dying biology lesson.

“What the hell are you talking about Shalay,” Teddy asked? “What the hell are your testicles attached to?”

Demonstrating no embarrassment and a wonderful anger control impulse, which she was not noted for, Shalay turned toward them. They both immediately became silent. The last thing either one wanted was to confront her physically.

“My testicles are attached to my baby’s daddy,” she said this with all the calm of a mature mother. “You don’t seem to have any attached to you.”

With that Shalay rose and exited the portable classroom. This left the two male students and me to digest our failures in different arenas of Special Education in public school.

The Maternity Ward (Foolish me! I thought it was a classroom in a public school)

“There must be something in the water,” Sammi said in response to my question.

“I don’t think it’s in the water, sweetie.”

“My daddy was mad as hell at me. He acted like he loved me or something.”

Sammi is the fourth 15-year-old to become pregnant this school year. The year is not half over. I assume sex education in the home or the school is not going as planned. The first to announce the blessed event was Angelina. One week to the day of her happy proclamation the father of the child was shot dead during a drug deal gone bad. Bad for him, but I’m unsure if it was bad for mother and baby. The following month Gina was proudly traversing the campus telling anyone that would listen about her unborn child.

“I really want to be a mama! I love dolls. I hope it’s a boy.”

I looked at this wanna-be “Barbie” well on her way to giving birth to a real world Ken and asked her, “You realize babies grow for at least eighteen years unlike a doll?”

“Of course I do. Don’t be silly. Anyway, I love dressing dolls and I’m going to dress my little boy so cute.”

My sarcasm and feeble attempt with a lesson was lost on her. The fourth to announce the impending joy was Christy. She is the longtime girlfriend of Roosevelt. This announcement did not surprise me. For two years on a weekly basis she stated over lunch “I’m going to have Roosevelt’s baby that way I can keep him.” Having failed with her master plan of bringing him food, lots of food each morning, with the goal of fattening him to the point that no other girl would want him she then decided to fatten herself instead.

Roosevelt could always find female companionship, some even willing to buy him meals. On Christy’s surface this did not seem to bother her. Her mother had become pregnant at fifteen, followed two weeks later by a car accident. Mom was confined to a wheelchair there after. Christy’s father had not been seen sense her day of birth. I believe I saw her mother outside of their home once, but Christy assured me I was mistaken. I hoped history would not repeat itself.

“Sammi, your father does love you. That could be why he is so angry,” I told her returning from my thoughts of the other girls.

“No. He’s mad at me. Just like he gets when I don’t come home at night. My mom doesn’t care how late I stay out, so why should he?”

My excellent powers of deduction, developed from watching old Sherlock Holmes movies, told me I could have stumbled upon the cause for her pregnancy. Her boyfriend, Duke, is a mere 24-years-old. Mom and dad had only stepped up to complain about this age difference, when perhaps they should have reined in their 15-year-old daughter. Sammi’s mother tried for several years to be her daughter’s best friend instead of her parent. Now she gets another chance to raised a child with better results I hope.

“How’s Duke feeling about you being pregnant?”

“I think he’s happy about it. He told me he’s going back to Ohio this weekend.”

“Why?”

“He hates his job right now and he’s going to look for another one.”

“Where’s he work?

“Huh, I can’t remember the name of the place.”

“Where is the place?”

“Don’t know.”

“What does he do?”

“He never told me.”

“Why doesn’t he look for work around here?”

“More jobs in Ohio.”

I realized she knew very little about Duke. My hunch is the one thing she surely didn't know was that he will not be returning from Ohio. I wondered if he’d take Roosevelt with him to search for work. Of course, Christy only had bad luck and Roosevelt leaving town could only be classified as good luck.

The other pregnant girls settled in around my large classroom table during first lunch. They had gravitated to meeting in my classroom on a daily basis. I’ve taken to calling the first of three lunches scheduled for the school as The Maternity Ward. The girls all think it’s cute. I’ve tried to recall which college class, designed to mold me into a liberal special education teacher, addressed this situation. The one thing they have accomplished is the taming of the guys that once-upon-a-time dominated my classroom. Tamed some and ran others away. Morning sickness, weight gain, stretch marks, baby food, sex, and any other baby discussions sure cramped the style of my hardened “gangstas”.

Oh yes, discussions about cramps weren’t appreciated by the “gangstas” either.

QueenAnne's Wonderful Blog!

Without permission, but I hope without a complaint, I have included this link.

http://queenannelace.blogspot.com/

This blog is informative, well constructed, and above all is written by a teacher that cares.
Please forgive me QueenAnne for posting and assuming your permission.

Special Edd

Thanksgiving Turkey

The doorbell rang. Looking through the glass storm door, there he was. The son I never wanted. I first met him three years ago at an intake meeting where his grandmother proclaimed herself an international expert on special education. His mother attended the intake meeting. Her first words proclaimed, "I'm an adult ADHD, (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and I know what my son is going through!" My first thought upon meeting her was an NFL linebacker. She easily topped six feet tall and probably weighed in at two hundred pounds. Honestly, she did not appear fat. Just broad shoulders, short hair, and very large feet. Of course, her overwhelming feature was ADHD. She went out of her way to maintain her ADHD as the driving force in her life. Through several meetings, attempting to address her son's academics or behavior, she contributed a long litany of events to her "Adult ADHD"; a broken down car, the loss of three jobs, never cooking a meal for her son, failed relationships, rain, sunshine, night, day.

Her mother was always on the telephone while snuggled down at her D.M.V. desk in Kansas. She once taught, for a grueling two years, in a rural public school. Then her career took a hairpin curve into a sixteen-year pit stop at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Many meetings later, filled with accusations about the inadequacy of the education system, and three years of weekly telephone call updates to Roosevelt's mom succeeded in making him my shadow. For three years seldom did a school day pass that he was not with me for at least two hours. More often he blessed me with his presence for six-and-three-quarter-hours. His ADHD and immaturity ruled his life. Additionally, he craved the attention of any male figure offering guidance or discipline.

“Hello,” Roosevelt said, waving through the glass storm door.

“Just a second,” I said, trying to slip into my pajama pants. The comfort of sitting around in my underwear on a lazy holiday was erased from the agenda.

Roosevelt made himself comfortable on the couch. His childish smile dominating his face. My dog stood on the footstool barking at him nervously. She doesn’t care for visitors in her domain and cares less for them talking to me. “What you doing, bud?"

“Just running around. I came by around 9:30 this morning, but it didn’t look like anyone was up.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t ring the doorbell,” I stated with fake anger. He didn’t need to know I had been up since 3:30 A.M. “You celebrating Thanksgiving with your mom?”

“Yeah, my grandmother came in, too.”

“How’s your mom’s roommate,” I asked? He came by several months before to inform me that his mom had announced to him that she is gay and introduced her new roommate, Wendy, to him and his newly pregnant girlfriend.

“How’s your grandmother dealing with your mom’s friend?”

“She’s cooking Thanksgiving dinner.”

“And?”

“And ignoring Wendy,” he replied, followed by a nervous laugh. “She walks around like Wendy isn’t in the house. That’s okay I don’t really like Wendy, either.”

“I’m shocked.” I decided to let the subject drop. “You working?”

He lifted up his left foot to proudly display a tennis shoe covered with paint specks. “I’m painting the inside of new houses in a subdivision over in Franklin. My boss picks me up at 5:30 every morning. Man, it was a lot easier in school, not having to get up until 7:00.”

I could have steered the conversation toward the virtues of staying in school and graduating, but it would have been lost on him as it was several hundred times before. “Where’s Christy?”

“She’s at her mom’s house. We’re going over to my house to eat, later.” Christy is his very pregnant girlfriend, due February 21^st. She had sat out to become pregnant at the age of sixteen to keep Roosevelt. Now it appears she will have two babies to raise.

The conversation touched on several subjects from his impending fatherhood to friends of his that had recently been arrested for armed robbery and the shooting of a convenience store clerk. He tried to take the side of the crooks, but even he knew it was the wrong side to take.

“Why do you think they did it,” he asked?

“Boom Boom wanted the street rep.”

“But they had the money and then shot the clerk.” He wrestled with why a seventeen and fourteen year old would commit a string of robberies and shoot someone.

“I don’t get it either.” It was best to leave it where it was instead of trying to impress my middle class adult values on a bi-racial youth trying to find his place in the world. His most daring crime to date had been shoplifting a pair of pants from an upscale mall store. They weren’t even his size. He wanted to impress a friend.

“I’ve got to be going.”

“It’s about time,” I said with a smile. He smiled back understanding my fake sincerity

“Happy Thanksgiving, man,” he said over his shoulder getting into his worn out car. My dog continued to bark until he had driven out of sight.

I returned to the writing of another entry for my Special Education journal with the knowledge I would never have a lack of situations to write about.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Roosevelt."

They Just Don't Make Book Bags Like They Use To

I look at him now, November 2005, and remember when we first met in August 2003. He entered my rundown portable classroom scuffing his feet on what I suspected were asbestos tiles covering the rotted sub-floor.

"Pickup your feet bud," I quietly said, "Men don't scuff their feet when they walk." He said nothing, but picked up his feet. "Pull up a chair and join the party."

"Where's my desk?"

"The only desks in here are in those two cubicles," I jestured toward two cubicles, one at each end of the classroom. "Those are for students that decide they don't like anyone in here and want to be alone." He surveyed each one and chose one of the orange plastic chairs placed around one of my large, worn-out library tables.

His hair style was unusual to say the least. Trimmed short on the sides of his head, but grown long on top. So long in fact that his bangs, combed forward, easily touched his upper lip. This was his preference in styles. Combed forward to hide what he perceived as his many defects. Also, it helped him hide from the world.

Casey's world consists of, a mother that sometimes entertained employment for periods of up to two months, a father that no one seemed to remember, a string of single-wide-mobile-homes he called home, and the conscience ability to tear-down anything that may be going right in his life. Casey's conformity to his own sense of right conduct is admirable, but ultimately flawed by being one of the hordes of high school students that have raised themselves. He can't even be described as a "latch-key kid" because his trailer doesn't have a lock on it's only door.

Casey and his mother have been evicted from five rented mobile homes within the same rural trailer park over the last two years. Each trailer came with one of these additions; a) a new "family", b) another woman with one or two children, c) a boyfriend (with or without other children), d) other single mothers forever down on their luck. Whenever he comes to school with a new child that lives with him he always introduces them as his sister or brother. They're not, but it makes him feel like part of a family.

It took Casey most of three weeks to feel comfortable enough to initate a conversation with me or my aide. It was a much longer period of time for him not to expect the worse from us and cease attempting to place us in situations that proved he was right; we were there to get him into trouble, not to get him ready for "life" outside of high school. A life that could not slap him any harder then he had been slapped for the first seventeen years of his life.

I enjoy standing on the wooden deck of the portable classroom in the spring watching the classes change. Most of 2000 students herding themselves between the main school building and the equally sized annex building walk within six feet of me up and down the cement path. All teachers are expected to stand outside of their classes during the changes more as a deterent to "bad" behavior then to physically intervene if trouble breaks out. I just enjoy the spring sunshine on my face and bald head. Through the years many students have asked how I know when I stop washing my face and begin washing my head? Each time I react has if it is the first time I've heard the joke. I welcomed the spring of 2004 after a dreary, cold, winter in middle Tennessee.

"Hey dude, can you do me a favor," I heard Casey loudly ask as he came up to ramp to the deck?

"Depends on the favor Casey."

"I got to go to the prinicpal's office and he'll search me."

I cared less about the search then I did for the reason he had been summoned to the office. "Why do you have to go see the principal?"

"Man, Mr. Slagg jumped on my case. I wasn't doing anything, just talking to Angela. He told me to be quiet and to move to another desk."

"Did you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Didn't want to. I wasn't doing nothing."

"How many times did he ask you to move?"

"I don't know, one or two."

"Four or five?"

"Maybe."

"Look at me when we're talking. Men respect each other while they're talking." He looked up from the deck and continued the story.

"I got mad. He don't like me."

"What did you do?" I suspected the answer before he told me. Casey's anger was always just beneath the surface.

"He told me to go to the office. He wrote a pink slip on me." A pink slip was a dreaded response to a behavior. Dreaded by teachers and principals. Ignored by most students. "I walked out before he finished."

"And?"

"And what?"

I waited. There is always more to the story.

"I called him a bitch."

I successfully surpressed a smile. Gender definition is always a problem for some students. However, it was the best he could come up with at the time.

"So you took the problem to another level?" He looked at me trying to sort through the situation and his reaction.

"I was just talking to Angela."

I understood his need for female attention. Angela was three months pregnant and just showing. Casey was attracted to her. Partly because he sensed her need to be accepted as a pregnant freshman student and partly because he knew she had experienced sex. Something he had yet to encounter, except with himself. He remained attracted to her for nine months, before moving on to another crush.

"What's the favor," I asked?

"Look man, my mother's boyfriend loaned me his cigarette case. I' m going to be searched and it will get takened. Can you hold it for me?"

I watched him fiddle with something in his worn jeans pocket. Most students believe that all teachers just "fell off a turnip truck". We're all gullible and open to any scam. This was no exception.

"Sure, I'll hold it for awhile."

He handed me the fake silver case. He turned and headed down the ramp, mumbling something about that damn teacher, and made his way to the office. I looked inside the case and saw three flattened Basic brand cigarettes. Cheap, but affordable. Casey's mother bought him cigarettes once or twice a week. It kept him busy while she entertained in the mobile home. I left the deck and headed toward the courtyard between the main building and gym.

I walked up to the principal. He generally stood here during lunch periods, more to greet football players then to be a discipline presence. A few seconds later Casey approached. I beat him there because I didn't have to stop and tell other guys the story of being tossed out of class. Casey came to my side, somewhat surprised I was there. Standing there I put my arm around him and his unused bookbag. Unused for books, but well used to hide various contraband.

"What are you doing here Casey," the principal asked?

"Mr. Slagg threw me out for talking to Angela." The principal had no idea whom Angela was and cared less.

"You got anything on you?"

I watched the loose gears turn in Casey's brain. He had just formulated a plan to divert trouble from himself to me. "I had some cigarettes, but he told me he would hold them for me so I wouldn't get in anymore trouble then I was," Casey said, nodding his head in my direction.

"What's he talking about," the principal asked me?

"I have no idea," removing my arm from Casey and his book bag and stepping back.

"Empty your pockets Casey." He did what the principal told him. There was nothing incriminating in them. "Let me have the book bag."

Casey took the bag off of his shoulder, handing it to the principal. He tossed a quick smile in my direction. The principal opened the small pocket on the top of the bag and brought out the fake silver cigarette case. Casey's smurk quickly changed to shock. The cigarettes and case succeeded in securing three days out-of-school-suspension for Casey.

On the fourth day Casey made his way to my portable for lunch. Entering, he sat at the second used library table, away from me, but not to far away.

"How was your three day vacation," I asked, not looking in his direction.

"We missed you," my aide said.

"Yeah, it was okay, I slept in everyday," Casey replied.

"Where's your book bag?"

"I'm not carrying it anymore. The flap on the pocket opens to easily, stuff keeps falling out."

I smiled at him, "It's hard to find a good book bag that you can trust. A teacher you can trust lasts longer."

The Aroma of Success, (or could that be Ramen Noodles)?

"Where you been man," the wanna be gangsta student asked?

"My family had some health problems."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. My old man shot my moms."

It struck me hard how easily this student accepted the act of violence in his family. Of course, his family was his mother, his two sisters, himself, a half brother almost his age, and a five-month- old half sister. I remember, several months ago, asking him where his father was and being told he was in lockup for "dealin".

"Yeah, my old man got out in October, found out my moms was going out with her probation officer."

All I could do was lean back in my chair listening to the tale unfold from the mouth of this 17-year-old child. Seventeen going on forty in street years. The magnatron tube in the microwave sounded like it was whirling, cooking the "wanna be gangsta's" Ramen Noodle breakfast.

"My pop found her down in the Meadows sitting in her boyfriend's car drinking some 45's. Her boyfriend must of seen my old man coming and got away. Pop shot moms in her shoulder."

The Meadows, a bastion of social reform, is well known around town as a breeding ground for crime. "She okay." I asked?

"Yeah, she's straight. Got out of the hospital last week."

"What about your father?"

"He's in lockup for attempted murder. He didn't mean to murder her just scare her. My old man is straight, if he wanted to kill her she'd be history."

How easily he continued to defend the man amazed me. This man could not be described as a father in the traditional sense. They had never lived as a family. I knew from the boy that his "pop" had mostly been in lockup during the student's seventeen years of life. The bell on the microwave announced the Ramen Noodle breakfast was ready. I watched this child take the hot plastic bowl out of the oven. He carefully balanced the hot bowl in his hands, opening the only door in the portable classroom with his foot, and draining the excess water out of the bowl over the railing of the wooden deck. The liquid starch from countless bowls of noodles stained the ground yellow below the deck attached to the portable.

He returned to one of the two old white library tables I used in the classroom. My belief is that if these students share a table with 5-or-6 other students then negative behaviors could be decreased. Perhaps, it's hard to fight with someone you break bread with five days per week? So far there have been no physical battles just verbal jousting incidents. He tore open the small foil package containing the salty chicken flavored powder and sprinkled it on his hot noodles.

"You going to be here the rest of the year," he ask while stirring the noodles.

"Far as I know." I watched him take the first bite of the noodles, burning his tongue and acting like he hadn't.

"Well, this is the third six weeks and you had some crazy subs taking your place. The principals were in here more then their offices."

"I'm back for good."

"I've only been back from alternative school for two weeks."

"Why did you go there?"

"Damn English teacher said something about my pop. No mother f*!@#r talks about my pop."

"What did you do?"

"Called him a mother f*!@#r and left the class."

The ease that he told me the story left no doubt that he had restrained himself. He could just as easily attacked the teacher with fists, or worse. Most of his noodles were gone and the ringing of first bell announced six minutes before final bell for first period. He looked up at one of three clocks placed around the room and tossed the empty bowl in the trash can. The metal door swung open and I saw his half brother enter the portable.

"Hey man, got any noodles?"

I quickly looked at a clock and told him to help himself. I understood I'd be writing a note to their first period teachers explaining they had been with me doing some "work." Not one of the other teachers would question the notes or explanations for their tardiness. They would silently be thankful for any reprieve, ever how brief, from these and other students.

After a repeat of the noodle cooking ritual from fifteen minutes earlier, some small talk about me being back and no mention of the shooting, the two of them were off to class, notes in hand. There had been no talk of the shooting because the two shared one mother and different fathers. Different, but identical.

The stack of papers on my desk needed to be sorted and meetings scheduled. Meetings with parents that sometimes even showed for the meetings. More often meetings without parents. Just the student and representatives from the school; regular education teachers, special education teachers, assistant principals, and a student with little understanding or caring for the meeting. Now these plans had to be written with the idea that all students will continue on to college after high school.

No Child Left Behind and Lottery Scholarship Money!

How can education fail?

Perhaps, No Child Left Behind, Lottery Scholarship Money, and Ramen Noodles?

"Man, he threw me out of class and told me to go to the principal's office or somewhere. I ain't going to no principal's office. F!@k him, man!"

I heard him before I saw the door fling open and my gangsta stomp into the portable.

"Calm down."

"Yeah, I will. That mother f!@#*r," he loudly said, displaying considerable male posturing. "Can I have another bowl of noodles, man?"

How To Steal A Car and Get Caught!

The Master Plan

I listened as the disheveled high school boy related how he was going to sue the high school. My feet shuffled under my desk in uncomfortable anticipation of leaving in the mid-afternoon. "I fell up the steps," Conner said.

Eased back to the conversation I looked at him as if I knew what he was talking about. "Why do you need to sue, little fellow?"

"I fell up the steps," he restated.

Thinking about what steps he could have fallen up or down on the leveled land, one-story building, inner city high school, I watched him bend forward and fold his left ear over. This to demonstrate the extent of his injury. I half looked at an injury I could not see and at the same time presenting a look on my face of sincere interest.

"Over next to the science lecture hall."

"Where?"

"Right over there," Conner pointed to the wall of my portable building. Somehow, this high school student, the pride of his family, had found the only place on campus that could be called steps (two) to fall up.

"Did it embarrass you?"

"No, not really. It was during lunch."

The thought passed through my mind how falling in front of many students was less embarrassing then falling up two steps when you're alone? It was quickly replaced by his voice continuing on with the story. "It hurt me right behind my ear. It hurt all night."

"Concrete and human heads are generally an unfair match." I said.

"Wow, you can say that again, but don't. It still hurts," he said, while rubbing behind the opposite ear. I watched him rub the wrong ear and wondered what the real story was?

I would not begin to know the complete story until the School-Resource-Officer approached me. He is a somewhat effective young policeman in a public school setting. "Did Ashton attend all of his classes yesterday," he asked?

"To the best of my knowledge," I half-heartedly assured him, "However, if you need some information about what's going on around here I'd pull him in for a talk."

"Probably a good idea." I watched Officer Hagan walk down the wooden ramp leaving my aged portable classroom. He is generally a man of few words and I suspected few original thoughts. Always on his desk were the school and sheriff's department book of rules and polices, along with a Nintendo game controller. I wondered if he was ever a street cop. I'd heard rumors that he was very good at playing Grand Theft Auto on his game console.

Less than fifteen minutes later I watched the policeman escort Ashton into his office. I was sure he could extract any information he needed and probably some he didn't. Still I had not connected the sore ear, falling up stairs, and the current incident being investigated. Enlightenment would be forth coming within the next thirty minutes.

Almost to the minute Officer Hagan opened my classroom door and allowed Ashton to enter. The SRO leaned into the opening and ask to speak with me.

"What can I help you with, sir." I said, exiting my portable.

"Do you know these five kids?"

I looked at the paper note he cupped in his left hand. I also noticed his right hand resting on a 9mm pistol on his belt. My sense was that he felt safer in that position while on school grounds.

"Sure, I know all their names and at least two of them have spent considerable time in my behavior class."

After I gave him their last names he told me what had occurred, thanked me and again walked down the ramp from my portable. Now the story was getting interesting as I began to put the pieces of the puzzle together. It went something like this.........

During first period two days earlier, Conner, Angelina, Kasey, and two other non-descript players had decided that a joy ride, in a stolen car, was what they needed to break the boredom of a grilling high school schedule. So, being inventive young souls, they found a rundown Mazda to fulfill their desires. The Mazda belong to a friend of Angelina, Cybil.

Cybil would never be mistaken for the sharpest tool in the high school shed. She drove much to fast onto the student parking lot daily, because she could not decrypt the instructions on her alarm clock. Bounding from the tiny four door import she always tossed the car keys on the dash in front of the steering wheel. On the dash in plain sight of one-thousand-and-ninety-five other students, most itching to leave campus during the day. Sometimes, Cybil would comment how good the gas mileage was for her misfiring little Mazda. If she knew the truth, several students borrowed the car daily and some of them even replaced the gas they used.

Angelina, was the leader of the Grand Theft Auto gang. She wanted to smoke a cigarette, pickup a soda, and just ride around. Conner, was not interested in stealing a car. He was interested in Angelina. Going with her meant there was a slim chance he could get closer to her. Especially in a small, four-door Japanese car. He never gave the three other students a second thought about being in the car.

If you're out having fun during second period of a mundane school day, why not speed? Why not speed on a wet two lane country road? Why not speed on a wet two lane country road and pass a cigarette around to five people? When the cigarette takes a tumble from the waiting fingers of the driver, and Conner attempts to rescue Angelina from imminent harm, Kasey reaches from the rear seat to grab the steering wheel. Of course, the automobile was not out of
control until Kasey jerked the steering wheel into a hard right turn. This solved the problem of the hot cigarette in Angelina's lap. It dropped from the seat to the roof as the car tumbled over.

"I hit my head on the roof. Dude, it still hurts," Conner said.

Mustering my concern I ask, "Are you all right?"

"I guess so."

"Which hurt more, the car wreck or falling up the steps?"

Conner, looked at me and you could almost hear the gears turning in his brain. A quick glaze crossed over his teenage face and he said, "You figured it out, man!"

I didn't belay the point, because now Conner understood his story of falling up the steps to cover what really injured his head wouldn't float. He had dedicated most of the night before creating and fine tuning a story to account for his injury. Again, the point had been driven home to him that it is always easier to tell the truth. You don't have to remember as much.

The ending to the great Grand Theft Auto caper was not written for another three days. All of the participates, except Angelina, received three days suspension out of school and the possibility all would be charged by the local authorities. Angelina, was transferred to the area alternative school. Mostly due to her long record of infractions. Conner, took his three days out of school in stride, sleeping late each day, playing Grand Theft Auto on his Playstation, and generally going and coming as he pleased. All believed they were looked upon by their peers as "kool" anti-heros.

Conner, returned on day four with the warning that one more infraction of the rules would result in his immediate transfer to the alternative school where Angelina now pursued her education. He lasted ten minutes into the beginning of the school day. He managed to become angry, the reason still remains unclear, and stormed out of his first period class. He now gets to pursue the "love of his life" at the alternative school. I hope Angelina's very large boyfriend, that attends the same alternative school, understands.

What Happens When Teachers Are Left Behind?

I hear it daily, "Can I stay in here this period?"
"Why," I ask knowing the answer.
"I don't want to go to (fill in name) class. All he does is write the questions on one board and the answers on the other board. We copy them all down while he yells at us if we ask a question."

Welcome to Teaching to the Test. Exploration, creativity, motivation are gone. They're also gone from the students. On the rare occasions students are requested to write an original paper the internet is coughed out onto the printed pages. No one cares about plagiarism. No one cares about interpreting thoughts, presenting an original thought, or using a brain given by God or evolved from earlier life forms.

Many teachers want to teach. Just as many are waiting for retirement. Just as many never knew how to teach. However, all are protected by the teachers union. The union long lost sight of what is good for the student. However, the union knows what is good for itself, political power. The group that never knew how to teach do not like students, but like working 180-days-per-year. During the first few weeks of school I hear how long before fall break. Then how long before Christmas break. I state Christmas break instead of holiday break. So much for political correctness. After Christmas we can all worry about when is Spring break, then it's just a few short weeks until school is out for the summer. Yeah! No child left behind, just teaching skills.

Winter? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Winter

I watched the snow fall and drift into mounds against the side of the metal, portable classroom. The north wall had very little factory installed insulation that slowed the transfer of outside cold to inside cold. The opposite effect of the south wall in the summer. The drift was now about three feet tall. Surely our fearless superintendent would have no choice, but to call for a snow day.

What is that annoying beeping sound? It seemed to have started off in the distance and was getting closer. Or is it getting louder? Now, I feel as if someone has dumped a bucket of warm water on my face. Wanna-be jokesters often state, "It's not the fall that hurts. It's that sudden stop at the end." I didn't laugh when I hit the floor, with the alarm clock beeping loudly, and my pound-puppy licking my face. I looked up to the couch I had just fell from. The morning sunlight was just beginning it's descent down the city water tank. The concrete tank had become my prime view since it's construction was completed two years earlier. Five-thirty always came much to soon on school mornings. The round thermometer hanging from the broken storm window showed a balmy forty-nine degrees. Another dream of snow melted away.

Four hours later I was listening to another one of the many central office liaisons drone on about No Child Left Behind and how all teachers need to be "highly qualified". Apparently, highly qualified has little to do with certification, degrees, and what you know. It does have everything to do with how much paperwork you can complete. This meeting had gone on to long, but it had given two liaisons excuses to exist for the past hour. Their excitement was wasted on us, but not on each other. They enjoyed comparing "war stories" of their heady days of teaching and the wonderful jobs they had done. After all, that is why they had been asked to transfer to the central office. Perfection!

My students do not care about highly qualified. They care if their teacher is there. For most, it is a "constant" they need. Someone that can be counted on for direction, stability, Ramen Noodles, a small degree of understanding, and discipline. Not one of them live in a two parent home. Only one has had contact with their father. Three of them live with a guardian under the guise of State's Custody. The metal, portable classroom is their anchor in the sea of unrest known as life.

The liaison ask me to sign the latest of the NCLB forms qualifying me as not highly qualified. It didn't matter what I signed. By the next day I believed the "rules" from the federal government would change and No Child Left Behind will morph again. Has the Department of Education in Washington ever educated one child? The understanding that every child should go to college only poses the question to me of: How am I going to get my car repaired or my rusted bathroom pipes replaced? I can't get a house built because the future electricians, drywaller, framers, inspectors, drivers, etc, etc, etc, are to busy in college. This is surely the dark winter of logic in education. Winter? We don't need no stinkin' winter.

I.E.P. (Individual Escape Plan)

I have yet to encounter a special education student attending their annual Individual Education Plan meeting that wanted to be in attendance. Most understand what words their parent(s) and teacher are expecting to hear. "I want to learn so I can graduate and get a good job or maybe go to college." It is said in many ways, but these are the words that are heard by the adults.

About the only time this mind-set is interrupted is when a special education student falls through the cracks and is treated as a "regular" student. Such was the case this morning.

"Do you know this student," the assistant principal said, handing me a computer printout of a class schedule.
I glanced at the name before saying, "I've seen him around. What's his problem?"
"His problem is now your problem. He's a special ed student from South Carolina, but his mother didn't mention it when she enrolled him two months ago."
"Well, I'll set him up for an evaluation."
"You might want to write a behavior plan also. He groped two girls on the school bus this morning."
"I'll see what I can do."
"He got three days out-of-school, then he got into an argument with his math teacher and called her a bitch. That got him five more days."

I quickly mentally assessed the severity of the punishment for each offense. One side of the scales contained the physical attack on two younger girls, (three days out-of-school). The other side of the scales was calling the teacher a bitch, (five additional days out-of-school). Before I could pass judgment, silently, the assistant principal continued, "When he comes back I want him in your class all day. Work with him. Connect with him." I understood the translation; If he is with you all day, then he won't be in my office. "Also, he is failing all of his classes. He's got to pass them or he will be counted against the school when the count is taken for No Child Left Behind."

I watched him walk away, leaving me to solve the problem of a sexual attacking, class failing, unknown special education student that has been suspended for the next eight school days. It was just the first period of the day and already the school target scores for No Child Left Behind were in jeopardy. Now was the time for Super Special Education Teacher to save the day. I continued on down the sidewalk to the main building where another assistant principal had one of my students waiting to be saved. He had been caught having sex in the boys restroom. The girl had denied they were having sex. "I was giving him oral sex. It wasn't like we were really having sex," she said. Thank you again President Clinton.

I called the mothers of each student to arrange a date and time for an I.E.P. meeting. Each mother told me how their child was being persecuted by the school and events beyond the student's control. "All he wants is to learn so he can graduate and get a job or maybe go to college," each one said.

"Yes ma'am, I'm sure the I.E.P., we develop as a team, will help."

I Almost Missed The Point

This past Monday was Valentine's Day, 2005. Sitting in the double-wide mobile home that the school board lists as a portable classroom, my day was starting like many of the others. Before the students shuffled in with their sagging pants, baseball caps tilted to the side on their heads, and their arms not protruding through the sleeves of their coats, but hidden inside the garment, I assume caressing themselves, I was trudging through more paperwork. The paperwork had nothing to do with student learning. My sense is that it had everything to do with justifying someone's position in the central office and acquiring more funding from the government.

Halfway into completing another three-page census form accounting for the number of hours dedicated to completing forms in my job, the metal door, with the Plexiglas window slowly opened. I watched her enter. A young girl of Jordanian decent, short, heavy, and depressed. She had been in many troublesome situations during her four-year high school stay. She was now in her senior year, looking forward to "graduating" with a special education diploma, and trying hard to resist stealing anything else. She had been busted for stealing, twice-a-year, for the past three years. Her favorite target were small, personal, round CD players. I oftentimes joked to myself that she single-handedly kept Sony in the manufacturing business of these players. Another of her hobbies were repeated visits to the local hospital emergency room. I always wanted her to have something medically wrong. Not anything serious. Just enough to have her validated as a legitimate patient.

"Good morning," she said, dropping her unusually heavy book bag on the audio visual cart.
"Morning sweetie. How are you today?" She told me her recent medical history, how she felt last night, how little she slept, and why today might not be a good day.
"What did you do last evening?"
"My sister and mom and me went to the mall. I got a new CD player. Mom, wanted me to get pants, but I didn't.
"What kind of pants."
"Ugly."
"Oh."
"Well, I hope you have a great day."
"I got a test today in drivers ed."
"You'll ace it sweetie." I had heard her digging through the book bag. While I continued trying to complete the three-page form something was shoved toward my right hand.
"Happy Valentine's Day."
I looked at the small, white, cup. It was decorated with yellow and red hearts. Inside was a square of cellophane wrapped around individual hard candies.
"For me, Sweetie?"
"Yeah. I got to go and see if my boyfriend came to school today."
Before I could thank her, she was gone. I listened to her plodding down the wooden ramp to the busy sidewalk. The loud chatter of the other two-thousand students quickly drowned out the sound of her foot-steps. The cup sat quietly reminding me of Valentine's Day and that I almost missed the point.

Zero Tolerance, No Tolerance

What happened to the days of old when a student criminal violating the law would be expelled from school and answered to the courts? I know what happen, the Zero Tolerance policy. Just another step in the transition of the school raising children in place of parental responsibility. If a child does well the parent is praised. The same child struts around a two-thousand student campus displaying a handgun and the scream of "What is the school doing to halt this behavior" rings across the land. Things such as bringing a knife or gun into a school is suppose to result in a one year placement in an alternative school. Of course, rules and policies are open to interpretation. That is, interpretation by assistant principals, principals, elected school boards, school superintendents, the third estate, and of course the student and the parent(s).

"Yeah, I want to schedule an intake meeting for a returning student," the alternative school counselor said.
"Whose coming back?"
"Michael."
"He's only been away from this high school for three months."
"We sent a letter to the superintendent asking him to waive the other nine months. We're just waiting for him to sign."
"So the boy has experienced a behavior reversal and is ready to return to regular school?"
"He's done very well."
"Does he get his gun back?"
"I got to go. Let me know the day and time that's good for you."

So, Michael was ready to return after three months. I assumed that bringing a loaded 9mm to school just to be cool is still cool. Of course, being placed in a very quiet, small, high school in classes with perhaps ten students cured him of the dangerous behavior. More likely he was not controllable by the principal, like many others, and was pronounced "healed".

The Zero Tolerance policy does nothing more then disguise the state of public education in America. The person, parent or administrator, that screams the loudest gets their way. Teachers don't teach, they police or mingle. The mingle portion is the most frightening. Many pretend to be friends with all students in the hope that a brawl does not breakout in the overcrowded classroom and perhaps someone produces a knife or gun, kills one or more of the students or the teacher will be slain attempting to quiet the fight.

Give me your tired, your poor, the armed masses waiting to end your life. However, we can not leave no child behind. They may be armed and attack you from the back.

Like A Bad Penny, They Keep Showing Up

The note read, "Can you come to my office pronto." It wasn't a question, but an order. So, easily within two hours of receiving the note, I entered the guidance office. I could be the poster child for passive-aggressive. The primary guidance offered in the small reception room, encircled by four offices, was how long until lunch and how much longer before retirement. I could answer both questions for them with ease; Forty-one minutes until lunch, and you retired about 5-years-ago.

"Why do they keep coming back," the counselor asked?
"Whose coming back?"
She handed me the re-enrollment form and I read the name. "It could be worse. I remember him as not having perfect behavior, but he seemed like a good kid," I said.
"Do you know how many I registered today?" I didn't know and could care less.
She continued, "Ten students returned here today. You'd think it's August not halfway through Febuary."

My mind had already moved on to my next task in a building far removed from here. What difference did it matter how many kids registered today? If ten returned then ten would leave. Cosmic balance always seemed to prevail and protect students from burned out counselors, teachers, and principals. The only ones it couldn't protect them from were themselves.

All the counselor wanted in the end was for someone to say the classes she typed in to the returning students schedule was okay. I did not care if I validated her efforts, but I did want to move on, "Looks okay to me." I turned, in the small, windowless office, reaching for the edge of the door.

"How was your weekend?"
"Uneventful," I said.
"Mine also. I didn't want to come in today."
I wondered what made her believe she was here. "It's okay. Could be worse by not having a job."
"Oh, wouldn't it be great to lounge around all day."
"Not much different than what you do now."
"Huh?"
"Bye."

Before I could make it to the outside door I heard the receptionist tell the counselor, "You have a new student waiting."
"They are like bad pennies. They keep showing up."
I cringed for the student and his single, tired parent waiting for guidance.

And it goes on and on and on..............................

Tomorrow Is Monday, A New Battle Day

I can remember the time I looked forward to going to school. I was 10-years-old and the teacher's union still cared about students and teachers. Now the emphasis has shifted to money and politics. The more money an organization has, more power it believes it controls. More power only comes from playing the political games. Welcome to the arena of public education. The majority of special education funding comes from the federal government. The same as regular education funds. Of course, the federal government and the Department of Education educates no child. The bureaucrats probably believe they educate, but all they do is distribute funds and try to control state governments, school boards, and finally the students.

"Hey dude, is that funny little activity guy comin' today?"
"Who?"
"You know, the guy that plays games with us."
"Oh, no, he won't be coming anymore."
"Why not?"
"The department had to cut spending and his program was the first."
"That sucks, man."
"I know."

I've thought about that exchange over the past two weeks. Each time it is brought to mind when the fifth, different "liaison" comes through my door with their pasted on smiles. Not yet has one came in to discuss the welfare or education of a student. Always the dilemma revolves around some new paperwork that the central office can't function without.

The question that I silently pose to myself is, "How many liaisons do you hire before the department topples from the top down?" Monday morning I'll pass out Ramen Noodles to the SPED students. None of them have a two parent home and none have a parent that prepares them a breakfast. Most of the parents or guardians are gone to meager jobs before the kids get up. The rest don't even hear the kids leave. It's amazing so many kids continue to attend school on a regular basis. I've thought it is due to the notion they have no other stable force in their lives then their teacher. Besides, it is hard enough to learn on a full stomach and almost impossible to learn on an empty belly. School lunch programs continue to lose funds while the school makes money from fast food restaurants that have taken over every vacant room surrounding the cafeteria. Generally, the poorest students are special education students. The very ones that can't afford fast food on a daily basis. It's not the only reason the majority of them will not be going to college, but it is a pebble on their rocky life path.

Yes, tomorrow is Monday, a new battle day, but the same old war.

And So It Goes.....

What goes around, comes around, and around and around and ...............................................................

"I want to fix cars, man. I ain't goin' to no damn college. School sucks!"

How many times has a special education teacher heard these words from a student? As often as they have heard from the school powers and government, "No child will be left behind! They must pass all our standard tests and go on to college." My sense is that the remedial teachers in college are cheering this mind set. After all they are employed to tend to those that are not ready for college.

Let us erase from the public school landscape all resource classes. It doesn't matter if that senior can't read, we'll assign him to an inclusion class where he can again become another faceless body floating on the sea of failure. College awaits him. Maybe he can play football? Wait a second, he can't spell football. In high school it doesn't matter. How many public schools have no special education students on the team? Maybe we can win a state championship before he turns 18-years-old and drops out? Won't dropouts count against our school when the government figures as well as the standard tests scores are released? He can't get a GED while in high school. GED graduates don't count toward our graduation numbers. Okay, we'll drop the GED program as an alternative in public schools. Yes, but we'll be state champions in football!

That's okay, we'll keep non-football playing special education students in high school until they are 22-years-old. That will keep the overall dropout rate statistics artificially low, for a few years. By then, maybe "No Child Left Behind" will morph into another government brainstorm.

And so it goes...................around and around and around and .....................