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.”

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."