Front Porch

A piece that, in some form or fashion, will be a part of my manuscript made its way to Front Porch Journal. Read it here!

It sort of follows this How To Succeed in Middle School motto: Don't Use the R Word.

18. Increase Your "Brain Smarts"

Last night, before the main event, I had my after-school program students write thank you notes to the presenters and tour guides who have made their program really exciting. So far, they've learned how to take blood pressure from the Chatham Physician's Assistants. They've visited the "helipad" of a hospital and watched an emergency helicopter take off in flight. They've even toured a medical simulation center. Out of a handful of notes, here is my favorite...

17. Teach the White Lady Things

"And don't be afraid to be, you know, assertive," says Mr. T. "Or else they'll..."

"Eat me alive," I say.

"Run you out of here," he says.

It doesn't matter that I've just explained that I used to teach middle school. I've been a substitute. Taught high school and summer school. A group of 4th graders made me cry once. I am experienced. I am made of steel and tricks and looks. Oh do I have the looks.

But, I am a white lady. So, according to Mr. T., I need to be schooled.

# # #

Kejean studies the fabric of his chair and grunts at my questions. "What do you think you want to be when you grow up?" I ask. He squirms as his 6th grade toothpick legs brush the carpet of the Principal's office. 

"Sports," he says and goes back to studying his chair.

"Look at Ms. Katie when she's talking to you," Mr. T. orders. "You've got to make eye contact, Kejean. We've been working on that. Come on now." Mr. T. pats the back of his thinning gelled waves and places one hand on his hip. "Use your words, Kejean." 

"And what's plan B if sports doesn't work out?" I ask. Say astronaut. Say neuro-chemical-molecular-astro-physicist. Just say something academic, firmly requiring college, firmly requiring that the mind, rather than the body, stays nimble and fit. 

"Football," he says. 

"Alright then," I say and then smile and look at Mr. T. He nods his head affirming Kejean's career of choice and purses his lips. 

"And that'll be a very typical answer coming from our kids," Mr. T. tells me. By "our kids" he means black and, most likely, nearing, if not sitting right on the poverty line.

"Oh. Right." I say, even though I know that Kejean's 4 foot 9 aspirations of playing ball and skipping college to go pro are the dreams of my former students. Save the aspiring robotic engineer, most of my 12-year-old little men wanted to shoot hoops for the big bucks. That or throw down a mean rap.

I've explained this to Mr. T. I get these kids more than you think, I want to say. But, he translates anyway, so I listen. 

Our paperwork checks out so we take Kejean and Tazhe with us. Tazhe covets the passenger side door of our van even though I'm standing right beside her. "She's coming?" Tazhe asks when she notices I'm competing for her seat. She looks me up and down. 

"That's Ms. Katie," Mr. T. says, "Remember her from last week?"

Tazhe starts to laugh. "I thought you was my teacher," she says. It's May. How could Tazhe have mistaken me for a teacher at her school? Mr. T. doesn't translate this one, but I figure it out on my own. 

"She's in the 6th grade," Mr. T. says. "Twelve years old." He shakes his head. "She's too grown up for twelve." He's referring to the fact that her breasts are spilling out the top of her v-neck t-shirt - that she's as tall as I am.

"Girls are maturing earlier and earlier," I say. And I know this fact just as well as I know Kejean's future plans involve a football or basketball. I've read the studies that explain that adolescent girls are hitting puberty even earlier than the rest. And girls who hit puberty earlier aren't equipped with the developmental skills to deal with their changing bodies and advancing males. Tazhe has more to deal with than outgrowing her training bra. But, I don't say this. I respect that I am here to get to know these kids. I am here to receive an education from Mr. T.

Our van, with cigarette butts in the ashtray and empty Cheeto's bags on the floor, proclaims "Baptist Church" on its side. We pull up to one school, then the next, collecting kids for our after school program. Rico, Jade, Rayon, Ta'Shauna. Mr. T. turns up the radio and bops his head to the beat. I realize that a side effect of no longer teaching is being embarrassingly unaware of top 40 radio hits and the latest hip hop dance. There was a time when I knew how to laffy taffy and do that zoom zoom dance. I knew at least the chorus to the current Soulja Boy song and could name drop Lil' Boosie when I needed to get my students' attention. But, today, I am not prepared for the song that makes the kids bounce across the bench seats of our van. "Birthday Sex" does not seem okay, regardless of the lettering on the side of our vehicle, regardless of the fact that we're an academic mentoring service.  It feels good feels good girl let me hit that g-spot g-spot, girl. Then: Get ready for action / Don't be astounded / We switching positions / You feel so rounded...

Mr. T. looks at me, then at the road, then at me, all while chuckling. He watches my reaction like a tour guide. I shake my head like I imagine I'm supposed to and give a little smile. He thinks he's schooling me, so I play along. It's not the lyrics or the dancing or the fact that everyone is singing along that stumps me. It's that we're in a church van. We're driving to a church. A Baptist church. But, Mr. T. believes he's giving me a cultural immersion, so I pretend to wince at the song and wince the dancing. I'm really wincing at the Baptist part of this scenario. Nothing else.

Later, I tell Mr. T. I'll be making some phone calls to the students' parents. He pauses, then gestures with his hand for effect. "Let me know if any numbers are disconnected. You see, that's a big problem we have with our kids here. Their numbers are always changing."

"Right." I say. "That's similar to my former..." But Mr. T. has already left the room.

# # #

There are 5 weeks left in our after school program, and I'll continue to let Mr. T. teach me what he assumes I don't understand. If I were assertive enough, I'd ask him to scrape deeper than the surface of our shared students - beyond their physical development, predictable adolescent dreams, dance moves and disconnected phone lines. Teach me what lies beneath - show me the rings of their trunks, the veins of their leaves. Teach me their narratives - their hidden stories and circumstances - so that we can, together, pen something meaningful. As for tonight I will pull out the strictest, firmest teacher-look I can muster, respect Mr. T.'s cultural curriculum and absorb. I am a student, too.

16. Make Your Teachers Do Ridiculous Things...

Since Monday, three Southeast Middle teachers have lived and breathed this window-less haven day in and day out. Yes, that's right, they are spending every day and every night for one week trapped inside because 95% of the student body achieved their goal of attendance, behavior and effort during the state test, LEAP. 

Read their adventures within the building here. 

The local news even captured the administrators living up to their end of the bargain. While the entire school assembled in the gym, Mr. Milton's (Principal) head was shaved into a mohawk and dyed blue. Mr. Shelton (Assistant Principal) dressed in a lovely blue dress and sported a woman's wig. The kids about died, and how I loved seeing some of my former students and co-teacher on TV!

15. Idolize Your Teachers

I spent Valentine's Day weekend in Chicago celebrating my writing relationship - my often touchy and emotional whirl with words. At AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs), I was courted, not by chocolates or red roses, but by panels of writers and teachers who were there to jump start my feelings about being a part of this love affair that has, lately, made me wonder why I entered into this complicated relationship to begin with. It worked. Partly due to the vast numbers of people who believed in writing and teaching writing (and know what an MFA is). Partly due to the fancy (no free internet) glitz of the Hilton. Mostly, however, my love affair with writing was rekindled upon bumping into some of my writing idols - those Greencastle writing forces who helped me add writer to my list of titles.

You don't just bump into people at AWP. It's way too big. But, during a mid-session bathroom break, I spotted Barbara Bean, the last professor I took at DePauw, a cheerleader and a critic - the best kind of professor. Then, in a session about why Nonfiction writers often get it wrong, in walks Peter Graham. "You don't know me, but I graduated from DePauw and was a writing major," I said after tap-tap-tapping him on the shoulder. I didn't tell him I most desperately wanted to write a memoir like his wife's, Lili Wright's Learning to Float. I didn't tell him that I often gazed through the window that separated me and my professor's personal lives and decided that I wanted an existence just like that. I didn't tell him that Pittsburgh is not Greencastle. Its potholes and rain and lack of small karaoke bars make it really hard to cling onto the vision of an idyllic professorship at a small Liberal Arts college. I did tell him to say hello to Greg Schwipps, advisor-extraordinaire, who, 10 years after completing his MFA will publish his first book, What This River Keeps, this spring. 

For the first time since becoming an MFA candidate at Pitt, I felt a little more like a writer.  A little more like this writing business is a part of my identity. And, since it was Valentine's Day, I chalked these sightings up to fate - the stars had, of course, aligned. In this relationship, there are cheerleading critics that, though distant, can send a little spark to help me keep working through the kinks of this shaky marriage.

Maybe I never fell in love with writing. Maybe I fell in love with the teachers of writing, the idea of being like my teachers and the exhilaration of feeling both humbled and successful during a workshop. I fell in love with the writing experience. Valentine's Day weekend was a perfect opportunity for a little boost - a little reminder of why I write and why the experience of writing can contribute to a long lasting, healthy courtship with words.

14. Throw One Back

Teachers with Tequila, 2007

"Pencils Down, Bottoms Up" is a brilliant opinion piece for all teachers and former teachers to enjoy. Alexander Nazaryan discusses a ritual of many teachers, young and old alike: visiting the local bar and throwing a few back. Why do teachers drink? Nazaryan explains...

The classroom is the bully pulpit from which we articulate an ironclad triumvirate of maturity – attention, organization, responsibility – that the real world renders pretty much unrealistic. In the bar, we finally loosen our ties, and life’s beautiful imperfections return.

Nazaryan, a young teacher himself, scouted out a local establishment close to school where he and his colleagues could throw a few back. That was, until his students spied him through the windows. The teacher group relocated to a darker, drapes-drawn type of bar in the East Village. That was, until the squirrelly TFAers drove them away...

But the bar was near a large middle school, and it routinely filled up with the feisty teachers who braved those hormone hurricanes. The wear showed in their drinking habits. Teach for America became Drink for America. Spill Your Beer for America. Shout and Shove for America. Many of these fresh-faced pedagogues sported golf shirts emblazoned with their school name, disconcertingly similar to the uniforms students often wear. They snapped triumphant pictures of empty bottles, turning the bar into Spring Break: Costa del Bushwick. Our timid, slightly older group felt like the unpopular kids with nowhere to sit at lunch.

So they settled on a more anonymous, dim-lighted sort of bar where they offered to help set up in order to enter before the bar technically opened. 

This piece reminds me of all our southern establishments - Zippy's (southern punch margarita please?) and Superior Grill (happy hour two for one margarita hold the salt please?) and Bistro Byronz (raspberry vodka freeze please?). But, best of all, it reminds me of the adventures, the escapes, the frivolously planned excursions involving glittery costumes and Ragini's accessories and really really big sunglasses. 

The NYTimes piece is more about the community than the booze. It's about the little hideaways and long conversations that have nothing or everything to do with the chaotic confetti that spewed about your classroom that day. It's about being in those proverbial trenches with others and then hoisting yourself out of those trenches, plopping down on a stool or a porch, decompressing, and filling up on good conversation and, if you choose, a stiff cold one.

Cheers!

Teachers with Margaritas, 2005

13. Write Letters

On the way home we stopped in Alabama and bought a new puppy. We named him Cation since we bought him on vacation. - A.H.

Something wonderful happened today. I shuffled down the steps to check the mail, certain that I'd retrieve a fistful of grocery store coupons, desperate pleas to sign up for new credit cards, monthly bills - the usual. But what I hand picked out of the mailbox was so enjoyable, so wonderful, that I stood goofy grinned in my apartment as if I'd just received an Ivy League acceptance letter.

A.H., former-student-extraordinaire, sent me not only a one-page typed letter, but photographs too. A school photo, naturally. And the greatest photo of all - A. holding a baby alligator with its mouth taped with some sort of duct/electrical/packing tape combo. 

In other fantastic news besides the puppy named Cation, A. reported on a hermit crab, a lost wedding ring to the ocean, two dead hermit crabs, a fractured knee cap and wrist, snow in Louisiana, horse camp (twice), a Wii, a language class he's really "ticked off" about, and a failed Confirmation test at church. You know, just ordinary occurrences for a Middle School year.

I just love this kid. So much so that I don't even care that he typed Ms. Fields. Twice. He said he hopes I'll move back and teach high school so that I can be his teacher again. Man. Who knew that such a strong boost of confidence could come from this unlikely, squirmy, adolescent source?

P.S. This is how I imagine the baby alligator's face when being held by Mr. A.H.

12. Get Justice

A quick note to follow up my post called "Be Aware, Read the Fine Print" ...

So, after feeling like a total sucker for getting roped into that freecreditreport.com service that I did not use but paid for for a year, I submitted a complaint to the Better Business Bureau. Fully prepared to just bite the lost money and get over it, this morning a notice arrived by email stating that the BBB had my back and the company would be issuing a full year's REFUND! Can it be that a sleazy company is actually forced to pay up when a consumer feels cheated!? 

Bottom line: The bombs and the sleazes are still out there. But so are those who give the bombs and sleazes a swift kick in the pants when they've been naughty.

11. Be Aware, Read the Fine Print

I've done few things that have made me feel worried, really worried for my safety. Sure, I'm a total hypochondriac when it comes to my own health (see WebMD). I'm notorious for asking "What if?" given various scenarios and events. I am a semi-recovering nail biter. But when it comes to other people, I am trusting - rarely wary or quick to assume a person to be anything but well-intentioned. Because of this, I think I might be trusting to a fault, as it seems that I've gotten myself into a few hairy situations, including my most recent debacle online...

1. I've been threatened with identity theft. 

Apparently, during the job fair that scored me my teaching job in Baton Rouge, my social security number wasn't handled with tip top security and I was forced to place a flag on my credit report through Experian (keep this company in mind for later). Experian made me feel safe. Nothing ever seemed to happen with my precious identity. For all technical purposes, it's in tact, numbers safe and stable.

2. I've been asked to search for a bomb. Read mini-narrative below for details.

Unlocked and bare, without guards or censors or cameras, Southeast Middle stood a vulnerable smattering of blonde bricks. Theft: a cell phone, a pocketbook, a computer. Vandalism: a bathroom fire, a naughty drawing. Pot in a book bag as common as a pack of bubble gum. A knife. A pistol.

So, to safeguard against these security breaches, color codes were in place to signal how to proceed—whether or not to “lock down” the room, prepare for hurricane force winds, or ignore the violent thrashings of a psychic-ward-bound preteen just outside your door. 

“Code Red. That means we are on a lock down,” the intercom voice harked one morning. “Lock. Down. No one is to move from their location. Lock. Down.” The voice was breathy and shaky - different than routine fire drills or the daily pledge of allegiance. Had the Principal been running laps? Shaking children off his limbs? Holding back armed intruders?    

When the phone call came, I, like every other teacher, was eventually asked to escort my students into the gymnasium. But, unlike the others, I was also asked to leave my students and please follow the administration and police officers into the barren west wing of the building. I asked why the entire school was in the gym: "Ms. Field, a bomb threat has been phoned in. I asked again why the entire school was in the gym when bomb-threat protocol surely called for outside shelter, plenty of paces away from a potential structural annihilation: “It’s raining, Ms. Field. We can’t have 900 students standing in the rain.”  The logic didn’t satisfy me, but I was silenced.  I followed orders, unclear as to why I had been asked to leave my students alone. And when another twenty-something female teacher approached we were given our task casually and as routinely as if we’d been asked to add paper to the library printer.

“What you two are going to do is go from classroom to classroom and look for a bomb.” Blunt. Composed. Sterile.

“What!  Are you kidding?  What does a bomb look like?  And why are we the ones that should have to die looking for one?” Like a round of ammo, we spit-fired questions, convinced that they had the wrong duo and would humbly apologize while motioning for the police to take over.     

“Just look for anything suspicious. Cell phones. Look inside pen caps. Book sacks. Especially book sacks.” The two of us were still nervously laughing. “We picked you ladies because we thought you’d approach this calmly. Holler if anything looks fishy. We’ll be at the end of the hallway with the police officers.” I peered down the corridor at the supposed professionals who’d been called upon to help. Large and suited up for duty, the pair stood with their hands in their pockets, bellies up, and uninterested in assisting the two teachers called upon to assure safety and protection for the gym-ridden school.

“Can we look together or do we have to split up?” I asked as if I were a student, crossing her fingers that this particular assignment required partners. I asked because if I was going to explode I wasn’t doing it alone.

“I suppose you can go around together. Just be quick. And, when you give us the go-ahead, we’ll release everyone back to class.” The school was comprised of dozens of rooms one after another all filled with the chaos of education that may or may not have housed a bomb. In fear of full facial detonation I turned my scrunched up face to the side and used periphery vision to examine the student’s articles—poking and prodding like a picky eater to a vegetable-filled platter. But, when you're the teacher and not the student, hysteria is never encouraged to change your circumstances. So, my partner and I shut-up, shuffled through each room, and emerged with a weak confidence that the school would not blow up. 

It didn't. But I noted that caution may be used when approached by police and your boss.

3. I've been scammed online.

Never. Never. I'll repeat it again. Never request a free credit report because, of course, not much is ever really free. Well, it was free for a second, then my credit card started automatically paying a monthly bill of $12.75 then $14.75. Every month. Like clockwork. For over a year. And that adds up when you're a grad student.

You see, having been an almost-victim of identity theft, having become an involuntary bomb-searcher, I started to become a bit more attune to a dishonest, shady world. So when my utility provider questioned the strength of my credit, I logged onto freecreditreport.com to look at what was going on. I'd seen the snazzy commercials. I knew they were accredited by Experian and others. Why would I flinch when they asked for my credit card number so that they could do their job in helping me understand my credit score? I'm naive, yes, but I'm also an observer - a good reader. And no where on the website did I read that if I failed to "cancel" whatever service I had just unknowingly signed up for, my account would be charged every month. Like clockwork. Until I noticed. Which was over a year later. I assumed the semi-small amount on my monthly statement was related to my car insurance (the bill was from CIC Triple Advantage) - the name being foreign, sounding auto-ish to me and in no way indicating the words free, credit or report. So I let it slide thinking that I was getting a really nice motor club service that I happened to never use. And over the holidays, coming to the conclusion that poverty is the inevitable life of a grad student, I set out to cancel that pestering motor club from Allstate that I was never using, budget more strictly, cut unnecessary expenses.

When my agent said I wasn't paying for any such service. When I googled CIC Triple Advantage. When I realized hundreds of others have fallen into the same trap. I knew it. I'd been duped. I was a sucker. A poor, grad student, sucker with not much hope of a refund. Because the warning was there. I just didn't strain my eyes hard enough to see it.

Moral of the story: Read the fine print. Deceit just may be lurking in tiny font or under a pen cap, or inside a book bag. Call the Better Business Bureau when wronged. Learn from your middle school mistakes and trust sparingly.  

10. Reflect

How is it that I already feel behind in 2009 and I have yet to celebrate the new year? Maybe because I've neglected to blog for so long.  Maybe because it's time to plan for the summer, which is still 5 months away. Maybe because my professors have already sent out book lists. Regardless, time forges on, and a lot has happened education-wise that I haven't had the time to reflect on:

Biden, Obama, Duncan NYTimes

- Obama picked Arne Duncan to serve as Secretary of Education. As Chicago schools' superintendent, Duncan's style falls somewhere in between tradition and reform - supporting teachers' unions, while ousting ineffective teachers when necessary and implementing new reform platforms. Duncan, like most who have experience working in low-income school systems, believes that the achievement gap is the civil rights movement of our generation. He no doubt has a huge undertaking ahead of him, like reworking No Child Left Behind and ensuring that we begin quality education for the littlest students and continue placing the most effective teachers in classrooms. It's no surprise Obama picked Duncan, who appears to have the capability of mediating between different education camps rather than alienating one group and fostering division.

- Louisiana was called out for something POSITIVE related to education! The New Teacher Project, a certification program utilized heavily by Teach For America teachers, was commended for supporting educators who, in turn, prove more effective in classrooms (in Math, Reading and Language Arts) than teachers from traditional avenues with two or more years experience. Go TFA SLA!

the talented Dan Kahn, TFA South Louisiana '05

- A good friend, Dan Kahn, is shaking up Baton Rouge's youth community. Just named to Baton Rouge Business Report's Forty Under 40 list, he's gotten the recognition he deserves for beginning the Baton Rouge Youth Coalition (along with teaching and coaching and slamming poetry). BRYC is an incredibly innovative, yet totally necessary, movement to help the community's young people lead each other to financial literacy and stability so that their goals can be articulated and met. Alongside Kahn are '06 TFA alumni Sam Joel and Andy Gray. Their dedication to the Baton Rouge community is incredibly commendable.

- And because the beginning of a new year always spurs more personal reflection, I wonder how my former students are. I miss them. I love getting reports on A.H., a young man who had a rocky start to middle school and who is now thriving as an 8th grader and on the verge of being exited from special ed. I love knowing that A.K., a once slipping 6th grader, is walking confidently through the hallways of the very best magnet high school in Baton Rouge, no longer in need of special ed. services. I will keep my fingers and toes crossed for those taking the 8th grade LEAP this spring!

9. Resist Immunity to Standardized Tests...

  

The College Board has invented yet another standardized test. It is the younger sibling of the SAT - a so-called "low stakes" assessment for 8th graders that will spit out a number. In turn, this number will inform parents and teachers whether or not students are "on track" with the skills necessary to graduate high school and competitively enter college (i.e. Is your student on track to produce an appropriate number which, in turn, will qualify him or her for higher education?). (Read the entire article from the NYTimes here) Don't get me wrong - I think diagnostic/benchmark testing is incredibly useful for strategic lesson planning and for informing necessary remediation.  But, what happens when teachers don't know how or just don't use these tests to better their instruction?  What happens when the medicine we're administering isn't being swallowed or followed up by a professional?

I'm starting to think the administering of standardized tests is becoming a lot like the administering of antibiotics.  A lot of antibiotics.  All the time.  What happens when a child continuously takes Penicillin for ear infections and the infection is never quite killed?  The infection starts to grow stronger and the body become resistant to the medicine.  What happens when a child week after week fills in bubbles with his number 2 pencil on his Scantron sheet?  What happens when we prescribe standardized tests to heal our broken school system (please see No Child Left Behind)?  Our students start to resist them, resent them and become immune to them.  So, when a sixth grader takes a standardized test weekly rather than yearly (because her school is in decline and forced to show adequate yearly progress), she freezes and/or becomes conditioned to the sheet of bubbles and her number 2 pencil.  And, when "high stakes" tests finally arrive (see Louisiana's 4th/8th grade LEAP exam that prevents students from promotion to the next grade and the SAT, ACT and all other high school exit exams...) she fills in bubbles and puts her head down because that's how she's learned to handle this medicine that is tiring her and not healing her.

I have a question.  And, I'm proposing that those interested in answering this question respond directly here...

HOW DO/HAVE YOUR STUDENTS PHYSICALLY RESPONDED TO STANDARDIZED TESTS?

8. Dance Like Your Pants Are On Fire...

After stuffing ourselves with Cevapi (pronounced chew-op-ay), garlicky Croatian sausages topped with raw onion on warm pita, we stared into the glass paneling of the member's only club.  Michelle, my full blooded Serbian-Croatian friend, came to Pittsburgh this weekend and aroused the one-eighth Croatian in me.  After conversing with the Euro-Mart cook earlier in a language incomprehensible to me, we stood outside Javor's Croatian Club on Pittsburgh's North Side and waited for someone to grant our entry inside.  We felt (and looked) like naive younger siblings of high schoolers as we tried to achieve entry into the weekend's exclusive party with beer and no parents.  Only this weekend, we were twenty-something, and our high school role models were really fifty, balding, Croatian and drank their beer generously and legally.  We took seats toward the door and tried to advert our eyes to the awkward glances we received from the regulars who wondered how we washed up on their private, Croatian shore.  And, of course, no awkward private party would be complete without live accordion-infused music and unintentional dancing.  

After an hour of uncomfortable gazing at the regulars, we were finally approached by a tall, white-haired and self-labeled German-Austrian and a pocket-sized Indian man, both who prided themselves on frequenting every ethnic music/dance hall around the city.  Upon learning that Michelle was familiar with traditional circular Croatian dance, they petitioned the band to pep up the tempo so we could "clear the cobwebs" from the dance floor.  And so as Michelle immediately blended in, Charles and I held hands, circled up and faked fancy footwork (painfully) as the regulars silently felt just as embarrassed for us as we did for ourselves.  

This weekend, I was reminded of how awkward it is to be conscious of the eyes that witness sloppy dancing.  And I wished that I could have adopted the innocence of my favorite middle school dancer of all...

                                      #  #  #

They swarm around him in a wide and powerful sphere.  A.’s forehead breeds small pools of smelly perspiration.  His body jolts like a rusty robot getting used to his hinges after a winter in the attic.  His usual pale cheeks scream emergency red.

“Should I save him?” I ask the teachers beside me.  We stand atop the bleachers and watch our students morph into humans.  They untuck their uniform polo shirts.  Some have even surrendered their belts.  This is against the rules, but they are happy and that is okay.  I envy the way they move—ratcheting and laffy taffying. 

“He’s fine.  He’s having fun.  Just leave him alone.”  I purse my lips together and dimple the creases of my mouth.  I worry about him like I worry about my grandmother.  Maybe he’ll have a stroke.  Or a heart attack.  Or maybe he’ll just drop dead.  But, more than fatal illnesses, I worry that they will laugh and that I will be there to witness it.

The kids continue to circle.  They clap to the beat of “Lean wit it Rock wit it.”  Black kids.  White kids.  A. plunges face first to the ground. 

“That’s it, he needs saving,” I declare.  I approach the group.  A humps the floor from his chest to his thighs and attempts the Worm.  His arms fail like a two-legged octopus.  His chin smacks the wooden floor on the down swing of his floor-maneuver.  I squeeze into the circle, amazed that these kids who once barely grazed my shoulders now tower over me.  The students around him clap and smile.  I honestly can’t believe it.

              I back off just a bit—calming my maternal instinct.  Eventually, A. curls up onto two feet and saunters right out of the circle.  Another song passes.  Then another.  And, through the dense smell of nachos and fizz of cold drinks, I watch him.  He doesn’t smile.  But, others do.  They are learning, as am I, that though he is strange, A. is just a little man who happens to like doing the Worm inside a circle at a school dance.

7. Survive a Hurricane

August 2005  Ten days into my teaching career, the Superintendent phoned hundreds of households around the parish explaining that school would be delayed due to an incoming storm.  Students and teachers alike cheered.  Visions of hurricane parties and days that resembled summer break made us giddy.  A meteorologist's dream, Hurricane Katrina swirled through the Atlantic - a northerner's lore and figment of mythology.  I filled my bathtub with water.  My roommates unplugged the toaster, the television, the hairdryers.  We filled paper bags with the contents of our refrigerator.  And, I fled Baton Rouge, cursing my cell phone that failed to work and watched the cypress stumps take the ebbs and flows of the Atchafalaya Basin as I drove north, inland.

A week later, we returned - our yards filled with detached, homeless tree limbs, our classrooms filled with the limbs of children, still drying, still mending.  The faces of our students were weathered, but new to us.  While we waited for the phone call to announce school's resume, our new students waited on rooftops, on bridges, on patches of hot, black highway.

Then, after Rita, the walls of our school snaked the furry mold that grows in only the moistest of windowless buildings.  Again, we were home from school so that the mold could be scrubbed with bleach and the soggy poster boards peeled from the chipping beige walls.

August 2008  Seven days into my second year of graduate school, I watched meteorologists nearly wet themselves in excitement.  A three year hiatus, these men in rain slickers could once again use their favorite vocabulary words to describe Gustav: wrath, fury, devastation.  From Pittsburgh, I became an onlooker, an outsider.  I phoned friends who left town and returned only to sweat out their discomfort in salty beads and wait for the phone call that would announce their return to school.  New Orleans, this time having stood firmly against the gusts and pelts of rain, quickly faded from the meteorologists' lips.  South Louisiana, to the rest of us, was silenced and life resumed while children fanned themselves in the sticky heat of their Baton Rouge living rooms.

I sit in my air conditioning - comfortable, dry, and complete my homework for my classes that haven't been cancelled due to a hurricane.  I miss my students and almost can't believe the first group is now in high school and the second preparing for the LEAP.  I worry about their progress - whether their teachers challenge them or give them worksheets and lines when they've misbehaved.  I wonder how their homes fared.  If their, our, powerless school again snaked with mold only to be killed with the whitest, most potent bleach.  I'm reminded that they, without realizing, are triumphant despite the odds of hurricanes inside and outside of their classrooms.

6. When In Doubt, Choose C

In honor of Charles who will take the ACT for the second time tomorrow at the age of 27, I've scrounged up a piece of satire I once wrote in light of standardized testing...

Morning Announcements: Testing Week

…with LIBERTY and JUSTICE for all…

Thank you, Tynika, for reminding us why we live in the BEST country in the world: the US of A. (1)

Now, remember students: on Wednesday we’ll choose our student of the month for April who will take over leading our pledge.

Get caught being a Conscientious Cougar!!  (2)

BBBBBBBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…

Teachers, please disregard the bell and hold your homeroom students.  I have some extremely important information in regards to our upcoming TESTING WEEK.  Students, at this time you must remain SEATED and SILENT.  And, teachers, please write down the names of any students talking during this time and I will deal with them personally.  This information is too important to miss.  I’ll also be making copies (3) of this list and distributing them tomorrow in your mailboxes.  For your classroom warm-up each week, please review these items with your students.

Cougars, we have over a month of school left, but now is the time to buckle down and try your very best because next week, as you know, is TESTING WEEK: the most important week of the academic year (4).  8^th graders – remember that if you score below a Basic, you will not be promoted to high school (5).  6^th and 7^th graders – the iLEAP is an indicator for how you will do in 8^th grade (6).  It BEHOOVES you to do your very best!

We need to work together to remember these very important rules for our testing environment.  Listen up:

1. NO CELL PHONES.  Students, cell phones aren’t allowed anyway and especially not this week.  We will take it away if we see one , so if you want to keep your cell phone safe, leave it at home! (7)

2. EAT BREAKFAST!  Students, it is IMPERATIVE that you eat a good breakfast each morning of testing week – you need that brain food!  Teachers, we’re asking you to please call your homeroom students’ homes to remind their parents to feed them this week. (8)

3. SCHOOL STARTS AT 7:50!  If you arrive each day of testing this week and on time, students, you’ll be eligible to win an ipod donated by Wal-Mart.  Don’t forget, students, school begins at 7:50. (9)

Now, students bear with me, I have just a few announcements for teachers only:

1. Teachers, remember that lesson plans are STILL DUE for testing week and are due on Friday.  Please indicate the stress-free activities you have planned for your classes.  Remember, we want the only academic focus to be the test for this week. (10)

2. Remember that I will be conducting “walk throughs” on Friday to check that your rooms are TEST SECURED.  Make sure all posters are taken down or covered up.  Not even one single letter may be visible.  Check with Ms. Bell in the art room if you need butcher paper. (11)

3. WEAR COMFORTABLE SHOES!  Teachers, during TESTING week you are NOT to sit down at your desk or on any chair of any kind.  State monitors will be walking in and out and documenting your actions.  You are to circulate the room at all times. (12)

4. WEAR BRIGHT COLORS and DON’T TOUCH THE THERMOSTAT!  Ms. Mary Kay was kind enough to bring forth this cutting-edge research that says bright colors help stimulate thinking in students and allow for better test achievement.  Ms. S will be coming in special on Sunday to set the thermostat to an even 70 degrees, the temperature Ms. Mary Kay also read helps students to concentrate. (13)

5. Remember, teachers, to pick up your testing materials and number-two pencils before reporting to your classrooms each morning.  NEVER leave your testing materials alone or with someone else. (14)

6. I will be issuing updated homeroom rolls by Thursday.  You are each responsible for calling each student’s home to walk the parents through the MUSTS for this week – they must eat and they must come to school.  Ms. Mary Kay in the front office has been working diligently to get in touch with those students who have not had regular attendance. (15)

7. Friday we’ll be on an activity-schedule because we’re doing a dry run of testing week.  Since those students receiving testing accommodations may be confused as to where to report, we’ll run through it all a couple times if we have to. (16)

 

Okay, Cougars, it all comes down to this week.  Remember, achievement is 99% how hard you work and only 1% what you actually know.

 

Annotations:

1. This “best” country in the world I speak of has an achievement gap as deep and wide as a threatening and deadly canyon.  Out of 13 million American children growing up in poverty, half will graduate from high school.  Poor third graders are three grade levels behind their affluent white peers.  Those poor kids who do make it to high school read at an 8^th grade level.  And, one in ten of these poor kids will graduate from college.

2. Approximately five students in the entire school have been taught the meaning of the word “conscientious” by their English teacher.  Hell, I don’t even know if I know the definition.

3. IF the copy machine is working this week, I’ll gladly have Ms. Mary Kay in the front office copy these suckers for you – that’s her job, not mine.

4. Literally.  This is the one week that our school will ensure that this school runs “properly” but damnit we WILL NOT get fined or cited.

5. Louisiana state education policy prohibits a student who does not achieve a “Basic” overall score on his or her state test from high school promotion.  Approximately 40% of students in East Baton Rouge Parish fail it on the first try.  Statistics show that once a student is retained a grade, his or her chances of achieving a high school degree is halved. 

6. Actually, we need strong 6^th and 7^th grade scores to boost our overall school score.  If the No Child Left Behind monitors notice that our score has dropped, we’ll lose funding.  Eventually, if we continue to decline, we’ll be taken over by the state or shut down entirely.

7. When you arrive each day, we will pat you down and throw your things in a Wal-Mart shopping cart that we’ve borrowed for the week.  If you’re lucky, your parents will be allowed to sift through your things that have been dumped into a garbage sack and sit in a corner of the gymnasium AFTER testing week.  Hide your house key in your underwear.

8. Since we will call your home and beg your mama, auntie, granny to feed you this week.  And, since we’ll also have breakfast available for everyone (not just for the free/reduced lunchers).  And, since we’ll force you to clean your styrofoam plate because we believe that food makes the mind work better.  And, since we only feed you crappy, processed foods…you will most likely get diarrhea and ask to use the restroom in the middle of the test.  But, because testing security is so tight, you won’t be allowed out of the room until each student is finished.  Therefore, please try not to shit your pants.

9. For the first time all year, we will do everything possible to get you to school on time.  We’ll even reward you! 

10. Lesson plans usually roll in sometime Monday or Tuesday of the week you are teaching these concepts.  We will demand these on the correct due date this week because the state is watching us very closely.  Please bring your own DVD player from home and show videos for your students after the test.  Rent these videos with your own money.  Just remember to take your DVD player with you whenever you leave your room (to use the bathroom, to eat lunch, etc.) because we will not replace it if it is stolen.

11. I’m not joking about this.  Even cover up your computer keyboards (if you have one).  Not even a single letter may be visible to the students or the state testing security monitors will shut down your room as a testing site and then they will fine us money that we do not have. 

12. I know you sit at your desk for 3/4ths of a regular day.  Well, get those orthopedics out, ladies.  If you’re caught sitting down during the test by a testing security monitor, I will personally add a letter to your permanent file.

13. Put away those grays and tans!  Someone read somewhere once that bright colors stimulate thinking and a certain temperature will ensure excellent performance!  Your students will be so taken aback at your ridiculously bright outfit that it will take them twenty minutes to fill in the bubbles of their last name.  The temperature change will also distract them, and they’ll spend the entire test wondering why it isn’t freeeeezing or unbearably hot.  Wait, the AC will actually work (at a respectable temperature/at all) this week?

14. If you need to take a shit, those tests better be on your lap as you sit on the toilet.  If I see them left by the sink and they get wet, I might fire you.

15. Up until now, we don’t care about those students who have stopped coming to school or who show up once a week.  It doesn’t matter that they haven’t been learning all year.  What matters is that their completed test (of randomly bubbled letters) will earn us some points.  But, if they don’t show up at all, we receive a zero and our overall score will go down.  Remember to tell these students that this is the ONLY week they need to come to school everyday.  Tell them we won’t bother them again until next year at this time.

16. This is one week in which the special education students will actually receive appropriate accommodations/modifications.  This foreign small group setting and the sound of a teacher actually reading the questions aloud will confuse the hell out of them.  These accommodations (required by law) are supposed to help these students achieve like the “regular” kids, but this new, strange format will only throw them off.

 

 

 

 

5. Dream Big

Usually, it was quite easy to predict the future career goals of my students.  "What do you want to be when you grow up?" almost always provoked two gender specific responses.  Girls: "I'm gonna be a famous singer/actress/dancer." (think Beyonce).  Boys: "I'm gonna get drafted to the NBA out of high school or be a rapper.  Or both." (think Lebron James and/or Lil Boosie).  

As a teacher, I'm supposed to cultivate dreams.  Make them attainable as I add to the foundation former teachers have laid, while closing the gap between fantasy and reality.  But, I can't dance.  Or rap.  Or dribble a basketball for longer than a Rhianna refrain.  So, I stuck to subject/verb agreement and reading comprehension often fruitlessly linking pop culture fame with the mastery of 6th grade ELA objectives: "Lil Boosie had to learn how to read before he could rap and be discovered for his (cough) artistic talents" or "You know, Lebron James is like the only guy who was drafted to the NBA from high school.  Everyone else had to get to college first.  You need to pass my class to get out of middle school."  

Last night, I dreamed I was destined to run my own business.  This seemed like an incredible prophecy, since my business sense is as under developed as my students' courtside skills or ability to pack Madison Square Garden.  In my dream, I didn't own a clothing boutique or parfumerie or used book store.  No, I owned a shop that made all of its merchandise out of one, natural material: beeswax.  My store glistened a light yellow.  Chapstick and soap and journals and shoes all waffled the imprint of perfect hexagons (think Burt's Bees on overdrive).  My store, no less, was to be named "Mind Your Own".

Impractical.  Ridiculous, even.  But, it was my dream, and I owned it.  And, unlike my students who consciously dream big, stadium-filled dreams that they speak aloud without shame, I let my subconscious tackle the unthinkable, kind of amazing, never-gonna-happen ones.  I woke feeling an excited rush.  I, a number-phobic-introverted-writer could be an entrepreneur! Perhaps this dream started somewhere in adolescence (running a babysitter's club from Bridget's basement surely tickled a business-bone) and was suppressed by self-consciousness and a need to feel practical.  Dreams do eventually surface.  So do 'em big.  Start in middle school.  And tuck them somewhere retrievable for when you're feeling nostalgic or need a reminder that drafts out of high school do (seldom) occur, super-booty-shaking-stardom can happen, and someone has to manage the store that supplies the world with beeswax.

4. Have Complex Oral Surgery

Because the tooth fairy is just a tad beyond your years.  And because it is cool to show off the battle wounds that are the dime-sized holes in your mouth.  Wisdom tooth extraction can be the perfect semi-scary surgery for any adolescent (or twenty five year old).  Brag about the Vicodin.  Dangle bloody gauze in front of your little sister's face.  Drink the milkshakes.  Lose the straw.  And just tell your teachers you'll make up  your work when you no longer have to suction food particles out of your pie-hole with a syringe.  

3. Don't Tattle on Your Teacher

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2. Try Not to Wet your Pants

It's never wise to drink three Louisiana sweet teas just hours before meeting David Sedaris.  While I'm sure my bladder is plenty strong.  And, while my years should reflect satisfactory continence, the truth of the matter is, David Sedaris is hilarious.  And, I'm sort of star-struck in the midst of all his nasaly glory.  So, when asked by a perky Barnes and Noble gal with a nose ring if I'd like a shot of Red Bull while I waited for my book to be signed, I kindly accepted.  Under these circumstances, pep certainly comes before comfort.  

"Who is Katie?" Sedaris asked as I handed him my open copy of When you are Engulfed in Flames.  He was referring to the post-it note strategically placed inside my book by a B&N staff member who then instructed me to write the name of the person I wished Sedaris to dedicate the book.  

"Oh, that's me," I said.  I'd rehearsed what I'd say to Sedaris--how to let him know I wasn't just some average-reader who got a kick out of the ridiculous shenanigans of his recorded life.  "It's a pleasure to meet you."  My voice raised an octave and a half.  I sounded like I'd shed the mature half of a college and high school diploma.  But, behind the voice, I was a reader of language and detail.  I appreciated the structure and form and pondered the almighty Truth (with a capital T) in his memoirs.

"Who are you here with?" His skinny permanent marker fluttered across the book.  This was not the question that would lead into the introduction of the real Katie on the post-it-note.  Katie-the-writer.  Katie-the-MFA-candidate. 

"Oh, um, Jenny Sutcliffe," I said as I lifted my palm to my left in true Vanna White fashion.  "My boyfriend's mom."

"She's going to be a famous writer someday," Jenny piped in.  Perfect!  What a lead!  But, by this point I'd been shooed to the end of the table.  I clutched my now-famous book in my hands.  

"I'm in an M.F..."  

"You can step around this way to exit the area," a security guard, accompanied by two more, said in a voice that made up for any deep testosterone lacking in the author's.

My time had ended.  And as my intentions to impress Sedaris with my almost-credentials flowed out, my urge to pee once again settled back in to my humbly disappointed bladder.  As I tip-toed to the restroom, careful not to jar the rolling pouch of urine to any particular side, I glanced down at my personalized dedication: To Katie, I'm so happy you can walk. DS

#  #  #

"I gotta use it!" became an anthem of my short teaching career.  In my own school days set in rural 1990s suburbia, semantic-arguments with teachers spawned from this particular restroom interchange:  "Can I use the bathroom?" 

"Yes you can, but you may not."

But in South Louisiana, the standard "I gotta use it" was surely followed with a "Use what?"  At least by a non-native.  Never mind that one is a question and one is a firm declaration.  Middle Schoolers have to pee.  And, somehow, they can never quite ask appropriately.

#  #  #

"Listen, you have got to stop wetting your pants.  You are too old for this."  Nurse Malley spent most of her days changing young students into dry, urine-free clothes and handing out Ziplocks full of ice to the occasional recess-noggin-bump.  "You've been in here once already this week," she continued.  The kindergardener nodded his little head as he synched his belt and zipped his fly.  She put the green Nurses Pass around his neck, and prepared him for the trek downstairs to the elementary hallway.  Jordan had been waiting in the doorway.  He'd grown this academic year, if not in maturity, at least a few inches.  Nurse Malley mentally prepared for his request.  A bandaid, perhaps.  An ice bag.  A peppermint for an upset tummy. 

"Why are you here?" she asked.  Jordan looked to the ground.  

"Same as him."  He shrugged his left shoulder toward the six year old who had wet himself.  Jordan-the-seventh-grader, for whatever reason, pissed his much larger pants.  At the time, I was appalled.  But tonight, after nearly soiling my twenty-something slacks over a homosexual with a funny bone, I feel for the Middle Schoolers who haven't quite learned to hold it.