I'm a Bouncer

Writing Exercise...

Bouncing on an Empty Stomach

Nothing was certain during those first years. Even the simplest of lessons (circle the noun or underline the verb or please write your name in the upper right hand corner) couldn’t be trusted. Anything was bound to happen: a fire drill, a lock down, a loss of electricity, an overheard projector malfunction. Jada forgot her pencil. Or, Adam forgot his meds. Or, Darius forgot his deodorant again. And today, with the Louisiana humidity that could penetrate even the thickest of concrete walls, the smell in your classroom is pungent and sour. It makes you gag. You realize that you should have had the foresight to wear a bandanna around your nose like the cowgirl teacher you want to be. Lassoing, wrangling, whipping sense into these unruly minds. Nothing was certain. Nothing was quite predictable. Insanity, yes. That was certainly predictable. But not its route, not the course it would take.

Nothing was certain during those first years. Except this. For whatever reason (because you’re young or stupid or eager) you insist on plunging into the hormonal hellfire of a middle school brawl. Girls on girls. Boys on boys. Sometimes, even, boys on girls or girls on boys. The logistics never mattered. Sixth graders. Eighth graders. Special ed. Regular ed. It is you who would abandon your classroom. As if to say to your class through the language of the honed teacher-look you deliver before you run out the door: Be good. Be still. Keep writing. I’ll be back once I bounce these fighting knuckleheads out of my hallway. It could be anywhere. Your classroom, the hallway, the gymnasium, the basketball courts. You take ownership over whatever space you occupy. You’re allowed to, you decide. You’re new. You’re young. But, you’re a teacher. And you will not stand by and watch even the most idiotic of adolescents beat each other while everyone else, teachers and students alike, stand by and take it for a show.

The administrators will continue to say, “Ms. Field, just stand back next time. Shout ‘Stop, stop’. That’s all we require of you. No need to get yourself hurt.” But, you’ll continue as a bouncer. Because of adrenaline or because you know that this is one surefire way to defend your authority.

# # #

It’s just past six thirty. The sun is mildly creeping upwards. A haze shrouds the sun, draping its offensiveness. Never mind the studies that repeatedly report that yes, in fact, adolescent development would appreciate a school day that began at a decent hour. The bell will ring at its programmed time, in just a few minutes, and our day together will start, whether anyone is ready or not. Once a week I stand on these basketball courts with three other teachers. We are to spread out. Spread our dominance over chaotic quadrants of students. Boys to the right, girls to the left, and separated by grade. Sixth, seventh, eighth. I’m always on the boys’ side. Ms. H. is always on the girls’. And the other two, when they show up, stand somewhere near the door and away from the kids. They sip coffee, yawn and talk about the stuckness of their careers.

I walk up and down the rows of the boys’ side. I’m like a warden, clasping my hands behind my back and lifting my chin toward the hazy sun. It’s just me and Ms. H. The other two won’t come out until the bell is thirty seconds from ringing. I suppose it is their veteran status that gives them this leniency.

There is more chatter from the girls’ side. It swells in crescendo. They are clearly more awake, or someone is stirring drama.

The boys’ side stands unaffected. There’s R. I was responsible for his expulsion last year. Once, he fell asleep in my class and when I gently roused him he lifted his hand, cocked his thumb and pointed his index finger right at my chest. He fired several imaginary shots at me, lifted his head, yawned and got back to work.

“How’s it going, R.?” I ask. “Good year so far?”

“It’s a’ight,” he says backing up toward the chain link fence. He’s eyes are half drawn shades. He’s sleepwalking or high or both. I continue my rounds.

There’s B. He was transferred to my class when he couldn’t hack it in the Advanced English class.

“What’s up, B?” I say. He high-fives me and smiles. “Do your homework last night?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he says. “Did it like a rock star.”

“All right, B. See you in class.”

I continue to weave up and down the rows and address crucial issues like dress code and gum chewing. Spit it. Tuck it in. Pull them up. Hand it over. Put it away. I’m a series of incessant imperative phrases.

I look over to Ms. H. and the girls’ side. There is a cluster in the eighth grade section. Clusters are usually bad news. And then, the earrings come out. This is the worst indicator of all. Something messy is about to go down. The first girl rips out her hoops, throws them to the concrete below. The second girl hands her earrings to a friend who stands behind in support. They are each doing a familiar dance. Catcalling out to one another, inviting the other to start the show. Ms. H. is in between these girls. She looks so small. I eye my rows of boys as if to say: Be good. Be still. I’ll be back once I bounce those girls off these courts.

I run to join Ms. H. “Ladies,” she’s says. “Cool it. Not here. Not now.” Her arms spread to make invisible boundary lines.

“Back up, ladies,” I say. “This is not happening. Calm it down.”

The first girl, the one whose hoop earrings on are the ground, charges toward the other. I swing around her so as not to become swept into the messy vortex. I grab her from behind. I must look like I’m administering the Heimlich maneuver. Neither Ms. H. nor I know these girls. We can’t use their first names. “Uh uh,” we say. “Nuh uh, oh no. Oh no you did not.” We sassy up our dialect. It’s what happens. We can’t help it. But then Ms. H. goes quiet because my girl, the one I’m bear-hugging is already there, in the eye of the hurricane. Ms. H. is on the ground. I can see this because I’ve levitated upwards toward the hazy sun. I’m a parasite on the Girl With The Hoop Earrings. Feeding off her intensity. Yelling into her ear, “Stop! Stop it! Back down.” Imperative phrases are the most assertive. My cheek is nestled into her hair. It smells like strawberry. My stomach, prompted by my nose, sloshes in its emptiness. When your feet aren’t sure when they’ll touch down to the ground, you don’t interpret this sloshing as innocent hunger. It becomes nausea. It makes you sweat the kind of cold clammy sweat that comes before you pass out. Ms. H. climbs up the other girl like a tree. She swats Ms. H. away with her fingernails, which have been recently pressed on with glue. Ms. H. tucks her chin and uses her hands for eyes. She’s standing now. Our faces are close, but mine is still higher up. I’m still waiting for my feet to drop. The hazy sun becomes a pointillist painting. I’m no longer a bouncer. I’m bouncing on the back of an eighth grade girl.

# # #

Nothing was certain, except for the fighting. Those were bound to happen, and we, the young or stupid or eager new teachers stepped in. Every time. But, we couldn’t have predicted the divots in Ms. H.’s wrists. Or that she would have to be taken to the hospital for insurance purposes. We couldn’t have predicted that this morning of all mornings I should have eaten something. Bouncers don’t pass out on the job. “For Pete’s sake, ladies. You’re too little to be getting up in that mess,” the Principal would say. “Next time stand back and yell. Jesus. Stand back next time.” And then he laughs.

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!

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.

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!

The (only) public high school in Ville Platte, Louisiana, may be forced to close its doors for good, as voters rejected a property tax increase that would have allowed for the rebuilding of the school. It is literally falling apart and needs serious renovation. If, in fact, the school shuts down, students will be dispersed to schools up to 30 miles away.  The Principal projects that many students might simply drop out instead of transferring.  It also so happens that the school is predominantly black, failing under NCLB and it has been suggested that white community members voted against rebuilding the school because they think its unfair to "pay for a school their children do not attend."

The NYTimes article (read it here) is written in true Buzz Bissinger fashion (read Friday Night Lights if you haven't) as it is told through the frame of the Ville Platte High School Bulldogs football season, giving the players a voice.  Bissinger may have been right when he compared Odessa, TX, to other pockets of small town America.  Do I see another football/education book in your future, Buzz? 

Geauxbama, Gumbobama

Because teaching for me is so closely intertwined with South Louisiana washboard-spooning-fiddle plucking-crawfish boiling-two stepping culture. And because there are thirteen days left until the election. Here is a phenomenal video featuring Red Stick Ramblers' own Linzay among other fixtures in the Cajun/Creole music arena. And see the washboard player? C and I once asked him for directions in Lafayette, LA, thinking he was just a friendly Joe Six Pack in our beloved Red state. He pointed us to Grant St. Dance Hall where he later proceeded to hop on stage and go to town on that aluminum that drapes his chest. Here he joins other community musicians who support Obama in a place no one is allowed to call anything but pro-America.

I miss Louisiana...

I posted a video of Anna West performing a poem a few days ago.  In light of Hurricane Gustav's effect on Baton Rouge (that has virtually gone unnoticed in the media), the NYTimes finally acknowledged Red Stick's less-than-bearable living conditions.  Anna West and her son are photographed reading with a flashlight...

Read the entire story here.

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.

Watch Anna West stick it to the Board of Ed:

Battle for the Board of Ed

New Orleans Schools in a Hurricane of Reform...

New York Times Magazine - A Teachable Moment