Seeing What We Do Not See: Not for Nothing

His parents and grandparents found out he had flunked out of high school at the moment they waited for him to walk across the stage--and he didn't.

He went on to a life of alcohol, low paying jobs, broken relationships.

Around age 48, he got sober and he realized that if he ever ever ever wanted to rise in the work world, he'd need a diploma, so he went back to school at night - he had a family that needed him to.

Grossmont Adult School

At age 50, Phillip Esquibel told this story during his address at his graduation from Grossmont Adult School--his parents were cheering for him, but I swear they weren't louder than I was. (They were glad, but I was crying like a baby. And for the record, some babies cry A  LOT--those are the babies to whom I am comparing my crying output.)

I was at his graduation because a student I'd never even had on my roster asked me to come.

I'd met M in an after-school program our 8th grade history department had dreamed up after we realized that most of the Fs in our classes were because kids didn't seem to have one of the two fundamentals a person needs to succeed--adequate personal drive or an adult able/willing to MAKE them take care of business. We decided I'd be that adult, forcing them to come after school, making them stay an hour doing history work. They could "graduate" from our prison of love and responsibility once their habits or grades seemed established (we had only one or two kids exit). I didn't get paid for this, and we didn't have any help beyond the counselor who called the parents and talked to them about this intervention as if it were not an option. We had such limited success and it took so much of my energy that we only did it this one year.

Imagine my surprise when, seven years later, M came to visit the DP teacher's lounge at lunchtime with an invitation for me to come watch her get her GED at Grossmont Adult School. My heart leaped up that she had gone on to TCB on her own, coming to the realization (at age 20) that this was better done sooner than later. (NB: she invited me, not her regular teachers, to the event, although many of them were sitting right there as she asked me. I felt she had given me a crown or a Major Award in singling me out. It was awkward, but while embarrassed, I felt honored and touched to my core.)

This Major Award is also awkward and embarrassing. 

I had never been to an adult school graduation and had no idea what to expect. It wasn't like other graduations I'd been to. It was small, for one thing; there were far more graduates than guests, even though guest seating was limited and some had to stand. The air somehow smelled a little bit like privation and the crowd was weathered and worn after the long day's work. Love was there, and all kinds of pride. The teachers in particular stood out to me, relentlessly positive, faces beaming, full of the stories that their students had told them of broken pasts healed, language and learning obstacles surmounted, wasted time redeemed, aimlessness turned to purpose, goals achieved, new goals set. The students themselves were full of hope and encouragement; one grad's mortarboard's glittered message: "I'm a g-ma--if I can, U can!"

Much nicer than the glitter of the grandma graduating--but the idea is the same.
BTW, the g-ma looked to be around 50 years old; that told part of her story.

It was the best graduation I've ever been to, better than the Harvard commencement address in Latin (which was hilarious because the student kept slipping into commonly used Latin words and phrases and into Pig Latin so the non-Latin speakers understood his gist) or the 1997 address by Madeleine Albright.

A great speech, sure, but Phillip's made me cry.

It was a validation of the human spirit, of the old saying that you're never too old to start, or it's not how you start but how you finish and dozens more old sayings about tenacity.

And watching beautiful M shake hands, taking pictures of her like mad, I wondered if it was also a validation of that long ago program that we'd jettisoned.

Beautiful M shakes hands, ready for the next step in Life

Or maybe it was a testimony to time given, to high expectations, to the influence of relentless attention, to the power of relationship. September is coming, and while I do love my summers and, like a proper Beach Boy look forward to my Endless Summer, I can pick up my new teacher year with a renewed sense of faith in the power of Love, knowing that while we teachers do not usually get to see the direct outcome of our efforts or caring, we do not love in vain.

Don't get me wrong--

I get a little down in September and it's NOT because I don't love what I do.

It's because I love my summers. Long mornings, being fit once again, naps, BOOKS. I get down because all that disappears AND because I start all over again.

Come June, the kids and I have become a strange learning family. We have all kinds of shorthand and inside jokes. They know when I am joking around and when I am deadly serious. They can read my face and body language. They ask about my family and they bring me chocolate and cookies. And I can read them, as well.

Come September,  I am playing to a tough crowd. I crack all sorts of hiLARious jokes and they are scared to laugh--I'm serious--they will snigger into their hands because "what if this crazy teacher lady isn't trying to make us laugh and we get in trouble?" I forget how difficult it is to cleanly launch a class on a successful learning trajectory, how tough it is to teach them that we often enjoy our learning, but Fun is not the point--LEARNING is the point.

It's all good by October.  The cookies start coming, and they learn they can joke back and we laugh with abandon as long as we stay en pointe.

Here's to a new year with kids who catch on quickly!

That moment when the high school usurps your curriculum...AGAIN

Last post was about my thrilledness (Humpty Dumpty and Shakespeare give us all permission to invent words) over my highly gifted kids getting into Lord of the Flies. I was exuberant.

(I never blogged about why this unit was a big deal. See, I'd been teaching Animal Farm and To Kill a Mockingbird to my 8th graders for four years when the high school VP emailed my principal and told him those books were now (thanks, Common Core) going to be taught in 9th grade. It was more than lame--for one, I was getting ready to launch AF in a week or so, and two, TKAM is just my favorite. For three, teaching TKAM was so awesome after teaching Elie Wiesel's Night--to teach about a man of courage just brought me joy and was a wonderful counterpoint to Night's darkness. OK, I reconciled myself to writing units for two new texts this year. I asked the VP what the upper grades were teaching and only heard from one 9th grade teacher.

Fine. I spent days creating a unit for Lord of the Flies, and boy did I get excited. Talked to a teacher friend in Texas. Stole a few ideas from a teacher in Pennsylvania. Got some ideas straight from the Creator. Man, this was gonna be waaaay better than AF, waaaaay deeper. You can see read about my excitement here and here.)

Things just kept getting better, especially when I assigned chapter 8 for reading and the kids came in all shaking their heads about the answer to the question, "Who IS 'Lord of the Flies?'" Whoo!!!

After school that day I had a couple of formers come by to visit, sophomores in Honors English at the local high school. "Guess what we're reading, Miss M?" Oh dear Lord, please, no....

I dashed off an email to my principal and the high school VP, forwarding an old email where I'd asked for what the upper grades taught. I told them I'd heard no reply. I told them SOME of what my unit contained--Hobbes, Rousseau, leadership theory, Christ figure symbology, Freud--and got the response: "My best advice is to check with the department head before you select novels."

Are. You. Serious....

If my kids could do this in 8th grade, shouldn't the 10th grade teacher tackle something tougher? Give them Plato. Or just TELL ME WHAT THE UPPER GRADES ARE DOING, AS I'D ASKED. Or ask US what WE'VE done at the lower grades!

Anyway, my principal wrote a response supporting me: "Please understand that we need to keep Lord of the Flies here at DP." I haven't heard anything back from the high school or from him. I am hoping no new news is good news, but it's been a loonnnnng time since I have been that deflated. Gonna press on this year with my plans--comparing Peter Brueghel's paintings to the novels, finding music that goes with each character (compiling the definitive LOTF soundtrack with rationales), writing fine literary analysis papers, and celebrating all of it with a luau complete with PORK (bahaha) and the "islands" creating displays of the symbols and characters chosen from the text: fire, specs, the conch, the beast, pigs, Ralph, Simon, Jack, Piggy......and when they get to high school and the high school forces them to do the same things I had them do already, it will be upon THEM to write a new unit. These kids are ready for more.

And I think I am done giving up the books that work so well with my history course. 

Teaching Is a Scream

He has alopecia...AND five times as much personality as the average person

Sometimes
  my eyes fill a little
  spill a little

Sometimes
   my heart beats a little quicker
   feels a little bigger

Unless you have taught
   and been hopelessly caught
   by the fun and the joys
   of these girls and these boys....

You
really
can't
possibly
understand
that my job
is truly
the best in the land.

Wasn't it Ella Who Sang "Too Darn Hot"?

I am TOO CRABBY to be flattered. Three kids came back to visit on this first Friday of the new school year, all happy and sweet and nostalgic, but NO. The back of my knees were sticky and there was an actual creek running down my spine. I was able to take about fifteen minutes and then diplomatically closed up the room and ended the visit early. (For being loving and diplomatic in my physical and psychological condition, I expect a major award or a Nobel Prize or something.)

Don't get me wrong--my kids are great. They are champions, sitting there on the plastic chairs that save their body heat and generously return it to them, reading about Jamestown's trials and tribulations. But that room.....

No Friday is good, but especially do NOT come visit me on a Friday when my bungalow's thermometer is at 92°.

Go away.

Strictly Surprising, Somewhat Unsettling

Soooo. A friend of my mom's is a kindergarten teacher, retiring any minute now. L. tells me she ran into a former student of mine, that they discovered this mutual connection somehow, some freakish incidence of Six Degrees from Lola Bacon. Apparently what he told her about me as a teacher is that I am very..... strict. Strict???

Though I've been teaching since the dawn of cell phones, this is the first time I've had THAT feedback. I kinda don't know what to make of it.

It's better to be remembered as strict than as lenient, I suppose, and "strict" is waaaay better than "horrible."

Ratemyteacher.com asks students to rate a teacher's helpfulness, clarity, and easiness. I do really well on the first two and think that is a teacher's goal. Students do not perceive me as an easy teacher. Is that the same thing as saying someone is strict?

What does that word mean, anyway? When I was in elementary school, it kind of was synonymous with "mean." If a teacher was nice but was in charge, we'd say, "She's nice, but she doesn't let kids get away with stuff," because the word "strict" had some bad connotations.

Am I strict? In September, I am super strict, I admit (a little defensively proud of it). There are only four rules for class and I have to make sure 35 or so 8th graders, crammed together in a small wooden bungalow with no a/c, LEARN stuff that they don't, let's face it, care about. When kids learn how to behave in September, that pays big dividends for the rest of the year.

But am I strict? I don't write referrals because my kids behave. The principal (well, the one who just left who was at the school for eight years) sends in student teachers and visitors and staff members to watch me because she thinks I'm a good class manager with good class rapport. Am I strict? Did that former student REALLY mean I was "mean?"

Postscript: This morning I read a blog that is usually way above my head, and I caught whiffs of my  post and of other doubts I've had about the meaning of my life, that I've never written a book, about possible self-delusion, and personal struggles as a teacher in a public school setting (a Christian teacher, what's more).  This post by Dr. Holly Ordway gave me a handle: http://www.hieropraxis.com/2011/01/i-can-be-a-failure/

"It Is so Happy to Love..."

"It is with great revelry and pride

that we send our

physician into the future.

Join us for the graduation of

Dr. M. M. G.

from Des Moines University

College of Medicine

on May 25, 2013"

M. was in my first class at my present school, one of the sparkliest diamonds in a pretty dang sparkly class, let's see, waaay back in 1998-1999. She is 26 now, having chosen the most difficult degree to pursue, and the world is better off because of her.  I am soooo proud.

When you love someone, you are vulnerable. When someone you love makes bad choices, you hurt, too. As a teacher I love about 160 new people a year. I have been teaching over 20 years. Frankly, that's a lot of hurting. I have corresponded with a former in prison who can't seem to shake drugs and the accompanying crime. I have attended the baby shower of a former who dropped out when she got pregnant during her senior year in high school (well I tried, but her water broke that morning so the shower was cancelled). I have heard of formers who work in the porn industry. One of my formers ran a drug ring at SDSU and will be in prison for a while. I have heard news about formers shot dead. One student fell to her death jumping out of a window to elude police crashing an underage party. These events are devastating. The hurts are nigh inconsolable.

This graduation invitation boosts me. She did not become a doctor because of me, nor did I steer her from bad decisions. She came out of the womb, I think, with her head on straight, and she kept it straight. This success boosts me because when you love someone who achieves her goal, you feel her exhilaration, her relief, her joy. It warms me because she is including me in her circle, knowing how great this makes me feel, who have always cheered her on, admiring her, knowing she could do anything with her big brain and bright smile. 

Here is a quote from my favorite allegory, Hind's Feet on High Places, that sums up why Love is always worth it, even though Pain is the risk:

     “She bent forward to look, then gave a startled little cry and drew back. There was indeed a seed  lying in the palm of his hand, but it was shaped exactly like a long, sharply-pointed thorn… ‘The seed looks very sharp,’ she said shrinkingly. ’Won’t it hurt if you put it into my heart?’

     He answered gently, ‘It is so sharp that it slips in very quickly. But, Much-Afraid, I have already warned you that Love and Pain go together, for a time at least. If you would know Love, you must know pain too.’

     Much-Afraid looked at the thorn and shrank from it. Then she looked at the Shepherd’s face and repeated his words to herself. ’When the seed of Love in your heart is ready to bloom, you will be loved in return,’ and a strange new courage entered her. She suddenly stepped forward, bared her heart, and said, ‘Please plant the seed here in my heart.’

     His face lit up with a glad smile and he said with a note of joy in his voice, ‘Now you will be able to go with me to the High Places and be a citizen in the Kingdom of my Father.’

     Then he pressed the thorn into her heart. It was true, just as he had said, it did cause a piercing pain, but it slipped in quickly and then, suddenly, a sweetness she had never felt or imagined before tingled through her. It was bittersweet, but the sweetness was the stronger. She thought of the Shepherd’s words, ‘It is so happy to love,’ and her pale, sallow cheeks suddenly glowed pink and her eyes shown. For a moment Much-Afraid did not look afraid at all.”
― Hannah Hurnard, Hinds' Feet on High Places

Young Scholars: ¡Vivan los Cerebros!

Why sponsor another club and have even less time to do the things I already don't have time to do? In reply, all I can do is show you pictures of the Reasons I do what I do. And when you see them, you'll understand why our school will be participating in the third annual Young Scholars Academic Fair this coming spring:

March 17, 2012: second place winners at YSAF (but first cutest)

Last year was our first year, and we took first place! Well not quite, but second place was pretty close. You can perhaps see our translucent trophy held by our captain, K, on the rainiest Saturday of 2012.

We won every pre-final match--we beat every team, including the dreaded Marshall Middle School, the previous year's champs. Matches were tightly controlled, academic league style, which is probably not as cool as gangnam style, but waaay more inspiring:

Kicking academic booty

We were beyond excited for the championship match against Oak Valley Middle School--after all, we had A. whom we nicknamed WMD because really, his knowledge of everything in the world was atomic, plus we had beat them in an earlier match. We had team spirit--kids thought calling themselves The Skittles was awesome since the candy is bright (as are they) and sweet (as are they) and they could wear different colored t-shirts. Other teams wore dressy clothes and looked sharp, but our team was united by our theme, plus a mom sent packs of Skittles for us to eat as brain food. We were officially Team B, so while we awaited the final match, we threw up our team sign, the letter B in ASL:

Team B in da house

And then we got served. Oak Valley had a WMD of their own, and ours just couldn't seem to launch. We got obliterated. We were disappointed, and a few feisty ones were angry because our W-L record was the same as OVMS yet we took second, and it took all of my teacher powers to scrape their spirits off the floor and send them over with sincere faces and kind words to congratulate the team that bested them fair and square. And I think that helped them find their pride again.

This year we have three returning players and a flood of new talent. I don't think anyone is on A.'s level of weird retention of every fact about everything in the known universe, but the students had so much fun at our first practice this week and expressed such a desire to take first place that Oak Valley better watch out.

I suppose part of my sponsorship is my deep angst that sports overshadows academics in this land I love. Music programs get cut, but not football. So long, Art, but football is the sacred cow. I wish brains got the same accolades that catching a ball brings, but our country largely distrusts intellectuals and dismisses them as out of touch (one reason Obama gets bashed). Yet aside from my philosophy of education, just look at their faces: they are excited about being smart! And that's reason enough.

Mercury Rising

Boiling hot outside today. From my colleague's phone:

Boiling hot inside. Here's a snap of the thermometer in my classroom from another colleague's phone:

This wasn't just the hottest day on campus since ever. It was the day of a lockdown at the local high school.

As I drove to school, I saw at least three police cars parked along the canyon adjacent to the high school. Oh Lord, I prayed, please don't let any of our kids be involved in anything awful...

(...and they weren't. A couple of thieves tried to steal some copper wiring and fled to the canyon.)

When I pulled into my school, about seven yellow school buses had pulled over in front. Uh oh.

Kids could roast on the buses given the forecast, but the situation was so unpredictable. As the first teacher on campus I called the principal who came dashing in, grabbing the walkies and fielding emergency calls. We and another teacher boarded each bus, letting the students know they'd be our guests for a while, walking them to the auditorium.

We had to make sure the kids had food; many get their breakfast from their school. We had to take attendance for some 300 students and get release forms and deal with panicky parents. The kids had to be cooperative and patient in the emotional uncertainty, and here's the thing: they were amazing. One reed-thin Latino man-child slid onto the piano bench and began playing softly and slowly; one group of students sat cross-legged and experimented with makeup; another group played elementary playground hand slapping games. (!) I had to leave them to teach my regular students and by the time I left, an hour after their arrival, I knew they'd continue to be wonderful.

And then on to my actual students, full of fear and rumor. After good discussions about safety and why we do things the way we do, after answering their questions with what little I knew, we went on to the day's tasks. The heat came in like the hordes of Mordor, hot and merciless and overwhelming, and just like that, we had a different challenge: to carry on despite the physical burden of airless heat. The mercury jumped but the kids were champs. I even taught them our colonial region songs, and we gamely sang them.

Whatever may be wrong with public schools, it certainly is not the kids. I have always respected them, and today my respect deepened. I am proud of our staff--the way we circled the wagons, stepping up, solving problems, filling gaps, unasked and undirected--I am proud of the way our schools worked together in an emergency. And I am proud of the students who were bused in from far away, showing maturity and grace under pressure, and of the neighborhood kids who soldiered on, rising above heat exhaustion.

(If I hear anyone criticizing public school teachers this week as being lazy or incompetent or selfish...)

Three Reasons I Love Teaching Eighth Graders: a Haiku

1) Imaginative

2) Quickly forget to "act cool"

3) Can converse deeply

When seminar kid, I., showed me his crossed fingers, I had to take a picture! Simple, original, funny. I. is by far the greatest in the class at reading aloud; he is thoughtful about plot and theme, supports the ideas of others, and he enjoys wearing ridiculous hats.

Speaking of hats, one seminar student last year loved his topper but understood the school's no-hat-in-the-classroom policy and decided to come prepared to maintain the good condition of his natty accessory with his own portable hat stand, the ultimate in nerdy coolness:

I hope these pictures begin to show you why I have the world's best job.

It might be happening!!

This just may be the magical year...school-wide, the kids have been so good that there has been no need for Saturday School (where evil children do hard time)....almost all my students are doing all their homework...the normal distribution of grades in each class is abnormally skewed in the happy direction...and last Monday I got spontaneous and straight-up raucous applause from my Seminar class that had no idea what I meant!

All I said was, "Today will be our first Stupid M. Play-" and whoooo, boy, they just about woke the dead! A former student is doing some volunteer hours with me before she leaves to teach English in Korea, and I am so glad I had a witness. These are kids who want to be involved, jump in, learn! HUZZAH!

(I should add that to the magical year list--someone actually volunteering in a middle school classroom for nothing more than a diet Dr Pepper and the warm sense of satisfaction from helping others--)

Anyway, the only nonmagic is my study skills class. I had visions of transforming them, but really, my vision is much more literal now: come in, get to work, be productive. So far, they come in. The other two steps are next!

But I may have to call Disney: This year has the makings of a feel-good hit!

Charrrrge!

Every year, one of the highlights of the year is our all-8th-grade reenactment of Pickett's Charge, Lee's fateful gambit (wow, I've never actually used the word gambit before) that was the turning point of the battle of Gettysburg, and hence, many argue, of the war itself. My class takes the role of the Confederates against my colleague's Union army. (We lose every year.)

The night before, our soldiers write a rather prescient letter home after two indecisive days at Gettysburg and lay out their uniform for tomorrow: a gray hoodie or t-shirt. On the day of, they carefully secure the letter on their persons--in case they die-- and mentally prepare for battle by reading Joy Hakim's account.

General Lee, resplendent in uniform (handmade without a pattern by our talented financial secretary) and astride his trusty steed, Traveler (shown in the photo of a former student visiting me), along with General Pickett, lines up with his soldiers, while a replica of the Bonnie Blue Flag purchased by my colleague's mom and another replica of the more familiar Confederate flag (handsewn by a former student) snap in the breeze. A drummer beats out a marching cadence and we begin to sing the song we've earlier learned: "We are a band of brothers/Native to the soil/Fighting for the property/We gained by honest toil..." Our soldiers have gray slouch hats, thanks to generous ancestors, and off we march, having learned the week before how to march, halt, stand at ease, stand at attention, right, left, and about face. (It was beyond scary the first time I attempted to teach them to march outside the confines of the bungalow, but it usually is a super fun and wonderful day.)

As we march down the hallway, random 6th and 7th graders pop out of windows and wave (or shout) at us, but we are intent on keeping time and the soldiers are disciplined.

We reach Cemetery Hill in time to hear a few trumpet players from the local high school wrap up "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." We see the Angle, a low wall and the target of the attack, represented by a row of inverted garbage cans and butcher paper, protecting Mr. F's blue-garbed soldiers, Old Glory held high, General Meade proudly riding his horse. General Meade is also uniformed, thanks to our talented financial secretary. The Confederates swing into position, watching for the student who is holding up huge numbers which signify what actions they are to take as I begin a voice over of the battle from Interact's Civil War unit (I got the idea and the script from this unit and it has evolved into this big epic day with the help of Mr. F and Mr. T.). The sounds of battle (from the sound track of the war film Glory) are piped in as soldiers begin to be "shot", literally when their number is up, raised by the student on the hill. And when number ten is raised, the kids in gray t-shirts--er, Pickett's regiment--charge up the hill to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

And I mean it. They play Rock-Paper-Scissors to determine who lives and who dies in an engagement, but with this twist: Confederates must win twice in a row while Union soldiers need win only once. This mathematically ensures the slaughter of the Confederates that actually occurred that day. (My idea, and I am inordinately proud of it!)

Soldiers get to die as dramatically as they wish, as long as they keep in mind the B-5 Three Commandments:

1) Thou shalt not damage a prop.

2) Thou shalt not harm another person.

3) Thou shalt not harm thyself.

Clara Barton, reincarnated as an 8th grade girl and wearing a dress handsewn by that genius in the financial office, braves the bullets with two stretcher bearers wearing lab coats swiped from the science department, evacuating the smaller wounded soldiers to safety. A few years we had a dry ice machine creating battle smoke. Whoa...

When number eleven is raised and the drum beats a retreat tattoo, the remaining Confederates straggle to the "woods" where their distraught generals have watched the destruction of the regiment. And then it's over. But not yet.

Mr. F. has the "survivors" doff their hats, and as we survey the "carnage," he explains the meaning of Memorial Day and the significance of the battle we commemorated. And then, slowly, sweetly, Taps is played by the visiting trumpet players. I'm not gonna hide it: sometimes a tear slips out and rolls down my face.

Then Mr. F has the "dead" rise and rejoin the surviving Confederates. Our sides salute and huzzah each other for valiance, and then Mr. Lincoln comes out to dedicate the field as a final resting place to those who here gave their lives that the United States might live. It would be more impressive if we had a tall skinny middle aged man instead of our young female helper, but she reads it beautifully and wears a black jacket and top hat to good effect.

We march back to HQ, my bungalow, drop off the props and spray them with Oust for the next period, and then watch a five minute clip of the war film Gettysburg so the students can see the reality of what they were portraying.

It's a long day for us teachers (no prep, and even lunch is spent feeding our high school guests), but one they remember fondly, I hope. This year we had all the mobile special education students marching (the rest cheered from wheelchairs on the sidelines or waved Union flags), and it was such an honor for us all to include them. S. is a favorite--he is a diminutive fellow with long hair, glasses, and fondness for acting cool. Here is a shot of him.

I love my job.

Join the Jedi

He came midyear, and after his first day, all the girls were in love with him and all the guys wanted to be him. Teachers, parents, friends--Bruce Davis, Jr made us glad to know him. He wasn't the best writer, but his astute comments during class discussions made involvement in education important, cool, even. Nobody goofed off when Bruce was around; he just thought it was silly to be disrespectful.

He was voted president of the middle school's African American Club and his leadership was palpable: positivity, peace, levelheadedness, sensibility, faithfulness all characterized this gifted young man. I believe he won "Most Leadership" in our school yearbook.

He moved to Mississippi after his sophomore year, graduated from high school, was attending community college--and was fatally shot in the chest this October 15.

In looking for more information about his murder, my heart broke to read that the violence was allegedly due to a drug deal gone bad. I didn't want to believe it. It had to be his cousin's deal, not his own. But a tribute video included some pictures that told of choices that Bruce had made--choices that included a gang, if I were to believe the bandana covering his mouth, or the sign he threw as one picture was taken, or his gang moniker tattooed across his chest.

When did he join? When he still lived in San Diego? When did he get involved with drugs? And the bigger question: Why did he go in that direction?

WHY DOES THAT GANG LIFESTYLE APPEAR SO ATTRACTIVE TO OUR YOUTH?? I am heartbroken. But I am also so angry I can't see straight. My stomach is a knot. Some kids don't have a caring family, don't have a strong sense of self, don't know better, have family members with a long history of thugging. But Bruce doesn't seem to fit that pattern.

I fight it, that lifestyle, every day. It only looks like I teach history and English. I am really teaching a belief system. I teach kids to believe in hard work, in excellence, in patience, in goals, in choosing the better way. I am just one soldier; other teachers, a scout leader, a youth pastor, a coach, an uncle--we are all Jedi fighting against the dark side of the Force, against the lure of fame and fortune hawked by music videos and lifestyles of those celebrities and athletes who serve the gods of Self and Pleasure above all. We Jedi do not save them all. And we do not know our influence; when we hear such discouraging news, it's easy to feel that our fight is of no avail, especially in the face of the money machines of Madison Avenue, of the music industry, of Hollywood. But by God Almighty let us continue to fight the good fight in the hopes of saving others, of helping our children reject destruction, drugs and death.

I love you, Bruce. The real Bruce, not the fake one in the picture above, but the young man I am posting here in his graduation robes. The fact that Bruce was in community college shows that he was still a believer in education, and that the fake Bruce in the evil picture hadn't completely won the battle. I'd like to believe that had Bruce lived, he would have one day joined us and been a most powerful Jedi, or like Anakin Skywalker, come back at the end. R.I.P., Bruce Davis, Jr. You will be missed.

Better than a raise, George Clooney, and chocolate combined

It's only been a half dozen years since Facebook's invention, way too soon to fully gauge its impact on American culture. Certainly, educators debate its merits and, like advertisers, look to exploit it for their classroom purposes. For instance, teachers have kiddos assume the role of famous historical figures and have them set up FB pages with those people in mind.

Educators also debate the pros and cons of "friending" students. I joined FB without thinking this through, immediately accepting FB friendship invitations from former students I hadn't kept in contact with. However, I've made it a policy not to accept any "FB friend" invitations from current students; I explain to the inviters that our professional teacher/student relationship needs to be intact for both of us to best do our jobs, but that I am delighted to maintain future contact because, after our school year is over, we can truly call ourselves friends.

Today I received an invitation from the nicest kid I've ever met, my own family members included. In twenty years of teaching with gigantical California-style class sizes, I've met a TON of kids. But N., in my first period class this year, really is something special. I received an FB invite from him this morning. Before I accept such invitations, I go to their pages to check them out, and look what I found on his page--it melted my heart and reminded me AGAIN about how blessed I am to do what I do:

Nxxxxx Rxxxxxx

Who has changed your life most this year?

Ms.M!!!!

June 1 at 6:36pm via Social Interview

Awwwwww!! Does this happen to mortgage brokers? Engineers? CEOs?
Money is nice, but the best things in life really are free.

Friday Afternoon Visitors

Your eyes open wide

when I say I'm leaving as 

soon as I can. 

"Why?"

Harvest

One look at that smile and I recognized the 22 year old man the erstwhile 8th grader had morphed into. B. had been one of the "Who's Who" of the office--generally in trouble, but of the mildest kind, the type of boy who knows exactly how to dance on the line between being a nuisance and being in major doo doo. B.'s beautiful, mischievous award-winning smile* and good-natured sense of humor** had surely saved him more than once from certain death at the bare hands of frustrated teachers throughout his educational journey.

And here he was, getting permission to do some observations for (uh, did I hear him correctly?) his student teaching class. Oh, the irony! We laughed so hard together! He is going to be amazing: brains, humor, and insider's knowledge into the trappings of the adolescent male mind. This'll keep me going for at least a few years!

*he won best smile in our yearbook
** when another teacher saw the Chargers tattoo on his inner arm, she remarked, "That one musta hurt..." and he said, "Oh no, that's a birthmark..."

KARMA?

no mischievous kid
imagines he'll one day want
to be a teacher