Teaching with Tim

Everything is building up to May 12th, when I will graduate from LMU, taking my Master’s in secondary ed. and–after one more month teaching–closing this two-year Teach for America chapter. TFA loves to tell new recruits that after two years they “won’t recognize themselves.” The implication, I suppose, is that after two years of teaching you will be revitalized as a human being (complete with glowing halo and beatific smile). After about a month of teaching, I started to think that this slogan was actually Teach for America’s crafty disclaimer (“In two years, you won’t recognize yourself” = “Don’t blame us if you look like roadkill after two years”). Having survived the first year and found some stability as a teacher, I don’t feel that way anymore, but this is a tough sprint to the finish line. Between now and May 12th, I have five field trips, three video-taped observations, two culminating papers, one formal lesson plan, one electronic portfolio… and a partridge in a pear tree. That said, sixth period is beginning to stabilize, and I’m feeling fine about going in next week. It can’t be that bad if I’m planning on sticking around another year. And on a non-teaching note, I spent a great Easter with my Easter cousins, and hope that more friends and family are on the way to visit soon… (hint hint)

One kid can be like a drop of red food coloring in a class of clean water.  I say “red” to connote the rage that one student can spread across an otherwise unremarkable day of teaching.  I’ll call her Jocelyn.  She’s an OT (opportunity transfer, i.e. expellee) from another middle school. If my sixth period students are the Harlem Globetrotters of trouble-making, then Jocelyn is the starting point guard. When she talks, she emphasizes her words by bobbing her head side to side like she’s trying to look at something right behind you.  The message, sent partly by body language and partly by tone, is “Why are you talking to me?  You’re a waste of space.”  Here are a few of her catch phrases:

 “It ain’t gum!”

“What did I do?”

“I dunno!”

If you look at the words alone, they don’t sound too terrible. But when you experience them in their full, dolby-surround sound glory—head bobbing, lip-smacking, eye rolling, and voice lilting included—you understand why Jocelyn gets kicked out of every school she goes to. Her attitude is a force of nature.  

Yesterday, the day before spring break, I caught her chewing gum for the 1,435^th time.  I told her to spit it out.  After the obligatory claims of innocence, she at least went to the garbage can (I can’t be sure she spit it out).  I told her to stay after school for ten minutes, but she made a break for the door when the bell rang.  I called down the hall, I sent security after her–but she was gone.  My mood, after an otherwise decent day, took a nasty nosedive.  I called Jocelyn’s mom and received a vague, absent-minded promise of disciplinary action.  We’ll see.

I don’t mean to give the impression that all of my students are like Jocelyn… or even that Jocelyn herself is all that bad.  She’s just a kid, desperate to be as cool as possible.  I like to focus on the tough ones because they’re usually the most interesting.  Since I have honors classes, most of my students are studious and respectful, some of them even more so than I was at their age. I have one student who may well be a genius.  But my sixth period class has five OTs in it, and they exhaust me.   

            I’m headed to the Land of Enchantment to for spring break to recharge.  I’ll be spending the next five days at “Ghost Ranch” in New Mexico, just watching the lizards soak up the desert sun.  When I come back I’m sure I’ll feel better about the time between now and June 19, 2008—but I still suspect that when the bell rings at the end of that day, I’ll make my own mad dash for the door. 

With February behind me, the fires of teacher burn-out are subsiding somewhat.  The doctor diagnosed me with acute tonsillitis, along with a recurrent case of flu, and he gave me some submarine-sized capsules to fight back the infection.  They seem to be working.  I no longer feel like locking myself in the teacher bathroom during passing period and sleeping on the floor.  I guess I can see myself as a middle school English teacher for at least one more year.  But I don’t know how much longer I can pretend to be a Californian.  I miss my family, and I’m sick of traffic.  No offense to all you die-hard Angelinos out there (“it’s not smog, it’s haze!”)—the city does have its plusses: sun, sand, movies–but that concrete wasteland vibe is a real soul-killer.  I often find myself sitting in gridlock on the 110, forehead pasted to the steering wheel, thinking “is this any way for human beings to live?”  A bit melodramatic, I know.  But the environment is literally poisonous.  They say that Southern Californian cadavers have black lungs regardless of whether the person smoked.  Ewww.   

            On a more cheerful note, I’m skipping out on teaching for three days next week to go to a “Computer Using Educators” conference in Palm Springs.  I just hope I won’t return to a devastated classroom.  Generally speaking, my students have not been kind to substitutes.  (For a long time, I had a substitute’s note from my first year pinned to my bulletin board: 4^th Period: Terrible students.  Spit balls.  Screaming.).  I’ve never left my classroom for three days in a row before.  But that’s a worry for another day, and it will be great to get out of the city for a while. 

            More updates to come, but now I’m off to chaperone my Students Run L.A. kids at the L.A. Marathon.  Hopefully they will all finish, otherwise I’ll be wandering the streets of Los Angeles looking for dazed, exhausted middle schoolers…