Teaching with Tim

Crossing a river during our return to Malibu Creek State Park on Saturday

Since my return from Ecuador, every day in the classroom has been packed with activity, and the weeks have been streaming by.  It’s hard to believe that I’m going to be leaving Southeast and Los Angeles forever in less than two months.  I’m excited about Japan, but in some ways the time seems to be going too fast.

A few quick highlights from the classroom.

My 8th Grade honors students recently read the novel Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros.  It’s about a Mexican-American girl named Celaya who grows up in Chicago.  All the family squabbles and fiery characters make it perfect for dramatic re-enactment–particularly by Spanish-speaking kids.  I asked the students to create and perform their own skits about selected chapters from the book.  The result was one of the most memorable periods I have ever spent in the classroom.  They memorized their lines, brought in props, and truly brought the story to life, chasing each other around the room, screaming at one another in Spanish, and fully inhabiting the characters of the book.  Not every skit was Oscar-worthy, of course, but watching them act made me wish that I would just sit down and shut up in my classroom more often.  I’ve been told many times that master teachers are usually facilitators of learning rather than lecturers, and that statement seems more and more true with each year in the classroom. 

One of the many characters who came to life during our skits.

Later on in the same week, I took my journalism students on a field trip to the LA Times building.  I am acquainted with a couple of the journalists there from when I wrote for the now-defunct “Homeroom” latimes.com education blog.  I can’t deny experiencing a bit of an ego boost when we happened to run into one of them during our tour of the building–in front of the students, it made me seem like some kind of insider, especially since she had written the front page article for the Times that was out on the day of our tour, and she took quite a bit of time out of her workday to answer my students’ questions about being a journalist. 

Later, Pulitzer-prize winning car critic Dan Neil walked by, and our tour guide called out “What have you got in your driveway this week, Dan?” 

“A Bentley,” he said, and then rattled off some statistics about its torque and horsepower.  My seventh-grade boys’ jaws dropped.  And from the teaching perspective, the pot just got sweeter when our tour guide told the students that Neil had majored in literature in college and then used his love of good writing to create unforgettable car reviews (Here’s the lead for one of his Pulitzer-winners: “Like many great beauties–Marilyn Monroe, for instance–the new Chrysler Crossfire has a faintly tragic air about it.  And like many consumers of beauty–Frank Sinatra, for instance–I’m only too happy to exploit it.) 

Our tour guide was an affable PR employee who called the kids “dude” and seemed to love his job.  He kept the kids fully engaged.  At one point, though, he pointed out the $600 ergonomically-sound desk chairs used by Times journalists–I felt proud (though also a little embarrassed) when one of my Eagle Times reporters asked why the company is buying desk chairs at $600 apiece instead of hiring back recently laid-off journalists.  Our guide was prepared with a solid response–something about carpal-tunnel syndrome and journalists needing good chairs like construction workers need hard hats–but I still liked the lingering look of journalistic skepticism on my student’s face.

It was amazing, though, how engaged they were.  “Deadlines” are sometimes treated more like ”suggested completion times”  at The Eagle Times, and some students can seem more interested in organizing the “Shout-Outs page (“Lakers Rule!” -Miguel) than in doing any hard-hitting journalism.  But when they were in the Times building, overhearing real reporters conducting intense phone conversations about missing documents and walking past secret service SUVs at the building entrance, they were all business, asking insightful questions and paying close attention.  I’ve been spouting vague aphorisms about what it means to be a “real journalist” all year, and I don’t really know if they’ve paid much attention–but for one day, at least, they showed that they had learned something, and they were embryonic versions of Terry Gross and Steve Lopez: fully engaged and critically aware young reporters.

Jobs: 1 Gates: 0

After an intense visit to the LA Times in the morning, we took a break and went to a Mac Store during the afternoon, where Mac “Geniuses” taught the students how to use media-editing software.

And there’s still more excitement to come this year–I just scheduled Auschwitz survivor (who cameos in the Freedom Writers movie) to come speak to my 7th Graders, who have been reading Elie Wiesel’s Night. I’m probably even more awed and excited about it than my students are.  And my journalism kids will be participating in a city-wide Model United Nations simulation in early June… my only regret is that all of this seems to be rushing by so fast.  For some reason, I keep wondering what to do  with all this.  In other words, how can I wrap up my Los Angeles living and teaching experiences in brown paper and take them with me? 

Our Sierra Club Guide took us to the filming site for MASH on our hike, and the kids goofed around on this rusted-out Korean-War-Era Army Jeep.

My urge to write this blog came out of that nagging question, but looking back at a meandering, scattershot entry, I realize that the impulse itself is probably misguided.  I can’t take time with me.  I have to enjoy it and live it fully while I’m still here–and that lesson, at least, is something I can take with me.