I found that there will always be new challenge every week to which I must react, but unfortunately the most recent has been the slow deterioration of my computer. The four and a half years of my Dell laptop has seen replacements of my keyboard, charger, and screen, and now battery life has been reduced to about seven minutes and the clicker doesn't work. All that has been taken in stride, but the final straw was the failure of the already-replaced screen. Now the challenge is deciding whether I want a new laptop or desktop. Needless to say, new blog posts were difficult to accomplish without a working computer.
As usual, a lot has happened since my last post. Thanksgiving break was insanely short, making the December school days seem to last an eternity. The last week was the worst week since the beginning of the year; the students were appalled that A) I gave out a test during the last week and B) that I refused to let them just watch a movie in class. The excuse of choice was, "...but we aren't doing anything in any of my other classes..." Whether or not that's true I have no idea (believable for some of these teachers). I'm already worried they're going to forget everything over the holidays, which makes the nearing end of semester particularly scary.
Despite being December, the events that unfurled during the last few weeks in West Contra Costa Unified School District suggested anything but Christmas spirit. I haven't had the chance to do a search for the stories on the internet news sites but here is what "the most wonderful time of the year" entailed for one of the TFA girls that lives with us: a little over a week ago, her school was on lockdown for three hours because of a race riot taking place on her campus at De Anza High School (a couple miles from my school in Richmond). Apparently huge groups of black and Latino students were creating a massive fight that ended in four teachers getting assaulted and eleven students arrested. Six of those arrested were students of our friend's - and I might add that this is the same girl that was originally given 70 students in one biology class; it is also the same girl whose plane to New York for Christmas got cancelled because of the snow storm. Not only that but there was some other fallout from the original riot (including two black girls spray painting "F*** Mexicans" all over the school on the lockers), making me wonder how the hell she has not put in her two weeks notice yet. My school comes from the same hate-filled community but at least doesn't ever have anything quite as scary as that.
The other event happened last week at the nearby middle school - this time it was a 12-yr-old girl getting raped by a 14-yr-old boy on campus during school hours. Apparently it's still up in the air whether or not she was actually raped or if she claimed that so she would not get in trouble, but the teachers at my school are right: the huge thing here is that there is sex happening in the middle school building. The whole thing really is sad, especially considering that these teachers that have to deal with all these issues are facing huge cuts to their benefits, prompting so many teachers I know to ask, "Why should I stay here?" when they know they could be financially so much better off in another school district (that would hire them in an instant). The new district-union agreement goes into effect on the first of the year, so there are at least a few teachers at my school that said goodbye at the holiday party. When our union leaders actually tell us the information we need to know, I'll be sure to pass it on. Hopefully with the new year comes a fresh start to just about EVERYTHING in WCCUSD. They need it badly.
In other news, I organized a co-ed soccer team a couple weeks ago with a whole bunch of people in TFA and we had way too many people interested, so I had to be a jerk and tell handfuls of people that they couldn't play for lack of space. However, a nice side effect has been the fact that our team is actually really fun and really good. It's about time; my roommate and I have been aching for some good and fun soccer. Other than that, I think just about everyone I know is ready for the holiday break, although I fully predict the weeks when we get back to be super rough...
