DonorsChoose take two

Well it worked well the first time, and the materials we got at the beginning of the school year have been crucial to the learning and behavior management of the class. This time, I'm hoping that my DonorsChoose request can help tackling the problem of math class being boring and not hands-on enough. I'm asking for about $400 worth of manipulatives and materials to keep the class engaging, and hopefully my department will see its impact and fund these materials for the rest of our math teachers. I've copied the prepared DonorsChoose text below for quick reading (just in case you know anyone who would like to contribute). Plus, if you did, you wouldn't have to feel bad about not getting me something for my 24th birthday today :)

My Students: Math is everywhere in the world around us. Unfortunately, students do not recognize and appreciate this fact when all they do in math class is write definitions and equations on their paper - and you can't blame them for that! Math class should be much more hands-on and visually involved!

My students are awesome. While they are in general many years behind in math, they embrace success in the subject with an excitement that even I don't remember having in high school. From a low-income and often violent community, many of the students deal with issues that make it difficult to see the importance of school, let alone math. Over half of my students are repeating Algebra since they failed it in 8th grade, and they come into class with this preexisting relationship with the subject. Some of them have had past teachers give up on them and some have been crammed into classrooms of more than 40 students, but they are a resilient bunch and truly appreciate the efforts of the teachers that put in the time and give them some tough love to push them on.

My students need math manipulatives to help them visualize algebra and geometry and practice it in a fun and meaningful way.

My Project: Adding and subtracting negative numbers are fundamental skills required for high school math, and so many students enter ill-prepared, making the sliding number lines and double-sided counters crucial for understanding. After this, we will be able to use the color chips and the dice for solving one- and two-step equations, as well as combining like terms. This will be incredible for them because it will demystify the idea of an equation and will visually show what it means to solve for a variable. This skill, after all, is the crux for nearly all math afterward. The geometric shapes will help my Geometry students be able to visualize math in three dimensions, as well as to distinguish the difference between the surface area of a solid and its volume. Helping students to learn this would prepare them to see and use the math in the 3D world around them. Finally, the dice and overhead sets will be great to disguise the practice of these skills as fun games and activities!

For my math classes, it is no secret that every day I must wage a battle against the boredom of my students. I hope that the materials I have requested will make learning more engaging than simply taking notes or writing out expressions and equations. I believe that manipulatives are an amazing supplement to notes, and present math in a visual way that facilitates a shift in how students view mathematics. Instead of seeming like a foreign language, math will be seen as a tool to solve problems!

Happy Holidays

The Christmas Break Countdown

It's not that I don't like the kids. I just that I like Christmas break more. 'Tis the season for a handful of students to be missing weeks of school on family trips to Mexico, which really sucks considering that when school resumes in January, there are only three weeks until the end of the semester, and then it's going to be crazy frantic in trying to make sure all tests and quizzes have been taken as well as all homework being turned in. In four days I am taking a train to Seattle and I can't wait - I am actually super excited about it taking almost 24 hours too, because it forces me to find a way to relax. My perfectionism has been coming out in full force recently, and it's becoming harder and harder to let go of work life and foster a real personal life.

Soccer is going decently well; the JV team has greatly improved over the last week, and so far we have shut out our opponents 9 goals to 0. Richmond is very deep in terms of overall boys soccer skills, so it isn't surprising that we are winning, but I'm really enjoying the coaching experience that I am getting. The other coaches for JV and varsity have really set a great example of how well practices and training and games can look, and I hope that I get an opportunity in my life to use these coaching skills completely on my own.

Today was a ridiculously long day that kept me at school for 15 hours - 6:30am to 9:30pm - so I am totally exhausted and need to sleep, but I thought I'd share an "only at Richmond" moment: every time we scored today during the boys' varsity game, our fans threw tortillas like Frisbees onto the field. Who does that!?

"Just thought you should know that your 6th period is worried about you"

Friday was officially my first mental health day that I've taken off this year. This was in direct response to probably the shittiest week yet - horrible student behavior, horrible test scores, and many silent drives to and from work. Having had essentially a three day weekend now to cool off, I've realized that it's all relative to my expectations for what my class should look like. Both the behavior and the test scores weren't as bad as last year, so that's a plus, but having seen the improvements that we've made in our Algebra classes, it's so depressing to feel like these kids are slowly starting to fall back into the familiar routine from last year. I feel like I've been doing WAY more for them this year, and because of that I think this past week I was feeling personally offended that the students weren't appreciating any of that extra work.

Now I didn't tell them that of course, but I'm no good at concealing emotion, so it should come as no surprise that my substitute sent me a text on Friday saying that my 6th period class voluntarily wrote me an apology letter because they were worried about me. I have yet to read it, but it's nice realizing that the kids don't actually TRY to ruin teachers' lives, unless of course they actually don't like them at all.

Tomorrow is a crucial day. Now that my students know that I pretty much took a day off because of them, I have to play my cards very carefully. We are resetting classroom rules tomorrow to be very explicit in what the consequences are, and if they ask, last week was last week. Nothing more about it. I think I'm going to have to smile a little less this week to get the point across that learning is top priority. New seating arrangement, new seating chart, new unit. Let's start fresh.

Too bad we'll just have to start fresh all over again after the holiday break.

StudentsFirst.org

Looks like Michelle Rhee, the former Chancellor of DC Public Schools, has founded a new organization online at StudentsFirst.org. I encourage everyone to check it out.

Figured this blog needed a pick-me-up...

...so here's a couple funny things I read on my students' papers among the heaps of grading I did today:

One of the class questions was, "If Mr. Bretl gave you a million dollars today, how would you spend it?" Jimmy didn't really understand that the purpose of the question was to think of how many things you could do with all the extra money you get in your life just for getting a college degree. Instead, he wrote, "I wouldn't because Mr. Bretl wouldn't give me a million dollars." Touche Jimmy.

In the middle of the homework packet, I found a note from Lourdes asking, "Mr. Bretl, do you even check this?" Unfortunately, I doubt she will remember to look back to see my answer written on her page.

And finally, I cannot believe how many kids misspelled their own name - mostly just forgetting the last one or two letters. Apparently kids are so ADD today that they get distracted before finishing their full name. The winner is Julio P, whose paper just said "Ju." Handwriting investigation made it clear that it was his. I totally believe he had full intentions to complete his name, but something more urgent must have come up...

It's the Most Ridiculous Time of the Year

At this time last year I was blasting Christmas music 24/7, to and from school, and putting up icicle lights in our apartment window, and imagining how unreasonable it would be to get a Christmas tree for our apartment. For whatever reason, I can't get into it this year. Not yet anyway. I feel like it's because I have no time to think. You'll notice that with my sparse blog posts, I don't even have time to procrastinate anymore.

And that's because soccer is in full swing. Our first game is on Tuesday, but we have practice every day, and since Varsity has already begun their games, on their game days, I have to run JV practice by myself - and let me tell you, after a seven hour teaching day, that never sounds fun. This is especially the case because I have recently come to the realization that these boys have never really been coached the way we are trying to do it. They are obsessed with scrimmaging and shooting, and they just plain don't see the importance of running a structured practice. The first couple days were rough. Plus, I'm beginning to understand that my teaching and coaching personalities need to be different, because the kids respond differently in and out of class. It's quite a juggle for those students that I have both in class and on the team. I predict that we'll get blown out of the water in the first game or two and then they'll start to realize the importance of getting down to business. Classic movie setup.

This addition to my schedule is made particularly challenging because we have to share the field with the girls' soccer teams, so our practice can't start until 5:30, so I have been staying at school every day until at least 7:30. Varsity practice starts at 7:15 and on some days I'm asked to stay after to help - which I find very difficult to refuse for some reason - and I may not get home until after 9. Let's just say that my hours of sleep are dwindling.

In all, life right now is crazy stressful in that there aren't enough hours in the day, but I think we all agree on that front. The sacred place left in which I can actually relax and think is the bathroom: either on the toilet or in the shower. Thank goodness for our seemingly unlimited supply of hot water. Outside the bathroom, my apartment is a mess - so much so that I am ashamed at the way I am living. But I'm totally living in the something's-gotta-give mode right now and things like bedroom cleanliness and healthy dinners have gone out the window. My only motivation to keep going is the thought that things will be so easy when soccer is over. I love it, but I swear I die a little each day because of it. There must be some study somewhere concerning the connection between lack of sleep and years off one's life. I should be their case study. In the meantime I hope the Christmas spirit picks up!

Mixed Feelings Today

I'm coming off of an emotional high from a couple awesome things that have given this week a great start - like regular RHS soccer practices starting and my role as assistant coach (or head JV coach? ...it's unclear), in addition to our 9th grade recognition/awards ceremony we organized yesterday that was so incredible. It's a great feeling when you realize that your students actually do care about their teachers. I say that because I thought this awards ceremony was going to be a disaster (if I can barely handle 38 kids in one room, how would I be able to handle 132 at once?), but everyone was super positive and excited to be recognized by their teachers for things like exceptional grades, preparedness for college, and excellent attendance.

Today however, was the emotional crash that always follows. I just wonder how it's possible for students to be absolute angels one day and, for lack of a better word, demons the next. I think Algebra will be much better as soon as we get out of this unit (fractions and percents each day means I get to hear bitching and moaning each day). I still maintain that I want to meet the teacher that taught these students fractions and slap him or her in the face, because somebody deserves it.

Today also marked the resurrection of a very depressing chain of events; the Richmond High gang rape trial is finally under way, and I don't know how widespread it will get, but the details are just plain awful. Before, everything was speculation and rumor, but these hourly-updated feeds from the trial remind me of the things that led the only time I have ever cried at school. If you would like more perspective on the type of things this community has to deal with, articles and news coverage about the trial can be found here:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7790147

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7794980

Sleep vs. Soccer

This week was and still is soccer tryouts, and I am feeling myself reaching a breaking point. I was saved by Veterans' Day, which allowed me to make up for the previous nights of only four and five hours of sleep. One thing I was not aware of when I jumped on the boys' soccer bandwagon was the fact that the practices do not start until 5:30. Knowing traffic in the Bay Area, I totally understand that it is nearly impossible for the other coaches to make it right after school, and plus, we don't have the practice space at that time anyway, but this is news that actually would have made me think twice about helping out. Since I live in Oakland, about a 20-30 minute traffic-ridden drive, it is impossible for me to go home between the end of school at 3:07 and this awkward start time. It particularly sucks on those days where 6th period is just off the wall bonkers and all I want to do is get out of that windowless building.

Then the fact that it is tryouts week makes it even more crazy because 100 boys showed up to try out for a varsity and a JV team, which means we have to cut upwards of 60 kids. And let me just say that after a year and a half in TFA making sure every kid is empowered to do well and improve in math, it is very hard for me to be able to deal with cutting players in tryouts. It just feels so mean, and I almost feel like I shouldn't be allowed to cut players that are better than I was in high school. We are fortunate enough to be in the unfortunate situation of having too many high-skilled players than the teams have room for. The icing on the cake is the fact that I already know a bunch of them from my classes this year and last, and it kills me to think that I may have to ride out the rest of the year with some students that think that they were personally cut by their math teacher. If I weren't so competitive and eager to get the best team, I would just make sure that none of my math students get cut - that way, at least I would know that they would try much harder in math. For some of these boys, having sports as a grades motivator is a night-and-day switch in school attitude.

However, being exposed to these kids in two worlds each day is a little daunting to me because I feel like there is way too much potential for me to make a fool out of myself in front of my math kids. Manny is already calling me "Coach" in class, and the soccer staff refers to me as "Coach Scott," so I predict the name thing will be a source of frustration. On top of that, after three nights of tryouts, I have realized that I do not know how to coach at all, which is not a good thing since the head coach pretty much told me that I'm "in charge of the JV team," and JV has the most students that I know. I set up a meeting this weekend with the head coaches to talk about "coaching strategies," and if you read in between the lines, I really want to talk about "how to coach kids that are almost as good as you."

Anyway, each night after tryouts ended at 8:30 we went to a burger place to discuss each and every player and who to cut or put on a specific team. Considering the number of players, I didn't get home each night until about 10:30, with few plans for my three classes the next day - which made me realize that what was sustainable before will not be sustainable now. I have to figure out a more efficient way to plan for my classes. The teacher across the hall is coaching girls' soccer, and she told me to "just face the fact that your teaching will get a little worse," so I'm a little scared. It doesn't help that my algebra students, who were doing great last unit, are totally sucking it up this unit. I know that part of it or even most of it rests on my shoulders, but I've been seeing a lack of motivation from the class that did so awesome on the last test.

So how am I supposed to reward the classes that do well if they slack off after I tell them how well they are doing? It's just like how it's dangerous to give certain students a B grade. For some students, this is a motivator to do better considering how close they are to an A grade, but for others, this means that they can stop caring about the class for a while, because all they need is a C to move to the next class. So frustrating. And now I can't commit a million hours to after school tutoring, so I fear the results on our next unit test. I hope at the very least that if I'm risking all this, I enjoy coaching.

Riots and Kidneys

Luckily the riots that I am referring to have nothing to do with Richmond High. On Friday the big news was the court's ruling for the subway officer who shot and killed a black man at a station about a mile down the road from our apartment in Oakland. The man's sentence was two years in prison, which leaves only 7 months remaining, since the event happened January 2009. Considering the history in Oakland of the relationship between law enforcement and black citizens, it was no surprise to come home on Friday to six helicopters with searchlights flying overhead. Things didn't get too crazy, but since we live close enough to downtown Oakland, we were able to see the hundreds of protesters a block away, and we were witness to the whole jumping on cars routine. Mob mentality is a scary thing.

Ignorance is a scary thing too. I have multiple times now talked about the poor nutrition that my students get, both at school and at home, but it never crossed my mind that I would have to be the one to tell my students the importance of drinking water. I just figured that when people get thirsty, what sounds better than a glass of water? I found out this weekend however, that one of my students got sent to the hospital on Friday for what turned out to be kidney failure. And you know why her kidneys failed? Because she does not drink water at all. Literally the only thing that she drinks is Arizona Iced Tea. The ignorance of these kids in being able to connect their bodily functions to the very things they put into their body is utterly mind-blowing. I have an entirely new take on the term "common knowledge."

No title correctly summarizes my frustration.

Despite my undoubted upbeat-ness compared to last year, there are still days where I leave school with little to no faith that my students will ever find a way to become what I will call responsible citizens. In my mind, a responsible citizen has the social awareness to know what is and isn't appropriate for a public situation and acts in a respectful manner.

That being said, today played out in such a way that I chose to drive home with the radio turned off. I needed the 30 minutes of silence to cool off. In truth, I had forgotten what these days felt like but now all at once I remember the feeling of being totally disrespected as a teacher. The thing is, on these days, it's never one big thing that happens, because I can get over single outbursts of craziness super easily - in a matter of minutes, really. The one thing - besides incompetent adults - that makes my blood boil is the feeling that somehow, someway, all of my students had a meeting before school and democratically voted that we would not learn anything today and that we would neglect all respectful social norms. But misery loves company, and when I walk dumbfounded into another teacher's classroom during their prep period to figure out how I'm going to make it through the rest of the day, my colleagues know exactly what I am talking about. I feel like our school culture is very bipolar. By third period each day, it is very clear if we are experiencing academic Richmond High or chaotic Richmond High - and all teachers are in it together. Unfortunately, with this week being spirit week for homecoming tomorrow, the latter school personality has made far too many appearances. And tomorrow is a rally day. Woohoo.

I almost wish I took a child development or a child psychology class in college because I want to know about the brain activity that is preventing these 15 year-olds from understanding what is and isn't socially acceptable. But seriously I do know that there is some brain development that goes on at this age that is very related to their apparent inability to keep their god forsaken mouths shut. Beyond this, the laundry list this week includes all too many "gay" comments and one student who decided that it would be smart to randomly say out loud, "I'm going to go to homecoming and get raped." Clearly a teacher's patience always has its limits.

Other news of the week: my 12 year-old student will remain in my class for the rest of the year. I don't want to talk about it.

Oh, and I thought this story would be funny in its lack of foresight: every year the freshman class gets to pick a class color that they pretty much only wear on rally days, so what Richmond lacks in school spirit we make up for in class spirit. And I use the term "spirit" very loosely, seeing as how out of control the class competitions get; plus, there is a little too much hatred that goes around for it to be true "spirit." Anyway, this year, the freshman class picked red, which surprised me a little considering the implications of red and blue colors in that community. But I'm sure whoever was in charge was aware of that and made a conscious decision to allow red to be a possible choice for them. However, that decision was made before realizing that the freshman class graduation year is 2014 - and for anyone unfamiliar, red and blue are the colors of the Norteno and Sureno gangs, respectively, meaning "northerners" and "southerners." They are Latino gangs and needless to say do not get along. Surenos typically mark their territory with a 13, X3 or XIII to represent M, the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, which stands for the Mexican Mafia, with whom they are associated. The graffiti of nortenos on the other hand use 14, X4 or XIV for N, the fourteenth letter of the alphabet, which just stands for Nortenos (I guess they would not like to be associated with the Mexican Mafia - also known as "la Eme"). I have all too many XIII and XIV's etched into my desks in class. It's kind of scary if you think about it. The funny part to this whole story though is that now after all the die hard class spirit students got their red outfit all ready for the rally tomorrow, the administration is holding the stance that anyone wearing red will not be allowed into the rally - the freshman color is now black. I predict super chaos tomorrow egged on by the drama of this whole color issue... and that is exactly why I just spent all my evening planning time writing this entry; I have no idea what I can expect from my students tomorrow.

It's weeks like these that make me wonder why I subject myself to such harsh emotions every single day... Do you think it's too late to call a sub for tomorrow?

Grades, Expletives, and 12-Year Olds

This Friday is homecoming, so in some ways I've felt as though all I need to do is to get through this week and everything will be much easier. I vividly remember how horrible things got immediately after the incident exactly one year ago, and it's frustrating knowing that my freshman students don't understand the situation. The first quarter just ended though, so it's reassuring to hear my students say that they are planning on starting off this quarter much better. I've fallen for that before...

Grades are WAY better this year compared to last; Two-thirds of my students this year have a C or better compared to only half last year, and I think it's safe to say that I'm holding them to the same or even higher expectations this year. That being said, a student can still earn a D for effort, and an F only goes to those students that choose to cut class or refuse to even take notes. And yes, appallingly, a student can receive his or her credits for their diploma with a D grade. It kills me when students jump for joy after getting a D. I suppose it's better than an F, but it's a sad realization that college is not even on their radar. Today we're doing a lesson on different levels of education and their respective salaries; I think almost all my students are invested in getting their diploma, but college is a different story. One of my students told me that for them, college is "feasible, but not likely." That gave me mixed emotions. At least he acknowledged that it was possible. I think that's more than what we started with.

To close, I'll leave you with a few doses of the ridiculous things that must be dealt with each day as a teacher. Firstly, I have run out of things to do with my most obnoxious girl in 3rd period. Every day she calls someone in class a bitch among other expletives and by now she has realized that getting sent to the office receives no lasting consequences, so I am forever just sending her outside so that I can actually get somewhere with the lesson. The problem is that when everyone in our 9th grade hallway sends their worst student outside so that learning can happen inside, chaos happens outside. There is now officially nowhere for me to put this child to retain sanity. This is the same girl who today tricked me into writing "dro" on the overhead and pointed it out to the rest of the class (for anyone who doesn't know, dro means homegrown marijuana). I was, of course, incredibly pleased.

This story is by far the best though: In Algebra I am constantly asking myself - and sometimes outright asking the students - if I am teaching a bunch of 12 year olds. Clearly on these days my 9th graders lack any sliver of maturity and less learning takes place than I would like. There are a select few that are the ringleaders on these days from hell, and I come to find out last week that my one student to rule them all is ACTUALLY 12 YEARS OLD. Remember: in 9th grade you were 14 turning 15. This child was so bad in 6th grade that the middle school somehow decided to socially promote him to 9th grade the next year just to get him the hell out. I've been told that he's heading back to the 7th grade for the rest of the year, but I found his smiling face in my class again today. But oh my god no wonder he wreaks havoc in my class - he hasn't learned enough math in the first place to know about anything we've been learning. I almost feel bad for the middle school having to take him back as the big man on campus who went to high school for a quarter. This kid is crazy - at 12 years old, he is already decked out in red and tagging XIV on everything for his Latino gang affiliation. Of all my future gang banger students, he openly makes the biggest deal about it - like when I use a blue overhead pen instead of a red one - and he's only the equivalent of a 7th grader. Scary. The scariest part is that during Back to School Night his English teacher tried to talk to the mom about his gang comments and etchings on the desk, only to realize later that the mom was decked out in red as well. Latino gangs run in families...

Bridging the Sport-School Gap

Before I begin, I am realizing now that I should have changed that title, because for me the word "gap" has become a stressor. With the achievement gap, the literacy gap, the gaps in our scores and where we need to be, etc, the word has come to indicate things that I must always be thinking about. Frankly, for the amount of sleep I get each night, I have no more brain power to always be thinking about one more thing.

The boys' high school soccer season begins in a few weeks, so I met yesterday with the coaching staff to discuss how I'll be helping out during the season. It sounds like I am going to be working with the JV team and will be the official liaison with the school, since all the other coaches have other day jobs. Of course, to meet and discuss this I had to go to the open gym last night at Richmond High, and since traffic is so horrible, I had the agony of staying at school until 7:30pm until I could meet these guys and the potential players - who are pretty incredible at the game, from what I could see. These guys took me to town when I joined in on the open gym scrimmaging, and the fact that there were a bunch of my students and former students out there makes it difficult to continue my bad-ass soccer player persona I've been slyly playing during school hours. Regardless, I had at least four kids today ask me when I'm coming to open gym again, and it makes me happy seeing that they want to build that relationship with their teacher - even if it's the same teacher that gave them a failing grade last year. In all though, I feel like I may be in over my head. The coaches told me that typically about 200 guys try out for just the Varsity and JV squads, so based on the open gym skills I've seen, I don't know how I'm going to be able to confidently coach these guys when they could juke me out of my shoes. Luckily I think the other coaches are just really happy to have someone to help make sure their star soccer players are also star students. I'm telling you, over half of the students in that gym yesterday had the skills to play in college, if they only had the grades and preparation. The head coach said something like 50% of the graduating players went to 4-year institutions and the percentage was only so low because the rest of them weren't eligible for college admissions...

...And cue the conversation about the differences between high school graduation requirements and college admissions requirements. One of the things that pisses me off so much at our school is that students simply need 30 CREDITS of math throughout their four years, and CREDITS means that they got above an F grade. A passing grade in high school is a C- or better, but colleges' interpretation of passing is a C or better. This means that any D grade, while not acceptable for college, and while preventing the student from moving on to the next class, still provides the student with 5 credits each semester. This means that each year there are countless students that are given their high school diploma after earning 30 credits of math: 9th grade Algebra 1, 10th grade Algebra 1 and 11th grade Algebra 1. So essentially each year Richmond High School spits out a large handful of students that have learned pretty much no math in high school (because the standards for earning a D grade at RHS are pretty much just showing up and showing an ounce of effort). And then since nothing is done to separate kids into advanced or remedial classes, the star students are hindered and the lowest students get neglected, so the percentage of students "Far Below Basic" in math proficiency never changes and a class like my 2nd period Precalculus class becomes more of a comprehensive everything-up-to-Precalculus review class for the first three months. It's sad, frustrating, angering, and exhausting all at once. The worst part is realizing that most of the system is so far out of my control, and then having to find a way to let it go.

At least when soccer season starts it'll give me leverage with some of my more difficult students...

The Slow Process of Going Insane

I can feel it. This week ends the honeymoon stage of the new school year. Why you ask? I can't quite put my finger on it - it could be the recent realization that despite my endless hours teaching adding and subtracting negative numbers, about a third of my Algebra students still have no idea what the hell they are doing. Of course it could also be due to the building frustration with our sluggish Precalculus pace, begging an answer to how we will ever cover all the necessary material before the year is up. Then again, getting a 38th student in my Geometry class today pretty much pushed me over the edge, because with only room for 37 desks in class, this new addition has now made it near impossible to implement an effective seating chart.

If you recall, last year I had 41 students in one of my Geometry classes, but fortunately - or unfortunately, however you look at it - since it was a class entirely of sophomores, juniors, and seniors, I rarely had more than 30 students at a time. Comparatively speaking, it was perfectly manageable. The blessing/curse complex this year is having great attendance but too many bodies in the classroom at once. Generally speaking, 9th graders taking Geometry are very school-oriented and self-motivated, and these students are the ones you can count on to be at school every day, so my 5th period is always packed. I tell you - trying to teach 37 sugar-charged 14 year-olds immediately after lunch is driving me crazy. And the danger is that when that happens, the iffy teaching practices come out. Today, fed up and exhausted, I invited my more vocal student to the overhead to teach us how to do the problem and when he started talking, I started making annoyingly loud noises and interrupted him at every other word, and told him that that was how I felt EVERY DAY. We then went into a discussion about how hard it is to demonstrate a math concept when a student interrupts with a new random question every ten seconds. Because no Jada, I am not married, no Cynthia, I do not have any kids, no Raul, I do not have any lead for your mechanical pencil, and no Arturo, I did not see what Armando just did to you. My god.

Movie Review

Let me begin by saying that I have cried in more than a couple movies before, and on many an occasion I have sat down to watch a movie (or "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition") for the sole purpose of having a good cry. I think it's safe to say that the latter half of that is a more recent development since beginning my line of work.

That being said, I have never cried so much in a movie as in the last 20 minutes of "Waiting for Superman." Given, even the trailer for the movie made my eyes a little watery, so I'd be interested to hear how other people take the movie. For me anyway, it was just a brilliant collection of awfully real stories; ones that hit very close to home to the community I visit every day. In addition to being incredibly emotionally charged, it does make quite a few harsh statements about teachers' unions, so be ready for that when you see it. However, given my experience with our own United Teachers of Richmond, I wholeheartedly take the writers' side and continue to wonder how the idea of tenure for teachers has not been revised from its ridiculousness.

A lot of articles against the movie's stance speak about how the film suggests that charters are the way to save the education system - but these people don't realize that the movie is just showing how the charter school system is just a band-aid for a broken public education system. The movie even says that only one in five charters are considered successful by the same standards. The only reason why charters seem like the protagonist in the movie compared to the teachers union antagonist is because charters are these kids' and families' only other options from their local failing schools.

I walked out of the theater wondering if I would have been as moved by the production if I were doing something completely different in my life. I hope so. I know that the movie can make those who care care even more, but the question is that if it can make ignorant people care enough for something to be done.

Unfortunately though, as with real life, the film has no happily-ever-after ending, so it was nice to see Washington beat USC in football again to restore happiness in the world.

Despite what you may think, I do other things besides reading magazine articles and thinking about education

This post, however, will not support that statement.

This week's TIME cover story is "How the first nine months shape the rest of your life," and I read it simply because I was interested in what they call "the new science of fetal origins." It reminded me that I miss science, but more importantly, it put some sense into the incredibly numerous physical and mental health problems that can be seen in a community like Richmond. The article gave me a lot of "oh that makes so much sense" moments.

To preface, I don't know how much I have already talked about this, but if there were only two descriptors for my students' health - healthy or unhealthy - almost all of them would fall in the latter category. It may not be a big deal in middle school, but in high school there are a lot of kids that are pushing obese, and pretty good handful of them are worst-case scenario definitions of the word. Most students don't understand the connection between what they eat and how their body functions - I think that should be 9th grade science curriculum - but frankly the malnutrition comes down to the effects of poverty. Still though, cheap and healthy is a possible combination. And contrary to the opinions of my third period, cilantro does not count towards your daily value of vegetables. It's so appalling to me that these kids do not change their behaviors even after many family members have been diagnosed with diabetes. I don't think they understand that the things that happen to their relatives is a sort of preview and warning about things that could happen to them if they mimic their habits.

As for mental health, I've written a lot about my special education students this year and last, and at first I thought it felt like there was a lot of them simply because they were being mainstreamed into regular classes and they usually require the most attention. But after reading this article I've realized that we really do have a crazy amount of special education students. This year and last I've had an average of five or six of them in each class, and my algebra classes create the heavy end of that average. ADD and ADHD run rampant at our school as well, and often that's what labels them as special education in the first place. And Lord knows I've had my fair share of bipolar students.

So now the question is whether these health problems trace back to the traumas of these kids' young lives, or if they go back to even before they were born. In arguments like this, I think it's a safe bet to say both. Anyway, the article talks about how an individual's health - early or late in life - can be affected by the health of your mother before birth. It was to little surprise to read that individuals born to diabetic mothers are more prone to diabetes themselves, but there are other connections that are interesting, like a higher risk of heart disease for individuals weighing less at birth. This one was crazy to me though: obese mothers giving birth to heavier children is more than just genetic, as proved by the fact that "kids conceived after a mother's successful weight-loss surgery were 52% less likely to be obese than siblings born while she was overweight." If all this is true, it's no wonder that communities like Richmond feel like it's so hard to reverse these self-perpetuating problems. The article also said that women who are pregnant during stress or malnutrition may disrupt neural development, contributing to mental health issues. Reading that line, all I could think about was our numerous high school pregnancy cases, who were likely malnourished and under ridiculous amounts of stress and trauma even before getting pregnant.

One interesting thought process that came from reading this article is that in education, you have to work with the cards you've been dealt. The amount of things that you wish you could affect or change is so frustrating, and you can always trace the problems back to some other source out of reach, but you have to accept what you are given and do the best with what you have. It's always so easy to say that things would be better if ________ (if the middle schools did a better job; if the elementary schools did a better job; if the parents were more involved; if we had smaller class sizes; if teachers were paid more; if our students schedules would stop getting switched five weeks into school; if the students families weren't wrapped up in drugs and alcohol, etc), and quite frankly it's just so hard not to say it sometimes. So while it's interesting to find out the scientifically true source of the problems that can be witnessed daily, it's not going to change my job at all.

The Secret Life of a Richmond Oiler

So my hair is getting relatively long and I've left some scruff on my chin in attempt to look older, so I shouldn't be too surprised that my 3rd period decided that I look like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. I'm not really offended by this, but am more amazed that they even know what Scooby-Doo is. Not that I'm old at all, but I didn't know the show was still on TV. I'm actually a little relieved that now I don't have to think about what to be for Halloween. I'll just wear a green shirt and brown pants and call it a costume.

On the flip side of things, the English teacher in our 9th grade "house" shared with me the results of her recent writing assignment, and it was very eye-opening. Let me preface this by saying that this teacher offers such an open heart and open arms to our students that they share with her more than they would anyone else in the school. She has that effect on adults too; some people are just like that I guess. So anyway today at lunch she told me that even she was surprised this year with the level of trauma that exists in our students lives. I don't recall the prompt of the writing assignment, but it was one that inspired our 14 year-olds to write about such experiences as seeing their fathers being taken to jail, seeing their brother get shot and killed, being abused by their drug- or alcohol-addicted mother or father, recovering from drug and alcohol abuse themselves, and much more. There is even a student at our school that was raped by her father and her mother forced her to have the child. Not a student of mine this year, but the important thing is to realize that all these things happen surprisingly often in this community, and these are only the stories verified by our English teacher through her students' essays. One can only imagine the details that were left out. And yes, this teacher deals with these stories appropriately through avenues like Child Protective Services.

I think of these students that she specifically named off to me and the baggage that they carry around every day to and from school and it is amazing to me that I can get them to smile in my class. After all, these are kids are barely teenagers but are forced to deal with very adult issues - most that the majority of us never have to endure. But it makes sense now why some kids will just blow up in class for the most ridiculous things - I would not be surprised if some of them were to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Translating this to the class: what looks like defiant behavior is really just a brief fault in their coping mechanisms, because these students carry the trauma with them daily, trying to suppress it, and never dealing with it appropriately. And then meanwhile I am beating them over the head with seemingly pointless math skills. The world would be such a better place if there were a way to fast-forward life to show certain individuals the long-term results of their actions; by this I mean I wish I could prove to these students that no matter what they have gone through, they can turn their life around. Talk about goal of the century - but hey, in four weeks I have had to send zero students to the office, so that's a plus.

In my one year of experience, I think I have a pretty firm grasp on the importance of getting to know your students at the beginning of the year, and there is no doubt that I am WAY better at it this time around. By knowing your students on a little bit better level than the typical teacher-student relationship, it is incredibly obvious when a student is going through troubles - and that is the difference between a teacher sending a student to the office with a referral and that same teacher attempting to initiate a private conversation with the student to figure out why the student is acting out. No joke, 95% of the time there is some bigger issue at the heart of their defiance.

So at this point I think back to everyone reassuring me in my early first year that "success in teaching will be if you reach and impact just one student" and that "some kids just don't want to learn, so focus on the ones that do" - I think back and I laugh because while all that advice helped me to not focus on the idea of "success" and "failure" as a teacher, none these ideas are true. As a teacher you do your best to reach every single student, and through parent phone calls and tutoring you pay special attention to those that look like they don't want to learn, because almost all of them really do, and I will argue that to the death. Case in point: I found out today that the reason why my two lowest Algebra students seem like they TRY to do nothing in my class is because they do not know how to multiply. At all. They are very familiar with the fact that they should have picked up those skills in the some six past years of school and frankly are so embarrassed by their situation that they would rather not draw attention to their lack of math knowledge. So the question then becomes: how do you make Algebra concepts - like square and cube roots - accessible to students that are not proficient in multiplication? I could go on forever about this and about how we are still covering Algebra concepts in my Precalculus class, but I think my time would be better spent making personal multiplication times tables for my students, because that is my on-the-spot temporary solution. Until next time.

Getting the Layperson Informed

Since education issues consume my life right now, I feel a little unsure of what the general public's familiarity is with school woes. Sure there are articles in the major news magazines all the time about one person's take on the "crisis," but it is just as easy to flip the page and skip the read. Here's a video that effectively sums up the current status of our education system, promoting the new movie that will be out next month: http://www.letsredu.com/2010/08/video-the-education-crisis-in-two-minutes/

The movie is directed by the same guy who did "An Inconvenient Truth," which I never saw, but has been cited as one of the reasons why climate change became a national priority. They say that the intention of this movie is to do the exact same thing for education. But it's true: the most important thing to do is to get the everyday voter informed.

A Long Ago Reflection

It just so happens that among the other TFA teachers at my school, two of them went to the University of Washington - and one of them was even in a sorority up the street. Even more weird is the fact that our classrooms are all within 20 feet of one another. So today the three of us sat and watched the Huskies get trounced by Nebraska, and the conversations unavoidably touched on things about Richmond High and teaching in general. Often talk about work feels like a disease you can't get rid of, but this time was different in that we discussed our first impressions of other people and RHS and talked about how the perception of TFA at our school has changed year-to-year with the changes in administration. Amidst all that, I remembered one thing that I had planned on writing about on here but had forgotten to do a while back. Something in the conversation made me bring up last year's race riot at nearby De Anza High School last year spurred by a group of black girls vandalizing the school lockers with "F*** Mexicans" in graffiti, and I recalled this being one of my biggest culture shocks of my experience last year.

Hostility between Blacks and Latinos in this community is to an extent that I never expected, and initially it didn't make sense to me. For some reason I assumed that the two groups, both historically oppressed in one way or another by upper-class white people would be somewhat united in their shared situation. It doesn't make sense to me that while the Black and Latino identities are fighting nationally against stereotypes and fighting for respect and positions of leadership, that so much hatred exists between them in a place like Richmond. I realize now though, that in this type of situation, it's a fight for superiority - or rather, it is a fight for who is not the lowest class. It's so sad to me that this community has the unique perspective to know how damaging discrimination can be, and yet so many race problems still happen on the streets of Richmond. A lot of it is gang-based, and a lot of problems begin or culminate at school.

Racial slurs are heard all too often in the hallways at school, and I can't believe how freely the word n***** is thrown around by Latino boys. And when I try to shut it down in class, my students laugh and tell me that nobody is offended by that word at school. I shut it down regardless, but I'm sure my classroom language rules have little effect on the RHS vernacular. From an outsider's perspective, with how much "playful verbal hostility" goes on daily, it's no wonder things get out of control so fast and fights break out so often. It's all fun and games until someone takes you seriously.

TIME to respond to another article

Having this job draws your attention to any piece of media that spotlights schools or the American education system - and I've come to realize that there is a lot of it. The September 20 edition of Time Magazine is their annual national service issue with a 16-page report on education. It is a great read; I'm thrilled to see that people are writing about how stagnant the teaching profession has become in the last decades, and even more thrilled to read that we are actually beginning to put a lot more accountability on adults. The fact of the matter is, regardless of what happens at these kids' homes, all students can be taught, and if it's not happening, that teacher needs to do something else.

There were two quotes in the article that I think hit the nail on the head. The first: "Sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident, teachers' unions have a long history of working against children in the name of job security for adults." This week I went sat in on the United Teachers of Richmond union rep meeting to see who we would endorse for school board, city council, and mayor of Richmond. I felt dirty being there, and the funny thing is that there are so many similarities between what went on there and typical position elections back at the fraternity. There was one candidate whose two minute speech was very well thought out, including his experience, his thoughts on what he advocates for in the classroom, in schools, and in education policy in general, but apparently he forgot to include all the buzz words that earn the support of the union masses. Other candidates gave about one minute 45 second speeches about how teaching is a large part of their family - listing off the family members who are teachers - and then used the last 15 seconds to spout something about fighting for our health benefits or yelling into the microphone that they would not vote to hire scabs, which of course got the entire group snapping in support. In my mind, "we" the union did not endorse the most qualified individuals. It was my sad realization that all elections are like this, and that there are stupid people in this world and there is nothing you can do about it except complain on your blog.

The second quote that got me thinking was: "We hire lots of our lowest performers to teach, and then we scream when our kids don't excel." A year and a half ago I was in San Francisco taking a teacher exam for teaching secondary math, and a few minutes before we were told to begin, I initiated some small talk with the woman in front of me, who openly shared the fact that this was her 14th time taking the test. I often wonder where she is today - if a teacher - and wonder whether or not she lets her students retake a test 14 times. I guess there is a fine line between determination and stupidity. And even in my credential class, there were a whole bunch of people who freely admitted that they had bounced between other professions for a while and didn't know what to do, so they decided to teach. It immediately reminded me of the sad joke that "those who can't do, teach." But seriously it is those people who at the first sign of misbehavior in their class will immediately make bad relationships with students and blame the student for making their job hard. Teaching should be a profession that is prestigious in that you know it will be hard, and your success is measured in your anticipation of those difficulties and how you handle them. I guarantee that no kid comes to class on the first day of school with the predisposition to make their teacher's life hell. Anything that happens that appears that way is likely the result of some teacher action that makes the student feel threatened.

I am particularly passionate about this because my school offers the ultimate highs and the ultimate lows in teachers. Fortunately, the lows only come from a few staff members and mainly happen in the form of substitute teachers. I had one of my best students come in on Friday and explain to me her run-in with her substitute PE teacher that day, who initiated an argument with students after accusing them of not saying "here" during roll call. Seems like a dumb reason to say the words f*** you to a student, but there is no way this student was lying to me, and I've heard of stuff like this happening before. I swear some people should be banned from interacting with kids.

The Chrysler Sebring that ruined my week

Since writing has become such a good outlet for me, I think this has become more of a life blog than just restricted to teaching. After all, the one thing I didn't want to have happen is let teaching consume my life. That being said, I was originally going to spend this time writing about my Labor Day weekend trip to Washington for a music concert, but instead I stayed in Oakland after getting t-boned at the intersection literally a block from my apartment. And if one more person tells me that "statistically it's the most common place to get in an accident," I swear I'm going to scream. This guy side-swiped me hard enough to trigger the side airbags and spin me 180 degrees up onto the curb; I'm pretty lucky he only hit the back driver's side door and not a few feet up from that. I still probably would have been fine - the damage on my car was nothing compared to the obliterated bumper of the other guy. The icing on the cake though - other than the fact that it was not my fault at all - was that the other guy had no insurance, and it also doesn't help that I have to wait until the end of September for my first paycheck of the school year. So anyway, I got hit about five minutes before we were planning on heading out en route to the Gorge Amphitheater, so I gave my friends the ticket to sell, thinking that I would be able to take care of all the repair plans over the weekend, but everything was closed for the holiday. I guess the $500 silver lining is that I was able to get a ton of things done that I originally didn't have time for, including playing in a pre-season game for a premier soccer team that I'm trying out for. I figure it's a "shit happens" scenario, and I didn't get hurt, so that's good.

As far as school goes, I used my extra time this weekend to grade and record the results from the diagnostic tests that I gave my classes. Overall, my algebra classes scored a 38% average on 7th grade math California math standards, my geometry students got a 41% on things they should know before my class, and my precalculus took the cake with depressing results. They scored less than 30% on algebra and geometry standards that they need before getting into precalculus curriculum. It has been quite a punch in the gut to realize that my goal this year is to reteach them Algebra 1, Algebra 2 and Geometry, in addition to somehow bridging the gap to Calculus. Holy hell. At least so far the students are all great and understand why we have so much ground to cover. I keep wondering how much better I could have done last year if I had only started off with this kind of relationship with the students. There's pretty much nothing bad to say about my new 178 students (note: still more than an average of 35 kids per class) other than their discouraging entry test scores, and every day I get students from last year walking by to say hi. This has reminded me many times that these kids rarely hold grudges - after all, a handful of those that stop by are the ones who still failed my class last year. I often think to myself when some of them stop by: "What are they doing here? We were never friends!" It's almost like making it through my first year at Richmond High and then coming back for another year is like the equivalent of a rite of passage where all of a sudden you earn all this extra respect. And yet with all this new teacher blood this year, sometimes all I think I've earned is extra cynicism.

But speaking of rites of passage, I was invited and went to a student's quincenera recently, which is a female Hispanic/Latino equivalent of a Bar Mitzvah, although I'm not one to say since I've never been to one. Anyway, these girls have like a wedding party of friends - guys and girls - and they have choreographed dance lessons for weeks before the event. There's dancing, matching dresses, tuxedos, lots of Spanish music, and a borderline ridiculous Beauty-and-the-Beast-style gown for the spotlit 15 year-old. It was pretty cool actually, and I still wonder what Latino guys traditionally do for their 15th birthday to match the girls. To me it seemed like way too much money to be spending on a teenager.

Oh yeah, we also had a 3.1 magnitude earthquake on Thursday morning during second period - it doesn't sound like much, but if you go to the USGS map, it was literally right underneath RHS. I didn't feel it since I was standing, but apparently all the desks shook because the students kind of went crazy and the rest of the period was pretty much shot. It must have done something to our new air conditioning systems because coincidentally our rooms turned blazing hot after that period, and learning - let alone teaching - is a seriously hard thing to do in a 90 degree room with no windows and no air circulation. Later that day the teacher across the hall said she heard one of my students yell in class for everyone to stop breathing because they were making it hotter. It was that bad.

I was originally going to take Friday off to go to this concert, but as it turned out, after getting in the car accident I needed it off anyway. However, getting a substitute already meant that I missed the crazy news that my "house" cultural geography teacher (the social studies teacher that all my students have) is quitting to go work in administration at our feeder middle school, which is all well and good for him, but I feel really bad for the students having to go through sub after sub until the spot has a long-term fix. It turns out that this teacher had been at Richmond for nine years, and actually graduated himself from RHS. The new gig is a dream job for him, and frankly, being Latino, he is an ideal candidate for the district's image, so I'm happy for him, but this was the guy who arranged the whole Oakland Half Marathon staff thing last year, so I'm sad to see him go.

So yes, mine was an eventful second week, and I doubt I'll get into the swing of things until my students stop getting switched around between classes. Rumor is that our new counselor declared that last Friday was the last day to switch your schedule around, and though the cynic in me says that there's no way in hell that's going to happen, I guess we'll see. Each week brings a new adventure. In the meantime I hope this rental car thing works without a hitch!

Week One: Part Deux

With the first week of school already gone, it's beyond my comprehension how it went so well. Of course, since my memories from last year's first month are suppressed and blacked out, I have nothing to compare it to - but something tells me this year is starting off way better. With all of TFA's drilling of teacher tactics over the first summer, and just given the fact that you have no idea what the hell you are getting yourself into, you begin your first year of teaching with a teacher personality that is not 100% you. Last year it took a few months for me to get past that and start actually acting like myself, and it's amazing how your students respond to it. Maybe being in this community makes them more aware of it, but these kids are incredibly good at weeding through the bullshit and always know which adults are being genuine to them. I've never been so comfortable in front of my class as I was this week, because what my students saw was my 100% real personality, and I think they could tell. For instance, my bathroom pass this year is a toilet seat I bought at Home Depot for $7 - to which my friends respond when I tell them: "Wow, you're THAT teacher?" Yes, I am, and I enjoy it.

Overall things couldn't be going better; I'm even remembering student names way faster this year. In some ways it's going TOO well though, like how already I've been asked by new students to be the girls' volleyball coach, the cross-country coach, and the advisor for a student service club. I still haven't officially said no to any of them, because I recently learned that I'm incapable of saying the word No. I'm already this year on the coaching staff for our boys' soccer team, so hopefully I'll have my act together by November. It may take that long for me to figure out how to plan for three classes and still have a normal bedtime. If my Precalculus class weren't so awesome, I would complain and ask the math department to redistribute the curriculum assignments. Why, after all, does nearly every teacher have to teach three different classes? Doesn't it make more sense if we divided the classes so that nearly everybody only has one class curriculum? I dare not bring that up in the department meetings though, because I would rather not have a long conversation about what is and isn't fair - as it turns out, we distribute the Algebra classes so that every teacher gets an equal "experience" with it, and no one is spared the joy of having at least one class that pushes you to your breaking point. It's funny how after only two days of school it was clear that that class would be my 3rd period Algebra. The optimist in me doubts that it will be that bad though. After all, I'm an amazing second year teacher now! Ha.

All of our new TFA teachers at Richmond - two of them math teachers - are just like little self-esteem boosters for returning TFAers. I'm sure they are told, just like we were, to reach out to older staff, and they make even me feel like the smartest, most experienced teacher they've ever met. This of course, is supported by the image I have been creating for myself in department meetings. My one goal this year was to try to get our math teachers more aligned in what they teach so that the movement of students from one math teacher to another wouldn't be so drastic a change for them. Plus, we could compare results from tests and discuss things that work and didn't work in class - actually work as a team, I mean. So all these two first-year TFAers have seen of me is my standing in front of our veteran math department teachers explaining how I think we should all align our teaching plan to something that looks like mine. I presented my year-long unit plan, and to my surprise, everybody jumped on board, even saying that mine makes way more sense than the one our district tries to make us do. Or maybe I've just been fostering such good relationships for a year that they feel like they can't argue with me. Either way, the job gets done! So, in the familiar theme of making more work for myself, I am now responsible for sending out all my materials to our Algebra and Geometry teachers, and our plan is to all make common assessments together so that we will essentially all be teaching the same math class (what a concept) and then we can actually compare student results between teachers. Talking one-on-one with one of our new teachers, he said that it looks like I'm pretty much the department head without the title. I laughed pretty hard, but I think I'm going to just let him think that I'm amazing. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?

"The Case Against Summer Vacation"

Believe it or not, I am sick and tired of being super lazy and not having a job to go do every day. The crazy thing is that I know for a fact that our students feel the same way. These are not the families and the community that goes on big summer vacations or goes to summer camps. Instead, they are bored out of their mind in Richmond - a few perhaps with summer jobs - waiting for school to start up again. It is interesting then to consider the fact that the "summer vacation" system for public education creates serious problems for our students retaining information year to year. For less impoverished communities, parents usually pick up the slack over summer, and the effect is not as clear; for our students here, who are possibly the first generation to go to high school in America, I doubt they have heard a word of math since June 10. I could go on, but my thoughts are in agreement with a Time article from earlier this month that I'm sure you would rather read: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2005654,00.html

Only three days until school starts and I have found that it is just as stressful knowing exactly what I am getting myself into than not knowing at all. I've got a lot to do before Tuesday. At least I can say that I have a better grasp of things than our new teachers (we have 12 this year). Speaking of which, I got my classroom key yesterday and took advantage of it by trying to claim all of the good desks from a vacant class across the hall. Unfortunately one of our new math teachers caught me in the act of stealing desks from what was apparently her new room. Oops. I don't feel THAT bad since I know that's how I got all of my wonderfully broken desks last year. But don't worry - our administration assured us that the new desks would be here in December. Ha.

Waiting For Superman

...is the name of a documentary coming out this fall that looks like an emotionally real take on the American education system. Michelle Rhee in the trailer is a TFA alum, so I predict the movie will be pretty much in line with the mission of Teach For America. Go see it!

http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/

The Final 100 Miles (Subtitle: Going Out with a Bang... of Thunder)

When attempting 275 miles through the state of Washington, you become very experienced very quickly. With much time in silence to think, a lot of it gets devoted to thoughts about what I would do differently if I were to do this again (which we do, believe it or not). Between the both of us, bouts of squeezing between snow and rocks and other similar terrain maneuvers had already claimed from us a few clothing items originally hung on the outside of our packs to dry - our friends from the cabin back on the fifth day promised that they would keep an eye out for the missing Croc, but believe it or not, after we headed back out on the trail with a new pair, one got lost again (and yes, it "got lost," because I wasn't the one that lost it...). I would say that the trail also took some of our dignity, because after some two weeks camping, there still never felt like there was a "proper" way to shit in the woods. The 10th time is just as unnatural feeling as the first.

Upon heading into Stehekin after our last step on the trail, we assessed the monetary damage caused and listed off all the other things claimed by the trail: a ripped shoelace, two broken backpack clips, a missing tent anchor, and two self-inflating sleeping pads ripped to shreds. I'm sure we looked a little stupid with our sleeping pads tied on the outside of our packs looking like they're ready to explode - the problem with a self-inflating anything is that when it rips, it always wants to self-inflate... and then doesn't hold the air when you need it. Case in point: that is one thing I would have done differently. No self-inflating sleeping pads. But just when we were going to curse the trail for taking these numerous things from us, we remembered that the trail had also graciously - and coincidentally - given us a pair of Crocs that someone else had dropped, so Jackie wasn't left shoeless anymore. Nearing the end, I was angry that I would not get to use my $200-worth of breathable Gore-Tex rain gear, but we'll get to that in a bit.

Let's instead start back at Baring, WA. The night's sleep was good on a (semi) real bed, and despite their pleas to stay another day and enjoy ourselves, there's only so much small town I can take. Don't get me wrong - they were amazingly hospitable and super friendly, but my ideal day of relaxation has an entirely different setup in my mind. One man in particular strangely seemed to have everything in common with us, telling us restaurants to go to in Oakland when we get back, and talking all about his involvement in their school district (how he ended up in Baring I don't know), and in the end he was nice enough to give us a ride eight miles up the road in his refinished 1931 Chevrolet for a better hitchhiking spot. Upon reading that last sentence I feel I need to clarify that it was totally a friendly offering and not creepy at all. However, this was the beginning of one of the strangest days of my life.

We were surprised to be picked up once again within five minutes of throwing up the thumb, and this time we got to sit in the backseat, bumming a ride with an older man who was apparently visiting his mother. It took thirty seconds to realize that this guy was a talker, which was fine, but the comments were taking an interesting turn. After brief introductions of what we were doing and why we needed the ride, and hearing about his mother and his cats at home (that should have been the first signal), he told us that "it's a very important time in the world right now and there are things that we should be aware of," which was strange considering I hadn't seen any major stories in the newspaper that morning. He then asked us if we knew there were other races in the world, which seemed like a very odd question, but yes, we did know that Caucasians were not the only race. He was elated to find that we agreed, and then plunged into a 20 minute speech about reptilian mind control and how there are other planets with other life forms and that people with cat eyes were really from the cat race and the government is covering everything up and how he and his sister were abducted by aliens and how he has a hole in the back of his head from the experience... I really can't do justice to it at all and wish I had had a tape recorder. But he assured us that we can learn all about "the truth" online by watching videos of some guy. Luckily, all he needed was a little "hmm" and "uh-huh" once in a while to carry the conversation all by himself, and my fear mainly came from the thoughts of what would happen if he turned around and saw my uncontrollably smiling face. This guy was f***ing crazy! I could barely contain my laughter when, in the middle of telling us about the alien spaceships going into another dimension and flying into Mt. Adams, he would stop to say "ooh look, a squirrel!" in the exact same tone of voice. I have never been that long in the presence of a crazy person before. I think he misunderstood us and thought that had found some people that knew all about this stuff. There were some awkwardly tense moments when he realized that we actually had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but he did in the end graciously drop us off at Stevens Pass and we saw him pick up another stranger some 50 yards down the road. When we were safely out of the car, I laughed harder than I have laughed in years. I knew these people existed on the internet, but in real life?!

Our laughs apparently attracted a man who I swear to you was Chris Farley reincarnated (think: "Fat man in a little [hiking outfit]"), and who somehow felt obligated to tell us his life story about what brought him to the trail and how he needs to lose the 50 pounds he gained in medical school. Upon reflection, there are two types of hikers: the ones that blaze by you without a word, and the ones that find a confidant in every other hiker they meet, sharing completely irrelevant things just for conversation. In short, hikers can be super weird. We headed towards the trailhead wondering what was attracting these people to us, but were intercepted by a construction worker having lunch, who asked us if we were hikers (duh), how the trail was, and if we had seen any wildlife. Hiking is apparently a very social activity!

Things returned to relatively normal, aside from the fact that our newly stuffed packs were making their extra five pounds (at least) known at every step. Planning for how much food to bring and how many days you'll be hiking is sort of a vicious circle because if you agree on a leisurely hiking pace to save your body, you're looking at more food, which is more weight, which will slow you down even more, which may require more days of food, and so on. Luckily we did not hit the incredibly challenging terrain until a few days in, so our bags were at least a little lighter. According to the official Wilderness Press Pacific Crest Trail guide, this 100-mile section ranks as number two in difficulty for the whole of the trail, falling short only of the John Muir Trail section in California (which is next on the list, seriously). By the pictures you may be able to tell that this part of the hike was dominated mostly by Glacier Peak; the trail does a large semicircle around it due to potential avalanche hazards if you get too close, and as a result, the trail took us on less than happy trips steeply switchbacking up one mountain only to steeply switchback down the other side, cross a creek, and head straight up the next one. Once again, thank goodness we were distracted by good weather and spectacular views.

That being said, though, I suddenly remember my vow to send the PCT Association an email and a piece of my mind. I would hesitate to even call this part of the trip a trail at all, with how unkempt it was. Every person we met hiking in the opposite direction would give us their take on what lay ahead for us; they all said something different - identifying them quickly as optimists or pessimists - but they seemed to all be variations on the theme of "swimming through overgrowth" and "climbing over a million blowdowns." What they really should have told us is that we would be bushwhacking and climbing over trees in the pouring rain. I can't complain too much since if it hadn't rained, we wouldn't have gotten the full outdoor experience and I would have replaced the expensive rain gear with a plastic poncho on my next outing. Let's just say I was glad to have more than a poncho after the skies opened. Bushwhacking is particularly frustrating when everything is soaking wet. In all, that was just not a very good day for us considering that thanks to my wanting to press on, we ended up having to camp in the middle of the trail and sleep without pads since ours were soaked through. That was the only day where I felt our friendship was at stake. I'll spare you the details.

The final days of the expedition after the thunderstorm were interesting for a number of reasons, not least of which was because our toilet paper was soaked all the way through. Don't worry though, we improvised with pages torn from a crossword puzzle magazine that I brought for boredom. Let me tell you - not the same. It's also quite an uncomfortable feeling putting on wet socks and wet boots in the morning. The sunlight was super orange all day and Jackie insisted on a number of occasions that it smelled like a campfire, but I just thought she was hallucinating about the grilled bacon cheeseburgers that we promised would be our first "real" meals when we got there. We finally made it into Stehekin to find truckloads of volunteer firefighters heading to the nearby lightning fire (to which we thought, oh, duh), and enjoyed one extra night camping in the small resort town through smoky haze and still more rain than we would have liked. Still, the first restaurant meal and real shower in over a week made everything okay. We slept 14 hours that night in food-induced comas, thanks to the Stehekin bakery's cinnamon rolls the size of my face, our celebratory beers, and our dinner of burgers and steak nachos. And suddenly I remembered what it's like to be full.

My mom was gracious enough to make the three-hour drive - north this time - to pick us up, and it was back to reality real quick. We recounted the two (and a half) black bears that we saw, along with the elk, deer, countless marmots and hummingbirds. It's funny how quickly you forget about the swarms of mosquitoes when the bites are gone; I will say though, the new worst organism in the world is the biting black fly. They do not respond to DEET and are relentless. I recalled the newest songs that made their trail debut in my head, including Sound of Music - I think you can guess which song. And then upon getting home, we checked out the list of the newest members of Teach For America, seeing who was placed at our school and where they came from, of course being super judgmental on whether or not we think they'll "make it" at our respective schools. They'll be fine at my school but at Jackie's I'm not so sure... She was the one you may recall last year who had some 60 students in one biology class, and it took about three weeks to get it fixed. Our class rosters are now accessible online, so if nothing changes, my biggest class is Precalculus with 33 students and all my other classes - freshman classes - are 25 students or less. Woohoo!

I had thought that three and a half weeks of time to think to myself would give me some epiphany about my life plan and what I want to do, but really it seemed to just make me relax in the fact that I still don't know for sure, and to take it day by day or year by year or however long it takes. It's the planning gene in me that makes me feel uneasy about uncertainty, but I've realized that I'm in no rush (yet) and it's much more satisfying doing things that I know I want to do - even if they're short term ventures. Plus, I get good pictures out of it: