1:37:29

To anyone who has never run a half-marathon: do it. The race today was probably one of the most satisfying experiences of my life, and the way a community comes together to do an event like the Oakland Running Festival is just incredibly awesome. I was one of four teachers from Richmond High running the event, and another coworker ran the marathon (now a marathon is just plain ridiculous). For my first half-marathon ever, I am happy to say that I clocked in at 1:37:29, which is a 7:27 mile pace over the 13.1 miles. The way they do runs these days is pretty cool; I had a chip on my shoe that clocked my time exactly, and allowed them to read my name as I crossed the finish line. All the results are posted online too, which is cool to see how you stacked up to other runners. There were 3000 runners that finished the half-marathon, and overall, I got 136th place - 117th place among men. The coolest part for me was to see that in my division, among men 20-24, I placed 7th of 45. The whole experience was just amazing, and I want to do it again in another city!

Oakland: Runs and Guns

I try to start each entry with happy things. This time it's the fact that the weather in the Bay has been amazing, and that quarter three ends this Friday. Having 75% of the year completed is a pretty good feeling; I go back and forth daily deciding whether the year has passed with a blink of an eye or if this really could be the definition of an eternity. Regardless of my conclusion, it seems that life continues to pass at an undeniable warp speed, and this weekend, with health reform all in the news, I think I am starting to understand why.

The social work that is teaching puts such a relevant twist on most everything in state and national politics, that I am trying to absorb everything that is thrown my way. My conclusions? It is quite a chore to be an active an informed citizen, and it is incredibly overwhelming to learn exactly how (poorly) this country runs. I suppose that is a natural reaction when going from ignorance to overexposure in a matter of six months.

Okay, too much deep reflective thought. Back to happy things. The Oakland Running Festival is this weekend and I will be participating in the half-marathon; although I still have not come to a conclusion as to how it makes sense that I must pay a fee of $90 to put my body through so much pain. Actually I did run seven miles yesterday in 53 minutes, so I am hoping I can finish the event on Sunday under two hours. Other happy things? I scored two goals in our soccer game this past weekend, and we won 4-3. That was nice.

Unhappy things now. My roommate's Oakland middle school had a drive-by shooting yesterday. Six shots, and one kid, who I guess was a former student or a dropout from the school went to the hospital after getting hit in the legs. The worst part about it was that my roommate's classroom has windows to that side of the school and his students ran to the window and pretty much saw the whole thing. For the first time I am glad my classroom does not have windows.

Not only that, but yesterday, a teacher at my school had a conversation with me about how she is leaving to go to a better organized charter school in the district. She is an amazing English teacher and has been my mental support system all year, so another year at Richmond High seems a little grim without her across the hall. The conversation made me wonder on the drive home from school what it would be like to teach at a high-performing school instead.

3 more weeks until break... 3 more weeks until break...

This week was an odd one. In retrospect, it is actually this post, and not the last one, that should be titled "The Highs and Lows." If I have ever had a bipolar week, this one was it. Let me begin first by assuring you all that despite being overwhelmed and tired and emotionally exhausted, it's nothing a good relaxing weekend cannot reset to begin it all again next week.

To kick it off, Monday started with quite a bang- at the beginning of 4th period, one of my students came in the door crying asking if she could get a hall pass to go to the theater. When I asked why, she said that a friend of hers - and a former student of mine - had been shot and killed that day in San Jose. That geometry class was the worst lesson I have given in a long time, and the students were all worked up by this rumor that a Richmond High ninth grader had just died - and all I could think about was that Ramon used to be in my class.

At the beginning of 5th period, the assistant principal walked around to every room in the school to assure students that it was, in fact, just a rumor. The kid was actually at home sleeping - skipping school of course. His English teacher filled me in on the fact that Ramon spends much of his time as a drug-runner, so she was sad to say that she wasn't really surprised by hearing the rumor. I guess their English class did a "walk a mile in my shoes" poetry assignment, and Ramon talked all about guns, drugs, weed, and death; it was the only work he did in that class. As a 14-year old, he has made peace with the fact that he might get killed. How awful is that?

Next came Tuesday, where according to my TFA mentor, I gave my best lesson ever. If only the enthusiasm and energy to get there would be sustainable for more than one day! What I remember most from that day however, was a discussion I had with a mentor of one of my students. David is in my high -achieving 4th period class, and he is a genuine kid that tries so hard but is so far behind in math curriculum that teaching him new up-to-grade-level material is very difficult. I see him every Thursday after school for additional tutoring, and talk on the phone every two or three weeks with his mentor. Over the phone this Tuesday, I was told that him, his parents, and his four older sisters live in a trailer, and that his mother is just awful to him. I understood why David had this female mentor when she told me that his mother often gets angry with him and refuses to make him any dinner. This woman on the phone explained that she took David out and bought him a glove and cleats for him to play baseball on the Richmond team because his parents refused to do so. I hope she couldn't tell that David's geometry teacher was crying on the other end of the phone.

On Wednesday, Jose from my 5th period class stayed in during lunch to explain to me that he wanted to be an actor so that he could make a lot of money and take care of his nieces since his sister wasn't doing a good job. He explained that his entire family is moving back to Mexico but that he is going to stay because he wants to go to college, and he asked me if I could help show him how to go about the application process. The sad thing is that although I have the utmost optimism for Jose, I fear all the ways that the education system can fail him, especially if all his family is leaving to Mexico. I also feel sometimes that these kids are getting the short end of the stick by getting a first-year teacher. On a related note, having heard his story, how the hell am I supposed to give him an F in Geometry even if he only understands 20% of the material? That's going to be a tough day.

I realized on Friday how much I have built up my patience by working in a classroom. Strangely enough, this realization came with the first verbal confrontation I have had with another teacher. As it turns out, for every ounce of patience I have gained for the craziness of my students, I have lost an ounce of patience for immature adults. First off, I share a walls with three other classes, one of whom is a ninth grade English teacher. Now, I will be the first one to say that I have problems keeping my 6th period class under control, and part of those problems include banging on the wall. About every other day, I have to move a student's seat or assign detention for knocking back and forth between the walls; every time there is a knock on the wall, it seems to be in their blood that they must respond with an equal or angrier knock. Such is the mindset of how life works in this community. The term "conflict resolution" is not commonly known, and any verbal disagreement between students almost always escalates to swearing and inappropriate name-calling. This only enters the classroom scene for my freshmen.

I was appalled on Friday to find out that this teacher is like my students in many ways. For half of 6th period - at least 25 min - there was consistent knocking on the wall from her classroom. I moved every student of mine away from the wall, thinking that it was them, but still more banging. This is the same class that has six special education students, and one of them has the shortest temper of any student I have ever met. Needless to say, after 20 minutes of nonstop pounding, he ran to the wall cursing and banging like crazy. I don't think I have been that furious since the beginning of the school year - but this time I was furious along WITH my student, not AT him. At the end of the period I walked over to the other class and tried to have a civil conversation about the possibility of preventing her students from ruining the Friday quiz I had planned. She instead explained to my face that my class is always hitting the wall so today she told her class that they can hit back (which the students obviously took full advantage of). I tried to explain to her that I wish she would not approach the situation in this way, and instead talk to me before allowing her students to retaliate. Unfortunately I could not get past the phrase "...and instead talk to me..." because she kept interrupting me by saying "We're talking right now." I left her with, "Maybe we'll try this conversation again after school," since I nearly blew up in her face and in front of students, but since it was Friday, I couldn't catch her again before she left school. I just could not believe that she told her students that they could do the exact opposite of what is behaviorally appropriate in school - and in life for that matter - and I am still particularly upset about it because that is the first thing that has happened at school that made me feel like I was taken advantage of just because I am a first-year teacher. And with such a large school faculty, that was the first interaction I have had with her. Great. Monday's going to suck.

The Highs and Lows

Is it bad to take pleasure in hearing students tell me how bad other math teachers are at Richmond? The funny part is that the kids who say this aren't in my classes, so who's to say I don't fall into that category too? I think high school math class is another "the grass is always greener..." scenario, so I'm sure my students say that to other teachers too. But there is part of me that wonders, especially since I haven't been able to sit in on any other classes yet.

Anyway, I tutor every Thursday, and this is a common theme of conversation as I help these students from other classes. The kid I helped today was one of my students whose classes got switched at the semester's end, and at least he says that he liked my class way better. Nothing like an after-school self esteem boost, right? The curious thing, though, was that all the worksheets he pulled out of his bag that he needed help on were MY worksheets - my handwriting and all. We counted at least ten handouts that were straight up just photocopies of the handouts I give in my class. I mean it's not like I copyrighted my handouts, and in a way I'm kind of honored, but kind of creeped out too because I have no idea how she gets a hold of my sheets each day. During the drive home I concluded that there must be a mole student that reports to her with the work from the day. It's the only explanation. Anyway, it's weird. I don't know why she doesn't just ask for the materials.

Other highlights from the week: let's see... My best student in first period told me yesterday that I'm turning ghetto. Not knowing whether I should be worried or enthusiastic about the comment, I asked her how she decided that. She said that she can just tell. And then today was a "walk-out" day for all schools in the state of California, to protest the horrible situation of educational funding by the state. I don't know who's idea it was, but we disguised our walk-out by doing a disaster evacuation drill - to symbolize the disaster of the California education system I guess. Whether or not that was the reason, it was a good choice because there were riots at our neighboring high school during their walk-out.

Of course, there always seems to be bad news to share, and this week was pretty bad. A Richmond High senior died this past weekend by getting hit by a train. She was a pretty popular girl, so a lot of students were shaken up about it, especially after stories I heard about the press conference earlier in the week with the parents. According to the parents, the ambulance took two hours to get to her - to which they added that they are sick of the Richmond fire/ambulance/police departments treating the Latino community like second-class citizens. This conference was in front of the school, so of course the victim's closest friends got emotional and started yelling things like "F*** the police and the fire department." Yikes. The funeral is tomorrow, so I'll be missing a ton of students from class.

This whole situation brought about a can of worms when I was talking to our security guards during my prep period. If you want to know who gets affected the most by the traumatic things that happen in the school community, I think it's them. They've lived it for something like fifteen years now, and they're just numb to things now. One of the guys recounted too vividly his experience about nine years ago when a student got shot outside the school during school hours, and the student made it inside to the front office, where he died in the security guard's arms. I guess the medics couldn't get to the student in time because the scene was not clear for entry - they did not know where the shooter was, so they couldn't go inside. Hearing all that kind of freaked me out, so I'm just going to go ahead and assume that things have seriously changed since then.

Just over six weeks until the California State Tests, which really sucks because I'm fully prepared to be completely and utterly judged by the poor scores that the majority of my students will get. I think it's the CST that makes me enjoy hearing how bad other math teachers are, because it gives me hope that my scores will be higher than theirs! Having written that now, I KNOW that's why.