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...