I suppose it could be linked to the outrageous week that took place prior; I still can't believe the situation that led to the expulsion of my student, and clearly by my last post it is very frustrating to realize how easy it is to live in this world - the same greater metropolitan area, even - without ever knowing the problems or the injustice that exist on a daily basis. I will concede that I was a little under the influence during my last post, which I vow to never do again. It's difficult though to enjoy a Napa trip when the only person I see eye to eye with is the birthday girl.
I purposely waited at least a week to mention this other occurrence though, that happened just a day after the pot brownie fiasco. The principal announced over the intercom that all teachers need to meet in the theater during lunch - which anyone can tell means something serious, because as a coworker of mine would say, "This better be important or the union will hear about this. Lunchtime is OUR time." And sure enough, it was very important and very disturbing. Apparently another student had gotten expelled that morning after our on-campus policemen and security officers found a sawed-off shotgun in his locker. The thing is though, while you all may be freaking out and wondering why I'm not giving my two weeks notice right now (which totally doesn't work as teacher), I view this as a situation of community gangs breaching the school community borders. I'd be willing to bet a hefty sum of money on the fact that this kid made this (very stupid) decision to prove to some other gang member at school that he was serious and that he wasn't joking around. I guarantee that he had no intention of using the gun. At school.
Maybe it sounds like I'm in denial, but all the violence that takes place in this community is on weekend evenings in situations where there are no witnesses to get someone convicted, or, if there are witnesses, they are too scared for their lives to speak up. For instance, one of my students witnessed her own brother getting shot but for fear of her own life, she changed her last name. Richmond High can be improved in a million and one ways, but I think they have done an incredible job with keeping the interactions of the gang community out of the school community. We have boys and girls discussion groups and restorative justice circles, which are amazing (see restorative justice under wikipedia), so a shooting at school is just not a very big fear of mine.
Gangs do not scare me as much as they originally did. They are predictable, and as a coworker of mine said, "would not waste their time on conflicts with teachers." I remember my response to that statement was an awkward chuckle. What scares me more are the unstable kids. Enter Tuesday.
But before we talk about Tuesday, let's discuss a slightly funny occurrence in the class across from mine. Remember, it's the English class with all my same students. When they were in their poetry unit, this teacher's first period was not particularly thrilled about reading their poems aloud, and one student specifically mouthed off to her about how he hates poetry and doesn't give a shit about it, yada yada. At the end of the day she was telling me all of this, saying how first period "was a bunch of little assholes today" (after school is out, her language loosens). And sure enough, the kid from first period walks in, she jokingly covers her statement by asking him in fact, why he was such an asshole to her that morning, and he explains that he came to apologize. All in all, she was embarrassed, but not as embarrassed as when he told his mom and she called the school. I don't think I made it clear enough that she is an amazing teacher, and nothing like this has happened in the five years she's worked at RHS. She had to make a formal apology and everything, but after that, everything was back to normal right?
Wrong. The next unit involved reading Night by Elie Wiesel, and since these kids have absolutely no idea about the Holocaust, there is a lot of background teaching beforehand. To do this, the teacher explained prejudice and how it has existed in this world past and present, and as an activity, had all students write down some instance or occurrence they experienced or knew of that fell somewhere on the ladder of prejudice, from speech and discrimination to genocide. When everyone was leaving class, this kid approached the teacher and asked if he could put his post-it on the ladder, and, surprised that he hadn't already, she asked him where it should go. He said genocide, to which she asked what instance he was thinking of. And, with a creepy smile on his face, he said that he wanted to kill everyone at his middle school. Her dumbfounded response was, "could you be more specific?" and he said, sounding surprised that she didn't know, that that was why he was expelled from his middle school.
Now, when I say that this school district fails at organization, this is what I mean. Don't you think it would be important information for a teacher to know that one of her students has some past thoughts that could be uncovered with the discussion of the Holocaust? And sure enough, in his file, everything was written out as he said it, except that he wasn't actually expelled. With 24 days left in the school year, his middle simply told him to not come back. I love how so many people don't see the issue in passing a problem along to someone else. As a math teacher I am particularly fond of that.
Anyway, back to the story. As a teacher, she is legally obligated to inform the administration and counselors of the information she just heard, and given the intensity of the situation, the next step is to do a psych evaluation of the kid, since he is off the meds he is supposed to be taking. Keep in mind that this is the same kid who told his mother about being called an asshole and now this mother is being called to school about another interaction with this same teacher. There's a tiny bit of humor there. Clearly though, she is in denial because she told the teacher that she shouldn't have asked him about it if she didn't want to hear the answer. Yikes. Long story short, he is now doing independent study with a counselor instead of being in her class, and his mother is suing the school... or the school district. Whichever makes more sense. The disturbing part though is that the Holocaust unit clearly changed how this student holds himself, and he has been creepily hanging outside her class since this all began. THAT is scarier than a sawed-off shotgun at school. And who knows if it is related, but this teacher across the hall got her car keyed in the staff parking lot. First time it's happened to her in five years. Creepy.
Few things that happen at Richmond are surprising to me anymore, which is sad, but the next day was the cherry on top of a twilight zone week. My students in 6th period could not focus because students kept mentioning the name of one of the other teachers at school and giggling. This scenario never plays out well, so I tried to get them to spill the beans about what was so funny, but they wouldn't say. It was only after school was out that one of my Geometry students came to say how appalled she was at other students at this school to do that to such a good teacher (in my mind I'm thinking, "Do WHAT?"), and so I got the scoop from another teacher that some students had taken her phone, gotten on her email, and found NAKED PICTURES of her. I should have prefaced this by saying that this first-year TFA teacher has already been experiencing serious sexual harassment by her students, but she hasn't been able to summon the bitch inside of her to quell it. According to other female teachers, that's what it takes. By the end of the week, the comments were gone in my class, but literally the whole school knows about this, so I'm wondering how it will play out when we get back from break.
Basically I'm just trying to figure out where this sickness of mine came from. I spend five days each week in a small windowless room with some 180 kids and I don't get sick, but the moment I get time to relax, I am deathly ill. What gives? Also, $40 antibiotics is outrageous. I have to complain to someone. Still, these breaks seem to come at the perfect times, so I can't complain too much. Plus, I got nominated this week for a TFA teaching award, which was pretty cool.
By now you can tell I've got cabin fever so I'll leave you with a priceless quote from one of my ninth graders. He's applying for a program at Stanford for the summer and really needed a letter of recommendation from me. I was putting it off because I was really sick but I did it because he wouldn't stop pestering me about it, and when I sent it, I reminded him of all the ways he could make the application process run more smoothly in the future, like giving his teachers more than a few days' notice for a recommendation. By the way, I have to believe that he is a much better writer than this... I'm asking his English teacher on Monday. Funny nonetheless.
In response to receiving the letter I had written and sent him:
"thank you so very much so sorry for the trouble i cause you and please get well i don't want a substitute on Monday your voice is a little monotone but your always be better that a substitute
my regards Marco"
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