The 300 Days: Part 1 - The Corona and the Rollercoaster

"I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

- the last words of Sir Isaac Newton

The warm sun, the cool Pacific breeze, the Corona in his hand; life wasn’t too bad, even if the Corona was a little warm.  Southern California will do that to you.  Somewhere bordering the two oceans, one of beach-goers and one of the saltwater variety, Will sat and contemplated the ongoing saga that was his professional life.  To say that Will was a persistent individual was an understatement.  For five years, Will had taught in a variety of school settings, but none hit that Goldilocks zone...

The charter school he started his career at was the closest thing to experiencing the reign of Mussolini, but it was close and the staff were friendly.  By year three, the angry fascist leader’s tactics finally drained Will’s hope of continuing at that school.  So, he began to scour the planet looking for a job, any job, that would get him the hell out of there.  Sometime, two months into the school year, a glimmer of hope appeared in the form of a small, rural district some 45 minutes away.  While Will’s confidence was rather shot at the moment, his desire to rid himself of the ice cold grip of the tyrant outweighed it.  It was this type of stern desire that guided him.

One week later, Will was packing a mere single box of his belongings.  He did not tell his students, as he did not want to cause any sort of panic.  Kids want structure and sameness.  Any sort of deviation in this may cause chaos.  Knowing his pupils the way that he did, he no doubt had made the correct decision.  The bell rang, the final farewells to the staff that he tried to grow with was a bit more difficult than he imagined.  From above, it was much like any other school:  generally a friendly staff and a group of tough kids who, like any other group, wanted to be acknowledged in their own way.  The missing piece was the leadership, which without, cannot lead to a successful educational environment.  Indeed the foundation had crumbled, and Will was leaping out of the nearest window, but not without turning back once more as he ran, to see his cohorts of two years looking back at him stern smiles, but with a melancholic gauze.  “Take us with you,” their eyes seemed to say for only a moment, before their focus returned to their own individual predicaments.  Will would have if he could.  And perhaps their suffering was short lived, as by the next year, the staff largely had been rid of, most by their own accord.

A drop of the keys on the front desk, a casual smirk to the tyrant, his arms wrapped around the final belongings.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a glimpse is worth a thousand more.  Will may not have said a word to Ms. Mussolini, but his confident strides said everything.  No more staff meeting tirades, no more condescending emails, no more “punishing” the staff by mandatory meetings before and after hours or prep time.  His box may as well been a stick with a bag tied at the end, his tattered overalls and blistered bare feet waiting for the next train out west.  But it was like his life was beginning anew.  With that, Will solemnly walked out of the building, got into his car, and pressed play on his iPod.  While his extensive playlist was on random shuffle, the first song was anything but.  The tunes of Radiohead echoed off the building that he called home for two years, ready to take the next (blind) step in his career.

Some three years later, Will had the itch again.  While he was quite satisfied with his position, his fellow staff, and his students, he considered long term.  Was the 45 minute, 50 mile commute worth it?  The answer was always a somber “no.”  He saw himself in a solid, high achieving district near his home.  This district was lacking the proximity component.  So as Will toed the warm California sand, the ever existent low-level anxiety was pulling at him.  A ticking clock.  He knew the window was closing.  Being a teaching veteran of five years with a Master’s degree to boot, many districts would not even look at his resume.  As one Human Resources director told him at a screener interview “we look at your experience and education and wonder ‘why would we pay someone $15,000 more when we can hire someone right out of college?’”  

Will still pressed on, despite the window closing slowly by the day.  And while that burden weighed him down at all times, he still was somewhat hopeful that everything he did was “part of the plan.”  While pessimism dominated his psyche, there was still just a faint glimmer of hope that destiny was yet to play out.  No stone was left unturned; Will even took 9 college credits in a six-week time-frame in order to gain a teaching licensure that would allow him to teach a broader range of students and subject areas.  

As the warm, perfect late-July day moved on, Will took a break from the beach to do some homework for one of these courses.  But not before doing his usual job search on the online databases.  He saw one particular position posted as “Middle School Science” in a well-ranked district in a rapidly growing suburban area.  He checked over his credentials, as he customarily did, and clicked the “apply” button fixated to the bottom of the page.

About an hour passed, working diligently on his coursework when there was a buzzing from his phone:  a local area code popped up and before he could answer, it went to voicemail.  Five minutes later, Will was pacing the beach, setting up an interview for the position he had applied for not 60 minutes prior, agreeing to a time that was suitable upon his return to Ohio.  With that, Will jogged to the beach-house to share the good news.  His confidence thermometer skyrocketed, bursting the glass tube that attempted to confine its contents.  “This is it,” he thought to himself.  He was nervous, but he was just as confident.

Four days later, Will put on his best shirt and tie, while a mixture of anxiety, nervousness, and confidence pumped through his veins;  an odd concoction, but just the necessary amount.  He shook the hands of the principal, assistant principal, and science department leader and began the interview.

Will was a machine.  Will was charming.  Will was articulate and thoughtful.  His eyes were blue.  His smile may have also been warm enough to gently warm our planet on a cold winter day.  Not a question asked went unanswered, and the responses given felt natural, yet correct (if that were possible).

Again, Will got into his vehicle, this time under better circumstances.  Within 20 minutes, one of his references called him and said that he had just spoken with the principal.  The next 24 hours seemed to take an eternity, but by early evening the next day, Will’s dream came true, and was offered the position.  His at-the-time fiance burst into tears when he gave her the news.  Finally, Will could teach in a great district, coach in a great district, thrive in a great district, and even be fairly well compensated (at least in contrast to his previous experiences).

Once Will gently landed from his journey to the stratosphere, he peeked at his calendar, and realized that the school year was starting in less than two weeks.  Between that moment and the first bell he needed to:  resign his previous position, formally accept his new position, contact his previous schools to verify experience, fill out paperwork, attend new teachers meetings, meet his new science team, associate himself with the new curriculum and standards, learn the school discipline policy and related rules, and familiarize himself with the staff.  Maybe, if he had time, he would also get a breast-enhancement.

Will was ready.  He was nervous, yes, but he had never really failed at anything at this point. His persistence was his greatest virtue, and that would surely bode him well.  Being the new kid on the block, Will knew that he either needed to kick someone’s ass or join a gang.  However after realizing he wasn’t incarcerated, he decided that the next logical thing would be to learn.  He was now surrounded with very knowledgeable people, it seemed.  It was helpful to know that there would be such support for someone who was starting fresh.  The plan was simple:  to learn, to experience, to lead, to guide, and to be guided.  Will was responsible for well over 110 pupils, instructing them in the ways of science, and it would be foolish not to utilize his cohorts as formidable resources, seeing as they had taught science for many years.  

In his short teaching career, Will taught on an island, never truly having a mentor or learning from a battle-tested veteran. As with two sides of every coin, there were definitive results from this type of isolated experience.  For one, he learned independence quickly.  Some teachers are prone to quickly adapting their teaching style to match that of someone else’s.  You wouldn't have Lebron James play quarterback for the Browns, would you?  

Ok. You probably would.  

Perhaps you wouldn’t ask Lebron James to play wide receiver for the Brow-... shit. 

The culminating point of this failed metaphor was Will’s ability to develop his own style, his own teaching persona.  It suited him well and the students seemed to enjoy it too.  

However, the downside of this is quite obvious:  you are alone.  In his experiences, Will had created and done just about everything (lesson plans, assessments, labs) from scratch using nothing but his own mind, some books, and the world wide web.  Now, in this new experience, it was finally refreshing to know that he had a TEAM, a group of “specialists” who he could bounce ideas off and have resources and ideas shared.  There was one thing that Will always seemed to be asked in interviews, and that was his idea of “the team;”  his answer was always the same:  they are family.  You help each other, you guide each other, you pick each other up when you are down, you exploit the strengths of all and work together to buffer out weaknesses.  Will finally had the benefit of working in a collective group that would help him grow as an educator.  As his student-teaching mentor had put on his recommendation letter “(he) is one of the most coach-able and dedicated students and teachers I have ever worked with.”

The final hours of summer counted down with Will scrambling to get his room and lesson plans situated between the frequent staff meetings that commence every school year.  Before he knew it, the first bell rang to start the year, signifying the beginning of the roller coaster that is the the life of a teacher from August through June:  there are ups, there are downs, unforeseen twists and turns, no breaks.  You may even wonder “why am I doing this?” in the middle of a ride, but when the car pulls into the station you think “that was kind of fun.”  Will had just been strapped into the front car of a big, new, exciting roller coaster and, as customary, he did not dare look around in the initial incline due to his fear of heights.  In retrospect, had he done this, he would have seen that upon reaching the track’s apex, that there was no track to guide.  

His car was set careen off the track, straight down into the fiery depths of hell....

An Army of Possums, A Urine Soaked Savanna

Either you’ve grown up with or know a family that you either shudder or laugh when you hear the last name.  It’s crazy to consider that just a surname can invoke so much emotion.  A reputation merely held together with just a few letters.  We all probably knew a family growing up. I had a girl named Leah in my elementary class growing up that was an absolute basket-case.  It was one of those small, rural Ohio farming community schools, so she was entertaining as hell. One time at lunch she threw her tray because someone asked her to pass the ketchup.  It was her supreme goal to convey to her cohorts that she was “unstable.”  She had an obsession with Catwoman too, as I recall.  She always asked me if I wanted to be Batman.  I usually said no.  On the days I said yes, I just ran away and she got furious and threw gravel at me. She told me it was “kitty litter.”  I told her “I don’t think you know who Catwoman is.”  This further enraged her causing her to do “extreme things” like scream really loud or pretend to convulse.

Her older brother was two grades above us, and he ripped the door of the bathroom stall once.  Either because he liked to destroy things, or because he firmly believed that those hanging metal walls could contain his dumps.  He also had a rat-tail.  That should tell you all you need to know, other than the fact that he looked like a cartoon possum come to life.  Seriously picture a possum you’d expect to see in a Disney movie.  Now, imagine that cartoon possum gets its wish granted by a magic gnome to become a human boy.  That's exactly what he looked like.

Her younger brother was 3 years younger than me apparently farted once in line for lunch and it smelled so bad, two kids threw up.  He was sent home, likely as a precaution, in order to prevent the building being reduced to rubble if a mere match were lit.  And somewhere, miles above that crumbling, ghost-town of an elementary school, is a hole in the ozone the shape of their family crest about 4 feet wide caused by burst of methane some 18 years ago.  A smelly relic of a possum kingdom.

Her little brother typically either had a mullet or a rat-tail in which he likely rotated depending on the season in order to protect his delicate neck from the cruel Ohio sun.

Everyone knew that one family that either had kids that were like a bag full of cats or kids that were always in the office or in a penitentiary.

In my first year teaching, I had a student named “Olaf Carr” who would do ANYTHING to mess around on the computer.  Olaf was like an addict:  he knew there were repercussions to his actions, he just couldn’t contain himself.  I can only imagine the sick pleasure he got when he laid his fingers on the mouse.  Disgusting.

On dozens of occasions, Olaf was caught on the computer on a gaming website called Runescape.  The funny thing was, Olaf was about as secretive as a Times Square streaker in broad daylight.  Each time Olaf was caught and presented with the fact that he was caught red handed, he denied he was on Runescape.

“Olaf, you’re on Runescape.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I just saw you on Runescape.”

“No you didn’t”

“Olaf, it’s still pulled up on your browser.”

“It was like that already.”

“Ok.”

The hell is this shit?

I had Olaf for one year and thought these shenanigans were over.  So wrong was I.  The next year, I had TWO of his siblings:  a sister (Corrine), and a brother (that was held back a grade) named Corey.  Corrine was a nice girl, considering her stock. Corey on the other hand was just a flat out ass.  The student who was constantly talking, and as soon as you’d try and correct him, he would promptly point out all the other students who were also talking in a sarcastic, eye-rolling tone. Corey’s behavior was consistent across all subject areas, so we had many conferences with his parents.  And sitting in those conferences explained a lot about Corey and his behavior.

Corey’s conference consisted of his mother, father, aunt, an older sibling, two siblings in grade school, and a crying baby (who cried the whole time).  It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a hidden baby breastfeeding during the conference, or if she was pregnant at the time.  Why?  Corey’s oldest brother was 27, and his youngest sibling appeared to be 4 months.  By my calculations, he probably had 12 siblings.  And based on my limited experience with a fraction of the Carr family children, they were all alike.  For example…

One warm spring afternoon, Corey’s fifth grade class was going on a field-trip to the zoo.  Chaparone’s were welcome and, being of a legal age, one of Corey’s seventeen brothers was signed up to go with.  In retrospect, his volunteering was likely for the pleasure of going to the zoo on someone else’s dime rather than - you know - help?  Well, it didn’t take long until Corey’s brother long to announce his presence at the zoo.

Upon the arrival of the yellow student vessels, Corey’s brother proceeded to walk out of the vehicle and, like I’m sure we all do when we get to the zoo, walked up to the perimeter fence, whipped out his penis, and began to water the African savanna.  He did not hide behind anything.  He just strolled up and Hakunah Matata’d all over the place.

Basically Contra only it was a fence instead of lasers an a penis instead of a gun.

The stunned teachers had no choice but to make him call home and be picked up immediately for this clear case of public indecency.  However, one day later, his parents were demanding the school apologize to him for embarrassing him in front of the entire 5th grade class.

Yes, you read that correctly.  They wanted school to apologize to the gentleman who publicly pissed on a fence.  Because THEY embarrassed HIM.  It was at this point that I realized that their entire home must be like a bunch of Jackofosaurs.

This was pretty standard behavior from the parents.  Kid does something clearly stupid and out of line.  Kid kids called out on it.  Conclusion:  it is the teacher’s fault.  I honestly gave up calling home on Corey after about the 4th or 5th try because the conversations went absolutely nowhere and just infuriated me more.  When presented with the facts of Corey’s behavior in class, I would get responses like “well, what were YOU doing?” or “what did the other student do to provoke him?” or “I don’t appreciate how you are always picking on my son.”

The thing is, I don’t know whether it was because they were bad parents or because they literally didn’t have enough time to be good parents because they had so many damn kids.  Perhaps one time they were good parents.  Maybe after two kids, they got cocky and thought they were super good at this kind of thing. I’d like to think of their offspring planning as such:

“Sex?”

“Yay.”

And weeks later, another Carr begins to crack through it’s egg inside an incubator, beginning a life full of Runescape, fence-pissing, and chasing Laura Dern through a rain-forest.

SHOOOOOOT HAAAAAAAH!

Rage Days: Life in a Dickens Novel

One of my favorite authors of all time easily has to be Charles Dickens.  Of all of the comedic genres, I consider satire to be probably the best and yet, least understood; Dickens was a master. The ability to create a setting, and characters and to tell a story that went BEYOND a story, a meaning beyond face-value.  Drawing dark humor from an otherwise dry scenario.  But most of all, it was the realism that Dickens created that drew me near.

Dickens’ ability to paint emotion is something I envy, and probably always will about his writing.  You didn’t just read the words, you felt them.  I pick up a novel, and I could feel my lungs weighed down by the fog rolling off the Thames.  Seemingly always gray, always bleak.  And yet, this was an appropriate vision of his social commentary of a 19th century London.  Just a constant fog, perhaps with a subtle glow, illuminated by the sun that you can’t quite see.  You know it’s there, just beyond the thick mist.  But the gray blanket seems to snuff out any possibility of clarity.  What’s left is dull, dark and gray.  Always gray; always bleak.  You long to experience the warmth from beyond the clouds, only to be denied by Earth’s own hydrologic cycle.

Our hands can wipe through a mist, and while they come up empty, it is still arguably tangible;  it is water vapor after all.  Yet the intangible, the psychological toll, of such dreariness can be profound.  Seasonal Affective Disorder is something that millions of people around the world struggle with in their respective winters.  I am one of them.  To describe it to someone in the most basic of terms is like a 19th century Dickens’ London:  there’s light, but seemingly no sun.  The shortened days lend a cerebral tone that I cannot describe other than feeling like there is fog in your brain. Any roadblock or pressure, only seems to compound your sentiments.  In the professional world, the challenge is great.  But in a profession where morale is so crucial, the challenge is indeed daunting.

I am an actor.  All teachers are.  Each day brings a new scene of something new, a role to be played; but your kids could not care less about what you ate for dinner, or whether you argued with your spouse, or whether you sprained an ankle playing football last Friday.  To wear your emotions on your sleeve would otherwise be selfish:  “yeah, hey, I know there’s 28 of you in here that want to know a little bit more about velocity and acceleration, but my wife and I got into an argument last night about how to load the dishwasher.  Here’s a worksheet.  Shut up and do it.”

And maybe that’s why the winter season is so exhausting. It is the culmination of S.A.D. breathing down my neck like a chubby, congested toddler, a job where morale (or the perception of it) is vital, and the rare INFJ personality (INFJ highlights the ability to work with and inspire people, yet the downfalls is that this can be physically exhausting.  As a matter of fact, isolation is often a remedy as a means to “recharge” that social fuel gauge).  I love what I do, but sometimes, at the end of the day, I want to submerge myself into that water-coffin Ben Affleck dives into every night in Daredevil (yes, I know it is a terrible movie).

"Night everyone!"

Consider the physics of the formation of a sand dune. All that is needed is a simple grain to have its’ path blocked by the smallest of impediments.  From there, the formation grows as more grains are trapped.  The larger the structure gets, the more grains it traps.  At times, I feel that it’s these tiny grains can be the most daunting obstacles to overcome, not because of what they are, but because of what they lead to.  In any profession that deals with people, you will have bad days.  Education is no different. The bad days can run rampant.

 

When you talk about someone’s bad day, maybe its because they have a bad co-worker, a bad client, or perhaps the power grid shut down, leaving the security fences vulnerable, and releasing velociraptors on the island.  You ask a teacher how their day was and, if their response is one of bleakness, you’d best buckle your shit down and put on your water-wings, because a hurricane is coming, and hell is coming with it.  Am I biased?  Hell yes I am.  When you’re equipped with the task of arming a generation of people of not just knowledge, but the skills to seek out and use that knowledge, it sounds pretty daunting.  Maybe that’s just the pressure I put on myself.  But we as human beings are only put on this earth for one life, one “pass” to make it worthwhile, enjoyable, lovely, and content.  And if I were to deny a child of that, and cheat them out of his or her full potential for any selfish alibi of mine, I am the scum of the earth.  Now, multiply that sentiment over 100 times for each of my kids, and you’ll start to feel that artificial gravity that weighs down on me at all times.  No wonder I’m so fucking short.  You’re on Earth, and I’m on Alpha Centauri, son.

Last Monday was terrible;  one of those days where you start to backtrack in your mind where things went wrong.  “I should have majored in something else,” I thought to myself. I could feel the clouds gathering as the day continued on, the low-pressure of sadness patiently approaching.

Ask any teacher and they’ll tell you:  some days you wonder “what the hell is wrong with these kids?”  The likely issue on Monday was that it was only two days prior to their Thanksgiving break.  They had already checked out.  I could tell my initial classes were a little off the hook, as their chatter and general tone was a little bit more blunt than usual.  With my classes, it feels like that as the day goes on, they begin to “wake up” more, resulting in more discipline issues in general.  

The first issue began in 6th period where a particular student, Hal, was completing an online assignment for me during class.  Allow me to elaborate on Hal:  he scares the shit out of me.  Not in the physical sense, but physiologically, in that I do not know what this kid will do.  Hal comes from a family of siblings with criminal records (with charges that I won’t dare mention), and one of his own, as well.  Legally, I cannot and will not tell you what Hal did, but let’s just say he’s under house arrest.  Literally.

Hal isn’t one of those kids who does bad things because they’re funny, he does them to see pain in others.  For destruction.  He has gotten into trouble and has been suspended multiple times this year, and his reactions to them will often tell you his mindset:  he will just sit there, silently.  Not a word said, no argument.  Just a cold visage.  Not an ounce of regret.  When mentioning some of Hal’s acts to my lovely teacher-wife, she would tell me “you be nice to that kid!”  She didn’t say this for Hal’s well being, but for mine, if that tells you anything.

Toward the end of class, I looked over to Hal’s computer and saw a series of events that led to my own reaction.  First, I saw a screenshot of the district firewall blocker.  Then, a Google image return of cats.  I couldn’t see what he had initially searched for, but considering the order of operations that he went through, I could probably venture a guess as to what exact term he had typed into the search engine.

“Hal,” I said, “I don’t think that’s something you’re supposed to be on for this assignment.”

“What?  I can’t be on Google?” he responded in a joking tone.

“If you can show me in the assignment where it tells you to search for cats, I won’t give you a discipline slip.”

“But I wasn’t on anything bad!” he retorted.

“Were you on task?” I questioned, knowing that if a student is “off-task,” they are to receive a discipline slip (if a student accumulates a certain amount of “points,” they receive a consequence, be it detention, etc.), “because it looked to me like you were trying to get to a website that was blocked.”

Hal just kind of chuckled.  Once class was over, he made his way over to the slips, and filled one out, complaining to his cronies how unfair and “stupid” this was.  He denied that he was on anything that was “bad.”  I just said “either way, Hal, you had a Google image page pulled up, which had nothing to do with the assignment.”

Later in the day, Hal approached his Study Hall teacher, Mr. Jones, and asked him “how many points” he would get if he “punched me in the face.”  Mr. Jones jokingly replied “I think Mr. W would probably destroy you.”  After that, Hal apparently just nodded his head as if to say “yeah, you’re probably right.”  As I type these words, my face remains untouched by Hal’s cruel fists of fury.

Getting ready, yo'

Two class periods later, last period, featured my most, er, rambunctious class of the day.  Perhaps it’s the timing of the class, but I think it largely has to do with the chemistry of the group:  a lot of close friends, some of which should not be found breathing the same molecules in the same classroom together.  

As with the previous groups, the students were working on an online assignment in the computer lab.  As students were getting logged in, I was helping a few with some basic tech-things (making sure they were on the correct computer, making sure usernames were correct, etc.).  One particular student, Scott, who has gotten into his fair share of trouble in the year, let his thoughts on the matter known.  Loudly.  

While not malicious, Scott just didn’t know when to shut up.  He was the guy that had a wise comment for everything that anyone said or did.  The kid who never paid a bit of attention in class when you needed him to, but if there was a typo on a worksheet or if you accidentally mispronounce a word in class, he would sure as hell let you and anyone within a 500 foot radius know.

Apparently my instructional speed was not up to Scott’s liking, as he loudly questioned “what are we supposed to do?” Mind you, this was not 3 minutes after I addressed the entire class of the agenda;  I even wrote it on the board for them, albeit with terrible handwriting.

Scott’s neighbor thought his comment was funny, not because of what he said, but because I was right behind Scott as he bellowed out loud.  Laughing, he leaned over to Scott and quietly said, “Scott...Mr. W is right behind you.” Not wanting to appear ignorant and out of touch with the situation, Scott didn’t back down: “I don’t care!  What are we supposed to do?!”

It’s one of those things where, sure, it wasn’t a big deal.  But considering the source and, let’s be honest, the degree of disrespect (scornful or not) perceived by the class, I needed to act.

“Scott, step out in the hall.”

“Why?!”

“Scott, step out in the hall.”

“I didn’t even do anything!  This is stupid.”

“Scott...step in the hall.”  

With that, Scott angrily pushed in his chair and groaned “oh my GOD,” and made his way out to the hall.

I’d like to think that my eyes change color as the rage pulsates through my veins.  I suppose that’s better than my chest glowing blue as I accumulate enough pure energy to fire a Hadoken in Scott’s general direction.

Once I got the rest of the class rolling, I stepped in the hall to meet Scott, whose demeanor tends to rival that of a child.  When he’s upset, he just stares and scowls; no words spoken.

I kept my address short and sweet:

“Scott, I don’t appreciate the disrespect you show towards me in class.  I sure don’t talk to you like that, and so I expect you to extend me the same courtesy.  I also expect you to behave appropriately in class when working on an assignment.  Yelling ‘what are we supposed to do?’ is something I expect maybe a first grader to do, but not someone who’s supposed to be ready to be in high school in a few months, especially after I explained exactly what to do on the assignment AND wrote it down on the board.  Now, when you’re ready to step up, I’ll be ready for you in class.”  And with that, I dipped out.  It must have been effective, because Scott was back in working quietly (and angrily).  However, my low patience light began to illuminate.

With ten minutes left in class, I looked over to one particular “social” student’s (let’s call him Marco) computer, only to find that he had already logged off and was loudly talking to his neighbor.  Marco was a student who had done fairly well in class, but his grades had been slipping.  He was failing to turn in work more and more.  Now I look up, and he’s not even working?  I mean, if you’re going to do something wrong, at least do it right. This will not end well.

“Marco, why are you logged off?”

“Because it’s almost time to go!”

“There’s 10 minutes left.  Are you finished with the assignment?  And, did you turn it in?”

“Almost…”

“Well, log back in and continue until it’s time to go.”

With that, he mumbled something under his breath and started to log back in.  Meanwhile, I decided to check his online progress to see whether he was “almost” done.”

Not. Even. Close.

Out of a total of 21 problems necessitating a response, Marco had only answered ten of them.  I’m not sure how proficient Marco is at math, or semantics for that matter, but I firmly believe that a 48% completion rate is hardly “almost” finished.

“Marco, come here,” I sternly said.

Marco came over to my computer, where I broke the “unfortunate” news to him. However, rather than accept the fact that I caught him in a lie, he doubled down.

Eyes furrowed, Marco told me “Uh, I’m a slow worker,” in a rather defiant, sarcastic tone, and gave me the ol’ shrug and head-shake, as if to non verbally indicate that I was a moron.  

“Choose your battles.”  This is a creed that was stated from my undergraduate experience, all the way to the current day.  The motive behind it is quite simple: “don’t argue and fight with your kids about everything.”  To do so, will simply make you seem nagging and quarrelsome.  I didn’t choose to fight this battle; it chose me.

“You’re a slow worker?”  I asked him.

“Uh, yeah?”  Again, sarcastically.

“Could you explain to me why then, if you’re such a slow worker, why you are logging off 10 minutes early in class when you don’t even have HALF of the assignment done?”

“I told you, I work slow!”

“Marco, I understand that.  I’m just trying to wrap my brain around the fact why you would then decide to log off early.”

“I’m not that smart, OK?  I need more time to do stuff.  There’s nothing wrong with it.”  Ah yes, now try to hit me with guilt.

“That’s just fine, Marco.  But you are COMPLETELY missing my point.  If you are a slow worker, that means you are going to need MORE TIME to complete the assignment, yes?  So, if that is the case, you are going to need EVERY SINGLE BIT OF TIME in class to work on this assignment.”

“Well...I looked at my phone and it said there was like six minutes left…”  Backtracking.  I have him in my sights.

“Six minutes.  And how long does it take you to log off your computer?  Ten, fifteen seconds?”

“Yeah.”  Target locked.

“So, by your own account, you wasted six minutes of class by logging off early, even though you’re telling me you need more time to work on it.  Marco...that does not make one bit of sense.  Maybe you think you’re a slow worker, but you are not a dumb kid.  And I’m not a dumb teacher, either.  I’m not buying it.  So you have two choices:  you take a discipline slip for being off task, or you come in during lunch tomorrow to finish this up.”

“I’ll come in during lunch tomorrow,” Marco replied, this time, with no expression in his voice.  

Target destroyed.  I’m pretty sure his eyes were welling up, too.  

A few moments later, the bell rang, notifying the adolescents that yet another productive day was complete.  The students loudly filed out of the computer lab.  I tidied up my area, and sauntered back down to my classroom, with a feeling of defeat.

You and me, buddy.

In every profession, there seem to be days like this;  one dong punch after another.  But here is where the professional paths seem to deviate.  My bad day stays with me.  The clouds.  Always present.  Always Gray.  Always Bleak.  What makes it worse, is the emotion I feel is self-directed.  Chances are, in other jobs, you can aim your emotion at something else: traffic, weather, an overcooked Denver omelette from Denny’s;  mine is self-reflective.  I don’t ask “what the hell is wrong with these kids?”  I, more often than not ask “what am I doing wrong?”  I then proceed to rewind my memory and replay the day over and over.

You want to be good at what you do.  In this case, my effectiveness rests in the hands of about one hundred eighth graders.  In a company, if someone doesn’t follow directions, or isn’t good at what they do, they’re fired.  Ineffectiveness affects the bottom line.  The bottom line affects you.  You weed out the weak links.  In education, if a student doesn’t follow directions or isn’t good at what they do, it’s on you.  Kids don’t like you?  They can make your life a living hell.  Parents don’t like you?  That’s even worse.  But the worst feeling is the lack of control.  You can do what you can to salvage the opinions of others, but the ball isn’t in your court.  There is nothing you can do but wait.  You wait for another day to start clean and hopefully, if they can forgive, you can forget.  Until then, the clouds remain. Like a Charles Dickens novel:

Always present. Always gray...

Thanks, guy.

The Parent Chronicles Part 1: All the Rage You Can Muster

Everyone has fears:  the fear of flying, the fear of spiders, of heights, of snakes.  The fear of loneliness, the fear of loss, the fear of purpose, the fear of death.  If I were to ask you:  what was your FIRST fear, what would you say?  Psychologists have long believed that often times the first memory you ever create is often one founded in terror, be it something visually graphic like seeing a clown, being left alone in the dark, or walking in on your parents watching E! for the first time.  Mine?  Mine, I firmly believe, was seeing a giant spider in the bathroom and shrieking for help.  My fear and hatred for arachnids has stuck with me ever since.
Our fears aren't always synonymous, as our genetics and upbringing play a strong role, but there is a single entity that we have feared once in our lives in varying degrees:  parents.  Our biological being has allowed us to consider the hierarchy of life, and therefore, we must fear and respect those who are "above" us.  For a decade plus, that is your parents.  As a child, you grow up with an instilled fear for the ones that created you, first you fear losing them, then it becomes fear angering them, then it becomes letting them down.  Later in life, you again fear losing them, but by then you have a firmer grasp on the finality of life.
I've always feared my parents, but in a beneficial way. Growing up, I didn't want to disappoint them, and I still don't.  As life progresses, your desires and fear of disappointment becomes more self-sustaining, in that your fears are more existential, and less dependent on others.  You consider your purpose, your life in the grand scheme of the universe and wonder whether you're doing enough.  You get married, have kids, and you fear letting your wife and family down.  That fear has always been embedded in you.  It will never leave.  It isn't a weakness, it is the causation of our strength, the "fight or flight" mentality.  We owe our parents everything, not just for giving us life, but giving us the psyche to survive.

My fear of parents still lives on, but not of my own.  It is the fear of my students' parents that strikes terror in my every being.


Besides perhaps health professionals or a professional athlete, I cannot think of another profession in which your effectiveness relies so heavily on the production of other people.  You are given the task of building the minds of youth, students that you influence in the classroom on a daily basis, but for all you know, you could have parents that are undermining your every move and action.  To put it plainly, my "effectiveness" as a teacher rests solely on another, dictated by another person...who can be influenced by another person or persons.  In my experience, if you don't have the parents backing, you are pretty much shit out of luck.  An entire year's worth of knowledge could be flushed down the toilet because a parent doesn't like what you teach or how you teach.  Your "effectiveness" could plummet based on the test scores of a student who does a poor job on their state test scores (which I am quite fond of) because they "were having a bad day."  I once had a parent decide to take her daughter off her Ritalin suddenly.  Naturally, she chose testing week.  The only week the Department of Education seems to give a shit about.
Now, I've had some great parents in my initial years, and great support pretty consistently.  But every now and again you will have some that...well, just don't make any goddamn sense.

- I've been cornered by two parents after their respective sons were suspended the last day of school for spitting popcorn all over the floor and into the faces of some classmates.  But the kids didn't do anything wrong. They were "defending themselves."  One even "had to go to the eye doctor" because he "had a piece of popcorn hit him in the eye."

- I had a parent complain about literally every book choice I made for my reading block period:
"Coraline is too dark....Willy Wonka is dark and just flat out silly...Harry Potter is banned from our home; it glorifies witches....there is only one light, and that is through Jesus Christ,"  only to conclude his condescending email with "I thought the word "teach" meant to "enlighten?"
Little did he know that he was dead the moment he hit "Send."  I'm not just a teacher,  I'm also the son of a pastor.
I was raised on The Word, son.
I replied in the only way I knew possible:  to connect the allegories and messages of EVERY SINGLE BOOK he ridiculed to a story in the Bible.  Six years later, I still patiently wait for his response.

- I once emailed a parent because her son was out of his seat several times and kept breaking his pencil on purpose so he could poke his head out in the hall and become a black hole of attention. I simply stated my concern for his behavior.  Nothing more.  It's always good to get these types of behaviors addressed early.
Well,  after discussing the matter with her son, she replied "he was up out of his seat because he couldn't sharpen his pencil.  All you did was sit there.  He couldn't sharpen his pencil.  What kind of teacher just watches a child who cannot get his pencil sharpened?"  It went on for several paragraphs.
I wasn't combative, I just simply stated the facts for her:  "I saw Student do X,Y,Z.  I am concerned that he is wasting a lot of class time goofing around."
Another reply:  "I asked him, and he said he didn't do anything wrong.  He said you were picking on him.  He couldn't sharpen his pencil.  I can't believe you just sat there and did nothing.  If I need to contact the principal, I will, because I want the truth!"
Again, I wasn't combative.  I simply stated what I saw and reiterated that I want her child to be successful.  I then decided I would "beat her to the punch," and informed her that I was cc'ing the principal and assistant principal on the email to "keep them in the loop."  After I hit send, I went on a tirade of expletives that would make Denis Leary blush to my roommate/brother.  I don't remember what exactly I said, but I do remember saying "what kind of parent takes her child's word over an professional adult!?  I've lost.  There's no way I can end up OK in this scenario because the kid is just going to double down, and she will believe him no matter what I say."  I went to bed furious.
Well, a bit of good luck hit my email inbox the next morning.  Apparently, she must have told her son that I included the administrators on the email, and the kid spilled the beans.  It probably took me 10 minutes to read the entire email that was littered with at least 20 instances of "I'm so sorry" in some form or another.  How did I respond?  "I'm glad we can put this behind us!  I knew your son is a great kid, I just want to make sure he's successful!  I hope you all have a great weekend."  Right after I hit "Send," I'll be damned if I didn't get diabetes right then and there.

It felt good.

- One student I had was extremely defiant if you pressed her even just a little bit.  At that particular school, if a student acted up, you were to have them call home, right then and there, from the classroom phone.  As usual, she was verbally defiant, so I had her call home.  After some low key mumbling, the student told me that her mom wanted to talk to me.  I picked up the phone and proceeded to get a lecture about how this was a waste of her time, and she has work to do, and she's tired of hearing about what her daughter is doing, and how much of an inconvenience it was for her.  My reply?  "I don't mean any offense, but these phone calls are not supposed to be convenient..."  But before I could finish what I was saying I heard "WELL FUCK YOU!" followed by the deafening "CLICK."
An upstanding citizen...raising another generation of upstanding citizens.

Welp...

- Perhaps one of my favorite tales involved a rather troublesome group of three girls.  They were best of friends; always together, and the drama ran deep.  Well, like most middle school girls, it took only a few months until someone said/did something, and isolated herself.  But rather than just shrug it off and move on with life, these girls did whatever in their power to annoy the living shit out of the others.  On a daily basis, there were snippy comments, tattling, and informing me that I needed to "get her" because she apparently did something or was looking at her.  I don't know.  I'm married and I still don't think I know what a girl is.

One morning I got a phone call from one of the girl's (let's call her Ali) father, who claimed that the other girls were bullying her.  All I wanted to say was "I've seen them interact.  This isn't bullying.  They're just being immature girls who had their feelings hurt and are now holding grudges."  But instead, I just said "no problem.  I'll keep an eye out for her in my class."  He informed me that I "had better" or else he would "come to the school and say a thing or two to those girls."  I said that wouldn't be necessary, as long as she was in my classroom, I'd keep an eye on her.

A few hours later I was at the front office making some copies when I received a page over the P.A. System:  "Mr. W, you have a call on line 2."

I strolled up to the front desk and before I could even ask who was on the line, the secretary said "I don't know what you did, but Mr. Ali's-Father is pretty pissed!  You want me to say you're busy?"

"No," I said, "this should be fun."

I went into the back conference room to take the call.  "Hello?" I greeted the caller.  What I heard next is probably just passing the Kuiper Belt as you read this, making its way off to some distant celestial-body-ridden galaxy; his verbiage to eventually convert into thermal energy, and gently warm the surface of some distant extraterrestrial planet:

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON AT THAT SCHOOL? WHY THE FUCK IS MY DAUGHTER CALLING ME CRYING?! YOU TOLD ME SHE WOULD BE LEFT ALONE! SHE CALLIN ME CRYIN CUZ OF THOSE DAMN GIRLS!"

His rant went on for maybe a minute, before I could retort.  When I did, I informed him that she wasn't in my class and, therefore, I couldn't really control what happened in the other classes.  Based on the schedule, she had likely slipped into the kitchen area adjacent to the gym during P.E., and made the phone call then (the phone was literally eight feet away from the baseline in the gym).  So she likely just waited for any reason to make the call.  Again, I knew this girl.  She was sneaky and conniving.  Was something probably said to her by the other girls?  Sure.  But she was far from innocent by any stretch of the imagination.

"I'VE ABOUT HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!  I'M COMIN' THERE AND I'M GONNA TALK TO THOSE GIRLS! THIS ENDS NOW!"

And with that, he hung up before what I assumed would be his massive cartoon hand, reaching through the receiver to deny the last molecules of oxygen from reaching my lungs.

I churned my little hobbit feet as much as they could muster and bounded up to the front desk and told the secretary that Mr. Ali's Father was coming and was going to confront the girls.  His chance would never arrive, however, as we decided to quickly gather Ali and her stuff, and sent her on her way when her dad arrived.

About a week later, the girls were best of friends again.

Ok, then.

In any venture in life, most of the people you encounter are decent people.  If nothing else, they are just there like other atomic matter and don't bother you. But you'll always have that 10% population that are just insane.  Teaching is no different.

No wait...yes it is.  It is VERY different.