Tricks and Treats

The scariest thing about Halloween this year has been the color of my yet-to-be-closed pool water. I can't say the same for my youngest daughter, who would jump at the slightest provocation. Cruz exclaimed to us on the ride home that "nothing" scares him. I'd say he's about right.

Halloween with the kids does remind me of my childhood, mostly the differences, but I don't want to spend too much time with how it was back in the "day." I don't remember Halloween much before age 10, except for that we did much more in school, like dressing up and having parties. Somewhere along the line, a parent sued and so we now we call Halloween "Beggar's Night" or some other safe-sounding phrase that doesn't rile up anyone. School parties are different too. This year, we're not even allowed to serve food, which means that we all sit around and stare at each other during celebrations. Not much fun.

I do remember my trick-or-treat nights being much different, but more so when I was getting older. Parents didn't walk with you through the neighborhood (although I do remember going through Greenspoint Mall in Houston once) like they do with their little ones. There were no time limits and we knocked on every door, sometimes well after 9pm.

I remember going out once, sixth grade, with Jon Patterson from down the road. And while the venturing through Greengate is a story within itself, I dredge up so much more about my junior high years that had more of an affect on me that I thought ever would.

Jon and I pretty much ran that street. We lived in a cul-de-sac, played football while waiting for the bus and baseball games in the court next to the Rice's house. There were a large group of us, some of us popular, some of us outcasts and all of us unsupervised. We smoked cigarettes (although my mom did eventually realize I had been smoking in the garage), cursed, hid adult magazines in vacant home's cabinets, cursed, watched scrambled Playboy Channel and snuck in each other's backyards. We fought sometimes and we tackled each other on the concrete even though we were supposed to tackle one another in the grass. We talked lewdly about girls, terrorized our smaller siblings, bullied kids on the bus and popped fireworks in neighbor's porches. Once, the guy living across from us chased us from the yard and caught me, specifically, gave me a good shaking and sent me away to fetch my dad. In the altercation that followed, I realized that my step-dad was behind me all the way, even though I was totally in the wrong. Funny how I can think about that event, and all the tears he spent on me years later when I was a confused high school kid. We may not talk much now, but it has nothing to do with that night, nor the tears, but alot to do with men and their fathers.

Jon Patterson. I was lucky one night to have seen him again after many years not knowing how he had ended up. His story took him out of state that year, and his house was occupied by people who never came outside. He drove through the toll lane where I worked as a supervisor, jotted down his number and we ended up talking. He had the voice of a guy who had been through a divorce, maybe a stint in juvenile detention. I was a guy who was lucky enough to have been renewed in a relationship with my future wife, still directionless but alive and in the right place.

Driving through Louisiana last year, I stopped at a gas station. One of those nasty coffee stops in the middle of the night, and as I'm walking out I notice a familiar face walking past the open door. Pax Whatley. Another one of those neighborhood kids who was around through much of those times. He lives in Wisconsin now, but on his was up north, we pass each other in a roadside gas station. God gives you those treats sometimes, eve when you've lived the life of a trickster.

Waiting for Superman thoughts and review

I finally watched the documentary, "Waiting for Superman." I always gauge documentaries for what they get you to do afterwards. Did you spend nights searching through the internet for answers, like "Paradise Lost"? Or did they bring you into a world you previously avoided, like the achingly tough "Stevie," or "Capturing the Freidmans"? Some like, "Hoop Dreams," or the strangely funny "Crumb" stay with you for years afterwards. "Superman" falls into the category of recent docs, like "Super Size Me" wherein the stamp of their maker is keenly evident, but one that will still provoke thought, anger and stunned silence in equal doses.

The doc isn't so much anti-teacher as many make it out to be (although, maybe conspiratorially, it doesn't feature one voice of current teachers in the business). The film dartboards some big ideas, and as a teacher myself, I know that treating the film's ideas as bullets pretty much makes me one of the stiff upper-lipped, voiceless people in the crowd of angry teachers.

While featuring the lives of a handful of students and parents as they make their decision to get into prestigious charter schools (all by lottery), the film tackles widely known truths and devises some clues into where it may go. One major theme outlined in the movie is the need for reform, from teacher incentive-based pay to longer school hours. Much of the reform is brazenly being harassed by teacher's unions, which come across as out-of-the-times lobbyist. There's a scene midway showing a disciplinary sequence from New York, where teachers are sent to the "rubber room" where they sit, nap, and read newspapers for hours while waiting on their cases. Others show hidden cameras teachers reading while their high school class plays craps and naps. Scenes like this don't necessarily make me mad because it picks on teachers, but it makes me mad that we allow those teachers to teach along side us. Watch the scene about the "lemon dance" and tell me that not one teacher would relate to the feeling of that particular administrator's failed attempts to remove a pimple from the face of their school.

Other ideas fly under the radar but hit home nonetheless, like longer school days and boarding schools. In those cases, the film doesn't portray the parents as losing their rights as parents, as authority figures, but makes them a blameless cog if a broken system. And what of teachers who would work these longer hours or live in a boarding school? Is the film saying that teachers with families would benefit from having less time with their own families to raise kids not their own? Still, the movie makes you want to ask the person next to you and have that hour long conversation with a pot of coffee.

In other ways, I wish the film spent more time with Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone. The film doesn't talk about the per-pupil spending of its charter, or the social services that are part of their groundbreaking model. I also found that comparing American test scores to foreign countries is a mute point, considering foreign students flock to our colleges and that most countries feature one culture, as we are an amalgamation of several cultures, religions and people.

Still, the film has its detractors and followers. I simply love the conversation, and know that if I continue to do what I'm supposed to do in the classroom then everything will take care of itself. One lesson from the film, it seems when the superintendent, chancellor or school founder is in the room, you teach your ass off.

The Rembrandts

I received my 30th kid today. I feel like I have repeated that fact quite a few times throughout the day. My teacher friends approach me as I walked through the halls going to pick up my kids at gym or from lunch and say, "Ray, are you okay?" and other hyperbolic phrases. I don't blame them. Maybe I look exhausted on the outside. Perhaps my eyes give me away, saucerfull. Is it my smile? I honestly wore one today, no misgivings.

I introduced her to my other 29 (we had everyone there for a change, one tardy and no one left early) kids in my own certain jovial way. I teased them about their last names, their lack of height, or the air-balling three-pointers. Everyone got a laugh, we lined up loudly, had to sit and then retried with success. She seemed comfortable enough, at one point I looked down to see her fiddling with my ID badge and keys. Maybe God approves of what I'm doing in the class. Maybe he wants someone in that class to find a friendship with another kid, or maybe I'm needed to provide some sort of reasoned fixture beyond their norm. Of course, God doesn't need me for anything, but I can ask and pray to do His will. What else could be said rather than a complaint?

All our classes are pretty full. It reminds me of one of my years at my previous school. I remember having anywhere between 30-32. We sat in a large U-shape, with me at it's core. We had an East side and a West side, and I screamed and directed and taught (some) and ate lunch with just about everyone. I still have their pictures on my wall. I remember the one whose brother ended up assaulting their junior high substitute (or was it the other way around?) years later. Another who everyone told me would be the death of me, ended up being my hardest worker, even when she and her friends began flicking staples and tacks at one another on a day I was absent (she must have read my junior high diary, damn her!). I remember sitting in a meeting, watching a hard-working mom cry because her daughter was basically not "low enough" to qualify for services.

I too moved around a lot. Most of mine were before the year started, so any teachers I knew the first day never scrambled around the room looking for extra supplies, folders and notebooks. I was just another kid, nothing special beyond my sarcastic jokes and occasional forays into greatness (I do remember busting a 100 on a Scantron math test, for a junior high teacher who also ended up calling home to my parents on a previous sarcastic argument I had with her. I learned never to argue with a black woman ever again.). I would fall in line somewhere between the dweebs and half-breeds, the pretty girls' best friend and the one fat dude whose mom didn't know how to dress (thanks for my mom, she knew what looked best, like green, starched Polo shirts or Air Jordans that were left on front porches to be stolen by rabid pizza deliverymen).

In junior high, I joined football teams for friends, enjoyed the fame of being the only Hispanic kid in a trail mix of whites faces (okay, well, there were three or four of us, and if you didn't know Spanish like me you were basically white).

I can relate to those kids. The ones who want to sit under their teacher's chins and dangle their keys. Or the kid that sees a familiar face and wants to cut a joke. My former teachers would probably laugh at me if they realized the things that itch me are the same things that I had done to them years ago (who gives detention for gum? I do, now!). I know the mind of the sports kid, the creative kids, the dweebs and the so-cool-I'm-going-to-call-you-a-culo kid. I'm learning the divas and the strong-willed girls (oh, my Lisa in kid form). I wonder if I'm reaching the shy girl, the babyish boy, the kid who is always sick and looks sleepy.

I have a bulletin board for the affirmations. Drawings, tracings, cute Rembrandts from the colored pencils of my kids, all devoted to their best teacher of the moment. And in this moment, I'll take it.

Old Man Toes

Today was the evening I had been praying for. After a summer of softball from Thursday to Sunday, without much end-of-season payoff, then going into the fall with unresolved feelings and more schedules, Volleyball drama and school-wide computer system failures, it all culminated into a clear, 60 degree day, fall Ohio.

Cruz and I threw the football, I wheezed trying to outrun him and he couldn't catch a football on the run. Reycina was like a bag-lady, carting her wares through the cul-de-sac, seemingly talking about everything and nothing all at once.

We took a walk in the neighborhood, Cruz stopping at every corner or block marker (stop at the white mailbox, or stop at the Frankenstein in that yard). At one point, I told Milly to hurry to pet a puppy that Cruz was petting at the corner. By the time her little feet get there, the puppy leaves. So, she's bawling as we walk down the street, hand in hand, pulling a wagon with a purple, gargantuan tennis ball in the carriage. We ended up back at the puppies' house, where she quickly ended her tears (they always seem to vanish once she gets her way. hmmmm), petted the puppy and we went on our way.

I'm reminded of the book, "Shiloh," which I'm reading aloud in class. Poor beagle gets abused, boy keeps beagle a secret. man comes looking for beagle, drama ensues. Great book. I'm tying it in with "Because of Winn-Dixie" during reading, how both characters show nerve and heart, how the dogs are a catalyst for change. I also notice both books have doses of religion, in that both characters pray for childhood concerns, or that the ritual of religion are characteristics of secondary characters.

I see symbols of God in other novels. Ever read "Sounder"? Totally Biblical. How do you learn about Martin Luther King, Jr, or Harriet Tubman and not invoke some kind of spiritual talk? I've been watching the PBS series, "God in America," a six-hour essay on America's origins that were rooted in religion, but them splintered off from Anne Hutchison's defiance of Puritan authority to atheists' fight for the separation of church from our school systems. Billy Graham (didn't realize his impact on the current American political/religious right landscape), and the Methodist movement, just some of the interesting discussion worthy topics. These are the kinds of videos we should be watching in class. How will my kids truly understand an abolitionist without understanding the foundation for which they were basing their argument? Or even a slave trader, who would also use the Bible to justify owning slaves?

I'm blessed to also have a great student teacher 3 days out of the week. We talk about God, and family and our pasts, our futures. She's young and a churchgoer, not something that typically goes hand in hand anymore. We both agree that we both would never be smart enough to understand brokenness, or the great "whys" of the world. We're simply bystanders to something greater than us.

So tonight I ate Frosty's with my kids and asked them silly questions, "Did you eat old man toes for breakfast?" and watched them laugh. I laid next to them in bed and felt like crying. I don't deserve to blow dry my daughter's beautiful hair, or to hear the giggles of my son. Cruz tells me tonight, "Daddy, I want to be like you." Son, you're going to be so much more.

Wide Screen Mirror

Heading to the doctor this Wed. afternoon. The doctor will certainly chastise me for my weight gain and my indifference to my health. I'm probably somewhere over 350 pounds, the heaviest I've ever been.

I've let my schedule overrule any health standards I tried to have this summer. New excuses become blurred from the old. Motivation perhaps? That's some of it. When I do go and work out, I feel tremendous. Eating habits? Not as bad as I think, but two things I've been trying since the spring have failed from my own lack of consistency. I had hoped to monitor my snacks better, so that my meals wouldn't be as big, especially at dinnertime. I eat a practical lunch, and I used to be better at eating a high fiber, low cal breakfast. But any goodwill I accomplished early was ruined by poor choices at dinner. Too much bread, seconds, schedule-induced fast food.

I had a friend send me his diet plan and it looks feasible. Then again, all of the diets I have tried recently have been manageable. In the past, I've done diet pills, shake diets and supplements. I've literally ate a soup for 8 days straight, protein and low carb diets and other practical measures like, "no fries, or pop" months. All of them have ended pretty much the same. Some success, then fall back into bad habits. Not sure what will be the difference this time.

He (the doctor) wanted me to go Weight Watchers. I was looking into a cleanse diet from the chiropractor as well. Each of them are in the range of 200 dollars or more, and right now, pretty much off the board in terms of finances. Will I dig myself an early grave? Will I end up trapped inside my own body?

Lately, I had been telling everyone that I have been the happiest in my life that I've ever been. That hasn't been an understatement. God has blessed me with three beautiful kids, I have the chance to be creative each and everyday at my job, working with 29 curious minds. Wow. My friends are dependable and caring. My wife supports me and loves me more than anyone else besides my kids and my mother. When I used to look in the mirror, I didn't like myself, but that everything to do with personality and choices on my part, not the way I physically look. I wear my Charlie Sheen shirts and loosen my belt a bit.

The Invisible Trophy

Lots of thoughts and probably not much focus, it seems as if I could write about any number of things and call it a blog.

Hugs. Reycina hugs me, and anyone, like it's the last hug she'll ever give. Just one of those per day this last week has been a worthwhile gift from God.

Teachers. There's been a huge amount of talk online and within the media about our "failing" schools. I even had a student this week who wrote down, "our schools are failing" on a graphic organizer designed to help them brainstorm problems in their communities. There's a movie coming out soon called "Waiting for Superman," whose conceit is to prove that our schools are failing by showing the lives of several different parent's on their quest to find the right education for their child outside the public school system. I'm dying to see it and give my own opinions. As an educator, I feel that we need to realize the trends and pulse of what the public perceives about our profession. It does teachers no good to hide and cry foul. Go watch it. Connect. Talk and share.

I know the movie features the work of Geoffery Canada, founder of the Harlem Children's Zone. His story was shared on CNN's "Black in America," and I found his story riveting and what he was doing with education a step in the right direction.

I read an article on HuffPost about how to fix our schools. Much of the article feels like an attempt to dartboard the issue without really saying how or what changes should take affect. Part of this stems from a seemingly political attempt to discredit teachers' unions and tenured teachers in particular. Any union right now gets lumped in with lazy workers, high pensions and ineffectiveness. By letting the unions speak for us, we sound like blamers and avoiders. If unions do end up being broken over the next several years, what then? I feel as if the public wants us to be more qualified, work more and give their child the necessary tools to pass a test. It's also almost an American right to complain about anything and everything, especially in regards to education, from homework to teachers. I believe that alot of the funding issues that plague schools, are part induced by inefficient building managers (most teachers have no say-so on what gets purchased in a building, nor are they privy to their respective schools' budget). There's millions coming down in the way of grants, and taxes, so why do we still have buildings without computer labs? Why are we continually going back to operating levies and higher taxes, when we cut teachers and bloat the size of the classrooms, thereby eliminating the quality of a teacher by having to manage 30 bodies instead of 22/23?

Schedules and sports and daughters. This past week saw the end of my son's baseball season. It's been fun, and I didn't lose sleep on having some daddy-ball meltdown on the field or from mentoring-gone-bad moments by chewing out some poor kid. I did learn that baseball is just as beautiful as a sunrise and sometimes more frustrating than what i'll give it credit for. Lisa's volleyball season is ending very soon. She's playing softball this weekend. We used to tell her that she didn't have an option of not playing because it was better than what some of her friends were doing at the time. Now as we near the end, we're exhausted and frustrated. Burned slightly. Egos deflated. If colleges spend more time looking for character and realized the type of girls they were asking to represent their schools, perhaps they'd think otherwise. Lisa has put alot of time into her sports, I too as a parent have sacrificed quite alot of time. Your human side wants a payoff, some recognition, but in the end it's hard to realize it isn't about you, it's about her. What a kid. God brought us Lisa to teach us a few things. I'm looking forward to enjoying her company in the upcoming months, regardless of what softball may or may not bring. No one gives awards for love.

Redistributing the Tears

Today, I finally accepted new kids into a room the way I always wanted: with applause. Never in the history of room 160, or my other rooms for that matter, did a new student arrive with any fanfare whatsoever. Normally, I am scrounging for books, ripping out papers of a notebook to be used again, sharpy-cross-out name of a student's agenda book for it's new owner, name tags that are promised but eventually forgotten. They are rushed into their new area, set up with a partner and eventually become part of the scenery.

New kids come and go. I've lost and regained students, at about a rate of 10 kids per year. Kids move in with their dad, move in with their mom, lose jobs, relocate, get sick of the school, try something new. Some I try to coax with bus passes not to leave, and others' attendance is so blatantly poor, I've prayed they move just so their child attends school SOMEWHERE. Sometimes, kids get transferred within buildings, they leave because they qualify for services we do not have, or because of too high of enrollments in other grades, get split up between teachers. This happened to my school this last week.

I "adopted" 5 more students, which considering what some of my partners went through, was anything but a blessing. We're more crowded and we suddenly grew louder, but I get to teach the same material Monday. I wont have two grade-levels to maneuver through, plus getting to know kids again like it's day one.

According to the faces of the children in the building, redistributing kids to other rooms was quite traumatic. For those teachers that had to move buildings, or chose to teach split classes, you feel a sense of relation and disconnect at the same time. I wouldn't know what it would be like to teach second graders, and I've not taught third grade in so long, I would imagine I'd feel defeated teaching little ones before the day would even start. I'm used to independent readers, workers, kids who get inside jokes and have little mood swings. You feel compassion for all they work they must have this year, and you feel almost a sigh of relief that the buck passed you and went to the next person. You stand in front of class and tell your students, no one is leaving, and the kids you think hate you, the kids you think you haven't figured out, they are the first ones to clap and fist pump when they realize they are not leaving. It bothers them to know you don't like them, or perceive that you don't enjoy their company.

Kids were in tears today, which is something you don't see much from kids other than sick ones, hurt ones or stubborn ones. Real general tears is something you want to avoid at all costs. And kids today just don't cry easily. Oh, there's some great fakers, and some real actors and actresses, but to drop genuine tears among the waxed floors in a building will not only draw them out of you, but you start looking for someone to blame, someone to point to and say, "it's your fault!" Numbers and figures. Hearts and minds. Learning and relating. I'm not sure how much learning happened today, except for me.

So we clapped those kids in the room. We played games. We got loud and we laughed. So what. It beats tears anytime of the day.