The one thing about class sizes I've learned over the past ten years as an educator, is that the more kids you have doesn't necessarily make you a better teacher. (I'm sure I'll be quoted in some Republican-led website that bashes unions.) It gives you less papers to grade, yes, and it makes your management style look better when the class silences themselves in 10 seconds rather than 30. But the one thing that class size does is it makes a teacher realize how much more work they really have. At 30 or more, a teacher can overlook the cracks that unfold around a student simply because there isn't time to fully digest the situation. Paperwork is filed, calls are dodged, administrators are placed on various levels of defcon alerts, but the simple fact is, if a kid can go an entire week without being suspended, it means you've reached them. The kid who is chronically absent is forgotten by the time the papers are passed out. And the students with the suspected and undiagnosed learning disability? Where did those papers go I was trying to complete?
Recently I've been relieved of the overcrowding. Down to 24 students is nice. Teaching one grade is even better. I find the off-topic voices and can trace the eyes lingering off much faster. It has also magnified their issues. One quarter down and I'm barely finding out about kids bounced from homeless shelters. The emergency forms of others have already become obsolete by the time I try to reach them. Conferences are around the corner and I have but a fraction of the parents I want to see. And it's always the parents who I've met with before--the smart ones are their kids. The achievers. They want more homework. Challenge them, they tell me. They're the kids who attend school 90% of the time.
The biggest challenges I face are a copier machine that doesn't work. Honestly. There isn't much that grabs my attention these days. Reward kids, pump them up, help them find themselves. Each year brings new obstacles and mixtures of plots and themes that have played out in previous episodes. The frustrations are sometimes adult related (oh, I could write a book about that one) and bureaucratic. I listen to the presidential debates and hear nothing of how their policies will help the parents, the ones I desperately need the support of.
I can play the class war that's evident on the news. Rich v poor, the job producers and unemployed, the victims and the middle class. The amount of taxes one pays won't amount to much in the long run. What's fair? I always tell my students life isn't fair. Hell, they know this just looking around at each other. We're reading novels that feature a distinct vision of our future. One is a utopia where every aspect of your life is controlled for the common good. One is a dystopia where you are forced into coercion. The difference between the two are the costumes.
Both are fantasies. Perhaps I'm teaching about these societies to draw attention to today's wrongs. Perhaps it's my way of saying the world, as beautiful and broken as it is, continues to devolve. I was reminded that even the Isrealites demanded a king to rule them like every other nation around them. Saul, the one whose ears felt the please, felt as if he had failed. God reminded him that he had not. They didn't turn from Saul, they turned from God.
And next week I'm supposed to vote? It's becoming a harder decision to make these days. No one inspires me to do more in my community. Neither one of them gives a radiance of approval. I'm reminded that humans are imperfect. They never keep their promises. Will any administration bring jobs back from China? From India? Why electrify the borders when my fellow brown people are doing much of the grunt work? They are today's dangerous men, like the Chinese working on the railroads in the Old West. I once read that Asian workers handled much of the nitro glycerin needed to blow holes through mountains. Imagine how much blood was spilled for progress? How much blood is spilled for our progress now?
Women feel like the right wing is at war with them. Attacking Planned Parenthood isn't the way to diminish the numbers on abortion. I'd love to see less of them, but no one is attacking the root of the problem. It's too late for that now. The word rape is tossed around so much, I'm waiting for my son and little one to ask awkward questions.
Muslim fears are perpetuated online. Some of the videos can be frightening when you view them in the middle of the night. Exposed in the light of day, they are nothing more than distractions. You think my parents care? My fifth graders are consumed with illuminati conspiracies, Halloween myths (does it mean you're worshiping the devil if you trick or treat, Mr. Cordova?), and what they can buy in school store. The faces change but the questions remain. And desperately they cry for more. I don't have enough arms to hold everyone together.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Now Showing: Just Enough
Just enough.
They don't make movies about guys that do just enough. You make movies about champs, warriors, and against-the-odds over achievers. The next movie coming to your town will not be called Mediocre.
But that's been the marquee film playing in the background of my life. I'm the star. The director, the scriptwriter. I work the lighting and produce the film. It shows everyday, 7 days a week. And it's free.
The crucial Oscar winning scene comes midway through my high school years. Playing football up until my sophomore year had never been much of a priority. I can't ever remember wanting to actually play the game other than watching the Oilers on tv. I took advantage of meeting new people and friends before school started during 2-a-day practices. I liked hitting 7th graders when I was in 8th grade. I did an Arsenio Hall when I tackled a quarterback for my first ever recorded safety. My step-dad told me at the time someone in the stands said, that kid is intense.
No one has ever said it since.
By the time high school came around, kids my size were expected to play football. What the hell else would I have done? I quit my freshman year. That's when the quitting started. Quitting is like a drug to me. It became easy afterwards. Not showing up for a commitment Backing out at the last minute. Saying yes then not being around to say no was my favorite game. I can't even remember why I quit. No one caused a fuss. When I turned in my equipment, the coach didn't even snicker. Just another kid.
He doesn't have what it takes, anyways.
When I transferred schools my sophomore year, football again became the way to meet people. Football guys in Texas were always the most popular kids. No fringe element existed on the high school football team. Even awkward, heavy-set kids like me fit in with the random douche bags that groped the pretty girls at lunch.
But by the time became a junior, there was no looking back. I wrote for the sports column on my high school newspaper, the editor in chief! I knew the inter workings of the team and the subtleties of the game. I read the Houston Chronicle avidly during this time. They were always brutal in their commentaries, as was I. My senior year I was forbidden to write about the football team because my insight proved to be awkwardly accusing.
And that's about when my step dad made a surprise visit to see me at practice.
Most of my practices showcased a varying degree of mediocrity. Stumble during drills, get yelled at, hit someone harder, get an obligatory ass-pat or helmet . The motivation to succeed was never intrinsic. Mostly, you didn't want to get embarrassed by your peers. The second end of practice was performing tackling dummies for the varsity. Perhaps that's why our team never made the playoffs the 4 years I was there, we simply weren't up to par.
Then came the sprints.
There were always 2 guys who continually were last running up the field. One was me. I can't imagine what the other guys thought about us. Fat ass. Lazy mexican. I'm sure I would have been the soldier that Jack Nicholson would have easily code redded. And sure enough, my step-dad was there to witness it all.
And to understand what transpired in the parking lot, that conversation that was buried in my mind until just recently, you have to understand him. There wasn't a trophy he didn't have, a sport he hadn't mastered. And here, in this moment, he's witnessing his son (who he had been raising for years now) loafing it, waddling through sprints that he himself could have run better than the varsity.
A few weeks later, I didn't have to quit. A knee injury took me out during the one week when I gave a damn. There's a metaphor in that experience too. Do just enough and no one notices you, do too much and someone is going to chop block you into an injury. I limped my way through the halls that fall with the knowledge I wouldn't have to set foot on that football field ever again.
No matter what I did afterwards, however, the wound stayed with me. Perhaps it's why I have to fight the urge to phone in a day at work, or to vedge out in front of a computer screen (haha, like now) or to crumble at the sight of adversity. There has been an assault on that man for years now. I understand it is a battle to be waged simply because winning would mean I wouldn't need anyone else to be there for me. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Still, the fact remains. Someone once told me that I didn't have what it takes. Another never answered. The wound remains. And the marquee sign neon flickers in anticipation. The red carpet awaits the return of its star. The lie is always inviting.
They don't make movies about guys that do just enough. You make movies about champs, warriors, and against-the-odds over achievers. The next movie coming to your town will not be called Mediocre.
But that's been the marquee film playing in the background of my life. I'm the star. The director, the scriptwriter. I work the lighting and produce the film. It shows everyday, 7 days a week. And it's free.
The crucial Oscar winning scene comes midway through my high school years. Playing football up until my sophomore year had never been much of a priority. I can't ever remember wanting to actually play the game other than watching the Oilers on tv. I took advantage of meeting new people and friends before school started during 2-a-day practices. I liked hitting 7th graders when I was in 8th grade. I did an Arsenio Hall when I tackled a quarterback for my first ever recorded safety. My step-dad told me at the time someone in the stands said, that kid is intense.
No one has ever said it since.
By the time high school came around, kids my size were expected to play football. What the hell else would I have done? I quit my freshman year. That's when the quitting started. Quitting is like a drug to me. It became easy afterwards. Not showing up for a commitment Backing out at the last minute. Saying yes then not being around to say no was my favorite game. I can't even remember why I quit. No one caused a fuss. When I turned in my equipment, the coach didn't even snicker. Just another kid.
He doesn't have what it takes, anyways.
When I transferred schools my sophomore year, football again became the way to meet people. Football guys in Texas were always the most popular kids. No fringe element existed on the high school football team. Even awkward, heavy-set kids like me fit in with the random douche bags that groped the pretty girls at lunch.
But by the time became a junior, there was no looking back. I wrote for the sports column on my high school newspaper, the editor in chief! I knew the inter workings of the team and the subtleties of the game. I read the Houston Chronicle avidly during this time. They were always brutal in their commentaries, as was I. My senior year I was forbidden to write about the football team because my insight proved to be awkwardly accusing.
And that's about when my step dad made a surprise visit to see me at practice.
Most of my practices showcased a varying degree of mediocrity. Stumble during drills, get yelled at, hit someone harder, get an obligatory ass-pat or helmet . The motivation to succeed was never intrinsic. Mostly, you didn't want to get embarrassed by your peers. The second end of practice was performing tackling dummies for the varsity. Perhaps that's why our team never made the playoffs the 4 years I was there, we simply weren't up to par.
Then came the sprints.
There were always 2 guys who continually were last running up the field. One was me. I can't imagine what the other guys thought about us. Fat ass. Lazy mexican. I'm sure I would have been the soldier that Jack Nicholson would have easily code redded. And sure enough, my step-dad was there to witness it all.
And to understand what transpired in the parking lot, that conversation that was buried in my mind until just recently, you have to understand him. There wasn't a trophy he didn't have, a sport he hadn't mastered. And here, in this moment, he's witnessing his son (who he had been raising for years now) loafing it, waddling through sprints that he himself could have run better than the varsity.
A few weeks later, I didn't have to quit. A knee injury took me out during the one week when I gave a damn. There's a metaphor in that experience too. Do just enough and no one notices you, do too much and someone is going to chop block you into an injury. I limped my way through the halls that fall with the knowledge I wouldn't have to set foot on that football field ever again.
No matter what I did afterwards, however, the wound stayed with me. Perhaps it's why I have to fight the urge to phone in a day at work, or to vedge out in front of a computer screen (haha, like now) or to crumble at the sight of adversity. There has been an assault on that man for years now. I understand it is a battle to be waged simply because winning would mean I wouldn't need anyone else to be there for me. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Still, the fact remains. Someone once told me that I didn't have what it takes. Another never answered. The wound remains. And the marquee sign neon flickers in anticipation. The red carpet awaits the return of its star. The lie is always inviting.
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