Walking Jars

After finishing 17 conferences in the span of three days, I still felt comically exhausted by week's end. Not that I don't stay up late nights (although I actually went to bed this week, so my demeanor was slightly less salty), or grade papers, but hearing parents' stories and meeting many of them for the first time, its any wonder why my students are both mini-scholars and empty, walking jars that are unsealed and ripe for the influence of just about anything.

I smile at kids toting their moms and grandmothers (and the dichotomy between what a grandma will say as opposed to a mom, always with that condescending "I'm-your-mom" look towards their daughters), parents who come together who've been apart, separate conferences for dad, cancelled conferences and the ones that are unexpected walk-ins. The ones that you end up having more of a conversation with all night (which is something I could get paid to do, I realized), and the ones that you pray right afterwards, for God to mend hearts, minds, fix that brokenness.

I stepped on toes too. I take my position sometimes as a politician. I'm out at recess reffing basketball games, umpiring disputes and giving the little ones a platform for their singing, stories hang-ups, gymnastic/jump rope routines and diverting attention away from bathroom breaks (I think if we had outdoor port-a-johns, no kid would want to go inside for a break and they'd spend more time playing. My kid never wants to pee when there's fun to be had.) I want every parent to flood the office with referrals to my room. I want to carry all the babies that come through the office and shake every hand. I know it's all vanity and ego. I've had it since I started teaching. And not that I don't think I need to improve. If anyone is critical of my everyday performance it's me. I'm still reading strategy books, I still cry when I see "Stand and Deliver" and I kick myself five minutes after a lesson for forgetting something or not getting it right. I know it has nothing to do with me. Or at least I'm supposed to know this. God has given me a gift and a platform, a job and a position of authority. Me? Too much to take in.

The week ended with awards assemblies. We rolled away the cafeteria seats and replaced them with about 150 kids. Maybe, 20 parents. I called out their names and watched them form a line next to me. Proud kids. Happy kids. The ones sitting out rarely have a scowl ( a few do, the ones who realize they should have been up there too), but the trick is to get the rest up there by any means necessary. This year, my ego will try again, and God will remind me that it isn't about awards, or me, or the parents who help with homework. Maybe this year I'll learn it.

Traded Megatrons

Just finished my first round of conferences tonight and when I'm booked like I was tonight, it stirs that passion that makes education all the worthwhile. I enjoy meeting parents for the first time, the look of recognition when mentioning the countless newsletters and Friday Folders, the agreements to hound their kids to work harder and with more vigor than ever before. I vaguely remember any of my conferences,but I do remember my fourth grade year.

Magrill Elementary was one of the few schools were I stayed for more than one year. We moved just about every summer (I called us the "nomads" in a poem), from one apartment complex to the next. By the time I was in junior high, we had been promoted to renting houses, but still moved quite a bit. I moved around so much that when i entered my third high school in as many years, I actually had plenty of friends when I lived in the same neighborhood as a seventh grader. But at Magrill, i entered as a fourth grader and even graduated into Teague Middle (before leaving in 6th grade).

Magrill's classrooms were all open-spaced cubicles that branched off a center foyer/assembly area (we watched movies like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" there and a kid knocked the movie projector off the stand which fell on a kid, and I was called in the office for my account on what happened--my first snitch job). Two of the corner rooms were closed in, one being a resource room, and of course we called it the "special" room, which for us meant you could be strange, spazzy and available for ridicule 24/7.

With my attention span as thin as a eyelash, I sometimes zoned off to spot friends in other rooms, threw crayons when I thought no one was looking and searched for Ross Pekar (Heath Scardino and I were obsessed with her). In my free time, I paper constructed desk footballs, chinese stars, wrote silly stories about a G.I. Joe inspired combat force called L.A.W. (Land, Air, Water, how original) that were R rated. I once took the lyrics of "Thriller" and re-mixed it into some lewd rap. The teacher found out, I was sent to the office, where I had to call my mom on the phone and sing it to her verbatim (in tune and on beat, no less), got swats wearing my stupid, mexican-tight parachute pants. Can you tell I had plenty of time on my hands? I frequently forged interim reports and traded my Megatron Transformer toy for an Optimus Prime and was always the last one picked for kickball (I spent that entire summer playing kick against the brick wall of our home, vowing to get picked first in fifth grade. The first kick-homer of my career was one of several fond memories).

I began to realize I could get by with alot of humor and by batting some brown eyes. My best friends in the world were Jeff and Omari. the last time we were all together, it was after Jeff had moved away. It was his birthday party and we hung out with his new friends, cursed, watched Freddy Krueger on tv. Jeff's mom was one of the only other moms who ever drank in front of us, and I ended up home late, too late for my mom's sake. But wherever he is, I wonder if God was just as patient with him as he was with me. I wonder if my teachers went home and laughed at some of the things I said, or were just frustrated because I was wasting my education on fart jokes, video games and girls' smiles. In essence, I sometimes haven't evolved much past that silly, little boy.

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.