Home Training

Whoever made it it mandatory that you sit in some controlled, bubble-environment row seating for 2 and a half hours of silence did not have kids.  When we take quizzes and short cycle tests in class, the students stand, they lay on the floor, they sometimes listen to music and the door always seems to let in some hallway scream.  During the test this past week,  they aren't allowed to stand, lay the floor or accept even a non-verbal cue if we notice they leave an entire page blank.  My kids will hold up hand signals for the bathroom, extra pencils and kleenex.  There is a booklet laying on my desk somewhere for the proper procedures to follow in case of student sickness or if a cell phone happens to ring.  I am not even supposed to have my phone on, nor the computers.  Someone must think the scrolling of desktop backgrounds will somehow remind a child that the answer is in fact B instead of C.

Test anxiety must also be the culprit for the mood of my fifth grade girls.  There's arguments, feuds, switching of allegiances and the sullying of mothers.  Reportedly, a snippet of hair was cut from a student's hair.  I received a note from my principal (An applicant actually used the other "principle" when referring to ours.  So much for your interview) that I should monitor my students better.  Based on this paragraph, you'd think I don't.

In past years, the test leads to a cacophony of booklet drops, worn pencils, bathroom breaks, a few sleepy nods and several blank stares.  I haven't had much drama during a test.  Despite the fear from politicians, the idea of drill and kill and other educational bastardizations haven't yet consumed me.  There will always be some kind of examination.  There will always be a test.  Michelle Rhee isn't so much to blame as our ambivalent nation.  We continue to base learning on standards and rigorous mandates, but we fail to see the overall decline in what a parent called today--"home training."

Not to say our "home training" is any better.  My son came home this week with a not to sign about him cursing in school.  He emphatically denied it, but he doesn't quite understand that even his "frickins", "what the fudges" and other close calls are too similar to the real thing.  My own cursing has been freely flowing as well.  I decided to use the coin jar method to deter us from using any language of the type.  I put in a quarter, Delcina a dime and Cruz a nickle.  I should pay more if the problem stems from me in the first place.

There probably wasn't much interest in any test I took from my parents.  Not that they weren't invested in my future.  I had college bred into me, it was just a matter of where.  Perhaps much of my focus on school was disciplinary in nature.  My dad expected me to read the lips of my teacher under any and all circumstances.  I realize now that there isn't that much a difference between cultures when it comes to respect and upbringing. We like to marginalize ourselves into political brackets, racial lines and boundaries, talking points.  Good parenting and a conservative outlook on life is universal.  Of course I screwed up, of course I played around in school--but there were genuine consequences.  It mattered at home.

In my experience, the parents and kids haven't necessarily gotten worse.  I old-man myself when I claim it to be in public, but I have always had dramatic girls, wanna-be tough boys, ADD kids and clingy kids too.  There has always been poverty, good teachers and bad, good parents and poor ones.  However, we've sealed ourselves off from anyone around us.  No one knows their neighbor.  No one really cares to.

There's more of an incentive, or a decentive if that's even a word (which it isn't since Google is underlining the word in red which screams "spell me correctly") to stay inside.  While there has been a spike in youth sports, there are more reasons to glue oneself to the tv, computer or cell phone.  The devices made to make our lives easier are now time-sucking these opportunities away.  So we have tons of kids shuffling through the school system who need play, who desire play, but are told to sit still, face forward and shut up.

Their home training is different.  Parents continually tell me they don't feel safe to let their kids outside.  Perhaps being safe is relative.  How safe was my neighborhood(s) growing up?  I found porn behind a trash dumpster.  A man killed his wife who lived next door.  My grandmother had a sliding gate built outside her home to keep out the "negritos."  A home down the street ended up being a safehouse for one of the biggest drug busts in a suburb (at that time).  Perhaps all parents say those words to their teachers.  "It isn't safe anymore."  Perhaps it's the fear and anxiety we carry around with us.

So it came to no surprise I was buzzed by the office this morning.  I've spoken with tons of parents.  It should not have come to surprise me when the mom told her kindergarten son he should "kick their ass" to any kid who put his hands on her son.  Ignorance isn't just a black problem, a brown problem or a white problem.  Ignorance and fear builds walls between us.  It tells parents to tell their kids to fight first and ask questions later.  It tells them to stay home and play their x-box.  Fear tells us that no other parent is "home training" their kid better than you.  "Kick their ass."  That's the remedy.

When Jesus Moves In

Liminality.

I love to teach vocabulary.  Besides getting a chance to teach kids how to appreciate the words and the author's choice of visuals and figurative language, I have always been one to seek out terms and words.  I remember in college reading Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full--confession, I never actually finished it--and would stop every so often to highlight words, look them up in the dictionary and tried, unsuccessfully at times, to incorporate these new phrases into my poetry.  I know there's a journal in the crawl space collecting dust with my creativity by means of a dictionary failures.

Being a Bible reader now, I've realized words can have emphasis and new meanings.  Take the word zealot. Nowadays, if you're labeled a zealot, you're either a terrorist, someone in the Westboro Baptist Church holding signs at funerals or some crazy man straight from an 80's movie, ringing a bell and wearing one of those cardboard signs--the end is nigh!  But in the time of Jesus's time, being a zealot for the Lord was what the disciples were.  Damn right I want to be a zealot!

So when our youth pastor gave us a new word to digest, I quickly fell in love with it.

Liminality is the condition of being on a threshold at the beginning of a process or a rite of passage.  In essence, the state of liminality is that awkward moment when you are unaware of the social norms of the group or community.  It's a kids' first day in junior high, that first day on a new job, the day the new boss comes in and issues a staff meeting.  As the youth around the room gave examples of their experiences, I began to think that much of my whole life has been geared to hear this one word, to be in that exact place.

That Sunday, we were supposed to have been at my daughter's softball doubleheader. The games had been moved and rescheduled due to a spring/winter storm.  We didn't go.  My son did not want to stay for programming after choir, so my wife did not come in to sit with the youth that morning.  Just me, with my thoughts on my phone games, lunch and the prayer that we would have a snow day on Monday (we didn't).

I've said on this blog many times, and it was a running joke for any who know me from my childhood days, that I had a new school for each year of my elementary and secondary education.  We were urban nomads.  From apartment to suburbs, to condominium, that feeling of liminality--I didn't have that word coined as of yet, that feeling of sleeping in a new bed under a strange roof--had always been as central to me as my personality.

The structure of the summer move led me to sports, to use humor as an ice breaker and provided me with an observer's point of view in just about any group I was in participate.  I was the follower.  I had leadership qualities--I always landed in the middle of the road on personality quizzes--but I sometimes chose to remain back to where I can see the entire picture.

Eventually, this life in which I thought I could control, led me to Ohio.  Again, I found myself in this liminal state.  Then God shouted and pursued me enough that I was forced to listen.  Now I'm sitting in a room full of youth describing what it means to love God, to worship Him and to live a life that He's calling us to live.  There are no accidents.

Tim later talked about how being in youth ministries is different from talking with the adults.  Youth aren't so much set in their routines--my Lisa overly used the word "random" enough when she was 14--as adults.  I pick up the same cup of coffee from the same coffee shop each day on my way to work.  I walk down the same hallway to work, the last door on the left.  There's a butt pad on my seat, the DNA of clutter surrounds my table and work areas.  Being random means stopping for ice cream, singing songs with the kids.

And I'm then, at a crossroads.  Life in Men's Ministry is wooing me and I know the seas will be difficult to maneuver--we had an event that drew 150 last year, but drew only 85 or so this year--not so much for reaching out to men and what spiritual cleaning will do to me.  When Jesus moves into your heart, He begins to rummage through those dusty journals you leave in the crawl space.  He begins to rearrange furniture, adding events to your calendar in permanent marker.  Pretty soon you realize the heart you once called your own isn't yours,that it never was to begin with.

But that's okay.  Wherever God is leading me to, I go willingly.  He's been preparing me thus far.  The least I should do is step into the threshold.  Make it my own.  Make it ours.  His.

God Seeps In

I was asked today, "How's your year going?"
Like some Christian Terminator, I ran though several suggestions in my mind of how I wanted to respond.
Oh, It's one of them years.
I teach fifth grade, so, yeah, you know.
If it weren't for my boss....
Any of the responses above could be true, depending on the train of thought.  That's the scary thing about sarcasm.  There's truth in the barbs, whether you're laughing about yourself or making sly comments about someone else.  Being at church, I decided it wasn't the place for such things and I answered with," It's beginning to calm down."
My friend chuckled and said, "Ray, it's almost the end of the year."


True, I'm in the final quarter of my year.  I have about 5 good weeks of teaching max, one week of testing and about 2 weeks or so of prep work, 1 week of parties, and 1 week of maintenance and fifth grade graduation supervision.  And Mondays.  I have maybe 6 Mondays to go.

Now, I don't hate Mondays.  In my response to grace, I've looked at Mondays as the test of what I take notes and digest from Sunday.  Putting it into practice.  I meet people daily that sigh when you ask them, "How is your day?" They post disparaging pictures and posts as if Monday was personally responsible for losing a limb.  Then the cycle continues.  By Wednesday, you're happy because it's "almost Friday," and then on Friday it's all smiles because the weekend offers some grand illusion of the life you were supposed to lead.  To me, the life that we are supposed to be living is NOW, all week, everyday.

Mondays are particularly important.  I've been taking the extra time I don't use from having a "special" (Art, PE, Music or Library) by devising silly competitions and building character.  They have been their most active and attentive singing, "Lean on Me," or "Hold Us Together," playing clipboard volleyball and wrapping teammates in toilet paper.  Afterwards, we discuss subjects like bullying (and before you roll your eyes and say the word has been overused, well, it has), getting along with others and setting goals.

In a response to my church's "Be Kind Today" campaign, we have been incorporating a "Room 160 Random Acts of Kindness."  Simple tasks such as:
Don't laugh when someone gets made fun of
Take someone's recess detention for them.
Leave a quarter in a cart at Aldi's or a few in a Coke machine
Give a random stranger a compliment (with a parent toting along).
Say something nice on Facebook.

Their responses have been interesting.  A few of the kids told me they got in trouble for giving money to strangers or a homeless person outside of a business.  One kid was torn because he felt his mother got mad at him in the same magnitude as when he does something wrong.  Others told awkward stories of stranger befuddlement at getting a compliment.  I told them that wherever they are, no one is used to being nice (perhaps that's not always true, in hindsight).  But I gave them a litmus test.  I asked them the next time they are in a long line, say something nice or start a conversation with something positive and see the reaction.

Some of the tasks are oriented more for personal growth from information we gathered in previous sessions.
Don't watch an R-rated movie, even if it means being alone in your house.
Try not to curse for one day.
Turn off 107.5 for one night.

Most of my kids readily admit their parents don't make great choices with their entertainment.  I get that.  Once, as a kid, I watched Scarface at the foot of my parent's bed until 5 minutes in the cursing drove them to  kick me away (I watched it later that week by myself in the middle of the night).  Cruz has even taken me to task for the few PG-13 words in Beetlejuice as his ticket to swear at-will.  This helps me place my students in the proper perspective as well.  I fight against the culture each and every day I ask them to sit quietly and read a novel.  I get accusations from parents who think I send their kids to detention for not being able to see the board.  It's true that many of my parents probably had less than desirable academic careers.  The parents in my Life Group, or the ones I see at my local church, drive their minivans from youth sporting event to bible studies and dance practices.  My parents are probably working, driving to their second job.

When my church first offered the challenge of doing Random Acts of Easter, I jumped at the chance.  I grabbed 5 yard signs (distribute 3 with possible destinations for the others) and several business sized cards in hopes I would free the world from itself.  I have only given a few out.  If my pastor were counting cards like some Glengarry Glen Ross-Alec Baldwin quota robot, I'd be getting a set of steak knives right about now.  Luckily for me, grace doesn't quite work like that.

You see, God seeps in.  He knows.  He had me at church this evening in a meeting, allowing me to share my God story sitting next to my wife, holding hands in prayer.  At school, my student answered a question today in class, the same kid who was in trouble for giving money to a stranger.  I asked the class, "What type of reaction would Atticus have towards Bob Ewell's threats?"

"I think he'd pray for him, Mr. Cordova."

Amen, brother.  Amen.

That Ache for God

About a year ago, my wife and I took a hiatus from teaching Sunday School.  We had reservations going into that year, and the rest of the year seemed to be an arriving funeral.  We had taught much of the same group since fourth grade--about 8 kids, sometimes more, sometimes less.  By the time they grew into 6th graders, we had grown away.  Our kids were getting older, our eldest was becoming more active in school and church and we became victim to saying yes when we really wanted to say no.

I can see how church ministries fade and dissolve over time.  Organizations change hands, ideas get forgotten and leadership eventually falls under the weight of in-fighting and some unseen force you can't name.  In the few years we were Sunday school teachers, we never really felt part of the process of molding young Christian minds.  Teaching comes naturally to the both of us, and there were times it caused friction from the different styles my wife and I have, but the process of teaching on the particular topic of Jesus and the Bible was something entirely new.

Speaking for myself only, I was a baby Christian now in charge of filtering through curriculum in hopes that one of the students would never ask me something provocative.  We played silly board games and mazed through select verses from the Old Testament.  I learned quite a bit actually, and sometimes I even took the games and devised edited editions for my public school students.  We had more fun just talking to them, watching their fourth grade naivete graduate into fifth grade beginner's maturity and later, into sixth grade awkwardness.

The curriculum didn't always mesh, even more so that last year we taught.  Perhaps it my our attitude as well.  There were Sunday, I admit, I wanted to go home and sleep, or have lunch with another family who didn't serve at 11, or anything other than teach.  Sometimes the kids were loud, sometimes they were annoying, but overall we didn't gel in the way I wanted or perceived they should.  And that there is the great sin--my perception, my goals and my expectations.

So this weekend I stepped back into the fold in a major way.  And that sin was revealed and washed away. It was revealed to me as a helped a homeless man off the sidewalk, walking a block with him to a bench.  Here I was, with my second son Dalton (he's my best friend's son) walking with this man feeling totally helpless.  I had no money to give him (I was tapped out of cash; Dalton actually gave him a dollar), no blankets to comfort his cold and no bed for him to lie in.  I listened as he talked about his kids, that he had no place to go.  He said to me at one point, "God Bless, you." and all I could think about was, "Isn't that what I'm supposed to say to you?"  Driving away I kept thinking what I should have done, wrestled with what I could have done, lamenting my lack of funds and intelligence.

Then back to the conference, dare2share, where teenagers and youth leaders are given that validity to speak up for the gospel.  Sitting there among the children, the young adults, that old feeling of conviction and calling came back.  I had not felt it since I was on my Emmaus walk over 5 years ago.  It was that nag in my bones, deep into the ribs, that ache for God that my human heart craved.  At that moment it didn't matter if I had saved the street man, only that I was there.  I was there with Dalton, who is taking his young faith into new directions.  It was the lady waiting for the bus who heard our conversation.  It was also about the many drivers everyday who simply keep driving.  A man falls on the street everyday in America and no one sees it.

And faith is just that.  Grace is given with no price of our own.  We cannot pay for it or create a good deed list long enough to get it.  Once we do accept it, we are called to act.  And for some it's teaching, and for others it's mission work.  But all of us are called to be the church.  For five minutes in a homeless man's life, to taking an hour after church to sit among the teens--even if it means you'll miss a lunch date, or be witness to a kid being a show-off amongst his peers.

One of the kids this weekend said that adults seemed surprised that someone her age has such great faith.  Perhaps thats because as adults we remember our youth, or that we get bogged down in so many responsibilities that take us away from God.  Either way, our age has no determination to what God wants to do with us.

During lunch, I sat with Kevin and Jordan, 2 of my students--my friends.  We were given an assignment from the conference.  Sit and watch people, and think about their lives, see their sin, and think of their life story.  God wants us all.  He sees in some magnificent way, innocent creations.  Perfect.  We always see the wrong but we don't take that second look to wonder what they would look like in white.  Jesus paid it all, not just for me.  But that guy too.  Yes, HIM!

I told Kevin I was blessed to be there with him, watching his mature in his faith.  Kevin is awkward, innocent and on fire for God.  He's shy and naive of the social media savvyness that most kids his age have.  He reminds me of an older man trapped in the body of a kid.  I watched him hand info cards to a bus driver that weekend, and he stood with me as we chatted up a truck driver and talked about our faith.  There were times when Kevin's thoughts spilled from his lips that mimicked what I was thinking.  "What are we going to do now?"  The cool thing is--God is revealing to us what the answer is each and everyday.  The other question that nags me, nags many of us, "Did I do enough?"--that's the one that has no business in the conversation.

So tomorrow I'm beginning a new prayer.

God, help me understand that I cannot ever do enough, and it's okay.  Lord, my portfolio of good deeds will not suffice.  Help me serve you, in whatever capacity.  Allow me to sit next to a homeless man, allow his breath to fall onto my clothes.  I want him next to me in heaven, Lord.  I know you'd want that.  White robes and all.

Amen.

Cookies and Stress Sandwiches

I think I lost the original intro to this blog a week ago.  Such goes in the mind of a writer.  Back when I was devoting time to the job of writing (when I was a poet, wearing my hipster hat...haha, yeah right) I would cram out paragraphs and stanzas weekly.  I kept journals I have yet to find in some hidden crawl space tote. The ideas later changed.  As a fifth grader I wrote epic stories of armies and spies.  In college I wrote about life's observations, stories where the protagonist was an outsider.  It's how I've felt all my life in one way or another--a bystander.  Someone watching as someone led a more fulfilling life before me.

I used to work at a toll road in Houston.  During the night shift were born the best of my ideas.  I had plenty of time to think and night-dream, as anyone passing by in tinted windows and a smirk had a story to tell.  Again, I was the casual voyeur to the countless faces that passed by.  Maybe it's why I love movies and people watching.  Watching, for me, became a pastime.  

This past week, my wife and I witnessed a driver swerve through a busy back street on our way to the store yesterday.  It was an otherwise uneventful trip just before dinner, one that we didn't even need to make.  As the truck continued to swerve, our plans went from groceries to tailing the car until it reached some inevitable conclusion.  Soon enough, the truck turned right, swerved again, and ran into one of those green phone wire boxes on the side of the road, and barely missing a tree.  We pulled up alongside to find a woman in the midst of a blackout.  She had no idea of her surroundings or her movements, only that something was out of the ordinary.  She was on her way to pick up her son, and a story of disorders and medication soon followed.  So instead of grocery shopping, we drove her truck to her destination, waited for a boyfriend to arrive and said our good-byes with a hug and plenty of questions.

School has had its own side swipe moments.  I have one girl who cries constantly, either she's being picked on by someone or something unfortunate happens to her which causes undue attention to come her way.  I have multiple absent--at oen point one student returned on Friday, only to have her mom remember an appointment and thereby whisked her away not 15 minutes into the day.  I get threats of potential phone conferences from mothers who have been told I don't "like" their child.  All year I have met with parents on disciplinary hearings where excuses run tantamount to coherence.  I'm frequently called to the table about my domineering presence, my tone of voice, my sarcasm or my bluntness.  (In turn, our new PE teacher has been told by his supervisor that he is scaring the kids with his voice.)  Moms (and female students) have no idea of what passes for a man's voice, nor authority anymore.  I'm reading To Kill a Mockingbird, which features Atticus Finch, a man among men.  He makes no excuses for his kids.  Today's parents?  Not so much.  Education has emasculated men in my profession and we have grown impotent.

Even our staff meetings have become overrun by petty grievances and micro management.  Just what is the difference between a silent hallway and a quiet hallway?  How many squirts of liquid hand soap should a child be allowed to have?  And this, somehow will raise test scores in our building?

This past week side swiped me with health too.  Besides the enduring need to fill my mouth with cookies and stress sandwiches, I was reminded of the frailty of our bodies.  In the end, what are our possessions but boxed mementos.  The life of a man are those who surround him to pray in a hospice center.  A seemingly random nurse who takes time during his off hours to visit a dying man and pray--that's the essence of a man. Right there, hand in hand with a blended family of believers.

I thought of a dying man's skin.  Bruised and raised, dry from wear.  On Sunday, I sit among the church youth at different ages.  Their youthful awkwardness, their lack of an indoor voice.  When some of them speak of God I wonder who is being taught.  We learned about the friendship of Barnabas (look up his name's meaning) and the Body of Christ.  The cute flirty eyes of a junior high student across the room.  The boy with his head down, eyes gazed upon his phone.  They're all mini adults, really, navigating the world that has been placed before them, sometimes just as confused and bewildered as we are.

Where is this blog going?  I still have no clue.  I'm in crisis of sorts.  I want to yank someone by the collar (perhaps I want someone to yank my collar!) and say, "Listen up!  There it is.  Your life.  What are you going to do with it?"  I want to hug my daughter when she cries, when she doesn't cry.  I want old men in hospice to walk free towards their next destination.  I want to hold the door open for them, pat them on the back along the way.  Sometimes I'm afraid I'll always be holding that door open.  Or that I wont have the right thing to say and hope that a smile or a downcast eye will appease them.  What would they care?  Run towards the light, dear friends, something better awaits.

Being Switzerland

Winter parent-teacher conferences are always indicative of the academic season, and true for the weather as well.  We're typically stuck indoors for at least our third week by the time conferences roll around because the playground is covered in layers of ice and snow.  The fifth-grade dreams of swishing three pointers, the long-legged girl who has been strategizing her tether ball dominance, and the shoes of kinder kids go clean from lack of wear.

The second quarter grade cards have been pinned to refrigerators by alphabet magnets, while the third quarter's grades begin to invade and peck away at month old standards.  Some kids, without the distraction of sweat and out-door chases, begin to witness a transformation in their effort.  Papers begin to be turned in and behaviors sometimes mellow.  They do get louder, so much that the drone of hip-hop music from computer speakers meld with the lack of indoor voices during recess.  I bat requests away for those long thirty minutes.  

The gloss of mid-year testing also begins to lose its luster.  Graphs are made and groups are organized.  Progress is defined in alphabetic letters, green dots and abbreviations.  In reading, a U score is great, the epitome of fifth-grade prowess and intelligence, but a U in behavior means you've had one too many outbursts to remain in class on a regular basis.  It's all in context.

So parents come hoping to hear--something new, something old with a twist?  I trot out worksheets and work samples.  Sometimes the kids sit among their parents.  I've had some tear and cry.  Others stand awkwardly as if the amount of time already spent on school has drained them of blood and voice.  Others roam around the room, comfortable in their surroundings.  There are typically three types of conferences--well, 4.

1--The no-show/no appointment conference.  These are the kids who you need to see urgently, but because of schedules, a lack of communication or lack of vigilance, never meet.  They are not always behavior problem kids, nor are they ever not high achieving.  But there's something in that student's progress, or lack thereof, that a teacher must get off their chest in a face-to-face meeting.  Perhaps the parent's have been numb to past conferences, so they don't look forward to hearing anything the teacher has to say.  These are the kids that take an extra week to return forms, the kids that wear the perpetual dirty coat--the clinger kid.  The kid who is either always tardy, always leaving early, or frequently missing that one day a week when you teach new material.  

2--The no need conferences.  These are the kids that "get it."  Teachers end up talking more about a student's personal endeavors rather than a test score, simply because the test is a given.  While they are not always a teacher's best kids, most likely they are.  These are the kids that lose out when a teacher begins ranting about a lack of concentration towards the kid who sits in the corner.  These are the kids that demand more gifted and talented funding.  These are the kids who also hold a school together.  We say things like, "I wish they would behave more," with other teachers in the halls.  The kid whose cheek you want to pinch.  They are the "buy-in" kids.  There are no gimmicks or incentives that they typically need to succeed.  In our district, their parents see the saggy pants and brooding faces of junior high and wonder where their kid fits.  They's rather home school them then to have them in the general population.  On-line schools and magnet charters now purge the best of our district, simply because the neighbor down the street cannot control their kids.  The parents have an impression that middle school kids are running the asylum.  Perhaps that is all in perception, from rumor or from their own experiences.  I used to think it was racial--the good white kid who didn't want to be around dark-skinned, deadbeats.  But it isn't.  It's class, it's a value system they feel is missing among their community.  Who am I to argue?

The other 2 conference types are the keep trying and the stall.  The keep trying kids are the ones who are not consistent enough to be great, but not struggling enough to be considered at-risk.  The stall conferences are the ones teachers have that are awkward because of the elephant in the room.  Typically it is from an academic lack of progress or they are having the type of behavior that not only impedes their learning but the others around them.  I almost wish the parents from the no-need club were sitting behind me with a disgusted look on their face, waving a shame-shame finger at them.  I know that's judgmental, confrontational and skirting the real issue of need.  These are the kids that walk by everyday in the neighborhood that you wish would transfer to another school.  Many times I have found that the results of a child is very much attributed to the struggles of the parents.  What is there to say to a parent who can barely help their own kid read because they can barely read?  

Blessings too, come from conferences.  From my own (we haven't been to a conference this year, but then again, we haven't needed to), to the work that gets accomplished in between appointments, the conversations you have with colleagues.  We each have our own strengths and personalities.  If they all meld into a cohesive unit, you have a great school.  Other times, the gifts and talents of many are squandered on the few because of a lack of direction, a lack of purpose.  

So this week, to combat the winter blah fever, we've been playing cooperative team building games, singing songs and chanting mantras with my fifth grade class.  

I am a new creation, deeply loved, fully pleasing and totally accepted.  There has never been another person like me, in the history of mankind, nor will there ever be.  I was made original, one of a kind, really somebody.  

None of them probably know the above is taken from a Christian book, and how God fits into the meaning.  We clap and sway to the tune of "Lean On Me."  I use my limited movie-built knowledge of WW2 to discuss why being Switzerland is not what we want to be in life.  Switzerland was a neutral country during the war.  How can you sit idly by when evil is at your doorstep?  Why laugh when someone is made fun of?  Take a stand.  Don't be a Switzerland.  You think I could get that on a shirt?

Spinning

I remember visiting my wife's second grade classroom some morning after work (and on a side note, I also remember going through a side door, open and unlocked.  Not so any more.).  I was walking through the aisles and the kids were looking back at me, smiling and waving and asking me several questions.  It was my Indiana Jones from the Last Crusade moment.  C-3PO among the Ewoks.  That was the day the seed was planted.  I was ignorant of the fact then, only in that I felt secure in the notion that I could do the one thing all teachers do--walk up and down an aisle, turn papers your direction to read an answer and smile back when needed.

Of course, that's not all we do.  Today I had 7 kids plus my own daughter in the room as they ate lunch, spoke over each other, carried themselves by piggyback and spun on rolling chairs.  They write letters like the one below.



Sometimes they draw pictures and characterize me as the "best teacher ever."  Those awards typically fade by year's end, but they are better than an Oscar.

And sometimes they write other notes.  Like the one I found on my desk.  I'm not going to show you a picture, however, if I had the balls to do so, I guess I would.  If the good pictures get me "likes" on Facebook, why not the negative?

And like most notes you don't want to read, the truthful ones, they tend to hide and get shuffled among the traffic of the table.  This week my work table had been consumed by a grade book, about 6 different piles of papers and tests to grade, unsharpened pencils, two clipboards, a jumbo paper clip, a bell, a bag of clay, The Hunger Games, literature essays on To Kill A Mockingbird and reminder notes 10 deep.  Among that rubble was a note from a student, an apology of sorts, after being sent to PEAK (our version of detention).

The paper had been pushed around for at least a week.  On any other day I would have thrown it away.  I even wrote a note on one of the folds.

Mr. Cordova, I know you think I'm dumb.  I wish I was smarter.

Mr. Cordova, I hate my life.

Mr. Cordova, I know you like (a high performing student) more, but I'm just dumb.

I hate school.

Looking at those specific lines, extracted as such, remind me of some twisted poem of disapproval.  How could the same person teacher who believed in the young man above, so be a part of making a girl feel so unloved?  When did her feeling manifest?  Was it a look, a sigh, an eye roll?  Was it a denied question, when I raised my voice or when I dismissed a request?

This past week I've lost two students, again, girls, to online charter schools.  Both were victims of bullying and a pestering and prevalent system that caters to the troubled and does little for those that walk the narrow path.  Teachers spend so much time dousing fires, filling out paperwork and jumbling data that the ones we want to protect the most get neglected.  I struggle with the shy ones, boys and girls, the wallflower, the awkward kid who is too afraid to ask.  Sometimes a kid comes out of their shell within the comfort of the year.  Other times, their voice gets lost among the loud ones, the ones that are more consistent.  As a man, how do I relate to being a young girl with selected friends and a unique array of gifts and interests?  Any man can relate to the cutie pie, the smart, over-achiever and the needy one, that girl who doesn't have a father figure.  But the other?

And during those weeks I've also welcomed two new students.  One is acclimating herself well into the room dynamic.  The other one?  Silent as stone.  I'm sure it is already evident the one I favor.

Tomorrow we continue a science experiment on centripetal force.  We've been making spinning tops, a lesson in inquiry and procedure.  I've enjoyed watching them succeed and fail and manipulate materials for a desired affect.  All week I've heard my name over and over.

Time me.  I'm ready.  Look, Mr. C.

They still want my attention and I spin.