Teaching on the South Side: Even the Good Students Fight

Today, while I was helping a student at her desk, I heard “Say that again and I’ll kick your ass!” shouted to my right. I turned to look, and saw one student, we’ll call him Jake, standing in front of another student, we’ll call him Dorian, who was seated at his desk.

Before I could say anything, Jake had hit Dorian hard across the face with a sloppy left hook.

Dorian, of course, jumped out of his desk and tackled Jake. Had I not interfered with their impetus by trying to break up the fight, they would have topped my computer from my desk.

I called for security even as Jake continued to wail on any part of Dorian that was available. Of course, when your opponent has his face and shoulders pressed into your midsection and has his arms tight around your torso, it’s hard to land an effective blow. Still, Jake was trying. His screams of “I’ll fuckin’ kill you” were almost as loud as my calls for security.

Oh, and I should mention that Jake was the recipient of the Leadership Award at our celebratory assembly yesterday, and he is one of the few students actually interested in the Odyssey.

Now he’s going to be suspended for three days. He’ll miss O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Dorian got in-school suspension for one day. He’s also a decent student. At least he sometimes does his work.

Security came and broke up the fight. My principal just happened to be out in the hall when this happened, too.

I have never wondered why 39 percent of first-year teachers in Chicago Public Schools do not come back for a second year. When even the good students are likely to start pounding on each other at the drop of a hat, it’s hard to find the drive to go to school for just one more day, let alone find the energy for another year.

Teaching on the South Side: Who Decides These Things?

I used to have a student in one of my English classes, we’ll call him Kirk (rhymes with jerk), who was constantly disruptive. He would ask to go to the bathroom every five minutes, and complain loudly when I explained that I was not going write him a pass. Whenever I would let Kirk go to the bathroom, he would stay gone for at least ten minutes, wandering the halls, disturbing other teachers. Every day he would ask, and every day I would explain why I wasn’t writing him a pass today, or ever, for that matter, and every day he would complain about my class, about me, about school, in loud and offensive language. Sometimes I would write him up. Sometimes I would plow on with my lesson.

Eventually, he got so bad, and complained so much to the counselor, that she switched him with another student in Julie's English class. I felt bad that Jules now had to deal with this horse’s ass, but he was out of my hair—and hey, maybe he would do better with a female teacher.

No such luck.

After being in Julie's class for one week, during which she once spent 20 minutes of class time just working with him (after which he again refused to do any work, repeating the same pattern he had set in my class), Kirk threatened Julie's safety. Apparently, he had been mouthing off loudly, and when Julie told him to stop, he said something like “Don’t worry, I’ll catch up with you on the street.” It was a blatant threat, and he admitted that it was a blatant threat. Julie called security, security called police, Kirk was hauled away in a police cruiser, and Jules went to the police station to press assault charges.

We thought Kirk was out of our hair for good.

We were so naïve.

After a few days of suspension, Kirk is back in school, mouthing off and refusing to do any work, as usual.

Teaching on the South Side: So, You Wanna Quit Too?

So, You Wanna Quit Too?

I went to dinner with Lisa, Anne and her boyfriend, Brendan, last night. Anne teaches at a high school on the East Side. The moment we sat down, she looked at me and said: “So do you want to quit, too?” I smiled. Then I told her how I had submitted a resume to Chicago Public Radio for the position of assistant editor of the arts desk, and if they offered me a job (something I’ll admit I’m not all that optimistic about, as I have no experience in radio) I would probably take it.

Basically, Anne and I are hitting the wall of frustration common to all first-year teachers, which is exacerbated by conditions in the inner city. You know what they conditions are. You listen to the radio. You read the news. You watch movies like Dangerous Minds.

Anne and I will probably make it through this first year, if for no other reason than we have to. Who’s going to hire anyone with a degree in English?

But it’s comforting to know we are not alone. According to a study done by the Chicago activist group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, 39 percent of first-year teachers in Chicago Public Schools never come back for a second year. And teachers will less than five years experience have a 35 percent attrition rate. To read more about this study, click here: http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=322

Teaching on the South Side: Language

My kids know a million different ways to use the f-word, and they like to make up their own street slang. For example: a "bust-down" (pronounced "busdown", and sometimes abbreviated as "bussy" or "busser") is a woman of loose morals (although my students would define it by using graphic examples of what such a woman does). Such women (and men) are sometimes also said to be "runnin'" or to be "runners."

My students also use "musty" to describe the smell of someone who has poor personal hygiene, usually when "gunnin'" each other (trading insults a la that classic urban game of verbal combat, the Dozens).

They stretch the meaning of the verb "trifle" (which can mean 1a : to talk in a jesting or mocking manner or with intent to delude or mislead b : to treat someone or something as unimportant or 2: to handle something idly) to mean playing around in irresponsible or just plain foolish ways.

They also use the word "drowning" in some sort of derogatory fashion, probably also related to personal hygiene, in a manner I have not yet deciphered.

And, of course, they all use the n-word to refer to each other. Some students have even used it to refer to me (as in, "this n---er is bogus, man, he tryin’ to make us read.")

Life in the Windy City: That’s WU-shu, not MU-shu

My freshman year of college I wanted to stay physically active (and thus avoid the dreaded “freshman fifteen” weight gain) but I did not want to run. I had run cross country and track in high school, and I had been in great shape, but I had always been rather bored while doing it: there just isn’t much variety to putting one foot in front of the other as fast as possible.

In college, though, I could live out my swashbuckling childhood swordplay fantasies by joining the fencing club.

My roommate, Darren, and I made a deal: if he’d go to fencing with me, I’d go to karate with him. We never made it to fencing, and Darren worked too much to stick with karate, but I’ve been doing martial arts of one kind or another since the fall of 1991.

I was not a particularly talented karateka. I had never been particularly coordinated (which is why I eventually dropped out of high school basketball), but what I lacked in natural grace I made up for in persistence. It took me seven years to earn the rank of black belt. One of my favorite instructors once told me that the ones who stick with karate are never the ones he expects will stick with it. I guess I was a pleasant surprise, and to no one more than myself.

At some point during those first few years of learning Moo Duk Kwan Tang Soo Do (“Institute of Martial Virtue, Way of the China Hand,” the Korean style of karate practiced by the Central Michigan Karate Club) I realized that I was addicted. I was taught karate not just as an art, or a sport, or a means of physical fitness, or self defense, or mental discipline, but as an inseparable amalgam of all five. I had never approached running or basketball this way (and these activities are rarely taught this way) but there is a long history of this kind of holistic approach in the martial arts. It satisfied a wide variety of my needs: I was regularly physically active, I was learning how to control my body and mind, I was learning how to appreciate kinesthetic art, I was becoming more confident that I could handle myself in a violent situation if I could not first avoid or extricate myself from it. And I was learning something that was just plain cool.

I have gotten older, but these needs haven’t changed except to grow more pronounced. If I go without a karate workout for too long, I start to feel something definitely like withdrawal. I get tense, anxious, fidgety, bored.

When I moved from Mount Pleasant, Michigan, to Lansing, one of the first things I did was look for a place to satisfy my martial arts addiction, and I found a great one in the Michigan State University Karate Club. I studied under new instructors, learned new things, refined old skills, met new (and long-lasting) friends.

They also practiced a Korean style at MSU, Pu Kung Tang Soo Do (“Northern Diamond (Mountain) Chinese Fist Way”), which was similar enough to Moo Duk Kwan that I fit right in, and was eventually called on to help teach, including the twice-weekly kickboxing classes that were an offshoot of the regular club.

The similarity of what I was learning to what I had learned, in addition to regular, insightful, and persistent instruction at MSU made a tremendous difference in my training. A year after I moved to Lansing, and two years after I had earned my first degree black belt at CMU, I tested for and earned my second degree black belt at MSU.

A word here about belts and ranks for those of you who have learned all you know about martial arts from the movies: being a “black belt” does not make one a master at anything, except maybe persistence. Most martial arts styles and schools assign a high number to their lower ranks, such as 10 for a beginner, a white belt, and as the student passes various physical and mental tests, those rank numbers decrease until one moves from the “negative” ranks of the colored belts to the “positive” ranks of the black belt. All a black belt means is that the student finally has enough of the basics down to truly begin his or her training.

Because there are so many different styles of martial arts and so many different schools and testing systems, there is no single common skill set for any rank, least of all black belt. Sure, most schools would expect that a black belt have a certain amount of focus and control, but even these can vary. Because of this, and because so many people have the wrong idea about what a black belt means, I rarely, if ever, mention the fact that, according to the MSU Karate Club, I have earned a 2nd dan. I will answer truthfully if someone asks me point-blank “Are you a black belt?” but I am far more comfortable simply stating the number of years I have been training. Consistent training is a far better indicator of skill and aptitude than the color of someone’s belt.

But, paradoxically, I make it a point to mention my belt color here to take advantage of exactly those misconceptions I deprecated earlier: a black belt doesn’t mean I’m an expert, but it should indicate that I have at least some skill.

And as my skills improved, I tested three years later for my 3rd dan. I practiced consistently and hard. I trained with a good friend, Nathan Blom, the same friend I had tested for 2nd dan with. We were good—but ultimately lacking. We tested for 3rd dan, but did not pass.

This didn’t bother me overly much. Sure, I was disappointed, but this was hardly the first time I had failed a test. In the years leading up to my black belt test, I failed at least twice. Those were harder to take, but I got over them and continued to train, because, whatever my rank, the important thing to me was always simply to train.

So when I moved to Chicago, I knew I would eventually need to find a place to practice martial arts. I needed to train, or I would get fidgety, anxious, bored. I was starting a new job and moving to a new city: I would need massive amounts of stress relief.

I moved to Chicago in August but did not start with a new martial arts school until November. I’d like to say I conducted an exhaustive search, looking for just the right place and teacher with whom to train and learn and hone my rusty skills (student teaching had left little time for working out—I had committed the sin of letting my training lapse) but, while I did do a few online searches and flipped through the local yellow pages, my choice was eventually decided by one purely practical consideration: distance from my apartment. Daytime traffic in Chicago is, at best, congested and slow. I wanted to be able to walk to my new dojo, or at least find a place with convenient parking.

Championship Martial Arts Academy is about a half-mile west of my apartment, on the very same street on which I live. The only way training there would be more convenient is if I lived there.

Training with CMAA meant a number of changes for me. For one, I would have to start paying for training. I hadn’t paid for martial arts instruction since 1993, when I was appointed president of the CMU Karate Club. At MSU, black belts earned their keep by teaching. The $95 a month I pay at CMAA, however, is really quite reasonable, especially since it entitles me to work out any time the place is open. The expense chafes a little, but I need the activity, so I happily write a check each month.

The second and more profound change, however, was that I would become a beginner again. After seven years of being a black belt instructor, I was going to be a white belt student. CMAA is a school of Chinese martial arts, or wushu (which literally translates as “martial arts,” or “stopping violence” and is not to be confused with “mu shu,” the Chinese pork dish traditionally served in Peking pancakes brushed with hoisin sauce).

While all Asian martial arts share many common characteristics (descending, as most did, from Chinese martial arts), different arts have different ways of achieving the same result. My 13 years of experience in Korean karate would help in some ways (I am much more coordinated these days than I was 13 years ago, for example) but they did not prepare me for the many jumps and spins and deep, low, stances of wushu. If nothing else, wushu gives me one hell of a workout.

It also helped me throw out my back just before Christmas this year. I was doing a jump-spin warm-up I had done dozens of times before, but this time I twisted before I pushed off with my legs, and something in my lower back snapped or twisted or ground together the wrong way. I walked like an old man, hobbling around, half bent over, for the better part of two weeks. My zeal to get into something new caused me to overextend myself. I’ve been more careful since.

And I’ve enjoyed being a white belt again (although in wushu they wear wide silky-looking sashes instead of narrow, thick cotton belts). As a white belt, all I have to do is learn. I’m not responsible for teaching anyone else, or for the club treasury, or for planning demonstrations to attract new students. I can just show up and train. The frustration I sometimes feel at the new skills I am trying to learn (like butterfly kicks, in which the desired effect is to jump and spin while keeping both legs straight and your body more or less parallel to the ground) is more than balanced out by the wonder I feel at being new again, at being reminded of what it is like to come to something with wide eyes and a slight palpitation of the heart.

One of my favorite Zen sayings is “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.” I like having many possibilities before me.