Can't Quit Now

The rollercoaster is never-ending. Today I was frustrated by students who came to class halfway through and then expected me cater to their needs, to basically start the lesson over because they had missed half of it.

In short, for a few minutes there, it was another “I want to quit before next semester” day. I’m just getting sick and tired of this crap and other crap like it, and the attendant bad attitudes, day after day after day after day.

Then, at the end of the day, “Xander,” who is getting one of the two solid A’s in my class, who is always polite, who never talks in class, who tries to stump me with Star Wars trivia, gave me a Christmas card envelope.

“Thanks, Xander.”

“You’re welcome Mr. Richardson. I’m not going to be here the next three days, and I didn’t want to forget your present.”

“Present?”

“Yeah, there’s a gift certificate inside. I know you like to read, so . . .”

“Xander . . . you didn’t have to . . .”

“I know. See ya Mr. Richardson. Have a good break”

I still get a little choked up, thinking about this. At the time, I had to go back into my classroom because, um . . . I had something in my eye.

Inside the envelope: a Christmas card, and a $25 gift Borders gift card. “Thank you from the Jackson family.”

How can I possibly walk out in the middle of the year now?

If the shoe fits . . .

This story in today’s Chicago Tribune discusses a report that “analyzed arrest numbers from 1999 to 2003 [in Chicago Public Schools], which showed that 75 percent of all children arrested over the five-year period were African-American though they make up 50 percent of the district's enrollment. The district is 38 percent Latinos, who account for 20 percent of arrests.”

Of course, the students think the cops and school employees are just way too strict, and the raw statistics would seem to point to some kind of basic inequality inherent in the system.

The only inherent inequality or disparity I see, from my perspective as a teacher in an on-probation CPS school, is, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it in The Great Gatsby, “a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.”

When Nick Carraway repeats this snobbish suggestion of his snobbish father, he readily admits that he, like his father before him, is being rather snobbish.

But the fact remains that there are serious social inequalities perpetuated in this country, but these do not start at school. They start in the home. If the student even has a steady, reliable, safe home, which many do not. Without a solid support structure, how are these students supposed to learn how to be decent to each other and to other people?

Every day, I see example after example of young people who either don’t know basic human decency or just don’t care.

Yes, most of the students I see every day are black, but anyone who takes even a simple anecdotal look at just about any other urban school can obviously see that the conditions that lead to these students getting arrested at school are not unique to one ethnic group.

My friend Nathan teaches at a mostly Hispanic (by way of the Dominican Republic) high school in New York City (Harlem, to be exact). He recently sent out a mass email to let all of his friends know how he’s doing. Here is an excerpt:

“One of the most important things I've learned is that girls don't get into physical fights as often as boys, but when they do, there is no limit to their fury. Having had to break up fights of both kinds in the last two weeks, I would choose to separate two boys instead of two girls any day. (it is disturbing to see footlong fistfulls of hair, and torn clothes and scattered bead necklaces as the wreckage of an altercation).”

THIS is why schools like CPS have a zero-tolerance policy. These kids can go from zero to ass-kicking literally in the time it takes to blink. Just yesterday, I had one student slap another full across the face because he had taken a book off of her desk—a classroom book she wasn’t even using at the time.

Oh, one other thing: most of the cops and administrators (that I know of, anyway) in CPS are black, just like the kids who are complaining that the cops and administrators are too handcuff-happy.

This is not a racial thing. This is a socioeconomic thing.

And while we’re on the subject of crime, this link is just too good not to include, even though I know my mother will probably get one or two more gray hairs when she checks out www.Chicagocrime.org.

It’s a Googlemaps hack that maps out crimes reported to the Chicago Police Department. The database is searchable by crime type, street, date, police district, ZIP code, ward, and specific location. I subscribe to the RSS feed of the block my school is on. In the unlikely event that my boss reads this, I don’t want to antagonize anyone by posting the link to my school. But those of you who know where I work can find the address online easily enough.

Shoved

Today was actually a good day. Classes were running more or less smoothly, some learning was actually occurring. Not a lot, but some.

And then came 7th period.

Mitchell walks in with his CD player. I ask him to put it away. He sits down, keeps listening to it. It’s sitting on his desk, in plain view, so I grab it. He clutches at it. I say “You want to fight about this until it breaks or give it to me?” He lets go, puts his left hand on my chest, and shoves. It was like a mosquito shoving a boulder, but still, Mitchell put his hand on my chest and shoved me in anger.

I spent most of the next 90 minutes in the police room on the first floor, filing a police report and talking with Mitchell’s mother.

He’s not a bad kid, really, he just . . . but still, I can’t have students shoving me with impunity, so I filed a police report.

Interestingly enough, however, he wasn’t led away in handcuffs, which I fully expected. I think someone dropped the ball on this one, but I’ll find out more tomorrow. At the very least Mitchell needs a few days suspension.

Calm Evenings

The secret, I think, is learning how not to care.

A psychologist or social worker or counselor would describe it as being responsible TO my students as opposed to being responsible FOR them, but I like the nihilism of the not caring. Call it my punk rock attitude toward my job.

Telling myself that I don’t care (which isn’t entirely true, of course, but there are reasons for my self-deception: read on) helps me keep a psychological distance from my job that lets me feel human in the hours I’m not at school.

So these last two nights, I’ve definitely felt free, unshackled by worries about work. The school will still be there tomorrow. My students will still be there tomorrow (well, the ones who show up, anyway). I’ve done a reasonable amount of planning and preparing. I could do more, of course. I could plan for every contingency and freak accident; I could go to Kinko’s and run off dozens of “just-in-case” worksheets; I could grade a few more papers or read a few more articles about the culture of poverty and how it affects students.

I could do all of this, but I’d rather spend 30 minutes on my ski machine. I’d rather spend 20 minutes doing tai chi or yoga, or both. I’d rather take time to enjoy a hot cup of green tea while I chat on line with my fiancé about how, in a few weeks, we won’t have to chat on line in the evenings anymore because we’ll be living together. I’d rather mail a friend a couple of books I think he’ll like.

I’d rather do all of these things, so that when I get frustrated with my students tomorrow, as I’m sure I will, I can think “I have something to look forward to when the day is over.” I can’t entirely escape days like the one last week where I wanted to walk out on the spot (I had at least a dozen of those last year, and probably half a dozen so far this year), but I can embrace the things, like exercise and meditation and writing in this blog, that provide me with a sense of peace.

And I’m working on carrying that peace with me.

Today, for example, I had an exchange with my students that went something like this:

ME: There are two parts to this standardized test. One is 20 minutes long, and the other is 35 minutes long. We’ll take both parts today. Don’t worry about how well you do. The test is designed to measure how successful I have been in teaching you, so—

STUDENT (shouted): Are we taking both tests today?

At this point, after having dealt with this kind of rudeness all day long, I got mad. I could feel the angry retort swell up in my throat like hot bile. And then I could see it, a red wave crashing from my head down my torso, swirling around in my gut for half a shallow breath, then cresting again over my head before I . . . watched it go with the deep breath I had reflexively taken the moment that student interrupted me.

I shouldn’t describe it as not caring, but it sounds so much more dramatic than simply “letting go,” the phrase the Buddhists and Taoists and psychologists and counselors and such like to use. Then again, I don’t know why I need any more drama in my life, unless it’s the kind that comes on DVD.

Dealing with this kind of aggravation minute-to-minute—sometimes second-to-second—has never been my strong suit. My mother thought I was going to have a heart attack before I was 20. My father . . . well, we had lots of talks when I was a kid about controlling my temper.

Over Thanksgiving, Lisa, my mother, and I went to see “Good Night, and Good Luck,” George Clooney’s movie about Edward R. Murrow’s 1954 stand against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Communist witch hunts. As director, Clooney chose to use music not to underscore the emotions of the characters (and in this taught film, the emotions, while rarely discussed, are always clearly running as high as the stakes) but very sparingly, and only during important scenic transitions. For example, when Edward R. Murrow is defending his journalistic choices to the man who signs his checks and stands a very real chance of getting fired or at least censured, there is no ominous bass rumbling under the words—there are only the words and the actor’s faces to convey the emotion and meaning of the scene. Clooney wanted to make the audience listen and watch carefully, because he wants you to think carefully about the idea of journalistic integrity and bravery and all of those high ideals that Murrow embodied and fought for. So the people sitting behind us in the movie theater who kept up with a steady stream of loud whispers to each other were obviously missing the point.

I noticed them, sure (how could I not?). I was annoyed, certainly (I take movie-watching very seriously, especially when the movie is serious). But it was Lisa who turned around and shushed them. Would I have eventually done the same? Maybe. But compared to what I deal with on a daily basis, it’s easy to let that stuff go.

And another thing . . .

My boss told me the engineer's response to the faculty restroom lock problem was "these doors are built for honest people."

In other words, there isn't a new and improved door lock in the works for the second-floor men's restroom.

It's not just my students that drive me crazy around here.

The best-laid plans . . .

Today I got so frustrated with my second class that I actually packed up my bag, turned off my computer, and readied myself to walk out the door and go home. I hadn’t worked out if I was ever going to come back, but I knew for damn sure I wasn’t coming in tomorrow.

It’s not that there was a fight in my class today, or three false fire alarms, or that anyone suggested they would hit me if I didn’t let them leave my classroom. It’s just that I’m getting tired of teaching 3rd-graders who inhabit 10th-grader bodies. Most of them come to class late, and then try to argue that they are on time—even though the bell rang maybe 20 minutes ago. They break into song—loud song—in the middle of my instruction. They talk amongst themselves while I explain the assignment, and then ask me later what they are supposed to be doing. They come to class without a pen, and then ask to go to their locker to get one. They walk to the door and stand there, chatting with people in the hallway who should be in class. I could go on and on, but just the memory of their rude and inconsiderate behavior makes my blood pressure rise.

To be fair, not all of my students are like this. In fact, individually, most of them are quite pleasant. But get them into a group, and it becomes apparent that they thrive on chaos. When they are at their worst, it’s like I’m being worried at by a pack of rabid dogs, who will take turns nipping and biting and tearing away my flesh until I collapse in a dizzy, bloody, exhausted heap, just waiting to get my throat ripped out.

My second class today was like this. I can’t even remember details, just the emotions: the frustration, the anger, the sadness, the depression, the almost overwhelming urge to slap them around until they will sit still and listen. The fourth time someone asked me to explain the assignment to them in a tone that accused me of never having explained it in the first place, I clammed up, sat at my desk, and got out my dog-eared copy of Dan Simmon’s Ilium. It’s a comfort book. I read it in something like two days over the summer—all 725 trade paper back pages of it. I bored into the book like a badger into its den. I was pissed, and I wasn’t coming out.

At first, nobody noticed. And then students started asking me questions. When I didn’t respond—didn’t look up, didn’t answer, didn’t move except to turn the page—then they noticed. And the classroom got kind of quiet, although not dead silent. To hell with ‘em, I thought.

But I couldn’t curb the teacher impulse in me. I wanted to make these kids understand . . . anything. I tried to explain that I was frustrated because I love to read and I want to share that with them and—well, then another late student knocked on the door and screwed my litany all to hell. I should have just given up and gone back to reading. Instead, I started exchanging emails with Lisa about the wisdom of quitting before we were living together, before I found a new job. Yeah, it wouldn’t be wise, but dammit I just wanted out of this madness.

That’s when I turned off my computer and put Ilium and my water bottles in my pack. I was ready to leave.

Of course, I chickened out. I stayed, and stayed furious. Furious at these kids for acting like kindergarteners. Furious at their parents for raising them that way. Furious at a society that would allow the kind of poverty that shapes parents to raise their kids that way. Just furious, a cold, focused fury that kept repeating, over and over in my mind I need to leave, I need to leave, I need to leave.

Class finally ended; I got to take my lunch. It went by too quickly: when the bell for my next class rang, I was immediately filled with dread and loathing. Damn it all, I’d just have to stand up and teach, barrel my way through 90 minutes and screw anyone who didn’t want to follow along.

Class began. Then the students showed up. I gave some instruction, they talked amongst themselves. I gave an assignment, they kept talking. I tried to review the assignment after 10 minutes, they kept talking. At this point, I was so frustrated, so disappointed that I hadn’t at least gone home during lunch, that I whipped off a quick email to my boss: “I’m not coming in tomorrow, CR.” At least now I had a day of job-hunting to look forward to.

I handed out another assignment. They kept talking. I explained the assignment. They kept talking. One or two of them asked questions about the first assignment. Then others asked for their make-up work from two days ago. I ignored them and moved on to The Giver. My lesson plans stated that we’d be on chapter 9 by Friday. Some students are still on page 1. I explained that I was going to read to them for a little while, to make sure they all got the same start, to make sure they were all on the same page. Then I started reading.

Most of them just kept talking, but “Daryl,” at least, was following along word for word in his copy of The Giver. I read for him, to him, directing my voice directly at him from the front of the room. I would periodically stop to ask a clarifying question, to make sure they were keeping up with me. Daryl would answer, and I’d keep reading. Then I noticed that J’rell was also following along. I moved to the back of the room so they could hear me better as I read page after page. After about 20 minutes of my reading, answering Daryl’s questions, discussing my answers with Daryl and J’rell (who had read the book in 7th grade, like most students around here do) Erin moved from her desk near the loud talking group of girls to a desk near Daryl, J’rell, and me. She was actively following along. She was asking questions, making comments.

I kept reading. I read for 30 minutes. I stopped, looked at the clock. Standard operating procedure is to move on to a different part of the lesson during the final 20 minutes of class, but I was on a roll, so I asked Daryl and J’rell and Erin if they wanted to keep going. They said yes immediately.

So I kept reading. And by then, most of the rest of the sometime-almost-overpowering chatter had died down, and a few other students were following along. Of course, at least three were sleeping, and three had walked out, but all I really cared about at that point was reading.

With five minutes to go, I stopped, asked someone to put the books away, and then Erin looked up at me and said “Mr. Richardson, can we do this again tomorrow?”

Dammit, I thought, now I have to come in tomorrow.

And that good feeling lasted until 15 minutes after class was over, when Shantice stopped by to get her grade report and do some of her missing work.

On the one hand, I was glad to see that she wanted to take some responsibility for her grade and work to change the F it had fallen to. On the other hand, her grade would never have fallen so far and she wouldn’t have had to stay after school if she had just paid a little attention when we did these assignments in class. This garish juxtaposition of wisdom and idiocy drives me crazy. I think it’s called “being a teenager,” but having a name for it doesn’t make it any easier for me to deal with.

While Shantice did her work, I went downstairs to punch out and ran into my boss. We started chatting, she opened the email I had sent, and worked her way around to convincing me to come in tomorrow. I don’t really want to. I could use the day off. But, well, like my boss said, it’s only one more day . . .

Besides, I forgot my 40-gig external hard drive on my desk at school, and I don’t trust my students to leave it there until Monday.