Month: September 2016

Fridays are not usually the most productive days of school. Kids are ready for the weekend, as are teachers. Yet there I am, giving tests, starting Macbeth, and trying to engage students in Greek Tragedy. So, when things don’t go that well–oh, it went fine enough–I look to something better.
John Baik. He was my student, as was his sister, and his sister before that. John graduated last year. I had him as a senior and as a sophomore. He got C’s. Maybe he snuck himself into a B at some point, but his glory certainly was not his English work. He was pretty sleepy most days, but smiled and was nice to others when awake.
Here’s the deal with John Baik–he liked making videos, editing those videos, and posting things to Youtube. You see, he LIKED editing, because he wanted things done the way he wanted them done. Camus, Shakespeare, Kesey? Yeah, those guys wrote books, but John was busy thinking of new stories, new dance moves, new choreography, or a way to help out his friends when it came to video production. Because he was the default at our school for video production–if you wanted something to look good and professional, you went to HIM.
Did school offer John Baik an outlet for his talents? Well, we did throw dances and proms so he could make videos for him and his friends.
Were there classes where he could hone his craft and contribute positively to our school’s brand?
I’d like to think my two English years with him helped him understand audience, go out of his comfort zone, and give his videos more authenticity, but that’s probably not the case. He learned by doing. He learned it well because it was a passion of his and, even though it didn’t coincide with my passion about literature and writing, I’m not sure it matters.
How many John Baiks are in our schools? You know the ones I’m talking about. They go to school, get through it well enough, but maybe something other than a 4-yr college is in their immediate future.
Someone has to make videos, be a plumber or an electrician, bake a cake, or tend bar. I don’t know if John Baik is in college, but I know he should be making videos because it’s his passion and he’s good at it. He will spend HOURS of time making sure each shot is correct and the editing looks right.
The video that follows is his. It’s our school’s lip dub. It was his senior project for APN, which is a class I teach with Gillian Hart. I watched him spend an entire hour of shooting video that would end up as about 20 seconds of finished product. You taught me (and Mrs. Hart, I’m sure) that valuable lesson, John Baik–that all the time we spend judging a student by the grades and how often they’re awake in class means very little when you want a great lip dub video that brands our school better than anyone else ever has.

I have all these ideas for TED talks. Teaching gives me a first-hand view of what kids are like these days and, since I have many of varying backgrounds and ethnicities and abilities, I am privy to their worlds. Most times, their worlds aren’t that interesting. They watch Youtube. They listen to music that Ryan Seacrest plays for them. They don’t get out much and, when they do, it’s to a place they’re probably familiar with–someplace safe. But they’re not bad kids. Some are curious and interesting and soak up knowledge.
TED talks are supposed to be somewhat positive, which is what I’m working on in my head. I’m a huge fan of Brave New World and 1984, knowing the easy differences between both. However, both those books were warnings for future societies, and I don’t think enough people have read the books or understand what’s going on in the world.
Henry Ford’s quote, “History is more or less bunk,” is shortened by Huxley to “History is bunk,” as Mustapha Mond walks with and lectures a group of young students. With a wave of his hand, Mond destroys cities, leaders, anything he desires from history, as it is not important to the youth of BNW. In 1984, history is messed with, is changed to fit the Party’s ideal. And the people of both societies are too busy or stupid or both to know the difference, or care.
My TED talk is what I neglected to tell enough parents last night–let your sons and daughters into your world. Sure, it’s gross and old and cringe-worthy to them, but if you don’t immerse them in it, history is going away.
Do today’s kids need to know disco? Yep. They pay big bucks to take drugs and gyrate at EDM shows, which is just disco through a guy’s computer.
Do they need to know older movies? Yes.
Directors of those movies? Yes.
Do they need to know everything that was going in their parents’ worlds. Why not?
Parents, stop hiding your histories from your kids. Trust me, as an oldster, we know way more and are way cooler. If we don’t give them more of our histories, what are our kids going to talk about? Because if they stop knowing about the past, and they stop talking and questioning, someone else is going to talk and decide for them.
I’m still working on how to make that positive, though.

It is always hot on back to school night. It is always hot on the day of back to school night, as evidenced by me sweating like a pig. What’s funny, historically speaking, is that sweating like a pig has its origins not with the animal, but with the smelting process for iron. Pigs don’t really sweat that much–when they need to cool down, they wallow around in mud, which is a metaphor I choose not to attach at this writing.
Either way, I’ve taught all day and now have to go back to school to tell parents about my classes. I love this night, even though I will find new ways to sweat. Parents are a big deal–I know because I have this 12-yr-old who is in Honors English but does story summaries for homework–and this is the night I get to “sell [them] this pen.” They need to be convinced that their son/daughter IS in the right place and IS with the right teacher. That may seem like a hard sell for me sometimes, but I hope by the end of the night that their fears are assuaged.
It’s going to be a little harder for my next-door neighbor teacher to assuage his students’ parents’ fears, as a brand new class period of freshman students was ushered to his room on day 15, less than 12 hours before back to school night. These kids had another teacher up until now (maybe multiple teachers). He also had a class of sophomores during that period, but I don’t know where they ended up. Perhaps it’s like baseball and there will be a player to be named later in the whole process. Either way, kids are still being shuffled around on the fourth week, which can’t help their adjustment to a new school and new expectations.
For parents tonight, they get the reality of me. I’m not so bad because I’m HONEST and always TRYING NEW THINGS. Some of the things I will try this year will fail so miserably, but I’m trying. We will laugh about them (I hope) and move along. Guess I’ll drink some more water now so I can sweat some more tonight.
More Leo for you.

This is a toast to the person(s) who set off the fire alarm yesterday and made the entire school go out onto the field in the middle of the hottest day of the year. You burned cheese bread, toasted it too much, which set off the alarm. Here is a toast to your toast.
How does one explain heatstroke to a parent? How does one, in this day and age of catastrophe, not realize that your whole campus is basically in one place at one time? On a false alarm!
Well, at least Gatsby raises his glass. I only had my body temperature raised. Still is, after I found out it was toast.
https://youtu.be/UPsifqZNhCc

I look out at my classes now and again. Sometimes, my students are bored. I try to yell, inflect my voice, shock them back to reality–anything–but they just get bored here and there.
Can you blame them?
We’re reading Antigone in Sophomore English. My Honors kids are reading it along with my regular class. We are going at the same pace for all classes. It’s my attempt to see just how far off the two classes are, if at all. But Greek tragedy doesn’t really inspire much. It’s 2500 years old, the translation is profoundly British, and I’m not sure about its merit.
In my 6th period today, one of my students read to me from her book. She asked to read Antigone the other day, but I have it on cassette (yep!) so I didn’t let her. But today she read from the second page of her book–the writing was crazy, her reading was fine, AND she was excited to share the craziness of the prose. You see, she was excited to read something that wasn’t even assigned for school just because it interested her and a friend suggested it.
Now, I love old Sophocles and Antigone and Greek Tragedy, and it doesn’t take much time for the overall class–a couple of weeks at most. It’s essential, especially because of Oedipus and the fact that his name will come up again at some point in their lives, and because Aristotle’s definition of tragedy applies to most media they watch today, especially those in the soap opera format.
There’s the quandary for me. Many are not going to remember Antigone in a few months, maybe even a few weeks. Some might, but we are boring our students. I walk by other classes at school and I might as well be walking past a tomb. And nowhere does it say that school has to be this exciting place where teachers yawn and rainbows appear, but there has to be a happy medium.
Maybe I’m just old, but I don’t think so. I want to change with the times, but I keep battling kids who want the worksheet because it’s easy points and no challenge. Maybe THEY are to blame??? We’ll see. Today was only the 14th day.

It was hot today. The temperature was over 100 in my classroom. At 1:15 we had a fire alarm–maybe because someone pulled the alarm, maybe because it was scheduled, maybe it was just so hot that it set off the alarm.
I tried teaching while students fanned. Some editing went down with seniors. Some Antigone went done with sophomores. And lots of fanning.

Tests are not fun. I like to write them, and all, because if an A student has read the book, that student is going to get an A. Others, those who are not A students, do not get A’s on a well-written test. And, if you don’t read, it becomes painfully obvious to all involved.
But then there are other tests. Today was vocabulary. I refer to a vocabulary test as a “baby test.” Forgive me if you don’t want a baby associated with a vocabulary test, but COME ON! This is Honors English we are talking about here. The students get 20 words on Monday, homework is due on Wednesday, and a test is Friday. The homework is completing the sentences, synonyms, antonyms, and choosing the right word. Pretty basic stuff. The homework familiarizes them with the words for the test on Friday. The test is nothing more than their 20 words, spelled out alphabetically on the left-hand side, and the definitions of these words on the right-hand side. There are no tricks. The definitions are almost directly from the book. All they have to do is match the definition to the word. No spelling. Just matching. They have three minutes. Good students are done in around a minute.
Today, students did okay, but there were scores of zero, two, two, three, four . . . Really? Okay, maybe they had a bad day and weren’t ready for this. It might be new behavior. However, many of the students who received a poor score on the vocabulary test did not miss any on the homework. Forty problems, forty correct. Today, the same students could not match the same definitions to hardly any vocabulary words.
I also had them turn in a paper on Oedipus, or Sophocles, or Antigone. Anything they could find online that would provide a backstory for Antigone, which we start on Monday. ALL the text they would have would be copied and pasted. The only original words would be the name, date, period, and title. But I tested them again, making sure they followed simple directions of how to format the paper. Inch margins, 12 font, Times New Roman–they’ve probably known the drill since 4th grade. To add insult to injury, I gave them a perfect example–handed to them as a direction sheet–that they could follow line by line. Out of 65 students, 21 did it correctly. Was I being mean to ask for it to be done a certain way? Sure. But they were given exact directions that were not hard and only a third did it correctly.
Two papers would have counted and made the number 23, but the two students who turned in those two papers, turned in the exact same paper, except for the name, date, and period. Bad move, but that was their test of me. I passed. I am not thrilled that I passed, but such is life.
This behavior has been acceptable in their pasts. Calgon, take me away.

Sometimes you let your students have the stage. They spoke today, told stories, made their peers laugh, made them feel sad, and their audience made noises that you don’t hear in real life.
Pretty fun, whether they think so or not. Got to learn how to speak, and they’re pretty good at it without my help.
So far, I have 57 seniors who all have A’s. The reason is simple–I give them work that reflects the class and their media-savvy lifestyle, and they all do the assignments well, have different answers, don’t cheat, and agree to disagree, when necessary. They had five or six of those assignments over the summer, so everyone came to school with an A. I know once we “read” a book that their grades will plummet, but, for now, every assignment I’ve given has been done by every student.
Sometimes, I just sit and let them get it done. So far they have.
A long time ago at Long Beach Poly, the administration let us have business cards for free. I was Tom Stover, Provider of Knowledge. It was a joke then, but I’m not sure why. Provide some knowledge, spark some curiousity, which leads to learning, which (I THINK) is what everyone wants.
Or maybe they sit and think (and think and think and think).

Oh my GOODNESS, the minutiae of teaching.
Late start yesterday to go over strategies for teaching sophomores. Not sure if people are going to do them, but we have strategies in place.
Department meeting today. Old books need to go (hello, Ray Bradbury), if kids didn’t do their summer reading work give their name to the RTI coordinator.
Teachers giving summer reading a minimum of points and wondering why kids don’t do it. When you tell us all that a book check and syllabus whatever are combined to be the same points as summer reading, maybe you should reconsider. After all, summer reading is read a book, find an article you can tie in to the book, tie that article in, all why focusing on certain literary aspects of the book. For that, 10 to 15 points, around 1 percent of your semester grade.
Data has been gathered from the bootcamp questions–no one talks of it.
At least 10 emails a day.
Club week, so kids are here, there, everywhere.
Okay, so we’re doing a narrative lesson unit, but kids aren’t writing one. I realize it’s hard to grade papers, but that’s kind of the job title. Peer editing is not a teacher’s guidance.
Meetings for this task force. Meetings for this leadership team.
Crazy idea–maybe less minutiae would give teachers more time to (wait for it) teach their students. Don’t want to sound bitter and old here, because I am always willing to change and update and adapt/adjust, but this week is only three days in and I’m tired.

Teaching is a weird gig. One day, my students will have me turning grayER, the next they’ll be little angels, ready to learn. So they did bad on a quiz. I just wanted data from it to see what they knew (some of them? not so much). And now that has become the past.
We moved along. We laughed at their short-term memories. We told stories and things got better (at least for me). If a teacher can’t move past things, it’s going to be a tough year. It’s still going to be a tough year, but we’ll move forward.