Month: November 2016

There’s an adult soap opera airing on HBO these days. My wife, the boy, and I all enjoy watching Westworld, which is kind of a take-off on the old movie with Yul Brynner and the book by Michael Chrichton. It’s fun, sometimes not appropriate for the boy, but offers an evolving narrative that talks too much, gets a little artsy, but seems to have something to say. Sunday nights–check it out.
Last night’s episode reminded me of teaching. Long story short, rich people (or folks who have the means) come to Westworld to “live” in the Old West. The setting is made up of “hosts,” which are artificial intelligence on a loop, designed to provide a good time for all. The hosts are tweaked all the time by humans, who decide storylines for them. Some hosts die thousands of times, but then are fixed up and sent back to their loops–gunfighter, bartender, madame, farm girl. The list goes on.
Last night, one of the principal characters showed another character a farm house that was sort of “off the grid.” It was dark inside and one of the characters started talking about how the hosts can’t see a door even if it’s right in front of them. A second later, one character asks the other to “hold the door,” and the response is, “What door?” Plot twist–the major character is a host, something created, and living in a false world that is created by someone else. And, the character doesn’t know it. After all, we accept the reality with which we are presented.
The one non-host was also killed, and a viewer infers that the character will be replaced by a host that goes through the same storylines, but is controlled to believe their reality, true or not. That’s the deal with Westworld–many “people” are walking around as hosts, not knowing what their true realities are.
Needless to say, we’re on the same loop in teaching, which makes it hard for some to see the door that’s right in front of them. It’s pretty tough to break out of the loop when our textbooks are over 20 years old. Still teaching that writing has an introduction, body, and conclusion in the 5-paragraph format? See how that works out in the storyline we call college.
September through June. Six periods a day. Ring those bells. Summer, so we can work in the fields. Common core. PLC. RTI. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I doubt that I have a storyline going because I’m always trying new things, adapting and adjusting to meet students’ needs. But, when it is time to walk out the door, I better be able to see it.

Today is Veterans Day.
It’s a day off from school, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking of school, or grading a paper here and there. Or planning my next lesson. Or wondering what I did right or wrong last week. When the school year is on, I’m on, even on weekends and holidays.
I have a newfound interest in Veterans Day. I’ve paid attention to this day in the past because I know veterans: my father was a veteran, and my aunt was a big deal in World War 2. I’ve also had tons of students involved in the military, along with friends and neighbors. There have been shows, movies, news items, history classes, and more that have presented information to me and millions of others. But it was through a familiar filter.
What brought my attention to veterans in a different way was not something I would have figured. Our family was traveling, we were watching television at the end of the day, and a NatGeo documentary on ayahuasca came on. It was Lisa Ling (formerly of the The View) and her series This is Life for the above-mentioned NatGeo, which, I suppose, gave the show extra credibility.
I was paying marginal attention to the show until a statistic was given–around 8,000 veterans commit suicide each year. I thought that was a horribly high number, designed to shock, or a manipulation of numbers. So I looked it up and found that the number was sadly accurate. I also found that there are 22 million veterans out of a population of 320 million in our country (as of 2014).
The documentary turned out to not only be about ayahuasca, but how veterans suffering from PTSD were going down to Peru to see if this drug derived from tree bark, along with the guidance of a shaman, could help them cope better. The veterans interviewed claimed that they had made great strides in coping with their anger, with their PTSD, with their depression, and the fact that when they closed their eyes to sleep at night their brains kept producing images that didn’t allow them to rest. This was an everyday occurrence, long after these men and women stopped serving.
I can “turn off” teaching when I need to. My “struggle” during the school year is minimal in comparison to others. There’s a world out there that I don’t understand, or that I have only been exposed to in small doses, but it does exist.
Life is not short–there’s always time for change and to enter new circles. I can’t put myself in the shoes of most veterans, but this day means more than just a day off school.

I’m who I am. I like to push buttons in the classroom and wake students from their slumbers. Sometimes, I show them stuff from the news and use words and phrases and images right out of that same news feed. Why hide this?
Students have been interested in Trump and his cult of personality. Why shouldn’t they be interested? I have girls, gays, kids who weren’t born in this country. They’re scared, because they heard a lot of threats in the last year. And, they now know that even if those threats from Trump were just something to get him elected, and that he’s not really THAT bad, they still live in a country that showed their thoughts through their many votes.
This is not political–I’m just writing that I have students (past and present) who are now afraid to be who they are. What do I tell them?
But the beauty of education is that we are allowed to question everything. It’s always a great time when that happens. I always love watching Gillian Hart teach while I’m on my conference period. It’s APN, the class where she teaches Government and those same kids then come to my English class for their next period. She doesn’t push as many buttons as I do, but she tells students the truth, offers them facts, and can be honest, ridiculous, and understanding all at the same time. I try to argue with her, play devil’s advocate, be a stereotype, but she always has the facts and smarts to show students that this type of verbal sparring over issues is something we want from them.
In APN, we question. Maybe not EVERYthing, but students get more than one point of view. Today, she was reviewing the propositions that passed/didn’t pass in California. Students asked questions, were happy and appalled at certain facts, and discussed and followed up and offered individual opinions.
Listening to her gives them a female point of view. Kids thought Prop 64 was great because weed got legalized and blah blah blah, but she gave them the fine print, that Big Pharma will now be getting its large hands in on the deal. Prop 57, which people thought was a good idea because it let those non-violent criminals out of jail early, didn’t sit so well with students once she informed them of what our state of California now deems NOT a violent crime. You can look it up, but being able to sodomize a person who has passed out seems pretty violent to me. There are MANY other examples of similar “non-violent” acts.
The beauty of education lets students question that. But it also means you sometimes have to make people uncomfortable (trigger!) and present to them what they may not want to hear. It’s the facts, it’s the world around them–it’s education. Sometimes the facts are better coming out of Gillian Hart’s mouth, but sometimes students need to hear it from me, too.
I mention Huxley too much, but he worried that education would be reduced to facts generated by others, leaving little room for opinion and voice. Don’t worry, Aldous–Hart and I got you covered.

Remember the ad for The Blair Witch Project? It had the girl in the beanie, close-up shot with the flashlight under her chin, light shining in her face. It’s her nostrils, some snot, some tears, and she is so sorry and so scared.

My students are like this when I pass out a test. They do have some reason for the worry–they haven’t read the book. Or they weren’t listening in class. Or both.
It’s frightening to watch. Every single day I try to figure out a way to interest my students, which I’m not sure is in my job description. Perhaps an F on their quarter reports will spark something, either from them or their parents.
My hardest takeaway from today was from a student who is not dumb. He does work online, where others can’t see it, and does well there. In class, he gives no outward show of effort. So, test today, open book/open note, we read all the poems in class and discussed them twice. When he turned in his test he made sure to tell me “I didn’t read any of the poems.”
What does it all even mean?

Tuesday is a late start day. My group was three people and we got stuff done. We always do. The basics of writing, the big picture, what we want from ourselves and students–it’s all the same. We’ve been banging that stuff out for years without flinching. Now, a PLC may not see our group as that special–after all, three people hardly make up a Professional Learning Community, but I hope that the three of us are on similar lines with North High and the community.
Some days in teaching aren’t that exciting, though. People may believe what the media presents as a classroom setting, but today was me giving a test on British poetry for seniors and reviewing for a poetry test tomorrow for regular sophomores. Shivers.
For honors students, there was Brave New World talk, and they asked good questions, there was some back and forth, but I have to grade some tests now. I realize some teachers don’t like the “test” format, but, for Brave New World, I’m going to ask them a lot of “weird” questions, and not just matching, true/false, multiple guess, and short answer. They know they’ll be applying the book to today’s world, which is why we still read Huxley.
This day happened. Tests and review. Yawn. Tuesday. It’s 180 days–not every day has fireworks.

First things first–our district just sent an email out to all employees. You see, the Torrance Unified School District has a new web site that represents all our schools in the surrounding community, and wanted everyone to give it a look. You can find the site HERE. Check it out. Pay close attention to the window dressing–the slide show of pictures at the top of the home page. It’s a banner that should run on its own. If not, you may have to click the buttons.
Speaking of community, it is painfully apparent where the North High community resides. There’s a picture of Torrance High students, one of South High’s ASB, one of West High students, another picture of the Torrance Board of Education breaking ground with their shovels, and, finally, bringing up the rear, is North High School. Also of note is a gallery of 16 pictures, where Torrance, South, West, and the shovelers make the cut with the same pictures, but North does not. Yep, we are left out of the overall gallery.
I work at North High School. My wife worked there for 21 years before voluntarily leaving this year. We are pretty visible in the Torrance community–we do leave our lairs now and again–and when we’re at the Farmer’s Market, or Trader Joe’s, or a local restaurant, parents and members of the community will stop by and say hello. But, recently, they also ask a question–“What’s happening at North High?” They usually follow it up with something along the lines of “I’ve heard things.” The implication from them is that things aren’t so swell.
The answers to the community’s questions are an entirely different issue. The deal is, we have a brand. After years of me asking administration what our brand is, they finally got together and decided on a slogan and logo. We are Saxon Strong. The logo is the age-old N for North with the sword going through it. Around the N and sword are the words Saxon Strong. I like it. There’s a big sticker of it in the hallway right outside the copy room. It looks cool. It’s alliterative and easy to say. But I haven’t seen it anywhere else on campus. Maybe it’s coming, maybe I just am not looking in the right places, but I haven’t seen it enough.
It is certainly NOT evident on the district’s web site. Torrance has peppy people smiling, South has peppy people smiling, West has peppy people smiling. Even the groundbreakers are happy. All the photos are nice enough. And then there is North’s.
As Rod Serling would say, “Submitted for your approval.” Facts are facts and a picture is worth a 1000 words. Samuel L. Jackson asks what’s in your wallet; I ask the title of this post.

Birthdays mean very little to me. If anything, I’m even more bitter because the day reminds me of time wasted, as if this one day is magical when tomorrow will roll around soon enough and be another day. But today’s birthday is different for many reasons. I’m 55. Though I may not look a day over 54, the number 55 means some things that it didn’t yesterday.
I’m a senior in many categories. I can now live in a Del Webb’s retirement community. The thought of that prospect frightens me a little.
The big deal is that I am now eligible to retire from teaching. Sure, I would get about a third of my current pay and not receive any benefits, but, at the end of this year, I can definitely retire, as many before me have done.
I feel old at school in so many ways, but then I look around. So many of my younger colleagues just want to do the same-old/same-old–trotting out the comfortable rather than the pertinent. We all want the overall good for our students, but then we pigeonhole it down to having them jump through the hoops of some random exercise. Not thinking, not being curious, not figuring it out for themselves, but going to the well again and again so the kiddies can do a trick for them. That gets old.
But there’s the introspection that comes with this day. I’m 55. For any talk I’ve had of leaving North High School, it is now a reality. After this year is over, I can be done with teaching. It’s a liberating feeling knowing that.
So many people have doubted me over the years. “What will you do?” they ask. “Oh, you’re not going to retire,” they say.
I think all the time, and when I think, it’s as a teacher. Most things in my life for the last 30+ years have involved teaching, most people I know are teachers or former students. So many parents and people in the community know me as that tall guy that teaches English at North High because, for the last 18 years, I’ve been that guy.
Many people in my life, past and present, have wished me a happy birthday on Facebook. It means a lot to me because I respect and admire so many of these people. Some are great former students, some are just former students who are great people. Some are colleagues, former colleagues. Some are friends from high school, college, and others I’ve stumbled upon along the way.
I don’t wish to teach them anymore, at least in the traditional sense that my 30-yr-old self would have desired. I wish to have a beer with them, perhaps some good Mexican food. Maybe some of them will fish next to me in a river, or shoot some hoops, perhaps bet (invest?) on the stock market, or listen to some music (even LIVE music), or come over and watch a Lakers game, or go on a road trip (which has already happened).
Yes, I still want to be the ass, the know-it-all, the snob, the gambler–better known as my good qualities. But maybe I just want to listen to Cracker, cause I’m feeling thankful for the small things today. Happy Birthday to Me.

So today was Dip Day. Last week, sandwiched in between Roscoe’s and Homecoming Assembly, there were just too many distractions for Dip Day to happen. Not the case today.
There were many options, ranging from sour cream, to simple dips, to salsas, to fruit dip (I was an idiot and ate the fruit, not knowing there was a dip for it), to some bean/chorizo/cheese goodness, to taco dip, to guacamole, clam dip, huancaina (it’s Peruvian and served with papa), and spinach artichoke dip which resembled a casserole and was eaten quickly. Some were family recipes, some were just favorites, others were cultural.
Students signed up for this, brought everything necessary, and served themselves. They hung out, talked to one another, asked questions about the dips, finished the dips, had tons of chips left over because they came prepared, and acted like normal folk do when normal folk eat dips.
When it was time for the bell to ring, there was not much clean-up to be done because the dips were eaten and students had already been walking around the room, collecting other students’ trash, and making sure the room was left in good condition.
Oh, there were also poetry presentations during the same period, complete with students memorizing the poems and acting them out accordingly. Both were fun times, but they’ll remember dip day before they remember daffodils in “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud.”

Hey, perhaps even Wordsworth would have found his “daffodils” in Dip Day.

Welcome Tokuharu HS from Japan. Thanks for coming into my 6th period class and checking out how the American school system works. Perhaps you’ll have some good stories to tell.
After all, you got to point and laugh at me when I stood up. I know, I’m taller and wider than most people you’ve seen. It was especially fun when you kept snickering anytime you got close to me, for it was probably based on our height differences. Good times–I hope you can chuckle at the picture we all took together as a memory of our brief time together.
Too bad you didn’t stick around. You could have seen me teach my students. We talked about their upcoming narrative essays, where there were some really good questions asked about theme. You see, I’m big on theme. I don’t think you should write something unless you have something to say, and that’s sometimes hard to get across to sophomores (and most people). But I think the students who had questions may have understood my answers and will, hopefully, apply it to their upcoming papers.
You also missed the battle of teaching poetry. We read two poems, both being really short. It was hard getting students focused, though, because I had to battle hunger, fatigue, hormones, cell phones, a sunny day, small bladders, chatter, turned backs, lowered heads, headphones, Rubik’s cubes, swiveling chairs, selfies, and Snapchat pictures.
Every day is different in school, that’s for sure. I had leftover pizza yesterday. After my students told me they hadn’t eaten, I let them have this pizza. They stayed after school, heated it in the microwave, and thanked me for the food. I left school wishing I could feed them every day.
But that was yesterday.

Based on my daily, I have a theory about why and how our students do well or poorly in high school. And it’s based on food.
There’s a food hierarchy, if you didn’t know.
1–kids eat with their folks and bring pretty good food to school. Lunch time isn’t always when they eat this food, but it’s usually a nice product.
2–kids eat school food. Ours is your basic cafeteria/red cart food. If you know the ins and outs, you might get some nutrition.
3–kids eat crap. They bring it from home or the local convenience store. Sugar and calories.
4–kids don’t eat. No, really. They do not eat.
Numbers one through three are pretty ordinary, I would think. They have been the norm for quite some time. I was number one, but I would also buy a crappy sugar product here and there. They sold Pepsi in vending machines, and candy/chips/etc. in the student store.
We don’t have a student store. There are a few vending machines, but they don’t have much in them. I rarely see kids eating anything in class anymore, which was not the case when we sold soda and Gatorade in the vending machines, along with snacky items in machines and carts. Granted, kids ate some horrific meals–the Mountain Dew, Grab Bag of Chili Cheese Fritos, and a big cookie were a standard 1500 calorie snack–but there were choices that weren’t so bad. Heck, when I taught at Long Beach Poly, they had a fruit machine that ran out of product every day.
So what’s the excuse for number four? Why don’t kids eat. I asked my 6th period today–“How many of you have not eaten yet today?” About 10 or 12 kids raised their hands. When asked if they were hungry, the kids with raised hands said yes. It was 2:30 at this point in the day.
We are under healthy school restrictions, but there’s still food to eat at school.
If the issue is money, we have free and reduced lunches for any family that claims it. I believe that’s all you have to do to get on the free and reduced lunch list–claim it. In turn, that self-reporting gives students access to fee waivers on college apps, along with AP tests.
I guess I don’t have an answer, but I do know one thing. Students who are fed do better. All the time we spend arguing over how to get students to integrate quotes, or write commentaries, or form common assessments, or whatever, might all be solved with a cheese stick. Or an apple.
Crap. Everyone likes to be fed. I know people who literally get hangry if they’re running low on sustenance. You throw me a donut in the morning, or a breakfast burrito, and I’m a better teacher.
Food gets forgotten in the school equation, or maybe like the rest of us, it just gets lost. But, I know what would happen if I brought good healthy food and put it in front of my students.
Maybe I’ll bring that up at our next PLC or RTI or WASC meeting. We have had so many other learning philosophies of the past that were also turned into acronyms that we have long since stopped talking about, forgotten, and abandoned.
And, where sometimes it’s hard to assess data in our WASC group when there is no data, there should always be a place to get something good to eat.https://youtu.be/5ea5jKFGgUw