Month: February 2017

I love reading and teaching 1984. I get the privilege of teaching the three big bad British books to my sophomores–Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, and 1984. Say what you want about any or all, but they are all iconic, feature wonderful prose, and offer great food for thought in the classroom.
This year, while reading 1984, I had many students argue that Winston died at the end of the book. Spoiler–he doesn’t. Another student thought that Julia was Winston’s sister, which is why she was always following him around. Um, gross, because Part Two of the book has Winston and Julia doing much horizontal dancing and if they were brother and sister . . . yeah, gross. But we go back and forth with questions, theories, the return to the text, the quotes.
When I die, as each day brings me a little closer, I hope I get to meet and talk with Orwell. First off, he better not be some stuck-up British dandy. But the craft is so good. Julia is Thought Police, right Orwell? Come on. She takes charge, never travels with Winston, knows the rhyme to the song about St. Clement’s, produces chocolate (which triggers dreams), and scent/makeup (which trigger memory), and so on. We would also laugh about how right he was on the concepts, just wrong on the date.
Because, whether you want to believe it or not, we are living in Orwell’s, Huxley’s, and Golding’s worlds. Golding’s is pretty easy–take away rules and you’ve got chaos. Without any form of punishment, kids would run wild in the streets. That can be seen at school when kids know they can get away with something. Some teachers let them eat, while some don’t. Some teachers let them be tardy, while some don’t. But even though it feels like it sometimes, we are not on an island. Bells ring and we move along.
I liked an article I read recently about how we’re NOT in Orwellian times, but rather Huxley’s. And that is the case, too. Obstacles have been removed, we’re told to follow passions (not orgy-porgy), and we are so reliant on our electronic diversions and consumerism that we barely know anything except commercial jingles. We need constant satiety and, luckily, there are outlets everywhere willing to provide.
But Orwell reminds us that Big Brother is always watching, and, now, Big Brother IS always watching. This blog is public–anyone can read it, but I don’t know who they are. In the novel, the Inner Party seeks power merely for the sake of having more power and exerting it over others. Once you have that power, too, you certainly don’t want to relinquish it. Hence, there are people at school, and everywhere in this world, who will exert this power over others just to make sure the others remember the social order. It’s been a reality since the dawn of time.
War is Peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is Strength. Thank goodness that we know what’s best for kids, what classes they should take, what schedules will look awesome for the college path that we lead them to. Because if we gave them Freedom–they may take a different class, or have a different schedule, or take a gap year. Freedom–blech! Better to follow the herd, for there is Strength in numbers. Heck, if everyone is doing it, how bad can it be? Surely, you have an opinion, but consider how much better your opinion would be if it went along with everyone’s.
I am never going to love Big Brother. See you in Room 101.

In an age where everything has been done, I offer this–when something is done well, steal it and use it yourself.
My kid is in 7th grade and, because he was a GATE kid at one point (we wonder sometimes), he gets to do things after school at Parras Middle School in Redondo Beach that extend his education, so to speak. Last year, he was in a class where he got to create beats via Soundcloud, or something of that ilk. At the end of the quarter, the teacher invited all the parents to hear what the kids created. Seemed like a good time, but not much for me to steal.
This year, he signed up for certain classes, but got Poetry Slam instead. No big deal, since his father is only the greatest poet ever (um, no) and his mother is a speech teacher. Get ready to be taken down, Slam Poetry, for it is in our boy’s genetic code. Today was the culminating event of the class–the Slam itself. He got second. Third wasn’t even close. A girl barely beat him, but she was really good with her poems and delivery. Still, it was nice seeing him in front of an audience of peers, teachers, and parents, dominating his way to second place. No, really, the girl who beat him was pretty darned good.
We had Poetry Out Loud at North High this year, but that’s not the same. Kids choose the poems they are to read from Poetry Out Loud’s database. And though there are some good poems from which to choose, it pretty much ends up being an acting contest of other’s words. Today the kids read three original poems that they wrote–two on specific themes and one “free” poem. It was about as you would figure a middle school Poetry Slam would be. All the kids read pretty well, some poems were better than others, some deliveries better than others. The usual.
But I was impressed at all the people that were there, and the civility and easy-going nature of the kids. There were also four or five teachers there, after school, willing to judge the poems. At the end of the Slam, all those teachers spoke and told everyone there how much they enjoyed teaching their kids, how nice the event was, how happy they were to be a part of it. They spoke to the group and then individually to certain parents and kids. Everyone involved seemed happy.
So, I’m stealing that assignment. I only wish I could steal everything else, too.

Today was Friday, which also marked the last Friday of a four-day week for a while. These will be tough times ahead, people, as March has no breaks. Monday though Friday for six more weeks. The kids kind of lose their minds.
Fridays are funny. Other teachers like them, for reasons unknown. Maybe they give their students a bunch of book work and sit at their desks and catch up on their grading. I give tests, because then I have the whole weekend to grade them. I like to keep grades updated because I had teachers who never gave us a clue what our grades were, and I didn’t like that concept or those teachers.
Honors had Vocabulary, plus speeches about their fears. We’re in the final stages of 1984, so fear is a big deal. APN had a paper of evidence–the domestic grosses of the top 100 movies of time–and had to make claims that the evidence gave them. I get tired of the new-found, “We must give them two articles and have them annotate them” theory of forming claims and essential questions. Evidence comes in many forms, and the more they can recognize and relate to, the better.
At lunch we had Mind Madness, which is our school’s trivia/knowledge contest where teams of four are whittled down from 48 to 1. The winning team gets 400 bucks. It’s fun, the kids get into it a little, and it’s in the realm of competition (with a winner and loser, no less) that gets them talking about the matches long into 5th period, after lunch. It’s Jeopardy meets College Bowl (I’m dating myself) meets Nickelodeon, as some of the questions are geared for the after-school, television-watching crowd. You may have to know systems of the body, but you better know who Drake and Josh are, too.
The data–uh oh, here it comes!–that it generates, though, is not very pretty. It does cost something like three bucks per kid to enter, but you do get a shirt. But there are only 48 teams this year, and one team only has two players. Let’s do the math–that makes 190 total students competing. North High School has around 400+ students alone who take honors and AP English (Language in 11th and Literature in 12th), yet only 190 do a FUN activity? This year, we have something like 500+ kids taking 800+ AP exams, yet only 190 want to compete against one another?
Hmmmm.
In recent years, too, the Mind Madness winner has not come from the super geniuses. Our valedictorians and students who got accepted into great colleges and universities, along with others who are ranked in the top 10 overall at school have struck no fear into the regular students who have taken them down. Four years ago, a Mind Madness team went through the field and won, beating a team where all members were going to Irvine, Santa Barbara, Cal, and Cal Poly SLO. The team that won had three players that had under a 3.0 GPA and would be attending El Camino College. The other player went to Long Beach State. The final wasn’t even close.
Hmmmmm.
Most teachers and faculty didn’t give it much thought, but this has happened more than once recently. What does it mean when our best and brightest are easily beaten in a knowledge competition? And beaten by a bunch of kids that are going to El Camino College, the destination our district considers a way lesser choice than any four-year.
Data. It comes in many forms. https://youtu.be/4vhNRl9N9R4

School. What is . . . school? Is the day so young?
When you get past the 15 seconds of hagiography that accompanies your nostalgia, you might remember that school used to be pretty boring. And, maybe I’m not writing that correctly. What I really meant was BORING! A high school kid goes to school from 8 until 3, five days a week. Right there, you’re at 35 hours. Plus, students will try to convince me that they have two to three hours of homework per night–maybe if you count chatting, texting, YouTube, and all the other windows they have open–but even if it’s one hour a night, that’s your basic 40-hour week. Some have to include travel time, too, since a quarter of North High’s students are on permit from other districts, while another percent are happy we don’t do address checks anymore.
But, OH!, the monotony. How do teachers keep trotting out the same lessons, year after year, and still have a smile on their faces. Do these same teachers go home immediately to kick puppies and chase cats up trees? In the age of computers, in a world where students are plugged into everything, we still have teachers that give work that was created on a typewriter.
Someone told me earlier in the day that there would be people from the district office on our campus today, and that they would be coming into classrooms to see the fine work we all do. There was an email about it earlier, too. I’m sure everyone put on their best dog-and-pony show, complete with students jumping through flaming hoops of state standards. But do they do that every day? Is what the district office folk saw today indicative of our daily classrooms?
I’m a daily grinder, 180 days of uninterrupted fun. I don’t take sick days. This is my 18th year at North High and I have 144 sick days accrued (we get 10 per year). It’s my job, it’s daily, we keep going until the end. It’s the same way I used to gamble–people knew I gambled so they would ask me who was my “best bet.” Who did I like the most? or, worse, Who did I like in the Super Bowl? or any one-game situation? That’s the deal with gambling, teaching, and life, in general. It’s not a “one-game situation,” or the presentation for the district office–it’s every single day, moving toward those goals. No bet on a game is better than another and each day offers something different.
My biggest goal this year is to have my students communicate in writing and speaking to their desired audiences. Simple, I know. Who wouldn’t want that? Maybe everyone does, but it better come with an essential question, or a Socratic seminar, or a rubric.
Back to the district folk. For one of the rare times during any day, I was not pacing in front of class, or sitting on my stool facing the class, or yelling and screaming and trying to get them to think out of the box and question everything (ooh, another goal). I was sitting behind my desk, and, when the group walked in, they saw one of my students writing down stuff on the board. The topic was simple–we’re reading 1984 and I see the Julia character as Inner Party, Thought Police, and not someone on Winston’s side. I let students work in groups and they chose a group. One group. The whole class. Okay, we’ll see how that goes.
My student spent time standing on my stool because the board is high, fielding answers and suggestions from many in class. When answers lagged, I prompted. When things picked up, I let the students have their moment. I’m not sure how that fits into the district’s philosophy, but I liked it. Really? I had a girl standing on a stool, the class was hanging in there doing something they normally don’t do, there were tons of examples supporting the claim, we were laughing (I know!!!), re-examining text, and synthesizing answers.
No dog-and-pony show. Nothing up my sleeve. Just another average day of confusing kids enough to keep them interested in the next day. Rubrics? Essential questions? Socratic seminars? That must get tiring.

Okay, here’s the bad part about kids.
–they don’t read
–they have woeful taste in music
–their eating habits are spotty, at best
–their world is so small, as if leaving the area where they live will cause kyrie irving to claim he was correct after all (kyrie recently claimed the earth was flat)
–they don’t date, don’t go out, don’t know anything past last week
–they LOVE their phones and would rather get online likes than real ones

The list could go on and on, and every older generation has had their “get off my lawn!” moment with the kids today.
I still like them. They’re funny, and unlike many of the adults on campus that make me shake my head, they are works in progress and have excuses. I worry about the day I finally give up on teaching and retire because I think the job keeps me youthful. How else can one explain my boyish charm and good looks? It’s being around them all day–we sort of morph into what we’re surrounded with.
So, here’s the rub, I guess, and it goes out to the older people (What? You just thought I was going to complain about kids?) and I don’t care if I’ve written it before. Stop being so wimpy and quit trying to protect your little “baby girl” or “big boy” from the real world.
They actually want to know things from the real world. Recently, I asked my students what they wished they had learned in high school, and the responses were very similar and easy to figure. They wanted to know “real world” things. Any subject from knowing how to cook, to sewing on a button, to figuring out taxes and the stock market (those little capitalists). They wanted to drive a car, or figure out finances and how to plan travel, or learn more about the past. No one wrote about learning what we teach in school, though one could assume that they have “learned” it, so they don’t wish they had learned what they already did.
But it seemed pretty apparent where they felt slighted in knowledge. Parents of kids today, that world you came from is probably WAY cooler than the one your kid is living in. Expose them to it. Five classes, 160 kids, two knew who Robert Plant is. Come on! There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold . . .
That laundry you’re going to do, toast you’re going to butter, dish you’re going to wash–we did not have kids to be their servants. My kid is going to get practice being an Uber driver in four years when he’s driving my sorry arse around town. If the zombie apocalypse happened today and your kid was a survivor, what skills would he or she bring to the table? We will assume that texting in the apocalypse is not an option.
My kid is eerily like me. That’s good and bad in many instances. But I made him THIS LIST of music because he should know it, and much more (I’m always adding on). We’ll watch the Oscars this Sunday. I’ll teach him how to fish in a river.
I keep hearing the word grit these days. It doesn’t mean that kids have to be tough enough to play for a Kirk-Gibson-managed team, or wear a Rooster Cogburn eye patch. It means what you think it means, and there used to be other words used in its place.
Our kids are our caretakers, people. I don’t want to be hearing no Drake during my nightly spongebath, thankyouverymuch.

Oh, you best believe I’m dropping some hardcore Roy Batty on your sorry selves. What? Don’t know who Roy Batty is? Then maybe you should click on his name, for it will take you to the wonderful land of YouTube, a place where everything is archived and memory is only needed to find the clip.
Did you check it out? It’s one of the closing scenes of Blade Runner, the Ridley Scott movie of many moons ago. It’s soon to get the sequel treatment by Denis Villeneuve, who just did Arrival, Sicario, and Prisoners (I recommend each). Now you know.
I thought of Roy Batty today while a fellow teacher at my school was shaken to the point of tears. I hate seeing it, I hate hearing about it, but it’s always the same reason. It’s the adults on campus that bring people to this point. I know, most would assume it’s the kids. Nah. Kids have been the same forever–pretty easy to figure out. They need to sleep and eat. It would help if they read. Most of them don’t. But they are kids, our chief reason for showing up to work.
It’s not one specific incident. You can’t point to something and say, “Oh, yeah, that was it. Let’s fix that thing and it will all be better.” That’s not the deal. Kesey likened all of it to The Combine in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. There’s the big machine that just keeps churning, and working on you, and, in the case of the novel, a Big Nurse at the controls. This Nurse has time on her side, and no matter how many battles you win, she will win the war.
As teachers, we show up to The Combine daily, and if we swallow the big pill of PLC or RTI or Common Core, or whatever else is in the paper cup, then we’re fine. But mess with the machine and you mess with order, and maybe you get more kids to sign up for your honors class than any other, yet you have to share equally those classes with another teacher, while the other honors teachers do not. You are “taking one for the team,” nothing out of the ordinary, except you’re the only one taking it. If you want to raise an eyebrow a little higher, maybe we’ll look at some of the other classes you teach.
Back to Roy Batty. That final speech of his has the famous line “like tears in rain.” That’s what should happen every time someone is sad, or frustrated, or at wit’s end. It should pour down rain. When my wife, who had been teaching at North High for 21 years, went into her administrator’s office to voice concerns that were affecting students, got to the point of closing the door, and ended up crying tears of frustration, telling the administrator, “This is a horrible place to work,” there should have been sprinkler systems set up to mix with her tears.
Because the tears are there–we just need some rain to blend in with them. That way, everyone will think that everything is fine.

The week started in the mountains, which was great. Kids got to see a truckload of snow in Sequoia, which was a first for many. Only a few were injured (all bodyparts were intact), but they all came back with us. Yay, for APN and a good night’s sleep.
Late starts? Whatever.
On the same day of the late start, though, we had another local scholarship meeting. Mind you, we were told at our late start meeting that we’ve come SOOOOO far on PLCs than where we were last year. This is true, to an extent–we have divided the school into those who are in and those who are out. If you haven’t guessed, I am out. I get it. I’m tall, have an opinion, and am really old so I couldn’t possibly understand the greatness of our PLC community. When someone wants something done well, then I am in, but those moments are few and far between these days.
But back to the local scholarship meeting. The last meeting featured few people. This time, surely the departments would step up and send more people to represent our beloved students. Nope. A second-year teacher at North came for the first time, being the representative for math. I was there again, as was the AP English Lit teacher, as was Gillian Hart, who repped social studies. Three of the four counselors were there, though I don’t think it was the same ones. You get the picture.
On the positive, my students jump through hoops. I’m sure some of them want to see me under the wheels of a large automobile, but, for the most part, many of my students and I are fine with each other. My sophomores jumped through the hoop of PLCs and Common Core and State Standards today by writing a paragraph. They had to argue a point. In a paragraph. The rubric had them making a claim, giving evidence, and seeing the other side of the argument but proving that their side was better. That’s what I get to read this weekend so I can bring back data to our late start group on Tuesday, where it starts all over again.
I am skeptical that writing a paragraph in 20 minutes is a positive step in the direction of building a Professional Learning Community. I play along because, despite being really old, I want to see education work for kids. I don’t even have to drink the Kool-Aid to write such things.

I’ve taught for a while. There have been many jobs held over the years, but being in education and teaching has taken up over half my life. That being written, there are days that just make you question everything you stand for.
Today was one of those days. They happen every year. A class period is so ridiculous, so past caring about doing anything positive, that they just make me hit the wall. And, of course, it’s Thursday today, but it happens every year. At least once, I am so ignored, so past existing in my students’ worlds, that I just retire to the desk, do what I must to decompress, and let them catch up on their work in class–either reading or finishing assignments from a previous day.
But today, my students wouldn’t let me decompress. Many were getting things done, but many others just kept talking and being ridiculous. I suppose they might as well, for it’s their last day of having me as their teacher. They get a different version of me tomorrow, one that has to be a little more of an authority figure. This is not why I got into teaching, but it is what they want and need.
The worst part of the day was listening to them talk. It made me realize why people put their kids into private schools. For one, they have very little to say because their worlds are only as big as their phones’ screens. There is almost no middle ground between them and me, and maybe that just means I’m getting old and out of touch. But what comes out of the mouths of babes these days is a little unsettling, and though I had to listen to it today, I don’t ever need to hear it again.
Here’s the beauty of teaching, though–I get to come back tomorrow and right all the wrongs of today. And, because our society is such a forgetful one, maybe this day didn’t even exist. All my years of substitute teaching, the four years at Long Beach Poly, the 18 years at North High, you would think I would have this down. Nope.
WASC question number one reads, “What do we want them to learn?” Today, I wanted them to learn about Louis Zamperini, about biography, about WWII, about literary criticism and how to infer and understand a writer’s craft. I wanted them to read a book that no student has ever disliked–Unbroken–but, instead, the title became a bit of irony.
I’m fine. Dismayed, bothered, shaking my head at their worlds, but not mad. Two out of 100 sophomores knew who Robert Plant is. I’m fine. Surprised, always learning, but sometimes things I don’t want to learn. In the past, my students have often aroused my curiosity in music, movies, and books, but it’s been YEARS since I found something interesting. Today they wanted me to listen to Chief Keef and even had a particular song for me. After listening for 10 seconds and hearing two F bombs, it was done.
I’m going to be a little vain here, because I feel like it. They had their chance. They had me as their teacher, someone who wasn’t the same-old, same-old, which I guess is what they want. They have thrown me back “like the base Indian” who also “threw a pearl away,” which, sadly, is a reference they will never understand.
Tomorrow.

Yesterday was a late start, but things got started early. North High has sent our stuff off to WASC, to be reviewed, but we met as an entire faculty this morning. On a positive note, there was a cookie for everyone at the tables, along with some Valentine’s hearts and Nerds and erasers you wear as a ring. There may even have been a Kit Kat bar (fun size).
Like many other teachers, I sat in the back in the comfy chairs. There are 12 of these comfy chairs–four of each that surround a table. Instantly, though, we were ordered to come up to the other tables that had cookies and candy on them. The goal was that everyone would be at the table and be able to share goodies and ideas with the other teachers (never mind that we were already at a table, just in a nicer chair).
The WASC question of the day was “What do we do if they don’t learn it?” My mind went immediately to “Fail them,” but I don’t think this was the answer anyone wanted to hear. Then my mind took a turn to “Feel bad because it’s my fault,” which might have been a warmer answer. Either way, we had to read a 2-page article about WASC and PLCs and then write our answers to the above question on paper hearts that were on the tables. We got to share our answers and frustrations with the five other teachers, and then post our paper hearts onto a big piece of butcher’s paper that hung between bookshelves in the library.
I wrote a couple of the nice things I do for students–offering optional assignments that extend the lessons and being in my room during all the breaks and my conference period. I have a old set of Chromebooks that students know they can use at any time to catch up. I get it. Kids don’t have the same priorities and lifestyles that we sometimes want them to have, so a little extra accommodation isn’t a bad thing. Especially if they come around and take us up on it.
So we read an article that encompassed a page of paper, talked a little to our colleagues, then posted our paper hearts on the paper. No sharing between the whole faculty; just a nod and smile from the understanding folks at our table. After we had littered the butcher’s paper with our hearts, we were told they would not be used as data, but the butcher’s paper would be hung in the faculty hallway so we could see it when we passed to make copies or get our mail. I saw it today. My heart was still on it, which was nice.
We were then introduced to “new” faculty. The teacher who never existed, and is now out for the whole year on maternity leave, finally has a long-term replacement, complete with a full name. Another teacher in English who is out for the semester (maybe) has a replacement teacher who was only introduced by her first name, which I didn’t catch. Another department has a teacher or student teacher and her name is Taylor. Maybe she prefers going by a single name, like Cher or Charo.
Then two of the four administrators that were there yesterday gave their usual two candy rewards to teachers who do a great job for North High. The teachers who receive this candy, in turn, give one of the candy rewards to someone who they feel does a great job. So far, many teachers have been recognized, though some have not. Some have been recognized more than once, which probably means they are doing an exponentially better job than those not receiving anything.
And, to top it all off, out of nowhere came the Axe and Sword Award. Initially given to my wife many moons ago, it is the wooden trophy of excellence handed down every now and again from recipient to recipient. My APN teaching partner of 15 years, Gillian Hart, got it this time, and I have no idea why she had to wait so many years–this award has been around now for close to 10 years–because she gives so much of herself to North High School (sometimes too much).
All this action that took place, all the work and preparation put in by so many people to make the tables filled with sweets and a paper filled with hearts, and we were done 20 minutes early. I’m guessing many of the teachers that did not receive a candy award for excellence still used that time to go back to their rooms, grade papers, and work on what they were going to do that day with their students, maybe even the ones that have not “learned it” yet.

of 5th-grade math?
Our neighbor just brought her crying daughter into our palatial mansion because the kid was having trouble with her 5th-grade math. Never fear, because I kick math’s arse, thankyouverymuch. After yelling at the child for several minutes to stop crying and suck it up and put her big-girl pants on (alright, maybe it went down a little smoother than that), we got down to the numbers.
I’m going to go out on a limb and tell most people what they already know–what on EARTH are they doing to kids these days when it comes to math? First off, the problems were on her computer. And, instead of just getting to the down and dirty of solving something with pen and paper, we had to choose what the logical steps would be. What the hell? I can’t solve a problem anymore because I have to go through meaningless steps? Luckily, my steps mostly matched up with what the computer program wanted, and everything turned out okay in the end.
The worst part was that the girl knew how to do the problems, knew the basics of math, had a good idea of what the lesson was, but just didn’t know what this particular MATHBOT3000 was looking for. Thus, we teach them at an early age to follow directions, kind of, and choose what looks to be something that could be right if we took more steps to do it than any normal person. Hooray for America!!!
Since, it’s Valentine’s Day, I will not massacre any more poor students and revel in my victory over a computer program of math choices. Time to celebrate all that is good in life by going out early and having some food and drink before others think similar thoughts.
No matter how bad your day, I leave you with Sam Cooke. You are welcome.