Month: March 2017

Today at North is one of the more positive days. It’s Multicultural Day, where we have an assembly of many kids in many clubs doing many dances, among other things. There’s Vietnamese, Japanese, HCC (the H for Hispanic), IPS (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), YBE (young, Black, educated), Korean, Dance Team, Native American, Filipino, Polynesian Club–you get the picture. White students complain for about two seconds every year about not being represented, but anyone can join any club so it’s a pretty weak argument.
It’s pretty much the same throughout the years with the players being the difference. Hat dances, waltzes in between banging sticks, kids breaking wood, hula, Tahitian, the Haka. Probably 300 to 400 of our kids are out there on the gym floor, with many students performing in multiple numbers. There’s enthusiasm, apathy, some kids have practiced while others have not–but, whether some like it or not, it’s a staple of our school.
The assembly is done twice, as a first and second assembly. The first one ran a little long so the second one started a little late. The second one ran a little long, too, but the difference was apparent. When a first assembly runs long, it’s no big deal because kids are late for 4th period. When a second assembly runs long, that’s cutting into lunch. So, after the second assembly went a little over, while students were still performing on a stage and the floor, almost the entire student population just got up and left. A band was playing, kids were singing, and everyone just left because we only have 30 minutes for lunch.
I don’t know if anyone tried to stop them, but when a herd of hungry students is coming your way, it’s probably not a good idea to send them back to the bleacher seats. I certainly didn’t stop them, but at least I stayed until the end.
And, I still managed to finish my lunch.

Okay, so I’ve created somewhat of a monster. Who knew that inside most of my students lurked this little, greedy capitalist pig, waiting to get out and eat from the corporate trough?
Recently, I asked my students to write down what they wished they had learned in high school. An overwhelming response was about markets, money, taxes–that real world stuff that they know is out there, but don’t really know how to access that well. With that in mind, I started a stock market game where students got 100K and could buy and sell what they wanted. It will run for two months.
A couple of things have been nice to see. They’ve asked a lot of questions of me and their peers. Girls have been just as involved as guys, which I’m not sure is the norm in the real world, but they are holding their own here. I also like a little trash talking, but it’s early in the game so their insults are at a minimum (plus, they’re pretty good kids).
A couple of things, though, are a little unhealthy. One of my better students now spends hours figuring out how she can conquer this game, and the market. She even shakes her head at herself. Others are greedy and want to sell sell sell, then buy buy buy, but I’ve tried to instill in them some patience, which has had mixed results.
All that written, they are probably a pretty good representation of the actual stock market. People are greedy. Some don’t know what they’re doing. Others panic. Luckily for my students, it’s fake money.
They have been happy and alert and interested, though. It’s been fun for many. Need I write anything more about that?https://youtu.be/mDnJh6gAhm0

Kids eat a lot of food on Multicultural Food Day. Our many clubs sell different foods at lunch and kids buy them. As Ted-Ed Club sponsor, I got donuts, which I suppose is “multicultural,” for a really nice Vietnamese dude made them. We sold out of donuts, though one was stolen. How do you just steal a donut, man?
Kids also missed much class on this day. There were track meets, students tutoring at Edison, council kids setting up for the festivities, kids throwing a 41st-and-a-half birthday party for my teaching partner (tfti, kids–always makes me feel great about things), clean-up periods. In other words, kids are coming and going all day.
Thank goodness for online work. Students who were in class could get things done and students who were coming and going could see what we did. It’s hard to describe how much apathy and refusal some teachers had for online teaching for many years. Hard to deny its greatness, though, when it can cover so many kids who are in so many places at once.
And, the best for last, as a teacher backed into my car in the parking lot. Oooh, my back. Ooooh, my neck. Other teachers saw the accident and just kept walking. My tail light needs a little adjusting, but my back and neck are fine. No need for Larry Parker.
In teaching, we have a word for days like today. Wednesday.

I got home late today because I was talking with former students who are on their ways to college. It was a little depressing, though, because the colleges have been kind of rough on them with the acceptances and rejections.
Now, to be fair to the college system, they are BOMBARDED with applications these days. Everyone is an Athenian; there are no Spartans left. We will have scholars everywhere, but no one to fix a leaky faucet. But I digress. There are so many kids applying to college that some really solid applicants are being left in the dust with rejections and wait-list statuses.
4.3 GPA with a 28 on the ACT. Sounds pretty good, except if you’re one of the better UCs. I get that the ACT could be a little higher, but this is one of my better students in the last few years. Was this student amazing? No. But I would have loved to have had the chance to teach the student again, and any college should have been, too.
There are tons of other stories like this, I’m sure. The bottom line is that there becomes little rhyme or reason for who gets in and who doesn’t because of all the paperwork involved. When there are 80,000 plus kids applying to each school, there are going to be winners and losers in that sea of students. What is the “rubric” for college acceptance? for there should be some sort of tally for all the variables that go into deciding a student’s next-four-years fate.
My boy is 12. He’s smart enough. Next year, he will attend 8th grade. After that, we don’t know. We just went, as a family, to an EEP meeting at Cal State Los Angeles. EEP is the Early Entrance Program for college. Kids as young as 11 can be accepted, but the average age is around 13 or 14. They have to test and interview, but, if they pass, they get to attend college, albeit Cal State Los Angeles.
There are other programs that kids to graduate high school AND have a two-year-college degree, also.
And, students can always take classes at a two-year school while in high school so they can receive college and high school credits. There are lots of options out there.
The option that’s looking pretty awful these days is giving up four years of high school to be at the mercy of a deciding committee who doesn’t really tell you why you are in or not in. I get it–it’s a real-world scenario for students. Doesn’t mean it’s fair or representative of the student and situation, but when all those kids are applying . . . some got to go.
Options. With our boy, we are keeping them open. Cat sanctuaries in Costa Rica look pretty good right about now. Chocolatier in the South Bay. Baker of breads and pastries for the locals. Maybe even a fixer of a leaky faucet.

The other night the TV was on and I wanted to watch a movie with the boy. He’s 12, so I guess that makes him a tween, which also puts him in that age range of what-should-he-be-allowed-to-watch? After watching Finding Dory, I don’t know how much more insulting and reductive I have to be, as a parent, by showing him a blue fish movie, rather than something that might resonate with him.
I know. I get it. It’s a cute movie about a blue fish, her old buddies, and some new folks along the way. But, unless you are really clever and can remember more than three or four interesting scenes, there isn’t much to follow up with. It looks good. It’s Pixar. It also has grossed almost 500 million dollars domestic, making it the number 8 movie (in that category) of all time.
The number 8 movie of all time, joining the ranks of all the other movies geared at kids–Star Wars (in its many forms), Avatar, Titanic, Marvel Movies. I understand the entertainment value of all of them, but, once again, Finding Dory is number 8 out of all movies ever made, and even though ticket prices are higher now and affect its ranking, many people saw it and said enough about it to make others see it, and so on. Moana, which came out recently, only made around 250 million, not even cracking the top 100.
No more. This is not what I want my kid seeing. Short-term memory loss is not a fun deal, as I saw it in my mother and my wife’s father. You don’t suddenly snap out of it, like Dory seems to at the end. A scared octopus is not that interesting. We understand that Dory can’t remember things because her blue self says it every other minute. Or Marlon (Marlin?) does. Crazy birds? Yawn. Sea lions? They were funny for their three or four minutes.
Despite what I have written, there’s nothing to talk about when it comes to blue fish and clown fish. You don’t leave the movie with any questions. It’s all spelled out for you. Though it’s never interesting or never builds tension, it is safe and easy.
Must I continue? That’s the metaphor–too many things in this world is too safe and easy, and it shows in the work ethic of students.
I will watch most any movie or show with my son. I will take him to see The Buzzcocks, Built to Spill, Blitzen Trapper, Luna, and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, even if he is (as he has been) the only kid there. We will watch Captain Fantastic, which shows a man’s penis and has cuss words, because it gives us something to talk about and learn from. We will watch Ash v. Evil Dead because it’s ridiculous and fun. Same with Westworld or anything else that is interesting. And, if he has questions, I will answer him. Truthfully.
Once again, the metaphor. I can’t expose my students to everything, and some of the stuff we do is too safe and easy. Is there a balance between the two? I try to find it daily, but sometimes it’s hiding like that stupid octupus in that stupid movie.https://youtu.be/0PyecG4Tt2k

Teaching is tiring.
Fridays don’t make that any easier. My Friday started last night when a student sent me the registration sheet for next year, complete with a glaring error for APN. That is not tiring, but tiresome–errors that just magically appear for the class I teach. It’s no big deal to kids who know to use the class code, but there is conflicting information about said code. Whatever.
It was hot today, or at least I was. It made it hard for the push against, push against, push against crowd that doesn’t desire working. Yeah, I know I have to be better and push back and encourage that everyone should read a poem that won’t matter for a minute in their lives, but that’s the part that gets tiring. Friday. Hot. Pushing against me.
I made it through. So did my students.
Oh, I also got to counsel them on their class choices for next year. “Should I really take AP Language next year?” they ask. “Yeah,” I say. “You got an A in my class and you’re worried about what?” They say, “Well, who is the teacher going to be?” Push push push. Okay, don’t take the class. Go back to regular English.
Tiring.
The easy assignment this week was to try something new. I ask students to do it every other week, or so. Try something new–expand those horizons. Setup and delivery. WHY did you want to try this particular new thing? and, HOW did it go? Toughie.
Students complain about this assignment. Tiring. Maybe some Seattle punk rock will snap me out of it.

Yeah, Thursday. No real escaping it. But, despite all the running around, and getting kids set up to do a stock market simulation, and returning books and checking out books, there was time for “The Sneetches.”
It’s an assignment I give to my seniors over the summer–watch the old CBS, 12-minute video and then detail three meanings you can attach to it. It’s your basic assignment of claim and evidence, but it does come in the form of a video, and not two articles that have been annotated. My regular tenth-graders watched the video well enough, but I’ll have to see later what meanings they came up with.
I saw some Sneetches at school today when I went into classrooms to pass out information on APN for next year. Without even a second glance it is painfully obvious as to the separation of kids in high school. No, they don’t have stars on their bellies, but they have hats on, and sunglasses, and phones, and, depending on the clientele, certain classes just have a different zeitgeist to them, based solely on the way they carry themselves.
It’s been many years at North since I’ve taught kids who not only don’t want to be in school, but don’t want to do any work. And I try to mix it up every day, searching for something that will resonate enough to snap them out of it. I ask myself, Is this the divide in school these days? How much harder do I have to try to reach kids who may or may not want to be reached? Are the honors classes filled just with students who are acting like honors students?
However, to be positive, some kids just aren’t in a good place and it has nothing to do with the teacher or the class. The students just are not ready to be productive in the way we desire. It hasn’t stopped me from offering private blogs, showing videos of anything that might stimulate them, talking to them, having them speak, to try something new, and to keep up with Unbroken, which we’re reading right now.
The great Carole Shakely once said, “It’s not what you teach them; it’s how you treat them.” Some days I can be a little sarcastic (I know–me!), and other days a little bitter (curs’d Thursday), but most students get that I’m in there battling for them.
Perhaps I will find Sylvester McMonkey McBean tomorrow and see about getting some stars on some bellies so that everyone, at least, will look equal.

APN is on the registration sheet for next year. Year 43? 44? I know that Gillian Hart and I took it over in 2002 and have been at it ever since. It’s been around a long while, that’s for sure, but students were ridiculously cute today about the class. It was the first day of registration–I think kids have to have their classes picked by Sunday–and WAY too many kids were excited at the prospect of its continuance. The excitement was nice to see. After all, our school wanted kids to be excited about their future schedules. Looks like APN has that taken care of.
I get that some people at school don’t think the class is a big deal, but the interest level of kids says otherwise. Many students usually sign up for the class. That’s data, btw. And I’m proud that Gillian and I have built something that still works for the kids, school, and community . . . but every silver lining has a cloud to it. I looked at students’ registration sheets today and the number of English options wasn’t much. You have your honors and AP levels per grade, online for grades 11 and 12, Speech (as an elective, open to all grades, but mostly 11 and 12), and English 1, 2, 3, and 4. Then APN, which kind of sticks out in that list.
That sort of fires me up for next year. There are times when you look out into the abyss that is our classroom and wonder what on Earth you’re doing. Kids that came to visit me today wondered whether I would be back at North, if APN would exist, what their chances were of being in the class–I doubt that happened in many other classrooms today. Maybe I’m wrong.
I’m sure the excitement won’t last long. Time and history have taught me to be ready for anything that comes my way, and time and history have also taught me that it’s coming.
We’ll end on that positive note. For now.https://youtu.be/sn5i_wBCgSs

Let’s hope so. Fingers are crossed. You probably think I’m being facetious, but heck no! Summer reading is not the business and needs to go. You know, playing to your opponents’ strengths is way better if you want that opponent to succeed. In this case, a world where our students don’t read much on their own, their strength lies in getting it done with our help (teachers, and all) and not during the summer, where they wait until the last days anyway.
Too much info too fast? Our school and district is still holding onto the antiquated notion of summer reading. It’s great for honors and AP kids, and they are going to keep up with summer books to point out the extra rigor–but regular kids have tons of books to choose from and an assignment that many don’t do. So, we give them a list of MANY books. They pick one, read it, find a quote from an outside source, and integrate it into a paper based on a universal prompt.
Yes, kids should read over the summer. Many do. Offer them optional extra work credit for doing such things. Yes, it’s important to reinforce English over the summer, but is that really happening? We can reinforce immediately upon their return with a short story, an essay, a poem, etc. Hey, kids, remember these?
It was a late start today and I’m not even bitter. Maybe this will get us on the same page and back to the reality that is our job. It’s hard to break with the past, but it’s way worse to beat a dead horse.https://youtu.be/9ePIZugahFc

It was a good weekend. The wife, boy, Pam, and I made it out of the house and up to the Fonda Theater to see and hear The Brian Jonestown Massacre. There was Tommy’s beforehand, and the show did not disappoint. The band was solid, as was the crowd, minus a few idiots. But what I didn’t see in the crowd was young people.
By young people, I mean those that would be old enough to be my students. I deal with high school students, so we’re talking about kids that are 14 to 18 years of age. I might have seen one in that age range. The boy is 12. He was the youngest person there. He’s getting used to that statistic when we see bands.
So, where were all the young people?
A couple of my classes asked what I did this weekend, so I told them. I asked if they had ever seen live music in a club. One student said yes. I asked who the artist was, but she couldn’t remember, which means she didn’t see any music in a club setting. Not one of my students had heard of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, which is not a big surprise either.
So, where were all the young people? Studying? Doubtful on a Saturday. Partying? Not sure kids do that anymore. Netflix and chill? I’m probably getting warmer. Watching YouTube videos alone in their rooms while chatting and texting friends in an online format? Probably.
North High has NO bands. If we had a battle of the bands tonight, there would not be an entry. We used to have a battle of the bands, but interest waned over the years because the number of bands kept getting smaller and smaller. No fliers are posted on walls for upcoming shows. I don’t even know what venue a band would play if it wanted to do so locally.
Supply and demand. If students demanded it, there would be a supply. It’s not like kids haven’t had scads of music lessons. Maybe I was just at the wrong concert.