Month: April 2017

That’s me. I’m that guy now. I’m the minority opinion, the crazy old man, the guy who sees things that not many others do.
What happened to me? Did someone pass out a magic potion that I forgot to drink? Was there a ceremony where rose-colored glasses were handed out and I didn’t check my email that day?
Sorry to be a downer, but every single day something unfair or horrible or scary or negligent or unprofessional or questionable is brought to my attention, and it makes me want to go into a corner and weep. I can’t write those things yet, but I come home each day a little more tired and question my purpose and ability.
It’s Friday. Time to cheer up and turn off my brain from running through what is happening to me and my friends.
I will read the letter a student wrote me yesterday–giving it to me for no reason other than to say thanks for being me. Maybe I’ll read it more than once.

I don’t know why I’m always so down on Thursdays. I’ve given a reason in the past–it’s the fourth day of a week where you’re already tired and still have another day to go–but some Thursdays can be pretty magical.
Today, I learned that two of my former students got accepted into UCLA. That’s amazing, since both of them took the community college route. You go, girls. Congrats. Neither of you had much of a shot at Westwood straight outta high school, but now look at you. It’s too bad these students had to suffer through some years at their respective community colleges, but awesome that they overcame that 4%-of-kids-who-go-to-cc’s-transfer-to-4-yr-schools data.
I also learned that our school ranked in the top 300 in California by US News and World Reports, albeit we’re 284th, just one spot behind rival West. Their data has us with 1956 students, some of which must be hiding on a daily basis. Our 35.8/100 college readiness is so good it got us a silver medal by the publication. Take that, bronze.
Just in the last few days/weeks we’ve received this top 300 honor AND we were awarded the distinction of being a Blue Ribbon School. I don’t know what that means, but there’s a ribbon involved, so it must mean something great.
Tonight I have to attend Parras Middle School’s Open House, where I can see a showcase of my kid’s, and others’, displayed works. I’ll also get to meet his teachers again and hear what a little rascal he is. Hopefully, his teachers can show me the rubrics they use, or let us catch a peak at one of their essential questions. Maybe they’ve recorded a Socratic seminar.
It will be fun, sure, but when I’ve got a silver medal and a blue ribbon, I don’t need much else. So, back off, Thursday, because I got the best.

I’m a fan of data. I don’t like some of my data, but you can’t make chicken salad without a chicken, you know? Ever since I was a kid, whether it was the back of baseball cards or looking at my father’s stocks, numbers actually meant something to me. They should mean something to others, too.
Case in point. I’m a major Kobe Bryant disliker. The man’s name is synonymous on the playground with an ill-advised shot that has little chance to go in. And, my dislike is seen easily in his lifetime numbers of never shooting–he never shot over 47 percent in any season, never shot over 38 percent from the 3-point line, and never shot over 86 percent from the free throw line. A simple Internet search will give you those numbers. By the way, Wardell Curry shot 50/45/90 last year. You could argue that Curry was on the better team, but Kobe didn’t win five rings by himself. He had good teams, too.
There is data about schools. You can probably punch up some pertinent info about North High, or about the Torrance District, or both. You can do the same for every district. The numbers are always a couple of years old, but they are numbers anyway. It’s the SARC, the School’s Accountability Report Card, and it will give anyone info on numbers of kids, demographics, test scores, and the general information that anyone might want to know about a school. General.
But that data is very controlled, for it is available on any school out there.
There’s so much other data that is not controlled, but understood. My boy’s school is great. Parras Middle School. Perhaps their numbers won’t show it on a SARC, but tomorrow is Open House, and I will be there just to feel the energy of the school. Kids are happy, the teachers seem nice, the zeitgeist of the school is a positive one. Some people give up 2.5% mortgages to move homes, for that’s the only way you can get into Parras–to live in the district. That’s not found in data, but the school will be packed tomorrow night with members of the community.
Think about what’s not there on those reports, what is controlled inside the walls of each school.
Number of fights per year? No comment.
Number of kids at Homecoming Dance? A positive for us; we sold out. Kids also hugely supported the dance show and Les Miserables at the Armstrong.
Number of kids late to school/first period because the parking lot is unforgiving? Ugh, at North.
If you look on the accountability report, any school’s dropout rate is stellar. Controlled.
You can meet A-G requirements with C grades, but what 4-yr does that work for these days?
Number of faculty and staff that have left? And WHY?
How many kids start at commmunity colleges, transfer, then graduate from a 4-yr? No idea.
How many kids graduate early? We have one I know of this year graduating as a junior. Some have already taken the California High School Proficiency Exam and left.
The list could go on and on. As much as I love numbers, and North and Torrance USD have really good ones available for public scrutiny, those are merely the past. Because when our numbers are so good, better than the numbers of Redondo (at least with recent testing), then why are Redondo schools bursting at the seams and home values so high?
I’ll write it again–ask your kids what goes on at school. If you’re lucky, they may even be able to show you the videos that make the social media rounds for all kids to see.

I hate senioritis. I probably had it when I was in high school, but I went to school, ate lunch on my way to work, worked for an hour or two, and then came back to school for sports. Senioritis or not, at least I was busy.
For those who live under a rock, or those who get 100% in all classes, senioritis is defined by me as “the ability to stop working at some point during senior year, thus casting doubt about ability and drive, and cheapening everything academic up to the point of disease.” Yeah, that may be a bit of hyperbole, but I have seniors who have stopped working weeks ago. They have colleges who want them, scholarships have been given them, they show up to school almost every day, and yet–nothing. I realize that people grow out of this–almost immediately upon graduation–but, for some, it sticks with them their entire lives.
We had a scholarship meeting today and the committee decided to take a student’s name out of the running for one of the awards. There were other students vying for this award, students who were not suffering from that senior affliction going around. It’s no big deal, the scholarship wasn’t for much, but I wish the student could understand how easy that elimination was, especially when others were still trying. Because it matters.
I ask my students those questions all the time, just to hate myself.
Are you never going to read another book?
Are you just going to listen to music you know, or songs that Seacrest feeds you?
Are you never going to see another movie?
I feel like Chef Ramsey, on any of his shows, when he asks people if they’re done, if they’ve quit. Most of his questions get answered with a “No, Chef, I’m a fighter and still in the game.” My students never answer mine.
If anything, senior year matters the most. I will have AP kids, or former AP kids who read this, argue that they had senioritis, that they barely tried and their grades slipped during that last year. That’s great, and all, but you didn’t have 20% with eight weeks to go in REGULAR classes. There’s a difference. There’s always the kid who doesn’t fit the mold. But are you really done doing work of any kind, or moving forward emotionally, or seeking new things, at age 17 or 18? Maybe high school just makes all of this kind of tough.
I wrote yesterday of Loser Lunch Crews, both past and present, and received many replies and comments from former students. Looking at their names, all of them shared something besides my wife and/or me. They did stuff, and continue to do stuff, and have moved forward. The thing that struck me most is, whether they read what I write or not, I have current students who are privy to this site. All the reactions yesterday, though, were from teachers or former students. Coincidence? or, are my current students just not at that place in life yet where you’ve got things figured out (kind of)?
Looks like many of you figured it out, though. Sooner or later, most of us do.

It’s not as bad as it reads.
For years, I taught at North High with my wife, eating lunch in her room daily. People would ask, “Isn’t it a pain teaching with your wife?” Nah. I ate lunch with her and saw her in passing. She was always more of a help than a hindrance. She made some tasty lunches and I spent many a day with her. For all of that, WE could be the loser lunch crew.
But we’re not.
That’s the name we used to assign to our “regulars,” the kids who ate with us almost every day. We had a crew of about 10. Some of them were my students; some were the wife’s. I mean, we called them that to their faces–it was our affectionate way, perhaps, of saying we were all kind of losers, but, no matter what, we didn’t want to be around the others at school. Losers, sure, but if that meant we were in the same place together, then it was fine.
We laughed a lot. There were students who talked about movies and music, and I like that because I know a lot about both. Some students had amazing lunches that were made by their folks, so maybe they didn’t want the general school population to desire their food. Others were just groups of friends that wanted to hang out. Very few in the room caused concern for others.
For the last few years, though, the Loser Lunch Crew kind of dissipated. A once-proud group, some of whom spent all four years of high school eating lunch with me and the wife, were now gone and no one took their place. Some kids hung out here and there, but there was no real consistency for the last few years.
Now that my wife is gone from North High, perhaps I’m the only loser left and my students have taken pity upon me. Today I had 22 kids in my room at lunch. Kind of a similar deal, too–a lot of the kids listen to the music I play, or talk about movies, or do homework, or eat, or come in to use my two microwaves. But many of them hang out with each other, friends have been made, and, amidst all the ridiculous that is high school, students have found a place to go at lunch.
I’ve seen things. Kids, my 20+ Loser Lunch Crew, tells stories, and talks to one another. A couple of times–if I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it–students were just hanging out and NOT even coming close to touching their cell phones. Weird, I know. Sometimes, some of the kids don’t have food and, even though the kids in my room at lunch don’t know everyone well, they offer that person food. And they do it without flinching, too, which always gives me a little bit of hope.
That’s what I come back to–kids need a place at school to be themselves. Kids need a place at school where they belong. In an age when every option is being cut from their schedules, and teachers shut their doors on them during lunch and breaks (“that’s our time”), and school just moves from class to class, they need to have something. It doesn’t matter who or what makes up this “something.” What matters is that for a scant 31 minutes per school day, there’s a place that kids know is okay, one where everyone just hangs out, doesn’t cause any trouble or get messed with, and can just have a place to belong.
If that’s my new Loser Lunch Crew, I’m happy to provide. https://youtu.be/4c2Vvp9RIuA

No one in teacher school ever prepares you for certain days. When you’re working on your credential, they tell you what to do when students act up, or if they are having a hard time, or how you should sculpt a lesson that accommodates all. But they never tell you what you should do when one of your students dies quickly and tragically.
Three years ago to this day I was called into the principal’s office to find other teachers crying and sobbing. The principal told us that Danielle Murillo, our student, had been killed in a car accident the previous night, along with former student Jessica Leffew, who was not our student. There weren’t a lot of particulars yet–who knows, maybe there were, but no one was focusing very well–and the principal was wondering if we should tell students. We all figured in this day and age of Internet that nothing stays hidden long, so Danielle’s parents gave us their approval to tell students.
This was an APN class, one that shares senior students for a block of Gov/Econ for a period and English for the other. My teaching partner Marc Pioch (who taught the Gov/Econ side) and I had left our rooms unattended and our students didn’t know how to read us when we came back, since my partner was visibly shaken and couldn’t speak to them at that moment. That left the job to me.
When I started speaking it was like a dream, staring at students, many who I had known for two to three years. They smiled at were somewhat cheery because they thought we were up to something, which we sometimes were. But as I kept talking–God only knows what the hell I was saying–the smiles and cheer turned to tears and sobs and shock and grief.
This was Danielle. She was many things, but she was definitely a friend to many. She had so many levels of friends because she was that girl who could fit in with different groups. Plus, she and about 12 other students and Marc Pioch had just returned a week ago from an APN trip to Costa Rica, where she had made even more friends. A social media queen, a purveyor of many styles, someone who didn’t back down to others and never had an opinion she didn’t share. Danielle was that girl who was unapologetic about who she was, and others loved and respected her for it.
Her death didn’t make sense to anyone who knew her because she was always the person that was so full of life. Surely this was a mistake. Come on, Stover, tell us that this is just a horrible psychological test to measure our sympathy and empathy. Where do you have her hidden?
Everything was real, though, and newspapers and news outlets were already running with the story. Because Danielle and her friends were coming back from a 420 music festival above Santa Barbara, there were many rumors about the impairment of the driver and his passengers. Of course, since they were young and coming back from a music festival with 420 attached to it, they had to be drunk or stoned or both. Toxicology would come back with nothing on this assumption by others.
The district immediately sent many grief counselors to North High, and any students who wanted to could come to the library and meet with them. All the APN kids, probably around 70+ at the time, were there, too. Kids were sad. They cried. Some were horribly shaken. But, after a short while, students started talking to one another. The counselors sat there, unused by students. They made announcement here and there about how available they were for everyone, but students didn’t bother. It’s not like they were being mean–Danielle and Jessica had so many different friends that were brought together in the library that students just wanted to hang out and talk to one another. They did just this until after school was out, which was one of the most positive student moments I had ever seen at North High.
Though I didn’t show hardly any emotion at school–I felt that was my role as teacher in this case–it was awful at home. I would do homework, and the house would be quiet, and in those softer times I would think and reflect and remember all the things that made Danielle the special person she was. Music was about my only refuge, but even then, a slow song, or one that hit a certain lyrical note would get my mind running again, and I would feel horrible for her family, for my students, and for anyone who had to deal more personally with this than I did. But, man, the quiet was awful, and was so the antithesis of Danielle, which made it even worse.
By the next day, Marc Pioch had gained his footing and was already setting up a school vigil for the two girls. He organized it down to students doing pretty much everything, from the eulogies, to having a student host, to creating a soundtrack for the evening. The only thing I really helped with were the eulogies, as two of my students knew they should run them by me for this occasion.
The night of the vigil was another one of the most positive moments ever at North High. Over 600 people were there, from teachers, to students, to family, to anyone who may have heard the story. The gym hosted the first part of the vigil, complete with music and eulogies. My current and former students gave their eulogies to Jessica and Danielle and, even though I had proofread them the previous day, I can easily write that what they said, along with the way they carried themselves, was one of the most powerful things any student at North High has ever done. I don’t know how many other students could have been so serious, funny, specific to each girl, and professional, all in the face of what had happened and what was happening around them.
The night ended outside with candles, more speeches, and balloons being released. People stayed a long time, too, once again telling stories, crying, laughing, and dealing with everything the best way they could. I don’t know how Danielle or Jessica would have felt about the evening, but everyone there was a part of something, whether they knew it at the time, or not.
I was one of the last three people there. It was me, Marc Pioch, and our current principal Dr. Ron Richardson. We didn’t have to say much to each other because, I think, we all understood what had just happened and how incredibly our students rose to the occasion. And though Pioch is gone from North, I will always share that time with him.
Today brings back sadness, though. Even though so many positive moments came out of this, from students coming together to an unspoken understanding that ran through teachers and students, there was still the untimely and tragic death of a student.
It is quiet right now as I type this and my mind returns to the song that came out at the time that fit so well for my place in all this. Rest in paradise, Danielle. You meant so much to so many. https://youtu.be/59mDoc8vZj0

It’s four-twenty today. Ha ha ha, hee hee hee. It’s the day you get to see posts about how cool smoking weed is, how people have smoked weed, how weed is going to be smoked, and that we should leave out cookies and milk for Snoop Dogg. Hilarious, I know.
But it gets tiresome in school. For one, my students feel it almost necessary to speak loudly enough about their pot-smoking exploits. Especially today. You’ll hear it before first period–“Oh, everyone is late because they’re getting high.” Not necessarily. They could just be late, like every day. If someone is absent, it is assumed they are staying home to get high. Doubtful.
Everyone is an expert on drugs now because cable television has shows about it. There’s movies about it. I doubt the number of kids you think are on drugs at any high school campus is anywhere close to the actual number. It’s way LESS. Yep. Less.
It takes effort and money to get high. And, yes, some kids are turnt, lit, faded–but you would be surprised at how many kids have never even been offered something. That’s the movies and other generations.
Four-twenty is also Hitler’s birthday. It is “too soon” for anything Hitler-related. Nothing about him is funny. Sean Spicer referencing him is not amusing, nor is the SNL bits about him. Done.
Four-twenty is also the 18th anniversary of the school shootings at Columbine. Once a huge deal, it is mentioned here and there in the news. Most of my students probably don’t know much about it, except that some kids died in a school shooting a long time ago.
But with students being bombarded with constant media, Columbine becomes something less. They get to see shootings every day. Two days ago, in our own district, kids had to be evacuated from an elementary school because of a bomb threat. My students weren’t pleased, as they had hoped for a district-wide evacuation.
Man, it was a big deal in 1999, though. I was teaching in Orange County, out in portable classrooms, and district folk were crawling under everything they could to see if bombs were under our rooms. The next year at North High, someone wrote “420–More Will Die” on a wall, which prompted fear for weeks, and half our school taking the day off because they wanted to be safe. I know, some took the day off to get high, but many claimed, flat-out, it was not worth the risk to come.
Think of what’s happened in the last 18 years with all the school violence that’s been posted on the Internet and shown on television. You can’t go a few days without something happening. Because unlike the myth that everyone at school is high, the reality of violence is easily tracked. If you don’t believe THIS, a simple Internet search will turn up something similar.
Leaving cookies out for Snoop is an easier reality.

I’ll steal any assignment if I think it’s relevant to student success. Today’s theft was from the wife, who used this with her kids the other day.
It starts with a simple question to my seniors–What skills do you think you should have once you enter the real world in a couple of months? What should an 18-yr-old be able to do? Pretty much, what skills should anyone have to navigate the big bad world?
I gave students some time to answer. They did. Then we talked about their answers, where I wrote them in teacher-speak on the board. Surprisingly, anyone should not be amazed that students know what they should be able to do. Some of them can’t do these things yet, but they want to, and know that not having certain skills limits them in life.
We talked, asked questions, laughed, used personal examples. You know, teacher/student stuff.
Then, on the old overhead projector, I put up the article my wife used with her kids. It’s written by a former Stanford dean who has also done TED Talks on the subject of adulthood and kids. Her examples make a ton of sense, as they should have, since my students came up with seven of her eight. You can find the article HERE.
But you know the one that students didn’t say? It’s the last one–an 18-yr-old must be able to take risks. Seems easy enough, right? Too bad taking risks is not a priority for most students these days. If so, they would have to try. And, if they try and fail, then they might be uncomfortable. If they’re uncomfortable . . . who knows what could happen?
They’re still young, but this is what Huxley wrote about in Brave New World. We don’t take risks, obstacles are removed for us, and we just consume and satiate ourselves on anything shiny that we want right here right now.
Try, fail, repeat. I do it every single day, so you could say I’ve given my students a good model. I hear that’s a good thing.

My kid is 12, soon to be 13. He does well in school, doesn’t ever have homework that takes him any time to do, which frees up time for him. He is enrolled in every honors class that he can take this year, along with any of the afterschool stuff that being a GATE kid provides. His last foray was something he didn’t really want to take–Slam Poetry–but it was fun and got him to try something that wasn’t really in his comfort zone.
Today was a late start and there was data. Teachers found out that somewhere around one in every three freshmen received a D or F at the semester in English. Keep in mind that we have four sections of Honors English, so if you take out those numbers, it’s even worse.
On the sophomore side, about one in every four students received a D or F in English.
Obviously, when you receive an F, you need to make that up into a passing grade. The option that we’re thinking about is having the failing student repeat the entire class with a different teacher. It’s my 18th year at North High and I’m not sure this was ever an option. 90 more days in a seat in a class with younger students for a failed English class. And how fun are those classes going to be, with older kids being spoilers for the ones who haven’t taken the class yet?
Summer school and Hamilton (the adult school that uses Odysseyware, which is supposedly hard) were the two other options.
There was no Opportunities for Learning mentioned. They are one of those complete-the-packet schools that students can attend online and in-person. Many classes are offered–some of them are even AP and Honors. Kids are starting to figure out that this option exists and have taken advantage of the free tuition for high school students.
Pacific Coast High School wasn’t mentioned either. It offers online classes. Some of the other schools in our district tell their students about it, which is how I have heard of it. Our school does not mention it.
There’s El Camino College, but I’m not sure how they deal with F grades, if they transfer or count for high school credit in a remediation sense.
But here’s my problem–I have a kid who’s 12, soon to be 13. He’ll be going into 8th grade next year. After that, two high school teachers have no idea what to do with their kid. Do we home school, supplement with El Camino, and see what goes from there? One kid we know who went down that path is now at Cal Tech, a school that no one from North High has attended out of high school.
There’s going to high school and supplementing at the above options. We had a student years ago who graduated as a junior and entered college as a junior because she had accrued so many JC credits. She was nothing more than an average student, but entering college as a junior while graduating high school as a junior is anything less than average.
There’s early entry programs into college.
There’s always the CHSPE, the California High School Proficiency Exam. Any tenth-grader and above can take the test, pass it, and be a high school graduate. College can start right after that, though at the JC level.
Do I want my kid in classes where a third or quarter of the class is getting a D or F? Is that the way it is at all schools? He certainly doesn’t have much work now, which suggests that the rigor is less than tough. Are we dumbing it down to meet in the middle and letting kids get A’s for only doing above average work?
It’s going to be a hard decision, but I think we have a year. Options.

Today is the start of the 4th quarter. 10 more weeks to go. For some, I don’t know why we are still doing the dance. For others, they are/and have been doing great all year. For me–I’m tired.
Yesterday I hurt my back, which had me limping around school today. It’s painful, but more annoying than anything else, for there are many positions where it doesn’t hurt. Needless to say, though, it makes me feel old.
My students are good at that, too. Here I was, hipster that I be, ready to talk a little 13 Reasons Why with my kids, since it’s one of the only things they seem to care about. However, even though they are watching/or have watched the show about people in their age range, they just don’t seem intellectually curious about the media in the show.
Not a lot of new Lord Huron fans, even though their song is featured prominently in a slow dance scene that plays in more than one episode. Lots of blank stares on that one. Surely the days can’t be gone where you hear or see or experience something new and, because you initially like it, you do a little research and find out more.
I had a student today mention that they played Ultravox on the show (I think it was “Europa”), which was great to hear after all these years. He’s the same student who knew some of the pivotal scenes (we’ll leave the description at that) from the movie Deliverance.
And, no, not everyone has to be a hipster, or know stuff, but you’re watching the show anyway. Doesn’t anything resonate enough to make a student seek more?
Gah.
We started Macbeth today for sophomores. We’ll be done in two weeks. I wish it were even quicker. Never have I understood the reasoning behind spending forever on a book–you don’t read a book by yourself and take forever. Same in school. Why spend months on Macbeth when we should just play it straight through, have some discussion, see what they learned, maybe watch a movie version. and move on? People in Shakespeare’s times didn’t go see one act one day, then another act, then do a worksheet. You know?
We also started Bowling for Columbine in APN Senior English. That movie never gets old. As dated as it is, for it has to be about 15 years old as a movie–and it’s the week of 18 years since the Columbine shooting–it still shows a country obsessed with violence and race and social status. It’s awful to watch in parts, but that’s what makes it good.
47 more days. Thanks, Bill and Mike, for taking care of this week, and giving us all something to talk about forever.
And now, a minority opinion in a room filled with people who have lots of stuff.