Month: September 2017

This is public now.
Every year the juniors at the high schools take the Smarter Balanced test. There’s English and Math involved. Since I teach English, I don’t even look at the math scores. The results can be found with a few clicks on the California Department of Education site, which you can find HERE.
I work for Torrance Unified and these are our results. You can spin them as you please, for this is merely data. The first number will represent standards exceeded, the second number will represent standards met, and the third number will be the total of kids who exceeded and met standards. The numbers will be the percentages. Just to be a lamb, I will also give the 2016 results, which were rounded up or down, or so I believe.
2016 Results
South High 40, 38, 78. West High 39, 38, 77. North High 33, 43, 76. Torrance High 33, 41, 74.
2017 Results
South 34.79, 36.32, 71.11. West 54.12, 29.63, 83.75. North 29.27, 40.52, 69.79. Torrance 33.84, 40.13, 73.97.

This is data. You can assume what you want from it. I just simplified it (or so I hope).

I often wonder why I stick with teaching. Well, here’s two reasons.
The other day we read “Greyhound Tragedy,” by Richard Brautigan. It’s a really short story that covers a lot of bases when you come back from summer and want to remind students what English looks like. It takes place during the Depression and has a movie theme to it. At the end, the girl in the story has some kids and names them Jean and Rudolph, after movie stars.
I didn’t figure students would know Jean Harlow, but Rudolph Valentino? Come on. Someone out of my 91 sophomores must have heard of the famous silent movie star. I told them there were pizza stores of his last name on PCH. I told them his name is synonymous with being a lover.
Their only response to whom this Rudolph could possibly be was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. All three classes. There was that.
Today, I was reviewing poetry with seniors and wanted to know how many poets an entire class could name. They got Poe, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Robert Frost. Maybe another. They nodded in agreement when I told them Emily Dickinson existed.
A student also offered up “Something Whitman.” Yep. Mr. and Mrs. Whitman named their son Something. Oh captain, my captain.
Has no one seen Dead Poets’ Society?

We started RTI today. It’s also affectionately known as Response To Intervention, which seems weird when you look at it semantically. Response TO Intervention? What was your response to the intervention, student of mine? Well, it helped me out and I liked it. Responding to students who need help through the use of intervention is more of what’s in play, though, or so it seems.
Here’s the deal–two days a week, we get 37 extra minutes with our second period class after second period is over for RTI, which, for now, we are calling Saxon Time (please, Hammer, don’t hurt em). It’s seven minutes of passing period plus 30 minutes of Saxon Time, but since we’re not really passing from class to class for intervention yet (it’s the fourth day), it’s really 37 minutes.
I don’t know what it’s going to look like months from now, and for years to come, but right now we have 37 extra minutes with our second period, and can do a myriad of things with them. I want to bring fun back to the classroom, to add excitement, to have students wonder what’s going to happen the next meeting. We’ve been told that extended lessons can’t count for students’ grades, but that’s not a big deal–as fun and exciting as my lessons are, I’m not sure the extension of them adds anything more than an example of the law of diminishing returns.
So, all of you who curse Betsy DeVos. So, all of you who want a do-over in life. So, all of you who say that kids today need such-and-such, WHAT’CHOO GOT FOR ME? WHAT’S YOUR SUGGESTION? I’m all ears and I got 37 minutes twice a week.
I’ll be here all week. Fun, excitement, mystery, wonder, practicality, curiousity sparkers, rigor, life lessons. Most readers of this are older and wiser. I’ll even use your name if I use your idea. When’s the last time you got a shout-out?
Alright, let’s do this.

I’m not writing every day this year, but after two days of school, it’s time to write something. I’ve worked at North High for 18 years and unless my memory is fading, Tommy Hua has been there. Even if he hasn’t been there, in my mind he has, so that’s all that matters here.
I’ve taught his kids, his cousins, his nieces and nephews–I’ve seen a lot of Hua kids over the years.
Tommy is our custodian, and one of the reasons North High can be okay, is that the teachers and custodial staff (and staff, in general) tend to get along. I brought some items to school over the summer, didn’t have a way to check out my keys, so Tommy and I loaded them up on his cart, drove out to my room, and took a few minutes and complained about things people at schools complain about, and unloaded my stuff.
Tommy has this thing he does with me, though, and he’s been doing it for about five years now. Since I am six-foot-ten and he is maybe five-foot-six (on a good day), every time he saw me on campus he would greet me with a “Big T.” Is wasn’t some frat-boy salutation, complete with handshake or high-five–it was just a matter-of-fact “Big T.” The deal he wanted was for me to call him “Little T,” which I didn’t want to do because, well, I’m tall and he’s not.
For the last two years, though, I haven’t cared. He sees me, calls me “Big T,” and I don’t miss a beat in calling him “Little T,” which makes him laugh every time. In turn, I laugh because he gets such a kick out of being “Little T.”
Is that so hard, people? Big T and Little T–working on a campus near you (maybe).
And now, a song written by Satan.