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Yep, the Brian De Palma film from 1974. I saw it more than once in the theater with my mother because she liked Paul Williams and the soundtrack. This returns to me today because on my drive home I was listening to satellite radio and Jason Schwartzman (he of many Wes Anderson films, Phantom Planet, and Talia Shire’s womb) has a recurring show called “Coconut Records,” where he plays songs and talks. Today, he opened his show with “The Hell of It,” from Phantom of the Paradise.
Did you get all that? It was a lot of information–titles, dates, people, radio shows–so I would completely understand that you might not understand. No big deal that you are not in my 70’s-movies-Brian-De-Palma-Paul-Williams-satellite-radio circle. Circles, though, are a big deal to me, to which I will return.
Even though my mother and father raised me and I spent an incredible amount of time with them, I don’t remember many things we had in common. I was into sports, music, and media while they weren’t. But, about every month, I was able to see just about any movie with my mom. She didn’t really have an idea of what most of the movies were about (or maybe she did and was just being mom-savvy), but we saw a ton of them together. Some were awful, others turned out to be iconic, while more of them were just movies of the time that you might see on cable today.
Phantom of the Paradise might be R. There is kind of an orgy scene in there along with some violence. Come on, it’s Brian De Palma learning his eventual craft. But we sometimes saw hard-R B-movies on a double feature, or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, plus other movies that I would have had to sneak into with my friends. Either way, hearing the song reminded me that we had many things in common, especially when it came to movies. And, since we did see many movies of the early to mid-70’s, we exposed each other to some crappy movies, but also ones that defined that generation of change, disengagement, and/or disgust. I saw Five Easy Pieces with her.
In class today I had an easy lesson. Students had to upload a favorite scene from a movie, write a little summary of it, and tell why it’s a favorite scene of theirs. We decided in our PLC meetings that students should write a summary of something. Me, not wanting to read 100 Chapter 2 summaries of Lord of the Flies, decided to do things differently.
They were loud, they were quiet, they talked to others, they laughed–and they did it. We didn’t have to pretend that they had read a Chapter; instead, they got to choose something from that huge databank that is their brains, and recollect something they actually enjoyed. They showed me their scenes, asked if I knew them, and I mostly did, for I know many of their circles, which gives us that common ground. Stover, for the WIN.
So I got through a Thursday. And, if my mom is reading this somewhere, thanks for letting me see some 70’s movies that I probably shouldn’t have, but am glad I did. Turn up one of your favorite Paul Williams songs and enjoy it again with me.

Want to give students something to look forward to? Feed them something good.
Today was Fall Festival at North High, which translates to clubs on the quad at lunch, with a myriad of foods on display for all to enjoy. And pay for. If you didn’t know, or haven’t been reading my posts, our students don’t eat. They have the prospect of almost-free food, if they claim it, but they choose not to. Today, they chose to pay over ten dollars for a variety of items.
North High clubs brought Korean bbq, In-n-Out, lumpia, Hawaiian chicken, bacon fried rice, pozole, fry bread, manapua, Spam musubi, and so on. I repped TED-Ed Club and was less than creative–we sold donuts. 80 of them. Gone. Yes, to 30 bucks going into our account.
It’s so funny to watch students the day previous with their phones, taking pictures of the menus for today’s cuisine. The food’s not even that great, it’s a bit overpriced, but kids chomp at the bit to get out to that quad for the food frenzy.
To me, that’s DATA. Remember data? I keep hearing how we’re going to be looking at it, but all I remember looking at this year was our Smarter Balanced data in math and English which only applied to last year’s juniors, and was glossed over quickly during a before-school-started meeting. There’s so much more out there, and today added even more, albeit food data.
Look–at Stover High School, good food would translate to better students. Dip Day was already a “win” for APN, and Fall Festival seals the deal. So, grab a non-plastic utensil, an actual plate, and bring on the fixings. After a home-cooked meal, maybe an extended time period for lunch, perhaps some music in the background . . . who wouldn’t want to power through some data?

I used to be pretty popular.
Students thought something of me and would line up during November (and sometimes before) to have me proofread their personal statements for college. I would literally spend my entire lunch period reading students papers until the line went away. Sometimes, it didn’t go away and I didn’t get to eat any of my lunch.
This year, I told students I would read anything they wrote for college and/or write them a letter of recommendation. But there was a catch–it would cost them 50 bucks. But there was another catch–they would get back their 50 bucks once they wrote me a thank-you note, baked me something delicious, or both. This was in response to the class of 2016, who had me read and write many papers for them, all for nothing in return. It’s not that tough, people. Plus, I’m pretty much forcing students to have some manners. Hey, somebody has to.
I am popular no more, it seems. Okay, there are a few former students who I had two years ago who walk into my class and drop off their personal statements, as if I am a service. I won’t read one word of their papers unless they are present with me, though. It’s November 15th and only one former student has had me read her work.
I have two students whose work is in my briefcase, but no 50 bucks from either. It is not my job to read those papers–this is not in my contract at all–but I will read them and mark them up and offer suggestions since I have barely had to read papers at all during lunch this year. Maybe it’s the 50 bucks or the horror of writing a thank-you note to the person who could get you into a good college, but I don’t get when I turned into Old Man Warner, from Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.”
After all, the Old Man is told, “That over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery,” to which he replies, “Pack of crazy fools.” This is a nostalgic cry, but I’ve given up on the past. As for the young folks, maybe they are crazy, but at least I get to eat my lunches in November. Thanks???

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.