DISTRICT WIDE PROBLEM

Thoughts, feelings, and rants from two public school teachers

[districtwideproblem]

The Limits of Compassion

Once, while I was being observed by my principal, I had a student leap from his seat and head to the middle of the room, shouting, "Which way is Mecca? Which way is East?"  He then dramatically bowed down, arms out and everything, and ululated prayers to Allah. He was not Muslim. But he was having a full-on manic episode. I've had other students throw desks, students try to break out of school through the window, students throw Gatorade bottles at their ex-girlfriends who happened to be walking by the door...only for it to hit me instead. I've been told to fuck off once, told "I don't care," dozens, and flagrantly disobeyed more times than I'll ever be able to count. I had a student try to give a presentation on google slides wherein he had placed a nude photo of his girlfriend as the background, and once I even had to ask a kid to stop masturbating in class ("Put your hands on the desk where I can see them. And now go to the bathroom." "Why?" "Masturbation is a private behavior." "Why?"...etc.)  

And yet, of course I've never held these behaviors against a kid. I can't. I'm their teacher, and it's my job to understand them. I know they've got shit to learn, and they've been through shit which makes acting certain ways more likely. I believe the "been through shit" category of my students' experiences can be labeled "suffering." And I think good teachers must be called upon to understand this suffering, in its full Buddhist sense, in order to have compassion for their students as human beings. 

But what are the limits of compassion? I'm sure a real Buddhist or a real Christ would say: there are none. But I invite Christ or Buddha to come on down to my place of employment. 

So today, I'm standing in the parking lot, enjoying an apple on a ten-minute break after 6 straight hours of P.D. I've been stood up by my new co-teacher now 3 times in a row--she says she'll meet me some place and then never shows. I've just witnessed a full-on battle for top-dog in a curriculum meeting, in which three women are shouting at each other about late-homework policies. Mud was slung, tattling to the assistant principal was threatened, voices were raised. Everyone was stating a variation on the same point, but kept repeating their point louder and more angrily in an attempt to see which weakling would concede her argument first. 

About 40 minutes after the fight, a co-worker approaches me during group-work time, and says, "You know, my father passed this summer," and began to audibly cry in the largest room in our school building, with all staff members present. I listen and attempt to comfort her, feeling the eyes of a good dozen staff members watch this interaction, a classic from a classically histrionic co-worker. 

So back outside, I'm leaning against my car and soaking up a little sun, blissfully alone. No sooner do I begin to feel the peace come dropping slow that one of my school's famous clowns approaches me, wanting to chat. I'm not thrilled, but can't find a way to politely avoid the interaction. She begins to tell me that she has a much better schedule this year now that she's no longer "stuck teaching co-taught courses" (co-taught classes are ones that contain a high percentage of students with disabilities). "I'm teaching honors," she told me, "And I deserve it. I have higher quality kids this year, and it's just gonna be a great year." My face must have flashed with some of my internal horror, because she quickly rebounded from that statement, saying, "I mean, I'm so grateful for our co-teaching assistants. I mean, the assistants are just great." YOU WOULD THINK I AM MAKING THIS UP, and yet I am not! At this point, I believe I laugh. I laugh a sort-of stupefied guffaw normally reserved for a particularly absurd explosion in a Michael Bay movie--shit is just way over the top. This woman, who has been mentioned before in the annals of ignorance chronicled on my little blog (livejournal? lolz) for referring to her Chinese exchange student as "so weird", had managed to insult both kids with disabilities (they aren't "higher quality," which means they must be "lower quality") and those with college degrees who teach them (we are teachers, not assistants) in one magnificent fell-swoop, with such breath-taking ignorance that her views would have not been out of place at some 1920s hearing on the "Feebleminded Menace" and their assistants.  I can't move on. I can't forgive. I can not find the compassion or the love. Instead, I find some sympathetic co-workers and we laugh, uproariously, about being called assistants. I know adults have been through some shit. But I am truly grappling with how there seem to be so many adults around who have no business being around kids, as they are fucking crazy, irresponsible, and disrespectful to people who they perceive as peers. Some people would say I'm venting. But I think, on top of that, I am having an existential crisis. Why are people so miserable and shitty? Or am I the miserable one for focusing on their idiocy? How do I let it go? How do I address it? How do I have compassion for the real imbeciles? TO BE CONTINUED

[districtwideproblem]

CPS Budget Disaster Management 101

CPS released its budgets yesterday, and the news was that "disaster had been averted." The Sun-Times and the Tribune reported that the cuts could have been much larger, which they could have been without the last-minute half-assed Illinois budget, but that was also Claypool's line. We are stuck in a never-ending cycle in which a legislature or governor prevents adequate funding, a fiscal crisis is projected, the public's expectations are ratcheted to the high pitch of hysteria, and then some last-minute measure is pushed through; in comparison with the dooms-day scenario we were previously led to imagine, the last-ditch budgets or cuts or whatever suddenly appear like a relief. Now that right there seems like a cycle. I don't know who the supreme puppet-master of such a cycle could be--the major players in the CPS fiscal catastrophe are no fewer than decades worth of mayors and state legislators, corrupt school CEOs and unelected business people running the school board. There's no ur-theory that even my paranoid mind can arrive at in regards to how this cycle continues, which leaves only the uniting force of ideology to blame. These various power-players may not be carefully orchestrating the chaos (like they are in, say, a "shock doctrine" scenario), but they do share a viewpoint, one that prioritizes short-term and short-sighted "fixes" (especially fiscal ones) to long-term policy that might actually benefit the school district and society. They're draining the life-blood of public institutions slowly, as opposed to cutting her throat in one go. But perhaps this cycle--of projected catastrophe that transform in the public imagination into minor victories--is merely politics as usual. I actually don’t know. A district-wide spreadsheet of the cuts at each school was not immediately available. Call it a "glitch." Cuts to my school initially are at 1.7 million, which is rather considerable--I think something like 12% of the budget? Cuts to special ed alone are calculated at 900,000, due to some new special ed funding gerrymandering that I am still trying to understand. 

Whatever is happening with diverse learners, I can bet it ain't for the good of the children. Without macro-data, it's hard to know just yet, but I am betting CPS has in the works some major reshuffling of one of its largest expenditures, that is, special ed students. They hired a new guy to ODLSS who has no special education expertise, but he does have management expertise. Something is afoot. Hopefully people who understand what the different budget lines mean will explain it soon. In the mean time, cuts, cuts, cuts...drip, drip, drip.  The Republican fat-cats over at the Tribune today wrote an editorial saying that the CTU members have to step up. Everyone else--Claypool, parents, whoever--did their part to get CPS some last-minute money, but the union is still outlandishly asking for pay raises and to continue getting their pension funded. (That's the "budget-bursting, perk-bloated" part.) The last line of the editorial was one of the most childish things I have ever read from the normally arch-nemesis-worthy newspaper: "Your move, Chicago teachers. Think of your students and how to help the system guarantee them the best education year after year. Or think only of ... yourselves." Who allowed that ellipsis? Did tronc let one of the robot interns take a stab at editorial writing? So the public debate continues: The tribune construes it as teachers versus students, our greed versus the good of the children. I have written much else on the topic of that false dichotomy, so if you’re actually interested, keep scrolling down. All I know is, for now, this budget is still a major net loss, no matter how low my expectations have been engineered to go.  

[districtwideproblem]

LOTS OF WORDS ABOUT HYPOCRITES

A one-day strike, a budget-stand-off, a break-up between Rauner and Rahm: I've written about none of it! I haven't had enough emotional energy. As many teachers I'm talking to are saying, this year is among the most demoralizing on record. 

There are certain strains of thought, though, that never cease to capture my disdain, and one of them is when millionaire education reformers lecture the state about how to spend its money. As a teacher going on her fifth year of teaching with only precariousness to look forward to, I definitely had a cow the other week (before the latest budget proposal/rejection drama) when I read an editorial written by the IL Secretary of Education. Beth Purvis, editorializer in question, is former charter school CEO. Unsurprisingly, she published an editorial in the Tribune advocating for withholding extra funding for Chicago Public Schools in the on-going budget debate. She says, "...I cannot in good conscience recommend the adoption of any formula change that includes special set-asides for any one district." CPS has made too many blunders and mismanaged their funds too often to get any extra money now! she scolds. As a result, Chicago can count on looking a little more like Detroit next year... that is, if CPS finally makes good on the austerity threats they've been making all year. (See: 17 teachers laid off instead of 5,000,rescinding the threat to take the 7% from our paychecks, etc.) While I agree with her assessment that CPS has chronically mismanaged finances, she and I probably disagree on what constitutes mismanagement. Purvis thinks funding charter schools like hers at the expense of public schools is fine, even though public schools serve more-expensive-to-educate student populations. Like other right-wingers or the hedge-fund manager/austerity Dracula Bruce Rauner, Purvis is scolding and moralistic when it comes to doling out the dough: "Chicago shirked its own duty to pay its pensions," and Claypool is "asking for a financial bailout for the irresponsible behavior of his predecessors." But while Purvis mentions a few times she should "advocate for all students," she fails to account for the actual victims of this irresponsibility--students. But the vistas afforded by the moral high ground of balanced budgets are no match for a real argument about what we should do in the absence of adequate revenue. Purvis forgets to make any meaningful claim about what Chicago Public Schools must do for the public they are charged with educating. And she is surely facetious when she suggests that standing against new funding is also an equitable stance for children. Next year's per-pupil funding in CPS could be slashed by 40%; this means neighborhood schools will see fewer teachers, bigger class sizes, cuts to school programs and technology, and so on."We need one formula that treats all students equitably, no matter where they live," Purvis says. I agree! But our kids in CPS are nearly all low-income (86%). An "equitable" situation for school children is not just about geography; it's also about access. As prominent public education advocate Diane Ravitch often explains, we know what works for poor public school kids--the same things that work for rich private school kids! Small class sizes, lots of individual attention, well-trained teachers, quality curriculum materials, up-to-date technology, and meaningful extracurricular opportunities work for every student. And all they cost is money. You want to punish CPS for its years of financial malfeasance? Fine. Barbara Byrd Bennett pleaded guilty, and Claypool's CPS has been publicly penitent bylaying off large swaths of central office staff. But Purvis, and Rauner, and everyone who takes a moral high ground about bloated public expenditure, lack any vision for what public institutions should look like when their work is done. This is because these millionaires and billionaires don't value public institutions. They want to gut them and hang them on the walls of their wood-paneled drawing rooms, right above their busts of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, because their children will always be able to attend the best private educations money can buy. Saving money is not nearly as moral an issue as spending it, and on whom it should be spent. So, to Purvis, Rauner, and any state legislator standing in the way of a reasonable budget for school children: please consider what you'd want for your own child. The moral seriousness you lend to budgeting is not more serious than the futures of poor children. Would you want your kid to pay for the sins of their schools' managers?

[districtwideproblem]

The death knell of winter break rings out into the gray, below-freezing day; we're all back in school tomorrow. I'm trying to adjust my thinking, telling myself that just because I'm in school doesn't mean fun times must end. I can still have a life during the week, right? I needn't put on hold any book-reading, socializing, or other aspects of personal development...right?

Being a teacher is certainly difficult enough, but being a CPS teacher means the next few weeks could still spell D-O-O-M for our district. So in addition to worrying about all the usual stuff, (deviant children, lesson plans, insensitive co-teachers, the lot) we also get to worry about keeping our horrendously difficult and often thankless jobs.

The last week of school before winter break, Forrest Claypool busted out a Plan C to prevent all those layoffs we’ve been hearing about. Plan A was: get new revenue from the state to fill a $500 million dollar hole in our current operating budget. This does not appear to be forthcoming because of Rauner. Plan B was: Lay off a 1/5th of teachers and reprogram every classroom in the middle of the school year, which would be a shake-up so enormous I doubt any single layoff, mid-year, in any school district's history can compare. Plan C is a contract proposal that Claypool says would prevent cuts in this semester, but that the union says will ultimately mean a pay loss over the next 4 years with no end to the austerity, no additions to our job security, and no guarantees of preventing future mass lay-offs.

So what's a teacher to do? What should she think of her long-term job prospects? I've found myself making seafaring metaphors all the time lately, mostly ones about sinking ships and jumping ships and tips of the iceberg and fun stuff like that. Amidst all this gloom, Carol Marin, a journalist at Chicago Tonight, interviewed Claypool about his contract proposal right before winter break. Her last question for Claypool was truly surprising, and I think it caught Claypool, a smooth-talking, calm political operator, a bit off-guard. If you don't want to read my take, start at minute 11 of the video. She asked: "Why would...if you were a  lot younger and just starting on a career, would you consider becoming a Chicago Public School teacher?" Claypool (stunned, hesitating): "I would hope so... I mean, I think, there's no question, it's one of the few professions that we can all agree is one of the most important there is..." Marin: It is important, but you [teachers] live in a land of turmoil, uncertainty, and being fairly reviled from time to time. Claypool had to think of something to say at once innocuous but not too insincere, since he knows damn well that he'd never be a teacher. He's a CEO, and he was brought in by Emanuel to take the district down easy, like a beloved, but cancer-ridden dog. He knows damn well he'd never be a teacher, especially not one with such little prospect of maintaining a stable amount of pay, decent working conditions, and job security. But he eventually pulled a Jeb Bush maneuver, saying in his hokey, Jimmy-Stewart-esque way, that we teachers do "a damn great job." He never really answered the question, because he’s smart enough to realize how dumb he’d look saying “yes.” And then he fell into this finely laid trap, because there are only a few people crazy enough to stay on in these choppy, unforgiving seas.

[districtwideproblem]

The Exploding Eyeball and Other Tales

"Antonio" and "Rey" are the two biggest liars I have ever met. They both lie in a sort of confounding, preposterous way, such as denying knowledge of stolen goods found in their pockets, or inventing the deaths of persons whose continued existence can be easily established, or, in the case of Rey, doing both of these things several times per school year. Lying is one of the most difficult behaviors to address in someone, either adult or child. The point of a lie, of course, is to avoid reality. Some lies are little and are meant to soften the blow of rejection; some lies are less costly and easier for the teller to tell than the complicated truth; and then some lies, the ones people go to jail for and ruin relationships over, are ones that systematically prevent other people from seeing that you have done immoral, selfish, shitty things. And within this last category, many of these lies are accompanied by an extremely strong ability to shield even one's self from the truth. Catching a liar of this variety does not result in a glorious shadow-burning come-to-Jesus revelation; instead, it results in the crumbling of the ego that house of lies built. Indeed, it endangers the liar and makes them do crazy things. Antonio, I think, is one of these types of liars, and his many fictions are reaching Shakespearean levels of drama and farce. Antonio is a senior. He is tall with a wan smile. If I was pressed to describe his personality, which, come to think of it, I am once a year when I write his IEP, I would find it difficult except to say he is "nice." Antonio's only passions are basketball and girls: pretty normal stuff. Back in 9th grade when he was my student, he once wrote in his journal, "I wish my name was micheal (sic) cuz then id feel taller." Antonio routinely fails a class or two each year and spends a lot of time chasing girls two or three grades below him around the building. He used to come for me for help--asking if I'd stay after school to help him on a project, or to see if I could read a text aloud to him. But then the help he began asking of me was to lessen his workload: could I tell his teachers to relieve some of his missing assignments because he was "going through something"? Could I tell his social studies teacher he has text anxiety? Because he is a 'nice' kid, mild-mannered, never disrespectful, his teachers would agree to give him make-up tests, deadline extensions, after-school tutoring; but he never delivered. He went through the motions of a 25th hour effort to save his grade, but couldn't muster the follow through. Last year's IEP meeting was the first time I saw the venal sin of task avoidance begin to transform into a much more serious character defect. Mom, a no-nonsense Puerto Rican lady who works in a restaurant, always comes to his meetings carefully dressed up in heels and make-up. Dropping the last consonant of my last name in her thick-talking island way, she said, "Missus P---, he say he want help and all that, but what does he do? Nothing! He doesn't do nothing, and he don't realize he's not gonna graduate!" At this, Antonio snapped, and began to yell at the room full of women. "You say you want to help me, so help me! Stop picking on me!" This was his refrain throughout the meeting. He needed our "support," not our critiques. I began to see he was conflating doing anything that seemed hard with unfairness. That making suggestions on how to pass a class (get a planner! go to tutoring! ask questions!) felt like a character assassination. I was shocked and angry. Mom just looked at me like, what can I say? I tried to make a couple sports analogies about no pain, no gain, and other cliches, and he nodded along, not listening. It was about 4 weeks into the first quarter this year when I checked Antonio's grades. He was already failing 4 of 7 classes, one of which was Physics, which he'd already failed last year. I hunted him down to see what was up. "I'm going through something," he said. "Oh yeah, what?" He then unwinds the tale of his mother's exploding eyeball: he was at home on a Sunday; it was a cloudy day. His mom woke up and complained of eye pain. Later, she was crying tears of blood, trickles of red streaming down her face. She was crying and asked him what was happening to her. Then her eyeball seemed to explode. He called 911. She went to the hospital. She was still there. "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. What caused the issue?" "They don't know, maybe an infection." "Which hospital is she at?" "Rush." "How long is she in for?" "They don't know, maybe two weeks." "Who's making you dinner?" "No one, I eat it at the hospital. I go to class, go to basketball, go to the hospital, every day." "So you don't have groceries? Do you need milk, cereal, snacks?" "No, no, I'm fine though, don't worry." I was getting too specific. He looked uncomfortable, his body half turned away from me. I had to get to the bottom of the tale of the exploding eyeball. And so I called his mom to confirm the story. She didn't pick up. Then I called his sister, who sighed when I explained I was calling in regards to her little brother. "What's up?" she asked. "Okay, I'm going to say something, and please don't become worried, but, how is your mother?" "What do you mean? She's fine." "She's not in the hospital? Antonio told me--" "WHA?!" On the other end there was a furious flutter and she hung up the phone. I was afraid that I might cause a genuine panic. But within a few minutes, after discovering her mother was not in the hospital but just at work, she called me back. "Tony told you WHAT?!" she wanted to know every detail of his crazy story so she could take in the breadth of his depravity as a liar. “I’m gonna kick his ass,” she concluded, and probably did. I felt sorry for "Tony," but also glad that this time, the consequences would come from his family members, and that perhaps there would be a turning point in him making excuses for himself. Weeks go by, and I find it too hard to go talk to him about the lie. We see each other in the hallway, and Antonio is looking gaunt and a little sweaty, I think about approaching, but upon hearing the clack of my boots sneaking up on him, he always runs the other way. Really, an eyeball explosion: how could I not sniff that one out? But also, how had I not known how developmentally deficient Antonio must have always been, for him to believe that I, an adult, would believe the tale of the exploding eyeball?    Turns out that Antonio's story worked on a quite a few adults, so I guess I should be less shocked with him than I am with my peers. Antonio had told all of his teachers about his mother being in the hospital. No one thought it suspicious, or, if they did, they didn’t take any steps to ensure the story’s veracity. A few people (dare I say, suckers?), taking pity on him, had given him a D and excused some of his missing work. The eyeball story was a convenient way of completely derailing any conversation about Antonio’s academic shortcomings and to also curry sympathy. At the time I’d found out the truth, I hadn't wanted to send an email to all his teachers exposing him in his ridiculous lie. I thought it would come across as petty. I am but Antonio’s humble service provider, not his God, not judge, not executioner, not parent: I am not the one sent to show Antonio the way of the light. And yet his literal and figurative failures were still shamefully unaddressed, until... ...TO BE CONTINUED

[districtwideproblem]

Requesting a Divine (response to) Intervention: A Tale of “Ruva”

I'm a senior. A senior at teaching. The first class of children I taught, 9th graders in 2012, are now preparing to graduate in 2016! Like many seniors in high school, I have become sentimental and myopic about the importance of this journey. And yet I've spent little time writing about it. For a week or two I've been half-heartedly writing an epic multi-part post about CPS graduation rates. I've also been fake-writing a fake book, co-authored with a dear co-worker, called "The Other Teacher in the Room: Coping Strategies & Best Practices for dealing with your Gen Ed teacher." I'm particularly excited by the latter project, in which we thought we might lay out each chapter as an archetype of a Gen Ed teacher. Think: "The Control Freak." "The Old-School Incompetent." "The Megalomaniac." "The Loon," and so on.

And yet I'm moved to write tonight by a general feeling of hopelessness. The longer my career goes on, the more I find myself gravitating exclusively to special education teachers, because while there are many bizarros in our ranks, we seem to also understand how to respect children as individuals. The greatest teachers see their children with insight and compassion, and attempt to meet their students where they are, not where they imagine a kid should be. But so many idiots heading classrooms are up to the latter behavior, in which they shame students who are academically behind, talk mad shit about them to their co-workers, say insensitive things to the kid, and make a kid's life miserable because they have entirely lost sight of what the word "teaching" literally means. These idiots are typically general educators. This year more than other years I am encountering what I can only describe as intolerance towards disability. Specifically, the intolerance is targeted at a reading disability of one of my nearest and dearest former students, "Ruva." Ruva is a tiny little thing who is rule-abiding but incredibly bossy. If you say her name in vain, she'll tell you where to get off.  Ruva is a superstitious Catholic, an insulated Mexican, a product of a strict and loving single-parent household who has known more than her fair-share of hardship. I get little Ruva pretty well. She is like my family on my father's side, a bunch of hard-nosed immigrants who carried more holy cards in their wallets than they did currency, and for whom death and hard work were the only certainties of life. (Excuse the melodrama, I've had a beer.) Ruva has a pretty major comprehension disability, which she will tell you about without fear or shame if you ask her about it. "I read just fine," she says, "but it just goes whoop!" (she gestures that the information is flying right over her tiny head.) Indeed, her needs can be baffling even to a special ed teacher, who are more accustomed to students who have belabored fluency but good auditory comprehension. Ruva is just the opposite, with fine phonemic awareness but a true difficulty in assimilating information into knowledge or understanding.    Last year, Ruva was in “small classes,” ie all special-ed classes for her core courses. Due to her attentive nature, work ethic, and recall, she was the standard by which other students compared themselves. Her teachers, including me, celebrated her and encouraged her to advance into more rigorous classes. So we changed her schedule for sophomore year. Now a sophomore and less restricted, Ruva is driving all of her new, General Ed teachers absolutely bonkers. Because she asks questions, because she tells her teachers when she doesn't understand, because sometimes additional explanations do not work and it takes a little while for it all to click. These teachers then come to me, her unofficial life translator and school guardian, to ask me what the fuck to do. "She's so low," Ms. Dragone says in a dramatic manner when I run into her in the ladies room. "It's like, she doesn’t understand a thing I say!" Well, she is learning disabled, I remind Ms. Dragone, but she seems to have a disability towards understanding me and the sense i am making. 

A few days later, I hear some more feedback. "It's just like..." Mrs. Shalub thinks aloud to me, "she's not getting it, she's not going to get it, and I just don't want her to think she's smarter than she is by helping her get good grades on the assignments." Mrs. Shalub is a SPED teacher. This horrifying statement was her rationale for why she would not be spending any time after school helping Ruva, and she recommended I stop all my extra-curricular help as well. I've encouraged Ruva to seek out the special educators in her classrooms, some of whom feel disenfranchised by their megalomaniac/control freak/incompetent/loon of a co-teacher. Sometimes sped teachers need to be called upon by a child to stop being a passive presence in the room. She has done this, but with little success. As far as I can tell, no teachers help her. They assign her work and then don't explain how to do it. So she comes to tutoring, she comes to me, and we guess our way through a teacher's hopelessly vague and middling literature activity called "Inferencing with the Poseidonians." When Ruva comes back with an A on the worksheet, that A contains an asterisk. A literal asterisk. Ms. Dragone later tells her she didn't really get an A because she received so much help on it, and that she needed to start doing the work on her own. I am at a crossroads here with these idiots. Today's latest drama is with Ms. Dragone, who is making Ruva re-do a worksheet on indirect characterization that myself and 2 other teachers helped her on during tutoring. A cross between the archetype of “loon” and an “old school incompetent” variety of General Educator, Dragone says it was "wrong," without enlightening any of us to what would be right. Ruva is distraught and hates having to keep asking clarifying questions of her teachers; she hates feeling like she is a burden. But she also hates not knowing what to do, and would much rather do a full job completely wrong than half-ass anything. So, just so you understand, Ruva's teachers stance is this: she's infuriating because she has a disability, but asking for help isn't going to solve her problems either. It seems that everyone wants her to just camp out in her comprehension deficit, alone. No one to help break the information down into a more manageable size. No one to help her connect new material to things she's learned about or heard of before. No one to help her organize the information. THey want her to struggle alone, and any gains she makes are unearned, which they tell her out loud. But Ruva is still, miraculously, not discouraged. “They don’t know how to explain things,” she tells me. “So I come to people who can explain things.”  This is what drives me crazy about people who don't spend a lot of time with people who have disabilities. It's easy to forget what the struggle really feels like. Ms. Dragone and Mrs. Shalub, and probably all of Ruva's other teachers, are armed only with a completely unexamined feeling of frustration. They want Ruva to struggle through something and to remain silent about it, so that they don't have to think about it. They want her to remain silent about it because they also don't have any idea of what it feels like to be taking stabs in the dark, attempting to meet expectations, or more nobly, attempting to pursue an education and learn, but not really knowing how to. That is the curse of being both disabled and completely determined, as Ruva is. "Some day, she's not going to have you around to help her!" Ms. Dragone reminds me. This evil woman, who once attempted to procure my sympathy by complaining about her Chinese exchange student, who she described as "a real weirdo, all he does is hide in his room”, has latched on to the entirely useless idea that doing something independently and struggling through it is the only way to learn. I prostrate myself before Ruva’s most pastoral portrait of Jesus and request of Him that Ms. Dragone and her ilk to please excuse themselves from public education. The only aspect of education this woman seems interested in is in teaching Joycean epiphanies. Little Ruva and many others have now been introduced to the harshness and isolation that is life, and to the unfeeling idiocy many people prefer to genuine reflection. Amen. 

[districtwideproblem]

Between the World and My Students

Last school year, I struggled to present good curriculum materials about violence against black men to my students. Finding appropriate and rich texts is always a struggle for my readers, who have the world view of teenagers but the lexile of much younger kids. Most of what I use, I adapt--erasing sentences with too many clauses here, deleting 4-syllable words there, subtracting personages in the text to make a more streamlined narrative, etc. For the pious among you, please don't cry out that I'm dumbing things down. I leave all the strong bones when I adapt texts, but for the sake of economy, I must sometimes cut things out so we can do the hard work of understanding ideas. I only get 50 minutes of class time each day, there's a lot of kicking and screaming and giggling and attempts to derail my efforts in between--so if we are reading a text as it comes, we'll do a shorter amount of text. If we need to understand something long and complex and winding and fact-filled, we read one of my adapted texts. With all the violence in the news every week this past year, I struggled to find one reliable voice to present as a source to help them understand what was going on. It was too hard to introduce the sophisticated historical and current-event context of, say, a Jelani Cobb, and the easier-to-read news coverage was just too politically middling. I needed comment. I needed searing, deeply-felt analysis. I needed something first-person and emotional and I needed it now! I did Baldwin with kids my first year as a teacher. It didn't work out so good. His prose seems archaic to them, subjects cropping up organically in the middle of a sentence like one juicy berry on an incredibly long vine; his beautiful flowing modifiers placed in long lines of heart-felt confession or blurts of wink-wink cheekiness. The former was too difficult to follow the logic of, the latter too difficult to detect. It was too much for us. So he was out. This year, I tried another guy. He wrote about the reasons for a riot that broke out in a black area of a major city after a white police officer beat a young black man nearly to death. The year was 1943, and the author, Langston Hughes. That was okay, in that it showed the kids that this same shit just keeps repeating. Hughes terminology was out of date (A sampling of class conversation in regards to out-of-date words: "Can I say ‘negro’?” “No, you can’t say ‘negro,’ Negro!” etc.) and his feeling of solidarity for the common man was somewhat dubious (he is careful enough not to come outright and say it, but he distances himself from the poorest drunkard at the pool hall whom he claims populates certain parts of Harlem). Most of all, I needed someone still kicking. Someone who understood the paradox of hope embodied in a black president in a regime of segregated, unequal, racist America. I know it's thorny to look to one man and one book to be the representative of a cultural moment, but I know that's also how teachers use authors, especially in high school. We need a man with a face and a voice to help explain bigger ideas. After reading "Between the World and Me," I nominate Ta-Nehisi Coates as the torch-bearer of this most crucial topic.   Sure, the prose is hard, his references often obscure, but his voice is the NOW and he is speaking to his child--a kid my students' age. The grounding event all others circle around in the stream-of-consciousness style is the non-indictment of Michael Brown's killer--which was a redefining event to many of my students, as well. Coates wonders when his son, Samori, first felt the distance, the distance between the world and him, when the promise of being born free and equal crumbled, undone by a racist act. Many of my kids have childhoods similar to Coates'. They are so used to the distance that I think some accept it as a fact. I'm hoping, if I roll out some of this text the right way, they'll feel more understood when what is between them and the world is given a name. 

[districtwideproblem]

Signifiers for Disability in Pop Culture (or, I Just Watched a lot of “Murder, She Wrote”)

It’s summer and I'm in Maine. This means I spend my free-time watching Jessica Fletcher, played by the peerless Angela Lansbury, solve murders in the bucolic Casco Bay setting of “Murder, She Wrote.” The show was undoubtedly created with the elderly as its target audience. And it features some of the most sociopathic tone-deafness to murder I have ever seen in what passes for entertainment. At least nowadays, murder shows cue the strings or zoom in to the crow's feet on the grizzled detective's eyes to convey the seriousness of a crime. "Murder, She Wrote," in contrast, typically shows Jessica Fletcher come to plucky life upon the appearance of a corpse, widening her baby blues and hand-rubbing in anticipation. Anyway, I used to have a blog for regaling my readers with thoughts about pop culture (does a geriatric murder mystery count as pop?), and I do not intend to do a full run-down of my feelings unrelated to the topic of education. What I want to address is how an episode I just watched, entitled "Seal of the Confessional" deals with disability, or, to use terms closer to the show's own understanding, how "Murder, She Wrote" understands the affectionate problem of "the village idiot." 

Eddie is introduced to us ineptly flying a kite on a rocky beach in Maine. He is accompanied by an older, handsomer man who appears to be guiding him, though Eddie is at least 21. When his kite takes a nose-dive into Jessica Fletcher's book, Eddie scampers away in fear, making nonlinguistic grunts and snorts indicating his state of mind "You'll have to excuse Eddie," the handsomer man says to ole Jess, "he scares easily." Jessica laughs and says, "Of course, I know Eddie, I used to tutor him." Ding-ding-ding! We have a dumbo, we are meant to think. In her days as an English teacher, Jess had to take a little extra time for the world's worst kite flyer. We are meant to take special note of this Eddie, because later, Eddie is in possession of the murder weapon. "It was real dirty," he tells someone he dumbly presents it to, "But don't worry, because I washed it real good." The script here does two things to show us Eddie is retarded--one, he uses an adjective when he needed an adverb. Sin! Secondly, and more significantly, by explaining to someone he cleaned it, he bears witness to having done something correctly: he is reassuring someone of the proper procedure so as not to get in trouble. This seems to be a common way to signify someone is special--displaying an irrational reverence for routines--and inevitably, this leads to shenanigans, mice crushing, or at worst, crime. In a tale as old as time, Eddie is then arrested for the murder since the knife he has contains the victim’s blood. This idiotic turn of events forms the moral center of the show, as Jess makes it her mission to get the real killer to step forward. Everyone who discusses Eddie's arrest says the same thing: "I liked the boy, but it seems he did the killing!" Although all the characters (except Jess and her savvy) are convinced of his guilt, the savagery of stabbing someone does not change the nomenclature used to describe Eddie. He's a boy--not a man. Everyone giggles when Jess brings him more comic books. He throws himself into the bed crying when he is informed that he cannot go home. No one calls the “boy’s” parents, but whatever, we’re not here to talk logistics. Later, when Eddie is exonerated, he is still a boy, and not a full member of the community. Everyone is glad the nice boy gets to go home and not to an "institution, or worse, prison." The last shot of the show has Eddie catching a football on the beach with children 10 to 15 years his junior, while he fumbles into the waves, moaning, to catch it. He does, and everyone slaps him on the back. Case closed on this guy! Good thing for Jessica or he’d be another one of the 60% of prisoners who has a disability.  Anyway, this version of disability we shall call infantilzing. No one names it, no one looks at it head-on, but through some heavy-handed scripting and a rather committed physical performance by an actor, “Murder, She Wrote” shows us that some people just aren’t full people! The injustice of Eddie being accused of the murder wasn’t simply the falsehood of the accusation, but rather that Eddie was unable to understand what was happening to him. The show attempts to show that he is unable to advocate for himself and must rely on the charitable hearts of others to save him from his own stupidity. It wasn’t a rallying cry for self-advocacy, but a sentimental celebration of one small town’s big heart for a big ole dummie.  In a way, I prefer this wrong-headed, good-hearted approach to disability as it relates to crime.  The ways disability and criminality have lately been treated in True Detective 1 and the series P'tit Quinquin has been much more disturbing. Both of those series use disability as a source of the uncanny and inhuman, which is worse than the charitable but patronizing care Cabot Cove, Maine feels for its Eddies.  But that's for another blog post. Now I’m back to Murder, She Wrote, and will be sure to have many more up-to-the-minute relevant critiques of its treatment of important subjects. 

[districtwideproblem]

Against Noble Expansion: a partial list of many reasons

The Editorial Board of the Chicago Tribune, apparently, does not read its own reportage. Only one day after the newspaper reported that CPS was on the verge of running out of all of its money by June 30th, the board lamented that Noble Charter would not be allowed to open a school on the city’s north side, dubbing the charter “the best school that nobody wanted,” as though the reform school charter was the cutest puppy passed up at the pound.

There are a number of inflammatory, misleading, and naive statements within this rather short editorial--but nothing unsurprising from an editorial board that proudly proclaims it exists to ensure "minimum restriction of personal liberty, opportunity and enterprise," and that "believes in free markets, free will and freedom of expression. " Naturally, the Republicans over at the Tribune are fans of the charter movement, but with this editorial, the newspaper loses all credibility as anything other than a mouthpiece of a wealthy business class, encouraging charter expansion at a time when CPS is in dire financial straights. The Tribune supports Rauner, belt-tightening, and "balanced budgets" that lead to austerity--but at a moment when the nation's third largest school district can't pay the bills for its existing schools, the newspaper is calling for a new, privately-run, publicly-financed charter network to expand into a neighborhood that is well-served by its public neighborhood schools.

This editorial wouldn't have you know any of the reasons for opposition to Noble, however. It even refers to Noble as a "public school," which is a perversion of the terminology. Public, yes, in that Noble uses our tax dollars; public, no, in that Noble is privately operated and beholden to far fewer regulations when it comes to licensure of staff, ensuring every child has equal access to education, and using the Board of Ed discipline code, among other things. It is by now a norm for newspapers to refer to schools run by private corporations as charters and those run by the district as public--but the Tribune does otherwise to be purposefully misleading. "The North Side activists didn't want that school," the editorial says, "So they have an empty building instead of an award-winning school at 640 W. Irving Park Road." This either/or presented by the board seems so simple; why would these "north side activists" choose a lose/lose scenario such as this one?

We can find several answers to this in the Tribune's own archives of educational reporting. Noreen Ahmed-Ullah wrote last year one of the most detailed and thorough accounts available on the discipline practices of the network. In 2013, Noble suspended an average 23% of their student body, compared with CPS's 9% rate of suspension. Students at these schools are required to pay monetary fines for even small discipline infractions, such as an untucked shirt or being in possession of... cheetohs. (Fining students is illegal in public schools.) Demerits result in detentions, and a certain number of detentions results in a mandatory behavior-management class that also costs over $100. The vast majority of the student body is low-income, which has led some researchers and observers of the network to call these financial pressures on impoverished parents "predatory.” As of 2012, the Network had collected on average $150,000 in fines per year from its 89% low-income population. 

"So what?" you might think--if your kid can't get with the program, she can get gone! This is precisely what happens, it appears, up to 30% of the time. The graduating 12th grade class at Noble is typically 30% smaller than it was in 9th grade. A shockingly high number of students may have been expelled officially--between 2% and 5%, which is tens of times higher than CPS averages--but a much greater number leave or are pushed out because they are unable to adapt to the punitive discipline culture of the charter network. When students are kicked out or leave, they end up in neighborhood high schools.  

Michael Milkie, a former Chicago Public Schools teacher who founded and runs Noble Network, proudly noted in 2014 that he prefers the "broken-windows" approach to classroom management. This dubious 1980s criminology theory is the motivation for policing strategies around the country such as the infamously controversial "stop-and-frisk" in New York and Chicago. Others have written  better take-downs of this approach in the criminal justice system; in the classroom, the unrelenting crack-down on infractions that harm no one (dress code violations, possession of food) shows a vast indifference to the individuality of each child and celebration of the arbitrariness of rule-making and authority. It also is proportionally more punitive for minority boys, who are suspended and expelled more than any other group. As of April 2014, Milkie admittedly had not heard of Restorative Justice, an alternative philosophy lately embraced in CPS for its restorative re-teaching and accountability approach to dealing with harms done in school buildings; unlike fining students for misbehaviors, restorative justice is a philosophy, one that seeks to teach emotional skills to students by showing them how to be accountable for harm they’ve caused to a person or community. The rote behaviorism encouraged by fining students may help in the short-term in the same way spraying my dog with a water bottle so she gets off my bed is helpful; the system highlights behavior that is unacceptable without offering any meaningful rationale. 

Another, more general critique of charter expansion that is not simply Noble’s problem, but has been largely neglected in the conversation about why privatizing schools can be detrimental and not beneficial to neighborhoods, is that expansion of non-union schools destabilizes the micro-economies of neighborhoods. As many of us know in the schools, CPS funds schools on a per-student basis; a new charter inevitably sucks up kids from the nearby neighborhood schools, also siphoning off the funds that follow them, which leaves the public schools with fewer funds to work with. The public schools depopulate dramatically. Teachers are laid off. The students left in the buildings are more likely to have special needs or uninvolved parents, because those students aren't well-served by the demand for 100% compliance most charters require as a cornerstone to their school culture. In a few years, the public school's test scores plummet, Rahm or Arne or someone can declare it a failing school, and it gets closed. Union people, minority people, women people, middle class people (and combinations of all 4) lose their jobs in neighborhoods where they are the lynchpins of the community, while 22-year-olds who are overwhelmingly non-minority work toil for 12 hours a day at a nearby charter, all for half the price of a unionized public school teacher. These young white folk may only stay for a few years and probably are not from the community they are serving. The bottom line: charters destabilize communities of both students and the school's workers. This is why the north side didn't want them.

Instead of looking to boost charter enrollment and expand, Noble needs to re-examine its discipline policies to be more inclusive. If its goal is not to be inclusive of the student population--as Milkie hints in an editorial from last year, when he treats expulsion as a sad but inevitable outcome for unmanageable students who disrupt the learning environment--then his schools simply should not receive public tax dollars. Charters can do whatever they want, and I'll stop banging the drum about the many ways in which they destabilize a school district--if their coffers begin to reflect what they truly are: niche schools for a certain sub-set of the public. They are not public. And as such, they should not receive public dollars, especially at a time when the scarcity of those dollars means a doomsday scenario for many of Chicago's already existing schools

[districtwideproblem]

It's summer time! This means I have the mental energy for blogging again. In light of recent Chicago education-funding sagas, I had written a tome on everything wrong with Noble Network of charters. I then decided that though no outlets in Chicago publish detailed anti-charter screeds, ultimately I would just be preaching to the very tiny choir that is this blog. So I waited. Polishing my information up for a general audience would take many moons, so I waited some more on finishing it. Finally, I realized that the vitriol and passion I have for properly funding our existing public schools, though central to my working life and among the most important policies we could enact right now, is a rather dry subject for writing. Beating the drum for public education is for policy wonks, whereas in my spirit, I'm much more of a thinker than a soldier for one cause. I had this revelation while driving 18 hours cross-country with my dog and boyfriend. Sometimes it takes literal distance, this time one of 1000 miles, for me to overcome the cyclical thinking I practice at home. In the trenches with just 3 soldiers (these include my co-blogger/bff and my life partner/thought clarifier), it can sometimes be difficult to see the complications of the war on a grand scale. I get bogged down in the battle, and am swept up in its minute-to-minute score. One more leg blown off from a landmine in the Argonne does not a decisive victory make. (Which is to say, an explosive post about Noble does nothing for nobody.)

Part of my revelation was the result of listening to Dana Goldstein's "The Teacher Wars." This, more than any other recent book, has contextualized education reform in the history of American thought and policy about schools. Goldstein's central idea is that war on tenure, and efforts to maintain teaching as a second-class profession, is as old as the profession itself in the United States. My shit ain’t new. It still hurts, but it ain’t new.

Accordingly, I realized, is that in lieu of me banging the drum about policy, I need to return to the roots of this blog, which is to delve in the particulars of our teaching experiences. So that's what I'm going to spend my summer doing. This is more a call to action to myself than anything else. If you're out there, reading this, then I thank thee for seeing me motivate myself!

[districtwideproblem]

Hoop Dreams Deferred

Every year, my friends and family don't look forward to the unit in which some of my classes read a particular book. This is due to the fact that I hate this book, and I enumerate the many reasons I hate this book to my loved ones, outloud, all the time, for the entirety of the goddamn bullshittingly naive covert-neoliberal-ideology-peddling white-savior-complex-resurrecting MELODRAMATIC tripe that is The Freedom Writer's Diary.

My co-teacher selected the "text" for our 3rd quarter unit which is entitled "NOVEL." The unit title itself begs my first issue with this text: on the most basic of levels, The Freedom Writer's Diary is not a novel; it's an epistolary with hundreds of authors, all of whom are equally not responsible for its creation. Teaching "novel," with all the Bakhtinian bells and whistles, would be a challenging albeit rewarding way to spend a quarter; but instead, we won't even be teaching literary vocabulary. I can guarantee you that half of my students don't even know what the word "novel" means.

Next problem. The FWD was written by high school students. As a result, there's almost nothing to close-read. Similar to high schoolers themselves, the FWD lacks craft, intention, and nuance. The language, you might have guessed, is not sophisticated. In reading, we cannot ask ourselves why the diarist penned the word "killed" instead of "smoked," "obliterated," or "murdered," because on this occasion, the author was a 15 year old who was focusing much harder on being coherent than artful.  

Last but not least, the book as well as its movie adaptation support a completely unsustainable and naive narrative of what "great teaching" looks like. Ms. Gruwell, the inspiring teacher responsible for the FWD, is portrayed by Hillary Swank in the film version. To better support her students, Ms. G seeks out the patronage of a tech millionaire, who then financially supports and father-figures many of her students. Gruwell avowedly does not seek to change the system in which teachers have large class sizes and inadequate curriculum materials; instead, she uses her resources as a wealthy, well-connected person to get her kids what the school system cannot. Good for her, but how is that a model for other teachers? Finally, she acquires 2 additional jobs to be able to buy her kids books and supplies, and breaks up her marriage since she spends so little time tending to her domestic life. Contrary to the film's portrayal, this is not heroism--it's madness! Teaching should be a profession, not a martyrdom. And martyrdom, as we know, ends poorly: after just 4 years in the classroom, and with the same group of kids, no less, Ms. Gruwell quit the public high school scene and now teaches college. And that's why they call it churn and burn.

But before she left, Ms. Gruwell taught the children an important lesson. The kids who wrote the book, all of whom are low-income minority children who witness heinous violence every day, are taught over and over that believing in your dreams is enough to overcome generational poverty, racism, and the prison-industrial complex. The structural and systematic reasons that unemployment, poverty, segregation, and violence are pervasive in low-income, minority communities are mostly ignored. In a diary entry about "self reliance," one diary writer gives himself an "F" for his self-evaluation in class due to his excessive absences. He had been at home caring for his mother, who was dying of lupus. Ms. Gruwell tells him that the "F" stands for a "big fuck you." The boy then realizes that he cannot make "any excuses" for himself, and that nothing should stand in his path toward success. You know, because mom dying is just another excuse holding him back.

Worse still than the self-reliant "no excuses" culture is the blind eye FWD, despite its title, turns towards institutionalized racism. In Diary 15, a diarist mentions the film "Hoop Dreams." The film, he explained, showcases that idea that "if you believe in yourself, anything is possible," just like Ms. Gruwell says. Hoop Dreams is obviously one of the best, deepest documents we have about growing up poor and black. But the film is about the friction between the dream of basketball stardom and the tremendous obstacles faced by two impoverished CPS students with said dreams. As the title rap explains with real subtlety: "I'm just a young man with a dream/ but the streets continue to test me/ like a full court press, g!... and i will not let the hood destroy my dreams!"

William Gates, the more successful of the two boys the film follows, has a quieter, more deferential demeanor, helping his coach and the all-white community of St. Joseph's more easily accept him. Arthur, a shrewd young man whose skills skew point-guard superstar and not team-player, is determined to adjust to his environment even though he admits it's all very new. Ultimately, Arthur is pushed out and all but expelled in a humiliating fashion after he fails to live up to the athletic expectations; the white coach, observing Arthur with a distance one might a zoo animal, reflects that he is "reverting back to his environment" when he fails to meet the behavioral and academic expectations at the school. Culturally, he did not fit in at St. Joe's--he was too black. So he was kicked out.

Two years later, Arthur leads Marshall to the state championship. The question, then, was perhaps never one of ability, but one of discrimination; when Arthur did not immediately present his athletic worth, he was no longer considered a valuable investment of time, effort, or money for the power-house private school. This kid, who traveled 3 hours every day to an intimidatingly foreign environment, and who lived the exhausting life of a student-athlete, was only meaningful to St. Joe's as long as he proved himself to be the next Isiah Thomas. But when he wasn't, the school wasn't about to put up with a lower-than-average student who, GASP, talked in class. So it was never a question of drive, or whether this kid wanted it enough. He had the passion, as his actions and his family's testimonials show. But the school closed its doors to him, because sometimes dreams ain't enough, especially if you're black.

This is the lesson I want my children to learn. I don't want to crush their souls. But I want them to encounter and reflect on the systems that make racism possible. I want them to ask themselves how they can make a world where Arthur, regardless of whether he's good at basketball, would be treated as a valuable and important child. I want them to have dreams, and then to understand that dreams don't just manifest themselves through pure will; sometimes dreams shrivel and rot and sag if set out in the wrong conditions. Real dreams, like MLKs, require a social commitment, coalitions and movements, not just one white lady who has come to save the brown children from themselves with her millionaire pals and overachieving burn-out energy. And when that social commitment twinkles in their eye, that's when I know they'll have a chance at not watching their dreams explode.

[districtwideproblem]

David: Disability, Criminality, and the Road to Ruin

This year more than other years, I've felt the weight of my (admittedly, still rather meager) experience as a teacher.

I've had a few at-risk youths in my time; they come in all varieties, but today I am focusing on the most extreme at-risk child--the one who has already had run-ins with the criminal justice system, and who seems, at the tender age of 14 or 15, to have already hardened his heart to adult intervention, opting for criminality instead. Maybe it's because he only knows that path. But certainly he isn't familiar with others.

These youths are male. They come in every color. They put on a big show of walking in a particular way, cultivating a thug-life loop-de-loop of the hip rotator. They've got their headphones in and are damaging their ear drums with the dulcet tones of Englewood's latest, and they want you to know they're scary. When you say hi, they don't look at you or acknowledge you. When you ask them a question, they respond with an affectless "huh," forcing you to repeat your request patiently, even though they know damn well what you just said. (I've also tried, "You know dern well what I just said!" But that hasn't worked out so well.) They already know that every conceivable consequence in the building--a write-up, a request to stay after school, detention, a phone-call home, an essay examining their wrongs, suspension, whatever, is meaningless. They've called the ghost of authority on its bluff. These boys act as though they fear nothing, and maybe it's true. This performance of invincible masculinity--hard, unfeeling, unafraid--is rather convincing, and leaves me unable to know how deep the act goes. When I attempt to break down the fourth wall of machismo, these lads give me almost fucking nothing to work with. And so I take it day-by-day with them, making sure to never allow them to disrespect classmates, but allowing them other certain leeways (I don't exclaim at their tardiness, I don't correct them every time they say shit, etc.) so they don't bring the ceiling down around our ears. I've got one of these dudes this year. He's fine. He's not letting me help, but he's also not ruining my classroom. We have a truce. I think our relative peace is due to an early moment from this year, when I trumped his knowledge of Wu Tang in conversation, and also, I never kiss his ass like my co-teacher. I had one of these dudes my first year of teaching. On the very first day, I "Doug Lemoved him," as my co-blogger would say. I was taught to demand 100% compliance from 100% of my kids. This is pretty much the opposite of the mind-set a SPED teacher should bring to a classroom. But back then I just didn't know. I didn't know that behavior-disorder kids like these dudes test you in the first 20 seconds of meeting you, and if you pass, the hell they give you is relatively tame.

Anyway, like I said, I fucked up big-time when I met this one kid. We'll call him David. It was 7th period, my first day of school as a teacher, his first day of school as a high schooler. He arrived to my class late. Nearly swinging the door off its hinges, he jauntily stepped into the room while also loudly rapping. I was alarmed, so I did what any reform-taught cog would do-- I "strong-voiced" him, telling him to get in his assigned seat and to end his disruption. His response was "Damn, she's strict," and then kicked over a desk. Touche, young man! Touche. Doug Lemov doesn't know what to say to that. I called for security, and my AP showed up. David called him "a stupid motherfucker." That's all I remember. I wish I remembered the rest of that fateful class period, but like much of my first year, it's blacked out in a stress-hormone vacuum, mentally unavailable until I have dementia or a bad spell of nightmares. For the next school year, David and I, well, we had our run-ins. On many occasions I really thought he was a no-good son of a bitch. He rarely came to class, but when he did, he intimidated special kids by getting close to them and then pretending to lunge at them, which he would then laugh about and say he was "just playing,"; he interruped my instruction to regale us with tales of stealing cars, driving under the influence, rolling cocaine blunts, hitting his mom, etc. Once his ex-girlfriend waltzed by the classroom door and he bolted out the room after her; I attempted to stop him (another rookie mistake), and in the process got an open bottle of Gatorade--which was chucked at David's head--dumped on my own head. Class was in session when this occurred. The kids saw it all go down. With red droplets of sugar water rolling down my chin, I restarted my lesson by saying, to a room of shocked children, "The show must go on!"

At some point not long after the fight, though, he committed a crime and went to juvi for a while. I was relieved.

It was only after he returned, on probation with an ankle bracelet, that I saw some hope. He sometimes came to class, even on time. If this was the case, I offered him a "menu" of tasks he could choose from, instead of mandating his activities. It was a fucking pain in my ass; I had to do a bunch of extra planning, making up 5 different activities he might half-assedly consider for the few minutes he might grace us with his presence, but I figured it was worth it if he didn't excessively interrupt class or harangue the other kids. I bribed him with Takis. He started journaling occasionally. When he needed a character statement for the judge at the end of the probation, he asked me to write it. He was no miracle. I couldn't whole-heartedly paint a picture of a changed child, but I saw that he was considering reform. I also got to know his mom through phone calls, and discovered that her son was relatively high-functioning compared to her. I developed some sympathy.

That year our SPED department had an incompetent case manager, and David, who had been arrested in the building twice for assault and once for vandalism, was not kicked out as he should have been. All of the supports were provided that our building could muster--counseling, a behavior plan, incentives, a hallway-escort, meetings with mom and administrators--but still, he remained up to no good.

The next few years, he attended school sporadically. He was disruptive, but not like he was his Freshman year. He by that time realized that school and him didn't really go together. The last I saw of him was months ago, in the hallways, and I waved to him. My heart felt nothing, I didn't actually want to interact with him. He'd traumatized me and a lot of kids that year. Maybe he saw this on my face--my smile was strained, or perhaps not there at all. He looked at me but didn't wave. Recently, I found out he is being tried for premeditated, armed robbery as an adult, although he is only 17. He held a guy at knife-point with an accomplice, who had a firearm. I wasn't even surprised. My co-blogger said I should have Doug Lemoved him more--a dark joke about the inefficacy of behavior-management strategies with children as troubled as he was. I keep thinking about him locked up and waiting for a trial--and wonder if he is unafraid, if he feels invincible, or if he feels the shiver of doubt and fear that he struck in my own classroom. What, if any, interventions for him could have worked? And if he wasn't open to reform at 14 or 15, what could possibly work now, as he's most of the way down on his road to ruin? The only certainty is that prison--which is worse even than CPS in its inability to offer counseling, therapy, and genuine rehabilitation to the poor, disabled, and disadvantaged--ain't going to help none. Perhaps in prison, though, David will meet other Davids, as there are many many before him, and there are sure to be many after him as well.

-Ms. P

[districtwideproblem]

Color Lines in Class: Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and how my kids are dealing

Last week, the day after the non-indictment of the man who strangled Eric Garner, my rambunctious 2nd period had an organic conversation/vent session about the treatment of black people by the police. 

In circle, my touchy-feely twice-weekly group therapy session, I asked the kids, "What is the greatest injustice or challenge young people face today?" Some said bullying, others said gun violence in neighborhoods, others said drug abuse, and a few said police brutality. 

This got everyone talking. Some kids were outspoken. Ladale used a powerful metaphor by saying that police "think they can squash the black people like we are ants under a boot," and then called for Obama to take a stronger stance on police brutality. Nelson quietly listened, which pretty much never happens, and the girls, who I thought were silent due to boredom, later assured me they were listening, worrying, and thinking about the issues at hand; two of them have fathers who have been in jail. So from this well-spring of genuine engagement, I recognized a brief opportunity for my kids to some work in order to get their voices out there. We decided to make a rap song.

Other special education teachers will recognize the difficulty of writing a class song. Rhyming, for children with reading disabilities, can be an abstract concept. One has to practice many times in order to understand what constitutes a rhyme.  Furthermore, for 14 year olds with reading disabilities and without, staying on topic in writing can be extremely difficult, and rhyming and making sense at the same time is also pretty much impossible. And instead of being an awesome teacher and finding great songs to use as inspiration, practice testing out whether a word rhymes or not, providing samples, etc., I had us write 4 lines together as a class in a simple AABB rhyming stanza, and sent them off to do their own thing in 5 minutes. This is what people came up with:  By LaDale, a child who told me he didn't even know who Common was but totally sounds like Common:

no justice no peace black people are getting killed on these streets every day and night mike brown who died with a frown police expect people to bow down police its time to stop now people is dying now

By Nelson, who puts the anger in anger-management. He has an incredible handle on alliteration, though:

why do all our people get shot it happens every hour on the clock mike brown shot up on the block by police they can rot 

By Jose, who starts obtusely but ends up with a startling and apt image: 

all these cops are all up on offense but in reality its just all of us are on defense   his name is mike brown yeah he was killed, and now he’s wearing a crown 

By S, who is white girl: 

Michael Brown got shot he sorta  deserved what he got.

Now, what the fuck do I do about that last one? I knew S's older brother, and he was racist too. I know they hear this shit at home. I know my liberal mumbo jumbo, and even the powerful voices of her classmates, fall on deaf ears. But should I keep trying? What do I say?  On Monday, I plan to present her with a fact sheet on murders of unarmed African American men by police, and ask her to consider the other side of the story. Or perhaps I could create an elaborate role-playing scenario in which I cast her as the star, as someone who steals something from a convenient store with a friend on the way home from school, and later ends up dead, and see if the facts alone, divorced from race, alter her perspective on the issues. Having a diverse class is both a blessing and a curse. It makes me look at my own assumptions and biases. It makes me examine all sides of issues. However, on the issue of white police officers not being charged with crimes--with not even facing a jury--for killing unarmed black people--there are not two sides for me. There is only one side--justice, and the other side--racism. What I find troubling in myself is a lack of engagement with the racist children. On the one hand, this is perhaps the last time an authority figure will have the opportunity to expose a child to new ideas; on the other hand, I feel powerless to change a mind that I assume, like her brother's, is so wholly formed in the image of her parents at home.

And thus begins my own struggle with tolerance, the tolerance of children who, through pretty much circumstance and their families, have ideas I find deplorable.

Lord give me strength. 

-Ms. P

[districtwideproblem]

All the News Fit to Cry About (Or, when I finally lose my mind from grief)

A highlight reel of all the terrible things that have gone down in recent months: 

1. Karen falls seriously ill, announces she isn't running. Like most Chicagoans, I didn't realize how badly she was needed until she was no longer an option. A rich fantasy life I didn't even remember cultivating suddenly came apart--a city of glistening, well-maintained school buildings, happy, cared for children, equitable school funding, equitable mental health funding--POOF! Gone in the instant I heard the news. 

2. So then there's this guy. My work BFF Carlos says calling the progressive's new candidate by his folksy, homespun nickname of "Chuy" makes the guy sound like a joke, like he's Cheech and Chong's sidekick. Also, he had an Uncle Chuy, he confided, who died of penis cancer. I'm not as negative as Carlos, but it's true that Chuy does not have the same forceful Teutonic monosyllable affect as "Rahm." Furthermore, Mr. Garcia does not carry the name recognition or curry the loyalty of a Lewis or a Precwinkle. Can he run a professional campaign? Can he ride Lewis' momentum? He must work extra hard where others before him have failed.

3. And finally, it does not help that when I searched Chuy Garcia this morning, the first google image was of this actor, who is basically a poor-man's Edward James Olmos.

Which brings me to my next point. I have literally no problem electing Edward James Olmos to be the mayor of Chicago. He inspires low-income students to be high achievers:

He has engaged in important civil rights battles: 

And, most notably, is a gravelly, trustworthy, battered but not broken leader in the most trying of times. 

In conclusion, Edward James Olmos for mayor.   

-Ms. P

[districtwideproblem]

Broken Record File: Another Thing Wrong With Charters

The NYTIMES today published an article about three teachers-in-training at a California charter school chain as they suffer the trials and tribulations of a year-long apprenticeship program. The apprentices spend a year in a classroom with a mentor teacher while earning a masters over three years, and, unusually, a small stipend. This is different than a traditional Bachelor's degree teacher-training route as well as the woefully negligent Teach for America model, and seems to be one popular on all sides of the education aisle. Training a teacher through a year of hands-on practice, in tandem with an experienced mentor teacher and night classes in a content or grade-level area, has some promise. However, all of the teacher-training models I've heard of like this rarely seem to occur outside of the claustrophobic, kool-aid drinking confines of charter schools, turnaround corporations like AUSL, and other educational reform organizations. 

The teachers-in-training showcased in the article experienced tears and doubts, as we all do, but my favorite guy was the one puffed up on his ivy-league hubris.  The Darmouth grad "...was assigned to teach 10th graders biology as well as 12th-grade anatomy and physiology, a subject he had never personally studied but figured he could master. After all, he had learned Arabic in college..."

I'll let that one hang in the air. 

One of the many ways charters do the kids wrong is by having non-experts winging it in front of them in the classroom. Though each state is different, in Illinois, charter schools are required to have 51% of their staff certified (certified as in having the legal licensure necessary to teach in public schools). The other 49% can be, ya know, whoevz. And of that 51%, none are required to teach the subject area they are certified in.  

What that means is Mr. Arabic is teaching physics.

A new gal-pal at my school, who I'll call Ms. J, came to my neighborhood school after being used and abused for four years at a Chicago charter chain. What was the straw that broke her back? I asked. Apparently, she had been asked to teach Spanish for this upcoming school year.

She does not speak Spanish, nor has she ever had any training in the practice of teaching a foreign language. She presented her concerns to her administration, who told her "she'd figure it out." As a secondary ed major with a math concentration, Ms. J now happily and proudly teaches high school students math, as she was trained to do. EVERYBODY WINS.  

When reform schools put unprepared teachers in front of the classrooms, those teachers are unsuccessful and the children do not learn. When teachers feel unprepared, those teachers quit. This causes instability and high attrition and staff turn-over rates, all of which is bad for the kiddos and the school. EVERYBODY LOSES. 

This is why certain regulations, of class-size, say, and licensure laws, should exist. Charters were supposed to exist in a legally-flexible zone in order to provide interesting, student-serving pedagogy and practice, but instead have become law-shirking inferior learning environments that tremendously hurt teachers, and in turn, the kids. Union matters matter for education policy.

As Karen says, teacher's working conditions are our student's learning conditions. 

-ms p

[districtwideproblem]

Blaming Poor People for Poverty is Free: Character Reform and "The Culture of Poverty"

In my favorite magazine of "culture and polemic," where, indeed, one can count on reading passionate, if didactic, preachings to the choir about topics such as inequality, environmental issues, and neoliberal economic reform, two NYU grad students have published a grand thesis to end the condemnation of poverty as a moral disease. 

The article, entitled, "The Poverty of Culture," spoke to me on many levels, primarily because it helped me clarify my own thesis about some of the nefarious social-emotional reforms present in reform schools. Many charter organizations and reform school cultures have modeled their discipline policies and philosophies on the idea that poor children must acquire the attributes of "grit" and "delayed gratification" and other traits to get themselves out of poverty and successfully persevere through school. A legion of pseudo-intellectuals dabbling in social science, neuroscience, and anthropology have proscribed as much in policy-framework tomes, like the book "Grit" or the tiger-mom books. Nevermind that these philosophies have not been proven effective. There's a reason that culture-blaming is so common, the article explains:

"[B]elief in a black culture of poverty has become so entrenched that it is accepted without question for the most part. The prevalence of those assumptions are inseparable from the dominance of a politics that rejects structural solutions for the social disparities and entrenched discrimination facing African Americans, in favor of an emphasis on community self-help and personal responsibility."

Structural solutions = money. But blaming poor communities for their problems, and telling them to fix their culture is...free! 

As I've preached to this choir before, this type of character reform requires no investment in something tangible, like social workers or more teachers for smaller classrooms (two things that actually are proven to improve school-going lives of kids). If the child does not get with the school's program of "no excuses" and "high expectations," they can be expelled. A word I recently saw used to justify the high expulsion and attrition rates at charters is "curate"--these schools want to "curate" a culture of high-achievement, which means kicking out those who struggle with behavioral or academic expectations. Those kids then end up in public school classroom's like mine, destabilized and with lower self-esteem.

The "Poverty of Culture" looks at not just the prevailing cultural critique and barely-veiled racism of the Right when discussing social problems in poor communities, but also at how liberals adopt the moral-disease approach to poverty, as noted here:

"...[E]ven sympathetic observers tend to interpret concerns about deprivation and social disorganization through the prism of cultural or psychological damage." ... "The importance of the culture-of-poverty approach is that it allows for recognition of the accumulated history of racism and inequality, but posits the ongoing effects of these as mediated through black cultural pathologies. It therefore permits American liberals to identify with opposition to racism while pushing them towards policy solutions geared towards the transformation of black people, and not American society."

The education reformers are pushing for the transformation of their low-income students. Charters and TNTP and TFA use humanitarian language when discussing the type of education they provide; they want to abolish the "achievement gap" as a moral goal, to "level the playing-field" for all children. This language is only used in application for children in low-income schools; it is not the character education to be found in private or public schools for children in higher property-tax bracket areas, who, instead of learning grit, are more likely to be encouraged to experience student-guided learning, exploration of their passions and interests, and be provided with the tools and resources to do as much.

The language and tactics of the reformers in poor areas is like a civilizing white-man's burden mission to Christianize ignorant pagan hordes. Similar to a colonial mission, reform school's character education appears to be at the heart, but the long game is actually an economic one--to dismantle public education and create an education "market place" in which money is made off of building leases and curriculum contracts and teacher's backs with union-busting.

There is no silver bullet for fixing the many prongs of poverty--low literacy rates, mass incarceration, segregation, a lack of access to healthy food, a lack of access to institutions for public health--but free reforms--like telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and then kicking them out of school if they don't--are a judgmental, condescending, and cheap way to go about improving the lives of the 1/5th of American children who live in poverty. We need to regard poverty as an American problem, not a moral problem. Good social policy requires real money on new and better institutions of health, learning, and housing. Were the reformers to put money where their mouth is, perhaps then we could have a productive conversation about which reforms actually work, instead of touting racist, victim-blaming ones that clearly don't. 

-ms p

[districtwideproblem]

Lumpus Relunctatus

There's a word my dear co-blogger came up with to describe a very specific kind of student. He's a big guy for his age, he moves through space slowly, he might still be wearing his gym clothes because he didn't have time to change out of them. Other kids don't know what to make of him, because he is tempestuous and he comes off as odd, even eccentric. He has passionate interests as well as aversions, and when confronted with an aversion, he recoils, flares his nostrils, and possibly grunts. His language is one of refusal: "Uh uh!" "I won't." "I'm not about to do that." It takes him a long time to begin a task, by what has appeared to me as an almost cosmic or primordial inertia, a force holding him back. He is the curmudgeonliest of curmudgeons, and doesn't care what you or anyone else thinks about it. He is a "lumpus." 

My lumpus this year is the one who helped us even form the idea of a lumpus to begin with. Co-blogger and I taught this lumpus in summer schools a few years back, and neither of us ever dreamed of seeing his Eeyor face ever again. But he's in my room this year, lumpus-ing it up.  Every day is a battle. He doesn't begin activities with the rest of us, and he hates my singing and my little voices. In class last week, out of genuine discomfort and not an attempt at disrespect, he muttered, "Can you PLEASE stop singing? All class she's just singing!"

The other students in class, who, I shall now brag, adore me, collectively gasped in horror. They thought I might yell at him, or lay down the law, or something. Instead I sang back that I was never gonna stop, and he sighed, and put his saggy face in his enormously long hands, and collapsed on to the desk.

I try to win him through food. I let him eat chips even though I teach in a computer lab, as long as he picks up all his little crumbs. I brought the whole class cookies the other day in recognition of their extraordinary work ethics. Then his bookbag strap broke. He asked me if I could fix it. Sweet, that--he saw me as a maternal figure, someone who could make things right. I told him I'd need a sewing machine, which I don't have, and asked if he wanted me to look around my house for an old book bag I could give him. He accepted. See, I would normally call mom, and say, hey, lumpus needs a bookbag. But mom has never returned my 5 phone calls, and she hasn't returned the school's phone calls either. She works at night. Lumpus is alone all night, every night. Lumpus is odd because he lives in a world entirely formed by his own lumpusness, at home with himself.  (Let that tear roll down, sister, because I already have.)

I brought him an old book bag yesterday, one I've brought on a trip to Paris with me and a trip to New York. I said, "It might be a little used, but it means a lot to me. It's traveled the world--New York, France." He stopped me there, and instead of saying thanks or accepting the bag, his normally tired, husky voice took on a note of moral outrage, like I'd been hiding something: "When you gonna tell us about France? Why haven't you told us about France?" Ah, lumpuses. Always fixating on minor or unimportant details. But he accepted the bag, and I know it will have a few more adventures with this Lumpus.