The End

I am sitting in the library right now, and there are a bunch of kids here doing their last round of easy CBM testing.  I just looked across the room at a girl with light brown skin and lots of pimples who is staring absently at the dull glow of the computer monitor, and she sort of looks like one of those kids from the scene in Ferris Bueler’s Day Off, listening to boring old Ben Stein lecture about voodoo economics.  She looked extremely bored.  Mrs. Regan, the art teacher, is yelling at the kids to get started on their testing.  I just witnessed her blowing up at the office aid on the phone because the office aid (who is a seventh grader in one of my classes) had failed to send the all-page to the entire school pulling the 30 or so kids out of their regular scheduled classes (last two days, I might add) to go finish their last round of tests.

A boy in the class was having trouble logging on to the website, so he kept moving from machine to machine, trying to find one that worked.  He was getting frustrated, and he was expressing that frustration to the people around him.  This made Mrs. Regan angry.  She asked him twice to stop talking and login, but she wasn’t able to sit with him and help him because she had 28 other kids she was trying to get logged in--and silent.  At one point she swung around and snapped at him:

“If I have to send you to the office, you will be sent home.  This is testing and you have to take it seriously.”

At that point I knew the child wouldn’t last long.  Mrs. Regan was mad about something else before the kids even got there, but this child, who was having technical difficulties--and who knows what had happened to him before he came into the room--would be the recipient of whatever anger she was experiencing.

He clicked on the wrong name, and got booted out of the system.  In frustration he half-heartedly slammed his mouse down on the table, at which point Mrs. Regan threw him out.  The child was (perhaps understandably) upset, and talked back, and got angry, and said: “Are you kidding me, how do I get in trouble for clicking on the wrong name?”

And she said: “It’s not that, it’s your mouth.”

And as he stormed out, he said: “Goddamnit.”

And just like that the child was gone.  And as a result the child will not be able to meet the state mandated testing benchmark and will not be allowed to go on the end of the school trip.  I do not know what will happen as a result of his not meeting the benchmark.

**

I have learned a lot during my time here at Edison.  I have seen miraculous children do miraculous things.  I have seen cruelty the likes of which I never saw at the small independent school where I taught--and where I will be teaching again next year.  I have sat in a staff room and listened to teachers griping about students in the most stereotypical way possible.  I have seen truly terrible teaching.  I have seen truly inspired counseling.  I have felt the frustration of having too many children in a room at one time, and, from time to time, I have been amazed at how, even in such overcrowded, humiliating conditions, the kids can say and do and think such interesting, surprising things.

I spent a few minutes at lunch today with a student named Brian, who is perhaps the neediest child I have ever worked with.  Brian is stick figure thin, regularly has drawings and doodles scribble all over his arms, and, I suspect, goes hungry most days.  (I have stood next to him and heard his stomach growling.)  He wanted me to show him how to use google earth because he really wanted to look at pictures of his old house in Pennsylvania.  So I spent a few minutes with him at lunch, and he zoomed in and showed me the road he used to live on, and he told me the story of everyone who lived in his old neighborhood, the old lady who planted a garden and the woods where he and his brother’s used to hunt squirrels and the how he had a girlfriend who lived up the road, and how much he missed the little river (he doesn’t know the word “creek” but he has had a girlfriend and knows the bitterness of transcontinental dislocation!) that ran through the woods behind his house.  And I was so glad to have been able to help him see, through google orbiting spy eyes, the familiar road and the roof of his old loved house.

I do not watch the news, nor do I read the paper.  From time to time, when I do read “articles” about education, I hear this shrill outcry from all across the education spectrum, that standards are too low or two high, that kids are too coddled or not coddled enough, that teachers are too strict or too permissive, that there are too many tests or not enough.  And of course depending on the day all of those statements are true--but they are also irrelevant.  I had great moments during my time here at “Edison”; I think the time I spent today with Brian was one of those moments--and I a few others come to mind.  Schools based on population control and on standardization cannot, by definition, produce many such moments.  And as a result the lives of both children and adults are lessened.

I hesitate to say much more about the “problems” of education as I saw them play out here.  The two most essential difficulties of teaching here were numerical and cultural; there were two many kids, and the teaching culture was rigid and teacher-centered.  I will miss these kids--and a few of the adults.  I hope to remember as many of the human moments I had as possible--though I know that even their names will start to slip out of my brain pretty soon.  And for these kids’ sake I hope this school district gets its act together and hires more teachers.  A mediocre teacher with 25 students will do much, much more than the most gifted teacher will do with 40.

From “Edison” Middle school, this is Gil, signing off.

Expulsions

So yesterday was an exciting day here at “Edison.”  I was sitting in the library reading student work, when all of a sudden I heard a long, high-pitched whistle.  At first I thought it was a child doing that screech whistle that I don’t know how to do, but then I realized it was far too long for that, and the pitch was off, and then I realized that was I was hearing was, in fact, a fire work.  I turned around and behind me, just off the main, second floor hallways, smoke was pouring out of the girl’s bathroom.  A steady stream of excited children poked their heads in and out of the bathroom.  When I arrived on the scene, many of the children scattered.  I saw three girls go into the bathroom, two of whom were my students.
    I asked one of them if everyone was okay, and she said yes, and then the other came out of the bathroom (I was still in the hallway) holding the burnt stub of the now dormant roman candle.  I grabbed a few of the students who were milling about and asked them what they saw, but they all clammed up pretty quick.  Then Alice (the assistant principle) and Mrs. P (the guidance counselor arrived) and started grilling the children.  Pretty soon we had a name of a possible suspect (an eighth grade girl), and within a few more minutes we (well, Alice, really, with me and Mrs. P as witness) had the girl’s locker open and had found in her bag a lighter and a small, foldable knife.
    It seemed unlikely to me that, in the mayhem that followed the firework going off (it was maybe 15 or 20 second after it was lit that I was on the scene), the suspect (notice how I’m talking like a cop) had returned to her locker to hide her lighter in her bag.  We began to suspect that the alleged firework igniter had an accomplice.  Alice took the bag with its nefarious contents and went to pull the student out of class to see if she could get the perp to flip on her co-conspirator.
    I went into Mrs. P’s office to identify from the “facebook” (literally a book with pictures of all faces of the students) the third student I saw in the bathroom, who I didn’t know; all I remembered was that she was latina and was wearing a pink shirt.  I realized pretty quickly that I am a terrible eye-witness.  Though I saw two students who I thought might have been the third witness, I couldn’t saw for sure; then I became paralyzed by the fear that I was merely racially profiling the children (which, of course, I was and began to suspect my own identification).  The third witness was never identified.
    However Alice did succeed in getting our primary suspect to roll-over on her accomplice.  They opened her locker (another eighth grade girl) and found a bag of dope, a pipe, and several more lighters.
    Both of the girls were immediately suspended, pending an expulsion hearing. 
    When I walked out through the main office later on, I saw both of them sequestered in the nurse’s office, weeping profusely.  Then they both went white when they saw a uniformed police officer enter the office.  That was the point at which I walked out into a strangely glorious afternoon.
   
    I am deeply skeptical of zero-tolerance policies, and I doubt the value (for the “perps”) of expulsion in most cases.  In this case the firework caused no damage--though of course there was the potential to have caused a lot of damage, either by fire or by setting off the sprinklers--and I have to say I do wonder why the sprinklers didn’t go off, given the volume of smoke, but I suppose they need to be triggered by smoke and heat.  The real damage the firework caused was that it put the school administrators on the trail to finding these girl’s drugs.  This whole episode seems like a pretty obvious example of why we don’t charge children with adult crimes--because they are pretty much incapable of thinking through the consequences of their actions.  I am not going to sit here and excuse these girl’s behavior.  What they did was dangerous and dumb--and doubly dumb for not considering that, on a day when you drugs in your lockers, it might not be all that bright to set off fireworks in the girl’s bathrooms.
    Truthfully I have found the whole episode hilarious--except when I start to think about those two girls, sitting at home, terrified about their fates and what will become of them.  And maybe through that they will learn something about cause and effect, about choice and consequence.  I just hope that the consequences of this dumb choice won’t stick with them for too long.

A Misunderstanding

So my sixth graders are working on writing their own Choose Your Own Adventure stories; as a kind of warm-up activity to this project, I gave them the story of Little Red Riding Hood and asked them to write two different endings to it.  The first ending had one rule: they could only use characters or objects that had already appeared in the story.  I put this rule in place because I knew that if I didn't I would get quiet a few stories in which Little Red Riding Hood was spontaneously rescued by a gang of unicorn who shot jellybeans out of their ears--or asses. 

The second ending had no rules, except that I encouraged them to make their endings as logical or reasonable as possible.  They kind of chuckled at me when I said that. 

In one student's version of the story, the wolf gobbles Granny up, but LRRH witnesses the devouring and paints a bomb red to look like an apple.  When she arrives at the house later (?), she feeds the apple to the wolf, who explodes after a 10-second delay. She and the woodcutters and Granny (who mysteriously survives the blast) eat barbecued wolf-guts all afternoon.

In another student's version of the story, LRRH falls through the floor and into the basement, where she hops onto the back of a squirrel.  She rides the squirrel out of the house and then across an ocean to Japan.  In Japan the squirrel is bitten by a zombie squirrel, who bites LRRH, who becomes Zombie Red Riding Hood; ZRRH then rides the squirrel to China, where they convert the entire population of China into Zombies.  The Chinese zombies then come to Granny's house and eat the wolf.

Does my rule for version 1 make sense yet?

In another student's story LRRH witnesses the consumption of her Granny.  She then seeks revenge on the wolf by tormenting the wolf, taunting the wolf viciously and calling the wolf a series of horrible names.  During the child's reading of the story, I heard him say that LRRH called the wolf "fag", among other horrible names.  By the end of the story, the wolf was so distraught by her verbal torment that he hanged himself.  Wracked with guilt over seeing the wolf (and her granny) dead, LRRH puts a desert eagle .45 caliber pistol under her chin and blows her brains out.

I waited for the noise in the room to die down.  Then I said: "I had a really strong negative reaction to one word in the story, Martin.  Do you know which word it was?"

He looked at me, confused.  "Suicide?"

"No."

"Uh...noose?"

"No."

Really confused he said: "I have no idea."

"Fag.  LRRH calls the wolf 'fag' in your story."

Martin looked down at his paper to confirm what he already knew, but needed to see for himself: I had misheard him.  "Fat," Martin said.  "She calls him fat."

The whole room, myself included, let out a kind of nervous half-laugh half-sigh.

I smiled at Martin, who I could tell was worried that he was in trouble with me.  "Do you know what we just had, Martin?"

He smiled, sensing he was out of the metaphorical woods: "A misunderstanding."

When I "heard" him read that word, a whole host of things ran through my head.  My first impulse, which, thankfully, I didn't act upon, was to stop the reading and smack him down righteously for being a hateful, horrible bigot.  Then as the story went on I realized that, looked at one way, this story is a kind of inverted bully story, in which LRRH torments her tormentor, and then finds herself racked with guilt after doing it.  It could have been a powerful parable about cruelty, and maybe the word "fag" was even appropriate in that context, given the realities of homo-phobic bullying.

And then, when it became clear that we had a misunderstanding, I was really glad that I had waited and listened and then calmly shared my reaction--because in doing so I was able to send the same message (that those words are really problematic and probably not for use in school) without damaging the relationship with the child.  I was also able to model humility and mutual respect.

Of course later on in class I had to metaphorically body-slam a few kids for tossing around the word "asian"--but I think the earlier misunderstanding, and the understanding that it created, actually helped me to address the stereotypes several of my (white) students were trafficking in.

It was a real Monday in the trenches.

Confession: I do not like one of my students.

So I am one of those teachers who believes in having hope for every one of my students; I believe it is my duty as an educator to look past the layers of anger and insecurity, past the defiance and the distractibility, past the apathy and sociopathology, to look past all the noise and irritation and see the bright glimmering spirit of each of my students, brimming with life and humanity and creativity.  This belief--this attitude towards my students--is a pretty powerful force; it enables me to not take personally when my students have bad days and say or do things that are hurtful or stupid; it enables me to be profoundly positive and not fall into--or allow them to fall into--the traps of negativity; it enables me, above all, to go home believing that the work I do is meaningful and that each of my children has a chance to learn something from my sweat and energy.

But this belief also comes at a cost.  There is no polite way to say this.  I do not like one of my students.  I do not dislike this young man  because he never follows instructions or because he could care less about the writing prompts I give him or because he would rather talk to his friends; he does all of those things, but so do many of his peers and I still like all of them.  I do not like this child because he is mean; he is mean to many of his classmates (I have seen him quietly torture a smaller, weaker boy by throwing small wads of paper at him and he regularly says hurtful things to two girls who sit near him); he is also mean to my colleagues and to me, but, honestly, I can almost understand why a young man would feel compelled to be mean to an adult in this place.  The adults are so regularly mean to the students that meanness in response is, on some level, a sane response.  It's the preying on the weaker children that makes me dislike him so.

He is a bully.  And there is some part of me, deep down, that believes bullies should be punished for their sins, that they are somehow less deserving of my love and care and attention; but because he is such a pain in the ass, he ends up getting more of my attention than other kids in the classroom, and I resent him very deeply for that.

I also know that he has a very unhappy home life.  He doesn't get the love and attention he needs or wants and (maybe) deserves, and there is a (gradually diminishing) part of me that wants to look past all the bad behavior I see and try to understand this child in pain.  But that is very hard to do because mostly what I see is a child causing pain to other children and, at the same time, making it hard for other children in my care to learn.

All of this leaves me feeling, at the end of the day, a little dirty, like I have somehow become one of the teacher drones I see around me, griping ceaselessly about the "little monsters" and making lists of kids who aren't deserving of the privilege of going on a school trip--who aren't deserving of our love.  If I believe that they all deserve our care and attention and love, what do I do with all this resentment and anger I feel towards this young man?

I suppose the first step is to merely accept the reality of my feeling: I do not like this young man.

But I will continue to teach him as best I can, to care for him as best I can, to treat him with fairness and dignity as best as I can, and when I see him tormenting his peers, I will respond as quickly and as even-handedly as I can, because those students--all my students--deserve no less from me than I will give to him, the one I do not like and cannot name.

Substance Abuse

So for the last week or so, I've been "teaching" this substance abuse curriculum that I didn't write.  Laura, my hard-hearted and often forgetful cooperating teacher, forgot to do it earlier this year, and since the school received grant money in exchange for agreeing to do it, I had to do it. 

The program itself is everything that I hate about the "corporatization" of the classroom.  First and perhaps foremost is the pre-packaged, "teacher-proof" curriculum.  The manual comes with these ridiculously specific instructions; if I actually followed them, I would be standing at the front of the room merely reading out of the manual for much of the class time.  It also comes with a checklists of "materials to photocopy" at the beginning of each lesson (there are eight lessons), but of course the manual itself says on every page: "this is copyrighted material; do not photocopy." 

Then there's the tone of the materials themselves--cutesy and condescending.  The handouts for the kids all have this ridiculous clip-art on it; and then there are materials that are supposed to be sent home (for the "home-team," the term the program uses for the student's family.  Some of the information on these materials is probably worthwhile, but I suspect that many parents would catch a quick whiff of the condescension and immediately stop reading.  I hand the paper to my students every day, as I am sort of required to do, and I haven't bad-mouthed or under-cut it so far, but most of the "home-team" materials end up in the recycle bin outside of my classroom (at least they're recycling).

There is one redeeming part of the program.  The curriculum revolves around these audio recordings of four seventh graders who all face different alcohol abuse related dilemmas.  And though the message of these recording is pretty obvious, I was actually impressed by the authenticity of the stories the kids told and the way they talk about their lives and experiences.

Like the other day one of the "virtual classmates" (right? like who is going to fall for that?) was worried that if she drank at a party people would think "all kinds of things about her."  So we ended up having this conversation about the different stereotypes we have for different genders as they relate to alcohol.  And one male student brought up the word "slut" and how people think that girls who drink are "sluts".  And so then we started talking about the word "slut" and that kind of led into a discussion about gender-roles and double-standards; and the kids were really engaged, and I was really interested in what they had to say about the pressures they feel as young men and women.

And today we were looking at different advertisements for alcohol, examining the ways that ads prey on gendered-insecurities, and they were so excited about the conversation that a few of them were literally falling out of their seats (I had to squash that a little), and then they started asking questions about how addiction works on the brain and what "alcohol withdrawal" is and what "alcoholism" is.  And there were moments when the class seemed on the edge of falling out of control, but it was a loss of control (on their part) due to a deep immersion in the subject.

I had a few moments today when I actually stopped class and said: "it's moments like this when I just have to stop and acknowledge how much I love my job."

And so I am partially grateful to the patronizing corporation that made the mediocre materials which allowed me to have some really interesting and engaging conversations with my seventh graders for the last few days.

"He's a do nothing."

I was sitting at my desk this morning in "my" classroom preparing for the day.  There was a meeting going on of the 7th grade teachers in the room.  They were planning a field trip to a ropes course, a kind of final bonding experience for the group.  They started talking about logistics, getting chaperones and permission slips and buses and the like.  And then they started talking about all of the kids that they didn't want to "deal with" on the trip.  They then began making a list of all the children who shouldn't be allowed to go.  As I sit here trying to prepare meaningful exercises for the very children these adults are thinking about excluding, I am immediately struck by the smug superiority of these adults.  And then I catch myself feeling smugly superior to these adults sitting in judgement of these children.  And then I started feeling pretty hopeless about the whole prospect of education, if this is how adults talk about children when the children aren't around.

A few words, overheard.  If any of you ever hear me talking about children this way, please tell me to retire.

"I don't usually look at my girls in terms of behavior, but I probably should."

"So and so is just so obnoxious."

"So and so is a problem, but I really think she's just incapable."

"Mostly I just want those guys excluded who have made their career ruining classes."

"So and so is just a little pain in the butt."

"We should look at the kids who have just occupied space and keep them from going on the field trip."

"I think we should just fail them all.   Make them repeat the class next year."

Someone Is Watching...

So I've been having my students writing about their experiences at school.  One of my most disengaged students (who has missed my class quite a bit) told me that he didn't want to write about school and that he was really mad because he kept getting stuck in "ISS".  I had not idea what ISS was, so I asked him about it, and he started telling me all about it.  I asked him to stop, for a moment, and quickly write down everything he knew about ISS.  He looked at me like I was crazy.  "Seriously," he said.

"Seriously," I replied.  "Your essay is going to be about ISS.  Write a letter to our alien friend explaining what ISS is and then you're done."

Here's what he wrote.

    My teacher told me to tell you about ISS. First of all ISS stands for "in school suspension". It's for if you do something bad or if your late for class... In the morning the prinsiple "witch is the head of the school" will call you down to the office. When you get there they will search you for your phone ipod or any electronics that you have. then they have a box with wood wall thats about 4ft wide with a camera above it so the prinsiple can watch you. And when your in it the teachers will bring you work from your classes to work on. Then at the end of the day the teachers will let you out and you can go home.

I understand from Laura that these 8 sentences represent the most that this child has ever written in one sitting.  As I see it, it contains all of the essential components of a narrative--a beginning, a middle and an end.  And it has some intriguing details--the frisking and the surveillance apparatus.

To be frank, I found this child's tale of ISS a little terrifying.  I wonder what is really in that box and if it is a camera is the principal really watching?  And if he is, what does he want to see?  Or not want to see?  And then I wonder about the purpose of locking a child in a surveiled room for a day.  What is the child learning from this?

This child is learning that someone is watching.

"I wanna join the marines"

So I was just sitting in the library trying to get work done (writing a scoring rubric for the 80 essays I have to grade), and Ellen, one of Laura's students from that amazing fourth period group, came in and pulled something out of the printer.  It was a print-out of the marine corps logo. 

Now every time I see Ellen in the halls she says "hello" to me; she remembers me from the fall and from the few times I have taught that group this spring.  She's a very friendly, outgoing, athletic seventh grade girl.  Seeing me sitting at one of the library tables working, she grabbed her print-out, turned to me, showed me the logo and said: "This is what I wanna join."

Half-paying attention to her and to my rubric, I said distractedly: "What's that?"

And she said, with a slight hint of justified indignation in her voice (she was, after all, sharing her hopes for the future with me): "I wanna join the marines."

So I closed the lid on my laptop, and I made eye contact and smiled and said: "Tell me about that."

And so she told me about how all of the men in her family--her father, both of her uncles, and her eldest brother--had all been in the army or the Marines.  And then she shook her head a little bit, as though that thought made her cross, and she said: "I want to be the first woman in my family to do that."

And for a millisecond I hesitated, my liberal, pacifist leaning crawling their way up my throat; but I would not let them speak, because they could not speak to this child's dream.  So I said to her, with a subtle and, I hope, genuine smile and said: "Good for you."

And she smiled back, big and earnest and a sunrise.  But before she went away, I said: "Just don't get killed, okay?  Cause that would be really sad."

And she said: "Well, obviously," and was off to her fifth period class.

School As Prison...

So I asked my students a while back to draw an image of what school felt like for them.  Here are five of their drawings.  I will let them speak for themselves.

One of the Strangest Encounters in my Career

So on Friday I taught Laura's fourth period class while she was away on a field trip with all of the sixth graders.  Her fourth period is a rowdy and distractable group, with a couple of big and goody personalities (and some serious ADHD energy).  I actually kind of love them.  I remember them from the fall, and many of them remember be (and most of them remember me fondly).

So I start class (I'm having do some research on what the law in Oregon requires in terms of schooling), and a few minutes into class in walks a white woman wearing a bright yellow visitor's pass.  She was tall and wiry; it was hard to tell how old she was.  Her hair was brown-grey, long and stringy, hanging down past her shoulders.  She was wearing a tattered gray sweat-shirt advertising a foot ball team from a local high school, and a pair of faded blue jeans.  When she opened her mouth to speak, I noticed that she was missing several teeth; I try not to draw quick conclusions about kids or their parents, but I got an immediate former- or currrent meth user vibe from her.  And it wasn't just her appearance.  There was something vaguely sinister about the way she spoke.

"I'm Carly's mother," she said, surly as a grizzly bear, "I'm here to see what's going on with her.  Is this seat taken?"  She pointed to an empty chair towards the back of the room, two desks away from her daughter who, at this point, was doing her absolute best to crawl down through her own faded gray sweatshirt and disappear beneath the linoleum under her feet.

"Sure," I said, trying not to show my surprise and discomfort.

I was rattled.  I was already rattled because I had 36 12- and 13-year old trying to write paragraphs about the legal requirements for school in Oregon, and they had a bajillion little questions (ranging from how do I open a text edit file to what is a parochial school).  And I was circulating around the room trying to help them with their questions--and try to cajole some of the kids into writing at all.  And then this woman comes in unannounced and uninvited and proceeds to start hassling her daughter on my watch.

For a significant portion of the class she stood directly behind her daughter and literally watched over her should as she tried to write.  I did my best to pretend everything was normal.  I even made sure that I checked in with Carly about what she was writing.  Carly had chosen not to use a laptop, which I said was fine: the goal today was to write a paragraph, and I didn't care if it was typed or not.  Carly's mom immediately lit into me: "Are you saying there aren't enough laptops for my daughter to use?"

"No," I said, and before I could even finish defending myself Carly blurted out: "It was my choice, mom.  It was my choice!"

There were so many things wrong with the situation that I found it paralyzing.  I was a student teacher in a classroom that was not mine.  Technically there was supposed to be another teacher in the room (the teacher of record for that day was the art teacher, and she had taken a few of Laura's students down the hall to help her prepare for the funeral of a recently deceased colleague).  I did not know what the protocol for visiting parents was (not something I ever had to deal with in my former teaching career).  And then there was just the overall strangeness of the woman herself.  We managed to get through the period, and Carly got a little writing done.  Her mother followed her to band.

I doubt that either of us will forget the day her mother came to class.

Mr. Monahan is Insane

So I’m having my students write essays about school.  As I have written previously, “Edison” is currently grappling with its school culture, and so we have been engaging our students in a conversation about what they experience at school.  Building on that energy, I’ve been having my students write about school, what they see and hear and feel in their classrooms.

So far they have been relatively interested in it.  It’s not as engaging for some of them as I thought it would be, and I’m starting to understand why: mostly they take school for granted.  They just sort of swim in it.  The other day I told them a little parable about fishes.  It goes like this. 

Two young fish are swimming through the sea.  They come across an older fish, who stops and asks them: “Hey, how’s the water today?”

They both stop, look at each with a confused look and, not wanting to look stupid, say: “it’s fine,” and then they all swim away.  When the older fish is out of earshot, one of the younger fish says: “what the hell is water?”

And the other fish just shakes his head.

A couple of my students thought the story was “stupid” or “weird”, but a few of them were able to pick out the pieces.  One student blurted out: “so...school is the water, right?”

**

What has been most interesting so far is what they have to say about the relationships between teachers and students.  I keep hearing about two teachers: Mrs. Dryer and Mr. Monahan.  Over and over again I have heard them say or have seen them write things like “Mr. Monahan is crazy” or “Mr. Monahan is mean” or “Mr. Monahan hates us”.  And, of course, I always take what students say about teachers with a grain of salt--as I would hope my colleagues would for me.  I am not present in his room and do not know what his goals or values or habits or procedures are.

Because I don’t have a classroom of my own, I work in the library when I’m not teaching.  I sit here and read papers and plan.  The library contains 40 computers that are used for testing and for some classroom activities.  Yesterday I was working in the library and Mr. Monahan brought his class in to work on the computers.  Many of my students were in his class.

Mr. Monahan is, in fact, insane.  In the 25 minutes I observed his interactions with students (I tried not to, but it was like trying not to watch a four headed owl devour a six headed snake), he let loose an unending stream of admonitions, directions and reminders.  The students were supposed to be working quietly on some math project, but the students were never granted even a moment of silence; Mr. Monahan ensured that by raising his voice and yelling at a child to “sit still” when a child moved in his chair and the legs made a squeaking sound.

At one point I observed him talking to the clock on the wall.

He became irrationally angry at a child who had a question about how to login to a website: “if you
had been listening last week when I told everyone then you wouldn’t have to ask me that!”

He has hair like Albert Einstein, and he wears khaki shorts and sandals with socks (I kid you not) and a plaid shirts pleated with wrinkles, giving him a sort of mad scientist impression.  But when I think of Einstein, I always imagine him with a smile.  Mr. Monahan does not appear to know how to smile.


Seeing him with the students reminded me of one other thing: I pass this man every morning in the hallway, and every morning I nod and smile and say “hello.”  Not once has he looked up from whatever path on the floor he was following.

All of which leads me to the conclusion my students have already reached: that he is, in fact, insane.

The Teacher and The Technology Coordinator

Callie is a technology coordinator for the district; Callie has helped us with some of the technology we are trying to use in the classroom.  This morning it dawned on me that Callie is not and has never been a teacher. 

The web-based school interface Edison is trying to use is called edmodo.  It's fairly user friendly.  I've been asking my students to use it to submit final work (writing assignments), mostly because it streamlines the process.  (I am continually amazed by how much time I waste simply sorting through papers.)  It also has this nice feature where you can annotate a document using edmodo, which, again, streamlines the whole process of commenting on and handing back student work.

The catch is: students have to know how to export their files as a .pdf in order for me to annotate on their document.

So I mentioned this to Callie this morning; she stopped by just to check in and see how the kids were doing with the computers and with edmodo.  And I said: "fine."  She mentions the whole annotation thing to me (she has this tendency to point out things to me that I already know about), and I said it was a great feature.  I mentioned the whole export to .pdf thing to her, and she said: "all they have to do is export it as a .pdf".  At which point I remember Benjamin, who can barely type, and how it took him almost half of the period on Thursday to type and save a six line poem.  And the image of him (his scrawny little arms popping out of his bright red muscle shirt) struck me as sort of funny, so I smiled and responded: "Well, that's another step altogether."

And then she said, a little incredulously: "It's easy.  Just make a screen cast video and put it up on edmodo."

I caught myself getting defensive.  What she was proposing would be easy for my most technologically skilled students (and certainly for a technology coordinator), but for many of my students that process (exporting a file as another format) was beyond their developmental reach.  Callie didn't seem to understand that.  She seemed to think that all that was required in order to teach students like Benjamin how to do it was to throw a video up on the web.

And, I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way for many of my students.  I'm not letting myself off the hook yet for not teaching them how to do it, but for now I will content if they can save their files and upload to our class web page. 

Besides, the point of this is to write poems.

Out of such chaos, strangeness and beauty

My sixth grade class was a disaster today.  Here's what happened.  About 25 of my 35 had to finish up this round of OAKS testing, but because everyone in the building is testing their kids, the library (where they usually do the testing) was full.  So Laura had to keep the 25 kids in the classrooms with the COW (computers on wheels, moo) while I took the 10 students who weren't testing out into the commons.  I had planned a leisurely hour of poem writing, with just a few students.  We were going to whisper because the commons is shared space with four other classrooms.

So we began.  And things were just fine.  But then other students kept finishing their tests (pesky students!), and Laura kept sending them out into the commons.  As their numbers grew, my plan (which was for 10 kids) quickly became untenable, and then we didn't have enough paper or chairs or pencils, and then, of course, every time a new student arrived there was another round of "what are we doings?" and the little subsequent flare-ups, and, of course, they had just come from testing, which "sucks" (to use their lingo), so they were wired and a little off-the-wall, and so, with maybe fifteen minutes left in the period, I had 30 of 35 kids out in the commons--with not enough chairs and an insufficient plan and an ever-increasing decibel level.  And of course I started to feeling extremely self-conscious about the noise they (we!) were making; why couldn't I control 30 11 year olds in an unfamiliar space without the proper furniture or materials!  How bad does this make me look!

There came a moment when I was either going to laugh or scream.

So I laughed.

And then I put them into threes, and gave them all of these wordles I made from poems.  I asked them to make poems using only words from the wordles.  I had them sit or lie on the floor in the commons, with space between them and other groups.

And then something miraculous happened: they all started to talk and write.

I hesitate to say too much about the poems.  I think they're amazing.  And I have no idea how such interesting little poems emerged from the utter chaos that I oversaw between 10:52 and 11:50 a.m. today.

*

The postman likes creaky white branches.
He sleeps days and years.
His death was ancient.
He migrates into bitter bottoms.
The music is everything against his religion.
He runs laps through chump.
He plays in salty snow without getting news.

*

Time seems long
talking glass

*

Strong creaky octopus
Bitter things lie
Freedom sold away
Blueish sky loves bread
salty pink branches
staring onto better days
tears drop onto floors
Empty bohemian jars
Last night friends swept odd furniture

*

creaky bitter feel right
porch cup edge
white salty postman

*

The death is like broken glass
Everything sounds like waves
death loves wine

*

Death is a jar
a standing salesman raised the help
everything else is against old wooden father
The hallway is a wild edge
last night everything regrets freedom

*

The pink octopus swallowed the curtains
in the night,
then splashed into the salty waves.
leaping leaves swayed on creaking branches,
windy sounds drift across seas.

*

Strong suction cups
stick words away
like leaping octopus
went
turning echos
broken sand fields
pulled among bleached windy oats
pink welts threatened Ezra
wind ripped things
swallowed lost
feet splashed across

*

the ancient death is the treetops
of the darkness.  Right flashing rooms meant
wolves wild dogs penetrate the darkness.       

Creatures from Another Planet...

I made this little video to introduce an essay project I'm having my seventh graders do.  The idea behind the project is to have the students explain what school is and what it feels like to go to school to someone who knows nothing about school.  But since everyone in this country--and in most places on this planet--spends such an incredible amount of time in school, it was hard to find an audience that the student could consider that had no prior experience with school.

Thus Malakingo23, High Chancellor of the Kobolese, was born.  I'll let him or her (my students couldn't figure out which) speak for his or herself:

The kids found Malakingo23 pretty strange.  Some thought he or she was "creepy".  Many noticed that sound came out but lips didn't move.  They also had lots of really funny practical questions.  Like: "Why did he come seek you out?"  Or: "Why is it humanoid?"  Or: "Why would an alien care about school?"

A few of them, of course, picked up on the fact that I had made the video; they're just past the age where they believe in the Easter bunny, but I bet they still like to hunt for eggs and eat the candy, which is kind of what I was going for.  I obviously didn't expect them to really believe that a creature from a planet named Kobol had come to collect evidence about school.  But I wanted to give them something strange, something "unschool-like" to shoot for.  Of course what they are going to be writing about is "school"--and their experience of it.

It went much better than I expected it to.  I suspect that I'm still partially oriented towards 9th graders; I haven't put my finger on the 12 year old mind yet, but I'm getting there.  It was just goofy enough and just serious enough that I suspect many of them will find some fun in trying to explain what they experience everyday at school.

One of my students asked me "why do you want us to write about school?"  And I hadn't really thought about the answer to that question, at least not consciously.  But I had an answer, and I was pretty happy with the way it just kind of flew out of me. The reason I want them to write about school--and this school and their experience--is that I am extremely interested in what this place is like for them.  As my regular readers know, I often feel like a creature from another planet here.  And I suspect that the students do, too.  So that was my answer: I want them to write about this because I am genuinely interested in what they have to say about it.

And that seemed to satisfy her curiosity.

"Teachers waste a lot of class time talking about rules"

My first day back at Edison Middle School was a professional development day; it began with a presentation by an "expert" from the school district.  First she showed some data about the number of referrals teachers at Edison had written on kids so this year (well over 1,000, mostly for little things like "talking back" or "disrespecting teachers").  Then she presented a series of numbers about time "lost" in the classroom to things like "transitions", "breaks" and "behavior management".  She also made a big deal about how some ridiculous percentage of time was "lost" when students gave "incorrect answers" (as though making mistakes was a waste of time!).

Then it got even stranger.  She proceeded to lecture us--a room full of classroom teachers--about the most basic classroom management techniques and procedures (making goals and expectations clear; providing positive examples).  For two hours, we sat and listened to this "expert" (who was ph.d psychologist, not a classroom teacher) lecture us about things that I suspect everybody in the room either already did or chose not to do because we had methods that better matched our personalities.

Not once did she stop to ask us what we did in our classrooms or how we thought about or handled "discipline" or "behavior."  It was a little bit like what I imagine my students sometimes experience: teachers talking at them about things they already know or don't care about without ever asking them what they think.

Then Andrew led a presentation about class meetings.  A colleague had had two students throwing racially charged language around during class, and it had happened more than once.  The teacher was concerned about the climate of his classroom and, rather than merely reinforcing the "rule" about not saying hurtful things, decided to tackle the climate of the room.  So he sought out Andrew (who has been teaching at Edison for 27 years) for help in figuring out how to do that.  Andrew presented the format (essentially sit in a circle and have a civilized discussion), and then the faculty had a discussion about how we felt about how the school year was going.

I'm used to those kinds of conversations; they were the primary mode of engagement at the school I used to teach at.  Most of the faculty at Edison were not used to interacting with each other in this way, and, it turns out, most of them really enjoyed it.  I won't say too much about that conversation, because the point of this entry is that today we had a similar conversation with the students about how they feel about the culture of the school.  The faculty were so charged up about the conversation we had that we all unanimously agreed to have class meetings with all of the students in the school.

I led mine today with my 3rd period class, a group of 35 11-year-olds.  I had them move the desks around, forming a large circle, so we could all see each other and have a conversation.  And then we dove in.  They talked for almost 35 minutes.  And they had the following to say.  These are my notes, mostly direct quotes and paraphrases.

When asked: "How is the year going?"

too much HW
too much fighting
too many bad words
the classes are too long
the classes are boring
it feels like the teachers aren't even trying to make it fun
we want more pizza parties
too much work
too many school days
teachers are always talking over kids and yelling at us
teacher talk too much
teachers are going nuts with referrals
the teachers need to "give us a break"
I got a referral for chewing gum on the first day
teachers should stop lecturing us
we should be allowed to go outside for longer
a teacher cussed at me
it sucks when teachers hate you
teachers waste a lot of class time talking about rules
we need more breaks
less rules
it sucks that the teachers yell at us to be quiet when we're trying to take stupid standardized tests; it's like all we can hear is teachers yelling at us
too much writing
we need free-time
we want more time to talk to each other

When asked: "what is going well?"

Nothing
PE
the transition time between classes is long enough
the beginnings and endings of class have been pretty smooth
many of us like each other

[then the conversation pretty much died]

When asked: "what do you think new students think of us?"

depends on who they talk to; if they talk to the nice kids they will think we are nice; if they talked to the mean kids, well, they would think we are mean.
they would think it's terrible
they would be concerned about all the fighting
they would feel pressure about having to join the right clique
it would be frightening to have to fit into a category
it's boring
they would think we act weird
that they would rather go to [another school]
they might like it for two months until they get to know the teachers
if they get the right teachers they might be okay
[at this point the only new student in the room spoke up and said:] it's overwhelming; there are a lot of people here, and there are a lot of people who aren't polite or welcoming.

When asked: "What can you do to make the climate more welcoming?"

choose our words carefully
not seek revenge
be friendly

[And then the conversation just died...they had very little to say about what they could do]

Though it was clear they weren't entirely comfortable with talking to each other (of my 35, only about 15 spoke), I was impressed by how well they listened to each other.  It was the first time in my experience here at Edison that I have been in a class where the students spoke more--much more--than the teacher.  And, sure enough, though I had to speak with two young men about their behavior after class, I didn't have to resort to any of the "behavior management plans" that our "expert" presented on.

We just had to give the students questions they cared about and a structure in which to respond.  The next time we do it, I will be thinking about how to get the other 20 kids more involved in the conversation.

"Smell My Finger"

I was seated at my desk at the front of the classroom, when I saw Kaley enter the room.  She stopped at the desks of three of her peers, offering her pointer finger to each of her classmates to smell.  She reached Laura, who I suspect was her primary target, back by the computer cart, helping students get computers out and ready for class.

"Smell my finger," she said cheerfully, producing her finger as though it were some sort of rare gift.

"I'm not going to smell any part of you," Laura responded gruffly.  The kids know by now that Laura has no sense of humor for such things; I suspected that I would be her next stop.  And sure enough, she turned away from Laura and headed toward me, an attention seeking missile weaving through the desks.

"Hey, Gil, smell my finger," she said with a smile.

"I will not," I replied.  A chemical smell lingered in the air--the chemist's approximation of strawberry.

"I just used hand sanitizer, but it smells like perfume.  Go ahead, smell it!"

"I can smell it from here, and, frankly, I'd appreciate it if you didn't stick your hand in my face, Kaley."

"But doesn't it smell pretty?"

"It smells like chemicals, Kaley," I said.

On her way back to her desk she proffered her finger to four other peers (all of whom smelled her finger willingly, then recoiled at it) before finally giving up on the spectacle of her smelly finger.

It came from my noodle...

Most of my students were down the hall today taking the OAKS, a standardized test required for all students in Oregon.  The students who hadn't met or exceeded the benchmark were "given the opportunity" to try again.  So most of my students were down the hall with Laura.  All but nine of my 36 sixth graders were off testing, so I was given the opportunity to get a sense for where these nine children were at as far as poetry went (it's national poetry month!).  I asked them how they knew something was a poem, and they said:

It goes down the middle of the page.
Shows your emotions.
It’s expressive.
It goes down the page like a waterfall.
The words go well together.
?
It doesn’t have punctuation.
People talk about their feelings.
Sometimes it can rhyme.
It shows your inner self.
You can use pencils and pens when you write it.
!
It’s in deep thought.
They’re strange.
Sometime they don’t make sense.
You can write something true or made up.
It comes from your heart, not your brain.
It comes from your hand.
It’s on paper.
It comes from your noodle.

Then we wrote poems with the title: "It came from my noodle..."

Together we came up with the following rules for the poem (the first three rules were mine):

10 lines long
at least one word per line
no more than four words per line
it must feature your favorite color
it must use the word banana or shenanigans

Here's what I came up with:

It came from my noodle

Out of the darkness

of clouded bananas,

it came singing.

From the noodle's

depth, it came hungry.

It's song was like

the songs of birds

with bent beaks

under a pale

and scorching sun.

We had fun today, one teacher and nine students.  Then 27 more students and another teacher came back, grumpy from thirty minutes of reading comprehension questions.  And I turned the class back over to Laura, who put in a movie.

I take over full-time on Thursday, after the tests are complete.

Failure

Winter in the Willamette valley is cold and dark and rainy.  Winter in the intensive Master's and certification program I am in is stressful and overwhelming.  The program asks that students teach one class, produce a work sample that demonstrates the capacity to, well, teach (mine was 130 pages), and then take three classes in the evenings.  This term I took two methods classes (teaching social studies and teaching writing) and a course on ESOL.  For each of those classes I had readings to complete each week and obligatory two page response papers or discussion preparations or what I came to see as written surveillance mechanisms to ensure that we were doing the readings (these writings actually caused me not to want to read, and I abandoned the practice at the end of the term).  In addition we had larger projects to do and ridiculously specific lesson plans to write, get feedback on and revise.  And the reflections...oh the reflections...a relentless onslaught of reflection.  I also had 24 9th graders to teach--and of course I was much more interested in them than I was in reading yet another book by Linda Christensen (whose work I adore).

I have not written in this space since February 7th.  The last thing I wrote about was parent-teacher conferences.  It's been a long time since then.  When I started out with this blog I had intended to keep a record of my experience in these schools and in this program.  But--as is often the case when working in schools--the practical realities of the job smashed loftier ambitions.  And while I know my five readers weren't up late wondering when I would be writing next, I'm bummed that I wasn't able to keep up during the winter.  It was an extremely interesting experience.

I want to fill up this space with stories about those 9th graders.  I want to tell you about how I slowly won over Isabel (the girl with eyebrow stud), about how I failed to win over Priscilla (who wrote on her course evaluation that I was a "sucky teacher" and that I should "go back to DC where I belong"), about how seriously they took our mock trial of Odysseus.  I want to describe for you how boisterous they were, how they could never get settled at the beginning of class.  I want to describe their humor and how, though they irritated each other often, they actually liked each other.

But I'm past all that, past all those children.  I had six weeks with them, six weeks only, and now those weeks are gone.  I connected with a few of them, but I suspect that most will not remember me.  Maybe, years later, one or two of them might look at each other and say: "What was that teacher's name, the one who moved the desks around all the time?"  And the other might reply: "Mr. G.  That was Mr. G."  I'm not being dramatic or sentimental.  I barely remember most of my teachers in high school; I don't know that I would have remembered me.

I did learn quite a lot from them--about their lives, about their school.  Some of my students lived in trailers and had parents serving in Iraq.  Some of my students were in foster care; others were being raised by their grandparents.  Some of my students loathed school with a passion that I have never experienced.  They were hungry, worried about what might happen over the weekend, wondering if they would ever escape this school, this town.  From these children I learned to listen, to ask questions and to remember that, despite my good intentions, I cannot really know what these children's lives outside of school are really like.

Some of my students hated reading.  Some of them loved it.  Most of them did not care at all about The Odyssey.  Some of them loved writing.  They wrote about their families, about ponies, about being lost in a desert, about being slaves and prisoners, about being teenagers.  Others hated writing, complained it wasn't relevant ("When I am ever gonna need to write when I work at BiMart?")  Some of them did exactly as I asked them to do, and some of them rebelled at every turn.  From these children I learned that all children are alike in some essential ways.  From these children I learned to listen, to ask questions and to remember that what adolescents crave, more than anything, are reality and empathy.

I also learned about failure.  In the private school where I learned to teach failure was extremely rare.  Certainly students failed quizzes or tests or individual assignments.  But a student actually failing a class was uncommon, I suspect because the adults were more tuned into warning signs and could adapt to the child earlier and in greater depth.  I also think that, culturally, failure isn't as acceptable in private schools as it is in public.  I'm somewhat uncomfortable with that generalization, but it rings true to me.  At "Edison" high, many, many students failed.  When I took over my class, 30% of the class was failing.  At the end of the term, 16% of my students failed (that's four human beings, and I can name them).  My CT said: "That's a pretty good percentage."  In my eight years teaching in private school, I remember only failing one student for a term, and that was after intervention after intervention.  I remember his name.

My spring schedule is much more civilized, so you, gentle reader, can expect regular commentary about my experiences at Edison Middle School, and most won't be as long as this one.

Teaching as a Lonely Art

I’m sure it was someone famous--maybe E.B. White--who said that New York was the loneliest place on earth because you can be surrounding by people and feel entirely isolated.  That’s what I’ve been feeling for the last few weeks--surrounded by people, children and adults--and totally alone.
    Part of that loneliness has to do with the program itself.  The student teacher lives in two worlds: the world of the program and the world of our placement schools.  Part-time residents of both, we are fully at home in neither.  In the program we have so many papers to write and so much to read and think about and consider that we hardly have time to breathe--much less to talk about what we’re doing or thinking about.  In my placement school, I am surrounded by adults who, on the whole, don’t think that much about what their kids are experiencing or doing.  And, besides, there’s little time to talk to a student teacher--particularly one with years of experience--about their hopes and goals for their unit or their kids.
    A big part of this is just me: I learned to teach by working with other teachers.  I have been so extremely lucky in the course of my career to have had other interesting people to write curriculum with, to laugh about my failures with, to talk through any goofy ideas I had, to read aloud interesting or hilarious student responses.  I have no such people in my life right now--the best I can do is make long distance phone calls, catch my old colleagues in the evening.  But it’s different talking to someone about what they are working on and actually working side by side with another.
    I never felt lonely when I taught back east.  But out here in the damp northwest, I feel it.  Surrounded by the burnt out or the burning, by children who like me but who know that I’m a short-timer, I feel it.
    America, this is no way to grow teachers.  There must be a more connected way, a more humane way.  Because all of this isolation isn’t good for me--and it can’t be good for the kids I’m supposed to serve.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Three time a year at Edison the school invites the parents of the students to come in and conference with the teachers.  They set up tables around the walls in the cavernous cafeteria, and each teacher sits at a table under a sign with his or her name printed in big handmade letters.  Parents, sometimes with their children in tow, arrive, pick up progress reports (grades, grades, grades) and then go seek out their teachers, sometimes waiting in line for that teacher to finish up with whoever they are chatting with.
    As a student teacher, I didn’t get a handmade sign with my name on it (not that I expected to).  So I sat to Marie’s right and waited, sitting idly through the conferences she had with parents whose children I didn’t know, and chatting briefly with the parents of some of the children I will be teaching starting next Wednesday.  A few observations and reactions:

Allen’s grandmother--who quickly identified herself as his “sole, legal guardian”--brought with her a great cloud of cigarette smoke which hovered over the conference.  During the conference she talked about Allen’s parole officer and how much trouble he was going to be in when they had to meet about his grades (he’s failing the class right now because, as Marie puts it, he “refuses to do any work at all”).

Charlie has two impish and adorable little brothers who embarass him.  And he is absolutely terrified of his parents.  As he sat there listening to what Marie said about him I could tell he was just praying she didn’t say anything negative.  His father--a tall, imposing looking man--loomed next to him, stern as Mount Rushmore.  His brothers flopped and flailed on the bench between him and his mother, oblivious to what was going on around them.

One of the mothers has miraculous hands, the dirtiest hands I’ve ever seen, with grime ground under the fingernails and into the swirls of her fingerprints.  They were working hands, with little white calluses like ground-down rhinoceros horns on each knuckle.

Melanie was home-schooled; her mother thinks that her daughter shouldn’t have to sit in the same room with children who don’t want to learn.  I was overhwhelmed by her mother, who talked and talked about what Melanie thought and believed and felt without ever once allowing Melanie to speak for herself.  I kept watching Melanie begin to say something and stop because her mother kept cutting her off.

Isaac, cheerful and playful and responsive in class, is silent, even squirelly, with a nervous facial tic throughout the conference.  His mother says nothing at all, and in fact has her back turned to both her son and Marie and I during the entire conference.  Later we learn that she had gone to his SPED teacher to complain about the grade he earned on a paper he wrote for Marie.  I can still see his little face, twitching.

Esperanza has straight As, but when I ask her what she’s been doing right to earn all those As she can’t say and seems a little embarassed by the question.  This is the first time this evening I notice that when the conversation shifts away from grades to something more substantive the conversation stalls.  Neither teachers, students nor parents seem to know much about having human conversations with each other.

One mother says: “So I should just be proud of her?”

Brandi says she’s a weak writer, then goes on to tell us about how she usually runs out of gas at the 20 page mark in a story.  I tell her that if that’s the truth than she might just be a writer.  An awkward silence followed until Marie started talking about her latest quiz grade.

One of our students waited almost ten minutes in line, and then just before it was her turn she took her mother and adorable little sister and left.

Our last conference is with Julia and her parents, and is, perhaps, the best conference we have all night.  I say that because Julia’s mother leads by saying that Language Arts if the hardest subject for her daughter, and so I ask Julia what she finds so hard about it.  And then she starts talking about the things that are hard for her, and some of the strategies she’s used in the past; and she even references conversations she and I have had in class about her writing; and I learn a little about her history as a student; and her parents learn about what we’re working on in the class and that their daughter is being supported in really specific ways.

Walking out to my car I remember why I like conferences so much--because it’s one of those moments when the student’s life outside of school shows up.  Most of the parents who came were engaged--and so were their children.  I wish, for example, that I could have met Hadley’s parents.  But it’s nice to see the faces that meet my students faces when they come home, the people from whom some of my student’s learned to speak and walk.  So much about them is mysterious--and will remain so, even after meeting their parents.  But the glimpses we get are worth cherishing.

The Girl With The Eyebrow Stud

Hadley sits near the front of the room because that's where Marie placed her on the seating chart.  Recently she was suspended because she got up and left class without telling anyone where she was going.  She and Marie regularly go to war--about bringing her book to class, about leaving to go to the bathroom, about why she isn't paying attention.  Of all the students in the class, Marie hassles Hadley more than any other student.  Marie refers to her as a "negative Nelly" and said that her hope was to "browbeat her into being nice" by the end of the year.

Hadley has an eyebrow stud and a lip ring and pale white skin and acne scars and wears a lot of foundation and over-sized hoodies and distressed jeans and has dyed her hair blonde, then pink; you can see the layers.  She wrote on an introductory note-card that she hates school and doesn't ever want to talk about her family.  She rarely smiles, but when she does her whole hardass image kind of melts away, partially because she has these absolutely adorable and exceedingly crooked teeth.

I have approached her somewhat cautiously, since my role in the room is still a little strange and since he is, as a rule, hostile towards adults.  I have tried to smile and be kind and let her know that I notice her and want her in the class.  I say things like: "Good afternoon, Hadley," or "nice to see you today, Hadley," to which she usually grunts or says nothing in response.

Today she and Marie got into about a worksheet that she owed.  The class was working in groups on another worksheet (find some similes in the book we're reading!); I was circulating and checking in with them.  I noticed that she was cruising through another worksheet, the homework questions from the reading, the work she and Marie had been fighting over earlier. 

"Hey, you're cruising through that," I said.

She was immediately defensive: "Leave me alone.  Ms. Mowrey was just yelling at me." 

"Hadley, honestly, was I just yelling at you?"

She paused, like she didn't know how to answer the question.  "As I remember it, I was actually just pointing out that you were getting a lot of work done."

"Yeah.  Yeah, I was."  She cast this ironic smile into the room.

I walked away.  I heard her say to one of her peers: "why can't Ms. Mowry be like Mr. G?  He doesn't care what we do as long as we're doing something."

I pulled a u-turn around the end of the row and circled back towards her desk.  "Actually, Hadly, I do care what you're doing.  I care quite a bit.  But I know you're behind, so I'm just glad to see you catching up."

I think she was a little surprised that I'd overheard her.  (Marie usually ignores her under-the-breath comments; and I probably would too.) 

"Why can't you be our teacher?"

I snapped at her, gently but firmly: "You need to work with Ms. Mowrey as best you can; she cares about you and wants to help you learn."  Hadley eyes dropped back to her worksheet.  Then she looked up at me, kind of pleading, so I said: "And just so you know, I'm going to be taking over this class in a week."

Her smile was bent and crooked and warmed the entire room.