Who am I?

I am a small ripple in a sea of bull shit.

Sorry for not updating more.  They are waiting in the wings.

In the Car: Memphis > Philadelphia

My first year in Memphis came to a quick end. On Sunday of Memorial Day weekend I went to a Redbirds game. Monday I chilled out. Tuesday I cleaned up my room, Wednesday I moved stuff into my new room (N207!) and was out of school for good by 11am. I took my car to get two new tires before I drove back to Philly for the summer. Packed on Wednesday, picked up Brittany at the airport on Thursday morning, went to Rendezvous for dinner Thursday evening, packed some more, and on Friday morning Brittany and I set off on our road trip to Philadelphia. Felt really good to see Brittany. Our itinerary went like this:

Friday (5/31): drive through Mississippi and Alabama and arrive in Atlanta Friday afternoon to hang out with John Washington (HH '03 and Emory '07 alum).



Apparently, other than Birmingham, Alabama has zero rest stops, restaurants, or buildings that include bathrooms. Alabama proved prettier than Mississippi but came up short when we were trying to find a place to eat and a place to go to the bathroom. You know how interstates have those blue signs right before exits that show you what restaurants and gas stations are off the exit? Well, Alabama had those, too, but their signs were totally blank. No place for unlucky motorists to pull over and grab a bite. We got off at one exit, drove on the new road for a bit, turned around, and pulled over on the on-ramp of 78 to relieve ourselves.

Got to ATL, parked downtown and then walked around Centennial park. Stopped in the CNN Center, where I thought of Karl and Brian and watching primary returns, then walked over to the World of Coke. We didn't have much time, so Brittany had the excellent idea of checking out Coke's gift-shop rather than taking the actual tour. Met John and his gigantic office tower, then went out for some food. Grabbed a few beers at night, then got up Saturday to go for a run before setting off to SC.

Saturday: drive from ATL to Seneca South Carolina to spend a night at Brittany's cousin's new house.

Short 2 hour drive up to Brittany's cousins. She took the wheel for the first time this trip and things went very smoothly. She has really matured as a driver under my tutelage - when we started dating, she was terrified of merging onto highways, but now does it pretty well.


We got in to her cousin's house (Hayden and his wife Katie) around 1pm and set out for some hiking around 2pm. Hayden and Katie are both paramedics, so for most of the time I was left out of whatever medical conversation they were having with Brittany. I actually felt pretty uncomfortable for a while, but once we got to hiking, there was less conversation for me to feel awkward about.



We drove up the mountains to visit a couple of waterfalls and an abandoned train tunnel that was begun in the 1860s but eventually stopped after the mountain proved too hard to dig into. I was impressed by Brittany's willingness to walk into a quarter mile long dark hole and climb up and down rocky trails. She was afraid of some lizards that we saw, but generally she was looking tough. I was even a bit rattled walking into the railroad tunnel, but it was fun and a relief from the heat.



Sunday: drive from SC to Clemmons North Carolina to spend a night at Brittany's aunt's house.

Drove out early on Sunday morning and got in around noon. Had some lunch and hung out for a bit before going par 3 golfing at this beautiful park by Brittany's Aunt Nettie's house. 18 holes had us roasting and burnt pretty good, but it was a lot of fun. Brittany could use some (lots, she's never golfed) work on her golf game - mine was also not pretty. It was strange inserting ourselves into her Aunt's family for an afternoon, but I liked everyone's unique personality. I thought her younger cousin, who just finished his 9th grade year, is a lot like Danny was, and I had fun giving him a hard time here and there. Brittany's older cousin had a 1 year old baby and I was totally clueless about how to interact with a fat, speechless, tiny human being - it was fun, though.

Monday: drive from NC to Alexandria Virginia, just outside of DC, to spend a night at my Aunt Roberta / Uncle JQ's house and meet my cousins John and Owen.

Other than spending a ton of time with Brittany, this was probably the leg of the trip I was anticipating the most. My aunt and uncle have two kids, John (7) and Owen (5), who I hadn't met yet.


My pops had said they act like James and I did when we were annoying little kids - so I was looking forward to it. This driving leg was pretty long and Brittany took the middle of it at the end of NC and going through Richmond. In the middle of this leg, at Wendy's, I realized that only people over 70 drive Buick Centuries. We sat down for lunch behind a group of old, dolled up Souther women gossiping over the local news, and I wondered aloud how many of them were driving Centuries. Sure enough, a gold Century was parked in the handicapped spot and probably belonged to one of those souther belles.


Brittany gave me the insightful advice of getting the kids a gift, so we stopped at Rite Aid and bought them an indoor basketball net / ball, which offered some of the best sports battles of my childhood with James and Andy. Pretty much chilled out at night - had dinner with their family, then the kids went to bed pretty soon afterwards, and Brittany and I watched the Penguins - Red Wings game. The next morning, John and Owen were up early, attacked me right after I woke up, and started pummeling me with pillows and balls for about 15 minutes as their parents were getting ready. They really took it to me - it was fun. We ran and then headed for downtown around 11 am.


Tuesday: spent day in DC, meet Cait Schopp and Laura Gavinski in evening, spent night at Laura's house.

Brittany's knowledge of dinosaurs is severely lacking, which I found out when we got into the Natural History Museum. The bros and I grew up on dinosaurs - so I was blown away that she didn't know what a Tyrannosaurus was. And people call me sheltered!! Also hit up the Native American museum - it was horrendous and would offend Boyce to the fullest. The 'Native American' food in the cafeteria was amazing, however.


Tiring day walking on the mall, so it was nice when we got to sit by the L'enfant metro plaza and wait for Cait. In some senses, I was jealous of people walking down to the metro. They had so much purpose. And they had an office to leave behind. Few of them probably took their work home with them and they were running to get on a subway that would whisk them close to home without driving through traffic. DC also seems to have the highest percentage of people who walk around in suits - everywhere you go on the Mall you see suits. I was sweating walking around in shorts and a T - how could people walk around in suits? Hit up a happy hour with Cait and Laura, then a Thai restaurant at night.


Wednesday (6/5): leave DC and head to home in Horsham Pennsylvania.

Brittany and I got up early so that'd we'd be able to run down to the Washington Monument area and check out the things we missed on Tuesday. It was a 2 hour odyssey that started out with me running back to Laura's house and running around Capitol Hill for 10 minutes trying to catch up to Brittany - I missed a turn. Ran down the Mall to the Monument, WWII memorial, reflecting pool, Vietnam memorial, Lincoln memorial, and then to the White House. Should've brought my camera, but didn't quite feel like running with it. Total running was 50 minutes - we took the metro back to Union Station and jogged back to Laura's house before setting out for Philadelphia.


Driving out of DC, we almost got smashed into by a crazed minivan driver who was trying to outrun the cops on the Beltway around DC. The van sideswiped a car just behind me and to my right before roaring past me and skidding around the corner of an exit ramp.

Pulled into my driveway after 1250 miles or so. We went and saw Sex and the City in the afternoon (what, you're too cool for that movie?) and tried to see the Phillies on Thursday. We took the subway down to the stadium, but the game was sold out. Hung our heads (this was failed attempt #2 to see a Philly sports team after going all the way to the stadium) and went to South Street for a while, which was relaxing and enjoyable. Drove Brittany to the airport on Friday morning (a bummer she couldn't make Trouble's bday party) - we totaled 1337 miles together over a week's worth of driving. It was a perfect start to my summer (other than failing to see the Phillies).

T-minus 10 weeks until Year 2 begins

Topics covered in this ridiculously long post: end of year, 8th grade week, conversation with football coach about student achievement, TCAP writing scores for my 8th graders, thoughts on racial implications of Iron Man.

Two days ago, on Friday the 23rd, students left Hickory Ridge Middle School for summer vacation. Some left around 3:30, others left at 9:15pm. Unfortunately, I left at 9:15pm too. As the culmination of '8th grade week', we had a prom for the 'graduating' 8th graders that went from 6-9 pm. Being that gas prices have soared and I live 15 miles from school, I decided to stay at school until the end of prom. My last day at school turned out to be the longest day of the year - I got there about 7:45 and left 13.5 hours later. What a dedicated teacher I am!!!

I was ok with staying so late at school because it's the last time I'll need to do so for a while. I was also ok with staying late at school because our dances are so ridiculous. Watching young black kids dance is a sight to behold. They do things that white kids can't. My three favorite songs of the night - 'Crank Dat', 'Get Silly', and 'Talkin Out Da Side of Ya Neck'. I saw some new variations to Soulja Boy's smash-hit dance that just had me cracking up. The kids have so much fun dancing - way more fun than I think anyone ever had at dances I went to in middle school - that it is enjoyable to watch. It also made me jealous that I suck so much at dancing compared to them.

On Thursday of 8th grade week, my school held a 'promotion' ceremony that most students / parents / teachers were calling a 'graduation'. I sat next to the CDC (special ed) teacher, who's an understandably jaded person when it comes to MCS, and we discussed the reasons / implications of this ceremony being called a graduation. She observed that 75% of these kids won't have a high school graduation, and that this is really all they've got. I'm not quite sure about those statistics, but her point stands that some of these kids and families won't have much to celebrate 4 years from now. She also mentioned that this ceremony is typical of the low expectations of MCS - moving to 9th grade is seen as some great accomplishment (mostly by parents and the students) rather than a taken-for-granted-step towards something bigger. Both of her thoughts resonated with my TFA tilted brain.

That Thursday afternoon I had a discussion with the football coach about 'tracking' students for different life paths - college prep versus vocational stuff. Not sure how this discussion came up during dismissal, but I think it might have been started when he shared that most of his class would only score 50% on his 6th grade social studies final. Coach and I are on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. He's a middle aged, white, Republican, veteran teacher, who grew up in the sticks of Arkansas and earned everything he's got. I'm an idealistic, change-happy, yankee, rookie TFAer whose inexperience in the teaching world means that I still think I can make a difference.

After Coach said this, I countered that tracking would inherently place black and hispanic kids, like those in our school, in lower tracks, while the white kids living out in Cordova, TN (a Memphis burb) would be placed in the higher tracks. The asst football coach (a younger, white, U of Memphis grad, whose political leanings are somewhere in between) had joined the conversation at this point and added that black kids come into school with a hugely disadvantaged vocabulary and are already 2 academic years behind white kids. Coach knows that I'm TFA, but he surely wasn't aware of how trained (and convinced!) I am to challenge these exact ideas.

Basically, I contended that it is possible to catch these kids up and that teachers at our school aren't working hard enough to do so. I used one example of a teacher that both of us know is full of shit and doesn't do a lick of teaching to say that there are certainly others like her at our school and throughout MCS who are not working their asses off to catch kids up. I also shared the success of TFAers at Kingsbury High (Karl's school), where 4 first years run the math department. They improved scores on the diploma-deciding Algebra I Gateway exams by 30 percentage points to 93% passing. Coach was trying to say he'd be able to focus on catching kids up if it wasn't for the 'knotheads' (behavior problems) in his classes. I said, those teachers at Kingsbury have as many knotheads as you do, but they're doing it.

Coach and his asst then decided that either they are exceptional teachers, or there is something going on with discipline at Kingsbury. I responded, the thing going on at Kingsbury is that they have 16 TFA teachers, who even though they have no formal training, and are first years, are making these huge improvements. By this point it was 3:30, and we started walking in, but I think I won that particular argument.

Afterwards, his comments got me thinking - either TFA teachers are actually exceptional in their abilities and work ethic, OR, the teachers in MCS are really that terrible that a bunch of rookies can come in and do their job way better than they can. Coach conceded that MCS teachers aren't willing to put in the effort that we put in and don't have the same work ethic.

On Monday of 8th grade week, we went to see Iron Man in a rented out theater. The beatiful 'Paradiso' and luxurious stadium seating - tons of leg room and nice, loose backed chairs with a good, springy recline - was a welcome change from teaching kids. I had thought I was going to stay and hold classes for 7th graders, but I got a call over the PA early in 2nd period to report down to go with the buses for the 8th grade trip.

Early on in Iron Man, when Robert Downie Jr. shared the screen with Gwyneth Paltrow, I couldn't help but wonder how the black and hispanic kids in the audience interpreted the racial makeup of the cast on screen. Terrence Howard, a Philly boy, was the only black guy in the movie, and was in a supporting role at that. After rarely seeing white adult males in or out of school, here these kids were watching white actors throughout the movie. Karl likened it to a grade full of white kids going to see that Christmas movie about a black family that came out last year (which, hilariously, I have no idea of that movie's name). I think it just really highlights the racial separation that still exists - black and white people are still so unfamiliar with each other and culturally divided.

I also thought the portrayal of the Afghani rebels in the beginning of the movie would have a negative impact on the way the mostly black audience would react to middle eastern people in real world situations. There's one Saudi Arabian student in the 8th grade class, and I felt like he could be a recipient of these negative attitudes. Combined with war-on-terror based portrayals of the middle east, I am fairly confident that these black students do not have an unbiased way to interact with people from the middle east.

Thursday I checked out my students' TCAP writing scores from the state exam they took in February. 4 of my students passed the exam with a score of '4', and 10 of them scored a '3', one point below passing. I think these scores of '3' are slightly ludicrous, considering a girl who wrote in a giant block of text with either one period or many incorrect periods got the same score as multiple students who craft good sentences with clear paragraphs. There's one girl who I thought would get a 4 that did not, and then 3 kids I thought had good chances of getting 4s that did not.

The end of year joy has not quite hit me yet - I still have one day of clean up / close out at school and I have my TFA end of year conversation. Today I am doing my best to take advantage of free time by completely wasting it. I've been surfing the net, writing this post, sleeping in, and sitting in a chair for basically the whole day. Pretty nice, but I'll enjoy it more later this week when Brittany comes down and we start the trek back towards Philadelphia through Atlanta, Charlotte, and DC. Should be a great way to leave Memphis and really start my summer!

mista Go-den, I can use yo phone?

First off, if you know Josef Bartels and haven't checked out his phenomenal blog about the Peace Corps (hm, another corps) in Ukraine, you're missing out. He's had some incredible times and he updates way more often than I do (though this is my third in May).

Was joking with Karl driving back from the library about the way black kids - and some of my Hispanic kids - form questions. Rather than using the verb in the first position, kids in Memphis keep the verb in the second position and just change their intonation. That day one of Karl's high schoolers said, "mista Hoesch, I can see yo phone?" Karl responded, "Yes, I can see it too, it's over there on my desk." For the next 30 minutes or so, I repeated, "mista go-den, I can use yo phone?" and laughed every time I said it.

A couple months ago I encountered another ludicrous question, though it was not exactly the same short-cut method of inflection-oriented questions. As I was passing through the 6th grade hallway to get to my room, a girl stopped, me and blurted/screeched, "mista go-den, ain't I'm quiet?" I stopped for a second, and repeated slightly incredulously, "ain't I'm quiet?" She insistently repeated the phrase. I answered a curt "Nope," and continued down the hallway. This particular student has possibly the most annoying/loudest voice of any girl in the 6th grade and she wanted me to agree with her that she was quiet! Ha.

Two days ago this same girl asked me some question and ended it by saying, "Is you?" I said, "Am I?" She said, "ya, is you?" I said, "No."

Here's a short list of more of the inflection questions:

mista go-den, I can sharpen my pencil?
mista go-den, I can use it?
mista go-den, I can use the restroom?
mista go-den, I can get some tissue?

The Iowa Test of Basic Skills

The first section of the test is 42 vocabulary questions. Students are presented with sentence fragments that include underlined words. After glancing through the words, I immediately know my kids will be totally clueless on every question. This is confirmed when even my best students look 100% confused and say, "This is too hard." By the tone of their voices, I know they feel defeated. I only say in response, "Do your best, finish every question and make a guess if you have to." The 129 ESL and resource students sitting in the auditorium will do terribly on this test. Good thing someone decided to have them take it - otherwise we wouldn't know that these kids have trouble reading and don't have expansive vocabularies.

The following words were on the vocabulary section of the test:

abide
bedraggled
trek
ruptured
hostile
reluctant
moody
irritation
bewilder
dilapidated
gale
capacity
signify
provoke
impish
devise
forked
luster
cropped
crest adequate

Two days later most of my kids took their final exam for my class (writing a 5 PG essay). While some really showed improvement and made me feel like they'd learned something, others wrote in exactly the same manner they did at the beginning of the year. It hurt to watch kids continue to write in one giant block rather than paragraphs. It also hurt when one kid just flat out refused to write anything. Called his mom, sat down with the asst. principal and he's still resisting writing it. Lots of different emotions at the end of the year. I'm in a slightly happier place than a couple weeks ago and that whole mess with my car; though I have to drop another $200-$250 to get 2 of my tires replaced before my journey home to Philly.

May

Months ago, I envisioned May being a time for celebration. Nice weather, Memphis in May, the impending cessation of school. Unfortunately, the month has started with the type of day I need to forget but have a hard time doing so (mostly because the day is still happening).

Car was at the shop today to repair a break problem: $280. Shop closes at 5pm - but I got there on time. My debit card forgot to go with me though - I left it in my jeans pocket, rather than my wallet. Currently car-less, but they open at 7am, so shouldn't be too much hassle.

Years of lower leg pain continue to haunt me and I've been cautious about throwing down the mileage. Luckily there are no races to train for, so it won't affect any performances.

I am submerged in chaos at school - I get walked on by 13 year olds every morning from 8:45-9:45, and on occasions between 12:25 and 3:05. In the middle of the year I shrugged these days off and got ready for the next. Now, that fall-back is accelerating my drop rather than slowing it down. Kids see the end of the year, other teachers see the end of the year, I see the end of the year. It's strange not having the cushion of learning time on the horizon. Daily success becomes more unlikely, yet problems (learning and management) become more apparent and guilt me into wanting to fix them immediately. Whether or not my attempted solutions make any headway this year, they will surely teach me lessons about what to do next year. I need a better foundation of learning and management to make sure this doesn't happen again - because then I'm really done. There are no second chances after May 2009.

I really wanted to get in one of these posts when I am backpedaling from a terrible performance at school. After all, May celebrations will eventually replace the larger-than-I-expected frustrations of closing out a school year.

Transient living

I left school today at 3:55 - probably the second earliest time I've left all year (we get out at 3:30). It was raining pretty good, but I had my sights set on catching the field events of the City Championships for middle school track - we have one kid competing in the high jump. Only three minutes into my drive, I see a sixth grader, who is not one of my students but who I chill with during dismissal, standing at a bus stop. I pull into a parking lot, offer him a ride - it was pouring rain after all - and then start the trek to his house.

I continually had to remind myself that, despite this kid's size (5'10" and 200+), he's a sixth grader and doesn't really drive around, and, subsequently, doesn't really know how to drive back to his house. Turns out his apartment was a good 15-20 minutes away, so it makes sense he wasn't familiar with every road. He said his family lived so far away from school because they had been robbed twice, which led to him moving three times this year, and changing schools once. He's going to change schools next year, too.

Before pulling in to the apartment complex, he told me to let him off at the entrance. It was still raining and I insisted on taking him all the way home, rather than having him walk. The drive through the complex made the last part of our ride together a bit awkward - I think he felt a bit embarrassed to be taking a teacher back to his home. It wasn't the nicest apartment complex - the roads through it were littered with giant potholes and the apartment buildings themselves looked like the other neglected apartment complexes I've seen around Memphis. When he was getting out, he told me I was a 'nice person'.

Sometimes I forget my kids' home lives (this wasn't one of my kids, but he's Hispanic) - but at the same time, when kids are at school, I think they forget them too. Driving this kid home was just totally different than talking to him after school - he was dejected, didn't smile much, and wasn't joking around. The only reason he didn't move to a third school this year was because his mother didn't want him failing.

This kid is also the same kid who was being talked down to the other day during dismissal. With the kid standing right there, one of his teacher's was telling me how he needs to be tested for SPED because he got 'all circles on TCAP'. I was surprised that the math teacher was saying this stuff in front of the kid, but didn't really come to the kid's defense. Most of the time poor performance on standardized tests is due to stuff other than a kid needing to be tested for SPED. Yesterday, I talked to the kid and told him how I thought what the math teacher saying was total crap.

After dropping the kid off, I spent 15 minutes or so driving around southeast Memphis making wrong turns. At one point, I got off of an exit I thought would go North on 240, when it actually made this gigantic loop over the whole expressway and went South again. I tried to catch the field events of City Champs, but couldn't find the track. Apparently, the "Fairgrounds" is a different place than the place where they have the Mid-South Fair and a track right by the Liberty Bowl. That, or today's portion of the meet was canceled because of the weather.

During school I also me with the parent and sister of a student who I had suspended because of his ludicrous behavior during TCAP (state tests) this week. To me, this kid, who I'll call Juan, said, "Are you scared? Do you want to take it outside?" and "I'm finna shoot somebody." Juan is a total joker whose behavior all of the teachers dislike. Naturally, all of the Hispanic students (and many of the black girls) at the school adore him for his comedy routines in class and his cocksure lifestyle.

Juan's father asked to get the suspension down to two days so that he would not have to miss a third day of work. He left work to come in and meet about Juan's suspension and was lucky he could get off for a bit because of today's rain. Juan's father looked worn out. He kept putting his head down, raising and lowering his hands in exasperation, and speaking in a tone I knew (even though it was in Spanish) was that of a parent who didn't have a solution. His sister, who is only 18 but not in school, looked more relaxed but not shocked to be back in the principal's office (apparently she took care of his other suspensions). Juan said he was 'just playing' with another student - I told him I knew it was directed at me.

After the translator left the room, I sat there and listened to Juan, his sister, and his father argue about something in Spanish. The desperate-sounding back and forth between the three made me regret my words from a run with Karl two days ago. Because Juan was being his usual teacher-aggravating self, I had confessed to Karl,"I'd be ok with Juan being arrested and deported."

Listening to Juan's dejected father try to convince Juan to change his behavior helped me remember Juan's a kid living a tough life, in a foreign country, at a place he detests (school), and in an environment where teachers usually make sure he fails (even though he's a smart dude, I think his language proficiency has really hurt him in class). Rather than wanting Juan deported, I think I just want him to realize his talents (intellect + ability to make people like him [thought not teachers, generally]) could be used to do good things.