Summer School

Sad, sad story in the news. A class from Harlem takes a trip to a beach. A kid drowns, teacher fired, principal only reprimanded.

My husband wants to know what "they" were thinking.
Newspaper makes it sound like there were no permission slips,that there wasn't enough supervision. That is was an incredibly awful idea from the start.
And I guess it was- since the kid drowned and more than one life was ruined. But it wasn't something I couldn't imagine doing myself. In fact I used to do it myself.

I used to take students from the concrete rubbled, garbage strewn, Dresden-after-the-war streets of the South Bronx, on a hot sticky subway car to Orchard Beach. Where I let them wander in the surf. And when the hour got late, I cleaned their feet and got back on the train.

We called it summer school.

And then we were told that wasn't teaching it wasn't helping kid's test scores. Now summer school is serious business. In some schools it's hour after hour of a prepackaged program (a teaching fellow applying for a job at our school told us that was what she was doing for her summer internship - which would prepare her to work as a fully licensed teacher in the fall- not in our school, her resume did not get the "smiley face" stamp of approval- when she couldn't tell me the name of this "miracle" program)

In our school, it's just hour after hour doing paper work assignments with students who don't want to be there. Sixteen hours of a class in summer school makes up for your failure though out a 180 day school year. At least you get course credit so you can graduate on time and Klein/Bloomberg can brag about the graduation rate success

I'm lucky. Nobody drowned on the trips to Orchard Beach. And if I'm lucky I will make it through this summer school without poking my eyes with a pre-packaged pencil or slitting my wrist with a pre-packaged sheet of copy paper.
But I wonder, do those kids who waded in the surf at Orchard Beach all those decades ago have some memories of a summer with sunshine on their backs and sand in their toes?(Many had never been to a beach before)

Or will a summer of serious teaching, make the reality of our current students really so much better?

Public Transportation Education

"Your teacher could listen to AM radio in her car." our host at WABC radio said.

"I have a car?" I responded. (Well actually I do but for a variety of reasons I choose mostly to make the four mile commute to work, using a combination of what my father called "Shank's Mare"-walking and things that accept the NYC Metro card.)

And my portable audio device only receives FM.

You learn a lot on public transportation. Sometimes its what we call passive learning- just listening and observing, and sometimes you can be the recipient of active teaching.

Like the bus we took Wednesday on our journey to the Radio Stations.

The bus driver was unusually garrulous. Amid admonishments to watch our step, and be thankful for the day, even a wet cold one, he reported this anecdote.

A young lady, left his bus in the middle of the school day at a local corner and took out her cell phone. The bus driver, stuck at a red light, watched as a car pulled up and a woman got out and started yelling at the girl, "What are you doing talking on your cell phone way over here in the middle of the day? Why aren't you in school?"

And with that the light turned green and the bus driver moved on.
Moral of the story: The bus driver taught us we should all be aware and responsible for our children's whereabouts.

A young man offered me a seat on the subway, but I preferred to stand and oversee the seven young people I entered the car with.(Totally unnecessary, by the way, but old habits die hard). So I got to hear my young friends discuss Quincy.

Quincy could have been on the trip, I would have included him if I could have found him. But Quincy's attendance has been sporadic, so I never saw him to offer him the opportunity of joining us.

"He can't continue to be the bass player, cause he don't show up for practice," Kenneth complained.

"He's gonna lose the gig at the church, too," Conner added. "And with a baby on the way, I don't know what he's thinking"

I tried to listen unobtrusively, it was not my conversation to participate in. The group went on to agree that if they were the cause of a new life they would be responsible both emotionally and and financially.

"If I was having a baby, I would have a plan," Kenneth said.

"Plan to use protection." I ended my anonymity.

But everyone agreed.
You can't get this kind of education in a private car.

Radio Day

Field Trip!
Yay!
Escape from standardized test city- and I could only take seven kids- of my choosing. Oh this gets better and better.

Okay short background. Connor and Norm had a senior science research project. It definitely fit into the "why I am stuck helping you with this project?" category and Connor and Norm decided they would do something with sound.

So somehow our new aspiring principal suggested we put together a radio station. (Another entry in the "why I am stuck helping you with this project?" category). And it turns out that our aspiring principal (think student principal as in student teacher) is one of those change of career people who left the corporate world to complicate my life with projects that are particularly high tech for those of us who started teaching in the age purple mimeograph machines.

But he has contacts in the corporate world- in the radio corporate world. So off we went to visit not one but two radio stations.

WABC was the top forty radio station of my childhood. I have fond memories of sitting around the dining room table on Sunday night and listening to Cousin Brucie introduce us to the Jackson Five and the like, but FM replaced AM for music and digital downloads replaced FM and talk radio left Cousin Brucie in the dust.

We squeezed into the control room. While Mark Simone discussed the gulf oil spill, Adam the 24 year old intern explained the technical side of the show. Then we went on the air and had our almost 15 minutes of fame.

We almost made it down to the fastfood underworld of Penn Station but Laurie our host decided it would be great if we could speak with one of the young producers of the Sean Hannity show. The Sean Hannity Show is the second largest radio show in the country she assured us, a fact I might possibly have known had I had the slightest bit of interest in Talk Radio Hey- I spent the whole day not mentioning once that I thought the ABC line up was a bunch of angry right wing hot air heads and I prefer to spend my time listening to NPR.

Ms. Perky young producer spent some time chastising the group for not being animated enough and I could live with that, my young friends need to know that putting yourself out in the world means just that - putting yourself out there. But then she went on to explain that she was a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. She lived in Chelsea and believed in Gays. (No - I'm not kidding, "Gay rights? I suggested)

"Anyone could marry who they wanted," she said, "but they shouldn't spend our money."

Kenneth, to his credit was the only one of the group who "put himself" out there. He tried to convince her that his status as a child of immigrant family made him more a fan of Democrats but somehow fell short in his explanation which somehow ended up with him pointing to a chair and saying anyone was entitled to one.

I got it- he saw Democrats and liberal leaning politicians as more generous in their policies and more friendly to immigrants and their quest for better lives/ My other friends and Ms. Perky however, made it clear to Kenneth that his argument made no sense.

Poor Kenneth went around the rest of the day worrying that he got his ass kicked by a girl and he planned to go home and get more articulate.
I continually reassured him I was proud of him for stepping up to the plate and attempting to make a point even if it didn't come out quite as convincingly as we would have hoped.


We went uptown in the afternoon and several leaps ahead in communication technology.
The afternoon found us in the offices of Sirius Satellite Radio. If WABC dated back to my childhood, Sirius did not even exist at the start of my young friend's childhood.

We spent the afternoon touring through the maze of production studios where radio programs to appeal to every taste were produced.The Martha Stewart cubicle was directly opposite the Out radio booth- a fact Kobe. our guide non-chalantly pointed out-no need on his part to justify his personal opinions of life style choices. Sirius is serious - if it makes money- it plays.

We saw the gigantic "brain" of Sirius, the row after row of equipment that somehow fed the voices and music of the production cubicles to the sky where the satellites redistributed these sound waves across the Western Hemisphere. (Millions of dollars of equipment cooled by $30 K-Mart fans, Kobe explained)

We passed wall after wall of artwork and signatures that represented most of the entertainment industry of the last decade.

We observed the system of tracking the satellites.

And then we ran into LL Cool Jay. We took pictures.
And now it is time to email those pictures to young friends.

Perhaps in the end, today will be forever remembered as the day we ran into LL Cool Jay.

Babies fake and real

The girls across the aisle on the city bus go to an all girls Catholic High School. Except for the thin white wires leading from the ears, the appearance is essentially the same as the girls who rode the bus to the same Catholic High School 40 years ago, pleated woolen skirts, sweaters embroidered with the school's initials and knee high socks. Last week they carried baby dolls. On Monday and Tuesday the dolls were cradled in the crooks of their arms and the the dolls were fed fake milk from toy bottles, by Friday the dolls were tucked into the side bags, are otherwise squeezed into a nook making way for Algebra texts or cell phones that garnered their "mother's" attention. I suspect the dolls were a part of one of those health education projects that are supposed to teach teenagers the responsibility of parenthood- the ersatz infants appeared to prove the point that "babies" were only interesting for so long.

In the eleventh grade last chance math class (where finding the area of a 7 by 4 rectangle is difficult) Lianna is pregnant. It's a big secret - except, of course, everyone knows, and talks about it all through class and Lianna passes the sonogram around under the table. Quincy, the 12th grader who occasionally remembers to come to me for math help is the dad. Someone asked the other day if Lianna was ready for the baby and unlike the question "how do you find the area of a rectangle?" Lianna answered without hesitation that of course she was.

I like Lianna, and I like Quincy even more.
But unlike the girls on the city bus, this baby won't be shoved to the side for algebra homework.
This baby will be here to stay.
And neither Lianna or Quincy can figure the amount of paint necessary to paint the nursery wall.
Disturbing

Muffins and Elevator Banks

Busy week.
English Language Arts Tests on Monday and Tuesday. Trip to the Vocational and Educational Office for Individuals with Disabilities on Wednesday and a workshop in the city on Thursday.

The best part about the workshops that our Partner Agency offers is the muffins. Now I know that one of the benefits of working in a real city is the real bakeries and deli-catered events on good days or an elevator ride to the muffin stand on not so good days. I know this because when I graduated collegeI tried to work in one of those offices in a glass tower where the elevators are grouped into banks of tens (you know- floors 2-20 in the first line, 21- 40 in the next bank and so on 'til you reach the floors where the big wigs are housed and you can't get on the elevator unless you have a special swipe card.)

But I couldn't sit still at the desk for the eight hours that came after the muffin consumption so I went into to teaching.

I told the story as I sat around the conference table at the Office for Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities on Wednesday. I went with Connor and three other seniors to register for their services. Betina had to drop the baby off at the Day Care at a distant high school so we stood on cold windy corner waiting for Betina to be on the bus that took us the subway- Betina was running late and we actually watched five buses go by before the fifth phone cell phone call confirmed she was on the one the pulled up at the bus stop.

The head counselor explained the process of applying for the services and the benefits from their services and there were many. The office was on the top floor and the glass window wall looked over the city skyline. A helicopter made repeated circles. Four of us focused carefully on the counselors explanation while the most distractable one watched the helicopter- but hey I already have a job.

And then we went to Applebee's for lunch. And I thought about how much better my life had turned out now that I could have a bowl of onion soup and a small Caesar's salad for mere sum of $77, (at least they talked each other out of ordering the $15 dollar meals).
but in the company of people who had beaten the odds Klein/Bloomberg reported to the New York Times today and put together the credits needed for a high school diploma despite having learning disabilities, and other challenges.

Today I had a workshop in the city.
I rode the subway.
I walked through Central Park.
I rode an elevator that was part of an elevator bank.
I bit into a muffin.

And then my tooth feel out.

(The kind dentist waited me for me and cemented it back in)

Comfort and Protection

I've been meaning to write about Usher.
I spend a lot of time thinking about Usher. I probably spend more time thinking about Usher than I spend time working with him. To call Usher a truant is an understatement.

But someone called Adminsistration for Child Services about one of his sisters last week, and they remembered he exists and went looking for him so Usher has been around quite a bit lately.

Last year, when someone threatened to call ACS because of his excessive truancy- Usher showed up in the guidance office and begged us not to.

"You have been in foster homes before?" I prompted . (I knew the answer I read his IEP file- he had spent ten years in and out of foster homes.)

Usher told this story:
When he was six his mom left him in at the park to watch his younger sister. While she was gone the little girl got hurt. "Where's the parent?" someone asked and when no one replied the police were called. And that was the beginning of Usher's ten year journey in the system.
"And it was all my fault, Usher explained, if I had watched her better none of that would have ever happened.

So now Usher is 16, can't read Frog and Toad without making a series of mistakes and spends his days with drug dealers getting high.- At least until ACS threatens to put him and his sisters in the system again- then he returns to school.

Yesterday I made the stupid mistake of inserting myself in the middle of a girl fight-
I got knocked to the floor for my efforts. A strong arm reached into the fracus and helped me up. Then Usher gave me a hug.

Comforted and protected, by someone who gets very little protection

or comfort.



If he would only come to school more often-

Back again

So I had an attack of paranoia.
An old friend found me on Facebook and I sent her a link to my blog.
Now if I understood 21st Century Technology like I pretend to, I would have made sure that the link was sent as private message but of course I don't really get these things so instead I posted it on the Share page where everyone could see it.

Now I probably wouldn't have ever realized this except on the very day I decided to do this my husband decided to open a facebook page and read the message. I have no problem with my husband reading the blog (I even encourage him)but then I realized that the blog was out there on my facebook page with my real names for all these "facebook friends" who I work with to see. Not that I am particularly, purposelessly negative on the blog, but I figure it best to keep my musings anonymous.

All this before 8am on a Saturday morning.

So I panicked, made the last blog private and moved the old stuff over here.
Then I went into to frozen mode- and couldn't write anything for two we

And now I don't really know why I am explaining this since I have probably managed to excise any readership I might had had at all.



I've decided I hate my job (okay I love my job sometimes, but there's been a lot to hate this week.)

The ninth grade science teacher had oral surgery leaving me to suffer with the ninth grade inclusion class alone.
Kenya, the 6 foot 5 star of the basketball team switches from class clown, to chief cynic, to why you writing me up Ms TeacherFish, in less time that it takes him to hi jack a jump ball.

Cleo snickers, than guffaws and then breaks out into screech just at the second when I have been seduced into thinking he has settle down.

Lance pops up and down about fifty times a minute interspersed with blasts from his I-Phone

And then there's Tomas
Tomas joined the class in October. Small, Hispanic (in a school that is overwhelming African American) and infinitely less cool than his younger brother, Tomas devotes his time and energy to impressing the cool crowd by stressing me.

Today,
Tomas: Ms. Teacherfish- you Irish? Is Teacherfish an Teach Irish name?
Me: No Tomas, it means---- in another language and anyway its my husband's name.
Tomas: You married?

Me:
(What does that mean? Is it unfathomable that someone would marry me? but I just move on withe the lesson)
Then later I think I could have said: Tomas why don't you go and find a dictionary and look up the meaning of husband.
But maybe I should be mature than a wannabee 14 year old "gansta."


The crocuses are up-Spring approaches
and hopefully the ninth grade teacher will be back really soon.