Heart Hurts

Once I taught first grade.
I put a little boy with thick glasses, lots of home life problems and and an IQ about equal to my current age, in the time out corner.

He was hitting the girl next to him.

He wailed uncontrollably. I was okay, - he had to learn. We don't hit girls. We don't hit.

But the other adults in the room were less tough than my 22 year old self.
"It makes my heart hurt," my aide whispered.

High Schoolers may not be so cute-
But here's my account of today's senior English class.

Millie crumpled up about twenty papers trying to interpret a quote about whatever you get in life you end up paying for one way or another. In the end she turned out to be the only one in the class who diagreed with the quote( actually a valid option)- in a hundred discombobulated words she explained that sometimes life isn't fair some people suffer just because they were born a certain way. She was talking about Lennie in Of Mice and Men. I got it. I'm not sure anyone else would.

I got behind Isiah and prodded. "Get your tuchis" into English."
"What's a tuchis?"
It's your ass, stupid" -helpful volunteer explained.
Isiah wrote five carefully printed paragraphs, more English than Millie's, but he made me check every word as he wrote it.

Ralf watched flies in the room.
"Ralf, it's January - look at your paper."
"I'm writing, Teacherfish, I'm writing, just ....what was I saying?"

Louis, wrote something like - whatever you do in life, there are consequences. Had the page not been written in Louis's heiroglyphic like handwriting I would not believed it was Louis's paper.
But the good luck ran out- and he begged me what to write next.

Kenya didn't write anything. He's on suspension. He called Evan an asshole. I would call Evan an Asshole if I wasn't afraid of losing my pension. I would call Kenya an asshole. I told the friendly administrator last week he is a pain in the ass but he's my pain in the ass.

They make my heart hurt.
But they're not cute anymore.

It was thirtyfive years ago that first grader sobbed his eyes out on the timeout chair.
He made it out of time out in five minutes.
I wonder if he made it out in the world?

Advocacy and Diet Cokes

Kenya's mad. he failed two courses and can't play f----ing basketball. (No I am not quite sure how basketballs have sex and Kenya didn't find the question amusing).

Boring details.
Evan asked Kenya one day to name five NBA teams without first naming the city.
Kenya could name two- the Heat and the Knicks.
Ok- name the some cities and the teams- Kenya could come up with no more.
So I offered Chicago........, Indiana ........, Cleveland...........
Nope- Kenya could not come up with the names.
Now this six foot, seven thumb sucking center gets recruitment letters from colleges around the country.

My uncle had a joke about my aunt's bra size, that went something like when God was giving out tits my aunt didn't hear right and got on the ass line twice.

Kenya got on the height line while the brain cells were being distributed.

But does that keep us from assigning him chemistry and trigonometry?

So guess what Kenya failed?

I braved the displeasure of the guidance counselor, hooked the principal into the room and got Kenya rescheduled for inclusion geometry and science got put on hold for a year.

So is Kenya grateful? He's still not sure if he's back on the team.
And he needed to borrow a dollar to buy a drink. But in case the machine wasn't working he took one of my Diet Cokes and figured one thank you was enough for the advocacy, money and soda.

There- I blogged again!

New Year's Resolution

I watched the news yesterday-the most common New Year's Resolutions- Lose weight, save more, improve relationship. I'm okay with my relationship- so I swap relationships to blogging more. I keep thinking about trying to blog 100 words a day and not worry about making a work of literary genius.

First day back-
Period 1- called out of Algebra because of new admit in the self-contained class. Stood at algebra teacher's door until she let me back.
Period 2-Held back tears during Mice and Men movie, took shooting the dog part hard
Period 3- Chased Emeline out of the wrong advisory classroom- and got subjected to her sucking her teeth at me for the rest of the day. She needed to use my cell phone to call for a ride at the end of the day so I asked her why she was mean to me- too tired to be back in school (her comment, my sentiment)
Period 4- Chased my tail in ELA since nothing was planned by gen ed teacher
Period 5 -Planned something for tomorrow's ELA
Period 6- tried to catch up on paper work while the ESL class got scolded by the ESL teacher
Period 7- looked at our place in the universe with the 12th graders- drew targets with room 420 as the bullseye and subsequent layers leading up to the universe. I found out that Louis could identify countries and cities all over the world. Millie could not- but at least I didn't yell at her- she doesn't like when I yell. Louis still amazing with me his knowledge of things that I didn't know he knew- (and everyone else still thinks he doesn't) but still far away from that elusive diploma. Millie closer- but I still feel like I'm trying to pick up the prizes from the treasure box with a claw that grasps but does not hold. Does that make sense? It was my illustration for the word elusive in the 12th grade last chance ELA class. Miri claimed she could get the prize from the box- but can she get the diploma? Not on my register- not my problem. (Okay that was a little harsh, but in the new world order- no IEP- no say from me)
And 8th and 9th period happened too- but now I'm bored of my reporting.

So there - I blogged. I stayed on my diet. And the second bus came as I got off the first- no time for a detour into the supermarket. So I guess I saved some money too.
On to tomorrow

If you miss me at the back of the bus

When my father had lost the ability to make pithy comments about most things, let alone the ability to open the car door without assistance, we took him to his grandaughter's camp visiting day. There a bunch of enthusiastic fair-skinned, nine year olds belted out the old civil right song- If You Miss Me At the Back Bus
If you miss me at the back of the bus, and you can't find me nowhere
Come on up to the front of the bus,
I'll be ridin' right thereI'll be ridin' right there
I'll be ridin' right there
You got to come on up to the front of the bus
I'll be ridin' right there

My father's comment: “That's what I like about the Jews, they send their kids to camp to sing good socialist songs and you can't find a spot in the parking lot between the BMWs and the Cadillacs.

I take two buses home from school. I stayed at school until almost 6pm. I stayed for the Black Studies College course. The guest speaker spoke about prejudices and segregation. The after-school college class is filled with the kind of student who anyone would love to teach. It was a beautiful two hours in the classroom as the sun set behind us. It was a nasty, rainy day as I ran for the bus after it ended. But the driver waited and I scurried on. I found a spot in the back of the bus, between two members of the class. I joked about sitting on the back of the bus and enjoyed the good company for the first half of the trip. Sometimes I just love my high school students.

Next bus. Now the bus back was filled with rambunctious students heading for a basketball game. It wasn't nearly as enjoyable
They weren't my students.
I squeezed into a seat in the front of the bus and listened to my headphones for the whole way home.


Come on over to the front of the bus- I'll be riding up there

Defeated

Louis had his head down when I entered the room Friday. He looked like I felt- defeated .

I knew why I was defeated. Clueless helper was back. And her help made me dizzy first, depressed second and then finally defeated.

Things have not been going well in the category of students with special ed services. Some combination of budget cuts and the inability of administration to make a schedule has resulted in what we call -lack of compliance -lots of lack of compliance and everyone complains to me.

I've been on the horns of a moral dilemma Should I report this obvious denial of services to students in need, or keep playing ball with an ineffective administration- hoping against hope they will eventually get it right. Okay I know what the moral decision is. But I did that once – I reported the abuse of power in another time in another school

And it was HELL. The subsequent school year was categorized by investigations , discipline reports, and threats of loss of employment,

For both the principal and me. And at the end of the year both of us left the school.
I maintain to this day the correctness of my actions, but I could not go through that again.

So I didn't report the principal.
But someone (and I don't know who) did.

Which made the Union come down- to solve these issues.
Which made overwhelmed adminstrator call her support people down.

Which produced Clueless Helper.

Which led to my dizziness, depression and defeat.

Clueless Helper's input:
Only highly qualified teachers should teach special education students in the content area. “With apologies to the Union,” she said, “when special education teachers teach content their students receive 80s and 90s on the report card but only score 20s and 30s on their state exams.” Then she added that she thought she could not teach special education math since she had not majored in math in college. She could however, teach general education students since they may be smart enough to pass the curriculum without a good teacher.

This is what I thought:
Students are granted special education services after a large battery of evaluations that determine their difficulty in assessing the general education with a general education teacher. Then when they cannot meet the arbitrarily determined state standards do we offered any other course of study other than the “rigorous college bound curriculum” everyone is subjected to?
No we have high standards for everyone.
So they fail continuously.
The ability to solve differential equations, adequately understand college level calculus and other advanced mathematics makes one a better instructor for students who cannot accurately sketch the fraction one half. Even is that other person is a learning disability specialist.
Looking at real data is only applicable to situations when it validates Clueless Administrator and her buddies' position. While she could only make conjectures on her ability to get students to pass the Algebra Regents, I have hard data that illustrates that I continuously do.
I thought that for several seconds.

The meeting went on for hours.

And we still didn't have a real schedule.

So that's why I was dejected.

And Louis.

I've been meaning to write about Louis for a long tme.

Five years ago Louis arrived from another country. He didn't speak English.
He didn't know what a fraction was. The ESL teacher put him on a computer ESL computer program. He didn't know how to use a computer.

But he was determined. He was in my room every spare minute. He would stay until six o'clock at night to put together a project. He would take all six hours to finish a exam allotted three hours (He was allowed double time). And he still failed.

After a year he could communicate in English a little better. He took the Regents again. He failed again. He took it over and over again. And failed every time.

I found his tenacity honorable. Most found it pretty annoying. Louis's dedication came off more creepy than endearing. His inability to communicate what he needed paired with his perseverance, made him come off as kind of a stalker. He would follow around the person he thought had what he needed, until they made every effort to avoid him or gave up and helped.
Most avoided him- I ended up helping just a shade less than the amount that would have preserved my sanity.

Louis passed classes. But he continued to fail Regents. He just couldn't remember, process, or write well enough to pass.

But he kept trying.
This year something changed. He kind of got it. He can do more of the academics. He figured out that I am the only one worth the effort of bothering. He leaves everyone else alone. And he figured out he's past the age of the average high school graduate. And he still hasn't passed a Regents exam

A long time ago I learned about BICs and CALPs. A second language learner can master the basic interpersonal communication skills pretty quickly, within a year or two. The Cognitive Academic Language Processing skills take five to seven years to master. Louis is just moving into that time period.

And he got the idea he's in trouble.
He is.

We have high standards. We expect everyone to go to college
We leave no child behind.

Except of course, if you are an annoying English learner with little formal education who happened to arrive in this country less than five years before high school graduation.

And that why Louis is defeated.

I have no pithy summary statement.
It's just sad,

The Art Book Fair

If I stayed on the couch any longer I was going to grow roots. So Mr Teacherfish made me get up and we were off to the New York Art Book Fair at P.S. 1

The museum that houses P.S. 1 was once a public school. Helen our babysitter (my daughters are in their twenties and have long since passed the age of needing Helen's services but she remains forever in our hearts the loving babysitter) went there more than a half century ago. She lived in a two room apartment in Long Island City with ten siblings, no room for cribs, she once told me, “we kept the babies in the dresser drawers.”

But I digress.
Good writers keep to their topic when writing an expository piece, I tell the freshman English class. But it is freeing to have no aspirations to be a good writer, nor to receive a passing grade in ninth grade English, for that matter.

Back to the topic.
Long Island City has changed over the last half century, since the time Helen and her many siblings lined up at the separate Boys and Girls entrance to receive the free public education that entitled them to seek lives where babies could have cribs in houses with swimming pools.

And PS 1 no longer educates the children of fertile immigrants. It has become an avante garde art museum, the more modern extension of the Museum of Modern Art. Only the peeling paint in the overheated cavernous stairway reminds you that it was once a New York City public school

It was packed to the gills yesterday, with art book merchants and many, many of the children of the immigrants whose parents' successes had afforded them the opportunity of perusing their wares.

Us among them (slightly, okay considerably older than the average peruser).

Now the Philistine disclaimer. I have no idea what makes an art book have value. I don't know why a small book with one word typed on a page is worth five dollars. I also quickly realized that I could never even hope to have even those most minimal look at one one thousandth of the material displayed. So I gave up trying and used the strategy of looking at whatever I landed in front of, hopefully in some corner with a cross breeze.

And why does this entry belong in the Teacherfish blog?

I had decided not to buy any books, I had enough, I didn't know what I was looking at, and anyway I was there to just do something
That lasted five minutes. My purchase, a pop-up book of the Odyssey- perfect for the ELA class studying Greek mythology.
“What grade do you teach?' asked the merchant?
“12th but they still can't really read,” I answered. But that doesn't stop us from placing them in an a college credit course. We have high expectations for our students. (I didn't say that aloud-I hope.)

A lot of the books I surveyed had sketchings with sexual contents. The first year I taught, I had 18 middle school, limited skilled students who were boisterous, to use a positive word. And then one week Dominic, the leader of the pack became very quiet. He sat quietly working on something at his desk throughout the day. Without his antics the class settled down. I got a word in edgewise. I didn't look at what he was doing. I assumed he was doing school work, (okay- I was 23 less than the amount of years I have taught subsequently). I was happy he was quiet.

But at the end of the week he showed me a product. It was our class's personal magazine- Playboy for class 8-412 all the girls carefully sketched naked with a floaty pen that made the bikini on the sexy girl disappeared when turned upside down. I confiscated the pen and the book I told him I could destroy it or send it to his family. I didn't do either. I took it home, it still upstairs, I think, along with the pen.

I wonder if he was at PS 1 yesterday. He would be in his mid-forties now, a little old for most of the vendors.

At the end of our time there I found another small art book related to the Greek Mythology course. This one had nine myths illustrated with watercolor sketches. Each featuring the Greek gods doing what Greek gods do- have sex with other gods or come down to earth to do it with mortals.

“Should I buy this one too, for school?” I asked Mr. Teacherfish?

“Do you want to spend the rest of your career in an administrative office on reassignment?”

I saved the five dollars and we were off through the rain, to find something to eat.

They would have enjoyed it. They would have been engaged.If I stayed on the couch any longer I was going to grow roots. So Mr Teacherfish made me get up and we were off to the New York Art Book Fair at P.S. 1

The museum that houses P.S. 1 was once a public school. Helen our babysitter (my daughters are in their twenties and have long since passed the age of needing Helen's services but she remains forever in our hearts the loving babysitter) went there more than a half century ago. She lived in a two room apartment in Long Island City with ten siblings, no room for cribs, she once told me, “we kept the baby's in the dresser drawers.”

But I digress.
Good writers keep to their topic when writing an expository piece, I tell the freshman English class. But it is freeing to have no aspirations to be a good writer, nor to receive a passing grade in ninth grade English, for that matter.

Back to the topic.
Long Island City has changed over the last half century, since the time Helen and her many siblings lined up at the separate Boys and Girls entrance to receive the free public education that entitled them to seek lives where babies could have cribs in houses with swimming pools.

And PS 1 no longer educates the children of fertile immigrants. It has become an avante garde art museum, the more modern extension of the Museum of Modern Art. Only the peeling paint in the overheated cavernous stairway reminds you that it was once a New York City public school

It was packed to the gills yesterday, with art book merchants and many, many of the children of the immigrants whose parents' successes had afforded them the opportunity of perusing their wares.

Us among them (slightly, okay considerably older than the average peruser).

Now the Philistine disclaimer. I have no idea what makes an art book have value. I don't know why a small book with one word typed on a page is worth five dollars. I also quickly realized that I could never even hope to have even those most minimal look at one one thousandth of the material displayed. So I gave up trying and used the strategy of looking at whatever I landed in front of, hopefully in some corner with a cross breeze.

And why does this entry belong in the Teacherfish blog?

I had decided not to buy any books, I had enough, I didn't know what I was looking at, and anyway I was there to just do something
That lasted five minutes. My purchase, a pop-up book of the Odyssey- perfect for the ELA class studying Greek mythology.
“What grade do you teach?' asked the merchant?
“12th but they still can't really read,” I answered. But that doesn't stop us from placing them in an a college credit course. We have high expectations for our students. (I didn't say that aloud-I hope.)

A lot of the books I surveyed had sketchings with sexual contents. The first year I taught, I had 18 middle school, limited skilled students who were boisterous, to use a positive word. And then one week Dominic, the leader of the pack became very quiet. He sat quietly working on something at his desk throughout the day. Without his antics the class settled down. I got a word in edgewise. I didn't look at what he was doing. I assumed he was doing school work, (okay- I was 23 less than the amount of years I have taught subsequently). I was happy he was quiet.

But at the end of the week he showed me a product. It was our class's personal magazine- Playboy for class 8-412 all the girls carefully sketched naked with a floaty pen that made the bikini on the sexy girl disappeared when turned upside down. I confiscated the pen and the book I told him I could destroy it or send it to his family. I didn't do either. I took it home, it still upstairs, I think, along with the pen.

I wonder if he was at PS 1 yesterday. He would be in his mid-forties now, a little old for most of the vendors.

At the end of our time there I found another small art book related to the Greek Mythology course. This one had nine myths illustrated with watercolor sketches. Each featuring the Greek gods doing what Greek gods do- have sex with other gods or come down to earth to do it with mortals.

“Should I buy this one too, for school?” I asked Mr. Teacherfish?

“Do you want to spend the rest of your career in an administrative office on reassignment?”

I saved the five dollars and we were off through the rain, to find something to eat.

They would have enjoyed it. They would have been engaged.

How to Use a Remote Control and other Useless Advice

We used to have a fuzzy television set with six channels that you changed by leaning forward and pressing the buttons at the base of the TV. But then the twin towers fell. And we lost our reception.

So we got cable. No point in being depressed, terrorized and having lousy reception..

Then since we had cable tv we needed a 50 inch high definition TV. You can't sit close enough to a 52 inch high definition TV to change the channels by leaning forward, and anyway it came with a remote control

Okay so I lived all those years without a remote, and this one had a series of buttons to press in a certain order but I mastered it. You can teach an old dog new tricks.
But sometimes I cannot perform the series of button pressing in a rapid succession therefore delaying the viewing pleasure of the immediate audience. Which causes my husband to 1) take the remote away or 2) explain for the forty millionth time how the remote works..

I know how the remote works! I just have technical difficulties.
I respond to the offer with the counter offer that if he touches the remote or instructs me one more time the TV will change channels every time he sits down.
And this story belongs on my school blog why?

When I had the fuzzy, little TV set, I also had a special education supervisor, who made the schedule and distributed them the first day of school. Students with like disabilities were placed in programs with similar needs and a class was formed a staffed. But now in the name of great leaps forward in education of students with special needs, students are assigned schools, the school can group then anyway they want (as long as their needs are met) and it is my job to figure out the schedule.
I couldn't. Suffice to say I could not make the numbers add up. Not enough students in anyone category to form a group, but the student's difficulties with the learning process had the annoying habit of not disappearing because nine other similar students had not enrolled in the school.
The principal (who couldn't do it either) invited someone from the network to come down.


And here is her words of wisdom

Good Morning Overwhelmed Teacher,

It was a pleasure meeting with you and MS Teacherfish yesterday afternoon.

To do a brief recap of our meeting:

We discussed:
· Amending IEPs according to each student’s skill levels and the services the school can provide to support each student
· A bridge class of 8th and 9th grade students who are self contained cannot be done
· In 9th -12th grade students can be in the same subject class as long as each student needs the specific course credit
· If there are any students in a class who is less than 16 years old then there can not be more than a 3 year age difference.
· To build capacity of subject area expertise it is best practice for Special Education Teachers who co- teach ICT classes to teach the same subject for Self Contained classes

Please feel free to contact me with any other questions or concerns.

Clueless Helper


Still no schedule. Still no way to figure it out. But now I think I knew exactly what I knew before she came to help.

I know how special ed works! I just have technical difficulties.