Tuesday, Jun. 03, 2003
My body's at home, but my heart's in the wind, posted at 8:07 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I have eight regular days left with students and two days of final, and the school year will then come to a close. It is definitely crunch time. While not as busy as baseball season, I have stacks and stacks of journals and essays that seem undending. I have become a paper grading maniac, perfecting the useful - but highly dorky - art of grading papers while on eliptical machines at Bally's. This works well, except after 25 minutes or so, when sweat drips onto the papers. Or sometimes I press too hard and reset the machine.Grading papers is pretty cool - for the first ten or so. Then it becomes burdensome. I need to develop strategies to become more efficient, especially since my classload will increase from 3 classes at once right now to 5 classes at once next year. I'm starting to with Their Eyes Were Watching God. Their final assessment will not be an essay test, but rather a highly structured discussion that they prepare for.
I am going to really miss a great deal of these current students. One class is especially strong, including one young man who is probably the strongest 9th grader I've ever had. He's the kind of student that pays me the ultimate respect - not by being a teacher's pet or anything like that (he's a goofball), but by making it obvious that he is giving me his undivided attention when I am speaking. I look out over at him, and he's got his eyebrows scrunched, and it's obvious that his mind is at work. His work reflects it, too. He's a decent writer - I've got a few better ones - but his reading skills are off the chart. He critically digests everything, figuring out new ways to look at the literature, ways I hadn't even thought of. Today, we analyzed Paul Beatty's "Darryl Strawberry Asleep in the Field of Dreams", my favorite poem. I do this T-P-C-F-A-S-T-T analysis thing with poetry, in which students look first at the Title, then Paraphrase, then look at any Connotative meanings, then focus on Form, then on the author's Attitude, then on Shifts, then on the Title again (now that it's read), and then on Theme. I'm not sure if I'll use that again - it's a bit complex for 9th graders - but he had this new perception of the title that gave me goosebumps.
I called about 12 parents today, almost 20% of my students. I made a big point early on in the year that if students do not complete all of the assigned reading, they will not be able to pass the course. Period. That's the minimum requirement. I told them that I knew all the tricks and would not allow them to fake it. Therefore, I give reading check quizzes and tests - "Have you read it?" - types that get at just a literal understanding of a text before we head into analysis. It was easy. Students failed. I called home.
I was brutal today to students. With eight days left in the snow-shortened year, there is no time for slacking off. I left so many messages. I set up meetings. I pointedly spoke to kids in the hallway. One student who is a total slackoff, I saw him unfocused, so I said, "Terrence, get out in the hallway, right now." My brevity was icy (anyone catch that allusion? I'll be impressed). He knew it. I then laid into him for a good 8-10 minutes. I've tried everything with that kid; I'm going to see if tough love works. He needs it. His mom tries to be involved, but I think she's stoned a lot, and he's got to pass. He is smart but slacks off way too much. I almost made him cry. Not that I'm proud of it, but he needs to hear these things. I also laid into a girl for not coming in for extra help and then lying about it, saying she came up yesterday at 4pm and no one was here yet I as at school in my room until 5pm. Also, I had two of my favorite students cut my class in 7th period, and called their houses right then in the middle of class while their classmates were working on something. I wanted all of them to know that I was calling home and that this unacceptable behavior would not be tolerated, especially at this point in the year.
Kids, this is not the time to get lazy. I am not going to tolerate slacking off. Just because the city believes that you do not have to go to school the mandatory 90 days, and the system has extended the school year and are paying teachers for eight days without students because of an inflexible insistence not to move exam dates or state testing dates despite moving the school year, does not mean that I share their lack of value in your education. I will work you hard until June 17, and you will learn a lot. Whether you like it or not. That is my philosophy.
By the way, I had a blues song written about me this week by a student, because I'm apparently the only teacher giving work still. I don't believe it for a second, but I found the poem pretty amusing. I will share tomorrow; I've requested a copy from the student.
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In other news, I finally sent the MI girl an e-mail that basically said that I think what she did sucked, that she hurt me a great deal, more than anyone ever has, but maybe we can be friends again someday, or maybe that we could talk about it in the next life when we are both cats. Yes, I actually quoted Vanilla Sky. We talked about that line when the film came out; I think she will appreciate it. I'm not sure what's going to happen, but I hope not to think about it for a while.
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I'm attempting to create a mixed CD for my dad with boating songs on it. So far, I've got "Sail Away" by Styx, "Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffet, "Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles, "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night, "Shiver Me Timbers" by Tom Waits, "I Get Around" by the Beach Boys, and I'm a little stuck. Luckily, I've got a week and a half until Father's Day.