Thursday, Apr. 22, 2004
4/22/04, posted at 8:42 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com One of the many things I like about teaching in an urban school district is the respect the families seem to give teachers. For example, if I was in a rich white suburban school, I probably wouldn't have gotten away with showing a few scenes from The Laramie Project (I did not show the entire film), even though it offered some amazing thematic connections with To Kill a Mockingbird, contemporizing and shedding new understanding on the text and the themes of the course. Not only do I work in a department where this sort of outside-the-box thinking is encouraged, but I work in a school district and in a school where teachers don't have to worry about walking on eggshells. I've received almost nothing but complete support from parents; they - like me - just want their kids to learn and gain skills. And they do.A good example of this freedom that I don't think I'd feel in other school districts happened today. I gave a kid a ride home. He had a shitty practice, and was really down on himself. On my way driving out of the school, it had started to rain, and thunderstorms were in the forecast. I saw him sitting on the bench, waiting for the bus to come - a bus that comes once an hour. I decided, what the hell, I'll give him a ride. How terrible it would have been to have to sit in the rain after having a bad practice. We had a good conversation on the way back about his homelife (he's the oldest of four brothers living at home, but he's actually one of ten!) while listening to Kanye West (I decided that track 9 - "Get 'Em High" - was inappropriate to listen to with a student, so I skipped past that one, though probably a bit too late). This is a kid who played Varsity Football as a 9th grader; I was shocked to find out he was in the 9th grade when I first met him. Not only does he look like a senior, he looks like he could be older. He's got a high forehead, skin so dark it's almost weathered, and even a little bit of facial hair. The kids make fun of him for looking so old. The other day, at the end of practice, the two of us happened to be standing next to each other with our arms folded across our chests. One kid said we looked like old college buddies at our reunion. It really could be true; this kid could pass for 25.
Anyhow, I gave him a ride home to the other side of the city and now I'm at home (8:30pm, first time home all day), ready to write the test I'm going to give tomorrow and head to bed. My days are long and nights are short.
Today was also "Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day" - one of the worst days of the year to be a teacher. I see my students only every other day, which means that parents who took their kid out of school today would be allowing their kid to see their English teacher only once this week. A big test is Monday. I've only got 22 days left of school with each group of students, so I'm not changing it. My classes lost almost half of the kids every year on this date, and it's generally in a really important part of a unit because it's the start of 4th quarter. It just sucks. If you need to have it, have it in the summer when the kids won't miss school. Call me old school, but a kid should be in school every day unless their contagious or someone died. Period.