2002-07-24
Student came out to me, posted at 3:31 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com So, I haven't had a chance to write about school much lately. But it's been going really well.My seniors are fantastic kids. Only four of them are coming to class (out of six), and I've gotten pretty close with them. Today, I watched some new teacher hirees teach them. It was grand. I got to spend the period writing up comments about them. Loved it! The four of them taught the three students "Harrison Bergeron" today - an excellent short story and an excellent lesson. The cool thing that happened was as the bell rang, the new teachers asked the students what they look for in a teacher, and if they had any advice. None of them could think of anything, and they all left. A few seconds later, this one wonderful kid named Barbara - who I thought I'd spar with when I first met her - returned to the room, and said something came to her as she was walking away. She (paraphrasing) said that effective teachers are ones that can relate to the kids, who can talk with them about things other than school. Then, she said (my heart swelling), "Take Mr. E for example. He and I talk about music every now and then. He seems like a guy who likes all sorts of types of music. I like that. It makes me want to do work for him. All the kids talk to Mr. E about music and movies."
Okay, the only thing I ever remember about this is a brief moment when I overheard Barbara saying to another classmate that she was going to go out and buy the new Nelly CD that night. I told her I already had it, and recommended it. That was it. Yet she remembered it weeks later. Woah.
My junior class is also going very well. I have only two students, so I've gotten to know them both well. Today, the female student in the class came out as a lesbian to me. The assignment I gave was to write about a situation in which you dealt with phoniness in Holden's voice. The title of her essay was, "When I told my family I was gay." The gist of the story was that she came out to her family, and everyone said they were okay with it, and later she overheard them talking about it critically. It was excellent. It made me feel good that she trusted me enough to read it in front of the class.
When I say "in front of the class," though, it's not really accurate. Well, it is, but the class is only two students large. The other kid wrote about the time he met Charles S. Dutton. Hung out at his house, even. Both of them captured Holden's voice very well.
I finished up Catcher in the Rye with them today, having a terrific discussion. We debated the Mr. Antolini situation for almost a half hour. Was he gay? Was it all in Holden's head? Was Holden overreacting? Hmmm... that's what makes literature great. I told them that, too.
I start The White Boy Shuffle with them tomorrow. I'm a bit worried about the book, as I haven't read it in a couple of years and haven't had a chance to sit down and read it again since I decided to do it this summer. It's a pretty racy text, and some of the humor is even over my head. The best way I can describe Paul Beatty is that he's ferociously witty and intelligent - almost to the point of being overwhelming. A lot of the book is playing around with African-American stereotypes, and I hope the kids "get" it. The boy has already read ahead a little, and he's loving it.