100 Issues for 100 Days: #78

#78: Ms. Stress

When it rains it pours. Despite all the planning and prepping that I did before leaving to "rest", I've come back and it's chaos. There's a million things going on, everyone is calling in sick, I'm sick too, and although it is November, it's blazing hot and the heat is making me more irritated. I'm working all through the weekend and basically I'm living for Veteran's Day. If I can just make it to next Wednesday, I should be alright. If not I may be in jail for killing someone's child.

100 Issues for 100 Days: #53

#53: And So It Goes ...

Yesterday I was writing about apathy and today my faith is (somewhat) restored. But that just goes to illustrate one of the problems with being a teacher. When you work with a bunch of hormone-loaded teens, you start to act like them.

It's not like I'm going around being mercurial with people but I definitely experience the daily ups and downs that I remember from high school. In a way, it makes me feel compassion for what they're going through. I recall returning to my room at the end of the night feeling as if I'd run a marathon. And it was all due to emotions. Sometimes my mood would change by the hour.

So I get it. I get what teenagers are going through because sometimes I want to throw them through a window, and other times I just want to give them hugs. And luckily, since our K-12 school is now housed in one building I get to experience the purity and sweetness of the younger kids. Not that they're all perfect but you're much less likely to get an indignant "Why?" from a third-grader.

And today was a good day. I got some of my students to really pitch in and help me plan an event. And another helped me put together a bulletin board. Today there was a feeling of excitement that couldn't be dampened by the few who were apathetic. Today was a good day.

100 Issues for 100 Days: #52

#52: Apathy

Today I hosted a fashion show for our Afterschool Program. Originally planned for the high school, it ended up being mostly attended by the middle and some elementary students. In a way it was a success. The high school band played. The models enjoyed themselves and so did the attendees but there were some snafus and a lot of it comes down to apathy.

People always ask me is California different than NY and I want to smack them for two reasons, because: 1) of course it's different and 2) any way, besides the obvious, that it's different is hard to put into words. But when talking about children or students, it's really easy for me to pinpoint the differences.

First and foremost, West Coast kids have been taught that they do not have to give respect to adults. They've been taught that people have to earn their respect whereas on the East Coast for the most part you're told that adults have the respect until they lose it. Now if a child was being willful or openly disrespectful and I was in NY, I'd think "that child has no home-training", here I think "that child was probably told that by their parents".

Secondly, children here are far more entitled. Even though I think there's been a general uptick in entitlement over the past decade, here it's an epidemic. The things I've had students basically demand without any sort of recognition or effort on their part is astounding. It boggles the mind. But it's hard to tell a child that hard work matters when they get brand-new iPods for "D" grades.

But the most annoying thing is the apathy. One of the characteristics that I enjoy about California schools is the idea that we want to give kids a voice and empower them to make decisions. What frustrates me is that when "opinion" and "entitlement" collide you get "apathy". Basically, everything I do is "wrong" but when you look for solutions or ideas, it's still "wrong". Everyone wants to tell you what they don't want to do, but no one knows what they do want to do. And it's not every student. Those who did get involved today had a great time but right now, I've hit my level of apathy. I'm done.

If you have any suggestions let me know, because I'm just about through.

100 Issues for 100 Days: #45

#45: Atonement

I'm searching for atonement
I'm looking for someone to tell me it's ok
To watch a child being beaten for having
Light-skin and long hair

I'm hoping someone will tell me
It's not my fault that I didn't jump in
And save the day
That I haven't seen the day
When I am afraid of children

I'm asking for forgiveness

For every time I fell short and
Let my short fuse lead a child astray
For the days I lost my patience
Because sometimes I'm scared
I'll end up a patient in a mental hospital
Screaming about back in the day
When things were cool
And the kids knew their place

I'm looking for empathy
For someone to tell me that
I wasn't wrong when I let that curse slip by
Or turned up the music in my headphones
Cause each curse word was like a knife wound
And I was tired of getting stabbed
Just riding the bus

The truth is I cry on the inside
When I hear ignorance
But sometimes I let it slip by
Cause I'm tired

I'm diving for absolution
I want to come up from the depths of my despair
Holding it like pearls
A buried treasure
That I've buried forever because the truth is that I'm afraid

Sometimes I am scared of the youth
And that outweighs my fear for the youth
The truth is that sometimes I'm a coward
And sometimes my bad days slip over into the good
So my hope floats away and I just want to
Turn up the music in my headphones and make it go away

Cause I ain't birthed no babies
And sometimes I'm tired of being a parent
To children who don't realize they don't have one

So I fumble for grace
A space where I can glory in the successes and not dwell
On the failures
But then the guilt rises like tides within me
Ebbing and flowing
Cause I can't let go of the hard cases
Those hard heads that have so much potential
Like torrential downpours
I cry tears and ask for clemency
A chance to demonstrate to me,
Myself and I
That I deserve the reprieve

Cause in the end
No one can forgive me
But me

100 Issue for 100 Days: #11

#11: Bowled Over

Yesterday we did a training on emergency procedures for our school. First of all, I'm glad our school even has a procedure. I know many don't and the ones that do barely practice it, but that doesn't take away from the fact that emergency procedures have come to encompass so much more than they used to. In addition to contingency plans for airplanes falling on the school (I know. Apparently it happened to a co-worker), there's now the ever-pressing possibility that an intruder or a student might enter the school with a gun.

One of the things that I've learned is that schools spend tons of money on fire safety yet the amount of school fire deaths is next to nothing each year. This is while school violence and violence related deaths rises by 300% each decade. And what many project is that these school shootings are only a precursor to future shootings in the workplace. School shootings have moved from middle school, to high school and college. This makes perfect sense because for kids, school is their workplace and if they aren't able to handle the emotional and physical stress of high school, what's going to happen when there are paychecks, bills and potential offspring involved?

It's hard to believe that this is the reality of the American school system but it is. We now have to practice "lockdowns" and think about how we would react if a gunman managed to make it into our room or if a tanker flipped over near the school. It's good to be prepared but mainly I'm just bowled over.