Let the Circle Be Unbroken

Loyal readers (who are, pretty objectively, more loyal to this blog than I've proven to be) may remember the early days of my public musings. It was a semi-weekly ritual, where I waxed poetic on topics that went beyond children, beyond pedagogy to discuss such delicious and under-reported topics as Sarah Palin's could-have-been-presidential bid and my persistent problem with perspiration. As you probably know, the former topic has been left to rest and the latter remains an ever-present source of levity and joy for my favorite spate of middle schoolers.

You may also remember that my temporary residence during (ahhhhh) those (Suh-um-mer) summer (niiiiiiiiiiiights) months was the lovely city of Atlanta. As fate would have it, the Big Peach was also the chosen destination for our end of the year trip for our sixth graders. It ended right where it all began for me.

College-prep charter schools like my own have built a tradition around funding really enticing end of the year trips for students who have worked hard to make the best behavior choices throughout the year. This year, 25 sixth graders made the cut to come see the sights of Atlanta, and five lucky teachers got the golden ticket to join the adventure. To say that I was "meh" on the excursion as the date of departure approached would be a severe overstatement. I was frankly pretty ready to enjoy some time away from school in the Big Easy, rather than spending bonus time with kids in a new city.

It's moments like this when I'm glad that people hold you to your commitments. Given the opportunity I would have bowed out. I would have deprived these sixth graders of, well, me. I would have deprived my colleagues of that same gift from God. And seriously (you know I was kidding with the last two, right?) I would have deprived myself of this opportunity to be reinvigorated and to get to know these chitlins outside of the confines of our super-demanding, ultra-stressful, occasionally overly rigorous school boundaries. It's been totally rejuvenating.

But we'll save the mushy stuff and begin with the hilarity that sixth graders persistently exude.

Our trip began with a 5:30 AM arrival at school and a 6:00 AM departure on a coach bus. The yoots showed up bleary-eyed and only slightly bushy tailed. Full disclosure: the 6 AM departure was a merciful stroke of genius from our trip leader, who knew that sleepy 6th graders are the best type of sixth graders. The ratio of singing/beating on things/talking to sleepingheavily favors the teachers. More than that, the early morning resulted in a swath of attire choices that would give the catwalk at Paris' Fashion Week a run for it's Euros. Among the most-- throat clear-- fashionable was a young lady who calls herself Baby D. Even though all of her teachers and peers refuse to call her that. Read the following then close your eyes to process: pink footsie pajamas, curlers in her hair, bunny slippers, a face full of make-up. Good ahead and stew on Baby D for a second, bearing in mind of course, her ripe age of 12 years old.

This get-up didn't pose a problem for any of us. But she did get some funny looks when she refused to change before we went into McDonald's.

If only that were the end of the shenanigans. But later that evening, on our first day, one student's eyes were bigger than his stomach. And his stomach reminded him of that in the middle of the restaurant. Needless to say, neither the clientelle nor the other patrons of Paschal's were much too pleased with us.

And as all parents and teachers know, when it rains puke, it pours puke. By the close of day 2, the vom count was up to 3: 1 in a restaurant, 1 on the bus, and 1 in his bed.

On Day 2, we treated the kids to some downhome Atlanta Barbeque. And when I say authentic, I mean aw. then. tick. All things coming at a price, to get at the delicious smokey goodness Daddy D'z has to offer, you have to go to a less desireable part of the town. Lucky for us, it was in that part of the town that our bus gave out.

And continued to refuse to work. For nearly two hours. Placid as you might imagine the brood of 25 sixth graders to be under such conditions, they were surprisingly a little restless. It was after hour one that a kid, who we'll name A-Holl, decided thath is barbeque hadn't agreed with him. He decided to use his undigested meat as a new sort of decor for the bathroom on the bus. Turns out he and I have different tastes in interior decorating.

This comedy, sometimes of errors, sometimes less so, was capped off in perhaps the most spectacular way possible. Remember that seen from Vacation when they finally get to Walley World only to be greeted by potentially the world's most annoying moose who talks like Goofy? If not, go ahead and refresh your memory and allow yourself to imagine where this story's going.

After an early start to the day, we drove the 45 minutes from our hotel to a lovely little amusement park called Stone Mountain, famously the caricatured hometown of fictional character Kenneth Ellen Parcell from 30 Rock. It was last day, so teachers were excited. There were rumors of water slides and roller coasters, so the kids were excited. The bus started, and our stomachs were collectively, so life was good. We took in the back woods sights of the entrance road, paid the parking attendant, mostly in coins, and barreled along. Finally, just like Clark and the kids, we arrived at the amusement to find that, not only were we three hours only for the opening time, but the park also was not due to open for the year another 2 weeks.

Really? Ok, Stone Mountain, I see you.

But for the grace of God, an unfortunate security guard would have had his whole day messed up by being taken hostage. Instead, we scrambled for things to do. As the name of the town might suggest, Stone Mountain doesn't offer too much in the way of entertainment outside of a large stony mountain upon which the park sits. We were going to go to the mall, but, Lawdy, that would have been a logistical nightmare. Then we talked about mini golf, but the Stone Mountain World Famous Putt Putt needed a break from the pressure of world fame, I suppose, and also was inexplicably closed for the day. Having exhausted all three options in this portion of Real America, we opted to just head to the beach.

And what a good call it was.The only glitch in the day came when Shaun came up to me in the water after about an hour of swimming and tapped me on the shoulder. "Mr Glasser!" he said emphatically. "My phone's not in my pocket! But..." he paused and looked at me quizzically, "it has been the whole time I was in the ocean." We found the phone, but it was more valuable as a painful water balloon then as a mode of communication. Other than some damaged technology, it was really a fantastic day. Six of the twenty-five had never been to the beach (although a shocking number of returning guests were still surprised that the water was so salty). So we floated, I taught them some awesome water tricks, and had six kids who refused to unwrap their arms from my neck. They ran, they played, they buried themselves in sand, dug holes, played with tadpoles, and were just kids. Screaming, yelling, splashing, shivering, dolphin diving the way kids should. For a few hours, they forgot about their drama, their problems, the problems in this city, the stresses of catching up academically, and because they allowed themselves to let go, the staff did as well.

Like any good day at the beach, we all made our way back on to bus and the kids instantly passed out. When we got back to New Orleans a few hours later, the bleary-eyed little guys had re-donned their PJ's and were collected by their parents in the same condition in which they left four days earlier. All and all, I got 273 photos, mostly because the kids used the camera, a great set of stories, and a huge appreciation for the innocence of the babies. Not bad for a free trip to Hotlanta, right?

I'll be back soon, because, phew! What a couple of weeks it's been. Until then.

Did they have color pictures in Mesopotamia?

So my school loves to give feedback. It's important, I'm told, to know where you stand, to know your Deltas and your Pluses, your glows and grows. Well, one Delta or Grow I've been handed down from on high is that I'm not great with creating routines and sticking to them. You all know that too well. Thank you for responding to my blogging disruptions better than 6th graders respond to a change in bathroom times.

 Largely, we've just been plugging along down here, or, as my roommate puts it, living the dream. Not every day is a manifestation of the dream, but in a city where Festival Season falls neatly between Spring and Summer, where the universal soundtrack is literally audible from my porch, and where Sunday is the when the Lord first boiled crawfish, many days are dream. Or, weekends are, at least.

But schooldays (a word that, at 23, is still in my vernacular) are improving as well. It's true what they say about teaching and running: the only way to get better at it is to work harder. Kids now come in and sit down (eventually). Scholars now do the work that is put in front of them (with enough hot chips and/or candy). And all of my students can now confidently name all seven continents and all four oceans (the invention of this Southern Ocean nonsense reminds me of that time when Pluto all of a sudden became a rock in the sky). But, even now, as our state tests have passed and I'm told the pressure should feel less, I have some reservations about exactly how much progress towards their goals we have made together. Let's look at some examples of discouraging quotes:

 From a 6th grader who began the year on-level:
"Missa Glasses, you know who was Pharaoh when Hitler had killed the dinosaurs?"

Hm. Well. Win some, lose some, right? I responded, "I don't really know how to answer that Tiggerman." (Yes, he prefers Tiggerman to his legal name).

"Oh," he said, slightly surprised. "You could Google it?"

On another day, we were reviewing for the iLeap, Louisiana's state tests, with T minus 3 days until tests begin. A particulalry compotent young man timidly came up to me in the middle of a lesson with a simple inquiry.

"Uhhhhhhmmmm, Meeester Glaaaaassssser?"

"Hey, my man, wrong time. I need you in your seat. Questions in four minutes, I promise."

"Okay," he said turning around in an air of defeat.

After sitting, he patiently raised his hand and waited the four minutes.

"Yes, A$. Whatchu got for me?" I was hoping for some earthshattering inquiry about the origins of the agricultural revolution.

"In Mesopotamiaaaaaaaa," he forced out from the back row, in front of the whole class. "Did they have digital cameras or film in Mesopotamia?"

Having restrained myself from open-palming my forehead, I told him that mostly, they didn't take pictures and prefered cave paintings. A twenty-mintue Q&A session allowed us to arrive on a single conclusion that digital cameras weren't really all that much better than cave paintings.

Thanks, children.

But the kids, despite some hiccups on a daily basis, were excited about rocking their tests. And their confidence held on, even after they turned their iLeap tests in.

When I asked one kid how she felt right after the tests were completed, she pondered it for a second then shrugged and told me that it "was no Moses crossing the desert, but it wasn't all smooth sailing on the Yangze in a dragon boat, ya hurd may?" Yes. Yes, I heard you.

These snippets out of the day go a long way in brightening my days, weeks, months, and the year in honesty. Everyone tries to stay positive at my school, but its often easier said then done, especially given the overwhelmingly negative contexts from which out kids come on a daily basis. Some volunteers at my school recognized the staffs' mounting tension in the face of the high-stakes state testing coming down the pipeline. To lift our spirits, they put together a small assembly where students gave superlatives to teachers. Among the categories were the American Idol Award (most likely to break into song and/or break into the music industry), the Fashionista Award (best dressed), the LOL Award (for loving to laugh), the Secret Agent Award (for the most mysterious adult), and so on. It was quite a list. Me? I got the Ice Cream Award for being sure to make you feel better. I'm not a huge ice cream fan, but I'll take it.

Here's to more regular updates! Laissez les bon temps rouler.

Just for being so patient, enjoy this animated feature from Waka Flocka and Soulja Boy, a favorite among my kids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFiPANvxfDg

Christopher Columbus, Tricks, Treats, and Turkeys

I distinctly remember August 1. It was a hot day, but a nice one, and the honeymoon environment still permeated the school. I went out to eat a restauarnt down the street from my house (which remains as sparsely furnished now as it was that day), and turned in early. My monotenous day was however noteworthy for the singular reason that this marked the beginning of an epic silence, a deafening silence, a lull dreaded and impactful from sea to sea: August 1 began my unplanned and unprecedented silence from the Blogosphere. Contrary to what you may believe based on my radio silence since that day long ago, I was neither dead nor kidnapped by Somali pirates, though I appreciate the concern expressed around those two possibilities.

August was a busy but productive month. September came, bringing our fall break and two weeks of tranquility in Da Burgh. October rolled in dramatically, and ended in a typically New Orleanian brand of flamboyance (read debauchery). Now, as I sit here staring at a small mountain of ungraded Exit tickets and ScanTrons bubble sheets, I can't help but wonder where these three months have gone, or what I've taught these kids, if anything at all. Last night, my aunt reminded me that I am rapidly approaching the quarter-of-the-way mark for my Teach for America commitment. Which means I've spent nearly six months playing teacher. Which means I feel like I've been at this game for approximately 1.75 decades.

But these 1.75 decades have been good ones, like living through the Clinton years twice in a row, or better yet, the Harding years six times in a row. I've realized that my world essentially revolves around a 160 five-foot-something suns, who swear like sailors and who can go from hugging you to swinging at you in about 1/70th of a second.

Of course, not all of them, not even a majority of them, reach that level of rascal-cality. One of my favorite students is a sixth grader who bears a striking resemblence to the hypothetical love child of a bowling ball and Fred Flintsone. He clomps along, as any sixth grader does, physically unable to stop his mouth from moving. With most kids, incessant talking drives me nuts. Absolutely insane. Like nails on a chalkboard (which have, incidentally, been replaced almost entirely by whiteboards). But with this kid, I don't mind hearing him squawk, mostly because he is hillarious, and finds no one as funny as he finds himself. This kid could sit in an empty room and keep himself laughing for hours. The good news here is that I'm the Vice President of his fan club (of which he is clearly the President---you think I'm kidding, but he actually told me, in so many words). This child has, since Day 1, ignored the frequent and obvious posters around my name that say things like "Mr. Glasser's Desk" and "Mr. Glasser is reading:" or "Don't forget to call Mr. Glasser for help!". Instead of taking those obvious reminders of my moniker, this laboy (vernacular contracted version of "lil boi", which is an abbreviated version of "Little Boy") insists on calling me Mr. Glasses. For weeks, I thought I was mishearing her. For weeks following that, I heard students correct him. Since then, I've embraced it.

One day, that student was absent. Another student asked me why I don't correct him, "You know that laboy is gonna feel played if you tell him in May that he's been calling you the wrong name." "Yeah," I responded, "you're right. But honestly, I think it's so adorable and so funny that I don't have the heart to correct him." After she laughed for a while, she agreed. "Can we promise to never tell him again?" she asked the class of 20 sixth graders.

It was the one time that all paid attention to me and all agreed, but you have to start somewhere.

Staying in the vein of rotund little guys, I started working with a seventh grader who begged and begged and begged and begged to learn French. We don't have electives in our little schoolhouse, so any interests the young bucks have need to be cultivated outside of school hours. He is not your picture of a typical linguist. Instead, he sounds like Fat Albert after twenty years of a pack-a-day, and he bears in his beer belly, which he affectionately calls his "Wooba." We first started slow, learning the alphabet, learning numbers, and learning to greet one another in French. We met twice a week, introducing each other to awesome Youtube videos while he would kick a beat with a pencil on his desk as we spit the French alphabet.

Fun fact: we have very different taste in humorous Youtube videos.

Slightly embarrasing factoid: we have really similar taste in music. I showed the good Rev. Al Green, and he showed me an underground Lil Wayne mixtape, edited version of course.

After a couple of weeks of these lessons, I turned a corner to hear him reciting a poem I taught him to learn numbers. He didn't turn in any of his homework that day, but he had copied the poem five times in French and in English, and his pronunciation was damn near perfect.

But its not all rainbows and butterflies. Over our Fall break, I got a panicked call from the mother of one of the 8th graders I had gotten to be pretty close with. We went out to buy him football cleats together, I brought dinner to his family and ate it with them (since he was on house arrest, we had to eat in pretty often), and he asked to work with me when he was behind or worked up. But over the break, with no possibility of leaving his house because of his ankle jewelry, he snapped. He went nuts and began to yell at his mother. The situation escalated from there until, finally, it got to be physical. His mom promptly kicked him out to live with his father on the other side of the city.

With that call, my inertia really kicked in. I was living the life in Pittsburgh, and a huge motivator for me at work was gone. Obviously I never even remotely considered leaving my job, my kids, or this city. But the grease was gone off the wheels, and going back was tough.

But about 15 minutes into the day, as students were entering the building, I started to get back into the swing of the day as kids came in refreshed and almost excited to be back in school. One young, ambitious eighth grader came in lacking his usual zeal and awkward, pubescent vocals. I asked what was up.

"You know Au'sha? From our class?"

"Yeah, of course."

"He's dead." he told me, too matter of factly.

I guess my initial reaction was to chastize this boy for making a bad joke about a classmate. But when I saw the stream of young ladies start coming upstairs with streams of tears carrying their over-application of mascara away from their eyes, I could not deny it was true.

The details of the crime were gruesome and senseless and infuriating and sickening. The slow-motion investigation that ensued was enormously frustrating, but ultimately uncovered a perpetraitor.

People say that bad news is a wet blanket. This news was less like a wet blanket on the school as it was like a tennis ball launcher loaded with bricks, set to non-stop. Being at school hurt, for us and for the students. And even as it hurt, and even as students found it impossible to make it through the day or merely walk through the door, they also mobilized for each other. You would see hugs or pats on the back between students throughout the day. No one had the energy to act up, and there was a sense that squandering school was an insult to Au'sha and his memory.

When students lost control orl ost sight of the bigger picture, their friends would remind them. If their freinds weren't around, their classmates would step-in. When their classmates weren't around, their enemies would take up the mantle and give them a hug.

If tragedies have to have a silver lining, I'm still having trouble focusing on that in the case of Au'sha's murder. But I suppose one bright spot was obvious among our students, our scholars, his friends: students learned to cope with devastation, to express their feelings, to grieve a loss, to depend on friends, and to fondly remember a loved one. They're children, forced to grow up too quickly, but their only hope is to rise to the challenge.

Still, its difficult to shake the notion that we, particularly our kids, live in a world devoid of justice, where hard work is often fruitless, and where every single step of the climb is uphill. I want to be there to congratulate them when they finally make it to that summit.

Someone wise once told me that you should never leave a crowd depressed, and so, a lighter note to end:

This past Saturday, after weeks of playing on my Catholic guilt, a few of my students coerced me into going to our flag football game...at 9 AM. Some people have lead feet. I have lead eyelids, and they don't open easily on Saturdays at 9 AM. One student, let's call him Mark, was really excited to go to the game, but didn't have a ride. We made a deal that if he ended the week without detentions, I would buy him lunch and I would take him to the game. Mark came through on his end, so I had to come through on mine.

The boys lost a barn burner 16-12 (we had a six point TD and three, count 'em three, safeties), but it was hilarious to watch them screaming and huddling and hoo-hahing all morning. By their intensity, it might as well have been the Superbowl of middle school flag football.

On the way home, Mark and I stopped for lunch at Wendy's. All morning, Mark had been surprisingly forthcoming about his life: his friends, his triggers, his goals, and his insecurities (he's so embarrassed that he can't swim. So that's next on our To-Do list). Mark had been labeled by our school as a behavior issue, meaning that teachers tended to write him off quickly. He told me that he often felt attacked and vulnerable, unwatned and intolerable.

If I felt that way everyday, I'd act up, too.

A homeless man greeted Mark and I as we headed into Wendy's. We didn't have cash so we offered to buy him lunch instead of giving him a dollar. After Mark delivered the Single Combo meal to the gentleman, he came back in and sighed too deeply for a kid his age.

"What's up, my man?" I asked.

"Man, I don't want to be that guy."

"What?" I asked, not following Mark's half-baked logic.

"When I grow up, I want to be the guy who helps the guy, not the guy who needs the help."

It wasn't much, but it was worth the price of admission.

Hey, blogosphere! How Long's It Been?

You can all stop refreshing your pages incessantly. Yes, the wait is over, and Crawfish, Chalkboards, and Politics is officially returning from its one-month hiatus. It's amazing how quickly this month has passed, and equally amazing that, as I sit down to write this, I feel as if I have nothing to report. So, per usual, I'm just going to start writing and hope that eventually something substantive boils up. Hang on, team. It's going to be a wild ride to the end of this post.

There seem to be two main developments on which you are all probably starving for information. First, you're likely asking yourselves, how did Institute, which spawned so many charming stories of huggable seventh graders and teachable moments, finish up? Next, whatchu doing now, Mr. Glasser---er, Brad?

When we last spoke, I was in the ATL trying to reach these kids with mixed results. You may recall the notable example wherein one of the aforementioned students resisted my attempts to reach her by throwing a chair toward and around my face. This experience with the charming and ladylike Ciarra was, I thought, likely predictive of my next two years. I thought I was going to get better at teaching kids, but I'd really hone my expertise around dodging verbal and physical projectiles. In the waning days of Atlanta's Public Schools' summer school program, the inmates-running-the-asylum phenomenon was increasingly palpable. Students had discovered that we had very little recourse to manage their behavior. By very little, I mean that students would be referred to the main office for an outburst or disruption (or fight or threat), only to be sent back to class with a pocketful of candy and a pat on the back from the creepily and indomitably smiley principal. My faculty advisor, the woman who acted as the certified teacher in the room, began calling parents to tell them that summer school had ended early and that students should not attend the last week. Some parents revolted, saying that they just weren't ready to have their kids home yet. In fact, some of my students reported that they struck a deal with their parents: you don't have to go to school, so you can't stay here. The result was a seemingly out-of-place and ever-growing group of middle schoolers who lingered around our building until their friends got out of school. Why didn't they just go to school, you ask? Yeah. Me, too. But certainly the decision by these 13 year-olds to just, you know, not go to school, contributed to the feeling that they were actually running the show in Atlanta.

Underlying the Tahrir Square-esque sense of mass revolt was a major report issued by Governor Nathan Deal's office on July 5 detailing the widespread Atlanta cheating scandal. 178 teachers were implicated in the scandal, in which principals and administrators were accused of forcing classroom teachers to erase answers, correct students responses, and counsel students towards correct answers. It may have been a while since we all played the standardized test game, but these tactics are pretty widely accepted as against the rules. Illegal, you might say. So, as we packed up our modest classroom, the feeling of "holy crap, I think I just got kicked in the face for five weeks" was very apparent and even more widespread. Not only were students disengaged and very much over the monotony of summer school, but it felt as if the system that governed their lives and educations was being run by the Joker from the bowels of Gotham City's City Hall. (Batman references seem appropriate, since my native Burgh is the newest Gotham City.) Rather than leaving with a sense of renewed energy for our united purpose of education, I finished my time in Atlanta wondering how these poor kids could possibly stand a chance of breaking this oppressive cycle.

And I obviously didn't hide my frustration well: In one particular OMG moment, I calmly told the students in my class that they were really "F*cking up" their chances at a surprise. I was so far from cool-headed at the time, that I didn't even know I had said it until my co-teacher told me later. Note to self: Don't swear at kids. Further note to self: If you're going to swear at kids, choose a word other than the queen mother of all swear words. But seriously, don't swear.

But, as is always the case, glimmers of hope abounded. One student in my class was far behind in reading, and therefore in every other subject. As the last week of summer school began, he called my cell phone.

"Mr. Glasser?" I heard over the chaos of a living room that was far too animated for 10 PM on a Sunday.

"Hey, buddy, everything okay?" I asked, concerned that the chaos might be a situation.

"Well...my mom said there's no school tomorrow. But you said there was school tomorrow. What's going on?" His tone here was almost exasperated, as if to say, "Jeez, I'm trying to learn, here. Work with me, people!"

"There's definitely school tomorrow. Go ahead and show up all this week, and we'll have a great time."

DeAnthony was one of two students to show up that week. To reward his loyalty and dedication, I bought him a couple of books that I thought he would like.

Fast forward three weeks: I received the following text: "Mr. G. why'd you buy me this book about robots. I read the whole thing before I figured out they already made a movie! It has Will Smith"

 To be fair, this kid had no business reading Asimov's I, Robot, since he was reading at a 5th grade level. But he did it, and he called me, and we talked about it. And he got it. I hear from Deanthony basically everyday, and he graces me with nuggets of wisdom, like "Whatchu doing?" or "It's hot in Atlanta" or "I like going to church but I get sleepy." When I don't respond immediately, he casually resends the message until I appropriately prioritize his response.

So one girl threw a chair in my face. But another student read a book this summer. That's some solace.

Loyal readers may recall the student's parent who commented that she liked my hair. I hear from her every now and then also. For better or for worse, she's even more forceful than DeAnthony when I don't respond. #takewhatyoucanget?

The end of Institute in Atlanta was also notable for me since I traveled through, over, or across something like 98 US states in a week. Beginning in Atlanta, I hopped up to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to join the fam and to remember what sub-volcancic temperatures felt like (although the Universe had a nice little laugh as it imposed the hottest week of the year on the Wyoming town just in time for my arrival). Having spent the 4th up north and over yonder, I scampered back to the ATL to put in my last few days. NB: Travelling from Atlanta to Wyoming too quickly might put you in culture shock. You've been warned. See above.

And now, on to more present material:

As quickly as we came to dominate Georgia Tech's campus, we vacated it en masse, leaving early Saturday morning for New Orleans. Saturday and Sunday were spent with my new roommates, who are incidentally awesome, trying to turbo-furnish our quaint new crib. Then, continuing the theme of "WAHHHHH I just got here and now I have so many things to do!" that has characterized the summer for me, I began work on Monday. While I'm sure that the week we spent on professional development did develop me professionally, the barrage of information proved to be both too robust and too unexciting to include here. But I'll give you some highlights.

• The school where I am currently working was the worst K-8 school in New Orleans two years ago, when it was part of New Orleans' Recovery School District.
• The school was taken over by ReNew Charter Management Organization, the organization by whom I am technically employed, at the start of last school year. The organization itself is only in its second year.
• Last year, it began with a state score of 15/200, a bottom of the barrel score it had earned for years. 
• By the end of the year, that score had increased fourfold, to 60/200. Still not good, but, you know, four times better than it had been. 
• At the beginning of the year last year, 15% of Batiste students could read on grade level. By June, 43% could. Our goal this year is to take that up to 75%. Check out this news story.
• Special Education and over-aged students are huge centers of focus, since many local schools skirt their legal obligations to serve these students. 
• The Charter organization cares students primarily, but does a pretty remarkable job demonstrating to its teachers that student success relies heavily on having teachers who have the tools to succeed. So our classrooms are technologied-out, we get support systems that would make my high school teachers break things out of envy, and our administration is a remarkably united front with a cohesive philosophy on our approach to education. 

Take a second to think back to your middle school years. Maybe it was just me, but my years were characterized by hormones, note passing, really explosive (and exciting) hallway fights, so much interpersonal drama, and other uniquely early teenage problems. When the bell rang at the end of a class, students immediately poured out of the classroom wearing a wide range of clothing. We then moved slowly through the halls, making sure we used each of our five free minutes to the best of our ability. 

Now imagine this: There are no bells. Students sit in the SLANT position during class (sitting up, listening, asking and answering questions, nodding their heads, and tracking the speaker). Students wear navy pants, shorts, or skirts with a gray polo that bears the school insignia. We move silently in a single-file line from 90-minute class to 90-minute class in a five-point check formation (feet forward, eyes front, mouths closed, hands at your side, ears open for directions). Students have one ten-minute block to use the restroom with their homeroom class. No student is ever in the hallway unattended. Ever. And a failure to uphold any of these standards results in a paycheck deduction. Obviously, the paycheck is virtual money, not real money, and the amount of the paycheck dictates whether the students are eligible for certain incentives. So, when it comes time for our Friday celebration, students can either attend if they have more than $80 on their checks, or not attend if they have less than $80. All of this is monitored and maintained by an online system that requires each infraction to be scanned alongside each student's individual bar code. Yep. Each student has a barcode. We scan that bar code as well as the bar code that corresponds to their infraction. Major takeways: If a military academy and the Tom Cruise film Minority Report had a baby, it might look a lot like Batiste Cultural Arts Academy. 

As someone who loved the independence of middle school, I had some concerns about the hyper-structured environment we were cultivating at BCAA. But the results are incredible. In the major sea of cluster nonsense that characterized Atlanta, I heard expletives almost exclusively from some students. That's not an exaggeration. Some students legitimately swore with a frequency that would make Ozzie Guillen and Ozzie Osbourne blush. At this school, it took eight days for me to hear a swear word from a student. 

That's not to say that the school doesn't have challenges. We're still serving a population of students who desperately need intervention to get to where they ought to be. We're still serving a population whose lives outside of school are by large volatile at best and dangerous at worst. We're still serving a population that has been turned away too many times to count and failed at every juncture of their education. And we're serving a population who lives in a city that is scarred and recovering from the worst series of events imaginable (Katrina, levees, oil spill to name a few). These are students who are crying out for some structure and routinization in life, in some cases literally doing so. So even when they push back against the structures we've created for them, they eventually internalize them and follow their classmates' example. Oh, also, school goes from July 18th until early June. So we're in it for the longest of  hauls. 

Another really exciting point of this next phase in my teaching career (an expression I still find to be a little cumbersome) is the fact that I am teaching social studies. While I can't say that latitude and longitude are really the reasons I came to love the topic, even the foundational skills we've been working on so far are enough to get me all fired up. 

Some other teacher-y lessons i've picked up along the way:

1. Turns out papering an adding borders to bulletin boards SUCKS. Seriously. Crazy amounts of props to my 3rd grade Mrs. Thompson who used to change those guys every two weeks and Ms. Zinger who took great pride in her bulletin boards. I need to lockdown an artsy significant other just to handle that for me. 
2. Machiavelli, I've got an answer for you: One isn't better than the other. If they fear you, they will learn to love you, too. 
3. Even kids have strong feelings about the Steelers. I've placed several bets with students already about which team, the Saints or the Steelers, will end the season with a better record. Truth be told, I made those bets before the lockout ended. So I'm really counting on a big year from the Black and Gold, or I'm going to need to find some kind of part-time employment. 
4. This teaching stuff is not as easy as teachers make it look. 

Here's to fakin' it till you make it.

Until next time y'all (did I pull that off?)

Dog Days are (Almost) Over

I've never been married, but if the wedded bliss of the honeymoon period ends as abruptly and as jarringly as our classroom's honeymoon phase ended, I will steer clear. Almost overnight, we watched as our students went totally gremlin on us, changing from adorable Furby-like creatures to terrorizing villains, deadset on destroying the town. And eventually the world.

That was the unshakable feeling that characterized my first couple of days this week: where did our kids go, and how did these little bastards get in the door? And then yesterday happened.

Yesterday, I left class feeling like a boss. For most of my 90-minute lesson, the classroom was a circus. Literally, I had several students roaring like lions simultaneously and several others attempting to juggle. None of them succeeded, regretably, so they continued to try.  One student, Jackie- dear, sweet, adorable Jackie- contorted her face into an expression that can only be described as Quasimodo-esque each time I said her name. That picturesque image was complemented by a teeth-sucking noise which is actually probably best replicated by popping several dozen balloons at once. Other students alternated between kicking beats and busting flows which almost always centered around me. To put it mildly: they weren't complimenting me in their verses (eg: "Your hair too curly, your shoe's ain't black so that mean your tie don't match" NB: they haven't learned internal rhyme schemes yet). Still others strained to hear the long list of directions I feebly tried to put out there in an attempt to find some semblance of order. I had a moment when I felt like we'd all be better off if I just started spitting verses over top of their beats.

Maybe it was the lack of confidence I have in my freestyling or maybe it was the countless hours of classroom management instruction we've endured---er, enjoyed--- during institute, or maybe it was my advisor (who was surreptitiously filming me in the corner), but something told me to hang in there. (I can say pretty categorically that it was my advisor, who told me to "hang in there" several times verbatim). Then, as if by miracle, there was a collective breath, a silence that struck the entire room at once. I pounced. Hard.

I physically grabbed students, put them into small groups, and gave them simple instructions. Read these texts, answer these questions, write this response. The collective silence continued. I felt a whole lot like I was the kid from The Day After Tomorrow, when he enters the eye of the storm. No way it's actually that easy. I've seen these kids work hard, but I have also seen them dig their heels in and stop me dead in my lesson-planned tracks. I was skeptical.

And  boy did I eat my words. For the next 45 minutes, the students universally worked hard, followed instructions, and shocked me with the amount of my babble they had absorbed. But the skepticism remained, and I watched the four groups of kids like a hawk, jumping on any sign of diversion or non-complaince. Again, I ate my words as I ran (well, what I call running) over to the group of students (who read at the highest level) because they seemed distracted (they also misbehave at the highest level). When I got there to put them back on task, I overheard the following exchange:

Octavius: I mean, I know, but I'm saying MLK's using the Bible because this is supposed to be read by everybody. Everybody knows the Bible.
Jackie: But this quote don't even make sense here. If he wanted it in here so bad, at least put it where it makes sense. It's just too much right here.
Naja: I guess so, but where else is it going to go?
Shaniqua: Right at the beginning, it'll set it up real nice.

Most people use expressions like "I almost pooped myself" jokingly. But my reaction was one of such genuine, physical surprise that I could had a momentary scare when I thought I might need a diapy change. I looked at my advisor, who had of course NOT caught this historic moment on film, who gestured for me to close my mouth and hide my shock from the kids.

Compounding this shock, every other group in the room--a total of 9 other students-- was working diligently as well. I felt like I had just taught Helen Keller to speak.

Finally, like a cherry on top of some sweet, sweet Ben and Jerry's, I graded their end-of-lesson assessment, or exit tickets, to see that 70% of my students had mastered the skill I taught in the lesson. On average, 1-3 students had performed at a mastery level for any given objective. Over night, I defeated the gremlins, and saved the whole friggin town. And it was awesome.

While we're discussing little victories, yesterday began our post-summer school testing period, when we ask students to retake the diagnostic reading assessment we gave them several weeks ago (read: two weeks ago) to see how far they've come. Despite my belief that I had widened, not narrowed, the achievement gap, two of the four students tested yesterday met or exceeded their goals. So, in two and a half weeks, these two girls moved from mid-fifth grade levels to early sixth-grade levels. Sure, they're entering eighth grade nearly two years behind, but they're no longer three years behind. And that's something. Of the seven we've tested after Thursday, seven showed at least some improvement. Could it be better? Yes. Will I take it? All the way to friggin bank. Jackie, formerly of Quasimodo face fame, even shook my hand and thanked me before leaving the room.

Loyal readers will remember that I only teach every other day, so Thursday was an off day for me, meaning that I primarily deal with behavioral issues while my co-teacher handles lesson execution. Lessons learned today are as follows:

• When they want to, 7th grade girls can really hurl chairs down the hall.
• They can also yell loudly enough to be heard on lower floors.
• If someone right next to you is in your face yelling loudly enough to be hear through concrete floors, it's really loud for you.
• I don't know all the swear words that these kids do. And they have no qualms about teaching them to me by using them on me.
• Yesterday was a win for me, not for them.
• If a student wants to hurl a chair down the hall, calling her mother will not stop her.
• Nothing drives a kid crazier than failing to get a teacher fired up.

I'll let you piece together the full scene that took place outside room 412. But suffice it to say that I have not ever in my life been threatened by so many "I swear to God man, I'll sock you right here" statements in my life. Nor have I ever encouraged so many students to follow through on their threats of violence against me. "Please hit me. I'd love to have that conversation with your mama."

They didn't hit me.

When one girl finally got so frustrated with my calm, cool and collected-ness that she cried, I smiled and told her "I'll be leaving with a smile and she'll be leaving in tears. Given that, who won today? I did. You should get used to that. " Boom. Legit, right? A teacher next door came up later to tell me how "balling out of control I was." Which again, I will take. But still, following a day like yesterday, I felt bad that things had deteriorated so aggressively. Such is life in a classroom, I'm told. Tomorrow is another day.

But, as always, these kids are first and foremost, hi-friggin-larious. Some quotes from students, unless otherwise indicated:

• Man, Mister Glasser, let me get some scholar dollars. The recession's over, man!
• Me: You done? Student: Came, read, conquered, Mr. G.
• I can't put my phone away. My mom's texting me. She said she likes your hair.
• I'm too tired of these school lunches. I'm a foodie.
• My kitchen's my favorite place in the world. Cuz I stay be cooking up. (Yes, that IS a crack reference #laughoryou'llcry)
• Gandhi proposed non-violence as a way to gain equal rights for Indians in both South Africa and India. And that's not a diaper he's wearing.
• You can't say Negro Mr. G. Talking bout baseball or whatever, you gotta call it the African American Leagues. It's the law.
• What do you mean I read like a fourth-grader? That's upendsive. No, not offensive. I feel upended by what you just said. See I know words.
• Hm. Darfur is either a computer company or a small island in the Indian ocean. (see: Diversity, the Civil War-era ship)
• After volunteering to give the date to the class: Today is July 18th. What?! It's still June. When did school end? When does school start? Why'd I think it was July?
• How you gonna say I'ma kid when I bleed on the monthly? (RAWKWARD)

So now, after only a few weeks, the kids are slowly beginning to stop showing up to school. I feel like I've known them for months, and I know I'll remember them forever, not only for the challenge they posed for me, but also for their wit and their fervent belief that their current boyfriend/girlfriend WILL someday be their spouse and their peculiar style of innocence and their confidence and their enthusiasm for life. In their minds, I imagine I'll slowly fade from being that hack who tried to teach to that guy from summer school to a vaguely familiar face and back to a total stranger. And that's okay. But I hope they do remember that one time, in the summer after seventh grade, soembody told them everyday how smart they are and how much potential they have. I'll take that, too, because there really is something to be said for little victories.

A demain, mes amis.

Daily Dose of Political Griping: Choosing to Believe in Reality

In the spirit of Teach for America's mandated self-reflection, I've been thinking a lot about the good ole blog and my performance pertaining to it. I realized that I haven't told any of you what to think about politics in a long time. I'm not angry at myself for this negligence, I'm just disappointed. Just you are, I'm sure. Since there's so much to cover, I'm just going to run through everything really quickly, Twitter-style (make your Anthony Weiner jokes now, before that window closes for good) in chronological order.

So here goes:

(Drum Roll)

New Hampshire Republican Debate

I have to first say that it's been, what, just about two weeks since this modern-day, party-style Lincoln-Douglass debate happened. Since then, I've been thinking, literally daily, about how best to summarize this evening for you. 
Well, just as we exited the never-ending NHL season, we entered the regular season of an equally frigid stand-off that promises to leave at least a few contenders toothless and bloodied. But Monday's debate among seven of the candidates for the Republican nomination looked and sounded more like a fraternity reunion at the Nascar track than the free-for-all you may have expected. And while the noticeable lack of elbow throwing was a little disappointing, I'm happy to report that plenty of previously-known opinions were rehashed, very little new light was shed, and literally nothing changed between pre-debate and post-debate polling. Still, there is no doubt in this guy's mind that we just had the pleasure of witnessing the 21st century Lincoln-Douglass discourse.

Before I continue, I should warn my epileptic audience that the linked videos contained herein are ridiculously over-stimulating. Continuing their noble tradition of really overdoing it (remember the Will.i.am hologram who used the Force to speak to us on election night '08?), CNN went bonkers, inviting viewers to tweet @CNN #CNNdebate, like the event on Facebook, friend the moderator on LinkedIn, check in on FourSquare, live Blog along with the press corps assembled, scan the QR barcode for exclusive information and Google chat your emotions using only emoticons throughout the evening. It was like being there! They kept telling us.

The night was all smiles from everyone but the moderator, John King, who awkwardly "mmhmmed" nearly every sentence uttered from the stage and who clearly was displeased to have not been allowed to ask his own questions. The night really began with a strong showing from your neighbor (neighvor?) and mine, T-Paw$$. Who actually used his home-spun appeal to cast himself as my neighbor. Not only am I positive that Mr. Pawlenty lives nowhere near me, I know that I've never even visited his home state. So his banal assertion that he is my neighbor really just made me angry. Because he was lying. And because it was reminiscent of when one Delaware would-be Senator kept insisting that she IS me, and not a witch. Even though she pretty clearly wasn't me and made several statements asserting that witchcraft had at least been a pastime for her. (In my perfect world, Christine O'Donnell would have been on that stage, standing somewhere between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.)

All and all, the debate came off to me as a coffee chat between some alarming like-minded people (excluding Ron Paul) who agree on a lot of things. That still leaves room, of course, for notable moments:

• Rick Santorum compared the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell to social experimentation. He actually didn't even compare DADT's repeal to social experimentation, he just call the repeal a social experiment. This from the man whose book asserted that any household which relied on two incomes was living beyond their means. Most of what he is says is about that logical. Look out, he's a comer. 
• Ron Paul transitioned from the topic of National Debt to unemployment to his favorite Seinfeld episode to healthcare to that funny Taco Bell chihuahua to Islam in 4.8 seconds. If he were a car, he'd be a Maserati.
• The RNC make-up crew, clearly lacking the experience of making-up a female for one of these shindigs, left her looking like a Shaun of the Dead zombie.
• Herman Cain, whose profession was ambiguously identified as 'Businessman' for most of the evening (which I guess is better than Pizza guy?), prefers Deep. Dish. to thin crust. Thin crusts are for the French.
• The candidates all agree that the tenth amendment is real. They unanimously agreed to believe in the tenth amendment. Sometimes they choose not to believe something that is real (see: Global Warming). So, baby steps. 
• Mitt Romney enjoys hot wings.
• Newt Gingrich is angry. He says it's because our government is failing us nowaday. I think it's probably because his whole campaign staff up and left when he went on vacation. How do you enjoy Greece with that on your mind? Selfish people, those staffers.
• Tim Pawlenty is pretty sure he likes Coke, but he can be persuaded. How unlike him.
• One question about immigration allowed each candidate to discuss how hard they had worked to be more like Jan Brewer of Arizona. Don't we all just want to be more like, Jan?
• Rick Santorum couldn't choose between Leno and Conan, which I chalk up to a moderator fail on the part of John King. Come on, man. Ask the Senator something he has an opinion on, like Biggie or Tupac.
• Jon Huntsman, living up to his reputed political prowess, watched from his couch. 

Ok, so that was not Twitter speed. However, the following will be.

In one of the more terrifying games of Chicken to ever occur on our political streets, Congress has failed to reach a consesnsus on whether or not we should pay our national bills. Instead, they've spent the last two weeks leaking incongruous and erratic messages on the state of negotiations. One day, Mitch McConnell was alluding to the possibility of short-term (one to two months) ceiling increases, a huge departure from his earlier posturing. Three days later, the White House made equally optimistic statements, hinting that perhaps a concrete deal for a three month increase could happen. Three days after that, negotiations fell apart when Eric Cantor got mad, took his ball and went home, promising to never play again. Oy. I get that our debt's irresponsibly high. But we're not Greece. Just raise the roof, er--ceiling. Has anyone tried suggesting that the President and the Speaker hit the links? That has to fix it.

In an attempt to be heartfelt and patriotic for the final round of the U.S. Open, NBC chose to create a montage of children reciting parts of the Pledge of Allegiance. Funny thing was, somebody "accidentally" omitted the words "under God" from the Pledge. Oopsies. Dear NBC, You're not helping the right's opinion of you, friends. Sincerely, Brad.

Clarence Thomas is up to no good, which is an unusual shift his usual default states of doing nothing and just sitting there. Apparently, he has a rich friend named Harlan Crow who has been unusually kind to the family Thomas, mostly by offering up his significant financial means (he allegedly gave Ginny Thomas $50,000 to start her Tea Party group, which I believe is aptly called the Party Animals). The problem arises when you consider that Crow is also just throwing money at ultra-conservative causes, like that of Mrs. Thomas. I've never been a judge, but that seems like it shouldn't be cool with us, right? And all judges, not just this man with his really weird life and unfortunate reputation, should be subject to such rigorous examinations of potential conflicts. But this one is just another reason that I think Clarence's scales of justice need to be calibrated or removed from the highest court in the land.

I would be hard-pressed to choose a winner from the first Republican Debate (see above). To me, that'd be like choosing the best knife from your set of identical silverware. I'm apparently alone in this regard. Less than a week after the debate, Ron Paul cleaned house at the Republican Leadership Conference earning 612 votes. That's 240 more than the place-horse, Jon Huntsman. Who again, opted to stay home.

We crowned Miss USA this past week. And the nation sat, riveted as the big moment arrived. Luckily, judges and audiences around the country chose one of the two (1 of the 2) women in the competition who believed in evolution. Just chew on that for a second.


Okay now spit it out.


Did you vomit?

 Me too.

Jon Huntsman, only days after announcing his candidacy, earned the endorsement of the Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. Jon Huntsman ran faraway from Senator Reid and then gave a speech bashing healthcare reform. Just to prove he's actually a Republican.

In the world of what the whaaaaaa???? an LA man said he was kidnapped because of a sex tape featuring Shaq. Just read it for yourself.

Now you don't have to feel guilty for leaving today's paper in the bag. You know everything you need to know.

Until next time.

So Many Teacher's Dirty Looks

There's a really cliche moment in every sitcom where the leading lady gasps, puts her hands to her mouth, and breathlessly stumbles over the words, "Oh my God! I'm turning into my mother!" In the past week, since we last conversated (a word which my students refuse to believe is fake, and which I've therefore invited into my vernacular), I've had about three to four moments daily where I stop myself and follow the sitcom queen cliche. Except for me, I only mentally make that stereotypical "Oh no!" face as I consider how much instantly I've morphed into my junior high teachers.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we'll all have better days if we can just complete this silently and stay on task."

"I don't want to give you consequences, but apparently you want to receive them!"

"I'm not yelling. Keep it up and I'll show you yelling."

"[choose a student's name], that's your warning. This isn't a conversation. Get back to work."

"No you can't go to the bathroom. If you were that thirsty, you wouldn't have thrown your juice away at lunch."

"I'll wait...[crickets] Ok, as I was saying..."

I think it's worth noting that I actually jot these down after each day, just to serve as gentle reminders to avoid at all costs, absolutely, no matter what, sounding like another droning "Womp womp womp womp wahmp" teacher from Peanuts. And this is in the first week, when energy's still there, and students don't, you know, always hate me yet.

On the first day of class, we began by passing out a survey to students which contained questions ranging from "how can we contact your parents?" to "what would you like to learn about this summer?" Respectively, the most popular answers were "404" and "math". Those of you who know telephones well probably have already recognized that "404", while an acceptable guess at the area code, is probably not the student's entire phone number. Diligent readers will recall that my students are in summer school only for reading. So, you know, strong off the starting block.

From there, we moved to Two Minute interviews, also known as Hot Seat, a game I learned from Corp legends who preceded me. Essentially, this involves the students yelling questions for two minutes and me trying to come up with a witty answer to questions like "How many kids you got?" If you think of a witty answer for that question which also makes clear that I have zero chilluns of my own, please do let me know. Other highlights included:

• Mr. Glasser, how'd you get your hair like that?
• Oh. So do you shower everyday?
• You going to wear those pants tomorrow?
• How many dates have you gone on in your life?
• Do you know Wiz Khalifa? (Actually, kids, this one time...)
• Why are you in summer school?
• Oh. So you ain't got anything better to do?
• Do you think we're smart kids or dumb kids?

And that was pretty lclose to the exact verbiage of non-stop question barrage to which I subjected myself on day one. 

These kids are smart kids, as I've mentioned before. But, like kids are wont to do, they say a thousand words just by speaking their minds. From that question, I gathered that everything we had learned so far was true for these kids. these twelve and thirteen year-olds, just getting into the glory days, haven't been told in a long time, if ever, that they can succeed, that their work is valuable, or, in a lot of cases, that they themselves are valuable. During training two weeks ago, we watched a video in which a teacher from Chicago told each student who answered a question just how beautiful or brilliant or talented or brave he or she was. Everyday, she would hammer these points home and demand that they do exactly as she told them to do. Her philosophy was that, if she just refused to stop saying these things to her students (who, incidentally, she actually believed were all capable and driven, despite reputations and records) that they might just believe her one day. Fourteen of the sixteen students from that video received at least a college degree. the other two were unavailable for interview.

Without belaboring the point, I also jumped right into the game of calling parents. As you may know, the phone is my jam. I'll write an email, I might respond to your facebook post (though I'm terrible at keeping up with it), and the occasional Saturday night will result in a tweet. But the phone is where I really hit my groove. I spent a week trying to get in touch with half of my class's parents, or about 8 individuals. On day 1, I realized that approximately 1/3 of our entire class roster showed numbers which were disconnected. On day 2, after we issued the student survey, I realized taht I was no better off because, again, 404 is not a phone number. On day 3, I made some initial contact. In each convo with these rents, I explicitly said that his/her student was very bright or a talented reader or some variation thereon. Two of the first three parents legitimately disagreed with me. Tiger moms are one thing, a beast until themselves. But having a mother or aunt or grandmother who not only doesn't encourage you, but downright discourages you can't be a good thing to come home to.

It's no surprise then that many of these students find diversions to avoid going home, or frankly, just to attract some attention from an authority figure. In the past week, at my school, there's been an outbreak of eighth graders drinking some cocktail of Xanex, Jolly Ranchers, Sprite, and Robitussin. Last Wednesday, a student left her backpack in class. Upon exploring its contents to find out who it belonged to, my Faculty Advisor (the real teacher in my classroom), found a blade (exactly nine inches in length and far too haphazard to be considered a knife) rolled in a red bandana. This girl was permitted back into my room the next day. And HOLY CRAP the movies and songs these kids know. I mean, I listened to Tupac in seventh grade, but that would be Disney Radio compared to some of the lyrics that these kids spit in class. Also, no seventh grader should have an unedited knowledge of Friday. Innocence is gone.

In a moment of levity, one of my students did a spot on impression of crazy legs from don't be a menace. I got in trouble for laughing at him. But it was hillarious.

Speaking of levity, here's puppies, a reward for sticking it out this far.

As I explained to some of you, the vast number of TFA new Corps Members training here in Atlanta (nearly 800) means that many of us teach every other day for ninety minutes. Last week, I taught Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Monday, I walked in, and my advisor commented that I should prepare to roll with the punches. After all, "First days are rough." Preach. First day was rough. After the smashing success of administering the survey, the train really jumped the tracks. And went barrelling down the whole mountain. It took out women and children and whole villages. It was just not pretty. But think back to seventh grade, and imagine being in summer school for five weeks, five hours a day in the same room. No recess, no cafeteria, no library, no PE, no music, no science, no math. Just reading, reading, reading for five hours. The only natural reaction, as some of students so graciously taught me early on day 1, is to spin move around teachers (read: me) as they run laps up and down the hallway.

Monday ended, and I still felt great. Laps down the hallway I will take. There were no real issues, our kids seemed nice enough, I knew their names, and the didn't seem to mind me. Well. Then came Wednesday. I would have traded eight Monday hallway lap days just to get out of Wednesday. It really all began with what the school calls hot lunch, a Wednesday special in which these kids get more than bologna, bread, an apple, and a suncup. Instead, they get pizza with (probably) bologna on top, bread, an apple, and a suncup. I was caught off guard by hot lunch, but was actually kind of relieved, as I thought that studnets might feel better fed, a little more energized, and at least they burned some calories on the walk down to the steps.

I've never lived through an apocalypse (can't wait til November when I don't have to confess that anymore), but in hot lunch, I saw what the Book of Revelation was talking about. Fire and brimstone surged as students literally Ponged themselves from one side of the room to the other. The nice, neat single-file line which I lost my voice trying to facilitate dissolved instantaneously, and my students straight up dis-afriggin-peared. And then. The punch heard round the lunchtable was thrown, and it was as if he punched right through the floodgates of teenage boy hormones. No sooner was fight #1 ended then fight #2 already had a take down, and fight number #3 had devolved into some weird sort of giraffe fight.

Needless to say, hot lunch has been cancelled. While I wish it was due to lack of hustle, I think it was actually in response to the Grecian-style flash riots our kids whipped up.

One particularly eager hot lunch culprit was a sassy young lady who embodies most things unfun about teenage girls: boy crazy, attention-seeking, way too smart for summer school, but way too self-absorbed to realize it. I told her several times that she either had to get pizza or get back in line, but she could not roam the cafeteria. Several times, she acknowledged my request and made moves, only to pull some crazy under the table crap to avoid all lines. I was not feeling it. Even a little. When I finally cornered her, I felt ready with the BS Teacher D, and strolled up to her knowning exactly how to proceed. "You can either get in line to come back to class or your not coming back into my classroom," I said calmly.

"Betchu I will," she (literally) spat back, much less calmly.

"You're too smart to take such stupid bets, ma'am. You need to go see the principal."

As if she hadn't already ruined her odds, she turns around and looks me in the eye. "FUCK YOU!" she said, channeling Cee Lo Green. Incidentally, having those words put to music only makes them more gratifying for seventh graders to invoke. Just when you thought it wasn't possible. Anyway, sufficiently satisfied with my management skills, I swaggered back into my classroom only to find that student, the Cee Lo impersonator herself, back in her seat, grinning from ear to ear. "Can't kick kids out, Mr. Glasser. Here to learn," the principal informed me. Good thing I didn't take her bet on whether she'd be back, or I'd look like a wounded puppy who just lost $10, rather than just looking like a wounded puppy.

You can imagine how much work we completed in the last hour of that lesson. If you can't imagine it, try to. Then divide that amount in half. 19,000 times and you'll see exactly how much work we did (somewhere between none and negligible depending on the student).

Then came Friday. "Fridays can be really tough" was the best advice my advisor had to offer as students began to trickle in. And Friday was tough. But seriously, if Fridays are tough, Hot Lunch days are tough (Wednesdays), and Mondays are rough, we're looking at a pretty sparse week, eh? Friday was actually like watching a slow motion game of telephone

I just made a lot of fun of these kids, so I feel obliged to lay some more heavy stuff on you all. Scuse me, folks--on y'all. One student, of whom I am particularly fond, wrote a paragrph about her mom. As a warm-up activity, I asked her to expand it by adding details. At 12 years old, this yound girl's happiest, most available memory with her mother is a recollection of her mom arriving home from a jail a month earlier than expected. Why do you care about synonyms when that's what's on your mind? But somehow, she's the allstar in the bunch. Another student who is, once again, plenty smart to ace seventh grade without summer school (but way too lazy to attend enough regular school days to pass seventh grade) wrote freely about a "bad" day when she had to call the Atlanta equivalent of child protective services so that she could be removed from her mother's care.  #howluckyweare

Rereading what I have here makes it sound like I'm complaining. I guess I am complaining about a lot of things. But none of them are teaching, or my classroom, or my kids, or this decision. I've righted exactly zero tracks and transformed precisely goose egg students in my four days on the job, but I have a good feeling about day five.

Sure, we still have to do crazy things, like look in the mirror and adjust our "teacher stares" until we are actually burning holes in glass. And yes, we do have to practice our teacher voices, in front of other people. Sure, there's busy work. And Woah my Lawdy Lah, what did teachers do without copiers? It's like the fall of Saigon to get into the TFA-specific copy center (which, though a fantastic resource for us, has named every copier and computer there after famous educators, movie stars, political figures or others. Copier number 19 seems easier to say than "Please advance to Dostoevsky, the ninteenth printer on your left"). But as long as copies are the low point of my day, I'll call it a good day.

Ok, for real finally, I saw Aaron Rodgers just chilling at a burrito place, loving life, and seemingly banking on a lockout (it dun lopped over). I tried to trip him, but turns out the guy's pretty light on his feet. And just in case you still think I'm not living the good life, consider this: I had a burger stuffed with shrimp and grits for dinner recently. My side? Tatchos, a multi-cultural mix between south of the border and tater tots.

If this place kills me, it won't be the kids. It will be the deep fryers.