iPods and 40s- A Unique Generation

The best part about teaching is, well, duh...the kids. I've never been one of those "oochy-coohie-coo, I just love kids" people, but when you're with them 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, it's an adventure. Sometimes a moment I have with a kid is so profound, ironic, or ridiculously funny. Over my 6 years of working with kids, I've gathered a few stories that I'd like to share with you here.

1997 (or so): I was working at a rough elementary school in North Oakland. The students at this school were tough and they didn't have much. But every school always has the obligatory December holiday assembly.
This assembly was filled with the usual barrage of squeaking clarinets and kids bouncing off the walls on a candy cane high. As the production began, I snuck in the back and leaned up against the wall next to Fred. Relegated to his usual place at the back wall, this 5th grader had seen some things I never will. Enter Santa Claus, played by a woman that is one of those people that widens her eyes when she talks to kids and uses a slooow, sickening-sweet, inauthentic voice. She stood on the stage in front of all 500 children and said, "Well hello boys and girls! Santa couldn't be here today. Do you know WHY Santa couldn't be here today?" Through the chorus of little voices shouting answers from around the room, 11-year-old Fred leans over to me and mumbles under his breath, "I know why Santa isn't here."

"Why's that, Fred?"

"He had to stop off at the store for a 40."


I was stationed at this school while working for Sports4Kids. My job was to provide structured activities for the kids at recess and lead PE classes during the day. The playground was an expanse of nothing but blacktop. It had three basketball courts with missing rims and crumbling backboards. One day I was heading out for recess, across the battlefield, to get equipment out, teach kids games, and PLAY with them. Yoshi, a sweet boy who always liked to help, was following me and chatting away. He showed me this rock that he was holding in his hand. It was a beautiful malachite stone with its shiny green and black streaks. "Here. You can have it," he said to me.

"Oh no, Yoshi, I can't take your rock. It's too beautiful. It's yours." (In my mind I was thinking about
how this kid was one of the "have-nots" and I didn't want to take his prized possession.) He looked up at me, pinched his face up in bewilderment, and said, "But I'm GIVING it to you."

He taught me a lesson that day about friendship and accepting gifts. As I type this I'm looking at Yoshi's rock.

2005: During my first year of teaching,the district and state were breathing down our necks and crawling up our a@%#! to make sure we found a way to raise our test scores. We analyzed so much data, we had it coming out of every oraface. Needless to say, we had a challenging demographic of students. I noticed that teaching English and Language Arts (ELA) was one of the hardest things of all. Most of my students didn't speak English as a first language. In fact, even those that spoke English didn't speak "Academic English". Vocabulary development is a tricky one too, which is where this next student comes in. Now I didn't have this student in my class, but I heard the story an hour after it happened from her teacher and it goes like this:

TEACHER: "Dismayed. Does anyone know the meaning of the word 'dismayed'?"

One hand goes up.

STUDENT: "Yeah, it's like, when my mama and I dismayed a cake."

2007: Just before the holiday break this year, I was saying goodbye to one of my fifth grade students who doesn't know all of her multipilcation facts yet. She was telling me about the cousin she planned to see over the break who happened to be in third grade. "She already knows ALL the multiplication tables!" the student boasted on behalf of her cousin.

"Well, doesn't that inspire YOU to learn them too?" I asked.

As she paused for a moment, I could see she was really thinking about the question. Then she replied, "Um, not really. I'm more of an iPod person."

Hot Showers and Expletives

Forgive me...it's been awhile since my last confession. But, it's been a rough year. I'm coming to the realization that this teaching thing is the hardest job I've ever had. The first year of teaching is a BEAST, a monster with a pulse of its own that will gladly consume you - if you let it. But now I'm in my fourth year and it's still kicking my ass. I've been comforted, however, by veteran teachers that say they are still working long hours, even after teaching for 20 years. You see, each year your class has a new life. The students bring different challenges to you as a teacher and no matter how many lessons I've already taught or fabulous worksheets or games I've designed the year before, it's rarely (if ever) plug and play.

I was thinking about the things I do to maintain my sanity outside of work. Sometimes a hot shower is the best. But as I was taking a shower yesterday, suddenly I caught myself thinking about school again. We've been working on a unit about water conservation and we have discussed the need to take short showers, in order to conserve water, our most precious resource. Well, here's one place where I'll preach it alright...but I can't say I practice it regularly. So now I'm trying to enjoy my long hot shower and I'm wondering how big of a hypocrite this makes me. But sometimes, when that hot water is running down my back I like to comfort myself with the justification that I don't drive an SUV and I'm damn committed to recycling. Some of the best showers have been when I take a cold beer in with me, and then of course recycle the bottle afterwards.

Anyway, as I was saying before, this job is tough. There's never enough time in the day and there's always more to do. I cringe every time I add another paper to the already huge mound of papers in my "to be filed" box. But it's just not the number one priority. I told a colleague the other day that when I win the lottery, I'm hiring assistants for all of us. Seriously, I'd be on cloud nine if I just had someone (of reasonable intelligence) that could help me organize, file, grade papers, and help make copies...those hundreds of copies I make every week! Although, some of my few adult interactions in a day are at the copy machine. It's a rare chance to check-in, share ideas, or just say hello to the colleagues I rarely see. The majority of my day is spent with 10 year olds. A great audience for my juvenile sense of humor, but sometimes I long to speak to an adult, if only just to say the "f" word.