Performing a Triple-Bypass on the Heart of the Heart of the Country

[For this entry, I’ve borrowed a preview technique used by The Believer: using key phrases and odd juxtaposition in order to pique your interest from beginning to end. Enjoy.]

Thoreau – Matthew Arnold – Bill Hicks – Will Smith – Stop Snitchin’ – Rap Capitalism –Martin Luther King, Jr. – The Friday Trilogy

I was fumbling over analogies while grading some quizzes the other day. We’d been reading, or trying to read, Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government” the entire week. I had used a basic question about the reading as an opportunity to earn bonus points on this quiz. Suddenly, something urged me to fan through the stack of quizzes, paying close attention to the bonus question. I found that only one student had responded to the bonus. His response was, “Who is Thoreau?” All the while, said analogies were rolling around my head like the steel marbles in those two-tiered maze games and finally one of them fell through the hole: Teachers are missionaries…

…at least, teachers at rural schools. We travel from the city, a place not far from the town where it’s hard to believe many people have never left. We speak a language close to standard written English, or, at least, variations of English that would be acceptable to the Merriam-Webster committee. We think highly of education and its trappings, from vocabulary and critical thinking to acceptable behavior in social situations. We bring different values, norms and ethics. In every sense, we are outsiders.

* * *

A long time ago, Mathew Arnold, a British cultural critic, wrote that capital-C Culture is something to be perfected. Here is the thesis from his book Culture and Anarchy:

“The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically.”

The interesting thing about Arnold is he believed that Culture, “the best which has been thought and said,” was for everyone, the saving grace keeping us off the brink of anarchy. I think the proposal is modest, however, there is the extremely difficult question of who decides what is best. Certainly it is best to read, write and speak in a common language in order to communicate. One would assume, speeding in the calm AC drone of their midsized sedan down an endless country road, that reading is the most basic and important tool a person can have. But no. This assumption is contested by the rural population. The tension some of us feel in this type of classroom is a clash of cultures. Rather than thinking, “I should learn how to read.” Many rural students do not see the use. When they see you kicked back with a book, they are thinking, to quote Bill Hicks, “Whatchoo readin’ for?”

* * *

Who sows the seeds of stupidity? The parents, of course. To use Will Smith’s lyric in a different context: “parents just don’t understand” (what they’re doing to their kids). It’s hard to blame a kid for hating to read when he grows up in a household with no books and parents whose English would make Don King cringe. What is left to learn on but the television?

We educated folks remember TV shows like Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street and 321 Contact, the joys of public broadcasting, but TV alone is not enough to reinforce the importance of reading, especially when these educational shows have to compete with Jerry Springer and MTV Spring Break. It doesn’t help that the kid controls the remote.

So what happens when these kids reach high school? Their perceptions are shaped by their idiot parents and bad television. What happens is something like Stop Snitchin’. What is that, you ask? It is an ethic likely to shake the foundations of our coddled, middle-class sensibilities. Stop Snitchin’ is the opposite of The Golden Rule. It’s a creed that dictates you don’t snitch, squeal on, rat out, or expose a crime if you know who did it.

Where did Stop Snitchin’ come from? Well, the streets, of course… but how do rural kids whose streets are not even paved come to hear about Stop Snitchin’? You know the answer: television. So not only is it an ethic, it’s a multi-million dollar marketing idea, materialized on the shirts, caps and belt buckles of students urban and rural alike.

Like most things kids say, or people who make money off what kids say, Stop Snitchin’ makes no sense. When my students bring it up, I hit them with a hypothetical: “I’m your neighbor. I’m sitting on my stoop getting high as Jah himself. I see someone breaking into your house. I know the guy. He’s an old friend who’s hard on his luck and addicted to crack. I know he’s just looking for some extra cash. He’s mah dawg, cuh, knowwhati’msayin’? I feel for this nigga. So when you come home the next day wondering who beat up your sister, and more importantly who stole your iPod, I ain’t tellin’ you shit. Belieeeeeeeeve that!”

Many students see the point and accept or dismiss it. With others, it’s like talking to a brick wall. My ideas upset their worldview, which is complicated by the fact that they’re all basically poseurs. That is the most amusing aspect of working at a rural school: many students aspire to be city. Ironically, to them, city is comprised of the caricatures the TV people come up with to simplify life so as to not hurt our sensitive brains.

* * *

Sadly, these perceptions contribute to their ideas about life goals. Maybe I’m forgetting my childhood naiveté to a certain extent. Regardless, it is better to learn the statistical improbability of making it into the NFL or NBA before assuming it will be your primary income. Better to successfully spell “entrepreneur” before wanting to become one. But sports and rap are the main influences on the children I teach. They will trust Fiddy Cent before they trust me, because I have not been shot… in other words, I am not familiar with their ghetto lifestyle.

The irony, which can seem endless with these kids, is that their ghetto lifestyle is based on a mode of production (capitalism) that doesn’t care about the culture they’ve internalized and adopted as their own. They are too young to remember the brief moment in the 90s when “intellectual” or “thoughtful” hip-hop was cool. The popular style now, which in turn means the style yielding rappers/role models the big bucks, is gangsta rap. But what happens when, like all fads, gangsta rap goes out of style, and will no longer make giant corporations tons of money? Well, Fiddy Cent will be the new MC Hammer, and rather than see him on TV surrounded by bling and bitches, he’ll be schilling for Geico or Taco Bell. And those poor, dedicated gangsta rappers in their home studios will realize they’ve been abandoned by a system that doesn’t care about art. That being shot 9 times was not street credibility, but marketing. That they spent a lot of hard-earned money at a shitty job on Flex’s Lugz, Jay-Z’s vodka and Fiddy’s clothing line.

If you’ll indulge a pretentious analogy: T.S. Eliot didn’t have to be middle-aged to write brilliantly about a midlife crisis in “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.” The poem has substance without the image of Eliot, the credibility is in the art itself. But with Rap Capitalism, image comes first and it is ultimately an illusion playing on these young minds in order extract the little money they have.

These students are putting their hopes in a crapshoot. The mentality of making it big is similar to the mentality of the Florida Lottery (your gambling well spent on education, by the way, but no other funding): Get lucky, get rich, leave the poor behind in the same state. In terms of art, Rap Capitalism discourages folk culture, a regional realism like that of some Dirty South rappers who rap about what life is like not because it makes them rich, but because they’re making art tied to a specific time, place and situation. But my students, especially the ones obsessed with rap, are confronted with the troubles of adolescence: they don’t know what to think, they are not interested in learning about the world, and thus they keep their skewed, TV realities, and may never truly discover a way to creatively express who they are.

* * *

If you have not inferred that a central part of this rural culture is “blackness,” then let it be known. Not all students at this school are black. In fact, I’m ignoring a whole other segment of rural culture, that of the cross and the Klan. But I’m basing this analysis on my students. And one evening, while analyzing my approach, feeling quite a bit like a missionary, I thought: What better way to make Thoreau relevant than to follow it up with Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Surely MLK has contributed to “the best which has been thought and said.” In fact, there’s a whole canon of literature my students can familiarize themselves with in order to ground themselves in some sort of positive identity and tradition: WEB Dubois, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, so many authors and thinkers I’m only skimming the surface.


But their attention span is short, their knowledge incomplete, perhaps intentionally, in order to reduce intellectual discomfort. I was amazed at how little they knew about the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks: yes, but what’s a boycott? What’s a sit-in? What is non-violent direct action? Many of them understood eventually, but many also ignored the intensive lessons we had on the “Letter.”

The final lesson, for many, was not turn the other cheek. They continued to speak like Black Nationalists, quoting Malcolm X, but, just as they forgot about the second-tape downfall of Scarface, they, too, forgot that Malcolm X went to Mecca and came back changed, sounding more like Dr. King than Marcus Garvey. Rather than study, they prefer to run around the halls yelling Jenna 6, which is a case we discussed one day, and not knowing what they hell they mean by it. If you asked them about “Going to Meet the Man,” they would not recall a short story, but instead a trip to the precinct to post bail for cousin Ray-Ray.

* * *

But hey, there’s hope.
Or not.
Maybe so.
No, probably not.
That’s a lie, there’s hope.
Very little.
But some.

This is the conversation I sometimes have with myself when thinking about the future of my students. It’s not their lack of interest in education—many kids hate school. It’s more their attitude that they are owed something, that the have the right to be disrespectful, that they are above certain rules. We city teachers think of this as intentional defiance. We see it as a bunch of asshole kids and we become cynical. We forget we’re dealing with kids, desperate kids. Kids who have grown up in a culture radically different from our own. Kids who can see the immensity of the world in the values we bring, the cruelty, the pressures, the horrifying responsibility of reality, and they are scared. They are too far behind. They think there is no hope of catching up. That’s why it’s important for teachers to have hope for them. We have to show them that there’s beauty in the world, too. That it is not cool to have to wear a bullet proof vest (over their clothes, no less). If we can’t get through to them, they will be doomed to the infinite jest of sitting on their stoops on Friday, Next Friday, The Friday After Next, The Following Friday, Every Friday, sitting there watching their the neighbor’s house get robbed.

Wait a minute... who's the fascist here?

If you accept the premise that a school is a microcosm of a nation, then you would not hesitate to subject the former to similar analysis. While I often feel that the nation, as it is represented by elected officials, seems a lot like a high school (image trumping substance, irresponsible spending, impending debt, raging hormones in the form of wars) the focus here will be on the reverse: how is a high school like a nation? More specifically: my high school.

I’ve given it some thought. I’ve traveled. I’ve read intensely. And now, I give you: the fourteen identifying characteristics of fascism.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.

The analogy here is not one hundred percent spot on. It often shifts between students-as administrators-of-a-repressive-state-apparatus and students-as-masses, in other words, victims of the state. However, one remembers from history that the desperate will take whatever power they can, and that modicum of power often reflects, however petty, the behavior and means of the state. It is with this in mind that I suggest the students lean more toward masses. This leaves the administration and teachers to the role of the state, which is not an apt comparison. Granted, young people in a school have little say in how things are run, however, if anything, the repressive nature of power that is reflected in the behavior of the student masses spawns more from the paranoid delusions of adolescence than any teacher or administrator. Teachers, if we fit anywhere into this analogy, are more like society’s repressed intellectuals, our books burned as in Nazi Germany, our body’s beaten as in Mao’s China.

Finally, a nod to Laurence Britt for the 14 points below, elaborations quoted prior to my interpretation.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.

“From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.”

I’ve yet to participate in the fervor that is school spirit, but it exists in every school in the form of colors. Every school has a set, and my school suggests we sport not only the colors, but the name and logo of our institution as much as possible. Just the other day I was asked to buy a pin, a blinking contraption featuring the school’s mascot. Everywhere you look there are the colors. And not one hallway is without some sort of motto inspiring pride in the nation-school. The military is paralleled in this analogy by the football and other sports teams. Rallies before every home game (despite my school’s lack of adequate facilities, causing ceremony to look more like a farce than Triumph of the Will) ensure loyalty and conformity, mass admiration of the school’s muscle. As for a suspicion of foreigners, observe the way new students are treated, immediately harassed, questioned, tested to the point of either conformity or outcast.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.

“The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.”

My students have no respect for personal space. Ass-slapping, face-slapping, wrestling, punching, fighting and groping take place constantly in the halls. Governments throughout history have used euphemisms for torture. At my school, there is a particular group of students who like to taunt and beat up girls. When caught, they immediately exclaim, “That’s my sister!” as if that makes it any more appropriate. It has occurred to me, after seeing the same situation play out among different students, that “sister” is code for “victim.” As for disinformation, gossip is a fact of every school. Gossip smacks of Stalin and McCarthy’s paranoia and the oral culture surrounding them. In schools, gossip is a means of intimidation powerful enough to cause students to transfer schools.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.

“The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite ‘spontaneous’ acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and ‘terrorists.’ Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.”

If there is one thing my students excel at it is making excuses, however illogical. Teachers, as well as administrators, are often used by students as scapegoats for a student’s own misbehavior. I’ve found that something as simple as writing a student’s name on the board for talking over a lecture, which has very little consequence at that moment, always escalates into illogical and absurd tirades on why the teacher is petty, why the teacher can’t just teach. And students love to gang up on a teacher who punishes one of their own.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.

“Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.”

Again, athletics operates as the military strong arm of the school, usually hording most of the school’s funds to put toward expensive uniforms, jackets, and other status symbols not afforded to non-athletes, thus building the complex combination of admiration and resentment necessary for athletes to hold the positions of “power” that they do.

5. Rampant sexism.

“Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.”

Especially in a rural school, male students hold pre-suffrage beliefs about the abilities of their female counterparts. Sexist jokes are as prevalent as those racist and homophobic. Further, I have to constantly ask certain students to refrain from using the word “fag.” The very word once appeared in a “declaration of independence” assignment, in which a group of students created, among others, a “no fags” law. Females at the school are more progressive, which possibly explains the seemingly disproportioned amount of lesbians, paradoxically accepted with greater ease than male homosexuals.

6. A controlled mass media.

“Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.”

While students’ brains are hardly developed enough to decode the opinions and propaganda generated by mass media, their petty debates over what is “cool” certainly mirror the current media climate. For example, logic is not their primary concern. More important to their rhetorical style are ad hominid attacks, glittering generalizations and circular reasoning. And over what? A pair of shoes or rapper about as ephemeral as their attention span. They are the future O’Reillys, proto-Hannitys.

7. Obsession with national security.

“Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting ‘national security,’ and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.”

I got nothin’.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.

“Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.”

Students constantly refer to their moral superiority when justifying their fascist actions. For such atrocious behavior, many of my students are extremely religious, or at least convey the attitude. A totally forgiving God combined with an adolescent mindset, which imagines a life of sin followed by a last-minute penance, is a perfect match. Much of the religiosity, I believe, is a front anyhow. God is commodified, a gaudy piece of gold swung around the neck as yet another status symbol. In other words, God is hip at the moment.

9. Power of corporations protected.

“Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of ‘have-not’ citizens.

Again we find the students-as-masses. Seeing as how my students do not see me as their leader (one has actually said she doesn’t trust me), they instead bow to the factoids and rhetoric of corporate culture. On a small scale, it is true that there are certain cliques of elite students who keep to their own and ignore or abuse those deemed unpopular. The irony, in the end, is situational, because the masters of popularity must still report to their own masters: the monolithic corporate apparatuses that sway their feeble minds into believing a T-shirt or type of soda will make them cool.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.

“Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.”

Students-as-masses yet again. Labor is only valued by a few of the students who come from a lineage of farmers. However, that is not to say they haven’t given in to the evils of agribusiness (refer to point 9). As for the students who do not farm, they aspire to be the same corporate images they admire. Sports stars, CEOs, famous rappers, entrepreneurs. Not the overworked, lower-middle-class blue collars they will, at this rate, inevitably become.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.

“Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.”

There is some interesting historical work on anti-intellectualism in schools, especially around the time of World War II. You’ll find in these works, similar connection between the nation and the school. Kids are so obviously anti-school… I’ll give you one quote from my first day of classes uttered by multiple students: “I hate to read.”

12. Obsession with crime and punishment.

“Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. ‘Normal’ and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or ‘traitors’ was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.”

Many of my students, it would seem, are Draconians. They quote Hammurabi without even knowing the name: “eye for an eye.” They have expressed the belief that a thief should have his hand chopped off (same assignment as the “no fags” group, different students). Generally, a good old-fashioned ass whooping passes for justice.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.

“Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.”

Cheating on quizzes and tests is rampant in my school. I had one student copy directly from another, as if I would not notice that their five paragraph essays were about the exact same thing, in the exact same words, word for word. Another insult to my intelligence is when some kind of report is due, say, a simple book report, and a student assumes that I do not know the difference between their remedial prose and a remotely coherent paragraph with polysyllabic words. You cannot copy and paste something written with correct spelling, grammar and syntax when you yourself are incapable of producing such work. At least change it up to say (edits in italics) “Mark Twain is like this ornery author of enormous stature and like acerbic humor and wit.”

14. Fraudulent elections.

“Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.”

Although my students will most likely always be on the receiving end of disenfranchisement, this last point should allow us all to breathe a temporary sigh of relief. Because my students, as mean and dumb and likely to be involved with drugs as they are, will never vote. They may, however, be elected president.

TEACHER'S WORK DAY!

Some of you... okay, three of you... have been looking for a new post. The reasons for not updating lately are as follows: planning for class, applying to grad schools (which is like a full-time job and it won't be over until the end of November), not-good-enough ideas, a resulting lack of motivation, as well as general ennui. Also, Florida's brand of winter is seeping into my city. I'm going the fuck outside. Peace!

I Said "Fuck"

Major cities all over the country have embraced what critics call a “surveillance society.” Cameras that can turn corners, operate in symphony with hundreds of other cameras, and feed video directly to any source properly connected to the system… cameras so powerful they can follow you, average citizen, down city streets and see exactly what you might happen to be reading, right down to “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” or, if you’re like me, “Dear Penthouse.” Major cities. Cities as liberal and anti-fascist as San Francisco have implemented this billion-dollar system of monitoring everyday folks under the guise of safety.

So knowing this, it should be of no surprise to find out that administrators are listening in on my classroom. You all remember those little wood-box speakers mounted near the ceiling of every room, a laughably ancient technology compared to what these major cities are using, but just as effective. As with almost every technology, the flaw is user-related. It was by user-error that I came to suspect someone was spying on me. I heard a bell-tone that usually means someone from the office wants to say something to me or the school. “Hello,” I said. No answer. It happened again. “Hello?” No answer. Then I heard a quick succession of two unfamiliar beeps, what I now assume to have been the equivalent of a mute button.

Now I’m a pretty paranoid person as is, but it wasn’t long before I said something to another teacher about the strange PA noises, and it wasn’t long before my suspicions were conformed. Oddly enough, this teacher did overhear something about administrators listening in on my class. Why would they do that? I wondered. Something about how I might be cursing.

Cursing? Me? No! … well, yes actually. Quite a bit. Like a sailor. But who gives a fuck? Apparently the administration give several, several fucks, that is.

This leads me to the title of this post, which is the title of an entry with which I wanted to kick off the blog, following my introductory post. But things did not work out that way, so allow me now to set the scene.

It is the third day of school. I am still not used to the fact that there exist students who cannot remember what happened two seconds ago, who cannot sit still, who cannot keep their hands to themselves, who cannot stop talking, who have anger issues, who have deep-seeded sexual issues, students who speak in an unintelligible slang, students who will say whatever they want to a teacher, students with no vocabulary, students who answer rhetorical questions, students who are generally a bunch of assholes. I’m having enough trouble already trying to figure out how to make lesson plans, what to teach, how to teach it, etc. I’m having enough trouble being tested every which way by questions that I’m too clouded to realize are solely designed to test me, and when I try to answer them, being clouded, everything seeming very unreal, I am not conscious of the fact that the student isn’t actually looking for answer, but rather looking to see if I would actually be dumb enough to answer. All I’m asking of them, in calm, polite words, is that they stay seated a not talk while I try to go over the lesson—which I’m extremely self-conscious about considering I received nil guidance.

Anyhow, one thing leads to another, as the song says, and the next thing you know I am yelling at them to quiet down. They do not like yelling and it does not make them any quieter, even though the first thing I yelled was, “Quiet please!” I probably repeated myself three times before moving on to criticizing the students (not in a mean way) about not being able to follow simple directions, about how everything has fallen apart since the first day when we had that pep talk about respect, and about how everything was going to be easy-going and no one would get in trouble because there are only a few very basic rules to follow in this class… this whole spiel—students yapping back the whole time—ended, or I should say paused, in me yelling, “Why can’t you just fucking listen!”

Well, that was it. I said “fuck” and it was only the third day of school. I knew then I had to reevaulate my method. I knew this as soon as I said it. And I knew it before the note from the principal showed up in my box the next day: “Please see me re some comments you may or may not have made.”

The first emotion I felt was anger. Not at myself or the principal, but at my students, who, if recorded for one fifty-minute class period, would be captured saying the nastiest, most disgusting, most racist shit you’ve heard in a long time. A lot of it comes from the hyper-sexualized rap and R&B they listen to (“I pop in the nudie tape: bitch! I love the way the booty shake: bitch!”), and the rest of it comes from their backwards home lives (try to guess how many homes I pass on the way to school that proudly fly the flag of the Confederacy). Hypocrites! is basically what I thought.

But I knew the principal better than other new teachers. I met him the first day of pre-planning and we talked about literature and history. He really did put the “pal” in his title. Of course I was uncomfortable, but he was a good sport about it.

After a game of adolescent telephone, he heard that I had called the class “stupid fucking kids,” which, without a doubt, they certainly are. “But,” I explained, “I said no such thing… I said ‘fuck,’ sure, but the phrasing was more like ‘Why can’t you fucking listen?’” I had no problem admitting this, nor did I feel the need to bend the truth into some far-fetched story about teaching a lesson on “learning interrogative sentences through swear words” (it’s research-based!). I didn’t need to do anything like that because the principal had never seen anything like these kids either. He understood where a young guy like myself was coming from. The whole thing amounted to “don’t do it again, obviously” and the conversation quickly moved on to beer, literature, and the hardships of trying to impose middle-class enlightenment values on a bunch of kids who “can’t fucking listen,” to quote the principal.

So why is it, five weeks after the third day of school, administrators are still listening in? Okay, I suppose I have not washed my mouth out with soap completely. The other day I said “hell.” “Oooooooo” was the response I received from my bad class. This was after they would not be quiet and an administrator had to be called to come in and calm things down, only do be talked back to just the same (this was the third time this happened). So they’re all screaming and yelling unintelllgible bullshit at me and complaining about being punished for this or that, and all I said was “What the hell do you want me to do?” They say, “Ooooooo,” as if I did something horrible, as if one of them didn’t just make a reference to wiping the splooge off of his ho’s stomach (not kidding). They are intent on setting a double standard for foul language, but I have a plan.

All my plan requires is for me not to curse. The students, I know, will keep cursing. So here’s what I’m doing: I’m starting a swear jar. If I hear a student curse, drop at least a nickel into the jar. If they don’t have any change, I give them a referral and call their parents to tell them what their child said. It’s my little way of saying, “fuck you” without actually saying, “fuck you.”

Parent Night, or: Six Out of Forty-Four Ain't Bad

So what happened at Parent Night? It wasn’t even a farce. It was too miniscule to be a farce. It may as well have not happened at all.

Who showed up? Four of my A students, one average student, and the school’s worst behavioral problem (who happens to be one of my students). Did you know that students are supposed to go with parents to Parent Night? I did not, probably because anything involving my parents physically present in my high school caused several doomsday scenarios to play out in my head, followed by a swift repression. I’m sure I knew this fact about kids and their parents showing up somewhere deep in my subconscious, but I was not prepared for it.

What am I saying? Parent Night was a snap. Nothing eventful happened. Parents and kids moved from class to class every ten minutes, with the bell ringing just like it does during the day to make the whole thing seem like a Disney ride—“a typical day at school,” only it’s six at night, and the teachers are all ornery over being in the building so long, kind of like Disney employees. Nothing happened… only one minor gem, which looks handsome in sentence form: The school’s worst discipline problem and the school’s worst discipline problem’s mother showed up late to my class. You don’t know how bad I wanted to say, “I refer you during the day. Now I’m fittin’ tuh refer yo mamma!”

How Does Preparation for the Week Require the Entire Weekend?

That line is stolen from a Karate (RIP) song, written by Geoff Farina. It's damn true in my case, as I sit here writing myself to sleep after I've spent all day prepping lessons for the coming week. "It's the first year," they say. "First year sucks." "It's always the hardest." It's not so much the prep that bothers me, but the fact that I'm not sure any of it will sink in for the students.

Of course, I hope it does, but my teaching inexperience and their learning inexperience is not a good combination. According to my mentor I'm doing a fine job. I don't doubt her, but I do often feel like an island in my room all day, with the kids crashing in on me like waves, slowly eroding the coasts of my patience. The main thing to do if you're a teacher is to talk to adults as much as you can during the course of a day. Because talking to students, especially dumb ones, is exhausting. I wanted to read a novel this weekend, but it took me until right about now to get in the mood for anything adult. I spent much of the weekend shaking off the feeling being at a high school gives me, like wearing a heavy coat with too many straps and buttons. It was worse after the first week, but it gets better, and I'm becoming more proficient at compartamentalizing, separating my institutional role from my personal life as an individual (Chomsky, 94).

Tomorrow I am limiting my conversations with students to lesson-related speech only. I will be adapting style of the ninja, or the monk. My punishments will be swift and silent and any dissent will be met with further silence, calm and rational punishment, then back to the lesson at hand.

Tomorrow I will be experiencing my first parent conference, strangely enough, requested by the student, even stranger, after I've tried to contact his parents several times with no response. As I've been warned, oftentimes, the apple does not fall far from the tree. If so, this tree must be a arborous imbecilous, more commonly known as the "Stupid Tree." But I will have the backing of other teachers, a counselor and hopefully (but not likely) an administrator. You can complain all you want, but in the end, the Fs speak for themselves. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm sorry, dear reader, this post is going nowhere, but there is an essay brewing, a long one, a doosey, if you will; it forms a new vital organ everyday, tomorrow it will have a heart, the next day brainwaves (choose life!), each draft developing more and more into a sentient being. Stay tuned!

The Chicanery of Harry Wong

Teachers call Harry Wong a guru. They buy his books. They pay money to see him speak. School districts spend taxpayer dollars to ship this small Asian man, presumably in a box, to their counties so he can bestow his ancient teaching wisdom upon their dim, unenlightened masses. I think Harry Wong is an asshole.

Harry Wong is a charismatic man, and, as I’ve mentioned before, he is very, very tiny. He is packaged in a gaudy plaid suit. He stands on a stage in front of a mock classroom and says things like, “You are working too hard. I’ve been teaching for 30 years and I have never worked a day in my life.” Teachers seem to see this as the paradoxical wisdom of the East.

He looks like a chipmunk that stumbled upon a pair of oversized bifocals, this Wong, and I had to spend the better part of three days with him at my county’s New Teacher Induction Ceremony—three of my last summer days blown at the Seashell Ballroom of the Days Inn. Because I’m new to teaching, the county thought I would benefit from the ways of the Wong. Of course, they were very sorry Mr. Wong could not be there in person. Instead, we were subjected to his televisual image, so our heckling, shouting and throwing of piping-hot, complementary Days Inn coffee would do no good, for the real deal was off entertaining the higher bidders.

If it hasn’t occurred to you yet—the combination of this man’s name and my pure disdain for him… well, let’s just say from here on out I’ll be referring to him as Harry Wang. To be honest that was the first thing I thought when I heard his name, though my tablemates—a group of nine other new teachers with no discernable personalities—didn’t find it as universally unfortunate and hilarious as I did.

Though I speak ill of Harry Wang, I do so only in retrospect. As a teacher of reading, I ask you to recall one of the basic elements one brings to the act: prior knowledge. For those of you who are kind enough to read this blog chronologically, you already know my school has a serious discipline problem. So, now, please imagine your humble narrator in the Seashell Ballroom of the Days Inn, prior to ever meeting any students. In fact, at this point, I’ve only been to the school once, for my interview. I am sitting there, despite my inherent cynicism and tendency to turn names into sexual puns, bright-eyed and ready for this silly man to give me some good advice. You see, even though he looks funny, I, completely new to education, am paying very close attention to what this man says. I believe every single word.

Before the video begins, our induction leader asks us to open our tote bags and find the book entitled “The First Days of School,” by guess who? That’s right, our friend Harry can’t be here, but at least his book is now a high-end piece of SWAG. I’m thrilled to have the book, for one because books just feel nice in my hands, and also because books in the genre of “education” are ridiculously expensive. (Just today, my department head gave me a book on reading, a thin paperback of about 170 pages, which sells for thirty dollars.) So I’ve got the shiny new copy of “The First Days of School” in my novice grasp. I’m flipping through it and reading the table of contents and thinking, this book has all the answers to my questions about the first days of school, and it does.

The thesis of the book is that the fate of the entire school year rests on what happens in class those first few days. You must establish clear rules and consequences, as well as classroom procedures. Sounds logical. Don’t make more than 5 rules, or the kids will stop paying attention. Make about 3 to 5. At this point I’m scribbling ideas on my free legal pad… two rules: 1) RESPECT… include a few subcategories: do not talk over people, keep hands to self, etc, etc. I even have the idea of making my syllabus interactive and asking the students what their definition of respect is. Brilliant! 2) Follow all school rules. This way I cover my ass (CYA, or “cover your ass” is an oft-repeated motto among teachers) and make it the students’ responsibility to go through all that grueling crap they should already know. Just refer to your student handbook, I will tell them.

Rules are one thing, but you also need procedures—how to turn in homework, the policy for bathroom use, and my favorite: bell work. Harry Wang promises that bell work is one of the greatest tools a teacher can have. Bell work is an assignment that is on the board everyday in the same spot (students hate change like teachers hate students). Students come, sit down before the bell rings, and know exactly what to do: quietly work on their bell work assignment. They won’t ask, “What do we do? What are we doing today?” etc.

I may as well just stop here, because Harry Wang says a lot of things in this three-day period and they all sound like educational gold. But bell work is my favorite concept and, by the time induction is over, I’ve already concocted bell work assignments for the entire first week of school. My expectations are higher than one of my students on a Friday evening and I’m ready for the upcoming week of pre-planning.

Pre-planning is the time teachers get (one week; not enough) to prepare for the onslaught of the adolescent mass that floods the school on day one. This week happens to be jam-packed with meetings of all sorts, and information overload occurs halfway into the first day. But all this information, I begin to realize, is abstract. Nothing I’m being told is very practical. And many topics being discussed, such as hall passes, referral slips, student code of conduct, are pointless without any kind of hard copy to reference. I’d much rather be working on lesson plans, finding out what textbooks to consider—remember, I’ve never taught, nor have I taken education classes… I have no idea what my students are supposed to be reading, what they already know, or what they need to learn this year.

One good thing about pre-planning is that lunch is provided for three of the five days. And during three of the five lunches, quite an interesting event took place. (If you happen to be Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitches, please avert your eyes from the remainder of this paragraph.) This event is what theists call prayer. All the teachers, who are mature enough to fake it, joined hands with the administration, and addressed someone named Lord. I suppose that was general enough. Jesus’ name was not invoked; though I’m pretty sure Lord is a Christian term. So we prayed, or they prayed, or most of them prayed, and I thought, “Man, this is really fucking weird.” I felt like I was home for the holidays, only everyone was gracious enough not to ask me to lead the prayer. I must say it was all a bit uncomfortable for me, not because I felt pressured, but because I didn’t know how to act. Do I bow my head with the rest of them, close my eyes, or simply stare out into the circle of people? It was strange enough to hold their hands. I certainly didn’t want to act like I was praying and not actually pray, but then again, it’s not like I’d be offending a god that I don’t believe exists, because you have to be religious to do something sacrilegious. I should have been concerned about offending my peers. But then again, why the hell were we praying? Sure, it wasn’t doing any harm, but it just seemed archaic and inappropriate. I suppose, in the end, if I had to be surrounded by a bunch of Christians, I would choose that group in particular. Because, as you know, teachers, despite their religious views, are more often than not quite progressive people, and while we may not agree about a white-bearded guy in the clouds (not to be confused with my former white-bearded co-worker, who looks more like Santa than anthropomorphic portrayals of god), we agree on almost everything else. But I digress… You should know that I did pray for something in that awkward circle. I prayed that Harry Wang knew what he was talking about.

So by Friday of pre-planning week I knew exactly what I was going to do the first day. I had my Wang strategies down and I was ready to enjoy a long weekend of visiting friends and drinking copious amounts of beer.

Weekends go by too quickly, and the first day of school arrived like a Jehovah’s Witness. I sat in my swivel chair waiting for the first batch of young men and women ready to be molded into mature, freethinking adults.

Enter Students. A brief and appropriate poem comes to mind. Ezra Pound wrote it. It’s called “In a Station of the Metro” and it continues to say, “the apparition of these faces in the crowd; petals on a wet, black bough.” The students appear to fit this description, a blur of faces. They bob around me, swaying like the poem’s petals, and they speak: “You the teacha?” “Bell work? We do work already?” “What bell work is?” “Yo palm sweaty. You nervous.” Nah, I say, not really aware of what’s happening, it’s just hot. “Shit. I ain’t doin’ no bell work.”

The room is loud. As their faces come into focus, I notice they are looking me up and down, as if I’m a museum display of modern man from 2007, a wax sculpture they’ve come to observe, looking back in time from a post-apocalyptic dystopia. Who is this guy in the tie? What was his purpose in the old days? But this analogy breaks down quickly. Why would a post-apocalyptic dystopia have museums? It is more likely, that they would all be eating each other. I don’t have to begin talking about the syllabus and the rules and consequences and procedures before I realize that Harry Wang is wong… very, very wong.

Your Child Is Not ADHD, He's Just An Asshole.

The jolly, white-bearded man across the hall quit. This is his last week. He has taught for 30 years. He has been to Vietnam. And he has quit. "I think," he says, "I’d prefer working at Home Depot."

There is a certain emotional complexity to dealing with kids who never learned how to behave. Behavior, after all, is why any teacher at my school quits. Also, there is an emotional complexity to teaching in general, which, as of now, I can't properly describe in broad terms, but I can give you a specific example: this morning I felt like teaching could be my career. But after 3rd period, I felt like taking a cue from my jolly, white-bearded (almost former) co-worker. After 6th period, I felt like I could definately teach the rest of the year... hell, I still might make a career of it yet. Then I contemplated all the certification requirements, half of which are a complete waste of time, and thought, maybe I don't want to do this.

But to return to the immediate problem... I’ve never had to discpline anyone before in my life, however, in the past four weeks, I’ve written about 10 referrals, meaning the student has gone so far as to force me to send him/her (usually him) to the Dean of Discipline for punishment.

It is a perverse, almost fascist feeling, writing a referral, because if you’re like me, you don’t want to have to discipline. In fact, you’re whole approach is very laid-back and friendly, and you tell the students on the first day, “This should be a nice, easy-going environment, so there’s no reason to break any of these simple and reasonable rules.”

And then they break the simple and reasonable rules. They cannot be peaceful. They cannot sit quietly or speak to anyone with respect. Then you wonder, Why do these students insist on breaking the simplest and most reasonable of rules? Why is it that when it comes time to face the consequences, and you utter the word “detention,” or “referral,” the student only digs a deeper grave.

For example:

This kid has been misbehaving (a word I still feel weird saying) all period. He has been warned, he has earned one detention, two detentions, but none of this is enough. He has done nothing severely wrong, but his talking has disrupted the class too many times, to the point where learning is significantly inhibited, and no one can concentrate. You try to explain in calm, rational terms that it is not polite to interrupt. You also try to give him a dictionary definition of talking back and respect. A few minutes of silence pass before you notice him. He is now officially fucking with you, staring all bug-eyed at you on purpose—

~Interlude~

At this point, you, the teacher, are wishing the student had the ability to empathize, to put himself in another person’s shoes. But this student cannot place himself in the shoes of his own peers, let alone an adult teacher. But if this were possible, this empathy, then that disruptive student might, at this point, use his buggy third eye to see what was going on in his teacher’s head. He would not like what he sees. What he sees is a vivid, horrifying scene. He sees his head being slammed repeatedly into the wall, blood and red, dry-erase marker indistinguishable from one another. He hears his professional, well-dressed teacher say, ‘You cocky fucking prick. You’re never going to learn anything at this rate, so why don’t you go flip some fucking burgers—but not for me because I’m not the stupid son-of-a-bitch who patronizes the kind of establishment you’re barely qualified to work at—and continue to disenfranchise yourself while blaming everyone else. Please, kindly, I do say, go on.” And because it’s your worst nightmare, he responds, “What do disenfrenchfries mean?”

~~~

—so he’s looking at you all bug-eyed and, if you say something, class is bound to be disrupted again, but you have to say something because the kid is trying you. So you calmly say, “B--, I’m giving you a referral.” What happens next, do you think?

As previously mentioned, they do not like to face consequences, especially ones, unlike detention, which require their immediate removal and public shaming. The shaming, however, is solely the fault of the student, that’s right, the bug-eyed one, who has now stood up and started to yell in a whiny voice about how unfair this all is—though you must imagine his pleas in broken English—and about how he’s going to tackle you. He now drops his books on the floor and rips up the pass to see the Dean. He's stomping out of the room with that pained look of defiance he always wears on his face, trying to act hard but actually looking more like he’s holding in a perpetual sneeze. Goodbye, poor student, farewell, you say. Adieu, adieu, adieu, you say, as you’ve just been given, by his little performance, more fuel for the fire, more bullets with which he can shoot himself in the foot, and all because no one ever taught him how to be respectful.

But you’re still steaming. And while you’re sitting there, writing quite the literary referral, pressing the pen down extra hard to keep your hand from shaking, you think about how all the teachers who’ve been at this school a long time tell you, “B--? Oh, he likes to play. He’s got the ADHD.” And you think of what you’ll say next time you see them. You’ll say, “I may not know much about ADHD, because I’m from the pre-ADHD generation, but just because he’s got it doesn’t mean he has to be an asshole.” And this statement makes you feel good. This referral makes you feel great. The kid is gone and out of your hair, at least for now, with five minutes left in class. But as far as you’re concerned he’s gone for the next 24 hours. It all feels good. Your blood is boiling and it feels good. You are taking pleasure in the misfortune of another. Not just in writing the referral, but the fact that you actually have nothing to be mad about. Your life is in order. The bug-eyed kid is the one who’s really fucked. He probably has a horrible home life. His parents have not returned your calls. He can barely read and write, and the fact that he can’t behave only bodes disaster for his future as a productive member of society. It is likely he’ll end up in place much worse than lifting boxes or scrubbing shit from toilets, and this is not a good thing for anyone, because the felon next door is everyone’s problem, and this is not what you wanted for anyone in your class, not what you planned, not what you expected. And yet this kid fucked with you all period, he exploded your patience and ideals, and you tried and tried and tried to warn him but he kept on fucking away, fucking himself, and while everything about the entire situation is completely depressing and hopeless, you are sitting at your desk with a huge smile, you’re warm all over, and you’ve never felt better in your life.

Who Am I?

I am a first year teacher with no previous educational experience. I am a Literature and Creative Writing major now teaching English III and Intensive Reading at a rural Florida high school. For all kinds of legal purposes I will remain simply “I.” The innocent, guilty and stupid will be herein renamed. I suppose I could just say that everything that follows is fiction, a flight of fancy, the product of an active imagination—that would make it easier to sleep at night. So why not: everything you read here is a work of fiction, any proper nouns resembling real-life entities are entirely coincidental. But really, between you and I, it’s all true.

Something else you should know. This is not going to be a diary-style blog, meaning there will be no day-to-day updates on such mundane details as the status of my cold sore. Rather than log every little detail, I prefer to let the events of the day sit for a while, reveal new meanings, and give me time to make connections to other events that may not have occurred to me had I sat down and wrote a reactionary entry on why I want to bash a certain student’s head into the wall. Not to say there won’t be a good rant or two. But, generally, I plan to use this blog to express both abstract feelings on teaching so-called “at risk” kids and very specific scenarios that I find amusing or disturbing. You’ll also find armchair philosophy, obscure details, references ranging from Fiddy Cent to French New Wave, borderline pretentious remarks, an acceptable level of guff, and some good old-fashioned storytelling. My goal is to entertain and enlighten. Still interested?

Then let me continue with some more introductory information… the school where I teach houses grades 6 through 12, a whopping total of 500 students. To give this figure some scale: I had more than 500 students in my graduating class. Some of these kids live on dirt roads. Some of them don’t have a floor. All of them manage to have a myspace account.

When you read “at risk,” your initial thought might have been, Okay, how long will it be before someone gets shivved? “At risk,” in the sense I’m referring to, means at risk of failing. My worst students will not be able to read and comprehend this blog. My very best students could understand what’s being said here after an intense and dedicated session.

My school has what the entire county refers to as a “discipline problem.” I find this fact amusing considering my interview involved a confession of my anticipated difficulty with discipline. (I’ve never had to discipline anyone in my life. What would I do?) But this “discipline problem” does not refer to the myths one hears of razor blades hidden in weaves, students being dangled by their ankles from the roof (our school is only one story), or your general guns, gang and riots. The biggest problem where I teach is basic: respect. These kids do not know how to raise their hands, stay in their seats, keep their hands to themselves. They do not know what talking back means. They do not know have to behave like normal, functioning human beings attending school.

This reputation, developed over the past ten years, has not only kept teachers away, it has driven unsuspecting suckers to insanity. Last year, a teacher quit on the first day because the class gave her such a hard time. This year there has been about a 50% turnover in staff, including a new principal and set of counselors. Some of the new teachers are new to teaching (me), a few of them are middleweights, some have taught for 30 years. Most of us were not familiar with the county, thus the school’s reputation. None of us have ever seen anything like the behavior at this school.

The man who resides across the hall from me is a jolly and white-bearded social studies teacher. He previously taught for 30 years at another rural school somewhere in Central Florida. One of the Deans of Discipline, who happens to also be his neighbor, convinced him that he would be a good fit. At the end of the first day we walked to our respective thresholds, heads hanging, to watch the students race out of the building. When the halls cleared he said to me, “I came out of retirement for this shit?”