Robbie’s Neighborhood

With shirt on me backwards and
rub-on’s deactivated, greasy fingers on
music machine and searching for signal
annoyinwere thunderclouds. Just slapping

dumpster puddles nearby, someone
washing God’s giant erasers on the
stoops outside. The just barely
aware sprawled across woody hilltops

Where we still expect questions flying fast
& where We were wrong is an acceptable form
of address. What part of England are you from?
and Did you ever have sex while smiling?

I was groomed for this. I am a goat,
the boy hugging knees. If you want
to be an overachiever, beware the pigs,
because sweet man flesh is consistency
between everything. Jick.

Virginia Beach, June 2008

i.

every poem is a game of letters, this
the blank wooden square that fits
between impossibles, a sentiment
without value, but ultimately flexible.

we who speak the language
are squirrels, all swiftness and
silence, heads up and ready to leap
from hammock to fencepost and

beyond, beyond symbols
or sound, the putting together
of lips and pulling them apart.
an ambulance approaches, lights

flashing. man gets out and waves it
back into my ally. but at night,
if you walk alone, you will see.
in the sand, this is what most surfaces

look like, under a microscope:
random and infinitely bumpy, their
peaks and depressions bent into
shapes without meaning. some

time later, the paramedics return
with ice cream cones in hand.

ii.

this afternoon, two motorcycles
block the sidewalk with handlebars
built like breaking bones. a mechanic
rumbles the throttle, listening

with his expert ear while the UPS
man stands at the door, waiting. woman
steps off foot bridge and smiles
for no reason. in the murky water

below, empty beer cans and burger wraps
wait for eternity. homeless man huddles
in the public library. field hockey players,
Olympic hopefuls. pretty girl in the

crowd, just one of many. pick me!
pick me for your stupid unicycle
tricks, your prototypical families
and unlikely couples trying to find

pizza while everything closes
or walking at the water’s edge.

iii.

a famous physicist says probably
there is no such thing as time,
but just like Aristotle, he cannot
prove the Earth is round. turn

the page, and there is no free will.
past midnight, boy hauls empty
wheelchair up stairs. horse shits
on sidewalk, cop on top, as if

everything we ever did, just
happened. like the time
you sat across from me,
and i could only draw blanks.

[ASSIGNED: FAILURE STORY]

first view of my classroom

Are there individual students whom I feel I've failed? Ha-ell yeah! Isn't that what the "one child at a time" jingoism pretty much guarantees? GIve me 120-something students and then let help me feel good about "making a difference" for one. Do the math. 

But I have to admit confess that my biggest sense of failure has come from not being able to make a difference stick it out at SDHS. I made a commitment. At this point in my life, commitments are not made lightly. And I said I wanted a small Delta town, knowing these are the toughest assignments. Did I not fully imagine what that meant? Well, yes, be we never do. I didn't fully imagine what being a parent would be like, either, but I stuck with it for whatever it would be. How can I even begin to compare another 3 years in Mississippi to my commitment of the past 25?

I've said before and i'll say again (but now I'm changing the tense): All the reasons I left are the very reasons I should have stayed. 

That pretty much says it all. 

White Whine: The lack of leadership made my efforts there futile. Teacher Corps is not sending a new group of teachers there this year and I'd be alone further isolated. I can ultimately help more students by being in a school with some degree of leadership and organization. The school I'm going to is still classified as critical needs. There are still hundreds  thousands millions plenty of students whom I'm not teaching no matter where I end up. 

But then I see NW's curious eyes tracking me. Or I hear DT's soft voice as he asks my approval of every sentence he writes. I see DC's little stack of books she stores on my supply shelf. I reread SB's metaphor poem about her dead mother and compare it to the weight of her armor she wears every day.

And I know Dr. Mullins is right: It's not really about me. But I made it about me when I decided to leave those students. 

White Whine: There will be students I love at G-W. I'll probably succeed in educating some of them. But I will not succeed in educating 120-some others to whom I made an implicit and explicit commitment. I told them all that they were not the reason I was leaving. It smacked of the "divorce speech" whereby parents veil the fact that it's the other parent they can't stand. But the kids are still left parentless. Do we I continue to soothe our my conscience by saying they'll feel better because of that fact?

I dunno. But now I know why I'll be sticking with gin.

Regarding the importance of reading to children from an early age (MTCer's see comments here), an idea has occurred to me from time to time for a family literacy program. The idea is to establish an evening program where poor, at-risk families are encouraged by the prospect of free food and possibly even an hourly remuneration to attend reading workshops that last an hour or so each night. The setting is comfortable, friendly, and informal, but focused on reading and literacy, without the interruptions of television, cell phones, boyfriends, etc. For the first part of each session, the children (the younger the better) are read to by master reader volunteers (who could be teachers or advanced high school or middle school students) while the adults are taught literacy skills by trained adult literacy specialists. Later, since one important aim is to get parents in the habit of reading to their children, each adult is scheduled a formal, supervised time when they will read to their children, even if they have to rehearse a familiar storybook with help from a tutor. Overall, the emphasis is on encouraging regular attendence and participation while making adults and children alike comfortable with reading as an enjoyable family tradition.

It seems like a good idea in need of funding to me. Has the Barksdale Reading Institute considered anything like this?

Hipscrews

It's been six weeks since my accident. Just over month since I came home from the hospital. In April, I left my house three times.

Emily stayed for two weeks, then had to go home. I've been driving since May 1, when I also started outpatient physical therapy in place of the therapist coming to my home. Monday, I gave up the walker for a cane -- the kind with four little feet, but I'll take it.

Physical therapy is three times a week, about three hours each time. I'm up to 45 reps at 80 pounds on the leg press. I can walk with a normal stride on the treadmill in the harness that lifts 50 pounds of my weight. (Five short of half my weight.) I only take pain meds at night.

Those of you who know me know that a year ago I could hold a 40-pound box on my shoulder and run up a six-foot ladder. For an eight- to ten-hour shift.

There are three 6 mm screws in my left hip, each about 7.5 cm long. I'm packing a lot of titanium.

As suspected, I will not teach this school year. I am hopeful that I'll be able to do my summer school teaching and classwork in Oxford. With luck, I'll be fully recovered by August when school starts.

But it's a long road. There are days I lose the mental battle.

Life deals us cards. I've had some amazing hands dealt to me, and I think I've played them as well as I could. I still maintain that things do not, as many say, happen for a reason. Things happen randomly. Our job, as higher-order critters, is to give meaning to those things. And that, my friends, is what is known as a state of grace.

Since my brother's death in November 2003, my family has read this poem in place of the traditional blessing at Thanksgiving, his and my favorite holiday. It's good advice to keep in mind. I taught it to my students as an example of extended metaphor.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
    translation by Coleman Barks

above clouds

Thanks for the many thoughtful comments. Obviously, I do not want to get into what someone has politely called a shin-kicking contest, but I do think I should make a few points.

Prologue: No one who commented on my post has ever been in my classroom for so much as a second. I do not run the "silent classroom." It is a classroom run on mutual respect. Students speak freely in discussion, and engage in candid banter. I do not require raised hands, though many choose to do so, and are acknowledged. Students manage their time and move from one task to another. More days than not they participate in the teaching as well as learning. They know exactly what's expected of them. If you had come into my room in March (the last time I taught due to my accident), you would have thought I had no rules. Again, students know exactly what's expected of them. There's only one road to that. It might have many entrance ramps, but it's the same road: Tell them what's expected of them. Insist they live up to it. Do not tolerate it if they don't. Expect them to succeed in living up to your expectations. Respect them for it.

And now, for the main event:

First, anyone who knows me or has spoken to me or read my opinions about why I am teaching in Mississippi knows that my motives are far from what has been suggested in some comments. Specifically, I refer to accusations of "colonialism."  I assume what is meant is an oblique reference to some sort of systematized noblesse oblige in which privileged white offspring descend into the depths of savagery to sprinkle hope and salvation to the poor and oppressed. Paternalist, perhaps, but not colonialist.

My heritage, my experience, and my motives could not be further from that model. Of course, if one's only experience with me or my opinions was to have brushed me off at an MTC alumni event, it's hard to know this. Perhaps the prejudging of prejudice works in both directions. Having spent more years involved in various social justice projects than some of my commenters have been alive, I think I've gotten my head around why I'm in the Delta teaching. If you're interested in knowing, contact me directly. Better yet, drive into the Delta and join me with a cold one on my front porch for a conversation.

As for the inferences that my statements about adolescents reflect what "can only be racialized undertones," I ask you to take a moment to consider this. There's a saying that "he [who] is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail." What is your filter? Why, specifically, can this "only" be a racial issue? In my experience with raising a child, in dealing with adolescents from every geographic, racial, and economic strata, I find (and am in agreement with psychological and sociological research) that adolescents in the best of circumstances often have trouble with the self-regulation that make it difficult for them to appreciate the nuances of behavior necessary for self-regulation. That is, "You can talk, but not too loudly;" "You can be late to class if you have a good reason," and so forth. Additionally, children with developmental problems caused by a variety of things -- but most notably here in the Delta by poor prenatal nutrition, little or no verbal/cognitive stimulation in early life, drug or alcohol consumption by the mother -- are known to have problems with over-reaction to stimuli, poor self-regulation, and social management issues. This isn't a racial problem. It's an economic and class problem. In Mississippi these go hand-in-hand with race. But a wider and longer perspective might provide you with a different way to frame it. (The hammer quote is, interestingly, from Abraham Maslow, whose theories could inform this line of thought.)

Second, I do not need to caricaturize my students to make a point. Before the age of five, one of my students saw her mother shot in the back, and another saw her aunt shot in the chest by her uncle (about which she testified as the only witness). Another saw his mother set on fire (by the father, who late killed himself, of the student who sits next to him in second period). They've seen family members beaten, knifed, and run over by a car. A male student, recently more involved with town-rivalry gangs, regularly leaves blood stains on his chair from the crotch of his pants. At least seven that I know of are primary caretakers for grandparents or other relatives disabled by strokes, mothers who are crack addicts, or younger siblings. One student has eight children in his bedroom. He lives in a trailer with attic insulation blocking broken windows. Of the five current pregnancies, only one is by a boyfriend. The Delta certainly doesn't have a lock on family tragedy, but the isolation and stagnation of life where there are fewer than 3,000 people (people, not students) in a school district of 1,000 square miles does add a different dimension to how each of these incidents affects the student community as a whole.

One of my MTC colleagues mentioned that she'd never heard voices raised in anger in her family. Many MTC participants come from areas where there is little racial tension because there is little racial diversity. I think it's safe to say the several of us had not imagined the lives many of our students live every day. This was apparent in the shell-shocked conversations of the first few Oxford weekends.

Which brings me to hyperbole: A useful rhetorical and literary device, successfully employed for emphasis by revered third-years during my own summer training. Upon telling a summer student to try a new vocabulary word on his parents that night at dinner, one of this year's class was told in no uncertain terms, "They don't have parents, and they don't have dinner." We were advised not to let students use the bathroom during class because "they'll just gamble, do drugs, and have sex there." The line in my post that students interpret kindness and understanding as weakness is a direct quote from a TEAM teacher.

At the time many of us thought it seemed reductionist and harsh. Seemed. But the first few Oxford weekends proved that many had not taken the message seriously enough. Classrooms were disasters. Students were pitching quarters not in the restroom, but in the back of class while a teacher was in the room. Summer training, as easy-breezy as it seems now in retrospect, needed to be boot camp. An exaggerated experience that would get us to a point where classroom management was second nature and energy could be directed where our aspirations flew.

Many of my students have parents,or step parents they live with. Many of them might eat dinner with their parents. (Though if they do, they are in a minority even among the most affluent and well-educated.) And I'll even give the benefit of the doubt to most of the students who ask to go to the restroom. And those students, for the most part, are not the ones who cause the classroom management nightmares. I am grateful every day for the parents like the woman Karl met at the laundromat, and the ones who own local businesses, and come to parent night. (Twelve parents of my 128 students.) The issue is that the students who cause problems, while they might  be a minority in the classroom, occupy the vast majority of our time in classroom management. Those students who don't require cut-and-dry black-and-white rules to follow will manage themselves. They, for the most part, are grateful that there is a system in place to provide structure to the class. They've told me this. Thanked me for it. And as the months rolled by it was easy for me to see who was who. But the learning curve was steep.

In the first eight to twelve weeks of school, unless a teacher establishes himself or herself as the authority in the classroom, there will be problems down the road. It might come naturally to some, so they don't realize they've done it. But for most first-year teachers it's a struggle. Read the blogs. Listen to the conversations.

Authority in and of itself is not evil. It can be misused, and often is, resulting in opression. But children feel safer and happier when they know someone is in charge. Someone is making sure their needs are looked after. For many of our students, no one does this for them. Far too many have been doing this job -- even taking care of their parents -- and are relieved to have someone in a classroom as an authority figure. I know this sounds patronizing. But the effective use of authority is (dare I say it?) nuanced. The nuance lies in establishing it well enough so that it never needs to be used. Like an insurance policy, or keeping a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.

Epilogue: Lastly, I'd like to point to a question.

And I wonder, why aren't you teaching anymore, really? Of course there's no simple answer to this question, and there were opportunity costs and so on, but I do think you came to believe that classroom teaching was not a sustainable choice for you (it's not for me, either), and I wonder why. What was the problem teaching math to the 25 kids in the room? Why couldn't you explain to them the philosophical corruption of the system, the moral corruption of the stimulus-response model of education, the importance of a social morality based on mutual respect and empathy and reason and the toxic effect of one built on a fear of punishment, and make it all better and more sustainable? ...

...I know you remember how mutually oppressive, how corrosive, it is to be in this place and governed by its bells every day. I may be sympathetic to a claim that this system is so corrupt and corrupting that one cannot long maintain philosophical and moral purity when acting as one of its central cogs. But replacements are on the horizon, and they're supposed to last two years. What you're not acknowledging in your response is that Sabatier is -- with whatever imprecisions and inaccuracies -- waving toward a way to cope with that constant, stifling hostility without taking it personally or ending up a wretched, tortured heap. You and me, we just "walk out of Calculus."

I spent nearly 20 years on the policy side of education, and decided to leave theory and enter practice. Not as a two-year stopover, but as a life. I gave up a successful, comfortable midlife to do it. I find "opportunity costs" an interesting euphemism. It's very easy to know how to do something from afar. It's much more difficult to find a sustainable way to enact it. It requires a balance that often comes only with experience and maturity. The thousands of split-second decisions we, as teachers of a special-needs population, make every day is a tightrope walk not many are able to finish. Knowing how to establish an authority strong enough that it doesn't need to be brandished takes (wait for it) nuance.