Tuesday was Read Across America day, chosen as such because it’s the birthday of Dr. Seuss (who, btw, is probably one of the most influential authors to shape my own writing life).

Me, I read all of my classes GREEN EGGS AND HAM. Literally, I sat them all on the carpet (criss-cross apple sauce style) and these rambunctious, worldy, street smart teens immediately reverted into a crowd of 34 first graders eager for story time.

Never diminish the power of reading to your students. For the sake of modeling. For the sake of fluency. For the sake of fun. Wasn’t a kid in my room who didn’t just LOVE it.

Of course, it’s probably most fun for the teacher, though. Makes me jealous of all the elementary school teachers who get to read to their kids all the time.

Anyway, as a warm up, I wanted the teens in my room to think about their own early childhood experiences with books so I had them do a quick write on: Cite three memories you have about being read to when you were a young child (about the age of 4).

And of course, I got the hands shooting up… “But what if you don’t have any memories of being read to, Mr. Alan?”

Now whodda thunk that the kids with that question floating around in their heads were some of the kids with the lowest skills in my English class 10 years later? Must be a coincidence that these are my most “at-risk” students, right? I mean these kids are still trying to play catch up for the work that was never done before they even really entered “official” school. (I am thinking kindergarden as “official” because pre-school is not mandatory and thus, so, so, so many of the lower-economic students I teach never went to pre-k.)

And speaking of pre-K, my own daughter will, of course, enter kindergarden with two full years of pre-K in her belt (a private school, of course) — and at least 1-2 books a night having been read to her since the moment her dendrites started to form. (Okay, I am a weirdo and used to read to my daughter in the womb… laugh away but I drank the kool-aid on the value of reading long, long ago!)

So, for class homework on March 2? Go find a little kid that needs reading to. Cousin. sister or brother. Neighbor. They are plenty of little munchkins floating around Lynwood. It’s yet another way that I explain the importance of books and reading and literacy to my students over the course of the year. Hopefully, it will be a lesson they will value and pass on to the next generation when that time comes.

Perhaps they’ll even be womb readers!!

Happy Birthday Theodore Geisel (that was the real name of Dr. Seuss). Your work has shaped mine forever.

You are my Homeboy!

We all know that bringing in young, energetic, enthusiastic teachers is critical to the success of American public education – especially in the future. Why? Because the law of nature dictates that nurturing youthful seeds is the way to eventually build healthy, well-developed gardens.

And yet, America is dropping the educational ball on this front. Egregiously.

When the pink slips get distributed and the ax chops, who are the first to go? Our youngest teachers. Why? Because in school today we value duration of service over quality of service. (And no, I am not usually a union basher but on this matter, they don’t really make the best case in my opinion. Quality of service should count more than years of service and it’s a falsehood to automatically equate one – time spent teaching – with the other… excellence of teaching.)

Furthermore, let’s look at some of the more practical aspects of working… like the paycheck one takes home.

Last year my district cut our pay by 3%. Next year they are talking about us taking another 10% pay cut.

A 13% pay cut in two years? Not the best way to either retain or attract talent, I’d say.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. What would most people say to the Harvard Valedictorian if they informed the world that they were going to become a middle school English teacher? Not an esteemed professor. Not national leader. Not even a wretched, ink-stained author. (The most reprehensible of ‘em all, when you think of it – LOL!)

The answer would be, “A mere middle school teacher? But why?”

It’s getting harder to answer that question these days and if you re-read this blog post in the year 2020, well… don’t say “We never told ya so.”

I am going to take a break from blogging for a bit. Getting spit on last week hurt and the truth is, it kinda all goes back to grandma’s old rule: if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

With pink slips flying all around my school district – heck, all around our state – and our district preparing to hire me back next year at a pay cut of up to 12% (on top of the 3% we already took this year)… and I am one of the lucky ones cause a host of folks are being “chopped” from their positions… and the dragon of NCLB allowing the tests from ETS to be the tail that wags our entire institutional dog, well… I need to pause.

Will I rise like a phoenix from the ashes? Of course. My life is GREAT and I wouldn’t trade it for anyone’s. I love teaching, I love writing, I love working with teachers and students and I get paid to do it. My avocation is my vocation and how many people can really say that?

Yet, before the Phoenix rises from the ashes, well… people forget the part about what it’s like to descend and be mired in the ashes. There is a period of gestation when one is down and to blog my way through it, well… I just sense it could be a little ugly, cynical, jaded and dark.

Like our profession really needs that kind of energy right now.

BTW, it’s not like I don’t have some other writing to do. I am under contract for another new book of YA fiction for Disney, another new book of YA fiction for Penguin, the BookJams are just roaring right now (best teaching I have ever done) and I already have 2 new books for kids in the hopper due to be released in the next 12 months (meaning 4 in the next 24 months on top of the new BookJams as well).

So essentially, yes, I will be writing like a fiend and yes, I might return to blog sooner than I think (I feel a bit like an addict being that I have become so prolific over the past 14 months as a blogger) but, well… it all goes back to grandma’s rule.

I don’t really have a lot of nice things to say right now about school/education so I am not going to say them. However, this doesn’t mean there aren’t a heck of a lot of nice things that ought to be said.

But getting spit on was the straw that broke this camel’s back and right now, I am in a funk that requires a bit of time to sharpen the saw and figure out a few things.

Thanks for being a reader/responder/supporter/compadre… more to come… eventually.

I don’t want to shine a light on what is wrong with our school. It’s just too damn easy — and so many people, from the federal government and NCLB to the local politicians to the news media and so on — they all take their shots at us. It just ain’t that hard to find things wrong around here.

Especially if that’s all you are looking for.

And my principal — who is a really good guy who is trying real hard to change things for the better (and yes, they are changing for the better) — ends up being the fall guy all too often when people are looking to mete out blame for what happened to me.

To his credit, he came to me to see how I was doing later in the day, checked in with me, let me know that they are gonna be turning the screws on the ditchers with renewed energy and vigor right away and so on. Basically, as pissed as I am/was, he is infuriated.

Essentially, he’s a good egg who is aggravated and ashamed and wants to bring the pain to these “bad apples” that are really bringing down our school in a terrible way. (We all know it’s not “ALL” the kids. It’s not even most of the kids. In fact, it’s a small portion of the kids. But on a campus as big as ours is, a small percentage translates into a few hundred and a few hundred delinquent teens mixed into a few thousand, well… it’s all fun and games in a way to them.)

The more I think about it, the more I realize that in a way, being spit on by some rogue students in the middle of a class lesson is not even about me. I mean I can afford a new shirt. It’s about so much more — especially for so many other students and families and community members here. That’s what really gets to me.

And these thoughts all ultimately triggers the question, “Am I even making a freakin’ difference ’round here?”

It’s that thought which plagues me.

And if I give into that thought, if I succumb to the negative energy behind that sentiment, then I will be gone. The only reason I stay is because the work is meaningful and matters to me and I believe that I am being of true service to kids and other teachers. Sure, there’s the paycheck but I am lucky enough to have other ways of making a living in this world. (Heck, I have to augment the wage they pay me anyway to make ends meet – and my other day job, well… let’s just say that it pays better than minimum wage.)

But getting spit on, well… sometimes it takes Mother Mary to be a teacher in America today and I am no freakin’ Mother Mary.

As another teacher told me, “Hey, it could have happened to any of us.” She’s right… but I am not sure if that is a thought that provides any solace.

It’s amazing how confrontational this whole profession has become. It’s like being a teacher today will test your limits in all areas of your life and if the job can find your Achilles’ Heel, it’s gonna swing its sword.

And who does not have an Achilles’ heel? Heck, even Achilles had one.

I just got spit on. That’s right, spit on. By a student.

And no, they did not catch them.

See, this Saturday we are going to have a campus beautification day. Our school has been hit by a flood of graffiti as of late and the truth is, we need more than just the custodial staff to improve the campus environment.

So the administration or ASB or somebody came up with the idea of having a campus beautification day whereby we get the students, the staff, the parents, the community to come and paint and plant flowers and so on. Me, I am even planning to bring my 3 year old daughter down to help out.

So, in order to really “sell” the idea to my kids, I planned a whole lesson around this day. We wrote and chatted about graffiti, about why kids tag up campus, about the implications for those “good kids” who don’t want to be known for attending a “ghetto school” (their words, not mine) and so on.

And then, in order to bring a little more of the the lesson home, we took a walking tour, as a class, of campus.

Our school is an open-faced three story building designed by architects who absolutely had NO IDEA how to intelligently plan for an urban campus. There are nooks and crannies, blind corners and “hiding spots” everywhere. The school’s design plagues our school security personnel like mad.

Anyway, while standing in front of a “COMPITAS” piece of gang script — it must be a 15 foot piece of tagging in one of the central corridors of school — I was leading a thoughtful discussion with the students on the destruction we saw before us.

It was a fantastic lesson. 100% engagement from 100% of the kids in my class with plenty of vigorous debate as to the reasons for – and the implications of – what we saw in front of us.

That’s when a kid from either one or two stories above (I don’t know, I never saw him) spit on me. Right in the middle of my lesson.

And to boot, I was wearing a white shirt. Crisp, clean, bright. It’s ruined.

I can’t even begin to express how badly I feel/felt. Makes me want to quit. Literally, it makes me want to walk away.

I think everyone has a breaking point and the fact that I while I am out of class working to bring a lesson to life in a way that is unique, meaningful and important to a HUGE group of kids and… well, I get spit on by kids that are ditching, well… is that what teaching is today?

Is this the humiliation a person has to endure?

Is this some sort of symbolic event that I am too freakin’ stupid (or thick) to be able to read the tea leaves on?

Is this really what my job is?

You wanna know how the budget cuts impact our campus? We have less security which means we have more kids roaming free which means that we have less control over campus which means that teachers who actually do come to work and try and give their all to the kids get spit on.

Tough day. A day when I saw/see/feel my breaking point.

We all leave our jobs at some point. Retire. Move up. Move on. This is not the way I want to go out but at some point, enough is enough.

They are paying me 3% less money this year to do more work than last year. And next year they are about to offer me up to 12% less money to do even more work next year. But are those the things that break me? Well, they push… no doubt.

But I am 43 years old. Does retaining a bit of personal dignity not, at some point, matter?

The teacher down the hall from me hasn’t been at our school very long. And while I know her name, my high school has well over 150 educators and, some years, more than 4,000 kids on campus. Additionally, our professional turnover rate is exceptionally high and, truth be told, after years and years and years of seeing people come into our English department, and then leave our English department for one reason or another (i.e. the work is too hard, the environment is too challenging, this “inner-city teaching thing” is just not for them, California is just nut-so and they are moving back to a more sensible place, and so on) you just don’t get to know everyone the way you ought to until they have been around a couple of years and made it past the dragon.

What dragon? Let’s be honest, Title 1 schools can be a buzz saw and no matter how much you try to help someone, at some point each of us has to face down the creature that lives in the belly in the public school beast ourselves and determine, “Am I going to continue on here or am I going to move on to another world that makes more personal sense?”

There’s no one on my campus who has not confronted such a monster. Some of us confront it monthly.

So when I saw the teacher down the hall at the CATE conference this past weekend, my eyes lit up.

She was there because she wanted to be there. No Dept. Chair muscled her into a Saturday attendance. No one bullied her into seeking some professional development to improve her classroom craft. No one mandated that she do some extra hours to stay job-eligible. She was at CATE because she paid her own way to attend. Nope, the school district didn’t cover her conference fee (a few hundred bucks) or her transportation or her parking or her lunch. (BTW, how many superintendents ever visit a conference on their own dime? Don’t ya get the sense that if they even had to even pay for their own bottle of water they’d take a pass and say, “Naw, not worth it”? But teachers… another story entirely.)

Just by seeing her at the conference, I feel closer to the teacher down the hall now. I feel as if she has faced the “dragon” and found a way to say, “Bring it on, Mo Fo’, cause I got something for ya, too!”

It really takes that kind of attitude in a way to do what it is we do everyday. And even though I try to be supportive of all the other teachers on campus, I think I am going to make sure I give a little “extra oomph” to helping the teacher down the hall. There are a few personal books from my own professional development library she might want to read, there are a few “mazes around our campus” I might be able to help her better navigate, maybe she just needs someone who has been around here for a while to acknowledge the good work she is doing in a public way, like at our next department meeting. Who knows?

But schools help people who help themselves. It’s a rule that is just as true for teachers as it is for students.

When Peers Face the Dragon and Come Out on the Other Side, you can see it in their eyes.

One day at school, the children in class began to identify the flavors of Life Savers by each of their colors:

Red…………………Cherry
Yellow……………..Lemon
Green……………….Lime
Orange …………..Orange

Finally the teacher gave them all HONEY lifesavers. None
of the children could identify the taste.

The teacher said, ‘I will give you all a clue. It’s what your
mother may sometimes call your father.’

One little girl looked up in horror, spit her lifesaver out and
yelled out, “Get rid of ‘em! Get rid of ‘em! They’re ass-holes!”

BTW, it’s Super Bowl weekend. How can ya not pull for the Saints?

Look, let’s be honest for a minute. If you have been reading me for any length of time at all you have probably noticed that the past wee bit has seen a more cynical, jaded bite — a sharpened, more cutting blog-edge tone, if you will.

I admit it. I’ve darkened.

But the thing is, well… there are a few things. For one, if we are going to be really honest, this freakin’ job is freakin’ hard. And between the budget cuts and the bastards and the buffoons, it would take a saint not to get rattled by the crap we all face at both my school and in public education on the whole.

And I ain’t no f*&%kin saint.

This stuff is meaningful to me, this stuff hits me hard and this stuff impacts my life and the lives of my kids – and peers – in deep, significant ways.

My students get one chance to be teenagers in school and SO, SO, SO many consequences that will resonate throughout the rest of their lives are being manipulated by puppeteers that seem to have no shame about doing what is in their own personal, best, self-interest before considering what is in the best interest of the students we have been hired to serve.

My cynicism is a by-product of naiveté some might say… cause I believe I can change things – or at least impact things for the better – and I get really frustrated when I lay it all on the line and still, things roll downhill.

If I could be more zen-like, I’d be much better off. All I can say to that is, I am a work in progress — so please don’t submit final grades just yet.

However, I also know that things are cyclical in a school year and right now, we are in the thick of the jungle in a whole host of ways. Stress runs high during times like these and when you work 90-100 hours a week and still feel as if you are spinning your wheels, it gets maddening.

But we’re gonna get out of it. And this too shall pass. There are more fart blogs in me. Yes, I will write 800 words on “The booger-pickers of 4rth period”. (Note to self: Hey, that’s a good book title.)

The joy, the laughs, the ridiculous smiles, it’s all still there. I guess I just take this all-too-seriously in some ways, sometimes. See, I bought into the propaganda hook, line and sinker. I believe in kids, I believe in teaching, I believe in education, and I believe in serving the greater good of society. (And all that other nonsense.)

When you care about things, you open yourself up to being hurt. That’s just a law of the universe or something.

If I just wanted a job for the sake of pulling a paycheck, I would have become a lawyer. Really. Then again, knowing me, I probably would have become a bleeding heart, public defendant, still working for the government rambling on about pillars of the Constitution because a leopard doesn’t ever really change their spots, now do they? (Truth is, I have immense regard for some lawyers. My dad and grandfather were both barristers; sounds more high fallutin’ when you say it that way.)

So know this. I may be down and gettin’ kicked around in the mud right now but that’s because nobody in our field (that I know of) escapes that aspect of this work.

And I don’t trust people who pretend that it’s never like this — or sell you perpetual rose-colored glasses. It’s just untrue.

So me, when I am down at the bottom of the barn rollin’ around in professional pigshit, I kinda relish it. Why? Because I guess I figure if you are gonna rise to great heights in this world, it seems as if you must also plumb some pretty low depths, too.

The encroachment of cynicism on my writing — it’s there, but it’s not permanent. Not as long as I still find joy in the farting booger-pickers of 4rth period it isn’t.

Cause when that joy is gone, so am I.

How can anyone be expected to manage a situation that they do not really understand?

And how can anyone really understand a situation unless they are actually in that situation?

It is for this reason that I believe ALL school administrators should be required to teach at least one class in K-12 schools.

Yep, the Principal needs to teach a class.
The Vice Principals need to teach a class.
The Superintendent and their cabinet of decision-makers need to teach a class.
The School Board personnel need to teach a class.

If they can, that is.

And by “if they can” I don’t mean “if they can carve out the time in their schedule to do so.” School meets with clockwork regularity. (Most start by 8:15 a.m. I am not even sure if half the people on the aforementioned list are actually working by this hour.) By 9:30 or so they’ll be done and the insight they’ll gain from actually being in a room with real kids — ones they are responsible for “academically elevating” — will trump any study they could ever hope to not read. (Come on, we all know they have people summarize this stuff for them in mono-syllabic terms.)

BTW, I am not even sure if all of these people I mention even hold a teaching credential. Hmm, what does it say about people who sit in positions of policy making power when they do not even have the certification to legally give them the right to do the job over which they lord.

Come on, slum with the plebeians. Let’ em all teach 1 period. Why not?

Are they too busy?
Are they unable to perform?
Are they scared?

And just because they “used to do it” 17 years ago doesn’t mean they can do it now. It’s an iPod, google, hit me on the cellie with a txt message world and these folks think that just because they stood at a chalkboard when Ronald Reagan was president they can still strap it up and deliver real results?

Ba-hum-bug-bullshit!

Make ‘em do what they mandate us to do and watch what they mandate morph.

Cuz ya know that when you have to eat the food that you are cooking, the meal always becomes more palatable.

I greatly distrust the data I hear. Why? Because the way one presents the data all too often determines the message that the data conveys to the audience. And the less insightful the audience (i.e the more laypersons in the group) the easier it is to spin, spin, spin away.

For example…

Scenario 1: Headline
Local school doubles their test scores over last year! YAY!

Scenario 2: Headline
80% of students at local school flunk the test. BOO!

Now, in scenario 1, if you only had 1 out of 10 kids pass last year’s test and this year 2 out of 10 passed the test, you did indeed DOUBLE YOUR TEST scores.

YAY!

Yet, if only 2 out of 10 kids passed the test, that means 80% of the kids still came up short.

BOO!

And, as I hope you can see, this “data” has been taken from the same school.

There’s too much wiggle room in the world of data interpretation — because ultimately, in so, so, so many cases, it’s all in how one presents/spins the numbers.

And people who rise to the top in organizations know this very, very well. After all, as many a big kahuna CEO has said in reference to numbers they have been presented, “I don’t want these numbers. Now go out and get me the good data!”

Look behind the numbers at what is being presented at your next staff meeting and I am quite confident your first impression (the one the data presenter intended for you to take) will offer another way entirely to view the numbers if you so choose to take a different route.

And which is correct? Data, like beauty, seems to be in the eye of the beholder.