And This, Which is Prologue, I Pray Shall Not be Epilogue...

It is the day after Valentine's Day, and the love is gone.

This is not a news flash, but I’ve never put it down on paper before. Writing it would make it more permanent, more real, more final. Even in pencil, which I rarely use, the thought would take on weight. Feelings, like thought balloons, should float just beyond our reach, even when the emotions are heavy. Like hate.

And those last four letters hurt as I watch them appear, one after the other, quickly on the computer screen. I've never been one to compose at the keyboard, preferring the feel of longhand--more writerly, more literary, less of that nasty clerkish inputting feel. But now, February 15, 1995, feels more like a clerical grunt moment anyway. And watching the words appear gives me a rather nice feeling of detachment, like it isn't really my life...like it's not really my career that's coming to an end.

I've just looked over the endings of the three paragraphs I've written: "...love is gone." "...hate." "...career that's coming to an end." That about sums it up. I used to love my job again. I used to see it as a calling. It's not that way anymore. I'm no longer having fun. But I want to. I want to love my job, I want to have more fun doing it than I’ve ever had before. And I'm hoping this journal will do the trick, a way of purging all the bad feelings and bad taste I have for what I see around me, a way of coming back into touch with what I loved about my job in the first place, a last chance at falling in love again. But I’m not sure if that's even possible now.

When I first came to this job, a return to the county of my adolescence, I was mentored by a former high school English teacher of mine. Noting and stoking my enthusiasm, she heaped upon me every possible opportunity she could (at the time, I saw them then as opportunities, not duties). She plumbed my idealism and fired my drive by asking me where I saw my career leading. I saw no end. I was young. I was a new breed. Cocky.

I told her, "When I stop loving what I'm doing, I'll quit. I don't see it happening, but if I ever become one of those burn-outs," I nodded my head toward her door, "when I just pick up a check, when I hate my job," I nearly spat out the phrase, naive then, "then I'll know I'm doing more damage than good. And I'm outta here. I'll quit."

She smiled and lit up a cigarette.

That was nearly nine years ago. She's dead now. And at this exact moment in time, I feel like a short-timer.

This is my journal.

I was a teacher.

Establishing the Setting

Wednesday, February 15, 1995

I pull into the decaying parking lot at a few minutes before seven am. The union contract prescribes a teacher’s on-site hours as beginning thirty minutes before the start of the first class (or the prep--preparatory--period); and since first period begins with an ugly, dull bell at seven twenty-five, I'm arriving more or less on-time. And if I'm technically late, who's going to see it? The parking lot is fairly deserted. A few cars are there, and a half of them belong to students.

I remember watching Tom Snyder interviewing Ice-T once, when the rapper/rocker/provocateur said that inner-city kids would have a great deal more respect for teachers and education in general if they saw teachers driving to work in BMWs and Mercedes coupes. If the teachers' old junkers are what an education can get someone, then--his theory went--why bother? Why, indeed. My 1984 Tercel's driver door squawks horribly since I have not WD-40'ed the rust away from its hinge since before the rainy season began. Not that I'm listening to the door now: the car radio, which I have just repaired last week, is operational again, and sounds of NPR, cranked to 8 (what a aural image that is) are drowning it out. I hear it only as it screeches shut, but by then I'm already on my way across the lot.

Through the gate, unlocked by the morning janitor and to be locked again within the hour by the redcoats--campus supervisors-- I enter the open-air halls. I notice that last night we were hit again by taggers. A huge "WAK 722" scrawls across the triangular side of the building above the hall roofing. I continue on. The lights are not on, again turned off by the morning man, but the center lamp of three in this stretch of corridor, is not exactly fitting snugly to the wall. It hangs slightly, its screws loose. I look at the lockers, rustoleum’ed brown to cover three decades of use and abuse. There are few padlocks on selected lockers, forbidden by school rules but used regardless (and with impunity) by students who wish to keep their items safe from burglary. I cross another ceilingless section of hall, hang a quick left and head down the open hall to my classroom.

The brown leather satchel is heavy in my hand, filled with papers, my teaching life, and two apples and a bottle of water, my sustenance. Yesterday, it held a few new pictures of my son Kyle, in all his eight-month splendor, a different kind of sustenance, and now those pictures are up on my bulletin board over my desk. The desk is used only after my last class and during lunch, as I’m on my feet and in motion all during the class periods--it’s the only way to keep the students on task. I reach the door, its dark brown matching the lockers back in the outer hall. A turn of the key and I’m in. I step on the small black and blue doormat I purchased only last weekend to replace the old dirty, muddy white--now brown--one that I had taken from home to keep the kids from tracking in the wetness from the recent rains. WalMart, four bucks, and I have a new door mat; this afternoon, walking down the hall, I will see my old door mat just inside the jamb of another class. Paul, super-custodian, the god of our wing, has in his utilitarian wisdom rescued the ragmat from the trash and used it in the room on the corner, where the muddy traffic is even worse.

I wipe my feet and head over to the desk. I plop my satchel down on the nearest student desk to my own, open the leather and pull out what I need: the apples for lunch, my water bottle, and the papers from last night. I put all of this on the desktop, close the satchel and put it on the floor, next to the wall, behind the desk. I organize the new stuff on the desk. I record the scores onto the period three clipboard.

The scores belong to a set of "shotgun essays," essays done under duress, a time limitation, with no prior knowledge of the topic. I’m trying to prepare my English 4 and English 4 Honors students for this spring's Advanced Placement exam. The course started only last week. I have from now until May to get those who decide to take it ready for the A.P., and until June to prepare them for the rigors of college, though most will be lucky to see the local junior college, let alone a university. This means eighteen weeks for what is in reality a full year’s course work. The only plus to the insane pace is the fact that our campus has seen at least a foggy halo of the light of reform and restructuring; we work in a term system, where we have four 90-minute periods per day, and a term (nine or ten weeks) equals a semester’s worth of study. In this system, the students have fewer classes per day (and theoretically more time to devote to each class they do take), and the opportunity to take more classes throughout the year (eight classes rather than six in the old system). The teachers have fewer student contacts per day (down from around 175 in five class periods, to around 125 in three), and fewer "preps" or course preparations. The site administration wins out, too: they get to use teachers to teach six classes over the course of the year (rather than the typical five), and they pat themselves on the back for being innovative.

It is innovative, but could be so much more so. But right now, I’m trying to invent a way to get these students ready for college in eighteen weeks. The class was supposed to be a English 4 Honors class, but there were not enough sign-ups for an Honors course, so instead of creating a hard-core true A.P.-style class for ten to fifteen students, we now have a combination class of twenty to twenty-five (still my smallest class of the day). The reason for the lack of sign-ups is me. I was this year’s senior class’s English 3 Honors teacher last year. I was tough and demanding, and many of the students decided that they would rather take their senior English in a much less stressful context, either regular college prep here at the high school or at the local junior college.

I hold the proof of my sadism in my hands, the "shotgun essay." And if that’s the case, I’m recording the latest death toll due to self-inflicted shotgun wounds. It’s decidedly not pretty, nor easy, but those who stick it out will at least stand a chance of surviving at the university level. Most of the student answered only part of the essay prompt, some none at all. This term will not be pretty. I shake my head and look up to see my son smiling and waving back at me from the wall. I look at the clock. 7:10. Still no students, so I’ll head on down to the teacher’s lounge.

No. Wait. I reach back down into my satchel. There’s a bundle of computer disks wrapped in a rubber band. I pocket it and go to the Library instead.

On the school site map, the building is called the Media Center because, as our Librarian states in her orientation to freshman students, "We have so much more than just books." Right. This is the public line, and we toe it every day. But she will be the first to tell anyone willing to listen that the Library’s budget has been slashed year after year, last summer she jettisoned more than 5000 books from the library’s 25,000 in circulation because they were so out-of-date as to be useless, and that our campus is woefully behind the times technologically. The library a few scattered computer workstations, mostly IBMs, a few Macs, none networked, though the wire has been laid (our administration consistent proclamation). Our software library is dismal, and now I’m sneaking in a personal copy of a desktop publishing program onto a "media center" Mac (since I’m one of the few faculty members to come in and use the machines, I figure it’s all right to load up my own copy of the software onto the machine). I drop it off on Teddi’s desk, leaving a note that I’ll install it later.

Back outside, I look across the quad area at the influx of students. Brown faces over black jackets abound. We have over two-thirds Latino population, and one-third of the total population is Limited English Proficient. Our Bilingual department grows larger every year, so it’s no surprise that last November saw huge student walkouts in protest over Proposition 187. It’s not what it was like when I went to school here--God--fifteen years ago. Forty percent white back then, demographically changed now, and yet most of the teaching done here is the same "drill and kill" as it was a decade and a half ago. The morning janitor scrubs more tagging off the water fountain as I walk by. "Hi" and "Hi" and I’m off to the teacher’s lounge.

Another dark brown door, this one with a light tannish gray streak signifying a recent tag that has been rubbed off with some toxic fluid, opens into a small room. A handful of teachers, some retrieving mail from their boxes (which line one wall), one micro waving a cup of coffee, another pulling caffeine from the soda vending machine, one in line for the only teacher phone on this end of campus, while another teacher tries to talk discreetly into the receiver on the outskirts of this hubbub. I nod hello to a few, smile hello to a couple, say good morning to one or two. I check my box. The computer scantron roll sheets are there, as is the bulletin. Nothing new, and I them back into my box.

Into the men’s room I go. One huge stall dominates. This is a recent addition: handicapped seating is mandatory, so one urinal was taken out so the stall could be widened. Because the stall couldn’t be shortened, a sink also had to be taken out. Thus, we’re left with only one urinal, one sink, and one stall for fifty-three male teachers. But we do have two mirrors, one of which has a wonderfully telling piece of duct tape holding the bottom of it against the tile wall. I do my business in this most professional of rooms, take a fleeting glance at myself in the mirror--zipper up, shirt tucked in, tie straight, pants a little wrinkled (I’ve got to do a better job of ironing, but who has time?)--and I’m out the door. As if my appearance mattered.

As if. My peers in the lounge are a motley crew. Coaches in school team sweat suits; stylish, but they still teach in the classroom, too. Levi’s and button-downs. The room's only other man in a tie now smiles and asks what I think of the Oscar nominations, and--before I can answer--lambastes Pulp Fiction again as degenerate trash. I nod and keep my opinion, degenerated garbage he already knows, to myself. Another English teacher, still standing in line for the phone, hears the warning bell ring: seven minutes to class.

"Shit," she mutters, and when I ask what’s wrong she gives me the litany: baby sick, baby-sitter cancelled, husband took the baby to his school, new baby-sitter has to pick him up there, needs to call mother-in-law to fly in for the next week (baby-sitter? it’s not quite clear), her rear left tire’s hissing, so she’s got to call the Auto Club. She’s usually quite charming and she does smile, so I smile back, wish her luck, thinking I’ve got to get to class.

I grab the roll sheets from my box and head out the door. More late arriving teachers are heading in, one even in a suit. I turn toward my class, and a huge single drip drop of water falls from the hallway ceiling onto my roll sheet. When did it stop raining? Two days ago? I can’t stop to think. The hallway’s crowded with students. I try to dodge both dripping old rain and stalled students talking in packs, as I accelerate to my hall.

And I take a right, and I see the beginning of a mob forming, waiting for me at my door. First period’s about to begin.

A Tale Told of WASC: Part One

WASC is the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. This is the organization that awards accreditation to schools in the western United States, and it allows for that school’s grades and records to be recognized by the education establishment, for purposes like college admissions.

Every few years, the length of which dependent upon the last WASC visiting committee’s report on the school, a school must submit a report on how it is doing its job of educating its clientele. Following on the heels of this report is the visitation by the "Committee" of four to six high school teachers and administrators who spend three days on the campus, meeting with staff, students and parents, reviewing aspects of the report, and observing the operation of the school. At the end of the third day of the visit, the Committee reports to the staff at large, giving its impressions of the campus. This lecture--for it is not a question and answer session--can give the staff a good idea as to what their new accreditation will be. A school is then left with a number of recommendations which it must address before the next WASC committee visits. A school can be accredited for six years, three years, one year, or it may lose its accreditation.

WASC, as a term, can also refer to the report itself. Or the event. Even a time of year, like a season. It is a word met with fear and loathing.

WASC is a four-letter word.

Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Thursday, February 16, 1995

Two days ago, I had the opportunity to guest-teach in a colleague's Creative Writing class. She called upon my "expertise"--or at least experience--in Drama and film to discuss the writing of plays and screenplays. I was thrilled to be asked and it was a thrill to do it.

To be before students who made the choice to be there, rocking and rolling through a lesson while I held them transfixed, asking questions, taking notes, learning...It was a heady experience, exhausting but wildly intense. Even though it took a few minutes to get used to that feeling again, and it took about an hour to wind down afterward, I realized that I missed It. While I have had moments here and there in English 9 (standard, non-college-bound freshman), a few more in last year's English 3 Honors class, and an occasional burst of the high in Drama classes over the past three years, a few moments that have come close to that sense of freedom, it's been a long time since I felt an entire period like that.

And it was for those Drama classes that I had returned to the school of my own high school experience, after teaching English for five years at the cross-town rival school, the school my father attended (quit, actually, after the tenth grade...to join the army. Another story, another time). And it was at this other high school where I began my teaching career--my first year under the tutelage of three teachers: my own former yearbook advisor (the chain-smoking assistant principal of the school), another former English teacher from the old high school (who had subsequently transferred schools and pulled political strings to have me, whom he must have considered a kind of protégé, placed at "his" school), and an aging English and History teacher (who was to be teaching some of the same courses as I in my first year).

In that first year, in my first week, I had half of an overcrowded English 2--college-bound sophomores--pulled from me, every other student down the roll sheet (on the roll, to make it easier on teachers' eyes, the names on the sheet are printed on alternating tan and green lines...they took my green students). With the intention of easing my student load and balancing sections of the course, they ripped apart any positive class dynamic I had going as well as my self-confidence as a first-year teacher.

Welcome to teaching.

Later in the year, one of the students who remained in that class committed suicide. By the end of the year, the long-term relationship I was in had broken up, ending a short engagement.

And yet I wouldn't have traded that year for anything. The first year is supposed to be grueling. This was. And every day was a wild ride. It was my first year teaching, my first year teaching these courses (sophomore English to both college-bound and remedial students); it was a year of experimentation, of testing new ideas. Armed with what I had endured in education courses at UCLA (mostly worthless) and what I had learned from my master-teachers at Millikan Junior High in the Valley and Venice High School (which was everything to me), I winged it through my first year.

Not that it was easy. It wasn’t. It was exhausting. Working from seven, when I arrived at school, through lunch at nearly one, past the end of school at two-fifty to the end of my day, around four, wiped me out. I would return home, where I lived with my parents for that first year. Fed, rested, and bolstered by their respect for education and love of learning, I was revitalized every night after every exhausting day. And I loved it.

And it seemed the powers that were loved me, too. During the spring of my first year, I was being groomed to take over the English 2 Honors course from another teacher on staff. This was, as far as I knew, without precedent. The teacher whom I was replacing was receiving mixed reviews from teachers, administrators, parents, and students alike; I had heard the reviews. Being a first-year teacher, I could never even think of asking that I be given a shot at that class. But with all three mentors in my corner, I received the course. Honors it would be (though without my first mentor, who had just been named principal of my--our—once-and-future school).

And I took it as just that, an Honor. It was an honor to teach the course, and it was, in my mind, an honor to be in such a class. I created a new curriculum, working with my two teaching mentors, who also happened to be the Honors English teachers for the junior and senior classes. It was a tough curriculum, based on English and European literature, with heavy doses of vocabulary and Cultural Literacy, as gleaned from E.D Hirsch’s tome. We covered it all, from Beowulf and the Canterbury Tales through two doses of Shakespeare (the CoreLit[erature] selection, Julius Caesar, and another tragedy, different every year), up through the Romantics, which became the basis for our Promethean unit (Frankenstein, Prometheus Unbound, and Byron’s poem, plus another personal work of the student’s choice), into the World War One poets (coupled with All Quiet on the Western Front), and finally 1984 (though this last work changed from year to year).

The students didn’t know what to make of me. Here I was, just seven or eight years older than they, wearing a tie (because I hated being asked for a hall pass when I didn’t), fresh out of college, a place where they desperately wanted to be. Some questioned, some argued, some complained, but they all did. As hard as they worked, I worked even harder. Home around four to my new apartment, I would instantly crash on the couch for at least two hours; after a dinner (usually chips and salsa), I would grade papers and design lessons until past midnight (I played hard, too, dating and engaging and then marrying another young lady; again, another story). I worked like a man possessed. But my reputation was made. I had arrived. But not satisfied.

By the next year, I had sold students on a semester-long Shakespeare class, to be taught back to back with a Modern Literature class. It would never fly, counselors and teachers said; today’s kids don’t want Shakespeare. Thirty-nine signed up. And we put on student-directed and -acted scenes from the plays our first year (and for every year after until the second year after I left the campus). We created our own Xeroxed Modern Lit text with the profits from our "A Night with the Bard" sellout. This success, too, was heady. It was wonderful.

But nothing gold can last.

Remembrance of History Past: More Setting

Pleasant Valley is a mostly agricultural, though quickly urbanizing, community, located roughly one hour’s drive north of Los Angeles. Its climate is mostly coastal overcast, perfect for growing strawberries and discontent in teachers who crave sunlight. It is relatively uncrowded, at least by Los Angeles measurement.

Chumash High School is one of five main campuses of the Pleasant Valley Union High School District, which serves over twelve thousand students. The other four campuses are Pleasant Valley, Mission Oaks, Bard, and Academy. There is also a sixth, a continuation school, Gateway, to which many students who cannot seem to succeed at the main campuses are sent.

It’s been my experience--at two of the campuses, PeeVee (read: Pleasant Valley) and Chumash--that each school feels that it is the ugly step-daughter of the district, perpetually and alternately put upon and ignored. All schools in the district feel this way, save possibly Academy, the most anglo of the campuses, and to where (as they used to say about the elephants that go to the mountain to die) the burned-out go to retire. Quietly. Easily.

Pleasant Valley High had felt this ugly step-daughter complex because it was the oldest campus, run-down, in ill repair, and in the flight path of the local airport. But now it is being torn down (due to the airport) and replaced with a "state of the art" school across town. M.O. had felt the syndrome because it had been the most recently built campus, constructed in the early seventies; so after the early glow of the spotlight, it had been ignored as other, more pressing, problems were addressed. But it has received a huge influx of technology money. Bard had felt the complex because of its location--out in the agricultural fields of north Pleasant Valley. But a superintendent who ruled the roost during the eighties had a son who attended Bard, so--surprise--it was the first campus to receive the technology funds. Chumash still is with out tech-funds, continues to watch its thirty year-old site decay, and feels like the black sheep.

English 9 and the Past, Present, and Future

Friday, February 17, 1995

It is seven-twenty and I am standing outside my class, welcoming students into my room. I have been doing this for the last minute or so, after rising from my desk, from my pre-school preparations: putting the roll sheet scantrons on my period-by-period clipboards, reviewing the bulletin for any news to pass along to students, putting work to be returned to students with the clipboard so I won’t forget to pass it back. I looked up to survey the room, its thirty-eight desks set up in a odd configuration--twenty-eight of them chevron’ed diagonally facing the long whiteboard (the "front" of the class facing away from the windows, now draped because of glare) in two sets of fourteen, and ten desks facing the same direction from back near the window, and some roaming space between.

Since today is a holiday in the local elementary school district, I’m expecting lower than usual attendance and I’m getting it. The first period class roll states thirty-eight students enrolled (down from the term’s opening day of thirty-nine [union contract decrees the class capacity for English is thirty-nine; second period started at forty but is now down to thirty-eight as well]). But that tells only part of the story. It is now nine days into the new term, and five students have still yet to check in to class. On an average day, yesterday for example, I record five additional absences on top of the five no-shows; today, it’s closer to ten.

Last term was even worse. My third period English 9 class averaged nine absences per day. Of course, that had repercussions on grades. Fifteen students failed...fifty-four percent of the class. There were forty-one teaching days during the term: nine of my failing students missed ten or more days, an additional four missed between six and nine. Thus, of the fails, all but two had missed over ten percent of the class. When it comes to missing assignments, however, the numbers explode. With forty assignments during the term, five of the fails were missing thirty or more assignments, one was missing twenty-six, and the other nine had between eleven and nineteen missing assignments.

(At this point, a digression... in my English 9 classes, it is my belief that all students can achieve an A or a B. On weekly assignments, if the work does not reach A or B quality, I mark the errors, return the paper with the words "Do Over" across the top, and it is the student’s responsibility to bring it up to at least B quality. If the student refuses to do so, I refuse to give it a grade. If the work is turned in late, it is penalized ten percent for the first week late, and additional ten percent for the second week late, and I do not accept any work that is more than two weeks late [keeping a gradebook is hard enough without having to enter scores from a month before]. On the helpful side, however, ninety percent and above earns an A, and seventy-five percent earns a B; in most classes, seventy-five would earn a C. At the end of the term, I will award C grades to those students earning between seventy and seventy-five percent. I award no D’s because I refuse to reward Dissatisfactory work. Digression over.)

Now questions could be asked: What kind of assignments was I giving? Couldn’t I have done something--ANYthing--to raise the number of assignments students were submitting?

And the answer for the first one is simple: On an average week, students would turn in sentences for the week’s ten vocabulary words (an assignment on which we worked in class), they would take a quiz on that list, they would complete a Cultural Literacy worksheet (for which there were weekly note-taking exercises--so that any student taking notes in class, or willing to do library research for [mon dieu!] homework, could pass the assignment), and they would also complete Daily Oral Language assignments (in which they would correctly edit sentences given and discussed in class). There were also four long-term writing projects, for which we used a modification of Atwell’s Writer’s Workshop process (done at least three of the five class periods per week). Thus, most of the work for the assignments was done in class, but the finalizing of the assignments was meant for homework. This I will not change since it is my goal to instill in the students some sense of responsibility.

As for the second question, the answer is a bit more complex. For the first six weeks of the term, I held "Academic Detentions" every Wednesday afternoon, mandatory sessions for every student who had missing assignments over the previous two weeks. "AD" as I call it would begin at two-thirty-five and I would stay as long as it takes for the students to get caught up; individual detainees did not leave until their work is complete, corrected, and of A or B quality. Once I stayed until six o’clock. Following winter break, however, I stopped academic detentions. It was an experiment. And what I learned was interesting. The number of Fails did NOT noticeably increase, but many A’s dropped to B’s.

So to the questions, I believe I can answer that: a) the assignments are not so difficult as to be out-of-line; and b) the academic detentions were only moderately effective--i.e. if the student is determined to fail, then s/he will.

However, since no policy in my classes is set in stone, and since I, too, am disturbed by the number of fails in my English 9’s, I have instituted a number changes for this term. First, I will be sending home bi-weekly progress reports to parents, telling them of missing assignments and academic detentions. Second, I will be reinstating academic detentions, to assist those students who need that extra push to succeed. Finally, I will lower my end-of-term cut-off for a C; now any student with a percentage above sixty-six will earn a passing grade. This last is my most painful compromise...it feels like "dumbing down" to me. And I despise that. But I figure it might keep the administration off my back.

I say this because at both campuses, I had and have been called on the carpet for excessive fails. At my first school, a principal (no longer there) tried to insinuate that I gave too many fails. I let him talk, then I told him of every measure I took in bringing achievement up. He backed off. Last year, I had a similar conversation here with the present principal. I told her of my institution of academic detentions, and all seemed fine. But with last term’s numbers, I feel I’ll be feeling the heat again. Also, a English department colleague told me yesterday that she was approached by the assistant principal who--in as non-threatening and relaxed manner as possible--told her that she may want to "keep an eye on (her) F’s." The golden ax is coming. I can feel it.

All of this, or at least a very quick Reader’s Digest version, raced through my head as I looked at the partially filled classroom five minutes before first period. I shook my head and walked across the room toward the door, smiling and saying my good mornings to any student who wasn’t already working on something or talking to a friend. I stood at the door, welcoming more students in, saying hello across the grassy area to the two male teachers in the other wing. The administration likes its teachers at the door during passing periods. They claim it makes for less tardies, but most of us know that it’s better for security: teachers can break up any fights that start, or at least they can take action before any aging red-coats decide that the fight’s gone too far and they must make an appearance.

I usher a few more students in, when I see the assistant principal--my colleague’s hatchet man--heading my way. A week ago, he was handing out candy to us staffers who were outside toeing the administration line and standing by our doors. His face is more sheepish today, and I know why he’s here.

As he approaches, his two-way radio buzzes from his back pocket and we can both hear his name mentioned, something to do with parents waiting in the office. "Aw, shit. Not those parents from yesterday," he says, but I’m not sure it’s to me he’s saying this.

I smile anyway. "Don’t you just hate it when you hear your name behind your back."

"Yeah." He smiles uneasy. "Uh, Bill," he begins.

I smile wide. "Good Morning." I can see it coming.

"I’m not even sure why I need to tell you this..." He pauses, I think, hoping that I’ll help him out by asking what it is all about. I don’t. Let him squirm. "It’s just that I’ve been asked... The grades from last term have come in. And your Fails are up. And I know that--"

I cut him off. "Almost every F is accountable to attendance." Still smiling.

He tries to smile. This is tough on him. He’s the hatchet man, and he doesn’t want the job. He knows that the grades are mostly bullshit and that attendance is a quagmire on this campus. He’s been put up to this. He would rather be principal and put others up to bad-message delivery, but he’s not; and at one year away from retirement (so the rumor mill grinds), he doesn’t want any part of this. It’s a little pitiful, but I’m not going to help him out...if the administration is going to play its little games, it doesn’t mean I have to play. "I’m sure they are, Bill. And I’m sure that with all the WASC stuff this year, it can’t have been easy keeping track of the nines." He brings up the major accreditation project I’ve been working on this year--too many hours spent with too many hardworking teachers on a report that many of us are afraid will just be so much whitewashing when the visitation/accreditation committee visits our campus next month. But it sounds like I can’t juggle extra-curricular stress with my class load. This I find bordering on the insulting, but I let it pass, waiting to see how this is going to play out. "So that you know, we all support what you’re doing in the classroom... We’re just trying to lower the number of Fails on campus." He looks at me like he doesn’t know what to say next.

Neither do I. Luckily, another assistant principal walks up, holding his radio. When he interrupts our silence, the golden hatchet man almost looks relieved: "Remember those parents I told you about yesterday..."

"Yeah..." He turns to me. "Bill..." He lets it hang in the air.

I don’t want to be outside when the bell rings--it sets a bad precedent for the students--so I smile. "No problem. Have a good one."

I see him retreating as I close the door. "Thanks, Bill."

When the door is closed, I look at a class that will be filling academic detention next Wednesday.

A Tale Told of WASC: Part Two

In the past, the oncoming WASC meant the reviewing of the previous committee’s recommendations, and the writing of narratives outlining the school’s response to them. Then each department on campus created a report discussing what it had done to improve its service of the school’s clientele. Then the whole package was wrapped in a big bow. It was a public relations creation of mammoth proportions.

This year, all that changed. While the old reports were called "Performing Excellence," the new program was called "Focus on Learning." The concept was changed from product--the old WASC report itself--to process--how the school views itself and what it is going to do to improve. This is a monumental shift. And a welcome one to all reform-minded teachers. It also necessitates a huge attitude adjustment. Staffs can no longer just bullshit and bear it; they have to examine what they are doing, find the warts--as well as the beauty marks--and come up with a plan to improve the areas which needed improving. This, of course, entails more work. Not a welcome concept.

Plus, old habits die hard. It’s tough for a teacher used to writing a PR release, trumpeting the greatness of his class, his department, his school, to then turn a keen eye on the faults and inadequacies of his class, his department, his school, and THEN come up with a plan to better said class, department, school.

This year, we found out how hard that shift would be.

A Change in Direction

Monday, February 20, 1995

Eight-thirteen, evening. The three-day weekend has ended, not that it felt very restful. Between a visit by one of my wife Lisa’s college friends (a young woman who went through teacher-training with Lisa at UCLA, only she never went into the classroom), a call from Lisa’s old principal (from a private school teaching position in Los Angeles), news that Lisa’s grandfather may have cancer, Kyle’s first big "boo-boo"--a fall that opened up a small cut to the outside of his eye, and no, I never thought I’d actually use the term "boo-boo"--and horrendous ninety-degree heat (to which I respond very poorly, especially in February), my eyes feel hot yet rusted open like old battleship portholes. From what deserted corner of my psyche that last image came I have no clue, except possibly that Long Beach, which used to have a naval shipyard, will be my destination on Wednesday. But my mind wanders.

Does it ever...that opening paragraph is a meandering mess. But it stays unedited as a testament to my mental state right now.

Point of Information. In November of the past year, 1994, when I was becoming more and more disillusioned with my present position at Chumash High School, I began to think of other possible employment opportunities. Since I have always wanted to make money doing what I love, I took an inventory of my loves: the arts, writing, film, technology, teaching. And I began to think of avenues of employment. I sent off cover letters and résumés to the local newspapers and the local television station, calling for the creation of a local arts reporter (a position that could be filled by me, of course). I also e-mailed the same type of information to Entertainment Weekly, who when they failed to receive all of my transmission asked me to re-send it, then subsequently never contacted me again.

By the end of the year, I was sending off résumés and cover letters at the pace of one per week, contacts mostly gleaned from the Sunday L.A. Times classifieds. And as with all other queries (save the local television station, the owner of which wrote to tell me that he liked the idea and that he was passing it along to the news director, who--he assured me--after creating a northern bureau station in Santa Maria would be looking into the idea, and to whom the owner was going to give my name; then the station went bankrupt), no response was received. The lack of response, while not exactly ego-building, was not the end of the world, either. The whole exercise was an experiment, meant to help me discover how difficult it would be to find a new job, if it become necessary. I was--and am--not desperate.

So there had been no response. Until this weekend.

First came the call from Linda, Lisa’s former principal, who like Lisa had moved on from her former private school post, only Linda had gone on to a new private school post, as assistant principal of a well-known and dynamic private school on the West side. I had worked with Linda, on a few occasions, whenever she would visit Lisa here in Pleasant Valley to go over teaching methodology. When I was in the process of switching schools, she had mentioned to me that I would be perfect at her new school. I laughed it off. I was in the process of switching schools already. Lisa had moved up to Pleasant Valley to leave L.A. Why would I want to commute to L.A. every day? Especially at private school pay.

After working for the Pleasant Valley Union High School District for nine years, my annual salary is around thirty-nine thousand dollars. Not bad as teacher salaries go, especially when one considers the health benefits that are thrown in as well (Non-teachers are advised, at this point not to mention "and three months vacation". This is the most asinine of all anti-teacher arguments. When one considers the amount of work during the year a good teacher takes home, how many nights and weekends are lost to reading and grading work, preparing for class, developing lessons and entire curricula, as well as trying to contact parents, the three months are really nothing more than accumulated evenings and weekends. Plus, the best teachers usually spend a month of the two-and-a-half month break [mid-June to end of August] developing curricula for the following year. So until you’ve walked a school year in my moccasins...). Lisa’s recompense nearly doubled when she left L.A.--between her salary, the health benefits (which the private school did not provide), and her student loan deferment (because she now teaches at a socio-economically disadvantaged school). Thus, when Linda blew her new school's horn (new buildings, classes of less than twenty students [half of my class sizes]), I felt it wasn’t worth even listening.

Linda called yesterday to tell Lisa that she wasn’t going to be able to make it up this weekend to visit. The reason was simple: she had forgotten. Life for her, too, was hectic. As assistant principal, she is pivotally involved in the hiring (and firing) of teachers. And she has to let a teacher go at the end of the year. Also, she needs to find a new English Department chairperson. "Would Bill be interested?" Lisa, looking after my guilt and our mortgage, asked if the salary would be near thirty-eight grand. Pretty near, Linda said. So Linda put the bug in Lisa’s ear. And Lisa put it in mine.

Interested? Lisa reminded me about class size and student motivation (I wouldn’t have to worry about my too-tough reputation there). She also said that I could try it for a year...maybe I just needed a year off from this area. It could revitalize my love of teaching here, or it could be the beginning of a new career down south. Of course, the silent cynic in me whispered, "Yeah, it could be the last nail in the coffin, too." But would that be all bad? I’ve spent the last two days’ showers daydreaming of possibilities, and I was about to tell Lisa that I was considering calling Linda up to learn more about the position, when the phone rang an hour and a half ago.

I was playing with Kyle on the floor of his room. I heard muffled talking and footsteps heading down the hall. Lisa looked confused. "A 'Shirley' from Cutting Edge?" She handed me the phone.

Shirley? Cutting Edge? My mind raced as I reached up for the phone, but I couldn’t make any connections, the heat and my sinuses having sapped me of any energy, physical or intellectual.

"Hello."

"Mr. Walters?"

"Yes."

"Hi, my name is Shirley [the last name was garbled and I still can’t remember it; I know this is bad form, so sue me] from the Cutting Edge. Earlier this month, you sent us your résumé in response to an advertisement we ran in the L.A. Times. We’ve been so deluged with responses that we’ve been burning the candle at both ends to get back to people..."

Aha. I handed Kyle over to Lisa, and took the cordless to the computer where I called up the cover letter I had mailed to them. I listened and looked over the letter as she talked about the company, an electronics firm that needs a manager to put together organizational teams for their firm. I had applied because (I remembered now) the ad sounded vaguely interesting, touching on electronics, organization (a strong point of mine), and motivating groups. And now I was receiving my first callback. Great. She said that my résumé and cover letter made me sound like the perfect candidate for the position they were trying to fill, since they were looking for someone who could teach new employees organizational and problem-solving skills.

She mentioned that since she knew I was a teacher, she wanted to know when I was available to meet during the coming week, and she gave me a few choices. Afternoon is best, since I won’t have to miss any class that way. And Wednesday afternoon it will be. Long Beach, four in the afternoon. It’s going to be a long drive, but it should prove interesting. If nothing else.

I’ll have to move Academic Detention for the English 9s to Thursday, but perhaps this is a blessing. This will give the students an extra day to turn in old work from last week to remove their names from the detention list. Maybe this could be a good thing.

Wednesday, it sounds so far away. It’s the day after tomorrow. And I’m exhausted tonight. And a week of teaching lies ahead, in wait.

There is Power in a Union

Tuesday, February 21, 1995

My partner in WASC-crime had urged me on Friday to bring my camcorder today so that we could videotape the faculty meeting to add to our welcoming tape for the visitation team, who will arrive on our campus in less than four weeks to study then report on our site’s worthiness of accreditation. On their first day here, Aimee (the chair of Chumash’s WASC--Western Association of Schools and Colleges--Leadership team) wants to present them with a kind of "This is Chumash" video tape (she also wants to make a bogus tape to show the faculty, for laughs). On Friday afternoon, after school had ended, she told me that she had asked our site’s video production teacher if he could have some of his students shoot the raw footage for the video so that we could edit it later. I balked a little at the idea of editing a video since I had put in easily over one hundred hours already this year on the WASC report, between editing sections of it, putting together explanatory multimedia presentations for the faculty, and helping to finalize the final report. Aimee, not exactly a technological guru, doesn’t understand the requirements of editing video; since I’ve taught video production myself, I understand the monumental task we--she--was setting before us. But she’s the boss, so I relented.

She knew that today--Tuesday--would be a faculty meeting, a perfect opportunity to shoot some footage for the video. The only problem was that the video production teacher had already left for the three-day weekend, Aimee was supposed to have jury duty on Tuesday, and that meant no way for Aimee to get the message to him. I said that I would bring my camcorder on Tuesday to shoot the footage. That agreed, we went our separate ways for the weekend.

On my way back to my classroom, I bumped into my newest colleague, a woman for whom I have the utmost respect. She is the mother of two former students from my Pleasant Valley High days, as well as the foster mother to a young woman with whom I went to high school. She used to substitute teach at both PeeVee and Chumash, where she earned the distinction as "SuperSub." Needless to say, when she went back to school to earn her teaching credential last year, it was a wonderful opportunity to pick up a great teacher. And we did, three weeks into this school year, when staffing projections did not turn out as last spring predicted. She and I worked hand in hand, teaching all of the English 9 courses. We worked out a beautiful program. At midyear, however, staffing changed again and since her major was as a language teacher, the Bilingual department snatched her up. She was disappointed to leave the English Department, but she was thrilled to teach language again.

On Friday, when I ran into Mrs. Daniels--while I call Aimee by "Ms. Hamm" in front of students and by "Aimee" in private, I feel deference and can only say "Mrs. Daniels" when I’m speaking to her (no matter the audience, even alone)--she asked if I had heard the scuttlebutt concerning Tuesday’s faculty meeting. Now I arrive at school a few minutes before seven in the morning, I teach the first three periods without a break until twelve-twenty, eat lunch in my classroom, then work the last period--my prep--either in my classroom or in the library at a computer terminal, so I’m not always in the loop for site gossip (I didn’t even know that the English 4 Honors class was going to be a combination 4/4H class until another English department member told me in the hall). So, when I heard this tantalizing question, I stated my customary, "No."

She shook her head and smiled. "Well, you know, Bill, we had a faculty meeting already this month...on semester prep day..." She let that hang in the air. But Friday being Friday, and my mind already on three-day break, I didn’t make the connection or respond. "Come on, Mr. Walters, you know that the Union contract says that we’re required to attend only one faculty meeting a month."

It was beginning to dawn on me. "Yeah..."

"So some members of our staff are boycotting the meeting, even telling some other members--new ones, like myself--that I should not attend."

"To hell with that shit." I replied, and she let out a relieved belly-laugh.

"Glad to hear someone finally say it."

I shook my head in disbelief. I couldn’t believe it; I wasn’t surprised (knowing my campus like I do), but I still couldn’t believe it. "You know, it’s this kind of shit that gives us a bad name, us and the union, too. We meet for an hour on a day we were all supposed to be on campus anyway. And people are getting bent out of shape."

Mrs. Daniels would have jumped in, agreeing, but I was building up a full head.

"Here we are, one month away from having a group of strangers come onto our campus and decide whether we’re doing our job well enough to warrant receiving accreditation for what we do, and we can’t even be professional enough to meet as a staff. Christ, this is ridiculous. This is the kind of thing that gets us no respect in the community. And it’s the union that does it. When the hell is the union going to stop acting like some blue collar protection agency and start acting like a professional organization. Total shit."

I shook my head. She smiled. "I knew I’d get a rise out of you."

And she was right. She knows how I feel about the union. I’m union, do or die. I’ve always said that I’m not afraid to strike, if that’s what it takes. I’m all for tough union negotiations. But I’ve also publicly bemoaned the fact that our union, with its ties to the AFL-CIO, remains a belligerently blue-collar organization, standing for, as Mary McConnell, our librarian, has said, "Equality over Quality." I’ve also said that we need a union that takes a stand more like the American Medical Association or the Bar, a strong PROFESSIONAL advocacy group. And this year, I was about to put my time where my mouth is; I was about to run for site representative.

I say about to, because only Friday morning a colleague of mine came into my class to ask if I was still interested in running for site rep. Here is a man who has been an advocate for change on this campus for longer than I have been here, a teacher up to whom both students and other staff look. He is also looking to go into administration one day and feels the need to understand the workings of the union so as to better help the plight of the classroom teacher. I’m all for that. And I told him that if he ran, he would have my support and certainly not my competition. For the next few hours, I felt pretty good about the union again.

So I went home Friday night, thinking that the Tuesday video shoot opportunity would probably be a bust, and I was right. Only half the staff attended the meeting today. Interestingly enough, one of the attendees was the current site rep, who had been telling people in the staff lounge only this morning that we did not need to attend, that it was only voluntary, and that it was ok--even better--not to attend. And there she was, sitting in the back of the library, reading a newspaper as the meeting progressed. I couldn’t help thinking that she was there to take mental roll of which teachers attended.

But what can they do to me? Hell, they won’t move on a shitty teacher, and they’re going to do something to me for going to a meeting?

I don’t think so.

A Tale Told of WASC: Part Three

Four years ago, I worked on Pleasant Valley High’s WASC report. I was the English department’s lead writer. I put together the report for our department, and since my department was English, I was volunteered to do much of the work on the overall report. It was my last year at PeeVee, and by the end of the WASC process, I was glad to leave the campus.

People get ugly during WASC.

Gone Today, Gone Tomorrow

Wednesday, February 22, 1995

My English Nine classes are revisiting the attendance hell of last term. [By the end of the week, there will be a total of 164 recorded absences for my two English Nine sections. This is after only 13 days of the term and does not include the students who have still yet to check in. Thus, between the two classes, I’m averaging nearly thirteen absences a day.] I've just spent thirty minutes on the phone today, trying to make contact with parents of students who are already beginning to miss class at alarming rates. One parent wasn't aware that her daughter was missing class. One student answered the phone and had to translate my message for his mother. I had another student of mine translate another message to another parent. One parent informed me that her daughter had run away and the mother didn't know where the daughter was. I left an additional two messages, "reached" two non-answers, and one phone number was incorrect. One girl first period (the runaway) is already up to ten absences (and today was the eleventh day of the term); at least half a dozen students have reached half a dozen absences.

Last year, Bob Johnston, a science teacher who has been working on his administrative credential (he's the man who will be running for union site rep), created an innovative program for reducing attendance problems. Teachers fill out attendance review referrals on a student when s/he begins to miss class (at four absences, the referral goes home for a parent signature; at six, the referral goes to the office so that a parent/student/ attendance review committee conference can take place; at ten absences, the referral is returned to the office, so that the student can be removed from class or the teacher can be given the go-ahead to lower the student's grade). The attendance review committee is a rotating group of teachers and administrators who come together every day to review the referrals and student/parent conferences, and make recommendations as to the student's future in that class or on our campus. Individual teachers are called upon to serve on the team once per term, and they meet for an after-school committee session. By the end of the term, all teachers have served, meeting with as many parents as are scheduled for that particular day. Teacher buy-in has been good--here was a feeling of empowerment--and we have been beginning to see more parents on campus. Many students have been dropped from classes and there is a sense of movement in the right direction.

Fast-forward a year and now we learn that for that positive impression there is a price: because of the drop of students from roll, our school’s class-roll population last spring was artificially low... so that when the district office looked at numbers for staffing, C.H.S. came up low and without need for new teachers. When last fall arrived, however, and the truants came back for the beginning of the year, we were short-staffed (thus, the need to bring on teachers like Cindy Daniels three weeks into the new school year). The word from the mount for this term is that we will no longer be dropping non-attending students from the roll. This allows us for greater staffing next year (reduced class sizes? I'll believe it when I see it...), but it increases the "‘Fail’ problem" since non-attendees will doubtlessly fail, and it negates the concept of repercussions for actions and non-attendance.

I used to joke with Aimee and Mary that Chumash was the home of no repercussions. It wasn't funny then, and now I wonder if it is even a joke.

Bad News Travels Fast

Thursday, February 23, 1995

I’ve been battling a cold for the past few days; this morning, I woke with a 100.3 fever. I didn’t tell Lisa because she’d have had me call in for a sub; I’ll do that tomorrow...today’s there’s too much to do. I’ve got homework coming in and Writer’s Workshop to run during the English 9 classes; I’m introducing Macbeth to my English 4/4H’s (we’re also going to the computer lab so that they may input their Research papers--and I can pre-date yesterday’s entry); and of course there’s today’s academic detention. Too much to do, and with the dependability of most substitutes in question, I can’t risk today’s work.

After third period is over, I walk from the computer lab to the room of the English department chair, for today’s semi-emergency meeting. On the agenda is last-minute WASC stuff--evidence cover sheets, I assume (since even I haven’t gotten around to doing mine). When I drag in, Aimee gives me a look, "Well, don’t you look like hell."

"Love you, too."

"Sick?" I nod. "Sweet." She then looks at me as if to say, "OK, so then why are you here?"

"A D."

"That’ll make ya feel better."

Smartass.

As I turn away from her, another colleague enters to the room. He’s the English 2 Honors teacher, demanding, conservative, a disciple of discipline, a pillar of morality (and the hater of Pulp Fiction), and he looks more harried than usual. "What’s up?" springs from me faster than the realization that I probably don’t want to know.

"Did you hear what happened at PeeVee?"

uh-oh. Nothing good ever starts with "Did you hear what happened at (fill in the blank)?" I shake my head.

"Shooting. Three down. One dead. Supposedly one of ours did the shooting."

"You gotta be shitting me."

We both turn as one of the red-coats comes in with her walkie-talkie. He turns to her. "Any more news?"

She shakes her head. Others are entering the room for the meeting, but as she speaks, everyone’s attention focuses on her. "No. Didn’t they make a faculty bulletin?" We all shake our heads. The teachers are usually the last to know; sad joke, but true. "Around ten o’clock there was shooting outside Pleasant Valley. Three kids were hit. One of them’s dead. Another critical."

Another colleague joins in. "And the shooter? One of our kids?"

She nods. "And he got away."

The department chair interrupts from his desk. "Here’s a picture of him." He holds open a yearbook from last year. This is the yearbook room, he’s the yearbook advisor, and this is opportune. He mentions the name. It doesn’t ring a bell with me, but it does with others who have now come into the room. One remembers him from freshman English. Aimee remembers him from the track team, which she used to coach. The student was a junior last year, the department chair begins. "But he’s no longer one of ours. He’s supposed to be on independent study." This is a discreet way of saying he was a problem student, and that he’s no longer in classes, but is in an "alternative program" so that he can receive credits and a diploma.

The red-coat is about to leave. Out the door, she says, "I can’t believe no one tol’ you guys. We had a meeting at eleven. We’re on high alert. We were told that the faculty was going to be informed, especially the men." And she is gone.

Especially the men. Some of us look at each other. Some are grim. Some have twisted smiles. I want to laugh. This could get real ugly. The phrase keeps going through my head. The one day I felt I had to be on campus and this happens. What If’s are running through like bad story pitches: What if he comes back here? What if some PeeVee kids want revenge and come over? What if it’s a gang thing? What if it’s a racial thing? News travels fast. This could get real ugly.

The meeting goes on, not that anyone is focused. We need to get the evidence sheets typed up. Big surprise. I decide I’ll do mine fourth period before Academic Detention. Not that I’m even sure it will happen now. If the red-coats are on alert, then probably the campus will be purged right after school; the administration will want to get kids off campus as soon as possible (cynically, because if they’re off-campus and killed, it’s not our fault). Thus, academic detention could be cancelled. I take a deep breath. I need to pick up conduct referrals to fill out on those students who fail to attend academic detention; while I’m up at the office, I’ll ask if there will be a clearing of campus. I bring my hand up to my forehead. It’s clammy. Shit. I forgot to take some Tylenol before third period. My fever’s probably back. Tomorrow, I am not coming in. The bell rings. The meeting is over.

I link up with Aimee at the door. She asks if I can help her with some WASC stuff after school. I remind her about academic detention. She nods. She’ll be on-campus late. If I can, would I stop by before leaving? Sure. And I’m out the door.

I return to my class. I prepare the room for academic detention and school tomorrow. I pull a substitute lesson-plan from my desk and begin to fill it out. I look up at the clock. It’s already one-thirty. I’ll do this later.

I head to the office, where I pick up the conduct referrals and ask Elizabeth, the principal’s secretary, to set up a substitute for tomorrow. She does, though she’s not sure if she can get the substitute I’ve asked for (a former student of mine from Pleasant Valley--a member of my first English 2 Honors class there--who is completing her teaching credential). On my way out, I see the principal, walking toward the office through the surprisingly deserted quad (usually there are students milling around, especially after lunch, but today it’s empty, giving me more mental evidence of a post-school purge). I wave her down. "Howdy," I say.

"What can I do for you?" No smile, not that I expected one.

"Question. Will there be... with all the ‘stuff’ that has gone down today...will there be a clearing of the campus this afternoon?" She stares blankly at me, like I’m some kind of moron. "I only ask because I have English 9 academic detention today. If there won’t be a clearing of campus, then I’ll know that any students saying that they couldn’t make it to detention because of a campus purge won’t have a legit excuse."

She purses her lips, shaking her head. "No. We’re not going to clear campus today." She begins to walk past me.

I turn to watch her go. Well, that was concise. I begin toward my class. I get two steps before I hear her call me back. I turn. At least she’s smiling now.

"That’s good. That would be really smart of them to say that."

"Gotta keep one step ahead of them." I wave and I’m off.

I retrieve my WASC stuff from my room and go to the computer lab to type my evidence cover sheets then I start working on this journal entry (but I don’t finish it...) ...

[POSTSCRIPT: By the end of the school day (now yesterday), the story concerning the shooting had changed. The shooting had now taken place just off campus of P.V.H.S., only one person was shot (the other was seen as wounded because of blood splatters from the first victim), and he was shot four times. The victim was fourteen and Hispanic. The shooter was still ours, on the loose, and African-American.

[By the six o’clock local television news, the shooting was blocks away from Pleasant Valley, in an alley way. The victim was alone, fourteen, and Latino. The shooter was unidentified, of no known race (though the neighborhood recently has been a "racial powder keg"), with no known whereabouts, and last seen in a small dark sedan.

[By the next day, the only news that was different was that the shooter was a former C.H.S. student, who, according to the principal, had been "on line for graduation," and yet he was no longer on our campus. Pleasant Valley High had gone through a normal school day: increased security but little restlessness. And the police’s usual community contacts had dried up.

[I kept hoping that with each new bit of information, the shooting would finally be placed out of state, done by nobody one anyone I knew would know, with a living, breathing victim. But that wasn’t going to happen... END OF POSTSCRIPT]

A Tale Told of WASC: Part Four

In the spring of last year, the Pleasant Valley Union High School District came up with the glorious idea of readjusting the WASC schedule so that all five schools (seven, if you count the continuation school [read: the Siberian work camp for repeat offenders] and the adult education department) would do their WASCs simultaneously. While this did not adversely affect Chumash, since we were up for accreditation already, it upset some of the other campuses (Bard, for example, had earned a six-year accreditation only three years ago, but now they found themselves a-WASCing again).

Why the district decided to do this is still uncertain. Some say that it wanted to get such a hellish undertaking over all at once (the only problem being that, most likely, not all of the campuses would receive the same accreditation, so the district will be staggered again within three years). Others, more cynical, claim this is yet another way in which the district wants to compare the sites. This is particularly disturbing for the campuses on the south end of town, Chumash and Mission Oaks, pulling as they do from lower socio-economic populations than the northern campuses (Pleasant Valley and the more affluent and anglo Academy High). Some teachers on the C.H.S. campus already suffer from the "ugly step-sister" complex and this doesn’t seem to let them rest any easier. The more paranoid of the cynics see this as a personalized slam at our campus’ attempt at reform (the district being evil and wanting to do in our block-schedule program at any cost). The real rationale is probably not so conniving. My take has always been that to be conniving, one must be smart, and our d.o. (district office) quite frankly is just not that smart.

The Problem with Substitutes

Friday, February 24, 1995

It’s after Kyle’s bath and I’m sweating. My fever may be back. I’m not sure. Lisa reads Wednesday’s newspaper on the futon next to the desk in the office. (She tells me James Heriot died yesterday. I think, "Prophecy? She’s reading a paper from day before yesterday.") I should really give it up for the night, but I need to get some more down on the keys.

I’ve just finished the entry from yesterday. And as Lisa heads to the bedroom to read a book, I try to get down some words about today. Today, in any other year, might have been a "mental health day"--one of those sick days taken more for relaxation than for curative value. But this year, it wasn’t all that relaxing. I slept until eleven (I guess my body needed at least that much rest), but then I graded papers and worked on lessons until three, which was when I had decided to go to campus. I needed to pick up today’s papers to grade, grade sheets so that I could figure the weekly grades for the classes, and to prepare the room for Monday morning’s classes.

Those are all lies.

I returned to campus to check on my room and my roll books. I have had very little luck with substitutes lately (save for Maria, my former student, who was not my sub today). Super subs--who can follow a lesson plan and actually teach--are rare; and we lost a great one when Daniels became a full-time teacher. Mediocre subs--who can take roll and at least follow a lesson plan moderately well, making only a few gross errors--are few and far between. This leaves the dregs.

It’s almost as if our district has a sign welcoming shitty subs, like the Statue of Liberty used to welcome immigrants, only our sign reads, "Send us your burnt-out, your shitty, your lobotomized troglodytes..." Now, I know, being a substitute is not a great job, nor is it easy; shitty teachers leaving unmanaged and unmanageable classes with poor lesson plans must make for a negative life-altering experience. But all I ask is that a sub take roll, follow the damned lesson plan, and leave some notes as to behavior...not really all that difficult. But it seems I cannot even get this recently.

Last year, I had left a substitute lessons plans that called for silent sustained reading, a quick peer-editing session for the students’ vocabulary sentences, and then the reading aloud of a single scene from Romeo and Juliet (complete with a character list for the scene, difficult words and meanings, and some notes to put on the board to help the students in their own note-taking). When I returned, I asked my classes how the day went and they said fine. When I asked how the reading went, they stared blankly at me. When I asked about Romeo and Juliet, they went, "HUH?" They hadn’t read the play. They had watched a video. Only it wasn’t Romeo and Juliet. It was a tape on George Washington. Only I didn’t have a tape player in my class. This sub from Uranus had brought his own tape and had asked a neighboring teacher to borrow her VCR to show his tape to my class. He didn’t follow my lesson plan; he never had any intention to follow my lesson plan. The scum bag baby-sat and picked up a paycheck.

Earlier this year, I had another sub who was twenty minutes late for my first class, failed to take roll in any of my classes, and was late again for my fourth period class. Luckily, I had planned video showings of Of Mice and Men on that day. But today I was nervous. I hadn’t planned a video showing for the English 9’s. And today I didn’t know who the sub would be. So I went to school at three.

I didn’t arrive home again until four-fifteen. Since I live no more than three minutes away from school, this is a bad sign.

As I walk on campus, Cindy Daniels comes out of the door of the classroom next to mine (I would call it her classroom, but as she is a first-year teacher, she must travel from period to period... so she shares the room for two periods of the day with another teacher). She asks me how I’m feeling, and when I tell her I’m ok and that I’m checking on my class, she tells me that it was pretty quiet when she poked her head in there second period. This is a good sign since period two is this term’s class from hell.

In the class, all looks good. Rows still in place. No student writing on the boards. The desk doesn’t look too bad. I look at the period three clipboard. Roll has been taken. Good. I see a note left for me from the sub. First period went well. Second period was loud (no surprise) but it "worked better since (he) had a better grasp on the lesson plan." This doesn’t sound so good. Third period was great. Gotta love the Honors class. I see the period one and two clipboards on the desk filled with papers. Good sign.

So I move on to preparing the boards for Monday’s classes and the week to come. And only then do I get around to looking closely at the clipboards. Period two... roll taken. Good. Notes on who had books, who had vocabulary sentences. Very good, just like I asked. A note here that the second period student aide Tricia was helpful. Good. I grade the papers turned in, disappointed in the amount of work that is left for me. Not that it’s too much, but that it’s not nearly as much as I hoped for after giving the students nearly thirty minutes of free work time...academic detentions next week are going to go up, if that can be believed. Then I go on to first period. Wait a minute. Roll hasn’t been taken. No notes on who had novels, or who had sentences. Hardly any new work. Oh, shit. This guy didn’t do the job first period. He obviously needed Tricia to explain to him what was to be done. And since first period doesn’t have an aide, the sub floundered. I try to piece together who was there and who was absent by unreturned, graded work that is left over (and that should have been passed back to attending students today) and work that has been left for me to grade (what there is). But this leaves nearly ten students for whom I have no I idea if they attended or not. Shit.

It takes me an hour to get things in a state so that I can come in on Monday without stress. Thank god I didn’t wait until Monday to come in. I’ve never been able to do that (no matter how sick I am, I come to work in the afternoon of the sick days, either to mop up after the sub and prepare for my return the next day, or to mop up after the sub and prepare for the next day’s sub), and I’m thankful that I’ve come in today, even though I’m now sweating and I’m sure my fever’s back.

I’ll have the weekend to rest. Hopefully.

Hopefully, I’ll never have this sub again.

Evidence and Envy

Monday, February 27, 1995

[The following used to be the conclusion of Thursday's (2-23-95) journal entry. It disrupted the flow and so I'm moving it...since today (2-28-95), I'm back to working on the WASC evidence sheets...]

The WASC visitation committee wants to know what we are doing in the classroom in the various discipline areas. We have spent the last nine months going over what we do individually, as a department, and as a school, to improve the intellectual and emotional growth of our clientele. Beyond statements of what we do, we have had to provide evidence. And for each piece of evidence, we need to provide a cover sheet, explaining what the item (for example, a lesson, a survey done of students or parents, a piece of student work, or a piece of curricula) does, its level of success, its method of evaluation, and what areas of growth it addresses.

I have two cover sheets to type and one class observation. The first piece of evidence is my multimedia presentation lesson. I have a class watch three films, all based on works we’ve studied in class. Then I split the class into six groups, two per film, and give each group an element of fiction to discuss (it could be character, setting, symbolism, structure, foreshadowing, or the like). First, the group must decide upon the theme of the work, its overall meaning. Then the group discusses how their particular element of fiction helps to demonstrate the theme. The group’s job is then to find examples from the film that show the element and its relationship to the theme. They examine the films on laserdiscs, making notes of when the scenes that support their thesis should appear in their presentations. Once they’ve collected evidence, they create bar-codes for their scenes, and create a presentation in which they use film clips to teach their element of fiction and theme to the rest of the class. The group then presents its presentation.

The second of the pieces of evidence is an expository paragraph writing assignment. The reason I included this piece is that it’s a good example of how Atwell’s Writer’s Workshop (even in a truncated, mutated version) can help poor writers create good product.

During the evidence gathering period, we were asked to observe other teachers. I chose to observe another freshman English teacher, Nathaniel Yoshikawa. Yosh, as he’s known, is a study in opposites. He’s dynamic, yet grammar-centered; he’s structured, yet he lets his class run the show often; he’s intensely into student input, yet he lectures a great deal. While this may sound like it could be a negative, it’s not. He’s simply putting the two sides of teaching together. The yin and yang. I wish I could do what he does in bringing together the two sides; I’m constantly finding myself leaning toward one or the other side of the extreme (too structured, usually, I think). In October, I observed him discussing The Miracle Worker with his English One (college prep) class. The first part of my observation was a straight question-and-answer session. Fast-paced, but fairly old-school. The second part, however, was incredible. Yosh calls it "the Hot Seat." He has a student volunteer sit in a chair before the class and assume the role of a character from a work they’ve read. The members of the class then ask questions to this "character." And the student answers them in character. It’s a great activity, and it was wonderful to watch. In this instance, the girl who volunteered was less than thrilled when Yosh gave her the character of Annie. However, she responded thoughtfully and with just the right amount of attitude to the questions that were posed (some of which were posed in character--the Captain, James--as well). I envied his students.

At the beginning of this year, I was supposed to have taught English 1 Honors, a new pilot course on our campus. In our district, though there are Honors classes in ninth-grade math and science, there are no freshman Honors classes (unless sites elect to create a second-semester, half-year-only Honors class). The stated reason is that since English is such a subjective subject, it would take at least half a year for teachers to decide who should be in such a class. The reason is a sham, a real crock, since we already have a process in place to qualify students for the program, one filled with essays, grade point averages, recommendations, and test scores. Since previous years have found our English department reluctant to buck the trend or to look for loophole, the district policy has stood at C.H.S.. Last year, however, during a discussion of the possibility of creating a 1H class, I raised the argument that since our Honors kids, coming from a low socio-economic background, are in a deficit (this I knew after teaching the English 3 Honors, and seeing them achieve at a lower level than my English 2H classes at Pleasant Valley), we really do need a 1H course at C.H.S.. And, more importantly, that our restructured schedule was the perfect loophole. Spring semester here is a full "year" because of our 90-minute-long classes. This raised a few eyebrows. We ended up adopting the idea of a freshman Honors class, and I would teach it during the second half of the year, with another teacher taking my slot in English 3 Honors.

By fall, however, there had been a shift. Our department chairperson had left us over the summer to become assistant principal at Academy High. This left her slot as department chair and her teaching position as the English 4 Honors teacher open. Much wrangling ensued (which at some other point I may cover, but not now...). Suffice to say, Yosh is now the English 1 Honors teacher and I have the combination 4/4H. And I envy his students. And I can’t wait to have them as seniors (if I’m still around).

[I know this kind of chronological musical chairs is a kind of a cheat, but yesterday was a day from hell: an hour and a half in the dentist's chair, working on a crown for me; an afternoon doctor's appointment (strep for both Lisa and me); a pediatrician's appointment (an ear infection plus congestion for Kyle); and a pharmacy run.

[So sue me, if I didn't write today/yesterday...]

A Tale Told of WASC: Part Five

In the spring of last year, the site administration appointed Teddi Applegate to head the WASC attack on our campus. It was a brilliant choice. Teddi was the English department head (there was that "let-the-English-teachers-do-it, they’re-writers-anyway" mentality working again). Plus, she was the current Teacher of the Year, not only for the campus but for the district. She was well-respected, but more importantly, she had a wonderful sense of humor, a Texan droll, rather than drawl, that made her endearing and someone for whom you wouldn’t mind working.

Teddi tore into the assignment with brio. She had recently earned her administrative credential, and I believe she saw this as an opportunity to prove her ability to lead a campus. And she did a hell of a job. Starting in April, she laid out the course ahead, not really explaining it, but giving us instruction on what to do and when to do it. She explained that this would be a different WASC, process-oriented. Not many of the faculty really understood this, but Teddi’s directions were so explicit that no one was worried.

There was only one problem. Teddi wasn’t going to be here in the fall.

A Typical Second Period

Tuesday, February 28, 1995

It's Tuesday, eight-fifty-seven, and I'm on my brisk walk from the faculty lounge, where I've just voided my bladder, back to my room for second period. My second period aide Tricia (one of my Honors students) stands outside my door with the gathering throng. I lock my class when I leave after first period for this urinary trek; I just don't trust this class with an open and unsupervised room (first period I might; with the Honors, most certainly).

I unlock the door and let them in. Since it is Tuesday, I remind the students to have both drafts of their Vocabulary sentences stapled and out on their desks, and to be reading their novels when the bell rings. That is now only two minutes away (I've made my "run" in three minutes...not bad). I head over to my desk where Tricia is settling down, giving her some of the vocabulary from period one to edit (I'll double-check her work and assign grades later). Then I'm back to the door to usher in the stragglers and repeat my work reminders. As I'm pulling shut the door, the bell rings as Jaime is dragging his feet the few last yards down the hall. Close, but no cigar. I point him in the direction of the office, to get a late "re-admit" slip. "Aw, Mr. Walters," he whines.

"You're late..."

"Just by a second..." but he is already turning around and shuffling back down the hall. And I shut the door behind me and enter the class. Two-thirds filled. The class had 38 enrolled in it (at least, as of Monday, when I received three drop notices: one of a student to first period English 9, one of a student who had accrued more than half a dozen absences so far, and one of a student who still had not entered for the first time). So there should be 35 students here. At nine-oh-one, 12 students are absent, and I still have one no-show on the roster. I take roll, first on my daily grade sheet, putting a dot in the corner of the boxes of those twelve students absent, a slash through the remaining no-show, then I transfer the attendance to the official roll-sheet. I will save the computer scantron roll until later; the roll will doubtless change before the class is done.

I then begin to circulate throughout the class, picking up the vocabulary, making note of those students without assignments, docking them one of their possible five daily grade points for lack of work. As I make my rounds, some students hand me re-admits for recent absences, others meet my eyes when I ask where their missing assignments are, but a majority simply read their novels (as they have been directed to do). Twelve of the students do not have their work. I’m surprised; I actually thought the number would be higher for this class (since we have only seven students earning an "A", three earning a "B", and the rest failing [Looking back now, this is about right: ten students passing, eleven turning in work]).

By nine-oh-five, I have taken preliminary roll and collected half of the vocabulary. I think this is a record for this class. Usually, because of tardies and absences and re-admits, roll and administrative duties can drag on to twenty minutes. And just as I’m about to go down the last chevron’ed row, in walk two tardies, Jaime and Eric. Jaime I knew would be late, he of the whining at the door. Eric I should have known would be late. This is tardy number seven for him (on the fifteenth day of class this term). Both give me their re-admits and take their seats. Jaime of course must say a few words to Albert who sits next to him in the right chevron. Sal, who sits next to Eric in the rear--forward-facing--section, talks to Eric who responds. A great (okay, semi-great) opening now disrupted by two tardies. Now this is more like the typical period two.

I stare at the two of them, one after the other, and they stop talking. I look over at the on-board agenda, and they follow my gaze. They take out their binders, and I move on to collecting the last of the assignments. When I am through with the last row, I head over to Jaime, who doesn’t have his work. That’s two points off for the day so far (one for the tardy, one for lack of assignment). I head over to Eric, who hands me some papers. I take a cursory look, as I have done with everyone else’s. There is a problem: manuscript format.

In my classes, I demand that students follow certain guidelines for turning in work. Work is to be done on white notebook paper, in dark blue or black ink. A proper heading needs to be in the upper, right-hand corner, and a title needs to be on the top line. Skip a line after the title and you’re ready to start the assignment. All of this is meant to create a sense of pride in the appearance of one’s work; without pride in at least the look of the assignment (let alone the quality of the work itself), many of these students are without anything. So I try to instill in them a little pride in the appearance of their work, then in their work, and finally in their own responsibility. But we take baby steps first--manuscript format. If the student cannot follow the simple directions of manuscript format, then I will not accept the work. This they know, and this they have known, since the first day of class, when our first assignment was a proper heading.

Eric’s paper has an incorrect heading. The papers are still in his hand as I look them over. "Manuscript format," I whisper and begin toward my desk, where Tricia can edit the meager stack of papers later in the period.

"What do you mean?" Eric demands, in a voice already too loud, again disrupting the class.

I stop. Turn. Move silently next to his desk. Whisper. "Proper heading." Leave him looking at it. When I reach my desk, I hear a watch alarm go off. I turn.

Eric silences the watch. He mutters something to Sal, showing him the paper. Sal points out something to Eric in the heading. I glance at the clock.

I move back across the room, to retrieve my clipboard and resume administrative duties, now looking for students who have returned from absences and need to sign attendance referrals. Eric stops me not with a gesture or a motion, but with his voice, again taking the readers off-task. "You’re not going to accept my paper because of the name?" he demands.

"We’ve gone over this before. Resubmit the work."

As I reach my clipboard, I look over the class. Most are reading. To get the others back on task, I circulate once throughout the room, making note of those without novels (again a loss of a daily grade point). Neither Sal nor Eric has a novel. When I reach the file cabinet again, where I can work on the past attendance stuff, Eric’s watch alarm goes off again. Nine-twelve, it’s been five minutes. He silences it.

I look over the attendance referrals. Alejandra has returned to class, after her eighth absence. I reach down to pull out her referral, when the door opens again. Sandra, another attendance wonder, saunters in. Her tardy is excused; she had been in her counselor’s office. I make note of this on my clipboard and the roll. I continue with the Alejandra referral, walking it over and having her initial her absences, which she does without argument. I fill out more attendance referrals for those students who aren’t here today and who have more than four absences for the new term; I fill out two new ones today and realize I’ll need to make more phone calls this afternoon (when I’m scheduled for attendance review committee [irony, irony]). As I’m finishing filling out the new referrals, Eric’s alarm goes off again; he silences it. It’s nine-seventeen...every five minutes. As I walk by him, I tell him to silence the alarm and hand over the watch. He mutters that he doesn’t know how, and I tell him that if he can’t, he’ll learn how to do it in the office since that is where he will be heading. He does something to the watch and hands it over. I take it over to Tricia at the desk.

At the desk, I decide this would be a good time to return some papers to students before the vocabulary quiz, so I head over to the file cabinet, where I’ve left the papers. As I pass, I notice Eric, not reading of course since he doesn’t have his novel, and I get this feeling--just a hunch--that the damn alarm will go off in another...three minutes. So I head back to the desk to grab a conduct referral, so that I can fill it out now; this way, if the alarm goes off, I don’t have to waste time filling out the referral, I can just send him down. A preemptive strike. As I take a referral from the desk, the door opens again.

Michael walks in. This student is so tardy, he’s in the wrong class. I have him in my first period class. Third week, and he’s already missing seven assignments and failing. Last term, he was removed from my class because of a "personality conflict": he hated me and I didn’t really care for his attitude in class. This term he’s back, but not achieving at any greater level. He was absent first period, but here he is. He walks over to my desk and hands me his re-admit for first period. I look at it then him. "Mr. Brown," I say, since that is what he wants to be called, "This is an excused tardy for this period."

He looks at me, dull-eyed. "I know, but Ms. Villa told me to bring it here." His counselor, the head counselor (and that is a story all its own), has sent him here. Disrupting my class. Great. I sign the re-admit.

"Thanks." I hand him back the re-admit.

He grunts and leaves the class. Unbelievable. I take the referral and head back to the file cabinet, against which I can write. But before I can get there, the door opens and Jon walks in, nineteen minutes late. He hands me a re-admit. Unexcused tardy. I grab my clipboard to mark the tardy; this is tardy number six, which means I’ll need to fill out Jon’s tardy referral (a copy of which was sent home after tardy number four). I’ll have to do this later, I realize when I look at the clock. Nine-twenty (and a half).

I begin to fill out Eric’s referral. I make note of the number of tardies. I check my grade sheet to learn he is missing five assignments; I make note of that, too, on the referral. I make note of the fact that I’ve already sent three letters home to his parents: the expectation sheet (complete with manuscript format instructions) on the first day of class, the notice of the fourth tardy during the second week of class, and a notice of missing assignments last week. And I am signing my name when--

The alarm goes off. I look up to see Tricia looking at me, nodding.

Timing. In comedy, timing is everything. This I note to Eric, as I peel off the back, pink copy of the referral for my records and hand him the rest.

"Where do I go?" He asks, surly.

"Counselor. And take your watch with you." And I hand him his watch, and he disappears from my room. I look around to see heads quickly bowing to go back to reading. I take the pink copy over to my desk and shove it into a drawer. I can feel the period disintegrating with every passing second. I turn to see the door opening again.

Shit. Gilbert is back. I get rid of one asshole to get another back. Gilbert had been referred to the office last Monday (not yesterday, but a week ago) for insolence and disruption--failure to get on-task and mouthing off when asked to get on-task. He didn’t return during that class period. When he showed up at the beginning of the class the next day, I told him to head up to the office and return with the referral from the previous day, signed by his counselor. He did, an hour and twenty minutes later, escorted back to my open door by a red-coat. We were in the midst of Writer’s Workshop, and I told him to get to work. After I finished helping a student with whom I had been working, I looked up to find Gilbert gone, disappeared, my open door empty. That afternoon, I sent down another conduct referral on Gilbert, checking the "Left class without permission" box and filling out the "Explain above or other" section with a discussion of his previous tardy, his late return, his exit from class, and his failure to turn in work. He has not returned since.

But here he is, back from...his re-admit shows excused absences because of SUSPENSION. Great. I sign his re-admit, check him off on my roll sheet, grab his attendance referral (since his is now up to five absences), and hand it over to him for his initials. He takes one look at it and asks (doesn’t any freshman know how to speak in a hushed tone?), "Can I go see my counselor?"

"Sure," I say. "At lunch. On your own time." And I leave him behind to retrieve something from my desk. It is last week’s progress report that I sent home with every student. Gilbert’s never made it home, since he was never here long enough to get it. I take it, fill it out in more completion (since in the intervening week, he has missed an additional four assignments, not counting today’s vocabulary), and hand it to him, telling him to have it signed and returned to me tomorrow. I turn and look at the clock. Shit. Nine-twenty-five.

Inside I’m about to say, fuck it, I’ll return the work during the quiz. I’m about to say aloud, "Ladies and Gentlemen, come to a stopping point in your reading," my customary opening of class. I’m about to do all of this when the door opens again. I am about to scream.

Michael is back. In his hand is a transfer slip. This period just might turn around. I look at it. Haleluyah. The old class first period is my English Nine. My eyes travel over the sheet. Fuck FUCK FUCK!!! The new second period class is my English Nine. Michael is transferring into this class. It is already the class from hell, its class dynamic poisoned by too many lazy, arrogant, tardy, do-nothings, and now I must take in Michael to the mix. Great.

I sign him into the class and show him to his new seat.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, come to a stopping point in your reading. Take out a blank sheet of notebook paper and a blue or black ink pen. Put a proper heading in the upper, right-hand corner. On the top line put the title: ‘Vocabulary Quiz Three.’"

I look at the clock. Nine-thirty. Thirty minutes into the period. And we are only now starting the class proper.

A typical period two.

And They Stole My Door Mat, Too

Wednesday, March 1, 1995

I am so fucking pissed off, I can barely type.

Today, I stayed home with my sick loved ones, Lisa with the strep and Kyle with congestion and an ear infection. I went to school at one-thirty to prepare for academic detention. The following is the lesson plan I left for the sub:

WRWalters Substitute Lesson Plan Date: 3-1-95

Good morning! The classes have (checked) / have not ___ been prepared for my absence.

Here are a few guidelines to help you have a good day:

1) Greet the students at the door and direct their attention to the on-board agenda.

2) At the beginning of class, circulate throughout the room to get them on task.

3) Take roll as quickly as possible via seating chart, roll book, and computer print-out (on the clipboards).

4) Continue to circulate during the class period to keep them on-task and to answer any questions.

Below are the period-by-period directions. Please leave behind any comments concerning student success and behavior.

Thanks, BW

Periods 1/2; Course: English 9 (Tricia is the aide 2nd period; she’ll grade the quizzes from 2-28).

1) They are to have the rough draft of the 10 vocabulary words on their desks (the first word is ABSURD). As they complete steps 1+2+3 of the DOL (west board), circulate and make notes as to who has the sentences. Please make notes on the highlighted column on the top sheet of the clipboard (A=absent, T=tardy, O=no vocab., X=problem). Also, take roll on the roll sheet and the scantron.

2) Let them read in their novels (after they do the DOL) for 15 minutes. Bring them to a stopping point. Reveal the DOL behind the screen. Go over the sentence and the reasons for the changes. Have the students do steps 4+5 of the DOL.

3) Hand out copies of "The Monkey’s Paw". Read the first paragraph aloud, then have the students read to the end of Part One silently (it ends on page 3). While they are reading, cover the DOL with the screen and put the 2 questions on the board (1. What did Mr. White wish for? 2. How do you think he will get it?).

4) Tell the students that when they are finished with Part One, they are to answer the questions on a sheet of paper (they need to follow manuscript format). When they finish answering the questions, they are to read their novels.

5) When everyone is finished writing, have them read Part Two silently (it ends at the end of page four); while they are reading, put the new questions on the board (3. How did he get the money? 4. What do you think he should wish for next?). Also, hand back old work while they read.

6) Tell students when they finish part two, they are to answer the new questions, then read their novels. At the end of the period, collect the stories, answers to questions, and any old work or make-up work they have. Remind them to show up at Academic Detention at 2:30 (I’ll be there). Hide the DOL behind the screen and erase the questions before the next class.

Period 3; Course: English 4/4H (switch the TV cable switch [on the East wall] to "Antenna")

1) As students read, collect Vocabulary Journals, and put the overhead transparency (which is on the clipboard) on the screen. The Honors students are to do that assignment. Have them turn it in and read their novels (like the English 9’s) when finished. Collect the book checks.

2) When all are finished, show part one of Throne of Blood. Use both TVs and let Tricia or James run the laserdisc player and BarCodes (BarCode one). Put the Act One notes from the BarCode sheet (attached) on the board.

3) When part one of Throne of Blood is over (45 min.), read Act 3, Scene 3 of Macbeth aloud. Have students volunteer as characters: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, 1st Murderer, Lennox and Ross. Allow for discussion.

4) If there is time, do Act 3, Scene 4 (witch and Hecate).

5) At the end of class, collect the Research Paper rough drafts.

Now here is what the sub left for me (exactly):

Date: 3-1-95

Teacher: Walters

Sub: Iris Cxxx

phone no. 482-xxxx

no aide showed up 2nd pd.

pd 1 -- I arrived after class had started as, although I was here early they sent me to the wrong room. So anyway, things were quite noisey. This class was not great as, it was hard for me to try + take roll, read notes etc. all at once. I wasn’t quite clear on DOI (sic) but, checked off ones who showed me voc words + the DOI sentence.

We then did "Monkey Paws" + answered questions. But, the worst thing they did was someone in 1st pd/ put gum on your chair, I sat in it without noticing it was there + therefore got gum on my pants + gum on your chair. -- I’m sure my pants are ruined + can only hope you get gum off your chair. I don’t know who did it, if I did they would have had a referral. (I didn’t realize until 1st pd students were gone.)

p.2. From not-so-good to just terrible. This 2nd pd. class was one of the worst classes I’ve had, as a teacher + as a substitute. Of, course the highlight was a fight between two students -- Luckily I was able to get between them + push black kid outdoors. Two other teachers came to help or their (sic) would have been a fist fight in class. If this wasn’t bad enough a 2nd fight almost broke out between Michael --- + another black kid. Luckily, it wasn’t quite as bad. I got Fines outside + Gilbert got the other kid to sit down. I think black kids in 2nd one was Jon ---. The only reason Gilbert didn’t get a referral written on him for early loud talking, not taking directions (sent outside 2) was I appreciated him helping keep the 2nd incident from escalating.

Others particularly bad was Diane --- continuous talking + no work done, Hector --- talking, fooling around. + others I don’t know names of.

Also, when the fight was going on they changed my name to Mrs. Horney and put FUCK on the board.

The first fight broke out when I asked Hispanic boy to read and black boy made some comment that I didn’t hear. + he (sic) 2nd argument came about according to Michal (sic) when he said something about Jon? liking boys, or something to that effect + guess it made Jon mad. They did settle down a lot after the first fight + the two boys leaving. I think perhaps maybe even a class discipline for boys + Diana. (other girls no problem, Jonathan --- okay) because if they get away with this they’ll be even worse for next substitute, so, feel that strong measures are needed.

pd 2 -- Glad to report class went very well -- Great kids, no problems. Watched movie + read "MacBeth"

I am now ready to quit. Tonight I go off to a kind of call-back for the Quorum Electronics job. I’m ready to take anything offered.

Fallout Begins

Thursday, March 2, 1995

Today was a really long day. The first two periods I kept them silent and working. I had both classes write about their impressions and responses to yesterday. And their responses were interesting to say the least.

During first period yesterday, students got up and changed seats, something they never do when I am there. They failed to listen, made fun of the sub, and talked without remorse. No one admitted to the gum on the chair incident. Typical "sink the sub" behavior. Disappointing but not too surprising.

Second period, however, had been shocking in their depravity. Hyperbole this ain’t. They walked in. They turned on the television (the school’s video period is second period, and we have the option of viewing the student version of CNN at the beginning or at the end of the period; I choose the end, so that I have control over whether or not we watch it). They switched channels. They switched seats. They flew paper airplanes. They fought. Over reading. One student told another who refused to read aloud (which you, oh careful reader, will remember was NOT part of the lesson plan) to "Just read, punk," which escalated into a full-blown confrontation (a colleague of mine joked that I must be doing my job if English Nines are fighting over reading...hardy har-fucking-har.). They wrote on the board. They stole marking pens. They fought over racial/sexual slurs (this is still unclear, even after the class’ explanations). They left the room a mess. They didn’t return all the copies of the story.

I find the behavior the classes reprehensible. Of course, I’m also learning more about the sub. Hamm tells me that after she had once had the sub in question she thought the lady was loony tunes; and the third period kids thought she was wiggin’, too...though after what she had been through, who could expect any less (or more). Some of her remarks I found disturbing to say the least, though. Her racial remarks and her less than conventional compositional style gave me pause. And the fact that the class was able to do what they did (especially the stuff they admitted but about which she had no idea) frightened me, too. But it still does not excuse their behavior.

Which brings me to... Academic Detention. Most of my period one kids showed up. Most of the period two kids didn’t (big surprise). So I spent about twenty minutes yesterday afternoon writing up conduct referrals for the no-shows (about twenty, all told).

During both classes, I had students who failed to attend yesterday’s academic detention sign conduct referrals and sent them (the referrals, not the students) up to the office. By the end of the day, I had received back the stack of referrals, with Saturday Work Detention assignments stapled to each. Finally, some action.

Less satisfactory was the response to the second period problem. Students who are involved in fights are supposed to be suspended. Yet all four "fighters" from yesterday were in attendance today. This I brought up to one half of the discipline team (to whom I refer as "Bubba Gump"--stoopid is as stoopid does). When I asked what the repercussions were for fighting, I was told that it is suspension. I explained the situation with the sub; I included copies of some of the student responses which named names. Then I handed over the names and student numbers of the offending fighters. The assistant principal (not the aging "failure hatchet man" [who is neither Bubba nor Gump] but another one, the African-American one, one of the three we have on our campus of 2400 students), he took one look at the four names and said, "You’ve got a heck of a group in that class. I recognize all these names." This means all of them are discipline problems. And he knows them already. As freshmen.

"That’s not the half of it..." and I rattled off four more names, Gilbert, Javier, Sal and Hector.

A whistle. A shake of the head.

"And I haven’t even started with the girls. This class has the worse dynamic that I have seen in nine years of teaching. It is the class from hell."

"I don’t doubt it."

"So I want sanctions. Hard ones. I want examples made."

"I’ll talk to John." The Gump half. "He supposedly handled this. I remember seeing Andrew in here yesterday. I’ll talk to him first thing in the morning...he’s not here right now...expulsion hearing...and we’ll see what we can do."

"I’d appreciate it." I said this, and I meant it. But I also knew what he meant by his statement: I’ll talk to Gump...and that’ll be it. No repercussions.

As usual.

Bright note: they didn’t steal my doormat. They threw it away. But Paul, god of mortals, super-janitor, employee of the month, saved it from the trash. God bless him.

It rained today.