Happy Birthday from Coney Island Hospital

I was sitting at my computer this evening when I got the above as a text message. The same person had called me early in the morning to wish me a happy birthday, but had indicated this was a rough patch --or that this was not going to be a good day on his/her end of the text.

What would you think when you got that message?

It turns out my friend was spending much of the evening at the side of a hurt student. A noble thing -- there's no pay in it, just the respect you get for being there when no one else would.

Still the friend didn't give me any details of WHY he/she was at the hospital. I got answers to "Where are you?" But not "Why?" I didn't find out until this friend got home what had happened.

So the last hours of my birthday from about 8:00 on were a mix of worry, anger and confusion. When I called the hospital, they had never heard of this friend. Now what? Still no answer to why. Only where.

Was I meant to spend the evening along side the student, as well?

Maybe I should have. Maybe there is something long lost in me, a part of me that no longer jumps to the side of nearly anyone which was meant to be revived here. Maybe my fate was meant to change, but I backed away from the moral impetus which had been given to me.

But, I got angry and I cursed and cursed in various codes of text. I felt like this was a game.

And it was, to some degree. The message was meant to tell me not to text, in a way. "I'm too busy". It was just the kind of busy that is supposed to be a friend's business.

It was a suitable ending to the day, I suppose. After at first, understanding that I could choose my classes in which to "push-in" (assist), I was summarily told that I should have been doing nothing of the sort this week and should've just taught the classes I was assigned on my own. It would have been a far easier week had I done so. But, I guess I couldn't believe that I was supposed to wait. I thought I was supposed to find places to be useful.

Perhaps the biggest frustration I have had in the Dept. of Education is that I can never find just the right place to be. I can see a problem, but I can't solve it. There isn't funding, things aren't done that way or someone else simply has what seems like a better idea and sometimes is one.

It's just now in two instances in which I had previously been staring the minutes in the face with some confidence and ease, that I again walk a tightrope. I'm accursed for my not just waiting to be assigned when I was unclear that was happening. So, too, I am at fault for wanting clarification where it wasn't necessitated. Someone is trying to tell you they're busy, you don't go further.

It is, by far, the worst lesson of my existence, that sometimes you are not only not the center of attention, but you don't even matter as an individual. You are to remain silent when silence is given.

It's counter-intuitive and somewhere, I believe it's wrong.

Maybe the text message wasn't a note, but a forecast of 42. 41 has already begun a spiral in directions unknown.

Questions for "The Rally"

It's hard for me to get to rallies or anything much these days. This spring brings three preps -- granted, I wanted them -- and a need to try to get back into optimal physical health.

Therefore, in case I don't get there, here are some important questions:

1) I have heard from reliable sources who have been vigilant enough to find a problem that the Excessed Staffing System isn't quite "working". I mean, that principals don't check the mailboxes at all? Isn't that a violation somehow of this new agreement? What is the UFT doing to encourage them to do this? Putting our own system is not enough. Bluntly, I've gotten responses to jobs which are posted on the ESS when I write to them via Idealist or Craig's List -- places they post the same listing. Why do they avoid the ESS Mailbox?
2) I've heard also that our discounts are not in the system yet -- so a principal who does check on us to see how much we cost can't tell. Someone also said something to me about not all ATR's being discounted, but I couldn't catch the specifics. So, which one of us are Bargain, which are Clearance and which are Regular price? And when can they input this information into the system --- the Excessed Staffing System and generally -- so that principals don't still think I cost a quarter of their budget? Again, I heard it from folks who want this to change -- us pointing it out is to help keep it a UFT priority.

Not only should UFT be making sure this is fixed but GRANTING US A FOUR MONTH EXTENSION on the original year that it was going to take to see if this new discount was "good for children". Because Nov, Dec, Jan and soon February will have gone by with it being broken. There are people in the UFT who have been good enough to follow this and push on this, but we need to be vocal. Even if the system is a lark when it is operational, a broken lark is even more insulting to all of us and must have Klein laughing in his sleep.

I'll try to get there in blue and black -- blue for Tilden, black for Brooklyn Comprehensive. Or maybe I should just wear the suit I wear to interviews -- a light blue shirt underneath dark navy pinstripes. Maybe I should wear a sandwhich board over it for any principals who might be driving by. Or a big hat. Worked for Bella Abzug....

I do want to be hopeful. I don't have a lot of faith in general. The fact that the DOE might be able to get away with having made us an offer it not only didn't carry out, but sabotaged, just makes me feel very abused. We all should feel that way.

Cheap Perfume

"I'm a New Yorker," he said. "I live in New York City. I walk the streets like everybody else does." -- a recent candidate for Mayor.

If you're guessing the speaker of the quotation above is Mike Bloomberg, you're almost right. It was Ron Lauder talking to the NY Times back in his 1993 campaign for Mayor --one in which TERM LIMITS was his big issue, which of course, he has since reverved himself on, like so many "Mike-a-like's."

Ron Lauder was whom I first thought of when I saw Mike Bloomberg. A thin slice of colorless salmon. A man addicted to his pose for his Bar-Mitzvah photos -- the one that makes him look young and promising and a little like Harry Truman.

I couldn't see any reason to get excited about him, until I heard him say on television that some parents don't realize how just how bad the education their children receive is. For a flicker, I thought, "Hmmn. An academic elitist! Someone who might have the courage to go out there and tell a group of immigrant parents that they should expect more from schools here than they received in the places from which they fled. Or just that, "Good penmanship does not equal good writing." The latter is a hard one to dispel even from immigrants of my mother's generation, whose women especially have had their hands invisibly bound in such a way that every curl looks like a bakery bow. How can you concentrate on what you are trying to say when you are so busy decorating a cake? I know people do, but my point is, that I once had to explain this to a parent who honestly did not know --- that her child had no understanding of sentence structure so, in fact, her English was very poor, not excellent as she had been told by her still-colonialist style school "back home". I promised her she would learn and she did and she graduated a much better writer, no less sloppy a calligrapher.

Candidate Bloomberg, I thought, would never open a school called, "Ghetto Film School." He would see that there is no remaining irony in that title. That it is a travesty, no matter how good the offerings might be --even if the school (which is slated to open next year) offers a six-week film course which sounds suspiciously like the for-profit courses of that kind all over Manhattan. Was Spike Lee made in six weeks?

40 Acres and a Mule. Now that's an honorable -- in your face -- reclaiming my nation title. I would love Spike Lee if only for the name of his production company, but of course, he has talent, intelligence and diligence.

I know, someone is going to write to me that this is a wonderful school with amazing people....And I'm sure it is. I just think that if I had a kid I would know how insulting that title was. Yes, the "Ghetto" has been branded in Rap Videos and Holocaust movies. That's another reason not to use the word.

Back when Alan Lomax crossed mountains and strata of class to record music, the word, "Folk" was used to describe struggling, working people. I imagine that is a major aim of this school.
So, why not do something daring and call the school, "Twenty-First Century Folk Films." It would embrace so many histories even in that clumsy attempt at a title. And it would acknowledge, too, what Mother Jones published in its Jan/Feb 2009 issue: "Class is the New Black." You can go to that article via this link: http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2009/01/class-is-the-new-black.html

The year of our first president of African-American descent shouldn't be the year that Ghetto Film School opens. I know that I am making a big deal over a title -- but I think that unless they have some outrageously good historian on staff who puts a big exhibit on all of the ghettos of history in the lobby and then asks, "What is a ghetto?" the name will always give me chills. Maybe that's the point. But, I asked myself, what if I started a school called, Clinical Depression Writers Academy. I promised that it would be devoted to giving voice to the suffering in the same way that Prozac Nation, The Noonday Demon, The Hours and Crime and Punishment had. Would you send your kids?

I used to think you named a school to inspire those who entered into it. What about naming the school after Oscar Michaux, one of the first African-American filmmakers?

No matter what anyone thinks of Bloomberg's rapid closing of schools, attempts to cut veteran teaching staff and change the culture of our public schools, they might look at "Ghetto Film School" as a representative statement of the current Dept. of Education Aesthetic.

I can't think of anyone, parent, child, teenager...whom I can say that name to without feeling shame.

Let's not even go into the other facts of the week:
If Bloomberg fires 16,000 teachers he will be cutting all the young people and faculties of the small schools he said were so important. All THAT MONEY spent will have been wasted as if in a Ponzi scheme. Maybe that was the point -- to bankrupt the DOE so that it could only run on the least number of teachers possible and maybe he doesn't care if they're experienced or novices. He just wants our schools to have as little as possible.

Then, there's the brilliant and frightening possibility posted on re-posted on Ednotesonline.org from Accountable Talk: http://accountabletalk.blogspot.com/2009/01/trading-tenure-for-jobs.html

The Loss of Teachers' Voices

When was the last time you heard an interview with a teacher about education on a major radio or television station -- I mean an active teacher, not someone who used to be one.

Whenever discussions of education are held, it's the voice of politicians or businessmen. You rarely hear any statement with that heartening introduction, "I've been teaching on the same street to the children of ... for 36 years."

Those people do exist and I work with some one them. And they are fantastic teachers. But, these days they spend their days leaning against windows in quiet moments, afraid of what is going to happen next. Administrators come and go, and with them changes in policy, but in the process they wear on the nervous systems of dedicated professionals who really care about your kids. I say, your kids, because I don't have any children in the school system, but some of you reading this, do.

There is nothing fair about seeing people who have worked arduously with kids for almost as long as I've been alive finding themselves in fear of what they KNOW will be disaster.

A new program gets introduced to the school -- well -- new to this administrations. The faculty has tried it before and it didn't work. And they're demanding that teachers do it again. The kind of insanity -- of doing what fails over and over, is not unique to schools. But teachers find themselves alone when they are forced to do it. When a company does this and fails, they are publicly scorned. When a teacher does this, no one takes the time to ask how the failure happened. They just blame the teacher, who knew it wouldn't work all along.

Why didn't the teacher protest? There is no forum for protest in the Dept. of Education. None. You don't like it -- you're insubordinate.

And you can be fired for being insubordinate.

So, colleagues I deeply respect, bite their nails after over 20 or 30 years of knowing how to teach, facing the reality that they will not be able to do what they most want to and are best at doing. They will work within an insanity for which only they will be blamed.

The Alternate Universe of Borough Park

Just as Larry arches into a half' G-cleff, tail up, head curved down a bit to get an angular view of the B-I-R-D-S, Benie instinctively wolfs down water in an enormous slurp, turning Larry quickly around. "It isn't as much fun without me," is the message and Larry, acknowledging the intense wings the two of them share, follows Bernie with his eyes. Right now, though, he'd rather look on the window, so "fast game of tag up and down the bookcases" begone! There's time for that in the puffier part of the day, when the birds plump quietly and unseen.

Just watched Werner Herzog's "Encounters at the End of the Universe." Began a week ago, finished this morning, and it brought with it a great peace. The South Pole is sparsely peopled by types Karen wanted to be, though I don't know if in the forever-sense. A woman travels across a border hiding inside a clean sewage pipe being carried on the back of a truck for five days. The small round shape -- the imposed lens would've been fascinating, infuriating and inspiring...but also nauseating. This same woman (whose name was "Karen," of course) traveled across Africa in a garbage truck crossing arteries of territorial hatred, and finally escaping captivity with the help of drunk Russian Scientists. I think Karen Hunter's instinct to fly was a good one, especially if crossing violent, gorgeous earth.

Almost slept, but couldn't quite -- Friday I collapsed after taking a long stroll, completely in vain, across 18th Avenue, in the Center-North of the Alternate Universe of Borough Park. Though I don't have a bag ready to go to Ethiopia, Nigeria or Alaska (and I want one), one thing I have is a map of streets which are other-wordly, or, at least, discordant. Walking past manicured tiny lawns makes me feel just a bit more interested in what placing a knife to the back of my knee and lopping it off would do to me. The confinement of my body is whale-like and with the up and down changes of air quality -- half-radiator/half cold wind, all cold-wind, all moistish cool, my asthma is running for president of the United Federation of Thrashed Lungs. It sends mailings out while I sleep and has built a coalition among the residents of bronchial tubes inside teachers experiencing this punishing, quixotic air. My asthma promises no nasal drip tapping, or hanging chads of handkerchiefs. Paper ballots, with some healthy lungs doing the monitoring from Eustachians for Justice.

Almost made it to the stores I had wanted to see but it was too close to sundown -- the 30 or 40 shoestores which fill the Universe of Borough Park, home to a dozen or more Hasidic Jewish Communities were all closed, every last one. Running from about 40th street and 13th Avenue to 60th Street and 18th Avenue, are bakeries, stores which sell fine silver, pocket-sized booth selling specialty skullcaps (like a knitted on with the Yankees symbol on it), slightly bigger bagelry's, kosher pizza and falafel warehouses, and intermixed among these, clothing for the well-dressed European woman and man of 1941. Setting aside the special fur-laced hats and high socks which some Hasidic Jews wear, the vast majority of the Hasidic community is simply walking around high quality Film-Noir wear. Well-tailored suits with broad shoulders for both genders. Shapely and sensibly sexy black dresses or jumpers--everything with a soft curve to it, as if it were an upward breath that could lift a bit in a Swing dance. There's plenty of silk, lace and wigs designed to look like real hair worn over what are undoubtedly well-done hair styles, by women honoring the rule that no one but her husband should see her mane. This is a particular shame and a source of irony as ALL of these women choose wigs which must be close to what their actual hair looks like and which are damned good. It's like the rule that says we can't have a full figure statue of a person which is completely anatomically correct -- it must have a blemish to show that it is not real, it is not an idol. The seam which you can sometimes see in the wigs these women wear is that same flag "You are not getting the real beauty."

Almost an odd 40's movie, but not one because you cannot escape the long beards and curly locks on the men who also carry cell phones, work on laptops and drive Land Rovers. It's another planet, as Karen would say, and it's one I like to walk through sometimes, when the alien in me needs company.

People come to these specific blocks like those immigrants to Antartica. They are wrestless and looking for others like them -- who need to experience a rigor, a set of strange rules which put them at odds with nature and allow them to play chess with mortality. On Saturdays, when according to Orthodox Judaism, you cannot make anything or engage a force of power (like electricity) to cause a machine to make something, the Jews of Borough park storm up the avenues leading out of their continent and into Bensonhurst, Sunset Park and Bay Ridge. These are rarely spirals of contemplation, but usually power-walks. Why so fast? To see what you never have time to see on other days? Or, to move with the speed of a plane above interesting, but potentially dangerous territory.

I stop on my walks and go into a few caterers and sweet shops. By now, I am a regular at one of the local supermarkets, as well, and the owner doesn't know what to make of me. I can usually identify the music being played -- prayer music sung by famous cantors like Yossel Rosenbaum. I buy products which only have Hebrew written on them. Of course, I am that word which Chaim Potok made famous in The Chosen: Apikoros -- Hebrew for hypocrite.

Herzog wonders about the motivations of current explorers of the South Pole, noting that Shakleton's attempt 100 years ago, was on behalf of the British Empire. Wishing it could have been left unseen, unnoticed, or, at least, "unconquered," he seems to relish the stories of those who find themselves there to find community. The saddest story of the film involves a young man who came to preserve a local language -- I won't tell you what happened because you should rent or buy the film. But, the inevitability of Ph.D's taking to the highways for study and because they are not natural parts of whatever is left of the market economy, hit me in the stomach. You know when you study something that has several possible applications, but is not a single skill, that you will have to adapt and find your way to use it. That we may as well still be waring wigs and carrying our work in scrolls as far as the rest of the world is concerned, hadn't quite reached me until that moment. Karen had been told that because of her artistic and intellectual interests she would be better off in Europe as Americans tend to marginalize people not enlivened by consumerism. I told her that was bullshit and still believe it.

The Alternate Universes of Borough Park, the East Village and Inwood stood for me as proof that you can sustain your ideas and your art if you insist upon doing so. But, I was never as aware as I am now of how the market could pack an idea in mothballs and package it, buying real estate around it for people to consume and re-consume it. Much worse, how a bad economy could make the individual feel that anything not of immediate use is frivolous. Very few of my friends go to hear live music downtown, even if they live there. Yes, the bands have changed. But, that used to be the point.

What a comic, thin, man in a traditional dark suit and ice floe beneath his chin called, "The Great City of Borough Park," is a truly profound entity. It's a loosely planned community in the religious sense -- there are multiple kinds of Hasidim, and within them different groupings. As if someone had run around the blocks gluing down pieces of Shtetl, there are tiny shuls (synagogues) that fill tiny houses with hand-painted signs identifying them. Then there are the virtual classical parodies which serve glorious school buildings, community centers, houses and synagogues and, alongside them enormous chandeliers nearly breaking through the bay windows of garden apartments. The unwritten economic agreement to keep the neighborhood affordable for the community who lives there is unparalleled in NY. ( Hasidism do occasionally rent to non-Jews when the few apartments which become vacant aren't immediately gobbled up by the "cousin-of my youngest niece and her husband who are expecting quintuplets," etc.) That you can still find not just outfits right out of The Third Man, but Challah made with honey and eggs with no concern for cholesterol, is itself worth the walk.
For me, though, it's an opportunity to be an alien among my own aliens -- I can balance two worlds at once. Neither is home, and I envy both the people in Antartica and the Jews of Borough Park that willingness to make allegiance with a lifestyle.

Someday, I'll pack Larry and Bernie up in a Volvo (once I learn to drive) and we'll go to whatever that place is which will feel right. For now, I am a very slow traveler. I was and am willing to go faster and could have made that plainer when Karen was here. In the stillness is same desire which the bird's offending Larry have to "plump" and be "home" for a while. I found that home was created by the love of the bird I was flying with which is probably what they feel too.

Hopeful Eloquence

My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land – a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.
Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land – a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.
Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. Those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers ... our found fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.
We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.
For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.
Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.
So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it)."
America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

Make it go away

1) Mediocrity in Education. Settling for scores instead of learning.
2) Small-mindedness. The framework that understands that students need more time in school because of circumstances beyond their control and yet won't agree to it.
3) Arne Duncan and his clone in DC and NY.
4) Obama's refusal to be bold and brave. Sometimes you need to take a stand before you reach across the table and lose your choice.
5) Biden's silence.
6) Postings that say NY will lose the most jobs this year.
7) My union's belief that because teachers look tired that we're useless. With that, my union's love of unchecked capitalism which, of course, makes no sense.
8) The silence of parents when their schools close.
9) The feeling that nothing matters, anyway.

When I think of Tom.I think of a night,
When the earth smelled of summer
And the sky was streaked with white,
The soft mist of England Was sleeping on a hill.
I remember this, And I always will...
There are new lovers now
On the same silent hill,
Looking on the same blue sea.
And I know Tom and I are a part of them all -- And they're all a part of Tom and me.
--Intro to "Hello Young Lovers" Rogers and Hammerstein's The King and I

The formal restraint of a prepared memory -- the story you tell everyone, the face you wear, the closing and unclosing of the hand and then the resolve to leave off there has become habit. There aren't any friends who knew me when...not where I work, so I am this new character. A ragged, but nevertheless, a type -- the mistress of bedeviled children, religious in her belief that somewhere in eternity, her joy remains intact.

Dar Williams - When I Was a Boy

Re-posted: the lyrics are clearer.

Shuffling off to Buffalo

They were joking that soon the place would be a Dunkin' Donuts. "That's a pretty big Dunkin' Donuts," said the cashier, a young woman maybe 22 years old, trying to project confidence that her store was not closing -- yet, anyway. As I walked through the glass doors of Virgin Records on Fourteenth and Fourth avenue, a junkie, his wool hat taped to his skin by sweat, balanced on one foot, haggling with the security guard. I couldn't hear what he was saying. No one could -- he was just mouthing words with no sound. People shifted, weaving a bit. "Where to go?" "Another store full of sales? To the movies?"

On line at Thirteenth street and Third avenue, the face on the man directly in front of me was raging. "Come on, already," he mumbled, but he knew not to scoff too loudly at the customer currently at the window because the crowd on line was with the guy. You could feel the sympathy in the quiet way we all listened. "I'm sorry, but those passes are only good on Mondays." "You mean they're not for weekends?" "No. They are only for Mondays." "Where does it say that?" "It does not say that, but that is the rule. We only honor those passes on Mondays." "So, I can't use this?" "It is only good on Mondays." Three couples ahead of me, the negotiator pressed his head against the air and gave the cashier one last look. "Okay, so let me have two regular tickets." He pushed his eyes downward into his wallet. The frustrated gentleman ahead of me sighed. Meanwhile, in back of me, a couple discretely put their passes away and left the line. I decided I didn't want to sit for two hours and continued ambling along, feeling for the lift that used to come from walking through Manhattan at night.

I had decided not to just take a walk in my sluggish Brooklyn neighborhood because it makes me claustrophobic. There are only a few people out after dark, stores are mostly closed, and walking by rows and rows of houses just makes me feel alone. So, I got on the subway and got off at Union Square hoping to join in the energy of people hustling, drinking coffee, shopping, looking for movies, plays, music and chatting. People on their way to have fun are very easy about letting others brush in and out of their conversations. If they're confused about which way to go, I often just jump in with directions. The other night a group of teenage boys wanted to go to Chinatown, but also seemed to want to stay put in Greenwich Village. "What do you want to go for?" It turned out they were looking for some cheap jewelry. Since they weren't looking for brand name knockoffs, I directed them to the many sidewalk shops on eighth street and to K-Mart. "If you just want anything, you don't have to go to Chinatown." Frankly, they could've gone to their local store, but the purchase had given them an excuse for to get away from their suburb and themselves. They were extremely gracious and they smiled from the bottom of their hoodies until their noses. The boys had told me that they liked being on the street in which we stood because there were so many young people. "NYU," I said, but no flash of recognition shone through their pupils. They went off speedily after thanking me, bouncing in their sneakers toward a troop of people in their teens and twenties hovering around Astor Place. As they left, I realized they had heard about bargains in Chinatown, but not one of the city's major universities. A party school, no less. Was my city better known as a discount warehouse than a place to get drunk and have sex?

Though I'd never gone to Chinatown to shop in my 40 years in New York, my friend Karen had gone with one of her friends and her pre-teen and teenage daughters to look for high fashion look-a-likes. I remember especially Karen telling the story of being whispered to by this ethereal Chinese woman while walking with her friends on Canal Street. "You looking for Prada?" After she nodded, the woman led the group down a staircase into a basement full of handbags. Karen enjoyed the fact that the woman had approached her and not the others because she seemed to delight in making her the offer -- like it was a special gift. However rehearsed her manner may have been, the moment of connection between the two had been giggly and sweet. This was the kind of experience that made Karen feel happily like she was visiting from another planet and she should be alert to silly and striking possibilities.

My trip into Manhattan on Friday was torridly grey, in stark contrast to that memory, and to my encounter a few days before with those kids. I'd met those boys in the afternoon and there were students and people on their lunch milling in a quick pulse. The scant crew walking around as the sky became a thick, drab navy, were mostly just watching each other, not out of fear, but restlessness. Like me, no one seemed to have a particular destination in mind and the stores stood helplessly--every window was full of signs announcing huge sales and muzak bounced like a wave of tennis balls into the crowd slowing it down. For some reason, the soundtrack to Mamma Mia was being played and replayed without a break -- as if a back up sound system kicked in as soon as the other stopped so that there would be no silence.

When stores in New York go out of business or have huge sales to raise cash, usually, they get very loud. They blast their sound systems so that their announcements can be heard for miles and husky men with red faces are hired to call to passersby whatever phrases they think will get people into the store. "Cheap lingerie, Mama. Make your boyfriend happy tonight....Or your girlfriend. Whatever makes you happy. God loves everybody." The preacherly tone often builds. "Just trying to help my brothers and sisters out, now. Stop cursing and do something positive. Buy your mother and father something." And if you happen to lock eyes with the speaker in a pause, he will wish you a good night, a safe trip, or tell you that god blesses you. For some reason, it feels honest and warm even though he's said it to thousands of people and their dogs and he's shouted it a few times at passing cars. It's like listening to a false prophet -- the intensity with which he believes in the power and possibilities which could result from his ideas can shake you, even when you and he know the premises themselves are false.

But those men were nowhere this early evening. Paper signs hung like loose coats leaning over the ocean of glass while the relentless, cartoon-disco continued its manic bounce. There was no one trying to catch your eye and people were mostly talking about the fact that the Village was not very crowded for a Friday night. Only the teenagers felt comfortable just getting a drink somewhere. One or two restaurants were packed -- not the cafes -- but the macrobiotic places, the juice joints and The Dumpling Man. If you were going to spend your money, it was going to be on small, healthy-feeling items.

People were silently measuring the worth of the items at the stores, sale or no sale. "Will I really use this? Why? Sure, I've always wanted it, but I've spent a long time without it." I needed to buy something for my class and I picked up a cheap, literary-ish, former bestseller for the ride home. "I've got to get a new library card," I thought as I let myself soak in the bed of icy wind, soothing my joints. I could've walked for hours, but there was no life to look at and I was unwilling to carelessly stop somewhere for a coffee or to fake drinking a beer. (I can't drink, it makes my stomach dry and raw.) No one was interested in hanging out, and that, besides the funereal quality of the passion-free music, was what made the streets unsavory. We were all tourists and we were going home as soon as we hit our marks on the map. Only the journey was not novel, but completely without awe. I felt faceless, and I was because I had no sense of my own identity. My job is in limbo and everything is consciously day-to-day.

There was an empty row of seats on the "N" train, but I vaulted toward them anyway as there was no way I could've managed standing for even part of the way home. Walking down the stairs, I became dizzy from the unfulfilled need to get out of my own head for a few hours. When I leaned forward and lifted my book from my backpack, I saw the word "Pray," etched on the door. A few years ago, before they made it illegal to take pictures on the subway, I'd taken quite a few shots of similar carvings saying things like "Worship God" and "Go to Church." In Manhattan, they are etched on public phones, bathroom stalls, kiosks, ATM machines and traffic poles as well as train cars. Does this happen everywhere else?

But, I hadn't seen these messages for a long while. The aggressive attack on graffiti in New York had erased them along with the bubbled lettering of people's names which used to proliferate on the granite. So, I was suprised to be faced with this word, scratched into the metal, chastising me. I had a picture of the same message in ink in my collection at home, but the letters were longer and thinner in the one facing me.

Who does this? Who has the time to take a key (the usual implement) and dig into steel with enough power to create curves, not just lines up and down? The person who engraved the one I was looking at, unlike the one pictured, chose a spot about six feet from the floor. Someone tall whose hands had a wide and muscular wingspan.

Perhaps it was an out-of-work barker so disgruntled by the fact that business was so bad that it hadn't even created part-time work for extra gravediggers, he defaced the door with god-like rage.

Just for the record

This economic crisis was created by businessmen like Bloomberg and not civil servants.

Even as a hunter, he is a philosopher

Dar Williams - When I Was A Boy FRFF 2008

This song reminds me of Karen

The all around talented...

Happy Holidays

Things are okay. My principal and AP have been very supportive and my two babies have been cuddling me round the clock.

So, here are some warm and fuzzy pictures of my warm and furry guys.

When there is no redemption

Last Thursday, I was asked to stay late to keep the boundary between two of the schools in our building secure. It wasn't very difficult and I found most of the students understanding -- one even told me that he knew that our students created too much noise when they got out of gym and that was why we were trying to re-route them out of the other school's territory. One student slightly pushed me out of the way, but then he apologized. He didn't quite understand the rule itself, but he knew he handled himself incorrectly.

Then I got on the bus going home.


There's a wonderful little middle school a block away from my high school and I wait for my bus at its entrance. The girls were yelling at a boy who had broken up nastily with a girl. I joked with a stranger about how seriously these little kids took their relationships. Thinking back now, I actually DIVORCED my first boyfriend in the fourth grade. I got on the school bus and said that everyone who was my friend had to sit on one side of the bus, and his friends had to sit on the other. Most of the bus crammed into my side and my former boyfriend was nearly alone on his side. I remember him, all swallowed up by the green vinyl seats, crying.

The boy, in the middle school drama I witnessed also fled the scene and the B8 bus arrived, crammed with passengers, to my dismay. For the first two minutes of the bus ride things were fine. Then we stopped in front of my high school. I avoid getting the bus there because most of the seats get taken at the middle school. As it turned out, on this night I was standing anyway. A group of MY students got on the bus and I smiled at them and even joked that I had the "enemy" cap on (I was wearing a baseball cap with the initials of one of the other schools in the building.)

One very tall girl with a space between her front teeth began the chanting of "BAT, BAT, BAT, BAT." Then I was called a "snitch" and my every move was commented on. "You get people suspended," said the tall girl. I tried to explain that I don't -- but I stopped. It seemed, perhaps, not a good idea to dispel the belief that I had the power to do something I can't actually do. Truthfully, I only document student behavior and reach out to parents. Once or twice I have recommended someone be suspended, but my suggestions weren't taken. The chanting of "Bat, Bat, Bat, Bat" and the comments continued. I stood still, reading my book and at the next stop, I got a seat and continued to read. A student asked if I was reading the Bible. Several students said that I was "tight" (which means tense). This continued until the students got off of the bus. This was about twenty minutes.

At one point, I did say that I could call the police but that the students were "just not that important." I wanted them to understand that my life would go on despite their escapades and, sadly, that I didn't care about them as much as they thought. They didn't get it.

The next day my class went miserably. (I only have one on Fridays. The rest of the day I am a dean.) The subtitles on West Side Story didn't work and my students couldn't follow the language without them. I tried fast forwarding between active scenes -- the big fight, etc. Nothing. Students were talking and talking. Then a security guard knocked and asked me if I would take in a student kicked out of another class. This was a student who had harassed me weeks ago, but with whom I no longer had problems. So, I said, "okay." She joined in the talking with her group of friends and they became more vociferous and aggressive. One of them accused me of being "in love" with a female student because I had laughingly commented on her goofy outfit. (Friday was also "wacky tacky" day.) When they left, the girl I admitted called me "Ms. Dyke" and when I went after her in the hallway to tell her that she had just committed a hate crime, she said she didn't care about my "gay ass."

The girl was suspended. I wanted her arrested but was discouraged from doing so.
I've never been gaybashed verbally before. Sure, the same girl used to call me "Mr. Kay" but I never took that in the same way.

When friends of the same girl came into the Dean's Office for something and I asked them what they wanted, I heard one girl outside yell, "Oh no, no!" and the girls left. They weren't embarassed; they were indicating that they would take no help from me.

My first instinct was to asked to be transferred -- which won't happen. I have never felt unsafe before in my career -- not this way. I might have felt that one student was aggressive toward me, but for academic reasons. No one ever really showed me complete and utter hatred.

not another website...

Recently, I've heard that the UFT is trying to put together a kind of website for teacher resumes. First, I think that this action misses the point:
TEACHER RESUMES ARE OUT THERE. PEOPLE SEND THEM OUT. PEOPLE AREN'T READING THEM. PUTTING MORE OUT WON'T HELP.

Second, I think this wastes resources which need to go elsewhere:
TEACHERS NEED TO LEARN HOW TO HANDLE THE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY PRINCIPALS AND THEIR INTERVIEW STYLE.

TEACHERS NEED TO PUT MORE PRESSURE ON THE UFT TO PRESSURE KLEIN INTO HIRING US.

OR, we had all better brace ourselves for careers as ATR's -- at best.....

College Preparatory

Today I interviewed for a position at a Charter School which aims to be College Preparatory. When I stated that all high schools are college preparatory -- or aim to be -- I was told that it is a "communications issue" -- that the school will have to find a way to say it is academically rigorous/competitive without being selective. Perhaps, the school would like people to self-select out who aren't interested in going Ivy League and would like to find a way to present this while still being politically correct. I mean, they could just call themselves "the middle class alternative to Horace Mann." That might backfire however.

I've never met a kid in my life who wasn't interested in the opportunity to train to become Ivy League Material. Nor have I ever met a parent who didn't believe his/her kid deserved the chance.

What I wanted to say, but of course didn't right then (they can certainly read this blog posting) is: whom do you expect to be teaching? It's not as though I don't believe the average kid off the street couldn't be prepared for Princeton. To the contrary, I think you can build a student if you have the time, resources and commitment from the student and parents. However, the organizers of this school don't seem to be aware that the students whom they reach will not have much of a foundation when they arrive at their doorstep. Their reading and math skills are going to be poor, or mostly so. Their behavior will be challenging, and as their frustrations grow, it will get worse. A strong system has to be in place to reinforce the culture and methods of the school. There will also need to be strong incentives for the students and parents to buy into the school philosophy.

They won't just be able to hold up the flags of Harvard, Yale and Columbia and expect students to go hopping. Students need tangible reasons to believe these names still matter, and who could blame them. Eight years of Yale and Harvard educated "Nucular" Bush, and our students have had a very concrete lesson in what happens when you know the right people and you don't know anything else. I hardly think that people who apply to Yale do so with the Shrub in mind -- and those who are applying generally have a sense of tradition which goes with the school and reaches beyond the past eight years. That, however, is a small section of the population and not necessarily a part of the public school population. Even of the elitist public school population.

Many of my friends have students in the public schools because they can't afford private schools. They don't anticipate being able to send their kids to private colleges either. For them, SUNY Binghamton, Buffalo, Albany, Queens, Hunter and Brooklyn are going to have to suffice -- as the latter three once did in the 50's and 60's when people usually only attended private schools when they couldn't get into the best CUNY's. When someone who went to school in that era mentioned going to NYU, they didn't usually do so with pride -- it was testimony to their failure to get into Queens, Brooklyn or Hunter. Without the major financial aid which exists now, few people could afford Columbia, Barnard and Cornell. This held true even for graduate school. My uncle won the Regents Scholarship in Dentistry and wanted to go to Harvard's Dental School but they couldn't match the financial aid, so he went to NYU.

I remember, back in 1985, how many of my fellow graduates from Stuyvesant went to Binghamton. Most of them got into Ivy League schools but couldn't afford to go. Believe me, if there is any student who wants to go to an Ivy League school, it is a graduate of Stuyvesant. People were already practical by then and realized what was affordable and what was not. I was lucky that I grew up so poor that I knew I would get an enormous financial aid package from Barnard.

The guidelines for that kind of financial aid are very strict and many struggling middle class families live well above them.

So, I guess I hope that the planners of the school I spoke with today are ready to meet the needs of their students and to help them to compete for the best education available --- knowing they will start with disadvantages and that they may have to make compromises along the way.

Most importantly, though, they will need to find a reason for students to want this education. Some of my brightest students have chosen technical educations or to go into the military because they don't see a connection between an Ivy League quality education and a steady job. They've met too many teachers from such schools who are constantly worried about their positions, even after years of service. They have brothers and sisters who went to respectable schools and are out of work. Meanwhile, their mechanic friends, their friends in the armed forces and their cab driver friends are still managing.

I'll be curious to see how it works out.

Now you see it, now you don't

I've been a dean for a total of three months. In that time, I have had my, "let me help you change" days and my "get off my planet" days. I've found that being somewhat unpredictable can be useful because students are less inclined to test you if they are concerned you might do something insane. I guess the same rationale motivates a lot of people.

For the past few days, I've submitted paperwork on students only to find that the students weren't punished. I mean, they were ALMOST punished -- parents were called and some came up. Those who didn't come up didn't miss anything as their children were let back in the building with a slap on the wrist. In one case, a student was actually suspended....and then the suspension was taken back. What'd'ya know?

In all cases, I had been in my "heavier" moods on the theory that these were repeat offenders who needed to be taught a lesson. I guess the lesson was really being taught to me.

Perhaps what has to happen in a school is for everyone to feel as if they cannot tell what will happen no matter what they do. In the case of those of us writing up students, we might consider how we might best meet the needs of the student in the IMMEDIATE action. Will the act of writing the student up, calling a parent, etc. be enough -- will it make a difference in the student's life. We can't expect anything else will happen because that's not in our control. So, we have to best utilize what is in our control.

As a teacher, I rarely called for help from others and I mostly relied on the interaction between the students and me in the moment to maintain order. Even when I called parents, I placed little expectation on the result. There were some terrific parents. No parent, no matter how great, can be there at the moment the student decides to throw an orange across a room or pull a knife on someone. At that moment, the student is his/her own judge and jury.

What I've learned in my three months as a dean, therefore, is that my most important decisions will also come in the moment. What is done after will have limited effect and I have no control over what it will be. It could be that the student will be reprimanded by a parent or suspended for 90 days. There's no way of knowing. The only one I can depend upon is me.

And that's a lesson I learned as a teacher long, long ago.

Razzle Dazzle

We sat in our balcony seats for ten minutes after the show ended, just talking to the people next to us. For some reason, I remember there being sparkle dust all over the stage. I guess they were cleaning up.

Nobody lets you stay that late at the theater anymore. You're ushered out immediately and you don't get to see the stagehands do their work.

I was seven years old and it was my second musical - Chicago - with the original cast Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera. My mother kept telling me to watch the dancers' feet -- how swiftly and quickly they moved. But, I was enraptured in the satire of the show and, though I appreciated how good the women were, I was glued to Jerry Orbach. I remember what he looked like when he came onstage and I never took my eyes off of him. He was all stage presence and sharp moves. He couldn't really sing in the conventional sense, but the man could move in a commanding and lightning-like fashion and he radiated an understanding of the show itself. The Razzle Dazzle that was a comment on the Razzle Dazzle of the 1920's that often obscured reality and justice. Unlike now, when things are clear and justice is swift and squeaky clean as the window on a washed car.

I had some trouble, as I still do, getting the story itself. But, I got the characters and the games they were playing.

Here's a troubling fact: I've been showing the film version to my students these past days and they don't get it, at all. I mean, they follow the story and they remember the songs. But, they don't understand the comments the show makes and they can't keep up with the pace of Fosse's dancing. It's a blur of nakedness and heels to them. Even the second time we watched "Cell Block Tango" it took a while for the meaning of the choreography to become clear. I made the simple point that the women dominate the men and one of my students asked me what "dominate" means.

For the first time in my life, and I can honestly say it is the first time, I am on a completely different planet from my students. A different planet. I'm bouncing eagerly to what I think is the simplest and probably the most obvious music in the American Musical Theater -- this has to be sharper hitting than "Some Enchanted Evening" -- and my students don't have a clue what's going on. They know some chick murdered a guy and it looks like she might get off, but they don't know why this could be interesting and they don't instinctively lift off to Bob Fosse's footstrokes. They have no instincts for this. One of my students didn't realize this was a musical -- granted, she came in for the last twenty minutes only and what could she tell?

Two women get away with murder by manipulating the press and public. What could be more contemporary?

Of course, my students also don't know who Rush Limbaugh is or what the difference is between Fox and CNN. Not that they watch the news. They watch BET even though I've tried to explain to them that the network is owned by ClearChannel, a company not particularly interested in the real needs of urban youth. They don't care. They have the right to consume.

And that right has taken away their ability to distinguish between what is worth consuming and what is garbage.

I'm not for a minute saying that anything by Ebb and Kandor is better than South Pacific or, for that matter, anything by Rogers and Hammerstein (except maybe Oklahoma!). I see Ebb and Kandor as the "ABC" of Musical Theater -- ordinary voices do extraordinary dancing (sometimes) about urbane topics. The stuff of Saturday Nigh Live. Pop. Accessible, I thought.

Probably, my students would be better off with the fairy tale narrative of South Pacific or The Sound of Music neither of which they have seen.

Before coming to Tilden, I had no idea there was a world in which people had not seen The Sound of Music. My Brooklyn Comprehensive students had seen it. Maybe they stay up late or are more adventurous in checking out cable. Or, more likely, they rented these films for their kid or kid sister whom they babysit.

Meanwhile, we finish Chicago tomorrow and then move on to...I don't know yet, though I have many choices.

Where do you go when Razzle Dazzle needs translation?

Bernie is two! Happy Birthday Bernie!

Here's a picture of the Birthday boy after finishing some broccoli -- his favorite vegetable and with Larry, snuggling, this weekend.

Ya think?

The best graduation rate of a transfer high school in 2007 was 69 percent. This comes from a 2007 report by the Office of Multiple Pathways to Education.

1) How was this graduation rate measured -- did the students have to come in the same year they graduated?

2) Brooklyn Comprehensive's graduation rate was always above 60%.

3) The graduation rate at YABC's with Learning-to-Work programs is 44% according to Mayor Bloomberg's own website. This percentage is presented as a GOOD THING.

Something is rotten in the State of DOE...

I believe we were closed because

1) All transfer high schools now STOP ADMITTING STUDENTS AFTER 18.
2) Students over 18 are shipped to GED programs because typically, according to the Office of Multiple Pathways' report, it only takes them a year to graduate.

We kept students till 21. We let them take three years if they needed them to get a REAL high school diploma.

for ATR's who want one...

It's been interesting that all of the recent writings about ATR agreements have referred to finding placements for those "ATR's who want one". Up until reading these, it had never occurred to me that there would be an ATR who wouldn't want a permanent position. Is the DOE implying that there is a place in the school-world for ATR's to just remain ATR's until retirement? Surely, the UFT is implying this in accepting this language in any compromise it enters into with the DOE -- provided that the UFT still means to provide job security to ALL of the ATR's, those who want positions and those who do not.

I am certainly an ATR who wants a position. In the ideal world, I would teach five English classes a day and be an active member of a school community. The longer I remain in a school, however, as a kind of itinerant figure, the more I become accustomed to the idea that I do not and will not be a permanent member of a community. Though I do not yet have the thick skin you need to manage this way, I expect to need to develop it. I do not treat the Teacher's lounge in my school as mine. When I do enter, it is to get a soda and I try to leave as quickly as I can. Unfailingly, when I have those confident days and engage in conversation and even follow up on issues related to my job, I regret it. At best, it's like being one of the many guest hosts on The Tonight Show during the Carson era and inquiring about whether the suggestion you made about where Ed McMahon should sit was ever tried; you're taking yourself way too seriously and not acknowledging the fact that NO ONE but Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson had any say in such matters. You're job is to be a guest host -- to fit into the program as best you can and leave it in the condition you found it. As an ATR, you're not even really even as good as a regular guest host who might be considered for the job once the host leaves. You won't be. You're not Jay Leno or David Letterman or Joan Rivers. You're David Brenner. That's right, David who? (Pictured above)

Disclaimer: I thought David Brenner was very funny and still remember that he was from Philadelphia and had a long nose. Nevertheless, unlike the indomitable Joan Rivers, he know lives in the same world as LP's, cassettes and Robert Klein.

Knowing that you are designated for oblivion brings an interesting tinge to daily activities. You walk the same halls as everyone else and you are expected to fulfill all of the duties you are assigned and to be immediately fluent in the lingo of the country. However, you won't get tapes to watch to prep you. You go on and figure it out as you go. The other day, I used the wrong terminology for what are called "Referral Forms" or "Pink Slips" in our school. I called it a report -- I pulled the appropriate word out of my brain quickly enough to be understood, but not before I was greeted with the kind of looks that are given to Americans speaking French in Paris. And I can't and don't blame the native residents -- they now have to contend with this person who doesn't even make sense handling some of their problems with students. About as much fun as watching The Tonight Show with a guest host and boring guests. They can't change the channel, though, and they have to put up with the students while they do it.

Worse, I've come off as a real idiot in conversations left and right. I've tried to be intelligent and literary when I'm sleepy and confused and, worst of all, desperate to be liked. There's no precedent or convention which has given me the ability to apologize, either, because I'm not a regular feature anywhere except during the periods in which I teach. Time passes and it's harder and harder to go up to someone and say, "remember that time I came up to you and tried to make sense about ..." They think you're weird, but they've forgotten why and they aren't going to remember. You're just going to seem weirder. There are all sorts of misunderstandings and signals you can't address like this. There are, at least, three people with whom I wish I could just apologize and start over. But, I'm not that important. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten it quite out of my head yet that all of this is temporary, that I'm just visiting at a place which is soon to be gone anyway. I want to make amends.

I know, I was supposed to be talking about GETTING USED to this condition.

P.S. A few hours after writing this, I did a Google search on David Brenner. Eerily, he and I have the same birthday, though he's 23 years older. Robert Klein's birthday is 4 days after that, and he's 25 years older.
I STAND CORRECTED. DAVID BRENNER WAS BORN IN 36 and so he is 32 years older and Klein was born in 42 is 26 years older. Mea Culpa. I always want these guys to be younger so I am more likely to meet them.

Thanksgiving

From "Perdidos"

Karen and I used to listen to Monchy and Alexander -- she loved the song, "Perdidos." Much, much too late, I know what most of the song means. We knew it was a love song, of course. Here's one of the lyrics, which of course, I would have love to have quoted to her and I do now....much, much too late:

Llevame a donde tu quieras amor
que junto a ti yo soy feliz, contigo
soy feliz (contigo soy feliz

Take me wherever you want to, my love, because with you I am happy.
With you, I am happy.

Encounters with Shrub Mid-Air: A Karen Story

Karen loved to tell this story to everyone she met. I post it in honor of her upcoming birthday, November 23. She would have been 57. (See my post below this one for my thoughts). She told the story better than I do here and, she understood better what all the technical things were, of course. All I can do is my best, which is necessary, but not sufficient.

It was the summer of 2004, the night of the Republican convention in which W was to speak. Karen and I were returning from Provincetown and had designed things so that we would NOT be on the ground in NYC for the event. So, there we were in the night sky, Karen attending to the pilot things and me, thinking, "I'm in the night sky. This is so cool. This is beautiful. I'm like a star..." and other non-profound thoughts. Suddenly, I got a punch in the leg.

In order for Karen and I to hear each other, we both had to wear headphones. That technically meant that, were I not contemplating singing "Twinkle, twinkle" to myself, I should have heard the transmission from the tower in NY. So, when a flustered Karen followed the punch with "Did you hear that?" I was forced to tell the truth and say, "No, I was night-dreaming." She didn't find it cute.

"Ma'am, get out of BRAVO space now." BRAVO space refers to the central, most important air space -- in this case we were in NY's BRAVO space which we needed to be in order to get home. And suddenly we were being told to scram somewhere in the night sky. Karen was about to ask where in this vast expanse we were expected/allowed to go in order to get to our destination of Caldwell airport when a nicer voice came on the radio and said, "Just point toward ----" I forget where it was he said, but it made instant sense to Karen and she proceeded to re-program whatever the device is called that you do that to in order to change course. About a minute later, we both heard another transmission. "Air Force One Requesting Clearance for take off." Karen says my eyes went raccoon wide. About a half minute later, we heard, "Air Force One you have clearance to take off."

So, apparently, we'd been bopped out of BRAVO space because the Shrub didn't want to spend any more time on the ground than he had to, either. His ship and ours literally passed in the night, both avoiding each other.

Shortly after, I believe, we were able to ask if we could return to our original course, which we did, feeling just a little bit cooler than we already thought we were.

Karen Beth Hunter, November 23, 1951 - Sept 2, 2005.

Proof of Heaven, while you're living. For Karen, always.

The line comes from Steven Sondheim's song, "Pretty Women" from the musical, "Sweeney Todd". "Proof of Heaven, while you're living. Pretty women." Appropriately, Sweeney coins it, singing, as we in the audience know, about the love of his life who is lost to him forever.

Karen Beth Hunter was far more than a pretty woman -- she was beautiful and brilliant, exciting and honest, and boldly loving, even if this meant being vulnerable to people who might, and often did, hurt her. She WAS very much "proof of heaven." In fact, she believed in god and the eternity of the soul so I am sure she would be/is glad to know that she affirmed their possibility in her very existence. Shortly after she passed away, a friend of mine, who is not given to paltry sentiment, wondered if she were my guardian angel and said, "She looked like one." My friend meant it.

This isn't to say she was conventionally "angelic". Like my cat Larry, whom she loved, she got as close to you as possible by asserting the truth. The truth wasn't always gentle or bucolic. It was beautiful because it was as essential as breathing. When something is wrong or he is very angry, Larry will kick things up and howl. Karen would get all red and do much the same. She couldn't stomach unfairness and I was to put things right or cause her tremendous pain and sadness. I'm afraid I did that a lot. Like Larry, she held that sadness in and it turned into anxiety. She told me once that she felt like Gumby because she had to twist into so many shapes to fit so many people's viewpoints/needs -- especially, I think, in her office. I used to joke that she was becoming, "America's Favorite Lesbian" because she counseled so many people who viewed her as a mother-figure, but were extremely homophobic (and had no idea about her sexuality).

I have never seen anyone be made so happy, however, by honest feeling and pure warmth. A good meal. Odetta. Irish music. Bachata music. Bicycling on a beautiful day. Clear, pure water. Feelings full, rich and pulsating. Love at its most elemental and finest. Brushing the hair from my face and caressing the stray silver in the strands of brown. Seeing beauty in details of me when it is not yet in the whole of me.

The paradox for me these past three years has been that nothing destroyed my faith in everything more than Karen's death and nothing affirmed my willingness to believe more than her life. She wasn't just "proof of heaven," but proof of earth -- and selfishly my ability to be a whole functioning person on it. She remains my "proof of heaven" and it's wondrous complexity. Like Sondheim's Sweeney, I feel cheated and the bitterness has transformed me, but I try, for her sake, not to let it do so as much as it could.

November 23rd is Karen's birthday and she would have been 57. In my mind, she was eternally 7 years old and I told her so. She was that child on the swing, going too high and too fast in pure exhiliration. In flight. She is still flying. And I am eternally 10 years old. My bicycle and my favorite coat no longer quite fit. My mother's loneliness has overpowered me and I no longer play outside. I guarded my 7 year old friend in the hopes that I can save her from this fate, but alas I could not save her at all. She reminded me of every pure joy I'd ever had and she was all of them at once. "Proof of Heaven" in a world where laughter without irony, without fear, that rises like unbridled passion from the belly upward is so, so rare. In a world in which the concept of goodness is often used to propulgate the very opposite, she was proof that true "heaven" is maddeningly, enchantingly and honestly beautiful.

I'm sick of buying retail for names.

On my toolbar, always, are updates from the NY Yankees. As the season is LONG over, the updates are mostly the same with the occasional mentions of whom the Yankees are shopping for in the pool of free agents. This year, it feels like we are going to Bloomingdales and Macy's when the world has already learned to buy at Greenmarkets and Costco. What does it take for an institution to learn that it's habits are unhealthy? I guess, like a person, organizations have a hard time letting go of their addictions, in this case, to buying other club's stars when their best years are either behind them, or still in front of them -- but few and far between.

Take C.C. Sabathia. A great pitcher, but he's been such for a while. The time to have pitched for him was two years ago or even last year. Sure, he'll be a terrific addition to the club for five years or so. Maybe. Or Maybe three years. Still good, of course. But what was it that prevented us from getting him when he was a clearly gifted younger pitcher? Why do we wait for people to become veritable stars somewhere else? I hate to say it, but I feel as though I am taking away someone from a ball club which built him and had faith in him to squeeze out what's left of him. It's like buying stock in Goldman Sachs (which someone advised me, very wrongly to do). You assume because of the name that it would always be a good product even though you can see that the world is changing and the product is headed for trouble. That kind of denial was lethal for the economy.

Now, Jake Peavy would be an exception. He's still young and not an established ace. I would like to go after him as hard or harder than we are going after Sabathia.

Of course, we NEED an established ace because we have yet to build one of our own in a while and we need an aspiring ace so we have someone to follow in his footsteps. So, we are, to some extent, locked into this pattern -- unless we could buy two pitchers on the verge of becoming aces and let them grow together. The latter would be healthier and more exciting to watch as a fan. Perhaps the reports that Phil Hughes is become a strong pitcher in the AFL portend of such an event. But, why do we expect a VERY young pitcher to be more than just that? Why are we creatures of such extremes -- chasing hard after Sabathia and expecting gold of Phil Hughes or Chamberlain for that matter? What would have been wrong with purchasing Gil Meche last year, an indisputably solid pitcher who has years of good work ahead of him? Or is there something in us that loves the gamble of watching the ever-absent Carl Pavano on his rare stints on the mound, hoping to win a 100 - 1 bet that he will have a good night?

And even Jake Peavy has been a good bet for a while. What stops us from seeing what the rest of the world sees and waiting until someone is almost legend somewhere else? Are we also addicted to taking away other club's pride and joy?

Finally, why would a team which has been losing with the same General Manager for years give him a contract to 2011? Renewing Brian Cashman's contract feels to me like buying Jordache jeans in 2008. Sure, some people find wearing designer jeans cunningly retro, and they look good in a certain way, but the world has moved on, mostly.

Wailing children and the mist of 10pm

It's like a trumpet which can't quite get the sound out. The sound of the father's plea. He must be saying, "Now what?" "What" is definitely the second word. Like the slow grind of a drill through bone, his child's cries have been persistently scratching at the air.

Were I to keep my head just on the windowsill, it would feel like being on a boat. Gentle, cool mist and the waves of occasional cars against the road. Like low tide shifting in on sand, they flood in and pull back in slow, easy breaths.

The cry chews through every bit of wall, however, and even the outermost edges are not unscathed. It is like this every night. Between the cotton-muffed hum of the television which, ironically, is at a tasteful volume, are the jabs of tears and howl that shake the skeleton awake from within your muscles.

She is mute, but for the screams. Or is it he? Who can tell? It is wordless, just a long, attempt to lull the weakness and rancid pain inside. It bubbles up against the ribs and billows into a cloud of one-voweled ache. Terror spills, and I can feel her jaw, her mouth, her lips, her teeth, falling, shaking, wishing they could bang against the ground.

He has stopped speaking to her, but now lets her wail into the room beneath me, filling the carpet with the heat of her breath. She becomes a pulse.

My ears pull inward toward the edges of the pond that is my room. I hear the slow drip of water from a faucet and the television adjacent to me, playing the news. My soul is riding the wave, away from her pain because it cannot know it.

Stop Obama from nominating Joel Klein for Sec. of Education

Apparently, the rumor about Chancellor Klein being a serious contender of Sec. of Education comes from The Huffington Post. The Nation is putting together a list of reasons, garnered from readers, why Klein shouldn't be chosen. Write to Habiba@thenation.com and info@nycore.org immediately.

Looking through a web of fingers

One of my assignments at my job is to scan student identification cards when they come into our school. This is not as easy a job as you might think -- you have to be mindful of students who are suspended, you have to confirm the identification of students without identification and then manually enter them into the computer system. While you're doing this, you also have to make sure students are behaving, removing hats and any gang related flags or beads from their persons. All this has to happen while hundreds of students are coming into the building and trying to go to class. Plus, you want to be polite about it all as tempers flare easily. Our students go through metal detectors and have to virtually strip to do so (there's metal in everything these days, especially sneakers and shoes). Kids pile up in clumps while someone is checked and checked again for mysterious sources of concern which often turn out to be forgotten bobby pins.

We have a good team of people doing this work. Everyone has a serious, but kind demeanor so there isn't usually any difficulty. Except for the occasional student who refuses to remove a highly expensive hat or one who irrationally responds to a request to be re-scanned (and it is irrational -- it's never someone who really is hiding something) the mornings go quietly and smoothly.

My students, unlike me, have gotten used to coming through webs and webs of fingers. The fingers who hand them late passes, temporary ID's, hand them back their belongings after scanning, point them to the auditorium when it is too late to be admitted to class, point out which stairwells they should be using (our school building houses four schools, all of whom are supposed to use separate stairwells to decrease traffic). They shake and pound fists with friendly hands of guards, other deans, counselors and their friends. It surprises me when students will later in the day say, "Don't touch me!" to me or other deans and teachers as they are so welcoming to the veritable groping of the morning. Maybe they've had enough after that. More often, though, those are students who want to unnerve you and to deny your power to affect their future with our without a tap on the shoulder.

For me, however, the cathedral of hands that defines the morning ritual is far too much. The hands that grip me on the shoulder, stop me from typing in a name of someone before I look to see if they have a new ID, point out reinventions of the procedures I had just become accustomed to, demonstrate the proper way to remove paper from the printer, point out keys on the keyboard to names I cannot hear because of the noise and even those who rub my back after having slapped my hands to stop them from typing -- this collection of what feel like diabolical digits is sometimes enough to trigger agony in me. It's not that I don't want to be stopped from making mistakes or that I don't like to be touched. I ache to be touched most of the time as there are few people in the world whom I trust enough to hug me. However, therein lies the paradox; I don't trust most people enough to stand within less than a foot of them so being consumed by the over-reachings of all manner of staff frightens me. I am used to the distance and temperament which people give moderators of debates -- my classroom and even my manner are rooted in the Socratic method. So, I sat with my head in a basket of my own fingers on Friday in the pauses between rushes of students. There was the comfort of my own hands and the chance to warm my face with my own breath. And to hide the onslaught of tears which overwhelmed me later in the day. On top of the changes in routine, I was asked to be stricter with students who don't have identification cards. When I was so and I asked for assistance from a colleague, I got a flat out "ask somebody else." No matter what the reason, and I am sure it was quite legitimate, that broke me. I felt mauled and alone.

Everything that my colleagues are doing is correct and right and good and they mean absolutely no harm to me. If anything, they are coddling me. Even when they refuse me it is because they are too busy and they know that someone else WILL do what I ask.

How do I explain that it is frightening, all this hand-work, gentle slapping of the wrist to push my hands to stop moving on the keyboard, pointing here and there to faster ways to enter information which contradict what I was told yesterday? It is all meant to be helpful, but it is the opposite to me. It makes me trust myself and them even less.


Fundamentally, I understand that there isn't time to do more than grunt, point, and nod. When hundreds of kids are at the door, sentence structure goes out the window.

It just makes me feel raw and vulnerable to be so much a creature pawing through the winds when I have spent a lifetime in the igloo of the classroom. The spoken word has been what has given me the illusion of safety my whole life. Spending my mornings without those shields only reminds me further of how insecure my job and my life really are.

President-Elect Barack Obama Victory Speech (Full Video)

Glynis Johns Send in the Clowns