I don't go out much

Today, both my mother and my uncle suggested arts events I ought to see. This was especially amusing, as I had just finished telling my uncle how angry I was that my mother wouldn't just accept the fact that I don't make plans in advance and I don't go out much, weekday or weekend.

Given the choice of getting rest, planning ahead for school, relaxing or hauling myself across boroughs or neighborhoods for a momentary escape, the latter rarely wins. I read a lot. When not at work, I stay home. My days are long. It's nice to get in extra time at home, when I can.

A Thanksgiving Story

Early this afternoon, I left my apartment to pick up some bread and litter, the two staples of my household. Just a few feet away from me, there stood a religious Jewish woman in her fifties, stylish blonde wig and dazzlingly multi-colored dress garneshing her heavyset frame. The door was open to her black sedan and diagnonally across from it was her husband, white shirt and foamy beard tinged by his nervous hand. "What did you want me to do?," he said. I looked around for a minute, and about ten feet away was a Chinese man in his thirties, his bangs fashionably gelled upward which now, coincidentally, matched his confused stare at the clamshell-like dent in his silver sedan. There wasn't really anger or humor. Just puzzlement, to quote The King and I. "Did you take the information?" said the husband. "No. When the police come, they'll take it." They stood about five feet away from each other, and you could see his heels beginning to lift in reverse. "I knew I shouldn't have called you," she said offhandedly. He walked backwards, stopped, then turned around and walked off. She and the Chinese man just held on to their car doors, staring outward, as if they knew something had happened, but had forgotten what.

.............
As anyone unfortunate enough to know me closely knows, this is my least favorite time of the year. All sorts of horrible things have happened to me on this holiday, though one year, Queequeg, my godson-cat, was re-born in the ER of the Animal Medical Center. That was supposed to have re-christened the holiday for me, but I can never shed the fears that come with this section of the calendar. I have much to be thankful for, not the least of whom I just scolded for trying to eat an old piece of hard food off of the floor. Being the faithful son that Larry is, he did not. Bernie hovers on the corner of the bed and I know Larry is hinting that he would like to be brought up here, so I will. It should be a quiet day for us, and hopefully one of inner peace, at least for them -- and all of you who might be reading this.

For Nov 23, 2009

I miss you.

Karen Beth Hunter, Nov 23, 1951 - Sept 2, 2005

Very bad.

I've got a lot of good people behind me, so maybe I shouldn't say bad. How about, "very different."

Not really much to say.

My students said that Cleopatra's biography was "hot." Since this week's essay is about her, I hope that means they'll enjoy it.

Bronchitis

It turns out I've got a bad case of Bronchitis which is probably what has been plaguing me for weeks. Even with albuterol, my lungs wouldn't open up much. Plus my fever was 102 yesterday. So, I have to rest, ingest massive amounts of antibiotics, drink fluids and get better. Makes sense I'd be spewing pleghm, be dizzy and run down if I'm not getting a heck of a lot of oxygen.

Take the AX out of the ATR's Back: A personal story

A year ago, I was an ATR eager to find permanent placement. At the same time, I was in a relatively unstressful position which would have allowed me the room to consider any offers made to me. The volume and intensity of the Bloomberg press campaign was the first to shatter my sense of space for reflection. I walked in to my weekly therapy appointment and the first words out of my normally Pollyanish psychologist were, "You're right. You are going to lose your job. I thought you were just catastrophising." She had just read a series of articles in The Times and they had bowled her over. My anxieties came less from the mainstream press which I knew to be largely biased in the Mayor's favor, but from the words of the bloggers I have come to trust on many things and who had been very helpful to me in my first encounters with the 3020a machine. Still, some of the points they predict about ATR's have yet to come to fruition and worse, the cloud they have placed over the heads over ATR's have caused some of us, like me, to make career decisions out of desperation.

There have always been those on the blogosphere who take some of the choices in the UFT's negotiation process to their darkest logical conclusions. The pictures representing ATR's being loaded off on trucks and the tales of "secret deals" made re the ATR positions proliferate on websites of organizations and people who are often right on larger political points. But, they have been wrong about the UFT's dedication to ATR's from the beginning. If they had thought about it, aside from the fact that our UFT stands for job security, if for nothing else, there is the "Thorn in the side" which the ATR plays in the bargaining process. Since the ATR's cannot be easily done away with and they represent an embarassing managerial and financial situation at the DOE (what CEO of his company can't get his directors to hire a constituency to which the company has legal obligations) finding suitable and efficient placements for the ATR should be something of priority to the DOE. The DOE doesn't look any better than the UFT if it can't GET principals to hire teachers and they therefore languish in the lounge.
During my time as an ATR, I did have few days of such dullness, but most of the time there were multiple things to do, particularly during the term in which I served as a Dean.

But, in refusing to see that
1)the UFT has not yet abandoned ATR's or made statements to that effect and;
2) while few ATR's are in comfortable situations, they are, at least, still eligible to be hired and, for now, to be chosen by a school which might be a good fit;
those who spread the rumors of the doom of the ATR place the brunt of the ax they have to grind (legitimately or not) with the UFT squarely on the backs of the ATR's. Many of us, myself included, jumped at job offers which, given a lesser feeling of desperation, we might have much more rationally turned down. I'm teaching 6th grade two hours from my house at a brand new school. Fortunately, I have a supportive administration and I'm eager to learn. However, I am currently as effective as a first year teacher with no training with this age group. At 41, I have to completely reinvent my methodology and personality and while it is an interesting challenge, it is not easy. I've been playing tug-o-war with the flu and sinusytis and their winning. That plus the stress which comes from feeling like a novice at a game you used to dominate can make it hard not to grab a Hairshirt and take penance.

Like in much of my career, I've been lucky. I worked with some visionary and patient educators like Malaika Holman-Bermiss at Brooklyn Comprehensive. At my current school, my administration shares her respect for the process of learning necessary to developing good teachers. Moreover, I've been helped by the UFT in so many ways and by so many people. I will have a mentor at this position due to the intervention of Amy Arundell, who has been as understanding as a human can be. A few years back, Charlie Turner represented me with such clarity of strategy that he created the foundation for my getting out of a difficult situation. And I will never be able to thank Arthur Solomon enough, for serving as my surrogate father during my year of hell in the land of the reassigned. And Randi Weingarten read so many of my emails, regardless of my point of view, that the dialogue was a continued source of much needed comfort and intellectual challenge. Plus, she directed people like Amy to me who have made an enormous difference to me.

I cannot forget either the enormous support which the blogger community gave to Brooklyn Comprehensive, especially Norm Scott and the entire ICE community.

All I am saying, however, is that the aggression with which the image of the ATR on a tightrope has been pushed forward has had terrible consequences for UFT members. I am not alone in my awkwardly fitting position, two hours from my house, and at this moment fighting off infections which are also the results of being so run down by the intense challenge of the situation. I've taught mostly older adolescents a range of subjects from college prep to AP English and a lot of skills courses along the way. The transition to ten year olds who need very many of the same skills courses but in different packages is fathomable, but just. Barring my dying of a never-ending battle with infections and flus, I should be able to see my way clear to this in a few months. I have a supportive administration and faculty. But, had I not felt an ax in my back, I might've waited until I found a similarly exciting school in Bushwick or East New York.

In bits and pieces am getting some hang of it

But I am not to say "C'mon guys" nor "Please." Have switched to "Kindly" and "Ladies and Gentlemen."

Survived my first formal observation

But there's a lot of work to be done. All things considered, I'm pretty lucky. Working on the voice. Trying to lilt upwards...

The principal comes in my room and whispers in my ear

He can't stand the sound of my voice. It's too loud.

I got sick

and I went back too early and hit the rebound and then the "age" issue came up along with my health. I got sick when I was in my 20's, too.

The pursuit of anxiety

Anxiety pursues me wherever I go.

That's the sum of a life in teaching.

Standing in the rain

As my weekdays are no longer my own, I don't know how much energy I'll have on Sept 2, the fourth anniversary of the death of my friend Karen Hunter. So, I'm putting up this picture in advance and I'm going to spend a lot of today, I'm sure, doing what I've been doing since that day: standing in the rain, alone, which also feels unnatural. Standing alone doesn't make any sense, period.

Karen took this picture in a park across from her office in Brooklyn Heights.

Lost in space

There is something very jarring about being on a staff in which, at 41, you are the most senior teacher.

I could say that what's different is what we do on weekends -- I try to replace joint fluid with vitamin supplements and my younger colleagues go out and engage in activities. That's not it, however. Many colleagues older than myself are far more spry. There is some truth to what might be a stereotypical complaint: I feel as though I'm a third-tour sergeant among first-tour infantry. Battles have made me less self-assured, though better prepared. I'll know when to jump and when not to, but I also know that there are always challenges which you cannot predict. But, that's not the complete source of my unease. A lot of it has to do with knowing what preconceived ideas younger teachers sometimes have about older ones. Not a small part of it has to do with the fact that I know there are senior teachers out there who don't have positions with whom I could be working if the irrational budgets that Bloom/Klein has created did not make that impossible.

Yet none of these feels completely right. Perhaps the biggest part of it, is that I've never experienced this before. I've never been without people senior to me and without contemporaries. It's unnatural.

The dangers of meaningless success

It's hard to tell a parent NOT to be encouraging to a child. They want to convince their kids they can be superheroes so that, I think, when the time comes for them to make their choices in life, they will not feel that they did not have the opportunity to follow their dreams. I'm not here to make the conventional lecture about this attitude, that, yes, little Zeno may have the opportunity to play basketball, but if he has poor balance, the NBA may not be in his future. Many little Zenos have worked so hard as to build serviceable careers either as athletes, broadcasters, writers or coaches at all levels of the sport. What I'm concerned about, besides the fact that there are so few opportunities even for the hardworking in an economy which out-speeds itself in speculation as opposed to observation, is that behind the parents' insistence that Zeno can do it, is an acceptance that, if he can't, it's okay, he can live at home.

Now, I have nothing against parents or their adult children who live with them. My question is, though: Did they really give Zeno the green light to go after his dream or to fail at it? And I believe our public schools are complicit in this regard.

In NYC, parents of public school children are given plenty of reasons to feel content with their children's development. Every year, their children are "tested" to see if they can advance to the next grade. The fact that the NY State exams have been proven invalid as markers for appropriate academic achievement by the results of the NEAP exams is not at the forefront of our media. For 18 million dollars, Mike Bloomberg has launched a campaign that makes "I Like Ike" look like it was the slogan for a student-body president. He isn't lying in the sense that these children did pass an exam. That the exam was beneath the students to whom it was given doesn't matter. After all, he could argue, do you ask the average third grade ballet student to be held to the rigor of the American Ballet Theater school? But, if we don't, then how will this young person really know if he/she is on the path to his/her dream? How will young Marie know her math skills are where they need to be if she is to develop into a scientist? How will her parents know?

You're probably thinking Marie and Zeno's parents are happy enough that they enjoy something in life and have some proficiency in it. They know, right, that the odds are good their kids are going to work a job they hate because they're going to have to "do what they gotta do" to survive?

While it may be true that most people don't go on to make a living at what they want to do, that's no reason to destroy their true opportunities from the onset. Worse, it's leaving most of our students with a proficiency which wouldn't even let them follow the field in popular literature or as amateur enthusiasts. Zeno will get all he needs to know about basketball from watching TV, you think? What if he can't understand the best commentators on the sport. I heard a cashier at a local supermarket talk about how she can't stand listening to legendary broadcaster Tim McCarver because "he knows nothing." When I pressed her for an example, she said that he "just goes on and on and nobody understands him." That's like saying that Keith Olbermann has no sense of irony. So, if Zeno's language skills are low, he may miss a lot of information and perspective which would help him to understand the game, how it's reported and how it advances.

When I was a kid, I was given the sense that the world was open to me. When I went on to high school, I was given even more of a sense that I might be a leader within it. In college, I floundered --not academically-- but somewhat artistically. My critical skills were always strong, but I didn't know nearly as much about how plays are actually put on as I thought. And I didn't integrate well into a performing ensemble because I was extremely defensive. Nevertheless, I got excellent grades in my major of Theater and no one ever sat me down to talk about the pragmatics of my entering the field. I went to an esteemed school and my degree was not an artistic one, but one in liberal arts. In other words, for a non-artist, I had done well. But, no one explained this to me, then. I learned this when I went on to get an MFA--a degree designed to test my abilities as a theatrical artist. I learned about what BA programs were and weren't designed to do, and I faced the fact that I could teach, write about or work in a quasi-academic role assisting a director, but that my temperament in itself was going to make it hard for me to direct or act, whether or not I had real talent. Had I been assessed this way in college, I'd probably have changed the strategies I used to plan my studies and my future. I'd've known that I needed to head to a Ph.D. program and I'd've thought of myself as a historian/scholar. Thankfully, my schooling did give me advantages I could have and could still use to pursue that aspect of the field.

My mother and I had a few exchanges in which I assured her I could become a teacher if theater didn't work out. When she asked me, about two years ago, why I felt unsatisfied with my achievements, I pointed out among other things, that I had never "made it" -- never written a play which went to Broadway, etc. She responded in complete shock, "Is that what you wanted? Very few people can do that." It's not the sweet assurance that I wasn't alone in my lack of achievement, but the disbelief that so disheartened me. I had been writing, acting and going to see plays and operas my whole life. Yet, I wasn't expected to have wanted to attain conventional success in the field I spent most of my time working in, at all. What did she think I was doing in those summer acting classes? What was I dreaming about? Was I expected to languish in precocity my entire life? My uncle, I learned about a year earlier, hadn't really given any thought to what I would become -- this despite his being the cheering section at several debates I lead in elementary school and the catalyst for my attending Stuyvesant High School. He said to me, "I had no idea...You were a girl...I thought you would get married." I went to college in the 80's and my uncle is a dentist, my mother a semester away from college graduaton and my father (though absent from my life) was a CPA. My mother insisted in a way I came to see more as pragmatic and faithless, that I could always live at home and she could support me. I'd gone to top schools which had made me a shrewd student, but for all my decent grades, no one really thought they had proof I was going to "be anything." What I had thought was a track record of success was meaningless to those around me. Fortunately, I had been competitive academically my whole life so I had developed useful skills and ideas and even strategies for survival. I had assumed, too, that I probably wouldn't live as an artist and took a teaching job fairly soon after graduation. Until this June, I still worked in the theater as a dramaturg, but it's harder to bifurcate my energies between two worlds and I need to harness them for the job that pays the bills. Acting and directing did help me as a teacher, and I haven't stopped looking at things as an artist. I encourage my students to do the same, but I hold them to real standards. I've found there are a lot of good, young artists out there and not enough good training or work. At least, however, an artist should know if he/she is really as effective as he/she can be. So they know that they had the chance to make use of what luck, hard work and time did offer.

In giving public school students weak assessments, we are denying them their dreams and their parents know this. Parents, I think, have become complicit in extending their children's agonies/adolescence because they don't want to seem like they are limiting their exploration. Inherently, however, their dooming them to floundering, rather than finding their niche. The testing movement is a defensive reaction, not a proactive step toward giving students real skills and choices. It's like saying, "Well, for non-students, they're pretty good." The only ones not in on the game are the kids. And they're not reading the commentary in the local tabloids because it's not there -- our major newspapers don't use higher than 8th grade vocabulary, so it might be possible that some of them would understand it. My students who do see postings about the ease of the NY State exams get infuriated. We ought to ask them what they think should be done. They wouldn't mince words.

Mornings

The child screamed as if her hair were being torn off by a motorcycle.

I looked down to find a very upright girl of about two yelling and insisting on something I couldn't understand to her mother, who was trying to get her to come into the back seat of a car. Her father just looked over the open car door from the driver's seat. A moments later, all the noise stopped and the child got in.

Events like these fill my mornings, as the noise from the street raids my apartment at will. They are ordinary events, but they carry with them the kind of off-handed violence that I try to avoid whenever possible. I was a very quiet child for a reason -- hysteria unnerved me. My mother could go from calling upon the gods to help her find her cigarette case to benignly asking me to have a slice of cake in 15 seconds or less. Every bite of cake was useful as a means of numbing my ears and skin from the lasceration which came before.

I'm sure that little girl is eating an ice cream cone right now.

Michael Jackson - They Don't Care About Us

Should be the anthem of the next political campaign by a real leftist.

Small schools

I prefer small schools. With the exception of ONE YEAR in my career, I have only taught in them. That one year, I was placed in a large school as an ATR. It wasn't a choice.

What's great about small schools is how well you get to know your students and they, you. You really get in sync and teaching them becomes much, much easier as you know how their minds work. Plus, the atmosphere is much less aggressive and more like a family. It's also easier to get things done -- you know what you need to do and there are fewer hoops to jump through.

The one horrible thing about the small schools in which I have worked thus far is, for all the knowledge that you have of the kids you are neither:
1) Given liberty to design a curriculum completely for them as you are bound by state standards which don't always make sense and tests which are capricious in their focus and lackluster in their challenge. It's like being an Olympic coach and having to prepare your athletes for a strange set of unhelpful and bizarre exercises which might cause him/her injuries.
2) Funded sufficiently to take care of the problems of which you are well-aware. You'd think if you were given the opportunity to work this closely with students, you'd be given the means to help them. Brooklyn Comprehensive had a part-time social worker on staff. Do you know how many of our kids needed help with everything to getting housing to being counseled through the anxiety of returning to school at the ripe ages of 18-21?

The "new small schools," I've seen have no more money than we did, and some of them seem to have less. I didn't see any social workers at all at the ones in Tilden and they SHARE a psychologist. Why? Why not give people the ability to make the idea really work? One transfer high school has a van with which it picks up students. This is made possible by funding the city gives to community based organization who then pays for the van. This is because this organization demands large fees to work with students -- so it can do the job right. Not everyone can afford to get to work with this organization. And they're getting overwhelmed.

But, I ask you: why not just give THE SCHOOL the money for the van? What's with the middleman? Cronyism, I think, but I could be wrong.

What I know is that IT IS WRONG for one school to have so much more resources than others and for them all to be judged in the same way. I think it's also against the equal protection clause of Amendment 14. Is this not, "separate, but equal"? Why does no one raise this? Well, maybe they think this Supreme Court wouldn't rule in favor. That's still no reason not to bring the case. Can you imagine if all of the schools had the ability to help the students they know, and in some cases, know so well?

What would it take

1) For people to realize that taking a big school, dividing it up into four smaller schools, each with it's own administration, will not ultimately save any money. Theoretically, you want all of those teachers to stay with the school they founded. So, eventually, they will cost more than they do.

2)For people to realize that there have been small schools before and many of them have been closed. Small is good, but not enough.

3) For people to actually think about what their kids are learning. Do any of these parents LOOK at the tests their kids take?

If President Obama is serious about keeping unemployment down

Then stop firing experienced teachers all over the country, so that you can hire newer, cheaper ones!