I just found the book, Blue Rage, Black Redemption at my local library. I am bringing it to school. It’s the story of Tookie Williams, the guy who founded the Crips. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize before being put to death. I’m not sure about the whole thing. The guy unleashed some hell on this entire country that my students still pay for. Glancing through his book, I see that he makes some good points, but of course I wonder how sincere it all is when one of the people endorsing the book is Snoop Dogg. Pleeeeze. Of course Bishop Desmond Tutu and Jessie Jackson also endorse it, but I’ll have to read it and see for myself. I’m sure the kids will be facinated, though.

Things are jacked up at work right now. The Nazi-teachers want everything to be very controlled and punishing and my principal finally listened to them and told me to “tighten things up” because “the kids don’t like the other teachers” due to us “not being on the same page”. I told her that I didn’t want to work in a prison and spent the rest of the day home crying. Literally. Like 5 hours of crying. Nice adaptive behavior there, huh? I’ve been doing this crying crap for a month now, and it’s getting old. I don’t know what’s going on. I know I don’t like living here (but feel trapped), but I’m not that big of a crier. Weird.

After I talked to her for a while on the phone this afternoon, she came around some. I don’t think she knows how to handle such a diverse staff. It’s got to be really hard.

I just wish I could teach for a change. One of the teachers upstairs is teaching Sociology and I am so jealous. That’s what my degree is in. I just don’t know anymore….

Today in class we talked about the presidential race. The kids were just beyond apathetic, as in, “Why do we have to learn about this stuff”, except for a couple who are pretty pro Obama. However, as we started talking about the different candidates and their platforms, they became more interested. Then the inevitable question came up.

“Miss, what is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat?”

I resisted the urge to say, “Hell if I know”, and blathered something about evolution, abortion and the environment. It’s getting really difficult to explain this stuff.

It is weird, how one day you can feel like you’re the best teacher in the whole world, and then another day, feel like one of the worst. I suppose some of my kiddos didn’t have a good three-day weekend, because they weren’t in a very good mood today, and I wasn’t either, having gotten up at 7:15, 15 minutes before I was supposed to be at work.

Everything went along pretty smoothly, though, except for one thing. This one kid, who is really artistic and who has alienated every single staff member besides myself, showed me his bad side. He was upset about the assignment (for no reason that I could discern) and decided to color his map in abstract art style. When I addressed this, and other behaviors with him, he looked at me with the most sincere look on his face and said, “You don’t like my river?”

I wanted to slap him.

He ended up going home early, which made me happy. This kid holds down a job, and apparently does well. I just can’t stand passive-aggressive crap from students! Whenever I point out the discrepancy between their behavior at school and at work, they point out that they are not getting paid to come to school.

You can see how much education is valued.

My students, completely unprompted by me, have been writing poetry. They churn it out like crazy, and then unabashedly offer it up to the rest of the class to judge. I’m tellin’ ya, this is one of the best group dynamics I’ve ever had in a class. Everyone seems to feel “safe”. They are asking me to produce a poetry chap book for them. I’ll definitely give it a shot! I just hope it can get done before a bunch of new students pour in and possibly change the dynamic. You never know which way it is going to go.

Tomorrow is a teacher work day. I really, really want to take the 200 or so papers that I have to grade and burn them. No one would ever know. I wonder how many teachers do this? I don’t feel like I “teach” at my program. It is all a bunch of busywork. It is wasting everyone’s time.

I’ll grade it, but only because the students did it and I respect their time. It still feels pointless.

Today, one of my students had her last day in my program. I really hated to see her go. That is one of the bad things (for me) about my program–I don’t get to have students all year most of the time, and so just when I’m getting attached, they leave! Sometimes it’s difficult for them to leave as well. As a small group, sometimes they form some pretty tight bonds. When I told her that I hated to see her leave, but that I was also glad she was going on to better things, one of the boys said, “Yeah Miss, you want us to have to stay here and suffer in County like you do!”

Interesting that the kids see me as a teacher who is being punished by her placement. This is not the first time it has come up.