Taking a stance

This week was by far the hardest, most difficult week I have ever had in my whole teaching career and yet, it wasn't my students. It's a hard thing to teach in this country. You have to do something that other teachers in other countries don't have to do (or don't have to spend as much time doing). That is making the students care about their futures and motivating them. You have to learn that it's just not about you in the classroom but you have to consider the young ones and allow them time to speak. Either way, it is this very same thing I fought for this week and I was surprised by the reaction of the people above me.
Since the beginning of this year, I was asked to teach the students how to pass the FCAT Science test (an integrated science test) rather than teach Chemistry to my 11th grade students. At every given moment, I dodged the superiors until I got caught and had no choice but to meet with them to explain myself.
See, our school gets money based on these test scores and the money entices many. The fame and glory of becoming a letter grade higher is more appealing than sending these students off to college with some degree of preparedness. I was being asked to stop teaching chemistry and give the students a grade for Integrated Science (therefore, inflating their grade) and I found it completely unethical. My students, even though they aren't the best in Chemistry preferred to learn and struggle through the harder subject rather than relearn Integrated Science. Seeing that they needed to pass the test though, I emailed them the materials to study from at home. But it wasn't enough for the powers that be.
So I had a meeting. I brought in my union rep, refused outright, cried, and ended up asking if they didn't care about these kids' futures. No one dared to reply after. I did find out that there was a law that was set up to prevent all of what was being asked of me so I did send it to my administrator with a note letting her know that she was asking me to break the law.
Maybe this will not go anywhere but at the same time, I had had enough. Sometimes, you have to say enough is enough and I surely had enough. If having a paycheck requires you to compromise your values, then that paycheck is not worth it. My parents never did this and they never raised us to put money over people....especially these kids. They may not all become chemists but if given the foundation, who is to say what they will do in college? This is my responsibility. Even if we never finish the syllabus, at least they would have learned a few chapters very well so that they aren't completely lost when they sit in an auditorium and listen to the drone of their college professors.
As the week progressed, the superiors avoided me and it wasn't as if I went out of my way looking for them. There was a barrage of stupid requests that I realized was their way of getting cheap thrills and I played along. I have yet to see what will come of this but until then, I will wait.

Sadness

I think I have realized the one greatest sadness in this human life....seeing another human cry...especially a child. Something tears at my heart when I see this. We all deal with loss but it always hurts the same way every time. Today was the funeral for Abdon and Jesus' mom. It was done completely in Spanish but grief has no language. These children (Abdon, Jesus, and their sister Yarilis) stood crying over their mother's coffin as it was lowered in the grave. She was only 40. I couldn't think of anything to say to Abdon. The pain never goes away...it only becomes a dull throb but it is there. I've realized that part of being human is recognizing that these feelings are real and we all go through them at some point.
I know that their mom was sick but she did hold out as long as she could. She waited until the sister had celebrated her quinceanera. The thing about cancer is the suffering. The patient really suffers but you want them to stay so badly. you hope that they are the one miracle and sometimes we get disappointed. Today, Jesus, the "strong" one could no longer be strong. I felt so badly for these kids!
I can only pray one prayer and it is that these kids will always carry their mother's love with them, and that they remember her and what she taught them. She grew them up to be amazing and affectionate and they will always have that. Her suffering is done and their journey has begun.

Reality

Every now and again, we tend to forget to look outside that little bubble in which we live and see the larger picture. Teaching has a way of bursting that bubble quickly. It is a highly interactive job and I have come to love it. Not for the fact that i impart knowledge but because i get to meet all these different personalities. We went back to work on Monday but it was only today that I saw the kids. Really, I don't go to the breakfasts because there is nothing beyond the coffee that i can eat however, today I went. The kids were serving breakfast so I was pretty sure that I would see some of my students from last year. And saw I did! I got hugged and squeezed as well!
Later on, I had to leave my room because it was being used as a "display" room for the new student orientation. I was entering the building and walking in the planning area when I saw two little indian boys...an older brother, about 7, holding his younger brother who's 3, on his lap. Of course I had to stop and talk to them. I'm a lot better when it comes to talking to the little ones now. Either way, it's a lot of fun. The older brother told me that he was there with his mom because his eldest brother will be entering school this year and i found out this evening that the eldest brother will be in my 9th grade class.
Here's where reality steps in....I was waiting in Janice's room because my room was still occupied....when one of my students from last year walked in. I got another hug/squeeze. Janice had her for biology and i had her for chem. Either way, after I asked her how she was, she blurted out to me that she was getting evicted from her home. Turns out that they were one of the millions of families who fell behind on their mortgages because they bought homes when the prices were inflated. Even though her dad went to the company and told them he couldn't make the monthly payment, the bankers gave him the usual run around and they were ignored. By this time, Janice realized that I was having a deeper conversation with the kid and she joined in as well. Somewhere in the whole thing, I thought of where this family would have to live now or if they will even have a place to stay. Things are worse than it looks.
Then, I went to put up a poster in the cafeteria for the new Ecology club that I decided to chair this year. I saw more of my students and even met a parent of one little darling i had last year. The parent hugged me too:D This is a great job! Either way, I met a student whose mother has cervical cancer. All of last year, we spoke about it because we were both in the same boat. Actually, I never had this student...I had his brother, Jesus, in 2009. It turned out that Jesus was transferred to my class because he was an 11th grader and I mostly teach this group. When he came over, he was failing and I knew his attendance as horrible. The teacher before told me that he was just an unmotivated kid but i noticed that when Jesus showed up to class, he was pretty smart. At the same time, Janice found out from the younger brother that their mother had cancer and on her really bad days, either him or Jesus would stay home with her to help her walk or move her around the house. The kid's name is Abdon. He was Janice's but somehow, he took a liking to me as well and every time his mom ended up in the hospital, he would come to us to sort of cheer him up. Him and Jesus dealt with it differently. he is more sensitive. Jesus hides it. Either way, when the mom was first diagnosed, she had no health insurance. She had to wait a long time and deal with the run around again for some kind-hearted person to give her some sort of insurance. All the while, the cancer spread. We heard of the hysterectomy, the hair loss, the pain, the nausea, the numerous trips to the hospital, and finally today, I was hoping when i asked that she was still alive for this child's sake. After he hugged me for a while, almost as if he was letting all the sentiments out, he told me that his mother's stomach was now swollen and she couldn't walk anymore. All the while, this student will graduate in the top 10% of his class.
Finally, we returned to Janice's classroom and there were three kids waiting in there. One of them had already graduated and the other two would graduate in this school year. We were asking the one who graduated about his school goals, etc. and we found out that he was not going to school, only working. I couldn't remember where I had seen this kid until he said his name and I realized that i had seen his picture on my class roster. He was enrolled but always got switched out of my class. Either way, Janice was asking him why he wasn't going to school if he also graduated in the first 10% of his class. I was telling him that by getting the letter from the governor, he was ensured access to any public university in Florida. He didn't know that.  He was telling us that he needs to work to help his parents and I was telling him that you can work and go to school too...even if it's only one class. Then something clicked. His name. He was an immigrant. I blurted it out, " can you even get registered in school?" I hadn't noticed until then that he had put on his sunglasses and I could no longer see his eyes. He was making up things to hide the fact that he had no papers. He told me a truthful and very heartbreaking, "no." This is the third kid from that one graduating class who came out in the top 50 (10%) students and couldn't get to go on to college even though he wanted to. Even worse is the fact that the valedictorian of next year's class is in the same position.
They tell us not to not get so close to these students but you end up really liking them. You hear their stories and it breaks your heart. Every day, you hear politicians squabbling about health care, the housing problem, and immigration and here you have these children telling you so openly about their problems. Right about now I feel like walking into congress and telling all of these a-holes to go f*ck themselves since the only ones they really care about is themselves anyway!

work and play

Today, we had to go back into school to work on a new class that will open up in the fall semester. I was so happy when I got there and I saw that the tv was on and the game between the US and Algeria was showing. I think that the US needed this win and I agree with MSNBC on this. Lately, I haven't really enjoyed watching the news and seeing everyone blame the President for everything that went wrong. It's almost as if they didn't realize that other people ruled before him and put us in the current situation. And as for the oil spill, I would like to think that it doesn't exist but it is real and scary. I cannot begin to imagine how we would recover fully from this if the environment is still recovering from the Exxon-Valdez! But today, I was thankful for Landon Donovan and the goal he scored for this country.
Now, while on break, another teacher came and he began to talk to the guy I was working with. He was asking him why he doesn't teach Arabic and they were talking about the possibility of opening up a course in the school. They began talking about the script and the direction you write in and he looked at me and asked about the language I spoke and if sanskrit was written from right to left as well. Sometimes I wonder at how blissfully little people know! I know this guy knows that I am from Trinidad but I guess I look a certain way and i've often heard, "well you don't look trini!" So I played along. I told him that the language is hindi and it is a derivative of sanskrit which is the mother of all languages. He looked at me and said, "I don't think so."
me: "Why?"
guy: "because that's not what we learn in school."
me: "That's because you are being taught what people want you to know. as teachers we see this. we are never taught eastern civilization because to the westerners we were a backward and uncivilized country that needed to be taught how to be 'civilized'. and even after they found out about mohenjo daro and harappa it was never taught in school to be the oldest civilization because that will take it away from the judeo-christian sites and we can't have that now! " Now, these things piss me off. It's a stereotype but I saw that the guy was holding on to something he had been taught and he believed it was true. So I told him about the number system and how the "hindus" got left out of that too and about pythagoras and the bogusness we are taught to believe is true. I even told him that we were probably the most labeled set of people in the world. somewhere in that, i told this guy that i never sat in any of these classes because I didn't think i needed someone who studied books come and tell me about where I was from and what I was. That will just be another label. He did admit that another one of his hindu friends had the same issue with taking Western civilization classes.
Earlier this month, I took a class where I learned about the history of France and about France's power and how the French taught the world about the art of fine dining and somewhere along the course of the class, I asked myself if I was being brainwashed to believe something. Would this make me want to become French because they were the measure of what a civilized people are? Ok, how about no. See, there is a problem here....one should not be convinced but one should be presented with ideas and as a human, one is able to discriminate and form an opinion. Maybe this is why I like teaching science. It doesn't get involved in all the drama of a dog chasing its tail.
Takes me back to the week I taught Evolution...I teach biology, chemistry...and everything else in between.... At the beginning of the week, i had students look at me as if I was the devil. I had a boy hold on to his bible and he even asked to leave the class. Of course I let him go. But I did tell them that I was not giving my opinion, nor was I going to tell anyone that they came from monkeys because that is where the problem started but simply presenting them with scientific evidence. I realized that week that I had to erase years of brainwashing and that was a challenge. Quite possibly, I think i spent less time explaining chemistry to them that I did with evolution. at the end of the week, i had a conservative christian girl tell another one that she couldn't read the Bible anymore because it was "all lies" according to her. I stopped her there. Religion is important, regardless of what it is, one needs faith and one needs belief because it gives hope. I told her that even though the Bible is a compilation of books written by different people and later, subject to revisions, there were still many good things to learn and now that she knew the science, she should not relinquish her religion but stand firmly in it. I think more than anything else, evolution taught me to believe in God than to not believe at all and Chemistry sealed it. Just a minor digression....

So now it's Sunday morning, 3:18 am and I am still awake. Have been watching Russell Peters and trying to keep the laughing down. He's as hilarious as it gets.
Today, the US lost the game with Ghana. Ghana played well but I was really rooting for the US and I thought that they did try in the end. I actually felt like crying when they lost and that was when I realized that I may like this sport more than I thought. I know it's not really a sport that's followed by many Americans like American football but I was happy to see that more Americans were getting involved in the games. I guess I really like football for the game because even though, admittedly, I began watching because of all the really handsome footballers, it's not about them anymore. I actually follow the game and sometimes don't really notice the guys as much.... maybe that's being married. I've noticed that the conversations between me and my friends have changed. See, I have two sets of girl friends. Married and unmarried ones. Most of the married ones live here and the unmarried ones live back home, in Trinidad. Sometimes, the conversations get a little bit awkward. The only saving grace is that I made these friends over a decade ago so we have lots of memories. Thank God for friends...and family too!

End of year procedures, etc.

Today is graduation for my students I had last year. I am not sure if I am going yet but I am leaning towards it. It's the last day of school for the kids and I think I'll miss the bunch that I have in front of me now. They were a good set and some of them really made it worth the while. Imagine, they came to class even when they didn't need to take the test! This speaks volumes. One of them, I call her Muchacha, refused to exempt my test even though she had well over a perfect score in the class. I think that they are the best part of teaching. The kids will get you mad, they make you laugh, they will come in on some days happy then they're angry the next day. Muchacha just asked for extra paper=0) It's definitely the best part of the job. It keeps you young when you are around kids all day.
I haven't gotten to read for the last week and I'm starting to feel a little bit as if society is getting the better of me so I must rebel. Today, I will read. On Friday, Furgie leaves for school in Texas once more. She will finish up her PhD. I am happy for her but I guess I'll miss her. Either way, I'll have an excuse to visit Texas. La Copa Mundial begins in two days...Ole ole ole ole...........

Florida’s SB 6 bill...my take

 Here's the deal with this one...for some time now, teachers have been getting the blame for students failure and their inability to measure up to standards. A senator from Florida suggested that teachers be put on a merit pay system that would award them compensation based on how well their students did in standardized testing, etc. This would take away the "years of experience" a teacher had in the profession and replace with just student scores as the final determinant of a teacher's pay.
Needless to say, it is a Republican senator who devises this brilliant idea. This is almost as ludicrous as saying if a patient eats fatty foods and gets heart disease, the doctor should be blamed. Now, a doctor can advise a patient what to eat and what not to eat but ultimately, it is up to the patient if he/she will follow through.
To recap, it was the Bushes (republicans) who made standardized testing into the megalithic disaster that it has turned out to be. It was Bush who introduced NCLB (no child left behind) which turned out to be Every child left behind with the advent of the FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test). It was a good test that counted for too much and came attached with too much political agendas. House prices were attached to how well schools in the area did on this test! Schools received money for doing well on this test...lots of money...to the point where teachers started teaching toward the test and not anything on their curriculum map. Here is where I am happy our now President is making major breakthroughs in education...himself being a past professor...and hence will never fully be out of the academia mentality.
I wonder if some of these policy makers know what happens in these schools..and if they really know what the teachers deal with. Of course there are people who are not suited for the profession they are in but the majority of teachers out there are well qualified for the job and they stay because they really like the kids.
Teaching is a wonderful profession. It has its perks....and I don't mean the endless holidays! After a week or two off, you miss the kids....well if you really like teaching. You are able to influence a child and sometimes, you are that one person who a child really gets to talk to one on one. You yell at them, they get upset, you get upset, and the next day...sometimes even a few minutes later, everything is fine again. That's the best thing about kids. They forget. It's something I like and I wonder how much happier the world would be if we all followed this childlike trait.
One thing I have noticed is that they appreciate you more when you push them to their limits. Maybe they will not like it initially but that reward is worth waiting for. I notice that I have digressed.
Back to the schools. Teaching is one of those professions that is needed in society just like medical doctors but this senator made it seem as if there was no respect or regard for the job that teachers do because of a few not-so-great teachers who made the news for the wrong reasons. It is true that the media focuses on the bad things and teachers are not held in high esteem in this country for that very reason. However, most teachers do a darn good job! Like I stated earlier, many teachers do it for the love of the kids or their subject area or both.

First day back

I cannot believe that I am saying this, but it sure does feel good to be back! I didn't realize how much I grew to love the kids and how much I missed them for those two weeks. Don't get me wrong...I enjoyed the break but I missed the kids. Teaching is like a contact sport. It is definitely not impersonal. There is no way that you can be amongst all these people and not become attached to them in some way. This morning, I got numerous hugs, handshakes and smiles. It warmed my heart on a cold morning like today. By the way, it's unnaturally cold for Florida...even at this time of the year. I just looked at the weather forecast and saw that tomorrow night it will be in the 30's (Fahrenheit).
Here is why I like being back....
After I assigned the work for this morning, I entered into a conversation with one of my students. Here's how it started. A fellow teacher knows that I collect the figurines from the Red Rose tea boxes. She brings them to me and this morning, I got a Cupid and a christmas tree. I was placing them with the rest of collectibles when a student noticed. He told me that he as taken to collect historic monuments. I showed him the Taj that I had received from a friend and he asked me about the history of the building. After telling him about Shah Jahan and Mumtaz, I ended up telling him about how perfect the monument was. Then we digressed a little.... actually, we went a little back in time. The student remarked that it was really amazing how the people of the ancient cultures made buildings that were so precisely aligned and with such geometric accuracy. My little heart made a leap when I heard his comment and I thought to myself..."Here's a thinker!" I posed the question to him, "then it makes you wonder how primitive these people really were, huh?
Student: "It scares me to think of that!"
Me: "I guess it does, right? After all, we are taught to believe that we are more advanced than these people and yet, you wonder how the last stone got placed on the pyramids of Egypt, or how these people were able to fit such large bricks together without mortar (like in the Mayan and Inca pyramids) or how Stonehenge was built...and they are still standing today."
At this point, everyone was looking up and wide-eyed. It is in these moments that I know the kids are getting so much more out of school because now they begin to think. We ended up talking about discoveries and modern inventions and the same kid told me, "when you think of all the great things that were discovered, you wonder what's left to discover. Like there really isn't much." Then I told him that this is where the discoveries/inventions are more on the microscopic scale rather than macroscopic. Like in the terms of medicine and technology rather than the automobile or the toothbrush, for example. In that way, we were able to bring the conversation into science again.

Say a prayer for teachers out there

You know the economy is really bad when teacher start getting surplussed. I am still coming to terms with the sound of the word and either way, as fancy as they make it, it is still something that no one wants to hear. Especially when things are getting more and more difficult. Either way, I was lucky today. The students are a little better as well. Most are mellow now. They understand that things are bad. Then there are the few in between students who are so disrespectful that they make you wonder what thrill they get from behaving so ridiculously. It is for these ones, we say an extra prayer...and one for us to maintain our patience.

On Lockdown Status

Today will be what one just calls a bizarre day. First of all, the escalating crime situation in South Florida is starting to make ripples throughout the entire country. Seems as if every month, there is a cop shooting. I was talking with a very good colleague of mine when an administrator gets on the intercom and announces a "Lockdown." Never really experienced one of those in my life until today but the tension of it did not hit me until I got home, went to sleep and woke up several hours later.
It was a rather eerie situation. A cop was situated at every entrance to the school and all the kids were kept in the classrooms, without bathroom breaks from 8:15am until 11am. Thankfully for me and my colleague, we had our planning period and therefore, no kids with us. Okay, so what happened was even more disturbing.
There is a prison very close to the school and a prisoner with a double life sentence was being transported to court. For some reason, which the media believes is now pre-planned (no sh*t!), the prisoner is being transported in a specialized "ambulatory" police vehicle because he has a "back problem." Lo and behold, the police vehicle ends up in the parking lot of one of the many adult strip clubs in the neighborhood and the guy takes the gun away from the 74 year old police officer and shoots him then escapes.
Eventually, the entire chase led to all the schools in the county being put on lockdown status and yes, an even more stressful situation. Later on, I heard that Furgie's adventure was even more dramatic than mine.
Furgie worked over at the store. She had locked the doors when I called her but an hour after I called her, a cop car pulled up in the parking lot and two cops got out. They pulled out their guns and ran around to the back of the store and then back to the front, checking the premises. Then they asked to be let inside to talk with her. Turned out that they wanted to make sure that she was alright. After working there for so long, we have a good rapport with the neighborhood cops. Today, I was thankful for them. Furgie can be a little negligent when it comes to safety issues. At the time, when the cops came, she had a regular customer in the store and she was chatting up a storm while my mom was going ballistic at home after I told her that Furgie was still letting people into the store.
Okay, so finally, the guy was caught, the 74 year old officer died, and the lockdown status was lifted at about 1pm. Finally, I've seen the meaning of the word "lockdown." Come to think of it, I remember where this happened before: Trinidad, 1990. Abu Bakr and his attempted coup. Trini style lockdown.

What have I been up to lately

Sometime ago, I got hired to be a teacher at one of our county's local schools. Maybe that's why my fellow bloggers haven't heard from me in a while...or my blogs have became less steady. Let me tell you guys upfront, it is one very stressful job but you can have tons of fun too, especially if you are really into the subject that you are teaching. The kids are awesome! They always come up with something that will make you laugh when you think you couldn't take the administrative stress anymore. I mean, there are days when the same kids will try your very last nerve but they are also the best part of the job.
Actually, these are not kids but they are 11th and 12th graders. The first two weeks of school were trying. I was getting to know the kids and I really had to work with them to gain their attention. Now I know them by face and name and their personalities. As a teacher, you walk the fine line between being too harsh and then being too nice. I've seen that. However, the kids need to know that you really want to help them and when they see that, you can go from there.
The best thing about this job is the questions you get. Just when you think that they cannot come up with something crazy to ask, they ask it. They are curious but then again, I encourage that too. Yesterday, they asked me about frogs and why they die when you throw salt on their backs. It was off the topic but nevertheless, related in some way to what I was teaching. You always have to have these little factoids on hand to throw out at them when you see them understanding the topic. It's like giving them a treat. You teach them what you want them to learn, stop, let them absorb it, they ask questions, and then they come up with the association questions. When they get this far, I tell them something really cool about the topic that they will remember...the factoid. That's when I see the lightbulbs going on and really, you do notice it.
Today, I got a day off and let me tell you, I completely agree with getting so many holidays as a teacher. you need to recover.
Apart from teaching, I've been planning my wedding. It's only three months away and it's a lot of work to get done. This is when you get happy to know that you have a big and extended out family. You have some of them just waiting for you to tell them what you want to get done. I think Ami is doing more of the planning that I am....and he's the groom! It's not that I'm not excited about it too but he does better when it comes to having things planned and on a schedule. I pretty much get a picture in my head, research a lot and act at the last minute when I have the entire thing drawn out in my mind. Yesterday, I went all by my lonesome and got my sari. I guess it was strange that I would go by myself to do shop for the dress i would wear on my wedding day but I'm weird when it comes to shopping. When there are people with me, I will look but I don't buy anything so when I want to get something, I've realized that I'm better off alone. Actually, I hate shopping for myself. It took me ten minutes to decide on the sari I wanted, get the deal, and I exited out of there. Sometimes we make too much of a big deal about things. The wedding is not as important to me as the marriage I guess.

And finally, we've made a little progress with training Papo. He allowed us to trim his nails the other day providing that I had to sit and give him a treat for ever nail that he allowed furgie to clip. He was such an angel too! He's chewed all the door jams and eaten off the heel of of of furgie's favorite shoes as well as the spine of a book she likes a lot. Furgie's response to that was that the shoe was old. Training-wise, he responds to two commands, Cheeeeeeeese and Leave it! For his progress, Furgie gave him a blanket which he completely loves!