In
the morning, LORD, You hear my voice; early in the morning I make my appeal and
watch for You. Psalm 5:3
Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving;
make music to our God upon the harp. He covers the heavens with clouds and
prepares rain for the earth; He makes grass to grow upon the mountains and
green plants to serve mankind. He provides food for flocks and herds and for
the young ravens when they cry. He is not impressed by the might of a horse; He
has no pleasure in the strength of a man; But the LORD has pleasure in those
who fear Him, in those who await his gracious favor. Psalm 147:7-12
Well, it’s 20 degrees in NYC with
blustery winds. But somehow that doesn’t matter.
It’s all about watching.
Because I miss stuff every day. And a teacher
friend was right on the edge of tears yesterday afternoon because life is
really, really tough, and I just patted her shoulder. When it was such a great
opportunity for a thorough embrace and a prayer to the Almighty God who is
tender to the brokenhearted. But I hesitated and lost the moment.
And I await. And wonder what His
gracious favor will look like.
And the two days in the classroom of
walking a handful of kids through the wonders of contractions and Latin roots
and grabbing lead sentences brought back a dump truck load of memories. I have
done this before, again and again. And on my hard drive, in my devotions and
prayers folder, I found A Friday Afternoon, so very representative of the
chalkboard battlefront, day after day, aching life after aching life that I
wrote down, man, maybe seven years ago, after the last cloud of doublemint gum
and Axe deodorant had wafted out the door. Same old, same old. Wow.
Overall, today’s 7B Language Arts class went
pretty well–nowhere near the overwhelming horrors of 7A–the previous class–during
which I teared up as I hit a dead-end moment of not knowing what the next step
should be as the class had snowballed into total anarchy. I had spent my lunch/planning period with two
sessions “Lunch Bunch” detention kids, all the kids who had flat out refused to
do work in class for the last two days.
This was a great moment; only four or five kids scattered across the
room- getting close to one-on-one attention.
Actually, my main problem with lunch detentions is that all kinds of
students are trying to sneak into it and hang, even if they have to be
silent. So I am energized; it is
possible to have civil relationships with these thug-façade kids. Remember that each class is an hour and a
half long, and it is Friday afternoon.
Twenty-eight students are packed into a burnt orange room, and the air
conditioning is set at 68 degrees.
Today’s lesson plan is theoretically a four-day
culmination of writing a character sketch, a written snapshot or short video
clip of someone who is important to you.
The details should be so vivid and specific that I, the reader, can
exactly picture this person. Previously this week we had interviewed partners
about these people, we had played stand up, sit down games pretending to be the
people we were writing about, and had already written a related short
descriptive paragraph describing where we were most happy, most ourselves. We also were going to try and read two short
chapters out of a sort of dopey juvenile lit book that I read in middle school,
The Pigman. We ended up at that
book in a desperate grab several weeks ago when The Giver was stuck in
metaphorical mud and would not budge one sentence further. We have tried all
sorts of approaches to getting the words past these young minds, but today I
had settled on me reading out loud, with lots of expression (and roaming around
the classroom) modelling all the possible good reading thinking, asking lots of
questions, while the students worked through a worksheet together- including a
Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two friends, making lists of
adjectives to describe two “amoebae-like” friends and the like. Short answer stuff that were a tiny bit
conceptual. Our bell work had been
copying down Literary Conflict types and I have a very short, perky talk leaning
heavily on movie plots to explain all that.
So the literary conflict moment was fine, and the reading actually went
ok, because I had told them that if three people blurted or were inappropriate,
they would have to read by themselves, which I have already discovered is the
worst threat possible, and absolutely impossible to enforce at this stage. J. and C.’s names were on the board within
split seconds, but after that, I had their attention.
One thing I might add, is that throughout the
class, students are arriving and leaving for appointments and parents and
previous discipline issues, and although I have tried to come up with several
methods of recording who is actually in class, I have yet to come up with an
effective method. We battle our way
through the chapters (about twenty minutes of reading, even with all of the
pauses) and the assignment ends with a short fill-in-the-blank essay about how
my life is like one of the character’s, how is it different, and what literary
conflict is the main one he is facing and why.
Now the biggie.
I have the students pull out a piece of paper and give it the title of
“Think.” I warn them that this is a very
difficult assignment, because (remember this is the fifth time I have taught
this lesson, so I have every nuance honed), because thinking is hard work and
many of us are not used to actually doing it… we sort of live in an
experiential fog. I turn off the light,
and try to get them to shut their eyes, even put their heads on their desks and
think. I light into a blow-by-blow
description of Ali typing madly on his computer late at night, yelling Arabic
into his Skyping microphone as he battles terrorists on their blog pages. Blow by blow I detail out our living room,
his curly hair and wide, bare feet. They
have already heard a “place” description of Alan, driving up in his Safari at
the end of a long day, with a big smile on his face and a 7/11 Big Gulp in his
hand.
Then I tried my mightiest to walk them through
a little visualization moment, exactly picturing their important person…
outdoors, indoors, hot, cold, clothes, expression on face, blah, blah,
blah. And then I turned on the lights
and told them to write a full page of writing–trying to exactly capture this
person. To get them started, I practice
with three students and their person, creating either an action, or a dialogue,
or a foreboding lead. And now, with no
talking they are to write a full page.
Each student has a little square of paper, a weekly rubric of all the
work that is expected to be turned into the weekly folder, and on that is a
rubric for this page- good lead, appearance, actions, dialogue, thoughts and
feelings, reactions of others, and five setting details.
So for the next forty-five minutes we do
battle. Suddenly no one has an important
person in his or her life, no one can think of what to say… (By the by… we have already had several
lessons on NOT using such words as weird, nice, funny… what do they DO that is
weird, what do they SAY that shows they are nice, what do they LOOK like that
shows that they are funny). Since so
very few of the students are writing, let me work down the class list and tell
you what each student was actually doing…The big news was that C. (a very
nervous, skinny white boy) had broken up with E.… notes were flying… which I do
fairly well at intercepting and tossing without reading, or sometimes wadding
up in my pocket and reading at my leisure for entertainment value… I had
fielded one in my Lunch Bunch group from an eighth grade girl who was asking
two seventh graders, best friends, to go out with her, at the same time.) So several people were trying to browbeat him
into taking back the breaking up, which only made him more nervous. As the class unwound, E managed to smash a
plastic pencil sharpener and cut herself up and down both arms- but that
happens a little later. Actually L. also
cuts herself, making cute little designs on the backs of her hands, and F very
graciously gets band-aids for both of them, but the only kind I have in the
medical kit are these great big huge ones designed to wrap around fingers, so
it is not very effective, so H. just sticks a couple of them on his forehead
instead. M is a big, lunking kid who
barely speaks English and has already gotten in trouble once this week for
describing his private parts in detail to several girls, and he takes it upon himself
to torment little tiny G, very subtly, very slightly, just at the edge of being
able to ship him out of the room. So I
stick him behind my desk, threaten him, and he actually digs into he
assignment, bulking up to me for every sentence for my approval, none of which
particularly make any sense to me, since not a single word is even close to its
intended, but it has something to do with cruising around “wet grills” (with
girls) on Saturday night. T, with the
red contact lenses, is over in the corner, trying to impress the loud, big boys
with his coolness. B is sitting by
herself, all teary, because her mom met with the staff yesterday afternoon, and
read her the riot act on getting work done in class. F is sort of heading up the cutting
table. He is trying to write about his
father, who will beat him if he makes bad grades. F is sort of metrosexual, glossed and
perfumed, the sort that hangs with emo girls.
V is also writing about his father who is a drunk and whom he visits
every Saturday, but he likes him more than his mother who is always
screaming. Luckily, C and D are out on
either out-of-school suspension, or they have been expelled… I don’t know which. The principal, who I really like, has been
gone the last three days, and I am not sure at all what is happening. The school secretary who really runs the
school from her busy, busy desk is also out today. I now have three boys in chairs facing the
wall, and things are quieting down a little.
H is doing her best to write absolutely nothing, and G is writing his
paper on her because she is his girlfriend because she is very hot, but he
knows nothing else about her because she doesn’t talk. I is very very quiet. He strikes me as a kid who has also been
threatened from home, choosing to sit by himself and work. L is in the corner, squeezing writing onto
every square inch of his paper.
Rewriting the lead sentences three times because he got mixed up. P comes up to me about every five minutes to
tell me he has a headache and he can’t work.
He is sitting in the quiet corner with I, and G who has given me nothing
but grief all week, but is doing ok at this table. R has also chosen a desk by himself and is
quietly working, but the odd thing is that nothing ever makes it into his
folder every week, so he has failing grades for every week. In fact, I had suspected that he had dropped
out of school, but there he is, quietly working by the sink. F has been making such a production of
getting up every thirty seconds to blow his nose that I move the tissue box and
the garbage can to his desk. And then I
volunteer to sharpen his pencil too, since it seems to be breaking on a regular
basis. W is crouched in his seat,
singing. He just appeared in my class
Tuesday. His mom is in the psych
hospital, his dad is in prison, and he lives in some group home. His older brother was in my advisory group
Wednesday, and he is the most illiterate student I have yet to see in this
class. Z has finished her paper… in huge
loopy handwriting… probably about thirty words, but a full page. L stares angrily at his paper. His father is coming in next week to meet
with me during my planning period. Oh,
drats. I just remembered that I have the
Guardianship Court hearing next week just when his dad has his only day off of
work. I will have to call back on
that. Y heads up the Native American
corner. He is always courteous and works
steadily. Now A is copying his character
sketch, and I fuss at them about cheating.
Does he think she is too stupid to do this (She is not). He smiles sheepishly. M, who sits with them, is filling the cover
of her folder with lyrics from headbanger groups. You might have noticed that
students are picking their own seats and what would an experienced teacher like
myself be doing without seating charts.
Ah! I have had five seating
charts and five classroom set-ups in four weeks of school. If they sit where they want, then at least I
have one more hold on their behaviour because then I can move them far away by
themselves. This is my third day of this
arrangement, and it sorta works.
B is sitting in one of the isolation
desks. He is a new kid that other
teachers have problems with… but he seems to work fine for me, as long as he
gets the positive reinforcement for each sentence. He talks a lot about his sister who was here
until Monday, when she ran away from home, and is now in a group home. P… oh my dear, is driving me nuts… clearly
and loudly covers his lack of writing and reading skills with non-stop
attention grabbers. One of the kids
commented that he thought he was really poor because when he was passing a bag
of hot Cheetos to another in lunch, P grabbed it, and ran with it. P does great in lunchtime detention, and has
been cleaning out the storage closet for the office ladies during his many
daily detentions. He writes tiny microscopic
words. About three a line–that no one could possibly read; he can’t even
remember what they were supposed to be when I ask him to read his work to
me. S is pretty much plugging along with
N. Both girls have their heads down and
are steadily going about the task. Then
they even take on B, and get her to get something on her paper. H announces that he is in charge of them, and
he is doing a good job of running that table.
Except he has A at his table who has taken out all of the staples in his
mini-stapler and has lined them up in a neat row across his table. Then he takes his glue stick and glues his
pencil to his finger. “Look, Miss, look
what I can do.” C, who really only
speaks Spanish, is writing in mostly Spanish, and at this point, what am I to
do? I let him write in Spanish. At least he is sort of working. He can get loud and flat out mean with the
slightest provocation. KP, yes, that is
his name, works slowly… he gets three sentences on his paper over the
forty-five minute period. I am flitting
around, of course, with my back pocket stuffed with little yellow papers that
say: Good job! Name: Date: on them. If I catch someone working, I hand him or her
a paper. They always give me a sort of
quizzical look, but smile and fill it out.
C doesn’t though. He is very
concerned about what these papers are all about, and asks me at least six or
seven times what they are for. Z is
angry. Very angry. But quiet in front of his empty paper. I have pretty much hit up every student, and
talked through at least a first sentence.
Only H has a blank paper. The
students around him have all moved their desks far away. B is finished and her piece is delightful-
creative twists and a smashing conclusion.
K has been encouraged by C, and actually got enough down on her paper to
get a Good Job! paper. V ditched Lunch
Bunch and is trying to convince me that she doesn’t have to come in Monday if
she does a great job doing her work over the weekend. I agree out of expediency, and then realize
that we don’t have school on Monday and that I have Student Council during
lunch on Tuesday. N is jovial as she
sort of works, and sort of entertains the boys.
She is tall and beautiful and her bosoms pour out of her shirt. As I read over A’s piece, I am reminded that
there are just about twenty more minutes in class, and I want to talk about a
solid conclusion. I ring the bell. And wait.
And wait a little more. The kids
say that I say, “OK” all the time.
That’s right, two of the kids are writing about me, one a little Mexican
boy who can’t get over the fact how weird I am that I have an Iraqi living with
me, and another who is fixated on how happy I am. I come across as happy?
I have different students read the last
paragraph of each of the four chapters that we have sort of read, and we (i.e.
mostly me) talks about what makes them great endings, which they are. I have loosely labelled them as action,
foreboding, and irony. Yes, I tried to
explain what irony is at four o’clock in the afternoon. Um, it sort of worked with the other
classes. A parent has walked into the
class to “observe” it, so off I go. I
have each student write one more great sentence on his sketch. (May I add, computer access at home is almost
nil in these homes, and our computer lab has no chairs, no way for the students
to store their work, and right now all of the censoring mechanisms are off, so
even though I keep wanting to take them into the computer lab to type up some
of these drafts to help with revision and editing, it is not about to happen;
our computer tech has not been seen hide nor hair of for the last three weeks.) Then I go over the rubric, and try to get the
students to check to see if they have all of their work in order neatly in
their folder to be graded. Pick up the
trash around the tables. Straighten up
the books and white boards, while I collect the yellow slips, put them into a
box, and draw three names who then get to pick a treat out of the treat bag–the
grand winners were C , K and KP.
Theoretically, because we are a free or reduced lunch school, Federal
guideline forbid serving candy among many other things, but last night I was
despairing of life as I raced around Fry’s for groceries. How to shape behavior? The parent is still glaring, over fielding
two phone calls. It turns out that he is
here to meet G’s science teacher who has thrown him out of class every single
day for the last two weeks. I wish them
a merry weekend and off they go, and I wander over to my desk and lay my head
down. I have one hundred and fifty-eight
folders tucked neatly into a blue plastic milk crate to “grade” this weekend. And I check off yet another bunch of ideas
that don’t quite work as lesson plans.
Wow. It has
been a while since I have read this. But it helps me see.
And the orange and metal seats are full here, at gate A8.
Quiet, tired people scrolling through their smart
phones or simply staring somewhere behind me. Well, they are all silent except
for the tech people behind me, a whole convention full of maroon-shirted MIT
graduate engineering students sharing speeding ticket stories.
Watch for
Him. The least of these are His image bearers.
And as I read over why I am to sing, I revel in His
goodness. Somehow He is present in all of these backstories. This thing called
favor from the LORD, our sun and shield, is both grace and glory. And maybe,
just maybe, my awaiting for this favor, is the handmaiden sort of awaiting,
eyes fixed on Her Master, palms opened wide, to receive this grace and glory in
order to pass it on.
Almighty God, whose
Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that I, one of
Your people, illumined by your Word, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s
glory, that He may be known.
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