Charital Drinking + Public Schools = Weirdly Unsurprising

Just in case you were not under the impression that shit's all kinds of desperate in the world of public education, you might want to come out from under that rock. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the donors turn out to be my colleagues:

Join Drink Good – DO GOOD for an evening of donations and libations!
One World, One Glass: Part Two Wednesday, April 27, 5pm – 9pm

Proceeds benefit the San Francisco Education Fund in support of San Francisco public schools. Unique alcohols from three regions of the world are represented at three different San Francisco bars. No matter which one you attend, you enjoy unlimited tastings as well as savory ethnic snacks. You can even keep your souvenir glass.

Translation: Drink like a fish while celebrating globalization and hors d'oeuvring on the cultures of public school children, and, if you can still stand, drag home your shot glass so you can remind yourself the next day in whose good name you blacked out -- Public Education.

Bringing the Term "Got Wood?" to a Whole New Level

You know shit's fucked up when you find yourself writing the following work email:

From: SB
Date: Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 2:57 PM
Subject: 9 "missing" (well, pilfered) Condom Demonstrators, worth $100ish dollars

Dear Staff,

I would like your help.

Last Wednesday, while I was on a Fieldtrip to Youth Advocacy Day, a Sexuality Educator from the community dropped off in the front office a box containing 20 condom demonstrators (basically wooden educational dildos) for our Peer Educators'sexuality group to borrow for their workshops.

I was not able to pick up the box until the next day (because we were gone!), and when I returned I found the very OPEN box in the main office and noticed the wooden condom demonstrators, though at that time I did not count how many were in the box. I simply brought the box to [the utility] room for Committee Day.

The students in the Sexuality Group began to make their materials for the Health Tabling Day. They also did not count the condom demonstrators at that time.

Then, we hid the box of materials underneath another box of our materials in our usual location in the Green Room.

That was last Thursday.

Today, our Guest Sexuality Facilitator and the students retrieved the box from its place to find only 11 condom demonstrators in the box.

So, between the main office and the use of the Green Room last--> this week, 9 condom demonstrators were taken from the box. As they were not ours, we are in the position of owing approximately $100/ 9 new demonstrators, to this community guest.

If you have ANY information or happen to know who thought that these were there for the taking, please bring them back or let us know what you know.

I would be so grateful,

So now the question becomes:

How inappropriate would it be to hold a fundraiser bake sale called "Shove This Up Your Cake Hole?"

I invite your opinions.

Today's Laugh or Cry Moment

I was just emailed the minutes of a meeting. The newly appointed secretary took meticulous notes, which means I got to read:

Item 2: Diversity
We discussed about the diversity that does not exist in the club and how we should go about recruiting. Overall, this topic was left undecided as it is a large social issue in the world that we cannot solve in one sitting.

Item 3...

So... Laugh or cry?

Student Quote of the Week

Another reason to miss teaching elementary school:

In one corner, ladies and gentlemen, we have Kevin. Kevin has the disposition of an old man who might hang out in A Streetcar Named Desire but is trapped in a second grader who looks like a generalizable second grader would, whatever that means.

In the other corner we have Carlos. Carlos is Captain of Future Pro Wrestlers of America trapped in the body and mind of a second grader trapped in a size and shape more typical of a kindergartner, whatever that means. In keeping with his profession, Carlos interacts with other second graders by flying into them from out of nowhere and attempting to pin them to the ground. He is very kinesthetic. Some would call him spirited. Others might say he is very Lucha Libre. Carlos consistently talks in a WWF voice a la Hulk Hogan and does that creepy pulsing flex-curl-arm-pose in front of him like some retro Arnie Schwarzenegger to pop his ghost pecs while gnashing his teeth and shaking his head rapidly side to side. Raise your hand if you can visualize this. Hoganito only refers to himself in the third person. More specifically, as Thor. I refer to Thor as WWF.

Ding! Round One.

Kevin is brought to teacher, howling with the eye tears of only a second grader:

Miss, he (puffy second-grader accusatory finger point) punched me in my gut!

WWF growls back, gritted teeth:

He punched Thor in his emotions first!

Ding! Back to their corners. Let's all commend WWF on his superb use of the term emotions. Referee, wanna take it from here?

Grrrrrrr.....

My school district is reportedly quite concerned with the GPA of our students and their subsequent graduation (or not) from our high schools (and more specifically, how these numbers reflect on our our district... but please don't get me started). They would probably be more concerned about this issue for middle and elementary schools, too, if not for the beauteous reality here known as social promotion. So what if someone has a 0.0 GPA in three years of 6th grade. Pass summer school following "8th grade" and we'll send them to high school. Nice. Anyways, one of the cornerstones of our district keeping on top of how folks are doing is the frequency of our grading cycle.

Which means that every six weeks I cry and mutter and drag myself through giving grades.

This past year, our district elected to force all of us to put our grading on-line. Which would be fantastic even for the paranoid and ludditic among us, I am sure, if they would just choose a program that had been tested, tried, and basically as bug-free as our current, more individual ways of doing it. Fundamentally speaking, a program that worked. Is that so much to ask? I am sure they made such a brilliant move into the not-quite-competent future to increase everyone's ability to see a student's progress-- the student, their parent/guardian, teachers, etc. Only a cynic would suggest this was done primarily to allow administrators to put their noses in my grade book whenever they want without ever actually setting foot in my classroom. (I get a nice little alert every time they peek. Sweet.)

So this grading term, I had to say good-bye to my tried and true grading program/system, refined over the last ten years, and say hello to a small form of purgatory known as the almost-working district system. Fortunately, I am a wary enough sort that before entering grades into the program, I recorded every single one of them on paper. Like... old system + new system = two systems full of time.

Having passed through our first grading period in this Brave New World, I, like Prince's advisors, have renamed this ritual. Formerly known as Grades, they shall now be known as Grrrrrrrrrr.

Why?

Because our grades were to be submitted through the program by 3pm on Friday.

On Thursday, at 8pm, I sat in bed, lap top as an electric blanket, inputting the last of the marks into the system that would hopefully add them up correctly and spit out a grade for the period in question.

I saved every three minutes or so because the program makes a habit of "de-recording" scores during certain times (though when those times will be is decidedly less certain). Around 11pm, I start getting pop-up messages alerting me to save my work, since the program is fixing to shut down momentarily for a "fifteen minute" upgrade. Highly convenient, that. This pop-up message came onto my screen approximately every ten seconds, resulting in a complete inability to save anything. Slightly even less convenient.

So I logged off. Took 20 minutes and one shower off. Tried to log on.

Error message.

Took another 30 minutes off. Tried to log on to the following message:

Dear Program Member:

The Program is currently performing scheduled maintenance on your school's web site. Account logins and certain other activities are
unavailable during this period. Today's maintenance (9 Aug 2009) is
scheduled through 4:00pm PDT, but may complete sooner. Please check
back.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this upgrade.

Thanks.

The Program Team

So let me just recap here. 1. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrs are due at 3pm on Friday. 2. The system will be down until 4pm on Friday.

That is just awesome.
And so I did what all responsible teachers would do. I wrote one nasty venting note to my Assistant Principal and went to sleep. 1:30am.

Later (5am) Friday morning I got up, tried to log on to nothing, sent snarky text messages to some dear ones, and figured I should go to work to 1. get chewed out for not getting grrrrrrrs in on time and 2. do the grrrrrrrrs the way I had previously done them, which of course would take me at least seven hours, since I had to re-add up and then bubble everything. Oh and 3. teach classes.

All of this reasoning left me standing at 6am in front of this MUNI bus stop sign:


And I admit it. It was not my finest hour. I was inspired to raise a finger in toast and yell the following at this particular campaign:

Fuck you. Our bell doesn't currently fucking ring until 3:35pm. So fuck you, nimrods.

Ahem. Adjust tie. Smooth down hair. Board bus. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

9,000 Signs That I Should Start Blogging Again

Here's three:

1. I can tell an insanity producing year when I see one, even if I am kinda slow.

2. Today I barked at my principal. Literally.

I was standing in front of the master schedule, trying to figure something out. In walks BB Lizardo (my attempt to call my principal by their initials has succeeded in making them only marginally more tolerable in my eyes). BB looks around in a quintessentially lizardo way, and licks hir lips nervously, as I am the only one there. And then faces me and states: Who let the dogs out?

Me: Arf. (Seriously)

BB Lizzy: (Smiles while eyes rivet to escape door)

Not enough to convince you this is going to be a weird year? Fine. Read on:

3. So I go to an organizing meeting. At which, despite the racing around of children, we are very organized. Weird in and of itself. And I get out to the world to find a voice mail from some guy whose name is ... let's say Pedro. And he launches into this whole thing in medio-spanglish about some health clinic near my work and can I call him back at whatever number blah blah blah. His number isn't in my phone and I cannot imagine who the guy is. Sure, his voice sounds vaguely familiar. I know like three guys named Pedro; some of whom I think more highly of than others, but I am still surprised any of them are leaving me messages with such familiar tones. So I call him back. He asks how I am - I reply quickly and ask him to basically get on to whatever he needs from me. We talk a while and maybe 15 minutes after we hang up it occurs to me that perhaps this? This is perhaps an ex-bf of mine... from probably four years ago max? For like a year or so? And I have to LOOK up his name to recall if his first name had been Pedro.

Can we say: Sarah knows how to MOVE ON.

Come on... now let's all say it together.

Arf.

Student Quote of the Day

Well... one of them anyways. There are so many.

Context: It is our private "graduation" for the seniors in our Environmental Education core group in our school. They've been together with the program for two years... which means at least six camping trips plus a mess of day hikes and helllllllla science lessons in there, among other things.

Quote: Before I met you, the biggest hike I'd ever taken was walking around the mall.

Nice. I would even say it is nicer than the student who appreciated me today in class by comparing me to an electrical socket. Well, maybe it is a toss up?

Students Have Your Cell Number?

Now, here's something you too can look forward to!

It is a Sunday. A ridiculously hot, beautiful Sunday in May. And I am not talking 'San Francisco' hot; I am talking so hot that you can go to the 'San Francisco beaches without a down jacket' kind of hot. And it is Sunday. Did I mention that? A blissfully hot, quiet, student-free Sunday in May. At the beach. With a book. Without students. 48 hours without students. And so I am blissfully enjoying reading a book on the beach awaiting the arrival of J-D and doggie when I receive the following text message. From a student. A senior. Whom we will call N:

Yo loser want to hit up the beach tomorrow since like, its whatchamacallit [Senior Cut] day and im guessing you're not going to school?

My Inner Voice: Hmmm. Interesting.

My Text Voice: Yo dingbat you sent this to your teacher yo. Good to know, so you gonna be in my class tomorrow for sure to practice for thurs, eh?

As my text is sending, N texts me again:

Ummm ... Hey s----! Can u just totally ignore that text cause that was supposed to go to sam not sa--- ... Yah ... My bad. Forget that

Me: Busted.

Lol Im totally going to be there to practice for thurs. I have no idea what you mean by busted ..

Me: Liar:) see you mon

I'll see YOU tomorrow :P

And then I return to sun and chapter six of my book. Because it is a Sunday. A blissfully hot, quiet, hopefully-back-to-student-free Sunday in May.

Let this be a warning to all texting teachers and their students.

Today's Lead Article in Teacher Magazine

Title?

"Plans Delayed for Bully-Free School"

I don't even know what to say about that. Perhaps you do?

Don't Ever Tell Me That Latex Won't Fit

Halloween is not for another week and yet I am totally ready: My role at the all day sex training. Human condom. If my mother were fundamentally someone else, my mother would be so proud of the lengths I will go to teach youth really anything useful.

Since when is May like.... 67 days long?

I wailed during school: OMG will May never end?!!

Causing one very kind person to clear their throat and politely respond: Um, it is April.

Me: Really? Huh. Well, ok, yeah, but it is the END of April.

Very Kind (and now concerned) Person: Um, actually, it is like... um... April 14th.



Well, hmmm, that's not good. Not good at all.

I'm sooooooooooo over 2007, Take II

Close your eyes and imagine the waft of burning hair, a.k.a. my hard drive. Yum. Bye bye hard drive, grades, photos, emails, calendar, brain. Hello, the peace of a vacation totally unplugged and unavailable.

What's an hour and a half of your life when it's MUNI?

What with the last two weeks including finding the contents of my classroom piled haphazardly in a hallway except for MIA hula hoops and radio, having doctors use phrases like "life threatening condition" in my vicinity, being shot up with the same drugs used in chemotherapy, discovering that everything I ever eat is liberally laced with the one vitamin I must currently avoid, and (worst of all) being thrust from the languid hammock of summer vacation to the ice bath water of a 40+ hour work week in which I am expected both to clean mouse poop and to arrive on time, at the same time every day, five days in a row - for all foreseeable future weeks - to stand in front of blinky, expectant youth, you'd think that the universe would say to itself, "Self! Let's give S a break 'til September 1 at least.... if only to lull her and her temporarily-Burner-free-neighborhood into a false sense of joy and complacency."

You'd think. Well, at least that was what I was thinking [Ed.'s note: See dictionary definition to "optimist" or "unrealistic"] when I boarded the Outbound J train at Market early this morning. Especially when I saw the Spare the Air Ride Free signs. But, as the Ray Troll illustrated t-shirts of self-described realists (pessimists) will attest, my Sugar Child, there is just No Free Lunch.

Got it?

So I must have relinquished my Ray Troll shirt too long ago because I am peacefully enjoying apple sauce (one of the only items available to my body) when the MUNI driver stops at the far dead ending of Church street and says, "Last stop. Everyone off."

But it is scrumptiously balmy outside, especially for being Sucka Free 8 a.m. rather than, say, noon in Bombay during the summer, so I cheerily exit the train to await the next one. After some time an accordion bus labeled SHUTTLE careens into the bus stop. OK. So it doesn't say J. Is that such a bad sign? I mean, the driver is wearing a brown polyester MUNI jacket. No fear - can't a sister have a little faith?

We poke our hopeful, various heads in the swung door gap, asking, "Er... is this the J? Do you go to Balboa BART Station?" The MUNI jacket sporting driver nods his head vigorously, splitting his face open with his joyous grin. "Balboa BART, Balboa BART, yes, yes." When his face and hair don't actually roll off from all the nodding, on we pile. The doors clamp closed.

We get to the end of Church, where it meets 30th Street. This constitutes a whole 50 feet at most.

Driver calls back, "Balboa BART, right or left? Right or left?" (splitty happy smile)

Passengers: Er, left. Left.

Fellow: That is confidence building.

Driver: Good. All is good. Not to worry! I have never driven this route! (Chestier Cat grin)

Passengers: Right on San Jose, in two blocks.

Lady: Do you leave off on Randall and Mission?

Driver: Hmmmmmmmm

Passengers: No! San Jose, San Jose!

New Lady standing on entrance stairs at Dolores: Do you go to Glen Park BART Station?

Driver: Hmmmmmmmm (slightly worried smile)

Driver exits seat and stands, feet apart, hands on hips, in the aisle. Swivels to face passengers. Asks: Balboa BART, right? Balboa BART?

Passengers 1-6: Yes, yes. We are very Greek Chorus, really.

New Lady backs off of bus. Doors reseal.

Passengers 8-14: (grumbly mumbles and loud complainy whining)

Me: (grin and laugh, I mean what exactly could possibly go wrong?)

Passengers: Right on San Jose.

Driver: No problem, no problem. I see the tracks. I'll follow them!

While our addled passenger brains attempt to work out how he is going to let people off on the next corner when he is driving in the inner lane that leads to only either a freeway entrance or a train stop on tracks that are no longer on the surface street, the driver shuttles our accordion bus through the San Jose/Randall 4-way-light, beginning-of-freeway-and-separated-MUNI-gravel-tracks intersection. He stops at the train's normal stop. Which would be normal, were he a train. But he isn't. He is a very long bus with a bendy middle. Did I mention that?

Doors open.

The men, every last one of them, pile out.

Angry Elf Fellow: I value my life too much to stay on here.

The women all smile at each other. It is not like we have not been through worse. It's not like he's tried to touch our asses or said some racist, sexist, homophobic bullshit while attempting to secure our phone numbers. I mean, puh-leeze.

I approach the front. And point out the end of cement just past the train stop, the beginning of true gravel train tracks and an approaching MUNI J train that is honking a bit wildly, considering the circumstances (being that we cannot exactly do anything about our situation right then and there).

Driver: Hmmmmmmm (flashy grin continues)

Me: You do realize you cannot drive on these tracks, right?

Driver: No problem. No problem.

Driver leaves his seat again to go outside and assume the hips-hands contemplative position. Grins and squints. Gets back in. The electronic MUNI LADY voice says, "Hold On." And we back up the accordion bus across the 4-way, freeway entrancing, rush hour laden intersection. And maneuver somehow into the far lane freeway entrance lane. There is clapping, Driver honks at the train-driving driver, we ladies wave adieu to the stranded gawking men cluttering the original, now inaccessible train stop, and forward into the future we go.

At which point it seems wise to move to the first seat and give Grinny Driver directions.

Me: You need to be in the other lane.

Driver: (grin) Other Lane?

Me: Yes. Like, nowish.

Driver (grin): No problem. No problem.

Done.

Me: You need to get off at this left exit. I cannot remember if the underpass is tall enough, but I am assuming it is.

Done.

We drive along. Eventually the tracks meet us back on the road and we are in business.

Driver (beaming, blinding, dazzling grin): Tracks!

We pick up more ladies pretty much any time we tell him we want to get off or he sees a place where people appear to be waiting? loitering? on our side of the street. I wonder whether it is ethical to give him wrong directions in order to be dropped off in front of my school. Eventually we gals and our MUNI jacket sporting grinning lunatic driver make it at least alongside Balboa BART.

Ah.... appreciations

During my students' finals, they always do appreciations. And every year there is crying. And every year there are a few choice phrases that secretly make me laugh. This year the random winning phrases are:

"You are such a funny person. When you talk. I mean... Normally? You are quiet, like a snail..." Huh. I had never considered the relative silence of the snail. Poetic, these people are.

"Wow. You are my best friend. When I first met you, I was really scared. Especially since you had that attitude like, 'Bitch... I am going to kick your ass. I am seriously gonna fuck you UP.'"

Aw. So sweet. So thoughtful.

My Love For Prom is Maybe a Little Maniacal

I have a problem.
There, I admit it.
I have a problem with prom.
I love prom. The kind of love that is deep, intense, boundless, illogical, and in opposition to every political value I hold true. The type of love that wears a dress from the '50s and fat high heels. The kind of love that leaves me unable to sleep and still hung over the next day even though I didn't even drink water. A dangerous kind of love.


See these pictures?

Imagine my face. This expression. Times 60. For four hours. Because I make, and I mean MAKE, each and every one of my students at prom take a picture with me. And so I wish to publicly thank them and the Bear Whisperer and My Favorite TA and everyone else for putting up with me. Think it is because I was anti-prom in high school? My students seem to think so. Their reaction to my mania:

Pre-Prom Moment, 2007

I love the wide eyed unquestioning students who love prom.

I love the deeply angsty and embittered students who detest and resist prom.

And I particularly love the fence-sitting students who go to prom but exasperatingly shrug their shoulders and/or drag their feet through every single painful bit of it, one of whom said today in class, "Prom. I guess I am going because I have to go. I mean, it is like the Superbowl of High School."

Brilliant, my students are. Sages, every last one.

The Lost Art of the Compliment

A: So S, you, well you have such fantastic long hair. It really looks good on you. And so I have a question for you. You, well you are so very smart and you are such an intelligent person and bright enough that you could certainly get a job that pays you a lot of money. So tell me, why are you a teacher?

S: (Blink. Pause. Insert cake slice into mouth for added chewing thinking moment)

A: S?

S: Um.... So it sounds maybe like you are implying that high paying jobs take more intelligence than, say, teaching, which sounds like is perhaps for idiots? I am sure that is not what you meant to say.

A: (Blink. Pause. Turn curried chicken on grill for added cooking consideration moment)

S: (Raise eyebrows. Smile expectantly. Blink.)

A: I suppose I should rephrase that. I do see what you are saying.

A: I called you intelligent, though. And I think your hair is just wonderful. I am complimenting you, really.

S: Hmmm. (Blink. Pause. Blink. Pause. Ponder plethora of possible responses. Insert cake. Blink. Ponder. Blink. Continue indefinitely.)

I think I am allergic to high stakes testing

I hate STAR tests. Apparently I hate STAR testing so much they make me puke. Literally. I'm a drama queen who means business.

Puke in my classroom. In a bag. Behind the couch. I projectile vomit so hard that I feel a need to lie down on the tiles of my classroom floor. The same floor with 200 dirty disgusting shoes tromping all over it every day. The same floor that each evening is the Ballroom Dancehall of the Mice Stars, dragging their bums over it as they scamper to and fro, urinating and pooping as they go. The same floor that is so cool it's like heaven on my cheek between hurling and I cannot imagine a better surface for my face.

I hate STAR tests so much they make me, unable to contain myself, burst into a student boys' bathroom screaming, "I hope there are no boys here," because I cannot even make it up two floors to the faculty women's bathroom.

I hate STAR tests so much that I hurl steadily from 3:40pm - 9:45pm, with a break to have a student declare, "Er, you don't look so good. Maybe you should go home," as I lie down on a table in front of her doing make-up work and a colleague to say, "You really look like death. Are you sick?" as I clutch a wall on my way out, and another break to get myself home so I can spew all over my own house and lie on my shoe-free relatively clean floors.

I hate STAR tests so much that I end up at the ER with a suppository and a saline drip to hydrate me, all the while delusionally thinking I will be fine to work the next morning.

I hate STAR tests so much that I don't go to work the next day (the first day I have EVER called in sick to work for an actual illness, as opposed to needing a sub so I can take students on field trips or whatever. Seriously.)

Now, I hate the electric colors and teeth-grinding, sleep-depriving, manic-producing high fructose corn syrup booster of Gatorade almost as much as I hate STAR tests. But not as much as I hate that the substitute apparently left my room with youth in it and didn't return for a large portion of the day, leaving my poor, fabulous 17 year old intern to run everything, calling me every hour. So, in order from least to most, I hate Gatorade, flaky job-shirking substitutes, and STAR Testing.

That's how much I hate STAR testing.

Transformation: The Teacher Whisperer

Turns out there is usefulness in being a teacher who loses her voice.

NO, it is not staying home, because who would do that for anything short of death?! Rather, it is the whispering.

Try it. Turns out that when you whisper to people, they get shifty eyed, lean in close, and they whisper back. After a spell, they sometimes whisper,

"Why are we whispering?"

To which you rasp,

"Well, I am whispering because I lost my voice and have no choice. I have no idea, really, why you are talking like this."

This generally causes them to snap straight up, "Oh."

And yet they keep whispering. Coooooooool.

Turns out there is also a limit to the usefulness of the lost voice. The limit of people caring about your lost voice is.... 48 hours. Then it is yesterday's news like the Gore-Bush voting problem. Dull. And to be ignored.

Spring Break Spring Break Spring Break. If I whisper it, will it come?

Blast From The Past: Photos That Keep Giving

This one goes out to A of A'n'AA, lest she think even for one second that her teaching life could not get worse. Like an apple on the desk, like the droppings of ever-present our nocturnal colleagues the School Mice, these were a little gift left for the teacher (not me) by an SFUSD substitute [thanks PQ for the snaps].