College Is Possible Day

Every year, my school hosts "College Is Possible" day, in which college students and recent graduates visit each classroom to talk about their schools and hopefully generate some enthusiasm among the students for a post-high school education. Last year, the four speakers in my classroom attended UVA, UNC, Princeton, and Georgetown. I was considerably more impressed by this than my students were; I distinctly remember Tye'Quan* yelling "NO!" when a speaker asked the class if anyone knew what the Ivy League was. This year, my school district did a better job of soliciting speakers from schools that are, um, more relatable for my students. 

Our first visitor announced her presence by step-dancing through the doorway and shouting some chant about her sorority. When she had finished stomping and clapping, she informed the kids that she attended Clark Atlanta University, and would soon be driving a BMW and earning $60,000 a year as a fashion merchandising major. I immediately gave her the old stinkeye, but my students were smitten. They listened with rapt attention as she described the pleasures afforded by a career in fashion, and gasped when she revealed that she once danced with rapper Ludacris in an Atlanta nightclub. When it came time for her to leave, Robert raised his hand (for the first time all year, I should point out) and asked if he could call her. She gave him a coy wink and said "I'm on Myspace, sweetie." At this point I was ready to slam my head, karate-style, through a nearby desk. It would get worse.

Next up was a clearly hungover communications major from Hampton University, who began his lecture by rolling up his shirt sleeve to display a brand on his arm bearing the letters of his fraternity. During his subsequent presentation, he professed an interest in horoscopes, and asked if any students knew their astrological signs. Tye'Naisha immediately sprang out of her seat and proudly declared "I'm a Cancer!" From behind my desk, I silently nodded in affirmation.

Our third and final guest attended Norfolk State, and did a fine job of relating how important it is to earn good grades throughout a scholastic career before opening up the floor to questions. Iyana raised her hand and asked, in all earnestness, what the consequences would be if one were to get pregnant while in college. Several boys snickered at this, but all the girls in the class leaned forward in their seats to hear her response. Flustered, the poor speaker looked to me for help, but I threw up my hands in resignation. She stammered out a helpful and nonjudgmental response and meekly left the room. With some time to kill because of her abbreviated presentation, I stood before the class and asked if anyone had any questions about my time in college.** When no one raised a hand, I turned around and started writing Math problems on the whiteboard, to a chorus of groans.

*Tye'Naisha's older brother. Other than a tendency to steal things from my desk, he was pretty manageable.

**I've already written about the occasional necessity of lying to my students, and fully expected to tell a few whoppers at this point. My kids are typically more interested in my personal life, and often ask me things like "What did you do this weekend?" and "Does you drink?" I always respond with something like "Do I LOOK like I drink?! I stayed in and planned fun lessons for you, and went to the library for a little while on Saturday! Now get back to work!"

An Ambitious Idea

In season three of The Wire, a police major decides to clean up Baltimore's Western district by designating a few blocks of derelict and abandoned rowhouses as a "free zone" in which drug dealing is condoned by the officers who patrol the area. With the dealers off the street corners, the district's crime rate plummets and it soon becomes safe to walk outside in neighborhoods long dominated by street gangs. The free zone, or "Hamsterdam" as it becomes known, devolves into a surreal haven for junkies and drunks, triggering the age-old ethical dilemma: Do the ends justify the means?*

With Hamsterdam in mind, I recently set about reorganizing the desks in my classroom in a way that I hoped would give my class their best chance to pass our rapidly approaching, all-important standardized tests. In recent weeks, Tye'Naisha** had been passing notes during class with her friends Iyana and Le'Chandra*** at a conspicuously high rate, and the trio's collective behavior had deteriorated over that timeframe from "somewhat tolerable" to "unrepentantly obnoxious." Despite their conduct, they are unquestionably three of the smartest girls in the fourth grade, and at absolutely no risk of failing their upcoming exams. 

When the girls entered my classroom on Wednesday morning, I escorted them to their new seats and explained my idea. Previously, I had the girls sitting as far apart from one another as the boundaries of my classroom would allow; an ostensibly wise plan that really just resulted in them shouting at one another from across the room during my lessons and walking further across the classroom to deliver notes than they would otherwise. According to the new arrangement, however, the girls would all be sitting together, in a corner of the classroom and facing away from the other students. I had bought them a box of crayons, drawing paper, and prepared a variety of crossword puzzles and word games and explained that they had my permission to work on them during my lessons on the one condition that they remain seated and quiet. 

So far, the idea has been a resounding success. The girls remain quietly occupied with their drawings and games, while other students in dire need of review benefit from a considerably calmer classroom environment. I confess to feeling some ethical compunctions, but suspect that this is an unavoidable byproduct of an educational system placing too much importance on standardized testing. I also suspect that this newfound serenity might not last; the girls have taken to calling themselves "The Corner Girls," a nickname I discovered on Friday afternoon, where it had been written with a permanent marker on the wall above Tye'Naisha's desk.

*Of course, the major's plan was not approved by the police commissioner, who shuts down Hamsterdam as soon as he learns of it. The major is summarily fired, sort of like I would be if my school's administration ever caught wind of this blog.

**The unanimous selection for the 2009 Cagawall Fridays MVP award. I feel like I should make her some sort of trophy for this. Suggestions are, of course, welcome.

***In two years of teaching at my school, I have taught only one female student whose name did not have three syllables and end in "A". This is not to suggest that these kids' parents are uncreative when it comes to naming babies; in fact, some have proven delightfully innovative in this department. I know of a second grader whose parents apparently thought it a good idea to name their adorable daughter "Lil'Meal." There is a Sevyn in third grade; I can only presume her parents are big Mickey Mantle fans. In a nearby school, there are twins named Lemonjello and Orangejello. There are four children at my school whose names are pronounced "Unique," which is of course ironic in itself, but even more intriguing is the fact that one spells his name "Eunich." 

An Academic Competition

I generally approach each ostensibly enjoyable field trip, guest speaker, or special event with a combination of cautious optimism and abject terror, having been humiliated too many times in these circumstances to embrace them as opportunities for entertainment. Last year's visit from an elderly representative of Monticello, who was supposed to deliver an hour-long presentation but left in tears after five minutes to jeers of "Get out of here, white woman!" comes to mind immediately. Our field trip to Jamestown this past fall, when Velquisha stole a checkerboard from inside one of the replica ships and Montee got in a fight with a kid from another school, will be an equally difficult memory to erase. I'd been looking forward to Friday's Mind Games competition, however, with unrestrained enthusiasm in the ten weeks since volunteering to coach my school's team.

Mind Games, you see, is an annual district-wide event where schools send their best and brightest to compete in a series of academic challenges. My school's team was culled from our program for gifted students, and the six fourth and fifth graders for which I was responsible were not only smart but motivated, respectful, and - most importantly - malleable. Given that I spend roughly seven hours a day working with kids who seemingly make it a point to test my patience on a daily basis, the opportunity to coach students actually willing to listen to me and follow my instructions was irresistible. From our first after-school practice, I made it my mission to not only organize a competitive team but also instill in my young charges a unique brand of showmanship, which we unveiled and executed in flawless fashion at the competition.

We arrived at the competition about 45 minutes before the scheduled start time of 10:00, each wearing our 2009 Mind Games shirts we'd designed for the occasion. We had arrived early by design, as in order to carry out our first bit of flair we needed to be the first team there. After greeting the Mind Games staffers and having our team photo taken, we strode to our assigned table and enjoyed a brunch of juice boxes and donuts. All talking stopped, however, when the first group of our competitors arrived. As rehearsed, my kids leaned back in their chairs, crossed their arms, jutted out their chins, looked appraisingly at the newcomers, and did their best to project an aura of confident authority.* They maintained their poses until the last team came through the door some fifteen minutes later. I'm still not sure whether their stares did anything to intimidate the other teams - who had become accustomed to trouncing my school in recent Mind Games competitions, and whose primary response had been to point at us and snicker - but in those fifteen minutes they demonstrated unflinching solidarity, and I couldn't have been prouder.

Because each coach had to monitor another school's team during the competition, I was unable to watch the team complete their challenges, but kept tabs from across the gymnasium floor via a series of thumbs-ups and thumbs-downs with Aisha between each event. I did have a clear view of the kids, however, as the head judge read off the answers to the analogies and general knowledge questions after those rounds had ended, and was thrilled to see us adhere to one of my strictest and most-repeated stipulations for our conduct that morning; namely, that there should be absolutely no reaction to anything said by the judge between rounds. For example, upon hearing that the answer to Question #1 was "B - Tornado," every team but one responded with loud and excruciatingly annoying "Yessssssss!!"es, spastic fist pumps, and clumsily executed high fives. My team, by contrast, merely nodded and smiled at each other in satisfaction after learning of their correct answers.

When the competition ended and coaches were allowed to rejoin their teams, I made sure to let them know how pleased I was with how they'd performed, and that the final results shouldn't matter to us. All of that changed, however, when the judge announced that we had won fifth place, and the kids immediately lost the composure they'd carefully cultivated all morning. The school's team had never done so well at a Mind Games competition, and this exceeded even my highest hopes. After staying long enough to fulfill the last of my rules of conduct - clapping and cheering for every team the judge mentioned - we headed back to our school, ribbons in hand. 

*This was easier for some than others. Alaina, for example, had a mouth, chin, and nose absolutely caked with powdered sugar from her donut.

The Aquarium Incident

"Comedy," as the axiom goes, "equals tragedy plus time." Having taught several students dealing with profoundly unfunny problems, however, I submit that there are some aspects of their tragedy that could never be transformed into humor: Velquisha's house burning down, for example. Or the eviction of Michael's family from their apartment. Or the incarceration of any number of my students' parents. In the case of my classroom aquarium, however, it only took two months for me to accept that there might be some comedic value to what initially appeared to be a completely unamusing situation.

Resting unsteadily atop a dilapidated bookcase crammed with a variety of neglected books, in an unswept corner of the room I'd designated (in more innocent and ambitious days) as our "classroom library," is an aquarium. It used to be the home of three goldfish, which I let various students name and feed on a weekly basis.* At this point of the school year, the fish are long dead, but I've kept the aquarium running, having found the sound of trickling water to be something of a calming influence in an otherwise hectic environment. Today the aquarium is a watery graveyard of broken pencils, arrowhead erasers, and other assorted detritus that the kids drop in when my back is turned. It is also a home to a family of cockroaches that crawl along its walls, by which my students are remarkably - and perhaps tellingly - unbothered. 

One afternoon this February, Xavyer was keeping himself occupied during a Social Studies lesson by taking apart a marker. Given that he was going about this business in a very surreptitious manner, I was unable to see exactly how he managed to remove the marker's stem of red ink from its plastic tube, but suffice to say he has a bright future as a mechanical engineer. As I turned around to write something about the Virginia Declaration of Rights on the whiteboard, I detected a patter of footsteps to and from the aquarium. I paused in time to see Xavyer scampering back to his seat, but by then it was too late. I watched with horror as the water turned a steadily deepening shade of red. Within minutes, the tank was filled with a liquid that looked, to the class's delight, exactly like blood. Compounding this problem was a surprise visit later that afternoon from my school's principal, who was less than thrilled by what she saw in the corner, and told me as such in her office later that day. She was graciously forgiving, however, and often jokes with me now about the "aquarium incident." 

*My behavior monitoring system (in teaching parlance, the "classroom management device") consists of a sheet of blue felt affixed to a closet door, on which laminated paper fish, each bearing the name of a student and a square of Velcro, move up and down across six levels, depending on that student's behavior. Students may move up the board (swim) after successfully completing a homework assignment or demonstrating appropriate conduct in the classroom, but are considerably more likely to be moved down the  board (sink) for things like throwing spitballs or yelling at me. The three best-behaved students at the end of the week earned the privilege of not only taking turns feeding the fish the next week, but giving a fish the name of their choice. By a comfortable margin, the most common fish name was "Souljafish." Other memorable names included "Big Killah" and "Fishy the Crackhead." These, mind you, were names dreamt up by my best-behaved students.

A Trip to the Theater

If the five seasons of The Wire taught me anything, it's that there is no character as reviled (not even you, Policeman) in inner-city neighborhoods as the Snitch.* To residents of these neighborhoods, snitching is unjustifiable under any circumstances, and results in - at best - the complete ostracization of the Snitch from the rest of the community.** Though typically used in reference to one who provides police with information, the term "snitching" can be heard frequently in my classroom as well. For example, I recently asked Jermica, who sits next to my desk in the classroom, if she knew anything about the whereabouts of a missing bag of lollipops I had stored there to reward well-behaving students at the end of the week. "Mr. Martin, you know I ain't no snitch!" was her response. I left it at that.

All of which brings us to this morning's field trip, where we headed downtown to see a play called "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." Somewhat shockingly, my students had never heard of the play's protagonist, and as such were unaware of the reasons why he is considered an American hero. We were the first school to arrive at the theater, and were ushered into the first few rows of seats. The kids were excited but well-behaved as they waited for the play to begin. Ever vigilant, I walked the aisles adjacent to my fourth graders, arms crossed and unsmiling, clenching a list of parents' phone numbers I had brought for the sole purpose of intimidating unruly students into good behavior. I never once needed the list, and as the play began and the kids were uniformly captivated by the action taking place mere feet in front of them, I remember thinking "Maybe this won't be a complete humiliation after all." (At this point, all three of my faithful readers should see where this is headed.)

The behavior remained outstanding as the performance drew to a close; two of my students even took a nap.*** The trouble began, however, as Paul Revere mounted his horse to spread the word of how the British troops were assembling. As Paul rode through the Massachusetts countryside, alerting fellow patriots that the Redcoats were crossing the Charles River, I detected excited whispering from the direction of Alonte, Montee, and Izeah a few seats over. I leaned forward and directed a withering glare at them, and all was quiet again until the end of the performance. At the play's conclusion, each actor stepped forward individually and bowed in acknowledgement of the crowd's applause. When it came time for the actor who portrayed Paul to take his bow, he was greeted by a near-unanimous cheer of approval from the few hundred students in attendance, with the notable and very audible exception of Alonte, Montee, and Izeah, who shouted boos at the man from a few feet away. Face flushed with anger and embarrassment, I managed to silence them and walked all three up the aisle and into the theater's lobby, where I asked what reason they could possibly have for booing a man who had just spent over an hour trying to educate and entertain them. They looked puzzled. "Why would I cheer for him?" Montee asked. Quivering with anger, I implored him to explain himself. Pausing a few seconds, Montee finally spoke with such innocence and sincerity that I lost all anger and broke down in laughter. "Paul Revere a snitch!" he declared.

*Slang for an informant. If you can't realistically request the next two weeks off work for "urgent personal business" to watch The Wire in its entirety, then at least do yourself a favor and watch this fascinating interview if you doubt me on this assertion.

**For you English majors, a comparison can be made here to The Scarlet Letter's Hester Prynne, if you permit yourself to envision her in decidedly less Puritanical surroundings. And with the name La'Hestra.

***Given that these students were not in the very first row of seats, I was completely fine with this. Any teacher who tells you that they would rather have two of their students wide awake than silently asleep during a play in a darkened theater is lying to you.

A Glimpse into the Future

A critical aspect of teaching at an inner-city school is knowing which battles to pick with one's students. Because my students tend to be more defensive, combative, and high-strung in nature* than those at, say, a county school, I have to construct my disciplinary approaches to the dozens of various daily incidents in my classroom in a manner that prioritizes the overall welfare of the class. 

This is why, when I saw Tye'Naisha completely ignoring her Math exercise this morning so she could cut sheets of white paper into small strips, I chose to simply look the other way. As I've already written, she can be rather difficult to handle at times, and I knew that any attempt to discipline her would result in a defiant outburst that would undoubtedly disrupt the other students, each of whom were working quietly at their desks at the time. Besides, she's one of my best students, and I have her desk deliberately tucked away in a corner of the classroom that makes it impossible for her peers to see what she's up to. The decision to ignore her was a relatively easy one to make, but proved regrettable.

About an hour later, it came time for us to make our morning trip down the hallway to the boys' and girls' rooms. While stationed outside the restrooms, doing my best to keep my students in a quiet line while they waited for their classmates to finish up, I realized that the girls were taking an unusually long time to leave their bathroom. When they finally began to emerge, most of them were conspicuously trying to conceal something on their arms, and attempting to suppress a fit of giggling. Then Tye'Naisha walked out, head held high and arms outstretched, and slowly spun around so her classmates could see what she had done while in the bathroom. The students erupted in raucous laughter, and heads soon poked out of every door in the hallway to see what my class had done this time.

As it turns out, Tye'Naisha had not been cutting up sheets of normal white paper. Over the weekend, she had somehow managed to get her hands on a pile of papers bearing a vast array of temporary tattoos - the kind you apply to your skin by pressing a wet paper towel against the back of it - and had spent the entirety of her morning cutting out the individual tattoos so she could share them with her girl classmates while in the bathroom. To her credit, it was an ambitious and bold plan, carefully orchestrated and flawlessly executed right under my nose. To make matters worse, these tattoos were not exactly something one could purchase in a Disney store. She had applied roughly 15 to each arm, creating veritable sleeves of ink that ranged thematically from "tasteless" to "overtly sexual." Running the length of one forearm was an Afroed vixen in a bikini, and her other wrist was now graced with the words "Sugar Baby."

I examined the other girls, and was dismayed to see that not all of them had demonstrated Tye'Naisha's restraint, and had in fact applied their tattoos to their faces and necks. Shy, quiet Denisha sported a pair of puckered lips on her forehead, and N'Dea's neck was now adorned with a set of wings, against which was superimposed the script "Hood Angel." I silently walked the class back to our room, sent Tye'Naisha to the office, and attempted to continue the Math lesson as if nothing had happened. It was 9:45 on Monday morning, and I was ready for the weekend.

*This is an apparent source of pride to my female students, who not only wear homemade shirts emblazoned with the word "Diva," but also often identify themselves on tests and quizzes as such (e.g. "Iyana aka Queen Diva aka Miss Priss Priss"). I fully expect this to be a problem in June, when we take our state-mandated standardized tests.

A Phone Conversation

They are typically unpredictable and unreliable. They have been both endearingly sweet and unconscionably disrespectful to me. They really like clothes made by Apple Bottoms and FUBU. I am referring, of course, to my students' parents.* Parent-Teacher Conference Day, with its "will-she-or-won't-she-show-up-for-her-scheduled-meeting?" tension, "will-she-hate-me-as-much-as-her-daughter-does?" excitement, and "wow-(student's name)'s-dad-looks-JUST-like-(rapper's name)" dynamic, is the most adrenaline-packed and weirdly enjoyable day on the academic calendar. In addition to enabling me to meet some interesting characters**, conference day also affords me an opportunity to gain some valuable insight into the home lives of my students. I learned this morning, however, that it is possible to have too much insight into these lives, over the course of an increasingly bizarre conversation with one of the parents.

It all started in this morning's Math class. Despite several warnings regarding the consequences of his behavior, Alonte (uh-LAWN-tay) continued to dispose of a seemingly endless cache of arrowhead erasers by throwing them with impressive velocity and remarkable aim at Kristoffer, seated across the classroom, to the considerable distress of those in his line of fire. Needless to say, all of this was to the detriment of my lesson on adding decimals, and I was compelled to ask Alonte, in comically exasperated fashion, "Why can't you pay attention?" Ever quick on his feet, he immediately countered, "Why is you so white?" in a manner that uncannily imitated my inflection on the question originally posited to him.***

Within seconds, I was on the phone with his mother in front of the class, who sat in transfixed silence. She was repulsed and infuriated when told what her son had said, and when told that he was currently next to me in the classroom, demanded to be put on speakerphone so that his peers could all hear what she had to say. In a moment largely attributable to a petty desire to exact a measure of revenge, I quickly acquiesced. What follows are a few choice excerpts, as best as I can remember, from a diatribe that could probably have gone on for hours had I not ultimately intervened:

-You is not my Valentine anymore!

-You act more like your daddy every day!

-Listen! [muffled grunting] Do you hear this!? I'm taking off my belt right now! [more grunting, followed by something that sounded like intermittent clapping] This is me slapping the kitchen table with my belt! I'm slapping the table with my belt! OOH! Just warming up for your butt when you walk in the door!

Mortified, I immediately took her off speakerphone after that last threat, and thanked her for her time. She seemed out of breath, I remember thinking. The class was silent for a while after I hung up, and many students even offered sympathetic glances toward their former tormentor. Alonte, who really is a pretty pleasant kid on most days, paid close attention for the rest of the lesson, and earned an A on an afternoon pop quiz on adding decimals. I called his mom to inform her of the grade and his improved behavior as soon as school ended. 

*It would be clearly irresponsible, even in a blog that three people read, for me to label these parents as uniformly untrustworthy or immature. With a few truly memorable exceptions, my kids' parents have been generally supportive and amicable, if a bit eccentric. More on this later.

**For you English majors, there's something sort of quintessentially Faulknerian about these parents, in that there's a tragic element to their unvarnished personalities (i.e., one mom went the duration of our conference without once removing a Slurpee straw from her mouth, and another thought it apropos to have a serious conversation with me about her son's academic performance while breastfeeding her infant child) that's more reflective of their impoverished, decaying neighborhood than anything else.

***Although it's certainly possible Alonte was genuinely interested in my genetic makeup, and would listen, enthralled, as I explained the ramifications of my Scandinavian heritage, it's probably more likely that he was making fun of the whiteness of my skin. Although rarely directed at teachers, this is a common form of insult at my school, which ironically is comprised of a 100% African-American student body. This does not stop bullies from picking on their relatively light-skinned peers by calling them names like "George Washington" and "Hannah Montana."