find a way

on this, the last day of the first marking period, i'd like to offer up a few of the directives i've been given regarding grading (and as a preface, know that i am not a difficult grader, that i plan on passing a lot of my students, and that i give them many opportunities to earn credit other than tests and essays):

1. no student in an honors class is to be given less than a 91% - were these students all actually honors students, and not just kids that were misplaced because their teacher last year took a shine to 'em, this might be possible. the reality is, that even by the grading standard i'm using for kids in my regular classes, i have at least one kid who is failing my honors sophomore english class. fuck the administration on this one. that kid ain't gettin' a 91%
2. no student is to be given below a 50%, and most failing grades should be coded as 55% - what this means, as far as boots on the ground reality, is that a kid who has never shown up for my class gets a 50%, and a kid who i've seen at least once gets a 55%. i am astounded at what constitutes "near failure" for these kids.
   
3. find a a way to pass as many students as possible - i shit you not. i am to "find a way" to pass a kid who has shown up maybe half of the time, not done a single piece of homework, never participated in class (has, in fact, caused more problems than not), and responded to every question on his latest quiz with "i don't care." i am supposed to pass along illiterate kids just so that this school and its administrators can inflate the numbers and put lipstick on a rotting pig.
   

i love the kids, i really do. on most days i even dig this job. however, i will never get used to the soul crushing numbness of a bureaucracy that plays at "serving" the students while criminally underserving them daily.

when they've seen that they can just crawl over the bar for years, what is supposed to motivate them to reach any higher? all answers are welcome.

over what?

[listening to: the hold steady, boys and girls in america]

regarding the past of the character Miss Rosie from lucille clifton's poem of the same name.

a student of mine had the following to offer the class as an explanation for Miss Rosie's fall from beauty queen in georgia to "wet brown bag of a woman":

see, she used to be bangin! cha-dig-it? then she got dropped by her man. no shit, nigga kicked her sideways. she started eating the haagen dazs, got all fat, started trippin' over her own titties. now that bitch is crazy homeless!

my favorite moments here are as follows:

1.) "cha-dig-it" - i can only assume that this is supposed to represent: "ya dig it?" i'm only aware of the exact spelling because the student in question has used it repeatedly in his homework and journal entries.

2.) "nigga kicked her sideways" - self explanatory.

3.) "haagen dazs" - there are few things better than a kid wearing earrings and a necklace with the face of jesus on them name dropping mass-consumer ice cream brands in the same sentence as the word "titties."

4.) "trippin over her own titties" - i asked what he meant by this and he cleared it up, explaining that he means she got fat and crazy. that is to say that she was both trippin (in the metaphorical sense) and (literally) doing so over her own pendulous breasts.

5.) "crazy homeless" - similar to number four in that "crazy" indicates that she is both nuts and it serves as a substitute for "very."

i am daily astounded by their accidental acuity with language.

judas

"citrus" by the hold steady from the record boys and girls in america

hey citrus
hey liquor
i love it when you touch each other
hey whiskey
hey ginger
i come to you with rigid fingers

i see judas in the hard eyes of the boys working the corners
i feel jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers

hey barroom
hey tavern
i find hope in all the souls you gather
hey citrus
hey liquor
i love it when we come together

i feel jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers
i feel judas in the long odds of the rackets on the corners
i feel jesus in the tenderness of honest nervous lovers
i feel judas in the pistols and the pagers that come with all the powders

lost in fog and love and faithless fear
i've had kisses that make judas seem sincere
lost in fog and love and faithless fear
i've had kisses that make judas seem sincere

i can't stop listening to this song. a perfect cross between melancholy and hope...kind of how i'm feeling.

get it if you can, it's absolutely worth it.

(future posts will be less lame. seriously.)

fatigue - n.

there is an odd tired that comes over you at this job.

i've reached a point where i can bang out my lesson plans with relative ease, i can get the kids through a book and gain some (an important qualification) genuine interest, and i've been able to keep some semblance of order in my class.

but holy shit do i feel the grind...

...and i hear tell that november is when it really comes home.

and the lord said: "let the bullshit flow!"

i think i'm going to start posting to this thing more often.

while i've thrown heaping piles of derision at blogs in general, and am in no way certain that my shitty life is interesting enough to toss up on the internet, writing this thing is somewhat therapeutic.

be prepared...a tidal wave of minutia and inanity is set to follow....

i will hit your kid...

bernie mac said it, and yeterday one of my student's parents asked me to do it.

seriously.

i called this woman to tell her that her son, who is a bright, but trying, young man, needed to shut his goddamn mouth and start turning in his work.

her response: "you just give that boy a smack."
me: "ma'am, i'm not sure that would be appropriate, but i would be grateful if you could have a word with him."
her: "oh, i will, don't you worry none about that. but just swat him upside his head if he acting up. that's how i do."

if only she had been able to produce a notorized legal document stating that i can hit her kid...i'd be hitting him for shit other kids were doing.

"you stressed?"
"yeah, but i'm gonna smack joshua around next period, so i'll be ok."

...not that i condone corporal punishment...