Controlled Chaos

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All right, I give up, he wins.  He can keep the record.

ENTJ (Chief) Personality Type (Jung / Myers-Briggs)

GQ on Obama: Above the Fray

Knowing that every student on my roster will show up at all, much less on the first day, is a luxury I don’t have.

Even up to last Monday, I was receiving multiple students a day. Their parents take them on vacations that span well into the beginning of the school year, leaving me to wonder how anyone could say the parents are NEVER to blame. The students themselves have a myriad of excuses, from not having uniforms (other kids are in school without them, and they all knew in advance), to trying to transfer (after the school year starts, the only schools with seats are decidedly worse than ours), to just forgetting the day school starts (sadly, what I reflect on as the most believable excuse).

And some kids will never show up. There are kids on my roster who were in my class last year, who attended regularly, who aren’t coming. Friends say they don’t intend to. They are 10th grade dropouts, and all I can really do is submit their names to a guidance counselor. And if the student-teacher ratio is bad (mine are 33-1, 26-1, and 15-1 (ESL)), the guidance counselor-student ratio is worse in folds (our school is about 350-1, and that’s actually relatively low).  Families, however loosely defined, hold a trump card over me in this respect: how can I teach students who don’t even show up?  And why should I be so flexible, and spend my free time catching up their child on the last two weeks’ worth of work?  I’m fairly certain they aren’t any busier than me, but I know that it is many of these same parents who won’t even come to parent-teacher conferences in October, so they’ll never have to wrestle with these grievances.

The saddest thing about all of this may be that their children are watching and learning from these behaviors, and could very well be the source of angst for future teachers for similar reasons.   In that light, it becomes difficult to lay the blame on the parents, as one might argue that they were socialized in this way; that they no of know other way.

I do not make or accept that argument anymore.

This morning, I got up, showered, and headed to school, like any other morning.  I waited for the train, got off, and headed up out of the station to the bus stop.  As I walked up, a homeless-looking white man kind of bumped into me, but as I’ve become inured to invasions of my personal bubble after living here for a year, I let it go.

The bus arrived.  People loaded onto it.  As is the case most mornings, my mind is elsewhere, wandering.  Suddenly, hoboman says “hurry up,” and then actually reaches forward and pushes a black man who is entering the bus.  My attention comes rushing to my immediate circumstances.  The black guy turns around, as astonished as I am, and the white man says “get on the bus.”  The black guy asks him what the fuck he just said, and hoboman calls him a nigger under his breath.  Black guy goes crazy, pretty rightfully so, though anyone on the periphery may not have understood much of his side at that point.

Before things heat up any frther, I put my posters in the air, and yell, “Cool out, come on, it’s 7:30 in the morning, I gotta go teach, let’s just let it drop.”  Fortunately enough for me and everyone else, the black guy was on the bus steps and mature enough to turn around, get on, and let it drop.  I think the white guy was about the last person to get on the bus, because, for some reason, no one would let him near the door.

This is why I have no need for caffeine in my diet.

The summer is drawing to a close.  I’ve made the most out of it, as the calendar below shows.  Below that, I’ve updated the last week, which has found me too busy to blog…likely to be the case again for a while after tomorrow, THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

8/27.  I met with Dave in Queens at a restaurant called “Mundo”.  We got halloumi, spinach and cheese, one other dish, and sangria.  I bought it all, happy to know that I will not be bullied financially by Felicia anymore.  Thanks go to my dad and Dave for the legal counsel.  An end to her psychotic interference in my life is forthcoming!

8/28  The English Department met at BCSM at 9am until 12, and it was pretty productive.  I stayed there until 6 getting stuff done.

8/29  I worked for a while, then went to the Theater district with mayer to try to win tickets to Wicked.  Alas, we lost.

8/30 & 8/31  Orientation at school.  I got most everything I needed to get done accomplished, save for making copies and the unpacking of a few boxes.  It did require me to be there until 9pm, though, the latest I’ve ever been in the building…ugh.

9/1  Every single student who had said they were going to Coney Island flaked, but Kristin and I actually ended up enjoying ourselves more because of that.  We went to the beach, where I got my requisite sunburn.  I swam in an ocean for the first time in a while.  We watched a crazy old lady dancing for cash, and laughed more when she started haranguing people sitting near us who deftly put her in her crazy place.  We drank blueberry daiquiris from big long cups.  We walked the pier.  We saw a man pound a 20-penny nail into his face, then insert a woring drill into the same whole, as well as a woman eating fire and setting her own arms on fire, at the freak show.  We had a nearly complete Coney Island experience – which is good, because they shut it down for the season the next day, and they’re dismantling things to put in condominiums during the off-season.

9/2  I threw a poorly advertised but well-prepared floor party.  The double-entendre was that there were things to do in every room on the floor, and also that you had to sit on the floor, since most of the furniture is now gone.

9/3  I got up early to keep in training, worked for a while, talked to Charita, met with Maria, and then returned home to complete a few othe menial tasks.  Now I am going to drink wine with fellow teachers, so that I can be asleep by 9.

9/4 (tomorrow) School begins…