More Stern Grove pics

Jare, Tucker, and me

Don't ask... just don't ask!

more stern grove pics

Patrick and Lia

Drunken Irishman!!! Or is that redundant?


Stevie tells us about the tupperware containers
he got from TV. I think I need to get some too!!!


Kira kissing Allison


Ken and Kira

Stern Grove Pictures

Allison kissing Kira!!!


Kira transitioning from downward dog to upward dog!!!

Birthday cake

More cake


Ken and Allison

The last day

So today is the last day at work. Yesterday I conducted interviews with students to decide whether to let students in or not. This was a time to really jam students about their grades, why they wanted to come to school, and whatever other questions we wanted to ask. While I was helping conduct the interviews the students have the say on whether to let the students in or not. There were some students that we didn't let in. I had one student start crying on us when we asked her questions. The students can be really rough on students too which is cool. I really like that students decide who comes in. This gives students a sense of ownership in the school and they help create the student learning environment. What I would like to see more of is students checking other students when they aren't holding up their end. Most of the students that we let in we let in provisionally. The provisions were things like academic probation, novel reviews due by the beginning of the school year, mandatory tutoring, and anger management classes.

Today it was all about cleaning up and getting ready for next year. We had a staff meeting where we discussed class schedules and staff gave me more shit for having my honeymoon during the inservice days. They talked about joining me at my honeymoon location for their meetings. How romantic would that be... Allison would love that idea. I've also got the list of stuff that I'm going to be teaching for next year. I'm doing world cultures 1 & 2, Asian American studies, multicultural literature/English highpoint 1B & 2B, and US history. World Cultures should be fun. I was an international relations major and I love world history so I'm digging teaching that class. I find most American citizens that I have encountered to be rather provincial when it comes to the international world. I'm lucky to find Americans that know about US history much less world history. I hope 9/11 was a watershed event that has spurred American interest in international politics.

This summer will be a time to rest, evaluate my pedagogical practices, and lesson plan for next year. Now though... it's off to the bar with my staff for a "meeting."

Stern Grove

Yesterday was Allison's 30th birthday and we went to Stern Grove to celebrate. They've completely remodeled Stern Grove and it's waaay cooler. There are stepped terraces and stone boundaries just give the entire place a calmer atmosphere. You don't feel as claustrophobic now cause of the way they rearranged things. I guess you'd have to say that it's a tradition going to Stern Grove in the summer. I have to admit that it's one of my favorite things to do in the Bay Area during the summer. Free concerts with great music. We listened to O-Maya and Ojos de Brujo. It was great, a bunch of people showed up for Allison's birthday and when we sang happy birthday to her the entire area of people surrounding us joined in. There had to be around 100 people singing happy birthday to her and after the song was over the place erupted into cheers for her. It was really cool. She was really happy. After the concert was over we just chilled in the park. The sun didn't come out till the end of the day so when it did come out everyone was drunk and no one wanted to go anywhere. So there we were lying in the sun drunk and happy. Actually Stern Grove was one of the first places that I ever met up with Allison when we were first started to get to know each other. I remember Tabla Beat Science was playing and I was hanging out with my party crew and Allison came with her friends. They weren't able to get in cause the place was so crowded, but she was able to sneak in and come say hi to me.

Stern Grove was packed yesterday. It always is. Because we are in perpetual lag mode we didn't get there till noon. The show starts at 2 but you have to get there early to get a spot. When we got there at noon it was already almost filled up but luckily our friend Kira and Ken were out there early and reserved a spot for us. Now that we've realized that it's a tradition, Allison and I have started to invest in more picnic type stuff. Allison got a blanket with a water resistant bottom and a cooler with wheels. Cooler with wheels is key, I don't know why it took so long for someone to come up with it. Wheels=less work. A bunch of people were taking pictures so I'll post a bunch of when they email them to me.

Student Plagiarism

I was up until 4:00am on Thursday grading student's papers. I found over 13 incidents of plagiarism on top of the 3 students that I found originally. I just typed lines from papers into a google search and viola. I've read my students' papers before and I'm aware of their skill level in writing. I knew they didn't write those papers. Please!!!! They weren't even slick about it. With some of them I could have just typed in the subject and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button on the google search. They used the first source in google. Most of (if not all) students' research was internet based. I was stunned. Floored. Bummed out. Disappointed.

Then the next day I had to write out grades. Jeremy and I have got to figure out an open source administration software system for the school cause I can't do this handwriting out grades stuff. It's archaic. I just want to do things on a computer and export shit. I'm far too lazy to sit there with a pen and write shit out and then white out shit when I mess up.

After all the grades had been written out I had a student come to me at 3:30 to ask me what her grade was. She was one of the plagiarizers. I said that she got no credit and an F cause her shit was plagiarized. She said that she didn't plagiarize and got all these resources from the library. I said that she got it off the internet and she replied that she didn't even go to the internet. I said "shall I show you?" She said yes and then I typed a line into the google search. Ta-Dah!!! Verbatim. She continued on saying it wasn't from the internet. I guess the person on the internet must have copied her paper and then put it up on the website. Those devious internet authors. Then I showed her another section of her paper that was verbatim from a text that we read in class! That wasn't cited either in the bibliography. Shit we read that in class, I'm not going to recognize that one???

There were some students that had low skills but they tried to write a paper and I recognized that they did write things themselves. Those students I gave grades based on what they were trying to say and do. There were some students that plagiarized work but they cited sources in their bibliography so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe they didn't know how to do citations. Then there were the students that plagiarized, didn't put cite the sources they used in the bibliography, and wrote other sources down that they got their work from. Those students were trying to put things over on me. The student that came into my room fell into the latter category. This really bummed me out too cause I like that student. In fact I liked a number of the students that plagiarized work. I know that much of this isn't an attack on me. Part of this is kids being lazy, part of it is kids not having the skills, part of it is kids trying to put one over on me. I think the thing that really bothers me is that they didn't even plagiarize from a book. I would have trouble with that one cause I wouldn't go to a library to find out. But the internet... that's too easy.

Graduation and onwards

Yesterday was the last day of school for the students. I was at school grading bad papers and sweating the one student that had tried to play more games with me. The one that said to her CTM that she had spoken to me about her final project and the difference between that and her senior project. She handed in the 8 pages to me yesterday and there was no citations and I could tell that she hadn't written a lot of the paper herself and that she had to have taken it from somewhere. So I made her spend a couple of hours writing out footnotes and making a better bibliography. I was sweating her till the last second. It's incredible the power of "if you want to graduate you have to..." Ultimately she passed, but I mean by a hair. No room for doing any less. I spent my time grading a huge stack of papers that is making me rethink this final project thing, or at least retooling it to somehow make my life easier. Cause getting all these papers at one time and then having to grade them is a pain. Next time I need to make a better rubric for grading papers.
Yesterday was graduation for my school. There was a graduating class of 24 students and it was held at a nearby cultural center. I went to it thinking that I didn't really want to be there and that it was work, but then I realized that that is what it's all about. It's all about getting the little buggers to graduate. That's the big deal, that's what I'm doing this for. So I can see students that have the odds stacked against them graduate. That's why I'm at the school that I am at. I could have taken a cushy job somewhere else for a lot better pay, but I'm at the school that I want to be at working with the population that I want to work with. And I'm having a lot of fun doing it. I should have graded papers yesterday but I just wanted to take it easy and have a break from all the drama.
Today we had a long long staff meeting and we went over the list of people and whether we should keep them or not. This took a long time where CTMs advocated or not for their particular students. I've been given a stack of papers for the various incoming freshmen that are going to constitute my CTM next year. I've also inherited some from teachers that are leaving and the students requested me. The school year is going to be a whole different thing when I got my CTM. There's going to be a lot more demanded of me in terms of time and commitment. Culling the list took pretty much the whole day with a longish break for lunch. I like this process though where the teachers and staff decide who to let back in or not. It's not a black and white stay or go thing either. We assign novel reviews, community service, and other stuff to be done over the summer. We would also refer people to CTM meetings or staff meetings. These would be meetings were we would jam people.

The Praxis of Pedagogy day 44

So I let the kids redo their presentations and turn in their new 8 page paper. I seriously wonder if I am setting a bad precedent by doing this. IMO a lot of teaching management issues come from what the word out in the halls is about you. Kids talk and they tell each other how they were treated by a teacher and the kids judge their experience with you in relation to how their friend was treated. That was longwinded but hopefully understandable. You gotta earn respect in teaching. It's the most important thing you can do. I try to earn it by being a respectful person and never forgetting the person that is in the role of the student. It is also important not to be a pushover. Nobody respects a pushover.

I got feedback from students. A good number of them said some very good things, but they all said that I need to do more fun activities. I agree. It will definitely be something I will be thinking about this summer. I would like to play some games cause I always remember having so much fun playing classroom games when I was a teenager. Having more fun activities will make the boring ones more tolerable. My excuse is I was scrambling trying to get my shit straight. Overwhelmed by not knowing what I wouldn't know, and then very much finding out what I didn't know. But whatever, things to work on. I'll have more planning time this summer.

So anyways the last student gave a presentation in my 3rd period class and I had them write a letter to themselves and comments for me. One of my students was still trying to play games though. While the two other students that were part of this whole debacle rewrote papers and gave new presentations, one student still tried to get away with giving me 4 pages. She said she never was told she had to write more papers and that she never told her CTM that she had spoken to me about the difference between her senior project paper and her final paper for me. She is in the greatest danger of failing and not walking tomorrow and it really bugs me. She wants to walk with her friends but she has been doing shit work lately. There were the waterworks of course but I'm immune to that after working with elementary school kids for so long.

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 43

We are on finals schedule today and only had two classes that were both 1 hour and 30 minutes long. In both my first and second period we finished up presentation and the students that fucked up royally with me I let go again and give another presentation. On these presentations I kept them up there for a while and really pressed them on information and subject matter knowledge. I enjoyed this. I really really did.

Then after that I had them get out two pieces of paper. On one paper I had them compose a letter to themselves for next year. I had them answer the following questions

• How did you do this year?
• How did you do in this class?
• What did you do well?
• What could you have done better?
• What are your goals for next year?
• What do you want for yourself in school?

Then on the second piece of paper I had them write to me about things that I could do to be a better teacher and improve my skills or lack thereof. The questions I asked them to answer were

• What can I do to improve?
• What would you like to see more of?
• What did you like about the class?
• What can I do to help make students more successful?

Just 2 more days with the students!!!

I was pretty pissed yesterday night. I needed a lot of time and beer and what to decompress. Usually when I come back from work I need time to decompress but yesterday... I was talking with Allison and it just boiled down to me being really really disappointed in students. Allison got done with school yesterday so we went out to our favorite Eritrean restaurant to celebrate.

I think the thing that bums me out the most is when I see kids that have crazy shit going on around them take things out on themselves. They just let the drama take over them and take control. Then to deal with the drama they just say fuck it to everything. They just want to have fun, get drunk or high, and forget it all. It bums me out a lot cause that's what I used to do. Actually shit I still do it to myself sometimes. It's sad.

But I also felt really dissed yesterday. My God... Reagan was right. Trust but verify! I went around showing students' work to different teachers cause I was totally paranoid and was thinking that they were all trying to put one over on me. They don't think that I talk with other teachers. So 3 students were caught in all... so far. One student lied again to me. Said that he had spoken to the principal and that she had said that he could do another paper. I said ok and told him 8 pages and another presentation. Then I went to talk to the principal and she said that she never said he could do another paper and that she wouldn't have usurped my authority like that. I'm thinking that I won't accept his paper on Monday cause of the continuous pattern of lying. I mean just fucking come clean. You got caught so just come clean and ask for fucking mercy. But after finding out that he lied again to me... fuck it. Then the other girl that I caught (not the one that turned in the same portfolio and helped me bust this whole fiasco) said to her CTM that she had shown me her senior project along with the final paper that she turned in. She of course never did.

The first student that I caught I respect more cause at least she sucked it up and is doing another paper without complaining or what. The other two kept trying to lie to me and others. That's not cool at all and I got no respect for that. I've called their CTMs and asked what they think about the situation. I also called my principal and left a message on her answering machine. I'll know what to do by the end of the weekend.

Little bastards!!!

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 42

A lot of people really disappointed me today. I found out that a number of my students have been turning in work that was done in other classes or they got off of other people. Some of those students are seniors and are supposed to graduate and they probably won't graduate. My principal wanted to just flunk people but I'm giving people till Monday to turn in twice the number of pages along with doing another presentation.

Presentation by and large were worse today. I was pretty pissed off today. I'm actually more pissed off today than any other day so far. Half assed work. People trying to put one over on me. Lots of people just not even doing their presentations. Lots of F's going around this semester as a result. This final paper and presentation is worth 30% of their grade and a lot of them aren't doing so hot as it is. I'm just happy the day is over. Pretty unhappy all around.

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 41

Well today was a very interesting day. More presentations and they were for the most part better than the ones earlier in the week. Kids are scrambling like crazy now making busy. Lots of kids are handing in late work and taking quizzes they never took. This is a bit much and I'm going to have to do a different system next year. Shut the books on quizzes and homework 2 weeks after the due date. I'll also have to post grades often so they know where they are.

I was pretty disappointed in one of my favorite students because she doesn't have a very good grade in my class and she is a senior that is supposed to graduate. I told her that her presentation and paper had to be great if she wanted to pass my class. Then she came into class and gave a great presentation. I was so happy but slightly bewildered cause I hadn't seen her do much work on her project. Then she handed me her paper and it was a paper she had already written in another class in March. She even kept it in the same portfolio with the same cover. I can't take that. I talked with her CTM and we're going to tell her to do another paper and presentation by Monday.

But in my first period I found a student looking at an obscene and derogatory picture that was drawn of me and a student. Sexual references were drawn alongside the picture. I had a very good idea of who it was and was pretty surprised because I get along well enough with that student. But I guess I was wrong. The paper was under the desk that he always sits at, but I needed to be sure so I checked the handwriting against some of his work. I went all detective style on him. I noted in particular the similarity in the writing of the letter u and he spelled the student's name wrong. So during lunch I casually walked up to the student and said hi and made some small talk. Then I asked him how to spell the student's name and he spelled it wrong like in the picture. Later I confronted him with the my knowledge of the picture. He tried to play innocent but I pressed him more and he admitted to it. Now he's suspended to the end of the year and can only come back to take his finals. His parents are also going to be coming to the school tomorrow to apologize to me. I still think that he's a good kid but he's ridiculously immature. The student that he drew the picture of and him are always capping on each other in a real stupid teenage way. Your momma this... Your momma that. I've told them numerous times to stop before, but now it's gone too far and the stupid kid is suspended. He wasn't suspended until later on in the day when I showed the picture to his CTM. He was in one of my classes and he was presenting today so I decided to really scrutinize his presentation.

First off he was supposed to present on a certain topic that he wrote down months ago. Instead he presents on a completely different topic that has nothing to do with the class subject. To top it off he was just reading off a handout that he got on the internet. So I picked away at his presentations in a calm and rational way. I asked him for data on things and to explain the relevance of things. He squirmed and I kept very quiet with the spotlight of the classroom on him. After a protracted silence I asked some more questions. After more silence I let him off the hook.

There was definitely some schadenfreude going on. Would I go so far as to say sadism... no because I called out other students that presented as poorly as he did. I mean the kid obviously didn't do much work cause just a few days ago he was asking me what was the topic for his project. We've had days where students can work on projects and I've been on his case for not having any work, but he really didn't do shit after those work days. I mean the kid had forgotten what his topic was. Whatever... it's over.

Anyways, I've realized through this whole presentation process that I have to teach students how to give presentations. I also have to press them more during the work days and assign points for work.

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 40

Meta class today... they did presentations for extra credit. Half-ass effort presentations. I can tell by the presentations that the students didn't spend more than an hour prepping for it. One group of students just got up and read off information a paper they got from the internet. This is the problem with the internet, it makes students think that they don't have to find anything from the library and that everything can be done through a google search.

Then we had a student come up and do a presentation about the school rules. This led to an incredibly stupid debate about how the rules are messed up and students should be allowed to sleep in class, answer cell phones, and do their hair and makeup.

Then another student did an presentation/crap about how the metamorphosis class was terrible and useless and he didn't get anything from it. This brought up another stupid debate. As a collective class we were terrible. I am sure there were things that Amanda and I didn't do as well and could have done better on, but there were a ton of things that students did and didn't do that didn't help. More than half the students aren't passing because they haven't done anything. Homework hasn't been turned in, extra credit hasn't been done.... I need a drink.

Late Night

When school is over I am going to crash so hard. I think I'll sleep for 2 days or so. That would be nice. Just sleep... because as it is right now I'm not getting much. Reading half-assed bad papers. Getting asked ridiculous questions.

I'm gonna turn down the testing job. I'm going to have a full plate with just having a homeroom group of kids that I got to watch over as well as it being my first full year teaching. The only project that I really want to sink my teeth into is getting computers into the school and open source software on the computers. I just talked to a part time teacher and he was saying that he has computer experience (6 years corporate) and he'd be willing to put in extra time helping out with the computer stuff. With my buddy Jeremy and Christian and me working on the computers we just might bring the school into at least 1999.

Jeremy was talking about tooling with computers so we can dual boot them. That way if we want them booting up on microsoft we can and linux if we want. I'm excited to learn more about open source software cause I love firefox already. I love the fact that I'm moving away from Bill Gates Inc. I love the antihierarchical anarchist communal tone of open source software.

Bobbin go to this site and download firefox and start to free yourself from the corporate pimp. You'll like it I promise. There are alternatives to microsoft... they just don't have as good marketing as microsoft. Take the red pill, Bobbin!

The Praxis Of Pedagogy Day 39

Another day of presentations...in my first period class one student was supposed to give a presentation. But when I saw her at the bus stop just before school I knew she wasn't going to come. Then...surprise surprise she wasn't in class. So I let them work on their projects cause people were still scrambling. Last second work... love it.

In my US history class, one of my best and favorite students wasn't prepared. This was surprising and shocking to me. Then another student wasn't prepared so only two students went today. I'm going easier on students that go in the first part of the week cause it is a whole lot harder.

In my multicultural class only two students went today. One student got mad at me yesterday cause I expressed frustration with her lazy ass ways. The girl is very intelligent but she doesn't want to do anything. Anyone out there noticing a theme among the students.

Next year I will have to spend time on lesson plans that teach students how to present information. My principal asked me to be the new test preparation person. She told me to talk to the teacher that was leaving and find out about it. While I want to do stuff for the school, I just think I might be too overloaded. Next year is going to be my first full year of teaching and it's going to be crazy. I mean I'm stressing now, I can't imagine adding on another job to what I got now. I think that I'm going to turn her down. I think it's pretty good that i'm working on the computer lab and getting the computer situation set up.

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 38

I didn't get to my monday post like I wanted. I'm staying late at school cause some students don't have computers at home and if I stay a little longer they get more computer time, plus it's coming up on finals time. I had a student come up to me today asking me what he was writing on for his final project. This week we are giving presentations, next week the papers are due. He's asking me what he needed to do. I finally did the grades up on the computer and students aren't doing so well. Next year I need to be more on top of it when it comes to grading and posting grades.

My first period didn't have any speakers so I let them work on project stuff. As they were doing that I gave out grades. Some seniors aren't walking. My second period had two students go. I'm being more lenient to the students that go first because they got the guts to go first and it's tough. But the presentations were... disorganized. One thing that I've really learned teaching is that I can't expect them to know how to do things. I have to walk them through and really show them how to do a lot of things. The kids are smart enough, they just lack skills and often motivation and self confidence. My motto though is to always have hold them in higher regard than they hold themselves. Higher expectations, though not blind to where they are. My third period class had students doing projects too. One student didn't even know that he was doing a project today. He signed the paper himself choosing the day that he was going to go. Apathetic bump on a log.

In more humorous news, I was offered my first bribe by a student today. $140 dollars on-the-spot cold hard cash if I passed her in the class. She's a senior and wants to walk but she hasn't been doing so well. I mean she took a test and got an 8 out of 50. A test where the students made up more than half of the questions. Sigh... it's very frustrating.

Alright got to get back to grading.

Rambling

I tried to get to a co-worker's drag show on Saturday. Tickets were sold out. The place was packed. Standing room. It bummed me out cause I never saw one before. She was in a group that did boy band tunes. I hate boy bands, but I wanted to see her. Since we missed out we just went to a bar and had a drink and danced a little. I lag. I should have gotten there earlier. It's gay pride month so there's a lot of stuff going on in the city and stuff.

It's funny when a movie does this to you, but the movie Kinsey changed the way that I view sexuality. Much of what we consider to be normal is only a small portion of the diversity in human sexuality. I think that's the important thing to remember is that there is an incredible diversity in the human creature. People are capable of all kinds of things. My coworker told me about the bizarre (to me) world of polyamory. Having more than one intimate loving relationship at a time with all partners aware and consenting. This would be too much stress for me. It reminds me of one of my favorite jokes, "What is the punishment in the state of California for having two wives?" Answer: You got two wives.

Anyway the incredible world of fetishes, S&M, bondage, all that shit is crazy. It's crazy what will get someone off. I mean scat??? That shit (no pun intended) is crazy crazy. That is into a world of diversity that I'm really not down with. I mean everyone can have their own thing.. but that it is too much for me.

Rambling

My friend Jeremy and I want to make our school open source and get the corporate pimps (read Microsoft) out of our schools. Then I was reading some news and got some inspiration from Brazil...that seems to happens a lot.

I mean right now I'm using Mozilla firefox and I love it. It's a waaaay better browser than internet explorer and you can get all these cool add-ons and themes. I've decided that I want to learn more about computers. I love the idea of open source. It's so... organic. It grows and changes in response to the environment. Instead of a few microsoft corporate lackeys viewing the source code you got millions of computer geeks worldwide. Best of all is the price... Free ninety nine!

When this teacher credentialing crap is all over I'm gonna take some computer classes. I have to learn more about this anarchist open source stuff. I would like to make my own future computers Linux based.

Allison and I have been fighting over wedding stuff. It started over me not putting the stamps on the envelopes right. Here I was putting stamps on the envelopes when I find out to my dismay that I'm not putting them on correctly. They were too far away from the upper right hand corner and slightly crooked. My thinking was it's an envelope. People are going to get it and then open it and then throw it away. I didn't think that my stamp placement was so bad that it destroyed the look of the envelope. Who's looking at the envelope??? What if I put the stamp... upside down. But it seemed to really matter to Allison and so we got into a fight over it. My thinking is you tell me to put stamps on envelopes and so let me do it. It's a stamp on an envelope.

We get into fights over the wedding. I want to marry Allison don't get me wrong. it's the wedding that's not my thing. Not that I'm not going to have a great time and all that. It's just the wedding is so elaborate and more her thing. I'm doing it cause that is what makes her happy and I want to make her happy cause I love her. But this is not my thing. She wants me to be as excited about it as she is and I just can't. If I said I was I'd be lying and faking it. Marriage and weddings are two different things. They intersect but they are different things. Most women have been socialized to see it as one and the same. I want to get married and I'm going to have a wedding. A fun wedding with a lot of dancing, but still not my thing.

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 37

In my Asian American studies class I gave them time to work on their projects. I absolutely love the fact that it is the week before presentations and some even haven't started conducting research yet. I spent my time correcting tests/talking with students. It's cool cause I'm really establishing a good rapport with some students. I guess it hasn't worked out for some people. There is one part time teacher that gets picked on by students.

In my US history class I gave them the test on the Spanish American war and WWI. I absolutely love the fact that students don't know the answers to 10 question tests that we went over in class and they made up the questions. Lovely. After that we worked on the project.

In my multicultural class I gave the test where they had to give 5 arguments for and 5 arguments against the use of the word nigger. I also asked them to tell me what they thought of it and would they continue to use the word.

For 4th period I went searching for students that hadn't chosen a date to do their presentations. I ended up in the SOTU (sisters of the underground) class. This is a class about hip hop culture and graffitti, turntablism, and breakdancing. I got to try scratching cause there was a DJ that was teaching scratch. It looked like too much fun and I had to try it. I wish I'd had a class like this when I was in high school.

My biggest accomplishment today was fixing the P4 problem in my class. I got the sound working and I installed firefox on it. But more about open source later.

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 36

I started off all the classes by reading from "Animal Farm." It's unfortunate but we won't get to finish it. Then I talked to all of them about the final project and about them presenting next week. They are going to be giving presentations next week and some of them still don't have anything.

In my Asian American studies class I started off with pulling sticks and asking questions about Orientalism. Sometimes when this class is awake they are a really fun and interesting class. Today they were awake and talking. Pulling sticks and talking about Orientalism got us into an interesting conversation about race and racism. It revolved around the question of power in race. In some theories about race it is put forth that only white people can be racist. People of color can say and do things that perpetuate the racist system (through prejudice or stereotyping remarks), but they cannot be racist because they don't have the power to be. An analogy would be where not everyone is a capitalist but they can do things to support the capitalist system, but ultimately not everyone has the power. So then the question became what about a white person in Africa and the people there were clowning on the white person. I threw in the case of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe, and the transfer of land ownership from white farmers to black farmers. Should we see racism as the totality of experience and power being exerted upon a people. Are blacks in Zimbabwe being racist? Or are they only supporting a system of race. Is race defined through the group on top? We talked about the social construct of race in the US and how any bit of African blood in you and you were black but you had to have a certain % to be considered native american. This was to enslave blacks and take land away from natives respectively. All interesting questions that I told them that I did not have the answer to but had my opinions that I tried to support with arguments and examples. I said that everyone will have different opinions and that the best you could do was back it up as persuasively and as best as you can. Then we tried to finish up and read more of "getting together."

In my US history class we made up questions for a short 100 point test tomorrow. This class really didn't do too well on the first test so I was giving them another so they could get more points. Next year I need to give more tests that are shorter in length. Then perhaps a comprehensive one towards the end. But I wasn't so well planned out and didn't really know where i was headed sometimes this quarter. This was my first quarter. I've been reflecting on how I did this quarter and I think on a scale of 1-10 that I did perhaps a 4 or 5. I think that the best thing that I have done is to create positive relationships with students and some classroom management stuff. But in terms of getting grading done and organization and better lesson plans and stuff... not so good. My pedagogy needs a lot of work. But I think that if I have time to plan things out better... it'll be ok. I also didn't know the timing on things and things that I thought would go well didn't.

In my multicultural ed class my goal was to listen to some Michael Eric Dyson and then break stuff down with them. But his stuff is waaaaaaaaay too intellectual for them. They are only in the ninth grade for the most part and can't understand half the words that he uses. This turned out to be a big flop. Poor planning. Note to self... NEVER do this again. Thing was that they have been so into Dyson before (when I read about gangsta rap from his reader and when I played the talk between Cornel West and him on "Street Knowledge") I thought they would dig listening to him. But he was too much for them and I hope that I haven't turned them off of him. Plus the recording was so bad that they couldn't hear sometimes cause Dyson was too far from the mic. So then I had to come up with an impromptu talk about the struggle. You know the struggle that I'm talking about... the one that's against oppression and all the forces in society that seek to stop us from being more fully human. This didn't work out like I thought. Very bad class I gave today. Tomorrow they will be working on their final project so I didn't want to get into anything too heavy today. I should have prepared a seminar for today.

Rambling

I went to see Reverend Billy and the Church of stop shopping on Sunday. I went with a group of friends and I had to say that it was pretty funny. The guy is not a real reverend but doing political activist comedy. The group's message does have a moral quality to it. I mean they are telling people to stop shopping, in particular to not shop with the big transnational corporations. I think they realized that they might start to sound sanctimonious with their message. So why not go a step further and be sanctimonious. Become a religious organization. Satire. I love it. The crowd was into it too. Yelling out change-allujah, amen brother, and other religious type stuff. They also brought in the Billboard Liberation Front. They are a cool group that is doing a lot of subversive culture jamming work.

I'm thinking that I want to do a culture jamming or media class as a Wednesday class. I'd have a lot of fun with that, though I would have to walk a thin line about talking about subversive stuff and condoning students' subversive behavior. Not that I personally mind at all if they did subversive stuff but at the same time... I don't want to get kids in trouble.

The praxis of pedagogy day 35

I woke up today feeling like I was going to get sick. I had a tickle in the back of my throat that I always get before I get sick. My body felt achy. I was in a daze all morning long. It sucked. I really hope that I don't get sick. I can't afford to be sick. I don't know what I'm going to do over the summer. My job ends so late that it's hard to find summer jobs cause most people are letting out of school already. Then the wedding is coming up and that is going to be expensive. Anyways... I started to feel better by 10:30 or so and then I had my meta class.

A lot of people were out of meta today. That made it nice. We watched "A piece of the action" with Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier. The movie relates to the stuff that we've been doing in meta. It's funny cause the kids were totally agreeing with the part in the movie on common courtesy, but then towards the end of the movie students are asking what does it have to do with meta. Sigh. I talked to my coteacher Amanda and it looks like 3 kids are looking like they will pass the class. All the crap that we've been through with this class and only 3 are going to pass. Ridiculous. Most haven't done their homework. This class has been really frustrating to me. I really hope that I don't ever have to teach this class again. But I know that I won't have such luck. But then again, people were saying that this was one of the wilder classes in a long time. What a hazing for me this quarter.

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 34

The journal prompt for today was "It must be the aim of education to teach the citizen that he must first of all rule himself." The quote was made by Winthrop A. Aldrich. I asked them to explain what the quote means, do they agree with it, why or why not. If they didn't agree with it then what should be the aim of education. At first I talked about the inherent sexism in the quote and how citizenship is related to being male and freedom has been related to being a free male. Then I brought in a critique that I read by bell hooks that stated that the loss of freedom or the destruction of land and territory is often related to the emasculation of men or negative actions against females. So the loss of freedom is a castration and the destruction of land is a raping. But I wanted them to really think about why they are getting educated. Is it just so they can spit back facts to me?

In my Asian American studies class, we finished up the critique of the use of the word Oriental. The word Oriental is like the word Negro. The word is an anachronism from colonial times. In a more "enlightened" post colonial world we try to stop using such out dated words, because words and language matters. I really talked up the part though on the "Orient being seen as the farthest point from civilization and thus a region of barbarism, exotic custom, and strange delight." One of Edward Said's arguments is about the objectification and penetration of the Orient by the West and he puts it in very sexual terms. There is a sexuality... an eroticism associated with the idea of exotic. Exotic women or exotic lands. This tied in with bell hooks critique. The West was the male and the Orient was the female that was to be possessed, to be owned, to be ravaged. After that I introduced the Yellow Power movement during the 60s as a movement and struggle against discrimination and racism. We started reading the first issue of "Getting Together" from the 1970s. Class stopped on this.

My US history class was fun. I started off with the question on how people would act after being through a big crazy war that killed a lot of people. People would go buck wild. The Roaring 20s! Things were changing rapidly during the 20s. Since my time is limited I was trying to do a brief overview of the interwar period. I talked about the Prohibition and how illegal alcohol helped contribute to the growth of organized crime. Then I related this to the drug war going on right now. Gangs are being funded and are growing because of the illegal drug trade. Sell drugs to buy more weapons to make the gang stronger to take over more territory to have more power and money to buy more drugs. It's like the movie "City of God". Then I talked about the clash between religion and science. Darwin, evolution, and the whole Scopes trial turned the religious community on its head. Then on top of this was the changing role of women. I talked about gender roles and how women entering the job world and making their own money disrupted the "traditional family values." Dogmatic religious folks must have been flipping out. Women in short skirts and hair, making their own money, and acting like "men." Then I touched on the great migration of African Americans out of the South and into the north from 1910-1920. I talked briefly about the things that pushed blacks out of the south and the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. This was another thing that must have flipped out white folks. Speakeasies, Darwinism, empowered women, Black people all around. Intolerant white folks must have been thinking it was the end of civilization itself. Finally we ended on the causes of the Great Depression.

In my multicultural class I had to throw a student out cause he was unable to control himself. Student were generally off the wall today. But I listened to them talk about their homework and various solutions to the increasing segregation among students of different racial backgrounds. There were a lot of calls for more coordinated activities that forced people to interact. The boys also wanted a men's circle. The girls in the school have a women's circle where they discuss issues and the boys were calling for their own. Another student brought up that self esteem issues really need to be addressed. After this we made a list of for and against the use of the word nigger to finally bring an end to the unit. This actually worked out well and I was happy to hear that some students have decided to give up the use of the word after they learned about everything associated with it.

After school I had a short conversation with the student that I kicked out. He's a big guy that is pretty smart and I forget sometimes that he's only a kid. The guy's only 14. I thought about it and realized that I may have been interacting with him in the wrong way. So I decided to take a different route. Instead of busting his balls I decided to ask him what was wrong and is he ok. After a bit of probing he admitted that something was going on at home. I talked with him a bit about not letting his anger control him cause it would take him down a bad path. The dark side of the force it is. Ok I didn't say that. But damn... I was thinking it. He probably would have thought it was funny though cause he likes Star Wars. I also told him that he needed to control himself better. I should find some Star Wars quotes and throw it at him, see what he says.

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 33

I started off the day by having students study for 5 minutes for the vocab test. Then I gave the vocabulary test and hopefully students did well. Unfortunately I caught one of my students cheating in one of my classes. I was pretty unhappy but didn't make a scene right then and there. He didn't have his contract so I will have to talk to his CTM and give him 8 hours at least.

In my Asian American studies class I gave them a poem by Joyce Miyamoto called "Asian American." This is a great poem that was written in the 1970s but still holds true for today. It responds to the questions like "What are you?". It brings up the issues of pigeonholing people and the struggle to be considered American. I thought it turned out well to use this poem at this time cause it really encapsulated all the ideas that we have been talking about. People had learned enough about the relevant issues to better understand the poem. Then we talked about fighting words and slurs. We talked about all these slurs and then I asked them to give me slurs against rich white men. This question worked well in this older class. It was pretty silent and I like it when this realization dawns on people. They do that old Arsenio Hall bit "Things that make you go hmmmmmm..." I also told them to about the 49ers training video but told them that it was intended for a mature audience and that they shouldn't see the video at www.sfgate.com. Interesting thing about fighting words and slurs, people can be ignorant in their own ignorance. Calling every Asian face a gook or chink or whatever. Can't even use the right racial slur with the right ethnic background. As we say in the bay, hella stupid! The class ended with us briefly starting in on Orientalism critique.

In my US history class I asked questions about WWI and then we talked about the Treaty of Versailles and how it set the stage for WWII. I used a combination of the textbook and the US history. The textbook does have its uses, sometimes. Interesting with all that talk about Woodrow Wilson and 14 points there is nothing about the US occupation of Haiti. I also talked about the Russian revolution. What's cool about this class is that I can do an interactive lecture with them and they will ask questions, take notes, and we'll have fun. This is a fun class. Class ended on me calling on people and them telling me everything they knew about WWII. I heard some scary wrong things. I also told them stories about Hitler being a painter and not being good enough. Or Castro being a baseball player and not good enough for the majors. Interesting turn of events that change the course of world history.

In my multicultural education class the principal came in and spoke to the class. Not as the principal but as an elder black woman that's been through it. The students listened well, they'd be stupid not to. The principal had a lot of good things to say and put things into a personal historical context and also told students where she stood on it. She brought up an interesting point when she said that the students were more segregated this year than previous ones. After she left we talked about the segregation and I asked their opinions on things. It's funny but I gained an incredible amount of respect for Marilyn Manson in "Bowling for Columbine." When asked what he would say to the kids at Columbine he responded that he wouldn't say anything and that he would listen to them. That's an incredibly important thing to do. Kids, heck people need validation and to be heard. I assigned homework where they would tell me why they think our school is segregated and what can be done about it.

49ers...class organization

I just saw the infamous 49ers training video. Wow! I'm absolutely blown away. Then I decided to do a little searching of sports and NFL websites to see what people had to say about it. I used the search engines on ESPN and NFL.com and typed in, 49ers training video. Perhaps my search composition wasn't too good but I thought it basically said what I was looking for. ESPN carried this article which is from the AP. No ESPN writer had anything to say about it. NFL.com carried this article which was a short statement by the owners. No writers had anything to say about it. Then I went to Sports Illustrated. They had an article by Arash Markazi that essentially says that people need a sense of humor. CB Mike Rumph said that he thought it was one of the funniest things he ever saw. He said the locker room is like a fraternity and that the outside world can't really judge that.

Here are some things that bother me. First off, the Bay Area is one of the most diverse communities in the United States. People of all different racial, sexual, cultural, and political backgrounds are trying to co-exist with each other. To produce such a video shows that the 49ers are seriously out of step with the community.

Secondly, why haven't more national sports writers written about this? This reminds me of the virtual silence that surrounded Garrison Hearst's statement about not wanting to play with faggots. The only national sports writer that I did read was Arash Markazi and he said that it was just a joke.

I love football. I really do. I love the tactics and strategy involved. I love people coming together as a team and achieving an objective together. I love the deception involved in calling plays. Make the opponent think you are running one way and then run the counter. Make the opponent think you are going to run and then play action pass for the first down. Bizarre zone plays that blitz from unexpected places. Football is a strategophile's (I made up that word, but I mean someone who loves strategy) wet dream.

But jokes matter. Rather the intention of the jokes matter. Because it often reveals true feelings. Then the truth is masked behind a quick "it's just a joke." "Come on, get a sense of humor." I question the intent not the content. I use sarcasm a lot but it doesn't mean I'm not talking shit and possibly hurting someone's feelings. I remember reading about a NFL player who was homosexual and he recounts having to play along with all the anti-homosexual statements he would hear.

The 49ers made this video and I'm sure they meant it as a joke. But look at the jokes that they made and who the victims were. George Chung playing a stereotypical, glasses wearing, bucktoothed, heavily accented fresh off the boat Chinese. I've met George Chung. You of course realize that he is none of those things. He's just playing up the stereotype. Then there are the lesbians who get married and then promptly proceed to get down on the floor and get dirty. I guess lesbians are horny slutty girls who just can't wait to get it on. Julian Peterson playing a homeless person told to get a job. I guess homeless people are all just lazy people that need to straighten up and get a job. Jeff Ullrich put into jail and told not to pick up the soap. We all know what happens to people in jail, by the inmates not the prison guards I mean.

I've been working with my 3rd period class on the reading "nigger and caricature." This has really made me think about humor a lot. Where are all the jokes about the rich white guys. I mean the really hurtful-you-can't- make-that-joke-in-public joke. Language has power. Think of all the words to degrade black people. Then think of all the words to degrade rich white men. Which is longer? Which words are more charged and hurtful?

The 49ers were making a joke in their eyes. I'm sure in their eyes that it was funny. Why they thought it was funny is what I find interesting. How do they feel about the crude stereotypes that were made? That someone thought up the skit, wrote out the dialogue, people remembered the dialogue, acted it out, filmed it, then distributed it for viewing by team members; that's interesting. Humor is often used to dehumanize people. When people have been dehumanized then discriminatory actions can be taken against them in direct proportion to the level of dehumanization.

While I love football, the machismo, racist, and homophobic aspects of it I find incredibly disturbing. It's ridiculous that the players are so homophobic considering how homoerotic many aspects of the game are. The players in their skin hugging outfits slapping each other on the butt. A bunch of men hunched over with their asses in the air as the quarterback mounts the center.

Arash Markazi is Iranian. Just among the fraternity of bloggers and readers of blogs, he's a towelheaded Hadji sell out that's trying to shuffle, jive, and kow tow to the dominant white majority. He probably gave head to the editor of SI and that's how he got his job. But I'm only saying that to the small percentage that has internet access, reads English, and reads my blog. I shouldn't be judged by the vast world without the internet, that can't read English and doesn't read my blog.

Just kidding. It's just a fucking joke. Have a sense of humor.

Sim Sim Salabim!

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 32

Today was career day and we had guest speakers in the class. One of the speakers was a union organizer for the carpenter's union. He was cool talking about working to make sure workers got higher pay and medical benefits. I talked to him a bit about the Bay Bridge and what he knew about what was going on with that. He said he just found out that the whole bad welding thing was completely false and now they were suing. He said that the increased costs on the bridge were due to work stoppages and the war. He said that getting a hold of materials was hard now because a lot of material was being used for the war. Plus the high demand leads to a higher costs on stuff. I thought this was pretty interesting and I hadn't even really given it much thought, but it makes perfect sense. I didn't even think about the civilian market costs to the war. He was saying that going to Home Depot you'd get a lot of wood that was wet.

Another speaker was a medical assistant and talked about being a medical assistant. She said a statistic that blew my mind. She said that she was working with HIV patients and in East Oakland 84-92% of the people coming in had AIDS. Really high rate. I question this stat just cause it's so ridiculously high. But if they are going to have a high rate like that it would happen in a poor and vulnerable neighborhood like East Oakland. Government isn't really going to do anything for the poor and vulnerable in East Oakland. I'm reminded of the vice presidential debate between Cheney and Edwards when Gwen asked about the AIDS rate among Black women and both guys knew nothing about it and didn't really have anything to say about it.

One of the office staff came in too and talked about being a musician. A lot of the students in my school want to be musicians or rappers or what, so he told them some of the realities of the business. He says the money is made in publishing and that musicians don't get shit. Interesting dirty biz.

The last speaker was an actor that spoke in my 3rd period class. They were rude and so I handed out a lot of 6s. This class. I know it's Friday and they missed lunch since we went back to the old schedule for today, but damn.

I'm just glad that the day is over and the weekend is coming up.

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 31

Today I started off with talking about the computer exchange and basically selling it to the students. Why not get a free computer and learn how to use word processing, spreadsheets, and stuff? It's free all they have to do is take a 3 hour class with their parent. You can't beat that. Then I read from animal farm.

In my first period class, I saw a side of a student that I'd never seen before. Real bitchy! I was surprised by it. I didn't know how to react to it. So I just smiled and said that I'd never seen this side of her. Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde. That seemed to work well to check her a bit. I have found that when I do not react in an angry or indignant way the students respond better to me. When they get real out of control, I have to be more in control. I don't want to feed their action with what they are expecting. We finished up reading about internment and I made constant comparisons to Guantanamo. Snatched, taken to an unknown place, and not given your inalienable rights. Freaky stuff. You have to dehumanize a people so much to be able to do that kind of stuff. Jap. Towel-heads. Gook. Hajis. Yellow nigger. Sand nigger. It all has the same intent. The worst part though was that the US government knew that the Japanese Americans hadn't done anything bad and they suppressed those findings. Scapegoats to rally the people. Removal of the Japanese from the agriculture industry. At one point Japanese were producing 40% of California truck crops. Internment uprooted entire communities that had struggled to live in a racist America as it was. The US didn't like Japanese imperialism in China all the while the US was acting imperialistically all throughout Central and South America. I mean the great irony is the US is demonizing the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor when the US took Hawaii from the Native Hawaiians. The significant analysis is the race analysis. White Man's Burden. Manifest Destiny. Craniometry.

In my US history class I talked about national self-determination and then we read from the People's History page 361-364. This class had a lot of energy. More people were getting involved and answering things. And even if they weren't answering things right, at least they were trying. That is big. That they just at least try. In teacher talk we speak of the low affective filters. I feel that I have a good low affective filter with this group. People feel safe enough to try. When they venture out then history becomes fun. This class I can get to do pushups when they swear and I had a student doing that. When I ask them to summarize chapters they try. The actions of states can be compared to the actions of individuals. I told them this quote by Jiddu Krishnamurti that says that war is the spectacular and bloody expression of everyday life. They really got that too. They understand and see violence around them. The one student that knows what is going on but tries to act all cool and quiet was speaking up more and getting things right. I spoke to him after class and complimented him and told him to play to his strength. He gets history and seems to like it. It's got his attention. My one student that chatters all kinds was answering questions and helping other people out. Then we talked a bit about WEB Du Bois's statement that

Yes the average citizen of England, France, Germany, The United States, had a higher standard of living than before. But: 'Whence comes this new wealth?...It comes primarily from the darker nations of the world-Asia and Africa, South and Central America, The West Indies, and the islands of the South Seas.'

I have encountered people before that say why can't "those people" get their countries together. For all the imperialism that the Europeans have done around the world...of course they got things better. When you got a ton of cash it's a lot easier to be nicer to each other. When you're poor and don't know where the money for the next meal for your family is coming from, that can drive you to do desparate things. European wealth is derived from European conquests. It's no mystery why English, French, Spanish, Portuguese are spoken in so many places in the world.
On the board I wrote

1. Sinking of the Lusitania brought US into WWI.
2. Lusitania carrying weapons for Allies.
3. 1914 US recession. War stimulated the economy.
4. End of WWI w/ Treaty of Versailles.
5. TOV placed war blame on Germans and told to pay huge reparations
6. TOVlaid the groundwork that led to WWII.

In my multicultural education class we finished up the reading on Niggers and caricature. I also told them about seeing Michael Eric Dyson speak on Tuesday. BTW the man is an amazing speaker. He was selling his new book, "Is Bill Cosby wrong?" The man is highly eloquent speaker that is so amazingly discerning. I didn't agree with his statement that Cosby should keep to comedy and leave social critique to those who do it. I thought that was rather condescending and elitist. But his criticism of Cosby I believe were interesting. He compared Cosby to the black elite that were trying to uplift poorer blacks because they wanted to impress whites and were embarrassed by their poorer brothers. Wanting to hold poor blacks to a standard that rich whites dont' even keep. He made this funny joke about how he was a social critic and so he had to watch both of Paris Hilton's sex videos. But she is an example of a girl that acts all crazy but is rich rich rich. I bought a CD of his talk that night and a book so that he could sign it. He asked me how I liked it and I totally just mumbled adulations and felt like a total moron. Anyways, the students are interested in hearing his CD and then writing up a summary for extra credit. But anyways... I had spoken to one of my students in this class that sits quietly and seems to fume. I asked her what she was thinking about and stuff and she said that she is considering not using the word given the history. She spoke of a picture of a black girl drinking a bottle of ink that was labeled nigger milk. That seemed to stick with her. I was happy to hear this.

All in all it was a good day today. I am really starting to build better and stronger personal connections with students.

George in blue

George is my old capoeira buddy. Some of the best and most fun games I have played have been with him.

That's Brazil Spirit!

G & Allison

Dave & Gabriella

Bateria

Me and Allison just after the parade

My buddy Stevie took this picture after we finished the parade. Bad farmer's tan I got.

The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 30

Ok this is the title that I am going with. The Praxis of Pedagogy. The knowledge, action, and reflection of the art of teaching. It feels right. I love words. Symbols that encapsulate concepts that give our minds focus. To understand what schadenfreude means allows us to better recognize it when we experience it. This recognition allows us to better reflect on it...I'm thinking of the saying

Before understood Buddhism, a rock was a rock, a tree was just a tree. Then I learned about Buddhism and a rock wasn't just a rock and a tree wasn't just a tree. Now that I understand Buddhism, a rock is just a rock, a tree is just a tree.

So then perhaps what I am saying is wrong. Perhaps words are not the key to reflective consciousness. Perhaps, words get in the way. Perhaps, I don't need to know the word schadenfreude to recognize and reflect on my feelings and experience of it. Karmic thinking is karmic thinking. I love the irony of reading my written words to think about this. Life is a stage and blogs are a narrative.

I'm thinking about doing a reflective personal goals journal next year. Consistently have students start the week off reflecting on how they did the previous week week, what their goals are for this week, and how they plan to accomplish them. I'll do it along with them. It'll be good for both of us.

Anyways... today I started off paying money for a milk mocha. A student did a coffee run for us and I ordered a mocha but forgot to say soy mocha. It was totally stupid of me. I never order just a plain mocha. When the caffeine situation is bad in the morning...problems. So I couldn't just sit around grading today so I decided to work on the computer lab... oh yeah I fucking hate grading. It is the least inspiring part of the job. I'd prefer not to have grades. I understand why authentic assessment are so attractive. However, they are far more time consuming. I think that I want to have some aspects of it in my CTM though.

I grabbed the bolt cutters and went around cutting locks on the backs of computers so that we could move them to the computer lab and then get them shipped out. Cutting locks is fun. I wanted to cut the locks on everything. But the cheap ass cutters broke on my 7th or so lock. I was bummed. It totally burst my bubble. Mix that with the coffee and then I was going to have my meta class. I'll have to get new ones so that I can cut the locks on the rest. Yesterday I went to this computer exchange place in our city. The place sells refurbished P3s for $75. They are all about getting schools and students of our city access to the internet. They will pick up all the old computers and refurbish them. They also have this program which will give a student a P1 for word processing, spreadsheet, and excel through openoffice all the student has to do is go to a 3 hour class with their parent. Great project! Good people! So anyways, I hooked up money for procuring computers and my friend Jeremy and I decided that it would be best to have a few P4s in the computer lab and the rest P3s spread out throughout the classrooms. This would be the best use of the money we have. So now we just have to get an assessment done so that I can get a hard quote on P4s and then buy the computers and have them installed.

Meta class theme today was self esteem. We should have done this earlier and incorporated this into everyweek curriculum. We started off the class by having them fill out a self esteem worksheet. We did this one thing where we drew a box on the board. Then we wrote down all the good things people said about the students when they were young. Then we had them say all the bad things and we wrote it in the same box. Soon the bad just covered up the good. Metaphors. For a main project, we had the students make commericals selling all their great qualities. It is interesting how much resistance there was to this by some people. They couldn't think of good things to say about themselves. Painful. One student couldn't think of anything to write and when I quickly told her some nice things about herself and told her to write why her girlfriend likes her she kinda lit up. The girl wrote an entire page commercial. So many students had so much trouble saying nice things about themselves. Environment matters. They aren't used to saying and hearing nice things about themselves. It's really quite sad. For the last project we had them fill out a piece of paper with all the bad things that people say about them and a piece of paper with all the good things people say. The good paper we told them to keep with them. The bad paper we had them put into a pot and we set it on fire outside. Then we had them clean up the school and class was over. This was a better more manageable time. Self-esteem is already a problem for teenagers in general, but many of our kids deal with a much harsher reality than most and they feel alienated from school and the subjects taught in it.