update on a former student

Sometimes this job is too hard on my heart. So my former CTM. The 49.5 one. The soft as warm butter one. When it rains it pours...

A while back this kid told me he had a girlfriend. At first I didn't believe him. Turned out it was true. And she wasn't bad looking. When he showed me her picture, I set him up for the old diss.
"Hey, she's pretty good looking...what's she doing with you?" It was perfectly timed. Everyone in the room laughed. He laughed at it. It made him feel good that I validated the looks of his girl that he got in front of everyone and I cut down his looks which made it even cooler that he was with her. This fool was so in love. He asked me to correct/read a love poem that he wrote to her. The poem was such a teenage love letter. It started with "You are my..." It was the full, wholehearted, unreserved, unabashed love that teenagers in love for the first time can only have. That compounded with his painfully sad home life made his time with her even more important and powerful.

At one time he got the girl pregnant and they lost the baby. The boy was totally fucked up by the whole thing and I probably wasn't as sensitive and understanding about his situation. Then his family pulls him from the school and he just sits around cuz he wasn't really gonna go to adult school. The kid has no academic skills. Is mentally and emotionally underdeveloped because of his home life and being picked on through most of his life. The kid had to be 6'5 or so and he would get picked on. He would come to school sometimes wearing the same clothing and sometimes smelling. Well his girlfriend got sick and died in her sleep. I know this kid well enough to know something of his heart. He is a fucking mess right now. I found this out second hand from one of his friends on Tuesday.

When I see and know kids that have no skills, nobody taking good care of them at home, no direction, and just lost, it weighs heavy on my heart. This world is an incredibly painful, sad, and unfair place. I thank God for all that I have and am angry at men for the world that we have created.

When I talk to people about the problems in innercity education, they often want to attribute the problems with the kids to the parents. It's always the parents' fault. While parents are sometimes to blame, that is only one analysis, albeit an important one. I personally blame society. It's on all our hands and on all our heads. Everyone that is alive has a part in making this society a more just and equitable society. The kids are fine. It's the adults that are fucking things up. We are not making a world that includes people and allows them to be a part of a community and society. We are not properly socializing our families, communities, society, and the world. Instead we destroy communities and families and people at the bottom are left with few means. In treating people less than human and not including and socializing them, we create people that act anti-social and destructive.

This kid was not properly socialized. His environment was too rough for him and he was too soft for most places. He was starting to be social at my school, but now I worry that he has no "safe" space to be a kid. I want to somehow get him to at least hang back out at our school (Counter to school rules) and maybe get involved with the mural project going on upstairs in the school. I like that my school provides that space for kids. But realistically, I doubt and wonder if that will really happen. It is hard for me to accept when I think that there really isn't hope for some kids.

Ain't been this sick since I can remember

On the 11th, I was at school and my coworker Joseph said that he hasn't been so sick in years. I thought nothing of it until the end of the day. At the end of the day, everyone was going out for drinks to celebrate a coworker's bday. I felt like shit. I went home and passed out. On Saturday and Sunday I was too fucked up to go anywhere. Like a fool, instead of taking more time off I went to school on Monday through Thursday. Then I realized on Friday that I couldn't do it. I took Friday off and spent that day and the weekend alternating between coughing and sleeping. I coughed so often and so hard that I lost my voice.

So there I was at school today unable to talk. Physically, I feel better. But I still got a hacking cough and I can't talk. At this compromised time I also got an eczema breakout too. On my face no less. When it rains it pours. Being a teacher without your voice is somewhat emasculating. It's hard to get people's attention when you can't talk that loudly. To get kids' attention I have to bang a stick on the table. It's pretty bad. Then speak in a barely audible whisper to say a few words about whatever topic we are discussing. Not the ideal situation for me at all. Since I knew we were doing seminars in class. I printed out signs with questions on it for the kids. In class I just held up the questions and had the students discuss things.

I am tired of being tired. I am sick of being sick. I'm meta tired and meta sick. Whatever viral infection I got is an assfucking kicker. I haven't been this sick in I don't remember when. Usually when I don't feel so well I get over it in a day or so. This is kicking my ass.

The Olympics in China

The Olympic torch went through San Francisco today. Gavin Newsome pulled an Operation Fortitude on everyone. This is a high profile controversial issue for China and the world.

Let me start by saying, I absolutely support the desire of the Tibetan people for their independence from China. But I also think there is a demonization of China going on. There's nothing China is doing the US hasn't done. Ask the native Americans. Yes, I wish China didn't work with Sudan. I also wish my school's SIMPLE IRA with American Funds didn't invest in Sudan either. Yes I wish China didn't sell arms to fucked up countries, but I also wish the US wasn't the largest arms dealer in the world. The West wants to control China like it did in the late 1800's. The West knows that China is a sleeping giant. Better to have as much leverage and influence in the development over that giant as possible.

I think there is a Shangri-la-ization (I know I'm making up words) of Tibet and all thing Tibetan. While I'm down with the desire of the Tibetan people I'm not a fan of the Dalai Lama. I don't like feudal theocrats. Theocrats sucks whether they are in Iran, the Vatican, Tibet, or anywhere else. Children picking personal objects is no basis for a system of government. Tibetan Buddhism is very en vogue right now. It's the TM of the moment.

Tibetan sovereignty is important but so is Hawaiian sovereignty. China invades and takes over Tibet 1950. US overthrows the Hawaiian government 1893 and makes Hawaii a state 1959. People are making this more of an issue because of the demonization of China and the exoticization of Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama.

42+6.5=49???

I got this one African American kid in my CTM that I let into the school January last year. This kid is about 6ft 3in and about 250lbs. Soft as warm butter. In his interview, he started crying and he just mumbled the whole time. He talked about getting picked on at other schools. Family was not without its drama. He came to us 15 years old with 10 credits and .15 GPA.

His first quarter he earned 17 credits out of a possible 20. Over the summer he earned 5 credits. His second quarter, he earned 10 out of 20. This last quarter, he earned 6.5 credits. Academically, he just did worse and worse. He's 16 years old and he still has freshman credit. When I asked him to add his 42 total academic credits to the 6.5 hours he earned this last quarter, he paused and said 49. F-O-R-T-Y N-I-N-E! Not even 49.5. Forty Nine. I asked him "say again?" He rethought it and said 49 again.

Socially, he is doing great. He has friends that he hangs out with and he isn't picked on. I've even seen him tease other kids in the way teenage boys do when they are friends with someone.

But what do I do when a kid is improving in one area but getting worse in another? At the end of the day, I'm teaching at a school not a club for kids to hang out at.


Update April 9th: The kid's parent pulled him from the school. They are going to try and put him in an adult school nearby. I wished they would have talked to me about this. They just went and did it. He's got no skills. He's soooo not an adult. My school was somewhere he was safe and socialized. His love for school could have been used to motivate him.