Author: mrvaudrey

EDIT: This post was miraculously re-posted in 2015. It’s from 2008. I’m keeping it up (with weird sentence structure and grammar errors) because it’s an important part of my past and helped make me the teacher I am today.

While I share Andy‘s unspoken desire to have a steady readership, I haven’t the time to post as regularly as he. My apologies the the 1 of you that have been here in the last week.

Let me tell you about Friday:

The Ides of March

My math coach took me aside this week. She said that I had better start thinking about March 15 and the implications therein (only she didnbt say therein). March 15, I recalled from another conversation, is the date by which teachers will know if they have a job for the next year. Tenured teachers, naturally, have no fear of the Ides of March, but a first-year teacher such as myself may be a bit worried.

Anyway, my math coach said that I had better get my ass in gear when it comes to classroom management and advancing the students towards state standards.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT is anything and everything that keeps the class focused in the direction of learning. It can be discipline, rewards, videos, teaching styles, etc.

STATE STANDARDS are the statewide guidelines for what a Xth-grader should know about Math, Science, Art, etc. Schools throughout California are moving toward standards-based grading, which would supplant the old system of A, B, C, D, F and replace it with acronyms like FBB (far below basic) and AD (advanced).

This sidenote brought to you by the letters FBB and AD.

My math coach went on to describe how advancement towards standards would improve once I got the class under control. bThey canbt learn from you if they arenbt listening.b

I replied to my math coach that I was doing my level best to get my rowdy class under control. She knows that I came in the middle of the quarter and was prepared to be a pastor, one to whom the kids could talk. Unfortunately for me, the kids donbt want a pastor or a friend, they want boundaries and I was slow to set them.

So now, in late February, Ibve been getting my ass kicked across the whiteboard for the past 5 months, and they pretty much know what I will and wonbt do to keep them in line (one of those lists is longer than the other).

Finally, my math coach told me that I needed to make significant changes and improvements if I wanted to be invited back next year.

Okay, I told myself. Ibm already putting as much into play as I can. Ibm also a full-time student getting my credential. Itbs a rough week when two days of it are 6:00am b 930pm straight. I can only do so much outside of the classroom with my limited amount of time. I must sleep 8 hours and have time with the wife and friends. I refuse to be a work-aholic, so I monitor my intake of workahol.

I should have known that something was brewing when my Assistant principal called my cell and emailed me last night that he needed me in a 730 meeting before school with the principal and himself. Ever the flexible employee, I said that I could make it. I guessed what was coming when they both came in quietly and the principal had an envelope with my name on it.

After reading the required legal jargon about the district bexploring more experienced career alternativesb and bdeclining to renew contractual agreementsb, he began by saying what a hard situation I came into this year, how the kids were defiant and the middle of the quarter is a terrible time to begin teaching.

He then went on to say that this school is under bprogram improvementb, a term that I knew. It meant that a certain group performs so poorly on standardized tests that the watchful eye of Uncle Sam comes to pay a visit. In this case, the group was the students I inherited this year. The district believes that the best way to bring their scores up is not to hand them over to a first-year teacher with classroom management problems.

And with that, my teaching career in West Covina came to a halt. Then I went on to finish the day of classes. Shwell. And as of June 19^th, I will be unemployed.

Andrea and I both view this as somewhat of an out. I have been miserable doing 16 hour days and struggling through a class of defiant, obnoxious kids that hate me and donbt want to learn. Ibm not even sure that I want to teach! Why in the hell did I take a teaching job right after getting married?

That is the question Ibve been asking myself; what do I want to be doing at this stage in my life? The answer may or may not be teaching, it may be counseling, it may be subbing, it may be nursing, it may be cougar circumcision.

Whatever it is, I have learned a lot in the last 5 months and will learn even more in the next 4 months. Ibve become a better communicator, Ibve learned to reason with middle schoolersb& actually, I suppose Ibve learned when to reason and when to say bsiddown, because I said so.b Ibve learned how to plan a lesson, how to introduce a concept, how to utilize the power of divided labor.

And, in the spans of teaching four 53-minute classes in a row, I got really good at holding my pee.

I saw Cougar Circumcision open for Slayer once.

~

As mentioned prior, the little woman and I live in a mostly-Latino apartment complex nestled in a mostly-Latino neighborhood residing in a mostly-Latino region of the United States (which, as of July, 2006, is 15% of the nations population).

As two of the six white people in a city made up of Spanish speakers, we stand out. I’m a full head taller than most individuals in our complex, and-thus far-the only one that wears a collared shirt to work (spare me your privileged culture lecture; I know). Andrea is probably the only one in the building that doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish, and we have two cars. Needless to say, we stand out.

So, we bought one of these:

Obviously, we weren’t already easy enough to spot, so what better way to make myself seen that to zip by at a brisk 37 mph on the smallest street-legal cycle in existence?

I know, I know; you’re probably thinking, ‘Matt, you flashy prick! How dare you drop money on a rice rocket when you are trying to save for a house?’

Actually, it costs about 10% of what we would have paid for a new car and will pay for itself in insurance alone after 18 months. But, surely the qualm you have is valid. Driving a status symbol to work every day lumps me into the same demographic as the Starbucks-drinking, Mercedes-driving,  menthol-smoker screeching into his bluetooth headest in the carpool lane by himself. How shall I preserve my sense of humility if I’m weaving through traffic at stoplights to be the first one through the intersection?

Luckily for my image, it’s been raining the last few days. Let’s consult the diagram of the man on the scooter.

If the blue arrows represent the rain coming toward the rider as he clips along at 37 mph, you can see that they will mostly bounce off the front panel and helmet, with the arms catching most of the vertical rainfall, see Fig. 1

But, in the case of an exceptionally tall rider, the chicken legs stick out the side of the scooter, funneling the air and accompanying rain inward, toward the groin, see Figure 2.

So, since I have been riding the scooter 6 miles in torrential rain, my swimsuit-zone has been getting a bath every morning. So my collared shirt and dress pants are soaked, see Figure 3.

I did not messily shit myself on the scooter. Few things more humbling than my students asking that.

Luckily, the ladies in the PE department (who dote over me for some reason) insisted that I change into dry sweats while my shirt and pants get dried in the school dryer. Super. Now I am the youngest individual on staff, and I’m wearing sweats.

I look like a sleepover.

The next day, I figured that I could save some time drying clothes if I wore my snow pants over my dress pants.

So now, picture me. I wear a goofy collared shirt with pens, pencils, and a laser pointer in the pocket. I’m 6 foot 2 with skinny legs sticking out the side of a blue scooter, I’m wearing snow pants, and my pants are soaked.

Meep Meep, and away I go.

Don’t judge me.

~

Sometimes some of my students come in during lunch and talk with me under the guise of work. I want 28 minutes of quiet in 6 hours of yelling and questions. When they burst in through the door with all the grace of a virgin on prom night, the conversation goes something like this:

“Whaddaya want?”
“Mr VeeEEEEE! You’re so mean!”
“Really, what?”
“I wanna take a test.” (Knowing this is the only valid excuse to interrupt me half hour of peace)
“Which one?”
“The one I failed.” (Knowing that know I have to check the gradebook and they have time to chill in Mr. V’s room)

A few weeks ago, I was talking with Marge, a teacher on my team (we have Teams, where 5 core teachers have all the same kids, so we can talk about them by name at our monthly meeting). Marge told me that these kids come from a troubled home life, and that I may be the most positive Male role model they will ever see. She was very eloquent, but I was struck by the emotion behind her words; it was as if she grabbed my arm and said,

“You are the only daddy that Ron will ever see.”

“Be careful what you pray for,” one of my professors told me when I was in college. “If you ask to see kids like Jesus sees them, it may mess you up.” Those words echoed in my head when I was in a meeting for Ron with all his teachers, mom, aunt, psychologist, counselor, and principal. I gave my best assessment of his behavior and performance in school, mostly just affirming what my seasoned cohorts said. Towards the end, the issue of his truancy came up. “Ron,” his counselor calmly stated, “you gotta start going to your zero-hour, bud.” Ron’s response would have gotten me slapped when I was 12:

“Pff! I’m not goin!”

I can only hope that my shock wasn’t apparent to his mom, or maybe I hope it was, because she did nothing. She peered across the table to the principle and gave a facial shrug with flat lips, as if to say, “Oh, well; whaddaya gonna do?”

At this point, Evil Matt was welling up inside me. I bit my tongue to keep from leaping from my seat and screaming, “I’ll tell you what to do! You slap him upside the head when he speaks that way! You train up your child in the way he should act, so that when he is old and gray, he won’t depart from it! (Proverbs 22:6) It is YOUR responsibility to make sure that Ron doesn’t end up like his dad in jail! By allowing this behavior, you are demonstrating that it is acceptable, and your are turning the key to his jail cell yourself.”

Of course, that monologue only happened in my head, and Teacher Matt prevailed. Teacher Matt sat quietly in his chair and let the big dogs run the meeting, as he was instructed before the meeting began. This is the part where my old professor’s words were ringing in my head. God, help me to see what this kid needs and give it to him. I’m glad that Ron didn’t look up for the next few minutes; I was staring at him and thinking.

Fast-forward to the flock of 12-year-olds congregating to eat lunch with me under the guise of taking a test. These children of gang members don’t have male figures that give recognition of accomplishment. When I thank them for working quietly make little notes on their test, am I shaping their development?

I hope not. I don’t know if I can handle that kind of accountability.

~V