Yo Mista!

Proctoring school-wide exams is by far the most unproductive activity for teachers. For alternative school students who previously haven't been successful in school, we tend to make testing worse by being overly strict during these sessions. No talking. No music. No walking in the hallway. No food. No drinks. No gum. No smiling. No personalities. And no thinking. Oh, but do your best. Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks! When I'm proctoring an exam, I do play some music on low to fill the silence in the testing room. My students do not like silence. They're not used to it, and so it unsettles them. If we as educators want them to succeed, we should test our students on their terms since it's content we think  is important. They don't have a choice in what they get to learn in this country, so let's meet halfway. A little bit of Ray Charles isn't going to hurt anybody. It might actually keep the student who finishes early from distracting others. Or it might keep the ...

I'm back.  It's been nearly a year since I've last written on Yo Mista!  A lot has changed personally. Yet nothing has changed professionally. And I guess that's why I've been so uninspired to write.  Over the last year, my professional life took a backseat to my personal life. When the dust settled, I realized I didn't want to write  Yo Mista!  anymore. I still felt passionate about my work, but I was somehow uninspired. My day-to-day at school over the last year hasn't changed. I still teach over-age, at-risk students at an alternative high school. Everyday, crazy shit happens in my classroom. Everyday, a student either feels supremely connected to me and my content or feels without direction and completely out of touch with education. My students and I still keep each other on our toes. The only problem is, I'm getting jaded.  This is my fifth year of teaching at-risk youth and I'm getting tired of seeing students arrive to school hig...

An old friend of mine recently shared this video with me on Facebook, which I thought was pretty hilarious. An inner city high school substitute teacher takes attendance at his new placement: an all-white suburban science classroom. While there are some obvious problems with the stereotypes this skit plays to, there are definitely some truths I could also appreciate. The substitute clearly didn't need any particular "strategy" to win over these students, who were all prepared and ready to go in the science classroom. The entire class is already seated by the time the bell rings. Some students even have their lab goggles on and many have a notebook open ready to begin writing. To me, that is hilarious - if I were in that situation, I would probably have so much free time at the end of my classes, who knows maybe I would teach two classes in one period!

It's the kids' first day of school. When the bell rings and they start filling up my classroom, there's a brief, chaotic moment where I have absolutely no control or influence. They don't know me, so I haven't established my presence. Nobody knows who I am, yet everyone seating in their seats is desperately wanting to prove themselves. Everyone has their tough face activated. There's a group of students that immediately run towards the back seats. Not all of them will have issues with noise or chit-chatting during class, some just want to be left alone. There are students who have to be loud about everything, because attention is their game. I foresee myself really enjoying toying with them for the rest of the year. A select few might even throw in a few cuss words out loud right before I'm about to speak, just to show how "bad ass" they are. "Fuck you bitch. Dat's my seat, n****." Buddy, I've heard a lot worse. At this po...

Several kids in my advisory class were discussing the possibility of a fight breaking out between students later in the day. One of the gossipers turned to me and said, "Yo Mista, you seem like the type of guy who has never gotten into a fight." Unfortunately, he was wrong. In the first grade, my mom worked at McDonald's part-time. She didn't have to because my dad was making plenty of dough as an electrical engineer, but she wanted to get out of the house as my father generally preferred she stay inside. My father wasn't all bad though, he allowed her to clean the house 24/7 and cook him three hearty meals a day: breakfast, lunch, and a packed dinner for work (he worked a later shift - 2 PM - 12 AM). Pretty nice guy, my dad. Before becoming corrupted by her own rise to power in our household, my mom felt pretty bad about the conditions I grew up in. My dad was drinking all the time, beating the shit out of her and ruining our weekends. To compensate, my mom d...

Last Wednesday marked the beginning of a new trimester at my school. Naturally, this was a high attendance day, as most students come to school to pick up their schedules and renew their free NYC MetroCards. Sadly, some of these students will never show up to class for the rest of the term. I began day one with a brief lesson on perimeter and circumference, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two students passing a note back and forth to each other. I looked away and grinned: this was going to be too easy. I progressed through the lesson and as students continued to do a problem on the board, I pretended to make my way around the classroom, checking their answers. As I made my way around to the students writing the note, I quickly snapped it out from in front of them. Then, I began reading it out loud to the entire class: Exhibit D: Actual student work. Do note the somewhat decent penmanship. As you probably guessed from the racial slurs, this exchange was between a H...

I'm back in the country and I have a lot on my mind. Unfortunately, time has not been on my side lately as I started two new grad classes the day after I came back. There will be some more posts to come in the next few days in which I intend to discuss certain aspects of my trip to Pakistan. For now, enjoy this video which we saw on our first day in my "Teaching Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Adolescents" class. I thought it was pretty funny.

This was made by a student at my school. It's completely her work and her voice. I posted it with her permission, of course. The task was create a reflective piece on yourself, your community, or whatever you feel like. Sounds like a pretty open-ended assignment, but the true purpose was to foster creativity. Although I don't have her as a student in the classes I teach, I'm still proud of her.

On Saturday, May 1st, 2010, Faisal Shahzad allegedly left a SUV packed with propane gas tanks, firecrackers, and fertilizer in Times Square with the intent to blow things up. Fortunately, the vehicle was spotted smoking and authorities were able to dismantle the explosives just in time. When I first heard the suspect's name was Faisal Shahzad, I thought, "Shit, that name sounds Pakistani." When his background was revealed over the past week, I thought, "Fuck." It appears Faisal Shahzad is not only Pakistani, but he's also an American citizen. He's married, he worked in finance and has ties to the city of Karachi, Pakistan. That's... me (and a shit ton of other people I know). Apparently, I wasn't the only one who made this connection: "Yo Mista, that terrorist look just like you. Ain't you say you was from Pakistan too? AND you was in finance, right? So did you know him or something?" Yeah, all Pakistanis know each other and ...