Yo Mista!

After Tuesday's epic-polar- vortex -snow-storm-pacalyse, NYC schools stayed open on Wednesday only to post the worst attendance numbers ( 47% ) this school year. Luckily my school's network decided it'd be best to close Wednesday, so you can only imagine how incredibly lucky I felt. The following morning, I basked in all the glory of a snow day by sleeping in a full two hours (crazy I know). Before fully waking up, I rolled over and grabbed my phone to check Facebook (shut up, you do the same). My feed was mostly dominated by teachers' angry posts about Mayor DeBlasio's decision to keep schools open. Those s uckers , I thought. Here's a snapshot of my teacher friends' social media posts from Tuesday night/Wednesday morning: Mayor DeBlasio, are you kidding me????? I knew it. NYC schools will be open tomorrow. Where is my Taun Taun? Mayor Dibloombergsio says that ny public is open. Not sure how I'm going to drive to work tomorrow, let alone get...

Up until my early twenties, I spent every other summer in Karachi , Pakistan. I've grown to love the city, but it wasn't always like that. I hated going there when I was younger, when my mom had to drag me there by force. Of course, as an unworldly seven-year old, I wanted to spend my summer vacation playing Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Don't get me wrong, I loved my extended family. I just didn't consider bonding with them in over 100 degree weather and rolling blackouts "fun." My mother often took my reluctance into consideration, but I knew she'd never let me win. She would buy our plane tickets anyway and tell me to shut the hell up because, "This is the only time I get to see my family. This is the only time I get to be away from your father. Cry all you want, we're going." Touché mom. After what seemed like a week-long flight, we'd finally land in Karachi and make our way to the baggage claim. Since my dad never came with us, ...

I recently searched "John Strauss" on Google and was surprised that none of the search results said, "the best teacher I've ever had in high school." In fact, there was barely any information or mention of the John Strauss I wanted to read about, a true rock star of a teacher and a living legend at the high school I graduated from.  Mr. Strauss was my senior year English teacher. He was not a young, highly motivated, self-proclaimed hotshot. Nor was he part of some national movement claiming its teachers were more effective than others. When I had Mr. Strauss, he was already a veteran teacher, humble and modest. He had a sense of humor and was deeply committed, but most importantly, he had passion. In fact, there's a picture of him in my senior year high school yearbook with a caption that reads, "Mr. Strauss is a perfect example that a passion for teaching can bring enjoyment to classes." When I read that at the tender age of eighteen, I pr...

At the end of the 2011-2012 school year, I sent out a school-wide e-mail to all faculty, staff, and students informing them about my decision to leave and teach elsewhere. I received many responses wishing me well, mostly from students, which kind of made me sad as the kids really were the only reason I stayed to teach a third year at that school. I recently received an e-mail from Andy, the ideal transfer school student in my opinion. Besides just being highly intelligent and articulate, Andy has a very interesting background and story, e.g. he dropped out of high school for a semester to skateboard in Germany. Unfortunately for Andy, the NYC Department of Education has strict guidelines on how many classes and what types of classes should "count" on a transcript towards graduation. So even though Andy had already completed higher levels of math in his prior high school (e.g. Geometry, Trigonometry), his transcript was still missing an Algebra credit: a mandatory credit h...

After years of contemplation, I've come to the conclusion that birthdays are a lot more fun when your age hasn't hit double digits. I have few good memories of my childhood, and of those, my birthdays seem to dominate most of them. It makes sense: December 20th rolled in right before Christmas break. Yes, I said Christmas break, because back then, nobody said, "Happy Holidays." You fucking said "Merry Christmas" or you didn't say anything at all. There weren't too many Jews or Muslims where I grew up. Right around my birthday, school started slowing down. Instead of learning new material, we'd make decorations for our respective Christmas parties. Or maybe we'd go see a school play or watch It's a Wonderful Life . I would bring in some cupcakes on my birthday and we'd be set - coloring with crayons, using scissors, putting shit together with Elmer's glue, and eating chocolate cupcakes. It really didn't get any better for ...

Hello kiddies, I'm back. First of all, Iceland was amazing. We spent two weeks there: the first week driving around the island and the second week entirely in Reykjavik, the capital. The picture below pretty much captures the coolness of the trip. Nothing like a gigantic waterfall to quench the thirst. Although there was some hiking involved, Iceland definitely refreshed me. Some of the nicest people on earth reside in that country. I think it's safe to say we'll be back at some point. So now my third year as a teacher is underway. I'm excited because I don't have graduate school this year, so I can actually think about how I teach. I was really getting sick of thinking on the run and coming up with lesson activities while showering or napping in the subway. This year, I'm also teaching advisory for the first time. Advisory is basically a "life-skills" course offered in high school. I'm pretty sure this is just a New York State thing, a...

Before I take off for Iceland this week and check out their penis museum (no seriously, check this out), I have to recommend you read The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch.  This book provides an excellent history of the education system in the United States and offers some critical analysis on the new direction reform is taking. Honestly, reading this book was an eye-opener at times: I have seriously begun to question some of the people and things Teach for America supports (Joel Klein for one).  Anyone in the trenches of teaching can appreciate this book's critique of teacher accountability and high stakes testing movements. Ravitch herself admits that she was once on the testing and accountability bandwagon; she then explains why she changed her mind and why she hopes it's not too late for others to do so either. It's a book for both sides of the debate to read.   If you're even interested somewhat in education, get this book....

I know I'm supposed to be on hiatus, but a lot of people have been asking me my opinion on Bloomberg's recently announced Young Men's Initiative (read about it in the New York Times here ). In-depth detail on the initiative and their goals can be found here . To summarize, the program has approximately $130 million to use in a variety of ways to help reduce the " disparities slowing the advancement of black and Latino young men." This targeted strategy wiill include establishing new fatherhood classes, mentoring and literacy services , opening job-recruitment centers in public-housing complexes, retraining probation officers to help those who have been incarcerated from repeating criminal offenses, and finally, assessing schools based on black and Latino students' academic progress. Overall, I'm very excited that we're finally not taking a "one size fits all" strategy to fix education.  In my two years of teaching thus far, I probably...

August has to be my favorite month of the summer: it's not too hot, there's always a nice breeze, and fall-time television is right around the corner. And by fall-time television, I'm talking about the upcoming sixth season of Dexter . What am I going to do when this show ends?   What makes August even more significant is that it kicks off "back-to-school" season. I can almost smell it in the air. It reminds of me of carrying around a school supply list at Wal-Mart while my mom pushed a shopping cart full of one-subject notebooks, folders, pens, #2 pencils, markers and of course, a new lunch box that indicated to the world what cartoon I was into at the time. Cowabunga, dude.   In September, I'll start my third year of teaching high school mathematics at a transfer high school serving over-age, under-credited youth. From now until I return to the classroom, I'm going to maximize "me" time. I'm talking Christian Bale in American Psycho styl...

Around this time last year, I remember getting excited about the upcoming school year. I was starting my second year as a teacher: I was hungry to implement ideas I'd thought about over the summer. I was eager to consider taking a different approach with certain topics. I was excited. I'm excited for next year as well, but I'm also a little uneasy: in the last four nights, I've had the same dream, twice. I rarely dream, so dreaming the exact same thing twice is a new experience. In my dream, I was back in the classroom during my third year, but things were very different. I was finding it hard to enjoy being in the classroom because my school's administration was making life difficult for me. Some of them were minor things, some of them were major things that really bothered me. From what I recall, I was no longer allowed to teach my personal finance course. Why? Because the kids don't really "need" this course on paper. Why would kids need to le...

One of the best things about being a teacher is that Facebook, YouTube and Gmail's chat functions are blocked on all Department of Education (DOE) computers and wireless networks. This means, on a day like today, when there's absolutely no one in the building and no one taking state exams, I am literally bored out of my fucking mind. The school feels like a ghost town. One of my esteemed colleagues has taken it upon himself to enter my room any time he has to rip some serious ass. In the past four minutes, he has entered my room three times, and cranked out four (maybe six, if you count the little ones) loud, solid farts. Although, it might be more appropriate to say liquid farts judging by their sounds: some of them might've been a little wet. Pretty impressive, I'd say. Graduation is not until next Monday, so tomorrow looks to be more of the same. It's depressing: my room is barren, all the other classrooms are barren, and there are no gangster-wanna-be studen...

I had the incredible opportunity to visit my old high school while I was in Chicago last week.  This was something I was really looking forward to; I was worried I wouldn’t have enough time to cram in a visit. I wanted to not only visit my old teachers, but also to walk around the hallways aimlessly and remember what it was like to be me eight years ago. It still blows my mind that I’ve been out of high school for that long. Okay, fine. The voice of accuracy in my head desperately wants me to clarify how long it’s really been. Technically, I had gone back to visit a few of my teachers shortly after I graduated high school, but I choose not to count that as a “proper” visit as I was still in college and coming back home quite often. It’s not like I was living out of the state as I am now. So it doesn’t count, okay? So Wednesday morning, I walked into the visitor’s entrance at gate 3 and received my visitor’s pass for the day. It was odd because as a student, I neve...

Here's a link to an interesting opinion on the NYT by David Bornstein about a program called Jump that is being used in the classroom to help teach math. Bornstein makes some great points about teaching math, e.g. the importance of confidence and the need for teachers and students to think of math as a ladder rather than a bunch of random skills. I would've liked to read more about the program itself and how it works. I suppose I will wait until Friday when the author will responds to comments and discusses the program in further detail. Okay, back to vacation land. Thanks to Ahsan for the link.

It was back to school from winter vacation today and I have to say, our attendance was fucking pathetic: I had a whopping five students show up for my first period class. And I can't just give a quiz to teach these supremely-motivated-students-who-happen-to-not-be-in-class a lesson. Apparently, you actually have to care in order to feel guilty about missing a quiz. Damn it! Then there were students who actually came to school, but bailed early. I actually greeted and said "what's up?" to several of these students in the hallway, many of whom I should have taught a few periods later. They probably just said "fuck it." This is something I really don't understand: what the hell is the point of waking up early, taking the subway, and going through metal detectors to get into school if you're just going to leave early and screw yourself later? This is literally what I hear in the hallway sometimes, loud and clear: "Yoooo.. Let's cut math and f...

2010 was a superb year. I'm really excited for what's to come in 2011. As expected, I plan on hibernating for the next few days. You should too. Happy Holidays!

In high school, I worked my ass off all four school years to get into a good college. But that meant I rewarded myself by doing jack shit over the summer. My summer vacations usually consisted of sleeping, video games, sports, and during my junior and senior years, jamming with my band. Yo Mista! Trivia: Can you guess what I played in my band? Hint: I sucked. Anyway, I didn't read books during the summer nor did I engage in thoughtful debate during sleepovers. Who does that kind of shit anyway? I'd rather be shotgunning covenant soldiers in the face to show off how manly I am (not that I need to).   A few days ago, two of my former Algebra students, Kareem and Havana , began e-mailing each other (and CC'ed me) in what it appeared to be a debate about religion and the existence of God. FYI, it is still summer vacation for high schools in New York City. Therefore, my logic dictates these kids are either completely insane or incredibly intelligent. Thoughts? For backgro...

In the past few weeks, I've been back at my school off and on for the following reasons: Planning curriculum with my department (which usually just means we're doing Beavis and Butthead impersonations all day) Helping grade the August Algebra Regents (there were only 6) Showing my younger brother where I work (he was here for a week!) It's been weird, but every time I went back, I left the building with a small, controlled burst of optimism. Small because I'm now fully aware of the physical and emotional demands the school year will make and I'm a bit scared. Controlled because, well, I don't want to get too excited - last year my students started the year strong but by the end of the first trimester, a majority of them went back to their old ways. I suppose this year I will beat myself up less about it. Not. At one point this week, my fellow math teachers (I have two colleagues now, as opposed to just one) and I were discussing the upcoming school year ...

As you've no doubt noticed, I haven't written shit in a very long time. I apologize. I blame grad school and beautiful weather for this. Until my classes finish (2 more weeks), I don't think I'll be writing much here since I'm already writing so much for school. There will be an occasional post here and there, so please do check in periodically. Look for things to pick back up in full swing mid-August. Thanks for your messages on Gchat, Facebook, etc. asking for new entries and demanding that I write!

I've been thinking about how to write this post for a while because it was such an eye-opening experience. I need to put some things into context first: I've been to Karachi almost every other year of my life. I'm in my mid-twenties now, so I've actually been there quite a lot for an American-born Pakistani. But then again, I don't really consider myself the typical American-Pakistani plagued with identity issues. I'm sure that makes me much less annoying (you're welcome). In the past, I used to stay with my extended family: aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. (who ranged anywhere from lower-middle class to simply middle class). So prior to this trip, I had an incomplete idea about what the state of education was like in Pakistan. I mean, I knew there was a system in place, but I didn't know how useless it really was. I remember my cousins spent a lot time with private tutors getting additional help. In fact, a lot of them would cut classes or school al...

I'm on vacation right now in Karachi and I shouldn't blog, but I have to. I left for vacation the day my Algebra students took their New York State Regents Examinations. I would be lying if I said I wasn't curious as to how they did. Actually, it's been a dull hunger that goes away with just the right amount of entertainment, but comes right back the second I'm not in the moment with something. I mean for fuck's sake, they're my students, I ought to know how they did. When I logged in for the first time yesterday and saw the summary of results, I felt a variety of things. Pride wasn't one of them. The initial numbers were quite disappointing.  Fuck man, there were a lot of failures. There were success stories too, and a few very surprising success stories (and I mean very surprising - which makes me question a lot of other things). I let my emotions get the best of me because I immediately closed the spreadsheet and put my fist to my mouth. Is it...