Yo Mista!

Against any form of logic, New York City education officials are apparently thinking about forcing New York students to take more standardized tests. According to this NYT article , the sole purpose of these new tests will be to determine teacher effectiveness. So if I'm a New York State student, I have to take and pass five Regents exams to graduate. If I want to go to college, I have to take the SAT. If I want to go to college and not take remedial courses, I have to take and pass more Regents. And if this new initiative goes through, I have to take eight more standardized tests. I feel so bad for the children growing up in this country right now. School has gone from a place that is supposed to help you grow and develop as a productive member of society to a year-long test prep session. Why even have high school? Why not just one big exam that tests everything you ever need to know in high school? Oh wait, that's the GED.

It's raining today. It's also May. To say we experienced some extremely shitty attendance would be an understatement.  In fact, I think today set some sort of record. I co-teach my 5th period class with a first-year math teacher. That means for that specific period, there are two teachers in one room. Two teachers. One room. And no, it's not a "special education" class. It's a regular Algebra class that just happens to have two teachers. An amazing opportunity for students to receive instruction in multiple ways and receive one-on-one support. Exhibit A below shows the attendance for 5th period today. I've blocked out all the names obviously. Exhibit A: 5th period attendance What you are seeing is correct: exactly one student was present today. Your eyes are not playing tricks on you. This student also happens to be a student whose attendance is quite terrible. In fact, when this student is here, he usually skips his classes and strolls the school...

To quote one of my colleagues, "This is what happens when people who never work in schools make policy on education." Read the New York Times article here .

Today, a student of mine commented, "Mista, what were your parents like? I bet they made you eat at the table with manners, and force you into conversation. No wonder you sound so much like white people." My mother and I are eating dinner in the kitchen. The TV is on: I'm watching The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and thinking how fucking cool it would be if I had a magical flute that could awaken a giant green mechanized dragon and do my bidding. My mother is sitting next to me, lost in thought and drinking her tea, as always. I'm eating homemade pasta with marinara sauce. The baby monitor is on next to me. My younger brother is asleep in his crib upstairs. I was nine when he was born, so I took care of him as often as I played with him. Suddenly, my mom and I hear the garage door open from the kitchen. It's my dad. It's also Saturday evening. There's only one place he could be coming back from on a Saturday evening: the liquor store. In fa...

Attendance on Friday is usually atrocious. As a result, it is extremely difficult to introduce new material, as I usually have to then re-introduce it the following Monday. Most teachers at my school utilize Friday as a review day, a catch-up day or provide students with in-class time to work on larger assignments. A colleague of mine decided to use his class time on such a Friday to get students to work on their writing assignment using laptops. Two students, Jamil and Antoine, decided they weren't going to work on their assignment. Jamil, whose attendance is pretty impressive, shockingly still fails most of his classes. Antoine's attendance is terrible, and when he does come to school, he's usually stoned out of his mind. Seriously, this guy has the potential to be very successful starring in anti-drug commercials. Anyway, Jamil and Antoine put on some music on their laptops and begin to plan their evening. My dear colleague decided to type up this gem of a conversation...

Sadly, I think I've come to the point now where an e-mail like the one below doesn't faze me anymore. Hey Folks, I received a phone call from Justin's mother, she was informing us that Justin got arrested yesterday. Hopefully he will be back in school by Monday. Justin will bring documentation from the court.  Thanks, School Aide

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...