Yo Mista!

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...

School is nearly done. It feels strangely familiar, but different in a way. The school year wrapped up this week with next week being Regents examination week. As a result, the atmosphere within classrooms has become lax in the past few days. I think as teachers, we see the light at the end of the tunnel and look forward to the time off. The students who have done their best all year still come to school and now have nothing to worry about, so they have fun. The kiddos who did jack shit all year are working their asses off to make up for their year-long stupidity. To me, that's still fine because there are others who have simply stopped coming to school altogether... There's only so much I can worry about. I like the feeling I get when something tough or trying is near completion. When I was in high school, things were always pretty cool around June. Teachers were fun to hang out with - we'd shoot the shit and watch funny movies. The gym would be open and we could play ...

I can't believe it's June already. Last year in June, I was living "in-between" jobs and it was everything I thought it would be (FYI: I thought it would be awesome ). I had a lot of time off between investment banking and Teach for America's summer training program. I spent most of this time getting fit, cooking, going to coffee shops, reading, watching TV and doing home improvement projects. I was living the retired life at 24 years old, which I suppose makes me a baller. I accept. On top of that, I also co-starred in a short film produced by NYU Tisch graduate students. When I left banking, a good friend forwarded me a casting call for a director needing someone South Asian in a lead role. The movie was to be a short ten minute reinterpretation of O.Henry's The Gift of the Magi . In this version, a laid off investment banker has trouble finding a job and supporting his pregnant wife. My friend convinced me this role was basically written for me and tha...

In a previous post ("Stupefied"), I wrote about how frustrated I was when only 11 out of 30 students showed up for the first day of their free SAT-prep class. Attendance has been extremely shitty since the program started, with only three students showing up today for the final class. One student enrolled in the SAT prep class - let's call him Antonio - didn't even come to school today. In fact, he would have missed this class had another student not ditched his own 7th period class to drag his ass over here. Yes, you read correctly up there: drag his ass over here. Antonio lives a whopping four blocks away from school. Yet, for some reason his attendance is absolutely disgusting. He's frequently at home or at a book store reading, researching random shit online or video gaming. Still, this is nothing new for teachers these days, so why am I making this such a big deal? Maybe it's because Antonio is ridiculously intelligent. He is one of the quickest le...

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.

This week, I took my first day off since I started teaching in September. The perfect attendance streak is done. It's weird but that doesn't bother me so much anymore. Perhaps this is a sign of growth? Weird, but not unexpected. Generally, if a teacher is absent at my school, a substitute teacher gets called in to cover for the day. Sometimes substitute teachers are unavailable which means the full-time teachers have to give up their planning period and that period. It doesn't really matter who is covering for the day, because our kids generally get nothing done on days their primary teacher is absent. In fact, in my experience, students come knocking on my door during random periods: "Yo Mista, Ms. So-and-So ain't here and that sub is mad whack. Can I come in and chill?" This happens quite often. Sometimes, they don't even knock - they just cut the class and use it as an excuse to go home. I can't figure out if our kids are just extremely loyal to...

In high school, I remember my teachers used to get really excited near the end of the week. They would say, "Don't worry guys, it's almost Friday! We're gonna make it!" I couldn't figure out why they got that excited about weekends. I mean sure, I loved the weekends: waking up late, no homework, hanging out with friends, the list goes on. Don't teachers just stay at home, grade papers and read books? It wasn't too long before I figured out why my teachers were so excited about Fridays: the job requires the energy of a nine year old and the last time I checked, I'm not nine (though I still giggle at the word "penis"). I'm a believer in mind over body, that is, if I think I'm not tired, then I won't feel tired. When I worked on Wall Street, I could pull some really late nights and still meet friends at 1 or 2 in the morning. Even if I worked 80-90 hours a week , it was pretty much assumed I still went out on Saturday night t...