Goddamnit it's been a while since I've posted. Since the last time, I've managed to put a vaguely incompetent woman on the LA school board (with the help of half a million teacher's union bucks) and am now back to teaching. Things have gone downhill since my last smooth-sailing, video-watching end of the semester. In the past 1.5 weeks, I've been hit by a pencil, 2 raisins, a penny, and some spit while having my back turned/head down. The perpetrators have not been caught. After contemplating buying a hidden camera I was informed by former LA sheriff's deputy NAV that it would be wildly illegal. Damn the wretched ACLU. Any suggestions would be welcome. Currently trying to get kids to write a research paper. Especially difficult when, after 3 days of work, students still ask "what's a source?" and my all-time favorite, "mister, what's research mean?" I'll be out back building a gibbet.

Goddamnit it's been a while since I've posted. Since the last time, I've managed to put a vaguely incompetent woman on the LA school board (with the help of half a million teacher's union bucks) and am now back to teaching. Things have gone downhill since my last smooth-sailing, video-watching end of the semester. In the past 1.5 weeks, I've been hit by a pencil, 2 raisins, a penny, and some spit while having my back turned/head down. The perpetrators have not been caught. After contemplating buying a hidden camera I was informed by former LA sheriff's deputy NAV that it would be wildly illegal. Damn the wretched ACLU. Any suggestions would be welcome. Currently trying to get kids to write a research paper. Especially difficult when, after 3 days of work, students still ask "what's a source?" and my all-time favorite, "mister, what's research mean?" I'll be out back building a gibbet.

I was just putting on some music to take a nap to, and had a thought I needed to post. Searching through my MP3 collection, I tossed on Dave Brubeck then lay down. I realized that after Brubeck ended, I'd hear my week-old playlist of Jay Farrar songs (good, but probably listened to a good 50 times) so I used the musicmatch jukebox, punched in Dave Brubeck, and asked to hear music like it. It put on Charlie Parker, which was good but I wanted something more mellow... more mellow like what? Maybe mellow like the stuff they play when I'm in the Gap... Jesus, there's nothing farther away from Jazz than wanting your room to sound like the Gap. This is less funny or enlightening than I thought.

Well, hopefully somebody read that last post- more info is available at . Back on the campaign trail for this week, which officially kicked off on Saturday with a rally of sorts. On the one hand, it was nice to see South Central all decked out in balloons, but basically only 40 or 50 people showed up, which was kind of a disappointment, and they came I think for food and T-shirts. Campaign remains full of fools. Today the field director (in what reminded me eerily of parts of the Gore campaign) insisted that out of 276,000 registered voters, 186,000 were "high propensity voters", meaning that they had voted in each of the past 4 elections. This means that 68% of the registered voters showed up for EACH of the past 4 elections. This when only 43% county-wide appeared at the polls in November. Go figure.

As DV has thrown down the challenge on his blog,, to write the basics of why Howard Dean should be the Democratic nominee, I'll do my damndest. First things first- unlike many of the other candidates, he isn't a career politician (though anybody who knows me knows that I don't necessarily think that it's a disqualifier). Prior to assuming the Vermont governorship a decade ago, Dean was a doctor, and in fact continued his practice while serving as lieutenant governor. This gives him a special credibility born of experience when discussing health care, which is certainly one of the most important issues out there, affecting those of us who just graduated and are trying to get health insurance, to our grandparents struggling to pay for medicine or nursing homes. Gov. Dean has put into place in Vermont a program that guarantees health insurance for every child in the state, and also implemented a groundbreaking plan that gives all pregnant women free at-home prenatal visits, which among other things has drastically reduced child abuse in the state. One of his 3 main campaign goals is universal healthcare in the US, which is something desperately needed as we are the only major industrialized democracy without it. The other two goals are balancing the budget- something where he would fare well against Bush, who turned 4 years of Clinton surplusses into a record $200 billion deficit by way of tax cuts and other giveaways to corporations and the wealthy. The final major plank of his platform is environmental conservation, which he is enormously experienced in, having run arguably the greenest state in the country.

Two other points to consider before i head out to my current campaign gig (which is getting somewhat better) The first is pragmatic- Dean has the best shot of any dem currently running to beat Bush. As governor of a rural state, he avoids the problem that many Americans have with national democrats- they're urban, often northeasterners, who seem out of touch with the "heartland". Dean's record, and his sensible position on gun control (control handguns without demonizing law abiding gun owners) has the potential to win over the so-called "NASCAR Dads"- rural, blue-collar fathers who look to be the swing vote in this election. The second point is that Dean is a pretty courageous politician. How many politicians with presidential ambitions can you name who would sign into law a bill giving gay couples civil unions? Not many... I think it's indicative of what kind of person Howard Dean is- somebody who's highly competent, compassionate, and straightfoward about doing what's right, regardless of the consequences.

Notes on this past weekend: If you go camping, remember to bring your tent. Also, do not do anything that we did.

Back in action after a lengthy hiatus. Enjoyed a well-deserved couple weeks at home, and an exceptionally nice week here w/ EK before starting my new off-track gig. Before going into it- allow me to explain off-trackness. As most of the LA schools are so full that they can't fit all their students (ie: mine has 3700 kids and is built for 2200), the track system, wherein 1/3 of students and teachers are off at any given time, allows the schools to operate closer to their designed capacity. What this translates into is a deal where you teach/learn for 4 months, are off for 2, back for 4 more, etc. etc. Anyway, post-Xmas break I'm off until the beginning of March. In order to fill the time (and to make some cash, because as a 1st year teacher my pay isn't divvied up over the full year) I'm working for UTLA, the teachers' union, as a "volunteer recruiter" for a school board campaign in LAUSD. I started this gig on Tuesday with a meeting at the temporary campaign headquarters. It was billed as an "all-day strategy session" and took place in what was the closest I've ever been to a crack den. After finding the correct condemned building, I was met outside by a guy who said he was told to find "a white guy and a Mexican girl" who were coming to the meeting, and ushered up some rickety steps above Hank's Bar, through a warren of tiny, ill-lit hallways to a dim room illuminated only by the sunlight struggling through South Central's smog and the grimy windows. Suffice it to say that, given that the meeting was only an hour long, it was somewhat underwhelming having last done a presidential election in a hotly contested state. Fortunately, although my initial idea that the people I was dealing with were incompetent turned out to be true ("these are people who spent all of December making slipcovers for the office furniture" quoth one Union campaign pro), some other people are layered over them who appear to have some idea...

Well, my attempts to update more frequently have clearly been thwarted, by a combination of my own wretched laziness and an extremely exhausting last couple weeks at school. However, as of yesterday at 12:49 PM PST, (when the kids got out, maybe 1:47 when I got out is a better number) I have finished my first semester teaching. Please celebrate with me... come on, I'm not seeing much celebrating. Given that I have 7.5 hours until my flight leaves (or about 5 hours before I leave my house... love LAX) and most of my packing is done, it's been suggested that I use this time in a TFA-approved manner- reflecting on the semester. Now, a week and a half ago I went to JZ's house for a TFA sponsored "corps reflection dinner" where I assumed we would go and hang out and try our damndest on a Thursday night not to talk about teaching. Hah. One of the TFAista leadership arrived and immedately began posting chart paper and nudging us all into a big circle so we could answer touchy-feely questions. Well, after snagging another beer to make the entire thing even possible to sit through (though I was yelled at once for "elevator talk" when I leaned over to ask RW if she agreed with me that having an enormous copy of Plato's Republic in your living room seemed pretentious) I did take away one useful thing from the shindig- I am having way, WAY more fun than most of the other folks. People were complaining about not liking anyone at their school, about being incredibly stressed, about going home and having to physically pry themselves away from grade books. When it came my turn to say how I dealt with stress, I recieved (received?) numerous death stares for saying something like "well, I try to laugh at things... when the kids say after 3 weeks on Islam that Mohammed founded the religion on a hunting trip, I show it to my roomates, we all laugh, then I go on and try to make it better." This apparently is not the way other folks handle it.

I'm not sure if my fingers have the capacity at this point in time for full-fledged reflection... so much has gone on over the course of the past 4 months (6 if you count Institute) that I surely couldn't recount it all (plus it should be all here floating around in the archives- thanks to JD for braving all of it and for your comments). However, I could probably break it down into some basic lessons learned, in no particular order-

-Assume they know nothing. I have been burned more times going into a lesson with the assumption that the kids had some kind of prior knowledge of what the hell it was I was talking about. Not so much... many had never heard of Islam (despite sept. 11), samurai, continents, and various other things I thought I could gloss over.

-Break it down. The only way I've found to get around kids being absolutely baffled at what I'm saying is to break everything down into tiny bite-sized chunks of information, repeat them ad nauseum, and break down tasks the same way ("Okay, everybody put your name on your paper. Now hold it up to show me you have it written down. Now copy the sentence from the board. I'm coming around to check that you're copying the...")

-7th graders are amazing / 7th graders are horrible. Some absolutely fantastic kids thus far this year, many of whom I would have been pleased to have as friends back in the day...

okay, I'm sick of this lessons learned thing. If you have particular questions, talk to me and ask something other than "how's teaching going" because you'll get the answer "it's going" or some other drivel. I'm out-

After some prodding from various folks, I'm going to try to update more frequently. I think tonight may be the first time I've realized how insular my life in LA is. I see all these folks at work, and ostensibly have a corps of 200 LA TFAistas to chill with, but because RH and BL are doing architecture work, and JY and RD are out with their respective girlfriends, and I just took JZ to the airport to fly to San Fransisco, I effectively have nobody in this entire metro area of like 15 million people to hang out with. Thus, it's 8:36 on a Friday night and I'm at home IMing people, heating up a frozen pizza and updating this blog. Lest I sound overly pathetic, usually Fridays are good times at Sharkeez happy hour with the crew, followed by a group trip to the fabled "Tavern on Main" (oswego folks think Old City, Ham Tekkers The Rok with no TDX meatheads) for some pool, positouch, and discussions with the local racist former coal miner... good times generally, but tonight... not so much.

Thanksgiving break is over- it was really nice to have a break. We went to RD's parents' place in Orange County for the big Turkey Day itself, and had a really nice early meal there. Following that up, I went with RH, BL, RD, and BW to a go-kart place near Irvine and spent the rest of the day riding go-karts and playing arcade games and mini-golf. It was a fairly bizarre day, altogether, very different from more family-oriented Thanksgivings that I've had in the past. Although the go-karts were a decent substitute for riding four-wheelers at Uncle Tom's place. Missing Thanksgiving at home 2 times in the past 3 years has definitely been pretty odd. Both times that I've missed it, I've come pretty close to the "urban tribes" model that I hold so dear to my heart (taking 3 hours off from work on the campaign in 2000, go-karting with friends this year) and had some Eggers-like moments that I'll certainly cherish, but both times I couldn't help but wish I was back in upstate NY with the fam.

Back in the saddle after the weekend, looking forward to Thanksgiving vacation, and then the mere 2 weeks of actual teaching after that, followed by a week of showing videos and playing jeopardy or something since grades are already in and kids aren't allowed to bring backpacks and nobody does any work. We had a meeting just to show new teachers how to waste that week by playing 7-up in class. Given that I have kids that can't write a simple declarative sentence without seven grammatical errors, it's kind of nauseating to think of using the week that way... I'm hoping at least to play some review games and maybe watch movies and write about them. I guess most of my time will be taken up getting everything ready for going off track, a process that sounds only vaguely less intimidating than prepping for a moon launch, but apparently is doable, given that hoards of incompetent LA teachers do it regularly.

Meetings meetings meetings. Last week, out of a 4 day week at school, I had a meeting immediately after classes 3 days in a row. The only meeting-free day was Friday. Consequently, I had to postpone a whole pile of detentions, tutoring, and other stuff until then, when nobody in their right mind actually wants to stay after school. Highly annoying. Tomorrow, I get to go to the king of all time-wasting meetings: my district pre-intern program 3.5 hour afterschool bullshit. I have to do this 5 Mondays in a row, until the end of the semester, so they can give me test prep (likely doled out by some district hack with a cal state dominguez hills degree in adult education) on taking the secondary social studies content exam. I think of all the things that I could use assistance on in the teaching realm, social studies content is not one of them. Frankly, I've only found about one of the formal professional development sessions to be at all useful so far.... most of them refuse to treat teachers like reasonable professionals- making us do stupid icebreakers and draw posters like we were at RA training for college or something. I think i'm going to bring something to read and sit quietly in the back tomorrow.

Honestly it's pretty difficult to teach when all your after-school time gets sucked up with administrative garbage, and you have zero time to stay after to talk to kids who've been absent, or who haven't turned in their homework, or who are there every day paying attention but still think that Islam is a place. Speaking of which, about time to start grading my Islam final projects- grades are due Wed. and I have a stack of portfolios to look at. I'll post some of the more entertaining snippets.

The viewing of "The Circle" I talked about below was an amazing success. I was pretty thrilled that the kids sat still to watch a movie in Farsi (Farsi!!!) with subtitles, but things went really well. The kids were absolutely appalled at the depictions of how women are treated in Iran, and many of them were really pissed that Bush doesn't do anything about it ( I certainly did little to quell that). In my honors class, we even got into cultural relativism- trying to see things from the eye of the Ayahtollah (if you'll permit me the lousy pun) and look at our marriage/divorce rates, abortions, babies out of wedlock, billboards for the Spearmint Rhino gentleman's clubs, sexual harassment, etc. seems from their POV. Best of all, 3 of the kids (of varying skill levels) all have borrowed the movie from me to finish watching at home.

Weekend was exceptionally nice.

by the way... election right now is too painful to talk about.

Going to try my first multimedia presentation tomorrow- and maybe I'm aiming a little high? The movie I rented is in Farsi with subtitles - The Circle, about the plight of Iranian women - but I was encouraged when one of my students watched it when I suggested it (she was writing about the role of women in Islamic society) and said she really liked it. Hopefully the rest of the class can at least abstain from raghead jokes so I don't have to throw too many of them out of class (As I found when we covered "Niger" in geography warmup, lowbrow racist humor is certainly their forte). Also coming up tomorrow is my first Parents' night. I hired/bribed one of the honors kids in my homeroom to translate for me, just hoping he shows up. Will attempt to explain to parents why their kids are failing (because, parents response to "He doesn't do his homework and is disrespectful in class" is often "he's lazy and disrespectful at home, too" well, shit.)