How do they do it?

My favorite time of the weekday is 3:35. This time is five minutes after they call bus 10, which my last student rides. The reason why this is my favorite time is because I roam the halls and I become the school's official hobo. I loiter different classrooms each day. I check in the literacy room to see if their is food or mints lying around. Often times I vent to different teachers and talk about how it is rough teaching my first year. I mostly do this because I hope that my openness to the art of conversation will lead to me listening to their stories. 


Teacher talk-the good ol' days
I am always in amazement whenever I hear local teachers talk about how our school used to be. They have a tendency to say that "back in the day, kids used to respect school." Everyday, I wonder was there an approximate year that schools became bad? Was it something in the water? Whenever I get the chance I always try to ask them what do they think made the school fall into turmoil and I think the general consensus is.... Bigger class sizes and a lack of teaching assistants. I teacher two block schedules of a total of 53 students.  The crazy thing is my class is still smaller than one teaching team. I don't want to become a preachy, but come on this is ridiculous!


If you give a veteran a cookie (Does anyone remember that book?)....

Even if you do not work in the profession of teaching, the best thing you can do is sit to someone that is far older than you and soak up the fruits of their labor. Loitering gives me the opportunity to hear stories about their successes and failures in life. Veterans also provide great antidotes, like these little biddies:

"A wagon that has no supplies makes the loudest noise"

" A whistling lady and a crowing hen never have a good end."

" There's no difference between an old person [in the 21st century] and a kid. Well except the kid my die earlier and guess who has the last laugh, the old person in the diaper."

Now, I'm not saying everything an older person says is the end all be all, but I think we need to listen to their experience. Because in your twenties ignorance is bliss when you are eating organic fruit, listening to eclectic music, and discussing intellectual topics that you heard on NPR.

Happy Friday's Eve :)

I'm a little late...

In my attempt to imitate my roommates beautifully written philosophical blog I decided that in the end of my first year of teaching in the Mississippi Delta I should enter  the 21st century and enter the blogosphere. I'm excited to write this blog now, then in my first 10 months ( traumatic, yes!) because I can look at my situation as well as my friends and look at it through a reflective lens. So here it goes...

In a nutshell, if I could sum of my year in the Delta in one word that word would be.... Conundrum. I think that this word is fitting because when I moved from California I was placed in front of me a huge riddle that is the Delta. Slowly I been looking at this enigma and I still don't understand what the heck is going on. Sometimes I laugh at the absurdities of human nature and sometimes I cry endless nights because the laughter slowly stops and my emotions seep into a state of torture. As a realist its hard to remain "real" in a place that appears to be far more obscure than Berkeley.

In this state of enigma, there have been many roller coaster moments in teaching. From my classroom looking like a scene that came out of Jumanji to making inspirational Freedom Writer movie montage speeches in my class. In the words of a travel agent, life has been a trip.

Here, I find myself as David looking into Goliath eyes and thinking, 'Are you serious? There is no possible way I can tame this beast. Maybe its best that I take a rain check and call it a day.' The fact of the matter is, Goliath will always be there I guess I have to find the right rock somewhere. Or at least take Goliath out for a martini.