wiggolation

Been studying most of the weekend. Grammar, that is. Problems in Contemporary English Grammar. I mean, this is worse than having to read Beowulf.

Met a biker-racer guy in Central Park, which was just a mob scene today. Last time I go out during the middle of the day for a ride. Anyway, this guy told me about the racing scene in NYC and where to get info. Said I should get on a new team that was being formed. He's going to be on it. We shared racing stories from my and his days in France and Italy, respectively. And you thought fishermen told tall tales....

It was nice to meet a nondweebie in the park for once. So many poseurs in this city.

The Broadway Street Fest--or whatever it's called--was a nonevent for me as I'm such a loser and studied grammar with Chad and Zahra. At least we got to hang out at the Hungarian Cafe. The closest to European cafe culture I've been in the US.

I hear quizes calling.

So The brothers are threatening a visit to NYC. We three on a futon?

Maria visits two weekends from today. She and her friend will be crashing here. Guess this means the floor pour moi. At least I'll have some company. The way things are set up now--with my job and school and studying--I've little time to do meaningful social things. I just don't get out to do interesting things all that much. Just too tired and, well, not motivated. When I do get out, it's for beers at the pub with the PC gang. They are great people. I just wish there were other people as well. It's a question of time I guess.

Jerry Vegas is moving back to CZ. I have to say I think that's cool. We both have an affection for Prague and the rest of the country we need to rekindle now and again.

Praha, Matka Mest: Prague, Mother of Cities.

Who gives a shit about phrase structure rules anyhow!? One more tree diagram and I'm going to jump! Adverbial shmerbial.

For the record. If I ever make a grammar or spelling or any other kind of mistake or error or goof, it is because I teach ESL. Just so you know.

I mean, just the other day I said, "I'm not going to do nothing if you don't do your homework." I mean, this is Fernando's fault, not mine. He's sitting in the front row. Go ahead, ask him....

O. I also learned a new sentence in Spanish:
El pero de Maria es bonito.

Yeah, you should be jealous, Dave. Uh huh.

Yes. Still breathing. Sometimes kicking.

This week proved to be many things, from very trying to fun and everywhere in between. I think there is never going to be a normal week teaching high school. It is--forgive the analogy--a real roller coaster. I am still having a good time teaching and learning with the beginners' class. They work and appreciate the stuff we do in class. Well, they say they do! We joke and have fun, and even learn sometimes. Really, they are a pleasure to teach. They are very sweet kids. I want to take them to the city, though, because I gather they know very little about it. I mention places and such there and they ask, "What is that?" I am going to plan a field trip. At least to the Met or somewhere. What if they ditch me on the train though?! What will I do then?

The intermediate students, on the other hand, are still very behind, don't do homework, and, many days, don't even show up. When they do, they complain when I ask them to do the smallest things, like tell me about something they have done or to write a paragraph about something or read something from one of our texts. They are nice to me for the most part. They joke with me and ask about Manhattan and Chicago. But they are so darn lazy. It's almost funny. Of course it's not funny at all!

They were actually starting to get to me in ways I thought they couldn't--in my after-school thoughts, that kind of thing. Well, we had something like a serious class-wide talk on Wednesday and I have to say I felt better. Though I don't think they did. I told them we needed to get things out in the open as to why, for example, they don't work and don't show any effort. They came out and said that they feel ripped off that they have to be in ESL 2B when they should be in a higher-level class that will prepare them for their leaving exams. They said that they passed ESL 2B last year. But the fact is, according to the admin people, that these students have not passed ESL yet, that they are in their proper place. So I told them this and they just said something like, "Yeah, right...whatever...." In the end, I told them that I thought it was I they had problems with. They said no, it wasn't me at all. Whew! My lessons, they said, were "good," "fine," "OK," and "not the problem." They just don't like the way the school is run from above and how they have to "redo" the ESL classes.

This news was, for me at least, a relief. I thought I was not teaching them right! Well, I told them they could prove the other people wrong by studying hard and passing their Regents Exam this January. They don't seem to be listening to this logic though. I fear they will just blow off my class as a result. Today, Friday, about 7 out of 22 students showed up. Shame, too, because they all need lots of improvement in the basic ESL areas. No one in the group can write using Standard English. Not even close to the kind of English they'll have to know for their exams. In other words, they all want to take the big exam--and think they can pass it--and be done with English. But they would, I think, be very, very sobered to realize their English is nowhere near where it has to be to pass the Regents.

Otherwise, I have here for you a few quotations straight from Frankenstein.

-- 'I do not know,' said the man, 'what the custom of the English may be; but it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains.'

-- I hailed the darkness that shut Ireland from my sight; and my pulse beat with a feverish joy when I reflected that I should soon see Geneva.

-- [W]ind ... blew me from the detested shore of Ireland [...].

Been a long time since my last confession, Father Blog....

School continues to interest, tire, and challenge me. Queens, that is. Columbia is OK but it's starting to take up a lot of time. Go figure.

The kids I teach are pretty OK but they are very lazy. Most just do not do homework. That is just a fact. I hate to say that but it is true. The ones who do homework do it just before class.

This perturbed me my first full week. I was starting to go nuts. I didn't know what to do. I mean, I followed all the guidelines, rules, and general approaches to getting students to do homework but none worked.

I got some wisdom from another teacher here at the school. It may sound obvious to many teachers but I learned that if I let them do homework in class, then they’d do it. Duh. For some reason I thought of everything but.

This will work though. And I am very relieved too. Being an alternative school, the students here just don't do homework. I had to repeat this to myself many times, out loud while out riding my bike and under my breathe on the train. "They don't do homework."

So. Now I give up almost a third of class time to homework. I hated even just the idea of doing this at first because I felt that as a native speaker of English I should make myself available to them, as a resource and friend and all that. But, truth be told, that is not what this teaching job is about. What it is about is getting students to come to school and to pass their exams. If you think about this for a second it's scary. But that is the way it is. I cannot change it either. It's so imperfect but there seems no way round it.

So I now introduce the lesson topics and then get them doing things and then give them the "homework" and then collect the homework. That is it. Quite pathetic and wrong to my mind but nonetheless the way it is.

My job of course is much, much easier as a result. Easier in that I have to give them less sophisticated homework and easier in that it has to be easy homwork or they won't finish it in class--and therefore not at all.

I hate this. I hate this. But I have to unlearn the hard work thing. As the man says, it just don't work round here.

So be it.

I got sleeping problems.

No help whatsoever that I'm in deep with Macbeth either. It's sounds trite but every time I read or even reread Shakespeare I think, "What a fucking genius!" It's not even a matter of being a brilliant writer--the man was a genius thinker and commenter on everything. Pretty humbling for writers I should think. You don't come up with that stuff by practice alone. Or do you?

Unisom sucks..............

Today’s school staff meeting was disappointing. Let me just say some of the teachers at my school are not, eh, very sophisticated in their thinking or expression when it comes to grown-up discussion time. It’s actually an observation I have been turning over in my mind the last few years—high school teachers, some anyway, become just like the students. They often are short tempered, they swear, they undercut good ideas with jaded "experience," and they talk about retirement more and more, just as some students tend to talk about graduation. So no one really talks about the present or does much about it. And what's with these teachers always trying to find people to back them up in their gripes? What ever happened to taking a stand and representing yourself? I am over generalizing here, for sure, but there is a majority out there who give teachers a bad name. I can deal with it myself, but if you had any sense in your head and you walked into today’s staff meeting, you’d have walked out the door.

The meeting itself is not worth writing about except to say that the most hotly debated issue on the agenda was who should pay the five bucks for plastic cups for the drinking water. So much for the fact that our school doesn’t recycle, that it still doesn’t have a math teacher to fill one of the math vacancies….

Having said this, I am not going to turn into a griper of teachers since this would put me on their evil level. Don’t get me wrong, there are some very good teachers at my school; it’s just that they are not the majority.

As for 9/11, I don’t think I’m doing anything in my class except for the regularly planned lesson. I suppose I might ask the kiddies if they want to talk about the anniversary, but I am not going to push the topic. If they are going to pass the Regents with any decency, they'd better use all the time they can to get ready.

The days are flying it seems. Still can’t stay awake the whole day. Always need a nap. Though today I needed only an hour nap. Better than the four-hour mothers I’d been having.

During class the time flies too. Getting the students to do a lot of writing and thinking, though that may sound funny. But they don’t seem to think critically very much. I get this impression because when I ask them something they can’t make heads or tails of the thing. I take it much of their instruction has been rote. But I can change that, at least in me own wee class.

I’ve started right off with various writing assignments. Lots of writing because they need to know how to compose more than anything on the bloody Regents, which has already taken on a rather grave connotation in conversation with colleagues and students. As if it were all that mattered. Well, in one sense it does—it's the test they need to pass to graduate. In another sense—i.e., that they’re only human—they need to do other things than study for the damn Regents. It’s the equivalent of studying your head off for the ACT or SAT tests. How lame is that?

Otherwise, stopped in for a cup at drip and read more Macbeth. I hadn’t noticed but the café is actually a meeting place too, where you fill out a profile and pay 20 bucks and get put into a binder for others to search through over caffeine and alcoholic beverages. When you want to meet someone, you place a request at the bar with the computer guy, who pencils you in for a meeting time. No, I don’t think I’ll be joining. But the coffee there is good and watching the hapless folk walk in and out is worth going back for. Besides, it’s one of the few coffee shops in the hood other than Starbucks.

It’s been a great weekend in that I’ve been able to sleep and lie around and read non-school stuff. Went to a PC Fellows pizza party Friday and out dancing after. Enjoyed cutting it up on the dance floor. Been ages since I did that.

Yesterday meant to go out to Jersey for a ride but by the time I got to the GW Bridge I turned round and rode around Central Park instead. Didn’t feel quite up to Jersey but I’d like to go today. Great to be on the bike again. Can’t wait till the Merlin arrives.

Have a TESOL meeting at the College today and then planning to do and Macbeth to finish.

Weather’s been fantastic—around 75 and 80 the last few days and sunny.

Need to get my own syllabus laid out for this term so I am not going from week to week with no direction other than the Regents Exam. I’m not required to give anyone at the school a syllabus but I think having one will do me good, whether I follow it closely or not.

September 11 approaching. Everyone here talking about it and it’s all that’s on TV. I don’t think I have anything to say about it though.

First day of teaching done!

As my school is an alternative school, only a few students showed up the first day. I had four students in my first double period and two in my second. In the last period no one came. This is normal though as most students don’t start coming till later. By October I will have a full house, which means I’ll have about 25 students per class.

The ones who came today are Korean and Chinese. Very quiet but well behaved too. Ages for the students range from 17-21.

I talked about language acquisition to get them thinking about what they need to learn and how they expect to learn it. They all want to learn to read and write and speak better English but don’t have a plan. So I suggested they come up with one. And they seemed cool with this, taking notes and coming up with their own strategies. I just hope some will actually work the plan. I already gave out a writing assignment in which they have to tell me about their English language learning experience/history. I hope they will start to see more clearly that their ESL careers evolve, change, and are affected by what they do and think about their education. I hope they finish this lesson with a better appreciation for the stage of learning they are in at present and where they will be going next.

Another motivation for blogging: I’ll be using my blogs as part of my Columbia ESL teaching journals that I have to keep this semester.

The daily commute to Queens is really a buzzkill. At least I get to read on the way there. They way back I'm too tired to read anything. But when I look around me on the train and see all the working immigrants who spend their whole lives falling asleep on the train I feel less tired and lucky I'm not in their shoes.

First day at the alternative high school went well. The teachers are afraid of the pupils. No, wait, that's the song I have in my head. I meant, the teachers are friendly and helpful. There are 30 teachers, eight of whom are male. There's one Haitian teacher whom I share an office with. He keeps to himself but was helpful and pretty talkative at the same time. After the teachers meeting, I started getting lots of books and other materials together into a great big locker. Though I don't have my own classroom, I will be teaching in just two rooms which are opposite each other. I managed to get an old wooden desk into a small lounge, so I will have something of an office.

Flushing, the area in which my school is located, is mostly Korean. There are signs in Korean and other Asian languages all over the shops and streets with very little English.

So far so good in Queens.

(Wink.)

Saw Chicago the Broadway musical Sunday evening. Pretty fun though I normally don't care for musicals--they're just too happy. I need more serious conflict and internal struggle. That may sound pretentious but I got it from reading early 20th-century fiction and there is no going back.

Hung out with my cousin Nuala and her friend and fellow guard from Mayo Sharon. Both are very sweet Irish gals, and we had a fun time in Queens at the Bohemia Beer Hall, which is something like the unofficial Czech culture centre in NYC. Drank some Pilsner and heard some crazy band thrash it out for a while. They described themselves as "suped-up rock with lots of sequins." You get the idea. I think they're called Vic Thrill. Anyway, we ended up at the local watering holes and laughed at all the local drunks as the hit on Nuala and Sharon, who thought these lads were tossers.

A lovely, rain-soaked ride in Central Park today. Feels great to be on the bike again. The rain felt great. And because of it there were a lot fewer joggers out.

Tomorrow school begins for me and on Thursday for the kids. Can't wait to see the school, other teachers, and kids. And how it's all going to work out. Been reading a lot of the archives at www.blackboardjungle.blogspot.com, which is both funny and sobering.

Dishes and laundry are calling me. A truly laborious day indeed.