It took several weeks but my transfer has gone through and I begin teaching at my new school tomorrow! I regret that I cannot name the school because it's such a good school to be a part of, but because I write all kinds of shit on this blog I don't think it would be a good idea. It, like my old school, is a NYC public high school. This new one's in da Bronx though. My commute from Brooklyn is going to suck but what the hell. It's only for about three months or so. Then, in the fall, I can move back to Manhattan...or to the Bronx?
I feel so relieved to be free from the tension that I experienced with my AP. She was a nice enough person but her little power position corrupted her and made her spiteful. She resented me because I stood up to her and told her my mind. Normally, I would think speaking your mind would be a good thing among educators, but with her it was taken personally and she couldn't handle criticism. She was ineffective as an observer and knew little or nothing about the current state of teaching. She got so comfy in her job as an AP in her little school and seemed to bask in the safety of her position as head of the school. When she told people to do things she expected them to be done, no questions asked. When anyone question her about the appropriateness or merit of her actions and beliefs she just did not know what to do. Instead of discussing and negotiating differring points of view she turned to the role of boss instead of leader. Not what you want in a school...or any job.
I'll certainly always remember the good people I met at my school: the staff and teachers and students. I learned a good deal about Queens along the way. It's a nice borough once you get to know it. You don't forget your first real teaching gig and you don't forget the good times...or at least you shouldn't.
The new move also means I am expecting now to be in NYC at least a third year. Plans to head back to Chicago in the fall have been shelved.
So here I embark on a new school after a year and a half in the NYC dept. of ed. I hope the next year and a half are better. I think they will be. The new school has so many good people AND an open-minded, engaged leader. The new job is going to be demanding in ways my old job wasn't: There are going to be people watching me a lot, people to plan and collaborate with, and a new population of students to get to know. Heaven knows I look forward to it.
Peace, dude: graffiti de Quebec
Just got back from Quebec City--about 8 hours to NYC, though it would be an hour faster if not for the heavy traffic entering NYC. No tickets on the way home! Though I did get that one in Quebec.
Nowhere, Maine
It all started Sunday morning when I left NYC about 11 A.M. I drove up to Limestone, Maine in about 8 hours, passing Boston, Portland, and Bangor, among other cities. It got progressively colder as I shot straight up I-95 toward Canada, and snowier. Thank god the sun was shining and it was dry out. As I penetrated upper Maine it got pretty quiet on the highway and very wooded and dark....and snowier. When I got off the highway to head east to Jim's town I stopped for gas and I was shocked by the cold. It was about zero outside and my face froze almost immediately. I couldn't figure out how to pay for the gas as there was no credit card thingy, so I went in to pay cash first. Well, the guy looked at me strange and said to pump and then come back in. I felt stupid but I realized I was not in the big city and one was actually given the benefit of the doubt one wasn't going to pump and run. What a missed courtesy!
Fire escape or slide? Downtown Quebec
Limestone, Maine is not anything special and it's ever so small and quiet with just a Main Street running through town. It felt like David Lynchville, yes indeed. As said there was a ton of snow everywhere and it was freezing.
Jim's house, Limestone, ME
I got to Jim's finally and it was greet to see him. Last time we met was in Portland last summer. We drank beer and ate dinner at his place and caught up on events, mainly his wilting relationship with a girl who renamed herself Zen after switching to Buddhism. While I was there he broke it off with her as she was hanging around other guys and still playing around with her ex or something. I encouraged Jim to move on. The next day we drove around northeastern Maine, which is very beautiful. Lots of forests, lakes, snow, stars. Being the big Beat freak Jim is, he had a lot of movies about Burroughs and the other writers of the era. We watched a video of Burroughs but I didn't like it. He's too ... eh, weird for my tastes. Nonetheless Jim was in good form.
Old Town, Quebec
More Old Town, Quebec
Icy fun, Quebec
Ice, ice, baby.
Ice cold.
Jim and I were getting restless and, with Jim's encroaching depression over the woman setting in, I suggested we road trip to Quebec City. It was only five hours or so away and we both wanted to visit it. So the third day we drove off in our cars and headed to Canada. (I wanted to return to NYC from Quebec so we opted to take both cars.) On the way up Route 1A I was following Jim and was getting a lot of crud from his wheels on my windshield. Soon I ran out of washer fluid and signaled him to pull over. I couldn't see anymore with the caked dirt on my windshield. Ahead of Jim I pulled over and actually pulled over a little too far, putting the right side of my Mazda in the snow so that my car was sort of leaning off the side of the road. Sure enough I was stuck in the snow. To make matters worse Jim did the same thing with his Toyota. We just figured the leveled snow was not deep! There we were, our cars stuck in the snow. All my fault! We tried to get out ourselves but we were just making things worse and getting in deeper. I managed to hail a car to the side of the road and it was a French-speaking man. I did my best in French and he agreed to drive me up the road a few kilometers to an Esso station. In the end we got out after a big tow truck pulled us one at a time back on to the road. So much for helping Jim get over his depression!
Poseurs, for sure.
The big 'riot' with Jim reporting!
An hour later we were on Highway 20 West toward Quebec City. We were doing about 80 m.p.h when a cop comes speeding up behind us and pulls us both over. What?! OK, we were speeding. But what the hell? EVERYBODY was doing the same speed. Sure enough the cop issued us speeding tickets. At this point I feel bad for Jim and think that Canada sucks ass. On we headed to the city that was starting to seem a too far away. I was thinking about Conan O'Brien and how he was ripping on the Quebecois. Were they taking it out on JIM AND ME?
Things, thank god, turned around for the better soon enough. We stopped on the outskirts of the city at the Tourist Info and got a hotel reservation. We got a really nice place right in the heart of town, just near the old town which is surrounded by a great wall, a lot like Avignon in France. Once we got settled in the hotel we headed into town to eat, drink, and complain about the events of the day. We couldn't help but be put in a great mood though by this charming city. It was a lot like Europe and nothing North American. Just as Jim and I were started to laugh about getting stuck in the snow and the tickets we literally found ourselves in the middle of a protest that was looking to become violent. There were about hundred or so students and a dozen of riot police and some clouds of tear gas in the air, all just on the grounds of the Parliament building. We just had to laugh and wonder what the hell was actually going to happen. Thankfully nothing happened and we walked right past the police who were standing there pretty relaxed in light of a steady stream of snowballs being thrown at their helmets. Quebec was too cool! As long as we weren't going to be getting any tickets that is...
The rest of the trip was a lot of fun. We didn't do a lot in terms of touristy stuff, but we took a rather thorough walk of the city on the second day there, ate at some very good French and Italian restaurants, and visited a number of pubs, the best of which had over 200 beers from around the world. Actually, it was the lively atmosphere and great French dishes that brought us there three times in two days.
Riverside, Quebec.
How about you ski and we drink and watch you ski?
Beyond that Jim and I talked at length about his new vegetarian self, cars, women, beer, the French language, Czech Republic (where we both served in the Peace Corps), mutual friends, our next trip (Boston?), teaching, the Beats....
The one great bummer of the trip was the news I got that Marco Pantani was found dead in his hotel room Italy. He won the Tour de France and the Tour of Italy in the same year and was THE climber of his generation. He had a lot of well publicized battle with the law over performance-enhancing drugs, which he was accused of taking at various times the last few years. In the US the news got a few seconds on ESPN but in Italy and much of western Europe his death was something like Michael Jordan dying. The word is still out whether he killed himself or died of an accidental overdose. Either way, he was a great cyclist and said by many to be the most exciting of his day. RIP Marco!
Random art en Quebec.
Got to Limestone, Maine. Had a laugh with old Jim. Maine is cold.
Got stuck in the snow in Canada. Had to be towed out.
Got a speeding ticket an hour later. That sucked. 183.00 Canadian. How much is that.
Got to Québec. It`s pretty cool but the people feel like the French. I.e. snobbish.
Lots of cool sites ... and pubs...
Mos Def put on a great albeit short jazz show last night. No rap though, just jazzy stuff. He was as cool in person as I'd thought he be. How about another album, Mos?
There's an interesting article in the Guardian about the war in Iraq. Writers were asked
their views.
Still no news about my transfer. I should know by week's end but the way things have been going I wouldn't be surprised if I were stuck in my school all of spring semester.
Meanwhile things are going well for the most part in the classroom. I maintain a fairly good connection with the students in the ESL classes, and the mainstreamers in Health are tolerable, some even pleasant. Though I did have it out with one of the kids in Health today; it was one of those situations where he was trying to be funny and was just annoying everybody. When I told him to chill he got defensive. I took him out in the hall and told him he wouldn't get on well by acting that way. He protested but you can only suggest to students that they change their behavior so much. This student told me he finds another one of the teachers to be an 'asshole'; well, I said, that's two teachers and one student at loggerheads. Doesn't that maybe mean something? 'No, man. Teachers don't know nothing'. I then chipped in that he would not hurt my feelings by dropping my class and enrolling in another section. He said nothing to that. I probably should not have said that but I was perfectly serious. I think because I am stricter with my students than the other teachers I've observed that they are generally better behaved and more hard-working as a result, not to mention cooperative. The only downside is you are bound to have at least one kid who wants to be difficult and challenge the order to create. In my experience there's always one out there in the back of the room. I have tried many of the techniques for managing bad behavior, but alas I find being plain old ugly and simply demanding with the little rebels is sometimes the way to go. I'm happy to say we're talking about only a few people a year. And usually the subtle suggestions do indeed work well.
Otherwise I find the more language points I cover in class lately the more interested the students are. At least that's what seems to be happening. (I always have to second guess my impression now as TC has really gotten into my teaching head with all their 'reflective teaching' and emphasis on teacher perceptions of the classroom and lessons.) Bottom line is the literature lessons don't seem to 'sink in' with the students, whereas the language exercises (grammar, spelling, vocab-building) seem to fare much better. Of course there can be any number of reasons for this. But how can rules for making plural nouns in English be more interesting than poetry by e.e. cummings?? My immediate thought is that the students are not very confident when doing metaphors and irony because they have not read much fiction or reading period. And being in an alternative school means being 'cool' and confident. They seem to be less reluctant to ask questions about language though. Yet I'm supposed to teach both language and lit so there you have it. I used the word 'diligent' the other day and several kids were using it on purpose, albeit with a laugh. But there are those weeks wherein if you do do language long enough they will complain they want more lit! I have to do both, I know. And at the same time. You've got to embed the grammar and other language work in the stories, in the fiction. And the fact is I do. Now matter how seamless I try to make it, though, it seems the students drop the ball when it comes to doing lit. You do get some good interpretations, sure. But if it comes to extended writing forget it. Well, it's not that bad. But it is generally hard going and the students tell me they have always hated doing lit and always were 'bad at essays'. So what do you do about English Regents? Well, I'm probably just reacting to today's lesson in which we did a fairly 'easy' poem. Well, it was a little difficult for them and they were silent for the most part. It's really a challenge to do lit with ESL and do it well. Maybe it's just the alternative kids?
Been thinking about my limits lately. That is, my tolerance for stupidity and corruption. I am referring to my AP and the b.s. she comes up with. I am thinking about moving back to Chicago and teaching there. I would need to go through the department of ed over der and its paperwork and the rest, but I feel it could be a good move. Not that I think Chicago's system is any better than NYC's, but I think it probably is. Anyway, if my transfer does not go through I am pretty certain that I will decide to leave NYC and move to Chicago. Europe is always possible--France or Ireland the big favorites--but with student loans, the car, and the likelihood that my educational and teaching experience will do much more for me here in the US than abroad, I think I would opt for Chicago. Besides, it's a great city.
