I have been battling headaches every day for over a week, fearful of getting a migraine while at work.  I wake and my bones ache, ankles, hips, and knees cracking as I walk down the stairs.  My fingers are stiff and in pain from the rapidly evolving arthritis.  There's other stuff on the brain too.  But once I get to work, all is well.  My kids are so nice and good to me and each other.  We went on a field trip to Eastern State Penitentiary yesterday and the guide was the best one we've had yet.  He was complimentary to the students too.  He said they were so well behaved and polite - not what he is used to from high school students.  It made us proud of our kids.  I might have been beaming.  They were even well behaved on the bus and left absolutely no garbage behind.  That was a first for me.  Then, at least two of them thanked me when disembarking.  Are you kidding me?  That might have also been a first.

It reminded me of the times I have brought kids to Europe.  Trips are no cinch to plan.  It is an extremely overwhelming task.  Of all the students I have brought abroad, only one thanked me for all my work after the trip to Paris.  Another teacher who wrangled her way onto my last trip got a ton of thank you's.  So, you see, getting thanks yesterday stunned me.  I went home on a cloud.  Friendship situations might really suck right now - actually, all the time - but my kids are super and make me feel good.

Then I get a student who is in a real sour mood.  I do not take those things personally, no matter how much she/he might be snapping at me.  The thing that hurts is that I cannot make the person feel better.  I want my room - or, in a perfect world, the whole school - to be where you can drop the sucky parts of life at the door and be comfortable and happy, at least for 45 minutes but hopefully more.  I let myself down when I cannot make my room that place for my kids.  I want my students to do well and work all the time in my class.  My thinking is that if they can succeed at producing some great images in class, that great end result will lift their mood and give them a greater sense of self worth.  But I know they don't think that way.  To them, I am just pestering.  They want to be left alone.  And I cannot do that.  I failed at that today and it is bothering me.

So sometimes each day begins with feelings of worthlessness.  It might be the crappy commute, education field pressures from the state, problems with friends, or anything you can think of. The worthlessness is like that cough that I just can't shake.

And then the first student walks in.   And the greeting is so happy and heartfelt.  Then someone comes in to get extra work done - for my class or another, it makes no difference - and I get the nicest "thank you" for having my room, computer lab, and printer available.  Then the kids who shot the night before come in to return their equipment from the previous night's shoot, instead of hanging onto it for the whole day, unavailable for others.  Then the Period one students show up and it's like the family has arrived for a holiday.  I am so relieved to have these kids in my life every year.  It helps a lot.

So I started the portrait assignment this week.  Period 1 was able to start shooting on Thursday, Periods 2 & 6 Friday.  I had a demo duo set up and shoot for the class the day prior.  Then, the full works the following day.  Period 1, Thursday made me so happy.  I have paired the students up based on who I thought they would work best with, for any of a number of reasons.  In Periods 1 & 2, the kids were able to work with their own friends, for the most part.  Those who had trouble decided had their partners chosen by me.  Period 6?  A whole other story.  The class is nothing like my period 8 hell last year, but there are some students for whom alternative methods are most certainly called for.  So I paired the kids up in that period.  And the kids understood my methods!  Hilarious!

So period one, Thursday ran like a well oiled machine.  I have told the classes that there will be 3-4 duos shooting.  Yet that does not mean that the rest of the class sits and watches.  All extra hands are to be assisting:  light, reflectors, set up the backdrops, you name it.  The reason?  I tell them that of all my colleagues from my NBA Photo Library days who are now shooting games, teams, and sports portraits, every single one of them started out assisting a staff photographer.  They started carrying equipment, and went form there.  I tell them that I have a problem with people pooh-poohing Visual Arts graduates because they do not get into full time artist careers straight after earning the BFA.  Well, then stop pointing out that nay business related career must involve starting at the bottom.  Expect the same thing in that case.

Well, with that analogy, they get it.  And not one student was not helping out on Thursday.  I had four shoots going - one in the hall, one in the middle room, two in the classroom - and everyone figured out a way to assist.  And then the same thing happened on Friday.  I did have a couple of students in periods 2 & 6 sit and observe.  Those kids missed the demo lesson the day before.

And by the end of all periods, all equipment was put away before the bell.  I cannot convey how happy this has made me.  I don't know if I have found a better means of getting my lessons across, if the kids are that much better this year, if there is a more cooperative vibe in the building, or if the bad luck gods have given me a break.  I think it might be all of the above.  It is the one thing right now that makes the days better.....

"Saturated by so much meaningless noise and language, the mass audience is surrounded by a world of debased communication.  Such trivialized experiences with thought and information habituate working people not to think at length or deeply about ideas or reality.  They don't listen carefully - to the news, to their teachers, parents, bosses, cops, or to each other - unless there is something special going on, like a spectacle involving crime, sports, money, sex, or instructions on how to do something they need (like getting a job, financial aid, or cheap car insurance).  The sensory flood from media joins the rush of daily life to make their minds work too fast to do close reading of texts and critical scrutiny of ideas.  Their mental potentials remain undeveloped, but also undestroyed."

- Ira Schor, "The Working Class Goes to College"

The above is one of many essays in an anthology from 1978 called Studies in Socialist Pedagogy.  I know most American teachers would shun a book with that title, but they would be depriving themselves of a great deal of wonderful insights.

So why did I copy the above quote?  There was a fight in school yesterday.  As usual, when these things happen, the involved are many kids I have in class, had in class, or just know because I tend to get to know kids through my daily adventures in the building.  Then there are the teachers who know the names, but only due to the individuals' supposed infamy.  As I have said before, I am one of the go-to people for the more challenging kids.  I respect them and they respect me.  I have colleagues who teach in that rarified world of high honours.  That world where due to their gender, coaching status and ass-kissing talents, will never see these kids.  Their schedules are never mixed up with various levels of the subject.  They are the honours teachers, and that is that.  Strange, because I don't remember there being an honours track in teacher preparation programs, but I digress.  I have been able to get kids to do work with complex machinery (manual film camera, darkroom enlarger) and finicky chemical processes (film and paper development) that my colleagues would completely fail at.  Yesterday, eighth period, I watched one of those kids fly through taking film out of a cassette and putting it on a tank and reel for development.  Success on a massive level.  And I know that when I am back at work tomorrow, he will develop that film, with the usual grumbling about me working him too hard, but acquiescing quickly.

Now look at the title of the essay it comes from.  Those kids usually come from one class.  The fancy pants kids don't have the same issues.  And they end up in life situations that enable them to study and excel with few distractions.  These kids I get have children, no parents, no money, learning disorders, anger management issues. Now re-read the quote.  What would Schor say now with the over-saturation our kids are involved in on a daily basis?   I have to try to get through to my kids despite everything else.

And so the fact that that kid made it to me eighth period is a sign of something massive.  He could have been caught up in the stuff yesterday.  But he opted out.  He missed my first period class (he, like many teenagers, is not a morning person) but made it to me during my prep to make up the work.  Why?  I don't know why he opted out.  But I do hope it has something to do with the way I treat him,  the conversations we have, and the way his first period classmates treat him.  A student a couple of years ago noted that the class was like a family.  Someone was out sick and we were talking about the void left by that classmate.  And the kid nailed it.  I want my classes to be like a family.  We argue, and then we work through it.  We help each other when struggling.

Schor notes in the last sentence that the mental potential of those students is undestroyed.  I want my kids to get through my class undestroyed, but newly developed in a positive way.