And here we are, one of two districts I know of in session today, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  Yes, we do end out year earlier than most districts, but we also are contracted for five more days than most districts.  Five extra days of instructional time does nothing for the students whatsoever.  In fact, keeping the building open and running probably costs the towns more money than it is worth....

But oh well.  Here I am.  I cannot print the myriad of projects I need to print because we cannot connect to our Epson.  For nearly a f-ing week.  We have two art shows coming up.  I have a major assignment due from my Photo II class.  But no worries. Just a lot of stress

I must keep calm.  And I do, for the most part.  I read a classroom management blog post yesterday on gentle teaching and discipline.  It truly grates on me when kids and teachers bark "write 'em up!" for any infraction.  What has doing that proven over the long term?  How has that worked for you?  My opinion based on experience?  It only causes animosity and tension between you and the student.  Every single one of the points made in this post was a method I use in my room.  I don't scream, yell, write up the kids at the drop of a hat.  I might not even let the student know they earned a zero for the day.  Let them find that grade on the portal and reflect on why that happened.  If they ask me, I let them know calmly and firmly.  If they dispute it, I don't say that I am the teacher and that's why.  I calmly discuss my reasoning with them.  It works.  Why?  Because I am giving them the respect they deserve as people and explaining how their actions led to that consequence.  We can sit down, let the anger dissipate, and talk about how behaviours and actions affect others, not just the individual.

A colleague's comment sums up the day yesterday:  "I only had one kid fall asleep in class today."  And that is shocking.  I had one nodding off and he admitted he was exhausted.  So not bad for the first day back from vacation.

The students responded positively to my hand made thank you cards.  I was happy with that.  I have become increasingly frustrated with the quality of people I meet in my general age group.  There is a lack of maturity and respect for each other.  There is a selfishness of opinion reflected in a lack of ability to see another person't viewpoint or side of things.  People also do not realize that being self-absorbed is very close to being selfish.  People like the idea of being able to say they care about others, ask each other how they are doing, make frequent contact in an attempt at friendship.  However, when you scratch the surface, you come to realize the the intentions behind these actions are done with the hopeful end result of self congratulatory attitude.  "Haven't I done this for you?"  "Haven't I always asked about you?"  Well, the thing is that we have lost the ability to show this through real, meaningful actions.  People do not realize that subsequent, unrelated actions either support or negate those claims of caring and respect.  It is not merely what we say and how often we say it, but also how we treat the people in our lives.  How quickly does one lose patience with another?  How often do you look to put effort into seeing that person?

I think people are more focused on how their friendship performance benefits them and makes them look to others.  Resentment and impatience are abundant.  There is little real understanding of how to relate with and deal with others.  Personal connections are very surface, not deep at all.  Once a difficulty shows up, tempers flare, cruelty abounds, and there is little opportunity to give the other party any defense.  The person on the receiving end?  Most likely the one is truly the most giving, emotionally.

How does this relate to class?

All the kids care about is the end grade.  Did they get an A?  How does that end grade make them look?  Are they looking smart?  Will that get them bonus points at home or with prospective colleges?  The process, the learned lessons, all the incidentals - they mean nothing.  If there is a stumbling block in the learning, they want someone to come and fix it immediately.  They have no patience to work through that difficulty.  If they ask a question, there is no patience to hear the reasoning that accompanies the answer.  All that matters is what is on the surface.  They do not see themselves as beings that are part of a whole world with various experiences and beliefs.  They do not understand that all the incidentals in our lives matter to how we relate to each other.  There is no attempt to try any understanding.

The way we run our classrooms - how we interact with each other as teachers and students, how we present the information and processes to the students, how we want our students to go through the process of learning and connecting - all contributes to how they develop as people.  If all they care about it being able to say they got the A but there is no other experience or feeling to accompany that, will they move on to be those people who can regurgitate the correct phrases but not back it up with anything substantial?  How will anyone make any real interpersonal connections in life?

So today we begin the new calendar year.  I am excited to see the students again after a week and a half off.  I am not sure sure anyone will be in a mood to work.  No worries.  We will be discussing the new project as well as preparing for the QBAs next week.  Plenty of ways to ease them back into working?  Not exactly.  We work right up to break and get right into it upon return.

I did finally get my butt in gear and write thank you cards for the students who gave me gifts.  I always run out of time.  But this year I received stuff from nine kids!  At the high school level, that is unheard of.  I made it extra special by using blank Christmas cards I hand made many years ago.  My kids are worth it.

I would like to write something reflective and honest but I want to wait until after the first day back.  I might be in an even more reflective mood.    Plus, I think I need to mix chemistry for the darkroom.....

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.

So the only reason I am here is because there is a department budget meeting today.  If I do not show up for this, my program will be raked over the coals.  I started teaching Sculpture at this school in 2002.  After four years of that, they moved me to Photography (a long and complicated story of power play and revenge, of which I was merely a pawn).  Photo was a part of the Business/Technology department, as was its budget.  Once the program was given to me, it was moved to the Art department, as was its money.  B/T lost the money, Art gained it.

However, to this day I still have to deal with the "Photo eats up a lot of the Art department budget" bullsh*t.  Year after year, the same old sh*t.  One would think that seeing the dollar allotment increase upon movement of my program would have helped my colleagues understand that I am not sucking money from them, but no.  It's like the people who say that Planned Parenthood sells baby parts on the black market.  You can disprove the claims any number of times, but the lie serves their purposes much more and is more readily believed.  So, here I am, nose dripping, trouble breathing, nasty cough, and psychedelic phlegm.  Because when it comes to what is best for the kids, I am the only one who will look out for them and their Photo program.  When the budget fight comes up, I am left alone while some people chew me out for "taking" their money while others stay silent.  Sigh.....

As if I do not have enough stress and disappointment, I am making the In School Suspension proposal again.  Yes, third time.  With our new Super, I think this might be the time that my proposal is actually read and considered.  I have spent the morning looking up more research on the benefits and the best practices.  There is a lot out there.  One thing I found - that I love - is a sort of community service alternative to Out of School Suspension.  So, I have saved or printed a number of new found research pieces.  I am not deluded in thinking that ISS is the only solution, but it is a better solution than shoving the kids out of the building with loss of instructional time.  I know there exists a peer type of program here.  However, considering I am one of the teachers that gets the "problem" kids, I have never had a student who has experienced that program.  So who benefits from this?  Beats me, but it sure isn't anyone I know.  I think the time is ripe for some things that benefit the kids who the old guard wanted pushed out.

One more thing....  While talking to hubby about the amazingly friendly, positive classroom atmosphere and the attitude of the kids, he brought up a great point.  This was the first year we started without the figurehead.  I know the kids were not fond of him.  The feeling they got from him was one of condescension and nastiness.  Not many thought he was a nice person.  Some kids noted how he would talk down to them if correcting them.  Just as we breathed a collective sigh of relief upon his departure, I think the kids might have too, just without being cognizant of what was happening.  Could this man's demeanor and way of running things really cast that much of a pall over the vibe of the school.  Absolutely.  I know lots of people think things will never change.  I will say this...  Those pulling the strings in this district will probably pull the plug on any massive changes when push comes to shove.  But while the current leadership is doing things that help the mood right now, I will enjoy it while it lasts.