Diamond in the Ghetto

My favorite baseball field in Baltimore City is located behind one of the worst high schools in the city. That's part of its charm, in fact. You go the long way down to the western parts of North Avenue, past some of the worst, most neglected parts of the city, all made worse because, if you squint, you can sort of see how these buildings used to look, before they were abandoned into squalor.

Then, you turn into this school parking lot that might as well be a prison. The building has no windows, and 12-foot fences that might as well have barbed wire on top. If there's an uglier school in Baltimore, I haven't seen it. And you feel depressed, as you walk through the parking lot and think about having to be a student who goes to a building that looks like this every day.

And then, you go through a small patch of woods, and there appears a baseball field. And once you're on the field, you can't even hear the city any more. The grass is mowed, but, charmingly, little dandelions are sprouting everywhere. Mostly, though, you notice the quiet. Something about the field, and its location at a bottom of a forested hill, just dampens all the noise from the city. It's really beautiful. A bit of shade, woods all around, and only the sound of the bat hitting the ball. It's stunning, even.

Adding to the effect of this tiny little piece of tranquility in the middle of one of the worst parts of the city was seeing my first dead body on the way there. Near a shopping center on the way, our yellow bus was guided to the side by sirens behind us; a kid noticed a man lying on his back in a parking lot. We all peered out, and it was pretty clear what we were seeing: an old man, his arm twisted up in apparent rigor mortis, laying dead. One police officer had arrived, and the ambulance that was guiding us away was the first medical unit to arrive.

60 seconds later, we were pulling into the school. As we descended the hill to the field, the sound from the sirens became dimmer and dimmer, until we couldn't hear anything at all but ourselves.

We won big, and it almost ruined it - an ugly game, with lots of walks, to the point where we had to run into outs. But it was fun for the first half, at least.

Just text me

I've never liked talking on the phone and, now, with the advent of text-messaging, I see little reason to. In fact, I get annoyed when people phone me when they could text me. It's different talking to friends or family far away, when you want to hear the sound of their voice and you're talking just to talk and catch up. But the simple exchange of information? I'm all about the texting.

My phone is full of text-messages from my baseball players, with messages like (I'm quoting) "Ima b at practice late 2day because I have a lot of work 2 make up" or "Making up work... sorry I miss practice but I'm tryna stay in tuned in class so I can continue 2 play." It's my new thing this year, and it's working well. I get really annoyed when players are late to practice, even for coach class. I'm certainly not annoyed that they're at coach class, but not knowing bugs me, because I like to plan detailed practices. So the new rule this year is, rather than trying to send a message with another player, they have to text me. I know by 3 o'clock who will be 20 minutes late, who will be 45 minutes late, or who will be absent, so I can plan out our practice.

[Obviously, above, it's clear that I allow students to send me text-messages written in text-message language. This is fine with me, as it's different from an email, which should be formal. The most unusual abbreviation I get is "ard," which I figured out means "okay" or (in my best midwest accent) "alrighty!" but I can't really figure out the correct pronunciation.]

It's the same with my friends and colleagues. I would much rather have a text message about where happy hour is than a phone call. When I get a needless phone call, I just feel like shouting, "What, are you 90? Text, text, text!" It's cheaper, quicker, and more efficient.

I guess one of the big things I hate about phone calls is their inherant insistence that you have to talk to me right now. I like to do things at my own pace. My sister bugs the crap out of me sometimes because her messages are always like, "... so, call me back when you get this" and I just want to say, "No, I'll call you back when it's convenient for me." And that time is usually while driving. I only like to talk on the phone while driving. Often, I'll save up all my return calls to folks for when I have to drive up to Towson or something. I can drive that route in my sleep, and feel like I can barely do it when I'm not talking on the phone. I'm going to have a hard time when the cell phone ban is passed. I know a lot of readers probably are anti-cell phone for drivers, and that's fine; I don't talk on the phone when it's busy or when I don't know where I'm going. So far, I've got a 14-year clean driving record, without an accident (except for the infamous hitting a curb covered by snow in a parking lot back in January of 2003) or a ticket (thought I admit I've sweet-talked my way out of a couple). So, just rest assured that it's all those other drivers that can't drive with a cell phone.

All of this hating on phone talking is strange for me, as my immediate family seems to have phones permanently attached to their ears. But, I'm happy to report that someone else in the family hates it; yes, Grandpa McHenry hates talking on the phone as much as I do. I think I've talked with him on the phone maybe five times - tops - in my life. This isn't because I never call G&G; rather, Grandma almost always picks up. Whenever Grandpa has picked up on rare occasions, he almost immediately passes the phone to Grandma, or figures out some reason to hang up, usually by saying, "Your grandma isn't here... Yup, I'm doing good... okay!" I do be that if he were of the generation of text-messaging, he would also be a supporter. I mean, seriously, just text me.

[It just struck me that one could do a psychological analysis about me based partially on this phenomenon. I've been reflecting on this a bit lately. I mean, I'm basically a private person, don't like to share too terribly much (well, I like to, but don't feel like I can trust people with the intimates, so I generally don't), yet I have a blog that I relate stories about my life nearly every day. I think it's because I want to communicate with people, but I want to control the communication. Same with phoning vs. texting. I like to text and to receive texts, because I'm more in control of the information exchange. With phoning, especially if I'm receiving a phone call, I have no control of the situation at all. Likewise, with the blog, I'm in total control of the information that I relate. Hmmmm... pretty interesting, I think.]

I can be a very picky and opinionated person about some things. This is clearly one of them. I also hate that people wuss up their coffee by putting cream and sugar in it.

PS: Gale, you can still call me. See, you fall in that "friends and family" thing described in the first paragraph.

A great Monday night

1. Game rained out today, and, for the first time all season, I decided not to try to string some sort of a practice together in the weight room or back hallways. Last week was a six-day baseball week, and this week also could have been as well (we have another makeup game on Saturday), so I just cancelled it all. I went home at 2:30 and took a nap, and it felt great.

2. I waited tables last night, making about $65. I have told the owner that I plan on not working there next school year, so, in effect, that's my 3-month notice or so. And I'm getting so excited about having weekends back for the first time in five years... it feels like my life is starting up again. Most of the people who know me here in Baltimore only have known me as someone who works two jobs and is way too busy.

3. My credit card debt is now hovering at a few thousand, and I expect to have it all paid off within weeks, what with my coaching money coming in as well as the tax rebate. It once was five digits, and then I paid it almost all down, and then I brought it back up a bit when I had to pay for graduate courses with plastic. But I'm feeling more financially secure than I ever have before right now. I have several thousand dollars in savings (well, *3* counts as several, right?), plus my credit cards are almost paid off, and... yes... this summer I plan on diving right into the home buying process. Hopefully by the end of 2008, I will have a house, one job, a new car, and 40 lbs off my midsection.

4. This is my favorite song of the moment - "Scar That Never Heals" by Jeremy Fischer. Guitar pop, sort of like Paul Simon, and so damn catchy.

Sunday softball

I have joined a softball league, one that is much more competitive than the beer league I play in during the summers. It's an all-male league in the city, and we play on Sunday mornings. Every Sunday, I sort of hope for a rainout so I can sleep in, but every time I do get out there, I have a blast. But softball is a hella frustrating sport. I can hit three shots in a row (including a triple!), and the next thing I know, I'm popping out twice in a row. We split a doubleheader, though, and I definitely felt like I contributed.

The other sort of exciting piece from this is I feel like I'm becoming part of the Baltimore baseball scene in ways beyond my school. There is a healthy youth baseball scene in Baltimore, particularly north Baltimore, and I can now count several coaches in these youth leagues as my friends.

Ups and downs

We just followed up our biggest win of the season Friday night with our toughest loss of the season Saturday morning.

Last night, we played hard and won big. Tonight, we fought hard and it was a great game... but we lost.

Up and down, up and down... the coaching life.

Friday's cornocopia of teaching and coaching stories

On the baseball coaching front... In the last week, I lost my #2 pitcher and a decent-hitting 9th grader to poor grades. Wednesday, I lost my #1 player and team captain to a completely bogus one-game suspension. At the game Wednesday, my first baseman and #5 hitter followed up a home run by sliding hard headfirst into second base and breaking his thumb; he's out for the season. Yet, it doesn't at all feel like we're limping to the finish line. The team is decent. I'm having my best year of coaching in a couple of years, even if the record is just about the same. Things feel good and I'm even looking forward to tomorrow's Saturday morning game against the only still-undefeated team in the city. Could be a real good game.

*****

"Deshawn" is one of the brightest kids in the ninth grade, scoring in the 92nd percentile (compared to 10th graders!) on the PSAT in October and answering nearly every grammar and literature question in class. However, he does no homework at all so he has failed two out of three quarters, including two quarters in which he's been given the minimum grade of 50 despite only earning about a 30%. He's got a mischievious streak to him, but otherwise he shows me respect in class and I'm pretty fond of the kid. However, every now and then, I notice something in his eyes that sort of scares me. A coldness. Still, I generally shrug it off as just an extension of his mischievousness, or something. I have heard from several sources that he is may be involved in the Bloods, but I don't know for sure, nor do I know how to confront something like that. So I just sort of have my congenial relationship with him. About once a week, I try to have a heart-to-heart where I tell him how bright he is, how he's throwing away some chances for success by his foolishness and lack of work ethic, and he looks at me and says he'll do better but better never comes. Still, he's an enigma, and at times I do feel like he's got a good heart; this week, for example, he participated all day in the LBGT Day of Silence.

He cut school yesterday. When confronted by adults today, he lied so badly that I was just flabbergasted. His mother, later, said that he lies to her all the time, and she can never believe him, and she doesn't know what to do. Lying came so easily to him that it scared me a bit. And I just wish I could reach him, because he's about to fail out and is, without embellishment, the strongest critical reader that I have this year.

*****

"Almeena" is a wonderful little girl who usually stops by to heat up her food in my microwave before shuttling herself down to the cafeteria for lunch. She's Muslim, even wearing a headdress every day, and often has wonderful Muslim food with her. But what I find even more intriguing about her food every day is its meshing with downhome southern African-American cooking. Some days, she will literally have something like falafel and fried chicken. Anyhow, about a month ago, she had cornbread and offered me a piece, and, seriously, it was the best cornbread I ever had. "My mom puts pancake syrup in it," she explained, and a 4-year food-to-teacher relationship was born.

She offers me food once every few days, but often it's meat; I politely decline and, finally, explained my vegetarianism. Yesterday, she announced to me that her mother had made vegetarian chili, and asked if I wanted any. She didn't need to ask twice. Today, she had a bowl of it for me, intriguingly served over rice (I'd never had chili that way before). It was awesome - spicy, and you could tell the vegetables were real fresh because they were a bit crunchy still!

****

The chili, and tonight's game, were the highlights of the day, which was full of class cutting and another fire set on the third floor. It's the day of Junior prom, so I expected my Junior class to be depleted (the ten kids who showed up read our new novel out loud to each other), as well as Senior Skip Day, but I certainly did not expect my ninth grade classes to be so skimpy. We're doing acting companies now while studying Romeo and Juliet, so my carefully planned groups did not work out so well (one group would have all three group members, but the other groups would all have two or one people in them).

"Every generation loses a messiah it failed to deserve." - Michael Chabon

1. We got back to our winning ways tonight. Great game, and what a nice day to be outside playing ball. Or coaching.

2. When I drive a group of players home, as I often do, they are to the point where they talk and talk without seeming to notice I am there. Someday, I will try to write a play or something based on these conversations, which are downright hilarious. It is also a good reminder that these kids are still very innocent, no matter how grown they think they are.

3. Junior Prom is Friday. That's the topic of most of their conversations. I don't think I'm going to go because I need downtime whenever I can get it this time of year (haven't been to Happy Hour in a month, even), but part of me really wants to go. I won't miss Senior Prom, though, and probably never will. The class of 2008, in particular, will hold a special place in my heart. Wait until you see me on graduation day this year. I will be crying my eyes out.

4. I met with my Professor yesterday and could tell from her tone that I'm behind a lot of my classmates. The big presentations are the 14th of May and I'm confident I'll be done by then. I'll have to be. Graduation is less than a week after that. I'm not sure if I'll go and don't really have anyone I'd want to bring (I kind of would like to bring a couple of colleagues, but don't want the ramifications of inviting 2 without the 3rd, and I only got two tickets). My parents talked about flying down but I'm trying to tell them not to... coming down in the middle of the week rather than when I would have actual time to spend with them in a month seems too much of a waste. In either case, I'm going to party hard that night, or that Friday night.

5. Obviously, I'm pretty depressed about Pennsylvania. I'm still confident that Obama will get the nomination, but not so confident anymore about America's willingness to elect a black man. Hillary's horrible race-baiting - throwing the name Farrakahn in there during the debate, like she was nuts, like, as Michael Moore says, she "was a bigot stoking the flames of stupidity" - and "gotcha" attack politics are working. I'm happy and excited that Obama won every under-40 demographic, that a real change is coming in this country, but I worry it won't come quick enough. Her campaign has disappointed me so much, so much that I won't vote her even if she is the nominee, but what is disappointing me now is that it appears to be working, and the Democratic Party is being torn down in the process.

6. Well, the Tigers game was certainly fun tonight. 19-6!

7. My mother, born in 1954, turns 54 on Friday. I got her a $54 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. The year my age is the same as my birth year? 2054.

But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do, once you find them.

Someone told me to check out this performance, and I'm astounded. What raw emotion... that moment at 2:05 or so gives me goosebumps.

And the song fits now. I do have many rivers to cross.

I knew this semester would be a tough one. Coaching. Teaching. Waiting Tables. Graduate school. But, overall, it hasn't been that bad. I've been getting by just fine.

Until the last week or so. And I have roughly three weeks to go.

The latest draft of my project was due on Wednesday. I finally emailed it to her on Sunday, with apologies. Points will be taken off. I don't care that much, because I'm really doing the project for myself and my school, not for her, but I think it's the first time I've lost any points for lateness since I started graduate school, and was sort of hoping the good karma I tend to have for accepting late papers would carry over to my own class. It didn't. And it pisses me off that I sent it off late, because I like to do my best and I'm paying $1200 for this course. Somehow, I have to finish the project, get it to two different colleagues for feedback, and then get it finished sometime in the next week or so. I'm still not clear on the exact due date. May 6 or something.

That's the only thing added to the equation this year, but otherwise my usual late April craziness is come back. On the coaching front, we've had a couple of tough losses in a row, but we have tough losses every year. As for teaching, I'm staying on top of my lessons, but not my grading, like I always due during baseball season. I've been left in charge of the summer reading for the 9th grade, as I usually am. And it's all fine, barely. I've got three more weeks or so before it all slows down. And if it takes an hour of listening to Jim Croce on YouTube every night while I write, then that's what it takes. Even if it's the Muppets.

Things are tough, and I'm just going to put my nose to grindstone and work hard. And do my best not to complain.

One thing I do know: when grad school ends and I have my Master's Degree in hand in just three weeks or so, I'm going to go out and have a whale of a time somewhere. It'll also be around the end of baseball season, and hopefully we'll come back from the recent losses and ineligibilities and be celebrating another decent season.

Casting a pallour

It's been a bummer of a day, as we all learned this morning that a colleague's father passed away overnight. I just heard he was sick on Friday, and she was going back to New Jersey to visit him, and I guess the end came very quickly after that. She's a good friend (the kind of friend I can call up at 8am on a Saturday morning when my car has been broken into to give me a ride to the repair shop) and a good person (one of the best teachers in the school), so we're all really sad for her. And, for me, it really made me think of the parental scare I had a few months ago.

So the sadness kind of hung around the department today, as we all tried to go into practical mode, trying to do the little we could do to make the situation better.

Jury duty, finally

For years, I've been vaguely curious about jury duty. I've never been called in my six years here in Baltimore, and always have sort of wanted to; a day sitting around reading has a certain appeal, as does doing my civic duty.

Yesterday, I was called for the first time - for the first day of final exams. I would hope I can have it delayed. I'm sending in my request for delay tomorrow.

Is Benvolio a snitch?

That was the question of the day.

I don't really know. He does seem to be overly forthcoming with the information about what went down between Romeo and Tybalt. I'm trying to tell the kid to imagine the setting, imagine that the Prince might strike down anyone he feels might be lying. But, really, that's a hard scene for me, or them, to wrap our heads around; for Benvolio to give 40 lines of poetic explanation just seems too much.

Still love the play, though. I'm having an intensely good time teaching it this year.

Tomorrow is the big game. Woah, I'm excited.

Losing well

We lost our first game tonight. Pretty good game with a team that is our best competition over the last several years. Last year, we lost both ends of a heartbreaking doubleheader, but then beat them in the playoffs. This year, we'll see. I hope we see them again in the playoffs. We're so thin in pitching this year that I left my kid out there for 116 pitches tonight. I feel like Dusty Baker or something.

When I got home, exhausted, I proceeded to eat Baked Doritos and slices of cheese for dinner, then try to write grad school stuff, a summer reading assignment, and listen to the debate and watch Tigers baseball all at once. I'm ready for bed now. I need to slow down somehow but I've got a good three weeks or so to go. I'm really loving coaching right now - some kids are really developing leadership skills and the team is coming together and it's pretty inspiring - but I wish I could have pushed off grad school until the summer. I may need to take a day off sooner rather than later. I will have my Master's Degree in less than a month and still feel like I have two months of work to complete.

Got in a big confrontation with a student first period, to boot. You should read my writeup for it, for a girl that I kind of like. She's loud, obnoxious, and a poor student, but I try to be an advocate for her because I think she's trying and I've definitely seen improvement. But she's just not ready for high school. And she's nearly a sophomore.

Four quick things

1. Still on the lookout for a female novel about spirituality/self-actualization, a female book kind of like Siddhartha or The Alchemist or Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. Maybe females just aren't as into all that navel-gazing that those three books offer. This is for Social Studies. I think the other two choices will be The Alchemist and Ender's Game, and he's looking for a third, but one that is more for the females, but along those lines. I thought Butler's Parable of the Sower might be a good choice, but I'm not sure if it's appropriate for rising 9th graders. I'm not really positive of his thinking with pairing the first two novels together, but I get the feeling he wants the kids coming in thinking about big ideas, about existentialism and things like that, so they kind of fit together.

2. I am so pumped about the rest of the games this week. Wow, they're big.

3. Today, I was in charge of bringing 26 kids down to the Orioles game, and getting them back home, using volunteer drivers, some of whom could take them down and not back. I was stressed out but it's all over now. What a bad game, though it was cool to get an Adam Jones t-shirt and then see him hit his first Orioles home run.

4. So tired... what a long-ass day. I'm unsure how I'm going to get all my stuff done that I have to do.

3-0

Another good game today, and we're now 3-0 for the season. We haven't played the city's elite yet, but I'm somewhat happy with what we have looked like against some of the non-elite. We are still making too many mental errors, but each game gets a little bit better, and we'll see how well we do against some of the better teams as the season wears on. This one was actually quite a good game (probably way too close), as we were 6-6 in the 4th inning or so before we broke it open.

So far, we have had seven games scheduled but have only played three. Three of the games have been postponed because of weather, while one was outright cancelled, as a team in the south of the city ended up not being able to field a team. Otherwise, all the games will be re-scheduled for Saturdays sometime in the next three weeks, so I'm going to be hella busy as the month wears on. In fact, with my grad school assignments coming to a close, I'm almost certainly going to have to take a sub day or two to get some work done. My professor even encouraged us to do that the other day, and I think I have to do it; finishing my Master's right now is pretty important, and I can assuage my guilt a little bit by knowing that I'm actually doing something for the school with my grad school work. I'm creating a curriculum that I think is pretty damn good. If I end up having to take a personal day or two, at least it's for a good cause.

Back to coaching: Today was a day in which I was reminded of the political parts of the job. I have very clear expectations with the players that if they are going to miss practice for a valid reason, that they contact me so I can adjust my practice schedule. I had one of my seniors and team leaders miss on Friday without permission or notice. It burned me up a bit. Today, he tells me he was sick and didn't come to school. When asked why he didn't contact me, he told me that contacting me was not the first thing on his mind when he was in bed with the fever. Fair enough, but not good enough. I pulled him from the starting lineup as promised would happen. And, boy, was he ever mad. I like the kid quite a bit, so hopefully he comes around. He wasn't speaking to me much by the end of the day, but, then again, I wasn't either. Let him sleep on it.

We had a great game today, though: my star sophomore with the bad grades had thrown 85 pitches through five innings, and I told him I was pulling him to save his arm for the rest of the week. It was an intense game and he had pitched a gem. He pleaded with me, saying his arm didn't hurt at all, and once the catcher told me his velocity had not decreased and I looked into the pitcher's eyes again, I let him out there for the 6th inning. He ended up throwing 101 pitches overall, getting through the 6th unscathed, and I think he'll be fine for Friday if I need him. I brought in my solid senior to close out the game, and he recorded three straight strikeouts for the save. It was a helluva game.

Tomorrow, my team and I have somehow been given 30 free tickets to the Orioles game, and we're heading there to get our Adam Jones t-shirt and watch warmups and the game instead of practicing. Hopefully it's worth it, because it's going to be a chore to get all those kids downtown and, more importantly, home. Plus, I hate to cancel practice, but I've gotta do it; this was too good of an opportunity not to.

****

Otherwise, things are going great in my classroom. I love how, every year, I time the brunt of baseball season to occur during the reading of Romeo and Juliet, a play that, by now, I know like the back of my hand and that I can coax a pretty great unit out of without a whole lot of extraneous work. The kids are pretty rapt every day, and we're having a great time. I love that play, I really do.

In my English III IB class, I'm trying to create an activity tonight in which students assume a persona and do some research for a debate we're going to have on bioethical issues raised by Frankenstein. I'm not sure how it's going to go, but if you're curious to see a Baltimore teenager play Nancy Reagan and elucidate her positions on stem cell research and Frankenstein, then head to room 227 later this week. The Pope might even be more intriguing. (I'm trying to think of others, to try to show as many sides of these debates as I can...)

British accents and fires set on the 3rd floor

After a pretty heavy couple of Socratic Discussions, and a long quiz on Wednesday, my big goal for Thursday and Friday with my Juniors was to have a bit more fun with Frankenstein. I made up sort of a foo-foo activity in which the students had to write and perform skits based on the text. I wasn't expecting what I got, which was one of the best days in class all year.

The group that had to imagine a conversation between Mary Shelley and her mother, the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, had to create dialogue for Shelley in which she defended the relatively weak (on their face) female characters to her mother. The result - complete with British accents and several hilarious moments - was so funny and insightful that I turned beet red from laughing so hard. It was a great Friday activity, especially perfect after a fire set on the third floor required us to be outside for a half-hour in the middle of a beautiful day. It would have taken them a while to get back on track if we didn't have something super engaging going on, and we did.

*****

The weekend has been a good one. I've been working hard on my grad school stuff, which needs to be sent in by Wednesday for my second-to-last draft. I've also been watching a lot of depressing Tigers baseball, as well as playing some softball; I just got involved with a new team this morning and had a good time.

John

"You know," he tells me. "He was born a couple of months premature. Was on the news and everything. No one expected him to make it. He weighed 2.3 ounces. He almost died, and so did my wife. But he's a fighter."

I nod, unsure of what to say, and we both gaze out to my sophomore right fielder, who, now that you mention, is a little small for his age.

I had met with his mother earlier, about his grades. They're bad. He loves baseball and has a chance to be one of the best pitchers in the city by the time he's a senior. What an arm! He's already thrown 5 scoreless innings this year.

"His mama likes to baby him too much. He can do the work when he wants to, but he doesn't want to enough."

When I put his name on announcements last week, teachers flocked to me like a moth to a flame, telling me about this young man's disillusion in class. He's not rude, and he's not mean, but he's just consistently disengaged. Doesn't seem to care. His art teacher told me that asking him to draw is like asking him to go to his own crucifixion. Earlier that day, his mother told me that she almost pulled him off the team, but that this was the first time he'd shown enthusiasm for school in a long time.

I talk to him every day about it, but he's one of those kids that somehow becomes a major league veteran when he walks onto the athletic field, but when he is off of it, he loses about 20 years of maturity. He's a quiet kid, and a little goofy, but just seems to hate being in the classroom and only feels good when he's playing ball.

And I'm doing my best with him. He's a great kid, and I really hope his mother doesn't pull him from the school and send him elsewhere, as she told me she's leaning towards.

Female alchemist?

Our librarian told me yesterday about a book called A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey, which details the struggles of a black teenager going to a poor high school in Washington DC who makes it to Brown University and succeeds. It's going to be the state of Maryland book for 2008, apparently, a book that will be handed out at festivals and a book around which several events will be planned. She suggested it for 9th grade summer reading, and put a copy in my hands today. I'm only on page 20, but I'm already really emotionally invested in the story, to the point where I'm getting weepy-eyed. This kid could have been my student. Adding to the interst for me is that the subject is the class of 1995, exactly my age. I think I'm going to push for this being the book, along with one international book choice (thanks for the suggestions!) and one book for Social Studies.

With the latter in mind, I've been charged with finding an option to put alongside The Alchemist and Ender's Game that is a little more female-focused - a novel about ideas, spirituality, philosophy or existentialism in some way, but with a female protagonist. And, understand I'm asking this question without ever having read Ender's Game. Any ideas? The last ideas were really good.

13-2

On Monday, I came back from lunch and had "13-2" written on my chalkboard. I figured out who did it later, when one of my baseball players shouted across the field at me, "hey coach, 13-2... sound familiar?" Indeed, that was the score of the Sunday night game on ESPN that the Tigers lost to the White Sox.

The day off didn't help. They lost 5-0 to the Red Sox, my least favorite team other than the Yankees and really it's pretty close. This sort of tailspin seems like it's unbreakable right now. I can barely pay attention becuase I'm so busy, so I think I'm sort of telling myself that the baseball season really hasn't started yet.

Book review

So The Alchemist kind of sucked. I just read it all in one sitting and it's a bunch of hooey, and gets worse as it goes, and I can't imagine some of the more reluctant readers we get ever sitting down to read that. I really, really wanted to like it.

Back to the drawing board.

0-6

I'm not yet worried, but I'm really annoyed.

Intellectually, I know that a week of bad baseball can happen in any week. I watched the entire game on Saturday; a play here or a play there, and the Tigers win. Dontrelle looked dominant at times. Still, I can't quite believe that they're on a 6-game losing streak. How in the world does that happen? I'm just dumbfounded. And pissed off. Don't they know I've been hungering for them to win the World Series for over 20 years, and that 2006 just made the hunger all the more intense?

0-6. Un-fucking-believable.

You and your damn wings

"Jamal" interrupted my lunch in the teachers' lounge yesterday, asking me if the game was cancelled. It was, and he walked away, dejected.

I related to my colleagues how it's amazing to me that this kid has become the most important player on my team, after I swore last year he wouldn't play ball for me this year. See, he quit - or, according to him, his dad pulled him off the team - after five (undefeated) games last year, upset about playing time. I was mad, and took it personally, especially because I felt like his dad pulling him had a lot to do with my race and because I had to done a lot for this kid, who was then a sophomore on a varsity team. "I had sort of taken him under my wing," I explained, "and..."

And my colleague cut me off, laughing: "Yeah, you're always taking some kid under your wing... You and your damn wings. Making the rest of us look bad."

"Or sane," another one perked up.

I laughed so hard that diet pepsi squirted out of my nose.

Looking like when Barry became Barack

One of my current students is a near-spitting image of Barry Obama, pictured above.

He likes rock music, wears clothes like I did circa 1993 (flannel, obscure band t-shirts), and, except for a constant misuse of commas, is a pretty damn good student, one of just two A's in the 2nd quarter.

Summer reading

My task:

To find four high-interest, accessible, international titles age-appropriate for incoming 9th grade students for summer reading.

So far, my list looks like this:

In the Time of Butterflies (Alvarez)
City of Beasts (Allende)
Breath, Eyes, Memory (Dandicat)
The Alchemist (Coehlo)
Wolves of the Crescent Moon (Al-Mohaimeed)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Sijie)

I need to whittle it down to four. I don't really think I have enough to whittle from, though. Any thoughts on any of these?

We need three books total, but Social Studies is picking one of them. I guess there is going to be a required text, then one choice from English and one choice from Social Studies.

Five bummers

1. Being told 2nd period I was expected to go to an assembly during 10th period. The assembly is poorly organized and the students are poorly behaved, then runs into my planning period and meeting time.

2. Kid gets spiked during baseball practice, worse than I've ever seen. Down to the meat. He'll get stitches, I'm sure.

3. I really hope that WYPR's pledge drive is a big bomb. I certainly will never be donating again to them after what they have done to Marc Steiner. I actually am not sure what is worse, firing Marc Steiner or replacing him with that massive tool Dan Rodricks.

4. The Tigers start the season 0-3 and have scored 1 run their last two games. 1000 runs for the season? Not looking like it. Sheffield went down with a finger injury today, too.

5. One of the coldest, rainiest baseball practices ever.

While you're drinking Diet Snapple... the Obama version

I was a little late on the "I'm F***** Matt Damon" thing, but loved it just the same. This is a great parody.



If you've missed the Sarah Silverman phenomenon from which this is spawned, it's right here. The joke will probably be lost otherwise:



This is another great Youtube clip I found... I think even the Hillary fans will enjoy this one.

Beyond the shut-up machine

It seems several of us teachers are suffering from a post-spring break malaise; one of my colleagues today bemoaned the fact that he now feels like a "shut up machine." Kids are loud and unruly and the hallways seem to be getting worse; yesterday, we had a fire in a bathroom as if to announce the arrival of spring and nice weather. It could be a pretty long April and May.

My 4/5 period class is officially the worst of my career; I end up losing it a couple of times a week. I rarely yell, but I yell in there a couple of times a week; I rarely tell students things like "you're just not ready for high school yet", but I do in there. Failing grades don't work. Neither does detention. Lots of parental issues in that class, and phone calls home sometimes work (I often call on my cell phone during class, since I have no phone in my room), but more often do not. I think a big issue is that it's the post-lunch class, as our cafeteria situation is a rather unruly one. Still, the class gives me gray hair.

Today, though, a field trip eliminated about a quarter of the class, and the smaller class size helped a lot. They were actually a pleasure today. Tomorrow, the cackling girls and kid-who-never-ever-ever-does-any-classwork-because-he-never-brings-a-pen-or-a-notebook will be back, though, so...

Still, with the general post-break dissatisfaction, I still found a great deal of joy this week in my job.

First is the story of "Evelyn". She is a student in my first period with whom I've had some attitude problems this year, including an altercation when she told me to get out of her face. I think we're okay now, but I think she thinks I hate her. Yesterday, though, she came into the room and said, "It's April, Mr. _________. I'm going to start doing every bit of work in your class." Then she offered the perfect beat and said, "APRIL FOOL'S!". I don't know why, but it was the funniest thing I've heard in so long; her laugh and my laugh exploded together after she said that and I ended up acting like a 10-year old all day with this dumb joke. To the doofus in my second period who tried to turn in late work, I said, "Yes, I'd be happy to accept your late work (beat) APRIL FOOL'S!". To the funny girl in my 10th period, I told her what a pleasure she was to teach... April Fool's! It was so silly and fun. Only with kids I could joke with, of course, which is most of them. I do like to laugh with the kids. I had a good time with the dumbest joke in the world.

Then, today, a student (let's call her "Carol Sue," in a private joke in which I change a very African name to a very whitebread farm name) for whom I sent out about 15 letters of recommendation told me she got into St. Mary's, and she wanted showed me her acceptance letter. The letter was a standard acceptance letter, with a significant monetary award, but handwritten at the bottom from the admissions counselor was a short note in blue ink: "Carol Sue, I really enjoyed your letter of recommendation from Mr. __________________". How cool is that?

I do pride myself in writing good letters of recommendation, but I've rarely received real feedback for them. I was proud of Carol, and really happy that she showed me the note. Those couple days of my holiday break I spent writing letters of recommendation were definitely worth it.

Frankly, I don't think her letter was one of the best I've written. But here it is:


It gives me great pleasure to recommend a memorable and diligent student, Carol Sue Brown, to your learning institution. Carol Sue was a student in both my English I Honors and my IB English III courses, and I have been delighted to see Carol Sue's hard work and persistence pay off with academic success and strong skills.

In the ninth grade, Carol Sue was good-humored and hard working, turning her average grades to strong grades by the end of the year. During her junior year, however, she was a much stronger student, succeeding in a rigorous course from the beginning. The IB English course rigorously assesses both writing and oral presentations, and Carol Sue was consistently strong at both areas, providing both effective and genuinely engaging literary analysis throughout the course. I have no doubt that Carol Sue will perform well in her finals for the course, and receive an IB certificate.

It wasn't natural talent that brought Carol Sue this success. While she is talented, she struggled more than a few of her classmates. However, she is one of the hardest working students I have ever met, and I saw her grow from having average skills during her ninth grade year to having strong skills during her eleventh grade year. She still lacks confidence sometimes, but her diligence is inspiring. She is a student who does not allow others to bring her down, and instead is a symbol to others that a strong work ethic and dedication to studies can lead a student to academic success.

Besides her diligence, it is Carol Sue’s inquisitiveness that is most memorable about her. This never dampens, despite being in wildly different academic environments throughout the day. For example, Carol Sue last year took IB English 3, where she is able to receive a grade of a strong ‘B’ through her hard work. However, she also took classes in the lower tract, like World History, where she was the best student in the class. Some students would have sat back and coasted through the class that surely would be an easy ‘A,’ but not Carol Sue. She worked very hard in these courses; I remember her telling me she was the only student who did the summer reading of Things Fall Apart in her World History class. She loved the book, and was able to complete all the projects surrounding the books despite not being in an environment where other students were working hard.

However, in English class, she also succeeded in a totally different environment, working hard in a rigorous course and doing well. Carol Sue’s ideas about literature were often radical, displaying thoughtful and genuine inhabiting of the international texts we read. I am confident that Carol Sue will carry this thoughtfulness and genuineness with her to college, and I look forward to her continued academic success beyond the confines of (this) High School. I recommend her without reservation. Please contact me at (me)@gmail.com or 443-XXX-XXXX if you have any questions.

Just a few more weeks...

So overwhelmed.

The project of my final course in my Master's Project is going to be around 100 pages, and I think I have around 15 written. I've been working hard on it, in spurts, but set it aside for weeks at at time and then get overwhelmed about it. Now is one of those times. We met together as a class today - the course is mostly online and justm eeting one-on-one with the professor - and I feel like everyone has done more than I have. I need to just sit down and bang out a whole bunch of pages. I'm actually really intrigued by my topic (where I'm aligning our previous pre-IB English curriculum with our new MYP curriculum, as well as pre-AP, pre-CP, and state curriculum standards) , but frustrated by some of the research aspects of it. For example, I'm having a hard time deciding between focusing on mainstreaming (or "leveling-off"), which the new curriculum compels us to do, or about holistic educuation, which the new curriculum also compels us to do. So far, I've found just a bit of research about IB programs nationally and how they have boosted student achievement, and am surprised and concerned that I haven't found more.

Crazy times. April of 2008 will be a rather challenging month in my life, that's for sure. Coaching, teaching, grading, waiting tables, finishing my Master's. Perhaps sleeping.

A day of biting thumbs, maidenheads, and fastballs in the ear

First off: The Folger gig? I got it. Four weeks, paid, learning how to teach Shakespeare in DC. They called and told me I was accepted today. I'm excited. I'm also excited about living the life of a commuter for a month, taking the Marc train like I'm some sort of businessman. It'll be like I'm living another life for a bit.

Secondly:

The first game of the season was Monday. It was a marathon game that took nearly four hours, but we pulled off a victory. It was, in many ways, ugly (seven errors, several hundred walks), but had some good moments as well (great offense, a couple of triples, and a successful suicide squeeze bunt that I called). Today, I wanted practice to be short and sweet, but it ended up being beautiful outside and we went longer than I had intended. But it was not without its lumps: a couple players in pissy moods because of playing time and position switches, another player got hit in the side of the head with an errant fastball (no blood or unconsciousness, thankfully), and, in general, just one of those down days on the up-and-down spectrum that coaching is. I left the field more stressed out than when I entered it, which is a rare thing indeed. Much of it was my fault. I was so counting on the 60% chance of thunderstorm showers that I didn't really believe we were having outside practice until just before it occurred. I'm so unaccostumed to the beautiful weather we have had this spring - ever since tryouts began, really - that it throws me for a loop, I guess.

Before that, it was a long, good day of beginning Romeo and Juliet with my ninth graders. I love teaching the play a whole lot, but it really leads to some exhausting days; I feel like I'm running around in front of them, directing them how to read and what to do way more than I usually do. Hopefully this lessens as we get more into the play. We're only on the Prince's first monologue, so today was the day of biting thumbs and cutting off maidenheads and calling your friend's junk shriveled and little like a salted dry fish. Yup, they're into it.

A friend I see once or twice a year is in town from Michigan, and we headed to The Dog Pub (formerly Thirsty Dog) for drinks and pizza. It was a good night of reminiscing and Boxer beer. I really do not have much of a social life during baseball season, so it was nice to get out and have a little bit of fun.