Profile of An Effective Teacher

Check what's for lunch.  Don't pay the five dollars.  Instead, nibble on the orange you brought that stung your hangnails when you peeled it open.  Wait.  Students will appear to see what you're eating.  Offer to share some.  They will turn up their noses and wander away.  Look out towards the active vent in the volcano.  Look for vog.  Check if you can take a deep breath without coughing.  Neaten some stacks of papers, you can't read the students' handwriting anyway, only the A students seem to avoid writing LOL, OMG, IDC, WTF.  Daydream about squirrels, owls, wolves.

Teacher Blame Game

It is always the teacher's fault.  Fingers point in only one direction, towards the teacher.  It is a bad teacher to blame for the failure, for the missing assignments, for the lack of effort, engagement, attendance.  It is the fault of the teacher.  It is up to the teacher, all up to the teacher in the blame game.  There are no winners.  Certainly, Finland is the exception.  What, teachers given all their freedom to...teach? in the classroom?  Who could ever trust a teacher?  What will those teachers want to do next?  Teach?  They really have some nerve.  Everyone knows it is all up to the teacher.  They make it or they break it.  They succeed or they fail.  They aren't supposed to read Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, a book that could get them fired if found in a top desk drawer, for example. 

Dim With Lights

Frost covers everything.  The cars, the trees, bushes, the frosty land.  Things underneath the trees.  Anything alive keeps moving or holds still for frost.  There is the fat raven in the parking lot at Bi-Mart.  The clouds look dry but what drifts in is high up and almost blueberry.  The same way it is fate that comes about in a nutshell.  Mom on the couch endlessly speaking to her sister on the phone.  About the hot spot and the islands, explaining.  About the meal.  I hope the cards come quickly.  I think I'd most likely pick Courage or Commencement.  Saw an osprey and a red-tailed hawk down by the Kalapooya.  It will be almost ten years that I have with the system.  Different beats, yes, but all-in-all, it's all wrapped up with a big red bow, empty inside.  To be admired from the outside.

Sandwich Island Song

What happened was this:  I wrote the letter effortlessly.  It was so easy.  So is the world when not on the beat.  Everything appearing sunny, yet cold air from up the Umpqua, sliding down Mt. Scott.  It is disturbing to see the new cloverleaf being dozed into the area near the college, near the fish ladder, a whole hill cut again (again).  It has been 100 years or so for this upheaval.  I dream and imagine differently.  Bureaucratic matters are accomplished effortlessly here, compared to the archipelago and its heavy stamps, molasses, antiquated equipment and ideas.  I wanted to solve the thousand mysteries and am still working on the one no matter all the practice behind and in front, still up ahead.

Fresh Air and then some

Well, the great Northwest is this in a nutshell:  cold.  Seems cold enough for snow but where is it?  Occupy Eugene closed down.  Hunkering in the library in Sutherlin is so smooth, so sublime--nobody there.  Lincoln's relatives lurking around the back alleyways by Suds-n-Duds.  Hawks along I-5 airing out their wings, watching the traffic.  Time off of the usual.  The Professional Learning Community can go to hell.  In the can.  Recycle, Reuse.   

Person of Interest

It wasn't all that difficult to remain a person of interest, that is, if there were interesting things afloat.   Mostly, it was a lot of wasted time gossiping and shooting the breeze with small talk, some of it quite amusing.  Another day on the beat. 

Who would've thought that the couple would end up like that but yes, they were well on their way to ruin, end of the road, even though it was all so beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful place in the world:  Waimanalo. 

I said I would report further but that is not enough.  To give the facts, well, o.k., they are sad enough but sadder is the endless cycle involved, the depressing rut of it ending in early death, incarceration, abuse.  All of it easily (?) avoided?  Here in the archipelago, it is a common story so why does it hit so hard?  Because these particular people seemed smarter than that.  Were smarter than that.  Instead of food and beauty, beauty and food, something else must be ingested over and over again.  Something beyond the ocean, the reef, the hours, days spent fishing, spent listening, squinting, waiting.  Beyond simple pleasure.

It was there they set up a VCR so we could watch the latest James Bond video on the beach, under a canopy, tucked up under some trees but right in the sand, soft there like powdered sugar/oatmeal mix.  D. put down a rug, he was so generous.  I guess that was before they got heavy into ice.  I thought they were real nice because we gave them our tent spot.  It was drier there.  It was protected.  They were doing vodka shots and some pot but since O. and I were sober, we just watched the movie and called it a night.

I was glad my Waimanalo days were past.  I did not have the feeling that I'd again relax on the beach with a television.  That was not why I had traveled there.  I guess were were in some one's living room, with Rabbit Island right across the way.

The Sound Of Music

Didn't it jive, didn't it jangle?  Don't forget that when you are out on an assignment.  Put that into your step.  Don't miss a beat.  You'll get to Berlin and beyond.  Don't lose heart because of the Pacing Guides, the Pep-T, the reprimand about not being H.Q. (highly qualified) in a subject mastered by philosophers.  The logic of it runs through your veins.  Prove it. You're right, there is no space on the Learning Targets section of the map to list compassion, heart, not giving up.

It Was And It Wasn't

My cover was nearly blown yesterday when I submitted an request for union help on the beat.  I was unceremoniously dumped.  Ah, those pacing guides, the P.G.'s.  The bane of teachers in the current system.  And what is at stake?  A shifting landscape, much like the sands of time.  A map of the curriculum.  A detailed document, alive on excel. It seemed that the only way check if there was still life left in my body was to check my airway, breathing, and circulation.  I couldn't find it on the map.  Was this a trick?  My teaching nowhere live and living but a series of numbers, old Soviet Bloc initials, very Bond-like but I was not altogether game.  The plan?  The Crucible, Canterbury Tales.  Old stories of imagination, passion, and silliness.  Life and Death. The struggle to survive afer basic needs are met.  I still detect a heartbeat, a faint one.  A fainthearted yelp, swallow, and ribcage movement.  Another throwaway.  Another bit for the trash heap although it has taken my life to add to it, to make a mess this large and step away from it, never to take a second glance.  Isn't that what the greats in the biz do?  All in a day's work?  I searched the faces of my fellow bureaucrats.  None of them flinched.  It was muddy as usual outside of U-Building.  The usual slickness on the moss, the moldy edges of the building, mildew all the way up the side of H-Building like a cancer, a forgotten fire, a stain.  Where would all my gathered information go?  The teachers were so afraid of their workplaces that they couldn't even leave minutes on the database for fear of repercussion/Pep-T/bad gossip.

To Data or Not to Data?

This is the question.  Wishing for the answer and not getting one, I removed myself from the action.  The action of my mind.  That is where the data exists.  It is up to another master detective to figure out all the lonely causes, the updates, the interferences, the slices.  I should have told myself another little story but it was remarkable that one did not exist.  At least, not in that form.  It wasn't all it was cracked up to be.  The form and content of my journey spiked.  The pressure.  All that pressure of the data.

Other teachers have made it up as they go along.  This is probably a good idea.  One that I will keep in mind and save for a rainy day.  It is supposed to be a chance.  A chance to remain in the next phase of these continuing dialogues.  They are somewhat Socratic, somewhat word wallish.  Anyhow, I gave the students the chalk.  It was a first step.  A step in the right direction.  Could I announce to the world, case solved! or not?  I think that the remainder of the day would be spent in dreamtime--a walkabout--although it was my mind walking about, not anyone else.  It was the other sort of world that was the beginning.  A dream detected.  Would I stay glued to O Magazine or proceed with my master plan?  I tore myself away from someone playing the violin (her passion, followed) and looked sideways.  The only thing I could really see was a nest of computer terminals and beyond, a dim sky, patches of sunshine, and rotting buildings that formed the basis of a school on an island in the middle of the Pacific, approximately 20 miles away from a live vent of the volcano.  As the crow flies.  Or used to fly. 

It wasn't the best but it also wasn't the worst.  My only frustrations with formative instruction are that they cannot be contained.  They spill over into other realms.  Other locations.  Then, there are the absolute darlings of days spent here, days spent there.  How did it figure that my BFF would turn out to be a Bohemian of the most fundamental kind?  One of the most original?  It wasn't in the data, quite, but that was not the point.

Well, also, my questions were not welcome, neither were my observations.  They were mandated and I remembered that it would all be o.k. someday.  On to another case.

This Wasn't How It Was Supposed To Be

Instead, the day is humble and static.  Those troublesome scents the students spray to spice up their bodies.  I smell an astringent, stinging version of Irish Spring, Period 8.  Other detectives write about something sophisticated, refined, even.  Those trees glimpsed in another world, one of delicious bread, yogurt, and coffee, were comforting and delicious in themselves.  Straight up and down to discourage the goats, those good climbers.  They are fearless climbers.  What I miss most about my teacher is his inflexibility, the conundrum that it was to try to figure out what the heck he was thinking.

Well, that's why they have Hawaiian Miles, I'm thinking, they add up.  That's why this place is a popular destination.  That's why there is a mystery here, after all.  One student told me that you just need to smell something and it fills you up, it can be food (a smell). 

The smell of an old report, from long ago called, The Body of No Moment.  It filled me up.  It smelled like the desert, coconut birthday cake, and lime-green curtains. It was the place to be--still a sidekick and not just a side.

Russian Roulette

The buzz in the staff meeting about the upcoming budget cuts.  Uh oh.  Someone definitely screwed up ordering those Kindles.  This time, I could walk away, a free agent, guiltless in my dispassionate observations.  Yesterday’s beat told me everything I needed to know.  It was “recess duty” but since I was working undercover, my alibi was dead on.

Russian Roulette made the budget cuts sound deadlier than the usual slash and burn.  Telling this to a bunch of teachers struggling to put gas into their vehicles put a new spin on things and made the pacing guides seem like a menu for disaster.

Appearances Are Everything

It was lonely there but not too much.  The leaves in the kukui trees filled the warm pond tidal pool with leaves, much like tea--it was filled with leaves the shape of Bodhi tree leaves.  They were yellow and were easily mistaken for eels brushing by in the heavy water pouring in freshly from the narrow canal leading to the ocean.  It was relaxing but not too because of the darkness and dim hunk of moon behind close-looking clouds.  It was all-the-way darkness in the grove of trees but up above maybe an owl flew around or was it just a coconut palm frond waving out of line with the others?

Mysteries awaited this swimmer.  It was almost too much to open both eyes but necessary to see the way backwards, the direction of the swim. 

It was never that way in the classroom.  Undercover work was often breath-by-breath and then the bell would ring for recess or, even better, lunch.  Strange that B. kept begging for a dollar to buy a spam musubi when he was obviously on free and/or reduced lunch. He lost his card.  It was five dollars to replace. There wasn't five dollars or even one.  It was almost as if he needed an excuse to talk.  I did not bring up the holes punched into my paintings (abstract) that were hung up last year.  A temporary lapse in my disguise.

Time Log Lag

A Lag Occurred

It was nevertheless a form of happiness that I dug into.  The book about my teacher could finally be read.  I had been avoiding it these nine years, my personality more in the making than I'd like to admit.

The above can not possibly be understood without detecting a slight shift in the mood of my current project.  It is about asking permission that I will never receive.  So, in order to proceed, it is just that which is required--slogging on ahead.  At work, in my role as teacher, I blocked insults left and right.  The usual ones and the not so usual ones.  Stop bullying now came from my lips at just the right time.  Another thing I said was that I was married and far to old to __ __ck.  Fill in the blank.  It is my favorite comeback although is a crazy risk to say, after all.  After all that has happened.

What do I miss most about Montana?  another detective recently asked.  I could only think fast enough to say the cold air.  I did not mention his green eyes, straw hair, long legs and then white teeth.  When I hear "Montana" I think of Hank and Hank only.  Oh, where o where did I put my wedding ring?

What the Hey?

It is what?  A plan, for the whole year?  Is it a lesson plan?  No, it is called a Pacing Guide, a P.G., for short.  Another teacher called it, "teaching by number," as in paint-by-number paintings.  Those paintings looked beautiful far away but up close, they were obviously fake.  What gives?  I decided to investigate.

I didn't need to look far.  On my desk was something titled, "12th Grade Pacing Guide."  It looked suspicious and smelled like a greek salad.  It was definitely not from Subway.  Since it was a day famous for haunting and haunts, I decided that it was John Fante haunting me with his humor.  I need that because with a horrendous head cold coming on and students reading Canterbury Tales and The Crucible (apologies to my 9th Grade Pacing Guide), to be honest, the D.V.D.'s I ordered from the library were not arriving quickly enough.

I checked my work email named after a flower, named after me.  There were some antiquated ideas contained in some of the missives, possibly a result of the present holiday.  They were haunted with the idea that teachers begin with a standard and they scramble around to find material to match and then "teach."

It wasn't Valentine's Day, so why was I so disappointed?  It was all part of the beat, part of the groove I was trained to observe.

Horses, Eggs, Questions re: Ye Olde Pacing Guide

Yesterday was another mystery but it came in the form of questions by the young people sitting in bunches of chairs in front of my very eyes.  They seemed expectant and yearing for the unknown.  After watching a film about Sea Biscuit, a famous animal athlete, their questions were such: 

What if horses laid eggs?
Why do wasps eat each other?

It was high school, true, therefore I was not wholly expected to answer their questions but to admire their attempts to verbalize.  Anything. 

Sea Biscuit had nothing to prove.  He was the richest horse in history.  There was only so much expensive hay he could eat.  After watching his life story four or five times, I saw that my own life was a series of races as well.  The race to solve mysteries.  Pegasus probably did not lay eggs in the old mythology but that could be changed.  Wasps?  Their cruelty towards one another?  I reminded the young minds about the mammals surrounding our very lives.  Ourselves.

Another day leaving no stone unturned, no child behind.  My student loan paid for another thirty days.

Case of the Cloudscratcher Tumor & something else

                                                           

Master Terrorist Series #4

Hawaii Special Ed. Teacher, The Case of the Cloudscratcher Tumor

                                       & The Mystery of Campus Security

                                       Chapter 1, Heartbeat of Excitement

       Teaching sure isn’t what it used to be.  After a few years on the job, I decided to throw in a little something more into the mix:  crime detection and tumor care.  The usual suspects in the usual places.  This time, The Pacific Rim Conference on Disabilities.  I was overdue for a refresher on ADHD.  I made sure to itemize the purchase order so I could slip under the radar of my school admin. undetected.  I  brought along my tumor just in case I needed a disguise.  My real purpose was to observe Clay Aiken, American Idol, keynote speaker.  The Idol was smooth, a charmer.  His Modus Operandi.

       Aiken spoke to a crowd of burnt-out yet secretly hopeful do-gooders at the convention. They were all suspect in my book.  Special Ed teacher in his pre-Idol life, now a millionaire, handing out postcards of Waikiki. We could also turn into millionaires if we danced enough, if we sang enough. The right place at the right time. The card sits in my bag (fingerprints) and I get it out for laughs because there were no pink sunsets at the Sheraton.  Only red drippings from the tumor.  Evidence from moving it from towel to sheet, to pillowcase and back again.  Something the Idol would never imagine in a thousand years.

       What was to come was not exactly the clincher in a series of small disappointments, but actually a realization on my part:  Diamond Head dominates everything about Waikiki, but here it was, a deep green yet mousey-looking feature on the postcard from a

terrorist.  I was deep in the heart of sky scrapers, cloud scratchers, Wolkenkratzers,  and how fast time flew by—yawning during the Idol’s speech about not leaving a child behind in America’s education system (make that a double yawn), waiting to catch the bus back to the airport in the chunky heat mixed with more fire breathing “breezes” and how it took 5 minutes but it was really an hour to realize that my tumor was not going to get stolen where I left it on the beach.            

       Not a chance, there wasn’t anything interesting enough in that bundle to attract even the most ordinary of thieves:  the tourist pretenders.

                                       Chapter 10, The Defibrillator 

       At the safety committee meeting, the security manager got there a little late. Alibi:  another altercation.  Parents fighting under the coconut trees.  He and the school nurse brought it to the table:  a purchase of a defibrillator was highly needed.  Not only one, but at least several; one for each building, even J Building.  Teachers could be trained to use them, we could get student volunteers up to speed.  What about old fashioned C.P.R. and first-aid, a call to 911, I asked.  Well, this machine could save someone’s life. (Code:  stupid haole.  Stupid haole teacher.) The only thing is that if someone is touching the body during it, some serious problems could occur, such as instant death.  Plus the batteries cost thousands and upkeep is a pain.  Especially if they’re not in the budget.  Just look at Pahoa School.

                                               

                                       Chapter 58, The Big Picture

        I can see it and am good at it, that’s probably why I am sitting in this (Vice Principal’s) chair, she said, late for the second time.  A quick run to McDonalds. 

       The phone rang and a parent wanted to know if the school could guarantee the safety of her child.  I cannot guarantee that, it is not within my authority to say that to you. How could I make such a guarantee to you. Your child is like any other child. Lifted eyebrows.  I sat on the chair that touched her desk and nodded, understandingly. 

       That was my big mistake, I thought later that evening under the ceiling fan that chose to conduct itself like a crazy, silent helicopter.  If you get a marginal on your Pep-T Eval then let me know, the union rep said, we’ll take it to Milton and file a grievance.

       Today, Kim, my acupuncturist, told me not to drink things with ice in them but I couldn’t resist the cranberry-blueberry #5 with booster of immune from Jamba Juice. After that, my chi started moving a little too quickly for my liking.  It avoided the tumor and hid behind my desk during Prep Period.  I was lucky this hadn’t happened in a room full of students. The grievance was building in my head like previews of a popular movie possibly called, “Re-runs of All The Jobs You’ve Ever Had And Tried To Want.”  Anticipation stopped me from worrying about everything else, like my rubric and curriculum map supposedly aligned to the Standards. 

Rubric Chapter

Did I tell you about Tante Hedel, my mother asked. Well, I’ll tell you the story. It was right in Ueberlingen beside the church.  We just came out of the store that sells really nice things.  Tante Hedel bought herself some blouses.  One was really weird. It had

bright yellow and some embroidery and then there was one that was brown with a faded part like it had been burnt with an iron.  These blouses were very peculiar, but in

the peasant-style that Hedel likes. We came out and there was a woman, maybe from Romania, with a child. The woman asked if we had some money to spare. Tante Hedel brought out her wallet and gave the woman 20 euros. Then, the woman asked if she could have a 50 because she saw that there was one in the wallet. She said she would give back the 20 in exchange for the 50.  Hedel said o.k. and gave her the 50. Then, you won’t believe this, but the woman saw the 100 bill Hedel had left in her wallet and asked for that, begged for that, saying she would give back the 50 euros.  And Tante Hedel gave it to her!  By the way, don’t worry about your job because they always need teachers!

Husband Chapter

Mostly, he is in the form of a fern, hanging on the edge of the caldera, see the orange part? but sometimes, he can be a pig or a man or a fish in the ocean.  That is what is so special about him.  Even though he doesn’t speak in a fluid way, he is always around, wherever you go.  In the water, mist, rain on the side of the volcanic mountains.  We walk around and realize that the debris from adze making looks just like blocky flowers in the refined desert; sparkles, powder, strong scents. Down by the water, near where the umbilical cords were left in little holes, is a soft, grassy area, perfect for sleeping, dreaming, and watching the lava flow down the cliffs at night into the sea, listening to the language of the wind, the stars.

About the Roster Check

       He went missing for the whole semester.  I only saw him in the hallway about twice, cuddling up to the Food Science teacher and smoking on the corner by Security.  The last encounter did not go so well, him storming into my room and yelling that I told everyone where he lived.  He must’ve meant the time I picked him up hitchhiking near

Kaloli Drive

and took him way down through the subdivision to where people squat in their jungle shacks. On the way there, I told him about Oregon and the ash from Mt. Mazama, how unique Oregon archeology really is because of it.  He was half listening, sweating and agreed to come to class if I’d reward him with McDonalds coupons.  He accomplished this a total of one time; disappearing, invisibly angry, already over it.  Over it already. Refusing to work on his job portfolio binder because the page that said references made him so mad.

      I can’t read, she said, reading the story about the little green shark and the Great Red Shark that is the ancestor of the people of the southern part of the island.  Yesterday, she showed me her new tattoo. Her brother’s names around a heart on her wrist, self-made. Her foster mom is her aunt and she baby sits for all the little kids. She gets to see her mom on the weekends if she stays out of trouble.  Nobody can disturb her when she

makes a poster. The one about No Drugs with a red slash on top of a pot leaf.  Her ex and current girlfriend got in a fight the other day before school in front of H Building.

Nobody knew what they were fighting over, she said. Security came after A. and D. had bashed each other around for what was two minutes but seemed like ten.    

       Come on, she said to the two girls, then pacing in a circle.  Do you want me to take your whole class, then, the guard asked sarcastically. No, just these two and these other two instigators, she said.

       A lit firecracker rolled from the door a few minutes later, bursting in a cloud of grey smoke. Hello, could you please send security, someone just threw a firecracker into my room.  Could you check the camera in hallway of H Building, upstairs from around 1:30? Alright, everyone back to work. 

       What are you going to teach us, then, Miss?  How to talk like you? How to talk about the Mainland? How to be a hippy or a hillbilly?  I hate this school and I hate this class.  We don’t learn shit.

       Listen very carefully.  Pick the answer that is best.  Remember, listen very carefully to the following.  You will have 40 minutes to complete this test. Look only at your own paper.  Do your best and then wait for the next question. Listen and then choose.  Your score will be determined by the number of questions you answer correctly. I will repeat a question only once.  Please raise your hand to signal that a question needs to be repeated.  Mary is waiting by the bank and sees her mother drive by in a car. Mary waves and then picks up her cell phone to call her mother because she and her brother have been there 20 minutes and maybe she didn’t see them as she drove past.  What happened first? 

Realization

     The Union Rep. brought in the settlement paper for my signature.  I looked down the list of names cc’d, the names became another link to an unsavory future I did not want a part of.  What would become of me if I stuck with this job—even though I was working undercover?  Would I just be another mealy worm wiggling around in the sawdust while a pet reptile waited to devour me?  I felt an almost relief at this realization.  It came too late.  Too late to be of educational value.  Like a pull-tab ripped out of the pop-up book of my assignment—I felt something necessary, yet disappointing being deleted out of the heart of this picture.  Teaching.  Detective Work.  Tumor.  Care.

       The earthquake preparedness manual stated that stacks of paper do not compress when a building collapses.  A triangle or void of safety is made beside them.  The great advantage would be to lay in a fetal position beside such a stack.

       I looked at my stack of progress reports.  They were deceiving.  The computer sitting beside them held more than enough “paper work” to allow me to survive.

Furlough Fridays

            It is hard to focus on those days, difficult to concentrate.  I am not a fan.  Or am I?  I learned how to speak this way by a lot of practice and a lot of observation.  It was sort of damaging.  It also didn’t matter much, I found out at a later date.

            A series of days cancelled off the calendar.  Crossed off.  Everyone who regularly attends is eternally grateful.  Glad for the time off.  The time away from the institution.  It all seems so bitterly bland.

            There is nothing left to enjoy.  I cannot focus.  I’ve hauled out something but I don’t know what it is.  A big, gigantic fish that I didn’t know what to do with.  Not at all.

Professional Development Workshop

For the motivational video, a corporate trainer spoke behind the barbed wire at Auschwitz.  It was strange how the barbed wire looked newish and the gate with the famous slogan, “Arbeit Macht Frei” did too.  It was a bit mysterious as to why a video like this would be shown.  Could it be for the students? Or the teachers?  Or is our society an Auschwitz that we must survive? Victor Frankel’s story about throwing starfish back into the ocean was a little closer to the target of thinking about students.  That a few may be saved.  I wonder about this story and the mysterious arms that grow into new starfish.

            The parent newsletter will tell of the planner. “If you take all the issues and try to do them, then everything will backfire and nothing will work.”

Grievance Meeting

            Rather than a hearing, Grievance #0616.  What about #0614?  Need to combine the two hearings.  Addressed to Pat? No, #0614 is addressed to Mary.  “All in the packets.” (Mark).  All the paperwork that is involved.  Need copies, oh, no, need #0614.  A technicality.  You’re saying that #0614 is combined with #0616.  Personnel offices felt…would reconvene at Step #2.  What happened on that date? Employer was asked to supply documentation for overall rating.  It was prepared by the Vice Principal and how was the document presented?  Documents that supported the marginal rating.  Did she get a copy of…?  Failure to sign would result in disciplinary action.