Going Undercover Two Years Ago

Hawaii Teacher Detective

 Everywhere I go (especially the office) I am confronted by Richard Brautigan’s ex.  She is at the office, checking in as a sub, she is turning the corner with a bunch of papers, she is putting her hand on my back, reassuringly, when I check my mailbox, looking for new morning mail. 

I refuse to go in the school and help with the academic plan.  It sounds deadly horrible.  All the really terrible choices are clear there.  It is bleak and wearying.  I would barely be able to survive something even remotely like it.  It is amazing how much work is expected of teachers, how much grueling grind in the forefront of working at a school. 

So wearing.  I know how to not be too concerned.  Too tied up.  What is all this?  Al these blasted predicaments.  Do I even know? 

Am I Richard Brautigan?  Am I his follower?  Why did Stan and Susie leave those books with us?  The drama of the classroom is behind me.  These nutty digs.  They become bigger and better.  A real distorted time.  Little and big.

The day, rainy, fuzzy, ill-defined.  Film of the national parks—heartbreaking history and fights, especially with the damned Forest Service.  At least I have a job.  It is a better increment ahead at least.  Any time there’s a glitch, I despair.  Is that what these pages will record?  I’m not sure.  I cannot even tell anymore.  A long way, besides. 

The skimpy day ahead.  I need to maintain a positive attitude. 

Met with Virginia Brautigan Aste again yesterday.  I sort of feel like I need to move quickly in order to behave myself with her.  I might lose my patience or else something else.  But what?  I don’t even know.  The other realm here.  My realm decides my fate.  She repeated a few things.  I should ask her if I should write to Ianthe at least some sort of letter or essay or could our article be that?  I don’t know either.  I don’t know what to do.  Mixing and mashing myself in.

Dagger Growth Time Sandvichensis

At the end of every day we have Dagger Growth Time, G.T. for short, although this sounds like Gifted & Talented, it is not.  It is supposed to be like counseling or character education, mainly anti-bullying or bullying-prevention. It is about caring for the students' well-being.  It is about an hour long and comes from Obama's well-meant Race To The Top funding that the school doesn't seem to know what to do with.

Dagger Growth Time is filled with goals and General Learner Outcomes that the students can recite backwards and forwards.  What they really desire is the action of the parking lot by the state-run library that they are not allowed in during school hours  (no funding for a school librarian). 

A few Daggers tried out the new parking lot area the teachers got kicked out of--it was their new recreation area for playing and not by H-building, thank goodness, with all the middle school congestion there.

After the bell rang and the teachers went to their meeting, it was Wednesday so it was departments, there were two altercations in the newly cleared parking lot.  One boy had his shirt off and another was running away.  A girl was screaming at another girl because a boy had touched her hip.  With his hand.  The principal and security were there and also the rest of the students who were supposed to be waiting for their buses to come and take them home to their far-flung subdivisions.  Ainaloa, Hawaiian Paradise Park, Black Sands, Kalapana, Sea View.  The meeting continued with the mandatory review of the Academic Plan.  There was also some discussion about which grade levels needed the most Intervention with Achieve3000 and the Teenbiz program to practice test taking and reading comprehension.

It is only the second week of school.  I think I've seen five fights just by U-building.  It is the second week of school.

One teacher commented that the testing probably won't go as well with this year's bunch.  They work so slowly.  They need so much extra time.

Sandwich Island Comprehension Test

Level 10/12, Form T




Impressed
didn't know all there was to know about her.

deeply affected.
soft

Lay eggs

builds with silk.

do things he didn't...
did things he wasn't...

basketball moves.

the narrator himself.

doing readily
he had been practicing.



Page 12

roofs.
suspicious of strangers.
Remote.
organizing one's world.

universal.
artistic traditions.

A coral animal settles...

Oxygen.

producing nitrate wastes.
New coral animals.

clear

limestone.



Comprehension (Continued)
Answers:

So the job can be done.

spray solutions.
It follows a set pattern.
                factory workers.


She felt unable to relax.


To be protected from
The wind had become

They moved straight...

stimulating.

One noble challenged...
Ladies attending the...

To identify any knights
  who had done...

Excuse a knight from...

festive.

become folded.

Chemical connections.


Keep them near
substances that turn...

protein.

By fitting it into a...

nothing special.

seemed alive.

It seemed impatient to go.

It was hard to start.

more complicated to fix...

Number Wrong or Omitted
(over)
Raw Score

(lines found in Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test) 

Deputy in Charge Part 2

When your teacher is a genius shaman then you better take notice.  Of everything.  Time is short.  If he leaves too soon then do not panic.  Your anguish will be alleviated because he has secretly left his deputy in charge, also a genius, a shaman who will wow you.

You are ready to take an oath but you don't know what you're pledging besides undying love and admiration, loyalty.  Fool--the shaman already senses this.  The seedier sorts of voices speak to you as well and most of the plant and animal kingdom.  Be thankful for these small things.
 But, if you begin speaking of yourself in the third person, it is time for someone to put you out of your misery.  They take care of this at the school.  In a special meeting. Just because you teach English doesn't mean the others are like you.  Well, don't forget, you are undercover.  Or, did you forget for just a moment?  The moment you used your name in the third person even though you detest anybody who would do this, speaks like this. A detective takes note of this. I, detective.  I, robot. 

Deputy in Charge

When your teacher turns out to be a genius shaman then take notice.  Of everything.  Time is short and this will be the case for a long time.

When your teacher is no longer around, do not despair, no matter how enticing the anguish.  He has deputized another.  This is the way of the genius shaman and as it turns out, the deputy one may be just as important as the genius one, sort of like a twin genius shaman.

Listen to the rattle.  It is not especially rattling for you.  Smell the sage, not necessarily prepared just for you.  It turns out to be the case that just in case, your teacher knew this all along.  You were supposed to be listening but missed something.

Kickshaw Teacher This and That

If you've ever had a genius as your teacher you realize that there is a point beyond which you begin forgetting yourself, your life, and what you had in mind.  You become what you really were meant to be all along because someone else notices some part of the universe that you concentrate on, admire, or remember.  When this happens laughing and crying are not enough.  Something must be made, fashioned.  Hopefully, it is not a weapon but, o.k., it could be a dream that is made real, material, and left for others to study.  Now, you have been lugged out of isolation for a bit, even if that's where you really dwell.  Your teacher points to the path.  Yes, it is lonely.  Lovely.  Your teacher will walk with you there for awhile.  You may be noticing nuts, berries, but there are other things too that your teacher points out like the present as well as the past that suddenly ran up ahead and beckons to be caught up with.  It calls on a telephone from Vancouver Island and has the patience of a silverback gorilla shopping for kickshaws in a crowded, dusty fair.

Longer

Although I had long dismissed it as a cold case, I realized that my Nome files may have to be re-opened, dusted off.  Even on summer break from my "day job" as "teacher" it would only be in my favor to revisit the eyeblink that was Nome, a place known for its Nugget, melting summer streets, and visitors from worlds away.  Yes, I would have to give the Eskimo yo-yo a whirl and unroll the blanket for some light tossing.  The Olympics were in sight now and there was no reason to not get in shape. This all involved sheer mental preparation.  Two weeks of Professional Development (courtesy of Race To The Top) would commence in approximately ten days' time.

Some quick backtrack thinking produced the results of the summer break:  taking care of an new eye exam, glasses, and removing an unwanted cyst from my back.  Plus, that scant trail of evidence left on Tom Clark/Beyond the Pale.  O.K., more than that.  Let's just call it the summer of the wonderful garden and eyeblinks about my other life.