Naked (Real Talk) [Teaching&Blog]

Naked (Real Talk)

In the song “Naked” off her first album, Avril Lavigne sang the following lyrics

I wake up in the mornin’/Put on my face/The one that’s gonna get me
Through another day/Doesn’t really matter/How I feel inside
This life is like a game sometimes

Then you came around me/The walls just dissappeared
Nothin’ to surround me/Keep me from my fears
I’m unprotected/See how I’ve opened up-/
You’ve made me trust

Cause I’ve never felt like this before?I’m naked around you
Does it show??You see right through me
And I can’t hide?I’m naked around you
And it feels so right

Everything that I feel about my life, and the way things have been going lately, I wish would ideally fit into those lyrics, but I can’t say it does.   Yes, I’m pretty naked, rather feeling kind of raw  more so.  I have no shame about my rollercoaster  emotions, as of late.  The hiring freeze hasn’t been lifted for NYC public schools and thus, I’m still stuck in this world of Per-diem substituting.  Once again, it’s now the time of year where I’ve put my foot down, and have told myself that I would only take jobs from a certain school that I have been at for several days a week for several months now.  My adopted home base, per se.  The kids know me.  Most of the staff knows my face, if not my name.   I don’t feel like a temp by the company soda machine.  I can sit in the teacher’s lounge and not feel like an alien, or drive myself crazy feeling judge on my attire by those full time employees in the same room.  At my adopted school of this year,  lately I’ve been doing a lot of CTT classes, where my own opinions and knowledge were actually solicited by the lead teacher.  I kind of feel like I belong.

Except for days like yesterday, when the Subcentral phone system kept calling with the most obscure job offers, in the most far away places.  Why would I really want to go deal with potty mouthed  ESL children in Queens or Brooklyn when  a mere 6-15 minute walk nearby is where I want to be.  And this place is so awesome because it’s a place where it seems like someone, teacher or student,  is always absent.  However, around the 5th non-choice school phone call from the system that I declined, I realized that my school, and both its both early and late sessions had started, and that there would be no more phone calls for the morning, and that I had given myself a voluntary day off. Which actually hurts a lot because of the weird payroll schedule that they have Per Diem workers on.  And I realized that I had just screwed myself into having to literally budget in the economic and emotional cost of not seeing my kids.  Because make no mistake, those are my kids now.

They know that if I’m subbing that I have my magic portfolio of assignments (a lot teachable moments too) that can fit in.  They get that only one kid at a time is going to the bathroom, and that when I hear curse words, they should expect to hear me call out “LANGUAGE!”  And they know that even if it’s busy work, I’m still collecting the work and will leave a note for their absent teacher.  Those are now my kids.
But the problem with that being is…I can’t fiscally afford to hope and pray that the right school is going to call me, and miss other opportunities.  However, at the same time, I know I can’t afford the mental and emotional heart ache it is to have yet another day of school (in the last days of the year,mind you) in a place where I’m just sort of there.  Like the elephant on the coffee table.  I also can’t take the feeling of wondering if I’ll be back at this school.  I’ve got notes and notes of what schools were good to me, and which ones made me search for a key to the rest room.

And as with so  many things in my life, I kind of wonder…What do I do?

[Chester Kent.]

(Mini Post)

Someone has hacked something or other on this server, thus I get like 200 pieces of comment spam per post per day, which sucks because 3 or 4 are genuine ones.  Thus the reason why i haven’t posted much lately.  I will get back onto a regular schedule once I figure out how to make this stop.

(Poem) The Multiverse Holds its Breath

The Multiverse holds its breath.

There are those tiny
moments when time holds
its breath too,
in suspense of the ending.
It becomes aware of
itself and its nuances
and confidently dates other
members of its species-
Unaware of charismatic
twist of fate
a Kryptonite of such
that weakens even the strongest
of Supermen.

Often it because like this,
We stare out uncomfortably
over drinks or groceries-
So oddly a repeated joke
because I repeat a joke
or something I’ve read
or overheard somebody speaking
about what they heard on NPR today
and oft what I hear is
not what I say and often it’s not
understood as
endearing as I intended-
but I smile at the end in an innocuous
way, and your inability to respond
intrigues you, and now I disarm my
humor.
This occurs even when I’m
not looking for love.

And somehow we share old
times and memories and before once,
It becomes evident that further
presence will equal a shared bed
(a time or few),
trips to the Goodwill or bookstores
together, dinners and
moments playful (and plainly picturesque)
as infants cradled in a crib
or toddlers sharing
graham crackers.

Then suddenly-
Life.
Nothingness or mundanity;
Eyes and mouths amazed and
bored with conversation
until a fleeting sun
shower appears to
remind us about
living, and then after
the excitement,
Like the sun shower,
you are gone.
And I’m drinking in the
light alone.

New Career needed much?

Read [this article] from GothamSchools.org detailing how according to King Bloomberg, NYC may have 8,500 LESS teachers next year due to cuts made by Government Patterson.

Really?

[Chester Kent]

How Typical [Substitute Assignment]

How Typical [Substitute Assignment]

“Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving”
-Norman PaperNick

Art Teacher. South Bronx. 25 Minute Commute Time. PS/IS/MS. (K-Gr.*)

Purely basing my opinion on just the facade of the building, I had no idea what to expect. My assignment location was in an area of the South Bronx that I had never been into. The few kids walking towards school seemed merry and weren’t shooting each other.  The people inside the bodega were nice. Even the weather was kind of nice for a January morning and as anyone would expect, any of the teachers that I saw walking in the direction of the 2 or 3 schools all clustered in a span of a black, well…they all shared the look in their eyes…Melancholy and lack of caffeine…the last flames of a 3 day weekend.

The scenery inside of the school was that of the typical elementary school. Of course, there was the customary line dividing the hallway in half.  Of course, said hallway was painted with the cold, sky blue paint against lime green frames.  And of course,there was the familiar sight of the police officers assigned to the building – there to greet everyone with a lack of interest in the actual visitor entering the building accompanied by ghettoness and weave (which would not be kosher policing the streets). Skipping forward past the search for the Main Office (which was on the third floor) I received my schedule and the first of my coverage assignments (which were surprisingly very close the ones I had prepared myself) and headed to my first assignment. Kindergarten.  The classroom, and lead teacher were quite bright, and bubbly.   After introductions, we went to go and pick the children up from the cafeteria to begin the day.  The “line leaders” made all the stops, and it was kind of cute watching the little people hold hands in the one straight shot queue back to the classroom.   After normal housekeeping things, Ms Teacher put out the leveled readers for the different kids, and then the kids quite calmly swapped their books out of their backpacks for new books for the week.  Honestly, it was a sight to behold as this was done without incident.

Back when I was in Kindergarten, the reading campaign launched by the government was ‘Read to Me’; a sort of way to encourage parents and children to spend quality time together….And when that nice but flawed idea unavoidably failed due to its overwhelming triteness (Single parents?  Economic recession? Reganomics?  Creation of the term “latch-key child?”) and obvious issues (i.e. suppose a students parents couldn’t read..thus who reads to who?) ‘Read to Me’ exists as a program these days still, however, it is now tailored far more for parents to read to their INFANTS, thus avoiding some of the deficiencies of its previous incarnation.

Anyway, it was around 2nd grade, when my teachers/literacy instructors resorted to the “Book-It” program (a collaboration with Pizza Hut) which basically bribed students to read by dangling a personal pan pizza once they received credit for reading a book.  In my opinion, it theoretically worked well for my own independant reading studies – I had been exposed to tons of words at once, and felt like I was actively in charge of my reading.  Other students and I even challenged each other with reading  but I can’t help but imagine that I (and other students) probably learned a lot of words (pronunciation and/or definitions) wrong.

The Emblem of "Book It"

No offense meant to Ms. Teacher at all (or for she whom I was filling in for) but I think that Literacy time probably needs to be broken into large groups, rather than the students reading seperately.  As I let the kids do the ELA/Literacy point-each-finger-slowly-at-the-word-while-you-read thing, I noticed that a lot of the students kept getting stuck at words, which are repeated several times.  It’s frustrating not knowing the way that the class is fully structured on a daily basis.  Yet even without specific knowledge of ongoing processes and also being aware that I have such a small sampling of what that group has learned….well, it bothers me that several kids were stuck on the words “home” and “name.”   Consider the fact that there was a word wall which included far more difficult words than the ones the kids were discovering independently.  On a positive note though, the kids didn’t stop with frustration, and even repeated the words after I corrected them- often times they would attempt to re-read the entire (two sentence) page correctly.

However, this was a great pace-setter for the day.  The children worked hard.  The teacher smiled.  Learning was had.  Respect, rules, and energy was highly present.  Despite my inner concerns about the reading skills, and levels of the class in whole, Ms. Teacher seemed quite involved in helping them improve.  She most certainly will be a teacher that they remember when they grow up. And with the end of this period, I went forward to teaching 7th graders a fun art lesson.

Or so I thought…….(To Be Continued)

[CHESTER KENT]

[Note: This posting is probably the most serious of the experience at this school.  The next few postings will include what I can only describe as something that I will tag as under the "These Evil Thoughts" catergories.]

Skydiving

Skydiving

We all have Kodak
moments/ but when the true
Polaroid moments are
happening (mostly when
we are alone)-
The only thing left
to do is paint or
draw the story with
words.

[But that's another tale]

This is about that moment
when we are not dependent
of someone else/ (how intimate
we can be with someone else)
even
if we feel them on our
back.
Falling rapidly (fearful of
missing the drop zone and
terminal velocity.)

[This is how I fall.]

There would be screaming
but who’s here to
hear
(and times before I
have screamed at the
top of my lungs about
my fears, arms
flailing, reaching
for the cord,
or the living being
attached to me.)

These are the moments when
it doesn’t matter if
I roll my eyes or if I can
count on previous feats of
willpower. Hope.  Compassion.
The ability to overpower
fear and rage.

No matter what happens,
I have to throwaway
the myth of flying,
and pull-out of this.

(God forbid that I
cut-away at this point,
or depend on someone
else to do it
for me.)

Nothing or anyone can capture
the moment
or measure how you feel (inside)
when-
you realize “I’m
falling and I haven’t
hit the ground yet.”

H.N.Y – A little more conversation (1)

H.N. Y. – A little more conversation -

“Remember it’s a hard world out there.  Take care of yourself, and each other”

Jerry Springer.

Jerry Springer ended every single episode of “The Jerry Springer” show with the above words, and despite that is show mainly existed to exploit people for such problems, I still think there are no finer words for me to think of right now.  New Years has always been a hard holiday for me personally and that’s not even considering the overall lack of logic that is made by combining a calender and sappy, and often forced human sentiment.

Actually, that last line is the true basis of why it’s hard for me to understand why New Year’s means more than St. Patrick’s Day, and not everyone celebrates it.  Sure it gives people a goal post, and some sort of time marker, but is that time marker really any different than not getting the laundry done by Saturday at any given time.  In between the new year and the old, life does happen and unfortunately other than aging (which is relative, as well) there are some things that we can not possibly change, on and off our roads.

Mostly, I sit at home and mourn the deceased year,  probably in the way that some people (Jews/Muslims) might have issues with an the orbitrary marker when that happens December 25th and shuts down 2/3 the world because of something that their faiths says doesn’t happen.

So we, live and let live.  Not joining in the revery and having a fake grin/smile when people are actually authethentic about is…..wrong.

To Be Continued tomorrow Am.  (I’m tired.)

Chester Kent

Bad Timing

Will the real newstories stand up, and tell the NY Post to shut the eff up….

Will the real newstories stand up, and tell the NY Post to shut the eff up…

First – Some things that I like about the NY Post.

You can buy it for like a quarter (or I think inflation has driven it to 50 cents.)  They provide free copies to the kids at school.  They have 2 different Sudoku’s, one for those just learning, and one for those who have run out of things to do but try to play logic games with themselves.  The NY Daily Police Blotter is kind of cool.   It also has pretty pictures.

Next – Some things I dislike about the NY Post.

It lacks intergrity, or class.  I mean, it basically is the Daily Bugle from Spiderman comics.  Everything seems to be about sensational journalism.  The staff is actually employed.  It is poorly written.  It dislikes teachers, and especially the teacher’s union.  They provide free copies to the kids.

When I [read this article from the NY Post online this morning,] I was both shocked and awed.  No, it’s not the school scandal, which by the way to me isn’t a serious issue.  I mean, when you here that there were two females in a classroom, naked and neither of them was a child being abused or mislead; that the two women were in fact adults, it’s not that big of a deal.  Was it a stupid move for these women to trysts at school?  Yes.  Should they be tarred in feathered by random strangers?  Maybe, I don’t know either of them personally. Would this have been an issue if it were male-female?  Not really, but probably debatable later.  Anyway, my issues came from the fact that the reporter of this article decided that the best way to characterizes these two women would be to let their STUDENT’S do it.   For instance,

“[Ms. Mauro] was pretty fun,” said junior Eddie Ramirez, 18.

“She dressed like a teenage girl – she’d wear low-cut tops, shorts, three-quarter length jeans. She was kinda sexy.

“You could see that she was the kind of person who would flirt.”

So….who is Eddie Ramirez to be a character witness.  Instantly, I now have the idea that Ms. Mauro was a slut, and deserves whatever job and std that she gets.  Eh. Lying. Joking.  I mean, should I really be listening to the opinions of an 18 year old junior?  Besides how does he know so much about women’s clothing?  Instead of obtaining the actual documents pertaining to this case,  the reporter elects to write an article that basically quotes teenagers, and Facebook, while destroying these ladies professional careers.  To me that feels like watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy to ascertain what it’s like to be a doctor, instead of taking the time and care to furter fostering or refining y0ur ideas.

[Chester Kent.]

I wish “Tenure” applied to life realistically.

I wish “Tenure” applied to life realistically  -  11-30-09

Sorry that I have been away for so long.  Yes, I’m aware that I’m going to be playing catch-up hardcore to even try to get things up to date.  But I will admit King Bloomberg being coronated again for another 4 years is fucking annoying.  Just in concept.  From there it umbrellas out in a shit storm of fallacies, bureaucracy, and the triumph of the almighty dollar.  Except tons of folks aren’t making that dollar, and I’m including myself in that club.  Or rather the fraternity  of Broke FI Broke  and their chant “We broke, we broke, broke fi broke….WE AIN’T GOT IT!!!”(Kudos to Kanye West for doing something inane yet so pointed.)

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I thought of a few things to keep this blog sparked.  There’s enough turmoil in the education field that I don’t have to worry about finding something to write about in a commentary kind of way.  For instance, teacher’s evaluations, tenure, NYC ATR pool, the power of Joel Klein or his possible replacement, class size and again “tenure.” Which the NY TIMES wrote a pretty decent article about which you can [read here].  This particular journalist recognizes the furor that other papers such as the NY POST or Daily News haven’t caught onto.  Thinking that I may actually do a few comparisons of how certain events are skewered by an ineffective, and overly opinionated sense of sensationalism.

I’m still trying to think of a way to include my own personal poetry or writing, along side the lesson plans and ideas I plan on posting.  In many other ways, I think that they may actually get their own space on Blogspot or whatever is functioning as the NU-GEOCITIES of the day such that they have their own room to not be connected insofar as directly with my renewed aim and purpose  However, I want to get it out there for myself, because with so much time on my hands, I’m starting to get antsy about using this time in a positive sort of way.

When I sub though, I will be completely and utterly posting all the rich, and gritty details in as close to a real time format.  So, yeah.  Tentatively, back on regular basis.

Direct Links (for reposts)

NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/education/26teachers.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1259244253-Tp65HsZ9M+Jvq9m/Lu0M0Q