Friday, February 25
The week started off with a vacation day and then resumed on Tuesday. Tuesday morning the students were working in cooperative groups and one student was writing notes that requested the reader to contact a specific phone number if they 'liked big dicks.' When I asked the student if this was what she should be working on, she declared, 'I'm not real sure and I don't care.' Clearly she is a future business leader of America. Another student later that day asked me if I was a pimp and if I could 'roll a big phatty for big daddy.' Little did he know that I could roll a big phatty for big daddy in my younger days. I showed my kids a great film on prejudice this week. It was a film by Jane Elliott, a pioneer in educating people on prejudice. The film is set in Iowa where the students are told that brown-eyed children are far superior to those with blue eyes. The next day, she reverses her declaration and the children react accordingly to the labels given to them. My kids were shocked at this video and hopefully it affected at least a few of them. The tiny and nasty rat had only one fumble this week - she made the same announcement four times over the loudspeaker because she did not know how to work the equipment. By the third time she made the statement the kids were cringing and covering their ears.

Tuesday, February 29, 2000
Leap day. We sure as shit are leaping at Shitsville Middle School. Leaping right into the fucking future. At light fucking speed. Mixed emotions and stories abound today. I heard, during the end of the day, that another teacher was belittled by the Toothless Bitch in the office. She had the nerve to tell the teacher that she was 'unprofessional, and nobody liked her.' Sound familiar? Two kids who are tough as nails today came to school crying their eyes out. One kid has a little brother. Or had a little brother. Murdered last night and no one knows why. The other kid was friends with the victim and couldn't reconcile what had happened. I had no answers. And suddenly I realized that just about everything I was trying to teach these kids didn't really matter because these kids were schooled in Survival 101. Who gives a rat's ass about the Missouri Compromise or Abe Lincoln when you have to wake up to physical abuse, wonder where your next meal is coming from and see your little brother get killed right before your eyes. And this white honky cracker is up in front of them trying to tell them a thing or two about how 'important' historical events really are. It makes me rethink everything. Fuck it all! Now I've become just as angry and despondent as some of these kids are. I came into the system with the same idealism that a young lawyer must have; I'm going to throw on my cape and teach these kids something and save the world in the process. But the reality is also darker than I have ever imagined. There are so many obstacles towards making real progress in the classroom that I wonder if I need to change my focus. It's a constant battle with the players as Administrators who chastise those trying to do right, Students who care more about the latest rap records than multiplication tables, Parents who come to school reeking of alcohol, and a system designed for complete and utter failure. Who the fuck are we kidding here - and why did I buy into the myth? Am I angrier about believing in a bullshit lie or about the perpetuation of the lie itself? I've had some time to calm down and review the events that have happened to me at Shitsville and I can only conclude one thing. I still enjoy what I do. I'm not real happy about the environment where I work, but I believe that soon I will get an opportunity to teach elsewhere. The community that I work in is the area where the greatest need is. However, the problems that the community faces on a daily basis are so overwhelming that schools can do little but perpetuate the social misery that exists. I've come to realize that school as a vehicle for social change is a misnomer. A variety of social programs designed to encourage grassroots reform in conjunction with school may be an appropriate area to look at, but as one teacher asked me yesterday, 'who the fuck is really going to change things?' Pessimism abounds. Do I wade my toes in the milk of human intervention and dick around with social theories or do I just jump right in and swim? And if I swim, I really don't prefer to swim unless I'm the best swimmer. So I am stuck. Stuck as a pawn in the system, and not just the school system. So much suffering and pain is out there. The kind of suffering that people just read about in the paper and say, 'that sucks.' But those of us who are idealists - and I think you HAVE to be an idealist to teach, are probably unable to just throw up our arms and say, 'fuck it.' Maybe the only difference, for now, I can make is by reaching those one or two kids in my classroom that actually listen and take notes and want to be somebody. As for the rest, I feel like I'm trying to get a mountain of the disenfranchised and disinterested to suddenly give a shit about things when they haven't had a reason to for a long, long time.

Wednesday, March 1, 2000
It's amazing how magical a fistful of anger can be. If you curl up your hand real tight and then open it and blow away the anger it allows the winds to really blow all of your troubles away. This teacher was hot and irritated today and the kids knew it. I started talking about the Civil War and I realized that the kids really couldn't care less. So I turned the discussion to the rebel flag flying over South Carolina and it's presence on the Georgia and Mississippi flags. The kids suddenly got as hot and irritated as I did. Now we were cooking with gas. The anger was gone and was being transformed into something … something else; A potential mechanism for social change and elevated social conciousness? Hmm…. Say it loud! Now the kids want to talk about the shooting yesterday by a 6 year old boy at school. Interest is piqued. Discussion happens. Ideas are exchanged. Lessons beyond the four classroom walls. Then stuff comes to a screeching halt. The rent a cops come to the door and do a random search. I walk out of the room disgusted with the invasion of privacy that is taking place but know that there is no firm legal ground to stand on. In fact the Supreme Court has upheld this kind of thing before. The rent a cops immediately leave the room and indicate they will not be searching after all because the kids are protesting too loudly and are not willing to comply with the search. So they blame the cool AP for not being able to control the class. They tell him he must make the kids line up. The kids protest even more. Score one for civil disobedience and fuck the rent-a-pigs. Progress reports went out today and the kids who know they are failing still protest in vain. One homework assignment a week and open book tests and you are still failing? Don't even…

Thursday, March 2, 2000
As the scent of a wonderful almost-end-of-the-week smell filled the air, just prior to homeroom beginning, a major fight broke out. Some kids went into the room next door and 'jumped' a boy named Henry. When I say jumped, I mean they kicked his ass real good. About 200 kids poured out of the room to watch the fight. Some later claimed that they had 'front row' to the match of the year. Last year a girl got into a fight with another girl and the loser had her dress pulled up over her head to expose her underwear. Since her underwear was filled with holes, they called her 'Holyfield' for the rest of the term. Yes, a beautiful day in Shitsville was shaping up just right. Just after lunch, several kids decided to show up late for class. One student showed up 25 minutes late but brought in a plate of chicken with him. He sat down and started sucking on the chicken, smacking his lips and mumbling how good the food was. I immediately sent the child out of the room and wrote a referral. Later I saw the child in the AP's office. The AP jokingly asked me if the problem was that I wasn't offered any chicken. Before I could respond the child was asked by the AP if he enjoyed the daytime shows such as Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake. When the child answered that he loved those shows, the AP told him, 'good, cause you are going to have lots of free time during the day over the next week to watch all of your favorite shows, because you are suspended.'

Friday, March 3, 2000
Yesssss!!! Friday rocks! I had my kids start the day by yelling 'It's Friday' at the top of their lungs three times. I think it relieved some of the tension that was building up. I don't know what was in the local water, or whether my recent bitch sessions helped, but a record number of kids turned in their homework today. Even the kids who had an association with the murder turned in the homework and they were in a great mood to boot. One kids brought in a dance cd and begged me to play it in class. I played it and he started to break dance on the floor in the class. Today was the kind of day that makes my job fun; kids dug the learning environment.