Old Age and Treachery...

...the saying says, beat youth and enthusiasm every time. I don't know the precise moment at which I turned evil, but ever since I did that saying has made more sense every day. Yet the other day I was unsettled by something that threatened my core beliefs.

My daughter's very close with her 11-year-old cousin, and has been all her life. Now she also has a 16-month-old cousin who everyone dotes on. Sometimes, though, on very important occasions, the older children need time to themselves. Such occasions, like the purchase of a new video game, require total concentration. They can no longer afford to applaud, or even be amused when the child points and says, "Dog." It doesn't even matter whether or not he correctly identifies a dog, and correcting him if he didn't is utterly out of the question. So they pick him up and bring him to the kitchen, where the adults are drinking coffee.

Now my wife is not nearly as evil as I am. But observing the kids turning the little one away, who could resist the temptation to turn him around and urge him to play with the older kids? Certainly, he'd rather be with them than us anytime. So this dance went on for a few rounds, with the confused toddler going back and forth, until my 11-year-old nephew decided it had gone on long enough, and threw down the gauntlet.

He came right into the kitchen, and did not say a word to any of us, having determined (correctly) that we were now the enemy and that further negotiation would be a waste of energy and valuable video-game time. He picked up the child's chair and plunked it directly in front of the TV.

Then he strapped the child into the chair, gave him a bottle of juice, and an unconnected video-game control. He and my daughter played the video game, the 16-month old sat contentedly thinking he was playing too, and this battle was over.

But the war continues.

The Best

I really hope some teachers disagree with me, but I think the best thing to teach is ESL.

The kids really, really need to learn what you offer immediately (if not sooner), and in most cases you see very rapid progress. Some of my colleagues hate to teach beginners, but I love it. There's nothing quite like watching kids go from mute to conversational in a matter of months. There's nothing like watching them open up.

I have one girl who's been here a very short time, and who sadly got dumped into my regents prep class. She's very small, and she sits next to a guy who looks like a professional boxer. Oddly, she hits him all the time. I tell her to stop, but she says, "No, in China, hit means love." I don't know about that, but the guy who sits next to her clearly enjoys her attention.

The other day, he didn't show up. I said, "Sandra, did you finally kill Raymond?"

"No," she answered, "Not yet."

It's a little morbid, I guess, but it's a remarkable response from someone so new.

Last week I was out one day. My beginners questioned me closely to find out if I was cutting. They didn't believe me when I told them I saw a doctor. As it happened, I had a medical note, which I pulled out of my pocket and showed them. For a moment there was silence.

Then a girl who rarely speaks raised her hand and asked, "Do you want us to sign it?"

I couldn't stop laughing. It's remarkable to hear wit bordering on sarcasm from a kid who barely spoke a few months ago.

Do you love your subject as much as I love mine? I hope you do.

Why?

Time Waits for No One

Sebastian is on his own schedule. He lives two blocks from the school, but can never seem to make it on time. Sometimes he's five minutes late, sometimes ten. Sometimes he's twenty minutes late, and sometimes thirty. I've called his house a few times, and his mom says this will change. Somehow it never does.

Sometimes he's late because it's raining. After all, how can you get anywhere on time in the rain? Sometimes he's late because it isn't raining. It's hard to find those trailers when it isn't raining. There's no water dripping off them, and there aren't any puddles to navigate. Or sometimes it's cold and who can move quickly in the cold?

Strangely, all my other students make it on time. I myself am there an hour before this class even begins, so it's hard for me to be as sympathetic as I should. In fact, yesterday, when Sebastian arrived 40 minutes late, I wasn't sympathetic at all. I was helping another kid, and Sebastian helpfully brought over the attendance sheet so I could mark him present.

"You're absent," I told him, and sent the sheet to the attendance office as a monument to the event.

This sparked a vehement protest on Sebastian's part. Then I was suddenly inspired. In our school, kids who come late are issued passes with their ID pictures and numbers. These passes are generally a waste of paper, and I generally toss them into the wastepaper basket. But a lot of kids just forget them entirely and come to the trailers directly.

"I'm sorry, Sebastian," I said, "but I can't admit you without a late pass."

After that, he was off. And with just two minutes left in the period, I got a call from the attendance office. Apparently Sebastian, tapping into his creative side, asked the ladies in the office if they would mark him present, as his teacher had mistakenly marked him absent.

"He's not here," I told them.

It's too bad a resourceful, quick-thinking kid like this can't direct his energies toward getting out of bed on time. I may not be as imaginative as Sebastian, but if he wants to pass my class, I really can't come up with an alternative.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Ever since I began teaching, I've gone to meetings, received memos, and been offered countless tidbits of wisdom about how to deal with open school night. Usually, they're horrifying, and I imagine the parents will arrive heavily armed to threaten our lives. Or perhaps they'll simply kill us all and be done with it. However, even when I taught special ed., that sort of thing never happened.

As an ESL teacher, I don't get that many parents. Perhaps they're worried we can't find a translator. At the table next to mine a woman was explaining to my colleague that she was pushing her son, who'd been here for six months, to become a pharmacist. Therefore, it was absolutely imperative that he score 2100 on the SATs. My colleague kept trying to tell her that perhaps first, he ought to try passing ESL 2 with an 80 rather than a 75.

I had a very different conflict. A very good beginning student of mine arrived with her mom and her brother, who appeared all of six years old. He spoke English very well.

"I'm Charles!" he declared.

I greeted him, and he informed me he had a card, which he proceeded to remove from his hat so I could examine it. It had a lot of Chinese writing on it and I didn't understand it at all, but I told Charles I thought it was a great card. He then happily replaced it in his hat, and put the hat back on his head.

I told the mom that her daughter was doing great work and getting excellent grades, and that she ought to try to practice English more outside of class. I then made the egregious error of suggesting she practice with her little brother.

Charles was livid. "I'm not a little brother!"

Drawing on all the skills I had acquired from all the memos and meetings, I corrected myself. "Maybe you could practice English with your big brother," I said. Charles beamed, and the looming catastrophe was averted.

But it was a slow night indeed. One of my colleagues suggested that she had interviewed five parents, and that any teacher who'd reached this milestone could go home. It took me some time, but I hit the mark. Being a responsible pedagogue, I queried my supervisor about this rule. She said that I needed at least seven, and suggested further that if I did not reach that lofty goal, I'd have to stay in the building all night.

It was rapidly approaching closing time, and this posed a problem for me. Thinking fast, I asked a colleague if she'd lend me two of hers. "Sure," she said. But when I told my supervisor, she said borrowed parents were two for one, and that I needed two more. Fortunately, I was able to borrow them from someone else at the last minute.

But she says next year I'm gonna owe her.

The Downside of Reading

Harold's in 4th grade, and his mom has to force him to read. He reads the books, and does his reports, but now his mom has other worries. It started on Saturday, while they were out to lunch. All of a sudden he stopped eating and looked at her very seriously. He paused for a moment.

"Mom," he said, "I want a very special card for my birthday."

"I think we can do that, Harold," she replied.

Then there was another pause, a longer one this time.

"Mom," he began, "I also want a very special present."

"What is it you want, Harold?" she asked.

"I want a jet pack."

"You want a what?"

A jet pack, Mom. Like the boy in the book had."

"But you can't just buy a jet pack, Harold."

"Yes you can, Mom. My friend says he saw one in Target."

"Why do you need a jet pack, Harold?"

"So I can visit Grandma in California."

"Okay, Harold. We'll go to Target right now. But I have to warn you, the jet pack may not get you to California."

After a very, very thorough search of their local Target store, neither Mom nor Harold encountered a jet pack of any kind. Fortunately, Harold called Grandma to give her the bad news. Grandma promised Harold she'd get him a jet pack before he visits this summer.

Harold can't wait.

Writing Hour

William likes to write. A lot of kids don't, but William does. And he's lucky too, because his teacher, Miss Stacy, has the class write every day. Last week, though, something strange happened. Miss Stacy got a phone call in the middle of writing hour. Her face turned a funny color, and she looked a little worried.

How could William have known that Chancellor Klein had come to visit, and that he'd chosen to observe his class? How could he know that Miss Stacy worried the Chancellor might not want to watch a bunch of kids writing? So when Miss Stacy told the class to come sit in a circle on the rug, he had no idea how cute she thought the class would look if she read them a story and had them ask questions.

"Please stop writing and come sit on the rug," said Miss Stacy.

"I'm not finished," said William.

"That's okay," she replied.

"It's not okay. I'm not finished. We always get to finish."

"Today is special," said Miss Stacy. "You can stop now and finish later."

"I'm writing until I finish," said William definitively.

No coaxing or pleading would move William, and thus, William did not move. At long last, Miss Stacy was able to persuade him to see the counselor.

"I'm gonna finish my story," he told the counselor.

"But sometimes we have to change our plans," she said.

"Maybe. But I'm not sitting on the rug till I finish my story," he told her.

The counselor let William finish his story while she called his mother. William missed the Chancellor's visit, and he missed story time too.

The counselor explained the entire situation, and asked the mother to speak to him.

"What do I need to speak to him about?" she asked. "Why couldn't Miss Stacy have let him finish his story?"

"Sometimes we have to do different things," the counselor replied.

"Listen," said the mother, "If my kid copies homework, or gets in a fight, or cuts class, you call me. I'll make sure it never happens again. But if his teacher tells him to write a story, and he wants to do it, I don't see how he's done anything wrong. I'm not going to criticize him for that. Absolutely not."

The counselor said thank you. As William was finished with his story, she sent him back to class. She wasn't exactly happy, and neither was Miss Stacy. But after he finished his story, William was very happy. It came out just the way he wanted. And both Miss Stacy and his mom said they loved it.

What more could a writer ask?

Love and Justice

"Mr. Educator, I'm really upset with my Mom."

"I'm sorry to hear that. What's the matter?"

"Well, my boyfriend is so sweet and gentle, but she just hates him. I can't understand it."

"Do I know him?"

"Well, no, he doesn't go to school here."

'Where does he go?"

"Well, right now he's in Riker's."

"What's he doing there?"

"Well, he's in there for extortion with a weapon."

"Hmm...maybe that's why your mom doesn't like him...."

"No, he's so sweet. You'd understand if you knew him..."

Jasmin

She was from Bangladesh, and she had two sisters. She was the oldest, and the brightest.

The next sister was a year younger, and also bright.

The youngest sister, I'm afraid, was simply not in the same league.

When they took the NYC LAB English proficiency test, they scored precisely as I'd have expected, Jasmin highest, the middle sister in the middle, and the youngest lower. But only the youngest, the least capable, was placed in regular English.

That's because NYC had determined that the younger you were, the more difficult it is to learn a language. Reality dictates precisely the opposite.

But testing does bring out life's little ironies.

Jasmin wanted to be an English teacher. That was too much for her father, who took her out of the country and forced her to become a doctor (or at least planned to).

I hope she's well. I hope she's happy. You can never know about some kids.

I'm Not from Jersey

Of course I'm not, and would I even admit it if I were? Probably not.

But our local conflicts pale next to those of our Eastern counterparts.

When distributing the student surveys for our esteemed chancellor, I had four flavors--Chinese, English, Korean, and Spanish. I distributed them according to primary language, and walked around the room announcing which language each kid was getting.

"Chinese," I said to one kid, and he got very upset.

"I'm not Chinese!" he objected.

"Do you want Spanish?" I asked (I had extras in Spanish).

"No."

"How about Korean?"

"No."

"Do you want to do the survey in English?" I asked. Fine with me. It sounded like good practice, even though this wasn't technically a teaching activity.

"No."

"Well, it's Chinese, then."

"I'm not Chinese!"

You see, the boy was from Taiwan. In Taiwan, they're taught they aren't Chinese, and it's a big deal to kids like this one. But still, whatever they call themselves, and whatever language they speak, they actually read and write in Chinese.

"Well, you don't have to be Chinese. But this is written in Chinese. Can you read it?"

"Of course."

"Then please fill it out for me," I told him.

The kids seem to get along pretty well, whether they come from the mainland or Taiwan. But don't tell the Taiwanese kids they're from China. Hard to understand, isn't it?

I have a lot of friends from Jersey, and I'll probably have to go there on Saturday. But don't ever accuse me of coming from Jersey. Now that makes perfect sense.

God Bless the First Amendment

It's alive and well, but I've taught my students it no longer applies once they enter my classroom.

The other morning, one of my students walked in with a very tight-fitting blouse announcing, "You can't be the first, but you can be next."

I asked her if she'd considered that message, and it appeared she had. I told her if my daughter came home wearing such a thing she would be in mortal danger.

"You wouldn't kill your daughter, Meester."

"No, but I'd burn the shirt for sure."

But clearly that wasn't the appropriate move while the kid was wearing it, so I taught my lesson and forgot about it.

The next period, a young man walked in ten minutes late wearing a shirt with a huge middle finger emblazoned on it. Under the finger it said, "Yankees."

I'm indifferent to baseball, but I decided right then and there that was beyond the pale (Some of my colleagues suggested it would have been acceptable had it said "Mets"). I noticed he was wearing a white T-shirt under the huge finger. I told him he couldn't wear that shirt in my class.

"I already am."

"You're gonna have to go into the bathroom and take it off if you want to stay here."

"No."

The problem with giving ultimatums to kids is you really must follow through. I called the dean's office, and the secretary insisted on talking to him. She tried to persuade him to turn it inside-out, but he refused (but isn't she great for trying?). She then sent security guards.

While they were coming, I called the young man's father. He asked to speak to his son. The security guards arrived, and I asked them to wait. The father told him to take the shirt off. No dice.

Now dad's gotta come to school and pick up the shirt. And it grieves me deeply to admit my ten-year record of not throwing kids out is broken (I don't count the clearly sick kid I forced to go to the nurse's office).

It may be my fault. As this kid is borderline passing (and till recently I was inclined to give him 65), I failed to mention his possible grade reduction before calling the dean. I'll never know whether I could have avoided this with just a gentle little veiled threat, and that bugs the hell out of me.

Still, though, it's much better that I carried through with my threat. Had I not done so, future threats would be worthless. If you're young, rest assured that being a teacher is the best possible training you could ever have for being a parent.

On Livestock

In my morning class, we were discussing similes, and the book suggested "strong as a bull/ ox. I told the kids "strong as an ox" was more commonly used (One colleague agreed, while another did not. If you have any opinions, I'd love to hear them).

One kid asked, " What's an ox?"

"It's a kind of bull, I think," I replied.

"Are bulls cows?"

"No, Jaehi. Cows are cows. Bulls are bulls."

"How do they have babies then?"

"Well, the cows and bulls get together, and they have babies."

"Why can't the cows just go with other cows?"

"Because the cows can't make babies by themselves."

"Why not?"

"You need a bull. Bulls are boys, and cows are girls."

"Well, what about cowboys?"

"Well, Juan, cowboys are boys. But they don't go out with cows. They go out with girls."

"Well, I saw a movie on cable where the cowboy went with another cowboy."

"Maybe he did, Gloria, but they couldn't make babies either."

En boca cerrada, no entran moscas*

I told my students we'd be filling in DoE surveys this week. My kids don't speak a lot of English, so it takes a little while to explain.

"Surveys are wack to the heck," observed Paulo.

"What the heck does wack to the heck mean?" I asked.

"You're supposed to know that." Maria informed me. "You're the teacher."

She had me there. But then I remembered what my daughter had told me.

"You're wrong, Maria. That's slang and slang is for kids."

Much discussion ensued about who exactly was supposed to know what exactly. We finally decided to go to the source, and asked Paulo what he meant.

"I don't know, teacher." he confessed. "I just opened my mouth, and it came out."

Things like that used to happen to me a lot, too. When I became a teacher, I really had to work on stopping it. It's even rougher, though, for kids just learning English. Apparently, sometimes even they themselves don't know what they're talking about.

They'll get it, though, if we give them a little time and patience.

*Roughly, if you keep your mouth shut, flies won't get in.

Related: See what a city parent thinks should be on the parent survey.

If All Government Leaders Were Women

"There would be no more war. Women don't like war."

"What if you were attacked?"

"We wouldn't be. Women don't do that. We're smarter than that."

"But lots of women have been heads of state, and there's always been conflict."

"That's because men controlled the other countries. Men are always running around doing all kinds of stupid things."

"Okay, fine. Men are crazy and just make problems. We can't do anything right. But if that's true, why do so many women like men? I mean, if women didn't like men, we wouldn't be here. Why do women go on dates with men, and get dressed up, and marry them, even?"

"We just want to help you."

To Push or Not to Push

It's parent-teacher conference time here in the Big Apple. Invariably, all the parents of our students with averages of 95 and above show up (often as not to inquire why they haven't earned 96 and above). I tell them their kids are great, and often ask what their secret is.

I'm confident that if I could identify and bottle this secret, I'd become so fabulously wealthy I could quit teaching altogether. I could then spend my time cultivating the odious vices I've always aspired to.

So what's their secret?

One parent rolls his eyes upward and points toward heaven, refusing to take personal credit for his daughter. But a succession of others tell me, "You have to push them. That's the secret." Some, when presented with minor flaws in their kids, who have received 90 or above, negotiate with me. "You push them to do this, and I'll push them to do that." I agree, and make mental notes of who I have to push to do what.

Others, however, see things differently. "I want to push him, but if I push him too far, he'll fall down." I'm always cognizant of a young Korean woman who attended one of my college classes. She told me her parents had pushed her to practice piano 2 hours a day for ten years. She could play very well, she said, but the thing she loved most about being in the United States was that she didn't have to play at all.

It wasn't until she came here that it dawned on her she absolutely hated playing the piano.

Arm of Coats

It's morning, and the trailer is cold, cold, cold. Fortunately, we have a thermostat. I get there early to turn it on, but no one appreciates my efforts.

Bob, sitting in his $400 North Face jacket, supplemented by a heavy sweatshirt, complains it's too hot. His neighbor, Maria, wearing an arctic parka, a heavy wool sweater, and a long scarf (she's removed her floppy-eared woolen hat in deference to school rules), concurs. "Ay, meester, turn the heat down."

They're shocked when I tell them to take their jackets off, and they sit there as though I'd just instructed them to eat ten pounds of dirt. I don't have my coat on, and it's still a little cold in there. I stand my ground and damn the consequences.

On principle, they refuse to take off their jackets, and appear sullen and disappointed for much of the period, particularly mid-class, when it starts to get really warm. Perhaps there's no point in having a $400 coat if people don't see you wearing it every waking moment of your life.

With changing weather on the horizon, though, they may soon have little choice.

Modern Times

We're doing a dialogue and I'm trying to cast a male part.

Jenny begins waving her hand frantically, saying "Me, me, I'll do it!"

"But this is a man's part, Jenny. You're not qualified."

"Oh, mister," she says, "Things aren't like that anymore."

My Faith Is Tested

Sandra is personable and charming. She had a cutting problem in September, but she seemed to work it out, and managed to excel in my class by semester's end. I thought we'd solved this problem.

But this semester she's been missing classes with increasing frequency, and recently disappeared for almost two full weeks. The one time we called her house, there was no answer. When she returned, she told me that her aunt's employee had gone back to her country, and that she'd had to fill in for her at the shop. I decided her aunt belonged in jail. So I went to the guidance counselor, who happens to speak Sandra's language (too bad for her).

It turns out Sandra just made the whole thing up. Maybe she figures since she got away with it in September, she can do it again in March. I have to grudgingly respect that she managed to snooker me, however briefly. But with 22 years experience, I'm still amazed she blamed her family with no regard for potential consequences. My grudging respect will not translate into a grade above 40, and her final average will include all the work she missed those 13 days.

I understand a lot of kids think the first marking period doesn't count. They're wrong, of course. But I really hate when they disappoint me like this.

That's His Story, and He's Sticking to It

My colleague, Ms. Bright, had an unfortunate run-in with a bakery product yesterday.

She was teaching her class when something hit her in the ankle. She looked down, she looked out the door, and for some reason she happened to recognize the special ed. student who threw the thing at her.

She went to the special ed. office and told them, "Brian threw a muffin at me while I was teaching."

"You'd better write it up," they told her.

"Will there be any consequences for Brian?" she asked.

"Probably not," they told her.

"Then I'm not writing it up," she said.

But the folks in special ed. did indeed talk to Brian. In fact they brought him by her classroom to explain.

"That lady is a liar, yo. I wasn't eating a muffin this morning. It was a bagel."

"Brian..." began the special ed. dean.

"No, it's true. I wasn't eating no muffin. It was a bagel."

Clearly Ms. Bright had perpetrated a grave injustice against this young man.

Blatant Discrimination

Sometimes I'm amazed at the things I find when I check homework. Look, this kid got all ten sentences wrong. Wow, here's another kid who made exactly the same ten mistakes. What's the chance of that? And oh my gosh, here's another paper that's exactly the same again.

Boy, I wish I didn't read this stuff. It would certainly help me to become a better teacher by upping my passing rate.

So what to do?

"Say, David, you won't believe this, but Tim had exactly the same answers as you. Isn't that amazing? Also, they're all incorrect and you spelled all the same words wrong. What a coincidence."

"I didn't copy, Mr. Educator."

"Yes, I understand, but maybe Tim copied from you."

"I didn't copy, Mr. Educator."

"Well, I'm not saying you did. But to me, whether you copy from him, or he copies from you, it's all the same."

I usually leave little boxes blank for missing homework, but enter zeros when I catch kids copying. Dave and Tim get zeros.

But now, the bearer of paper no. 3, Linda, is crying. She knows she's caught, and is trying to explain. I restrain myself, gesture her to calm down, and don't discuss it further. But later, another kid says something about cheating, and Linda starts crying again. Linda's usually a good student--she participates, passes tests, and doesn't need to copy.

Two years ago I caught a generally excellent student doing the same thing. Though the evidence was overwhelming, she denied it and didn't speak to me for a year. I decide not to risk this with Linda. I won't tell her I'm mistaken (because I'm not). A few moments later, though, I say this:

"I'm sorry I made you cry, Linda."

She sniffs a few times and says it's alright. I've given both the boys zeros, but not her. She's still with me, at least.

As for the boys, they've learned their lesson--or at least they'll try to cheat more carefully in the future.

The Uniform

During my endless hall patrol, when boredom threatens to jump out of the air and strangle me to death, one of our Chinese teachers often takes pity and speaks to me, thus diverting me from the pointless mind-numbing task UFT President Randi Weingarten has condemned me to perform forever.

Yesterday, she told me that she had to wear a school uniform from first through twelfth grade. When she was selected for college, she was thrilled and had her mother buy her a pair of jeans. She'd wanted one for years and though it cost 25 Chinese dollars (a lot for them at the time), her mom obliged. But when she got to college, a dour-looking matron informed her jeans were prohibited even there.

One of the things she loves about America is the frequency with which she can wear jeans. Another is the fact that, as far as she can tell, it doesn't bother anyone at all.

"Boy," I told her, "I never had to wear a uniform. I'm glad we don't wear uniforms."

"But of course you do," she said.

Just then, four kids walked down the hall. Three of them were wearing black North Face Jackets. One was not.

"Where's your North Face jacket?" she asked the fourth kid.

"I left it in class," she replied.

I recently bought my daughter a full-length down coat at Macy's. I remember marveling that the North Face jacket in her size came only to the waist and cost $200 more.

Anyway, she's right. Our kids do wear uniforms.

And expensive ones too.