A rant? Of desperation? Of hope?

Two nights ago, the best high school basketball players in the country played in what’s called, “The McDonald’s High School All America Basketball game.” This reminded me of a story. Both triumph and tragedy. But of course.
Several years ago I received a long term substitute teaching assignment at a high school teaching Geometry and Math Enrichment. That first morning I walked into a room missing one-third of its ceiling. The interior walls had been peeled off. There were no keys left on any of the six computers’ keyboards. The kids were complaining about how the government once again just doesn’t give a shit. “Why are we always, always screwed by the government?” they would ask. I spent the next several weeks both in a rage at this country for how it could continually perpetrate this crime, and devastated for these purely innocent victims. One day my curiosity got the better of me. “Just how long has this room been so decrepit? How long has this injustice lasted?” I asked a student.
“Oh, the second period guys did it around November.”
Sucker! The only thing I felt for days. Sucker. These kids did it to themselves and had the gall to place all blame elsewhere.
All the halls of my new school were repainted six months ago.
Hell no, you couldn’t tell now!
Paint’s torn off. Gang insignia and marker writing covers the walls of each corridor. Half the floors in the rooms of my wing were scrubbed and waxed spotless, as well. Their desks buffed free of any marking.
Hell no, you couldn’t tell now!
Seats, desks, floors, walls, and in two rooms, ceilings contain gang markings. Even the non-gang members get into the act with their own versions of “Joanie loves Chachi” all over the damn place.
Two weeks ago I needed to take over a classroom during my prep period for a teacher that had broken down crying. She was done having her face smushed in by the hand of a fourteen year old. She was done being called a bitch. A cunt. A loser. A fuckface. Done being asked, “So, how much longer do you expect to live, teaching here?”
I asked the students if they knew: people come from all over the world to teach in the inner cities of Los Angeles. People take pay cuts to try to help these underprivileged youth. Some of the smartest people in the world. And they all have something in common, these brave souls.
No, it’s not that they all quit on you, as you told me I had when I threw up my hands and said, “This isn’t worth it.” I was going to school at night and only being paid sub wages to teach people ripping up my lessons every day. No one really ever quits on you. You never let them start!
Yup, after you’ve stolen enough of their property; thrown paint on their clothes; cursed them out; told them they should “watch their step;” they say, “enough, I’m going to teach somewhere else.” “I’m going to teach, for god’s sake!”
Soon, you will learn to repeat the same damn mantra just like the high school-ers. Every time there aren’t enough teachers to teach all the classes and they need to be filled by day-to-day substitutes, or a hallway becomes too decrepit to bare, you will shout: Everybody screws us! Everybody screws us! Everybody screws us!
No, there is no greater harm being done to you nowadays than the harm you are doing to yourselves, and to those who care so much for you.
So, why triumph?
Because one of the players in that game several days ago had been at my high school. But he and his mother could not accept classes where learning was impossible. A place where education was not even an afterthought in the children’s lives, rather an intrusion. And this young man used his athletic prowess to its fullest advantage. He transferred. To a better basketball school? Maybe. But I was there when he and his mom, a secretary there, made that final decision. And I know that it was about his education. He would leave, and finally he would get one.

Don't you give me "Merit Pay!"

Poor communities are filled with multiple families living in single apartments, whereas those living in lower middle class communities and above live one family to a home. Those living in poor communities are far more transient than their wealthier counterparts. It’s not uncommon for a teacher to begin and end the year with thirty students, yet one third of their initial students have left and been replaced by others. Some kids are gone to Mexico. Some leave to live with an uncle in Alabama. Or maybe it’s grandma for two months in Riverside, an aunt for four months in Sacramento, and finally, after mom’s gotten out of the joint, a couple of months together back in Bakersfield, in a Single Room Occupancy hotel.
There are those whose lives are not as transient, yet their schooling is infinitely more fragmented.
There are those who live like Michael.
Michael was a student of mine several years ago, when I taught fifth grade. He was extremely bright and incredibly street smart for a kid of his age. However, as the year progressed he slowly slid from the top writer in the class to the middle and below. Actually, ‘slid’ is not the right word. His descent was shaped more along the lines of a gradual staircase. That’s because Michael would come to school for a few weeks and then disappear, sometimes for weeks on end, in order to panhandle for his mother. This cycle persisted until his mother up and left with the kids without a moment's notice.
Students would show for class, “we just saw Michael begging at the 99cents store.”
At some point teachers raised a bit of money to give to Michael’s mom. I’ll never forget hearing the story of her coming in to complain about her younger son’s poor grades, wearing a brand spankin' new $150 jacket. Michael didn’t come to watch his ungrateful mother scream and shout about those devilish teachers. He wasn’t in school that day.
Rosa, one of my star pupils was absent a lot that year, as well. Her brother, a year older, but also in the fifth grade, hardly ever missed a day. It’s not that Rosa was often sick. It’s that her mother was. Whenever Rosa’s mother fell ill, it was her responsibility to care for the young ones. Whenever her mother had an appointment, it was Rosa who would stay home to play mommy. After Rosa missed an entire week I asked if maybe her brother could pull a day of daddy duty. “No,” she informed me. “It’s the woman’s job.”

What?! You Expected Miracles? Or Books.

Mr. J works across the hall. He, like me, arrived midyear and was thrown into a classroom without a minute and a half of prep. “Do High-Point (Textbook) Level A” was all the instruction he got.
OK, great, where do I pick up the books?
We don’t have any.
Well then how am I supposed to teach it?
First day. Fewer questions.
Mr. J created his own program. He taught chess one day a week. Taught a bit of Shakespeare, from dumbed down synopsizes and films starring Leonardo Dicaprio. And he also taught ten minutes a day of High Point level A from the one textbook he was able to find.
My second week, he caught me walking into my classroom with a cart full of Level B textbooks and asked where I got them. “The librarian has them.” “When I asked to check for level A, she told me to fuck off.”
The librarian has a bad side and it seems to come out most when you ask to check out textbooks. She doesn’t like teachers taking out textbooks. Then she has to collect them all at the end of the year and code and stock them. And let’s face, that’s a headache she just don’t need. So if you want a class set of textbooks you have to prove to her that you’re worthy. I’m batting about 33% for texts I’ve requested. I hear that’s pretty darn high.

Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left to Lose

They’re gone. Forever gone from Davis Middle School. They took Antonio today; Roberto went yesterday. For pot. The cops hauled them off to jail and then they were expelled.
I mean... for smoking dope?!
They were two of my favorite students. Nowhere near the best. Actually, they were both probably failing, on account of their incapability to show up before 8:30 for an 8:00 to 8:50 first period class. But, heck, if not for my older brothers ripping the sheets off my back, and my mother driving me after I’d missed the bus, I’d never had made it to school before ten. They don’t have those kinds of older brothers. And the mothers...
They’re both thirteen, maybe fourteen by now. Antonio told me once before that his oldest brother would be getting out of jail in El Salvador soon and making his way back up to Compton. Once there he’d pretty much just hang out until their stepfather was released from prison. Then, he’d kill him. Apparently the man has it coming for beating their ma while the son was locked away El Sal for triple homicide.
Antonio is just a cool, laid back dude with not an ounce of rage or hate at all. But he’s about to take a turn to a life of crap. Then again, maybe it’s not a turn. Maybe he’s been headed straight there since the day he was born.
I asked him what school he wanted to be transferred to. His options were limited. He’ll be killed, or at the very least have to fight for his - whatever it is they fight for (honor?!) if they sent him to one area. He’s Latino. That place is not. I told him that I could make calls. Maybe get him into a better school. He’s smart. Not well educated. Smart. But he said, nah. There are other schools. Not close by, but schools nonetheless.
He’s done. He’s droppin’ out.
His ma needs him to drop out anyways. He feels the pressure to help her make ends meet. She’s saddled up with too many kids that she doesn’t do anything but hang around the house all day. Visions of her wandering about the place, children of various ages sucking from her teats, hanging like Christmas ornaments. Damn the government! They don’t pay her enough to live off making babies.
He’s going to go to work full time. He’s going to do what his stepfather taught him, and what he’s been doing on a part-time basis while going to school. He’s gonna jack cars. Full time. For his ma. Because without asking him to, she’s begging him to.
Roberto, well, I don’t know as much about his home life, except for the fact that it is so wonderful he’s been living on Antonio’ couch all year. His mom, as Antonio once put it, “is way fucked up. Don’t even ask... just a bad bad person.”
Ten years from now I’m going to hate Antonio, just as I hate all the 25-year-old Antonio’s in the world today.
But when he’s sitting in the pen... or when he’s killed in a shootout like Arturo’s older bro... I want to blame someone. I want to smack his mom for ruining his life. I want to kick the shit out of the people who think it’s better to kick him out of school for smoking dope, not caring about the consequences.
But I’m really not angry.
Like my acting teacher once said, “Anger is superficial. When it hits you that hard the response must be deeper than that.”

Shocked I Tell You! I am Absolutely Shocked!

Perhaps Antonio isn’t the little muffin of loving kindness I thought him to be. Turns out that he is one of those hardcore guys whom, as the kiddies in the sandlot like to say, “Will kill you at the drop of a hat.” Funny, I mean one of his best friends even said to me, “If you thinks he’s that nice, then you don’t know him well enough.”
Hmmm, and I couldn’t wait to get to know him better...
(I’ve never heard anyone say, “I’m a pretty bad judge of character.” Well, I am not one of those people. I’ll say it unequivocally. “When it comes to men, women, and sometimes even dogs, my instinctual judge of character pretty much sucks.”)
“13 is back” tags appeared all over my classroom today and I became a bit confused. Had MS13 gone anywhere? The biggest, most violent prison gang on two continents. Were they on hiatus? Writers’ strike got them down? It wasn’t until the end of the day that Erick told me it was a reference to Antonio and Roberto.
Yeah, man, you can take one or two of our fourteen-year-old leaders, but you can’t keep us down forever. So, after an afternoon? of defeat, MS13 decided to announce it was back.
It was on Antonio’ orders, too.
Arturo, who I caught tagging the desk - I always thought he was more of a leader than that - was shocked when I turned him in. He swore up and down that he’d only ever tagged in pencil. Uh, isn’t the whole point of tagging to leave your mark? To say ‘I own this property, area, etc.’ Pencil... really? What are you saying there? I’m just leasing for the time being.
He swore that I was wrong and he was being suspended for a week and put on after-school detention, cleaning up tagging, for the remainder of the year. Yet, he wasn’t mad with me at all. Might be because he was high as a kite.
Arturo is an interesting dude. Every time I see him for fifth period he says, “nah, man. My eyes are always like this.” and every time I tell him, “they weren’t like this when I had you third period, not even an hour or so ago.” And every time he says, “oh yeah, right, yeah.” “Promise you won’t tell…” And I do, because if you think suspending or kicking a kid out of middle school for smoking pot is the answer, you’re a fool. The kid’s been getting high every damn day since he was eight, by the way.
Arturo’s a cool dude. He looks like he’s about to throw down any second, but he’s actually pretty chill.
He wants out but doesn’t think he can ever get there. He’s pretty much just waiting to get stomped by Antonio, Roberto, and one or two other of the local 13’s. He’s already Long Beach, but since he’s moved it’s necessary to be initiated once again. Like, duh!
I asked Arturo about stealing cars. He couldn’t believe Antonio had told me about it. He said it’s pretty damn easy, though.
Gosh, I’m thinking I really need to reconsider what I do for a living. I mean, if car jacking had good medical and dental attached, who knows?

Oh, How Sweet it is!

Danny-don’t call me Daniel -- no, I’ll call you Daniel, Daniel. Heck, I’ll even call your mom Daniel, Daniel, wasn’t in school this week.

For starters, I should say that it’s really not a matter of Daniel and I not getting along. It’s that I hate him. There’s this ultra-liberal bullshit creed, “there are no bad children.” Really? I’ll give you fifteen minutes alone with Daniel. You’ll come back saying, “There are no bad children. I stabbed Daniel.”

Daniel couldn’t make it in this week. He’s in lock-up. Juvie-jail. Whatever they call it. Let this be a lesson, children: don’t try to break into homes when you can barely break into a bag of chips.
Trey got busted, too. He might not be coming around much anymore. Apparently that minor crime of breaking and entering was a violation of his parole. Not probation. Parole.

Fourteen! That Trey. Such a go-getter!

I never really had a problem with Trey. He’d just sit in the back of my class and talk, but his voice was soft and didn’t carry very far so we were cool. Other kids said he was bad news. Perhaps they were referring to that parole thing.
Always the last to know...

Is That a Rant I See Before Me?

In this bizarre political climate, in the Democratic Party alone, I take the time to tell a story about the Patronizing Racist White Liberal.

A few years ago, David Stern, the NBA commissioner enacted a dress code for all players. They had to dress as “professionals.” This included dress shirt and tie, or sweater, blazer, slacks, and shoes.
Many in the white liberal community were up in arms, calling Stern a racist. ESPN Radio’s white hosts were merciless. Maybe, these people claimed, baggy pants and chains and cornrows are the black community’s business attire. The Patronizing Racist White Liberal is utterly oblivious to the racism in their statement, as well as where the statement comes from. A belief in the inferiority of the black community. Their statement is equivalent to saying, “well, they don’t know any better. We must set different rules for them.”
That fall I substituted at Compton High School. The new football coach, a young black man, came with lofty goals. To turn Compton's football team from a laughing stock to a powerhouse. He was taking over a team that hadn't had a winning season in over a decade. He would instill his players with pride. One of his very first rules: You act like a professional. You dress like a professional. Every game day: dress shirt and tie. Slacks and shoes. You do this. Or you do not play.