Life: Looking Back, Looking Forward

ok

you made me look it up

http://www.sftravel.com/sanfranciscoweather.html

I guess it's a particularly great place to live if you want every curl on your head to be curly

SF is my favorite place on the planet. You're gonna love it Lash. congratulations on all of your accomplishments.

SF area varies almost by block, on any given day, as did the eureka arcata area. That is part of the charm or maybe the desultory despond.

Thank you so much, Swimpy!! So nice to see you!

Beth, it is HELL on my hair. Hell, I tell you.

Master's in May, wonderful!

Getting some hands-on teaching sounds like a great idea, both for the health care and for the been-there-done-that cred. (What do you plan to do with the doctorate?)

Congrats on the engagement too, and SF to boot, I spent my early childhood there and miss it, go back when I can (less since beloved cousins moved away).

I think the main reason for the Dr. is to just immerse in education. The more info I get; the more I want. I don't know how long I can do my tour of duty in public schools...hoping for about 5, 6... I'd like to publish some helpful articles on public school education... ideas about how to facilitate innovation in teaching... how to turn on kids. Diversity issues from what I hope to be a fresh viewpoint... I guess it may be cool to teach teachers in university...if I prove to be up to the task... Really nice to speak to you. How are things with you?

I want to hear more about the implementation of your wonderful lesson plans.

Sounds great!

I'm fine, not a lot to report. Making websites for non-profits, for free so far, thinking I'll maybe start charging especially now that I'm building up a portfolio. (I made this one, and this one...) Being a mom to sozlet-the-smarty. Nine is a weirdish age, good for sure, but some social stuff that's hard to know how to handle from my end (like, whether I should handle it at all [in the sense of advising] or just let her muddle through and be there to listen if she wants to vent).

Very nice to see you around here. I really should check out my A2K FB more often, I don't like toggling back and forth and I use my real-name FB a lot. (Some real-name FB friends I'd love to introduce you to, I bet you'd get a kick out of each other... maybe I'll go ahead and let worlds collide at some point...)

HA! Worlds are colliding!!

Really hot stuff re: your websites! That's cool. Hope you feel like letting some of us take a peek at some point. I'd really love to see your work! I bet I'd get a kick out of your friends!

I cannot beLIEVE sozlet is 9 years old! Betting she's incredible!

Engaged? First Mame; now Lash.

Hope it's not contageous.

Jack didn't ever do anything but love you. It's a hard loss. I'm really sorry to read about it ((lash)).

I am stoked for you otherwise though, man oh man!

Masters AND engagement AND happy children.

I love it.

It makes me *sing*

Thank you, darling! You've always been such a wonderful encourager! How are things with you?

It's winter. I hibernate. So it goes.

So, my first brush with racism in the classroom. I wanted to teach the Harlem Renaissance in the private military school I was assigned to student teach. It is populated by children of wealthier families, and so it shakes out that the white to black ratio is approx 90/10 %. I always give historical context before I start my Literature lessons if it applies in any meaningful way. I did a segment on the Russian Revolution, Stalin, Trotsky and the Spanish Civil War to introduce Animal Farm, so it was a no-brainer to have a day of slavery, Jim Crow and the Great Migration as a foundation for the Renaissance.

I gave a pre-test to get a grip on the reservoire of knowledge I was working with: one child of 18 knew only that Jim Crow was a set of laws. These are the highest performing students in 9th grade. I remembered only hearing about George washington Carver in school. As far as I knew, he was the only black to ever contribute anything to America. It's 2010. I was astonished.

Let me state very clearly that my first period class was furious with me for presenting this material. It did, however, open pathways of new information that was desperately needed. One of my white students said that I was no longer her teacher...she said in earshot of her black peers that the school should return to segregation, making sure to use the term nigger while she was doing it. The upshot is that her peers reported her, and she was counseled. The teachers that spoke to me about it said they were shocked that she had such feelings--an honor student and in positions of honor and power among the student body.

I can't TELL you the myriad of thoughts I've had about this since. Anyhoo, glad I went through with it. Amazing in this day.

I should follow up by saying when my other classes heard about the hoopla, they circled the wagons around me and were raptly engaged in the material. I used a rap video and a song by the BlackEyed Peas that played over a cartoon about the Middle Passage to make it a bit ontemporary for them. The rap video was a bit hard to take for the kids.

Later, I apologized for not putting the experience in a more comfortable context. "No one here is responsible for what we are about to see... But it's something that happened, and as such, we should all be aware of it. " I mean, how else could they understand all the angry poetry if they had no context?

They need you so much.

...anyhoo: learning curve for me.

Thank you, sweetheart. They need an education, for sure!

It sounds like you're describing a community that needs an education.

Baby, I'm amazed.

Definitely. The mindset is pervasive. I had visions of myself, tarred and feathered on a one-way creosote train outta town.