I gave a few students copies of the American Sign Language alphabet. I had no idea they make use of signing inside prison when they are in lockdown. They said they sign larger so someone else can see it from far away. These are the hazards of my job — any well meaning comment or teaching tool can be misconstrued. Soon every new arrival from prison will be asking me for the sign language alphabet. So for now I put the sign language worksheets away and go back to teaching long division.
Z took the writing and math section of the GED yesterday. I asked her what the essay question was. “You mean the one in the blue book?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, smiling, “the question we aren’t supposed to tell to anyone.” She told me it was, If you had a million dollars and couldn’t spend it on yourself, what charity would you donate to? “I wrote that I would give it to the Red Cross,” she said, “because they help save lives all over the world.” Today she went back and took the remainder of the test. She even dressed up, saw it as a special occasion. Walking into my class afterward, she looked so light and unburdened. SHE FINISHED.
On a less happy note, a couple residents were caught receiving crack cocaine thrown under the fence. Someone must have paid for the deal on the outside and had it delivered. Others use drugs when they go off site to visit families or while looking for work. Yes, there are residents who are still deep in their addiction and still using. It happens all the time. They’re not finished with drugs.
Luis studied the dictionary while incarcerated. He read all the way through to the section beginning with S. He loves vocabulary and asks me for two words a day to look up and learn. Today I gave him inchoate and insalubrious. He knew insalubrious. I need to get smart and start giving him words starting with T onward. I need to be a little more sagacious.
In the week I have not written, Sequoia relapsed on heroin, Winton started drinking and Ricky took his first paycheck and smoked it up on crack. Here’s the good news. My student Z is finally enrolled to take the GED in August. It’s her third and last time at the rehab and getting her GED could be life changing. She has a mind for social studies and math and she writes well, really loves learning. Her self-esteem goes up by increments and then plummets pretty quickly. She went swimming the other day and told me how she barely got through a whole lap. She struggled the last ten feet because of severe obesity and general lack of exercise. But I give her credit for getting in the pool. I told her, “This is like the GED. After you have tackled three hours of math and writing, they will hit you with science, reading, and social studies. It will feel like the last ten feet in the pool. But you can do it. Put the pencil down every 50 minutes and stretch you hands, close your eyes and take a breath, then pick up the pencil and start fresh. Don’t be a tired tester, don’t leave half the test section for the last ten minutes allotted.” I added, “You’re ready this time.”
I read on the Internet that when a kitten is weaned too early, it doesn’t get a chance to learn about acceptable (and non-acceptable) behaviors from its mom and littermates.
It just so happens that a litter was born four weeks ago at the rehab and I have woven this story into recent posts. At my break today I went to check on the kittens and was told they were all given away to family visitors over the weekend. There are two problems with this. One, they were much too young to be weaned from the mother; and second, I was promised the gray and white one. This is the first cat I would have had in 23 years and I got very attached to the idea of taking it home with me.
I leave work every Friday, and on Mondays I return to a board with the names of students who were kicked out of or simply walked out of the rehab. More often than not, one of my students’ names is listed on the board. I’m never really surprised or disappointed by who left because it comes with this kind of job. But to suddenly find the kitten I was promised missing really threw me for a loop. Even if the kitten miraculously returned I would put it back with its mother.
I realize that I am a bit of a mother figure to my students. I try to help them practice acceptable behavior, an attitude and manners that will help them in the workplace. When they get aggressive or needy I call them on it and steer them back to the reason they are in my school: holes in their early education. They were weaned too early from math and reading.
Every day I go to work I feel blessed because I love my job. I don’t keep my job – it keeps me happy. Finding work is hard enough with an advanced degree and a decent resume, imagine trying to pound the pavement looking for a job with over fifteen felonies, visible tattoos, and no employment history. It’s no wonder my students end up in telemarketing or, worse, back taking rather than making money. So it’s always a good thing to see a student get a job.
One of the oddest jobs my students have ever done is count cars. A few of them were hired to sit on certain corners and observe automobile traffic. They loved it. Others are such skilled tattoo artists they are snapped up by tattoo shop owners as soon as they are free. We’ve also had semi-pro athletes at the rehab who fell from grace; no going back there. Many of my students have made more money in an hour dealing drugs than they could make at a tax-paying job in a month. The majority have never held a real job for more than six months. When I see one of my students get all dressed up and go out for a job interview, it gives me a surge of pride. They’ve gone from handcuffs to cufflinks.
We hear a lot about meth abuse but math abuse damages people too. One of my students complained that every time he sat at the computer to practice long division he would get a pounding headache. Learning long division in your forties is enough to give anyone a headache, but I always see it as a red flag. I asked him, “Did you ever have a bad experience around math?” He sat and thought. “Yes!” he said with sudden awareness. “When I was young I would sit at the kitchen table doing my math homework. My mom would stand behind me and when I got a problem wrong she’d hit me on the back of my head.” As bad as this sounds it’s not that uncommon. Many of my students have traumatic math memories, from the teacher who humiliated them at the chalkboard to the parent who used math skills as a barometer of intelligence; they leave math in the dust and never look back.
Some of my students still need to memorize their times tables. Henry hates math and he begged me not to make him do it. “What happened to you?” I asked. “My elementary teacher promised us an ice cream sundae if we memorized our times tables,” Henry said. “I memorized them and she never came through, she never made good on her promise.” Although it wasn’t a strike to the back of the head, what Henry’s teacher did scarred him for life.
I tell my students math is a puzzle (they like puzzles) and when you get good at it, it actually becomes fun. My goal is to create math addicts.
The kittens have disappeared under the shed and now the mother cat spends most of her time there. So I celebrate this thing called hope and give a shout-out to everyone who reads my blog. There were 65,784,046 words generated on WordPress today and you are reading mine. I’ll try not to overburden you with excess blog.
Marcus was the last one left in the classroom yesterday so I decided to read him a few pages from the book, You Are Enough. After I finished reading Marcus looked at me with tears in his eyes. “Was it upsetting?” I asked. “No, Ms. P, ” Marcus said. “No one has ever read to me in my whole life, that was the first time.” Marcus is 42. This morning he told me again how much it meant. I hope Marcus will join one of our in-class reading groups.
Neck tattoos are the billboards of skin art — they advertise who you are. In the mid-nineties I was a substitute teacher in juvenile hall. When I couldn’t remember a student’s name I’d walk up and down the rows of desks and sneak a peek at that student’s neck. More often than not their names would be inscribed on the back of their necks. Maybe it was important to not be mistaken in a gang altercation? What interests me most is what someone chooses for you to see that is not visible to themselves. Yvonne has a small tattoo of a woman’s handbag inked on her neck. I asked her if it had something to do with purse snatching. “No, Ms. P, it means I like money. I don’t take purses,” she reminded me with her typical candor. “I’m an international thief.”
Sequoia is a new student who grew up in a small town in Oregon. He isn’t actually enrolled but comes to my school to help out, tutor other students in math. He has a UPC barcode tattooed on the back of his neck. I asked him if he ever tried to scan himself at Target. Sequoia says the numbers in his UPC tattoo have special meaning but prefers to keep that to himself. I showed him our online encyclopedia and every time I glance over he is looking up some esoteric subject like cosmology or pantheism. Sequoia looks like he stepped out of a J.Crew ad until you notice the limp in his walk and the barcode on his neck.
“Four policemen, frowning and looking at their watches, stood on the front steps of the hotel. One of the officers held two pairs of handcuffs, and another had two heavy chains slung over his shoulder.” We are reading aloud in a small circle in my classroom. My students are all ears and everyone in the room at the computers is listening too. Is this a news story of a notorious criminal about to be arrested, a murder mystery, a Patterson novel? Far from it, we are reading a biography of Ehrich Weiss, known today as The Amazing Harry Houdini. We read about Ehrich’s early exploits charging the neighbors to watch him tightrope, tricks he learned working for a locksmith, and how he hustled selling flowers on the streets of New York. We learn that his immigrant father, once a respected rabbi in Hungary, loses his job because of his heavy accent. I ask my students if they know what a rabbi is? One answers, “A teacher.” That’s right, I say, a leader and teacher of Judaism.” I tell my students that it’s a good thing Houdini’s family came to America in the late 19th Century. If not, I say, Houdini might never have escaped anything. I feel that way about my family, I say, as I show them a tiny dot on a map of Russia; they got out long before the rise of Hitler. “Are you Jewish?” Ronald asks. “Yes,” I say. “You rich?” he murmurs. I just smile and roll my eyes, like “I wish.”
I often forget how street-smart my students are and at the same time most have never left the neighborhoods where they grew up. I may be one of the first Jews they’ve ever met, or at least the first who’s ever talked to them about being Jewish.
