. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P A R O L E . C A L L

Like most teachers, I don’t actually teach as much as I would like to. In fact the better part of my day is spent on paperwork, filling out student intake forms and setting up tests. My students receive their adult basic education via a computer so I facilitate their learning, tutor and troubleshoot. At any given moment, a student will nod off, seem to be hypnotized, or sit on a problem without asking for help — remember my students are also recovering drug addicts — so it’s my job to get them to notice something new everyday, to spark their imaginations and steer them toward the online encyclopaedia for research and discovery. “Raise your hand if you were born in the 20th century,” I ask. One of my students insists he was born in the 19th century, that’s how he remembers being taught. I take the time to explain historical periods, that we are in the 21st century is a new concept to a few of my students. I throw in that if you go by the Hebrew Calendar we are in the 58th century, in the year 5770. But the earth itself is is around 4.54 billion years old. Then it’s back to adding and subtracting fractions.

The day before I left for a four-day weekend, I gave my students a Christmas party, a sugar fest. My current school site is in a rehab facility where parolees are mandated to live, sent by their parole agents or the courts. The average person stays for six months. For my annual party,  I brought in candy canes and sodas and our amazing in-house chef made a hundred cookies and enough homemade strudel to feed a rehab. So the questions today came in whispers and whimpers. “Can I have candy, got anything sweet?” “You got any sodas?”  I guess I gave the addicts a taste and now they are hiding in the shadows begging for more, pleading in small and pathetic ways to get them a fix of what that fat red-suited man makes good on for a short time every December. Meanwhile many students need to see the County dentist and I feel bad drinking a cola on my break. My students survive on a steady diet of rolled Bugler cigarettes, instant coffee and their new drug of choice, refined white sugar.

The first day I started my new job I already saw police action. I entered the small school site in the strip mall close to the parole office. No one had told me the building itself was alarmed and when I opened the door a loud beeping noise began. I ran to the back to see what was going on. Meanwhile several police cars surrounded the front door. I had to explain I was the new teacher and someone from parole came down to silence the alarm. Welcome to teaching adults out on parole. I had to win over support from the parole agents, to get them to refer their caseloads to my school. It was a good start, I’m here–sound the alarm. That was close to ten years ago.