Archive for the ‘teacher’ Category
August 27, 2010
Z passed the GED!! She ran into my room holding her scores in front of her, her hand on the paper shaking in excitement. I’m not supposed to hug my students, but after working with her for two years and close to 500 hours of preparation, I couldn’t help myself.
I wanted to take her picture. We dressed her in the black cap and gown I keep on hand. For my students, getting their GED and having their picture taken holding their diploma is monumental. For the better part of their lives they have faced the camera for mug shots holding their name and a number just below their face.
Z was invited to speak to the community. She said earning her diploma was the second greatest achievement in her life next to having children. Her children are all adopted out, I’m not sure of the circumstances behind this. I told her no one could take away her diploma but it was not in itself a destination. “It’s a stepping stone,” I said.
You don’t go into teaching to change people’s lives. You work in sales. I sell confidence, hope and determination. No guarantees.
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August 18, 2010
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.
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June 18, 2010
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.
Posted in adult education, literacy, parolees, reading, teacher | Leave a Comment »
March 31, 2010
I’m about to order ten sets of books for my class. I can’t believe the list I get to choose from, it’s like I’m ordering for middle school in the 1920s. Count of Monte Cristo, oh my. I call one of my students over who I trust to help me.
“Anita, what do you think of Oliver Twist? It has pickpockets. Or Robin Hood? He stole from the rich and gave to the poor.” I read down the list on the web site. There’s Mark Twain, lots of truancy, or my favorite, Treasure Island, the glorification of all things pirate. “How about this one, Anita? The Scarlet Letter. You think my crew would like a book about adultery?”
“Maybe, Ms. P.”
I’d love my students to read these books and clearly the themes would resonate for them, but they wouldn’t get past the first page — the antiquated language, the formal English. When some of my students are reading books like Thugs and the Women Who Love Them and Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul, dare I order Silas Marner?
Posted in adult education, parolees, storytelling, teacher | Leave a Comment »
March 25, 2010
I like to read to my students. Because most of them come and go, I try to choose books with short, self-contained chapters, vignettes that can be repeated — books like The House on Mango Street or Who Moved My Cheese? Storytelling is contagious. Suddenly someone else’s story becomes my own and I start adding to the narrative. Like today when I told my students I used to teach in the boys’ camps outside Juvenile Hall. On my first day, in Biology class, a boy threw a chair at me right over my desk. I ducked and calmly proceeded to introduce myself. Of course, I got a little respect after that, because I didn’t leave like the other summer subs.
Posted in education, Juvenile Hall, storytelling, teacher, The House on Mango Street, Who Moved My Cheese? | Leave a Comment »
March 23, 2010
(Trying something new here, what I’m calling a flashback. Going back to my journals for stories from my earlier days as a parolee educator.)
A student of mine is convinced that if I eat snake, all my skin problems will go away. Back when Ramiro was in prison, out in the desert, he was assigned to Level 1 where they let you work outside the prison doing maintenance and gardening. His cellmate had a serious skin condition and was putting up with a great deal of embarrassment. One day Ramiro was working outside the perimeter of the prison and killed a desert snake. “You have to kill the snake before you get it mad or it’s no good,” Ramiro tells me, making a swift motion with his hand, showing how he killed the snake quickly and quietly while it slept. He threw the dead snake over the prison gate and later took it to his dormitory where they were allowed a hot plate and pan to cook with. Like a good friend, Ramiro cooked the snake and served it to his cellmate. He says that after only one or two times of consuming snake, his friend’s skin condition cleared up completely. “Snake will heal your skin, Miss P.,” Ramiro says, urging me to try it. “It cleans the blood.”
— from a 2002 journal entry
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March 16, 2010
I have one student who drives me crazy. He’s my Diogenes. He tells other students not to sign up for my school because “she will hold you hostage.” He says it with a smile. He has only put in seven hours since enrolling, seems like 70. He tries to be my friend but only ends up taking my time and focus off my work. Who’s being held hostage here? I offered him an optional drop (that he can leave with no penalty) which really doesn’t exist in our program. Some students need a class that is “teacher driven” — working independently on a computer is not the answer.
No matter how many pencils I put out at the beginning of the school day, I never end up with as many at day’s end. I write in black Sharpie marker on each pencil “Do Not Remove” and the date. A student recently brought me a handful of my pencils all marked “Do Not Remove” that he found in his roommate’s drawer who had left the rehab. Another student joked saying he had a dozen pencils marked “Do Not Remove,” to sell me. I tell them, “Please return my pencils. They don’t grow on trees…Well actually they do.”
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March 2, 2010
Today I helped my student Carey fill out a request to claim his father’s last paycheck through a state Treasury office. Carey had his father’s original death certificate. I couldn’t help but notice that the reason listed for his father’s death was carcinoma of the lung. I told Carey his dad died of lung cancer at 56. He said he knew his dad died of cancer but never knew which kind. I asked, “Did your father smoke?” “Pall Mall Reds,” said Carey. My students usually go on a ten-minute smoke break once in the morning and another in the afternoon. Just before Carey went to smoke, I reminded him that he was holding his father’s death certificate in his hand and that smoking could have been a contributing factor. (It’s the Adult Health Educator in me. ) “Thanks,” Carey said, “I’m going to be thinking about that all day.”
And then he left to go smoke.
Posted in crime, education, parolees, smoking, teacher | Leave a Comment »
February 23, 2010
I didn’t always teach adults who dropped out of high school. There was a time when I taught K-12 and specialized in secondary school Art. I taught watercolor painting and beginning art history and aesthetics. But I was also required to teach subjects I had no training in, like science and physical education. I still have materials from when I taught Middle School, extra-curricular worksheets in basic art techniques like shading and perspective. Now, sometimes when my adult students are studying geometry on our classroom computers, I hand out a worksheet on shading the basic geometric shapes. One worksheet shows a cartoonish mad scientist in his laboratory. It instructs the students to pick one light source in the picture and, using a pencil, shade the lab. I passed out a few of these sheets at the rehab. “Why are you asking us to shade a meth lab?” my students asked. “It’s not a meth lab,” I said, “the scientist could be inventing a cure for cancer.” I quickly took back all the sheets. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble here.” Including myself.
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February 17, 2010
Carlos knocked on the back door of my school today. “Can I come in? You know I split and I’m not supposed to be here but I was wondering if you could look up my scores on the GED test I took two weeks ago?” Carlos looked different. He had cut off his dark curls, he looked…conservative. He told me he was living with his family and had a good job. I looked up his scores. He passed all five sections of the GED, but he failed the exam because he was short 20 points. Carlos scored 2230 and he needed a score of 2250 to pass. His average was 446 and you need a 450 overall to pass. Heartbreaking.
Still, he was optimistic. We both agreed he should retake the writing section. He blamed his low score in this area on a malfunctioning pen they gave him. “I gave you a brand new pen for the test,” I said as I handed him my card. “Call me when you get the results on the re-test.”
Carlos giggled. It’s odd to hear a grown man giggle but I got used to it and will even miss it a little.
Posted in adult education, education, GED, parolees, students, teacher, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
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