LURADIO

Yo Fam,
The countdown is over and I’m out of houston. I havent slept much in the last 48 hours so shit might get a little shifty for a minute.

Recap:
i done taught my students, but i didnt have an ounce of classroom management to speak of. They were in charge, The last week? The little shits RAN ME INTO THE GROUND. Regardless, i think they learned something. Starting the summer with a diagnostic, the class score of 37% kinda showed why they were in summer school.
After 4 weeks, the final assessment showed 73% mastery of the same material. I cant lie and say I am not proud of what they accomplished. Granted, I may not have changed their lives, but when kids write short stories for you, and say things like “Thanks for teaching us. Come back soon and have a safe summer,” you feel kinda cheeseball and good.
Standardized tests remain bullshit, but whatever, I’ll take what measure I can get.

Thursday night, Witnes and Dayta had me spin at their night at the proletariat (where none other than the illustrious C&J have made their presence known. Many thanks and much respect to them houston boys for being dumb gracious and having me out. Hella teachers rolled out and I was on the mic saying the stupidest shit. Regardless, fun was had, and some money was made at the bar. (I did a lazy ass set, but sometimes you gotta go conservative…especially when you woke up at 5am that day and ummm…were waking up at 5am the following morning. Shit…5 weeks of this 5am nonsense aint to good for the nightlife.

It was an interesting thing: To go from the high of having your students make a pretty big jump in comprehension to having a jack on the rocks, chainsmoking, and playing that Les Visiteurs remix of “Can I Have It Like That.” It was my first real “dual-life” kinda moment. I can’t say I didnt enjoy it though.

I made some lame attempt at reconciling my worlds when I brought a white record sleeve in to class for my students to sign on their last day. Included in the comments? “Stay Classy w/dat shirt pimpy” and “Yo Pimpin keep ya game. I’ll holla at ya” or my personal favorite: “Sorry I gave you a bad time here.”

This organization has an weird fetish with “reflection” so I guess this is my way of doing it. I still stand by my critiques of the institute curriculum….but having that hour a day with my insane kids made it worth it. Dealing with 2nd grade literacy in a 6th grade class, the “achievement gap” becomes really real. I may not be the model Tee Eff Ayeeeee corps member, but i do recognize the urgency.

So when one of your kids who is reading 4 years behind and has been held back 4 times in their life be able to identify the tone of a piece of define and make inferences better than they could 4 weeks before, you reconsider the jadedness. The power of telling a student that they really are smart and can do well is insane. The power of speaking the truth to the kids and letting them recognizing that they arent worthless is crazy.

But back to the beginning and my lack of classroom control: I had 4 weeks with these kids who did NOT need to be there. Yet, while kids at other schools were dropping out left and right, I kept 22 out of 24 students all summer. They may have thrown things in class and released many impressive collective “Fuck You, wannabe Teacher Scum” statements, I think i still at some point I got some respect: not cause i can teach worth shit, but cause I realized that these kids (one of whom was referred to faculty as a plague/disease/lost cause) really are smart as shit.

And reading a post like Melanie’s I realize that education does have a role. I may be working within the evil machine, but having a few positive messages within the oppressive system cant hurt. I just want to be there to show these folks that they can fuckwit anything they want. I aint tryin to tell them that one way is the best, but just to stop the process of blinding to it.

Im just one privileged grey/yellow kid who has some absurd idealism shielded in shit, but like all teachers say at some point…if you get one kid, it kinda makes it worthwhile.

After my two years, I want to work on a more global paradigm…but how else am I gonna know what the fuck is going down in the damn classroom?