Regents Retching...

I spent my Sopranos-hour, as well as time in Starbucks, at my parents' dining room table, and elsewhere frantically grading midterms-- I now have two out of three classes done. However, I've come to a depressing conclusion. In helping sophomores prepare for an ELA regents-style essay, my directions have hurt their "actual" essay writing skills. These regents essays that cause them to jump around from a critical lens to two books, or from a passage to a chart to a "task," actually hurts their ability to write a clear, concise, five-paragraph essay. while they're hitting the major regents points, they;ve lost a lot of the coherence they had been building towards this fall. What they should be writing about is about two poems or one novel, or something more simple and literary. That kind of writing is a much more classic, college-oriented skill in my humble opinion. What is with all this "real-world" bullshit they stick on the test?

Perhaps I sound muddled. I'm just so frustrated by these damn exams... they remind me too much of how angry I am, of how much I care, of how biased the system remains. F*ck the regents.

On another note, this weekend was gorgeous...and fairly productive for once. I think my next locale might be in Washington Heights, at least for the summer... I have to brush up on some Spanish and be ready to jog in Ft. Tryon park instead of my lame-ass elliptical training on the upper east side! I am keeping my fingers crossed that everything works out, so I can ape the super-cool ZM and LK, the main members of my teacher crew, and spread out in some hip new digs.


*And oh, yeah finally, a former colleague of mine is doing some research for a professor at Harvard about sex-ed in the public schools. Any of you people in the teacher blogosphere/edwize readers have a copy of a sex-ed syllabus you could send her way? Let me know by posting a comment or sending me a missive. Word to your moms.

Thas it for now.
-Fellow-ette, for whom balmy weather has meant an abundance of sweet nothings whispered and/or typed into the ears of her oh-so-intelligent blog-readership.

Angst-O-Rama

Just finished reading Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld, which i tore through in a mere 24 hours or so instead of grading midterms. The book isn't perfect, but damn, the way it captures the psyche of the adolescent was unbelievable. It brought back all sorts of memories and uncomfortable feelings from the hallways and paths of my prep school (which seems positively plebian compared to Prep's Ault School), and also reminded me in not insignificant ways of my students, far removed from the aristocracy such schools foster. The way they scrutinize each other's clothing, their extreme self-consciousnes, their muttered responses and downturned eyes. All of it is there. And the absolute obsession with cataloging everything about oneself, one's peers, one's world, as if thereby you can have control of it, was equally heartrending to see in print.

Reading a good book leaves a person in pain, in a daze, unready to face even the beautifulest of Spring days! But I must, if only because Tony Soprano awaits me in a mere 4 hours.


Adieu to April!

Ms. Fellow-ette.

Snarkified E-mail I sent to my CUNY-affiliated mentor

To: [redacted]
From [Fellow-ette]
Subject: your visit

Hi [Redacted]! Thanks for stopping by room [redacted] and your helpful comments. I have one quibble though.
On your comment sheet, you mentioned that I might have prepared my students for Bob Dylan by discussing Alicia Keys and Mary J. Blige with them. Although both of these ladies make excelllent pop-soul/R&B, they are pretty far from the protest tradition Dylan in his folk years embodied. Had I wanted to compare Dylan to social protest music more "relevant" to the students-- although I wonder if they needed that giving the compelling subject matter of "Hattie Carroll"--I would have played Talib Kweli, Lauryn Hill's unplugged album, classic Tupac, or even some underground hip-hop like Immortal Technique. But not Alicia Keys. Definitely not!

See you soon.

[fellow-ette]

SCREAM!

You better not wear hats
or do-rags or phones
you better not sell weed
within the school zone
the school superintendent is coming to town...

we're on the impact list
which is not very nice
they're going to break up our giant school*
before we blink twice
the school superintendent is coming to town...

she knows when we use the workshop model **
she knows when we're trying to fake
she knows when our rubrics and bulletin boards suck ***
so plan standards-based assessments for goodness sake!

*(into small equally ineffective institutions)
**(also known as point-of-entry)
***(i thought we were protected from this in our new contract)



(bullshit.)

(fellow-ette is feeling like she could care less...)

(she's sick of emails getting censored and everyone scurrying like rabbits due to the prospective arrival of some belligerent, incompetent beaurocrat.)

(this post makes fellow-ette such a badass, right?)

(well, i think it does.)

You who philosophize disgrace

I did The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll with my sophomores today. It was a heavy intro to Dylan's voice--not exactly Usher--but they dug the lyrics' message about racial injustice. And so will you.

It's ba-aaack.

Precious moment from today...

while attempting to teach my kids Wyatt's "They Flee From Me That Sometime Did Me Seek" (a very sexy poem from the 16th century) one said to me, "Miss I didn't know there were "hos" 500 years ago..."* and the general class conclusion was that the narrator was a pimp, who was "dominated" and then dumped by his new girlfriend.

Which proves to me that... THEY GOT IT.


*while comments such as these do not go on without a response in my classroom, for the sake of the blog, i leave them unadulterated.

Picture of the day...

Plagiarism 101?

My former stomping grounds, The Harvard Crimson, reported last night that superstar author Kaavya Viswanathan’s "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," bears a "striking similarity" to another chick-lit gem, "Sloppy Firsts" by Megan McCafferty.

The whole thing feels damn uncomfortable. It's true, as one blogger noted that Harvard is FILLED with schadenfreude (check out this story we ran back in the day) and likely to salivate with unbecoming glee even before we hear from all sides. That's why this news makes me uncomfortable of course-- it taps into my barely-supressed schadenfreude as an aspiring writer (like everyone at Harvard), and also gives rise to a huge amount of pity and bewilderment. I feel immature and naive on a daily basis, as this blog can attest to. How can someone three years my junior be expected to stare down the pressure she has, and will? But that's how it works, sadly. Pop stars younger than she are held up to the lens of the press with even more vicious regularity. Young women in particular court publicity--and succesful, pretty young women are primary targets for tear-downs. We're still not comfortable with the heights they reach.

But there's something about being a wildly successful, precociously talented anything at a young age, that seems to go hand in hand with a certain pressured recklessness... as well as an abundance of connections, and a more-than-healthy dose of good luck. It's the first of those three qualities that perhaps leads to those yet-to-be-explained "striking similarities"... or in the case of another young Harvard hotshot recently disgraced, out-and-out fabrication.

At the end of the day, this will only inch the book up the bestseller list. But the biggest question is, how is it that we live in a society that enables this sort of thing to occur over and over again? The answer, in my opinion is the inflation of the fame-money nexus. If you have it, if you want it (or if you want it for your child/protege/client), you forget the rules. From Lindsay Lohan on down, we're so obsessed with the next hot young thing, that we forget about the young part.

PS heehee

I don't miss college...

But it sure has been fun to hang out, college-style. From raiding elegant student-faculty teas for the goodies, to eavesdropping on pretentious situations/conversations, to cider at the local brewery, to watching the way white girls shed their clothes the minute it climbs above 50 (a phenom I see in a new way after hearing my students describe it), this week has been incredibly relaxing. And I've reconnected with two members of my former gal posse, both who were coincidentally in town (but not in gown) this week.

However, the stiffness of the average Joe Harvard, and news about faculty reshuffling that dismays me (why do the brilliant, animated young profs always get booted in favor of their stuffy, ass-kissy counterparts) causes me to remember, with a relieved sigh, that there are some advantages to being far away from rouged, ivied brick structures--and I'm not talking about the co-eds. Maybe the brutal honesty exhibited by teenagers has just further highlighted the fakeness that reigns supreme here. Or something. Anyway, the sun set on 4.20.06 hours ago, so the time has come to put pen aside and slumber.

/fellow-ette

All the news that's fit to gossip about: Duke Scandal, Free Teacher Housing, and of course, Tomkat's baby

Fellow-ette is back in Cambridge Mass, scene of her former days as a rabid intellect (or just rabid). And so, as her fellow perfects the last phrases and grafs of his Reggaeton review for the Boston Phoneix, she finds herself back to browsing Google News aimlessly, trying to draw connections between today's headlines and her job.

The first one is obvious: they're so desperate for teachers in NYC that they're offering math, sci and special ed teachers meager housing subsidies to convince them to come. What have I to say about that bold move by Bloomberg and Klein? Merely the same old thang: more money is good, anything that helps move teaching from vocation to profession is good, but what would be even better would be making the experience of teaching more professional. Small classes. Competent, caring APs and principals. Small classes. Schools that actually are communities instead of hierarchies. Small classes. Less disciplinary responsibilities and more focus on content.
Oh, and class size.

The second headline I'd like to comment on is the ever-brewin' Duke scandal, which just sounds sketchy all around to this former reporter. These lacrosse players appear to be a bunch of overprigileged, over-testosteroned, bigoted jerks, but the evidence against them is also unclear at the moment, making the entire situation upsetting--gender-wise, race-wise, age-wise and class-wise.
The saddest part to me is that yes, many young people are coarse, many young people fuck up, many young men abuse their strength, and it's never right. But most of them don't get a chance to get backed up by wealthy lawyers and defended by host of indignant sharers of the elite-sphere who see this arrest as an intrusion into the established order. Situations like this one make the racism and closed doors, which my students rant about only semi-knowingly, all too apparent. And also just brings to light the brutality of our current society and the horrible behavior of young men, whose problems (across lines of class and race) are a crisis in the making. More on that some other time.

The final headline of the day is less serious: TomKat's kitten! Hurray for weirdness in the celebrosphere. I hope Suri hasn't been planted on the planet by the anti-scientologist aliens her rents are always talking about. Glorp. Gleep.

That's it for today.
And as a coda: decision-making is tough. Should fellow-ette blow 40 of the DOE's precious bucks on these?

Weigh in, dear reader.

Sopranos rundown

I love love love Tony's newfound consciousness... even though it brings him steps closer to being whizzacked.

I hate hate hate the homophobia the show brings to light so brilliantly, which hits too close to the home of my minigangstas and their constant slurs. How hard it is to achieve tolerance when it isn't taught to us.

And how can we not hope that Vito will find peace and redemption in "Live Free or Die" NH (easy on the symbolism, Chase and co.!)? Even if it's as futile as wishing the water in a turgid white mountain waterfall will stay still for just an instant...
but oh, what an instant.

*
Today I developed a photo of three of my favorite ninth grade mini-Gs, and found myself fawning over them. The wonders distance works.

Spring comes to frigid nyc...

Thank the divine spirit...




Fellow-ette could not be feeling pagan-er.
(heartcha, titian)

ALL EDUCATION VACATION SPECIAL

Happy passover to those who do and don't celebrate it...

This last week at school was truly lovely, at least in terms of my students, who patiently reviewed for and then steadily (albeit rowdily) took their midterms, which in the case of my sophs were two full-length practice regents tasks. I don't know what happened to them-- why all of a sudden they buckled down and TRIED this regents sh*t, but it was beautiful. Maybe it was because they, like me, see an end. And then, when they traipsed off to their ten-day hiatus, I actually felt kinda sad. I wondered if I was coming down with something.

On Weds I went to the last of several teacher "round-tables" hosted by our fearsome principal. These came in response to a list of grievances some angry teachers have submitted. From what I've heard from all attendees, said meetings consisted of timid teachers venturing complaints and M. Principale defending herself at four times the length of said complaints. At my roundtable, complaints were even timider, and fellow-ette left feeling discouraged. She had pity in her heart for everyone in the school, from the top to the bottom, who has to take the crap handed down to them from top to bottom.

As I said to my students before collected their midterms, stuffed them with sugar and sent them out the door; "BE SAFE, BE WELL."

Ciao for now.
/"Miss"

Mo' Sopranos

Greetings, Sopranos Fans:
To those of you who are arriving at AGW due to a google blogsearch for our favorite noir-mobster-generally-deep-stuff weekly tv show, all I have to say is come for the gabbagoo, stay for the wit and searing social criticism from the front lines of narrowing the achievement gap.

And as for last night's episode-- it was a nice day for a white wedding, and my heart went out to Johnny Sack. The themes of violence and retaliation and loyalty always hit me hard when I return to my gangsta's paradise after a Latte liberal weekend in upper manhattan.

For more in depth Sopranos commentary, try our compatriot shook (with comments from MV) or defamer. Or check out this silly Sops parody.

(For those coming to discuss the urgent state of urban public Ed-- what wonders are found in a week only three days long! My kids are angels, the sun shines on them all.)

Hi-larious sopranos parody....

teehee.

April Showers.

Bring...

Apr 10 Sunny 61°/48° 0%			61°F
Tue Apr 11 Mostly Sunny 66°/49° 20%			66°F Plan a Shopping Vacation
Wed Apr 12 Partly Cloudy 63°/54° 20%			63°F
Thu Apr 13 Showers 64°/53° 40%			64°F
Fri Apr 14 Partly Cloudy 63°/51° 20%			63°F
Sat Apr 15 Scattered T-Storms 63°/50° 40%			63°F
Sun Apr 16 Mostly Cloudy 63°/51° 10%			63°F
Mon Apr 17 Showers 60°/52° 60%			60°F Beat the Rainy Day Blues
Tue Apr 18 Showers 62°/53° 60%			62°F

(courtesy of weather.com)
Lookit that forecast! A whole week of 60+ weather. Now that's what I call motivation.

*****************************************

Fellow-ette has so much to report from the nearly-week since she's been postin' to AGW. To start with, I showed my students "Slam," the risque but positive docu-drama kinda film about the power of spoken word poetry to fight violence, self-destruction, and the "prison of the mind."
It's one of those symbolism-heavy "deep" movies that teenagers love, with enough hood-talk and cursing to appeal to them. The scene that really got to my kids was in the prison courtytard when the protagonist (played by Saul Williams) is about to get jumped by some toughs, and he starts rhyming so beautifully and expressively (------ plottin shit, lovely/ but the feds is plottin me/tryin to lock up my astrology") about how violence between imprisoned blacks is worthless; playing in to the master plan, and stops them from fighting.
One of my kids actually said he was going to try that the next time he is under the threat of being jumped. Okay, so realistically, will this film deter my kids from f*cking up, fighting, landing themselves in prison? Who knows. But it touched them, as it touched me when I saw it at the tender age of fourteen -- snuck into the theater by my older "alternative" friends, and I had my mind blown in a way that still reverbrates.

**************************************************

This weekend was a lovely one for fellow-ette, excepting the absence of her fellow. On Friday she went over to the Riverdale Diner with co-teachers for brews and nachos... we talked for once about subjects deviating from school, and wasn't that delightful?
Saturday night, fellow-ette's family dined on Saag Paneer and Chicken Jalfreezi at Sapphire (YUM) and then went to the Metropolitan Opera to see Beethoven's Fidelio-- less entertaining than any opera by Fellowe-ette's faves, Puccini and Verdi, but still, going to the Met is a TRIP. Women in ballgowns, opera glasses in tow. Chandeliers hoisted to the ceiling as the lights dim... it's like a version of Edith Wharton's New York.
Thanks, dad!
After the opera, fellow-ette and her best friend from her high school days headed downtown to hear a band play--but ended up on the 2 instead of the 1, got off at fulton street to find a bathroom, ended up sneaking into a random Holiday Inn and taking the up to the stock trading floor to find a potty, and realized their friend's set was long over, so found Ryan's, a dive bar of the diviest quality, where they shot she sh*t till the wee sma's and subwayed back up, parting in front of Gray's Papaya on W. 72d.

I am feeling so thankful this morning for all these people, family and friends (many of whom were bonding up in beantown ce weekend) and reminding myself just how lucky I am, and how easy it would be to see the glass half-empty if it weren't for them. So thanks to them-- and I hope I can bring their positivity to my students as spring progresses into summer.

Cathartic moment...

Today while having mini-conferences with each student, I had a particularly painful one with S, a girl whose confrontational nature and loud voice has been colliding my nerves so much recently it's been distressing. We were talking quietly and earnestly and she just started shaking and crying and saying she failed freshman year, she failed this fall, what's going to happen to her? All the bravado and anger and racism she's spat all year faded, and I remembered how young she was as I put my arm around her and reminded her that it was never too late for a second chance...

It reminds me that behind every single sneering adolescent is a teary one.

Oh and it makes all my griping and whining seem so selfish.


Two interesting links from edwize:
A reminder that the successful teacher in today's climate is Type A (read:not me)


Another reminder that the successful teacher in today's climate is a NEAT type A (not me, nope, definitely not)

MORNING FROM HELL

Things that happened this morning:

*I locked myself out of my apartment and had to call and wake up my 91-year old roommate to let me in (sorry grandma!)
*I blew four bucks on a taxi uptown hoping it would help me make an earlier express train
*Said train did not appear for 20 minutes.
*Said train was further delayed in the tunnel.

*Upon arrival in school, I had the dreaded "five absences" letter in my box. My name was incorrectly spelled on it.
*Upon arrival upstairs, I spent twenty minutes perfecting the research introductions worksheet I had constructed last night.
*I then accidentally closed the document and lost it to a temporary folder.
*The printer was broken anyway and my AP was absent, rendering both my work and my stress useless. In the end I had to bum a worksheet off of frantic.
*My pass has disappeared for like, the 60billionth time (but it always turns up again, sigh.)


That's about it... is it enough?

Heh-- Read This

A POST OF MANY COLORS

*An article about a different kind of white flight...

*Spring Break Counter:
...7 instructional days to go...

*Passover Counter
...7 instructional days to go... 9 actual days til we celebrate freedom and unleavened bread!

Passover for Dummies

Pink's "Stupid Girls" Hits Home...

Fellow educators who are sick of watching the embedded misogyny of the average teen, regardless of demographics (although I'd venture to say it's worse in educationally-deprived areas like mine, where there's not even one or two maverick feminists in an average class), this video is a refreshing change...



My favorite part is where she contrasts the girl being the next president with the one dancing in a video next to Fifty Cent-- although her spoof of Jessica Simpson falling of the truck she's cleaning is pretty hee-larious.

Pink, like George Clooney and Kanye, is the rare celebrity who speaks up on matters bigger than his or herself. Underground rappers and songwriters are political-- and maybe that's why they stay underground.
When I think about the incredible lack of real role models my students have, I wish more celebs would get the guts to be political. They have no obligation to do so, but the world of good they can do for the average media-worshipping teen alone is amazing. My students, as I did when I was a their age, are absolutely obsessed with pop culture, without the critical distance we mediaphiles get when we get older and more cynical. Come on, people! Speak up!