Well, a day has passed since the suspension and like all miseries, this one is feeling better. Today I woke up, went to school, and sat through another round of bullshit. I think the hardest part was watching other teachers teach the lesson I was supposed to present. I just know I could have done a better job. The whole thing is fucked because the kids just aren't learning as much as they could. People around here often talk of TFA as a cult, well I think I finally realized the most important manipulative tool this cult has. TFA will often say, "You have to do what's best for our kids." But really, what they mean is, "You have to do what we tell you to." It's all such bullshit, but then again, I suppose everything is.
After that, we went out to lunch today at an all you can eat Chinese place. I swear, the only food I eat in this fucking city outside of dorm food is Asian. I would kill for a burrito. In any respect, I ended up playing wiffle ball watching tv and drinking beer all night. It wasn't special but it was something.
I think the best thing about this event is how everyone else has reacted. When people found out that I was suspended, many of them were apologetic and angry at TFA. What I think really drove the point home for me though is that several people, without talking to me or informing me until after the fact, began a small letter writing campaign to the institute director who suspended me. It's always been one of my dreams to have a "Free Kudo" campaign and I guess I finally got what I've wanted, so that's cool. "We need to tear, down the prison, walls, we need to free, Tim, Othy, Soseki, Kudo." Err...maybe not...
So, yah, I'm probably going to stay, mostly just because I don't know what else to do. I know I'm not supposed to be a teacher. In all honesty, despite my other issues, I really like journalism a lot more. I at least know that much. So yah, I guess it's all starting to sink in and settle and now there's only two more days of this shit left. Fuck it. Fuck the fascists.
Tim
El Hajj Malik El Shabazz
P.S. Not that you all wanted to hear this, but I'm a little tipsy so whatever. My roommate just came in and took this really long shit, and then when he came out, he was like "So apparently a whole bunch of TFA people who ate in the cafeteria tonight are in the hospital for severe intestinal problems. I'm kind of worried." Yah, no shit. I'm kind of worried now too.
I guess if I'm going to be honest about these things, I might as well say everything.
Today I was suspended from teaching for the rest of the summer. It's only until the end of this week but that means I only get to see my kids one time before this is all over. Needless to say, teaching in my class was the only thing that has been keeping me going through this hell hole. They've finally taken the last thing they could have from me.
Needless to say, I'm a little pissed and upset and annoyed and frustrated. Yes, I'm thinking of quitting. Despite my rhetoric, when I applied to TFA I wanted to join because I believed in the idea of the whole thing. I thought that in TFA I would find people like myself who were willing to fight for educational justice. The idea is there, and it gets thrown around everyday, but little to nothing at this place or the people here lives up to that ideal. That's all really too much to get into though.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. This whole experience has just again reaffirmed my two fundamental axioms:
1. People are stupid.
2. There are lots of people.
To be brief, I was suspended for basically turning in my lesson plan late this week. A small thing, no? It's not like I don't do them, or that I'm a bad teacher. But, laws must be followed at all times no matter what the rational behind them. At least, that's what I learned from my German side.
In any respect, the real agent in this whole mess is myself, as always. Pride. It's a motherfucker isn't it? My refusal to take bullshit has put me in deep shit once again. I imagine someday I'll take the hint but probably not until I've pushed the limits so far that I've fallen off the damn map and there's no going back.
So, enough about me though, let's talk briefly why TFA sucks and you should never join it. Well, that's not true, just don't think it's going to be any different than the fucked up schools you're about to go into. As they say, those who can't do (or can but have a BA in philosophy), teach. Right now, all of you who've worked 9-5 jobs for the past year are thinking "Told ya so." So, right now, let me just say, "Mason, wipe the grin off your face." This is all meant in good humor right now, because frankly, I'm hanging on by the very thinnest of threads. Well, that's not true either, maybe it's all just settling in now and I can joke about it. Damn, I can't believe I got suspended. Well, like I said, you just knew it was going to happen sooner or later. That is, you just knew, if you knew me.
Tim.
Looks like I'm going to live in Harlem next year at 122/7th Ave. just down the street from the illustrious restaurant "No Pork On My Fork" and one block from the Apollo theater. Here's to gentrification. Cheers. I'll be living with Rebecca, the photographer from St. Louis, and Kyra the poet from Providence; two fellow TFAers, which should be interesting. I guess I'll be getting a little dose of what Marcelle must have felt like last year.
You know, it's funny, when people said that the rooms in Manhattan were closets, I thought they were exaggerating. No, no not at all. When I saw the apartment, I literally had to lie down in the room to make sure a bed would fit. As always, it was the hardwood floors that sold me. But overall, the place is nice and the price is right. The 6th floor vantage is awesome but I'm thinking it's going to be more of a pain in the ass when I have to walk up and down the stairs each day. So yah, here's to having a place to live. Cheers.
Oh, for those of you who were entertaining the idea of staying with me for awhile in the next couple of months, please e-mail me and let me know what the situation is. I can give you a much clearer answer now.
Lastly, it looks like I'm going to be getting my Masters in Education at Fordham University. Totally had no idea you could do this when I first applied to TFA. Just one more bonus that I wasn't expecting, kind of like that whole working with kids thing. So hey, here's to grad school too. Cheers.
In other news, if you haven't already seen "Capturing the Friedmans" you really ought to just drop whatever you're doing and go see it. It's amazing. So poignant, so many issues, so subtle. Oh, but read your Freud before you go.
Oh, and last night, I had a hibiscus margarita with ancho chilli salt on the rim. Off the heezy. And it was free since the person I was with worked at the place. Free always makes things taste better, don't you think? Here's to free. Cheers.
One more week of summer school to go, and then, as Isaiah might say, "What I call: 'Freedom.'"
Oh. So, TFA drives us to and from school in this big yellow school bus. Friday, a fellow teacher and I got a Corona for the ride home. How wrong, and yet, how right...
I think that is all for now. Yah, there were a lot of "oh"s in this... whatever....
Tim.
It's time to correct a misconception. Remember how back in the day, teachers used to work in one room schoolhouses teaching different grade levels all at once? If you get nothing else from these e-mails I want you to understand how significantly structurally the school system is flawed and how little it has advanced in certain respects. Certainly not all respects, but in many. Let me give you a simple but meaty breakdown of my class.
Nirvanie is from Guyana but has been here for quite a while. She speaks English well, but is shy. I'm teaching sixth grade. Do you remember what you learned in sixth grade? At this point I was reading Madeline L'Engle books like "A Wrinkle in Time." Other kids read Harry Potter in the 4th and 5th grades. Nirvanie is struggling with short stories like "The Little Big Champion" that have large pictures and maybe only 1 word above 2 syllables. These books seem to me to be targeted at 3rd graders, which is almost what her reading level is.
Carlos stayed home from school today because he had to take care of his grandfather who was sick. Carlos is 12 years old. The night Celia Cruz died he stayed up crying. Of course, that wasn't a problem the next day because, like I said before, he drinks coffee in the morning. That next day, he told me "I think a queen died last night." So, I downloaded some Celia Cruz and played it off my iPod at school and brought in a poster I got from the New York Daily News. If you've never heard of Celia Cruz, it's probably because you're not Puerto Rican. Anyway, I like Carlos, he's got chutzpah, but he also can't read at all. He can't really do math either. He has trouble with basic multiplication and instead of leaving him behind until he memorizes it, we give him a multiplication chart so he can try and do more advanced math. Oh, and he can read pretty much anything perfectly, except he doesn't understand it at all. Let's just take a moment to raise the roof for pure phonics instruction. Bear in mind, I have nothing against phonics, as long as it's not the ONLY thing these kids are taught.
Yasmine came from Ghana a month ago. She has difficulty understanding nearly anything I say in class. But she also is an excellent writer and responds perfectly to written commands. Her essay on her best friend included the word "complexion" and effectively incorporated Tweed words into the piece. Tweed is apparently the language she speaks primarily. Because she doesn't understand the directions, she sits there and sharpens pencil, after pencil, after pencil, after pencil. I swear, it looks like the ground at Philippes under her desk. When I explain the instructions to her clearly though, she's off. She's also good at math as long as we work in symbols. Math, at least in some ways, is clearly a universal language. But, we're taught at TFA to try and encourage different kids with different learning modalities by incorporating differentiation into our instruction. To be brief, TFA teaches you that different people have different intelligences. For example, some people learn best through bodily movement, others through language, and still others visually. There's several intelligences that we try to hit. It may sound airy-fairy but trust me, it works, and if you think about your own learning, you'll see that you learn things better depending on how it's presented. But, because she doesn't understand complex instruction, when I try to reach the other kids, I lose her.
I don't know what Nestor knows or doesn't know. He hardly speaks. He also looks extremely malnourished. He takes care of his brother, who's a grade lower and also in summer school. Today he sort of wrote a short paragraph story where none of the words were spelled correctly. And when I say none of the words, I mean words like "the" and "like." Needless to say, the story was about an army that killed everyone in the city. He can't read, he can't write, and he has difficulty with math. He's roughly on a 2nd grade level, or lower.
Genesis, or "Genny", comes in dressed like a 12-year-old hoochie mama everyday and sits at her desk throwing me attitude. Not verbal disrespect, but just that look where she already knows she's too cool for school. The sad thing is that that is the message she gets from the school and the community in large part. It's even more unfortunate because if she did work hard, she has a good chance of passing into the next grade.
I like Somaiya because she participates a lot, is pretty much on grade level and has the best handwriting in school. At least she thinks she does. The other day she somehow got the money to buy 10 basketball jerseys. Her favorite player is Iverson even though he's ugly, she says. It's encouraging to see that she will pass.
Fernando pisses me off. His math skills are excellent, or at least on grade level, but he can hardly write a sentence. He also is developing these things called hormones and so everyday he enacts the Oedipal complex on Mr. Kiplinger and I as he kisses ass to Ms. Scott and Ms. Classen in particular. Today I had to move him, and he still didn't do his work. It's so frustrating when you say, "Do your work," and they respond with, "I'm thinking" when you know that what they're thinking about is boobs.
Enrique has ADD. I swear he does. The boy cannot sit down. When you can't sit down, you can't read, and you can't do math. He also uses a multiplication chart but it doesn't do him that good because he always loses it. He's a good kid though and I wish we could get him some help, but we can't. As a result, we'll see how he does.
Genesis is on the bubble. We nominated her for Student of the Week because she has been trying so hard and has helped Yasmine with her work. She tries hard, and comes in early and stays late every day but it's still difficult. She doesn't comprehend everything, she's shy, and she doesn't do math that well. Perhaps it's because, as I've written before, her father tells her she's useless. She took home a triangle-ruler to do some math homework the other day and when her father saw it he broke it. She had to get the money to buy a new one herself. At 12-years-old she works at a local McDonalds. I'm pretty sure this is illegal but I don't know if she has to support her family or she just wants the money to buy herself a little freedom from home. When she turns 14 she says she's going to get a better job.
Keneshia is The One. I was going to tell her the other day that she has Rainman math skills but that movie is a bit old for her. To make you feel really old, I tried to relate to them by talking about Apollo 13 today. They just looked at me like blinking fish. I was like, "That movie only came out like 5-6 years ago." Enrique responded with, "You expect us to remember something when we were 5!?!" Anyway, Keneshia gets nearly every math problem I throw at her. I swear, even in 6th grade, she could do Calculus. It's insane. She thrives on it too which is sad because none of our lessons can target her and there's no way that after I'm done with teaching her in our 1:1 sessions that she's going to be challenged again until maybe High School. But knowing the NYC school system, there won't be any calculus classes. Her dream is to go to Fordham University. I think she should be aiming for MIT.
Isiah is our writer. He wrote this story about this Christmas where they had all this fried chicken and he began it with the following sentence: "Last Christmas was off the heezy." That's my boy. The kid is straight up humor. I swear, you cannot not like him. He even used the word "snooty" in one of his pieces. It's just the way he talks too, his cadence. I wish I could send you a tape of him just talking in class. He also reads at a high school level. Isiah is off the heezy.
So, it's tough. But we all knew it would be tough. The problem I guess is that you never figure that every class is essentially a bilingual class, or that every class is a one room schoolhouse. In math, between Keneshia and Nestor there is a gap of about 6 grade levels. In English between Isiah and Nestor there's a similar gap. Every lesson I teach, no matter how good, goes over 1/3 of the class, is too low for another 1/3, and hits the rest. Even if the lesson is good and at their level, maybe they don't speak English. As a note, even my friends in bilingual classes who speak spanish are losing all of their Pakistani students. Even if the lesson is solid and understandable, perhaps they need to movement or visuals to understand it. But then, I lose other kids. The situation is impossible. In a perfect world, there would be hardcore tailored instruction, but of course, we don't live in one yet. The best answer for now, is of course 1:1 tutoring, which is difficult given my commitments to TFA and my desire for some small part of a personal life. But, if that's what it takes, then that's what I do.
Tim
El Hajj Malik El Shabazz
P.S. My roommate ran into a guy in his group yesterday who was preparing for the first full day of teaching (mine was today). Apparently this guy had huge raccoon circles around his eyes from not sleeping and he was just swaying back and forth and twitching a little. Apparently he just kept repeating, "I'm not going to quit, I'm not going to quit, I'm going to get through this." Needless to say, it can get taxing here at times.
Does anyone remember the Wayside School stories? They were written by Louis Sachar, the author of "Holes." In any respect, there are all these funny stories about this school that's missing a 13th story. Most of them are absurdist, like this one about a floor where everything is on the ceiling. In any respect, I'm teaching Holes right now to two of my students so it's on my mind. Wayside school, Jordan Mott Intermediate is not. It is however somewhat absurd. But before going into that, some quick advice. No matter how smart and mature you think your students are, don't ever ever ever ever no matter what, ever let the following words come out of your mouth, "Can you think of another word for 'crap.'" For a 6th grader, there is only one acceptable response and "defecate" is not it. I have to admit, I couldn't maintain. My kids do a lot of funny things but when Enrique busted out with, "Shit" immediately, I, along with everyone else lost it for a few minutes. Admit it, that's what you would have said too.
In my class today we made a pro/con T-chart under the heading C.I.S. 22. Among some of the notable pros were my classroom and education. Always good when the kids see that. Among the cons where the cockroaches and other bugs in the cafeteria food that they often get sick from and the physically and emotionally abusive teachers. Of course, thankfully while this was going on, the faculty advisor for my room Mrs. Pizzaro, who so dutifully does all the crossword puzzles you can get in the New York city area, was on one of the 20 cigarette breaks she takes. I truly am grateful for her expert tutelage. Anyway, one of the kids brought up the issue of this girl Donice who was whipped with a belt by her teacher. I'd told my TFA staff advisor about this before and, by chance, an hour later the TFA director came to find me. TFA essentially runs a summer school within a school. So alongside the actual principal is the TFA school director Kristy who took me out of a Curriculum seminar to speak with the principal Mr. Valerie. I went down there and told him what I knew about the situation and this was the response I received: "Well, I don't really know if there's much we can do about that situation now, but why don't you let our guidance counselor know if you find out anything else." And the response from TFA: "We'll have to just wait and see." So I went back up to my room and pulled out the student who told me about the incident. To be clear, 22 went through a large lawsuit over abuse a while back and since then many of the students had alleged abuse against teachers they didn't like. So I asked the student what happened and she said that Donice talked back to the teacher who then pulled out her belt and started whipping her, just as I heard before. "So what did the kids do?" I asked. "Everyone laughed at her whenever the teacher did it." "So it happened multiple times?" "Yah." Of course, I then asked if she would be willing to tell the counselor about it or give me the teacher's name to pass on anonymously to which she responded, "No, I don't want that teacher getting in any trouble, she's a good teacher."
Needless to say, this is all somewhat annoying. I've got a principal who doesn't really care, a TFA director who doesn't really care, a student who doesn't want to report this fact, and the student I'm concerned about I haven't seen in two weeks. I'm hoping that after thinking about a letter I wrote her, the student who told me about the incident will change her mind and report it but who knows. The most troubling thing is that this school has a culture where violence is acceptable and expected.
In lighter news: Samaiya showed me some pictures that were taken of her at each grade level. In the first two grades she's this cute little girl. From 2nd grade on she's standing akimbo with her hip out to one side and the attitude look on her face. I suppose you have to see it to appreciate it. In other news, Genesis gave each of us teacher's a picture of an X-man she thinks represents us. While Ms. Scott is Jean Grey, Ms. Classen is Storm, and Mr. Kiplinger is someone with a really gigantic mullet (we're not sure who exactly, maybe Sabretooth?) I am the Wolverine. I expect the appropriate salutations when I see you all in the future.
It's strange, by the way, how mutual the teacher-student relationship can be. When I go in there, I'm trying to educate them and make things interesting and challenging, and when I do, they appreciate it. When I tell them I appreciate them, it brightens their day. When they come in, and meet me half way by working hard, and speaking in class, and showing me who they are, I appreciate it as well. When they give me small X-men posters or boxes of Kellog Raisin Bran, it's going up on the wall at home. Well, not the cereal, that we eat.
On a final note, this week's TFA classes have been intense. All week it's been a discussion of race, class, gender, homosexuality and power in the classroom. Hard core stuff. Very intense. Finally capped off today when our CMA group (about 16 of us) had the discussion of homosexuality with most of the group supporting gay rights and a fourth of the group having religious objections. It was intense, but interestingly, the discussion did happen and while it was personal, it was also civil. I leave you all with the following question as I prepare to have a few drinks and rest before my 8 hours of state testing tomorrow: How much of yourself and the world do you bring into the classroom? Right now, I don't know, but I'm beginning to have some answers. Perhaps more on that next time.
Tim
El Hajj Malik El Shabazz
P.S. My teaching was videotaped this week, perhaps the next e-mail will include a clip. Perhaps you'll just have to wait and see in August.
Carlos is a small Puerto Rican kid who sits in our class and doesn't always get it. I don't know why he doesn't get it because when I talk with him one-on-one he's sharp. What I do know though, is that he's one of the few 12-13 year olds who drinks coffee every morning. Why he's staying up until 3 a.m. every night and drinking coffee in the morning is anyone's guess.
Last week, a girl named Donice showed up at our class. From the minute she came in, you knew she was trouble because she had that look and would call you out if you pronounced her name wrong (Da-neece). When I started my lesson that day, she sat there bored, but reluctantly did it. When I told everyone to switch papers with a partner and discuss their answers she refused. I told her she had a warning for not following directions and when she started talking back I sent her to the office. I don't have time to waste with shit like that and a class who needs my help. She went, and cooled down, but before she could spend the 15 minutes after class that she owed me, she took off. The next day she didn't show, nor the day after that. I called her father and he said he was under the impression that her mother was making sure she went to school but that he would take care of it. It's been a week, and I haven't seen her since. As a result, she will be repeating the 6th grade. Donice clearly had an attitude problem, and while she pissed me off something fierce, I and my other colleagues wanted her to pass. It is, after all, our duty to make sure she does. The other day, I was talking to one of our students who told me that Donice was in her class last year. I said, "Oh really? What was she like?" The kid responded, "She was always cussing out the teacher and talking back. One day her father had to come in and sit with her but she still talked back. He was about to hit her but he stopped." A few days later, the same student told my colleague Ms. Scott that Donice's teacher that year, one day in front of the class, had taken out her belt and whipped her with it.
On the bus to school the other day I was talking to a teacher who had been called a "fucking bitch" and a "cunt" and told to "shut the fuck up" by one of her students. She was clearly pissed off so she decided call his home to complain to his parents. When she called though, she reached the homeless shelter where the kid lived.
Genesis is one of my favorite students. She's not the most advanced, that would be Keneshia and Isiah, but she tries hard, she's getting it, and she's really helpful to others (like the girl from Ghana I wrote about before). Genesis is the kind of student you want to have in your class because you know that she wants to and will grow from your instruction. This week, we gave her the "student of the week" award that will allow her to go on a field trip at the end of the summer to MSNBC studios. She was excited to get it and took it home to show her parents. Today, she told Ms. Scott that when she showed it to her dad he said that some of the other students must have made it because she wasn't good enough or smart enough to get an award like that. He said she was stupid and useless.
These stories are too common. We don't accept excuses from our students because nobody else in society will but how do you get angry at a kid who lives in a homeless shelter? Or a kid who has clearly been through physical and emotional abuse? Why is it that so many of the teacher's at these schools, rather than combatting these problems, only further them? Why are these issues systemic at C.I.S. 22? Why do people think this is OK?
I try to teach my kids about choices and thinking about the challenges that they face and how to fight back. But I only have 4 weeks to get this across. Four weeks as opposed to 18 years. I don't think censorship is right, but I also think these kids need different messages. It's telling when they're hero is 50 Cent because he's been shot so many times but keeps coming back. It's telling when their favorite thing about the Bronx is that everyone fights each other. It's telling when I ask them to write about what they want to do and they say they want to go into the Armed Forces, not to defend their country, but to kill other people. It's telling when we're doing timelines and they say the first Rated R movie they watched was in 1st Grade. It's telling that their favorite video game is Grand Theft Auto. And lastly, it's telling when you can see in their faces that we are the first people who have ever told them they can do anything and are showing them what that means.
These kids know there are problems, they know which side of the color line they stand on. They just don't know how to think about it. They haven't seen options, so they don't know options. Giving them options, showing them the choices they can make and the consequences those will have. Letting them know that college is an option and that despite everything they've heard, that they are special and can do anything they set their mind to. Getting them to see it, and giving them the tools to do it, even if it's only in 4 weeks. That is why I Teach for America.
Tim
El Hajj Malik El Shabazz
So, the first week of teaching is almost done. The first day sucked, but it's gotten better everyday since. Here are some interesting facts/thoughts/random events...
I have a girl named Yasmine in my class who is expected to pass these tests to get into the 7th grade. They placed her in the class because she's the age for 7th grade even though she moved to America from Ghana a month ago... So yah, that's a challenge... So, when I teach, I have to make sure Yasmine and Nestor, who can hardly read or do math get something and that Keneshia and Isiah who are at a 7th-8th grade level are both getting something as well. Yay for impossibility.
This one girl, Nirvanie, we tested her comprehension with this story about these eskimo kids who are lost in the snow. The part of the story we used ends when this magical owl is pretty clearly about to show them the way home. So we ask her, to test comprehension and understanding, "What do you think is going to happen next in the story?" How does she respond? "I think they're going to eat the owl."
My roommate told me the other day that this kid was leaving for home but forget his metropass. So he went back into the school to get it from his desk, but apparently you're not allowed to do that. So the school police officer, not a security guard but an actual cop, grabs him by the backpack, yanks him back, slaps him hard on the face and sends him off where he has to walk 30 blocks to his home. The kid was about 12 years old. I hear about "incidents" pretty much everyday from multiple people.
We did seating order today and paired up Yasmine, who hadn't spoken or done any work all week, with this girl Genesis. After about an hour, Genesis started helping Yasmine with all her work and they became friends. It was maybe the first time I'd heard Yasmine speak (I literally thought she was mute) or seen her smile. So, I wrote this post-it note for the two of them thanking them for their hard work and for supporting each other and gave it to them. I've never seen anybody be so happy about getting a post-it note. Genesis lit up and as soon as the next teacher came in she said, "Ms. Scott, did you see what Mr. Kudo gave me!?" In any respect, now I give post-it notes with small phrases on it to everyone I see, core members, teachers, my advisor. It's catching on at C.I.S. 22 as a trend.
Ms. Scott's roommate teaches this kid named Miguel who enters the classroom late everyday, sits in the back with earphones on and raps out loud for the class. Needless to say, Miguel is a bit of a disruption. The other day, she finally got Miguel, who is 14, to settle down and told him to do this worksheet. About 5 minutes later, as she was working with some other students, he came up to her and, having drawn a face on his hand (you know, where the thumb is the mouth), he proceeded to tell her in a high-pitched whiny voice, "I'm not going to do this shit, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." Needless to say, she took him outside to discipline him but while she was doing it, a friend of Miguel's was walking by and the two started talking. So she said, "Excuse me, we're having a conversation." To which Miguel replied, "Excuse me, WE'RE having a conversation." So yah, kids are motherfuckers.
In any respect, I hope everything is going well with you all.
Tim.
El Hajj Malik El Shabazz
So I didn't realize that when Teach For America said it was a 2 year commitment they meant 24 hours a day, 7 days a week 52 weeks a year.
In any case, after almost dying on in a plane crash (whichever one of you told me the story of being on the plane that was about to land but then the pilot crazy pulled up at the last minute has voodoo magical powers and should be disposed of by burning) I got here on Sunday morning. Now, it's Thursday and I'll just leave it at that. (For Bruinfolk: when I recall how much work there was on the worst days at the paper I now just think, "How cute.")
So yah, that happened.
I'm now at Fordham University which is kind of like the New York equivalent of USC but about 12 times more ghetto...12 million times that is... On Monday, I begin teaching Math and English to 6th graders at C.I.S. 22 otherwise known as John Mott Intermediate School. When we first met our faculty "advisor", the first thing she said was, "When they give me too much trouble, I take them outside and I say, 'If you don't stop that, I'm going to beat the shit out of you!'" Many other core members here talk about advisors who were fired from their first jobs for hitting kids and today I saw a student and a teacher (that's right, a student and a teacher) fighting in the halls with other teachers and security trying to break them up. I don't remember Lincoln Middle School being like this.
My number, if you want to reach me is: 718-817-2153. As my voicemail message will attest to, I won't be calling you back. The number is just to make you feel good.
Well, you should all feel privileged since I decided to devote my 5 minutes of free time to you. Granted, that only rounds out to a about 10 seconds per person but hey, what are you going to do?
Happy 4th of July and God Save George W. Bush.
Tim