Teaching journal 1/29 - 2/2

Awful substitutes, freaky foods, bleak offsite meetings

Recap: I’m a teacher in San Diego. I teach English Language Development (ELD, the new term for ESL) to 9-12 grade newcomers to the country. On January 3, I was informed that my position would be eliminated next year. This journal is a chronicle of my current experience before it ends. Hope you enjoy. 

Monday, January 29, 2024 

Absolutely nothing happened today. It was as seamless as a teacher could ask for. The Cheater was absent. Perhaps that was what made everything feel smooth.

We read a magazine article from the textbook called ‘Freaky Foods.” Part of this unit is acknowledging the global community so I thought perhaps the title “Freaky Foods” is a little bit strange, a little xenophobic. The article probably also realized this because it bent over backwards to mention that, despite how strange some foods may seem, every food is beautiful and we’re all beautiful and the world is beautiful. 🤗  

But it is fun to teach the word “freaky.” I made the kids say “freaky” no less than 10 times throughout the day. 

I also used it as an opportunity to show them my pictures from Mexico City when I ate grasshoppers off a skewer served over a fancy cocktail. The look of horror on their faces was priceless. Love to gross out teens. 

One of the freaky foods mentioned in the article was seaweed. In my third period, a Vietnamese girl said, “Mr. Bradford, look!” and brought out a case of dry, salted seaweed snacks. All of a sudden, every kid was interested in knowing what seaweed tasted like, and she was kind enough to share. 

Some kids thought it was gross and ran to spit it out in the trash, but the real ones were into it. The Vietnamese girl didn’t care either way. It was one of those beautiful, perfect teaching moments.

Mrs. E—the math teacher that I help during second period—told me that she was going to be gone tomorrow. I asked her if she knew who her substitute would be, and we looked it up. Turns out, the sub assigned was a very bad one. The woman is very old-fashioned and doesn’t really know how to interact with ELD kids, and in fact, mostly confuses them. For example, if a student asks if they can go to the bathroom, she’ll correct them: “may you?” Straight out of the 1950s. 

Last year, this woman also sent one of the students to the principal’s office because he was wearing a hat with a weed leaf on it. This is technically against the dress code, but who cares about dress codes? Some of these students’ relationship with education is so tenuous that it doesn’t take much for them to drop out, and being sent to the office for a fucking hat is not going to endear them to school. And, indeed, that kid with the weed hat stopped coming to school shortly after that incident. 

At the end period three, one boy came up to tell me that he’s  “starting to like American football.” He was very excited to tell me, and I was so proud of him because he was nervous about his pronunciation, but really what I wanted to say was “Why? 

Seriously, easy days like today are rare. It’s kinda fucked up on these types of days that I wonder if I’m actually teaching well. If we’re not struggling, or if we’re not having a low-grade panic attack, are we really doing our job? 

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Just another pleasant day. 

Today was kind of a hodgepodge in terms of lesson plans, but I started out with a small reading group in both my periods. 

I have this new student from Afghanistan—a very serious student. She’s the type who will turn around and give a stern look to people who are talking.

I had a student like that last year. These types are always a double edged sword—it’s nice to have an engaged student who wants to learn and pay attention, but when things get noisy, you can see their temper rising. You just know it’s a matter of time before they tell someone to shut up. This, obviously, creates more problems than it solves. 

One of the most interesting things about teaching ELD is observing the differences in how students from different cultures expect the classroom to operate. I also believe this is why public school is so important: it teaches people how to be together. How to have patience. How to interact with each other with vastly different backgrounds.

Up until now, I’ve suspected this Afghani student has seen me as a kind of a joke—not strict enough, lets a lot of things fly. But today during small group reading, I was able to get five distractible kids to engage in a mini lesson for 20 minutes. She was part of the group, and seemed to have a good time.

Then it was time for second period with the dreaded substitute teacher. 

Even before heading over to the classroom, I stopped by Mr. P’s class and just hung out for 15 minutes to avoid having to deal with the sub. I considered staying the entire time. Let the kids fend for themselves. But my dumb conscious got the best of me.

As soon as I stepped in the door, there was this exuberant plea of “Help us, Mr. Bradford!” I could see it in their eyes that they weren’t talking about math. They were looking for me for salvation.

Not trying to be ageist, but this substitute definitely a product of her time. She’s also been working for the district most of her life, so she deserves some respect for that, but just the way she interacts with ELD kids just makes me cringe. She comes from a time when the purpose of school was to teach students to be obedient, conform and assimilate. She lords over her classes with a strict hand. She doesn’t let the kids talk or eat or do anything except work. 

And she is extra harsh on the Haitian students. I have theories on why this is, and it goes back to her being a product of her time. She is always on their case, alternating between trying to socialize with them and reprimanding them. 

I volunteered to sit next to the Haitian girls just so the sub would leave them alone. But still, the sub came over and wanted to talk with the Haitian girls, who, I could tell, hated her with a passion.

I took it upon myself to start a conversation with the sub as a way to distract her from yelling at any of the students. 

By the way, I am not opposed to disciplining kids, but ELD—and school, for that matter—is just a different game. It’s not about assimilation anymore. And our classes are loud! The kids are encouraged to speak and communicate!

So what ensued was a 40-minute conversation about the old days of teaching. The sub told me how well behaved her students used to be when she took them on field trips to the museum. She told me that after these trips, she would ask the kids, “Think about how you presented yourself to the other people,” as if it was a virtue that these Black and brown students had accommodated a white museum crowd. 

At one point, she was talking about the Revolutionary War (???) and I just kept nodding. 

During our convo, one of the Haitian girls left the room for about 45 minutes to go to the bathroom and this woman didn’t even notice. I thought to myself, “Good for you.”

Finally the period ended. Since most of the students in that math class follow me to third period, I began class by typing into Google translate: “You guys owe me big time for speaking to that lady for 40 minutes so she wouldn’t yell at you“ 

A few of them smiled and said, “Thank you, Mr. Bradford.”

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Today I went to an offsite meeting in old town San Diego with the Multilingual Education Department. You know, the department whose jobs will be eliminated next year. 

It was the first time that we had gotten together since the horrible news. After that day, a lot of us wondered if there would be any more department meetings. How can anyone expect us to be engaged with professional development when the future is futile?

But I really like my colleagues, and it’s always kind of nice to have a day off campus. Plus, the invite said there would be light breakfast and lunch provided. Schwing. 

I would say the vibe in the room was caustically optimistic, like people waiting in line at the gallows, measuring the amount of rope the executioner has left. There was defeat in people's body language and in the kind of comments they were making, but I think a lot of us needed that communal commiseration. Perhaps every professional development from now until the end of the year will just be like a support group. 

Apparently at the beginning of the session, one of our directors addressed the absurdity of the situation, but I was late and I missed it. I like to be early for these things, at least appear professional, but what were they gonna do? Fire me? Eliminate my job? Ha ha.

Each attendee received a small plastic pouch filled with pencils, pens, sticky notes and candy. On the outside, it read “Teacher Survival.” These kinds of things are always nice, but how many loosey pencils/pens/highlighters does one need? A real teacher survival kit would just be filled with edibles and Xanax.

It’s also funny because the majority of the Multilingual Ed Department is made up of women. I think I’m like one of only three or four men. When I was first hired, another other guy tried to engage me with Guy Talk, and I think it was something as innocuous as, “Hey, there’s another guy in the room.“ But I don’t know how to respond to those types of comments, at least not in a correct Guy Way, because he doesn’t really try to talk to me anymore. 

The training itself was fine. It was called Learning How English Works and it was meant to help teachers develop more linguistically-responsive pedagogy. But as is the case with many of these meetings, the content seemed to focus on elementary students. That’s been one frustration: there is way more attention and resources devoted to elementary English learners than there is to secondary students. It’s almost like there’s a tacit notion that teenagers are a lost cause. 

For lunch, they fed us Jersey Mike’s sandwiches. As a self-proclaimed Jersey Mike’s-head, I was thrilled.

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Another big rainstorm today. I had about eight kids in my first period. Halfway through, admin took half of them to do the speaking portion of the ELPAC. So it was just me in front of about five students. 

Have you ever been to a private room karaoke with just a few other people? Absolutely zero energy. You could be singing your heart out, but everyone—including yourself—is dying inside. I wasn’t feeling it. The kids weren’t feeling it.  

In both classes, I did a little writing and speaking exercise where I had them write in their journal: “What’s the most unusual food you have ever eaten?” This was building off the “Freaky Foods” article that we read on Monday. 

First period is overwhelmingly shy and didn’t really want to share, although one girl was very excited to tell us about eating octopus, and the girl from Afghanistan said “a burger” was the most unusual food that she had ever eaten. I was fascinated! These are the answers I crave.  I’m always curious about what newcomers find strange about United States culture.

Third period is always eager to chat, which I love about third. There are some interesting answers: fried worms, fish soup, frog, dog tacos. One girl said she drank iguana blood, which... not sure if I believe her, but it was a cool answer. 

I don’t want to jinx it, but this might have been the easiest teaching week I’ve ever had. 

Friday, February 2, 2024

Welp, I jinxed it.

Very weird energy today, like a kind of  hyper-tiredness. It didn’t help that I went to a concert last night (Fucked Up and Superchunk, a fantastic show). I don’t really go out on weeknights anymore because it’s too hard, so I’ve been dragging all day. One student asked if I was crying because of my bloodshot eyes.

I had to sternly talk to The Cheater today. The Cheater and his little friend have this thing where they think they’re King Shits of the classroom. They’ll just stand up and walk around while I’m trying to teach, doing fist bumps to their friends and bothering girls as a means of flirting with them.

So today, I brought out the translator and told both The Cheater and his friend that I was fed up with their shit. “It is so disrespectful,” I said. They both said they were sorry. Who knows if they mean it.

But on the bright side, during the small reading group, The Cheater did ask if he could borrow one of the books we use. “Of course,” I said. “You can keep it.”

This year, I’ve been trying to do occasional, standalone vocabulary lessons about social justice terms. All the ELD kids are in the Social Justice Academy at my school, so I figure it’s worth it to teach them some terms. Also, I believe that most students are interested in social justice issues, and I think providing them with the vocabulary to discuss them can be a powerful motivator. I could be wrong, but it’s a nice break from grammar, phonics, or analyzing narratives.

In the past, we’ve covered such terms like oppression, multiculturalism, conflict, and community. Today, I wanted them to recognize and understand the words “equity” and “equality”, and be able to tell the difference between them.

The reason that I only do these lessons occasionally is because I create big slideshows, and each slideshow takes quite some time to put together. It’s hard to make a presentation that’s image-heavy, informative, yet easy enough for a non-English speaker to understand without being pandering or babyish.

I matched the slideshow with Pear Deck, a program that enables interactive elements for students who are following along. This is a new technique I recently learned from Mr. M, and it’s way better than just talking at students for 45 minutes. 

But like I said, there was weird energy in both classes. It could’ve been rainstorm fatigue, or the fact that so many kids were being pulled to take the ELPAC—it just seemed like students didn’t treat it as a real school day. They were just done. I could see it on their faces.

I guess that makes it a perfect date to do one of these vocabulary lessons because they’re not part of any of the text that I’m supposed to be teaching. The students are not going to be tested on this material. They’re not going to be lost in the class if they get pulled for ELPAC. The lessons are just me going rogue. 

At the same time, I worked so hard on the presentation, so I want the students to see them. 

But at the end of the day, my brain was dead. There was a big group of about seven kids sitting around a table meant for four. One girl was putting make-up on a guy, and I just could not bring myself to give a shit. My answer? Just teach louder. I could feel my voice dying, cracking. But there were about ten other kids who were into the Equity/Equality presentation. And sometimes —especially on a Friday—that’s all you can really hope for.

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I was interviewed by VOSD

I forgot to mention this last week, but I recently talked with Voice of San Diego reporter Jakob McWhinney about the process of being excessed. The story he wrote was very good and managed to make me sound somewhat intelligent. Check it out, and thank you for listening, Jakob! 

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Don’t forget: New AWKSD shirts!

A lot of people* are saying this is the best shirt they’ve ever owned. If you want your own, please Venmo $25 to Ryan-Bradsford-2, and include your size and address. I have a few of all sizes left, except XXL.