Teaching journal 3/18 - 3/22

When you learn that a child predator works at your school

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. UPDATE: on March 12, I got a layoff notice. This journal is a chronicle of my current experience before it ends. Hope you enjoy. 

Monday, March 18, 2024 

Woke up with a bad attitude. The sadness from the layoff is fading away, and the cynicism is creeping in. I found myself having thoughts like what does it matter if I plan a good lesson or not? 

Tomorrow we’re taking the students to the Birch Aquarium, so today I made a little scavenger hunt for the Birch Aquarium website. I wrote questions that required students to click through to find the information. It wasn’t busy work per se, because loading students with background knowledge—even if it’s just images of what they should expect to see—gives more purpose to the trip. But letting kids fuck around on the internet isn’t exactly good teaching. I just wanted something the students could work on independently while I wallowed in my bad attitude. 

But the scavenger hunt proved very difficult for some students who, I think, don’t really know how to use computers. Having been raised in front of a keyboard and a screen, I often forget that so many students’ exposure to the internet is on their phones, and I’d wager that for some kids in my classes, their school-assigned Chromebook is the first actual computer they’ve owned. 

So I sat with a handful of students and showed them how to navigate the aquarium website, literally pointing on where to click to find information. Some students found it so frustrating that they gave up.

But both of my classes were quiet as they worked, and I was thankful that I was able to help students who needed it without having to worry about kids getting off-task, wrestling, or a number of other things 9th graders often do when I’m not in front of the class.

I also spent a lot of time hyping up the field trip today, like the aquarium is going to be the best thing these kids have ever done in their entire lives. As I was doing it, I had this picture of myself as one of those youth group leaders who are getting people excited about Jesus. Hey kids, you know what’s really cool? Jesus! Aquariums!  

I could see in the students’ faces that they weren’t buying it. Just kind of like Yeah, we’ve seen fish before, you freak.

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Field trip day. Hell yes. I’ve written about this before, but field trips are the best. It’s a time when you can sort of let your teacher facade down and just be a person. And today, we took the ELD 1/2 students (ELD goes up to level 6 at our school), so it was only about 40 students, as opposed to the 100+ that go on the bigger trips. 

On the bus ride to the aquarium, I stared at a giant dick and balls some kid had scrawled onto the seat in front of me. You know, for all the hand wringing about graphic novels containing nudity—and the ongoing efforts to remove/censor them—I’d wager that there isn’t a kid in existence who hasn’t seen a drawing of a dick in a textbook, drawn in the school bathroom, or, say, on the bus. 

The aquarium really isn’t that big, so you can pretty much see the whole thing in about 40 minutes. We had three hours scheduled. Besides me, there were only three other adult chaperones, and we each had a group of about 10 kids. 

Last year when we went on this field trip, all the “bad kids“ wanted to be in my group for some reason. These were the annoying kids that talked constantly through class and actively disrupted learning. But I discovered that there’s a certain joy in hanging out with these types of students outside the classroom—you can mess around with them, joke with them, see them as humans and not constant thorns in your side. It’s also nice to see that it’s not you who they disrespect, just school.

But this year, my groups have been with some truly amazing humans. I don’t want to throw out the word “favorites” because I think any teacher who starts thinking in terms of favorites is just getting played. However, the particular students who were in my group are just the most thoughtful and close-knit. They are eager to learn, and often want to practice their English with me.

I led them around for the first 30 minutes and then gradually drifted away. I had tasked them all with getting some nice shots for video editing tomorrow, and I showed them the proper way to hold the phone while recording (horizontal like youtube = good; vertical like TikTok = bad) so it was rad to to see this big group of students taking it seriously, reverential like cinematographers, getting artsy shots of every single exhibit, holding their phones sideways.

At the tide pool exhibit, you can touch sea anemones, urchins, and small fish. I did this joke where I put one finger in the water, allowing the anemone to latch on like we were holding hands. “Look, it’s my girlfriend,” I said, and some kids thought that was pretty funny. Mr. P says it’s really hard to be intentionally funny when you’re a teacher, and he’s right. I tried to be funny when I was a student teacher, but that did nothing to endear me to students. Also, the language barrier in ELD makes any attempt at humor a fool’s errand. 

Then a student came up and tried to touch the anemone, and I was like, “Hey, back off. That’s my girl.” The student pretended to back off and said, “Oh. Sorry.” 

For the last two hours, everyone posted up on the deck overlooking La Jolla Cove. The day was beautiful. We looked out over the water, ate lunch, and just soaked in the sun. As far as workdays go, it could’ve been a lot worse.

We returned to school sunburnt and blissed out, only to find that Mr. M—who did not go on the field trip—had a harrowing day of calling security on a student who had brandished their belt like a weapon. After hearing that, we kept tales of our chill field trip to a minimum.

After school, I went to a union meeting in Mission Valley. The meeting was specifically for anyone who had received a layoff notice. Exhausted, probably heatstroked, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I’d even come to think of it in my mind as The Loser’s Club. 

It ended up being helpful. The union is pretty good about laying out technical details. It’s kind of like when you go to the doctor and they explain your illness in medical terms. There’s a little reprieve in information without emotional bullshit attached to it. 

But also, at the same time, it’d be nice if the union did give emotional support. I know that’s not their job, but sometimes you just need someone to just raise their eyebrows and say, “I’m sorry you’re going through this.” Not “this happens all the time” or “this happened to me, it’ll likely get fixed”. 

Also, the woman sitting next to me was eating a big tray of Indian food with shrimp in it. Objectively, it was probably delicious, but have you ever been so worn down by the world that every sight and smell just seems like an affront to you? That’s how I felt about this woman’s fucking food. 

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Today I had students answer two questions and their notebook: What was their favorite part of the field trip and what was their least favorite part of the field trip? 

Most kids surprisingly loved hanging out on the sun deck. I hadn’t been concerned about it yesterday because I was having such a nice time, but in the back of my mind I did wonder if the kids were bored. When sharing our answers, one kid said everything was boring, but most everyone else enjoyed having time to hang out with their friends.

Then I tried to get students to upload the videos from the field trip onto Google Drive, which we could then put into Adobe express. Basically, I wanted them to move videos from their phones to the computer. 

And thus it began, the failure of technology. Some kids have phones who can’t handle video; others didn’t have enough space to even download the Google Drive app. Or there’s a disconnect between their Google Drive account and their school email. A few weeks ago, I said technology can make or break a lesson. Today, I think, was the breaking point for my video-making aspirations.

I had big dreams to get more into project based learning by having students produce their own videos, but after today, I think I’m going to ditch those dreams. We’ve had a lot of fun over the last few weeks playing around with video editing software, but the tech headaches are just too much. Feels like so much learning time is wasted by trying to get students acquainted with technology. 

An important piece of advice my guide teacher gave me is if something is not working, there is no shame in abandoning it. In fact, I’ve found that it can be just as enlightening to abandon something that doesn’t work as finding something that does. Personal growth af. 

I’ll probably do some more editing exercises because they’re fun and they’re good at teaching narrative sequence, but having them produce mini-documentaries about their lives—which was my goal—just seems too marred with obstacles beyond my control. 

Oh, also today I was helping Hello Kitty Girl in math, and she pointed at her head—indicating my head—and said “pim...ple?”

Indeed, she was referring to a zit between my eyes. I wanted to die, but also was proud of her for knowing the vocabulary. 

“…yes,” I said. “Very good.”

Ah, adult acne. The body truly is a wonderland. 

Thursday, March 21, 2024

For the first time in a long time, I feel like I can say, “At least I don’t have it as bad as that guy.”  

We found out today that our Associate Principal Charles De Freitas had been arrested the night before, for allegedly sending lewd materials to a student.

Before I was a teacher, I’d often read about child predators in schools, and wonder How could no one know? Why didn’t anyone see it happen? Surely there must have been signs. Yet, it happens so often. Who amongst us went to a school where there hasn’t been an incident with an abusive adult?  

But now, having experienced this from the educator side, let me tell you: this devastates schools. The shockwaves hit hard and fast. It will go down in the annals of our school’s history.

For the past few days, I’d been watching that show on Max, Quiet on Set, about all the child grooming that was going on at Nickelodeon in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. When the news about our assistant principal came out, it seemed like there was some terrible kismet at play. Two awful worlds colliding. 

I was shocked at the news. I had interacted with Charles De Freitas hundreds of times. He wasn’t a friend, but I’d never have tagged him as a groomer or a pedophile. He was my secret Santa last year! 

(By the way, he gave me a book about the history of punk music, which was actually kind of thoughtful, but I don’t think I can ever bring myself to read it.)

I can’t emphasize enough how much this kind of revelation decimates a school. All these adults and children put their trust in this guy. Now, we all feel like we’ve been had. Like we’ve been cheated. Betrayed. 

It’s unforgivable. It has put a mark on the school, and the entire profession in general. There’s no describing the anger and sadness that now flows through the halls of our school. And with so many people gunning to get rid of public education in the United States, people like Charles De Freitas—who held a fucking Associate Principal title—just supply the ammunition.

Suffice to say, this—in addition to the layoffs—has made things pretty bleak. Morale is low. It’s going take a long time for the school to heal. 

And stupid me, I tried to teach a class after hearing the news.

Unbeknownst to me, all the students and parents got the message shortly after we did—sent via email or text or whatever. So of course, nobody paid attention to the magazine article I was trying to teach, which was about a man who got thrown 1,000 feet by a tornado (I really picked the right time of year to teach all these uplifting stories!).  

I should’ve gave the students a free day, maybe even tried talking with them about it, but I went on, business as usual. I now know that if I was on the Titanic, I’d be the person trying to get kids to “repeat after me” as the boat sinks. 

Teaching, man. Never a dull day.

Friday, March 22, no 2024

I made a tiny quiz for the article that we had read the day before. Just a few simple multiple-choice questions to gauge student understanding. And, also to put the fear of God into them. Sometimes I just feel like my class isn’t rigorous enough, and I’m trying to up the rigor so kids feel like they have more at stake.

Then I just had them illustrate comics based on passages from the article. After yesterday’s seismic event, I really just wanted to have a day where we could just be together and make art. I made a little comic book template and put passages of the tornado article for them to illustrate. 

Love this student’s artwork

While we worked, I put Youtube on the screen and had students take turns at playing DJ. I think we all needed a light way to end this week, which has felt 30 days long.

I like having open DJ time because it keeps kids engaged with each other. I feel like it does help some of the cultural riffs that exist between, say, the Spanish speakers and the Haitian Creole speakers. At the end of third period, everyone had finished their comics and were just standing around, vibing to each other’s music. Good to end on a positive note.