Teaching journal 4/22 - 4/26

Who put a curse on me?

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, April 22, 2024 

I started out today by spilling my whole fucking coffee all over myself. I tried to catch it on the way down and it spilled all over my outfit and burned my hand. It was the most Monday thing to happen. 

Today in both classes, we did a Quizizz to review our new vocabulary. I only have two goals this week: getting the kids to design their apocalypse posters and to do well on a vocabulary quiz. 

The last time I tried to do any sort of graphic design work with the students, it was a disaster, but today it was only a mini disaster. This time around, the kids were a little more familiar with Canva so I didn’t really need to frontload them with a demonstration of how to use it.

I would say about 60% of them made some really cool shit. The rest either kind of half-assed it or didn’t even make an attempt. 

Seeing this non-commitment to participate in creative projects makes me really reconsider doing the final zine project. Last year, I had students make a basic four-page zine about any topic they wanted, and they turned out great, but I also remember the process feeling a bit like pulling teeth. There were some days when I was like why the hell am I doing this? So seeing kids brush off this apocalypse project makes me nervous. 

Maybe it’s my own biases, but it’s really hard for me to understand how difficult it is for some kids to be creative. This apocalypse project, for example, allowed students to invent a scenario where they could think critically and dip their toes in future tense writing.

But when I was explaining this scenario—using the translator so kids could fully understand the creative potential—I got the vibe that many of the kids just wanted me to tell them what to put down. And as always is the case, I got a handful of kids turning in the exact same project, copying their neighbor who actually completed it.

Some kids made really good posters, thought. One student tackled the zombie apocalypse, and one of his necessary objects was a costume to trick zombies into thinking you’re one of them. One of the Vietnamese girls thought it’d be necessary to have zombie blood to smear all over yourself for the exact same reason.

Dancing Girl didn’t do anything except goof off. I had to tell her that she needs to show a little more maturity in front of the new students, because she is a leader, and she said “okay.”

My favorite moment today was when I asked the class to think about what kind of food they’d eat in their apocalypse, and a little voice at the back of the room quietly said, “a potato.”

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

This morning, while reaching for my breakfast, I accidentally knocked a big tub of cat treats off the shelf, spilling them all over myself. After the coffee fiasco yesterday, I was like “did someone put a curse on me?” 

Then, right before I left for school, I broke the handle on my toilet. 

Yessir, 100% cursed.

Because I didn’t want to further tempt misfortune, I planned an easy day. Started class with 20 minutes of IXL, which is what I’m going to do every Tuesday and Thursday. This will give the students time to chill out, especially in third period.

It dawned on me that the reason classroom behavior has felt so uncontrollable lately might be due to the fact that we’ve gotten so many new students in the past few weeks. They’re not used to the routines and classroom expectations that most students go through during the first month of school. So to maintain some sanity—my own and Mr. P’s—we’re going to reset and reestablish the classroom environment. 

I know we shouldn’t have to do this kind of reintroduction-to-school type shit, but I think it’ll help me in the long run. At least mentally.

I decided today to push back the vocabulary quiz. As I was saying yesterday, getting kids ready for the quiz was one of my two goals for the week, but I realized that we’ve only learned new eight words since the last quiz, and I usually try to quiz them at sixteen new words. 

Plus, I wanted everyone to finish up the apocalypse project. If students hadn’t finished the art, then it would be homework if they wanted full credit.  Overall, I was pleased with the work that was turned in. I printed out some of the posters using our school’s nice printers, and the students who finished got a kick out of seeing their designs in print.

I’ve mentioned the two new Haitian brothers—and how all the girls love them. However, since their arrival, we’ve gotten three more Haitian boys—two step brothers and one of their cousins. Now Dancing Girl has latched herself onto one of the new brothers and I get the feeling that the other brothers are thankful. It feels like maybe it’s a rite of passage at our school: enduring the affections of Dancing Girl.

Today she was all handsy and grabby with one of the new brothers, who is a pretty shy kid. He looked at me as she was falling over him and gave me the saddest, trapped look. Later, Mr. P and I were talking about it. 

“Poor kid,” I said. 

“It’s like watching a praying mantis play her mate before devouring him,” Mr. P said. 

There was one point when the new-new student and Dancing Girl were on the ground like wrestling or something, and I walked over and said to Dancing Girl: “Do you remember what I told you yesterday?”

She was like, “Yes, teacher. That I need to be more mature.”  

“Are you being mature right now?” I asked. 

“Yes,” she said. 

Welp, I tried.

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

First time this week that I haven’t done something stupid in the morning. So, I got that going for me. 

I began each class with karaoke practice. I really want the students to do well on this one so we’re doing a lot of in class karaoke practice. When I announced that we were going to be doing karaoke practice, two girls in my first period class simultaneously said “yes!”

I led everybody through one round of practice, and then I had them do the song on their own. I told them to watch the karaoke video at least two times, and to my surprise, most of the kids actually did it.

One of the girls who said “yes!” at the mention of karaoke practice wanted to show me that she could do the song at regular speed. I sat down with her and listened to her do it. Amazing. Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” is a difficult song, even for native English speakers.

I feel like I haven’t mentioned The Cheater lately. The truth is, he’s downgraded from being a major distraction to just kind of a regular annoyance. He and his little buddy show up late nearly every day, which I kind of suspect is their attempt to skip the portion of the class when I make everyone put their phones in the closet. But sometimes they show up with matching Frappuccinos or whatever the fuck, so it could just be they decide to come to school when it’s convenient for them. 

I was telling Mr. P that there’s this threshold of noise that I have just learned to talk through. Today was just one of those days where the noise was just manageable enough to plow through with the dead-eyed resolve of someone who is not gonna be working much longer. But afterward, Mr. P and I discussed how we need to curb this disrespect, so we’re going to implement a seating chart. Love to put kids in their places, literally. 

By the way, we got another new kid today. This makes about six new arrivals in the last two weeks. Just insane. And what do you do with a kid that shows up this late into school? Me and Mrs. E were talking about that today. Luckily, with the literacy classes, the curriculum isn’t built too heavily on consecutive lessons. A student can miss a week of school and not be totally lost. But with math, everything builds on each other, so she definitely has the harder of the jobs.

After classes ended for the day, we had a choice to attend one of four professional developments. I picked a restorative circle because I like the teachers who were running it, and also because the other three PDs involved discussing a book that I haven’t read. 

The restorative circle was about Charles De Freitas—the associate principal who was charged with sending lewd pics to a minor—and how we have been feeling about all of that. It got intense. A lot of crying and anger. I was also surprised at how sympathetic some people were.

But the teacher sitting next to me was something else. For these restorative circles, the moderator lays down ground rules, i.e be a present listener, be respectful, etc. So it was funny/not funny when the teacher next to me pulled out his phone and started texting with somebody, but in this really cumbersome, distracting way. He held his phone in one hand and used the index finger of his other hand to peck at letters, one at a time. The cherry on top was that he had the clicking and whooshing sounds on his phone still turned on.

We’d be listening to someone’s very emotional story, and all of a sudden: click click click whoosh.

It was also one of those type circles where we passed around an object to indicate whose turn it was to speak. There was a blanket in the center of the circle with a bunch of comforting objects laid out. The first woman to share had the task of picking out the speaking object, and she grabbed a cloth doll. But the whole time I kept thinking what if there was also 100 lb kettlebell.

I kept imagining picking the kettlebell and then having to share your trauma with this massive weight crushing your legs. Seemed real funny to me.

I’m very good at restorative circles. 

Oh, we also got an email today from our principal saying that she’s quitting next year. 

PS: got a plumber to replace the toilet and do a few other bathroom repairs. The total? $1500. Cool cool. Didn’t really want to have any money this month anyway. 

The author with his new toilet

If you are the one who cursed me, I’m sorry for whatever I did. 

Thursday, April 25, 2024

The kind of day where you earn your paycheck.

That’s not to say that it was a bad day. In fact, we got to read a news article from the textbook today, and it was a good one about fight or flight and the physiological effects that happen to your body when you encounter danger. Besides being an inherently interesting topic (imo) it was fun to scaffold with Pear Deck. 

I also feel like I taught the hell out of it too. I had a lot of interaction, either by having kids choral read together, or having them fill in the missing word when I paused. Since I synced it with Pear Deck, I could add little interactive activity slides to monitor comprehension.  

In both classes, the kids were great throughout the entire lesson. I did not have to shush anybody. I think it was because I was being so loud and energetic that the girls who are usually the chattiest gave up on competing with me as the center of attention. 

The reason that today was rough was because I realized one of the new kids was being a creep. Him and his cousin are barely a week into school and they’re coming in hot. They walk around like they own the place, all swagger, wearing their little sunglasses inside, being disruptive.

Today at the end of third period, four or five students came up to me and said the new kid—who I am just gonna call Bad Impression—was taking photos of them without permission. They also said that Bad Impression was showing them photos of naked women. 

I didn’t witness any of this, but I’ve known the reporting students for an entire year, and they’re wonderful humans so there’s no reason to not believe them. 

I told Bad Impression that he needs to learn some boundaries, and making enemies this fast is not gonna bode well for him. I also said that he could be suspended. He kind of laughed and said he understood, but at the end if class I could see he was trying to block the exit of one of the girls. I was just like Jesus fucking Christ, so that’s how you want to play this? 

I sent a message home to his mom and dad, told them that he was showing lewd pictures to other students.

As Mr. P said the other day, I’m over trying to get kids to like me. If these two new kids think they can come in and ruin the already tenuous balance of the environment, they’ve got another thing coming. They need to be knocked down a couple pegs. 

They should rename May “Don’t Fuck with Teachers Month.”

Friday, April 26, 2024

Came home from school yesterday and found someone ran into my car which was parked on the street. Didn’t leave note. It was a hit-and-run.

It’s almost comical how bad this week has been. So when I saw my smashed-up car, I thought of-fucking-course. Felt just utter defeat.

I almost called in sick, but I already had my lesson all planned out. Plus, Fridays are easy days. If you’re going to extend your weekend, do it on the back half. Take that Monday off. That’s what I’m planning to do.

I did put the photos of my broken car on the screen to squeeze some sympathy from the kids. It worked. First period got really solemn. They said “I’m sorry Mr. Bradford” and meant it. My student from Afghanistan asked if I had been hurt in the collision. She’s been talking to me about the driver’s test, which she’s going to take on Monday. But today, I was like, “Are you sure you want a car?”

The only plan today was a little comprehension quiz about the “Fight or Flight” article and then have them make vocabulary flashcards. The students have gotten so fast at flashcards that most of them finished with 30 minutes to spare.

Yesterday, after messaging Bad Impression’s parents, I sent an email to the Associate Principal to let her know about the incident, so today there was a full-on investigation. After the De Freitas thing, the school’s not messing around when it comes to that kind of stuff. 

During second period, the AP called the three reporting students into her office to get their stories. I sat with the kids in a conference room while she took them to her office one at a time. These are pretty advanced students, and I don’t get a lot of one-on-one time with them (at least not as much as the students who need more help), so it was cool to hang out and talk to them. 

We talked about my pets, and my job, and I told them about my layoff. I haven’t told any of the students yet and these three were incredibly receptive and compassionate. 

I hope they look back on this as a positive experience, that Bad Impression’s gross behavior does not fly at our school. If somebody is being abusive, we’re gonna take care of it.

Then it was third period.

During the previous period, all the students got free water bottles, which I knew immediately would become A Thing. At the beginning of my class, they were fighting over the bottles, trying to steal each other’s bottles, throwing them around.

Someone took Dancing Girl’s water bottle and she had a complete meltdown. It was another one of those falling-down-on-the-ground-and-pretending-to-cry meltdowns, but this time she stayed down for much longer and was like flopping around like a fish. 

Not today, dude, I thought. You don’t do this to a guy whose car was just totaled. So I kicked her out of class. 

There was this long moment where I was looking around for a pen to write her dismissal note, and everything just got silent. The kids knew I was fucking furious, and I extended that as long as I I could. 

I never want to kick kids out of class, and I especially don’t want to call security on them, so I wrote a note for her that said go to the office to cool down. She left and everybody was still silent. On the screen, I brought up Google Translator and was wrote “Can we just have a day that doesn’t turn into a disaster?”

I feel like it’s a skill to bounce back from being so enraged, but I think I’m pretty good at it. While I was looking for a pen, extending that moment of silence, I was very conscious of my breathing and my thought processes, and thought about how, yes, it is largely the students’ fault I’m so angry, but it’s not completely the students’s fault. It’s just been a rough few months. 

I don’t know if you remember being in school and the teacher freaking out, but there was always  a moment when you felt too scared to move. I feel like I’m good at not letting that moment last too long. I’m able to return to the classroom to a somewhat welcoming and warm environment. Even if I’m not a great teacher, at least I have the ability to calm myself quickly. 

Dancing Girl returned to class 15 minutes later and said that there was no one in the office. I didn’t care. She was calm, sat down and did her work. She also helped one of the new students. I was glad she came back. But I was also glad that I had the opportunity to show kids that I’ll throw them out if they’re being assholes. New level of achievement unlocked.

At the end of the period, one of the kids came out to me and said, “We got your back, Mr. Bradford. We love you.”

:,)