Gotta start by saying that last year one of my favorite cynical students…  he shall who not be named.. was asked to write an inspirational poem… one that could be read at Baccalaureate.  He wrote a haiku which his English IV teacher shared with  me… .What’s below is not a quote… merely a paraphrase… but it captures the spirit of his poem

We are East View High
We are just like ev’ry school
Nothing special here

At the time I laughed.  Such a typical comment from an atypical student.  I still laugh… ’cause it’s so him!!

But it’s so NOT East View.

I think maybe when you’re in it… you don’t see the difference.  You think it’s like every place else, but it’s not.

The fact that our kids were staying after a playoff game to clean up trash last night because they wanted to be sure that they didn’t mess up someone else’s stadium… that is NOT typical.

The fact that we rarely have more than one fight at school in a year’s time… that is NOT typical.

The fact that 98% of our students graduate even when half of them are at or below the poverty level… that is NOT typical.

The fact that community members feel moved to write our football coach to mention running into our players in public and how courteous and respectful they are.  that is not typical.

They are the most giving, wonderful, diverse group of young people I’ve ever met.  Each time I challenge them a little bit more with being MORE empathetic, MORE kind… they jump at the challenge..

We’re still a school.  They’re still teenagers.  They will still do and say astronomically stupid things… but they are NOT typical…  It really is an extraordinary place.

When my central office visitor left this week, he said as much…  “What you’re doing here.  This is impressive.”

Now, on ANOTHER note… herding cats is also impressive  (Bear with me here…  this is a complete change of topic, but that was as close as I could get to a segue.)

I teach three upper level AP classes.  The other three classes I teach are…. um…. not…

Three AP English language and composition, one credit recovery class (ALL subjects) and two STAAR repeaters class.

Ah, those kids!!!  Too funny!!!  And that’s my herding cats!!!

I can get my AP kids to hang on to just about every word I say.  Every day they tell me how fast the 90 minutes in my room FLIES by… that they’d be glad to stay for longer.  I swear I could teach them for six hours straight and they’d still  be into it…

STAAR repeaters…  Wow!!!

The test is two weeks away…  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK… and if I can get them to participate with me for an hour that’s a really good day.  It is the strangest experience… I try to be slow to start with them.  (with AP I walk into the room rolling…)  STAAR… you have to kind of finesse them into it… Make like it’s their idea to work.  “Hey, how was your weekend?”

“Really?  I haven’t been there yet.  Tell me about it.”

Oh and they LIE…  They tell stories that aren’t even CLOSE to true… and I listen in appropriate amazement… and I deal with their drama stories… and then I sneak in some ed you ma ka shun…  Then we take a break… and we talk about hair… and race… and money… and cars… and religion… and horror movies… and eternity…

…and then I sneak in a little more learnin’

But always… when there are about 15 minutes left in class, I’m done… I have lost them completely…. and I KNOW that if I tried to teach one more thing I’d be met with nothing but resistance.  They would put their heels in the sand and couldn’t push or pull them for anything in the world… so we talk again…and I tell them about my life… and my decisions… and how I got to where I am…

…and I hope that’s good enough.  I hope that the life lessons they’re learning may be worth it… that all of that time is not “wasted” but differently used.  I’m not sure how some administrator or an evaluator would feel if they walked in the room and all we’re doing is going through some of my old photo albums and talking about apps… but sometimes that’s all I can do with the frisky little kittens, and I actually know that’s okay.