Weekly sweatdrops

A Credo on School Reform - this one got Cortines and Ms. Flores upset.

Spring of 2011:

I am discovering that I am being quoted when I haven’t said anything on the subject of our PSC proposal. For that reason, I think I should officially SAY something on the subject of instruction and on school reform. I don’t have time to write some kind of treatise and I know you don’t have time to read such a thing. Let me outline and bullet a few items in order to spark discussion.

Here are some things I believe to be true:

1)   The problem at HPHS is NOT a problem of bad teachers or bad instructional methodology. Sure, there are some of us who need to improve more than others, but methodology in the classroom should not be the primary focus here.  Kids who stare off into space or socialize during class will do the same thing no matter what new method with a nifty sounding acronym is employed by the teacher.

• Our problems stem from the community in which we are located. We are low income, highly transient, and extremely urban. These factors translate into poor academic performance.
• Our problems have to do with student behavior, lack of student motivation, inadequate student preparation, poor student study habits – yes indeed, it’s all about the students.
• Our proposal should include a number of tried and true instructional methods from which teachers could choose – one size does not fit all. The unifying theme should be one of incorporating more technology into the classroom. This could raise motivation, and tap into prior knowledge. Our kids are experts at texting and accessing “information” on the Internet. (Notice the quotation marks.)
• We can address remediation and study habits through a focus on freshmen – perhaps a freshman house? Technological resources are also available for remediation. We need to be cautious with our attempts to alter student habits. “Nanny-style” pedagogy is not appropriate with teenagers.
• I have seen the various pieces of correspondence Mr. Cortines has made. I have seen his comments in the LA Times. I think our, soon to be retiring, Superintendent is hopelessly out-of-touch with the reality of urban schools and we need to stop acting as though he were a sage to be revered and emulated. We can do our best to appease him, but I will never buy into his ideology.  I don’t believe that the man knows what he is talking about most of the time.

2)   Teaching is an art form and NOT a science. Studies can be done to help the art form, but it is a deeply human process with far too many variables to effectively quantify. This is not JPL or the Cancer Research Institute.

• I pay lip service to the talk about “data driven” instruction, but the problem with data is that it must be interpreted. With internal human activities, too many variables come into play for us to be exclusively data driven. Common sense will help more than bubble tests.
• Good teaching consists in expert knowledge of the subject area and the ability to communicate it. This ability can be expressed in a variety of forms. It is art and not applied science.
• I would like to see more PDS devoted to subject area content rather than silly acronyms.
• Top-down pedagogical dictums never work.
• Administrators need to teach at least ONE class so that they do not lose touch with the reality of dealing with adolescents.

 

Back on the Public School Choice Mandate again - Ms. Flores acts with impunity.

At the prompting of Mr. Howard Blume of the LA Times, I wrote an OP-ED piece and submitted it to the LA Times Opinion Editors. It was rejected - big surprise. Here was what I submitted to the Times back in the early months of 2011:

     It’s true.  A huge sigh of relief could be felt throughout the campus when word reached our ears that Huntington Park High School had reached an API score of 603. Who wouldn’t be relieved to know that outside groups, including private charter companies, were no longer threatening to take over the school, and that reform would come from us, the stakeholders of our own campus? The relief was short lived when we discovered last week that we would be placed in a special Public School Choice plan (2.5) created by our school board just for us. The original agreement was that any school under School Choice 2.0 would be removed from the list if its API reached 600. Two reasons were offered to justify the district’s reneging on this agreement. Both of these reasons are baseless.

      First of all, HPHS as a whole was unjustly compared with Libra Academy, an emerging pilot school on our campus created through the efforts two key teachers and Ms. Yolie Flores, our school board representative.  Ms. Flores and Mr. Cortines have claimed that Libra has made great academic strides in comparison with the remainder of the campus; so that Libra stands as some kind of model for the rest of us.  Libra is still a part of HPHS, but they have still pointed to an API of 726 given by someone other than the state of California to Libra with its 124 freshmen last year. They have also claimed that removing these 124 freshmen from the figure would drop HPHS to an API score of 546. This is a drop of 57 points attributed to the removal of 124 freshmen from the calculation of an API for a school of 4,000? You don’t have to be an Einstein to furrow your eyebrows at the math here.

    Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that the 726 API number is correct for Libra Academy. It becomes irrelevant when a closer examination is made of the two student bodies. The 124 Libra freshmen from last year began the year with recorded eighth grade CST scores well ahead of the remainder of the campus. Libra accomplished this by selecting its students using an application process that required a portfolio. What kind of prospective ninth grade student is going to produce a portfolio to get into a smaller school? Will his or her parents be uninformed or uninvolved in their child’s education? Parent involvement is a huge factor in a child’s academic success. We don’t have anywhere near the degree of parent involvement we would like to see at HPHS. Libra obviously received kids with that important factor firmly in place.

        The CST scores confirm what I’m saying. Percentages display a good contrast. 33 percent of Libra’s freshmen last year carried with them English CST eighth grade scores at proficient or advanced. 15 percent of the 916 freshmen in the remainder of HPHS scored as high during eighth grade. 28 percent of Libra’s freshmen scored this way in math during their eighth grade year. 13 percent of the rest of HPHS scored as high in math.

      In the spring of 2010, 112 students took the CST’s at Libra. Libra showed gains in English. 65 students tested as “Advanced” or “proficient.”(58%)  Their math scores, however, dropped significantly to show only 14 students testing into these categories (13%)while the number scoring at “below basic” and “far below basic” rose from 33 to 55 (49%). Science scores also dropped. Only 30 students demonstrated “advanced” or “proficient” skill levels in the spring (27%) compared with eighth grades scores of 45% at advanced or proficient levels in science.  HPHS took on a similar pattern of CST results in the spring with percentages in the advanced and proficient categories checking in at 25%, 6%, and 11% in the same subject areas respectively.  According to the tests, both schools gained ground in English and lost ground in math and science.

        If Libra itself were to receive a “value added” score, it would be low. Someone might argue that the students don’t take the CST’s seriously and don’t put much effort into them. I would respond with, “YES INDEED!” Would someone please inform the staff of the LA Times before they start printing high school teachers’ “value added” scores!  At HPHS our passing rates on the CAHSEE have never correlated with scores on CST’s. The students take the CAHSEE much more seriously than they take CST’s. Why shouldn’t they? The CAHSEE counts toward graduation. The CST’s do not. Our kids are NOT stupid.

    At the present time over 220 students are enrolled in Libra Academy. They moved into more bungalows driving those of us from the regular campus who were using these bungalows prior to September to be shoved into the cafeteria or the auditorium during the last two weeks of an eight week block of instruction while the bungalows were repaired and beautified as preparation for Libra. Currently Libra has a population of special education students amounting to 2% of its enrollment. The regular school has 11% special ed. Libra’s population of limited English proficient students amounts to 17% of its enrollment. On the regular campus, 31% of our students are classified as limited English proficient.

    Libra Academy does not teach students who function at similar academic levels as the remainder of the school. Comparisons between the two schools are at best irrelevant and at worse deceptive.

    The second charge leveled against Huntington Park High School is that the school has dropped a sense of urgency in its plans for reform after the announcement of API scores. This is simply not true.

    As an English teacher there for eleven years and a second year member of its School Site Council, I can attest that urgency has never left the minds of the faculty at HPHS. Desperation disappeared, but a sense of urgency remained.

   Under the leadership of our new principal Mr. Al Castillo, the council has endorsed a plan to incorporate more technology in its instruction using project-based learning plans and internet tools. Two representatives from the school were able to persuade the city council to set up a tower near the campus in order to create WiFi services for the school and the surrounding community. Training and preparation were in planning stages in order to begin implementation of project-based instruction. Academic intervention would also be available by way of internet services.

    Most importantly, a committee of about a dozen teachers has been furiously at work for more than six months creating a design for a freshman house, a small academy or learning community for the purpose of focusing on freshmen and their unique sets of needs as they transition from middle school into high school.  The Freshman house would offer quick and aggressive intervention to alter inappropriate behavior. It would offer remediation and training in any inadequate school habits that might stand in the way of success. Also, every freshman student would be issued a lap top computer which he or she could take home with them. Parents would also receive internet training so that they could keep track of school assignments and their child’s progress in class. A partnership would be developed with a high tech company yet to be picked and announced.

    As a seasoned English teacher at HPHS, I consider all of these plans to hold at least a hope for genuine improvement in our school’s academic performance. They hold hope because they address real problems not solutions that upper level administrators have decided upon without any real investigation of what is going on. Intervention, remediation, motivation, engagement – these are the things that are lacking in high schools, including ours.  Technology and a concentration on freshmen can offer what is lacking. It’s no guarantee, but these ideas stand a much better chance of success than out of touch programs intended to fix the teacher.

    I was almost looking forward to the possibility of no longer having to hear surly adolescents tell me that it didn’t matter if they passed my class or not because they could make up the credits in intersession or in “beyond the bell” – diluted, easier versions of regular classes which are provided by the district as escape valves. I was almost looking forward to NOT having students walk into my class expecting to turn their desks so that they face each other in order to gossip, joke, and mindlessly copy an assignment from one student who did it in their group.

     With effective intervention, students who don’t understand fractions might not be placed in Algebra where they will fail and the district will blame the teacher. Students who don’t understand algebra will not be placed in Chemistry where they will fail and the district will blame the teacher. There was hope, and then the district dropped the bomb.

    The sudden imposition of Public School Choice 2.5 jeopardizes all of these plans for the future. It has sparked a deeper sense of distrust and despair throughout the campus. Dividing the campus into four to six separate pilot schools will create a greater scarcity of resources and result in wasteful spending on administration and the duplication of services.  The massive sense of resentment begotten by the hostile and uninformed interference of Ms. Flores will surely preclude any possibility of success for this division. It would accomplish nothing but the maintenance of blind educational ideology.

 

 

Public School Choice 2.5 – a special creation of Ms. Yolie Flores.

Huntingto Park High School fulfilled the requirements spelled out for us to move us out of PSC 2.0 under terms set down by our board. The state of California gave us an API score of 603. Ms. Flores then set up a special Public School Choice plan just for us and labeled it, “2.5.” It had an abbreviated time line for the process of writing proposals and it required an outline as part of a letter of intent. Part of the justification for this sudden changing of the agreement was that Libra Academy had their CST scores included with our scores. Without Libra’s 124 freshmen scores, it was claimed that our API would fall to 546. Well, Libra has the same location code number (8700) and they have freely used our services and facilities. Not only this, but even Howard Blume of the LA Times had to laugh over the math involved in this claim. Even with the cherry picking of students inherent in the portfolio process of admission into Libra, how can removing 124 freshmen scores drop us that much? This was Yolie’s math, not the state of California’s.

 Letters of Intent – the “talks” begin.

 Many of us knew that it would serve us best to have ONE proposal from teachers. That didn’t work out. Our UTLA steering committee thought we were able to secure some agreements from District Six regarding a freshman house and a comprehensive high school with semi-autonomous academies, but later a plan emerged for “small schools” under one location code number. This plan was proposed with many of our “out-of-classroom” people as its team leaders, and administrative leadership within District Six did their best to make it appear as though our only option, as directed from Cortines, was to break up the school into small schools. This turned out NOT to be true. There was no such mandate from Cortines. There has also been no willingness on the part of certain key members of the small school proposal team to discuss differences with the intention of merging reform plans. Mr. Dave Sievers submitted a letter of intent on his own, hoping to form a compromise plan, but I am unaware of any other individuals who have joined him to write a proposal. Charter Schools submitted NO letters of intent for HPHS.

The TWO primary reform plan proposals:

 Here’s where things stand during our “writing” phase in Yolie’s PSC 2.5 process:

 We have a small school proposal with a governance model very similar to what we have now. A principal would be in charge of all five small schools. They would all be under the 8700 location code number. The principal would be answerable to the glass building headquarters of District Six which would bless us with more of their successful top-down decisions regarding curriculum and protocol. Teachers would be selected by the leaders of these small schools on the basis of …. gee, I don’t know… their texting abilities? The Small Schools would be schools that encompass the full high school spectrum of grades nine through twelve, but incrementally. Under this plan, next year’s small schools would only have grades nine and ten. Undesirable teachers would still be teaching grades 11 and 12 as they brush up their resumes and consider whether they want to stay in this district, move to another, or work at TAMS. Let’s not forget that Roosevelt High School was told that its small schools would be under one location code number. That lasted one year? They are now divided and experiencing all the problems inherent in such a division.

 We also have the UTLA Steering committee formulating a plan for a comprehensive high school with semi-autonomous academies and a freshman house. Writing is taking place now. If you would like to get involved, contact Laurie Woerfel. The academies would function as strengthened SLC’s. The Freshman House would seek to address behavior and academic impairments in our freshmen resulting from years of social promotion and neglect at lower grade levels. There are plans in the works to increase accountabilities AT ALL LEVELS of the school, not simply to create a bully club to beat up teachers who happen to work at an urban school with gangs, drugs, and lower socio-economic demographics.

 Deadlines loom over the horizon.

 It’s more than obvious which plan is favored by Ms. Yolie Flores and by District Six, but they are not making the ultimate decision in this process. Mr. Cortines makes a recommendation to the Board. The board votes on the plan. Yes, there is a community advisory vote coming up in March, but it is merely an advisory vote. It has no binding power whatsoever. Mr. Cortines and the rest of the board do not necessarily agree with Ms. Flores or our mini-district. The District is looking for a summary at the end of January. The proposals are supposed to be completed at the end of February. The ultimate decision will be made in the middle of April.

 

 

The Four by Four Block schedule reared its ugly head

Steve Scanlan and I fought this idea vigorously when our principal first introduced it. The original vote was 60 percent opposed over 40 percent in favor, but early in the year of 2010, our principal threw it at the faculty once again, but this time the faculty was frightened by the Board's Public School Choice mandate that accused teachers of being the problem at a low performing school such as ours. We were under constraints to come up with reform ourselves or have our board member, Ms. Yolie Flores, invoke No Child Left Behind and blow up the school with reconstitution. I criticized block scheduling, but my memo as you see it here was confiscated; even so, it leaked out to the faculty. 

  Why don’t we try pink tutus and groucho Marx glasses? Yes, we’ll make the teachers wear these things each day for the good of our kids. Well, hey, we haven’t tried this yet. Aren’t you in favor of bold risk taking? We shouldn’t be afraid of change. And so the line of illogic goes.

   Yes, back by no one’s demand, is the four by four block schedule. Let me qualify that last statement. It’s back in discussion by no teacher demand, but then again, the opinions of experienced teachers have never mattered much in school decision making here at HPHS have they?  The opinions of experienced teachers are obstacles to be diverted and pushed aside.

    Is the four by four block schedule something that has proven itself to be successful in other places? Hardly. There are some prestigious prep schools which have adopted it and seem to like it, but let’s not forget that these schools also have a student population with retention skills, academic habits and motivation far surpassing our own. Don’t throw that regurgitated 60s civil rights banter at me. If our district administration didn’t see this as well, then they wouldn’t mandate the intervention time that this proposal has embedded in the plan. Of course, our kids can do the work. They just don’t want to do it. That’s the problem. The four by four block schedule capitulates to rather than solves the real problem.

     So if the four by four has no proven track record, why is it rearing its ugly head again? That’s simple. The big boys of District Six want it. Why do they want it? There’s a chance that it could increase the graduation rate.  It gives students the opportunity to fail several times and retake the simplified version of a class. It does this by truncating the high school experience and quickening the pace, inevitably, dumbing-down the course work. The resulting diploma mill will eventually impair the future of the kids, but it looks good on paper.  When test scores later reflect reality, who will be blamed? Well, you know that the answer to that question.

    What has become of our teacher initiated ninth grade house? – yes, pushed aside. It was voted on by School Site Council and approved BEFORE the new school – you know which one I’m talking about - the one that is vaguely patterned after Libra and threatens to displace A track teachers and throw everyone into a tizzy over room assignments. This new school was approved by an 8 to 6 vote on SSC after making sure that ALL parents and students were present and had been properly prepped prior to voting. None of the faculty members voted in favor of this idea.

   Finally there are the scare tactics to deal with. We MUST have the four by four schedule or we’ll end up like Fremont? Oh please – we’re in trouble because of our API score. The graduation rate contributes as only a fraction of our API score.  Within the past few years many of us have noticed a deterioration in the behavior of our students. There have been several serious violent incidents. We have few cameras in operation to catch these incidents. When you have a campus with more students running amuck is the general student population more likely to take a standardized test seriously? Are we more likely to see thought being given to the answers as they bubble those scan sheets? Time will tell.

 

                                                                                                         - Philip R. Keller

Little Johnny Slide-Along:

An Allegorical Type of Tale

After six years of teaching English at Huntington Park High School, I can’t help but become amused at all of the political rancor surrounding LA Unified and its “underperforming” high schools. Organizations and individuals with a financial stake in any one interpretation or set of solutions will shout their proposals from rooftops. Many of us on the front lines (so to speak) remain taciturn out of fears of petty recrimination. After six years, I have a story to tell. Like an English teacher, I will communicate with an extended metaphor. This story is about a medical hospital, but it isn’t really about a hospital. The hospital represents a high school. The medicine dispensed in it represents education in the forms of knowledge and the mental skills needed to use it. The other parallels are easily recognizable, especially to teachers who have been at the job for several years.

The story begins with little Johnny “Slide-Along.” Johnny’s parents are concerned that he isn’t functioning well and commit him to the care of “Horse’s Rear End Memorial Hospital.” The Doctors there performed a battery of diagnostic tests and prescribed a medicinal elixir which if taken daily will heal the ailment and allow little Johnny Slide-Along to function successfully in the future. This should be the end of the story, right?

Well, here’s the catch. Little Johnny must actually consume this medicine, more specifically, put it in his mouth and swallow it. It requires an act of human volition that only he can exercise. The doctors can’t do it for him outside of pinning him to a bed and stuffing a medicine filled turkey baster down his throat.

You see the problem comes into play in this way. Johnny doesn’t like the taste of the elixir. It isn’t pleasant to him, and Johnny is accustomed to only doing things that please him and please him immediately. In a world of internet porn, computer games, and MTV, Johnny cannot understand the concepts of long term benefits and delayed gratification. He only understands that the medicine “tastes nasty,” and he therefore doesn’t want to consume it. This is an easy problem to perceive and address appropriately, but not at Horse’s Rear End Memorial. Common sense is a bit elusive at that institution.

The administrators at Horse’s Rear End Memorial Hospital hired very expensive experts to examine the situation. These expensive experts claimed that the problem lay in the delivery of the medicine. They recommended very expensive training sessions in which they would train the doctors to use such delivery methods as, “Here Comes the Choo-Choo,” and “Open Wide for the Airplane.”

Johnny was humored by these games and played along with them mostly because he enjoyed watching the doctors make fools out of themselves. The medicine still tasted nasty, and Johnny simply waited for their backs to be turned so that he could spit it out into a sink or napkin. Johnny’s condition did not improve.

The Administrators were puzzled and decided to hire a new set of very expensive experts who informed them that the problem could be solved by turning the act of medicine taking into a cooperative effort. What the hospital needed to do was find all of the other children who were in a similar condition and put them together into a team of medicine takers with tasks assigned to each team member such as delivery handler, bottle pourer, spoon measurer etc. Johnny was thrilled with this idea. It was rollicking good fun. The adolescents ended up spitting the medicine out at each other and feeding it to the cat; but only one of the youngsters actually consumed it herself, and she ended up consuming everyone else’s allotment in her group in addition to her own. This girl got better, but Johnny’s condition did not improve. Even though he had great fun, the medicine still tasted nasty, and he wasn’t going to swallow it. 

The next group of very expensive experts hired by the administrators of Horse’s Rear End Memorial Hospital was a tad more intelligent than the previous ones had been. They asked Johnny what the problem was, and he told them. Their solution was to coat the medicine with a sugary substance in order to disguise the taste. This seemed to work. Johnny began to take the medicine, but the sugary substance chemically interacted with the medicine leaving it only minimally effective. After a while, Johnny decided that the taste was no longer nasty, but it still wasn’t good enough to swallow. He returned to his hide and spit evasion tactics. Perhaps he was just enjoying all of the fuss and worrying that centered around him. In any case, Johnny’s condition still did not improve.

Finally Johnny’s grandma got involved. Grandma was from a different generation, and she was utterly confused by all of the nonsense. She went to visit Johnny in the hospital. “Listen here, you little brat.” She whispered sweetly in his ear. “Remember that new ipod I promised you for your birthday? Well, you’re not getting it until I know you’ve been taking your medicine. I will be here every day to make sure you do.”

Grandma was true to her word. She came to the hospital every day. She spoon fed Johnny his medicine and then watched him to make sure that he swallowed it. For the first time, Johnny’s condition improved.

Johnny still didn’t like taking the nasty tasting medicine and he whined about it daily. Grandma ignored him. Mommy and Daddy were disturbed by Johnny’s apparent unhappiness. They didn’t want him to feel so bad, and pleaded with Grandma to just give Johnny the ipod because surely Johnny had learned his lesson by now. Grandma finally got annoyed enough with Johnny’s parents that she relented. She turned over the ipod and went back home, shaking her head. Johnny was happy again. He enthusiastically returned to his hide and spit evasion tactics, while his health began to deteriorate again.

So how does the story end? Well, that’s open to debate. There are a number of possible endings.

In one ending little Johnny dies. The parents sue the hospital, and the administrators fire all of the doctors since Johnny was under their care, and he was their responsibility. The administrators hire orderlies and candy stripers to replace the doctors. The replacements know very little about medical science, but they can be trained successfully in such as essentials as “Here Comes the Choo-Choo,” and “Open Wide for the Airplane.”

In another ending the doctors manage to get just enough medicine into Johnny’s system that he survives, but is unnecessarily crippled for life by his ailment. The administrators gloss over the situation and claim great success in curing little Johnny. We’ve all heard this kind of talk “The glass isn’t half empty. It’s half full.” Or more to the point:--“The high school exit exam doesn’t measure everything you need to know.”

It is also possible that Johnny’s parents could turn over the situation to Grandma. But Grandma will need another form of negative consequence. She gave Johnny the ipod already. An ending like that one wouldn’t be appreciated today anyway. Punishment is considered to be so 19^th century. We’ve made such advances as a society since the 19^th century. For instance, we all know how illiterate people were a hundred years ago.

Cultural Conflict, Immigration, and Education: What's going on?

Student Walk-Outs, Boycotts, and the Usual High School Circus Show

This is part of an email that I sent out to friends and colleagues from school:

It’s Thursday. The kids on C track are dismissed until the next school year begins in July. Teachers are no longer being tortured with meetings. We had a whole day session Tuesday – a waste, except that we get paid with tax dollar money and got fed handsomely. OH, the great small learning community conundrum – the point is to create a place where kids can be nurtured by adults who know them and care for them. This will allegedly alleviate the disaffection and alienation of today’s youth. Gee, I felt alienated and disaffected, but I made it through adolescence. Then again, I had parents who insisted on certain behaviors and really didn’t care about my emotional comfort. We didn’t have “gangster rap” in the seventies either. You cannot structure nor legislate such things as nurture and responsibility.

 

The great irony of the small learning community impulse is that good intentions get thwarted by incompetence and ego. – almost thematic in public education isn’t it?

 

I don’t have any great confidence in Mayor Antonio. Yes, he wants to attack the downtown cesspool on Beaudry Avenue, but he still pays vocal allegiance to the pity party mentality – oh the poor children, the schools have failed them. I’m sorry, but when you sit on your ass and do nothing, it is not the fault of the school. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the problem is.

 

Profound cultural differences are being highlighted in the events we have seen recently. Those of us with Leftist political leanings have a tendency to view the world in terms of oppressor vs. victim, but the issues are larger and more complicated than that. One photo with its caption that captured the problem, albeit inadvertently, was one that showed high school girls laughing and carrying a banner that read, “We are hard workers.”

 

“Oh Really?” I said to myself as I studied this photo. “I’ve been teaching you clowns now for close to seven years. Yes, I’ve enjoyed being with you and watching you get older, but I sure haven’t seen much evidence of hard academic work.” Ditching school is considered to be an effective means of getting back at the system? Can anyone truly believe that you are doing “the man” a favor by participating in free public education and punishing the powers that be by stepping outside of it? C’mon people, what’s wrong with this idea?

 

On May first who suffered more? – the citizens of Brentwood or the owners of corner grocery stores in East LA? Let me draw up an analogy, shooting yourself in the foot does not showcase the right to bear arms in a favorable light. Some very fuzzy thinking is occurring in the minds of would-be revolutionaries.

 

A friend who lives in Palos Verdes commented to me, “Oh, well, if they don’t want my tax money to go toward the education of their children, then that’s okay with me.” What could I say in response?

 

A teacher at Huntington Park High School approached me on May Day. Apparently, one third of the student body was absent that day. She has been teaching high school for over 20 years. She prefaced her opinions with an apology. She felt guilty about thinking these things, but she had to confess that if the school district were NOT forced to accommodate poorly prepared children of immigrants, then we would no longer be stretched beyond capacity. We would be better able to run a high school and conduct education expeditiously. She concluded, “I understand the point they want to make, but they are doing a very poor job of making it.” I had to agree with her.

 

What are the cultural differences that are being spotlighted? First of all, I believe (and tell me if you think I’m wrong) that in North America we are used to a certain degree of “grass roots” democratic involvement that does not traditionally exist in Mexico or Central America. Rules of society here are expected to reflect a kind of consensus and rationality. They are not expected to be arbitrary and unreasonable. When perceived as such, we have the freedom to, at least, speak out and initiate various forms of redress to change the rules. I say these things are expected and perceived because whether such democratic powers really exist in a corporate oligarchy is up for debate. Nevertheless, the expectation of justice exists.

 

I don’t see the same expectations in my Mexican friends and associates. The rules of society (and of the classroom) are obstacles in the playing field. - things to get around if at all possible. They must be dealt with in some way, but bribery, special favors, and clandestine tactics are the preferred methods. Laws are not guideposts in any way, but arbitrary, and capricious in nature. This is the expectation. Hence, the shameless use of forgery, cheating, and lies. I have seen this first hand. I know what I’m talking about.

 

“You scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back.” We’ve heard this expression in English and understand its meaning, but the underlying meaning runs deeper in the minds of my Mexican and Central American friends and associates. There is a kind of supremacy of personal relationship that is foreign to North American cultural assumptions. Regulations on paper are always subordinate to relationships. Grades in school should mirror relationships in at least some small way. There is no such thing in the minds of many of my students as simply earning scores in a strictly objective sense, no matter how much you explain how it is supposed to work to them. A few of them get it. These are the ones who assimilate themselves more quickly.

 

The supremacy of relationship displays itself when school Administrators from Latin American backgrounds deal with Anglo subordinates. Many just cannot understand why we don’t actively court their favor rather than attempt to discuss policy and call them to task for not fulfilling objective regulations. “How dare we?” They seem to be thinking. In this mind-set, society is one big family in which some members just naturally hold more power than others. Back scratching takes on different forms depending on the power a person possesses.

 

I remember sitting in a bar years ago. I was sitting next to a Latino guy who spoke native English. Somebody came along to invite him to a party to be held later that week. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Let’s have a party. That’s what the Mexican people are all about.” At the time I chuckled at what I thought was an exaggeration. Now, I’m not so sure. Economic advancement requires a degree of consistent planning and suspension of immediate pleasure that eludes the typical macho male. Immediate gratification seems to win the day most every day. The Mexican-American women seem to understand what it takes to plan and work toward the future, but their options are often limited. White collar salaries and child rearing duties stifle their plans.

 

So what do I think of the illegal immigrant issue? We are all immigrants. This is true. Our economy is dependent on cheap labor. This is true. At the same time, I am apprehensive about the Mexico that illegal immigrants are bringing with them – apprehensive enough that I am reluctant to see some kind of open door policy instated.

 

Do I want to laud and hold up American culture as some kind of ideal? – hardly. I believe many of our cultural assumptions are naïve, lacking in understanding of human nature. We have it in our capacity as a culture to stomp another human being to death and justify it with convoluted reasoning and twisted ramifications of legalities; whereas our darker skinned friends would have an instant instinctive reaction of empathy to human stomping – no questions, no reasoning needed.

 

I once gave my students an assignment to find a saying that reflects some kind of cultural value. I encouraged them to find sayings in Spanish and translate them for me into English. Many of the adages that they offered were actually bits of Franklin’s Poor Richards Almanac that had found their way into Spanish. The kids didn’t realize this, of course. But then I read something that I hadn’t heard before. “The heart doesn’t feel what the eyes cannot see.” I was horrified by this. We don’t have any proverb or adage like this in the English language – not one that is held up as something for people to follow.

 

Later, I thought more about the proverb and could see a bit of wisdom in it – wisdom that sometimes escapes us in the north. Human society will always have lies embedded in it – at least on this side of Kingdom come. The context of lies mediates the gravity of them. One way of looking at the proverb is to say that it acknowledges unavoidable guilt as a part of the human predicament, but instructs the liar to regard the emotional state of the person being deceived. Truth is to be valued, yet individual perfection can never be achieved through the injury of other human beings, even if done by honest means. We don’t quite understand such concepts in Anglo culture.

 

Even so, I will not give in to what I see as a “Tijuana-ization” of public education in LA County. In this aspect of human society, I look on the cultural differences between Latin America and ourselves as liabilities we need to help some of them overcome. Our Health care, our safety, and our technological well-being depend on it. The U.S. is guilty of many horrible crimes in its history and in the world today. I don’t believe that the internal problems of Mexico are among them. When it comes to public education, I don’t like seeing these problems imported, and will continue to resist this process.

Seniors Speak: You have to read it to believe it.

At the close of the school year I enjoy giving seniors a special final writing assignment. They are told to write out a memorial sketch that could be used at this point in time in a memorial service if they were to leave this world suddenly. This assignment usually coincides with the reading of “Death Be Not Proud” by John Gunther, a beautifully written memoir from the father of a genius who died at age 17 from brain cancer.

     This assignment is usually not graded, but examined for length and for whether it fulfills basic requirements. They are asked to include life summaries, accomplishments, personal descriptions of themselves, and messages for people. The results are both revealing and enormously entertaining to read. My rationale for this assignment is that leaving high school is a traumatic loss for many students, not too dissimilar to a death.

     Here is a portion of one memorial sketch submitted by a habitually trouble making male. Do I actually discern some smidgen of soul searching or conscience in this document? I’ll let the reader judge:

I have lived a great life, especially in my English class at Huntington Park high school. I think I was a little bit of a procrastinator in my classes. But I certainly had the potential if I would have just put some dedication into all my work. Also, I liked to talk in the classroom because I would rather have done that instead of doing my work. As a child, I was very curious about anything that I touched or anything that I saw.

I disliked many things including teachers and the way that they behaved during their class sessions. They always seem to have a grudge against me.[how shocking and surprising!]  I was constantly kicked out of my classes, and also got suspended. I never got arrested though.

Well, the one and only thing I want people to know about me is that I never took shit from anyone who thought they were superior to me. Many things are not known by my family because when I was with my family, I always tried not to let things slip out. Yes mom, I stole, I fought, I lied…. I've basically committed every sin possible that was not too serious. I never killed anyone so that was good. But my life has many highlights too. I was a loving person when I wanted to be. When I was around people I didn't know, I was different. I was actually nice. When I liked the way a girl looked, I tried to be as charming as possible.

One of the most memorable events in my life that I will never forget was when I got my first suspension. It made me actually look at something from the standpoint of the teacher. I threw a stink bomb into a teacher's classroom. It made me realize that I was a really bad kid, and that I have gotten away with too much throughout my life. When I was caught I felt regret. Since then I realized that there were consequences to someone's actions. This saved me from doing far more horrible things throughout my life because I had so many chances to do so many bad things. I held back on many of those things. [notice the word, “many”]

    I predict a career in politics for that little lamb. The maturation process is a steep climb in the community of Huntington  Park. but a few make it to the point where they can actually look down at their former selves and offer congratulations to their new personas, whether congratulations is merited or not. Here are some words from a future auto mechanic:

I am into muscle cars, and hot rods. I don’t like Hondas at all. I don’t like people that use guns to kill, but I am in favor of bats, chains. brass knuckles, bottles, and switchblades to be used for violence.

     Through out my life I have been a trouble maker. I have been involved in plenty of fights. I was part of a gang. We used to fight against our enemies, and against dumb people that thought they were better than us. I have fought against punks, metal heads, skaters, wannabee gangsters, white boys, and dumb [n-word deleted]. After all this, I simply stopped because I began focusing more on me, and what I wanted to accomplish rather than who I wanted to beat up [smart move kid].

Now, I’m not like that anymore. There are times that people have tried to fight me, but I laugh at them and say a few words to them and walk away. They are the ones who end up looking like idiots.

I would like to be remembered as a bad ass drummer and guitar player. One thing I accomplished in my life was that I was able to perform at the House of Blues in Hollywood

 How about memories of school? What do the seniors remember of their lives in class? What learning took place? Here is another excerpt from another “graduating” senior:

I'm the person that all I thought about was having lots of fun. Maybe that's bad, and it got me into a lot of trouble, but that's just me. I try to satisfy my needs at all expenses. Yeah, I used to smoke the herb. I bet right now, you people who are reading this are like, “Oh, what a pothead. What a druggie.” - But it's not like that. That is just my choice of drug. Other people like to drink. I drink here and there on weekends. Lots of people smoke tobacco, but me, I don't even smell tobacco. That shit is nasty.

I will miss the fun and exciting adventures that me and my hommie's had all those times we ditched and got drunk and high, all those fine ass girls we handled, all those BJ's during school etc.[Yeah, keep dreaming kid.]

From a senior girl we can read of the value of academic pursuits: 

I want to thank all my friends from fifth period. You guys made 5^th period the best. Thanks for helping out with all the work. That's the reason why I think that I passed. [the wonders of cooperative copying displayed once again] 

Life never ends. It's just a trip that you will never come back from. I learned to be independent from my parents. I started working at McDonald's at the age of 16. I had a really great time.

During my life I had many goals that I wanted to accomplish. I had many great goals, some that I accomplished and some that I gave up on. One of my major goals was to graduate from high school and with my efforts I did. Another goal was to come out of high school without getting pregnant. I accomplished this goal, and proved everybody wrong about it. [And the gene pool of  Southern California  thanks you for it.]

If only an English composition class could be like a video game. But alas, it is not as this young senior male found out: 

Many of my friends tell me that I have an anger problem. I would let my anger take over me and do some things I would regret. But you can't always control your emotions. I controlled my anger, so I would not hurt my friends and family.

     Every weekend I had to do something. I couldn't stay at home all weekend. When I stayed home for the weekend it was some of the most boring days of my life. I love playing video games. When I stayed home video games were the only things that would save me from boredom. I used to have all the systems they came out with from Nintendo to PlayStation two. I could not stop until I would pass the game. If only I could have done the same thing at school [alas, if only].

     You could say that I learned from my mistakes. One thing that really changed the way I see things is school. School is a necessity to succeed in life. My English teacher, Mr. Keller, tried to point that out to students in all his classes [kiss, kiss].

     I would like to be remembered as someone that was trying to succeed in life, and that got my high school diploma. Also, I want to be remembered as someone who got one of the most beautiful girls at school to be mine. Everyone liked her, but no one could have her except me. Everyone tried to beat me up because they were jealous that I had her. I did not let that bother me.

One message that I would like to leave behind is for all the future squirrels in Mr. Keller's classes: “Study for your tests. Don't be like me who always failed his tests. Do all your work no matter how boring or uninteresting the work might be. If you don't do anything you will regret it. You're going to smell your diploma burning if you don't do your work. [Yes, doing nothing is like setting a match to that parchment paper]

A sense of priority emerges from these memorial sketches that reveals so much of what is important in the life of a high school student:

Now if I am dead, of course, I will have left some of my possessions behind that I cared for a lot. To be exact about these possessions, I cared for my shoes most of all. They were something that I treasured as if they were gold. I was a fan of Timberland boots,

Jordan and Nike shoes. I always tried not to get them dirty because it was a hassle to clean them. Now as many of you know, my clothes were something that always had to match with my shoes. And of course they always had to be clean too. If I am no longer with you guys and I am not in charge of my possessions, I hope they are given to those who were less fortunate than I was at the time I lived. [Put those Nikes on a pedestal and offer incense]

Impressing one’s parents seem to carry some weight of importance with a few students: 

     I want my family to know that I am actually into other things than what they might think. I am into all types of music to their surprise. I listen to jazz and all other types of music that isn't so cacophonous. I don’t like “DEATH METAL.” My vocabulary is actually extensive thanks to my English teacher, Mr. Keller (ha ha - any opportunity to get extra points.) [kiss up attempt was duly noted by Mr. Keller]

Kiss up attempts abound in a final writing assignment like this one: 

Oh yeah behave in school and learn something. Pay attention in school, especially to your English teacher, because he knows a lot, and he will also tell you not to behave like a squirrel. He will make you realize that getting your high school diploma is very important.
 

I tried to do the best that I could on everything that I set myself to do. I accomplished finishing my high school education, and I passed my English class. I think it was because I always heard Mr. Keller saying what would happen when students didn't pass their English class. [Somebody listened.] 

 What does an HP High School senior think an appropriate way to exit life might be?

  The spreading of ashes is supposed to be a touching and heartfelt event. It was designed so that the person could be let go in any place that he or she loved.

I have recently been talking with one of my closest friends about the whole ashes being spread thing. He was like, “My favorite place is Disneyland. So what happens if I want my ashes thrown there?” I broke out in laughter, because I immediately thought of someone throwing all of his ashes on the park and all the kids choking on the ashes and crying because their faces were full of the remains of the deceased. Their faces would be drenched in black ash and their Mickey Mouse lollipops would be soaked in it. So after thinking about that, I decided that that is what I would want people to do. I would want all of my friends to cremate me and throw me on the happy kids at
Disneyland, no matter what the consequence might be. After that everyone could get wasted on my account “Free rounds for everyone!” I always wanted to say that.

 

 

 

 

"The Nastiest Things" - A movie review drowning in personal issues

 It’s curious the way that personal “issues” or perhaps obsessions can plunge an essay attempt into a tangential sidebar that eats up the entire composition. For instance, I offer the following attempt at a movie review. Not only was it late, but the author obviously had something on his mind besides a critical examination of the movie in question.

Many juveniles go to prison for crimes that they do. In the movie American Me, we see a little of how prison is like. We also see why you should not go there or else try your best not to do something that will get you locked up in the penitentiary.

[a few paragraphs followed which rambled about the Mexican Mafia, and ratting out fellow prisoners, and following gang orders. - nothing that would indicate that he actually saw the entire movie. Then he seems to get stuck in one train of thought like a needle on a scratched vinyl record]

Many guys think that they are tough on the streets, but they get punked in the pen. In the pen it is a different world of dirty men. Gangsters run the world in the pen. 

Many men also get raped in there. This is something that no man who is straight wants to go through. Usually the guys that get raped are guys who were raped or molested as a child. Or maybe they are just easy prey for a psycho guy who wants it anal and rough. 

I personally know a guy who likes it rough and anal and would not mind going to the pen. Real nasty things go up in there. Stuff you would not believe goes up in there. The nastiest things go up in there. Like guys doing it with other guys, real nasty.

Someone once told me that I am too cute to go to the penitentiary. I wonder what would happen to me if I got locked up. I hope and wish that I never go to the penitentiary.

[I wonder what other movies this guy rents in his free time.]

 

Raising Pet Mice: When a Hobby Mirrors an Occupation

I decided I would raise mice two years ago, not ordinary mice of course, but fancy mice.  These are $2.99 a piece, rather than the $.99 snake food that resides in the back storage room.  Fancy mice have color, mostly black and gray.  And they have sleek soft fur.

Within three weeks my two original mice had grown to seven on the day that I observed five tiny pink blobs squirming beneath their mother.  The numbers continued to grow.  I expected the numbers to grow. Mice have no incest taboo.  What I didn't anticipate were all of the striking parallels I would see between raising mice and teaching high school students.

Mice seem to eat just about anything that is placed in front of them provided that it is loaded with processed sugar salt or starch.  I used as throw out the steamed rice that came with Chinese food deliveries, but then I decided to give it to the mice.  A slightly molded corn toward tortilla could be greedily consumed regardless of how recently mice had enjoyed a regular meal of “mouse food.”

My high school students have feeding patterns remarkably similar to pet mice, if one could discern an actual pattern in random incessant eating.  Lecturing my students on how crumbs attract roaches is a pointless exercise.  They hide their cookies and hostess cupcakes in their backpacks.  When I turn to face the wall in order to write something on the board, I immediately hear the sound of crackling cellophane wrappers like static electricity jumping throughout the room.  I fear that if the vending machines were ever removed from campus, ambulances would need to be summoned to haul off the teenagers experiencing chemical withdrawal from the Dorito chips and corn nuts.

Curious playful fidgety, both pet mice and adolescent human beings have particular members of their peer groups with whom they are compatible and others whom they would kill if given the opportunity. When I think about it, this also applies to many faculty members of my high school. 

There are days when they seem to be filled with fecal matter and ready to deposit it anywhere - the mice literally, high school students in a figurative sense, of course.

Pet mice are hypersexual, producing offspring at inopportune times.  My high school students must continually be reminded to tone down the sexually graphic quality of their “fictional” writing samples.  The word, fictional, is being used loosely here.  The best way to awaken teenage students after a lunch of chili cheese fries and frijoles is to incorporate a passing sexual innuendo into classroom instructions.  It works like an injection of adrenaline.

High school students and pet mice have similar attention spans.  The duration seems to be about the same for both creatures, in either case my entrance into a room is followed by dozens of little eyes directed toward me for several seconds before they are hopelessly distracted by the instinct to socialize with their peers, or by objects in their immediate environment that amuse them.  High school students, unfortunately, do not have tails that can be grabbed hold of and used as tools to coerce concentration or prevent self-destruction.

I'll never forget the day that I isolated one litter of mice from their mother after they began to eat solid food.  In the past, I had prepared baby mice for this shock, by placing them with their mother in a separate tub and removing the mother days later.  This time, I didn't do it.  The youngsters went into a panic.  After I watched them hop up alongside the wall of the tub, I placed the mouse tub into the bathtub, as a precaution.  Sure enough, the next morning one of the adolescent mice had escaped the confines of the mouse tub and sat dumbfounded a few inches away.  It had accomplished what it sought-after in its fury of rodent angst.  It was doubtless hungry, thirsty, cold and confused, even as it resisted my attempts to put it back into the place were its needs could be met.  The metaphors swept over my brain that morning.  It seems to me that often the best way to care for teenage students is to stand in the way and thwart their own penchants for self-destruction.

It would seem that I've been at least an adequate thwarter of self-destruction, at least for pet mice.  I no longer keep pet mice, but while I did, the baby mice survived in my bathroom or were safely delivered to the pet store.  Naturally, I don't have anywhere near the same kind of control over high school students, but even as a passive observer, it is so much harder to measure teenage survival rates.  They can self-destruct in such subtle quiet, gradual ways.  Curious playful mice would be such easy prey for predators in a jungle.  Los Angeles is a human jungle.  Human predators are more tenacious I think that anything you'll see in a National Geographic TV special.

Letter of Explanation addressed to a "Concerned" Administrator

What follows is a portion of a letter that I wrote in response to an unannounced visit from an Assistant Prinicipal at HPHS. The visit lasted only 10 minutes, but it was one of about three such impromptu visits that school year.

Like so many new administrators, this man was a former teacher who felt that he had been elevated to some sort of academic divine status. I think he saw me as a passive pigeon for which he could exercise his newly discovered powers. Later that year he was transferred to another high school after it was discovered that he lost out on acquiring allocated instructional money because teachers didn't follow his procedural instructions. These instructions were his own creations, not the district's.

            The first response I should make is an apology for not organizing bulletin boards with student work that demonstrate revision and for not posting standards. Time constraints have gotten in the way.  Bulletin boards and standards are certainly not unreasonable expectations. Rubrics? I'll see what I can do.  The problem is that four point rubrics need to be converted into five letter grade rubrics. With "regular students" at HP the requirements for a "D" must be carefully spelled out since this is what the majority of my juniors and seniors are aiming for.  Talk to them, please, if you don't believe me on that point.

            The next response I should make is to spell out more specifically what it is I try to do in the classroom.  I prefer the label, "Direct Instruction," over against, "whole group instruction." There is ample (perhaps overwhelming) research available to justify using this approach with students who are "at risk" or "disadvantaged" or to be more accurate, "lacking whatever internal motivational structure is required to put forward the necessary effort to learn."

            Here is my game plan for a typical week of Expository Composition. I have independent reading projects for the students to do on Fridays (using magazines that I pay for myself). Monday is occupied with vocabulary related exercises for which the students will be quizzed. Tuesday through Thursday I supervise grammar reinforcement warm ups and then move into exercises that eventually lead to a writing project of some kind (presently the persuasive essay).

            Yes, I try to talk to the students for at least 15 to 20 minutes every day, except Friday. If this is truly a practice that is discouraged in the classroom, then I am guilty as charged in this area.  This is not a time of passive listening, however.  The students respond.  I respond in return.  This exchange occurs much more often when district J people are not lining the walls with clip boards in hand.

            I also believe in having students do an immediate exercise of some kind in response to instruction that is given.  The exercise should be followed by immediate feedback from the teacher.  In a nutshell, this process is what is meant by "Direct Instruction.” Ms. Ledbetter advocated a variation of this approach in her workshop.

            Research in the field of Education (the actual stuff that can be taken seriously as opposed to published anecdotes and personal observations) points to the need for a student’s active engagement in the material presented in class.  It also points to a social component in the learning process.  I am open, even welcoming, to new teaching strategies that promote active individual engagement in a controlled social setting.

            Finally, I need to express my element of dissent.  Methods of class instruction that fall under the heading of "cooperative learning" are not welcome in my mind.  These class procedures have been consistently misapplied over many years.  Our students at HP have drifted through classes in which the blind lead the blind and one student in a group works at an assignment while others mindlessly copy it.  These habits have become deeply embedded in our students’ psyches.

            I'm sure that cooperative learning (methods in which students work together at different tasks that result in a single project for which the entire group receives a grade) can be successful.  It may be exactly what is needed for upper middle class children of professionals living in suburban Minneapolis who have been trained in these procedures since kindergarten.  For our students at HP, it is an invitation to academic chaos, an invitation our students will gladly accept.

            Pair-shares might be okay, but “group work” borders on the disastrous. The argument that cooperative learning needs to be revised or reapplied correctly just doesn't hold water with me.  Our students are resourceful and intelligent enough that they will take the "new and improved" cooperative learning methods and cooperatively transform them into the familiar old sit, chat, and copy routine that they love so much.

            The simple fact is that the majority of my "regular" students are not attending school in order to learn.  They want to socialize, enjoy themselves, and receive credit for doing as little as possible.  There is no hyperbole in this statement whatsoever.  They have been allowed to do this quite often in the past.

            I have discovered that if I want my students to learn in my classroom during the 60 minutes that they are with me, I must close all avenues of distractive socializing and mindless shortcuts and create an environment in which the pathway of least resistance will be the path that requires mental effort.  Cooperative learning groups open up the wrong avenues of opportunity in the class.  My students will seize those opportunities in a flash.

            The last thing in the world my eleventh and twelfth grade students need is a return to the junior high classroom.  If the district is requiring this of me, I will certainly comply.

            I have been at HPHS long enough that former students have returned to me now with the same reflection offered over and over again. "I never graduated because I was too busy playing and having a good time with my friends."  After hearing this from the mouths of former students, can you imagine how it sounds to my ears when an administrator declares to me that there needs to be more "student-to-student interaction” in my class room?

                                                             Sincerely,

                                                                    Philip R. Keller