Good Golly Miss Molly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The final project for my kids was for them to write a short story. You may remember that my kids have so little reading and writing skills. I didn't really think that we could accomplish it. So I have spent the last three weeks hammering in the elements of a story. An elementary story, but any kind of story would do. Check this out:

It is Haway. It is warm music salsa a island a little with palm tree. A little people and a bench. Friends. Emilio is tall and Leonel short. Brown eyes Emilio too. Short hair Leonel too. Leonel has glases Emilio no. The problem in the story is the shark now. The problem is the my friend's go to swin but they go far and a shark see to they and go to attak to them and they swim fast. Carlos arrive in a boat for HELP to him. Friends of the shark and Carlos attack with gun and Carlos help to him.
Carlos Perez, age 13

It is Houston beach. The blue green water hot and son is beautiful beach. The beach is culd. It not have people. Raining there is salt water. It makes their eyes hurt. The boys and grils sick. The people cry. Ambulance comes They take the people to the hosptial.
Julia Martinez, age 14

Call me crazy, but these are brilliant. You don't understand what a big thing this is. We have spent three weeks chanting: character, setting, problem, solution! over and over and over and over. I spent at least three days on each of these concepts, for hours at a time, drilling them, drilling them. "CHARACTERS are the PEOPLE in the story! The PEOPLE in the story are the CHARACTERS! Okay, everyone! Who are the people in the story?" The kids yell out, "PEOPLE!!!!" And today, well you can check for yourself. The kids wrote stories that included character, setting, problem and solution. They may not be bestselling novels, but I could not be more pleased.

Good lord. I am afraid of becoming one of those people that talks about teaching all of the time. But this place is just filled with it and I have no other reason for living here in Houston. It will change when I get to NC. Tonight all of the NC people are going to karoke. I really think I am going to hold out and not sing until I get to NC and people can see Owen and I together. That is the true standard.
  ¶ 6:03 PM

  Tomorrow is FRIDAY. I have possibly never loved Fridays so much in my life. Maybe during certain camp times. But the last day of school before the weekend is a brand new sensation. Fridays feel like on Monday you can be the phoenix rising up from the ash. Then Monday actually comes and it turns out not to be such a fresh start...but Friday feels like hope.

I leave this God forsaken city of Houston in a week from this Saturday. I will be arriving in North Carolina at 12:50pm on Saturday afternoon. I have no idea what happens from there...I think maybe someone will come pick me up. Then Terri will take me to a car lot and I will buy a car. My dreams of a Mini are drifting away. At least for now. I am going to have to buy a used car for a little while until I can figure out the whole financing thing. But the Mini and I are destined...and so it shall be.

Terri and I were talking tonight about how grateful we are. We haven't had to be too lonely here because we found such a cool group of people and each other. It is really nice. I am feeling pretty excited about North Carolina right now. But we had a meeting with all of the NC people and they talked about the culture of rural NC. They said a lot about how religious it is and how all of your kids see you everywhere that you go. I am a little freaked out about how I am a big queer living in a house in the boonies with another big queer. But one nice thing is that neither Terri or I look like big queers that much, so people will probably assume we are sisters. Yee-haw. I just hope I don't get fired or shunned in some way.

But I am ready to go. I am tired of Houston, for real. And I want to get started. I find out on Saturday what my position is officially and at which school. I have a pretty good idea, but some of the other people who have found out their placements have gotten surprises. My friend Megan was supposed to teach junior high english and now she is going to be teaching jr high math/science. How can they do that, you might ask? I don't know. They just do. So wish me luck in at least getting placed in English and not math.  ¶ 12:51 AM

  Well. The weather in Houston is cloudy and there is lightning flashing every couple of minutes. But it is hot. I guess this is pretty typical because this has been the weather here a bunch of the time that I have been here. If it wasn't so hot it would be really cool...ha ha. No, the lightning is beautiful and the thunder is just so incredible. It sounds like a Mac trunk rumbling through the classroom and the kids are so used to it that they hardly notice. They think that it is pretty funny that I am startled by it.

I really like my kids. They are a pretty cool crew. I just wish they knew some English. And I feel so bad for them because I know that with the way the educational system is, they are not ever really going to be successful in school. At least 90% of these kids are not going to graduate from high school. I am learning all of this really depressing stuff about how schools get paid money to have kids in ESL and Special Ed so they really try to not pass them out of it. They keep really advanced kids in ESL and you can't graduate if you are in that program.

We also are having to think about all of these real life senarios that have happened to other TFA teachers. Yesterday we had a session where other teachers gave us examples of things that had gone down in their schools. Here is a sampling:

One teacher had a class of 10th grade ESL students. The entire 10th grade was sent to take the PSAT's. But when the ESL kids got there, the administration told them they should just go home because "ESL kids don't go to college".

One teacher had a student who came to her and told her that her mother told her if she didn't start prostituting she would be kicked out of the house.

Another teacher had a student in her class that would push her all the time and tell her that he was going to kill her when she got out of the classroom. When she sent him to the office, they sent him back to tell her that if he didn't listen to her it was her fault for being ineffective.

Yikes! It is so sad that things are like this. I also found out that pricipals will often take the grades you give the students and change them without ever telling you. It is hard to feel like I can do anything in a system so messed up. I never did want to be "in the trenches" and teaching is sure that. It is making me think that I should go to grad school or something, instead. It is also making me romaticize my time as a bartender.

But on a personal level, I am holding steady. I bought my plane ticket to North Carolia yesterday...it seemed like a permanent step. I needed to do that because I kept thinking, "I could just get a ticket to Portland, instead". But I shouldn't do that. I have invested in this already. And Owen says the beaches are nice in North Carolia...

I had a lesson today that I tried to "spice up" because apparently from all accounts, I am a boring teacher. So I decided to teach compare and contrast by giving the kids apple candy and real apples to compare. I was very excited and I thought that of course kids would dig that. I passed it out and told the kids to taste the food and they stared at me and then at each other. I would say that about 80% of the kids just refused to taste either the candy or the apple. Because they don't speak, I have no idea why they wouldn't eat it. Any ideas? What the hell? I know that I am just not understanding them, but sometimes I feel like they are these weird robot children. Children from all countries like candy and apples, don't they? Was I somehow culturally insensitive? Was there some kind of freakin' apple blight that killed all of these childrens parents in their country or something? Jeez. Throw me a bone.

Nicole, I hope you are having fun in L.A....  ¶ 8:04 PM

  Oh! Jaime, if you are reading this, I don't have your email and I can't respond to the link in my comments section! Will you email me at grrlsprout@hotmail.com and give me your address? Miss you!!  ¶ 12:52 AM

  Austin is a pretty interesting city. I feel like I didn't really get to see much of it and the part I did see did not make me fall in love with Texas in any way. I still don't see a reason to return here ever.

However! Willie Nelson's Fourth of July Picnic was a damn hoot. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced. I have a definate affinity for festivals of any kind, so I knew I would love it for that reason. But this was a rockin' country festival and I have never been to one of those. There was a lot of unveiled sexism yelled into microphones, big blond haired women lifting their shirts at the request of the men on stage, and one weird but fairly racist comment made by a band. But I had a really good time. I was glad not to know the politics of the people playing because I am sure that many of them would have offended me. But I didn't know, so I was trying to two-step all night and rockin out. I learned that I don't really like Neil Young...I do like the folky stuff, but he just rocked out in the free world all night and I fell asleep. I also learned that Billy Bob Thorton is the most whiney individual I have ever had the displeasure to pay money to see. But Patti Griffin was amazing, as was Willie Nelson and some of the other people that I saw.

I bought a cowboy hat and wore it all day. I'm loving that look. I don't know if it would transfer to the Bay Area, but it might transfer to North Carolina alright. All and all, I had a great weekend. The people I went with were awesome and I laughed a lot-- a much needed thing. But now I am back and I am really behind in my lesson plans. I am going to go to my boss tomorrow and tell her that I really really don't know what I am doing. I will probably be put on a "corps member improvement plan", which means that someone will help me write my plans. It is supposedly a bad thing, but I swear, all I want is some help. I am enjoying my time a little more, but the teaching thing is not going so well...and last time I checked, the teaching thing was why I am here.

All is well and hot and stifling in Houston...  ¶ 12:48 AM