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The following questions are from Microbie (I do not remember how to do that click-on username html tag):
1. Describe a student you still remember many years later. (Not a question, but I am curious.)
I have a lot of students I remember from years and years ago. Some from literally 1998 to 2005, when I taught middle school in West Oakland; some from 2005-2012 when I taught at my first middle school in my current district, and some from 2012-2021 at my second middle school in the district, and into and through the Pandemic.
So. From Lowell Middle School in West Oakland... I had an eighth grader maybe my third year there? Maybe my fourth. He was a cool cat. His family was stable working class, which was rare in West Oakland. He was Black, which was almost de rigueur in West Oakland. Over my seven years at that school I had two white students, and a small minority of Asian students (mostly Vietnamese and Lao) and Mexican and Central American. At least 85% or more were African-American.
This student was pretty strong academically, but mostly motivated by basketball and track. He had a hilarious but dry sense of humor. He was very tall, had very dark skin, and an infectious smile. One day during a very stupid school spirit "Opposite Day", I wore a hoodie and chewed gum ostenatiously all day, and he found that endlessly funny and started calling me by my first name. I should have shut that shit down, but I did not. He called me by my first name most of the time for the rest of the year, though no other students picked up on it. I went to one of his basketball games in the Spring, and found myself sitting next to his father, by chance. In the final minutes of the game he came over to the bleachers and told me he was going to dunk in my honor. And he did. I let students friend me on FB once they are out of HS, figuring if they remember by then, well, no harm. He is friended to me, and he became an artist in West Oakland, though I don't know whether he does it for a living.
I could write in this much detail about at least fifteen other students, too...
2. Do you have a bucket list? If so, what's left to do?
I do not have a bucket list. Somehow I do not like the idea.
3. Have you ever been in a book club?
Hahahahahahaha. Yes. I tried being in a book club right after I stopped being resident in grad school -- I moved back home to finish my research and write my diss (never happened; I am still ABD, because I finished my written and oral exams in bravura style, but then just stalled out on crafting my unwieldy PhD thesis). It was a socialist women's book group, made up of several comrades from my own group, and some from another tradition (Maoists, if you must know). And the Maoist women purged me after either one or two meetings, because I treated it like a seminar, I think. They literally wanted me to do a crit/self crit and I refused. Two of them (this is true) were twin lawyers who did a lot of National Lawyers Guild defenses. I was gutted by this experience, and had a lot of resentment because not all of my own comrades stood up for me. They let me leave the group rather than protest forcefully. I've only THIS YEAR tried another book group -- two, in fact -- and I am enjoying them.
4. What's the worst subject/event/book you've had to teach?
Without a doubt it was sixth grade math. Thank fuck it wasn't eighth grade math. It was a punishment assignment, sixth grade math/science core, though I didn't mind the science AS MUCH. I still minded it. I hate the "multiple subject" teaching credential that I have, according to which, technically, I am qualified to teach fucking ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Which I am in no wise actually qualified to do. Anyway, I was lucky we had a very strong math department at that school, and that as a sixth grade math-science team, we all met together and planned each week's lessons in complete lock step. The main teacher was willing to just hand me lesson plans and warm-ups and let me be a week behind, but I refused. I wanted to contribute if I could. But I hated it anyway.
5. Do you ever think about a road not taken?
Occasionally I think about either sticking with archaeology as an undergrad (at the end of the intro course, all of the grad students came in and gave us a series of speeches about how there were no jobs and they were all graduating into unemployment or at the best, following a bulldozer and pleading for potsherds ground up by the thing's metal teeth) OR sticking with French political translation and interpretation. But there are a lot of things I love about teaching -- particularly lesson planning (and doing the projects along with the students) -- and I am fully glad I moved out here and could be a part of my nieces' lives.
→ I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better.
→ Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
→ Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.
The following questions are from Microbie (I do not remember how to do that click-on username html tag):
1. Describe a student you still remember many years later. (Not a question, but I am curious.)
I have a lot of students I remember from years and years ago. Some from literally 1998 to 2005, when I taught middle school in West Oakland; some from 2005-2012 when I taught at my first middle school in my current district, and some from 2012-2021 at my second middle school in the district, and into and through the Pandemic.
So. From Lowell Middle School in West Oakland... I had an eighth grader maybe my third year there? Maybe my fourth. He was a cool cat. His family was stable working class, which was rare in West Oakland. He was Black, which was almost de rigueur in West Oakland. Over my seven years at that school I had two white students, and a small minority of Asian students (mostly Vietnamese and Lao) and Mexican and Central American. At least 85% or more were African-American.
This student was pretty strong academically, but mostly motivated by basketball and track. He had a hilarious but dry sense of humor. He was very tall, had very dark skin, and an infectious smile. One day during a very stupid school spirit "Opposite Day", I wore a hoodie and chewed gum ostenatiously all day, and he found that endlessly funny and started calling me by my first name. I should have shut that shit down, but I did not. He called me by my first name most of the time for the rest of the year, though no other students picked up on it. I went to one of his basketball games in the Spring, and found myself sitting next to his father, by chance. In the final minutes of the game he came over to the bleachers and told me he was going to dunk in my honor. And he did. I let students friend me on FB once they are out of HS, figuring if they remember by then, well, no harm. He is friended to me, and he became an artist in West Oakland, though I don't know whether he does it for a living.
I could write in this much detail about at least fifteen other students, too...
2. Do you have a bucket list? If so, what's left to do?
I do not have a bucket list. Somehow I do not like the idea.
3. Have you ever been in a book club?
Hahahahahahaha. Yes. I tried being in a book club right after I stopped being resident in grad school -- I moved back home to finish my research and write my diss (never happened; I am still ABD, because I finished my written and oral exams in bravura style, but then just stalled out on crafting my unwieldy PhD thesis). It was a socialist women's book group, made up of several comrades from my own group, and some from another tradition (Maoists, if you must know). And the Maoist women purged me after either one or two meetings, because I treated it like a seminar, I think. They literally wanted me to do a crit/self crit and I refused. Two of them (this is true) were twin lawyers who did a lot of National Lawyers Guild defenses. I was gutted by this experience, and had a lot of resentment because not all of my own comrades stood up for me. They let me leave the group rather than protest forcefully. I've only THIS YEAR tried another book group -- two, in fact -- and I am enjoying them.
4. What's the worst subject/event/book you've had to teach?
Without a doubt it was sixth grade math. Thank fuck it wasn't eighth grade math. It was a punishment assignment, sixth grade math/science core, though I didn't mind the science AS MUCH. I still minded it. I hate the "multiple subject" teaching credential that I have, according to which, technically, I am qualified to teach fucking ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Which I am in no wise actually qualified to do. Anyway, I was lucky we had a very strong math department at that school, and that as a sixth grade math-science team, we all met together and planned each week's lessons in complete lock step. The main teacher was willing to just hand me lesson plans and warm-ups and let me be a week behind, but I refused. I wanted to contribute if I could. But I hated it anyway.
5. Do you ever think about a road not taken?
Occasionally I think about either sticking with archaeology as an undergrad (at the end of the intro course, all of the grad students came in and gave us a series of speeches about how there were no jobs and they were all graduating into unemployment or at the best, following a bulldozer and pleading for potsherds ground up by the thing's metal teeth) OR sticking with French political translation and interpretation. But there are a lot of things I love about teaching -- particularly lesson planning (and doing the projects along with the students) -- and I am fully glad I moved out here and could be a part of my nieces' lives.
