Perhaps I Need a Spa Day

Today one of my students told me that I look like I am sick. I'm not sick. Ah, well.

Is that Manure?

Today fires in the San Gabriel mountains (I think) have caused Los Angeles to be covered in a cloud of pungent, hot smoke. The temperature is high, and even walking from the library to the classroom building is extremely uncomfortable. Now add in manure.
For some reason, the school district has chosen this last week of August, one of the hottest of the year, to spread truckloads of manure over our school's PE fields. Particulates are flying through the air, mixing with the smoke and the heat to create a wall of hot stink. A few minutes ago the bell rang for lunch. More than a thousand children poured out of their (mostly) air conditioned classes to eat the fried, greasy, school-issued lunch in the heat and manure. They are almost all wearing heavy, black hooded sweatshirts which they refuse to take off. This is the only personalized clothing item they can get away with and still be in uniform, so they insist on wearing them no matter the conditions.
After they get properly sweaty and steamed up, the bell will ring again and they will march back into windowless classes (or the library) to sit and cook for the next three hours. They will smell and the rooms will heat up to the point that there might as well not be AC at all.
Sometimes this job is disgusting.

The Pesky Little Bloggers

This year, my friend Jimmy and I took over the school's Yearbook class. Hm. We aren't sure that was a great idea. Neither of us really cares all that much about yearbooks, so we decided to make a little more out of it. We now call it Yearbook/Media, and we've created a student news blog. Our kids are writing editorials, conducting interviews, writing reviews, composing polling questions, acting as photographers. It's pretty great.

We set up a system of Elders, four 8th grade students each assigned a caseload of reporters. They check in on the stories, edit, and finally publish. This is all happening using Google Docs and Blogger. There is no paper in sight. We are happy.

So check out the Laams School News blog in its fledgling youth (only two days old!). My favorite article so far is called "Educational Institution...or Juvenile Detention?" It's a bit of a spoof, and the photography is fantastic.

Saved to a Library Computer

I Am a Nerd Magnet

Two boys (6th grade) were caught hanging out in the library stairwell and the end of 1st period today. One of these boys is one of my student librarians. The other is here two or three times a day. They were ditching PE. Well, sort of. They had gone to PE and then sneaked out at the very end, after everyone had changed back into their normal clothes and was waiting to be dismissed. That meant that they were probably only in the stairwell for 10 minutes or so....but still.

So, I interrogated them. First C arrived (having been sent by his science teacher - you see, I only found out about this after the fact; I didn't actually catch them). He explained to me the details of the situation and then said that he hated PE at the end of the period because the teachers were still supervising the locker rooms (so nothing bad can happen) and the students are left to their own devices out on the field (good plan). C says that he gets pushed, hit, and called names by the other kids. I believe it. He is not your average boy. C shed a few tears and I told him that I didn't want anyone to be mean to him, but that he couldn't just sneak out of class when he felt like it. I explained all the reasons about safety that I thought were so bogus when I was a kid, but now I totally understand.

Then D arrived. I assumed that his reasons for sneaking away would be the same as C's. D is a sleepy-eyed kid who dances to the beat of his own drum. When I asked why he had done it, he told me it was because he wanted to be the first in the library at Nutrition. He wanted as much time here as possible to read and look at Where's Waldo and Ripley's Believe It Or Not books. I was flattered....but still.

So I took the poor boys (one sniffly, one unphased) to the deans' office. I asked them to sit and wait while I explained the situation. When I told the dean that D just wanted to get to the library as fast as he could, she said, "Wow, you really get the big nerds up there, don't you?" I laughed, because it was funny, but I was a little ruffled by it too. Yes, I get the big nerds. The huge nerds, the total nerds, the major geeks, the complete losers. It's true. It's safe here, and it's also awesome. What most people don't know is that I also get the drama kids, the soccer players, the rockers, the Emo's, the giggly girls, the mean kids, the skaters, the gamers, the golden girls and boys, the misfits, the outcasts, the teachers' pets, the teachers' worst nightmares, the braniacs, the freaks, the jocks, the rebels, and the princesses.

The point is, I get it all. The library is an equal opportunity space. I will admit that a certain population dominates up here, but I think that's cool. A nerd-dominated space is somewhere that I, personally, don't mind spending time. Especially since these nerds like to READ.

I am sorry that C is having a hard time. I like him a lot and I wish kids would just leave him alone. D, though, really made my day. To ditch a class to come to the library, well, that makes me feel good. Kids do it all the time, but they are really just trying not to be in class by faking passes to the library. It's not that they want to be in the library, but that they don't want to be somewhere else. D's intentions were truer. It was here that he wanted to be over any other place in school, so much so that he broke a rule and got sent to the dean.
Talk about a warm fuzzy.

Hiring New Blood

It's that time of year again, and I've begun to accept applications from students who would like to work in the library next year (as an elective class). On the application, my two favorite questions ask the students their reasons for wanting to work in the library and any special skills/talents I should know about. Here are some great responses from today's batch.

When asked to describe the reasons for wanting to work in the library"

"I always wanted a job when I get in my teen years."

"The library is the best place to be because of two reasons: first you can read and reading helps you learn, and second the library is a nice quiet place to get unstressed."

"I want to work in the library because I am tired of doing nothing about books in the wrong place and out of order." HIRED!

When asked to list special skills/talents"

"I have Day ja vu a lot when I sleep. I can do 2 things at the same time." Are these separate or related skills, I wonder?

"I love to dance and I have great skills. I also have a great talent of finding books."

"Excel, in drama, singing, talking, vampires and monsters."

That's all for today. More to come.

Economic Crisis + School Uniforms = Teen Angst

Today I had a meeting with the principal about students who want to use the library while they're off track. (For those of you out of the loop, our school is year-round, with three tracks that go four months on and two months off. So, there are always two tracks on, and one off.) In the past, we've allowed off-track kids to wander onto campus and come to the libary as long as they could show their school IDs at the front entrance. Sadly, some young darlings have chosen to abuse this arrangement, bypassing the library entrance completely to visit teachers in their classes, go to the PE field or locker room, or just randomly wander. It makes sense that the principal needs to tighten things up a bit, and we came to a decent enough agreement that kids could visit the library from 8am-11:30am while off track. They still need to sign in at the front entrance, show their IDs, and (this is new) wear their school uniforms.

This is the part that really interests me. They're off track. They are coming from home for maybe as few as 10 minutes to return a book. Why do they need to change clothes? I'll tell you why. According to our assistant principal in charge of security, our uniform policy is going down the tubes fast and we need to save it before there is mass chaos at the school (Oh no! Cute shoes! Funny t-shirts! Personal style! Aaahh!).
More and more kids are showing up every day completely out of uniform. What is the reason for this? Is it defiance, protest, civil disobedience? Nope. It's the economy. I really wouldn't have thought of this, since I just assumed that kids who bought their uniforms at the beginning of the year would still be able to use them. Then I remembered that, of course, kids grow. So some of our families can no longer afford to buy new clothes for their kids. Or at least not two sets, one for school and one for home. But there are other, less obvious reasons for this too. Our kids and their families are moving, and moving quickly, into and out of their homes. We have kids coming back from Riverside and other outlying communities where their families hopefully bought houses and then could not make it work, or had ballooning mortgages, or lost their jobs and came back to live with family. We have kids who are evicted and actually have to leave their homes without being given the time to pack all of their things. Perhaps some of them even come home to a house or apartment where the locks have already been changed and their things have been lost in the shuffle.

So what does the school administration do in this situation? Is there some kind of precedence? They can't very well punish a child in these circumstances, nor can they abolish the uniform system. As of now, I believe they are using a two-step process to fix the situation. Step one has some interesting implications.

Step one: Have the parents sign a uniform waiver so everything is on the up-and-up. You see, the school district has a very secret uniform waiver that parents can request that allows their student to come to school without a uniform. At most schools, the administration will try to talk parents out of this, listing all sorts of scary security reasons that justify uniforms in the first place. Every once in a while though, one meets a cool kid in cool clothes and asks, "Why are you not in uniform?" The cool kid will coolly reply, "I've got a waiver, miss." And then one can share a short moment with the cool kid where the following is communicated telepathically: You have cool parents who thwart the system, therefore you too are probably cool, and you should know that I am cool and thwart the system, only I can't really do so openly because this is a school and I am a teacher, but you should know that I dig it, man.
In terms of this current uniform and economy crisis, however, the waiver serves a different purpose. It's just there to make sure that everyone's i's and t's are properly dotted and crossed, and I'll bet that it is presented to the parents in such a way that they walk away believing it is only available as a temporary measure and not as a permanent choice. The danger for the administration, obviously, is that some of these kids and parents will uncover the truth and decide they want to continue the waiver for good. I'm really hoping that happens, if only to observe the hands-tied reaction of those who will undoubtedly hate it.

Step Two in the process to get these kids dressed is to send a very nice man to the home of the student and (I believe) begin some paperwork to get uniform clothes for the family that are paid for by.....and here I just don't know. The school, the district? It's anyone's guess. What I heard today is that it takes a few weeks to make this happen, so I assume paperwork is involved. And who is this nice man? None other than our Pupil Services and Attendance officer, known to most of us as the Truancy Officer. Usually when you see him coming, it means someone has missed a lot of school and the school demands answers! He's actually very kind and nothing at all like Edward Rooney, but nonetheless, his job can't be easy or uplifting. Going into homes to discover the root of trouble that causes kids to miss school or not have proper clothing must send him home at night with knots in his shoulders and a heavy heart.

So there it is. Direct and visible impact of the GEC (global economic crisis, pronounced geck). It must be manifesting in other, more discreet and sneakish ways. In part I am extremely curious about them, and in part I dread knowing.