Only the Best

Those of you who have written a memo will probably agree that, in an ideal world, the people receiving said memo will actually read it. Even better, your memo audience will remember the information you have carefully passed along, and perhaps they will even act accordingly. If you are a regular writer of memos, you probably know that this rarely happens. Memo readers a)don't read memos, b)read and immediately forget what they have read, c)read and immediately ignore any instructions contained in the memo. This is true, at least, in every public school in America (if you doubt such a generalization, read Up the Down Staircase and become a believer).
My beloved assistant principal and I decided to reinstate our Chess elective this semester. We would gather together 16 students who have taken Chess with us before in order to create an advanced class. In order to recruit students, we sent a memo to four elective teachers with the following information and instructions:
- We would like to reinstate our chess class
- We would like 16 students who have taken chess with us before
- This will be an advanced chess class
- This class will be for 8th graders only
- Please ask your students if any of them have taken chess with us before and would like to take this advanced class.
- Please write the names on this memo and return it to us by X date.

The lists should have been returned to us on Friday. As of 10am on Monday we had received no names. I made phone calls to the teachers, who I will call Mr. Drama, Ms. Computers, Mr. Art, and Ms. PE.

Me: Hi Mr. Drama. Do you happen to have the names of the students who want to be in the chess class?
Mr. Drama: Um. Well. Oh, right. I guess I could ask them about that today.
Me: Ok, great. Could you let me know when you've got the list and I'll send someone over ti pick it up?
Mr. Drama: Sure, but (chuckle) that's if anyone actually wants to take the class.

Ok. So far, great response.

Me: Ms. Computer, sorry to bother you. Do you happen to have the names of the students who want to be in the chess class?
Ms. Computer: Oh geez. Hmmm. Awwww. Well....? (This is all said with great anxiety). Well, I think there was one name.
Me: Ok great! Could you give me the student's name?
Ms. Computer: Oh, hmmm. I think it was Miguel. He was reading the memo and said he wanted to do it. Oh, geez. And then I think he never gave the paper back. Awww. So what should I do? Should I write....oh, shoot.
Me: No, no. Just give me his last name and we'll go from there.

Is this FOR REAL?

Me: Mr. Art, good morning. Do you happen to have the names of the students who want to be in the chess class?
Mr. Art: (very exasperated sigh) I sent that to Mr. 8th-Grade-Sponsor.
Me: Huh. He has absolutely nothing to do with this.
Mr. Art: Well, I sent it to him.

THANKS A LOT!

No answer from Ms. PE.

So, at 11am the period begins. My Assistant Principal and I should have 4 lists of names and should spend this period planning enrollment, etc. Instead, this is what happens:
- A combined list appears from Mr. Art and Ms. PE. On this list are 8 names. Two are 6th graders who have never taken our class. Two are 7th graders who have never taken our class. Out of the four 8th grade names on the list, three have taken our class.
- 3 students arrive from Mr. Art and Ms. PE's classes, none of whom appear on the list. Why does this happen? I do not know.
- The one boy from Ms. Computer's list cannot be found, although two students from her class appear having heard about the class from friends, not from Ms. Computer (who never after made the announcement, since Miguel ran off with her memo).
- 3 students appear our of nowhere.
- Mr. Drama is never heard from again. Obviously he doesn't think to highly of the game of chess.

At the end of the period, we have somehow scraped together 9 students who are ready to take Advanced Chess, and we have 3-4 names of kids we'd like to contact. As he's leaving for lunch supervision, my Assistant Principal says, "I should have just visited the classes personally." We laugh, roll our eyes, and try to contain the deep, roiling disappointment we feel. Is it really so hard? we wonder. Were the instructions unclear? But then the bell rings, it's lunch, and there is no more time to feel sorry for ourselves. Instead, there are nachos to be eaten, ketchup packets to be accidentally sat upon, and a hundred frenzied library nerds to be tamed.

This is the Stuff

Mario Perez is an 8th grader who, at the beginning of this school year, had never read a chapter book on his own. He was pretty sure there was no reason to read. He wasn't belligerent about it like some students can be; Mario had just never considered it. His English teacher approached me to help her solve the riddle of what Mario might like to read. He doesn't read well, so that was an added challenge. I/we/he chose the Shredderman series by Wendelin Van Draanan. According to School Library Journal (aka the Bible), "This entertaining story of an egghead who cannot keep his shoes tied who uses his brains to triumph over the worst bully in school will keep even reluctant readers laughing and wanting more stories about this cyber superhero." Having read some Van Draanan, I knew she was good. Even though these books are about 5th graders, I was pretty sure that subtitles like "Attack of the Tagger", "Enemy Spy", and "Meet the Gecko" would transcend age.

Mario read the first book in the series. Then the second. Then he came to get the third book and brought his friend to check out the first. The friend brought a friend who brought a friend who brought a friend, and pretty soon I couldn't keep the books on the shelf. I was turning away disappointed 8th grade boys on a daily basis. Mario had started a buzz.

Mario has gone off-track recently, meaning that he is not in school again until January. Most kids stay home during this time, watching tv, playing video games, babysitting, maybe working with their parents. Mario is here, in the library, right now, as I write this. Right now. Here. In the library. Yesterday he sat in one chair for 2 hours and 34 minutes and listened to the audio book of How to Eat Fried Worms. Today he came to school at 7:30 in the morning (did i mention he's on vacation?) and he is sitting in the same chair, unmoving, listening to another audio book (today it is the Misfits by James Howe, a great book). He's not leaving until it's finished. This will be his 21st book since July. He has caught the bug, and I have been so lucky to watch him discover this pleasure that is my favorite of favorites.

High School Scares Me

On Friday, I spent the day at a very large high school just south of downtown Los Angeles. I will spend 9 days there this semester as part of the field work that is required for my graduate studies. To tell the truth, I thought that I would be immediately intoxicated by the maturity, the independence, the intellectual freedom a high school would surely have to offer. I assumed that I would be coming back to the first tug towards a life in education that I experienced thanks to my 11th grade English Lit teacher. It would be like spending time with my middle school kids, only they would be smarter and more well-spoken. I would be WOWed by the difference a few years can make.

I was WOWed all right. High school was not what I remembered or expected. Was it just this high school? Perhaps. I hope. Oh, please. Or is it just that I am now a lover of middle school personalities, booger-humor, petty arguments, and cracking voices? That might also be true. To begin to explain my reaction to high school, here are a few of my observations:
- Almost all of the students in the library were using some sort of electronic device that is technically outlawed by the school district, like iPods, cell phones, hand-held video game systems. Although I cannot fault anyone for wanting to listen to music while they browse, research, or read, it was simply a shock to see it happening.
- When those students were asked to put their electronics away, they did not. Or they did, but then they took them back out less than one minute later.
- Very few students checked out books compared to what I am used to. Maybe 5-10% of what I would have thought.
- Of an entire 12th grade economics class, not one single student was sophisticated enough at using the Internet to successfully conduct research on a given topic. The best any of them could do was to google a vague term and shuffle through results without really taking in any information.
- One of these 12th graders was very, very pregnant. A group of girls came in later that day to ask if the library carried baby names books. It did not.
- The student workers in the library were very smart, hospitable, and articulate.
- After the lunch period, there were at least 150 students milling around campus, looking as if they had no intention of finding their classes. I took a walk at this time and noticed: a group of hulking, intimidating boys in a stairwell; a couple making out in a stairwell; a pair of cigarette-panted, thin, mod boys darting out of a stairwell when they heard me coming (smoking? lovers?); a group of couples (girls on laps, of course) lingering at the cafeteria tables; four teachers walking right past this as if nothing was wrong; zero adults working to get these kids to class.
- They have a POOL!
- A young man came to the library to ask for books that would help him learn how to read. He said that he only knows how to read a little bit. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to buy him a gift for being to brave. I wanted to shake each and every one of his previous teachers (he was in at least 11th grade) for not helping him sooner.
- There is a great college and career center at the school. Each time I walked by (3 times) it was empty except for the hopeful adult stationed there.
- Some of the students have completed all the coursework available to them at a certain grade level, and so have nothing to do for 2 periods a day. Even though there is a community college two blocks away, the solution to this problem is to have these kids sit in the library. Doing.....

I know there's more, but I am overwhelmed just remembering this much. I am sure that there are wonderful things happening in high schools, but I felt such disappointment and sadness at the end of my time on this very first day. The adults seems resigned. The students (that I saw) seemed blissfully uninterested. That's not entirely true - I did meet a few girls who were filling out college applications. I liked that. How do you run a school when some of the students there are legal adults? How do you tell a legal adult to spit out his gum? How do you promote reading for pleasure and the use of the library during lunchtime when the school is so populated that some kids don't even get through the lunch line before the bell rings for the next class? Why haven't 12th graders learned anything more about online research than what we are teaching them in 8th grade?

I hope that I am speaking to soon. Maybe the next time I am there, I will discover some of the romanticized high school life in the movies, the life that I superimpose on my own memories to make it seem like high school was fun. After all, no one at this high school (at least that I saw) poked anyone else with a pencil, was a tattletale, crawled on the ground under a desk just for fun, or ran through the aisles chasing the object of their affection. Of course, what's so wrong with those sorts of middle-grade, impulsive, uninhibited behaviors? For all that I moan and groan about the immaturity of middle school kids, I think this experience will make me love them all the more. Those poor, poor 9th graders. How did any of us get through it?

Connotation or Denotation?

At some early age, the words connotation and denotation were defined for me (by a teacher) in the following manner:
Denotation is the definition of the word according to the dictionary. D for dictionary. Connotation is the definition of the word according to common experience or understanding, how it is used, what is implied, etc.

So, I wonder if Ralph's supermarkets chose to rely on the connotation or the denotation of the word local when they decided to advertise their locally grown produce. A few days ago, I received a voicemail message from the new store manager of my neighborhood Ralph's. He politely told me that Ralph's considers anything within a 700 mile radius local. Huh. What does that include, I wonder? It includes Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, perhaps Colorado, Nevada, all of California, almost Oregon, and most importantly....Mexico. Yup. All those Mexican grown garlic cloves, apples, and other delicious items are considered local by Ralph's supermarkets.

So, I guess Ralph's used the denotation of the word local, which according to Merriam Webster is "of, relating to, or characteristic of a particular place." Hmm. Yes, Mexico and Utah are places. So is Nevada. I guess their produce (does Nevada have any, I wonder?) must be local then.

Maybe I need to write to Merriam Webster....

The Cat is So Wise, It's No Wonder

The priorities of middle school readers are quite clear. It's comics and horror that they want. Give them slime! Give them boogers! Give them fangs and drool and mutant growths and funny cats and they are happy forever. Here is a list of the most-borrowed-books from this middle school library since July of this year, in order of popularity. How many have you read?

Goosebumps: Don't Go to Sleep
The 4th Garfield Treasury
Double Trouble (a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen book, if you can believe that)
Garfiled Eats His Heart Out
Garfielf Weighs In
Garfield at Large
The Simpsons Holiday Humdinger
Face to Face with the Lizard
Duel with Daredevil
Spiderman and Captain America
Garfield Makes it Big
Scream School
Scooby Doo: Surf's Up!
Krusty Krab Adventures (a Spongebob Squarepants book)
The Amazing Spiderman
Among the Imposters (the only real novel on this list, this book is the 2nd in a fantastic dystopian fiction series)
Cuckoo Clock of Doom
Stay Out of the Basement
Welcome to Camp Nightmare
Say Cheese and Die - Again!
Sonrie y muerte - otra vez!
Attack of the Jack-o-Lanterns
Killers of the Dawn (ok, this is a real novel too, part of the Cirque du Freak vampire series)
Night of the Living Dummy III
Junie B Jones is Almost a Flower Girl
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (why this one?)
Draw 50 Aliens, UFOs, and Galazy Ghouls

There you have it. Middle school in a nutshell. What more can I say?

Out of the Blue (Which Happens to Be One of Our School Colors)

In a faculty meeting today, my bristly principal announced that our school was the only one in the local district (meaning in a very large area that is already larger than any respectable school district should be, but is only a small portion of LAUSD) to meet its annual goals for raising test scores for the '06-'07 school year. Huh.

She then told us that all of the subgroups (yes, that's what we call them) met their goals as well. This means African-American students, English Language Learners, and Students with Disabilities all improved. Huh.

She then thanked "all of the people who come into contact with the students each day" for making this happen. She never said teachers. The clerical staff looked nervous.

So what does this means? 15% of our students are performing at a proficient level, according to state tests. This is up from 12% last year, and it was even lower in years before. For this accomplishment, we were given cake (2 kinds!). And lemonade. Pink lemonade.

It is true that there is momentum building at our school, and that library circulation is up 1,000 books a month from just one year ago, and that we had elective classes for the first time in 8 years last year, and that our teachers are forming effective teams for the first time, and that we had math contests, reading contests, and other incentives for the first time....maybe ever! These things should most certainly help raise test scores, and I believe they should be credited. We may be experiencing a revolution at this school. This may be the beginning of an unprecedented upswing. They may make a movie about us called "It Took a Village", "Criminally Intelligent", or "Up from the Streets".

As I watched the PowerPoint slides that stylishly listed our achievements, a horrible part of me couldn't help thinking that this was somehow staged. Could someone have tampered with our scores? Why now? Why had we never improved before? Doesn't it seem convenient that this happened right before the state takes drastic measures, like firing the administration and taking over the school itself?

But then I looked around at all the happy and befuddled teachers eating cake and I thought, nah. Things might actually be looking up. This is a real crack team and we're on the case. Huh.

PS - no word from Ralph's.

It Makes Me Want to Ralph

Lately I've been attempting to do my part to eat foods that are grown or produced locally. I'm not perfect, but I'm slowly catching on. I try to remember to bring my own cloth bags to the store. I shop at my neighborhood farmer's market each week, shop at grocery stores that offer local or organic options, and so on. If you're reading this, you probably know what I'm talking about. Yesterday, I went to Ralph's, which is something I've mostly stopped doing in recent months. I know that Ralph's doesn't carry much of what I'm looking for, but since it's close to my house and on the way home from work, I had a moment of weakness. I stopped in to find something to supplement my dinner. I glanced over to the produce section and saw a huge sign reading something like We are proud to support our local growers and provide our customers with the fruits of their labor. When I say huge, I mean about 2' x 2' with the word local probably 10 inches tall.

Eureka! Hallelujah! Amen! Or so I thought.

I looked at the heirloom tomatoes right under the glorious sign. Grown in Mexico. Avocados...Mexico. Peaches...New Zealand. It went on like this for a while. So I did what any self-righteous, thirty-something in LA might do. I asked the manager. He had no idea, but I could ask someone who worked in produce. Did I want to do that now, he asked in surprise? Well yes, I did.

Anthony, from produce, also did not know. He looked at the sign, looked at me, looked at the sign, looked at the peaches.
Anthony: I don't really know. This stuff just comes in on a truck, you know?
Me: So, you don't know which produce is locally grown?
Anthony: Uh....
Me: So, do you have any produce that's locally grown?
Anthony: I don't think so. I mean, they put that sign up, like, two weeks ago.
Pause
Me: Uh huh. Doesn't that mean you might have something that's been locally grown?
Anthony: Um, well, I think they just put that sign up so, you know, so people would know.

Know WHAT? I wanted to shake this nice young man. (I will not get sidetracked now to explain why this interaction defines my philosophy about education, but it does.) Anthony said I could call the produce manager, Lee, tomorrow. I did. Lee did not know of any locally grown produce either. It comes from a warehouse, he said. But I could call this number. I did, and I found that it was the wrong number (for employees of Ralph's only). Was Lee trying to throw me off the scent of locally grown produce? I could not be deterred! I shook my fist in the air and called 1-888-437-3496 (hint hint) to speak to someone at Ralph's customer service center. I was put on hold for two longish exposures to semi-groovy elevator music. I was told the following:
- Ralph's always tries to buy locally (um, yeah right)
- when they cannot serve their customers with local products, they may import them from elsewhere (um, duh)
- There is no list that states "where this potato comes from and where that potato comes from". That's a direct quote.

I said that wasn't good enough. Surely the people at Ralph's who pay for the produce know where it comes from. I want to talk to one of them, I said. If I want to know more than that, I was told, I would have to give up some personal information and hope to be contacted later. Don't worry, if no one calls you back, you can call us again. We'll have a file on you by then, so we'll know who you are. I guess now I am on record with corporate Ralph's as an instigator. My parents will be proud.

So the questions remain. Does Ralph's have any locally grown produce? If so, why doesn't anyone who works there know about it? If not, why do they feel they can post such a stinking lie for all of us to read? And why don't any of the employees care or wonder about this? And are We (capitalized, all of us, society) really allowing this sort of thing? In the two weeks the sign has been there, am I the first to ask? I hope not, but I'm guessing I was. I hope that someone will call me soon to say that Ralph's does indeed carry locally grown produce. I hope that the employees will soon be attending some sort of meeting to educate them on this topic. I hope that the demand for better food sources will sink in and take hold in the big world of agribusiness.

I leave you now to ponder this mess, and I encourage you to do the following:
- Go to your Ralph's. Do they have a similar sign? If so, do they have any locally grown produce? Find out. Allow it to matter to you.
- Ask questions of your food providers to help keep them honest and to let them know what their patrons want.
- If you aren't up on why locally grown produce is a good idea, start reading. Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle is a good place to start.
- Check back for updates. If there are any, I'll post them.