Paper Mashie

So my friend teaches at a charter school. She's certified to teach Science, but because of the way the school is structured, she winds up teaching some English, too. The district eventually learned that kids were receiving instruction from a non-certified English teacher, so they arranged for an "English specialist" to show up part-time at the school to supplement lessons. Though my friend studied English in college and has been teaching reading and writing for years now, she understands the law that forced the change; it just kind of sucks because the money to pay the supplemental instructor must be taken from the charter school's already limited budget.

Here's the kicker, though: the English specialist the district has provided is only questionably literate herself. Here is the honest-to-gosh assignment she gave to my friend's students to do in conjunction with the Holocaust memoir Night:

What kind of English teacher doesn't use punctuation? What kind of English teacher doesn't write out the word "you"? What kind of English teacher uses the wrong type of "there" incorrectly twice in one sentence?

As much as I am laughing at things like "arty project", "paper mashie", and her botched cut and paste job that repeats part of the assignment a second time, this is actually tragic. In what world is my friend not qualified to teach English while this woman (who has had her job for over 15 years, mind you) is considered a "specialist"? I like her claim that she will take "of" [sic] points for spelling and grammar errors, as if she has any idea what those are.

Granted, when I was a high school English teacher, the essay I assigned in conjunction with the book Night resulted in at least one epically awful student paper. That's still not a good excuse for someone brought in specifically to teach writing to arbitrarily assign an art project rather than an essay. The public education system is fucked. It is so so so so fucked.

A Sweater for Every Occasion

I attended a party tonight where we were encouraged to wear ugly Christmas sweaters, and, not that there were "winners", but my beautiful friend Dani totally won. 

It's a convenient sweater for every holiday. Easter, Halloween, Fourth of July, St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, Christmas… sure you could have a sweater for each of those occasions, or you could just save closet space by putting all of them on one garment. She said she stole it from her elementary school teacher mom (makes sense, right?), and if there's one big reason why I would return to the teaching profession, it might be for the tacky teacher outfits.

I also have to give her credit for that Christmas tree hat which was for sale at the supermarket. She said she had to choose between buying food or the hat, but I think it was a smart decision considering I can't stop feasting my eyes on that tasty knit cap.

The Bumper Stickers

For the sake of transporting myself to a job nearly a decade ago, I had to purchase a car, a fact I very much resented. In order to ease my resentment, I decided to purchase some bumper stickers to personalize my car and take ownership of it. I wanted them to be political in nature, but not too aggressive. I settled on three stickers, all in the same style:  

* Question Authority

* Question Yourself

* Question Everything

I liked these bumper stickers because, rather than telling people what to think, they merely encouraged people TO think. Call me crazy, but I feel like a lot of the world's problems would be solved if we actually put our brains to work and challenged some of our preconceived notions.

Alas, these stickers were not well received. 

First, one of my friends told me about these "dumb question stickers" on a car she saw in the school parking lot. She was unaware that they belonged to me, and, embarrassed, I didn't let on. The funny thing was that my car - and the stickers - were parked just outside of her house as she made fun of the mystery hippie.

Second, when I was a high school teacher, someone, presumably a coworker, left a note on my windshield that said "Question authority, then do what you're told." I could understand why a fellow teacher would object to this message because it seemed like 90% of our job was trying to keep our students in line. When you ARE the authority, it's not fun or easy to be questioned, but how were we going to teach these kids to be good citizens if we discouraged them from thinking critically? My lack of desire to constantly enforce arbitrary rules and tell them what to do at all moments was my biggest "failure" as a teacher, at least as far as my administration was concerned. This ethical conflict, which could be seen on my own vehicle, is a strong reason I jumped ship.

Third, I returned to my car after attending a bonfire one evening in Huntington Beach a minute or two past the time the parking lot was posted to close. A lone cop was in the still half-full lot issuing a ticket to just one car in the middle of the lot… mine. I sprinted toward him, shouting at him to please not write me a ticket as I was about to leave. I made a comment to my friend about it being "just my luck" that in a lot with hundreds of cars that mine would be the first he'd cite, and the cop said, "I noticed your sticker, 'Question Authority.'" Panicked, I pointed out that the stickers also said to question yourself and everything - the questioning wasn't solely directed at authority. He agreed to stop writing the ticket, but then warned me that the sticker would get me in trouble at some point.

I guess I should be appreciative that the police officer let me off, but that guy was a dick. This guy's ego was so inflated with his self-important status of authority that he took any challenge to his position, no matter how vague, to be something worth targeting. Guys like him are the reason we need to question authority. And ourselves. And everything, actually. Maybe I should just buy these bumper stickers again.

Thinking Critically about Education

Alarming news: Republicans don’t want kids to think critically anymore. That’s not just conjecture - the Texas GOP put that in its official educational platform for 2012. In addition to promoting classroom corporal punishment, wanting to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, saying that abstinence-only sex education is the only valid approach, and deriding a “multicultural curriculum” as “divisive”, the document said this:

“We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenge the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

In other words, don’t teach kids how to think. Teach kids how to memorize, how to regurgitate, and how to follow orders, but when it comes to students having original thoughts that come out of their own brains, they “oppose”. And they can mask it as not wanting to stress the “student’s fixed beliefs” (also known as maturation) or undermining parents (also known as typical teenage behavior), but the bottom line is that they don’t want to give people the tools to think for themselves. People who think independently challenge authority and are less susceptible to propaganda. This is an attempt at passive mind control.

When I was a teacher, helping my students to think critically was my number one goal, not to mention the most challenging. You can’t force kids to engage in higher order thinking (particularly kids who have been discouraged from doing so all of their lives) as it is an internal process, but I did my best to put them in situations and give them assignments where critical thinking would be a natural extension for those who were ready. Specifically, I used literature as my medium. At the end of the day, I didn’t care much if the students couldn’t remember the name of any poets, so long as engaged with the poems on a deeper level.

This published policy of limiting thought substantiates my beliefs toward education. You can call it a conspiracy theory, but I think the reason the public education system is failing is because the powers that be have no use for it anymore. Whereas the elite used to need a reasonably educated working force to staff its factories, technology is replacing the need for jobs. So why fund education (hence the across the board slashing of taxes allocated to schools) when it doesn’t benefit the elite like it used to? In fact, if anything, having an educated, unemployed populace will only cause more trouble as the will have the knowledge to speak out against injustice and fascism.

Furthermore, while I think most teachers are still committed to their professions, their jobs are severely restricted by higher-ups. In most school settings, teachers are told very specifically what they have to teach and how they have to teach it. Regulation does not help education, it impedes it. It dilutes learning to a formula – a purposefully unsuccessful formula, I’d argue.

Another item on the Texas GOP’s platform calls for government to stop funding kindergarten. How many studies need to be done showing how crucial early education is in creating lifelong learners before people believe it? While the GOP argues that parents should decide how to educate their kids in their early years, who else is going to be able to afford to pay for kindergarten? This obstacle, just like massive (and rising) tuition rates, is about making education inaccessible to the masses. The rich will always be able to pay for their kids to be educated (and thus maintain their wealth and status), while the poor will have limited options for self-improvement.

I left teaching because, as much as I loved being an educator, I hated being a babysitter. More than half my job was about disciplining and making sure kids were constantly doing what they were told. It was about teaching directly to standardized tests – not teaching them how to write well, but how to write exactly how the test graders were looking for when they spent no more than thirty seconds skimming each essay. No wonder so many kids reject school.

All of this is to say: be wary of a government that doesn’t want to actually educate you. If the government doesn’t want you to think, it has its own best interests in mind, not yours. Education and critical thinking is one of the few tools humanity has to save itself. We need to reflect honestly (and swiftly) to respond to the rising social, political, and environmental problems that face the world. Don’t let them take away critical thought – those who are having it ripped away don’t even know how badly they need it.

How I Received a Job Offer to Be a Life Coach

My former landlady hired me to help her son on the computer. I didn't want to do it, but I have trouble saying no, plus she offered me a good rate for it, so I finally agreed. Evidently, her 31-year-old son is a collector of expensive sneakers - $1,000 to $4000 pairs of shoes. Not to wear, even, but to store in his closet as collector's items that he hopes will increase in value over the years. (Talk to my sister about how that worked out with her Beanie Baby collection.) And since he doesn't know how to use a computer, he needs someone to go on eBay to help him buy his shoes.

An hour before our first appointment, she cancelled because her son "wasn't ready." Okay, fine. She wanted to reschedule the next appointment to be before 6 in the morning this past weekend, and before I could find a polite way to tell her to shove it, she promised to pay more, and I accepted. 

I show up, and the kid - he's older than me, but still very much a kid - still isn't ready. Instead, I sit with his mother in the kitchen while she bitches about how worthless he is. Here's the gist: he has no education, no friends, no driver's license, no work experience ever, no real ambitions, and has never moved out of the house. So how, then, does he afford the sneakers? Mommy pays for them. "Maybe I spoil him," she said. You think? Maybe he does nothing with his life because he's never had to? Plus gets treated to pointlessly expensive sneakers for being a lazy lump? 

After nearly an hour, I'm still just sitting and waiting, and his mother goes to buy me breakfast as a nice gesture. It was from McDonald's. I've never had McDonald's for breakfast before, and given how it resulted in almost instantaneous diarrhea, I can't say that I ever would eat it again. As I pick at the food, the son is finally ready. It takes me all of five minutes to click on "buy instantly" to purchase a $1000+ pair of sneakers, and then we're done. I ask him what other pairs he wants to look at, and he says he needs a break. A break from what? Spending his mom's money? 

I go back to the kitchen where his mom chats me up again. She says his one real ambition is to go to a special school to learn how to be a certified Mercedes mechanic. That's a very technical, skills-based job for someone who can't work a computer. It turns out that his real passion is to own a Mercedes. (Again, he can't even drive.) He apparently throws tantrums at his mom for not buying him this expensive car because once he has one he can learn how they work, he claims.  

But that's when things get really interesting. My landlady says she wants to hire me on a regular basis to tutor him. Tutor him at the computer? I ask. "Teach him how to be a real man," she says. I nearly laugh, because I don't know that I even consider myself to be a real man, how am I going to tutor someone to do that? "Show him how to make friends and get a job." It's clear that what she's asking me to be is her son's life coach, which is absurd. I could probably use a life coach of my own, there's no way I'm qualified to get this man-child into working order. I swear, only in comparison to this guy does it seem like I have my shit together. 

Finally, the son, who is close enough to hear everything his mom is telling me, announces that it's time to send me home. "I thought we were buying more sneakers?" I ask. "I don't want to do it today," he says. "We'll reschedule for you to come back another time." He is so lazy that he can't even agree to sit down for another hour to buy $10,000 worth of shoes (that was the amount his mom said I was permitted to spend) he wants with his mom's credit card. I indicate that I might not be available in the future, and he says, "We'll pay you more than, you'll come back, it's cool." This leads to a fight with his mom. "You're wasting his time and my money! I do this to make you happy! You say, 'Mommy, I need someone to buy me sneakers' and then I hire someone nice, and you send him away! What am I supposed to do?" I accept my money for my 2 hours of service (which amounted to five minutes of actual work, and much longer than that of listening to their family drama and having to eat a McDonald's breakfast, which, in fairness, were much harder tasks) and exit as they continue to bicker.

I just wonder - if he doesn't know how to use a computer, what is he wasting all of his time doing, then? When I have time to kill, I futz on the internet, so what the hell is he doing? At least I can safely blog this story without fear of him discovering it.

In the meantime, I'm going to have to learn how to say "No" really fast before the landlady poses the life coach question again. That guy is a hopeless case who could sooner benefit from euthanasia. If anything, I should be the one hiring him. Even when I think my life is going nowhere, it's a real self-esteem boost to see someone like him and be like, "Well, at least I've got a lot more going on than him." 

To Tell the Truth

Mike Daisey is in hot water today following reports that he fabricated details in his This American Life report on the working conditions in Apple factories abroad. Take into account the Kony profiteer getting busted for masturbating publicly, and it’s a bad day for fraudulent activists.

I’ve known of Daisey for five years now thanks to another publicized controversy with which he was involved. While Daisey performed a one-man show, 87 audience members got up and walked out of his show due to the “offensive” content, with one man stopping to dump a bottle of water on Daisey’s script. (See the video above.)

These 87 audience members were students and staff on a school trip from a public high school in a conservative area of Southern California. It’s worth mentioning that I was a teacher at a public high school in a conservative area of Southern California five years ago. I don’t like giving too many professional details on my blog, but it’s also worth mentioning that I am very, very familiar with these students and staff members. You can draw your own conclusions!

In their departure from the theater, one of the school authorities identified themselves as a “Christian group”, which is neither an appropriate nor legal label for a public school. That may have been the community’s general attitude, but not all of the students were Christians, like it or not. And objecting to the language used? Kids at that school hear the word “fuck” from their peers at least a dozen times a day – that’s not even a detention-worthy offense. Furthermore, the sexual content may not be in line with the school’s abstinence-only policy, but I think the number of pregnant students showed how well that was working.

To be clear, Daisey was not the controversial part of this incident. That can be chalked up to my dear acquaintances who proved that their “moral outrage” was entirely hypocritical by not only disrupting the show, but trying to destroy it on their way out. How Christianly.

This story was just one of many I included in my award-winning Masters thesis about why I didn’t want to be a teacher anymore. It really did win an award. I think the Education professors thought they were being progressive by recognizing a thesis that poo-pooed on their profession, but the plaque I received fell apart within an hour of them giving it to me if that tells you anything. My advisor even encouraged me to publish it, but I couldn’t do that, mainly because I had fabricated an interview with a student’s parent. I couldn’t get the parent to talk to me, my university told me it was a graduation requirement and to find a way to make it happen, so boom, I added some sentences and pretended I met with a parent I never met with.

I don’t feel that bad about lying in this instance because I was put into a corner, but I also wouldn’t have that work disseminated to the public knowing that it contained a lie. Never mind that it contained a lot of truths that I think would be valuable for those in the education profession to consider – by including a lie that could be uncovered, it discredits the whole piece.

And that’s where Daisey went wrong. His intentions were probably good, and his Apple factory piece is still probably mostly true, but no one can trust it anymore, thus undoing any of the good it did. We all have that friend who is a chronic exaggerator whose stories we can’t even take seriously anymore. We all have moments where we find ourselves so caught up in the story that we’re telling that we start adding hyperbole without even realizing it. But we shouldn’t let exaggeration get in the way of something when the honest-to-gosh facts can do the job alone.

If you look at how Daisey captions the earlier YouTube video, he says that the Christian group “physically attack” his work. He’s overstating what actually happened, even though the video speaks for itself. I suppose we should have seen this exaggeration coming.

My Wood Shop Teacher Tries His (Mangled) Hand at Computers

My 7th grade wood shop teacher looked like a busted Santa Claus. He was a fat old man with a long white beard, tiny spectacles, and rosy cheeks. He was not jolly, though, unless you can stretch "jolly"'s definition to mean grumpy and confused.

The word "busted" also applies to my teacher because he was missing a finger. I know that sounds cliche (remember Mr. Slurm, the shop teacher on Pete and Pete who was missing a hand?), but have an idiot work with power tools for a few decades, and he's bound to lose a digit at some point.

Forget blackboards and textbooks, the best teaching aid Mr. Claus had was his finger - or lack there of. He used his mangled hand to terrify us about the dangers of working with the electric tools. Granted, you must stress safety before letting preteens go wild with rotary saws, but convincing us we were likely to lose a finger was not the right approach. Neither was his other story, which in retrospect was probably as true as it was appropriate, about a girl who didn't use the safety as instructed and they later found her bloody body. It would make for a good campfire tale; maybe Mr. Claus's true calling was as a camp counselor.

I was scared. Not just scared enough to be extra mindful of safety precautions, but too scared to do the assignments. Call me crazy, but I found the idea of constructing a birdhouse less appealing than keeping all of my body parts.

Fortunately for me, the power tool portion of my class was over pretty quickly. It was 1997, and educators were starting to realize that kids needed to learn how to use computers. This class that was once devoted wholly to wood shop had been expanded and redubbed "Technology Education" to also include computer skills.

Rather than hiring a teacher who was computer literate (or even just plain literate - sorry, Mr. Claus), they made my shop teacher instruct the computer portion, too. Mr. Claus looked at computers not just with confusion, but with fear. You'd think it was the computer that stole his finger! "I'm too old to learn computers," he'd tell us, which might be a fine excuse were he not supposed to be teaching us about computers. He'd mess up his computer almost instantaneously and spend the rest of the period "troubleshooting" (i.e. cursing and rebooting), while the students were left to amuse ourselves. This was before most computers had the internet, so we'd just sit there and play Minesweeper or word process dirty things for fun.

Santa's most comprehensive lesson was about using clip art. We spent multiple classes looking through clip art galleries, selecting our favorite images, and printing out hundreds of copies of them. It was an insanely stupid activity, yet still preferable to the dangers of wood shop. Still, I don't know what I expected to learn about computer proficiency from a man who used the hunt and peck method of typing with just his index fingers. On second thought, maybe that's not fair: it's not like Mr. Claus could type with all of his fingers on the proper keys.

Teachers Outside of Class

My yoga teacher friend invited me to a literary/comedy event a weeks ago. It ended up being even trendier than I expected; I saw Megan Amram, Sugar from Survivor, Moby, and enough unconventional hats to fill a Hipster Haberdashery.

However, none of those encounters are as notable as one we had with my friend’s yoga student. (Except for maybe Moby - he didn’t wash his hands after using the bathroom. True story.) My friend went ahead and said hello to her student, which really flustered her. “Oh my god! What are you doing here?” the student said. “I can’t believe I ran into my teacher here, it’s so weird seeing you outside of the studio.”

It was reminiscent of when I ran into one of my high school students at the grocery store. At first he tried to hide from me, but then he wanted to see what was in my basket, in what I believe was an attempt for him to see evidence of my humanity outside of being a teacher. (He eats!) I know when I was little, I bought into that thought that teachers did nothing but teach and slept under their desks at night. (For the record, I have napped under my desk before.)

But this encounter was hilarious because here was a grown-up, maybe a couple of years younger than my friend, looking at my friend in the same manner. She was barely able to comprehend seeing her yoga instructor in another context; she might as well have asked “Shouldn’t you be in the lotus position right now?”

Believe it or not, yoga teachers are people, too.

Swift as an Arrow

Hey, teenagers.

Yeah, you.

I know I haven't had the opportunity to address your kind since I was a high school teacher years ago. I also know that you didn't listen to me then, either, but if you give me just 30 seconds, I promise to leave you alone for a good long while.

When you are "helping" at a community volunteer event, and you agree to do the easiest job of all because you don't want to actually work like the rest of us, the expectation is that you at least get that minimal job done right.

You've been tasked with holding arrow signs to direct the rest of us volunteers to the starting location, which is not visible from the main road. When I walk by and you're too busy gossiping with your friend to acknowledge me, I'm going to assume the direction you have the arrow pointed is the way I should go. Ten minutes later when I've realized I've gone in the opposite direction, I am bound to be frustrated when I return.

I don't know whether you thought pointing it the other way would be funny. I don't know whether you dropped the sign and were too stoned to notice your mistake. I don't know whether you're really just that stupid. But one things for certain: you could have more effectively been replaced with a nail and a telephone pole. And that's true of teenagers in most circumstances.

In total, your incompetence cost more man hours than you offered in the first place; I alone lost twenty minutes trying to reorient myself. Therefore, I hope they forbid you from putting this "community service" on your college apps. If you can't point an arrow in the correct direction, you're not cut out for higher learning anyway.

Not Family-Friendly

A reminder: This blog is not family-friendly. I say that both because the content can sometimes be off-color, but also because it is known to irritate certain members of my family.

This blog is a performance, intended to entertain. It is mostly compromised of humorous, true anecdotes from my life, includes some observations that I make about other people and things, and is peppered with comments (often offensive) that are not meant to be taken seriously.

Most recently, I upset some with my Earth Day post from a few days ago. It was purposely crass, and though told in first person, not a reflection of the way I am or how I actually speak. It made me laugh because it IS stupid and it IS inappropriate, and was meant to satirize someone of that ilk. The shock value clearly worked.

Yes, it is "embarrassing," but this blog would be nearly bare if I were to remove all of the posts that humiliated myself. I have always been complimented for having a funny, thoughtful, yet self-deprecating approach to writing. I tend to agree that my talent lies in making myself the butt of many of my own jokes. While tearing myself down, I'm simultaneously building myself up. Maybe I need a psychologist to figure out why that happens.

I'd like to hope that despite looking like a dumbass, I'm still somewhat lovable. Not universally loved - my sense of humor is not for everyone, and I know that - but I think that is what people enjoy about this blog is that I make myself vulnerable in ways that most wouldn't, and I have a good time doing it. Have you read most personal blogs? They are boring. I think my deviance is what makes this blog popular.

On the other hand, if you think I just look awful on this site, then I encourage you to stop reading. I can be polite and pleasant in real life and there are plenty of people who have the highest regard for me because they only know that side of me. That said, there are plenty more who have that same regard while being aware of my duality. If you prefer the former, let me know, and I'll be happy to send you just the sanitary* updates.

If somehow you are reading this material and know my parents better than me, please don't let my blog be a reflection on them. I assure you, this blog would be entirely different if they edited the content. They are great parents who raised me to be a proper person. I grew up a drug-free, good student who didn't even curse. (I know some of your kids, and they can't say the same!) Judge me if you wish, I've opened myself up to it, but don't judge them.

There's also a major culture divide from where I grew up, Connecticut, and where I live now, Los Angeles. I attend comedy shows where the performers say words I would never dare say aloud, and I taught in public schools where teenagers could "joke" about raping their teachers without facing any consequences. So the truth is I'm a little desensitized to some of the more lewd content. I'd contend that I've still got more Puritan in me than hoodlum, though I realize the way I portray myself here doesn't always reflect that.

But I'm me and I'm not going to stop being that. Oddly, the things that would "ruin" you in Connecticut are the same things that can make you in Los Angeles. If reality TV has taught me one thing, it's that you've got to embarrass yourself somewhat before anyone pays attention. (What a progressive society!) I honestly feel that this blog has been and could be one of my tickets to growing as a person, growing as a writer, and becoming successful. I assure you, I don't bring dick jokes to work (unless that's what they task me to do!) and keep it entirely professional. If you ask me, some of the cheesy things I have agreed to write for money are more "offensive" than anything you can find here. But I still do it happily and terrifically!

Wow, that was a mouthful. Love you all!

* And by sanitary, I mean the second definition Webster has listed rather than the third. (Sorry, but you could try to make me as appropriate as possible, and I'll still be making poop jokes 'til I die.)

No Child Left Behind

As a former teacher, people often ask my opinion of No Child Left Behind. The public education system needs a major overhaul, and while NCLB is a nice sentiment, it's not always practical in the existing system. I not only left kids behind, I shoved some out a moving vehicle just so I could get the majority of them to our destination. Metaphorically, obviously.



Last night, my friends and I brainstormed this awesome t-shirt design. If I were still teaching, I'd be rocking it each and every casual Friday, and I bet I could market it to a million disenfranchised teachers. It'd also probably be a hit with mean school bus drivers.

Holla!-caust

Hey, American adults! Have you heard of the Holocaust? If you think that's a dumb question, have I got a story for you!

Someone made a Nazi reference as a joke, and a guest at my house, a twenty-something female with whom I was not well-acquainted, asked what a Nazi was. I didn't think she was serious at first, but when she said, "Well, like, I've heard of it before, but I don't know..." I realized she wasn't just playing dumb.

"Well, you know what the Holocaust is, yeah?" I asked.
"Ugh! That's something comedians reference all the time, but I don't get it," she said.
"You don't know the Holocaust?"
"It's something really bad, right?"

She figured that out from context clues, so it's not like she's a total moron. That's when it hit me.

"Did you go to California public schools?" I asked.
"Yeah..."
"Well that explains it."

As a former California public school teacher, it is my professional opinion that she is pretty fortunate that she can string a sentence together. Her response to this backhanded compliment?

"Oh yeah, we didn't learn anything. My Spanish final was to watch Patch Adams in English. Then we had to write a paragraph about it... also in English."

The Adventures of Huckleb**** Finn

My dear old friend Mark Twain is in the news again now that a publishing company intends to replace the n-word in his books The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer with "slave." This move has prompted an overwhelming outcry from the public. A lot of people are speaking out against censorship and in favor of preserving significant works of literature, which the English major in me thinks is great.

But in this case, I don't agree with the public at large. Quit being so hyperbolic.

I just don't think it's that bad of an idea. Now if some overlord were demanding that all copies of this book be censored, I'd gladly be grabbing a pitchfork, too. But this is a single edition of a book meant to appeal to a subsection of people who feel more comfortable reading it that way, not replace the original entirely. For the countless school districts who have banned these books, this niche edition is an opportunity to put a historically relevant text back into the hands of students.

In the unfortunate age of permission slips, it's nearly impossible to get everyone on board. Half the time, kids will fake a moral objection in a mistaken hope that they'll get excused from the work entirely. Plus, there's always that one parent. Teachers, specifically English teachers, are overworked enough, it's not reasonable to expect them to create a second set of lesson plans and divide instructional time for another book, too. The only feasible approach is to teach the inoffensive option to everyone.

Don't get me wrong: if I were permitted to, I would teach the original version. So many of my students used the n-word freely anyway, it would have been a good jumping point to discuss the word and social context (as we did with To Kill a Mockingbird.) Even with the altered book, it'd be entirely appropriate for the teacher to lead a discussion about the censorship issue; the new edition of the book addresses the change in its introduction. Besides, if you believe that the message and relevance of the books hinge upon the use of the n-word, you're missing the larger point and should give it another read.

To some extent, I think that people are missing the point in this debate. To me, the book amendment speaks more to modern issues of race, language, and power than censorship of literature. It's about the word nigger. Nigger, nigger, nigger. Does that make you uncomfortable? It makes me uncomfortable to type it. Probably most of the most liberal, forward-thinking people you know don't use that word. I'm largely anti-censorship, but with notable exceptions like the above, I censor myself from using the n-word. For a variety of reasons, it's not something I permit in my vernacular.

Words are only as powerful as their speakers deem them. I can think of no other word in the English language that, for better or worse, has been assigned so much power. The new Huck Finn book is merely reflecting our society's mixed emotions toward the n-word. Heck, go read five editorials on this issue right now. In many cases, even the writers most opposed to eliminating "nigger" from Twain's texts are unwilling to actually spell out the word in their articles. How can we condemn censorship of a word that today's society - even its critics - actively censors?

Maybe I'm in the wrong on this debate. Maybe this change will in fact lead to a slippery slope, and before I know it, the words in my own blog will be censored. If that happens, I'll be the first to apologize... if they let me.

In an act of disclosure, I used to work at The Mark Twain House, which vehemently opposes this change, so perhaps my stance makes me a traitor. Although in befriending Jim, Huck was also considered a traitor, so I'll wear that badge with pride today.

Making out with Yourself

I am such a compulsive multi-tasker that I will save the last twenty minutes of my book to read on my walk back to the liberry. Though I definitely walk slower while reading, I consider this act to be time-saving overall.

Plus, I kind of like having my nose in a book on my regular walks because I pass so many schools. I can't help but be paranoid that, as an adult male, when people see me walk by schools, they assume I'm some sort of pedophile. It's not the case at all, and perhaps part of the reason I still carry around my old teacher ID (well, that and discounts) so that if questioned, I can show that I am certified to work with kids, not an abductor. Never has any of this stuff been a problem, but I just prefer to have my eyes averted and credentials ready just in case.

However, on today's walk, I almost missed the most amazing scene because I was reading. Across from the liberry, I heard laughter right beside me. I turned to see a tiny kid making kissing noises and hugging himself tightly. My first thought was "Holy autism!" but then I realized that he had his back to a group of girls who were watching him pretend to make out with someone, as kids sometimes do. As with real kissing, however, he had his eyes shut, so he was unaware that only a few feet and a fence separated us. The girls, seeing my shocked expression, laughed even harder. Noticing the amplification, he opened his eyes, saw me staring at him, and jumped backward screaming in embarrassment. It's one thing to perform for a specific audience, but another thing when an adult crashes the show.

Toying with the kid, I decided to give him one of those, "Yeah, you're kind of funny, but cut it out!" looks I perfected as a teacher, prompting him to hide his face. I kept walking, but behind me I could hear the girls begging him to do it again, to which he obliged. Only then did I realize the reason I was so drawn to this scene: this kid was me. That's something I would do at his age: make an ass out of myself for a bunch of girls in the hopes of earning their affection. Later he'll probably ask if any of them want to kiss for real, and when they decline, he'll tell them he was having more fun making out with himself anyway.

A Job Interview

I just got back from a job interview. It went well! If by well, I mean comically.

I've been on this kick where I've been missing teaching lately, mainly because I'm a glutton for punishment. I thought one way to reconcile this yearning would be to teach adults learning English. As I see it, teaching mature people who are choosing to be in the classroom means less cursing, fewer death threats.

After throwing my resume at everyone I could, I finally heard back from a man who ran an ESL school. From both a brief email and phone conversation, it became clear that his own English wasn't too good. I joked to my friends that the one guy who expressed an interest in hiring me was also the one guy who couldn't actually read my resume.

I arrived at the office today at the same time as another guy. The boss greeted the other guy warmly and said, "Who are you?" to me. I told him I was here for an interview and he said, "Oh no, I over-book! I already did so many, I forgot any more." He promised the other guy that he would get back to him in 10 minutes and pulled me into a room for an interview.

He quickly asked me a couple of basic questions about my experience, then said, "So tell me about Taiwan." I froze, trying to think of what I knew about Taiwan other than that they manufacture a lot of crap. I guessed he wanted to know about my familiarity with Asian culture. "Well, it's an island nation by China..." I started. "No, no, what you do when you in Taiwan?" "I've never been to Taiwan," I said. He points to the part of my resume that mentions my internship at the Mark Twain House. I had to explain that it was Mark Twain the author, not Taiwan the country, and that effectively ended the main interest he had in me. My jest became a reality: he actually had brought me in because he couldn't read my resume properly.

Never mind my experience with ESL students, my Masters degree, my charming tie that's decorated like a pencil (it's cute and education-themed!) I even wore my glasses that I only wear to drive in order to look "smarter." I've been told multiple times that I interview well, and I worked every angle I could before he dismissed me, so I'm not saying that it's entirely out of the realm of possibility that I'll get a callback, but like whatever. I'm not going to make fun of a guy for not speaking proper English, but when you head a school that is designed to do just that, you're opening yourself up for criticism like a fat doctor or an illiterate librarian.

Underemployment for life! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read some Mark Taiwan.

What's the Matter Here?

What does it say about me that one of my favorite songs ever (as verified by my ITunes most played list) is about child abuse?

I mean, I'd like to think that I'm drawn to the Natalie Merchant's chilling vocals on "What's the Matter Here?" more than the lyrics about witnessing child abuse and remaining silent, but there's got to be something deeper.

I blame my Dad. To be clear, he didn't beat me, but his favorite musical artists are Natalie Merchant, Sarah McLachlan, and Melissa Etheridge, which I'm sure has played a large role in me becoming the lesbian that I am today.

While growing up, the song's lyrics were relatively meaningless, it took a more important meaning in recent years. When I received my teacher certification, I became a mandated reporter, which meant I had a legal obligation to report any reasonable suspicions of child abuse. It's a responsibility I didn't feel mature enough to bear, but one of my coworkers assured me that it was uncommon and only arose once in her seventeen years of teaching. But with my luck, it took me only two months of teaching before I had to call Child Protective Services. As much as I didn't want to make the call, I knew I should; having been sworn to an oath helped make the decision clear. Afraid, the kid lied to the officials to cover things up, then lashed out on me for breaking his confidence. Things only got worse, and somehow I ended up feeling like the asshole for trying to be a responsible adult.

No lie, it's a huge relief to know I don't have to meddle in such affairs anymore. I'd like to think that if I encountered a situation where a child is being abused that I'd still intervene, but it's definitely easier to know I could not be legally prosecuted for minding my own business. But I'll probably keep humming this tune regardless.

Polygamy on Film

Molls posted this and I immediately echoed her sentiment as a lover of bad, melodramatic media. Not only does the TV movie focus on polygamists, people I've been obsessed with ever since almost getting a tattoo to commemorate a polygamist cult, but it is a Lifetime movie! On Last Comic Standing this week, comedienne Paula Bel opined, "Lifetime: television for women. Every time you turn it on we're getting beaten, raped, and stabbed. Whose lifetime is this?!" I think that pretty much sums up the appeal.

Another reason I was compelled to In God's Country is the casting. What a bold decision to have the lead in a polygamist story be an African American! Actually, there wasn't a black person in the whole film, I had just confused the name Kelly Rowan for Kelly Rowland, hence mixing up the alcoholic mom from The OC with the Destiny's Child member who must have kissed Beyonce's ass the most since she was the only one to never be replaced.

In the cult, Rowan faces adversity. One sister wife tells her, "Must be terrible not having an infant of your own, I'd die of shame if I only had five children." That is some SMACK TALK for a polygamist. Later, her twelve-year-old daughter is injured and nearly raped by an older man in the congregation. Rowan actually keeps the incident pretty quiet, but since she doesn't, like, invite the man back over to her house for another try, her husband excommunicates her along with her five children. It's a good thing, since just after "God" tells the minister that all of the 12-year-olds should be married off to old men to keep them in line.

Rowan's oldest daughter steals a story line from Liesl from Sound of Music who whines that she wants to stay in Nazi Germany because she's in love with this guy who is 17 going on 18 or whatever. The polygamists tell "Liesl" she can marry her boyfriend if she returns to the compound except that they switch out the groom to her own stepfather at the last minute at her wedding because the polygamists firmly believe that young pussy is meant for decrepit old men.

Meanwhile, things are also difficult for Rowan in the real world. Her body can't stand that ungodly drug caffeine and she can barely work the cash register at the grocery store where she found employment. It's okay because her goal is actually to become a teacher even though she never made it past seventh grade herself. A local cop, who totally wants to get into Rowan's shapeless dresses, actually encourages this dumbass to pursue that path. Look, Mr. Flirty Cop, Rowan may be the only single woman of a certain age in that small town he polices, but she just left a cult, escaped from a burning building, started a new job, and filed a restraining order against her husband, so it's a little too early to be throwing it out there like that, especially for someone with more baggage than an airplane.

And then there's that twelve-year-old daughter; if she would have just shut up and gotten molested, none of this mess would have happened in the first place. She starts to like school more than religion and exalts the word "hypotenuse" like it is the name of Jesus Christ himself. My favorite scene in the whole movie is when she goes to the liberry to learn about astronomy (heathen!) and the liberrian tells her "520s." When the girl returns a confused look, the liberrian repeats "520s" before slowly saying, "Dew-ey-dec-i-mal-sys-tem" like the girl is a total idiot. I know the point of the scene is to show that the girl is uneducated from living with the cult, but the majority of kids her age are not going to know the Dewey Decimal System, so there's no point in being an asshole. I was once certified and paid to teach kids the Dewey Decimal System, and I doubt more than a few of them know Dewey as anything more than a character on Malcolm in the Middle.

In God's Country is set to expire on Hulu in the next week or so, so I recommend watching ASAP if you're interested. But when a movie includes dialogue such as "I am not your mother anymore, I'm your sister-wife and you're a grown woman, so behave like one!" I don't think you're going to want to resist.

Children Fighting to the Death

I'm obsessed with children fighting to the death.

At least that's the realization I've had after two of my favorite recent pop culture experiences: Battle Royale and The Hunger Games. The premises of both are strikingly similar: groups of children are forced by their tyrannical governments to go to a desolate location armed with weapons of differing usefulness. Whoever is the last man child standing is declared the winner and gets to return home to his or her normal life.

It's twisted, but captivating. Perhaps it's the disgruntled former teacher in me that attracts me to young teenagers' brutal deaths, but more accurately this taste can be attributed to the same quality that draws me to reality television. My favorite narrative is one where X-number of people are thrown together and only one can come out victorious; the self-cannibalization is enthralling. Some argue that the same thing happens every series, but I disagree. A new cast of characters brings something different to the table every time. Unfailingly, people must wrestle with issues of strategy and morality; and the decisions are rarely easy. These decisions are only amplified when the participants' lives are at stake.

Battle Royale is a ten-year-old film that I previously avoided for being too gory and subtitled. (I don't like blood and since I like multi-tasking different films, it makes it difficult to also read the screen.) At Melinda's insistence, however, we watched it, as well as played the The Battle Royale drinking game. The game has just one rule: each time someone dies, you take a drink. With 40+ deaths, that's a lot of drinking, especially the massacre scenes where multiple kids are taken out at once. That much drinking is the kind that results in barfing on your friends' floor.

Not that alcohol would be necessary to enjoy the film. These kids are all hours away from dying, yet their primary concern remains who has a crush on whom. Check out the last words of the girl who went on to play Gogo in Kill Bill in the picture. Maybe there was a translation issue there, but I hope not because that cheese is delicious!

And then there's The Hunger Games. I don't care that the book is aimed at preteens, adult fiction only wishes it could be this suspenseful and entertaining. Katniss, our heroine, is one of the richest characters I can recall in a young adult novel. Though her struggle to survive against her friends and foes is often predictable, it's no less of a page turner. Like Battle Royale, there is also a love story: even a hardened tomboy like Katniss gets swept up in a romantic plot. While it's less cheesy than the aforementioned film's approach, I still can't believe that people look for love when it can't possibly thrive in a kill or be killed environment. Focus, young ladies and gentleman! For a more thorough review of the book, I defer to Stacy (but WARNING, it includes spoilers). I'd say we both feel the book isn't without its faults, but well worth the investment.

I've learned that both the film and the book have sequels, so my next step is to quench my thirst for child blood by indulging in them in the near future. Granted, it's a pretty gross guilty pleasure, but if that shows immaturity, I don't want to grow up. In fact, these slaughtered kids are fortunate that they don't ever have to!

The "Gentle" Giant

A friend just asked me about the students who reminded me of potential school shooters. The first one that came to mind was Henry, a huge guy, I'm talking NFL-size, who was in my freshman English class. Henry was all sorts of socially awkward. Between his size and lack of friends, he was pretty scary.

I had thought about referring Henry to the school psychologist to have him analyzed, but I didn't have a concrete reason until I received his how-to essay. (How-to essays are a ninth grade staple; remember this monstrosity about making paper airplanes?) It had nothing to do with the quality of the writing - poor overall, but on par with his peers, unfortunately - and everything to do with the content. The essay starts out fine, at first I thought it was rather responsible of him to choose a topic that could aid in his future. Oh wait, no, he's just thinking of killing people. It's a How-To essay, not a What-Not-To-Do essay.

Click on the essay to enlarge:


I mean, sure, Henry was saying "not" to sell drugs, kill people, run from the police, etc, but with each additional detail, it's like, damn, you've given this a lot of thought, huh? So I gave it to the psychologist, who agreed that it set off some red flags. A week later, I got an email from the psychologist who said that everything checked out with the kid and I had nothing to worry about. Since it wasn't my area of expertise, I dropped the issue, but I was little extra scared of Henry since he must have now known that I reported him because of the essay. He never said a word, though, (eerily, he rarely ever said a word,) so I decided to envision him as some sort of gentle giant.

That mentality carried me all the way through the end of the school year when Henry went on a violent rampage and literally beat the shit out of someone over a misunderstanding while I tried in vain to restrain him. So much for being a gentle giant.

Columbine

While looking for book recommendations, I saw that Dave Cullen’s Columbine made a list of 10 Best Non-Fiction Books in 2009. I was attracted to the book for a few reasons. Firstly, I prefer reading non-fiction these days, and this book was sure to have real-life action, adventure, and drama. Secondly, when I was a teacher, I had a handful of students that seemed off enough that I did sometimes worry that they could become school attacker types, so I was curious to learn more about what made these particular individuals tick. Thirdly, as someone who was in high school at the time, the incident had a profound effect on my life. My school dealt with numerous bomb threats shortly thereafter and my Spanish teacher went on this unjustified inquisition of all the students who wore trench coats. She wanted to ban trench coats, as if the clothing were the real problem as opposed to the guns and bullying, seeming to misunderstand that her plan to outcast the outcasts further was the real recipe for disaster.

I checked the book out from my local liberry, but not without apprehension. Though my intentions were pure, I was worried that someone would assume I was some wannabe copycat killer and I was studying up on the incident. Previously, I received a long judgmental stare from the stuff liberrian when I checked out Sex for America: Politically Inspired Erotica (I was just scouting for another possible erotica book club selection, but alas, it sucked), so I could only imagine what would happen with Columbine. Fortunately, this time the liberrian didn’t even flinch. Because I was about to fly home for the winter holiday, I tried to preemptively renew it, but someone else had put a hold on it, so I had to give it back before my trip after having only read a few chapters.

A couple months after returning to California, I thought about the book again and contemplated renewing it. As a friend had already pointed out, checking it out once probably already put me on some government watch list (I’m probably on so many by this point), and checking it out a second time would probably set off some red flags. As much as I was embarrassed to check it out again, it was a pretty good book, so I wanted to finish it. I went to pick up Columbine and, fortunately, once again, the liberrian appeared to make no judgment.

Cut to a hour and a half later when I received a text from Stacy. “Did you hear about the shooting at the library?” She had gone to drop a book off and the police were surrounding the premises. Apparently, shortly after I left, a teenager was shot just outside of the liberry.

This is alarming for several reasons.
A. I consider my quaint little town (well, as quaint as a section of Los Angeles can be) to be rather safe.
B. I was just there! I had even lingered outside for a while having a phone conversation where I paused to watch a bunch of young kids in the nearby schoolyard play tug of war.
C. I had just checked out Columbine, so not only was I on a list, perhaps I was a suspect!

I may not have been guilty, but that didn’t stop the paranoia. All the same, I’m going to play it safe at the liberry from now. The next few books I’m going to check out will include Pacifism for Pacifists, Being a Good Person Like You Always Have Been, and The Bible.