During a graphing trig functions lesson:

Victor: Ms. H, your curves are sexy.


He was actually talking about my sine and cosine drawings, and not my curvaceous figure, but still, it was pretty funny.

this year..

I've aimed to be more organized, to be more consistent with my expectations, with my discipline. To teach my students something. It's working, I think. My students want to take a field trip to the Louvre. I think I talk too much during class.

Upkeep is a difficult thing. The inclination to bog myself down to my work, to avoid human interaction for the sake of.. work. My interactions with my roommates, with society, are so different during the summer than from any other time of the year. It's tiring to talk to people after having put on a 6 hour show for students.

This period of life is so odd. Turning 23, realizing that growing up.. is only just around the corner. So many possibilities, but so little time? I'm afraid that I will wake up one day and find that I'm 30. But there is so much to do..

And then there's God. Where is God? To find rest.. in Him. Desirable. But is there time for it? Rest ought to be a state of being. And then love. Totally not in that state of mind.. But still hopeful? Expectant. Maybe just waiting for God to do His thing and surprise me. The sovereignty of God is a comforting thing. Hopefully, a reality - not just a mind game we play with ourselves.

I like high schoolers. For the most part. They're always full of surprises.

crazy architects

and their floating of 30 feet long garbage-made models down the Bronx River.

(My students were responsible for working on the Estuary section - bottom right part of the Bronx model.)

For project proposal information: http://www.vanalen.org/html/03_2009_LeviSchachter.php#

Coverage: http://urbanomnibus.net/2009/06/bronx-river-crossing/ & http://designtrust.blogspot.com/2009/06/bronx-river-crossing.html

need to guard my heart

against resentment.

In small group last week, our token social worker talked about how easy it is to fall susceptible to resentment towards the people that you're trying to serve.. usually because they don't cooperate, if not make it more difficult for you to help them.

The idealist goes into the teaching field with these lofty notions that he/she is going in to help the poor, desolate, helpless children of the inner city who want to do better, but whose circumstances and family situations prevent them from doing so. Let me tell you - these students might be poor, but they don't appear to be with the way they carry the bling, rock out on their colorful I-Pods and Sidekicks, and sport it with the LeBrons and Air Nikes. They are real, live, people, not to be clumped together and idealized as faceless victims of the systems of poverty and education. Some can be annoying, some can make you laugh, and some of them just straight-up piss you off.

I'm having issues with the ones that piss me off...

All I know is that it's certainly easier to "love" people that you don't interact with regularly. Maybe that's why people sometimes gravitate towards serving the orphans of Africa, rather than those of their home church - because they subconsciously envision it easier to serve the fictional than the very real humans that they've put up with for so long. And probably for myself, I entered into this field with a similar mentality.. you disregard the reality of interacting with actual human beings, but upon realizing that reality, you're left quickly disillusioned and bitter because this was definitely not what you signed up for.

I love most of my students.. Perhaps, the vast majority of them, I have an affinity for to at least some level. But there are some - the most difficult, the most malicious - that I absolutely deplore being in the same room with. These are allegedly the ones we're here to inspire, the ones that need the most attention, the ones that I have the most difficult time loving because I don't know how to deal with difficult people.

It's hard to be right with God when you harbor these feelings in your heart.

I love/hate my job.

I love seeing the delight of my students when they're engaged in their work, when the room is bustling with productivity and excitment, when finally they see the product of their labor.

I hate it when I see the utter lack of respect for such projects, the freakin' inabiliy of some to NOT damage the things around them, the freakin' inability to even treat each other with decency. I hate that I've come to believe that education is not for everyone, and that it doesn't benefit anyone that some people are in school.

And I hate the fact that some students take everything for granted and have no sense of responsibility whatsoever. That they expect everything to be handed to them, because they themselves have never been taught that they need to work for something in order to earn it. That they have no sense of propriety of picking up after themselves, and that it turns to the teacher to have to do the work of 120 individuals.

But it's not everyone..

Is it more valuable to focus on the students who do have a chance, or the students who are falling to the wayside? Human nature makes it so difficult to do the latter.

Moises

Moises: Ms. Huang, you failed me?!
Me: I believe I did.
Moises: Why?! You gave me an F?! Don't I at least deserve a D-?
Me: Moises, tell me why I should've passed you.
Moises: I took your quiz!
Me: You didn't pass it.
Moises: So? But I took your quiz!
Me: Moises, but did you pass?
Moises: No.. but, I took your quiz! Doesn't that count for something?
(Mind you, he would not take the first one.)
Me: Moises, listen to what you're saying. Did you do your classwork?
Moises: Um.. yeah..
Me: Why don't we take a look at your binder.
Moises: Yes, why don't we!
Anthony: Oh, you shouldn't do that..
We open the notebook only to find worksheets that blank and untouched.
Me: Moises, I could take your notebook and give to someone who has been absent as make up work.
Moises: Augh. Fine. I'll make it up right now.

I don't know. Kids these days.



In other news, Shamik was suspended for three days, after flipping a table over in my room..

Students are so fickle.

It seems that Evy and I are okay now. She's back after three days of suspension and we had nothing but pleasantry today. I sometimes forget that my students are in fact still kids.. kids who lead volatile lives, and as such, can be tempermental. But I'll take it for now.

---

Evy asked if she could bring me to get a body piercing if she got an A in my class 3rd marking period. Go figure. :)

Sometimes, I think I should be a high school counselor instead of being a teacher. To teach can be so emotionally draining, especially when you're at a standstill with a student. Other times though, when you remove the student from his/her peers, the difference in behavior is tremendous. Without the societal pressures to maintain a certain image-- a certain pride -- the student lays down his/her guard and becomes almost.. human. Moises, who cut class on Monday, who refused to take his quiz on Friday, approaches me during lunch and we have a good half hour talk about what's going on. Catherine, who refuses to go to triage because it's "effin' Emilio's fault for throwing sh*t at me", is able to acknowledge and not only understand her trespasses, but actually take ownership of her misbehavior (and dirty mouth) once she is separated from her instigators. We finally understand one another (I hope). And Evy.. well, Evy and I have yet to reconcile.. yet again. In time, or until next time, I suppose.

I'm exhausted though.

I have a problem. And it is called compartmentalizing.

Out of sight, out of mind. The motto that my life has, for the most part, lived by. It's a problem.

If you ask me about my students right now and my job, I'll probably give you the generic, "Oh it's going well - I really like my students. They're crazy sometimes, and not having a curriculum to work from sucks, but I'm learning a lot."

I won't tell you about period 5 and how frustrated I get when Oscar pretends the T-Square is an automatic gun. And I won't tell you about Orlando, the Christian rapper and talented artist. I won't tell you about Lynes, who stayed after school to help me organize folders and told me about her church. And probably, I won't tell you that Gabriel said today that he believed me when I told him I would be sad if he died.

And I won't tell you that Eric threatened Mr. Cardona that he would "mush his face." And I won't tell you that I told Eric that he doesn't have to be like this. That he doesn't have to fail - to lose focus, just because there are so many bad influences around. That his teachers are not out to get him. That I know he has the potential and the capability because I've heard it and because I've seen it. That he can prove it to himself and everyone else that he can do better. And I won't tell you that I made a copy of his two-point streetscape perspective drawing and hung it in the office and that when he found out, he flipped and said "You did what?!" and ran to the office to see it, only to say, "But this isn't even my final drawing!" I won't tell you that I was scared sh*tless that may have been a moment of lost trust - that I was infinitely relieved that he was more proud than embarrassed of his work.

But alas, even though I might not tell you, this is my life now.

why i'm blessed to be where i am

We had a professional development session today at school led by the cheeseball the Leadership Program that PNA partners with. Though it was overall pretty hokey, at one point, they had us write down some figures or people in our lives that we felt had "character" and one characteristic about them. Naturally, there was sharing afterwards. For Sonya, also known as Ms. Johnson, that person was Jesus, whose trait was forgiveness. There were several "mm"s around the room, as another teacher whispered-- not disrespectfully -- "That's deep."

I'm reminded of the amazing faculty that I've been surrounded by. Granted that there is that undertone of complaining and frustrations, for the most part, I think I can say that all of these teachers here are in it for the students. I've been blessed with a staff who is still very much human and continue to be frustrated with the difficulties of education, but that is supportive of each other, that hopes and dreams for their students. I've also been blessed not only with colleagues, but fellow believers of the faith.

One of my students is Mormon. Another, Seventh Day Adventist. The second one, one of my favorites, told me that she was transferring to another school because other students have been treating her brutally. My heart sank, but I knew that it'll be better for her to get away from her punk classmates.

A lot of times, we try to solve the problems of this world with solutions of the world. And not to undermine the importance of education reform, but sometimes I wonder how different these students would be if they knew Jesus.

One of the most difficult things about working in this type of school with these types of students is that they are incredibly unmotivated and as such, incredibly lazy. This is too hard. This is impossible. I don't care - I give up. Do you expect us to work magic? We're not like you. Sometimes, it's difficult for me to tell whether or not I really am being unreasonable or if my expectations are simply too high, and perhaps seemingly impossible to meet. Or if they are achieveable, but these students simply do not have enough drive to try. It's very different from those crazies who immersed themselves into four years of architorture and sleepless nights. These kids feel that doing school work is an option - because they don't care for the repercussions of not doing it. So what if I fail? I don't need this. Part of me is tempted to believe that architecture simply isn't for these kids - they'll never have the will enough to do all this field, and many others, entails. Nelson, being a surgeon will require you to be work with your hands. Then fine! I don't want to be a surgeon.

It's brokenness on so many levels.

I don't really have any stories to bring home today from school, except that a verbal dispute/curse off broke out in 7th period between Eric and Hilda that left her in tears. And when I heard that that Shamik, the kid who tries to get into my class 5th, 7th, and 8th period (he only belongs there in 7th) got slashed in the face tonight during gang conflicts, my heart sank.

I need to remember to pray for these kids.

It’s easy to feel defeated in this field. It’s easy to feel defeated when the students don’t do their homework, when they don’t clean up after themselves, when they don’t even take the worksheets with them after class. When after three days of the same thing, they still do not know how to measure to a 1/16th inch, when they have no concept of subdivision and increments. Who don’t have their own sketchbooks the 4th week of school. And yes, there are those that do. But even they get fed up with those who don’t pay attention and then claim that they have no idea what is going on. And then you have the kids who are sporadically present and have no inkling of anything. How do you work with any of this? How do you build anything if you don’t know how to measure dimensions? How do you draw if you don’t know how to draw angles? It gets tiring doing the same thing over and over.

idoulex
teaching 10th graders how to use rulers :(
Prema: hahaa
aww
me: :(
Prema: gl!
me: it's sad
Prema: hey man if i can relearn alegbra, you can do anything
me: yeah but
why do they not know how to use one?
Prema: how do u mean?
like inches and cms?
me: yeah
inches
the inbetween stuff
1/4, 1/8, 1/16
man
today
we were going over metric vs standard
and i asked
Prema: oh my
me: what unit do we use to measure coke?
Prema: oz
me: and one kid said..
grams
you know why???
Prema: ahhhhhhh
err
sugar?
me: because they were thinking of the other coke
Prema: AHHHHHHH
OMFG
me: and they were like
Prema: that is HILARIOUS
me: you have to say coca cola
AHHHh
PREMA
Prema: oh man
sorryu
but that is crazyyy
me: i can't believe it
Prema: sad that you have to make that distinction
me: i know
oh my goodness
and this was one of the "good" kids

from architect to architect

Steve: donde trabajas?

10:17 PM me: yeah, i need to take spanish lessons...

10:18 PM Steve: oh.

ou est le travail?

me: je ne parle pas l'espagnol

oh

in the bronx

teaching

architecture

to 10th graders

Steve: eh?

not math?

10:19 PM me: well

it is allegedly

an integration of both

but not really

Steve: umm

10:20 PM don't you know that the gospel teaches us that there are we are to redeem the world and produce fruit through our work?

i think there are some ethical boundaries... teaching architecture? if i had that job i would make sure every kid was convinced not to get into it

me: hahahah

STEVE!