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Chapter 8

Everything’s Perfect, Let’s Change It!

I

told you about a meeting at the end of the year, led by our principal Mr. ‘Seven’. Now, let me fill you in on the contents of that meeting, as well as my thoughts on it. I hope you are as truly mystified as I was. We all took our seats on time and Mr. ‘Seven’ was standing before us looking a little grim. “Folks, first and foremost, we have made a lot of growth according to our MAP (Measures of Academic Progress®) data this year.” MAP is an online math and language arts test that the kids take three times a year to access their proficiency. It aligns itself with the AZMerit test, which is the state exam that they have to pass in high school in order to get their diploma. He continued, “I’m highly encouraged that based on this data, our kids are going to score very well on the AZMerit. Now, for other business; our district is making some changes and it affects ‘Puck’ and the other schools as well. Regarding ‘Puck’, here are the changes:” “1) We are going to go to a shorter bell schedule. We will start and stop our day at the same time but instead of you teaching four, one hour and fifteen minute classes you will be teaching six, fifty-three minute classes.

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“2) We are doing away with the forty-minute supplemental math and language arts skills class that you all were teaching last year. Some kids will be getting supplemental math through Ms. ‘Dilbert’ instead of going to one of their ‘specials’ class. “3) Now here is the big change, most of you will be teaching two grade levels next year instead of just one. “4) Since you will be teaching two grade levels, we are having to let four teachers go. I have already talked to those teachers and I am helping them to find placements elsewhere.” I was stunned, shocked. How can they do this? He went on for about another ten minutes or so but not before I raised my hand. I’m not sure if you can tell this about me but I tend to speak up when I hear change is in the wind. I began, “Mr. ‘Seven’, how many other schools are also cutting teachers, changing class schedules and doubling up grade levels and also, why is district doing this?” I asked the question but I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. “‘Mayo’s schedule is changing to shorter periods as well as #1. The reason for the cutbacks is financial. We do not have a large enough population at this school to support the current staff we have,” he replied. I said, “So, basically our class roster is doubling and our class sizes are going to increase. Is that right?”

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He paused for a moment, “Well, the class sizes will be increasing slightly but actually not that much considering we have fewer seventh graders next year and the eighth grade will also be losing some students.” I ran a business in Hawaii, so I know all about having to cut some corners. However, what I don’t understand is the particular corners they chose to cut. I knew we were getting a brand new cafeteria soon, which I’m sure is costing a million plus dollars to build. So, instead of holding on to some teachers, keeping the momentum going that we had built upon this year, they are going to change everything; hence the title of this chapter. Now that I’ve experienced the change, let me break it down for you how screwed we all were. This was my mindset after the meeting. Point #1 - 53 minute classes: During last year, I fit all the

material into an hour and fifteen minutes. Now, in this next year, I’ll have the same material but I’ll have to fit it in fifty-three minutes, a decrease of about 30%. My first worry was; how am I going to do this? Obviously, I’m going to have to cut things out. And that really sucked for a couple of reasons. I had just completed my first year, and if you remember, I busted my ass to come up with these lesson plans. Now, I would have to go back and re-do all of them to fit a smaller time slot. I would also have to modify and change all of the worksheets, Kagan Strategies, quizzes and test to configure to the new material.

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One of the things I had been looking forward to the most was not having to do this all summer long. The second reason that this blows (and badly) is that my student count per class is going to skyrocket. Think about it. Last year I was teaching 113 students over four periods. That means I had an average of 28 students per class. In some classes I only had 25 and others I’d have 31 or 32. Most teachers agree that 25 kids make up the perfect ratio, but a max of 32 is still doable without feeling like a sardine. Sadly, now I would have 113 kids per grade level, over three periods instead of four like last year. This means that my average will be 37 to 38 students, per class. I’m going from 28 up to 37 per class. That’s an increase of almost 35%. It may be hard for you to fathom this, unless you’ve taught in a class, but our room sizes aren’t that large. Squeezing 32 kids is bad enough, but now our numbers would be almost 40. That means a lot more noise and a lot more behavioral difficulties. It’s so much easier to manage 28 then 37. Maybe nine more kids doesn’t seem like a lot, but trust me, it really is. Point #2 - Eliminating the supplemental class: This point

was the only good news. I hated teaching that supple­ mental class. Point #3 - Teaching two grade levels: This sucked for so

many reasons. Teaching two grade levels means that I will not only be spending my summer re-configuring all of the

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seventh grade material for shorter classes, but now I will also have to create (from scratch) material for an eighth grade curriculum. Last year it took me the entire summer to come up with 18 weeks of instruction for seventh grade and now I had to do the exact same thing for eighth grade on top of all the changes for seventh grade. Possibly the worst thing yet was instead of teaching 115 students, I would be teaching 225. That’s 225 quizzes, worksheets, projects, and tests to grade… every single time I start a new assignment! If I was already averaging seven hours of grading on the weekends, this meant I would now be spending at least twice that. It’s not just the grading either. After you grade the paper and give feedback to the student, you then have to enter the grades in your computer. First though you have to actually create the assignment in the computer and then you have to search for each student and manually enter the grade. This was a cluster fuck of unimaginable proportion, and to be honest, I don’t know one single teacher who embraced it. We were all fuming. Point #4 - Cutting staff: They were cutting four staff members, or twenty percent, so they could save some money. According to Mr. ‘Seven’, they were letting twelve teachers go throughout the entire district. Our small school got hit the hardest.

If you assume that each teacher made my salary, which was $41,000 per year, then they’d save nearly a half of a million dollars. My biggest question was; did they really

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need to save half of a million dollars? The funny thing was that, a couple of years before, our district had a state bond pass that gave our district another ninety-three million dollars. None of that money went into hiring teachers or new materials for us. Then, in this year, another bill had passed that funneled almost half of a billion (yes, billion) dollars into the AZ school system. That money is supposed to be used for classroom upgrades. I guarantee you that every teacher will come back next year to the same shitty tables, desk, chairs, flooring, counters, etc. that they had the year before. Maybe, if they’re lucky, they might get new carpet and a fresh coat of paint. Also, our school is getting a brand new cafeteria next year. The budget on that must have been at least a million. We didn’t need a new cafeteria. Lastly and maybe most importantly regarding cutting staff; you don’t change the formula if you are winning. We were feeling good as a school. We were making progress with student growth and achievement and we knew our kids were going to do better that year then they had ever done. You know what, we did. When you have a winning formula, you don’t change it. If anything, you add to it. You don’t take away from it. Luckily for me I had already planned to one day leave teaching, so this little pep talk helped to bump up my timeline. It was actually too bad because I really loved

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teaching seventh grade history. I also enjoy eighth grade history, just not both at the same time. I knew that my summer was going to be jam-packed, so I began immediately correcting lesson plans for the seventh grade classes and then moving on to the eighth grade classes. Over the summer, one more snafu came across my email. Mr. ‘Seven’ told district that I would be okay to host a student teacher. This was someone who was going to become a teacher and needed a mentor to guide them. Thing was, this was only my second year teaching social studies, and with all these new changes, I had no clue how I would fit a student teacher into this. Student teachers make up their own lesson plans, so I was worried that the new teacher would completely throw me off my game. I would also have to meet with them daily, describe the lessons and show them the ropes. I barely had time to take a pee during lunch, how was I now going to fit in a student teacher? My mind was swimming and I was starting to regret signing my contract. Of course, they told us about all of these changes after our contracts were already signed so we couldn’t bail without having to pay a two-thousand-dollar penalty fee. Over the summer I kept in touch with Ms. ‘Agent’ and Ms. ‘Dilbert’, my existing seventh grade team. Mr. ‘Nye’ would be moving to supplemental math for the 5th and 6th graders, so I wouldn’t see much of him anymore. Ms. ‘Dilbert’ would not be teaching traditional

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math anymore; she was now going to be teaching the supplemental math as a ‘specials class’. Ms. ‘Agent’ would now be teaching seventh and eighth grade writing with another teacher taking on reading. We were all in agreement that the changes were not for the best. Luckily, I always enjoyed the first few days of school, because it really gives you an opportunity to bond with the students and to set up your expectations for the rest of the year. All the teachers met with Mr. ‘Seven’ a few days before classes started and he was smiling from ear to ear. He shared with us that our school did very well on the AZMerit. In fact, out of eight schools in our district, we were number four now. We were always on the bottom and now we moved up. ‘Seven’ was bouncing around, laughing and patting us on the back. He was like a male peacock strutting his stuff for potential suitors. All of this just made me laugh, and it made me wonder again, why a district would change so many different things on us when we just had the best year of student progress ever. I’ll get back to the students in just a moment, but I want to jump ahead a couple of months into the year. Ms. ‘Dilbert’ and the rest of the team leaders met with Mr. ‘Seven’ at least once a month. They would meet with us and tell us about any concern or changes that the school had. Ms. ‘Dilbert’ had a meeting off campus at their next scheduled time so she asked me if I’d step in. Our school had just taken our first MAP test and the results were in.

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The results were not good to say the least. On top of that, ‘Seven’ had walked through all the classes and asked the teachers for their lesson plans. A few didn’t have theirs and one teacher even lied about having it on their computer but not posted yet. They later confessed that they had lied to him. In the meeting are six teachers, the vice-principal, and Mr. ‘Seven’. ‘Seven’ walks in the room last and tosses his radio on the table. He starts off, “Guys, what the hell is going on?” The room is silent. “What are we doing here? We have teachers who don’t have their lesson plans done. We have teachers lying about the lesson plans. We have teachers that are allowing their students to be disruptive. We have feedback data from our substitute teachers saying that this year seems like the old ‘Puck’. That is to say, the kids are rude and the lesson plans are not prepared as well as they should be. District walked through some of your classes and said that most of the teachers were not utilizing engagement strategies. On top of this, our MAP scores are down almost across the entire board. We are not growing students and they are achieving less. So I ask you again, what is the problem?!” Nobody answered him. You could feel his eyes burning into your brain, while you were hoping and wishing someone would speak up. I knew what the real answer was, and I suspect every teacher in the room knew the answer. So, I slowly raised my hand. ‘Seven’ looks surprised, “Please, Mr. Stooks.” “Well,” I start. “I’m not sure how your meetings usually go but the reason for all of these things could be due to

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all of the changes that we’ve had to endure this year from last year.” Of course it was due to the changes! We had a winning formula and then they changed it. Can you imagine being the best NASCAR driver in the world? You’ve just taken home all the major titles and the owner of the car calls you in and tells you that they are going to change everything because it’s going so great. What?! Why would you change what is already working really well? I don’t blame ‘Seven’ in the least. He is a just a rook on the giant chessboard that is our education system. I’d say ‘pawn’ but that lowly piece is reserved for teachers. I didn’t really catch the rest of the meeting because ‘Seven’ glossed over my answer. Oh yes, he acknowledged that the teachers were still adapting to the changes, but it’s been two months now. We should have adapted already. I was discouraged after the meeting that I didn’t feel my point was acknowledged so I wrote him an email. Dear Mr. ‘Seven’, Last year we had a winning formula: The best year ever for ‘Puck’. The greatest staff, the greatest test numbers, everything was going according to plan; and then you completely changed it. I want to equate this change to a restaurant scenario. Let’s say that we have an award-winning restaurant; great food, prices, ambiance and staff. We have it all. We have just received a write-up

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in the local newspaper and things are looking up. We’re going to have a banner year. So, you decide to change things up. You have a meeting with us and discuss some new things coming to our restaurant. Number one; you’re going to cut the amount of time on your settings. Instead of having Happy Hour for two hours, you’re cutting it to an hour and a half. Lunch and Dinner will also be cut down to shorter hours. Number two; you’re going to cram in more tables for seating. This will increase the amount of people we can serve. However, this means that we will have to take care of 7 tables instead of 5, the chef’s will be preparing a lot more food in the same amount of time and the noise level is going to increase. Number three; to help out with this increase, you’re not going to be hiring any new staff. In fact, you’re going to cut twenty percent of us, which means less of us will be doing more work. Lastly, we are going to be cross-trained in other areas since we have less staff. Before I was a server but now I’ll also be doing dishes on the side. Two months later, after the changes, the reviews come in and they stink. Our food doesn’t taste as good because the chefs have less time to spend perfecting it. The wait staff were tired and rushed,

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and as a result were a little rude. The noise level bordered on the unbearable and you could barely fit in your seat without smacking into the patron squeezed in right next to you. And then you wonder why the review was bad. Mr. ‘Seven’, the staff didn’t change, the location of the school didn’t change, the students didn’t change, but everything else did. These changes were a bad idea and are causing stress amongst the staff. I hope that you understand what I’m saying and also that you acknowledge it at our next meeting, because the staff does not feel that you are on our side right now. He didn’t respond. A week went by; two weeks went by; a month went by; nothing. At our next staff meeting he highlighted to us the struggles that our school was now facing. He acknowledged that the changes this year were a large factor. Then he flipped it. He said that we couldn’t change it back; this is the way it had to be and if you couldn’t embrace the program then please talk to him about your inability to do so. I knew at this point he was under tremendous pressure. He was like Atlas, but the world had been replaced with ‘Puck’ and its poor performance. He then told us that we had to find time somewhere to squeeze it all in. If that meant less homework, then so be it. If you had to change your quizzes around so they were easier to grade, so be it. He metaphorically equated our issues as rocks saying that there are little and big rocks. A little rock might be

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worrying about something that doesn’t take a lot of your time; that you might be able to put off. An example of a big rock would be things you had to do like grading papers, posting lesson plans (showing up for work). His advice was to go through our schedules and see where we could cut. I was way ahead of him. There was no way I was going to spend fourteen hours on weekends grading papers. I made changes to the work that I gave my students as well. The previous year, I had the seventh grade do four projects. Each section would have a worksheet, a quiz prep, and a quiz. This year, I cut out the worksheets; gone! The quiz preps were now in the form of Kagan strategies, so I didn’t have to grade them. The quizzes were now shorter and all multiple choice. I took out all of the essay questions. Lastly, I only had them do one project instead of four. It’s easy to scoff at these decisions, but what else was I to do? A yearly salary of $41,000 is simply not enough money to put up with the amount of bullshit that they were asking of me. He did pull me into his office eventually, and told me that he read my email. He said he hoped that I had seen his effort to acknowledge it to the staff. He also said that he was going to bring up these reasons to the board, but that he knew their answers would be the same as his. I’d love to get our superintendent in a room, alone, and ask him to justify the cuts in light of the shitty data across the schools. Go ahead, bullshit me pal. In fact, in my online exit interview, I repeated a lot of the things that were in that letter. I never received a reply. Schools have gone into business now folks and that business is not the well-being of your child. That’s the bottom line.

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Thankfully, I had some interesting things happen in the classroom that made the day-to-day grind fun. I still had last year’s seventh graders (now eighth) and a whole new batch of characters. My new seventh grade was not lacking in original material.

Elvis has left the Building

I mentioned earlier that I was receiving a student teacher. It’s a bittersweet scenario, because on one hand you know they are going to take some of the pressure off of you by helping to control behavior, teaching some of the lessons, and inputting grades. He started right after Christmas and stayed almost until the end of the year. I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect this guy. ‘Elvis’ was about my height but that’s where the similarities ended. He was built like a linebacker with arms the size of my legs. He told me he was a powerlifter and named off the various supplements he was taking. He had jet-black hair that was ‘buzz cut’ on the sides and slicked back in the front like a Mohican Indian. I believe he actually did use grease to get the hold and sheen that he needed. He had large features but with a softness to his face that made him look like an overgrown baby. He was a good looking kid, and the reason I call him ‘Elvis’ is because he sort of looked like him; especially that jet black, greased back hair. He had a great sense of humor and an equally quick wit to match. Thank God he was also laid back, because I’m about as casual as it comes. The kids loved him, which was the most important thing.

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I was most impressed with his general knowledge of U.S. history, and these great little quirky bits of information he knew as well. He had one of those voices that was perfect for a teacher; big and booming like an orca making love. Best part was, he had a great working knowledge of some of the tech items that I didn’t know, and he loved movies. No one can be that bad if they love movies. Student teachers are supposed to teach the class in sections. This means that for the first two weeks they observe, and then they slowly start integrating themselves into the class. ‘Elvis’ didn’t seem too enthused for the actual lecture part, but he had a knack for designing the lessons and coming up with great engagement strategies. Because I had already planned the lessons, I gave him all of my work and he tweaked it to fit his style. He also threw in some extra little tidbits of his own. It didn’t take me long to figure out how to fill his “downtime”. I quickly procured a laptop computer for him and set him up with the gradebook website and a district email. I also shared with him all of my Google Docs and we set up a Google Classroom account. He graded all the quizzes and worksheets, as well as coming up with questionnaires to accommodate all of the movies I was planning to show. Mr. ‘Seven’ didn’t mind if I showed movies, but he wanted to make sure that there was some learning going on; a central point or theme that aligned with the standards. That’s what is so great about social studies standards in middle school. They are so open and vague that it leaves lots of room for interpretation. I hooked ‘Elvis’ up with

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some movies and he watched them, cut them and wrote up all of the questions. When he taught, he made all of the rookie mistakes. He didn’t move around the room, his voice was too loud, he talked a little too fast, he skipped some parts of the lesson, and he didn’t adequately address negative student behavior. After a few weeks he started to improve in all of these categories and I was relieved to see that because those areas are my specialty. I will now and forever admit that besides the enormous amount of time that he saved me, the absolute greatest pleasure I had was walking around the room and busting kids who were talking, eating or texting.In retrospect, it was probably unfair for ‘Elvis’. Since I was so focused on addressing the student’s negative behavior, this left him free to chat. On the days I didn’t intervene, it was like I wasn’t in the room at all. They would act out and test him even though I was just a few feet away. In fact, if I wasn’t standing in the back of the room or roaming around, they were just as shitty as usual. It’s funny how the kids behaved so much better with another teacher watching them like a hawk. I was like a crouching tiger, just waiting for the wrong move. A backpack would unzip and my ears would relay a danger message to my brain: students getting snacks, cellphone or unapproved school substance. It was like that scene in the Terminator when the guy knocks on the door and asks Arnold if he needs anything. He scrolls down a list of possible answers and then chooses one. That’s how my brain was behaving.

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If I think I saw or heard a disturbance, I went into terminator mode. My eyes would narrow and I would scan the room looking for intruders to destroy. In fact, I almost willed something bad to happen so I could bust them. You would think I would want peace and quiet, and while this is certainly true when I’m teaching, when someone else was teaching class, I wanted revenge. If there were a job where I could walk through classrooms and nail the bad little children, it would be a dream because I’m so good at that. Probably because I was a horse’s ass myself during school, so I know the tricks of the trade. I loved watching kids trying to be sneaky; they’re horrible at it. The number one mistake that they make is that they keep looking up at you to see where you are. The number two mistake is that their neighbor is looking at what they are doing. The third mistake is if they, or their partners, laugh. All of these point to the obvious fact that they are doing something they’re not supposed to be doing. I was showing a movie once and they were supposed to be logged into Google Classroom to input the answers. Obviously, if we are not up to the part in the movie where the question is, there is no reason to look at your computer. It’s not like Google Classroom has background images of little people floating around in space, it’s just a document. ‘Marcil’ was probably the biggest offender in class of laptop misuse. Right during the middle of teaching, I would see him elbow his neighbor, look at his screen and start laughing. He would then quickly look up at me to see if I was watching him, which I always was, because someone laughing when I’m not saying anything funny is usually a dead giveaway.

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“‘Marcil’,” I started to ask, “What are you doing with your laptop?” He replied, “Nothing, Mr. Stooks.” I looked at him with my blank stare so that he knew that I knew he was bullshitting me. “Really? You mean the Google Doc in front of you is so funny that you needed to laugh? Why don’t you enlighten me as to which question of mine you found particularly funny?” “It’s nothing,” he replied. “If I even get a little ‘spidey’ tingle that you are not on the page you are supposed to be on, then you will join me during recess to fill this out on paper. Do we understand one another?” I shot my ‘evil’ glance at him. “Yes, I understand,” he murmured. About ten minutes later, while the movie was playing, I could see his screen flashing different colors on his face. That meant he was playing a video or a game. If it were my document, the color would have stayed the same. I didn’t want to start walking towards him because I knew he would quickly turn off the screen and deny any wrong-doing. I really wanted to catch him in the act, so I waited for the right time. I moved, slowly into position so that he was in front of me, about three rows back. I looked to the side so that I wasn’t staring directly at him, but my peripheral vision could still pick him up. The next time I saw him look down, I ran full speed towards him and snatched up his computer before he could change the screen. His eyes got wide and the rest of the class was staring at me in disbelief. I doubt it was because they had never

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seen anyone move that fast (who wasn’t running from the police). I looked at his screen and was greeted to a Vine video with people twerking (shaking their ass) in front of the camera. He wasn’t saying a thing. Redemption would be mine. “‘Marcil’. Why don’t you describe to the class what’s on your screen?” I asked. He got an embarrassed look on his face and let out a nervous laugh. “People dancing?” he questioned. “Are you asking me or telling me?” I replied. The class was laughing a little at this point. They knew he was a fly in my web and they knew I could be nasty when I wanted to be. “No, it’s people dancing,” he said. I shot back, “No it’s people dancing or yes Mr. Stooks, it’s of people dancing?” “I meant that it is people dancing.” “I’m not sure if I’d qualify these moves as dancing. Why don’t you show the class what type of ‘dancing’ they are doing and we’ll take a vote,” I said. The class was loving this. They start to holler at him to dance. “No thank you,” he quickly replied. Undeterred as I was I said, “Please, it would be our privilege to watch you.” “I really don’t want to. Do I have to?” “Absolutely not. I am happy to give you a detention for inappropriate computer use. However, should you choose

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to show us the dance moves on this video, I will erase the detention and we can get back to our movie,” I replied. “Oh man. Do I have to go to the front?” he asked. I laughed, “What a grand idea. I was only going to have you demonstrate at your seat but the front is a much better idea. We want to make sure everyone gets a good eyeful of this candy.” He made his way to the front of the room, stood in front of the class while trying not to smile. The class was laughing. He stared at me as if to say, ‘please sir, please don’t make me do this.’ I thought I’d turn it up a notch. “In fact, what good is dancing without a little music?” I walked over to my laptop and cued up a Little Jon song. As soon as it started the class started to laugh. I walked over to the light switch and started to flick it on and off for a strobing effect. He looked at the ground while laughing and smiling and then he shook his hips a couple times back and forth. The class roared with laughter and he turned away laughing too. “What was that? You have some ants in your pants? It looked like you were having a seizure. Let’s see that one more time so the class can fully gauge your skills.” He started laughing and attempted to twerk a little longer. I moved up next to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “Now I know why you were watching ‘how to do it’ because that son, was weak, unlike me.” I immediately did some impromptu twerking. I’ve had classes laugh pretty loudly before but that was probably one of the loudest. It

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was so loud that Mr. ‘Vegas’ from next door popped his head in to see what all the fuss was about. I’m sure I ruined his day with that image burned into his memory. I stopped the song, ‘Marcil’ took his seat and I pumped my arms together and shouted, “That’s what you get,” while looking right at him. In all it took about two or three minutes for the class to bring it back together. As soon as they did, I dropped my smile and got my serious look and said, “Please, kids, only use your laptops for the site I tell you to go on or you may find yourself atoning for your mistake.” I looked at ‘Marcil’ and winked.

Eighth Graders

Last year’s seventh graders returned and, man oh man, did they change. Ninety-five percent of the drama was completely gone. They were more docile, less apt to shout out, or cut me off in mid-stream. It was surreal and strange and yet I sure appreciated it. Even ‘Gulia’ from last year who was so outspoken was almost non-existent. I still had some minor moments of glory from ‘Resentful’ and the twins, ‘Tyron’ and ‘Myron’. Even ‘Devil’ was a little more laid back. I’m not sure who is responsible for scheduling at our school but my third period class was my ‘special’ class. It contained almost all of my Special Education kids in addition to the twins, ‘Devil’, ‘Resentful’, ‘Sam’, ‘Maya’ and ‘Francesca’. These were sort of the lazy kids that didn’t really care about education in general. This third period was the

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loudest by far with the most disruptions, but somehow it worked. Thankfully, I had already established a good rapport with the ‘bad boys and girls’ from last year, so respect was not an issue. ‘Devil’ seemed more concerned with constant stomachaches and body pains. The twins usually had one of them absent although sadly I admit I could never really tell them apart. ‘Resentful’ was put on a behavioral plan because he continued to be annoying in other classes. ‘Maya’, ‘Francesca’ and ‘Sam’ were sort of like ‘bumps on a log’. I gave ‘Francesca’ the McDonalds song and the Mounds song to memorize and when she could accurately repeat it on the spot, I gave her a candy bar. Yep, that’s how exciting it was at times. The only real bright spot in that class was a new girl. She was very sweet, genuine, and smart, and had absolutely no place in that period. I felt sorry for her having to listen to their antics, but she aced the class and was a good trooper most of the time. One of the positives to that class was that the twins would often ask me in-depth questions to things that I hadn’t thought of before. Because of the characters in the class, I also let loose a little more in that class and was more opinionated and expressive. They liked it and I got something out of it as well. Eighth grade in general was more fun for me than seventh for a couple reasons. They seemed so much more mature that it allowed me to pose higher level thinking questions

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to them and to challenge them with history that was more relevant to their lives. Two of my favorite students were also new students. ‘Abby’ was an Irish looking lass who became quick friends with ‘Robama’. It was a stark contrast between this very tall and very dark black student against this short, red haired, freckled face white student, but it worked. They played off each other well in class, and I could tell that it was a lasting friendship. The other student whom I really liked was ‘Baret’. This kid was a tall, lean, and good-looking character. He was also incredibly bright and charismatic. I really enjoyed his no-nonsense humor and his engaging questions. You can tell that this kid will go far. My one standout eighth grader, who had been a previous seventh grader of mine, was ‘Jazz’. She was in my 2nd period class, which I nicknamed my ‘cartoon class’ because, everyone in there seemed to have these big or strange personalities. It was by far my favorite period of the day because I could always joke with them and I knew that they were also really getting into the material. ‘Jazz’ was the most vocal of them all. Anytime I brought up something that disturbed her or that intrigued her, she always let me know, and usually she didn’t bother to put her hand up. “No way, that’s so stupid. God, why are people like that? Are you kidding me?” were just a few of her comments. She was also like a little mini-me in that she would reaffirm what I was saying.

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For example, I might say, “The reason that the French lost in Vietnam was because they weren’t as familiar with the land.” Seamlessly, she would say, “Of course. If you don’t know the land you don’t know where to hide and where the best ground would be.” She did this all the time and I loved it. I only told her once or twice to tone it down a little bit, especially if she was upset over something I taught. Not upset at me, just upset at the circumstances. When I was talking about Hitler’s final solution to the Jews, she couldn’t help herself. “Ugh! God, someone should have shot him dead long before this.” I agreed, of course, and sometimes laughed at her dramatic role. The strangest incident with eighth grade was between a student named ‘Erk’ and myself. ‘Erk’ was a Hispanic student with decently proficient English language skills but not quite complete. I was on my prep and I got a call from Mr. ‘Seven’ to come down to his office. When I arrived there, he told me that ‘Erk’ was offended by something that I said and wanted to talk to me about it. I was a little nervous for a couple of reasons. One, my boss is right there and this can’t look good to have a complaint against you. Two, it was my first complaint so I didn’t know what to expect. Three, I had said some pretty raunchy stuff in my class, stuff that is probably borderline for a teacher, so I didn’t know what in the world his complaint would be about. I sat down and Mr. ‘Seven’ asked ‘Erk’ to please tell me what I said that upset him. ‘Oh boy,’ I thought. I kept thinking that I had used a slang term for Mexican or somehow had insulted the Hispanic race.

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‘Erk’ explained that it happened in the morning, when I was collecting dollars for a dress-down (non-uniform) day. ‘Erk’ had handed me a crumpled up, barely recognizable dollar bill. I took it from him and gave him a queer look. “What is this? It’s so wrinkled I can’t even tell if it’s a dollar. It better not be a peso. U.S. currency only.” He replied strongly that it was not a peso and I moved on. He said that he felt my comment about the peso was a little racist because he was a Mexican and didn’t have much money. Of course this wasn’t my intention at all. I could have said Euro or English Pound but I chose Peso because of the Heritage of the students. It was simply the first foreign currency that came to mind. Normally, I might have countered or argued or even laughed, but I was so relieved that it was just a misunderstanding. I told him that in no way did I mean to upset his heritage, nor was I speaking to his economic status. He accepted my apology, Mr. ‘Seven’ was satisfied, and we all went on with our day. Or, so I thought. A couple of hours later, I was subbing for one of the eighth grade teachers while they had to leave campus, and a little shit of a student said to me, “Hey, Mr. Stooks. I understand that you can’t touch us anymore.” I assumed by us he meant Mexicans and by touch I assumed he meant insult. I looked at the little turd and replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” ‘Erk’ was also in that class, so I pulled him aside and said, “You know, I really want to re-iterate how impressed I was that you said something to me. That takes guts. However,

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I would expect that our meeting with Mr. ‘Seven’ will be, and remain, confidential. If I find out that you’re bragging to any of your friends, then I will bring on a formal complaint against you. Do we understand each other, ‘Erk’?” I know exactly what he did. He went out and bragged to his friends that he had gotten me in trouble. Punk! The last thing I’d like to mention about the eighth graders is how proud I was of most of them. When I attended the graduation, I almost cried at how beautiful and happy they all were. I will miss almost all of them—all of them except for the one I’ll call, ‘Dom’. ‘Dom’ was a new Special Education kid to our school. His primary label was ED with a secondary label as SLD or Specific Learning Disability. ‘Dom’ was not afraid to voice his opinion at all and he seemed to have no filter between his mouth and his brain. He’d call people ‘whores, niggers, fuckers, assholes’; you name it. He was ‘no holds barred’ in his language and I was really glad when he finally got placed elsewhere. One of the funniest stories from eighth grade actually involved a former ‘Mayo’ ED student. I didn’t really know him at ‘Mayo’ because he was going into seventh grade the year I left. I’ll call him ‘Dodger,’ and he was a blond haired, kind of troll like German kiddo. His mom had pulled him from the ED program and didn’t like the way ‘Mayo’ treated him, so she had him transferred to ‘Puck’. ‘Seven’ met with me about him and told me to keep my eye on him. I found out that in his first week at ‘Puck’, he punched the largest black student in the face and dropped him. I guess the kid was kind of a bully and had commented on the way ‘Dodger’ looked or talked. You don’t fuck with an ED kid without getting ready for the consequences.

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I laughed when I heard about this. When I asked ‘Dodger’ why he did it, he shrugged his shoulders and told me that it was like it is in prison. “In prison,” he said, “you are supposed to walk up to the largest dude and punch him as hard as you can. You may get your ass kicked, but it will tell all the other inmates to stay away from you.” He was serious.

Seventh Graders

Just as with eighth grade, I had three seventh grade classes. Also like eighth grade, I had one class, which was my Achilles heel. At least in my “bad” eighth grade class I only had 28 students. However, in this one, I had 38 students and a few colorful characters. One student, I’ll call ‘Antoine,’ was a big, good-looking Hispanic student who was also a chatterbox. He wasn’t violent or mean he just enjoyed conversing loudly with anyone at his table or in the room. For that matter I placed him behind my desk, ‘assisting’ me with my computer. This is one method to get a student to stop talking, just remove them from all other students. One day I was talking to the students about all the trash that they were leaving on my floor. I grabbed his mechanical pencil and said, “The next person that I see place trash on the ground will be broken as easily as I break this pencil. Hi ya!” Shit! I actually broke it. I was just going to joke around and pretend to break it but sure enough, his brand new pencil was in pieces. The class started to laugh and so did I, especially at the look on his face of utter disbelief. He was very cool about it

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and I replaced it with a superior brand. Jokingly, I turned to him, quietly, and said, “Honestly. Screw with me and I will break you.” He knew I was joking and I loved to make him laugh. Fifth period was my favorite seventh grade class. It seemed that most of the high achieving students were in that class, so naturally, they were the best behaved. Two students who stand out to me was one boy I’ll call ‘Rollo’ and another I’ll call ‘Darian’. I could always count on ‘’ Rollo to ask great questions and to know the answer when I needed a ‘go-to’ student. It was the same with ‘Darian’. He had this wild hair and sort of bridge troll appearance, but he also had this very genuine smile and interesting way of speaking. At first I thought he was a wannabe know-it-all, but the damn kid knew almost as much as I did about history. My favorite moment from that class happened towards the end of the year. I had given them a project to work on and I allowed them to work in groups. ‘Darian’ and ‘Rollo’ teamed up with one of my least favorite students whom I’ll call ‘Kirt’. ‘Kirt’ was a very ‘book smart’ kid with absolutely no manners or drive. He didn’t turn in any assignments. It would have been easier to give birth anally then to have him put in any effort. He looked generally disgusted with the world and for some reason he just rubbed me the wrong way. I just can’t stand smart kids who are lazy; it irritates me. Towards the end of the project, I told the kids that I would reward the whole class with a pizza party. When

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the class walked in one day, I had purchased about fifteen Little Caesars grab-n-go pizzas for $5 each. The class was very excited. I went to the back of the room and told them that I would call them up by tables and that they could each start off with two slices. I also said that the top finishers would get a third slice. ‘Kirt’ looked over in my direction and said out loud, “Oh man. Little Caesars Pizza sucks!” I wasn’t sure what happened to me. Something inside of me quickly and painlessly snapped. Maybe it was because he never said anything in my class. Maybe it was because he put no effort into anything that I gave him, yet still managed to pass all of my tests. Maybe it was just because he looked like an ugly vampire. I’m not sure what it was, but I let him have it. “Little Caesars sucks? No ‘Kirt’, your comment sucks, as does your total lack of respect for me, or any of the students in this class. How dare you ridicule my choice! You put no effort in my class and then you have the gall to critique me when I do a nice gesture such as this. Shame on you! I can’t believe you just said that. Next time you should keep your mouth closed. Because of your intentionally rude comment, you will not get any pizza, nor will you get the surprise ice-cream cones that I also bought for the class. You can just sit there and wallow in your own pity. Anyone else want to complain?” The students had their hands covering their mouths. They can’t believe that I just tore him a new one. I hope, nay I pray that next time he thinks twice before voicing his disapproval of something so vocally.

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One of the students wrote in my yearbook, “Mr. Stooks, you were the greatest teacher. The best moment of the year was when you roasted ‘Kirt’. Thanks for that.” Ah, redemption feels so good sometimes. The last story I have is also one that touches my heart. A girl student I’ll call ‘Cayla’ was one of those hard-core Chicanos girls. Her English was fine but she talked in jumpy and simple sentences. She had this sort of terrifying beauty about her. You never knew if she wanted to compliment you or kill you, and I could easily see how others were intimidated by her. Also, she wasn’t shy about voicing her disapproval of you if you crossed her in the wrong way. She was fiercely loyal to her friends, and on more than one occasion was given office referrals for pushing down, punching, kicking or threatening anyone who was a perceived threat to her. It seemed that she was in trouble in almost every class except for mine. For some strange reason, she and I bonded. It was like that scene from the movie Some Kind of Wonderful where the thoughtful art student makes friends with the destructive biker kid because both were artist. She was still bossy and crass but we came to an understanding. I gave her room to get up and walk around, use the bathroom and occasionally converse, quietly that is, with her friends. She in turn would respect me as the teacher and wouldn’t interrupt my class. She even raised her hand to ask permission for things. She was definitely hard-core but there was something soft about her that I appreciated.

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At the end of the year, my most treasured response in my yearbook came from her. She wrote, “Mr. Stooks, you were the best/favorite teacher. I will miss you. Hope you have a great summer. Also, hope your book goes great. I will miss you so much!” It’s my favorite because it’s so personal and from someone with such a hard exterior. I’ll miss you too ‘Cayla’. These are some other things that students wrote in my yearbook: -Do you like Civil War jokes? I General Lee find them distasteful. -Hi Mr. Stooks. You’re a savage and you’re hella funny and I’m gonna miss your class. Good luck with life. -Thanks for not making history so boring and being the best teacher. -Hey Mr. Books, you were a funny teacher but I don’t remember anything I learned in your class. –‘Robama’ -Stooks, it’s been a good 2 years with you. You’ve been such an awesome and funny teacher. Thank you for making hella funny jokes when I wasn’t in the mood. I’m going to miss your weird but awesome class. Take care. -Mr. Stooks, thank you for everything that you have done for us. I am going to miss you the most. Shhh, don’t tell the other teachers. I hope it goes all well for your career as an author. Keep on being great.

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-You are my favorite teacher of all time. I never had a teacher that’s fun or nice. BTW, I know a lot about history. I am going to miss you. -You’re my favorite teacher. You teach so well. Thanks again for the chips, they were good. Hope everything pans out in your writing career. —‘Jazz’ -Mr. Stooks, you’re certainly the teacher I want to go to when I’m having a bad day or have to deal with other teachers. —‘Krash’ -You were the most lit teacher. Towards the end of the year I had a discussion with Mr. ‘Seven’. I told him that I would not be returning next year so that I could pursue my dream of writing full time. He asked if I would consider taking a leave of absence for a year. That way, I could take the year off and still be guaranteed a job. I told him that I would do that and thanked him for the suggestion. (I have since left the school as a teacher and was asked not to be a substitute when my book was released.) I was actually looking forward to the last day of school. Every year, when a teacher is leaving or retiring, the school usually gives them a couple of little gifts, a cake, and a chance to say goodbye at the annual pot luck party. The principal usually says a little something about the teacher as well. That’s the way it was done at ‘Mayo’ and that’s the way they did it my first year at ‘Puck’ when four teachers left.

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This time, there were two teachers leaving; myself and the 5th/6th grade social studies teacher. We both arrived to the staff party, and I had actually written up a funny little poem to say ‘goodbye’ to all of the wonderful staff and administration. There was just one problem, it never happened. No speech from Mr. ‘Seven’ saying ‘goodbye’ or ‘good luck’. No gifts, no cake, or recognition at all… from anyone! The social studies teacher and I were completely stunned. Mr. ‘Seven’ and the vice-principal left the potluck and I waited about twenty minutes for someone to return. I actually called the administration assistant to see if anyone from admin was coming back to the party. She said she had no idea. And then it hit me like a ton of metaphoric ‘little rocks’. All those years of service were simply washed away without even a whisper of a ‘goodbye’. In spite of this, I did go by Mr. ‘Seven’s office and shake his hand and say ‘goodbye’ to him. He smiled and was as cordial as ever, but I was still stunned. I certainly didn’t say anything nor would it have been appropriate. I just got in my car, took one last look back, and stepped on the pedal with ‘Puck’ forever in my rear-view mirror. I have a lot to ref lect upon and I really want to take the next chapter to give you a summary of my experience as a teacher and how to fix what I believe to be a broken system.

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I would like to say to all the ED kids that I taught at ‘Mayo’, as well as my ‘Puck’ kids, you will all be missed. Well… almost all of you.