Assaulted

It was a Saturday afternoon, 3:30. I was returning from a long overdue run, a habit I have difficulty maintaining in winter. I could tell something was going on in the courtyard in front of my apartment building, because people were ambling over to it, as people are wont to do when drama is occuring in public spaces. I circled around them and approached around the side. Some guy in a baseball cap was screaming at a girl.

My mistake was in not taking the situation seriously enough. It was my building, after all, on a Saturday afternoon. This guy and his problems were in my way.

These are mere excuses.

Think of how I must have looked to him. A white boy, wearing strange running clothes, my old lightweight jacket much too small. Vibram FiveFingers on my feet. In the midst of the gathering handful of Dominican men, I was the one who stood out. I’ve learned, since moving to NYC, that I am much smaller than the average city male. I was a perfect target in that moment.

In that moment, as men gathered to watch him in his turmoil, his eyes locked on mine. His face was bloodied. He had been in an altercation. He was charged with anger and shame. He was taller and heavier than I.

“What the fuck are you looking at, white boy?”

He charged. I backed up, not quite believing that anyone would just begin assaulting a stranger without any reason. He did.

I ducked and backed up and ran a little bit. Apparently, this was an invitation to him for full on onslaught. On hindsight, the smart thing would have been to run completely. I would have easily outpaced him. But part of me was outraged. This was my building! So I stopped and faced him, as he commenced swinging. He missed most of his punches, but grabbed my jacket and threw me down on the sidewalk and dragged me down to the corner of the street.

I managed to mostly maintain my balance and get back to my feet after landing on my knees, but he was on me, kicking and punching. I was able to avoid any serious blows, but I could sense in that moment that I was utterly overpowered. I was a victim.

“Fuck you, cracker! Fuck you, cracker!” he shouted with every attempted blow. I was the representation for him of everything that had gone wrong in his life. The vessel for his release of anger, shame, and fear.

Before he could cause any serious damage, a couple of the bigger bystanders chased him away.

“Never come back here again!” two of them shouted, as the guy backed away down the street cussing them out.

One of them made sure I was OK, and continually assured me that this sort of thing doesn’t happen around here (unfortunately, not entirely true. My neighborhood isn’t exactly the pinnacle of peace. My wife witnessed a man stabbed in broad daylight last year). I nodded and shook his hand. I wasn’t all that shaken up, all things considered. In my last 2 years in the classroom, aggression and violence were unfortunately somewhat common, so perhaps I wasn’t as prone to getting emotionally aggravated (at least, not immediately). I was bleeding in places, but otherwise intact. He seemed to have landed a kick or punch to the back of my head, and a few on my body, but nothing on my face.

It turns out that he had been in some kind of fight with his “friends” who lived in my building, and had been beaten up with a glass bottle (hence the bleeding face).

Later that night, as I lay in bed, I kept reliving those moments in my mind. “Your heart is racing,” my wife told me.

This was the worst aftereffect of senseless violence, the replaying, over and over. Asking myself why I didn’t immediately attack. Angry at myself for letting myself get into the space of a person who was obviously in a heightened state of aggression. I recognized that if this hadn’t happened in the middle of the day, I knew that I would have been seriously hurt.

I could tell myself that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the fact is, I let my guard down and I walked into a situation without better assessing the danger. This could have been avoided.

Lesson learned.

Growing Awareness of History

Public school door knob

I recently did a research writing unit with my students, in which they explored the history of their school building and neighborhood through an interview with our school janitor, on-line web searching, and a trip to the public library across the street. Our janitor, who has been in the building for over 20 years, told us that our school was 126 years old (I don’t know how accurate that figure is, but I have no reason to doubt him). We learned that our building used to be connected with the firehouse next door. The firehouse part of the building was a church, while the school part used to be a psychiatric hospital for children. Also, we learned that our cafeteria used to house a pool!

We weren’t able to find much on-line. I hadn’t realized how complex and difficult finding out the history of any given building in NYC was. So I then expanded the scope of our research to our neighborhood.

The library across the street has also been around for a hundred years, one of the original Carnegie libraries. The librarian showed us historical pictures of East Tremont, and we discussed pictures of the old police precinct headquarters, which looked like a mansion, and pictures of Italian immigrants dressed in hats and formal attire, all lined up to get into the library. Pictures of farmland and fences. A Texaco gas station with gas for 11 cents a gallon. At first, the students said they didn’t see much of anything in the pictures. Then as we began discussing it, the history opened up before them in all of the little details, the old cars along the side of the road, the cobblestones in the streets, the pigtails the girls wore, the way their dresses were cut.

Richman (Echo) Park

It opened up history for me as well.

I’ve begun paying more attention to the sights around me as I walk from the subway station at Grand Concourse down the hill. The glaciated rocks at Richman Park. The Tremont Baptist Church perched on the winding hill above the chaotic traffic circle of Webster Ave and East Tremont. The stone masonry at the base of some buildings that seems to denote historical longevity. It has made me begin to appreciate the Bronx in a new context. I don’t just see urban decay anymore (though my growing awareness of the impact of the Cross Bronx Expressway has set a context for that as well). I see a community of newer immigrants, striving to make their way, just as generations of immigrants before them have done. I’ve begun to become aware of a rich, underlying framework of history all around me, requiring only attention to become aware of. This growing awareness of the cultural beauty of this community somewhat assuages some of the gap left in my heart after living for years in the natural beauty of Lake Tahoe,

Tremont Baptist Church

California. When I used to bike the 9 miles in and out of work in my last year there, I remember always reminding myself to try to absorb the beauty of the lake and surrounding mountains, ringed in pine. I knew that someday I might not live in such pristine beauty and wanted to try to savor it while it was there, and hold it in my mind, however fleetingly. That has turned out to be prescient, and those images come back to me still.

Similarly, I know I may not always live or work in a place with such a rich and dynamic history, and it is my task now to savor it, to take it in and build my awareness of it.

Simultaneous to this growing awareness of history all around me, I have begun reading The Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass to my students. I had downloaded the book from Project Gutenberg, waiting the 2 months it took to receive print-outs from my school, and downloaded free questions and vocabulary for each chapter from The Core Knowledge Foundation. The language of the book may be well above the reading level of my fifth graders, but they comprehend the content deeply, in a way atypical to much of the content that I teach them. The oratory grasp of the power of words emanates from Douglass. There are two paragraphs in Chapter 2 in which his articulate voice rings through the ages, impassioned, as he reflects on the songs that slaves traveling through the woods would sing. These songs of the slave, Douglass wrote, “represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.” And suddenly, his outrage at the inhumanity of slavery lashes out from the page, lashes out from history. It’s a powerful moment.

There is never enough time to teach much of anything deeply in school. It’s hard to be consistent when schools are disorganized, schedules change on a moment’s notice, and there are constant interruptions from phones, loudspeakers, and children’s emotional outbursts. But reading this book is one thing I want to follow through on, because at some point, our children require us adults to make a decision on what is most important, and home in on that thing and stay true to it.

I have begun to feel the weight of history, and appreciate the power of a narrative in conveying the sense and awareness of that history. Our children, just like most of us adults, suffer from a disconnectedness from the wider context they live within. Though I may not be an inhabitant of their community, I can certainly make it my goal to become more aware of that community’s history and to help grow that awareness in my students.

Like much of the things I teach, I find that I learn the best material alongside of my students, discovering new ways of looking at the world and growing my own awareness.

EWA Conference: The Promise and Pitfalls of Improving the Teaching Profession

Every now and then, I get a chance to attend a conference or seminar on some issue in education. Some teachers I know hate attending conferences, but I see them not only as an opportunity to gain new knowledge and to network, but also a chance to retain my sense of sanity and perspective. The everyday life in the self-contained classroom is one of high stress, and as much as I love my students, sometimes I need a break. Conferences are a way for me to thus gain a “mental health” day, while developing professionally at the same time. Also, as a friend of mine who works in the software engineering world put it, conferences are a great chance to “geek out” with other people who work in the same field. How often do I get to talk shop with like-minded folks?

I attended a conference put on by the Education Writer’s Association (and sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation) on the topic of improving the teaching profession. This event was primarily for journalists, but some teacher bloggers were also invited.

The chance to meet with other teachers is always an opportunity I cherish, whether simply within the confines of my school, within my district, or more broadly such as at this conference. When teachers get together and really start to talk about education, it helps to alleviate the sense of isolation that one often feels in a classroom. We don’t tend to agree on everything, but when it comes to the everyday reality of teaching, we find our common ground. Another area of consensus amongst teachers is that we all want to be included in the national conversation on education, whether within the political or policy realm. We want the world to know what teaching is really all about.

I also enjoyed meeting education journalists and speaking with them. I knew in the abstract that the world of news is undergoing a huge rupture in the industry due to the rise of digital information technology, but it wasn’t until I  heard some of their stories that I understood the impact this is really having on the lives of journalists. The writers I met were well-spoken, knowledgeable, and interesting individuals.

This conference was set up typically, in that there were sets of panelists who discussed issues related to the topics of schools of education, teacher recruitment, and professional development. As they held their discussions, I jotted down notes about things that struck me. I will share those notes below in the hope that they may be useful to other educators or writers on education.

The Strategic Management of Human Capital

(side note: this was a term that was apologetically depicted by the presenters themselves as a bit technically overwrought, though I don’t have any problem with the terminology myself. We’re talking management here.)

Speaker: Talia Milgrom-Elcott, Carnegie Corporation of NY (On a sidenote: did you know that the Carnegie Corporation was responsible for funding HeadStart and Sesame Street?)

Solutions (these are all my own, which I was thinking about as counterpoints to some of the traditional data and perspectives of education reform being presented. For a better summation of the data, check out EdBeat’s post)

• The improvement of schools needs to occur most fundamentally from within. Empower teachers with voice, feedback, time to collaborate, and leadership opportunities outside of their classroom.
• The notion of an effective teacher must be counterbalanced with an understanding of the context of effective teaching (i.e. support within the building, resources available, etc.)
• We need to partner with teachers to implement true reform, not simply apply pressure from outside via regulations or mandates

Teaching Teachers: Education Schools and Alternative Pathways

Panelists: Hamilton Lankford, SUNY; Sharon Robinson, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, Kate Walsh, National Council on Teacher Quality

Moderator: Linda Perlstein, EWA

Problems

• Journalists can do a better job of identifying what kind of impact a school of education is having on their local districts
• Schools of education are completely inconsistent in their standards, syllabi, and demands
• Schools of education see their role not simply to provide short-term “practical” knowledge, but furthermore the longer-term concepts of “life-long learning”–this frankly seems to me like an academic retreat from the harder conversations around what kind of content would actually be deemed “practical”
• There is tension between what schools want in teachers and what schools of education teach teachers
• Teachers are demanding knowing more about assessment, technology, and classroom management, according to surveys of graduates
• Regulation does not seem to have a beneficial impact on teacher education programs
• Lack of selectivity of candidates is a big issue
• But there is a large shortage of teachers, and thus the rigor and quality of teachers is diminished
• Teaching is not seen as being a competitive field to be in, especially by minorities
• There is a dearth of research linking preparation programs to effective practice
• Kate Walsh made an interesting and impassioned comment about teaching being one of the only industries where we seem to downplay being smart as a desired quality in candidates

Solutions

• Communication must be built between the local school districts that are fed the graduates of schools of education
• Content schools of education teach needs to be standardized
• A larger pool of high quality candidates must be developed, and then effective screening measures must be used
• Concept of “teaching ordinary people to do extraordinary things” by Deborah Ball
• 4 foci presented by Sharon Robinson:

1. Enrich clinical performance
2. Document candidate performance
3. Develop feedback within the state between schools of ed and public schools
4. Create a level playing field

Questions/Comments

• Ariel Sacks, a teacher in Brooklyn, made the critical observation that the conversation should really not be about the recruitment of teachers, but rather about the retention of effective teachers – I couldn’t agree more
• One of my thoughts during this conversation, when someone brought up the inevitable data about Finland, Singapore or South Korea: Why are we always so busy looking at international comparisons as opposed to the knowledge and experience that teachers within our own classrooms have to offer?
• Mark Roberts, a teacher in Washington D.C. made the point that we don’t put someone in a courtroom and after a few years expect them to be an effective lawyer–we have extremely high standards that they have to meet prior to even entering into training. Why should it be any different for teachers?

Bringing in the Best: Recruiting and Hiring Practices

Panelists: Vicki Bernstein, NYC DOE; Dan Goldhaber, Center on Education Data & Research; Spencer Kympton, TFA

Moderator: Caroline Hendrie, EWA

Problems

• Relative wages of teachers have decreased when you account for inflation
• Research from the private sector suggests that compensation matters
• There are no solid predictors of a recruit’s performance in the classroom

Solutions

• Leverage technology to recruit–it is cheap and it can be targeted
• Institutes require incentives to change
• Creating a competitive, viable market for teaching could influence change in schools of education
• Elevate the prestige of the teaching profession
• Though there are not sure predictors, we can still weed out the “bad bets”
• Hiring from the top 1/3rd means the top 1/3 in terms of results, not where you came from or prestige
• Refine the recruitment process based on nuances, not “silver bullets”–Vicki Bernstein pointed out that because of the complexity of teaching, it is hard to use any artificial construct to judge a potential recruit
• Spencer Kympton pointed out that one predictor TFA has found from its data is the level of a candidate’s achievement beyond academics–such as the ability to set and meet goals

Questions/Comments

• Samuel Reed, an educator and consultant from Philly, inquired what kind of recruitment efforts were made to target minorities to enter the profession. TFA rep. Spencer Kympton responded that they seek to foster conversations with minority students upon entrance into college, not only when they are about to graduate, in order to build interest in teaching as a profession. He also stated that TFA obtains 40% of its recruitment pool from low-income backgrounds
• Dan Brown, a teacher in Washington D.C., gave his personal story and used it to articulate how compensation and wages do matter. He also pointed out that accountability in education renders it an unattractive field to work in
• David Ginsburg, an educator and consultant, pointed out that based on his personal experience, the survey instrument (Star Teacher Selection Interview) used in Haberman’s research is highly effective as a predictor of teacher performance. Dan Goldhaber responded that the survey still could only account for 10% predictor success. Vicki Bernstein may have indicated that she has used Haberman’s survey instrument as well.
• Richard Whitmire (I think this was who said this, but I may be mistaken–please correct me if this is inaccurate information) stated that compensation should be restructured to provide incentives for teacher performance, such as by raising the bar for tenure and making it much more difficult to attain
• Kenneth Bernstein, an educator and union rep from Washington D.C., responded to this comment with an opposing view in support of teacher pensions. He also pointed out how checklists used to gauge teacher effectiveness were superficial.

During lunch, Michele Cahill, vice president for national programs and director of urban education at Carniegie Corporation, presented some research and perspective on education reform.

• Cahill stated that there IS a silver bullet when it comes to one area of education policy–the MDRC study on small schools of choice demonstrates that small schools of choice can improve graduation prospects for disadvantaged students
• She pointed out that school conditions are of extreme importance, such as teaching what students need, getting an effective group of teachers together, scheduling time for teachers to collaborate together, etc
• Routine cognitive jobs are changing or being replaced in many industries–this will inevitably occur in teaching as well
• Technology is a potential avenue to give effective teachers greater loads of children

Questions/Comments

• Stephen Lazar, a teacher and union rep in NYC, cautioned that scaling such use of technology in the field of education–such as in NYC’s Innovation Zone–too quickly could be detrimental
• Cahill agreed, and said that we have to be smart about scalability and look at the sustainability of any reform, such as by paying especial attention to the concept of renewal, wherein networks collaborate and reflect on what is working well and what needs to be modified
• Mark Roberts questioned the fads in the education industry, and asked how we can better increase teacher involvement
• Cahill responded that one way of doing this is for teachers to look at data and collaborate in the form of inquiry teams
• Talia Milgrom-Elcott made a comment about how we need to battle against monolithic thinking and ideologies as we seek to improve the teaching profession

Learning on the Job: Improving Professional Development

Panelists: Karen Hawley Miles, Education Resource Strategies; Ted Preston, Achievement Network; Judy Zimny, ASCD

Moderator: Stephen Sawchuk, Education Week

This was my favorite panel of the conference, as the kind of solutions all of the panelists presented corresponded with what I know is effective as an educator.

• Differentiate PD for teachers
• There must be strong leadership in a school – that leader must assemble a strong team and provide the vision and goals for the school
• Teachers only get better in the contexts of their jobs, which leads to continuous improvement and professional growth
• Time within the school day is needed for teacher teams to meet and collaborate
• School leaders must establish common planning periods and–at first–force collaboration to happen
• Clarity in communication is important from school leaders
• Judy Zimny also advised that school administrators should reduce announcements made during the day, as well as put all their emphasis on teaching by reducing time spent on extras
• High performing schools spend 3 times more time collaborating than low performing schools
• The focus on evaluations of teachers needs to include collective accountability by focusing on teams rather than individual teachers
• As schools struggle to improve, they must retain the perspective of where they are developmentally as a school, and therefore develop their organizational contexts at a realistic pace
• Take the focus off of “superstar” teachers, and instead look for “synergistic” results–focus on school-wide goals that include all school staff
• The whole organization of a school should be focused on learning, not individual goals
• Professional Development is often cut due to funding spent on reducing class size
• There must be people within the school who possess strong content knowledge

Questions/Comments

• Jose Vilson, an educator in NYC, asked how we can development environments in schools that foster teacher leaders?
• I asked the question of how we can measure things like the relationships and contexts within a school, given the current focus on accountability. Karen Hawley Miles responded that there is a survey instrument available that can measure the “trust” within a school. However, she noted that when tied to high stakes consequences, this data becomes skewed. I think she said that it was the”Fry” survey, but I can’t find anything when I try to Google this. If anyone know what survey she was talking about, please clue me in! I’ll try contacting her directly in the meantime and update here when I find out. UPDATE 2/23/11: I must have misheard “Schneider” as “Fry.” The survey is part of the book that I had already happened to link to under “trust” above! Guess I’ll be heading downtown to check it out in the library. If anyone is further interested in this topic, Deborah Meier also has a book on trust in schools.
• Peter Meyer, a journalist and editor at Education Next, questioned how an effective curriculum–such as one based on ED Hirsch‘s research–can be provided to teachers
• Stacey Snyder, project manager for Teacher Quality Partnership out in Iowa (one of the few to rep for rural schools at this conference), brought her concerns for rural schools to the table. In the face of dwindling community resources and declining enrollments, Stacy inquired about what innovations the panel saw coming in the arena of PD that could help to alleviate their sense of isolation and promote technology?

Resources/Links

• Two of the educators present at this conference–Ariel Sacks and Jose Vilson–are part of a group of teachers that recently published a book proposing innovative solutions in the field of education from a teacher’s perspective. Check out the book, and check out the book review by Kenneth Bernstein
• Here is a link to the tweets made during the conference, thanks to Alexander Russo’s blog This Week In Education

Here are links to blogs or sites from educators that were in attendance at the conference:

• Kenneth Bernstein’s Teacherken at DailyKos
• Dan Brown’s book, The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle
• Peggy Crouch and myself were both participants in the VIVA Project for NY state. The report which we created and presented to Senior Deputy Education Commissioner Dr. John King can be read here
• David Ginsburg’s excellent teaching tips at Education Week, Coach G’s Teaching Tips
• Michael Hicks’ ED Leader News
• Stephen Lazar’s Outside the Cave (you can also find his posts in the community section of GothamSchools)
• Samuel Reed at the Philadelphia Public School Notebook
• Mark Roberts at TeacherManDC
• Maureen Robins’  book, The Pressures of Teaching
• Ariel Sacks’ On the Shoulders of Giants
• Jose Vilson’s The Jose Vilson
• Stacey Snyder at Teacher Quality Partnership
• Finally, one more plug for myself. I’m going to start posting in the community section at GothamSchools as well. Here’s a link to my introductory post there

Here’s links to the journalists’ sites that were in attendance:

• Linda Perlstein of the Education Writer’s Association
• Liz Bowie of the Balitmore Sun
• Stephen Sawchuk of Education Week
• Elizabeth Green of GothamSchools
• Claudio Sanchez of NPR (keep your eye out for his upcoming series presenting the voices of children on education)
• Alexander Russo of This Week In Education
• David McKay Wilson, Freelancer
• Peter Meyer at Education Next
• Bill Turque at Washington Post
• Stacy Khadaroo at The Christian Science Monitor
• Cat McGrath at Learning Matters
• Cassandra West at Catalyst Chicago
• Alexandra Wilding at Capitol News Service
• Richard Whitmire, Freelancer
• Gulnaz Saiyed at Medill News Service
• Jo-Ann Armao at the Washington Post
• Kathryn Baron at Thoughts on Public Education
• Donna Blankinship at Associated Press
• Sarah Butrymowicz at Hechinger Report
• Seyward Darby at The New Republic
• Nichole Dobo at Wilmington News Journal
• Beth Fertig at WNYC Radio
• Julie Hubbard at the Tennessean
• Joanne Jacobs at Linking and Thinking on Education
• Jennifer Jordan at Providence Journal
• Audrey Lee at San Antonio Express-News
• Barbara Martinez at the Wall Street Journal
• Amanda Millner-Fairbanks, Freelancer
• Noreen O’Donnell at The Daily
• Sharon Otterman at The New York Times
• Erin Richards at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• Amanda Ripley at the New America Foundation
• Susan Sawyers at Huffington Post
• Jessica Seigel, Freelancer
• Linda Shaw of the Seattle Times
• Tracy Walsh at One Day
• Liz Willen at Hechinger Report

Goin’ Crazy

Image via Wikipedia

Sometimes I feel like this profession is driving me crazy. Just about 80% of the other educators I meet I find either plumb crazy or I just simply can’t relate to them. The very few I can relate to are still pretty darn weird. Now, I ain’t exactly making any claims to normalcy myself. I have what could politely be called eclectic tastes. I drink weird herbal liqueurs and hate watching anything but depressing movies and listen to Norwegian electric guitar jazz or Senegalese mbalax. But I have worked with a pretty diverse amount of people in my time on this here earth, and once I got through my bitter misanthropic phase after college, I’ve mostly gotten along pretty well with the folks I’ve worked with. And I get along with most of the people I work with now, too. But I secretly find them all just frankly weird. I mean this in the sense that I just don’t find much of their actions nor dialogue intelligible.

I’m still confused about whether that’s because teachers in general are crazy or if it’s because public education is crazy and it drives people crazy. But it must be the latter, because now I think I’m goin crazy. I mean, how could you not? There’s so many conflicting values and directives and ideas being thrown at me that I never know which way is up. And I try to do what I do best, which is to examine the system as a whole and then enter into the fray with a structured vision which I then seek to implement. But then it’s like the rug gets pulled out from under me just when I think I’m achieving something.

Eventually, I’ve begun to understand why so many of the teachers I’ve met are such hot messes. They’ve become focused narrowly upon that point on which they know they can achieve something positive, and they lash out at anything that might threaten that unstable piece of manna. They cradle it like a flame from the wind. Because the fact is that the world outside of the classroom–even within the school itself–does not generally have the best interests of the teacher nor students therein in mind. And even when they do–the fact is that some things get very gray when they enter into the realm of classroom reality. People want to go on and on about “students first.” And no one would disagree, of course. But most of these folks have not actually stepped foot into the reality of a classroom in a high poverty district. Try it, folks. Please. See if you can take the abuse that many teachers undergo for an entire working day. Then step back and see if you can keep talking about accountability and high expectations from such a pristine moral vantage.

Schoolwork is messy, in the same manner that work in the ICU unit of a hospital is messy. At least in the NYC public school system in the South Bronx it is. Does it have to be? No. But in the meantime those of us who are crazy–or who are destined to become crazy–are the ones out on the front lines trying to dredge out a garden in the midst of a hailstorm on the precipice of a cliff. Welcome to reality. It can drive you mad.

Another Jolly Night in Ye Olde Neighborhood

If you amble down Broadway at 10 o’ clock at night on a Thanksgiving eve in my neighborhood–Inwood, Manhattan–you may be treated to some heart-warming, charming visual delights from some colourful local characters, such as by the thrilling sight of a half-naked older overweight woman with cropped hair lumbering extremely inebriated and/or drugged through the middle of the street, swinging her shirt brazenly, her wrinkly breasts bobbling in the frigid cold.  Or perhaps the pleasant sight of an old homeless woman frantically grabbing a roll of paper towels from her rolling suitcase and hurriedly waddling over to the most well-lit, visible window in front of the Bank of America and popping a squat, her white ass emblazoned in the franchise bank’s flood-lit display.

It is sights such as these that make me oh so very delighted to be living in New York City. Truly a phantasmagoria of inspiring humanity!

Accountability in Public Education

Last year, as I entered the world of urban public education, I was overwhelmed not only by the engulfing responsibilities of a pedagogue, but also by trying to wrap my head around the complex and convoluted inner workings of all the differing political factions involved, such as the networks of city, state, and national teacher’s unions, all staking their claims alongside the sprawling but somewhat business-minded bureaucracy of the NYC Department of Education. Not only that, but within my building itself it was often hard to discern exactly who had what affiliations, and there was always this sense of paranoia, with teachers sometimes oddly whispering to each other, pointing at the intercom on the wall.

I also recall a disturbing training session over the summer before I began teaching, when our teacher brought in a weird subversive with tenuous ties to the city union, who whispered to us about the terrible things that administrators might do to us, and who would stop in mid-sentence and look petrified whenever the door was opened, as if some lurking officiant from the DOE would walk in and taser him.

As someone coming from the ‘business sector’–if that’s what you can call having worked in the retail and hospitality industry–I was initially quite skeptical of teacher’s unions. After having spent a wee bit of time in the field now, I remain critical of them, but more appreciative of the work they are doing to protect teachers in a climate in which teachers are all too often blamed first for a failing public education system.

There are some horror stories out there about administrators who abuse their power and plow under perfectly decent teachers, and I can attest to the reality of this, because it happened to a friend of mine last year. It leads to the perfectly common sense realization that we can’t point the finger at failing teachers if we don’t go further and acknowledge the greater culpability and responsibility of their immediate supervisors.

In the business world, if employees fail to perform adequately, then the person that gets grilled is their direct supervisor. A good manager never blames her employees. She takes responsibility for ensuring high performance from those that she supervises. That’s her job.

Similarly, good teachers will acknowledge that they are responsible for all of their students’ learning. If one of their students fails to learn, it is not because the student is incapable of learning, it is because the teacher failed to deliver it to them correctly.

If multiple teachers are failing to reach many of their students, then their administrators must therefore be held accountable. It is the responsibility of administrators to create and implement school-wide systems and policies that support their teachers’ development–and thus, that of their students. In an era of accountability, it should be the administrators that are held to the flame first, not the teachers. (And there are indeed systems out there that administrators can easily draw from, such as PBIS, Response to Intervention, SWIS or OORS referral tracking, and assessments that can explicitly notify the building of needed intervention).

It’s easy to blame teachers, because it makes it seem like all we have to do is get some better trained teachers in there and then the problem will be solved. But you could have some of the best teachers in the world in some of your classrooms, but if there is no school-wide system of communication and support, then inevitably many will continue to fail. Flowers need tending. Workers need nurturing. Teachers need administrators who are able and willing to put in the hard work necessary to create an environment of professionalism, hard work, respect, and collaboration.

This is not to say that teachers couldn’t be trained better. They could. The hard, practical reality of teaching is not often acknowledged in the removed academic programs of undergraduate and graduate schools. In an ideal world, teachers in training would work directly in the field alongside an experienced teacher, gaining experience and knowledge through working with real students as they receive feedback and guidance. This is why the TFA and Teaching Fellows programs are somewhat successful–except that you’re just thrown in there without that experienced teacher alongside you to guide you.

I think there are a lot of terrible teachers out there. I know, because I had a lot of them. And I’ve worked with some of them. And I think that if we had an education system where administrators were truly accountable, then we could remove those protective barriers around teachers and say, “off with their heads!” But in the system we currently have, with its muddied waters of political back rubbing and schmoozing, you can’t trust all administrators to make the best decisions.

By all means, teachers must be held accountable. (And believe me, a teacher worth their salt already feels the burden of accountability from those populations that they answer directly to: their students.) But that accountability must run all the way to the top. Until it does in a manifest and transparent manner, we need teacher’s unions to protect their rights and interests from public officials seeking to divert blame to easier targets. A good school is a good system, not just a collection of good teachers. A good school fosters excellent teachers, just like a good company fosters high performing employees.

The City Mouse and the Country Mouse

Being back in Tahoe has been more than just a trip down memory lane–it’s been practically magical. While talking with old friends, drinking great West Coast microbrews, hiking up rocky, wildflower speckled mountains, or chilling out on a sailboat on a lake, I’ve felt an almost visceral pain. It’s that bittersweet awareness that this is a special place for me that I won’t probably see again for a long time hence.

There are many benefits to living in New York City, which mainly consists in its plenitude of social offerings. But though I’ve been there for over 2 years, I have few close friends to chill out with on a frequent basis. Coming back out here and hanging out with good people is what really makes me miss Tahoe. Not to mention the looming pine laden ridge-lines and dry, boulder strewn mountains.

One of the reasons I left was that I was craving metropolitan human culture–things like museums, live music, and multifarious places to wet your whistle. And this is one of the great draws of the big city. But now that I’m on the other side, of course now what I miss is the lonely midnight sound of the sierra wind rushing down the trees. That surrounding, everpresent quiet sentience of nature.

In the city, you not only have access to the pinnacles of human accomplishment, but also the constant, in-your-face reminders of human struggle. The rude, the loud, the aggressive. Sometimes I just want to get away, but there’s nowhere really to escape to. No 3,000 feet to climb to a nearby mountaintop.

Is it possible to get the best of both worlds? Some place that has all the cultural benefits of the city, but immediate access to the solitude of nature? I don’t know, but when I find it, I’ll know I’ve found a place I might more readily call home.

Keep Your Chin Up, The Sequel

There have been many points within the past few weeks during which all that I can think about is quitting. The kind of day in which I am greeted in the morning by a child who tells me he wants to punch me in the face. And then another child who is angry because of something that happened during a basketball game during lunch (something I am only to piece together much later) and so he begins swearing at me, telling another student that he will slap her, and slamming his desk against the ground. And another student who is unable to stop talking for more than 1 minute, rendering me incapable of completing a full sentence during most points of the day (I’m not exaggerating). And another student who  becomes frustrated when I don’t allow him to do whatever he wants, so he grabs a computer monitor in order to try to break it. And another student who goes into violent hysterics when I gently and quietly suggest that she choose a book where she can read most of the words. And two students who begin punching each other because of something that happened between two other students. And so on and so forth. This is just a snippet of one day I’m talking about here.

I got pretty low there for a while, compounded by sickness. But eventually, I turned the corner. That’s just the way it goes. You get the bear up on your back, digging in his claws, and you’re getting dragged down, but then you turn the corner, and you find some sap and succor to carry you back into positivity. You find those moments of breakthrough, when students have a light in their eyes at the connection they are making to what you are saying.

I’ve also been learning coping strategies, to manage my own anger and upset. I sometimes have to step back and take a moment to allow students to have a completely off topic discussion, or to insult each other, until I can regain my composure and enter back into the fray. Because when I lose control of myself, that’s when my students begin to explode. They are like dry tinder in a forest, just waiting to be sparked. A little bit of anger from anyone, whether myself or another student, will spread like wildfire, and then the day will be spent in putting out flames. So I have to be able to take whatever they throw at me. I have to be the zen master, transforming their reactive stratagems of despair into teachable moments of development.

My students have learning disabilities (in addition to growing up in areas of high poverty), and I’m only just beginning to get a glimpse of what that really means. It means that nobody knows exactly how to teach them in just the way that they need. You can give them fragments of a standard education, but you have to find a way to pitch everything you do in a completely different way. And figuring out how to do that isn’t always clear. For example, a student may only be able to decode words at a kindergarten to early 1st grade level, but their comprehension is high. Meaning that they grow weary of low-level books about dogs and cats very easily. Or a student may be able to read words fluently at a 4th grade level, but their comprehension (or at least, their demonstration of their comprehension) of what they read is minimal. Traditional assessments don’t really convey exactly where they stand, in other words. It just tells you that they are behind, way behind.

So solutions may be, for example, that the student who can’t decode many words needs a graphic novel that requires complex understanding but has few words. And the student who reads fluently with little understanding may need books with clear and well-organized narratives, like well-written children’s books or short stories. But these aren’t solutions that you come to through training. You have to know the student that is in front of you and be able to see through their behaviors and symptoms and into the source of the obstruction to their learning. And you know, with all that free time and money that teachers have, you can develop all your own curriculum, get tons of great books, and tailor it just right for every student! (That last sentence was sarcasm, in case you didn’t catch it.)

I just keep on reminding myself — on those days in which I feel like breaking into tears in the middle of the classroom because my students are insulting each other in a way I would never even consider talking to any human being — that this is the challenge that I was looking for. I sought for it, and I got it.

And I remember last winter at this very time, I was going through the same struggle, in a different sense. I was sitting on the E train at 3 in the morning with the drunk and the homeless, then walking through the icy pre-dawn streets of Queens to shoulder the mythological struggle that is the American Dream. I was getting 4-5 hours of sleep and eating one and a half meals a day. So now, yes, this challenge right now, right here, is exactly what I came here for.

I’m here to work my ass off in order to make my world a better place. And what better place to do that in than New York City, the gateway portal to manifest destiny?

Update from the sweaty pit of Summer

As you may have noticed, alas, I have been unable to keep up with my post-a-day dictum. Only one more week of summer school field training and coursework, and then I’ve got some time off to concentrate on acquiring a job (kinda important), visiting SF for a wedding, and enjoying what’s been a fairly mild summer for NY. Since I’m currently sitting in a pool of sweat, I’m not in the mood for posting much right now, either, but here’s some graphic filler for the meanwhile. . . (once you’ve entered into the picture gallery below, click on the picture again once you are on the next page in order to see it full size)

Lil’ City House in DUMBO

Downtown Manhattan

Central Park Pond

Birds bathing in the hot summer sun

Lotuses in a Central Park pond

Tree formed shade in Central Park

Let Me Count The Ways

Oh, New York, New York, let me count the wonderful ways that you’ve affected (infected) me:

• lice
• asthma
• possibly cancer
• nut butter from hell
• 5 decrepit flights of stairs every time I want to venture out of my apartment
• schizophrenia
• showers in a slight trickle of water that sometimes disapparates altogether suddenly, usually right when I’ve just lathered up the dome
• dulled hearing
• an inability to relate to anyone outside of New York

Oh yes! This is why we love it here, people. We love it cuz it just hurts so good.

Anniversary of My Arrival

So it has now been a full year since this intrepid Californian arrived on this eastern shore of dense urban life. In this past year I have been seriously challenged and have undergone some changes, some growing up, some facing of the hard edged point of now termed ‘Reality’, or—as we used to term it out on a small lake bordering a wilderness area out in Tahoe—the ‘Real World’. A quick schemattering of this past year in a nutshell:

• a 7 day journey in a Budget truck across a storm/flood stricken Mid-West/South with all of my worldly possessions, including my terrified White-Fronted Amazon parrot Vinnie and my girlfriend
• a living in the living room of my girlfriend’s family’s apartment, sleeping on an air mattress that we blew up each and every night and deconstructed again in the morning, so that our ‘room’ could reconvert into a TV watching arena, in which I was subjected to extremely loud marathon watchings of Dancing With The Stars, American Idol, and The View, just to name a select few
• a confrontation on the late night D train with a very large man who was seeking to kick both my and my girlfriend’s ass
• I almost threw up on a train and bus, but just barely held it in to spew it all out at a bus stop 10 blocks away from our street
• a proposal and subsequent engagement to my girlfriend, now henceforth to be known as The Fiancée
• my fiancee’s sister moved out, thus enabling my fiancee and I to move into her room, where we now sleep on two twin beds pushed up together. We’re moving on up in the world
• an attempt to obtain our own apartment failed; I got Lasik surgery performed on my eyes
• I was unemployed for 6 months and sought desperately for a job, undergoing strange interview processes and feeling my self-esteem rise and plummet on a minute-by-minute basis just like the stock market
• I finally gained employment—in a location 1 1/2 – 2 hours away by public transit in Queens, with variable and long hours

Well, that’s pretty much my New York experience in a broad and sweeping overview. In celebration of my survival and continuing eeked existence here in this city, I am going home to Southern California next week, to obtain some much needed R&R, as well as to see my family and especially my nieces and nephews, one of whom I have not even met yet. My fiancee and I are going to get massages, as both our bodies are falling apart from our respective jobs, and simply enjoy ourselves, as we haven’t been able to spend more than a few hours together from week to week.

Putting It All In Perspective

Things that were before unthinkable/untenable become routine unremarked events in this city of everything and nothing, of the richest and poorest, of the darkness and the light. Blood spattered on the pavement of a man splayed out in the street after being hit by an SUV—a drunken boy kicking his girlfriend on the train—a woman sleeping on her knees on the concrete with her head resting against a hard wooden bench—the nightly array of homeless in the plastic subway seats, resting in exhausted, bent, flopping angles, their skin bloated and gray.

The petty struggle of my own existence is thus kept honed in a perspective relative to the suffering that is the everyday realm of those society has passed over. A clarity of vision comes from these watchful late night journeys. I listen to soulful music and catch small packets of rest as I cultivate my ambition, stoking a striated core of determination that grows increasingly irrevocable, a hunger and confidence maturated by patience and humility. Before, twas the wind or lack thereof that determined my path; now, tis my work and will that paves the way. My inner capitalist thus fomented, I recognize the value in self-restraint mixed with a strategic and occasional allocation of self-indulgence.

Time is now not merely The Now, which certainly has its critical power and mystique, as evidenced by Zen and Thelonius monks, but furthermore The Day That Will Come, the nurtering long-term barter that results, someday, in the fruition of what was once but a dream in a shell of enshrouded loneliness. There is This, and there is What Will Be, all one in the grand scale of existence, the unseen weighted omega pull of dark energy that exerts its unyielding influence on still birthing oblivion. What will be will be only because of each individual sown effort, this momentous ephemeral daily struggle. This daily bread will be only because of what must become. All one picture that cannot be viewed by any one mind but only ultimately in the intermixture of eternal generations.

Nu Bidness

Bunch of stuff been going down en mi vida right now, so here’s a general un-abstract post to fill you in. First things first, I got my eyeballs lasered, and I am now in recovery mode, which is a bit harder than I assumed it would be, as I am still working while healing.

Getting your eyes lasered is a bit scary sci-fi-ish, I won’t lie. They lay you down on a chair and douse your eyes in some solution to numb them. They were supposed to have given me valium but they forgot. I wished I’d had it. I was clutching the little stress balls they gave me and kicking my wee legs against the chair in silent protest. Anyway, then they tape up your eyelids and put something (a speculum, I believe it was called) around your eye to keep it open. Then your eye gets like sucked upwards or something, and you’re staring at this red light surrounded by concentric white circles, and it zaps like something out of a B movie, and you can smell your eyeballs burning. Yes, you can smell it, and it’s not pleasant. But that is not the worst of it. They then drop endless amounts of ice cold water into your freshly lasered eye. That was the worst part, for me. I was getting brain freeze from all the water being flooded into my eye socket.

But the whole debacle is over in a few minutes, so it’s not all that bad, really, other than being extremely uncomfortable and unnerving and disturbingly like a bad sci-fi movie. Then the real pain and discomfort begins. The rest of the day I spent popping vicodin and laying in the dark with my eyes closed, as they could not be opened, as they flooded endlessly with tears. The next day was more of the same, though I could keep my eyes open for slightly longer periods of time. I shuffled about with the big shades on that they gave me that made me look like Ray Charles. Then the next day I went back to work.

My eyes have been getting extremely dried out, which isn’t surprising, given that I work 10 hours a day with 3-4 hours on the subway, so I have to keep my eyes moisturized constantly. But the eyeballs are healing, slowly; meanwhile, I can’t see very well and I continue to look like Ray Charles. But it’s all worth it for the luxury of glassless-ness, folks. I can finally walk outside and put on my sunglasses, instead of squinting about and giving my aging skin crows legs.

Other news: my fiancee (I love throwing that word about; it seems to have a weight and heft to it that makes me sound conceited) and I have honed in on an apartment exactly one block away from the location where we are currently squatting. It gets tons of light, it’s relatively huge for a Manhattan apartment, and of course, it’s in a building without an elevator, meaning that we get plenty of exercise going up and down the six flights of stairs.

But we don’t have it yet. We just got all the extensive documentation prepared and put together for the property management nazis. A word on obtaining a space the size of a closet in New York City: it’s absolutely nothing like renting in California like I’m accustomed to. In California, you plop down a deposit and a months worth in rent and sign your name and there you go. They’ll kick you out if they don’t like you. But in New York, they require bank statements, tax forms, W-2′s, employment and salary verification, IDs, personal references, and a 5 page essay on your long-term goals and dreams. Well, minus the essay, they require a shitload of personal information, which is apparently because it’s nearly impossible for New York City landlords to boot you out once you’ve got a lease. Pain in the fucking arse, is all I’ve got to say. But as they like to say here, welcome to New York.

At my store in Queens I seem to be a space alien to people sometimes. They look at my name tag, note that I am from San Diego, and then proceed to exclaim with wonder at the fact that I exist and work in New York City. Seeming to forget that New York City is comprised of mostly foreign elements. Why the hell are you in New York? they all want to know. Implying that California is a land of paradise. Which granted, at times during my half hour walk from the train station to my workplace at 3 in the morning when it’s below freezing and the arctic wind is blasting through my puny three layers, it may appear to be.

Let’s discuss this cold further: it’s been really cold. Like, so cold that my toes in my shoes and socks begin to freeze. So cold, that the air penetrates my pantalones. So cold that it’s like walking out into a freezer. Welcome to New York, indeed. More like Welcome to Minnesota.

Anyway, I need to get off the computer, because it’s straining my still unfocused newly laser minted eyeballs. Another post will be forthcoming at some unknown date in the unforeseen future.

Flashes of Random Stuff That Constitutes My Current Existence

Some random New York City thoughts:

• It struck me the other day as I was journeying by morning bus through Queens of how a mere year ago I was in Lake Tahoe, California, where the skyline is drawn by cragged piney mountains, and as I looked over towards downtown Manhattan, where the skyscrapers loomed in the dawning sun into the bracing air, I realized that this mancrafted landscape holds its own mute beauty, distant and unintelligible, yet comforting and beloved all the same. I experienced a fleeting moment of affection for the city. It’s like it’s so unnatural that it’s natural.
• When I’m sitting on the subway train and I don’t have a book to read, as I stare unfocused out the darkened window I think of how cool it would be if the windows of the cars had some kind of screensaver type backlighting, so that as you were traveling through tunnels, you could look at a background of fish swimming around or something. Just something to stare at mindlessly so you don’t have to play that I’m-not-really-staring-at-you-but-I-kinda-am game.
• It’s true: Californians really don’t know diddlysquat about what cold is. It gets friggin’ cold out here. When that wind blows—forget about it: suddenly all that ski-bum wear that got you by on the West Coast feels like tissue paper. It requires fur, wool, dense thickets of nylon, scarves, and a phat cap. Yet you will still see pretty young thin things wearing puny little cute jackets over their skin tight jeans. Other than for their Ugg boots, it’s a mystery to me as to how they keep themselves warm. Perhaps they’re harnessed with alpaca thongs?
• The economy really is bad. We’ve got people applying for jobs at our store from Wall Street who were investment bankers for 13 years, etc. Well, thank god for the service industry, eh? Makes me all the more resigned to the fact that I’ll continue to be overworked and sleep deprived for the next year on, at least. Oh, joy.
• The subway ain’t the ideal venue to study mathematics in.
• The subway in the night during winter is full to the brim with homeless people who have nowhere else to go to sleep and get out of the cold. And it can get just a tad stinky. I think that the city would be much better off if its public representatives were forced to ride the subway in the middle of the night. Might give them a whole new perspective on things.

NYC vs. California

Now methinks it is time for more meditation upon the topick of la ciudad Nueva York, as I have now resided here for 8 months, and have become a daily inhabitant of its subterranean commuter lifestyle. Many New Yorkers seem to have a distaste/idealization of California in general, whereupon they either think that Californians are too laid-back and boring, or they think that California is paradise. As a native Californian, I can now bear witness to the differences between NYC and Californian lifestyles: really, the only difference comes down to a matter and concept of space. Allow me to elaborate.

In California, we are accustomed to vast amounts of physical space. We drive on wide freeways and vast suburban expanses. We sit in our SUVs and trucks by ourselves, and grow agitated when people drive too close to us or cut us off (although we are accustomed to sitting in thickets of single occupant cars in the midst of traffic jams). We think backyards are normal, and we are off-put by giant crowds.

In New York City, physical space is negligible, for both rich and poor alike, though obviously the rich have more routes and spaces of escape, and they tend not to be packed into their apartments like sardines. All riders of the subway brush up against each other during rush hour, are pressed against strangers in the compress of Times Square, are sideswiped by other shopping carts in the narrow lanes of gourmet grocery stores. All drivers here expect and are undeterred by the close proximity of other vehicles, bikers, and pedestrians.

In NYC, the people are somewhat more homogenous in a sense. Fashion on the street is echoed everywhere—women wear the same Uggs, men wear the same stiff caps, hoodies, or black jeans. There is a certain type of coat and messenger bag style that proliferates. Both women and men here tend towards a fashionable kind of asceticism: stick thin, utilitarian, and dark colored. There is a certain style of self-consciousness in many New Yorkers. They are accustomed to being overheard, stared at, and ignored.

Thus, there isn’t really all that much substance to the stereotype of “New Yorkers are aggressive”, and “Californians are laid-back”. It’s simply a matter of density. When you are shoved all together into a small physical space, then you kind of have to be “aggressive” in order to move forward. But contrary to the stereotype of “aggressiveness”, New Yorkers are also much more accepting in the face of adversity, as they know that people being in their way is a part of life. And contrary to the stereotype of Californians being “laid-back”, Californians tend to be very good at being completely unsympathetic to people and situations outside of their comfort zones, as they aren’t used to being forced to deal with diversity and difference.

What I love about New York is that people of all types are forced up together. And while they may not like each other, they are used to dealing with one another.

What I don’t like about New York is that it is dirty and industrial. All of the subway stations are falling apart, and as good as the public transit system is here, it still sucks—if you take middle-of-the-night trains like I do and you have to actually get somewhere on time. Too many people still insist on driving cars, and drivers here don’t have any patience for pedestrians. Let’s face it: NYC is the epitome of industrially created environments. It’s a completely leveled island on a nearly perfect grid system. This is both what makes it cool and what makes it suck, because all of what makes it hold together always seems on the verge of falling apart.

New Yorkers, being near the northeast with its abundance of rainfall, also don’t seem to understand the preciousness of water the way Californians tend (relatively speaking) to. All day long, I walk by New Yorkers with hoses spraying down vast swaths of concrete, as if that’s cleaning anything. What a waste of drinking water. I’d like to see how New Yorkers would cope with a drought.

I’m still ambivalent about what I think about NYC, just as NYCers themselves seem similarly ambivalent in their views of California. I like that even as big and dirty of a city as it is, people here love their neighborhoods and their communities, and this tends to imbue the city as a whole with a feeling of belonging and acceptance, even in the face of all the travails (i.e. unemployed young men) that urbanity brings.

In any case, I’ve developed an intermittent Queens-style accent, which seems to enable one to make sarcastic and ironic statements in a conversational manner. I have a tendency to adopt regional accents when I am trying to fit in somewhere, such as while I lived in South Lake Tahoe, I developed a slight drawl, or while in Peru, I would speak English with Spanish inflected vowels. Although I have been told by a New Yorker that I have a “California accent”, so the ruse is not complete.

As to where my affiliations ultimately lie, I will always love California, but I don’t know that I want to live there again any time soon. I think that I could live anywhere, and I will always take a little bit of that place with me, and I will always reject some part of it. I am an American, I am a nature boy and an urbanite, I am a hippie and a capitalist, I am a writer and a retail worker. Will I ever find some place that I can finally and with finality call home? We’ll see.

Trivial Mundanities, aka TMs

Trivial Mundanities. Such is the stuff of life. I am beginning to think that underlying much of Thomas Pynchon’s works is an attempt to demonstrate just how much of history is formulated by the forces of completely officially ignored and hidden aspects of existence—strange sexual encounters, anarchist theorems, smoke enshrouded pontificating into the night, etc.

Just to give you an example of the current T.M.s of my daily life: I left for work Friday at 12:06 midday in order to begin work at 2 in the afternoon. I then worked til 2:30 at night. I arrived at home, due to some mistakes in getting off at the wrong stations due to construction, etc, at 5:30 Saturday morning. I then again left for work that morning at 12:07, after waking up at 11:30. Blah blah blah. The point of this enumerating on timeliness is that work, in this (a)typical example of another crazy night in my life, can consume—inclusive of the transit time involved in getting to it—a grand total of 17 hours of a day in my life. That particular scenario left me with 6 hours of sleep, though in actuality it was more like 4-5, given the time I spent showering when I got home and the fitful type of sleep that was to be had.

That’s not much of a life outside of work, now, is it?

Just to give a few more T.M. laden tidbits subsequent to aforementioned Hell Night: I woke up, sort of, in the morning, stumbled creakingly into my clothes, fed my screaming parrot, ate a granola bar, brushed my teeth and washed my face, and made my way out to the street, hence towards 1) the shuttle bus to 2) the A train to 3) the E train to 4) the Q53 bus. It being a Saturday, the place wherein I work was slam packed with frantic consumers, and due to some problems we’d had with a fire at our frozen warehouse, our intranet ordering system failing, etc, the day was even crazier and more stressful than usual—and as always, compounded by the fact that I am still new and “learning the ropes” as a manager there. So I didn’t get a break to eat and sit down and drink water until 8 at night.

So I’m sitting here and it’s past 3 am in the quiet of the witching hours and I’m beyond exhausted. It’s my “Friday” however, meaning that I’m now into my weekend, which will consist mainly of sleep and attempts to pretend that I’m not going back to work again soon, very, very soon.

It’s funny that I have been for so long wishing to put the “car culture” of California behind me, and here I am, fulfilling my ambition, logging in my plentiful hours within the New York MTA system, breathing in its subterannean fumes. I spend most of that time reading my library books while listening to my MP3 player—which may have just died actually (I haven’t had to time to analyze the situation: does it just need to be hit, recharged, taken apart, plugged in, re-re-booted, etc? Or is it really, finally, after so many years, Dead?)—closing my eyes and attempting to relax/nap in the hard plastic seats of the subway while my head nods to and fro, or staring at a single point at the ground and trying to pretend that I don’t notice the weird dude who insists upon starting blatantly at me as if I’m some kind of anomaly that does not compute.

The trains late night can really lead to existential crises; you will find yourself sitting in a murky, decaying waterlogged station, the tiles splotched with grime, a vomit spill projecting on the ground in front of the puritanically designed hard wood row of seats, a midget with a black cap and a dragon embroidered denim jacket asking you if you speak Spanish and then saying something completely nonsensical to you in any language, a number of high pitched alarms ringing just slightly off time from each other for some reason that is unknown and obviously unimportant. You sit and wait, and wait, and wait. This could be hell. Trains in other tunnels rumble unseen on their way to somewhere else. Men in hardhats, doo-rags, and florescent vests walk about the station and wave flashlights. A rat mama and her baby scuttle across the tracks. Trash scatters everywhere, so ubiquitous it is unseen.

You get onto a train, finally, and random people of the night settle and are settled into states of disarray, disheveled post party/event states, bodies splayed at awkward ankles, heads nodding, a besotted woman guffawing at her partner’s slurred unfunny statements, an old man across from you pressing his head into the corner of the wall—you think at first that he is crying, and then you grasp the darker truth—his nose is pouring—literally pouring—out snot, and it is dripping down onto the seat, and he is embarrassed, attempting to hide it, trying to flick it over as it pools onto the seat with his finger into the crevice on the side. You pretend that you do not see what is transpiring.

Another man hacks up sputum and spits loudly onto the floor of the train. He stares belligerently at a man wearing an MTA uniform and hat. He spits a number of times more, to make it clear that he is spitting to make a point. He shakes, perhaps with delirium tremens, or in some state of spiritual dishevelment. He is dirty, he has bags of probably useless objects. He is talking to himself, complaining incessantly. Apparently, he has fallen asleep and missed his stop long ago, and blames the MTA system for making him miss his stop. He stares at the man across from him in MTA clothes and shakes, and spits audibly, and then continues to complain. To whom? Is it the Train Gods that he rails against? The forces of the ominous sounding Metropolitan Authority? People in the train pretend that this is not occurring, that they notice nothing, though they see everything.

Ah, the trivial mundanities of my existence.

Accidents and Appropriations

Last night after work my supervisor was giving me and another guy a lift to the train station and a girl in a fancy car with no brain decided to turn directly in front of us. We hit the side of her car and then went head on into the car behind her. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, though the two cars that didn’t cause the accident are pretty much wrecked. I just bruised up my knees a bit on the seat in front of me and my back and neck hurt a bit. I went to the hospital to make sure I was OK, and didn’t get home til 5 this morning. The good news is, that means I have today off!

I consider it highly ironic that I have moved out to NYC partially in order to avoid having to even be in cars any longer, and here I get into a car for just the stretch of a few blocks and get into an accident.

Another Day in a Death Star Trench

In other news, I’ve finally realized what it is that I’m always reminded of when I go downtown and traverse its imposing/exhilirating canyon streets: the Death Star. There could totally be Tie fighters and X-Wings zooming through downtown Manhattan. Just an observation.

It’s fall now, and I am falling in love with the city more because of this. I could barely stand the sweat dripping humidity of the summer, but now that the air is crisp and the light diminishing, I am enjoying being here more. I love that feeling of waning, the way the orange light falls at an angle on a cool street in Queens, the way everyone is suddenly looking the way one envisions a New Yorker looking, with their nice coats and cold weather wardrobes and hoodies. I am someone not accustomed to much of an autumn, being from California, and it’s a distinct feeling in the air that I cherish. I’m just waiting for the trees to start exploding for the Wow factor really to kick in.

I obtained a Not For Tourists mini-booklet for the city, which should come in handy: it’s got little maplets of every neighborhood, with stores, bars, and restaurants listed. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a certain section of town for some specific purpose, and then wish I had known what else was around to know what else to do. Not being a local, I’ve had no other option but to hop back on the train and go back to my little out of the way ‘hood. Now I’ve got my little handy info-book in my arsenal to combat my lack of intrinsic native knowledge.

My woman and I attended a new Van Gogh exhibit at the MoMA—which thanks to her inside connections we got VIPed right in—and I really enjoyed seeing some of his most famous paintings up close and in person. You can feel what makes him so visually captivating as an artist, the way he establishes an intuitive rhythm, like a musical etching, with his brushstrokes. Both her and I especially liked his Starry Night Over the Rhone, even a bit more than the more famous Starry Night—something about the deepness and tranquility of its thick blue hues—it almost looked good enough to eat, like icing on a cake. What I especially like about Van Gogh, I realized from this exhibit, was that he combines observation with intuition.

Rock Facing Water

In this contemporary juncture of my life in the continuum of heart-space-time I am being challenged, challenged by this giant density of city, challenged by the commute out to my work and by the long hours on my feet and by the loss of sleep, challenged by the people in the subway and the street, challenged by my living situation, challenged by my own limitations, challenged by my relationship, challenged by my expectations, challenged by everything that currently exists here and by everything that has led me summarily to this point of now.

I have not been writing frequently, as you may have duly noted, both because I lack free time outside of my days off and because I am having trouble enough grasping physically with my reality not to want to expend effort psychically and mentally untangling my emotions into worded strands. But I have a need. I have the pent up panopticon of my unvented frustrations and shattered hopes to deal with. I have the neglected plot of my blog awaiting tending to, calling out quietly for growth and development, for creativity and courage. I have myself to answer to, to nurture, take care of, love, and maintain.

Suffice to say that the challenges I face are far beyond the expected penance that any great dislocation can incur. I am realizing just how naive I still am, almost 30 but still sheltered in a collegiate sort of way. The struggle to actively prepare for the future is beyond all hopeful reckoning. I am understanding now that I must be prepared for disaster, for worst-case-scenario. I must be prepared to seriously and tenaciously endure. I must be ready to subvert my own natural inclinations and proclivities and breathe slower, breathe deeper, pace myself, hang back and await the unknown mystery that will come. To accept what I am given, patiently, with quiet ambition kept stoked hidden in a secret place from the world, to be unveiled only when the final cards are ready to be faced.

I think I seem to be implying that my reality is terrible, but it really is not. This is my point of this whole story. Things are not bad at all. The things that have been horrifying and distressing me are petty and largely irrelevant but to my battered ego. The challenges that I face wisp away when stood up to in full. My commute is focused reading time of the bounty that I skim from the wonderful NYC library. My work hones my body and teaches me humility and how to relate to a wonderful diversity of people and how to maintain a maturity and integrity of perspective and action. My living situation incorporates me into an extended family who supports and loves me. My relationship is committed, full of daily love and constant tendering. My expectations are evolving to include a much broader range of what my life is meant to be. And this giant, dirty city is teaching me what it means to truly live with and love humanity.

So these challenges, I am finally and wearily realizing, are welcome challenges. Though arriving in completely unexpected ways, rendering me momentarily defenseless, they are exactly and precisely what I desired and required, when seen for what they are. Something within me is rushing to the brink of a certain type of extinction. And beyond this shattering momentary loss and delimitation lies the widened horizon and incorporation of a greater sea.

So go we all. The economy, the body politic, the bedoeling roads of science, culture, and intuitive grasps at divinity. We journey our disparate paths to oneness. However embattled, however frayed, these droplets will find their way to their unexpectedly perfect destination.

People Do Not Touch Each Other

“He felt the street around him, unremitting, people moving past each other in coded moments of gesture and dance. They tried to walk without breaking stride because breaking stride is well-meaning and weak but they were forced sometimes to sidestep and even pause and they almost always averted their eyes. Eye contact was a delicate matter. A quarter second of a shared glance was a violation of agreements that made the city operational. Who steps aside for whom, who looks or does not look at whom, what level of umbrage does a brush or a touch constitute? No one wanted to be touched. There was a pact of untouchability. Even here, in the huddle of old cultures, tactile and close-woven, with passerbys mixed in, and security guards, and shoppers pressed to windows, and wandering fools, people did not touch each other.”

—Don Delillo, Cosmopolis

My ‘Hood, Inwood

I live in Manhattan—but not the part of Manhattan that you might typically envision, the jagged architectural skyline looming over Central Park midtown kind of thing. I live uptown, up-up-up past where your visitor guidebook map cuts off. Settle on down into an empty seat on the ‘A’ train heading uptown; don’t worry, one will open up soon enough. Get some reading in. Turn up your I-Pod to drown out the well-crafted pitches of beggars that hop on at 59th St to petition a captive train on the express run to 125th. Go ahead, doze on off and stretch your legs out. When the train reaches the end of the line, where the Harlem river diverges from the Hudson and forms the northern tip of the Island of Manhattan—that’s where you’ll get off. Welcome to my ‘hood.

Inwood is a primarily Dominican flavored neighborhood. The boys on the streets wear askew stiff baseball caps, long white T-shirts, and plaid shorts. There is a guy selling syrup dashed over shaved ice on the corner. In this part of town, instead of a Starbucks on every block, there’s hair salons and thrift stores.  There’s always a baseball game going on over at Inwood Hill Park and Dyckman Fields. Fancy sports cars and SUVs hurtle down the residential streets at all times of the day and night, bumping bachata and merengue at top volume. Motorcyclists thunder by, triggering car alarms right and left.

Go to the corner of Seaman and Cumming, and take a picture of the happenstance juvenile humor created by their adjoining signs.

Step into Inwood Hill Park, the only unmaintained “natural” forest remaining in Manhattan. The only maintenance performed there is when a tree falls down (every time there is a storm, a tree falls on Payson Ave and hits a car; no, seriously), the tree gets limbed up and then pushed to the side. Sometimes the City will come by and even pick up the remains of the tree. Mostly, within the park, they are just left there.

This is the kind of park you can get lost in. In the summer months, the vibrant animal and plant life is jungle-like in its density. Rabbits hop along in front of you. Rats scurry from one bush to another. A surprising multiplicity of birds call out from within the canopy. Mosquitoes invisibly fester onto any exposed spot of skin. During the weekday, you may even be one of the only human life forms inside the park, aside from the stray dog walker, the pair of teens smoking a joint or dry humping, or perchance a lone free-baser sitting along the walk with his shirt off. Dime bags litter the pathways going into the park, but otherwise the park is remarkably free of sketchy intrusion, as most idlers seem to be too lazy to infiltrate any deeper. You can go to the viewpoint and watch barges float past down the Hudson. I run in this park almost every single day, and I love it.

Adjoining Inwood Hill Park is yet another giant amazing park of a different stripe, Fort Tryon Park. Here there is a greater presence of human life, runners going up the steep paths, people sitting around the flower garden, dealers sitting along the wall in the out of the way places. You can go to a trendy cafe and see live music or visit the Cloisters museum. There’s even bike trails in this park!

I would say that having immediate access to these gems is what I really love about Inwood. I haven’t yet explored whatever semblance of nightlife there might be here, which seems to be either hanging out in an upscale Dominican restaurant, or diving in one of the Irish pubs that still remain along Broadway, a hold-out testament to the previous inhabitants of Inwood before the succession of the Dominicans. Otherwise, the only other thing that seems to happen around here at night is sitting around on park benches or lawn chairs and sweating. Capital of hip and trendy life it is not—but that’s not why we live in Inwood, now, is it?

Under the auspices of my surrogate NYC Puerto Rican family, I have grown to appreciate my new home, and to even feel that I would much prefer to live here than the expensive movie version parts of Manhattan. I sometimes grow peeved that everyone feels like they always have to hang out downtown. Sure, if I could ever afford the $6,000 a month to live across from Central Park, I would. But I’ll take Inwood Hill Park for now—that is, until I’m pushed off the island of Manhattan completely due to the ever rising prices of NYC real estate. . .