Macbeth, Act V, Scene v, 19-28

And as we roll into the first auspicious day of July, we find ourselves beginning to near the end. By my count, there remain 9 more classes left in this program, spanning a short two weeks (hoo-ah). Now that the prospect of not having to create lesson plans every day, and babysit 90 screaming kids, is slowly creeping into that fuzzy corner of my eye (where most ghosts, spectres, and bogeymen are spotted), my mind is reeling with project ideas. So many ideas and inspirations birthed in the twilight hours of all-nighters, late night conversations, and mid-morning brunches deferred to a less hectic time. Well, that less hectic time is perhaps a stone's throw and a half away, and I'm getting excited. But we must see each project through to the end with dignity and poise. So let us recap:

Today we continued fingerprinting with the remaining classes. Luckily, I had most of the older kids, who could work self-guided which made my life easier. I even had time to take pictures:

I had them put their prints on an index card and we played a guessing/matching game.

But what would this summer job be without a little bit of stress and turmoil, eh?

The inspector came today. Let me rephrase that. The inspector who gives us our licensing that allows us to operate came today. I had actually forgotten, which was not a good way to start the day. A few moments before the inspector got to my class, one of the administrators called my class to tell me she was coming, sending an "oh sh*t" shiver (alliteration!) through my spine as I realized that I had the A group, the littlest ones, next. Usually, 50% of this class is spent getting them to sit down and be quite. 10% is relegated to controlling each M----- and A--, which usually involves me assigning them a special chair in the back of the room, and shooting them dirty looks when they start talking. 30% is reserved for bathroom and water breaks, since the junior leader who is supposed to take care of this while I'm teaching is never there, and I'm forced to take the whole class to the bathroom each time, lest one of the kids has and accident. The remaining 10% is left for actual teaching, which is honestly more than I expect with these kids.

Anywho, the inspector had the perfect timing to come visit my class while I had these youngsters. And this progressed as usual, with mayhem and chaos. They were especially rowdy today, forcing me to turn off the lights at one point just so I could get their attention. Those little clapping games other teachers use to get their kids attention? Doesn't work when half those kids are screaming at the top of their lungs about a bird that wandered into the class. More screaming ensued when I told them we were using pencil lead (graphite) to take their fingerprints, as they thought I was trying to poison them. A lot of coaxing and coddling. But everyone got their prints taken. No one was killed (except a little part of me that loved teaching), and I supposed we passed the inspection. I could see the inspector giving me sympathetic looks during her visit. But really, does it even matter? There are only two weeks left in the program, what would taking away our license really do? I've already made a good chunk of change from this job, and I think the kids have learned a lot as it is. But still, it's nice to meet the approval of your somewhat-superiors.

Here's today's shirt pocket:

The inventory: 12 pencils of various lengths and sharpness, a pair of scissors, a pack of 100 index cards, two American flags (which were confiscated after I told them to stop playing with them in class. They were returned. Eventually), 3 dry-erase pens, a rubber band, and a spork.


And since July 1st was apparently a special day (some of my kids were hounding me for not wearing red, white or blue, since it was 3 days before the 4th of July [who knew that three days before a holiday was special?], and decided to pinch me as if it were Saint Patty's day), my loyal readership, I have a two-fer-one deal. Act now, and you get not one overly burdened shirt pocket, but TWO!

This second pocket contained: a pencil, an ipod nano (1st generation), another confiscated American flag (not returned), and a stash of 4 Starlight mints (from a bag which are so old, the hard candies have now become taffy-like. Chewing them relieves some stress, and leaves my breath minty fresh.)

Tomorrow I am going to school to help chaperon a trip to Chinatown with the morning session. I apparently will be chaperoning a mixed group (with kids from each of the 6 groups) of the "good" kids. And E----. I get E----. I'm loosing patience with E----. He's a brat and a bully, and I would have hated him as a kid. But I'm older and slightly more patient now, and hope that this horribleness is a phase he will grow out of. But we'll see. There's much time left for us to see.

Monday, Monday, So Good To Me..

Ah, Mondays. I suppose after reading thousands of Garfield comics in my younger days, I've been conditioned to loathe mondays (love lasagna and kick Odie off the table). But there's something about Mondays that creeps under my skin and crawls around like nobody's business (like those darn scarab beetles). But such is the life of this working stiff. Another week, another $300 (that sounds pretty sad, but hey, it's a summer job. Much better than minimum wage).

Today we covered Bones. Though this was an experiment I had covered previously with Angela She's Demos class a few months back, I've learned not to expect much from little kids. But surely rolling paper tubes is a simple enough task for them. Right?

Ah, to be so young and so naive. The experiment is to show why bones are hollow. Paper is rolled into loose hollow tubes as well as tight "solid" tubes to model the two potential bone designs. Then, stuff's piled on top to see which bone design is stronger. Now the hardest part of the experiment is the rolling of the tubes. I had a busy morning, and didn't have enough time to prep paper strips for them to just roll. So I stupidly figured I would have them tear their own strips. I gave each of them a sheet of copier paper and told them to rip it into four long strips. I even showed them how to do it and walked them step by step, showing them every crease and every rip. Even then, I had the perennial hopeless cases come up to me (read: N----) and whine that it was too hard. Some of these kids need to put down their DS's and learn how to do simple, everyday tasks.

Overall the experiment went well, I suppose. Today's lesson could be summarized in to a short Mr. Sakimoto Mantra: "HOLLOW BONES ARE STRONGER", which is always a good thing. I had a little issue with a group of boys in the C group, who upon making their solid bone rolls, began to pretend smoking with them. I was furious, for obvious reasons. At least they were smoking them like cigarettes, rather than joints, which is somewhat redeeming, I suppose.

I had the best lunch today, thanks to a little bit of creativity and having to dash to get ready for work. Last night we ate Korean from Gina's and I had leftovers. I didn't have time to get rice and all that jazz ready, so I made a sandwich.

Which turned out to be one of the best sandwiches I've eaten in a while. Here's the rundown: hamburger bun, with koo che jung paste (or however you spell it), my leftover BBQ chicken, romaine lettuce, and assorted ban chan (well, my brother's ban chan. Hey, he's always eating my food, I'm just easing his guilt) including daikon, beansprouts, seaweed, cabbage, and taegu. It's like bi bim bop in sandwich form. So good, I had to take a picture.

Perhaps not the worst Monday I've had. I was honestly not surprised to find that the two outcast trouble makers in the A group (M----- and A--) have become the closest of friends through their mutual exclusion. I cannot say the same for the two outcasts of D group (N---- and E----) who have developed such a disastrous antagonistic relationship, that I now need to physically separate them. I hope I never have to tell another story about their problems, but something tells me by the end of this job, half the tags on these posts are going to be about them.

And as usual:

Here's today's shirt-pocket. The inventory stands at three dry erase pens (because I forget to cap them and they dry out), a mechanical pencil with no graphite but a big eraser, a mechanical pencil with graphite but no eraser, my cellphone (because I'm constantly checking the time in hopes that it's time for recess), strips of paper (because it's physically impossible for anyone younger than 2nd grade to cut or rip paper nicely. I'd like to spend a class with some of these kids just developing fine motor skills. I think I could devote a whole class to folding paper evenly in half), and my name tag, as always. The kids told me they liked my shirt. You can't see it well, but there's a big dragon in some clouds along the torso. I bought it when I was 10 and it seemed like the coolest thing in the world at the time. And I was a huge child. I came to this realization after cleaning and going through family albums on Sunday. Pictures are forthcoming.

Only four more days until the weekend. Scratch that, 3 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 45 seconds. 3 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 39 seconds. 3 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 30 seconds....

Not All Change Is Progressive

One of the most legendary teachers at Punahou, and one I had the privilege of taking a class from was Mr. Jerry Devlin. A legend even amongst legends, who taught Plato's: The Republic, still to this day one of the best classes I've ever taken. If I had to describe what he looked like, I would say he was the 60 year old love child of Sean Connery (circa The Rock) and Mr. Magoo. Aside from being one of the most versatile teachers around (he had taught biology, anthropology, political theory, and philosophy during his time at Punahou), he had a favorite saying, "Not All Change Is Progressive". This was usually in reference to our grades, which was troubling. But he was right. Boy he was right.

I thought yesterday was the worst day of this job so far. But as scientist, I should be wary of using superlatives, like "oh, see this atom, that's the smallest we could ever divide matter", or "see this 100 kiloton fission bomb, that's probably the biggest bomb people will ever make." Today was worse.

The day began wonderfully with me almost slicing off my finger in the paper cutter. But that's what fingernails are for. Nature's little finger armor. But that was nothing compared to the little episode that was waiting for me.

I've told you all about E----, right? The genius boy with behavior problems that necessitates him having a personal aide? Yeah, that kid. Now, the teachers have been warned about his behavior (which includes holding year-long grudges and taking revenge against teachers he doesn't like...more on this later). So far, he has been fine, if not a little eager and in need of attention. But today he threw his first tantrum, broke some of my Petri dishes. He had to be taken outside. People were called and kids were distracted. Try getting kids to do anything as a screaming classmate is dragged right outside the door. It sounded violent, from my perspective, as in it sounded like E---- was hitting his aide. Poor guy. And I think he was new to the job, because when E---- started having is episode, the aide asked me what to do. Me? Me, who has no training as a teacher and is still a student himself? I need to be paid more.

Then I met with the older kids, who are usually fine. They're usually sharp and well behaved. They listen, do their work, and even joke around with me a bit. But I think their hormones decided to kick in today. Issues were had. One of the kids was going around and flicking off all the other kids, whom he claimed had made him flick them off. I gave him the lecture about "would you jump off a building if someone told you?" He started crying, and ran into the bathroom. The other girls who were flicked off started crying because they didn't think he was punished enough, or something. Other things happened, to numerous to name here.

But I have learned one thing. Kids bounce back and recover really quickly. They could be sworn enemies in the morning, but by lunch they're the best friends in the world again. If they come to me crying during recess, they're fine, laughing and running around (no running in class) by the next class session. I've pretty much learned to ignore their complaints, since experience has told me they usually work themselves out in the end.

There was a lot of yelling and disciplining today. The C group was absolutely wretched. Kids who never gave me problems refused to listen, and the usual problem kids became even worse. I tried to do a second forensics unit with them, giving them 4 white powders to look at: flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. I drew a simple 4x3 grid on the board and told them to copy it into their journals. Half an hour later, only about half of them had sat down and stopped talking long enough to copy the chart down. Stern talking ensued and I started handing out the powders. No matter how many times I tell them "don't eat this. Do not put this in your mouth. Are you going to eat this? No. You, tell me, are you going to eat this? The answer I'm looking for is 'no'. You are not going to eat this. It will kill you", without fail one kid has to eat some. I told them to make observations about the powder. Apparently, for little kids, looking and observing involves touching and throwing. I tried as best I could to keep them under control. I tried as best as I could to keep order. But I reached a point where I could not take it anymore. I took away all the materials, told them to sit at one of the desks, put their forehead against the table, and be quiet for 10 minutes. They could only muster around 2 minutes, but that was enough for me to write something on the board. They're supposed to keep a journal so parents can know what their kids are learning in this program. This is what I told them to write in their journals:
For you visually impaired folks, the board says "I could not finish the experiment in Science today because the class was too noisy. Tomorrow, I will ____." Where the fill-in-the-blank is what they will do tomorrow to be less disruptive. The day was shot for this class, and I feel horrible about making the few good students go through this (since that was always me). But I was losing my mind and didn't see any other viable alternative.

But hope springs anew, as I'm told. The B groups were absolutely delightful. They were quite, well behaved. They were bright, answering my questions about chromatography. They even remembered about polarity's effect on travel distances on the chromatography strip. An absolute joy. They lined up on their own when I set up the microscope to look at the various powders (flour's really interesting to look at, if you ever get the chance). They even policed each other, to make sure it wasn't too noisy, that people weren't making a mess, and that people were staying on task and finishing their journals. They were so good I felt obliged to give them all erasers as prizes. They were so good, I even had a chance to take pictures:

*edit* The cute little girl smiling at the camera *edit* is M-------, a hilarious little Vietnamese kid. When I have the kids sit on the floor, a lot of them have the bad habit of sitting really really close. Like, inappropriately close. She always pipes up and tells them, "Scoot back people! Give the man some room!" She's quickly becoming one of my favorites.

Up until this class, I was honestly on the verge of breaking down. I started understanding on a very profound level why people do things like drink, or smoke. But this class made things better, if only a little bit. Tomorrow will be an ordeal, I'm telling myself now. I've come to accept that this job will never get easy, and will drain my last ounce of patience. I've accepted that the main point of this job is to realize the hell teachers everywhere go through for an entire school year.

On some level, I think the kids are especially bad because they realize it's summer. The initial excitement of the novelty of this program has worn off, and they've come to realize what a bum deal it is that they have to be in school during the summer. That they have to learn and use their brains. I don't know. Too tired to care. Too physically exhausted to contemplate (didn't sit down all day. No time). But the show must go on, as I'm told.

Here's my shirt-pocket from today:
The final inventory stands at: Two ball point pens, a Sharpie, two Dry-erase pens, a Ziploc bag of flour, a plastic spoon, three Starlight mints, $0.63 in spare change, 9 chopsticks with string and tape (I was going to do recrystallization of Borax [sodium borate hydrate], but the E---- episode sort of derailed the whole class, and we had to cut it short).

I've begun to learn on a very real level one thing that I've always known in passing. They say all the money in the world doesn't mean a thing if you never spend a penny of it. Sure, the pay for this job is nowhere near minimum wage, and I'm making a decent amount. But I have absolutely no time to enjoy any of it. Weekdays are shot due to cranking out lesson plans, testing out the experiments, and trying not to pass out from the dehydration and heat exhaustion. Weekends are a motley mix of cleaning and more lesson planning. I had always intended to get paid for my summer jobs, figuring I need to begin supporting myself as much as I can. But I'm learning that the money is not worth it if you're killing yourself in the process. I think I need to find one of these unpaid internships in an exotic far off land next summer. Something where the minimum age of the people I have to interact with are in the double digits, and I don't have to worry about pee-pee accidents and snack times.

I would hope that tomorrow, things will go differently, but I've learned my lesson. Thank you Mr. Devlin, for teaching me a valuable lesson. There is no such thing as rock bottom. You should see some of the drills they have these days. They can bust through granite like no body's business. Instead, I hope for the strength to see this job through to the end, strangling the smallest number of kids along the way. I figure as long as I keep it in the single digits, no one will mind.

Sometimes I Forget Who I'm Talking To

On Friday, I decided to give my students a little creative problem solving exercise. The lesson previous, I had gone over polarity and density of compounds, using a density column of corn syrup, water, and oil, as a means of segueing into Chemistry (thank you to Angela She for the lesson plans). I thought this would lay a great foundation for a problem solving exercise that's quite relevant: Solve the BP Oil Crisis.

I am by no means pioneering in this endeavor, as it is a well known secret that kids can be the best problem solvers, since their creativity isn't hindered by social rationalizations and self-consciousness. Considering a truly viable solution has yet to be found (well, it depends on who you ask. I have my own opinion), I thought it wouldn't hurt to let 89 elementary school students have a stab at it.

I presented each group with two problems: how to seal the broken pipe, and how to handle the oil slick. I gave them all the stats: how far down the hole is (around 5,000 ft) and how far out (26 miles) as well as other pertinent data, and told them to go for it.

I ran into a bit of a problem when describing the current state of the fractured well. I tried to pull out all the technical jargon and explain it to them simply. I said: "Okay, there's a big hole in the middle of the ocean and it's spewing all this crabcakes out into the ocean..." Except I didn't say crabcakes. It's weird, now, for me to think of crap as a bad word, since I use it so often. But the glare from my mother who was working in the back told me that teachers should not use that word around 3rd graders. Surprisingly, none of the kids seemed to notice, nor did they make a big fuss that I swore. So either they didn't notice, or they've become desensitized to the word. I think I'm going to test this out by swearing more. A list of your favorite expletives and ideas on how to work them into a science lesson would be much appreciated from the readership.

So back to the lesson. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the ideas. Most decided to just shove a bunch of crap into the hole to plug it up. Some came up with the solution BP is currently employing: sticking a narrow tube into the hole to siphon off some of the leaking petroleum.

The second problem, how to deal with the oil slick, drew more creative solutions. My favorite called for a fleet of thousands of robotic fish to swim around and eat up the oil. I asked the student how she was expecting to pay for thousands of high-tech robots, to which she replied "my dad will pay for it". Another called for a giant corral type thing to scoop up all the oil. Some of the students actually used what they had learned previously about density and polarity, and suggested collecting the oil and seawater in a tanker, and decanting the oil from the water.

My biggest surprise of the day came from E----, a special ed. student that has his own para-professional aide to monitor his behavioral issues. This student, I had been warned, was known to assault teachers, in addition to the usual host of behavioral problems. However, he was perhaps the smartest student of the day. He came up with maybe 9 different solutions, each well thought out and at the very least plausible, solutions I think BP would have liked to hear. I've been told that many behavioral problems arise from a lack of stimulation, that the child becomes bored and begins to act out. Perhaps that's what caused E----'s uncharacteristically well-behaved performance on Friday. I'm going to keep an eye on this. Very intriguing.

I've been trying to drive home everyday from work, since I have yet to get my license (I'm going to renew my permit for the 3rd time later this month). I'm not the best driver, yet, but I'm....competent. Usually. My dad always yells at me, telling me going at the speed limit is too slow. As a result, I've developed a bit of a lead foot, and a waning patience. As we were driving home from the school, we approached a 4 lane intersection. In the corner of my eye I could see someone crossing the street. I figured I best just speed through the intersection, since the pedestrian was taking forever to cross the street. I guessed I missed timed it a bit because I almost ran them over. I could see them not 3 feet away from me as I sped past them. And as their figures passed my window, I saw who I had almost run down. An old woman. And her granddaughter. In a wheelchair. With a cast. You can't make this stuff up. A few seconds later, I would have hit the world's best sympathy case. Lesson learned, patience is a virtue. Or if you do hit something, drive away before they can read your plates. Haha, I'm just joking. There'd be no witnesses left.

Next week marks a whole lot of Chemistry. Not only a lot of my favorite science, but another 4 day week, since Friday we're taking the kiddies to Ice Palace, Hawaii's only skating rink. I haven't ice skated in nearly 8 years, and even then I wasn't very good. I mostly clung to the walls and slowly drifted from the natural rotation of the earth. However, this time I'm supposed to be chaperoning 89 elementary school kids, who are all faster and more athletic than I am. And they know it.