Why Field Trips Rock

Field trips are a pain in the ass.

I hate collecting permission slips and hearding students through the turnstiles of the 3 train.

I hate having to convince students to sign up without the promise of McDonald's.

I hate that too often I must beg them to leave the most dangerous neighborhood in New York City so that they can see something different.

But for the few students that do decide to go (yesterday it was only 5) it's beyond worth it.

Sometimes it's just the revelatory, revolutionary experience of walking in Times Square or Greenwich Village.

Sometimes, like yesterday, it's the experience of witnessing amazing theater from the vantage point of the front row.

Sometime's it's just the new act of eating at a restaurant that doesn't have pictures on the menu.

Whether it's to MOMA or the New Victory Theater or even John's Pizza, field trips bring me back to the roots of why I decided to embark on this special and challenging journey that is teaching.

They show that "getting out" is possible.

In the span of a 30 minute subway ride, my students are able to see the beauty and wonder of their city instead of the tragedy and hopelessness.

They're able to see, experience, a life outside of Rockaway Avenue.

They're able to be treated, if only for an afternoon, as citizens instead of statistics.


And that's worth it.

Even when they still ask if we can go to McDonald's.

Tagging Desks and Other Gripes

Not to say that this compares to say, being able to read and write, but why oh WHY do my students write all over the desks?

"GBABY" and other tags are scratched in pen on my classrooom tables semi-permantely. (Alas, Lysol wipes can only erase so much.)

Is it because they're bored and can't think of anything else to do?

Is it the semiconscious subversive act of defacing school property?

Is it just plain fun?

Is it because the tables are, well, there?

As I look at the candy and gum wrappers left on the chairs, tables, and floor from the day before, the faint tags become yet another irksome item to add to my list of "things that are out of my control."

Sure, I could ask them to stop doing it (which I have) or penalize them when I catch them in the act, but what actual good would that do?

In these days of triage teaching, where I'm trying to reach as many "out of reach" kids as possible, and cover such matters as ending punctuation and reading comprehension (not to mention how to THINK), a few pen "tags" are small potatoes.

And yet, they are extremely frustrating ones. Just like the .30 bags of potato chips my kids eat.

Pointless, cheap, and sadly, expected.

Each One, Teach One...

....so we're reading Macbeth in Shakespeare (they LOVE it) and I asked them to compile a list of the ways they experience tyranny and oppression in their lives so as to compare their experiences with those that the tyrant Macbeth is oppressing.

First responses were pretty expected:
Cops
Bad Influences, Friends
Drug Dealers
Schools
Liquor Stores
Gang Members
Stereotypes

And then...Ms. L said,

"Precious."
Me: "You mean the movie, based on Push?"

L: "Yeah, it made me feel like it was one of them. That I went to a school like Each One, Teach One."


To all those who've ever heard me say I wish I was Ms. Rain...

I guess I'm closer than I thought.

We Are From

From my Social Literature classes last Tuesday, our second day together.

(We each wrote our own I Am From poem, then contributed a line to make a collaborative one.)

We Are From

We are from Flatbush Brooklyn where the Crips call it Crooklyn

We are from the hood

We are from .50 sodas and quarter bags of chips

We are from everything spicy

We are from Aunt Adrienne's lasange at Thanksgiving.

We are from "If you don't pass your classes, don't ask for shit for Christmas."

We are from double-dutch and freeze tag

We are from staying out, getting right, to coming in late at night.

We are from mommies, our dreams, evergreens.

We are from roti and curry chicken.

We are from under my bed, "keep trying, never give up."

We are from the borough of Brooklyn where either you with us or against us.

*

We Are From

We are from summer afternoons of Mister Softy and strawberry ice cream.

We are from Blind Man's Bluff and freeze tag.

We are from where there is no winter.

We are from Big Meech and Hoover.

We are from the streets of broken bottles and "You can be whoever you want to be if you put your mind to it."

We are from big hearts and open arms.

We are from the hills of love and hope.

We are from Brooklyn: East New York, Crown Heights, Canarsie, Brownsville, Bed-Stuy, Flatbush, Fort Greene, Farragut, Coney Island.

We are from Polo tennis skirts, Gucci button downs, Burberry jackets, pants and t-shirts.

We are from Yankee fitteds to Pradas.

*

We Are From

We are from skelly in the park

spliffs after dark.

We are from backyard parties and Wet Fete to Labor Day and Reggae Summerfest.

We are from Tommy to Polo,

from talkin' to ridin' Dolo.

We are from where you're not.

We are from whippins' for crazy reasons like diggin in the pot.

We are from Mommy's Oxtail and rice and peas on Sundays.

We are from Veronica's Place in Flatbush where the kids come to play

We are from shootouts and gunfights

Ruff necks and dirt bikes milli.

We are from Martin Luther King to always fighting in the ring

We are from Madame CJ Walker and experiments for hair and

from my nagging Aunt screaming "don't you dare."

We are from my favorite Lenny's pizza shop where I eat chicken till I pass out.

We are from sitting in my room to playing hide and seek.

We are from playing Nintendo to listening to "knock yourself OUT."

We are from Brownsville, never ran never will.

Lenses, lenses everywhere!

So I'm not saying that the 80 grand I took out in loans was totally worth it, but I tried out some progressive "critical thinking" pedagogy in my Social Lit classes today it was pretty damn successful. And cool.

Racisim
Sexism
Classism
Feminism

We use the words. A lot. Everyday.

And it's only the 8th class.

For example, when asked how we could apply our lenses to poems we're studying, Q in 7th period said, "I can use the feminist lens in My Papa's Waltz because the line "mother's countenance could not unfrown itself" could mean that she can't stop the abuse because she's a woman."

I mean, REALLY?????

Granted, this was 7th period, which is strikingly collegiate like, but still.

Applying the feminist lens already???

I am a proud propagandist teacher, I am.

Next up: bitch and the feminist lens. Or why saying it every other sentence might not be the best idea.

Zombie

The week is halfway over and it feels like it should have been Friday two days ago.

Back to life, back to reality, back to Do Nows and poetry, back to "take your hat off" and "put your phone away," back to hidden brilliance and questions like "why is Jamie so dramatic?"

Back to 6:30 alarm clocks.

Zombie, oh zombie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBgewcFh-cg

Feminism

Social Literature

Shakespeare

Fantastic new classes and ideas to explore, and all I want to do right now is sleep.

Zombie, oh zombie.

The Memoir Experiment

Hiya Kids! I realize it's been almost two months since I last wrote, but, you know, it's summer. I've been doing awesome things like going to Italy and eating way too much pizza. But now that I'm sufficiently carb filled and rested (my days usually go like this: eat, read, eat, read, walk, repeat), it's time to get back on the writing wagon. And I thought I'd start things off with an excerpt from a recent project from my Memoir I Class I took at Gotham this spring.

The only context I think you need is to know that I'm sort of kinda thinking about writing a memoiresque book about my experiences as a teacher, and this something I've come up with so far.

Ciao!

PB (Pre-Brownsville, part 1)

Acting to Teach

My plan was to be a professional actor. And I was. For about five years.

In 2001, I received my B.A. in Theater from George Mason University (located in the suburbs of Washington DC) and immediately hit the pavement as a “working actor” in the nation’s capital. Armed with an arsenal of 2-minute monologues, 16-bar song selections, and a “God I hope I get it” attitude, I believed in my art and in the pursuit of it.

And then: I got tired of being a secretary. Or a personal assistant. Or a barista.

I got tired of working day jobs that turned my brain to goo and left me less than thrilled to schlep to auditions where everyone looked like wannabe Eponines from Les Miserables, including me.

I got tired of knowing that I could be so much more than an ensemble member in a yet unnamed modern dance/crime drama in a pseudo-professional production in Towson, Maryland.

I got tired of knowing that my days could be spent doing so many other worthwhile activities than preparing for the Merrily We Roll Along chorus auditions for the fifth time.

I got tired of feeling like a waste; that time was running out to do something with my life.

And so I went back to the only other thing I’ve always been really good at besides acting: bossing people around. Or, in other words, teaching.

Let me back up. From the time I was two years old and addressed a metal coca-cola truck as my pet dog “Bo Pat,” I’ve been excellent at two distinct things 1) pretending to be someone I’m not and 2) giving people orders.

Acting and Teaching. Done and done.

I “acted” with my parents, my aunts and uncles, my brother and cousins. I bossed around neighbors, grandparents, classmates and even strangers. Between the ages of 2 and 12, I lived in a multi-genre world of imagination. Tragedies, Comedies, Musicals, even Soap Operas, all received my “touch” as an actor/director/playwright/producer.

Here, for your pleasure, is a typical scene from one my early “ pertend” creations:

3-year-old Jamie: Mommy, let’s pertend that you stand here and say hello and then I say hello and then we both walk over here and pertend to eat breakfast.

Jamie’s silent, wisely obedient, sandy-haired, 5 foot Momma: Ok.

(Scene continues for a few more moments. And then the dénouement.)

Little Jamie: You pertend you’re eating Cherrios and I’ll pertend I’m eating Rice Krispies.

End Scene.

Chekhov I was not.

But I was prolific. And enduring.

I once spent two solid hours on the basement stairs “smoking” cigarettes made out of black Bic pens and pretending I was an alcoholic who was in danger of losing her kids. (My parents’ experiences as social workers in the child welfare system of West Virginia provided a particularly deep pool of inspiration.)

Alcoholic dramedies aside, my all-time favorite pertend production was school. It was my Cats, if you will. I played it in my room, in the backyard, at even, school. I most often played it, however, on my grandparents’ terrace.

***

PB (Pre-Brownsville, part 2)

Do and Pa’s Terrace

From between the ages of six to twelve, my younger brother Zack and I spent our Tuesdays and Thursdays at Do and Pa’s house while our mother worked part-time (Note: I invented the name Do and have no idea how or why I did so. The story is I got it from saying, “Do this and do that.” But I’m pretty sure that’s bogus. I think it was just an early indicator of my odd, yet delightful strangeness. My grandfather was always Pa. Just Pa.)

For most of our childhood, my brother and I shared very little in common (He was athletic, blonde, skinny, good at math whereas I was dramatic, brunette, pudgy, and lived in my own head). The one item we agreed on, however, was the awesomeness of afternoons at Do and Pa’s. Why? #1: The snacks. Junkwise, Do beat our Mom’s hands down: Doritos, Bugles, Cheetos. We didn’t have these treasures at our house. Even the leftover cookies from the days she volunteered at the local bloodmobile were gold. And she had these little wicker baskets we could keep our handfuls of Cool Ranch in. The woman even made portion control fun.

#2: location, location, location. Do and Pa’s house offered near limitless pertend opportunities. There was the front yard off to the right of the driveway where the mint grew – that, during ages nine and ten, was my choice location for playing “house.” There was the cabin, which was literally a cabin attached to the side of the house that my architect grandfather ingeniously constructed in the early 1960s, and where my grandparents made their bedroom. It was also where I made my imaginary hair studio. (Do was my only client.)

And finally, there was the terrace. The “terrace” was essentially a patio made of flat bricks that adjourned one of the only non-hill sections of the backyard. (This was West Virginia, the Mountain State, after all.) It ran the length of the kitchen and living room and was where we had all outdoor cookouts, birthday parties, etc. It was also the location of my first classroom as a teacher.

You see, in addition to the patio furniture I could arrange into desks and classroom formations, the terrace had an undisputable trump card: a blackboard. And this wasn’t some dinky chalkboard on an easel like the ones they had at Kmart or Toys R Us this was a blackboard affixed to a wall – just like the kind they had at school. And given that it attached to the siding directly below the kitchen window, it was also just my height. Genius.

So, from ages six to eleven, I played school most Tuesdays and Thursdays on the terrace (weather permitting). My actual lessons were usually mimics of that night’s homework (spelling lists, math problems) or simple grammar assignments. (Twenty years later, at NYU, I would learn that these direct moments of instruction are called “mini-lessons.”) My strength as an imaginary teacher was never in content. My focus then, as it is now, was in student relationships.

For hours on the terrace, I would call on my imaginary students to answer. To come up to the board. To sit down and be quiet. To share their responses with the class. Never mind that if you were my grandfather and happened to look out of the kitchen window all you would see was a slightly chubby, kinky haired eight year old Jamie wearing polka dot leggings and her favorite Jamz sweatshirt talking to herself. To me, my classroom was full and alive. Students working feverishly, all clamoring for attention from Mrs. Boileau. (I wonder what my eight year old self would think of my current students addressing me by first name? I doubt the younger me would approve; I was quite traditional in my pedagogy back then.)

The greatest evidence, however, of my attempts at building strong (imaginary) student relationships exists in my infamous “notes home.” After going over the day’s spelling list or fraction problem, my teaching day often culminated with one or two letters home that I would write on my grandfather’s note pads. The correspondence usually looked something like this:

Dear Mrs. Smith,

Your daughter Alicia was very bad in class today. I am worried about her behavior. I had to write her name on the blackboard twice.

Please come see me as soon as you can.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Boileau

My grandfather, Pa, whose imagination and sense of empathy was less forgiving than my grandmother’s, would find several of these notes in various locations throughout the house.

Looking back, it’s probably not that surprising that he thought I was a schizophrenic.

Fast-forward twenty years, and my classroom has moved from my grandparents’ terrace in Bluefield, West Virginia to a crumbling, public school building in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

The students have changed from imaginary white 3^rd graders to seventeen and eighteen year old African American, Dominican, Jamaican, and Haitian young men and women who desperately need a second chance.

I still act and I’m still bossy.

Pertend has become reality.

The Last Week

We have four more official teaching days to go.

Four.

4.

And as T pointed out in Playwriting it's really only three because nobody's coming to school on Wednesday. That's the night of prom.

Four more days of miracles.

Four more days of mediocrity.

"Jamie, I just need to pass. What do I need to do to get a 65???"

Four more creeping days of the slow, but increasingly urgent realization that yes, you will by returning in September. Or maybe as soon as July and Summer School.

For more days of success and triumph and satisfaction in finishing the year. In graduating. In finally moving on. In the chance to see a world outside of Brownsville.

It's lethargic around here. And we can't blame it all on the weather. Desperation doesn't discriminate; 85 or 65, rain or shine, it's all around us.

We know who's going to pass, who's not, and who there's still some hope for.

And then there's delusion.

"Ms. Jamie, I'm just gonna write you a whole screenplay. Can that count as my benchmark?"

"If it's long J, I'll count it as two pieces. But you need four pieces in total. The purpose of the final project is for you to revise your favorite pieces that you've worked on throughout the cycle."

We look at his notebook together. Out of 12 weeks of instruction, he has 5 days of notes. In total.

I can't do anything but nod in agreement when he says, "nothing's in here. I don't have any work."

And so: I say sure, go head, write your screenplay.

And for the next 55 minutes he chats with C, tells me he's "gonna get started...brilliance takes time," and updates his Blackberry.

Making up a whole year in 4 days must be overwhelming. I know I couldn't do it. And I'm smart. Mad smart. Almost as smart as J the screenwriter.

T -22

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010.

Advanced Writing Seminar, 3rd period.

Do Now: What are three things you would like to change about school?

Me: Yes, J?

J: I think we should bring back social promotion.




And, yeah.

22 more days left of instruction. ;)

Uncensored

Since yesterday's posting was a little on the dark side of things, I thought I'd start today off with a little bit of positivity.

First off, it's a beautiful Spring day. The sun is shining and my zyrtec is so far working.

Second, it's a Wednesday.

Finally, something really awesome and amazing happened last Friday.

My students - of their own accord - gave up part of their Friday night to see theater. That's right, seven of my students made the trek from east BK to west Manhattan. To. see. theater.

And? The show was really freaking good.

Uncensored is the culminating piece for the acting company of the MCC Youth Theater program. It happens every Spring and, as far as I can tell, it's always pretty freaking awesome.

Monologues, scenes, poems, abstract performance pieces about them, by them.

Yeah, my kids loved it. Here's hoping the inspiration (and motivation?) sticks for a little while.

Theater and students. Once again, proof that it's almost always a good idea.

The 20%....

80% of my class is engaged.

Why am I so worried about the 20% that's not?

Is T really sick or is the short story that boring?

N is trying, but this is definitely a struggle.

Is 100% engagement even possible? Especially when you have 11th grade reading levels in the same class with 6th grade ones?

How do you "differentiate" a read aloud? (And yes, read alouds are mandatory - silent reading would result in even more snoozing....)

What made J check out 5 min after coming into class?

What time do they go to bed?

What are they eating for breakfast? Are they eating breakfast?

Is it just because it's a Tuesday and I woke up in a funky mood too?

If Tuesday's like this, what will happen on Thursday?

Am I allowed to have a lesson not blow their minds?

Why is teaching so much about perception and participation?

Why do I feel like eating chocolate right now?

Maybe it's ok to let some things go. Maybe not every second needs to be an ah-ha moment. As a professor at NYU once said, "Remember, it means everything to you, but it's only 55 minutes out of their entire day."

True dat.

But when your students only come once or twice a week and still fall asleep, doesn't that 55 minute nap become more than everything? A lost cause? An sleepy premonition about the future? A small, but devastatingly sad metaphor for public education?

The good(?) news: I have 9 1/2 more weeks till June to figure it out.

The Playground Outside My Window

It's gorgeous outside. I hear little (and old) kids screaming and laughing directly under my window.

If I were my students, I'd leave too.

How do we compete with the weather?

How does my lesson on writing about your name compare with piercingly bright sunshine?

And it's only March 18th.

Just wait till May. June.

Attendance in the Spring.

New Beginnings, Once Again

We've (I've) made it to Cycle III!

That's right folks, this is the last and final cycle of the year. The official end of year countdown has begun. The grand experiment that is my school will finish its second year (for better or for worse) in the next three months.

So that means that yet again, we start anew. New cycle, new students, new chances.

A new chance to make it first period. To second. To third.

To do some homework. To get a 65. To get a 95. To believe that you really are worthy of graduating high school.

My new chances? Advanced Writing Seminar and Playwriting and Performance II.

Advanced Writing (Dig the college sounding title?) is my small experiment within our school's larger one. I've always emphasized writing, but this time it will be explicit. The plan is pretty simple: genre by genre, we will play and explore and, with hope, eventually command.

And we started today. With, you guessed it: I am from.

(Seriously, what did progressive English teachers do before Linda Christensen saved us all?)

Is there really a better way to start off a new cycle, a new class, a new chance than writing about the different flavors of jolly ranchers you ate as a 7 year old? I think not.

"What was the name of that game again?
"Steal the Bacon!"
"My favorite food was fried chicken....macaroni and cheese...the pink starbursts."

It's simple.
It's low risk.
It's fun.
It's fulfilling.

At the end of a 55 minute period, my students got to know themselves, their classmates, and me a little bit better. They learned the tone and purpose of the class (we are going to WRITE) and perhaps even some of my teaching philosophy. The learned that they could write a poem (and in some cases a damn good one) in under 20 minutes.

Not bad for a new and final first day.

Winter Break 2010: Gluttony Rules!

(Note: this posting has nothing to do with teaching whatsoever. Hurray!)

My body is screaming at me to stop. And yet I must go on.

There are a few hidden gems of being a NYC teacher. One is Winter Break. Just when you think you might go absolutely bonkers with the snow, the cold, and of course, the kids, a sweet little week in mid February appears. And because of this salvation, you're able to make it until the next respite: Spring Break.

Some people go away to wonderfully warm places like the Bahamas. Me? I tried to eat my way through my home town, New York City. And what follows is a short list of my most memorable gluttonous experiences.

1. The Pork Pot at Asia de Cuba. I will probably never go to this restaurant again because it's way too expensive, but for a bougie Restaurant Week bargain, it was absolutely perfect for a week-off-from-school lunch. And of course it helped that I enjoyed it with a fellow fabulous teacher. The gimmick with this place is that they do Cuban "flavors" with Asian "preparation." Oh and they give you big ass portions so you can share. The pork was our main entree. And it was really f***ing good. On top of a braise of bok choy, it's salty, tender fattiness was pretty freaking divine. And we couldn't even finish the whole thing. Josh would never have let that happen.

2. The BLT sandwich at Choice Market. This event happened because of what we saw on that janky The Best Thing I Ever Ate show on Food Network this past Sunday. The theme was bacon and we were underwhelmed by the hosts' "best things" UNTIL we saw Ted Allen's pitch for the BLT at Choice. This is because 1) BLTs may be my most favorite sandwich ever and 2) Choice is kinda near our house. So a plan was hatched. A major hitch in the plan: I decided to go try this sandwich on the one day of the week when it snowed. All day. So I walked a mile in the wet, pelting snow for a sandwich. Was it worth it? Yes. Though the little bugger was a bit on the salty side (which for me is saying a LOT), it was as expertly prepared as Ted Allen promised. Bacon win. (But doesn't bacon always win????)

3. The Coconut Cake at Asia de Cuba. This gets a mention for its sheer size. Gluttony epitomized. It was good but it was more insane. Don't think we finished a quarter of it. Again, Josh wouldn't have let that happen.

4. Large Cappuccino and Scone at Financier's Patisserie. This is because of the foam. Oh when you sprinkle the sugar on it and slowly soaks in.......Yeah, this made me feel European and appropriately sophisticated in all matters breakfast. And dunking the scone in the foam. And it crumbles off a bit. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

5. Bone Marrow at Henry Public. This almost didn't make the list because I'm 90% sure it gave me weird dreams last night. And yet, in a posting about gluttony, how could I not mention it? It was appropriately fatty and salty and tasty and yet that's not why it made the list. It made the list because it's freaking BONE MARROW. Meat Butter. It is everything you're not supposed to put in your body and yet I happily did. It felt old school and deviant and wonderfully wrong. It felt like everything I should be doing on vacation. Glutton win.

So there it is for now. I'm gonna to party through my body's screams for greens and tofu and continue doing what I do until this vacation officially ends on Monday morning. Edamame and string cheese will be back in my diet soon enough. But today: I think I need to find an almond croissant...

55 minutes

Worst. Class. Ever.

Ok, I'm sure it wasn't, or won't be. But right now it sure as fuck feels like it.

Threats of write-ups.

Stopping and starting class. Over and over. Feeling like it was my first day on the job.

All for talking. Stupid god damn talking. Because today is the first day back for many (as opposed to yesterday, when we actually started back). Because we run on a bizzaro (ahem, alternative) time frame - where Tuesday is Monday unless it's Wednesday and Thursday is Friday. Because it's easier to laugh than try sometimes. Because it's still the case that doing your work isn't cool. Because it's somehow just as important to please the teacher as it is to say something hurtful about the new girl's weave.

I love my job.

But 5th period sucked. 4th period wasn't too hot either.

And yes, I'll reflect on what I could've done differently how my lesson needs to be tweaked blah, blah, blah. But right now I'm just tired. And pissed. And tense.

In a school where a "second chance" both means everything and nothing, 55 minutes is too much of not enough.

Coffee with Arne

On this wonderful day off from school in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I just spent a few moments with my coffee and some thoughts of Mr. Arne Duncan, Education Secretary for this here US of A. Said thoughts are about the teaching profession, a subject I have just a little bit of passion for.

Here's the whole piece, worth a gander I think.

http://archive.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/winter09_10/duncan.pdf

And here are some things from the piece that make me go hmmmmm.....

"In the factory model of education, teachers are interchangeable widgets who keep the educational assembly line moving. Teachers today are not paid based on their skill in the classroom or the difficulty of their teaching assignments."

"No area of the teaching profession is more plainly broken today than that of teacher evaluation and professional development...The truth is that students and teachers don't live in mythic Lake Wobegon, where everyone is above average. Yet we have an evaluation system that pretends otherwise. As a result, great teachers don't get recognized, don't get rewarded, and don't help their peers grow."

"It's not just the students who suffer....teachers have to live with the results of other people's bad teaching - the students who don't know anything."

Hmmmm.

Learning from Nothing

"That's just like Ms. Jamie. Making us learn something out of nothing."

- D, 1st period, Playwriting

And that's why I love my job. Despite what you may have heard, all the days off and the free health insurance isn't why I teach in one of New York's poorest neighborhoods. I mean all the mind-blowing bureaucracy is a sweet perk, but if you ask my why I do this, I'll give you a full-on Lean on Me answer.

I do it for the kids.

I do it for those micro moments when D puts pen to paper to brain.

I do it because making better readers and writers may be the most revolutionary act in the world.

I do it because students like D make me laugh. I do it because she did learn something today. Along with about 50 or so of her colleagues. And I only teach 4 classes. I do it because watching my students "learn from nothing" (otherwise called ENGAGEMENT) may be one of the greatest joys of teaching. I do it because MUSIC is an amazing teaching tool. Ice T, Johnny Cash, Ella Fitzgerald as explicit instruction. Yes. I do it because watching your "good ideas" manifest in front of you feels really freaking satisfying.

I do it because inciting a covert locavore revolution in my other English class is dangerously fun. (Today we debated advertisers' role in childhood obesity. And it's only Tuesday. Come on!)

A food revolution in Brownsville?

Hope.

I do it because I'm really, really tired and yet I felt the need to write this blog post. For catharsis. For posterity. So I can remember that funny thing that D said 8 hours ago. I do it because those comments ARE my day.