April 12, 2013
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The Daily News
1 It’s FRIDEEEEEEE!!!2
Yesterday I enjoyed Thursday like you won’t believe.3 I decided again to enjoy writing the DN during the early afternoon.
4 What I ran into was the same goofy stuff that has been happening everywhere online lately.5 I found once again that I have to change from one place to the other in order to keep all the fonts consistent, the pictures working, and the internet being what they affectionately call user friendly.6 I had a bazillion other things to do, but found myself going from one place to the other in order to keep all of this stuff working.7 Mozilla suddenly couldn’t keep the fonts the way I wanted them, for example.8 I thought about trying out my new laptop but quite boldly blew off that pitch.9 I did a reverse, mixed a metaphor, and then I went to Chrome, which has clearly declared itself the reigning queen of all things digital.10 <basketball buzzer>11 Hey Chrome, you are dealing with a pretty cynical fellow over here.12 I’ll use you, but don’t you ever think that you are going to rule everything.13 The only thing I can give you right now is that you seem to be cooperating in the late afternoon of a Thursday gone wonky.14 And a wonky Thursday it was.15 Moving on, Part One: I recently purchased this hat that is the best hat ever. It’s the one that is just above the DN logo.16 It is called The Bogart and it has so much 30′s gangsta that I even scare myself sometimes when I wear it.17 It is dead-on a hat from the thirties.18 The bell rang ending our school day yesterday. I gathered all the ridiculous stuff I need to grade by Wednesday, put it in a large canvas bag that was given to us earlier in the year by the union, and walked outside to get to the parking lot. I looked irresistibly like an impeccable 30′s thug. Even my nails were cured. I had the look, that’s for sure.19 The second I hit the sun, I saw all sorts of students standing around.20 More than usual.21 From my experiences at YB, I knew that something was up, and that it wasn’t good. There were three times the amount of students milling about, and there was a slow-motion silence that was eerie. Lots of serious faces and lots of cell phones out.22 Not good signs.23 As a teacher who has been there, I smelled trouble.24 Serious looks, like something was about to go down.25 I had my Bogart on. I walked into the middle of the entire gathering, stopped and said nothing. I was the only authority figure around.26 I then held my canvas bag with all my school work out laterally. It must have weighed a bazillion pounds.27 The crowd stopped. They silenced. I was the only adult there. Yet they all looked scared. I remained poker faced.28 With the heavy bag held out laterally, I opened my fingers and dropped the entire bag to the ground. It crashed to the Earth and made a statement. Everybody became silent. I didn’t move. I became gangsta.29 My eyes moved, left and then right. Every move was deliberate. I’ve played in this movie before.30 I paused.32 Then I said, “You need to leave. School is over.”33 A lot of the students walked away immediately.34 I looked down.35 I looked up.36 I then said, “Maybe you didn’t hear me. School is out. You need to leave. Now.”37 A bunch more gathered their stuff and left. The tougher ones tried calling my bluff. They knew it wasn’t a bluff though. They became sheepish and then they drifted off. I’ve done this sort of thing more times than I wish.38 I then walked back into my building, walked into the room of the nearest teacher, and said, “There is a crowd out there, and they know something is happening. Call the office and get security and the police here now.”39 The teacher did this. Within seconds, golf carts with campus security and the San Jose police arrived on the scene.40 Whatever was going to happen didn’t.
41 They all left slowly going in different directions. Within seconds, everything looked normal again. Birds sang. The sun shone. Kids started talking about homework. Things got reasonably back to normal, and I felt good about driving home.42 Those are scary moments. Two days ago there was screaming going on in my building. I thought it was drama kids, who practice in that building often, and who had a show that day. I found out later that there was some sort of fight, but I didn’t get much info about it.
43 The trouble with fights is retaliation.
44 And factions.
45 Today is Friday. Anything can happen today as well. My advice to the safety people is going to be to turn on all the sprinklers at 3 p.m. and then set off all the fire alarms. There should be a presence, and a sense that they have to leave campus.
46 I also think that the school is going to need publicly to address the dangers of fighting and violence beginning at a school that just three weeks ago prided itself in the students’ feeling safe. That was one of our good points, according to the WASC committee, the committee that observes and accredits California schools. We scored really high in the fact that the students at our school feel safe.
47 We didn’t yesterday, I’ll tell you that much. First time since I’ve been there. It didn’t feel safe at all.
48 I’ve been through violent eras. No bueno.
49 This is the first time I’ve seen anything that huge gathering on our campus. I’m lucky that I have the respect of many students, because that could have been a very bad scene.
50 Today I will address it in all my classes. I will put it into the grapevine that we are a school that is proud of feeling safe, and that a lot of people I saw out there were my own students. The need for drama or proving something should not turn our school into an unsafe place, and that needs to be stressed, and stressed by a person up to whom the students look.
51 Up to whom. Go figure.
52 Hey. This stuff is public. I am allowed by law to speak correctly. I don’t want anyone calling a corrections officer on me now. <you may groan.>
53 Just trying to lighten this up a little. I just have one shot in the morning to get this stuff right.
54 Wish me luck. Wish my school luck.
55 I gottago. Just thought I’d share another day in the life of a teacher. I’m okay. I think we’ll all be okay. I have faith in my school. It’s a good place, and I love working there. I just didn’t yesterday. And I just thought I’d share.
56 You have a GREAT weekend.
57 See you again.
58 Peace, and I mean that.
~H~
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