Ganesh's Trunk: maybe it's wisdom inside, or maybe it's snot.

Arne's speech

5 days ago
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I agree on the whole with most everything Duncan has to say. I remember saying a lot of those things several years ago during my Rotary interview. Teaching as a profession has been too long like working in a fast food joint-- a low-paying job that's easy to get, that too often turns the preparation of wholesome sustenance into a slipshod assembly-line process...and more times than not ends up with too many of the people one would least want handling something important doing exactly that.

The phasing out of the baby-boomers is not an added difficulty to the state of education; it is an opportunity, an opportunity to make the changes to the other problems Duncan addresses and have, not just a new generation of teachers, but a new evolution of teachers take the reigns.

Like warrior-monks.

I'd like to see a new wave of teachers who do more than teach to tests and who rely more on trenched experience than empty research. It is a perfect time to revamp our schools of education, which I must admit I have always thought were Mickey Mouse courses. It would be nice to see a change of emphasis from a minimum of subject area classes and too many less-than-valuable education courses to a system that requires a great deal of core subject-work and supplements that in-depth knowledge with a greater hands-on apprenticeship.

The only thing I particularly disagreed with was Duncan's over-reliance on number-crunching. If we set out to raise the bar for teachers, I don't think we will need as much data to ensure good education. The type of teachers who would meet the new criteria and pass through the improved coursework should have the aptitude to discern skill diagnostics, lesson effectiveness, effectivness of differentiation without converting all this first-hand knowledge to numbers then to charts and then back to hands-on work again. If we are truly expecting to work towards having a better grade of teachers, then we should expect these teacher to be adept at what is at heart a very organic, personal, moment-critical job. A sharp eye, good understanding, and a GRADEBOOK should be enough for the type of teachers we are aiming to make. Measuring a teacher's effectiveness from the admin's point of view should be easily accomplished with results on periodic communal tests. As is, at least from my admittedly VERY limited experience, the amount of data-collection, organization, and bureaucratic paperwork I am required to do tends to stifle rather than aid my efforts.

Home and the like (and musings on Pete's speech)

7 days ago
4 comments

I, as per usual, went home this weekend.

Though I rarely do anything but sleep when I get there, I can't say how much this postage stamp of two-hours-away-nowhere means to me. Just a hot bath from my native tub wakes up something inside, and in a few minutes that something swells to the surface, coming oh so closely to breaking down the surly grimace y'all have all come to not hate (to my surprise).

Add to that a trip to the creek to find some fossils, and a chance to talk to Tommy Bonds, however briefly, and all is right with my very small world.

I am Antaeus.

It was not all gold this week: The sieving trip yielded few sharks' teeth, and alongside that disappointment, almost too metaphorically, came a leech upon my heel. This leech I removed, jarred, and am now keeping alive via finger-pricked blood droplets...

Yeah, I know. It's a strange, unfathomable act, voluntarily feeding my life-force to this vile, unthinking mass, guided only by bloodlust and base instincts.

And, yeah, I know that you know where I'm going with that last line...

A month ago, I was deep in disgust and thinking of my relationship with my students on equal terms. It was a rough week. I talked to myself a lot, and I drank a lot of whisky and pepper.

Things improved, as they were bound to, of course--and I am happy with what I do, and I love my students...I've even grown love for some kids who aren't even mine, though they come hang around in my room and promise to fire on me. I'm talking about Killa Nick. But I still wonder from time to time what led me here, what led me to do what I have pretty unequivocally stated I will continue to do til the day I die (Bondses dont really retire, so much as keel over at work). It was harder to answer this question to myself as I talked with my dad.

My dad is getting older and I can see some of the joy shifting away from his work. He runs his own business and has to deal with some hairy people. He told me this story:

He did a septic tank job a year ago. The man couldn't pay for the work, so my dad allowed him to pay the thousand out over eight months of installments. When the last check finally arrived, Deddy noticed it was fifty dollars over and called the man to see if it was an intentional mistake. "No," the man said, "the wife wrote the last check, and she miscounted." My dad said he'd get the fifty to him as soon as he had a chance. Within a week's time, the man (and then his wife) called my dad four times to wonder why the money hadn't come yet. Eight months of patience on one man's part didn't add up to a week of the other's. The money was hand-delivered in short order.

It reminded me of an earlier job I had worked. Sod-laying. At the time, we did sod-laying at an hourly rate. I, one morning, felt the power of a good breakfast of Fruity Pebbles and laid thirteen pallets of sod in about seven hours time. You probably don't know much about laying sod, but that's a rate that is pretty demi-godly for a man on his lonesome. Working fast only worked against me, as it was less pay I would receive...and it was even more a foot-shot since most other folks charged sod-laying by the pallet at fifty dollars a pallet. I did what should've been a 1300 dollar job for just over 800. The woman was very appreciative of my hardwork at the end of the day. She helped me load the pallets into the back of my pick-up, thanking me all the while.

Two days later, after the pallets were brought back and thrown on a brush-pile to burn as trash; she called. Pallets, she learned, were redeemable at the sod-farm for five dollars a pallet.

We, it seemed, had cheated her out of sixty-five dollars. She was very disheartened and disbelieving, after thinking she'd found honest people who seemed to work so hard, that we would do something so horrible. This was at ten pm.

My dad hung up the phone, put his boots on, and delivered the pallets to her yard in an hour's time.

These two anecdotes are tangents to you, maybe; but, no, they're not. The time I spent working for my dad, I found solace in being on a machine or working with the ground. I was, as I am, Antaeus. It was an artform that transcended trade. It was a chance at mastery, to take a rake, shovel, then a back-hoe and a bull-dozer and make them as graceful self-extensions as a paintbrush or a foil.

I still picture in my mind what I consider to be a moment of zen, a shared nirvana, a moment two souls reached out of flesh and through a network of gears and levers and still became one--

the day I watched my dad and his high school buddy work on dozers together.

They brought massive, seemingly unwieldy machines together, blade to blade within a fraction of an inch to share loads of dirt that would've been too much for either separately. The moved like ballet-dancers, saying nothing, relying on little more than eye-brow signals and the type of intuition that comes from knowing each other, knowing one's own machine, and knowing together exactly the one right way the thing should be done.

I aspired to reach this zenith.

I loved my machine.

I loved construction.

The only part I didn't like was working for the public.

Dumbasses.

So naturally... now I have a career in the public schools.

Why?

It's a shrug really.

Well, no, it's not.

And I reiterate a heart-to-heart shared with Trevor.

The simple truth is that I have always looked for some way to justify the breaths I take. A man can live either for hedonism or for service. Long ago, I learned I was too moralistic for hedonism--and even when my morals would falter, my virtue was caught by a net of being kinda ugly and not much fun to be around. Hedonism was not the way I'd make my life. Service was what was left. Determined all my life to do something of import, some kinda good, I've been all over, and I've yet to prove to myself that my life alone is a difference to anyone else. My hope in teaching is that I will finally see in myself this difference being made. It is more than a hope, maybe. Maybe too much more than a hope.

What I saw with Pete's speech was a presentation of my thoughts displayed more humorously than I'd ever be able to phrase them. The speech was good. But there was more to the speech than the one man talking. I think the positive interaction of all present to this speech (apart, but still an accomplishment of Pete) served to do more than the words alone could. There was present an entire community. Some felt the difference they made. Some questioned it. And yet, all were convivial and content. This was a hot tub of water.

Seeing this video, and listening to the restated accomplishments of those present stirred me. I am trying to do more. I want to do a lot for my students. I want to reach that level of accomplishment, not for the attention, but to fall blade to blade with that Winters quote. I want my kids to remember me. I want kids like Killa Nick to remember me. I want to do for my kids all that is possible...and I want to do for them all that goes beyond--even--and most especially for the horrible students. I want to bleed for the slug.

Tonight, though I have been fairly happy with my work, I want to do more. I will stay up late tonight. I will write out my worksheets. I will write out my essay and questions based on "a person's choice to be a leech". And I will wonder how I can work harder to be the type of teacher that earns his place in the memories of his students. I will muse on projects to come, decide a definite time to start debate team and build of it a winning team. And, I will hope to hell this fervor lasts into the morrow.

My Success Story

Oct 31, 2009
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I wish I had one amazing success that really stood out. Sadly, having thought about this impending blog for a long time, I still haven't come up with one of these. I do, though, have a series of smaller successes. Among the top of these is the mix of opinions that has grown around me among the children of my school: "mane, he makes us work--all we ever do is work up in here" juxtaposed against "you're my favorite teacher". I've managed, though not perfectly, to create an atmosphere that is both rigorous and lax--hardworking and yet without the aspects of "professionality" that I believe are less appealing. I let my kids peak their minds, even if negatively about me, I laugh, and I play...and we friggin work.

I have several students that I didn't figure I'd get along with based off of our first interactions. One of these, a girl who in the third week cried because she wanted to get out of my class and found she couldn't: "that man--he don't care about me--I told him I couldn't work 'cause I had a headache and just said 'it don't matter'"... now I can joke with this girl. She tries to cheat often in my class...but I catch her at it...and I deal with this in a congenial way. Another student, K, though he was immediately one of my favorite students and one of my students with the most promise, he was one who squandered his talents (in drawing, dancing, rap, sports, and what I imagine to be EVERYTHING else) and slept through class. He kept up an aloof gangsta mentality that was supported by his best [worst' friend], who was also in my class. I didn't know exactly how to get on K's good side. A couple days ago, K was eating a peppermint in my class and accidentally got it lodged in his throat. I waited to see if he was actually choking, then applied the heimlich when it was evident that he was. Since then, he has improved his work ethic in my class by 300%. The third of theses student is that same best/worst friend of K. Dc for the longest time came to my class with no other purpose than to be a badass... insubordination, refusal to work, threats, both veiled and open....I can't even explain what has caused Dc's progression from this state, yet now, though he is still rough around the edges, don't get me wrong, he is not a model student by any means, he is civil, shows up on time, and he completes his work.

All this success, meagre though it may be, still stands mitigated by an equal amount of failure. I am happy though in what I have done--not content enough to hold steady I feel my students are really learning. I feel that ALL of them are learning. And this is a very good thing.

Does Homework Work?

Oct 22, 2009
4 comments

On the whole, no, I don't think so.

If homework helps, it simply polishes those who already have a good standing with the material. In most cases, those who do not understand the material as well--those who need the most help--will give up in the middle of doing their homework. And if these students who have the furthest to go with understanding their assignments COULD improve their comprehension with homework, the bigger question would be "Why do we need the teachers then?"

Hazing

Oct 22, 2009
2 comments

You can't have communitas without first experiencing liminality. Go read some Victor Tuner.

Hazing is a fact of life, and in many regards it is a necessary human institution. We build such rites of passage into all our institutions. Though, for these highschoolers, puberty should be enough of a shared hell to need not some contived support as a "slut list", I can't say that I find the problem to be that serious.

Any institution of liminality will seem vulgar, violent, or demeaning from the outside perspective. To some on the inside of this system i may even seem as a such-- but those who are unable to mentally cope with such things are in my view mored flawed than those who are behind the "bullying".

The fact that some girls are disappointed if they are NOT on the 'slut list' is enough to tell me that some of the students and a majority of the parents at this particular school are over-reacting. If the more insightful students have realized that the hazing was a selective process--one that seeks not to further infringe the unpopular but instead to put the most socially favored of the freshman girls through an experience that they would normally not have--then who are we to find the system that abhorrent.

There are some things we should remain ignorant of.

Hazing

Oct 22, 2009
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You can't have communitas without first experiencing liminality. Go read some Victor Tuner.

Hazing is a fact of life, and in many regards it is a necessary human institution. We build such rites of passage into all our institutions. Though, for these highschoolers, puberty should be enough of a shared hell to need not some contived support as a "slut list", I can't say that I find the problem to be that serious.

Any institution of liminality will seem vulgar, violent, or demeaning from the outside perspective. To some on the inside of this system i may even seem as a such-- but those who are unable to mentally cope with such things are in my view mored flawed than those who are behind the "bullying".

The fact that some girls are disappointed if they are NOT on the 'slut list' is enough to tell me that some of the students and a majority of the parents at this particular school are over-reacting. If the more insightful students have realized that the hazing was a selective process--one that seeks not to further infringe the unpopular but instead to put the most socially favored of the freshman girls through an experience that they would normally not have--then who are we to find the system that abhorrent.

There are some things we should remain ignorant of.

I had to euthanize Loreli today.

Oct 18, 2009
2 comments

it was kinda sad.

The three week apotheosis. It approaches.

Aug 31, 2009
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I recently implemented a three week plan to better my organizations skills and harness my creativity in the classroom.

The results have already proven explosive, the data trend points to only one possible outcome, and the process, now begun, seems irreversible...

Upon my personal realization, I've given my North Panola MTC colleagues notice, and it's only fair I give y'all the same:

In three weeks time, at the current rate of personal growth, I expect a golden transformation. A glowing apotheosis. I, Brent Bonds, will have become a teaching god.

Already, tremors today were felt as far away as Hacks Cross. There were some injuries sustained in Coffeeville.

Early reports attributed the dangerous rumblings to sudden activity of the Meeman-Shelby fault, but it was later confirmed the seismic waves were indeed only the transmutations of the sheer awesomeness of my third-block lesson on antecedents. The injuries occurred just after I moved into Compensatory Reading, focusing on summaries.

The wheels are set in motion. There's nothing to be done.

There are things you should do to prepare and protect yourself:

Shield your eyes.
It would be folly to turn a corner and risk seeing me with your bare mortal eyes, due to the blinding white glow of my educational genius. If you have dark sunglasses, I recommend you keep them on your person at all times. Stowing a welding mask in a duffle-bag may prove an invaluable precaution.

High SPF sunblock and lead-lined clothing would not be a bad idea, either. Remember the value of a refrigerator. It may save your life.

Protect your ego.
It is only natural that you feel a little inadequate in my presence. Fear not, little ones. I beg you to try and see me still as only a man, laughable as though this may seem. I ask for your own sakes that you don't try to hold yourself to my standard. You are only human. Remember this.

Go on with life as usual.
Don't feel you have to change. McDowell, you may still bump fists with me. Francis, you should still feel completely comfortable disagreeing with absolutely everything I say. Heinz, you may feel free to continue to challenge me to Scrabble games. I will continue to let you win, as always, keeping your sense of confidence foremost in my mind.