Diary of a Rookie Teacher (Part II)

This post is the second installment of a new series that examines journal entries recorded by the author of Blocker's Blog, Mark Blocker, during his first year teaching for the Los Angeles Unified School District at now-defunct Henry Clay Middle School. These entries were written 12 years ago in 2001 and appear below with no editing or revisions. They are accompanied by his commentary written now after more than a decade planning and writing lessons, interacting with students from the mean streets of LA and the laborious-but-beautiful farms and ranches of California's central coast, and observing teachers and administrators with varying degrees of social and educational skills.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2001
I started using my textbook today (received and ordered them yesterday) and compared to generating handouts--it made life easy. Heck, it was like getting free money. I even had Dire Straights's "Money for Nothing," going on in my head after lunch. (Yeah? How long did that last?)
The story we're reading is "The Treasure of Lemon Brown." The teacher's edition contains wonderful exercises and insights.(Good God, I sound like a lobotomy patient.)
Even my discipline cases seemed interested. (Reading out of a real book was new to this class. Students enjoy a change of pace.) Several times I had to remind myself to back off and let them slouch at their desks and mutter among themselves once in a while. (Loosening the reins...can't read if you're uptight. Good.)
Yesterday, on the other hand, was awful. Rough drafts of first assignment letters were due. (I assigned them to write me a letter about themselves explaining their interests, goals in life, highlights of their past 12 years, etc. This helps a teacher learn more about the students. It "humanizes" them.) I wanted to work one-on-one with some students. While I did, four started shooting spitballs. (What were they doing, filming an episode of "Little Rascals"?) I went ballistic and made them pick them up with their bare hands. (Oh, tough guy, eh?) Young McKellar (a teacher who helped me quite a bit at first) happened by and gladly escorted them away. He made them write me letters of apologies. DeJuan and Marcus complied. (Marcus was a budding comedian--and likable. His charisma and sense of timing let him get away with a lot of shenanigans.) Lonnel didn't. (Lonnel was a sullen kid. I don't think I heard his voice all year. Never got anything out of him other than crumpled candy wrappers and balled up papers tossed on the floor--his idea of turning in an assignment.) Luciano was absent. (Don't remember that kid.) They are all good kids--just prone to mistakes when they push each other like lemmings. (The image of students running off a cliff is a little strong, here, rook.)

LOOKING BACK:
The 8th-grade English textbooks, (Prentice-Hall "Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes" Silver Level) were indeed a God-send. At that time, and for a year or so afterward, I taught the contents in the order in which they appeared in the book. Unfortunately, that meant I was not hitting all the required "power standards"--what the state wants the kids to know in order for them to score high on the mandated tests each year. Instead, I was concentrating on my favorite subject, literary interpretation, while ignoring other 8th-grade content standards such as identifying the traits of different genres of expository writing.
The spitball incident occurred in 5th period. That class soon captured my heart. Eigth-grade students will not listen to a teacher unless he is saying something of interest to a 12-13 year old. But, do they observe! When things are going well, I have a habit of reclining in my chair, fingers laced behind my head, elbows out, and a satisfied smile on my face. One day while the class was quietly writing down answers to a few questions in the book, I was thinking about how teaching wasn't so damned bad after all, and that the kids actually were better daily company than the many smug know-it-all adults in the newspaper biz. I guess I had assumed my favorite posture. When my mind returned to the present I gazed at the class and every single student was leaning back, fingers laced elbows out, smiling back at me. They were jokingly imitating their teacher. It was late September and we had already bonded into a class. They apparently liked me, and I knew I was falling in love with them. We were now ready to learn. Or at least I was. The kids, meanwhile, were going to do a lot of "testing"--of me. 

Diary of a Teacher's Rookie Year

NEW SERIES!

This post marks the start of a new series that examines journal entries recorded by the author of Blocker's Blog, Mark Blocker, during his first year teaching for the Los Angeles Unified School District at now-defunct Henry Clay Middle School. These entries were written 12 years ago in 2001 and appear below with no editing or revisions. They are accompanied by his commentary written now after more than a decade planning and writing lessons, interacting with students from the mean streets of LA and the laborious-but-beautiful farms and ranches of California's central coast, and observing teachers and administrators with varying degrees of social and educational skills.

Teacher shortage frees college grads from dull cubicles
This journal you're about to read was required by the LAUSD District Intern program which Blocker  entered at the ripe age of 43. At the time LAUSD had a terrible shortage of teachers, and it was offering a free, two-year program where "interns" were paid to teach while receiving free district classes at night, and some Saturdays, to earn credits toward a California single-subject or multi-subject credential. To qualify, potential teachers had to hold a BA in their subject or pass the California Single-Subject Aptitude Test SSAT (or MSAT for elementary school teachers.) These tests measure whether an applicant's knowledge of a subject is equal to that of someone holding a bachelor's degree.
In 2000, the state's teacher shortage was so severe that the LAUSD even offered classes to "pre-interns." These classes helped people with college credits--and a passing grade on the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST which all substitutes must pass)--gain enough knowledge to pass the SSAT or MSAT. It wasn't an easy route, but many brave individuals wanted to help society--and get a free ticket out of dead-end cubicle jobs.
After 20 years in publishing and the newspaper business, Blocker decided to try his hand at teaching. He had never done anything exceptionally brave in his life, except for entering some tough bars back in his 20s and maybe romancing a few estranged girlfriends of jilted bikers. Still alive despite his youthful follies, he was getting older and wanted to do something better than make rich people richer and poor people poorer. His last private sector job was running the "dummy room," or supervising a staff of four producing page templates for five editions comprising Ventura County's largest daily newspapers all owned by media behemoth Scripps-Howard. It sucked. Newspapers were being bought up and condensed by corporations utilizing new technology to automate many jobs. The days of walking into a building rumbling from an exciting, muckraking newsroom and a giant, independent printing press were limping to an electronic close. Blocker couldn't tell the difference between the paid ads and the news anymore. He was surrounded by yuppie blow and meth addicts; hypochondriacs faking Carpal Tunnel Syndrome; old alcoholics; hacking chain smokers; and fading cardiac patients. Their linking trait: they complained well.
So Blocker answered the call of the nation's second largest school district, LAUSD. Thanks to the amazing book, Understanding Poetry, by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren (Holt, Rinehart & Winston 1976) he passed the SSAT English on his first try despite not studying great literature for 20 years; instead writing bullshit about mobile home dealers, and frantically laying out newspaper pages past deadline.  In May 2001 Blocker moved his family from Ventura County down to LA. Soon all hell broke loose, professionally and personally.

Teacher shortage turns into teacher surplus
Twelve years later the dust has settled. Blocker's Blog previously published the downfall of Harry Mills, so you know how this LAUSD career collapsed when the teacher shortage turned into a surplus four years ago. The LAUSD and the state declared war on teachers and their organizations, so top LAUSD brass--answering to their contributors and benefactors in the burgeoning, well moneyed charter sector--began instructing administrative thugs to harass educators out of the industry and give right-wing media misinformation to hasten the impotence of a wilting United Teachers of Los Angeles.
Mark Twain said about numbers used for purposes of deliberately fooling the public: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." Today, asshole politicians and pundits often cite test scores and drop out rates while deliberately leaving out any context. Their quotes obfuscate the truth but feed the LA Times's and KFI's insatiable appetite to bash and defame the LAUSD teachers and their students. Rest assured, thousands of LAUSD teachers and students arrive at work every day making the best of a very challenging and often unfriendly situation for both groups. Today, Blocker regrets quitting LAUSD and wants back inside. Memories earned during 10 years in rooms 37, 2 and 11 at Clay Middle School run the gamut from elation to disappointment.
Lets look back now at Blocker's journal. It will be posted here in weekly installments with no editing whatsoever. Blocker's comments and thoughts,after reading it--for the first time in 12 years--appear in bold. Readers are encourage to share their comments.

WEEK ONE: SEPTEMBER 6, 2001
The first three days of teaching saw some interesting peaks and valleys. I believe I have good delivery and rapport with some students. I should have prepared more instructional handouts and decor for the room. (Uh oh: handouts and worksheets--funny money printed by a teacher to buy some time from students.) My 4th and 5th periods contain some potentially massive discipline problems that are forcing me to implement discipline procedures very rapidly. (No shit, huh?) It would be nice to have more guidance from administrators on resources/tools available for instruction: overheads, TV, consumable workbooks. (Those went to the teachers that knew where to find them.) It would be nice to have more cooperation from the kids, (Dreamer) but ironically, and sadly, that won't be the case (See students' job description, rookie.) All in all, the true test in the coming days will be how I can generate quality worksheets, handouts, quizzes and tests both economically and professionally. (You should engage and teach them an interesting concept or useful skill first before you start throwing paperwork and tests at everybody.) It looks like I need a secretary or a cat burglar to accomplish that goal. (You'll soon learn you're loaded with those.) Today the assistant principal visited 4th period after I mentioned the problem. She stayed for half the period then departed. Ten seconds later, the two antagonists started in--but not so bad. They were held reasonably in check the rest of the period.

LOOKING BACK TODAY: 
I remember those two kids. One shares first and last names with a famous comedian who once prided himself on intellectual humor, but now the chickenshit shill competes with Rush Limbaugh for the hearts and minds of xenophobes and sycophants.
Anyhow, this kid, Dennis, was funnier than the famous comedian despite my attempts to suppress him in class. By October, I knew Dennis had a gift that could never be measured in a standardized state test. I still vividly recall the time I was reading to the class Walter Dean Myers's short story, "The Treasure of Lemon Brown." The opening passage describing the setting and bleak tone has the main character, a mixed-up kid, climbing the stairwell of a ramshackle housing tenement. As I read this Dennis got on all fours atop his desk, and started pumping his pelvis up and down while making the sounds of a box-spring mattress coiling and recoiling. Simultaneously he cooed to his invisible lover "oooh, baby, heah it come mama, heah it come..." As vulgar as it was, Dennis was merely providing an appropriate sound effect--if Dean had written an R-rated movie.
I sent him to the back of the room and eventually recovered enough to resume reading. Within minutes Dennis arranged various boxes into a makeshift lunch counter. He had made signs, "Dennis's Wiener Dogs" on scratch paper and taped them to the boxes. He folded more paper into a chef's hat. Dennis was an entrepreneur ready to serve. There also may have been some double entendre on the menu or on his front sign. He turned his detention into a creative endeavor more fulfilling than listening to old man Blocker recite a hackneyed tome about a black kid who learns a wino has painful memories.
The bell rang and the kids left. I had learned a valuable lesson myself that period: These kids needed me like Ray Manzarek's bile duct needed cancer.

Harry Mills Takes His Last Load of Bullshit, Jumps Ship Out of Sinking District, Kids Bid Farewell (In Their Own Way)

The following story is the final installment of the 12-part fictional series depicting a teacher's final months with the Los Angeles Unified School District. It is written solely for the purpose of entertaining the reader. Characters depicted are not intended to represent any living or dead persons.

By Mark J. Blocker

October 7, 2011--a little more than four months after the Big City School District board voted to hand over Missouri Compromise Middle School to charter operator Bright Spot, displaced teacher Harry Mills was enduring his fifth summons within nine days to the drab office of his new principal, Wanda Sharperson, within the confines of grimy Darwin Middle School that excreted an API so low it made Missouri Compromise look like a think tank. Darwin MS is located so deep in the unforgiving urban core of Los Angeles that burly trash men routinely skip their routes and their supervisors forgive them.
Here, in the Beatrice-Burnwood section of the city students at 12 and 13 years of age are busy dutifully preparing for their impending initiations into the Mara Salvatrucha 13 or rival Crips, unfortunately blowing off earnest or indifferent instruction of rookie or burned out teachers. The ‘hood is loaded with contradictions and choices. Darwin is a microcosm of the surrounding environment, so is the former Missouri Compromise MS, as shocked educators for Bright Spot are beginning to learn at the campus now renamed Animus South MS.

Be that as it may, Mr. Harry Mills, two-weeks into his stint at Darwin MS sat across the scratched laminated-oak desk from Ms. Sharperson. Both held copies of his Mills’s Stull Performance Evaluation—a formal assessment of a teacher’s practices and professionalism.

There was no love in the room; nevertheless, Mills knew he was going to get fucked. First off, no teacher gets “Stulled” in October let alone just two weeks onto the job.  Stulls are usually done in December at the earliest. Sharperson made no secret of her disdain for 53-year-old Mills—a nine year veteran of the district and of the classroom, who left the publishing industry 10 years ago when the BCSD was urgently recruiting qualified professionals to teach in its crowded, under-performing and violent schools. Now there was a surplus of teachers, the State was broke, the BCDS was selling off schools to the highest bidder so Mills was out of a job.
He thought he hit the jackpot when the BCSD had sent him to posh Gibson MS in Green Tree Estates. But two weeks later they moved him again, this time to the district’s toilet—Darwin MS--and Principal Wanda Sharperson whose job it appeared was to snake out the sewer line. Congratulations, Mr. Mills, the BCSD has designated you a turd stopping up the drain of a school district with a nearly 50% dropout rate.
Perhaps Sharperson merely hated Mills because he was forced upon her. Harry didn’t know nor gave a shit. All he knew was that he vowed never to be intimidated by Sharperson’s glare, curt hellos or icy silence when they passed in the corridors. He just grinned and figured other pissants had it worse. Like the Black man who two years ago sued Sharperson for racial discrimination. That wouldn’t have been noteworthy if Sharperson wasn’t of African heritage herself. Adding to this indictment of the bitch’s abusive management style was that although the plaintiff lost the lawsuit one judge dissented.

But none of that would help Harry now as he sat reading the “unsatisfactory” notations in every area of his formal Stull Evaluation. This panning of Mills’s professionalism contrasted with six excellent Stulls he received from four principals who praised his work at Missouri Compromise. The only area in which Mills received “needs improvement” was attendance. It seems his absences were higher than average for district teachers. As Mills would quickly tell you, he didn’t mind teaching in a tough school with low performing students as long as one of the perks was a few extra Mondays on the golf course or cruising Pacific Coast Highway. Now it looked like Mills was going to be purchasing a one-way ticket north on PCH.

A piss-poor review

“Do you have any questions, sir?” Sharperson sneered, glaring at Harry from behind her gold-framed aviator lenses.

Mills looked up from his evaluation. She may have been turning into his archenemy, but damn, she was pleasant to look at. “What’s this note about security always having to come to my room to assist with controlling students?”

“They’ve been there five times in 10 days, Mr. Mills. That’s unacceptable. It shows you have no con . . .”

“I was calling during my conference period so they could escort truant students who were raising hell in the halls!”

“Oh . . . well, couldn’t you handle that yourself?”

“I didn’t know them. Didn’t know any of their names. And they just told me to ‘fuck off’.”

“How dare you use profanity in my office!”

“No! Ms. Sharperson, I’m quoting the students directly.”

Holding down her dog-eared yellow legal pad, Sharperson scribbled a note detailing the date and time of Harry’s profane outburst.

“What’s this about me, quote, demoralizing the students, unquote?”

“You told the students that the school doesn’t have any money for supplies and, I now quote your words—‘the whole place is going broke’. Mr. Mills, these are just children. You can’t scare them by . . .”

“I was simply explaining to them why they must take care of their textbooks--cover them, don’t tag or trash them--because the state doesn’t have money to replace them!”

“The children don’t need to hear that.”

“Yes, they do! We need to explain why there’s a limited amount of resources with which to finance their education, and we need to protect and value what we have.”

Sharperson sat frowning, shifting her eyes from left to right and back again. It was a movement to which Harry had grown accustomed. It meant she was thinking about what to say next.

“So, Mr. Mills, sir, you’re saying you control the purse strings around here? You decide what we buy and what we don’t buy?”

“Huh?” Harry stared incredulously, seeing her less as principal now and more of just another crazy bitch in over her head or angry about her lot in life getting kicked out of the fancy district headquarters, sent back down to the shit-hole ghetto to captain a sinking school that would be offered up for grabs to Bright Spot at the end of the year. Only Bright Spot didn’t want it. Nobody did. Sharperson tried to organize a group of faculty and administrators to write a charter proposal to independently operate the school, just as they did last year to no avail at Missouri Compromise, but no one who knew her wanted to work with Sharperson. Besides, the place is depressing. The teachers at Darwin are waiting for the next opportunity anywhere else--or for their retirement date.

“Well, then,” Harry continued, “how about this 'makes poor use of instructional time’?”

“While you were collecting homework, students were disengaged.”

“They know they’re supposed to copy down the day’s agenda and standard that we will be working on during the hour.”

“Not all students were doing that.”

“What they hell you want me to do?” he shrieked. Harry thought about adding, Beat them? but decided not. She would have written on her note pad that he advocates beating children.

“You can collect the homework at the door while students enter.”

“I’d rather the children were inside the room at their desks as soon as possible getting ready for the class.”

“They don’t look like they’re getting ready for anything in your class, Mr. Mills, other than maybe doing whatever they want or fighting—like young Mr. Jackson and Mr. Rodriguez yesterday.”

Harry countered, “You’ve already had four fights on this campus this morning. Are you going to blame those on me, too?”

“Well,” Sharperson sighed, “I see now we’re getting smart. I see no reason to continue this meeting. This is your Stull, sir, we have reviewed it, now please sign.

Mills thought about refusing. He took a deep breath, and wrote in a cursive comparable to his signature, Kiss My Ass. Then he slid the paper across the desk to Sharperson who inserted it into a large envelope—the kind they call “manila.”

The union schlep

Harry walked back to his room thinking about the Philippines. Maybe Europe. How about Mexico?

He quietly finished out the day. After the three o’ clock bell he went to the union representative to give her the Stull Evaluation and to see if she could help out. She shrugged, “Nobody likes her. Did you read about the lawsuit?”

“What lawsuit?”

“It’s on the internet. Google her name, it’s all there.” Then she turned her back and walked toward her car. That was all the union rep offered. He never even got her name. Mills only knew who she was because he recognized her red wig featuring thick, shoulder-length hair and bangs. Even from across the room during his first Darwin faculty meeting Harry was shocked at the contrast between the woman's sagging, aged face and the wig that looked like something a young pop star would wear on stage. Now, two weeks later standing in the corridor outside the women's faculty restroom, she said she would get back to him, but she never did. Harry wasn’t surprised, either. She was probably too tired to deal with it, or the situation slipped her mind by the time she got to her ’79 Cadillac with all the key scratches marring its fading turquoise finish.

He did appreciate her tip to Google Sharperson’s name. That evening he learned she and the district had been sued for racial discrimination by an African-American man who wanted to become a principal but was rejected by Sharperson during what he claimed was a pattern of “abuse and unwarranted reprimands and criticism.” The BCSD and Sharperson argued that the case could not be racial discrimination because Sharperson is black, too. The court agreed, but one judge did write a dissenting opinion, citing the hostility in Sharperson’s actions had exceeded the boundaries of her duties as a supervisor. Amazing, Harry thought.

He continued thinking about all that crap while calling in sick the next morning. And the morning after that.

Harry looked around his small condominium that he had bought four years ago. Located in the middle of Long Beach, the 800-square-foot place was now worth less than half of what he paid.

So he walked away from it as well as from the BCSD. Harry knew it was time to roll the dice just as he had 10 years earlier. It wasn’t his style to hang around where he wasn’t wanted. He’d find a job someplace else. The bad job market? Harry didn’t pay attention to unemployment statistics. He always said, statistics are for losers. This time he may be one of the losers. He wouldn’t know unless he took the gamble. His days at the BCSD and paying dues to its impotent teachers union were over.

Goodbye to all that

One week later after dropping off his classroom key to the front office, Harry was strolling up Payton Avenue toward his car. Harry paused in front of “Rodriguez Tramision” the garishly painted auto shop he liked to admire across the street from the doorway to his classroom. Before disappearing into the sunset, Harry wanted to say so long to his friend the old German Shepherd who everyday returned Harry’s gaze. Harry liked the way the old dog always followed the sun—even if it was only back up the driveway as the day wore on.

While Harry stooped and fondly scratched his pal under that water-rusty whiskered chin, a gaggle of kids broke out of the classroom and clambered onto the reinforced security fence that cordoned off the school.

His former students began to shout,“Hey! It’s Mr. Mills!” “Where have you been Mills?” “Hey, Mr. Mills, when you comin’ back? The sub sucks!” “Mills, you muthafuckaaaaaaaaahhh!”

Through the cacophony Harry heard the squeaking voice of a young lady feebly commanding, “Children! Get back in here right now!” The kids continued shouting. The loudest was Raye-Raye Jackson, “Ey Mills, getcho ass ovah here suckah!”

Rodriguez slid out from underneath a dented Aerostar, quizzically gazing up at Harry, before remarking, “Those kids, man, they’re craaazy!”

“Yeah, I used to be their teacher.”

“I know! I always see you over there. Why you no there now? They make you quit?”

“No not them--the loco principal. The kids are easy, they’re predictable. It’s adults you have to watch out for.”

“Man you got that right. But the kids are nuts too. In fact everybody around here is loco. When I make enough money I’m selling this place and going back to Mejico. You can have it!”

“I know, brother. Take care of yourself, Rodriguez. And take care of my friend here.”

“Oh yeah. Don’t worry about him. He’s been around for nine years, and he’s gonna be around for another 10 years.”

What a coincidence. Mills had been teaching nine years and wanted to give it another 10 before calling it a career. With that, Mills resumed his stroll up Payton listening to the chorus of students chanting “Mills! Mills! Mills! Mills!” as security guards rolling up in golf carts closed in from opposite ends of the corridor.

THE END

Need the rest of the story? Read the past 12 posts! Thank you for visiting Blocker's Blog.

Harry Mills will return this spring in "Goldfinger" or "Gold Coast Finger." Either way, Harry says, "I'll be back."

Principal Turns Up the Heat on Weary English Teacher While Across the Street a Dog Lies Down in the Sun

Weekly Vocabulary Words Spell Trouble As Do the Bare Walls of His Drab Classroom Inside Low-Performing, Demoralized School

The following is the 10^th installment of a series of “fictional” stories detailing the final days of a teacher’s employment within the Los Angeles Unified School District. The names of the characters and locales have been changed because when the series started, the author was still employed by the LAUSD and thought it wise to cover his ass in case somebody with power read this blog and decided to fire him despite what would, of course, be disapointingly futile intervention by his expensive union that is always too busy anyway resisting sensible change. Now, after resigning and enjoying gainful employment in another, highly functioning public school district 200 miles away, the author is considering naming names and identifying the fouled-up schools. Until then, enjoy the story which is written more to amuse the reader than promote a political agenda.

By Mark J. Blocker

So called “experts” in the field of contemporary education advocate doing away with weekly vocabulary words. Instead, they recommend teaching vocabulary solely within the context of what the students read. Meaning—no weekly vocabulary words pulled out of a teacher's ass. Teach words gleaned from the literature surveyed during the course.

Harry Mills, a nine-year veteran teacher and refugee from the publishing business only partly agrees. By all means, study selected words from reading materials, but also instruct students on how to identify patterns in words. Do this by employing a systematic, weekly vocabulary program stressing spelling and usage of words with common structure.

Some would agree

It was early in the 2009 academic year when Mills was sitting in the office of Ms. Moon, his principal at the now-defunct Missouri Compromise Middle School asking her permission to continue augmenting his curriculum with weekly vocabulary words—in addition to vocabulary from that year's literature.

She answered, “Although the (Big City School District) prefers you teach vocabulary in the context of literature, I’m not going to dissuade you from continuing your vocabulary program, Mr. Mills. It seems you’ve thought this over well and have planned out a rigorous course of study with high expectations for your students. It also adheres to California content standards for language arts in your grade level. So I’m fine with it.”
“Thank you, Ms. Moon.”

Getting up from her desk she smiled, “Besides, I had weekly vocabulary words as a child. So did you. And we turned out fairly literate and educated.”

Mills liked and respected his principal Ms. Moon. He admired the way she administered a tough urban school despite her diminutive stature and quiet demeanor. She was the opposite of Harry, who used his big size, loud voice and bombastic instructional style—and a lot of self deprecating humor—to disarm his ghetto born-and-bred students—plus the ESL children secreted across the border sometime during the not-too-distant past.

It was a shame the BCSD Board handed over Missouri Compromise to a private charter operator, despite the retiring superintendent’s recommendation that Ms. Moon and her faculty be awarded stewardship of the school.

A study later released by the University of California suggested schools operated independently by district staff outperformed charters. Furthering the insult, crooked charters were getting popped left and right for doctoring scores and giving students the answers to State standardized tests that measure a school's performance. Furthermore, members of the public and some staff were complaining about the School Board’s collusion with charter operators. The relationship was so fraught with illegalities that, after conferring with the teacher’s union, the new superintendent issued an edict declaring that proposals from current BCSD employees “should be strongly considered” before bids from private, for-profit charter school companies. To avert yet another lawsuit in an otherwise unending series, the Board agreed via a unanimous vote conducted out of the public eye. That's about as much consolation now to Mills as a low-tar cigarette and cure for cancer are to a cooling corpse.

Back in the principal’s office

So there he sat, now late September 2011, in the office of Wanda Sharperson, his new principal at his new, low-performng school--defending his vocabulary lessons once again. But this time it was to no avail.

“Please understand that I also teach vocabulary in the context of the literature," Mills pleaded. "It’s just that I believe students need a program where they are taught patterns of words. I start out with long and short vowel sounds, then cover singular versus plurals, then we go on to Greek and Latin roots and so forth,” Harry explained while Sharperson closed her eyes and shook her head side to side.

She bared her teeth. “You must teach vocabulary in the context of the literature, sir. It’s a mandate from the district. It’s a mandate from me.”

“But these kids need . . .”

“These kid,” she interrupted, “They are our students, our children, sir!”

Mills momentarily imagined he was married to Sharperson, and they were fruitfully multiplying, producing offspring. Little Mills-Sharpersons running around greater LA. She wasn’t bad looking, but God, was she turning out to be a bitch. Mills, now wizened in his mid 50s, chuckled to himself trying to calculate how many young dopes eventually end up with a similar mantra.

“Is there something amusing, sir?"

“No ma’am”

“Well, I don’t need you here dumbing down my curriculum and laughing about it,” she snarled.

Deployed to a dying school

Mills absorbed the reality of Sharperson’s hostility. He also contemplated the irony of dumbing down a school which the previous year had an even lower API than the school from which he came. Yep. The BCSD had displaced Mills from one abandoned sinking ship, Missouri Compromise, to another that was in the final year of “program improvement.” Only this one was so demoralized that the staff wasn’t even bothering to write a proposal to operate it. What’s worse, no private charter operator wanted it. And here was Sharperson, a raving lunatic of a captain, waving her verbal sword at Harry while he considered his options: 1) Kiss the bitch’s ass and suck up the shit; or 2) Roll the dice like he did 10 years ago at the shrinking newspaper and switch careers in mid-life.

Your room is ugly, too

Then Sharperson raised the ante higher. “And what about your room? You’ve been here two weeks now, and except for those posters your kids made the first day the walls are still bare! May I remind you, Mr. Mills, that State standards for the teaching profession require you to create a text-rich environment conducive to learning? A pleasant, culturally inclusive environment for your students.”

“I know, I know,” Mills stammered. “It’s just that I spent two weeks and over two hundred dollars of my own money at the start of this academic year to get my former classroom at Gibson prepared, and then I was abruptly transferred here.”

“I had nothing to do with that! You could’ve brought your materials along with you.”

“I suppose so, but it seemed a shame to rip apart the room after the children seemed to enjoy it. Those materials were geared toward 6^th graders anyway. I’m now teaching 7^th.” Harry thought about the 10 years worth of class decor and supplies he left behind at Missouri Compromise.

Mills assured Sharperson he'd set up the room, then he walked out of her office about as pissed as he had been in years. He placed his hand over his heart to check if it was pounding. It wasn’t. He slid his tongue over the top and bottom molars on his right side to see if they were grinded down to nubs. They weren’t.

Life beyond school

As he walked along the grimy, hock and gum-stained halls of Darwin MS toward his unprofessional classroom, Harry gazed though the 10-foot-tall, fortified-iron fence and across Payton Avenue toward the business across the street. There was the garishly painted “Rodriguez Tranmisones” in hand-rendered red letters across high-gloss blue enamel on cinderblock walls. Ol’ Rodriguez was there, legs sticking out from under a 32-year-old, root-beer-brown dented Toyota Corona. Lounging in the sun was Rodriguez’s German Shepherd who, despite his apparent freedom from chains and fences, seldom ventured far from the patch of sunlight that moved back down the driveway as the workday wore on.

Harry unlocked his classroom door. Despite the summer sun, the hall and room were cold and dark thanks to overgrown fichus trees planted years ago along the parkway and now lifting up chunks of sidewalk and street causing tires to loudly slap as they rolled over the ripples and cracks all day.

Harry turned back to the dog he nicknamed Sunshine. Miraculously their eyes met despite the ongoing traffic between them. The prostrate dog’s tail lazily lifted up then fell back down. He slowly gathered himself and sat up to look at the strange teacher across the street. It was almost like he wanted to come over. Then he lied back down again. Harry observed the dog's deep sigh, and took a nice deep breath himself.

There was about 20 more minutes until his first batch of students would arrive, so Mills went over to the Title 1 room to see if there were any available materials with which to decorate the room.

Ms. Jefferson, who reminded Harry of Red Fox's antagonistic sister in law on Sanford & Son, sternly stared back at Harry. She listened to Mills, frowned, and shook her head no. “You need to go to a teachers supply store. We don’t have anything like that.”

“OK, thanks.” Mills muttered before returning to his room. Back inside he sat down and surveyed the drab walls. Sharperson was right, the room is ugly. This whole school is ugly. My entire career is now fucked up and ugly as all hell, Mills fumed.

He shrugged, went back outside and gazed across the street back at Rodriguez and his decrepit cars and satisfied dog. Then the bell rang, and soon the students would arrive. They'd make Mills feel better. They were they reason why he got into this business in the first place.

First to arrive was Aaron Rodriguez, a big boy with a tousled mop of black hair who kind of reminded Mills of himself when he was a kid.

“Hey Rodriguez," Mills asked, "is that your dad’s shop over there across the street?”

“No. My Dad’s in jail, mister.”

“Oh, ho! His Daddy be locked up,”taunted Ray-Ray Jackson. Ray-Ray was the kid in the previous story with a fist full of Red Vine licorice who was the first student to introduce himself when Harry arrived at Darwin three weeks ago.

“Shut yo ass, Ray-Ray! Yo’ daddy a muthahfuckin dead nikka cuz he . . .” With that, the two lads tore at each other and commenced fighting like a pair of bucks trying to sharpen sprouting horns.

“Here we go,” Mills said while thrusting his arms between the two.

It was going to be a trying day at Darwin MS—where only the strong survive.