The Blackboard Jungle

So I had my first day at the Lyon's School in Williamsburg yesterday. I can tell you folks that 90s minutes with five sixth graders never seemed this long. Aside from getting constantly dissed by the Dominican kid pretending that he couldn't speak English I endured pretzel fights, the bathroom break hoodwink, a trip to use computers students aren't allowed to use and a first-day exercise that went absolutely nowhere. But hey, at the end of the day three out five turned in their papers with something on them. So I guess that's a start. Today I'm just going to try and and run a game of Milton Bradley's LIFE for an hour and see how that goes.

Having working in the schools on and off for more than a decade certain things in this city absolutely kill me. How can you can you have three computers for an entire school (And those are in the office). There's no DVD player or TV on wheels. It's like as teacher you have to go in there and try to spin straw into gold. Of course a lot of it is about trust and knowing that these kids act out at school because they most likely get shit on at home. But as after-school teacher there's no detention, no threats to be made about grades. It's like you're a prison guard who can't even use a baton. Needless to say this is going to be a rough one. But I guess I'm ready.

And if the board games work I'm going to have to try and milk whatever other things the school has (They don't have a library either) for whatever I can get. And these kids want to go on field trips? You've got to be kidding. It was cool that one father works close by actually came up to the school and introduced him. He gave me his number and said to call with the quickness. It's good to see one cat doing his job. I wish everything wasn't a fight these days, but I keep telling myself that there will be times ahead that aren't so grizzly, that I'm struggling now to lay up later.

I voted today, as I always do. I don't know why I can't get into the Obama fervor the way so many of my friends are. Perhaps it's where I am on a lot of levels. Or perhaps it that I know him winning is one ship sunk with an entire fleet left to take on. I hate feeling like I'm ice-skating uphill. But when I am I try to live in my dreams, bury my nails into the closest thing to hold onto and close my eyes and hope I land on something soft. Back to the grind. Out.

P.S. As my site may be going down for maintenance for a few days soon, you might want to go to blogger and subscribe so that you can check me out even while it's not working. I'm also on Facebook and Myspace. Check the site daily anyway but any repairs should be complete by next Friday.