WEEKS THREE AND FOUR

At the Liberty Science Center, I pointed out a man wearing a yamulke to the group of 4 students that I chaperoned that day. Keyanna was in my group and she asked me the day before if I would bring my yamulke to class again and I let her wear one of them during the field trip. When I pointed out the boy and his father with small discs bobby-pinned to their head, Ibn called out, "Are you from Jewish?!"
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On Monday of the third week, Marla decided to have a pizza party for our homeroom class. We thought that we could use this to improve their behavior, by giving them points when they did something wrong, and the people with most points would not be allowed pizza. Marla, Eric and I have started spending more time with Gordon, one of the other teachers, and Gordon walked into the room as we were planning the pizza party.

"How're you doin,' Gordon?" Marla asked.
"Fat, Black and Blessed!" This is his usual answer and a fitting motto.

Gordon suggested that rather than punishing them when they do something wrong, we should reward those who do the right thing. After which, we explained to the kids that they would all have to reach 20 points or they would not be given any pizza. The change in theiry behavior was clear all week long. The idea made an impression on me, and I felt like I had learned something valuable about consequences.

On Friday of Week Two, I sat down with Omar, one of my problem students, while we were at Kids Camp and had a long conversation about why he acts so indignant whenever he doesn't get his way. He revealed that a teacher had slammed him on a desk when he was in 2nd Grade and he has had trouble with authority figures since that experience. At the time he was angry with Eric -- not a common occurrence as Omar clearly idolizes Eric and Eric has told me that he sees himself in Omar. During our conversation my brain was focused primarily on the bits of information I learned from orientation and my experience working at summer Camp. Get on his eye level - Let him speak - respect his opinion and his parents, etc. When we designated the Pizza Party Point system, Omar's behavior was completely different. The entire third week, Omar was one of our best students, and it reflected that fact that he had some of the highest test scores in class.

Discipline has been the hardest part of the job for me. This is not because I have trouble with how disciplining the kids feels, but rather because I feel like my consequences are either not enough, or too much. I felt like I was in an awkward position between Ms. Marla and Eric. Ms. Marla is the tough critic, the no-bullshit authority figure while Eric does their work with them, competes against them in class activities, etc. Since Eric and I are both Teacher's Assistants, I felt like I was ending up the bad cop to his good. I'm very fond of most of the kids and I know that they like me too, so I was reluctant to take on that role.

On Thursday of the third week, almost every student asked me if the pool at Kids Camp would be open. The pool was closed the first two weeks of school -- Week One, the water had not been cleaned -- Week Two, there was no water in the pool. I had heard different rumors all week that revealed the pool to be up and running. When we arrived at camp on Friday, the first piece of news from one of the camp directors was that the pool would once again be closed. She told us that the filter was broken. I learned 10 minutes later that there were no certified lifeguards among the staff. All of the kids hate going to Kids Camp because there are so many bugs, and generally they do the same thing every time they go. If I was a kid, I would probably hate it too, but the pool would be the redeeming feature of the whole situation. If I had known that the pool would be closed for the third week in a row, I would have told their parents to keep them at home. Eric and I gave up and left our group with the Camp counselor that we're encouraged to move around with all day.

We enjoyed a couched lounge in the main house with most of the other teacher's assistants. We found ourselves so bored that we were doing a capella sing-a-longs of "In the Jungle." I had become friendly with Tasha, one of the other teachers assistants, during the week. On Friday, when Eric told her that I smoked weed she was completely shocked. At the end of the day Eric, Tasha, Andy (another TA) and I made a plan to hang out in my backyard that evening. Everyone came over around 8 -- Andy brought a friend, I brought a friend and Tasha brought a friend. We had a great evening and decided to make sure to do it again as soon as we all could. The funniest story of the evening came from Tasha's classroom where the teacher, Ms. Carmen, is Puerto Rican, and the other TA, Ms. Anelle, is Dominican. Ms. Anelle thought it would be nice to do a short lesson on cultural diversity and used the idea that 'we're all immigrants' as a moral of the story. Meanwhile, Ms. Avonne, the principal who is very open about both sexuality and being a Black Nationalist, entered the room to observe the class. One of the students raised his hand and exclaims, "Ms. Avonne! We're all immigrants!"

"We are not immigrants! We never got the chance! We were kidnapped and brought here to work like dogs for no money! Our ancestors were slaughtered and..."

The kids erupted with laughter and noise and shouted back things like, "what is you talking about!? I was born in Newark!" or "No one in my family got kidnapped!" or "You crazy, Ms. Avonne!"

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On Monday of Week Four, we were scheduled to go on a field trip to the Weeqauhic Park sprinklers so the kids could do water fun stuff -- due the lack of a pool. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves, and it was a nice break from school. That was until our school bus was an hour late to retrieve our group. We finally got back 15 minutes after my time to leave for the day. I had not forgotten that our first field trip to the NJ Explorer's Museum in East Orange was cut an hour short by the same scheduling nonsense between Kids Corporation and the bus company. On Tuesday, we were scheduled to visit the Newark museum, but when I arrived at school Marla told me that our group had been kicked off of that trip due to a scheduling error. In a minor way, this was the straw that the camel's back. I turned on my Jewish complaining function and called the Kids Corp offices.

"I am waiting for you to protest, Jules!" Marla cackled, "You are a white, Jewish man! You can complain. If I complain they're gonna think, 'this bitch is lucky she got a damn job.'" Within a few hours of my phone call, we received news that we were accompanying another group to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, after lunch. During After-school, I was told that my class would be going to the African Art Museum in Tenafly. The same day my phone call paid off, the city of Newark asked me to pay up. When we got back from the Liberty Science Center, I found a $54 ticket on my car.

On Wednesday of this week, I came within inches of a brutal car accident on my way to work. As I was driving down Bloomfield Avenue, by the entrance to the Garden State Parkway, a woman with her children in the car pulled out of a gas station across the street and just barely missed hitting the section of my car just in front of the driver's seat. I got to school with no energy at all. By the end of the day, I felt like I was going through my worst week. Tuesday and Wednesday were extremely difficult in terms of my being awkwardly in between the styles of Marla and Eric. I spoke with Marla and she was very encouraging, but I woke up Thursday morning ready to take the day off. I was attempting to go back to sleep when I remembered that we were going to be doing a final draft of a paragraph they've been revising this week. I remembered, from the last time we did this, that they're final draft had to be so perfect that anything less than perfect would be crumpled up and thrown away immediately upon reading it. I felt like I had been sonned by the classroom, and this lesson plan felt like an opportunity to reverse that for myself. I tried to go back to sleep, until I had an idea about how to better attack the laziness factor and the problem with incomplete sentences. When I finally got out of bed, I got a text message from Marla saying that she would not be in today, and all of a sudden I had no choice in the matter, but I felt somehow ready and rejuvenated.

When I got to school I went straight to the classroom to give them a long assignment to do immediately when they entered the room. As soon as they were finished they had to begin their attempts at a final draft. Ibn finished on the first try, and used his time afterwards to write a story with the girl who finished hers next. I was proud to watch them enjoy writing so much, and he had actually written two full paragraphs while everyone else wrote as little as possible. The rest of the kids were seriously thrown by my attitude first thing in the morning. Normally I had been fairly laid back, but I was very clear about how much bullshit I was planning to allow. Omar was seriously upset with this, and he made that clear all day long. Our conversation from the second week had flown out the window and I had to find new ways to approach how oppositional he was being. Eric has a special talent as a leader and as a role model for these kids. They all look up to him and idolize him in a way that they will never feel with me for several reasons. I had to give up that idea and I had to commit to making sure that they learned something from me. I explained to Eric as soon as he got in this morning that I was taking a slightly different approach, and would need him to back me up. Often the trouble is that Omar will act up in front of me, and take solace with Eric who may or may not shower him with praise, or vice versa. After all, he is a smart kid. Omar and Nosa, two of the 4 boys in class, and the closest friends, can't help but compete for Eric's approval during his rehearsals of the step dance he has been working on with them for the last few weeks. Today I had to use that privilege against them, and was forced to watch them both carefully after they each separately caused trouble on the playground. As I watched Omar and Nosa threaten another boy, I called out, "first person to touch Desmond will be kicked out of the step dance!"

"Mind your business!" Omar squealed back.