No longer from the White Mountains

I have moved to Portland, Oregon, a city where cats hold midnight conventions in the streets, music wafts from open windows, gardens overgrow, and everyone smiles in the sunshine. This lush city of creative spirits, arts, music, festivals, and outdoor adventure offers an abundance of social activities and career possibilities that the rez did not.

That said, I will miss my students, I will miss some of my coworkers, and I will miss the vast wilderness that I called my backyard: the bath (the arroyo with a few puddles where Choco and Coya would swim and where we befriended a great horned owl), the Nusphere (cliffs over the White River), Sweet Beach (that we'd scramble over rocks to relax at and skip stones), Headlight Point (where we'd sip bevvies and watch the sun set), and the White Mountains, where we camped, hiked, fished, and frolicked in the snow.

It'll always be in my heart.

Praise for Sherman Alexie

This quarter, my students and I read, studied, and discussed Sherman Alexie's first YA novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alexie is a Spokane Indian who writes about the experience of being a modern Native American. This novel covers a year in the life of Junior, a 14-year-old Spokane, who decides to leave the rez in pursuit of a better education and life.

While reading this novel, I never once heard, "Are we reading today? Dry! This book sucks!" Or, "This book is cheap!" Instead, I heard, "Are we reading today?! This is the best book ever written!" Or, "Ok, ok, let's just start reading!" For one of the first times, I felt on almost a daily basis like I (or Alexie, rather) was engaging each and every student. One girl told me that the novel inspires her, and that now she is extremely impatient to leave the rez. And that is the message of the novel: get the hell off the rez!

But I'd like to see some of my students come back after four or six years of traveling and education and serve as leaders in this community. I told them that their schools would never be great until they had well educated and passionate Apache leaders, administrators, and teachers. I pointed out that white people are only going to stay one or two or five years and then leave as soon as they knew what they were doing. But Apaches would stay, because this is their home. And if well qualified, they would put their vision into action and see through their plans.

That's one of the greatest failings here. Buildings are built and left empty. Materials are ordered and never used. Programs are started and left unfinished. Projects begin but never end. We don't stay long enough to finish. The idea, the vision, is only the first spark. It's bringing something to fruition, creating new realities, that is greatness.

Multiculturalism Banned?

This news today terrified me in a way that I haven't been terrified in a long time. Rep. Russell Pearce has created a bill to ban multicultural, anti-Western, anti-democratic teachings. It would also ban student organizations at state universities and community colleges from forming clubs based entirely or even in part on race. Bye-bye Native Americans United at NAU.

Does this mean I couldn't teach about Apache culture? Does this mean history teachers can't teach about communism, fascism, socialism, despotism? What does it mean?

The bill states: A primary purpose of public education is to inculcate values of American citizenship. Public tax dollars used in public schools should not be used to denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization.

Who's denigrating American culture? Defendants say this returns us to a melting pot mentality, and if you don't like it, go back to your country. Hahaha! Yeah, Native Americans, go home!!!

Top-ten list

For the sake of posterity, I have to record some of the most outrageous comments that my co-workers or I have received from students. Please note that these are vulgar.

10. "If you have babies they'll all look like Shrek because Mr. B. [the other Language Arts teacher] looks like Shrek."
9. "Bitch," "faggot," "queer guy," "racist."
8. "Hey, bitch, open the gate!"
7. Female student to me: "Suck my ass."
6. To Mr. B. or Mr. F. when standing near me, "Grab it!!!"
5. "Mr. F., you should hook up with Ms. L. You'd make a champ couple. Better hurry up, because I heard Ms. L's still a virgin."
4. "Hey, Ms. L., suck it."
3. Student to a male teacher: "I'm going to go home, get my dad's hunting rifle out, bring it back to school, and shoot you."
2. Student to a male teacher: "Hey, better hurry up and bone [Ms] L. before [Mr.] B. does."
1. Student to a male teacher: "My dick was in your wife's asshole last night."

Teacher Hits Student

A 7th grade student of mine was absent all last week, and on Monday, she returned to school with a scabbed over bruise under her left eye.

Last week, another student told me during class that a teacher had hit him. I took him out into the hallway, and he explained that she asked him to move in the cafeteria line. He cussed, and she slapped him on the back. She hit him so hard that he thought at first that it was one of his friends who'd smacked him. He couldn't believe it was a teacher, but he realized that his friends weren't standing close enough to have hit him. I have a good relationship with this kid and believe him, and besides, a substitute also witnessed (and heard) the hit. I told her that she had to report it to the principal.

As far as I know, she's been officially written up for it. There's a little piece of paper in her file saying that she manhandled a student. But the same day she was written up, she had the tenacity to ask if there were any openings in the district for principal! I told my student that if he has anyone at home whom he trusts, he should talk to him/her and have them come into the school and file a complaint. He responded well to this; hopefully, he doesn't get knocked around at home worse than he does at school.

And that's one of the main reasons I'm so appalled (This would be awful anywhere but here...). These kids are so often knocked around and/or neglected at home. They're poor. They come from broken homes, and they're shuffled around from mom to dad to auntie to grandma. They're parents are often drug/alcohol abusers. And to come to school, where the adults are supposed to lead them, guide them, teach them, help them, and have something like this happen--something that will only add to the racism and distrust in the community against the educational system--disgusts me. But this state and this country are so desperate for educational reform and for making teaching a more competitive and financially beneficial career, and until then, we'll keep these out-of-control teachers for as long as we can. And we'll hire inexperienced administrators who do not know how to lead and do not want to "create waves." After all, something is not a problem until it is a problem, right?

More...

In the past four days at school, we've had at least 4 fights (that we know of). I asked my 7th graders today if they felt safe here, and most of them said no, they did not. When asked where they felt the least safe, they said in the hallways, in the 8th grade wing.

They asked me why I came out to the rez, if I carry a gun, and if I feel safe living here. I don't carry a gun, and of late, I don't feel safe living here. Gang violence, rape, and drug dealing were such problems at the high-school basketball games that they had to move them to Saturday afternoons rather than Friday nights. Ambulences take forever (a few weeks ago, I called for ambulence here at school, reporting possible head injury, and the ambulence took close to half an hour to arrive. The hospital is only 10 miles away.). And if anything ever did happen to me, I would be powerless to prosecute or sue (especially because I'm considered a visitor here). We have a student who's abused by her father, but CPS is terrified of her father, a known yet free murderer. The police are corrupt and not interested in prosecuting. Is this cultural? Or is it just a matter of having the right last name? I'm not sure.

A Day in the Life

Yesterday was one of those head-shaking, questioning reality kind of days. It was an "and THEN" day. Here's what I mean by that:

The student who I kicked out of my class on Monday for telling a male teacher who I was talking to to "grab it" (referring, of course, to me) was back in my class on Tuesday. But now he's suspended for the 2nd time in 3 weeks.

After the fight in the courtyard during lunch on Monday (a fight that went on for about 3 minutes before being broken up), a mother of one of the girls' involved called and asked to speak to her daughter's social studies teacher. Mom hates Ms. T., because Ms. T. didn't put her little precious on the basketball team. A student aid put the call through to Ms. T, and mom starts chewing out Ms. T. over the phone, despite the teacher's protests that she was in the middle of class. Ms. T. finally says sharply, "I can't discuss this right now. I'm teaching," and hangs up on mom. And then, Mom shows up at the school to chew out our vice principal, angry that Ms. T. dared to hang up on her. Our V.P. says, "You had no right to call a teacher during class time. You need to make an appointment to speak to my people!"

And then, Mr. F. tries to line up his honors math class to go to the computer lab, and three of his 8th grade girls ran off down the hall, marker in hand, and tagged the computer lab door. Their class has been banned from using the computer lab. These girls are hoping to go on Friday's ski trip. Ha!

And then, about 6-7 kids were busted for ditching.

And then, of course, 26 kids were checked out of school yesterday and another 25 or so didn't show up because of the high-school girls' basketball playoff game. They won, which means that our school will be over half empty tomorrow. The games are in Flagstaff (3 hours away).

And then, there was an away boys' b-ball game for 7th and 8th grade, so the boys missed 6th and 7th hour yet again.

And then, the girl basketball teams were called out 5 minutes before the end of 6th hour (at 2:40) for games that started at 3:30 (7th) and 4:30 (8th). Why not wait until after 6th hour to dismiss 7th grade only? The 8th graders were sent back to their 7th hour classes, which caused additional confusion and disruption.

And then, over 50% of my 7th hour was absent because of basketball.

And then, after 15 minutes of class, I open my door to see one of my students sitting with another student right outside my door. I asked him why he was there and not inside, in class. He starts complaining about his ankle, and our V.P. walks by just then, so I tell him that we need a wheelchair brought down for the kid. The student goes to the nurse's office, complaining and refusing to take off his shoe because of the pain. His mother's called, and her response is, "Well, I don't get off of work until 5." The nurse presses, and mom agrees to come pick up her kid early and take him in for an X-ray. The dismissal bell rings, and the kid jumps out of the wheel chair and miraculously runs to the bus. We find him on the bus and try to get him off to go home with his mother who is on her way. He refuses.

And THEN, an hour later, the V.P. and I are standing in the school lobby during the 8th grade girls' game, when this woman with a baby in her arms and the look of generations of incest on her face, walks in, looking around, lost, confused, deer in headlights. We ask if we can help her (rather than her approaching us. I mean, we don't look like we work there at all being dressed professionally and --ahem--white. Very few Apaches work in the schools.) She says that she's looking for her brother who hurt his ankle and ran off. We literally had to explain to her 5 or 6 times that he was on a bus and left; we saw him on the bus; he got on the bus; he left the school on a bus. She finally gets it and leaves. (This family is a curiosity. Both mom and dad have jobs--that's something here where there's 75% unemployment--but that could just mean they have tribal connections and can't get fired. It doesn't mean that they actually do any work. Their son--and daughter from the looks of it--are special needs, but with a file dating back to early elementary school, they have always refused to have him labeled and get him the extra help he needs. So instead he ditches, almost gets in fist fights with teachers--yesterday at lunch--and fails classes.)

Oh, and also the men who were here to fix our boiler were smoking up in the ceiling while working, so our whole school (SCHOOL!) smelled of cigarettes. But what do they care?

And then I went home and went for a walk down to the river and enjoyed the desert sunset and moon and stars and vented and laughed and shook off the craziness of the day.

And then I fell asleep, completely exhausted, at 9 p.m.