All of us.

Today is a special day.

Today is Martin Luther King Day.

Ok… so what does that mean?

The sad part is a lot of my kids new that Dr. King was a black man who was killed a while ago and that all the other kids didn’t go to school today….and that was about it.

I informed them that Dr. King continues to be an important influence in our society because his influence helped all people, more specifically the black community, gain further acceptance in our society.

Right now I am watching a documentary about a special education teacher named Elaine Hall who created The Miracle Project. Ms. Hall gathered 5 children with autism and their families and over a 6 month period, developed a musical performance. It is called Autism: The Musical.

I would HIGHLY recommend watching it.

I think the most important thing to remember about today is that we are ALL people.
All of us. Everyone. White people. Black people. Brown people. People with blue eyes. People with black hair. People with kinky hair. People with no hair. People with no legs. People from Alaska. People from Germany. People with Muscular Dystrophy. People with Autism. People who use wheelchairs. People with Bipolar Disorder. People who are homeless. People who are atheists. People who are Jewish. People who are lawyers. People who are waitresses. People who wear glasses.
ALL of us.

The World Is Yours

As you may have noticed from my entry titles, I am still obsessed with Nas. 

Yesterday was an interesting experience for me.  Yesterday was an extremely chaotic day at our facility and I am honestly very grateful that I did not have to go to grad school last night or I likely would have crashed the car from exhaustion on the way there.  I am not exaggerating when I tell you that literally every 6 to 8 minutes ALL DAY yesterday there was a call over the radio for staff assistance in one classroom or another. 

The kids had one hell of a day.

Last night I stayed after to make sure I was getting all my grading done.  I had a question about one students handwriting so I hesitantly walked back to the unit to ask him.  I didn’t hear any major conflict so I proceeded through the locked doors.

I walked in to find the 2nd shift staff leading a discussion about how they can behave better in school.  In 1 day, one of the male units of 16 students had racked up 35 consequence forms.  That is… pretty major. 

Anyway, I walked in and asked my question.  Just as I turned to leave, the nurse said “Hey, Miss Marie, you should be here for this, we are brainstorming on why we misbehave in school so much, you should speak.” 

I was very flattered and at first I didn’t know what to say.  I don’t know where my speech came from, but looking back on it, I don’t know how I did it.

“Raise your hand if you have never been to the principal’s office.” I challenged them.  Not a single one of them raised his hand.  “Notice how I, too, did not raise my hand.”  Some of them looked puzzled.  Perhaps they see me as someone far away from their reality and so old that I can’t remember my own childhood.  “I went to the principal’s office, too.  While I was in there I realized that that wasn’t the place I needed to be if I wanted to get ahead.”  You could have heard a pin drop.  “All the staff is here to help you.  I work here because I want to help you.  That is my job.  All I am asking you to do is accept my help.  Come to class and do your work.  You know the difference between right and wrong…”

A lot of their attitudes changed today as they came into class as loudly as they normally do.  But this time when their eyes met my firm glance, “I’m sorry, Miss,” some said.  Not all was perfectly fixed, nor was I naive enough to assume it would be, but there was certainly a change in some of the young men.

Ironically, one of the young men from the other male unit had to be arrested today.  During his meeting, the group of employees in charge of his case told the young man that he would be staying at our facility longer because he needs more time to progress to the point where it would be safe to discharge him.  At this point, the young man destroyed a chair, broke the magnetic locking door, and punched a window, breaking it.  Because he had been making threats that he would do this, and this was not his first time destroying our property, the administration decided to have him arrested.

I really hope that this is a turning point for this young man, but deep in my heart I feel he may not turn around.  This scares me.  I see the good person in him.  I see the academic curiosity, I see the inquisitive nature.  It may often hide, but it is there.  All that’s left to do is hope that he decides to make better choices from now on and know that each day all anyone can do, myself included, is try as hard as possible.  Do not give up. Ever.

State of Mind

My head is spinning.  For sure.

Here I come, there I go.

I feel like I am always on the go.

At least I really enjoy my job.  I absolutely adore my job.  I teach reading at an inpatient psychiatric facility to children that have some pretty serious mental problems.  Some of my students have bipolar disorder, some of them have schizophrenia, many are victims of physical and sexual abuse, most do not know their birth parents.  Some, even, are sex abusers themselves. 

When I stop to think about what I have read in their files, it makes me cry.  It’s so odd though, I read a file, then the kid walks into my class.  “*That* kid?” I think.  In all the numbers and calculations and diagnoses and paperwork and admitting and discharging and transport and drama people seem to forget… they are children.

Memory Lane

Today, like other days this week, was mostly a complete blur.  My head feels like the size of at watermelon and I feel like I am in slow motion.

I rearranged my classroom today, or rather what small amount of furniture I have, listening to Nas (big shocker.)  I really like Illmatic and Stillmatic a whole lot.  I still lack desks, chairs, a computer, a telephone, a whiteboard, a TV, a DVD player, and a camera.  All classes have to be recorded on video for security due to the nature of our program.  They have until Monday to get a camera put in…

In response to my friend Wes’ comment on my last entry, I think you’re right.  Nas’ new stuff isn’t good, it’s amazing.  I mean seriously.  What new *mainstream* rapper is saying anything intelligent, meaningful, or significant these days?  Shit, what mainstream rapper is saying anything other than a slight variation of “I want to fuck this bitch” or “I have a cubic fuckton of money, mang.”  If you know of anyone, I’d love to hear them. Seriously.

I could not agree more with the point Nas makes in the song “Hip Hop is Dead.”  As far as I am concerned, Nas helped reinvent the original point of hip-hop: a cathartic, raw, rhythmic way to express real feelings; not the new “snapping” of synthesized, meaningless, passionless shlack.  Like anyone still listens to Dem Franchise Boys.  Like anyone will give a crap about Soulja Boy in 2 years.  Rappers like the members of NWA, Tupac Shakur, Nas, Jay-Z, Eminem, Outkast, and Kanye West are *REAL* rappers and that is why they have and will continue to endure as rap icons.  They create funky rhythmic beats and lyrics WORTH buying and hearing over and over.  These men have creative talent and usually something to say aside from “She got a donk” or “Imma superman dat hoe.” 
This of course is not to say that none of the aforementioned rappers have never had a song or a lyric dedicated to the more materialist things, but that they have illustrated in many other songs that they have skills past repetative synthesized drudgery.  As Kanye says in “Breathe In, Breathe Out,” a song he made with Ludacris, “I always said if I rapped, I’d say something significant, but now I’m rappin’ about money, hoes, and rims again.”

The point, however, still remains that the best, most meaningful rap that has become “classic” are by and large passionate songs that tell of a personal struggle. Songs like Tupac’s “Changes,” Jay-Z’s “December 4th,” Outkast’s “West Savannah,” Kanye West’s “Home,” Eminem’s “Cleanin’ Out My Closet,” and so forth are all very personal songs that have more to say than “crank that robocop.”

I am curious to hear other opinions on this matter.

Why *does* J call himself Hova?

Got Yourself A Job

Thoughts from today…

1) I am still obsessed with Nas.  I love Nas.  He’s just about all I can listen to.

2) I really like my job.  My first day was interesting and… pleasurably overwhelming.

3) What do you do when you really love so much about someone and you know that that person would be there in an emergency but you just don’t feel you are getting appreciated the way you should?

4) I love animals!  Oreo is the strangest little dog.  He really does look like a baby deer, a cat, and a dog all at the same time.  I know that sounds hideous, but he’s really cute, I swear.

5) The medical system in this country is so beyond messed up I could not even begin to describe it in this entire blog let alone one sentence.

6) Trying your best is just necessary.  All the time.

So… If you were making classroom rules for at-risk students, which would you choose?

Awesome Hot Dogs! Only $2.99!

Excited doesn’t cover it.
I am pretty much in complete and total disbelief about how well everything is turning out. I don’t want to jinx myself, the way things turned out is just awesome. Not red and yellow socks awesome, but truly, breath-takingly, I-am-totally-excited-and-this-really-rules awesome.

I believe this picture of Oreo captures it best.

Awesome hot dog!

Notice how he is so excited that his ears are back *and* his tail is wagging so quickly that it’s blurry…haha. Oreo has the best attitude ever. Every day when I come home, he’s all excited.

Seriously.

I have so many blessings I can count!

1) While my current school may be closing and this is truly sad for the girls, I found a new job! I am going to be working in a similar situation with at risk kids aged 7 to 17! It is still not going to be easy to say goodbye to the girls next Friday, but at least I know I am going to be able to use my skills to work with some different students instead of having to go back to waitressing by necessity.

2) My mommie got me a new phone *AND* it’s green and sparkly! I was using this old one because my good phone got stolen in April.

3) I got an 1160 on the GRE! USF said that I needed at least 1000 to get admitted to the graduate program I want to do and I got 1160! I got 640 on the quantitative and 520 on the verbal. I think if I took it again, I could study more and really blow the verbal away.


4) I wrote about Tupac on the analytical writing portion of the GRE and I am very confident I blew that section out of the water. That’s right, I said I wrote about Tupac Shakur on the GRE. I signed a bunch of stuff saying I would not reveal the questions so I can’t tell you *how* I wrote about him, but none the less, I kept it straight gangsta on the GRE.

5) I got a $500 scholarship for this semester to start working toward my Master’s Degree in Special Education at USF on August 25!

6) I can walk to work and to the gym each day so I won’t need to use gas unless I’m going to USF!

7) My Dad and I understand each other a lot more now than we used to and, as a result, we get along much better. He also offered to help me subsidize graduate school if I score well!

8) Despite the fact that I am far away, a lot of my family is still very supportive of me.

9) Last, but definitely not least, Adam. Adam has stuck with me through thick and thin. He has stood by me through all the crazy ups and downs over the last 2 years while going through problems of his own.

I do, however, miss Ohio. I hope I can go visit sometime soon! I miss my family, naturally, but I’d like to shout out to my Ohio friends Brian W., Brijette N., Dawn M., Heidi G., Janice D., Neil E., & Trevor E.!

“Air You Can Chew On”

You know it’s going to be a hot day when you’ve already completely sweat through your lightweight polo shirt at 7:30am during your 50 yard walk to your car.

I had a fun time over the weekend going to Passage Key, which apparently used to be an island and now it’s a small sandbar that has about 1ft to 3ft deep water. Lots of boats go there to chill and swim. People had their dogs and it was a beautiful day. I was so happy to be there.

Who knows what today or any day will bring. It is just so odd to keep going through life having no idea what is going on. I have no idea if my school is going to continue, what will happen to my girls, whether I’ll have a job or what. I am just so beyond nervous about all of it that being like this almost seems normal because it has been going on for so long now.

I just worry about each of the girls. So many of them say “I don’t want to go back to ! Kids there call me names!” or “I don’t want to go back to ! No one cares about me there!” It’s not that people don’t care at public school, it’s just that teachers and staff are stretched so thin and so overwhelmed by worrying about the FCAT that teachers have to choose “Well, do I spend my energy on this one kid who will need all my attention to have a shot at passing, or do I spend most of my energy on the other 20+ kids in the class?” It’s a call that shouldn’t have to be made but seems to be the sad truth.

Who knows if someone will step up. I am not usually that religious of a person, but I hope against hope that whoever is in charge of all of us looks down on our girls and sees fit to make something good happen for them. They have a shot to get the skills they need and I hope it happens for them.

Today

“You know today, I just woke up and I said, you know, instead of waitin’ on a good day, waitin’ around, through ups and downs, waitin on something to happen, I just say, ‘I’m gonna have a good day …”

- Nappy Roots from the song “Good Day”

I am definitely have a good day today because I signed into the <a href=”http://www.fldoe.org/”>Florida Department of Education</a> website to discover that they finally got to my Professional Certificate application and according to that, I have my Professional Certificate now!  Hopefully this means the paper one will be coming in the mail soon!

We haven’t really had many responses at all to our news efforts, but I’m not giving up on the school yet!  Keep hoping!

If you or anyone you know has space they have trouble renting in Bradenton, FL and they would be willing to make a deal with our school, please call (941) 567-1022!

“If you don’t have a dream, how’re you going to make a dream come true?”

-Dizee Rascal

Let’s Hope…

Today the news crew from Tampa Bay’s 10 came to do a story on our school and how we need $60,000 or we have to close.

Here’s the link to the story.

I’ve been watching Kathy Griffin recently and I saw her talking about starting a small school like Oprah did. I keep wishing that there were a way I could get in contact with her to tell her about our problem. I really feel like she would help us if there were a way to contact her. Her website makes it seem like they get so many emails that they couldn’t possibly read all of them let alone answer all of them.

We only have until August 15 to make this happen and I’m not someone who just gives up… especially on a cause like this one.

If you have any ideas, let me know!

Embrace Change

“All men dream, but not equally.

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds,

wake in the day to find that it was vanity:

but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,

for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”

- T. E. Lawrence

The above quotation inspires me quite a bit. I do dream that the SONG Program can continue to exist. Ways to make this possible consume my consciousness to the point where I forget what time it is. I keep imagining these girls going back to public school and being put in a class with 20 other kids and a teacher. This is of course not to say that the teachers they would get would not be capable and intelligent, just that they would also be responsible for 20+ other children and that there would be no where near as much one-on-one assistance and no regular personal and family therapy.

I mean, sure, I am worried about my job, but honestly, the much bigger concern is the children. It may take me one day, one week, or one year to get a teaching job, but eventually, I’ll get one. These children get one childhood. One chance to ramp it up, develop good habits, and get the skills they need to pass school and not drop out. I hope something good happens…