Battlin'

I feel stupid about the way I acted for those 36 hours immediately after finding out, but I'm proud of myself that it was only 36 hours. I don't regret the questions asked--both answered, and not--but I do regret the way I asked them. I want the answers, but I could've been a lot more tactful and a lot less weepy. I think I was just shocked at my own stupidity.

It made this week interesting--in fact, it jacked investment in all of my own classes. I read my kids poems (that I decided to write for them, and will post when I get back), took time to tell them they were special, told them about myself, and rap battled some of the 8th graders. When I told kids why I taught, and told them I had cried over them--because I was proud of them--I had kids leave the class in tears. It blew their minds. One class, I took the time to tell every single kid a few wonderful things I had noticed about them. They went late to lunch and didn't even give a shit. I don't know if they respected it, but I have never seen any of my classes that dead silent for that long. And in just about every class, when ever the smart mouth would have a comment (in most classes, that kid was one of the ones who was shocked to find themselves crying), the other kids would shush them immediately -- "Yo, Mr. (x) is trying to speak from the heart. He's telling us some real shit!" When I told some kids how proud I was of them, they fucking lost it. It was incredible.

I told them about the kids from this summer, who were homeless and made me chug the TFA Kool-Aid; I told them about the things I knew about them; I gave them life advice. That day, a dozen kids I'd had in classes before lunch came to my room just to sit around and say hi. Not even to chat; just to be like "What's up? We just wanted to hang out." A girl who I've seen the suicidal reports on has been walking around grinning all week, and when she smiles, it's like the dawn, because it's genuine and hasn't happened all year.

As for the rap battles, I won, I lost, and both 7th and 8th graders now give me a whole new respect when I walk around. It was fun, and weird, and it's probably on YouTube at this point. I didn't really know the rules--one kid, when I started replying to him, was like "Wait, don't we just go once each?" to which I genuinely had to reply, beats me.

The school shut it down, when I tried to do it on the playground; but it was something out of a movie when I emerged from the teacher's lounge those two days, and 100 8th graders start tearing towards me from all around the playground, field, basketball courts, to come see what's going to happen. It won't happen again--they don't trust the kids not to fight, which seems nonsensical to me; they're weirded out, pumped, and enthralled watching a teacher and one of their own do this little dance, but I don't make those decisions--but it was fun, and it's something to talk about as a future potential to get the kids to buy in.

In any case, kids have been advancing, I have people at all levels moving at their own pace, grading is under control, and I found something ridiculously nice--spreading love to 250 kids only puts me in an exponentially better mood. It's a wonderful salve.

I'm going camping. :-)