Teacher Supplies: Goodbye to another Long Beach tradition

As part of our Long Beach renaissance since returning from our road trip, Mike and I have been spending time and money in parts of our city we'd like to see return to glory. Topping the list is Belmont Shore, that part of Second Street that used to be home to independent shops and eateries, became a dumping ground for expensive boutiques and chain stores, and is slowly getting its identity back. When I was a kid, my family used to go down to Belmont Shore most weekends, eating lunch at Hamburger Henry's (best burgers EVER), strolling down for dessert at Grandma's Sugarplums (chocolate-covered everything!) and spending untold hours at Dodd's Bookstore (the whole front room was Dover classics). There was a random restaurant that had fake snow on the roof, and my dad would always lift me up to touch it. All of these landmarks are gone now, of course, replaced many times over by cafés and clothing stores that appeal to the tiny dog owners (syntactic ambiguity!) the BSBA courts. I'm not bitter, I just miss it.

Regardless of the changes over the years, including the closing of Hamburger Henry's doors, which was apocalyptic for our family, all of our trips to Belmont Shore– every single trip– included a visit to the Teacher Supplies store. If you've spent time in this charmingly wood-shingled store, you know what I mean when I say it's magical. In one corner of the store is an extremely satisfying collection of toys, puppets, and board games. In another, an extensive library of children's books, ranging from the newest Caldecott winner to books that were old when my papa read them to me twenty years ago. The rest of the store is populated with all the oddly-shaped, fantastically-colored odds and ends that are endemic to classrooms, this store, and no where else. Blocks that teach addition, maps of California missions, cardboard designed to hang on peg-boards, and countless other tools of the profession designed to delight and encourage the student imagination.


All of the above hopes to serve as explanation for why, on November 1st, about two months into my teaching credential program, I was dismayed to see "Going Out of Business" signs in the windows that peek into this extraordinary store. Retirement Sale! Up to 75% off! These are not banners you want to see hanging on a treasure like this, one that has endured and endured since 1971 as the rest of the street has changed, morphing into something a little less magical.

Stephen and I went in last week to look around and say our goodbyes. As I meandered through the children's library, I noticed how many of the books were dog-eared and well-loved by children like me over the past thirty years. Next to the ones that, judging from their age, were very likely the same copies of the books I thumbed through as a kid, there were new books addressing today's children: books about Obama, books about gay parents, books that should be discovered and browsed through in just such a city as ours, in just such a place as this.

The signs outside had led me to believe that maybe, after almost forty years of operation, the owner had gotten tired of running a retail store and had decided to travel, or to otherwise enjoy a well-deserved retirement. I was sad to see Teacher Supplies go, but I understood that change comes, even to places we most want to remain the same. But, as I stood in the store I overheard a conversation between a woman buying an extravagant marionette and one of the store's familiar long-time employees.

Puppet Purchaser: You're going out of business, hm? Don't you do good business here?
Friendly Face: Well, the toys do very well, but the teachers just don't have any money. We can't afford to make the store all-toys, so we have to close down.

Ouch. "The teachers just don't have any money." No money for foil-adorned #2 pencils (in bulk), no money for bright cardboard strips to border bulletin boards, no money for the boxed set of Jataka Stories lesson plans I found hidden on a top shelf, and no money to keep a Long Beach treasure in business.

I went into the store to buy something symbolic to put in my own classroom someday, as a relic of this place that meant so much to me as a child who loved to learn. I saw that the stock of the entire children's book section was on sale, along with the fixtures, for about a thousand bucks, and I almost gave Mike a call.

Taylor Mali on what teachers make

Danfriend showed me this video, and it's pretty much great. I thought I'd share it with you.



I have a feeling I'll be watching it many times over the next few years...

More Sub Days, and More to Come!

Hiya-

I think I'll have a real blarg in the next few days, but here's a tantalizing hint: today, in the mail, I got a package of letters from a 7th grade homeroom class apologizing for their collective behavior when I subbed for them on Wednesday.  I'm not sure how I feel about this, but it's definitely weird.

Also, I hope everyone had an astonishingly good Halloween.  I, for one, am Chicken Hat.

Sub Days 2 & 3: It's a Learning Process

Last week I subbed two half-days at Garfield Elementary in West Long Beach. I can definitely say I'm getting better, though some of that confidence obviously comes from being able to tell the students that their teacher will be back in three hours. But it turns out that a lot of being a competent sub (and, remember, that's what teachers are hoping for. If you're actually good, that's just being an over-achiever) is pretending you know what you're doing. You know, act like you've been there before, even when you've got something called "recess duty" and you have no idea what you're supposed to be doing.

I mean really. They're playing some version of kickball that makes no sense to me.

Here are some things I've learned. Future educators, take note!

1. Bring a water bottle. For serious, this has been my number one difficulty so far. It takes a lot of spit to constantly ask kids to sit down and be quiet, and when all the little childers have their ice cold Sparkletts sitting unappreciated on their desks, wasted condensation dripping onto folded paper towels, it's almost too much to bear. My first day I cupped my hands and gulped faucet water from the back of the classroom during recess. On Friday, I seriously contemplated taking some birdie sips from an abandoned Aquafina while its owner was at lunch.

2. Wear reasonable shoes. Last week I felt that my status as an authority figure was undermined by my Converse sneakers when I had three separate second-graders comment that we were shoe twins. For Tuesday's gig, I wore these slip-ons (I think Sarah Jessica Parker would call them "flats"?) that I'd gotten from Target but never worn. By Friday, my pinky-toe blister had gone down enough that I could wear my comfy four-year-old boots. Besides the fact that a first-grader asked if I'd been born in Texas, by the end of the day I could barely stand up. So. I need shoes that are comfortable, are appropriate in every situation, and won't make me look like a Texan. I've already got them, but they're against dress code.3. Pick your battles. During my Tuesday gig (in a fifth grade classroom), I was teaching a lesson on sequence words. I started with the sentence "I got picked for kickball," and invited the students to add words to the sentence and, eventually, add sentences to the story. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for making up the lesson on the fly, and the kids were pretty into it. One girl in the back corner just couldn't stop talking to the people in her group, most of whom seemed to want to participate in the lesson. I called on her to add a sentence to our story.

Girl in the Back Corner: I kicked a home-run.
Me: Okay. Can you add a sequence word to that? Something that tells us when it happens in the story?
GitBC: Oh. I kicked a big-ass home-run.

Ugh. What do I do here? I don't want to give her the satisfaction of stopping the class and making everyone focus on her while I reprimand her. So I don't react. I keep pressing her until she gives an appropriate answer, and then I move on and finish the lesson. Success, or close enough.

4. Read the signs. Not in a mystical, crystal-bally kinda way. In a "check to make sure you're not parking in a Tuesday street-sweeping zone" kinda way. Nothing like losing two-thirds of your day's pay ten minutes after walking into the job.

5. Don't let it get to you. On Friday, I was a "roving sub," spending 45 minutes in each of four different classrooms. My last assignment was in a Kindergarten class, which I limped to in my boots, bending all the way down to a knee-high drinking fountain on the way. The kids were returning from recess in a single-file line, and I followed them into the classroom. Halfway there, the last five kids in line stopped, turned around, looked at me, and busted up laughing. Busted up! Inexplicably!! It was. So. Weird. That is all.

I might spend this next week doing some more classroom observation, so I'll have some time to let these life lessons marinate before I try and convince my feet to get back into their shoes. Substituting is odd, folks, but I think I might be getting the hang of it a little bit.

Sub Day #1: "Are you a teenager?"

On Wednesday I strapped my shoes back on and took the plunge back into the world of the working: my very first substituting assignment, in a 2nd grade classroom at Emerson Charter School. Whoooooo boy.

First, let me just clarify the phrase "strapped my shoes back on." I literally mean that I put on the same clothing I used to wear to work at Borders: Target polo shirt (with a tank top underneath so as I don't bare my midriff), my only pair of jeans without holes in them, and my trusty Converse. The problem with needing to buy work clothes, see, is that you need to work to get the money to buy them.

The first thing I realize, walking onto the Emerson campus, is that I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know where the office is, and I have only a vague idea of what I'm supposed to do when I get there. I've also shown up 40 minutes before school starts, and every one I pass in the hallway knows exactly what they're doing and exactly how they're doing it. The secretary hands me a time card and I have no idea what to do with it. Um.

The second thing I realize, walking to my classroom, is that oops! Maybe I don't really like children! It's been quite a while since I've had to deal with them directly, other than making faces at them while their parents aren't looking. Kidding. Except for those Mormon kids on the plane back from Hawaii that one time, about whom I have no regrets. Again, kidding.

When the bell rings, the children line up on the red line outside. "Are you our substitute? Where's Mrs. W--? I'm supposed to be in the front of the line. Did you know there's a small person in our class? Are you a teenager? What are we going to do today?" They are seven years old and they are hopping with energy. They aren't mean-spirited or defiant, they are just second graders and they can't stop talking, can't stop moving, can't stop asking questions. Ever.

By the end of the day, three children have sobbed at (or under) their desks. A girl got a paper cut, and a boy accidentally poked himself in the eye with his finger. One boy, who is apparently a grade or two more advanced in math and reading than his classmates, spends all day really bored and keeps trying to take a nap on the floor. When they come back from lunch, another boy won't stop singing the Freddy Kruger song: "One, two, Freddy's coming for you..." At the end of the day, it takes an extra 5 minutes to get everyone settled, and a mother is annoyed.

But! During storytime they all sit in enraptured silence as I read the Chinese Little Red Riding Hood story, Lon Po Po. It's something I'm good at, and it's pretty cool. And the teacher next door is really excited to hear that I've just joined the fraternity of educators and, impressed by my "pedigree," adds my number to his sub list.

Also, I found this hiding in the back of the classroom:


I walk out of the office to my car and I'm utterly exhausted, but, by golly, I did it. What's next?

QOD #4: It's all a bit overwhelming

EXCELLENCE
"Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible."

One of the requirements for my Intro to Teaching English class (in addition to a massive amount of incredibly daunting paperwork, in triplicate) is 45 hours of classroom observation. Last week I started sitting in on the classes of the 8th grade English teacher for GATE classes at Stanford Middle School. For those of you who are wondering, yes, he was my English teacher an astonishing 10 years ago, when he was but a lad of 29.

Mr. Tate is ridiculously energetic, constantly launching into cartoon voices, dropping terrible puns, and generally refusing to let his 12 and 13 year olds zone out. Here's one I particularly liked: acting as a paperweight in the box for late papers is a statue of a dragon. Why? "Because if your work's here, you must have been draggin' your feet."

Har har.

Generally, Mr. Tate is fantastic. Therein lies the difficulty, from my point of view. I can very easily look at his teaching style, especially after the third hour of sitting through the same prep, and see what it is he does that works and why. Certain jokes he makes entirely for himself, just to keep himself entertained. If a particular example or explanation or punchline worked well one period, he'll do it again the next period, and better. He's good at talking to middle school kids on exactly the right level: friendly, but not yielding a bit of his authority. It's really quite cool. And the whole time I'm sitting there thinking "Crap. I can't do this."

Now, I know I'm still a long way from being in a classroom. And Mr. Tate has been doing this for 16 years. But that doesn't make it any less terrifying. Maybe if I'd been observing a teacher who was less capable it wouldn't be so daunting.

Anyway. The quote at the top of this post was the Quote of the Day for today's class. Mr. Tate took it from an inspirational poster he saw advertised in an in-flight mag. (Reminding me of another gem. When giving the background for this quote Mr. Tate said, "I'll tell you where I got this. Here's a hint: I was 30,000 feet in the air." To which the first audible response was: "Africa!") Students had 5 minutes to write their reactions/reflections on the quote. Most of them seemed to be responding to the implied prompt "What does excellence mean to you?" than anything else, but there were a few who got into the nitty-gritty of what the prompt was actually saying.

One of the girls raised her hand and asked, "What does it mean: 'caring more than others think is wise'?" My first response was wonder at the gap in life experience between this suburban gifted pre-teen and others in her city, her classroom, and her gender. Mr. Tate's answer was interestingly Buddhist in its gist– people die, things break and get thrown away, and everything disappoints eventually. Some might say it's easier not to get attached.

The expected response, of course, being that that's not how you change the world. Prof. Bartchy and I had a number of arguments about this in relation to Buddhist views on social justice. His view was that "not being attached" equals "not caring." Mine was that the relationship is subtler than that, and it includes the analogy of a child in a pet store. If he hasn't already picked out the puppy he wants, he won't be upset when one gets goes home with another child. But he also won't be able to walk away if he sees a puppy getting beaten or neglected– he can't say "at least mine is safe" and leave happily.

I've got stuff going on in my family that's left me reeling a bit and, when coupled with the stresses of Becoming A Teacher, I've gotten a bit overwhelmed. I'm sitting on my couch right now and I so don't want to go to class. I want to stay home and worry about all the other things I'm worried about.

But, as sappily cheesy as that quote is, I guess I haven't stopped caring yet. So I guess I'm going to keep working.

Who Educates the Educators?

So. I've started the teaching credential program at CSULB. Single subject, English, to answer your next question. And when I say "I've started the teaching credential program," what I really mean is that I'm taking the class that will help me compile the requisite folder of paperwork and test results, prepare for the one-on-one interview, and collect my moolah so that I can enter the credentialing program. For how little teachers get paid, it sure costs a lot to become one. On top of the cost of books and tuition for the class, it's going to be about $275 in test fees, $100 in online processing fees, $50 in paperwork fees, five to ten dollars here and there for TB testing, fingerprinting, and etc and etc.

I'm guessing this will get a lot frustrating before I come out the other end. And then is when the real work begins.

My teacher was very upfront in the first class meeting: one of the purposes of the class is to help us determine whether or not this is what we really want to be doing. Teaching isn't an easy profession. Summers off are outweighed by the simple fact that, during the school year, there are vere few times in which a good teacher isn't thinking about the classroom. Am I ready to make that sort of commitment? The truth is, I don't know.

I believe absolutely in the importance of education. Whether it's nature or nurture, having two high school teachers for parents means it's a belief I've had all my life. I believe in the power of a teacher to transform the life of a student, and I've known plenty of people who simply never had that teacher. Who grew up ambivalent about reading, unimpressed by history, and preferring not to think beyond what's necessary for every day life. I think that those people have been failed by the education system and by each and every teacher who had the chance to change their lives and instead let them walk out their doors.

Just because I believe all that doesn't of course, mean that teaching is the job for me. But I do tend to have an "if not me, who?" view of the world. It's never been so expensive before, nor involved so much paperwork. I'm interested to see where this path leads me. And I hope you are too, because I think I'm going to start writing about it.

In the meantime, check out LBPOSTSports.com to see what me and the gang have been up to recently. Mike's a bona fide sports writer now, and he's pretty much tearing it up over there. Angie's responsible for the website being so cool, and I helped with a lot of the design-side, as well as providing a few of the pix.