Returning to the familiar

              I always enjoy going back to Vermont. It's beautiful really any time of year and I think more and more about living there again some day; especially, since every year I return it seems a bit more distant. The divide between my high school acquaintances, friends, and favorite places widen. Walking on Church Street I half want to see old friends and half don't. This year for example, I saw Nick Obie, a perennially awkward encounter - more on that later.  There are other things about coming home that also feel more familiar. My parent’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” esque squabbles for example, are ridiculous, and I often wonder how common my experience is with my parents. 

               My dad was talking about this guy who made a table they were going to pick up and he was insisting to my mom:  "I want you to shake his hand when you see him." "Ok" my mother said in a rather nonchalant manner. My dad continued: "No, I mean, when you meet him you need to see his hand." My mom said "I don't wanna shake his hand," but he persisted, "there's a reason the company's called 'Big paws,' you’ve gotta see this." All I could do was shake my head.

               On our drive to Boston to meet the rest of the family for Thanksgiving my parents easily spent 15 minutes arguing about where to eat and get off the highway for dinner. As my mom fumbled with the Road Ahead app and my dad complained about every option she mentioned, we got further and further from West Lebanon (the "big" rest stop). My dad kept complaining about how we should have stopped there and how, as he originally suggested, we should have gone to “Angelinos.” "It would have so much quicker and right off the highway." "Dad," I tell him, "it's D'angelos" to which he repeated, "What's the name of it? It's not Angelinos?"  He then goes off on this story of the time he called up Angelinos because he was disappointed with his sandwich. "You have to be careful at Angelinos, if you ask for a Philly cheese steak sandwich they don't put anything on it. I called them up, just said there's nothing in there. And the manager just told me that's their Philly steak sandwich. I had to tell them typically there's mushrooms and peppers."  

               This time around Vermont I also had an awkward encounter with an old high school acquaintance: Nick Obie. Every time I see this guy, which isn't very often (maybe once every other year) it's awkward. Which is better than it used to be when I actually held a grudge against him. The awkwardness stems from a story that happened over 5 years ago that Nick rightfully still feels bad about and for which he continues to apologize every time I see him.

               It was the winter after I'd unfortunately landed back home with not much of a life after I graduated from college. My parents were heading out for the weekend and my dad jokingly said to me like he used to in high school: "don't throw any parties," and then added, "not that you could anyways since you don't really have friends around here anymore." I actually was angered by this, what I felt was a misplaced joke, and told my friends that I was going to show him and prove him wrong. I would throw a party just to spite him.   The funny part was that in the end he was right. I think I maybe had 8-10 people over and one of them, Nick, was more a friend of a friend that I did not invite (despite what you may say Ryan).

               Early on in the night, maybe around 10 pm he disappeared and after shortly confirming that he wasn't hooking up with one of the two girls there (that would have been surprising anyways) we learned he was in the downstairs bathroom. I asked if he was ok; after all I only observed him drink one or two beers. He replied that he was fine and that he'd be out in a minute. An hour later he was still there. I mistakenly ended up going to bed forgetting about him. The next morning he was gone but with a trace: Correction- a large trace.  The porcelain toilet seat was somehow chipped, the toilet paper holder was torn out of the wall with the actual bar itself missing, and bloodstains were spattered around the walls of the bathroom.

               To this idea I have no idea what happened in there. None of it makes sense. Obie was not answering his phone and no one else knew what happened either. He did actually go by the house supposedly with his dad afterwards while I was gone but determined he couldn't fix it and ran away, again ignoring my communications.   When my parents came home I had no way to explain it. My dad was furious and demanded to see Nick but of course that was impossible.   I spent so much time and energy trying to track this guy down to no avail. I demanded compensation (it was actually several hundred dollars worth of repairs because the whole wall had to be redone) and couldn't believe I had to take the blame for him. 

               I ran into him finally about 6-8 months later and he was very apologetic and ashamed. He actually wanted me to punch him in the face. I have to admit it was tempting but I knew it wouldn't solve anything. Honestly, he's kind of a sad figure.  Over 5 years later he is still ashamed and embarrassed when we unexpectedly see each other but that’s how Burlington is, it’s a small town.

...Home is where the heart is

Herb's 2014 garden pride: Giant squash to be brought to the family Thanksgiving in the North Shore

Our annual trip to Costco to buy a bunch of things I don't need at great prices

Ian's 30th Birthday, out in Burlington. How did his little sister become 21?

A one week vacation well earned

On my way to Vermont and I finally have a moment to breath and look back on the last few months. In summary: They feel like a blur. My feet got used to standing for so many hours at a time, after losing a bunch of weight originally, I gained some back, and the job has gotten slightly easier and more regular. The days don't drag on so much anymore. And yet still, I find myself leaving work at 6 or 7, potentially coming home to walk the dog or cook, and then getting back to grading and lesson planning almost immediately. Besides soccer once a week which just ended (our team won the championship!), Frisbee once a week, and the occasional event or hang out with friends, my life is school and Maya.

There was a time when I lived in Boston where if I wasn’t doing something after work I felt bored. “Just” coming home and cooking a dinner would be pretty disappointing. Sleep is one of the most exciting things to look forward to these days. I don’t have time to develop deeper friendships and as I get older it seems like becoming more boring is kind of just inevitable. Staying out past midnight would be a rare occurrence, as is having more than two drinks. Mostly I have a mountain of grading to do that never seems to go away and there is one more parent I really need to call. There’s a student that responded with a threat the other day when I told him I’d have to cut his headphones if I saw them again after the 6^th time that class. These are thoughts that preoccupy too much of my mind these days.

As for teaching I still don’t know if I can go on doing it after this year. Everyone keeps telling me it gets easier. Part of me likes the new challenge and I am enjoying making some real connections with students, many of whom are good people, as well as re-learning American history (does anyone actually remember learning about Andrew Jackson, the War of 1812, and the Articles of Confederation)? Another part of my really dislikes the amount of effort I put in for the results that I see. I can repeat something simple out loud 5 times and they still can’t repeat it back to me. This job carries tremendous stress as even at 16-17 years old so many of them act like little children. I feel like a father sometimes when students yell to me: “Tamika hit me. Mr. Kessel can you tell Shawn to give me back my pencil. Wah wah wah.” I thought I was signing up for something different with highschool.

Mostly what I’ve seen so far on the academic front has been surprising, disappointing, and surprisingly disappointing. Students are incredibly concerned about their grades and will not do anything unless it’s for a grade. I have to at least pretend I am grading even the “warm up” activities and they don’t seem to see any problem with getting answers off the internet (their phone), or copying entire homework assignments word for word. I don’t remember doing that when I was in high school but I feel like this is 75% of what I get (or more). Then again, since only about 33% of students do their homework it’s hard to gauge whether it would be better or worse than fewer students doing homework. But at this point homework and grading drowns me and I am convinced now that technology has made us dumber and original thought is being stifled.

They eat junk all day long and seem to throw their garbage on the floor like there’s nothing wrong with it (see pic. below). It’s hard to believe how hard it is to catch which students are doing it. I also loose about 5-6 pages out of the textbooks every day which fall out in loose papers because of the condition of the books. Students will throw the books and treat them horribly. I've asked for new books several times and we don't have enough for everyone. Classic resource-poor charter school criticism. I’ve learned to not let my adrenaline rise as much with this sort of thing because stress is not helpful but this all certainly makes me feel old. I may even have a few more grays than when I started. 

Mostly I’m tired, exhausted, all of the time. Needing to tell the same students over and over again to come prepared for class takes a mental toll. I re-wrote out classroom procedures so that when they arrive they automatically put out their notebook, pens, paper, and homework; this has had very little effect, although the structure has improved a little bit and helped keep them in their seats. When I first heard most teachers gave assigned seating and bathroom passes at high school I was surprised. Now I see it is necessary and as much as I might want to make my classroom more democratic and free, this is a population who is not used to that sort of freedom and actually wants/needs to be told exactly what to do all of the time. I can’t just tell them to write a paragraph about something. I actually have to tell them how many sentences to write in that paragraph. Very few students can think independently or synthesize information in any sort of meaningful way. This is a prime example of how the education system failed these students up to this point. They've never been taught how to learn.

To add to all of this, I’ve somehow agreed to coach the soccer team and help kickstart the new soccer program. This will be the first year the school has had a program. I have no idea how I am going to manage it all.

Better rest up and enjoy Thanksgiving…

Some other highlights over the last few weeks I may or may not care about someday looking back:

·       The best dog ever in Sherlock

·       A “Tour de Farm” bike trip in Southern Georgia with Café Campesino (I sometimes miss that job!)

·       Atlanta Hawks game

·       Movember mustache

·       Cabbagetown Stomp and Chomp festival

·       Objects thrown at me from students over the last few weeks including: Apple, orange, muffin (not in that order)

·       My first pep rally

·       Southern Highschool football (our team is not very good but it’s still pretty fun to watch)

·       Nigerian Air BnBers

*   Apple pickin' in North Georgia

*   Hilton Head long weekend vacation with friends from Boston

*   Trip to Northern Minnesota for Pete's wedding!

The Rural Georgia telephone museum in Leslie, one of our random stops on Tour de Farm

Hawks Game!

Southern Virginia trip with old AJWS friends, one week before I became a teacher. Thank god we didn't lose Sherlock who ran away for 30 minutes before finally coming back from who knows where

Apple Pickin

Hilton Head

Not my finest night at mini golf but at least I beat Maya

A corporate someone pulling the students from class to sell something to them in the cafeteria 

My classroom at the end of the day

We needed a doll for the "American Dream" Halloween costume we put together. Guess which one we chose? Yes the interracial baby 

Chomp & Stomp Bluegrass band. Chili was gone almost before we even got there at 1