Updater

Wow... its been forever since I’ve written. I planned on writing a number of updates since I finished Summer School. Obviously that didn’t happen... when mid-August hit, my life as I knew it ended (until November/December.) Football owns my body and soul.

Now don’t get me wrong... I am loving coaching football. These kids are great and I am so proud of them.

See, last year, our team was in a sort of “scrub” division. We played the cupcakes and in a sense we too were cupcakes. A new coach took over (I’m the assistant) and turned the program around. Since last year we have a new head coach and we are now in the higher division. And to top that off, we are now 6 and 1. Last year we were 7 and 3 in the cupcake division! To be in the harder division and to have such a good record is unbelievable and you can see why I am so proud to be a part of this team.

The weird thing is that if you spend 10 minutes with these kids, all of a sudden you want to contribute to their success. Poor ghetto kids from the Bronx, etc. etc. etc.

Not to mention, people see the change in our school. The spirit of the school in general is on the rise. We had a homecoming game in late September. At the game was the band, the JROTC... and for the first time, cheerleaders... Not to mention, we had record attendance. The official from the School Athletic League, who stopped by for the game was so impressed, the notion of resurfacing our field was casually thrown out by said official. Nothing set in stone, but it was mentioned.

The other good thing that I am very proud of is we got our concession stand up and running. These are things you say, “Every high school football game should have a concession stand.” Again, this is my school we’re talking about and we are trying to make it as much of a “regular” school as we can.



I FRIGGING LOVE THIS PHOTO. The grace of our boys is just amazing. The astounding thing is that a good number of them have never played football in their lives. They come to my school, decide they want to play more than just street ball (of course they all want to be wide receivers... all want to be superstars... even the big boys) and when we start whipping them into shape, it's unbelievable what we find underneath. I hate to sound cliché, but we find they are truly diamonds in the rough.


SUMMER SCHOOL

Man summer school sucked. If you think going to summer school sucks, try teaching it. Every day is like the first day. Two classes which were TWO AND A HALF HOURS EACH! I had, at any given time, like 70 kids on my roster. My room holds 34. When you say, “You know, there are 70 kids on my roster...” You are met with, “Do they all show up?” No, but FORTY at a time would. It was madness. I had a kid show up for the first time to my class the LAST DAY OF SUMMER SCHOOL. What was he thinking? Why bother?

The reason I taught summer school? The money. It was 3 weeks of work, and a tidy sum. Except I had to wait til late August for the money. And it was devastated by taxes.

In essence it was blood-money. I totally whored myself out, so now my curiosity about what it’s like to be a whore has been satiated. With one exception... at least whores get paid up-front.

PARENT TEACHER NIGHT

Again, I’m writing this from my desk at Parent Teacher Night. Not many parents tonight, three so far, and of course, all good kids. What do you say to these parents? Well, you have a great kid... glad to have him/her in class. I always start off fooling around telling them how horrible their kid is in class. They know I’m kidding of course, the 90+ on their kid’s report card says otherwise.

I just finished speaking to a parent and this is one that stings. In my 10th grade English class, and you know my opinion on 10th graders... not human... and one kid who I genuinely like, he got a 65 in my class because he can act like a jackass. And this kid’s poor dad is just lost. It’s one thing when you have parents who just do not care, but when you have a parent who DOES care, it’s very sad.

This year I’m not only teaching English... I’m also teaching 3 media classes. That is what I love. Teaching the kids to edit digital video on the super-duper Macs we have in our recently renovated TV studio. It’s a great class because the kids want to be there. I don’t think I’ve ever had that before.