Detentions and Fire Drills

September 30

Black Dickies and oversized black t-shirts. Smudged glasses and gelled spiky hair. Meet Luis – my 9^th grade nemesis. Luis is late to my class everyday. He refused to do work in class. He yells inappropriate things like “f---er” during instruction. Oh, Luis. Luis wants to try out for the JV soccer team next week, but might have some problems given that he has detention with me on Monday and a ‘U’ in citizenship and work habits. I was supposed to call his mother on Friday, but no one picked up.

Last week was super tiring. By Friday, I had a headache.

It is Sunday again, and I face a new week. I will not recount the bad parts (besides Luis, of course, because I feel like I needed to introduce him in my journal . . . I have a feeling he’ll appear in these pages again). I am going to list the good things. The experiences that make me feel validated as a teacher (and person – sometimes amidst the classroom insanity, I forget the humanity part).

The new best part of my day is 2:59 to 3:12 PM. Every day, the students who are tardy to first period have detention that same day for thirteen minutes in their sixth period class. This means that every day, I have at least four seniors who spend a few more minutes with me. I love it! They deep clean my white boards, which is so fortunate because I was getting a reputation as the teacher with the filthy boards. They help me move desks around and put up chairs on the day my floors get swept. The best part though is that they talk to me. I ask how their day is going, and how they like their classes. What are you doing on the weekend, Diane? Think we’ll win the football game, Marcos? And so on. I really love it. They don’t hate me because I’m not the one who assigned them the detention. They aren’t even being punished for misbehavior! They’re just too lazy to get to school on time! Clean white boards and the latest greatest 12^th grade gossip. That’s one happy teacher.

On Friday, we had our first fire drill. I never remembered these things taking a whole period. I thought they lasted fifteen minutes but apparently they take a whole 65 minute period. I would have loved it as a student. Woohoo – no fourth period notes! Now, as a teacher, I hate them. Waste a whole period to walk out to the football field when we could be learning about in-text citations?! Horrible! Anyway, I had to manage the fire drill with my infamous fourth period class. They all knew about the drill so the few minutes I had them in class were completely unproductive. Some of them even walked out before the bell rang.

“Carlos! Eslee! Where are you going?! Get in my class and sit down, the alarm hasn’t rung!”

“But, Miss! It was supposed to ring at 11:15 AM, it’s now 11:18!”

“Thank you, Carlos, I can tell the time.”

“But, Miss! I see people leaving – what if we’re the only ones left!”

“Carlos, get away from the window. No one is leaving yet. I’m not really afraid of an imaginary fire anyhow … we’ll survive.”

“I think we’re supposed to go, Miss, maybe the bell won’t ring.”

“Get in your chair now! I’ve been in a fire drill before, thank you. The alarm always rings!”

I then to proceed to lecture on the valuable time of a class period and how we must learn something today. I start handing out my handouts. I get about half way through the class when – of course – the deafening alarm rings. Chairs scrape the floor, handouts fly up (in a very Hollywood-esque teen drama fashion), and I am left yelling over the bleating alarm.

“Okay, WAIT UP! No one leaves – we’re doing this in an organized way! Walk to the North end of the football field. We’re on the 20 yard line. All together!” As my students race out the door and down the steps on to the street. Oh dear. Exiting a school in downtown Los Angeles is a lot different than the fire drills I had been to in my high school days. Getting to the football fields means walking the sidewalks of downtown, crossing major streets and holding up traffic.

I haven’t forgotten that this is supposed to be the recount of the lighter, happier moments of my week. I just need to describe the first scene so that we can all appreciate how it got so much better. Once on the field, and after I had filled out my missing person sheet and injury report sheet (“okay, where is Carlos?”), I had some great moments. Kevin – the students who always has his head down during class – came up to me and started chatting. Despite being the cool bad boy of Miguel Contreras, Kevin did not have too many friends in my class except for three girls who according to him were being too girly right now. Granted, they were doing cartwheels and giggling loudly. One of the girly girls is his on-again, off-again girlfriend. He really opened up. He told me the whole drama. He told me how he wants to go to church again. How he transitioned poorly from middle school to high school. How he wants to go to community college and then one day, Howard University. I loved every second of it. It is moments like this that feel validating. I talked to him like he was an adult, asking serious questions and expecting though-out answers. Because, in most ways, he is an adult. It’s scary/wonderful whenever I realize that of my students.