We calculated it in the margins of our D&D game; 1 car, thirty minutes to Joe's work. 3 people need time to shower from 5:30 to 6:10, breakfast, coffee, and an hour on the road to Jackson's school. We managed it this morning with these new numbers like mandates. I left Joseph, thermos in hand, outside the institute for emotionally disturbed adolescents. The swipey key wasn't working. He had already drunk one whole 12 ounce of Columbian. Jackson and I had apple banana source of life shakes and oatmeal. He has tests this week so he needed vitamins, sleep, and timeliness.
I drilled him on reducing fractions on the drive down, you know, the thing where you take 7/4 and turn it into 1 3/4 , multiplication, and explained that I was not, "wearing his brain out." I took him down to the marina to kill time once we got to Mayo. He said, "Is this poison ivy?" I envisoned him trying to take a math exam, itching like hell. "No." I said, pretty sure ... I lifted his body at a count of three into the tree. We scanned the water for dead fish. I explained how underwater plants can make food if the sunlight can reach them. He energized, smiled, but even at 8, was conscious that a yellow bus in the distance turning into the school lot means,"Is it time? We better go!"
On the way to my job back up in Baltimore, I ate an egg roll from last night out of my lunchbox and some Monk's chicken from the Chinese food. After hearing news for the second time that morning, verbatim, explain that a woman named "Hestor" of all things was 'schooling' young women in Baltimore city schools about etiquitte, I turned the dial, so-to- speak.
Listening to "Democracy Now".I heard political asylee and Nobel Prize-winner, Sherine Nabadi's Persian translated so carefully. The program diligently played her words in full before they played the English version. I listened for Arabic words, knowing that Persian has some. It was like hearing a person mumbling three out of four words. I thought, even the Nobel prize does not keep the persecution from your door. Apparantly her family has been jailed, her assets have been seized, including prizes, pendants, to include her Nobel prize and her husband's passport. In translation she was thoughtful, wistfully distant from the terrible. She mentioned the sanctions that are being considered against Iran now. She asked that perhaps some products or companies in particular be sanctioned such as the software company, "Simmons" who provided cell phone technology that allowed government wire tapping. She criticized the lack of human rights in Iran and mentioned that there are students who worked on Mousavi's campaign(Ahmadinajad's opponent in the 2009 elections) imprisoned, and scheduled for EXECUTION. I ate the sesame, soy chicken from last night, with my fingers as I drove into the city. I thought of this woman in NYCity, hoped she had support, and wished that we could help these students set for execution.
At school where I work, I cut out construction paper trees, clouds, a building with windows of purple city light. I made a sea with a coral reef. I cut out the word Biologia in big 11" letters, adding a blue accent mark over the 'i'. I designed a lesson to teach 7 years olds that 'bio' means 'life' I was proud of the big boy who classified human beings as land creatures, and of a girl who could not decide whether butterflies were land, or air creatures. I supported her decision.
I taught "infinitives" to talkative 5th graders. They went to the glossary in the back of their new texts, looking for verbs ending in 'er and 'ir. They yelled sometimes, put their heads down, went to the nurse, asked for translations. They were mostly nice but impatient. I heard the girl with the head scarf say she tasted someone's beer and orange juice. The big girl whose mother I called said she liked a vodka cranberry. I said, "Perhaps that is what I will talk to your mom about when I call her about your behavior today." I had forgotten the Iranian student waiting to hang...
As I ate the rest of my lunch, I perused the Individual Education Plans; the hallmark of the current trend in education. I saw how much analysis is going into setting the scene for a boy who can't pay attention. Accomodations such as "Needs frequent breaks", "Human reader,"
"Reduce distractions to student, " let me know that someone is thinking about the kids who I kinda knew were somehow not with me.
I want to say there is a theme here, but there is no bow to tie. There is the little boy whose shoe I stooped to tie as he was on his way to get a drink of water. I looked up at his loose teeth, reminded of Jackson's front tooth. I said, "how'd this shoe get so knotty? You're gonna trip." He looked down, pink lips and luminous eyes and said. "My twin did it." I was suprised. I said, "You have a twin? Do they go to this school?
His face didn't change. "No, he goes to a different school." In a jolt so common, the boy was gone. He went to get water, perhaps his twin on his mind, perhaps not. I don't know what he was thinking.
