Now that I realize my son, his friends, and his youth group counselor have been reading my site I will have to slow down on all the talk about vajayjays. So, if you’re here for that then too bad. This won’t stop me from complaining about MY CRAPPLE WITHOUT A NAME, though I have realized that should I ever get that MacBook Pro I will name her Ophelia because the silver casing reminds me of a watery grave which is exactly where I feel like throwing my current one that pooped out on me at work today. I know - you come here to discuss boobs and lip gloss and I give you this.

But since I have a platform and my son just may have gotten this far in his reading may I shout from the rooftops until the tiles are tingling that HE NEEDS TO WEAR SUNBLOCK I’M NOT KIDDING SUN POISONING ISN’T ANYTHING TO BE TRIFLED WITH I MEAN IT RIGHT NOW, MASON.

If you’d like to chastise my child along with me, feel free to leave horror stories in the comments.

When I asked Mason to please write down the mental list forming in my head I said, “Ok, we need laundry detergent, toothpaste, and sunblock for my blockhead son. GET IT? GET IT, MALLORY? MASON? Sun block? For my block head SON?”

They just let their mouths form all crooked and shook their heads at me. Sometimes, momma ain’t that funny when she’s laughing like a lunatic on leave from the psych ward.

That’s probably because today at school wasn’t a funny day at all.

Twice today I had parents contact me and ask what they should do to help their kids do better in school since they’ve each failed three year-long courses. Tomorrow is the last day of school. They called. Today. Today. If I were allowed to give swift kicks to the head my legs would be sore right now.

Then at around 10 a.m. I had to go “whisper” to the student who has been the most challenging student to me. Some days he’s great and the other days he’s a complete wreck. When “Hank” starts acting up they call in the Hank Whisperer and 99% of the time I can get him to comply and do what he was asked to do, but today I experienced the 1%. His claim to fame is that he’s never taken a final exam or any big test and he started his Super Special Ed behavior as soon as he got to class. When they called for me I knew he was going to make this a difficult day.

Totally unrelated to having a student arrested and having him writhe on the ground because he doesn’t listen to the six adults trying to get him under control: stand back when the scuffle calls for pepper spray. Just a warning folks. Also, blink a lot to reduce the burning and use milk or antacid to rinse out your eyes. Use Vaseline or vegetable oil to rub your eye area with and use saline for the next several hours. You don’t want to know how I know this. You will get a LOT of sympathy for this if that’s your cup of tea.

After spending the rest of the day getting final exam ready for the suspended students I went outside to do my lunch duty and get a little sunshine (oh! SO not good for pepper sprayed eyes!) when I heard my name called over the radio (such fun! to be found wherever you are in the entire building BECAUSE YOU CARRY A RADIO! joy! excitement! the feeling of being needed!) because a parent and student were down in my office to see me.

I pushed to button to talk and breathed an audible sigh into the radio. “Hhhuuuhhhhhh. Ok. Umm…” and then I let go of the button to think a second. “Hhhuuuhhhhh. Well…ok. Tell them I’ll be inside in a few minutes.”

It’s possible that he overheard me say that and then I started to feel guilty, but dangit! Parents showing up in the middle of the day demanding my time! When I got downstairs I saw this father dressed in his army fatigues and his son waiting for me. They were all smiles. The dad spontaneously grabbed me and hugged me. He said he was sorry I had been so sick and was hoping to catch me before summer vacation began and wanted to thank me for being so understanding of his son while their family went through a difficult time this year.

My body released a huge sigh and I thought of tough Hank and his getting in serious trouble. What kind of tough guys were these, though? This big, beefy father who has fought for custody all year long who wanted to show some appreciation.

Most of the rest of the day was spent wondering about tough men. They spend so much energy into being solid in front of other guys. I watch my own teenage boys have pissing contests with each other to mark their territory. This doesn’t bode well for electronic devices. Again, I’m free with all the advice. But they have kicked each other until the other one screams for a court order to keep from coming within 50 feet of their genital area. Resilient rugged men who can take an ass-kicking like you wouldn’t believe.

All these tough guys made this tough gal weep today. I know it’s partly because of the exhaustion of the end of the school year, but what started out today as an impossible-to-feel-good-about-moment ended with me hopeful that these tough boys will grow up to be tough men not afraid to express themselves.

I needed that tough guy hug at that precise moment.

While I haven’t devoted an entire post to what I do in my position, I realize this differs from place to place so I can only sum up easily by stating that I take care of the academic needs of students with regard to classes, interventions as a support for them, and finding ways to bridge the superabundance of parental/parole officer/community resource phone calls that come my way. Anytime one of the deans does something that’s not listed on our job descriptions we jokingly whine, “Other duties as assigned”.

This year, that list has grown to some things I would never have imagined to be part of my responsibilities:

Riding in the ambulance when students are hurt or visiting them in the hospital after injuries or surgeries.

Going on home visits to find truant students and convincing them to attend school.

Telling students to pull up their pants.

Being called into meetings that don’t always fall under the category of “responsibilities”.

Giving students proper clothing.

Handing out tampons and pads to the girls.

Driving the girls home who need to change clothing due to aforementioned “duty”.

Doing body searches when there is a risk of drugs or weapons. So glad all the girls have had on clean underwear if I have had to do it.

Being grateful when one of them simply hands over the paraphernalia.

Doing searches on backpacks and finding it filled with condoms. Filled.

Thanking the student for being sexually responsible.

Hoping I’m not going to hell for wishing they wouldn’t procreate.

Using lots of hand sanitizer.

Providing students with lotion. I am the current Lotion Queen and sometimes they just stop by my office, put on moisturizer, and leave with a simple, “Thanks! Bye!”

Telling students to PULL UP THEIR PANTS.

Tying their belt loops together with twisty-ties when they just keep on breaking that rule.

Discussing possible abuse with DCFS workers or police officers.

Cry, cry, cry.

Keeping a supply of hand wipes and deodorant in my office.

Keeping a supply of breakfast bars and snacks in my office.

Shooing away critters who want to devour the food in my office.

Calming down the students in BD classrooms when I am called because they don’t listen to anyone else and I offer a gentle touch. (Fear not, I am known to get tough when they’re acting like jerks and have recently been referred to as the ______ Whisperer. When Jermaine acts up, I’m the Jermaine Whisperer. When Herb acts up, I’m the Herb Whisperer.)

Finding students jobs for the summer.

Hunting down students in classrooms who I know still didn’t pull up their pants.

Smugly walking away when they think I’m “everywhere”.

Catching students skipping school when I run an errand for the school and not being ashamed of rolling down my window and yelling, “You get your butt in school RIGHT NOW.”

Defending my position when I won’t give students Driver’s Education if they fail to have 4 credits. (Stock response to their frustration: “If you can’t pass English, I don’t want you driving on the road!” Parents ALWAYS agree with me and have gotten many thank you, Mrs. Mocha from it.)

Handing out tissues and comforting them even when they’re practically crawling into my lap.

Buying paper and pens and alarm clocks for students who need them.

Explaining to students that farting silently in class is simply NOT good manners.

It is a truth easily identifiable that Education is a difficult place to be. Especially now with political correctness, impossible NCLB standards, and children who learn so differently that it’s easy to blame technology for all those ills. Let me be plain before I explain further in my story: they learn differently, but we are responsible for teaching them nonetheless.  Still, I am flummoxed at our nation’s denigration of our efforts.

I like change, lots of it. For work, for my personal life, and for the learning that accompanies it whether I take it at the time or have to learn the lesson later. My career thus far has spanned teaching English/Language Arts in four different school buildings, one private school, two middle schools, two high schools, and a plethora of different people. During this tenure, I have been classified as a teacher, teacher leader, literacy coach, and administrator. Much of what I learned about myself, then, is that I love to work with the less fortunate, the humble, the ones who crave learning. The biggest difference between teaching at a private school was the sense of entitlement and I’m ever grateful for the learnings I acquired from a simple, old janitor named Allen. When I left that building I digested much of the attitude of those teachers and sorted through it to discover that kids are kids and my job doesn’t change just because the population does.

Leaving that school I went on to work at the highest poverty middle school in our district and gave as much as I gave previously only to discover that for those students there was such an appreciation for my efforts. Their parents expressed it, too, and it was then I studied the amount of triumph of those students was proportionate to how deserving they felt. What a sobering thought, but that’s just the reality of it.

Recently, I ran into two of the private school teachers who asked what I’d been doing in the six years since I had taught with them. I rattled off  the litany of accomplishments and what I’d been busy with and we chatted cordially. We were, it needs to be said, in the middle of a department store and I knew it was the kind of polite conversation one has when catching up with acquaintances.

“So, you went over to teach at School X. Hmmm. How was that?”

Her meaning wasn’t even thinly veiled. She wanted to know, “What’s it like working with poor kids? With lots of Black kids? With those heathens and hoodlums who only come to school to fight and wreak havoc?”

It was to be a polite conversation. This really shouldn’t ruin it, but her tone set my blood to boiling in a matter of seconds. So I began the process of heaping burning coals on her head.
“It was great! I loved it there!”

“Yes, but was it different?”

I hated the way she said that word. Different. It crossed my mind to slap her right upside the head.

“Absolutely not. Twelve year olds at one school are the same as twelve year olds at another. They all have the same basic needs and deserve an education. They are all teachable.”

“Oh.”

Not the answer she wanted, I assume. Not what she hoped to hear that perhaps I feared for my life on a daily basis and that I’d been caught up in a fight or two and had to put someone in a headlock. That was, of course, true. But she was positively dripping with anticipation of hearing this. She nearly drooled to get The Goods On Poor Public Educators.

“So, you left there. Where are you now?”

I was under the impression, what with all her salivating, that she already knew. She had heard that I pretty much followed those Poor Kids to the high school where I am currently a guidance dean so I offered it up to her minus any fanfare.

“Oh. WOW. You’re there?” There was no way she wanted to hide her incredulous response. She reminded me of the viper news reporters chomping at the bit to get a juicy story.

“Yeah, I love it. It’s great.”

“Well, I hear bad things about that place. What are YOUR thoughts on working there?”

While I am ever conscious of the fact that I represent my school, my district, my city, and my career in education I know that I am to always be positive. It pains me to give anyone ammunition with which to shoot all educators. Yet, here I was in the middle of a store browsing the aisles for sweater sets. My arms were full of a couple of outfits and I had yet to try them on and didn’t want this to ruin my day.

But I didn’t even have to reply to her.

Out of nowhere a woman came around the corner. She had been listening to our conversation on the other side of the dress rack and came to confront the woman to whom I was speaking.

“What’s the matter with you!? Am I to understand that YOU’RE A TEACHER? There is nothing wrong with where she teaches or works or whatever she does there. My daughter went there and just graduated and I was skeptical of sending her there because of PEOPLE LIKE YOU who bash everything in this town when you don’t know anything about it. Why don’t you take your ass over there and see for yourself? My kids have gotten great educations at both those schools this lady just mentioned!”

It occurs to me that, obviously, I am This Lady.

But This Lady, the one who rocked my world by coming to my defense and the defense of all whom I care to represent, was now my favorite person on the planet. Would she balk if I kissed her full on the lips? Would she hate it if I picked her up and twirled her around the store? Could I send her on an all-expenses paid cruise to the Caribbean?

This Lady, me, will forever be grateful for that bitch slap moment when I didn’t have to sigh and explain myself ad nauseam about why I do what I do. The relief I felt after watching this stranger unleash on former colleagues was thoroughly satisfying.

To The Lady who saved me from having to defend my passion for educating ALL STUDENTS: you are my heroine. I didn’t even buy a dress or those sweater sets. You also made me restructure all future “polite conversations.”

alternately titled One Month In Four Days: Day Four

This really hasn’t been the Best Week Ever so I’m concerned how VH-1 can consistently come up with those episodes except to say that most of them aren’t really a best so much as a most embarrassing or most asinine or most viewed online. It’s helped that the smell of fresh cut grass permeates my nose each time I step outside, but I must say that the return of spiders and spider webs are really NOT my favorite way to usher in the Spring. Especially when I find the spider web after leaning against the door frame to soak up some sunshine for a stolen moment and realize that my hair keeps sticking to my face.

Only it’s not my hair it’s a spider web and I realize this after three separate swipes at my face trying to remove sticky hair and my brain connects with rational thought and I quickly wonder my hair isn’t sticky, this is a spider web and JUST WHERE IS THAT SPIDER? IN MY HAIR? I’M GOING TO NEED TO KILL SOMETHING RIGHT NOW. My crazy woman dance is complete when neighbors see me and start laughing at my seizure gyration.

Much of this work week has been spent creating a job description for my current position as a guidance dean. We’ve been in a state of uncertainty as a district since we began restructuring efforts. In fact, I’ve lost weight and it’s noticeable because one of the teachers asked me, “Are you losing weight? What are you doing?” today in the hallway to which I replied:

“I’m on the Restructuring Diet. You see, I close my eyes and envision that I know what the heck I’m doing and what that will look like next year and then I experience gas pains and fart and poop the rest of the day. I try not to envision until after 4 o’clock so as not to punish everyone at school. Isn’t that nice of me?”

No one will be asking me dieting advice ever again. Your loss, people.

I realize that I’ve made you wait for Day Four in my series, but I haven’t been able to talk about it until now. But at least Day Two let you know that my news was not, in fact, another baby. The most I was able to say in Day Three was that all of our high schools have new principals this Fall and that jobs would be changing for other administrators, too. The community is, understandably, concerned and I’m flooded with calls from other educators and from parents about what they can expect from me next year. Some of parents’ frustration about this is the hesitancy about who will be in what position. This even came out when a parent yelled at me over the phone.

The part of the conversation that I left out of that post was when he said to me, “You know what? I think the new superintendent knows what he’s doing putting these new people in these positions because some of you don’t know what you’re doing! I hope you get a demotion!”

I left that out on purpose when I wrote about it then because I had an inkling of something that I haven’t been able to mention until now.

He’ll be so upset to find out that I will be remaining at the school as an assistant principal next year.

Hot diggity, y’all. I got a promotion.

Recently, during a teacher work day, I had the opportunity to listen to a national speaker discuss issues that are important to kids in high school and he spoke some words that are currently haunting me. It had to do with belief systems and expectations we have of our students as well as what they have for themselves.

It doesn’t matter what I think I can do.

It doesn’t matter what you think I can do.

It’s what I think you think I can do.

Ouch. That one stepped on my toes a bit.

*Edited to add: Drowning In Laundry did an interview of me that you can find here. If you want something to make you snooze and grateful for your own amazing lives…