Still no word from the Council on Day 13 of the adventure that is my job at ISL. Well, actually I talked to Miss Rotarian Lady & she said that she knew the other woman had made a decision, but she didn't know whom she had chosen. 7 days later it seems pretty likely that it wasn't me, as I have left at least 2 voicemails for the other lady & still heard nothing.
Yesterday, I finally thought to ask for a copy of the kids' daily schedule, since no one had given me one. This way, I am not continuously surprised that I am having to take them somewhere. As I mentioned previously, my day is split between 2 classes of 16 3rd graders. I take each group to lunch on alternating days & today I was with the....."interesting" class. All kids are a handful, but this group is even more so. During lunch, one of them threw up in front of the rest of them. Another one was going into Def-con 14 over being excluded from a hand-clapping game, these 2 little boys were just being all rowdy with each other, everythang.
When I had them line up, 2 by 2, I made them take each others' hands, since if I don't, they go from being a line to being mob in like 3 seconds flat. As we get to the hallway, I was walking along side them & the last two boys were behind me & I heard one of them say, "He's a faggot!"
My blood absolutely ran cold. My hands are shaking as I type this & I remember being 7 years old, in Mrs. Smith's 2nd Grade class at Hahnville Elementary, sitting in my little desk & another kid slapping me so hard on the back of my neck out of nowhere & me bursting into tears & him saying just that one word. Faggot. And no one came. I just buried my face in my little arms & just cried silently for a few minutes until Mrs Smith said, "wake up, Sam" & I just swallowed real hard & wiped my eyes & just kept going.
"Qui a dit ça??!?" (Who said that?)
& the one kid I'll call A. immediately piped up, "I didn't say anything!" Clearly, I know it's him, besides the fact that I know what his voice sounds like. I led them back up to the classroom & to my surprise, there was a Teachers' meeting going on, so I had to stand in the hallway, shushing the kids for a minute or two while the rest of them went into another classroom & Ulysse started with a Science lesson. I stood around for a minute, looking for some papers to correct or something & went into the hallway to look for Isabel, the other teacher I am assisting. She was still all slung up in her meeting, but she saw me looking in the window of the door & came out & we went into the other class & I told her what happened, looking for advice on discipline & she sucked her teeth in that Senegalese way I have adopted (I have GOT to stop doing this, BTW) & told me some horror stories about being called names by the students & then she said, "I don't find you very professional, so naturally the kids talk to you like you are their equal."
"So it's my fault?"
"No, but if you don't take a firm line with them, they will walk all over you."
Just about then, the kids came back in. She advised me to go outside for a walk, smoke a cigarette & relax b4 coming back in. So I did.
I swear, if I hadn't left my backpack up in the building, I'm pretty sure I'd have been on the Magazine bus in 2 minutes flat. But instead I gathered myself together & headed to the Principal's office. I told her my story. She identified both my issues & we talked for several minutes. She was incredibly supportive & we even had a hug afterwards. Then we headed downstairs to pull A. out of class. I hung back at 1st, and watched the Master at work. She started off with, "Do you know why I pulled you out of class?" & he was all evasive & when she got to the heart of the matter, he tried to say at first that it was the other little boy. We pulled the other little boy out of class & A. got all nervous & tried to flip the script & they both tried to tell some story that Miss Woman dismissed out of hand. She sent the other little boy back to class & then things got real serious. She explained to him about bad words & derogatory words. She asked if he even knew what the word faggot meant. He said, "It means you don't like someone?"
This is one of those times where I just wanted to burst out laughing but I didn't react (thankfully). Without flinching, Miss Principal Lady never gave him a definition but steered the conversation deftly into how much words hurt and how she was gonna have to tell his parents about the whole thing. He cried a bit, and after some prompting, apologized.
I thanked Miss Principal Lady profusely for having my back like that & after the kids all left, I got up on that bus & headed for the comfort of blogging & soaking my feet in my lil foot bath. Damn I wish I had me some hot boy to rub my feet.
& Damn the DA's office for not calling me back.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
LRW faces the Council....
Today was Day 6 of my job as a Teacher's Aide at ISL. While I was on my break, I walked over to Mojo's coffee shop & ran into a fellow hot-mess-turned-success, who owns the coffee shop! We didn't get to talk for very long, but it sure was nice to run into an old friend & know he's doing well despite (or maybe even because) of his former levels of tragedy, not unlike myself.
Anyway, my day at ISL was good, there was not a ton of stuff to do & interacting with the students really is a joy. However, one of the teachers whom I assist always has some menial thing for me to do after the kids are gone, like sharpen & sort a bunch of colored pencils. Today, my last task was to open all of our age-appropriate French-French dictionaries to a specific page (218, if you're wondering) & cover the anatomical drawings from chest to genitals with Post-it notes that I had to tape down, as if this is going to stop a determined 8-year-old from looking.
As most of you will already know, I had a 2nd interview scheduled with the DA's office today at 4:30. Mercifully, my dear friend Steve was able to give me a ride from ISL (this would have been an hour-long multiple-bus excursion otherwise, so I really am grateful for this) to the DA's office. I got to there 15 minutes early, and when I presented myself at the front desk, the Rotarian Lady from the 1st interview greeted me warmly, and had me sit at a conference table in the lobby to translate 3 pages of legal-related sentences from English into Spanish & 1 page in the opposite language combination to work on. When she asked if I had a pen, I said, "Of course," and got started.
She came down & checked on my progress twice & the 2nd time she had me stop & come up to meet with the rest of the interviewers. "How many more interviewers are we talking about here?" I thought, and as I walked up to this conference room, I could see that there were no less than 6 other people seated around this table, with the hot seat waiting for me.
The lady who conducted my 1st interview was seated at the head of the table and on her right was a white lady from the victims & witnesses services & a Hispanic lady & to her left was a Black lady from some other department and another white lady from the Diversion Dept & another Hispanic lady. It felt like the council of LRWs. Miss Woman from the 1st interview says "As I told you in the 1st interview, the 2nd interview will consist of you role-playing with these Spanish ladies & these White ladies with you acting as translator & then you will go downstairs with one of our native speakers to go over your written answers" (Clearly I am paraphrasing a bit) but I am now thinking, "Bitch you didn't tell me anything about this at the 1st interview. I am sure about this because I was hanging on your every word." But I just went with it.
There were words I didn't know, OK. I think I conveyed the better part of the material but there were definitely what felt like pauses to me. There was even a point where one of these White Ladies kinda carried on and I got lost in what she was saying & I had to ask her to repeat it. But I soldiered through it and when it was over, Miss Black Lady said, "well, that went really well."
Now I have to say this. Despite the fact that she said that, if I had left right then I'd have said, "Oh well, you didn't get this one, you will do better & get the next one." The pauses made me nervous & probably hyper-critical, but when I was going downstairs with Miss Native Speaker to go over the written portion, she complimented my Spanish & said in so many words that it was "excelente."
We went over the written answers and talked about a phrase I had translated awkwardly from the Miranda rights and then it was over. She seemed to accept my translations & may have noticed that I corrected the Spanish statements for grammar, accentuation & punctuation (I am sure any of my students who read this will tell you I am a stickler for these sorts of things). I think I forgot to mention that after the role-playing, Miss Woman from the 1st interview told me I should have a definite answer within 2-3 days.
I walked out into the beautiful, breezy weather & it felt like it used to when I was walking to work at Chateaubriand during those gorgeous, Pre-Katrina purply sunsets that we only get in South Louisiana, back when hope grew every day in my heart all the time along with all those different colored rosebushes I'd planted. I hope that's a good sign.
But if this is not what is in the cards for me at the moment, it is fine. My current job is really a wonderful opportunity to help NOLA youth to grow & learn, even if part of it includes a lil academic bitch-work There are a few LRWs there too, trust!
Thanks for reading!!
Anyway, my day at ISL was good, there was not a ton of stuff to do & interacting with the students really is a joy. However, one of the teachers whom I assist always has some menial thing for me to do after the kids are gone, like sharpen & sort a bunch of colored pencils. Today, my last task was to open all of our age-appropriate French-French dictionaries to a specific page (218, if you're wondering) & cover the anatomical drawings from chest to genitals with Post-it notes that I had to tape down, as if this is going to stop a determined 8-year-old from looking.
As most of you will already know, I had a 2nd interview scheduled with the DA's office today at 4:30. Mercifully, my dear friend Steve was able to give me a ride from ISL (this would have been an hour-long multiple-bus excursion otherwise, so I really am grateful for this) to the DA's office. I got to there 15 minutes early, and when I presented myself at the front desk, the Rotarian Lady from the 1st interview greeted me warmly, and had me sit at a conference table in the lobby to translate 3 pages of legal-related sentences from English into Spanish & 1 page in the opposite language combination to work on. When she asked if I had a pen, I said, "Of course," and got started.
She came down & checked on my progress twice & the 2nd time she had me stop & come up to meet with the rest of the interviewers. "How many more interviewers are we talking about here?" I thought, and as I walked up to this conference room, I could see that there were no less than 6 other people seated around this table, with the hot seat waiting for me.
The lady who conducted my 1st interview was seated at the head of the table and on her right was a white lady from the victims & witnesses services & a Hispanic lady & to her left was a Black lady from some other department and another white lady from the Diversion Dept & another Hispanic lady. It felt like the council of LRWs. Miss Woman from the 1st interview says "As I told you in the 1st interview, the 2nd interview will consist of you role-playing with these Spanish ladies & these White ladies with you acting as translator & then you will go downstairs with one of our native speakers to go over your written answers" (Clearly I am paraphrasing a bit) but I am now thinking, "Bitch you didn't tell me anything about this at the 1st interview. I am sure about this because I was hanging on your every word." But I just went with it.
There were words I didn't know, OK. I think I conveyed the better part of the material but there were definitely what felt like pauses to me. There was even a point where one of these White Ladies kinda carried on and I got lost in what she was saying & I had to ask her to repeat it. But I soldiered through it and when it was over, Miss Black Lady said, "well, that went really well."
Now I have to say this. Despite the fact that she said that, if I had left right then I'd have said, "Oh well, you didn't get this one, you will do better & get the next one." The pauses made me nervous & probably hyper-critical, but when I was going downstairs with Miss Native Speaker to go over the written portion, she complimented my Spanish & said in so many words that it was "excelente."
We went over the written answers and talked about a phrase I had translated awkwardly from the Miranda rights and then it was over. She seemed to accept my translations & may have noticed that I corrected the Spanish statements for grammar, accentuation & punctuation (I am sure any of my students who read this will tell you I am a stickler for these sorts of things). I think I forgot to mention that after the role-playing, Miss Woman from the 1st interview told me I should have a definite answer within 2-3 days.
I walked out into the beautiful, breezy weather & it felt like it used to when I was walking to work at Chateaubriand during those gorgeous, Pre-Katrina purply sunsets that we only get in South Louisiana, back when hope grew every day in my heart all the time along with all those different colored rosebushes I'd planted. I hope that's a good sign.
But if this is not what is in the cards for me at the moment, it is fine. My current job is really a wonderful opportunity to help NOLA youth to grow & learn, even if part of it includes a lil academic bitch-work There are a few LRWs there too, trust!
Thanks for reading!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)