Comida, Cuba & Crips
We finished up our fourth unit this week, learning about food and meals, and had our big test on Wednesday. I was a little apprehensive about it, especially following my students' stellar 40-percent-average performance on the last one, but they rocked it instead. Almost all of my kids, with the exception of a few of my phantom students who come about once a week, reached our "big goal" of earning all As and Bs. After about 6 hours of grading, I came out of my classroom beaming with pride. And my kids were pretty damn excited too. Yea for being smart!!!
To round out a great day, we finished our first semester of grad school at Johns Hopkins with dinner from the professors of our first class and happy hour on the tab of our second professor. I could get used to this kind of treatment. :-) And keeping up that 4.0!
Our second Culture Week starts on Monday and I'm so excited to finally get to teach my kids about Cuba. They've been hounding me with questions for months, but I've been putting them off as a lame attempt to build anticipation for this week. We started off with a brief history of Cuba and its relationship with the U.S., and I was pretty disappointed with my students' ignorance. I suppose I just took for granted that my students would know who John F. Kennedy was or that Americans can't typically travel to Cuba. Who was I kidding though - they're only in 11th grade! I just hope they keep up all the energy and excitement, while remaining civilized people in the last week before break. I don't know if I can handle them being out of control - the school is already crazy right now.
On that note, it seems like the neighborhood gang problems have subsided for a bit, though the kids have been in an uproar at the added security. They hate having metal detectors at random, because it means they have to "ditch their jackets" before they get to the door. It's amazing to see how many of my best kids can be such thugs at the same time. This is the apocalyptic graffiti that got the administration and students all worked up this week.
It was tagged immediately inside the stairwell door leading to our school, so the kids have been freaking out.
For those of you who are a little rusty on your gang cryptography, here are a few pointers. The C obviously stands for Crips, and B for Bloods. "C Up, B Down" or vice versa is a pretty common phrase, but a slashed arrow down through the letter generally means there's going to be an attack. 187 is the California code for murder; ICG is short for Insane Crip Gangsta; and $ is the symbol for power and money, so $GC is probably the tag of whoever wrote this - probably a local Crip leader. "6 popping, 5 dropping" is a generic term that means the Crips will be killing some Bloods. When written "5 dropping, 6 popping" it means the exact opposite.
So we'll see how it turns out - I just pray every day that my students are staying out of this mess, and I know that kids like Deandre and Durrell could be doing so much more with their lives than risking everything just to rule the block. Maybe they'll get so excited by Culture Week: Cuba that they'll just drop the gang thing and become full-time students. Ha.
To round out a great day, we finished our first semester of grad school at Johns Hopkins with dinner from the professors of our first class and happy hour on the tab of our second professor. I could get used to this kind of treatment. :-) And keeping up that 4.0!
Our second Culture Week starts on Monday and I'm so excited to finally get to teach my kids about Cuba. They've been hounding me with questions for months, but I've been putting them off as a lame attempt to build anticipation for this week. We started off with a brief history of Cuba and its relationship with the U.S., and I was pretty disappointed with my students' ignorance. I suppose I just took for granted that my students would know who John F. Kennedy was or that Americans can't typically travel to Cuba. Who was I kidding though - they're only in 11th grade! I just hope they keep up all the energy and excitement, while remaining civilized people in the last week before break. I don't know if I can handle them being out of control - the school is already crazy right now.
On that note, it seems like the neighborhood gang problems have subsided for a bit, though the kids have been in an uproar at the added security. They hate having metal detectors at random, because it means they have to "ditch their jackets" before they get to the door. It's amazing to see how many of my best kids can be such thugs at the same time. This is the apocalyptic graffiti that got the administration and students all worked up this week.
It was tagged immediately inside the stairwell door leading to our school, so the kids have been freaking out.For those of you who are a little rusty on your gang cryptography, here are a few pointers. The C obviously stands for Crips, and B for Bloods. "C Up, B Down" or vice versa is a pretty common phrase, but a slashed arrow down through the letter generally means there's going to be an attack. 187 is the California code for murder; ICG is short for Insane Crip Gangsta; and $ is the symbol for power and money, so $GC is probably the tag of whoever wrote this - probably a local Crip leader. "6 popping, 5 dropping" is a generic term that means the Crips will be killing some Bloods. When written "5 dropping, 6 popping" it means the exact opposite.
So we'll see how it turns out - I just pray every day that my students are staying out of this mess, and I know that kids like Deandre and Durrell could be doing so much more with their lives than risking everything just to rule the block. Maybe they'll get so excited by Culture Week: Cuba that they'll just drop the gang thing and become full-time students. Ha.
posted by Tom at 6:23 PM
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