Our Story Begins...

Shutdown hasn't been everything that I hoped it would be.  I started taking classes to finish my reading endorsement in June, figuring that I needed to use this time well.  And, expensively.  I bombed through the second of three classes in the summer and then, started the horrific finisher in the fall, while trying to virtually teach.  What the fuck?  I thought.  I'm not working two jobs right now because I can't and I don't even have to drive to work, saving me a lot of time.  It has been a virtual nightmare.  I spent the Thanksgiving week break writing a sixty-eight page paper.  By choice.  Because by Monday, I have to work again.  

I've utilized some of what I learned during the endorsement.  I administered Kaw the diagnostic assessment of his reading ability the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving week.  I was shoddily taught on how to administer this thing and I tried to do it right, because I only took these fucking classes to figure how to help students that struggle to read.  They say to go two grades below a student's grade, to help build confidence.  He couldn't read any of the words on the second grade list and I had to go to rock bottom.  He was at a frustration level by what is considered a level below kindergarten, though he is in fourth grade.  I tried to pretend everything was okay, congratulating him and telling him he was doing great.  I, personally, was freaking out.  

"Okay, Kaw, thanks for working with me here.  I know this is boring, but I have to figure out what to teach you next.  It will get more interesting." I said after over an hour of diagnostic assessment.  
"Let's call it a day."
"But, can you help me with my other work?  And can you meet with me during the break or on the weekend?" he responded.
 "I am working with Bway Pa at 1:00 to do Social Studies work, do you want to join?  I don't want to wear you out...."
"I'll be there."  he responded, and he was.  

We finished the work.  Paw Ku piped up and presented her screen, she had finished earlier and was looking at pictures of traditional Thai dancers.  We looked at them, while Paw Ku talked about how beautiful they were.  

"Would you visit Thailand again, if you could?"  I asked. 

"NO."  Kaw responded.

"It is too dangerous."

"What if you could go to the  Karen villages, in the north, would you visit there?" I asked.

"I would go there, but the rest of Thailand, too dangerous..." Kaw and Paw Ku responded, unanimously. 

"I looked up the military...."  Paw Ku mentioned, showing her screen again.

"I'm sorry, Paw Ku, stop.  They are showing piles of dead people and we don't need to see that."  I responded.

Piles of dead Karen people.   

 

The Water Cycle

"Why do you think the third amendment is important?"  one of the teachers with which I virtually teach barked into the camera.
"Because no one wants soldiers tracking blood in the house on their dirty feet."  a student responded.  He was new.  A student that hadn't been taught to be submissive and passive.  One that was actually taught to speak in class and use his mind.   

I worked with fourth graders after school, because apparently school is for lectures and everything else is homework.  Even in elementary school.  The kids blow up my Google Classroom feed, screaming for help, even during the classes we sit in with their general ed. teachers. 

 
"Alright, water cycle.  What is it?"  I asked, while googling it on a different tab.  
"Water fall from sky...." Kaw answered, hesitantly.
"You are so right..." I responded, knowing it wasn't enough but typed it into his Google Slide for him, anyway.  He was trying.  And keyboarding skills are not a standard.  And, I will do anything for Kaw.  My mind drifted back a week ago and months ago.  He texted me on my fake Google Voice number during the first week of school, in August.  

"I am new boy." his text read.  Bway Pa and Paw Ku help him, I found out from the beginning.  

We have a freer schedule on Wednesdays and Kaw could easily take a day off from school.  But he doesn't.  He blows up my feed, asking for help.  We worked alone last Wednesday, on math of all things.  Some of my other students tried to come onto the call, but I insisted that I needed to work with Kaw, alone.  It was murderous, torturous work.  I hate math.  After an hour and a half of work, with Kaw speaking but his camera off, he asked me some questions.

"Will you keep helping me?" Kaw asked.

"Of course.  What worries you?  Why won't you speak in class?  Is it too many people?"

"I can't do anything.  Every time I talk people tell me to say it again.  They don't understand me.  And, I can't read and I can't write.  I can't do anything.  I like school here better than in Thailand, because they don't hit me.  But I can't do anything."

"Kaw?  I've noticed that whenever you see someone do something on a computer, you don't need the directions repeated.  You look at it once and you can do it, automatically.  I wish I could do that."  I answered.  

"Yeah, I can do that....."

"What do you think about me and you meeting every Wednesday, we can work on some things...."  I suggested.  

"Yes!"  he responded.

"What do you think about ten o'clock, is that a good time for you?"  I answered.

"I get up up early, how about eight thirty, is that a good time for you?" he asked replicating my speech.

"That's a perfect time for me, Kaw."  I responded.

"I will put up the link."

I have a lot more to say about Kaw, and the student I taught years ago that was killed this week, though he was still just a child.  But I don't think I can do all that right now.  I feel really tired. 

MAGA

I was sitting on my sister's porch, the only place I go besides the grocery store.  We live in Atlanta in a highly liberal neighborhood.  A pick-up truck roared by, with giant Trump flags on each sides of its bed.  We looked at each other.  What the fuck?

There is not a lot I can concentrate on.  I do my best to teach my classes from my couch.  I have been taking another reading instruction graduate class at Georgia State so that I can better serve my students.  I am never doing that again.  I detest academic writing and have done way too much of that in my life.  

I finished my paper last Saturday and went for a jog around the park.  I heard tires squealing and saw a pick up truck at a nearby intersection.  I heard shouting.  I inadvertently hunkered down, thinking of tires squealing in Charlottesville and Trump pick-up trucks.  Or maybe tensions were just high, because the election hadn't been called.  As I ran, I heard more clanging and honks.  A woman walked by, carrying her Biden-Harris sign.   

"Did they call Pennsylvania?"  I called.

"Yes!"  she responded, as cars honked at her and pots and pans clanged.

I got inside the house and turned on the TV.  I was stunned that they had called the whole election for Biden.  I thought they would equivocate it, make it conditional, say this that or the other, we'll just see.  The cover of the New York Times read:  BIDEN BEATS TRUMP.

I was surprised when I cried a little.  I just want him to go.  Trump has to go.  I jogged back to my sister's house.  The whole neighborhood was either dancing in the street, or lighting fireworks or shooting guns in the air.  Or just driving around, honking their horns. 

We uncapped a couple of beers.   Suddenly, a white pick-up truck tore down the street.  Giant Trump flags flowed from the back of the bed.  I couldn't believe they were here again.  In our neighborhood.  

I could see the woman in the passenger seat.  She was older and light haired.  Her face was in a grimace, mouth a-gap.  A black hole scream of a mouth.  It reminded me of Donald Sutherland in the seventies remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  But, she had not been snatched.  

She was honestly terrorized that Donald Trump did not win again.  

Stars of Track and Field

"I hear that COVID voice again."  Alejandra mentioned absent-mindedly.  I stifled my inappropriate laughter.  The COVID voice belonged to another student's mother.  I looked at the little panels in our MEET.  Alejandra was wrapped in a blanket, obviously half awake.  Baby Gustavo was laying under the covers in his bed, wearing a wife beater and what we inadvertently discovered later when he got up, his underwear. Mashia was dressed and at the kitchen table, but rarely unmuted herself because we would either hear the COVID voice in the background or a wild call to prayer.  Pablo sat eating breakfast, a cheese stick in one hand and a Pepsi in the other.  He had some barbecue chips, later.   Mario didn't show, as usual.  

"Are you guys ready for the matching game, the vocabulary thing, or do you want to play something different?"

Pablo quickly unmuted himself.

"Among Us."  he requested.  

"Not during school!"  I responded.

"After!" 

"Then let me see Lola."  he responded.

We meet up a lot after school.  It takes up most of my planning time.  Occasionally we do school work, but the kids mainly just want to talk to each other.  Often, we play Among Us in a private match against each other, while we simultaneously talk on the MEET and listen to music. I've gotten better at Among Us after an unfortunate first day where I was killed over and over.  My students felt bad for me and quit killing me, simply leaving me standing in a corner with a pumpkin on my head.  

I voted.  During my lunch one day I drove down to our basketball arena, State Farm.  Alec and I both decided that was where we would early vote, mainly because they have hundreds of machines and the place is huge, as opposed to ten machines crammed into the public library.  A poll worker waived me in to free parking directly across the street and pointed to where I needed to go.  I don't go out very much and when I do, I realize I feel strange.  The sun seems really bright.  I feel kind of rumpled and puffy.  I stare at the ground or scope around, trying to jump away from people that get too close.  I always wear a mask and don't even bother with makeup anymore.  My hair is perpetually pulled back because it has gotten ridiculously long.  And for some reason, I randomly feel like crying.

I entered the arena and was met by enthusiastic young people working the poll, as opposed to the regular older set of poll workers.  They wore t-shirts that had a large basketball on it instead of a peach, but with a little green leaf on the top and adorned with the "I voted" banner.  They had plexiglass and hand sanitizer everywhere.  I got through quickly and walked past the bars and restaurants that people frequent during the games and thought of different times.  They were all shuttered.  I was surprised when they guided me right into the main arena.  I stood at the top of the stadium stairs and looked down at hundreds and hundreds of voting machines lined up on the basketball court.  And down I went to the floor and placed my vote on the same court that we watched LeBron James play on.   It was a strange sensation and I glanced up, thinking we maybe needed a cheering crowd.  But, the seats were all empty.  

I went back out into the bright sunlight and to the car, getting to the couch five minutes before my next class began.  

*Title, Belle and Sebastian