Among Us

"Hi Mrs. Caballero!  This is, um, Hilary Wagner, from Westward Elementary.  Um....I'm calling because, well, Veronica is locked in the garage...."

"Cóm...WHAT?"

"Um yeah, we were talking after school on Google MEET and she went in the garage to see the dogs and um, well, I'm really sorry, she locked herself in....I told her to tell me Adriana's number, she's upstairs, but Veronica ..."

"I KNOW I KNOW, no lo sé, right?"
"YES!  She doesn't know Adriana's number and told me to call her mom so...."

Thankfully, Mrs. Caballero burst out laughing.

"It's all good!" she exclaimed, snickering.

"I'm really sorry."  I responded and hung up.

I looked back at the screen.

"Veronica, your mom is calling Adriana.  Prem!"  I yelled into the screen,

"Put down that gasoline!  The hammer too!  If I have to call your parents and say that the house is on fire, Ms. Wagner is not going to have a job on Monday!"

Prem laughed and put the can of gasoline down and the hammer back in a bin and came back to the computer with his cat.  

"Prem, oh my god!  Turn around!  Ku has the hammer!"  I screamed, watching Prem's five year old brother dig in the bin and run away behind Prem's back, carrying a large tool.  

I heard the garage door open and watched Veronica run back inside her house.

I sat at my kitchen table, listening to the second meanest teacher at the school teach a class while I watched Lola run around the back yard.  The neighbor's landscapers started blowing and mowing their yard, drowning out the mean teacher's voice.  

"Okay!" she yelled.

"You have fifteen minutes to complete this!"

Holy shit, independent work time!  I sprang into action, dropping a MEET link in her chat and directing my students to join my call so that I could actually help them with the assignment.  Prem and Veronica piped in immediately.  They really didn't need much help and I sat and watched them work, waiting for questions.  I looked outside and saw Lola trapped on a three and a half foot high retaining wall in our backyard.

"I'm sorry you guys.  I'll be back.  Lola is trapped."  I said and quickly ran outside.  I had to pick up all eighty-five pounds of her, while she tranquilly waited to be lowered to the ground.

"Okay, I'm back."  I announced.

"Are you on the beginning, middle or end of your narrative?"

"Ms. Wagner, can I tell you something?"  Angel asked sleepily while we waited for his test to load.  We had been at it for hours.

"Sure."

"Okay but, DON'T CRY."

"Okay...." I answered, a little worried.

"My dog, you know Hazel?  We were outside and well....she killed a little mouse."

"It's okay, Angel.  It's just what dogs do.  They aren't trying to be mean."

Angel's mom walked in and asked me why the testing was taking so long.  I explained to her in Spanish that the test was stupid and that I was really sorry, that it was just something they were making us do and I wouldn't make Angel sit through it much longer.  

"You know a lot of words in Spanish." Angel mentioned as his mom left his room.

"Yeah, I like Spanish a lot, but when I get nervous I make mistakes.  I don't want your mom to think that I don't speak well."

"I make mistakes when I'm nervous, too."  Angel responded.

"It's okay."  he added with a smile.  

Memories

"Ms. Wagner.  Meet with the ESOL students tomorrow.  They are all missing Social Studies assignments."  I was a little put off to receive the missive from a colleague, directing me to drag the students into virtual class on a day when they did not have their regular classes.  I looked at their assignments.  Yeah, they were missing some stuff.  As was the rest of the class.  I love my students and want to help them, I guess I just don't like being commanded to do things by people that are not my superiors and don't even do a shadow of what their own jobs are.  I sent my kids a link to meet up on their mental health day, adding a message to their Social Studies teacher that when I have tried to get them into virtual class on Wednesdays for extra help, they usually don't show up, but hey, we are all just trying to be the best we's we can be.  

Three out of six came, right on time.  It was a casual atmosphere, Alec making a massive lunch in the background and Lola jumping on the couch beside me.  I did not change my background and warned them a few times when I needed to get another monitor or more coffee, but never cut my camera.  I went into their assignments and realized most of them hadn't been taught how to use the technology they were supposed to be using. On top of it, the teachers didn't understand the technology either, it was a series of dead links and unwritable forms.  I was pissed.  They had been given zeroes, as was the rest of their class.  

I got one of my emerging students to share his screen, and we got to work.  I heard a little tune in the background, while one of my other students started playing music on her phone.  

Here's to the ones that we got

Cheers to wish you were here, but you're not

'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories

Of everything we've been through 

Toast to the ones here today

Toast to the ones that we lost on the way

'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories

And the memories bring back, memories bring back you...

"I like that song." I said and directed him on how to dictate his answers to me while I wrote them down and photographed them with my phone, because the doc was so dead it was unwritable.  

We continued to work, little heads down and up, questioning and answering and humming.  They would sing out loud the ones that we lost so rhythmically and I would feel my eyes welling up, thinking of the all the people that were gone, the ones that had died, of how much we had lost when school shut down last March.  I though of the teacher that I work with that was asked about how she felt on the first day of pre-planning, only to mention that the father of her newborn child had been killed, the same week as Rayshard Brooks, and played the same song to convey her feelings.   

"I have to go to another meeting..."  I told them.  

"I have to hang up."

"Can we keep working together?" Paw Ku asked.

"Yes.  That is why we did this.  Stay on the call.  Teach each other to submit."  

I can't wait to see you tomorrow.  

*Title - Memories, Marroon 5 

 

I Didn't Kill the Deputy

I pushed in to my virtual class, trying to figure out what to do.  My older students have figured out how to follow my MEET links so that we can meet together in small groups and figure out assignments, but with kindergarten and first grades, it's a mess.  And, those are the teachers that are pushing more and more for me to "take them".

I am so afraid of not doing my job.  It is important to me.  I watch my students, I pin them, a way that I can only see them and not the rest of the class.  I try to figure out if they're engaged, if they're working.  I pipe in, speak to them.  Some of them have been able to come to my pull-out virtual room, mainly by themselves, or sometimes, with parent help. Some of my kids have to wake their parents up, because they are laying on a bed beside them after working night shifts, but still trying to monitor online learning.  

Prem's little brother's teacher was determined that I should take him out, all of the time.  But, you know what?  I don't have a magic wand either and I knew from the time I screened him that he was a really unschooled five year old that would need major assistance. I piped in to his class.  I warned the teacher first, because I was going to un-mic.  

"Hi...Ku....can you hear me?"  I asked.  

I saw his face turn toward the camera and thank god, he didn't scream when he saw me. 

"Are your parents around...or your brother...?"

Prem shot into the screen.  The whole class could hear this interaction.  

"Hey Prem, can you click on the link in the chat, I want to work with your brother for a minute." I saw Prem's face fix on the screen and open up the new tab.  

"Go back to your school work, Prem, thank you!"  I yelled, knowing that his teachers were saying things like, if you don't turn this in within the next 90 seconds....you get zeroes, zeroes, zeroes!  

And, you know what?  Ku actually liked the school work his primary teacher was giving him and wouldn't pay attention to me at all.  She had an instrumental version of "I Shot the Sheriff" playing and he was grooving and shaking, doing a little bit of math the whole time.  

"Prem....hang him up with me," I called.

"He is doing just fine."

Dog Days

"Whose legs are those?"  Prem asked randomly, during one of our pull-out sessions.  They sit on the floor, my students, with their Chromebooks on chairs and at times, various family members walk behind whoever is in class. 

"Hey wait, Veronica, is that Adriana?  Is that your mom?"  I asked, happy to see missed members of their families that I haven't seen in a while.  Identifying legs is hard.  I sit on the floor too, while I work.  But my back is to my shelf of records, so legs don't walk behind me.  

I have to get to my MEET groups first, before any of the students join.  Whoever gets there first controls the meeting.  I found this out the hard way when I couldn't mute a new student who tends to sing Islamic chants the whole time he works.  And he gets there early.

Everything changes when I get to remove my students from their virtual classrooms, for pull-out.  Some of the teachers try to dictate all of the time, yelling at me like they do their students, Ms. Wagner, you have ten minutes, get them back on time.... Others want me to take the kids all of the time, because they have a bit of a hands off approach to any child they view as "international".  Sometimes these kids aren't even ESOL students...just Asian, or Hispanic, or African.  I know most of them and don't mind helping, it's just a little weird.  They think I can speak every language in the universe and have an immediate line to every parent of a non-majority ethnicity kid and can just, you know, get it done, wether they are English learners or not.  Sometimes, ethnic confusion pops up even with the ESOL kids... Ms. Wagner, speak to her in Spanish so the other kids won't know what you're saying....but Ms. X, the student is Burmese and doesn't understand Spanish.... I respond.  

I do like it when we leave.  The snacks come out.  They show me the books I sent them this summer.  Many lay down on their beds and prop themselves up on pillows. It's not that I don't want them to do school work.  I just don't see why everything has to be so extreme - dress code, no water, sit up straight.  

And, I get to guess whose legs are those, and visit with everyone.  

Covid 2020

"This is Alberto's sister.  Please text me back, I'm trying to help him, he can't get online."  It was 7:50 in the morning on the first day of school.  And, I knew that Alberto's sister was only in high school and was probably trying to get online for her own classes, too.

Virtual teaching officially began.  By the second day, the students had learned to mute their teachers, leaving them speaking voicelessly to entire classes.  The kids even muted each other.  They took over teachers' Power Points, tearing through them at record pace.  I knew I shouldn't laugh, but I couldn't help it.  

"Ms. Wagner, I can't get in, I don't know my password...." Bway Paw exclaimed in a message.  I started emailing teachers, begging them to give me sign-in information for their pages.  Some refused.  Others simply didn't answer at all.

"Hey, can I call you on TEAMS in a minute, it won't take long."  Mr. Warner asked.  I logged on to the call.

"A bunch of your students are missing, I don't know where they are....Rosa, David, Agnieszka..."  

I was glad that he cared.  

"I got a hold of David's dad and he said that David's mother picked him up for visitation and never returned....."  he continued.  

I gasped. Where is he?  Where the fuck is David?  Is he safe?

"I don't know what is going on with Agnieszka's dad...."  Mr. Warner continued explaining.

"Yeah...he's difficult.  All last spring he just kept saying that he didn't know the kids still had to attend school.  We told him a million times that they did, that they attend online, but he would just say the same thing whenever we could actually get ahold of him....let me request an interpreter, he needs to come pick up her Chromebook....." I responded. 

I found an old contact for Rosa's stepfather and discovered that she had moved.  I checked out her new school and it was a lot better than ours.  I was happy for her, but I'll miss her.  I hope she gets to see snow this year.  

"Ms. Wagner?"  Angel asked into the phone.

"Yes!  Angel, how are you??!!"  I responded, thrilled to hear from him.

"I can't get in, I can't get into my classes!"  he answered.  I could hear his mom in the background, speaking in what seemed like an agitated tone, in Spanish.  I was pissed.  I had been asking and asking for passwords and was being refused.  Angel had missed days of instruction.  He was one of multiple ESOL kids from the same class that could not enter the online classroom and we were being completely stonewalled.  I tried as best as I could to get him online and ended up asking to speak to his mom.  

"I don't speak so much English...."  she said awkwardly into the phone.  

"It's okay, I speak Spanish...." I answered.

It was like a volcano erupted.  She was furious.  She hadn't received a single message from any of Angel's teachers, yet received succinct log-in information on the first day from her other children's teachers.   

"Look,"  I said in Spanish.

"You are right.  This is ridiculous and I'm angry, too.  It's not right.  This is going to be resolved today."  Thankfully, I was able to keep my promise.  

"The WIDA remote screener will be our virtual tool for assessing English language proficiency for incoming students.  You will call the families, tell them to drive to the Center and pick up the student part of the test at 10:00am on Tuesdays, you will schedule a time to call back and screen the child virtually, use whatever the family wants you to use Zoom, What's app, FaceTime, whatever, just put it on your phone, screen the child, call them back to review the results, do all the paperwork, figure out some way to virtually upload it even though we want the forms handwritten.....blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....."  

Yeah, no problem.  Easy fucking peezy.  

The only part I was excited about was that I saw one of my new students to be screened was Prem's little brother.  Prem is such a cool kid that I was excited to receive a new family member.  I called, and his sister facilitated the screener, via FaceTime.

Ku was not having it.   

He repeatedly ran away, crying.  He flopped face down on the couch and tossed the phone away.  When he saw my face on the screen, he screamed.  I finished the screener, feeling horrible.  A message popped up on my computer.

"I could hear you testing my brother...."

"OMG, I am so sorry, Prem.  I totally terrorized him."  I answered.

"It's okay." he responded, then dropped out.

"Hey Ms. Wagner.....can we go live?" 

I thought the message was sweet.  I hadn't received my teaching schedule yet and had been communicating with my students via various messaging platforms, but not on a live video.  I set up the link and sent it out.  I waited a minute and suddenly saw little Alberto pop up on the screen, seated at a little desk in his bedroom.

"Hi Ms. Wagner."  he said, the same little enigmatic smile on his face that he always wears.

"Hi Alberto!  It is so good to see you!  How are you??"

"Well you know, my mom, she stopped hitting...yeah, she doesn't do that anymore.  And my dad?  Well, we don't like him anymore.  That woman with the baby I told you about?  They were not just friends.  And my mom, well, she got us a new dad, but we call him by his name.  Not 'dad'.  And, my mom's going to have a baby!  Its a boy!  I am so excited!"

I smiled broadly into my laptop.

"I am so happy for you, Alberto."  I said, really meaning it even though it was an unusual story.

"I am so glad things are going well."

Sloppy Joe

I watched the Republican, oh, my bad, Democratic Convention.  I was surprised to see the leader of the progressive movement, the person who came in second before the DNC-Biden coup, speaking on the first night, paired with Kasich, a Republican.  Kasich applauded the Democrats for resisting the "radical left".  I really don't give a shit what he thinks of liberals and don't really know why anyone else does either.  By the second night, my blood was boiling.  A montage of seventeen "rising stars" of the Democratic Party.  Mysteriously, all of them were Biden supporters.  Not a single progressive in the lot, no Squad, none of the people that have pumped energy and interest into a decaying, corrupt Democratic Party.  In addition, we got to watch Colin Powell and Cindy McCain.  AOC was relegated to a one minute sound bite, announcing the delegates for Sanders.  It was wildly misunderstood online and the insults started flying again.

"YOU JUST GOT US DONALD TRUMP FOR FOUR MORE YEARS!"
"Bernie supporters cost us the last election!!!!"
"If you don't get what you want you just take your toys and go home!"

Yet, you keep telling me that I have to join your side, while yelling and insulting me and blaming me for the last election.  Bernie Sanders didn't lose the election for Hillary Clinton.  Hillary Clinton barely appeared in public for months at a time and rarely visited the rust belt.  Patriarchal attitudes toward women by women didn't help either.  Jim Comey threw a Hillary email bomb right before the election.  The Russians conspired against her in order to help elect Trump.  The Electoral College allows for one person to win the popular vote and also, lose the election.

But, let's blame Bernie Sanders.  And his supporters.  Insult progressives, yet demand that we vote for hair-sniffing, malarkey-phonograph, "you aren't Black enough if you don't vote for me" Joe Biden.  I am not seeing myself reflected anymore in the traditional, Democratic Party.  We started the primary with a diverse panel of candidates.  Diverse by means of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, progressives and moderates.  And what did we end up with?  An old, white, male, moderate DNC-establishment candidate that wants to shove the progressive wing behind some curtain.  It doesn't help to have to watch a bunch of Republicans at the Democratic Convention, instead of the people that are actually bringing the party alive.  If there are Republicans out there that are still on the fence, I don't think Kasich or Michael Bloomberg is going to convince them.  Give it up, and let's celebrate what is good about our party and for me more than anything, that is the progressive wing.

So, before you start yelling at me too, yes, I am going to vote for Sloppy Joe.  And yes, I voted for Hillary, too.  But it is getting harder and harder to stomach.

First Day

"Okay, which system are you using to deliver assignments, VERGE or Google Classroom?"
"Google Classroom."
"Which video conferencing system are you using, TEAMS or Zoom?"
"Google Classroom."
"Are you telling me you are not using TEAMS or Zoom, but instead are using Google Meet, which is imbedded in Google Classroom?"
"I don't know.  I'm using Google Classroom."
"Which video conferencing?"
"Google Classroom."
"I'm using VERGE and TEAMS."
"I'm using Google Classroom and TEAMS."
"I'm using Google Classroom and MEET."
"Can you make me a co-owner of your class so that I can be in your live sessions?"
Radio silence. 
So, all of you are using a variety of platforms that you don't understand.  And, I am reliant on you in order to do my job and co-teach your sessions. 
Most of this went down after eight days of training, one hour before we were supposed to go live, on our first day of school.  All of the multiple teachers I have to collaborate with in order to access my students were using a hodgepodge of platforms, not really understanding how most of them work and failed to include me on them, no matter how much I asked. 

I sat, waiting for the moment when the kids were supposed to start logging on for school.  I felt like I was sitting on top of a giant machine, The Washington Post's printing press or like a uranium centrifuge processing plant or something, feeling the vibration while it geared up and start whipping up speed, going up to full bore.  Then, it crashed.  And crashed.  And crashed.  Tab after tab on my computer with the students' access pages showed the various sites crashing.  Texts and phone calls from district started flooding my phone.  My own internet started failing.  I felt an immense panic and started crying hysterically.  I'm using my Mac, not that shit the county gives us.  I upgraded my internet.  All of our efforts, all of the stress and it was all failing.

I set up my Google Voice a few days ago, though I no longer mind if my students or their parents contact me directly by phone.  I was surprised when I got a text from one of my most at risk student's sister, before eight o'clock.
"Hey, I'm Alberto's sister, I'm helping him but I have questions...."
I texted her back immediately, but never heard anything back. 
"Hey...I miss you...what am I supposed to be doing?"
I messaged back and forth all day on the county's system, oddly feeling like I was talking to an old friend instead a girl that just entered fourth grade, one of the few that knows how to use all this online shit. 

My email blew up for a minute, from the vice-principal and principal, telling me that I had a new student coming in to kindergarten.
I scoped him out the minute they put him in the system and realized it was Prem's little brother. 
I can't wait to meet him.