More Photos

For your enjoyment, here are some more photos of my recent trip to the Delta.

The Delta



Ashley



Willard



Erica



Black and white photography is a hobby of mine and I am amazed at how easy it is with today's software. What would have taken an hour to get just right in the darkroom six years ago now takes about 30 seconds with iPhoto, the basic photo software included with all Macs.

Holly Springs Album

Here is a great photo album put together by two of our second-years, Ruth and Meredith, of the the Holly Springs Summer School. Enjoy.

Photos

Photos have been added to our site here. Check 'em out.

Digg

My new favorite website, Digg.

It is a user driven news site. Anyone can submit an article (most are simply links to existing news articles) and then the "Digg Community" votes on them. The most popular appear first. Instead of one or two editors deciding what goes on Page One, 400,000 people have a say.

Basically, it's like Wikipedia, but for news articles, and incorporating the "Wisdom of Crowds" theory. Right now, it tends to be tech-heavy but I find a ton of stories that CNN, NYT, and others aren't reporting.

Or, as Wikipedia defines it: "Digg is a news website with an emphasis on technology and science articles. It combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication with a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control."

Digg and Wikipedia are my new two favorite websites.

Be sure to check out our own Mississippi Teacher Corps Wiki, including our outstanding Guide to Jim Hill High School, put together by Mr. Roth and Mr. Molina.

And don't forget our own Wikipedia entry.

Sex

In Africa (at least in Namibia) sex is a taboo subject. You never talk about it except, perhaps, with your peer group. That is one, of many reasons, why the HIV infection rate is so high. No one talks about it, but everyone does it. Great article in the Sunday Magazine about several different efforts to lower the infection rate in South Africa.

In the United States sex is anything but taboo. Sex is everywhere. Songs, magazine articles, TV, movies, books... Germain's church has a "Teen Talk" they do with their kids that includes a frank discussion of sex. Sex is everywhere, even in church.

And yet the teen pregnancy rate in the Delta remains stubbornly high.

Why? It is one of the more difficult questions I've asked over the last five years. There are a lot of reasons, including many I'm sure I'm not thinking of, but the biggest one (in my opinion) is the lack of easy access to birth control.

Interesting article that links listening to songs with explicit lyrics to having sex at an early age. Like Dubner, I'm not convinced. I think that is a symptom, not the root cause. But, to be honest, I'm not sure what the root cause is.

Nerves

Most of the Class of 2008 will start their first day with students this week. A few, including Mr. Fiel, started last week.

I imagine everyone is nervous. They've been preparing for two months and then, all of a sudden, it seems like there is no time for everything that needs to be done. And there isn't.

One of the hardest things about teaching is adjusting to the pace. There is so much to be responsible for, so much to do, that, at times, it can be paralyzing. The day doesn't end at 3:05. The day doesn't end at 5:00. For most, the day doesn't end, you simply fall asleep.

On the eve of the first week of school here are seven (more) suggestions for our new teachers (and for all new teachers):

1) Make sure you have comfortable shoes.

2) Do not, under any circumstances, ask any questions during staff meetings, orientation, workshops, etc. Even if it is a good question, relevant to the entire group, it will annoy the veteran teachers. Most of the time, it is a dumb question that everyone knows the answer to and that should be asked one on one.

3) Give homework the first few days. Even though I almost never gave homework I always gave some on the first few days so that the kids would know this was going to be a serious class.

4) If your district has some inane policy where you need to read the handbook to the students for the first three days, ignore this. Spend ten minutes on the handbook and then go into covering your first day lesson plan (whether it is covering your rules and procedures, or actual subject matter). Nothing sets a worse tone for class than doing nothing but the district handbook for three days except...

5) Holding homeroom. In the likely event that you will have to hold homeroom (while the office gets the rosters ready) for a day or two have plenty of activities (jigsaw puzzles, coloring books, word searches, board games, movies) to take up the endless hours.

6) Don't teach anything new for at least two weeks. Review or do a separate unit that is independent of your main curriculum (a short story, ACT prep, essay writing) as your class roll will change dramatically over the next two weeks. If you are keeping a physical grade book don't put anyone's name in it yet. Make photocopies and use that for the first few weeks.

7) Go back and look at the second-year blogs from last August and September. See what their struggles were, what they would have done differently...

Bonus: Here is my post from last August about my first day of school.

Good luck to everyone. I know you are nervous but, as I've said before, 350 people before you have been in your shoes...

A Dying Town

Good article today in the Clarion-Ledger about a police chief in Ruleville, a small Delta town, arrested for taking payoffs from crack dealers.

Corruption in high-poverty areas doesn't surprise me (the absence of corruption would). I did, however, appreciate the statistics that were mentioned:

"Ruleville lost nearly 10 percent of its population in the first half of this decade, shrinking to fewer than 3,000 people.

More than a third of the households are headed by single moms, 40 percent of its residents don't have a high school diploma, and its per capita income is 26 percent below the state's average, which is already well below the national average."

As I said in the previous post, there is a national myth that if you work hard you will succeed. Well, if I am a single mother with no high school diploma, what jobs are available? I can be the hardest working person in the world and it doesn't matter. Where are the jobs?

Then the radical right comes in and says, "Well, you made choices that put you in that position."

Okay, but that's it? Because of decisions I made when I was 15 or 16 years old I now get to spend the rest of my life in poverty, and, almost certainly, condemn my children to a life of poverty. Would you want your entire life to be judged on decisions you made when you were 15?

Next quote from the article: "It is a dying town, but not everyone has given up on it."

The article then describes a retired Hollywood designer, Luster Bayless, who has moved back to Ruleville, and who asserts, "The town is coming back."

Right.

These towns aren't coming back. There is no industry. There are no jobs. Things aren't getting better. They are getting worse.

The dam has broken. The valley has flooded. We are just living amidst the wreckage.

Summer Job

When I was a teenager a typical summer job was mowing lawns, bagging groceries, or working at a fast food restaurant. I remember one of my friends describing how, after being held up at Little Ceasers, he went in the back and made the biggest batch of "Crazy Bread" ever.

Walking into Zip Trip, Hollandale's answer to a fast-food joint, I was greeted by two women who were mothers of students I had taught. At Wal-Mart, in Greenville, I ran into a mom of one of my former basketball players.

This is one of the ways in which poverty manifests itself in the Delta. Jobs that, in most communities, should be the province of high school students, are instead the main source of employment for the head of the household. The simple fact is, there are no jobs.

Could you support a family of four working at Wal-Mart?

One of our nation's most enduring myths is that those who work hard will be rewarded. Of course, "myth" is just another word for "lie."

Fun with the Intern

Molly Goldwasser, a rising senior at Duke, was our intern this summer.

You can watch "A Day in the Life of the MTC Intern" here.

You can read Molly's blog of her experiences this summer here.

You can see Molly's photos here and photos of Molly here.

Last, but not least, Molly's profile is here.

Paris

The first student I ever taught who started turning tricks was Nathalie. This was in rural Africa, where life is a lot cheaper than it is here.

Of all the students I’ve taught, both here and in Africa, my most favorite is a young lady named “Aina,” from Hollandale. I taught her for two years and coached her in basketball, as well. My first year in Hollandale I didn’t notice her until I was turning in the first nine-weeks' grades and I noticed that one of my 11th grade English students had made perfect 100’s on every assignment.

Aina. She was a shy, quiet girl who sat in the front row. I had never really noticed her before because she was so quiet. It was only in looking at my gradebook, and seeing a perfect line of 100’s, that she stood out.

Once basketball season started I got to know her much better. I would always drive some of the girls home after practice as I didn’t want them walking home at night. The first time I dropped Aina off she said, “This is my house here,” and, without thinking, I said, “You’re joking.”

I immediately regretted saying that, but I’m not sure she even noticed. The house looked abandoned, falling apart and tilted to one side, with a gigantic hole in one wall. There was no light coming from the inside. She got out and walked up the steps.

“Goodnight Mr. Guest.”

“Goodnight Aina.”

Over the course of teaching and coaching her for two years I probably spent four hours a day with her for six months of the year.

She was quiet, intelligent, and incredibly sweet. She never raised her voice at anyone or got in arguments like many of the other kids. For a journal entry titled “My Favorite Teacher” she wrote about me.

One time, while driving her home, I asked her if she could go anywhere in the world where would she want to go. She said, “Paris.”

Aina, and her siblings, lived with her mom and an abusive, alcoholic step-father. When she got a full athletic scholarship to Delta State she was the first person in her family to go to college.

On graduation day from Simmons High School I was as proud of her as any student I’ve ever taught. I gave her a card that said, “Paris, and all of your other dreams, await.”

I told her, “You know you’re my most favorite student.” She nodded. She knew.

She dropped out after one semester and got pregnant by some knucklehead who had been out of prison for a week. I’d check in with her now and then but, eventually, I lost track of her. I heard she moved to Texas and then I heard she moved back to Hollandale.

This past week I was down in the Delta for a few days, relaxing, seeing old friends, and catching up with my former students. I asked one of my former basketball players about Aina.

He said, “Oh, she trickin’ up in Greenville. A bunch of them drug boys will take her home for $200 a night and she’ll run through all of them niggas.”

She’s 22 years old now. Her whole life behind her. She never made it to Paris. She never even made it out of Washington County.