Dear Kitty 1/20/08

Today I noticed once again that there are very few birds living in Los Angeles except for pidgeons and parrots, both invasive species. The signs are everywhere of a degraded environment. The oceans are unswimmable. The air makes an increasing percentage of the population sick. Water is becoming scarce. And that's just in the southland. In some countries in the world, most children in the world don't have access to clean water to drink; yet we let the water run incessantly to wash dishes, clean our bodies, water our lawns. Yet most folks seem to continue life as usual until life becomes untenable. Even then, no one seems to be too alarmed.

Perhaps this diary will be found at some point in the future, and it will be duly noted that someone grieved senseless wars, unthinking consumption of resources while at least half the humans on earth starve....

Dear Kitty 7/7/07

In the tradition of Anne Frank, I write.

I am sitting in my kitchen. Summertime, the windows are open, the ceiling fan turns slowly, moving the air throughout the rooms. Outside, several birds are calling to each other, proclaiming hope for the survival of the Earth. I am inspired to write--to record the events of these days. Perhaps if we go down, this will survive and teach the people of the future what the last days were like.

Greed in the U.S. is at an all time high. Homes are selling among the richest for millions of dollars. One Real Estate agent, particularly well-connected, is aiming to sell a 48 room home for $125 million very soon. Homes are selling for $35-45 million in the "Platinum Triangle"--Beverly Hills and environs.

Meanwhile, the ranks of homeless swell, be it due to mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, economic hardship, or natural disaster. I've seen Michael Moore's movie, SiCKO. I know now that this tendency towards greed in the wealthy is not human destiny, and it is not necessarily human nature. In other countries, humans have together decided that at a certain point, enough is enough. It is more important to provide a safety net so no citizen must go without health care when it's needed.

So the question is, are these dark times, or is doom merely a preoccupation of the mind? I believe there is always the life of the spirit which transcends the perception of all darkness and evil. In that life of the spirit, all things are possible; all things are beautiful beyond measure.

The fact that Anne Frank met her fate in the concentration camp is not necessarily cause for depression. Even perception of death can pass into the realm of the spirit and be perceived in a different light.

back to life, back to reality

Monday June 26 I will be attending a meeting at my school. The administration has finally achieved the impossible--put together the 9th grade house system. I shouldn't be so cynical. They are human after all and are doing their best.

Union activists at our school drink cynicism in their coffee. They have their own attitude adjustments to deal with as their leader, Duffy, has formed a compromise agreement with Mayor Villaraigosa on mayoral takeover of LAUSD.

I need to start producing positive thinking. End of story.

I've been informed I will be assigned to two houses. English and Math teachers will have 20 students per class; my classes will be twice that size. Why? Science is not seen as high priority and class sizes cap at 40. If my luck holds out I will have a common prep with one of my houses. Collaboration and personalization, the main goals of Small Learning Communities, may yet be possible in my situation.

Already my room assignments are making me nervous. I have been chosen (in only my second year at this school) to switch classrooms in the middle of the semester. The first two months my classes will be in the smallest science room; it has no windows. After two months I switch to "Telly' room," way out by the tennis courts.

I must remember my oath to Jennifer Cauley, principal of Stuart Middle School in Louisville, KY. Whatever you do, don't give up on the kids.

My first year was pretty wonderful. But was it my faith or my earthly situation that made it wonderful?

Now I get to see that it was my faith. I have a feeling that God and His angels are just sitting on the fence, waiting to spring into action on mine and my students' behalf.

updates

months have passed. things have changed.
The girl downstairs moved out in the beginning of March. It became clear that she and her boyfriend couldn't live together but they couldn't part, either. Their fights had begun to litter the back patio. He broker her planter pots and there was glass and soil and plant material everywhere. I guess she just couldn't face us anymore--we knew the story and she couldn't pretend anymore.

A Special Ed IEP meeting was arranged for Walter in February. His mom came, I was the only teacher able to show up, and two special ed teachers were there. We decided that Walter couldn't function in regular classes anymore. We convinced him he'd be happier this way.

I brought 40 of my students on a field trip to the Santa Monica recreation area March 21. We had a blast. It was a "service learning" project where the students were to help plant native species to replace invasive species that's been growing there. All my classes had to read about the Santa Monica National Recreation Area, and I gave them a brief history of our National Parks to help them understand the importance of preserving them for generations to come. They are fascinated with environmental issues. It's very exciting for me to see them interested and motivated. I sometimes feel like we can overcome any obstacle.

Of course many students at our school walked out to protest the House immigration bill. Senator Dianne Feinstein made an impassioned speech in the Senate, in which she spelled out the conflicts and issues that make legislating very difficult. Bush wants to paint the Democrats as obstructionist, and oddly enough, very few media outlets are spelling out the particulars of the amendments being proposed to the legislation that the Democrats are opposed to. More to come.

Steve Lopez has written a great series of pieces in the LA Times on the homeless situation in Los Angeles. Can you imagine, 80,000 people homeless in LA?

Antelope Canyon

Our destination: canyon country surrounding Page, Arizona. Page evolved during the building of the dam that created Lake Powell on the Colorado River. Tourist websites PR it as the gateway to beautiful Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Recreation Area, Hub of the Grand Circle Tour of Canyons, Navajo-land, National Monuments and Parks. There are two huge power plants there--one on Lake Powell and the other a coal-burning electric plant.

At Antelope Canyon, we met a lovely Navajo woman, Dixie, who reluctantly explained to me that her people were promised they'd get electricity once the plant was built. (see her photos of the canyon on the Navajo Parks website) Today its voluminous plumes of steam make it the elephant in the living room no one wants to talk about. Dixie and her family still are without power. The official website of the power plant, ironically named Navajo Generating Station, claims there is no environmental impact.

ArcoSanti

In 1974 I had a roommate named LaVerne (it's taken me several days to remember his name) who travelled to Arcosanti to work as a volunteer carpenter. The book he showed me, written by founder Paolo Soleri, was filled with architectural drawings which stimulate the imagination and the soul.

This week I had the opportunity to visit Arcosanti with my son and his friend. We happened to be there December 21st, winter solstice. Paolo Soleri, now 86 and fit, came down from his home (Cosanti) to be part of the ritual in which the shade line at noon was marked in the main vault. Soleri also announced that he has been commissioned to build a walking bridge for the city of Scottsdale, the proceeds of which will go towards the continued development of the Arcosanti project. A model was displayed and a pyrotechnic event (magnification of the sun's rays onto a match occurred at noon) was the signal to drink a toast and share the joy.

Walter

I have been at my new teaching position for 3 weeks now. Incoming freshmen, 1600. Exiting Seniors, 600. Need I say more?

Walter had been pointed out to me as a kid who nobody likes; he's chubby; they love to pick on him. He's been inappropriate and disruptive only because when they pick on him randomly, he fights back like he's punching his way out of a paper bag.

Yesterday, Walter was playing with a gameboy, a kid in the back of the room quietly pointed him out to me. I was almost going to ignore it and just let him keep playing (at least he was not interrupting me), but I somehow felt that I had to do something to uphold the school rule that if you have anything electronic out (cell phone, beeper, CD or mp3 player, video game player) the teacher must take it away.

I swooped in and asked Walter to give it to me. The kids were watching, and telling him he had to give it to me, and he did.

After class, he came up to me. "Please Ms. R, please give it back to me." Your mother will have to come to school to get it. "Please Ms. R, I don't want to give my mother any trouble. She has diabetes and she might die if she had to walk up these stairs. Please Ms. R, I do my work." (3rd floor; it is kind of breathtaking, but sorry, not my problem.) "Please Ms. R, it's not mine. I have to give it back to someone." (Not my problem, you've been disrupting me since day one and I'm sick of it.) "Please Ms. R, (crying now and almost throwing up onto my desk) you don't know how sick I am." (I can see that you are not well, just don't throw up on me, go to the garbage can by the door.) Please Ms. R., I have this breathing problem, when I take a shower I get hot outside and cold inside and I have trouble breathing. When I was little my mom dressed me in a rabbit suit and I got a fever and she rushed me into the shower and now whenever I take a shower it happens again and I dream about it all the time and I'm always so afraid and I've never told anyhone, not even my mom...."

OMG. I've just witnessed a kid spontaneously releasing a trauma.

What do you mean the gameboy belongs to someone else?
"I have this friend who's poor, you know, poor. And he can't afford to buy a gameboy so I lend it to him every friday and every Wednesday so he can play. And I was going to sell it to him today, and he got permission from his mom to buy it and I'm supposed to bring it to him today.
(Is this kid snowing me or what?)

So how much are you selling it to him for?
"Thirty dollars."
How much did you pay for it?
"Seventy dollars."
What are you going to do with the money?
"I'm going to start a savings account and when I get older I'm going to buy houses and sell them. You know, real estate? My mom teaches me. She goes on line and finds things and she teaches me."

(Walter, you really know what to say to get a teacher to do what you want.)
OK. But you have to write me a note, you have to let me know what happens with the sale and you have to let me know what happens with your breathing and with your mom.

"OK Ms. R. Can you lend me some money?"

I see. This kid was snowing me the whole time. Feeding me a string of lies. Not even grateful when I give it back to him whereas two minutes ago, he was crying so much he almost threw up. "I won't throw up, Ms. R."

No, I don't have any money to lend you. Go.

I hand it over. Hmmm. Will I get a note from him? Did he really release a trauma that has been affecting his behavior for all these years? Will he be a changed person? Or is this the continuation of a lifelong pattern of crying, lying, denying?

Speak Out -- What for?

Last night while waiting for Larry King's 3 hour special, "How You Can Help," I chanced upon the video clip of Kanye West's statement during the MSNBC fundraiser. He stood before the camera, next to Mike Myers, and said, "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food." (scroll down this page to Brian Williams Sept 2 entry for a side by side photo and caption illustration of the point.)

He also said, "We already realized a lot of the people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way, and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us." But his last comment, before they cut away to an awkward and somewhat shocked and surprised Chris Tucker, was, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Given Kanye's background, as glimpsed in his song Never Let Me Down,

"I get down for my grandfather who took my momma
Made her sit in that seat where white folks aint wanna us to eat
At the tender age of 6 she was arrested for the sit in
With that in my blood i was born to be different..."

it's not surprising that Kanye would feel a responsibility to voice these concerns. What struck me most was how he looked; how he sounded. When he raps he sounds full of force and humor. But standing there before the cameras, he seemed like he was having breathing problems; you could almost see his heart pounding so hard that it was a huge challenge to speak or even to see.

This opportunity to voice his ideas in a different arena, I'm quite sure, intensified his awareness. To whom was he responsible in saying these things? How did it feel to make a blanket generalization about George Bush's feelings towards black people? He didn't look angry or high on irony (as his songs are), he looked like a child in pain.

I imagine that on reflection, he felt regret that he didn't instead focus on the heroism of people helping one another, on the massive job to be done and the massive courage of those doing their part. And one other note: how interesting that the "How You Can Help" show scheduled musical interludes in between reports and interviews and phone and website postings. As in village life, through the medium of television we viewers commune, share our pain, and are healed through the balm of our shared music.