In the hospital.

<p>&lt;p&gt;Liam had what we think was the mumps about two weeks ago.&amp;#160; He had stayed out of school all last week so he won't infect anyone.&amp;nbsp; However his swelling on the left side of his neck didn't disappear and yesterday the bump felt warm to the touch and was red. I was concerned about the red on his bump and the firmness of his bump. Made an appointment for this morning and fortunately today was a report card day so I did not have any students. Only a few parents came to collect their children's report cards.

We ended up having to take Liam to the emergency room because our doctor could not get an appointment time with her preferred ENT doctor.  She recommended that we go to the ER of Cleveland Clinic.  I left early from work to help Ahmie take him there.

They took us in quickly and we were seen pretty quickly.  They drew some blood which Liam had a hard time doing I had to hold him and reassure him that he is okay.  He was crying pretty hard but he did get the IV in him he was still pretty upset and wanted the IV taken out after the blood draws.

He was pretty upset about the IV and blood draws for about an hour.  We waited a bit then we met the doctor.  We let him watch tv and let him play angry birds space to keep his mind off of all of this.  I think by the time liam was doing his CT scan he was mostly at ease with all the poking and prodding.

Even when  they had to inject the contrast fluid for the CT which was a pretty big syringe (60ml!).  After the CT the ENT came in and gave us the prognosis.  He has some infection in his lymph nodes in his neck, and needs to be admitted for IV antibiotic therapy. 

We finally got admitted and brought to the pediatrics section of the hospital at around 8:30.  I finally left for home at around 9:30 to touch base with Del, Col and my parents.

I finally got back to the hospital at a little past 11 with most of what Ahmie asked for.  Liam was finally getting his first dose of antibiotics.  Other than being a bit tired he seems to be acting like his normal self.  I saw that he had a bandaid in his other arm.  I'm guessing that he is not as scared of getting his blood drawn.

Liam is such a tropper!  I'm proud of how he seems to be taking all of this in stride.

Jury Duty

Woke up this morning at the usually time had planned to go to school for a few minutes but did not happen. Got to the Justice Center before 8. Got up to where we to register for jury duty and there was a massive line waiting to be registered for Jury Duty. However I have a vague feeling that I did something wrong. Which was why I was in the line. However it did pass by rather quickly.

Sat down with a group of ladies and ironically 2 of the people at the table were educators. We had a great time chit chatting waiting for the instructional court video. We waited for 45min to 1hour before the video started. While waiting I read the news paper and looked at the horoscope and read the the following

Aries:
Take your time and understand what is going on behind the scenes. Research and quiet thought are the first steps. When you go to implement a decision, it must be well-grounded in order to convince others that you are on the right path. Tonight: Do what you want.

Taurus:
Zero in on what you need to do. Your clarity and style work. The end result will be that several people will rethink their decisions and transform their stances. As you know, a realization works better than forcing your opinion on others. Tonight: Where the action is.

from Jacqueline Bigar

Not even reading between the lines both horoscopes screams that I will be picked for a Jury today.

After the video we waited for our names to be called. It feels like a lottery that nobody wanted to win. as I sit now they have called out 4 jury groups and our table of 7 has dwindled down to 2.

They are calling again.

Innocent questions difficult answers

When I was getting Liam ready for bed tonight he asked me "Where did I (Liam) came from and mommy and daddy and ..." I started to answer well Liam you came to be because Mama and Daddy had a lot of love to share and we had to make another person to share that love. I then explained that I came from my parents because they had lots of love to share. Then Liam reasoned that Mama came from Funny grandma and uncle Marvin. Which I think would be a reasonable hypothesis for Liam because that is the limit of his close biological family, and the only people not paired up were Cindy and Marvin.

I had to correct him and said to him that Funny grandma and Mama's daddy had a lot of love and made Mama. Liam then asked the predictable question. Where is Mama's daddy? Is he far away, is he dead? I had to say Mama's daddy is far away.

How can I say to Liam that your Mama's biological father's love was so tenuous that he is almost dead to her? How can I say to him that Barrack Obama has held you more times then your grandfather has? How can I say to him that your right to eat as a 2 week old caused discomfort to your step grandmother? How can I say to him that your Mama's biological father had love to give to other women and left your Funny grandma? How can I say to him that your Mama's biological father had not enough love to pay all the child support payments due to her when she was a child? How can I say to him that most of the family on your mama's biological father's side loves to gossip and speak ill of each other behind each other's backs, and frankly you don't need this dysfunction.

How I wished I could have said something, anything, otherwise.

Trouble at school

Liam started in his pre-k class on August 27th at Lincoln Elementary school. We were all very excited in the weeks previous getting the supplies needed and looking high and low for a backpack for him that is his size and not smeared with co-branding or logos. I had quite a busy summer with teaching at Shipwreck camp and working to get Design Lab: Early College High School ready for its student orientation and start of year. I have started a second blog to cover my muses on this subject. So pretty much from the 3 week of July I was working everyday.

Anyway, Liam has been getting negative reports from his teacher from his Pre-k class and there has seem to be problems with Liam in class. From the start of the second week the teacher said that Liam's behavior was of such concern that the teacher started sending home a behavior chart that has three catagories: Hands/Feet to self, Listening, Group. Ahmie since the first note has tried on several occasions to be in contact with the teacher via e-mail, but the teacher has not responded.

We tried to support this behavior chart by removing privileges from getting poor ratings (frown faces) and giving incentives for good ratings (smiles) and nothing for neutral ratings (neutral face). We tried to do this for about 2 weeks until This Thursday when Ahmie tried to ask the teacher when picking up Liam about why Liam is still getting Frown faces in his behavior chart, the teacher told Ahmie that "you should ask your son and his friend."

When I got that phone call from Ahmie I was livid because of the unprofessional nature of the response. Then I was told that Liam was not given his snack in class because of his behavior. Now Liam had told me about him earning his snack back last week later in the week, I had thought he meant that he had earned his juice for the ride home from school. I was pissed and still am.

I can see perhaps that I am getting one part of the story and I should not get so incised but the lack of story from the teacher's side of the conversation is not good either. As a teacher I could not tell a parent why their child was written up by responding "why don't you ask your child?"

I am so very angry for several reasons.

1) Where does the teacher think she has the right to withhold food from my child? When I was managing a group home I could get in trouble if I did this to any of my clients. Where does she think she has the right to ostracize my child in this way in front of his classmates.

2) The behavior chart is meaningless since the teacher has failed to define what she meant with these ratings.

3) If his behavior was so difficult to manage why is it that the teacher not contacting us about working together to help Liam be better behaved in class.

4) If she is charting the behavior, for what reason, and to what end? Charting is pointless unless the teacher has a plan of action to correct my son's actions in class. If she does have a plan, she has yet to let us know anything about it. Since this was the second week of her charting my son's behavior his behavior is not changing, so what is next?

5) When Ahmie asked the teaching assistant in the class about what is going on in class the assistant did not seem to think Liam's behavior is that extraordinarily bad.


6) Why is the teacher so lazy that she could not communicate with us so that we can help parent our child so he can behave better. She has not given any communication about any incident at school who Liam may have hit or kicked, or tripped? Without any context I cannot in good judgement punish my child for his misbehavior. Without information we cannot have Liam apologize to the kids he may have hurt.

7) Liam is starting to dislike school because of all of this, he only goes to school for like 3 hours a day and there is no way that this teacher will make my son hate school.

I really want to be the ugly parent and rant and rave at the teacher and give her a piece of my mind. However this is not productive as much as I wish to do it.

1) Liam has picked up that Ahmie does not like his teacher. I cannot let Liam see me yell at his teacher, that would be disrespectful. I don't like it done to me so I should not do it to others.

2) I should really see what is going on. Monday I am taking half a day off to observe the class interactions.

I should be very precise and critical with the teacher and with the information that I already have I think I can evaluate her with a very cold critical eye.

I really want my son to love to go to school and learn, he is starting to ask good questions about things. Like he asked about the moon, I try to explain it to him in a scientific way.

Apparently Liam has learned to be quite careful about recycling his things before throwing things out.


I guess we are doing something right.

Catch up

Well I know I haven't written much since October of last year and that since transferring to a different school I haven't written at all. So here is a short recap.

0. Originally I posted that I received the transfer notification at the end of September. However due to delays due to inadequate notification and the number crunching after ADM week 1 (week where enrollment is verified for staffing reasons) I did not get the transfer meeting until the end of October.

My principal was wise enough to take me off the schedule and I work as a kind of building substitute teacher, helping out when needed. It was kind of hard to keep explaining why I am still at the school to the students and after a week of this I eventually just came to work and avoided interacting with the small school principal and just went to my classroom. There were three of us teachers Mrs. Korb and Mr. Lewandowski. Mrs. Korb was the most principled she helped students review for their OGTs while I just hung out. I felt like Peter in Office Space or Milton. I just came to work and sit there and well get paid to be in teacher limbo.

In fact I actually watched the movie in my classroom with the projector with Mr. Lewandowski on one of my last days at East Tech.

1. I went in to the transfer meeting with several schools in my mind namely Jane Addams or Rhodes. Both schools are high schools each school has pros and no real cons. Jane Addams was located near East Tech where I taught so my commute would be the same (mostly highway). Rhodes is my mother in law's alma mater (as well as Drew Carey's). I was ambivalent about both schools and flipped a coin. Jane Addams if heads, and I got heads. The staff at the transfer meeting was amused by the way I decided.

2. I had a day to get ready I moved my stuff and it took a better part of a day to do so. I inherited 2 Chemistry classes and a Senior OGT Science review class. The classes I inherited had many issues, the most frustrating was that the long term sub made up grades for the Chemistry classes and did not assign any grades for the OGT Science class. It was quite a struggle to overcome the long term sub's bad habits.

3. It was great to teach at Jane Addams I finally felt like I was part of a department, My department Mrs. Ammon worked with me and helped me prepare for teaching Chemistry which was a new topic for me to teach. She shared with me materials for labs and reading materials which was great. I enjoyed doing some of the chemistry labs, Mrs. Ammon was happy to see labs were being done.

4. I really enjoyed working with Mrs. Ammon she was like a mentor that I never had as a teacher, she was really pleasant to talk with and it was nice to be able to talk with her about how to teach Chemistry. I think I really learned much from her this year.

5. I really got into recycling this year. It is nice that Lakewood has plastic 1-7 recycling along with glass, metals and paper recycling. Some time after the start of the 3 quarter (late January) I started recycling in school, first in the teacher's lounge with a found can crusher for aluminum cans. Then in March I placed a recycling bin in my classroom to collect the plastic bottles and cans that students often toss into the trash. Apparently as I recycled more the more I had an aversion to seeing recyclable materials being tossed into the trash. In fact I recycled the boxes that were left behind when the school received 55 new computers. It took me several days to collapse the boxes and sort out the recyclables and several trips to the recycling center to get all the computer packaging to be recycled. I still lament that I could not find a place that would recycle the styrofoam packing materials for the computer and monitors.

By the end of the year most of my students actually recycled their papers and drink cans and bottles when they are finished with them.

6. After settling at Jane Addams I got into a very popular reality show it was called the Presidential Primaries of 2008. I had to watch CNN and MSNBC every night and checked Huffingtonpost and Realclearpolitics everyday to get last minute information on the characters presidential candidates and poll information. This pretty gobbled all free time that I have in the evenings. Ahmie and I first were rooting for John Edwards, after he dropped out of the race we rooted for Barack Obama. We went to see him talk in Youngstown, in Cleveland, and for a town hall meeting in Parma, we even went to see Michelle Obama talk at Cleveland State University. We rode the highs and lows of the campaign from Supertuesday to early June with Hillary Clinton's concession speech.

There is of course more to say about the past 8 months but that is for another night. I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy and I am planning a meditation on my reaction of the book.

Stages of Grief

1. Denial

I waited all weekend for the letter notifying my impending transfer but it did not arrive as I had hoped on Saturday. I grew more frustrated over my situation because I need the written validation. We went to church and a equinox party afterwards but still burning in the back of my mind was that I that I still am in limbo since I haven't seen the papers I cannot accept that I am being transferred.

2. Anger

I was pretty angry about the whole situation even though I did not receive any verification on Monday during the day. I was tired of the hold up.

I did not really go through the bargaining stage.

3. Depression

I got a fax of the letter Monday night which was open night for parents to see teachers. Mr. Laux handed me the letter I expressed appreciation for giving this to me. I understand that East Tech is not a special school, it was some time in the past with various programs but other schools now have special programs to draw more students and talented students. But Mr. Laux and other administrators go on to try to bring in exciting programs and partnerships to help revive this school that is bereft of its brightest students because of competition with magnet schools with special programs.

It was hard to deny I saw it on paper it said that I had to meet on Wednesday 9/26 at 2pm to discuss placement.

It was even more difficult because I could no longer deny that I am going to be moved. I had to talk to parents of good students and say to them, I had a great time teaching to (student) but I will not be her teacher much longer because I am being transferred.

It was a humiliating experience. I was glad that the parents showed sympathy and even understood as some of the parents have in the past been transferred involuntarily. It still made me feel dis empowered. It was exhausting telling all the parents that I met this.

4. Acceptance

I accepted that I was going to be transferred with this letter, but it was hard finding high school science positions in the transfer list. I knew that I will have a job but I accepted that I will most likely have a choice like this

You can choose between the 2nd circle of hell or the 1st circle of hell its your choice.

Since I have low seniority I expected that all the better schools or programs would have already chosen so I would probably get a job any job and like it. I spent parts of Tuesday talking with other teachers finding out which schools may be the better choice

Today Wednesday Sept 26th I accepted that this would be my final day I even bought donuts for my students as a good bye treat. I had closed up all student work and had already given a test to go over the final topics.

Mrs. Korb tells me during period 3-4 that the meetings today was postponed until Monday I looked at the Plain Dealer and found an article stating the same thing. I'm glad that the city newspaper knows more about my work situation then myself that is wonderfull (dripping with sarcasm)


1. Denial...

Moving on

I received news today.
The good news is I have a job.
The bad news is that it will not be where I am currently working now.

I was first told of this change in situation by my department chair Ms. King, she seemed upset and I was suspecting that something like this was coming. The school had a decline in enrollment this school year so I was suspecting that the probability was high that there world be redeployment of staff elsewhere in the school district. I had a total of about 55 to 60 students total which is on the low end.

Ms. King apologized to me that she had to tell me this news. I was stoic when the news was given to me. I understood that the way in which this school district operated teachers with less seniority would be the first to be moved or laid off. I felt a twinge of irony because this week I finally got around to putting book numbers in the textbooks that I am using with my students.
When I put an indelible mark is when I have to leave.

I walked upstairs to the 1st floor and talked to both my school principal Ms. Wright and Mr. Laux. They confirmed that I was indeed to be elsewhere in this district. In fact all of the departments were hit with transfers. Again I kept my stoic face up. What was the point to show sadness at this point in time. I knew that I still had a job so my most basic concern (having a job) was met.

I walked back towards the C building (where my classroom is) and stopped by several teachers to tell them about the news. They were all very sympathetic and were sad to see young teachers go, some expressed the fact that I could end up at a better school, or worst school, because it is a real crapshoot.

I packed up my papers and my clipboard and locked my door and left for the day it was hard to talk to students in the hallway and try not to show the roiling sea of emotions underneath my genial face. I got into my car and drove out of the school. I was flipping through my phone for some songs to commensurate to. First I listened to Under the Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, then The Distance by Cake, and last before I arrived home Overkill by Collin Hay, it was nice to belt out to those songs just to vent out some of my sadness.

I was not the only member of the science department that was to be transfered out. Mrs. Korb was teaching the last part of the day I was not sure whether or not she was told of this yet. But from the looks and responses from the other staff I was most likely one of the first to find out. I wonder how she took the news, I wondered who finally tells her. I said to Ms. King that she should tell Mrs. Korb before she goes home today. Instead of having her find out by mail on Saturday, because I'm pretty sure that the principals would not likely have told her this afternoon.

I guess that since I have taught longer than Mrs. Korb, I can make do and go on. But she is a new teacher and very much so, I remember her last year and she has grown much as a teacher and has much more enthusiasm than I can muster up ever. Now not that I do not teach with enthusiasm but overall I am pretty low key. I think she is on the right path and that she will be a great teacher. I just hope that this transfer does not stunt or discourage her development as a teacher. It is not unusual that the "new" teacher would most likely get the most challenging students and can be really stressful. Heck the relocation is stressful especially in a last minute situation that we are in (we need to be moved and start teaching at our new school by next Monday).

It is hard to pinpoint how I feel. I know that there is nothing that could be done to prevent this from happening on the short term. Teachers are moved based on their seniority and Mrs. Korb and I are both on the bottom of the list because we both joined the district this past year. I think I was having good rapport with my students. The thing that sucks is the I will have a new group of students to get to know and my students will have to get to know their new teacher whoever that may be.

It is hard to not dwell about being abandoned and alone because I have never had an involuntary transfer, I like to staying in one place for a while. I will miss my coworkers here and I will miss working with the Robotics Team students and see the development of this years new students joining the team.