Jesus

We are currently in a drama unit where we are acting out a play called "The Diary of Anne Frank." As most of you who have attended middle school know, Anne Frank was a Jewish girl living during the Holocaust who penned a diary that has since been published widely.

Today, we were acting out a scene where the Frank family is celebrating Hanukkah as best they can despite being cooped up in hiding. One of my students who blames most of his behavior issues on ADD--let's call him Peanut--was in the class during this time. Turns out, Hanukkah sparks all kinds of learning.

"Alright kids, so who knows what Hanukkah is?"

Peanut: "I think it's a holiday."

"Good! Do you know who celebrates Hanukkah?"

"I think, I think, yeah I know, the Chinese, it's the Chinese who celebrate Hanukkah!"

"Well, okay, maybe some do. But most of the people who celebrate Hanukkah are--"

At this point, I have this other student who pretty much yells out whatever happens to be in his mind at any given moment. And he does this loudly. Let's call him Kenny.

Kenny: "Blacks!"

Peanut: "No you're stupid. Blacks celebrate Kwanzaa."

"Don't call him stupid. So okay, actually, the people who celebrate Hanukkah are Jewish. Do we remember who's Jewish in this play?"

Peanut: "Now I know I'm in the special class. Mr. Chen, do you know how I know? He's in my class, and he's retarded, so I'm retarded too."

"No, no, you're both not retarded. Don't use that word. It's not acceptable. Now, can we please remember who in this play is Jewish?"

Peanut: "Anne Frank!"

Kenny: "Hanukkah!"

Me: "Okay, yes. The Franks are Jewish. Hanukkah is the holiday, not the people, okay Kenny? Very good. Now what are they doing right now?"

Peanut: "I think they're praying."

"Excellent, that's exactly what they're doing."

And this is where things got confusing. Peanut, as always, started it.

Peanut: "Are they praying to Jesus?"

"Well, not really. You see, Jews--"

"Mr. Chen, was Jesus black?"

"Well, not really. I wouldn't call him black. Jesus was Jewish. He was from--"

"How do you tell if someone's Jewish?"

"Well, you see, it's sometimes hard to tell. Though there are--"

"Oh, but I heard Jesus was dark-skinned. Jesus was dark-skinned, right?"

"I guess so. Probably. It's hard to know--"

And then, before I could explain, I was interrupted again with another question which, I suppose, if you think about it, is kind of related:

Peanut: "Jesus had dreads, didn't he?"

"I'm not positive, but probably not." Sadly, this was the best I could come up with.

Oddly enough, that was Peanut's last question. I would like to take that as a sign that my answers were so complete that there was no more learning left to be done, but that, as always, would be awfully presumptive.

Dogs On The Hill

In DC, we have this place called Eastern Market, which is kind of a farmer's market/flea market hybrid. Yuppies love it. On a sunny weekend, this is a popular spot for young people who live on Capitol Hill--let's call them Hillers--to come out and walk their dogs. And if I've learned anything from two years in DC, it's that there are few things a Hiller likes to do more than talk about the breed of their dog. This is not to say, of course, that they don't discuss other things--gluten free bread, eating sustainably/locally/responsibly/etc., and $200 ties are all riveting and worthy conversation starters. But when it comes down to it, there's nothing that quite gets a Hiller's blood flowing than talking shop about dog breeds.

Before we continue, it's important to note that Hillers treat their dogs better than most developing countries treat their humans. Most dogs on the Hill answer to names straight out of the genteel south like "Dylan," "Madison," and "Carlton." So when you think about it, it makes sense that Hillers like talking about breeds so much. A name like Dylan just begs for at least some exploratory discussion about labradoodle-schnauzer bloodlines.

So even though I don't have a dog, I think all this exposure has unconsciously influenced me a bit. I'm in Taiwan now visiting some relatives and after dinner, my uncle brought up the fact that they recently started raising a dog. As my uncle packed up the leftovers, the conversation went like this:

"Well, I better save these for the dog."
"You guys have a dog now?"
"Yes, we just got one a few months ago."

Having had these conversations with Hillers before, I recognized that this was the point in the discourse where I was supposed to inquire about the breed. It was only appropriate, I assumed, for the conversation to flow this way. So I asked:

"Oh yeah? What kind?"
"A black one."

I'm usually not one to make arbitrary comparisons between particular elements of two cultures, but I think this way is better.

White Chicks

I have a student, let's call him Daquan.

Daquan comes into class every day loudly singing whatever song happens to be in his head at the moment. This can range from the merely annoying ("How low can you go, how low can you go, how low can you go") to the fairly inappropriate ("Girl you gone think, girl you gone think, Imma make you think, Imma make you think, make you think I reinvented sex").

Today, Daquan walks in bopping his head and belting out, "Making my way downtown, walking fast, faces pass, and I'm homebound." I stop for a second, realize I recognize the song, and then realize that it's Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles." I find this funny.

I force a straight face and ask, "Daquan, where did you learn that song?"

Still humming, he replies, "I heard it in a movie."

"Which movie?"

"White Chicks."

Of course.

"The black guy's always the first to die in movies!"

I believe that most of my students, at some level, know that that there is something a little peculiar about the fact that in a classroom where all 26 students are black, the teacher at the front (me) is not. However, because they are still in 8th grade, they do not dwell too long on such matters. They also probably wouldn’t use the word “peculiar” to describe the situation, but I believe that that is more or less the sentiment.

So yesterday, when one of my students made the astute observation that “the black guy’s always the first to die in movies,” I found it a wonderful opportunity to talk about the complicated matter of race. We discussed great questions like “What movies are you referring to?” and “Why do you think that is the trend?” and of course, “How does this fact represent, skew, or perpetuate our racial perspectives of each other?”

They all got a kick out of the last one.

The great thing, however, about the comment, was that it arose during a lesson on Chinese New Year. I’ve realized most of my students aren’t going to interact with many Chinese people outside their neighborhood carryout and I’ve taken it upon myself to be a representative of sorts for all things Chinese. I got all kinds of great questions like, “Do you guys really eat a lot of rice?” and “Why is everything made in China?” and “Mr. Chen, what are the macroeconomic ramifications of China’s current practice of purchasing significant amounts of American debt?”

So as you can see, a lot of learning happened. And it was rewarding in a way to know that now my students very much understand three things: that 1.) yes, we do eat a whole lot of rice, 2.) that things are made in China often because it is cheaper to manufacture there and finally, above all, in an odd but profound sort of way, the most significant lesson of all was the one with the widest arc in introducing realities of how we are invariably perceived as humans relative to the hue of our skin: so you can bet I made sure to teach them that at the end of the day, 3.) at least they get to be in movies.

A Transcript from Class

Today, I had a class that was having a lot of trouble settling down. Lots of talking, laughing, inattentiveness, etc. When I finally got them calmed down, I was giving them the standard teacher lecture on paying attention, how paying attention can improve their grades, help them learn, and so on and so forth.

I was explaining the direct relationship between doing one's work and improving one's grade when one of my students interrupted me. For simplicity's sake, we'll call him Peanut. The other kids call him that all the time and in fact, I remember I once asked him why he was called Peanut and he responded, "because my head looks like a peanut."

This is, word for word, what he said:

Peanut: "Mr. Chen, it's not my fault, I have ADHD. You should be talking to the other kids, they don't have any excuse."

Yikes.

More Questions I Get In Class

Student: "Mr. Chen, how old do you need to be to put on a restraining order?"

Syntax aside, I still did not know the answer to this one.

Graduate School

I am now one semester away from finishing my Master of Arts in Teaching.

So this morning, while enduring another harrowing teacher meeting, I had a moment of lucidity. I've come to realize that every class I have taken thus far has gone exactly the same way, right down to the class discussion. The one and only difference is the order in which the words are used. Graduate school, in other words, is really just a glorified mad lib. It goes something like this.

We pretty much recycle 10 words/phrases. Use them, at your discretion, to fill in the blanks. They are completely interchangeable. Here they are: high interest books, there's no silver bullet, scaffolding, differentiated instruction, documentation, unpacking our personal histories, cultural sensitivity, student mastery, how we need to teach not test, and putting kids first.

The class discussions, invariably, go like this:

Professor: "Well class, today we're going to discuss ___________"
Student 1: "In my school, _______________ is a huge problem."
Student 2: "I agree, but it's always important to remember ____________"
Student 1: "Definitely."
Student 3: "Very important."
Student 4: "You're absolutely right."
Student 5: "But really, aren't we forgetting about _____________?"
Student 1: "You need to be careful though because if you just focus on that, you'll end up discounting ____________"
Student 2: "But then you run the risk of overlooking _____________"
Student 3: "What if it's not just _________ and it's not just __________, but really a combination of the two? We need both so that our students can succeed. __________ isn't the only problem with American education."

At this point, there's usually a profound pause caused solely by the fact that at one serendipitous moment in every class, the odds work out to everyone simultaneously entering a particularly engaging gchat conversation and/or is making a key purchase on Amazon. It's the law of large numbers at work. Then, after the awkward silence:

Professor: "Well, I think today's class discussion has been incredibly rich and informative. I'm glad we all learned from each other today."