Transition

I was in Oxford, Miss. this weekend, and it occurred to me that unless I make special plans to visit, it could be the last time I ever see that wonderful town. I'll be pursuing another M.A. -- this one in Eastern Classics -- in Santa Fe in the fall, and leaving Mississippi in just weeks. I am very glad to have been here, to have done this, and to be leaving. I am very excited to be returning to the West.

Three years ago I was in California -- a year out of college and recently returned from Buenos Aires -- packing and preparing to drive to Mississippi to be a public school teacher. In a few weeks it'll be three years since the Mississippi Teacher Corps required me to start keeping this blog. I've maintained it intermittently, at times abandoning it and returning only to post required entries on MTC-assigned topics. This is the 36th month I've lived in Mississippi, and the 80th post. I taught for a year in the tiny town of Sardis, Miss., where I had the most difficult year of my life; I moved to the capital and began teaching in an "inner-city" school, finished the MTC program and was awarded an M.A. in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Mississippi; and I stayed to teach a third year. I've taught eight "preps" (or subjects-- nine including summer school), and 400-some students (probably over 500 including summer school-- which from a simplified calculation is about 0.1% of all public school students in Mississippi, or 0.4% of the public high school students).


I've not maintained this blog much better in the year since it's stopped being a curricular requirement than I did when it was; but not much worse, either, and I have appreciated the strange space, and been told by distant people that they appreciated it, too. So I'll try to keep at it, at least as half-heartedly as I have these last three years. But I have been mulling over a change of venue (especially since blogger capriciously ate a few posts), in order to have room for more technical experimentation and a more apparently permanent place. And the timing is good.

This hasn't been a Teacher Corps blog for a year, and in a few weeks it won't even be a teacher blog anymore. So thaumastikos.blogspot.com is closed. For continuity's sake, all of its posts and comments (to date) have been moved to the new digs, and this is the last post at the old ones. Point bookmarks and subscriptions to the new address:

rpollack.net

Online messageboards

I am not entirely proud of how funny I found these videos to be. You'll only get them if you've ever read long discussion threads at certain message boards or blogs. They're not thoroughly unclassroom-like, either.

Not safe for work, beware.

Impotent demands, impotent defiance

A small clique of boys show up one morning very similarly (and somewhat thuggishly) dressed, enough that it seems unlikely to have been an accident, and rove down the school hallway, doing I don't know what, intimidating people? But isn't that what they try to do differently dressed? In an arbitrary show of authority they're pulled aside, sent home to change, and the principal tells everyone over the P.A. system that we don't do "dress-alikes" here, you will be sent home, etc. And I wonder, is that a thing?

The next morning -- thanks in no small part, I'm sure, to facebook and txt messenging -- several hundred students show up in red t-shirts. The administration pretends not to notice.

And it's symbolic middle fingers all around, in the cauldron of mutual oppression that is the school building.

Teen slain in Jackson

This kid went to Jim Hill. I didn't know him but remember his name from the detention list.

Update: Another link.

Follow-up video

This guy has made his own follow-up video, and the New York Times writes about him.

Thanks to HB for the link.

Today was a very bad day

Transcription from twitter:

-- In a dark hallway with tons of kids and no power. Tor-nay-duhs on the loose. Been 30 minutes so far.

-- If only we could harness all the power from all the cell phones students sneak past policy...

-- ...almost an hour now...

-- Back in class, still no power, still no lunch, kids getting restless...

-- Lunch was supposed to be two hours ago. Still holding same class, no power. Are they getting the buses? They seem to want us uninformed.

-- It's 3. Same class since 11:40. Nobody's eaten. Weather's cleared. WTF?

-- It is almost impossible to imagine this would be tolerated in an affluent district.

-- 3:21, 9 minutes to regular dismissal. I doubt any instruction has happened in hours. Thanks JPS.

---

I don't have much to add to that, but that it made for possibly the least pleasant day I've had in two years with JPS. Most frustrating is the sense that we were being deliberately kept uninformed so that we would keep anticipating relief that wasn't in fact to come, and would more likely keep our peace. When a tornado came and took the power from my old (tiny & rural) school district before I came to Jackson, they got the buses and sent everyone home early. There were some whispers of that happening today, but then the weather cleared, and whether for that reason or some other we were held captive and ignorant -- literally in the dark, hallways and stairs becoming dangerous after even backup lighting failed -- until the regular dismissal time. Apparently other schools in the district didn't lose power, so they went back to business as usual, had lunch, maintained a bell schedule. I hope it was not the case that downtown saw the weather improve and then didn't think about or give a shit what our circumstances were, that our local administration didn't represent us to them. I hope there's a better excuse than that.

Also, I wonder what the law has to say about holding kids (90+% of them on federal free or reduced lunch) from 8:20am to 3:30pm without feeding them.

No.

No.
Originally uploaded by Robert Pollack

That's not what it's supposed to say.

The Contents of Characters v. The Colors of Skins

Mississippi exit polls:

White voters: 72% for Clinton, 27% for Obama

Black voters: 9% for Clinton, 91% for Obama



This, sadly, is not inconsistent with all other states (I'm lookin' at you, Ohio), but it is more pronounced than any I've noticed.


(All my photos of the Jackson rally here.)

ADDENDUM:
Asked in exit polls whether Clinton is "honest and trustworthy," 52% of the voters said yes, 48% said no. Same question for Obama, 70% yes, 30% no. I wonder how many people said that Obama is honest and trustworthy, that Clinton isn't, and voted for her anyway.

Finally here

Finally here
Originally uploaded by Robert Pollack

Very tricky.

Very tricky.
Originally uploaded by Robert Pollack

I guess they wanted to fill the camera backdrop first, and not let the
audience know. They just put the podium up (it had been sitting off
the stage) and I'm behind it.