A Week

It's been a long, strange week and it kept me from posting much so I thought I'd just go through my last 7 days and you can judge for yourself.

Last Friday I participated in my first official protest in Hawaii. Maui's version of Tom Galisano is getting ready to trash some ancient forrest land that has endangered species of plants and insects for homes worth 5-20 million dollars right on the beach. So the folks at savemakena.org had a sign waving event during rush hour at a road that leads to Makena. Pictures below. (As an aside, Makena has Maui's only unofficial nude beach. If we protest there, I'll be the one wearing the huge sandwich board.)

Sunday, Jill & I taped the podcast. Included in this is some audio of interviews I did with some of the protesters from Friday. We also played a song by this bagpipe guy who found us on MySpace.

We had a half day of school on Monday, all week in fact, because we were supposed to be testing the kids back to the Stone Age this week. One problem. The state didn't send the tests. Another passive-aggressive move from the state Department of Education to remind us how much they hate Charter Schools. So we scramble to come up with stuff to do each day because we have no idea when the tests will show up.

Tuesday brought me a bizarre e-mail on MySpace. The bagpipe guy took offense to something we said on the show and refused to let us use his music any more. I think this guy's been blowing his pipes too hard, but whatever. I took the links off, but I'm not going to take down the show. Musicians are such tempermental folk.

Thursday (yesterday) was my big day. I've been slowly working with a group of 13 kids on our first cable access TV show. We've had a 2 week vacation slow our momentum, but yesterday there was a hearing at the County Council about development in the Makena / Wailea area - that's the issue I've been working on AND one of the stories the kids picked to report on. So I loaded up a van with 13 kids and 2 video cameras and we went into town to record the meeting, interview people and even speak ourselves.

Folks...this is why I became a teacher. I couldn't have planned this whole thing better. The kids were awesome, two of them spoke in front of the council, they worked together, they took academic risks, they made the school look freakin amazing. I was so proud of them that I let them listen to their shitty music in the van on the way back.

On a personal note, this meeting was my "coming out" in Maui. Not THAT coming out...I mean as an activist. You sign up to speak when you get to the meeting, so I did. I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to say. What I didn't realize, that unlike in Rochester they expect you to stay when you're done speaking and answer questions. So I did my schpiel (sic?) and they went at me pretty hard. Like the cheesy politicians they are, they asked me questions not only about what I said, but about what other people said. They were trying to get their points in without confronting the people who were actually arguing with them.

The problem for them was they assumed I was just some dumb teacher. Every question they threw at me were like softballs (including the ridiculous one about if I thought they should legislate to ban swimming pools in order to save water). I got laughs, applause and nods from everyone in the room. So when I was done, I had people on both sides of the issue giving me their cards, etc. I also wouldn't be surprised if since then there's been some party hacks checking into my background.

I guess I'll stay chronological here.

I got home from school last night about 5pm and proceded to fall asleep by 5:30. A good thing, too, because at 3:30am my phone rings. I let it go to voicemail. It's Hillside! They want to know if I'd be interested in a special ed teaching position. I start to go back to sleep. At 5:30am my phone rings again. This time, I don't even recognize the area code.

A couple of months ago, I threw an ad up on Craigslist. No, not for that! If anyone on the island needed a sign language interpreter - I am available. That was a while ago and I heard nothing from it. So the message is from some guy who is talking too fast for me to get his name or number, but he says that he's calling about sign language interpreting...in Washington DC. What the???

So now I'm up so I start getting ready for school. I check my e-mail and there's a comment on this blog from Jammaster James (you can read it below) that says the Democrat & Chronicle did not endorse anyone for the school board race this year...quoting:

The logical answer is to turn to the Republican or third-party challengers, but none has offered hope for positive change. Endorsing in this race would be to endorse an unsatisfactory status quo — or worse.

You can see my response below as well.

I get ready for school, and stop at Safeway for something to eat. I'm in LaLa Land as I'm walking through the parking lot and this truck pulls up to me, the guy rolls down his window. I'm thinking he's going to ask ME for directions. Good luck.

"Hey! I just wanted to tell you that it was a great thing you did bringing those kids to the meeting yesterday. Kaitlen really enjoyed it. I hope you're going to do that more often."

I...uh...huh...wha...sure...yeah.

"OK. See ya." And the guy drove off. It took me a minute to realize that the guy was a parent of one of my students. I can see the conversation at dinner tonight:

"Honey, I really like that school you go to, but your teacher's a real retard."

Oh well.

So yesterday was my triumph as an educator. Now I reallize that once you reach the pinnacle there really is nowhere to go but down, but I wasn't expecting the total opposite. So what did we do with the kids today? Yep. Standardized testing. Talk about getting hit upside the head with the Reality Stick.

Well, I have two events to go to at the same time tonight (peace activists or cable access). Looks like things are back to normal.