chip mosher

A teacher's prayer

2009-08-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

By
Chip Mosher

"When I grow up, Mr. Mo, I wanna be a gynecologist so I can get lots of pussy," the kid said.

It is not a comment you'd expect from the average 14-year-old in your overly crowded classroom on the first day of school. Such a statement in such a situation can be at once hilarious, frightening, threatening, serious or just plain gross, depending on which of the other 37 points of view in the room you ask. Anytime you get the words "gynecologist" and "pussy" in the same sentence with a voice louder than your average boom box, you know all eyes will be turning in the teacher's direction, waiting for a response.

Welcome to my world.

Simon (not his real name) was the self-appointed class clown -- a combination of Jim Carrey, Sam Kinison, Chris Rock, but unpolished -- stoned on silliness and bouncing out of control from his first day in high school until graduation five years later. His irrepressible smile, wide enough to span the Colorado River, rode atop an ungainly gait whereby he wobbled when he walked. Other kids made fun of his chronic wobbling. He always laughed and told them he was born with a "natural pimp walk," in that thunderous voice you could hear down at the other end of any long hallway.

In fact, I think Simon set a Guinness Book Record for time spent wandering those school hallways on forged bathroom passes -- wobbling, laughing, joking. Hence, his need for a fifth year to graduate.

"I'm thinking of becoming a pimp, Mr. Mo, if that gynecology thing doesn't work out," he later informed me.

"It's always good to have back-up plans, Simon," I replied. "Now, let me tell you about the miracle of cognitive development and this education routine."

I would babble on, as teachers do, about the importance of staying alive long enough to find out who we really are and where exactly it is we want to go with our lives; about the proverbial light bulb that (seemingly) suddenly clicks on in our minds and reveals to us something of ourselves about which we theretofore could not possibly have known: this, the miracle of cognitive development.

Over the years I watched Simon grow into a young man. After graduation he joined the Army. Last week, just out of basic training, he returned to visit his alma mater. "Mr. Mo!" I heard the familiar shout.

He now stood and towered over me, a fairly tall man myself. In a brief flicker of introspection I thought that maybe old-age-shrinkage was starting to gain purchase in my teacherly body and soul. Simon laughed.

"Hey, Mr. Mo, you're shrinking!"

"Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing."

Then, in the time it takes hummingbirds to turn around in mid-flight, Simon's synchronized face and voice grew subdued, both laced with a quiet gratitude. He told me his brother had just returned from action in the Middle East, safe. The frivolity of the previous moment suddenly headed into another, more solemn direction.

"Now it's my turn, Mr. Mo," he said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm leaving next week for Iraq," he said. An ominous shadow floated across his face.

The word Iraq punched me speechless. I remembered an old Twilight Zone episode in which a combat soldier sees a bright light shining on the faces of his comrades before they go off to die in battle. I felt myself hoping that the shadow across Simon's face was not some similar presentiment.

Behind Simon was the flag on my classroom wall, to which he and I had daily pledged. How often, I wondered to myself, has America been the Red, White and Stupid, as much as anything? How much longer must we be land of the lemming rather than liberty, as we go about this dirty business of invading sovereign nations without apparent cause in order to feed our collective cultural arrogance? Where did we get the mistaken notion that we should ram our democracy down other people's throats with the barrel of a gun? How do those in power who dream up hollow slogans like "No Child Left Behind" keep leaving our children behind, literally, face down on battlefields in countries where we do not belong?

My heart had become unhinged in the cosmos.

"Simon ..."

"Don't worry, Mr. Mo, I'll be all right. I just came by to thank you for all you did for me."

He wrapped his bulky arms around me in a big bear hug, smiled and walked away straight up, without a hint of wobble. And I realized as he was walking toward the daylight at the end of the darkened corridor that, regardless of his kind words, I had not done enough as a teacher -- we never do -- to make this world a better place for Simon. Or for the American and Iraqi young men and women, still kids really, like him.

Please, oh please, Simon, come back home. Mine is the prayer of so many on the face of the earth tonight.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:21:00.002-07:00

28. August again.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:21:00.001-07:00

27. The hands of the cellist.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

26. Smoking cigarettes like humphrey bogart in casablanca.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

25. short story, "trout fishing in OHIO" (part two).

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:14:00.000-07:00

25. short story, "trout fishing in OHIO" (part one).

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

24. miniature poetry reading: andy, josh, and mike.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

23. Poetry discussion about AMERICA, PLEASE!-- mike kruis, andy kenyon, and dr joshua ellis.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

22. Andy.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:05:00.000-07:00

21. Darkness and light.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

20. In rows of dog food.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

19. Cryogenic man and the hot swedish babe from minnesota.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

18. Entropy 2.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

17. Entropy versus the honeymoon.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:56:00.002-07:00

15. Juggling the meaning of life up on the tightrope stretched across existence's precipice, or... a sam beckett blast from the past.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:56:00.001-07:00

16. Between bukowski and boredom.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

14. So the wind really won't blow it all away.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

13. The veteran.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:52:00.001-07:00

12. SANDniggers.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:51:00.000-07:00

11. The real american shit.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

10. Mary.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:48:00.000-07:00

9. Jesus at the slot machine.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

8. How d'ya like this weather.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

7. Incessant buzz.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:45:00.000-07:00

6. Series: Dolphin soliditary, Synchronicity of two dolphins.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

5. Guru of the unique and not unique.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

4. Guns and peckers in america.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

3. AMERICA, PLEASE! (stop niggering me to death).(part two)

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:37:00.000-07:00

3. AMERICA, PLEASE (stop niggering me to death).(part one)

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T17:25:00.000-07:00

Series: The violist and the grand symphony, The violist as brilliant flame. The violist while she sits. Violist in the middle of, Within/without. Old poets never die.

AMERICA, PLEASE!

2009-08-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

1. J edgar hoover in the mansion of love.

STUPID AND CONTAGIOUS

2008-08-10T21:48:00.001-07:00

"Oh well. Whatever. Nevermind."-- Nirvana

Now that we're at the end of a school year, I'm thinking back to near the beginning of it, in October, when I attended a Halloween party dressed up as, well, myself -- with a cardboard box over my head.

"What're you supposed to be, Mosher?" someone asked.

"A teacher thinking inside the box," I said.

"Funny," that someone said. And perhaps it was funny, though as usual I simply was trying to make a point in my awkward way.

During this past year I heard Clark County School District officials urge teachers to "think outside the box" 342 times. I know this because I counted them. Also, teachers were told frequently to be "team players" and "on the same page." Good teachers these days, then, must constantly think outside some hypothetical box as they simultaneously play for an imaginary team while being on the same page of a nonexistent text with all other teachers and administrators -- who themselves must think outside imaginary boxes while playing for hypothetical teams on the same pages of nonexistent texts. Which can get confusing. Plus, to complicate matters, those who constantly tell people to be team players are rarely, if ever, team players themselves.

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said: "Whereof we do not know, thereof we should not speak." Which is probably true, but imagine telling that to an administrator on a day the No Child Left Behind EduNazis pay his school a surprise visit; or the morning after a supervisor forgot to drink her Metamucil.

"Test scores are down, teachers," the principal says at a staff meeting. "We need to think outside the box to get scores back up."

"How far outside the box?" one teacher asks.

"As far as it takes," the principal replies.

"Serial killer Edmund Kemper thought outside the box," a second teacher says. "He killed his mother, chopped off her head, then put it on the fireplace mantel and threw darts at it. We could tell students we're gonna throw darts at their dead heads if they don't bring scores up."

"No, parents might complain," says the principal. "Instead, we should tell kids they'll end up flipping burgers or dealing drugs the rest of their lives if scores don't improve."

"That won't work," a third teacher says. "My students flip burgers and deal drugs now. And they're making more money than me."

"Listen, people!" the principal barks. "We need to get on the same page here!"

"Like when America became a nation of mass murderers in Iraq by re-electing George Bush?" a fourth teacher pipes up.

"What's your point?" asks the principal.

"In 2004, the majority of voting Americans were on the same page, but it was the wrong page. Now look at the world."

"That's negative. We need team players here," the principal snarls.

"Team?" the above-mentioned second teacher says. "Charlie Manson had a great team. He'd whisper in little girls' ears, 'I am the god of sex,' and give them drugs. They all passed Charlie's tests!"

Following this meeting about raising test scores by thinking outside a box as team players on the same page, one sad-looking teacher waddles up to me.

"I just wanna put a shotgun in my mouth and blow my brains out like Kurt Cobain," he says. "Moving from Chicago to teach in Vegas was the biggest mistake of my life. How do you survive this crap?"

"Me?" I ask. "I just go home and in my awkward way write a poem about it at the end of the school year"--

SMELLS LIKE TEACHER SPIRIT

the classroom is empty now
hollow and spent
like an ancient tomb
raped by grave robbers
the shell of something living
left behind
and the hatchlings
are loose and loosed
upon the world
scuttling feverishly
(can't you hear the scampering?)
toward the safety of the water
where there is no safety of the water
and in this hollowness we know
that we never taught them enough
because we never knew enough
hence we must scuttle too
from this once living thing
an empty shell
this room
(can't you hear the scampering?)

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher

THE LACK THEREOF

2008-08-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

Several things going on in public education lately: This past week my phone constantly has been ringing with calls from individuals, and from one prominent political faction, asking which school board candidates to vote for, or endorse, in the upcoming election. To a local teacher this question is a no-brainer. Hence, that's probably why I was getting these calls from folks who care about the ongoing pathetic plight of teachers in Las Vegas.

This year the no-brainer answer is: Vote for anyone but an incumbent for the Clark County School Board. Of course, you should first study all the other candidates in your school board district to pick the most efficient non-incumbent. One nice thing about this year's election is the Nevada Supreme Court helped dump about 30 percent of the seven-member school board's dead weight by enforcing term limits on Trustees Mary Beth Scow and Ruth Johnson. Thus, two out of three incumbents up for reelection are gone. With this controversial legal decision, you can chalk up at least two points for the effectiveness of term limits.

Scow and Johnson's disastrous tenures, both starting 12 years ago, have been known for low student test scores and graduation rates, but large class sizes. Plus, an insidious form of institutional racism has infested the district throughout that time. Both women, sadly, were part of the school board that, in 2000, tolerated former Superintendent Carlos Garcia's public proclamation that "Niggers come in all colors." On top of all this, the teaching profession here has plummeted from an average-paying, middle-class job to one not providing a decent living wage for teachers. Under Scow and Johnson's leadership (or lack thereof) teachers have been forced to work in a brutal gulag of fear so profound that roughly 5,000 new teachers disappear from the district every five years, a fact to which these two trustees seem oblivious.

One word best describes their legacy: PASSIVE. Neither one has the temperament for the progressive activism needed in educational leaders today. True, in the past few years test scores and graduation rates have risen significantly, but this is due directly to the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In the five years before that law, and Johnson and Scow were in charge, the school district wallowed academically.

Funny thing about President Bush's little education initiative. It was a needed kick in the ass to public education that got around the incompetence of people like Scow and Johnson, to deliver good teaching practices to all students in all schools. Few people realize, even today, what No Child Left Behind, in its simplicity, has actually accomplished. As most good teachers know, there are basically three types of school principals: academic principals (who promote learning), athletic principals (who promote sports) and dysfunctional principals (those with drug, sex or power-tripping addictions). What No Child Left Behind did was force all principals to follow the academic (learning) model or face punitive consequences. And the results, to date, have been impressive.

Which leads us to the only incumbent trustee running for reelection, Terri Janison. When she first joined the board three years ago, Janison aligned herself with a shady group of business leaders and casino executives known as The Council for a Better Nevada. Its goal was to take over the Clark County School District by putting an out-of-state shill in the position of school superintendent -- to indoctrinate our students with the psychopathic, bottom-line philosophy of its elitist members. Their Trojan Horse was something called empowerment schools -- an idea ripped off from Edmonton, Canada, where public education is extremely well-funded. Unfortunately in Vegas, where public education spending ranks with the lowest in the nation, these empowerment schools simply have become a sadistic weapon used to threaten grossly underpaid teachers -- into more fear. After this shill ploy fell through, however, Janison quickly got into lockstep with the status quo of academic apathy represented by the above-mentioned Scow and Johnson.

In other words, Janison is the quintessential plastic politician, with the intellectual insight of a Stepford housewife. To teachers, she repeatedly has proven her philosophy of education is well-grounded in the principles of ignorance. The proof? Fifty percent of all new teachers continue to flee the school district. And that ugly statistic hasn't changed under Janison's leadership (or lack thereof).Therefore, voters, it truly is time for change. Now, please, start your homework.

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher in Las Vegas.