Posts Tagged ‘reflection’

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Without Daedalus

June 5th, 2010

“a splash quite unnoticed”
– Robert Creeley, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

I glide through the velvet sky on Icarus wings,
never to touch the sun, to err once more,
but feel the brush of regaling winds
that push me forward and nothing more.

I leave an island of cold labyrinths behind me.
It has been wrought to ruins by some skyborn hand.
It is useless to try to return it to its glory
for rivers are rivers and land is land.

My only guide is the morning haze
to mark how much further up or further down
I need to be between the kiss of waves
and the rosy fingertips of the dawn.

If only a bird can know the world from overhead
then I must be this unfettered creature
for men were not made to tread the clouds;
they were only meant to dream and to desire.

My Elesion home lies faraway
beyond the bow and bear of stars.
I’ll disappear somewhere along the way
like a stone tossed and lost under Aegean water.

September 1, 2003

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notes that will someday (soon) become a poem (or poems)

June 3rd, 2010

I come into work and am greeted by a student I haven’t seen in 3 weeks. I’ve been meaning to talk to his guidance counselor but even she has been out every time I try to find her. He finally tells me he’s been taking after school classes to earn art credit for graduation and that’s why he’s been missing my class that he’s been taking for gym credit. We’re putting on an end of year show in 2 weeks; pretty standard procedure for arts enrichment programs and resident teaching artists. These shows have insured or doomed my rehirings for the next year. This student was half my show.

I try to talk him into working hard, pushing through, and doing both the art class and mine, partly because I fear for my job but also because he’s good at and dedicated to Tae Kwon Do. He agrees and I can’t quite tell if it’s only because he doesn’t want to disappoint me. I gather my things — $300 worth of paddles and martial arts movies that some corporation started by a social worker paid for — and head out to my classroom. I spot him walk back into the assistant principal’s office, probably to talk about grades. Last I heard, he was going to Nassau College next year. Last I heard.

I enter to my room and set down. I’m only thinking about a piss because these 40 minutes only ever had 1 student and, for the last 3 weeks, has had 0, so I have time to kill. He walks by my door, the used-to-be, the hopefully-once-more student but doesn’t stop. Some tones play over the P.A. system, a threnody, and I think: fire drill; standing outside in 80 degree heat in a shadeless neighborhood with low rising buildings and low expectations of its children. Great. Instead, the assistant principal announces all staff to lock their doors. I guess that includes me, the unlicensed after school teacher who teaches credit bearing classes anyhow. I know its her because I spoke to her about other students, making sure they all received credit to graduate. She says it’s a Code Blue, repeats those 2 words and the 3 numbers of the room where its happening — one two zero.

She’s wrong. It’s not in Room One Two Zero. It’s in the hallway right outside. I can see friezes of it from my room, number One Two Five: a hunched over male, 3 adults circled half around. I’m still too young and too afraid of death to look any more. Blue, like the shirts, beads, and bandanas that half the student body wears. Blue, like a girlfriend’s veins.

(On the train this morning, I saw a mother smack her toddler. I didn’t say anything any of the 3 times she did it. The child threw her bottle down and when I handed it back to the mother, I looked closely at her face and found no warmth. Later, when all the stops were above ground and the 80 degree sun was bleeding through the windows, a group of college girls came on. They must have been because the colleges were out but the high schools, in New York City, were still in session. It was noon and I was headed to teach so surely they weren’t young and ditching class because what would I be without students? They started playing with the girl, laughing at how she negotiated the rumbling subway car, at how she smiled. Later, between my stop and my school’s front door, I thought: I want to have children of my own some day. I want to create something from scratch, to write it together helix by helix, vein by vein.)

My first guess is stabbing. In this school, someone would get stabbed. Except a Code Blue is probably just someone choking, getting blue in the face. By now, all of the security guards on the first floor have gathered outside my door. Blue shirts, black pants, a trail of wire running up their shoulders. I get flashbacks from my first class here, the first time I ever taught poetry: 8 students and I were about to head into our room when another kid decides to pick a fight with a guard. He doesn’t want to be called a kid, wants to be a man and independent and stand up to authority. So he does and they, there’s 3 guards now, push him into my room, all spit and sweat and swear words. The last guard locks the door behind them and a student says to me: glad you chose to come here?

I hear them counting outside. One two three four. Breath. One two three four. Breath. Someone says, did you call 911? and I’m sitting in an empty classroom, typing every fresh memory into my iPhone. I hear the lull of a flatline beat, the hiss of a defribulator. It doesn’t take a story teller to piece together what’s going on.
I hear instructions being dictated, how the speaker pauses after each sentence to make sure he’s understood. Then, laughter, from the blue shirts that don’t wear beads or bandanas. I like the EMT they brought in, how he lightened the mood after all was said and done. It’s a skill that took me years to develop.

The crowd outside disperses; the assistant principal announces that we can go back to our usual schedule. I sit in an empty classroom for another 15 minutes. By the time my next student comes, I’m only half done with this story. I click off my iPhone, leave it on the desk, and turn to get my binder. He asks, there was a code blue? Quickly, I look to see if I forgot to turn off my phone. Then, I wonder if he has some sort of xray vision, that he can see through my device, somehow, to the data it holds.

No. He was simply in the same building at the same time. I dismiss it, say, yeah, I heard, and go on with the rest of the day.

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Nackt

May 10th, 2010

Nackt

The sidewalk’s shattered soda bottle:
now puzzled glass, once interlocked,
even further once, the give
that pharaohs built on top with sphinx
and pyramid. The crystalline
reinvents some myth of light.

And half a mouse with Wednesday’s garbage.
The flies fly figure 8′s above it.
Headless and thoughtless, it has the ocean
among the bristling fur and skin.
Once named because it looked like muscle,
the cup now holds and holds and holds.

The geology of a chicken bone:
strata of bite marks from boy then dog
then the feet of too many roaches
who whisper together as if for love
all layered on top of each other.
Alone is nothing. A banana peel
cures into a nautilus
colored Sun and Earth and all between.

The night I learned I was invincible
Mom and Dad were fragile in their bed.
Who knew these small and beautiful things?

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goals

April 19th, 2010

so the guidance office at my high school says keeping a list of goals is a good idea. here are mine:

short term goals (3 to 6 months)

  1. lose 10 lbs — partly because I want to compete in a different weight class. partly because it will be a marker for a good and active life style. I want to make better choices about what I eat and how I spend my time.
  2. step completely out of my league — I want to take a gymnastics class or a sports class that I’ve never played before. Tae Kwon Do is amazing but I feel like I’m cheating now (or being cheated) by training where I am now. taking Kendo was a step in the right direction (never done weapon martial arts before) but it’s still within my comfort zone.
  3. find summer employment — simply put, I need to pay the bills. hopefully satisfying this will satisfy my middle term goal but I’ll take what I can get.
  4. find a love interest — I don’t need to get married or anything, but I really need someone I could reasonably pursue. it’ll be better for me spiritually and mentally; it will also help my career. a lot of the strong and good choices I made were to impress women, regardless of whether the women were impressed.
  5. get my abs in shape — anyone who knows me knows that I have massive calves and quads. I suspect it’s from the 7 years of kicking, although, as far as I can remember, I’ve always had good muscle definition down in my legs. I’ve recently (last 6 to 8 months) concentrated on my upper body. my arms and shoulders have really taken shape and the only part left is my torso. I’ve got the seedlings of a 6 pack already and just need to put in the work.

midterm goals (6 to 18 months)

  1. find non physical educator positions — I want to teach more than martial arts. teaching for pay, teaching for free, then training on my own is very taxing. I can put up with it now because I’m still relatively young and in shape. but there are starting to be days when my body just doesn’t want to do it. also, it’s dangerous. if I get injured seriously (or even semi seriously) then I won’t be able to fulfill my other obligations. I also see it as a self respect / respect from others issue. I wouldn’t be satisfied with myself if all I did was teach Tae Kwon Do. I’ve already started to work on this goal. I’ve started teaching history and philosophy in my Tae Kwon Do classes, as well as tutoring English and math on the side. but this is not enough.
  2. start a non profit — I’ve done a lot of charity work in the past with regards to poetry. it’s been somewhat successful. I’ve really been inspired to do charity work utilizing my physical kinesthetic knowledge. this actually seems counterproductive to 1 of my other midterm goal but it’ll be for a good cause.

longterm goals (18+ months)

  1. become a father — it seems ridiculous for me to be thinking about this. I’m barely able to support myself. still, I work with children a lot (and am good at it) and am a teacher (for what else is a father but that?). the more I think about it, the truer it feels.
  2. live outside of NYC — this goes back to my area of comfort and stepping outside of it issue. I’m too comfortable with NYC. I’d like to move out somewhere else for a while. not any time too soon. I actually got back relatively recently from living in Boston. only now, only since moving out of my parents’ place, starting my Master’s degree, teaching at NYU and Pace and, hopefully, Brooklyn College, do I feel like I’m finally settling down into things. it would be a shame to pick up and move somewhere else because I’ll have to deal with establishing employment, friends, etc. all over again. but, somewhere down the line, I want to try living somewhere else. maybe not permanently, but at least for a while.

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promotion

February 26th, 2010

I wasn’t going to blog about this but I read (still am reading) a heated debate on Fark.com about teachers and performance and salaries and firing and … the age old stuff. I can’t really weigh in on the subject considering I’ve never been directly employed by the BoE, never had to work within the “system”. that being said, I’ve been teaching / tutoring for 8 years, in martial arts (2.5 years), computer science (4 years), and highschool math / English (2 years)

I gave a student a promotion test on Wednesday for his orange belt in Tae Kwon Do. I’ve only ever given 1 other promotion test and that was to a 3rd / 4th grader who had me for 1.5 to 2 years. this was a high school student who had me for 1.5 years already. it was a pretty intense test, up to the caliber of the promotion tests I took under Master Orlove. (perhaps my memory distorts the truth; maybe my tests weren’t that hard, maybe they were). about 50 minutes into it (I was aiming for about a 60 or 70 minute test), he says “Mr. Chin, I don’t feel so good. I feel dizzy.” I had him at a stationary fighting stance; I was pushing him physically pretty hard and decided to give him a “rest”; asking questions and testing him on his intellectual knowledge before continuing his physical testing. most students get winded like that and I thought it was a minor thing. it wasn’t. after a minute or 2, I wised up, walked over to him (I had spent the entire 60 minutes behind a desk, scribbling notes, being unattached, academic, and intimidating, like I how I had been tested), and inquired further. I told him to take a knee and when that didn’t help much, to lie down on the floor.

he pushed himself so much to meet my expectations that he put himself in physical harm. he committed. what really made my day was after a while, I asked if he wanted to continue. he had been doing phenomenally up to this point, banging out his pushups, his kicks, and his Korean language without complaint and pretty much flawlessly. I was ready to cut the test short, continue a few days later. I was proud when he said yes, he’d like to continue. I was even prouder when, after literally 3 minutes of continuing, he admitted he can’t continue. it showed that he is determined but also honest.

he propped up against a wall, I ran to grab a bottle of water for him, and spent the next 15 minutes telling him horror stories about my own promotion tests. how I was basically crippled after running the Law Tower my first time but pushed on anyhow for the 2nd day of testing; how 1 time, close to my black belt test, I felt dizzy just like him, excused myself to vomit, rinsed out my mouth, and continued the test. I gave him a flyer for my Tae Kwon Do club at Brooklyn College; he’s graduating this year (everyone in the school is, it’s being closed down) and hopefully will be going to college next year. he didn’t apply to BC but to a lot of CUNY schools.

it means a lot to me, a marker / reward of my ability to teach. his neighborhood is not a good 1. there are gangs in the school, probably worse things I don’t know about. I went on a field trip with his classmates 1 time and I learned that 1 of the students is an expecting father. he was 17, didn’t know water came free in restaurants. that’s the kind of environment my student is in and to think I inspired him so much to commit so hard to something that, in the scope of his academic education, doesn’t matter much, is … bewildering.

his grades are not the best. he’s struggling with math; he blames it on his math teacher, which I don’t think is completely a cop out, because he goes to after school math tutoring very regularly. I’m considering, in the last few months, that instead of teaching Tae Kwon Do, I would help him with his school work. I’d have to brush off my high school math, but that shouldn’t be too hard. as a graduating senior, he’s doing work I was doing my freshman year. (I know I got lucky and went to a good high school. I don’t take that for granted.)

I am a good teacher. back when I was tutoring computer science in Boston, I turned uneasy 75′s into sure 90′s. the tutoring service was free for students but I was so effective that a few students paid out of pocket to get extra time; that people were recommending me to their friends. I remember 1 girl, 1 of the first I tutored, who started out as a complete technophobe. by the end of the semester, I got her so interested in computers that she wanted to take a computer apart and poke at the internals. for fun.

more recently, last year when I was also teaching poetry at my high school, we did workshops 1 class. poetry was never really popular so my classes were always small (3 to 6 kids) but this was a particularly small day. 1 student. I spent the entire period workshopping his work, as my (outstanding) teachers taught me how to workshop. at the end of the period, he didn’t want to leave. he ditched his English class to stay while I taught him English. it wasn’t to get out of doing work, etc., but because I was giving him sincere and quality attention.

even more recently, I had a student in my Pace class come up to me. she has only been taking Tae Kwon Do for a month so far. we’re really only now moving on from the basics. she told me that her schedule next semester will be overloaded and that could she still audit the class for free (I, of course, said yes). this is phenomenal considering so many things. (A) it’s more of a recreation class than anything. (B) she’s not only thinking a semester ahead, but an academic year ahead. she basically said that 7 months from now, she still wants to be taking Tae Kwon Do. (C) I haven’t taught her anything other than the basics yet. it made me smile (wide) and when she thanked me for letting her audit, I thanked her for her dedication.

twice, in my kids classes at NYU, of which I have only taught 6 or 7 classes so far, a kid has said “Tae Kwon Do is a pretty fun sport.” the first time, it took me by surprise because it was a student who had trouble focusing, who acted out. he was particularly bad 1 class but at the end, he stood there, in his uniform, and said it completely unexpectedly. him and his father stopped by my class last week; said they were taking a break, trying out new sports, but might come back next year. the second time was a different kid, both of them were about 6 years old.

I am a good teacher; I think I want to teach for a long time in the foreseeable future. I do want to work in the public schools, where good teachers are needed. preferably with high school or middle school students; I can do more with them than the K-5. I’m willing to accept the stress and poor public view. I do want to teach college level courses also but feel (or intuit) that a few years in high school or middle school will teach me quite a few things I won’t learn anywhere else. I want to teach Tae Kwon Do less (my body just can’t handle 6 to 8 hour days of teaching and training). I’d love to teach poetry; also love to teach English, though that’s scary cause I’ve never taught a class like that, where we discuss novels and such. it’s weird, but I would LOVE to teach math or computer science.

I’ve been reading the article on Fark for an hour and a half. been writing this post for an hour. there are a lot of issues tacked on to the Board of Ed, the system for hiring / tenuring teachers, unions, etc. I have my own views that I’m not going to share, partly because I don’t feel qualified and partly because my views include that all sides are right to some degree and arguing won’t change anything.

1 last thing I want to say about teaching: it’s scary. often, 10 or 15 minutes before teaching a class (especially the first class of the day), I have panic attacks. when a student fails to learn or when I teach something incorrectly or when I don’t teach something in the most efficient and effective way, I feel like it’s an act of betrayal. sometimes I dream about an easier job, like stock boy or something.

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Advice for Haitian Boys

February 22nd, 2010

Advice for Haitian Boys
“Something like 40 to 50 percent of the population at Port-au-Prince is kids.”

Go chase the skirts of women down;
tell each she is the crown you have to have
to raise whole kingdoms up from barren ground
but while she sleeps, search out tomorrow’s love.

When your best friend and blood sworn brother dies
throw flowers and a prayer upon his head
then turn around and drink until you’re blind.
There’s no excuse to outsurvive the dead.

And when you lose a city or much vaster,
dance wildly in the absent space it left.
Trust me it only looks like a disaster;
it meant to carry you from this life to the next.

The moon shows 9 faces and then repeats.
Why waste our time with what we saw last week?

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I am

January 21st, 2010

I am not a monster. I am intelligent, attractive, athletic, ambitious, sincere, well spoken, accomplished, good with children, cats, and dogs, charismatic, attentive, devoted, compassionate, inspiring, empathetic, sexy, and a damn good teacher. I am attending a graduate program in a nationally top ranked college and I have my own Tae Kwon Do team.

you are really stupid. especially since I had to do all the hard work to win back your trust and all you had to do was give me a chance.

that being said, I make mistakes. I am imperfect. sometimes, I am less than human. sometimes I am a monster.

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2010 Resolutions

December 31st, 2009
  1. Be a good person
  2. Never be late for anything
  3. Continue trusting people
  4. Have as much fun working with kids as I used to have
  5. Be better to girls
  6. Be an outstanding teacher
  7. Be a great poet
  8. Get in tip top shape
  9. Dedicate to Brooklyn College Tae Kwon Do
  10. Fill each hour with something meaningful
  11. Stop relying on parents
    1. Start giving back to parents
  12. DON’T give money to charity
  13. Read more
  14. Connect and keep in touch with old friends
  15. Be a good person
  16. Simplify
    1. Simplify
    2. Simplify

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cookbook

December 28th, 2009

Frank McCourt once taught a creative writing class using recipes from cookbooks. he stumbled on the idea, on a lark, not know what to do with it initially.

a year ago, I was preparing to teach a slam poetry class and came upon the idea of using recipes to explore adjectives and description. (are recipes that commonplace in creative writing classes?). anyhow, the lesson flopped. partly because I wasn’t so prepared, didn’t have the experience (in teaching a writing class) how to commandeer the lesson and minds, but also because my students (all 2 of them) were not really poets and certainly not Stuyvesant students.

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[a heel left]

December 14th, 2009

[a heel left]
after Creeley

A heel left
on the sidewalk
by a tree, by itself
without tracks in the dirt
or signs of its match
pointed true north
the direction of traffic
still buckled and brassy
despite the dust
gathered at its back
one stack shorter
than the other.

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