Away

FYI - I'm up north in the Bay Area for training from tomorrow through the end of next week.

Now's the time to come and steal my stuff, report my Camaro to the DMV, break into my kitchen, etc.

Un rayo de sol

So, I was right.

Suspect #1 was turned in today... by HIS BROTHER! That, admittedly, I didn't see coming.

Interestingly, however, he continued to deny it. I can't say I'm super surprised by the denial. He had already told us he didn't do it. So when surrounded by me, the principal, the dean of students, and his mother, he was backed into a corner. I've seen this from him before. For example, last week he turned off the lights in the bathroom during our bathroom break. I asked the boys who turned the lights out. Several boys said it was him. Even one of his best friends said it was him. But he continued to say it wasn't, with a mischievous smile on his face. The same smile he had on his face when he said it wasn't him who wrote "F**K MR. EVANS" on his tablemate's progress report even though the writing looked just like his and he tried to erase it later. The same smile he had on his face when I sent him to the office for calling me a "pinche pendejo" in class.

Today, however, there was no smile on his face, only tears as he vehemently denied any culpability, claiming his little brother was only trying to get back at him for not letting him watch TV. Mom, meanwhile, goes off on how this boy, Suspect #1, is the saint of the family, the champion, the one with all the smarts, the one whom they've invested all hope in, and she believes him, not his lying little brother (her words, not mine).

But get this... that's not even the most shocking part.

As we're having this conversation, my principal states OVER AND OVER AGAIN that, while the decision regarding whether or not he gets to stay at our school is up to her (she ultimately decided to disenroll him, not expel him), the decision to pursue criminal charges is solely up to me. This prompts mom to go on some incoherent tirade about how her husband can take some gasoline and rub out the scratches and (motioning with her hand as if she has an invisible paint brush) just paint right over it. My principal continues to say over and over again, "It's up to Mr. Evans to pursue the matter further with the police or not."

I was astounded. Even if it is up to me, do we have to lay it all on my shoulders in front of the kid and his mom? And why should it be up to me anyway? We have knowledge that one of our students committed a crime - but we're not going to call the police?!? It's up to ME?!? AND he's lying about it to all of our faces. So guess what lesson Suspect #1 learns from that.

It would appear that, after further investigation, my school is not going to pursue charges, thus actually leaving it up to me whether or not the legal case moves forward. If I do nothing, he simply changes schools and goes on with his life. He's committed a crime, lied about it, and is told to leave schools. No expulsion, nothing on his record. The damages, I've found out, will be covered by my school's insurance, so no harm to me.

But if I do decide to press charges with the police, then that sets a whole other set of wheels in motion with consequences I am not yet clear on. Would he go to juvenile hall? Would his family receive extra support services? I'm going to inquire and find out, but I don't know yet.

So what do I do? If you were me, what would YOU do?

And, in case you're wondering, no, I didn't tell my principal "I told you so" - but I sure wanted to.

Detective Evans

So if this teaching gig doesn't work out, I could always be a cop.

As the saying goes, where there's smoke, there's fire. There's A LOT of smoke in one of my classes. I just haven't found exactly where the fire is at - yet.

One of the things I tell my students on the first day of school is that I always find out everything they do wrong - maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. I aim to keep my word as the investigation into who vandalized my car enters its third day of intense drama.

I quashed the story for the first two days this week, wanting to give the guilty party or parties some breathing room. I wanted them to think that nothing was going to happen, let them feel comfortable, maybe brag to a few of their buddies. Simultaneously, I was parking away from campus. I didn't want anyone to see the damage to my car. I wanted only the guilty party and their friends to know about it.

On Wednesday, the investigation was launched. One by one, students were pulled from my class and asked a very simple, open ended question: What do you know about Mr. Evans's car? The question was a loaded trap. Innocent kids would say something like "What do you mean?" or "Well, I know it's silver" with a quizzical look on their faces. The guilty ones would say "I heard it got scratched" or "I didn't do nothing!"

The question did its job. Only one kid mentioned the scratches, and he was my prime suspect anyway (the F.S. from the previous blog). When our dean asked him how he knew about the scratches, he said he had seen my car in the parking lot that morning. Of course, my car was a couple streets away, not in the parking lot. When confronted with that fact, he changed his story to say actually now he remembered he had seen it on Monday on the street.

Another kid, who is now Suspect #2, when asked the same question blurted out, "I don't know nothing about the scr-... I don't know nothing about his car."

Today, I had my kids write down what they had heard or what they knew about my car. Kids said they had heard my car was scratched AND TAGGED. Nobody had ever mentioned my car was tagged - that's a detail only the guilty parties would know. Also, kids gave me three names over and over again, two of whom were the kids mentioned above. One girl wrote that she had overheard one of the suspects talking to another suspect yesterday during math class. Suspect #2, pretending to sharpen his pencil, told Suspect #3 under his breath, "I'm not gonna pay for Mr. Evans's car."

Now, if you were the principal, what would you do?

A) Call those boys in, ask them some softball questions, conclude there's not enough evidence to do anything and admit defeat, telling your victimized teacher (in this case, me) that he has to be ok with the possibility of never knowing who did it.
B) Call the police right away and get an officer to come to school. Have the officer come to the teacher's classroom and, in dramatic fashion, call those boys out. Get that officer to interrogate those boys and find out the truth. Have them come in one by one and tell them their "friends" ratted on them and let them all tattletale on each other until the truth is out.

I can guess which one you chose. Now guess which one my principal chose.

Welcome to CCPA

I've been at my new school for four and a half weeks now.

My expectations for behavior and respect have, shall we say, clashed a bit with some of my more difficult students.

7th graders, clever as they are, don't sit there and take it like 5th graders might. Instead, the more devious ones rally together and come up with plans.

Wednesday, for example, three of my often-in-trouble boys decided to spread a rumor that I have been ogling one of my female students.

Friday, my car was vandalized. Yes, again. Almost exactly one year later, in fact. This time, the driver's side door and window. All scratched up, nice and deep.

Fantastic.

Everybody's got to leave the darkness some time

All over the world, the message had been sent. Through the deserts of Arabia, the jungles of southeast Asia, the veldt of Africa, through the permafrost of Siberia, the mountains of Peru, through each of the oceans and seas of the world, wherever there were people, the message had been sent. All the earth’s billions of inhabitants had gathered around their plasma screens, their radios, their laptops, their cell phones, to hear the message.

It was a single flower. A single flower. A daisy. Thirty six bright white petals framed its vibrant yellow face, cautiously poking above the grass, still wet with the morning dew. E pluribus unum, one of many, of thousands, upon the rolling hills of Redwood City. A daisy.

It was chosen because it was ordinary, chosen to become the messenger.

The machine, the product of years of research, upon which rode the dissimilar hopes of investors, environmentalists, industrialists, surrounded its delicate stem, a microphone bent down, listening, listening, for the first ever communication between plants and people. This one flower, its one message, for the world. And it had whispered:

“They don’t know.”

The newspapers, the magazines, all around the corporate water coolers, on the Internet, on the streets, it was all anyone could talk about. What was it we didn’t know? What was it? Could the machine have been wrong? Had the flower really said it? Was it a big joke, a big hoax?

The machine was moved. It was bent over the rice paddies of Vietnam, the sunflowers of Kansas, the lilacs of Indonesia, the redwoods of Jones Gulch. Everywhere, anywhere, the message was the same. A haunting, a whispering, a repeating, over and over again, the voices of countless trees, flowers, and grasses, a hushed chorus.

“They don’t know. They don’t know. They don’t know.”

The machine was checked. The machine was double checked.

There is nothing wrong with the machine, all the experts said. Nothing wrong at all.