Draft -- Promotion Speech

For posterity's sake, here is the last draft of the promotion speech I gave to the class of 2009 last June. I departed rather significantly from certain parts of the text, using it as a guide, but the spirit is the same.

Gracias. Buenas tardes. Quiero comenzar diciendo felicidades a todas las familias de nuestros alumnos. Estamos aquí a celebrarles en este dia muy especial, y por eso, quiero expresarme bien mis pensamientos y sentimientos. Y, por necesidad, hablaré en ingles. Espero que todos puedan entender el sentimiento de mis palabras, si no las palabras si mismos.

YES WE CAN.

I am deeply honored to represent my colleagues and to have the opportunity to speak to YOU today, Centennial’s first 8th grade class, the class of ’09!

When people find out that I’m a teacher, they always ask me where I teach. When I tell them I teach in Huntington Park, they will usually say, “Huntington Park? You teach 8th graders in Huntington Park?” And they’ll look at me like I’m a little crazy.

But then I tell them about you, the smart and beautiful students that make my day, every day.

I tell them about young people like Jenny Valle. In our writing snapshot a few weeks ago, you were asked to agree or disagree with the idea that this community is one of the worst places for teens to live. Jenny Valle wrote,

"I know that Los Angeles is not that bad because I live here."

I tell them about students like Karen Lares who wrote,

"Yes, you might say our community is ghetto, but we are strong enough that we are trying to make a difference to the area we live in."

This community is an amazing community. It’s a tough place, a tough place to grow up in, but there is a lot of good here in this community and some of the very best of it is sitting right here in front of me.

You are giving people something positive to say about Huntington Park. You are showing the state of California and the entire United States what the sons and daughters of immigrants can do.

I say YOU because YOU are the ones who have made this school by far the best in Huntington Park.

Arthur Vega wrote,

"There is one school in HP that does care. That school is called Centennial College Preparatory Academy. Every teacher in that school cares about their students. Now if every parent were to protest for more schools like this one, every student would get to actually learn something."

Arthur’s right, all of us teachers at Centennial, we do care about our students. We can’t stop talking about you. Seriously – we go to ER for dinner together and within five minutes all we’re talking about is you. Who likes who, who said what, who said something funny in class, etc.
 
But the teachers are not why this school is the best. This school is the best because of YOU.

YOU are the ones who made us improve 79 points on the CST last year, a better improvement than any of the other Aspire secondary schools.

YES WE CAN.

YOU are the ones who put our school in the top ten percent of all similar schools in the entire state of California.

YES WE CAN.

YOU are the ones who got Centennial the EPIC award that was given to only twenty-one schools in the entire country.

YES WE CAN.

The class of ’09 DOES shine.

YES WE CAN AND YES WE DID.

As Steph Palma says,

"I want people to come down here to see that we’re more than just gangs and drug dealing. Huntington Park has MORE to offer. For example, smart kids that want to go to college, teenagers that see a future for themselves. I mean, yeah, it’s real easy to judge a book by its cover, but why don’t you take some time and read it."

That’s a good point, Steph.

YES WE CAN.

E pluribus unum.

It’s Latin for “out of many, one.”

From the many elementary schools in our community, you helped create one amazing middle school.

And now, for some of us, it is time to separate again.

Whether you stay with us, go to Alliance, to Green Dot, to HP, or whatever high school you may end up at, you can know that you’ve done something great here. You’ve created not just a school, but a community. And you’re welcome back any time.

When people ask me about Huntington Park, I tell them that it is home to a bunch of young people that I love very dearly. As your teacher, I’m very proud of you. IF I WAS YOUR FATHER, I’d also be very proud of you. Being your teacher these past two years has been the great honor of my life.

End of a Decade

Greetings, prez2012 blog readers (aka mom, dad, and maybe Mark?)! A new year, and a new decade, is upon us. And so, let's continue the revered prez2012.com New Year's tradition and present 2009, the year in review.

(see my first blogs of 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, and 2005).

In 2009:

* I blogged just 20 times. That's one less blog than I wrote in all of 2008. Compare that to 50 blogs in 2007 and 76 blogs in 2006. Hmmm...

* Pam and I nearly got snowed in at Big Bear when it took us HOURS to get my car up and out of a slippery, icy driveway in what I had planned to be a cute, romantic getaway vacation. In the end, things turned out just fine and we got an upgrade to a huge house for the remaining two days. That snowboarding trip also marked the first time that I did not a) get a concussion and b) fall (b, of course, being directly correlated with a).

* I was invited to present my work on academic discourse at Aspire's summer leadership retreat to all the Aspire big wigs, principals, coaches, and lead teachers. It was a big hit -- at least two other schools used my blueprint for launching and evaluating academic discourse initiatives, and Aspire adopted "my" definition of academic discourse for the entire organization (I put "my" in quotes because I just added one word to Dr. Kate Kinsella's definition; I gave Dr. Kate plenty of credit in my presentation, but nobody seems to remember that!).

* Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. Watching his inauguration with our entire school community is something that I won't soon forget. I think a lot of the momentum from that day has been slowed by our plodding efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but perhaps even more so from scared white people who for reasons I can't easily explain are easily swayed by words from the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh. I'd say in 2009, fear trumped hope.

* I completed the second semester of my administrative credential program, this time focusing on better supporting high-achieving students. I especially enjoyed this project. Rather than working with teachers and teacher practice, most of it was spent interviewing our best students about what it's like to be in a school like ours where they are surrounded, quite literally, by so many deficits. The work from this project helped lead to a big change in our schedule for the 2009-10 school year: the addition of a differentiated class called FOCUS for an hour a day, three times a week, where students are grouped homogeneously. It also was at least partly responsible for a school-wide goal of increasing differentiation.

* I rode my bike around Lake Tahoe, for the third (and by far the slowest) time. Mark and Sal weren't there this year (Mark was still nursing a broken collarbone), and JLO was probably in the best cycling condition of his life. I, on the other hand, barely trained at all, what with finishing my second semester credential work just a month previously. I was already empty by the time we hit Truckee, and the major cramping started just a few miles short of King's Beach. But I still did it -- JLO beat me to the top by something crazy like 25 minutes, but I got there with a little help from a mini-peloton of several ladies who looked to be in their late thirties or early forties, probably wondering what I was doing drafting off of them. 2009 is also the year I surpassed 3,000 total miles on my bike.

* In what was probably the highlight of 2009, I was selected by our 8th graders to speak at their promotion ceremony (the lame name for "graduation" since some people think that term should be reserved only for high school and college). When I first chose to teach 8th grade at Centennial, a secret dream of mine was that I would speak at promotion. I was always jealous each year at Garfield when the students selected a teacher to speak. I *so* wanted them to remember with such fondness their 5th grade memories with me that I would somehow be selected. But, of course, it never happened, and they always picked someone far more contemporary (understandably -- 5th grade, to an 8th grader, seems light years away).

But when the time came for our 232 8th graders to vote for teacher speakers, they picked me. It was probably the *greatest* gift I have ever received from students, the honor and the privilege to speak to them on the most important day in their young educational careers, the very first "promoting" class of our three-year-old school. What a day.

* I took the summer off again. I enjoyed it so much last year that I did it again. Despite riding about a hundred miles a week on my bike, I gained about ten pounds. Damn you late early-thirties metabolism!

The summer was a time for several trips. First, Pam and I visited Dan and Nancy in Vancouver, a trip that included time up at Whistler, home to the 2010 Winter Olympics. We also spent a couple of days in Catalina, which wasn't nearly as big or as fun as I remembered it. And Mark and I spent a couple of fearful, skunk-ful nights at Lake Cachuma, our base for a beautiful ride out of Solvang and later along the coast in Santa Barbara.

* I completed the third and final semester of my admin credential program in December. Without exaggeration, I barely made it to the end. Emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted, I limped towards December 12th, the final day that consisted of an interview panel of four charter world heavyweights (I mean that figuratively) grilling me with difficult questions about a transformative project that I never really was able to fully wrap my head around. Though I got "exceeds expectations" on every part of the rubric for my written work (another 30+ page behemoth), my presentation to the panel was shaky at best. But as Coach Merk always said, "a W is a W."

I kinda miss college...

San Gabriel River Trail: Trail of Terror!

Enjoying a hot Saturday afternoon on the San Gabriel River Trail, when all hell breaks loose!

What went through my mind:

0:00 Hey, this is a great idea! I can't believe I haven't done this before. I can show people what my rides are like.

0:13 Just keeping the camera looking straight ahead will be boring. I'll pan to the left!

0:19 And the right!

0:24 Well, I am going almost 20 MPH. I should show that, too!

0:30 Hmmm, I'm watching the road through the camera instead of watching the road itself. That might be a little dan--.... nah, who am I kidding. This is great! Safe and great!

0:35 Whoa, THAT was an unexpected little bump! Good thing it wasn't worse since I'm only hanging onto the handlebars with the tips of my left hand.

0:40 Hmmm... Road's a little curvy. That will add excitement to the video!

0:59 The mix of shadows and bright sunlight is making it a little difficult to see what's ahead. But hey, great video!

1:00 Hey, the trail isn't--
1:01 WTF?!?!? Why is the trail curving to the--
1:02 Maybe I should stop fil--
1:03 CLIP OUT! CLIP OUT! CLIP OUT! CLI--
1:03.5 I'd better stop filming. This is going to be embarrassing.
1:04 OH SHHHHH--

And then I ran into a chainlink fence. And two other cyclists saw me do it. They came up to me as I'm pulling myself up off the ground, my right foot still clipped in, camera clutched in my right hand, and the guy very slowly says to me, "Are you okay? Do you need help?"

Hehe.... maybe I do.

History

In the midst of end-of-summer cleaning and organizing, I come across this entry in my old writer's notebook, from January 17, 2001, a time when my life didn't make a whole lot of sense anymore.

I was sitting outside with my kids, on the grass of Garfield's field, and we were all writing.

But the sun... we're in the midst of winter and we've placed ourselves in the sun, as weak as it still is. I suppose you have a choice, really, when in winter to either place yourself in the sun to help make yourself a little bit warmer or to stay in the shade, or worse yet to stay inside, with artificial light that doesn't even oppose the numbness in your hands, ears, and nose.

It's such an obvious choice, really, to be in the sun. And not so difficult, most of the time. But I spent months inside AND in the shade, not even bothering to turn the lights on.

What a fool I've been, but I know I'd do it again. Sometimes that's just the way it goes.

Those of you who read this blog know that the year I was 25 was quite a year. I was living alone for the first time. It was my first year of teaching, which is stressful enough by itself, but those 365 days also saw the death of my grandma, the death of my dog, the divorce of my parents, and the beginning, ending, and re-beginning of an ill-fated love affair.

And to get myself through it all, I stayed inside and in the shade.

I know that you noticed. I spent years devoted to (and, I suppose, hiding in) nothing but teaching.

The legacy of that time still has not ended. Some of you I hurt the most during that time have, understandably, left my life forever, having given up on me, and they will never read this and never know how much I... regret.

But those of you who stuck with me -- thanks.

Chatting by the pool with Diane

On Monday, it was still so hot by 7:00 that I decided to take a dip, for only the second time in two years, in my apartment complex's pool, the placement of which prompts my very few visitors nearly always to remark, "Hey -- just like Melrose Place!"

After swimming a few laps, my swimming stamina already exhausted, I sat stoically on the pool's steps, enjoying the coolness of the water. And the quiet.

"Would I be encroaching on your space if I sat down? I'd like to get my feet wet," said a voice to my left, and I realized that the woman who had been sleeping facedown on her lounge chair was now awake and addressing me.

I, of course, told her it was no encroachment. She sat down.

"Do you mind if I smoke? I know that I shouldn't. I had quit until a few months ago. Life has been... well, that's a long story."

I told her I didn't mind. I didn't think the smoke would fall down to my level. I was still mostly in the water, you see.

"I've never seen you before," she tells me.

"I'm not around very often. Because of where I work, I leave pretty early and I come home pretty late."

"What do you do?" she asks me.

"I'm a teacher. I teach 8th grade."

Her face lights up.

"Where do you teach?" she asks.

"Huntington Park. Do you know where that is?" I always ask because, nine times out of ten, people have no idea where it is.

"Oh yes. I grew up for many years in Southgate. I remember it perfectly. That means you teach kids who don't have a lot of money. You have a very important job."

"I love it." I smile.

"You have beautiful dimples when you smile. Do people tell you that? My brother had dimples. You remind me a lot of my brother, actually. You have a very serene demeanor. How old are you?"

"I'm thirty-three."

"Thirty-three," she repeats. She has a wistful look on her face. "Jesus was thirty-three. My brother was thirty-three when he died. Interesting."

A pause. I've been sitting in the pool for several minutes without moving, but I'm not cold.

"I don't know your name," she says.

"Darron."

"Darron, I'm Diane."

And over the next thirty minutes or so I learned a lot about Diane. She's 51. She ran a marathon almost a year ago in 4 hours, 44 minutes, and 44 seconds. She has a boyfriend named Paul and they've been together since they were 18. She's moving into a rented house in Auburn, about an hour or so north or northeast of Sacramento, a quick decision made after visiting some friends who live there at the start of August. She's moving on September 11th ("We're going to create a new memory for 9/11.") with Paul and her mom, an 87-year-old mostly-still-independent woman who lives in Seal Beach. She quit her job two weeks ago, though she was hoping she'd be fired so she could qualify for unemployment. She flirted with the idea of going on disability, her doctor saying he would go along with it, but she felt too guilty.

Both Diane and Paul are moving up north with no jobs secured, but it's something she felt compelled to do. "I was alive, but I wasn't living. Ever since we decided to move, I have been alive again. It's all good. That's what I like to say. It's all good, and it's all God."

In our time together by the pool, Diane smoked half a pack of cigarettes. She told me about the thirteen years she's lived in this complex. She said "it's all good" at least thirty times. She introduced me to another tenant who lives on the other side of the pool, Dana, because "he isn't around very often. He doesn't know anybody."

I now know four people who live here, including myself, and our names all start with D.

Things I Will Not Do When I'm a Principal -- Pt. 1

I've been meaning to start this list for a long time... When the day comes that I wear the title of principal (hopefully just a year from now), I hope that it will serve me as a reminder of what NOT to do so that I don't become one of *those* principals.

People say (usually *teachers* say) that when a person goes through "the change" from teacher to administrator, they become somehow different. Evil, actually. Former colleagues immediately sense the new change in status, and nothing is ever the same again.

With becoming an administrator comes a new perspective, and somehow that new perspective often completely replaces the previous teacher perspective so that the administrator appears out of touch to his or her staff and trust erodes while tension flourishes.

So, what will I not do? Here's the start of a list (and yes, all of these actually happened, though not necessarily to me!):

1. I will not refer to teachers as "those teachers" or "you people."

2. I will not take criticism from my staff personally (at least publicly!). I will not simply stop speaking to staff members who disagree with my decisions.

3. I will not retaliate on a teacher who, for whatever reason, is critical of me, by abusing my supervisory powers.

4. I will not appear or actually be completely disengaged (answering a cell phone call, checking email, sitting at a table several feet away and eating an apple, falling asleep...) during meetings.

5. I will not show up late to meetings, especially meetings involving parents.

6. I will not put my teachers in awkward situations or otherwise humiliate my teachers in front of parents.

7. I will not go nearly an entire year without observing a teacher's class and then pronounce judgment on the quality of their teaching based on a single 45 minute observation.

8. I will not make my teachers feel like I'm out to get them.

9. I will not sit in the office all day, prompting my staff to wonder what it is I do with my time.

10. I will not feel threatened by my outstanding superstar teachers, nor will I stunt their opportunities for professional growth or spread rumors that they're difficult to work with.

11. I will not greet my teachers with kisses on the lips. Or kisses period!

12. I will not have an inner circle of favorite teachers that I give insider information to while keeping the rest of the staff in the dark.

13. I will not be such a rare visitor to classrooms that when I do walk in the kids all ask the teacher, "Is that your dad?"


More to come in the future. I'll end on lucky 13. Any additional suggestions for the list?

EDIT 8/28/09: Thank you, Mark, for your brilliant suggestions:

14. You will not make the teachers call you "Big D."

15. You will not play "where's the bacon" with the staff.

And most importantly:

16. You will not be a jerkoff.

Those are very important to keep in mind.

Also, I'd like to add this one while it's fresh:

14. I will not, when one of my teachers is calling me to the carpet for ditching an important meeting, dismiss and discard what the teacher is saying by condescendingly telling the teacher, "Well, there is a lot of other work required to run a school."