New Beginning

I am in New Mexico now. Land of Enchantment, Land of Entrapment. Land of Lotaburger and land of lot of nothing between point A and point wilderness.

I accepted a position at The International School of Mesa Del Sol, and I anxiously await becoming a part of their teaching community. The job search has quieted down, as has the house search. We'll be taking up residence in a beautiful old home in the near downtown area. Its a walk/bike to the things we'll need (Fruit Basket, public transit) and a walk/bike to the things we enjoy (the Marble, Buffalo Exchange, movie theaters).

I am now doing my best to figure out the educational scene here in Albuquerque. We have an American Federation of Teachers local that has strength but relatively small membership. We have charter schools popping up all over (as I am employed by one, I can't reasonably comment on the pros and cons yet). The schools performance sags behind most of the country, and test scores are grinding up very slowly here. As I join the ranks of the concerned public employees about the perceived problems and challenges to the students here, I am left with little to sink my teeth into journalistically. Who is reporting on how decisions are being made at the state and municipal level? I'm still trying to understand how to get in there and get some answers.

The locality is rewarding though, the small town concern for others is here. It is a beautiful place to smile back at someone, sun reflecting up off of worn, coppery cheeks. Faces round and speckled and splendid as the orange glowing Sandia Crest at sundown. Fierce pride runs as deep and strong as the mountain wells, and common annoyances are savored. Things are older here, preserved--spared from the rotting humidity that wiped clean the fertile grounds of Illinois. For there, life resurfaces with the multitude and speed of raindrops in a summer thunderstorm. A difference case out West, where life pushes hard, grows with excruciating slowness, and all the forthcoming flavors are richer for it.

The heat of the chile is all about the moisture, of course. Starved plants create giant fruit in their last gasp to reproduce. And many old, tired folks, in his and her last gasps, are up in the preservative heat, gathering dust. A joke or tale or temporary diversion the only interruption to their subtle de-animation. For here a slowness is celebratory, the lawyers all have tattoos and smoke weed, and somehow a new teacher will set down his furvor, and with a softness sing a song to coax belief out of someone young.

Money quote from my book:

from Herbert Kohl, whom I want to grow up and BE.  Well, I actually what to grown up and be Studs Terkel, but becoming Herbert Kohl can occupy my middle age before I end up in broadcasting at the age of 75 or something.  

I quote, italics mine:

"Not-learning tends to take place when someone has to deal with unavoidable challenges to her or his personal and family loyalties, integrity, and identity.  In such situations, there are forced choices and no apparent middle ground.  To agree to learn from a stranger who does not respect your integrity causes a major loss of self.  The only alternative is to not-learn and reject their world."

H. Kohl. "I won't learn from you: Confronting student resistance," pp. 134-35 in Rethinking our classrooms: Teaching for equity and justice (Milwaukee: Rethinking Our Schools, 1994), p. 134.

This gave me a strange feeling as I reflected today on working in an American School for students who are Mexican.  How am I, as the stranger who is doing his best to respect the integrity of my students, perhaps unintentionally causing a major loss of self.  But how much self are we always asking our students to chuck out the window at every opportunity?  Modern schooling encompasses with it the devaluation of self.  Now, of course, most classrooms create shallow "tributes" to self, or artifacts that only coincide with many student's interests.  At the end of the day, period, semester, school year, and school career, it always comes down to how well you squeeze yourself into the "Successful graduate" shaped hole, regardless of how broad or strange your peg may be.  Its easy for me to criticize, because I am a hypocrite who asks students to do stupid things all the time.  I'm a terrible example of my own ideals.  Sorry, sad but true.  

The more I experience education on this side of the teacher's desk (my 18 years on one side left me unimpressed to say the least) the more I think the variable problems with the training of teachers.  There is so much training, professional development, research, and everything out there, why are the "bad teacher" stories so ever-present?  

I am in dangerous territory, now, I know, but I blame a cancerous teacher "meme."  Its an idea, but with attitude--something that spreads itself like a virus.  Words are just "memes" you can pronounce, for example.  There are other "memes" you cannot pronounce (this comes to mind)

or:

Give this a look for more clarification on the "meme", its succinct lecture by a smart man who looks like Santa, regardless.  

Its the giving up on a kid doesn't matter "meme," its the "this is the real world, they have to deal with it" "meme," its the "meme" that first latches on to a teachers exhaustion and then amplifies a teachers natural muscle for justification.  Much like the tiny phorid fly in Texas, teachers become the headless zombies of the status quo.  Now I'm about to go enjoy a relaxing evening and I have no school tomorrow due to the Mexican holiday, Teacher's Day.  Honoring the profession with, of all things, something that most veteran and expert teachers loathe, a full day off of school.  It means we're one more day behind, after falling two weeks behind due to flu outbreak...I am thankful, though, for the appreciative gesture and for my sweet laser pointer pen that I received from a student today.  Hopefully we'll have a smooth ride to the end of the year.  

Its a pig bad world out there...

The flu is winding down here.  I am left cleaning up the emotional, institutional, and bureaucratic refuse left behind by the Secretary of Public Education here in Mexico.  

Interesting ramifications include but are not limited too: new restrictions on all sorts of behaviors at school, the implication by some administration officials that the Flu has had traumatic effects equitable to 9/11 in the U.S.A., a total reboot of educational momentum with more material to cover with less time, i.e., etc., more to follow.

The break provided for ample time for me to reflect and plan for the rest of the semester.  Right...like that happened.  I shut down just like how most of the students did.  Human beings who spend their formative years in prison-like institutional settings like modern education programs are quick to revert to a sloth-like hunter/gatherer eco-niche.  We have to force ourselves into productivity for enough time during these important formative years, just long enough so that our brains become addicted to self-inflicted stress.  Or, the brains of those among us who are productive, were taught to sculpt their pleasure receptors into needing "productivity" to achieve a sense of well-being.  Why are so many of us so prone to diddling away hours of our time?  Those of us who had long summer vacations every year of school surely became masters of forgetting everything we had learned.  I would love to look into the behaviors of kids during their leisure time (either unstructured or self-directed, structured) as predictors of future professions, habits, skills, beliefs, etc. 

The only thing I did year round was read, and that is the backbone of my intellect now.  I can't do math, learn a language, draw, or score a goal, but I can totally read.  

At some point, our ancient ancestors (who had drastically more leisure time as hunter gatherers versus as members of a society with specialized jobs) came to value productivity.  Nowadays we volley imaginary necessities around our worlds that are intersected with pressures that we identify as either outside or inside ourselves.  These pressures are either healthy or unhealthy, either profitable or not profitable, "self-actualizing" or "destructive" the bifurcations mean less and less the more we attempt to classify them.  Can one really do something in the pursuit of one's own fulfillment?  I wonder if it is a process by which we are continually convincing ourselves of the "self-fulfilling" properties of the things we do without understanding why.  If you don't know why you like feeling that feeling, it automatically falls under the category of "self-fulfillment."  If you DO know why you like feeling that feeling, it will most certainly still fall into "self-fulfillment" but how often do we ask how that particular behavior began to feel good?  Was it through practice?  Was it an epiphany on a rainy afternoon?  Was it EVER a good teacher?  I hope once in a while.

This is what I think about when trying to manufacture feelings of "self-fulfillment" in young learners who have no stamina for independent work.  I am forcing something down their mind-gullets which has no connection to those unstructured/free activities that they would choose to do themselves.  My answers are coming more and more in the form of props and costumes, though.  That is definitely worrisome for my future principles, and those budget requests for medieval costume rental...

bikes and Mexico

Couple things about biking here.

Its hilarious how many amazing old bikes like this are everywhere.

These vintage double top tube wonders are the kind of thing that is prized by commuters looking for a smooth, indestructible single speed set up for city riding. Notice also the AMAZING spring seat! You could take this thing up and down the steps of the Pyramids at Palenque all day and feel nothing. There are so many of these, it almost makes me want to find one to cruise around on.

Oh wait, maybe not. You see, in Puebla (and most of Mexico I'm told) bikes are given less leeway on the road than pedestrians...and pedestrians are frequently seen stuck in the grill of a bus they were trying to board. 5 minutes ago, while walking to the coffee shop, I was practically run over my a moped that was making a right turn through 3 lanes of traffic in order to head directly up on the sidewalk. It was thrilling. Yet, in the words of our esteemed former governor Raging Rod Blago I just don't have the "testicular fortitude" for cycling out there.

I'm going to Chiapas, today at 7:00, maybe I can just keep going and wind up with these folks.

One thing I did learn.

This has been here since before time began.  

Then some Spainards went and plopped this on top of it

There is one factor that transcends time, space, culture, religion, and colonization however:

LUCHA LIBRE!!!!!

Check them out

A really interesting non-profit here in Puebla.

JUCONI (english)

How to go to ancient Cholula and learn nothing...

Saturday the weather was perfect.  Perfect for me, that is.  It is cold here for many natives Pueblans, but I think 70 is just right.  I wanted to check out the tiny town to the west of Puebla that has some serious history. 

I needed a day trip.  Puebla was feeling really suburban and lame that day.  As I had spent from 8-11 at a Starbucks online, I wanted to get out of my computer and head and kick up some dust.  

I went to my local travel agency, my housemate Paulo and got the scoop on the three busses necessary to get there.  This was complicated.  It involved looking for the correct color of bus, asking the driver before getting on, looking for the correct mini-mart to get off near, and to catch the right bus that goes to Cholula. 

Of course, I screwed up my first shot.  I wound up hoofing around a part of Puebla I'd never seen, though.  Ran across some pretty weird shit, and it was relatively easy to get back exactly where I started, a block from my house.  

This was all fine, but I wanted to get to the archeology, you know?  

Perhaps I'll get those pictures up tomorrow.

Talk the Talk

I had one of those ridiculous days on Friday where you have the same, "detail of foreigner life" conversation twenty times.

Well, it wasn't really twenty times, but you'll recognize the feeling when I tell you what it was.

All college students, travelers, etc. have it more times than they can count, you guessed it,

the accent conversation.

It started in the morning, at 7:00 when my spanish was particularly poor and I went back to english to ask my housemate about a "tutor."

He had no clue what I was talking about, until I said tutor in a Spanish accent. He thought I was talking about an architectural style or family of English monarchs. This led me to share with him what the Chicago accent sounds like, which he found absolutely hilarious.

Later that day, while commiserating with some other gringos, it came up again. As they were from either the West coast or the East coast, I was able to entertain everyone with my spot on requests for a "haat dog, or a poleish saasage. Yu know, aftir da gaame."

More hilarity.

Anyway, my housemate's girlfriend, Paola, says to me, "Everyone tells me I speak spanish with a Chicago accent because I lived there when I was a little girl! You're from Chicago, what do you think?"

Third time today, and it wasn't even brought up by me. Chingada madre.

Well I had no choice but to explain that she did not have a Chicago accent, and that a Chicago accent could be achieved by either holding your nose or joining the Chicago Police Department. I was forced by circumstance to produce another round of impersonations.

Hilarity ensues.

The weirdness was yet to come though. Housemate Paulo was putting on music later in the evening, and Paola was saying something about Oldies. Then I hear "Oldies 104.3..." I stopped her, "What was that?"

"Oh I don't know, I just said it."

"You know that's the Chicago radio station that plays the oldies, right? You just pulled it up out of the attic of your brain."

"WHAAT!?"

Then the true test, Chicagolanders, you know what I'm going to do:

I put Paola to this one,

Complete the jingle everybody:

Five eight eight, two three hundred ____________

She totally got it. And had no idea how. First she got the tune, then without me telling her, she came up with "Empire."

That old man has international scope.

Depressing.

I'm so not homesick....but....

why did this video make me a little misty...

Mario Takes Metropolis (Chicago)

little hurt

that I did not get similar treatment...

just kidding, happy to be in the same country as Wild Hill for a moment.  

So wacky, reading the coverage now...

A lesson for today, a lesson for tomorrow

"Who would like to share their answer with the whole class? Ferdinand?  Yes, of course, stand up and read for us!  No? Are you sure? Okay, I'll read it..."

(internal monologue: holy shit, this is illegible and makes no sense wtf wtf wtf, everyone is staring and waiting...wtf wtf wtf...okay Prof. Brendan, time to lie like the wind!)

Today was my first experience up in front of my two sections of 5 grade English.  It was great, but it did not come without a few surprises.  

Surprisingly, everyone listened to me!  However, the new teacher phase will wear off soon enough.  The rest of the surprises were all in the moment...like the scene above.  I just ignored what was on Ferdinand's paper and summarized his answers.  I made the best of what was there, putting together the pieces.

This is what everyone does with my spanish, i'm sure.  I have a little piece here and a little piece there.  

When I walked out of my house today, I saw this:

The similarities to my brain right now are shocking.  

But its also every young person in my class, what I know of them is so small...a flash of color here, a fragment there.  Am I looking at the polished side of this one, or the unpolished side?  Will i see a beautiful fragile pattern emerge tomorrow, or a simple, strong lines and clean edges?

Like this bucket of broken tiles could become a mosaic, I hope I help to shape something memorable.  Today was a beginning.

Colegio Americano

I've begun to work in my school.  Good ole' Colegio Americano in Puebla.  

The history of the school is pretty straight forward.  Some rich folks wanted to set up a school to teach the American kids who were living in Puebla.  I think the first classroom was in someone's garage.  Then as time went on the school grew to the staggering institution it is today.  They have an amazing sense of school pride and community in there school, aided no doubt by the school mascot, the Husky.  

Snow dog, in Mexico, I know...but whaddya gonna do?  We can't do any culturally insensitive mascots anymore...To bad we couldn't be the Snow Whites, I mean, the merch ideas are endless....

Shabbat sweet Shabbat

I first wondered when I saw what I thought was a beautiful shofar sitting on the hallway table.  Then, unmistakably, a hamsa hanging above the sink.  

I know what you're thinking, you small minded reader, "Why, in one of the most Catholic cities in Mexico, Brendan ends up in a Jewish family?  Wacky!"

You're damn right its wacky, and I couldn't be happier with 'em.  

Being as my grandfather was a professor of Old Testament theology and Hebrew, I've actually got more Jewishness rattling around in my brain than Catholicism.  I never even bought the comic book lives of the saints.

So:

My first ever shabbat dinner was on Friday, March 20th in the Montejo household.  It was fantastic.

It made me think of a wonderful cookbook that Nicholas Hamel had in college, it was Jewish cooking around the globe.  All these amazing recipes!  I promised my house mom (I dunno what to call her yet, lets try house mom for a while) that I would cook for an upcoming Shabbat dinner.  

Well, never having ever been to a Shabbat dinner before, I thought I did pretty well.  I got there before sundown at least, changed clothes, and Paulo dug up a wacky little kipa appropriate for a 7 year old.  I think it was a watermelon motif.

Now what the hell do I do with the knowledge that I gained this afternoon, upon opening the oven I saw a giant bag of Chicarrones!  Yup, fried pork skin, in this Jewish house.  What a scandal!  I am reminded of the following amazing joke 

My window in Puebla, and my former window in Chicago.

I got on a plane in Chicago at 6 and arrived at 12 in México City. You know you're getting close to México City by the billowing smog that lies over the town. I got off a plane, got through immigration, and was on my way to booking a bus to Puebla.
This was very easy, and cheap. For 10 bucks, it was a smooth, cushy ride through mountains and tiny communities. I was feeling confident, everything was going exactly as I thought it would.



Then I arrived at the CAPU, which was nothing like I thought it would be.

It was the central bus terminal of Puebla, but it was nothing like the AICM (México City Airport).
As we all got off the bus, I saw that all our luggage was thrown into a large pile. Passengers were to stand behind a low fence and push through the the front to get the attention of an attendant. The attendants, rushed around grabbing bags and hoisting them over the fence, while everyone jockeyed for position and shouted out the describing features of their bags. I just waited till there were only a few left so I could point.

Then I bought my ticket for a taxi, with all my luggage in tow, I hustled out onto the curb. The taxi ticket system (like the streets, and the busses) works because people know what they are doing.
I, a la otra mano, don't know. So I accidentally cut a bunch of people and went directly to a taxi without going to the dispatcher first.
Meirda.
It was fine, it was fine, no drama. No drama, until I handed the direcions to the driver, who then asked, "Que fraccion?, Conozces que calle?"
Muchas meirda.
I showed him the directions, I showed him my ticket, I showed him the sentance that my homestay provider had written as directions.
At a stoplight, after looking very very thoughtful for a few moments, my driver gleefully shouted, "aaahh! Calle Jacarandas! Sí!" And then we were on our way to my new home.

So.

More pictures soon. But now that I've calmed down a bit.
This is my world for the next few months. I am in Puebla, México as a new student teacher (maestro practica) at the Colegio Americano en Puebla.

A student of English stopped me on the street today. He had some questions prepared, and in his broken English and my broken Spanish we figured each other out. He was a student doing an interview project. His two friends watched (one did the recording) and laughed as we talked about politics, education, and world travel. The "entrevista" (interview) taught me a lot. I found myself saying "No education is complete without going to another country."

I never put that into words before that moment, though I had always considered it truth.
I also secretly enjoyed helping him say words in English. I don't know what that says about me, but it was true.
Maybe it made me just feel special for a second, it a place where I know so little, knowing something was a good feeling.

A lot of firsts, in the first few days...

Hey everyone,
Introductions stink, so let me describe where I am right now:
Puebla, PUE, MX.

I am still in shock.