Literary Analysis

Little known fact: high school kids today are experts on literary homoeroticism. (I use the term "experts" loosely.) We've started reading Lord of the Flies this year, and the first chapter features Ralph and Piggy undressing to swim in a natural pool.


Student [Garry Johnson]: "Man this book is hella gay!"

Me, not thinking before speaking: "No, this book is not hella gay."


My 6th period cracked up anytime the text alluded to the naked boys. I tried to address it thusly: "Guys, I like that you're paying attention to the text but I'd encourage you not to explore that avenue of analysis right now because it's less important than others."

At this point everybody sighed, said "He's right," and began writing think-pieces on the nature of good versus evil in Golding's novel. No, wait, I mean they continued their chorus of "This book gay!" I knew it was one or the other.

I ain't a playa

I am standing outside of my classroom during passing period. Rebecca Gallien, one of my clingy students from last year, comes up and gives me a hug. She walks off. A couple seconds later, Darian Smith shows up.


Darian: "Man come on now, you a teacher, you shouldn't be mackin' on the students."

Me: "Darian--point."

Darian: "Nah, nah, it coo, I know if I was a teacher I couldn't help myself."


I say again--POINT.

Existentialism

The first day back, we had an assembly to help acclimate freshmen to high school life. Involved were members of a group called "100 Strong Men of Vision," a quasi-Christian youth organization at our school that many athletes belong to. (Separation of state, Shmeperation of Shmate.) One of these students is Larry Jackson, a junior who technically did not have to be back until Monday; I'm told he's a terror in class, though I've never had him.

Anyway, after the 100 Strong (with, ironically, 11 members present) waxed poetic about the necessity of following school rules, I'm standing outside of my classroom and I see Larry walking down the hallway. With his cell phone out. Talking on it. I make a hand-to-ear phone motion.


Me: "Dude?! Cell phone?!"

Larry sighs. "Hold on a second," he says to the person on the other end. He puts his hand over the receiver. "I'm not HERE today."

Me, exasperated: "Wha..where are you?"

He walks away.

"You're a strong man of vision!" I call out, to no avail.

'W' is for...

Overheard some more freshmen arguing over how much weight they could lift.


Student A: "Did you know weightlifting is a class?"

Student B: "Of course, you didn't know that?"

Student A: "I didn't know it was a class. What, do they grade you based on how much you can lift? I would get, like, a B."

Me [interrupting, pointing at self]: "A Plus." ... "OK, F Minus."

[Small laughs. I'm getting better!]

Student A, pointing at Student C: "He would get like, a Z. No, a W. For 'whack.'"


It's good to be back.

POINT!

[Sorry for the gap, folks. I recently went from doing less than nothing every day to being somewhere for 8-10 hours a day, and my sleep changed exponentially.]

Over the summer, I was legitimately worried that "point" might actually die out. Like I've said, it's been on the wane for a while now, and maybe these younger kids would simply abandon it. Anyway, "Freshman Only" day arrives and I'm handing out schedules to students at 7:15am.

Random Student, talking to Another: "No, seriously, point. Point. POINT!"

Victory!

BeJesus Annotation

Going through some old papers from last year, I came across a page of student notes that I photocopied. On one particularly vehement day of teaching, I modeled how one should "attack" the text, circling unfamiliar or powerful words, underlining phrases, writing notes in the side margin, and so forth. ("We are going to annotate the bejesus out of this! In fact, call it BeJesus Annotation.")

I modeled my annotation on the overhead projector, and most students did a passably good job of doing what I did. And then there's Grace Wilson, for whom perfection and perfection alone suffices. At the bottom of her page is written, dutifully, "BeJesus Annotation."

She copied damn near everything I said, including my off-topic ramblings. I somehow got onto the saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes" (we were reading Hemingway). I had apparently referenced one of my favorite Homer Simpson lines, said in great duress (being chased by rhinoceroses): "I'm gonna die! Jesus, Allah, Buddha, I love you all!"

Grace copied the quote word for word.

Doppler Effect

The school-year is just beginning. This first week is spent in meetings--without students. Still, though, I've had a few small interactions with former pupils. Well, one unnamed pupil, anyway.

I was walking to my car after school, talking with some coworkers. Suddenly I see a white pickup truck speeding by on the adjacent street, and I hear a voice registering what I can only describe as a bell curve decibel reading.

"hiiIIII MISTERRR VOnnnnn!!!"

I am sure this portends something, but I don't know what. _____ times are ahead.

My bad

If a student is in ISS, it's the teacher's duty to send work his or her way. Occasionally teachers will forget. Ninety-nine percent of the time, students don't say anything (no work, hooray!). The remaining one percent just likes to be quarrelsome. Enter Jim Angley, and the gift of LoopMail:


"can you please send me some work down here im hella bored "


Whoops.

The Book Writer

Last year I had students read Kurt Vonnegut's brilliant essay, "You Have Insulted Me." This is a letter in which he attacks a school board for burning his books. Before reading the essay, I tried to engage students with a warm-up activity: imagine you are the embattled author, and write your own letter to a school board that has banned your books.

One of my greatest professional regrets is that I somehow misplaced these letters--in particular, I regret losing Matt Smith's. I don't remember every word, but I do remember the powerful way in which he began: "Y'all are out of hand." And if that wasn't enough, he signed it as only Matt Smith could:


"Signed,

Matt Smith the Book Writer"


Kurt's up in heaven now (so it goes), but I'm sure he's smiling proudly on Matt Smith.

Arms Dealer?

Here's a good one--and this happened over summer break, no less.

So I'm walking into Wal-Mart and I see Cory Mantle on his way out with a friend. We exchange pleasantries and shake hands.


Cory: "How's your summer going?"

Me: "Excellent--how about you?"

Cory: "Good." ... "Hey, you know what you could do that would be really awesome? You could buy us an air rifle because they won't sell us one because we're not eighteen."

[at this point I begin to shake my head and smile, mainly out of disbelief. This was two months into summer vacation, and not having seen a kid for a while, I was a bit rusty--you know, not ready for a proposition involving firearms.]

Cory: "Seriously, that would be really awesome. Come on, Mr. Vonn."

Me: "Um ... yeah, there's no way that's going to happen."

Cory: "Oh all right. Well, enjoy your summer."

Me: "You too, take it easy man."


Cory was the only student I ran into over summer break, and I only saw him for about two minutes. Like I've said countless times before, all you need for a good story is proximity.

Get 'er done!

This is another one of my favorites to tell. And if it's a favorite story, it has to involve a Smith brother.

Some teachers are more scoundrelly about student discipline and expectations than others. I naturally come down on the side of lenience, which I count as both a blessing and a curse. In any event, if a student asks me for something in a manner at least a little bit polite, I'm liable to hand over whatever is desired.

Not so with Coach J. Coach is a para-educator at our school and the coach of the wrestling team. (He is also the head football coach at a high school across town.) A short, stocky, middle-aged man, he is extraordinarily outgoing with students and teachers alike. He has cast himself as the Wise Old Motivator in the sports movie that is his life. Despite this, he is a stern disciplinarian and adheres to an older code of decorum; he expects the best from himself and from others, at all times. (I say "older code of decorum," which essentially means that rudeness is acceptable nowadays. C'est la vie.)

So I'm standing outside my classroom door between classes. Coach J walks by, carrying an old-fashioned gumball machine (like you do). Darian Smith crosses his path.


Darian: "Hey, gimme a piece of candy!" (In all honesty, this wasn't said rudely; it was his way of asking a question.)

Coach J: "First off, are you a good student? You do your work, you listen to your teachers?"

Darian: "Of course."

Coach J: "OK, you gotta earn it. What's the capital of, ah, Egypt?"

Darian: "Um..." (This is classic Darian; he immediately accepts the game as valid and himself as participant.)

Coach J: "What president was assassinated in 1963?"

Darian: "Kennedy!"

Coach J: "What was his first name?"

Darian: "Um..." [He looks off to Wendy Anderson, a student who has been watching. She mouths, "John."] John!"

Coach J, handing him a gumball: "All right, good job. Get 'er done, get 'er done!"

I'm sorry, OK?

Here's a random conversation for you, with one of my brighter students, Morgan Stevens.


Morgan: "Hey, Mr. Vonn! I heard you don't like Boondock Saints."

Me: "Hah, who told you that?"

Morgan: "Cory."

Me: "Yeah, I'm sorry, that one character irritates the hell out of me... Whatsisname, Rocco? Yeah, I can't help it, I don't like that movie."

Morgan: "Man Mr. Vonn, I almost want to stop being your friend."

Me: "Hah!"


Laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.

Enthralling Discourse

In the early days of SchoolLoop, I would do anything to get kids actually talking online. So when one of my students (Ben Gorman) posted an entry entitled, simply, "HI," I responded.


Me: "Yo."

Other students were quick to weigh in.

Daria Vazquel: "Mr. Vonn u is so goofy!!!!! lol"

Rita Williams: "wowww Mr. Vonn u krazy man"

Jerry Samson was confused ("Where did this come from"), and Monica Haff had a typically jaded tone ("Hey ya'll does this discussion have any meaning."). Ben Gorman took a more pragmatic approach:

"NEED HALL PASSES? IM SELLIN EM 4 50 CENT EACH"

Loop-de-Loop

For one glorious week, there was an all-student-body discussion group on SchoolLoop. Administrators envisioned a technological forum for harmonic discourse on age-appropriate issues. What they got was a slew of subjects with no pertinence to anything worthwhile or relevant. Sample discussions included:

- "Who's the cutest couple at our high school?"
- "Who's the best rapper?"
- "Which couple is going to last the longest?"
- "Which couple is going to break up the quickest?"

Some arguments got heated, and as always a small minority invoked gangs. The experiment spiraled out of control and was shut down within a week. Unfortunately, this means that none of those classic conversations are available online today.

Except for the one I saved.

The subject concerned student worries that teachers and administrators could observe everything they (the students) posted on SchoolLoop, and everything they looked at on their laptops. (For clarity's sake, I will forgo the usage of "sic" in the following.)


Mark Crisson: "dam so is that them being all Xtra nosy in what we doing.......lol
but yea mah nigg thanx for da waning!!"

[To be fair, this was justified--I was being hecka nosy myself.]

Mark (continued): "i just dont see da prblem if we doen our work why they keep trying to stop us from having fun...but i really aint 2 worried about it cuz i got a computer at da crib ya dig!!
so dis ya boy sinen off PEACE!!"

Another student: "Wow...I kinda wish you knew how to spell."

Mark Crisson was not impressed. He responds: "SHUT UP! DONT B STUPID! IM NOT TRYIN 2 SPELL PERFECT U IDIOT!! IM TRYIN 2 WARN U SO U WILL GET OFF THEM PO*NO SITES..LOL....O BUT I CAN SPELL...TRUST ME HOMIE..YA BOY ON HONOR ROLL SO GET OFF ME!!!!!!!"

And Mark had backup--his sister, Jamie: "That's my brother!! Get em Bizznezz"


And they shut this group down?!

(Incidentally, that’s one of my favorite lines: “O but I can spell. Trust me homie.” I like to imagine Clint Eastwood saying it before he blasts some punk.)

Matt Smith has my back

I'm not sure how well this will translate in print, but this is my favorite story to tell.

In my 8th period class, I had a girl named Markesha who lived to irritate me. I sent her to ISS on numerous occasions, wrote a few referrals, and generally waged constant war whenever she lasted in the classroom. Toward the end of the year, I finally figured out the best tact: putting her in the hallway. It wasn't perfect, to be sure, but at least there she couldn't disturb others; actually, she did slightly better work there than she did in the classroom by her friends.

One day we had a bit of an argument. I realized that the situation would quickly spiral into something warranting a referral. After much prodding, Markesha agreed to go to a desk in the hallway.


Me: "OK, Markesha, if you have any questions at all, get my attention and I will come to help you. OK?"

Markesha: "OK."


Five minutes passed. I was on the other side of the classroom helping another student when I heard a booming, sarcastic voice over the din of everyone else:


Markesha: "ALAN VONN. I NEED YOUR HELP. NOW."


The class froze. You could hear a pin drop for about five seconds. And then:


Matt Smith, angry: "Aw hell no. AW HELL NO."


I knew I had arrived as a teacher.

Sleep Clinic

This is less an anecdote and more a biographical sketch of Denton Jackson.

Denton Jackson comes into the classroom. He sits down and immediately puts his head face down on his desk. When I nudge him awake, he proffers endless questions and/or excuses. Here's the typical scene:


Me: "Denton? ... Denton?"

Denton: "What?"

Me: "Denton, you need to be working on this right now."

Denton: "Ain't got a pencil."

Me: "Here's my pen."

Denton, huge sigh: "Ugh... I don't know how to do this."

Me: "Here's the instructions at the top of the page and on the powerpoint, try your best, make educated guesses."


A minute later, plop. Head down, dead to the world.

The last day of school was a half-day. We told students who didn't have any makeup work that they didn't have to attend. Denton was present for the final exam on the previous Friday, so there was no need for him to come. Sure enough, though, like clockwork, Denton waltzes into class and proceeds to sleep for the next 15 minutes. (We had shortened class periods that day.)

He was one of only two people there, both of whom had no makeup work to do. As my summer gift to Denton, I let him sleep undisturbed.

Nouveau Punctuation

Here's an interesting discussion I had with a student (Murray Benson) at parent-teacher conferences.


Me: "Here's my main issue, Murray. You're a good writer, and you're a smart guy, but you need to write more. That's it. That's all you need to do--write more."

Murray: "But what if I only need one sentence to get my point across?"

Me: "See, right there, just add another sentence."

Murray: "What if I wrote a really long sentence?"

Me: "Why not write two sentences?"

Murray: "OK, what if I wrote a really long sentence and put a period in the middle of it?"

Me: "No, see, that's not how it works."

Murray: "Yes it is."


Sigh.

Tasty Mugs

One day I substituted for a colleague in his English class. After we finished reading a short story together, and the students finished a quiz, there was about 10 minutes left with basically nothing to do. To pass the time, I decided to have the students play a game. I had baked cookies for my 4th period that day (to reward them for God-knows-what), so I offered a Vonn-made cookie as a prize.

About a third of them chose to participate. Including, importantly, DeAngelo Parker.

DeAngelo is like D'Andre James, except a year older and perhaps bent more toward comedy than crime. He is the ultimate class clown. This still makes him a jackass and a constant nuisance to teachers who have him. (I do not.) But for some reason, DeAngelo really took my game seriously--he wanted that cookie. And lo and behold, he won. He came by my class later that day to receive his award.

About a month later, I was in the library on my plan period and sat at a computer desk across from DeAngelo. Noticing this, I immediately slouched in my seat in a vain attempt not to cause a disruption for someone else's class.


DeAngelo: "Hey, Mr. Vonn!"

Me: "Hi, DeAngelo."

DeAngelo: "Mr. Vonn, you got any more of them cookies? Them mugs was good!"

Me: "No."

DeAngelo: "They was good, I'm about to call you Chef Boy-Ar-Vonn!"

Sequence

Monica Haff is a compulsive complainer. I got tired of her whining about Fahrenheit 451, so one day after class I badgered her about it.


Me, talking to another student: "...Yeah, that's what I love about this book. It's a great book, isn't that right, Monica?"

Monica: "Point. I hate this book."

Me: "Come on--you don't like it at all, not even one little bit? There's nothing about this book you like?"

Monica: "No. It's stupid. I wish he burned this book before he wrote it!"

I laughed. I couldn't help but.

Monica: "What?"

Me: "Just... think about that. Think about what you just said."


It's clear now that I should have spent more time teaching chronological sequence.