End of Another School Year

 Such a mix of emotions at the end of the school year. You want to prepare students for the AP Exam, but you also want them to enjoy the end of the school year. You want to give them something to remember the class. What books have we read together? The Poisonwood Bible, There There, Hamlet, Pnin, The Things They Carried, Fences, The Piano Lesson. I tried to do some Russian short stories from George Saunders book with one class. It's been a strange year because it's all been online. I've tried to connect as best I can. I tried to question the canon by teaching The Things They Carried but also having them read a Vietnamese or Vietnamese-American author too. We did a lot of poetry. I enjoyed our discussion about poetry because the students had a lot of interesting perspectives. 

I'm trying to plan Professional Development for the summer and I'm waiting to hear back about summer school. I'm running every day. C is trying to finish up the Master's. She is having the typical challenges you face in any hospital. 

When the Enthusiasm for Writing Fades

 This the stage I always get to where I wonder why I do this. Why write? Why buy all these writing books? Why feel guilty when I don't write? Why can't I enjoy my life without writing? Why can't I feel that there are other areas that could make me happy? The short answer is that nothing brings me the satisfaction, so although it's hard and I want to give up I always come back to it. I don't know what kind of writing is best for me. When I look at output it would be poetry. I like this idea if not following your bliss only but also taking into account what you're good at. I'm good at working with teenagers. I'm good at reading and writing. I'm good at discussing books and articles and current events, so teaching is a good fit for me. Am I good enough to publish? I don't know yet. I know I enjoy writing when I'm able to overcome my doubting demons. 

Had to give L back to the in laws. Probably the right decision as the landlord won't take pets, but it still hurts. S cried a lot. Did I prompt her to cry to make the in laws know how hard it hurts? Maybe. 

Pondering a Coen brothers marathon for the remaining class time. 

I don't know if I'll be doing summer school. They haven't gotten back to me yet. I'm trying to sign up for Professional Development. The hard part is always integrating what you've learned into your daily practice. 

My Daily Musings

 Worry about my kids' stutter. S has it like Se. Se got better though. He still struggles sometimes. I'm reading The Piano Lesson and Fences. Trying to figure out a way to teach them and read them in person and online with the folks at home. I have to prepare them for the AP Exam too. My dog has been staying with us. Will he go back to W? He's my dog. Do you ever feel by being flexible as a person it lets the inflexible take advantage of you? Until you explode. Like a raisin in the sun. I need to read all the writing by the Film Studies students. There's no way around it. They need feedback to progress. I need to show them I care about all the work they've put in. If I don't call my brothers or my parents will they ever call me? Why do I always have to be the one to call? 

Some family members are not going to get the vaccine. Some of my students are not going to get the vaccine. We are up to about 40% in Santa Clara County who have taken it. Segun. It will be interesting to go to Mexico in August. My suegra has lost faith in AMLO and says Morena are a bunch of Communists. I wonder what my suegro thinks. She wants to vote PRI again. G is going to go down and visit S and his new girlfriend. He spent $7,000 on her in a month and has no money now. He's using the credit card. 

You wonder about the remaining years of your parents' lives. What gives you purpose to go on? How can a person organize their lives so as their health fails they still have a reason to get up in the morning? What animates my life? My children. My teaching. A parent can invest all they have in their children and then their children can turn their backs on the parents. No one can predict what will happen but you have to do what is right in the moment and hope for the best. 

You buy all these books about writing but there's no substitution for writing. What can I write about? What unique perspective can I bring? A white male heterosexual middle class kid from Southern California who lives in Northern California now. I have lived in Mexico. I live with a Mexican wife and have a little experience with Mexican culture. I have tried to get to the heart of American culture, but I don't care about that anymore. I couldn't wrap my hands around it, so I decided to focus more on what I could control. 

I still love soccer and the U.S National Team. I don't care about basketball or football anymore. I still love track and field. Music still matters to me. It gives me great pleasure to get to know my catalog more deeply. I like some country music and folk music. I love the story telling and wisdom how it distills greater truths into a song. John Prine for example. Jason Isbell. 

C encounters the same challenges with every nursing job. She makes a point of doing things right and this threatens certain entrenched interests that don't want to do things right. She then keeps her head down and they want her to be more assertive. When she is assertive her coworkers work to get her fired. 

Music and Travel

 What have I been listening to lately? Jeff Buckley. Mercury Rev. Drive-By Truckers "21st Century U.S.A." The singer lists off all the corporations that play such a large part in our lives. The debt. The look to Amazon for salvation. Nina Simone has a song 22nd Century that's interesting too. A plague that changes society. I don't know if Covid will change society much. People want to revert to the before times. Music does play an important part in my life. When I can't do anything else, I can listen to music. I enjoy doing chores when I have music in the background. I feel like I'm not wasting my time. I've always required a minimal amount of cleaning. I like to wash the dishes and fold clothes. This carpet hasn't been vacuumed since I moved in because the vacuum is broken and I don't know where to take it. There are about four more weeks in the semester and then I start Summer School. It has been uplifting to talk to the students face to face, but I hope this hybrid model doesn't go on in the Fall. Will students have the option of just doing distance learning. This seems to take teachers into account last. No deviation from governmental policy of the past? A profession largely composed of women pushed around by men. 

We have done some interesting trips on the weekend to the Mission in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Gilroy, and Casa de Fruta. It always feels good to get out of town. You feel like you step off the treadmill and you're really living. That was a nice trip to San Diego for NMSI. Traveling is something I've always wanted to get back to. There aren't many places I want to go: Japan, Israel, other parts of Mexico. I would like to travel around the United States with my kids. Russia would be interesting. I always love that feeling of when we're getting ready to go to Mexico and I can brush up on my Spanish. She never gave me back those books she borrowed from me did she? I enjoy reading the books that have Spanish on one side and English on the other. I am proud that I moved down there by myself with one friend and lived there 3.5 years. I guess that's what S is doing. I didn't burn any bridges when I left. Perhaps G wanted to live in L.A for longer. I left on the week of September 11th. There were tanks at L.A.X. I remember that Independence Day in Mexico City. My first experience of the Zocalo. 

 Day 2. Still trying to say something that matters. Who am I? The kids are watching Peppa Pig and Dinosaur King. I'm deleting articles off of my computer that I'll never read. Why does writing matter so much to me? In what form can I make a mark? I'm not sure what to do for the rest of the year in Film Studies. As a class, we've watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Night of the Living Dead and now Better Luck Tomorrow. The rest of the time has been taken up with students presenting films from Edgar Wright's list of 1000, the Female Gaze list from BFI and now three films or tv shows of their choosing. The presentations have been interesting. I need to read the writing from their projects and give them feedback. That is always the hard part of being an English teacher; figuring out a way to give them feedback that is valuable and that spurs them on to revise. 

I will be teaching Summer School too. We need the money. I enjoy Summer School. The students have a concrete objective and this motivates them. How to make school more relevant to students? 

Life is returning somewhat to normal. 39% or so are vaccinated in Santa Clara County. G and I had an interesting conversation during the study hall period about politics of identity overreach. A teacher at school had a tense relationship with a student for months because of the use of the word "negro" in Frederick Douglass. G had used the wrong pronouns when identifying a student. He had mentioned a skin color when thinking of the old Crayola skin color and been called racist by his students. One comment that veers away from the students version of right and wrong can be a death sentence in their estimation. It makes you gauche. It makes you a reactionary. Human beings make mistakes. Human beings are racist at times. There are different versions of racism on the spectrum. Motivations are important to measure. Is it a repeated pattern or a slip of the tongue? I think of the Minor Feelings essay about Korean-American girls who have Valley Girl accents and dress like cholas. Cultural appropriation is verboten right now but there is a beauty in taking good ideas and making them your own. You're not trying to make a buck off of it you're just trying a new look. 

There is no purity. We've come a long way in putting some white liberals on their heels, but the white supremacists go on as before. 

I like these poetry creative writing prompts. The students were not familiar with the sonnet end line rhyme scheme. I must have explained it ten times and they still didn't understand the alternating rhymes in the lines. The AP students take their exam in two weeks. Have I pushed them hard enough? I would have left many behind, but maybe the more advanced students would have benefitted from a more rigorous pace. 

Less and less children living in San Jose because families cannot afford to live here. Schools will have to combine and close soon. Will I make it through my career before that happens? How long will I go on teaching. I enjoy it. Mexico is too unstable to retire there. It would be a difficult transition for the kids, but I guess this would be the moment to try. C has put so much into her education and career here it would be a shame to leave that behind. 

If I can keep up this routine what will come out of it? When I have been able to write regularly, ideas do come to me out of nowhere and I get in a writing groove. 

My parents are retired? Being retired during Covid far from any family. Are they bored with their lives? What can they do to occupy their time? What can they give back to their community? Nobody wants to be waiting to die. You want a purpose no matter what stage you are in your life. 

L is staying with us. It's nice to have him back. I don't know how much longer he will live. 

Back At the Writing Game

 I'm going to try to write something every day. We'll see how long I can keep it going. I am back in the classroom teaching Latino Literature, Film Studies, AP Literature, and 10th Grade English. Some students are in the classroom with me and some students are at home. I'm always saving articles to read later that I never read or buying books that I never read. I like to buy books about writing more than writing. It's such a challenge to sit down on put my thoughts on paper or on a screen. I enjoy it afterwards though. I can't really think of a better use of my time. All the commitments of the day slip away, but the fact that I wrote something sticks with me in an important place where I define myself or aspire to be better than I am. Writer's were always praised and admired in my family, and if there is one superpower that I'd want besides being able to live forever it would be to write well. To have a unique style of writing and looking at the world. What is the unique viewpoint that I bring? I am a 43 year old white heterosexual male who speaks Spanish and is married to a Mexican woman. I have two young kids. I want this country to be more just. To live up to its ideals. 

I enjoy connecting with students. Helping them to improve their writing. Suggesting books that they might enjoy. I like conferencing with them about a piece of writing they're working on. This year I haven't had many long range plans for what I'm teaching. It's day to day and trying to find what will engage them. For example, in Film Studies I couldn't figure out a way to show a movie to everyone, so I had students teach movies and tv shows and show clips from Youtube. It's been fun to see what their passions are. I tried to read Fences with my AP Literature students yesterday, and the students at home couldn't hear it so I just ended up reading it to them myself. You have to be flexible and able to adjust on the fly when the technology doesn't cooperate, but that is a school a teacher needs for teaching in general. 

I still worry about humans destroying the earth and killing all the animals, but I have given up trying to do anything in my daily life. The problem feels too big. We are on a ship or a train that we can't stop. Capitalism. Rapaciousness. We can chip away at the inequalities and we should, but they have been building for so long that they will never be dissolved. 

Italian Neorealism and Independent Cinema

Here are a few common elements of American Independent Cinema:

1. Do not have a clear beginning, middle and end. Ending can be ambiguous.

2. Characters tend to be more complex or ambiguous.

3. Downplays narrative drama in favor of undramatic present.

4. Relies more heavily on dialogue than Hollywood films.

5. Often uses multi-strand narratives.

6. Not afraid to make the audience aware they are watching a film.

7. Visions of society not usually found in the mainstream.

Do Brick or Do the Right Thing have any of these elements?

Read this information about Italian Neorealism. Write down three facts about the movement.

After watching The Bicycle Thief and reading about Italian Neorealism, how do you think Italian Neorealism inspired American Independent cinema?