Education

Dedicated ESL Teacher Retires

May 26, 2019

(I wrote the following announcement about the retirement of my friend and former colleague Gary Christiansen and, without byline, it was published in the Bakersfield Californian on May 24, 2019.) Long ago friends and colleagues of Gary Christiansen began to wonder how he could teach a four-hour English as a Second Language class five mornings…

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Guns in Classrooms

November 18, 2016

I arrive late to a packed board meeting of the Arid School District in your community and have to join others pressed against the wall and already listening to speakers address the five popularly-elected trustees of the school board who sit behind a long desk on the dais. “Guns are inherently offensive, not defensive,” says…

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Bakersfield Number One

September 15, 2014

Bring out the beer, boys, Bakersfield’s number one again. You see the report? We got the highest rate of auto theft in the United States. My buggy was ripped off last month. I love it. We also got the dirtiest air in the country. And as more of our teenage girls get knocked up we…

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The In Crowd

November 29, 2013

I’m a leader and other girls do what I say and fifteen are helping me deal with Rebecca. I’m bigger and can easily beat her up by myself but that’s not the point. I want everyone to hate her. She used to see a guy who dropped her for me. That’s not enough either. The…

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Teacher Patrimony

September 3, 2013

I teach Spanish in Mexico City, math in Morelos, history in Guadalajara. Father passed his job to me as Grandfather had to him. We’re educators. We don’t need government bureaucrats to hire and evaluate us with standardized tests. We’re evaluating them, wearing masks and waving sticks and lying in streets, snarling traffic and leaving kids…

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Emergency Teacher

April 17, 2013

Science teacher loved job but hated having to go in middle of class. Back in two minutes, he said, holding up fingers. He walked into bathroom he’d used twenty years and saw father push son away from urinal. Don’t do that, said teacher, and stepped to another urinal from which father pushed him, so he…

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Baby Frogs

May 31, 2012

At school the lawn banks toward a shady northern wall by a sprinkler oozing puddles where every spring male frogs mount female backs and fertilize eggs as they’re laid in water. We never notice the tadpoles that first emerge but are delighted by the sudden appearance of hundreds of baby frogs. Initially they’re fingertip-size and…

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Big Sneeze

May 10, 2012

After hosting amorous boyfriend Sunday night and pounding treadmill half hour early Monday morning, popular high school math teacher Martha H drove to school, parked car, and walked toward class, confident she’d have another great week. She sneezed after shutting car door, and nose and sinuses had tickly, cleaned out feeling that became more pleasurable…

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Administrative Offices

December 3, 2011

petty administrators provoked faculty prompting latter to bribe custodian for key to weekend of work on monday administrative offices everywhere padded and locked from outside

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Rare Books

October 11, 2011

last week there were fifty books teacher said now there are forty five

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The NCAA Confesses

September 21, 2011

What’s in that syringe? Untie me. You’ll go to jail. This won’t work. I’m not talking. I hope I won’t. I know I shouldn’t say as a kid I was a white wimp and still am and therefore perfect to work for the NCAA. I loathe my athletic superiors and all the media and fan…

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Death of a Teacher

August 18, 2011

Immersed in my own trivial but heartfelt concerns, the principal of which was that my six-week summer vacation had, as ever, lasted at least a fortnight too long and, despite a couple of stimulating vacations, left me feeling isolated and resentful and anxious to return to the camaraderie and energy of a large adult school.…

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Golf Course Braces for Wild High School Reunion

October 1, 2010

Sacramento, CA – Officials at scenic Ancil Hoffman Golf Course, which stretches along the American River east of town, issued an emergency decree this morning after police informed them that a (publicly-unnamed) suburban high school, notorious for its rowdy alumni, plans next week to attack the links with ten foursomes celebrating forty years of parole…

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