Things are wrapping up. My first quarter as a student teacher in NYC ends this Friday. It's been a wild ride at International Community High School, and I'm ready for a break. I've just got a few more papers and a few more more math problems between me and a Thanksgiving coma.

Of course, none of that is getting done right this minute. I've just spent an hour crawling the web for video and photos of the OWS eviction that went on in the early am of Tuesday morning. Protesters are promising an exciting day in NYC tomorrow, including attempts to shut down wall street and crowd into busy subway terminals. My guess is that union square and grand central are going to be interesting tomorrow evening. I've posted a video above from the Occupy website. If you haven't been watching this, now is as good a time as any to start.

On OWS:
I visited Zuccotti park for the first time last month, and I was kind of overwhelmed. On that day, there was a march from Washington Square park. Just a few days earlier, the AFL-CIO had released a statement of official support for the movement. The result of this was a sort of chaos, and it really bothered me. To my left, a group representing the voice of several freedom movements were screaming for the release of political prisoners--mostly members of the Black Panther Party. On my right, a 60-year-old man who could have been my high school English teacher, with spectacles halfway down his nose and all, was spouting Noam Chomsky to anyone who would listen. It was confusing. I felt let down. There was a lot of energy around me, but I couldn't hold on to any of it. I couldn't identify with the movement at all. I remember thinking

"Yah, sure. I think some things are fucked up, too. I'd love to point my finger at someone, and Wall Street does seem like a good bet."

But what do I know? If anyone in charge of the shuffling of millions (or billions) of dollars around is anything like Gordon Gekko, it wouldn't be hard to get me pissed off about it--but I just don't know enough. As of right now, I'm trying to change that. Having a lady like Anna P. around helps. When I need a dose of social conscience, she's my gal. She turned me on to bits and pieces of the the history of banking structures, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Pretty crazy stuff. The words "speculation" and "savings account" just don't seem to sit well together. Here's to finding out more once the dust from this quarter settles.

To do list:

1.) Learn more
2.) Learn enough to get as upset as I felt tonight on a daily basis
3.) Muster up some civil disobedience*
4.) Occupy

5.) Find a liberal high school in New York that supports a legit, non-superficial social justice mathematics curriculum**


*Seriously, I don't want to get arrested. If I've learned anything from reading the NYT over the last few months, it's that the NYPD has serious issues.

**Dunno how educators view misdemeanors, but it's probs best not to have a record. If I don't get hired this next year, I'm out 50 grand to Math for America.

Here's a vid from Minneapolis. Some friends of mine and their friends playing on a corner in Dinkytown. Some guy from the Daily was walking by and thought it was worth recording. I'm glad he did; it made my day. In the vid:

-Micah Jay Allen Hunter-Small on guitar

-Channing Alto on banjo

-Brian Munson on banjo thumping

-Cecelia (last?) on mandolin

-Kyle Johnson on tamborine

A story from my classroom:

The other day an announcement came on during one of the classes that I help teach. We were told that the school was in "code blue." Immediately, my mentor teacher asked all students to get out of their seats and get against the back wall away from the door. We stood there quietly for several minutes. Students were getting kind of freaked out, especially when someone knocked on our door--a student coming back from the bathroom.

Eventually, my mentor teacher went out in the hallway to see what was up. Evidently, the administration was never clear on what the code word was for an intruder in the building. "Code blue" was NOT the agreed upon code word; it means that there are police officers or firemen in the building (for whatever reason, we had some visiting firemen). Nothing else.

We wasted about 10 minutes on lockdown, and no one could focus afterword. One student was so shook up that she went to duck under a table when a prankster in the class pointed at the door and shouted "¡Aye, coño!"* I was trying really hard not to laugh with the rest of the class. Being a professional is hard when you're 22.

*Coño is a recent acquisition of mine. I heard my kids from the Dominican Republic saying it all the time, so I had to look it up. Evidently, it originated in Spain, with an English equivalent of "cunt"--not such a nice word for everyone; however, in the most of South and Central America, it's much more acceptable, meaning something more like "damn" or "shit."

Another fun fact: in Chile, a Spaniard can be called a "coño."