I Read Banned Books

No, I’m not Chicken Little, but I am having a rough spell at work. Details will surely follow in this and other entries this week.

As my friend, KDW, says, “It is what it is.” Here are some things that are what they are:

• The ghetto is the ghetto. (A student actually told me today: “You can take a child outta da ghetto, but you can’t take da ghetto outta da child.”)
• Ignorance is bliss. (Today alone six staff members claimed that my secretary says “I don’t know” for nearly every question she is asked. Personally, I have perfected the standard response of “Let me research that some more, and I’ll get back with you.”)
• Age does come before beauty. At 34, I am younger and prettier than my partner. Many black students think I am his assistant, and don’t have any authority over them. The principal says it is a cultural thing. That leads to the next one:
• Some white people are not prejudiced against black people. The race card is dealt often by 11-14 year olds. Having a black celebrity’s last name makes it easy to convince them that my husband is black. As Tom Cruise says in Jerry Maguire, “I love black people!”
• Battery is a crime, and crime doesn’t pay. I am writing my first recommendation for expulsion packet. Yes, there was much blood, an overnight hospital visit, and an arrest involved. The perpetrator was 14, the victim was 13, and the weapons were fists and a concrete wall.
• “The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson must have known that making a mistake (or several, in my case) leads to its own reward when you learn how to do something right the next time.

In one of my previous entries, I stated that I loved my job. That is still true; however, I’m finding out that I still have so much to learn. Making a few mistakes along the way will lead to the bigger reward in the end.

Stay tuned … News in June, July, or August … I’m going to make it after all.