176

That's the number of homicides
so far this year
in the city of Baltimore--

from best I can tell.

The number always gets bigger.

176.

But it's just a number.

The radio talks about how it's lower
than other years.

This is progress.

Only 176.

Then there's a connection
to one of those murders.

You know a mother,
an angry brother
and a sensitive one--

it's more than a number.

It's not just one life cut short--
one scholarship never used
another statistic it's

how do those left behind
get over the loss of
brothersongrandsonnephew?

176 fingers
stretching long
over the city
like a spider's thin web.

We try to duck and cover
but in certain neighborhoods

it's only a matter of time.

Poems to Melt Your Heart

That's what she titled her file
at the end of the day on the computer.
Writing a poem doesn't end the pain
she started.

This morning I got bombarded--

N: Miss Emily, I need some adoption papers.
Me: Adoption papers? For what?
N: For me. I'm putting myself up for adoption.
Me: Hmmm. I don't have any. But I can google it for you after school...see what I can do.

So it was that I found myself at the end of the day typing
adoption
adopt a 12 year old girl
12 year old girl adoption
into the google tool bar

Me: I'm not sure this is going to solve your problem.
N: Well, Matilda did it. She got adopted. She's smart and I'm smart. I don't know why I can't do the same thing.

Like a girl out of a story book
she turned to book heroines
to expand her opportunities.

She melts my heart.

Summer Skirts

After talking about making skirts, I finally plunged in this weekend.
I traced an A-line skirt I like, added an elastic waist, hemmed it and...
the perfect summer skirt!
I was able to do the third one in an episode of This American Life--
a very rewarding project.

Testing

We don't ask kids in wheelchairs to get up and walk.
We don't ask kids who are blind to read the board.
Or kids who are deaf to listen.

However, kids with learning disabilities or reading disabilities
should be working at grade level
otherwise we're leaving them behind.

I was tutoring a student on Thursday night who is dyslexic.
She came with her homework--
a test passage on her grade level which was ions too hard.
She's super bright,
but sometimes she sees words on the page
differently than other kids do.

Working on a test passage that is too hard doesn't help her.
Taking the test doesn't help her.
In fact, it's probably taking away time where she could be doing things that might actually help move her forward.

It was agonizing.
Reading the passage,
looking for answers,
sometimes the answers were unclear
(and I am far beyond third grade).

It's bad practice to make kids,
especially kids who are struggling,
do work that is too hard for them.

It doesn't accomplish anything.
In fact, it may hurt.

When she doesn't pass
we will shake our heads and sigh.

Start working to get her ready
for fourth grade instead of
helping her to see.

Kites on the Corner

I walked home from school yesterday to find
a small band of guys on the corner
right next to the sketchy shop
that opened not so long ago.

Oh no I thought, disheartened
The drug dealers have come down to our little corner?

I paused at my door, the suspicious neighbor
to see if I could figure out what was going on
or recognize any faces.

My mistake.

There was just a kite.
Everyone working to get it in the air.

Like a February miracle
dancing against the sky.

A Skirt

Going back to graduate school hasn't worked well with my creative life.

Unfortunately, writing papers and readings have sapped some of my inspiration.

My creative projects have been sitting. Waiting.

But over Christmas, I picked out some new yarn and started a scarf.

This weekend, I made an impromptu visit to Ikea and ended up making a skirt.
In under 4 hours.
That seems a reasonable project to take the edge off academia.


















(Perhaps this skirt would have been better as a tablecloth?)



Maybe I need to get back to the blog too?

Snowballs on the Avenue

I promised them snowballs.

It was bribery, really, from last Friday
when deep in July, I wanted them to act like October
because new teachers were observing.
They rose to the moment (put on quite a show)
which had us, today, after lunch, strolling over to the frozen cup guy.

The plan was to go to Mr. Benny's, behind the school.
But he's sick and not open for the summer.
Our second option around the corner, was closed.

So they wailed, "Let's go down the avenue. Pleeeeaasssse."

The avenue is a few blocks away and the Baltimore blue lights flash their reminder that you need to be extra careful.
C'mon. They have better snowballs there.
And against my better judgment, I said, yes.

And so it was, that waiting to get snowballs, a girl walked by and ran into Teya.
It was rude,
it was intentional,
it was completely unacceptable
and Teya would not, in a million years let it go.
The back and forth began.
The girl in the black and white striped shirt cussed and Teya made a threat.
They volley back and forth.
The rest of the girls rose to Teya's defense.

You don't need to be a chess master to see how the next moves are going to play out.
Teya had already had a tough day.
Her hair was only half done and the boys had already teased her.
Now the girls on the street.

It's like the match to a short fuse,
the spark on a California desert.
The waving gun on the 4th of July.

We build a school-world where good choices and I-statements are valued
and we want them to transfer that to the neighborhood.
Today, I thought, it was an impossible task.

I talked Teya down (barely)
knowing this would be repeated
on other afternoons
without the conflict-resolution preaching teacher
standing nearby.

The Baltimore Sun tallies up the homicides so far this year at 106.

Maybe it's too big a leap in logic
connecting my girls to that swelling number.
Around here, even the little things explode--
and turn violent.

I'm sorry, Ms. Emily Teya said as we walked back to school. She made me so mad. That was wrong.

I know one hundred stories about Teya
giving her reasons to be angry at the world.
The other girl probably does too.

Teya is lovable.
Her heart is good.

But this afternoon on the avenue
I didn't need to be a chess master
or psychic
to look down the thin path
of her future.