"Stand Up" Biology by Guest Blogger Brian Leiken

Third block biology is a bitch.

The class has improved slightly from the first two weeks, when the freshman capered about like wild spider monkeys as they devoured their sole source of nutrients, small orange bags of red hot chili nachos.

At first they dropped the refuse into the two foot deep lab sinks, treating the wash basins like trash pits.

Now they just stuff waste in the cabinets beneath the counters. I found close to sixty empty nacho bags in one of the back cabinets, complete with candy wrappers, plastic gatorade bottles, and miscellaneous junk food trash worthy of Homer Simpson.

I've never had to follow so many students outside of class wearing my Parrot costume; usually it's an effective deterrent. Embarrass one kid, and the rest fall in line out of fear of the same happening to them.

By the seventh or eighth victim. the class finally catches on that I would follow each and every one of them to their next class, squawking and chirping while flapping my wings, calling out their name at the top of my lungs in a squeaky parrot voice.

I've never had to follow the same kid twice.

Even then we had to call in the Dean and threaten to expel five of them.

And 90% of them had to fail the first half of the course before it dawned on them that they would have to repeat the class again.

So now it's better, if by better they (mostly) remain in their seats and they (mostly) do their work, even if that means copying from a friend. I'll take it.

When I enter the class now, there is a smattering of catcalls, mostly "LEIKEN" followed by two minutes of my making the rounds. Every boy, and some of the girls, want me to acknowledge them with the "ghetto" handshake of pounding hands.

"Mr. Leiken, I've got an important question! Who would win? Iron Man or the Hulk!"

"The Hulk." This is part of our tradition. I've got four boys who are obsessed with super hero match ups. So long as they do their work, I placate them.

Plus I really like talking about superheroes. If my college friends, John, Steven, Vinnie, or even my roommate Christopher were around, I'd be way out of my league, but the kids don't read comics. They only know movies, so among them I'm like a trivia genius.

"Okay, who would win, Superman or the Hulk?"

I grimace. This is going to take a while. "I told you before, Superman. He can fly, and they had a special Marvel vs DC crossover where the two fought and Superman won."

"Okay, who would win, Batman or Superman?"

"Batman." Four boys immediately begin protesting. How the hell can Batman beat Superman? I cut them off. "Batman cheats. He would trick Superman, and failing that use a kryptonite Baterang."

"Okay, who would win? Iron Man or Batman?"

I pause. That is a good question. "I'll tell you.... after you finish this worksheet."

The boys let out a collective awwww.

I make the rounds around the room, talking with students in clumps of two's or three's. Sometimes we can discuss biology; sometimes we go off topic. What can I do? I'm lucky to get them to pay attention for even a few minutes.

"Mister Leiken, Mister Leiken!" one of the girls calls out. "I've been calling your name and you've been like ignoring me for the past five minutes!"

"There is one of me and forty of you. What is it?"

She thrusts the worksheet out in front of her. "I don't understand it!"

I put it down in front of her and have her read the first paragraph. It's about the water cycle. After we read it, I ask her the first question. She answers it.

"Did you even read it?" I ask her.

"No."

"Why not?"

She actually looks embarrassed.

"Hey, Mr. Leiken! Yo Momma so fat when she gets on a scale, it says to be continued!"

I look at the clock, five minutes until the end of class. I should yell at him, I should give him a stern lecture, I should do a lot of things.

But I can't let that pass. My mother's honor must be satisfied.

"Oh yeah," I snap back, "Yo Momma so ugly that when they put a bag over her head, and she looks in a mirror, it still breaks."

The class cracks up and lets out a giant oooooohhh!

Unlike the kids, I've got fresh material. I think of yo momma jokes on the way home.

Don't ever mess with a writer.

"Yo momma's so big," I continue, "they had to put in a double wide garage just to let her in the house!"

The class is laughing hysterically. Another, another, they cry! I give the kid a chance to make a come back. If you don't use original material, the kids will call you on it. You can't repeat an old yo momma joke; that earns you no respect.

Time to move in for the kill. "Yo momma is so fat, when she steps on a dollar bill, you get back change, minus fifty cents!"

My heckler is silent. A chorus of boys in the back begins to chant Cu-ler-o! Cu-ler-o! This basically means "girly man."

Who knew that my years of doing "stand up" would pay off in class?

Copyright 2009-11 by Brian Leiken

Biology 9 photo by Sabrena Carter

Hulk photo by Mauro Martins

Man with Michophone photo by Michal Zacharzewski

LA Teacher Blog

http://leiken.blogspot.com/

Brian Leiken is an L.A. inner-city, special ed teacher and author of Crossed Out, a book about and for his students. Oh yes, he's also my son:)

Crossed Out by Brian Leiken at http://www.lulu.com/

 

Man on Fire by Brian Leiken, Guest Blogger

"A man can be an artist...in anything, food, whatever. It depends on how good he is at it.

Creasy's art is death. He is about to paint his masterpiece. I have nothing else to say." - Rayburn, Man on Fire

My art is teaching.

Like most men with delusions of grandeur, I'd like to think I'm something other than I am: a writer, a comedian, a pirate, the Indiana Jones of Southeast Asia. But my true craft, my genuine talent, lies withing the realm of teaching.

It's a skill that's been honed through thousands of hours of practice in the heart of darkness, the inner city classroom, strengthened by teaching the inherently "unteachable," Special Ed. Anyone can teach AP, but not anyone can teach Special Ed.

If you can teach Special Ed in the inner city, you can teach anything.

I used to think I was ineffective, a fraud, a fake. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how many times I explained and re-explained, no matter how many hours I spent in review or helping kids with their homework, my students just didn't "get it."

But give me a class full of general ed students, and I transform, metamorphosing from a crude hockey player into an elegant figure skater, gliding through concepts with lectures and discussion that borders on high performance art.

Give me a class of honors and AP, and I am no longer a figure skater, but a God.

You are what you teach.

One of the tricks to teaching is learning not to take things personally, to quell your feelings and your emotional frustration: apprehension, rage, angst - gone.

Like a bemused comedian in the middle of a routine, you are no longer an individual but an act, a persona that oscillates between unflappable royalty and Buddhist monk, because no matter how good you are, you have to accept that some things are beyond your control.

No matter how hard you try, your students still have to be willing to learn and listen.

Sometimes you receive a question in class that is so far out in left field it came from the bleachers.

I'm co-teaching in Duran's economics class, explaining how property values can decline in crime ridden areas when a question is tossed from outside the stadium.

"Mister," Fluffy asks, "What happens if a house is haunted? Does the property go down?"

Sigh, it's Fluffy. Duran takes to the plate first. "Well, then you have to call in the Ghost Busters."

The class laughs. "Ha ha ha, Mr. Duran." Fluffy says loudly. "Very funny. I know there is no such thing as the Ghost Busters."

Shrugging, I return to the board. A small interruption, no big thing.

"But seriously," Fluffy interjects, "what happens when a house is haunted?"

My turn. "Normally after the police ascertain a house is haunted, they call in the Bureau of Paranormal Activity."

The entire class looks up. Bureau of Paranormal Activity! What's that? "Seriously, none of you have heard of the Bureau of Paranormal Activity? Section 13?"

Fluffy sits forward. "Section 13! What do they do?"

"They investigate and solve paranormal crimes; hauntings, aliens, that sort of thing."

"How do you get into it!"

"You study to be a para-psychologist. They're specifically trained to handle ghosts. One of the ways they identify ghosts is by the ectoplasm they leave behind." I state offhandedly.

"How does one get to be one of those!" Fluffy pants, leaning forward.

The class is riveted. Time to crush Fluffy's imaginary dream. "Well, you have to go to college and get a degree in para-psychology."

Fluffy deflates. College. I might as well have told him he had to jump to the moon. "How come I've never heard of Section 13?"

"Talk to me after class."

Twenty minutes later, the bell rings and Fluffy's out the door, question and answer forgotten as he heads out to lunch, but the next day he approaches me with yet another question.

"Mr. Leiken, I tried looking up Section 13 on Google, and I couldn't find anything."

"Well it's not like they are going to have Section 13 on the Internet!" I snort. "They don't want the public knowing about it."

"Oh." Fluffy replies, heading back to his seat.

It's probably the first time Fluffy has ever shown initiative when attempting to research a topic.

Later that week I show an English class one of my blogs, Top 10 Movies: 2010.

Working with Castaneda, we've decided to dedicate one day a week to blog writing in an attempt to get the class to write creatively and work on self expression.

On Friday I give them their first assignment: write one page about a movie or TV show they either loved or hated and explain why they either loved or hated the show or film.

On Monday I ask them to hand in the assignment. Out of forty kids, only eighteen turn in their work, and five of the eighteen turned in not papers but three sentence paragraphs. Curiously, the three Special Ed kids in the class have all completed the assignment.

"Can't we turn it in late, Mister?"

"Sorry, I don't accept late work."

"But you can't expect us to do work on the weekend!"

"Oh no, not the WEEKEND!" I exclaim, throwing up my hands. "Oh my God, the teacher assigned homework on the weekend. We're doomed, DOOMED!"

I fall down to my knees, head raised as I beseech the heavens, sobbing. "Why, God, why? Why have you forsaken us? I can't believe you expect us to do homework on the WEEKEND! Why not just kill us now!"

The class is stupefied, not sure whether to laugh or look ashamed. I pop back up to my feet, grinning. "So, what can anyone tell me about constructive criticism?"

The next time I give an assignment, thirty kids turn it in. That's progress, I guess.

Good teaching is like telling a good joke. Anyone can tell a joke, but not anyone can tell a joke effectively. Cracking jokes is not about the words; it's about the timing. A good joke is not just a set up and a punch line, but a story infused with personality.

Teaching is the same way; anyone can recite facts and present information, but not everyone has the passion, the personality, the inner fire.

A great teacher has a heart of flame, a soul animated not with a bonfire but an inferno, a tornado of enthusiasm that tears away the listless and mundane, a whirlwind that rips through the insipid red tape and brainless bureaucracy of standardized testing and meaningless rules.

Without the fire, you won't make it. There's a reason why teachers who have given up are referred to as burn outs.

As the refrain goes from Damn Yankees, "You got to have heart, miles and miles and miles of heart."

Hopefully, your flame catches a spark in those you teach and inspires them to be more than they are, not diploma approved CST automatons, but free willed thinkers who refuse to live in the cave of cultural conformity.

Writer, comedian, pirate, I am all of those things.

But I am also, and always will be, a teacher. Everyday I teach in the inner city, I continue to create my masterpiece.

I am the man on fire.

Copyright 2011 Brian Leiken

LA Teacher
http://leiken.blogspot.com/

Brian Leiken is an LA inner-city, Special Ed teacher and author of  three books for and about his students available on lulu.com. He's also penned I Went Into Teaching for the Money about his first year of teaching in LA. And best of all, he's my son:)

Crossed Out and Messed Up by Brian Leiken at http://www.lulu.com/

Photo: burning match by Stephen Davies
Photo: class full 'o bored students by mexikids
Photo: flames by patita rds