Chapter 2: You’re not in Kansas Anymore
I arrive. Lakeboro, Florida: where the bugs are bigger, the squirrels scrawnier, the people kinder, the Wal-Mart Superer, and God is everywhere.
What I do hear in Lakeboro: “I want me some”, “I hear tell” and “I’m a fixin to.”
What I do not hear in Lakeboro: horns blowing. This is not because Lakeboro locals are safe, careful drivers. Elderly folks in their Lincoln Town Cars who never quite reach the speed limit but remain in the left lane combine with wild rural youths in pickups sporting Confederate Flag bumper stickers. I see near misses but without the requisite middle finger or “teach ‘em a lesson” blow of the horn. Beeping is viewed as uncivilized. It is hard for me not to beep. My palm and fingers spasm over the horn. If you beep in Lakeboro you must be an obnoxious creature from New York. . . or Miami, which is effectively the same place.
Shopping is different in Central Florida. At Publix, a local supermarket chain, old men bag groceries at every register and beg me to let them carry the food to my car. “Help you with the buggy?” They don’t call them shopping carts here. Employees remember my name, face and idiosyncrasies after only a few meetings. As soon as I enter Quiznos, Savannah begins to prepare the veggie on whole wheat and reminds her coworker that I like extra guacamole. At Big Apple Bagels in the Orlando airport Donna is slicing a sesame bagel before I reach the counter. At Panera the workers remember I prefer bread rather than chips with my salad; the Panera manager tells me she always thinks of Peter Pan when she sees me. Perhaps she knows I will soon be working with lost boys.
Abandoning my oath never to go to Wal-Mart, on Saturday I pay a visit to this big box retailer. This is not just any Wal-Mart, this is Super-Wal-Mart. Open 24 hours with groceries and plants and an automotive shop and everything I need for my apartment at low, low prices. Oh and also a wall of fireworks. I spend a long time navigating through this small village of savings. After many hours I depart with an overflowing “buggy” and I promptly trip on a speed bump. My ankle swells and I worry it will mess up my running. Speed bumps are everywhere. My apartment complex has eight of them in the one-mile loop road. I do not like speed bumps, not in my car, not when I run before dawn and not when I walk in daylight outside Wal-Mart. There is a Boy Scout standing in the Wal-Mart parking lot selling something. He witnesses my clumsiness, and rushes to my aid politely inquiring as to my condition. I am more embarrassed than injured, I hope. Once he determines I am not disabled, he asks me to buy a ticket to his spaghetti dinner. I do. He then insists on helping me to my car and unloading my purchases into my trunk.
I’d never heard of Books-a-Million before moving to Lakeboro, but the manager there, Dean, is willing to do what Barnes and Noble down the street, will not - save me a New York Times every day (no NY Times home delivery in Lakeboro). Stopping at Books-a-Million daily, I begin to recognize some of the regulars employees and customers: Azziza the pregnant cashier, Sam, the wiry guy who lives in the corner writing poems, Starr, the numerically challenged cafe cashier. Sam asks me to read a few of his poems. They are about his three kids and losing them in a custody battle. At Azziza’s register, the woman in front of me is ecstatic over a display of angel medallions. Each angel is meant to be put in your pocket to protect you from one of life’s many pitfalls. She buys a couple, along with two magazines: Handguns and Shooting. I wonder if the company that made the angels had gun enthusiasts in mind when it developed its marketing strategy. Azziza tells me how tired she feels. I say if she feels tired now she should just wait until junior shows up. My witless comment is met with “It’s not mine.” Now, I’ve heard men say that, but never a woman. My brain can’t wrap itself around this new information. Azziza explains, “I’m having it for another couple.”
There are some businesses I do not patronize. A couple blocks from my apartment I pass a large sign visible far down Route 27, which says, enigmatically “We take personal checks and hold ‘em for 15 days.” It is only when I get close that I can see this is a check-cashing place. I thought the “hold ‘em” was a threat but I didn’t get it. I pass Golden Pawn next to Bob’s Bail Bonds and across the street from Discount Meats. Pawnshops, bail bondsmen, check cashing places and cheap beef, I hope not to be in need any of these goods or services in the near or distant future.
I also have no desire to take a tour of the Prison Work Farm. I drive by the farm on my way home from Wal-Mart. The prisoners in their green and white striped uniforms are working in the fields under a cloudless day with a 90+ degree sun beating down on them. A little tram car drives past. The tram, not unlike those cute faux trains that move people from their cars to the front gate in Disney’s parking lots, has a fringed roof. In the tram are visitors interested in watching the prisoners toil. The visitors sit in shaded comfort and observe as the tour progresses. I didn’t notice, but I have to wonder whether they were sipping mint juleps as they buzzed along.
Just past the work farm there is road construction. When I am forced to slow in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, I get a chance to examine the roadwork. The pavement has been torn up so new water and sewer pipes can be laid. Ditches have been dug along the south side of the road. Since the water table is near the surface here in Florida, ditches quickly become wet. It must have been too wet because fans have been brought in to try to dry out the ditches. Not just fans, I pass a fan boat that has been backed in and parked half in the ditch, fan running. You don’t see that in New York!
I drive by a water retention pond. Every neighborhood has one to prevent flooding. This crater is large and deep; it hasn’t rained for a few days so the bottom is more swamp than pond. Whole families are gathered around the top. Children with flattened cardboard boxes run and slide from the rim down the steep sloping sides to the mucky bottom. Sledding, Florida style.
People aren’t the only creatures that are different in Lakeboro. Squirrels here are emaciated. Despite a wealth of acorns, these rodents appear to be on the verge of starvation. Maybe squirrels don’t need their thick fur coats in a land where it’s always green and never winter. Florida squirrels may be small, but not the cockroaches. I came prepared for big cockroaches (I heard tell of them). When I see my first giant roach trucking across the linoleum in the kitchen of my apartment, I am stoic. After all, I’m going to be a principal, the leader of a school. I’ll need to be a pillar of strength in the face of all challenges. And don’t forget, I lived in New York City, so I know roaches. When I mention the pest to the friendly woman in the Franklin Gardens Apartments office she tells me five things I didn’t know:
1) My apartment will be sprayed for bugs on the last Tuesday of every month.
2) They’re called Palmetto Bugs, not roaches.
3) Unlike roaches they aren’t in search of cookie crumbs, they have a penchant for cardboard.
4) They poop everywhere.
5) When they fly they feel sticky on your skin.
FLY?! I suspect this native Floridian is pulling my Yankee leg. No way, cockroaches don’t fly. They scamper, they’re quick, but fly?
I wear my new sandals as I walk outside to the Franklin Gardens’ mailboxes. They are dressy sandals and match my suit. Avoiding the road and speed bumps, I walk across the grassy lawn when I notice my feet start itching; I look down to see dozens of red ants feasting on them. They are tiny, don’t brush off easily and keep returning no matter where I position my feet. Fire ants. The name fits. Their bites burn. I awaken several times during the night itching. When I go to run in the morning my ankle is still puffy from my speed bump encounter and my feet, ankles and shins are spotted with dime sized red itchy bumps. As soon as I tie my sneakers I have to poke my finger under the lacings to scratch. No more sandals outside.
Fire Ants, flying cockroaches and scrawny squirrels may have adapted to the Florida heat and humidity, but I am struggling. My alarm goes off at 4:00 am and it is already 80 degrees. I run; it’s dark and hot and moist. After a quarter mile I’m rubbing stinging perspiration from my eyes. Then I hear the sloshing sound of my own sweat pooling in my ears. After half a mile I am simultaneously running and wringing out my sweat drenched hair; I’d like to take off my sopping shirt. I can barely believe my watch - I take 43 minutes to run 5 miles; I should be under 40. After my run, as a reward for surviving, I jump in the pool. The Franklin Gardens swimming pool is crowded with splashing children and shouting adults on weekends, but in the predawn light I am alone. I can swim, float and watch the sun rise behind three palm trees. It’s idyllic.
Along with everything else, food is different here, and my vegetarian eating habits make it all so complicated.
Winn Dixie, “The Beef People” does not, unsurprisingly, sell tofu. Fortunately Publix does. But the Publix check out clerk, noticing the absence of meat on the conveyor belt is incredulous: “You don’t eat meat, not even hamburgers?” I attend a Franklin Gardens breakfast get together featuring a good ‘ole southern breakfast complete with cheese & jalapeno grits, biscuits with sausage gravy and cornbread. When I don’t pour the white sausage flecked “gravy” on my biscuits I am told it is the best part and I must try it. “There’s only a little sausage in it, not enough to worry about. You can always pick out the sausage.” I pass on the sausage gravy, but I am surprised by how tasty grits can be with the spicy peppers added.
A few days later, a man in a white pickup truck stops in front of my apartment. He walks to the door and asks whether I am the lady of the house and whether I like a good steak. No, I am a vegetarian. Okay, how about chicken? Uh,no thank you.
Religion is different here too. God is not limited to Sundays or to billboards in Central Florida; God is everywhere, at buffets, in meat markets, swimming pools and even goats.
My arrival in Lakeboro is just after Easter. Outside one Baptist church is a marquee telling all who pass that “The Easter Bunny did not rise from the dead.” The sign outside one Methodist Church announces, “He is risen. Car Wash Saturday.”
Every Saturday, on the sidewalk in front of Discount Meats, a plus-size, well-dressed black woman stands beaming and holding up large poster board signs. “Jesus Saves” “Put your trust in Jesus.” “Honk if you love Jesus.” She is surrounded by more signs with equally pithy sayings. She smiles, waves and holds up her messages to passing motorists and Discount Meat customers.
Arriving at the Franklin Gardens swimming pool in late afternoon, I join about half a dozen sun revelers. The pool is empty except for two men, a middle aged black man and a younger, tall, thin, white man. How odd, the white man is standing in the pool wearing a long sleeved t-shirt despite an air temperature of 97 degrees. Hmmm. I turn my back on this scene, relax into my chaise lounge and open Tourist Season. I am reading this Carl Hiassen novel so I can understand Florida culture. My reading is soon interrupted by loud chanting: “Praise the lord, Praise heaven, thanks be to God.” Twisting in my seat, I see both men emerging from the pool. The white man is fully clothed; not only is he wearing a long sleeve t-shirt but also long khaki pants. His clothes are sopping wet. They cling and drip, dragging heavily from his slim frame. Leaning over, he half heartedly tries to wring out the pants but quickly gives up and the two men walk off toward the apartments on the west side of the complex. I survey the faces of my comrades, I see no amazement; they are not unnerved; their eyes say: “Silly woman, people get baptized in swimming pools every day here in Central Florida.”
A birth at a farm half way between Lakeboro and Gainesville has garnered a great deal of attention from the NASCAR faithful. Headlines in the daily paper shout about a miracle goat. It seems this goat has a birthmark resembling the numeral “3.” Locals are flocking to see this holy goat believing it is a divine sign from the deceased race car driver, Dale Earnhart. The goat has been dubbed “L’il Dale.”
In Lakeboro, July 4th is not referred to as “Independence Day” rather it is called “God and Country Day.” It is such in the daily newspaper, emblazoned on t-shirts and engraved on the medal I win in the July Fourth race, the “God and Country Day four miler.”
Lakeboro, Florida is not like anyplace else I have lived: not New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, Michigan, Massachusetts, California or Wyoming. In some ways it is more foreign than some European countries I’ve visited.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Chapter one - The Journey Begins
Chapter 1: May - the Journey Begins
I never planned to live in Florida. I scoffed at the retirees we called “snowbirds” who each autumn pointed their Ford Crown Victorias south to escape the harsh Central New York Winters. I was proud of my ability to go running outdoors in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt when the temperatures dipped into the 40’s, and that I kept running, albeit with more apparel, when icy, wind-driven snow blasted my cheeks. I arrogantly announced, on more than one occasion, that I would never live south of the Mason-Dixon line and made sweeping pronouncements that all white southerners were racists. Born in the shadow of the Empire State Building, I dance to the rhythm of hurry hurry rush rush, go, go, go. If the line is too long I’m out of there. Choose the machine over the cashier. If someone does you a favor, they have an ulterior motive; everybody’s got an angle. I was born only once, find football a bore and eat tofu instead of dead animals. These are not characteristics typical of Southerners, yet here I am on May 15th 2002 bound for Central Florida. I am off to become the principal of Prospect School, an alternative middle school for children who have been suspended or expelled from public school. I am energized and excited about the challenge ahead.
I am driving alone in my new SUV, a silver Saturn Vue, heading south on NY State Route 15 as it parallels the Susquehanna River. It is beautiful Amish country with quilts for sale and horse drawn carts and fruit stands. A friend in Rochester recommended this route, but for all its scenic views, I am not pleased. It is just too slow. Often the speed limit is 35 or 45 mph with the additional challenge of construction zones, single lanes and slow moving traffic. Why is there a 16 wheeler on this blue highway? I spend three painful hours trying hard to be Zen-like and enjoy the journey while thinking I have 1270 miles of driving ahead and wishing I had stayed on the interstates. Finally I stop at the last outpost of civilization: Wegmans.
Calling Wegmans a supermarket is like calling Wal-Mart a five & dime. This Wegmans is in Williamsport, PA (home of the Little League World Series). I am going to miss Wegmans. I am only half joking when I say my favorite restaurant in Syracuse is Wegmans. Living for the last year in Rochester, headquarters of Wegmans, I rarely went more than two days without a Wegmans fix. When I meet people from Central New York who are now residing elsewhere, the conversation quickly turns to Wegmans deprivation. “You can’t get ciabatta like that here.” “I stock up on their buckwheat pancake mix whenever I’m in town.” “Their Caesar salad is to die for.” At Wegmans I use the facilities, buy bottled water, a yogurt and continue my trip . . . on interstates.
Interstate 81 could be renamed Wal-Mart Way. McDonalds at every exit is to be expected, but Wal-Mart? Sometimes you don’t even have to exit at all, the Wal-Mart is just right there on the Interstate. I have been to Wal-Mart exactly twice in my life and both times swore never to return. I do stop at rest areas where I always seem to be standing in line, listening to little old ladies holding conversations between stalls while the clock is ticking and I need to get back on the road!
West Virginia welcomes with median strips covered in red poppies. It really is a breathtaking sight. I am Dorothy outside the Emerald Palace. I do not stop to smell or photograph the flowers; I need to make up for the time I lost on Route 15. I rush past and the memory is my souvenir. The Shenandoah Mountains rise up picture postcard perfect. WV and VA know how to keep the land adjacent to their highways pristine and relatively free of billboards.
In the Carolinas, things get a bit more serious. In North Carolina the gas pumps threaten to take your license if you “pump and drive.” In South Carolina the pre construction zones warn “Speeding in a work zone $300 fine and 20 days in jail.” I am not anxious to see the inside of a South Carolina jail; I do not speed. In Georgia signs keep warning me of “Smoke-Fog areas.” I can believe fog is more common in valleys, but is there often a fire in these parts? I drive by a sprawling, spewing Soviet-style factory. Perhaps this explains the smoke warning.
Somewhere in Georgia, I stop at a McDonalds craving a salad. The employee drawls that they don’t serve no salads cups till lunch and now’s breakfast. After some begging on my part she finally relents. It tastes nasty and I toss half of it. Be careful what you beg for. I could really use a Wegmans Caesar salad about now.
In Florida I see pick up trucks hauling open trailers of corn and watermelons. Lots of trucks of oranges, some loose and piled high, some in boxes with slits as if for animals. I guess oranges have to breathe too. The rest areas promise 24-hour security (no doubt due to the much-publicized rest area murder of a tourist a few years ago) but the security is no match for the reptiles. I leap from the car, determined to beat the rapidly approaching busload of blue hairs, only to be faced with a sign the likes of which I have never seen at a rest area in New York: “Warning: beware of poisonous snakes.”
The Osceola National Forest forms a tunnel of trees rising up on the median strip like the Great Wall of China, but soon the billboards outshine the scenery. First up: a sign for the Christian Factory Outlet followed by several billboards signed “God.” In the battle of dueling billboards, the “God” messages alternate with “We Bare All” signs for Todd Adult Toys. Like the South of the Border teasers, they let you know just how close you are to being able to purchase inflatable party dolls and dine in a 24 hour cafe which promises “good food and adult videos.” Many billboards are blank and you can contact Tom Gunter to have your ad placed here. I guess Tom owns all the billboards for at least a couple hundred miles. Clearly God’s got Tom’s number.
The speed limit is 70 but cars go either 65 or over 80. Unlike up north, the speedsters don't seem to get upset and flash lights or blow horns when they encounter a slow moving vehicle, they just pass, and passing maneuvers are performed at top speed in the left, right, middle lanes - wherever. A car flies by with a license plate "BN AGN 67" and I wonder if Todd (of Adult Toy billboard fame) is BN AGN.
The thermometer in the rear view mirror reminds me of the reality outside my air conditioned Saturn - during the day it always reads 90 something, except after a rainstorm when the temperature briefly dips into the 70’s. There are many rainstorms on my journey, brief but intense. The rain pounds down with tremendous force and volume, flooding the highway. In the right lane with flashers and white knuckles I seem to be the only person afraid of hydroplaning. Knowing how to drive in snow does not translate well to navigating torrents. Spectacular rainbows are a welcome epilogue to many of these storms. I phone my husband to tell him about the rainbows. I worry I won’t acclimate to the heat but I know I can get used to the rainbows.
I never planned to live in Florida. I scoffed at the retirees we called “snowbirds” who each autumn pointed their Ford Crown Victorias south to escape the harsh Central New York Winters. I was proud of my ability to go running outdoors in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt when the temperatures dipped into the 40’s, and that I kept running, albeit with more apparel, when icy, wind-driven snow blasted my cheeks. I arrogantly announced, on more than one occasion, that I would never live south of the Mason-Dixon line and made sweeping pronouncements that all white southerners were racists. Born in the shadow of the Empire State Building, I dance to the rhythm of hurry hurry rush rush, go, go, go. If the line is too long I’m out of there. Choose the machine over the cashier. If someone does you a favor, they have an ulterior motive; everybody’s got an angle. I was born only once, find football a bore and eat tofu instead of dead animals. These are not characteristics typical of Southerners, yet here I am on May 15th 2002 bound for Central Florida. I am off to become the principal of Prospect School, an alternative middle school for children who have been suspended or expelled from public school. I am energized and excited about the challenge ahead.
I am driving alone in my new SUV, a silver Saturn Vue, heading south on NY State Route 15 as it parallels the Susquehanna River. It is beautiful Amish country with quilts for sale and horse drawn carts and fruit stands. A friend in Rochester recommended this route, but for all its scenic views, I am not pleased. It is just too slow. Often the speed limit is 35 or 45 mph with the additional challenge of construction zones, single lanes and slow moving traffic. Why is there a 16 wheeler on this blue highway? I spend three painful hours trying hard to be Zen-like and enjoy the journey while thinking I have 1270 miles of driving ahead and wishing I had stayed on the interstates. Finally I stop at the last outpost of civilization: Wegmans.
Calling Wegmans a supermarket is like calling Wal-Mart a five & dime. This Wegmans is in Williamsport, PA (home of the Little League World Series). I am going to miss Wegmans. I am only half joking when I say my favorite restaurant in Syracuse is Wegmans. Living for the last year in Rochester, headquarters of Wegmans, I rarely went more than two days without a Wegmans fix. When I meet people from Central New York who are now residing elsewhere, the conversation quickly turns to Wegmans deprivation. “You can’t get ciabatta like that here.” “I stock up on their buckwheat pancake mix whenever I’m in town.” “Their Caesar salad is to die for.” At Wegmans I use the facilities, buy bottled water, a yogurt and continue my trip . . . on interstates.
Interstate 81 could be renamed Wal-Mart Way. McDonalds at every exit is to be expected, but Wal-Mart? Sometimes you don’t even have to exit at all, the Wal-Mart is just right there on the Interstate. I have been to Wal-Mart exactly twice in my life and both times swore never to return. I do stop at rest areas where I always seem to be standing in line, listening to little old ladies holding conversations between stalls while the clock is ticking and I need to get back on the road!
West Virginia welcomes with median strips covered in red poppies. It really is a breathtaking sight. I am Dorothy outside the Emerald Palace. I do not stop to smell or photograph the flowers; I need to make up for the time I lost on Route 15. I rush past and the memory is my souvenir. The Shenandoah Mountains rise up picture postcard perfect. WV and VA know how to keep the land adjacent to their highways pristine and relatively free of billboards.
In the Carolinas, things get a bit more serious. In North Carolina the gas pumps threaten to take your license if you “pump and drive.” In South Carolina the pre construction zones warn “Speeding in a work zone $300 fine and 20 days in jail.” I am not anxious to see the inside of a South Carolina jail; I do not speed. In Georgia signs keep warning me of “Smoke-Fog areas.” I can believe fog is more common in valleys, but is there often a fire in these parts? I drive by a sprawling, spewing Soviet-style factory. Perhaps this explains the smoke warning.
Somewhere in Georgia, I stop at a McDonalds craving a salad. The employee drawls that they don’t serve no salads cups till lunch and now’s breakfast. After some begging on my part she finally relents. It tastes nasty and I toss half of it. Be careful what you beg for. I could really use a Wegmans Caesar salad about now.
In Florida I see pick up trucks hauling open trailers of corn and watermelons. Lots of trucks of oranges, some loose and piled high, some in boxes with slits as if for animals. I guess oranges have to breathe too. The rest areas promise 24-hour security (no doubt due to the much-publicized rest area murder of a tourist a few years ago) but the security is no match for the reptiles. I leap from the car, determined to beat the rapidly approaching busload of blue hairs, only to be faced with a sign the likes of which I have never seen at a rest area in New York: “Warning: beware of poisonous snakes.”
The Osceola National Forest forms a tunnel of trees rising up on the median strip like the Great Wall of China, but soon the billboards outshine the scenery. First up: a sign for the Christian Factory Outlet followed by several billboards signed “God.” In the battle of dueling billboards, the “God” messages alternate with “We Bare All” signs for Todd Adult Toys. Like the South of the Border teasers, they let you know just how close you are to being able to purchase inflatable party dolls and dine in a 24 hour cafe which promises “good food and adult videos.” Many billboards are blank and you can contact Tom Gunter to have your ad placed here. I guess Tom owns all the billboards for at least a couple hundred miles. Clearly God’s got Tom’s number.
The speed limit is 70 but cars go either 65 or over 80. Unlike up north, the speedsters don't seem to get upset and flash lights or blow horns when they encounter a slow moving vehicle, they just pass, and passing maneuvers are performed at top speed in the left, right, middle lanes - wherever. A car flies by with a license plate "BN AGN 67" and I wonder if Todd (of Adult Toy billboard fame) is BN AGN.
The thermometer in the rear view mirror reminds me of the reality outside my air conditioned Saturn - during the day it always reads 90 something, except after a rainstorm when the temperature briefly dips into the 70’s. There are many rainstorms on my journey, brief but intense. The rain pounds down with tremendous force and volume, flooding the highway. In the right lane with flashers and white knuckles I seem to be the only person afraid of hydroplaning. Knowing how to drive in snow does not translate well to navigating torrents. Spectacular rainbows are a welcome epilogue to many of these storms. I phone my husband to tell him about the rainbows. I worry I won’t acclimate to the heat but I know I can get used to the rainbows.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Prologue: When do they become Monsters?
Prologue: The Future
Mookie is sitting in my office, the principal’s office. This morning he created a major disturbance in Classroom Five during a talk by one of our Career Day speakers and he had to be removed. Glancing over my desk I see Mookie is trying hard to sneer or grimace. But this short, scrawny, thirteen-year-old black boy is very un-tough. He sits quietly for a long time before he tells me he is mad at me.
Mookie is often mad at me. He was mad the day he stomped into my office in tears because somebody partially unbraided his hair. On that day he pounded the table with his fist and told me I had to do something about “the bad kids” who “mess” with him, shouting that his unbraided braids were a disaster because he doesn’t have a mother who can rebraid his hair. Mookie’s mother died last year and his father died the year before that, both from AIDS. I solved the unbraided problem by having Nishonda, one of my best hair braiding girls, come to my office and, after promising not to talk about Mookie’s tears or hair, quickly rebraid Mookie’s hair.
The Career Day problem wasn’t as easy to solve.
“Ms. Smee you got to stop having all these Career Day speakers. I don’t wanna be no pilot or no soldier.”
“Okay Mookie, what DO you want to be? “
Silence.
“Mookie?”
More silence.
“Talk to me Mookie. You had a car magazine last week, how about if I get a mechanic, or a car dealer, or maybe a race car driver to come talk?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Ms. Smee all these Career Day speakers keep talking ‘bout is the future. The future, the future, the future. They making me mad. That’s why I kicked over my desk and books earlier.”
“Why do you get mad when they talk about the future?”
“Cause Ms. Smee, I don’t got no future.”
Prologue: The Monsters
When do they become monsters?
My students were once babies. Gooing, smiling, crying babies. Somewhere between their newborn innocence and today, good, kind, well-intentioned people gave up on them. They gave up on educating them, they gave up on hoping they could help them, they gave up on changing them; they just gave up.
They didn’t give up without a fight. There were interventions and sanctions; there were counseling sessions, parent conferences, suspensions. But eventually they gave up.
You would give up too.
Say you are a fourth grade teacher and Perry is your student. He shouts curses at you during class. He makes sexual remarks toward you and other students. He throws pencils, chairs and desks. He punches his classmates. He lights a fire in the bathroom. Can you keep Perry in your class and effectively teach over twenty other students? You try, but despite your determination, behavior modification programs and various interventions, Perry doesn’t change.
Say you are a middle school math teacher and Victor is your student. Everything he says is vulgar. He grabs girls and fights with boys. Every lesson you teach is interrupted constantly by Victor. He likes to talk loudly about drug taking, drinking and sex. You have a tool kit full of resources, you try them all, nothing works. Victor is worse when he returns from counseling and suspensions. He brags about his “time off” from class and continues his disruptive behavior.
Say you are the principal in Perry and Victor’s school. The parents of the other children, Perry and Victor’s classmates, are phoning and coming to see you to complain. Their children are frightened, injured, not learning, upset. You try to talk with Perry and Victor’s parents. They alternate between cursing at you and expressing defeat. They gave up on their children before you did. Perry’s father and stepmother want to put him in a foster home. Victor’s mother wants him sent to boot camp.
So you give up.
You reassign Perry and Victor to an Alternative School.
Alternative schools run by private companies have become one of the solutions used by public school systems to cope with highly disruptive students. The children who could single handedly disrupt an entire class are brought together in one school. And that school has fewer, not more, resources to help these children. But is it a school or a dumping ground?
The ”alternative school” children ride to school on busses the public school no longer uses. They sit in outdated portables (a euphemism for a trailer) with surplus desks and chairs. Their teachers are often less qualified and less competent (who wants to teach really tough kids for less pay than you can earn in the public school?). Their textbooks are outdated or non-existent. There are never enough for a whole class. Forget about a gym, auditorium, art or music classes, playground equipment or a track. There isn’t enough money. Besides, who will complain? The parents of these children are disenfranchised, poor, inarticulate, off the grid. The children who need the most get the least.
For a year and a half, I was the principal of Prospect School, an Alternative School in central Florida. I accepted the position not because I believe gathering all the disruptive children in one school is a brilliant concept. But because these schools exist, these children exist and these children needed a principal for their school.
I left a job in telecommunications that paid me 28% more than the principal position. I left my husband, who is the love of my life, with plans to see each other only on weekends. I left the northeast, where I grew up and spent most of my life. I left all this because I believed I was the principal to help these children.
Was I an idealist? Was I insane?
Maybe.
Blame Jonathan Kozol. His books on urban, poor schoolchildren have moved and inspired me for 30 years. What shocked me is that my students did not live in high profile troubled urban areas like inner-city Boston or the Bronx, or in Appalachia. My students lived in middle class America. And there in Middle America, these children were camouflaged, hidden in plain sight.
This book is about my battle with the monsters. But the monsters I fought were not my students. The monsters were under funded schools and social service organizations like DCF (The Division for Children and Families). The monsters were low educational expectations, combined with a distrust of the educated and an acceptance of professional incompetence. The monsters were alcohol, drugs, racism and poverty. The monsters were zealous people interpreting the bible literally and unwilling to openly discuss sex. The monsters were the people willing to accept violence against children; people with a passion for punishment like arresting and imprisoning children. And sometimes the monsters were parents without anger control or any discernible parenting skills. These were the monsters while I was principal at Prospect School. And they still are.
This book is also about the teachers I employed, some heroic slayers of monsters, some unfortunately, not much better than monsters themselves.
But this book is really about the children: the hundreds of children who attended and continue to attend Prospect school. Maligned as monsters (often masquerading as those monsters) they are hungry and unloved, angry and uneducated. These are the students of Prospect school. I wrote this book because I don’t want to give up on these children.
The names of most of the places and people in this book have been changed and information that might identify them has been disguised. Conversations are sometimes condensed and some events have been re-sequenced. With the exception of two public school liaisons who I combined to be one person, there are no composite characters. All the children are real people, people who continue to live, breathe and struggle. Their futures hang in the balance and time is running out.
Section I: Summer 2002
Chapter 1: May - the Journey Begins
Mookie is sitting in my office, the principal’s office. This morning he created a major disturbance in Classroom Five during a talk by one of our Career Day speakers and he had to be removed. Glancing over my desk I see Mookie is trying hard to sneer or grimace. But this short, scrawny, thirteen-year-old black boy is very un-tough. He sits quietly for a long time before he tells me he is mad at me.
Mookie is often mad at me. He was mad the day he stomped into my office in tears because somebody partially unbraided his hair. On that day he pounded the table with his fist and told me I had to do something about “the bad kids” who “mess” with him, shouting that his unbraided braids were a disaster because he doesn’t have a mother who can rebraid his hair. Mookie’s mother died last year and his father died the year before that, both from AIDS. I solved the unbraided problem by having Nishonda, one of my best hair braiding girls, come to my office and, after promising not to talk about Mookie’s tears or hair, quickly rebraid Mookie’s hair.
The Career Day problem wasn’t as easy to solve.
“Ms. Smee you got to stop having all these Career Day speakers. I don’t wanna be no pilot or no soldier.”
“Okay Mookie, what DO you want to be? “
Silence.
“Mookie?”
More silence.
“Talk to me Mookie. You had a car magazine last week, how about if I get a mechanic, or a car dealer, or maybe a race car driver to come talk?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Ms. Smee all these Career Day speakers keep talking ‘bout is the future. The future, the future, the future. They making me mad. That’s why I kicked over my desk and books earlier.”
“Why do you get mad when they talk about the future?”
“Cause Ms. Smee, I don’t got no future.”
Prologue: The Monsters
When do they become monsters?
My students were once babies. Gooing, smiling, crying babies. Somewhere between their newborn innocence and today, good, kind, well-intentioned people gave up on them. They gave up on educating them, they gave up on hoping they could help them, they gave up on changing them; they just gave up.
They didn’t give up without a fight. There were interventions and sanctions; there were counseling sessions, parent conferences, suspensions. But eventually they gave up.
You would give up too.
Say you are a fourth grade teacher and Perry is your student. He shouts curses at you during class. He makes sexual remarks toward you and other students. He throws pencils, chairs and desks. He punches his classmates. He lights a fire in the bathroom. Can you keep Perry in your class and effectively teach over twenty other students? You try, but despite your determination, behavior modification programs and various interventions, Perry doesn’t change.
Say you are a middle school math teacher and Victor is your student. Everything he says is vulgar. He grabs girls and fights with boys. Every lesson you teach is interrupted constantly by Victor. He likes to talk loudly about drug taking, drinking and sex. You have a tool kit full of resources, you try them all, nothing works. Victor is worse when he returns from counseling and suspensions. He brags about his “time off” from class and continues his disruptive behavior.
Say you are the principal in Perry and Victor’s school. The parents of the other children, Perry and Victor’s classmates, are phoning and coming to see you to complain. Their children are frightened, injured, not learning, upset. You try to talk with Perry and Victor’s parents. They alternate between cursing at you and expressing defeat. They gave up on their children before you did. Perry’s father and stepmother want to put him in a foster home. Victor’s mother wants him sent to boot camp.
So you give up.
You reassign Perry and Victor to an Alternative School.
Alternative schools run by private companies have become one of the solutions used by public school systems to cope with highly disruptive students. The children who could single handedly disrupt an entire class are brought together in one school. And that school has fewer, not more, resources to help these children. But is it a school or a dumping ground?
The ”alternative school” children ride to school on busses the public school no longer uses. They sit in outdated portables (a euphemism for a trailer) with surplus desks and chairs. Their teachers are often less qualified and less competent (who wants to teach really tough kids for less pay than you can earn in the public school?). Their textbooks are outdated or non-existent. There are never enough for a whole class. Forget about a gym, auditorium, art or music classes, playground equipment or a track. There isn’t enough money. Besides, who will complain? The parents of these children are disenfranchised, poor, inarticulate, off the grid. The children who need the most get the least.
For a year and a half, I was the principal of Prospect School, an Alternative School in central Florida. I accepted the position not because I believe gathering all the disruptive children in one school is a brilliant concept. But because these schools exist, these children exist and these children needed a principal for their school.
I left a job in telecommunications that paid me 28% more than the principal position. I left my husband, who is the love of my life, with plans to see each other only on weekends. I left the northeast, where I grew up and spent most of my life. I left all this because I believed I was the principal to help these children.
Was I an idealist? Was I insane?
Maybe.
Blame Jonathan Kozol. His books on urban, poor schoolchildren have moved and inspired me for 30 years. What shocked me is that my students did not live in high profile troubled urban areas like inner-city Boston or the Bronx, or in Appalachia. My students lived in middle class America. And there in Middle America, these children were camouflaged, hidden in plain sight.
This book is about my battle with the monsters. But the monsters I fought were not my students. The monsters were under funded schools and social service organizations like DCF (The Division for Children and Families). The monsters were low educational expectations, combined with a distrust of the educated and an acceptance of professional incompetence. The monsters were alcohol, drugs, racism and poverty. The monsters were zealous people interpreting the bible literally and unwilling to openly discuss sex. The monsters were the people willing to accept violence against children; people with a passion for punishment like arresting and imprisoning children. And sometimes the monsters were parents without anger control or any discernible parenting skills. These were the monsters while I was principal at Prospect School. And they still are.
This book is also about the teachers I employed, some heroic slayers of monsters, some unfortunately, not much better than monsters themselves.
But this book is really about the children: the hundreds of children who attended and continue to attend Prospect school. Maligned as monsters (often masquerading as those monsters) they are hungry and unloved, angry and uneducated. These are the students of Prospect school. I wrote this book because I don’t want to give up on these children.
The names of most of the places and people in this book have been changed and information that might identify them has been disguised. Conversations are sometimes condensed and some events have been re-sequenced. With the exception of two public school liaisons who I combined to be one person, there are no composite characters. All the children are real people, people who continue to live, breathe and struggle. Their futures hang in the balance and time is running out.
Section I: Summer 2002
Chapter 1: May - the Journey Begins
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