I was assigned to 37ECB, a county school on El Cajon Blvd. (b/t/w el cajon means narrow canyon in Mexican Spanish, and there are lots of narrow canyons in SD). A county school is the only option for a student, the last resort when a student is not accepted by any school in the SD district. When I was subbing at the East County Blended Community school in El Cajon the day before yesterday there was an Afghani boy who had brought a knife into school and so was kicked out. Two other boys had been kicked out of two schools before they wound up at the Blended Community school. 37ECB provides education for 7th through 12th grade. It dawned on me when I was peering out the window on the second floor of 37ECB what "the strange code" meant. I was looking at the green street sign, 37th St. The building I was in is located on the corner of 37th Street and El Cajon Boulevard. ECB is one of those streets that goes on for block after city block and goes in to Balboa Park and the SD Zoo, a long spine wracking ride on the city bus. Across the street was a shop for printing t-shirts and one of those small shop front establishments with an ubiquitous, yellow sign indicating car insurance for a trip to Mexico. There was not one sign with a corporate logo for blocks as I was searching for a Starbucks where I could get my usual tall hot chocolate without cream. I found one about five or six blocks from 37ECB. All those blocks of nondescript low buildings excluded from the bright temples of corporate America. The school building had a two hour parking zone in front of it, so I looked for parking around back down an alley. There was no evidence that the building was a school and the back of the building was just as non-evidently a school. I had only the street address to go by and the fact that from my pickup truck I could see through the window that there were tables and chairs inside. As I was slowly driving down the alley, a big black man dressed in grey appeared from around a corner and he was drawing and tying the strings of his draw-string pants. I was not the first to arrive. I was greeted at the back entrance by one of the teachers. I held up my SD Co. Dept. of Ed. ID tag that was dangling from my neck and he exclaimed, "Oh, credentialed!" (Ever since arriving in California I have noticed that Californians are inclined to use shorthand language such as acronyms and abbreviations in their speech, as well as lacing it with official jargon such as "credentialed." They seem to want to defuse any kind of casual conversation with it, as if they are reading your pedigree and stifling any kind of human warmth. At the same time as talking he was flashing "plastic dentures," which phrase my son uses to refer to the superficiality of Californians and the smile plastered on the face. His words bombarded me with a disarming frankness that was like a dog sniffing a strange dog in an encounter for the first time, his words coming at me as if a dog was licking my face.) I am certified to teach French as a "single subject" in the state of California, credentialed in other words. How he was able to deduce this from glancing at my tag, I haven't the slightest idea. He gave me a tour of the inside of the school after we chatted for a few minutes in lounge chairs. The inside was spanking clean and new, and the floor was not carpeted with the usual dark, dingy, dirty, virtually ply-less affair of industrial nylon weave. The floor was bare cement. The whole building had the atmosphere of an artist's loft in a converted warehouse. He showed me the aquahydroponic contraption in the large area adjoining the office space and reception desk. The plants were fed by the water from a large aquarium with fish in it. He gleefully remarked that the project gave the students the idea to use the contraption to grow marijuana, heaven forbid he seemed to be implying with his raised eyebrows. Next the principal and I chatted, and he remarked in response to my query about the laxness of tardiness I observed at the East County school for juvenile delinquents that there were no punitive measures taken against tardy students. They could come to school whenever they pleased. Neither the words 'juvenile delinquents' or 'punitive' were used in the conversation. Many of the students did not have guardians and lived in a group home. There was a great deal of tolerance I observed throughout the whole day I spent there. A euphemism for 'juvenile delinquents' was not used unless 'students' was the euphemism for them. What I observed of their behavior certainly did not betoken the comportment of students in a normal classroom situation. All of them were behaving as if all of the regular teachers there at 37ECB were substitute teachers. They were not really students and needed to be frequently reminded to be focused and on task. The teacher in the law pod often had to pause and get the attention of a student by telling him or her that she was teaching and to pay attention. The nearest I can come to as an apt description of their behavior in general is the typical experience I have had in "Special Day" classes I substitute teach for in the Chula Vista Elementary school district. Most of the students cannot stay in their seats in Special Day classes because they have mental disabilities that prevent them from doing so, or simply they do not have a sufficient attention span to allow them to sit still for any length of time. They have to be continually active and manipulating objects. The difference is that these students were older and they used their phones throughout the day, usually listening to music, and they were constantly distracted from the task at hand, which involved either writing (typing), math (there was one "pod" [class] for integrated mathematics), and reading and highlighting (there was another pod for law).
There were three pods that went on at the same time and three periods during the day and three different groups of students that rotated to the pod after about an hour and fifteen minutes in the pod. This length of time is commonly called a "block" schedule of classes. Students arrived at 9 and there was a half hour lunch break at 12. The day ended at 2. There was a ten minute homeroom at the beginning of the day and ten minutes at the end of the day. Many of the students had been excused for a field trip and the total list of students equaled 70 in grades 7 through 12. There were about half of them there today because of the field trip. Each pod was team taught by two teachers. There was one sub besides me. I was subbing for the special ed. resource teacher. A resource teacher is a teacher that helps certain students during the class with whatever they need help with. The math pod teachers were hipsters with beards. The sub had a beard too, as well as the teacher I had met when I arrived. The law pod teacher wore pants and had short blonde hair. Her partner in the team was a petite Indian woman that probably was Mayan. The partner for the sub was Hispanic. Their pod I think was science.        

I returned to the school on the corner of Fourth Avenue and L Street: Lillian J. Rice Elementary. The secretary this morning was more friendly,  she offered me a cup of coffee while I was waiting for my classroom assignment. I returned to Ms. R's Kindergarten class, where I had been yesterday. Rice is a dual immersion school. Two groups of students have two different teachers during the day. I was in the English classroom conducted by Ms. R, who also speaks Spanish. The Spanish classroom is next to Ms. R's classroom connected by a door. We had the green group in the morning while the blue group was with the Spanish teacher. The green group went over to the Spanish classroom at 11, when I left, since I had only a half day assignment. Ms. R was doing testing, so I conducted the class while she tested students individually. When I left, Ms. R said, as the blue group was entering the classroom, "I do it all over again."
I recall what a principal during an interview told me in Albuquerque back in the late 80's: "You are a dinosaur." I was an ESL teacher. He said the trend was bilingualism. Indeed, here in California, that is the case, at least in so. Cal.

I went on assignment to the East County Blended Community school on E. Main St. in El Cajon (the car dealer on El Cajon Blvd. where I bought my son his first car pronounced it as it's spelled, the English way, "L-Kay-jin," and he was not an Anglo but an Iranian). The students were jaded from too much youtubing ("drunk fights compilation" and vignettes of guys hanging from precarious positions on the outside of tall buildings, and videos of various pranks and ridiculous stunts), and my son criticized me the other day for being jaded from the middle-class suburban life. There was a tutor, an Arabic woman, for the Iraqi refugees and the lone Afghani boy from Kabul who was kicked out of school for bringing a knife onto school grounds. This school I subbed at is for juveniles who have been kicked out of school for various reasons from the 7th to the 12th grades. One boy pleaded with me not to write him up for his behavior in the classroom because he didn't want his PO to get wind of it. Another boy was a Chicano, very round like a snowman and had chino eyes. He was from south El Cajon and he told me in his journal exercise on "the history of you" that his neighborhood had changed since the Chaldeans (the Iraqis) had arrived. The violence of the "OG's" had subsided. He wore a big silver crucifix around his neck and a blue and white checkered shirt, untucked, with open collar. He wore his black, flat brimmed baseball cap down to his eyebrows.

My favorite assignments are special education. I have had a few in the past two weeks, in a high school and elementary schools. One memorable child was KC. He was small for his age if he was in Kindergarten, though I do not know which grade he was in. One of the aides said he was one of the four or five most intelligent in the class. Women would exclaim how cute he was. His skin the color of a dried walnut, his hair was a sandy brown and he was always smiling. His favorite position on the playground was a yoga position I cannot recall the name of but was an inverted cobra position; thus the crown of his head was on the ground and so he had an upside down view of the world. He would hold it for quite a long time and he did not hold it in the recollected pose of a yogi. He was quite enjoying it in his usual disposition of a perpetual joie de vivre. He must have had a strong neck, for he would rock slightly back and forth on the crown of his head.

I have noticed two autistic boys who liked to walk on the balls of their feet. They were of two different ages and at different schools, and so evidently had no influence on each other. I have never observed normal children walking like this before.

Two autistic girls, also of different ages and different schools had the same expression of what I can only express as being in awe at gazing into my eyes. It was as if they were captured by the gaze and could not put their attention into anything else to the extent of not being able to do anything, concentrate on doing some assigned task set by the teacher. It was as if they were in a constant state of bemusement.

My second day of substitute teaching was in another special ed. class but these students were a mixture of ones confined to wheelchairs, those with Down's Syndrome and others who were autistic and able to get around on foot.

I arrived early as usual and after I picked up the key from the secretary I found C9 unlocked and met two of the adult aides inside, H and T. They were talking about an "Irish Bomb," a type of potent concoction of various spirits mixed together in one brew. Apparently the night before one or the other or both had been celebrating an early St. Patrick's Day, a day not even noticed on the calendar in Ireland.

Compared to a similar group of students in Ohio where I substituted for a time, this class was pretty rowdy. I think it was because the class in Ohio did not have any ambulatory ones if I remember correctly. The few ambulatory ones that were not really interested in what was going on were more often headed toward the open classroom door than not unless they were on the computer. In the afternoon the students were engaged in cooking either Shepherd's pie, a uniquely American sandwich called "slide burger" ( a flattened meatball with onions and melted cheese on top served in a square roll), and a "Reuben roll" (a Mexican version of another American sandwich, the Reuben, consisting of sliced corned beef, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut rolled up in a flour tortilla smeared with mayonnaise). The passageway between the two classrooms served as a kitchen and there was no ventilation, so the door was kept open to let out the fumes from the onions being fried in a skillet. K, who is autistic, successfully got outside the classroom cell block and I was reminded of Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" when a student who happened to be passing by at the time announced in a loud voice"We got a runner, we got a runner!" Public school buildings are designed so much like prisons that I didn't blame him for bolting, though he was soon enough cajoled to return.

The day began with picking up the students from the school buses. Two buses had those lifts that lower the wheel-chaired student to the ground. One student was wailing inside the bus. I could see her arms above her head silhouetted against the bright glare of the cloud filled sky threatening rain. I met the first ambulatory one who extended his arm parallel to the ground offered as a greeting with the word "fysh," perhaps a contracted form of "high five," though his arm was not raised up with palm facing out towards me in the usual high-five manner. He was tall and dressed in black and had very clear blue eyes in a look of astonishment. I did not lightly jab his fist with mine, which was how I later leaned was the appropriate response. Twice I observed him in class, sitting at his table with a crumpled piece of paper he held close to his left eye. T was pushing a red haired boy in a wheelchair. I think he was the one referred to by T and H2 as "Stinker butt." They had been talking about his behavior when he apparently recently tried to eat his shoe. I think he was my favorite. He sat most of the time by himself, looking into the center of the classroom. He liked to laugh, and his mischievous grin was his sole means of communication along with grabbing you from behind in a bear hug if you had your back to him close enough for him to reach you from his seat. I was hugged once, and he was mildly reprimanded for it, though I did not mind. He also enjoyed playing footsie with one of the female student aides who were coming in and out throughout the day. There was usually five or six of them at any one time. I should mention that Stinker Butt was not the only one who attacked from the rear. I wandered into the adjoining classroom where certain of the wheel-chaired students would retire to stretch out for a session of lying on their stomachs. One of the adult aides, an Asian woman, was being held in a hold by T. They both seemed to be enjoying it, though I know that Asians more often laugh when they are in an uncomfortable position than how an American woman would react. Obviously, at least from my point of view of having lived with an Asian woman for almost twenty years, T, who is American, misconstrued her laughter for pleasure. He would not have gotten away with it from an American woman.  

Once all thirteen students were in the classroom the day began with an exercise session of Tae Bo with Billy Blanks in a YouTube video that was projected on a Smartboard. Tae Bo is a kind of aerobics that incorporates kicking and boxing. I was pretty tired after about forty-five minutes of it. The students enjoyed it, those who participated. The morning was also spent cooking, but it was omelettes. I was amazed at how some of the students were allowed to wield knives cut up the ingredients for the omelette, which included green bell peppers. One of the student aides gave most of the instructions and commands on how to cook an omelette in an electric griddle. She was the only student aide who was interested and curious enough to talk to me, though it was mostly complaining about a particular teacher she had that wouldn't allow her to take an exam early and about how she was put off by an employer for a potential summer job as a life guard. She was born in La Jolla and I got the feeling she did not like living in a small town. She was very talkative and did not hang back with any of the other student aides. She seemed to be very independent.

I almost forgot the most unusual student, an ambulatory one who I met at the bus. I immediately took a disliking to her. She was very "in-your-face." However, she got the most attention from the student aides because they were amused by her more than anything else. She really had no social skills whatsoever and she liked to shout in your face. Her favorite expressions were "shut the hell up" and "good-bye kids." Most of the time she spoke in one word utterances that were like barks of frustrated expressions of anger. She never smiled or laughed. She repeated the word "church" a few times when I first met her at the buses in the morning. I got the impression that she thought going to school was like going to church. She also kept calling me "Dad," even though I told her I was not her Dad. For all I know she could have been asking me if I were a father, but I had no idea as she never ever formed a coherent sentence. She seemed to be more frustrated than anything else and seemed to be constantly trying to coerce others. Sometimes it was difficult for the student aides to make her sit down. She had clear green eyes and curly dark blonde hair that was the envy of at least one of the female student aides. She was medium height and did not have any shape to her body. But she had beautiful skin. I felt sorry for her and did not appreciate the student aides subtly making fun of her. I got fed up when towards the end of the day she got in my face and was shouting "doctor," repeatedly despite my saying I was not a doctor. However, I got the uncanny notion in my head that she could read my mind. I felt uncomfortable being there because I was a doctor with a PhD. On my last assignment one of the adult teacher's aides said I was over-qualified. Finally, she did make a full sentence, a command, "Look at my feet." I looked her in the eye and said, "I am looking at your feet."

The day ended with karaoke. Th was in his glory because he could do air guitar with enthusiasm. The highest score for accuracy was a 72%. Th had the most unusual irises, a very light blue that made his pupils very piercing looking in their almost pin hole diameter.  

Today was my first day substitute teaching in the Ramona Unified Schools District. Ramona is about an hour's drive north of Chula Vista, in the mountains, whose boulders along a certain stretch approaching the 100,000 population town on 67 reminded me of old Old West films. My assignment was for a teacher labelled as "Resource Specialist," which I had no idea of pertaining to what besides, perhaps, taking care of teachers' resources, whatever they may be. However, I found myself with thirteen special education students "in transition," meaning they were to be trained for "life skills," one of which was counting change, though they would never be put into such a situation of even going through a cashier's line with the kind of skills they had, adding and subtracting single digit numbers which they worked on all morning on worksheets corrected by the two aides in the classroom.

One of the aides decided they would practice this skill. She gave each of them twenty-five dollars in play money notes that looked like American dollars. Some of them failed miserably in getting the correct change back and so spending more then the price of the items on the table, which consisted of mostly plastic figures such as one of Johnny Neutron, a horny toad, a car, a CD, a book, etc., which ranged in price from 25 cents to five dollars. One girl in particular struggled even with adding up the prices of the items she had chosen to purchase and making the connection with the play notes she had. She calculated three items at three dollars each as costing three dollars rather than nine. She was the exception though. I felt that the derision exhibited by the aide when a student gave more than the total price humiliating and defeatist. I could only consider her motive: by dastardly getting "tips" from the erring student it would teach the student a lesson; it's bad to give more money than the total price of the items, even though the aide was happy with the windfall. I thought it would have been better to put the student into the position of counting change after the aide purchased items from the student. That would have been practical, rather than resulting in the almost pained expressions of the students trying to do the mental arithmetic many of them could not do on their feet. I told one of the brighter ones that it was simply a matter of addition. He didn't have to do subtraction at all. He could merely keep two figures in mind, the amount of what the aide would give him and the total purchase price and then start counting out the change from the amount of the purchase price until he arrived at the amount the aid had given him. This is a little more complicated than that, for he would have to know, for example, how many quarters there are in a dollar. But if the two amounts were whole numbers it would be relatively easy compared to the mental arithmetic of subtraction.

I felt very sorry for these students, the youngest of whom was eighteen and the oldest twenty-two.