To end, the same male student from the beginning of the post, when pushed by the same female student, said, “I’m gonna put a cap in your head and I’m gonna put a cap in your mama’s head!!!”

Sequins instead of Pimples

“She said she hates me,” a male student told his teacher (telling on the female student standing next to him).

The teacher replied something like, “Don’t worry about her.
I love you. Don’t worry about what anybody else says,
because I will always love you.”

Wow, that was my favorite moment of my tutoring experience
today.

From the moment I entered the building, I encountered
chaos. When I walked into the office where I go before
tutoring, I saw around 15 kids standing there with a teacher,
principal & assistant principal. Apparently, the classroom
had recently descended into utter madness; so the
teacher had to bring a large portion of her class down to the
office & call the parents of the students, one by one.

I heard the principal tell one student that she was going to come to his house! She told another kid, “I don’t know, do…

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Ludicrously Lawndaling it

“She said she hates me,” a male student told his teacher (telling on the female student standing next to him).

The teacher replied something like, “Don’t worry about her.
I love you. Don’t worry about what anybody else says,
because I will always love you.”

Wow, that was my favorite moment of my tutoring experience
today.

From the moment I entered the building, I encountered
chaos. When I walked into the office where I go before
tutoring, I saw around 15 kids standing there with a teacher,
principal & assistant principal. Apparently, the classroom
had recently descended into utter madness; so the
teacher had to bring a large portion of her class down to the
office & call the parents of the students, one by one.

I heard the principal tell one student that she was going to come to his house! She told another kid, “I don’t know, do you think the school should stay open when you behave like that?” & in response to a tattler, “If she didn’t hit you, y’all got nothing to say. You do a lot worse to her!” & “Nobody sits in my office under no circumstances!”

I saw one boy pick up another boy by lifting up his head.
Not his neck, his head! Scary!

I knew today would be crazy when I went to get coffee
at the McDonald’s nearest to the Lawndale school where
I tutor & I saw a sign on the 1st window (where you pay) that
said this: Students are not permitted in the restaurant
until further notice.

Today, I was given 3 students who each had to be given different tests (that need to have an adult read every single question out loud for the students to answer!) at 3 different levels as well as the rest of the group, who needed to be given the regular lesson plans about the letters L & M…so, I gave everyone the workbooks & instructions & then made my rounds around the room. I went to one tester & asked the questions from section one of the test, then went over the next part of the workbook for everyone & then on to the next tester…that was all I could think of to do…

To end, the same male student from the beginning of the post, when pushed by the same female student, threatened her with, “I’m gonna put a cap in your head and a cap in your mama’s head!!!”

Turbulent tutoring

“He smacked his pee-pee!” I had to ask the kindergartner to repeat herself a few times to make sure I heard this correctly. Well, my first question was if the boy in question was ok & he said he was fine. I separated the girl & pee-pee boy to give them space and to protect whatever the pee-pee situation was and the boy she was referring to claimed that she made it up…I’ll never know what happened!

“Who’s that friendly creature?” I asked Breanna, a kindergartner I am tutoring in an after school program in Lawndale…she had drawn a picture of me on the board and an animal floating in the air next to me.  She said, “That’s your dog.”  When I told her my husband would love a dog, but we don’t have one, she said, “Yes, you have a dog.”  I love kids’ imaginations & that people just tend to think I have animals and/or want them…a couple of times, I had an actor call me who I hadn’t heard from in months who wondered if I wanted a pet!  That’s how I got a hamster that I named Yum Yum Chew Chew Octavius and a lizard…

“I like to drink beer,” a kindergartner told me at “lunch”/tutoring break time…not wanting to seem shocked, I asked him what kind he likes & he told me, “Strawberry.”  The other kids giggled.  When I told him that I hope he doesn’t drink beer because it’s not good for him, he replied, “Beer’s good on New Year’s!”  The kids asked me if I drink beer and also if I cuss…I had to tell them yes to both and they were APPALLED!  I told them I don’t cuss at school and that I don’t cuss very much, but I felt like I couldn’t lie to them…

Only half of my students came back to the classroom after lunch (food time at 4 pm)….I was sincerely spooked…I knew they would have to come back soon, because all of their stuff was in my room, but still…where were they?  Somehow we all made it to the world outside of tutoring…

Scrumptious Storytelling

“Stories, like people & butterflies & songbirds’ eggs & human hearts & dreams, are also fragile things made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than 26 letters & a handful of punctuation marks.  Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds & ideas – abstract, invisible, gone once they’ve been spoken & what could be more frail than that?  But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures, of people doing wonders, tales of miracles & monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them & some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.”  by Neil Gaiman

I am stoked about my new scrumptious storytelling class!!!!

 

 

Tumultuous Tutoring: aaaahhhh!!!!!

“I don’t care; I don’t want any!”  I was trying to get this kid, Brian, to come to a tutoring room (by letting him know that I can’t give him tokens if he doesn’t come to tutoring)…after picking up the kids from the cafeteria & waiting for another teacher to arrive (as I’d been given the responsibility of giving him his list of kids to tutor, for some reason)…I had to go to this other teacher’s room 1st to pick up my materials (as I don’t have access to them before this time) & both his kids and my kids are running amuck in his room..so, now I am trying to gather up the kids on my list to come with me to another room & now a few of the kids in the other teacher’s group are asking to come with me & Brian, who is supposed to come with me, doesn’t want to!  So, he plops himself down on the classroom floor.  Somehow we got him to get up and move to the hallway, but then he sat down on the floor of the hallway as well.  Meanwhile, the other kids in my group are already up the stairs, en route to my classroom. Finally, Brian got up and joined the rest of my group…we went to the classroom we were assigned to, only to find that there was another tutoring group there…Brian escapes again–I send one of the other kids after him – after several minutes, they return – so, I go to another classroom on the next floor that a custodian told me would be empty…it’s empty, but it’s locked…then, an angel of a teacher sees me in my distress and offers me her classroom!  Saved!  So, my group and I have actually made it inside a classroom when…Brian decides to bolt out of that classroom with his bookbag…& I couldn’t find him…he got out of there fast…he could be any where…he could be in the outside world by now…so, this time, I call the office, no response…called them again, still no response…so, then I send a kid, Nyah, downstairs with a note to my lead teacher letting her know that I can’t get Brian to stay in our classroom…after several minutes, Nyah returns to let me know that she couldn’t find the lead teacher, but she did find Brian, he is standing next to her!  Right about then, the office calls me back, so I let them know that our issue has been resolved!  Whew!  This whole process has taken about 45 minutes!  I need to think of more ways to discipline kids in the tradition of Willy Wonka…I just didn’t know what to do today…however, I did meet with the lead teacher to ask her if I can have access to the materials and set everything up in a classroom before the kids get there & she told me that I can next time (that would be this Wed.!), so, we’ll see what happens with that!  

Excerpts from “Chunks,” a 1-woman show!

She made a collage of love letters to her best friend who she was in love with, with a picture of a sad lady in the middle of it…and then, when this female object of her affection would stand next to her collage, she would gaze at the sad lady’s picture and think, ‘We know something she doesn’t know!’

She asked for the houselights to come up a little, because:  she likes to see pupils get sickened & she loves it when people roll their eyes at her!!!

If you want to be a stalker, make that person’s interests your specialty–she admired someone who loved turtles and travel, hence, she created a boardgame called “Turtle Adventures” & every move that was made, the 2 friend turtles would get married  – the friend didn’t get that she was in love with her!!!

“Being a Daughter of the Revolution could protect you from a terrorist attack!”

Shocking Horribleness: What 1 Christian did to try to get Justin Lee to not be gay –

This is taken from the book “Torn,” by Justin Lee, executive director of the Gay Christian Network.

“There was another very well-intentioned Christian acquaintance of mine.  When I told him I was gay, he grew concerned and promised to do all he could to help.  Days later, he came to me with a brown paper bag and a serious look on his face.

“Listen,” he said.  “I would normally really frown on this, but I care about you, and desperate times call for desperate measures.”

He handed me the bag, and I opened it up.  Inside was a Playboy magazine.  

“I thought maybe this would help awaken your natural desires,” he said.

“It doesn’t work like that,” I said.

“Just promise me you’ll try it,” he urged.

Not wanting to argue with him, I relented and said I would.  After he was gone, I leafed through the pictures of naked, buxom women.  It was my first real exposure to pornography, and it made me feel dirty.

And for the women?  Nothing.  Not even the slightest bit of arousal or attraction.  Only revulsion and self-loathing from the sleaziness of it all.  The experience made me sick to my stomach.”

This is so twisted!  Christians who are doing this:  CALM DOWN!  STOP IT!  HAVE SOME RESPECT!  Geesh…this kind of ignorance is tragic and infuriating!  Aretha Franklin’s song “Think” comes to mind…”You better think!  Think!  Think!  Think about what you’re tryin’ to do to me!  Hey, hey, HEY!”

Crazy Love performance quirky quotes

students “threw a couch on fire out the window” twice – when Malinowski was working with her nice guy future husband as dorm supervisors!  Lots of paper work was involved…

nice guy “as dangerous as thread”

I thought that the illustrious Arlene Malinowski said, “goof bumps” instead of goose bumps!

“my underwear gasped liked a Southern Belle that smelled the vapors”

“slip into something less beige”

“I was never told, ‘shhh’ because I grew up in the deaf community!”

When Arlene Malinowski’s fiancee’ met her parents for the 1st time and they asked him how he was doing and he attempted to sign “Very good,” he mistakenly signed, “Sex is good!”

Then, Arlene’s deaf mom accidentally signed that she wanted a “penis colada” instead of a “pina colada.”  When Arlene informed her mom about what she had mistakenly ordered, her mom responded, “What do you think they’re gonna bring me?”