The program that's training me to become a teacher guarantees that I will have a job, but they don't guarantee where it will be, other than that it will be in the district in which I'm teaching summer school, Hieronymus Bosch School Districtinarium. Why don't I have a job yet, even though I teach a particularly hard to fill subject? That, ladies and germs, is where Politics, schmolitics comes in.

See, teachers who gain tenure are free to transfer between schools in a district. Also, teachers who are both tenured and amazingly bad at their job are often given the option of being put on an "improvement plan," which means they have to have someone watch them and help them get better at their job, or they can get "pink slipped" and sent to another job in the district. Most choose the second option, since then they don't actually have to learn how to raise achievement levels and are instead able to sit in class and do absolutely nothing. This is one reason the achievement gap is alive and well.

So, an amazingly unimpressive tenured teacher gets pink slipped, and another principal HAS to accept this wonderful mound of flesh and blood. But principals know that this mound is bad, so they don't want to hire said mound. In order to not hire this person, they don't announce the openings they have at their school until some other poor schmuck of a principal has hired the mound. I've heard it's "like a game of chicken," and the principals are doing everything they can not to hire the pink-slipped mounds.

Where I come into this is that principals aren't releasing their openings until other principals have released them, and they're doing this to keep themselves shielded from mounds. Sadly, the mounds are going to get jobs no matter what, and they'll get them as soon as a frightened principal blinks. This means that I'm going to be waiting--and the entire school is going to be waiting--for some principal to finally blink (possibly not until the day before school starts), because union rules allow really, really terrible mounds of flesh and blood to occupy seats in the classroom and do absolutely nothing to help close the achievement gap. Lamez0rz

Boys and girls, today we have a problem. I'm currently teaching division at LoLMEECoA, and it's starting to frustrate me. Dear readers, nobody has drilled these kids on their multiplication tables.

I used to think that drilling and repetition of things like multiplication tables, single-digit subtraction and addition, and the various other math drills that we halfheartedly repeated in elementary school were relics of a time when teachers didn't know any better. Problem is, those drills prepared us for higher math.

I can instantly tell you the product of any two one-digit numbers, and drilling in elementary school (along with my grandparents giving me a plastic game/contraption that had all the times tables from 1-9 on semi-opaque square buttons, and which would show me the product when I pushed down on each semi-opaque button). My students, well, let's just say that they have a hard time telling me what the word "product" means.

We're currently working on division in my classes, and it has been a disaster up till now. I guess disaster is a vague word. Let's say it's more '89 SF earthquake and less huge tsunami in the Pacific. Given that my students don't know their multiplication tables, they have a tough time with division. "Tough time," in this context, means that I can sit at their table for 45 minutes working on two simple division problems (I'm talking single-digit number into triple-digit number) and by the time they're finished they still don't know why the answer is what it is.

Monday was the first time I've been so exhausted by class that I just wanted to crawl into bed and pull my legs up to my chest and fall asleep afterward. Attempting to teach division to kids who can't do multiplication is like trying to teach the Hindenberg blimp not to explode: You know it wants to not explode, but it's just so full of hydrogen and there are so many damn sparks flying around, it's gonna explode eventually, and people will read about it in the paper. Put another way: I'm trying to show these kids how to write diaries in cursive before teaching them how to spell.

The average session attempting to teach division goes something like this:

Teacher (Me): Alright, what's 156 divided by 3?

My Precious Petunia of a Student: I don't know.

T: Alright, what's the first step?

MPPS: I don't know.

T: What numbers are we dividing?

MPPS: 3 divided by 186.

T: Well, no, you copied that wrong. Look at the board again. Good. We're actually dividing 156 by 3. Do you know what that means? We're trying to find out how many times 3 will go into 156. Okay, first step, can 3 go into 1?

MPPS: Yes.

T: You can put three gallons of water into a one gallon jug?

MPPS: No.

T: Then can 3 go into 1?

MPPS: Yes.

T: (Eyebrow raised in confusion)

MPPS: No, no.

T: Correct. Alright, so let's move over one place. Can 3 go into 15?

MPPS: No.

T: (Confused look)

MPPS: Yes, yes it can.

T: Okay, how many times can 3 go into 15? What's your guess?

MPPS: 20.

T: 20? (Head starting to hurt) 20? But that's bigger than 15.

MPPS: (Confused look) 30?

T: Thir...Ok, let's try to multiply. What's 3 times 30?

MPPS: I don't know.

T: Let's do it on your paper. Ok, 3 times 30 equals.

MPPS: I don't know.

T: Alright, what's 3 times 0?

MPPS: 3.

T: 3?

MPPS: Yes, 3! (exasperated)

T: Ok, then what's 3 times 1?

MPPS: 3.

T: So they're both 3?

MPPS: Yes. (Light bulb) No.

T: So what's 3 times 0?

MPPS: 0.

T: Ok, good. So where do we put the zero?

MPPS: (Puts zero behind a decimal point. Teacher is not quite sure where the decimal point came from, but realizes that the students have been learning about decimals, so the student has just decided to put them everywhere.)

T: Um, are you sure you want to put it behind the decimal? There's no decimal in the problem.

MPPS: Yes. (Studies paper) No.

T: Right, it has to go in front of the decimal. Actually, you don't even need a decimal in this one.

MPPS: Why not?

T: This time you don't, because there's no decimal in the problem. Ok, the zero goes there. So what's 3 times 3?

MPPS: (Looks quizically at paper)

T: Alright, let's count it up. What's 3 plus 3?

MPPS: 5. No, 6.

T: Yes, 6. And what's 3 plus 6?

MPPS: Why do we need to know 3 plus 6?

T: Because that's 3 times 3. We're doing 3 plus 3 plus 3, which is the same as 3 times 3.

MPPS: 3 plus 6 is 9.

T: Good, so what is 3 times 30?

MPPS: Nineteen.

T: Nineteen?

MPPS: Ninety.

T: Is ninety bigger than 15?

MPPS: Yes.

T: So can we put 90 into 15?

MPPS: No. Yes. I don't know. No.

T: (Mouth open)

MPPS: No.

T: Good. Okay, what you have to remember about division is that you can only use the numbers 0 through 9 for each part of the division. It can't be more than 9. So what do you guess? How many times does 3 go into 15? Remember, the most we can do is 9.

MPPS: 9!

T: No, I wasn't. ..I wasn't trying to tell you 9...

(This continues for twenty minutes. Eventually, the answer is determined, but the student doesn't understand why. It is at this point that the teacher seriously considers all of the great times he had at Mackubin Consolidated Widgets of Schenectady, New York. Since great is not an adjective that normally precedes times when referencing the Widgetorium, the teacher starts thinking about Battlestar Galactica, and how he should really finish up Season 3 as soon as possible.)

So this is going to be an adventure. My saying that is so cliche. What isn't an adventure? Everything's an adventure to someone who spends half his time on the couch.

My second day of student teaching was similar to the first, except everything was magnified. Everything was so new the first day that I didn't have time to notice what was actually occurring around me. I spent so much time futilely attempting to learn names that I forgot to actually observe what was going on in my classroom.

You must remember that I was previously producing widgets for Mackubin Consolidated Widgets of Schenectady, NY, so I haven't had to do much thinking for the last two years. Because of this, I have to relearn how to think, how to interact, how to crack jokes, how to do just about everything. I'm Robin Williams' character in "Awakenings." Or, maybe that's Robert De Niro's character. There is a character in the book who wakes up after a long time down, and I'm currently that guy.

My school, Land o' Lakes Memorial Edifying Educationifying Center of America (LoLMEECoA for short), is not racially diverse. Or, at least, the summer school program is not racially diverse: the total number of non-minority children in my classes is one. And his family recently immigrated to the US, so I don't know if he would count as a member of the non-minority population, since he's probably ELL.

Of course, this is exactly what I signed on for. The achievement gap in America between white students and minority students is large, and our job is to close that gap. Our mission is to raise achievement standards for all students, but since most of my classes are going to be composed of a similar ethnic mix, I'm going to have more opportunities to close the gap than raise achievement standards.

The first class and the last class of my day are both rambunctious, but neither is what one would call a "bad class." The second class, however, will not make it onto my Christmas card list. There are two students in the class who don't like paying attention, prefer not to follow directions, and basically spend most of the class period trying to get under the teacher's skin.

I am sure I will write about them a lot in the future.