Dispatch from South Los Angeles

Gentleman,

Although we haven't been doing much on this site, I have been very excited by my recent connections with you fine gentleman: dad and the talks about Rieux and The Plague; and Dan, thanks for coming to lunch instead of going straight to the airport, and I'm sorry I ditched you for the guanciale.

Now my residency has started fully.

That's what I am, technically, a resident teacher. Like a doctor, right? You know, they're doctors, just in residency before being completely credentialed. (Have you met my knee?) That's how we're not really "student teaching", as a verb that dad's familiar with. I am paired with a mentor teacher, as well as a partner from the cohort, and the three of us ultimately figure out how to make it work, the lead taken, obviously, by the mentor.

The school that we as a cohort worked in over the summer differs from the school I've been placed in for the residency in three major ways: 1) level; 2) demographics; and 3) location. In the summer we worked with middle school students; my residency is at a high school. The students that attended the middle school were nearly completely Latino; this high school is probably 57% black to 39% Latino, with a smattering of Pacific Islanders and Nigerians. What's more is that even within the two majority groups there is an entire spectrum of variation, and they all coexist as a vibrant and sometimes uneasy collective.

As far as location goes, according to Google Maps the middle school, which lives in a town called Huntington Park, is a little over eight miles away from the high school, which resides in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County called Westmont. When I used to think of unincorporated land, my brain would head to tiny pockets of community in San Luis county, the largest being Los Osos, which is an actual town.

Westmont has more than twice as many people as Los Osos, but is mostly neighborhood carved out of other people's plans. South Los Angeles surrounds the area.

I'm also trying something novel, but not so new for me: being the crazy white guy.

I ride my bike through some areas that other people---people I work with at the school---would do everything they could to avoid breathing its air, let alone hanging about to do some shopping. Even if shopping was a goal, there'd be limited choices.

But, dang, folks, it's not that bad; it's almost never as bad as the worst fears, and that's just about true everywhere outside of Syria or Iraq. Plus, the ride is not that far and has very little elevation change.

I ride from 103rd and Willowbrook Ave---the Metro Blue stop at Watts Tower, to basically 108th and Normandie, a not-quite five mile ride that takes about (read: exactly) twenty-five minutes. I do, though, use those twenty-five minutes to breach the seven o-clock hour. Any city traffic and attention at that time are far less than even two hours later, let alone the dusky hours of the evening.

I've been learning a good amount, and it's only been a week. Mostly right now the focus is on learning about myself. I'm trying to differentiate the three personalities that I'm harboring and shifting between daily. There's "Mr. Sherwood", the blue-eyed and golden-haired tie-wearing idealist who won't get the 'day-off' on Wednesday that the other members of the cohort get for our single day of all graduate classes (they're being held on this high school campus, and "Mr. Sherwood" doesn't turn off). There's also "Patrick", the overachieving and politically involved writer-chef that skips the party to stay late to help a comrade study for a major exam.

And then there's Pat. That's the guy that helps Dan install a ceiling fan while consuming numerous gin & tonics; or texts dad on how to pronounce a French name in his own head while he's reading. I've seen the response "Patrick" and "Mr. Sherwood" have been getting, and maybe Pat can get there someday. [[Dammit, I'm generally steadfast in my refusal to refer to myself in the third-person.]]

In a post a while back I mentioned the size of my physical world, and how, by and large, most people's physical world are pretty darn small. At that time, mine was the general vicinity of Long Beach south of the 405 and in between the 710 and the 605; the high speed corridor know as Interstate 405 that connects Long Beach to Costa Mesa; and a restaurant directly off the freeway, in the parking lot of a mall. That was it: a couple of square miles I bike around in and call home; a stretch of highway; and a restaurant in a mall's parking lot.

Using the bicycle opens up that daily experience and makes the commute more of an accomplishment unto itself. I get to harness the energy of the neighborhood, feel the undertones of anger and struggle, be present in their world, if only briefly. Also, I get to face a significant fear every single day, and I get to stare that bastard down. Also, I get to show the kids that extraordinary things are possible in this world.

Also, I'm back to being "a crazy white guy". As I was puffing along the other night on one of my final post-9 pm darkness-shrouded commutes, I found myself laughing out loud. A phrase had run its course in my skull, and it found its way out of my lips. To that dense Carson air that night I called out, "If your life isn't in constant jeopardy, can you even consider it 'living?'" I guess I was trying to justify to myself my own recklessness.

Jumping subjects, one pretty cool thing I think, at least at this early hour in my residency, is that my partner and I are stationed with a mentor that teaches the same subject all day, and that subject is geometry. The cool consequence of this is that we may be the only two members of the cohort that have freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors in every single one of our periods. We have a cross section of the entire spectrum for the entire day. It's as remarkable as it is fascinating.

And the kids are great. They exist in a world that's so different from mine...at least at home, I 'spose. But being able to not hold where they're from against them, to be able to understand their motivations their world, and then be able to reach them and respect them is the key, obviously. It's probably both possible and mandatory.

This is the first writing I've done that wasn't related to school or quick novel notes...wait, how is this not 'related to school'? I guess I meant that I spent all summer writing essays and papers (though one of which was a fever-dream of reflection and elaboration (my philosophy of education statement titled "The Three Moons and the Philosopher")), and this is the first real debriefing I've given myself.

I have so much more to tell, but will continue to be judicious with the details: privacy is something I'm obligated to recognize.



So...I guess that's what I've been up to...like always, more will always follow...