Constructing Kasun, Educator

Today I learned that many students who could choose to move from a No Child Left Behind-deemed “failling” high school will return to that unnamed high school this fall.  The school used to be Johnston High School, but it has been failing for four years, and now is being completely restructured as per the regulations of No Child Left Behind (including the name change, according to the Austin Statesman).  I hadn’t seen this firsthand in the DC area, so it’s a little strange to me here.  I wonder what the community feels about it, and the teachers who have been displaced, and the children.

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Look very hard for tahini at the swanky non-Whole Foods grocery store if you want it.  Go way past the vast aisle of barbecue sauces, boutique salsas, and dry rubs.  Go to the hokie little “Middle East” brand of instant couscous, and pick beneath it from four nondescript brands of tahini in efforts to make your own baba ganouj or hommous.

Wait until noon on Sundays if you want to buy beer.  Honestly, I wasn’t going to drink it this morning.  I had finished a workout at the university gym and then went to the grocery store.  The checkout woman was taken aback, “Really, you don’t know you can’t buy this for another four minutes?”  So we stalled and talked casually about her son, the New York stockbroker, son of immigrant parents from Southeast Asia… who lives in a city that she thinks moves too fast.  The woman behind us tolerated it really well–no large city harumphing or anxiety attacks.  “Welcome to Austin, I hope you enjoy it here,” the cashier smiled. I loved her in that moment for her Texas-size hospitality.

It goes without saying that you must pull out of parking spaces with extra caution if you are among the non-truck, non-SUV persuasion.  Good luck.  And good luck getting your four cylinders to pull you into highspeed traffic.

Why are black and brown the terms used commonly for African Americans and Latinos here?  To me it suggests polarity, but it could also be proximity to solidarity, depending on how you see color.  I’m wrapping my mind around it as far as my white eyes let me.

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I met with the principal at the middle school where I’ll be setting up a three times a week advisory program as part of my graduate work at the university.  This is the first year this school will implement it, and I’m the consultant at the school.  It was strange to meet with the principal and know that she didn’t have true authority over me–that is to say, my livelihood, my reputation don’t depend on her estimation of my skills.  Something felt off in our meeting.  Was it the non-power imbalance?  Is it that she is inheriting a failing school and desperate to turn it around–is her career on the line here?  Does advisory seem like some sort of cutesy, touchy-feely bandaid for major ailments that are almost beyond repair?  Frankly, shouldn’t education be built around the intent of advisory–that all children develop healthy, meaningful relationships at school, especially with adults–anyway?  More later on advisory and my coursework.