Posts from — August 2008

A few weeks ago, Google revealed Barack Obama and John McCain’s Internet reading list for the world to see. Most of it wasn’t surprising: Barack goes left and John goes right. Most of it is political news and the world keeps rolling, because we’ve seen all these blogs before. But ever wonder what some of your other blog heroes (::ahem me::) read too?

Well, no worries, ’cause when you add me on the Google network, you read what I read! All 90 blogs or so. I pick the best, you read the rest. Simple, right? What’s better about this is that like-minded people can also share their blogs; if you desperately want me to read a blog, I’ll just get it in my G-Reader. For instance, Eva, who recently joined Google Reader, just sent me a post courtesy of FailBlog.org. She clicks, “Share.” I log in. I click on her name. I read. I double over with laughter. I GChat her back with “LMAO!” Repeat.

Easy right?

Some of my blogs include:

NY Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer
Lifehacker
Hasta Los Gatos Quieren Zapatos
The Daily Gotham
Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York
Jeff Pearlman
Boing Boing
NYC Educator

Of course, you probably expected some of these, but this is really a small sample of the 90+ blogs I have access to daily, and the information is anywhere from titillating to outright absurd, and everywhere in between. My vision for Google Reader is to create a streamlined reading club where everyone reads a bunch of the best and obscure blogs out there and shares the information with others … like me :-).

Google Reader is dope. Not heroine, but just as addicting. Not saying that other services don’t do this, but by far, Google Reader is the most user-friendly, especially if you have GMail already. With that said, subscribing to my blog is good in any reader, but if you want to find out what I’m reading so I can stay informed about everything from education and politics to hip-hop and all-out foolishness, hit me up on Google Reader.

And yes, people are reading, so if you have a tip on Google Reader tips, a person I should be “friends” with on that service, or other cool Internet tips, leave a comment below.

jose, who wants to talk a little about web design as soon as he finishes his long overdue remake of his site: thejosevilson.com

A few notes:

- A few days ago, I mentioned how one of my favorite teachers / mentors / friends left my present school of employ. Today, I found out that another teacher, who was an icon in the building, passed away. It hurt my soul to see him go, because he was a staple for the school and like the first teacher I mentioned, contributed positively to the school environment. The one thing I can say about this man is that he always had a style about him that, no matter how outlandish or rough it may seem at first, you knew he had the soul of a gentleman. He had an energy unparalleled by most men I knew.

- Shout-outs to Slant Truth for giving me a “Brilliant Award.” As always, humbled.

- Blogs are not books. In Twitter, someone recently mentioned a statistic about how much the average book sells a certain amount of copies, and the person in question have quadruple that number in page views. OK, so let’s get this straight: if the number of books sold, hypothetically is 5000 (NY Times Best Seller number), and you get 4 times that, we’re looking at 20,000 page views. But that’s fuzzy math. After all, a book is on average, a good 2-300 pages, so we’re looking at anywhere from 1 million to 1.5 million page views. Is that really equal? Plus, if we subtract all the accidental views, all the views based on mistaken searches, aggregators, repeat visits, and people who are really just there because they didn’t know what the tinyurl was about, in reality, we’re looking at anywhere from 5-10,000 really. In other words, it’s a bad argument.

Plus, any author can tell you that, even if they had a high selling book that’s been recommended by tons of people, it doesn’t make you a celebrity. It makes you well known, and if you have a niche of people who really care about what you write, then that’s great for you. But celebrity is a whole different echelon where people actually post gossip about you, people want to follow anything with your name attached to it, people go out of their social norms just to have a little interaction with you, and you actually hang out with people who others would also call celebrities, not just celebrities in their own minds.

What blogs can do well is that they can give a really good writer a chance to express themselves in a public forum without the red tape of editor, publisher, funding, etc. The problem becomes, though, when the writer becomes so excited about his or her work that he or she lets his or her avarice speak for him or herself and thinks he or she can make ludicrous equations. What’s more, because of that perceived popularity, people support the ideas rather than truly analyzing what’s being said. People can have really popular blogs but never write anything of substance (here, I separate the bloggers from the writers).

As I am with school business, I don’t have any personal problem with other bloggers / writers. Yet, when I see absurdities like the aforementioned analogy between blogs and books, I need to speak up. With all the people reading blogs these days, though, it’s no wonder they’re not reading books anymore: we can’t count page views on any book until we read it from cover to cover …

jose, who loves getting letters from prospective teachers wanting to know more about NYC teaching …

Let this be known now, my people. This blog will still be journaling the daily happenings of this educator of the masses. I obviously won’t go into extraordinary detail about who said what, nor will I regress into discussing fellow teachers / administrators / school staff strictly because it’s unprofessional. However, as with everything, I do take the ideas that annoy me and flip them into extensive thought-out essays for people to discuss and digest. That’s my only vow for this blog and people can read into the ideas and who they came from all they want. That’s the give-and-take of having a blog with my name on it: I have to write responsibly but honestly about anything I write, and it gives people a real person to write back to, for better or worse.

With that said, today I got a rude awakening of the fleeting nature of this job. I’m fortunate that the staff at my school has (to this point) kept the majority of its staff intact, creating a continuity that’s unparalleled at most schools. They range from the young and confident (like yours truly) to the elder but sterling in their grey. We have teachers who’ve transferred a couple of times and teachers in excess. We have teachers who aren’t very effective and those who one only needs to take a seat and put your face in your palms as you marvel at their ability to manage academics and classroom management flawlessly. We have the curmudgeons and the social butterflies.

The most effective teachers in my building, no matter what anyone felt about them, always worked hard at what they did. Whether they come across as teacher-dictators or cool cats, there was always a sense from them that, in their class, students were learning. Obviously, some teachers have deceptive techniques to make it look like kids are learning in the classroom, but after a while, they reveal themselves in more ways than one. This summer, I felt like I forgot how to do it, but today, I refocused myself on being reminded.

That came with the surprising departure of one of my mentors and closest friends in the building. He was one of my mentors and closest friends in the building. Yes, he’s got at least 20 years on me, but he was like a big brother to me. He contributed so much to the school environment and gave everything he could to the kids, but he found a job elsewhere. While I’m happy for him and his family, I’m sad for our school. That coupled with lots of other shifts happening in the building make me more determined to do as he did. He often took me under his wing when I was a first-year teacher, and I hope in his new job as coach, he’ll take the staff under his large wing as well.

So this morning, I looked into an empty classroom, with chairs up, desks clean, my personal desk still cluttered with last year’s teachers’ stuff.

I took a deep breath and said, “This is gonna be a special year.”

jose, whose work is never over …

What do you believe in?

This question always comes to me whenever I hit historical sites like Ellis Island, an island that symbolizes the immigration of millions of people’s hopes and dreams but also desperation and pain. I couldn’t overlook the trials they had to endure before they even arrived here, having to raise money just to get on that boat, followed by a 2-week journey from Europe to the United States, followed by their interrogations, investigations, proddings, and mental and physical examinations. I’m not someone who strictly about one form of oppression over another, and it’s with that understanding that I went into Ellis Island.

Of course, we got to see the statistics upon statistics of the people who came through Ellis Island through immigration. Left and right, we saw artifacts and relics of the past and present of one of the most famous islands in the world. But the one part of the museum that struck me read like this:

“I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, found out three things: First, the streets weren’t paved with gold; second, they weren’t paved at all: and third, I was expected to pave them.”

Wow. The cynicism. The reality. The ability to simplistically tell the tale of so many people who come here with a vision. Yet, it’s also a big sigh and a “Let’s get to work,” one that always gives me hope in the altruism of people. I believe strongly in people and their ability to rise. My idealism, though tempered by my critical eye, still remains, and even through the hardships and scrutiny, they still did what other immigrants to this country had to do: work their butt off.

Yes, there are degrees of help that certain people were given depending on the top 1% ’s needs and wants, but people more than anything needed hope. For all the complaints people had about this country, these immigrants preferred this over their previous country.

One lady in a video remarked how skyscrapers weren’t oppressive but beautiful. I admit I was taken aback at the irony of that. I instantly recognized the irony of such beautiful structures like The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, and the Chrysler Building, truly sites to behold. Yet, I also couldn’t help but think how many people built those edifices of capitalism on minimum wage or less, how many died making those structures, and how the bosses house their multimillion dollar corporations in there while the same workers can hardly make the rent.

But the streets weren’t paved with gold, and we’re paved until immigrants and low-class workers came into do that ground work, and that’s pretty much the American dream. That’s their dream, and ours, too. Not to be hundreds of dollars richer, but to see to it that our progeny never have to suffer the way they did.

Interestingly, this never shows up as a definition of ‘liberty’. Maybe it should.

jose, whose theme for the week is work …

I took a good look at a little girl, cocoa-brown-skinned, with pony tails on her left and right side of her head. Her face had rather round features. Average-sized little girl. Her pupils were round and black, innocent and longing for her mother and father. She wore a pink dress, a sparkling wristband, and a plastic wrist-watch on her other wrist, a watch that hasn’t and won’t ever be set to real time. She hugged her mother’s leg with her soft hands and arms, tired from playing with her friends all around the room, closing her eyes tightly indicating to her mom that she’s ready to rest. Life is easy then. Yet, my eyes swelled and became flush with sorrow and pride.

She reminded me of my own mom.

The woman who birthed two sons, with the same round face and eyes, soft hands, but more fully grown and mature, tired too from the hard work she’s endured to keep the world’s ills. Her only joy comes from her offspring successes she never could. She was once that little girl, in Dominican Republic, with a stronghold of women who she called “mom” when her mom wasn’t around. She became less of that little girl in Miami, and started to blossom as a young woman, working hard for her father, who at once trusted her with his entire life but on the same end, treated her like the other women he was around.

She was girl no more in between time in Miami and New York when she moved with her mom in New York with her future in her womb and not a cent to her name. While her maternal side of the family took liberties to tolerate her and disown her, she decided to try and make it on her own. She promised her only son at the time, her only companion for four years of this struggle that there wasn’t a job she wouldn’t take, a fire she wouldn’t endure, or a man who would prevent her from getting me to excel.

Decades later, she’s aged gracefully, even if her feet haven’t always let her walk as fast as she used to. She’s seen many highs and lows, a few presidents, 2 apartments, the birth of another son, and a light at the end of a 26 year old journey, raising this author into her strongest supporter. She’s a worry wart, a nervous wreck, a bit of a nagger, with a voice that’s at one moment shrill with excitement and another calming like the matriarch. Every woman makes mistakes, but no one will ever say she wronged another human being. She’s overly generous at times.

And while some Black men think dating their fellow Black women is akin to charity (ugh), my mom (a Black Dominican woman) responded with a solemn vow that, if a Black man wouldn’t treat her right, she’d raise two men who would treat their women right. She’s seen 1/2 a century go by, from a little brown girl with glowing eyes to a woman who smiles at the simple things, glad that she’s done her part to grow boys to men. Even with our disputes, I can’t help but be thankful for the woman she had to be to make me and my brother the men we are.

At some point in her pregnancy, she was given a choice. While I couldn’t choose her, I’m honored that she chose me. Happy birthday, Mom.

jose, who doesn’t like to preach death in his songs, but breathe life …

p.s. - Interesting that her first name is Spanish for “miracle …”

It’s around this time of year that have to re-remember how to be Mr. Vilson and no longer Jose. This summer’s been great, and I’ve had many a revelation through this summer personally and professionally. I’ve rested, I’ve breathed, I’ve read, I’ve written, I’ve learned, I’ve loved, and I’ve lived. And now, I’m almost ready to face those children again. It’s a moment of truth, and I’m starting to feel it. But I’m just not ready yet. I’m already reading blog after blog from teachers already getting prepared for the coming year with lesson plans, seating plans, grading policies, and syllabi ready to roll. I, on the other hand, have had far too much fun this summer.

With all that said, I had a conversation with my lady yesterday (who is on a whole ‘nother level when it comes to education) and she zeroed in on what makes a good and effective teacher. And after that discussion, I realized that, yes, I think I’m ready. I’m motivated, I’m committed, and I’m going to be ready. Believe it or not, I do have these awesome moments of self-doubt where my cynicism reflects back onto me, and it keeps me humble enough to keep me focused on my ultimate goal, and she’s often been the one to bring me back to that focus lately.

I’m going to go to my classroom a couple of days before we officially have to be there. I’m going to have my letter to the parents ready, and I’m going to have a list of my kids’ phone numbers so I can call their parents from the jump. I’m going to get even more familiar with my co-teachers on the floor, and I’m going to have the first week of lesson plans ready. I’m going to get organized, and have my classroom 80% set up by the time the students enter into my classroom. With my new added responsibilities, I need to keep a proper perspective.

Teaching is a calling and a profession at once. It’s not enough for me to just love what I do but work hard for it as well. Personally, the most effective teachers I’ve seen keep a good distance so teachers are not percieved as the students’ friend, but give enough of their person where the students look at the teacher in high regard, irrespective of whether the student failed or passed in the class. It was probably my biggest strength my first two years, and a quality I somewhat lost my third year. As passionate as I was with my students, I also lacked the understanding of going from “new teacher” to “veteran teacher” in the school.

For the next year, I repledge my efforts to those causes. More than anything, this summer has given me time to replenish. For, when all is lost, the battle is won with all these things that I’ve done …

jose, who recently took on yet another project … yes, I’m a madman …

p.s. - Bellringers put out the 185th Carnival of Education :-).

Vacation time’s coming to a close, but I’m still hanging onto the idea that I’m on vacation. For better or worse, though, ’till something does us part, I’ll always be an educator. And this vacation time has done nothing but solidify my teacher mentality.

I knew I was a certified teacher when …

- I saw kids on the train fighting / not holding the bars / making too much noise / chewing their gum like they’re horses / annoying me and wanted to give them detention for it (haha, jokes)

- I explain things to people like I’m teaching them, even teachers.

- I can make a quick-n-dirty lesson plan out of the simple things like using a camera or drinking bubble tea.

- I explain to a prospective teacher the pros and cons of teaching using a Venn diagram in my mind.

- I can attach some songs on my playlist to a memory I have in my classroom.

- I walk around and look at a poster thinking, “I can really use that for my classroom.”

- I still read teacher blogs … on vacation!

- I wake up on the first few days of vacation ready to jump out of bed with a suit and tie when I realize I can sleep just a little longer.

- I identified myself by my profession than any race or ethnicity markers (whoa)

- I still enjoy the surprised looks when I tell people what I work for.

- I can’t go a Tuesday without blogging about education …

When did you know you were a teacher if you are one? Even those that aren’t, do you have any experiences like that?

jose, who doesn’t think his latest graphic novel purchases V for Vendetta and The Watchmen are appropriate for my students …

In Beijing, China, the International Olympics Committee told the Chinese government to ease up on their treatment of people. The Chinese government, in turn, invites protesters to register at their local police department and, when the Olympics come, to just stand in one of the designated protest areas and they can do as they please. As prominent protesters have disappeared into the secret confines of their prisons, no one’s shown up to these protests, despite the myriad “opportunities” to do so.

As I read between the lines in that New York Times article, I’m bothered by the idea that we’d actually have to ask the authorities whether or not we can protest against them without them seeking some retribution of some nature. And it’s not that I’m disenchanted; to the contrary, I’ve never had more hope for the future. But it’s going to get worse before it gets better. I’m sad about that portion.

“Inside every cynical person is a disappointed idealist.” - George Carlin

Truer words were never spoken …

jose, who tries to turn his cynicism into action …

Imagine a viable presidential candidate 75-100% funded by the people.

Not that that’s going to happen for a generation or two, but let’s imagine that for a second. The idea that the person holding the top public service position in the country would actually be beholden to the people which he / she’s supposed to serve is almost foreign to us. Our idea of government these days is all types of fucked up, and unfortunately, this presidential campaign has only further made me believe in the government’s underbelly of constant corruption, not of some ill-conceived change.

In the most recent Robert Downey Jr. covered Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi (a liberal writer if I ever read one) goes in deep on the two viable presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. We know without question that John McCain kowtows to the needs and wants of multi-million dollar corporations. No one would equivocate his intentions with populist intentions. Barack Obama, on the other hand, is a whole ‘nother situation.

My biggest question with Barack comes from the almost proletariat rhetoric he’s given us for the last few years. He says he wants to signal a change of the guard, disengage lobbyists and special interests from interfering with government, raise taxes, and ultimately change the mentality of the people. Great. Yet, as we look at the facts, we start to see that, regardless of who’s going to be the incumbent for these divided states, green speaks louder than any red, white, or blue arrangement.

Check the following from Mr. Taibbi:

Sadly, the answer to that question increasingly appears to be that Obama is, well, full of shit. He has made no bones about his plans to raise income by soaking the rich, promising to roll back the Bush tax cuts for people making over $250,000, increase the top tax rate on capital gains to 25 percent and raise the top rate on qualified dividends. He has also pledged to deliver a real stomach punch to hedge-fund managers, raising the tax rate on most of their income from 15 percent to 35 percent.

These populist pledges sound good, but many business moguls appear to be betting that the tax policies, like Obama himself, are only that: something that sounds good. “I think we don’t want to make too much of his promises on taxes,” says Robert Pollin, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts. “Not all of these things will happen.” Noting the overwhelming amount of Wall Street money pouring into Obama’s campaign, even elitist fuckwad David Brooks was recently moved to write, “Once the Republicans are vanquished, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that capital-gains tax hike.”

He goes on in the article to discuss Obama’s main contributors, and how some of Obama’s moves came from a lobbyist or former employee of a corporation giving him a little phone call and asking him not to place some vote or change course with a previous statement. I honestly believe that Obama went into this campaign with the best intentions, but setting all-time records in spending won’t come from the 2 million or so individual donors to his campaign, but that coterie of a few hundred who gave 5-6 figures so he’d do their will.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re dealing with a better class of criminal. It’s not anyone we can see right in front of us, but the ones we don’t see. They’re somewhere on vacation off the coast of a “Third-World” country, or in a private meeting with some of our elected officials. They’re in board rooms helping to write talking points to fend us off. They’re lining the pockets of an army of people to create special effects way more sophisticated than smoke and mirrors.

We’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes, if I’m using the right metaphor. Then again, if we honestly believed that any individual would somehow usurp the system by penetrating the system without serious major support doesn’t understand what’s at hand. For the last 8 years, I’ve been reminded of how egregious the powers that be can be with their corruption. It wasn’t enough that for the 8 years before that, some of us were under the impression that all of us were doing that much better. GWBush was a test to see what we’d do if pushed past the limits of the previous generation. Our answer: not that much.

In countries all over the world, people have literally sacrificed life and limb to see to it that their governments were afraid of them and not the other way around. this country has lost that concept. Even the media, who we often criticize for not giving the full details, have slowly started to help the general populace read between the lines in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Yet, we’re still not angry enough to do anything other than draw up signs and walk down streets.

And I do mean, we. It’s not enough to just vote. We need to organize in our communities and educate in whatever capacity possible. Because if our own elected officials won’t look out for our interests, we’ll need to fend for self. I’ve become ambivalent again about Mr. Obama. Not that I’d ever vote for John McCain and his thuggery, but I almost feel like … my vote’s going to waste, and I’m just waiting for him to say and do the right thing to persuade me in one direction or the other.

If the will of 2 million individual donors wasn’t good enough to persuade him to take care of his people, then it is we who’ve been robbed.

jose, who thinks this isn’t what we need or want right now, but it’s what we deserve …

I recently read an article about blogging that made me want to kick someone in the shins.

I’d love to link it to you, but then I’d be violating one of his “seven sins” of blogging. :: gasp:: G_d forbid! Here’s the gist: basically he wrote a blog post using the seven deadly sins and correlating them to things people shouldn’t do in their own blogs. At first, it’s easy to look at it and say, “Oh, that’s cute.” But does it really help a new blogger blog or even one that’s already doing alright, but doesn’t want to feel like he’s just wasted 20 minutes of his or her precious life on hot trash? I can’t say the blogger escaped either clause.

With all the gimmicky blogs out there, it’s hard to distinguish the ones that weren’t complete wastes of time and ones that actually may matter not just now but also in the near and distant future. Fortunately, I have a few tips for people who’ve been asking me how I do it, much of it inspired by Louis Gray.

- Write what you like: It doesn’t matter what your field is, who you know, what you do, or what your interests are, blog what you want to blog about. Write about education. Write about sex. Write about politics and entertainment (though those are certainly a little more saturated). Whatever you write, write on. Write about you, even if you’re not that interesting, make us interested, which leads me to …

- No Hoodwinking: You can use your blog to entertain, fabricate, exacerbate, and pontificate, but for the love of G_d, don’t use any gimmicks to try and make your blog look interesting or make it look like you’re trying to set some obscure standard.

- Blogging Without Writing: Writing’s great, and I love it to no end. I love taking my time with what I’m saying, and expressing myself as I please, taking my time with what I write. Others won’t. There’s a difference. However, just because you don’t write well doesn’t mean you can’t be a good blogger. (There’s a good discussion on it here.)

- Read First, Write Second: If you’re going to actually write about a specific topic, do what the great writers do: read first. Read around, talk to people, see what you like, and what you can get away with. Once you think you understand the style you’re going to go with, run with it.

- Give Props Where It’s Due: If you find a style you like, and you’re going to ask the originator about said style, then give them props. Never ever forget to give props. You can consider yourself self-made all you want, but if you’re starting to blog at this point, that’s a farce. Found a story you like? Give props. Found a blog you like a lot? Give props. Got a helpful tip from a reader? Give props. Get the theme?

- Comment Like You Post: If you want to “get the word out,” then feel free to comment on like-minded (and not so like minded) blogs. When you comment, comment like it’s a sample of your postings. Granted, some posts only warrant a few lines, but if it’s a good post, reply in kind. People will read back.

OK, I’m done giving away gems. I’m still learning some of this blog mess myself. And whatever you do, don’t be the one to write that article … ugh.

jose, who had a fun time at the Tweetup last night …