This evening I made my first "teacher call" to a student's home. One student in our class is not only chronically late, but also absent frequently. When summer school is only 4.5 weeks long, every day counts. I made a call in the early evening and got an answering machine. Identifying myself with my name, I revealed that I am one of K.'s summer school teachers. I began by mentioning how much all teachers missed the student in class today, emphasizing that K. is an active participant in classroom mathematical discussions and a patient, hard-worker. Wanting to stress the importance of his daily attendance at school, I commented that if there was anything that they could suggest to the teaching staff or if there was anyway that we could work out together to ensure that he gets to school everyday, we would like to make every effort to make this happen. Hopefully K. will be in class tomorrow.
On a side note, I made the unfortunate decision of eating too much dried fruit as I snacked yesterday and seem to be battling some form of a cold - a rough combination.
This evening I participated in a discussion with a number of current and past corps members about their queer experiences in teaching. All veterans reported that they remained closeted at school - I think most people in the discussion left feeling pretty discouraged. However, technically there are no legal protections in many states (here or in other regions in the US) for "alternate" sexual orientations. Therefore, from the perspective of protecting one's job, perhaps this is the best way to go.
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