KIPP Critique - Behavior Management Techniques of No Excuses Charter Schools

Harvard professor Dr. Richard Elmore argues that the leadership practices of an organization trickle down; they are reproduced in the individual learning organisms of that organization (Elmore, 2011).  In other words, leadership practices will be replicated within an organization. 

I have found this true for KIPP, for better and for worse.  KIPP’s espoused ideals are admirable, and I saw significant evidence that they were reproduced amongst teachers and leaders in the national network of charter schools.  However, there is one specific leadership practice at KIPP that I have also seen reproduced in the organization, and this particular practice – I argue – acts in direct opposition to KIPP’s espoused goal of student achievement.  Namely, the practice I am referring to is publicly humiliating students and personnel, specifically in the form of yelling in anger. 

In Jay Mathews book Work Hard. Be Nice, Mathews cites numerous examples of Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg publicly humiliating and shaming students and teachers, sometimes by yelling at them in anger (pages 172, 174, 202, 234-239).  According to Mathew’s book, Levin and Feinberg – founders of the KIPP organization – argue that public shaming can help create a safe classroom environment because it sends a strong message to bullies.  Consequently, Levin and Feinberg instituted public shaming practices such as separate seating during class and lunches – which they called ‘the porch’ – and or a stern reproach in the form of yelling at or taunting students in anger in front of peers.  Such practices have been replicated amongst other leaders within the organization; I have seen these practices occur many times, and I have participated in these practices myself, not fully understanding the implications thereof.  Furthermore I have heard stories, which I hope are not true, from other KIPP teachers of leaders at various KIPP schools engaging in these practices to a degree that is discomforting.

Since the relationships between teachers and students impacts student achievement (Hattie, 2009), I assume that yelling at students in anger then has negative impact on student achievement.  Research printed in the Journal of Educational Research confirms this argument; it suggests that practices of aggressive teacher management – i.e. yelling at students in anger and public humiliation – lead to low student performance, student distraction, and high levels of negative feelings towards teachers. (Romi, et al 2011). Specifically, the article highlights the “…negative impact of teacher aggression, which includes the use of such techniques as yelling in anger at students, using sarcasm or belittling comments to humiliate students, and the use of group punishment for the misbehavior of a few.”  These forms of teacher misbehavior lead to students having negative feelings towards their studies.   

In closing, I recommend that the KIPP organization train leaders in ‘lighter’ behavior management strategies that can be used in interactions with personnel and students: practices that will positively impact school culture and student performance.  Such strategies can be found in the book Teaching with Love & Logic, and the research of Woolfolk-Hoy & Heinstein (2006).  According to Woolfolk-Hoy & Heinstein, students respect teachers who use humor and ‘light touches’ to refocus students instead of teachers who publicly humiliate.  Also, according to Romi, Lewis, Roache, and Riley, teachers who use discussion, hinting, and involvement in behavioral punishments lead to higher beliefs that disciplinary measures was deserved.

These forms of teacher/leader misbehavior are not unique to KIPP.  In fact, today I witnessed a teacher yelling at a student in anger in a public school in Boston.  However, this practice was quantitatively more frequent at KIPP than at any other school I have been a part of, and I think the effects of this practice deserve further research, specifically in ‘no-excuses’ charter schools.

Bean, Max.  (2010).  The No Excuses Charter School Movement.  Message posted to: http://edcommentary.blogspot.com/p/no-excuses-charter-movement.html

Elmore, Richard.  “Self-Organizing Systems Lecture.”  Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Larsen Hall, Cambridge, MA.  October 31, 2011

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York, NY: Routledge.

Mathews, J., 1945-. (2009). Work hard. be nice. : How two inspired teachers created the most promising
schools in America (1st ed.). Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

Miles, K. H., & Frank, S. (2008). The strategic school : Making the most of people, time, and money. Thousand Oaks, CA :Reston, VA: Corwin Press ;National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Payne, C., & Knowles, T. (2009). Promise and Peril: Charter Schools, Urban School Reform, and the Obama Administration. Harvard Educational Review, 79(2), 227-239.

Robelen, E. W. (2007). KIPP Student-Attrition Patterns Eyed. Education Week, 26 (41), 1,.

Romi, S., Lewis, R., Roache, J., & Riley, P. (2011). The Impact of Teachers' Aggressive Management Techniques on Students' Attitudes to Schoolwork. Journal Of Educational Research, 104(4), 231-240. doi:10.1080/00220671003719004

Upton Sahm, Charles (March 13, 2009).  Why KIPP Schools Work.  Retrieved from: http://www.city-journal.org/2009/bc0313cs.html.

Wilson, S. (2008). Success at scale in charter schooling. American Enterprise Institute Working Paper. Retrieved January 3, 2009, from www.aei.org/futureofeducation

 

Woolfolk-Hoy, A., & Weinstein C. (2006). Student and teacher perspec- tives on classroom management. In C. M. Evertson & C. S. Weinstein (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management, research, practice and contem- porary issues (pp. 181–219). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

 

Zehr, Mary Ann.  (March 31, 2011). Study Finds High Dropout Rates for Black Males in KIPP Schools.  Retrieved from:  http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/03/31/27kipp_ep.h30.html?tkn=TVVFjx6pS%2F3QXxwZpXXoJbMnmNSLeyGYhryE&cmp=clp-edweek

Critique of KIPP Part 2 - An Insider's Perspective

Me teaching at KIPP
(the back of students heads have been cropped)

Other Critiques of KIPP:
 

Although Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised KIPP schools as a “…proven strategy ready to go to scale,” there are many – including myself – who are skeptical of the results purported by KIPP.   

The main critiques of KIPP are as follows: high levels of attrition among students – particularly low-performing black males – (Payne, Knowles 2009; Zehr 2011), high levels of teacher attrition (Payne, Knowles 2009), and inflated test scores due to attrition (Mathews, 2009).  In essence, the research suggests that the lowest performing KIPP students are leaving KIPP between 5^th and 8^th grade, leaving behind higher performing students to take tests that evaluate student performance.  Thus, test scores are inflated.  In one KIPP school in California, only 25 percent of KIPP students remained from 5^th grade to 8^th grade (Robelen, 2007). 

KIPP argues that their attrition rates are comparable to tradition public schools in a given district, but some research suggests that is not entirely accurate (Zehr, 2011).  In addition to student attrition, KIPP suffers from high levels of teacher attrition, anywhere from 18 to 49 percent from year to year.  In other words, a good KIPP school might lose 18 percent of teachers from year to year, and a bad one can lose up to 49 percent (Payne, Knowles 2009).  Even for a low-income urban school, those numbers are high.  And after working 2 years within the organization, my experience validates these critiques. 

The last popular critique against KIPP that I will mention is not unique to KIPP; it encompasses the ‘No-Excuses’ charter schools movement nationally (Payne, Knowles 2009).  Charter school founder and Harvard graduate Steven Wilson reported the growing trend amongst “No-Excuses” charter schools to use direct instruction to “dumb down” learning.  According to Wilson, many students in such schools are, “…generally taught as an entire class using direct instruction . . . and pedagogies of inquiry and discovery learning are used sparingly” (2008, p. 7).  This is concerning since research has shown us that the most effective form of pedagogy is tailored small group instruction (Miles & Frank, 2008).  

 In part 3 of this series, I reflect on one organizational leadership practice that deserves further investigation.

Bean, Max.  (2010).  The No Excuses Charter School Movement.  Message posted to: http://edcommentary.blogspot.com/p/no-excuses-charter-movement.html

Elmore, Richard.  “Self-Organizing Systems Lecture.”  Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Larsen Hall, Cambridge, MA.  October 31, 2011

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York, NY: Routledge.

Mathews, J., 1945-. (2009). Work hard. be nice. : How two inspired teachers created the most promising
schools in America (1st ed.). Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

Miles, K. H., & Frank, S. (2008). The strategic school : Making the most of people, time, and money. Thousand Oaks, CA :Reston, VA: Corwin Press ;National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Payne, C., & Knowles, T. (2009). Promise and Peril: Charter Schools, Urban School Reform, and the Obama Administration. Harvard Educational Review, 79(2), 227-239.

Robelen, E. W. (2007). KIPP Student-Attrition Patterns Eyed. Education Week, 26 (41), 1,.

Romi, S., Lewis, R., Roache, J., & Riley, P. (2011). The Impact of Teachers' Aggressive Management Techniques on Students' Attitudes to Schoolwork. Journal Of Educational Research, 104(4), 231-240. doi:10.1080/00220671003719004

Upton Sahm, Charles (March 13, 2009).  Why KIPP Schools Work.  Retrieved from: http://www.city-journal.org/2009/bc0313cs.html.

Wilson, S. (2008). Success at scale in charter schooling. American Enterprise Institute Working Paper. Retrieved January 3, 2009, from www.aei.org/futureofeducation

 

Woolfolk-Hoy, A., & Weinstein C. (2006). Student and teacher perspec- tives on classroom management. In C. M. Evertson & C. S. Weinstein (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management, research, practice and contem- porary issues (pp. 181–219). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

 

Zehr, Mary Ann.  (March 31, 2011). Study Finds High Dropout Rates for Black Males in KIPP Schools.  Retrieved from: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/03/31/27kipp_ep.h30.html?tkn=TVVFjx6pS%2F3QXxwZpXXoJbMnmNSLeyGYhryE&cmp=clp-edweek

Critique of KIPP Part 1 - An Insider's Perspective

I stopped teaching for a year to attend graduate school because I wanted to step on the brakes and think about what I have been doing with the last 5 years of my life.  For the past 2 years, I worked at a KIPP school in the southeastern region of the United States; I was a middle school English teacher.  As a result of the accumulation of experiences at KIPP, I have been inspired to spend substantial time thinking and reading about the organization of KIPP.  And what I have discovered is based on both reflecting on my experiences in KIPP and reading research about KIPP. 

In short, I am skeptical of the efficacy of the organization as it currently exists, but I will come back to this idea later in Part 2; first, I want to briefly explain what KIPP is, then I will summarize some of the main critiques against KIPP, and lastly I will bring to the table what I believe to be a salient issue regarding a leadership that permeates KIPP that has not yet been addressed in my readings.

What is KIPP:
KIPP is a charter school network with 109 schools in major urban cities and several rural areas across the United States and District of Columbia.  About 80 percent of students who attend KIPP come from low-income backgrounds and 90 percent are black or Hispanic (Mathews, 2009).  KIPP schools fall under the umbrella of ‘No-Excuses’ charter schools, which means KIPP schools have a longer school day and calendar year, a strict discipline and academic code, a college preparatory curriculum, and a focus on a strong school culture with community values (Bean, 2010).  Recently, the book Outliers by New York Times columnist Malcolm Gladwell and the documentary Waiting for Superman have praised KIPP for lowering the achievement gap between upper and lower classes in the United States.  Even Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has praised KIPP schools as, “…a proven strategy ready to go to scale.”  In essence, public perception of KIPP seems to be extremely high, and even amongst educational organizations such as Teach For America – arguably a teacher pipeline into KIPP – perception of KIPP seems to be high.  

Works Cited For Part 1 & Part 2

Bean, Max.  (2010).  The No Excuses Charter School Movement.  Message posted to:  
http://edcommentary.blogspot.com/p/no-excuses-charter-movement.html 

Elmore, Richard.  “Self-Organizing Systems Lecture.”  Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Larsen Hall, Cambridge, MA.  October 31, 2011 

Mathews, J., 1945-. (2009). Work hard. be nice. : How two inspired teachers created the most promising
schools in America (1st ed.). Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 

Payne, C., & Knowles, T. (2009). Promise and Peril: Charter Schools, Urban School Reform, and the Obama Administration. Harvard Educational Review, 79(2), 227-239. 

Robelen, E. W. (2007). KIPP Student-Attrition Patterns Eyed. Education Week, 26 (41), 1,. 

Romi, S., Lewis, R., Roache, J., & Riley, P. (2011). The Impact of Teachers' Aggressive Management Techniques on Students' Attitudes to Schoolwork. Journal Of Educational Research, 104(4), 231-240. doi:10.1080/00220671003719004 

Upton Sahm, Charles (March 13, 2009).  Why KIPP Schools Work.  Retrieved from: http://www.city-journal.org/2009/bc0313cs.html. 

Zehr, Mary Ann.  (March 31, 2011). Study Finds High Dropout Rates for Black Males in KIPP Schools.  Retrieved from:  http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/03/31/27kipp_ep.h30.html?tkn=TVVFjx6pS%2F3QXxwZpXXoJbMnmNSLeyGYhryE&cmp=clp-edweek

Death of a Teacher: Part 3

Part 3 of a four part series.  If you haven't read Part 1 or Part 2 yet, here are the links.

This is a true story about a unconventional teacher who left us too early.  R.I.P Mr. Asaad.

Death of a Teacher: Part 3

Mr. Asaad’s unconventionality was not limited to parking lot duty; it spilled over into his classroom methods.

            In May of 2009 I flew to Charlotte to do a sample lesson and interview for the job at KIPP.  On that same day, Mr. Asaad flew to Charlotte from New York City with the same purpose.  As part of our interview, we had to observe each other teach, and formally assess one another’s pedagological methods.  I sat at the back of the room to observe his Math instruction, and from the minute he started to the minute he ended, he was badass.

            He taught a simple lesson on multiplying complex fractions, and he explained the steps so effortlessly and transparently that even the dumbest kid in the class understood how to do it.  After his mini-lesson and after working through a couple examples, he said to the class, “Now it’s your turn.”

            He wrote a problem on the board, then whipped around facing the kids.  He peered across the room, making eye contact with each and every student.  He slowly began to meander through the rows of desks, looking for his victim.  Finally, he stopped, and stood over to a girl with pigtails.  He swiped his open palm over her head like a preacher giving a blessing. 

            “Stand up.” He told the girl.

            He then asked the class, “Ok, I’m looking at this girl – what’s your name girl?”

            “Alexus.” She replied.

            “I’m looking at Alexus, and you know what I’m thinking?  I’m thinking that Alexus…she got this.  What do you all think?” he asked the rest of the class.  They nodded their heads in agreement, mesmerized by his pizzazz.  He then handed Alexus an Expo marker and asked her to approach the white board and solve the equation, which she did successfully.

            He smiled, “That’s good.  Very good.  In fact, I think that’s,” and here he broke into song, “Redddd hotttt, that girl is redddd hotttt, that girl is R-E-D, red, H-O-T, hot, once she starts she can’t be stopped.” he sang, clapped his hands, and bobbed with the rhythm. 

            Once he had finished the chant, he stared at the class, and said, “What is this girl?”  And he sang his little song again, this time the class chimed in as each student learned the words, “That girl is redddd hotttt, that girl is R-E-D, red, H-O-T, hot, once she starts she can’t be stopped.”  By the third time, everyone joined in.

            Then the song ended, and he approached the board and wrote another equation.           

            “Now, who wants to give this one a try?”

            All hands in the room shot up like bottle rockets; each student competing for the chance to be redddd hotttt.

            Unconventional, but totally talented.

            A karate-chop to the gut, then a thumb-twist hurling the victim sideways, followed by a forearm block, and top it off with an elbow strike to the incisors.  On more than a dozen occasions, I watched Mr. Asaad inflict this type punishment on KIPP Charlotte students.  He was a black belt, and he told me at least fifty times what brand of martial arts he mastered, but I could never remember exactly which type it was.  What I do remember, however, is keeping a running tab of his potential lawsuit bill as I saw him assault kid after kid. 

            Oh, Mr. Asaad just air chopped Jacory?  That’s a couple thousand. 

            A hammer fist to Tyler’s jugular for incorrectly answering a math question?  Another thousand and a half. 

            The roundhouse kick to Keshean’s shoulder?  That one did some damage.  Maybe three and a quarter? 

            A four knuckle strike to Langston’s forehead?  Langston had that coming; plus, Langston’s Mom, if anything, would thank Mr. Asaad for whipping her boy into shape.  He might actually make a buck or two back on that one. 

            He whacked kids, put them in headlocks, twisted their noses, and everything in between, but he never ever hurt them.  It was a ploy, like a puppy play fighting.  His physicality added life and toughness to a profession that is overrun with laws and bureaucracy that - although designed with student safety in mind - often stifles the bond between teacher and student.

            In addition to all the physical abuse he dispensed, he would verbally insult KIPP students as well: in an endearing sort of way.  At the end of our first year at KIPP, the principals threw an end of year banquet at a local Mexican restaurant.  As part of the event, each teacher had to randomly draw another teacher’s name out of a hat and make a paper plate award for that teacher.  Ms. Myers, my co-teacher, picked my name, and she awarded me the ‘Flava Flave’ award, since she had never seen a teacher use more clocks and timers in a classroom than myself.  I, ironically, picked the name of my confidant: Mr. Asaad.  I awarded him the ‘most-likely-to-get-arrested-for-saying-something-innappropriate-to-a-student’ award.  An award he would never fully live up to, but an award well earned no less.  I handed him the award, shook his hand, and snapped a picture to commemorate the event.

            When I looked at Mr. Asaad, I saw a dear friend (as well a legal liability to the school); however, when students, particularly the boys, looked at him, they saw someone they deeply admired.  Behind Mr. Asaad’s back, during lunchroom conversations, the boys at KIPP Charlotte would mock his timbre, yelling across the table at one another in their best attempts at a Caribbean accent, “What’s your major malfunction?”  On the playground, they mimicked his karate moves; yelping and kicking like a kung-fu parody.  Nonetheless, the same boys who lampooned him the most were the same boys who would spend hours after school with him on Saturdays, getting free martial arts instruction.  Deep down, they worshipped him.  Strong black role models were something of a commodity in the neighborhoods most of these kids were raised in, and Mr. Asaad was the archetype of a black role model: strong, domineering, eloquently opinionated (although brash at times), charming, educated, and a physical acme.  In short, there was a lot to for the kids to admire. 

            Mr. Asaad could get through to students who were to me a concrete slab of indifference.  If I had a dime for every time I asked Keshawn to stop talking during a mini-lesson and then he would throw his hands up in the air declaring, “It wasn’t me!” I could easily pay a respectable down payment on a Manhattan condo.  Yet to Mr. Asaad, Keshawn was a lemming, awaiting his command.  On one particularly muggy afternoon following Saturday school, I noticed Keshawn doing an exercise on an outdoor bench in front of the eighth grade building.  He thrust his leg up on the bench, fully extended it, achieved balance, and proceeded to kick with the other.  He repeated this arduous move over and over again while sweat dribbled down his face and formed a ring around his black Nike T-Shirt. 

            “Keshawn, what are you doing?”  I asked as I passed by him.

            Between huffs and puffs he said, “Martial arts training.” his eyes grimacing with exhaustion. 

            “What for?”
            “For Mr. Asaad.  He’s teaching me…huff…how to do…puff…Tae Kwon do.” 

            “Good deal.  Carry on.”  I said, as I walked away in veneration, just glad that someone was teaching Keshawn some discipline.

            Another student that Mr. Asaad got through to - more so than any other teacher at KIPP – was Jacory.  Jacory was a perpetually silly child, with a clownish incriminating disposition, that earned him a three-year rap sheet of tomfoolery at KIPP.  When I think of the epitome of a ‘class clown’, I immediately picture Jacory.  Not a single word of sincerity ever crossed his lips, unless, of course, you’re counting a sincere attempt at humor; in which case he was sincere to a fault.  At KIPP Charlotte we had something called ‘paychecks’, which are more or less behavioral markings teachers give students based on positive or negative behavior in class.  The kids start out the week with forty paycheck dollars, and each student moves up or down based on how well he or she follows or disobeys school rules.  Jacory, although never having been suspended and never having been in a fight, had the lowest paycheck out of all eighty-four students in the eighth grade.  He earned a fourteen-dollar weekly average by years end: solely due to his unbridled silliness.  Yet he too was no match for Mr. Asaad.

            At the beginning of his Math classes, Mr. Asaad would greet each student with “Good morning” as they entered his room.  When it was time for Jacory’s class to rotate to Math, Mr. Asaad would conduct his meet and greet with his right hand, while his left arm was wrapped around Jacory’s neck in a headlock. 

            There was a space in the back of Mr. Asaad’s room that he called ‘China’.  Mr. Asaad had a pre-industrial view of the country and considered it a decrepit state, a place of vagabonds and fascists.  I suppose he got this opinion of China from coming of age during the Cold War era.  If a student misbehaved in Mr. Asaad’s class, he would yell, “Go to China!” and the student would then get up and move to the corner seat, facing the wall.  Jacory spent so much of the year ‘in China’ that one would think he could speak Cantonese. 

            But for every ounce of army discipline and tough love that Mr. Asaad dished out, he provided an equal amount of paternal nurturing.  Towards the end of my first year at KIPP, Mr. Asaad would haul Jacory outside with him for parking lot duty, coach him to use the police hand signals he used to direct traffic in Phoenix, and asked Jacory to direct traffic on his own.  Jacory loved it.  By May, Jacory was a pro, directing cars into the appropriate lanes of traffic, effortlessly keeping the pick up lane moving.  All the while, Mr. Asaad would stand at his side, keeping at watchful eye on him, arms crossed, smiling at his apprentice. 

Death of a Teacher: Part 2

This is a series, so if you haven't read Death of a Teacher: Part 1, read it first.  Otherwise you may think of my friend as a womanizer.  He did like woman, which is why I included this part of his life in the chapter; but he was also a very complex man.  

I hope think look into his life captures who he really was.  As a teacher and as a human.

Death of a Teacher: Part 2

In the parking lot, my job was to call the names of students as I saw their parent’s cars approach, radio those names into the grand room, and move the cars along through the pick up line.  Mr. Asaad’s primary job, as far as I could tell, was to flirt with student’s mothers; however, he sometimes used his trafficking skills – the skills he garnered working as a cop in Phoenix - to allocate the cars into two separate pickup lines that would wrap around the parking lot, making the pick up go twice as fast as in years prior.  With minimal effort and master skill, he kept traffic moving, save for the times an admiring mother would stop and bat eyes at him, giving him batches of cupcakes and cookies that they “just happened to have” in the car, still neatly wrapped in plastic.

            That was our beat.  And like two cops assigned to a squad car together, we got to know each other by sheer proximity.

            Each day, with nothing to do besides chat between the strands of cars piddling by, Mr. Asaad and I learned more and more about one another: each other’s families, each other’s hobbies, each other’s favorite brands of vodka, etcetera.  There were never silences between conversations since Mr. Asaad was the perpetual banterer, never pausing to catch his breath nor think about the words that came out of his mouth.

            We usually talked about anthropological topics, since both of us spent a chunk of our educational careers teaching in foreign countries.  For instance, he told me how in Barbados teacher’s still use corporal punishment.  I in turn explained to him that Taiwanese public schools do not have janitors; the students clean the facilities daily.  By years end, I learned a fair amount about the educational field in Barbados, and he in turn learned a fair amount about Taiwan, and we both learned how vastly different Barbados and Taiwanese student’s are from their American counterparts.  The work ethic is unfortunately not comparable. 

            We also wratched jawed about Mr. Asaad’s past in the United States army.

            One day, we were standing out in the parking lot, drowning in the heat.  It took me a matter of minutes to sweat through my underwear, and I glanced back at Mr. Asaad, dressed in a black button down short sleeve shirt and thick black slacks, the antithesis of temperature appropriate clothing.  He was barely perspiring, and compared to me, where a sixth great lake was forming at my feet from all the sweat run off, he looked like he was standing in his own little air conditioned atmosphere.

            “Aren’t you hot in that?”  I asked, wiping the perspiration from my brow with my tie.

            “No way man.  I love this.”  He lifted his arms and face to the sun, soaking it all in.  “This is Barbados weather.  I wish it were like this all year round.”

            “Why did you move here, to the States?”  I asked.

            “I knew I wanted to live here, get out of Barbados, not for the weather, but for the opportunity.  A lot of people in Barbados can’t move up.  There stuck in whatever socio-economic class they’re in.  So I jumped ship to America and joined the army.  I fought in the Middle East during desert storm, and after that was over I moved to New York.”

            I nodded, “That makes sense.  I bet you saw some crazy stuff in Iraq.” 

            “Man, some of the things I’ve seen, these kids they don’t even want to know.  These kids think they have it rough?  Take them on one trip to Iraq and they be second guessing their second guesses.”

           

            Mr. Asaad had an effervescent way of speaking that was like the way Bobby Fischer handled a chessboard: with charm and ease that comes from years of practice.  Mr. Asaad would lasso words and phrases together, making a limerick, a rhyme, or a pun out of nearly everything he said.  I heard him say the most poetic yet inappropriate things to students; things that would undoubtedly get my ass fired, but he was somehow able to pull off.

            “You needs to grab a hold of life before life grabs a hold of you boy!” 

            “What’s your major malfunction son?  You got rocks in your brain or rocks in your stomach?  Either way, something slowing you down.”

            “You better shape up or ship out, because I’m comin’ after you.”

            “You got something to say you better say it now cause’ your mouth will be swollen shut when I’m done wit’ you.”

            “Shut it down!”

            “If you don’t pull it together you leave me no choice but to slap the black off you.”

            One afternoon on a day when Jacory, a pencil thin kid who had the mouth of Chris Rock, was obnoxiously foolhardy in all his classes, Mr. Asaad forced him stand outside on the hot asphalt, baking in the Charlotte heat until his Mom picked him up.  I have heard of prisoners in jail receiving similar punishments. 

            “Boy, you don’t stop being silly you leave me no choice but to slap you silly.” he told the young man.  Just as Mr. Asaad was saying this, Jacory’s Mom rolled into the pick up line.  She undoubtedly heard everything Mr. Asaad had just said.  And since she was obviously in earshot, I assumed a lawsuit was in KIPP Charlotte’s future.  Jacory, however, got in his mother’s SUV, and Jacory’s mother drove off, smiling and waving to Mr. Asaad as if Mr. Asaad had done her a favor by doing something she would have done herself.

            “Mr. Asaad.” I said, “I’m pretty sure his Mom heard that.”

            “Oh it don’t matter.  I know that boy’s Mom.  She said that I could slap him upside the head if he don’t get his act together.”

            I didn’t question it.  Mr. Asaad did know kids Moms, sometimes a little too well.  There were moments I thought he had only volunteered to work the parking lot beat for the chance to coquet.  As certain single parents drove up, he would motion for them to pull off into the grass, and then he would saunter up to their cars, lean in on the open window, tilt his glasses on the rim of his nose, and say in a slow soft voice, “How you doin’ today?”  Since a lot of the kid’s parents were single mothers, they seemed flattered, especially since Mr. Asaad was very fit and rather handsome for a fifty-year-old. 

            Once, a fifth grader’s Mom was coming to coming to school for an afternoon parent teacher conference.  She drove past us and parked her car.  As she opened the driver’s side door and stepped out, the struts screeched, and the car lifted two inches from it’s former resting place.  This woman was a healthy 250 pounds.  Mr. Asaad stared at her, even cocked his head down and to the side, making it obvious he was staring at her ass.  Then he looked over at me and said, “You see that there,” pointing at the Mom, “that’s my ideal woman in bed.  Totally my kind of woman.”

            I was bemused.  I didn’t want to prolong this conversation, since making sexual references about our student’s parents seemed precipitously unprofessional to me.  But I had to add, “She would crush you.”

            His response was, “Oh yeah she would.”  He smiled as he said it, then eyeballed her leg fat juggle as she wobbled into school.