Today, June 11, 33% of my students are absent.

[montanto]

They are at home, watching World Cup Football. Their final essays are due today, but football is more important than that. I love the community that I work with: largely Latino, struggling, working class immigrants all, Latino or not. They have a great love of sports, and football in particular. Today is virtually a holiday for them. How can I blame them for their passion for this thing? Still, here I am, holding the bag of responsibility for their far below basic skill level at the testing laden end of the year. I'm a shitty teacher. My tenth and eleventh graders read and write at the sixth grade level at best, and haven't moved more than a level or two or three since I've had them in class. They are not at the top yet, but they are at home today, watching football. How can I blame them? I take off for Christmas, Easter, and I don't have any attachment to those holidays at all. Why not celebrate something that you are passionate about? Football is their veteran's day, and labor day, and memorial day, and president's day all rolled into one--holidays that they have no attachment to at all. I am a shitty teacher because they will not be at grade level by the end of this month. I am a shitty teacher because my students can't tell me how many bushels of grain in a peck, or explain the transcendentalist nature of Thoreau's literature. I am also a shitty teacher because I don't understand what makes a person "off-sides" in a game that doesn't seem to have a line to be over. I bet they could explain that to me. If they were here. If we were in the same place right now, sharing the things that we have a passion for.