How to get your teacher to admire you – the easy way

The other day I watched “Freedom Writers,” you know that movie based on a true story about the white middle class high school teacher who was inspired by “Dangerous Minds” and helped her “hoodlum” students learn how to read and write?* Yes, that movie. Well, that movie reminded me of a time I was like a freedom writer (before they existed) and won over my teacher.

In high school I was a fairly good student, though I was not any of my teachers’ favorite. In fact, I don’t think my teachers thought much of me except that I was a “good student." That changed for one teacher in Freshman English class when we were assigned to write a poem. That's when my teacher saw me as the extraordinary girl, not because of my poetry writing, but the girl who had to battle poverty and violence on a daily basis. I was neither in poverty or witnessed violence in real life, unless you count the news. It all started in 6^th grade with a lie I wrote in the form of a poem. The assignment was to write a “sensory poem” (e.g. I see …, I feel …, I hear …, etc.) I don’t remember the entire poem nor have a copy of it but the jest of my poem went something like this: I see violence, I see death, I feel fear, I feel angry, I hear gunshots, I hear screams and so forth. I basically made it sound like I lived in the hood where drive bys, gang bangs, drug deals and theft were something I encountered every day. It was easy for me to write about what life would be like for a poor inner city kid because I was on a gang movie obsession. I watched on repeat: Menace to Society, Juice, Above the Rim and South Central. I watched these movies secretly from my parents of course because my extremely religious parents would have sent me back to the Philippines if they saw their 12 year old daughter watching movies where women were called bitches and hoes and every other word was “fuck” and the “N” word and not to mention the drugs, sex and violence. In 9^th grade I recycled the poem I wrote in 6^th grade due to laziness and the next day my teacher announced to the entire class how much she loved my “death poem” is what she called it and how it broke her heart and moved her to tears. In my defense, my teacher never asked me if it was real. She just assumed the poem was inspired by real life events not gang-themed movies. I don't know why she assumed it was true. Maybe because I attended a predominantly white school (for Sacramento) and there were very few minorities. I'm just going to throw it out there that perhaps she was stereotyping. Anyway, from that day on, she looked at me with admiration but with a hint of sadness and I was just fine with that.

I did not mean to lie when I initially wrote that poem. I think I was so captivated by the world portrayed in those movies I kind of wished I had experienced those things—as sick as that sounds. Only a sheltered kid living in the suburbs would wish for that kind of experience. It's why rap is so popular with suburban white kids. (If you’re reading this and you did grow up in that type of situation, I am very sorry if I have offended you in any way. I know, I am a terrible human being.)

My point is, make up a story that will gain the compassion of your teacher but do not make up a story so extreme (like your parents beat you) that your teacher is obligated to call the cops or the Child Protection Agency.

I’ve decided I’m going to blog more about bits of my life. I had an extremely ordinary life so my story is not stuff books are made of but stuff personal-blogs-read-by-three-people-at-most-are made of. I will tell parts of my story mostly for myself to serve as a journal I can look back on but hopefully you (all three of my readers) will find them entertaining-- even if it is only to laugh at the photos.

In my attempt to find a copy of my poem I stumbled upon old photos. This one was taken in 1994 about the time I wrote the poem. I was not ducking from drive-bys and feared death. I was staging photo shoots in my bedroom with my friends (note the poor framing, bad lighting and make shift backdrop).

*I don’t actually know if the teacher in the movie was inspired by Michelle Pfeifer’s character in Dangerous Minds but it seemed like she would have been just like the way Michelle Pfeifer's character was inspired by Edward James Olmos -- wait, I mean the real teacher Jaime Escalante.