meme of the day: darf

Just a thought unrelated to teaching directly- I have an addiction to internet news that, while it doesn't quite rival J's NewsBlues, isn't terribly far off. I mostly stick to BBC international; local news is too close to home and there's been too many cases where I found out a child at my school had a connection to something in the paper for me to want to have to filter even that small additional amount of emotional stress. Anyway, while I was checking through headlines before I got on to post this, I came across the headline: Blog Threats Spark Debate. Turns out the woman threatened blogs on learning theory- and from the posts I skimmed, not anything hugely controversial, just common sense stuff like, chunk information so the learner doesn't get overloaded and that people learn more when they're interested in the topic. It was written a bit more technically, of course, but still- death threats? Come on. Her following posts repeatedly made reference to a "Blogosphere" community, a term I've seen more and more in reference mostly to political monitoring.

And here's where I go, "huh?"

According to wikipedia, I am now a part of a global community that is used to track memes through research on hyperlinks and the like. Now, a small, cozy, blogocommunity, sure- there's a comfy little triangle of links between this blog and two written by two of my favorite people in the world, and I live with yet another of the bloggers I linked to. But I keep finding out that yet more random and widely spread people read this, which is cool but a little strange, since I initially started blogging assuming no one but my immediate friends and family would read it. But hey, we're all in this blogosphere together...

So anyway, the line that got me thinking about this was the wikipedia line about tracking memes... To any researchers reading this, your meme for the day is "darf". I'm not really sure what it means yet, but I'm working on it...

M's long-term sub replacement, Mr. M (it's so much harder to come up with good nicknames for teachers, sorry for all the initials that look the same...) was out today for the fourth day (not counting the weekend) in a row. My kids were a total pain in the butt this morning and just would not shut up for even 90 seconds, although I have a new girl that so far I absolutely love, and who seems to have a pretty sweet political analysis going, depending on where you are in the political spectrum. We're starting persuasive writing now, and her group brought up ending the war in Iraq as their goal- and no, for any conservative family out there, I did not in any way plant that thought in their heads, that was entirely on their own- so I asked them to think of specific goals surrounding that and reasons for it. One of her groupmates had just gone on a sugar high silly binge and was babbling about ending the violence, and then shot her fist up and yelled, "Black power!" before collapsing into giggles. I laughed, but my new girl kind of tuned us out for a minute, staring at her paper.

"Why should we fight for a government that doesn't care if we live or die?" she asked quietly, referring to BP's comment. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized what she said, and her expression went blank as she looked at me to see what my reaction would be. When I told her that was totally valid if she could support it with facts and examples, she relaxed a bit... She's gonna be an interesting one. Much like Pockets, who can't go three minutes without some kind of stupid outburst, generally involving someone's mom and a sexual act, but yet knows every political candidate of the last two presidential elections (at least), their histories, most important issues, related scandals (i.e. swift boat nonsense), and running mates, among other details. The kid probably knows more than most adults, and keep in mind he was barely out of the toddler stage two elections ago. Janine, refreshingly, has yet to say anything about anyone's mom or any sexual act. I'm hoping she's my replacement for Carver (my name, now that he's gone, for my baby that moved to Florida)- sweet, smart, well adjusted, all that good stuff. Especially since when they moved out Squirrely (the kid who brought the pelt in way back in the year) because the other kids jumped him, they told us we're gonna get a trade for evidently one of the worst girls in another class... fun times ahead.

Anyways... I was afraid to leave them alone with the sub in for M/Mr. M, so I didn't leave to go do resource (at some point I'm gonna start getting in trouble for that, I'm sure). When I finally got up there, 8th period, I wound up spending half an hour tracking down Jay's teachers. I have to write Jay's IEP this week, and have literally zero data on him or his ability or his levels. He finally did the reading test with me, although I highly doubt it was to the best of his ability, but he refused to do any of the math, and then was suspended out until after his IEP is going to be due, so I don't even have the chance to try and test him. Awesome. I'm debating a home visit to do it, actually, but his mom evidently doesn't speak English and my Spanish is pretty pathetic right now.
The half-hour was a half-hour wasted, however... when I finally found her, his math teacher got out her grade book.

"Absent, absent absent, zero. Zero, zero, zero, walked out, absent, cut, absent, zero. He never even bothered to turn anything in- I have nothing for him."

His reading teacher was pretty much the same.

"I don't even know what his handwriting looks like. I literally don't even think he's ever written his name on a sheet to turn in. I don't even know if he knows how to write his name."

Awesome. On the continually awkward side, trying to find them I ran into Little Jay, as usual chilling in the hallway. He has a new haircut, kind of a faux-hauk, but his hair is so short it's pretty subtle, and then he had little designs etched into the sides.

"New mohawk, huh?"
"Yeah," he grinned, "like it?" and swung around to walk me wherever I was going.
"Of course," I replied, mostly hoping that the little designs weren't gang symbols that I just didn't recognize- the gang in the neighborhood I lived in last year actually painted their symbol onto my car trunk, but theirs is pretty recognizable (and I'm hoping functions more like protection than anything else... so long as there's no gang wars I figure it doesn't really matter- it's more of a conversation piece than anything)... this was a little more abstract. "So what inspired the haircut?"
"You," LJ said kind of seriously but still smiling, and put his arm over my shoulders- he may be smaller than Big Jay but he's still bigger than me. Now, my 6th graders and I are fairly physically affectionate, just with small stuff like patting shoulders or hugs in the morning, and I have been known to tickle kids into promising improved behavior/homework/no more cursing- it's fine, it's with kids I already have a strong relationship with, etc. And if Cyrus, for example, (who started out smaller than me this year but is growing like a shepherd puppy and is already taller than me) put his arm around my shoulder, it wouldn't be weird in any way; like S said, my relationship with him is more maternal than anything else, and ditto for most of my other kids. BJ, though, not so much, and LJ, who's not even my student in any way.... like I said before, probably think slightly more grown thoughts than kids who still call me "Mom" by accident. And it's, well, weird. I patted his back and maneuvered as far from his body as possible, but he was determined to walk me to wherever I needed to go. We chatted for awhile- he wanted to know why I was trying to find BJ's teachers, I wanted to know what class he was supposed to be in ("I'm supposed to be with you, Miss. My teacher said." Uh huh. And you've never smoked a joint. Hey, was that a pig that just flew by?) - but then, as the reigning champion of non sequiturs, switched topics completely.

"Miss, say 'Darf'," he demanded.
"Darf?" I asked, a little confused.
"Darf! Like that," he clarified, emphasizing the "-rf" part of the word.
"Darf," I repeated, now even more confused.
"Yeah, like that!" he said, starting to laugh. I got a little nervous.
"What does that mean? Are you telling me to say something that's actually really dirty in another language?" I asked, racking my brain to think of how "darf" could possibly be inappropriate. I can probably curse in six different languages at this point (it's amazing how those words stick with you when everything else you learn can just fade away... and we circle back to the learning theory blog...), and for the life of me just could not think of anything.
"No, Miss! That's just like, our word, you and me. You're part of our group, now, that's what we use."

Not so much reassuring words from a kid like LJ, as charming and charismatic as he can be... I started hoping that "darf" wasn't a gang symbol of some kind.

As we were talking we swung by a room I needed to check for a teacher, actually the room I think he was supposed to be in. Of course, there was a sub, looking totally overwhelmed in the corner. LJ motioned to a friend, who climbed off the table he was reclining on and sauntered over.

"Yo, come here! Tell her our word."
The friend, clad in a black hoody, let out a quiet, pretty, musical howl: "Daaaaarrrrrrff!"
"You say it, Miss!"
"Darf."
"No! Like before, like him. He just added that stuff at the end. Daarrffff."
"Darf."
"Yeah!"

The friend laughed approvingly, then looked at LJ. "Yo, why she sayin' that?"

Which I actually was wondering myself as I distractedly tried to figure out how I was going to extricate myself from LJ, find BJ's teachers who seemed to have vanished from the third floor, and theoretically check in on some of my other resource kids, all before 9th period.

"She's part of us now, she knows our word." LJ swung off me and disappeared before I could even turn to the sub. One of the other kids in the class I knew from the MG program, so I chatted with him for a minute to see if he knew where his teachers would be. No luck. As I turned to go I realized LJ had actually swung into the classroom to hang out with his friends. I waved and started to leave.

"Goodbye, sweetie!" he called after me. Loudly.

Every time I start to think I'm getting comfortable with this job, something happens that makes me realize what a stupid thought that is.

Darf.