Today was it. Last day to record songs for the CD I promised them at the beginning of summer. They'd recorded nothing these five weeks. Every other class I've worked with has made their own E.P., a copy of which I burn for every kid who made it on a song (I also sneak extras to those who almost made it, or who tried really hard, but were just bad at it). Today was the day when, regardless how cute was the little girl looking up from my hip pleading, "Mr. Michael, I can be on the CD? I know what I'm going to write now!"

I had to answer, "I'm sorry sweetie, that part of the class is over. You missed the boat."

"No Mr. Michael!" she mewed.

"If you're not on the CD, whose fault is that?" I begged her consider. "I told you to take the class more seriously, didn't I?"

Rough. But today I separated the serious kids from the rest. Often, the four uninterested kids will drown out the six psyched kids who are dying to record. Young Audiences' policy is that every kid must be given the chance to experience every art activity. For the first few weeks, this is fine; I've had several non-participators suddenly one day jump in start writing and rapping, and not let up the rest of the semester. Ideally though, I would run my class almost like a Rap Team, where no later than three-fourths through a session, cuts could be made. Kids who officially hated the class could go participate in the activity they did like. You act too messy, you're off Mr. Michael's Rap Team -- leaving me with a lean, wholehearted group who I'm sure could record two or three songs a week, easy.

But because of Young Audiences' understandable populist policy, the haters distracted throughout, and summerschool 2007 reaped absolutely no recordings -- until today, when I locked my doors for two separate recording sessions. Each class consisted of six kids (out of 12-15) who had, in the end, after two or three embattled drafts, finally written (on paper!) a coherent, rhyming verse of at least four lines. I also allowed a few kids to join who had tried very hard, but still lacked solid raps; I declared them backup singers for the choruses, "We're the Craig Underground and we bout to set it off!".  

The room was tense. The kids couldn't help feeling my unhealthy urgency. My inner demand for results leaked like steam from the pink corners of my eyes. In contrast to this tension, it was later I who had to calm the kids, reminding them that recording something perfect demands a lot of takes. To lesson the amount, I'd written the song's structure large on the board:

1)      Tremain (intro) – "My name is Tremain, I like to do math /

if I eat too much crawfish, I might get fat"

2) CHORUS

3)      Carl –               "I also like to play football / I bought a throwback  at the mall /

I ain't sharing any of my tickets with y'all."

4)      Dovona –             "My mom works here, she gives me snacks /

we have so much stuff that it's hard to unpack…"

5)      CHORUS

6)      Jared –             "I got the stars in Miss Mateen's class / I answered a question /

 she's so tall we can't reach her"

7)      Carlisha –             "My name is Carlisha, they call me C.C. /

you might get slapped if you come around me."

8)      CHORUS

9)      Devin (who admitted his dad, a local rapper who owns a recording studio, wrote this for him; Devin could never master the rhythm) –

"I know you got a brother / don't want me to be you lover /

but we can keep it under cover / if that's you bout / But if your brother step up / I'ma knock him out."

Every mess-up meant we'd have to start over. So whenever a student fumbled, the rest of the kids would immediately shout him or her down until I broke it up -- my intensity infecting them, maybe. Regardless, I got my results. The older kids couldn't get it together, but the other classes managed two brief ditties: "The Craig Underground" and "Ooh Ooh We" (ed: already posted, as of now!). I'll now spend the weekend mixing and editing them, and editing them some more. Which brings me to the next wild anecdote: how I acquired a computer recording studio for free. Katrina gave it to me, sort of.

I've always loved recording, and always knew that maybe one day when I was old and stable I might sell a kidney and build myself a computer recording studio. One reason my students' music will never make it onto the radio, is because it's initially recorded onto 4-track cassette tape; it may sound cool on the myspace page, but listen to it next to a Jay Z. record and you'll laugh at the fidelity difference. This despite my dumping all the cassettes into my computer, and digitally mastering them -- something I couldn't have done, before the storm... During that first week of evacuation, we received our FEMA checks, and I immediately bought a new laptop – the absolute cheapest one that P____L Computers made -- so that I could accept a temporary job as a reporter for The Houston Press. The laptop arrived in one slim box, along with another, much heavier box, the size of a dorm refrigerator. The first held my cheap laptop, the second was a desktop so big and black it looked army-issued. We plugged it into a monitor owned by the poor Texas strangers who were temporarily housing us (on their goat farm; a whole other story...), and discovered it to be a super-computer with an abnormally large brain, totally tricked-out to power a recording studio.

I immediately called P____L Computers and didn't exactly lie: "I am out of town. My laptop arrived back at home, and my girlfriend thinks there's something strange…"

"Strange? Well, let me read the invoice to verify your order," replied the operator. "It says here you purchased, with a credit card, a P____L laptop…"

"Uh huh."

"That it cost $659."

"Yes. The cheapest one."

"And it came to you in two boxes. One weighed five pounds, the other weighed forty pounds."

"Wait. Now. What part of my laptop weighs forty pounds?"

"Sir, I just handle the paperwork, I don't package the orders or ship them."

"Thank you." I'd never so enjoyed an operator's curtness. "And your name?"

 The next day a supervisor from P____L called back and I knew the jig was up.

"We're actually just following up," she said. "We heard you were unhappy with your order?"

I told her everything was fine, but asked her to also read me the invoice. She repeated everything about my forty pound laptop. I posed the same questions. And I hung up feeling I'd done everything I could, short of demanding her to come and take away the first and most important piece of my new digital recording studio. It all seemed so absurd, I actually suspected that, though we'd ordered the computer to Texas, and though P____L couldn't have possibly known I'm a musician, maybe they were purposefully sneaking me a Katrina donation?

Then, after we returned home, a hole Katrina poked into our roof ruined some expensive guitar pedals. That and the loss of an album I'd been recording at a looted studio, compelled the Music Cares Foundation to give me a $500 check, and a gift certificate for $1000 to buy, at cost, everything else I needed for my studio: speakers, digital interface, CUBASE, a MIDI keyboard, headphones, and an extra-sweet microphone I will never ever let the kids touch, ever. As if the gods were telling me to keep making music…

P____L's mistake and Music Cares' generosity have really, really helped my Music Writing class, and made my kids' finished music sound better. Now I just have to find someone who'll donate a laptop studio, to replace my four-track in the classroom…

I can hold yours?

I'm so cute and fine / everywhere I go, I wear boots that's mine / The boots I'm talkin bout are pink / I take them off at the roller-rink / and I put on my skates / I live in the State / of Louisiana, I eat kandyamma / It's a food that I made up -- India, 4th grade, Craig Elementary

Having taught my Music Writing Class at New Orleans' public schools for three years now, only in the last six months have I finally stopped noticing whenever I'm the only white person. This represents a big step for me, coming from a bigoted family. That's not to say that when I used to notice, I made qualitative judgments, or any judgments. Even when I myself was little, in super-black Gary, Indiana, I thought my parents ignorant for saying "n-----". That word, in fact, initiated a monumental crack in our familial foundation, which perseveres even today. That I so rarely notice race now, means I've officially evolved my family line.

Today, however, taking the kids to the roller rink, I remembered again. New Orleans will sometimes feed you the illusion that, here, black and white people really live – whether peacefully or not – at least together. We seem to share more experiences than whites and blacks in other American cities. Which has to be true, to some extent. But in recognition of every new song the roller rink's DJ spun, our 250 black students and their teachers blew up, sang the words and, on skates, rocked the corresponding dances. And for the first time in weeks I remembered that I come from, and live in, a different world than them.

The day began, as most fieldtrips do, on a yellow bus. Or rather, four yellow busses. We arrived at the roller rink on Airline Highway to news that we were an hour early, and they could not let us in yet. Luckily, the weather was not very hot -- unluckily too though, because if it's not hot in New Orleans at the end of July, then the Earth's atmosphere is officially broken. By now the temperature and humidity should be so high that if you walk outside shirtless to your mailbox, you return damp. But it's been temperate. Earlier this week in jeans and a knit polo shirt, I walked around the Central Business District at lunchtime for upwards of 15-minutes without breaking a sweat. The atmosphere is definitely broken.

Anyway, we held the kids on the buses for one more fairly-dry hour. But New Orleans natives simply do not like having their plans change, nevermind any actual inconvenience; New Orleanians, I've noticed, tend to hold their personally-concocted expectations of situations in much higher regard than any reality. And thus, in the rink's parking lot and back on the busses, many heated mentions of Katrina and the Superdome were made, and wanting to go home. At one point I stood and rallied my students to perform their raps. First I made everyone clap – 10 of maybe 25 kids enthusiastically clapped. None of the adults even paid attention, since the clapping wasn't coming from inside of their cell-phones. Had the other teachers joined in, we really could have had some traditional summer-camp fun. But after just four raps, the game petered out and we all just sat there on the weird bus-leather, until the weather did, in fact, feel really hot.

Once they finally let us into the black-lit rink, all our kids sat at blue plastic tables for 10-minutes, waiting for a group of 250 white kids to finish their fun – I hadn't known there were that many white kids in the whole city. They'd already taken their skates off and were out in the center bouncing and screaming as the DJ led them through one last sock-hop. They seemed to be having enough fun, but their "dancing" was blaringly arrhythmic and, like myself, they didn't recognize the song, "The Cupid Shuffle" -- whereas, even seated with their heads down, our kids were trying to dance. I suffered my first strange moment of racial consciousness, thinking, Our kids need to get out there and show them how it's done…

We finally all lined up and collected our day-glo plastic skates, while discussing what good skaters we were or were not. Some of the kids had never been skating, though most claimed to go all the time. It had been maybe 12 years since I went skating every Friday (then maybe again on Sunday). "The last time I was here Mr. Michael," one little girl confided, "I wore a size one!" She now wears a three. As New Orleans bounce music boomed, she then asked me a question I would hear many times throughout the day, "Mr. Michael, you could make this beat?"

"Course he could make this beat!" a boy slapped her shoulder. "Mr. Michael can make any beat!" Another reason I've become less race conscious is because so many of the kids treat me not like some cracker out of water, but like a hip-hop superstar. During my seven or eight months so far at Craig Elementary (in the Treme, "the  country's oldest black neighborhood") not one kid has ever really made fun of my whiteness. Except when, this past year, a group of 3^rd graders told me a pattern I'd made on the drum machine sounded like, "A white boy beat."

"Um, excuse me," I pointed two fingers at my face. "That kind of offends me."

"But you're not white, Mr. Michael," they said, I swear to God.

"I'm not? What am I?"

"You're black," the kid answered, his friends nodding, none of them smiling at all.

"No, you're more like…pink," another of them said, and they all nodded harder, smiling a little.

So the kids just assumed I knew all the songs (I must admit: a couple times, after some foreign song's chorus had been around once, I would sing the second and third choruses as if I'd known all along). I did relish hearing a live DJ cater just to my kids; educating their "rap teacher" in his students' official top-20.

Come to think of it though, my musical ignorance was also a choice. I did used to keep up with ClearChannel rap and R&B -- yeah the vocalists are mostly lame, but it's often the only electronic music you'll hear on the radio. But after a year spent teaching here, I became the kind of codger who can't stand knowing that sweet little kids memorize lyrics glorifying infidelity, unwanted pregnancy, murder and jail. So, though I like Neptunes' and Lil' John's beats, I've shut ClearChannel off. Maybe from now on, I'll visit the roller rink to keep myself up to speed.

More than any of that these issues, however, I was concerned with remembering how to skate. I believed I would fall, often, and that it would hurt much more than it had 12 years ago. Tying on my skates, I gasped as the small bodies of my third graders Dy'shawn and Tremaine slapped the floor, again and again; painful to even watch, though they just sprang right back up smiling.

Out on in the throng of kids my legs immediately throbbed -- moreso my left leg, since more than 75% of each lap consisted of turning left. After one big lap I had to take a break. Minutes later I went back out and took two laps. My time between breaks grew incrementally, until I was going six, eight, ten laps, and other than sweating my face off, felt little discomfort.     

It was so great to have one purely fun day with the kids, where I could just be their friend, and the only thing I had to shout at them was, "Don't put your hands on me! I'll fall! STOP! DON'T!" Near the end, a cute tiny girl I'd never seen before rolled up, extended her hand and asked, "Mr. Michael will you skate with me?"

"No honey, you can do it by yourself."

I am compelled to let the kids hug and pull and tug and climb on me, but many other teachers have told me it's a bad idea. So I always say no. But this little girl made the saddest most disappointed face, the kind so very few females have ever made upon a denial of my company. I could not say no. I'd been far too shy to ever skate with a girl, back when I used to go skating twice a week. Holding this one's small hand for two laps though, I realized she might have asked me simply to have something to hold her up. I saved her from falling several times, but several times she crumpled, and I rolled on. I'd slow and turn and wait for her, both of us reaching toward each other as she rose, skated wobbly, finally caught up, and again took my hand.

We finally all removed our skates and consumed pizza and coke. It was one of the most fun days I've had in forever. After lunch the DJ invited the kids back out onto the floor to partake of the same sock-hop we'd witnessed on the way in. And for the record: our kids didn't display much more rhythm than the white ones had.

Not sure whether to chalk this unbelievable fact up to New Orleans' backwardness or not but: today we took the kids to the aquarium, but only to see the IMAX movie. The aquarium was my favorite place as a child, and several of my students had never been. So I was mildly offended that we would watch a film about sharks, then leave before witnessing any real ones. I sniffed around but no one knew why. At least it was a 3D movie, so the sharks seemed extra real. It was cute watching the kids all swat and grab at invisible jellyfish in the air. But if you thought trying to keep 100 chirren quiet in a regular movie was a chore…

At 11:30 we took them back. We physically could have walked back and forth from Craig Elementary on one side of the Quarter, to the aquarium on the other, down by the river, but when this thought occurred to me on the bus-ride back, I laughed out loud at myself; never, ever, ever would the teachers walk like that, or the kids for that matter. Not in New Orleans, no way. Today's weather was surprisingly tame; standing outside for 15 minutes waiting to re-board the busses, we did not break a sweat -- amazing for July. Yet the teachers wouldn't stop fussing about the heat. This didn't boost the kids' moral. Strange how New Orleans natives are such friggin wimps about the heat when they know it could, and will, be so much worse in the months to come.

Glad I'm getting out of here. 

As the big yellow bus crossed Bourbon Street – which wasn't "poppin" at 11:30am -- I rose to my knees on the pleather seat and announced, "O.K. everybody! As we cross this street, everybody cover your eyes!"

The whole bus groaned at my dad humor. "Man, I be on Bourbon Street every Mardi Gras after Zulu, y'heard me?"

"O.K. We're past!," I announced. "You can take your hands away now."

Our silly aquariumlessness also meant that, back at school, we artists would be required to provide the kids' daily "enrichment activities" – though we'd assumed we'd all get a recreation day, like everyone else. Most artists protested, some refused. Whereas normally I would walk downstairs and greet their teacher and lead the kids up, I simply went to my room and waited for them to show up.

When they did they were nuts. We still haven't recorded even one song; last summer's kids commited something to tape almost daily. I love these Craig kids, but their snail pace really gets to me. Today I couldn't manage to even line six of them up at the microphone. I'd look down to rewind the tape, and look up to find Roger 10-feet away playing with an abacus he'd found, Jared sitting on the dirty floor, and Imani back at her desk, hiding her face in her arms. So I simply gave up.

"I give up," I told them. "I've had enough. For today at least." The kids were in fact disappointed as I clicked off the drum machine, quickly collected their papers, turned off the light and sat down.

After 30-seconds of silence, their actual teacher, Mr. Brown stood up. Mr. Brown is a black dude a little younger than me, who obviously grew up here, probably in public schools, though he also obviously went to college, probably a better one than I was able to get into. "Alright, this is what Mr. Michael wants," Brown explained. "He wants you to line up, with your papers, and stay in line until the beat is rolling. Then one person is going to rap their verse. Then the next person is going to rap theirs. Then everyone will sing the chorus, 'We're the Craig Underground, and we bout to set it off…' Then the next two people will rap, then y'all sing the chorus. If you mess up at all, you go immediately to the back of the line where you will read and practice your verse until it's your turn again…"

This is exactly how I have explained the procedure to them; Mr. Brown knew all this from observing me. But after class, he explained to me that, before I start anything, I have to tell the kids exactly what they'll be doing from start to finish. He said he notices me doing it piecemeal: "You tell them to line up, and then you tell them what the next step is. Then while they're doing that, you tell what they'll be doing next and it's too much. They have to know everything that's expected of them from the very beginning."

That sounds right. So, that's what I learned today, about teaching.

Only 13 days of summer school left. I then leave for Europe on August 7^th, and begin my month-long writer's residency in Spain on September 3rd. I really love the kids, but man-oh-man-oh-MAN!

Anyway. For now I spend the first four hours of every summer school day "helping" Miss Carter. I'm not much needed, as Miss Carter owns complete control of her class. She rules with a quiet authority – that she never yells, ever, tells me that, in my own class, I must be doing something wrong. Or that I could at least be doing something differently.

But my real point is that, for the first half of each day, I often don't have much to do. I am one of four adults aiding maybe15 kids. I'm not sure if it's because we're recovering from the flood, but almost every class has volunteers from AmeriCore, among other organizations, plus multiple highschool teaching aids, who do more sleeping than helping. I could sleep too; Miss Carter asks nothing of any of us. So I drink ice coffee in a tiny chair at a tiny desk, beside a group of kids who begged me to sit with them. I help them a little, answer little questions, encourage them. It's easy, fun, and a good opportunity to just bond with the kids, without all the pitfalls of controlling them. They get off track, secretly trying to spit their raps for me when they should be circling all the first person pronouns in the book Miami Sees It Through (Miami is the narrator kid's nickname) -- until Miss Carter stares them into submission.

Today, with little to do, I fixed Jermain's crayons. Supposedly, someone had secretly used them, broke them all in half, then stuck them back in the box. The disappointed look on his face when he emptied the broken crayons onto his desk, let me know Jermaine hadn't done it. So I sat beside him as he completed his reading assignment, and taped all his crayons back together. That's what I did today in Miss Carter's class.

I also, fixated on M_____, the only kid in all the classes I work with who does not want to participate, does not want to learn. So he fiddles with pieces of string he finds on the floor. Hides in his shirt. Has to use the bathroom. Has headaches. "Avoidance," Miss Carter says, hypothesizing that M____ has a hard time learning, and so he does whatever he can to avoid it. I would've said that he just wants an adult sitting beside him all the time, talking with him; he will work if I sit and watch him. The rest of the kids all want my continual attention too, clamor for it. Except when I tell them no, they simply move on to the next distraction.

As for my own class, this week I gave them a quickie about traditional pop-song structure: verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge. We made up choruses for 'Who We Are'. Between every third kid's rap, the first class now chants:

Ooh, woo, woo! / Ooh woo, wee! / This is who we are / at Craig El–e–men–tar-y!

Class 2 concocted:

We're the Craig Underground / and we bout to set it off! / we're the baddest kids around / and we never, ever soft!

It's far easier to get them to sing all at the same time than individually; these choruses assure that even the kids who for whatever reason can't perform raps, still participate. Even shy or ornery who don't like participating have fun singing with the group.

As an example of a song with a chorus, we all attempted to sing "Irreplaceable," by Beyonce. Every once in while I bring in the 1959 Gibson acoustic guitar my father passed down to me. "You guys know how upset I get when you touch the electronics without permission?" I ask, pointedly. "Well, you will never get permission to touch this guitar. I'm sorry. That's just how it is. And if you touch this guitar -- if you even stare at it too hard -- man, I just don't know what I might do to you…"

Still they slap and pluck at it in passing.

Anyway, "Irreplaceable" has been an invaluable teaching tool. If ever the kids are kooking out, I begin to play Beyonce, and they all turn from whatever foolishness (as if toward some celestial light) and begin to sing. Man, how I wish more rap radio songs featured acoustic guitar – or rather, acoustic songs that didn't glorify bootcalls and/or unwanted pregnancy. The gross materialism angle of "Irreplaceable" is almost too much. But it's a great little song, anyway, and has gotten me out of many a jam (and into a jam!)

COMING SOON: Mr. Michael's class goes to the aquarium, and watches an IMAX movie about sharks!

Our class had to move on, having not recorded 'Who We Are'. Actually, their unfinished 'Who We Are' song sinks deeper daily into the kids' mass-mind, as we begin our 'Action Rap.' Action Rap: simple concept, one verse, eight verb-oriented lines, wherein the kids narrate doing something. "Anything!" I shouted, "Playing a game. Dressing to go to the mall. Fileting a fish. Beating up your little brother. Shucking some corn. Feeding your pet dog, or turtle. Writing a rap."

Traditionally, whenever we begin writing this second rap, if I forget to tell them, "You CANNOT start this new verse with 'My name is ____'," they will almost all have to start over. But when this new Action Rap verse is complete, we can hopefully attach it to 'Who We Are,' creating one long verse. Perhaps I will have the kids build just one super-long rap over the course of the month. Whereas usually they write one or two new ones a week, then at some point choose a couple from their pile, mix and match lines, heed my advice, then focus on a finished product, one pristine and clever verse. We'll see.

As of now, I teach three classes a day. Each class is to consider itself a band. So, this week they picked their band names. My first class of each day will henceforth be known as Who Let the Dogs Out?

The awkward New York City transplant kid (I can't imaging moving here from anywhere, much less New York), who insessantly plays with my arm hair, he suggested calling ourselves The New York City Band. None of his classmates had ever been to NYC. They decided upon, The Craig Underground. The chorus to their 'Who We Are' song goes:

We're the Craig Underground and we bout to set it off!

We the baddest kids around and we're never, ever soft!

They sang this today for my supervisor, a young, 300+ pound black dude on his tour of all the classrooms. Later, he told the teachers about me at our employee meeting: "I came in and saw a white guy making sure all those kids got they rhythm straight – I was PROUD man!"

A kid from the third class suggested they be called, The Black Blast – my favorite of all the names from all three classes. In the end they decided upon the almost as good, The Black Cheetahs

To give them a break from writing raps, today I gave them drum-programming lessons. Despite only one drum machine at my disposal, we pull it off. The kids are surprisingly well behaved, or rather, simply entranced by the blue plastic machine; tapping out beats is of course the idealized role, but watching someone else seems to be just as stimulating, thankfully.

Oh, this week, I also partook of my second ever field trip (avid readers will remember last summer's ill-fated zoo trip where the girls yelled "he's abusing us!" to passersby). This trip was much milder, to a CGI movie, about a rat who pines to become a chef. I was jealous that the older kids got to see Transformers; the teachers too, came out, mouths agape. But the younguns and I enjoyed watching our rat hide in a chef's hat, controlling the culinary skills of some nerd by tugging his red hair (loser dork = redhead, again). It was strange to bus out to Metarie for a movie and then have to pass up the theatre's daiquiri stand – there isn't a mainstream movie in any American 20-plex that wouldn't go down better with a drink in hand. Is New Orleans the only place you can purchase drinks in the movie theatre's lobby? God bless this city. How can the government just let it wilt and possibly die?

But my REAL point being: if you ever take dozens of kids to a movie, when any of them ask to go to the bathroom, immediately tell them no. Generally the asking will occur after they've seen some other teacher leading some other child to the john. So just say no. Nine out of ten times, the kid will sit back and not ask again for 30 minutes. Say no then, you'll get 15 more minutes. Third time he asks, take him and the other kids who've been asking, all at the same time. Throughout the movie, I could tell who'd been teaching for even less time than me, by how many kids they conceded to lead to the bathroom.

My teacher sister says it's imperative that, no matter what kind of teacher you are, you lay down the classroom rules in no uncertain terms on the very first day. On my third day (after a day off for July 4^th) I wrote my rules on the board and made the kids read them aloud together (I've been making them chant together as much as possible, to keep their attention, to crank up the summer-camp vibe, but mainly to get them synched-up to sing future choruses in future songs). Anyway, the rules:

1) You get one chance per-day in Mr. Michael's class: If you talk when Mr. Michael is talking, or break any of the following rules just ONCE, you'll find yourself separated from your friends. Your second offense will send you into the hall where you're sit outside the door -- a.k.a., 'I'm only moving you once.' Which always proceeds, 'Ok, you're out for today; you and I will start fresh again tomorrow. Out.'

2) Do not touch any of the expensive musical equipment without first asking Mr. Michael: Self-explanatory. Most kids realize this rule before I tell them. Still I let them know that though all of them will get a chance to play with every musical toy, I need to know exactly who is pounding on what, at every single moment.

 3) Do not grab the microphone away from another student: Pretty similar to rule # 1. Except EVERYONE breaks this rule. Those who break this rule break my microphone: one kid will be holding the mic, another goes to steal it away and ends up grabbing the mic's base (aka, the vulnerable plug), causing the first child to jerk away, creating a brief, high-velocity tug-of-war. I've had to replace one mic already.

4) Do not ever laugh or criticize anyone's rapping or singing, EVER!: They loved shouting that last 'EVER!' Though it's number 3, this rule is the most important. It is imperative that the kids don't discourage each other. When this rule is broken, I often put them directly outside, no second chance. Mostly, I play totally fair, but I do like them to think that if they break this important rule, all bets are off, and they may be treated unfairly.

5) No cursing in your lyrics – no 'N-word': I haven't had much trouble with this either. A little with the N-word. But they know.

6) Do not be scared, be BRAVE!: I shouted this at them with clenched fist, then had them shout it back at me, loud! Louder! LOUDER! PUMP THAT FIST: "Don't be scared! BE BRAVE!" It actually seemed to work; I've heard kids repeating the phrase to each other, their fists clenched.

7) Always write your lyrics down. Meaning, you cannot rock the drum machine or bless the microphone until I see your lyrics on paper: Meaning, no one says to me, "I've got it memorized, I don't need to write it down." This rule is a speedbump not only because the kids hate to write, but because the two supposed greatest living MCs -- Jay Z and Lil Wayne – famously forgo pen and pad altogether. Paperless writing is a hip-hop tradition, a skill rappers brag about. The fact that I know all of this without their reminding me scores me points with the kids. Still this is the hardest rule to enforce.

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Today we continued penning and coordinating the "Who We Are" song. As summer school is only five weeks long, it feels wasteful to spend more than a week on a preliminary name-game exercise – of the 26 kids songs I've recorded over the last two years, I've accumulated more than enough, My name is Cameron I'm a video game freak / I play the new, Playstation 3 / I got the cheats / and all the levels, I'm gonna beat. Still, this is about their experience, not my aesthetic desires and accomplishments. So this newest, "Who We Are" must be actualized.

But since it was also Friday (one week down! And my moral is still high), I allowed them some play time. My impetus for this entire entry is simply to lavish praise upon the Roland Loop Station as a classroom tool -- at least for any hip-hop class. Several weeks back, a reporter from Roland electronic equipment's Education Technology magazine found my kids' myspace page, and just before she flew into New Orleans to write an article about my class, she called and told me, "Go on Roland's website and pick out whatever equipment you want for your kids."

Wuh?

I picked out $3,000 worth of gear: a huge, 120-watt keyboard amp with four inputs; a set of Roland electronic drum pads plus a 600-sound keyboard with a 16-track recorder in it and a laser that triggers sound effects (cars, helicopters, applause, drum loops) when you pass your hand through it.

So far, the kids love the drum pads the most. They retain the deep electronic bass that the kids and I love, while my many marching band kids appreciate actually playing beats with drumsticks, rather than tapping their fingers on the smaller machine. My only criticism of the drum pads is they won't loop your beats. Once a beat is made, I like to let it roll while I navigate the kids back to the desks, where they sit and write lyrics. So thankfully, I also picked out the Loop Station.

Roland's Loops Station pedal board not only records and creates loops of sounds, duh (I always make the biggest deal after I ask a kid a question and instead of answering yes he says, 'duh' I hate that), it gives you amazing control of layer after infinite layer of loops. The new drum pads, the new keyboard, any instrument or sound can be recorded and turned into rhythmic loops. And so, "OK! Who can beatbox?!" I shouted today, camp counselor style.

I recorded one kid's vocal bass, another's spitty high-hat. "Now! Who can sing a bassline?!"

With this third layer added, the kids were wowed, smiling and bouncing to the beat. The forth kid added a "wooo-ooo-ooo-OOO!" keyboard noise. More and more of the kids offered up little mouth noises. We recorded a four girl chorus humming another complimentary melody. The churning rhythm built and built as we dragged the microphone around the room adding sound effects to the loop: rhythmic pencils tapping and desks dragging. One cute little girl threw a vocal sample on top, which I removed and inserted (aka DJ'd) to the beat. At this point the kids needed to be settled down. But by now they really had the rhythm, were really uninhibited, as long as they didn't explode with happiness, they were mine (for another fifteen minutes, at least).

And still we did not finish, "Who We Are."

Today I made a little girl with long braids cry. This is not the first time. When you (meaning 'me') are teaching yourself how to teach, you will inevitably make disciplinary mistakes that will haunt you, and make you cringe on demand for all eternity.

I believe I am good with the kids, but in a non-traditional way. I have maneuvered myself into a specific situation where I need not follow the 'don't befriend them! Ever!' rule. Part of the reason I don't want to teach all day every day, is that – I am told by my sister and every other real teacher – in order to maintain control, you have to act. In the case of my sister, who laughs more than anyone I know and who is basically a human Muppet, this means wiping the smile almost completely off her face. Though hard for me to believe, stern is my sister's classroom default setting, her rare laughter being her 3^rd-grader's smallest reward for doing exactly what she says at all times.

In theory though, The Program I work for is supposed to assign a real teacher to monitor every class I teach. Meaning, to me, that I can just be friends with them the way I want to be, the way I'm compelled to be, and if my goofiness allows room for their disrespect (which, it sometimes does) then some other adult gets to step in and act. In short, whereas my sister went through years and years of training to suppress her naturally awesome personality in front of her kids, I have spent my mere four years trying to figure out how to avoid that scenario, so that I'm allowed to be myself with them.

My eternal quest to be myself at all times will eventually ruin my life.

In the case of the girl I made cry, I was a bully. Or rather, a football coach – the bullying of coaches being one reason I initially chose to play guitar over sports. The girl did not do anything "bad." It started when the girl before her said, "No," after I'd called her up to the front of the class to make a beat on the drum machine (which I had wound in wires and tape to get working again; if anyone knows a good electronics person, I really need to get it fixed…).

"No?" I laughed at the girl. "It's fun! Why not?"

"I'm scared."

"That's ridiculous!" I scoffed. "You're not afraid of a little plastic toy. You play video games right? The drum machine is the same thing as a video game controller, except much easier."

"I'm scared."

"Oh god. OK. Go sit down." This is not my usual method. In my Music Writing class, fear can dismantle the whole thing. Though I know it can be scary to get up in front of everyone and sing or rap, in reality, nothing bad will happen. So, when I first lay out the class rules, right after, "Don't you dare make fun of anyone when they're trying, ever!" I also forbid them to get scared. Fear is banned. To enforce the rule, I often feign anger. "No. No way. Do it." Especially when the second girl volunteered, but then sat down and deflated before the blue machine: "I'm scared," peeped the lemming.

If one kid says they feel "itchy," don't let the other kids hear, or else a good number of them will undoubtedly also feel "itchy". So I told the girl, "No way. Do it."

Our whole huge semi-circle wall of kids hanging off my shoulders remained miraculously silent. So did the girl.

"C'mon. It's just a toy. Do it. You're not getting up until you do it." I started the metronone. All she needed to do was press the buttons; I'd set it that anything she played would be thrown into place, made into some kind of beat.

Click – Click – Click – Click – Click – Click – Click, went the empty beat of the metronome.

"Hey, c'mon, the next person has to go. Just hit the buttons! Do anything! Just don't waste our time here."

I am paraphrasing my bullying. I know that I also said a lot of things to her at first that made sense, things about not being scared, and about trying new things. I made her a little beat as example, then even gripped her two pointer fingers and tapped them on the desk to give her a feel for it. Still she refused.

I reminded her that she wasn't getting up until she pressed the buttons: "Press anything! You're not done until you fill two measures."

"You better do it girl!" shouted one of the two other teachers sitting at desks far in the back. "It's easy! Quit playin and do what the man says!"

The Man. Right.

I knew we were justified in our adult thinking – you can't let their superficial hang-ups keep them from trying new things, and you can't let them get away with not doing what you've told them to do -- but I did suddenly have doubts regarding the way our love was translating into this football coach motif. Then the little girl started crying. Then she finally pressed a bunch of buttons. Her beat resembled the sound of a 3^rd-grader falling down a short flight of stairs. The girl then ran away and squeezed into a corner, as her awkward first beat rolled.

It should also be noted that, not only do I carry this stuff around with me for hours and days after, I also make a point, after I've really screwed up, to apologize to whatever kid I've wronged, because I want to teach them that part of being older is being more cool -- cool meaning calm, and calm meaning humble. I want them to feel that humble is a good thing.

So this crying thing wasn't the everyday scenario. It's just that, teaching is like a video game, where you're going along happily, bravely, cocksuredly collecting your gold coins or whatever, your extra lives, your weapons for future battles, then inevitably, every once in a while, some demon pops out of some unexpected place and…

I don't even play video games. I've spent too much time with kids already.