The Personal-ness of Teaching

Something else your teacher education programs will never tell you is how personal your work can become. I've been doing a lot of thinking in the past two weeks about my purpose--in and outside the classroom. In my last post, I discussed my conscious decision to stay at my school despite all that went on last year, and while much of that decision had to do with my kids and my AP class, I think something greater than that is at work.

Our first quarter just ended, and on Monday all teachers had to report to school for a meeting with both our principals while the students had the day off. (My school has two principals--my principal from last year's pre-merger school and the principal who has directed my post-merger school for the past two years.) I thought this would be a time for us to strategize and collaborate, but instead our meeting served as a time and place for one of our principals to unload her frustration and disappointment. She's unhappy with the number of Fs the students have, and in her opinion, if we have so many Fs, the teachers did not teach. If these numbers do not change, we will find ourselves out of a job. I was fuming to put it mildly. How dare she threaten us with our jobs after all that happened last year? Each day we wonder about another layoff or another merger, and the person who is supposed to be one of our leaders is hanging our livelihood over our heads? After a tense minute of silence, she passed out a report to each teacher which detailed the number of students with each letter grade, then asked, "So no one has anything to say?!" I didn't take that as a rhetorical question, and muttered, "I'm keeping my mouth shut."

For a moment I wanted to cry. I thought we were all in this together. Apparently not. Then I looked at the report. There wasn't anything on there I didn't know. I look at my grade book each day. I know 60% of my students have Fs. My mind flashed to an interaction I had with a student about two weeks before. This student from one of my American Lit classes came to talk to me about something during lunch. I was sitting at my desk which is by my window where I have several pictures and my framed "Teacher of the Year" certificate. The student glanced at the certificate and asked, as if in disbelief, "Teacher of the year?" I nodded, and her face asked, 'How could you possibly deserve this award? You haven't taught us anything.' As I emerged from my reverie, our principal reiterated that if this many students are failing, she doesn't care what we were doing--we weren't teaching. Plain and simple. The tears pooled and were on the brink of running down my cheek. She and my student must be right.

My principal from last year arrived about ten minutes into this lecture, and I've never been so happy to see her in my life. While I've criticized her neutrality in the past, it's this very quality that deescalated the heat in our meeting. I don't know exactly what she said, but she was her usual diplomatic self and her words temporarily bandaged my open wounds. However, that didn't stop me from crying on the way home from work on Monday or making the rest of this week a wash. Tuesday I attempted to have a reflective conversation with the kids about quarter one, and while it worked in AP, it fell apart in my American Lit classes. I've often had these conversations with kids, so I know how to scaffold them--journal, then small group, then large group. It just didn't work. Thursday, most of my AP kids hadn't read, so I sat down at my desk and graded, not teaching at all. Over and over again I've asked myself out loud and in my mind--What am I doing? Hillary says I can't leave our school or her until she graduates, but honestly, What am I doing?

Oprah Winfrey, in her series Master Class, talks about authentic power. It's a power that comes from within--when one's personality serves one's soul--and because it comes from within, no external factor can shake it or tear it down. My power is all external, and I know that because I'm rendered powerless, particularly with my American Lit classes. They are, in many ways, my worst fear. They are failing and unresponsive and apathetic. They don't like me, and they don't like my class. While in one breath my AP students reinforce the idea of who I believe I am, my American Lit students shatter it. When I look at their vacant faces, I know I'm a bad teacher. This dynamic reminds me of my dysfunctional childhood because my mind always wavered between two messages--my own, which said I was a good person, or my stepfather's, who said I wasn't. Each day I tried to build myself up, but his towering voice and stature always won. But I'm not a scared eleven-year-old anymore. I can't change those kids, so I have to change myself; I'm just not sure how. Maybe that's why I'm still here--to stare down this shadow once and for all.