Passing the Baton

Hard to believe an entire month went by without a post. January was a whirlwind that I can barely recall. After coming back from winter break, I had just two and a half weeks to prepare the kids for finals. After exams, the new term began the following week. Luckily for me the preparation was minimal since I was teaching the same courses. AP continues on and American Literature starts over. However, that means I get all the kids who failed my course, which is a lot. 58% to be exact. That number is according to one of my principals, but I think it may be higher. I'm not thrilled about getting all the kids who just failed my class, but I do feel like this could be a sort of second chance. I've blogged multiple times about how this class was like this wall--no way through to them no matter what I did. Well, at least that's how I perceived them, but try telling that to my principal.

In fact, I had a meeting with her about a week ago regarding that exact topic. It was sort of like a more mellow version of the meeting from hell. She asked me if I was aware of my fail rate and if it alarmed me and if I have a plan for fixing it. I was on the defense, and in truth I had every right to be. Part of me feels as if my job is on the line because of the number of students who have failed my class. She says many parents have called complaining about their child's grade and she has encouraged them to come in and speak to me. I tried to maintain my composure, because inside I was thinking, "And what in the hell am I supposed to do? The term ended two weeks ago. This is so after the fact! Where was the concern a month ago?" Don't get me wrong. A parent is a teacher's--and a child's--best ally, but really, how are you going to occupy my time before and after school with all these meetings about something that is done and over with? Anyway, it was a more mellow meeting because there was no yelling and because it was 7:30 in the morning, but inside I was steaming. I have now told her twice what I see as the reason the kids aren't passing, and that I don't know how to fix it so I need support from her, and both times I've walked away with a list of things to do. Support comes in the form of meetings where I'm given more work. I will say, though, that I had two parent meetings with one of my principals present in each meeting. In the one meeting my principal from last year attended, she told the student and his parents that he needs to step up his game and that as a junior who is lacking many of the basics, he needs to be in tutoring if he expects to pass. That is essentially what I told my other principal, who in her meeting conveyed that instead I need to step up my game. At least I have one administrator on my side.

Moments like these make me question, am I crazy? Are my expectations really that high? Who is right--me or them? Hillary, who is now my TA one period a day, reaffirms that I am not crazy. She recently released some pent up frustration over grading some timed writings from my American Lit classes, and as I listened to her, I almost thought I was listening to a recording of myself: "These kids can't write! How have they been passed on to 11th grade? This is like middle school writing! Where are the parents?" In fact, she is sometimes harsher than I. What I love about her honesty is that she can walk up to the kids and say things I cannot. After grading some homework, she called a student over and asked him why his homework looked the way it did: "Did you do this like five minutes before class started? What's wrong with you that you can't spend thirty minutes at home doing this the right way? What grade are you in? Do you want to graduate on time? What are you so busy doing that you can't pass this class?"

In her most recent tirade of honesty, she and another AP student of mine--Tamara--decided they wanted to talk to one of my classes about their writing. After a round of grading timed writings, Hillary shared with Tamara the extent of the students' poor writing skills. They came up with a plan: type up some essays so the entire class can see the poor grammar and mechanics, read them aloud so the students can hear the poor grammar and mechanics, show exemplar essays they (Hillary and Tamara) have written so the students can see and hear what their writing should look like, and finally, implore the kids to take ownership over their own learning and writing. Hillary and Tamara did this all of their own accord, and while part of me was just so amazed by their initiative and concern, another part of me wanted to break down and cry. Really?! I get more support from my 11th grade AP students than I do from one of my principals?!

The following day, I felt like a proud parent watching the two of them talk to my American Lit kids. Did they totally get through to them? No, but they said some things that needed to be said. Some of the kids giggled about the mistakes in the grammar and mechanics, and Tamara and Hillary shut them down immediately. They told them it's not funny--that they will be judged by their ability to communicate, and right now in their essays, they all look and sound dumb. They need to get their shit together or they won't graduate. Their apathy is bringing down the junior class, and they (Hillary and Tamara) work so hard and don't appreciate their dead weight. While some educators may chide me for letting Tamara and Hillary speak so freely, I know I made the right decision. Someone had to put it out there and call it by its name. We educators tip-toe around the issues, afraid of hurting a child's concept of self. We would rather our kids feel good, move on to the next grade, even graduate, than read or write. At the end of the day, it's true, and it took two 17 year-olds to really get me to see that's what's going on. While I think it's sad that they felt they had to give this speech since they knew no one else would, I'm so incredibly proud of them. It takes a lot of guts to get in front of one's peers and say this is not good enough . . . and I guess I have to take their example and do the same.

A Year in Review

I'm officially on winter break, and I'm oh-so relieved! The weeks leading up to this break often seem the longest, and I could equate the feeling with walking through Jell-O after several alcoholic beverages.

Sunday morning I flew to my hometown in the Midwest, and my mind is all over the place. The time difference and the jet lag are perhaps to blame, but more than that I'm reflecting on this year--what it was and what it wasn't.

This past year was about surviving. Let me rephrase: All of last school year was about surviving. I dodged two rounds of layoffs.

This past year was about fighting back. A year and three days ago, my car was damaged by an angry student. That was the last straw for me, and the moment I became my own advocate. In a way, this is an illustration of skewed values. I will allow my soul to be damaged, but not my car, yet this fight to repair my car allowed me to reclaim some of myself. It took hundreds of emails and nine months, but this is a victory--maybe the only victory--I won.   

This past year was about moments of thriving. Becoming an AP teacher allowed me to feel glimmers of my true teacher self--glimmers of meaningful, profound interactions. I've watched a small group of students push themselves and emerge as true intellectuals.

This year--or at least the last half of this year--was not about community. After my pre-merger school disbanded, the community I had with my fellow teachers dissolved with my former school. I've felt isolated this year, even in my own classroom.

This year was not about teaching. So much of my time is spent disciplining and redirecting, that the amount I really spend teaching is at such a minimal. This is true even in my AP class. I hate this feeling because it renders me purposeless. If I'm not teaching, why am I there?  

This year was not about excelling. Between the discipline issues and the general insanity of our school (no internet for three weeks, no paper, no books, etc.), an okay, mundane, status quo day is good enough. While complacency will save me mental and emotional energy, this is not enough.


Yesterday I went to the grocery store to get a few items, and I was thrown by what I saw. A man came through the aisle I was in with a broom and dust pan. As he walked past me, he spotted one coffee bean. One. Rather than leave it, he swept it up. That's pride. That's respect. For him and for his job. I want to feel that, and I want the kids to feel that. But how? 

How Can We Sleep?

I made an allusion this past school year to being trapped in a burning building. Ironically, or maybe not, I was in the car the other day when I heard one of my favorite songs from the 80s by Midnight Oil--"Beds Are Burning." I turned it up, because for me, the louder the better. As I listened to the lyrics, I thought about our situation, and the words resonated on so many levels. I became angrier an angrier as I listened, and so many questions crossed my mind: How can they sleep at night knowing what they've done? How are we supposed to move on as if nothing has happened? Why are they discarding or displacing us rather than begging us to stay? Why are they pigeonholing the students and teachers rather than empowering them? 

I could almost see it in my mind--teachers and students taking over the central office and shouting one verse, and the powers that be coming to their senses and begging forgiveness in another verse.

The Teachers, The Students:

How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning

The Powers That Be:

The time has come
To say fair's fair
To pay the rent, now
To pay our share
The time has come
A fact's a fact
It belongs to them
We're gonna give it back

I met a young woman just a few days ago who has been laid off three times in her five years of teaching. When she is rehired, she's at a new school teaching a different grade level. That doesn't scare her. What does scare her is being #414 on the list to get rehired at her district. Meanwhile, the students she was supposed to teach get a long-term sub rather than her, #414. It's outrageous, yet her situation, my situation are acceptable in this country.

Pubic education in the United States has lost all morality. It's in a burning bed, and the government wants to impose laws that dictate how to put out the fire; the public wants to pinpoint blame on who set the fire; districts lay off half the teachers and hand the remaining ones a garden hose to fight the fire; and meanwhile, the media asks, "Why aren't the students leaning?"

It's time to wake up, America, and demand better for your children, the next generation of leaders. Unless you do, the powers that be will never chant that verse and the children's future will be consumed.

I Made It!

Last Friday was the last day of school! Can you believe it? I can't. When I think about everything I've survived this year, it astounds me. You know the saying there are no atheists in a foxhole? I guess there aren't any in an urban high school. Some greater force must have been at play, because it couldn't have been all me.

I survived the layoffs, the students (most days), the three grade levels, the 4X4 schedule, and the general chaos of the school year. My car didn't totally survive--I'm still fighting that one. Go figure. Some days I did not survive the lack of toilet paper, but thankfully those days my neighbor was willing to "spare a square."

You know how sometimes out of the rubble something greater is built? That's kind of how I feel, oddly enough. At the beginning of all of this, I felt like surely I would succumb to all of the external pressure, because my internal framework--my own image of myself as a teacher--was shattered. Somehow, making my way through all this muck helped me emerge and reclaim my teacher self. I don't know how or why, because there were so many days when I just wanted to walk away--even run away. But I didn't. I stayed. I fought. And I won.

Vindication

While I've been a slacker in terms of posting over the last two weeks, what you are looking at above is one of the reasons I've been missing in action. My 9th graders have been the victim of a persuasive unit geared towards the oh-so-relevant topic of cuts in our state's education budget. I tortured them with articles from newspapers, and I even forced them to learn about their state senator. Then I had the gall to assign them one final writing assignment: writing their state senator, persuading him not to cut our education budget. Oh, did I mention they actually had to bring in a business-sized envelope and a stamp? 


Okay, not all of my 9th graders felt hostage to this situation. Some of them actually found this empowering, or, at the very least, somewhat interesting, but a handful literally became hostile at the mention of bringing a stamp. Yes, a stamp. Writing the letter didn't set them off, nor the business-sized envelope, but the stamp did. When I turned the outrage back on them, and asked them how would these letters get mailed without a stamp, they proposed I get the stamps. Me?! I literally screamed back, "I'm not your mother! Get it yourself! You will be paying bills in four years, and you will need a stamp. Figure it out yourself!"

I don't know if it's because next week is the end of the term and they are just as spent as I am, and just as done with me as I am with them, but there were some pretty heated moments in the past two weeks. Moments where I stopped teaching and sat at my desk to sip coffee and grade papers, moments where I ran out of referral slips because I sent enough students to the office, and moments where I lost my cool and screamed, "If you don't give a shit about this, than neither do I!" During these moments, I don't recognize myself as a teacher, and I feel like some alien has invaded my body. I feel like someone else is running the show, not me--the real me.

But, when the kids turned in their letters, they had their stamps and envelopes. I had a few students read their letters out loud, and I was moved in a way that I've not felt in the classroom in quite awhile. I'd met with all of them while they worked on their letters, and I knew what they were writing about, but to hear their own voices behind their profound words was poignant. In that moment, I knew that I, or this assignment, had broken through to several of them, and even if it didn't, they at least had a letter, an envelope, and a stamp. Driving home last night, I was exhausted, yet there's this other feeling peering beyond. Something like vindication.

I teach in an environment where I feel crazy all day until I talk to someone--a colleague or a loved one--and know that I'm not. The thinking (of some of the kids and some of the people running the place) is so contrary to what I know and believe. I'm unable to articulate it yet, but those letters, those stamps and those envelopes were like a winning point. Finally, a winning point.

An Email to My Principal

After my last post, I think it goes without saying that during my break, I had to get away from all things school-related. It was an amazing two weeks off, and for the first time in a long time, I felt happy and relaxed.

Unfortunately, my New Year's resolution of "attitude of gratitude" went out the window this morning. Over break, my principal did relay to me that she filed a claim for my car, and that after break, we would question and punish the student I identified as the person who keyed my car. Today I learned that my school is fighting paying for the damages as I cannot "prove" the damage occurred on school property. Furthermore, the student I identified (with whom I've had multiple run-ins, including that Friday) remains unpunished. I have copied below parts of the email I sent my principal this evening, and I think it says everything I have to say about this issue . . . for now.   

"I have to say that I'm surprised, and frankly, disappointed in how the meeting with *Danny ended after I left . . . The fact that he is ordered to do community service with me, the victim in this scenario, is truthfully offensive. Community service as you described in the hallway (cleaning tables, white board, etc.) is a form of detention I have mandated in the past to students who have eaten in my classroom, so this punishment seems very light in terms of Danny's offenses (disrespecting me, confronting me, harassing me, walking out of my class, cursing at me, mishandling my personal property, and vandalizing my car). Furthermore, as I am the victim, I do not see why I am being held responsible for handling his punishment, especially considering I made it clear that I do not wish to have further contact with Danny. To be very honest, this punishment does not only fail to hold him responsible for his actions--it's an open invitation to disrespect teachers and vandalize their property without consequences. I think this decision is setting a dangerous precedent, and I hope you will reconsider a more stern punishment.

Regardless, I want to reiterate that do not feel safe interacting with Danny in any capacity and that I will not be responsible for overseeing his community service. That is a decision that was made when I was not in the room.  I did not agree to this, and I will not be a part of it.  

I trusted this matter would have been handled appropriately, but I do not feel that is the case. I don't think you understand how violated I feel. This experience has marred an already difficult school year. I'm already reminded of it each time I get into my car, and now I'll feel the same way each time I walk into school. I hope you will reconsider your decision after reading this email and discussing this further with me tomorrow." 

*The student's name has been changed.