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.

Stars, Schmars

Since I last posted, a lot has happened. (I feel like a lot of my posts have begun this way, so I apologize for any redundancy.) A few days after my last post, I decided to talk to my principal and assistant principal about teaching AP Lit next year. Two or three days later, the current AP teacher resigned to become principal of another school. I felt like finally the stars were aligning, and I didn't know what to do with that feeling.

Then, about a week later, our CEO was ousted by the board. I made some flippant remarks on here several months ago regarding an email she sent shortly after taking control of our charter in the fall, and now I regret that because it was directed at the situation and not at her. In the same way President Obama inherited a failing economy, our charter's CEO inherited all our bad debt. She had to make harsh and unpopular decisions, such as the 25% slash in all our school's budgets. While that resulted in our layoffs back in October, I realize she had to hurt the few to save the whole. She was open and honest about our financial status and her plan to make it right, and for that reason, she gained the respect and confidence of the staff, parents, and students. For the sake of anonymity, I don't want to elaborate on why she was asked to leave, but I will say her forced resignation left a lot of people unhappy.

The new CEO starts in the summer, and that feeling of uncertainty is returning. At least before I felt like I had some confidence we were going to be financially stable for next school year. Now I don't know. I don't know what this guy's plan will be--merger, closures, layoffs, or something else.

Three CEOs, 40% teacher layoffs, 25% budget cuts, and one large cloud of uncertainty all in one academic year does not bode well for morale or confidence. So much for stars aligning.

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.

47%

That is the percentage of students who failed my class--9th and 11th combined.  That number is utterly confounding and depressing, and I don't know what to say. Part of me wants to blame the kids for not doing their job, part of me wants to blame our charter organization for the mid-year schedule change or lack of resources, and part of me wants to blame myself for not doing enough. But at the end of the day, that number remains like a flag hanging outside a burning building. Now it's up to the rescuers to decide if they see that flag or not. Interpret that flag how you will--47%, overall lack of resources, low morale--it's all a symptom of the larger problem. The question now is how much longer can we scream for help before the fire consumes?

Things Your Education Program Will Never Tell You

1) You must have a bladder made of steal. You will drink copious amounts of coffee to keep the momentum throughout the day, but you will never be allowed to pee.

2) Get a second job. Schools these days will give you the bare minimum, like a pen and a pencil, and if you're lucky, a dry erase marker. If you want anything else, it's coming out of your paycheck.

3) Wear a bullet-proof vest (I'm speaking metaphorically here). Kids will hurl some nasty insults. Some I've heard as of late: "You're a hypocrite!" "I'm not choosing between your class and my future!" "I wish you would have been fired and not Mr. So And So." Ouch. It hurts, and there are days I just want to cry.

4) Long gone are the schools on TV that have gleaming hardwood floors and a plant in the window and the secretary who has been there for 20 years and knows everyone. If those places exist, I've not found them. Welcome to the understaffed urban school where pigeons live in the ceiling, termites are in the walls, and the roof leaks. Oh, and the cleaning crew is you!

5) Be prepared to form attachments, and don't buy into that "Never touch a student." Looking at the list so far, why would anyone endure this? The kids. I've loved them, and I love them still. Earlier this week, one of my kids said, "You look like you need a hug." I did, and that hug allowed me to make it through the rest of the day.

6) You need to be able to eat in 15 minutes. You know how corporate America gets "hour lunches?" Yeah, not in the world of education. If you don't inhale your food as a teacher, you just won't eat.

7) Say farewell to lazy weekends. Most teachers I know, myself included, work a 60-80 hour workweek.

8) You have to have a no-nonsense attitude, especially when teaching in an urban environment. Kids will come up with a million and one reasons why they can't or won't, and they will challenge your authority. You have to stand firm in your expectations and your positions. My new favorite comeback: "Your 14-year-old-self doesn't get to tell me what and how. Until the day comes when you've attended college for eight years and you've been in the classroom for seven years, you don't utter a peep about how and why I do things. You read me?"

9) Every teacher drinks. It's just a no-brainer.

10) Personal space? They want to know everything about you. Be prepared to know where the line is, then draw it with a really, really thick marker.    

11) The lightbulb moments are amazing. When a kid get it--or even better--when a kid teaches you something, it's the best high. It's like climbing a mountain then reaching the summit. It's simply breathtaking.

12) It's better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. My master teacher taught me this. If you ask for permission, then all these other people get involved and it takes a month for an answer. Do it anyway, then in the meantime, practice the "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize I needed to consult you about this matter."

13) You're not a real teacher until you think you're the worst teacher ever, and you're screwing up the lives of your kids.

14) You will quit your job in your mind (and maybe even for real) more times than you'd ever want to publically admit.

15) Everyone has an opinion on how to fix education, but the teachers' voices are the ones that need to be the loudest. Outside of parenting, this is the hardest job and the most important job there is. The education of the next generation rests upon our shoulders. Every doctor, politician, actor, police officer, lawyer, teacher, CEO, etc., was once a student and had a teacher. Without us, none of those jobs would be possible. Yet at the same time, teachers have very little input on the decisions that directly impact their jobs. That's why we can't do this alone, and that's why teachers need to educate their community about what is really going on in their classrooms so we can fix this.