The Ups and Downs of Teaching Part II

The events of the prior week weighed heavily on me, so I started this week in a weird, for lack of a better term, place.

Monday morning, the chair of all the ELA (English Language Arts) teachers for our charter organization delivered copies of The Bluest Eye. Not the actual books, but copies she made for me, so that put me at ease. One more thing I can cross off my worry list is always a plus. As she was leaving, she said she wanted to meet with me later in the week. We set up a date which I promptly forgot, because when I saw her in my room during my planning period the other day, I said, "Hey, that's right, we're meeting!"

We sat down and discussed the midterms the kids are taking on Friday. When I showed her the midterms I stayed up until 12:30 am writing the night before, I felt like I was standing naked before her. Perhaps that sounds like an odd comparison, but teaching is a profession where emotions and lives are on the line, and all of us, each and everyday, are vulnerable at a certain point. As she read though my questions, I heard, "These are too hard; you're asking questions you can answer, not them; this doesn't make sense; the wording is off; there are too many recall questions." I felt like maybe I don't know what I'm doing, and while I needed to hear this, I still wanted to flee the scene and hide.

"It's garbage, huh?" Self-deprecation is my coping mechanism when that nakedness, that vulnerability become too much.

"No," she responded, "it's not garbage, and I didn't drive across town to tell you that. We're going to work on this together and fix it. Writing exams is really hard and it takes practice." Suddenly she was the teacher and I the student, and I felt for my kids who were turning in essays this week and probably thinking the same thing.

By the time my ELA chair left, I had a better handle on writing exams, but my lesson plan was literally a wash. The review PowerPoint I made was no longer relevant, and my 9th graders were walking in the room. In a matter of five minutes, I created a lesson in my head--the kids would work in groups to write questions they think I should ask on the exam, and if their question gets picked, they get extra credit. As the kids worked together--and worked together well--I surprised myself. How did I do that? How did I think that up in just a few minutes? I talked to the groups about how test questions work. I told them the same thing my ELA chair told me--it's hard, but doing this will help you get better at tests.

Later that day, I found myself echoing the same message, except this time about writing. I had five kids that evening stay after to work on their essays--one until 5:45pm. For those of you who are not teachers, that's a rare thing when kids choose you over their personal time, and particularly when I've had the 9th graders for only 3 1/2 weeks. That moment took me aback, because I feel like I spend so much time yelling and talking at kids that I rarely get to connect to them and talk to them. And in that moment, there was connection and learning and intrinsic motivation and personal pride, and it was a feeling I've not felt with a group of students in a really, really long time.

And my 11th graders? Well, there's been a shift since my one student shared her history of sexual abuse. We're a tighter group--almost family-like. That feeling is also something I've not felt with students in a really, really long time. In teacher lingo, you have students or you have kids. And their yours or not. When a teacher refers to their students as "the students," that indicates distance, but when a teacher refers to them as "my kids," that indicates a personal investment--their yours. My 11th graders are my kids. And the crazy thing is that what has allowed me to let my guard down and be vulnerable and have kids and not students is a student. When my student put herself out there like that, I realized I had to be the adult and do the same thing. I have to let go of all of my fears about losing my job again, I have to stop being angry about the schedule change and the toner, and I have to remember that I do know what I'm doing and I am a teacher. Something I did allowed her to be vulnerable, something I did encouraged five kids to stay after school, something I did gave way to kids writing exam questions.

I could go make coffee again and not take work home and not be ultra stressed, or I could stay in education and make a difference in the lives of young people. Next week I may have a different answer, but this week I am a teacher.

The Ups and Downs of Teaching Part I

It's been way too long since I last posted, but here I am finally. I want to talk about the last week and a half, because it's a roller coaster I am still trying to comprehend.

Last week ended with me being just about ready to throw in the towel. My juniors are reading The Bluest Eye, and they are in love with it. The books have not arrived yet, so that means I have to copy pages from my own book. However, when the toner ran out on Monday the 1st and was not replaced until this past Monday the 8th, I felt totally paralyzed. They wanted to read and move on, but I couldn't get the copies. (I thought about going to Kinkos, but the last time I did that, I forked over $65 with the teacher discount.) So I improvised--stretching it out as much as I could.

In the meantime, we had some amazing discussions. This novel has struck a nerve with my mostly African-American students. So I played on what they know, and even shared a New York Times editorial about the film, Precious. As we began to compare the film and Morrison's book, one of my students shared that she had been sexually abused. The room was so silent, and I tried to conceal my utter shock. The student shared her abuse happened in the past, and she had never told anyone aside from her family. She went on to say films like Precious or books like Morrison's are what give people the strength to share dark moments like hers. It was one of those rare moments when emotional and intellectual merge, and even after years of experience in the classroom, I wonder if I did that moment justice. The personal me wanted to have a one-on-one conversation with my student, then hug her and cry for her. The teacher me wanted to say to the class, "If any of you breathe a word of this outside these walls, so help me God!" Then the teacher me wanted to tie my student's personal history into what we were reading. What wound up really happening was a little bit of all of the above, and I just hope I did it justice.

Over the weekend, I thought a lot about that student, and I thought a lot about the current state of my job. I love teaching. I really do. And I love helping young people like that student, but there are days, and there are weeks, where I feel like the classroom is an adventure enough. I don't want to know what it's like to not have books or a copier and have to think on the fly. These were the very thoughts I was sorting through at the grocery store when I pulled the shopping cart up to my car and saw a flier and a business card on my windshield. I was the only car on the lot with the flier and card, so I was a little thrown until I read both. A friend of mine is opening his own Starbucks. We worked together at Starbucks years ago when I was in-between teaching jobs, and now he is a manager of a new store. I have to say this gave me pause. I recalled what it's like to not bring work home, and I remembered a work environment where the biggest stress was getting hot lattes out to the morning rush. Was this more significant than just a friend letting me know about his new promotion?