Pocket Lint

Pocket Lint: Children I've Left Behind

A First Year Teacher's Reflection

 

Today as I cleaned out my pants pockets, I excavated remnants of my day: A scrawled "Whitney to class 8:15 ," an overhead marker, and a note folded 8 times to "my man from ya girl."   As I chucked each item in the trash, moments and conversations from the day flashed through my mind.  The scraps and a pile of papers to grade are all I have left of a day full of writing passes, finding kids hiding down the hall, getting a tray for a kid who was too shy to get up, listening to Sarah's new poem, and reading chapter three of Watson's Go to Birmingham in my most exaggerated Southern Bell dialect four times.  Pocket lint was all I had left of the 85 relationships I tried to tend.   I sighed, threw my khakis in the hamper, and went downstairs to cook some boxed mac and cheese.

Pocket cleaning is my daily, five-second-long catharsis.  It's the ritual that symbolizes the greatest lesson I've learned this year: move on.  Learn from today, then let it go. Today is too much to process, and too much to explain to my roommates, and why bother processing anyway? Tomorrow is coming.  

Being a first year teacher means waking up at 6:30a.m. daily to face new failures.  There are 85 kids, one classroom, and one inexperienced me. Today Dave fell asleep – again.  Rodney got sent out for cussing and I forgot about him in the hall.  No one in second block remembered a thing from yesterday.  No one in forth block heard a thing I said today.  Failure.  So, I've learned to look for the less obvious successes.  I've learned to forgive myself, to try again.   As one veteran put it recently, teachers get through today because they are always thinking about what will be better tomorrow. 

            That was all getting to be okay with me: the not being perfect thing… until May rolled around.   That's when paper chains started appearing around school, counting days till the end of the year.  Then, one Saturday as I was drying my hair, I started sobbing.   No warning dribbles, just straight to the loud sniffs.  Since then, the crying has come more often—at more inappropriate times: while I was running on Blacks Road, when I had coffee with my sister, riding in the car, and lamentably last Thursday during fourth period.  I keep reading Dan Brown novels to avoid confronting my feelings, but I think I'm beginning to understand the source of the tears.   I have grown to love my 85 kids, and in 22 days they won't be mine anymore.  They are works in progress, and my job of molding them is not complete.

 Stella shows me her journal regularly, revealing page after page of a single sentence: "I miss my mom!" She needs a mama.   All I can give her is a pat on the back and a sharpened pencil.  One day Darius stayed after school and we had this great conversation about why he's depressed about life and how he worries about people going to Hell and how his mama calls him worthless.   Most days he just sleeps through class; lately he draws ninjas.  I supply his drawing paper.  He needs a best friend.   Sasha writes letters to her boyfriend and sneaks on the internet to find his address and parole number.  Leah's dad just died.   Asia comes to school with marks where her dad burned her with a spoon for having a boyfriend.  During moments of clarity, when I think beyond the four walls of my classroom, I realize reading novels and writing poems isn't the only thing going on with my kids, and in all the squalor that life brings them, at the end of the day, I'm just their English teacher.   After 4:30, they're on their own. 

            There have been these amazing moments, don't get me wrong.   My students have begun to believe they can write!  Some of them pick up books by choice.  Mark calls himself a poet.   Daniel comes by and sees me from his self-contained class and asks for Haiku to read.  Dave, the sleeper, let me hang up his picture and joined in our play.   Tracey doesn't have a bad attitude anymore; she writes all the time and she wants to go to the Governor's School.  Kyle has an attitude, but I know he knows I care because last week he defended me, telling Angel "Ain't nobody gone talk to my teacher that way."  

            I get how sacred these moments are.  I feel it.  But like all deeply satisfying connections, they leave me longing for more.  This year, I needed to adapt to be one of the teachers who makes it, who thrives, but not one of the teachers who stops caring, or who fits too snugly into the system.   I think of ways I can teach better next year. I will use more books on tape, more lessons on monsters and the supernatural.  But that's just curriculum.   How do I fill the holes my kids come to school with?   How do I deal with the fact that I can't fill all the holes?  I've realized that it's not just naïve first-year teachers who are pounded with failure each day.   It's all teachers, everyday. No one told me that. 

            I guess part of being a teacher is learning to deal with having way too many kids with way too many needs.   We dwell on the moments of breakthrough to avoid thinking about the days and nights of suffering of our kids.  We focus on the connection to block out the hours a day we spend disconnected: hushing students, making scary faces, grading papers, and making seating charts.   We focus on what happens in our class because what can we do about what goes on outside?

            So we don't talk too much about outside the classroom, or at least not about what we could do about it.   We build a wall dichotomizing school and home, teacher and child.  With one me and 85 kids, what else am I to do.   But maybe if we talked about it, teacher retention wouldn't look so grim. Maybe we could find some solutions. 

This year I've learned to move on: to clean out my pockets, to not think too hard about today, but instead about tomorrow.   That's how I've survived, and how I sleep at night. That's how I stop crying. 

But, as I look ahead to another year of pockets stuffed with bathroom passes and love notes that represent another set of kids, I wonder how far idealism about tomorrow can take me.   I wonder how long I can function in a system that claims to leave no child behind, is leaving so many.  I feel like I'm throwing my kids out like pocket lint.    I wonder if maybe there is something more we can do.

The Big Green

I gathered the girl's soccer team in my classroom today to watch The Big Green, a cheesy early 90's film about a rag-tag soccer team who prevail in the end. Before hand, I asked the girls to think about the kind of team we wanted to be. "We'll have our ups and downs," I said. "We saw how easy it is to get upset and angry at one another yesterday."

"I have something to say," Kel interrupted. "I just want to say I'm sorry for how I acted yesterday."
"Me too. I want to apologize," someone else chimed in.

Success! If my soccer team were a Disney Movie, we would be on our way to beating our rivals and receiving free uniforms in the mail. In real life, we will probably lose the rest of our games. I don't care. The girls are growing as people, if not as soccer players. And that matters.

Am I growing in the same way? Do I care who I am, or just about results? My job is to be a teacher, and the outcome is more important than that of a soccer match. Kid's lives are at stake. When do I motivate? When do I punish? When do I reteach, and when do I ramp up the rigor? Does being a great teacher mean having great test scores? Does being a great teacher make you successful in a school?  How do I measure my success. In real life, does doing the right thing necessarily correspond with winning?

Selling Out and Settling In: ideals undone by flying crayons

My main goal upon graduating from college and becoming a teacher was to remain true to my ideals. I would keep wearing my pig tails. I would not sell out. I would not conform.

That brings me to the story of the crayons:
For the first two years of my teaching, I avoided all activities involving crayons because I dreaded the inevitable moment when a majenta or burnt orange would wiz across the room at an innocent student's head. I would swear off crayons once again. My students are 12 years old. Of course they know better. What was going on?
       
My third year teaching, I tried an experiment. I made a crayon class rule.A crayon proclamation: "Please don't tear up or throw the crayons. It is scary to have a crayon thrown at your head, and it is disruptive. Use them to write with, and when you are finished with them, put them back in the box." I say that every time we use crayons.

It seems crazy, but, no one throws crayons in my class anymore. Problem solved.
       
Recently, a writer from my home town featured my class in a story in his new book Want to Make Me a Sandwich. Quist narrates his visit to read his story to my class. I was thrilled to be in a book (the first time I've been a character) but I was at first a little disappointed in my description. I was a fuddy duddy. In the story, I give looks to children when their questions get to personal. I have eyes that hush comments when hands aren't raised.  I'm not at all the carefree, cool, cutting-edge teacher I fancied myself. Not the Alfie Kohn constructivist I vowed to be in college. "I'm not cool?," I reflected.
         
I'm not cool. I have a rule about crayons. I'm pretty sure that means I have both conformed and sold out.I even have a what to do with your pencil shavings rule. A how to knock on the door if you come in late because I have locked you out rule. A nod your head at the teacher and look at her so she thinks you are listening and likes you rule.

Additionally, the number of days I wear pig tails is on the decline and along with, it seems, my convictions. I am conforming and forcing my students to conform.What happened to the class I dreamed of where we all sit where we please, probably on top of desks and discuss literature, create memoir, learn for the sake of learning? I remember my gag reflex each time a veteran teacher offered to loan me a copy of Harry Wong's The First Days of School . They explained how it changed their lives. To me, the book was everything that school shouldn't be. It was a step by step guide of what to say. It was old-school.

I was totally wrong. Harry Wong is on to something.  The chaos of my first year teaching was proof enough. I didn't want to compromise my values. Learning should be about inquiry. Teaching should be individualized. Classrooms should be about relationship. You can find books to back up all of those theories (because they are right) but what you don't find is someone to tell you when to sell out. Millions of teachers have to learn that on their own, and the lucky ones get the hang of it before they burn out. The most idealistic among us, I think, are the most at risk of being heartfelt, do-gooder, crappy teachers.
       
It is in this little bit of selling out that I have been able to settle in as a teacher and remain true to my mission: teaching. Structure allows kids to enjoy learning.  Now, kids read novels and news rather than throw crayons. Kid's learn to be successful in school: an environment often very different from their home life. I tell the kids upfront that some  rules are stupid, but we have to learn to adapt because that is life. There are too many of us in the classroom to run around or shout out. We all get to feel safe and comfy because of rules. That is teaching democracy. Those rules allow me to teach with inquiry, for my class to discuss, to write memoir. They allow me the time to individualize instruction.

I guess I've grown to be proud of adding a little fuddy-duddy to my teaching style. I guess I hope I continue to sell out, or as I see it now, remain willing to adapt, learn and grow.

The P word

          I think about my students and how to better teach them while I jog, eat dinner, dream, and floss my teeth.  Funny, then, how I find myself actively avoiding conversations about my classroom and my life as a teacher. I, on occasion, tell a silly classroom story. I confide my worries to those close. But, to describe my classroom to others, even other educators, always leaves me feeling dissatisfied and uneasy.
             To talk about my classroom is to take on a dialogue about poverty. 98% of the children I teach live with incomes below the poverty line. This statistic is a start in understanding where I teach, but is insufficient. The "Title I" descriptor of my school often elicits pity, judgment, or scenes from Mr. Holland's Opus. None are accurate.  The students I teach are at-risk, but they are more than that.
           To talk about "at-risk" students seems a betrayal. I never address my class with 'Good morning "at-risk" students. I address my students as kids with serious smarts, potential, and purpose. As people who deserve the best and can achieve greatness. As people who can change the world.
             However, I also talk to my students about the many challenges the world will throw at them. I teach resilience and efficacy. It is no secret to my students, many of whom often can't scrounge up the money for lunch much less a field trip, that they are at-risk of many hardships. The label "at-risk" defines students  by  deficits and ignores strengths. The label is how the world sees my students, how the education system views my students: as statistics.
             How then, do we, as  teachers of students who are "at-risk," have meaningful, frank discussions about poverty, acknowledging the issues our students face? It is crucial that we as educators answer this question. We hear much about charter schools, teacher quality, and engaged learning, but very little about what best practices look like for students "at-risk".  The voices lacking in the debate on education reform are those of teachers working to close the gap, and the voices of our students. Conversations about what works for struggling students are crucial. Discussing what needs our students have, and how to meet these needs is a necessary first step to closing the achievement gap. 
           Discussing poverty is uncomfortable. An honest discussion requires talking about our failure as educators; the discussion of what doesn't work. In a climate of stressful accountability and fear mongering, admitting struggles is far from the norm. Additionally, talking about poverty elicits guilt. I have to confront the irony that I decry poverty while sipping $6 a bag hazelnut coffee.I do not know what it means to be poor. I advocate for marginalized students whom I will always be somewhat irrelevant to because I am white, grew up in a two-story house, money for college, and a stay at home mom. Speaking of poverty is sad. What if the issues my student's face are too daunting to tackle? What if no matter what I do, they won't make it to college?
         I am afraid that my conversation will be trite, elitist, and hypocritical.All are likely. But silence is inexcusable.   



              
            

2 miles down...

Today was officially my first day of summer. I drove home from school with the same thoughts I have every year when 7th grade ends, and I'm faced with a long summer of self reflection:  anxious, self-deprecating swirling thoughts: Was I too mean? Too nice? Will the kids graduate from High school? Will they be happy? The faces of my 7th graders flash in my mind. With each face comes new worry.

I needed to let go, to reset my brain. I needed to run, and to do that I needed new shoes. I drove to my favorite running store and handed the first salesman I saw my  old Nike's. The shoes immediately  reveal that I pronate, that I'm not a "real runner" and that I stepped in an uncanny amount of gum over the past two years.

The salesman pounced on my obvious desperation. He brought out the "new model," a shoe so perfect, so obviously anti-pronation, so neon-yellow that I knew I could run forever. This shoe would wipe away my self-doubt along with any traces of ab-fat. "You should get two pairs," he nudged. We'll set you up for the whole year." I didn't even walk around in the shoe. Didn't even feel the toes. I just nodded and handed him my credit card. I payed more than I would for a months worth of cable. I needed those shoes.

I came home, got dressed, and ran for what seemed like forever, but what was actually only two miles. I was sweaty, tired and satisfied. Thank you new shoes for your anti-shock absorption, the motivation to run the first few miles of my summer vacation, and to remind me of  a lesson I can't seem to grasp: take one mile, one year, one student, one day at a time. Progress is slow, and new starts are necessary. What's important is that I keep on running.