For Denzel Who Did Graduate

For Denzel Who Did Graduate 

There is a choking hot panic

Rabbit speed

That floods me with shame and sorrow and the metal taste of failure 

Then anger 

Your face

People you may know

One mutual friend 

The teacher that could rise above

Who wrote for your clemency 

Who could get past 

The fuck yous

And the gun you held up as a kid 

To other kids

Around the corner 

From your corner. 

And to know that the last decade of hard love 

I've given to class 

After class

After class

After class

After class 

After class 

After class 

Wasn't enough for you or for me

To forgive you for the choices you made 

Had to make? 

And I resent the years of friendship and living and hollerin' and eating and softness that belong to you too. 

You're  doing instead 

With men

And metal toilets 

And nobody to hold your hand. 

And I resent all the slobbering machines that put you in their path,

Your bones ground to powder the moment your brown face was born Brookfield. 

I, in hope and shame, 

wonder if this is the door you'll open to prudence and measured steps - 

Needles of swimming doubt slosh

wondering if this is the acid building up in your cells, your thickened neck, your long eyelashes 

That will burn brighter and hotter. 

My tea is cold now. 

And my sight congeals with scalding tears 

And wonder about 

If learning to read would've changed a thing. 

To a new school year...

Litany for Teachers

Let us pray for courage and grace.

Principals, vice principals, school board members, superintendents, bureaucrats:

give them a shepherd's heart,

District Leaders:

fill them with your spirit.

Teachers in challenging schools:

perfect us in our calling.

Teachers who are ill:

heal us.

Teachers who are weak:

strengthen us.

Teachers who are poor:

relieve us.

Teachers who have lost our zeal:

renew us.

Teachers who are sad:

console us.

Teachers who are worried:

give us peace.

Teacher who are old:

sustain us.

Teachers who are alone:

accompany us.

Teachers in danger:

protect us.

Teachers who are leaders:

enlighten us.

Teacher who direct souls:

instruct us.

Teachers who have died:

bring them our gratitude.

For all teachers:

give us your wisdom and knowledge.

For all teachers:

give us your understanding and counsel.

For all teachers:

give us reverence for the privilege of our vocation.

For all teachers:

give us patience and love.

For all teachers:

give us obedience and kindness.

For all teachers:

give us a burning zeal for youth.

For all teachers:

give us virtues of faith, hope and love.

For all teachers:

give us an intense love for each child.

For all teachers:

give us loyalty to our principles.

For all teachers:

give us respect for life and human dignity.

For all teachers:

give us integrity and justice.

For all teachers:

give us humility and generosity.

For all teachers:

give us strength in our labors.

For all teachers:

give us peace in our sufferings.

For all teachers:

give us great love for humanity.

For all teachers:

give us great respect for all types of learners.

For all teachers:

let us be the match to light young minds.

For all teachers:

let us be the salt of the earth.

For all teachers:

let us practice sacrifice and self-denial.

For all teachers:

let us be healthy in body, mind and spirit.

For all teachers:

let us be people of prayer.

For all teachers:

may faith shine forth in us.

For all teachers:

may they be concerned for our global salvation.

For all teachers:

may they be faithful to our instructional vocation.

For all teachers:

may our hands bless and heal.

For all teachers:

may they burn with love.

For all teachers:

may all our steps be for justice.

For all teachers:

may the power of our ancestors fill us,

and give us gifts in abundance.

Let us pray.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions. 
James A. Baldwin 


...hence the challenge inherent in urban education. 

In Lak Ech

In Lak Ech
by Luis Valdez

Tú Eres mi otro yo
Si te hago daño a ti
Me hago daño a mí mismo
Si te amo y respeto
Me amo y respeto yo

You are my other me.
If I do harm to you,
I do harm to myself;
If I love and respect you,
I love and respect myself.

The Topography of Urban Education

I asked my seniors to post a life motto - something that spoke to them - for our wall of fame. (Let's be real - making it to senior year is the ill triumph for all of my students.)

He wrote: "Live life fast."

Later in the day my skinny shiny-eyed junior was irritated with me. I wouldn't let him leave the room and enter a questionable situation. He replied, "Why? I'm not gonna live to 18."


Period.

As in: 'fact'.


I'm back in public school. This is the topography of urban education, third worlds within.

Sophomoric humble pie anyone

Scene: Fluorescent-lit classroom – tables in the center of the room with distraught students scattered around. One sad plant on the windowsill. Incomplete homework littering the tables. Vivid thoughts of everything but English running through each child’s head.

Student 1: But why do we have to do points? It’s so stupid. Real life doesn’t have points – this
has nothing to do with real life.
Me (for the fifth time in two weeks): It’s how I do it. I use points. Daily. Ten of them. This is not a democracy, it is a
dictatorship.
Student 1: Oh, that’s fair. That’ll teach us to be independent.
Student 2: The other teachers don’t do that. You’re the only one. It’s so dumb.
Me: It’s not a discussion. It’s a system.
Student 1: No, I think we shouldn’t have points. It’s a pointless system.

Her wit was not lost on me. Touché. And: I hate you. No, not hate, but really really challenged to appreciate your insight now. Student 1 was together: a fluent reader, writing two years above grade level, a developed vocabulary and arsenal of literary criticism (as well as any variety of criticism). In executive function terms she had strong working memory, too-well honed response inhibition, the ability to sustain attention, meticulous organization, and alarming metacognitive strengths.

If only she was my TA.

Alas, she wasn’t. She was a tenth grade English student with strengths where nearly one hundred percent of her classmates had weaknesses. Our school is geared toward students with language-based learning disabilities and significant executive function weaknesses across many fields. She was enrolled due to severe anxiety. She struggled with emotional control, flexibility, and task initiation.

My areas of executive skill weakness are emotional control, flexibility, and task initiation. And yes, I did cut and paste those areas of weakness.

The student that challenged me most last year – not in skill development, or impulsive behavioral outbursts – but in that soul grating way that made me a little less happy to teach third period – was so similar to me. My TA at the time spoke about how our contempt was bred of familiarity. While contempt may be a strong word, we certainly did not jive. She saw my inflexibility as contextually inappropriate (which it was – I am a teacher – I am supposed to meet students where they’re at… and as a special ed teacher I should’ve risen to meet her needs as easily as I scale back to reach my struggling students). I saw her inflexibility as coddled teen angst.

I’m the first to admit: I have a bit of a messianic complex. I love swooping in and teaching unsuspecting fifteen year olds how to separate main ideas from details and then sequence the parts into an essay. I dig passing out a weekly homework schedule because I see its correlation to college syllabi. Most tasks required of me in my job play to my executive functioning skill strengths.

My students do not have that luxury. Students – despite working at a fairly ‘progressive’ school – are still required to be generalists and asked daily, hourly even, to live in realms of executive functioning weakness. Goal directed persistence was my strongest skill. I push students as though t hey were myself. Yet, as my confrontational tenth grade mini-me reminded me: goals are easy when they’re within your skill set. She challenged me and that was hard. That was uncomfortable. That was annoying.

For my students so much of what I ask of them must seem hard, uncomfortable, and annoying. I need to remember to greet those students that challenge me with gratitude… which is hard through gritted teeth. Sophomoric humble pie anyone?

Oakland... Brooklyn... Tomato...Tomato

Thoughts?

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/02/local/report-card-dubious-standards-for-charter-schools