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.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
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.
Friday, September 21, 2012
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.)
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.
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.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
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?
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?
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Oakland... Brooklyn... Tomato...Tomato
Thoughts?
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/02/local/report-card-dubious-standards-for-charter-schools
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/02/local/report-card-dubious-standards-for-charter-schools
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Ambivalent Teacher for Hire
You can't be caring and competent and teach poor kids.
And to be clear: I say "can't" in the sense of, there is not a school I've seen or heard of that is set up to serve students properly.
There are many teachers who are caring. I am trying to withhold all my elitist lip curling disgust at teachers who want to save the children. They are being kind. But you can't teach someone if you believe you possess the power to save them.
You can be a competent teacher. However you will be an island. An isolated island of awesome teacher/classroomness. In a sea of medium/criminal.
You can even be a caring and competent teacher, but either you won't do it for long, or you will spiritually and physically burn yourself out if you are teaching poor children. Teaching in a context of poverty is less of a problem because of the material constraints. It is a problem that children are hungry. It is a problem that children do not have stable housing. But excellent teaching of poor and oppressed people happens all around the world.
I find being a teacher with high internal standards of professionalism and being emotionally invested in my relationships to students exhausting because of the psychological context my work has occurred in. To have a vision of what school could be, to have a vision of how students should be treated, and then to consistently seek to do your best work in circumstances so dismal they should be considered educational malpractice is to put oneself under a millstone.
As my respite from teaching comes to a close I am undeclared. I can compromise and teach the students I feel called to work with. I can compromise and teach in a context I see as closer to what every child deserves.
Or, I can not teach.
I'll ammend: You can't be caring and competent and teach poor kids without paying a steep price. And I can start laying my best plans for my own school. But my best laid plans won't pay the bills.
Ambivalent teacher for hire.
And to be clear: I say "can't" in the sense of, there is not a school I've seen or heard of that is set up to serve students properly.
There are many teachers who are caring. I am trying to withhold all my elitist lip curling disgust at teachers who want to save the children. They are being kind. But you can't teach someone if you believe you possess the power to save them.
You can be a competent teacher. However you will be an island. An isolated island of awesome teacher/classroomness. In a sea of medium/criminal.
You can even be a caring and competent teacher, but either you won't do it for long, or you will spiritually and physically burn yourself out if you are teaching poor children. Teaching in a context of poverty is less of a problem because of the material constraints. It is a problem that children are hungry. It is a problem that children do not have stable housing. But excellent teaching of poor and oppressed people happens all around the world.
I find being a teacher with high internal standards of professionalism and being emotionally invested in my relationships to students exhausting because of the psychological context my work has occurred in. To have a vision of what school could be, to have a vision of how students should be treated, and then to consistently seek to do your best work in circumstances so dismal they should be considered educational malpractice is to put oneself under a millstone.
As my respite from teaching comes to a close I am undeclared. I can compromise and teach the students I feel called to work with. I can compromise and teach in a context I see as closer to what every child deserves.
Or, I can not teach.
I'll ammend: You can't be caring and competent and teach poor kids without paying a steep price. And I can start laying my best plans for my own school. But my best laid plans won't pay the bills.
Ambivalent teacher for hire.
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