Last night the football team played their home opener against a rival school. Over the last year or so, I've picked up the job of unofficial school photographer and about half of my work occurs on Friday nights. I've found in my photos that the gridiron is a place where all of our truest emotions are on display and this Friday was no different.
I cannot deny that my eyes may have teared up a bit at the sight of my boys walking on the field not as the playful sophomores I met two years ago, but as senior captains who carry the world on their shoulders each Friday night with more grace than most men twice their age. I feel so much pride when I think about these boys and all of my other students, too.
This is the best part of teaching the same students for three years: You fall in love. With every single one of them. I cannot quite verbalize how special it is to be able to work with these same wonderful children every day for three years and to get to watch the young men and women they become. I get to share in such a special time in their lives as they refine their sense of self and set out to explore the world. It fills my work with a meaning I'm not sure I'll ever find again. Over these years, I have given my students a piece of my heart and they have given me pieces of theirs in return.
This, too, is the worst part of teaching the same students for three years: You fall in love. If their victories are my victories, then their heartbreaks are my heartbreaks, too. I play witness to losses of all shapes and sizes and my students' lives have not been short on loss.
It is in those times of loss that the strength of the relationships we have built becomes so clear. Time and time again I have found comfort in my students as they have found comfort in me, even if it is just a hug on the sidelines after a particularly bad defeat. There is such a trust and understanding amongst us that could not have existed after only a year together.
This year, as my students prepare for high school graduation, I find myself also wondering what will come next for me as our district faces consolidation. As we wander together into the still-bleary future, none of us can say what will happen, but I feel blessed to know that with every step I take I will carry these kids in my heart forever.
Bayou
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Bittersweet: The End of Year Two
On Monday I put on the same dress that I wore on my first day of teaching and wore it to watch my first group of students graduate. I've always struggled with graduations. Monday night was as much a celebration as it was a goodbye, a hard goodbye. I think if there is a word for the unique emotion of graduation it must be "bittersweet."
The more I think about it, the more I believe that "bittersweet" might actually be the perfect word for all of this year from day one to day one hundred and eighty. It was a year of incredible loss from the turnover of two thirds of the staff to the loss of a student just months short of his graduation. But it was also a year of incredible joy. My students grew their ACT scores and completed awesome and meaningful projects. I created memories with our ragtag softball team even if we never won a game. I watched the salutatorian address her class eloquently knowing that this girl is going to set the world on fire with her brilliance. I have never been so proud.
I can say with confidence that if I have cried more this year, then I have laughed more, too. I think it comes with the territory. As my relationships with this place and these people have deepened, so too has the emotion that comes with that.
This year was as trying as it was rewarding. Though I was often promised it would be easier than my first year, it wasn't. It was just harder in different ways. In the fall, I started running as a way to do something that was just for me. One day I complained to my younger brother, an avid cyclist, and he shared with me these words that have resonated ever since: "It doesn't get easier; you just get faster." That has become my motto this year. The truth is your second year isn't any easier than your first; you just know what you're doing (sort of). Bad things still happen. Sometimes they are worse than all the things that happened before, but now you have the knowledge to navigate it with a little more grace though never with ease. This work isn't meant to be easy; it's meant to be worth it.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that "bittersweet" might actually be the perfect word for all of this year from day one to day one hundred and eighty. It was a year of incredible loss from the turnover of two thirds of the staff to the loss of a student just months short of his graduation. But it was also a year of incredible joy. My students grew their ACT scores and completed awesome and meaningful projects. I created memories with our ragtag softball team even if we never won a game. I watched the salutatorian address her class eloquently knowing that this girl is going to set the world on fire with her brilliance. I have never been so proud.
I can say with confidence that if I have cried more this year, then I have laughed more, too. I think it comes with the territory. As my relationships with this place and these people have deepened, so too has the emotion that comes with that.
This year was as trying as it was rewarding. Though I was often promised it would be easier than my first year, it wasn't. It was just harder in different ways. In the fall, I started running as a way to do something that was just for me. One day I complained to my younger brother, an avid cyclist, and he shared with me these words that have resonated ever since: "It doesn't get easier; you just get faster." That has become my motto this year. The truth is your second year isn't any easier than your first; you just know what you're doing (sort of). Bad things still happen. Sometimes they are worse than all the things that happened before, but now you have the knowledge to navigate it with a little more grace though never with ease. This work isn't meant to be easy; it's meant to be worth it.
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
The Hardest Part
You are 21 years old and have just agreed to take a leap of faith and do this thing and teach. You know all too well just how little you know. You are going into this blind even if you are aware of your lack of sight.
At every point in this process, you are going to believe that this must be the hardest part. Passing the Praxis, surviving the first week of school, planning for three preps, balancing teaching and coaching and a life of your own, teaching 150 kids in the poorest corner of the poorest state in the country and finding something to love in each and every one of them. At every point in this process, you will be wrong. None of these tasks is the hardest part.
The hardest part starts the moment you agree to do this and will stay with you years after you leave teaching. It stares you in the mirror every morning when you wake and again at night before you lay your head down to sleep. Nearly two years in, you have not even begun to master it, though, you know it is the only thing that will allow you to survive in this job. Here is the hardest part, the skill no one tells you you must have in order to teach: Forgiveness. You must learn to forgive yourself.
Forgive yourself because you have no idea what to do. You will stumble through lessons on topics you are not quite qualified to teach. You will write a kid up when they don't deserve it and not write them up when they most certainly do. You will realize two days into a unit that you have taught an entire skill wrong. You will write tests that are too hard, too easy, and never quite find the right spot in between. Forgive yourself. You are doing the best that you know how to do.
Forgive yourself because you will make every mistake in the book and then write a few new pages of your own. For most of the first half of the first year, you are going to do more things wrong than you do right. You will regret words as soon as you have said them and more than that you will regret the words you do not say at all. Forgive yourself. You are doing the best that you know how to do.
Forgive yourself because even after you have learned how to do better and be the teacher your students deserve, you will not always be allowed to do it. You will be forced again and again to make decisions that you know are wrong for your students. You are working within a system that is stacked against you and your students. You will give test after test after test and know the whole time that it is wrong. You will postpone learning for the sake of "education" and again you will know that it is wrong. When you can you will fight it, but too often you cannot. Forgive yourself. You are doing the best that you know how to do.
Forgive yourself because your students are slipping through your fingers. You will always be running out of time in the class period, in the marking period, in the year. Your time will run out and you will wonder if they have learned anything at all. Forgive yourself. You are doing the best that you know how to do.
Forgive yourself because even if you are the perfect teacher it will not be enough. You will lose some of your students to all manner of misfortune, to jail, to the streets, to time. Rational expressions and binder grades and performance tasks will not stop a speeding bullet when it comes for one of your students. Forgive yourself. You are doing the best that you know how to do.
At every point in this process, you are going to believe that this must be the hardest part. Passing the Praxis, surviving the first week of school, planning for three preps, balancing teaching and coaching and a life of your own, teaching 150 kids in the poorest corner of the poorest state in the country and finding something to love in each and every one of them. At every point in this process, you will be wrong. None of these tasks is the hardest part.
The hardest part starts the moment you agree to do this and will stay with you years after you leave teaching. It stares you in the mirror every morning when you wake and again at night before you lay your head down to sleep. Nearly two years in, you have not even begun to master it, though, you know it is the only thing that will allow you to survive in this job. Here is the hardest part, the skill no one tells you you must have in order to teach: Forgiveness. You must learn to forgive yourself.
Forgive yourself because you have no idea what to do. You will stumble through lessons on topics you are not quite qualified to teach. You will write a kid up when they don't deserve it and not write them up when they most certainly do. You will realize two days into a unit that you have taught an entire skill wrong. You will write tests that are too hard, too easy, and never quite find the right spot in between. Forgive yourself. You are doing the best that you know how to do.
Forgive yourself because you will make every mistake in the book and then write a few new pages of your own. For most of the first half of the first year, you are going to do more things wrong than you do right. You will regret words as soon as you have said them and more than that you will regret the words you do not say at all. Forgive yourself. You are doing the best that you know how to do.
Forgive yourself because even after you have learned how to do better and be the teacher your students deserve, you will not always be allowed to do it. You will be forced again and again to make decisions that you know are wrong for your students. You are working within a system that is stacked against you and your students. You will give test after test after test and know the whole time that it is wrong. You will postpone learning for the sake of "education" and again you will know that it is wrong. When you can you will fight it, but too often you cannot. Forgive yourself. You are doing the best that you know how to do.
Forgive yourself because your students are slipping through your fingers. You will always be running out of time in the class period, in the marking period, in the year. Your time will run out and you will wonder if they have learned anything at all. Forgive yourself. You are doing the best that you know how to do.
Forgive yourself because even if you are the perfect teacher it will not be enough. You will lose some of your students to all manner of misfortune, to jail, to the streets, to time. Rational expressions and binder grades and performance tasks will not stop a speeding bullet when it comes for one of your students. Forgive yourself. You are doing the best that you know how to do.
Friday, December 16, 2016
Are You Better Off Than You Were a Year Ago
"Are you better off than you were a year ago?"
It's a question that always comes up around election time, posed by politicians and media outlets and other special interests, but lately it's a question I've been asking myself. A year ago I was writing about and reeling from the shock of going home for the first time since moving to Mississippi. Things that had always felt familiar felt so different and strange. The world had shifted around me and I needed time to make sense of how odd the world felt, in it's new colors and hues.
This year I find myself looking inward instead. I know now that the world had not changed last year at all; I had. As time has passed since then, I have become more cognizant of this. When I think back to college and high school, I wonder at how far I've come from who that girl was. I sometimes find it hard to believe that she was once me, so care free and yet so convinced that she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Surely to some extent this is what happens with time and age. People around you change and you do, too, but it feels as if this experience has accelerated that change for me. I don't remember feeling this much distance between the girl I was when I graduated high school and the girl I was my sophomore year in college, but the difference between the girl who walked off Ohio State's campus in spring of 2015 and the woman who walks the halls of a Delta high school is a profound one, though, not necessarily a bad one. Sometimes different is not better or worse; sometimes it is just different.
In recent weeks, I have found myself pondering the same question frequently: Would you do it all over if you could? If you knew then what you knew now, would you still do this thing? Or if you had the chance to start fresh, would you push rewind and tape over this place and this job and this experience?
I cannot say whether I am better off than I was a year ago, but I do know this: I am more compassionate than I was a year ago. I am also more confused than I was a year ago. I am more disheartened at the world than I was a year ago, but somehow I am also more hopeful. I know this, too: I would not press rewind.
It's a question that always comes up around election time, posed by politicians and media outlets and other special interests, but lately it's a question I've been asking myself. A year ago I was writing about and reeling from the shock of going home for the first time since moving to Mississippi. Things that had always felt familiar felt so different and strange. The world had shifted around me and I needed time to make sense of how odd the world felt, in it's new colors and hues.
This year I find myself looking inward instead. I know now that the world had not changed last year at all; I had. As time has passed since then, I have become more cognizant of this. When I think back to college and high school, I wonder at how far I've come from who that girl was. I sometimes find it hard to believe that she was once me, so care free and yet so convinced that she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Surely to some extent this is what happens with time and age. People around you change and you do, too, but it feels as if this experience has accelerated that change for me. I don't remember feeling this much distance between the girl I was when I graduated high school and the girl I was my sophomore year in college, but the difference between the girl who walked off Ohio State's campus in spring of 2015 and the woman who walks the halls of a Delta high school is a profound one, though, not necessarily a bad one. Sometimes different is not better or worse; sometimes it is just different.
In recent weeks, I have found myself pondering the same question frequently: Would you do it all over if you could? If you knew then what you knew now, would you still do this thing? Or if you had the chance to start fresh, would you push rewind and tape over this place and this job and this experience?
I cannot say whether I am better off than I was a year ago, but I do know this: I am more compassionate than I was a year ago. I am also more confused than I was a year ago. I am more disheartened at the world than I was a year ago, but somehow I am also more hopeful. I know this, too: I would not press rewind.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
What Happens Now?
Last night I watched the election results come in with my roommates. Some time after North Carolina and Florida started to look bad I started to do what I also do when I begin to panic: I imagined the worst case scenario. At first, I ticked off the big ones. The population my mother serves, her friends, might get deported. The economy might crash and people might lose jobs. The country might go to war and my students who are in the armed forces might get deployed.
Then, it sunk in that these were the far off things to worry about, the things I have no control over. Something larger loomed: What do I tell my students? What do I say, what can I say tomorrow morning to my beautiful, intelligent, terrified, Black students? Can I tell them not to be afraid when I am so scared myself? Can I tell them it will be okay when I am not sure I believe it? How can I look them in the eye and say anything comforting when I am so desperately in need of comfort myself?
These were the questions that kept me tossing and turning long into the night. In the sleepless hours of the early morning, I began to figure out what I needed to say.
This morning, as anticipated, my students asked me what I thought, how I was feeling and I told them the truth. I told them that I did not know what to say to make it better. I told them that I love them, that I loved them yesterday, that I love them today, that I will love them tomorrow. I told them I will be here for them, as long as they need me. I told them that today will be a hard day for all of us, but we must begin to look to tomorrow. Today, we are sad and scared and defeated, but tomorrow we must begin again the work of American democracy or, in the words of Barack Obama, "We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America." Tomorrow, we must model in our own lives the very qualities we did not see this election cycle. We must show kindness, demonstrate community, listen and speak with respect, and live our lives with love for one another. Together is the only way we will move past this and move forward.
Then, it sunk in that these were the far off things to worry about, the things I have no control over. Something larger loomed: What do I tell my students? What do I say, what can I say tomorrow morning to my beautiful, intelligent, terrified, Black students? Can I tell them not to be afraid when I am so scared myself? Can I tell them it will be okay when I am not sure I believe it? How can I look them in the eye and say anything comforting when I am so desperately in need of comfort myself?
These were the questions that kept me tossing and turning long into the night. In the sleepless hours of the early morning, I began to figure out what I needed to say.
This morning, as anticipated, my students asked me what I thought, how I was feeling and I told them the truth. I told them that I did not know what to say to make it better. I told them that I love them, that I loved them yesterday, that I love them today, that I will love them tomorrow. I told them I will be here for them, as long as they need me. I told them that today will be a hard day for all of us, but we must begin to look to tomorrow. Today, we are sad and scared and defeated, but tomorrow we must begin again the work of American democracy or, in the words of Barack Obama, "We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America." Tomorrow, we must model in our own lives the very qualities we did not see this election cycle. We must show kindness, demonstrate community, listen and speak with respect, and live our lives with love for one another. Together is the only way we will move past this and move forward.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
What Teaching Feels Like
If I had to sum up my first year of teaching in a single cliche, then that single cliche would easily be "Fake til you make it." And, oh, did I fake it. I faked knowledge where I had little, authority where it felt like I had none. Always, I faked confidence; sometimes I faked preparation. I imitated poise and calm when I had none; I pretended to be okay when I most certainly was not. And then one day I got so good at faking it that I didn't have to fake it at all. It probably took until January to have a "no-faking" day and then until March to have another. By the end of the year, I might have been able to string enough together to make almost a full week of not faking it.
I still feel like I'm faking it most of the time, but if you asked me the difference between my first and second year of teaching I would tell you that this year I actually feel like a teacher. What, then, does teaching feel like? I am just beginning to fully find out.
Pride. It feels like the rush when a student who failed geometry last year gets a B on her segments proofs quiz, when she tells you that it's not as good as she wanted but "it's better than last week and isn't that the point?"
Defeat. Doubt. Hope. It feels like trying every possible test taking method for a student who can verbalize his answers perfectly out loud but can't manage to get them on paper, like defeat when he fails the fourth quiz in a row, like doubt when you tell him that together we'll figure this out, like hope when he promises that together we will.
Fear. It feels like the pit in your stomach when you think of your seniors who have worked so hard for the last twelve years, but who cannot seem to pass their graduation tests. Like a shiver down your spine when you let yourself wonder what will happen to them.
Joy. It feels like the smile you cannot hide when one of your students informs another that "mistakes are okay because that's how we learn," a line you spent all of last year repeating to them, like happiness uncontainable when the other students nod and clap in agreement. It feels like maybe they learned something last year after all.
Exhaustion. It feels like forcing your eyes to stay open through the fourth after school meeting of the week in a room full of colleagues who look just as tired as you feel. It feels like dragging yourself to school sometimes with too much to do and not enough time or energy to do it.
Love. It feels like the warmth that your students exude when you put their names on the board and they cannot contain their excitement. "You know how to spell all of our names!? Even the apostrophes!" It feels like an overwhelming dose of affection when your students from last year tell you how glad they are to have you again.
Faith. It feels like assurance that you'll be back tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. The knowledge that some way, some how you'll get through this roller coaster because your kids deserve better. And at the end of the day that's all that matters.
I still feel like I'm faking it most of the time, but if you asked me the difference between my first and second year of teaching I would tell you that this year I actually feel like a teacher. What, then, does teaching feel like? I am just beginning to fully find out.
Pride. It feels like the rush when a student who failed geometry last year gets a B on her segments proofs quiz, when she tells you that it's not as good as she wanted but "it's better than last week and isn't that the point?"
Defeat. Doubt. Hope. It feels like trying every possible test taking method for a student who can verbalize his answers perfectly out loud but can't manage to get them on paper, like defeat when he fails the fourth quiz in a row, like doubt when you tell him that together we'll figure this out, like hope when he promises that together we will.
Fear. It feels like the pit in your stomach when you think of your seniors who have worked so hard for the last twelve years, but who cannot seem to pass their graduation tests. Like a shiver down your spine when you let yourself wonder what will happen to them.
Joy. It feels like the smile you cannot hide when one of your students informs another that "mistakes are okay because that's how we learn," a line you spent all of last year repeating to them, like happiness uncontainable when the other students nod and clap in agreement. It feels like maybe they learned something last year after all.
Exhaustion. It feels like forcing your eyes to stay open through the fourth after school meeting of the week in a room full of colleagues who look just as tired as you feel. It feels like dragging yourself to school sometimes with too much to do and not enough time or energy to do it.
Love. It feels like the warmth that your students exude when you put their names on the board and they cannot contain their excitement. "You know how to spell all of our names!? Even the apostrophes!" It feels like an overwhelming dose of affection when your students from last year tell you how glad they are to have you again.
Faith. It feels like assurance that you'll be back tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. The knowledge that some way, some how you'll get through this roller coaster because your kids deserve better. And at the end of the day that's all that matters.
Friday, August 5, 2016
Ready, Set, Go
"Are you ready for Monday?" they keep asking me.
"Ready" isn't really the word for it, I think. I don't have a roster. I know the subjects I'm teaching, but not the class periods I'm teaching them. I have three preps including the new-to-me algebra III and, to be honest, I'm not really all that sure what, exactly, algebra III is. My shelving units won't show up until Tuesday so everything in my classroom is shoved under a table and behind my desk. Yet, despite all of that, I feel oddly prepared.
Maybe it's just a false sense of confidence from surviving the storied First Year Teaching that will come crashing down at 7:30 on Monday morning, but I think it might be just a little bit real. I may not have all of the details figured out yet, but I do have way more figured out than I did at this time last year. I have unit plans for two of my classes and I know exactly what my students will be doing on the first day I get to see all of my classes. My long-term calendars have been constructed (except for algebra III) and I'm relatively confident that we'll get to cover all of the required topics despite the outlandish amount of testing.
It's more than just the details, though. In some bigger sense, I feel more prepared which I suppose I'm supposed to feel. I've learned a lot in the past year and most of what I learned will help me be a much better teacher this year than I was last year, but there's one lesson that stands out in particular. In fact, if I sat down and picked the single most important thing I learned during my inaugural classroom year, it would be this one: I love my students so much and at the end of the day that is enough. I want to be clear it is not enough to love your students and not teach them the content, but for me when it came down to it loving them was powerful enough to get me through everything else that happened.
There were so many times last year when I thought I couldn't go on and at each of those junctures I was surprised to learn that, when I remembered why and for whom I'm here, I could. At each of those points, I had to remind myself that whatever I found so bad in that moment had been keeping my students down for years. Yes, administrative changes suck when you're a teacher. They suck more when they define your education as a student. Yes, the amount of state testing is oppressive to teachers. It's more oppressive to students who have known nothing else. As a veteran teacher put it, I can pack up and leave at the end of the day. I can drive home at the end of the school day and drive back to Ohio at the end of the year, if I so choose. My students cannot. Leaving is a luxury and it is one my students so often do not have. Going to school every day is my job; for my students, it is their lives.
My students cannot leave and they deserve so much better than this and I love them enough to want to stay here for as long as I can to make it happen. It's this love that keeps me going on the hard days and even on the easy days. I was pretty overwhelmed yesterday with the amount of things that had to be done for the coming year and it left me feeling pretty zapped of energy. And then in walked my students. Some of the football players came by whom I taught last year and whom I will have the singular pleasure of teaching again this year. They were there to help teachers move classrooms and they were actually excited to see me! One of them walked in my room and said with his trademark grin, "Did you miss me?" Of course, I did. I missed all of them. And suddenly, the energy was back. I really have missed them and as physically and mentally unprepared as I may be for Monday, I am so, so ready to be back.
"Ready" isn't really the word for it, I think. I don't have a roster. I know the subjects I'm teaching, but not the class periods I'm teaching them. I have three preps including the new-to-me algebra III and, to be honest, I'm not really all that sure what, exactly, algebra III is. My shelving units won't show up until Tuesday so everything in my classroom is shoved under a table and behind my desk. Yet, despite all of that, I feel oddly prepared.
Maybe it's just a false sense of confidence from surviving the storied First Year Teaching that will come crashing down at 7:30 on Monday morning, but I think it might be just a little bit real. I may not have all of the details figured out yet, but I do have way more figured out than I did at this time last year. I have unit plans for two of my classes and I know exactly what my students will be doing on the first day I get to see all of my classes. My long-term calendars have been constructed (except for algebra III) and I'm relatively confident that we'll get to cover all of the required topics despite the outlandish amount of testing.
It's more than just the details, though. In some bigger sense, I feel more prepared which I suppose I'm supposed to feel. I've learned a lot in the past year and most of what I learned will help me be a much better teacher this year than I was last year, but there's one lesson that stands out in particular. In fact, if I sat down and picked the single most important thing I learned during my inaugural classroom year, it would be this one: I love my students so much and at the end of the day that is enough. I want to be clear it is not enough to love your students and not teach them the content, but for me when it came down to it loving them was powerful enough to get me through everything else that happened.
There were so many times last year when I thought I couldn't go on and at each of those junctures I was surprised to learn that, when I remembered why and for whom I'm here, I could. At each of those points, I had to remind myself that whatever I found so bad in that moment had been keeping my students down for years. Yes, administrative changes suck when you're a teacher. They suck more when they define your education as a student. Yes, the amount of state testing is oppressive to teachers. It's more oppressive to students who have known nothing else. As a veteran teacher put it, I can pack up and leave at the end of the day. I can drive home at the end of the school day and drive back to Ohio at the end of the year, if I so choose. My students cannot. Leaving is a luxury and it is one my students so often do not have. Going to school every day is my job; for my students, it is their lives.
My students cannot leave and they deserve so much better than this and I love them enough to want to stay here for as long as I can to make it happen. It's this love that keeps me going on the hard days and even on the easy days. I was pretty overwhelmed yesterday with the amount of things that had to be done for the coming year and it left me feeling pretty zapped of energy. And then in walked my students. Some of the football players came by whom I taught last year and whom I will have the singular pleasure of teaching again this year. They were there to help teachers move classrooms and they were actually excited to see me! One of them walked in my room and said with his trademark grin, "Did you miss me?" Of course, I did. I missed all of them. And suddenly, the energy was back. I really have missed them and as physically and mentally unprepared as I may be for Monday, I am so, so ready to be back.
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