Sept. 2010: Some thoughts on the 3rd year

This third year teaching is different. New rewards are emerging in my job.

For one, my most rambunctious, annoying student form last year always greets me in the hallways nowadays. He's my most frequent classroom visitor. "Hi Ms. Nelson!" he says exuberantly. It's so funny to see such a big, football guy so enthusiastic about school! He's a sharp fella, but his grades aren't anything to boast about. It's so funny how the bane of my existence one year is a ray of sunshine in the next!

Two: Last week, I realized with fresh awareness how much physical activity benefits students. I should NEVER brush the anticipatory set part of the lesson off as inconsequential. My 8th period, probably my hardest class to manage, really benefitted from acting out the attention grabber - connector - thesis illustration / scene. The students totally grasped the concept because of the brief scene when four of them got to act out pretending to be parts of a machine with interconnected, distinct motions. Acting totally perks the class up. I hope to integrate more of this acting into my teaching this year, and get away from being so wholly auditory.

Three: It's such a JOY to have former students' siblings now as my students! Enough said! I love how I can see the resemblance in their faces and sometimes also in their demeanors.

Four: overhearing this about me from a student in the hall: "That's about the only teacher I respect." Of course, that quote has a severe downside, but it did make me feel good.

April 2010: My Mississippi Teacher Corps Experience

For the first part of my reflection, I am going to pull from two of my early journal entries from that first summer when I arrived in Oxford. I titled the file “Mississippi Memoirs,” intending to keep up with it, but alas, that was not to come to fruition. There are two analogies that are apt to summarize my MTC experience: one, as a tale of clean and new to dirty and worn shoes, and second, as a maturation of clothing tastes, from childish outfits to YUPpie style. I never thought I would say this happily, but here it is: Goodbye childhood, hello adulthood!

June 7, 2008 - When I was talking to a Corps member yesterday on the way to class, her exasperation with college struck me: “when college was over, I was like, ‘thank goodness – I’ve worked my butt off and I am ready for this to be done.’” But I cannot criticize her with a clear conscience: I think the very same way. I wish I weren’t like a plow that just wants so get through everything and say, “look, I’ve done it.” May my time in Mississippi be more than a “when will this be over so I can do the next thing” experience.

June 14, 2008 - Mississippi ruined my shoes.

Maybe it’d be better to say, “When I came to Mississippi, my shoes got ruined.” But then, that old English lesson of using vivid verbs got the best of me, and I decided to be more direct. When I arrived here two weeks ago, my running shoes were pristine.

But then, on one of my first Mississippi runs, I opted for the long stretch of divided highway, where the dust on the side of the road is the finest I’ve seen anywhere. With one careless sweep of the foot on my part, the dust made its way into the shoes’ pristine latticework and colonized in the pockets of cotton. They were probably pretty comfy there, but I winced in disappointment.

If my shoes had eyes, they also got a shock on that run: I passed by five road kill. I remember reading an Annie Dillard essay in high school on the vast assortment of road kill to be found in the South, but passing it within a one-yard eyeshot is different than holding a clean book. My shoes made 6-inch clearance of the turtle, the possum with its feet in the air, the snake, and the unidentifiable, smushed creature with many fossilizing limbs I decided that, to reduce trauma, I would only grant road kill my peripheral vision. With a sideways glance, this one actually looked like an octopus. Obviously, there are no octopi to speak of in inland Mississippi.

A few days later, I was making my way for a run on a trail nearby. The trail is part of a massive trails project in this town, whose “movers and shakers” have led in order to transform the former paths of dismantled railroad tracks into pretty nature trails. Anyways, as I stepped underneath a magnolia tree, one of its massive leaves lost its balance and dumped a pound of water on my shoe. The water was freezing cold, which felt okay, but then my shoes really started to look ugly. That’s when I realized, I came here not to keep my shoes nice and new and clean, even though that’s my natural impulse. Rather, I came here to change, grow, blossom, learn. Which, yes, requires getting dirty - perhaps even ruining a few of the former things.

The best part of walking new territory is making new friends. When a phase of life ends (college), making a new beginning seems like no remedy at all. At first, it seems like any conscientious adjustment to the present is a deprecation of the past. When I am in this mood, I chastise myself for being a highly-mobile youth, who forms strong bonds only to disband them in a few short years. I am constantly re-arranging my affiliations, like some restless secretary who has gone mad, moving supplies around in the office supply cabinet, expending tons of energy to no real effect. Wouldn’t it just be easier – more importantly, healthier – to just maintain the same social bonds and ties and friendships in one place, over a long period of time? Can’t I have discipline enough to resist the urge to get up and move all the time, to go to a new place, to stash another “experience” into my “life experience” fanny pack? I used to regard the lifestyle of chronic traveling as a disease. A person catches it when he or she lacks the wherewithal to solve problems where he or she is, and instead opts to just run away from them.

But then, that magical moment presents itself, like a girl in her dress at the top of the stairs, whose prom date awaits her at the foot of the stairs: you look down and realize, hey, my mitt’s finally broken in! It’s a glaringly obvious and exciting moment. Here’s how it happened: I was sitting in the passenger seat of my friend’s red SUV, when suddenly, I looked over at her while she was turning the steering wheel left and I realized: hey, she is my friend! And all at once, my philosophies of anti-mobile youth melted away. I am so happy to be in Mississippi, so pleased that my shoes have Mississippi in their fibers, so thankful to have a new friend. Friendship is probably the best education.

Today, April 25, 2010 - Since those early days, I have found that Mississippi has not ruined me (although I’ve gone through a few pairs of shoes), but this is the place where I have grown tremendously. I’ve left behind the days when I was a self-sufficient student whose energies only paid off for myself. Today, I rely heavily on friends, mentors, community members, and even my students, sometimes, to keep me encouraged and putting all my energy into my job. Also, what I do or fail to do now affects way more people than just me. So in analogical terms, this shift is like a wardrobe turnover from bright, jejune patterns and prints and cuts to more somber, sensible, mature earth-tones in urbane cuts and combinations. Actually, my closet underwent a transition like this as the years progressed!

But returning to the topic of work, and how I've persevered through it: I admit, I’ve found that this profession comes in waves; there are times when I am extremely focused on my work, and am inputting grades and innovating mini-units left and right, alternating with stretches of weeks where I don’t grade a lick and do very little for school outside of school hours. I like the flow of push and glide. It’s a sustainable vocation. I feel that my time is well spent when I put time into making resources. I enjoy being creative and no longer get stressed out about prepping for the next day. Granted, I have students this year who seem to appreciate my efforts more than they did last year.

As I write this, I have two parent contacts I need to make hanging over my head. But it has become an exceptional case to have to make frequent parent contact.  My job does not stress me out like it used to. That being said, I am still a basket case in the mornings, often. I am only pleasant after all my copies are made, the word of the day has been selected, and the chalkboard agenda is written and up. In sum, I have changed significantly as a teacher in some regards, but remain the same in others. At my school, among students and coworkers, I am seen as an energetic but uptight teacher (I think that’s a good summation of my teacher persona). Even so, I have an ease and confidence this year that I never had last year. I have a reputation, kind of. At times, the upkeep of that reputation seems arduous. But then I just have to remember, as long as I am doing my duties and allotting a fair amount of time to my students’ success (“fair” being particularly defined, with regards to what is due to them, taking into account the inequalities they have historically and already endured), I do not need to worry.

I’ve learned how to rest and recharge. I deliver much stronger content this year than last year. I still get immense pleasure out of teacher-student rapport. I am, in the words of one of my students, an “I don’t care if I embarrass myself” teacher. I feel free to be me with my students, and lessons are strewn with humor (be it lame or clever). I pride myself on having pretty good student engagement, which I witnessed two weeks ago in second period. During two of my reading response questions, one girl raised two hands and a leg in hopes of being picked on, and another girl, who is usually a comatose, indifferent participant (oxymoron!), yelled (really, yelled!), “No, no, no, wait! I’ve got it!” as she wracked her binder for the answer. My teaching style is very verbal. The sound of papers flying as students seek an answer is far more gratifying than a pristinely silent environment. I used to be so insecure about that, that I felt incompetent to hold a silent classroom, but now I feel comfortable with my teaching style.

That being said, I can still list many things I want to change about how I teach, the timing of it, the presentation of it, the assessment of it, and the management of it.  That’s what next year is for. I am excited to continue life in Mississippi, because I have room to grow. I fit here, vocationally, and also socially. I can’t wait to see what next year has in store. I now regard my worn shoes as trophies and relics, and I this has not been a time that I have been itching for to pass. Rather, Mississippi has been maturing me from a child into a working adult, from a student into a teacher, from a consumer/follower into a producer/leader, from a speculating spectator into a struggling participant, from a wonderer into a praiser. I feel like I am watching my life unfold the way I hoped it would here.

April 2010: Letter to incoming first-years

Dear incoming first-years,

I can’t wait for you to experience Mississippi, what it’s like to be a responsible adult, what it’s like to prepare for the day ahead in a different way than you did when you were a student, to discover that this job can be done and that you can persevere and beat all the difficulties, to experience (if you’re like me) for the first time what it’s like to be a racial minority for the majority of your waking hours, and to start dreaming different dreams than you did before. This experience will radically change you.

As time goes on, you will find it hard to explain to those back home (if you’re not from here). And you may find that you really like this profession. Even if you don’t, you won’t be able to go back to the status quo “conveyor belt” of education in society at large; from here on out, you will be able to see that it takes some seriously anti-racist grit to push against systemic inequalities in education. I think that after teaching in the Corps, you will be inclined to push against structural injustice in education in some way. Maybe you’ll make a statement by sending your children to a public school, which will require you to play an active part in the schooling system. Maybe you’ll keep teaching past your two years. Maybe you’ll discover some parallel, auxiliary avenue to support education, such as through policy, politics or further study.

Don’t worry, a few months into your first year, you will strike a balance where your work and rest, your vocational, personal, spiritual and physical life, will balance out. This is when teaching becomes less stressful and more enjoyable. Find a few veteran teachers to support you, ones who are in their upper twenties. They will give you hope that this job can be done, plus they will encourage you and listen to your plight more attentively than a fellow MTCer stuck in the same problems. Furthermore, tap into your mentor’s resources, especially at the beginning of the year documents (syllabus, etc.).

Get involved in your community, beyond the dynamic MTC crew. Having a supportive social network will ease a lot of the stress that comes with the first year. 

Try to chip away at the MTC projects before the day before they’re due. For Dr. Monroe’s 5-day lesson plan, plan something fresh you haven’t done yet (instead of recycling old stuff), because then you can turn around and implement it in October/November, which will put the wind back in your sails during a tiring stretch of the year.

Above all, I want to encourage you that you can do this. Stick with it, rely on your advocates, and find your balance where you won’t feel tired all the time. Once you get that, you will enjoy teaching and be more alert to your community and surroundings. I’m excited to see all the places you’ll go!

Your fellow Corps member,

Ms. Nelson

March 2010: Making plans: more three-dimensional than expected

There is nothing I would rather write about right now than my plans for next year. So, here goes!

Ever since freshman year of college, I have aspired to be a college professor. Rewind two years. Ever since junior year of high school, I have aspired to be a high school English teacher. While the primary aspiration is intact and sturdy as a table built by a legendary great-grandfather, my earliest hope and dream is a reality right now, and I do not feel prepared to leave high school teaching behind. Add to my love of my profession my queer love for my setting; I have a bond with Jackson that I cannot make sense of to anybody (except some Jacksonians and one family friend). The weeks are ticking down on the MTC clock watch. But beyond my vows to the program, my heart desires to stay put. Something beautiful has bloomed in this stage of life, and to sever it short just because the obligation is up would seem to be foolhardy. I keep quizzing adults in their late thirties and up, “Is it unusual to love where you live?” “Is it rare to love your job as much as I do?” I want to ensure that I am assessing my current livelihood and passions correctly. I don’t want to be lulled into loving Jackson and my job just because I find it so darn comfortable. On the other hand, I do not want to be hastily skeptical of my affinity for my vocation and lot, just because the corporate flow of middle-class life and the steadily rising undulations of America’s ever-beckoning siren’s song of success are calling me to “move on.”

I applied to three doctoral programs in sociology this year. I thought my application was pretty good, but I was afraid I would be accepted, thereby cutting short this phase of life prematurely. Oddly enough, in the intervening months between applying and hearing back, I prayed for denials. Well, I heard back from all three the week before spring break. All were variations of negatives: one wait list, one admission but MA-only, and one outright rejection. It stings, but I am actually fervently anticipating a new direction: stay in Jackson, keep on teaching, and pursue an MA in sociology at the city’s HBCU, Jackson State. I love teaching, I love Jackson, I love sociology. Too much love, if you ask me. One of the deepest desires of my heart now is to grow in understanding and to invest more in the city of Jackson. Now that door might be opening. The only phantom of doubt that remains is whether the school that wait listed me will come back with a “yes” in mid-April. And my prayers are still something like, “Please, God, don’t say my time here is up yet.”

“She’s nuts!” you’re thinking. “Every person has choices and in making them is in control of where she goes” – well, every educated young person who was born into a thick sleeping bag of opportunity (like me) can control and choose where and when she goes somewhere. “So just choose to stay in Jackson, already, if you love it so much!” you’re thinking.

There is a morsel of hesitation in my ambitions and plans for the future, though. And I think I am slowly being weaned of this influence, but I am not sure I’ll ever be entirely free of it. I don’t think my family or friends who have known me for a long time have really given their unfettered seal of approval on my plans or desire to stay down South. I also feel that the longer I stay here, the less understood I feel by my own kin and might-as-well-be-kin. I feel like I can’t explain why I love it here so much, or why I find myself feeling so at home in black culture. I feel fully alive, in that my abilities and passions and talents are utilized here. Spiritually, I have grown. Relationally, I have been blessed and stretched. Physically, I think I am stronger than I ever was in high school or college. Intellectually, being here keeps my sociological and literary mind in shape. Still though, even with all these feelings, I think one of my friends, who I know through my more recent involvement at the Perkins Foundation in West Jackson, has hit the nail on the head: often, he has observed, when young whites come down to Jackson to do some do-gooding, then conclude that they are fond of this place and can find no reason to want to leave, their parents do not take the news with a smile. More like, with a sigh. Can I withstand that ambivalence? The support that streams from family members, at least what I am used to, is wholehearted. Why has this changed? It does make me check myself when those who have had my best interest in their hearts for so long are uncertain. There is a chance that I am imagining all this pressure. Perhaps the footsteps of any twenty-something that forge forward are tread with undue second-guessing. After all, this is when we become our adult selves, is it not? Don't want to mess that up.

March 2010: Musing a Mississippi Memory

Midsummer 2009, one member of the MTC Class of 2007 got married: Kelsey Mayo. Halfway through MTC Summer School, I took a weekend off and trekked to Tallahassee, Florida with MTC-ers Molly, Anna and Eleanor, who were/still are, respectively: my personal encourager, my English mentor, and my current roommate. Personally, I was stoked to get to spend time with them. I admire each of these corps members deeply, plus they make me laugh and smile a lot. Besides the top-notch company, the trip offered the perks of a refreshing disruption of the routine, the entertaining anecdotes that a road trip instigates, two nights being spoiled in a hotel, an afternoon soaking in unrushed relaxation poolside in Florida, the opportunity to witness a beautiful and meaningful marriage, and the unbridled enjoyment of hors d'oeuvres and dances at the reception. (Wow! What a feat in parallelism that catalogue was. Are you proud, Walt Whitman? How about you, SATP test-question writer?)

My enthusiasm as a mere car passenger cannot be overstated. Ask Eleanor, and you may discover that she had to bear my idiosyncratic beaming. Did she notice me grinning for the entire duration of crossing Alabama in her rearview mirror? Whatever the case, I enjoyed the ride.

Once in Tallahassee, the hotel welcomed us. Kudos to Kelsey, who selected a top-notch, and still affordable, hotel for her wedding guests! I really loved the fact of how cheap this trip was – wedding gift included – when the expenses were split four ways. We luxuriated in its agreeable décor and took full advantage of the omelet bar both mornings. Being spoiled in a hotel is easily one of my favorite things about being alive. But staying in a hotel alone would negate it all; it’s the being with friends one loves that makes it so sweet.

Four parts of our weekend in the hotel stand out in my memory: one, when Eleanor assisted me in straightening my hair as we all got gussied up for the wedding, that was the first time my hair had ever been truly straightened. When I do my own hair, I am too impatient to let the straightener do its work. Moreover, every girl can agree that having someone else do your hair is better than a massage.  (Like I said, I was being spoiled that weekend!)

During another moment of our hotel stay, the four of us were giggling and talking loudly as we exchanged the entertaining and mind-bending points of our lives. Kelsey herself, the busy bride, ducked in our room and said hello briefly. The four of us resumed our social night in the room; we got two courtesy phone calls that night, with love from our disgruntled neighbors, telling us to pipe down. We didn’t really listen.

The day of Kelsey’s wedding, JAME (Jen, Anna, Molly, Eleanor) spent three hours tanning and enjoying the hotel pool. This was not a brainless time, however. Molly and I threw sociological insights and jargon back and forth with as much pleasure as we would if we were throwing beach balls. We discussed faith and race, in particular. As usual, when talking to Molly, I felt my mind being activated as if I were reading a book. So effortless and invigorating was our conversation!

That second eve, one of the four of us composed a lengthy letter to a significant other. I don’t think I am at liberty to disclose who that was. Needless to say, it was a high-quality composition, as it contained input from four (in my opinion) brilliant minds.

The drive back to Mississippi was less memorable, somehow. Maybe it was like a watercolor effect; when receding from a memorable time, the senses become less heightened as they download and process what they just experienced. The shift back into life in Holly Springs resumed as smoothly as a seasoned manual transmission the following Monday.

Jan. 2010: Reaction blog: NYT article on minorities and poverty in southern schools

My first reaction to this article, as a former sociology major, is to think the journalist is forcing some kind of paradigm shift to say: “it’s not white flight anymore that’s the problem; now, it’s poor minorities’ high, uncontrolled birth rates.” Sounds rather like a next-generation Daniel Patrick Moynihan paradigm to me. My second reaction is to ask, “Why are blacks returning to the South?” This social trend will likely quickly reverse itself once this region’s generation of “educationally deprived” children grows up and finds themselves either ill-equipped to participate in the economy, or will find a decrepit economy which is ill-equipped to reward their work.

To address the e’er-disconcerting conundrum of how to address “educational deprivation” of minority and low-income students, I think the districts in LA that are “experimenting with ways to attract more experienced teachers to high-risk schools” is the key. If students who get less education at home than their white, middle class counterparts, are fully surrounded by high-quality teachers at their schools, year in and year out, then I am confident that the deprivation will close itself. If a teacher can love a student like a parent does (which is expressed by that teacher’s devotion to equipping the student with what he needs to “make it”), then that is the best bet on relieving the home/parent factor, which creates the educational disparity between classes.

On a personal note, the article also strengthened my convictions and hope to return to Mississippi in the future to settle here and contribute the intellectual and social capital I have been unfairly fortunate to have received through my upbringing in Colorado. I aspire to be a professor at a public college here. However, I do wonder if contributing my resources at a pre-college level (high school) would do more to alleviate the South’s so-called “desperat[ion] for a well-educated work force that can attract economic development.” This article has me wondering, how do I reconcile the pull to live in a more economically and educationally “bountiful,” promising land (i.e., New York, Chicago), and the clear need that is here in Mississippi? More and more I feel that this is where I belong. How do I ensure that my motives for putting down roots here and pouring my love for education into this place in particular are good, i.e., not conceited or based on a mere fascination with being in another culture or on a pseudo-radicalist, self-glorifying “mission” to flee my own race and the overabundance of resources we have? I am struggling with something that should work itself out like an easy addition problem!

Jan. 2010: Reaction blog: What makes a great teacher

I find educational research exciting, especially when it is presented as straight-forwardly as it is in this Atlantic article. The writer uses memorable terminology – such as “urban ecosystems” (referring to the backdrop of crime and poverty in students’ communities) and “compound effects” (referring to how a good or bad teacher can multiply gains or losses on their students’ behalves in a stunningly quick fashion and on a stunningly large scale). These two terms, when juxtaposed within the context of this article, convince me that the “within-school stratification” camp wins out over the “between-school stratification” camp in accounting for significantly different student outcomes. In other words, the teachers a kid winds up with in any particular school is more significant of a factor towards his success or failure than whether he attends the public school with the best rep in town, or the one everyone snickers at (perhaps this applies also with public vs. private schools).

I am thrilled that the platform for talking about education in Washington has shifted and is now less about NCLB and more about identifying, seeking out and holding onto effective teachers. The thought of linking teachers’ pay to how much their students’ test scores go up, though, makes my stomach turn. Could that possibly transmute the student-teacher relationship into something unhealthy, turning education into a far less human endeavor? It would make me nerve-wracked as a teacher. But I guess the reform will serve mostly to get rid of teachers who are not doing this. If a teacher is, the bars being set are intended to keep those ones safe. So I guess there would be nothing to worry about.

How good teachers ought to be measured is by whether they can take an unengaged, non-participating student, and turn him into one who looks forward to class, flips through his notes voluntarily to find the answer, and begins to study of his own accord. Basically, a good teacher can be identified by his/her ability to turn apathetic students into ones interested in their own success – such as was the case with Mr. Taylor’s students, one of whom was “unable to contain herself” when writing her answer on her orange card. Now, how to operationalize that is the problem. Indeed, we do need a “good, solid measuring stick” to “bushwhack” our way out of the confluence of variables that make it hard to tell what makes a teacher have phenomenal student achievement results.

What MTC should look for in an applicant is extracurricular engagement (that sounds more human than “accomplishment”), clues that they’re innovative and creative and dissatisfied with merely meeting minimum requirements, and clues that they get enormous satisfaction out of meeting long-term goals. To locate these traits in candidates, talking to an applicant’s manager could be helpful, and asking, “On a regular basis, does Joe just meet your expectations, or find new ways to go above and beyond?” How Joe behaves at one job will likely predict how he will behave as an employee of a public school district. Or, asking in the interview, “What is one major goal you have set for yourself that you have achieved? How did you get there?” or alternatively, “What is something that you have vastly improved on in recent years, and why was it important to you that you change this?”

To determine which factors are important in creating or identifying a top-rate teacher, using Mr. Taylor as a case study is illuminating. First, I believe Mr. Taylor’s method of showing students alternate ways to reach the same answer is KEY in boosting overall student achievement. This I want to start implementing. Second, the way he rotates student leadership and creates pockets of close-knit student communities could be enormously helpful in spurring peer tutoring during in-class hours. Third, class participation should be vibrant and ample. I loved the line in the article, “You know you’re in a good classroom if you have to stop yourself from raising your hand.” Furthermore about participation, I was thrilled to see that Mr. Taylor uses “equity sticks” during guided practice – a method Ann taught us and that I use now as well (drawing names at random to solicit student participation). Forth, just as Joe Sweeney’s story goes about how his students ran class for him when he had a sub, Mr. Taylor’s students ran his routine almost without him. This is an area where I believe I am doing OK as a teacher. The first 30 minutes of class, I could not say much of anything. (Sometimes I wonder if this routine is a good thing or a bad, though; what if they stop thinking because it’s all so predictable?) Fifth and finally, an essential factor for student outcomes is for the teacher to realize the value of a no-complaining teaching ethos. A downcast outlook on students’ status in the social strata will do nothing to help them succeed.

Conversely, according to the article, it is not important that teachers have experience working in a poor area, or that they are veteran teachers. It isn’t even important that they have an aptitude for reflection. It also doesn’t matter if a teacher has a Master’s Degree, or had straight A’s throughout college. What matters is a history of perseverance, improvement, grit and zest for life. On an interesting note, during the part of the article that explained TFA’s 5-minute teaching portion of the application process, it was determined that it is not-so-important what the teacher does, what evaluators look for is what the kids are doing, acquiring, honing in that precious five minutes.

This article inspired me to press on in my second year with grit, to stop blaming poor student performance on external factors (i.e., parents or neighborhood effects), to start instilling zeal in more of my students (especially those who I overlook), and to explode willingly routines or approaches in my classroom that are not working.

Jan. 2010: Why you should NOT join Teacher Corps

I am going to approach this somewhat as an inverse of the previous entry. Let me say first, I find this to be an odd but necessary topic. Mostly, it’s odd for me to write about, since it’s not my take on the matter. But I CAN draw on my observations of people who react with distaste to what MTC entails.

Do not join MTC if you are a pessimist. There is room in this program for cynics; in fact, they are a healthy addition to the family. But if you know yourself, and you know that your first reaction in frustrating situations involving management at your job is to talk poorly about your superiors, then I think MTC is not for you. If hopeless situations spur you to take a downcast mental spiral, MTC is probably not for you. Schools have plenty of problems; they do not need the added stress of gossip or destructive hostility toward leadership.

Do not join MTC if you are a stubborn solo-minded person, and you are not interested in learning about how to resolve conflicts with peers, coworkers, students and their parents. To that I would add, being in MTC might be hard if you are antisocial and not prone to joining voluntary social associations, such as churches or sports intramural clubs, etc. If you are this type of person, you will find yourself very alone and utterly marooned in a community that has much to it that will be simply foreign if you do not engage in it (likewise, you will in this way remain a foreigner, or outsider, to your new community, if this is your approach).

Don’t join MTC if you’re in a period of life where you yearn for an academic challenge. This is a vocational challenge, but the Master’s coursework is not terribly stimulating. That being said, I have enjoyed most of what I’ve learned, but I have not found nearly the intellectual exchange here that undergrad had.

Also, if you have zero experience with teaching in a school setting, I think you should seek that out first at a less all-consuming level, before moving your whole life here to Mississippi and spending the majority of your waking hours working in or contemplating on schools.

Lastly, since I firmly believe that being here in this program, doing a job I’ve long wanted to do, and living in the South in particular has taught me things about myself that I never saw coming, I would say, do not come to participate in this program if you do not want to discover new things about yourself. If you want to remain in a homeostatic state and do not want some significant shifts in your inner self, something like plate tectonics jamming and resettling on themselves, then stay where you are. This is a dynamic process, stepping into your teacher-self in a socially catalytic environment. You will be transformed!

Jan. 2010: Why you should join Teacher Corps

You should join the Teacher Corps if you would like to be displaced. Not misplaced, but displaced. By this, I mean, placed in an entirely new space, socially and racially. From my point of view, as a white suburbanite from the West, joining the Teacher Corps meant going from hardly ever interacting with, nonetheless seeing, blacks. If you come here and take up the vocation, you will be find yourself a minority in your school. To me, this is exactly what I was hoping for. In fact, in my life beyond Teacher Corps, I hope to be a minority in my neighborhood, workplace, and church – or at least, not belong to a majority group. You should join the Teacher Corps if you can identify with this desire to be socially and racially displaced.

You should join the Teacher Corps if you want to learn new things about yourself. If you are a reflective person who is curious about how society works and also about developing more fully into who you were created to be, then coming to Mississippi to take up teaching is a good idea for you.

You should join MTC if you have an innate philic attraction to school. If you find yourself comfortable within a school’s walls; if you operate well on bell schedules; if your mind is wired towards sharing knowledge; if you are organized and enjoy structured, autonomous work environments, then MTC is for you. This job, in my experience, has been one of never finding myself unoccupied or bored. There is always plenty of fodder for thought – or busywork. But the busywork isn’t horrible (such as unexciting grading on massive scales).

Lastly, you should join Teacher Corps if you adapt well to geographic changes – that is, moving your entire life. If experience has taught you that you handle new environs well, and that you react in a generally optimistic way during your adjustment period, then I think it is a wise choice to choose to move here in particular. The pace of life here is not slow, but it is just right. You can feel the change happening to you: you can feel your mind and heart opening, you can feel yourself growing attached to this city (Jackson) as you drive home from work and you survey its particularities, you can feel yourself starting to like your job after a few stormy first months, you can sense yourself, in a sense, stepping into your “suit.” I feel like I have undergone an enormous amount of personal and spiritual development here and I know that I will always look back on my two years here as some of the very richest of my life. The more I invest here, the less I want to leave.

Nov. 2009: Our Class discussion about Race

When Rita Bender visited our Ed. Research class, I wasn't expecting such lively participation by MTCers. She tapped into very important topics for Mississippians. These topics are important to me too -- this discussion revealed my naiveté about race gaffes. I can't help but wonder if I have committed some myself in my classroom or in talking with students or faculty. On a related note, today in class, I had my honors students read a poem, "My Release." My student R.B. inferred that the poet was Black. I was shocked how she could gather that --  there was absolutely nothing in the poem that made it glaringly (or even subtly) obvious, I thought. But she pointed out the connection to music and "ivory keys" that Blacks often have (according to her)...these two incidents together, the discussion with Rita Bender and R.B.'s insights, show me how race is a much more substantial subject here in MS than I ever was cognizant of it being before I can here. 

However, I don't think it's anything about MS or the South that makes this racial awareness so, other than that here there is far more frequent contact with the opposite race (whichever color you are) than there is typically in the North and West. The dynamics are different here, too; in other regions where racial interaction is frequent, there is almost a raceless society, in that race is not discussed. And when it is, I have not heard it verbalized as it is here. I actually think that race consciousness and the ability to talk about race is moreso here than it is in the North. My coworker VM is Black, and she has always openly talked with me about race and the difference it makes as a teacher. 

As for the sub-par, discriminatory and degrading texts students at Bailey HS were given "back in the day:" I contend that not much has changed. We did not address this much in the discussion, but truly, the dialogue about why race is still correlated to economics as it is is never spoken, because it is not properly written about in the texts issued to students. And even a conscientious teacher who relies on the text is bound to fail to empower students with a bold understanding of how teachers are (by fault of the institutional decisions and structures that uphold [or to be quite blunt, use] them) prone to letting easy answers roll for the hard questions, and not challenge a topic that has not been untangled or managed in a long, long time. In education, it feels like social problems are seen and identified, but never do we put it on our students to challenge the status structure of society or to themselves negate the institutionalized barriers and setbacks they're faced with. What if a conversation like this were feasible with our own students? How can teachers facilitate discussion about race---and is it appropriate for a white teacher who is too naive to do this? This is where Rita Bender's discussion has left me thinking. 

Nov. 2009: Does school kill creativity?

No, it doesn’t have to. No matter how constrained a teacher is, I’ve determined that school does not have to be a creativity killer. To apply some ancient, wise words (2 Corinthians 4:8-9): “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; … struck down, but not destroyed.” In other words, NCLB and the obsessive, accountability-driven administrative directives it begets cannot single-handedly kill creativity in the classroom. Sure, state tests “stigmatize failure,” as Ken Robinson states. Teachers, though, do not have to stigmatize failure.

Take a measure as simple as rewarding students for non-academic feats, for instance. Awarding Student of the Month to the most spirit-lifting comedian in the classroom validates him as much as a good grade. Teacher-initiated rewards address and negate Robinson’s contention that school only the intellectual successes at school are the winners. He contends that “the whole purpose of public education …is to produce university professors. … We shouldn’t hold them up as the highest form of achievement…they live in their heads.” Nay! The purpose of school is to make something productive out of young peoples minds and hours. Sure, there are ugly class wars circling around how those minds and hours are spent. But ideally, school is for producing more productive (emotionally, spiritually, vocationally --- not merely intellectually) members of society. School is where students have training wheels for how to function as adults. It’s a mini-society. I think Robinson would be a huge fan to Rousseau’s anti-social, child-centered vision of education. Unfortunately, as pastoral and sweet as this vision is, it falls short of what humans were created for: to serve and better each other.

No, schools do not “squander” the innate creativity in children wholesale, as Robinson overconfidently asserts. Schools are the environment in which time is set aside for creativity to berequired. Without the structure of school, creativity wilts. Robinson is right to point out the paradoxical nature of creativity, such as that we do not mature into creativity, but rather we outgrow it, but he misses this important paradox about it: creativity needs structure just like fire needs oxygen. Without the push and the constraint to fuel creativity, or the probing questions of the teacher, or the small encouraging remarks along the way to the final creative product, a child’s creativity will be stifled. Also, in a school functioning properly, in which reading aloud and extolling reading should be a daily activity, the imagination will find no lack.

As to Robinson’s allusion to Picasso’s quote that we grow out of creativity, neither do I fully agree with this. Older children (teens) can use colors, tweak words, arrange sounds, plan projects and papers and speak more eloquently and purposefully than their younger counterparts. Who has the authority to say that creativity with more direction and eruditeness is somehow weaker than the innocent creativity that streams from a little mind? Classifying creativity in an hierarchy (eerily akin to what NCLB test standards do—classify schools and student achievement) and judging creativity as “the production of something both original and useful” (paraphrase) is rather utilitarian itself. Robinson defines creativity to uptightly, I’m afraid. 

Sept. 2009: Homework: Not so helpful after all?

I was very excited to find this post. I’ve been meaning to read Khon’s “Homework Myth” ever since my 6^th grade teacher, with whom I am still in touch and who now teaches high school math, mentioned it to me. She agrees with his thesis.

I, on the other hand, can’t help but believe that homework is helpful for the college-bound. Without the gradual build-up of homework, how will a student know how to handle the outside-of-class investment that is expected at that level? I guess the question that remains is, is homework worth it for the non-college-bound?

Using the rationale that kids hate homework and put it off as long as possible is not reason to believe that homework is unbeneficial. Many things that are popularly hated, such as exercise and financial prudence, are good for us. As for the argument that homework does not develop a work ethic, I disagree. With time to do whatever they please, my students will not be kindling their innate curiosity by reading a book of choice. They will be watching TV. For the argument that rigorous amounts of homework in middle school is not correlated with higher high school achievement, I suppose the counter argument would be, has any research shown that not doing or not assigning homework raises achievement? I think there is some spurious intervening variable that is making the research appear to suggest that homework is impotent as yielding great educational gains, when really home/neighborhood environment or family dysfunction/stress may be accountable for educational outcomes, not the assigning of homework.

Regarding Christine Hendricks’ letter to parents explaining her school’s experiment with no homework for a semester, I think this innovation would work well so long as there is reason to believe that families will support their children with the five responsibilities she bulleted in the letter. It would be more accurate for Hendricks to say, “we are implementing a ‘new’ homework this year: intense parental involvement.” This is not a truly no-homework policy! There are still things for the kids to do at home; parents are the new facilitators. In areas without this assurance of reinforcement from home, schools ought to lengthen the school day, so that all of that gets done in caretakers’ hands before reporting home at 6 p.m.

One thing I’ve thought about is whether homework is worth assigning when half of students do not do it, and it becomes a nuisance to teachers who cannot let more than half their kids fail due to excessive zeros produced by MIA homework. I’ve decided that it is worth assigning, as it will pull the borderline students who will do their homework up to proficient level on the state test. In other words, assigning homework is likely to help improve those kids who will do it; and if the teacher makes homework worth only a marginal amount, then for those who don’t do it, no excessive harm is done. So long as the teacher completes the independent practice during class time, and homework serves only as a reinforcement of skills learned, then homework is appropriate and will only strengthen the stronger students. They are not psychologically bothered by homework; in essence, homework is a “NR” for them (science shorthand for No Reaction). 

For honors kids, however, those who are definitely college-bound, the teacher’s assigning of and close monitoring of/feedback on homework is very important. These students especially cannot afford anything that will set them behind other students at their level who attend competitive private schools or suburban schools where the majority of the student body is vigilant about homework. I do not foresee these types of schools of privilege backing down off homework any time soon, and so for cricital needs schools to do so would be a mistake, giving the others yet another upper-hand in being prepared to succeed in college.

I think the real concern here is what is assigned for homework. If it is busy work, or over students' heads, or not sufficiently explained, or students do not have resources (parental, material, technological, or time) to do it, then yes, homework is terribly ineffective and even harmful. If a teacher gives homework as a good doctor proscribes the right antidote, however, homework remains a worthwhile component of schooling.

Sept. 2009: In response to Rubinstein on High Expectations

This year, I have three preps of regular English II, and three preps of APAC/accelerated (honors) students. The latter are my DREAM classes. I get to teach stuff I really like; it’s like an escape from the constraint implicit in teaching SATP (state tested subject area). I have discovered that I often kick into overdrive with my honors classes, assigning simply too much homework. What I’ve come to realize, after discussing low midterm progress report grades with the APAC program director, is that there are definite patterns in assignments students do really well on and have a high turn-in rates, and those that sink their grades with a deluge of zeros. The assignments I hype up over time, and that students expect to be worth a lot, they hit the nail on the head. On assignments that I do not explain but simply pack in, students do not do them, do them half-way, or I neglect to even go over them, period. So my new goal is, don’t overdo the homework. Quality, not quantity. I am currently, as Rubinstein says, “Try[ing] to learn what sorts of things are realistic.”

This over-doing it is what Rubinstein is talking about with “high expectations” that backfire. Definitely, I see the potential of this mistake to make students lose confidence in themselves. An attitude of “even if I try, I am not likely to pass anyway” is apt to set in. I want to gain my students’ trust that I am competent to weed out what is excess and busy work and instead to strengthen them with the most significant and essential part of the material. I want them to see work for my class as meaningful and worthwhile – and a student is not going to feel this way about his work if that work carries expectations he cannot meet. My class becomes a stresser instead of a potent learning environment. 

I think part of the challenge for over-eager teachers is in pausing, moving slowly through the incipient stages of basic mastery, and in having faith enough that that point in the year when “eventually you will get to [teach, use and expect] the harder stuff” WILL come. Teachers must pace themselves, because they have dependents. Without the right rhythm and pace, development is stunted.

Sept. 2009: My Community Assessment

I really enjoyed the product of this assignment -- even if the process wasn't enjoyable. Isn't that the way research is? View a pdf of the document here.

Sept. 2009: Hardest thing about the second year

This topic gives me pause; I'm really not sure. I will give a list of things that are different, then hopefully be led to a conclusion as to what's hardest.

For one, I am less wrapped-up in parent contact than I was last year. Literally, last year I was plagued with needing to call parents. The task haunted my mind; I couldn't even sit in a pew on Sunday morning without being pelted with a list of students' names who called for action on my part. Parent contact made me restless and irritable till I did it. This year, I address it straightaway, during planning instead of at home, and have made far less calls than last year. HOWEVER, I am apprehensive because this lessened anxiety has also meant that I have made less (a-hem...that is, zero) positive parent calls. I foresee this reduction in parent contact as potentially very bad, since I am now in a state-tested subject area. I will need to be super-vigilant to call parents on the cusp of midterms to report their child's failing status. Euch, even writing about parent contact gets me down. This is a part of the job that I still do not like, but I fully recognize its essentialness.

Other things that are different: now I am no longer a newbie. I have new responsibilities, to mentor the new first-years at my school. I have resources I can share, tips to pass along that could help them as they helped me. I find myself still so wrapped up in my own classes and so starved of time, though, that I feel I am failing in providing all the help I could to the first-years. Sorry, first years! I am trying... Yes, I think this is probably toughest about being a second-year teacher - you take on a new supportive role for other co-workers; you no longer only receive help, but are needed to provide it, too. I am now no longer a consumer of help and a beneficiary only; I am equipped to share, benefit, improve, ameliorate and edify those around me. May I not buckle and prove to be a coward in this new facet of my job!

Well, my 11th grade English teacher was right after all. She always said, "good writing is that which leads you to new discoveries and perspectives and realizations AS you are in the process of writing it." And so it was just now- I became cognizant of a part of my vocation that deserves more conscious attention from me. It is good to be a conscious worker! (Marx might smile upon that conclusion...my "species-being" and my connectedness to my labor is alive and well here in Jackson.)

Sept. 2009: Staying organized

This is one of my favorite subjects. I like organizing stuff: rooms, clutter, ideas, records; by size, color, theme, convenience, time, etc. And be encouraged: getting your papers and classroom in order is an easy way to gain a sense of control over a very arduous job. There are so many variables and strains that you cannot control - your students' disinterest, chronic absence or apathy, for instance (as these can be mediated and addressed, but not ultimately done for them) - but take heart! You CAN manage the little stuff, and it pays off.

Have a table near your desk for all papers. Don't use your desk for paper storage; keep it as clear as possible. On that table, keep stacks of your handouts for the previous few days and the current day. On that desk, also have a bin with hanging folders in which to put graded student work ready for return. When collecting student work, paperclip them by period, make a neat stack, and put them in your bag or (gasp!) on your desk in order to say to yourself, "grade these ASAP, record and return."

Another crucial desk to have is a small one by the entrance of your room. Keep a tardy sign-in, pen strapped down, an example binder (full of class notes) there. Also, keep missed worksheets there too, so students who wer absent can collect missed work on their way in. Either a bin with hanging folders on the desk, or a wall-mounted, hanging series of pocket-folders will do for this purpose (you can make one of these by taping manila folders about 2" apart in a vertical 'ladder').

Let's see...I think it's already been universally imparted that a carry-along clipboard is a crucial organizing device for the new teacher, to track student names, discipline charts, and keep attendance. On my behavior chart, I use abbreviations such as "D" for detention (and I know I need to call parents at that point), "S" for sleeping, and a colored-in triangle in the box-corner to notate a tardy (a non-colored-in triangle means absent). See my classroom management ppt for further elaboration on this record-keeping code, which I adapted from Ms. Mossing and Ms. Hall. 

I also compile binders per quarter full of originals I had and lesson plans, so that by the end of each term, I have all my files that I used in a central place, even if they could use additional organization. I add these day by day, as I wrap up each sheet that was part of the unit. 

The key is: keep on filing things where they belong, as soon as you find them invading your free table space. Put things back where they belong, and be relentless in taking care of things before they pile up. Get all that minutia of teaching (all the non-teaching tasks we must do) off your plate and off your mind, even if that means staying after school 30 minutes on a Friday afternoon. Remember, organizing is your friend; it gives you some peace of mind! What a great reward!! I would compare organizing to exercise: you may dread it up-front, but you will not regret it once you make it a habit and see its fruits.

August 2009: Gettin' Better This Semester

This semester, I am hoping for a number of improvements over last year.

First, I really want a more organized system for make-up work and missed work. I can already feel myself slipping down this slope and getting behind, especially with two preps this year. I do like the binder system I have, and I think I will designate one student per prep to be my "notetaker/binder upkeeper go-to person." S/he will be in charge of writing out an extra copy of notes and making sure that the example binder is immaculate on a daily basis. I will choose someone who is always done with notes before everyone else- one of those fast worker-bee types. 

Second, I want to keep up with my homework blog more. I plan to give out homework more regularly this year, so this will be a must. (So far, homework returns are about 60%! Amazing! Wonderful! I think that makes it worthwhile, b/c the kids who do do it will be that much more likely to tip up into a proficient or advanced category on their English II exam, when their independent practice is extended and polished and downloaded more permanently into their memory by doing work outside of class....plus, it will serve as college preparation for that demographic. So I have decided that homework is worthwhile.)

Third, I would like to initiate regular, mass parent contact via weekly/biweekly emails. This might prove to be a headache though...would it be better to keep parents somewhat out of the "know"? I might be asking for it (a time/brain-consuming deluge of emails to reply to) in establishing that contact. Already, with APAC my students are using email to clarify HW assignments....and while that's commendable and great and exactly what they SHOULD be doing, I can see how that might quickly become ex-hau-sting!!!! So then again, maybe I won't. But using more email with parents is the general goal. I love email over phone!

Fourth, I want to sharpen my raise-hand vs. suspended-raising-hand balance during class time. Is it bad to suspend the raise-hand rule for brainstorm-esque guided practice? Or should raising hands be protected? I notice I ask an awful lot of questions of my students over the course of the 90-minute period. I like that. While I like my newfound "free to talk out/OK, now raise your hands again" rule-switching that I am implementing a lot this year, I do wonder what affect it will have on students' informal assessment. Also, I don't want to jeopardize my absolute control over the students' talking. (Ha, not that I have that, but I like to feel like I have a good amount, anyway.)

August 2009: First week: Year 1 vs. Year 2

The first week of school this year, as compared to last year, was much easier. I didn't have that knotted-a.m. stomach, I didn't feel too young to be a teacher, and I didn't have that wavering facial expression of "I'm tough--but please don't test me!" Rather, I was free and able to slam the classroom door fiercely to punctuate the tardy bell and command, "You should be on page 3 doing your warm-up, with your homework on your desk!" Best of all, the dread I felt last year was far weaker this year. Of course, part of me dreaded kissing the freedom and rest of summer goodbye; on the other hand, I had a newfound ease and sense of direction and orientation and know-how that I lacked last August, which equipped me to settle more comfortably into the rigamarole of teacherly duties.

I felt at home in my classroom, which was a great and welcome difference. Also, I cannot express the sheer joy of former students saying, "Hi, Ms. Nelson!" in the hallway. To be known in a place is one of life's sweetest privileges, I think. I have a new belonging here, and it's a thrill. Investing in a place brings about a multiplied blessing, it seems. It's an undeserved but much-welcomed upgrade to this job, the second year. I mean, I guess some of the newfound ease is "deserved" insofar as it has been "earned" through a year's worth of struggling and figuring-out. Ah! My second-year cronies from last year told the truth when they said, "it's all about the second year."  I feel like I am at the point I reached by February last year, now. I feel ready to roll, ready to grow, ready to work, ready to get to know new students. Also, knowing the stress that lies ahead, the nights of being drained and overloaded mentally, (strangely enough) relieves some of the stress.

I admit that at first I was apprehensive to receive new students because losing the former ones was a tearful parting. But already, I can foresee the attachment I will develop to them. Of all things, sitting with a student as he waited for his auntie to pick him up from my detention this past Friday brought that realization to the fore.

I anxiously await what new things I will learn this year as a teacher. This profession is so rich, so full of potential (probably because it entails just TOO MUCH! My coworker told me about an article that added up all the functions teachers play in a functioning society -- i.e., therapist, tutor, babysitter, etc. -- and a teacher's economic worth to society is astonishing!). 

June 2009: Failure to Restore a Troublemaker

When I think of failure this year, one student’s name comes to mind immediately. I’ll give him the pseudonym of Ross. Ross was a popular boy. He made girls giggle and held leadership within his guy-group (not quite a gang, but some similar form of association). He had failed 10^th grade once already. He wasn’t slow. He would sporadically snap into “don’t-bother-me-I’m-doing-my-work” mode in class, but this resolve was too rare to get him close to passing. He demanded a lot of attention in-class, but probably because I entertained it. On a regular basis, I felt like the weaker party in our interactions. And my softness in disciplining him is what did him in in my class. With six or seven referrals, almost all of them punctuated with him leaving class in an outraged, profane, physically unrestrained huff, we had a bad history. Our relationship was on the rocks constantly, and any concord between us was strained and temporary. Whereas he was always on the cusp of explosion (and other teachers agreed), I was always on the verge of breakdown with him.

Why did I feel so powerless with Ross? First, I let him have his way. I attempted to shut-down his speaking out of turn and his under-the-breath profanities and his routine insubordination, but just as often averted conflict by not addressing these infractions. Second, I was ineffective in my communication with his parent. He had a single mother and an involved grandmother.  The mother always said, “I can’t get him to detention,” so I would compromise and be spineless with her. But Ross never did show up when I gave extensions on the detention. Oh, I felt so helpless and powerless! There was a period of time where his grandmother stepped in and was responsive to calls and detentions. But for some reason, that didn’t set Ross on a new track to redemption in my classroom. I also fizzled out, having to constantly be calling and arranging and apologizing for his behavior. As a young teacher, I didn’t realize that that stress isn’t on me. I have still not fully outgrown my need to stress out for my students’ willful misbehavior.

Finally, my powerlessness and failure with Ross sprang from the fact that I didn’t want to interact with him. It was too volatile and difficult. Disciplining is demanding; it’s easier in the present moment to just fill out a referral form and send the source of conflict out and away. His was the name I looked for right away on the suspension and absentee lists, and sighed with relief when it appeared. The salve to our mutual woes (he wasn’t successful in my class, and I was effectively making him the scapegoat to all my classroom management frustrations) was to mete out the punishment to him that would not enable him to reform. This was not restorative justice by any means. With each suspension he earned himself with me, he inched nearer and nearer to failure, hopelessness, and dropping out.

Ross confided in his biology teacher. She relayed to me information that her mother’s boyfriend was involved in a shooting at Ross’s house one week. She also told me his father was killed when he was young. At a parent-teacher-administrator conference in spring, his mother exhibited the inattention and carelessness that accounted for Ross’s own detachment from seeing himself succeed. As the assistant principal and I talked to her, she excused herself for a cell phone call. She was utterly absent, even in our presence. I can only assume she’s the same with Ross: there, but also terribly not there.

In some ways, Ross ended up paying for her non-cooperation (or low level of concern to cooperate) with me. The child was paying for the parent’s unconscious mistakes. And I did virtually nothing to siphon off that damage from Ross. Maybe with more time, I’ll be able to be a more effective mediator of discipline for students like Ross. To be neither spinelessly soft and shamelessly accommodating and anxiously apologetic, nor emotionless as I watch the troublemaking students’ performance and chances for success diminish to a squeak on account of my unwillingness to discipline him.

June 2009: Two-fold Success: on the court, in the classroom

The most wonderful part of my first year of teaching began in mid-February, when I coached the co-ed tennis team. That is when my job came together. I became a teacher much more fully; my vocation and daily work became my identity on a much deeper level. I started to have an undeniable attachment to Jackson, and each day took on a pleasant, stable flow of work and rest. Coaching for two hours in the afternoons gave me the daily structure and sunshine that I needed. More than anything, though, it created a space for me to interact with students in a more friendly, personal way than the school day and the classroom allow.

Three of my players were my own students: one an academic star, one an enthusiastic girlie-girl, one an enigmatic, fair-weather, hot-tempered teacher’s pet. The other nine were upperclassmen, each with their own pizzazz. The one who played upon my gullibility regularly was also a young woman whose sensibility and responsibility impressed me. The one who told other players, “Don’t talk to my coach like that! Don’t talk that trash!” brought a contagion of cheerfulness to every practice. The persistent whiner of the team was also the one who showed the most commitment of any player. The loud-mouthed girl who wouldn’t part with her mp3 player and frustrated me with low-cut shirts also was clear-headed about prioritizing school. The placid introvert with a misdemeanor was also the one who always helped lug balls and water without my asking. Each player had an endearing idiosyncrasy and a puzzling dynamism that made me love him or her all the more.

How did coaching translate into my being a teacher, and success in the classroom? It gave me a different kind of confidence with students. I brought the knowledge that I can relate to students in a way that conveys I care, and it showed me how receptive they can be and want to be to a teacher who cares. It also showed me that I am capable of being autonomous. I was able to coordinate game details with other coaches on my own (also teachers themselves), and to manage bringing my team to two all-day tournaments.

Through coaching, I began to see that my youth and inexperience were no real hindrance to cultivating that part of a teacher’s role that cares for her students like perhaps a parent does. By that I mean, getting to know particular students and their good and bad sides on their good and bad days provided an opportunity for me to discover how care for a person can indeed be a constant. Whereas teaching was often an up-and-down experience – there were great highs and also great lows – coaching showed me that teaching can be a sustainable profession through all that turbulence because care for students is (can be) a constant. This is not an ideal; it is possible.

In fact, coaching tennis also showed me that my youngness was not necessarily a disadvantage. Despite common comments from community members – such as from a woman who I waited with while my oil was changed: “You’re a teacher? You’re too young!” – my player S.K. reveled in the fact that I was young. She’s also a student of mine.

At the district tournament, S.K. and I leaned against the fence to watch the mixed doubles match. As we rooted for them, my obnoxious, over-excited tendencies started showing in my facial expressions and body language. S.K. delighted in this and responded with the same kind of expressions – excitement for the match we were winning. “When are you going to invite me to your house?” she cajoled, half-jokingly. After that day, her demeanor in my class became increasingly conscientious and her desire to improve at tennis showed in practice. In both domains, her efforts doubled. She went from being a mediocre student with bare-bones effort to being student of the month in April. She earned it for her outstanding insight in class one day, that the way Japanese-Americans were residentially isolated and given sub-par housing allocations by the government was not too different from what happens today. I didn’t even pose that as a leading question…she saw the real-world connection to literature on her own.

As I reflect upon this success, a desire to become more involved in my students’ lives when that door is opened floods back to me like rushing waters. To see a student respond to teaching in such a way that multiplies her efforts and brings her closer to the full expression of her personality and ability: what an unsurpassable, indescribable, unexpected wonder! 

EPILOGUE

On another level, coaching tennis was a success because it got me involved in my school’s community. Adults who play at the public court where my students practiced and played have become some of my closest friends in Jackson. I love the fact that most of them are black; I feel like I am able to become more fully a part of this neighborhood that way. Blacks and whites need more regular interaction built into their daily lives; tennis has been a very natural way to regularize our interaction. For instance, through tennis, I befriended Tracy, a local teacher, whose niece’s baby shower I attended at her church one afternoon after we played tennis together. There, I met her whole family! To be welcomed into her life has been so exciting to me. Amidst tennis, Tracy and I share music and discuss Christianity; her friendship is one of the sweetest things to emerge yet from my time in Jackson. “Make your deposit here, then move on,” she advises me when I tell her I may want to stay in Jackson past these two years.

In combination with a book I am currently reading, Divided By Faith by Michael Emerson, and my experience teaching and coaching and participating in this tennis court and my church, I have become increasingly committed to living in a racially diverse area and not sticking to my own background in where I will live, where I will send my children to school, where I will worship, and where I will work. MTC has me seriously considering my future life choices. 

June 2009: Practice and Improve

Three teacher skills I want to practice and improve this summer are: lecturing less and placing more responsibility on students to teach each other; the ability to keep sustained quiet working time at the end of a lesson when students have reached the “independent practice” portion of the lesson (after modeling and guided practice); and an increase and consistency in the use of wait time in asking students reading-comprehension (or otherwise) verbal questions. As end-of-year student evaluations of my class and my teaching revealed, according to my students, sometimes my class needs more zip and “enjoyment” (it’s all work and sometimes I can just feel that I talk too much), sometimes my classroom discipline isn’t enough to foster focused independent working time, and sometimes kids who don’t get it can slip by under the radar, until OOPH! Assessment day!

One thing I do well as a teacher is organize my students: in my own (behavioral and academic) records, in the physical environment of my classroom, in having all the materials they need to succeed prepared for them, in teaching them how to organize themselves, and in how I present information. This skill allows for a peace of mind that can withstand the daily uncertainties and energy demands of this job.

June 2009: Innovations!

I really enjoyed designing my “South Jackson School District" (it is attached here). Wresting with what plagues JPS’s problem-solvers (superintendents, analysists, specialists, teachers, principals…) in real life was a meaningful exercise. This project reaffirmed my desire to study educational structures within the bounds of social science. That way, interaction with the social structure (schools) “on-the-ground” (in real time, in person, in the mess of it all) can be melded to thinking on a higher level about what macro-level changes could make a difference for students and their neighborhoods.

The most interesting feature about SJPS is its use of the New Basics curriculum. In lieu of standardized tests (SATP), students are slated to turn in a series of well-defined, authentic assessments (projects and original work) every three years. Teachers are rigorously trained to evaluate and assess student work; thus, the bar is raised for both students and teachers in their vocations. A few other notable changes I made in my district were: doing away with central offices and placing clerks/bureaucrats/specialists in small on-site (in-school) teams; using the subsequently vacant downtown office as a bargaining chip for getting the library involved in a strong inter-institutional alliance with schools; replacing SATP with only one mandatory test, the ACT, to be administered in 10^th grade district-wide; a low student-teacher ratio with high teacher pay, made possible by a large number of TAs (with associates’ degrees, or possibly lower); school floorplans and groupings in a cluster structure (not by ability, but sustained K-12 to foster continuity); alternate Fridays off for teachers; a “mosaic” block schedule (90-minute periods M-Th, and 50-minute periods on Fridays).

May 2009: Blog 5: Realizing the Potential for Overreaction

As faculty, if I worked at a school that closed in fear of the pandemic of the swine flu, I would find it to be an overreaction. I would be upset to have to stretch out the school year at the behest of city officials and decision-makers who are oversensitive to “moral panics” – those outbreaks of terror catalyzed by the press, but hardly validated by numbers or magnitude.

After reading about the school in Alabama that closed everything down for 51,000 students because of two cases of flu, I believe that, rather than preventing infection, long school closure would simply spread panic. The NYC Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, sees right through the irrationality of the panic. His comment that the eight cases confirmed at a city school were mild – and only a small fraction of the 100-some students who thought they had swine flu actually did – further buttresses my stance that school closure is unnecessary and unwise in this instance.

The tone and language of the SCUCISD press release – “The state health department is urging that the district’s staff, faculty, students and their household members to avoid contact with others” – is overly fearful. Add to the dictin of the edict the extent of time schools will be closed: until May 8^th or 11^th? What arbitrary reasons do the decision makers have for prolonging closure to that late date?! Decisions like these only contribute to the general brokenness of school systems. What students need is stability in times of uncertainty. Sick students, or any students whowent to Mexico recently, ought to be sent home, not everybody.

April 2009: Blog 4: response to article; The impact of school-sanctioned privacy invasion on students’ academic success

As I heard Savannah from Arizona tell about how one day at school brought on stomach ulcers, her reluctance to return to school for months, and the loss of her friends because they were embarrassed of her, I couldn’t help but think of my own soft-spoken, sweet, honor-role female students. Imagining any one of these female students of mine getting strip-searched because of an administrator’s alleged probable cause darkens my view of schools as pro-social institutions. No matter how strong a school official’s belief that a student had drugs on her and posed a threat to the student body as a distributor, there is no situation in which dehumanization and “traumatization” should be seen as appropriate protocol.

Institutions are adulterated when bureaucratic terms like “from a policy stand-point” permit such practices. A drug-free environment should not come at the cost of dehumanization. The injustice done to Savannah is two-fold: the stigma that is attached to a student in an incident like this is penultimate to the violation of a young person’s body. What I mean by that is, schools should never be in the business of turning a good, decent youth into a delinquent based on mere suspicion. Whether the student really does behave like a delinquent, or merely her self-concept is turned upside-down by such an event, has a profound impact on her identity and immediate future.

The impacts of such physical invasion and humiliation on a teen would alter his or her trajectory with curriculum and instruction because, as Savannah did, they would be inclined to become a truant. After all, the school sees them as a criminal already; why go to a place where the adults do not approve of you, and your peers have turned from you? Indeed, this one strip-search, one gloomy morning or afternoon, had a life-altering effect on Savannah.

A better practice would be to hold the student in the office and require her to be sent home. I suppose the school would rather have the incriminating evidence to brandish over the parents, instead of vehement parents defending their children’s innocence. If school administrators aren’t trained in the dangers of pharmaceuticals, as the district spokesperson defended, then they shouldn’t get so over-involved. Let me reiterate myself: it is not the job of a school to turn a youth, who needs all the protective factors she can get against adolescent risks, into a delinquent. Schools ought to administer corrective punishments, rather than punishments that cripple youth. Of course, chronic suspension is an instance of this that gets iffy for a teacher who cannot teach anytime that unruly child is in the room. But in this instance, we are speaking of those wallflower students, who may indeed pose some threat to the student body by being involved with drugs, but who need an education as bad as – or worse than – their peers.

I actually can think of a student in a situation like Savannah’s. J.R. was actually once my student of the month. His classwork was oh-so-meticulous. He was respectful and calm-spirited. Last term, the administrators nailed him with a 9-day suspension for having found large sums of cash on his person. J.R. returned to school with the wind totally knocked out of him. He was depressed and I could literally see the ruin and approaching disaster in his face. “They think I’m so bad,” he said. He stopped coming to school for two months. Then he either withdrew or dropped out. I never saw the boy again. This is a instance in which his culpability and involvement in drugs is more blatant than Savannah’s ever was, and I still believe the school did him wrong. My heart breaks that the “system” – this institution intended to equip, enable, educate – removed his last chances, his few remaining protective factors. He’s been left to the hands of risk, when a good punishment ought to eliminate risks of an offender to re-offend. That would be true restorative justice.