March 25, 2008
I was cleaning out my del.icio.us bookmarks just now and came across “Where We Might Begin With Teaching” by William Ayers. I hadn’t read it when I saved it, just tagged it as “to read,” but it makes a lot of sense. In fact, it says a lot of things that I really need to read right now, in late March, when I’m pretty much at my wit’s end w/r/t a lot of things that are going on here.
There’s an alternative to acceding completely or whining constantly, and it begins with thinking through and naming the commitments you bring with you into the classroom, your values, your pledge. These are not pure abstractions, but rather standards to hold in mind. A fundamental commitment might involve taking the side of your students, affirming the humanity of each and resisting anything that constrains or reduces them. Another might be to create in your classroom an environment that is a kind of republic of many voices, allowing every student a space to be seen and heard and known well as a person of worth and value.
Because teachers work in a fluid, complex, idiosyncratic world, and because there’s much beyond our immediate control, it makes sense to focus on these things that you can control. First, you can see your students as whole human beings, three-dimensional beings much like yourself with hopes and dreams, bodies and minds and spirits. You can see with your own eyes, your own curious and critical mind, your own generous heart. And you can resist the alphabet soup of deficits and the toxic habit of labeling kids that infects most schools. No one can make you see kids as creatures with labels clinging to them like barnacles, sharp and ugly. You have a mind of your own, and you can become a student of your students in spite of everything. This gesture alone can be full of surprise, and deeply satisfying.
It’s the third quarter, and it’s March, and here in Connecticut, that means that we’re stranded between our February and April vacations with nothing but CAPT testing, course selections, and preparation for senior internships to hold on to. The CAPT-less sophomores and juniors, the ones who didn’t bother showing up for testing, have been more or less mopped up, and the guidance department is working through its list of kids who haven’t stopped by for scheduling meetings. I ordinarilly wouldn’t have anything to do with the senior internship program, not after last year’s fiasco, but Dave made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, so I get to go to a meeting about it today.
I think, though, that the worst part of this month every year is getting sick of dealing with the same kids every day. I’ve had my sophomores since the start of the school year, and I feel like I know them by now. I know, too, that there are a few of them that, try as I might, I have a hard time digging. I don’t understand their motivation, what would make them do the things they do. I don’t understand why they pick on the socially inept, the mentally challenged, the tall, the short. I can’t fathom the selfishness that comes through when they come to see me for extra help, then, as I’m trying to explain to them what’s actually good about their writing, are off distracting other kids. And that makes it really hard to like them. I care about these kids, I care deeply, and I’m worried for them, but that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy their company. They’re damaged, and it is up to better minds than mine to try and fix them. All I can do is teach. And at times, I don’t even want to do that anymore.
There are new things afoot here, though, which give me some hope. No matter how old-fashioned, non-progressive, and embarrassing a lot of our school’s policies may be, we in the good ol’ English Department have a few tricks still up our sleeves. We’ve talked in the past week about portfolio-style assessment for English classes, which’d be great, and a little about new curricula for the 9th and 10th grade programs. These things are exciting to me, and I really hope that the momentum for change is allowed to continue.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to bring myself out of the late-winter funk that has dogged me of late. I’m thinking more and more about ways to go paperless* in my classroom, even though I don’t think I’m in line for a Smartboard or anything like that. We’ve got a fancy new portal system that kind of works, but I’m not sure I want to tether myself to something that’s unproven. I know a few colleagues have started using Google Docs with their students, which to me is a lot more promising. I also kind of like the idea of using the Google Calendar and some of the other apps. Will that make me a Tech Committee traitor? Do I really care?
Oh, one other thing that’s not even remotely related to any of this, but which still has made me rethink my teaching, reading, and writing: Check out the Australian jazz-esque trio The Necks. From what I can figure out, they tend to perform songs that are over an hour long, so this is a rare short piece (it’s a little over nine minutes). I love how free-flowing and organic their music is, and how they’re not afraid of repetition, attention to detail, and jarring statements.
* ie, no photocopying on my end. Students will still have to take notes in their own notebooks, though.
My decision to go on this trip was spontaneous. I regretted it about an hour after I agreed to go, but I’d given my word. So I was nervous as anything for the weeks leading up to our departure. I had no idea what to expect. Would the kids behave themselves, or at some point would I have to go to the Tecate central police station to bail a couple of them out? Would we be able to build a house? Would I prove, once and for all, my incompetence with power tools?
The two trips to Mexico prepared me for this, the biggest challenge of my life: walking about 90 miles in a week with everything I needed on my back, then essentially functioning as a grad student in a foreign city. When I look back on my year, and on my late 20s (they were fun when they lasted), this stands out as one of Those Moments, a Time When Everything Changed.