So this will not take long, and will not be profound. This week, I got new kids. In my career, I have taught two groups of kids. The first group, I had for three years. I taught those kids from 6th grade through 8th. When they went to 9th grade, I left and took my career to a whole new level. The second group I taught for 2 years. They all just became seniors. I grew a lot with those kids. And even though they flattered me this week with the "I miss you" or "Why didn't you go with us", I can't help but have my eyes pinned to the future. I was a pretty decent teacher for those kids. And although it never ceases to amaze me how attached kids can become to you even at your worst, I am a far better teacher now than I had been for both of those groups. Mostly because of them. Naturally, you reflect on mistakes and attempt to right wrongs the second time around, so now that I know better, I have done better. I plan to continue to get better at my craft.
However, change is difficult. And as I see a lot of my old ways fading in the wind, I am allured by this idea of the unknown. The unknown of how well these new students will do for me. The unknown of where my career goes from here. The unknown of....well everything. Even tomorrow. But that unknown is what keeps me going. It is what keeps this fire underneath me to turn from complacency. I have never been more excited than I have been on the cusp of this new year.
So far so good.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Monday, July 2, 2012
To the scholars of Sheffield's AP Language course.....
It is with a heavy heart that I must bid you each farewell. It has been a long 2 years, filled with so many valleys to cross and mountains to climb. Yet here we are at life's crossroads. We have served our purposes and now must part. How you all have influenced me! I am a better teacher, and a better person for having made your acquaintances. I have enjoyed every single minute I have spent with each of you. It was filled with happiness and peace. I had worked with low students so long that I had to learn to adjust my practices when working with students who wanted a push. I think I got it now! I had to do some homework and stay just one step ahead of you guys-- but somehow we all got there.
In a few days (July 5th), we will see how well you all did on this AP exam. I am reminded that this isn't a "pass/fail" exam; it is more of "a college level student/ not a college level student" test. Meaning that if you score a 2 or 1, you are still performing on a high school level and if you get a 3 or higher, you are operating on a college level, and thus will receive an AP credit in college. I say all that to say that no matter what your scores are, none of you "failed". You all have grown tremendously as intellectuals, and a scholars, and we must appreciate how much we all grew thanks to this course.
Personally, I also want to leave you all with some parting words. I would have sent them privately, but as always, we learned to learn from each other so each of you will benefit from the other's personal messages:
D.B.- I appreciate you. You make me sick quite often, and I grew restless with your excuses, but you are definitely an articulate, black beauty and I pray you find your balance in order to encompass all of those great qualities at once. You struggled being good at everything at the same time, and that is hard to do. Please always be positive and push yourself to be the best you can be. And try to remember that although extra-curricular activities are fun, your education is a PRIORITY. Don't sleep on your grades, because essentially they can hold you back if you don't do well. Then, what good are the extra-curricular activities if you don't get into college because of your grades? Find your balance and don't run yourself thin this year. Stress is real!
J.A.- Even though we playfully fuss and argue, I want you to know how much I totally respect you. You never cease to amaze me because you are never afraid to step up to any of my challenges: verbally, mentally, etc. When I think you are down and out, you come back with a vengeance! Your test scores ALWAYS show me that you are hearing me, even when I think you aren't! You had one of the highest EOC scores last year. You had the 2nd best writing score this year! You are a force to be reckoned with! I will forever respect you for your willingness to be pushed. I am very proud of you and wish you the best!
A.Bak- Girl, you know you make me crazy. You are one of the most naturally smart students I have taught, yet you are so complacent. I have never understood why you weren't an A student when A's could be so easy for you! Some people would kill to have your thinking capacity. I hope you learn to use it to your advantage soon before you miss out on some very important opportunities that will pass you by if you do not seize upon success in the classroom! As a senior, grades and ACT scores are all that matter! And you are too smart to miss out on what is for you!
A. Bar-You are the definition of brilliance. You will be able to do whatever you want in your life! I hate you will not graduate with your class, but I know you will be valedictorian wherever you go. You can write, you are articulate, you are thoughtful, you are gorgeous! The world will not be able to stop you! I am thankful I was given the opportunity to teach you. I learned very much from you being in my classroom- I learned that there are some students who are ready to be exposed to knowledge! You are designed for very great things.
Y.P.- Yes, when we met I did think you were all about mirrors and make up! Boy did you prove me wrong! You are so smart and so quick to catch onto whatever is thrown your way. I will miss you! I hope you continue to prove people wrong who think you are just another pretty face! You are a kindhearted, intelligent individual. REMEMBER THAT. Too many women are stereotyped because they are pretty and no one takes them seriously in the workplace or in relationships. Continue to be you AND knock down that stereotype for all us pretty women in the world!
A.G.- We spent two very contentious years together. And even though I questioned if you got it or not, I think you did. I have seen you grow so much. IF we can keep your mind on the books and nothing else, I believe you can be great at whatever you do! Do not get lost in the moment of being in high school! Remember that passed May 2013, there is a whole life on the other side of high school! Prepare for that now, by pushing yourself to be the best and honing your abilities. You can do it.
K.W.- I am very glad you took my class this year. You are extremely articulate and I wish I heard your voice more! Continue to find your voice and craft yourself into who you envision yourself to be! Your voice is too important to not be heard, or to get lost in millions of other, more dominant voices. I appreciated every single time we heard your voice because you always had something valid or thoughtful to say!
K.N.- You are so intelligent. When you knew what we were doing, you always gave me some of the most profound responses. Other students stand in awe of you. I don't know where you lost your your way, but please find it so that you can excel to your potential! It is never too late to turn things around!
D.M.- The depth of your knowledge is astounding. I understand this. I respect how immensely intelligent you are. Sometimes I questioned my ability to teach you something new! I lesson planned with you in mind all the time because I wanted to make sure I was pushing you. I realize how easy things are for you, but some of the most beautiful and profound writing that I came across this year, belonged to you! You are probably the smartest individual I have ever come across. I believe that you will receive that 30 on the ACT your heart desires. It just might take you doing more studying for it on your own, because not too many sub-par teachers (including myself) know how to fully teach you. Thank you for allowing me to try to teach you these last two years-- it made me a better educator!
A.T.- You are one of the most complex people I have ever met. I have grown to respect your pursuit of education, when others have found it a nuisance. I have grown to appreciate your thinking processes, when others found you to be a trouble maker. You taught us all that your education is YOUR education and one should never settle for less than the VERY best from those who are in charge of educating you. When it came to us, however, you were too busy still fighting battles and missing the education! I hope that what you did gain from me, will be enough, although I am afraid sometimes it won't be. It is hard to catch up on missed time. Please continue to read to broaden your scope. Continue to question everything, including things you don't think are correct. Read the New Yorker magazine, Time magazine and Newsweek so you can experience the world outside of this city (which is NOT indicative of the world!). Build yourself up mentally so that nobody can ever question your beliefs! I am excited to read and hear about the great things you will accomplish, because you truly are destined for greatness.
A.J.- I hate I didn't teach you two years. But it really didn't matter after awhile because you made up for it by reading everything you could to catch up. I respect and appreciate all of your effort this past year! It was exciting to watch your evolution from regular high school student to high standing intellectual. You pushed yourself to be a more dignified writer, and never, ever settled for less. I was excited to see you disappointed about 7s, although your peers all got 5s and 6s. I saw you strive to be better, and you were. No matter who teaches you, continue to feed your thirst for knowledge. Sheffield is sleeping on you! Make everybody wake up around you! You are not just "another black girl". You are one who is going to be something real special when you get where you are going!
C.C.- The lone gentleman. I am so glad I was given an opportunity to teach you. I have seen your ability expand by leaps and bounds! I cannot express how grateful I am that you stuck in there. That you continued to push, push, push to keep up with your female counterparts. Maturity comes with your days, so it'll all balance out eventually. Thank you for hanging in there, because we all know you didn't have to. Thank you for constantly letting me know you appreciated my long nights and early mornings planning lessons in order to teach you. You took it all in! Every piece of information I gave you. Continue to be that adamant about your education! Do not allow another person to fluff over your education because it will be YOUR loss, not theirs! And be who you think you want yourself to be. We cannot live for our peers' or teachers' or parents' approval. We can only live to our own potential. Just keep YOUR BAR HIGH so you can reach YOUR goals. Expectations are everything. You must have high expectations for yourself in order to push yourself to greatness.
S.B.- You hold a very special place in my heart. You are one of the most insightful and kind people I have ever met. I appreciate that you always tried to push yourself to keep up with the pace. You never counted yourself out. Ever. Now, if you would go through senior year without letting trivial stuff get you in a rut, you will finish the top of your class and be headed for greatness! Continue to read!
A.R.- Utter brilliance. I wish that your home life didn't interfere as much with your school life because I imagine what you could be like if you were there everyday. You have a gift! The raw gift of thinking. I pray that with this new legislation (that you were so worried about) you will receive the college education you DESERVE. Please make your education a priority!
S.W.- I think I believe in your intellectual ability more than you do! You are so smart, and I wish you wouldn't be afraid of it. You are destined for great things and I need you to believe that as much as I do! Stop 2nd guessing yourself and believe that you know what you know! Rebuke laziness and procrastination because it holds you back from your greatness! READ, READ, READ and think about what you read. You are extremely bright and quietly beautiful, inside and out! Believe those things about yourself.
D.P.- You are still with me. Sitting in your seat, every single day. Thank you for being in my life for 1 1/2 years. I always stood in awe of you. Your intelligence, your prowess on the race track, your humility. There is not one thought of you that crosses my mind that does not make me overwhelmed with tears. We were robbed of such a wonderful human. But honestly, the good have always died young. And all geniuses have their vices. Some die of drugs because they cannot calm their minds without it. Some die because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to have a life outside of their intelligence. You were definitely the latter. How I wish you didn't go to that party that night. Your cryptic tweet, "Everybody is sleep- I will sleep when I die" still haunts me, because I wish you would've slept that Christmas Eve. Then you could've awakened Christmas morning to get that laptop you wanted (and needed) so badly. Instead of receiving eternal sleep. I will always remember that time in Nashville when you read Huck Finn all day every day, when everybody on the trip were having fun. You were one of the most self-disciplined students I have ever met, and EVERYBODY stands to learn something from that. You refused to ever be left behind, even if it meant staying after school, or missing a track practice in order to do your work. ON YOUR OWN FREE WILL. Nobody told you to do these things. You did them to appease your own standards. Incomparable. There will never be another like you. However, I know you are with me. And that you guide my meditations of how to teach your classmates better than I was taught. I miss your voice, but you will always be there. And I thank God for the little acquaintance that we did have, because I am a better person for having met you.
Parting is such sweet sorrow. I will miss you all in my class as my students. However, I am at peace with the thought that you all operate on higher standards now. Please do not settle for anybody who refuses to teach you. Always make the people being paid to educate you, work. It will be to your detriment if you decide to become complacent in anything involving your education. Remember that, seniors. And whatever you do READ, READ, READ. Never stop reading. There is so much you have not read that your non-black counterparts will have read! You have to constantly read in order to keep up!!!! The world outside of Sheffield is filled with intellectual beasts that you will soon have to compete with for jobs and stature. You cannot lose that war, because you all are our talented tenth! Expose yourselves to life outside of Sheffield by READING.
It has been a wonderful year. And I will miss each of you differently. You all have formed and molded me into a better teacher and I cannot wait to try this thing again with my NEW AP class!! Thank you all for taking that educational journey with me.
In a few days (July 5th), we will see how well you all did on this AP exam. I am reminded that this isn't a "pass/fail" exam; it is more of "a college level student/ not a college level student" test. Meaning that if you score a 2 or 1, you are still performing on a high school level and if you get a 3 or higher, you are operating on a college level, and thus will receive an AP credit in college. I say all that to say that no matter what your scores are, none of you "failed". You all have grown tremendously as intellectuals, and a scholars, and we must appreciate how much we all grew thanks to this course.
Personally, I also want to leave you all with some parting words. I would have sent them privately, but as always, we learned to learn from each other so each of you will benefit from the other's personal messages:
D.B.- I appreciate you. You make me sick quite often, and I grew restless with your excuses, but you are definitely an articulate, black beauty and I pray you find your balance in order to encompass all of those great qualities at once. You struggled being good at everything at the same time, and that is hard to do. Please always be positive and push yourself to be the best you can be. And try to remember that although extra-curricular activities are fun, your education is a PRIORITY. Don't sleep on your grades, because essentially they can hold you back if you don't do well. Then, what good are the extra-curricular activities if you don't get into college because of your grades? Find your balance and don't run yourself thin this year. Stress is real!
J.A.- Even though we playfully fuss and argue, I want you to know how much I totally respect you. You never cease to amaze me because you are never afraid to step up to any of my challenges: verbally, mentally, etc. When I think you are down and out, you come back with a vengeance! Your test scores ALWAYS show me that you are hearing me, even when I think you aren't! You had one of the highest EOC scores last year. You had the 2nd best writing score this year! You are a force to be reckoned with! I will forever respect you for your willingness to be pushed. I am very proud of you and wish you the best!
A.Bak- Girl, you know you make me crazy. You are one of the most naturally smart students I have taught, yet you are so complacent. I have never understood why you weren't an A student when A's could be so easy for you! Some people would kill to have your thinking capacity. I hope you learn to use it to your advantage soon before you miss out on some very important opportunities that will pass you by if you do not seize upon success in the classroom! As a senior, grades and ACT scores are all that matter! And you are too smart to miss out on what is for you!
A. Bar-You are the definition of brilliance. You will be able to do whatever you want in your life! I hate you will not graduate with your class, but I know you will be valedictorian wherever you go. You can write, you are articulate, you are thoughtful, you are gorgeous! The world will not be able to stop you! I am thankful I was given the opportunity to teach you. I learned very much from you being in my classroom- I learned that there are some students who are ready to be exposed to knowledge! You are designed for very great things.
Y.P.- Yes, when we met I did think you were all about mirrors and make up! Boy did you prove me wrong! You are so smart and so quick to catch onto whatever is thrown your way. I will miss you! I hope you continue to prove people wrong who think you are just another pretty face! You are a kindhearted, intelligent individual. REMEMBER THAT. Too many women are stereotyped because they are pretty and no one takes them seriously in the workplace or in relationships. Continue to be you AND knock down that stereotype for all us pretty women in the world!
A.G.- We spent two very contentious years together. And even though I questioned if you got it or not, I think you did. I have seen you grow so much. IF we can keep your mind on the books and nothing else, I believe you can be great at whatever you do! Do not get lost in the moment of being in high school! Remember that passed May 2013, there is a whole life on the other side of high school! Prepare for that now, by pushing yourself to be the best and honing your abilities. You can do it.
K.W.- I am very glad you took my class this year. You are extremely articulate and I wish I heard your voice more! Continue to find your voice and craft yourself into who you envision yourself to be! Your voice is too important to not be heard, or to get lost in millions of other, more dominant voices. I appreciated every single time we heard your voice because you always had something valid or thoughtful to say!
K.N.- You are so intelligent. When you knew what we were doing, you always gave me some of the most profound responses. Other students stand in awe of you. I don't know where you lost your your way, but please find it so that you can excel to your potential! It is never too late to turn things around!
D.M.- The depth of your knowledge is astounding. I understand this. I respect how immensely intelligent you are. Sometimes I questioned my ability to teach you something new! I lesson planned with you in mind all the time because I wanted to make sure I was pushing you. I realize how easy things are for you, but some of the most beautiful and profound writing that I came across this year, belonged to you! You are probably the smartest individual I have ever come across. I believe that you will receive that 30 on the ACT your heart desires. It just might take you doing more studying for it on your own, because not too many sub-par teachers (including myself) know how to fully teach you. Thank you for allowing me to try to teach you these last two years-- it made me a better educator!
A.T.- You are one of the most complex people I have ever met. I have grown to respect your pursuit of education, when others have found it a nuisance. I have grown to appreciate your thinking processes, when others found you to be a trouble maker. You taught us all that your education is YOUR education and one should never settle for less than the VERY best from those who are in charge of educating you. When it came to us, however, you were too busy still fighting battles and missing the education! I hope that what you did gain from me, will be enough, although I am afraid sometimes it won't be. It is hard to catch up on missed time. Please continue to read to broaden your scope. Continue to question everything, including things you don't think are correct. Read the New Yorker magazine, Time magazine and Newsweek so you can experience the world outside of this city (which is NOT indicative of the world!). Build yourself up mentally so that nobody can ever question your beliefs! I am excited to read and hear about the great things you will accomplish, because you truly are destined for greatness.
A.J.- I hate I didn't teach you two years. But it really didn't matter after awhile because you made up for it by reading everything you could to catch up. I respect and appreciate all of your effort this past year! It was exciting to watch your evolution from regular high school student to high standing intellectual. You pushed yourself to be a more dignified writer, and never, ever settled for less. I was excited to see you disappointed about 7s, although your peers all got 5s and 6s. I saw you strive to be better, and you were. No matter who teaches you, continue to feed your thirst for knowledge. Sheffield is sleeping on you! Make everybody wake up around you! You are not just "another black girl". You are one who is going to be something real special when you get where you are going!
C.C.- The lone gentleman. I am so glad I was given an opportunity to teach you. I have seen your ability expand by leaps and bounds! I cannot express how grateful I am that you stuck in there. That you continued to push, push, push to keep up with your female counterparts. Maturity comes with your days, so it'll all balance out eventually. Thank you for hanging in there, because we all know you didn't have to. Thank you for constantly letting me know you appreciated my long nights and early mornings planning lessons in order to teach you. You took it all in! Every piece of information I gave you. Continue to be that adamant about your education! Do not allow another person to fluff over your education because it will be YOUR loss, not theirs! And be who you think you want yourself to be. We cannot live for our peers' or teachers' or parents' approval. We can only live to our own potential. Just keep YOUR BAR HIGH so you can reach YOUR goals. Expectations are everything. You must have high expectations for yourself in order to push yourself to greatness.
S.B.- You hold a very special place in my heart. You are one of the most insightful and kind people I have ever met. I appreciate that you always tried to push yourself to keep up with the pace. You never counted yourself out. Ever. Now, if you would go through senior year without letting trivial stuff get you in a rut, you will finish the top of your class and be headed for greatness! Continue to read!
A.R.- Utter brilliance. I wish that your home life didn't interfere as much with your school life because I imagine what you could be like if you were there everyday. You have a gift! The raw gift of thinking. I pray that with this new legislation (that you were so worried about) you will receive the college education you DESERVE. Please make your education a priority!
S.W.- I think I believe in your intellectual ability more than you do! You are so smart, and I wish you wouldn't be afraid of it. You are destined for great things and I need you to believe that as much as I do! Stop 2nd guessing yourself and believe that you know what you know! Rebuke laziness and procrastination because it holds you back from your greatness! READ, READ, READ and think about what you read. You are extremely bright and quietly beautiful, inside and out! Believe those things about yourself.
D.P.- You are still with me. Sitting in your seat, every single day. Thank you for being in my life for 1 1/2 years. I always stood in awe of you. Your intelligence, your prowess on the race track, your humility. There is not one thought of you that crosses my mind that does not make me overwhelmed with tears. We were robbed of such a wonderful human. But honestly, the good have always died young. And all geniuses have their vices. Some die of drugs because they cannot calm their minds without it. Some die because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to have a life outside of their intelligence. You were definitely the latter. How I wish you didn't go to that party that night. Your cryptic tweet, "Everybody is sleep- I will sleep when I die" still haunts me, because I wish you would've slept that Christmas Eve. Then you could've awakened Christmas morning to get that laptop you wanted (and needed) so badly. Instead of receiving eternal sleep. I will always remember that time in Nashville when you read Huck Finn all day every day, when everybody on the trip were having fun. You were one of the most self-disciplined students I have ever met, and EVERYBODY stands to learn something from that. You refused to ever be left behind, even if it meant staying after school, or missing a track practice in order to do your work. ON YOUR OWN FREE WILL. Nobody told you to do these things. You did them to appease your own standards. Incomparable. There will never be another like you. However, I know you are with me. And that you guide my meditations of how to teach your classmates better than I was taught. I miss your voice, but you will always be there. And I thank God for the little acquaintance that we did have, because I am a better person for having met you.
Parting is such sweet sorrow. I will miss you all in my class as my students. However, I am at peace with the thought that you all operate on higher standards now. Please do not settle for anybody who refuses to teach you. Always make the people being paid to educate you, work. It will be to your detriment if you decide to become complacent in anything involving your education. Remember that, seniors. And whatever you do READ, READ, READ. Never stop reading. There is so much you have not read that your non-black counterparts will have read! You have to constantly read in order to keep up!!!! The world outside of Sheffield is filled with intellectual beasts that you will soon have to compete with for jobs and stature. You cannot lose that war, because you all are our talented tenth! Expose yourselves to life outside of Sheffield by READING.
It has been a wonderful year. And I will miss each of you differently. You all have formed and molded me into a better teacher and I cannot wait to try this thing again with my NEW AP class!! Thank you all for taking that educational journey with me.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Violent Past for Murder Suspect | MyFoxMemphis | Fox 13 News
Violent Past for Murder Suspect | MyFoxMemphis | Fox 13 News
I don't usually blog about things not educationally centered, but this story grinds my gears. How, on this green Earth, can Tennessee explain the intelligence of granting bond to a man who violated his parole? How, in the hell, was this man allowed to be free AFTER robbing and attempting to kill someone, AFTER shooting up a home???
I don't usually blog about things not educationally centered, but this story grinds my gears. How, on this green Earth, can Tennessee explain the intelligence of granting bond to a man who violated his parole? How, in the hell, was this man allowed to be free AFTER robbing and attempting to kill someone, AFTER shooting up a home???
Sunday, December 25, 2011
The Death of Innocence: For DP
I lost a student I really loved today. As I sit here, finally able to compose myself enough to write my thinking, and to rebuke the anger I have for the cowards who murdered her, I can't help but think about the larger issue at hand: how her death casts a glaring bright light on this generation of cowardly men the black community is raising. Although all the facts haven't emerged, I do know she was senselessly killed and the killers are still on the run. More than likely in Memphis, still able to live their meaningless lives, eat turkey, live merrily..... and I know the adage that says what goes around comes around (which I call an adage and not a cliche simply because I know this is true), that still does not heal our hearts or ease our minds, because as cold-blooded as her murder was, these monsters still live among us. It is quite sickening to say the least.
The real question at hand that I am grappling with is this: What kind of man are we raising? How in the world is it manly to get into an argument and then retaliate the argument by shooting up a car on the expressway? How could you, on Christmas mind you, form your mind to make the decision to execute people in that fashion? How can you have no conscience or second thoughts about possibly ending someone's life?
As we all wait for the dust to settle, we (as an urban community) must question the future of our people and the cities we live in. When innocent bystanders are killed due to unmerciful ignorance, we have to question where the heck we went wrong? I listen to the radio, and you hear more and more songs that glorify not having commitments, but instead "just calling her boo". We are telling young men it is ok to run a muck and make babies, and not care for them, and in essence be womanizers. We are allowing boys to shoot rather than think or walk away from, or hell even use your damn fist rather than ending a promising life. We are letting cowards roam among us when we don't tell who we see committing these heinous acts. We are raising a generation of weak men.
I think about the young men at my school. They wear skinny jeans that sag, yet get "attitudes" with us when we ask them to pull them up. Let's not even begin to talk about the sagging in the first place which is clearly jail culture anyway. They video tape fights. The hit their girlfriends. They release videos of inappropriate activities with these girls. They curse the women teachers. If they get in a fight, it is never one-on-one; it is always 30 against 1, which spirals to 30 against 30. They brag on the robberies or deaths that occurred over the weekend as one discusses the weather.
This generation of men is so weak mentally. And there is no deference to human life whatsoever.
This is a huge problem. It is an issue that their fathers are not around (boy there is a huge difference in the ones that do have dads at home). It is an issue that they have no feelings- none for the women who teach them, raise them or love them. How have we raised these boys who are so cold to emotions? The oxymoron is that in the ghettos, emotive men are weak, when in fact, killing a person over an argument is the thing that is weak. What happened to our culture of men? More importantly, is this situation too far gone where there is nothing we can do except wonder which innocent bystander is next?
I have lived through so much young death, I have become immune to it. I have had many friends killed. And over and over again, we get ourselves together and say nothing. But this one stings for me the most. She was going somewhere, and there is no doubt about that. She was a talent mentally and physically and extremely mature. She had her ticket out of this life to break those oppressive chains that hold our community back in poverty. And in a blinking of an eye, that whole life is vanquished. And here we sit, red eyed not sure what to do and missing her like crazy.
All I wonder is when will the revolution on our own parenting skills and our own men be televised? Echoing Sojourner Truth, if it took Eve to cast us all into eternal sin, clearly women will have to be the ones to right the wrongs of our sons. It will take us to lay down responsibly when conceiving these children; it will take raising them with a man around; it will take us to teach right from wrong; it will take us teaching them when it is appropriate to stand up for themselves with dignity and not cowardice; it will take us exposing them to the fact that life is a gift and you never have that right to take anybody's life. It will take us all.
Her death casts this ugly shadow in the urban community on how our boys are slowly extinguishing our race. And the white bigots and Willie Lynch Jrs are just laughing at us as it happens. The rate we are going, our race won't be a problem much longer.
---to DP with all my love and respect.
The real question at hand that I am grappling with is this: What kind of man are we raising? How in the world is it manly to get into an argument and then retaliate the argument by shooting up a car on the expressway? How could you, on Christmas mind you, form your mind to make the decision to execute people in that fashion? How can you have no conscience or second thoughts about possibly ending someone's life?
As we all wait for the dust to settle, we (as an urban community) must question the future of our people and the cities we live in. When innocent bystanders are killed due to unmerciful ignorance, we have to question where the heck we went wrong? I listen to the radio, and you hear more and more songs that glorify not having commitments, but instead "just calling her boo". We are telling young men it is ok to run a muck and make babies, and not care for them, and in essence be womanizers. We are allowing boys to shoot rather than think or walk away from, or hell even use your damn fist rather than ending a promising life. We are letting cowards roam among us when we don't tell who we see committing these heinous acts. We are raising a generation of weak men.
I think about the young men at my school. They wear skinny jeans that sag, yet get "attitudes" with us when we ask them to pull them up. Let's not even begin to talk about the sagging in the first place which is clearly jail culture anyway. They video tape fights. The hit their girlfriends. They release videos of inappropriate activities with these girls. They curse the women teachers. If they get in a fight, it is never one-on-one; it is always 30 against 1, which spirals to 30 against 30. They brag on the robberies or deaths that occurred over the weekend as one discusses the weather.
This generation of men is so weak mentally. And there is no deference to human life whatsoever.
This is a huge problem. It is an issue that their fathers are not around (boy there is a huge difference in the ones that do have dads at home). It is an issue that they have no feelings- none for the women who teach them, raise them or love them. How have we raised these boys who are so cold to emotions? The oxymoron is that in the ghettos, emotive men are weak, when in fact, killing a person over an argument is the thing that is weak. What happened to our culture of men? More importantly, is this situation too far gone where there is nothing we can do except wonder which innocent bystander is next?
I have lived through so much young death, I have become immune to it. I have had many friends killed. And over and over again, we get ourselves together and say nothing. But this one stings for me the most. She was going somewhere, and there is no doubt about that. She was a talent mentally and physically and extremely mature. She had her ticket out of this life to break those oppressive chains that hold our community back in poverty. And in a blinking of an eye, that whole life is vanquished. And here we sit, red eyed not sure what to do and missing her like crazy.
All I wonder is when will the revolution on our own parenting skills and our own men be televised? Echoing Sojourner Truth, if it took Eve to cast us all into eternal sin, clearly women will have to be the ones to right the wrongs of our sons. It will take us to lay down responsibly when conceiving these children; it will take raising them with a man around; it will take us to teach right from wrong; it will take us teaching them when it is appropriate to stand up for themselves with dignity and not cowardice; it will take us exposing them to the fact that life is a gift and you never have that right to take anybody's life. It will take us all.
Her death casts this ugly shadow in the urban community on how our boys are slowly extinguishing our race. And the white bigots and Willie Lynch Jrs are just laughing at us as it happens. The rate we are going, our race won't be a problem much longer.
---to DP with all my love and respect.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Those Who Can Do; Those Who Can't......Can't
The old adage, "Those who can do; those who can't teach" was the way society lumped all of us teachers into one big, stereotypical pile. Clearly some type of logical explanation was needed for the country to understand why a person who had attained in many cases several degrees from a College or University, to opt into being a poorly paid babysitter, counselor, and confidante who, if that person was lucky, might get the students in his/her care to retain anything he/she spent 180 days pouring into the skulls of the newest generation. I mean, clearly these people wanted to be other things- lawyers, doctors, engineers, nurses, authors, journalists, dentists, business owners- and just didn't finish said program. Or didn't have the grades. They had to fail and opted to teach, right?
For the longest time, I would have been a very outspoken dissenter to this sentiment and sentiments like these: "You teachers make TOO MUCH MONEY to not work 8 hours a day" or "2 months paid vacations?" or my favorite, "You get every holiday off." This might be true; but ask the teacher who only holds a Bachelor's degree whether they still worry if they can keep the lights on. Or the teachers such as myself who have children at home whom they know less than the children they spend the majority of their days with. Ask me if two full months is enough time for me to spend with my children who sacrifice the relationship with mommy they so deserve because her hours are spent planning for 4-5 preparations daily, for ten months a year and into the summer. And in order to pay for that cherished time off with my babies, my ten month pay is spread among twelve months of pay. But, I digress.
The real question lies in why people think so lowly of teachers. After all, I have probably the same amount of education as all of my lawyer friends and doctor friends. I went to school 6 years and received two degrees. Soon, I plan to finish what I started and dedicate another 2 years to receiving the Ph.D. I have long deserved. That will amount to the same if not more. Yet, I drive the Subaru and they drive the Benz. Why?
Teachers probably have the most important job on the planet. We are who prepare the doctors, lawyers and writers who will be. Why didn't we become it ourselves? As an English teacher, why am I not a writer? Did I fail, and because of my failure, opted to become a teacher?
I can answer this question with a robust and emphatic "NO"! I am a teacher because I want to be. Because I love teaching. Because it IS my destiny. I have been teaching since I was 8 years old: I would line up my stuffed animals, and teach. There. I said it.
I plan 7 days a week. I collaborate with teachers. Teachers are some of my closest friends. I am married to a fabulous band director who performs miracles everyday in his band room. I spend hours reading, trying to become a better teacher. I steal from other teachers. My life can be summed up in one way, and one way only: I teach, therefore I am.
And, for the longest time, I thought this was the way of life for most "teachers".
Recently, my students have begun to prove to me that my thoughts about my "colleagues" were probably false. On my students' blogs, they began being very vocal about the dissatisfaction with their classes. Several wished to graduate early in order to escape "wasting their time". Several contemplated transferring in order to seek a better education, but questioned whether that would be worth leaving me. During one class session, they lamented about teachers not checking their work, teachers letting videos do the teaching. About teachers lecturing daily. Even some from their desks. As I rubbed my swollen feet that evening from being on my feet 9 hours, I began to question myself: do I take this too seriously?
Because of this new information, I began to be more observant of what was going on around me. I noticed the alarming number of teachers who wear jeans. More than on just on Friday. Who showed up to parent teacher conferences with jump suits, as if they were meeting the parents in the gym to shoot hoops, rather than meet about somebody's kid they were probably failing. Who were late getting to those meetings. Who come to work late because they want to. Who admittedly don't plan. Was I the crazy one for refusing to wear jeans to work at all? Or wearing two-piece suits to class weekly? For having my degrees on my walls in plain view?
Perhaps teachers have become their own worst enemies. Perhaps we are the people who have made this job not have the rank to be considered a profession. I mean, how would you feel if your doctor wore jeans to your appointment with a Cowboys t-shirt? Or didn't have his degrees on the wall to show that he was, in fact, proud of those degrees and thus a proven professional. Teachers downgrade the teaching profession.
I am a teacher. I love what I do. I did not get into the business of teaching because I sucked at being a writer (because I do not). I did not get into teaching because I was upset with the job I had out of college; teaching WAS the job I had right out of college. Teaching was never an afterthought for me, even after my mother forced me to engineering because she was afraid I wouldn't be well off as a teacher. I just changed my major freshman year and told her a few months shy of graduation 4 years later. I plan to teach for the duration of my adulthood because it is the career path I have chosen. There are many teachers like me, and we cannot let those who do not exemplify these standards water down our status as professionals, because in all honesty WE are the professional's professional; after all, would there be any doctors without doctors who taught them? Would there be any engineers without a physics teacher or calculus teacher who showed them the foundations they needed to be engineers? Would there be anything, job, careers or otherwise without a teacher? No.
It is my hope and desire, that more people who take this job as seriously as it is will outweigh the dead-weight that exist in any profession. Hopefully, more people will embrace being a professional who is a teacher and not do this because they had no other way to make a living. In addition, it is my hope principals will demand more of their teachers in terms of grooming and attire. One dresses for success, and I do not see much success in wearing jeans every Friday- As Harry Wong says, jeans are made for leisure. To add to that, in a culture where students are expected to wear uniforms, how appropriate is it for you to wear "jeggings" and your students cannot? Who is the role model? In some classrooms, it has become harder to tell.
Lastly, it is my wish that teachers truly understand this glaring fact: we hold these students' futures in our delicate hands. We predict, based on how well we engage their minds, who they will become: how eloquent they will be, how thoughtful they should become. Lesson planning is the single most beneficial way you can impact your students. No one learns nothing from a teacher who teaches on the whim. Planning before hand enables creativity, balance, equity, and structure. Have I always been good at lesson planning? Absolutely not. In fact, in 9 years of being in a classroom, this might be the first year I've gotten great at it. Do we take breaks? Yes. Is it often? NO. And when a lesson plan is altered or flat out doesn't work, I've learned to be quick on my feet about changing direction. I can tell when it doesn't work by reading my students. I will never dismiss the importance of lesson planning because one or two plans didn't work out as I planned or the principal sprung a homeroom day instead of my 1st period. Lesson planning is NOT an exercise of futility, and in today's high stakes testing and teacher evaluations, you'd better get reacquainted with it. If you are not creative, there are so many lesson plans online that you could ever dream of having access to. Submit and share your lesson plans that do work. Write for journals in your area of expertise. Join your professional content area organization to collaborate with fellow teachers like you. Be the professional! This is what professionals do.
And never, ever stop learning. The best analogy I can think of to illustrate the everlasting need for teachers to be avid learners is this: If a new cancer is discovered (say cancer of the nostrils perhaps), and my doctor has done no reading on it whatsoever, he is no longer qualified to be my doctor. If I have this new disease, he knows not how it looks, the symptoms, or what it could do to me. Why am I paying him then??? In teaching, you have never "arrived". Instead, you should constantly be "arriving", staying on top of everything that is new about how students learn best.
Complacency has no place in education. A complacent teacher- in mind, body, work ethic, and appearance- is an ineffective teacher. And teachers like the aforementioned, make things harder for professionals like me.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Internet Killed the Literature Class
Back when I was in high school, the Internet was a new thing. Only the very privileged had access to it. In addition, when we were given papers to write or literature to read, the only source of information we could rely on was whatever was placed in our brains. If you knew about it, you could get your hands on a copy of Cliffsnotes (the book version) or the Bloom's analysis books. If you were really stupid (or had your back against the wall in dire fashion), you might get the movie version and think you had a one up on your teacher until you realized (either by verbal embarrassment or on the exam) that usually the book version was not exactly the same as the text. In other words, there wasn't a damned talking dog in Animal Farm. The moral of the story ultimately was if you didn't read, you failed.
Those were the golden days of literature courses. You read, you became enlightened, you gained vocabulary. Not in this age of the Internet; in the best old folks rhetoric I can muster up, "these new whippersnappers" have the world now at their finger tips. For the new-aged literature student, if you forgot to read, don't fret: you have Pinkmonkey, Cliffnotes, Sparknotes, and everything else. Oh and you have a paper to write on the text? Just search for the paper you need and either cut and paste or BUY a paper online (the devil in tangible form to a literature teacher). All is right with the world to these new millennium literature students.
What a travesty! The authors widely included in the literary canon are no doubt spinning in their graves and cursing the internet. This situation gets worse and worse yearly. According to the Plough Library, "In 2001, Donald L. McCabe of Rutgers University performed a study of 4,500 high school students that found that, '74 percent of students admitted to cheating seriously on an exam one or more times; 15 percent admitted to turning in a paper largely taken from a Web site or a paper mill; and approximately 51 percent admitted to not citing the source from a Web site when using a few of its sentences in their papers'" (1).
Now, I've been around the block in the teaching game: I've taught grades 6-12 and college composition courses and Technical Writing. I'm also young enough to have known what life was like before the internet, but have also had to be a college student with internet at my disposal. Fortunately, I know what is on Sparksnotes and all the "study guide" sites so I can tell when students relied on the study guide rather than the text itself. In fact, I design tests with these sites in mind so that the kid will automatically fail if they didn't read the text by adding those small details that only a reader caught onto. I also use cheat sites like turnitin.com so that students can upload the text to the website and both the student and I can see where citations need to take place. When money is short for fancy technology devices, I rely on good ol' Google and cut and paste parts I think are stolen. Cheating can be combated, but unfortunately will never be
stopped.
As students become more and more technologically advanced, and teachers get older and older, technology will eventually win. I see it as the teachers like me winning the battle, but technology ultimately wins the war. The problem with technology winning the war is that students become worse at critical reading, and literary analysis, merely comprehending only what the cheat sites tell them to comprehend, never checking what is written against the actual text. We have students less able to articulate themselves in polysyllabic terms because we all know personal vocabulary is only built by reading and listening. The damning effect: inevitably literature is forgotten in the technological abyss and the classics will be banished in the depths of lost lore similar to the way the poor contraptions Kris Kringle found that nobody wanted, were sent to the isle of misfit toys.
A person who loves literature the way I do find this disheartening. How can a student not want to explore the love of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or the dark thoughts of Edgar Allan Poe? Who doesn't want to visit Eatonville with Zora Neale Hurston, or understand the true satire behind Mark Twain's Huck Finn? And the complexities of J. Alfred Prufrock? Or read the Canterbury Tales and wonder what could have happened had Chaucer completed his stories?? Or fall in love with the poetry of Langston Hughes and contrast it with Walt Wittman? Or really figure out what happened to that Last Duchess by Browning? Or dissect the rhetoric that is the Narrative of Frederick Douglass. Or be wondering where the hell Thoreau is going with his seclusion in Walden. Most importantly, never, ever be proud of the accomplishment of understanding the archaic and stylistic Renaissance vernacular that is Shakespeare? The internet is destroying, single-handedly, literacy. The small sliver of hope is that Kindle and e-books might make reading enticing, but one can only hope.
How can we literarians (a new word I've devised if you will) arm ourselves against this onslaught in the age of student plagiarism? First of all, teachers need the best tools available to tell if students plagiarize. Schools must get tougher on the consequences for plagiarizing and enforce them. Teachers should also know why students plagiarize and teach out of it, literally rebuking the bad habit in the name of Jesus. Some students don't understand the difference between plagiarism, summarizing and paraphrasing. Others haven't been taught how to cite properly. These skills must be taught step by step. Evaluate what skills your students need and teach and model explicitly. Lastly, teachers should just understand that students will use these tools, but teach students that it is ok to use them after they have read to ensure they understood fully. In that context, it could do more help than harm, since it's going to happen anyway.
Yes, in the same way videos killed radio in the 80s, internet is killing literature in the 21st century. Teachers, stay informed. Teach students time management and definitely discourage these students from cheating themselves out of a literary education.
1. "To Catch a Thief: Plagiarism Resources for CBU Faculty." Plough Library: Christian Brothers University. http://www.cbu.edu/library/faculty/plagiarism/. 3 Sept 2011.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
The Invisible Kids
Throughout my entire career, I have been asked to cater to the most underserved in our schools; by underserved, I mean the students who haven't been taught to read properly; the students who have unstable households; the students who would pass the state tests by a wing and a prayer. And each year, I took those students and performed the miracle of teaching them. I have ALWAYS had that knack. Maybe from being a student who had friends just like them, who lived on my block and played basketball in my backyard. You deal with them with a sympathetic touch, not feeling sorry for them, but making them aspire for more than what they are at this current time.
But what happens is that these students end up running the school. All teachers go at their pace and stay on their level. Those kids get the interventions, those kids get the tutoring. To accomodate, teachers dumb down what they are doing and teach to the test.
This is the manner of education. In the era of "No child left behind", many of those have in fact been forgotten. The invisible students- our advanced population.
In today's classroom, every effort is being made to get kids to pass these state mandated tests, and help low-performing schools achieve. By any means necessary. And by necessary, I mean teaching from old tests, textbooks, coach books and berating those students to death with practice tests. However, students who generally are proficient or advanced tend to have low engagement in school because expectations are so low that things are easy for them. And as long as they know how to read, they will pass the test, with bad teching or not. Schools depend on these proficient and advanced kids to score well and pull their scores up, yet do barely nothing to make school rigorous for them.
The biggest faux pas is that kids who score proficient automatically are placed in advanced classes, whether that kid is advanced or not. Which holds truly advanced students back as well. My biggest fear is that students at low performing schools are considered "advanced" but in the real world outside of the city limits, these kids in some cases would be considered barely proficient. Are we preparing these semi-advanced students to be able to compete with the students from rich households, at magnet schools, at private schools, who will be entering college classrooms with them?
In order to provide an equitable education for advanced students, we need to accelerate them to the level of their academic abilities, not to the level of their chronological peers. As a teacher, it will be my job to ensure that my course work is rigorous for all students. It is also imperative to make sure my expectations are higher and hold those students to those higher standards and support them in achieving those standards. I have to ensure these invisible, misused students are taught and will take something away from me. It is my job to push myself to be better for those kids. And when I feel myself becoming complacent, I have to continue to press. When administrators attempt to make me "blitz" students with standards, it is my job to demand differently, since research tells us that "blitz" never works.
It is my job to be the voice for these invisible kids.
But what happens is that these students end up running the school. All teachers go at their pace and stay on their level. Those kids get the interventions, those kids get the tutoring. To accomodate, teachers dumb down what they are doing and teach to the test.
This is the manner of education. In the era of "No child left behind", many of those have in fact been forgotten. The invisible students- our advanced population.
In today's classroom, every effort is being made to get kids to pass these state mandated tests, and help low-performing schools achieve. By any means necessary. And by necessary, I mean teaching from old tests, textbooks, coach books and berating those students to death with practice tests. However, students who generally are proficient or advanced tend to have low engagement in school because expectations are so low that things are easy for them. And as long as they know how to read, they will pass the test, with bad teching or not. Schools depend on these proficient and advanced kids to score well and pull their scores up, yet do barely nothing to make school rigorous for them.
The biggest faux pas is that kids who score proficient automatically are placed in advanced classes, whether that kid is advanced or not. Which holds truly advanced students back as well. My biggest fear is that students at low performing schools are considered "advanced" but in the real world outside of the city limits, these kids in some cases would be considered barely proficient. Are we preparing these semi-advanced students to be able to compete with the students from rich households, at magnet schools, at private schools, who will be entering college classrooms with them?
In order to provide an equitable education for advanced students, we need to accelerate them to the level of their academic abilities, not to the level of their chronological peers. As a teacher, it will be my job to ensure that my course work is rigorous for all students. It is also imperative to make sure my expectations are higher and hold those students to those higher standards and support them in achieving those standards. I have to ensure these invisible, misused students are taught and will take something away from me. It is my job to push myself to be better for those kids. And when I feel myself becoming complacent, I have to continue to press. When administrators attempt to make me "blitz" students with standards, it is my job to demand differently, since research tells us that "blitz" never works.
It is my job to be the voice for these invisible kids.
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