Tis the Season

8 days and counting until Christmas.  Perhaps it's the global warming, perhaps it's the lack of a little pine tree with holiday trim and cheer in my home, or perhaps it's the lack of gratitude that I'm witnessing lately that makes me forget that tis the season to be jolly, thankful, loving, and appreciative.  

This week started off unbelievably rough despite the fact that I was excited for everything to come and to see my students again after the weekend.  I don't think I mentioned this on here, but I've been (slowly) recovering from having shingles (mostly stress induced) for the past 3 weeks.  Overall I've been feeling better, but on Monday the malaise came back with a vengeance, which caused me to feel extremely dizzy and out of it, and to top it off my students went "ape shit" on me (that's a new expression that I picked up from the English staff department meetings).  

I really don't want to brag about myself, but I work my ass off.  My principal knows it, my colleagues know it, the professional developer knows it, and the custodial staff knows it.  I'm willing to do whatever I can to enhance my students' education.  I've taken on 2 extra classes this year in order to help my most struggling students, and for what?  Is my work in vain?

Let me back up.

On Monday, I (with every quarter) passed out progressed reports to my students.  As I proceeded to do so I had students rip their progress reports up, get up from their seats yelling at me, yelling at my co-teacher, and yelling at the class for support.  Some said I should be fired.  Some said I didn't know how to grade. Some claimed discrimination.  

I was absolutely blind-sided by this outburst and couldn't control the mob of students.  I left class that day in an absolutely foul mood, dejected, and wondering what the heck I thought I was doing every day.  Who am I kidding? It's impossible juggling 150 students on top of administrative duties, and outside obligations.  I wanted to wave a white flag and pack my belongings up and move to a quiet island in Bermuda where no one knew me and where I could start over selling coconut flavoured drinks to tourists.  

At that moment, I couldn't look past the students that kicked me while I was sick and fragile to the sunnier side of life.  I wanted to scream that I'm human, I bleed, that it's often the teacher against the world in public school education, and in the immortal words of Aretha Franklin, I wanted to scream that I need... no demand: R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  I had a meeting later that afternoon with one of my moody 11th grade AP students and the guidance counselor.  I had no idea what I was going to walk in to (no one would brief me), but after Monday morning's drama I was ready for anything.  It turns out that she's not finding my AP class challenging enough for her.  It was a weird moment because I began to pour my heart out and cry.  I apologized for not meeting her level of expectations but implored her to understand that I was trying... that I was doing every damn thing possible to educate her and the other 150 students in trusted in my care and that I felt like a failure.

I left the meeting to discover a couple of my fellow teachers feeling similar emotions and frustrations as me.  How does one teach appreciation?  Does it come from the home first?  Is "please" and "thank you" lost phrases in the English language, like Latin, dead?  

Despite all the drama that started this week, as I was leaving my classroom tonight I couldn't help but take one last look before turning off the lights. I smiled at what I have been able to accomplish in the 4 months that I've been teaching.  Even if no one saw the labor of love that I birth each and every day from the handouts that I try to make colorful and interesting, to the neatly lined desks and chairs that I straighten each night, or the hours I pour over my computer researching exciting literature, I knew what I did and do for my students, and sometimes just knowing that is enough to get me through another day of teaching.  

I'm not a quitter and I'll be damned if a bunch of 18 years make me doubt myself because...

I am Ms. P.

The Bluest Eye

As I've probably mentioned before I'm currently teaching to my 11th grade AP students Toni Morrison's  The Bluest Eye.  It's been amazing teaching this novel and opening up all my of old African American Literature notes from when I was in college.  We've read an essay from Gerald Cunningham on internalized Racism and oppression, looked at Boondocks comics (thanks Claudia for introducing me to them), analyzed the new doll test conducted in Harlem two years ago, and examined American society's standard of beauty.  

But to be completely honest, I've felt uncomfortable at times teaching this text and its racial themes and implications.  I didn't really realize the demographics of the high school that I'm currently teaching at until a student wrote about it in their homework.  As I looked around my classroom one day I saw it.  Most of my students are white, with a sprinkling of black, Hispanic and Asian students.  While I was surveying my class from my desk looking for those confused faces as we talked about internalized racism in The Bluest Eye and within American society I noticed instead the uncomfortableness that my students of color exhibited.  They knew what I was talking about, but instead of contributing to the class discussions I noticed them desperately trying to blend in and hide from my gaze.

During one particular racy :) class discussion I noticed one of my students become physically agitated with the classes use of the N-word, and the discussion surrounding it.  After class we had a chat about what he was thinking about how he felt about the conversations that we were having in connection to The Bluest Eye.  He (we'll call him Marcus) looks at me and says, "they don't get it... they think they do, but it's my life."  The class's discussions about the issues that Morrison brings up in The Bluest Eye have been dynamic, interesting, thought-provoking, but academic.  I try to contextualize the issues in the text so that the students can use personal experiences to relate to it better, but I can understand what Marcus was saying.  How can a white girl living in the Upper West Side wearing a bright orange Louis Vuitton scarf really know about the American race problem?

But, that doesn't mean that I as a teacher should shy away from those tough issues and topics that seem almost unrelatable because despite Marcus' frustrations and belief that his white classmates don't "get it."  They (as much as him) need to be educated not just about racism, but about also about the war in Iraq, the genocides in Rwanda, world health issues... This is what school and education is for.  It's for the people regardless of class, sex, religion, or ethnicity so we (as teachers) can educate them in order to change the world, one Upper East Sider at a time.

x,

Ms. P