Amy’s Thoughts

I’m afraid I’m an obsessive workaholic. I’m addicted to my job. It comes from doing a job I love and having no kids or a husband (thank god) at home to berate me for working late. Instead, the animals only stare silently as I wander through the door at half past eight on a school night. And where have you been, they ask me with their silent stares. I simply shake my head and dangle parsley before their twitching noses and all is forgiven. Or in the cats’ case, I simply scratch behind their ears and allow them to perch upon my head at night, purring into my ear. How simple and profound is the love of our pets…

And what on earth could you possibly find at the school to keep you busy until 8:30 at night, you might wonder. Well… you must first keep in mind that I, unlike legions of my fellow colleagues, refuse to carry work back and forth between the school and my home. I discovered early on that bringing work home would only ensure that most of it would not be completed by the following school day, which would result in many frantic, stress-filled hours that might have been avoided had I only stayed to complete my work the day before. Better instead to get it all done at school and then enjoy what free time I have left. I am quite simply much more productive in the school environment where I do not have access to my laptop writings, my fully stocked fridge, my favorite detective books through the ages (from Trixie Belden to Stephanie Plum to Eve Dallas), my Harry Potter collections in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin (in case I want to learn another language) or my extensive Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons 1-7 DVD collection. You can see how distracting my house might be under these circumstances. Who wouldn’t want to watch the musical episode of Buffy for the 765th time rather than plan a lesson about polar bears for 2nd graders? Obviously, staying at the school is the best option for all concerned. Certainly, I’ve missed out on many wonderful opportunities to enrich my mind by singing along to Walk Through the Fire (”I touch the fire and it freezes me…”) but these are the sacrifices we make as teachers…

We turn our backs on the fire and we gather our courage and we continue to plan or grade or organize or whatever it is we do to make our days run smoothly in the classroom. And in our hearts, in those tiny moments when we realize this was a job well-done, we whisper our apologies to Joss Whedon and we promise to catch up on our Buffy watching during our summer hiatus when we will be experiencing the full onset of Buffy withdrawal… and of course, we will start and end with the greatest episode of all time… Once More With Feeling.

“Bunnies aren’t just cute like everybody supposes
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses
And what’s with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies, bunnies
It must be bunnies”

(reprinted completely without permission, which is really shocking because teachers never break copyright laws, these quoted words are attributed here to Joss Whedon’s genius, may he bring us another amazing show to worship… soon!)

Here’s the thing about teaching. If you don’t succumb to the madness, you might actually discover that teaching is one of those jobs that never gets old, never becomes the same day in and day out, never fails to challenge you and never fails to exhaust you to the very depths of your being.

Of course, if you do succumb to the madness, you will probably also discover that teaching is one of those jobs that never gets old blah-blah-blah.

But there’s no difference between the two, you exclaim. Oh, but there is, I say, it’s a miniscule, tiny, nuance that is easy to overlook, but it’s there all the same. Ultimately, if you do not succumb to the madness, I daresay, one day in the not so distant future, you will find yourself racing around the building like a madman, tearing your hair out by its roots and shrieking in acronyms “The MAP, no the DIBELS, no the DRA, on the PR form, the PR form, why don’t you understand what I’m saying???” On the other hand, if you do succumb to the madness, while you will undoubtedly still be shrieking and bald, you will probably also enjoy the journey into insanity a whole lot more.

So, my friends, welcome to the madhouse. Here’s hoping you succumb and embrace the madness within!

A fourth grade teacher shared some of the issues she’s been dealing with lately in her classroom.  There seems to be a racial war that begins in elementary schools long before people even recognize that racial tension exists among children.  There is in the primary grades a sense of them and us:  those who speak Spanish and those who don’t, those who have color and those who don’t, those who have parents and those who don’t, those who have a home and those who don’t.

Some of these issues are the planting of the seed that ultimately develops into a deeply-felt sense of racism and prejudice and injustice.  And there is a cultural war going on as well.  In order to truly understand the conflicts that are occurring, you have to understand the root cultures at play. 

At the younger grades, the weapon of choice among the Hispanic population is the use of words, particularly as they acclimate to the school culture of the United States.  These are the children who have been acclimating to a foreign culture for years.  These are the ones who are learning to play the game, who are learning how to find the words in English, how to follow the rules, how to just make it by.  I love these students.  They are fighting against a system that is prejudiced against them from the beginning, that tells them their language has no value, their culture has no value, their citizenship is in jeopardy and their future in this country is in doubt.  These are the students who fight for everything we would deny them as a culture and as a race.  They stand up and they find their way despite the many obstacles we present them, including an education that would deny them their identity.

Then there are my African-American students who fight so desperately for anyone to even notice their existence.  I adore these students too.  They are the ones fighting against a system that has been built to keep them down since the days of slavery.  These are the students who will fight that system for the rest of their lives, trying desperately to gain those things the rest of us take for granted, by virtue of our whiteness.  These are the students many claim are destined for prison or death:  born in the inner city, stricken by poverty, held under the thumb of a system that provides a lower-quality education (by virtue of inadequate funding and inequitable resources) and a systematic prejudice that will not be defeated through any of our best efforts.  These are the students who come to school day by day with heartbreak in their eyes, hope in their trembling smiles, and defeat in the slump of their shoulders.  Already.  At age 7. 

Then there are my white students who tremble in our school doorways, timidly approaching their education with fear in their hearts.  And yes, I adore these children too.  They are the ones completely forgotten and ignored by society.  Society does not acknowledge the white child attempting to make it in the inner city schools.  They do not exist.  They cannot exist because they have been given something the others just don’t have — white skin.  That they too suffer under the umbrella of poverty is of no consequence.  Why do they not live up to the promise of their skin?  Because they too have been abandoned, the unfortunate casualties of the war waged against the weak. 

 And so society turns its back on the children of its inner cities and leaves their future to the will of the beast.  And the beast is poverty.

There was a fight on the playground among the 4th graders.  A Hispanic child called a black child a nigger.  The black child laid out the Hispanic child with one punch.  Who do you think was suspended?  Who do you think got off with a lecture and nothing more?  The black child was suspended for fighting.  The Hispanic child received no true consequences from the office.  Which of those children is in more danger today of not surviving their upbringing?  The Hispanic child who has not been taught the consequences of shouting a racial slur on the playground or the black child who defended his entire race against that slur?

These two children’s teacher had a sit-down session with her entire class and discussed with them the unacceptability of using such racial slurs against anyone. 

 One student raised his hand and said, “yeah, but I don’t like it when they call me African-American either.”

His teacher asked, “Well, what do you want people to call you?”

“I just want them to call me a boy,” the ten-year-old replied. 

 How utterly and singularly profound.  “Just call me a boy.”

Today, for the first time this school year, I had the opportunity to play with my students.  Yes, that’s right.  I actually stopped teaching and we just had fun.  It was even sanctioned fun, so I couldn’t get in trouble for it!

 The thing is, we’re an inner-city school, and more than that, we’re a Reading First inner-city school, which means that we got a big grant that requires a lot of hoop-jumping in an attempt to meet the combined requirements of the grant, the government and our school district.  The result this year has been an overscheduled nightmare of a day. 

I can honestly say that the only time I see every single one of the 23 students who were assigned to my classroom is during the first 15 minutes of every school day.  From that moment on, small numbers of my students are being pulled from my classroom for reading interventions.  

Despite their absence, I am expected to somehow manage to teach every child in my classroom the skills they need to arrive at grade-level outcomes by the end of the school year.  In order to accomplish this, every single moment spent in my classroom is accounted for.  There are no spare moments anywhere for frivolous activities that are not in some fashion attached to the achievement of a specific benchmark skill.

Remember those long-ago school days when a student came to school with cupcakes because it was their birthday?  Remember the building excitement as long-anticipated holiday celebrations approached?  Remember wearing costumes on Halloween? 

Maybe celebrations still happen in more affluent neighborhoods.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that any children planning to bring a special birthday treat to my classroom had better plan on passing it out exactly one minute before the bells rings signaling the end of the day, because that’s the only minute I can give them. 

We have standards to meet, people, benchmarks to teach, and children who must not be left behind. 

YOUR CHILD’S CUPCAKE COULD RESULT IN AN ENTIRE GENERATION’S FAILURE TO LEARN TO READ!!!! 

Oh yeah, and remember those days when we had a morning recess and an afternoon recess?  My god, we had no idea how lucky we were.  TWO recesses in ONE day?  UNHEARD OF! 

In my world, students get 15 minutes to eat, during which time, they are encouraged NOT to talk.  They then get their one recess of the day.  It’s an awesome opportunity for them to relax and talk and run and play (unless it’s bad weather of course, then they have to sit still and watch a cartoon in a tiny resource room, but let’s not talk about that).

Anyway, they get this recess every single day (aren’t they lucky) and it’s lasts an ENTIRE fifteen minutes.  (In case you’re wondering, they really are lucky because last year they only got ten minutes.) 

During these fifteen minutes, my students get their only real opportunity to play, to relax, to take a desperately needed brain break.  I should add they do get “special” time each day — 50 minutes of art, library, music, P.E. or technology.  I suppose these times might be considered a break, but I have serious doubts, given there are benchmarks to meet in each of these areas as well.

In any case, I was asked to cover recess duty today, and as a result, had the opportunity to play and interact with my students in a completely stress-free and relaxing fashion for the first time since school began back in August. 

As I watched the children running and playing and laughing, I had to wonder:  by the time these first and second graders reach middle school, will they even remember how to do any of this, how to play, how to kick balls, how to chase and play tag and jump rope and laugh with abandon? 

Or instead, by that time, will we have smothered the laughter right out of them in our crazed obsession with benchmarks and indicators?  Will we have leeched their joy away in our reckless zeal to achieve the desired outcomes within an acceptable time frame, no matter the child’s background, learning style or life circumstances that brought him or her to our classroom’s doorstep?

While trapped within an endless in-service meeting (we get two and a half hours a week to meet and be bored to death), I wrote these rambling observations:

I sit here and wander my eyes:

Bored.  OREOS.  munching.  headaches.  writing.  no smiles.  blah-blah-blah-blah.  more OREOS.

Norms.  rolling eyes. restless bodies.  bored faces.  unspoken words screaming through the room.  no eye contact.  OREOS, OREOS, OREOS, OREOS.

Eyes down.  glares focused.  table.  paper.  exploding heads.  expectations boiling through the room.  unrealistic.  demanding.  lost in the mire of NCLB.