One foot in the door...

It's March 2014 now and I'm teaching, funny enough.  I had told myself I was done with teaching, for good, yet, here I am.

I'm teaching, however, not trying everyday to do the impossible.  I'm doing what my training, experience and conscience dictate.  There is no pit in the middle of my stomach.  I'm not grinding my teeth or feeling chest pains... constricted throat.  It's hard to remember how it felt to be yelled at in front of my class, or to be crying but unable to leave the classroom, or be told, "maybe you're just not cut out...".  Today I have three classes of Spanish, each at a different level.  I'm hourly now and am paid for 17 hours a week, unless there is a holiday, PD or conferences.  My first hour consists of 10 students at an alternative high school, but only 7 come regularly.  They are truly young adults at ages 18-20.  They share their curiosity and fear of modern life, craving the discussions about culture that help make sense of their broken and imperfect circumstances.  I know when to push them, and when to back away just a little.  For them, it is not a desire, but a necessity, to be able to succeed at whatever they apply themselves to.  As their teacher, I have the power to create such a universe.  I have the autonomy to do so.  I have a classroom.  I can decorate the walls, arrange the layout.  I even was given a key.  Maybe this sounds sarcastic, but I treasure these things tremendously.

My second and third classes are in a parochial high school 10 minutes away.  There, I share a room with other teachers, though not the same hour.  The 10th graders are squirrelly and seemingly unaware of basic courtesies of listening, and not using cell phones/ iPads.  But they are willing to learn and want to please.  Varying the modes of practice and presentation,  helps them feel as though they are "playing".  Their  boundless energy is used toward hands' on activities, as well as the challenges and responsibilities they need.  They are like tall plants needing some stakes to guide and strengthen them.  It is a reward to watch them progress without even knowing it.

My 11th graders are perfectionists who are compelled to master every topic we study.  With only ten students, I can easily oversee their individual progress, while praising all that they do well.  These are the most loyal students of all.  At mid-winter break, they asked me if I would be there next year to teach them Spanish IV.

Last year I worked much harder and lost some part of myself everyday.  I had to teach in other people's classrooms, using a cart to carry all the supplies, handouts, textbooks, and corrected papers, back and forth around the school everyday. People saw me (and the other foreign language teacher) as annoyances.  Our carts were slow, cumbersome and blocked their view.  Maybe that is how folks in wheel chairs feel; like others are rolling their eyes as they wait for the extra moments it takes to turn a corner, or cross from tile to carpet.

The "host" teacher would stay at their desk in their classroom the whole time I was teaching.  They noticed things I did or didn't do and would gain "brownie points" when they emailed the principal their findings.  If a student left something on the floor in THEIR room, I was being negligent.  If scissors were missing, I must have allowed students to take them and not return them.  If I needed to talk with a disruptive student in the doorway of the classroom, I was "leaving the students unattended", which was a liability issue.  I had started taking pictures with my phone of the floors as I entered the different rooms, just as back up if I were to be called into the principal's office.

What do you get when a school is run for profit, by incompetent administrators?  Favoritism, nepotism, backward-thinking, inefficient and unsafe policies, and 40% teacher attrition.  I was given an award for being the first Spanish teacher to last the whole year.  It wasn't worth it.

I've had three observations so far this year.  Each one has been golden.  I'm asked how I would like to improve.  The principal and assistant principal seem to be looking for the good in what I do in the classroom. With that approach, I'm much more comfortable talking with them and brainstorming better ways to teach.  Teachers, after all, love to learn.  We become depressed when knowledge and expertise are traded for obedience and silence.

If I could wave a magic wand I would be working on a PhD in Education, conducting REAL and USEFUL research to support the autonomy of teachers.  The current research is lacking this, which is a crime.  Instead of researching better ways to teach math to inner city kids, why not try to find out how to support a teaching staff that is willing to stay at the same school for more than three years?  Why not research what teachers have learned what works while on the front lines of the nation's classrooms?

Where I Exist Now

Here I am, sitting on a lovely front porch in a small town outside of a midwest college town.  It’s midday, and I’m not teaching my part-time schedule because the school hosts its “activity day”, which doesn’t include any academics.  If I were a salaried teacher, it would be a holiday, but for me, it’s a furlough of sorts.  My station as a secondary foreign language teacher has been reduced to what seems like a contracted position. I am one of many shared- time instructors who are hired through a public school district under the auspices of community education/alternative education and who are paid hourly for their instruction.  In my case, it is for two hours of foreign language instruction per day at a parochial high school.  I tell myself that I need this (unpaid) time to recuperate and heal from the disaster last year’s full-time, salaried position was. Over the summer I’ve applied to thirty or so jobs, the majority of which were in education, most of which I am “highly qualified” (to use the educational buzzword).  Five interviews resulted from which I was picked for one.  That is the one I have now, sort of.  They interviewed me for a .8 position, but gave me a .4.  I filled out my new hire paperwork next to the guy that got the .8 I thought I had gotten.  No hard feelings though.  Grateful for crumbs is where I’m at; especially after last year at a local public charter school.  It’s still a raw subject I prefer to let lie; for now.  

We have a grocery budget of $125/week. I determined this from seeing our monthly bills versus income.  That allows for a hundred to spare every few months for marching band or cross-country costs. It accounts for my 60 mile round trip gas expense and our addiction to internet and cable.  As long as we keep the heat off for as long as possible and never eat out, even with 3 hungry teenagers, two adults and a retriever-mix dog, I think we can make it on this amount.  Of course my mother’s supplements of “extras” she picks up from Costco, will ease our bottom line as well.  The problem is: I’m used to $200/week for groceries.  I like Brownberry Whole Wheat Bread for $4 a loaf, brand name cereals, good cuts of meat, prepackaged goodies (and Tim Horton’s treats now and again).  I don’t like eating leftovers either.  Today, for instance, I found Lunchables for $1 each!  I bought 4 for my youngest son who returns home hungry everyday.  Yes, he’s a picky eater, however, the lunches at school provide: milk, pizza and a fruit for a reduced price (since we qualify for the first time ever).  I also bought canned spaghetti sauce instead of the jarred type and saved four dollars!  In the back of my mind I’m thinking about the leaching of aluminum and plastic coating into a highly acidic sauce such as that of tomatoes, and the potential health problems it may cause.  I’ve been privileged for too long now and it spoils my appreciation for cheap food.  Instead, I’m guilty either way, the quality of hamburger meat vs. keeping our budget.  The budget wins nearly every time because, in the end, we want our kids to stay rooted in this community, to suck the marrow out of their high school education, and to have the security of staying in our own home.  We want them not to suffer upheaval because of our poor decisions.  

It’s really a shame that my $33K master’s degree in education (from the U of M) has entitled me to nothing, and ultimately, overqualified me for the already slim choices of teaching jobs currently available.  The federal and state budget has been making deep cuts to K-12 education for three (or more) years now.  Even well-off districts are facing decisions of becoming an “open enrollment” district, to attract more students, or increasing minimum class sizes.  Those districts with the low SES are closing neighborhood schools, shifting around teachers and hiring lots of substitutes; those that aren’t out-right shut down.  And teachers are starting to drop out and retire, due to the “more with less” attitude they’ve been served in these last years, along with an evaluation system tying their job performance score with the students’ standardized test scores.  As a foreign language teacher, my evaluation takes into account my students’ ELA standardized test scores.   My former-colleague teacher contact list is increasing.  Misery loves company, perhaps.  At some point we teachers have to look at ourselves as professionals and people deserving a modicum of respect.  If and when we demand it, we must be ready for the resulting series of events.  

I’m deciding to trust myself, which is hard as a teacher these days.   I guess I draw the line at safety and sanity, and so, as result of my decisions, here I am.

Perspective

This is from a letter to a special school where recently I was a long-term substitute...

"

1. It’s wonderful to converse with other educators who sincerely want to see you succeed, who share any and all resources with you, who confide in you when they encounter difficulties and who never hold themselves above you.
2. Teachers receive valuable professional development, even elective teachers.
3. Teachers are working out of a personal and professional sense of duty, rather than fear of humiliation or harassment.  They do not fear the intentions of their colleagues nor their administrators.
4. Teachers have multiple opportunities to use technology in their classrooms as it is considered a right of every teacher.  
5. Teachers do not have a to beg for a space to correct papers, to have access to supplies such as paper and dry erase markers, and do not worry that janitors or other staff will steal their belongings.
6. Teachers do not need to have 9-1-1 on speed dial, worry that their car will be damaged or stolen.
7. The school carpeting is not rife with mildew from leaky ceiling tiles, or backed-up bathrooms.
8. Every classroom has a functioning and synchronized clock, a functioning telephone, and internet access.  
9. The classrooms are have a comfortable temperature range, not 64⁰F in the winter and 94⁰F in the summer.  
10. Teachers do not need a key, or know someone with a key to use the bathroom.
11. Students come to school clean and cared for.  Students come with basic supplies every day.
12. Students understand boundaries and do not destroy or steal others’ property without expecting to be disciplined.  (They do not walk off with a school laptops under their jacket.)
13. Students do not react destructively to a teachers’ correction.  
14. Students care about their reputation.
15. Students do not have to take 2 or 3 city buses to arrive at school each day because their local school was shut down for poor achievement or bankruptcy.
16. Students are not doubled over in hunger, willing to fight you for a bag of chips.
17. Teachers can expect to find a viable contact number for reaching a student’s home.
18. Teachers can expect hard-working, competent, and caring administrators, who communicate schedules, duties, and praise on a regular basis.
19. The teachers’ union is not corrupt.
20. I do not hear a minimum of 500 curse-words a day.
21. Even in the midst of troubles (i.e. tornado, lock-downs), chaos is quelled or prevented as the students and parents can have confidence in highly competent educational staff who work together in crisis situations.  "

Hopefully those teachers that have some of these blessings are able to appreciate them after seeing it from a different perspective.

Criminals running our schools- threats keep them in power

I taught in a public charter school in Detroit for two years.  There, I learned how the CEO and wife made millions on the backs of teachers (low salaries and added pupil accounting tasks) and students (federally funded programs that were not actually taught).  Since then I taught just over a year in an outlying community of Detroit called Inkster, where I learned that corruption is the name of the game.  Top-heavy administration many of whom are "fakes" and not competent, taking big salaries only to bully teachers and threaten with bad evaluations and taking away their teaching certificates, ensured their continual control.  These school districts are not communities of highly competent educators, but tyrants and lords of fiefdoms.
Teachers need to stand up for justice in the workplace together, and law enforcement, even the FBI needs to assist.


http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/region/oakland_county/former-pontiac-schools-assistant-superintendent-indicted

Routine AM Drive (used to be)

Entering Inkster High School is a normal part of my day.  The brick exterior stands proud, like an establishment of the community, one that has out-lived its glory days.  From the southern expressway, I take the exit for the airport, then continue to the next road to go north.  

Being so close to the airport has many implications.  The quantity of specialty vans and vehicles increases as the intersection between my turn and the airport approaches.  The company names on the sides of them imply catering businesses, limo services and shuttle rides to off-site parking.  Industries near the airport are predictable, and they appear as one would expect, around each major intersection and on the straight highways such as “Middlebelt” and “Telegraph”.  Trucking companies’ lots are full of the semi trailers neatly parked behind chain-linked fencing, the quality of which tells the current financial standing of the company it serves.    Rusty and bent, surrounded by weeds and vacant lots is the fence of the almost-out-of-business companies.  Their signs are usually written in a faded 1960’s or 70’s script in some phonetic spelling, often including the words “Nu” or “Kleen” or “Kwik” in the title.  Better-off trucking companies have clear signs and new fences.  Their trucks are neatly filed in the lot, which the jet passengers see as growing or shrinking rectangular shapes as they approach or depart from the metropolitan airport. 

The city below them seems like a decaying shell of an undetermined creature.  Very few venture to remember what it used to be.  The clients of the airport include those frequent flyers who drive expensive cars, sporty and foreign, or their American-made look-a-likes.  Comfortable rides all.  They provide the cash flow for the strip club businesses that populate the area around the airport in a ratio of one-to-one with gas stations and motels.  The strip clubs are not in danger of closing, in fact, they are seen as viable and successful employment by many of my students.  It’s considered a profitable business to these teens, whereas, those who have more wholesome values consider becoming a stylist or barber to be a viable future employment.  

The last element of driving near the airport is the constant concern for road debris hitting my car or windshield.  The chips on the hood of my car become rust-magnets in the winter salt-season.  I wonder how those wealthy businessmen can afford to drive here without getting hit by flying gravel, glass, tire tread or bumper debris.  I guess they have leases or perhaps they drive a company car.  Such differences in life trajectories and yet all drivers are calm.  It stuns me when I see a noisy beater with cellophane-taped windows pass the silent black and chrome sedan.  No one’s head turns. No one speeds up or cuts off, just an easy cruising speed for both parties.  So unlike the east coast drivers, who seem to take each others’ chosen pace as a confrontation.  They say drivers can have road rage from too much job stress.  But how can it be, when, here, the stakes of life and survival are much higher, yet we cruise easily by each other, and even help those in the break-down lane?  In an east-coast city, where I learned to drive, every maneuver is a statement, hence no yielding to the on-ramp, just a game of “chicken” to see who has more guts...  What could be so important, I wondered, to make people risk their own lives on a daily basis, to drive like angry maniacs?  Here, in the rust belt, we have much more to be stressed about, or so I imagine.  Perhaps stress is a form of hope.  Hope for something within reach, worth fighting for... Hope that no longer lives here.  Perhaps I am a perfect example of the numbness of lost hope and the face of acceptance of lost dreams.  But I am telling this story, which a form of hope, isn’t it?  

Survival is a sort of poverty of spirit, I think.  The rat race lives somewhere else, because here, we have what we have and we work hard to keep it, yet know that nothing is certain.  The powers over us, the economy and the politics therein, don’t know us or consider us in their big ideas.  We can’t predict well, except in our understanding of who we are in the eyes of the powerful; those who live on the coasts. I follow the news through NPR to hear what is important to them.  What are the buzz-words, the expert knowledge in educational practices.  I listen to hear the goals of No Child Left Behind, the reforms of teacher tenure, their view of the crisis in math and reading scores and its causes and solutions.  It’s entertaining in a perverse sort of way for me, as I drive each day to and from a district where 2% measured “proficient” in math on standardized tests and where I teach a foreign language to high schoolers who read English as well as my children did in fourth grade (on average).  Sometimes I take it personally, the views I hear on the news radio.  Sometimes I want to call in to speak on these issues, but my words would sound  out-of-tune to the rest of the callers.  I would take the conversation to other realms, to surfaces not scratched.  The hosts would challenge my assumptions and ask for examples; particulars I am not willing to give.  And I feel a little crazy, as though, no one seems to notice or care about the real causes of this achievement gap that has been paraded around the country via test scores.  Why don’t the experts ask teachers like me?  I think my energy reserves are too low to contribute, and perhaps that is why teachers like me aren’t a part of the discussion... we are too taxed and cannot risk local retribution by a principal to support a nation-wide problem.  Again, survival must come before hope.  

I park and lock my car, walking toward the building.  I look back sometimes to view the rhythm of the back hoes, foraging through the scrap metal like dinosaurs feeding at an ancient pond.

Done with Urban Teaching

Today I realized that quitting smoking was easier than I thought, provided I made a few lifestyle changes. First I learned to meditate to flush out anxiety and gain insight and clarity. Next I learned to exercise hard to expel anxiety and tempting thoughts of negativity. Then I began the emotional distancing of my teaching job.

 It began with focusing on my own children as students and my students as other people's children. Then I looked back on all the original lessons and curricula I had created over the 3+ years of teaching in the greater Detroit area. Astonishing! I re- discovered that I was supremely dedicated to my profession in ways many other teachers around me were not. I looked at the steady decline of the classroom environment and meditated about the causes. How many could I have had an impact on? How many were unforeseen? How many more upheavals, fights, humiliations could I look forward to? And where would it eventually lead? An abyss jumped into my mind's eye. Basing this prediction on facts, I saw the sincerity with which my subconscious was trying to warn me. It was time to jump into an abyss of my choosing rather than be thrown into one chosen for me: unemployment, stigma, perhaps disability... I chose my own: unemployment but physically and mentally intact. Emotionally I would heal. And healing began with trying to flex my "I can do anything" muscle of change and start to quit smoking. I learned to love fresh air, and hate the escapism I had so often clung to with each cigarette. I learned to shop on a budget, in fact, my whole financial point of reference needed tuning. Drive-thrus no more. Planning ahead for snacks on the run. Look out for pre-packaging convenience. I was no longer "on-the-go", but "in-the-moment".

 At times the boredom has been weighty. The time spent re-hashing my previous employment and education, my views, talents, and most polite of cover letter language led to renewal and some navel-gazing perhaps. I saw volumes of knowledge I had only scratched the surface of in my graduate studies. Hungry again, I fed on portions of high-density mental nutrition. New topics surfaced as a result. Language development, instructional practices, stages of literacy, "at-risk" student populations, Spanish, bilingual, migrant, adolescent reading comprehension, educational policy, Systemic Functional Linguistics, charter schools. Then the walks downtown connected this soul to a community that has always been background noise. I found a bit of my own tune within it. The art center, newspaper, cafe, schools, library. Transformation is what is occurring here. It isn't easy but it is necessary when faced with options such as those I faced. Though my healthcare is tenuous, I quit smoking and exercise more. Though our income has folded in half, I shop with coupons, plan and cook our dinners, save leftovers, horde spare change, and drive little. Monthly bills are gigantic but we are refinancing. It's true that in crisis is potential, and therefore hope. I am lucky I caught myself on the way to becoming an automaton teacher. My hope is to rebuild my capacity as a caring, committed and successful teacher. For now that mean substituting in districts that support their teachers, and for teachers who have grown professionally as caring, committed and successful teachers within those districts. There are financial worries, daily. But I chose this abyss, with the love and support of my family.

Time to regroup

All is well again.  I'm a part of a staff group called "Take Back Our School" led by our assistant principal.  We were presenters during last professional development and are actively seeking solutions to discipline/behavior problems at our school.  Sometimes I wonder why I was asked to be on the committee, seeing how I don't have the best classroom management.  But there must be a reason.  Perhaps my organization charts  and behavior reflection forms...  Whatever the case, my cousin (teacher) was right; I need to hang out with more teachers.  Facing 38 students four times a day is less daunting when I feel the connection to my colleagues, like there is an invisible fortification throughout the school made of the joined hands of the teachers.  Even though it is purely psychological, because teachers actually have little or no control over student behavior, it is powerful.  Honestly, teaching is a day-by-day endeavor.  Too many expectations create depression when faced with low achievement, yet, too few expectations create a void where chaos reigns and my anxiety soars.  My enthusiasm for the Spanish language has waned.  I'm hoping for a school home where I can stay to refine the craft of teaching and rekindle my love of the subject I teach.