The purpose of this blog is not only to document the intensely sad (or sometimes hilarious) occurrences that I experience at institute/in my classroom next year, it is also to expose those closest to me to the reality of educational inequality in America. In Atlanta city (where teacher boot camp is) one street separates those who will go on to prestigious colleges and careers versus those who will end up failing out of middle school, in gangs and pregnant. Most of us are more than lucky and have been blessed with caring parents that force us to be good students and we have gone to schools where we did not have to fear for our lives. Below I have highlighted some of my experiences from one week at Harper Archer (where the Harper Archer students say “if you go to H.A. that means you don’t go to college).
During the first day of teaching (Monday) we had an hour (called Academic intervention hour, or AIH) to explain to our 24 students the strict rules, high expectations, and positive reinforcements we are going to enforce. The students I am teaching have failed both reading and math so they are now taking two math classes (one is me) and two reading classes. The students were not happy about the high expectations that we plan to hold them to, they consistently made fun of our raffle tickets (that they are to use at the “walmart of the middle school" to buy candy, pencils and coupons each Friday). Most of them had more than an attitude problem – our faculty advisor (a teacher that is supposed to be in the classroom while we are teaching) and all of our students are African American. The general consensus was that we were four “crackers” coming to “change” them as a “charity project.”
Their attitudes literally turned around (for the most part) when the other teachers and myself explained that we were giving them our phone numbers and e-mail addresses and that we expected them to call at all hours of the night to ask any questions they had about homework. That is when they realized that we are working over eighty hours a week (not exaggerating) unpaid because we care about their success.
I teach “A block” so I have my students right after academic intervention hour. It was VERY nerve racking. I was trying to teach them how to translate algebraic sentences into equations and expressions (basically if a sentences says “two more than four” they have to write 2+4. While planning (probably over planning) for this lesson I thought that this stuff was EASY. AS. PIE. And they were going to rock it. About five minutes into my lesson I noticed that most of my eighth graders could not read, subtract, divide, multiply….the list goes on.
So I had to think quick (thanks debate!) and decided that I was going to a SUPER EASY problem and that I was going to call on them for the SUPER EASY parts of the problem (re: addition). That helped a little but they were still skeptical of my purpose for being there. So their confidence increased a little, but unfortunately I had to give them the assessment (that was very hard) that I had created the week before. It was ten questions based off of the types of problems they will see in three weeks on the test they have to pass to advance to the next grade. Most of my students did not finish, did not try to finish, and the average score was 11%.
Tuesday was particularly interesting. A student waltzes into class ten minutes early and says “wassup Mizz M” (I have no idea why they call me Mizz M) and I asked him how his night was and if he did his homework. I was really proud that he did do his homework, even though it was all wrong. We had a little time before AIH started so I went over the problems with him. Then he started to laugh, and I know that math is not funny so I asked him “wasssup.” He explained that he had not gone to bed until after two a.m. I asked him why, he said “my auntie boyfrien’ got shot,” I said “what, why is that funny” he said “my auntie boyfrien ‘ got shot because he waz beatin’ muah auntie and muah auntie cawld my mamma and my mamm and me went over and my mamma called my uncle and he shot him twice” and I asked again “why is that funny” and he said “because he ain’t dead – he jus’ in the hospital.” It was not so much that a person was shot that shocked me, it was the fact that my student was so desensitized to horrible acts of violence that he can laugh while recounting them.
Class started, most of my students did not do their homework and did not bother to even explain why. I started the class with a “do now” task, which is one question on the previous days lesson that they answer to help retain the information. Almost all of my students got the question wrong – and it was an easy one so I was baffled. After class I found out that most of my 24 students were special ed, and one of my students is autistic – he cannot even take notes. So Tuesday was particularly overwhelming because: a. I do not have a math background, b. I do not have a teaching background and c. I have absolutely no experience working with special-ed children. What was perhaps the most overwhelming experience of it all was that despite my nearly complete lack of any type of qualification (yet) over five of my students exclaimed that I was the best teacher they had ever had. So I guess it is true that teachers are made not born.
One of my students has been held back a lot, she is in the eighth grade (hopefully ninth next year) and she is also five months pregnant. On Wednesday in the middle of my lesson she looked at me and said “Mizz M I don’t feel good” and put her head down on her desk. My faculty advisor was no where to be found and I knew that I had to get her to the nurse as soon as possible, but I also knew leaving 23 rowdy eighth graders alone would cause a ton of problems. I thankfully found a TFA teacher in the hall who watched my class while I took her to the nurse. On the way she explained that she was at the hospital all night and that she had not eaten in a very long time. On her parent survey, her mom also wrote that the family has no working phone. Despite all of her hardships, I cannot help but be proud of her. With so many students dropping out of school, she is truly persevering and she is doing very well in my class.
So going into Thursday I thought I had this teaching thing all down. My kids really like my corny sense of humor and they love that I have started saying “foo” instead of “four.” There was an announcement made by the principal before the students arrived that all teachers were to go to hallway while students came into school to get them to class. I was thinking “no big deal, I got my clipboard and my coffee…I’m gooood.” I. Was. Wrong. I found out a little too quickly that most of the boys at this middle school are bloods (a gang). Because it is summer school this middle school has students who have failed at other schools also come take summer school at this middle school. Apparently not all bloods get a long, and there is a lot of sect fighting between bloods. I was standing in the doorway when these two boys started yelling the “F-u …n*word” at one another. I yelled very authoritatively (so I thought) for them to “calm down and go to class.” They were not my students so I did not want to get into the middle of a gang fight but unfortunately I was standing about three feet from each boy. As the boys started to take off their shirts (apparently their biggest concern while approaching a gang fight is to not get their shirts ripped) I started yelling much LOUDER. The major problem was students – seeing that a fight was about to break out (again) started surrounding the two boys. I try to get the smaller boy to back up against the larger one and before I know it the football coach and another (very large) man had come to my rescue (Thank God). The boys were taken to the office and probably expelled from summer school. If they follow the same path as most of their fighting predecessors they will end up dropping out and staying in gangs for the rest of their lives. I later found out that one of my students, a girl, was pushed against a locker and punched in the face by a boy. She has been absent the past two days and I am very worried about her safety, and her ability to pass the end of summer test.
My class was very rowdy after an intense morning. During AIH three of my students disclosed that they were in gangs and that they wanted to leave the classroom to go find the students who are in the other sect (obviously I did not let them). Being very idealistic, I tried to convince them why they should not be in gangs and tried to explain all the benefits of going to college. We got into a deeper discussion and although I have come no where close to convincing them to “drop out” of a gang, I think I did persuade them that if they get kicked out of summer school (for fighting) they were not going to pass their tests and they would not even get to high school.
Once class started my students were working way too fast and making a ton of silly mistakes. They are making a lot of progress but I’m worried it may not be quick enough. Because of their learning disabilities they often do not retain a lot of information. Because they were working so quickly I thought it would be a good opportunity to explain to them how important it is that they check all their answers and use all their time on the state exam at the end of the summer. One student was giving me attitude and pretending that he was too cool for taking a long time on tests so I offered to let him borrow my hot pink watch when he took the test. He declined, but for some reason that made him respect me. The class continually is improving on their end of day assessments (thank God!), they were up to a 70% today, but retaining the information is a whole other burden.
After sleeping very little all week (around foo (4) hours a night), I was looking forward to getting today over with. I was teaching a semi-complicated lesson and was really worried my students would be confused. So I am in the hallway as the students are coming in, a couple fights break out but nothing too serious. I then go into my classroom (the other math teacher looks completely frantic and is just yelling). Two of my students (who both really like me) were in a fight (shirts off and all) so I did a “female teacher no-no” and was somehow able to physically break up the fight. I pushed the smaller one against the wall and said to him “----- do you want to go to ninth grade” he turned his head away, I said “------ if you get kicked out of summer school you are not going to be able to learn” and he rolled his eyes. He was still struggling to get to the other kid who was being brought outside the classroom by two other teachers. He was sent to the office and thankfully not expelled. I am usually a big sissy when it comes to violence so now that I reflect on my intervention I am a little puzzled. I have come to the conclusion that I intervened because I really care about both of them, and I knew that if their fight escalated they would both be expelled. I also knew that they needed my help in order to pass the test and go to high school.
During my actual class (the boys were back from the office by then) one was really excelling so I made a worksheet for him with harder problems – and I told him that he was excelling. I have NEVER seen someone so excited (passively of course) to get extra work. It was almost as if no one had ever called him smart before, or told him he could do it. After speaking with one of his reading teachers, she told me that she had tried to call his mom a couple of days ago, and she left a message. His mom texted the reading teacher back and asked who it was, and the reading teacher explained who she was. His mom never tried to call her back…or anything. And I do not share that information to reinforce the stereotype that “bad parenting leads to educational inequity” because I do not believe that at all. I share that information because it is important to convince our students that they can and will be as successful as “the rich white kids.”
Today during AIH, a student asks me “are we da first black people you eva met” and I said “No – I’m from Boston” and he goes “well black people din’t teach you how to talk.” I was super happy because they retained a bunch of information about yesterdays lesson. We also had the our Walmart store today – they did not like how expensive everything was. We were also trying to get to know our students during AIH so I asked a student (on of the blood members) what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said an assassin, obviously I had a lot more questions to ask. He explained he wanted to be an assassin because they got to use cool weapons like AK-47s and they got paid a lot of money, and that he was sneaky so he would not get caught. I tried to steer him in the direction of other careers where he could use weapons for the greater good (re: police, military etc.) he was semi-interested after I explained most assassins end up in jail.
One girl in my class, she is probably fifteen and reads on a pre-kindergarten reading level. I knew that she was really far behind, but I did not think that anyone who was THAT far behind could fall through the cracks of our broken education system.
I want to end with my (very) novice thought about why I think education inequality exists. A major part of society likes to blame it on the parents – but I do not think that’s true. Some of these parents work nonstop at minimum wage jobs just to put food on the table – it is MORE THAN understandable why they would not be able to come to parent-teacher conferences or join the PTA. I know that there are some awesome public school teachers, but for the most part these good teachers are not at these low income schools. Some of the teachers I observed last week wrote the wrong formula’s for math on the board, and just constantly yell at my students and make them feel like crap – who would want to work in those conditions. Many administrators also put an emphasis on just advancing students to the next grade through an appeals process so lagging students “no longer waste money.” I do not think my pre-kindergarten eighth grader is ready for high school.
