Thursday, August 16, 2018

The Times They Are A Changin'




Time Flies---

In August of 2000, I was a student teacher at Greenspun Jr. High, and was embarking on 9 months of a new identity. To those 150 6th graders, I was their teacher. To everyone else, I was probably just an idealistic 24-year-old who believed she could make a difference in the world. Yet, for 18 more Augusts, I started a new school year, almost always as an idealist who believed she could change the world. It’s hard to believe that my first day as a teacher was that many years and over 3,000 students ago.

However, last April, I left school on a Thursday and didn’t return. My exit was not an act of resistance or civil disobedience, but an opportunity. Now, as I start year 19 as an educator, I am sitting in an office instead of at a teacher’s desk, ever the idealist. I have high hopes that I will make a difference this year, even if it is behind the scenes versus in front of a classroom.

After all those years and all those students, I never thought that I would leave the classroom, but here I am.

The Here and Now---

This past Monday, I dropped my 14 year-old off at her first day of 9th grade, and I dropped my 10-year-old off at her first day of 5th grade. I was able to do this, for the first time since they started going to school, because I am no longer a classroom teacher. I got to be the mom of two wonderful kids starting their first day of school. It made the fact that I wasn’t about greet my own students for the first time worth it. Kind of an interesting paradigm shift for someone who meticulously decorated her classroom, wrote long-term lesson plans before school even started, and was ALWAYS thinking “how could I use this in class?”

Let your Life be a Counter-Friction---

I had many great years in the classroom, and for a long while I could see myself teaching until I was old and grey.

I taught high school English for 17 years, and the literature I selected for my classroom was meant to inspire thinking and to inspire action.  I gave great thought to what I shared with my students, as I felt that they deserved to read pieces that spoke to them morally, viscerally, emotionally, or civically.  As any teacher should admit, sometimes I picked pieces that my students hated, yet with time and experience, I curated readings and activities that I felt not only built the needed college and career readiness skills, but in some small way made my students better thinkers, better communicators, and better humans.

In 1849, a young idealist Named Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine/ For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever…” Every time we read those words in class, I knew that they were trying to tell me something. You see, teaching isn’t the act of delivering information, it’s part of the learning process. I was learning with my students. Though it took years for me to uncover the message especially meant for me in the literature I shared with them, the pieces starting coming together.

In 1965, another writer with ambitious ideals said, “Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.” Be it a 19th century philosopher or a modern activist like Malcolm X, I tried to never teach with the intent to assess, but to teach with the intent to learn. As I shared play after poem after novel after essay after film and so on with my students I began to unearth something. I was riveted by the inspirational, raw, and honest words of the writers we studied. I found the language beautiful, the structure masterful. Beyond that, however, I realized that these pieces weren’t just tools or curriculum; they were meant to be ingested and talked about and explored deeply.

The More You Know---


The more I taught, the more I learned. I learned that I didn’t always agree with the system. I learned that I had difficulty lending myself to procedures that were inequitable for students. I learned that I needed to diversify my bookshelf. I learned that I needed to talk less and listen more. I learned that I was angry, and it was time to be the counter-friction.

From within the classroom, my opportunities to lead change were limited. Being a classroom teacher is by nature isolating. Our time to communicate with one another is dictated by bells and contract times. It’s often difficult, if not impossible to have hard conversations—those take time and vulnerability, and trust. All things that are hard to build in 28 minutes one time per week.

So, I looked at ways to enact change, grow as a person and as a professional. I wasn’t ready to leave the classroom, but I couldn’t sit idly by and “cry over my condition.” My colleagues weren’t always ready to embark on the heavy lifting required to enact institutional change. Honestly, I probably wasn’t ready either, but I felt that I would be functioning as a hypocrite each time I facilitated a discussion with my students, and that was something I could no longer do.

Step by Step---

A summer professional development session in the summer of 2014 was this first step. The four weeks I spent with the amazing instructors at the Southern Nevada Writing Project’s Summer Institute pushed me to not only discover but to write about and articulate my hopes and regrets about education.

From there it was the National Writing Project inviting me and educators from around the country to spend a “Day on the Hill” advocating for education. I was hooked.

That led to the not just a step, but a leap. I was still in the classroom, but in 2016 I split my time between teaching English at an art school in Las Vegas and working out of the U.S. Department of Education in Washington D.C. Surreal is an understatement.  It was a challenging, scary, educational, confusing, and amazing year. It went by so fast. In that year I not only learned about Federal Education Policy and the inner working of the Department of Education, I learned I knew little about the inner workings of the state in which I was meant to represent.

After a whirlwind year, I knew that I truly belonged in Nevada and I truly belonged within its education system. Now I just had to convince everyone else.

#VegasStrong/ Home Means Nevada---

The 2017-2018 school year was harder than I thought it would be. I was teeming with ideas, ready to act, frustrated with policies and antiquated procedures. I had knowledge and experience and was ready to make things happen. You know that saying, about a tree falling in a forest? Well, I was the metaphorical tree.

Again I was faced with the isolation of being a teacher. Though I worked in a hybrid-role, allowing me some flexibility with my schedule, I struggled professionally to make the strides I imagined I would make. Working in a hybrid-role was rewarding, as I was able to carry a class load of 140 students across 4 periods, as well as work on arts integration, community involvement, and professional development. The thing about hybrid-roles, however, is that they are few and far between, especially where I was in one. To the teachers at my school I was either a valuable resource, or that person who only “worked” every other day. Though I enjoyed the leadership opportunity, I was still searching for the place where I could continue to cultivate my skills, and start to see tangible results in wanting to change things for the better in the system where I went to school, taught, and now sent my own children.

Half way through the school year, I applied for a job at the state Department of Education. By April, I was packing up and moving into my office at the state Department of Education. Ideally, I would have loved to have stayed until the end of May when the school year concluded, but sometimes the knock of opportunity comes at a time that is not always convenient.

After all those years and all those students, I never thought that I would leave the classroom, but here I am.

Where Do I Go From Here?---

The 2018-2019 school year started 4 days ago. While my former colleagues are kicking off a new school year, I am still trying to change the world, at least the world of education, while also determining exactly where I fit in. I am learning, and growing, and thinking everyday how I can make an impact.

I miss hearing bad jokes from teenagers everyday. I miss being the one who tells them stories about Sylvia Plath and Jason Reynolds. I miss seeing the look on their faces when they realize how Social Darwinism, Intersectionality, and Social Justice are all parts of English class.

It saddens me to think that I had to leave behind what I love to try and better what I love. I still don’t agree with many of the structures of the educational system, but I have moved beyond angry to active. I left so I could make a far-reaching difference. Ironically, I’m only on a 1-year contract, and only have the proverbial 28-minutes, to build institutional change.

I know I won’t move any mountains this year, but I might push the rock enough times that it sticks instead of rolling back down the hill. From there, I will find a stone, and use it to step into the next role that will hopefully move me closer to achieving the goal of being the “counter-friction.”

I’ve said it more times than I care to admit, but I am READY. I am ready to be the change, to speak up, to get things done. I’m ready, and I guess I have to get comfortable accepting the fact that others might not be. 

Ready or not, here I come.

In the words of Thoreau, mixed with a few of my own:

A State [of education] which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State [of education], which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.”

Forever the idealist, always a teacher, never giving up.

 #thisteachersjourney













No comments:

Post a Comment