I'm a Teacher

I think I had my biggest validation as a teacher this week. We each have our professional challenges and our personal challenges. On Monday, I overcame a significant professional hurdle, and on Thursday, my personal. About a month and a half ago, I lost my first student. I had her twice during the day. She was in my 12^th grade English class, and because she needed to retake some classes she failed in previous years, she was in my 9^th grade English class, too. Having her twice in one day allowed me to get to know her. She was very good at participating in class, volunteering answers and asking to read out loud. She has the most beautiful hazel-green eyes.

Around the time she left, we were writing persuasive letters in 12^th grade. Their prompt was this: Write a persuasive letter to a 9^th grader, convincing them to not drop out of school, using statistics, personal anecdotes, and interviews. Statistics show that 40 percent of ninth graders in our district do not graduate high school. I wanted my seniors to persuade my ninth graders that it’s worth sticking with school despite the challenges.

I was really getting on this girl’s case because she wasn’t getting her drafts in on time. I would hound her. I still regret this part. I would tell her every day, this is the easiest assignment because you’re living it. You’re a 12^th grader… how did you get here? Tell me your personal anecdotes – you’re an expert opinion. About a week later, she stopped coming to school.

Apparently, Cynthia was pregnant with her second child. The reason she was crying in class last week was because she just found out – and perhaps because I was on her case for not turning in a rough draft on the irony of her life. She didn’t come to school for a month and a half. However, each day her name would still appear on my attendance roll – I never dropped her name from my gradebook. Each day, I filled in the absent bubble and skipped over her name when submitting homework grades. I used her as an example of how I need to know my students more; how I need to try harder. I have to keep reminding myself that my students live lives that are so outside of my own experience that I need to keep expanding my perspective. My teachings can’t end with the four walls of my classroom. Cynthia hurt me because I made wrong assumptions. How many of my ninth graders will hurt me in the next two years? And how in the world do I prevent that from happening?

Monday. I am in the front of my 12^th grade class, introducing the day’s agenda and objective. I scan the faces of my students. There, in the back, between Daisy and Jose, is Cynthia. I won’t lie, I stared.

“Cynthia?! Hello! You’re back? Uh, we need to talk.”

She smiled, nodded, and gave me one of those “so are you going to start the lesson or what?” looks.

After class, we talked. Apparently, she’s back in school and that I should expect her everyday in my 9^th and 12^th grade English class. We are going to set up a system for her to make up the work she missed the last month and a half. She didn’t give me any personal information. I don’t know what happened about her pregnancy, but I won’t make the mistake of assuming anything. All I know is that I got the biggest second chance I could ask for. I will not mess this up.

Thursday. My mom visited my school. She came to spend a week in Los Angeles from her home in Dallas. My aunt brought her to my school to come see my classroom after the school day. After my detention kids left (I let them go five minutes early), I skipped down to the main office to gather my aunt and mom.

I’m observed often as a new teacher. Teach For America observes me, LMU observes me, my own school observes me. I have never been more nervous about anyone observing my classroom than I was when I had these two ladies in there. And here it is, “straight from the horse’s mouth” as Aldous Huxley would say (not that my students would know that quote since they obviously did NOT read Brave New World… bitter):

“Wow, Stu, this is a real classroom, you’re a real teacher.”

Bam. Done. Validated. You hear that… I’m a real teacher. My mom thinks so.

Chaperoning Homecoming

I have more school pride now than I did at my high school or at my college. I eagerly anticipated Friday’s football game against Santee far more than I ever cared about my own homecoming. [Go Cobras!]

After school on Friday, I went with a couple of teachers to a happy hour in a downtown bar. The two guys that I went with used to play high school football for their schools in LAUSD. Drinking some beers, they shared stories about their glory days, and how if these kids played their teams, they wouldn’t stand a chance. We all became increasingly nostalgic as the evening progressed. After a couple of hours, we were ready for the football game. Our current record was one win to many losses. No one is really to blame. Since we are a brand new school, this was our first year to have a football team, and we were still sorting out the kinks (and, er, the fact that all of our boys have soccer bodies, and the boys across town are big and mean). In short, no one was really expecting a win from the homecoming game. Mostly, we wanted to cut our losses short and prepare for the excitement of the next day’s homecoming dance. Who knew the game would have more action?

We scored first! And that’s all the on-field commentary I will give you besides that we won – big time. The play-by-play was a lot more exciting off the field. The Homecoming court paraded around the track field in convertibles. The crowd oohed and ahhhed. I stopped a fight in the stands. Stood right in the middle of two boys, and kept yelling “look at me, look at me, look at me,” until one of the boys actually, well, looked at me. I put both my hands on his chest and shook my head. By then, other teachers convened and the boys were removed. (Boy did I feel confident after that!). One of my students came completely trashed to the game. He was completely white and stumbling past the teacher section in the bleachers. He, too, was escorted out of the field. Ten teachers tsked.

After the big win, everyone was in high spirits and the teachers grew a little nervous at how their excitement might spill over into tomorrow’s dance. I was still too excited about chaperoning my first dance to care. A chaperone! Me! Another example of how I can’t possibly understand how I ended up here.

When I arrived at the dance at 8:30 PM the next day, the students were still pretty tame. They all looked incredibly beautiful. Not too many people on the dance floor yet. Those who were on the dance floor were all clumped in a massive heap in the middle. I dare not imagine what was happening in the middle of that grinding mass. Ew, visual pollution. Ms. Jodry and I were assigned dance floor duties since we were the “young ones” and because the administration likes to make fun of us whenever possible. We had fun, dancing on the sides and laughing at our students. A couple of boys (who didn’t know we were teachers), asked us to dance. After that, I took out my lanyard with keys and ID badge and displayed it proudly throughout the rest of the night. The faculty still makes fun of us for that. The later it got, the more kids joined the grinding mass in the middle of the dance floor. Everyone was starting to look really sweaty. Make-up was being smeared away, and couples were starting to fight and find other sources of entertainment. Cough, cough. I can’t believe I stayed until the end, when the lights come on and the kids see where all their friends ended up. New couples made, old couples fade. Ah, high school drama.

I sneaked off to my car, and drove to meet my old high school friend at a nightclub in Hollywood. By the time I got to Hollywood Blvd., the place was packed. The lines outside Les Deux were huge, parking was $25, and I was exhausted. I looked at myself in my car mirror. Twenty-two years old and too tired to stay out past 11 PM. Skipping the club scene to chaperone high school dances. Somewhere between graduation and now, I turned into a 40-year-old.

Halloween Is Never More Scary than in a Classroom

I like complaining about multiple preps. I usually start preparing for my 12^th grade classes, then I move on to 9^th grade classes, and before I collapse on my bed in exhaustion, I scrape some lesson together for my Pathways class. I always dream how nice it would be to teach only one class. Planning time would cut in half. I would have time to exercise and watch movies. I could watch bad reality shows on E! and Bravo like my roommate does! Halloween robbed me of my beautiful dream. Thank the planning Gods that I have three preps in one day.

On Halloween, which fell on Wednesday (the day I don’t have a free conference period), I created the same lesson for all of my classes – both 9^th grade and 12^th grade. Such a horrible idea . . . Halloween really can be a frightful holiday. It started off like a great day. Fun costumes, fun activities, candy! Each period it got progressively worse. It was like living in my own “Tell-Tale Heart” nightmare. The entire faculty at my small learning community decided to dress up in doctor-themed wardrobe. The day before Halloween, I ventured into the fashion district of downtown Los Angeles to find some cheap scrubs. I bought this flowery navy blue set for fourteen dollars. Then, I bought this kid-sized surgeon outfit from the 99 cent store. The top barely fit but the surgeon mask and cap were totally worth the 99 cents. I threw some red paint on the surgeon gown and in big black letters wrote: Warning: I’m a First Year. I wanted to be cheeky. If a student asked, I could wave off the question with a Meredith Grey reference. I bought lots of Toostie Roll-type candy and Starbursts and put it in a pumpkin basket. I placed orange and black butcher paper in the windows. My room had an eerie glow. I had my scary stories, my videos, my Edgar Allan Poe on tape. I was ready for the best lesson EVER. I was going to have fun, they were going to have fun, what could go wrong? How about the best lesson ever five times in ONE DAY.

Each period, my students were more hyped up on the candy they were consuming in each class. After lunch, those periods were disaster. Too much sugar, too little patience. My scary story that involved the overhead being turned on and off like car headlights stared getting really annoying for me. I couldn’t read it with the same emphasis or foreboding. The Tell-Tale Heart video started seeming longer and longer each period. By the time sixth period came along, I was so tired, and I had a splitting headache from all the sugar I was eating (come on, you don’t expect me to ignore the pumpkin basket on my desk). Moreover, after five lessons teaching the exact same thing, you start thinking that your students are getting really stupid. You forget that they haven’t sat with you through the lesson already. So when sixth period starts answering questions incorrectly or when they sit silently when prompted for an answer, you want to shake them. Hello?! Duh! Poe uses foreshadowing! Idiot!

My Halloween cheer wore thin. At 3:12 after my detention kids left, I quickly swept my room (using my 99 cent broom and dust pan . . . love that store!). The floor was littered with candy wrappers and spilt skittles. I packed my bag and left – perhaps the earliest I have ever left school. I somehow made it home, swallowed two Tylenol, and collapsed on bed still in my scrubs. Three hours later, I woke up and sat down at my desk to plan three very separate lessons for tomorrow.

Pissing off the Teacher

For all the intangibles that make my school different from the hundreds of other schools in Los Angeles, it is remarkable how many similarities there are still. Let’s start with the differences. My school is brand new. The athletic facilities are remarkable – an Olympic size swimming pool, brand new football field, two indoor basketball courts. There is almost no tagging at my school, which is so very different from my experience at Jordan High School. There, I would walk into our first period summer school class past freshly painted walls. I would walk out of class an hour later and somehow the walls would be tagged. Every single day the walls are repainted. (Embarrassing anecdote: I once backed into our freshly painted blue classroom door. I had blue paint on my butt the rest of the day. Dry cleaning got most of it out). At my school, nothing needs to be painted.

Small learning communities help preserve an intimate learning environment. It is possible for me to know all the 440 students by face. I feel like I know almost every senior by name. The teachers at my learning community are incredible. They are all innovative and invested in their students. Unlike some stories I hear from other corps members about their dysfunctional schools, there is not one teacher who does not care about their students. It is a remarkable achievement. I could keep listing differences, but the similarities keep popping up – in their grades. What do you do when only twenty percent of your students turn in their homework? If you’re as frustrated as me, you yell at them and then threaten them. It is completely inappropriate and, perhaps fittingly, it didn’t make me feel any better about the situation.

“When I give you time in class to finish your work, and you waste it talking or sleeping or whatever you do, I have no patience when you do not turn in your homework the next day. I can hurt your grade a lot more than giving you a zero for this assignment. You all are starting to piss – me – off.”

Complete uncomfortable silence for a whole minute as I walked around the room, passing out handouts of today’s reading. In my mind, I was frantically trying to think of a lighter next line – somehow transitioning from that regrettable speech into introducing today’s lesson. Mostly, I was just waiting to make sure that I could make that voice transition successful. It’s harder than I thought. Changing from angry, trembling voice to a calmer, steady voice is almost impossible without coming off to high-pitched or forced. Putting on a veneer of patience, I try out a few “okays,” “alrights,” and “does everyone have a copy of the reading?”

A few minutes later, Carlos asks me if I’m going to cry. I look at him straight in the eyes and say, you can make me yell, but you won’t ever see me cry. Twelfth graders are such punks sometimes.

After fourth period, my neighboring teacher came into the room and gave me two big hugs. That really calmed me down, and I had a wonderful fifth period after lunch. I bet my ninth graders wondered why Ms. Goswamy was so overly goofy that period.

Talking to Seniors

[Note: I am going to start changing student names in my posts. I don’t want a Harriet the Spy incident where a student comes across my blog.]

On Wednesday after school, I crossed the courtyard to go see my fellow teacher, Ms. Jodry. On the way back across the courtyard, I noticed a bunch of my students working outside for the yearbook club. I looked around me. White flakes were falling from the sky; the smoke was thick. (Santa Ana winds had caused mass fires around Southern California). What are you doing outside – get in! And so I had five seniors follow me into my classroom. There went my afternoon planning.

My problem with my seniors is this – I want to be their friend. I really enjoy talking to them. Their lives become my life. Let’s admit, I don’t have that much drama as a teacher – I live vicariously through them. What do you mean Mary and Francisco are dating now! Okay, so Janice and Steve can’t be in a group together because of that epic fight last year. The problem with getting too involved in their lives is getting too involved in their drama.

Edmundo stayed in my classroom for two hours that day. We talked a lot about college and how does not want to go. He’s going to paint with this father, and then he will start his own business. School isn’t meant for people like him he said. School isn’t going to help him he said. As a stubborn twelfth grader, they seem so naïve. But it’s not easy to convince them. Even if I knew the rhetoric to convince him that school is worth the effort, I have to battle the damning. He has Ds on his transcript. How many classes would he have to retake for colleges to accept him? How many adult school classes? How long will it take? Is senior year already too late to start thinking seriously about college when you’ve spent too many years goofing off?

Edmundo is very bright. I know he will succeed in life, even without college. He’s tricky though. Sometimes I fear that his behavior problems in school will translate into problems in a job. Armed with the infinite patience of a teacher, I ignore his name calling and cussing. His inability to stay seated in his chair for a whole period is MY problem. His inability to sit in a chair in ten months will be HIS problem. What boss is as nice as Ms. Goswamy?

The Field Trip

November 17

In the beginning, I was super excited about my school's after-school activities. Chaperone the Homecoming Dance? Sure! Sign me up! Come to the ALC fundraising dinner at Shakey's tonight? Sure sign me up! Chaperone the AVID trip to Knott's Berry Farm? Of course! Sign me up!

Never. Ever. Will I chaperone an after-school field trip again. I enjoyed the dance and the pizza. It's the theme park that was one (two… nine) hours too long. Friday at 5:30 PM (after a full day of teaching, which in itself should be remarkable and happy hour worthy) I queued up outside the school to chaperone the 9th and 10th grade bus to Knott's Berry Farm. Wait back up. Let's start at 4:30 PM when I decide to leave my bat cave (er, classroom) and venture out on 3rd St. to find some dinner before my exciting night. I was still enthusiastic at this point. I'm walking by myself down the street trying to make my way to Lolita's Burritos, when four ALC students hailed me down to eat pupusas with them at the corner taco shop. I felt popular. I ate with them. Half way through my really cheesy quesadilla, I realized that roller coasters were to follow.

During dinner, I chatted with the four students are in my small learning community but in grades that I don't teach. Therefore, they were open with their profanity and immaturity. I was amused throughout. Then, one of my 9th grade students appeared. She's a really brilliant student but has a huge chip on her shoulder. We don't get along too well in the classroom. She was shocked (and appalled) that her friends were having dinner with Ms. Goswamy. “You, Miss?! what the hell are you doing here? Oh... haha, we're not at school, you can't yell at me for cussing. Ha ha!”

I was suddenly aware that I was going to spend two hours on a school bus in Friday rush-hour traffic with 50 9th graders. What the hell was I doing there?

I fell asleep on the bus ride so I only gritted my teeth through 35 conscious minutes of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" and "This is the song that never ends…". Once at the park, I had a solidly good time. I hung out with three fellow teachers. I chatted with students and
laughed at their animated expressions on the rides. Two of my 12^th grade students along with my lead teacher physically dragged me onto a ride. I went kicking and screaming. I threatened them with fails. Somehow, they overpowered me and I ended up on the Rip Tide – one of those small rides that twirl too many times. Remember cheesy quesadilla? Luckily it stayed with me. My sanity, though, left.

We left the park at 1:00 AM. I, along with most others, fell asleep on the ride home from pure exhaustion. When we arrived back at the school at 1:45 AM, the weather was noticeably chillier. We waited almost an hour outside the school to make sure everyone got picked up by a family member. Walking home at 2 AM is not an option even when they live only a few blocks away. A couple of Escalades sped by with the windows rolled down as gang members made ugly faces at us. “Kids, stay together, don’t wander off!” In the end, we ended up driving some students home.

I arrived home at 3 AM with “never, ever” sentiments. On December 7^th, I am chaperoning the Winter Dance. I signed up for the manageable (and early!) 6-9 PM time slot.

Scripted Curriculum Is Evil

October 13

At one point, I could not think past classroom management problems and learning student names. As I reflect now, I can appreciate how, early in my teaching career, I was reminded that I am at the bottom of a very extensive hierarchy. In Education class, the readings and discussions illuminate just how entrenched school policy-making is, starting from the state government and filtering down to school boards and superintendents, finally, to me. In my case, I am expected to teach a curriculum that someone above me in the hierarchy decided was best for high school English students.

I know very little about the school board that affects my district. I do not know who wrote the scripted curriculum for my 9^th and 12^th graders. But according to one of my readings
(Provenzo 2002), school boards tend to be relatively conservative, “reflecting the status quo and the power blocks in their communities.” Then I am inherently skeptical about the curriculum I received. The 9^th grade expository unit is based on the book A Night To Remember – a non-fiction account of the final hours before the Titanic sank. The author Walter Lord interviewed hundreds of people to get multiple perspectives. Of the over two hundred people that Lord names in excruciating detail, not one character is a minority. Not one character is someone my students can remotely relate to. My students do not reflect the “status quo.”

I agree that the fast pace of technology growth and the racial diversity of our students make dealing with difference and change imperative for teachers. Nevertheless, scripted curriculum seems to say that teachers need not worry about difference or change. Here, marginalized to a 2-inch binder with unit tabs, is a curriculum that will satisfy all the needs of every student. Teach this exactly and watch their scores rise, they seem to say.

A month into teaching I went back to Beaudry St. to update my university intern credential. I was waiting in a conference room on the 15^th floor, looking out over downtown Los Angeles. I can see my high school two blocks away. It was built two years ago to relieve Belmont High, what used to be the biggest high school in the nation in student population. I am again reminded of all the people who welcomed me to the big bureaucracy – the red tape and inefficiency. The view from the 15^th floor confirms this negative connotation. Scanning a few blocks south from my high school, I see the “new” Belmont High School. This building was supposed to open in 1999 – the first wave of new schools to relieve the overcrowding “old” Belmont High. The building is still not done. A few blocks west, Belmont High still suffers from a lack of teachers, facilities, and resources. Rumors say that the “new” Belmont will open in 2008, almost ten years after is should have been finished. I only hope that the construction fences soon disappear along with the red tape that surrounds the school.

The Beauty of Bureaucracy

October 6, 2007

I remember accepting my job at the LAUSD headquarters on Beaudry St. in downtown Los Angeles. Every one had an opinion. Welcome to biggest bureaucracy, they said. You’ll be hearing from them . . . often, they warned. I laughed, shrugged my shoulders, and signed the dotted line. I then had an unpleasant reminder of what it meant to work for LAUSD: I missed the entire second week of school for scripted curriculum training. I am reminded of that week now as I go back for another day of training.

Despite being repetitious and lacking in imagination, the scripted curriculum for 12^th grade English has a few bright spots – bright enough to employ in the classroom. Initially, I was afraid to criticize LAUSD curriculum. After all, I am a first year teacher without years of experience to guide my opinions as to what works and what fails in a classroom. Nevertheless, it’s remarkable how quickly a first year teacher develops opinions.

The 12^th grade curriculum is entirely expository. This trend by the district to go more expo and less literary is evident in the readings and writings. Divided into twelve modules, the curriculum covers engaging topics (from the fast food epidemic and hiring practices based on beauty to juvenile justice) that are relevant to the students. While I support the idea that 12^th graders need to learn how to critically analyze non-fiction texts, the readings do not require the students to become invested in the process of reading. The articles are informative but not complex. They can read an article in twenty minutes (rereading is, of course, encouraged) while a novel requires persistence and buy-in.

I taught the first module about fast food to my classes. They found the topic interesting, but I couldn’t stay on the module for longer than three days. My students were becoming impatient with a two-page article that did not require much in-depth analysis. It is not the length that matters – imagine the weeks you can spend on one Shakespeare monologue – but the content. I can’t imagine my students being interested when the LAUSD representatives couldn’t get us high school teachers interested during the training conference. If dozens of high school English teachers can’t get excited about reading and writing, there must be something wrong. Moreover, the curriculum does not provide any help for how to adapt the assignments and activities for EL (English Language) students or SpEd students. I feel like I could have received the reading materials in the mail and still been as prepared to teach it as I am after having missed the second week of school. I can complain now because I know that come second semester, when I’ve exhausted my luck with teaching novels, I’m going to turn towards the 12^th grade expo modules and suddenly appreciate the brevity and relevance of a two page newspaper article.

Detentions and Fire Drills

September 30

Black Dickies and oversized black t-shirts. Smudged glasses and gelled spiky hair. Meet Luis – my 9^th grade nemesis. Luis is late to my class everyday. He refused to do work in class. He yells inappropriate things like “f---er” during instruction. Oh, Luis. Luis wants to try out for the JV soccer team next week, but might have some problems given that he has detention with me on Monday and a ‘U’ in citizenship and work habits. I was supposed to call his mother on Friday, but no one picked up.

Last week was super tiring. By Friday, I had a headache.

It is Sunday again, and I face a new week. I will not recount the bad parts (besides Luis, of course, because I feel like I needed to introduce him in my journal . . . I have a feeling he’ll appear in these pages again). I am going to list the good things. The experiences that make me feel validated as a teacher (and person – sometimes amidst the classroom insanity, I forget the humanity part).

The new best part of my day is 2:59 to 3:12 PM. Every day, the students who are tardy to first period have detention that same day for thirteen minutes in their sixth period class. This means that every day, I have at least four seniors who spend a few more minutes with me. I love it! They deep clean my white boards, which is so fortunate because I was getting a reputation as the teacher with the filthy boards. They help me move desks around and put up chairs on the day my floors get swept. The best part though is that they talk to me. I ask how their day is going, and how they like their classes. What are you doing on the weekend, Diane? Think we’ll win the football game, Marcos? And so on. I really love it. They don’t hate me because I’m not the one who assigned them the detention. They aren’t even being punished for misbehavior! They’re just too lazy to get to school on time! Clean white boards and the latest greatest 12^th grade gossip. That’s one happy teacher.

On Friday, we had our first fire drill. I never remembered these things taking a whole period. I thought they lasted fifteen minutes but apparently they take a whole 65 minute period. I would have loved it as a student. Woohoo – no fourth period notes! Now, as a teacher, I hate them. Waste a whole period to walk out to the football field when we could be learning about in-text citations?! Horrible! Anyway, I had to manage the fire drill with my infamous fourth period class. They all knew about the drill so the few minutes I had them in class were completely unproductive. Some of them even walked out before the bell rang.

“Carlos! Eslee! Where are you going?! Get in my class and sit down, the alarm hasn’t rung!”

“But, Miss! It was supposed to ring at 11:15 AM, it’s now 11:18!”

“Thank you, Carlos, I can tell the time.”

“But, Miss! I see people leaving – what if we’re the only ones left!”

“Carlos, get away from the window. No one is leaving yet. I’m not really afraid of an imaginary fire anyhow … we’ll survive.”

“I think we’re supposed to go, Miss, maybe the bell won’t ring.”

“Get in your chair now! I’ve been in a fire drill before, thank you. The alarm always rings!”

I then to proceed to lecture on the valuable time of a class period and how we must learn something today. I start handing out my handouts. I get about half way through the class when – of course – the deafening alarm rings. Chairs scrape the floor, handouts fly up (in a very Hollywood-esque teen drama fashion), and I am left yelling over the bleating alarm.

“Okay, WAIT UP! No one leaves – we’re doing this in an organized way! Walk to the North end of the football field. We’re on the 20 yard line. All together!” As my students race out the door and down the steps on to the street. Oh dear. Exiting a school in downtown Los Angeles is a lot different than the fire drills I had been to in my high school days. Getting to the football fields means walking the sidewalks of downtown, crossing major streets and holding up traffic.

I haven’t forgotten that this is supposed to be the recount of the lighter, happier moments of my week. I just need to describe the first scene so that we can all appreciate how it got so much better. Once on the field, and after I had filled out my missing person sheet and injury report sheet (“okay, where is Carlos?”), I had some great moments. Kevin – the students who always has his head down during class – came up to me and started chatting. Despite being the cool bad boy of Miguel Contreras, Kevin did not have too many friends in my class except for three girls who according to him were being too girly right now. Granted, they were doing cartwheels and giggling loudly. One of the girly girls is his on-again, off-again girlfriend. He really opened up. He told me the whole drama. He told me how he wants to go to church again. How he transitioned poorly from middle school to high school. How he wants to go to community college and then one day, Howard University. I loved every second of it. It is moments like this that feel validating. I talked to him like he was an adult, asking serious questions and expecting though-out answers. Because, in most ways, he is an adult. It’s scary/wonderful whenever I realize that of my students.

The Bad Day

September 22

Friday was my worst day yet. The first time I brought my work home. And not in the traditional sense because, let’s be honest, I bring my work home every day. Planning lessons, grading papers, making handouts. This Friday, I brought the hurt home. My fourth period class made me crazy. 28 seniors – and I felt like every one of them was against me. Even the good students who always sit quietly and do what I say made me feel horrible. While chaos erupted in my class, those good, quiet ones looked at me the whole time. I felt like they were saying… “act like a teacher, miss, what kind of control is this?” I let this one class affect my day. The rest of my classes were awesome – really incredible. The football game in the evening was also fun. For some reason, all I remember is my 4^th period class – and a girl named Beatrice.

I yelled for the first time. I took my first student into the hallway for a one-on-one “what the hell are you doing?!” conversation. I felt my voice strain for the first time – the high-pitched trembling that sounds like you’re about to cry. I always understood why you NEVER cry in a classroom, but I never understood why a teacher would ever feel that way. I know why now. It’s because you’re trying so hard, and they aren’t meeting you half way. I heard about a dozen expletives yelled in my class (granted they were never directed at me), but I didn’t know how to manage it. My voice turned ugly. “Do not use that word in my classroom, am I clear, Carlos?” I stood in front of my class and gave period 4 the teacher stare for a full 30 seconds. It felt like the longest thirty seconds I’ve ever stood in one place. By twenty seconds, every one was silent, except for Devie who said “damn, she’s angry” and Alis who said, “shiiiiiiiit” in a quiet, resigned voice. I stood there for the last ten seconds just for effect. Lie. I stood there for ten more seconds because I didn’t trust my choked voice to start talking again. I felt my cheeks burning red.

You know, it wasn’t all that bad. It feels horribly bad at the time. Every time I looked at Ross, I wanted to say “I’m sorry, I know you’re listening, and I know I’m giving a horrible lesson right now, but don’t stop listening!” Every time I looked at Cristina, I wanted to say “thank you, stick with me.” Every time I looked at Carlos, I wanted to say “are you f---ing kidding me, sit in your seat and shut up!” And I never say the f-word.

So Carlos and the rest of the rowdy 4^th period was not the reason I had the worst day yet. I can handle those kids. Sometimes they’re hilarious and productive in class, and sometimes they will be chaos. I can get over those students easily. They just make me tired and red in class. The reason I brought the hurt home was Beatrice. She’s easily one of the brightest students I have – such a great writer. She should be in AP Lit, but Ms. Drinkward, the AP teacher, said she’s too lazy. Beatrice was reading a book in my class. Can you imagine how infuriating that is? She’s reading – she likes to read! Yay! – but she’s not doing any work in class. Instead, she’s reading and talking to her friends. I tell her to put the book away repeatedly until I actually go over and take the book from her hands, shut it, and hand it back. She tells me that her mom is going to come in ‘cause she would be angry that I just did that. I sarcastically respond that, good, I would love to talk to her. I handled Beatrice all wrong. I should have challenged her with harder work, but instead, I got into a conversation with her in front of the whole class. She called me out.

“Miss, why are you telling me to work when every one else is not doing the stupid worksheet on introductions either.”

“Because I’m not talking to everyone else right now, Beatrice, I’m talking to you.”

“I don’t need this worksheet, when I write, I just write, I don’t need to fill this out. I don’t need this.”

“I know you’re a great writer, but I need you to learn how to follow directions and work productively in class.”

This went on for a little while.

We never resolved the conversation because at that point Carlos yelled something inappropriate, and we needed to go out into the hall. When Carlos and I came back in, the class was more subdued – a bit scared that I took someone out. Then again, Beatrice never picked up a pencil.

After school, I ran concessions at the football game with my fellow teachers and a lot of my 12^th grade seniors. Among them were students from my 4^th period class. We talked, joked. I even gave Carlos a high-five and let him hang around me as I grilled the hot dogs. Beatrice was always within talking distance, but we didn’t say a word to each other. I gave her a few small smiles, but something she could easily pretend she didn’t see. When she left around 9 PM from the varsity game, she walked by me.

“Goodbye, Beatrice.” I waved my hand.

She walked right by me, purposely and heartbreakingly ignoring me.

Ouch, it hurts.

The Beginning

September 16: Four days of teaching. It’s Sunday, and school has been in session for two weeks. For the first three days, I established rules and procedures, I developed classroom culture, I talked in-depth and in-length about our vision. I spent a day defining voice and what it meant to have one. I was feeling good – my students were listening! Besides rowdiness and a penchant for talking when I do, these kids were good. Then I learned what it meant to work in the biggest of big systems: The Los Angeles Unified School District.

I then miss the second week of school because of required English teacher training! The. Second. Week. Let me tell you what that means in teacher terms . . . shit happens. If you’re not there to reinforce all the rules and investment that you spent time creating, they disappear. I got a day break from training last Wednesday, and I was pleasantly surprised how controlled my students still were. I got a lot of questions about my absence though. Teachers at least wait a month before they pack their bags. On Tuesday, when I finally reenter the classroom, I dread their reaction to why I was gone again. I’m expecting at least a dozen exchanges along the lines of:

“miss, where you been? You vacationing?”
“no, Ricardo, I told you before. I had to go to some training about this new, awesome unit we’re about to start”
“awww, miss, don’t be lying – you got married?”

I am really excited about starting to teach content material now. I think I’m boring my students so far. And I fear my advisory (homeroom) class hates me. By the way, I never really had so many doubts until I became a teacher.

Ezequiel refuses to call me anything but Ms. GoSwimming. It annoys me to no end. [yes, sigh, I do appreciate the word play – I think he’ll like Shakespeare.]Imagine what I could do with his name!
Esmeralda asked on Day 2 what I do to my eyebrows. “They’re really nice, miss.”
Katherine (a really creative writer) came to school an hour early to read her short story on werewolves to me. It was really good. I asked her if she’d read Harry Potter (since everyone should read it regardless of werewolf fascinations and Book 3), but she gave me a two minute answer that mentioned witchcraft, the devil, and a pretty definite No, she does not read Harry Potter. Hmm, I wonder if moments like this are what my advisors warned against. Something about overcoming our biases. Forget racial biases and gender biases. This girl doesn’t like Harry!
Luis will not use the red-colored marker. Blue only.
Stephanie will not make a T-chart on her notebook paper without a ruler. Seriously? “Stephanie, don’t worry about straight lines, just draw two lines and let’s get on with the lesson.” “But they’re not straight!”
“Stephanie, I’m not repeating myself, let’s go.”
[Stephanie shoots me an ugly look, draws two lines very slowly, and looks at me with “now what?” eyes. During independent practice, she erased her hand-drawn lines and traced over them with a ruler.]

How to conclude the first few days? I am nervous before every single class. I have felt incompetent, unprepared, and misunderstood. But, oh, I love going to work in the morning. There’s no feeling more alive than minute one. Forty seniors pack into the classroom. You’re probably not picturing it right. They are not in their seats – they are not looking at me in the front. They are talking to their friends, with iPods in their ears, they are still eating breakfast, and they are sitting on tables, fighting over the one chair with wheels. I really love minute one. “Class, Do Now is on the board. Sarry, throw away the bagel. Salvador, headphones out. You know better. Francisco, you’re sitting up here with me today. No one sits in the rolling chair! Ladies, make-up away. Okay, good morning, class, let’s get started.”

Overdue Like a Homework Assignment

I start teaching on Sept. 5. I have two classes of English 9, three classes of English 12, and one homeroom class. I have no lesson plans... yet. My classroom walls are still bare. The next two weeks are full of professional development classes and school-required meetings. In a month and a half, I look forward to getting paid finally.

On Tuesday, students arrived at my school (Miguel Contreras Learning Complex) in order to register for the upcoming school year. I got the sweet job of handing out schedules. Before handing them over, I looked at their schedule (to see if they would have me!) and to glance at their grades and GPA. Have you ever seen a senior in high school with a GPA of 1.25? What about a 0.81? Should I stop now or mention the 0.25? Alright, I'll stop.

A real, updated post will arrive as soon as my sanity does.

Ma'am Can I Go to the Bathroom?

I have been a real teacher for almost a summer now. Hmmm. Maybe I need to rearrange a couple of adjectives. I have been an almost teacher for a real summer now. I can't pretend the last five weeks away - they have been the most glorious - frustrating - five weeks. I taught persuasive techniques to my summer school students so they could learn to write a 5-paragraph persuasive essay and master the reading comprehension questions on the state exam. Mostly, of course, the five weeks were a training period so that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes in the fall. I think my most discerning students realized that their teachers were new to the profession. I hope they never felt like guinea pigs. Honestly, even if these students were exposed to inexperienced teachers for the summer, I don’t think they have ever had more passionate, hard-working teachers. We were trying to prove ourselves after all. Good things I did: I encouraged, I was patient (sometimes), I got through to Danny C. and Nancy L. Bad things I did: I rolled-my eyes on several occasions (Ms. Goswamy: “Say your name and your favorite candy”; Shawn T: “Shawn and, um, peaches and cream”), I yelled at a student, I gave up on Daveon W. and Juan S.

Day Two of teaching was epic. It was the first time I was all by myself in front of real students. No more role-playing or graphic organizers asking me how I would respond if a). a student refused to do work, b). a student cussed me out or c). a student (and I really hoped this would NEVER happen) threw a book at me. For those curious, you do get a lot of a), the occasional b) and thank goodness, no c). We're all about numbers at Teach For America. We want to make significant gains with our students. It's the whole achievement gap problem after all. We're trying to change the fact that our students are performing on average four grades below their peers in high-income communities. So before Day Two, I didn't quite understand the concept of on average when it came to the numbers of teaching. I taught ninth grade English. And I had a lot of students who were further behind than four years. I had a student reading at a first grade level. I had students about to enter twelfth grade. I have students who are bored with my lectures because they are incredibly bright. I have students who are bored with my lecture because they don't understand what I'm saying.

Addressing the needs of all of my students has been the most challenging thing so far. And here I was worried about classroom management. I learned the secret on why kids act up in class - it's always the teacher's fault. If they're messing around, misbehaving, they aren't interested enough. I'm either talking above them or below them. Or right through them. Engaging a student can be tiring. You have to put on a show with hooks and fireworks, invest them in every lesson. I danced for them, I ran from poster to poster, I bribed them with candy.

By the way, on their summative exam, all my students missed the question on parallelism.

How can you absolutely love your students and also want them far, far away, past time-out corner, beyond the Dean's Office, miles beyond the school doors? One Friday, Teach For America held a college fair at Jordan High School. All of the corps members made posters of the colleges we attended and answered questions about applying, financial aid, and college life. I met a charming boy there who was the self-proclaimed big kahuna of Jordan High. He told me he could get any girl he wanted at school. I looked at his football jersey and deep dimples and believed him. After all, I’ve seen the social politics of Jordan High during nutrition and passing periods. He was one of those boys who made the girls in my class late because they sauntered down the hall, holding hands and eating their Fire Cheetos. Anyway this charming boy turned out to be the biggest punk I’ve ever met. Disrespect is the one thing I learned that I cannot handle. I’ve learned not to go by first impressions or appearances. Some of the quietest kids score the best on tests. The most friendly, charming students will not work hard. Some of them talk behind your back. For some reason, that hurts the most.

Yellow School Buses and Freeways

6:30 AM: Five hundred corps members, dressed in business professional, board yellow school buses. Good morning. It's like high school all over again - butterflies in the stomach and more worries than excitement. I had forgotten the feeling of first day jitters in college. On my way to Jordan Starr High School in Watts the feeling returned. And we haven't even started teaching yet. That's next Monday.

People started filling into seats from the front of the bus. Once you leave ninth-grade, the long-fabled "back of the bus" is no longer where the cool kids hang out . . . I sat down in the last row. School bus seats prevent slouching. There is absolutely no manner of relaxed comfort in those upright, upholstered seats that press your knees into the seat ahead. Sitting erect in my slacks and heels, hands clutching my coffee travel mug on my lap, I feel incongruous in the back of the bus. I put on my black sunglasses and plugged my ears with my headphones, trying to be invisible as I stared at the naked city. I couldn't close my eyes. The forty-five minute bus ride from Cal State Long Beach to Jordan High School was the most interesting ride I had ever seen.

Going north on the 405, you realize that Los Angeles freeways are both the great divisor and the great equalizer. These freeways break up the city; they box in neighborhoods. The 105, 110, 10, and 710 box Watts. You can easily get to everywhere else without ever entering the area. Which is why I had never seen a place like Watts before Monday. Then again, freeways are the arteries of this city. Driving along the 405 and then the 105 you see all types of cars with all types of people - different races, different socio-economic levels. You can make all the wrong assumptions you want about who sits in which car with what kind of life. Here I was, sitting anonymous in a school bus, loving my position of voyeur. We passed the Los Angeles River. It was dry, concrete, and sad. Graffiti decorated the concrete river banks, shopping carts and trash bags littered the sides. Then we got onto the 105 overpass, and I seriously could not stop staring. This year, Los Angeles has experienced the worst drought in over two decades. The land is starving for rain. It looks thirsty. The area around Jordan High School is the most uninviting, barbed-wired desert. Why would a student want to go to school? Immediately, I recognized how much easier my job will be in the fall because my school is in a brand-new facility. Learning happens much easier when the students want to be there.

And yet, and this is a universal phenomenon I think, a school is an oasis. You enter the halls of learning and you feel safer. The paint might be peeling, the floors may be dusty. It doesn't matter. You just need to see the tables and chairs in the classroom, the lockers in the hall, and you feel comfort in the fact that all high schools have the potential to be the same. Because it doesn't really matter that resources are scarce or that the school is in the middle of Watts. All that really matters is that good teachers get into those classrooms and expect the highest standards from the students, and not so that the students will escape this place, but because they'll help to fix it one day. These students own this city - they've literally made their mark on every building and every street sign. Imagine if they could raise the income level of Watts by going to school, by graduating high school, and (can I dream it?) by going to college.

I've spent almost a week at Jordan High School now, learning about classroom management, lesson planning, and teaching literacy, all under the over-arching umbrella goal of trying to close the achievement gap. On Monday, the students arrive; I face my biggest challenge; my alter-ego appears. It has already appeared in flashes. It happened last Monday when I picked up my Teach For America bright red lunch box. The staff handed me a permanent marker to label my lunch box. With five hundred corps members with five hundred red lunch boxes, you have to distinguish your own somehow. I etched my new identity right there. Scratching on the red vinyl material, the marker spelled out assertively: Miss Goswamy.

I feel more settled now. First day jitters do eventually subside (though I expect an unhealthy bout on Monday). I'm not so wide-eyed anymore on the bus ride over to Jordan High. I understand my responsibility. I have to be the best teacher I can possibly be to the students I will have in summer school. And to be the best teacher possible, I need to recognize what will help me do that. I put on my black sunglasses, plug my ears with my headphones . . . and nap. It's forty-five minutes to Watts from Long Beach - and that's a whole lot of dreams.

On Being Independent

Today I filled out a FAFSA form completely independent of my parents and their income. The joys of being independent. There is a much better chance that this teacher will now be able to receive student loans! Of course, to all bright sides, there is also a downside. I paid my first payment check to Loyola Marymount University. Sometimes being independent is not so exciting. For everyone who welcomed me to the "real world" after graduation, I thank them, and politely ask, can I go back? Responsibility and the weight of adulthood are not cooperating with me.

The first payment check was compliments of my big decision of the week. I'm going for the Masters of Education. At first, I thought I would just get my teaching credential, but I figured I could not be fully committed to this program if I didn't get a M.A. The degree leaves the door open for me in case I want to continue in the education field. (No, I haven't given up my dream about working with South Asian economic development... I'm just on a series of two-year plans). I filled out a lot of forms today. Few things are more exciting than filling out a complete form and transferring it from the to-be-completed pile to the completed pile. I've heard that TFA members are a little OCD.

I remember feeling horrible a few weeks ago the moment I realized I was taking my last undergraduate class. Luckily, it was an epic last class so I didn't feel cheated of a momentous occasion. Now, I'm super happy (and feeling a little silly) that I am again going to take classes starting in August. I am worried that teaching and taking classes will be overwhelming, but I've already described my unhealthy plan to have a love-affair with coffee. Get ready for our public displays of affection.

So I am an adult now. You can congratulate me later - as I will to all my fellow real worlders. Let's throw a big party in April (one, for having survived almost a year of teaching, and two, for embarking on our first independent income tax returns)!

Induction: Bulleted and Survived

My training to be a teacher started on Friday, June 22. Tomorrow marks one week at Loyola Marymount University, where myself and 209 other LA corps members have participated in induction. I have not yet entered a classroom so my story has not yet begun. Mostly though, because I didn't start this blog earlier, I'm too overwhelmed to recap the most crazy week of my life. I resort to bullet points (because obviously, I have not had enough bullet-pointed powerpoint presentations in the last week... seriously, omg!):

• I interviewed with four people from Miguel Contreras High School, a school located right in the middle of downtown LA. I had my most conservative navy blue skirt suit on, my humidified hair struggled to remain cooperative in a half-ponytail (honestly, being too close to the Pacific Ocean means constant bad hair days), and I was wearing pantie-hose. Enough said. Pantie-hose means business. As soon as they told me about the school, I wanted the job. At this school, the teachers work collaboratively with one goal: get the students to college. All teachers are required to mentor 25 students and engage them in an after-school program. (I really hope to start a creative-writing workshop! or a financial literacy class!) I spent 45 minutes convincing them that I was passionate and young and that, despite my inexperience, my "Miss Goswamy stare" would be the secret weapon of classroom management. They took a risk and hired me. Afterwards, telling my parents and family, they finally revealed that they were praying that I didn't get a South-Central placement. Apparently my aunt was having nightmares about my living in Watts.
  
• I've teared up three times already this week. I thought my college graduation would be the end of my overly-emotional episodes, but I seem to be prone to crying when I am severely lacking sleep and when people use Big Ideas - like being a change agent and social justice. The latest example being tonight. Steve Zimmer (a '91 LA corps member) talked about his fifteen years working at Marshall High School. He's been to 15 of his students' high school graduations . . . and 21 of his students' funerals. He hopes that one day, he'll have gone to more graduations than funerals.
• I am having trouble finding "me" time. The whole balancing life and teaching seems too impossible right now. And I haven't even started Institute (the five weeks of hell that start on Sunday). My one solution that I don't think is sustainable or healthy is coffee. Coffee gets me through the teaching part and leaves me less crabby during the life part.
• I think I need a whole post on this subject, but because I'm tired and borderline crabby right now, I don't think I can fully summarize my love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. It's no Bay Area to be sure, but it has charms and sometimes it's beauty overwhelms me. Like when walking back from our evening sessions and the tall, skinny palm trees stand against the pink sky. And the pink slowly fades to purple and then midnight with the city lights dancing. Mostly though... Los Angeles scares me. Part of the goal of induction is to meet my fellow corps members and to meet this city that I'll be living in for the next two years or more. So far, I cannot call it "my city." Soon, perhaps.
  

Oh, and because I do not want to marginalize this to a bullet point... I think I'm going to be a good teacher. I've been inspired by every conversation I've had and every content session I've been to - okay, except maybe the bureaucratic teaching training session - and I think that if I haven't been disappointed yet (despite lack of sleep!), I'm going to make it. And with that, goodnight.

Welcome to the Movement

Hello, my name is Stuti Goswamy, and I am a 2007 Los Angeles Teach For America corps member. For the next two years, I'm going to teach 9th and 12th grade English at a LAUSD school in downtown LA. Over 95 percent of my students at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex are Latino. Less than half will graduate.

Before deciding to do this, I heard some negative things about Teach For America. One, how could I possibly enact positive change in only two years? And two, did I have the right motivations for joining TFA? If you'll excuse my self-indulgence, I would like to address both criticisms. First, I don't expect to stop trying to close the achievement gap after two years. Once you know about this problem, you never stop caring, and you never stop trying to close the gap. I might not teach in the classroom after two years, but I'll be working - in whatever profession and in whatever capacity - to erase educational inequality. America and the rest of the world face the same problem: the Haves and the Have-Nots engaging in battle every day. Some kids (and now I have to be self-critical... some kids like me) have had every educational opportunity - from encouraging parents, to good schools and, most importantly, to good teachers. Some kids get low expectations and lower opportunities. And these kids are almost always located in low-income communities. In the short run, I'm going to make sure that the almost two-hundred kids that I will have in the next two years will be held to the highest expectations. I'm promising them a good teacher. Second, I wouldn't dare question my motivations. I joined TFA because I was questioning America's motivations. I was angry. I was so certain that I was going to graduate college in order to fix the problems in the developing world. And then I looked closer and realized that my own country would continue to Talk Big and Rule Mighty without addressing our most ugly problem. Sure, we all know that poverty exists in America. But did you know that 1200 kids entered 9th grade in a school in Compton? That only 200 of those kids graduated in four years? That only 15 of them were going to college? I didn't until my senior year of college! How can we ignore this issue - and why is it so easy not to know about it? I am frustrated with myself for not knowing for so long. So I'm doing this, and I'm going to share my story along the way so that you, too, can know about the problem, and so that you, too, can believe that we can one day close the achievement gap. Erase the very great distinction between what it means to Have and what is absolutely destroys to Have-Not. Welcome to the movement.