Saying Goodbye

Last Monday I went to the retirement party of a beloved French teacher who has taught at my school for many years. I didn’t expect to, but I cried. I cried after four students played Chopin on the cello and collegues read The Little Prince aloud. I cried during the speeches and the photo montages, cried at the hand-made center pieces on the tables and the group of retierees who surrounded Jack for a photo. I cried at all the mommies and babies in the wings, bouncing and cooing. This school is such a family—it is really hard to divorce yourself from the cyclical ceremony of it all, the comfort of feeling part of something larger than yourself.

Everyone feels the year winding down; it’s like reading the last few pages of the favorite book you want to read quickly and slowly at the same time. Does so much emotion bubble up annually at jobs outside of academia? Do people cry when they leave boardrooms for the winter holidays? When they retire from 25 years of ibanking? When their airline goes bankrupt and it’s time to seek a new management job?

I’m leaving too—off to work at a small private school in Kapolei which, new and unformed with regard to tradition, is the polar opposite of the established school I now part from. So perhaps my tears came partly from selfish attachment, or a sense of personal loss. But I mostly just felt overwhelmed by the evidence that careers unexpectedly end and begin and take sudden turns. Therefore, the time we spend together is finite and must be honored and relished like a dragon fruit devoured with a spoon. I am grateful to have been at my school for two years (the second really helped me to ground myself in the classroom) and awestruck by the opportunity I had to work with such talented faculty and students. I hope I teased the fruit's flesh from the rind, munched through the seeds, and cleaned my plate.

Teacher 1, Teacher 2

My friend Nick wrote me a great email in which he described two of his favorite high school teachers.

Mr. Miller, who taught physics and AP Bio, was renowned as the coolest teacher in the school. He was about 50 and skinny, with a wily black beard and a ratty blue lab coat. His room had a piano and herbariums, and full-spectrum lights and classical music always playing softly on the stereo. Every student in his classes was required to read the entire NYTimes every day. He always told us about how he had taught in every possible kind of school-- private, public, big, small, boarding, Quaker, catholic, Jewish, hippie, suburban, inner city, middle of nowhere--and that that was how he learned how to teach. And he was damn good. I got a 4/5 on the AP bio exam without memorizing a single thing. I don't even remember taking a single test in his class, just drinking tea and dissecting squid and talking about evolution and the anatomy of the eye. He came to my school during my sophomore year and after my senior year his "contract was not renewed." The administration always thought he was kinda unconventional.

The other teacher, Mr. DallaGrana, taught recent American history, global issues, and American political systems. Except for the survey intro to American history class, all the classes he taught he designed himself. "Global Issues" was devoted to the influence of one country's history on another, with special emphasis on the history of apartheid and democracy in South Africa. DallaGrana organized charity 5K run/walks, took students on trips abroad (even took my brother to South Africa junior year), was an ultra-marathon runner, and lived a block away from school with his wife and kids. He was and is still an institution at the school---took a bunch of kids to Obama's inauguration this fall. He was also a peace corps volunteer in the 70s in Lesotho, and goes back to the village where he lived EVERY YEAR! He did a 1 year Fulbright exchange a few years ago, where a South African teacher brought her family to live in his house and teach in his classroom and he took his family to live in her house and teach in her classroom. The guy is completely committed to TWO communities on opposite sides of the earth---and for most of the time he was doing it the internet didn't even exist.

They really both sound wonderful and raise questions about what it means to be a teacher rooted in place. I originally thought teaching was attractive as a profession because it would help foster a global perspective but it is becoming clearer to me how central tradition and culture are in schools and how being a part of that takes physical presence. There is a "this is how we do it" feel in schools that I'm not sure pervades in other institutions and it takes a while to learn that, become part of that, and then shape it in some way. I don't know which teacher (#1 or #2) I aspire to be, but I'm thankful there is more than one way to be good at this job.

Great Read

In three days flat I read A Changed Man by Francine Prose. The thing I like about it is that it raises questions students ask themselves (Can people really change? Can you help another person change or does change come from within? Where does hate come from? Should we forgive people who do bad things? Should we forgive ourselves?) in well-written, digestible language.

For example, read this passage between Vincent--the ex- neo-Nazi turned NGO worker-- and Danny, the teenager at whose house Vincent stays while transitioning from his past.

"Wait a minute," says Danny. "Back up. Let me get this straight. Are you saying that Hitler killed six million Jews because he was gay?"

Vincent taps the side of his head and lets his jaw go slack. "Excuse me? Did I say that? That's your conclusion, my man. Personally, I don't care what the guy did behind closed doors. I don't even want to think about what Hitler did or didn't do. In bed. My point was something else. My point was: all these guys I used to hang with...you couldn't even bring it up. They'd kick your ass if you hinted that Hitler was a little light in the loafers. Because they dug Hitler and hated fags. They couldn't handle the contradictions. That was their number-one problem. They couldn't deal with the gray areas. They couldn't get beyond the point where everything has to be black or white, one way or the other." (165)

Well said, my man. I don't mean to suggest that the language is always gentle or even student appropriate (although that is a whole different blog post in its self) but it is concise, accurate, and convincing, especially for the characters involved. All good literature raises meaningful questions about the world, but diction deeply affects how much those questions resonate with students. Books like The Catcher in the Rye --which still brings up good questions for me, even on my eighth read--sends students to look up words like "highball" and "galoshes." A Changed Man tackles similar questions but with the the zing of fresh language. Bravo Mrs. Prose.

Quality Education

Last week over spring break I took a few days of my vacation to visit schools in the Seattle area. At Seattle Academy of the Arts and Sciences (SAAS) and University Prep I took campus tours, met with department heads, observed the use of technology in the classroom and chatted with students.

The most shocking revelation of these visits was that two prep schools could have such different philosophies about what a quality education looks like. You ask someone what makes a good piece of pizza and they might mention the crust’s thickness, the variety of toppings, or the amount of cheese. But what makes a quality education? The number of variables alone is staggering (class sizes, commitment to the arts, homework load etc.). On top of that, you aren’t working with mushrooms and pepperoni—these are people filling your classroom who each have their own ideas of how education should be. How should the school order its priorities? The two schools I saw answered this question differently and therefore have very different school cultures.

SAAS (where I attended 7th and 8th grade in the mid-nineties) is expanding like a cherry blossom mid-March. The student body has grown to nearly 600 students and plans for a new building are in the works. The students were sociable and I interrupted a girl in her biology lesson (she was reading a poetry blog on-line while her testing experiment ran) and we ended up discussing her independent poetry study. She meets twice a week with a teacher she selected to discuss her poetry and reflections: a neat arrangement that came about because she came up short of one English credit. I like that both school and teacher would accommodate her this way. I like that she had been on Semester at Sea. I liked how little prompting it took to coax this girl into talking to a foreign teacher about her passions. In almost every classroom I poked my head into (visual art, French, Algebra, choir, English) I saw students pursuing their interests and taking a risk in front of their peers, be it by reading an essay aloud in English or opening their mouths to sing in choir.



Not everything worked perfectly. I observed some classes where students were supposed to be working independently but cruised Facebook instead, and one where the teacher helped one student while the rest chatted about an upcoming senior trip to Alaska. I saw a student sleeping on his break and heard one complain about overly-committing to lacrosse (“Dude, it’s like a part-time job!”). But in general, I had a sense that the school is committed to teaching the whole child--mind, body, soul--and providing opportunities for students to take risks, thereby discovering the wealth of strength inside themselves.



University Prep is a slightly smaller school (485 students) with breathtaking facilities that let in a lot of natural light. I arrived near the end of the day so I didn’t get to see class in action, but a discussion with the English department head clearly outlined the focus of the school. He pointed out that the school’s name is “University Prep” (perhaps as opposed to artistic prep?) and that they deliver exactly what they promise—preparation for a 4-year university. The required four-years of English culminates in a 5000 word essay on a topic of the student’s choosing (SAAS sends seniors to intern at the non-profit of their choosing) and I have no doubt that the U-prep student can write an excellent persuasive essay. The day I visited the school had suspended class for a music day, and an outdoor trip was planned for the Olympic peninsula so the school certainly doesn't limit its self to academics alone. But I did come away with the sense that the school is primarily focused on providing an academic environment that will prepare students for the challenges they will face in college.

The schools are different, and I wouldn’t want them to be the same. Some students excel more in the structured environment of U-Prep, some thrive on the artistic opportunities at SAAS. Both schools have students that struggle as well. I think the larger lesson here is that each school has its own culture and that students (and teachers!) should be at the school whose idea of a quality education matches their own.

The Brain and creativity

I showed this video to my freshman class before we started a poetry unit. They enjoyed Taylor's storytelling and were shocked by her picture at the end. The 18 minute clip serves as a nice reference point for us now when discussing where poetry comes from, how to foster creativity, and what a grounded "sense of self" is in our writing.

You can’t skip my class

Something is going right in my freshman English class. It feels amazing. I look forward to teaching all three sections whenever they meet, which is rare for me the week before Spring break vacation.

What is working:
1. We spent time building a class culture. We used the first two weeks of the quarter to do activities that addressed the essential question of the course (who am I and how does voice shape my identity?) and students bonded. The payoff is better peer-feedback amongst students and more laughter in the classroom.

2. More large projects. Student feedback from last semester suggested that they prefer fewer large assignments over nightly assignments that count for a lot. Now they have Big Great Works, Little Great Works, and Process works which are the nightly assignments worth 5 points. The assignments build on one another, so after around seven Process works of writing different kinds of poetry, for example, they have a BGW of polishing three poems and submitting those with a reflection. They sense there is a purpose to the homework while it allows a little more space to play and fail (you can goof up your process works and still rock your BGW grades).



3. I spend more time planning class than I do grading. Last year I stayed up late to turn back papers the day after I received them. Now I may turn papers back two classes later, but I know class will be engaging (and I am well-rested!).

4. Start every class with them. Students can they read their free-choice paper to a neighbor, share a story of what they did after school yesterday, or write an overheard line of poetry on the board-- anything works. I just try to start class with something from them so we are all invested together. It’s a little scarier than starting with my example story or model-able essay; it requires adaptability and thinking on my feet. Their creation doesn’t always link seamlessly to the lesson of the day, but it adds an element of surprise for both of us that keeps things fresh.

A mentor told me that class should feel like there is some kind of plan, but anything can happen. I like that.

One strange result of this spontaneous, student-started class is that it makes it unpleasant to re-hash past classes with students who missed class for sports or illness. Last year I could easily upload my lesson plan to the website or email them what they missed because it was the same in every class: fueled by me. But now rehashing class is like dissecting a joke for someone who wasn’t listening. What is there to say? You had to be there.

Teacherly Goals for S'09

--Visit lots of other teacher’s classes
--Dare to have a discussion with students about the relativism of grades when they have grades in their hands (oh the potential wrath!)
--Give students more time to think and reflect before they respond.
--Spend more time in class reading aloud, reading silently, and practicing various reading skills.
--Use technology mindfully in my classroom and at home.
--Accept the fact that I am already the best teacher I can be.

This last one deserves some explanation. I am reading a book called Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das and it posits an idea I find surprising: give up hope. You are already the best manifestation of yourself you can become. Stop trying to be something you aren’t; in this moment you don’t have thirty years of teaching experience so don’t waste energy wishing you did—just be the teacher you are in the moment you are in. The best teaching I have observed is simply an extension of the teacher’s personality. Great teachers share their whole selves with the students, not just a watered down phony version. I aim for that this semester.

What I learned from The “Apple” Challenge

I wrote four pages mulling over this topic but they read with a rather nasty tone, so I have condensed my thoughts to these four main, hopefully non passive-aggressive, points.

1. Collaborating with a for-profit business about curriculum was an interesting experience. I don’t particularly recommend it simply because in education teachers already have multiple bosses (students, department heads, school principals, parents etc.) and they don’t need another one who a) has interests independent of serving students as well as possible and b) is not present to adjust their demands when what they ask for is unreasonable. The next time Apple Inc. invites me to try their experiment, I will do it on my own timeline or I will say no thanks.

2. Collaborating with other teachers across disciplines is a wonderful professional development opportunity. However, it doesn’t make sense to engage in this illuminating yet time-consuming process unless you have the same students who will make connections between the thread started in Biology class and continued in English class. The block schedule at my school minimizes the chances of overlap and makes me question if this system is really the best schedule for student learning.

3. We need teachers. (What a relief!). Part of the Challenge Based learning model appears to suggest that teachers need to stop lesson planning so much and get out of the way. “Hand over the reigns to students,” CBL suggests, “and they’ll teach themselves!”. I was optimistic about this at first but discovered that the reality is that no, they won’t. It isn’t because of a lack of drive; I think it’s probably just a frontal lobe that needs to grow. Freshman aren’t there yet: they still need us to point them in the right direction, show them some cool examples they couldn’t find on their own, teach them the basics, and then invite them to impress us. Otherwise they sit there staring at one another for days.

4. Group work rocks. Students pay more attention to one another than they do to anything else and group work can steer that energy toward self-reflection. One student reflected after the whole project debacle came to an end:

During the course of the past three weeks or so, I had to overcome a lot, personally. It was very hard for me to keep my cool when other people in my group weren't cooperating, or if we were having communication problems. It was hard for me to be able to not take all the work myself, but to be able to trust the other people in our group to do some work as well. I was personally able to overcome this when people in our group really showed an interest in the project and wanted to help out, which was when I was able to hand over some responsibility to them.

That’s neat. So she learned more about herself than she did about English class content. Am I satisfied with that as a teacher? No.

In closing, I must say that this project left me with a lot of questions and one that even related to my identity as a teacher: How can I strike a balance between content-driven classes and experiential learning? Why do I so enjoy leaping at the risky, uncertain, potentially disastrous projects instead of just using my office-mates lesson plans that are tried and true? If nothing else happens in my classroom, what is the one thing I can’t do without? The creation of a class culture? The ability to use discussion techniques? The development of an appreciation for poetry? The proper use of a hyphen?

Each teacher answers these questions for themselves and it will take me a few more years before I am confident in my own responses.

To my students who failed this semester: I love you

So my grade book screams “D” and you earned it.
But in my book of life your name shouts “A” and you should know it.

I like you.
I believe in you.
Your simple being astounds me.

If only you knew how highly I esteem you, the eternal light inside you, the potential curled in your belly like a dormant walnut inside a shell awaiting his nutcracker, then you would not pout now. I see your own hand around the cracker’s handle some day, its teeth biting for grip, digging in to squeeze yourself out.

You are so much bigger than this little F attempting to shrink you. Don’t buy this crap.

And believe me, if I could get over the fear of being fired or called “ weak” or “easy,” if my ego could take the hit, than I would write you an “A” and stamp it loudly on the paper you never turned in because I love you like I love every human being and in you I only see rainbows.

Best of luck,

--Ms. D

I wrote this little poem/letter after a lunch conversation with one of my favorite colleagues. We are grading final papers and it is an incredible drain on our energy. Why is it so hard to spend hours grading? Because we have to focus on telling students what they did wrong rather than what they did right, justifying our "B" on their paper with a red circle here, a critical comment there. I fear they will misinterpret my comments on their papers for my assessment of their person, which makes me feel guilty for each red mark on the page, like I'm hurting a beloved with my pen. I know it sounds overly-self important to think my comments affect students that much, but I do worry about it. I wish I could just write "I love you!" on every paper, and give a little feedback about their work and leave it at that. What a bleeding heart right!? What to do what to do.