my verbal vomit… or thoughts on my school

this has been a year of GROWTH. both for me as a person and for my school. since school and life have become so intertwined, i can’t talk about my life without first talking about my school. it is amazing to me how much of a difference it makes when one person on the team cannot carry their weight. looking back at my entries from august 2006, i remember all the hope and excitement i had around opening this school with 7 other AMAZING individuals. each of them bringing something special, each coming from their own professional hell and coming with one common purpose: to teach the kids that so deserve it. while we may have had different views on some things (although this really didn’t happen very often) we all knew that the bottom line was that we all were there for the same reason. we all, ultimately were passionate about our reasons for being in education and not taking that high end job elsewhere– some of us holding not just one masters but multiple masters– still CHOSE to be in the profession that is so often frowned upon as not “applying yourself”.

 

 

this common passion was what ultimately made last year as successful as it was– we weren’t perfect but we created a school where our kids felt safe and KNEW that we had their backs. the defiance and disrespect of my teach for america years a long lost memories by the end of our first year of Endeavor. Sure, the kids weren’t perfect but ultimately, they knew we loved them and they loved us back. for some of them, we became their family– the only stability they had in their young 9 to 11 year old lives. NOTHING will ever replace that first year– to be a part of a tight team of individuals that CREATED a school where they saw a need is something that can never portrayed in a textbook.

 

fast forward to year two– while i still desperately try to hold on to that vision and that feeling of team and family we created during our first year of existence, it ultimately has paled and i often find myself grasping for the last remnants of this vision. there is no one person that i can blame this on but ultimately, i’ve realized that the meshing of individuals with each other, especially in a school is the backbone to the success of the school itself. all of our teachers once again have come from completely different backgrounds but most have come a more traditional route. they have not had the experience that many of us shared our first year of teaching where we were given a “crash course in teaching” and then thrown in to either sink or swim. those that stayed in teaching were the ones that swam– the ones that figured out, despite the rushing waters and the feeling of hopelessness, how to be a teacher. some of our weakest links have never experienced this type of adversity. some have never taught before and others have taught in jobs that did not challenge them in the same way while others were somehow the ones that sank and that common vision? has been lost. we have too many individual islands in our small lake of a school and nothing is bringing us together the way our kids need things to be. they know the white elephant in the room and are dying for us to see it and address it. what they don’t realize though is that there is only so much we can do. as adults, we cannot expect other adults to change their BEINGS.

 

we worked so well last year because we all basically had the same style and if not, adapted our styles to meet those of others. our kids essentially had 5 different versions of the same teacher. this year our teachers have 2 different teachers: those that can manage and those that cannot. they’ve even got two types of caring: those that truly care about where they will go and whole heartedly believe they will get there with our help and those that say they care, but doubt them deep down inside — those that have a smile that only rings true on the surface. nearly as bad, if not worse than those TFAers who chose TFA as a resume booster– if you want to “save” some kids– don’t do it at our school. our kids are too fragile and have been through too much for you to pity them– they need teachers that will do whatever it takes to get them where they need to be but they don’t need teachers who will look at them as if they are hopeless and go home to their cushy homes on the other side of this city. HOW can you teach in a community that you don’t even live in? while i know that i never can claim and never will claim that i know the lives my kids lead but knowing their neighborhoods, knowing the prejudices against them, knowing the walls they have had to hit over and over again, i can begin to understand where they come from.

 

bottom line is: if you are going to teach, teach because you love children. if you are going to teach in the “inner city” teach for the right reasons. our kids don’t need you to save them, they need you to love them and they need you to CARE.