Teacher Appreciation Week: Chapter 4

Chapter 4: When It's Gone, It's Gone

In my fourth year, there was a very tangible shift. It started with the staff. We had a lot of our core members move on to bigger and better things, mostly for personal reasons. No hard feelings, of course, but it was never quite the same after they left. Despite growing student enrollment, we didn't take on many new staff members. For the ones we did, we never really took the time to get them on board with the mission or the model of the school, so some of the elements of what was once a very strict code of conduct started to loosen up and fall away due simply to a lack of consistent enforcement.

At the same time, there most recent AYP numbers were not looking good and someone was going to have to answer for them. There were a lot of finger-pointing policies that came down from the superintendent and since no one was interested in taking the blame for the failing district, it was placed squarely on the shoulders of the teachers. We were the easiest scapegoat, of course, because if the children aren't passing the tests and graduating, then it must be because the teachers aren't teaching them well enough! It couldn't possibly be any of these things that are COMPLETELY out of a teacher's control:
-student absenteeism
-malnutrition
-trauma (abuse, neglect, exposure to/participation in violence)
-poorly crafted district-mandated curricula
-malaligned standardized tests
-devalued diplomas
-ineffective school/district leaders
-allure of gang lifestyle
-lack of discipline at home (absent parents, lack of parenting skills)
-lack of prerequisite skills for high school achievement
-lack of resources (for students to complete assigned tasks)
-lack of resources (for teachers to give effective instruction)
-lack of faith in the education system in general

Yet, sadly, these were all of the things that were somehow my fault and if I just taught my classes better, it would solve everything! Kids would leave the gangs, come in off the streets, quit the jobs that they needed to support their younger siblings/junkie parents/children of their own, and come join me in Spanish 1 because that seems like something that is going to have an immediate positive effect on their lives!

And when the attendance police pick the students up and dump them in a chair in my classroom, you can bet your bottom dollar that they are going to be ready to learn, bright eyed from that night they spent sleeping on a park bench because they got evicted. They will certainly be prepared to participate after missing the first 75% of the course while they were busy selling drugs on the corner. On test day, I'm sure they had a balanced breakfast of Hot Cheetos and grape soda at 10:30am when they finally decided to roll into the school with no uniform, no books, nothing to write with, nothing to write on, and a chip on their shoulder because somebody looked at them funny on their way in the building.

Around this same time when teachers were being blamed for all of the fallout of Baltimore's societal ills, our administration also sold our collective souls for a little extra cash. Since having special education students gets you more district funding, we decided to take on the PRIDE Program for students with emotional disabilities. I can't even begin to explain how completely unprepared we were to admit this group of students. We didn't have the staff, we didn't have the training, we didn't have the resources or the structure or anything that was required to give these students the services they needed so they really could get an education. We just saw dollar signs for each kid who was on the list. Shame on us for our selfishness and greed. We certainly paid for it later.

When you have students with emotional disabilities, a simple request like, "Please take a seat" becomes a personal attack. "You don't own me, bitch! Shut the fuck up! I do what I want. Can't nobody tell me nothing. Niggas think they run this shit. I run this shit!"

What do you do in a situation like that? Do you start screaming obscenities right back at them? Do you raise your fists and prepare to fight? Do you throw something? Or do you see that behind all that rage is a 14 year old child that has seen more hurt and pain that you will ever see in your privileged life? Do you know that his reaction has NOTHING to do with you and everything to do with a life of frustration and disappointment and struggle? Do you know that this is the only way he's been taught to speak to authority figures?

So you say, "I need you to step outside and come back to class when you are calm enough to learn. I'll be here when you're ready." Sometimes they never come back. Sometimes they are forced to come back and they sit in the corner with their heads down, listening to their iPods, refusing to even try. Sometimes they come back and apologize. You never know. But what you can guarantee will happen is that your general ed students will take note that this kid just punked you and nothing was done about it. They see that he doesn't have to wear a uniform like everyone else. They see that there are new limits and they are going to try to find just how far they can push those limits before everything snaps.

He said "I run this shit," and he was right. Control slipped away from the teachers into the waiting hands of the students and there was no coming back from it. The little details like having your shirt tucked in or wearing the right color shoes were completely forgotten because it was a victory just getting kids into a classroom, regardless of what they looked like or how they acted.

The district decided that suspensions were no longer an option for disciplining students except in "extreme circumstances" (read: bloodshed) so we had no option for students who were way out of line (throwing/kicking desks, cursing at teachers, making violent threats, sexual harassment, etc.) but didn't, say, stab anyone. I don't think kids should be wantonly kicked out of school either, but then you need better "in house" consequences and behavior management tactics so that you don't need to even think about suspension. We had none of those and a whole lot of situations got unnecessarily bad, but not quite bad enough, so there was nothing we could do about it.

How do you run a school where "just show up" is the standard and the expectation? Our principal must have asked himself the same question and was at a loss for a solution so he gave up, too. What was clearly a school culture issue was branded as teachers just not working hard enough. Instead of supporting us and trusting our expertise to create engaging lessons, we were scrutinized and docked points on our evaluations for inconsequential omissions like not having enough words on our Word Walls.

Trust and love were replaced with blame and bitterness. The once quiet, orderly hallways were now 24-hour party zones. The focus used to be on student achievement and now it was simply on covering your ass so they couldn't find a reason to fire you. There was no collaborative spirit anymore, no sense of family. It was us, the teachers, versus them, the administration, the district, the students and the parents and no one was going down without a fight.

Our school motto was "Excellence is the expectation," and when I first arrived at the school, the students repeated this slogan to each other, to themselves, to their parents... They believed it. I believed it. At the end of my tenure there, it was virtually forgotten, or worse, dripping with sarcasm and disdain. The only expectation was that you would end up a nobody going nowhere, just like all your friends, and all your relatives and everyone you've ever known because that's the only thing this city is really good at.

There were some positive moments in those last two years: I had another great semester with some of my students in the class of 2011. They were always such a pleasure to teach and it helped that I had their class last period because they could erase an entire day's worth of frustration with 90 minutes of awesome. They were the reason I came to work everyday.

I also go to teach AP psychology in my 5th year. Our principal had been "teaching it"for two years but more often than not, that meant leaving the kids in a room by themselves (which happened to be my room during my planning period) to read their textbooks and answer sample exam questions. Finally, I got fed up and offered to take the class over myself. It was wonderful getting to try something different and to push the students to the next level but the fact of the matter is that none of them were quite ready to make that leap yet. Due to scheduling conflicts, I only got a semester where the principal had the class all year and I feel like I could have done so much more with a little more time.

One of the best experiences was participating in the Chill program, sponsored by Burton. My friend Heather had been the coordinator for the three years she was at the school and I picked up the slack when she left. It's a program that teaches life lessons such as patience, persistence, courage and pride, through snowboarding. Six weeks, one night a week, everything paid for and in the end, you come out a better person who also knows how to snowboard. If you work with underserved or at-risk youth, see if there is a Chill program near you. It's the only thing that got me through my last year.

That year was filled with disappointment and when it was over, I tried to be happy for the seniors but I mostly felt angry that so few of them even deserved to be on that stage. I was angry about how many had cheated and lied and complained their way to a 60% and had the nerve to be proud of it. I was angry that my principal had sold us out. I was angry that my friends had left when things were still good. Most of all I was angry at myself for being so defeated.

When I think back to what my school was and what it became, it breaks my heart. I was so proud of my school, of my students, of my fellow staff members. Maybe it was being young and maybe it was being optimistic but I really believed we were something special. I truly believed that teachers could make a difference, despite all the odds working against us. In five years, that faith was stripped away and a cold sense of helplessness was all that remained. I thought I could change the world but I turned out to be just another teacher who got eaten by the system.