Every Day is a Big Day

I’m reading a book with a several thousand other people. The Chicago Public Library has a program called “One Book One Chicago,” which is an epic city-wide book club. For two months the library hosts countless events ranging from traditional book club meetings to book-specific events like irish pub nights with live music or historical performances and period fashion shows. I am constantly impressed with the infinite ways in which the gargantuan city of Chicago brings its people together. It makes me feel more a part of the Windy City to know that there might be a person reading the same book just around the corner. The book for March and April, Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin, follows the life and challenges of a young Irish girl named Eilis who, after WW II, immigrates to New York to find work.

I am strangely comforted by the stories of her struggles in a new world; I relate very well to her unfamiliarity with the customs and people of a new culture, and, to a lesser extent, with her sporadic bouts of loneliness and longing for friends and family. In the early part of her transition to life in the U.S., Eilis describes how every day is so enormous, so full of events and ideas and life, that she would need another whole day to successfully process everything that happened––a 24-hour pause in time to synthesize––before she could take on the next regular day.

I know this feeling all too well. Especially since I began my new experience in middle school, I can’t believe how much happens in one day, and how little time I have to think about it until we get rolling again the next morning.

This past Monday was a disaster. Ms. Dean, the arc angel of control, was not able to be at school that day. I remember trying to write a blog post that day, but being to frustrated to finish. This is as far as I got:

“These are among my least favorite days. They are always a loud, argumentative, and exhausting reminder that this is not my classroom. As soon as students realize that the “real” teacher is absent for the day, my whole world swan dives into chaos.”

Monday was especially disheartening because even my “best” students––as far as I can judge after a week––were breaking rules, disrupting class, and disrespecting me and the substitute teacher with the rest of the middle school tribe.

Tuesday was reconciliation. Ms. Dean was furious to hear how her students acted with her gone, and swift, heavy justice swept the land. She made it very clear that “Mr. Walker is hear to stay. He’s not a sub, and he’s not a student whatever. He is an adult, and I SUGGEST that you treat him with the respect an adult deserves.” (Ms. Dean loves to “suggest” advice to her students, and they know she means business when she suggests something; it’s kind of like being voluntold to do something.) One apology letter reads:

Dear Mr. Walker,

I’m sorry for acting a fool yesterday. It will never happen again.

Sincerely,

Tamika

Some of the students were downright pissed that I took down their name and handed it off to Justice, but middle schoolers are wonderfully resilient. One student who I thought was the most upset––I was waiting for her to slug me (no joke. She was suspended two weeks ago for fighting)––wrote in her apology letter that more than anything she was sorry because she didn’t want me to be mad at her.

I’ve learned that middle schoolers, about 700% more than the high schoolers in my first 8 weeks, respond to my interaction with them. My questions, encouragement, or evil eye are all taken seriously, and they bounce back after a bad test or an off day, returning with reformed attitude and ––dare I say it––a passion to learn! Though not everyone, some of my students still hold a sense of wonder and intrigue that makes teaching a cardiovascular workout. Their faces are clear windows to their churning minds, and their insightful questions fuel my instruction equally as much as my passion to teach.

She Is Legend

Friends! Big development: as of this past Monday I am completing my student teaching experience in the middle school of Michele Clark. I am very grateful that the administration gave me the opportunity to get some experience with grades 6-8 and also stay at the same school. My new cooperating teacher, Ms. Dean, is––and there’s no better way to say it––a legend.

When other teachers in the building found out about my new placement, the reactions ranged from impressed nods to flat out jealousy.

From perhaps the most respected teacher in the high school: “Oh geeze, you’re set. Ms. Dean is an institution. I’ve learned more from her than from any other teacher in my whole career.”

From a linebacker-sized security guard: “Shoooot. She could do my job better than me.”

“Gosh,” an envious colleague idly suggests, “maybe you can get me into that class. I’ve always wondered what goes on down there...”

Among students, she’s known as “Mean Dean,” yet they adore her, especially when they move on to high school math and realize they are the most prepared of all the students in their math classes. “They may hate me for it,” Ms. Dean tells me in our frequent conversations throughout the school day, “but they’re going to get into good habits now so they’re sharp as tacks when they get to high school and it really counts!” I only have time to interject a nod before she continues. At this point our conversations are more like monologues where I sit and absorb everything I can while she just drops knowledge on me like loads of bricks in one-ton helpings. ––It’s actually not quite that intense; I just like the imagery there.–– I’m ecstatic, though, because more often than not I find myself in righteous agreement with her many philosophies of math and general education.

For example: “Students, especially here in the city, need structure and consistency. I don’t care if you’re the bloomin’ principal’s daughter; you bring your book, two sharpened pencils, and your spiral to class every day. If you think I’ll lend you a pencil, think again. Why would I teach you to be irresponsible? No, I don’t assign seats. They figure out real quick who they have to sit by––or not sit by––to keep themselves on track. We have a quiz or test every last day of the week. On thanksgiving week we have one on Wednesday. And don’t you try to come in here without your ID or uniform shirt. Don’t care if you get A’s or F’s: the rules are the rules.”

I am in awe of the nearly complete control she has. “Quite playing!”, her voice a whip, she silences two boys in the hall whose roughhousing had been swirling toward a fist fight. They hang their heads and shuffle back in line. To a passing bright-eyed 8th grader, kindly, “How did that writing test go, honey? Best score in the class right? That’s my girl.”

“Even if they hate her in middle school,” one veteran teacher tells me like a war vet spins tales of the victorious battlefield, “they all come back when they’re freshman, like clockwork, and hug her like to break her. Nearly every valedictorian we have in the high school was one of her students.”

Later that day, when two boys knock on her door, late to class (other students look away to sever association with the blasphemers), she starts toward the door, and then stops.

“You take this one. I’m not saying a word.”

“uh...what do you nor–”

“you’ll be fine.”

“ok.” I think, here we go!

I walk confidently to the door. She’s right behind me. I can tell she’s got my back.

She loves throwing me into these situations. She hasn’t said this explicitly, but I’m pretty sure she gauges her success with these interjections by how completely she catches me off guard. (she’s batting about 800.)

“I don’t know, what do you think about that question, Mr. Walker.”

“Ah yes. Mr. Walker will be able to help you with that. Go ask him.”

And her favorite, “Mr. Walker, what is this child’s name?"

“Ms. Dean!” I protest, “It’s only my second day!”

She just laughs.

Afterward, even if I didn’t really teach anything: “Did you like the outcome? What do you think you could have done to change the outcome?”

At the end of the day we walk out together. On Wednesday she gave me a motherly hug, and today I got a thumbs up.

I don’t mean to be too optimistic, but after just four days in my new placement, I feel like I’m on solid ground.

Re...consideration

I decided that my giant post needed some rethinking. Check back soon for a shorter update.

Cheers!

-BWalk

Comedy Club: Kitchen

Tonight I'm thinking about opening a comedy club.

I'd call it "West Side Stitch."

Or, more accurately, "Help Me Laugh At My Ridiculous Life."

There is potential for multiple venues, though the first would undoubtedly be: my kitchen.

It’s not that I’m bad at cooking; it’s more that when I “cook,” I put something savory on the stove and then walk away and forget about it, even though I had every intention of returning before a pan chars some vegetables to ash or a pot boils all over my linoleum like the adolescent child of Ol’ Faithful. Though the audience of my comedy club would chuckle goodheartedly as they watched my kitchen swirl into disaster during my absence, I’d probably get bigger laughs from my Sherlock-like entrance into my kitchen, in search of some mysterious hissing sound or stench that smells like food (...but burning), and then, as I realize my blunder, exploding into a hysterical, arm-waving fit of useless activity, flinging full pots and pans and utensils through the air from sink to counter to stove as if chaotic ballistics might somehow salvage the smoldering remains of my dinner...

They’d be rolling in the aisles. If I were watching me, I would too.

Alright friends, stay tuned for updates from the school front in the next couple days!

Shout Out

After more than a week I return to my blog, feeling a little guilty, to be honest, that I’ve left it for so long. This blog is a great outlet for me and I really love writing it, but it serves a different purpose than my personal journal does, and the last week or so has been so challenging that I’ve been focusing on personal growth and had to put off the updates for a bit. I’m really looking forward to catching up, because I have a ton to write about!

But before I do anything else, I need to holla at some important people.

This is a shout out to my teachers, the ones who are my inspiration and who fuel my passion for education. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude when I think how much effort they have put in to my education, in and out of the classroom, in math or Macbeth, music or morality, justice or friendship, and life. I think constantly about you, your devotion to students, to meaningful education, and to me. It helps me to keep in perspective how important my path is, and how hard it is, and––if I can be anything like you––how good it can be for me and for my students.

I draw strength from you all the time, even if you don’t know it. (I know some of you are sending it.) And I especially need it now, during this circus called student teaching, which for me could be accurately described as a string of hilarious-only-afterwards discombobulated and sometimes-chaotic mishaps.

Truth.

Hey teacher, remember all that knowledge you dropped on me in the classroom? I use it pretty often. Remember how you took your life and actually modeled exactly how an effective, rockstar teacher teaches? Now I use that every day. Every incidental learning experience with you has suddenly become my framework for teaching, and each of my (rare) successes I owe to your example.

Teacher, know that I’m working, and struggling, and learning, and that I love what I’m doing even when students make decisions that drive me crazy, and that I look to you like my personal lucky stars or guardian angel. With every small triumph, I think, Yes! Thank you. I know you saw that. I swiped that right from your bag of tricks, and it worked like a CHARM.

Boo yah!

Among the many new phrases I’m learning from my students is one favorite: “good lookin’.” I get the phrase a lot when I lend a pencil to a student so he doesn’t have to do math in pen (disaster). The first time someone said it to me I gave the kid a questioning look, and he and all my students laughed and explained that it’s not a pickup line, but actually a phrase that people use when someone does something to help or look out for one of their friends: Good lookin’.

Example:

“Hey, I picked up your coat you forgot in math class.”

“Thanks, good lookin’!”

Or, in this case:

“Hey, I changed your life because you were in my class and I lit you on fire and now you’re going to be a teacher and rock at it and love it.”

To my teachers:

Good lookin’

Bad Day on the Ground

Sometimes, like right now, having a bad day is a relief. I’ve had so many amazing, inspiring days since I began this experience that I was worried that I was floating on something too good to be solid, and that the bubble would burst and I would fall through into a nightmare. Today was challenging (a good thing) and exhausting (also a good thing). I made so many mistakes (a good thing in the long run), and some students even got mad at me because I was teaching so poorly. To be fair to myself, it was my first “real” day of teaching, and although I thought I was SO PREPARED, I was soooo UNprepared. Teaching in the inner city seems like, on a day like today, a sleeping monster who dreams about slipping a nasty claw or a slobbery fang in between your carefully crafted lessons and preparations to subtly unhitch your whole class, but then who wakes up and tramples through your meek “lesson plan” and sends the whole class swan diving into chaos.

I don’t know how this is a relief, but it is. It affirms everything that I always told myself and others: that I don’t know how to teach in the city. I’m not from the hood, don’t how to teach kids from the hood, but I’m here because I want. to. learn. I’m here to learn. To make mistakes (check) and then turn and mull them over like a watch repairman, finding what makes them tick--or sipping and wafting my mistakes like a wine connoisseur does a well-aerated Cabernet Sauvignon, appreciating all the subtle ingredients and complex overtones. The mistakes help me learn, guide my reflections, and keep me grounded. I need to make sure that this experience is on the ground, not in the clouds.

Today’s big mistakes: Planned too much for 45 minutes. Let students who were late slow me down and hold up the rest of the class. Made poor transitions. Conducted a teacher-directed rather than student-directed lesson. Tried to poor out starch water from pot using the lid instead of a collander and dumped half a pound of pasta into my sink.

Safe to say: I am grounded.

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Pan Comido. (Costa Rican Equivalent to "Piece of Cake." Literally, "Eaten Bread." Hilarious!)