It was a beautiful letdown
When I crashed and burned
When I found myself alone
Unknown and hurt
It was a beautiful letdown
The day I knew
That all the riches this world had to offer me
Would never do
In a world full of bitter pain
And bitter doubts
I was trying so hard to fit in
Fit in, until I found out
I don't belong here (I don't belong)
I don't belong here (I don't belong)
I will carry a cross and a song
Where I don't belong
I don't belong

"The Beautiful Letdown," Switchfoot 

Since I've been a teacher, or something like it, the end of the school year (and first semester) has always been something of an anti-climax.  The last day of school seems to be about a week long, in the sense that nobody really feels like doing anything, and by the time students finally go home for good...I don't know, but it's almost like the whole semester/year never happened.

Maybe that feeling is an artifact of the schools I've been in, where retention of any sort is low and I feel like I'm treading water with the majority of my students.  I'm not even sure exactly what it is I'm expecting, but I know it's...not quite this.  When I think back to my own high school days, I know I adored most of my teachers, but now I wonder if they knew that then?  I tend to put a high priority on letting the important people in my life know how much they mean to me, but I've noticed that...most other people don't do that.  Aaaaand that's kind of disappointing, especially when I feel like I've given so much.  (Codependent much?  Haha, I'll get to that some other time.)  A few weeks ago one of my darling and troublesome little boys told me I was the best teacher ever--and a first-year too!--and all I can think was, "Oh, Chase, if only you knew how much it's cost me to be here..."

This has been a year in which very little turned out the way I expected or wanted.  I thought teaching was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, though I knew going in that I probably didn't want to stay in this district for more than two or three years.  Now I'm questioning whether classroom teaching is truly a good fit for my strengths and preferences.  I thought that my students would be good little people stuck in tough situations, and they are...only the situations seem to win more often than not.  (And then I have to admit that some of them just aren't that good after all.)  I thought that I was a big girl ready for the real world, and it turns out that I was just ignoring the hurt and terrified little girl inside until she started to scream...and scream...and scream, until I couldn't ignore her anymore.  I thought (sort of) that maybe I was finally going to get things right relationship-wise, and I just got on the same sick cycle carousel as before, only I spun out (and jumped off, to give myself credit) much faster.  I thought that maybe, after a year of trial in grad school, I was finally going to get things right, but in fact it became much worse.

As I think about all this, however, I realize that I wasn't actually blindsided by any of these things, though I think the magnitude of my losses and disappointments was kind of surprising.  If I had been in a clearer state of mind, and better in touch with God and community, I might have seen it all coming.  Then again, if that were the case, it probably wouldn't have been this bad either.  And if I had seen it all coming...I probably would have run, and I would have missed out on a lot of lessons.

It was a beautiful letdown
When You found me here
Yeah, for once in a rare blue moon
I see everything clear
I'll be a beautiful letdown
That's what I'll forever be
And though it may cost my soul
I'll sing for free

I wrote in a journal entry shortly after I decided to take this job that there were probably things I would learn here that I couldn't learn back home, and while there is a panoply of excluded alternatives that I will never know, that prediction is most likely true.  Once again I am brought back to the idea of the desert that I first encountered two years ago:

Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wildernessand speak tenderly to her.
There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will respond as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
Hosea 2:14-15

This is after Israel is stripped down and laid waste, and God doesn't sound like a very nice person at all.  But I always go back to this part because He does restore and renew, which was His purpose all along.  When disappointment piles on thick and loss and sorrow are so heavy I think I'm going to die...something tells me that it is not always going to hurt this much. That Someone knows I'm here.  And that Someone is good, even when everything else is not.

In college I took Animal Physiology with Dr. Joe Williams, and he liked to start lecture with something he called "Happy Minute," which entailed some sort of funny picture or joke that he would put on the projector.  Poor Joe invariably ran into technology issues, though, and his Happy Minute often stretched into five or ten or fifteen.  In addition, some most of his humor was just...not very funny.  Maybe it was generational.  After a few weeks of this I resigned myself to wasting 5-15 minutes of each lecture and made sure to bring a crossword puzzle with me.

Fast forward three years and I still remember Joe Williams, not necessarily for his work on hyperthermia in the Arabian oryx, but for Happy Minute.  I now begin most classes by showing downloaded YouTube clips of people getting in accidents, children acting stupid, cute fuzzy animals, or some combination of the above, and many of my students ask what the daily video is.  Why do I do this?  Mostly for my own entertainment, since I never get tired of watching David After Dentist or You're the Best Chinese Hurdler Around, but it gives kids something to pay attention to while they're waiting for their computers to boot up and I'm taking attendance and dealing with other housekeeping issues.  It also lightens the mood and gives them something to smile about.  No, there is no ultimate academic purpose to it, but I hope they remember it just as I remember dear Joe Williams and his Happy Minute.

Yesterday was yet another day of emotions running high as students got their OGT scores back.  I actually knew scores were up the night before, and I hurried to check up on some of my juniors and seniors from first semester.  One of my girls who had worked really hard since the beginning of the year and was only 2 points off in October knocked it out of the park with an increase of almost 25 points. But there weren't as many triumphant fist pumps as there were heartbreakingly close not-quite-theres.  I only saw one of my seniors who didn't pass yesterday, and he understandably looked less than thrilled.

My sophomores were also keen to know their scores, and anxiety was high all around, even in students that I knew would have no trouble passing. I incredulously asked one student, who is bright as day but took the OGT while serving time in the juvenile detention center, "Did you really think you weren't going to pass?  Why???"  And he exclaimed, "I took the test in jail!" as if that explained everything.  I am still trying to understand what it is that trips up so many of our otherwise very intelligent kids, and I wonder if a fair part of it is not test anxiety.  One would think that might not be as big of an issue now that students are used to testing from third grade onwards.  On the other hand, I can only imagine what nine years of academic "failure" can do to a child's confidence.  Add to that the punitive consequences of behavioral choices (many of which are administered by the school system) and you have kids who do not believe in themselves, and possibly teachers and administrators who don't believe in them either.  It's a vicious cycle based in the culture, and I am honestly not fresh-faced and bushy-tailed enough to think I can change that completely, but it does give me some "implications for instruction" to think about, to use educational parlance.

swag: (n.) the way one carries their self
cred: (n.) an ability to inspire belief in others

Apparently I have acquired a pretty positive reputation, and maybe not for all the wrong reasons as I initially suspected.  Before the start of the new semester, several students dropped in to announce that they were going to be in my class and seemed fairly excited about it.  I can't pass through the halls during class changes without being greeted by at least five students, sometimes even by kids I don't know!  According to my kids last semester, Miss Duann...

• "brings good attitude to the classroom"
• "easy to get along with"
• "she don't make things hard on me"
• "she don't yell alot"
• having a "great playful personality as a teacher some teachers lack"
• "helped me when I needed help, and always provided me with my needs"

That last one resonated particularly with me as both a ridiculously basic and infinitely difficult job description for a teacher.  Yesterday, one of the students on my roster showed up in class for the first time all semester and I was trying to get him caught up with his classmates.  I pointed him to a web site where he could find information for the assignment, and he said, "Oh, I'll have to have JJ read that to me...I'm dyslexic."  I asked if he would like me to read it to him.  He looked at me in surprise.  "You actually believe I'm dyslexic?  Wow, some other teachers would be like, 'I have to check with the office' or something.  Nah, I can read it, it'll just take awhile.  You're the coolest teacher I've had so far."

I don't think my jaw dropped but I wouldn't have been surprised if it had.  I'm fully aware that a lot of kids are well-versed in the manipulative arts, but in my opinion when a teacher starts assuming the worst in a child, it's time to find a new profession.  (I mean really, if I were treated like that, I wouldn't want to come to school either!)  One of the hardest things for me coming into the new semester was looking at my new roster and seeing names that I'd already heard batted around the teacher's lounge or seen repeatedly on the ISIP list.  But like I said before, I try to see the people my kids could be and help bring that into being, and you know what?  The kids I'd been the most afraid of, based on their reputations, have turned out to be just fine, and many of them are doing really well.  A lot of my kids' New Years' resolutions revolved around staying out of trouble, so I know they've been down a bad ways before, but I'm always hopeful that the future has something good.

I know it's trite, but kids really don't care what you know until they know you care.  If my students learn nothing about science from me at all this quarter, I want them to leave knowing that I'm in their corner unconditionally.  Even if they do no work in class at all.  (Check.)  Even if they don't show up for the final.  (Check.)  Even if they bring knives to school and get themselves expelled.  (Check.)  Even if they promise to make me cry with joy this semester, then run away from home.  (Check.  By the way, this was the student who told me I had "swag."  I miss him terribly.)  Regardless of their actions, I want my words and deeds to show that I care.

This semester I'm having a much easier time with the whole "gentle but firm" thing.  It is precisely because I care about these little hooligans so much that I refuse to let them get away with idiocy, and I think it's making an impression on a lot of my so-called "trouble" students.  Kill 'em with kindness, I say.

As I look back on the mayhem and marvels of my first semester as a teacher, the theme of expectations is significant.  These four and a half months have been full of expectations exceeded, disappointed, and completely blown out of the water.

The relationships I've built with my students have far exceeded what I anticipated, though I've always wanted a high level of trust and even love with my little people.  I started the year much like I started our time in Taiwan three years ago: controlling, condemning, and completely closed off to my students.  And just as in Taiwan, this broke me rather quickly because I am just not made to operate that way (even though it would probably be easier if I were!).  During one of our new teacher meetings at the beginning of the year, someone mentioned that the way you (the teacher) feel around and about the students mirrors the way they feel in your classroom.  I felt scared and threatened, so they probably did too.  How, then, could I reduce my own tension level and pass that peace to my kids?  Therapy and medication helped a lot, but I also had to make the very conscious decision to meet them where they were and help them grow into a better version of themselves that we envisioned together, rather than stand back and dangle some unattainable goal before them and write them off when they failed.  Did I lower my expectations in terms of behavior and achievement?  Admittedly so, but I think in doing so I was able to express that I accepted who they were even as I wanted to see who they could be and help them get there.

On the other hand, even these changed expectations often led to disappointment in one way or another.  The quality of work submitted was on average mildly atrocious.  More painfully, students got suspended, expelled, sent to juvie, and because I let myself care, a part of me got lost with them every time.  The students at my school come from a completely different culture from mine, with different expectations for progress and punishment.  Ruby Payne discusses these differences in A Framework for Understanding Poverty and I struggled a lot internally with how much about our students I really believed we as middle-class majority teachers ought to change.  But as much as I love them, as much as I want to honor their way of life because I think all lifestyles have value, not just the "right" ones...I know they won't make it in the world with their present levels of irresponsibility, apathy, disrespect, and learned helpfulness.  That they have other redeeming qualities like blunt honesty and fearless loyalty does not negate the flaws.  As a teacher, my goal is to develop the strengths in a way that compensates for the weaknesses.  I'm trying something next semester that I hope will mitigate behavior problems before they start: class officers who, by demonstrating their own CRED, earn the privilege of monitoring their classmates.  Plenty of my kids have had way too much experience with the criminal justice system, but I wonder if this might now empower them to make better choices.

And then there were the absolutely unexpected:
a student's violent death in the second week of school, the sheer noise and chaos of the halls, 17-year-olds with 3-year-old babies, children who get free lunches but buy Xboxes with money earned Lord-knows-how;

the devotion of B and M to their jailbird boyfriends, the raw honesty of personal notes and journal entries, the marriage proposals (3 by my last count), the growth of N and the transformation of my 6/7 class from squabbling cellmates to family, the dancing, the laughter, the teacher falling in the sink

I suppose that they will never stop disappointing me, but that is only because I cannot stop caring, and for now that is a trade that I am willing to make--no matter who or where I am teaching.

Stream of consciousness from 1/10/11:
Last week was very difficult emotionally since they told us Tuesday that there would likely be staff cuts.  My initial gut reaction, though, was that I wished I could be laid off and I think there is some truth in my desire to leave.  It's hard being away from my friends and family, which I think does not motivate me to lead a very balanced life.  On the other hand, it is only my first year here and I don't want to jump ship too soon.  I like my co-workers and the academic freedom I have here.  I like the kids but not the students most of the time, if that makes any sense, and if I could focus on the mentoring, counseling, and advocacy part of my job that I enjoy so much without so much policing and babysitting, I think I'd be a lot happier.  So I can either find a slightly different role in which to work with the same kids, or else find (or make?) a classroom situation that requires less management.  I know that I would like to be closer to home, and I am fortunate that I can literally afford to be choosy about my job.  I'm just not sure I have the right to be, and I think there's a sense of obligation to my students that gives me pause.  There is so little consistency in their lives and I don't want to be yet another person who abandons them.  They need someone to show them love and kindness, a place to find freedom and safety, and God has given me His authority to do that in the classroom by giving of myself.  But if I'm not being fed and nourished myself, I have nothing to give.  There are children everywhere who need the same things, so it's not necessarily wrong of me to go somewhere my needs can be better met.  Is that Columbus?  Is that Winchester?  Elsewhere?  That remains to be seen.

Discussion:
I am about 95% certain that I want to move back to Columbus, and that 5% is really just fear of change rather than any strong desire to stay.  It's telling that I can't really imagine what the district could say or offer that would change my mind, though I am certainly not ruling it out.  I think that if a good opportunity in Columbus presents itself, that is where I will be headed.  And I do not feel like a failure or that this year will have been wasted.  I have grown immensely professionally and personally, and I believe that God is present in every situation, though my emotions may often tell me otherwise.  I'm currently looking into all sorts of options in Columbus: part-time informal teaching, adjunct faculty at community colleges, charter/STEM schools, traditional classroom teaching, educational program development, it's all on the table right now. Decision-making is always a terrifying prospect for me, but I guess it's better to have choices than not.

One of the [many] occupational hazards of teaching they don't tell you about in college is how difficult it can be to have your success be at least partially measured through the performance of other people, specifically little, loosey-goosey people who may not be quite as invested in their own well-being as you are.  In many other professions, you work hard for better results and you are rewarded.  As a teacher, you can pour your heart and soul into a class, but if a student doesn't buy into it, neither of you will have much of anything to show for it.  My mentor showed me how relationship precedes achievement, at least with children of poverty: show a child you are unconditionally in their corner, and he will jump through flaming hoops for you.  (The converse holds true as well.)

Right before we let out for winter break, the juniors and seniors got their October OGT scores back.  Two boys from my OGT class immediately bounced into my room to tell me they had passed, and I wish I'd had a camera to capture their faces.  I wrote on the board in big letters, "WE PASSED!" and invited students to sign their names under it.  As happy as I was for them, though, I was equally disappointed for those who didn't, including all of my seniors.  I was particularly crushed about Boris and Natasha, who not only didn't pass but actually scored worse.  Both are in my OGT class, both are very smart, and both had spent a lot of time in our school's resource center--with my permission during our class time--working with the tutors there.  So I don't really know what happened there, but I think we need to have a conversation when we return from break.

I've always been good at what I do (with the notable exception of sports) and it hasn't been easy for me to adjust my ideas about success without feeling like I'm copping out.  But then I realize the true value of the so-called "little" victories.  The fact that my students came to tell me means, 1) they felt like I helped them; 2) they knew I'd be happy (read: ecstatic) for them; 3) they wanted to make me proud, and I was.  To have developed that rapport (or at least some degree thereof) with 40+ little people in a strange new town in less than four months...that is quite a personal accomplishment for me given my pathological trust issues.  Which reminds me of the second point I meant to write about in my last post: "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." (1 John 4:16b)  As I sat in church on Sunday pondering the idea of love without fear, and wondering whether I can really stay in a profession that chews me up for the sake of truly reaching a few, I suddenly realized, Isn't that what Jesus did?  Then maybe I am not so far removed from God as I have often felt since moving, and that is comforting.

On a final note, I received an e-mail this morning from a student I had two years ago when we taught VBS in Taiwan, which was my first real teaching experience.  I met this girl at the first week of camp, in which a roomful of 20 fourth-graders (none of which spoke functional English) and two 6-hour days of teaching in 90-degree heat (sans air-conditioning) completely broke whatever pride I had in my own strength...to everyone's benefit.  Once I let go of my need to be in control, we just had fun.  Anyway, one of the little girls wrote this to me, which I have roughly translated from the Chinese.

One week.  Less than 40 hours spent with this little girl, and she remembers me two years later.  It is almost unbearably humbling.  And it makes all the lesson planning, sleepless nights, and spider bites (in Taiwan, at least)...so worth it.

I'm finally getting around to writing about something that happened last week that really made me question my purpose and practice of teaching.  I'm glad I waited to write, though, because the message in church this Sunday really resonated with me and helped me process the whole incident.

One day at the beginning of the class, I had just started showing a video on evolution when I noticed that Blinky, Pinky, and Inky were still chattering.  My patience had been tested by similar behavior in the previous class, so I told them that if they had something to say, they needed to finish their conversation outside.  They took themselves outside the classroom with some chairs, and I turned my attention back to the remaining students.  After discussing an important point in the video, I went to check on my three little pigs.  They were still engrossed in their conversation, so I asked if they would like to return to class.  There was no response, so I left them to their business.  I checked again about ten minutes later, by which time Clyde had joined her counterparts (without having ever set foot in the classroom).  Again, a negative response.  The shortened period soon drew to a close, and by the time I saw my other students out the door, the Fab Four were gone.  Later I heard that they had appeared in the cafeteria before the bell sounded, telling the teacher on duty that I had let them out early.  I consulted our principal and she recommended that I write them up, which I did.

Fast forward a few days.  Inky and Pinky come sweeping into the room and Pinky announces that she is very upset with me.  I got my other students started on a magazine scavenger hunt and took Inky and Pinky and Clyde into the hall.  (Blinky was on a field trip.)  Pinky launched into a diatribe, accusing me of giving them a choice to return to class instead of a command, telling me I was too nice, and exhorting me not to be afraid of them.  (I told her I wasn't afraid, although honestly I was a little just because Pinky herself can be so volatile.)  I repeated Pinky's words back to her to make sure I understood, then pointed out that yes, I did give them a choice instead of a command, with the expectation that they would make a wise decision.  I admitted that maybe I had not been clear enough about the possible consequences of the choice, but stressed that I was not interested in bossing them around or, for that matter, punishing them.  We discussed how each of us could communicate better in the future, and I think it was at this point that Clyde said, "Miss Duann, I wish my mom and grandma were more like you.  You communicate good."  I asked if we had reached mutual understanding; they said we had, and I agreed to talk with our assistant principal about the referral.

Did I do the right thing in letting them off the hook?  I struggled a lot with myself afterward, and normally I do not do very well at all with that sort of internal conflict.  (A rather fortuitously timed conversation helped keep me from completely screwing myself into the ceiling over it.)  Setting and enforcing expectations for classroom behavior is still something with which I struggle, and I know I need to work on my consistency and follow-through in this regard.  I admit that I'd rather be loved than respected, that my students are still squirrels but at least they are loyal squirrels.  I know well that these girls and many other students are fully capable of taking advantage of me...and somehow, I just want to trust that they won't.  I told Pinky when she blustered about running over me in class, "But I've seen the best of you, Pinky, and that's what I always remember."  Maybe that's naive, maybe I'm too idealistic to be a good teacher after all.  But I have to believe that there can be more than discipline based on pain and punishment.  There's enough of that in the world, especially for these kids, and I refuse to be part of that.

On Sunday we studied 1 John 4 and while the entire passage spoke to my life, two verses stuck out. "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."  I know my love is far from perfect, and one thing I've been thinking about a lot is what it really means to love my students.  It's not just feeding them cookies and passing out silly bandz.  It means loving them enough to truly prepare them for life after high school, which means teaching them how to show up to work on time, speak and act courteously, respect appropriate authority, see the bigger picture, understand the link between action and consequence.  I think that can be done while respecting my students as young adults and providing the safety they may not have known as children.  Now, just to figure out how...