All Up In My Feelings

Today was my second-to-last day of teaching at my school in Charlotte. I cried three times. I laughed more than that. The tears were surreptitious and never made it past my eyelashes. The laughter spilled over to fill the crevices of the day with elation.

I cried at this private confession:

“It was a tough year. It will be my mother’s fourth surgery for this week tomorrow. I’m scared. I’m worried.” And then, in a small voice, “I’m sorry I was disrespectful yesterday. I know you noticed even if you pretended you didn’t.”

And this off-the-hand remark:

“And after I graduate, I’m going to visit my father. He was deported ten years ago.”

“Have you seen him since?”

“No.”

And at the sight of a student resolutely taking out a novel to hide her face as the tears dripped down, who told me about her worries from home during lunch.

But I also laughed. I laughed in pure merriment, and appreciation, and pride…

When J played a game of keep-away from me with the stapler.

When A turned in the packet of work I’d given her to complete while on maternity leave.

When C delivered a stellar presentation on his final project after resolutely refusing to speak all semester.

When N told me she’s identified the parenting style in The Lion King as authoritarian rather than authoritative.

When M read me the charming opening paragraph he wrote for his college application essay.

When two students who came to my planning for English tutoring lay on the desks muddling over Shakespeare’s sonnets together.

When an old student of mine from last year told me that I made him realize he wanted to go to college, and could even without documentation. He’d have got there anyway, on his own, I think.

While giving a student an empty cardboard roll from the laminating machine, and using the other to challenge him to a fencing match. I laughed when I won, too.

I laughed hard, and tried to hide it, when one of my funniest students ran for president of the NHS today, starting his speech with, “Hello. If Barack Obama were here today, he would ask you what he can do to serve you. Since he isn’t, I’m going to ask you what I can do to serve you. That will be my goal as president.”

I laughed while knighting him with the cardboard roll after the elections, and when hugging the old members goodbye.

I spent today all up in my feelings. Tomorrow is the last day before exams. I will dig my heels into it and drink up every second.

Here's What We're NOT Going To Do

I have a student whose favorite saying is, “here’s what we’re not going to do...” She says it when projectiles fly through the room, when another student insults someone in her vicinity, or when people make dumb mistakes in following the directions. She says it in a grown-up tone that makes me laugh as she mimics some teacher who must have once had occasion to finish the line with, “we’re not going to cut each others’ hair with the safety scissors.”

Here’s what we’re not going to do. It could be TFA’s mantra of superiority. In their hands, it becomes a snobby injunction that leaves hearers wondering exactly what positive goal we’re reaching towards (certainly not continuity in the classroom—my students deserve more than two years of commitment, and I am torn in two right now that I’m not giving it to them).

Today I sat in a coffee shop with my TFA coach from this year, a tranquil man whose keen yet modest presence has mellowed my teaching, trying to articulate exactly what feedback to send to TFA after two years of solid discomfort in the organization.

“Well, my school was amazing, I learned so much there, and I loved my students, and my amazing TFA teacher peers…” I paused. He sat with the expectant air that practiced teachers use to draw forth thoughts from their children.

“I hated TFA.” I confessed evenly. “I’m so grateful for the opportunities it gave me to teach, but I hated the time-wasting, anecdotal, self-congratulatory manner of our professional developments, and the pretend humility that led to saying words like ‘thought-bucket’ instead of ‘genre’ or ‘subconscious’, and the quid pro quo use of vulnerability by telling us about family deaths or personal failings, used to drag forth our own confessions.” I paused, thanked him for his marvelous, kind, focused coaching this year, and left. But as I drove home, the litany continued in my head.

I was uncomfortable with how TFA tried to build an unnatural community of people with different values by extracting our values from us as though they were teeth at the dentist’s office. And I felt uncomfortable as a frum Jew for the first time in my life, not because of having to skip the Saturday programming and Friday night story slams and awkwardly unpacking my sandwich at workshop dinners, but because people apologized about those things as though they were some negative part of me instead of a joyous facet of my existence. We spent so much time unpacking our feelings when TFA should have been a professional setting of shared goals instead, leading to a community of equals instead of an odd hierarchy of zealots. It never felt like a professional community, and I never felt like anything other than an unruly rebel.

I think this is what the transformation was supposed to be like.
I was supposed to reach in and slide the butterflies out.
But, you know, that doesn't end well for the butterflies.

I was uncomfortable with the word “transformational,” and how TFA thrust me into a classroom armed with little more than Anne of Windy Poplars, and the sense that I ought to be transforming children. TFA doesn’t tell you what you’re supposed to be transforming them into. And once you get to know them, the children defy transformation. They are awesome and awe-inspiring, silly, cheerful, angry, curious, and could do with some pushing and guidance and high expectations. But they don’t need to be transformed into anything.

But most of all, I was uncomfortable with the ‘here’s what we’re not going to do’ attitude.

Every TFA event begins the same way. Here’s what we’re not going to do. Be boring, like those other teachers. Be reserved about our feelings and experiences. Be traditional, or overly capitalist. Be racist, sexist, ageist, elitist, nationalist, weightist. Oh wait, nationalist is okay. After all, America is the eponymous hero of our organization. If someone didn’t declaim “Muricaaaa” with an intensity that belied their ironic stance at least once before the pizza arrived, it wasn’t a TFA session. We’re Murica, but we’re not homophobic, classist, xenophobic, chauvinist, or even speciesist.

We checked that baggage at the door. Only, here’s the problem—it always left me secretly looking around, wondering whether I was being included in the good guys, or whether anyone would find out that sometimes I am boring, reserved, racist, elitist, speciesist. And only a skeptical nationalist (at least as far as ‘Murica is concerned). I live within those systems and can’t shuck them off at will. I’m not even sure I want to simply lose them, rather than come to control them. But I certainly can’t ignore them. And neither can TFA. By the end of a meeting, someone in the room had been offended. I liked to sit with the disgruntled set in the back of the room, trading doodles while half-listening to the self-righteous burble of the smug Kool-Aid.

I’d rather be aware of my prejudices than smug. Maybe I’m smug because I think I’m not smug. Or maybe I’m smug because I’m human. We’re all smug. But I don’t want to be TFA-smug. I don’t want to unite the virtues of vulnerable, data-driven transformation, or at least not under those names. I just want to teach, and I can’t do it well if I think I’m on a crusade and see my children as infidels to convert rather than knights galloping upon their own quests who sometimes need to read a letter from home reminding them that they can do it, that someone believes in them, and oh, yeah, to check the map.

Recently I’ve had the simple pleasures of skipping TFA alumni induction and deleting an email asking me to ferry hapless incoming corps members from the airport. Being able to forget TFA and focus, joyously, on my teaching, has brought me a sense of serenity. So I can say with tranquil certainty that when I receive my next TFA communication asking me to fill out a survey or watch an inspiring video, this will be my response:

Here’s what we’re not going to do.

Choosing Lives

 Last Thursday afternoon I walked around my apartment, playing hide-and-seek with a professional.

“There. And there. And what about that closet?” Dutifully, I opened it and found the backpacking gear that I’d almost forgotten about. Yes. Yes, I will backpack when I live in Israel. Choosing what to take is like deciding what kind of person I will be next year.

“Yep. That.” The reassuringly bespectacled man sought for a place to check off “tent and backpack” on his clipboard, and instead scribbled something in the margins. “What about the couch?”

“Nope, that I’m selling.”

Like every other person who has ever walked into my apartment for the first time, his unoriginal first comment had been, “you have a lot of books.”

“Yes. Most of my weight will be in books.” No decision to make there. Leaving them would be like walking out of my apartment without my ankles.

“Not so many English bookstores over there, is that it?” I smiled in acquiescence, though I know for a fact of at least three used bookstores better than Charlotte’s in the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv areas.

“So, I think that’s a wrap. We’ll get a quote to you next week.” I handshook him out of my apartment, and then stood in the center, surveying all my earthly possessions. Never before when I moved, from Maryland or Jerusalem or Norway or Toronto, have I had this number of things to move with me. If I don’t watch out, I’ll become the kind of packrat weighted down by physical junk and unable to shuck it off to roam the world with nothing but a backpack.

What kind of person will I be next year? A person with backpacking gear, ready to escape and explore. A person with a futon, ready for all the friends who have promised to visit. A person with a frog pitcher, some seashells, and a broken clock, who has a history in found objects. A person with books, who spends more time with her favorite authors’ minds than with most living human beings. A person who cannot part with her books.

But, I mused, I also want to be the kind of person who gives away books.

Time to make some choices

So I packed my first box, brutally tearing possibilities from my shelves, and brought them to school today. I split it open in front of my favorite class, wordlessly, watching with breath as bated as the Never Bird peeking between her feathers to see what Peter did with her eggs. I felt my throat close. Terror dilated my pupils. Am I really giving away books? Maybe there’s still time to snatch them back.

“Fullmetal Alchemist!” Ha, I could have guessed that fit.

“Ooooh, poetry!” Oh! That’s a surprise. ‘Ware Wordsworth, child.

“Was this signed by the author?” Oh. That was given me by the head of the Maryland English department, in recognition of something or other… I should probably keep it. But if all I want is the first page? Take it, child.

And what is the quiet wunderkind going to go for, as he restlessly turns the contents of the box thoroughly, methodically, onto the desk beside him?

“Can I have more than three?” Hm. Fascinating. I should make this an exercise on the first day of school, instead of the last, and see what my students clamp their paws upon. Nothing lends insight like seeing children choose books.

A gentle flow of elation pulses through me. My students are gamboling about the books like puppies. I have never had this joy from my books before—the exaltation of giving. In the future, I will be a reader, and a giver, of books.

I Gave A Student A Poem

At lunch a student stopped me to ask:

Why do we sleep?

“So our daemons can tidy our mind-maps.”

And from whence dreams?

I told him of the Sandman,

And pixies mixing elixirs of reflection.

Thank you, Ms. W.

That sounds true.

At the door of the cafeteria two of my students stood,

Ready to erupt into more should I pause,

And become a Cerberus of helpful good.

I handed one the psychology textbook.

The other, just as casually, a poem to hold.

Careful, don’t crush it, let it breath.

Where are you going?

To blow that wonderful bubble, the moon;

I promise to be back soon.

Damn,

Ms. W,

That was like slam.

When I returned it was just as I’d hoped.

The poem had taken root.

He could not give it back.

The other sat on the psych book;

The tendrils of the poem were playing with his hands.

Next year I will teach poetry.

Next year I will teach less-traveled roads,

Next year I will teach imaginary gardens with real toads.
Next year near Jerusalem.

P.S. Friday I stood in front of my class, introducing abnormal psychology, and seguewayed into an involuntary digression on "The Yellow Wallpaper." The students wouldn't let it go-- "are you bringing it in? Can we read it?" I'd forgotten the incredible infectiousness of the leseglad. This week we start psychology through literature. Next year, life through literature.

Value Your Education

A week or so ago, I walked into my classroom, and said this:

“This is a picture of Dorothy Counts. She was the first African-American to go to our school. She lasted four days. She was spat upon, had things thrown at her, and racial slurs screamed at her. Then her parents moved her to Pennsylvania to go to school there. If you could ask her any question, what would you ask her?”

“Why did you do it when you knew it would be so hard?”

“What were you thinking when people spat on you?”

“Why did you give up?”

“Good questions,” I told my class. “Let’s go ask her.”

They just looked at me, and then one student broke into a broad grin. “Aw, you’re playing us, Ms. W.”

“No. She’s in the media center. Let’s go ask her.”

“If you are playing us, I’m gonna be mad,” I heard from all over the class. But when we walked into the media center they got solemn. The jazz band was playing, chairs were set up in a row of honor, a buffet was set out, and clearly Ms. W hadn’t planned a prank this elaborate just to mess with students’ minds.

When Dorothy Counts-Scoggins entered, we stood up and cheered. This was living history, the first person like them to walk into the school. I looked around the crowd. Now it was all people like them. We’d gone right back to segregation. What had been won?

A senior, the school poet laureate, gave his slam poem about being on the verge of killing or being killed by his community. Then Dorothy Counts-Scoggins spoke. She told her story, and opened up for question. I was proud of one of my students for raising his hand twice. Another student I know from the National Honor Society delivered a bombshell: how do you feel when students don’t value their education, and all the hard work you did goes for nothing?

Ms. Dorothy turned it right back upon the students. “Why don’t you value your education? Why?” Students shifted uncomfortably. Teachers waited to see what they would say. One of my IB scholars raised her hand and spoke about lack of resources and illiteracy in high school. “How can someone who doesn’t know how to read because his teachers failed him in elementary, value a high school education?” I was proud of her for raising this point.

Dorothy Counts turned it right back around. “You have a voice? Get out there and get heard. Tell them about your lack of resources. Go to city council meetings and on social media. People will listen to you. Your voices matter.” As we applauded her, a surge of energy ran through the crowd. She had challenged them, and acknowledged their agency.

Yesterday I headed outside for my planning period. The art classes were on the quad, and after cheerfully heckling two of my best students with an art teacher who agrees that their academic game is on fleek, I sat down to grade with them. They headed inside a few minutes before the bell rang. I heard one of the campus security guards scream at someone with apoplectic rage, but it’s so common, I didn’t turn around to check it out. After the bell rang, the art teacher approached me.

“That was A being shouted at. He’s one of my best. You said he was one of yours, too, right?”

“That was A? Why on earth--?” We agreed that nobody should be shouted at like that. One of our best students, a tall, dignified young man who’s about to graduate, was screamed at for no reason other than that he was caught outside by security. If I’d been yelled at like that by an adult in high school, I would have cried, and then told my parents, who would have agreed that someone who screams at children like that has no place on a school campus.

This morning I stopped A at the door. “Ms. C and I, we heard you being yelled at yesterday, and we just, you know, you know you’re one of our best students, right? You shouldn’t let that bother you at all, okay?”

This is how our education system works. And still they rise.

He looked down at the floor as I struggled to articulate. “I understand,” he said shortly, and went inside. What do you understand, I wondered to myself. Do you understand that as a young black man it’s considered normal for people to shout at you? Do you understand how assumed culpability is written into your skin? Do you understand that after Baltimore, Mecklenburg County is the poorest in the nation, and one in which a child is least likely to change their socioeconomic status in the entire U.S., and therefore ripe for the same horrific scenes as those enacted in Baltimore? Do you understand the embarrassed guilt your two white teachers feel that we are not capable of physically shaking the world into sense? But then, he’s very smart. Of course he understands. Much more than I do.

I spent last night on Google drive, curating the massive study guide that my students were building together in preparation for their IB exam today. Towards the end of the night, I linked them a study about how sleep affects exam performance, and suggested they all go to bed. When I woke this morning and checked the spreadsheet, some busy bees were still on it, working through neurotransmission and the ethics of genetic research.

I walked my students to the door of the media center before their exam. I hugged the ones who needed it, and told them good luck as they went through the doors. I was a bit of a nervous wreck, but I exuded confidence as strongly as I could. Then I went to watch one of my favorite students become the commander of the whole school at the year’s JROTC awards ceremony. When I came out, my students were finishing their exam. I hovered by the door. Some told me it was easy, others ran over the studies they’d used nervously, hoping they were the right ones. As one of the top students in the class described what she’d written to me, a fight broke out behind her. Two students attacked each other viciously, and security guards rushed in to drag them bodily off of each other as a maelstrom of screaming students converged upon them. But my student never broke stride, ticking off cognitive psychology studies on her fingers. Here, I thought. Here is the answer to Dorothy Counts. Here is the student who values her education above all else.