As you may have noticed from my online dating profile (see last post), my hair went off and got long again. One of my students asked me, "Have you ever considered putting elastic in your hair?"
Later that day I came home with sunglasses resting on top of my head, pinning my hair back. When I looked in a mirror I thought, Damn, Lia was right. I gotta get me some elastic.
Later that day I came home with sunglasses resting on top of my head, pinning my hair back. When I looked in a mirror I thought, Damn, Lia was right. I gotta get me some elastic.
My school has two copy machines. During the first two weeks of school, one of them didn't work. Thirteen teachers had to vie for one machine.
L was being slightly disruptive during my reading intervention class. I bargained with her, and we decided that if she stopped bouncing off the walls, I'd give her the coveted privilege of picking the song for our end-of-day music time. She picked a song by boy-band One Direction. All the boys cringed and bolted out of the class immediately after the bell rang. L and two friends stayed in my room, their eyes glued to the music video. After it ended, they put on another song and danced in a synchrony only attainable after hours of practice. And they sang along like I wasn't in the room, like nothing could touch them.
In my one eighth-grade group, our class set for our first novel didn't arrive until the fifth week of school. I had to make photocopies of the first fifty pages. It's hard to explain to young kids why they have to read from a packet and not from the books they were supposed to have, especially when there isn't any goddamn good reason for them coming so late.
Last week during Friday Writing, one of the prompts was to answer this question: "Why Me?" As I was moseying my way around the room, I asked Kelly if I could take a look at her response. It went something like this: "Why do I always feel depressed? Maybe because I was bullied when I was younger." She's one of my hardest-working students. She's also one of the quietest. The only time I hear her speak is when I've addressed her. She hasn't missed a single point on the four quizzes I've given, and she's turned in every worksheet and homework assignment.
I was on the phone with a relative, telling him how difficult this job has been, what with a majority of my students years behind their grade level as readers and writers, and with behavioral problems that seem unmanageable considering my lack of experience. He asked if the kids were mostly black. I said black and Hispanic. He said, "Well, that's not all that surprising then."
W and L sit next to each other. They read voraciously, stopping only to point out something to the other. When I give them a worksheet or something boring, they race through it so they can get back to reading. L asks me one day if he can take the book home. I tell him he can't because I only have one class set for my three seventh-grade classes, and the twenty books are already eight too few. Wonder is looking at me now too, and both faces are disappointed. But then they stick their noses back in their books, not wanting to waste any more time with talking.
"Where are you teaching?" a retired lawyer with a pool in his backyard asked me. "Hartford," I told him.
His face changed; perhaps it was pity, or maybe something worse. Then he said, "That's gonna be tough. The kids there don't want to learn." His wife added, "And their parents just don't seem to care. I just can't imagine not caring about my kids."
During parent-teacher conferences, a mother of one of my special education students came into the school. We spoke in broken Spanglish to each other as her son showed his younger brother around the room. She talked about how he had struggled mightily last year. She said she was reading English every night, but she just couldn't get a handle on the language. I could tell this was difficult for her to talk about. Her eyes were wet as she explained that she was trying to learn English for one reason: to help her son with his homework. She told me he couldn't go another year of not learning, in a voice that was steadfast and desperate and broken all at once.
My SmartBoard was taken down during the summer to allow for ceiling repairs. It wasn't put back up until a month after the beginning of school. When I finally used it for the first time, it was so grainy that I could hardly see anything on the screen. Then the fan overheated after fifteen minutes. The teacher who used my room last year said the thing is unusable. He said he fought like hell to get it replaced. His efforts were in vain, obviously.
L was being slightly disruptive during my reading intervention class. I bargained with her, and we decided that if she stopped bouncing off the walls, I'd give her the coveted privilege of picking the song for our end-of-day music time. She picked a song by boy-band One Direction. All the boys cringed and bolted out of the class immediately after the bell rang. L and two friends stayed in my room, their eyes glued to the music video. After it ended, they put on another song and danced in a synchrony only attainable after hours of practice. And they sang along like I wasn't in the room, like nothing could touch them.
In my one eighth-grade group, our class set for our first novel didn't arrive until the fifth week of school. I had to make photocopies of the first fifty pages. It's hard to explain to young kids why they have to read from a packet and not from the books they were supposed to have, especially when there isn't any goddamn good reason for them coming so late.
Last week during Friday Writing, one of the prompts was to answer this question: "Why Me?" As I was moseying my way around the room, I asked Kelly if I could take a look at her response. It went something like this: "Why do I always feel depressed? Maybe because I was bullied when I was younger." She's one of my hardest-working students. She's also one of the quietest. The only time I hear her speak is when I've addressed her. She hasn't missed a single point on the four quizzes I've given, and she's turned in every worksheet and homework assignment.
I was on the phone with a relative, telling him how difficult this job has been, what with a majority of my students years behind their grade level as readers and writers, and with behavioral problems that seem unmanageable considering my lack of experience. He asked if the kids were mostly black. I said black and Hispanic. He said, "Well, that's not all that surprising then."
W and L sit next to each other. They read voraciously, stopping only to point out something to the other. When I give them a worksheet or something boring, they race through it so they can get back to reading. L asks me one day if he can take the book home. I tell him he can't because I only have one class set for my three seventh-grade classes, and the twenty books are already eight too few. Wonder is looking at me now too, and both faces are disappointed. But then they stick their noses back in their books, not wanting to waste any more time with talking.
"Where are you teaching?" a retired lawyer with a pool in his backyard asked me. "Hartford," I told him.
His face changed; perhaps it was pity, or maybe something worse. Then he said, "That's gonna be tough. The kids there don't want to learn." His wife added, "And their parents just don't seem to care. I just can't imagine not caring about my kids."
During parent-teacher conferences, a mother of one of my special education students came into the school. We spoke in broken Spanglish to each other as her son showed his younger brother around the room. She talked about how he had struggled mightily last year. She said she was reading English every night, but she just couldn't get a handle on the language. I could tell this was difficult for her to talk about. Her eyes were wet as she explained that she was trying to learn English for one reason: to help her son with his homework. She told me he couldn't go another year of not learning, in a voice that was steadfast and desperate and broken all at once.
My SmartBoard was taken down during the summer to allow for ceiling repairs. It wasn't put back up until a month after the beginning of school. When I finally used it for the first time, it was so grainy that I could hardly see anything on the screen. Then the fan overheated after fifteen minutes. The teacher who used my room last year said the thing is unusable. He said he fought like hell to get it replaced. His efforts were in vain, obviously.
I sit in my classroom one late afternoon, preparing for the next day. I spot movement, look over to see a mouse scurrying beneath my students' chairs. I wonder how they would react if that little guy came out during class. I stomp my foot and watch the mouse race back to its home, disappearing through a gaping hole in one of the corners of my classroom, large enough to shove a textbook through.
I've written about J before–he's the guy who picked up his sister's tray for her. J summoned me over one class period, looked up at me with those soft eyes and asked if he was doing okay in my class, what his grade was. I told him to keep participating and working hard on assignments and everything'd be just fine. He smiled, and his huge frame, sitting there in that tiny chair, eased, relaxed, and his once-concerned, almost intimidating face transformed into thankfulness.
And when school ends one day, and the students seem to think it a race to get out of the building first, I see J waiting patiently as his peers flee. "I'm waiting for my sister," I overhear him telling another teacher.
One-hundred percent of my students are living in poverty–every single one. When I leave my school's parking lot each day, I see the world they go home to. I've never once felt unsafe, as many of my relatives have worried. No, it just feels dirtier–trash and glass and cracks sharp enough to pop my tires litter the pavement. And homes aren't crumbling like I thought they might be, but they're old, in need of paint and roofs and other repairs that their owners probably can't afford.
And as I get closer to my own home just into West Hartford, it becomes so blatant the disparities separated only by a mere stretch of road. Bike lanes, restaurants with patios, clean streets, an ungodly number of dental offices. And then I pass my house, go even farther into West Hartford, into Blue Back Square, where it's a damn-near impossibility to sight a car older than my students. Where patrons of fine eateries sit outside next to an open-flame heater, their dinner attire in some cases more than my paycheck. They glance furtively as I walk by their tables–little islands of isolation, an archipelago lacking lines of communication.
Now I could be hallucinating this, but back where my school is, when I ride through those streets, I swear people are actually outside talking to each other, chatting and bantering on sunken porches and at car shops and on sidewalks. And if they see me, decide to look at me, they do so with a face fully turned, a look that isn't malicious but perhaps acknowledgment or curiosity or something else I can't name. And I compare those to the sidelong glances I get from so many in Blue Back Square, those fleeting check-downs that seem so goddamned pretentious and entitled.
And I wonder if I'm making this all up in my head. But then I remember that's not the point.
I've written about J before–he's the guy who picked up his sister's tray for her. J summoned me over one class period, looked up at me with those soft eyes and asked if he was doing okay in my class, what his grade was. I told him to keep participating and working hard on assignments and everything'd be just fine. He smiled, and his huge frame, sitting there in that tiny chair, eased, relaxed, and his once-concerned, almost intimidating face transformed into thankfulness.
And when school ends one day, and the students seem to think it a race to get out of the building first, I see J waiting patiently as his peers flee. "I'm waiting for my sister," I overhear him telling another teacher.
One-hundred percent of my students are living in poverty–every single one. When I leave my school's parking lot each day, I see the world they go home to. I've never once felt unsafe, as many of my relatives have worried. No, it just feels dirtier–trash and glass and cracks sharp enough to pop my tires litter the pavement. And homes aren't crumbling like I thought they might be, but they're old, in need of paint and roofs and other repairs that their owners probably can't afford.
And as I get closer to my own home just into West Hartford, it becomes so blatant the disparities separated only by a mere stretch of road. Bike lanes, restaurants with patios, clean streets, an ungodly number of dental offices. And then I pass my house, go even farther into West Hartford, into Blue Back Square, where it's a damn-near impossibility to sight a car older than my students. Where patrons of fine eateries sit outside next to an open-flame heater, their dinner attire in some cases more than my paycheck. They glance furtively as I walk by their tables–little islands of isolation, an archipelago lacking lines of communication.
Now I could be hallucinating this, but back where my school is, when I ride through those streets, I swear people are actually outside talking to each other, chatting and bantering on sunken porches and at car shops and on sidewalks. And if they see me, decide to look at me, they do so with a face fully turned, a look that isn't malicious but perhaps acknowledgment or curiosity or something else I can't name. And I compare those to the sidelong glances I get from so many in Blue Back Square, those fleeting check-downs that seem so goddamned pretentious and entitled.
And I wonder if I'm making this all up in my head. But then I remember that's not the point.