phengerblog

sometimes i feel like a motherless child

2004-11-15T17:33:00.000-08:00

When a student tells you that she hates reading and writing, that she’s stupid, hates school, hates life, you have to use your imagination to figure out why. The simplest answer, and the most easily accepted by the teacher, is that the girl has had a history of bad teachers who have underserved their students, including this one. The flaw in this logic is that as a teacher with 35 students in a cramped classroom, you sort of figure that most teachers are not bad at all. They’ve been forced to work in the same conditions that you have, they’ve had the same difficulty reaching every one of the students in their classes, and they’ve probably felt like a failure many times because of it. Still, that’s the answer you want because then you can imagine that you’re Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society and that you’ll revolutionize your classroom through the use of strategically placed Whitman and Dickinson verses. As seldom as the “bad teacher” excuse is the real one, the Robin Williams solution is realized less frequently still.

Instead you learn things about your students through a variety of fora – journals, conversations after school when they volunteer to sweep your floor, and during parent teacher conferences. Today we conducted the latter and 18 parents (representing a paltry one-fifth of my students – more conferences Thursday…we’ll see….) came to speak with us. Today I learned why one of our quieter girls said things to me reminiscent of those concerns mentioned at the beginning of this posting. Her foster mother of 6 years told the story. Her mother has been in jail for the last 10 years, and all Michelle has talked about during the past few years is how excited she is to reunite with her mother. Her mother was supposed to come for her when she got out, and she got out two months ago. She came to Michelle in laughter and tears. They spent a magical day together. The next day the mother went upstate to reunite with her older daughter. Michelle waited for her to return again, only she didn’t….she said she didn’t want her daughters anymore and moved to Chicago.

I stand before a classroom of eleven and twelve year old children. One of them shows the scars of a fire that swallowed his home and the skin of his arms. Another writes poems for her father who is the super of her building and her hero. Across from her, a motherless child’s mother has left her for Chicago and a new life. She can’t understand the whims of immature adults, she can’t not take it personally, she can’t not bring it to school with her every single day, and she can’t not take it home to the woman who loves her as a mother but is not.

What is my role now? What would Robin Williams do? Whitman? Me?

Do I tell her that when I told my mother I was gay that she had a hard time wanting me, too? Do I cry with her, help her to grow strong? Do I simply forget it all and teach my lesson in the ignorance I wished for, blaming her past teachers for the fact she can’t read?

Whatever I do, I hope it isn't that last option, but it's so easy...

set in motion now

2004-10-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

Can't write more than a little, but today, after much turning around and lifting of rocks (to find only grub worms and tyrranical administrators), I sat down to prepare for my week and unexpectedly saw before me something worth chopping my way towards.

This week I was informed that I would be teacher and coach to a team of competitive poets in our 7th grade. They are part of a three year study that began last year, a study that investigates the potential (academic and poetic) of a spoken word curriculum that meets the nyc standards. This sounded wonderful, but do I have the credentials or wherewithal to coach such a team? I am a writer, and, in comparison with a lot of the crap I read out there, a semi-decent one. I have even been, at times, a novice poet, but never in a spoken word context. I adore my students, however, and will do whatever it takes to help them to succeed, so I suppose what is lacking credentially is made up for with passion. Nevertheless, I got onto the computer today knowing that I had work to do.

So I looked up UrbanWord NYC online, which hosts what appear to be some really amazing events for young writers and workshops for teachers that are creatively and critically engaging. It linked me to the Nuyorican, the Bowery Poets Cafe and several other venues that host a variety of readings and performances, several of them focusing on youth.

Which is when it dawned on me.

For the past year I have lamented the lack of a creative outlet in my life and sought it out in various places. I've taken travel writing classes from Gotham Writer's Workshop that have been great. I've taken some acting classes and even went so far as to audition for a legendary acting instructor who accepted me and set my pathway to glory.

But something was missing. Creative juices flowed abundantly, but where was the heart? My heart is in education, or rather, it is with children and the less-privileged. Could I really go from teaching in the South Bronx to involving my life with Stanislavski and Martha Graham? No. But at the same time, could I envision myself slaving away in this bullshit excuse for an education system that routinely underserves its children? No. I don't have faith in the New York Public Schools. I want to work with children, but not in this system. I want creative outlets, but not to the exclusion of my pursuit of social justice.

While researching these organizations that work with young writers all over the city, it became apparent that these are the very sort of groups with whom I want to involve myself. Still publicly active, still working and laughing with some of the most inspiring young people around, still writing, reading, teaching.

This is it, friends. This is where I'm guiding my life. It makes so much sense, the clarity of purpose actually gave me stomach cramps.

The thing to do now is attend poetry slams and get a better sense of what the performance involves. I must branch out to others who can help to teach me. I will be with my young poets at 325 for the next 2 years, then they will graduate and it will make sense for me to move on. Two years to learn how to teach writers, to make contacts, and to get my own writing out.

On the count of three....1....2....3.

Go.

Then and Now

2004-10-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

So in yesterday's posting I mentioned a small incident that occurred last year (around this time, I think...) when I taught a very special class composed of the 7th grade's worst behavior problems. They did not begin the year in that class, they were moved there in the fourth week to take them out from the other classes they were "destroying". We quickly learned that we had no idea what "destruction" could actually be until we rounded them all together, branded them with their room number - 447 - and shut the gates of the corral.

One was a gang leader.
One's mother was in jail for triple-homocide.
One was HIV+ because his mother injected him with a needle she'd used on herself.
One of them...Grace...simply beyond words. She'll get an posting all her own one day, not today. Grace is her real name, and you don't know what irony is until you know her.

These kids had serious problems, which is not to excuse them for making serious problems for their teachers, but we have to keep that at the back of our minds. We feel like assholes disciplining them when we know what's going on in their lives, but what can you do? Making allowances won't right past wrongs and it won't help them to a better future. And anyway, somethings are simply intolerable no matter who you are.

Example. One day I walked into the room to find the shades drawn and a certain mischievous buzz in the air. I shut the door, suspicious of everyone. Someone yelled out "LBHD" which I would later learn meant "Lights Books Hide Duck", a cue to turn out the lights, throw as many books as possible and hit whomever you could. It was in this way that I received a box of books to the back of my head. They were sorry for it -- no one meant anything by it -- and I accepted their apologies...eventually. What I could not accept was that the administration blamed me for this. "How could you let this happen? What could you have done differently?" To which I replied simply, "Um, not come into school today?" This was the conversation I had with Dr. Vendetta (not her real name, but it should be...I will use pseudonyms in this blog to protect the guilty and innocent alike, with the exception of Grace, cuz, like I said, irony...you need to know her name...)

That was the attitude of the administration last year: blame the teacher, never the student, and never EVER an administrator. She said I had no lesson planned. She was right: I was administering a citywide standardized test that took the entire period. No one had a lesson, that was it. But Dr. Vendetta was never too bright, even at covering her own ass. 447 was a bad idea, and she well knew it. She wore contacts that made her eyes look like cat eyes -- what self-respecting adult does that?

This year she's gone, a new administration is in place, and they too will get mentioned soon enough, but on the anniversary of those flying books, I think it's wise to reflect on what happened today, this year.

My class this year is not perfect, but they cleaned my room when I was absent last week and I promised them a pizza party if they did this. So today's lunch was pizza, paid for by me and very deliberately, not because I could actually afford it, but because it makes them beholden to me: Mr. W is willing to go out of his way for you, so you better appreciate it, punk! They needed to see that really good things could come their way at no cost to them if I get the behavior from them that I want. Classic conditioning.

But i took it a step further. I insisted that this would be a polite luncheon. You will use a napkin. You will wait until everyone is served before you eat. If you do not wish for any Hawaiian Punch, simply place your hand over your plastic cup. You will be served when you are seated and quiet.

They showed complete respect for my demands and even got into it. After our polite luncheon ended, they turned the radio on and danced and sang and were cast off their young adult demeanors to simply be kids again.

This is something I could not have achieved last year, something that, even when things are bad this year, will remind me that I have grown as a teacher, that I've earned my students trust and respect to a greater degree. Last year I left every day feeling dehumanized and humiliated. This year my little men and women raised their Pepsi and Hawaiian Punch in the air to toast me in thanks for the pizza and the sacrifice.

Things are looking up.

If they turn off the lights, duck.

2004-10-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

Riddle: Where does Phen work?

Hint: Two of my thirty colleagues are drug dealers. Several are queer. One is a renowned local theatre director, another a former-lawyer. We all hold graduate degrees. Our average age is 29. We are mostly - although not exclusively - white.

Hint: I ripped a poster of the wall today in a fury, exclaiming wild-eyed, madly, "NO PIZZA PARTY!!"

Hint: Eighty-six 12-year olds are frantically concerned about my relationship with a female co-worker. One of them doodles pictures of the two of us riding off in our nuptial limousine with a sign that reads "Just Mary".

Hint: I'm called "Mister" but not necessarily with a tone of respect.

Answer: If you guessed "Phen is a gay middle school English teacher in the South Bronx!" you would be absolutely correct.

And I totally expect this blog to save me. Words have always helped me to cope with difficulty, but typically I have dealt with them in ink on paper, the act of writing itself being the savior. Last year, however, was the most difficult year of my life - my first year teaching - and it was so wretched that I could not even write about it for myself. To spend my alone time thinking and writing about school was unacceptable. I conceived myself as a day-to-day Persephone, descending daily into hell, ascending daily to the light, but making the trip so frequently that mental health was never tended to appropriately.

But this year, so far, has been different. I know what to expect, and I know how to duck when the lights go off. Gone are the days of flying books and paper balls in my classroom, but vestiges of that time are starting to return. There are several things that need to be done to maintain my ground, and one of them is what I am doing this moment: writing, but for an audience, however small. Had I known about blogging a year ago I might have saved myself then; I could have written for others, and the words might have held me up and formed my reflection.

But I didn't know, and that year is done, and this year's more fun, so I'll do my best to communicate all of this in future postings that will do a better job of allowing my colleagues and my students to speak for themselves (even if mediated by me).

But for now, I gotta get to bed. It's only 9pm, but I wake up at 5am, and this job requires all the rest I can get.

namaste,
Phen