erinteater

It’s true.  My students are little geniuses.

Yesterday was infinitely better than Monday.  Of course it was.  How could things get worse, right?  I was so impressed with my students.  More so than I have been all summer, and that’s a big deal.  Yesterday we published our personal narratives.  Yep. Even though Ms. Teater lost their rough drafts, they pulled through and did remarkably well!  The class average was an 83, which is terrific.  They all worked so hard during those 65 minutes.  Every single one of them was writing their hand off.  I gave them all crisp, clean new paper and kickass feather pens.  What’s an author without a feather pen, right?  Even my “Monday Student” was back in school and ready to learn.  What a champion!

What I’m most proud of, though, is what they wrote.  22 out of 24 students wrote with complete sentences and used paragraphs.  This is only a few days after they wrote rough drafts that were basically just one big run on sentence without any kind of break.  For a teacher, seeing that much improvement is the best feeling in the world.  I feel like I actually taught them something worthwhile that they can use for the rest of their lives.  The two students who did not use paragraphs and complete sentences worked really hard, and I still saw massive improvements in their work.  I mean, they actually ‘produced’ work…BIG DEAL!!!

I could go on and on about each student and how well they did, but I won’t.  I made copies of each narrative last night so I will always have that to reflect upon.  It just goes to show you that these kids are perfectly capable of achieving great things in a short amount of time.  Just push them a little bit, give them the right motivation and they’ll blow your mind.  I love my job.

Also, I love the smoothie I just had for breakfast!  Why haven’t I been drinking these all along?  And guess what they finally gave us for lunch?  TURKEY ON WHEAT BREAD!!!  Hallelujah.  Three days left and they finally get it right.

Everyone has bad days here at Institute.  You don’t sleep the night before, they’re all out of ice packs for your lunch box by the time you get down there, your kids organize a malicious mutiny, and you get tracked for dozing off in your CS session.  Well kids, I think I have you beat.

I woke up at my usual 5:27am feeling so sick I could hardly move.  My only motivation was to get out of bed in time to make it to the bathroom to throw up.  It might have been nerves.  I knew this morning was going to be tough.  My collaborative worked hard this weekend to organize our classroom “talk” about racism and respect in hopes to educate them an prevent more incidences like last Thursdays.  I was nervous, sure.  But I didn’t think I’d react like that.  I forced a bagel down and felt OK, then drove my collaborative to Jackson.

Yeah, oops, I lost my kids’ rough drafts.  What the hell?  I had them at the bar on Thursday during my collab meeting, but I hadn’t seen them since.  They weren’t in my room (I drove BACK to Moody to look), they weren’t in Pearland, and they weren’t at the bar.  So basically they were gone.  My lesson today?  Peer editing.  Sans rough drafts.  Yeah, this is where I get REALLY good at winging it.  I had a kickass Revision Checklist for them to use and they ended up writing some really strong new RD’s.  All was well.

But before that even happened, we had to have “The Talk.”  It was quite organized.  We sat in a circle, and we passed around the notebook so they could all see why we were there.  We then had them all stand up and do a gallery walk around the classroom to look at pictures representing discrimination and civil rights.  We then had them reflect on what they saw.  Two students I spied on wrote nothing more than,  “These pictures mean nothing to me.”  Cute.  We went on to explain to them how powerful our words can be and how we have to make a choice every day whether we are going to use them to build people up or knock people down.  We talked about the Mexican American movement and the ever-growing anti-immigration sentiment in our country.  We flashed words like “Spick” and “Wetback” across a power point and asked them how it made them feel when people called them that.  We were really starting to get somewhere.

AND THEN.

And then the student whose notebook was vandalized had a seizure.  At first none of us knew what was going on, but then we remembered her telling us that she suffers from chronic seizures.  In a flash we had the rest of the class in the cafeteria and the paramedics on the scene.  It all happened very fast, but it was horrible.  My first thought was that we had stressed her out so much that we caused it.  All of the students thought that their words had caused it.  Turns out she hadn’t taken her medication since Saturday, but there’s still a part of me that wonders if maybe we contributed something to her fit.  It took her forever to regain consciousness, and even when she was finally responding she seemed out of it.  Her head was killing her and she wouldn’t look anyone in the eye.  I am so glad that all 5 teachers AND Aisha were in the room at the time.  It could have been a lot worse, but I’ll never get that image out of my head.  Fortunately she is doing just fine and will be back in school tomorrow.  I have a stack of letters from her classmates to give her.  Hopefully things will be different for her from now on.  I hope those kids treat her like a human from now on, and I hope that she can finally feel safe and equal among her classmates.

So what do you do after a day like today?  You go out with 15 of your best friends and eat large quantities of Tapas and drink bottomless Sangria. That’s what you do.  And that’s what I did.  I love my CMA group more than anything.  I can’t imagine what Institute would have been like without them.  We made a pact tonight to stay in touch no matter what after we all part ways on Friday.  Some of us are going all the way to Hawaii, others to The Valley, Denver, or St. Louis, and a few of us are lucky enough to stay right here in Houston.  I am so, so blessed.

Also, I LOVE Jackson Staff.  I love all of the CMAs who were so incredibly supportive of my collaborative today, I love our CS Sam and LS Nella for letting us miss their sessions so we could be with our kids, I love Eric for being on the scene in RECORD time (seriously, I don’t know how he does it), and I absolutely love Aisha more than anything for being as strong as she is.  The 5 of us can go in there and say what we want to say, but the second she opens her mouth, everyone within earshot shuts up and listens.  She has a real presence in the classroom.  I know I won’t get that in 4 weeks, but I can only hope that I’m half the teacher she is some day.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jackson MS.  XOX.

P.S.  Shout out to The Lukes for sending me a care package of healthy goodies!!!!!!  It’s like the little box from Heaven!  Everyone on my floor is SO jealous.  I promise a phone call ASAP to deliver a more appropriate thank you.  Somehow the time between 4pm and 12:30am just slips away from me and I forget about the real life stuff.  Calling parents, making appointments, paying bills, wedding stuff…there’s always tomorrow.

Every night, Alaina and I walk through the Moody Commons to watch the “crazies.”  These so-called “crazies” are the ones who are working relentlessly on their lesson plans, collaborating, and studying.  It doesn’t sound so bad, but it’s like watching a feeding frenzy.  Every face is panic-stricken.  There will undoubtedly be tears.  And for some sick disturbing reason, watching these people freak out makes Alaina and me feel better.  We’re not freaking out, our LP’s are pretty awesome, and we’re probably going to sleep before 2am.

I always prided myself on not crying.  If my kids were especially rude one day, I wouldn’t let it get to me.  If I’m still up at 2:30am, I’m not going to cry about it.  No matter how bad it gets, I refuse to shed a tear.  I’m having too much fun to cry about it.  But they broke me today.  For the first time all summer, I was the girl in the TFA office at the end of the day crying to Aisha and Eric.

The writing teacher has a really cool job.  We get to read some of the innermost thoughts that our kids have in their little prepubescent heads.  We have a rapport with our students that no other teacher could have.  I’m also fortunate enough to get to eat lunch with my kids every day.  Needless to say, I feel like I know a lot about them.  I especially feel close to one of my students who tends to get picked on a lot during the day.  She’s a very smart, very bright, very enthusiastic girl who loves to talk about anything and everything that comes to mind.  She’s also African American.  One of the few non-Latino/Hispanic students at Jackson.  The kids tease her relentlessly.

Today during their 5th period class, a few of the students decided to write some horribly offensive and malicious racial words on this girl’s spiral.  Her teacher immediately ripped the front and back covers off and went on with her class, but brought it to our attention right after class.  Our collaborative took the evidence to Aisha and Eric (the school director and the operations manager) and filled them in on everything.  Within minutes half of the room was in tears.  Of course I knew that these things happen in our schools.  We learned all about it from our Curriculum Specialist.  But when you actually see it, and when it actually happens to one of ‘your’ kids, it’s the worst feeling in the universe.  This girl has enough on her plate when she gets home every day.  Then she comes to school and gets called words that no 6th grader (or anyone, for that matter) should be saying.  She has no safety net.  Everywhere she goes she’s in danger of getting put down.  This constant injury has made her violent, and she’s been in trouble many times this summer for hitting people.  But how can I yell at her now when she hits someone who has been calling her these names?

We’re taking action on Monday, but I wish we could do something about it now.  I don’t know I’ll be able to relax and enjoy my long weekend when I’ll be constantly worrying about my student.  Especially when we think we know who it is.  When we find out who’s responsible, they had better tie me down.

I feel like I let it go too far.  I’ve watched them tease her all summer, and I haven’t done enough to stop it.  I’ve never heard anyone say something racially offensive to her, but I’ve seen how much it gets to her when they make fun of her hair or how big a nerd she is.  I’ve even pulled a few of them aside and tried to reason with them.  I tell them about how I still remember things people said to me when I was in middle school.  They forget about it 5 minutes later, but I still remember it a decade later.  Clearly that didn’t work.  I feel like I’ve been so caught up in protocols and classroom management strategies that I forget the reality of the situation.  I guess I just never knew how bad it could get.

On a more positive note, I am so blessed to have the team that I have at Jackson.  Our entire staff is incredible.  They’re brilliant, passionate people who have answers for everything.  I want to BE Aisha when I grow up.  I’m so lucky to have people like her to guide me and lead me this summer.  If I’m half as good a teacher as Aisha, I’ll feel like I have succeeded.