________________
I've been asked, "You teach at
Carroll Junior?" in that, "Are you crazy?!" tone many times in
the past few months since moving to Louisiana. I've also seen the wide eyes when I answer
the cheerfully asked question, "Oh, you're a teacher? Where do you teach?"
(as if being a teacher were the most adorable and innocent thing ever) with the
dreaded reply, "Carroll Junior".
Normally, I say “Carroll Junior” as if it’s a question because I'm not
sure what the response will be. I grasp
onto the small hope that maybe this person has never heard of the all-black,
worst performing junior high school in the area whose students are known to be
a step away from juvenile hall or a mental asylum, but that rarely
happens. Some people I speak with are
encouraging, saying that the school needs good teachers like me to really make
a difference. Others are shocked and
deplored, saying I need to quit right away and run for the hills. There was even one fellow teacher who tried
to convince me I could do better and gave me the name and number of the
superintendent in the neighboring district.
She said that someone with my personality and experience would do better
over there.
Regardless of the spectrum of
reactions, I am grateful to work at Carroll Junior, and I say it with
pride. Yes, my days are filled with
students with too much swagger. I
sometimes have to yell louder than I have ever heard myself yell in my life. I deal with constant obstinacy and
obscenities. I hear “we be” “they be” or
“I be” more than I ever would have liked, and most days I sit down at my desk
and wonder: Why in the world am I doing
this?! But then I look around my
classroom. I think of the students I
work with – the ones who need just a little encouragement and guidance to make
a better future for themselves. I think
of the teachers who have come and gone out of the classroom – the ones who gave
up and couldn’t take it. I feel that tug
again deep inside my heart, and I finally admit to myself: This – the kids, the hope
and desire to do something good – This, is
why I am doing this.
I consider myself a “veteran
teacher” in the sense that it is not my first year teaching. I have three full years’ experience (not to
mention all of the hours spent in the classroom during my undergraduate career),
but those three years were spent teaching remedial English and “life-skills”
courses to first-year community college students. Since my degree was in elementary education
and I always dreamed of teaching young children, I was surprised at how fulfilled
I felt when I started teaching at the community college level. I genuinely fell in love with teaching. And I didn’t have to worry about IEP’s and
504 plans and parent phone calls and lawsuits and state mandates. I could just enjoy teaching. I got to make my own schedule, and most
semesters I only taught two or three days a week. Sometimes I wouldn’t have class until 10 or
11 and could sleep in. And the money was
pretty good, too. I had the life. Why would I ever go back to public education
when I can have all this in higher education?
So I forgot all about my elementary education degree. I let my teaching license expire, never
expecting to need it again. I set my
sights at moving up, and no one was going to stop me.
Then my husband got offered a
transfer to Monroe, Louisiana
– twelve hours from our home in Terre
Haute. It was a
great opportunity that promised further growth in the company, basically
Dustin’s dream job. At first, I was
obstinate. There was no way I was going
to just pick up and move and leave everything I had built at Ivy Tech and IU
behind. Plus, there’s the boys (my two
step-sons). How could we stand being so
far away from them all the time? Crazy
idea. No way it’s happening. Then we were confronted with it face to face. This opportunity in Louisiana was finally there and we could
either take it and see what we can do with it or we could turn it down and stay
in our comfortable little life. We’d had
a rough year due to some personal, family issues, and we were the strongest we
had ever been. That strength and faith
helped us abandon our fears, let go of the “things” holding us back and just go
with it. Give it a try. We didn’t have much to lose.
So here we are, living and working
in Louisiana,
and doing completely different things than we would have imagined us doing a
year ago. In a few short months, I went
from having an elementary education degree but teaching remedial English at a
community college in Terre Haute, Indiana to having a K-12 certification in English and
teaching 7th grade ELA in an inner-city school in Monroe, Louisiana. Seems like a pretty drastic switch, but I
adjusted surprisingly well. I love
teaching, and I truly believe that it doesn’t matter what subject, grade, or
area I teach, I’m going to love it, and I’m going to be great at it. It’s still hard for me to believe that we’re
here and I’m actually doing what I’m doing.
But I believe that I’m meant to be here.
“Alright,” I say sternly as I turn
away from the SMARTboard, “that’s enough with the humming!” With a clenched jaw, I glare across the
classroom filled with boys feigning innocence.
I’m frustrated and irritated after trying to teach for fifteen minutes
only to face humming every time I turn my back or start to speak. I furrow my brow and in frustration think, Those sneaky little bastards. I just want to slap them all across the face. But I can’t, of course. And no, I don’t really think they’re
bastards. They are sneaky, though. And mean.
And so…teenage-ish! Finally, some
silly straw came and broke this worn down camel’s back, and I completely lost
it. In a moment of classroom management
weakness, I ended up screaming, “I’m not putting up with any more of your
shit!!!” to my fifth hour, all-boys class.
Of course, all the ooooo’s started from there as they realize that Teach
means business. A handful got sent to
the vice principal, and after talking with him after class, we decided that
about ten of them would get lunch detention the next day. During my prep hour the following day (right
after the class involved in the above incident), the vice principal stuck his
head in and said he needed to tell me something but for me not to worry because
I wasn’t in trouble or anything.
“I had all those boys in my office
during lunch today,” he tells me. “I was
talkin’ with ‘em about how they can’t get away with treatin’ you the way they
did yesterday. They all started
hollerin’, ‘Oh, but Mr. Kennedy, she was cussin’ at us!!’”
My eyes got a little wide when I
thought back to my moment of classroom management weakness. He quelled my nerves by going on.
“So I ask ‘em, ‘Do your parents
cuss at you if you don’t do what they tell you to do?’ ‘Well, yeah,’ they
say. ‘Do I cuss at you if I’m telling
you to sit your ass down and you
don’t sit down?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ they
say. ‘Then is Ms. Allen cussin’ at you
really a problem?’ And they all like, ‘No…’.”
He laughs for a few moments, and my nerves are
comforted. He then looks up at me and
says, “You know, at first, I was kinda worried about you…but now it’s good to
know you’ve got some fight in
ya.” And here I am, still fighting.
“Well,” she says condescendingly, “if
your entire class is completely out of control, then that’s a classroom
management problem. And I can come by
and work with you one on one with that.”
I should have known better than to confront my principal and speak my
opinion during a faculty meeting. Of
course it’s all just a classroom management issue. Forget about the fact that I’m a great classroom manager. Forget about the fact that these students
have no respect or discipline for
authorities. Forget the fact that we
teachers have no support from our
administrators. They know what we are
dealing with. They know what the kids
are like, so why do they just blame all problems on classroom management? The deep-seeded issues at this school go much
deeper than simple classroom management problems.
When I first got hired at Carroll
Junior High, I had no idea what I was in store for. I did some preliminary research on the
school, and I could tell that it was under-performing and under pressure. I knew that it was an all-black school and
that student behavior was an issue. 96%
of the students are on the free/reduced lunch program. Students have very little support at home to
further their education. It’s like I’m
making up for lost time of being outside of public education and have been
thrown into a situation that basically epitomizes everything that is wrong in
public education and society in general.
I walked in that first day with
high hopes, channeling my inner Erin Gruwell (from Freedom Writers), determined to make a difference and have an
impact on these kids’ lives. The first
couple of weeks were ok; I think the kids were being easy on me. After a few weeks, though, I started to
realize all the flaws in our school and district. I started to realize that it’s far more than
“poor classroom management” that causes the behavior problems that we teachers
have. Poverty stricken students.
Crippling state and district mandates and regulations. Poorly run schools by poorly organized
administrators. Conflict and opposition
among school board members. And most
importantly, a generation of students who simply don’t care, or at least refuse
to admit that they do.
So how do we solve all these
problems? Where do we begin? These are the questions that all teachers at
this school are wondering. And ones to
which I still don’t know the answers.
Our school was visited recently by
Louisiana’s new State Superintendent, John White. He was on a “listening tour” (which I like to
call “publicity stunt”) to find out what is wrong with Louisiana’s schools and
what needs to be fixed. He specifically
visited our school since it is one of the lowest performing in the district. He said that spending time with the teachers
and students and listening and asking questions will help him when making
decisions that affect the school and district.
My classroom happened to be one of the four he visited during his hour
and a half visit to the school. Of
course, the media made it sound as if he had spent all day interacting with our
students and faculty when in fact, all of his classroom visits (each only lasting
10-15 minutes) consisted of him sitting
in the back of the room, asking students irrelevant questions, and staring at
the teachers quizzically for a perfect photo-op.
If you want to evaluate me as a
teacher, then come sit in my room for a couple of weeks. Yes, a couple of weeks. Not an hour or even one day. They’ll be nice at first, so it will take
some time for you to truly experience what I deal with on a regular basis. (The section that was observed by Mr. White
was my worst behaved class, but they were perfect angels while he and his posse of camera crews
were present.) There’s no generic
professional growth plan or futile lesson plan I can write that will show you
my teaching capabilities. All they do is take up valuable time I could be
spending on developing engaging lesson plans that are meaningful to the
students. It’s a shame the amount of
time a teacher spends on redundant paperwork and ineffective meetings or
trainings. Allow me to be responsible
for my own time and use it as I see fit.
You should be able to trust me; I am a certified, licensed teacher with
a degree in education, after all. I know
what I’m doing. If you find a teacher
being negligible, take appropriate disciplinary actions. But please trust my values and judgment as a
teacher and allow me to dictate what I do and do not need to do with my
students.
“She’s such a good teacher, and you
guys are just throwing it all away,” I hear Coach Mack say sadly as I enter the
room. Coach Mack is our inclusion
teacher/head football coach. He’s about
6’5’’ with tattooed biceps the size of my head.
He’s a big, intimidating man, but he cares more for these kids than they
realize. As I walk to my desk, I look
around at the solemn look on everyone’s face.
Like a puppy who knows it did something wrong. Coach Mack’s giving one of his pep talks, so
I let him go on before I start my lesson.
“She
cares more about you and your education than you do,” he says as he paces
around the room. “And what’s gonna
happen when you fail the iLEAP because YOU (pointing to the students) don’t
care?” He lets his words sink in. “They’re gonna blame her.” He points to me and
the whole class looks, some with emotion in their eyes though I can’t tell what
it is. Sadness? Regret?
Disdain? He goes on, causing
their faces I still haven’t read to turn back toward him. “They’re all gonna say it’s her fault. They’re gonna say that she ain’t teaching you
right, and that she’s a bad teacher.”
His face looks hopeless as he shakes his head and looks down.
“It’s
just sad,” he says very matter-of-factly as he looks up. “And it ain’t fair because it’s not her
fault. Whose fault is it? It’s your and your parents’ fault! You’re failing yourself because you don’t care and your parents don’t care!” All the kids’ heads jerk up, giving Coach
looks of “Uh uh, you didn’t just go
talkin’ bout my momma!” Coach Mack is
one of the few not afraid to get down dirty and tell these kids what the real
problem is. (I’m sure having a lawyer as
a wife helps.) Despite some of the ugly
looks, no one says a word.
“When I was going to school,” he
pauses, making sure he has everyone’s attention before moving on. He played the card we teachers all know
well. Talk about ourselves. These kids would listen to us tell stories
about our lives for hours. All eyes were
on him as he goes on, “my mama made me come home every day, and she’d sit at
the table with me with a switch while I did my homework. I couldn’t leave the house till it was all
done. If she caught me playin’ or daydreamin’,
I’d get the switch across my hands.” His
words caused everyone to flinch as he imitated a small branch being whipped
across his hand and wrist. “She did this
because she believed education was important.
She made me care about my education because she cared.” He looks around
the class, and all eyes are listening attentively.
The students are silent and solemn,
and I let them sit there for a minute for it all to soak in. Then I segue into my futile vocabulary lesson
since there’s a lot more important things I should be teaching this kids than
how to use context clues. But I
digress. “Alright guys, open up your
vocab books to page 91, Lesson 23. Let’s
look over these words…” With the words
of Coach Mack still echoing in our heads, we continue on.
What’s it going to take? How many pep-talks and lectures do we have to
give these kids before it sinks in and they finally start listening? So many teachers before me have just given
up. They’ve accepted that the students
won’t change, so they’ve stopped trying to make them. To be honest, I’ve even felt that way. When I can only squeeze in about twenty
minutes of instruction time into a fifty-five minute class due to telling kids
to be quiet, dealing with constant disrespect and attitude which leads to
having to send students out or write up infraction sheets, sometimes I think, What’s the point? Why should I even care? Because I won't give up. I was created to teach. I know that I can have an impact on these kids. I believe I am a great teacher, and now is the time to show it. So I take a deep breath, forget about the
argument I just had with a student, forget about the suffocating negativity and
hostility that fills the room, and I teach my heart out for the next twenty
minutes.
