Today wasn't special or eventful in any way. It was just another day. So much happened, but so much always happens. As I went through the day, I felt it all getting away from me. It was too much to take in. I want to write about it, but I don't remember it. I'm going to try anyway. Here's a day in my life:
5:00 wake up. Tired.
5:15 go to gym
6:45 shower, breakfast, etc.
7:25 wait for Sam
7:35 drive to work
7:47 get to work. Circle.
7:57 write out my grievances about the attendance process (I was asked to do that).
8:15 power greeting. Saw K, told her I had something for her. Three students hugged me, two complained that I saw them but didn't hug them.
8:33 gave K the book Hyperbole and a Half:
8:35 scramble to gather materials for my tutoring sessions. Wade through the hallway. Lots of hugs, high fives, and "good morning"s.
8:40 class starts. Stay for quiz. Eight students ask for a pencil. I don't have any on me today, so they have to give their ID to the teacher in exchange for a pencil. They're disappointed. I give A some rubber bands, because he asked me for some yesterday. He's ecstatic.
8:55 pull out X, student on my focus list, and U and Z, who begged to come with so they could catch up on what we've been working on in class. They've been absent a lot lately. Try giving each of them the attention they need. X is pretty advanced, but she deserves to be challenged. And technically, she's the only one who's supposed to get my attention. But I give her some worksheets, and tell her to do as many as she can, but I'm not expecting her to do all of them (there were a total of 60 problems, factoring and distributing algebraic expressions.) I turn to U and Z. Try condensing a week's worth of teaching into 30 minutes. Want them to understand but also want them to do well on tomorrow's quiz, which will be exactly like the worksheet they have, so if I can just get them to copy down the notes... X finishes the first sheet (30 problems) - asks me to check her work. She made one mistake. I tell her that's awesome. Didn't expect her to get through so much so quickly. She moves on to the next sheet.
9:51 bell rings. I'm out of time and all I've got is 4 minutes. Rearrange handouts. Take binders and calculators back to class.
9:55 bell rings. This class isn't taking a quiz because they're behind. Pull out M.L. and W (on my list). M.O. comes in after 5 minutes. In her words, the best thing about her is "my attitude". In the teacher's words, the worst thing about her is "her attitude". She's been very disrespectful in class, and the teacher won't let her in anymore until her parent or guardian comes in. But she lets me work with her. M.O. is very smart, but doesn't realize it, or understand that that's a good thing. She didn't like me at first, but now she smiles when she sees me, and tells me she's willing to do her work for me, but not for the teacher. I tell her that she's doing the work for herself, but she doesn't understand what that means. She does her work today, giving me all the right answers when M.L. and W get stuck.
10:41 the bell is going to ring in 5 minutes. M.L. turns to me, "Miss C, I have a question. You're Jewish, right?" "Yeah," I respond, wondering where this is going. M.O. is shocked. "Uh uh, I'm going back to class," she says. "Why?" I ask. "I hate Jewish people." Pause. Team leader and another person in the room freeze, looking at me. All eyes on me. "Why is that?" I ask calmly. I think she realizes she's done something wrong. "I'm just KIDDING!" she laughs. I wonder how wrong it would be for me to ask her how she would feel if someone said they hate Black people. I conclude that it would be pretty bad for me to say that. I smile. "I know you're kidding, but that's still not a very nice thing to say." "Really, I didn't mean it. I had a teacher that was Jewish, and he was cool. And Jews have good food." I shrug. "Yeah, I guess that's true." I don't know what she actually thinks, or what has influenced her opinion. It's the first time I've experienced something like this.
10:46 the bell rings. They go to class, I put their binders back. I sit. Try to collect my thoughts, but there's no time. There's never any time. I walk toward our other room, planning to finally turn on my laptop, check my emails, and figure out what useless tasks I'm supposed to complete before the end of the day. On the way there, I run into D. I ask him why he isn't in class. He starts telling me, but then we run into A and K, who are pounding on a classroom door. The teacher won't let A in, even though he let him out to go to the bathroom. And he won't let K in, because he's late and doesn't have a pass. I spend 5 minutes trying to convince them to go get passes. Security guard sits, watching, amused. Finally asks me for their names, and writes them down. They call me a snitch, and go downstairs to get passes. Back to D. He tells me that the teacher told him he wasn't doing work, and so he was trying to make him sit in front like a dog. He's walking through the hallway. I ask if I can walk with him. He nods. I talk about how it feels really unfair to be doing the right thing but then for people not to see that. He nods. I ask him if that happens to him a lot. He nods. I say something about how upsetting that is. He starts to open up more about how everyone treats him unfairly. I listen. We start walking back toward class. He talks about how petty it is that teachers focus on things like where someone sits, instead of worrying about doing actual teaching. I agree. I tell him that I've had bosses who have made me do things I don't agree with, but that I don't usually do it unless I get an explanation for why it matters. I ask him if he's ever asked a teacher to explain why they're doing what they're doing. He says no. I ask if he's willing to talk to the teacher. He says no. He turns to me "Don't you have lots of stuff you should be doing now? You should go back to work, not out here roaming the halls with me." I explain to him that all of the work I have to do is just extra stuff. The actual work I came here to do is support students in their education. I tell him he's being deprived of his education, and I'm not just going to give up on him. I ask if he understands the importance of his education. He nods. Smiles at me. We keep walking. Walk past another classroom, where the door is open. His sister, N (also my student) is in there, on her phone. They start talking. I ask the teacher if I can take her out of the class, and she agrees. I take them to the City Year room.
11:20 (ish) impromptu meeting with D and N. I ask if they know what "impromptu" means. They don't, and I explain. I tell them I see D walking the halls, and N on her phone in class, and both complaining about how bad it is at the school, and this makes me want to do something. I tell them I see a lot of bad student-teacher and student-student interactions, and ask if they want to brainstorm some ideas with me for what we can do to improve the culture at the school. They start displaying some enthusiasm. They talk at length about how the classes are (on the one hand) very boring, and also (on the other hand) too challenging. They think teachers expect too much, saying things like "you learned how to do this in middle school" (they pointed out that between middle school and high school there was an entire summer vacation). I asked if they knew the term "devil's advocate". They didn't. I explained, and told them I was going to play devil's advocate for the teachers. "It's hard to make class interesting when everyone is always talking or on their phones." "Well yeah but we wouldn't be so loud if the teacher was doing something interesting!" Fair point. I ask them how they would make class interesting, if they could. I asked about reading class first. They starting throwing out ideas: act out some stories, have people read aloud, make readings come alive...
11:41 the bell rings. They get up. I tell them this is an important conversation, but I don't want them to be late for class. We'll talk about it some other time. They smile and thank me.
11:45 the bell rings. I'm in the sheltered class for this period (English language learners - they know very little English and come from all around the world.) I'm tired. The teacher has a warm-up on the board. It says something like "Today's warm-up. In the next three minutes, try answering the following question, and explain your reasoning (question follows)." I walk around. Some of the students are trying to solve the problem. Some are copying down the instructions. I kneel down "you don't have to spend time copying all of this down. All you need is the actual problem" I try to explain. They stare at me blankly. "Copy down!" they say, pointing at their paper. I shake my head. "No, no need to copy." They're confused. I give up. They don't have time to get to the math question. The lesson goes on.
12:36 the bell rings. I walk quickly back to the City Year room to get my materials for my next pull-out session. "Do you have some candy?" "Where's my candy?" "You said you'd give me candy!" The demand for candy is slightly higher than usual, and I realize it's Thursday, the day the weekly challenge ends and I have to decide who's right, post the winners, and give out their rewards. But not now. No time.
12:40 the bell rings. Back in class. They take the quiz. In the middle, R calls me over. "I have to PEE" he says urgently. I look at him, look at the teacher. She's very strict about bathroom passes. They get ONE pass per semester, and he's already used his. "There's nothing I can do" I tell him. "But I'm going to pee my pants!" I tell him that if he has to go, he should go, and deal with the consequences later. He's afraid of the teacher and what she'll do. He stays. The time is almost up for the quiz. He turns to someone at his table and asks for today's date. The teacher gets mad and yells at him for talking. She says she's going to write him up. With nothing to lose, he gets up and walks out.
12:55 I take out the students on my list (D and S) as well as J and N, who have been begging me for weeks to join. I know it's going to be hard to handle such a large group, and ask them to hand me their phones. They do, and I'm pleasantly surprised. R joins us, having returned from the bathroom and not being allowed back into class. I'm glad he wants to do math, but there are too many students now, and it's hard to get them to focus on anything.
1:31 the bell rings. Fuck. It's lunchtime, I have to put their binders back in class, heat up my food, and go down to the cafeteria, where I have to find my 7 students to do check-outs with, and I've only got 35 minutes.
1:38 I'm in the cafeteria. I forgot to bring down the SEL and attendance sheets with me. I'm about to start talking to V, who's on my SEL list, when T, sitting alone at the end of the table, calls me over. He doesn't want to sit alone. I sit with him for a bit, but then I have to start my check-outs. I ask V if he remembers what his goal for the week was. In my mind, I'm desperately hoping he remembers, because I have no clue. "Participate in class" he says. I sigh with relief. Oh yeah. I had set a goal for him to raise his hand twice in each class. He told me he forgot all about it. So I wrote on a piece of paper "Don't forget to participate!" and took a picture with his phone and set it as his lock screen. I move on. N's goal was to use the internet to gather information before making decisions. I ask how that's been going. "Pretty good" she says. I ask for an example of when she's done that. "Well, this one time I was fittin' to skip class, but I remembered the goal and looked up what happens when students skip class and read about how important it is to go to class, so I didn't skip." I'm amazed. Shocked. I hug her. Tell her how proud I am of her. Move on. Can't find E. Oh well. L's goal was to work on optimism and positivity, and I asked her to write down things she's thankful for and things she's looking forward to once a day. She forgot. I had her set a reminder on her phone. Move on.
2:04 the bell rings. I go find the music teacher because he'd asked me to find out who plays instruments in the team, and I had a list of names for him.
2:08 I see J, who's on my attendance list. We talk about his attendance and I walk him to class.
2:10 I go to the City Year room, turn on my laptop, read emails. Fill out forms. Fuck. I have to come up with a warm up for the team meeting. Spend 10 minutes looking for something I wouldn't hate doing.
2:25 E, a short, thin female student who isn't in any of my classes, knocks on the door for the second day in a row. "Do you have any food?" she looks at me hopefully. For the second day in a row, I make her some mac n' cheese. I try talking to her about why she's hungry. She says her psychiatrist told her mom but no-one has told her. She goes back to class.
2:40 Fuck. It's still Thursday. I haven't dealt with my weekly challenge problem. I decide that the answer is definitely 1 and not 9. I write out an explanation for why, hoping they'll take the time to read it. I post the winners names. Come up with a new challenge.
3:00 the bell rings. Flurry of activity. Give out candy. T and K come by. There's a sub in science and they don't want to be in there. I tell them they can stay if they work on math. K has to catch up. T says K is smart, she doesn't need to do the work. I realize how rare it is to hear students compliment each other. I have to finish everything I've been doing. K asks about the math challenges, and I explain that I'm trying to show that math can be fun. She grabs a marker, and goes to the door. "There, now people know" she says, smiling.
5:00 wake up. Tired.
5:15 go to gym
6:45 shower, breakfast, etc.
7:25 wait for Sam
7:35 drive to work
7:47 get to work. Circle.
7:57 write out my grievances about the attendance process (I was asked to do that).
8:15 power greeting. Saw K, told her I had something for her. Three students hugged me, two complained that I saw them but didn't hug them.
8:33 gave K the book Hyperbole and a Half:
8:35 scramble to gather materials for my tutoring sessions. Wade through the hallway. Lots of hugs, high fives, and "good morning"s.
8:40 class starts. Stay for quiz. Eight students ask for a pencil. I don't have any on me today, so they have to give their ID to the teacher in exchange for a pencil. They're disappointed. I give A some rubber bands, because he asked me for some yesterday. He's ecstatic.
8:55 pull out X, student on my focus list, and U and Z, who begged to come with so they could catch up on what we've been working on in class. They've been absent a lot lately. Try giving each of them the attention they need. X is pretty advanced, but she deserves to be challenged. And technically, she's the only one who's supposed to get my attention. But I give her some worksheets, and tell her to do as many as she can, but I'm not expecting her to do all of them (there were a total of 60 problems, factoring and distributing algebraic expressions.) I turn to U and Z. Try condensing a week's worth of teaching into 30 minutes. Want them to understand but also want them to do well on tomorrow's quiz, which will be exactly like the worksheet they have, so if I can just get them to copy down the notes... X finishes the first sheet (30 problems) - asks me to check her work. She made one mistake. I tell her that's awesome. Didn't expect her to get through so much so quickly. She moves on to the next sheet.
9:51 bell rings. I'm out of time and all I've got is 4 minutes. Rearrange handouts. Take binders and calculators back to class.
9:55 bell rings. This class isn't taking a quiz because they're behind. Pull out M.L. and W (on my list). M.O. comes in after 5 minutes. In her words, the best thing about her is "my attitude". In the teacher's words, the worst thing about her is "her attitude". She's been very disrespectful in class, and the teacher won't let her in anymore until her parent or guardian comes in. But she lets me work with her. M.O. is very smart, but doesn't realize it, or understand that that's a good thing. She didn't like me at first, but now she smiles when she sees me, and tells me she's willing to do her work for me, but not for the teacher. I tell her that she's doing the work for herself, but she doesn't understand what that means. She does her work today, giving me all the right answers when M.L. and W get stuck.
10:41 the bell is going to ring in 5 minutes. M.L. turns to me, "Miss C, I have a question. You're Jewish, right?" "Yeah," I respond, wondering where this is going. M.O. is shocked. "Uh uh, I'm going back to class," she says. "Why?" I ask. "I hate Jewish people." Pause. Team leader and another person in the room freeze, looking at me. All eyes on me. "Why is that?" I ask calmly. I think she realizes she's done something wrong. "I'm just KIDDING!" she laughs. I wonder how wrong it would be for me to ask her how she would feel if someone said they hate Black people. I conclude that it would be pretty bad for me to say that. I smile. "I know you're kidding, but that's still not a very nice thing to say." "Really, I didn't mean it. I had a teacher that was Jewish, and he was cool. And Jews have good food." I shrug. "Yeah, I guess that's true." I don't know what she actually thinks, or what has influenced her opinion. It's the first time I've experienced something like this.
10:46 the bell rings. They go to class, I put their binders back. I sit. Try to collect my thoughts, but there's no time. There's never any time. I walk toward our other room, planning to finally turn on my laptop, check my emails, and figure out what useless tasks I'm supposed to complete before the end of the day. On the way there, I run into D. I ask him why he isn't in class. He starts telling me, but then we run into A and K, who are pounding on a classroom door. The teacher won't let A in, even though he let him out to go to the bathroom. And he won't let K in, because he's late and doesn't have a pass. I spend 5 minutes trying to convince them to go get passes. Security guard sits, watching, amused. Finally asks me for their names, and writes them down. They call me a snitch, and go downstairs to get passes. Back to D. He tells me that the teacher told him he wasn't doing work, and so he was trying to make him sit in front like a dog. He's walking through the hallway. I ask if I can walk with him. He nods. I talk about how it feels really unfair to be doing the right thing but then for people not to see that. He nods. I ask him if that happens to him a lot. He nods. I say something about how upsetting that is. He starts to open up more about how everyone treats him unfairly. I listen. We start walking back toward class. He talks about how petty it is that teachers focus on things like where someone sits, instead of worrying about doing actual teaching. I agree. I tell him that I've had bosses who have made me do things I don't agree with, but that I don't usually do it unless I get an explanation for why it matters. I ask him if he's ever asked a teacher to explain why they're doing what they're doing. He says no. I ask if he's willing to talk to the teacher. He says no. He turns to me "Don't you have lots of stuff you should be doing now? You should go back to work, not out here roaming the halls with me." I explain to him that all of the work I have to do is just extra stuff. The actual work I came here to do is support students in their education. I tell him he's being deprived of his education, and I'm not just going to give up on him. I ask if he understands the importance of his education. He nods. Smiles at me. We keep walking. Walk past another classroom, where the door is open. His sister, N (also my student) is in there, on her phone. They start talking. I ask the teacher if I can take her out of the class, and she agrees. I take them to the City Year room.
11:20 (ish) impromptu meeting with D and N. I ask if they know what "impromptu" means. They don't, and I explain. I tell them I see D walking the halls, and N on her phone in class, and both complaining about how bad it is at the school, and this makes me want to do something. I tell them I see a lot of bad student-teacher and student-student interactions, and ask if they want to brainstorm some ideas with me for what we can do to improve the culture at the school. They start displaying some enthusiasm. They talk at length about how the classes are (on the one hand) very boring, and also (on the other hand) too challenging. They think teachers expect too much, saying things like "you learned how to do this in middle school" (they pointed out that between middle school and high school there was an entire summer vacation). I asked if they knew the term "devil's advocate". They didn't. I explained, and told them I was going to play devil's advocate for the teachers. "It's hard to make class interesting when everyone is always talking or on their phones." "Well yeah but we wouldn't be so loud if the teacher was doing something interesting!" Fair point. I ask them how they would make class interesting, if they could. I asked about reading class first. They starting throwing out ideas: act out some stories, have people read aloud, make readings come alive...
11:41 the bell rings. They get up. I tell them this is an important conversation, but I don't want them to be late for class. We'll talk about it some other time. They smile and thank me.
11:45 the bell rings. I'm in the sheltered class for this period (English language learners - they know very little English and come from all around the world.) I'm tired. The teacher has a warm-up on the board. It says something like "Today's warm-up. In the next three minutes, try answering the following question, and explain your reasoning (question follows)." I walk around. Some of the students are trying to solve the problem. Some are copying down the instructions. I kneel down "you don't have to spend time copying all of this down. All you need is the actual problem" I try to explain. They stare at me blankly. "Copy down!" they say, pointing at their paper. I shake my head. "No, no need to copy." They're confused. I give up. They don't have time to get to the math question. The lesson goes on.
12:36 the bell rings. I walk quickly back to the City Year room to get my materials for my next pull-out session. "Do you have some candy?" "Where's my candy?" "You said you'd give me candy!" The demand for candy is slightly higher than usual, and I realize it's Thursday, the day the weekly challenge ends and I have to decide who's right, post the winners, and give out their rewards. But not now. No time.
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| Weekly challenge 11/13 |
12:55 I take out the students on my list (D and S) as well as J and N, who have been begging me for weeks to join. I know it's going to be hard to handle such a large group, and ask them to hand me their phones. They do, and I'm pleasantly surprised. R joins us, having returned from the bathroom and not being allowed back into class. I'm glad he wants to do math, but there are too many students now, and it's hard to get them to focus on anything.
1:31 the bell rings. Fuck. It's lunchtime, I have to put their binders back in class, heat up my food, and go down to the cafeteria, where I have to find my 7 students to do check-outs with, and I've only got 35 minutes.
1:38 I'm in the cafeteria. I forgot to bring down the SEL and attendance sheets with me. I'm about to start talking to V, who's on my SEL list, when T, sitting alone at the end of the table, calls me over. He doesn't want to sit alone. I sit with him for a bit, but then I have to start my check-outs. I ask V if he remembers what his goal for the week was. In my mind, I'm desperately hoping he remembers, because I have no clue. "Participate in class" he says. I sigh with relief. Oh yeah. I had set a goal for him to raise his hand twice in each class. He told me he forgot all about it. So I wrote on a piece of paper "Don't forget to participate!" and took a picture with his phone and set it as his lock screen. I move on. N's goal was to use the internet to gather information before making decisions. I ask how that's been going. "Pretty good" she says. I ask for an example of when she's done that. "Well, this one time I was fittin' to skip class, but I remembered the goal and looked up what happens when students skip class and read about how important it is to go to class, so I didn't skip." I'm amazed. Shocked. I hug her. Tell her how proud I am of her. Move on. Can't find E. Oh well. L's goal was to work on optimism and positivity, and I asked her to write down things she's thankful for and things she's looking forward to once a day. She forgot. I had her set a reminder on her phone. Move on.
2:04 the bell rings. I go find the music teacher because he'd asked me to find out who plays instruments in the team, and I had a list of names for him.
2:08 I see J, who's on my attendance list. We talk about his attendance and I walk him to class.
2:10 I go to the City Year room, turn on my laptop, read emails. Fill out forms. Fuck. I have to come up with a warm up for the team meeting. Spend 10 minutes looking for something I wouldn't hate doing.
2:25 E, a short, thin female student who isn't in any of my classes, knocks on the door for the second day in a row. "Do you have any food?" she looks at me hopefully. For the second day in a row, I make her some mac n' cheese. I try talking to her about why she's hungry. She says her psychiatrist told her mom but no-one has told her. She goes back to class.
2:40 Fuck. It's still Thursday. I haven't dealt with my weekly challenge problem. I decide that the answer is definitely 1 and not 9. I write out an explanation for why, hoping they'll take the time to read it. I post the winners names. Come up with a new challenge.
3:00 the bell rings. Flurry of activity. Give out candy. T and K come by. There's a sub in science and they don't want to be in there. I tell them they can stay if they work on math. K has to catch up. T says K is smart, she doesn't need to do the work. I realize how rare it is to hear students compliment each other. I have to finish everything I've been doing. K asks about the math challenges, and I explain that I'm trying to show that math can be fun. She grabs a marker, and goes to the door. "There, now people know" she says, smiling.
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| Weekly challenge 11/20 |
3:30 Y is wandering the halls. "You didn't take me out with you today, even though I need help with math" she accuses me. I tell her I couldn't, and ask what she's doing now. "Nothing" she says. "Perfect! Let's do math now!" She comes into the room reluctantly. T volunteers to help her. That makes me so happy. Then he's mean to her. I tell him no-one's going to listen to him if he's being mean. He tries being nicer. He gets frustrated when she doesn't understand. In the meantime, K has declared that her OCD is kicking in, and starts organizing everything in the room. Y tells me she's done with the worksheet. I ask her if she's willing to do another problem, to make sure she's ready for the quiz. She nods. I make up a problem and hand it to her. She works on it, getting some things wrong. I tell her what's wrong but don't tell her why. She figures it out.
3:55 the bell rings. Y asks me to put the papers she was working with in her binder in class - she has to run to catch the bus. I go to the classroom.
3:58 the teacher talks to me about how impossible the students are sometimes. She's tired of it all. I can't blame her, but don't like how she blames them.
4:15 team meeting.
5:45 drive to City Year office for mentor mingle.
6:15 receive email that my mentor isn't showing up. Finally some time to think. Pause. Reflect. Read some emails, chat with some friends. Send a fax to try to get my loan payments set up. More emails. Start writing this post.
8:00 drive home.
8:30 make food, eat. Wash dishes.
9:30 continue writing. I wanted to have at least one account of a full day, but I've still left out so much. So many small interactions. Small, but meaningful. There's no possible way to account for them all. As I go through the day, I never feel like I'm completely there. No, that's not quite right. I feel like I'm always there, in the moment. Each moment, fully present. But the moments don't connect. There's no time to derive any sense of continuity. I'm just there, being me, doing whatever I can in the moment. No time to plan, or learn. I need to find a way to be more balanced. To be there for the students but also to be able to think about the bigger picture. I need to learn how to say no when they ask for things. I don't want to though. I love what I do, and how I do it. I just hope it's sustainable.
I'm going to end with this, a letter from my student I, which she handed to me yesterday in class.
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