Free like Driftwood

advice to first years

nobody@vox.com(free like driftwood) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:53:48 -0700

Before you get to Mississippi

1) Rest and recharge: Summer school moves quickly and a lot gets thrown at you in the first two months. If possible, take some sort of vacation or senior trip before you get to Oxford. If you only have only a day or two between graduation and the first day of summer school classes, don’t rush or get stressed out. Take your time and enjoy your transition.
2) Don’t read Savage Inequalities: All of the dysfunctions of America’s public school system will be painfully clear in a few short months. Instead, pick up some books that go over the nuts and bolts of being a teacher: classroom management, professional work attire, setting up your classroom, managing paperwork, etc.
3) Talk to as many people who are involved in education as possible: This includes friends in two-year teaching programs, life-long teachers, principals, coaches. These people have valuable nuggets that will help you immensely

During Summer School

1)      Observe your classmates in the largest classes: Most of the Holly Springs summer school classes have fewer than ten students. This will in no way, shape or form be similar to what you will experience in the fall. Watch your friends who have the big classes (usually English or middle school math), and see what goes right, and, inevitably, what goes wrong.
2)      Go shopping for teacher clothes: You want to be as plain and mundane as possible while still maintaining an edge of professionalism. If the kids can ignore what you are wearing, than you are doing a good job. Wal-mart or Target are generally good places to go. Fellas, buy an iron.
3)      Watch movies about high school: Once you’ve gotten a crash course on classroom management, introductory sets, and differentiated instruction, go back and watch movies like Cooley High, Fast Times, Lean on Me, Mr. Holland’s Opus, etc. What are the teacher’s doing horribly wrong that would get them an F in Dr. Monroe’s class?

During the Fall

1) Get a gym membership: The YMCA in the Delta will give you a discount if you are Teach for America. The Y in Jackson has a student discount if you can produce a Mississippi college ID. Staying healthy will help you keep your sanity.
2) Don’t over commit your first quarter: Unless you have to coach a fall sport, try to keep your load light the first nine-weeks. Use this period to establish a routine and feel out the school politics.
3) Learn the key players in your building: Obviously there’s the chain of command with your administrators, but you should also be aware which teacher’s (and students) have clout. Some of your colleagues can get away with murder, and will get a slap on the wrist (at most). Some students can consistently avoid major punishment because of the sport they play or who their parents are. Don’t step on the wrong toes.

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self-reflection blog

nobody@vox.com(free like driftwood) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:33:29 -0700

Two years have passed and I still wake up with the same shocking realization: I am in Mississippi. Two years later, and I have still not fully contextualized this reality. I know the objective realities. I am a member of the Mississippi Teacher Corps; an employee of the Jackson Public School District; a coach and a mentor; a steward of young people and cog in a bureaucratic system; a teacher (for better or for worse).

I have found myself wondering in what specific ways this job, this program, and this experience have changed me. As a professional, I have changed in two major aspects. One is my understanding of organization. As a professional, especially a professional with limited down time, organization 2is key. The failure to have a system that cuts down on grading, reading lesson planning, and just general work related things will kill you. I remember being swamped with mounds of paper work as a first-year, and feeling like there was an anchor I had to drag everywhere. Having a systemic way to attack not only your job, but even your down time (working out, eating right, hanging out with friends) is what makes our breaks your experience in this profession. Where in college you could get away with a more free-form approach, I have found, at least with teaching in Mississippi, that organization is the first thing you need to master in order be successful.

The other thing that I have found myself changing is my relationship to power. I have always had an ambivalent relationship to Skinnerian models of how people in positions of power should respond the people who work under them. The sit down, shut up model of teaching sounded immensely disheartening, if downright oppressive during my first summer school experience in Oxford. Reality has away of changing ideology. It was probably at some point during my first semester of teaching when, in one of my larger classes, I had a girl who shut down because she was embarrassed about being made fun of because she was not a great reader and was afraid of being made fun of. If, as a teacher, I cannot use my authority to create an ecumenical environment where individuals from different class statuses, learning abilities, religious beliefs and sexual orientations cannot work together and respect each other, than I cannot honestly say that I have served them well.

A lot of my growth has come from the conversations with my classmates in the Teacher Corps program. Trading stories, discussing what we have done effectively and ineffectively, determining that one person’s approach may not synch with mine has made me more cognizant of who I am as a teacher; exposing what my own weaknesses and strengths may entail. Additionally, coaching and working with CRCL, seeing my students outside of a classroom context, have made me infinitely more empathetic to the experiences of my students. Having a discussion with a student outside of the classroom space, hearing their dreams and fears, gives you a greater patience with the inherently precarious path that high school students face with carving out their still burgeoning adult identities. At times, they can be obnoxious, apathetic, and even downright disrespectful, but that does not necessarily mean that you can’t gleam something valuable from their perspective.

This profession will force you to change in some valuable ways--growth in the truest sense of the word. In my experience, that growth has been accompanied by a sense of internal strength that I believe will serve me well as I continue on from this place.

In many ways I have grown immensely from the lessons I have taught, and learned in my Mississippi experience. I am not quite sure when, or where, it will strike me that this period in my life has permanently changed me; that it is now and will always from this point be a part of me. I’ll take pride in the experience, the work that I have done here. It is not so much a sense of closure or catharsis that I feel now that it is over (although I am experiencing those feelings as well). Rather, its a deep, overwhelming pensiveness. The same “ I am a teacher in Mississippi” question remains unresolved, a two year series of tangled experience. It will be a life long struggle to define and redefine it. But, perhaps that is the true beauty of it.

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the black spectacular

nobody@vox.com(free like driftwood) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:01:26 -0700

DL: (walks in class with noticeable crease on his forehead from wearing his do-rag too tight)
me: working on your waves for the summer?
DL: oh yea, these skeezers are gonna need surfboards.
DL. I'm about to not cut my hair until next year though.
me: Why not?
DL: I'm about to grow a reverse mohawk?
me: a reverse mohawk?
DL: yea, i'm gonna grow the rest out and just shave a line down the middle; reverse it. They ain't ready for it.
me: (forehead to palm )

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poverty wins again

nobody@vox.com(free like driftwood) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:37:58 -0700

DW disappears for weeks at a time.

DW walks the hallways when he is in school and usually needs an administrator to drag him to class.

DW is expecting a son in July.

DW can see four moves ahead of me in chess.

DW is a good kid who will come after school to make-up work for me.

DW will not graduate with his class this year.

Sometimes this job depresses the shit out of me.

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A portrait of Mississippi: the same song

nobody@vox.com(free like driftwood) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:28:58 -0700

Urbanmiss

So after reading the executive report summary on the state, i'm left with three impressions: 1) Mississippi is a poor state that maintains a grotesque gap between its black and white citizens. Grass is green, Lebron James is the best player in basketball, circles are infinite.

2) This is travesty! this is a human rights crisis! We should all by filled with righteous indignation!

3) This is bad situation. and, in the foreseeable future, it is not going to get better. There are a series of people on the ground doing good work across the state making serious efforts to improve the situation. But, I can't see the report summary's solutions in income, health and education being implemented without a dramatic shift in the political political philosophy of those in office. The problems call for more comprehensive spending measures and greater protection for the most economically and socially vulnerable. Instead, we have state senators who claim that state funded pre-k would equal baby-sitting and a governor who is rejecting federal money for unemployment relief for political grandstanding purposes.

One things that stood out on the maps: The Madison-Hinds-Rankin area ranked as the number one for income, education, and a series of other indicators. That makes sense, there is an business nucleus and large upper class/upper-middle class here. At the same time, Rankin and Madison are white flight suburbs that are neatly divided to avoid the problems that plague the rest of mississippi. Even Hinds is a tale of two counties, with the Southern and Western parts of Jackson having the problems that plague the Delta (only with more violence) while the Northern and Eastern parts of the country resemble Madison and Rankin.

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substitute Mississippi for Tennessee

nobody@vox.com(free like driftwood) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 10:41:23 -0800

Arrested Development - Tennessee

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my teaching style (required blog)

nobody@vox.com(free like driftwood) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:08:15 -0800

In my mind, my classroom demeanor is akin to Furious Styles from Boyz in the Hood (upper right hand corner of the blog). Tough and demanding, I set firm boundaries of what's expected of my students, ultimately forcing them to raise their own personal standards and face their greatest fear (that they are more powerful beyond measure).

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha.

Butforealtho, I'm a relatively decent teacher. My kids know that I care. I don't miss days ("Mr. Bland, don't you ever get sick? Cause we sick of you"). I don't do many write-ups, though I will hold after school detentions and/or phone calls home. My assignments are generally thought provoking, if not straight off the wall ("On monday you need to bring a poster board, half an avocado, a yard of electrical wire, and a baby picture"). I get off track a lot and go into tangents about things that have nothing to related to the material. I suffer fools. I don't get grades back in a timely fashion.

I'm pretty sure my kids think I've come from some far off planet where black men don't have a southern drawl or a razor precise line. The most common analogue is "Mr. Bland you like a fake Will Smith". I struggle to relate my own experience with the world of West Jackson that my students know. Bridging the gap between what I know of the world and what they believe is real has proven to be the greatest difficulty.

I'm slowly incorporating more technology into my lessons. My fellow teachers think I'm a wunderkind because I know how to use powerpoint but my principal is ready to have my head on a plate because I don't check my JPS email address.

If I were to stay on for a third year, I would shave my head, grow a Rick Ross Beard (c), and speak strictly in aphorisms.

In retrospect, I should have thrown something across the room and walked out on the first day to set the tone for the year.

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I still don't know what Camp Lo is talking about

nobody@vox.com(free like driftwood) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:52:46 -0800

Camp Lo - Luchini (AKA This Is It) (Original Video)

The applejacks hats were fresh though.

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The type of teacher I wish I was

nobody@vox.com(free like driftwood) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:15:19 -0800

On Thursday I was in the teacher's lounge copying a quiz when I ran across Coach C, our head football coach and 12th grade science teacher. Earlier in the day I had seen him present the expectations for the I.B. senior science project, a project that entailed going out into the community and testing the quality of Jackson's water. I wanted to stop and give him props for having put together a well-thought out, engaging assignment. Coach C said thanks for the kudos and said that he had been doing the project for last four years and has consistently been impressed by the level of work the seniors produce. The conversation turned to coaching and he asked me how my experience coaching the girl's basketball season was going.

"well, it's been up and down but I have learned a lot from the experience. It has a lot of the same challenges of teaching."
"No doubt. The thing people miss about sports is that it is teaching. Most of the time, winning, while important, isn't the most important aspect of the job."
"That's real." One of the biggest things I've noticed especially at the middle school level is how little skill development occurs in JPS."
"That's the difference between coaching and teaching."
"Could you break that down for me?"
"Well, you could have a class of ninth graders who come in, and, as you said, they may have some natural talent, but lack those basic skills, that not only will the team will need to be successful, but they will need to develop if they want to play on the next level." They need teaching.
"True."
"At the same time, what do the parents and the community want to see?"
"wins."
"That's right. So you don't get as much time to correct bad habits or develop guys who may lack the natural ability of their peers." At the end of the day though, you can't sacrifice teaching for coaching. You short change yourself and your players if you don't give them those long-term skills."

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On Earth, As It Is in Heaven

nobody@vox.com(free like driftwood) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:57:50 -0800

Midnight in a Perfect World

DJ Shadow

The desire to stay (in JPS/Mississippi/the teaching profession) ebbs and flows at this point. In my heart, I want to move on. There's a certain type of intellectual work that involves conversations I no longer have and a process of intrapersonal excavation that I lack the time and energy to seriously commit myself to. By its nature, and both the most positive and most negative connotations,being a good teacher stretches you thin. You invest in your students, your school, and your community. It goes without saying that all the MTC teachers put in long hours, not only in the classroom (and all the hours that go towards planning for the classroom); we also coach sports teams, chair departments, lead clubs, go to iep meetings, get professionally developed, hold detetentions, counsel kids, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

In theory, I don't mind the idea of being turned into a one-dimensional man. Jim Hill, in its most idealized form, represents Jackson's unlocked potential. Everyone goes to school here: The Superintendent's son sits next to the child of what would be Jackson's equivalent of Avon Barksdale. Students who will go off to become doctors, lawyers and middle management mingle with future murderers, junkies, and 28 year old grandmothers. Here, the high idealism and gross inadequacies of public education slapbox forever.

And then at 7:45 am, the seed of hope is gone; there are no mountaintop premonitions of the Promised Land; the choir will not be doing the 4th verse of lift every voice and sing. It's seventeen year old ninth graders who can't read, I.B. students who reject their intellectual promise because they can't reconcile being smart with maintaining a cool pose. It's one hundred and twenty students added to school over the weekend and nine fights in a day. It's a crisis of leadership at every level, from your own classroom, to the administration, to the school board.

This takes nothing from the nobility of the fight. We need talented, motivated, deeply principled people at the center of the arena. I'm not sure if I can negotiate the committment to duty, balancing all the moving parts and being a consistent figure in the school, with the more pensive, meandering parts of my personality. There's an intense need to retreat at times. Trying to figure out if that's an omen.

copacetic

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