How do you make up for 12 years of failure in 1 year?
Many of you have asked me, "so how is teaching going?" I don't know what to say to you. Its really hard to explain. The problems are overwhelming. We all knew that. But everyone, including me, swore that education in New Orleans would get better post-Katrina. The sad truth, however, is that all that rebuilding euphoria has somehow escaped us and what we are left with is exhaustion. No one has any idea where to begin on fixing things and hardly anyone has the resources. Pre-Katrina we had poorly run schools with little funding and terribly low standards. But at least before, children attended what many would consider classes. Now, what we have, is a system where children are being held in a semi-safe place just to keep them off the street. What we have are holding cells. There aren't enough teachers so many kids just sit in a room all day waiting for something to happen. They do not have schedules. They do not take classes. They just stay in the school for the required time. That only works for the ones that show up. There are no tracking systems for attendance- so there is little incentive for children to actually go to school. And why should they, they aren't learning anything at most of the schools? For those kids that actually want to go, many are on waiting lists because the schools are full. Public schools are actually full- at least the ones that actually offer classes.
There is also this idea of a classroom. Generally, when you think of a classroom- you think of desks, chairs, maybe even computers, a board, soemthing to write with. This classroom is a myth. There are no desks, no chairs, no computers, no pencil sharpners, no chalk or dry-erase boards, certainly no computers. Even the bathrooms have no supplies- no toilet paper, no paper towels, no soap. So what you have is a space where kids go. I am not sure if I would call these classrooms. When I showed up at my school, I had a room full of moldy furniture, no desks, no chairs. I didn't get furniture for my classroom until a few weeks ago. And I work at one of the best public schools in the city.
Our school actually has classes and teachers. But the conditions would still make your stomach turn. I have twenty year old students in the ninth grade who can't read. I have kids that have been in jail for a variety of reasons ranging from drug charges to attempted murder charges. There is no alternative school for them to receive behavior rehabilitation so here they are with all the other kids. I pray to God everyday that none of us get hurt is this process of "rebuilding the school system". My life gets threatned on the regular basis. Luckily, it is usually not by my students since they know me. One student threatned to rape me when I told him to go to class. Another student threatned to shoot me when I told him to take his hat off in the building. There are also many fights and no recourse the teachers can take. Since we have no where to send them, we just have to hold them in our class and hope they don't hurt anyone else. I had one student in my class who got his head smashed against the chalkboard multiple times by another student. I sent both students to the office and they sent them back to me. So for the rest of the period everytime they stood up to hit each other I had to stand between them. This has been my system for dealing with violence- I have found (so far) that the students will not hit me. The only time I got hit is when one student threw a chair at another student and hit me by accident. It did knock me down but it didn't hurt that badly.
Aside from the violence, there are a million stories that rip your heart in so many ways you lose the ability to feel anything except anger over everything that has been lost. Everytime you see your kids faces, you are reminded of how many times they have been failed. I have a large number of students that are abused and I know they will never get help. The truth is there just isn't enough time or enough resources. As teachers, we are told to contact social workers. What happens when your numbers run out? How many times can you report the same horrific story, with no results? One social worker told me six to eight weeks for an investigation. That was in August. She called me Friday for a follow up but it was too late, the student had already dropped out and I don't know what happened to him since then. I have students that watched their family members drown in hurricane Katrina. I have students that make jokes about killing themselves and their classmates. I have students that live in parking lots, in FEMA trailers with no electricity, in cars next to FEMA trailers, students that sleep at bus stops because they don't want to go home. I look at them and their problems and am convinced I cannot become another failure in their life.
When I think of why, I always think of Chris, an illiterate 11th grader with a severe learning disability but no diagnosis. He comes to class everyday, takes out a pencil, and works furiously to copy down the notes. He works harder than any other student I have but when you look at his notes, they make no sense. He is writing but no one, including him, knows what he is writing. It makes me so angry that no one before now has decided to help him. How do you get to the 11th grade this far behind? Why is he in my chemistry class? How will he learn chemistry? I stay after school with him everyday to read assignments to him. He still doesn't get it. He won't graduate- at least eveyone says so. I want to help him get a GED. How do you get a GED if you can't read or write? How do you teach someone with a severe learning impairment how to read or write? Especially when you have 169 other students- 60 percent of which are special needs students (meaning they have a learning or behavior disability). I also have a good percentage of kids that are illiterate. I don't mean they form awkward sentences or make poor vocabulary sentences. I mean when you give them a test, when you ask them a question, they cannot tell you what the words mean. They cannot pronounce words like "good" or "bad" let alone "covalent bond" or "electron configuration".
It would be easy for everyone to think that these kids are all beyond help. But they are not. I have a student named Winston that was in jail last year for drug charges. Everyone warned me about how dangerous he was, because he carries a gun, sells drugs and is just an angry kid. Winston stayed after school one day for help on a test he failed and he told me I was the only teacher he ever had that wanted him to do well. Winston now is one of the best chemistry students I have. There are a hundred Winstons- if you get past the records, the probation officers, the gold teeth, the tatoos, the gang references, the sealed reputations and you can start to figure them out. But they are not all as easy as Winston and require a lot more than kindness.
I don't know what I am doing. These kids need a signficant amount of help in all areas of their life- a counselor, a social worker, a speech therapist, a friend, many times, a parent, an experienced teacher, an inspiration, a miracle. They need all of these things and yet I am none of these things. How will I get them what they need, what they deserve? How will I advocate for them without any resources? How will I will I change their life path, or even make a slight difference when I can barely keep up my health just to get out of bed everyday? But how can I live with myself if I let any of them slip? So the next question is, how do I make up for 12 years of failure in 1 year?
There is also this idea of a classroom. Generally, when you think of a classroom- you think of desks, chairs, maybe even computers, a board, soemthing to write with. This classroom is a myth. There are no desks, no chairs, no computers, no pencil sharpners, no chalk or dry-erase boards, certainly no computers. Even the bathrooms have no supplies- no toilet paper, no paper towels, no soap. So what you have is a space where kids go. I am not sure if I would call these classrooms. When I showed up at my school, I had a room full of moldy furniture, no desks, no chairs. I didn't get furniture for my classroom until a few weeks ago. And I work at one of the best public schools in the city.
Our school actually has classes and teachers. But the conditions would still make your stomach turn. I have twenty year old students in the ninth grade who can't read. I have kids that have been in jail for a variety of reasons ranging from drug charges to attempted murder charges. There is no alternative school for them to receive behavior rehabilitation so here they are with all the other kids. I pray to God everyday that none of us get hurt is this process of "rebuilding the school system". My life gets threatned on the regular basis. Luckily, it is usually not by my students since they know me. One student threatned to rape me when I told him to go to class. Another student threatned to shoot me when I told him to take his hat off in the building. There are also many fights and no recourse the teachers can take. Since we have no where to send them, we just have to hold them in our class and hope they don't hurt anyone else. I had one student in my class who got his head smashed against the chalkboard multiple times by another student. I sent both students to the office and they sent them back to me. So for the rest of the period everytime they stood up to hit each other I had to stand between them. This has been my system for dealing with violence- I have found (so far) that the students will not hit me. The only time I got hit is when one student threw a chair at another student and hit me by accident. It did knock me down but it didn't hurt that badly.
Aside from the violence, there are a million stories that rip your heart in so many ways you lose the ability to feel anything except anger over everything that has been lost. Everytime you see your kids faces, you are reminded of how many times they have been failed. I have a large number of students that are abused and I know they will never get help. The truth is there just isn't enough time or enough resources. As teachers, we are told to contact social workers. What happens when your numbers run out? How many times can you report the same horrific story, with no results? One social worker told me six to eight weeks for an investigation. That was in August. She called me Friday for a follow up but it was too late, the student had already dropped out and I don't know what happened to him since then. I have students that watched their family members drown in hurricane Katrina. I have students that make jokes about killing themselves and their classmates. I have students that live in parking lots, in FEMA trailers with no electricity, in cars next to FEMA trailers, students that sleep at bus stops because they don't want to go home. I look at them and their problems and am convinced I cannot become another failure in their life.
When I think of why, I always think of Chris, an illiterate 11th grader with a severe learning disability but no diagnosis. He comes to class everyday, takes out a pencil, and works furiously to copy down the notes. He works harder than any other student I have but when you look at his notes, they make no sense. He is writing but no one, including him, knows what he is writing. It makes me so angry that no one before now has decided to help him. How do you get to the 11th grade this far behind? Why is he in my chemistry class? How will he learn chemistry? I stay after school with him everyday to read assignments to him. He still doesn't get it. He won't graduate- at least eveyone says so. I want to help him get a GED. How do you get a GED if you can't read or write? How do you teach someone with a severe learning impairment how to read or write? Especially when you have 169 other students- 60 percent of which are special needs students (meaning they have a learning or behavior disability). I also have a good percentage of kids that are illiterate. I don't mean they form awkward sentences or make poor vocabulary sentences. I mean when you give them a test, when you ask them a question, they cannot tell you what the words mean. They cannot pronounce words like "good" or "bad" let alone "covalent bond" or "electron configuration".
It would be easy for everyone to think that these kids are all beyond help. But they are not. I have a student named Winston that was in jail last year for drug charges. Everyone warned me about how dangerous he was, because he carries a gun, sells drugs and is just an angry kid. Winston stayed after school one day for help on a test he failed and he told me I was the only teacher he ever had that wanted him to do well. Winston now is one of the best chemistry students I have. There are a hundred Winstons- if you get past the records, the probation officers, the gold teeth, the tatoos, the gang references, the sealed reputations and you can start to figure them out. But they are not all as easy as Winston and require a lot more than kindness.
I don't know what I am doing. These kids need a signficant amount of help in all areas of their life- a counselor, a social worker, a speech therapist, a friend, many times, a parent, an experienced teacher, an inspiration, a miracle. They need all of these things and yet I am none of these things. How will I get them what they need, what they deserve? How will I advocate for them without any resources? How will I will I change their life path, or even make a slight difference when I can barely keep up my health just to get out of bed everyday? But how can I live with myself if I let any of them slip? So the next question is, how do I make up for 12 years of failure in 1 year?