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Reflection & Anticipation (5/5)

Alt title: I Kept Getting Overwhelmed by the Prospect of Writing This and Now Here It Is, a Month Late, Whoops

My first idea for this article, as I outlined in early july, was The Connection Between Literacy and Social Justice -- probably my biggest takeaway from this year, and how it connects to identity and privilege and opportunity and joy -- is still too big for me to write about, and I’m not sure how to write about it as a white woman who grew up as a white girl in a Good School District, especially as someone with those identities for whom reading was always easy.

How I’m actually feeling knowing BPS schools start in a few days: I Miss My Students from Last Year a Lot and I Can’t Believe I Won’t Be There for Them, But That Is How Service Years Work I Guess

Or even: I Made (Some) Amazing Friends and Co-CM and Partner Teacher Relationships Last Year and I Can’t Believe I Have to Start Fresh: An Introvert’s Dilemma

This is supposed to be about **reflection** at all, but maybe reflection, at this delayed point, is a bit overrated. Maybe instead I will look forward!

“Forward” at the moment is starting my new part-time job as an assistant teacher at a nursery school in Boston in the room with the two-year-old kiddos! I’ve babysat/nannied infants before, two families long-term, and grew to love those little people SO much. I’d read up a little on what to do to help them learn in the time we spent together, and it mostly involved me reading them lots of books, playing music and sometimes post-election Democracy Now!, and describing all of our surroundings in great detail (“Do you see the mailbox? That’s where we get the mail. Mail. Mailbox. Mailbox. White mailbox with red flag. Mailbox. Mailbox. Can you say mailbox?” [Child, between 6 months and 18 months of age, is generally unable to say mailbox. But maybe they did one day!])

When I had my working interview at this nursery school, I didn’t expect to find so many similarities between these toddlers and my 6th graders. Three themes stood out: development of literacy, development of empathy, and the importance of classroom procedures. So I decided instead of some reflection to days of yore, I would share some of that instead!

I think that this is true for a lot of articles about kids / child development / pieces written by parents & teachers & nurturers, but warning that a lot of these seem heavy in opinion & emotional charge. Regardless... happy reading!

1. Two-year-olds aren’t terrible—they’re just learning how to be human

by Dr. Tovah Klein

Quote that stood out to me: “When we suffocate [a toddler’s] needs, or even simply overlook them, when we, unwittingly or not, try to mold our children, and shape their behavior according to some preconceived expectations of who they are and who we think they ought to be, we stamp out and smother them. We deny them the crucial foundation necessary for every child to grow up well. By getting in their way, we can inadvertently sabotage our children’s development in, we take away their ability to understand themselves, to explore the world in a way that makes sense to them and encourages their curiosity.”

2. How to compliment kids without focusing on their bodies

by Dana Suchow

It’s never too early to model positive body image and to teach children from a young age that their worth as people is entirely separate from their appearance!

Quote that stood out to me from another one of her posts, cited below: “When children hear adults speak negatively about other people’s bodies, what they end up hearing is: ‘I love you as long as you never look like that!’“

(& other posts from Dana Suchow: What to do if your child body shames themselves; Fat is not a feeling; also this one.)

3. Toddler empathy

by Emily Perlman Abedon

It seems pretty controversial whether empathy can exist in a child as young as age two; other articles I skimmed said age four or five are when it can start. But putting in some intentional effort to cultivate empathy in your child or student seems worth it whether it “works” or not.

Quote that stood out to me: “As hard as it may be to believe that empathy starts [in infancy], the foundation for compassion actually seems to be part of our biological wiring. A case in point: In baby nurseries, one infant's crying is likely to prompt others to follow suit. The sounds other humans make attract newborns, so they become distressed when they hear the wails of another person. Of course, they can't say ‘I feel for that other baby,’ but behaviorally, that's what they're doing.”

So that’s what I’ve got for now. I’m 30% anxious, 30% excited, and 40% “????!???” for this next endeavor. I hope you’re excited-ish for what comes next for you, too.

Happy September!

#nursery school #pre-k #toddlers #empathy #parenting #city year #sixth grade #toddler empathy #eating disorder prevention #ed recovery #ed prevention #dothehotpants #motherly #parents

Numbers (3/5)

((The tone is different in this one because I initially tried to write it for the CY blog, which I later realized was a terrible idea. Also, I wrote most of it at like 1 a.m. when I wanted to scream.)

City Year Corps Members (aka CMs) use data to see (in a quantitative fashion) what kind of progress they are making with their students. We call the amount of tutoring hours we get with each student dosage. We log it weekly – how much time, the setting, and the type of skills the students are using – and then have it checked over by our Team Leader. At the Boston site, we need to get 15 hours of tutoring for each individual student on our focus lists. For some people, this is quick and easy; for others, it’s slow and rather challenging. It depends on so many factors, including City Year’s role in the specific school, teacher partnerships, student attendance, student academic needs, and so much more. Some of these factors are in an CM’s control, and some aren’t.

I’m someone who’s always been drawn to numbers.

That is an understatement.

In elementary school, I tried to read the most books of anyone at my library over the summer, and I was very competitive about selling Girl Scout cookies. Over time, however, numbers became pretty toxic for me. Maybe they always were, but it didn’t hit me until I reached toward goals that were in some cases literally impossible. (I took the idea that “If you work hard enough, you can achieve ANYTHING” too literally -- and you’ll rarely hear me say it to a kid, either.)

So, more often than not, I used numbers to affirm my inadequacy in different areas of my life – no number was good enough – or to compare myself to my peers. In middle and high school, it was often about grades, down to the specific percentage point. In high school and college, I also became drawn to the numbers about body size, such as clothing size and calories consumed. Over the past two years, I’ve worked super hard to care less about these numbers and see myself and the people around me more holistically, through more complex and genuine means.

It took a few weeks for me to realize that my dosage minutes had crept in to my mind as a new source for comparison and failure. Each week, if I logged fewer tutoring minutes with my students than the other CMs on my team (aka, every week), I would feel a surge of failure. I would allow it to negate the strides my students have made in other areas, the relationships we’ve built together, and the successes I’ve had in other parts of my role at my school. Unsurprisingly, this quickly became draining and discouraging...

This is now a choose your own adventure!! Here is my “right ending”. & Here is my real ending.

ALT ENDING #1

After realizing this, I worked with my team leader to set new goals and found creative ways to incorporate dosage into a packed day at school. But I also had to realize that not every week is created equal, and some would always be more successful than others. Sometimes there are snow days, or kids get the flu, or move to Florida, or get switched into a different homeroom. Sometimes I’m too distracted with other things, or my support is needed in a different way in the classroom. I’m learning that, as long as I’m trying my best for my kids, my efforts are valid. Data is vital for effective service, but it’s not the only important way to measure a year in a classroom.

ALT ENDING #2

My team leader was incredibly helpful with this stuff, as a human and a leadership-person (...but way more so as an empathetic human!) Yes, I had to realize how much was in my control (...VERY LITTLE.) It was most important to reinforce to myself (as those closest to me reminded me often) that being a part of a large organization that works with a huge public school system with funders and functions in many ways (not like literally of course but in many ways!) as a corporation in my experience needs this data!!! But that doesn’t mean I have very much to do with it -- when it comes to that part I am one tiny tiny part barely keeping the wheels of the behemoth of something as big as CY turning! These numbers don’t have too much to do with me -- red green yellow systems on paper (which I’d made for myself SO many times in the past for personal goal setting) would always be out to get me! I knew better than to let some other system take me down -- me staying afloat and keeping my students and co-worker/pals afloat was a MILLION times more important. I would do what I had to do, and do it well, simultaneously disconnecting myself from the emotion of the numbers and re-connecting myself to the emotion behind the relationships I was forming and growing.

FIN:

Knowing that working in the ed field in the future will always involve more numbers and comparison is a little scary. Test scores, teacher ratings, observations, enrollment, money... it will continue. It will continue to affect my success and how people see me. But it can only affect how I see myself, holistically, as much as I let it.

art via Christie B on insta

#ed recovery #mental health #city year #service year #data #public schools #support public education #meandmyed #christie begnell #art therapy

Check In, Check Out (2/5)

Part 2/2

I have always loved having a project to do. Paid, unpaid, creative, assigned by me, assigned by a job... It makes me feel purposeful. I didn’t exactly mean to abandon this specific project, but I was feeling kind of stuck on everything I was doing for a while there. Even the way that I’m typing and how my words sound read back feels a little alien to me.

Regardless, here I am with the rest of this post about my “check out” words for my City Year experience! I wrote them a day or two after finishing City Year. Distance (geographical, situational, chronological) has been disconnecting a bit, so I’m glad Past Alexa did that! And hopefully future Alexa will get herself together enough to log a few more reflections before they fade away.

So...

City Year was a lot. Here is how I felt in my last few days in school:

1. Depleted

I tried my best to come to school with energy each day. I wasn’t necessarily exhausted, but I felt pretty empty. I felt myself not handling situations exactly how I wanted to because my wells had simply run dry. It’s one of those self-care tips to “fill your own cup first to help others” and all, but it had simply stopped working. Going to bed early, venting, using coping mechanisms... There was literally nothing left.

I also think that’s why I’m struggling a bit this summer. I really need structure in order to succeed, and CY + my basic personal needs + my school’s needs provided that to a fault. Making my own structure has worked for me in the past, but I think that lingering depleted feeling has slowed me down. I’ve procrastinated -- which is honestly pretty foreign to me in all my years of education. The other day I took a nap - a nap!!! - after working for just 3 hours with extremely well-behaved children and I wondered who the heck I had become. I could handle 11 hours of rarely behaving children just a month ago! It’s hard for me to forgive myself for this adjustment, and for being way less hardworking than usual, but I think it’s ok, too.

City Year really wants us to have closure with the kids, sealing our relationships with them and their school behind us. I wondered if this overwhelming vacancy was intentional on the organization’s part; it probably isn’t, but it’s more than a coincidence. Throughout the year, there were many evenings when I didn’t know how I could bring my best self in the morning, but I almost always dragged some version of her in. But this time, she was genuinely gone.

And it wasn’t just the students! The few adults in and out of CY who I hadn’t meshed well with over the year suddenly became intolerable. I think I could have resumed decent relationships with most of them if we’d had a long enough break -- but we hadn’t!

2. Motivated

My leadership and the teachers were good at reminding us that new qualified people would come to take our places in different capacities next year. I’m fully aware that a lot of what I did with the kids wasn’t incredibly unique; in most situations, next year someone else can help N with translating word problems and make sure that ELA teachers know how much E struggles with spelling.

Most of the time, I was able to spin this for myself into a reminder that I’m going back to school to learn how to, well, actually be trained and qualified in how to help so many more students with more intention and skill. When I learn about special education legislation, I’ll have better ability to advocate for students and help them advocate for themselves. Taking a class about English Language Learners will help me develop intentional strategies for helping students learning English rather than just us trying a million ideas and hoping one of them sticks. Reflecting on the little bits of progress I made with a few kids I was close with was an excellent motivator for how much better prepared I’ll be to help more kids in the future.

3. Loved

This one’s the most confusing to talk about. My experience was truly an actual hell for a lot of this year. But it was rife with contradictions -- it was also a joyous + heartbreaking + empowering + everything year! Because I genuinely love many people I met this year and I know some of them love me. (I don’t use “love” lightly! I mean it!)

I have never received so much affection in one day. The teacher I’m closest with threw a “surprise going-away party” (they are not good secret keepers) with some of the students I worked the most with. Another wonderful teacher had students share their favorite memories and write us notes and adjectives about us.

Yes, I wrote 38 thank you notes, I got some gifts for people, I made little keychains for my homeroom, got some used books too. It wasn’t martyrly or for reciprocation -- I enjoyed it, and it was rewarding to show my appreciation. But never once in my life have I felt so appreciated back. There were so many genuine hugs. I felt so much love for everyone. It made me so sure I will find more ways to be a part of my school’s community. It confirmed what was re-confirmed for me by different instances almost daily: my goodness, our students give us so much more than we could ever give them.

Thank you for reading! Btw, my new schedule is a new post every Thursday! :)

#city year #depleted #motivation #teacher #future teacher #kiki's delivery service #kiki #service year #cy #boston #blog post #spilled ink

Check In, Check Out (1/5)

Part 1/2

City Year culture is a chimera of routines, phrases, hand gestures, physical movements, and mini- and non-denominational rituals that become very quickly incorporated into a corps member’s life. I loved some — I’m a girl who loves routine if nothing else sometimes — and quietly refused to partake in others.

One that I found genuinely valuable was, when the team was gathered in its typical standing circle, having each person “check in” with a word. It’s kind of weird to be strongly encouraged to check in with yourself in this tight circle with a whole group of people, at least one of whom you probably would like some distance from at the given moment.

(There are fewer circles in this picture than circles you will do during a CY service year)

I’m also really bad at doing things casually. I haven’t ever figured out how to not dive to the emotional depths when answering a “check-in-with-yourself,” even when I’m limited to one word; I’m ready for a full 45-minute therapy spill after. I probably used “overwhelmed” the most during these group check-ins this year, followed by everything from “hype” to “hungry.”

I used this strategy frequently in my mind during my last few weeks of service, and found my friends and I using it in conversation as well. It’s not a surprise that “overwhelmed” was a governing word, especially because it’s one of the best words we’ve got for capturing two or more emotions that don’t sit well together.

I’ll be posting about my three words later this week, because I have a feeling they’ll be coming up for as long as I’m working on a team and/or with children and/or in a school… which I think will be a while. In the meantime, I’d encourage you to check in with yourself – especially if it sounds like a crazy-person thing to do for your lifestyle.

Embrace that discomfort*, and keep on moving.

(*I’m biased because that’s been the mood of my last few years, though, and I’ve got no end in sight yet!)

#circles #service year #embrace discomfort

One Year Later

On Friday, I completed a service year with City Year Boston. I told myself I’d write a lot more during this year, but it got complicated quickly. There are the issues of what opinions we can express while “in uniform” (including online), what views I want to express as a journalism undergrad and now a future teacher, and even what parts of me I want to express when it comes to working in the education field/with kids.

But one of the biggest things i’ve learned this year is that I can’t parse myself into smaller simpler parts, especially in a work environment where I’m giving all of myself, for much more than average work hours and much less than minimum age, where vulnerability and identity work (...but not too much of either) are encouraged. There’s the ever-changing boundary of professionalism, and the more constant boundaries of self-preservation. Mostly, there’s just trying to say the right thing in the right situation.

So, I decided that I will be writing and posting five blog posts about my past year in 6th grade between now and the end of June. Let me know what you think!

#mat #masters of arts in teaching #elementary ed #service year

An Interview with My First Grade Teacher

For my final blog post, I did an interview to one of my first favorite teachers: Becky Donofrio (at the time, Ms. Liker!) at PQ Elementary School. First grade really stands out to me because, for whatever reason, I made a lot of friends that stuck this year and with whom I still talk to on a daily basis.

I reconnected with Mrs. Donofrio via Facebook because a friend’s daughter had her for kindergarten this year. This, of course, sounds impossible, as I completely remember my friend’s pregnancy (it, like, JUST happened) and I was also pretty much just at PQ myself.

In actuality, though, it has been a few years. I’m so glad we reconnected, and thank you, Mrs. Donofrio, for taking the time to answer my questions!

First grade class pic -- 2001-2002 -- I’m the one in the middle row all the way on the right

Do you remember what initially inspired you to become a teacher?

I always dreamed of becoming a teacher! I remember creating pretend tests and homework assignments for my dolls when I was 5.

I loved (and still do!) working with children. My parents tell people that I was born a teacher. I took on that role with my younger sisters.

I was required to do a student teaching when I began my graduate work at The University of Massachusetts. I worked in a small suburban school west of Boston. My mentor really ignited that spark that I always had . I learned how to engage students in learning in such an innovative and exciting way. It was so much more than instruction. My work with my mentor was so inspiring and moving. It was my "aha" moment.....that moment that really confirmed my love of teaching. It also gave me new perspectives on what an effective teacher does to meet the needs of all her (or his!) learners.

More than 50 percent of teachers leave teaching altogether by their fifth year. You’ve been teaching for almost 20 years. What factors do you connect with your retention in the field?

It's surprising to hear that such a high percentage of teachers leave teaching. It's such a rewarding profession and one that is very accommodating to people raising their own families.

It's very rewarding to watch students grow and learn. I love the level of enthusiasm that young learners have.

This has kept my love of teaching strong and growing.

I also think that having the summers to reboot makes the beginning of a new school year exciting......it's like new adventure.

I was in your class from 2001-2002. Do you see generational differences in your current class and the kids you taught at the beginning of your career?

Absolutely. Unfortunately some of the changes I see are not so positive.

This is the generation of technology babies.

Children are on tablets and other forms of technology too much and this has affected their ability to focus, problem solve, persevere and socialize. Children today have a lot more difficulty stimulating themselves when bored.

We have seen a huge increase in behavioral issues and difficulties establishing effective learning behaviors.

Has having kids of your own impacted your experience as a teacher?

YES!

I am maternal by nature but I look at children from a parent's perspective now as well.

My second child has autism. His disability and the need to advocate for him has made me a stronger person and a better teacher. I have such a toolbox of strategies that I use with my son and I bring into the classroom everyday.

What advice would you give someone who is planning to become a classroom teacher in the next few years (like myself)?

Get a dual certificate in Special Education and General Education. A teacher with an understanding and knowledge of students of different abilities is an amazing thing! It's important to know ways to engage and support students with a variety of learning disabilities in any classroom setting.

Read Making Thinking Visible by Ron Richhart, An amazing resource! This book changed my teaching!

Become familiar with the PBIS model (Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies)

Make a point of getting to know each of your students on a personal level. Know their favorites, their hopes, their dreams, their fears.

#first grade

Review: “Omarina’s Story”

I recently watched the 2014 short PBS documentary “Omarina’s Story” to learn more about students at risk of dropping out of high school. My public school district was a place of relative privilege in regard to such issues; dropping out was almost unheard of, and almost every student (from what I recall, about 95 percent my year) goes on to higher education in some form.

This is not the case in many schools across the country, one of which was Omarina Cabrera’s middle school — yep, middle school. This doc expands on a shorter one about the “middle school moment,” a term coined by research professor Robert Balfanz. By crossing 40 different variables about students’ lives and academic performances, he learned that an intervention in middle school is the best way to prevent future dropping out; by sixth grade, all the signs are already present. He explains in the film that if a student is in a high poverty school, absent more than 20 percent of the time, and has failed a core class (such as math or English), there’s a 75 percent chance they’ll drop out of high school.

Although these statistics are harrowing, there’s also hope. Teachers and counselors have access to all of this information about their students, but what matters is what they do with it.

Omarina’s middle school, Middle School 244 in the Bronx, NY, piloted this early intervention program. When she was in middle school, she met all of this criteria, and her grades were dropping rapidly because of a very stressful home life where her single mother was rarely present and she had recently been evicted. Omarina is a poster child for the potential turnaround a student could have if met with caring professionals. Her homeroom teacher, Ms. Miller, also served as a counselor. Because she was unsafe at home and her grades skyrocketed with support, she was encouraged to apply to highly competitive high schools throughout the city and country. After getting into nine of these schools, she decided to go to the Brooks School, a prestigious day and boarding high school in North Andover, Massachusetts.

Her twin brother, Omarlin, serves as a foil. His mother had him move in with relatives in middle school to get away from their unsafe neighborhood. He got involved with “the streets,” as he refers to them, in seventh grade. The film takes place during Omarina’s sophomore year which is Omarlin’s freshman year. He was recently shot, but is recovering well. He has been arrested twice and has been in school only five days of the academic year, and has loose plans to drop out soon.

Omarina’s story is incredible, and the film recognizes her resilience and intelligence. However, it also leaves out major aspects of her life. They talk about the roles of teachers and mentors, but never mentions friendships, which makes me wonder if she was struggling socially in middle school. She speaks briefly about having trouble making connections in her high school because of her classmates’ ignorance. Peers are obviously just as important as teachers and counselors in a student’s transition to a completely alien school system.

The film also in many ways fails to extrapolate Omarina’s story into one of larger social issues. Race and gender are never mentioned, although they are central to her identity. The film also focuses on Omarina significantly more than Omarlin. It is, of course, her story, but as she becomes more successful, attention veers away from her foil.

I left the film wanting to see more about the culture shock of Omarina’s transition, her peers at the Brooks School, and students for whom the intervention may not have been as picture-perfect. “Omarina’s Story” was moving and inspiring, and it also left me with many more questions for the filmmakers and the subject herself.

#pbs #frontline #omarina #omarina cabrera

Brand-new private college graduates teach the children of our highest-need schools. They are primarily white and middle class and/or have traditionally white and middle class values. They are driven by a desire to help others, but not necessarily a desire to teach.

If, for whatever reason, you’ve become dedicated to this publication, click below for my midterm paper for my independent study on education journalism!

#chris emdin #christopher emdin #for white folks who teach in the hood #cogenerative dialogues #cogens #tfa #teach for america #public ed #city year #americorps #jacobin #edjourn #npr

Girls, “Gifts,” and (Not) Giving Up

A former teacher reminded me of the KQED blog this morning, an education blog based in California, with an article about gender (a topic about which we are both passionate): “Why Socializing Girls to Be Perfect Could Be the Worst Thing For Them.” It’s something I identified with strongly, not in my current life (thank god), but in my past; it’s a topic I often discussed with her when I was still honest-to-god trying to be “perfect” (at least academically) throughout high school, finally letting go of the pursuit around the winter of my senior year. Thinking that I once thought I was just one Tantalus-apple away from perfection is laughable now, but I certainly wasn’t laughing then (at pretty much anything, by the way; it’s not fun to be around a 15-year-old who’s barely giving herself room to grow).

The pursuit of perfection sounds ego-driven, and it is a little, but most of my peers who were fruitlessly grasping at those accolades with me were feeling pretty low when it came to self-esteem and satisfaction. Trying to be perfect means that every error is a failure — and since every day comes with more error — it’s a process where you find yourself torn down every day instead of riding the waves of small and big successes and failures. Trying to be good (a good friend, person, and student) is a much nobler pursuit, and one that I’ve learned is worth your time.

Searching terms like “gender” and “girls and math” on the KQED blog brought to my attention that my story isn’t anecdotal, but symptomatic of educational research. The Mindshift post cited above focuses on a TED Talk by Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani. In the talk, she explains the binary through which girls see their success: “‘Instead of showing the progress she made she’d rather show nothing,’” Saujani said. That’s the mentality she believes educators and parents must fight against. Because if we can teach young girls to be brave, not perfect, they will add their intellect, compassion and empathy to solving the world’s big problems.” Letting go of some always-elusive perfection is the first step toward that bravery. When I look back, I can’t believe I sacrificed my love of learning for slightly higher grades, because you’re not learning much if you’re restricting calories, limiting sleep, and studying over time spent with family or friends. That’s not brave at all.

Progress is a huge part of education, and one of the things I’ve tried to instill in kids most; you don’t jump from 0 to 100 in anything you do, math included. This is my attempt at a witty transition to show the topic that, somehow, we’re still discussing: girls and math.

In “Giving Good Praise to Girls: What Messages Stick,” writer Katrina Schwartz discusses how the belief that intelligence is a “gift” rather than a process is harmful for everyone, but, based on the research of Carol Dweck, most harmful for girls. “… For many boys, believing math is a fixed ability doesn’t hamper achievement — they just assume they have it, Dweck said.” Girls, on the other hand, do not. They tend to connect praise that they are good at one thing to mean that they can never fail at it (sound familiar?) or if they struggle once, they’ve peaked, and that talent has faded as fast as it came. (That’s one reason why a nonprofit math magnet school was so worried about finding girls to admit before they are taken by the so-called confidence drop that comes with puberty as well. (Sidenote: yes, that link is from Always, maker of sanitary pads, but they also do some pretty interesting studies about young women!))

Schwartz elaborates: “Dweck’s research, which focuses on what makes people seek challenging tasks, persist through difficulty and do well over time, has shown that many girls believe their abilities are fixed, that individuals are born with gifts and can’t change. Her research finds that when girls think this way, they often give up, rather than persisting through difficulties.”

Going through life thinking that you have fixed abilities that can escape you and waiting for external affirmation from coaches, teachers, and parents isn’t going to serve you well. Putting your image in the hands of someone else is incredibly dangerous — and since most girls are already struggling with their body image around that time, keeping how they feel about their minds intact (though it’s all related) is even more crucial. I’ve learned that my role, as a peer to still young women and a writing instructor/babysitter/big sister to much younger ones, is to show grit, persistence, and process in the progress over any sort of innate ability. But you do have innate passions, and the people who succeed at what they love are the ones who have worked the hardest and who have failed, with and without the safety nets that come with certain identities and privileges.

Perfect mentors don’t do much for any of us; to cite my two favorite NBC comedies, Jack Donaghy and Ron Swanson can dole out advice while sipping whiskey for days, but it’s Liz and Leslie seeing their mistakes and how they’ve learned from them that allows both parties to grow. But the few women who have been generous with their time and stories to share their past struggles with me are on the shortlist of people who have transformed my life. I can’t wait to be one of the women on the mentor-end of that; for me that’s the epitome of giving back. Being open, vulnerable, and relatable to the young people you’re around — especially if you’re a young woman and they’re young women too — that’s something that sticks.

#carol dweck #kqed #education #ed journ #30 rock #parks and rec #feminism #gender #girls and math #math #girls who code

Death at an Early Age, part 1: Acknowledging One’s Prejudice

Had I read Death at an Early Age a few years ago, my central feeling would have been something along the lines of “Thank God this shit doesn’t happen anymore.” The book, written by Jonathan Kozol in 1967 about his year teaching in a low-income Boston school, is called on its cover “the classic indictment of inner-city education.” Even this is a euphemism Kozol, at the time a young white man, wouldn’t stand for; he is aware of the intersections between race and poverty that make his school what it is. Now, however, I can read it knowing that shit like this still happens in our schools every day.

In the first few chapters (all I’ve read so far), Kozol talks about the dismal state of his school building and how that, and many other factors, inhibit his students from getting the resources they need. One girl is brilliant and would be invited to one of the specialized schools was she not black; another student with special needs is deemed too slow at learning even for the remedial class and is thrown back into the chaos of his general classroom; and Kozol’s “classroom” is a corner of an auditorium shared with another class and various rotating groups of students, an arrangement which stops every child from being able to hear what he our their classmates are saying. But what struck me most was his acute understanding of his fellow white teachers.

Kozol isn’t shocked by the bigotry of the teachers who call their black students (most of the school’s population) racial slurs. He knows that some teachers — especially male teachers, he notes — find a sadist pleasure in the school-condoned corporal punishment. But he is overwhelmed by who he calls the Reading Teacher, the one woman who claims not to see race, to be better than all the other racist professionals in the building. He recounts an incident where she mentions the unhappiness of Roger, one of the only white children in the class, who sits behind Stephen, a student who they both know is physically abused both at school and at home.

“I listened to her and thought about what she was saying. She said, ‘I do not see white or black.’ But I felt really she saw white much more clearly than she saw black. She saw the quiet and unhappy little white boy. She did not see Stephen before him, his hands all welted and his face all scarred with scabs” (p. 21).

After taking courses particularly in the education department at Ithaca College, I know how ineffective — how ignorant — colorblind teaching can be. Take this example from The Atlantic about rates of pre-school suspension: “Black children accounted for 18 percent of preschool enrollment but almost half (48 percent) of the children suspended more than once; in contrast, white children were 43 percent of preschoolers, but only 26 percent were subjected to repeated suspensions.”

It’s sobering but vital to understand that colorblindness both in the resources and discipline provided to our students today can be impacted how we, as future/current educators, view race. It means examining implicit biases. It means patting yourself on the back for not being as racist as the other white teachers isn’t just not enough: it’s not okay at all. It’s abominable.

I, like many young teachers, am graduating from a liberal arts institution to spend my next year in an urban public school, in fact a Boston school, just like Kozol. I carry with me a lifetime of white privilege and ignorance that I have only just begun to unpack.

When his colleague pronounces, “‘Others may be prejudiced. I know that I am not…” Kozol responds, mentally, the way that I know I must out loud, even when it scares me: “I said, I also was convinced that I was prejudiced at a level of depth, and in a manner hardened over so many years, that some level of that prejudice would always be within me” (p. 20).

And it doesn’t make someone more prejudiced to acknowledge that truth. I’m grateful to be reading this book now, before my own experiences in urban education, to remind me to examine my privilege and call out my white colleagues, even if my voice shakes.

#the atlantic #white privilege #jonathan kozol #death at an early age #public education #education reform #boston #bps #racism

From the Ground Up

Reading the beginning of Diane Ravitch’s Reign of Error over the last two weeks has been almost eerie. The first few chapters of the 2013 book are about topics cycling in this month’s news cycle: the business interests of many education “reformers,” why to be wary of calls for school privatization, and how statistics about America’s public school students are often mangled and misinterpreted by both journalists and news media. Sound familiar? The “reformers” sound a little bit like someone many of us are trying to keep out of the presidential administration too: “‘Reform’ is really a misnomer, because the advocates for this cause seek not to reform public education but to transform it into an entrepreneurial sector of the economy” (p. 19).

For this post, I’ll focus on reformers’ goal of “closing the achievement gap.” That’s because that goal is, hypothetically, awesome. Not just education reformers (corporate reformers, as Ravitch calls them) want to close that gap, but so do most elected officials and pretty much every educator that I know, at least.

However, as those who work with children also know, the “achievement gap” doesn’t start when a kid walks into kindergarten. For years before that, different children in that same class had different access to healthy food, a stable living environment, educated adults in their family, and different enrichment activities. Most of the time, racial and/or class disparity accounts for the varied access.

And yes, there’s still an achievement gap -- but as Ravitch enumerates, the gap has gotten slightly smaller since the new millennium, instead of bursting as the media might imply. According to Ravitch, between 2002 and 2011, the reading gap between white and black students went from 30 points to 25 points, and the math gap from 31 to 25 points (p. 58). There is ample room for improvement, but this also demonstrates that the “achievement gap” can’t be used as proof that our public schools are failing. Statistically, it’s one thing that’s going well.

Systemic classism and racism, Ravitch continues, can’t be fixed by one well-meaning teacher or even a whole determined district. But it can be helped by better resourced community institutions. She paraphrases Thomas B. Timar from the University of California: “What’s missing from reform, he says, is an appreciation for the value of local and regional efforts, the small-scale programs that rely on local initiative for implementation. Without local initiative, reform cannot succeed” (p. 60).

Top-down policy is seldom effective. And I can’t imagine it leading to community success: How could we expect it to work in local public education, where we’re building our kids (and our communities) from the ground up?

(Photo by me @ the Women’s March on Ithaca)

#education reform #support public education #betsy devos #diane ravitch

Betsy DeVos and Privatization

Every public school teacher I’m Facebook friends with has posted negatively about now-President Trump’s potential appointment as Secretary of Education. As a probable public educator myself, I was concerned. And after a bit of research, I was on the same page as the rest of them: Betsy DeVos is not a fitting choice for the Secretary of Education. In fact, she may be the opposite.

According to the Huffington Post in 2013, nine out of 10 children in the U.S. attend public schools, and the rate of kids attending private schools, especially parochial schools, is declining. DeVos’s experience in education does not reflect this trend: “She has neither worked in public education nor chosen public schools for her own children, who attended private Christian schools,” wrote Philissa Kramer for Chalkbeat, an independent education news site. In Michigan, she promoted school vouchers to provide school choice to poor and middle class families, essentially pulling public funding to be paid to private schools. Trump’s campaign implies that he would allow school vouchers for only the lowest income bracket. Trump is also pro-charter school. Charter schools are typically “publicly funded, but privately managed,” but DeVos is more wary about whether they would be successful. DeVos and her husband, a former candidate for Michigan governor, do, however, support the decreased regulation of charter schools. Additionally, although Trump criticized the Common Core, but DeVos may be for it: “...Some of her ties would suggest that she supports the effort to raise and standardize expectations of what students should learn in each grade. She’s on the board of Foundation for Excellence in Education, the group that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush founded to promote school choice and the Common Core,” wrote Cramer.

DeVos and her family may have sketchy business ties as well, a reported reason to her delayed confirmation vote as Secretary of State as announced Jan. 23, 2017. The initial confirmation vote was today, Jan. 24, and has been moved to Jan. 31. However, many Democratic senators have also asked for a second confirmation hearing, according to the Washington Post.

Amy Goodman talked to independent journalist Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now! about DeVos’s family ties this morning. DeVos’s brother, Eric Prince, founded Blackwater, a private company that trains mercenary soldiers, in 1997. His efforts were made infamous by Scahill’s 2007 book of the same name. Scahill told Goodman: “So, the connection between Erik Prince and Betsy DeVos within the context of the Trump administration is that Betsy wants to do for schools what Erik wants to do for the military and the CIA, which is to privatize them and deploy them in an effort to bring the, quote-unquote, "kingdom of God" to the United States and, ultimately, to the world.” Additionally, Betsy DeVos is married to Dick DeVos, a billionaire at the helm of Amway, a beauty and health franchise. According to Chalkbeat, Dick DeVos also runs an aviation-related charter school in Michigan.

With all these elements in play, I’d certainly have co-signed that letter asking for a second confirmation hearing for DeVos before she has her vote. Here’s hoping we get it.

UPDATE: While I was writing this, it was determined that there will not be a second confirmation hearing for DeVos in the senate.

Photo from CNN

#betsy devos #charter schools #trump cabinet #eric prince #blackwater #jeremy scahill #amy goodman #chalkbeat #democracy now!

Hello! Thanks for visiting! Content coming soon -- but in the meantime, enjoy this picture of my best friend Cate and I as nursery school BFFs! (Before I start writing about little ones, here’s credibile proof that I was one once.)

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