August 17th in a Series of Short Letters

1.

Dear Ants -

I am deeply sorry for having disturbed your colony when I tried to pour myself a bowl of cereal this morning. It was terribly inconsiderate of me, especially the part where I unceremoniously dumped half a box of delicious cereal into the trash. Or the part where I cold-bloodedly drowned you in the sink to clean your swarming black bodies off the white porcelain bowl. Next time I will try to be more careful.

Yours, Heather

2.

Dear eSchoolMall -

It would be really, really stellar if you would actually load pages when buttons are clicked. I know this may be a hard concept - especially because there are SO many buttons and options on your site, but it would still be excellent if loading one did not require 40 minutes and 4 restarts to get it done. Thanks for your help in the future.

Sincerely, Heather

3.

Dear Donors' Choose -

I love you. I really do. But I am highly and deeply disappointed that you do not allow teachers to get newspaper subscriptions or have a better selection of news and current events supplies for high schoolers. I was again saddened when googling a document camera generated higher quality for lower price than I could find from your vendors. We need to do better.

Just some things to think about. - Heather

4.

Dear Counter and Floor Contractor -

I am so, so glad that you are so, so good at doing you job. I mean you really can't do better than delaying my move in four separate times, for a total of essentially a month late and have the floors still not be laid. Seriously, great job. I am just about speechless.

But really - could you please stop fucking me? I kinda want a place to live. That's all. Before I started my new job would have been nice, but at this point, could we just shoot for before my students turn up in my classroom? I'd actually appreciate that.

Get it done, already! - Heather

Ball: Rolling

Remember all that nervous energy from the last post? It's getting under control. How you ask? I have a long term plan that I borrowed and adapted; I have seven objectives written for my first unit; and almost without thinking about it, I'm getting the bones of my management plan worked out. Booyah, nervous energy, booyah.

Along with school stuff, life stuff is also coming together - Boyfriend and I got most of our furniture moved this weekend, many boxes into the house (if not unpacked) and the carpeters should be there RIGHT NOW laying down new carpet and tile. As soon as they're done, we'll be official! So so so so EXCITED! And totally ready to be in my own home again after two months of couch surfing. Once we get unpacked and decorated, I'll post some pictures.

And, choir starts in two weeks. I. Love. Fall.

Well... I'm off to move things into my classroom. Look for a first unit plan in a few more days!

Year Three Begins Now.

I am nearly overwhelmed with self-consciousness. I feel like I should be calm and confident going into my third year of teaching, but instead I'm more nervous than ever. I don't feel as though I was as successful as I should have been during the last year. I'm changing settings - moving to traditional HS, and teaching a course I'm less comfortable with (World History instead of 8th grade U.S. or Civics and Econ). I need new management strategies, I need new lesson plans, I need a revised long-term plan... So much to do.

What I know about my classes so far is that they will be around 15 to 18 students, and one period is honors level. When I asked what that means, all I was told was to use more primary sources. Thanks.

I really wish I was still getting support from TFA, but that is not the case. My two years are done and I'm cut off. I understand why they do this - Program Directors have SO much on their plates already (especially this year, as they take on greater community engagement responsibilities), and it would be very difficult to have them continue in a mentorship role with "graduated" corps members. So as my old roommate would say, it's time to put on the big girl panties and do it on my own.

Old mantras are also helpful - beg, borrow and steal. Going to tap as many resources as possible. I know I have plenty for curriculum and assessment, and I'm reading a lot about management this summer.

In other news, I've got two more weeks until I move to my new house. I'm moving to the halfway point between "civilization" (read: choir, restaurants, movie theatre, coffee shops, mall) and school. It's a bit farther than I wanted to drive to school, but got an unbeatable deal on rent at this house, which should compensate for the gas.

If I stayed a 3rd year, I had originally wanted to work on a lot of community building within the school - sponsoring clubs (and encouraging other staff to as well), advocate for student activities and school spirit initiatives, that sort of thing. Not knowing if I was going to be here or not for most of the summer very much delayed that planning however. I'm hoping that myself, another 3rd year and any other TFA teachers who want to help can still do something though. Our kids need something to look forward to. A reason to care about BC Schools - especially the high schoolers. I would have quit school too, if there was nothing but sub-par classes to look forward to as well.

Right now I need to get back to my long-term plan draft. Time to plan some units!!

Nine days and counting.

I'm still reading And the Band Played On. Two of the heros have been diagnosed with AIDS by the fall of 1984 and people are beginning to talk about deaths in the tens of thousands. Scientists are fighting about glory and news media is still ignoring the epidemic. I've still got around 200 pages to go. I am so impressed with how Randy Shilts has gotten me so emotionally involved. When Harvey Milk associate and one of the men responsible for whatever AIDS research and education funding did make it through the Reagan administration was diagnosed with Kaposi's Sarcoma (an early stage AIDS infection), I almost started crying. That's how emotionally involved I've become. Kudos to Mr. Shilts. It's too bad we don't have any time machines perfected yet. I would love to take some of this back to researchers and government officials of the 1980s. See if we couldn't save some lives.

Closer to home and in the present day, We're up to about 15 students at school - 5 middle school and the rest high school. I teach 8 of them - 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade World History and 10th grade Civics and Economics. About three weeks into January, HS courses will switch as the semester turns. I'll be adding 11th grade U.S. History to the repertoire at that point. Planning for four courses has been extremely taxing and I struggle to feel that I am making a difference each and everyday. So many days I feel like I'm not really addressing my students learning needs and more like I'm just covering content. I hate it. But there is nothing I can do to change it, so, just like everyone else, I keep trying to do the best I can with what I've got. I'm much more at peace with this today than I was this time last week and probably where I'll be again in mid-January, but it's so close to Christmas break right now and I feel like I can almost make it there - hence the peace.

Some exciting things are happening though. My World History student, who I taught last year, is definitely more aware of the world and trying to pay attention to things happening. He's gotten really interested in Africa - especially the Somali pirates recently. It's funny, because one day he'll make me look up some current event he heard about to get more information, and then the next day he'll be trying to convince me that a bunch of famous African Americans (mostly rap stars and basketball players) are part of some satanic cult. So we're more aware, now we just need to be able to weed out the falsehoods. Also, my Civics student got a 70% on an online exam. The site is managed by NC State University and is designed to simulate the end-of-course tests. I know 70% might not sound all that good, but usually on exams from this site students in my district average 40-60%. Just a couple of the positives from the recent days.

Keep your fingers crossed that the Midwest recovers from Snowpocalypse II before I need to fly for the holidays!

History is for the Victors

This past Veteran's day I watched the film version of the stage "play" The People Speak (it's not really a traditional play, more reminicent ofThe Vagina Monologues). The People Speak is based on Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and tries to emphasize the idea that history as we know it is incomplete, and necessary change does not come from those in power, but is caused by those who dissent. The film is pretty traditional in its analysis, addressing African slavery and civil rights, Women's rights and liberation, and the various peace movements in U.S. history, in that order. African American women make a short aside at the end of the section on women, and a short piece on the working poor and the struggle for economic justice slides in just before the peace movements. Various dissenters are voiced by an INCREDIBLE cast of Hollywood greats (some of whom are pictured below right), and music breaks in the form of slave spirituals, Dylan songs, and others are included.

I found this film incredibly moving and inspirational. I almost kept it, thinking I'd pay the lost disc fee rather than return it to Netflix, that's how much I liked it. It included the stories of people like Harvey Milk, Cesar Chavez, John Brown, Sojourner Truth, and Emma Goldman. It seemed to suggest that we need to take control of our democracy, else we end up like those described by Langston Hughes in his poem, "Waitin' on Roosevelt." And I briefly felt rather self-satisfied when I thought about how many of the people included in Zinn's play are also included in my social studies curriculum.

But I was also somewhat disappointed by the lack of Native American voices in the project - only words from one Chief were included. Dissenters like Alice Paul (seen left) and advocates like Doris Day were left out of this account of the movers and shakers of American history (and these are only two of the people I thought of while watching the film). Even when purporting to represent the unrepresented, history is still for the victors.

While The People Speak examines those times when our democracy has been goaded into action, I also spent Veteran's Day reading a tome about a time when it staunchly refused to intervene to save millions of lives. I was first introduced to Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On last spring because a friend's girlfriend was reading it during her visit. H. insisted it was one of the best books she had ever read and she was floored by the amount of denial and inaction among the people and our government during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Along with detailing the events and efforts of the epidemic, Shilts also impeccably portrays the emotions involved: There is the desperation of the first victims who slogged through infection after infection with no answers or help from their doctors; there is the mourning and sadness of the lovers and friends left behind when those victims died; there is the frustration of doctors, researchers and congressional aides as the government and its agencies refuse funding even as the death toll rises; and there is the readers' own sense of impending dread because you know where this all leads and how it all ends.

The book is peopled with an extensive cast of characters (Shilts actually includes a Dramatis Personae at the beginning of the book to help you keep them all straight), some of whom were not new to me, like Cleve Jones (at left; real Cleve is on the left, with the actor who played him in the film Milk), one of the activists who worked with Harvey Milk in San Francisco, or President Reagan, who is mentioned repeatedly due to his spending cuts that further strangled the few groups trying to research AIDS. But most of the players are new, like Dr. James Curran who lead the CDC task force that followed AIDS when it was GRID and before it was even named, Bill Kraus, a congressional aide who started working on AIDS in San Francisco before moving to D.C. and helping secure the first federal funding specifically for AIDS research, and a whole host of doctors and public health in the U.S. and abroad who risked and sometimes sacrificed their careers to help treat and research AIDS and provide necessary services to its victims during the early 1980s.

And H. was absolutely correct. It is difficult, if not impossible, to not be struck by the incredible lack of action as the AIDS crisis is breaking. All those involved in following it agree there is an epidemic and agree that its probably an infectious agent spreading it, but no one heeds this information, insisting those actually doing what research is possible have no idea what they are talking about. And, instead of trying to collectively save lives various agencies fight amongst themselves over turf and who is stepping on who's toes, worried that if they yield some control to another agency, their budgets will be further slashed by the Reagan administration. Yes, America did send a man to the moon, and yes, America did have one of the best medical research systems in the world, but yet we definitely fell short when it came to dealing with a virus that destroyed the immune systems of various minority populations (the first risk groups for AIDS were gay men, intravenous drug users, and Haitian immigrants), leaving them to die hideous, demeaning, and painful deaths. One snippet that stood out to me as I continued reading today was this:

"The New York Times had written only three stories about the epidemic in 1981 and three more stories in all of 1982. None made the front page. Indeed, one could have lived in New York, or in most of the United States for that matter, and not even have been aware from the daily news papers that an epidemic was happening, even while government doctors themselves were predicting that the scourge would wipe out the lives of tens of thousands."

As I read this, I realized that my parents were meeting, falling in love and getting married while this was happening. I was a growing spot on the horizon as this was happening. Any my grandparents certainly weren't thinking about AIDS. My parents weren't thinking about it, concerned about getting it from each other or passing it to me. My aunts and uncles weren't troubled by it either. And not only were they not thinking about it because it was a "gay disease" (soon to be proved untrue) but they may not even have known it was happening. This realization carried approximately the same weight for me as finding out a couple of weeks ago that one of my students didn't remember or know the significance of September 11th.

We like to think that only history is for the victors, that we all have a fighting chance to win it and write it while we're in it. But sometimes the deck is stacked even before we start. Sometimes those in power are just going to do everything they can to ensure their group is worth $34,841 (the amount spent per person on Legionnaire's Disease 5 years after it was effectively eradicated), while ensuring yours is worth only $8,991 (the amount spent per person on AIDS in 1982). And you are written out of the history books, and sometimes even the memory of dissent and rabble rousers. My take-away from Veterans' Day this year was to remember not only our veterans, but also to consider the memory of those veterans of history forgotten and left behind.

Update... long overdue.

I want to say that I haven’t updated or written about this school year solely because I was waiting for the dust to settle. But really that’s only part of the reason for my absence. Writing makes it real. Putting words on even the electronic page means that it’s really true. My school closed, was usurped, taken over, my students tossed to the wolves. My world really did stop. And telling that things aren’t necessarily bad for all involved, which is the Honest Abe truth, feels like a betrayal of what we left behind and all we did accomplish.

I think, though, that it is time to let some of this go and move forward. I have students now. The first quarter is almost over. Whether I’ve decided how I feel about it or not, it has become real all around me.

Last July, while I was teaching summer school, rumors and rumblings began about the school district being broke, and millions of dollars in debt. About jobs being cut, schools closing and the superintendent being relieved of duty and sacked. Some rumors turned out to be true, some false, some still said to be true, but no one knows for sure. What is certain is that in July, the superintendent was relieved of duty, then resigned; the school board pulled out of a multi-million dollar grant program to increase internet access in the county, drawing scorn from donors and the state governor (who cancelled a visit); the Pre-K program was consolidated, it’s staff farmed out and building sold; and my school was closed and then re-opened under district control and a new model of operations.

And honestly... it’s not as bad as it could be. Our staff has bonded. It’s wonderful having a principal and guidance counselor on campus. It definitely sucked being a teacher without kids for the first month and a half. But I have three wonderful middle school babies now and should be getting two or three more high school babies this week.

I’m still teaching social studies in an alternative setting, but we’re pulling from a larger set of students, male and female, remedial and academically gifted, medical problems and behavior problems. It’s leading to some interesting classroom dynamics and teaching strategies (like having 7th grade geography/social science survey of Asia, Africa and Australia in the same room during the same instructional period as 8th grade U.S./NC history), but so far - three days to a week before 1st unit tests - the kids seem to be learning.

In other news, I’ve gotten incredibly busy mentoring new TFA corps members (possibly my favorite part of the week), teaching at the after school program at the traditional middle school, singing in a “local” choral society (local as in an hour away), and keeping up with my boyfriend (who is a police officer in the same town as my choir). Somewhere in there I’m also trying to start a family literacy program with another 2nd year corps member and advocating (with an ever-growing contingent of CMs and alumni) for TFA to become more LGBT aware and inclusive for both CMs and the students we serve. And I’m taking the GRE in a week and another Praxis certification test in three weeks. Whew!

Around all that running back and forth for school, after school, choir, boyfriend, best friend (30 mins away), Wal-Mart (15 mins away), and two trips to the Triangle (one for a conference, another to get my computer fixed), it’s not surprising I’ve had some car trouble. Foglight replaced: $360. Tire replaced: $250. Two oil changes in three months: $90. Front brakes replaced: $240. Surviving a terrible, horrible, should-have-been-way-worse car accident this weekend with no bodily injuries and (supposedly) minimal damage to my Mazda 3 car-baby, Natalie: Priceless. Definitely gonna keep kissing the yellow lights and saying prayers of thankfulness.

Other highlights:

• My problem child, DM, mastering 5 objectives in two days when allowed to be in a class by himself.
• My self-conscious baby, SO, coming out of her shell, eating her first meal at school, and bringing me a bracelet as a gift after class.
• Watching ST count his “stacks” (aka napkins he was pretending were money) and not only shell some out to his mom and family but also put a significant amount in “savings.” Kid is gonna go somewhere, I tell you.
• Seeing one of my Hivesmen when he stopped by the middle school during after school, and having a thoughtful, constructive and insightful conversation about his first quarter of high school and hearing him say it was kinda tough, but he was “doing good” and “getting it done.”

Inshallah, all days will be this good.

One of my whiteboards in my classroom with my one big motivational quote above it:

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become." - Buddha

What are you thinking?

The wall of Civics goodness, from when I thought I was going to be teaching Civics and Econ this semester. I'm contemplating changing it to types of economies and levels of economic industry for the sake of my 7th graders. Or how to detect bias or tell fact from opinion and the "Somebody Wanted But So" method of summarizing, since we're still struggling with skills. But the Civic goodness! I'm so torn.

My boyfriend and I, snapping a quick pic at Starbucks. :)

Letter to a Future Principal

The Executive Director of my TFA region is leaving us in a few days to return to the school setting as a principal. As a region, we are putting together a book of advice and encouragement for her as she makes this change. I really cannot say how excited I am that she is doing this, because ES is going to be an incredible principal. She was an incredible ED. She is truly one of the most inspiring people I have ever worked with. Her energy, enthusiasm, passion, dedication and poise are all characteristics I aspire to project myself. I'm going to miss her. But I secretly hope to one day work for her. Below is my contribution to her book.

Dear ES -

I don’t need to remind you that I’ve seen more than my share of administrators in two years teaching in Bertie. From passive-aggressive, to absent, to capable but underdeveloped, I’ve seen them all (or at least quite a few different ones). Always looking to learn, I’ve tried to figure out what makes each one a great principal so that I can emulate that in my classroom and utilize those strategies in the future. Here are some of the tidbits I’ve gathered:

• Trust your teachers. They are professionals who have put themselves through many hours of training to get where they are, and deserve to be treated that way.

• Train your teachers. Yes, we’re professionals, but there is always more to learn - and not just about how to give tests or use gradebooks. Coach your teachers on how to teach, how to improve, how to help students more effectively.

• Believe in your teachers. Just as you believe in students and have high standards for them, do the same for teachers. We all want what is best for students, but get discouraged sometimes. Remind us that we can do it, and our students can too.

• Give teachers ownership. We want to feel like we have some control and a place in our school. Consult with your teachers before making decisions when appropriate. We want to help. We want to have a part in the place we spend the majority of our time.

• Develop a community. Teachers, staff and students need to rely on and support each other for the school to be effective. Host some school-wide events and encourage all members to attend sporting events, plays, concerts. Only together are we strong.

• Believe in your students. This is the big one. All your students want to learn. All your students want to grow. Especially those you see in the principal’s office week after week. Keep believing in them. Don’t let them go. They may not all help your test scores, but they all want to give you their best if you and your teachers just believe in them and support them.

There is no doubt in my mind that you are going to be an incredible principal. Your students and teachers will be lucky to have you. As you transition to this exciting new journey, know we will miss seeing you as regularly and we are all with you, pushing for success.

All the best!