An Open Letter to my High Schoolers

Dear High Schoolers,

I know you are mad about not graduating. I'm mad about that too. But right now, I am even more mad at all of you - for falling to the level of performance that everyone outside this building expects of you.

You know you're ready to graduate and join the workforce, and every teacher at ******** and every employee of *********** across the country is pulling for you to achieve this goal. But you have let us down and more importantly you have let yourself down.

Other people said you couldn't pass EOCs, so you get to take prep classes. And instead of seizing that opportunity, you're failing the easy stuff. Now all those nay-sayers who didn't believe in you can say, "Whew! We made such a good call! If they're all failing Foundations, they sure wouldn't have passed EOC classes!" You're letting them win!

I'm not saying this to convince you to stay or not withdraw and get your GED - Please, if that is the best choice for you, by all means, GO - lasso that moon and conquer that beast. You still have all our well-wishes and support. But at least do the best you can here before you go. Show them that you should have been allowed to battle those EOCs. Show them that you ARE smart and are going to rule your world instead of letting other in the world rule you.

You have until Friday to go out on top, the master, instead of pouting your way to defeat. You are all capable young men; please prove it.

Wishing you the world,

Ms. Lewis

Take THAT, Achievement Gap!

My kids have been blowing me away the past two weeks. I am so, so impressed. They're writing complex paragraphs that are actually complete sentences and coherent thoughts - not strings of mildly related words. They're completing a research assignment and creating power points in a matter of days, where that took us almost 6 weeks last semester. They're analyzing and summarizing political platforms that are multiple pages long and (generally) not getting lost in the weeds. They're handling extended conversations about race relations, apartheid, and segregation with grace and civility. These are not the same boys who asked me why the slaves didn't just kill the masters when reading Frederick Douglass. Is everyone there yet? No. But are we suddenly bounding toward that goal? Hells to the yes!! Just look at this stuff:

(so the scanner's broken... I'll post stuff once I can get to a Kinko's.)

In other news, I still live in the twilight zone and I've decided that I officially can't live here after my two years in the corps. I love my kids and I want to improve rural education, but I can't live in a place where the white residents admit to purposefully not listing rental units and sometimes houses for sale in order to control who gets to live there. "We don't list them because then if someone asks to rent we have to let them." That's what the woman (another teacher) who told my roommate about four or five rentals in our town (which is almost all white) said about why we can't find any information about these places on our own. Makes the gossip we cause anytime we have our black colleagues over for dinner make a lot more sense.

At my meeting with my PD the other day, he said he wants to work on my unit planning because he thinks it will cause me to "unleash the beast." I want to see a teaching beast unleashed. Sounds intense, or possibly hilarious. I love my PD; he's such a fabulous advisor and thought partner. And has unfailing confidence in me. Weird.

My neighbor across the street had puppies!!! Lab puppies. I want. And might get. I'm moving soon right? And labs are hardy enough to live outside.... Four weeks until weaning, so four weeks to decide/figure out where to keep it until I move.

Countdowns:

Two more days in third quarter

4.5 more days of school until spring break

10 more days until A.H. and I vacation on the beach (aka Best Easter Ever)

13 days until Grandparents are on location

14 days until visiting in DC, with Grandparents

Looks like an awesome two weeks. :)

Here in the Twilight Zone

I live in the Twilight Zone.

In the Twilight Zone, it is still 1950. Schools are still segregated, the poor black students receiving few to no textbooks, few supplies (like desks and copiers, or carbon paper for that matter), and those they do get are all the broken and raggedy ones.

Women's lib hasn't taken place; there are no workplace protections to stop harassment and the victim is blamed for everything.

But in the Twilight Zone it is also 2010. Gangs, thugs and drugs are the order of the day. The teen who labels himself "a respectful young black man" has five children at fifteen, used to be a drug dealer and thinks his crowning accessory is a grille decorated like dice (1 and 2 are the two front teeth).

There is a laptop, cell phone, and mp3 player for every student, and nearly every student owns a gun - or at least knows how to get one. However only a handful can complete a sentence without the use of profanity or epithets.

The Twilight Zone is a rollercoaster world, where wins occur, but each fills an espresso cup, while losses are more frequent and range from tall to grande to venti (and there's not a coffee shop to be seen).