11 Lessons from Year 11

I finished what felt like my first year of teaching today. It was actually year eleven but after working in the education policy world – outside of the classroom - for the last three years, this year felt very much like year one. It was my hardest teaching year yet and one of my most rewarding. I learned - and re-learned - many valuable lessons along the way but for the sake of brevity and to have some fun with numbers I’ll highlight eleven of them below.

1.     Race and ethnicity matter. When writing about his most memorable teacher, one of my students whose parents are from Ghana said that one reason his 2nd grade teacher was important to him was because she “respected my ethnicity.” Let’s be real. Our kids know and see race and ethnicity. If we as educators don’t create a space to acknowledge, embrace, and celebrate all of who they are everyone misses out.   

2.     Relationships are key. If I may say so myself, I usually do a phenomenal job of building relationships with my students and their families. For some reason that didn’t happen this year and we all felt the effects. I think I was so overwhelmed with learning how to teach again that I forgot to take steps to create the foundation of good teaching – building strong bonds with my students so they feel safe to take risks and learn.  I’ve already got plans in place for next year to create those connections between my students, their families, and me.

3.     Trust yourself. When I’m new to a community I often step back and observe what’s happening to learn the norms and expectations. While this is important, it’s just as important to add your expertise to the mix. It doesn’t have to be in a showy way but in a way that is authentic and true to you. I second-guessed myself a lot this year and it hurt my students and their learning. We all have strategies and practices that we know work for kids. Don’t leave those by the wayside while you’re trying to learn about your new community. Respectfully incorporate them so that everyone benefits.

4.     Poverty matters. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. I teach in one of the poorest congressional districts in the nation. Many of our families survive on less than $15,000 a year. Yes. $15,000 a year for a family living in New York City. Some of my students have rats in their apartments and others walk past dead cats and heaps of trash on their way to school. All of these – and the other countless negative effects of living in poverty – impact my students’ ability to learn. We have to acknowledge that. In no way does it mean that they are incapable of learning but we can’t pretend that their financial struggles don’t impact them as learners. As educators we need to help students find the language and the skill set to articulate and change the narrative. This year my students wrote and received a $2,200 grant to reduce the amount of trash and rats in our community. Through this process we’ll acknowledge the impact of poverty and collaborate as scholar activists to create change.

5.     Share your passions. Our kids want to know who we are. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am constant learner who is always trying something new. Whether it’s taking guitar classes, learning how to quilt, developing my skills in capoeira, or growing a mediation practice I love to learn. Good things happen whenever I share my passions and experiences with students. Sharing the lessons I learned as a new capoeira student generated an interest in capoeira and a connection between me and my students. They loved learning that I got kicked in the head when I didn’t esquiva in the roda. (Of course they asked if someone filmed it.) They were so intrigued that we’re starting an afterschool program next year with CAD-NY! 

6.    Students need to be able to connect what and how they’re learning to themselves. Often times we just teach something because it’s “supposed” to be taught, it’s in the curriculum, or because we were told to. These reasons are not good enough. Our kids need to be able to connect to and care about what they’re learning. If they don’t, they won’t learn and grow as much as they can. This doesn’t mean that everything has to be about them or based on their community but as teachers we have to craft learning experiences that allow our kids to see themselves in and connect to the work. This could be through the content, the learning process, the ways they demonstrate their knowledge, anything. What matters is that they are excited about and can relate to what’s happening in our classrooms.

7.    Know your students and how they best learn. I taught three groups of students and my afternoon block was by far the most difficult. There were some serious personalities and needs in that class and it took me a long time (read: the whole year) to figure out how to help them be most successful. I couldn’t give them the same activities and learning experiences as my morning classes and once I figured that out (read: the end of the school year) they were so much more successful as learners. What we do for one class or one student is not guaranteed to work for another so knowing how our students learn as individuals and in groups is crucial.

8.    Building trust takes time. In hindsight, it sounds so silly but for some reason I just expected my kids and colleagues to know that I’m a genuine, kind, and committed educator and friend - one they could trust and build with immediately. Big mistake! How could they know that off the bat when they had just met me? I was reminded that when you’re new to a community it takes time to build relationships and trust. If we are genuine and true to ourselves and our work, that trust will come but we can’t expect it immediately.

9.    All kids want to learn. No matter how many barriers they “put up”, all kids want to learn. My kids “put up” a lot of barriers to learning this year and to some that may send the message that they don’t care about their education or don’t want to learn. Fortunately, I’ve been in the profession long enough to know that’s not the case and that sometimes it takes time to chip away at those barriers and find the spark that’s inside each and every one of us. Take one student of mine who failed our class the first three quarters of the year. An incredibly intelligent young man who didn’t see himself as such and often rejected the idea that he could be smart. After multiple conversations and some serious relationship-building, he started to hang around more after class, put more effort into his work, open up about his fears, and join a voluntary afterschool initiative. He ended up passing the last quarter and is just one representation of the truth that deep down each of us wants to be successful, even if it’s hard to see on the outside.    

10.  Patience. Patience. Patience. Teaching is hard work. Period. Things rarely work out exactly as we plan and we can’t beat ourselves up about it. While this is easier said than done, especially for someone like me who holds themselves – and their kids - to high expectations we have to be patient with ourselves and our own learning process. We’re learning right alongside our kids and just like they don’t get it right every time, we won’t either. We also have to be patient with our students, especially when it seems like their only intent in the world is to drive us bonkers. Whenever I checked myself, took deep breaths, kept an even tone in my voice, and channeled my most patient self, things were better for everyone in our classroom.

11. I am exactly where I’m supposed to be. While this year was my hardest by far, I know I am exactly where I’m supposed to be. There were multiple times I’d break out into a smile or offer a gratitude to the universe for placing me back in the classroom, in an incredible school in a community that I love. There are few better feelings than knowing that you are exactly where you belong. I felt that over and over again this year and while I’m looking forward to a much needed break this summer I’m excited to grow even more as a teacher and learner next year. 

When you teach middle school, you have to get silly sometimes. 

When Knowledge Becomes Wisdom

I had a powerful experience today. I’m taking an eight-week meditation course at an incredible gem in my neighborhood called Mindful Harlem. We just finished week six of our class and today we had an all-day silent retreat. Being silent in community for seven hours may sound daunting to some but I was looking forward to it. I was, however, worried about sitting still for much of that time while being present, in the moment, and aware. Thankfully we did a number of walking meditations where we slowed down our pace and really focused on the physicality of walking and what it felt like in our bodies. Our teacher, the amazing Adrian, led us through the exercise and had us pause, stop, and ground ourselves a few times throughout. At one point when we stopped I felt a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity to be part of this course and the experiences I’ve had to date. Soon after that moment Adrian invited us to clench our fists, tighten our faces, and speed up our walking pace. He asked us to notice how our bodies felt with these changes and, as I noticed, I started to cry.

You see, the past few weeks at school have been tough and our seventh graders have been going through it. Fights on and off campus. Kids recording the fights and posting them on social media. Packs of girls leaving class to try to find and fight other girls. Boys experimenting with stun guns in the bathroom. You name it. It’s been a doozy of a few weeks. Our teachers and our deans have been working hard to support our kids and their families where and when they need it but it’s a big job. One that feels overwhelming when you’re just trying to teach English Language Arts.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on some of the trauma my kids have experienced in their young 12- and 13-year old lives and why, in today’s society, we encourage each other to follow instead of lead. We encourage each other to cheer on and film a fight, instead of preventing it or breaking it up. So, in that moment, when Adrian asked us to clench our fists, tighten our faces, and walk quickly around the room, I lost it. I felt my kids in my body. What it must be like to just go, go, go, react, react, react, clench, clench, clench, hold your breath, hold your breath, hold your breath. What some of my kiddos must feel like when they make such quick decisions and don’t take the time to stop, feel, and reflect on what they’re about to do. I know that developmentally, young adolescents make quick decisions and don’t immediately recognize the severity of their actions, but as I sped around that room tears came down my face. I felt Esmeralda in my body. Maybe this is how she feels all the time. Maybe that’s why she regularly explodes and walks out of class. I felt Marjorie and Brahim in my body. Their rapid-fire cursing and the ease with which they yell obscenities at each other felt normal when I was in that physical state. Is that how they feel, in their bodies, all the time?

I cried for my kids and I cried for the new awareness I had experienced. It’s one thing to know something, but it’s a completely different – and deeper – thing to feel it. I felt it today and while I was trying to stay present and in the moment, my mind was racing and planning how we can bring a mindfulness practice to my kids and my school. Creating a space where we can be still, aware, in our bodies, with our breath, and in community could have a powerful impact on my kids, our families, and our school. It’s not the only step we need to take but it’s one that I guarantee would have an impact many of us could not even begin to imagine – one where we all may be safe, happy, healthy and in a space where we can live our lives with ease.

The Power of the Arts: Where did they go?

“No artist can sit in an ivory tower, discussing the problems of the day, and come up with a solution on a piece of paper. The artist has to be down on the ground; he has to hear the sounds of the people, the cries of the people, the sufferings of the people, the laughter of the people – the dark side and the bright side of our lives.”

- Emory Douglas, Black Panther Party Minister of Culture

I am an artist. I always have been although I didn’t label myself as such until I became an adult. I’m not professionally trained in any medium but I love to have my hands and feet and voice and body in any and all kinds of creative expression. I’ll never forget my tenth grade English teacher’s class where for some reason I could never get above a B on a paper but during an oral presentation unit when I transformed myself into Nikki Giovanni and stood in front of my peers to share some of her poetry and stories from her life, I received one of the highest grades in the class. There’s something about performing, about creating, about expressing that just feels right in my body and my soul.

Before my Civil Rights spring break journey even started I decided that I would sketch my way through the south. In each city I’d spend some time drawing places or people who were crucial to the civil rights movement. Creating art calms me. It makes me feel at home. It grounds me. I wanted to create that same environment on my journey.

Throughout the week I was reminded again and again how crucial the arts were to the movement. The Freedom Songs. Posters from the Black Panther Party’s Minister of Culture Emory Douglas. Quilters from Gee’s Bend. Ernest C. Withers, a Memphis photographer, who documented much of the movement. The countless present day murals I encountered in every city I visited depicting key messages and people from this crucial time.

The arts were alive and vital to the movement. They are just as alive and vital to today’s movements. Some of the pieces created around Trayvon Martin’s death and the #BlackLivesMatter movement have inspired me and reminded me how important it is that we connect to and express ourselves in a variety of ways - so that each and every one of us can contribute, express, and be part of creating change in our communities.

It got me thinking about the slow removal of the arts from our country’s schools. Many of our kids don’t have access to dance, music, theater, and visual arts. Many decision-makers in education see ceramics as less valuable than English Language Arts. They think that mathematics is more important than West African dance and drumming. I couldn’t disagree more.

I went to a music academy for high school where I took piano, marching band, and music theory alongside AP Comparative Politics, Calculus, and Physical Education. My peers performed in musical theater and jazz ensemble and had their visual artwork displayed throughout school hallways and across the city. The arts allowed me to find and become my full self. They helped me figure out who I was as a learner, how I best process information, what it means for me to truly know and master a skill or new content. I wouldn’t have done that if instead of piano I took a double block of mathematics – something that my 7th graders and many students in low-income, high-need schools experience.

Sketching my way through the south helped me better understand the history, the story, and the struggle of those involved in the civil rights movement. Spending 90 minutes in the balcony of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church to draw a stained glass window that was gifted to the church from the people of Wales after the bombing allowed me to gain a deeper appreciation for the humanity and support and love felt around the world for African Americans during this time. That gift, that expression, should be available to all – not just kids in affluent areas whose parents can donate and fundraise enough to hire an art teacher when district funds get cut.

Sketching my way through the south reminded me that as a teacher I need to advocate for the revival of arts classes during the day for students in public schools and that in the mean time I need to better integrate the arts into my 7th grade English Language Arts classroom. I’m grateful for the reminder but bothered by the fact that I even need it.

As artists, we play a vital role in creating change in our communities. As educators, we do the same. How do we best organize and advocate for the reintegration of the arts in our schools? How do we generate a nationwide appreciation for the arts? If we don’t we’re destined to have an entire generation of kids who are less compassionate, less expressive, and less connected to their communities.

Just like Emory Douglas said that no artist can sit in an ivory tower, discuss the problems of the day, and come up with solutions on a piece of paper, no education policy maker should be able to either. Those of us on the ground know our kids, their laughter, their cries, and their struggles. We also know their desire to be engaged, to love learning, and to discover and explore their whole selves while at school. Let’s bring the arts back into their lives so that they may be happy and engaged critical thinkers and creators.

A Little Child Shall Lead Them

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

-Anne Frank, age 15, March 26, 1944

I love this quote. I found it in Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama and it captures what I most believe about the world and about the beauty of young folks.

On my trip through the south I was blown away by the number of young children and students who put their lives on the line for equity. From the first graders like Leandrew Wiggins, who was one of the Memphis 13 to integrate city schools in 1961, to the thousands of Birmingham youth who were blasted by high-powered fire hoses, attacked by police dogs, and jailed as they marched for their basic human and civil rights, these young folks recognized that something very real was very wrong with society and they took action to change that.

Many of them lost their lives. We often hear about the four little girls – Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, and Carole Robertson – who were murdered on September 15, 1963 at 10:22 am when a bomb planted by a klansman in Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church exploded. Three of them of were 14-years old and one was 11, the ages of my middle school students in the Bronx. They could have been my kids.

We rarely hear about two young black boys who were also killed that day. Virgil Ware, a 13-year old, was shot and killed by a white teenager while riding on the handle bars of his brother’s bike and Johnny Robinson, a 16-year old, was shot in the back by white Birmingham police officer Jack Parker.

I also think about the Freedom Riders, young college students from diverse racial background who came from all over the country to help integrate interstate buses and show solidarity with their black brothers and sisters. They were beaten, killed, set on fire, and attacked because they believed in integration. Would I have been so brave? Would I have left UC Berkeley, like many Freedom Riders did, to head south and make history?

There’s something incredibly powerful about young folks. The way they think. The way they commit. The way they engage. Their deep belief that anything is possible. As I reflect on how I’ll share this journey with my students I think a lot about what issues and injustices my kids feel most strongly about. Are there things that they would be willing to be beaten for? Attacked for? Die for?  Honestly, I don’t know. I do know that they are part of a structured system that sets them and their families up – again and again – for failure.

In Martin Luther King’s eulogy for the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing he said, “They have something to say to each of us in their death…They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.”

It’s more than 50 years later and we’re still dealing with systemic structures that oppress people of color and economically poor people in our country. This month 50-year old Walter Scott was shot in the back by white South Carolina police office Michael Slager. How much longer will white men in uniform think that it’s OK to kill black men and boys? 50-year old Walter Scott is 16-year old Johnny Robinson.

How are we as educators encouraging our youth to speak up against injustice? Are we helping them develop the skills to organize against racist, sexist, classist, and homophobic systems and structures? How are we supporting them to become critical thinkers, consumers, and challengers of the status quo?

During the civil rights era, segregation and second-class citizenship were the status quo.

Today, on the surface, our status quo looks a lot different but segregation and second-class citizenship are alive and well. I see it everyday in my school and community in the south Bronx. From high-asthma rates as a result of environmental racism to living in one of the poorest congressional districts in the nation, my students and families are treated like second-class citizens day in and day out. 

So where do we start?

I look to my kids – with all of their adolescent quirks, their connections, and their digital tools – to lead us in not waiting a single moment before starting to improve the world. I look to my colleagues, families, and community to help develop strategies and methods for supporting our kids in changing the status quo so that it’s one where we're dismantling the system that Dr. King spoke about, instead of perpetuating it.

I look to the youth who more than 50 years ago risked and sacrificed their lives for freedom, equity, and the basic right to be treated as a human being. Their courage, intellect, and strength humble me and remind me that if they could do it then, my kids and I can do it, and then some, now. If we don’t know where we’ve been, we won’t know where we’re going. Infinite gratitude and thanks for those who have come before us.

Add These to Your "Places to Go Before I Die" List

I’ve just returned from seven days in the south – a place I have a strange fascination with. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Los Angeles and would recognize the stark differences between my hometown and Wilmington, North Carolina – my dad’s hometown – when I spent summers there as a kid with my grandparents. Maybe it’s because I didn’t experience the overt racism that I heard was so present in the south. Maybe it’s because I wanted to be more closely connected to the histories and experiences of my ancestors.

Whatever the reason, I decided that this year I’d spend my spring break taking a solo road trip across four southern states to visit places important to the U.S. civil rights movement. I flew into Little Rock, Arkansas, rented a car, and over the course of a week made my way east to Montgomery, Alabama. I wanted each day to be meaningful but also relaxing. It was spring break after all and as a middle school teacher in April, you know that I needed some chill time. I tried to find that balance. Below you can see the powerful places I visited each day.

As you can imagine I learned a ton on this journey and had so many takeaways. Over the course of the next few days I’ll share some of my reflections from this impactful trip in separate blog posts. The first will be on the power of youth to lead, the second will examine the role of the arts in the movement, and the third will focus on the numerous untold and untaught histories I encountered on this journey.

Every single person in the United States – and the world! – should put this journey on their  “Places to Go Before I Die” list. It’s strange and saddening to say that many of our elders - from diverse backgrounds, races, and religions - put their lives on the line so that we would have the freedom to take this type of journey. Some of us – youth and elders - are still dying today. While we’ve come a long way as a nation we still have a very long way to go.