Yes We Can? I sure as heck hope so!

Week in review:

Been going nuts reading new books, towering stacks of books, walking to the copy machine reading books, books under my pillows at night, books while I am driving down 75S...kidding. There is SO much to know before I begin writing my research paper.

It's coming together though...finally. So is a list of schools. So is a list of programs. One thing that most definitely is not coming together though is my bank account! I am nervous about the debt that school has the potential of creating, but when I start daydreaming about going back to school and being in that environment I can imagine myself nowhere else.

On another note, my job rules right now and my kids are hard workers. They are thinking and writing and working independently and it is blowing me away. It is as if I am running a miniature college classroom right here where I am. I will post some of their personal narratives, or at least pieces from them, soon to show you guys what they are pumping out in here.

Things I have decided:
A teacher in my hall is boring and I wouldn't want her as a teacher if I were a kid:
"As I stated, you need to watch the movie and answer the questions. Blah, blah, robot voice, blah, monotone, Stop Talking, sit still, you're late, blah."
Where is the livelihood? These kids kinda hate school, it works better if you don't seem so bummed on it yourself.

Certain kids have a crush on me and it is working to my advantage in that they say "Thank you, Ms. C" when I assign them homework. I'll take it. It is pretty hilarious actually.

My journalism class is really surprising me with what they are doing. They piss me off and make me laugh real hard, but this paper is going to be a different world this year.
One of my kids sat at the end of the lunch line and collected student's spare change as they retreated with their rectangle pizzas all day and filled an entire can with money for the paper!
Little entrepreneurs I tell you!

I have a severe intolerance for people who don't listen. Who cut you off in the midst of a sentence and are only holding their breath until it is their turn to talk again. Students do not do this...teachers do this and it makes me want to puke on them.

Teaching writing and research has made me significantly better at both.

Finally, Obama is a good man, a politician, but damn does he make me want to believe him.
I am proud to be an American today when he can stand without fear for his life and claim the nomination for the people.

[cue Lee Greenwood!]

High Hopes

My life is now full of skepticism riding on the shoulders of determination.  

After working towards determining what my next step should be:  Master's degree in African American studies or a Phd. in American Studies, I have decided that both should be pretty great.  This year I will be putting a great amount of money aside, the first little chunk will go towards applying to at least 6 grad schools (mostly in the Boston and NY areas); both MA and PhD programs with the hopes of getting accepted to ALL of them and getting to pick!  Weeee!  Reality:  probably not, but I am going to bust my ass, sorry Mom, trying to get ready.

I am dedicating the next two weeks to writing a research paper, because the ones I drafted in undergrad don't seem to be quite right for grad school applications.  I am very interested in the following things:

 

Race relations; primarily between black and white Americans

the way history influences self-perception and identity regarding race and gender

affects of segregation/integration in public school setting on race identity

presentations of african americans in literature at the turn of the century

There are more, but I am trying to stay focused right now.  It is real hard to come up with a specific topic for research when I am so conditioned into getting the assignment.  It seems that I am suffering from exactly what I complain that my students are suffering from.  The difference is I have too many exciting ideas and they have an overwhelming apathy towards all forms of research and study.  

Someone help me find a focus!!!  Until then I am going to read and read until my mind explodes with more and more possible ideas.  

Here are ideas in my head:

Integration:  The "us" and "thems" in public education

Racial mistrust

Idea of color blindness:  

For blacks and whites to live comfortably with one another in the US do we have to avoid and forget that we are black and white? If we do this then what are the personal and social implications for our identity as human beings and our individual cultures?

Is color blindness synonymous with the erasing history when without understanding this history we are all lost children.  

"Acting White:" Self-fulfilled prophecies in African American youth; the ways in which society, culture, and a tradition of community support the idea that doing well in school is somehow synonymous with acting white.

Zero Drafts and Mass Confusion

I have come to know certain truths: children are so lost in the 'way to do' things that they cannot do for themselves without the restriction of rules and lengths.  Bummer.

Yesterday students began writing and reflecting on thier names.
I showed five exerpts from different memoirs that in some way dealt with an individuals name. They were all very, very different. One was an excerpt from a book that is the gospel according to a kid named Levi who goes by Biff. Yes, that's right: the gospel according to Biff. The other was rather sentimental, from Rick Bragg remembering his southern roots. As the students brainstormed I projected my computer screen on the wall so that they may see what it looks like when I brainstorm. It was very scary for me as this is an emotional time and thinking on my names usually pulls out some raw emotion anyway. I began anyway thinking that they would learn from me, see how I was just allowing thoughts to explode in no particular order on my paper, but nah. They didn't. They think so literally. So objectively...how horribly boring!!!

Today they requested that I share my drafts. I wrote two zero drafts. The idea behind calling them zero drafts is that they really don't matter at all. They really, truly are the first attempts at creating something with your brand new thoughts. After today I will file these away and not return to them for a week and half. Then I may choose to spend time working more with it or simply keep it filed in the "nice try" folder. My zero drafts, what I was using as examples for my kids, are below. I hope they break themselves of thinking in terms of length and empty words. You will notice the similarities in these pieces, but also how very different they ended up being. Involving many family names and nicknames that are emotionally charged. I didn't simply tell the story of where my name came from. Any suggestions on how to teach kids to write this way? How to show not tell?

Zero Draft One

When Boston meets Dothan and Cochran falls apart the baby dreams in a child’s eye of rusty trampolines and dogs named “Rocky” dissipate as quickly as ‘daddy’ can just become a man, a stranger.

Cook forced me to grow up. Real fast, too fast. Fast like I rode on the green Huffy I got at my first split Christmas. My only split Christmas. Fast like he left, fast like she rushed home, fast like worlds flip-flopped and the log cabin became a brick mansion. A dwelling that upheld a name, not a family; aesthetically appealing, but coming “home” felt more like a punch in the gut.

Courtney means nothing really, comes from nowhere…I once heard it means “short nose,” but I think that is just a lie. A sweet lie, but nonetheless a lie. I try not to favor one lie over the other. That’s the Doyle in me. The honesty - residual Catholic guilt. The Doyle is overweight pea coats, crying during books, my passions that my mother cannot understand today even though it came from her. I think we are all guilty of forgetting where we come from.

She came from a Saint, like Saint Dominique but more determined, more willing: Great Grampy Doyle.

Harbor winters didn’t keep him away from his love. The hands of history had gripped his heart too tightly; daily he would pray and he would weep in that graveyard, on that hill, where perpetual care resides. Sister Dorothy eventually invited him in for prayer and an offering of friendship.


I am not sure what good man actually means, it is something I am troubled with often. What does it mean to be good?

The Doyle in me is good, the half that I get to keep is worth keeping.

Zero Draft Two

It seems the freshest memories, the ones that still burn, always provide us with more. It was years ago, years before I existed that Boston met Dothan, that those careless young lovers raised a ruckus together. Not many years after I existed, after the villain and the princess wrote a new-age love story and made me: the little girl, the baby girl, the runt of the litter; that Cook disappeared. Hallmark cards arrived in the mail; the insides told stories of love; little limericks that sung sweet songs of growing pains and embarrassing stories. I must have missed these years. We didn’t have those stories to share.

When I reached the stage for my name to disappear from the class list and reappear on a name tag I thought I knew me. I was half lady, half mystery.
Dothan, Alabama. That is what I get. That’s all: Dothan and Hallmark define that mysterious half.

So I learned Massachusetts. I learned of Catholic loves, lost loves, love stories, graveside weeping, and the Doyles of the past and an ideal of perpetual care. I learned that even when love is good, it ends, and life continues. I learned what Irish Catholic meant and became more acquainted with Catholic guilt. I tried anyway. I tried hard.

The train came and went, winter passed, and Nuthatch boarded the plane. That little bird that lived in us both. That idea that sometimes life allows for ideas greater than ourselves to survive and reason and passion can thrive together? That’s unreasonable.

The new leaver, the new taker:

Sailboats in the harbor and cannoli in the snow.
Lilies in a mason jar from the cheese factory; history supporting the present.
99 Union Street, the history again, rising up to meet us. Greeting us as we walked through the yard where Grampy Doyle kicked a can, or whatever kids did back then.
Little trifles floating, like confetti wishes, from the plane window. When thoughts of me were thriving.
Dream charms chasing away the madness of sleep with a grasshopper on a cycle.

Again it seems history has risen to the occasion. To show me and us that it doesn’t work. Cook left, Doyle left, and most of them usually take.

I wonder if Margaret, as a child, knew that Edward would weep daily for her, knew that the nuns would love him in her absence. I wonder which she, great grandmother, believed in: reason or divinity, in both spirituality and love.

The Transcendance of Truth

In history, it seems, or history textbooks rather, that writers and publishers are afraid of placing blame. It is as if the Civil War just happened, slavery just happened...out of nowhere the black man became a possession; a piece of flare for the white man. There is something about merely presenting facts that makes it almost impossible for people to see emotions behind the movements and events in our history. I do not think that kids, when they have been conditioned into a life of memorization and objectivism, can infer that Abe Lincoln had a serious moral conflict by learning that he once owned slaves, but at some point freed his slaves. For some reason I don't think that it is important to those printers or publishers. Is discussing Thomas Jefferson's feelings going to get them more money, sell more books? Probably not. Oh well...skip it. It is as if facts can eliminate the human found within and terrible things simply happen just because they do. The understood villians such as Hitler get what's coming, but he must be a well-known villian to accept such blame.

This week has been yet another doozy. Life has hit me pretty hard, which is usually what happens when work seems pretty great. I was thinking yesterday on this idea that no one is to blame and no one wants to accept responsibility for anything that has failed or was not done well.
I was thinking in terms of splitting up with a partner: There are these different ways to express what happened, "split up," "left," "broken up."
Each of which carrying a totally different charge.
Split is equal, a mutual decision come to pass through a lot of deliberation.
Broken up, that seems adolescent. I hear my kids use this term often.
Left, I think this is when one person makes the choice to go. To take with them what was built and disappear.

The only one of the three that carries any weight, or blame, is left. Why, if one person chooses to go, should we say split.
When we are all responsible for writing our own history why should we be afraid to place blame? If we don't will we carry the burden of not remembering? Of allowing memory to mix with imagination and forgetting what was done and who was responsible? Of blaming ourselves for something we are not responsible for.

Sometimes the lessons that we are unaware we are learning as school children, such as the lesson of miraculous failures, transcends our youth to corrupt our adulthood. We are left with not knowing and a history that is tainted by imagination.

Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen

Today in my class I recieved what is probably one of the biggest rewards that I could recieve. Class started and I asked for responses on the reading and got a variety of "it's too long" or "he kept repeating the same things." I then realized what I was up against and asked my students to challenge themselves to think of what good came out of the reading, what new things they learned.
Most of my students were blown away by how little they are actually taught in history class. Some were very angry and felt that they had been tricked, others didn't quite understand why things were hidden, some exlaimed "it's all about the white man!" If you have read this book, or studied history then you will understand why I saw humor in that statement.

There was one girl in particular though. Now, please keep in mind that this is the sixth day of school and only the fifth day of lessons. She was assigned the chapter "Gone with the Wind": The Invisibility of Racism in American History Textbooks (which was immediately followed by a chapter on the invisibility of antiracism in textbooks). She didn't seem all that moved by the chapter when she first got to class. The chapter highlights the history of racial oppression in our country and addresses how not teaching what is uncomfortable or difficult will get us nowhere. It addresses, like all other chapters, how certain people are chosen to be heroes and others hanged, certain people are crazy for supporting human beings, others celebrated. After class discussion, which was pretty heavy, the kids got into groups based on the chapters they read. I looked over at a this chapter's group: One white boy, two white girls, three black girls. All discussing race relations as a historical matter and what the implications are for the present and future. The girl, a young white girl, began crying while discussing the issues.
In a high school class...she cried.

Now, I am not celebrating making a child cry, that is not what I intend to do.
I do intend, however, to teach things of emotional value. To allow children to learn facts and make choices. She was affected in the same way that I was affected in a college class after learning a lot of information that I had never been privy to. It is a serious emotional experience. I can't believe that on the sixth day of school and after a weekend reading assignment she was moved that much.

Week in Review: Week One

Are high school students capable of breaking down the ideological constructs of right and wrong that they have all be trained to seek? Are high school students able to seek answers that don't have a right and a wrong? When will I never hear, "Ms. C, how long does this need to be?" or "What do you want us to write about?"

I hope so, yes. I think that with enough teaching and constant 'unlearning' of objective thought, then yes they may. It has been a struggle, but not one without rewards.

My students started the week trying to answer the question "What is History?"
Throughout the week I proceeded to burst their very literal ideas of what history and started by simply asking questions. Some responded to that question by saying, "History is a record of past events." The ones who had just come from their AP World History class were very excited to know the 'answer.' I simply said, "Oh, great. Who records it?" Throughout the week I then explained bias in news reporting (which aligned nicely with my journalism class), the process of hero-making, how sometimes imagination fills in the blanks when history must be recorded, and how sometimes the truth just doesn't align with what is understood as 'important' content to learn, so writers of history leave it out. We thought about what this means for us as learners and citizens, as people with a natural curiosity about life and students of society. I have, in some cases been blown away by responses that bring together the many different ideas we have discussed when prompted with a new question. These kids are using learned knowledge to gain perspective on a new idea. Those are the Truth seekers. Those are the independent learners who will succeed in my class. I have been a bit disappointed by those who are concerned with being "right" and realize that this is a habit I must help them unlearn while in my class. I have also experienced the tragedy that is socio-economic division in my school. Certain students are in my class, an upper level Honors class, because their parents feel that they are smart enough, some parents simply don't want their children in a classroom as diverse as (somehow) our regular level classes tend to be; by diverse I mean primarily black and Hispanic. I am now torn with students who are not at all equipped to be in my class (i.e. a student who said, "Ms. C, what is bias?" and another who mispronounced the word "politic" and didn't understand it) with the students who are rising to the occasion. I had a very concerned student see me after school to inform me that his schedule was going to be changed and he feared that he would not be able to take my class...he told me that "he didn't want to lose this class."

My Dilemma: lowering the lessons and reading material to a level so that the kids who don't belong in my class can understand would mean doing the children who can thrive and grow in a setting such as my class a disservice. Because my class is one that students make a choice to be in, this is not an option for me. So I am left with the knowledge that those kids will not be able to grasp (not because they are stupid, simply because their brains are not yet ready for the material we are covering) the very important concepts and questions I am asking them all to consider, thereby, doing a disservice to them as well.

I suppose a lesson will be learned by both parent and student. It is a shame that a student who could succeed in a regular-level education class must suffer because his/her parents refuse to believe that s/he should not be in a regular class for, as I see it, a variety of unjustifiable reasons. You see, at my school, kids can be waivered into upper level classed by parents, no test needed. My school is funded by the wealthy community members and must appease parents by allowing behavior such as this.

I have spent my weekend reading a book that my students are reading chapters from for homework called Lies My Teacher Told Me. This book offers many hot thinking points by making truths out of the misconceptions found in most high school history texts. I have learned a lot by reading the chapters and I hope my students firstly, did their homework and secondly, will be able to discuss these chapters through the eyes of mature readers and thinkers. I am asking a lot out of them. Hopefully they will continue to surprise me.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

Sounds of summer have faded and been replaced with the familiar ringing of bells and the giggles generated by girl/boy glances. I am tired, my ankles and feet have swollen, and by the end of the day I desire yoga pants and silence. It is very, very difficult to get back into the swing of things yet at the same time it is very stimulating. I have felt refreshed being able to discuss ideas again and hear the kids get excited about what I am offering up to them.

This year I am teaching five sections of 10th Grade Honors and my darling little Journalism class. Journalism has been a thorn in my side as I try to figure out different ways to teach a class that I have never taken. So far so good. I know the kids well, the staff is dynamite, and they all have the ability to learn...they just have to get ready to learn. I will be teaching many different aspects of journalism (um, like every little aspect: news writing, writing leads, how to be a journalist, where to find news, what is news, layout, InDesign, Photoshop, advertising, business managing, mass media, role as a journalist, etc. etc. etc.) in one month. Students generally take a year long class before becoming a member of the staff. It is stressful and I have big expectations for this year. The kids, even the ones who have been here a long time know very little. When asked what AP Style was (answer: Associated Press) one of my kids from last year said, "authoritative princess! YOU, Ms. Cook!" Very cute, but very wrong. I then expelled the air from my lungs and collapsed on my desk pretending to be killed by their lack of knowledge. Ho, hum...we have a long road to ho.

My 10th grade classes are in for a lot of fun. I am not teaching in a traditional manner this year. We will be using memoir as a framework for teaching/learning writing, students will be working on creating portfolios rather than writing single papers, and I will be running my classroom in a way that is similar to that of a studio (think painter or architect studio). I am using many ideas from Kirby and Kirby's new book New Directions in Teaching Memoir: A studio workshop approach. Great stuff in there. It is actually working so far too. I am pretty excited. The ideas we will be covering (What is history? What is civilization? What is culture? What is government?) are big and great. I am having fun coming up with different ways to present the ideas that are simultaneously being taught to my students by their AP World History classes as very literal, simple ideas. I am blowing their minds so far talking about bias in history and the connection between history and memory. I want them to be Truth seekers and skeptics...not jerks who say, "I don't believe you!!!" but I want them to ask questions. It is working...it is fun. They will be writing a memoir this semester and keeping writing notebooks in class. We are currently tying information regarding the creation of History (World, American, etc.) to personal history (i.e. their individual memoirs).

I am sponsoring my school's gay/straight alliance as well. I am a bit overwhelmed, but I feel like I am really making a difference already and it is only the third day. I feel like I am being the type of teacher that I want to be. I am teaching material that matters and is relevant. I am teaching life skills (being reflective, thoughtful, curious, human beings who know how to seek out information independently an represent themselves accurately through writing) that matter. I feel good. I feel tired, but I feel good.

Answers to my lingering questions have unleashed themselves upon my life as well. Grad school it is! I need to make time to study for GRE and research some schools. I am seeking a MA first and then I have lofty goals in place for getting a PhD and changing the world. It feels good to do it. To do something that matters. I like where I am in my life. I like what I am doing.
I had the thought yesterday that I should use this blog to collect data from my classes. I hope to be studying American Studies and looking deeper into the nuances of race relations in our country. I think looking at my classroom as a reflection of the surrounding community would be a good place to start. Inequalities anyone?

I have a new house and my cat is home and I have renter's insurance...just in case another twister takes me down.

This year I predict a lot of growth for me and my students. I want it to be great. I really, really do.