Month: April 2016

Underdog

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ Leave a comment

I feel like I should begin with a disclaimer: I’ve never written a blog before, I’ve never really read blogs before.  I do not know the rules or expectations and am basing this first attempt on something Dr. D said in class tonight “remember, these are my own personal rants”, bearing that in mind I have something to rant about.  So here goes nothing…

As I drove home from class tonight, my first with Dr. D, I found myself pondering something we discussed, attempting to answer a question that was asked, and fixating on what I consider to be my failed video introduction.  At the start of class we entered a lively discussion on why it’s the lower performing kids who are hurt the worst by non-aligned curriculum.  My hand shot up, I thought I knew the answer, and then I experienced what I’m sure will be the first of Dr. D’s excited and somewhat terrifying responses to my “not-so-correct-as-I-thought-it-was” answer.  Later in class we discussed a question we had been asked to answer for our video introduction.  We were supposed to include for the class something we feel they should know about us, but something we wouldn’t put on our resume.  He explained to us why he asked this question and what he expected to receive as an answer in return.  As I drove home I realized I hadn’t answered this question and begin racking my brain to come up with something “worthy” of an answer.  Something that was honest, something that pertained to my experience or mission as a teacher, and something that represented me as a person, not me as the person I pretend to be when I’m worried the whole world is watching.  As I exited I-85 I felt pretty confident I had it, I had hashed it out into words and had imagined it as my part of my video introduction. Yet, somewhere between Exit 54 and home my vision became twisted in my mind and it seemed contrived, almost forced, and I had once again resigned myself to answering the question at hand.  Then something happened, it’s that “Aha moment” we are always told about as educators, and in our syllabus as future administrators told to blog about and it all become clear in my mind again.

I like the “bad” kids (hopefully the quotes will make sense upon conclusion of this blog).  I always have, maybe it’s because I wasn’t one, and was living vicariously through them.  Maybe it’s because in my first year of teaching I experienced the workroom banter of “Oh, you havehim, he’s lazy…he’s trouble…he won’t do anything in your class…just give him an F and move on…”, and always being one to take the path less traveled I enjoyed saying in response, “Really?  Why I just loved him.”  Or maybe it’s just because they’re more fun, more challenging, and usually the most surprising students you can teach.  Yes, they drive you nuts, and yes, they break your heart, and YES, sometimes you lose them, but when you don’t, when you reach them, when they succeed, you feel a moment of elation, a moment of resolve to save all the “bad” kids you can.  It’s a moment that makes you cry, and sing and dance, and brag and shout to the world “I am a teacher, I am good at what I do, and I LOVE my job!”  Sometimes, it’s even a moment where you decide to take a risk and blog about it.

What happened was this.  I came home tonight, resolved to put my quandaries regarding class on hold so I could pack and clean in preparation for my trip home tomorrow and in search of a brainless distraction I checked Facebook.  I’m not a Facebook “stalker” and therefore usually only see what is right in front of me on my news feed.  Luckily, tonight the first post was from a former student of mine, it was a picture of merchandise his company (an entertainment company he started and manages) is selling in Concord Mills.  It’s a legitimate business, which given the kids past history is important to note.  It made my heart sing.

I first experienced this child second semester of his freshman year.  I was warned about him, he was Trouble, he was, a “bad” kid.  It’s the usual story people always feel compelled to whisper to you in the hallway or the copy room; terrible home life, terrible upbringing, parents who don’t care, probably doesn’t even know who his father is, if he does know him he probably visits him in jail, blah, blah, blah.  Truth is, I never had any trouble from him, I never saw him as trouble, so much as I saw him as Troubled.  I realized quickly that he wasn’t a “bad” kid, he was the underdog.  He was the kid who was 16 in the 9th grade, he failed more classes than he passed, he spent most of his days in ISS or OSS and he was disliked by most of his teachers and feared by most of his peers.  He had what he called “street cred” and told me that having that was more important than having good grades, or a starting position on the basketball team (although he’d “school anyone in hoops who dared step to him”).  He was also the kid who called me “ma’am” on the first day, who offered to hand out papers and then tested me with silly antics while in the process.  He was the kid who called me “mama” after a few weeks of knowing me, and started calling me his “wife” a few weeks later, because “she’s always on my a$$, just like an old ball and chain”.  He was the kid that bought me Steelers pajama pants and then threw them away in front of me because I couldn’t accept gifts bought with drug money (something I regret doing to this day because I had no proof that’s where the money came from).  He was the kid who told me that history won’t help him pay the bills, or stay off the streets, or stay out of jail, or live to see his 21st birthday.  And he was the kid that broke my heart.

What I had realized after a few weeks was that he was the kid that everyone else, his parents, his teachers, his string of former employers, had given up on.  He was the kid who was “hopeless”, not hopeless in the sense that he couldn’t be helped, but hope LESS as in the kid who had no hope.  He had learned at a young age to rely on himself, he learned at a young age that authority figures were the enemy, and he had learned at a young age that it was easier to be thrown out of class for misbehavior than to try in class and still fail.  He was failing because the world had failed him.  I was young, new to teaching and full of hope and ideas.  Yet despite all my best efforts and I mean my BEST efforts, I lost this kid his senior year.  I did everything I could think of to “save” him; I requested him his junior year in US history, I asked to take him into my class as a “helper” when he was kicked out of his English class, just so he had somewhere to go, that wasn’t home, I fought with my Assistant Principal, a man I have more respect for than I can properly put into words, every time he suspended him.  I went home and cried the day he was expelled and again on the day I learned he was sentenced to prison.  I feared for his life and rejoiced when after 3 years of his sentence he was released and contacted me to be a reference for him.

He was out of jail, he wanted to make an honest living for himself, and he knew I wouldn’t turn my back on him.  I gave him my information and accepted his friend request on Facebook, something I regretted often over the past few years when I saw posts from him and I knew he wasn’t living a life I approved of or a life I had always hoped he would have.  Then tonight, while in deep thought over a question that I decided to take as seriously as I could, I saw a picture of merchandise, in a mall, in my town, designed by a kid I thought I had lost, advertising a company that he created and I knew that while I probably had nothing to do with it, while he probably didn’t even remember my name, I just knew, I hadn’t failed him.  I told him on Facebook how proud I was of him; it’s the first time I’ve ever posted anything to his page in 7 years.  This was his response (please bear in mind, I was not his English teacher), “Leanne (tag) you know you was always my favorite. Nd you was the only one who eva had any faith in me nd tried to help in school.  Know I was hard headed nd live lil different life.  You still cared.  I messed up but had a turn around after jail and prison and had to get it together.  I never stop thinkin about you nd appreciatn you foreal.  Nd thank you, I’m glad I make you proud.  When I blow I’ll have a job for you lol…”  Now, I don’t know what the last part even means, and I know that the grammar and spelling is atrocious (and in my response I told him we need to work on it if he is going to be a respectable businessman) but the rest of it speaks for itself and gave me the courage to share my “secret, non-resume worthy tidbit” about who I am.  (Sometimes you just need someone to believe in you.)

I am a teacher who likes the “bad” kids…I am a huge fan of the underdog.

Just Believe…

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ 1 Comment

I apologize in advance because this is lengthy, but then again, aren’t most journeys?

I think my journey with understanding the implications of race began when I was in undergrad. I had around eleven majors in my five and half years at Clarion and finally settled on education as my final major because my previous major of anthropology and dream of being the next Indiana Jones seemed a bit silly as graduation and the real world drew nearer. My mum was a teacher in Dunbar, West Virginia and when home on breaks I would visit her kindergarten class and decided during those brief moments that there were worse things I could do for a living.

The school my mum taught at was poor and black. She was one of only three white employees in the building. My mum is what some would consider a “bleeding heart” liberal; she will tell you she is a card-carrying member of the ACLU, NAACP, and the Southern Christian Poverty Law Center (I have no idea if this is actually true). Her principal, who was black, used to tell me,”Leanne, your mum is my favorite white girl because she loooooovvvveessss black people…” Why is this important? Because at the young age of 21, my beliefs mirrored what I had learned at home. Therefore, I was a bleeding heart liberal who looooovvvveeedddd black people, which I thought at the time was the same as understanding them.

In the fall of 2000 I accepted a job at a southern high school and officially began my career as an educator. I instantly loved the profession. What other profession would afford me the opportunity to talk for 90 straight minutes? That fall I taught my first predominately minority class. It was an inclusion ELPS (economic, legal and political systems) course of 41 students. I had kids sitting on my bookshelves, my floor, my desk, until a relief teacher was hired in October and my class size dropped to a manageable 33. My class was about 75% African American and Hispanic, about 50% were EC and I’m guessing that over 50% were on free/reduced lunch plans. I realized pretty quickly that these kids were different from me, they were different from my honors (predominately white) kids, and they were even different from the inclusion white kids in their class. I didn’t know how to reach them, I didn’t know what to make of them, I didn’t know how to handle them, I didn’t know why they didn’t like me…I just knew I needed to do something, so I developed a “plan”, a “tactic” if you will, for dealing with “those” kids.

My grand plan for that class was: empathy. I told them that I too had grown up poor, wearing hand-me downs from the church and my neighbors, who were boys. That I understood the struggles they were facing because I had watched my mum cry while grocery shopping when the total was too high and she had to decide what staples we could go without for that week. (this is all true by the way) I told them all of this because I wanted them to know that I had survived my impoverished childhood and gone on to college and that they, just like me, could be successful if they JUST TRIED…if they JUST WANTED it badly enough. I did this for three years, and for three years I went home daily wondering why I wasn’t reaching my poor, minority students and why, despite my best efforts, they weren’t succeeding.

One day, a kid, I wrote about him in Grad school, called me out on my pitiful, “woe is me” childhood saga. With confidence and surety, I told him (in front of the class), “you too can be successful, if you would just TRY.” I’ll never forget this, he looked me square in the face and said something along these lines, “Where were you last weekend Ms. H? The beach? How about the weekend before? A Steelers game? Didn’t you go to Spain and France when you were in high school?” I was stunned to silence, standing there, mouth agape, nodding my head in affirmation to everything he was asking. Then he said, and this is a direct quote, “You don’t know shit about being me, so stop pretending like you do.” I was floored. I was hurt. I was embarrassed. I went home and cried. I felt like a failure. I felt like a poser. I felt empty and lost in my current profession. I called my mum and sobbed, I told her how unfair it was to me when I had grown up so poor and so…She cut me off and said two things that remain with me to this day, 1) My version of poor is not most people’s version of poor. As she likes to remind me, she grew up poorer than I did (daughter of German immigrants, blah blah blah) and these kids that I was teaching were sure as hell growing up poorer than I did. 2) Regardless of how poor I thought I was, I still grew up white, and that made a HUGE difference.

I remember feeling so ashamed, so…guilty for being white. I remember being angry at the unfairness of it; after all, it wasn’t like it was my fault I was white. I pointed this out to my mother and she just laughed at me and said, “You’re angry over the unfairness of being white? Imagine how everyone who isn’t white feels Leanne.” I remember finally realizing what the term “white privilege” meant. I remember being humbled by the realization that it actually existed and wasn’t just something that black people said when things weren’t going their way. I remember going back to class the next day with my head down and my tail tucked between my legs. I remember the fear and anxiety I felt about what I had to do. The uncertainty only a third year teacher who was about to admit to a class of 33 high school children that she was wrong could feel. I started class that day the only way I could think to start class that day, I apologized, not for being white, but for being naïve, not for having wealthy parents, but for pretending I knew anything at all about what is was like to grow up black in America. And from that day forth I didn’t try to empathize. I simply owned it; I told my kids up front that I didn’t know what it was like to be them. That I grew up (mostly) middle class and white and therefore couldn’t possibly understand the troubles they faced as a minority in a white dominated society. I promised them though, that if they wanted to share, if they would be willing to enlighten me, that I would listen, that I wouldn’t judge, that I would believe in them…that I would BELIEVE them.