Tonight's Poet Corner: Introspection
If I could compare this week to anything, it would be a roller coaster. Not the sharp incline leading to the downward slope, however - it's not that simple, not just an up-and-down process. No, in this case, starting on Monday, the coaster was already racing down the tracks. And the last two days of work - Thursday and today (Friday)? Well, that was the loop-de-loop resulting in vertigo from too much blood rushing to the head.
I don't know exactly how many reasons I can throw into the pot here for why things got kind of odd and definitely intense at the school where I work during these past couple of days. Maybe it's spring fever or allergies. Maybe it's the fact that summer is imminent, and school will be out in fewer than two months. Hell, maybe the upcoming STAR tests are stressing out my students (second grade and above). Whatever the excuses, my students have been emotionally exhausted or emotionally peaking. And it's been more than just a handful to deal with.
Last night's sonnet, yes, was based on a true story of a student of mine in the literacy program I teach. Long story short, she does not think highly of her talents or intelligence at all, especially due to bullying. The bullying especially disgusted me, and it was a challenge for me to move away from praise to encouragement (studies, as well as basic common sense, show that the former will make students dependent on adult approval, while encouragement will allow them to independently identify their strengths and weaknesses) in order to remind her of how capable she was at so many things. On that same day, I had a very angry young boy bark at me and then snap, "Nothing!" when I asked him what was wrong, after several days of seeing him crying, tears streaming down his face, as he departed from recess. Does spring make people more aggressive? Because it just makes me itchy and lethargic.
Today, well - that was an explosion waiting to happen. Not only did one of my students write, "You hate us!" on the board and ask me if that was "my secret" (Boy, I sure gave my whole class a talking to about that. Not only do I adore every student in my class, but I also don't hate anyone. Not even the awful people in the world who are so easily hated), but another of my students, who seems to suffer from chronic headaches, wrote, "I HATE MY LIFE" on a piece of paper in her notebook. In second grade terms, I told her that I did not take that shit lightly, even getting her mom to come upstairs and talking with her about her health. Seeing that bright, positive student crumble sobbing into her mother's arms broke my heart, and it really made me feel helpless about truly guiding these beautiful and talented young girls in order to see them succeed.
And that's the thing, really: Not only do my second grade students in the literacy program have the odds against them, but so do most of the students in my school. These students, all from Latin American countries, are in an educational system that disfavors them and puts them at a huge disadvantage. They are constantly held up to outrageous national standards, which is insane because these kids did not grow up with English - they are learning it. You have no idea how many times I have to remind certain test evaluators that these ELL students need to be given credit for learning an entirely different language - a difficult one, to boot - while attempting to maintain their own culture and their own language at home. And not only that, but they are in a country where a lot of people do not want to acknowledge them. They want them deported. They call them horrid slurs. They think they're "stealing" our land and jobs from us. All while they are plopped in front of technology because their parents are working full-time jobs and have no energy or time to be, well, parents.
It is extremely difficult for me to connect to these kids, not because they're doing anything wrong, but because I come from a completely different culture. I am, in brief, a Caucasian, English-speaking, gay 23-year-old trying to inspire and invigorate these kids - and that makes me, to use a tired cliché, stick out like a sore thumb. Sure, some students respect me, but others view me with skepticism. And I don't blame them. I'm not going to march around, acting like I understand the culture, because for the most part, I don't. One thing I always say to my second grade students in the literacy program I teach: "You are learning from me, but I am also learning from you." That, to me, is so crucial of a concept to bring to the current educational structure in America. There is a massive disconnect between teachers and students because of differing culture, language barriers, oversaturated testing processes, and the overwhelming presence of too many intervention specialists and tutors. And I never thought I'd say that the last thing was a problem, but one student I know had so many tutors that he couldnt even name his homeroom teacher for months.
The education system is a pendulum. It constantly swings back and forth due to new studies, methods, cultural shifts, and strategies. The thing is, there's never an in-between for this metaphorical pendulum. It's all extreme on one side or extreme on the other. Whole-part reading versus part-whole reading. No intervention versus much intervention. Too much praise versus too much criticism. There has to be an equilibrium. A balance. I need it. My students need it. The whole education system in this country needs it. And it has to happen now, before we lose more students to disinterest, disillusionment, discouragement, and chaos (to break the "dis" pattern).
Welp. That was a cheery introspection. But I figured it was a necessary one. To sum it all up, instead of a writer's quotation of the night, we have a...
Teacher's Quotation of the Night:
I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
- Albert Einstein
Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.
I don't know exactly how many reasons I can throw into the pot here for why things got kind of odd and definitely intense at the school where I work during these past couple of days. Maybe it's spring fever or allergies. Maybe it's the fact that summer is imminent, and school will be out in fewer than two months. Hell, maybe the upcoming STAR tests are stressing out my students (second grade and above). Whatever the excuses, my students have been emotionally exhausted or emotionally peaking. And it's been more than just a handful to deal with.
Last night's sonnet, yes, was based on a true story of a student of mine in the literacy program I teach. Long story short, she does not think highly of her talents or intelligence at all, especially due to bullying. The bullying especially disgusted me, and it was a challenge for me to move away from praise to encouragement (studies, as well as basic common sense, show that the former will make students dependent on adult approval, while encouragement will allow them to independently identify their strengths and weaknesses) in order to remind her of how capable she was at so many things. On that same day, I had a very angry young boy bark at me and then snap, "Nothing!" when I asked him what was wrong, after several days of seeing him crying, tears streaming down his face, as he departed from recess. Does spring make people more aggressive? Because it just makes me itchy and lethargic.
Today, well - that was an explosion waiting to happen. Not only did one of my students write, "You hate us!" on the board and ask me if that was "my secret" (Boy, I sure gave my whole class a talking to about that. Not only do I adore every student in my class, but I also don't hate anyone. Not even the awful people in the world who are so easily hated), but another of my students, who seems to suffer from chronic headaches, wrote, "I HATE MY LIFE" on a piece of paper in her notebook. In second grade terms, I told her that I did not take that shit lightly, even getting her mom to come upstairs and talking with her about her health. Seeing that bright, positive student crumble sobbing into her mother's arms broke my heart, and it really made me feel helpless about truly guiding these beautiful and talented young girls in order to see them succeed.
And that's the thing, really: Not only do my second grade students in the literacy program have the odds against them, but so do most of the students in my school. These students, all from Latin American countries, are in an educational system that disfavors them and puts them at a huge disadvantage. They are constantly held up to outrageous national standards, which is insane because these kids did not grow up with English - they are learning it. You have no idea how many times I have to remind certain test evaluators that these ELL students need to be given credit for learning an entirely different language - a difficult one, to boot - while attempting to maintain their own culture and their own language at home. And not only that, but they are in a country where a lot of people do not want to acknowledge them. They want them deported. They call them horrid slurs. They think they're "stealing" our land and jobs from us. All while they are plopped in front of technology because their parents are working full-time jobs and have no energy or time to be, well, parents.
It is extremely difficult for me to connect to these kids, not because they're doing anything wrong, but because I come from a completely different culture. I am, in brief, a Caucasian, English-speaking, gay 23-year-old trying to inspire and invigorate these kids - and that makes me, to use a tired cliché, stick out like a sore thumb. Sure, some students respect me, but others view me with skepticism. And I don't blame them. I'm not going to march around, acting like I understand the culture, because for the most part, I don't. One thing I always say to my second grade students in the literacy program I teach: "You are learning from me, but I am also learning from you." That, to me, is so crucial of a concept to bring to the current educational structure in America. There is a massive disconnect between teachers and students because of differing culture, language barriers, oversaturated testing processes, and the overwhelming presence of too many intervention specialists and tutors. And I never thought I'd say that the last thing was a problem, but one student I know had so many tutors that he couldnt even name his homeroom teacher for months.
The education system is a pendulum. It constantly swings back and forth due to new studies, methods, cultural shifts, and strategies. The thing is, there's never an in-between for this metaphorical pendulum. It's all extreme on one side or extreme on the other. Whole-part reading versus part-whole reading. No intervention versus much intervention. Too much praise versus too much criticism. There has to be an equilibrium. A balance. I need it. My students need it. The whole education system in this country needs it. And it has to happen now, before we lose more students to disinterest, disillusionment, discouragement, and chaos (to break the "dis" pattern).
Welp. That was a cheery introspection. But I figured it was a necessary one. To sum it all up, instead of a writer's quotation of the night, we have a...
Teacher's Quotation of the Night:
I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
- Albert Einstein
Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.
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