two feet in.

Teacher and Student and Student and Teacher: Amazing Teacher #4

Time to revisit another neglected Two Feet In category -- amazing teachers.  It is especially negligent that I have not written about any teachers recently, as there is no shortage in my life of people who think deeply about the art of teaching -- they practically ooze out my pores.  I realized that I don't need to sit down and do a big interview, as I was previously attempting when profiling teachers.  That I could just collect up anecdotes and share them as they come along.  This is a blog after all, no need to be formal.

Most inspiring to me are those teachers who seriously grapple with the many dimensions of their job -- political, artistic, pedagogic, interpersonal...  Amelia Elgas is currently a student teacher in the institution where I teach, working towards the all-important credential that one needs in order to be considered "highly qualified."   I've always found that label -- student teacher -- to be troublesome, as if there is some line between being a student and being a teacher, as if we are not all students, and all of us teachers.  That, unfortunately, is my own particular take on the world, and one which is, ahem, not exactly supported in the system that I must work within.

Nonetheless, Amelia's words inspired me as they showed how those lines of artistic and political, student and teacher, knowledge bringer yet heart open to knowledge, can and do intersect in both teaching and in life:

Children
Hands raised to the sky
Asking why
are we so confined?

They are falling asleep behind their desks
Suffering from spiritual neglect
I’ll read another book about the broken education system and talk some politics
But each and every day I still return to the same old box of tricks
Sittin’ in desks
All eyes on me
Listen to the one up front
Maybe I’ll mix it up with a group punt
Heavy hittin’ knowledge bringer
I claim to be a dead ringer
But every teacher has that insecurity
That intersects with confident maturity
Depends on the day
Where our mentals will prey

Everwhere the children turn there is something to learn
But it may not be what we intend
There is a role for Mr. Discipline and focused attention
There is a place for the african dance teacher
There is a space for academics and soulimedics
So I can’t say the children are really suffering
They just might be bored for several hours a day
And really what’s so bad about being numb anyway?
When they “grow up” they’ll get to do what they want
They’ll visit the global capatalist haunts
Most will fit right in the system
From school desks to office cubicles

Meanwhile people around the world
Live, eat, dance and watch our fake images on the boob tube
Am I really so bold to be this rude?
To something which is supposed to be so sacred
Teacher and student
Student and teacher
Automatic film feature
Esoteric bullshit creature

And the fill in the blank answer to the following questions is Yes
For easier scan-tron scoring....
Is Ari talking too much in my class?
Are Isaac and he not raising their hand before they talk
Is Malik quiet and removed
Can Fernando not speak any English in an all English class
Is Jerome dying to express himself
Will blond Rose fall into the stereotypes or be the class pet
Is Yvette a young black girl with a super sharp mind

And then there are the unknowns
Is Ethan depressed or abused
Is Charles getting enough challenge
What really is Tyler's problem with finishing work
What to do about the language development of English language learners like Bianca, José Luis, Diyari, Oscar?
Do I call on students like Caroline too much
Why can’t I think of anything to write about quiet Marisol
And what is going on with Chaunisha- removed, engaged, and then removed again
Where does Alexa fall in this
Are there too many students in one classroom?

What will they really learn here that will transform them
Absorb them
Allow them to live more fully
To have a better life
What will they remember from this year in the future?
Will it be the teacher, the discipline, the curriculum
Will it be a way of working or a style of being in a group

Would we be better off with another model
Where children are not falsely coddled
Or shunned
By so many adults on the run
To some American dream
Materialistically obscene
Over-worked fiend
Where everything that brings happiness is to-go, on the run, time-efficient, and self-sufficient

This year I will teach myself something and see who comes along for the ride
I will live voraciously
I will do the very best I can do, knowing that my best is always changing
I’ll have to live a life I can live with
And that may mean neglecting the dishes
But never rejecting my heart’s deepest wishes

And my classmates, and the professors and the students
They will surely learn something
Contained in the standards strains
or not
In the brain
or not
In the emotions drained
or not

This may be the hardest year of their life or the best
Will this school, this year, these teachers pass the test?
......But I don’t believe in tests anyways
So I’ll throw the NCLB by the wayside
And live on in this contradiction
This tense condition
Keep on pushin’
Keep on wishin’
Keep on listenin’

more than the sidewalk: amazing teacher #3

Evan Nichols:  writer, world-traveler, close friend and associate of online publishing world icon, and the first maestro extraordinario of 2005.

I can't share Evan's life story with you, because I didn't do an official "amazing teacher" interview in preparing this blog entry.  All you really need to know is that the Oakland school children who have passed through his classroom are very lucky.  And, he has a beautiful family.  And, he is a Ben Affleck look-a-like.

In these times of mandated-curriculum, scripted-teaching, only-the-basics-thank-you madness, you will find Evan encouraging, inspiring, emboldening, provoking, sparking, stirring-up, and in general teaching his students to write. 

Sure, many teachers say that they value writing, or that they "teach" writing, but look closely and you'll find that students are not given the time, space, freedom, or respect -- as well as the structure, support, and guidance -- that put truth to the concept of teaching writing.  To attempt do this may not seem like much.  But, in a public school classroom, in 2005, in Oakland, California... well, it is nearly revolutionary.

I'll leave you with Evan's most recent meditation on teaching, learning, pinecones, and sidewalks:

Before I left for Christmas vacation, I stared out my window and snapped this shot of some pinecones. They had been growing there outside my classroom for months. Why weren't we charting their growth, naming them, learning to draw them? We were learning about text-to-self connections, that's why.

We were discussing character, setting and plot.

We were singing at the top of our lungs, "I'm a little verb, sleeping in my bed, don't wake me up or you'll be dead!"

Pinecones didn't come up.

Now I look at these and get ready to climb into bed, another vacation wrapped up, another first day back about to kick in with a flash of light and "Action!" and no time to pee and feeling awfully hungry about two hours before they'll let us out to eat.

Still, there is a certain magic to having a classroom. I can walk in, as I intend to do tomorrow, and say, "Here, let me read you a pop-up book of Peter and the Wolf. I swiped it from my daughter, who insisted on doing shows with it all holiday vacation." After I read it and we offer our opinions about it, I can say, "Here, I want you to listen to a CD of Peter and the Wolf that used to scare me when I was little. Let's draw while we listen.

I can proclaim a cultural revolution. I can institute sweeping reforms. I have a mandate.

How did I get a mandate? No, I guess I just have the upper hand. That's why my class rule is, "Raise your hand or talk to the hand."

OK, so I need to be overthrown, but forget about that for a moment. Consider the pinecones. They are fat and full of seeds. Will they still be there when I crawl groggily in tomorrow? Or will they have pushed off into the unknown, plunged 50 feet to the sidewalk, and exploded on the cement, sending their seeds shooting hopefully in every direction?

Is there a metaphor to be had here? Are those pinecones on the tree of knowledge? Are they kids, plunging from the high branches of public education? How do I catch the seeds, plant them in safe, rich soil, protect them? Am I the squirrel?

I often feel like I'm the sidewalk.

More than just the sidewalk, I would say.
________________________________

Now, dear readers, I know that all of you have amazing teachers hidden away in the nooks and crannies of your life.  Send them here so that they too may exalt in the full sunshine of fame and fortune. Okay, so the fame is limited, the fortune nominal, and the full sunshine emanates from the computer screen... but your amazing teacher deserves recognition nonetheless.

 

amazing teacher #2

Mary Barrett -- amazing teacher, writer, and friend, on her thirty-four years of teaching in Berkeley schools:  “Nothing that I ever did was anything that I expected.”

Mary’s interest in working with kids who are not thriving in our educational system began with her VISTA work in Appalachia, and her studies in the late 1960’s of power relations in this country.  She believes in speaking truth to power:  in using grassroots mobilization to take power rather than asking or waiting for it. 

She has worked on the Piute reservation in the Eastern Sierras, has taught autistic children, developed integrated models for special education, inspired second and third graders, and served as reading specialist.

In the early 1990’s Mary began her participation with the Bay Area Writing Project, which she considers to be one of the best things that she’s ever done.  She deepened her teaching practice, and strengthened her own love of writing and identity as a writer --an identity which she has continued to develop over the past fifteen years.

Mary is a poet, a journalist, memoirist, and chronicler of the lives of others who work for social justice – including Father Bill O’Donnell, Wavy Gravy, and Palestinian/Israeli Bereaved Families for Peace.

“Nothing that I ever did was anything that I expected.”   What if all teachers could truthfully say words like these at the end of their careers?  Somehow, I think that our public schools would be a very different, and quite wonderful kind of place. 

My Somebody
by Mary Barrett

This girl I teach is too thin,
tiny sores pink her face,
her front teeth are capped with metal,
a sign of being left to suck a bottle too long.
She can’t name elephant, giraffe, not even cow;
she doesn’t know there’s a moon.

But as we read about “Moms and Dads”,
and she asks about mine, who have died,
she looks up at me concerned,
“Ain’t you got no body?”

I tell her of my son and daughter, of my friends.
She listens yet smoothes my hand with her own,
ready to put her name on my list,
to be my somebody.

on trees, sky, and teachers

The other day a friend of mine told me that this blog reminds her of a quilt -- a bit of this and that which come together to create a unified whole.  Since I make quilts, and like to over-use the life-as-quilt metaphor, I took this as a compliment. 

Quilt-making can be either a solitary or collective act... so here is your chance to contribute.

I know that many of you out there in my vast and faithful blog audience have pictures of amazing trees or sky tucked away in some corner of your hard drive.  Now is your chance to dig them out and send them to me here.  You can submit them with or without accompanying story, poem, description, or stream of consciousness musings.  If you just want to send an image, I'll provide the text. 

You may or may not have a photograph of an amazing teacher hidden away, but you probably have one in your life.  Think broadly in your definition of teacher, find that person, take a picture and send me a short profile.

Why trees, sky, and teachers?  These can all be sources of inspiration, awe, hope, peace -- things that we all need a dose of on a regular basis. 

Today: Sunday amazing sky from our first guest contributor, Evan Nichols.

Sí se puede: Amazing Teacher #1

Betty Pazmiño, my diva/sister/compañera, is the first amazing teacher profile.

She embodies: teacher-as-activist, teacher-as-intellectual, teacher-as-idealist, teacher-as-inspiration.

Born and raised in the Mission district of San Francisco, she has taught at César Chávez school for the past twenty years.

Betty sets an example for all of us: in her work with children, with las madres in the after-school program, with the community, with university students, and with her friends, she strives for Transformation... (Note the capital T -- it’s there on purpose).

She was instrumental in transforming the physical landscape at Chavez by bringing in muralists Juana Alicia and Susan Cervantes. She has taken on the state board of education (and won), and is currently organizing against the nightmare “dream” schools.

Look for her action at the school board next week – she’ll be presenting them with an altar about how Dream schools can be possible for all students, but not Superintendant Ackerman's vision. Rather, Betty fights for schools organized, shaped and defined around the dreams of teachers, parents, communities, and children.

Sí se puede.