The Best Worst School Year: An Introduction

I haven’t written a post in over a year.

Do you ever feel like you have a school year that seems to knock the wind out of you? Perhaps a “punch in the gut” type of experience? This has been the greatest year I have EVER had, yet it has also been the most difficult, the most humbling, the most foundation-shaking trial I’ve ever endured.

I was the county’s Teacher of the Year, and I was recognized by the Governor as an innovative teacher all in one school year; I have never felt more succesful, yet I have never felt like so much of a failure at the same time. It has been an odd concoction of emotions.

So after a year of writing about fun ideas for the classroom, I needed a time of quiet, a time of realization that passion, excitement, and creativity don’t always cut it. I needed recovery time. I needed to heal.

I haven’t felt like I’ve been able to process all that happened during this school year until now. The smoke of daily battle has finally cleared, and I am starting to bend down and pick up priceless pieces of wisdom strewn about the wasteland of my experience. And I’m thankful.

I will never be the same teacher again.

Over the summer, I want to share with you what I’ve learned not because I know have reached some sort of educational enlightenment but because I have a feeling that some of you are hurting too. Some of you are still reeling from the jarring experience of a difficult school year.

Walk with me through this journey of reflection. Let’s have a conversation. I will be real, open, and honest with you. I want to humbly share with you mistakes that I hope to never repeat, and most of all, how I had to lean on my faith in Jesus Christ to survive.

I leave you for now with this:

James 1:2-4

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Pushing the Right Buttons: Anita’s Story

Anita was at best apathetic in my class. Honestly, I never heard a peep out of her for the majority of the school year. When she did her assignments, none of them really stood out, and it seemed as if she did them begrudgingly with half-hearted effort. It wasn’t until a poetry project given at the end of the year that my attention was turned to her like never before. I asked my students to write a poem about an inner struggle that they had comparing that struggle to a metaphorical monster within them. As I scanned the room, watching my students diligently working, my eyes turned to Anita. To my stunned surprise, she was writing furiously, engaged in this one task more than she had been in any other the whole year.

When I peeped at her paper to see what “monster” caused her to write with such passion, the word MARIJUANA caught my eye. Sensing me looking over her shoulder, she turned to me and whispered, “I need help. I know my monster is supposed to be bad, but honestly I can only think of reasons why I like it.” My heart dropped to my stomach. Finally, she was beginning to do work for me, but she was revealing a major struggle that I knew I had to address.

The next day, Anita and I, with Dr. Peppers in hand, took a walk to the teacher’s lounge during class. After spending time talking through her writing, we eventually began to discuss the inevitable. Shyly, she told me about how it all started, who dealt it to her, how often she did it, and why. When I called home and spoke with her mother, more revelations about this young lady came to light.

Anita lived in a broken home. Her mother was at a complete loss as to what to do when told about this unearthed discovery. Being a young newlywed in my 20’s, I found myself in the awkward place of having to give this parent advice. “Yes, you should call and report the teenager distributing the pot.” “Under the circumstances, yes I do feel that you should probably set some clear boundaries and guidelines for your daughter.” As the words left my mouth, I began to see more clearly that Anita’s support system at home was weak at best.

Hoping that this phone conversation and my long talk with Anita would do some good, I was devastated when, a few weeks later, one of the worst scenarios possible happened. In a fleeting moment of stupidity, Anita and one of her friends decided to bring marijuana to school, planning to smoke it outside the art room during the week of CRCT testing. When it was discovered that this potent substance was in her possession, she was whisked away from the carefree world of middle school never to enter its doors again. Her all-too-subtle cry for help a few weeks ago was not heard as it should by her shocked parents. She spent the rest of the year sitting in an ISS cubby hole over at the high school campus.

Right before she left, I issued a new assignment – one in which my students had to write about their past as well as write about what is important to them. This was a multi-genre project, so students created narrative pieces, poetry, eulogies, thank-you notes and the like. About a week and a half into the project, well before the assignment was due, I received an email from Anita containing her writing – all in a language that artfully came to life. Her words painted beautiful pictures on the page; it was a masterful compilation. She wrote honestly, reflectively, and with the passion of someone who truly loved putting pen to paper. In her project reflection, she talked about how over the course of this year, writing has become almost a part of her, an essential, something that she can’t do without.

I tried to process what I was reading: here was this student, addicted to marijuana, expelled from school, in the eyes of so many around her – a hopeless cause. This girl was writing with the expertise and level of honesty that far exceeded many of her peers! It would have been easy to slap the label of “delinquent” on her, but if you looked past her obvious shortcomings, you would be able to see budding talent and creativity.

One day, I decided to take a leap of faith. Not knowing whether or not I would crash and burn, I walked over to the high school and met face to face with Anita. I told her she was a good writer and genuinely praised her for a job well done. Her eyes lit up, and she received my words as if positive compliments were a rarity to her ears. A few weeks prior to this, I had learned of a summer creative writing institute at a local university. I talked with her about the the program and told her earnestly that she should look into participating in it. Her talent was real, and it needed to be developed. As she expressed that she would like to participate, I began to understand that she was just looking for someone to believe in her.

Girls just like Anita sit in classrooms around the country. These are young women who have made wrong choices – for whatever reason – and choose to dwell in the crippling cycle of self-defeat. I have seen time and time again as teachers and caretakers look at girls like Anita and lower their bar of expectations much lower than what these girls can actually do simply because of lifestyle choices. What would happen if instead of focusing on their faults, we began capitalizing on their strengths? What if we truly looked for the diamond in the rough? What if we chose to believe more about those in our care that they ever dared to believe about themselves?

Little Conversations: How I Survive High-Stakes Testing

This week is CRCT testing at my middle school – a time of year when both teachers and students are on edge. For a whole week, it seems that a cloud of anxiousness does not lift from our school building. As a teacher who blogs, I feel somewhat obligated to write a scathing post about how terrible high-stakes tests are for education.

But that is not what I am going to do.

Instead of drowning my small, insignificant voice in a sea of complaints and negativity, I want to push against the current a little bit. A wise person once reminded me that in education there will always be things we don’t agree with that we are asked to do. Quite often, these frustrations end up being the Achilles heel of our beautiful, powerful calling as teachers.

Although CRCT week can be an emotional rollercoaster and a nightmare of uncertainty for some, I have discovered that it is the little conversations, these Heaven orchestrated and perfectly timed reminders, that keep my chin up during a week like this. Student interactions such as the ones below have been my lifeline this week!

1. Caleb stopped by my classroom and asked if I would print his poem so that he could give it to administration because they told him they wanted a copy. I wrote about Caleb a couple weeks ago in my post Labeling Students: How We Lower the Bar with Quick Assumptions. We sat and chatted a while, and I eventually asked him why he chose to write on “sorrow” as his topic. He explained to me that he is often lost in thought, mulling and worrying over his fear of something bad happening to his family.

I listened as he shared with caring eyes and a half smile about his relationship with his siblings, cousins, and grandparents. I got a chance to tell him he was talented at writing, and he brightened. I could tell those words were like long lost friends to his ears. Caleb is failing almost everything, but to see him light up when I praised him for a job well done did so much to lift my own spirits.

2. Brooke is a beautiful, young eighth grader who is desperately searching for her identity. I have watched all year as her inconsistent actions have jumped from one end of the spectrum to another. She is popular in her grade; thus, drama follows her, and other students have occasionally accused her as being mean and uncaring. She is someone who has touched my heart, someone I have tried all year to really influence.

This week, she came bounding up to me and proudly shared about what she had learned at church the night before. The youth pastor was doing a sermon on judging and labeling other people. I listened in amazement as she shared that she now had a completely different perspective on how she viewed other people when she walked into school today. I was so excited that she chose to share this step of growth with me. She may not realize it, but I am her biggest cheerleader!

3. My most recent writing assignment asked students to write about an inner struggle, a metaphorical “monster” in their lives. Jenna chose to write her poem on marijuana. After letting the proper authorities know and making a phone call to her mother, Jenna and I sat down for about an hour and had a heart-to-heart conversation about the drug and its consequences.

This week, I checked in with her. She told me she had shared her poem with her mother, and together, they were able to have a good discussion. I asked if we could talk again to develop an action plan for quitting before she hit high school, and she was opening to continuing the dialogue. This seemingly small step of progress, encouraged me this week because perhaps the choices she makes now will one day save her life!

4. Matthew moved here from a very rural county in the middle of the year and has since struggled his way through all his classes. Although he is in the eighth grade, he is turning 16 next week and has made plans to drop out of school, following in the footsteps of his father (who has given him permission). Yesterday, I pulled him aside after lunch and talked to him about how dangerous and life-changing this one choice can be! One decision will impact much more than he may realize.

This morning, I found him in the hall and followed up with him. He said that he and his mother talked last night, and he told her he no longer wanted to drop out of school.

Each one of these conversations happened during the midst of such a taxing, high-stress week. Moments like these – being able to see a teenage boy proud of his work, watching the light bulb finally turn on in a young girl’s heart, seeing choices made that will change the rest of a child’s life – make teaching all worthwhile.

Perhaps you are bogged down with work. Are you recognizing the little pick-me-ups that may be sitting right there in your classroom?

What little conversations have inspired you along the way?

Interested in reading more stories from the field or thoughts on education? Check out:

Labeling Students: How We Lower the Bar with Quick Assumptions

Why I Write: The Story of My Blog

The Abused Student: What Every Teacher Should Know

The Battle for Positivity

Labeling Students: How We Lower the Bar with Quick Assumptions

I often tell people who have an over-simplified view of what I do that lesson planning and instruction are only small parts of my job. Within a single work week, I am a teacher, a mentor, a child’s mother, a counselor, a coach, and at times, even a police officer.  Juggling so many responsibilities throughout the day can make it all too easy to lose sight of something very important – the heart of why each one of us comes to work every day.  The actual reason most of us joined this rollercoaster of a profession is because we care deeply about seeing students succeed.  Simply having too much to do under such high stakes is often the culprit that sucks away at our effectiveness leaving little time for us to remember why it is we do what we do in the first place.

Because we are often so swamped, it is very easy to look past the individuality of each of our students and instead, create a mental imaginary label that we slap like a scarlet letter on their foreheads.  Most of the time, we do this with the best of intentions.  School is hectic and busy, so it is very easy to make fast judgment calls based on a lot of past experience but very little studied evidence.  A child’s friends, socio-economic status, prior grades, family circumstances, and even physical appearance often form the criteria in which we categorize our kids.  Unfortunately, whether good or bad, the label some of our students wear often becomes the bar that is set for them.  In a situation like middle school where kids learn via a team of content-specific teachers, an educator’s judgment call on who she thinks the child is can quickly spread to the other teachers on the team.   Thus our quick-fix filing system of understanding students can potentially have a disastrous impact.  Kids are more discerning that we realize.  They understand how we view them, and often they believe the label themselves doing little to rise above the standard we inadvertently set.

I, on many occasions, have been guilty of making fast assumptions about my students like so many others.  Things began to change this year when a kid named Caleb showed me that looking past the obvious into what is deeper can make a world of difference.  Caleb and his family have lived on the same plot of land for generations.  A rural Southerner at heart, he comes to school each day wearing muddy cowboy boots, blue jeans, ears pierced by his own hand, and a large rebel flag belt buckle.  When Caleb comes to school, he is often very tired and sleepy, but his drowsiness is not a result of late night video games like the average 8^th grader.  Instead, he wakes up each morning before the early hours of dawn and takes his siblings to his grandparent’s house next door.  The reason?  His dad leaves for work early in the morning, and Caleb wants to make sure his siblings are not sleeping in a house alone.  This before sunrise journey takes place nearly every day.  Caleb, a rough-around-the-edges kid, has friends that are just like him.  They all talk with a sweet southern draw and will engage in a fist fight if anyone crosses them in the wrong way.  Caleb has suffered from “labeling” throughout much of his schooling.  Although he has an attitude bigger than Texas, the confidence he has in himself is miniscule and nearly non-existent.  Failing several classes every quarter, Caleb gets through the school day by making his peers laugh, thus masking his own belief that he will never rise above what others believe about him.

It has been like pulling teeth to get Caleb to work all year long until one assignment finally got through to him.  In a unit on linking verbs, I asked my students to write poem about a metaphorical monster inside of them to describe the “beast”.  Every kid’s monster varied from each other.  Kids wrote poems on a wide spectrum of topics such as drug abuse, anger, laziness, self-consciousness, fear, and even an abusive father figure.  Caleb chose a unique topic for his poem, sorrow.    A full four days before the assignment was actually due, Caleb proudly brought me his finish poem – an unprecedented event.  When I read his words, I was genuinely flooded with emotion.  Here is this kid who won’t do work because he doesn’t think he is smart enough, who makes jokes to mask his own insecurities, who doesn’t believe he will ever rise above his family – and he has hit the ball out of the park with this homerun of a poem.  After showering Caleb with praise for a job well done and publically bragging on him to other teachers and administrators, I sat back and reflected on what I just learned.  How many Calebs are sitting in my classroom year after year with untapped potential?  How often have I let kids like him slip through the cracks because I was simply too busy to look beyond what is on the outside?  No prior reputation needs to influence what I believe that child can and cannot do.  No amount of “bad behavior” should EVER make me feel that a student is less capable.  Our schools are full of Calebs who need teachers to stop what they are doing and take the time to invest into kids who have stopped believing in themselves.

Read Caleb’s poem below:

He took my wings before I learned to fly.

He makes me hold my breath and wish for death.

He makes me see all bad and all I see is darkness.

He is like a landmine, taking my life and taking my soul.

I hide when he comes looking for me.

He turns all my love to hate.

He won’t let the beginnings begin.

I live.  He takes…this life that I forsake.

He makes it seem as if everyone is after me.

He says,” You will suffer unto me” like a lost soul.

Waking up, I cannot see.  There ain’t much left of me.

He is a lonely soul that is taking mine over.

My monster within is sorrow.

Why I Write: The Story of My Blog

I realized this week that I’ve never told the story of why I am here trying to faithfully type up this blog every week…

I have been a teacher for going on five years. In college, I had two inspirations that encouraged me to try and become a writer. The first was a woman named Nancy Atwell who wrote a book entitled In the Middle. In this book, she introduced a brand new concept to me that I’ve never heard of before: writing teachers should be writers themselves. I don’t remember a single teacher in my schooling that seemed genuinely interested in being a writer. Although this idea sounds so obvious when I type the words right now, the concept was absolutely mind-blowing to me when I first heard of it – yet it makes total sense. Students follow a teacher who is passionate about what they teach! My second inspiration in college that pushed me out of my comfort zone to begin dabbling here and there with writing was a professor named Darrin Crovitz. He taught future writing teachers, and his method of teaching involved him sitting down and writing alongside of us. Every assignment he gave us, he did it as well. This really inspired me and encouraged me to want to follow in his footsteps as a teacher.

But that inspiration died once I began the deer-in-headlights first year of teaching. I was in total survival-mode! The years that followed brought changes in what grade levels I taught, and it brought on an additional social studies class that I had to add to my other language arts preps. I jumped into gifted endorsement class and then plowed through getting my master’s degree. Needless to say, the great idea of becoming a teacher who writes was quickly shifted to the back-burner. It wasn’t until this year, that I put my foot down and decided that it was time things changed!

I began the 2011-2012 school year with a freshly-invigorated and inspired philosophy of teaching. I was determined to push myself as a teacher and as a writer. When I assigned poetry, I wrote a poem. When my students did a persuasive presentation, I modeled by sharing my own researched presentation. I began to see that my students really responded to me working alongside of them. They wanted to see how I would complete my own assignment, and doing the projects with them gave them the opportunity to see a side of me that they won’t always see in the classroom. I could tell they really appreciated me “doing the work” with them. But things stepped to a whole new level when I heard about someone name Jon Acuff.

A friend of mine told me about a book Acuff had written that was called Quitter. In this book, he discusses how he, being bored and unhappy with his job, started blogging for fun. He pushed himself to blog regularly. Although he had hardly any followers at first, he blogged as if he had an audience of thousands. In his book, he explains that while he muddled through the process of finding his voice and becoming a writer and faithfully writing on his blog week after week, he actually became good at it and gained quite a following. As a result, he was able to quit his day job and pursue doors that have opened because of what he has been able to do. After hearing his story, a lightbulb clicked for me. I needed to write not just for my students but for other people and for a cause that I care about.

I immediately started my own blog called Teaching Reflections: The Homework I Assign to Myself. If I am asking my kids to write, then I need to as well! My students have to journal every week for seven minutes, so I decided to get a journal similar to theirs, sit down in the desks with them during journal time, and map out each week’s blog post on paper before I transfer it to the computer. It has done SO much for me! I push myself to continually be reflecting on my job and how it can be better, and I am forcing myself (with the help of a very encouraging husband who tells me to “Just do it!”) to put my voice out there and work hard to become a writer.

Since I had begun this whole personal writing initiative, so many other doors have opened up. I was asked to contribute a chapter in a book recently that will be published later this year. I mustered up the courage to apply for the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project…something that will hopefully give me the skills to be better at being a writer and communicating the ins and outs of how to write with my students. I am now following other blogs and writers that I look up to and hope to one day write have a blog that is as powerful as theirs. I basically have a newfound passion, and I’m loving every minute of it! The best part of all of this is being able to share a real and authentic excitement about writing with my students.

All that to say…push yourself! Go out there and get out of your comfort zone! If you get doing what you’ve always been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always been getting. I am so thankful that I took the leap and began to get my ideas out there! Hopefully, just the fact that I’m doing this will make me more effective with the students that sit in my classroom each day.