Teaching! Where Am I and What Am I Doing Here?
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Photographs: Students picked characters from To Kill A Mockingbird and used photography to represent them. They chose whether they wanted to use black and white or color. The class then had to create a visual representation that included all the characters together. One class did the shape of a heart. The other as a shape of a person with each character in the novel a different part of the body. They then presented their choices to me.
March 7, 2008
This week. This week has been interesting. In the last two years, I have thought a lot about teaching. I was forced to. Divorce paralyzed me. The one place that I always felt at home was in my classroom. I was Rebecca. If I wanted to sing, I would sing. If I wanted to dance, I danced. The students who have sat in my room through the years, probably know me better than anyone. Joy is the word I use if I had to describe how I felt in room 210 in Greene Central School. Of course along with the joy there also was a heaviness. A heaviness that would sometimes make me wonder how I could teach. I thought so many days, ‘What was I possibly teaching?” I can’t tell you how many students I had to watch struggle. Or tell you how many students I saw that longed to be anywhere but sitting in front of me. It is funny because in those years, I didn’t want to be anywhere but right there with them. They were my life, the blood that kept me alive. Yet, if you asked them, I wonder if they knew? I wonder if they knew that they saved my life for 8 years? Even the heaviness saved me.
The mornings, the afternoons, the evenings. The night when I searched the school at 11 o’clock with Matt Butler because a student was missing and her family had called me. They called me, because they thought she was suicidal and didn’t know who else to call. I remember the self reprimanding that was rattling through my head, when I realized I couldn’t say with absolute certainty whether she had been in class that day or not. How could a teacher not know? The look in Matt Butler’s glassy eyes when he said, as we were looking through the seats of the auditorium, “You need to prepare yourself for the worst, Rebecca! I don’t think this is good.” How can I possibly tell you what the air felt like leaving my lungs when I saw her walk into my World History classroom the next day?
How many times did I think I couldn’t do it. That I couldn’t possibly deal with the heartache of teaching. That the tally of the win loss record couldn’t even be looked at, let alone contemplated. I couldn’t go on. Couldn’t watch children fall apart before me. Couldn’t take one more drop out. One more death. One more parent who could watch their child suffer and do nothing. Felt like I couldn’t handle the intolerance I saw and experienced. The students who were wonderful caring thinkers could be found bullying people in the hallway when no one was looking. Yet, I did it. Did it with so many colleagues that I loved and respected.
But then I left Tim. I walked away and with it, school changed for me. At first, I had nothing to give. No words of wisdom to share. I was 30 years old and I felt like I knew nothing. The pain of my personal life, made it impossible to care about anyone or anything else. I remember the hurt in a student’s eyes when I said I didn’t care how they did on the regents exam. I shot that student in the heart because I didn’t care. I saw the pain and I quickly back tracked and said, something like, “The regents is only one sign of learning, and not a good sign at that. This class is so much more than that. You have to make a difference with the knowledge that you learn, not put pressure on a stupid test.”
But she knew. She looked in my eyes and she knew I was lying. I was stuck.
Yet, I kept breathing and milliseconds turned into seconds and seconds into minutes and somehow a year passed. But I was different. I was able to care again, but perhaps I cared too much. History became too painful to even think about for me. As if I started to believe lessons could not be learned. The machine of history could not be stopped instead it just went rumbling on. People you loved could be sent to the Sudan and there was nothing you could do. You couldn’t stop the killing and more importantly could they? The millions of people that I spoke about in class, now became the face of a person I loved. It no longer became enough to talk about it anymore.
“I need something more! This is not enough! I don’t think I can just watch this happen! I am not sure I can be in a country that can make this happen.”
I moved to Italy. Why Italy? Because they hired me and I needed a change. I saw Elizabeth’s glowing face and I thought, ‘I can do this.’
So here I am. I no longer have to teach about the Armenians, the Holocaust, Rwanda, the World Wars. Instead I teach 8th graders History and English. I teach the Renaissance and I live in Italy. I get to teach Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and I live an hour and a half away from Verona. Teaching ideas such as making my students perform street theater scenes in Verona are what whirl through my head now.
This week, in history class, I needed them to contemplate the Protestant Reformation. In my head, I am thinking, “Why on Earth, would an 8th grader care about the Protestant Reformation?” Thinking to myself, “I am not sure I even care all that much about the Protestant Reformation.” But remembering my own advice that I used to give to my students at Greene, when studying Enlightenment thinkers, “I just need to find the looooovvve..” So, I pushed on. My white board was filled with written statements dealing with issues about the separation of church and state. The spectrum of thought line stared at us, as we came up with a list of present day countries with which we have a frame of reference. We are thinking. Together, we are thinking about the world in which we live. Questioning its vastness and where religion fits into the world. I stand there amazed by their knowledge of the world. They have seen so much, been so many places. They are just as much the teacher as they are the student.
Yet, they don’t know what to do with the knowledge they have and suddenly I am keenly aware of my role in their lives. That fact scares me. It always scares me. The influence a teacher has. What right do I have to shape their lives?
So, I am standing in front of them. Here is the moment. The moment that I love. When I ask them, “Why should I care about this stuff? I mean, come on, why is it important for me to learn about Martin Luther, a German monk from the 16th Century?” I look around the room. I always look around the room, I love that moment. The moment when the students look back at me and say with their eyes, “Exactly! This woman FINALLY gets it. It isn’t important!” Or they say, “It is important and I think I know why!” That moment is when the thinking begins and the fun finally starts.
I am scanning the faces in my 8th grade classroom and I am struck by Donatus’ face. He is completely interested and somewhat skeptical of my question. Donatus is always skeptical of me. I think that is what I love most about Donatus. A little skeptism is a very good thing.
“Well, Miss, I actually care tremendously about this.” He says rather stoically. “For it is during this time in German history that my family gained tremendous power.”
Oh, that's right, he is a prince. Everyday I teach a real German prince. Most days I forget about this fact, for he is very much like every other kid I have ever taught. But here I am, looking at him, him looking at me and I think, ‘Yes, of course he cares about the Protestant Reformation, because his family benefited greatly from Protestantism.’ The heads of his classmates tilt, their eyes glitter, and in that moment I have them, they are interested. They didn’t need to realize church and state is an important issue, nope they wanted to learn about their classmate the German prince. But it wasn't enough for me. It's not enough!
I simply said, “Yes, I do suppose that is one reason to think this is important.” But, then I moved on. I had to move, for this issue is more important than princes and ruling families. (Don’t worry all you teachers out there, I am sure I will use it later as a very teachable moment, but not then, I just couldn’t)
So, I am a teacher. I can’t help but wonder if I supposed to be? I am not sure. What is most interesting is that I am more unsure here in Italy than I was in Greene. It is one of the most amazing professions in the world, and there is not a moment that I don’t absolutely love being in my class with my students. I guess I am not all that sure I have what it takes to make a difference with my students. Or maybe, more importantly, I am unsure of what that difference should even look like.
Photographs: Students picked characters from To Kill A Mockingbird and used photography to represent them. They chose whether they wanted to use black and white or color. The class then had to create a visual representation that included all the characters together. One class did the shape of a heart. The other as a shape of a person with each character in the novel a different part of the body. They then presented their choices to me.
March 7, 2008
This week. This week has been interesting. In the last two years, I have thought a lot about teaching. I was forced to. Divorce paralyzed me. The one place that I always felt at home was in my classroom. I was Rebecca. If I wanted to sing, I would sing. If I wanted to dance, I danced. The students who have sat in my room through the years, probably know me better than anyone. Joy is the word I use if I had to describe how I felt in room 210 in Greene Central School. Of course along with the joy there also was a heaviness. A heaviness that would sometimes make me wonder how I could teach. I thought so many days, ‘What was I possibly teaching?” I can’t tell you how many students I had to watch struggle. Or tell you how many students I saw that longed to be anywhere but sitting in front of me. It is funny because in those years, I didn’t want to be anywhere but right there with them. They were my life, the blood that kept me alive. Yet, if you asked them, I wonder if they knew? I wonder if they knew that they saved my life for 8 years? Even the heaviness saved me.
The mornings, the afternoons, the evenings. The night when I searched the school at 11 o’clock with Matt Butler because a student was missing and her family had called me. They called me, because they thought she was suicidal and didn’t know who else to call. I remember the self reprimanding that was rattling through my head, when I realized I couldn’t say with absolute certainty whether she had been in class that day or not. How could a teacher not know? The look in Matt Butler’s glassy eyes when he said, as we were looking through the seats of the auditorium, “You need to prepare yourself for the worst, Rebecca! I don’t think this is good.” How can I possibly tell you what the air felt like leaving my lungs when I saw her walk into my World History classroom the next day?
How many times did I think I couldn’t do it. That I couldn’t possibly deal with the heartache of teaching. That the tally of the win loss record couldn’t even be looked at, let alone contemplated. I couldn’t go on. Couldn’t watch children fall apart before me. Couldn’t take one more drop out. One more death. One more parent who could watch their child suffer and do nothing. Felt like I couldn’t handle the intolerance I saw and experienced. The students who were wonderful caring thinkers could be found bullying people in the hallway when no one was looking. Yet, I did it. Did it with so many colleagues that I loved and respected.
But then I left Tim. I walked away and with it, school changed for me. At first, I had nothing to give. No words of wisdom to share. I was 30 years old and I felt like I knew nothing. The pain of my personal life, made it impossible to care about anyone or anything else. I remember the hurt in a student’s eyes when I said I didn’t care how they did on the regents exam. I shot that student in the heart because I didn’t care. I saw the pain and I quickly back tracked and said, something like, “The regents is only one sign of learning, and not a good sign at that. This class is so much more than that. You have to make a difference with the knowledge that you learn, not put pressure on a stupid test.”
But she knew. She looked in my eyes and she knew I was lying. I was stuck.
Yet, I kept breathing and milliseconds turned into seconds and seconds into minutes and somehow a year passed. But I was different. I was able to care again, but perhaps I cared too much. History became too painful to even think about for me. As if I started to believe lessons could not be learned. The machine of history could not be stopped instead it just went rumbling on. People you loved could be sent to the Sudan and there was nothing you could do. You couldn’t stop the killing and more importantly could they? The millions of people that I spoke about in class, now became the face of a person I loved. It no longer became enough to talk about it anymore.
“I need something more! This is not enough! I don’t think I can just watch this happen! I am not sure I can be in a country that can make this happen.”
I moved to Italy. Why Italy? Because they hired me and I needed a change. I saw Elizabeth’s glowing face and I thought, ‘I can do this.’
So here I am. I no longer have to teach about the Armenians, the Holocaust, Rwanda, the World Wars. Instead I teach 8th graders History and English. I teach the Renaissance and I live in Italy. I get to teach Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and I live an hour and a half away from Verona. Teaching ideas such as making my students perform street theater scenes in Verona are what whirl through my head now.
This week, in history class, I needed them to contemplate the Protestant Reformation. In my head, I am thinking, “Why on Earth, would an 8th grader care about the Protestant Reformation?” Thinking to myself, “I am not sure I even care all that much about the Protestant Reformation.” But remembering my own advice that I used to give to my students at Greene, when studying Enlightenment thinkers, “I just need to find the looooovvve..” So, I pushed on. My white board was filled with written statements dealing with issues about the separation of church and state. The spectrum of thought line stared at us, as we came up with a list of present day countries with which we have a frame of reference. We are thinking. Together, we are thinking about the world in which we live. Questioning its vastness and where religion fits into the world. I stand there amazed by their knowledge of the world. They have seen so much, been so many places. They are just as much the teacher as they are the student.
Yet, they don’t know what to do with the knowledge they have and suddenly I am keenly aware of my role in their lives. That fact scares me. It always scares me. The influence a teacher has. What right do I have to shape their lives?
So, I am standing in front of them. Here is the moment. The moment that I love. When I ask them, “Why should I care about this stuff? I mean, come on, why is it important for me to learn about Martin Luther, a German monk from the 16th Century?” I look around the room. I always look around the room, I love that moment. The moment when the students look back at me and say with their eyes, “Exactly! This woman FINALLY gets it. It isn’t important!” Or they say, “It is important and I think I know why!” That moment is when the thinking begins and the fun finally starts.
I am scanning the faces in my 8th grade classroom and I am struck by Donatus’ face. He is completely interested and somewhat skeptical of my question. Donatus is always skeptical of me. I think that is what I love most about Donatus. A little skeptism is a very good thing.
“Well, Miss, I actually care tremendously about this.” He says rather stoically. “For it is during this time in German history that my family gained tremendous power.”
Oh, that's right, he is a prince. Everyday I teach a real German prince. Most days I forget about this fact, for he is very much like every other kid I have ever taught. But here I am, looking at him, him looking at me and I think, ‘Yes, of course he cares about the Protestant Reformation, because his family benefited greatly from Protestantism.’ The heads of his classmates tilt, their eyes glitter, and in that moment I have them, they are interested. They didn’t need to realize church and state is an important issue, nope they wanted to learn about their classmate the German prince. But it wasn't enough for me. It's not enough!
I simply said, “Yes, I do suppose that is one reason to think this is important.” But, then I moved on. I had to move, for this issue is more important than princes and ruling families. (Don’t worry all you teachers out there, I am sure I will use it later as a very teachable moment, but not then, I just couldn’t)
So, I am a teacher. I can’t help but wonder if I supposed to be? I am not sure. What is most interesting is that I am more unsure here in Italy than I was in Greene. It is one of the most amazing professions in the world, and there is not a moment that I don’t absolutely love being in my class with my students. I guess I am not all that sure I have what it takes to make a difference with my students. Or maybe, more importantly, I am unsure of what that difference should even look like.
Comments
Tal vez no puedas entender mi comentario pero, no importa. No podia dejar de hacer algo que me inspiro, en primer lugar, la foto que incluyes en tu profile(una telaraña) y a continuación la lectura de lo que has escrito.
Eres muy bella y esa belleza se refleja no solamente en lo que he podido ver, si no, en la forma como te expresas de tus alumnos y de tu actividad principal, la educación. Ademas hay varias cosas que compartimos. Soy del signo "acuario" como Tu y me hubiera encantado ser educador. Esa es y sera siempre mi vocación. Lamentablemente no siempre se consigue lo que uno quiere.
Te digo al inicio de mi comentario que me intereso la foto de la telaraña y es que estoy por construir un blog y el primer tema que voy a tratar es sobre las arañas. Un tipo de araña en particular la "Loxosceles Laeta" que por esta región abunda. Me gusto ese lo que dices de tus alumnos "Ellos son la sangre que mueve tu vida". Muy lindo. Cuando quieras, un amigo peruano,
Carlos
Never doubt that even on your worst days, in your lowest moments, that you are a terrific teacher. You are gifted and creative and you have always been willing to share that gift with your students and those of us lucky enough to be your colleagues.
Lila