Roses, Concrete, and Remembering

In the past few weeks, I have been dragging at work. There are always moments like that. I'll peak, come down and the ride down is whack! During those slumps, I know that I have to find something that will encourage me to keep going or else I'll fold. That's why I forced myself to attend a talk by Professor Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade at Harvard's Alumni of Color Conference on Friday evening.

I first learned about Jeff's work when he came to Harvard to speak to the TEP students. He did his talk about Gangstas, Wankstas, and Ridas which highlights and defines the different types of teachers who teach in urban schools. I really appreciated the types of teaching that he highlighted in the talk and wanted to learn more. I ended up buying the book that he co-authored with Ernest Morrell called The Art of Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to Practice in Urban Teaching and have been using it to learn more about how to practice better classroom teaching. Jeff works out of the Cesar Chavez Institute at San Francisco State and has been a classroom teacher for many years. Eventually, I learned that he is colleagues and good friends with Cam, one of the teachers from the West Coast who has taught me so much about how to be social justice educator.

When I found out Jeff was coming to speak, I thought to myself, "I really

have to try and make that talk. I need that right now!" I was really dragging, I'm telling you. I ran to the talk and almost didn't make it after circling Harvard Square for parking. I made it and stood during the whole session, but was glad of it. This time he did a talk called Note to Educators: Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete.

Jeff started by talking about Tupac and The Rose That Grew from Concrete. He talked about the need for us to acknowledge the level of suffering that happens in our students' lives and in our communities and he urged teachers not to dismiss youth culture. As teachers, he said, we need to be "deeply compelling," and we need to "recognize the resilience," and stop the "hyper focus on disfunction." While I've heard much of this message before and have been trying to embody the teaching since meeting Cam, Salina, Dave, Jeff, and other dope educators, I know I still need to be reminded, especially on those days when I feel like I'm going to give up.

I learned a lot of new information about the impacts of stress on the development of youth as well as the type of hope that one needs in order to teach. Jeff has been looking at more medical journals for his research and gave us a look into the types of stress there are and how they can seriously debilitate a students' growth and learning. By looking at this research, Jeff wanted to

address the severe levels of trauma that some of our students face. Schools need to be a space where students can heal from that trauma and oftentimes schools simply makes it worse. He quoted another academic who told him that, "Schools need to be better than society." Jeff and other educators like him see teachers as healers.

"It's bigger than religion

...it's bigger than the government...

we ain't dead said the children don't believe it

We just made ourselves invisible

underwater, stove top, blue flame scientist com out with your scales up

get baptized in the ocean of the hungry...

My niggas turn into gods,

walls come tumblin...

It's bigger than religion...

It's bigger than the government...

This one is the healer...

Told you we ain't dead yet

We been livin through your internet

You don't have to believe everything you think

We've been programmed wake up, we miss you.

They call you indigo, we call you Africa.

Go get baptized in the ocean of the people

Say reboot, refresh, restart." -Erykah Badu, The Healer

Jeff said that we need to build our students' capacity to hope instead of constantly coping so that students can eventually push forward and upward from whatever circumstance is holding them down. In speaking about hope, he brought up the three types of hope that teachers need in order to teach effectively. They are:

1. Material

2. Socratic

3. Audacious

Material hope requires teachers to understand the material resource that they are to students. Our skills are an important resource and we must cultivate it to the best of our abilities. Also, we actually have things that students may need from time to time. It's not about hand outs, but it's about sharing what we have with the people in our communities who are in need.

Socratic hope requires teachers (and students, in their own respective lives) to confront the pain of examining ourselves when we realize we've failed a child. We have to make sure that our own behavior reflects the type of moral standards that we place on our students. We all know that students can see right through us and if they know that we're not on top of our game whether it is in our professional or personal lives, they will doubt our legitimacy. Why should we require them to act better when we can't do it ourselves?! Jeff brought up the question, "Do we make sacrifices in our own lives?" and pointed out that we need to move from "empathy to solidarity," and "suffer together."

I really liked Jeff's discussion of Audacious hope, though. It spoke a lot to this idea of "legitimate suffering," that I as a Catholic really appreciated. It's something that I've grappled with. While I want to fight for justice and I want my students to be able to fight for justice, I also want them to be able to handle the suffering that they will inevitably come across in their lives. I also want them to be happy even when a situation is uncomfortable or imperfect, which is almost always the case. I don't want them to think that having everything will solve all their problems, because it really won't! Jeff discussed folks who, "Lack courage to handle suffering." He said, "Some people get to loop out of their share of suffering," that's inequality. While we all want more from this material world, we have to be able to hope in spite of inequalities and suffering and we have to pass that on to the young people in our communities.

Jeff finished with an encouraging word for the times we feel like we are getting somewhere with our students or a student and then realize that they're not with us anymore. He described it as having to turn around, go back for the youth, and trying to help move them forward again, which is damn tiring. That's how I had been feeling and his acknowledgement of that moment was golden. Salina, Cam, and Jeff often talk about being relentless with the babies, reminding me that I can't lose steam, and that I might have to turn around 1, 2, 3 times or more to get somewhere. And of course, he reminded us that this is a "life or death" job and that we are handling real people's lives. It's not just some experiment.

Needless to say, I was very grateful that I decided to make it to Jeff's talk. You can check out Jeff's articles online. They are available if you Google the two titles provided above.

Reminders

Who would have thought that taking a standardized teaching test would remind me why I love teaching? Lately, I have been feeling extremely disengaged. Seems I can't wait to finish up this year. Could it be senioritis?

This morning, though, I sat for the NY State teaching test in Secondary Education. The test is broken up into different sections that address three areas of teaching skill: Student Development and Learning, Instruction and Assessment, and the Professional Environment. The test is in two parts: Multiple Choice and an Open Response. As I answered the 80 multiple choice questions, I realized that I actually know stuff about teaching. I knew that I knew, but I knew! And as I answered questions about why a teacher might do this or that in relation to students or planning a lesson or unit, I remembered why I like teaching! Of course, Little Miss Overthinker was doing this while she was taking a test! For a minute I had to tell myself to stop critiquing the test and just answer the questions correctly.

I realized that this year has been particularly difficult because of my role as the history department head. It's been insanely stressful and I have the bad habit of taking on too much responsibility. I think I've tired myself out with all of these responsibilities -teaching and facilitating. In my reflection, I recognized that in the four years I've been at my school, I haven't had one year where I was just teaching. For three years, I was the debate coach and this year I'm facilitating the history department. It's been too much. For all of those hours where I was coaching, going to debate tournaments, at leadership team meetings, or planning history team meetings, those were hours where I wasn't lesson planning, reflecting on my classroom, assessing my students' success. I realize that I chose to do that, nobody really forced me to do all of it, but am I asking too much to have a few years just teaching? I don't think so. One of the more veteran teachers whom I trust with my life told me at the beginning of my teaching career to just say no. As I move forward, I'm going to have to be able to say that so that I can ensure my own development for the sake of good teaching and student learning.

I guess it's never too late.