Failure is the Only Option.

Something interesting, and a little more than sad has been happening recently, and it's left me at a loss for how to address or fix it.

Two of the boys in my class, Dean and David, are extremely bright. Their grades and test scores don't show it, though, since the second I start my math lessons, they say, "I can't do this. It's too hard." Dean slouches in his chair and his eyes glaze over. David turns around and then tries to wander the room finding something else to do. When I let the students practice what I just taught, Dean tries once, I tell him to fix one or two things, and he says, "Forget this! This is impossible!" He slams his pencil on his desk and pushes his paper away, slouching back, pouting, and not participating the rest of the hour. David just sits there staring blankly at the blank-er paper on his desk saying, "I don't know what to do."

I've been extremely encouraging. Some of the items on the LXS Values and Code of Conduct are to be your best at all times, never give up, believe in yourself, and have no fear of failure. There's even a saying on the side that says "Impossible is NOTHING" (Don't sue, Adidas... please). I preach these like they they're the word of God. I tell them that they can do it, and that I believe in them. But, it doesn't seem to be working.

These two boys are the oldest in my class. They're both 11 going on 12, which should put them in middle school. But, for some reason or another, they are still in 4th grade, and far behind in both reading and math. At such a young age they've already experienced and internalized failure, and for obvious reasons, hate it. Since they can't do anything right, they've decided they might as well not try. But of course, if they don't try, they never learn it, and then they end up failing anyway.

I know I need to give them a taste of success and show them that they can do this. I also have to teach the idea of malleable intelligence - that if you work hard, you become smart. Regardless, there's something so wrong and sad about an 11 year-old that already truly believes that he can't do anything right. All those defiant behaviors that people see coming down the line in middle school and high school come from a defense mechanism against failure. I wonder how many people have ever told them that they are capable of learning all this stuff. I also wonder what it's going to take for them to believe it themselves.

For a much better blog post about this subject, you can read this.

PS. For all the fans of Allen... He's been absent from school for the last 10 straight days. Apparently, his whole family is very sick. I know I should be doing more to check in and make sure they're doing all right, but right now I feel like I need to concentrate on the classroom and deal with catching him up when he gets back. Is that wrong?

Race and Ethnicity in Baltimore.

Quick history lesson: the Mason-Dixon Line was the line that separated the South from the North during the American Civil War. It is also Maryland's northern border (making it a Southern state), but since Washington, DC is inside Maryland, it is south of the line. Kind of awkward, no? It ended up being one of the "border states," meaning it was a slave state that didn't secede from the Union. But, when you read those stories of the Civil War where brothers were fighting brothers on opposite sides, this is where it was happening most.

I've probably mentioned it before, but there are some people who say that Maryland is the first northern city. They usually come from the south. Then, there are people who say that Maryland is the first southern city. They usually come from the north. In any case, it doesn't really fit and there are still awkward racial tensions that stem from how racially segregated the city is, and how immigration from Latin America especially is changing the old dynamic. Also, the complete lack of Asian people (except right by the universities) has made me understand for the first time in my life how big a part my ethnicity, background, and culture play in who I am, as well as how who others think I am.

There have been a number of ways that race/ethnicity issues have popped up since I've come to Baltimore. The first time, I had landed in Baltimore for the first time, and was waiting for a shuttle. A 40+ year-old Japanese man had been at the counter, and left to go to the bathroom. As I approached the counter to buy a ticket, they start calling reservation numbers for people to go wait outside, and his number is called, but he is in the bathroom. The attendant calls his name a few more times, growing increasingly impatient. He finally walks over to the counter where I'm standing, and says, "Are you the little Chinese man that was standing here and we're waiting for?" "No, he's in the bathroom." "Oh."

Last week, I walked into school and another teacher had gotten a haircut. "Mr. Green! Nice haircut! Looking sharp! Did you do it yourself?" I ask, as I enter my classroom. Before I go on, to be clear, Mr. Green is a very nice guy, and extremely capable teacher who means no harm to anyone and manages his classroom like a pro. I like the guy a lot. Anyway, he comes in and says, "No, man! All my friends make fun of me because I got my own hairdresser. But she's this little Oriental girl and she be like (cue Asian accent) Mr. Green! You no worry! I do you real nice! Real cheap! And she does it real nice doesn't she? Only cost me $8 from those Oriental ones like you, huh?"

Every day, the kids go to a resource class for an hour in the morning. These are classes like art, Spanish, computers, or library. A different person teaches them, and we get that hour to plan and prepare for the rest of the day. The kids had library this past week, and the teacher is notorious for having awful classroom management, just yelling at the students for an hour, and pushing worksheets that either no one understands, or are too easy to they spend the bulk of the hour wondering what they can do, not getting anything to do, talking, and then getting yelled at. The librarian, Ms. Byrd, writes her "bad" kids' names on the board, and when I picked them I read the names. We have two Bens - Ben King, and Ben Price. When I looked at the board, I saw that one of them had gotten in trouble. Just to make sure she knew which one had gotten in trouble, Ms. Byrd (a black lady), had written "Ben (white)" on the board.

So, I realize that this started off as a post about race and ethnicity in a state that has a confused racial identity to begin with, but I realize that all I've really done is told three stories that really have no point and have nothing really in common with each other besides the fact that something racist or uncomfortable happened. I know that we're supposed to take a stand, and clear these misconceptions with our kids, but to be honest, I don't even know where to begin, and I'm having trouble teaching the normal stuff as it is. Also, these stories didn't involve my kids, really. They were all things that adults around them are doing and saying. What am I supposed to do about that?

In conclusion, I am confused. And, since I'm just throwing around stories/thoughts that have no relation to what else has been said, let me just say that I have never been in a place where my "different-ness" has been made so obvious to me. I guess the only other time was in Sweden, but we had all the other UC kids, and it was temporary, so even there it wasn't as glaring. It's really made me appreciate who I am more, even as I start to try thinking about and figuring out what my background and culture means to me. I definitely have found a new appreciation for it, though. It's funny, I didn't think this program would be a growing experience in this way.

If you can help me make sense of all these things that have happened, and what they mean, please let me know. Thank you much.

Health and Wellness.

Felt like I was dying yesterday. Slept, sweated through all of my sheets and blankets, and today I was good to go again.

On a related note, my Christmas wish list consists of one thing: a foam mattress topper. Please, Santa, I'm trying to do good things.

Allen.

Allen gets called out of class every morning by the SPED teacher. He is a difficult student to work with a lot of the time because he has ADHD, is unresponsive much of the time, and will just run away every once in a while. Also, you can guess that he's years behind in reading and math.

One morning, the SPED teacher comes to the room, and he leaves with her. A few seconds later she comes back and tells me she'll come back to get Alex later, that she doesn't want him there at the moment because he causes trouble with another student in there. Oh, and he ran off so I need to go chase him. I walked about eight to ten laps around the school, up and down the steps to keep an eye on him (good workout). After a while he stops in the staircase and just stares out the window. I come up next to him and ask him if I can stand there and talk with him. We talk a little about the weather, and what kind of car he wants to drive one day, and then I ask him why he ran away again.

"She's wasting my time, telling me to come outside and then go back inside," he says.

I'm not sure what he's talking about, but I realize that on this particular morning, when the SPED teacher came to our door, he had automatically gotten up to go with her, even though she had only asked for another one of my students (this is kind of a big deal because the week before he wouldn't go with her even if she asked). When he got outside, she told him she doesn't want him in the class right now and to go back inside. That's when he took off.

------

Allen's mother died randomly in the middle of the day a year or two ago. He went to school in the morning and had a family. He got home and he didn't anymore. His mother was gone, and his father ended up sending his sisters away because he couldn't take care of them all. The mother had been the glue holding the family together, and now he didn't have someone to take care of him and tell him that she wanted him around since he seemed to get into a lot of trouble at school. So, even though he said the teacher was wasting his time, what really bothered him was hearing, "I don't want you right now." It doesn't seem like anyone ever did, ever does, or ever will.

After talking about not running away, controlling yourself, making good choices, and now wasting more time by running away, I told him something my dad once told me. He had said that you can tell how smart someone is by how bright their eyes are. Allen has the brightest blue eyes I have ever seen, and I told him that. We went back into the classroom, and it was writing time. I told him that before we started writing we would come up with a list. The list was titled, "Things People Should Know About Me." In the first one, I wrote: I am smart.

When I came back, his list looked like this:

Things People Should Know About Me

1. I am smart.
2. I like reading.
3. I like math.
4. I like to lirn.

I added #5: I can be great.

We then moved on to writing about memories since that was what everyone else was doing.

"Let's write about the happiest day you've ever had. What's the happiest memory you have?"

"I want to write about the last time I saw my mom."

So he did.

I Love Democracy.

It is primary election day, and we have the day off. Democracy rules.

Last Thursday I decided I was going to quit. I'm fine now, but I did say that this job is going to turn me into a schizo, or make me bipolar, or something. Anyway, I realized at the end of the day that I do not know what I am doing, and am being a very ineffective teacher. I figured the kids deserved better than me, so decided I was going to quit. After a good bit of depression someone (thank you) talked me out of it and I had a good Friday. Also, had a good Monday. We'll see about tomorrow.

I've been realizing more and more how important it is to ask for help and seek out other people's insights. Last week, I talked to a lot of veteran teachers who all were able to give me good advice here and there about one or two things to try the next day to make myself more effective. They also offered words of encouragement and pressed me to be patient with myself and the students. In any case, between the good people at work (and there are many of them - traditional teachers seem to get a bad reputation in the news today), my family, and friends, it's nice to know that I'm not alone. When I talk to other TFA people, the things they say are exactly what I'm feeling, and in a strange way, it makes it a little better... even though it still sucks sometimes.

Interestingly, the first couple of weeks has actually reminded me of when I played baseball back in high school. When I found out that my coach was getting my name out there to some colleges, I decided that I was going to become the best player I could be. I spent hours in the cage trying to perfect my swing, I was in the weight room all the time, and I pressed myself to be perfect. Unfortunately, I forgot the interesting fact about baseball that a great hitter fails 70% of the time. Every time I didn't do perfectly, I put more pressure on myself, became more frustrated, and played worse.

The good people around me all tried to give me little tips: move your arm here, step like this, hold the bat like this, eat this, do that - every little thing was going to make me the best. Of course, none of it felt right for me. If it didn't work immediately, I gave up on it and decided the person was wrong and didn't know what he or she was saying. From being a starting sophomore batting leadoff on the varsity team, I ended my senior year riding the bench, and being all right with it. I gave up and decided that baseball wasn't for me anyway. It was no longer fun, and I had lost all the passion I had for it when I started playing.

I hope I've learned my lessons. Everyone around me is offering help, and I appreciate all of the support. But, at the end of the day, no two teachers are alike, just like no two hitters are alike. I need to find myself and my own style of teaching in order to be effective. I need to enjoy each day and have fun. I joined TFA because I love working with kids, and need to remember that. Most importantly, I need to be all right with not being perfect. I desperately hope that I won't fail 70% of the time, but I do need to realize that the road to the end is long and bumpy. If I do my job the way I know I can, though, we'll eventually get there.

Oh. And I need to cherish my days off.

Small Paragraphs.

Teaching is going to turn me into a schizophrenic. One minute things are fine, and the next I've just about made up my mind to drive to the airport, go home, and never come back. Yes, I'm a drama queen.

They took Francis away to go to a 3rd grade class. I was sad. I also heard he's leaving in a couple of weeks because his family is moving. Still sad.

A kid wrote a story about me in writing time today. In the story, I am a killer shark that attacks and eats everything. Then, I meet a beautiful shark named Rosa. We get married, have a baby shark named Jeffrey, and I give up my predatory ways. How cute.

One more fun thing: yesterday, we had a fire drill, and I went up to a student to ask him to stop talking, step off of the grass, and stay on the sidewalk. He replies, "Oh, sorry Mr. Lyu. By the way, you have a boogie in your nose." I did, in fact, have a boogie in my nose.

First Week Thoughts.

When you give things some time it never seems to matter as much as during the moment it's happening. Maybe that's why I'm looking at this list of topics that I had jotted down over the course of last week and am struggling to figure out why they were so important when I wrote them.

The first week was definitely difficult. It wasn't the kids. They're great. First, it's the constant planning that needs to be done and the feeling that I'm already so behind. They warned us that we needed to be prepared with the whole unit's plans, but of course, I was worried about other things, and didn't actually finish. One week later, I've pulled two all-nighters and woken up at 4AM twice to finish work for the next day.  Methinks that has to change or else I'll be dead soon.

Secondly, my own impatience made the week tough. It wasn't that I was impatient with my kids. A big part of it is the realization that I am really, really new at all of this and don't quite know what I'm doing but I want it to all be done by... yesterday. It was day two and I was frustrated that I hadn't already gotten the class to autopilot mode with procedures the way I wanted them to be halfway through the year. I was frustrated that we didn't already know the reading and math levels of all of our students, annoyed that our roster kept changing in the middle of the day, and that bathroom/water breaks were taking 15 minutes out of learning time. With all of this stuff going on, I couldn't figure out how to get through all of my lesson plans and actually teach the things that I was supposed to teach. Week two starts tomorrow, but I still haven't done a single science, health, or social studies lesson.

So, it's tiring, and I definitely need to figure out a way to get out of my own head. I always knew that I'm a very impatient person. Anyone who works or has worked with me knows this. Hopefully by the end of all this I'll be a more patient person. That would certainly help my blood pressure and put me at lower risk for heart disease.

And now, interesting things from the week:

• We have a student (Allen, I'll call him) who gets in moods and will flat out refuse to do things. One day his special education (SPED) teacher came to take him for a session and he would not budge from his seat. I convinced him to go outside and after a little talking, asked him if he thinks he's smart. He said yes, and I told him I think so, too. I also asked him if he thinks other people think he's smart, and he said no. I told him to go prove it to everyone, so he went. Patience, please.
• On Friday, Allen asked the librarian what she would do if he threw a pencil in her eye. She flipped out and yelled at him, and then told us that he needed to be punished. Granted, the lady is not the greatest teacher (read: not good at all), but he did need to understand that he couldn't just say things like that. We decided he was going to sit in during recess and write an apology letter. We took the other kids to recess, and as we turned to head back, Allen took off down the hall and ran away. I spent the next ten minutes walking around the school looking for him before we finally got him back to the class to write his letter. It was like camp my third year again! Patience, please.
• David's deskmates kept complaining about him because he couldn't sit still and kept hitting their things when he was fidgeting. I tried to encourage his deskmates to be patient, but he kept getting in trouble with my co-teacher. Every time he got in trouble, he would put his head down and stop listening. I moved his desk in the middle of a lesson one day after someone at his table complained again. He put his head down and stopped paying attention... again. When I asked him why, he just told me that he's always getting in trouble. I said to him that he's not in trouble, and reminded him that only the day before he had asked if he could move to his own table so he wouldn't bother other people. I said that I know he's not a bad kid, I just want him to be able to pay attention and work hard so he can show everyone what a smart kid he is. Now, he sits in the front of the classroom by the teacher's desk. Every once in a while as I walk by he'll tap my arm and ask, "Am I being good right now?" "Yes, you are being very good." Then, he smiles, and gets back to work. Patience, please.
• They want to send Francis (the Dominican kid who doesn't speak English) back to 3rd grade, and put him in 2nd grade for English. I want to fight this so badly, but I am new here so don't quite know what to do. As a third grader, he spent his entire last year in a 1st grade classroom. The kid doesn't speak English, but he knows that he doesn't belong there. In fact, BECAUSE he doesn't speak English, he probably thought they put him with babies because they think he's dumb, not because of English. Of course, he kept getting in trouble, and was never allowed to speak in class. How would he learn English if he never gets a chance to speak it? So, he moved to the next year knowing the sounds of C-A-T, but not knowing that "cat" means the animal that goes, "Meow." I've been taking him during reading time to just talk in English, learn words, do easy reading, and label things in the room. Some of the other students see me walking around in the back with him as he spells out "book" and puts a card on the book, and I am so happy to see them smile and encourage him. He wanted to label "people" and he put the card on his classmate's desk. Then, he wrote "friend" and put it on another student's desk. When everyone lined up to go to the library, both of the other kids went up to Francis and gave him a high five. "Hey, Francis! Friend!" "Hey, Francis! We're all people!" Later that day, during math, I hear a kid yell out (completely inappropriately), "I NEED HELP! COME ON!" I turn and see Francis yelling out loud and disrupting the class. "Stop. Raise your hand, please," I said. He sat down, raised his hand, and said, "Please help?" I could have died. Patience, please.

I really hope the next 175 days just keep getting better...

Oh, and I am so happy for long weekends.