Teaching on short notice

Just a few days ago, I found out that I’ll be teaching a section of 11th grade English starting…tomorrow! With a mid-year departure of a part-time teacher at our school, it made the most sense for me to pick up a section, rather than trying (and probably failing) to find a long-term sub for one class.

And truly, I’m exited. I’m sad for both that both the teacher and the students that this change had to happen, because I know it means a lot of turmoil and transition for everyone involved. But I’m excited to be there every day with these kids. To come in, sit down, look them in the eyes, and to building relationships with them around reading, writing, words, stories, and all that they entail. To talk to them and write with them about their goals and how language and thinking could help them pursue the futures they want. I’m exited to be in conversation with them, created a space for learning together.

I’m also really excited about co-teaching with an amazing veteran teacher. She is the epitome of the warm demander, and I know I’ll learn a lot from how she pushes kids, supports them, and gets to know their needs and interests. I’ve worked with her before in an instructional coaching partnership, and I’m looking forward to this new kind of work together. I think she’ll be coaching me a lot as we get going: she’ll probably know the students (we haven’t even had a chance to look at our roster together yet because it all shook out over the weekend!), their accommodations, and their needs, and I’ll have a lot to learn.

The image I can’t get out of my mind is of Ben, my mentor teacher when I was just starting out. Ben was a veteran teacher when I met him, just a few years away from retirement, always calm, thoughtful, and wise. I was 23, eager, busy, and anxiously making materials and copies and scurrying around the school to get ready for my classes. I remember rushing by Ben’s room one day on my way to class with a stack of photocopies, and I saw Ben sitting in his empty classroom, a book in hand. The desks were pushed against the wall, and the chairs were arranged in a circle, where soon, students would come to sit with Ben and talk about the book he was reading. I remember being frustrated, jealous, and insecure at the sight of Ben preparing for class by sitting quietly with a book, while I ran around, gathering materials and making last-minute plans.

Tomorrow, I want to enter the classroom like Ben. I want to sit quietly, look at my students, learn their names, get to know them, share a poem with them, and maybe do a little writing. I’m in my 23rd year in education now…and I’m not as wise and calm as Ben, but I’ve come a long way. And I know that in the midst of this transition, we’ll all just need to sit and get to know each other. I have that much wisdom and calm, at least.

The poem I want to share is Alberto Rios‘s “A House Called Tomorrow.” Here’s a snippet:

From those centuries we human beings bring with us
The simple solutions and songs,

The river bridges and star charts and song harmonies
All in service to a simple idea:

That we can make a house called tomorrow.
What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,

Is ourselves.  And that’s all we need
To start.  That’s everything we require to keep going. 

Anxieties

If I’m exited about the kids, my teaching partner, and poetry, what I’m not excited about is the tensions around power and politics in teaching. On Friday, when I met with the other excellent educators on the junior English team, an anxious, clenched feeling grew or landed or appeared in my stomach, in my chest. We talked about non-negotiables, required articles (five of them, all by white journalists, only one woman), alignment, curriculum, different approaches to equity, and battles we won’t win.

That brittle, hot feeling (it’s reasserting itself right now, as I think about it)—it didn’t come from their other humans in the room, my respected colleagues all. It came from all that loomed above us and around us in the system made by other humans just like ourselves, each one respected and passionate and knowledgeable about education and young people and our community. In our own ways, we all contribute to the system, as did many other admirable human educators before us. We keep it going, we reinvent and recalibrate, we maintain and sustain it—even the parts that do us (and worse—our students) harm.

I don’t blame anyone on our team, or any individual in our system, past or present, for the clenched feeling in my chest, or for the exhaustion and sadness that followed me out of that room. Teaching is a deeply personal endeavor, and we are all doing our best to serve our students with our own particular skills, strengths, constraints, passions, and philosophies. Even when there is tension, disagreement, or frustration, I believe in the value of different teachers’ lenses on learning and teaching. But I do hope my teaching partner, my students, and I can create a (school)house called tomorrow that chases that feeling away, even while navigating the rough waters of our system.

I’m also a little anxious about making space in my brain for teaching while also attempting to continue my work with teachers as an instructional coach. Right now, my teaching brain is definitely revving up, and it’s hard to think about planning for a new group of teachers and students.

Questions

Questions I’ve been thinking about during and since that meeting:

• What common experiences, skills, and knowledge do we hope that required texts will lead to for our students? What is unique and essential about those texts that makes them required?
• How and when can we find a place to talk about the different understandings of what equitable text selection, curriculum, and pedagogy look like?
• What could a balance between standardization & alignment on one hand (e.g., required articles, common assessments, etc.) and responsiveness & autonomy on the other look like?
• What’s the difference between “liking” a text and making a professional judgement about whether it is a worthy text to teach for these students, right now?
• How much of the “what” (content, skills, knowledge, assessment prompts) needs to be the same in order for a common experience to occur?
• Does dictating the content, skills, and knowledge necessarily result in a student common experience? For example, what role do educational philosophies and theirs have in informing the student experience? How much variation in the teaching lens (e.g., informed primarily by New Criticism vs. informed primarily by postmodern or post-colonial theory) is possible before the experience is qualitatively different, despite common skills, content, and prompts?
• Even when we acknowledge the need for some commonality across a large district’s schools and classrooms, how can we create systems that include teachers as part of the team—rather than positioning them as implementors of decisions made by those with positional power?

To Do List

1. Message to students about room change.
2. Message to families about teacher change. (+ learn how to use Parent Square?!)
3. Meet with co-teacher to discuss co-teaching relationship, routines, and student accommodations
4. Plan Day 1 with co-teacher!
5. Read IEPs + 504s
6. Check for MLLs
7. Agenda on board
8. Check out the classroom
9. Supplies: Whiteboards, markers, notebooks, writing utensils
10. Canvas page–set up?
11. Finish my list of key practices, elements, experiences.
12. Plan independent reading approach, calendar.
13. Create a 2-page unit summary of the prescribed curriculum. (Content, skills, strategies, identity+criticality, pacing, assessments).
14. Create a 2-page unit summary of our adapted+aligned approach.
15. Review learning targets and rubrics.
16. Create a linked list of texts–required and and supplemental.
17. Before PLC meets: brainstorm 2 formative assessments and a culminating task. (Prompts + common skills)
18. Make a calendar til spring break (finish indepedent reading AND the dreamhome unit)
19. Print A House Called Tomorrow
20. Learn to project wirelessly from new computer