Rachel: A sense of belief in my students and a concern about the injustices of public education. My students need to be given opportunities and I think I am good person to provide them.
Rumpus: Do you have major concerns about your school?
Rachel: Yes! Yes! Yes! Lot’s of concerns. Some are about the school system. Why is my school dirty and unkempt and operating on a budget that can barely sustain it? Why do we not have enough technology? Why has no one from the local government or superintendent’s office ever come to visit the school even though we are on every list of problem schools this city makes?
Some are about the world. Why are there neighborhoods in this city where shootings are part of the everyday experience? Why are so many of teenagers looking to gangs as an answer to their problems? Why are so many people living in poverty while so many others have so much?
Rumpus: Do you feel like it’s headed in the right direction?
Rachel: The school has made so much progress in the time that I have been there. What I walked into 4 years ago was chaos. That school should not have been allowed to exist. The principal had basically applied for a school and was granted one and had no idea how to manage it. She was smart and had vision, but had no ability to control day-to-day operations. There were no bells and I would literally have to stand in a hallway for ten minutes and physically drag my students into class. Students would walk in and out of rooms while teachers were teaching with no regard for the lesson going on, which still happens in some classrooms. There was cussing and fighting and all kinds of nonsense going on. Someone should have come in there and taken seized control, but no one did. We just kept on plugging along while a small group of us met regularly and worked with the assistant principal to turn it around. Was that disorder the fault of the kids or the adults?
I was so sad recently when I was with a group of my students visiting a large comprehensive high school in a small city in Maine. The school had so many resources and programs and they were amazed by it. They all wanted to go to that school and were saying things like, “I wish we could have had the real high school experience,” “I wish I could have played football,” “I wish I could have been a cheerleader.” They were talking about the high school experience they see in TV and movies, and were realizing that that experience is real for so many people. As far as they’re concerned it’s real for white people with money. It’s funny because I went to one of those small town high schools and was your typical resentful, annoyed teenager who thought cheerleaders were stupid and football being so important to a town was ridiculous, but now I’m able to see how lucky I really was.
Rumpus: What would you tell a first-year teacher coming into your school? Words of wisdom? Cautionary tales?
Rachel: You have to prove your commitment to the students, but that commitment has to be to making them a better student not to changing them into something you think they should be. Also, you have to really focus on developing relationships through respect and follow through. A first year teacher who tries to bond with the students by ignoring rules and being “cool” often ends up with resentment because students don’t feel like you expect that much from them. Also, you have to have systems for everything and you have to explicitly teach those systems. Students will enter the classroom and test out the situation. When they decide they can control it because you haven’t explained to them what you expect, they will set their own expectations for behavior in your class. One thing that constantly amazes me is how the same group of students can be in control, quiet, hardworking, and focused, in one classroom and out of control in another. Same kids, different expectations.
Rumpus: If you could go to the Superintendent yourself and make a list of three things you’d want to make your school or classroom better, what would they be?
Rachel: 1) Better facility; 2) More money; 3) More assistance
Rumpus: How do you feel about pay-for-performance?
Rachel: While I totally get the premise behind it, the reality does not always match up. If there was a tangible way to measure student progress from the academic and social/emotional point that they started the class other than standardized tests then I would be more supportive. It just gives another reason for highly skilled teachers to go to schools with better records and “better” students. The reality is that schools, especially in New York, vary so much in the students that they serve in terms of socio-economic status and family situations, that not every student is in a place to pass the exams when they get to a teacher. Teachers need to meet the students where they are and the reality is that in school like mine, students are behind academically, which is not the fault of the teacher in front of the classroom at that moment. Teachers can’t control what’s going on at home, whether students were read to when they were young, who needs to have after-school jobs, and other social factors. Even groups from year to year vary in the skills and effort and make it difficult to assess a teacher’s worth. Also, it is a lot harder to motivate a ninth grader than a senior because that goal of graduation is still seemingly far away, so you shouldn’t punish a teacher’s willingness to take on a more difficult group of students. On paper, by way of test scores, they may not seem worthy of additional pay, but without seeing their day-to-day experience you can’t judge their value as a teacher.
Rumpus: Any final insights or thoughts?
Rachel: I had an interesting experience today when I was working with an Honor’s student on a project and he kept referring to all the students at our school as “hood rats” and “ghetto.” I kept correcting him by pointing out that plenty of students are not defined like that. But he kept making a lot of other disparaging remarks about the student body in general. I walked away from that feeling sad, because what must it do to the psyche when that’s how you view you school? Yes, there are student in gangs, but mostly there is a bunch of really nice kids who haven’t been provided with a very good school experience and have gotten bitter, or who feel like that have to act a certain way to survive in the neighborhood or to be respected socially. I’m not gonna lie, this kid is sitting in classes with students who appear to not give a shit about school, but when you dig in, you often find that ‘not giving a shit’ is a defense mechanism to deal with anything from a crappy home life, to lots of failure at school, to just not wanting to look stupid. Unfortunately that often creates a situation where those students who really do excel academically get stuck behind where they should be because they adapt to an environment that allows them to slack off. And as a teacher, you can’t fail too many students, so you start adjusting your expectations of what “good” work is.
Rumpus: What effect do the demands of your job have on life outside work?
Rachel: That’s the thing. My school is coming from behind in so many ways and lives and breathes on the effort of its teachers. This means that many people take on huge amounts of responsibility, keeping us at school until as late as 7pm. A co-worker and I were just talking today about how tired we are, how we don’t cook or exercise because we spend so much energy on school….but it is worth it for the time being.
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Rumpus original art by Jason Novak.
