Teachermandc's Blog

She wrote about it last year, in 10th grade.  I have her again this year, in AP English, and every time she enters our room, I recall her piece.  The assignment was simple.  “Write about a moment that changed your life.”  She is a tall, young woman with a dancer’s body and a scientist’s eyes.  She is hungry for truth, and I do my best to stimulate her search.

In her first draft last year, she had clearly heeded my advice.  “Use details.  Make the reader see.”  As I read it, I could envision completely the scene she brought to life.  The year was 2001, and she could not be more excited.  Her first birthday party.  Parents would be dropping off their children at her houses after school, their tiny arms bulging with gifts.  Her mother had even ordered a special cake from Safeway, chocolate with lemon icing.  Ms. Lewis was turning eight, and, for the first time, the living room in her mother’s apartment would be full of balloons and the laughter of children and adults not related.   Anticipation had kept Ms. Lewis awake for days.

The morning of the impending celebration, she donned her second-most-favorite outfit (the first, a new one, would be unveiled at the party) and headed to school.  Second grade is always special.  For me, as for Ms. Lewis, it is the moment of letting go–at least a little.  Second grade is when the monsters under the bed fade from view–at least a little–and tomorrow always seems brighter than today.

Ms. Lewis basted that day in the sunshine her handwritten invitations had created.  Even her teachers seemed more attentive, more aware that her shy demeanor and half-baked smile concealed a deeper place yearning for expression.  After all, it was September 11th, 2001, and Ms. Lewis was hosting a party.  She was finally eight, and, with her oldest sister about to leave for college, soon to inherit her own room.

Then something happened.  A heavy whisper grew in the classroom as the adults huddled near the hallway door.  At first, Ms. Lewis assumed they were conferring about her party later that day and the appropriate gift to bring.  But the cloud behind their eyes and the tunnel in their voices convinced her something more was at stake.

Mothers began arriving, scooping their charges from the classroom.  Her best friend turned to her just before leaving with something like apology in her stance.  Ms. Lewis, always a bright child, finally understood when her own mother arrived and nervously helped her gather her backpack; there would be no party that day.

Ms. Lewis consumed all of the special sheet cake she could that night, while snatches of words like “World Trade” and “terrorist” circled overhead.  Something had happened that day, her day, to change the world.  Her mother would only allow Ms. Lewis to watch bits and pieces of the footage on the evening news.  To this day, Ms. Lewis remembers the sight of bodies falling from the darkened sky, and people below moving as though in slow motion, their faces covered in ash and disbelief.

“I hate my birthday,” she wrote last year.  The next day, after reading her draft, I called her name and asked her to meet me after class.  When the bell rang, she remained behind, a concerned look on her face.  Always a serious, young scholar, I moved quickly to reassure her.  Her paper had been fine.  I just wanted to speak with her.

“I lived in New York for fifteen years,” I began.  I told her how my oldest daughter had actually been on a field trip to the World Trade Centers in 1993, the year Ms. Lewis was born, when the building had to be evacuated during an earlier bombing attempt.  My wife and I just assumed it was a random act of desperation, nothing more.

I painted a picture for Ms. Lewis of how my children would always search the horizon for the Centers whenever we drove back to New York from a DC visit with relatives.  The bold, steel-gray, squares defying the sky always told them home was near.

“But things happen,” I continued.  I could tell Ms. Lewis was listening intently.  Her head leaned downwards towards her shoes, and her breath grew still.  The second bell for lunch rang, and we both ignored it.  “But just because bad things happen does not mean good things don’t happen, too.”

I asked her what details she knew about her birth.  Ms. Lewis relayed how her mother always said it had been somewhat difficult, except near the end.  “Are you a miracle?” I asked her.

“I guess,” she mumbled.

“Don’t let anyone, or anything, take your day away,” I continued.  We spoke for fifteen minutes or more.  I made her promise me that never again would she lie about her birth date, or apologize.  I told her that life beginning at the very moment others tragically end is a sign of hope and revival, an antidote to madness.

I have Ms. Lewis again this year for AP English.  At first, she was reluctant to join the class, but I insisted.  She is an inch or two taller now, and her smile is more forthcoming.  On Friday, just as the bell was about to ring, she suddenly announced to the class that today, 9/11, is her birthday.  I promised her a Pop Tart on Monday.

As I pause now to consider the awful events of that day (I was at home and watched it all on TV), I think about so many things:  the empty skyline where my children’s homeline used to begin; the brave men and women who surrendered their lives saving others; the nearly 3,000 innocents whose afternoon ended without warning, or a proper goodbye; the almost 60 Muslims who perished in the World Trade Center fires that day without knowing the lightening rod their faith would become; the mindless, nineteen hijackers who somehow convinced themselves that the road to glory requires blood.

I think about Ms. Lewis, quietly turning seventeen today.  Or my neighbor across the street, who is now 100.  All the parking spaces on my block are full as friends and admirers deliver their respects.  I just found out from another neighbor this afternoon, and I quickly call my wife and ask her to pick up some sort of gift on the way home.  Later, I will cross the street and wish our latest centenarian well.  Tonight, I will pause to pray, as I have for the last nine years, for clarity and strength in these difficult times.  But even as I ponder, even as I grieve, I will hold the lesson of Ms. Lewis and my neighbor close to my heart.  Life persists and miracles continue despite the fumblings of man–and I am so grateful for that.

I did not lose a loved one that horrible day, but I lost something.  Regaining my original ground and verve might be impossible, but my faith sprouts new wings, new outlets, every day.  Thank you, neighbor.  Thank you, Ms. Lewis.  Happy Birthday!

–teachermandc

I passed a team of preschoolers on my way home yesterday.  Three adults, all dressed in matching orange tee shirts, guided the tiny group as they moved towards a nearby park.  The students were all dressed in yellow tee shirts.  They held on to a rope suspended from the hips of each of the teachers, one student on either side.  As they crossed a street, their faces (most of them, anyway) seemed intent on getting to the other side safely.  Clearly, the possibility of danger had been imprinted on their brains.

As I watched the little ones navigate the crosswalk, I thought about my own approach to teaching.  My students are nearly grown–at least in their eyes.  Eleventh graders are  just a sniff away from college.  As they traverse this last stretch, there are no ropes to guide them.  I tell them our destination is knowledge, and I show them how I propose we get there.  But I do not hold their hands.  I especially love those moments when they back into understanding and connect the dots themselves.  That way, the things they find, they keep.  One thing I dislike about Impact, the new DC teacher evaluation system, is its inherent belief that instruction only occurs when you tell students exactly what you are going to do, over and over and over again.  I just think they are brighter than that.

In English III, we read creation myths, and then they construct a list of common themes and occurrences.  Now, armed with that information, they must write one of their own and illustrate it.  I tell them enough, but not everything.  I treat them as intellectual equals almost, and they seem to respond to that.

In AP English Language, I let them “hang themselves” with the first draft of their Cosby rebuttal.  Then, after reading and analyzing actual scored essays from the AP exam, they are ready to rewrite their pieces, turning them away from rant and closer to argument.  A few feel misled (you should have told us exactly what to do), but I reassure them I grade based on effort.  I tell them there is a “method to my madness.”

Two years ago, seniors voted me their “Teacher of the Year.”  Last year, I came in second place.  Still, you wonder sometimes if what you are attempting as a teacher is sinking below the skin.  By connecting “A” with “C,” and then inventing “B,” have they moved beyond rote learning and grade grabbing?  Did they find a new approach to the subject at hand?  Did they get an “aerial” view?

Today, a former student came to see me.  I taught him two years ago in tenth, and again last year in debate.  He is a senior now and very much a force in the school.  As president of the Student Government Association, he works hard to involve his peers in the daily workings of the school.  I admire his drive and dedication, as well as his sense of humor.  He always gets my jokes.

He bounces into my room and tells me I have to hear something.  It is in-between classes, but my students know I do not like to be disturbed while preparing to teach.  He persists.  I take the headphones and listen.  To my surprise, Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” blares in my ear.  For five years, I used that song in English II to begin my lessons on plot, conflict, and resolution.  Whenever I played it for the first time, moans of “what is that?” inevitably arose.  I told them a little about Chapman’s background and then handed out copies of the song’s lyrics.  I described for them where I was the first time I heard that song.

Then we get to work, preparing a timeline, outlining conflicts, and speculating on the main character’s future.  We carefully dissect the choice of words, especially the memorable lines, “and your arm felt nice wrapped ’round my shoulder, and I had a feeling that I belonged.  I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone.”

Finally, the students must rewrite the lyric from the perspective of the young man we call “Fast Car.”  Was he a user, or was he used?  Consider him:  a young buck still living at home with the fastest car in town.  He stops at a local store and meets a young woman with a sad story and smoldering dreams of a different life in a big city.  He agrees to leave his life behind and then loses his bearings in her dream.  Who, if anyone, is to blame?

I loved that lesson, even after playing the song for them over and over again.  The student who came to visit me tells me that the night before he and a dozen more shared the song on Facebook and argued about who was lost and who was found?

He tells me about one young lady who always seemed to frown whenever I played “Fast Car.”  He shares with me that it is still her “favorite song.”  “I loved it when he played that song,” she shared.  I laugh, remembering how much I thought she hated it.  I think the reason I love surprises in teaching is because I always loved surprises in learning.  As the former student turns to leave my classroom, and I move towards my latest crop, I think about Fast Car racing through the wind, destination unknown.

With young people, you just never know.

–teachermandc

The week ends on a high note.  We have our Convocation ceremony, something started last year.  My school is only six years old, and traditions are new to us.  I have been here since the beginning, when we only had freshman and sophomores.  Now, the building is full, and some of the faces I cherished have already moved on to college and life.  Some are still searching.

The hardest part of teaching is the letting go.  I tell my students, “You are my students for life.”  I mean it, but the truth is when they move on–even to another grade, another English teacher–I never have quite that same connection.  Time is so compressed in high school.  They enter as children and exit as young adults.

I spoke with a colleague the other day, and the subject of teaching came up.  “Why do you think we choose high school?” she asked.  We had choices.  Why not elementary, or middle school?  I told her I never considered elementary because I did not think I could manage all those colorful corners for reading, math, and science–all in one room.  I attended a small, Catholic school.  We had one room per grade, maybe thirty to a class.  Each year a different nun guided us, except in third grade when the one lay teacher embraced us.  Her name was Mrs. Jasper, and she made each of us feel as though we were her favorite student.  Whenever I think about teaching, I think of her, and my two aunts who were also teachers.

Middle school seems too chaotic to me.  I know it was a difficult time for all three of my daughters.  Also, my Catholic school went from first to eighth grade, so I had no experience with a separate institution for seventh and eighth.  DC is moving away from middle schools, and I agree with the belief that those years are too fragile to be isolated.

I told my colleague teachers probably choose the place they felt most relaxed, most at ease, and teach there.  She smiled and recalled how much she enjoyed her high school years.  While I learned the most at that small, parochial school with those dedicated nuns from the Order of Notre Dame, I grew the most in high school.

I won this scholarship to integrate previously all-white, Southern prep schools.  My classmates were not only white; they were rich, and the combination yielded some fascinating stories I will save for another day.  What I will  note is that the experience of being away from home at a tony boarding school helped shape my character and my expectations for the world and my role in it.  I think we do the same thing at my school–at every high school.

For better or worse, we teachers serve as a powerful influence on our students.  They come to trust our judgment about their relative worth and potential.  I think many students drop out because the messages they receive are so dire and bleak.  They leave to preserve their fledgling sense of self, not to sabotage it.  We teachers have to be as careful with our words as we are with our content.

On Thursday and Friday, I had my debate students take notes while listening to hip hop hits recorded before they were born.  I used Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not be Televised,” Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message,” and Public Enemy’s “Don’t Believe the Hype.”  The students knew Flavor Flav from his cable shows, but not from his music.  All the songs spurred conversations about the direction of music today and lyrical content, especially in light of our discussions about the power of words.

The lesson worked on many levels, and everyone came away with something.  To me, that’s the goal of high school.  We use life to teach it.  The punctuation of appositive phrases is nice, but the importance of integrity is better.  Some think these young people are already grown, maybe even menacing, but, to me, they are simply children pursuing happiness, and liberty, and life.  The fact that I get to help them with that is such an honor, and the rewards are real and ongoing.  I am not alone in that.

During the Convocation, the students take their old seats in the gym.  The seniors sit in the junior section, the juniors in the sophomore, and the sophomores in the freshman area.  Each section has the graduation year emblazoned on the wall.  After a few words from the principal about growth and responsibility, the student officers of the Student Government Association command each class to “make some noise.”

As each class is called, they attempt to outshout all the others.  Throughout all this, the freshman wait nervously huddled just outside the gym.  Then, on cue, the Class of 2011 rushes from their old seats and races across the gym floor to their new place as seniors.  They are ecstatic, wave hands, and high five the air.  I take pictures with my cell phone.  The juniors then flock to their new seats; the sophomores follow suit.  Finally, the gym grows  mostly silent, and the freshmen nervously enter and are escorted to their section where the “Class of 2014” banner waves.  The students applaud these new members who almost always look too young for high school.

I look into their innocent faces and wonder which ones I will get to teach.  I remember my first year  when I was the ninth grade teacher.  I think of all the students I have taught.  Then I think about me and high school.  My school had different traditions, but they were meaningful for me.  I look at the faces of my fellow teachers.  All are smiling and, I suspect, remembering, too.  For a brief moment, as the football players are introduced before our first game of the season, we are all one school high off the fumes of youth.  We teachers stand to the side and applaud.  Then it occurs to me. We didn’t choose high school; high school chose us.

–teachermandc

Classes this week have been good.  AP English Language students deliver well-constructed arguments for or against Cosby’s assertions about the black lower class.  Some feel Cosby is correct; poor people bring misfortune on themselves through reckless behavior.  Others argue Cosby’s claims are too simplistic and mask his own personal grief over the death of his son (why are these people still wasting away while my son is gone).  We clap after each student reads from the front of the class.   I then use that platform to begin formalizing the lessons around rhetoric and argument in general.

In Debate, we examine some common logical fallacies and are preparing for our first in-class debate.  Next week, we will argue for and against use of the N-word.  I only have to introduce “flow,” or how to chart an opponents arguments while they are speaking, and we are on our way.  Finally, in English III, we read three creation myths from a few Native American tribes (Navajo, Modoc, Onondaga), while Navajo music plays in the background.  We identify elements most creation myths share.  The students must now write an original myth explaining either the origin of life, or some other natural phenomena (rain, earthquake) that would have perplexed early man and required an explanation.  It goes well.

But my most interesting conversation this week occurs during lunch.  I am lucky this year.  My school has two lunch shifts, so my Third Period planning stretches for two hours.   I have this nice chunk of time in the middle of the day to make copies, plan my lessons, or just sit in my room and think.

Last year, during one lunch period, my room was always full of students–an interesting mixture of young people from all grades who wished to avoid the inevitable cafeteria politics.  The students included seniors I had taught in 10th, student artists hooked on anime, a few skateboarders, and several young ladies not easily classified.  Misfits of sorts who found solace in each other’s company–and mine.

I enjoyed them, and I am glad the “old gang” is slowly finding its way to my new room.  Today, one young man who I am teaching for the third year in a row and a  young lady who is now a senior (I taught her in 10th) share lunch with me.  Both want to talk about college.  I share some of my stories (they have heard them all before), and we laugh about the future awaiting them.

Then the young lady, a valedictorian candidate, shows me a college application she is completing. She asks me to review her essays.  One question asks how her current environment has shaped her life.  She chooses a journal format to tackle the question and aptly describes a typical stroll through her neighborhood.  All her images are bleak.  Clusters of unemployed men and aimless teens punctuate her stroll, along with cracked sidewalks, discarded beer cans, and discarded  dreams.

Her piece is well-written, and I first compliment her on her use of vivid detail.  Then I asked her to reread the application question.  “So how has your neighborhood shaped you?” I ask.  She pauses for a long time and then shows me another paragraph she has written about courage.

I forget the exact quote she begins with, but it contrasts courage and fear, casting them both as twin brothers.  It is a good quote, and our talk turns to the notion of courage.  How did her neighborhood give her strength?  I should note she is a first-generation American.  Her parents are immigrants from Nigeria.  Like most first-generations, I have always found her focused, almost too focused. Two years ago, I admonished her to have at least a little fun along the way. She frequently exhibits a mixed love for her new country.  She loves the freedoms she has found here, but she misses the far-away home she never really had.  She sees it through her parents’ longings.

Sometimes her judgments about others, especially the people in her community, can be harsh.  No one works hard enough.  No one appreciates what they have.  No one wants to achieve.  I can tell talk of the “lazy, spoiled American” percolates in her home.

“When you walk down your street,” I ask her, “do you see anything or anyone worthwhile?  Have you missed anything?  Are there any sources of beauty–besides you?”  She laughs while the young man, who has been listening, nods.  “Be careful,” I say.  “Maybe courage lies in the faces and lives of the people you do not see.  Think about it.  What a great essay that would make.”

I tell her how my wife always works hard to find the best in people.  Whenever I start to complain about something or someone, she will ask me something annoying like “Did you wake up with feet this morning?”  In my classroom, the three of us laugh at that one.  The young lady wants to meet my wife.  The young man says he is learning to ignore the noise and stay positive about life and his future.  It is a good day, and my classroom is full of courage.

–teachermandc

While recharging for a new week, I have a Sunday ritual.  I try hard not to grade papers (I already have a ton,  it seems).  Instead, I reread all the handouts for the week and review my plans for each class.  Some Sunday’s I start the week in church.  On others, I go to my neighborhood park.  Today, I choose the park.

The weather is a perfect 80 degrees with an abundance of sunlight and soft breezes.  It has been a busy weekend in DC.  On Saturday, the two marches–Beck’s and Sharpton’s–consumed the media’s attention.  Both came on the 47th anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  I mentioned it in class last week.  “Were you there?” one student asked aloud.  Now that I have hair, gray at that, the students assume I am related to Moses.  “No,” I told them, “but I remember it.”

And I do.  I was eight at the time.  For some reason I do not recall, I was in Florida at my grandmother’s house.  My mother was with me, two of my brothers, and one uncle, the most handsome one, who was murdered later by the husband of girlfriend I believe.  I remember watching the speech with one eye and my grandmother with the other.  I had never seen so many black people on television.  There seemed to be a rule against it at the time.  I can still see her black and white television in a wooden case backed against the center wall in the front room.

As Dr. King spoke, my grandmother ironed.  The thud of the iron hitting the board began to match the cadence of King’s wonderful voice.  Somewhere near the middle, she stopped ironing completely and just stood in front of the TV.  She began to speak to the sound coming out of that box, yelling, “Yes!” and “Tell ’em about it.”  I had never seen her so animated, except in church.

I knew some of what King had to say involved me.  But I was only eight, a second-grader.  I remember asking Sister Leon in my Catholic school to marry me in second grade.  I had worked on my speech all week, and I volunteered to help erase the board after school so we would be alone.  “Sister,” I asked.  “Will you marry me?”  I said it quickly and then fumbled with the erasers.  She said nothing for what seemed like such a long time.  Then she approached me in those funny black laced-up shoes and her sweeping black-winged habit hiding her hair.  I could see her pale cheeks flush with color underneath, and I worried about what she would say. “I am already married,” she finally told me.  “Nuns are married to Jesus.”

“Oh,” I said, head down.

“But I am sure that one day you will make someone a wonderful husband.  Such a fine, young man you will be.”

It’s funny the things  you recall on Sunday’s.  I arrive at the park around noon.  It is already full with activity.  It is not a park really, just a large expanse of green fields, a playground, and tennis courts flanked by two recreations centers, one old, one new.  I always park near the older, original rec center, preserved because of its age.  I was a radio disc jockey once, and the old need to serenade the crowd always overcomes me.   I park across from the cluster of old guys and gals who sit on plastic chairs, and play and watch tennis.  They control this part of the park on Sunday’s, and they have grown accustomed to my music.

I blast it from the car radio and lower all the windows for full effect.  But my car is not fancy, and the sound is just loud enough outside to be heard without interfering with conversation.  I play “old school” songs they haven’t heard in years, sprinkled with newer hits whose sound feels old.  The elders, as I call them, listen; some even trot out the old dances and laugh.  A few men sip frosty liquids in plastic cups.

On the driver’s side of my parked car sits the playground, one of those modern apparatus with colorful plastic and spiral sliding boards.  The small size of the swings invites little kids up to five, and there are three clusters of families inside the playground gate.  Two black women still dressed in church clothes have six young faces between them.   The children race from station to station while the two women talk.  Not far from them, two white women with three youngsters also converse near children jumping up and down in a different area.  The parent groups do not mix, but soon the children find each other and begin to commingle their games.  All the women watch and move closer towards each other.  I turn the music down a bit so I can relish the children’s laughter.

Beyond the gated playground area, a robust game of soccer commands the wide, green fields near the edge of the park.  Judging from the outfits, flags, and bits of language, the players are all foreign-born, Latinos and African immigrants mostly.  They flow back and forth on the emerald field, and I can hear the whistle of a referee from time to time.

To the North of the playgrounds, young men still high-school-skinny play basketball.  Most are shirtless, and the sheen of sun and sweat reflects off their copper bodies as they leap and taunt and work.  On a bench beside the game, one teenage girl is braiding the hair of a young man who stills tries to watch the game intently. On the sidewalk parallel to the street, a young, white father is teaching his daughter to ride a bike.  The training wheels are still on, and she seems reluctant to take them off.  Finally, he convinces her, and off they move out of my sight.

I play Marvin Gaye, and Bootsy Collins, and then Michael Jackson.  Three young teenagers pass as the memorable bass line in “Billie Jean” pours from my car.  They begin to mimic Jackson’s trademark dance, and the older folks across the street smile and start to do the same>  Even one toddler near the swings triumphantly spins a move or two .

It is a perfect day, and I think back on the events of that first week of school.  I have set an ambitious pace and must maintain it, not an easy task.  But I have never been attracted to things which come too easily.  I never trust the results.  I read in the paper that in his speech Beck called for a return to God, something about America having lost its way.   As Jackson’s “Earth Song” rises into the air, and his scorching refrain takes center stage–“What about us?”–I wonder which America he means.  For this week anyway, mine seems to be doing just fine.

–teachermandc

Day 4: Because we are on an alternating A/B schedule, Tuesday I simply repeat the lesson plan from Monday, only better.  Exchange is everything.  I have the same three classes with different students.  Some students are returning to me from 10th grade; on B days most are new.

On Wednesday and then again today, I move each class deeper into the realm of ideas. I decide to frame my first week’s entry points around issues I believe will resonate with the black and brown faces I teach. I should mention I share that heritage, though I am in no way implying that those who do not are impaired.  Every teacher finds his or her own pathway to connection.  Still, I want my students to know I understand something of the larger universe swirling around them–especially in DC..

In each class, I begin by telling them about my background:   I am a native Washingtonian who grew up in Anacostia, an area of our nation’s capital routinely described by the local media as barren territory desperate for gentrification. It is euphemistically labeled “east of the river,” a catchphrase for poor.

I always begin the same:  “I’m from Shipley Terrace, so don’t even think about starting any mess.  I grew up deeper in the ‘hood than you will ever be.  Y’all don’t even know where it is–that’s how deep I am.”  They usually laugh.  “And on the last day of school, I always walk home–slowly.  So if you ever think you want to “talk” with me privately, you’ll know where I will be.”  The male students, most larger than me, especially respond to that part.

But, as usual, there is a point I want to make.  I still remember my dismay when, reading somewhere back in the ’60s, I discovered in The Washington Post that I was socially stunted, economically disadvantaged, and culturally deprived.  I want them to know they are not strangers to me.  I have three children myself and a vanload of nephews, nieces, and cousins who look just like them.  I am an educated man, “all-Ivy” I tell them, undergrad and grad.  I want them to trust me.  I want them to know I understand, and I am qualified.   I want them to relax.

For Debate I, I present the challenge of deciding whether or not the use of the N-word is ever a “good thing” on the heels of the Dr. Laura controversy (I provide them with the transcript of her on-air radio “conversation” with the caller Jade, and a host of articles and song lyrics pro and con). In AP English Language, we read Bill Cosby’s “Pound Cake” speech (the one where he argues that poor black people are the architects of their own demise), and the first chapter of Michael Dyson’s book-length rebuttal. Finally, in English III, we focus on the meaning of the “American Dream” while unraveling theme in Edward P. Jones’s short story ‘The First Day” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl.”

In all my classes, I begin with showing video excerpts from the documentary What Black Men Think produced by conservative Janks Morton. I focus mostly on the two spoken poem segments, as my year-long theme is “The Power of Words.” But I also share selected portions which highlight some of the issues relevant to our class discussions.  (Why do most Americans think there are more black men in jail than in college?  Are poor people lazy?  Is racism just an excuse? Is hip hop music an abomination?)  I alert them to be on the lookout for the goals of political discourse and some of the subtle techniques inherent in persuasive speech.  We will revisit the art of persuasion again and again this year in every class.  So much of the world has already decided what they are; I want them to be able to articulate who they are and then defend what they believe.

After I read “The First Day,” I ask my English III students, the last period of the day and my most boisterous group, if they remember their own first day of school.  “Who cried?” I ask.  Almost every hand goes up, especially the boys.  We laugh as they recall that first tiny book bag with the face of their favorite cartoon character on the back, the brand new pencil case, the lunch box with the thermos whose top became a cup.  I then sneak a challenge in by instructing them to remember how excited they were to finally go to “the big school.”  “I want some of that in this class,” I tell them.  “I want to meet that little boy, that little girl–at least a little.”

The ensuing conversations soar. I can feel their energy, even though I still do not know all the names. Yesterday and today, I try to harness that excitement and take it further. Debaters have to chart the arguments about N-word usage on both sides and then begin to frame a personal response. AP Lang students work hard to take a stand on the issue of behavior and poverty, and then explain it. Several want copies of the handouts to share with their parent(s).  I assign them a two-page essay entitled, “Is Bill Cosby Right?” Finally, English III students must uncover how a fictional writer uses technique to suggest theme.  They have to write about “Girl.”

But then something else happens.  Somewhere in the stream of all this inquiry, I ask a question in each class. “Was the future better for your parents and grandparents than it is for you?” Almost every hand raised in the affirmative. I demand evidence. “Our generation is spoiled,” they say. “We don’t know how to work. We don’t appreciate sacrifice. We don’t care about one another.” Then one girl who I also taught last year states, “The dream died.”

This is where the deeper challenge begins. This is why I love teaching.  I pull my inspiration from a conversation I had with my wife the night before. I told her about my classes and the timbre of that conversation.  I mentioned to her that my students this year were clearly bright, but some seemed undecided.  “I just think sometimes we were more inventive than they are,” I shared.  That was when she reminded me about something more.

She argued that it is self-serving to blame young people and denigrate their strivings, as though we were never young, and searching, and confused, and cocky, and scared. She reminded me about DJ Kool Herc, and how he helped transform a catchy beat into art and a lucrative industry. She sketched a picture for me of the Bronx on that hot, summer day when he stepped out of his apartment and into the world, with the speakers blaring, and the freed hydrants cooling, and the allure of scratch beckoning, and the sound of adults and children splashing in the air.  She reminded me about Chuck Brown uncovering music in the silence of confinement, just sticks challenging metal bars, until he unleashed “go-go.”

Feeding off that fire, I enter my classroom on Wednesday and Thursday, and I tell my students they are wrong. Old people always believe their ways were better; otherwise they think there was no point in growing old. I turn to them and explain:

“Look at what you have done. You took a N-word that shamed so many of us, lifted it from the heap, sprayed it with gold-plate, encrusted it with fake diamonds, and then wore it on your chest–an emblem of affection. Then you dared to decide who could and could not use it.  You took the hallmark of defeat, the beltless, sagging pants of prison halls, and turned it into fashion. Look at your parents and guardians who rejected the hand-me-down names of yesteryear and crafted their own sounds and spellings for so many of you–no matter what.  My child will be unique.

You created your own dress, dances, and hairstyles. You brandished tattoos, even after we told you dark people could not display such things. You created language and music and cadence, earrings in both male ears, and dances that smelled like Africa, whether we liked it or not.

As Public Enemy exhorted, “Don’t believe the hype.” You are better, yes, for our struggles. But you are more than that, too. You are special. You are the embodiment of the American Dream. Life will be better for you and your children, despite what Springer and Povich display–because you are the essence of the dream we imagined.  Yes, people can argue otherwise, but argument exists for manipulation. Listen to your heart. Hear mine (by now, the room was still, and every eye opened).  When I look at you, I see me. Only better.”

I have no words really for what happens next. Silence. Pens and pencils moving. Charts about argument, main ideas, and structure filling. Students whispering to one another. I have no words to describe that noisy silence. But I can tell you what I do next. I say nothing more, swallow my impulse to comment further, and sit down.  What a great week.

–teachermandc