Happiness is Carrying Water

The happiest parts of my day today all came in the time it took three kids to carry a Costco package of water bottles from my car to my classroom door.

1) Happiness #1: G--- and I've been struggling for a month, since the passing of his father, because he's very angry and I'm asking him to sit still, be quiet and read. Both of us appreciate how unreasonable this request is, but that only means that he behaves even worse and I can't bring myself to discipline him too heavily. Nonetheless, I get frustrated and he stays angry. I had forgotten how long it had been since he and I had had a positive interaction. Even one as simple as helping carry water started things off well and gave us our best day together in weeks.

2) Happiness #2: G--- was ably assisted by P----. However, as they neared the end, these two slight, pre-adolescent boys were about to drop the crate of water. Fortunately, L---, a not-so-pre-adolescent girl came swooping in, plucked up the crate, and easily carried it herself. The boys just looked relieved. It was a marvelous reminder of this amusing phase in development when the girls dwarf the boys and no one seems to notice. Especially when you hear who likes who.

3) Happiness #3: P---, the above-mentioned assistant, resented my profuse appreciation for L---'s rescue. He exclaimed, "Why thank her Mr. AB?!? We carried it eleven-twelfths of the way!" That's right. He said eleven-twelfths. When he came to me he couldn't multiply. We're not even studying fractions right now, but despite my shock, I asked him why he didn't pick nine-tenths. He said, "Because it's more." Uh-huh. That's a grand slam, right there, that is. It's outta here.

A Weekend of Triumph and Tragedy

This Saturday, City Year, a national service organization, brought 400 volunteers to my elementary school to spend a day beautifying our campus and neighborhood. 400 people from across the Bay Area contributed an eight-hour day, cleaning our park, creating a community garden, building an outdoor classroom, painting a blacktop map of the States, and transforming our playground into a mega-mural of inspiration and motivation. Helping at registration, I was misty eyed while groups as disparate as Starbucks and a Korean church arrived to help a school up to an hour from their own community.

Best of all, the effort drew crowds from the local neighborhood as well. Of course, the top students and their PTA moms came in their droves, but so did some more unlikely characters. M---, who spends an hour a week in the principal’s office, wholeheartedly dedicated himself to helping his erstwhile nemesis plant flowers. When newcomer A---‘s dad needed to leave the boy did too, but an hour later he returned, having biked himself back to school to help some more. W---, S---, and F---, a trio at the core of many upper grade incidents this year, arrived on bikes and lacking, of course, their parents. I quietly convinced City Year to let them stay and work. Work they did. With a day-long dedication wholly unknown in the classroom, they painted a tether ball court and helped amiably across the blacktop. At the end, W--- appreciated his own accomplishment and shouted to me, “Look Mr. AB! I stayed for the whole day!”

At the end of the day, our playground was a visual triumph of simple human effort over the complexities educational inequity. Simply put: with such color at its center, our school did not look “poor” any more. Graffiti, and the unsightly blotches of slightly mismatched paint that usually covered it, were gone. Fading lines, which had long served as quiet testimonies to a lack of love, had been replaced by bright reminders of a community that cares. Empty two and four square courts had been filled with murals, ranging from fruits to college logos. Our school motto and mascot were everywhere. I had never appreciated the potential to use all this visual space as a subtle but powerful challenge to the lack of educational pride and high expectations our students face. Only through the transformation did I realize what tremendous potential had been left unactivated for so long. As they left, I told a City Year member in charge of the project that I couldn’t wait for Monday to see the kids’ faces. Other teachers talked of a school wide assembly, linking arms en masse around the yard to kick off our “new school.”

This morning, only fifteen hours later, many of the volunteers received an email from the Man, thanking us for our effort but informing us that the majority of the murals had already been devastated by graffiti. It is unclear whether we have the capability to repair the damage and it is obvious we don’t have the security to keep the same fate from recurring.

Instead of coming to school tomorrow to be greeted by a message of community power and enthusiasm for education, our kids will only be reminded of the intrusion of gangs and awfulness into every sphere of their lives. We had planned this day for the weekend just prior to testing, hoping that the hours poured into our school on Saturday would create a motivating connection to empower them on Tuesday. Instead of tremendous pride, we know they will doubtlessly face the tests filled with deep frustration and anger. I know their teacher already is.

In a neighborhood where stabbings and shootings are again on the rise, this sort of vandalism will probably not even make the news. But I would contend that this tragedy is as devastating as any other, simply meted out across a whole school and community. It is not a blow that sends anyone to the hospital, it is “merely” one more strike to the self-esteem of our children, one more push to devalue their school and what it offers, one more reason to fail.

Achievement + Attitude = Middle School Ready

I teach fifth grade and, in all sincerity, I would not move up a year for anything less than a 30% pay hike. It might possibly take 50%. I know this because starting right about now, I get a little taste of what my middle school colleagues deal with all day every day for each of their 180 days. How do they do it? More importantly, why?

It comes with the first run of warm weather and the release of the middle school assignments. Together, this lethal brew poisons my precious fifth graders with the terrible knowledge that the year is coming to an end and when fall arrives they will be Middle Schoolers. Then, knowing a little of the adolescent awfulness expected of them, they decide to start warming up on their ol’ elementary school teachers.

Right about now, formerly good little boys and girls across the land are trying out cuss words and defiance like new toys on Christmas. I listen as voices that used to sing affection now carry building tones of disrespect. I watch as they roll the foulness around in their minds and mouths for a moment after it comes spewing out, like some sort of attitude aficionados. Some of them don’t like the taste, fortunately. P---, just yesterday, issued a “Whatever.” then promptly gasped at himself, leading the class to laugh. I was not so amused and still sat the child in detention.

When the first one turns, I’m usually convinced it’s me. I tell myself I’ve been lax, I’ve relented on too many consequences or I’ve permitted too much mouthing off by a disruptive kid and now others are going to try it out. But then, after a few phone calls home are met with “My god, I know! They’re being awful here too!” I realize it’s just the start of the season.

Generally, the students hit hardest by the attitude pandemic are the high flyers who are surrounded by an already rude group of friends. These are not the "bad" kids, I've settled with them long ago, the ones who change now are some of those I consider my top students. It’s as though they are sitting at home one day and realize: I've learned what I need; my teacher is going to pass me; my parents will love me no matter what; why not ingratiate myself to my friends by acting the fool? C--- and I have been battling for two weeks now before a sit-down with his mother helped me appreciate that this is precisely what is going on.

Don’t get me wrong, ---we’re still working had, especially as there’s still a week before The Tests. It’s just become more difficult. Painfully difficult, in fact, as I find myself fencing with some kids I formerly felt like I shared a great deal of respect. I know that middle school teachers, TMAO surely does, know how to parry with their mouthy students, how not to take it personally, and when to shut the little bastards down, but I don’t. I realize this is a big weakness, and perhaps, if some pecuniary desire or professional ambition pushes me into the middle reaches, I could learn to deal with these issues. For now, I just want to move ‘em on.

Achievement? Check. Attitude? Check. Middle school here you come.

Schools are the Single Issue

I want to finish my thinking on the achievement gap and “No Excuses.” by bringing it back to the kids.

Here’s a five-minute profile of some of what’s trying to slow my kids down this year. I just picked the first handful that came to mind.

R---‘s mother doesn’t really believe in the education of girls and pulls her out about once a week, mostly to take care of littler siblings.

Q--- missed over three weeks of class because of emergency kidney surgery, and missed all of geometry. He can’t stay late or come early to make it up because of the family schedule.

S---‘s sister, who is effectively her mother, is frequently off and on trips “away,” (on drugs? in jail? with a new man? V--- doesn’t know) bringing her to school distraught and disruptive.

T---‘s parents are constantly peddling wares around the country, leaving him with little supervision and no affection.

B---‘s parents are getting a divorce. He was finally attaining grade-level abilities in reading and math, but now comes to school near tears.

M---‘s father is back from jail and constantly comes around drunk. She was just getting her act together too.

L---‘s family is fighting over who has to take care of him. All that’s clear is no one wants him.

F---‘s father died last month. His mother now works double to cover the bills and he never sees her either.

This list represents about a third of my class and is almost identical with any of the classes I’ve taught. These are also simply the issues my students elected to share. I have little doubt that there are many of more, of equal or greater gravity, that have not been brought up.

Certainly, well-to-do kids have their share of knocks, but I think few will argue that they compound as do those faced by the poor. Poor kids seem to face a great reason not to focus in school every other year, at least! Further, for students entering school on level, success is a simple act of maintenance. For children entering with a tremendous deficit of experience and language, achievement requires a dedication that these life events make difficult to muster.

Yet, the necessity of learning to read or add does not decline with the difficulties of life. By now, millions of children, of all colors and countries, have acquired their basic skills despite the grandest obstacles. I don’t know what common strengths they have shared ---that is a topic worth researching--- but I deeply suspect that one asset was not a teacher so “understanding” as to permit them to fail. As a self-purported “No Excuses” teacher, I am still cognizant of these issues as they weigh in the minds of my students. The difference is that while I might accommodate them in my approach they do not modify my expectations. To a degree it is heartless. It must be. My students cannot afford another year of failure. I care about their trials and traumas, but I choose to focus on helping them succeed anyway.

The same is true of our schools writ large. Child-focused explorations of the “achievement gap” will always yield grand excuses. We know that our students are experience-deprived, that their parents can’t help with homework, that their role models are rarely Ph. D.’s, and that focusing in class often requires the sequestration of tremendous distractions. It doesn’t take a study to convince anyone that poor families cannot support their children’s education as well as rich families. Few educators would find their work informed by studies that detail what particular articulation of hate or history perpetuates the under-achievement of black and Latino students.

What more do you want to know? We can ask a thousand different questions; we can find a thousand different specificities for why our children fail. The repercussions of economic inequity and historic racism will be as varied as the life of each child, but they still reverberate from the same blows. I need only know that outstanding schools can be the reason kids succeed. The creation of those outstanding schools, then, becomes the single issue. Our profession's and society's inability to do so, then, becomes the single failure worth discussing.

Blaming the families or the children will always be a fruitful approach for those who seek to conceal their own shortcomings, whether it is a lack of competence as an educator or a lack of compassion as a citizen. I have no time nor tolerance for it. We can change nothing about our children’s heritage or color. We can change little about their families’ focus and our society’s racism. We can change everything about our schools. Let’s start there.

No Excuses.

A commenter wrote:

You place the entire responsibility of education upon the schools.

Yes.

A fine educator once called me a “No Excuses” teacher and that is a badge I wear with pride. I visit my students at home, I’m constantly on the phone to their parents, and I send home progress reports weekly. But teaching is my job. In the pursuit of academic achievement, I am the professional in my classroom and the families support me, not the other way around.

In my classroom, learning is not a service offered it is an expectation demanded. I am ruthless when it comes to assuring the success of my students. I fight for every minute of instruction; I stomp on nonacademic rituals; I flagrantly violate inappropriate district mandates; I beg, borrow and steal resources; I teach until it hurts; I do whatever it takes. Consequently, if my students do not attain the achievement of which I believe them capable, I blame no one but myself.

As to the potential of my students to match the achievements of their white or Asian peers, I have no question. There is not a shred of doubt in my mind. After working with students for one year, my class proficiency scores usually match the state average, an increase of around a hundred percent. I’ve had this group for two years and I anticipate that they will exceed the state average by twenty to thirty percent. That said, I'm far from the best teacher I know. What would the high school graduation and college enrollment rate of a high-challenge class look like if they had worked with me and my betters for thirteen years?

When we have staffed every high-challenge classroom with an effective teacher, when we have developed curricula that truly meet the needs of high-challenge students, when we have provided the resources to engage all high-challenge students every year, ---in short, when our own house is in order--- and our black and Latino students are still failing, then we can have discussions of family and culture, then we can praise-fests for Confucian values and helicopter parents, and then we can produce the quasi-race-science studies about the origins of the “achievement gap.” But, of course, by then we won’t need them.

An Idiot's Assessment of the Gap

Dear Readers of the San Jose Mercury News:

Today, our local paper of record published an article that threatens to be the first in a terribly damaging series on the racial achievement gap. Not damaging to the kids or the schools but to you and how you understand our society. I intend no exaggeration when I say that this article is the worst heap of insidious, bigoted half-truths since “race science.” While shallowly pretending to recognize the work of some hard-working Latinas, the real message of today’s piece is

“The put-downs are clear: Smart is not cool.
And too many Latino students are choosing cool over school.”

Get this straight and send it to your friends: Children of color don’t devalue a good education and therefore fail to get it, they’re never given it and eventually, sensibly, stop caring.

By the time San Jose’s Latino population gets to high school, they will have endured nine years of being told they are failures, of listening to the devaluation of their home language, of watching all fun be stripped from their education, and of receiving sub-par instruction from inadequate teachers. It is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit that any child of color graduates from a high-challenge school at all.

It would be unhealthy for these students to esteem a good education when they quickly realize they are never going to have a chance to achieve it. Don’t allow yourself to imagine that they don’t know they have terrible teachers. Don’t convince yourself that they don’t know they are supposed to have computers, books and fun at school. Don’t pretend they don’t know of the advantages and opportunities with which the affluent provide our children. My students are ten, yet they know better and so should you.

Every child of every color wants to learn and succeed. There is no question about this. The 1st grader who doesn’t want to learn to read is one in a thousand. They might not want to sit still, listen to teacher, and follow along when the lawnmower is outside, but they want to learn and they want to succeed. We, through our schools and our society, strip that desire for academic achievement away. By the time they get to high school, they no longer allow themselves to care.

Before you blame the children for that “choice,” ask yourself: What child --let’s remember, we’re talking about children here-- is going to continue caring about something which every passing day makes only more clearly an impossible dream? How much frustration and mental anguish are we expecting our children to endure? How many adults would, after an agonizing journey that constituted their daily existence for two-thirds of their life, keep their eyes on a prize that seemed only further away than when they started? Such is the task we can demand of our saints and our heroes, but not our teenagers.

It is small wonder when these students turn on those that do succeed. First, you need to understand that many successful children of color come from substantively more advantaged homes than those who don’t. Not all Latino kids speak Spanish; not all black kids are poor. The kids know who’s who. The resentment chronicled in this article often has a lot more to do with home life than school success. Second, can we not conceive that our children of color carry a significant amount of animosity about the education they’ve been deprived? Most adults are jealous of people with more prestige, power and potential than they, our adolescents will be no better. I am twenty-five, well educated, and frankly, I am no better.

Unquestionably, our kids of color play a role in their failure, but only after years of resistance followed by the terrible acceptance that such is the only role we will allow them to play.