End of the Year Reflection

It feels a bit awkward calling this post an "end of the year" reflection. After all, as most schools around the capitol are letting out this week or have already let out, my school is still in session, and far from coasting in. This week, we are taking final exams, and have another week of instruction next week before a final "spirit week" that includes a graduation & gate ceremony for our 8th graders who are going on to high school next year. Regardless, I have a bit of time to write today, as I am not proctoring an exam, and decided that now would be as good of a time as any to wrap up my first year of teaching.

People tell first-year teachers that they will probably hate their job the first year. In fact, I have been told, many of the best teachers around the country had terrible first years, to the point of walking out on their job in the middle of the day -- no two weeks notice, no goodbyes, just a staunch "I'm done." While this has not been my reality, I can't say that my first year of teaching has been an enjoyable one. Much of the optimism I had towards teaching at the beginning of the year has been replaced with a tired attitude towards the profession; an excited attitude to stand in front of the classroom to mold minds is now instead replaced by feelings of dread and anxiousness as I hit my alarm clock in the morning and prepare to head into the lead role of my classroom.

It's very possible that a variety of factors may have played into what I'm currently feeling. Firstly, the school I teach at is at on an extended school year. While other schools around the country are winding down and looking towards the end of May and June with excitement, we instead continue to push our scholars hard towards "higher levels of mastery" and "getting ahead" of their peers across the city. While this is certainly being accomplished, it's at a certain point where you have to ask yourself if it is worth it. I walked into this school this year surrounded by some of the most positive, joyful teachers that I have ever encountered, many of whom have been at this school or in urban education for multiple years. This gave me hope that teaching in "tough areas" wasn't really that bad, and that it was a bit overrated. However, in June, I now see tired faces, joy replaced with exhaustion and a desire for the year just to be over. There's also the fact that the school day runs on an extended time (starts at 7 AM, ends at 4 PM, I leave around 5-6 on a normal day), many of the children we teach go home every day to incredibly difficult situations (many do not have a father, all live in poverty), I wasn't entirely sure what to expect coming into this situation -- the list continues. What is for certain, though, is that the feelings I have about teaching now are certainly not what I had hoped them to be in August.

I will be back next year, but my mentality coming into it will not be the same. I will admit that coming into this year, I was extremely naive, and saw myself having the impact on the scale of a "Dead Poets Society" or "Freedom Writers" level. Robin Williams just made it look so damn easy.

People told me that teaching would push me to a level that I could not possibly prepare myself for, but I scoffed at that. "They don't think like I do," I told myself. "I'll be different."

What I now know is that the truth about teaching, especially in urban areas, is that there's only about one good day a week, if you're lucky. More realistically, there's about one good day every two weeks, and if you're really lucky, you get a great day once every month or two. In order to survive, you need to find that day and keep it in your heart. Because on those other bad days -- and they get really bad -- you need to remind yourself what that looks like.

For me, that looks like a scholar named Kiersten making "Century Club" for one week of the year, which denotes scholars who perform the best behaviorally in a given week at my school. Every other week of the year, Kiersten was at the lead of the class in detention and out-of-class referral numbers, but for one week of the year, she behaved well, she was a leader, AND she was happy.

That looks like a scholar named Tykivis, who, after by far the toughest day of my short-lived teaching career (I pretty much snapped and looked like this while in the middle of class and looked like this walking out of work) came up to me at the end of the day and as opposed to going to hang out with his friends, decided to tell me how great he thought I was and how happy he was to have an opportunity to get me as a teacher. How lucky am I to receive that, I thought, after I had for so long loved so many of my teachers but had been too timid to tell any of them how much they meant to me.

But that's the truth within teaching. It's a largely thankless job. I just got done reading Tony Danza's book, "I'd Like To Apologize to Every Teacher I've Ever Had" in which he chronicles his one year teaching one class at a low-performing high school in the middle of Philadelphia. While Mr. Danza certainly did not have an accurate representation of what it's like to be a full-time teacher, he did bring up a few really good points about the profession. My favorite scene of the book is when he made an analogy between teaching and boxing (The Boss' profession before becoming an actor). Teaching, Danza says, is a lot like boxing, in the way that you have to bring it every single time you step in the ring. You have to prepare yourself for anything that can and inevitably will happen, and when it does happen, you can't lose your composure.

The difference between boxing and teaching is that in boxing, you're allowed to hit back. In teaching, you have to take the punches day after day, week after week, and month after month -- and then try to keep a positive attitude. On top of that, you aren't thanked for taking the punches, but are merely viewed as someone who is filling their role in the system, much like a punching bag. But what makes the best teachers are the ones who are able to step away from that idea, which is truthfully very much a reality of teaching in urban education. You have to remember the bright spots, even if they are only a spot which is surrounded by a coat of darkness and negativity that this profession seems to surround many of us on a daily basis.

As I go into my second year of teaching, and my first full-year of being a lead teacher in the classroom, I will remember Kiersten's Century Club Week. I will remember Tykivis' selflessness. I will remember the smallest of interactions with these children which tell me, even if it isn't with words, that they appreciate, or at least have a slight amount of respect, for what I'm trying to do here. I will remember also the deeds of others inside and outside of this building that tell me that success in urban education is possible, and that maintaining a healthy state of mind in such a stressful environment is realistic. Finally, I will remember the stories of all the teachers who had absolutely miserable first years -- filled with tears, screaming and hopelessness -- who came back and made a promise not to be a great teacher, but only to get better. Day by day, week by week, month by month.

That is my promise to myself going forward. In my mind, I'm not a great teacher today, I won't be a great teacher tomorrow, and I probably won't be a great teacher at this time next year. But if I make a commitment to myself to keep getting better, in the face of all the adversity that being a teacher brings, maybe one day I will be -- and if I'm lucky, maybe even a couple of the students I teach will think I'm as influential as John Keating.

Carpe (every) Diem.

-BD