Great Student Quotes

My students are beginning a project where they take on the identify of a historical figure and create a blog for that person (sometime next week there should be a few different versions of Leonardo Da Vinci's Blog floating around). As a warm up Friday, I asked my students which teacher most reminded them of their historical figure and why. Some of these are too funny and thoughtful not to share:

• _____ is a person who reminds me of John Locke. John Locke was a philosopher and _____ talks and acts like a philosopher. _____ has a deeper meaning to any question. If you say "Oh, I'm going to get food," _____ would start talking about what that would do to your body in 5 years.
• The BLS staff member who most reminds me of their person we are doing our project on [Marie Antoinette] is probably _____ just because she's young and pretty.
• _____ reminds me the most of Issac Newton because he got long hair and he is light skinned.
• _____ reminds me of Napoleon because he's mean and tries to take over everything.
• _____ reminds me of Napoleon because he's always changing the rules.
• _____ because he talks a lot and Galileo sounds like a man who loves to talk about what he does like _____.
• _____ and Mary [Wollstonecraft] because they both like to voice their opinion and want to be treated as equal.
• _____ reminds me of him. Issac Newton was a rebel always getting in fights with other people like rivals.
• The BLS staff member that reminds me of Issac Newton is _____ because _____ and Issac both studied science and they're both brilliant.
• My person is Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the BLS staff member that reminds me of him is _____. _____ has influenced me in the way that I think and that has helped me quite much. Just as my person has influenced many, _____ have influenced me so much more than anyone I've met.
• I would say _____ reminds me of John Locke because _____ is trying to change the school into the best high school preparing every student for college with the best teachers. John Locke made a change focusing on equality of human rights.

The Things That Make it Worthwhile

For a week that could have been a low point in my teaching career due to the stress of a new schedule, an expanded teaching load, new class sections (same students, new arrangements), teaching in a new room, not to mention getting grades done and having parent-teacher conferences -- my students came through time and time again this week. Some thoughts:

- Monday, ten of my students stayed after school with me to help me move all teacherly belongings down the hall to my new room. They took all the graded work I had from the end of the previous Trimester and filed them according to our new section groupings. Because of them, we didn't miss a beat in the classroom. I honestly have no idea how I would have gotten through the week without them.

- Sections take on a life of their own, often with some less than desirable habits. With the new sections groups, I saw students from sections that had better habits ensuring that the students from sections not always as pleasant or productive did not continue to have a negative impact on the class. Many of my students stood up and took control of their classmates, laying the groundwork for a successful new beginning.

- Though I dread parent-teacher conferences every year, I left them this year refreshed. They filled me with hope. Either I spent 5-10 minutes praising wonderful students, or I had genuine problem-solving conversations with parents and/or students who genuinely wanted to see improvement in their children or selves. So much of my time and energy feels like it is spent on managing problems, that it was wonderfully invigorating to be able to take some time and focus on the positive. Most of my students due much that deserves praise, and it was wonderful to be able to focus on that for awhile.

Reality

Today is the first anniversary of my first blog post. For the past week, I've been composing in my head a new version of "Why I (Still) Blog", though I'm not really in the right place to do that right now (it will come sometime in the next couple of months).

As I've neared the completion of my master's work (it's actually done, I'm just revising a couple papers for publication, and will be giving a presentation this FRIDAY (not Thursday, as I accidentally typed last night) at Columbia University based on my thesis entitled, "LIteracy is Liberation: The Citizenship Education Program 1957-1965", which is open to the public if anyone is interested - info here), I've been spending more time in various roles at the school in the Bronx I'll be teaching at in the fall. I couldn't possibly be more excited and content with the match that's been made. In just two years, the school has built a real supportive community for both staff and students. In the past few weeks, I've sat in as a staff member presented a lesson plan to be critiqued by her grade level team as part of a weekly staff meeting, and been a part of a joint English/History 11th Grade planning meeting where two teachers with far more experience and success in the classroom than I've had eagerly listened to new ideas and decided to take their classes in a radical (and almost certainly more successful) direction. Both of these of these were 180 degrees away from previous school cultures I've encountered. I can't wait for similar support for my teaching (which is 99% certain to be in a 10th Grade Global History classroom), and a similar chance to explore new ways of thinking about education. I've also had the chance to get to know some of the students, subbing one day, and spending today shadowing a 10th grade through his full day. They're students I'm eager to work with.

However, one of my experiences today was a very strong reminded of just what challenges lie ahead (and what needs to be in the back of all minds when people talk about urban school reform). This afternoon at an all school gathering, students viewed a documentary against gun violence made by a 21 year old from Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn who witnessed his best friend shot and killed when they were 19. After the film, the documentarian asked the students two questions: How many of you know someone who has been killed by a gun? How many of you know someone who owns a gun?

Over half the students knew someone who had been killed. Almost all the students knew someone who owned a gun.

This is my students' reality - one that I have never known, and probably will never be able to fully understand.