Grace and Growth

What I Picture When I'm Dancing

The last couple of months I have attended a Zumba class at my gym. The first time I went, I couldn't believe how these people could shake their money-makers. Then it dawned on me that maybe I could too. I practiced. I practiced while cooking dinner at home. I practiced during my off period, just shaking from one side to another. Shaking that booty whenever I had the opportunity. I wanted to be one of the women I watched during class who made movement and grace look effortless.

While I have a deep belief in the growth mindset, that we humans can work hard at something to manifest it into reality, I have been frustrated with my progress. Am I getting better at dancing? Well, my husband says I no longer dance like Elaine Benece, Jerry Seinfeld's uncoordinated side kick in Seinfeld. But I still do not move the way I envision I want to.

In fact, when I'm in class, I create a vision of what I am doing with my body, my limbs, that when I look into the mirror does not match my mind's eye. During the salsa portions of class I picture my arms gracefully swaying from side to side to counter balance the movement of my hips in graceful swirls, while my feet move quickly from one point to the next, constantly switching back and forth in seemingly one movement.

Elaine Benece Dancing in Seinfeld Episode

I make the mistake of looking in the mirror
 though, and this is not what I witness. It is more like my body is moving, but it is neither graceful nor is it any kind of movement that looks like it goes together. In short, I struggle. I work at it, and I still continue to struggle. I am getting better, but nevertheless, I continue to struggle.

The way I feel about Zumba is the way I imagine my students who struggle with writing feel about their writing. They struggle with it. They work really hard at it. The seek help to become better. They have a belief that they will grow and become better at it. But they continue to struggle. It is a frustrating cycle for sure. Each year they look in the mirror of state and national testing. Each year they see that they are not meeting the moving standard. Each year they come back to the fight to become better than they were before.

It is for this reason, that although I find Zumba frustrating, I continue to work at it and grow. After all, growth does not always happen to the timeline of others. Sometimes we have to pay close attention and celebrate those small victories. Celebrate those places where we are growing and not lose sight of the tremendous learning that is taking place.

My students will continue to write. And...yes...I will continue to practice shaking my booty.

A Salute to my Students This Year

I work to help my students become better writers. Where ever they stand in any given moment as writers, I will move them to become better, to be more persuasive, to add more power to their writing than they did before they came to me. That is my sole mission as a teacher, and I deliver.

When people do things to get in the way of this mission, not only do I feel frustration, I feel anger. I feel that there are enough things in the world getting in the way of children. I feel there are enough people in the world who put obstacles in front of kids, especially those who struggle. I will not be one of those people.

Here's a salute to my students this year, for despite what anyone has said or alluded to them in the past about their writing skills explicitly or implicitly, they will improve.

What Matters

Today my daughter, Maya, competed in her school's spelling bee. On the way to school, she told me she really wanted to do well. Naturally, I understood, but I asked her why anyway, just to see what she would say. "Well, mom, it would help to prove that I'm a good student."

This made me think, does spelling count any more for our students in their quest for that badge of honor to be a "good student"? This comment caused me to pause, to contemplate, the kind of student I would like my own daughter to become.

"Maya, there are things other than spelling that impress me much more about your ability to learn." She wanted to know more. Of course she did, who do you know who would turn down a compliment? I thought for a moment and told her that her ability to ask questions, and then follow through to try to answer the questions she has is what impresses me most about her. I believe this quality is actually what makes her a strong student.

The next time I look at a student's paper and want to scream because of a misspelling, I will remember this conversation. It is the questioning, the content, that matters most in the scheme of becoming a strong student.

What do you do to help you remember what really matters in your classroom?

Connections

Mandela's passing has made me think through my own upbringing and that of the students I teach. I remember when he was freed from prison. The Colorado State Campus was a joyous place that day. Professors cried, people danced, even in little Ft. Collins, Colorado, so far away from South Africa.

Today, I am teaching the book, Malcolm X to my junior and senior level students. We talked about Mandela's life today. My students made the connection between him and Malcolm X like this: if Mandela hadn't been imprisoned, would he too have been assassinated? And if Malcolm X hadn't been assassinated, would he have ended up the same kind of peace maker Mandela turned out to be.

Big questions. Deep thinking. It gives me hope and makes me want to dance and sing.

Not Forgotten

 Today is the one-year  anniversary of the day I found out about the death of one of my favorite students who graduated four years ago. Kenna Egbune was a light in my life. He was a shining beacon of justice and was an advocate for people to treat others more kindly.

In my AP Lang class today we talked about the paradox of cartography: the idea that when maps are created, they are merely a representation of the place; they are not the place itself. In order to create a perfect depiction of a place, one must include each blade of grass, each brick, etc.

The students asked, "What about memories? Aren't memories kind of like that?" I had to think before I answered. I thought of Kenna. The last time we met was for dinner in August 2012  with some other students from his class. He challenged one of the black girls at the table who said she would only date white men. Kenna pointed out to her how she was not comfortable in her own skin, in her own black skin. His directness caught everyone off guard, most of all the friend sitting across from him.

It is this directness, his fearlessness in the face of social justice that I most remember about Kenna. But this memory is not the man. I can remember his essence, his ability to fight for  GLBTQ rights, for people of color, his passion for justice, but this is not the man he was. This is merely the essence of this person who touched me so deeply.

The paradox though, sitting at the table that evening is that this memory, this point in time, will live forever through the people who were sitting with him that night. Kenna made all of us think. Kenna made all of us stop our lives in that moment and  wonder what it might be like if we were all happy in our own skin, what the world might be like.

This was the essence of who Kenna Egbune was. He changed me, and for that I am grateful.

Awake

I lay awake in bed last night and thought to myself, "It's too early to be awake at 2 in the morning thinking about school." But there it was, my mental list. The email I needed to send to my colleague who will be teaching the class for below proficient writers for the first time, the lessons I wanted to share on google with my new student teacher, oh and how am I going to make sure she gets assimilated and confident in our profession...it went on like that for a good two hours before I finally gave up, and listened to my breath and finally fell back to sleep.

I don't know why I'm surprised. This happens every year. I try to keep it at bay as long as I can. Once I let it in it is like the blob, it overtakes my being with a dark sticky feeling to not let up until the following June. But the stress of the job is nothing compared to the joy I feel each day working with young minds just beginning to think deeply about the world. My to do list is never so long that I can't enjoy my life.

The key for me during the school year is to keep the blob a small tiny ball. I can't feed it. I can't let it animate and come to life. Otherwise, that is what becomes most important, whatever f ends the dark blob.

Sunlight, this year, will prevail and keep the blob at bay.

Peppy - not preppy

The American pep assembly is a right of passage, an element of high school that builds community and makes a mockery of staff and students alike. They are fun, they are obnoxious, but ultimately they build a common experience in a school of 2700 kids where there are not many common experiences to be had.