Social justice is the social justice issue of our time

This NYTimes story has been making the rounds: "For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall." It follows three girls from Galveston who took all the right steps in high school to pull themselves out of their dismal surroundings (seriously, I've been to Galveston; the ocean water gives you a rash) and make it to college, only to flounder under the burden of navigating (and paying for) the system.

Go read it and then come back here.

Thanks for coming back. This sets the scene for a discussion I've been wanting to start with you for a while, blog.

My school is a Title 1 school. It's also a very good school. It's a college-focused charter with highly sought-after spots in the open enrollment lottery. We are certainly not perfect, but we are not the failing urban school that you hear horror stories about. 

Yet schools like mine are still not succeeding in their mission. Two thirds of KIPP (not my school, but similar model) kids don't make it through college.

When I first decided I wanted to work in education, I would have told you with 100% confidence: Education is the social justice issue of our time. Education is the solution to poverty. Education is the great equalizer. Then I would have rattled off several statistics about how education is the leading determiner of X, Y, and Z life outcomes. I was a sociology major!

"Education is the social justice issue of our time" is a popular refrain among progressive, young, mission-driven teachers like myself. What's interesting is it's also a popular refrain among super conservative old politicians. That makes sense, sort of. Equality of opportunity is the bedrock value of our nation, so everyone besides, like, the KKK, is pretty on-board with the idea that all citizens should have access to a solid education.

I hate to create a rift in the one single area where we might find bipartisan consensus in 21st century America, but when I find myself agreeing strongly with Newt Gingrich, I take that as a little flag that I have some stuff to work out philosophically.

Here is a statement Newt Gingrich made last year in reference to his desire to cut entitlement programs like food stamps: "I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job and learn some day to own the job."

If education is THE cause of poverty, Newt is right on. Poor people just need to learn things! All we have to do is educate people better, and we'll have a perfectly equal (or, perfectly meritocratic... more on this later) society. Never mind any of those other little issues, like housing, access to healthcare, the minimum wage, unfair working conditions, the incarceration rate of black men, etc. And never mind the Bush tax cuts. Especially never mind the Bush tax cuts.

Would equality of education actually put every American on equal footing? Not at all. Would it make people who were born into privileged positions feel even more entitled to be there, and less empathetic, operating under the myth that every American started off in the same position, so they must have just worked harder, been smarter, etc.? This is the upshot of "equality of opportunity."

For the sake of argument, let's pretend that my school is literally perfect. Let's say we know what it means to give children a maximally perfect education, and we're doing it.

Does that mean F. will recover from the hacking cough she has had for two months because no one is taking her to the doctor?

Does that mean G. will be able to afford the glasses she needs?

Does that mean P. will no longer be homeless?

Does that mean A's father will be with him, as opposed to in prison?

Does that mean tiny S. will stop shivering through the whole school day because she doesn't have a sweater?

(This is just a sampling of the real obstacles my students face, though please note that we did get S. a sweater.)

Charter schools like KIPP and my own school are often called "No Excuses." The idea is that they don't make excuses for student failure. (The assumption here, which we can debate another time, is that traditional district schools are sitting around saying "you want us to educate them?! But they're poor!" -- which is obviously not what I'm advocating either). Conservative politicians love "No Excuses." Again, it makes sense. If poverty isn't an excuse for substandard education, then you don't even have to address poverty.

Here's my new version of no excuses: Poverty is not an excuse for substandard education. Nor is substandard education an excuse for poverty. Let's actually stop making excuses.

So, progressive teachers and friends of progressive teachers, this is my point: Education is really, really, really important. Is is part of the solution to poverty. A big part. But every time we reduce the complicated issues of poverty and inequality to one root cause, be it education or any other issue, we are hurting our mission. If our goal is to create a society where everyone can lead a life of dignity, maintain a middle-class lifestyle, be their best self, etc., etc., we need to stop saying that education is the social justice issue of our time. Social justice is the social justice issue of our time.

My life is going to be not perfect, but kind of perfect.

Sorry for the blog hiatus. But as we tell the kids, no, I do not want to hear your excuse. Let's move on.

Today in social studies we did an activity which I promise was relevant to our curriculum but essentially became the classic childhood writing prompt, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Here, my friends, is the future of our nation. The career goals of the 16 kids whose papers I have:

Girls:

Gymnast

Fashion designer

Fashion designer

President

Teacher

Dance teacher

Actress

Chemist

Boys:

Athlete

Soldier

Athlete

Chemist

Athlete

Athlete 

Athlete

Rapper (revised after I told him "millionaire" is not a job)

The fashion designers both actually said "teen fashion designer" (I refuse to google this but I assume that's some sort of Nickelodeon show. Whenever the kids all have some common background knowledge we didn't teach them, it's from a Nickelodeon show). I don't understand how your job when you grow up can involve being a teen, but then there's a lot of things I don't understand in my students' responses.

[Edit: You know when you realize something in your sleep? I realized in my sleep that "teen fashion designer" probably means designing fashion FOR teens, not designing fashion AS a teen. Why am I thinking about this in my sleep???]

For example, one of those fashion designers might have actually meant human-trafficker:

"My money I will have is only from work and not needed for clothes, only food and shoes. My job is going to affect my family because I will be selling them after I make them."

Other choice quotes:

"I will become an inventor. I will live in a mansion with my mom and own 4 cars; 2 for my mom and 2 for me. I will have an Audi LMS Ultra, Pagani Zonda Cinque, and my mom will have a Ford F-150 Raptor, and a Nissan 3502. I will make video games, cars, life story chapter books, etc."

"When I'm older I will be a rapper. I'm going to do that by rapping so that I can have a mansion and have money for my 6 babies."

Side-note: Before they began writing we were talking about how your lifestyle is related to your job. I gave the example of, if you want to be a police officer, you can't also claim you'll live in a mansion because police officers don't live in mansions. The kids' solution was to choose careers that could plausibly allow you to live in a mansion. Well-played.

The future president drew a comic of herself, at age 44, as the "First Black Woman President." This is what the FBWP says in her speech bubble: "The war in Aghanistan [sic.] that stopped 10 years ago is over. All the drugs gone made America's problems better." I told you these kids were political!

The future chemist (male) says: "I will give to charity, because I like poor people. Some people might hate them but they are just unfortunate people. I will be able to afford many things when I find the cure to 

cancer." We'll be conferencing on this one.

And, here's your tender moment of the day, and my favorite for obvious reasons -- the future teacher says: "My life is going to be not perfect, but kind of perfect.... I'll be a good person and a teacher."

May we all be so lucky.

Inadvertent Marxist Social Theory by Fifth Graders

It's officially Thanksgiving Break (do normal people get Wednesday off? My roommate and I are both teachers and sometimes it's hard to remember how the outside world works). I'm thankful for you, blog! 

Perhaps on this Thanksgiving holiday you are reflecting on the first Thanksgiving and, more broadly, our nation's heinous treatment of its indigenous people. We haven't gotten there yet in 5th grade social studies, but we're close. We're in a unit on the Age of Exploration, and we just covered the Aztecs and the Incas, and the Spanish conquest thereof. The kids wrote short responses on both, responding to the question "How and why did the Spanish conquer the powerful Inca [or Aztec] society?"

They were supposed to simply pull evidence from the texts they read. But some could not contain themselves (or were confused about the assignments... ha, oops) and revealed themselves to be amazing miniature social theorists and politicos, and possibly even fledgling socialists. Observe:

"The Spaniards blocked the Inca's capital. Just like in America we need supplies from China so if someone blocks our supplies we are bored, starved, and killed."

Get this kid to the State Department!

"Just think. You're at home sleeping and your boss comes and attacks you."

As evidence for how/ why Spain undertook conquest, this is both historically inaccurate and nonsensical. As a metaphor for the plight of the proletariat, it is concise, poignant, and spot-on. Read this one a few times in a row. It's getting deeper, isn't it?

But that is not even my favorite young Marxist. The student who wrote the most beautiful line in the English language, is, it turns out, the reincarnation of Karl himself. We're going to call her Karly.

Marx wrote "religion is the opiate of the masses."

Karly wrote "The Spanish conquered the Aztecs by converting them to Catholic people, probably to distract them." 

This is entirely her own thinking. Besides the mention of Catholicism, it does not draw at all from our discussion or the text (again, woops, but... props for critical thinking skills?). To my chagrin as a teacher but delight as a blogger (and also sub-level of delight as a teacher), she continued with this theme in her next essay, on the Incas:

"The second [reason the Spanish conquered the Incas] was because they wanted to convert the Incas to Catholic people. Pizarro would have easily taken over their empire. They would be so into Catholicsy because they would believe so much in god that they wouldn't have done anything to hurt the Spaniards."

Seriously! Here's a fuller version of an actual Karl Marx quote for comparison: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions."

This last piece I'll leave you with is not from social studies, but from grammar/ vocab class. Amidst a sea of variations on "the politician is from Hawaii" we have:




Happy Thanksgiving, America.

Reunion! And, is this legal?

On Friday I got the chance to visit the school I worked at last year. I haven't felt so much like a (D-list, but still) celebrity since I spent a summer in India and all the people in Amritsar wanted to take pictures with me.

I might have to revise my theory about seventh graders lacking souls. The students I was visiting are seventh graders now, and the warmth they greeted me with had to come from somewhere. Besides being a tutor last year, I was also a teaching assistant and, at the end of the year, a long-term sub. The thing about being a long-term sub is it's sort of like being a teacher, but it's also sort of like being a sub. For a long time. Some kids took advantage. Some kids earned a lot of demerits. Some kids earned a lot of demerits. A handful of last year's sixth grade class would definitively not have called me a friend.

Yet on Friday we were hugging and catching up like old pals. It's amazing how fully they forgive and forget old grudges. I chalked it up to middle school capriciousness, until I realized I was doing the exact same thing.  I was so happy to see them, even the ones who devoted a full month of school to making my job difficult. Oh, Juan! How lovely to see you! Yes, I do remember that time you made obscene hand gestures and got sent out of my class three days in a row... And then I found you harassing a baby kitten by the train station!... fond memories.

Speaking of subbing, let me tell you about how I subbed for another teacher a couple weeks ago and unwittingly discovered the best (possibly unconstitutional) classroom management tool ever.

I was subbing for a colleague who was out for the day, and I was pretty pleased with how things were going. Even E., the biggest behavior issue in the class, was having a good day. While the kids were at recess I remember that I needed to film myself teaching for a reflection exercise, so I set up the camera to film the last two lessons of the day.

When I went back to watch the video I thought I had a good sense of how the lessons had gone and what I wanted to work on. But as I was watching, I noticed something. Because of the way the camera was placed, the video was basically close-up footage of E. with me in the background. And every time E. turned around to track the speaker -- every time he was turned away from me, in other words -- he started making ridiculous faces and trying to distract anyone who could see him. I watched helplessly as, on my video screen, E. made subtle but ridiculous choice after subtle but ridiculous choice, then turned back around angel-faced. He had totally gotten away with it.

Or so he thought. The next day, I pulled E. out of closing circle. I told him I had something to show him. "You know how we teachers sometimes film ourselves teaching, right? Its helpful because we can look back at the videos and think about the choices we made and see what we can do better." Then I turned on the video. "What do you think about the choices you're making in this video?" He was speechless. As he watched his silly faces from the day before, his real-time face was not silly. It was grave.

So, I may have given a kid a life-long paranoia complex, and I'm pretty sure there would be something illegal about this if I had filmed him intentionally, but... E. is not going to be making faces in class for a while.

Fifth grade conversations

I keep losing the papers where I jot down the hilarious things kids say. I have recycled several gems, including another batch of inadvertent poetry and everything from the election.*

But here's anecdote that is now forever etched into my memory. I just got to have this conversation with a parent:

"I'm calling because your son earned a community violation today for using inappropriate language during recess.... Specifically?... The word was balls.... He was angry at another student, and he decided to talk about that student's balls.... On the bright side, when I asked him about it, he showed integrity and admitted that this was inappropriate."

Fifth graders are at a weird age. They're developing a moral compass. They'll push someone off a jungle gym but argue indefatigably at the perceived injustice of the teachers getting pizza when they're not allowed to have pizza (see below). They're old enough to make sexual jokes and comments, yet they're not old enough to understand sarcasm much of the time. They are learning to gauge what is appropriate and inappropriate to say in school. But I too am learning what is appropriate and inappropriate to say around them. Hence, this conversation:

(Necessary background info: We bribe our kids to eat their vegetables with stickers. [Intrinsic motivation is for the anemic.] The stickers are awesome. They are doe-eyed, anthropomorphic vegetables. Cheerful bell peppers, mischievous eggplants, etc.)

5th grader: (Eating an apple) Why do you give us stickers for eating vegetables but not fruits?
Me: Because people just eat fruit. They don't have to be convinced. But for some reason, and I have no idea why because vegetables are delicious, you all have to be convinced to eat vegetables. So we bribe you. With stickers.
5th grader: Why is it okay for teachers to bribe students but not for students to bribe teachers?
Me: You can bribe teachers.
5th grader: We can???

Oops.

Here's the pizza argument:

(More necessary background info: My school has a strong healthy food policy. Among the many items considered contraband is any form of greasy pizza. Also, for an end of trimester treat, our leadership ordered all the teachers... greasy pizza. I did not eat mine in front of the kids, but I did have some set aside.)

5th grader: Why can the teachers have pizza and we can't?!
Me: Okay, I'll tell you. (They all lean in with intrigue) Because this is a special occasion for teachers and we are celebrating, just like you get pizza at your celebrations.
5th grader: What are you celebrating?
Me: Being awesome teachers.
5th grader: But... that's your job!!!
Me: Still.
5th grader: Why do they have to eat it in front of us?
Me: They're not... They're just walking through the cafeteria because it's the only way back to their rooms. They're not trying to wave it in your face.
5th grader: Mr. X just walked by and waved it in our face.

At that I laughed out loud and walked away.

Next time they ask why teachers are allowed to have pizza and students aren't, I'm going to say, to develop your argumentative reasoning.

*This I do remember, from the afternoon on election day: "If Mitt Romney wins, are we going to be poor? I don't want to be poor." And this from a first grader the day after the election: "I made up a nickname for Mitt Romney. Lose Romney." 

My new mantra

I have had this one headache for three days. It varies in intensity and feels like it is located in the nerves that connect my eyeballs to my brain.

This morning, going home and/ or vomiting seemed like viable next steps. But both sounded like a hassle, and after teaching math I realized that being in front of the class was actually an effective way to take my mind off my optic nerves. At recess I was inspired by a small fifth grade girl who got bowled over and, when I offered her a hand to get up, responded "No. I am strong and I can handle things." It was chilling and intense. So I resolved to tough it out.

My lunch duty partner told me that what I have is a migraine and they make medicine for it. So there was hope: I just needed to get through the day, go to CVS, and buy migraine medicine.

Unfortunately, today is Thursday, and on Thursdays I run the afterschool program until 6:00. Usually there are 15-20 kids in my group. But tonight was (apparently) an open house for second grade, meaning a lot of parents left their kids in afterschool until they arrived, meaning I had about 35 kids. Thirty-five children under the age of nine, no structured behavior management system beyond my own devices, one poorly planned game of "who's the leader?" and a migraine. I sent a lot of children to the corner. But if there's one thing I've always said about myself, it's I Am Strong and I Can Handle Things.

Let's skip the part where my bus home was delayed by half an hour because the point of this story is not to garner your pity (I also have chapped lips and a paper cut, FYI). It's to tell you this hilarious ending:

Around 7:30, I finally arrived at CVS to buy my migraine medicine. For a moment, I entertained the thought that the fluorescent lights might aggravate my migraine. This concern was promptly overshadowed by the fact that the smoke detector was going off.

It was blaring. CVS was not on fire. No one was evacuating. They were just going about their business, looking a little perturbed.

What would you do, blog? Go home without medicine for a fourth day of headache? Go into CVS and submit your noise-sensitive migraine to industrial-grade fire alarms?

The only thing that got me through the check-out line was the fact that it was hilarious.

Also, I am strong and I can handle things.

Now, goodnight.

Miss, how old are you?

Twenty-three. But the point here is I look young. I know.

The other day, at dismissal, a middle schooler turned to me, said, "you look like a teenager!" and then scampered away. It was weird because he is a teenager.

My students often ask how I old I am. This is a great opportunity to give them a mental math puzzle (I am 3 times 5, minus 8, plus the square root of, et cetera) but I don't like the moment where they figure out my age in front of me. It makes me feel like I'm Rumplestiltskin in the end of the story when he accidentally reveals his name and turns back into a spinning wheel or whatever. So lately I just say: "I will give you one clue. I was born in the year the Berlin Wall fell."

Fifth graders say "you were born in 2001?" because they think "something something fell" means the Twin Towers. Are you more impressed that they know, off the top of their heads, the year the Twin Towers fell, or disconcerted that they are guessing the year they themselves were born?

Kindergartners say "I do not know what that is." The consensus among the kindergartners is that I am either 15 or 16. They are closer than the fifth graders.

A second grader guessed 47 and I didn't refute it.

Speaking of coming of age, later in the year we will have sex ed. This will be a hilarious time for you and me both, blog. I got a sneak preview of the impending awkwardness recently when one of the fifth graders came to me during independent reading block and said "I need help with these two words." This student struggles with English and is working hard to improve. Right now she is reading a nonfiction book about life in prison. She pointed to the two words. They were "penis and scrotum."  The best part is she was actually retained in fifth grade, meaning she has already had sex ed, meaning there's about a 50/ 50 chance that she knew the words and just has a really creepy sense of humor.

Inadvertent poetry by fifth graders

The other day I read this line at the end of a fifth grader's book summary and realized it is probably the most beautiful sentence anyone has ever written. And she was just trying to be matter-of-fact:

"And there they were standing there in the past going nowhere because there was nowhere to go."

Since then I've been noticing the inadvertently poetic phrases that come out of children's writing. Fifth graders play with grammar (and spelling) in ways that e.e. cummings would envy... and they don't even know they're doing it. This week I accidentally wrote a vocabulary test that was too hard. On the bright side, it resulted in a lot of inadvertent poetry.

(All grammar is sic., spelling and capitalization is not sic.)


Write a meaningful sentence using the word scarcity:

"The scarcity of god is large."
(He meant gold, but this is so much better.)


Define and give the part of speech for the word pitiful:

"Noun -- you're in bad shape and something small."

"Noun -- people are pitiful sometimes."
(Please read directions. But also, very nice.)


Not poetry, but here is my favorite unintentionally antisemitic line:

"The Jews think that they have dignity."
(The kids are reading a Holocaust book. He's trying to say the opposite of what it sounds like, I promise).


Also not poetry, but here are my three favorite spellings of the words philosopher:
1. Phalafaser
2. Flastifer
3. Flosper


And here are my favorite surrealist/ terrifying lines:

Write a meaningful sentence using the word secede:

"I secede from the skunk in the old days."

"I seceded back into my mom because I didn't want to come out."

(I have NO idea.)

Poll: Should I eat this piece of chocolate a 6-year-old gave me from her backpack?*

I am doing my best not to turn this into a Kids Say The Darndest Things blog. I worry that sharing kid quotes is the teacher-blog equivalent of showing people pictures of your toddler or recounting your trip to Europe, i.e., they're not as cute as you think they are, and you had to be there.

But I do think the quote below is pretty darn'd.

Michael Jackson's life, in one run-on sentence, as summarized by a 6-year-old: "First his grandfather had a long gun and and then he made music and then he looked like a woman and then he had to go to the hospital. Oh, and when he looked like a woman he turned white."

Can anyone verify that grandfather/ gun part? I have no idea what she's talking about, but it's more than possible that I'm less hip than a 6-year-old.

I think I have devoted an inordinate amount of blog space to the lower elementary kids I work with in the afterschool program, as opposed to the fifth graders whom I actually teach. Lest you get the mistaken impression that I aspire to teach little ones, let me clarify: I will never teach lower elementary. You may mark these words.

They're cute and all, but I could never do what K-2 teachers do. And I don't mean that in the patronizing way that people say "I could never do what you do" when really they mean "I don't want to do what you do, and I don't understand why anyone would." I think teaching children who can barely control their own bladders to read and be students is totally rad. People think of primary education as easy, compared to older grades, because the content knowledge is so basic. But that's exactly the problem. I have no idea how to conceptualize and explain something like addition. I had to confront this while trying to help a first grader with his homework last week. If you want me to teach you how to convert a fraction into a decimal using long division, no problem. I can conceptualize why that's tricky. I can predict what mistakes you will make. I can think through the process and explain to you the steps and why/ how they work. But addition? This is how I teach addition: "Add these numbers. No, I said add them. Stop. You're subtracting. Add. Are you sure you're adding?" At this point the kid is basically a random number generator. Finally he lands on the right number. "You did it!" I say, even though, as far as I know, he didn't. And we move on. Good thing he didn't have reading homework; I probably would have used a lot of expletives.

The last story I'm going to tell about afterschool (today) is how last week during story time, one of the kids called out "what's that red light??" and pointed toward the ceiling behind me. I turned around and saw nothing, so I said "I don't see anything.... and raise your hand, please." A couple seconds later, another kid called out: "There! That light" Again I looked behind me. Nothing. "I really don't see anything," I said, and kept reading. A few seconds later, all 15-ish of them, overlapping and hysterical: "There!!! The red light!!!" I turn and stare for maybe 30 seconds. Nothing. They insist they are all still seeing it. I feel like a skeptic during the Salem witch trials. "Well, it's clearly a magical light that only children can see," I say. This is apparently a sufficient answer; they nod their heads and let me finish the story uninterrupted. On the one hand I felt bad for sort of lying to them but on the other hand... I wasn't lying.


*Trick question, already did.

At least it's not a negative slope!

Why did I call this blog The Teaching Curve? Because every other pun on the words "teaching," "learning," "class," or "school," is even more unoriginal, and calling my blog Nice White Lady seemed too irreverent. But also, the title is supposed to reflect the idea that teaching is something you improve at over time.* It's a made-not-born thing. In other words:

You will suck at this at first. For a while, actually.

I am lucky to be at a school that takes the job of developing new teachers very seriously. But that doesn't mean I can't still find countless ways to be terrible on a daily basis. I watch videos of myself teaching, and it's just thirty minutes of me thinking "what am I doing with my hands?!" (weird signals that mean nothing to my students) and "what is Jon doing with his hands?!" (some sort of dubstep? Certainly not simplifying this fraction). I recently made two kids cry in a Lunchables-related altercation that I don't even want to get into. I am not being self-deprecating. New teachers should look incompetent next to their veteran colleagues--that's how we know the more senior teachers have made progress.** That's what gives us role models. Still, some days, at the end of the day, my feeling is... I just want to be good at this already!

I asked a couple of teachers who have several years on me when that feeling ends. They laughed: "Never." I have heard rumors that it gets easier after year ten.

So, we savor the small successes. For example: this morning I defeated the robot! (Wait, what? It's not healthy to conceptualize teaching as a daily battle between yourself and cyborg-children?) Mitzie and two other first graders were using their sporks as airplanes, catapults, and airplane-catapults. I may be a novice teacher but I know a corneal abrasion threat when I see one. I positive-framingly encouraged them to think about how mature first graders behave. Without missing a beat, Mitzie responded: "I'm sorry. I will make smarter choices." (Yes, verbatim.)  Ding ding ding!

Also, the student of mine who hated me most last year (so, obviously, the student I've stayed closest to this year--if this theme is not familiar, you clearly did not watch the video linked under "Nice White Lady") recently admitted that I have swag. This is true.

I will leave you with a fun fact I just learned (taught) in social studies: Did you know that America's original penny, designed by Benjamin Franklin, was imprinted with the phrase "MIND YOUR BUSINESS"? This is hilarious to fifth graders and their novice teachers alike.

*Calm down, fellow social science majors: I know this is not an accurate match for what the graph of a learning curve represents. But seriously, it was this or "Teachers Have Class!"

**Someone please teach me how to type an em-dash on Blogger.

The Robot

Instead of telling you about how a parent came in to talk to me about a detention slip I'd given her child while I was decked out in a skirt, veil, and gloves from the afterschool dress-up box, today I am going to tell you about Mitzie.*

Mitzie is a first grader and currently my favorite person. (Sorry, friends and family, you were all close contenders.) I get to hang out with Mitzie at breakfast, because I monitor her homeroom's table. Mitzie likes raisin bagels, the color pink, hugs, and attention. She dislikes plain bagels and being quiet.

Most of my breakfast students raise their hand when they need milk or a spoon or to go to the bathroom. Mitzie raises her hand every two minutes to just tell me things. "You are wearing pants today" Mitzie says. (You are wearing pants too, Mitzie.) "Yesterday I got doubles of sandwiches," Mitzie says. (Fantastic, Mitzie.) "Can I please sit on your lap?" Mitzie asks. (Absolutely not.)

Anyway, I have this theory that Mitzie is a robot created by my principal to teach me lessons.

"Robot" is not a word used lightly in education circles. It's usually an epithet used to accuse schools of turning their students into un-thinking, bubble-filling automatons. Or to accuse teachers of blindly following scripts rather than engaging with their students. And then there's that whole thing about South Korean classrooms being taught by actual, literal robots.

Mitzie fits none of those descriptions. But she has, several times, given me feedback that is just a little too on-point for a human six-year-old.

Evidence: My school (or, one could argue, any good school) is a big proponent of Positive Framing. You don't say "I'm waiting for you all to be quiet" because then you're just being naggy and letting the off-task kids win. Instead you say "Show me you're ready for class by tracking me silently" or "The whole left side of the room is so ready to learn"--that sort of thing. It sounds easy enough, but when you consider how many directions/ corrections a teacher gives in a day, you realize how hard it can to frame them all positively.

So one day I was supervising several students as they collected their belongings to go home, and Mitzie somehow managed to take literally four minutes to pick up her sweater and backpack from right in front of her. "Mitzie, you're taking way too long to get ready," I said. It was true. Four minutes!

Her response is what first elicited the robot theory:

"I don't like when people say that," she said. She was not whining. She was just stating, matter-of-factly.

I was dumbstruck. She really was taking forever, but she was right. I was being so un-Positive! How many times had I framed something this way without even a second thought? This is the same feedback we new teachers get from our mentors and administrators... but it was much more immediate coming from a six-year-old.

"Alright, let me try again... Mitzie, I know you can get your backpack and sweater ready with more urgency!" I said. "... Was that better?"

"Yes!" she said, and cheerily walked out the door with all her belongings.

Then there was the time that Mitzie was trying to screech something at me during breakfast (poor kid probably just wanted to notify me that I was wearing pants) and I told her, sternly, that she needed to wait and not interrupt, because I was talking to one of my fifth grade students. When I finally turned my attention to Mitzie, she was crying. I asked her if she understood about the whole not-interrupting thing, and she said "yes, but you weren't doing your business! You're supposed to do your business!" Ah, Mitzie, you got me again. It was breakfast time, and the first graders were my business. She was just helping me prioritize.

Today Mitzie told me that I smell good. Well, thanks Mitzie. Glad I've got that one thing down.



*If we named children when they were old enough for us to know their personalities, this would be her real name.

New year, new school, new blog

Hello America.

Last year, my first year working in an urban school, I (sort of) kept a semi-underground blog. I titled it Hungry, Bored, and Tired—based on the self-reported psycho-physiological state of my students throughout the day.

Now it's a new year. I'm at a new school (down the street from my old school), I have a new apartment (down the street from my old apartment), and I'm in a new position (from assistant teacher to associate teacher). But really, despite the geographic and phonological similarities, this year could not be more different from last. So different that I had to start a whole new blog.

I've moved on from the tutor cabin into a regular-person apartment and have 5 percent as many housemates as I did last year. We buy our own dish soap and pay our own rent. I'm teaching fifth grade instead of middle school (my new school is K-8) and am subjected to 99% fewer Rick Ross lyrics per day. But the biggest change of all is the students. The demographics and, as mentioned, location of both schools are about identical. But my new students... They are not hungry, bored, or tired. They are downright well-fed, engaged, and alert. Three major causes, in my sociological opinion: 1) We have snack time. 2) Fifth graders are far enough away from seventh grade—the year when the soul goes into hibernation*—to still be adorable and kind. And 3) If I may talk serious education business rather than wacky kid stories for just a moment, the fundamental difference is that the students I teach now have been attending this school—a consistent, rigorous, nurturing school—since kindergarten. At my last school, our kids came in as eleven- through fourteen-year-olds. On top of being in a period of temporary soullessness, many of them already hated school and saw no reason to buy in to a new set of structures and expectations, much less the entire grand concept of the value of education. A five-year-old, on the other hand, can be convinced of anything. Everything you say sounds true to a kindergartner. Last week, one of my afterschool kids thought she was legally married because she put on a veil in dress-up. I swear at least one child asks me to weigh in on the existence of the tooth fairy each day.

Which brings us to the wacky kids stories.

A case-in-point of the authentic intellectualism of my current students is a girl I will call T., which isn't even her initial but I'm really paranoid about student privacy laws. Anyways, T. is going to be president of the United States.** I can't put her name here, but trust me, you'll know who I mean in 2048—the woman who wins the election, that's her. T. just finished reading The Devil's Arithmetic. It's a Holocaust book, middle school reading level. She is 10. Today she came to school with a large cardboard box. Inside, she had constructed an accurate and aesthetically impressive diorama of the book. This was not an assignment. She just made a diorama of her Holocaust novel for kicks.

Another girl, F. (also not her real initial; watch for her on the Supreme Court), has been reading the dictionary, also for fun. This didn't seem that remarkable until I realized that she is actively reading the dictionary. As in, I observed that while reading Webster's the other day, she took a moment to nod with a knowing smile on her face. I later learned this is her second dictionary.

Of course, the children are not perfect. This is from a recent vocab test. They had learned that the root word "meter" means "measure," and I wanted them to apply that knowledge to this question:

The best part? The student gets credit because her answer included the word "measure."

*Lest this sound too judgmental, quote from an actual sixth grader at my school last year: "I can't wait for seventh grade. In seventh grade you get to be bad."

**T. was not born in the U.S. but both she and I consider this a nonissue in terms of her future presidential prospects.