Tag: race

Things I Know 152 of 365: Kirstie graduates today

The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

– Mary Schmich

At 8 pm tonight, my sister Kirstie graduates from high school. I’m back home in Illinois at my dad’s house for the occasion.

Kirstie is 12 years younger than I am.

She will forever be the same age as the last class of my students I will see graduate. I realized this on the plane ride last night and almost turned to the stranger next to me to share the news.

My other sister, Rachel, is another keystone of my teaching career. The first time I stepped into my own classroom in Florida, my eighth graders were starting the same year of instruction as Rachel was back up in Illinois.

Though the ages of my students have fluctuated as I’ve taught different grades, I know that those from that first class who went to college just finished their third year.

Next year, as Kirstie begins her first year at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, I’ll think of this graduating class of SLA students who will be starting their full-time college careers all over the country.

My students will be taking all sorts of paths once they leave our halls and classrooms. My connections to past students on Facebook have taught me this. Still, Kirstie will be my bellwether of where they are in their lives. For every milestone in Kirstie’s life over the next few years, I’ll wonder about the same milestone in the lives of any number of students.

This is a change.

For the past 8 years, my students have unknowingly filled in for my siblings.

For each teen drama, every end-of-quarter stress out, all the proms and formals – I watched my students feel their way through the chasm of adolescence, thinking of my siblings stumbling along their own paths hundreds of miles away.

My students have helped me come to terms with choosing to move away from my family after college. The pieces of their lives they brought with them to school and allowed me to counsel them on helped me to be at peace with not helping my siblings work through those same experiences back home.

While always my students, in moments, they let me care for them as a big brother.

In the same way I hope Rachel, Kirstie and my brother Taylor will choose their own paths in life and go where their passions take them, I have done the same.

At mile 10 of my first marathon, my friend Julie, with whom I had run almost all of my long training runs, turned to me.

“Ok, Zac, go.”

“What?”

Julie had a slower pace than I did. She was telling me to leave her behind.

My gut resisted the idea.

“No. I’m fine running with you.”

“Zac,” she said with a sternness that was impressive 10 miles into a marathon, “run your own race.”

I did.

We both finished the race. Had I stayed with Julie, I would have felt the frustration and pain of running someone else’s race. Had she run at my pace, Julie would have felt the same pain and frustration.

We each needed to run our own races.

This is what I want for Kirstie. It is the same thing my students have afforded me as a long-distance big brother. It will be the thing my sisters and brother afford me as I leave the classroom.

At 8 pm tonight, my sister Kirstie graduates from high school and passes another mile marker.

Run your own race, Kirstie.

Things I Know 86 of 365: Sometimes I need to put on the teacher hat

Friday, one of my G11 classes was having a class discussion. I gave them 7 minutes to find an interesting news story, pull out the main details, state their opinion in one sentence and draft a question to spark conversation.

If a particular topic lost steam, whoever brought that topic up called on someone else to inject a new topic into the conversation.

One student introduced the proposed fair schedule changes to SEPTA, Philadelphia’s mass transit provider.

As soon as the name left the student’s mouth, the class was awash in groans.

Philadelphians love to hate SEPTA. Cheesesteaks, Rocky Steps, booing our own sports teams, and abhorring SEPTA – in these things we find our brotherly love.

Once the topic and the proposed fair schedule were introduced, the expected flurry of slanderous complaints started up.

Each student took his turn to talk and called on the next.

“I know SEPTA’s not perfect,” someone said, “But, when you think about it, SEPTA can get you pretty much anywhere in the city of Philadelphia without much of a problem.”

A lone voice against the tumult. One brave villager against throngs of pitchforks and torches.

“Sure, sometimes they’re late, but most of the time they’re on time.”

“What bus do you take,” someone asked?

The lone voice answered.

“Those are white people buses,” the questioner scoffed his reply.

The conversation took a turn.

In the moments the class was snickering at this half joke, I had to decide how I was going to be a teacher once the laughter subsided.

“Hold on a sec,” I said, “I need to be your English teacher right now.”

“I need to unpack that statement because you said a lot more than what you said.”

It was one of those great moments where I got to use real language as the object of study. I talked about the mixture of humor and seriousness in that moment and suggested the humor might obscure the deeper point of the statement.

Then I pulled attention to the embedded implication that only black people in Philadelphia lived in poverty or that white people’s experiences in poverty were less valid. Briefly, I touched on the possibility that the statement also could have been construed as a weapon meant to make others positioned anywhere on the class spectrum feel guilt over their socioeconomic status.

Another student said she agreed the comment was inappropriate, but insisted their was a difference between bus service across neighborhoods.

We talked about the truth of that statement and started to play with the complexity of the whole idea.

I stopped to clarify that I wasn’t angry about what had been said, but that I would have been remiss in my duties if I didn’t take the time to pull it apart and start to consider the multitude of meanings.

I know there were probably a million ways I could have handled the whole conversation better, but that’s how I handled it Friday. Next time, whatever the next time is, I’ll do it a little bit better. And, it was loads better than some similar conversations from my first years in the classroom.

Then, as always, I tried for the same things:

  • talking, not yelling
  • eliciting conversation not compliance
  • respecting whatever opinions are on the table
  • challenging the untested opinions
  • speaking with authority, not as an authoritarian

Though it’s un-Philadelphian of me, I’m thankful for SEPTA for inciting the conversation.

Things I Know 76 of 365: Good conversation can be self-sustaining

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

– Andre Maurois

Thursday’s advisory began with a question. Actually it was a statement first, “Now, I don’t mean to sound racist.”

I turned to Matt, my co-advisor, and said, “We’re about to hear something racist.”

“Why is it that caucasian people can’t handle spicy foods?”

I was wrong.

The next 45 minutes ended up being one of the best advisory periods I’ve ever had.

We wound through racism and stereotypes and what separates the two. We talked about possible sources of those beliefs. We talked about some of the roots of American cultures and asked questions of the kids as to what they understood.

I explained my family had no discernible roots in the Caucasian Mountains and that it was okay to call me white.

When one student said, “Let’s say someone calls someone else the ’n-word’ for no good reason, what do we do?” we worked toward an answer to the question and dealt with the idea that “for no good reason” implied there could be a good reason.

From a bean bag chair, one advisee added, “The ’n-word’ was just a way the slave owners oppressed black men.”

I’ve had this conversation or some off-shoot of it many times. This was the best version.

“What about when you hear someone say something and you think it is racist? What’s the best way to deal with that?” I asked the advisory.

I called on a student who didn’t have her hand up, but whom I could tell was working through her answer by the look on her face.

“Tell us what you’re thinking,” I said, “Even if you’re not sure, tell us what’s playing through your mind.”

A little shocked at first, she said, “Well, I guess I’d ask them questions. When she asked her question,” she said motioning to the student who had asked the initial question, “you didn’t jump on her or anything. You just asked her questions. That seems like the best thing to do.”

I challenged a little bit, suggesting it was one thing to offer that answer now, but another to remember it in the heat of the moment when one feels offended. The advisee agreed and we continued thinking and talking.

We continued, as luck would have it well past the dismissal time for advisory.

No one made a move toward their book bag.

No one asked if they could leave.

No one departed from the conversation.

Because the conversation started from a place of curiosity and the topic we were discussing was rich with no clear answers, no one seemed to notice we’d tripped over the end of our mandated togetherness.