Summer All Wrapped Up

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
-- Nelson Mandela --


I struggle with encapsulating an entire summer of experiences into a simple blog post. I don't think words are really sufficient to explain everything that I've experienced, endured, excelled at or overcome this summer. Therefore, I suppose, it probably would have been better had I recorded my experiences as they occurred. Remember what I said in my last post though, I still haven't any idea just how teachers juggle their time. I barely found the hours to sleep amid planning and teaching and framework sessions, never mind actually blogging.

As I said before, I spent the summer teaching at Sarah T. Reed High School in East New Orleans. While I'd hate to say that it is one of the rougher schools in the city, it is. Not that it isn't filled with a motivated administration and teachers eager to raise student achievement, it most certainly has both. It also has gang members, overwhelmed teen mothers, drug dealers and those who are frequently high, and students who are generally accustomed to ruling the classroom with chaos. It's a rough place to work, but Reed High also has eleventh graders who read at third grade levels, students who've never been told that they can learn, a higher percentage of special education students than most schools in the city, kids who are convinced they're stupid, and such a lack of excitement about learning that it breaks my heart to see.

Working here this summer, despite all of the stress and anxiety and even a weapons scare, was without a doubt more rewarding than any other job I've ever had. If just one student thanks you for making something understandable and accessible, then you feel like a rockstar. At least I did. I only hope that I can carry that feeling into the coming school year. I want to reach so many more students than just the class I had for summer school.

Here is to the coming year.

Reflections On A Week

The highest result of education is tolerance.
-- Helen Keller --


I find myself wondering if there are enough hours in a day to accomplish everything. I'm not sure how teachers get everything done in a single day! Staff meetings and student mayhem and lesson plans and grading papers and actually delivering a lesson in the midst of a million and one other concerns pressing on your mind. Staff development and extracurricular activities and continuing education and, oh yes, there is the little matter of having a life and family outside of the walls of your school.

It is, without a doubt, one of the most challenging careers that a person can choose.

That said, and without being trite, it's also one of the richest and most exciting.

I have officially completed my first week of teaching summer school assigned to Sarah T. Reed High School in east New Orleans, and despite the reputation that the school has, I've had nothing but a wonderful experience so far. This, and what might be an overdeveloped sense of social justice, has left me sensitive to the jibes I get when I tell people where I am. Just today I had a gentleman (and I use the term loosely) ask me if I had gotten my gun permit yet.

Everyone should come spend a little time with these kids, they'd be a lot less inclined to blindly judge them based on where they're from. Granted, some of them are trouble makers--I'm not naive to that--but for others, I'm amazed that they are in summer school. A few of them are too smart for it and it's obvious that they know the material but just aren't confident in that knowledge.

I'll be teaching Biology in the fall, I have Chemistry this summer, though today I had the opportunity to spend some time teaching Algebra II as well. I've been able to observe multiple teachers in action, and not two of them have the same style in either classroom management or instruction. I've seen military and almost scary control over students, and I've seen something that looked a lot like utter anarchy.

Who knows what next week will hold?