"The Unplanned Class" By Jaison Jimenez (Teacher Lore)

            The unplanned class

                                                   By Jaison Jimenez

Here I am, on the last day of the 2nd level in the English Immersion Program. I can’t believe it’s over, considering they’ve only been my students for 2 months. It’s 8 o'clock on a Friday morning and I stare at them, browsing and browsing in my mind for ways we could make the last of this class a relaxing experience after a lot of hard work.  I honestly hadn’t planned the class for that day, so I grabbed my marker and drew a line in the middle of the board. Then, I divided the class into two teams and all of a sudden, we could find ourselves playing our so well-played vocabulary game “Ladders”. One student would write a word on their side of the board and another student, standing right next, would write another word beginning with the last letter of the word the other student wrote, then they would repeat the process until one of them repeats or misspells a word.

           We were having a lot of fun. I could admire the great view of my students playing and sweating to the rhythm of that spontaneous, competitive, but also healthy vibe we had created.

I was having just as much fun as my students by just looking at their faces. I could sum up what I perceived with the “final exam over + next level = Bliss” equation. What happens when everything you’re seeing and thinking about at this moment leads you to a second level of reflection? That’s exactly what happened to me. While my students were waiting for me to decide whether Carlos had spelled the word correctly, I was going deeper and deeper down the road of teaching and learning. I remember the words of my teachers at college who always talked about the importance of being aware of the so-called “Hidden Curriculum”. I told myself: Jaison, English is an escape for them!

The classroom was filled with voices that had been full of hopelessness at the beginning of the level, but now they were marked with satisfaction and fulfillment which could be noticed behind their Hoorays!!!!!

I stood right in front of my students and began saying my words. Words that could serve as postage stamps for a see- you-later letter. I remarked how surprised I was by their performance and growth throughout this level. I was startled by the fact that they could manage to pass and learn despite the hardship they were carrying on their shoulders.

I opened my heart at that moment and let them know how valuable they were to me. I started giving advice to each one of those 27 souls. 27 runners who struggled so much to get where they were at the moment. It was almost time to leave and teardrops started falling from our eyes. We could fill up a well with those tears, then I tried to get my voice back to give them a blissful thank you message.  I thanked them for helping me be better at teaching, for making me a better human being.

I never thought so much could take place after a class that I hadn't taken the time to plan. It was a moving experience for my students. No, no, no, no, no, wait a second, it was a moving experience for my students and for me because English is an escape for all of us.

Hugo Ventura

The New Community Corporation is a not for profit organization which housed adult education programs in Newark, New Jersey. During my period there, mainly as a GED instructor; I developed long lasting bonds with students and staff members.

The student population was constituted roughly of 90% African American, 8% Hispanic (mostly undocumented immigrants) and about 2% white; ranging from seventeen to eighty years old. Some were required to attend by the New Jersey unemployment agency, others were sent from their halfway houses, and then there were those who were taking advantage of the cheap $35 enrollment fee, in order to fulfill a lifelong dream of achieving a High School diploma. Each individual brought a story with them, a story I had to become a part of.

I had to find ways of connecting with these adults, while at the same time, design a program that would develop the skills necessary to pass the GED test, within a group of adults with a wide range of literacy levels. I had to find ways to motivate them to believe they were capable of achieving more than what their current lives had set out for them.

Throughout the four years that I participated in this program, retention rates improved significantly. I experienced stories of varying successes and failures. A lot of them abandoned before the end of the ten week program. But for instance, Linda, whom at seventy, became the first in her family to achieve a High School Diploma. Or Haitian Immigrant, Bertange, whose dedication and hard work carried her from barely being able to read and write in English, to winning a communitywide writing contest, among adult in Newark. Like them, many others went beyond their own and my expectations.

As I served them, they in return have also inspired me with their ability to grow and transcend adversity. This proved to be one of the most significant growing experiences of my life.

Hugo Ventura

Students from The GED Prep Program. Newark, NJ

Mother/ Teacher

by Meg Petersen

     I was so dissatisfied with the first draft of my teacher lore that I asked my response group for themes.  One of the main ones they identified was the theme of mothering, and the connection between teaching and mothering.  I hadn’t seen it when I wrote the draft, and I admit to being a little uncomfortable.  My discomfort has to do with teaching being seen as women’s work, with teachers being seen as nurturing, with the disrespect of teachers being tied to the profession being seen as a women’s profession. I don’t want to contribute to anything that demeans the intellectual nature of teaching.  But I’m going to stand by it. 

     When I relate teaching to mothering, I don’t mean that men can’t do it, or can’t do it as well, or that one has to have children in order to be an effective teacher.  I mean that there are some similarities and connections between the invisible work of mothering and of teaching that have nothing to do with gender roles or being a parent. 

     Both kinds of work do not lend themselves to self-glorification.  As Jeffrey Wilhelm wrote, “The meaning of our work is in the lives that it enables others to lead.”  Our children’s achievements are their own.  Our students’ achievements are their own.  And much of the work that sustains and makes possible those achievements is invisible, daily and repetitive.  I remember when my children were small and I used to line them up to be sure that diapers where changed and teeth were brushed.  Who can romanticize that? To say nothing of vomit. 

     Try as many movies do to glamorize teaching, much of it is inherently unglamorous.  Waiting to pee until the five-minute intervals between classes, bolting down 15-minute lunches, splitting up couples while chaperoning dances, wiping small noses or slipping on mittens, repeating directions for the third, fourth or fifth time, cleaning up random messes in a daily round that can seem endless.*  (Again, not to mention vomit.) And we do it every single day, through our bankruptcies, divorces, headaches, deaths in our family and heartbreaks. 

     Yet teaching, like motherhood, can humble you. On days like this, we know that the subject of our teaching is never the content, but the actual human beings before us and who they are becoming.  And there are moments of transcendence, moments where suddenly things you did not know you knew come out of your mouth and are true.  You speak them because someone needed to hear them. Teaching, like mothering, demands all that you are and all that you will ever be.  It demands that you put aside your ego and your prejudices and your anxieties and see the students in front of you. Of course we often fail to do that. But I can say for sure that both teaching and mothering have made me a much better person than I would otherwise be.

     So I am going to set aside my discomfort and honor both teaching and mothering.

 * Thanks to my writing group for the crowdsourced contributions to this post. 

Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives

We sometimes underestimate how our students influence our ability to reflect on our experiences.   ~~ Mary Magnusson

My student John really showed me courage this year when he wrote about the difficult time he was having with his unstable mother, “This person to me was my mother, who became mentally unstable after a time period of attempting to cope with a repealed right to see her kids. At first it’s only chilling to witness, but mental health is a peculiar thing in that it is so fragile that once disturbed, it takes people to different realities.” This student, his essay, really made me think about the strength it takes to write about something that is hard, something that we want to avoid. He wrote about how “Being raised in an environment where the two creators and guardians of your well-being are too hostile to engage in conversation produces a child of stone.” This is what harsh environments do.  They make us turn to stone.  Giving John the opportunity to write about his experiences reminded me of the potential of narrative writing, and how therapeutic it can be.  We don’t always know when we should write about ourselves, but when we decide to, we need to forge on no matter how hard it might be.  I had given John some feedback on his paper: I'm glad you chose to write about this topic. Of course I can't even begin to know what you have been through, but they way you have expressed yourself here shows a magnitude of maturity.  Where was I going to get the courage to write about the magnitude of my ten years at my previous school? I have so often felt like that same child of stone John describes when it came to talking or writing about it.

I did not have the courage to talk with John about what was going on with him.  Just like I

did not have the courage to write or talk about my dysfunctional experiences at my previous school.

In his essay John was able to step back and see the situation with a very mature and stable perspective. Yes, stepping back.  That’s what it took for him.  Almost a whole year.  For me it has been three years, and I’m just starting on my journey to put into words the betrayal and abuse and fatigue I experienced.

John admits at the end of his essay, As bad as it was, I felt sorry but not destroyed, after all my own life has yet to begin and I am on my own mission.” When I read his last line, I had such a sigh of relief.  Yes, John was not destroyed.  His own life was yet to begin.  He is on his own mission.  And, as bad as it was for me, I felt sorry too, but I guess I was only temporarily destroyed. My new school is a better place for me, and I’m starting to feel like I can grow again.

Reality: A Teacher Lore Poem

Reality

by Molly Campbell

The fall of 2016 in America

was a reality TV show.

My own mother voted for Trump.

I filled my wine glass

and did dishes

when politics came up at dinner.

I hate politics even more than dishes.

I don’t know how to say

what I want to say

about how hard my heart hurt

as it crawled up my throat

when my kids wrote letters to the

next president

and said all the things

they think they know

and sometimes

the things they felt.

When the Puerto Rican boy is called

a “dirty Mexican”

or the blonde-haired, blue eyed

rich boy

can’t find his words

to answer the quiet girl’s question

to defend his statement that

rape victims

should have to carry the baby

because it will be

“a pot of gold

at the end of the rainbow”--

I hope it looks like its mom

and doesn’t act like its dad--

my heart grows claws

and sticks them into my larynx

preventing speech

but I don’t have

a bottle of wine

or a sink full of dishes

to wash it down.

I have to swallow it

and say

“thank you--

you might consider including

a counter-claim--

where is your conclusion?--

good use of evidence--

thank you for including your personal story--

remember kids,

always,

in everything,

be kind.”

In the Spirit of Collaboration

By Christina Lamson and every fellow who participates

I thought it’d be fun to have an ongoing blog post that we can all collaborate on. Let’s have some fun with this. Either comment with the idea you’d like to add, or send me an email with your thought and I will add them.

You know you’re a NWPNH fellow participating in the summer institute when…

1. exhaustion completely takes over and you begin to work on autopilot

2. you become so good at arriving to class on time that you begin to think lunch ends at 1:00 instead of 1:30

3. you are so tired that when you try to talk, only gibberish comes out, and everyone around you has apparently learned to speak and understand gibberish too

4. you are always trying to make connections from what you learned during the institute to the conversations you are having, even if it has nothing to do with the institute

5. the printer has become your best friend, and your worst enemy

6. while having dinner with your husband, you begin to ask him probing questions

7. you can laugh at something as simple as edamame

8. your leg muscles ache due to walking up all those Plymouth hills and all the stairs in Rounds

9. you have already used of all the ink in several pens
10. you begin to personify inanimate objects, such as a toilet to find some thing to write about

11. you fear all the weight you’ve gained eating the delicious snacks brought daily

12. the community is so strong that you can share very personal stories with one another

13. you are prepared to write a morning prompt, even on the weekends

14. you feed a dog called sarcasmo
15. trying to take pictures of a few fellows can be a whole production
16. you start speaking Spanish in your sleep
17. other fellows begin to think you are speaking to them in Spanish, when you actually talked to them in English
18. when you are told that you have one more minute to write then everyone panics and says what...it is followed up with a repeat of "you have one more minute, just louder...just to get a laugh
19. you've burned your Dead Poet Society poster
20. you begin to analyze everything, including all the photos you appear in

21. you begin planning a design for a t-shirt which features the phrases: What’s your hunch about that? And have you had your epiphany today?
22. the phrase "trust the process" has become everyone's mantra
23. you write in English, but you end of finding random Spanish words throughout your paper
24. when the sound of the lawnmowers outside the windows melds into the constant buzz of information in your brain
25. you constantly utter the phrases: I wonder, to what extend, what would have to happen, what is the impact, what do you assume to be true
26. you become so tired that you keep tripping over furniture that is right in front of you
27. Sarcasmo becomes your spirit animal
28. you begin to quote research to friends
29. questions tend to begin with, "What's your hunch about...?"
30. you begin to have hunches about everything
31. the voice you create for yourself, begins to take on a "shape" of its own

32. you enter week 4 and your are already becoming incredibly emotional, knowing that very soon you will not be with these amazing people in the institute, daily anymore

Last But Not Least: you go out for lunch everyday on week 5 (and even for some beers), because you realize that after the last day, you will not see these same people everyday anymore

Now it's your turn!

The Socratic Method

By Christopher D'Agostino

“Bueller, Bueller, Bueller….”

“Chris, wake up, wake up” shaking me awake was my friend and study partner Colleen.  “You fell asleep while you were reading your economics book”.  

I slowly picked my head up and removed the paper stuck to my face and tiredly responded with “Man, that stuff is so dry.  I just can’t keep my eyes open reading it.  The worst parts are the lectures. I mean I wish I could record the professor’s voice and play it back when I need to go to sleep at night”.  Colleen gave a little chuckle but I knew deep down she loved economics and was meant to be a business major. We gathered our items and headed out of the building where I was suppose to be reading my economics homework and headed back toward our dorms.  

“Maybe you should switch majors from business to undecided” Colleen remarked as I held the door open for her. “You can take a few random classes and then decide where to go from there.”

“I’ll meet with my advisor tomorrow and talk to him about it, maybe I'll try computer programing.  I heard there is good money in that line of work”  

    I met with my advisor and he advised I finish my first semester at the school and then switch to an undecided major where I can go down several paths and try a few different courses and then pick the major I wanted.  He signed me up for C++ programming and I thought it was gonna be great. I love computer games, AOL, and instant messenger (which was a prehistoric version of today’s texting)

what could go wrong.  I took my first computer programming class and left after an 1hr and 15 min class running back to economics.  I was “clueless” as to anything the professor was talking about.  I could have been in a class where they were teaching German and I would have understand the professor better. I left class an emotional wreck, worried about where my life was going to go and how I was already a semester behind.

    Nobody ever tells you how hard the first semester in college is.  Everything is new and nothing from high school carries over.  You need to find new friends that are trustworthy and honest.  You need to find places for food, what packy store will take my fake I.D., places to study and to figure out why you are living with two other large athletes in a room the size of a closet.  You need to find a whole new structure to a life that hasn’t changed that much since you were a kid.  Now, on top of all that I needed to find the career I was going to spend the rest of my life with. College life was tough!

    My advisor immediately switched me out of the computer class and into a history class called War and Revolution.  It was a breath of fresh air. Something I could relate to and war, what boy doesn’t like to learn about war.  After a few weeks of loving history, I went to my advisor again and said, “I want to major in history!”

    “That’s great” he said, “But where do you want to go with it?”

    “What do you mean?” I asked.  I was just so confused. I finally found what I wanted to major in and this guy had even more questions.  I actually almost asked if this guy was Socrates with his questioning.

    “You can’t just have a career in history.  You need to do something more with it.”

    “Ok…” I thought about it for a second and decided to go all Socratic back at him. “What can I do with history?”

    “You have three main options here at St. A’s.  One is to become a lawyer, which means graduating here and going to law school” Screw that I said to myself.  I don’t wanna do more schooling after this graduate stuff.  “Second is to be an archaeologist.” Me, digging for dinosaur bones in a hot desert with chisels and brushes. Not my cup of tea. “Third is to become an educator” Summers off, movies on television, field trips, school hours, and I get along well with kids. Sounded good to me.

“Sounds good. I’ll go with education” I said as I close the door on my fate. I was happy at the moment (and still am today) and my advisor signed me up for the necessary courses and sent me on my way.

After I graduated college I became a teacher at the high school level and boy was I wrong about the false realities of teaching.  I ended up, like most teachers, grading papers till 8 at night, writing recommendations for students, preparing my classes during my 25 minute lunch break, and working two jobs during the summer and after school.  But I really began to love my job especially teaching my love of history to my students. I was very happy with my decision making except for the part that economics is considered a history course and I had to teach it.

Have you ever had that deja vu moment when you feel like you have been there before and shook your head smiling as that moment just passed you by.  I was teaching two classes of economics to sophomores. Yes, I was teaching the economics which was the main reason that I changed majors to teaching students in high school, is there any irony in that? The good news was it really helped me teach the subject to high school students.  The bad news was I had to teach the subject I didn’t like in college. I guess I could try and make it somewhat fun for my students.  Well, this one kid in my level 2 economics class kept falling asleep and I went up to him and said, “Cam, wake up. You really need to finish reading chapter 3 on the stock market. So you will be able to play the stock market game online with the class.”

“Man, Mr. D....do I really have to read this boring stuff, it keeps putting me to

 sleep.”

That’s the moment I laughed, shook my head, and responded with, “At least we know you won’t become a business major in college” and I walked away with a big smile on my face flashing back to my good old college days.