Teaching and Reaching Tyrone

Today I had one of those breakthroughs that teachers love.  I have a student we’ll call Tyrone (remember, I said I wouldn’t use real names).  Let me describe Tyrone to you.  He looks and carries himself a lot like Biggie Smalls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Notorious_B.I.G.).  He is good natured, clever, and extremely funny, although I have heard that he can be disrespectful in other classes (I haven’t seen this side of him).  On the academic side, he tends to speak and write with the rhythmic flow of the aspiring rapper that he is, shunning Standard English at all costs, even on formal assignments.  He rarely brings basic supplies and materials to class (even a pen is a rarity); he balls up or folds important papers and leaves them everywhere except for in his binder; his writing is sometimes illegible and always full of phonetic or alternative spellings of words (I suspect he has an undiagnosed learning disability); he admits to hating books; he has zero academic support at home (he has said that his mother hated school just as much as he does and that she avoids teachers); and the list of problems goes on and on.  In short, this is the kind of kid who really makes us earn our pay. 

Tyrone and I have always had a good rapport, despite his academic problems.  I tease him relentlessly, and he returns the favor.  I make it a point to encourage him often and celebrate his successes whenever I can.  I also try to think of ways to make the material accessible to him and allow his creativity to shine.  For his part, he always comes to class (even though he is seldom prepared) and he says that mine is the only English class he’s ever learned anything in, even though he has managed to fail every quarter so far for not turning in work.  All in all, I enjoy teaching him even as he frustrates me to no end, and he and I both know that we are in each other’s corner.  

For the last few weeks of the year, I am teaching my students how to be trial lawyers as a way of reviewing persuasion techniques.  Using materials from a trial practice course I took in law school, we are conducting a full blown murder trial. The students have been given a complete case file, complete with police report, hearing transcripts, diagrams, medical reports, etc., and they will write and deliver opening statements, direct and cross examinations of witnesses, and closing arguments.  All students will do the work of lawyers leading up to the mock trial, at which point students will be assigned various roles to play.  I wanted to end the year on a challenging note, and this stuff is pretty sophisticated.  It is also engaging enough to keep the kids fairly together in these final moments of the year.

Well, Tyrone blew me away today.  This kid, who NEVER does any work at home, showed up in my classroom this morning bragging about how he has already figured out the whole case and that he plans on destroying the other side at trial.  I was skeptical until he whipped out his marked up file, organized and detailed notes (color-coded, no less), and accurate recall of minute facts that even I had overlooked.  His level of preparation reminded me of the way that my classmates and I prepared in LAW SCHOOL!  The students shared some of their work orally, and some students actually clapped for Tyrone after he shared his thoughts.  Believe me: he’s not used to that.  At the end of class, he told me that he was going to be the next Johnny Cochran.  It took almost 10 months, but the boy is finally giving a damn.  At times like this, all I can do is shake my head and smile. 

Pomp and Circumstance

Graduation season is now upon us.  For those of us in the education field, it's easy to forget how special graduation really is for the individuals walking across that stage and their families because we see it year in and year out.  Even though I still think of myself as a newcomer to the teaching game, I can already sense that there isn't much of a difference from one graduating class to the next--they have similar distributions of personalities, problems, and aspirations.  It's funny how both everything and nothing changes.  However, I am also aware of what an exciting and emotional time this is for the kids--full of a sense of nostalgia, aaccomplishment, and hope.  Indeed, I can still vividly remember each of my graduations, and I don't think I'll ever forget them for as long as I live.  I'll try to keep these thoughts in mind as I sit through hundreds of names being called ... while the audience rudely chatters the whole time ... only stopping to scream hysterically for their own friends and children ... okay, I'm getting off track.     

The faculty advisor for my school's student newspaper asked me yesterday if I could write up a short message (no more than 350 words) for seniors to be published in the final edition of the year.  I was honored that he would trust me with such a weighty task, even though I'm still not sure that I'm old or wise enough to offer up anything extremely profound.  In the end, I decided to forego being "deep" and just speak the truth to these 18 year olds.  Below is what I submitted:

"Congratulations, Class of 2011!  You have finally reached the end of your journey through mandatory education, where other people (adults) have told you what to learn, when to learn it, and, usually, how to learn it.  You have met all of these requirements, and all of us salute you.

Now, here’s where it gets fun.  Instead of listening to adults, you now get to be an adult.  Being an adult means taking personal responsibility for your decisions and their consequences.  You are no longer allowed to blame anyone or anything for things that don’t go your way.  Conversely, you get to take the credit when things go smoothly.  You now get to own your future, good and bad, and the ball is always in your court.     

Next, being an adult means taking responsibility for your community and for our planet.  You are now joining us other adults as the keepers of this world, and the younger generation depends on your responsible actions and leadership.  Always think about the impact that your actions will have on others and on our environment, and never forget that you—as important as you are—are a part of a larger, more important community. 

Finally, and most importantly, being an adult means being an original version of you.  Starting now, no one will really care much about what your reputation in high school was like (adults who still live in their high school past are generally considered pathetic), so this is a great opportunity to create a fresh, authentic, and completely unique identity for yourself.  You—not your peers, the media, or even your family—get to decide who you are.  As you figure it out, take risks, try new things, visit new places, make new friends, eat new foods, and keep track of how all of it makes you feel.  Your conscience will let you know if you’re on to something or not.  And the best part?  Things that people regard as “weird” or “nerdy” in high school are eventually regarded as “quirky” or “interesting” in adulthood.  Embrace your idiosyncrasies, because they will eventually be seen as assets.

Best of luck to you, Class of 2011, and welcome to the adult world!"

What would YOU say to the Class of 2011? 

Can Hollywood Close the Achievement Gap?

“Mr. Ray, that’s so white!”  “Mr. Ray, we’re BLACK; we don’t do that!”  These exclamations usually come on the heels of me using a big word, telling a story about an adventure I have had, or—perhaps most disturbingly—advising my students about health and fitness habits.  The exclamation is almost always followed by me saying something along the lines of “Well, I’m black, and I did it, so … ,” which is most often met with blank stares.

There is an identity crisis with underprivileged black American teenagers, and I will be writing much about it as this blog grows.  It's been on my mind a lot lately.  Based on what I hear from my students, to be black means to be unsophisticated, unhealthy, lazy, violent, mischievous, involved in dysfunctional relationships, and generally not as well off as everyone else.  One student even told me once that black children are born not as innocent as white children.  Heart-breaking, huh? 

The whole thing confuses me because I’ve never been afraid to create my own image and be an authentic version of myself—I’ve wholeheartedly embraced the “no limits” mantra, and it has served me well.  Why, I often wonder, do my kids let their “blackness” confine them?  How can they get excited about academic or professional achievement if the color of their skin subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) limits them in such negative ways?  All of the education reforms in the world won’t make much of a difference if students don’t buy-in to their own abilities and self worth.

I have an idea.  My kids spend an awful lot of time absorbing media, particularly television and movies.  Studies have shown that black kids spend more time watching television than other groups, and my students can certainly quote movies and television shows endlessly, even when they can’t seem to remember what they read in class days ago (!).  Since parents don’t seem all that interested in curbing this trend, I wonder what would happen if Hollywood decided to bombard black kids with positive and varied images of themselves.  I long for the day when a black child could turn on the TV, go to the movies, or flip on the radio at any time and be exposed to diverse representations of blackness—black characters with lifestyles, occupations, love lives, habits, values, pleasures, and sorrows that run the full gamut of American life—kind of like the diverse representations that other groups take for granted.  Would it make our work as teachers easier?

Maybe if the kids had a lot of representations to choose from, they would be more likely to choose one that lends itself to academic and professional achievement.  And eventually, if all goes well, maybe they would find the confidence to abandon the media’s formulaic creations completely and create their own identities.  Ahh, I can already see that achievement gap narrowing.

Hollywood, are you up to the challenge?

About this Blog

One of the hardest things about starting a blog about teaching is deciding what its limits will be.  Teaching is so complex and multifaceted that a person could dedicate an entire blog to just one aspect of it—curriculum and instruction, school climate, education reforms, relationships with students, relationships with the school community, the state of the teaching profession, and on and on.  There are many, many good education blogs in the blogosphere, some of which I will eventually share with you here.  With that said, I owe it to you, my readers, to let you know what to expect from my blog, so you can decide at the outset if this is a place where you want to spend your time.

What You Should Expect

1.         Stories from my classroom that demonstrate the special joys and challenges in teaching underserved black and Latino students—the ones on the wrong side of the “achievement gap”

2.         Reflections on the effects of racial identity on teaching and learning

3.         Ideas about what it means to be a good teacher in general, and in an urban school particularly (along with occasional instructional advice)

4.         Analysis of problems (and potential solutions) with public education policies

5.         Comments about current events and social trends that affect teaching and learning

What You Should Not Expect

1.         Excessive educational and legal jargon—some will pop up every now and then, but I’ll do my best to write this thing in plain English

2.         Real names or other obvious invasions of privacy of students and colleagues

I hope you’ll find this blog informative, engaging, and motivating, and that you will be generous with your comments so that we can contribute something valuable to the much-needed conversation about urban education today.  Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you come back often!

About Me

First, the vitals: black male, 30 years old, born, raised, and educated in Maryland and Washington, D.C., married with no children, and generally happy. I’ve never been one to keep a journal/diary/blog of any sort—I’m far too lazy and unimportant for that. I never thought I had much to say that would be interesting enough for others to read about, and my insignificant private thoughts and observations were safely stored away in my head, where they rightfully belonged. Then I became an activist disguised as a teacher, and suddenly things changed.

I started this teaching journey a few months after finishing law school (with no legal job offers in hand despite applying to over 150 jobs) back in 2008. What started out as a substitute teaching gig at a progressive and inspiring law-themed charter school in the poorest section of Washington, D.C. quickly turned into a permanent position teaching special education to 11th and 12th graders. That challenging but rewarding experience led me to apply for, and get accepted into, an alternative teacher certification program in Prince George’s County, MD, which landed me where I am now, finishing my second year teaching English to 10th graders at an under-served, comprehensive high school close to home.

Now let me back up for a moment. Let me admit that I have always wanted to be a teacher. My first major in college was Music Education, followed by English Education, which I eventually cut down to plain old English. I always knew that teaching was more important than just about any other job—and I also suspected that I would be good at it and really enjoy it—but I didn’t have the guts to really commit to such an “average” job. I had always imagined my future with beautiful cars (!), an impressive home with a deep front lawn in a leafy neighborhood, a pampered wife with the option to stay at home if she wanted to, the finest goods and services, and extra money to write checks for all of my close relatives if they needed me to—kind of like Cliff Huxtable from The Cosby Show, or Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Being a teacher—a middle class profession if ever there was one—just didn’t seem to fit with that vision. Besides, I had enough brains, curiosity, and a solid enough academic foundation to pursue just about any career I wanted, so why settle for a job that would resign me to be financially “average” forever? These ideas are part of the reason why I ended up in law school.

In my law school application essay, I wrote something eloquent about social responsibility and social engineering, and I really believed at the time that law school would afford me the best chance of combining my talents (reading/writing/critical thinking), with my desire to do socially responsible work and make a good living, too. I imagined myself “providing a voice for those who don’t have one” or something similarly idealistic. Unfortunately, no one tells you going in that the legal jobs that people like me would actually want don’t pay much money (unless you’re from a very elite law school and extremely lucky). They also don’t talk much about the huge debt you will have to manage upon graduation, which prevents most of us from taking the low-paying public service jobs we might have otherwise pursued. For us average law students from average law schools, the only way we might make big money is to be an unusually entrepreneurial plaintiff’s lawyer, work for big business clients at a large firm, or do a very large volume of really boring work that has little to do with “social engineering” (insurance company defense, anyone?). Since this blog is about teaching, I won’t dwell too much on law school, other than to say that it simultaneously beat me down and built me up in ways that I could never have predicted—and that the only class I truly loved was Education Law (go figure). Oh, and I’m in a lot of debt. A lot.

So how did I end up teaching? Honestly, I ended up teaching because I always wanted to, because it practically fell into my lap, and because my then-girlfriend and now-wife encouraged me to give it a serious try. She made me aware that I always talked about it (which I hadn’t realized), and she let me know that she was more in love with me than she was with my identity as a powerful, highly-paid lawyer. I had also decided by then that the battle for justice and equality is better fought in the classroom than in the courtroom, because the disadvantaged minorities (particularly blacks) that I imagined working for were usually on the wrong side of the opportunity curve by the time they needed a lawyer. So, with this newfound encouragement and conviction, I decided to jump directly into urban education, focusing on predominantly black schools, in order to gain firsthand exposure to the contributors and solutions to the much-hyped “achievement gap” between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian counterparts. (For the record, I made this decision before school reform became the hot topic that it is today in the wake of films like Waiting for Superman!) I figured that closing the achievement gap is the last major civil rights struggle for blacks, and I see myself as a civil rights activist as well as a teacher.

One day I may take what I have learned in the classroom and use my legal credentials to change the face of education from a policy standpoint. In the meantime, I am a teacher. And I have a lot to say.