sew your fortunes on a string.

A student from my school is going to prison.

For murder.

I don't know what to say.

oh hey there, disillusionment phase.

This graph is from an article titled 'The Evolution of a Teacher" - I'm sure my fellow educators out there will recognize it.

Towards the end of training this summer, we were talking about this article in my advisory group when someone asked, "so since we've been student teaching this summer, is it safe to say most of us are going to be starting out past the anticipation phase?" I think I had an anticipation phase at the beginning of the year, but it was very short lived. Obviously I have high points in my daily life in my classroom, much more so than I even share with you here. However, it's getting much harder to feel optimistic. It's getting much harder to feel like I could ever really be a great teacher, because as it is I'm just surviving from day to day, relying on the types of lesson I've learned will kind of work, even if they're not stellar or all that original. I'm consistently too exhausted for creativity or extensive research and development. I'm ready for the rejuvenation phase. Oh wait, when does that come in? May? Christ.

summer dreams.

Has it only been two months since I started teaching? It feels like a year already, despite the greenness I still feel with painful clarity. My school's first term is ending at the end of the month, and I feel anxious to begin the second term. I'll have most of the same students again, just shuffled around in different periods, and as I see it this offers two advantages: I get to tweak my class rules and expectations (read: lay down the law) but I don't have to completely start from scratch with getting to know my kids. That work's already been done. Of course, the inherent disadvantage is that my kids already know me, too, and it might be difficult to retrain them.

How has it only been two months? It feels like the year should be halfway over - the kids are tired, the teachers are tired, we're all dragging and unmotivated. Two months. What's it going to be like in five? Seven?

everything was beautiful.

Today was a hard day. The more I learn about my students' home lives (or lack thereof), the more I feel this deep sense of.. something. Helplessness? Sadness? Anger? Shock?

I don't know what to do with the feeling, other than keep going and hope that at the very least, I can be someone my kids see during the day who is good to them. It's all I can do, try to do right by them in the 55 minute blocks in which I'm a part of their lives, when what I really want to do is cocoon them so that no one can ever hurt them again.

Last Friday, one of my favorite kids slipped a note onto my desk as he left at the end of the period. He'd scrawled a smiling face onto a notecard, plastered the margins with exclamation points and written, "R, have a good weekend!!!" I put it up on my wall when I got home. Something has been bothering him recently, but he hasn't wanted to talk about it. He's very sweet, this kid. He's softspoken, quick to laugh, and very hardworking. Still, recently the sadness in his eyes has spread to his face. Today, I found out just a little bit about his life outside school. I don't understand how someone who's lived such a hard life can still be as jovial, or as ambitious, or as genuinely kind as he is. I don't know that I'm that strong even now, and I know I definitely wasn't as a kid.

A few days ago I had a conversation with a colleague about teaching at a transfer school. I'm never really sure which experiences are universal for teaching high schoolers or teaching city kids, and which ones are unique to teaching our population. While trying to explain this, I told my colleague that I have no idea if it's normal to feel so drained after every day. No, he replied. He explained that teaching is always hard, no matter where or who you teach. "But this job?," he explained, "this job wears on you."

It's definitely wearing on me.

so over this week.

Last week I had my first observation by my field advisor from the Fellows. He told me in our debriefing that had he entered my classroom not knowing who I was, he wouldn't have known I was a first year teacher. In response, I joked with him that he caught me and my kids on a good day - there are other days when he'd definitely know I'm new at this.

Today was one of those days. I had two almost-fights in different classes. One was a a shouting match I had to step in between before it got totally out of control. Luckily, one of the guys involved is normally very level-headed, and he's someone I've gotten to know pretty well. Ultimately, it was he who backed down after he finally saw me trying to intervene. The other incident involved an emotionally disturbed student repeatedly calling a girl a "bird." I was thankful then that my fellows advisor over the summer gave us a lesson on city slang, because otherwise I wouldn't have understood why the girl got so up-in-arms over the comment, which means "slut." That fight got a little more out of hand than that other one, and ended when the girl stormed out of the room right as an administrator was walking down the hallway. I stepped into my doorway and explained what was happening, and thankfully he escorted the male student out of my class as well. A benefit of being at a tiny school is that all I had to do was tell the administrator who the offending student was, and he already understood the situation based on this kid's history of similar behavior.

I'm drained, as you can probably tell from the quality of my writing, and it's only Tuesday. My first parent-teacher conferences are on Thursday and Friday. Friday our kids are getting released at lunch, and since it's Halloween most teachers are planning fun activities and parties in lieu of lessons. I'm looking for ideas for my classes, but may end up settling on feeding them and letting them watch a horror movie on my projection system.

Back to planning. Is it winter break yet?

on my good list.

"They should give report cards to teachers; then I could give you an A."

Obviously, that was the highlight of my day. And probably my year so far. I also enjoyed a sidebar conversation I had with two students today in which they fired off (often talking over each other) every science question they've ever had that no one's answered. Things like: so that black stuff that comes out of a car's tailpipe, that's carbon, right? But why is it carbon? I heard carbon is everywhere - is that true? Why can't I see it? Where did carbon come from, anyway? The Earth?And hey, why is the Earth the only planet that has life on it? What's up with that? Keep in mind my kids are all about 18. It was delightful to see they can still have the curiosity of a five year old.

The lowlight of my day was when a student came to discuss his grade before class this morning. He's failing, largely due to spotty attendance and the snowball effect that creates with missed work. We're halfway through the first term, so I tried to be encouraging and told him if he came to class every day, and did his work, he could still pass. He told me he needs to pass every class this year so he can graduate this year - he's almost 18, already has a kid, and needs to get out of school and get a full time job as soon as he can. Despite my encouragements, he left my room on the verge of tears, and didn't show up to class today. What do you do when a kid loses hope?

you know you're at an urban school when..

One of the candidates for student council president opens her speech by saying, "Yo, I'ma hold it down for y'all, aight?" amid whispers in the audience of various students encouraging each other to "pull a Kanye."

The only other noteworthy thing about today was that one of my students, who previously had been having difficulty with the concepts in my chemistry class and often got frustrated, is suddenly understanding the material. Something clicked with him in the past few days, and he's been very vocal about it. He's the first to answer questions in his class, and he explains problems to anyone around him who needs help, whether they ask for it or not. Today he sat back towards the end of class and said, "You know, I'm finally understanding chemistry."

I don't think I got a lot right this week. In fact, I know I got a lot wrong. It wasn't really a good week in general, but at least one kid got something out of it.