Bronx Classroom Tales

As hard as it may be for us to admit sometimes, teachers make mistakes. We make less as we get better, but we’ll always make them.  

Sometimes, I forget to enter a grade where there needs to be one. At the beginning of the year, I tell all my students that one unfortunate soul will have their essay lost among a stack of my papers and it won’t be found for two years if ever.  (I’ve already hit my lost essay quota this year, Vanessa’s defense of Hamlet’s behavior, and my guilt has made me super anal retentive since.) 

At times like these, I’ve found that it doesn’t hurt to say “I’m sorry. I made a mistake,” and not to follow it with, “I work 60-75 hours a week, I deserve one.” 

Close your eyes. Wait. Open them. I hope you’ve opened them. Maybe just squint a little and imagine a work place where everyday, every individual comes to learn something. That’s EVERYONE’s goal. People come to this place because they recognize that learning is valuable, perhaps the most valuable thing a person can do with her life. 

Okay. You can stop squinting. Wait for the slight headache to fade and ask yourself if your school was the place you imagined. If you did, you’re fortunate enough to belong to a professional learning community.

This year, my school will graduate our very first senior class. This momentous occasion is provoking conflicting emotions in the staff, from extreme joy and pride to extreme stress and frustration. 

In fact, my colleague who teaches 12^th grade English has taken to humming “Pomp and Circumstance” at least once a class to remind our seniors that graduation is around the corner and some of them have yet to get out the door. 

Fights are a reality at my school.

As much as we say, and I believe, that it is a safe place for students to learn and teachers to work, it’s never that surprising about once a month to hear the stampede of teenager feet, making a Beatle-mania run to the latest skirmish. What does surprise me is who the featured combatants are.

As the State Regents Exams draw close, it’s time to start teaching to the test if you haven’t already.

Those who don’t fall into the trap of test prep turn their noses up arguing that students should have learned the skills to pass an exam without ever having seen the likes of it before.  The rest of us realize that with students entering 9th grade on a 5th grade reading level, two years is not enough time to get them ready to pass an 11th grade Literacy exam cold.