Flashing Lights and Caution Tape

Teaching in East New York is not your normal run of the mill teaching experience. I knew that that would probably be the case before I came out, but I was a college graduate on a mission. I was ready for an adventure and nothing could stand in my way. I was motivated and ready to make a difference. I new it would be difficult, but that didn’t stop me. I was ready…

When I accepted a teaching job in East New York last March, I quickly started to learn about the area. As I researched and talked with different people about it, I received some shivering news. I knew that the area was not quite as pretty as many other areas in New York and the poverty level was higher than most other areas, but there was one statistic that really hit me hard. East New York has the highest murder rate of any neighborhood in New York City. I think for most people that would be a bit frightening. Of course that made me a bit uneasy, but not enough to pull out. I knew that with a program like Teach For America, I would most likely be in an area like this. That’s what its all about, ensuring that children in these areas receive just an as equitable education as their peers in more affluent areas. That is what I’m here to do. However, I had an experience about a month ago that really hit me pretty hard.

In East New York, you get used to the flashing lights, the sirens, the smells, the hecklers, but there is one thing that I saw a few weeks ago that I will never get used to. The morning of September 3^rd, 2014 was just a normal morning. I woke up at 5:00, was out of my apartment by 5:30, caught the 4 train with some co-workers heading to East New York, got off at the last stop, and started the 10 minute walk to our school. It was a nice, cool morning, but there was an odd feeling about it. It seemed much quieter and still than usual. As we walked we saw flashing lights just up the street and ran right into caution tape that was stretched all the way across the road. We stepped under it and continued to walk because that was the way we got to school. Just after the caution tape, there were a number of emergency vehicles, police officers, and a small crowd gathered. Everything looked just like it was out of a movie. Then I saw the white sheet carefully draped over what looked like a person lying on the ground. What I was looking at became unmistakable when I saw the semblance of blood seeping through the sheet.

I was in shock. I knew that this area had the highest murder rate in all of New York City, but I was now witnessing it first hand. A man had been shot right down the street from my school. Shot right on the very street that I walk down everyday. I was just utterly at a loss for words. As we slowly passed through the small crowd an officer said to us, “welcome back to school teachers”. Those words rang in my head as we walked the rest of the block. I was a schoolteacher here. I teach kids that are growing up in this neighborhood. Kids that are exposed to tragedy like this, that do not have the safety and assurance that I had growing up. This was the first time that I have ever been exposed to something like that, and I sure hope that it is the last. It makes me sick to think that kids that I teach are exposed to these types of things.

This experience just made the work that I am doing so much more real. I am truly here to do what I can to give these kids an opportunity to get a good education and beat the statistics. So they do not end up like that man who I saw lying under that sheet. Or like the other man who shot him. I don’t know what kind of impact I am having on these kids right now, but I hope that I can do something to help these kids beat those odds.

I had a couple of particularly tough experiences this past week, which caused me to question my purpose here. But as I reflect on this horrific scene that I saw a few weeks ago, I am reminded of my commitment to this work. I want to do all that I can to ensure these children get the best education possible. It may be hard, but when I think about how hard my work may be, I need to remind myself of how much harder it is going to be for my kids to beat the odds that have been placed in front of them.

When my mother heard about the hard week I was having, she sent me a great quote by President Thomas S. Monson which I think is an appropriate way to end this post.

Good timber doesn’t grow with ease, the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.

Thinking about this gives me strength to keep going and grow from this experience, but it gives me even more hope for my kids. As they face, and overcome the insurmountable odds that affront them, they will just be all the stronger for it!

Singing in the Mud

In my first week of training with Achievement First Aspire Elementary we listened to a commencement speech given at the University of Texas graduation this past spring. The speech was given by Admiral William H. McRaven, a former Navy Seal. Admiral McRaven spoke on his extremely rigorous Navy Seal training and related those experiences to the uphill battles that we face in life. So as a school team, we each took one lesson that McRaven had referred to and dedicated our first week to it. I don’t even remember what I chose originally, because it quickly changed to “singing in the mud” after my second day of teaching. To give you a background of what this lesson is, here is the excerpt from McRaven’s speech:

The ninth week of training is referred to as “Hell Week.” It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment and—one special day at the Mud Flats—the Mud Flats are area between San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana slue’s—a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you.

It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure to quit from the instructors.

As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having committed some “egregious infraction of the rules” was ordered into the mud.

The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit—just five men and we could get out of the oppressive cold.

Looking around the mud flat it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till the sun came up—eight more hours of bone chilling cold.

The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything and then, one voice began to echo through the night—one voice raised in song.

The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm.

One voice became two and two became three and before long everyone in the class was singing.

We knew that if one man could rise above the misery then others could as well.

The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing—but the singing persisted.

And somehow—the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.

If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person—Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan—Malala—one person can change the world by giving people hope.

So, if you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.

The words of admiral McRaven echoed through my mind on that second day of school after what I felt was something disasterous had happened. It was just the start of my second day and I was going around from desk to desk cleaning up the breakfast that our students had just eaten, when I reached for a carton of apple juice on little Monica’s (name changed) desk and accidently knocked it over. Juice quickly started pouring down Monica’s desk and right into her lap. Now Monica, knowing that we sit with our hands folded on our desk, our back straight, and our eyes on the speaker when we are learning, was not sure how to react to the juice that was drenching her skirt. She was trying so hard to be on task that even with juice pouring in her lap that she stayed in scholarly position, probably unsure of whether or not she could break and move away from her desk. Well I quickly noticed this so I reached to push her chair back so that she could avoid the downpour. However, when I did this, my foot caught the chair of the child just in front of Monica’s desk. I fell flat on my face, ripping Kyler’s (name changed) chair right out from under him.

So, at this point, I am lying flat on my face, Monica is still sitting in her desk with juice drenching her, Kyler is on the ground starting to cry, and the whole class is now looking at me trying to figure out what is going on. Not my shiniest moment to say the least. As I lay there for that split second, I started to wonder how I had gotten myself into this, it was only the second day of school and I had already made a complete fool of myself. I had the fluttering thoughts of I’m not cut out for this, why did I think this was a good idea? What have I gotten myself into? And it was in that moment that I remembered the words of Admiral McRaven and realized that I was just about as neck deep in the mud as you can be on the second day of teaching kindergarten, and the only way to change my outlook, was to start singing in that mud.

I tell you, it has not been easy. Bouncing back from that experience and many more struggles that I have had as a first year teacher. Teaching a grade and subject matter that I was just not even close to prepared for has been difficult. There have definitely been difficult days, who’d have thought kindergarten would be such a difficult grade to teach. I have to say I have so much more love and respect for my mother having raised 7 kids. It is so challenging teaching kids how to do some many things that just seem to come natural to me and others. I forget that natural habits are still things that we have learned at one point or another and 4 and 5 year olds are just so innocent and just really don’t know a lot of things and I am responsible for teaching them. It is a pretty daunting task! But I have learned to sing in that mud! When my lesson may be going horribly and I have kids running around and being disruptive, I remember to look for the positive and sing my way through it. Then I see students like little Candace (name changed) with her big brown eyes and bright smile beaming up at me, I feel a bit more strength to sing through it and get through the lesson, or the day, or the week. Whatever it may be I am learning to sing in the mud!

Welcome to Brooklyn!

This is my first post on a new blog. Kind of a refreshing feeling, invigorating really! I started this blog to talk a little bit about all the crazy things that are happening in my life right now. I mean, being a kindergarten teacher in East New York was just about the last place that I thought I would be looking forward a year or two ago. But, here I am! So I wanted to share a little bit about my experiences and hopefully those of you reading will gain something from it all, even if it is just a laugh or two.

To start out, I wanted to give a quick little overview of how I got here. A little over a year ago, I decided to apply for the Teach For America program. I felt like it was a great program and that I would be a good fit. Studying political science, I figured that if I got into the program, I would end up teaching some sort of social studies classes somewhere in the United States. Yep, pretty broad, but apparently not broad enough seeing as where I am now. So I applied and went through the incredibly long and selective TFA process and somehow got in. When I saw that I was going to New York, my jaw literally fell through the ground. What?! Yeah, that happened. Well over the next several months I went through the tedious hiring process so that I could find a teaching job for the fall. I flew back and forth from New York to Utah. Going to interview after interview. It was through this process that I quickly learned that I would most likely not be teaching social studies. I found very fast that with TFA, unless you have a strong background in math or science, you really could end up teaching anything. They just throw you at interviews and you have to take whatever comes. Phew… I was relieved when that process was finally over, it was nice to land a job early in the process, even though it was not quite the job I was looking for. The job I landed was a kindergarten teacher in East New York. I’d have to say I was a little it shocked, it was definitely not what I had planned, nor did I feel very prepared for it, but I am learning to love it.

To make a long story short, that brings me to where I am today. After two months of intensive training with both Teach For American and Achievement First (my charter school network), I have taken on 31 kindergarteners for two and half weeks now. I’ll have to save the stories of training for another day, but believe me, there are some good ones. But yes, I am officially a kindergarten teacher trying to keep my head above water as I struggle to teach 4 and 5 year olds what school is for 9 hours a day. Needless to say, it is a lot of work. A. Lot. Of. Work. On average, I work about 12 hour days. Teaching is a hefty job in and of itself, but when you are doing more than just teaching, when you are giving your all to help turn around the odds for kids who have a mountain to climb in order to just get to college, let alone graduate and have what would be considered a decent career, it really takes a toll. I go to sleep every night with swollen feet and wake up every morning wondering where the night went. But somehow I make it through another day.

If you have made it this far, you must either be a really good friend, or you must somewhat like what I have to say. Sorry, I stepped up on my soapbox for a bit, I can be a bit passionate at times. I do hope you will stick around though and read my blog occasionally. I have already had some crazy experiences that I can’t wait to write about. Things such as walking through crime scenes, being chastised by homeless people, making a fool out of myself as a new teacher, and hanging out with 5 year olds have become the norm for me out here. So if any of that sounds at all interesting, check back and give my blog a gander!