The Kids Who Stole My Heart

My first week of teaching is over! Wait...what?!? I feel like it was just Sunday night and I was freaking out thinking about standing in front of a bunch of 6th graders...and now we're done for the week? Fastest week of my life!!! But that's probably because I didn't have even a minute of free time to breathe the whole time. My brain is barely able to make words to write here tonight. So....to all the teachers out there who worked hard and had high expectations for me and others.....I APPRECIATE YOU SO MUCH MORE NOW! I mean sure, my mom taught for my entire life and now she's a principal. It's clear that I've had a ton of exposure to how teachers work and live. But to be experiencing it for myself now....I have more respect than ever for the teachers who spend hours planning lessons, days thinking of creative ways to teach, and weeks pouring into their students every ounce of energy they have, because they know that's what it takes.

The week started at 5:30 am on Monday morning. As I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and gathered my many new teacher materials, it all seemed like a dream. By 7:10 am, I was rushing around my classroom, hanging posters, putting handouts on desks, prepping my observation binder....AHHHHHHH! Yep, that's how I felt. And then, at 8 am, I followed my faculty advisor, the veteran teacher over the classroom who observes me while I teach, to the auditorium to pick up the kids. We walked the kids down the hall back to the classroom, and as they entered, I suddenly felt the most amazing sense of peace. They filled out their student surveys, I introduced myself, and suddenly I was in front of the board, teaching 11 6th graders how to establish a purpose for reading by looking at text features. Before I knew it, my hour and fifteen minutes of instruction time were over, and as I walked to my next session (yep, we are in classes learning every spare minute we are not teaching during the day) I felt so excited. I just wanted to go talk to my kids again! I had instantly fallen in love with each and every one of them, even the ones I knew might cause me problems. I was on top of the world the rest of the day and night, feeling so confident that I was exactly where God wanted me!!!

And then...Tuesday happened...my kids were, for the most part, just as well-behaved as the day before. The problem with my class is actually something I never would have thought of. They don't talk....at all...to each other....or to me...or when I ask for student responses/participation. I also had a 4 students that day who had been absent the day before. And these students were quiet too, but also had absolutely no motivation to do anything. With explicit instruction, my help, and constant reminders to be on task, they would simply stare off into space, as if nothing about that moment mattered to them, graded or not, warnings or not. The problem with a full room of silent children who refuse to communicate, even when more or less begged by the teacher, is that you can't get a really good idea of whether or not they connected with the material....that is until you grade their quizzes from the end of class. As I sat grading their quizzes after class, my heart sank further than it had during class. Almost no one got a passing grade. It was clear that students had not understood or connected with the material. I felt like I had failed them. They deserve everything in the world in that hour and fifteen minutes that I'm with them, and to think that they were not getting everything crushed me. I felt like I hadn't done my best, because if I had done my best, how could this have happened? I guess sometimes our highest highs and our lowest lows can be one right after the other. That's how it happened for me. I went from thrilled and energetic on Monday, to practically in a depressed state on Tuesday morning. Eventually, I realized that I couldn't let that morning (and what turned out to be a pretty off day in general) get me down to the point that I wasn't focused on the next day. So it was back to work to try and figure out how I could help these kids connect with the material and feel more comfortable using their voices in any way at all in my class.

Wednesday was significantly better. Not great, but better. Baby steps, right?...My babies were still practically silent the whole time, although I got a few of them to at least share a sentence or two with me as I walked around during independent practice. The grades went up a little that day. Not a lot, but enough that my heart began to get just a little bit lighter. These kids could do it. I just had to stay focused! During Advisory period and Academic Intervention Hour, both of which I spend with that same group of 15 students, I tried to talk to every student at least for a minute. We spent the afternoon talking about how important it was to have goals and to know that we could achieve those goals with hard work and focus. And that hard work and focus would get us to high school, and to college, and anywhere we want to go. I've never believed something so hard as when I talked to my kids about these things. Some of them perked up, and it was obvious they wanted that. Others still seemed distant, but we'll get there. I like to walk the kids out to the front at dismissal time so that I have another minute to chat with them and say goodbye. I walked alongside little Jose (name changed for privacy purposes) and told him he had worked so hard that day and I was so proud of him. He barely looked at me. He's easily the quietest kid in my entire class. He's so tiny, and just kind of hides in his desk. By Wednesday afternoon, I'm not sure I could have even recognized his voice. And then it happened...he headed toward the door and I said, "Bye Jose, have a great night!" and as I turned around to head back to the classroom I heard in the softest, sweetest voice, "Bye Ms. Young." I stopped, I turned, and as I watched him walk away, I thought I would cry. If you had told me at any point in my life that a goodbye from a 12 year old would affect me in that way, I would have said you were crazy. But in that moment, I knew that my efforts all week to get him to talk, and to get to know him, as useless as they seemed to me at the time, had actually MEANT something.

Today, I woke up feeling like I had been run over by a truck. Going non-stop for literally 18 to 20 hours a day starting Sunday caught up with me. I was not very enthused about the day, that is until I walked my students to class. They came in, as sleepy and apathetic as every other day this week, and after 5 minutes of begging them to communicate with me, we changed gears. "Ok, everybody stand up. We're going to wake up. 10 jumping jacks...ready, go!" You would have thought I was speaking French or German or some random language with the looks I got. But sure enough, we all (well, most of us...) did jumping jacks to get our blood pumping. Did it work? Sort of. Were they still quiet? Absolutely. But at least they knew I understood they were tired and wanted to try and help in even the smallest of ways. Class went better today than the last two days, which was encouraging. I feel like the students are starting to warm up to me a little. Hopefully that will continue next week. The high point of today: my CMA (corps member advisor) came to observe me. She spoke briefly with my Faculty Advisor while I was teaching, and when I saw her later today, my CMA informed me that my Faculty Advisor had recommended to the principal of the school to hire me for the Fall....WHAT?!? My faculty advisor didn't know that not all of us TFAers were staying in Houston to teach. But oh my word....you would have thought I had won Teach of the Year with the way my face lit up. To think that my faculty advisor, a veteran teacher, had only observed me for four days and already felt confident enough in my abilities to advise her boss that I would be a good addition to their school...God really does reach out when we need comfort the most. Obviously I have a job in Dallas and I'm super excited about that. But that made my entire week!

Tonight, literally right before I began writing, I realized that I had not had time yet this week to look at the life maps that my kids made on Monday in Advocacy period. As I sat alone in my dorm room, reading through the moments the students had written about and/or drawn that they see as important in their lives, I cried. Here's why: (again, names changed)

Manuel:  "mom and dad went own ways..."
Roberto: "moved with my uncle and started working..." (he would have been 10)
Eric: "mom and dad separated"
Alexa: "3 yrs: "Dad died on sister's first birthday..."(proceeded by a drawing of Alexa, mom, and sister crying while looking at a casket...that's right...)

How could your heart not be broken for these kids? And for every example here, there were three more students who had similar stories. I feel so guilty to have been blessed so much when some people struggle so much. But I know God has sent me here for a reason. These kids need to be shown so much love. I want to be a support system for them. I want to fight for them. And I want them to know how much I care about them. While this week has been easily one of the most difficult of my entire life, it has also been one of the most incredible weeks of my life. And I know it will only get better as the next three weeks of summer school come. All I can do is take it one day at a time and know that above all else, these kids need to know how much they deserve. I will relentlessly fight for them in a way that shows them what they are WORTH. Please pray for my students. Pray for confidence and self-value. Pray for them to feel safe in my classroom. Pray that they would understand the urgency of their situations in a way that would motivate them beyond anything I could ever teach them. And please pray that God would use me to help make these things happen for these precious children who already mean so much more to me than I could ever express.


 "The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth."--Dan Rather