Dave's Teach For America Chronicles / Chapter Seven: Fourth Quarter
I visited Portfolio Center over my Spring Break and instantly fell in love. I knew that this was where I was supposed to be. PC was an exciting world of creativity that seemed to fit my interests and dreams almost perfectly. Whatever lingering doubts I had about leaving Baltimore evaporated into the hot Atlanta air. When I returned home to Burke, I pulled out my fourth quarter curriculum, textbooks, notes, and calendar. I spread them out and began mapping out the final quarter. I decided to make a simple point system for the students to follow - there would be a total of 1000 possible points. They would be given work folders with a point checklist to add up their points at any time and figure out their percentage grade (by simply taking off the last number of their total). I took the idea of "Northeast Island" that I had started sketching during planning periods and made it an escapist world that would serve as a quarter-long theme. An island map was drawn, some island inhabitants were created, and the first worksheets were made.
I looked at the 6th grade fourth quarter required curriculum and made the easy decision to race through it as fast as possible. I would still teach my students the skills Maryland wanted them to have, but in about half the time they asked me to because, quite frankly, I didn't think that we needed to do things like spend a week on the folktale Brother Fox and Sister Coyote. What did I want these kids to really remember? My first goal was to make writing fun, because few students felt that way. My second goal was to teach them the basic parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. My final goal was to hold them to extremely high standards and allow for no extra credit work or cutting corners. Since a 70 was passing, each student needed at least 700 points to pass my class, no exceptions. Partly to make the students excited about the island, and partly to keep myself organized, I made a small website for Northeast Island. It was inspired by a website called project312.org, developed by a DC Teach For America corps member. His website used incredible photographs to display his students' dreams and hard work. I thought a name on a website might be an extra incentive for a handful of kids, so the island homepage was born. When school rolled back around, I was actually excited to go in. My mom and I had spent my last day at home gluing maps and putting names on the student work folders. Many students were excited to have their own folder with an individual grade checklist. The island theme sold pretty well, and the first "island immigration" worksheet gave me some great material right away for the website.
I failed often during my year of teaching - plans gone wrong, topics not taught well, nights without parent phone calls. But if I had to pick one of the few small successes from my year, it would be the Northeast Island creative writing project. Students were instructed to move into the island and decide where to live, what job they wanted and what adventures they would have. Every Friday would be devoted to working on this massive continuing story of their explorations on the island - but I wouldn't be peering over their shoulders with a red pen or correcting their split infinitives. This was freeform writing, and what they wrote about on the island was up to them. I emphasized imagination and creativity as their focus and expected a 25-page, single-spaced story from each student by the end of the year. It was an 100 point project, with each page being worth 4 points. To help motivate the students, on each Friday I handed out a map or special handout of one part of the island in detail. When week one rolled around, the students would see the Robota Nightclub, the Manger L'Oiseau restaurant, and the Dome Sports Arena drawn in Kerner City. These magnifications of the main map were the students' favorite part of my class. Every Friday brought a new map, which I hid ten stars in and made all sorts of places for them to write about.
And write they did. Using the maps as motivation, writing became exciting. Sheena wrote about the history of an underwater city hidden below the island and a law enforcement that was carried out by a point system. Gary and Kellie wrote about meeting each other in their separate stories. Mark wrote about a full-scale war with another island, even though I said that I would take a point off for every character he killed (but if I had stuck to that, he would have had a negative final grade). Kevin wrote about a climactic battle with the Fort Jones Ghost atop a castle wall. Jasmine wrote about partying at Hopkins Beach and meeting lots of cute boys. Alaina wrote a play, with the dialogue carrying the story along. Treasure was found via the pirate ship, new languages were created, and a secret passageway was found behind the waterfall. My expectations were exceeded, and over 75% of my students would end up turning in 25 pages or more by the end of the year. When one of my students was expelled towards the end of school for having a knife, the last thing that he said to me was "I'll have someone bring in my Northeast Island story when I finish it."
We had some other fun projects over the course of the quarter, like the time we spent two days on public speaking. We held island elections in each class for a President, Commander and Treasurer. I set up our broken overhead as a podium and the students wrote speeches following a template I suggested on the board. Their promises for the island were creative and hilarious - like when one student said he would be a good treasurer because he had a good grade in math and always paid his friends back when he borrowed money for lunch. Jeryl hurriedly scribbled down his speech and spent the rest of the class making "Vote For Jeryl" flyers to pass out. It was one of my favorite lessons of the entire year. When we got to parts of speech, however, I stopped focusing on trying to make things fun and really got down to making my own worksheets that taught these topics well. The final 100-point test was a paragraph with 100 words underlined, and the students had to identify what part of speech each word was.
I started a new after school club in addition to the reading club - Vocabulary Video Games. I basically wanted an excuse to play video games in school and hang out with some of my students in a non-academic setting, so I brought my Nintendo Gamecube in every Wednesday with four controllers and the game Super Smash Brothers Melee. Before we started playing, I taught the students five new vocabulary words, which we later used while inevitably trash-talking during the game. Daryl, Prince and Sierra showed up regularly, as did several students that I never taught - some more of the "bad kids". One named George constantly cut class and walked by my room every day, sometimes disrupting my class by throwing things. When I was cleaning my room during the planning period one day, he came in and asked if he could help. I guessed that he was better off with me than disturbing another class, knowing that the administration wouldn't suspend him. While he collected some books, we talked about the war in Iraq. It was the single best conversation I had the entire year, child or adult. This disruptive entity became a genuinely good kid when I talked to him one-on-one. When it was time for my 608 class, he said "Thanks Mr. Werner" and shook my hand before leaving. I still saw George in the hallway every day, but he stopped disrupting my class.
During all of this, Northeast was in its usual state of disorder. Ms. Jacob, the woman from Trinidad who was next door to me, had her desk urinated on. The bathroom flooded one afternoon and our carpeted hallway was drenched; the resulting stench lingered for weeks. The single best story of the year, the event that I think best sums up Northeast's troubled journey, was the time when students played tag in our ceiling. That's right, you read it correctly - they entered a vacant classroom, managed to climb up a bookcase, and crawled into and around the structural supports and flimsy ceiling tiles. The classic Mrs. Jones response? "That's just the way kids are." The Fire Marshall came into our school with bolt cutters and snapped open several chains that were locked around doors (he also didn't seem too pleased about the fire alarms going off every day).
And then there was James. A nearby teacher couldn't stand this child anymore and asked to switch him to my class at the beginning of the fourth quarter. I obliged, and quickly understood what she was talking about. He was the kind of child that would apologize and swear he would do better, only to turn back around and do the same thing again. He was a challenge for me over the entire quarter, but ended up becoming one of my favorite students. He once asked his science teacher if he could skip her class to continue writing his Northeast Island story, and she let him. James wrote me a construction paper card at the end of the year saying, "Dear Mr. Werner - You never gave up on me. And I appreciate that. Unlike other teachers, they don't care, you do. If I fail your class it's my fault because you try to help me succeed. Sincerely, James." He also gave me his first "shout-out" when he was interviewed on our weekly televised announcements. He passed.
Ms. Jacob also decided that she was not coming back to Northeast the next year. When the letters of intent came around, we both approached our assistant principal, Mrs. Freeman, and personally told her that we were not returning. She seemed disappointed, but wished us the best. Mrs. Freeman was a nice woman with good intentions, but she was not a strong leader. Like Mrs. Jones, she did not often follow through with her threats and consequences. If a child was roaming in the hallway, they weren't suspended or reprimanded - it was simply an "Excuse me! Where are you going? Go back! Go back!" I heard these empty words often. Ms. Jacob had particularly clashed with Mrs. Freeman several times, trying to find the reasoning behind some questionable decisions. Mrs. Freeman was obviously going through some difficult times after her husband passed away in January - she was out for a couple of months - so I can partly understand why things weren't always taken care of in the way that I expected them to be.
The mother of one of my 608 students came up to school to talk to me one day. I had taught her son Jack at the beginning of the year, but since I was switched back, I found out that he had not shown up to school for close to three months. She looked extremely tired and upset. Jack's mother had just finished talking with Mrs. Jones about trying to get Jack to come back to school, but had been met with the threat of involving child services. Because Jack's mother was not able to control him, Mrs. Jones reasoned, Jack would be taken away from her (the father had walked out on the family a few years before). "You're the only teacher he said he would talk to," the mother said, admitting that she had run out of ideas and was scared of losing him. Jack used to always come to the drawing and reading clubs and was an intelligent student. I told her that I would stop by their house after school the next day, but honestly, I had no idea what I could possibly say or do to bring him back.
I drove up to the house the next day and knocked on the door through a missing glass pane. Jack's younger brother Benjamin answered the door and I walked in. The small house was extremely bare, with a low green couch covered in clothes being one of the few pieces of furniture. Flies buzzed around the dim lights. Jack's mother came down the stairs, smoking a cigarette, and welcomed me. She apologized for a hole in the wooden floor and covered it up with a blue towel. When she called for Jack, there was no answer. We walked outside, and still no answer. Benjamin came around from the other side of the house and said that Jack was hiding underneath the porch. I walked around and heard someone running away. I circled the house one more time until I finally ran into Jack, who stopped in his tracks. "Hey Mr. Werner," he said matter-of-factly. We went inside and moved some clothes away to sit down on the green couch. I talked with him alone for about 20 minutes, telling him about Northeast Island and Vocabulary Video Games. He didn't give a clear reason as to why he had decided to stop coming to school, but he hinted at a few things. School was boring, some kids were picking on him, and he didn't like many people in his class. We talked about his dreams - becoming an artist or a doctor - and how school would help him to pursue them. At the end of our conversation, in front of his mother and brother, Jack promised me that he would return on Monday.
Jack didn't show up on Monday, so I drove back to his house unannounced after school. His mother informed me that he had locked his door that morning and wouldn't come out. There was no way to open the door from the outside, so I went upstairs and sat down beside it. I talked for five minutes, but no response ever came back. I went back downstairs, feeling defeated. Maybe Mrs. Jones was right. Maybe he needed to be somewhere else. Then we heard a crash - Jack had jumped out of his window into the backyard. I walked around and came face-to-face with his dog, who jumped up at me and bit my arm, sinking two puncture marks in my sleeve. Jack peered out from behind a shed and then walked out to calm his dog down. I asked if he wanted to take a walk, and he agreed.
We walked down the streets of his neighborhood, and I let him do most of the talking. He said he had bought his mother a flower and pot for Mother's Day, yesterday. He told me that he wanted to go to school all weekend, but then she took his flower and pot and smashed them onto the ground during an argument. He was so upset that he just locked himself up in his room. I wasn't sure what to say, slowly realizing that I was way out of my realm and had no good answers. We ended our walk by the shed, the dog barking at me behind it. I told Jack the truth - that he was risking losing his mother and brother, and that both of them were scared of it. I said that I was the last line of defense, but if he didn't show up to school, I would have to find some other sort of help. I told him that I cared for him and that nothing would make me happier than seeing him return to school. I asked him what it would take to get him back, and after several shrugs, I asked him what his favorite candy was. Payday. I told him that I would drive to Safeway after leaving his house and pick up a bag of Paydays. All he had to do was show up to school. "I'll think about it," was all he would say. When I bought the candy that afternoon, I was almost certain that it was wasted money. I called Camika that night, and she told me who to talk to when he didn't show up.
The first student in my classroom the next day was Jack. That moment of seeing his face through the scattered partition walls made my year. Maybe it was the bribery with candy, the threat of child services, or the walk around the neighborhood - but something had worked. He ended up writing an incredible Northeast Island story and stayed after for Vocabulary Video Games every week. I don't know if his home life ever got any better, but I was happy to see him back.
I got a letter sent through certified mail saying that my contract for Baltimore City Public Schools would not be renewed because of a missing college transcript and no evidence of working towards my certification. I had sent my college transcript in through TFA at the beginning of the year, but it was apparently lost somewhere in the process. I hadn't officially registered for my certification classes at Johns Hopkins; the reading class had angered me so much that I wondered if it was worth the effort. BCPS sent me monthly notices about my missing documents in the mail and TFA called me a few times, but because I knew that I was leaving at the end of the year, the contract renewal never seemed like a big deal. What surprised me is that I went through an entire year of teaching without the school system knowing I was a college graduate or trying to become certified. What a great educational system that lets you slip under the radar like that, huh?
We were halfway through the fourth quarter, and the guys in suits were coming around more often. Two men in particular, Mr. Lindsay and Mr. Humphries, seemed omnipresent. Then the announcement we had been waiting for all year finally came. Mrs. Jones was gone, sent to a desk job. Mr. Lindsay became the new acting principal and Mr. Humphries was his assistant. Their "emergency meeting" that afternoon was a lot different than previous ones. They talked about having a team of janitors come into the school to clean it up and replace all the broken lights and ceiling tiles. They admitted that there were problems, but that these problems could be fixed. Instead of blaming teachers or using diamond metaphors, Mr. Lindsay joked about how much in debt the school system was in, and that in any other profession, the company would have gone bankrupt long ago. Finally, we had the strong leadership that Northeast desperately needed all year. The problems didn't stop completely, but there was a significant reduction in disruptions. Mr. Humphries and I almost got in a small argument once when he told me in a fairly impolite way that my current seating arrangement was "not a strategy" and to not sit on my desk, loud enough for all of my students to hear ("Are you going to be fired?" 607 asked later).
My perfect attendance streak ended three days later when I called in sick Thursday and Friday. Over the year, I could have taken up to 9 paid sick days off, but I always thought it was better for me teach a bad lesson than have no substitute or an administrator babysitting. But my friends and roommates finally convinced me that I needed some mental health days, so I beat a video game on Thursday and drove home to Burke on Friday. I returned on Monday with less than a month left; the end in sight. Only a few of my students knew that I was not returning the next year. When I told a 608 student named Ian, he was visibly upset. He got out of his seat and went around the classroom, telling his classmates to be quiet or pushing them back into their chairs. "If we behave, Mr. Werner won't leave us!" He said. I knew that I would miss many of these kids dearly.
With the summer heat and the end of school came wilder kids. A firecracker was set off in my room during 607 one day, but I hadn't seen the culprit (although I had some guesses). Mrs. Freeman gave a long lecture to my class about the severe consequences that would take place if someone did it again - not just being suspended for the rest of the year, but possibly weapon charges as well. When I caught the student trying to do the same thing the next day, I handed him over to Mrs. Freeman. Guess who was back in school the next day? Mrs. Freeman's threats of consequences were once again not carried out - he wasn't even suspended for a day. I sent two students who had been fighting to her office a few days later. They were sent back to me five minutes later, their only consequence being a quick apology to me. I told her the names of two students who had walked into my homeroom one morning and disrupted my teaching, but she simply shook her head and said that it was too late in the year. When the last days of school came, I said my farewells to my students and was sad to see them walk out the doors one last time, but I was ready to leave.
School ended on a Wednesday, but the teachers had two additional workdays to clean out their rooms and turn in grades. Because I had done most of these things already, I spent the majority of my time reading the new Harry Potter book. When I left for my very last day on Friday, I knew that something ridiculous was going to happen. I knew that after surviving this year, a fitting ending would certainly take place. Mrs. Freeman called all of the teachers down to the cafeteria, and we were given envelopes and papers for sending report cards and summer school letters. She was almost condescending in her directions, emphasizing how clear her step-by-step instructions were and how only her way to do things would work. She didn't have the correct test scores copied off. When a teacher mentioned how overstressed some people were getting, Mrs. Freeman snapped back at her about how she was acting unprofessionally. Ms. Jacob pointed out that one of the letters being sent home had the wrong date on it, but when she xeroxed a corrected version, Mrs. Freeman exploded on her for not following her directions. I smiled the entire time, thinking how typical this all was while daydreaming about Portfolio Center and anxious to get back to reading Harry Potter. We were supposed to make a list with our stack of letters: students who were passing, failing, going to summer school, or had missing grades. When I finished writing my list, Mrs. Freeman said she needed four separate ones. I sighed and rewrote everything clearly on four separate lists, neatly tearing the paper to make them the perfect size to paperclip onto the stacks of envelopes. Finally, Mrs. Freeman said that these handwritten lists we were writing were the official reports on our students, and that she would be faxing them to the main office that afternoon. When I turned my lists in, she grabbed them back up from the piles.
"Sir, sir, what is this?" She demanded.
"My four lists, Mrs. Freeman." I answered.
"I cannot accept these. You need to rewrite them on the correct sized sheets of paper. You did not follow directions. Go back and rewrite them."
The problem was that the smaller sheets I had written my lists on were not faxable. Another TFA teacher, Andrew, had done the same thing, so he got some scotch tape and we taped our lists on the kind of paper that she wanted.
"I worked in an office once," Andrew said. "We used to do this all the time."
When I went back to turn my lists in, Mrs. Freeman shook her head and waved her hand back and forth in a "no" motion.
"Mr. Werner, what is it going to take for you to rewrite the lists correctly?" She said, frowning.
"I worked in an office once," I said, stealing Andrew's line. "This will work fine."
"No sir, you must..."
The frustrations of the entire school year built up inside of me. Here are your two open-space classrooms. You should have taught them the newspaper gutter. Code Word Buffalo. Thanks to Mr. Werner for being so flexible and switching his classes again. The teachers are not shining the diamonds. Greg is looking down on you and telling you not to roam the halls. That seating arrangement is not a strategy. Go back and rewrite them.
"Mrs. Freeman, we're done."
I tossed the four lists carelessly onto the table and walked out the doors of Northeast Middle School for the last time.
(Dave's TFA Chronicles are eight short stories about Dave's job as a Language Arts teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools from 2002 to 2003. Read the other chapters: one two three four five six seven eight)
Monday, July 7 at 3:17 PM
Okay Samurai Multimedia is Dave Werner's personal site. I'm currently working at Minor Studios in San Francisco. Thanks for visiting! (more...)
Okay Samurai Journal (Subscribe RSS / XML)
Dave Werner's Portfolio (okaydave.com)
Archives (Cardboard Box)
Contact (Mailbox)
My Videos on Vimeo
My Photos on Flickr
Lars Amhoff: Kinkyform Design
Colin Anawaty: Cubed Companies
Chuck Anderson: NoPattern
Haik Avanian: HaikAvanian.com
James Bailey: The Kingdom of Sad Machines
Ben Barry: CarbonFour / Forced Connections
Dimitry Bentsionov: Arthero
Joshua Blankenship: JoshuaBlankenship.com
Casey Britt: CaseyBritt.com
Duncan Brook: Superfreaky Memories
Matthew Burtner: Burtner.net
Jeff Chin: JeffChin.com
Mary Campbell: Mary Campbell Design
Sarah Coffman: Minus Five
John Contino: drawings&co
Angie Cosimano: Angie Unit
Chris and Linda Doherty: Citizen Studio
Anne Elser: Annepages
Neil Epstein: Mediafactured
Bjorn Fagerholm: 3jorn
Dave Foster: Dave the Designer
Justin Genovese: JustinGenovese.com
J Grossen: Sugarcoma Labs
Audrey Gould: Aud's Blog
Greg Hackett: GregHackett.com
Sam Harrison: Zingzone
Todd Hammell: Solid Colors
Leon Henderson: LHJ Photo
Howard Hill: Fascination Streak
Peter Hobbs: Peter Hobbs Photography
Matt Ipcar: Ipcar Design
Michael Johnson: Michael J Rox
Melissa Jun: MelissaJun.com
Jiae Kim: Theme magazine
Zack Klein: ZackKlein.com
Katie Kosma: Flying Conundrum
Peter Lada: Proxima Labs
Josh Levin: Nothing Learned
Larry Luk: Epidemik Coalition
Mike Mates: Urban Influence
Alison Matheny: Life of a Harpy
Turi McKinley: Turi Travels
Alaa-Eddine Mendili: Furax
John Nack: John Nack on Adobe
Allen Orr: Anthem In
Scott Paterson: sgp7
Joe Peng: MacConcierge
Paavo Perkele: Astudios
Brian Perozo: Ephekto
Jason Puckett: Everyday Puck
Kate Ranson-Walsh: Thinkradical
Tania Rochelle: Stone's Colossal Dream
Angela Sailo: Peanut Butter Toast
Mohit SantRam: Santram.net
Dan Savage: Something Savage
Kevin Scarbrough: Thin Black Glasses
Scott Schiller: Schillmania
Jason Severs: JasonSevers.com
Anthony Sheret: Work By Lunch
Nick Skyles: Boats and Stars
Sujay Thomas: iSujay
Joe Tobens: JospehTobens.com
David Ulevitch: Substantiated.info
John Verhine: Verhine.com
Armin Vit: Under Consideration
Ian Wharton: IanWharton.com
Roger Wong: One Great Monkey
Clay Yount: Rob and Elliot Comics
Jack Zerby: Jack Zerby Music