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Okay, I know I said I was done blogging since my new job is in an office and nowhere near as exciting as wrangling preadolescents, but apparently I’ve become egocentric enough to keep writing about my life anyway. Since it won’t be about teaching, it won’t be on teachfor.us (*tear*), but if you are interested in keeping up with my latest exploits you can read about them here.

Update: Make that the most visited teachfor.us blog of the decade! You guys are awesome! Or maybe there’s just one of you and you are really obsessive… either way, good job!

I wrapped up last year by concluding that poverty sucks, and this year I’d like to restate that fact, with an addendum: Poverty sucks, but it’s not an excuse. There are amazing charter schools that are getting great results with the exact same demographic of kids that are at my school. There are amazing teachers within crappy schools who are achieving success with their students. And there are even crappy schools that are being turned around by amazing organizations and succeeding with the exact same students they were failing not too long ago (that example is particularly interesting for anyone who has read Relentless Pursuit, which follows four first year TFAers through their time at that exact failing high school). Yes, it requires ridiculous amounts of time and effort and money, but it is possible. The fact that it is difficult is not an excuse.

There are plenty of kids who have inept parents, or learning disabilities, or who are just plain obnoxious as they go through puberty, but through the happy accident of being born in an affluent school district (or to affluent parents in a poor school district who can afford to send their children elsewhere for their education) they are still able to get a solid education, go to college, and be successful. Why should any of my students not be entitled to the same? Why is the girl who was caught having sex at school when we were in eighth grade together now raking it in as a Wall Street trader, while the girl caught having sex at the school where I work is now a pregnant eighth grader with a minuscule chance of graduating high school? Why is the kid who excelled at football and was a huge jerk to every student and teacher in my high school now in medical school, while the kid who plays basketball and is a huge jerk to everyone at the school where I work has been to juvie twice and is likely to end up in jail? Why did I get to go to MIT and have a world of opportunities opened for me, while Miranda, who is definitely smarter than me, will be lucky if she makes it to community college?

When I started teaching at my school two years ago I spent most of my time being angry at my students for their behavior. But now I spend most of my time being angry at the system that has failed them and the countless adults who have made, and who continue to make, it possible. Kids are kids, they will do what you let them get away with. But adults have no excuse for letting generation after generation of poor kids get completely screwed over by the educational system that is supposed to be their ticket out of poverty. There are a million excuses why it is easy for schools to fail their poor students, but there is no excuse for why we continue to accept it.

I hope if you are someone reading this blog who is not already involved with TFA or education reform in some way, you will consider changing that. Go read Relentless Pursuit, go watch The Lottery, go learn about the truly alarming extent of the achievement gap, and then try to pretend that it is okay to stand by while millions of children have their lives destroyed because they were unlucky enough to be born poor. Everyone has something they can contribute – be it time to mentor an underprivileged student, money to donate to a charter school or other education reform organization, energy to pester your local politicians and advocate for education reform, or even two years to Teach for America. These past two years were the most difficult of my life, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. My experience has put a human face on what is perhaps our nation’s greatest injustice, and now I can’t in good conscience walk away. I hope you can’t either.

Krytofer and a few other heavy hitters had struck out of the trip, and apparently after school yesterday they made a big deal to the other kids about how they were going to skip school today and show up at the park to “crash” field day. We made sure to write down the number for the truancy police before leaving the school, so if any kids who hadn’t shown up to school in the morning were indeed dumb enough to come to the park we could call and report them. Fortunately none of them actually showed up and we had a drama-free day, although I won’t lie and say I wouldn’t have gotten at least a little enjoyment from seeing Krystofer hauled off by the authorities. Especially after he responded to me smiling at him yesterday morning by telling me “don’t fucking smile at me, I’m tired of your face!”

The kids spent pretty much the entire time frolicking and playing and being perfect models of what kids at a park should be. At one point they were even racing each other to roll down a hill, something I remember loving on trips around their age. The sped class came on the trip and brought one student in a wheelchair, and the other kids went out of their way to include him in their games and roll him all over the park (at times a little too quickly due to over-excitement). I like when they get to just be kids, it is a good reminder that most of their behavior/academic issues are due to their difficult circumstances, not to anything inherent about them as people. Too bad we can’t always have school outside while frolicking through fields…

One more day!

The heat is bad enough to be addling the brains of people besides the kids – as I was walking to the subway from work I actually saw, for the first time in my career in the Bronx, two grandmas fighting on the street! Seriously, they were like eighty years old, and they were screaming and slapping just like my seventh graders. There was a whole crowd gathered to watch, mostly just gaping slack-jawed at the utterly bizarre nature of what was in front of them. Even some of my kids were staring, and as I walked by one yelled out “Miss, look at those old ladies! They crazy!” I wanted to point out that that’s exactly how that student looks when she gets in her frequent fights, but I thought it best to hold my tongue and hurry home to my lovely AC.

Two more days!

So after consulting with my PD* and other assorted friends and family, I decided to apply to work on staff at the TFA office in Philadelphia. In March I was elated to find out that I had been hired as the Mid-Atlantic Region (MAR) Program Coordinator – basically the office organizing/scheduling/logistics-ing person, which is perfect for me given my quasi-OCD obsession with being meticulously planned out in all aspects of my life. I told my school administration as soon as I found out so they would have adequate time to find a replacement (and was quite flattered to be told that they want another TFAer for the job!), but have held off making a bigger announcement (or even thinking about it too much myself) because I wanted to make sure that I remained focused on my teaching and on my students for the rest of the year.

Now, with only a few days left in the school year, it seems like a good time to make my plans public, especially since I took a personal day today to go to Philadelphia for the first day of MAR Induction.* I have to say that I was kind of nervous about attending Induction again, given that I was completely overwhelmed and stressed out when I went through it as an incoming CM two years ago. But I am so glad I went, because this time it was awesome! I know this all probably sounds really cheesy, but it was inspiring to meet all of the incoming 2010 CMs and see not only how excited they are about their upcoming mission, but also how well-prepared and committed they are compared to how I was feeling when I was in their shoes. It was also wonderful to meet all the other MAR staff members, most of whom were CMs themselves at some point or another, and learn about all the work they’re doing to close the achievement gap in Philadelphia, Camden, and Wilmington. I even got to meet my fan (yes, I have a fan, because I am such a famous blogger) in person (hi, Ruchi!), and now I can say that the fan-dom is mutual.

It can be easy to get bogged down by the day-to-day stresses of teaching and forget about the big picture of why what TFA does is so important, but after today I feel completely refreshed and re-invested in TFA’s mission. I’m sort of sad that I couldn’t stay and feed on all that excitement and optimism for the rest of Induction week, but NYC schools are still in session until June 28. I’m headed back tonight so I can be at school bright and early tomorrow morning, but I know these last few days will fly by and soon enough I’ll be back in Philadelphia, color-coding and scheduling my way towards closing the achievement gap. I can’t wait to get started!

*Translations for Non-TFAers:
PD – Program Director (basically a mentor for CMs, usually a former successful CM themselves)
Induction – the week before Institute where new CMs get oriented to their new region/indoctrinated to the TFA way of thinking.
Institute – the intense summer training CMs go through before they start teaching in the fall
CM – Corps Member (a current TFA teacher).

You may think that I’m exaggerating when I say that many kids seem to lose their minds at this point in the year, but I’m really not. For example, before leaving on our trip today I still had my regularly scheduled morning program with the first graders. One of them got in trouble for pushing in the hallway before entering the classroom, and decided that the best way to respond was to sit in her cubby pouting and banging on its walls for the entire period. Another girl, who has spontaneously developed a severe case of separation anxiety after having no problem coming to school for the past nine months, refused to enter the classroom at all. She spent the entire morning lying outside the door and making a mournful, yet eerily high-pitched, wailing sound. That, combined with the fact that she is quite large, gave the impression that there was a beached whale in the hallway.

So if that’s what the first graders are doing, you can imagine how the seventh graders are. Hence all the field trips.

Anyway, Toy Story 3 was fantastic, but it was way more emotionally wrenching than any children’s movie has a right to be. I would have been embarrassed about the fact that it made me cry, except all the kids were crying too. After we had somewhat reassembled the pieces of our shattered souls, we spent the rest of the day hanging out in the food court. All of the kids had kept their 3D glasses from the movie, so most of the afternoon was characterized by them running around pointing at things and yelling, “Look, Ms. Rubin! I can see that table in 3D!” I’m not sure they actually know what 3D means.

One week from today will be the first day of summer vacation!

So today I told the kids that we are done using our binders for the year, and they can take them home. I reminded them that the NY state science test they will take at the end of eighth grade includes seventh grade topics that they won’t learn again next year, and so their binders will be a great study resource. And then when I leave the classroom at the end of the day, there are a ton of science binders in the hallway trash can! I wanted to cry.

To be fair, a lot of kids didn’t throw out their binders. And I will be throwing out almost all of their science portfolios at the end of the year (the school makes us keep a portfolio for each kid throughout the year, but then tells us to dispose of them before summer starts because there’s nowhere to store them). Also, it’s not like I still have and treasure my own seventh grade science notes. But still… it would have been nice if they at least had the courtesy to throw them out somewhere I wouldn’t see them!

When I started working at my school, I was shocked at the level of pomp and circumstance surrounding the completion of eighth grade. Not only is there a prom, but there’s an actual graduation (complete with caps, gowns, and stringently rationed tickets that get fought over and sold for high prices on the black market), t-shirts that say “Seniors ’10,” and even class rings (which are not cheap). It was explained to me that “for a lot of these kids, this is the only graduation they’re going to have, so we might as well make it a big deal.”

I cannot overstate how strongly I feel that this is absolute crap. I’m sorry, but graduating eighth grade is nothing. All it means is that you managed to show up to school for nine years (or ten or eleven for some kids), it doesn’t mean that you are at all prepared for any sort of successful life. These kids need a high school diploma at a minimum if they are to have any hope of escaping poverty, and even that is increasingly not enough to guarantee a decent job – and smart people agree with me. If the problem is that most of them don’t graduate high school, then the solution isn’t to pour resources into pretending like graduating eighth grade is an accomplishment, it’s to pour resources into making sure they graduate high school. ARGH.

To end on a less grumpy note, at dismissal today a kid who went on the MIT trip came over to me and asked me what I majored in at MIT. I told him neuroscience, and he ran over to report the information to his mom, who was waiting on the other side of  the school fence. Then he ran back over to me to report her reaction: “Ms. Rubin, my mom says you overqualified.”

Only one week (and one day) left!