Integrity and Corruption

The former, a search, a concept of what we would like to be, an image of ourselves and of others as we could be at our most glorious, our most alive and real, our deepest level of existence, with our actions mirroring the truth of our hearts; an honesty of word and deed, as they say. Corruption, then, is the opposite- the bending and slurring of our lines, boundaries, and our very faith. Perhaps principles are solid...dedication to what is right...but solid conceptions of right and wrong are but another vague remnant of childhood.

("Where is the road to Neverland, like we were promised in Peter Pan, lost boys can't stop or understand the raging storms of men.")

Of these two- integrity and corruption- I say the latter is not less valuable than the former.

When do begin to arrive? (To achieve that of which we dreamed.) At present, integrity is notable only by it's absence, conjured up by the sweet after-taste of memory that corruption leaves in its wake. I think it was C.S. Lewis in "Out of the Silent Planet" who said that a pleasure is only complete when it is remembered. So it seems to be, these days, with integrity. An elusive notion to start, it grows slowly more clear as it deteriorates despite grasping hands. Failure is like rot, and shows you the flaws in your solid notions.

Out of high school, searching as always, I defined the word for myself: "When your hands are cracked and callused, and the rain is dripping from your hair, and you keep going; that's when you know you're there."

I suppose, then, the corruption comes in when you are finally alone and you put your head down and cry. And when you flick off your alarm at 4:00 am and go back to sleep, as though you could hide from the dawn. Corruption, also, of your defenses, as you begin to notice how a slew of strangers has crept into your life and made themselves at home in your heart, despite your tallest strongest walls. Corruption of your dependence, of the ties to friends that keep your afloat, as alone in your house (again) through Delta rain, you discover the pleasure of drowning, the honesty of letting go. Corruption of your pretty face as you resolve to admit your weakness, in hopes of mending it. Corruption of your form and shape, as you collect your shards from the floor, finally aware of the fault-lines, and ready to rebuild your image of yourself and especially the world.

When do we begin to arrive? Apparently, only after we have departed.

For honesty's sake, here's this. God knows I'd rather not have it be known.

There are times and places when you look at your hands, at your heart, and at the work that you have done, and you realize, again, that you are not what you thought you were, or what you would like to be. Call it facing the brutal facts.

We begin believing that we are bright, that we are talented and strong, that we can change ocean tides if we try hard enough.
What shall we do when the ocean teaches us otherwise?

I see in spark and color, and live to find beauty, to get to the truth. Over and over again, I meet people who are professional and official and they are correct, and I stand corrected.

I don’t understand the interface between passion and discretion. I have been taught a lesson over and over that I have yet to learn, and maybe ought to start- people look down upon honesty, passion is ugly and pushes people away.

And then there is the teaching. I feel like tearing apart my classroom, taking it down, bit by bit. Take the posters off the wall, and the projects and models, and the vocabulary words in units on carefully placed pieces of colored construction paper, and the shoe bag full of sets of index cards, and the project graphs, and the desk with two lines of perfect paper stacks, one for each prep, and the baskets and lab books and marble jars and the curve of the desks and the boxes of tissue and the boxes of pencils sharpened after school to save time in class, and the blankets- blankets!- for creative use of space. I want to tear it all down, one piece at a time, and look at the shreds of it, and be satisfied at the honesty in the destruction, and then let someone else come in and do this the right way.

A very experienced woman who works for the state came in and watched as I taught my lesson in terror, and moved through my activities, trying to give the differentiated lesson they were said they were looking for (they ASKED for a show, in essentially those words). She informed me that I had moved on without them (they were answering the questions!- it’s 8:00 in the morning, what kind of response do you expect), and that they were not understanding me. Again, they ASKED for a show. Should I abandon my lesson plan right there in front of her?! They have never heard of transpiration before. Yes, it’s going to take some work. She didn’t like my index cards. She said I should have one set, only, of teacher-produced cards, maybe in the center of the room (WTF?) for them to come look at. She was four feet away from them. She couldn’t even see what my kids were writing on the cards. And she doesn’t even know my subject! Granted, she was probably right about the kids understanding, I was nervous as anything, and I don’t think I made a whole lot of sense. Also, I was teaching biogeochemcial cycles and I could not, for the life of me, figure out a particularly fun way to teach it. Neither could anyone else I asked. The ideas seemed fine, but didn’t sparkle much. I planned in my usual style, with short activities that are alternately student and teacher-centered. She said I should have had the kids present in groups, showing a human’s life cycle move through from a baby back to the ground, for the carbon cycle. How would that have been relevant? First of all, decomposition is only one part of the carbon cycle, and that would have taken the whole period, on one part of one cycle. There are four cycles I need to teach, and this is only one unit. Second of all, the life cycle bit would have been a waste of time, as far as I can see- again, it does not really have much relevance. I had already planned activities where they traced the path of one atom through the cycle in anyway they wanted, including being eaten by an animal (my kids chose big foot and godzilla) and eventually ending up back in the soil. We’d already done an example as a class. She never smiled for real, and it felt, from our first meeting, like she was looking for ways to tear me apart. Well, I did a great job of giving them to her. It was not a perfect lesson- again, I was terrified- but it felt like she ignored everything I did well.
For my structured interview, I came in with roughly 7 pages, single spaced, of answers to her pre-assigned questions (just in case I didn’t have enough other work to do to teach my classes, the portfolio the state demanded, etc.), as I was told I should, and documents to support my answers. As I tend to do, I got excited, and when she interrupted me to ask questions, I expanded, and talked about other lessons and ideas I had used, research I’d read, etc. I even ASKED if that was okay, or if, since I was graded on organization, I should stick to the questions I written, as written. She said it was fine. I left feeling good about the interview. In her evaluation, she said that I interrupted myself too much, and that I had not communicated effectively. If you want my scripted responses, tell me!!!
It seems like they saw none of the work I did, none of things I did right. Even those things they complimented did not really boost my score. It feels like they were looking for a way to mark me down, to humble me, in a sense. Or am I that far off track?
Enough excuses.
Again, I stand corrected.

We believe in the beginning that we are bright, and talented and strong.
What the hell am I doing here, if I can’t even do my job? Why has no one ever told me this before now? I have been evaluated a thousand times. Yes, I was nervous. They TOLD US that they wanted a show. Of course I was nervous.
I can barely breathe at home. It is too quiet, and there is no one to tell you that you are not as bad as you feel, and that you have some redeeming value, and you begin to realize that you are as bad as you feel. And then someone comes into your classroom and tell you that you are even worse that you thought you were.

If I am not doing this job well, then I am lying to everyone, especially those who had so much hope for us when we came here. People I hate to lie to.

The state has seen, in one terrified period (the other evaluator hardly commented, but I was nervous enough then, too), what they needed to see, and decided.

What do we do with the reality that we are not bright and strong and talented, with the reality that no one is interested in your passion, with the reality that your numbers on paper mean everything, that an hour, a moment means everything, that there are very few people who will ever return the love and the loyalty that you feel for them, that you are smaller than you believed, that the color and the spark are all in your head.

And if I can’t do this job well, then what? There is not a single thing that I have ever felt like I’ve done well, and now there is confirmation, and now I am supposed to drag myself and my kids across a finish line that they don’t even care to look for, without the support of an administration whose faith in me has no doubt been destroyed- I’ll be amazed if they even let me keep my Biology I classes.

I feel like I’ve been holding on so tightly, and I dropped everything anyway. I don’t want to see anyone, I don’t want to tell anyone, I don’t even feel like I deserve the support of my friends that is the only thing that gets me through my days and weeks and months- which were getting better, for a while. I was counting the relief of having the state out of my classroom. I was worried only about not scoring a 4.00. Now what?

Next morning notes:

Here’s what. I am going to plan a great next unit, and I am going to teach my classes, as long as they let me, and I’m going to have fun with it, and I am going to give my kids what they need from me- the kids that I have already begun to love-, for as long as I am allowed to, and I am going to ignore the men and woman in expensive suits walking in and out of my classroom. I’m sure they won’t like a single thing they see anyway, so I am going to teach my classes, my way. My kids tell me they’re learning, they tell me if they understood and if they didn’t, and my obligation here is to them, my kids. I do apologize for the bad mark on teacher corps, of which I am not proud. I have said before that I am honored to be part of this group, and I hate to be a weak link. I hate to have someone tell me that I am not even doing a good job at the job that is the only reason we are here to begin with.

I know that this is not such a terrible situation compared to all the possibilities out there, I know that life is not fair, I know that no more is expected of me than any other responsible adult, and I’m sorry for whining.

My administration is great so far this year, my assistant principal has supported me through every situation I’ve encountered, and it feels good to have that support. I respect him. My principal has really taken on a leadership role, listening to his staff and making corrections to the school. Last year, we had two massive gang fights/brawls/riots, resulting in many expulsions and some students jailed, and we had fights nearly every day, sometimes multiple fights per day. This year, we did not have a single fight the first nine weeks, and we have had only one since then. One fight. They’re doing something right.

Like everything else, my relationships with other teachers have improved since last year.
Whereas the other teacher have always been accepting, even warm, like every relationship, we started off a bit cautious of each other, and I was essentially an outsider.
The change probably is mostly due to the change in my relationship with this place as a whole. Though I’m not planning on doing it, I can understand how people spend their whole lives here. While this has never been just a job for any of us- it is really the center of our lives right now- that has become even more true for me this year, as I have begun to truly value the relationships with others at the school.
Again, all this constitutes a shift from last year. While there were certain students who would come to me to talk and certain teachers I felt comfortable with, it was always as much of a stressor as anything else. I had to make sure to say the right thing to the students, and I never really invested much into the relationships with the other teachers.
Maybe it’s because I actually showed up for a second year, but the other teachers have been warmer, even welcoming, and I find myself reciprocating. Again, I can understand the appeal of a small town environment. There are four teachers that I feel particularly close to in my school, not including teacher corps teachers, and I am comfortable with pretty much all of the others. They help me get through the day. It’s nice to feel supported at your school. We give hugs in the morning, talk a little after school, and just generally offer support.
Two final pieces of this equation. One is that I live essentially alone, since my roommate and I interact very little, which has lead me to lean on others at the school more, I think. At least, I don’t feel isolated from them in a separate little group, like the one we had last year. In a way, having a house of five teacher-corps people actually made it harder for us to start fitting in and accepting and loving the culture here.
Second is that state is in our school. I think there’s more than a trace of the uniting against a common enemy thing going on.

On changing teaching style

Of course my teaching style has changed from last year.

A year's experience gives you some indication of what you should be doing, how you should be doing, what you kids need to learn. That being said, it's not really enough to get it all right, and I certainly still flounder trying to get my kids to grasp concepts.
Mainly the difference is in planning. Firstly, I actually write out lesson plans- real ones, not just the ones I threw up last year for my school, for nearly every lesson. Having a decent lesson really requires some coordination, and I find that even if I don't follow the plan exactly, having a plan makes my life easier in the classroom, and frees up my mind for other important stuff. It is not impossible, however, to have a decent lesson without a great plan, I don't think. I can understand how experienced teachers get used to just knowing what works.
The plans I write are different, too. Last year my lessons usually centered on one activity for a whole class, or almost a whole class, and the activities were often teacher-centered. I would go over a worksheet they were supposed to have done, or give notes, or lead a game. This year my lessons tend to be broken down into 5-15 minutes activities, during which students are working and I am monitoring. This seems to keep their attention better, since the responsibility is on them to be working, and since their attention span can be shorter. Of course, in between activities, students will often share, or we'll discuss, if it's appropriate. This also makes transitions cleaner, because it's really obvious when they should happen, so I can even plan roughly what I'm going to say.
For a lesson plan on biogeochemical cycles, for example, student will have a warm-up activity, followed by a teacher-led index card making activity, followed by five minutes to silently study their index cards, followed by a notes-hand out that they read silently for five minutes, followed by a class discussion and teacher-led comments and questioning on the hand-out, followed by a writing activity where students have to draw their or write out their own cycle.
It’s not perfect, and I find myself re-teaching more often than I’d like. It seems to be better, though, and I’m working on it.