the end of an era

mtc has just ended. the school year will end soon. when the dust settles, i'll hopefully have time to recollect on whatever it was i went through these two years, and i hope to use this blog as a forum.

in our end of program portfolio, we were asked to write a self-evaluation. i had been thinking recently in the effects upon my person for being complicit in the decrepitute and inefficiencies of public education - even though i've worked endlessly to carve out a space of love and empowerment for my children (a space i worry will be consumed immediately upon my departure). in any case, i'll put the self-eval text here. if anyone who reads this is interested in the rest of the portfolio, here's the link: http://wik-ed.org/dmolina

Self-Evaluation

Coming straight from an undergraduate institution and entering the classroom as a teacher, one can’t help from growing professionally, even when the idea of teaching as a “profession” (let alone a “vocation”) is something you tried to avoid at all costs. Of course, this is like asserting that on can’t help from growing French-ally when stuck in France for a couple years. I’m not sure I’ve tried to be professional much at all during my two years at Jim Hill - mostly because the assertion of professionalism by many of my colleagues seemed to be the analogue of my students claiming - in their most infantile of moments - that they were “grown.” My main concern - and perhaps the adjustments I’ve had to take to stick fast to it are those moments in which I’ve matured most as a teacher - has been to have a clear sense of how I’m going to get a group of students from the point A of wherever they are when they come in the room to the point B of where I want them to be. Honestly, nothing else really matters: bell schedules, attendance, morning duty, arrival times, lesson plans, faculty meetings, etc - all are easily cast aside by the fact that I want to be focused intensely on my students at all times. Perhaps, then - this is the professionalism I most value: a steadfast notion of what you need to do to get the job done, and what you can avoid because it’s got nothing to do with the bottom line. Staying after school every day because a senior has missed a couple weeks of class due to the abuses her child has suffered at its former day care facility: yes. Going to some office downtown so I can replace an ID I lost sometime in my first year: no. Coming on a Saturday to proctor a mock SAT or chaperone kids at a Civil Rights conference: yes. Making sure I roll by the front office by 7:45 AM so I can sign in on time: no. The irony is that the areas of growth I’ve clung most to are precisely the ones that put the most risk on my employee status: I shouldn’t give my students rides home after a meeting, even though everyone at home needs a car to work a double shift at god knows what, but I should have a lesson plan visible on my desk at all times even if my main mode of teaching involves me sitting behind that desk barking at kids to perform endless rote mathematical operations they have little investment in.

The most nagging legacy of my involvement in the public school system these past two years is most definitely the fact that I have compromised my soul in doing so. I am not speaking figuratively in this regard: the amount of complicity to human rights violations and abuses to our nation’s children that I’ve had to do just to fill my term of duty (not just yearly, but daily) is damning in its effect. The crossroads I face as a consequence are thus: either ignore this complicity and move on, submitting to an irreducible stain, or spend the rest of my life trying to understand - and thus justify - my circumstances of compromise. I am in this regard wedded to the legacy of public education - for its sins have been my own these past two years. Despite the hours and hours I’ve poured into maintaining respect for social justice, educational opportunity, and personal empowerment in my classroom, not a day goes by where I do not fail - where I am to tired too put my foot down, where I am too fatigued to be fair, where I am too ignorant to preempt a rash reaction to one of the many corrupting decisions I have to make. Just this past week I hid in my room during state testing because I was erroneously left off of the proctoring schedule - either for a test or for the students who decided to come to school and sit in the same classroom for four hours. Ironically, I spent most of that time in the corner of an unlit room working on this portfolio. I can hardly enumerate the amount of students I’ve socially promoted (through conscious decision or neglect), the amount of assignments I’ve failed to grade fairly or pass back, the casual lies I’ve told children to stop their persistent questioning, the control I’ve exerted over a population I’ve only wanted to empower with choice. It has proven impossible to remain consistent, unimaginable to stand firm.

Adjusting within harrowing failure - of both myself and those around me - has been my greatest professional achievement. Being able to get out of bed knowing that I’m going to escort 18-year-olds to the cafeteria has been a remarkable task. Learning how to choose when not to care anymore - despite the aforementioned compromise that may result - has been what has allowed me to be so convincing in the moments I’ve dedicated myself to - particularly the moment of academic inquiry, and creative growth. There is no circumstance that will allow me to degrade the fundamental kernel of academic freedom, and gradually reconciling myself with the effects upon this of the draconian behavioral restraints upon my students has been what has reserved my faith in the educational promise, despite my profound and healthy agnosticism regarding the whole ordeal.

Lastly, to speak of influences, I can do little other than point to Jacob Roth. Odd couple though we are, not a day goes by that I do not remind myself that we could not have done a damn thing (or at least I could not have done a damn thing) at Jim Hill without the support we’ve provided each other these two years. It’s not a complex relationship: when I’m slacking, he tells me to get my head out of my ass. When he’s slacking, I do the same. When one of us thinks we’re juggling too many balls in the air, the other either throws one in the mix for good measure, or steps in if the other clearly needs to be carried. I can safely say that I’ve never worked with another human being in such a personal and collaborative context, and I can only ascribe the illusion that I’ve grown so much as a teacher these past two years to the fact that we’ve pretty much grown together. Of course, I can hardly make this paragraph feel any more sappy, but I’m profoundly grateful to have not been alone in adjusting to the conditions at Jim Hill, and can foresee some awkward moments next year when I’m working in MS without Jake, and lack the proximity of so valid a sounding-board.