His Act of Defense, Made Him More Defenseless

Sorry it's been so long. But alas, one of my freshmen is out sick tomorrow and the other got suspended...so I can plan in the morning-meaning I can blog now.

Like I stated before, I won't even try to fill you in on my life here, rather I'll share one anecdote that highlights the complexity of this environment and these students.

Two weeks ago, one of our own students got expelled for bringing a knife to school. The complexity of the situation comes in the fact that he neither meant to harm anyone at school, nor did he mean to even bring it out at school. You see, the day before one of his friends had gotten jumped on the way home, so being the adolescent that he is, he thought that meant that he should protect himself. That meant that he should bring a knife as a defense mechanism for the potentially treacherous walk home.

Unfortunately, the knife that was supposed to keep him safe, got him kicked out of the safest environment he knows. If you're like me, you're wondering, "Wasn't there another option for the school?" While initially I thought there had to be, the reality is that there wasn't. The problem with gray lines is they get blurrier and blurrier. Then we're saying, it's okay to bring knives to school as long as you don't mean to use them at school. Pretty soon you're playing a game of whether or not you believe the kid when he tells you why he has the weapon.

The question that this situation brings up is how do we as educators protect our kids when they leave our classrooms. High School is a way out of impoverished conditions, but it isn't a survival guide for you when you're in them. We protect our students for 12, sometimes 16 hours a day, but those other 8-12 can do a lot of damage.

Perhaps there's a rationale for boarding schools, for completely removing the children from their dangerous environment, but is that simply leaving the problem for others to deal with, is that the same situation as a charter school taking kids from the public school without actually fixing the public school?

If not through out schools alone, how do we fix these communities? How do we take away our students fear of death and replace it with a thirst for life?

I don't know what school he's at now, nor how he's doing. But I know it's not as good as here. I know it's not as safe as here. And I know that his chances are diminished there. And that really sucks.

Drugs, Sex, & Violence

Often times on the news, or in popular media, you hear about the "inner-city." The place where shootings happen, sex is exploited, and drugs run rampant. Then you get here, and for the first few weeks, at least for me, you think, "This isn't so bad. Maybe there's an 'urban legend' about what living in poverty really looks like."

But very quickly, the bird of optimism gets shot down by the rifle of reality.

In just this past week I have had:

-1 student suspended for coming to school high

-1 student seek me out for guidance in dealing with childhood sexual abuse

-1 student miss our morning appointment because "something came up on the streets and he had to help,"

WHAT?!

14-16 year olds, having to live in conditions that I can neither understand nor relate to, asking questions that I've only ever heard in a theoretical sense.

Suddenly, the urgency of what it is that we are doing here, all came flooding back to me. The education that we are providing is these kid's "golden ticket" out of here.

Willie Wonka took a full movie to get 1 kid successfully through his Chocolate Factory, we are taking four years to get approximately 280 through ours. The process is too slow. Shouldn't we be focusing on making the inner city the "chocolate factory" instead of trying to find one to ship our youth to?

Subsequently, I'm beginning to ask, is MATCH (and other charter schools like it) really doing anything to address the systemic problem of urban environments? My students now have better MCAS scores, but they still take dangerous routes home. We protect them for 8, 10, even 12 hours a day, but the reality is that we can't protect them from all of it. With a goal of college success and beyond, we focus on the future of where the kid is going, rather than the future of where the kid is now. My school recruits students from all over Boston, people who literally travel 1-2 hours each way to get here. It is nearly impossible to build a sense of community outside of the students--to involve parents and organizations, because the logistics in getting here are SO ridiculous. That's one of the downfalls of the charter school model, anyone can apply, anyone can get accepted, and suddenly the demographic of students that the school supports spreads an entire metropolis.

These three instances of drugs, sex, and violence have re-invigorated and re-affirmed my mission toward public schools. We neither have the time, energy, nor resources to make a bunch of chocolate factories. We have got to "start where we are, use what we've got, and do what we can." We have to invest in the public institutions that already exist. There's no sense in re-inventing the wheel, we just need to patch the holes and get a pump.

If He Can Come, Shouldn't I?

Today one of my favorite students asked,

"So we meeting at four again tomorrow?"

Unfortunately, he was not talking about after school. Instead he was talking about 4A.M. a time of day I knew existed only by others mention of it.

Thankfully he had his times mixed up and what he really meant to say was, "Should I get up tomorrow @ 4 so I can meet you here at school at 6?"

While 6 is definitely CLOSER to a time I regularly experience, I haven't been a morning person since my last years in high school. And here I was, being asked whether for the fourth day in a row, I was going to meet my struggling student (who also came in for 5 hours of help on Sunday).

I don't think it's possible to say no in a situation like this. To hear a high school sophomore volunteer to get up at four in the morning, knowing that he's not going to get home until eight at night? To hear him so concerned with his academic progress to recognize how much additional support he needs? To hear him willing to come listen to my beautiful voice, 2.5 hours more than he actually has to?

Is there a point where I can honestly look him in the eyes and say, "No, sorry I can't be there?" The fact is that he doesn't have a home environment conducive to learning, he needs one-on-one support to work through the material, and he can't work in the school without a tutor.

So what questions does this situation lend itself to:

1) Should a line be drawn which I will not cross in terms of time I sacrifice for students? Especially willing ones?

2) By not having him find other strategies and places to be productive am I holding his hand too tightly in order to prepare him for success in "college and beyond?"

3) Is it narcissistic for me to like the fact that I work four hours a day, and to not try to find other strategies that would allow me to devote time elsewhere?

For now it's easy. I do have the manpower, time, strength, and energy to keep having these 6AM mornings. But what happens when I'm a teacher. What happens when my case load goes from 12 students to 120. What then? Am I preparing myself to think that I can save the world "one child at a time" when in actuality there will be so many more balls to juggle next year? That there won't be enough hours in the day to save "one child at a time."

For now, all I know is this. When I have a student passionate enough to get up at 4AM to come to school I have to support that. I have to be there, with a smile beaming brightly to let him know how proud he should be of himself. Perhaps it's not sustainable, perhaps it's a bit unorthodox, but isn't love usually that way?

Welcome Back, Mitch!

Wowzers! It sure has been awhile, sorry for all of you avid readers who thought I was eaten by a dog, chewed up by a student, or defenestrated by an angry administrator. Rest assured that none of those are the case, I am alive and well!

Rather than attempt to update you on the craziness that has been my life these past two months, I've decided to simply over blurbs/ideas/comments on random education/life related subjects, and hope that between them you'll be able to put together the pieces of what I am doing and how that's effecting how I am.

So get excited! I promise to never leave you for this long again.

Waiting (Impatiently) for "Superman"

Today 40+ MATCH staff, relatives, and friends came together at the Coolidge Corner Theater to watch "Waiting for 'Superman,'" a new documentary about the American Education System.

The movie follows five individual students and their families. Each one of the families finds themselves in a failing school district, and the only way out is by luck--to be drawn from a hat (literally) at a Charter School Drawing.

SPOILER ALERT:
In the end, only 1 of the 5 students make it into a charter school. You watch as the rest simply weep, knowing that in a way a little hope died that day. One way out was closed, without a nother obvious one opening.

First I'd like to share some statistics that the movie shared as well as some personal reflections of my own.

1) It cost us $33,000 a year to support a prisoner. It cost $8,300 a year for tuition to a private school. Recognizing that a lack of good education is part of the background of many prisoners, think about how much money could be saved and how much our society could prosper if we just put in more money earlier. If we tried to find a solution as opposed to just addressing the problem.

2) 1 in 57 doctors lose their liscense, 1 in 97 lawyers lose their ability to practice law, but only 1 in 2500 teachers loses their teaching credentials. Why are we not afraid to get rid of bad doctors and lawyers, but for some reason keep bad teachers?

The major premise behind the film was that Charter Schools work, they prove that urban and rural youth aren't destined for failure. That being college-bound isn't connected to being affluent. That school's like KIPP schools throughout the country are showing higher college acceptance and graduation rates than numerous other schools. But while the schools work, they are leaving thousands of kids behind.

In one of the particular cases, the mom went alone to the Charter School lottery drawing. She went alone because she didn't want her son to have to see the light of his future dim that day. She wanted time to collect her thoughts, to figure out how to make it in a school that was failing her son.

Another mother paid $500 a year to keep her child in parochial school. But then the payments became too much, and the charter school was the only other option besides failure...but it didn't work out.

How can we condemn our children? How can we sit back and realize that a bingo wheel is deciding who's going to get a better chance at success? Who's going to be put in an institution that works for them as opposed to working for special interest?

Unfortunately we don't have time to wait for Superman. While the unemployment rate is staggering, high-tech industries can't find enough skilled labor--and are having to look over seas. Superman's not coming. Which means the weight of the world fails on our shoulders.

What I struggled most with this film was how it highlighted that I'm not necessarily where I should be to make a change. I'm sitting in a charter school that's already proven that it works. I'm sitting in a charter school working with the lucky ones. And there were thousands of other applicants who could be taking my spot right now, plugging and playing into this school and seeing similar gains to what I am accomplishing. To be part of the solution would be to go into the failing schools, to help an institution that doesn't know what success feels like, that can't contemplate celebrating standardized test scores. Right now we at MATCH are all part of someone else's solution, but we're not solving much right now.

I know that none of us are Superman, nor will any of us take down teacher unions all by ourselves-but sometimes you just got to put on the cape and take a leap and hope you find the ability to fly. This institution just isn't the cape we need to wear right now.

Reaching Critical Mass

Before I begin what I came to say, let me offer a little caveat. As you likely know, the distance between the last post and this one is quite significant. In that time a lot of things have happened. Rather than attempt to give you the Reader's Digest Version of Everything, my goal is to provide shorter National Geographic, that highlight particular events, that while may be in my distant past, deserve reflection nonetheless. So if you're perusing this blog for a general life update, call me. Because you won't find it here.

This is whatever's left over. It's just the Spare Change :-)

Now onto the topic at hand:

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be part of a social movement, to literally be swept up in a sea of excitement and people? I always wondered. Up until this week the closest I've come to being a part of a movement is either in being a part of a movement in a remote way (i.e. a global movement that really has no physical ties) or watching a movement take place (i.e. watching athletes bear the Olympic Torch on their way through the crowded streets of Vietnam).

But this week, I was smack dab in the middle of it. In the middle of an entire mass of people. A parade if you will. But it wasn't your traditional parade:

1) Everyone was on bikes, or at the very least wheeled contraptions (there were a couple of roller skaters who apparently didn't get the memo)

2) The streets weren't blocked off for us, we blocked them ourselves.

For nearly an hour I joined 300+ bicyclists as we road around Boston @ 6:00pm on a Friday evening. We would stop at a light, and then as soon as it turned green we as a mass would move--taking up every lane.

What about the cars you ask?

O they were there. But the "long-time" critical mass-ers simply stood directly in front of them. Smiling at the clearly pissed drivers. The cars were given two options, sit or hit a bicyclist, who has a legal right to be on the road.

It was like the human version of Moses and the red sea. Just instead of God moving the waters to the side, it was cyclists, who kept the cars at bay while we walked safely through. (I don't really know if an army of Pharaoh-like soldiers were behind us...but it is a possibility).

In that moment, riding with 300 people I felt both so alive and so minuscule. I knew that if I left the pack, no one would notice. In a school of fish, one or two fish get left behind all the time--that's the nature of the school. However, being caught up in the middle of it is like you are part of a greater whole-a working part flexing society's muscle. Even the cops supported the ride, when we went by one he was simply sitting on the trunk of his car with his camera.

Critical mass happens the last Friday of every month in cities all over the world. While theoretically it's supposed to raise awareness about bicyclists, and encourage the use of bicycles as a means of transportation in especially urban environments, this goal is only minimally accomplished. People walking on the street would shout, "Why are you riding?" The only two responses I ever heard were "Because it's Friday!" and "Critical Mass." Which both resulted in the questioner moving from a face of inquiry to a face of perplexion. There was so much wasted potential in that moment-a time to tell the inquirers what we were doing, why were doing it. But that never crossed anyone else's mind, at least enough to do it. Instead the social movement dropped the adjective and was simply the movement of people. People were there not for a particular cause, but because it was Friday. We had the opportunity to not only be noticed, but to be heard too, and yet we blew it. What if 300 people took over the streets of Boston not just because they could, but for a larger transparent purpose? What if at the dinner table Dad doesn't ask, "Did you see that group of bikers today?" But instead he says, "Did you see that group of bikers supporting environmental awareness, campaigning against green house emissions?"

We as individuals have the capacity to change the world, especially in large groups. Single bikers pass through Boston all day every day, people don't often take notice. But have him bring his 300 friends, and they will. But those groups can only bring about social change if they decide before they are riding what they're ALL riding for.

My New Life in Boston

Sorry it’s been so long! After arriving in Boston, I didn’t have any opportunities to take bike breaks to write blogs. Instead it’s been training, training, and more training. I’ll try and catch you all up as briskly and succinctly as possible through numerous FAQ:

What’s it like to live in a high school?!

Well it definitely has its ups and downs. First and foremost, I have the capacity and the resources to recreate the scene from the Breakfast Club every morning. Secondly, you know how in high school you always just wanted to wander the abandoned halls, sliding on the floor in your socks. Yep, done that, and it’s just as cool as you think it would be. Thirdly, when I’m running late, or decide I need those extra precious moments of sleep, I’m only a flight of stairs away from work. At the same time, being in the same building for 18 hour spans of time is enough to drive a man INSANE! When we do get outside, it’s a reoccurring sense of freedom and relief—which I suppose is a positive in and of itself.

Is that a Titanic-esque stair case that you get to climb EVERY DAY?

Heck Yes.

What the heck are you actually doing?

Part of the training this week has been to figure out what our particular tasks are. Here’s a rundown of what a normal day looks like:

07:45 Get Ready/Help Serve Breakfast
08:30 Tutor two freshman for two hours in English and Algebra
10:30 Break Time
11:30 Lunch
12:00 Tutor four sophomores for two hours in English/History and Geometry/Algebra II
2:00 Break Time
3:00 Individually lead an Independent Reading Group (Where I facilitate the reading development of a group of similar skilled gentlemen. I even get my own gradebook :-)
4:00 Co-supervise a behavioral/academic intervention for struggling youth for two hours

Other than that, Fridays and Saturdays I have 16 hours of class on learning how to be a teacher, and two days a week I spend tutoring 4th grade math at a local elementary school, instead of tutoring sophomores here. Additionally, I am the “Student Activities Administrative Assistant.” As soon as I figure out exactly what that means, I’ll be sure to fill you in.

What type of school is it?

It is a “No-Excuses” Public Charter High School—meaning that the kids that go here were randomly selected via a lottery system. The school's motto is: Courage, Discipline, Perseverance. Most of our funding does come from the state, though we have some private donors as well. The No-Excuses portion describes the way in which we do things. There is NO EXCUSE for why a student would fail in this environment. The academic and behavioral rigor are written in such a way that for those who stick it out, failure is not an option. This creates a very black and white code of conduct.

• If you arrive to school out of dress code, you’re sent home to change.
• If you are not sitting in your chair working silently when the bell rings, you are tardy.
• If you are being inattentive/not focused/not professional you can receive a demerit.
• If you are seen with a cell phone, the cell phone is taken and held by the school for a week.
• If you receive three demerits in a day you receive detention.
• Detention is simply sitting and staring at a wall. (They found the traditional homework detention to not be an effective deterrent.)
• If you don’t receive above a 70% in a class, you fail that class. If you fail two classes you have to repeat the year.

While these rules may likely seem harsh and strict, which they did at first to me, when one thinks about them more deeply, they begin to make a lot of sense. Many of these kids already have a lot of odds stacked against them: behind grade level in reading and math, socioeconomic conditions, poor neighborhoods, etc. We have to make sure that this environment and this place is AS CONDUSIVE to learning as possible. Seeing the gray in a black and white situation is too big of a risk to take. Charter schools receive enough of a bad rap at times, that we have to make sure that at the very least we have gains to prove the success of our methodology.

So what happens after you’re done in Boston?

Well my last month in Boston will be next July, where I will have my own class of Summer School. 20 minds all to myself :-). After that I’m committed to two years at any at-risk school in the country. They encourage us to go to Charter Schools because the methods they teach are most applicable there. But as of now there is little chance that that’s the direction I’m headed in. My sentiment is that we don’t have enough time nor resources, to get all of our children into charter schools. We have to fix public schools, and if all the good teachers run to charters, that change is only slowed. I believe in the No-Excuses approach, but I also believe that it needs to be fostered in the public schools that need it the most. (Can you tell I’ve had a lot of educational policy conversations here :-)

What’s it like living in a community with 41 other high-achievers who are all here to make a difference?

So far it’s good. It’s only the second week, so everyone still has their friendly faces on. Most of the staff here are really easy to talk to and get along with. It’s great because all of us have different kids and different tasks, so we’re not constantly comparing ourselves with one another. It’s easy to each blaze our own trail and celebrate each other’s success. Having said that, the kitchen has already turned into a sty and that’s likely to be a hot-button issue of contention.

What other highlights have you had from your first weeks there?

I’ve already sang Karaoke to “Summer Nights” twice at a local bar. I have crashed my bike once in the rain. I have created a second “Big Desk” out of a cardboard box and subsequently added shelves above and a pantry below. I have played basketball with a bunch of the other tutors and did well enough to trick them into thinking I had some basketball ability. A friend shared her extra sheets so I’m no longer sleeping on a sticky mattress with a sleeping bag. Since I have to cook for myself, I’ve decided to cook in mass quantities. Today I made nearly 4 dozen pancakes and 3 lbs. of chicken for consumption over the week. Last week I accidently added way to much milk to my pancakes…so I ended up making a cake. I drink about a gallon of milk a day, my next door neighbor is convinced I have a problem. The Goodwill people are starting to recognize me simply because of the numerous times I have been there. We live right next to the Charles River which has a gorgeous bike path. We had the opportunity to do a scavenger hunt in one of the impoverished communities where some of our students come from. It was in this place that we met a crazy nun who talked AT us for at least 10 minutes about the state of the world and what’s leading to its demise. Greatest nun ever. We’ve had “Teacher Face” showdowns in which you go head-to-head with someone and each put on your best teacher face, first one to crack loses. We had a Name Test in which each of the 227 students in the school’s faces were flashed on a screen and we had to write their names, spelling counted. 90% was considered passing. I passed. Thank God. (And in order to pass, I had to creepily walk around Boston carrying children’s faces in my pockets….). I'm applying for food stamps. I've already earned the title of creeper by trying to start secret handshakes that involve ear stroking.

WOW MITCH! This sounds AWESOME! What’s next?

Well I get my children on Wednesday. So I’ll finally get to put all my teaching strategies to work. I’ll be sure to let you know all about my wonderful buckets of knowledge. This weekend the parents are coming in, since they weren’t able to drop me off. So I’m sure they’ll be more good stories soon :-) Hope all is well wherever you are in the world! If you’d ever like to discuss educational policy or the school that I’m working at, just send me an e-mail @ zoelmi01@luther.edu. I’m sort of kind of addicted to it.

If I wanted to send you a cake, to what address would I send it?

You would send it to: MATCH Charter School, 1001 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215