Below is a snippet of my personal experience as a first-year teacher in Tohatchi, NM with Teach for America. It was originally written to be presented to prospective college seniors/grads. But it's also something to keep me going after those not-so-inspiring days.
I knew when I signed up to be a Special Education teacher, things were going to be rough. I just had no idea how rough it would be. I eagerly assessed all of my seventh and eighth graders the first week of school, only to realize that almost everyone was between a kindergarten and third grade level in math. Some students with more severe disabilities still had trouble counting on their fingers. We had our work cut out.
I decided to organize the students by their disabilities and their math grade levels to determine what and how they would learn. Some students worked on adding while others started multiplication. For the first time in their lives, everyone had homework every single night. This was unheard of and trust me, they rallied against it. At the start of every class, everyone does three word problems for the day. After that, they study their addition or multiplication flashcards and every single day we did a Mad Minutes exercise in which we did as many problems of addition or multiplication as they could in five minutes. Soon, the arguments and complaints quelled. These basic math skills became a routine and after a month and a half, they became the foundations for us to move on to higher level math skills. Everyone—including my students with mental retardation memorized their basic addition and subtraction facts. We were on our way to making gains.
And then Elroy came. The first quarter was almost over when the eighth grader swaggered in. He had been out of school for the entire past year and could only read at the pre-kindergarten level. And he most definitely did not know his multiplication tables. I tried to get Elroy quickly accustomed to our math routines, but within a week he was suspended for getting in a fight. A week after returning, he was caught in another fight. When he wasn’t suspended, he often skipped my class. Phone calls home and parent conferences didn’t seem to help, but I had to keep trying.
When I was able to catch him for math class, I would often sit down with Elroy and just chat. He wasn’t much of a talker, but he seemed to enjoy the extra attention. We made multiplication flashcards together and I would sit next to him and practice first his 1’s tables. Next came his 2’s. And then his 3’s tables. The first time Elroy memorized his 3’s tables on his own, I danced and hurrahed until he thought I was nuts. He put on a tough-guy scowl and just said it was too easy for him. But I wouldn’t let him go that easily—I made such a big deal about his amazing memory and ability to soak up the math, he couldn’t help but smile. And then he moved on to his 4’s tables.
When I gave my students a mid-year assessment in December, almost everyone improved by at least one grade level in math—even Elroy who missed almost an entire quarter of school. From the moment he realized he really had the ability to learn math, I never had to chase him down for class. The only problem we came across was his missing multiplication flashcards—he would often sneak his flashcards home to practice at night and then forget to return them in the morning.
Each of the 12,000 Teach for America teachers has their own story of how they have inspired their students and how their students have inspired them. I focus my story on Elroy because his experience illustrates the types of challenges and joys you’ll face as a corps member. It’s also important to remember that our mission in Teach for America is to ensure all of our students attain significant academic gains, because that’s what is needed to realize our dream of an excellent education for all children.
I was trying to find a DC restaurant that apparently no longer exists, and somehow I google'd my way to your blog.
I read a few posts and felt compelled to comment -- I think what you're doing is extremely admirable. I'm sure that when you write there's a small part of your brain that hopes that there's someone out there that notices. Well, consider yourself noticed.
Posted by: marbotty | January 11, 2006 at 05:25 PM
What an inspiring story about Elroy! Small victories like that keep you going a long time. I remember when my mom took me to the special ed classes she taught, and saw just how hard it was for her. But she persevered, and made small gains.
Attached below is an appreciation I just wrote for a friend to give you some perspective on how small gains all ad up.
Happy 2006!
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Remembering Chris Iijima
In his twenties he sang "Free the Land" from concert stages. In his fifties he wrote law review articles that protested the theft of Hawaiian ancestral lands. In between, Chris Kando Iijima married, raised two sons, and worked as a teacher, lawyer, bartender, community organizer, and law professor. By the time he died on December 31 after a long illness, Iijima had fulfilled a promise he had made to himself in a song he had recorded in 1973: don't forget to live before you die.
Hollywood could have made a movie about Chris's life, but it might have seemed too unbelievable. And, given the revolutionary nature of his politics, the content might not have been too comfortable for the corporate executives who control most of our viewing habits these days.
Chris's youth was shaped by an event before his birth, the unjust imprisonment of his family and other Japanese Americans during World War II. Chris's father, Tak Iijima, fought in the famous 442 nd Regimental Combat Team, the all-Nisei unit that took exceedingly heavy casualties in Europe to prove their loyalty to America. Yet the irony of his dad's fighting for a freedom not enjoyed by his own family was not lost on Chris, who grew up knowing Bill Kochiyama, Tooru Kanazawa, and the other 442 nd vets who gathered monthly for years at the Yodo Restaurant in midtown Manhattan.
When he entered Columbia University in 1965 on what could have been a ticket to professional respectability, Chris was already skeptical about America's unfulfilled promises to its minorities. His mother Kazu, whose 1986 interview in Amerasia Journal was entitled "Always A Rebel," had been a progressive activist her whole life. Chris and his sister Lynne had grown up watching their mom use her considerable skills as a writer and organizer on behalf of many progressive candidates and causes. He shared her view that fundamental changes were needed in American society before workers and minorities could find justice.
Columbia in the late 1960s also was the scene of strong anti-Vietnam War protests and some of the strongest East Coast stirrings of the nascent Asian American movement. Chris found his voice as a pamphleteer, organizer, speaker, and visionary for both movements, while also developing his gifts as a poet, songwriter, guitar player and singer.
With a love of music that came from a dad who was a classically-trained musician and church choirmaster, Chris wrote songs that, even today, are good enough for Broadway or the Top 40. Listen to the toe-tapping "Dust Don't Fly Away" on his 1982 "Back-to-Back" album or "Free the Land" on the landmark 1973 "Grain of Sand" album (http://www.bindurecords.com/music/grainofsand/). His husky voice, charismatic stage presence, and funky picking skills virtually jump out of the speakers.
Then listen to the lyrics: "Hold the banner high, Warriors of the Rainbow!" "There is no better time, to put yourself on the line."
Or the Spanish language lyrics that he made sure to include on each album: "Hablamos la misma lengua, porque luchamos por las mismas cosas" (We speak the same language, because we are fighting for the same things).
Chris, Joann Nobuko Miyamoto, and "Charlie" Chin toured the country and campuses in the early 1970s, singing songs and expressing an Asian American identity that was, to use Chris's own words, "originally meant to be a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It was as much a mechanism to identify with one another as [it was] to identify with the struggles of others, whether African Americans or Asians overseas. It was less a marker of what one was and more a marker of what one believed."
In 1973, the trio entered a recording studio and cut "A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America." This album, which is recognized as a classic of American folk culture and sold in the gift shop of the Smithsonian Institution, was more than just grooves on a piece of vinyl. From Boston to Chicago to San Francisco to Honolulu, Asian-derived people who had been classified in the Census as "Other" suddenly realized that they had an identity, a history, and a place at the table.
Just as African American voting rights activists used "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" and "We Shall Overcome" as anthems of protest, Asian Americans used songs such as "Something About Me Today" and "Yellow Pearl" as the sound track for the political and personal awakenings taking place in their lives.
Like Gandhi, who said that we should be the change we want to see in the world, Chris spent several years teaching at the Manhattan Country School, where school-age children learn the skills, insights, and convictions to make the world around them a better place. Then, while singing at one of the early Law Day events hosted by the nascent National Asian Pacific American Law Student Association in the early 1980s, Chris realized that another career could help him to change the world while using the sharp analysis and debating skills he had exhibited since his youth.
He enrolled at New York Law School, and did so well that he was invited to join the legal profession. He rose rapidly, becoming a judicial clerk, a lawyer, and then a law professor. At the time of his death, he was not only a law professor at the University of Hawaii, but also head of its pre-admission program. Given his sharp mind, warm heart and strong communication skills, it is no wonder that he was selected by the students and faculty as Outstanding Professor of the 1999-2000 Year.
A tough but fair taskmaster, his approach to teaching required from his students the same things he demanded of himself: analytic precision, personal integrity and professionalism. "Competence without compassion will negatively affect critical lawyering decisions," he said. "And compassion without competence will negatively affect how an attorney serves the interest of his or her client."
As a scholar, Chris used his briefs and law review articles to address the same issues he had addressed with his guitar and microphone years earlier. "Race as Resistance," "Swimming from the Island of the Colorblind: Deserting an Ill-conceived Constitutional Metaphor," and "Shooting Justice Jackson's 'Loaded Weapon’ at Ysar Hamdi: Judicial Abdication at the Convergence of Korematsu and McCarthy" are the titles of just three of his cries for a society where justice prevails.
One of the most compelling songs co-written by Chris on the Grain of Sand album is the "Foolish Old Man Who Removed Mountains." It is based on a Chinese fable about a man who decides to move the two mountains that block the sunlight from reaching his house. Each day he carries buckets of dirt, while his neighbors laugh, saying there is no way that one small man can remove such huge mountains. He replies, "When I die, my children will dig after me. And when they die, their children will carry on. With every shovel full, the mountains become lower. Why can’t we remove them?"
Like that old man, Chris spent his life removing the "mountains" of racism, sexism and greed. While he did not live to see his task completed, his example inspires the rest of us to carry on.
Posted by: Phil Nash | January 13, 2006 at 11:36 AM
Once again you are awesome. Like the random google wanderer above, I very much admire you. Not just for what you're doing and enduring, but your amazing ability to stubbornly make a difference. You rock! This is the Jessica that has always amazed me and perhaps is where we truly connect, Making a difference.
And ice cream. :o)
Have you seen the movie "To Sir, With Love"? B/c come Monday, I'm going to send you a copy of it.
Love and well wishes, Jeff
Posted by: Jeff | January 14, 2006 at 10:27 PM