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| Ropes Course with Students |
My mother-in-law used to tell people, "They like to help people." It was such a sweet way for her to explain what Phil and I did. I taught and he doctored.
All but one of our academic and career advisors in Boston advised against the move. "Go in a few years," they suggested. Wait and see.
We moved to New Orleans.
Don't worry. We weren't naive. Phil is a local: born at Lakeside Hospital, grew up in Broadmoor, and went to Newman for 13 years. We just graduated from Harvard, for God's sake. We recognized our privilege and read all about institutionalized racism. Education and good heath could fix all that. We were brave, we had a minivan, and in our move from Jamaica Plain to New Orleans tripled the square footage of our home.
I just knew I knew all about post-Katrina New Orleans: I followed the media coverage obsessively (before the storm the students had to carry their own toilet paper to school!), wrote papers about Katrina for school (thesis: the teachers need a voice, a union!), and I had visited two(!) times since the storm. We were ready.
The Times-Picayune even called and interviewed me for an article about people under thirty who were relocating to New Orleans. When they realized I was thrity-one, they wished me well. This was promising. But it wasn't about the glory and accomplishments anyway.
In August of 2006, I started a job at Lusher Charter High School. Lusher is a nearly one-hundred-year-old public elementary school, the first in New Orleans to peacefully integrate. It added a middle school in 1990. The school was diverse racially and social-economically. Kids tested to get in. The weekend of the Katrina evacuation the school submitted an application to become a charter and add a high school. Sumner would be in second grade at the Little Lusher campus and Ramona would join kindergarten the year after. I was building something for them.
My initial to-do lists were all facilities related. Lusher was moving into the former "failing" Fortier High School. We needed desks, clocks, keys for the intercoms, and phones and internet in the building. Items were procured. People were happy to be working together, downright energetic. The mood was hopeful.
Later that semester, I met with every student who was in danger of failing a class. A third of the students were in that boat. We were tasked with making a plan to turn around their performance. Student after student sat down with me and explained their living situation; it was hard to study when your whole family was in a tiny FEMA trailer or living only in the upstairs rooms of a house with another family. Action plans that named flashcards and tutoring as next steps seemed a little silly.
I loved working with teachers and students. I loved everything from making vocabulary powerpoints to remediating reading skills to discussing Flannery O'Conner to reading freshmen literary analysis. I even enjoyed the Homecoming Dance and taking student leaders to city-wide leadership council meetings and the odd kids who ate lunch in a corner of my room.
At some point during these first few years in New Orleans, a writer came to visit us at our house. He asked us a lot about what were had done before moving to New Orleans and what we were doing then. He was excited about our potential, but left us with a reminder that it was just that. We had capital. What were we going to change with it? But it wasn't about the glory and accomplishments anyway.
After two years at Lusher, I moved three-quarters of a mile down Freret Street, to an open-enrollment charter, Samuel J. Green. I realized at Lusher that I tried to solve problems too soon with things that I had seen work elsewhere. While my ideas were not invalid, I needed to listen and learn. At Green the pace of work quickened as our students were in more desperate circumstances. We were data-driven and constant, collegial feedback was the norm. Over the summer, we became a tight team.
My first year at Green, I was a mess. It was as bad as my first year teaching even though it was my eighth. Class time was spent just trying to gain their attention. Yelling and making my persona really big no longer worked. I developed strong individual relationships with most of my students, but when class started, varying degrees of chaos ensued. Nearly every day erasers were thrown and students were sent to the TOC (Time Out Center), but when I read aloud to them, the class was silent, rapt.
I was the head of the literacy team at Green. When we tested our eighth grade students at the beginning of the year over half were reading at a fourth grade level. My highest reading group read at a sixth grade level. In the reading world, two years behind is usual considered dire. In this case, those students were my stars.
My second year at Green, I became more skilled. My classroom management was acceptable. The students knew me and we could get more done.
That year I went to a Fountas and Pinnell Literacy conference with several of my colleagues. Quite by accident, my partner at the lower school and I ended up in a shuttle with Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, the creators of the program. These two are highly respected and well-regarded in education. We found a opening to talk shop and described our situation to these women, hoping for a silver bullet. These women just kind of looked at us; it was as if they had never heard of such deficits and they certainly gave us no solutions.
The students toiled, I toiled, and our team did the best we possibly could. I tried hard to listen, follow the lead of my bosses, and yet share what I believed works for kids. Test results were not epic, but they were respectable. That was supposed to be our accomplishment. It wasn't about the glory.
And then I got tired. My kids were tired. Ramona once asked, "Aren't doctors supposed to work more than teachers?" Phil, my mother-in-law, a series of beloved babysitters, and I juggled the kids. Phil and I rushed home and through dinner. He fell asleep on each page of night-time reading and I would zip through it like I was on speed. Around nine, we settled into our laptops and worked until midnight.
So, I decided to take a break from work, be with my family, have another baby (I know, is that really a break?). I just knew I would go back into teaching; I love the classroom and my students. I know a lot about literacy too.
But then, I began to have lots of troubling questions. The questions were always there, but they grew louder. What if schools are perpetuating institutional racism instead of dismantling it? Can schools and sheer perseverance and hard work overcome poverty? What if all my time, drive, potential, and privilege were mis-invested? And what can I do about it now? Work with young mothers? Move into early, early education? Teach sex ed? Post recipes for other hippy-wanna-bes who order the local "box" from Hollygrove Market?
Well, I can take a break, regroup, dabble in writing. Most of my former students are not so lucky.
A lot has changed in New Orleans since 2006. There are more yoga studios, Subarus, and most businesses now update their websites regularly. Brutal statistics about poverty also keep getting updated. More children and their families are living in poverty than before the storm. How can that be reversed? People of color are being displaced from this city--a story that is very difficult to untangle from the statistics. What is happening to these folks?
White knights rescue. They save damsels in distress. Much of New Orleans is still in distress. How will it be saved?
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