Poems on Words

At the beginning of May, our TFA training included an assignment to write a poem about the words we hear and use and want at school. We were forty first-year teachers almost finished with that first year and the forms our poems took were varied but so connected. You could hear the day 171 knowledge vibrating with regret at knowledge we didn't have day 1; you could hear the curse words our kids cautiously test out and the swears we drop over dinner; you could hear the humor and the hubris and the hope for next year when maybe just maybe we can use words a little bit better and take our kids a little bit farther. 

40-some of us read - only one sent me theirs (and a few OWE ME THEIRS ahem - email me and I'll add 'em), but I wanted to post them here because I felt they captured the rhythm of days here better than I could write. Having all forty would be best but two will have to do -  

(This is the first time I've posted a poem in a public place since I contributed to a, um, poetry blog during my freshman year of high school. I'm so sorry (*relieved) to inform you that the site is gone and you will not be able to read my free verse teenage angst). 

Poema de la Lengua

"Te la bañaste” - wide eyes

“Pinche negro” - blindly and smoothly said.  

“Ok, so does it mean…” - correct but unsure

“ahorita lo ago”- now

“Diache, y con jabon!” - low eyes

“not in my room” - slim stare, mountain voice

“hm, but you do know...” - soft eyes, cuddle voice, comfort pose

“ahorita lo ago” - later.

hope stands right with the water

still with no touch, splashed with the pressure 

speaks with different voices

the same words of patience.

-----Jogene Castillo -----

Lessons

Miss, miss, I hear 

them saying, sometimes in 

my dreams, sometimes in 

the half sleep after

the alarm goes off and before

I drive to them again. 

Meess, meeeeeesss, Omar says - 

"Can I help today?" in English when

he's rested but

"Nombre porqueeeeee?!" in Spanish when

he's sad,

sharper but more 

sure. 

I'd like to talk with

them about

books in 

Spanish.

*

Comparing and contrasting? They asked,

What's that ?

(Face palm, two days

before STAAR). Bueno, dije yo - 

Think of contrast as contra, and comparing as 

tu compadre - and a lightbulb went off, 

illuminating two worlds. 

*

Thank you, Miss, round-faced Nahomi says

on the way out the door. Thank you,

Miss Parker, Nickolas says, and when

those words

come out crisp I think  how

my name is unusual

here. My name is 

unusual and my tongue is

unusual, capable of 2 and 3 worlds despite my 

skin but too soft, still, too polite. I've

untamed and unteased it, tried to 

toughen my tone and tighten my words. 

They listen; I laugh; but still I

breathe most

freely when I can speak my age, let long words 

and swear words spill and 

roll across a dinner table,

reflecting. 

*

There must be a middle ground, a 

frontera where I speak to children like

grownups and give them

the words they need, in

both tongues, for

both worlds. 

Notes From a Movement, Not Stapled Together Yet Because It's Sunday and I Still Have to Put in Grades

This weekend, through the support of my school district, I was lucky to attend the TFA 25th Anniversary Summit in Washington, D.C. 

Writing now feels like picking avocados in a rush at the supermarket, hoping they'll be ripe, hoping the whole pile won't fall to the floor when you pick one from the bottom. This weekend was so big picture - so much talk of news and history and a path forward - when my day to day is so small. I've been using words to illustrate the things on my desk and my kids' faces when they get in their mom's car at the end of the day. Using them to tease out a generational issue feels harder, further out of my reach, but necessary.

***

Between the sessions and swag bags, around the cocoon of the privilege of discussing privilege in a huge DC conference center, hung a legacy of struggle and good will, hard work and resilience. That first corps members asked - how can I afford to fail? And the question today is the same, for Teach for America and for all educators. 

Education is a civil rights issue; teaching should be a fight. Colorado State Senator Mike Johnston gave a speech tying Selma to our march now to educational equity. The change we seek hasn't fully happened. Churches are still bombed, police still shoot, some schools in Memphis prepare only 4% of their students. But we've got to keep working. Quasi religious rhetoric: shining lights and climbing mountains. Words building to a crescendo just like the spoken word poet who reminded us to live like we have a microphone under our tongue - our words matter and our silence is dangerous.

I will be thinking about my words all week. I will be smiling at my kids more. I will be thinking about how I, doing my best job, can advocate for them. I remembered the love that needs to go into the classroom every day. Without that, you don't have anything; without that, teaching is just talking and making copies. 

I've been listening to Martin Luther King's speeches for the past few weeks now, ever since Spotify made a playlist that intersperses them with Common and John Legend and Jay-Z. We read about him and Rosa Parks and the kids wrote about him as their hero without my prompting. As I understand more and more the lack of services my part of the country receives - as I feel both outsider and insider for the privileges I have - As I listen to the news from Flint, from New Mexico, from New York- I've been thinking about and wondering if what I'm doing, anyone doing, is any progress at all. 

On Friday afternoon, I ran around the National Mall. I stopped near the Washington Monument, imagined the grass full of people, imagined a clear firm voice. I kept going. Three chalk-like boulders, a full story high, turned gold around rush hour. I jogged in. 

There's a small path, like someone split a rock face. Martin  Luther King stares out at the tidal basin, chin up, reminding of the way to carve a path through monumental obstacles. How you move doesn't matter, but you've got to move.

***

(While my efforts to make #teacherstryna a trending hashtag were unsuccessful, you can read my notes from some of the sessions I attended here: https://twitter.com/charsnewweb )