This Friendship
There are still a few minutes left in my Math 6 class when four 8th graders rush into my room. They hurry along the side of the room toward the front. They don’t interrupt me as I wrap up the lesson with my 6th graders. I can tell how excited they are to tell me something. And as soon as I dismiss the class Isaiah stretches his eyeballs and tells me, “Guess what Mrs. H said about you?! She said that your head is so big that it’s a miracle you can walk through the door!! And Mr. H (our principal) was there, and he laughed!!” The three girls who have come in with him — eyes equally wide — nod in unison, proud to bear witness to this most fantastic story. I suppress a smile, “Oh, she did, did she. And Mr. H laughed too? I see.”
Somehow the kids have picked up on the bantering between me and Erin, my next-door colleague of five years. They want to be a part of it, and we don’t want to deny them of the fun because that’s what it is.
Mostly the kids hear of our genuine respect for each other. I normally say, “Mrs. H is amazing.” And Erin, “Mrs. Nguyen is the best.” They see us laugh and observe our friendship. I think our students know how much we care about each other because they know how much we care about them.
Nothing is kept safe with these kids. I go over to Erin’s room to get something, and she tells me, “The kids told me you said shit in class today.” (1. It was not during class, and 2. You would too if you reached into a kid’s bag of chips not knowing what kind it was, and it turned out to be Takis Nitro.)
Whenever my class hears clapping next door, we want to clap louder, and we do. It’s deliciously juvenile, and I don’t stop until she gives up.
For 10 years I’d never missed a staff meeting if I was on campus, but on that day I did. I just went home because I forgot it was the second Tuesday of the month. Since then, Erin has always come over to fetch me for the meeting.
My desk at school is always a mess. Erin’s desk is neat and tidy. She remembers and meets every deadline. I run to her in panic, “Hey Erin, about that assessment that’s due tomorrow? What did you do? What’s the website again?” I’m convinced she has some sort of OCD to explain for all her perfection.
She wears not only a green top but also a green cap because it’s Friday and it’s Oregon’s color. We talk about opening up our own business — something that involves lots of wine and beer — when this teaching thing no longer works out. We talk about this plan in more detail, as if it would really happen, when we have a particularly bad day at work.
Erin is the colleague I wish for all of us. Someone who’s a friend outside of school. Someone who makes us look good. Someone who gives us more credit than we deserve. And that’s okay. Because there are always days when we deserve the credit, but no one is around to tell us.
It’s her fault that my head is so big.
Privilege
The word privilege is being spoken and written many times over. Within the past couple of years I’m seeing and hearing privilege used in an undeniably distinct context. (Or it could be that I was unknowingly and partially deaf and blind to this context.) The word is written on cardboard signs, on people’s faces — and no matter what surface it’s on, the impact it has seems unbearable to the canvas that holds it.
I was organizing my classroom yesterday, putting away new supplies, tossing out items that I’d kept for too long. I have enough paperclips to last me two more lifetimes. Elmer’s glue bottles and glue sticks fill up an entire shelf. Same with staples and pattern blocks. And why would I get mad at a kid for not having his pencil — I have a shitload of pencils. I remember feeling a vague sense of shame of not having certain school supplies when I was in grade school. I remember mashing up rice to use as glue.
Kevin was a black teacher-turned administrator at my former school. When his second daughter was born (maybe 15 years ago), he said, “I thank God I have daughters. It’s hard for a black boy to grow up in this country.”
My husband is white. It never occurred to me how white he is until we were walking the streets of southern Vietnam. People looked at us (much more at him than at me) with foreign expressions. I felt safe with him by my side. Although I had no reason to not feel safe. I was back in my homeland — unknown to everyone around me — yet I was thankful to have a personal bodyguard because Hey, I’m with the big white dude.
Graham Smith, age 11. Me, age 11. He said to me, “Go back to your country.” I actually didn’t understand what he said, my Vietnamese girlfriend provided the translation. His expression matched what she said. I’m terrible with remembering even just first names. But I remember Graham Smith.
Michael missed the bus and had no other ride home. I went to the office to see if I may have permission to take Michael home. My vice-principal, Mr. M, reminded me, “Fawn, he just threatened you last week! And no, you may not transport a student.” (Right, when I sent Michael out of my classroom, he said he wished he had a gun.) I said something like, “I don’t think he has a gun on him though. C’mon, I’ll sign whatever papers. The kid needs a ride home.” Realizing that I was ignorant of the teacher handbook, Mr. M got up from behind his desk and approached me, close enough so he could whisper, “A young Asian teacher should not take a black kid home.” I never thought that statement appeared in the teacher handbook, but what struck me was Mr. M, himself a black man, was saying this.
One year the housing committee at my college decided to move our entire floor of student residents to a different building on the other side of campus because it needed our floor for the football players to move in. Upset, I went to the school’s newspaper in hoping they’d give us a louder voice of protest. Near the end of our conversation, the interviewer said to me, “You are very beautiful. For a Vietnamese.”
Poor. Refugee. Gook. Boat people. Foreigner. Young. Asian. Vietnamese.
It’s been a quiet storm for me.
It’s been a violent storm for others.
It was a fatal storm for Michael Brown.
I close my eyes and take your hand. We ride this storm together, and this shall be my privilege.
Ability Grouping
– Elementary school (Saigon)
My father is a well respected and loved math teacher at the local Catholic high school (grades 6-12) where my older siblings attend. The “grade” we get is simply where we are ranked in the class. Kim, 3 years older, is always ranked #1 in all her classes. My teachers, upon learning that I am my father’s daughter and Kim’s sister, openly express their disappointment that I don’t measure up. Kim must have taken all the smart genes and none was left for you, haha.
I think I know my times table, but when my teacher asks me for a multiplication fact and I don’t answer fast enough, my palm gets a big whack with the stick. If I — by sheer reflex of not wanting to be hit — pulled my hand back and made the teacher miss, then I would get double the whacks. So I have to use my left hand to hold the wrist of my right hand to keep it extended in place. I never cry even though it stings a lot.
– Middle school (Minnesota)
I’m learning English, so I have no clue what’s happening in any of my classes. I remember just copying word for word everything I see in the textbook onto my notebook. The longest word I remember copying is be-cau-se — because. I don’t know what it means, but it sure looks funny.
I remember seeing the words “thank you” in print for the first time. I already know the meaning because I even hear people say it back in Vietnam. I’m really confused though because if I had to guess its spelling, it’d look more like thang-kew. I mean I don’t hear the “you” part at all. People already talk so fast in this country, and now I learn they don’t even pronounce words correctly.
But math suddenly becomes my favorite period of the day because it’s the only thing I understand, and I’m even ahead of the class. I know this stuff already.
– High school (Oregon)
Freshman year I’m on my own in algebra class – meaning I work through the book by myself. I don’t know why, maybe because I’d passed some pre-assessment with a high score. Sophomore year, the same thing happens in geometry. I don’t remember anything except for my teacher’s jokes. When someone asks him an obvious question, he asks back, “Is the Pope Catholic?”
A month into my sophomore year my English teacher transfers me out of his class and into the TAG (talented and gifted) class. He tells me my writing is really good. I don’t get it, but I’m not supposed to argue with the teacher. How can it be good when I just write three short paragraphs for homework each night about some dry prompt like What do you know about the Three Mile Island accident?
So I get into this TAG class and quickly learn that it’s a big fat mistake. Kids in here actually have talent, for God’s sake. They can play a musical instrument – you can hear them play. They are on the debate team – you can watch and listen to them argue with fancy rhetoric and big arm gestures. They can draw – you can stand back and admire their amazing handiwork. They can play a sport – everyone shows up to their games and screams out their names. In other words, they can all perform!
Who wants to read a 3-paragraph account of a nuclear meltdown? I’m such a loser.
But Joe is in TAG, and he makes the class bearable. He calls me beautiful. It does not matter that he’s the fattest boy in the school. Joe is an orator extraordinaire, and he’s sweet. I want to marry him someday because when someone calls you beautiful while no one else in the room sees you, then you just have to marry that person.
The above memories kept flashing through since our UCSB Math Project workshop last Thursday. My friend and co-presenter Jeff led us in a discussion about ability grouping. In dyads, we shared our thoughts on the what-when-where of leveling children in school. But first, he wanted us to share our own experiences when we were in school.
I held these beliefs about ability grouping:
We group kids all the time in sports, and no one thinks twice about this. You’re not playing on the varsity team if your skills are not of varsity quality. Why shouldn’t we group by math abilities too?
It’s easier to teach a class of students who have a common base of content knowledge. We should demand excellence at every level anyway. I don’t care what level you’re at, but wherever you are — and when you’re all at about the same level — I can focus better on your needs.
Students will fall even farther behind if we don’t help them shore up their skills and fill in the gaps. Now that would be even more criminal — pushing kids through when they’re not ready.
The 7th-grade math curriculum is a waste of time. Just take a look at how well my 7th graders do in algebra without a lick of 7th-grade math, and they continue to do well in geometry as 8th graders.
It’s easier to keep up with the curriculum pacing guide.
I no longer hold these beliefs. I’ve read enough about the detriments of ability grouping and tracking, especially for students of ethnic minorities.
I’m ashamed and surprised that I was part of the problem by supporting tracking because I’ve faithfully implemented problem-solving into every math curriculum that I teach. But I don’t want to beat myself up too much about this because I’ve always tried to do right by my students. I know math ability doesn’t define them. It doesn’t define anyone. What defines any human being is our level of kindness.
I need to learn more, read more, pay attention more. I need to define my beliefs more clearly for me — so I may serve my students better.
I Can't Afford Not To
When I share with teachers what my students do outside of the textbook/curriculum, I get the familiar and reasonable concern from them that there’s not enough time to cover the content as is, how is it possible to do “other stuff,” such as:
Math Munch
Problem Solving (weekly, in-class, group)
Math Talks (including Visual Patterns)
My reasons for doing the above, respectively, are:
I want my kids to take pleasure in seeing how beautiful math is, to appreciate the elegant proofs, to imagine the possibilities.
I want my kids to think deeply, to struggle, to persevere, to honor the process of problem solving instead of just answer getting. These skills directly help students with content material.
I want my kids to share their thinking out loud because a quiet math classroom is a scary place.
It’s very simple in my mind why I do what I do. If my administrators told me tomorrow that I could no longer do any of these, then I know it would be time for me to leave the classroom. I don’t follow fads and reforms and jargon. I don’t enter into those conversations in real life or online because I don’t know how or have anything to say.
I want to follow these reflections that my kids (6th graders) write:
First of all, the equations are coming so much easier to me! I think what helped me is opening up my mind to other methods, and trying out methods that I’ve seen other people use. I feel that the reason I have trouble with some problems is that in my mind, I make the problem seem so much harder than it actually is. After doing them week after week, everything is coming to me a lot easier than they used to.
This week I have learned a lot. I’ve learned new methods of solving problems and reviewed old ones too. Math Talks have helped me a lot in homework and class work too. God I’m brilliant.
So I have a lot to reflect on because there were a lot of Math Talks. I really liked the shopping problem because, you know, I’m a girl, and I like shopping. Sometimes I don’t get anything about a problem or pattern at all, then someone explains it really well and I get it. And I think, “Why didn’t I see that?” That happens to me a lot.
The next time I think I could think a bit more because this time, now I thought I should have thought about it a little more, seeing all the other people’s answers got me to think that I should have done better. Yesterday I wish I raised my hand before some other people because I had it up and other people were saying the same thing as me.
To improve I could get more time and after talking to Mrs Nguyen I understand more when she explains it better. The thing I found most difficult is problem solving & solve the patterns because it is hard to finish up mentally.
After talking to others it always makes more sense and they help. To improve I could get here earlier.
I think I’m getting stronger each day doing mental math and patterns. My favorite math talk this week was the pattern on 2-26-14, I thought it was clever because towards the end it wasn’t the rule, it was your rule.
I really loved the math talk on last week’s Friday. It was the buy one get one free or get 45% off. Because after you told us the answer and it could go either way, I thought to myself like how didn’t I figure that out. So there’s no right or wrong to the question.
I thought the guess-and-check that Cristian did was very helpful and it really helped me learned the strategy.
This week of math talks was very fun. I like the problem solving puzzles and equations. After talking to Skylar, she helped me understand the problems more.
This week I had better understanding with math talks. The one that really helped me was Janae’s; it was different and extravagant.
My favorite day this week was “would you rather get 45% off everything or buy one get one free.” Although it was simple, it was fun to share our different opinions.
One of this week’s math talks equation that really helped me understand was Seth’s equation from Thursday. It was when you divide money but you ignore the decimal and add it in later. This one helped me a lot.
On 2/21/14 math talk I did not get it at all, then when Diego explained how you were supposed to do it, I got it and that was good.
I am going to use different kinds of math strategies that everyone was using because some of the strategies help me solve a problem faster.
What I’m reading is that they value their classmates’ different ways of doing mathematics; they benefit from them.
A month ago Sam Shah started Explore Mathematics! with his Advanced Precalculus class, then last week Sam shared with me what one student had written:
I choose to dedicate some of our math time to explore out-of-content mathematics because I can’t afford not to.
Nicer Shoes
I stand in the food line with a round plastic container. My sister too, with her own round plastic container. When we get to the front of the line, we tell the people with the big ladles that we would like six servings please because there are six of us.
We do this three times a day. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Or maybe it was just two meals — three just seems too many now. Maybe our containers weren’t plastic. Nor were they round. But I remember well the part about standing in line. I’m grateful for this food, however it tastes, however bland, however not-enough. This food will nourish me while I’m here.
It’s quite rare — and I don’t remember who gives us the money — that my sister and I get to buy a gorgeous bunch of plump longans from a girl who sells them outside our perimeter. We exchange goods through the iron bars. Mostly I remember watching other kids eating them — but I don’t stare, of course. I know shame already.
In the evenings I ask my sister to sing for me. I ask her to sing my favorite Vietnamese song that means “Mother’s Heart.” It’s like a lullaby. We rarely talk about missing home. What’s the point. I cry a lot, I suppose. I’m sure my sister tries to be strong in front of me so I never see her cry.
I pass the time in the afternoons by watching this woman crochet. She crochets a wide floppy brim hat that has bunches of grapes all around. The grapes would be one color, the rest another. I memorize her steps so when I go to America I can make the exact hat should I have money to buy some yarn and a crochet hook.
We wash ourselves by scooping water out of a long rectangular cement basin. Everybody brings their own scooping bowl and soap. The men just wear shorts and reach inside to scrub their whatever. The women wear sarongs. There’s a very beautiful woman here at the camp. It’s always more crowded at the basin whenever she’s there. I know so because that’s when I’m there too. I try to copy whatever she does, but only from the corner of my eye.
She washes her long hair first. But I’m more interested in how she washes her breasts while keeping the sarong up. She holds the corner of her sarong in her mouth, her right hand reaches inside to soap up, then she pours water over herself with her left hand. I can tell that her right hand is now farther down her sarong — she must be washing her… I can’t look, not even from the corner of my eye. But my sarong drops and bunches up at my ankles. I have no breasts to hold up this stupid piece of fabric. I feel foolish to even wear a sarong to the basin. All the other kids just come here naked.
Each family gets a small section of floor space. My sister and I are here with our three brothers and my oldest brother’s wife. I don’t remember interacting much with my brothers or sister-in-law. Like we have nothing to say to each other. I don’t remember the nights. I don’t remember falling asleep and waking up.
Three months have passed. Seems more like three years. Like any other evening — sometime after dinner — a man’s voice comes over the loudspeaker. I no longer tune in. But a name immediately stabs at my ears. Our ears. I look at my sister-in-law, our eyes wide in disbelief. Our family’s name has been called. We get to leave this refugee camp soon.
My sister’s son, Allen, told me that his mom recently bursted into tears and couldn’t stop crying while eating beets and peas at Sweet Tomatoes (aka Souplantation — she comes here 5 times a week because she can’t cook and is a health nut). I asked her more about it.
Me: Why the hell did you do that for?
Sis: I just thought about everything that you had gone through, and I lost it. I wept. I remember crying that hard only one other time.
M: Jesus. At a goddamn restaurant no less?
S: Yeah. You’ve gone through a lot.
M: We both did.
I go into my closet and see the stacks of shoe boxes on the floor. I mostly like wearing boots and have more than a few. Maybe if my sister saw how I spoil myself with footwear, then she wouldn’t cry her head off in a restaurant feeling sorry for me. Some days the food line seems like a century ago, but I’m reminded of it when grace happens. I have nicer shoes now.
I crocheted the hat from memory, turned out exactly as I’d wanted. Red yarn for the grapes and white yarn for the rest. Grapes were still a foreign fruit to me, so why not red. I liked the contrast. I forget now where I’d placed it.
Here and Now
My first official day of summer. My three kids are away at three different places. At my desk alone are 74 things that beckon my attention. A small pile of thank-you cards make me smile.
Years ago a vice-principal told me that teaching is hard because the reward is not immediate, that you don’t know the influence and impact you’ve made on a student until many years later. I think I knew what he meant, but I also thought that time and distance would make it even more difficult to find out.
Why can’t the rewards of teaching be here and now. Why am I spending hours crafting this lesson if my students didn’t care to learn it. How am I supposed to care about my students if they didn’t care about me. How do I make it through another day.
What does a teacher consider to be a “reward” anyway. How many Starbucks gift cards should I be getting — as compared to my colleagues. (There is nothing worse than showing off to the wrong people. I can just imagine saying, “Hey, Erin, I got six gift cards from kids today!” And Erin replies, “Ha!! I got twenty.” Shit.)
Teaching is physically and emotionally draining. And if that sentence doesn’t describe you as a teacher, then I think you should write a how-to book.
So I’m thinking now of the small daily rewards from students that must have fueled and replenished the parts of me that felt drained and lost. These are the things that they do and say. Almost on a daily basis.
Tito dashes into my class with an excitement like he hasn’t seen me in weeks, “Hi Mrs. Win! How are you? I’m the first one in here again.”
Maddie seems most genuine when she comes right up to me, “How has your day been, Mrs. Nguyen?”
Jonathan greets me with, “Go Oregon Ducks.” And before a quiz he says matter-of-factly, “I’m ready for this. I feel loose and ready because I learned from the best.”
The kids give me rousing applause after a lesson they know I’ve worked hard on and that they’ve learned from.
They applaud me when I share something good or semi-brave that I did.
They know how to deliver sarcasm kindly, “What favorite lesson of yours do we get to do today?”
One 8th grader would start, “I love you, Mrs. Nguyen!” Another kid follows, “I love you more!” Yet another, “And I love you most!”
John, an aspiring musician, remembers all the concerts I go to and tells me what songs he likes.
They roll their eyes and smile when they know I’m lying.
I realize that so much of my daily interaction with kids isn’t directly tied to mathematics. Even though in my teaching head, it’s all about math, it’s all about problem solving and struggling and asking questions. But my students’ heads aren’t filled with math the way that mine is. They just want to make it through the day — like the rest of us grownups. They are social creatures. They need to talk to each other or they’ll die.
Then as the last days of school draw near, the rewards I get are these tangibly beautiful thank-you cards from students that mostly say how much they’ve enjoyed my class and what an amazing teacher I am. You know, it is what it is :)
But these two cards — from parents — made me cry.
(And just now. Just now I recall someone recently accusing me of practicing “zero-sum teaching.” I don’t fucking think so.)
Do These Two Things
Here’s a bold claim that I can make here and now: I have made more teaching mistakes than any other teacher I know. I have the years to back me up.
You’ve asked your students to work out of the textbook for an entire period? I’ve done that more than once. You’ve snapped at a kid and made him cry? I’ve done that. Or you’ve cried in front of the class because you’re so fed up with their ungrateful and spoiled behaviors? I’ve done that. You’ve doled out a factory-made test without checking through all the questions on it? I’ve done that. You’ve brought ungraded papers home and shredded them? I’ve done that. (Although this may not be a mistake at all; we know crappy assignments must be burned.)
You’ve punished the whole class for something one or two kids had done? I’ve done that.
You’ve denied your kids’ opportunities to think deeply because you gave them all the answers? I’ve done that. You’ve given them timed tests? I’ve done that. Worse, you’ve given them timed tests preceded by this lie: just relax and do your best. I’ve done that. You’ve shown a video without previewing it? I’ve done that. You’ve made a promise that you couldn’t keep? I’ve done that.
This list drones on and it’s already exasperatingly dull.
If I may shift my attention then to the two main things that I’ve learned to do over the years so that when I do make my mistakes, the kids are incredibly quick to forgive me. Just two things.
Teachers are not in it to climb some corporate ladder to reach the thick-carpet land. The ladders we know are the ones we climb on to proudly hang our students’ work in our classroom. Or we scaffold a lesson to get students to play around on that ladder of abstraction. We are here to learn right along with the kids. Teachers are hypersensitive to that metacognition thingumabob.
Maybe it was during my second year of teaching when a veteran teacher dropped in to give us new teachers a short presentation about what to do and what not do as a teacher. He told us to not talk about ourselves to our students, that the kids are not interested.
I disagree. I think you should tell stories.
1.
Do talk to your students about yourself. We are adults, they are children, we are teachers, they are our students, so of course the topics have to be appropriate. But it’s disingenuous and selfish to say that we want to know more about our students yet not reciprocate in this endeavor. How else may we create that magical “rapport” that everyone talks about?
I tell sporadic stories about what’s going on in my life — past, present, future — dispersed between solving equations and talking about math. These are not planned conversations, they just come out naturally and haphazardly. These light moments came up within last week.
We were playing Nim in class and discussing how many chips to remove on one’s turn. This made me remember when someone at a department store was trying on a shoe of mine that I’d removed in order to try another shoe myself. I guess it looked new enough that she thought it belonged to the store and wanted to ask the salesman how much it was until I told her it was my shoe! Give me back my shoe, lady! (Two kids couldn’t stop laughing about this.)
I told them briefly about my trip to D.C. and the soft sheets in the hotel room. I told them about my visit to the Holocaust Museum. One student asked, “Did you cry?” Another student replied before I could, “She cried when we did bad on a test, so what do you think?” We eased right back into simplifying the next rational expression.
I was hungry and told them about the so-so enchiladas I’d made for dinner the night before. The kids shared their preference or indifference about red and green enchilada sauce. Quickly the conversation was centered around “mystery meat” coming from our school cafeteria. We agreed that our favorite school lunch is the teriyaki chicken. Then we were all quiet again thinking if these two triangles shared a height or base and what the ratio of their areas might be.
2.
Tell them about things you’re not good at. To balance out my heard-all-too-often outbursts of I’m brilliant!, I tell kids about the many things I cannot do. I tend to tell the class this when I sense they are struggling with a math concept. And when I’m no good at something that they are really good at, I shower them with genuine admiration.
I can’t tread water. I think I can swim. But that’s just it. I have to constantly swim or I’ll drown. I can’t do the eggbeater routine with my legs. My teacher took me to the deep end and said, “It’s really easy. Just watch me…” Ten minutes later, she said, “You’re right. You can’t tread water. Oh, look, our time is up.” I tell this story knowing that the kid who’s struggling with what we’re doing right now is on a swim team. He says, “I’ll teach you. I’m a good teacher.”
Once I skied straight into a big pole while taking ski lessons. I know I’m not supposed to look at the pole because looking at it turns it into a giant magnet and me into an iron rod. I didn’t give up though. Not after I saw a guy take a giant tumble and had taken forever to get up. I was way cooler when I fell.
I bring in a math problem that I cannot solve. Then I share a different one on another day.
I can’t sing. My husband, bless his heart, showers me with affection and compliments ad nauseam. But even he can’t lie about my tone deafness. What I’m about to reveal next has only been known to a handful of people outside my family. Here goes: I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, standing on a small platform at the front of the class with another classmate, we have a song to sing together. I remembered how cute I must have looked because I wore a pretty dress. We did not get far into the song when my duet partner turned… and…(are you ready for this?)… slapped me in the face! She fucking slapped me. I was that bad.
Walking Around House Naked
This framed card hangs right by my school desk.
It’s a reminder that I once would rather scrub toilets for a living than teach unruly teenagers.
My fourth year. Around late September. On a Friday, end of school day. Principal’s office.
Me: I’m not coming back. I’m done.
Principal: What’s wrong?
M: I can’t teach these kids. I hate it here.
P: You just need some time off.
M: Like the next nine months off. I’m sorry. I’m a lousy teacher. I don’t know how to do this.
P: Fawn, I’m not letting you leave. Take a week off. We’ll get you a sub. No worries.
M: You don’t understand. My mind is made up.
P: I understand that you’re really stressed. I see it all the time. You’re working too hard.
M: You don’t know that I cry every Sunday night because I dread the upcoming week. And when I’m driving to school Monday morning, I actually wish to hear news that the school had burned down over the weekend.
P: I’m sorry.
M: Me too. What kind of sick teacher wishes that, right?
P: Is this about a particular kid or group of kids? A parent?
M: No. I just hate them all.
P: I’m still not letting you just quit. Do I have to remind you your husband is still in medical school? You can’t afford to quit, Fawn.
M: I’ll scrub toilets. At least I’ll feel accomplished when I’m done with them. I love the smell of bleach. We’ll manage somehow.
P: Take a week off. Call me next Friday.
M: Fine. I’ll do that. But next Friday I’ll call to remind you to hire someone for the rest of the year.
The following Friday. I waited until school was out to call. I had the whole scene played out in my head: one of our two school secretaries would pick up the phone, I’d ask to speak with the principal, then I’d tell my principal exactly this: Thank you for the week off. Now, I quit.
Me: Hi! This is Fawn. May I speak with [principal] please?
Counselor: Hi Fawn. She was just here. Let me try to find her.
(A good 5 minutes went by.)
C: Sorry, I can’t find her. Can I take a message? Were you absent today?
M: I was absent all week. I really need to talk with her. Can I just wait or call back?
C: I didn’t know you weren’t here last week! Is everything okay?
M: Yeah.
C: Sure, you can wait for her. Oh, hey, I almost forgot. I actually need to talk with you anyway.
M: Yeah?
C: We have to let [a math/science teacher] go at the end of next week. Budget cuts.
M: That sucks!
C: I know. So I had to re-do our whole schedule. Your classes will change quite a bit. Want me to tell you what they are while we wait?
The whole chain of events still befuddles me:
Where were our two school secretaries that Friday afternoon that made our counselor pick up the phone instead? (Her office was across the hallway.)
Where was my principal?
We had to lay off that nice new teacher? After the school year had already started?
Any other staff member could have answered the phone — so why the counselor who apparently had to talk with me anyway because of all the changes to my schedule?
I didn’t have fewer kids, actually had more due to losing one teacher. I didn’t have a different set of kids, they just got shuffled around in my schedule.
Counselor: So, Fawn, sorry for all the changes.
Me: I know. Sad to lose the new teacher. Great guy.
C: Do you just want to leave a message for [principal]?
M: Yes, please. Just tell her thank you and I’ll see her Monday.
I bought the card during that one-week hiatus. It’s more funnier now. I once gave up. This teaching thing was once too hard for me. I sucked that badly at it.
If you ever think that you suck at something, like teaching, then it’s quite likely that you do suck at it. But if your heart is in it, like 100% in it, then you’ll suck less as time goes on. Kindly let your “sense of humor” and “pride in work” and “ability to explain” expand and occupy larger spaces in your teacher brain. Don’t completely do away with “walking around house naked” though — just keep the curtains drawn.
My Gratitude and One Share
I sat down wanting to share a lesson I did in Algebra on Friday, but I’m weepy because it’s Veterans Day. Please allow me to share this first.
I love this country. I love the America that welcomed me and my brothers and sisters with open arms 36 years ago. I love Mrs. Schnettler for patiently teaching me English, Mr. Hoon for making me feel visible in math even though I couldn’t speak the language.
I was too young and stupid to understand the nuances of war. Can’t say I understand it now. But I knew what life was like without freedom. I understood when my mom told me I couldn’t repeat what was said at the family dinner. I heard the bombings at night. I was aware that my teachers had to teach from a curriculum laden with Communist propaganda. Fear weaved itself into my blanket of insecurity. Hunger — and the shame of it — marked my days.
For the generations of servicemen and women, on behalf of my three spoiled teenagers, I thank you with all my heart. You give me and my family this privileged life that I know was my childhood dream when I stared at the black sky in Saigon.
Another great lesson from MARS is Interpreting Distance-Time Graphs. You really need to do this lesson if you want to hear kids spend full periods sharing their thinking on graphs.
The first part of the lesson was like a pre-assessment, a peek into their current knowledge. They described what may have happened in this graph.
What they wrote blew me away because I learned so much about what they know and do not know. Here are a few:
Tom walked at a constant speed for the first 50 seconds. Then he began to slow down. At 70 seconds he began to speed up. He stayed at this speed up to 100 seconds. Then he stopped.
Tom must of tooken a different road. That had more curves or he simply took the long way.
First he kept at a constant speed. Next he went back 60 m. He went at a constant rate. Finally he got to the bus stop and waited for 20 sec.
While he was walking he was speeding up so he was probly running. However when he got to 100 meters he slowed down, so he probly began walking then he sped up again, and once he reached 160 meters he traveled at a constent speed.
In the second part, they were asked to choose which story best matched the graph. Two-thirds — two-thirds! — of my 8th graders picked choice B!
We had a lot of work to do! In pairs, students worked on matching 10 graphs with 10 stories (one story was intentionally missing, so they had to write one in). After they got a good start with this, I then passed out the set of table of values for them to add to their matching. I wish you could hear all the conversations in the room!
Teaching American kids — what a privilege and an honor for me.
[Updated 11/12/13]
I have this great book called A Visual Approach to Functions that I will use to follow up the lesson above. While I can’t share the book here, I found a section of it — the section that fits perfectly with this lesson! — online that you can download here.]
I Really Needed to Read This Note Tonight
Only 9 hours until the first class bell of 2012-2013. I still need to shower and get some sleep. I need to wake up early enough to make my kids’ lunches also. They’re seniors, for crying out loud, can’t they make their own lunches? Oh, but they might forget to pack fruits and water. Do I have any clean clothes to wear and what am I wearing as it’ll be warm again tomorrow? What am I forgetting?
Shoot, I need to clean out my school bag.
I turn my bag upside down to literally dump everything out. A small blue envelope drops out along with two paper clips, a napkin, some papers, a bag of hot cocoa mix. I tear into the envelope not even guessing whom it’s from. I’m really tired.
Oh no, it’s from J. He wrote this back in June! I’m so sorry I’m just reading this now.
Dear Mrs. Nguyen
You have been an awesome, amazing teacher this year! Learning Algebra was fun, but you really brought it to a whole new level! My favorite project we did was the Barbie Bungee jumping, and I also really liked how you brought up the idea of doing an online e-portfolio! I will always remember how excited you got when you told us stories or shared pictures, and you’ve made the class crack up so hard to a point where I was crying! I will also be crying because once I’ve left Mesa, and all your classroom’s memories will stay in my heart. But of course I will move on to Geometry in High School, with a different teacher and a different class and still have fun. I hope to see you again Mrs. Nguyen!
From,
J.D.
Although it’s a 3-month old note card, the timing is perfectly serendipitous for me to read this the night before classes begin. Maybe no nightmares tonight — that would be a first. Maybe I’ll have a good first day. Maybe tomorrow’s school lunch will be yummy. Maybe I really love to teach.
May we all have a wonderful school year.
One More Thought Before Classes Begin
My neck snapped as I quickly turned toward the homophobic comment that just came from one of my students. I stared at the small group of students. Who said that? Why would you say that?! I wanted to say something but nothing came out. My mouth went dry as my eyes pooled up with tears. Their eyes softly settled on me, others looked down at their desks.
Then someone said, “I’m sorry. I was just joking around.” A different someone said, “He didn’t mean it. I’m okay… I didn’t take it personally.”
On February 12, 2008, Brian McInerney shot Larry King twice in the back of the head in the middle of class. Brian was 15, Larry 14. Both went to a middle school only 10 miles from where I teach. Larry died two days later. On November 21, 2011, Brian pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. He’ll be 38 years old when he gets out. Both my sons played baseball with Brian’s cousin whose father was the coach.
It must have been late 1992 (I remember being heavily pregnant with my first child) when I attended a conference in Portland, Oregon. Then Portland was already my home for 13 years. I can’t recall the exact conference title, but it was a rather major two-day event, and the topics centered on educational awareness on the harm of bullying and discrimination against gay and lesbian youth. I had no idea there would be demonstrators and wide media coverage at the conference. My next-door teacher went with me, but apparently she was surprised that I had signed up to go because — and I didn’t realize this either — most of the conference attendees were gay. She turned to me right before the first speaker came on and asked, “Fawn, is there someone in your family who is gay?” I replied, “No. I don’t think so. I’m just here for my students.”
That same year, 1992, Oregon’s anti-gay Measure 9 drew vast national attention. I wore all kinds of NO ON MEASURE 9 buttons. It was entirely possible that I would pack up my young family and move away if the measure passed. On November 3, it was defeated.
Seven years later, in the summer of 1999, I was driving home from Seattle with my niece Jennifer late one evening when she came out to me. Jenny was just starting college. She hadn’t told her parents yet. Jenny was my brother’s only child, thus I felt a strange sadness that her parents may not embrace the news with the same fierce love they’ve always had for their precious girl.
My niece Dominique came out to her mom, my sister, when she was 14. Dom is crazy smart. So levelheaded yet driven. So articulate and funny. She enjoys the simple pleasures and appreciates the tiny luxuries. She smiles easily and lights up a room. I can say the same things about Jenny. They embody happiness. They love their families deeply and surround themselves with generous people who know how to reciprocate unconditional love.
They are my family.
Nothing is more important to me than my family. Nothing is more important to me than my students. I take this personally.
You are a girl. Female.
Nicolai and I had another nice conversation this evening when I drove him back to his dorm. The sun was a giant orange ball sinking near the horizon of Pacific Coast Highway. We talked about girls. I talked about my mistakes, lots of them. I told him the same thing I said at the dinner table two weeks ago when my sister and her two kids visited, “Don’t marry someone you love. Marry someone who loves you.” My sister disagreed.
I settle in to make the one-hour drive back home — Pandora is set to Elton John Radio. I get a whole mix of great nostalgic songs from Journey, The Beatles, Stevie Nicks, CCR, and EJ himself.
A sense of gratefulness envelops me.
I see the waves still slapping against the sandy beaches under the now dark sky. The ocean does not sleep. The dark waters flood me with memories of our escape: our days floating out somewhere in the South China Sea, our boat bobs up and down without a captain because there is no fuel for it to move anyway, all 13 of us on board already know tomorrow was never promised to any of us. But I’m only 11 years old, and I really don’t want to die.
We all see it because it’s the only thing we’ve been looking for — our glimmer of hope. It is a single dot in the canvas of blue sky and blue water. The dot gets bigger. The men wave their dingy white shirts, hollering out for help but only hearing their own voices bounce off each other. My own mouth is dry, I try to yell for help too but no words come out, I’ve been without water for a long time. The bigger dot is now elongated. Then it begins to look very much like part of a ship’s mast. An eternity goes by when the dot has finally morphed into a ship. No one speaks of it being a possible pirate ship —
I’m grateful to the Thai crew of this ship — this large fishing vessel — to feed us and give us water. I still can taste the sweetness of the giant steamed squids from that night. How do you thank people who save your life?
If you put my three kids into three separate rooms and ask each this question, What does your mom want for you? They should all give you the same answer, To be kind and to be happy. It’s a mantra I’ve been repeating since they were little. Nicolai, on his own, ended his 8th grade valedictorian speech with a familiar quote from Mark Twain: Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
I know “be kind and be happy” is vague — like lazy parenting — but life is vague. I want them to define their own happiness. But I don’t want kindness to be a choice for them, I just want them to be kind.
All 13 of us were rescued by the fishermen who reached out with immeasurable kindness. Then this great country welcomed our family with open arms. This is the only America I know — the America that made it all possible for me and my family to go to school, earn a college degree, work, raise a family. How do you thank a country for all this? There has never been a single moment when I hear or sing the American national anthem and not tear up.
I’m now about half way home. But I don’t want to rush the drive. It’s a perfect night, the highway is sparse, I turn up the volume — Stevie Nicks is singing “Landslide.”
I’m overwhelmed by all the kindness that comes in small packages too.
I’m in 6th grade. Carla, tall with brown short curly hair, sits next to me in class. There is a form that we all have to fill out. I write down my first and last name. Then I am stuck because I don’t understand what the form is asking me. I glance over at other kids’ papers and see that they’re already halfway through the form. Carla smiles at me because she always does. She notices that I’m not writing. I’m embarrassed that I don’t know enough English to fill out this form. She leans over and puts a check in the “female” box for me. She says quietly, You are a girl. Female. And she points to Tony across from us, He is a boy. Male. She smiles again. Carla doesn’t know that I still think of her today.
I’m pulling out of the school’s parking lot. It’s the start of winter break and also my three-month maternity leave. I’m really pregnant with my first baby. I see Brian, my 7th grade student, running fast toward my car, he’s out of breath. I turn off the engine and step out of the car. Brian pulls out a blue stuffed animal from under his jacket. He says between breaths, I’m glad you’re still here, Mrs. Nguyen. Here, I want your baby to have my stuffed animal that I got when I was a baby. I want to tell Brian that I can’t accept this precious blue floppy eared stuffed puppy from his childhood. But I can’t get myself to say anything. His kindness breaks my heart.