Three minutes ago, I just watched my last student walk out of the door for the last time, putting an end to my first year as a teacher. My first year in Oklahoma. My first year in TFA. My first year in the so-called “real world”.

And a simple period is the best I can muster to represent myself with. There’s no excitement or jubilation requiring an exclamation point. There’s no question mark at the end.

Part of it is exhaustion. Not just from this week or this month, but from working for nearly the last year straight. I know that if my dad reads this, he’s going to give me gruff about how he only gets two weeks of vacation every year but I’ve been getting after it, teaching and planning and thinking and caring since June 4, 2012 and it has left me a shell. I’m just not used to putting in those hours for those months. It’s summer but it won’t feel like it until I sleep about 60 consecutive hours.

Part of it is numbness. I can’t believe what’s happened. When I look back at who I was in October, trying to coach two sports along with learning how to teach at a school that was going through tremendous upheavals of its own, I’m amazed that the experience is over. I ate, slept, and breathed teaching. I stayed at school until 8 every night and showed up at 6 every morning and I spent my time at home lesson planning. I can’t even relate to that lifestyle right now.

Part of it is disappointment. I am proud of myself for getting through this year, but I did not do what I wanted to do this year. My MTLD and I sat down and, after looking at the data, decided that my classroom achieved “more than typical” results according to Teach For America’s rubric. While this was light years ahead of what these kids could’ve accomplished if I’d been replaced with a long-term sub, it’s not what I joined TFA to do. Now, I’ve learned a lot about the fact that you can’t save anyone here. You can just do your part. But I’ll also freely admit that there were times that I did not do my part. I slept when I could have pushed harder. I brushed kids off or didn’t hound them enough for their missing work. I took shortcuts in lesson planning. I’m not proud of that.

Part of it is the feeling that there is so much left to do. On the one hand, year one is over and in the books. On the other hand, Induction begins on Tuesday. I’m already brimming with ideas for goals, visions, and texts that will come into play next year. I’ve got eight and a half weeks until the first day of school next year- and that’s without thinking about PD, Induction, or Orientation. So, yeah, this break will be glorious, but it’s also much shorter than I’d like to believe.

And so, here I sit, hovering off the precipice of the year and into my first real summer in 21 months, and all I can muster up is a simple period.

In the days and weeks to come, I’m sure that feeling will change. I’m sure many things will change and when they do, I will write about them. But for now, this is who I am and this is where I’m at.

Enjoy your summer, ya’ll!

Which is why it’s so weird that I’m so stuck in the present right now.

We’re so close to the end and I know that that fact is going to hit me like a crash dummy careening into a wall at some point in the very near future, but right now in this moment, the only thing on my mind is “did I make enough copies for 4th hour or do I have to get more during lunch?”

And so here we are, with a day and a half left in the toughest year of my life and I can’t even think about it yet because I’m not sure I even realize it.

On Monday, my school year will be officially finished and all records will be in the books. On Tuesday, the new TFA Corps Memebers arrive in Oklahoma and I’ll be working with them as a Transition Team Leader. Circle of life, indeed.

“Everyone in the portables needs to evacuate into the main building.”

We’d heard rumors of storms and had been told by our principal to come to school prepared for some rough weather but so far we hadn’t yet experienced anything. As I stepped outside of my classroom, the rain was just beginning to fall on the portables. I lingered for a few moments because I didn’t have a class and was afforded the luxury of helping other teachers evacuate instead of being directly responsible for my own brood. As the last students scurried into the building, small bits of hail started to fall and thus began my experience with what many have been calling the worst tornado in recorded history.

All every sense of the word, we were lucky. All of the southside schools spent much of the afternoon on lockdown but none of us received any real damage. In fact, it was impossible for us to know just how bad things were on the outside. Internet and cell services were spotty at best and so I had no idea that such devastation was occurring in Moore, a scant couple of miles away.

This was my first ever tornado experience and all it looked like to me was a bad rainstorm with hail mixed in. Parts of the school’s parking lot and walkways flooded but that was the extent of it. The craziest part was the fact that the school was in lockdown until 45 minutes after school would normally dismiss.

As we went in to lockdown, an inordinate number of parents started showing up looking for their kids. If you’ve ever seen RMS, you know that the building is designed to survive the worst. It might not be aesthetically pleasing, but I couldn’t believe that parents wanted to take their kids out of this fortress of a school back to the wooden one- and two-bedroom houses that so many of my students come from. In the end we had most of the families come in and take shelter in the gym until things passed over. After we wouldn’t let her take her son home, one mother declined our offer, saying that she’d left her two other kids at home and had to get back. As she walked away, I could only shake my head.

All in all, the kids were great throughout the entire experience. No one had a meltdown and I haven’t heard of a single instance of disciplinary problems. The students hunkered down in their safety locations and were able to ride out the storm in good spirits, which made everything so, so much easier.

For us, the storm ended as quickly as it started. We went from hail and pouring rain to sunshine and a settled mugginess within the span of maybe two minutes. It took us a while after to dismiss, but at that moment we knew we’d gotten through. Busses ran late and today we have no running water (you read that right- for our whole school!) but all things considered, everything’s been nothing short of perfect.

It wasn’t until I finally followed the last student out at 5 that I realized how bad things were. Once I got far enough north, I regained cell reception and was slammed with about 30 texts from friends and family all over the country asking if I was okay. Twitter was dominated by the news. So many of my fellow Corps Members took to Facebook, telling their loved ones that they were okay. Only when I started to see all these things did I realize just how bad things were. Things didn’t entirely sink in until I got home and watched the news with Uncle Pat and Gramps.

My thoughts and prayers are with those in Moore. Four of my good friends live there but their house was spared. The outpouring of love and offers to help from all over the city and state have warmed my heart. My MTLD and the Executive Director of TFA Oklahoma both reached out to me personally to make sure I was okay, which meant a lot. It was quite an experience for me and my kids, but it doesn’t begin to compare what those in Moore are dealing with.

For those looking for a way to help, you can text RED CROSS to 90999.

Be safe everyone.

“I work hard every day for you. Your teachers, they work hard every day for you. Is this what you want? Is this the life you want to lead?”

Eduardo* continued to cry but didn’t say anything.

It was the longest silence I’d heard from him all year.

While his mother continued to tear into him, I looked aorund at the passive faces of Eduardo’s other teachers. It was a familiar scene that has played out many times this year: we set up the meeting, briefly make the parent aware of what’s been going on, and then step back and watch the parent go to work. I can’t tell you how many Spanish conversations I’ve listened to, understanding only because of the unmistakable tones being used.

Eduardo has been one of my biggest problems all year. Although he’s quite intelligent, he’s often content to scrape by with the bare minimum and he’s got quite the attitude.

I admit that part of this is my fault. Especially when I was brand spanking new, I didn’t have the means or the wherewithal to challenge him. He got used to being bored in my class and learned to not respect me. I’ve been paying for that lack of ability all year.

However, over the last month or so, he went from being a nuisance to a major distraction in my class. He started going out with one of my students who got suspended for drugs and the addition of another new student in his class really threw him off.

I assigned him lunch detention and he didn’t go, knowing that he couldn’t get suspended because state testing was going on.
I tried to call home and his parents promised again and again to come up, only to always no-show their appointments. The next day, Eduardo would come in laughing.

“I heard you tried to get my parents to come up.”

Finally, I wrote him up and reccomended that the principal suspend him pending a parent conference. After a three day wait, his mom arrived, leading to the aforementioned crying episode.

When the smoke had cleared, I stepped in and explained to him again what the expectations for school are. I told him that a person of his intelligence could achieve so much more. He sniffled and nodded.

Ever since then, he’s been a model student.

The whole episode told me something: down here, there’s no room for vindication. This kid deserved to get reamed. He deserves to fail the 7th grade. For all the anguish he’s caused others (he bullies another kid sometimes and from time to time deliberately destroyed things in my room just to be spiteful), he had something coming. But in that meeting, watching him cry, I wasn’t thinking about that at all. I didn’t see the bully or the lazy kid or the jerk or the obnoxious loudmouth.

Instead, I just saw a hurting child who just wanted to be liked. Who just wanted his mom’s affection. Who just wanted his teachers to leave him alone. Who made fun of others because there was nothing he himself was proud of.

Down here, there’s no room for getting even. There’s no room for hoping people get what’s coming to them. There’s no room for justice in the way that most of us think of justice. It reminds me of a quote I once heard:

“The beauty of grace is it makes life unfair.”

They’d already done all components of their tests except for the speaking part, so I ran through that section with a few of them. Even though it’s been almost a year, there were still a few students that I haven’t gotten to know extremely well yet. As much as I hate to admit it, with as many kids as we have and as difficult as it is for some of them to communicate in English my personal relationships with some students isn’t ideal.

And that’s why WIDA testing turned out to be such an eye opening experience.

I tested students that I had myriad preconceptions of and time after time those assumptions were turned on their heads.

For example, I’ve got one girl in my second hour that I thought to myself, “why am I even testing her? She knows this stuff.” She’s an exemplary writer and a hardworking student, someone who hasn’t gotten in trouble once all year and who turns in complex essays. And yet, when we got to some of the more difficult passages, she struggled mightily with using technical language or adapting to use jargon she’d never heard before.

I’ve got another student who’s gang-affiliated and not at all interested in school. In class, he’s not loud or disruptive, but convincing him that a particular day’s assignment is meaningful has been a challenge. I knew he wasn’t great with his English, but I always attributed his propensity to answer in clipped phrases to be more the result of a bad attitude rather than a lack of proficiency. However, in asking him to point things out to me in a controlled, individualized setting, I realized that he truly does not know how to speak using any sort of vocabulary outside of what he hears his peers use every day.

It’s frustrating to make these realizations this late in the year and, unfortunately, it’s something that I merely have to chalk up to experience that will better serve me next year. It’s a weird feeling, knowing that in many ways my kids this year got the short end of the stick (yet again) as a necessary sacrifice that  will make me into a (more) effective teacher next year.

There are only three weeks left of school but in my head it might as well be October. I haven’t dealt with this burned-out, nauseous-during-the-drive-to-school, counting-down-the-days state of mind since I was fresh out of Institute, coaching two sports, and lesson planning day by day. I’ve switched from trying to thrive and achieve exemplary results for my kids to simply trying to survive each day and make it to the next.

Quite frankly, it’s starting to break me down.

I’m getting frustrated with students, tired of seeing the same four walls every day, and unmotivated to put in the work needed to be an effective teacher.

Of course, the kids see that and they react negatively to it. They can tell when I’m not at my best and they respond to it by going wild. This, of course, frustrates me, makes me tired, and keeps me unmotivated to put in the work needed to be an effective teacher.

Cue the vicious cycle.

While three weeks might not seem like a lot of time, I’ve seen firsthand how slowly the hours can pass when you’re not satisfied with your job. I don’t want to dread 50 hours of the week for the rest of May and I don’t want to walk out of RMS for the last time of the year and feel merely glad to have survived it. I want more for myself and for my kids.

I simply don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to get that mojo back and make this final stretch of teaching a worthwhile experience.

I was thinking about writing this negative post while I was standing in the middle of the room during second hour, presiding over the type of chaos that hasn’t existed in my room since October. Testing had rendered all my lesson plans obsolete, deprived me of all technology, and given me a multitude of students who should be suspended but can’t be until they’re finished taking their state mandated tests. Two students tried to chase each other around the room while two groups got into a loud argument and several students sat quietly, doing absolutely nothing.

In that moment, all I could think about was how tired I was.

Tired of having my stuff stolen.

Tired of being mistakenly called by the same name as the other white male teacher.

Tired of being called a racist.

Tired of hearing kids swear in Spanish because they think I don’t understand and tired of hearing them swear in English because they just don’t care.

Mainly, I’m just tired. I ran the Oklahoma City Marathon last weekend and have TTL training this weekend. I teach five days a week and then I teach Saturday School. My students and I have been in school for three weeks longer than anyone else because of our takeover status. Right now, I’ve got a group of kids who don’t care because they know they’ve already passed and another group of kids who don’t care because there’s no way they’ll pass.

I need a break.

So today I was standing in the midst of this madness, feeling sorry for myself and being a generally not-very-good teacher when one of my students spoke to me.

Juan is a 15-year-old, 200 pound 7^th grader who almost definitely has MR but has been passed over by the special education system for reasons unknown. Although it is a nightmare getting him to read or write, he loves his more hands-on classes such as tech ed. He’s failing all of his classes but the kid’s got a firm handshake and he always says hi to me in the hallway.

“Mister, are you sad?”

“Yeah Juan, I’m just having a rough day.”

“Mister, when I feel like that I do this with my head.”

And with that he hung his head and assumed a faraway look in his eyes, which I can only assume mimicked my own expression.

It wasn’t much, but it gave me the hope that I could get through the day.

To be completely honest, it was the only time today that a student actually treated me like a human being with thoughts, feelings, and vulnerabilities.

It was such a small moment, but it’s carried me to the end of the day, where I can grab a few hours’ respite before marching back in.

Looking back, there’s still a negative tone to this post. I get that. I wish it wasn’t that way, but I also think that this feeling and this mood is an important part of the story that I have to tell, so it’ll stay. I truly do hope that I’ll write here within the next couple of days and say that the storm has passed and the inspiration has returned, but for now I exist at a low ebb.

The test is supposed to be the objective measure of how much a student has learned over the course of a year. It takes out all the variables that I mentioned earlier and spits out a raw score. While this can be frustrating, I get it and I understand why these scores exist. They simplify everything. They’re like a sporting event. They take everything out of the equation and all that you’re left with is the final score of the game.

But what happens when the game itself is rigged against you?

Right now, we’re knee-deep into testing season at my school, just like many other schools in the district and (I presume) the state. I talked to my grandfather recently about how the testing went at the elementary school where he volunteers his time and he shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

“It went fine. The teacher said they did pretty well.”

Meanwhile, down here on the south side testing has been an unmitigated disaster. Not only were the odds stacked against our kids from the start due to socioeconomic factors out of our control, but now the testing process itself has made it even harder for our students to succeed.

To show you what I mean, I’d like to walk you through our testing process through my eyes:

Last week:

Testing was supposed to start last Wednesday with half of the 7^th grade (not my half). Because of that, I planned my day around last minute preparations: encouraging the kids to eat breakfast and get a good night’s sleep, reminding them to take their time, and reviewing vocabulary words that would show up on the test.

With about five minutes left in first hour, the administration came on to the intercom and said that technical errors were postponing the testing process. For me, that meant Thursday’s test wouldn’t be until the next week. I feel bad for the teachers who had the test canceled on them and found themselves with nothing to do for the rest of the day.

This Tuesday

Our first scheduled test was for Tuesday afternoon. We were initially delayed because the class ahead of us was still using the computers, so I had to entertain 30 rambunctious 12 year olds who were intent on delaying the test for as long as possible. When the computers finally opened up, we marched down there and tried to log on, only to realize that no one had actually gone through the process of installing the test on our computers. IT eventually found a way to push the update through but not before 3:15, a mere 45 minutes before school let out. By the end of the day, we’d spent three hours and hadn’t tested any students.

This Wednesday

On Wednesday we took our reading test. The test was scheduled for the morning so we met in our testing room (different from my normal room due to the inconsistency of Wifi in my room) straight away. At 9:05, students started to log in. By 10:00, the first students were able to access the system.

Yes, you read that correctly- for nearly an hour my students had nothing to do but sit and wait for the system to boot up while the pressure mounted all around them, thickening the air. By 11 (two hours after the school day started), half of the class was still not on, at which point the counselor made the decision to start testing those who could while the others would spend the day in the gym.

We tested until 12:45, when those who had finished were dismissed and those who were still working ate lunch in the room. The counselor and I put on latex gloves and served pizza and chocolate milk to the kids, who after nearly two hours of silence weren’t allowed to talk. While I’ve served many roles in my first year of teaching, I never thought I’d be a lunch lady as well, but I suppose I can now cross that off my education bucket list.

After lunch, we all logged back on and got back to testing, with the exception of two girls who took too long to unpause their test and were subsequently locked out of the test. For those two, it took another hour on the phone with the technology department before they were able to resume testing.

Finally, at 3:00, six hours after testing started, the last student finished. By that point, I was a puddle of melted brainpower pooled across the floor. I couldn’t imagine how my students felt.

This Thursday

We encountered many of the same problems as yesterday, but chose to dismiss the students experiencing problems much earlier. Because of that, roughly half my kids were testing by 10:30 today, (only!) and hour and a half after school started. Because the math test is a naturally quicker test than the reading test, they were all finished by 1:15.

In conclusion:

-          All testing pushed back a week

-          None of my kids were able to take their Geography test

-          Half of my kids were unable to take their Reading test

-          Half of my kids were unable to take their Math test

-          The shortest delay for my kids was an hour and a half

How can they be expected to succeed when their testing environment is so tumultuous? Let it be known that I’m not placing the blame on anyone. The administration has been a bastion of grit, determination and optimism. The counseling department has put in a heroic amount of work recently. All of the teachers have worked tirelessly for their kids. I don’t think its my job to place any blame, but I can absolutely tell you that this isn’t right.

During 5th hour, I called the home where the two cousins are staying. The receptionist at the home was extremely friendly and gave me the phone number of the boy’s case worker. The case worker was great- I can tell that she really cares about her kids. She gave me the okay to pick the kids up after soccer from the shelter but that she would have to talk to her supervisor to make sure. She promised to call me back afterwards.

She never called back. After school, I tried several times to reach her, finally opting to drive straight to the shelter with a fellow teacher. Our line of thinking was that even if we couldn’t take the kids out, we could bring them dinner or something. When we got there, we were helped by a lady who said she was sorry but without written permission from the case worker or supervisor, we couldn’t see the boys. She gave us the numbers of the case worker and the supervisor but none of the four that we tried were of any success. When we went back inside to inquire about the boys, a worker brusquely told us that they weren’t even allowed to tell us whether or not the boys were there.

And with that, we were kicked out, an ignomious end to our quest.

Well, the boys were back in school today. They’re holding it together. I’m about to once again call the case worker and see what can be done. We’re still searching for a happy ending.

The two students are cousins and they both rank among my favorite kids. Eric* is in my first hour. He’s soft-spoken, kind, and friendly. Although he struggles with his English and subsequently in my class, he works hard and has never been anything but respectful. Alan* is in my second hour. He is one of the most mature students I have. Early in the school year, I held him after class after he talked back to me. In that meeting, I told him that if he would respect me like a man, I’d treat him the same way. Ever since, we’ve had a great relationship. He’s one of two students I have that can hold his own in a conversation about music- he often comes in with new recommendations that I sincerely enjoy. That being said, he is also a notorious pot smoker and many days I find myself peering into his bloodshot eyes wondering if he pulled a wake & bake before coming to school.

Despite both of their struggles, both guys are phenomenal kids and if everyone in my class was like them then I’d never go home frustrated. Even though they both face tough situations at home, they routinely display the type of grit and determination that will serve them well later on in life, provided that the streets and the system don’t take it out of them first.

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I’ve actually been meaning to blog about Eric for a long time. His father was murdered in a brothel several years ago. Whenever we use computers in class, I inevitably catch him looking up the obituary on Google or looking at pictures of his dad’s mugshot. One day, he came into my class first hour before anyone else got there.

“Mister Goodier, I’m sad today.”

“Eric, why’s that?”

“It’s the anniversary of my dad’s death.”

What am I supposed to say to that? I did the best I could, but a bachelor’s degree in English and History doesn’t teach you how to deal with this kind of situation.

At the beginning of the semester, I passed out index cards to my kids. On it, I asked them a series of questions. The last one was “who is the person who will be most proud of you when you succeed and what is their number?”

Most people wrote down their parents.

Some wrote down their grandparents, aunts, or uncles.

A few wrote down ministers, coaches, or community members.

Eric wrote “Mr. Goodier cares.”

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This last weekend, someone overdosed at Eric and Alan’s home. Consequently, they spent the weekend at the aforementioned shelter in the care of the state. I didn’t find out about it until this today when Eric glumly told me that he’d be moving schools tomorrow or Friday. When I asked him why, he lifelessly told me the story, his voice hollow with sadness.

During lunch, I ran into one of the school counselors. Her son plays baseball for TCU so we have a great relationship. I told her about the situation and she gave me the number of the shelter. The shelter gave me the number of the caseworker. The caseworker was wonderful and is going to work with me to help the boys out. As far as tonight goes, I’m going to take them with me while everything gets figured out.

I don’t know what to do, but I’m going to do everything I can to give them a sense of normalcy. For as long as they need to, they’re welcome to stay with me. I look at them and I see so much potential, real potential. Alan especially- the kid is so smart. With his combination of maturity, intelligence, and grit, I’ve got no doubt at all that he’s got a bright future. I can also see him doing hard drugs in high school, starting a family way too young, or in jail for a couple of dumb decisions. We’re going to fight to keep that from happening.

Many detractors of TFA talk derisively about the Savior Mentality that many corps members bring with them into their community. While I wholeheartedly agree that this mindset is condescending, unhelpful, and destructive, I think it is also important to distinguish between this mentality and a true calling to change someone’s life.

I couldn’t tell you why, but something about these kids just rubs me the right way. I adore them. I think they’re great. I care about them. I want to see the best for them. And I’m willing to fight and struggle and cry and advocate to see that they are taken care of.