This blog contains explicit language, so read on and clutch your pearls or unsubscribe if you don’t like what you read. Stay Blessed.
It’s the 63rd day of school… counting Monday to Friday.. almost always looking forward to the weekend.. sometimes taking my earned right to personal days..
I wasn’t this teacher and I miss the old one.. everso hardworking and looking forward to her day-to-day and the craft she knows and teaching it and finding ways to make it more exciting to a classful of young ladies and working tirelessly to making the school she taught in GREAT… but the principal of Fashion High, Daryl Blank changed that, a fate sealed by the superintendent, having me reassigned, now in a high school where ‘Fashion’ is not offered, what feels like punishment or a ‘favor’ between principal and superintendent, but who knows..
My career setting has been blown up by those two, and here I am counting the days till retirement. And what felt like punishment still does at times, but there are moments when I am reminded that I’m in the right place, the classroom.
Even though I am not teaching Fashion, the craft and license I have taught for 22 years, yes, OVER 2 DECADES, teaching my craft kept me going then. Didn’t really mind the unruly young ladies who pushed my boundaries, the occasional entitled brat who thought they knew more than me, not taking into account that I’ve ‘been there, done that’, all encounters that come with the job. And I welcomed every minute because it only took compassion to defuse those moments.
I always remembered what it is like to be a teen and placed myself in their shoes and loved them DESPITE their shitty behavior… and I still do.
This is what has kept me going for these past 63 days. These students are different, their economic backgrounds are different, their family circumstances are different, and they’re mostly boys, all variables that make teaching in a public school so much fucking harder and a damn right act of nobility and sainthood if you do it right.
I allowed myself time and space and the elasticity needed to teach them. Time, to get to know them, space, to feel safe to fail and try again and try again and try again, and elasticity, to be an authoritarian one moment and laugh out loud when their youthful silliness won over, the next moment, showing them that the two can coexist, the boss and the mentor. That’s not to say I don’t lose my temper.. I AM human.
Today’s example:
Student A: ‘Stop cursing!’
Student B to Student A: ‘Suck my dick!’ – then to me: ‘Sorry, Ms. Chavez.’
Me: ‘It’s all good. I’ll just hand out 50’s on your daily participation grade for using profanity, bring down your already sorry ass grades!’
Student A: ‘Oooooooh, she runnin shit!’
Me: ‘Just facts.’
Student B: ‘She comin’ in Hot!!’
Me (without raising my voice): ‘Yep, STEAMIN cause it’s cold outside.’
They all laugh.
Student B: I’m gonna miss you, Ms. Chavez. This was my best class.’
Followed by
Student C: ‘Ms. Why do you care for us so much?’
asked after I announced I was going to give out snacks because they were all working on their projects, with the occasional ‘suck my dick’ being thrown around. I was surprised to be asked this question, but this student is genuinely philosophical and has genuine curiosity.
Me: ‘Because I remember what it’ s like to be a teen and I am who I am thanks to a couple of teachers I had when I was young. So I care for you the way they cared for me.’
Student C: ‘But what if my life is ass?’
My response was taught to me by my husband. I thank him for this lesson
– ‘Then I’m going to care for you till you learn how to care for yourself.’
Student A: ‘What if that never happens?’, ‘What if he never learns?’
Me: ‘He will. He’ll learn. He’s too talented for it not to happen.’
In my getting to know them, I’ve discovered their likes, their hopes, their dreams for their future and have latched on to them to remind them of how it is possible.
Student C sees himself as a footballer in his future with a loving family, and my faith is immense, so immense that I know he’ll achieve what he sees for himself.
Lesson for new teachers: That’s how you have to talk around these youngsters, with the faith that moves mountains. Speak their bright future as the present, as if it’s around the corner and they too can believe it, enough to make it happen.
I believe it to be a stark difference from what they are use to hearing. I almost never heard praise or affectionate words, or positive motivation at home growing up therefore ‘positive talk’ was like hearing another language, ‘crazy talk’, the ‘not worthy’ kicks in and you reject it.
One of my grandmothers nicknames for me was ‘useless’, (inservible) so I get it.
And let me clear something up, I loved my grandmother, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her yet however she chose to address me formed that ‘voice in my head’, until I learned that she was wrong. I changed that for me in my late teens, and began to believe that I was worth any and every good thing that I received or earned. I believe this is the same with some of these students, existing in homes where exhausted parents hang on by a thread not knowing how to move forward lovingly because maybe they too weren’t taught, repeating the vicious harmful cycle. And my mission was always to change that… with my non-profit, Power of One for All.
My non profit was formed to raise money for students that need motivation to succeed.. and by succeed, I always meant to keep education as the key to escape their hell, because that is what did it for me. I knew that prioritizing my education would take me places I couldn’t dream of but unlike many current teens at Murry Bergtraum, I didn’t need external reinforcement. I pushed myself to be the best scholar despite my home life as a teen.
The nonprofit focused on the students of Fashion High but after being forced to leave, we pivoted to Murry Bergtraum, where the need is stronger.
Another point I want to make is the insertion of how I am no longer at HSFI. I name the persons that are responsible because anyone that wrongs you unjustly MUST be exposed. I have learned that adult bullies exist and like all bullies will only continue their ways if they are not checked and announced to warn others. It disappoints me to experience it as a public school teacher as I believed we were better than that.
At times I feel the system is so broken that the last straw is to make us NOT CARE… but I can’t.. I can’t just NOT CARE…
All of our children, all of our marginal Black, Brown, children of color are at stake; their lives, our future is at stake. It’s as if, as long as we keep them undereducated, us uneducated, the status quo of those in power is unaffected because that’s how much we matter. No longer the working class, but the ‘surviving class’, those raised to serve the societal machine that keeps the 1% exclusive.
Not as long as I am a public school teacher… ands that’s what fuckin’ keeps me going.
Rosa Isabel Chavez 