J.Greer…just another sista trying to make it!! From Struggles 2 successes: Volume 1

Man! The Poetry reading that we watched today by Taylor Mali inspired me like nothing ever has. There is no one thing or instance that I could think of that has inspired me over my past 22 years of living like that poetry reading did. I know to some people it may seem like I’m over doing it, but I am so serious. When I cam to class i was in a horrible mood and while listening to that poem I felt a smile come across my face. As i listened to the poem I was reminded of why I wanted to be a teacher. I was reminded of how I get my point across by sarcasm. I was reminded that teachers make more than a salary…teachers make more difference in one day than most people ever make in their entire lives. I listen to this poem everyday now and several times a day. I have listened to more Taylor Mali poems that reference school. Listening to Taylor Mali on youtube lead me to listening to more Def Jam Poetry and there were so many poems on there that spoke to some things that I think or deal with on a daily basis. As I listen to these poems I think about the differences they are making in my daily actions. I also think about the power of words and the power of writing. I think about how I can teach my future students to use writing and poetry to deal with the many issues that urban children may deal with. I have said all this to say that on Tuesday May 20, 2008 2 teachers (Mr. & Mrs. Dr. Williams) MADE a difference in my life!By showing that poetry reading they not only made a difference in my day but it had a chain reaction that will make a difference in MY life and the lives of my future students. SO that brings me back to the title…What do teachers really MAKE? What does Poetry really DO?

Today’s discussion on Intelligence was pretty interesting. I was zoning in and out because I was having a bad day. But the parts of the discussion that I did catch were about about tracking. I didn’t know that there was an actual term for students being placed in certain classes. I think that is sad that a students are being placed on a tracks in Elementary school and it seems like they can not move out of that track for the remainder of their time in public school.  For example if a student is placed in a slow paced track in Elementary they will often stay in that track or move to a slower one but it would be close to impossible for that student to move into a faster paced track. I highly dislike tracking because that stays on a child’s record and will follow them throughout high-school. Even being placed on a fast paced track isn’t always good for a child because that will cause stress and high expectations for the student to reach. I feel like even a student on a advanced track can suffer if they have a year that they are not understanding the material as well or if they have a family problem that causes them to slack up on their grades. I feel like tracking isn’t helpful. i find it funny that I’m saying tracking isn’t helpful and I am a successful product of the tracking system. I was in Open Doors(gifted), APAC, Honors classes, and AP classes and I actually think it made me work harder. I think that now tracking is different than it was when i was in school and i can’t attribute my success solely to tracking because i had a mother that would have placed me on an advanced track even if tracking didn’t exist. What really bothers me is that I can see the problems that tracking may cause, but i can’t see any solutions….

Today’s discussion went a lot easier than I expected. I thought for sure that someone would be offended by a comment about sexual orientation or religion. Our activity we did with the talk show made me realize my privileges as a heterosexual person in America. I realized that I never have to wonder how my parents feel about me being heterosexual or if someone would discriminate against me because of my sexual orientation. The discussion today was very interesting, especially when we were talking about gender and the norms we use to define them. I grew up in the country south as a Christian and I am so used to the gender roles that I actually believe most of them and live by them. I believe that women have a role and men have a role and even though I have tried to challenge myself to believe differently I still revert back to those old school gender roles that I grew up with. I just hope that I don’t impose them on my future students….

Today’s discussion and lesson on Ebonics was very enlightening and yet difficult for me. I have always looked at Ebonics negatively and I have always seen it as a lazy form of the standard English most people consider “proper English” in the US. It was hard for me to accept Ebonics as its own language, but I think I finally have. After being in the Beta group on our activity today and we had our own language and I liked it, it worked for me, it was simpler for me, but it was still it’s own language. I think I will have to do some more reflection and thinking to see how I will effectively teach my children that they should speak proper English but at the same time reassuring them that their Ebonics language is not necessarily wrong. Overall I learned a lot about myself in today’s discussion and how deeply cemented speaking “proper” English is in my mind and the thought that Ebonics is just incorrect English. So I’m finna end dis blog ret hurr and make me sum comments….

MAN!! Today was VERY emotionally draining for me. I have been to the King Center before, I think when I was about eleven or twelve. I don’t really remember the experience too much though. Our visit today was VERY emotional for me today because it just made the whole struggle even more real for me. It made the pain very personal. First seeing how Martin and Coretta stuck together and were so strong TOGETHER was touching for me. To see how many times Dr. King went to jail and kept on fighting was inspiring for me. I had a really hard time when I went into the visitors Center and we watched a clip about Dr. King’s funeral and the speech and marches leading up to his death. They played the funeral and at the funeral they played the speech he delivered just the day before and he spoke about his death. He spoke about what he wanted to be said and how he wanted it to be and what he wanted to be remembered for and I felt the tears role down my eyes uncontrollably. It was so sad to see his little girl lay in Coretta’s lap and look at her mother for some comfort. I began to think of what was going through Dr. King’s mind as he wrote that speech, because it’s been said that people can sense when they are about to die. I wondered was he scared, did he wonder how he would pass, what did he think was going to happen to the movement after his death? It was just saddening to see all those black people come together in one place and in 2008 it seems difficult to get 100 black people in one place without conflict. I wondered what would Dr. King think about how blacks treat their own people today? Then when I went into the exhibit ” From Memphis to Atlanta” that was centered around Dr. Kings funeral, I became even sadder. The exhibit had the wagon that Dr. King’s casket was carried on and it was playing somber funeral music. The pictures on the wall went from the time he got shot to his funeral. It bothered me so bad that there were 3 pictures taken after he had been shot. It bothered me that under the last picture of him being shot, the statement said AFTER an hour later he arrived at the hospital and was pronounced DEAD. I just feel that if the ambulance had come faster or if a nurse could have just been there to help him he would have lived. Then i went to a picture at his funeral and it showed his father hysterically crying as if he was physically in agony and his mother was just looking as if she was so hurt that she couldn’t even cry. It already gets to me to see a black man cry (because I know usually when they cry they are hurting) but when I saw the WAY his father was crying I couldnt help but to cry myself! The hurt and disappointment in his mother’s eyes mad me sob. Next  was a picture of Coretta and Harry Belafonte and they were both crying and you could see the pain in their eyes. I always saw Coretta as like the prototype for a “strong black woman” and i NEVER saw a picture where she was crying(not even at his funeral) but when they were actually doing the burial she was crying and it seemed like the picture was in color in my eyes. I saw how red her eyes probably were from crying and I lost my composure. That picture really did it for me and I couldnt stop crying. So many thoughts were going through my head. I was FORCED to deal with the reality of the struggle from which I have reaped the benifits that i enjoy today. Today made me realize that I have sat back in my middle class comfortable existence and ignored the struggle that allowed me that comfort. After seeing all the exhibits today i felt like my everday worries are trivial and petty. The people displayed in that museum worried everyday if they would go to jail or die fighting for equality, or if equality would ever happen. Today’s experience was saddening but it was also INSPIRING…. 

Yesterday as we had the discussion on being poor and in poverty and I began to get a little frustrated because I felt like we all had different definitions of what poor is. I think a lot of people were referring to poor as living in run down housing and not being able to pay your bills. I think poorness and poverty may have many different degrees but in the end it’s all poverty. Whether you live in a $300,000 house that is going into foreclosure and skipping meals to pay your utility bill or if you live in subsidized housing and have the bare necessities, your still poor. I do not measure poverty or prosperity on those around me or those that help support me because that is THEIR money, not mine. I don’t measure poverty or wealth by what is in your bank account because if you owe anyone (i.e credit card companies, student loan holders, automobile financing companies) more than your assets equal to your poor in my mind. Because even when i get my refund check (that I am EAGERLY waiting on) my bank account will look pretty good, but that is BORROWED money and I will still have UNPAID credit cards, student loans, utility bills, rent, insurance, and cable bill. Therefore I’m POOR! But something else that frustrated me was the fact that we were looking at “poverty” as this horrible life ending word. Meanwhile the “poor” people I know are happy and have a better appreciation for things. Just because someone does not have all the MATERIAL things that you or I would prefer in life does not mean that’s a bad thing. Some people are “poor” because they would rather make a difference and be activist instead of having an $80,000 salary as a lawyer. I also felt like we were talking about teaching our future students about wealth and how to get more of their share but I also think we need to stress to our students that ONLY striving to have a high paying salary is a purposeless existence. But I did REALLY like the pyramid/chairs exercise. It gave me a new perspective on the ” Crab in the Barrel” Mentality. Instead of focusing on Sylvia we were too busy fighting about who was going to get that last chair. Instead of working together and finding an alternative way to all sit down we bickered amongst each other and that is what keeps that mentality going. I also noticed that we never questioned Mr. Dr. Williams on telling us to cramp up in those chairs. Instead of sticking together and fighting back and saying NO we are not going to cramp in those chairs we just went along with it because we were told that’s how it HAD to be. I think that is how we go through life a lot of times. We don’t question the rules or how things are set in place by the system, we just live with it no matter how UNcomfortable it may be. Maybe after this class we can learn to question the norm…. 

The retreat was a very refreshing experience and it solidified my decision to be a part of the UACM program. I don’t believe that I would have had that type of experience with any other M.A.T program in the nation. I especially enjoyed how open we were with each other. On more than one occassion people teared up and some were even courageous enough to cry. I felt so close to everyone at the end of the retreat. The food was awesome and the grounds were beautiful. But on a deeper level I thoroughly enjoyed the workshops done by Micheal and Jesse. I also enjoyed laughing and playing with little Mya. Micheal and Jesse’s organization QECR brought a number of issues to the light that I was not aware of. For instance, I had no idea that it is no where in the Constitution that Americans are entitled to a quality education. I was unaware of the current take over of the private and charter schools. Sadly, I was somewhat unaware of what a charter school was and how they operated, because growing up I didnt experience them. I was very shocked at the emotions that were evoked when we watched the “Eyes on the Prize” clip. I was surprised because I had seen those clips all throughout middle and highschool, but never had a strong emotional reaction. I had never been brought to tears by watching those tapes while in school. As I reflected on the emotions I experienced watching the clips, I concluded that my emotions were so easily exposed because we had been open and honest about issues such as race and discrimination in class. I think that in the past I had somehow gotten disconnected from the struggle and hardships that my ancestors went through. In grade school those videos didn’t quite hit home with me. I was comfortable living in my little comfort zone of middle/working class associates and was ignoring the struggles that allowed me to enjoy that lifestyle. I also find it interesting that as I write this blog, during my matriculation at a HBCU, I was never challenged to deal with those emotions or to connect with that struggle, opression, and discrimination that my ancestors experienced. The irony comes into play because I have been challenged to face those supressed emotions and baggage that came along with those hardships now that I am at a predominately white or mixed instituion. Anyway, getting back to the retreat….I thought that the video Micheal showed about the child daydreaming of his view of school was enlightening. As I watched that video I got a little overwhelmed because I realized I felt the same way about our current school systems that I want to change. I felt overwhelmed because through that child’s mind it seemed like such a big task to take on and I began to wonder if I would really be able to make a difference. I found Micheal and Jesse’s workshops to be very inspiring and I look forward to working closely with their organization in some capacity one day….

I was sitting and reflecting on our lunch with the teachers from Mexico. When I first remebered we were having the lunch I was just excited to be getting the lunch, but I never expected to actually take something out of the experience. I cant remember the name of the teacher at our table but he seemed to be very enthusiastic about teaching. I’m just going to mention some of the things he said that were very intersting to me. He was saying how they dont really do contracts like we do here. Where he lives, once your a teacher for a school district you have a job for the rest of your life unless you decide to change. He said with that, they can be moved around anywhere and the school he is working at is about 8 hours from where he lives so there is a place for the teachers to live on campus. He aslo said that the rules are much more relaxed here than they are there. He stated that the students can just get up and go to the bathroom if they need to without disturbing the whole class to get a pass. When he was asked the question about the change in his students interest to be in school, he said that it has increased. In Mexico, the children now have more role models that have been to school and have good careers so they are more interested in completing school and going on to be successful. I thought that was interesting becasue it seems like children in the United States are losing an interest in Education compared to the interest ten years ago. He also said that fathers are very involved in their childrens lives and education. He said that it is not just the mothe’s job to get the kids to school. The last thing that stood out was that the students dont have to continue school if they don’t want to. Unlike the United States, they dont have truancy officers to monitor children’s school attendance. After having lunch with the teachers, I am strongly considering taking the trip to Mexico next summer with the department…is anybody else???