...Finding Balance.

When the question comes up, as it inevitably will in small-talk, “what do you do,” I’m never quite sure how to answer. It’s as pressing of a question to me as “who are you?”

We live in a culture where we are defined by what we do. Our “who” is equivalent to our “what.” And the pressure that I’m faced with when asked that question can be overwhelming and lead me to question really, who am I?

My struggle is deciding between my two selves:

I am a teacher.

I am a mom.

And when I struggle to differentiate, I find that I’m doing a disservice to both parts of me, and in turn, I sometimes feel that I am doing a disservice to all the children in my charge: my students and my own kids.4

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This week I returned to work after 8 weeks of maternity leave. I spent nearly two months at home with my kids, three year old twin girls and a brand new baby girl. For several months my priority was being a good mom: reading to them every night, keeping a (embarrassingly minimally) clean house, feeding them from all the food groups, and yelling as little as possible. My priority was being a GOOD MOM. If you asked me what I did, the answer would be easy: I’m a mom to three beautiful, intelligent, powerful little girls.

But now that I’m back at school, I’m back to the balancing act that I’ve dealt with since my twins were born. Now, in addition to being a good mom, I’m trying to also be a GOOD TEACHER.

I want the absolute best for my students; I want to build them up, encourage them, empower them. I want to teach them to lead and to be successful. But I also want what’s best for my own kids, which includes a mom that’s home at a decent hour, who doesn’t do work at home in place of loving, cooking, and playing.

And that balance is HARD.

I feel it most when I’m receiving phone calls or texts regarding curriculum or grading while I’m giving the girls a bath, or coloring pictures of their cats with them. When I see those unanswered messages on my phone after the girls go to bed, I feel inadequate; there are teachers constantly giving their all, working all day and all night, doing what I used to do before I had kids. I suddenly feel like I used to be a great teacher, I used to work hard for my kiddos, but now I’m dropping the ball.

Is it fair that we ask our teachers to practically give up their lives for their jobs? Because I’m not going to lie, I feel an incredible guilt when I leave my school’s parking lot before 4pm. I hate that I have to decline meetings or work parties.

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE going home early. I’m so happy to walk into the door to “Mommy’s home!!” I get bombarded with hugs and love and appreciation. And if I do stay, if I do spend a weekend working, or a few hours after school leading a club or coaching, I’m overwhelmed with the opposite guilt. I should be at home with my family. I used to be a good mom, before I came back to work.

I have big dreams. I want to expand my current leadership program, which is one class, to a full-time program where I can reach more students. My ultimate goal is to expand that idea to the district. I want to unify the leadership among our middle schools. I want to write a curriculum.

I have big dreams. I want to raise my daughters to understand their worth. I want to teach them to read and write. I want to teach them to advocate for themselves, to do well in school, to clean up after themselves. I want to spend time with them.

I have big dreams of raising test scores, empowering students to advocate for themselves.

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I teach, as in actively work with students, more than 5/6 of my paid work day. I give up my lunch for clubs that I can’t host after school due to constraints at home. I give up my planning period, which is 1/6 of the day, more often than not to cover classes or meet with other teachers, minimizing (or getting rid of all together) the time I have for grading and planning. To make up for that loss of time, I come in to school hours before I’m contracted to, the earliest I’m able to, when they open the building at 6am. So that I’m not doing work in place of hanging out with my family, I’m staying up long after the older kids’ bedtime (9pm) to take care of planning, grading, writing rationales, or responding to e-mails.

This loss of time within the school day, which leads to the early arrival and the staying up late, have consequences for my family and me personally: I lose out on nursing my baby one more time before I leave. I lose out on hours of sleep to come in earlier and to stay up later. I miss out on appropriate chances to take a break at lunch, since more often than not, I give that break up for the betterment of my students or my work.

I’m not the only teacher/parent facing this dilemma. Many incredible teachers are worn so thin at work, then completely depleted at home, that they struggle to maintain being a GOOD TEACHER and a GOOD PARENT. And if they do maintain both, very often they burn out and seek other career opportunities, careers that will allow them to “turn off” when they get home; careers where they are paid for their time rather than just expected to donate it.

I could never leave the classroom to be a stay at home mom, as much as in my head and heart I sometimes wish that I could. I couldn’t because I love my students too much. I love my time with them. Some of that is selfish; I like what I do, and I don’t want to give it up. As I said, I have big dreams. I’m learning to balance teacher life with mom life and finding new ways to integrate the two.

But lately, I have a new “big dream…” that something could be done so that I have the time I need to be a great teacher and get to turn off when I get home so that I can be a great mom.

Something has to be done, or we’re going to start losing a lot of great teachers because they want to be great moms. Sometimes, the desire and need to do both is just too much.

...Learning Through Empathy

This week, the most unqualified, undeserving individual that I can think of was confirmed as the Secretary of Education. Just the prospect of her being in charge of my career and more importantly my students’ futures has had me thinking for the past few months: what makes a good teacher?

I ask this question a lot, of course, in my efforts to be the best I can be for my students. Let’s think about what great teachers do:

• ·         Great teachers build relationships with all their students.
• ·         Great teachers make students want to learn.
• ·         Great teachers make learning visible and purposeful for their students.
• ·         Great teachers make connections to students’ real lives and future careers.
• ·         Great teachers engage all students by catering to their specific needs.

Of course teachers are responsible for teaching content. We have curriculum we’re expected to help our students understand and grow from. We have standards that we have to live up to, and students are expected to improve in various ways while in our care.

But as I think about my list of what makes a “great teacher,” I find that empathy rather than content stands out as a common theme in each of those points.

According to Stanford Professor Emerita Nel Noddings, if you foster a culture of empathy in your classroom, the learning, test scores, and academic success goes up with it: “common sense tells us that care and trust would reduce failure rates. …Kids do better in a culture of caring.” Noddings has done studies on the relationship between empathy and academic achievement, and has come to the conclusion that success requires empathy.

It’s true that if a student feels unsafe, unwelcome, or uncared for, their focus will not be on content. More importantly, students who aren’t taught to care, students who aren’t treated with love, will grow up as adults who don’t treat others with love.

And really, what matters if not treating others with love?

What I’ve learned from the confirmation of Mrs. DeVos and the divisiveness that comes with it is that I can’t give up on loving my students. No matter what happens to the structure of public education in our country, my job is to teach students to care for each other, whether they’re male or female, black or white, gay or straight; whether they live in wealth or poverty, uptown or downtown.

My job is to teach with love and teach love.

And I will always prioritize that.

Thanks to Ruth Wilson for an incredible piece, "Empathy for the A" in Teaching Tolerance Spring 2016

...Understanding Civil Rights

It's been a while. Years. Since I've sat down to write about what state my classroom was in; I've reflected, of course, but not sat down to write.

Since the last time I sat down to write and reflect, I'm at a new school. The last three years I've had to completely relearn a new community and assimilate to a new culture that is very different than where I came from.*

At my first school, it would have been unheard of for a student to have a cell phone wallpaper that said "Make America White Again..." but at my new school, that's exactly what happened. Similar things happen often.

Don't get me wrong; my new school is racially and culturally diverse. 51% of the students are military transplants who come from all over the country and all over the world. We are not at all lacking diversity. But this culture is new to me. Students have much different political views than what I'm used to, and in turn, their sensitivities and tolerances tend to be a bit less sensitive and less tolerant than my past experiences.

I know none of my students are purposely racist or offensive. I'm sure none of my students' families are, either. I like to think that none of my families or students have hate in their hearts. But over the last two years (yes, more prevalent since Donald Trump started running for the highest office in our country), I've heard things uttered and seen things written that are shocking and terrifying. "Make America White Again" is one of those sentiments. Others include "Build a wall." "White Pride."  "Keep them out."

In response to these comments, and in a desperate attempt to address the happenings of our country in a way that is both sensitive to the parents of my students and still articulates why what's happening is NOT OK, I decided to utilize some "curriculum time" to discuss the Civil Rights Movement with my classes.

In the Spring of 1963, students in schools all over Birmingham, Alabama walked out of their classrooms and converged on 16th street in an act of defiance against racism and injustice. Though they didn't immediately change the mind of those that segregated them, they were able to get the attention of the rest of the nation, including President Kennedy. They were a catalyst for policy changes that attempted to end segregation and get us to a point where we actually treat all men, women, and otherwise as equals.

photo credit:

http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/09/uab_to_host_photographer_bob_a.html

I was proud, to say the least, at the immediate responses and feedback from my students.

"Dude, that's like Donald Trump."

"That looks like the Women's March. I went to that."

"That's messed up. We can't let that happen again."

No, you sweet thirteen year old, we can't let it happen again.

I am so glad that we took the time to compare the sixties to today. I didn't need to tell these kids that what's happening now is reminiscent of the Civil Rights Movement. They made the connection all on their own.

Don't stop talking. Don't stop remembering.

Dear world, despite what's going on, there is hope. My seventh graders proved it to me this week. The loudest voices are scary. Terrifying. But when we come together, whether it's a children's march during a movement, a Women's March at the capitol, a sit-in at the airport, or another show of solidarity, there is hope.

There is hope.

You can find the Children's March documentary, as well as some other fantastic teaching resources, on www.tolerance.org. Mighty Times: Children's March http://www.tolerance.org/kit/mighty-times-childrens-march