I will be incommunicado until Monday, as I am accompanying our juniors on their grade-level trip. We are traveling through Montgomery and Selma, Alabama to learn about the Civil Rights Movement. We will travel north to Memphis to learn about the Blues, visit Beale Street, and see Graceland. I have been looking forward to this trip, and I’m really excited. I’ll tell you all about it when I return.
All posts by Dana Huff
The Threat
Her name was Kia. It actually took me a few days to remember that, though I have never forgotten her face. What made me remember her name? I recalled that at the time I taught her, I had associated her name with a fledgling car company. Then I remembered. I was a first year teacher. She was in my difficult sophomore class. They began testing me the second day. I was trying get a student who had just been enrolled in the class set with books and a syllabus, and I had this crazy idea that the class should be working quietly while I did this. They had another idea. I remember becoming so frustrated at one point that I told the class that it should be so quiet that I could hear a pin drop. Of course, I’m from the South, so pen/pin sound the same to us. They all dropped their pens. I remember the dread I felt at that moment. They were going to be difficult. And they sure were.
I had 33 students in that class. I had to put my large desks in tables because they wouldn’t fit otherwise. I was never given enough desks for all the students in that class. The class tested me at every turn. We were all confined together for 90 minutes every day due to the asinine 4X4 block schedule our school had adopted. No one will ever be able to convince me that a 4X4 block is a good idea. Oh sure, I had four classes each day. I also had each of them for 90 minutes.
I can’t remember anymore why I had asked Kia to go to the office. I remember very clearly that she was digging in her heels and wouldn’t leave. It was becoming a power struggle. I finally picked up her backpack, preparing to escort her myself when she snapped. She threatened me. To be honest, I can’t even remember what she threatened to do. I turned on my heel and went straight to the principal. That’s when I melted into a puddle of tears. A student had threatened to actually, physically hurt me.
I might be able to consider myself lucky compared to other teachers — I have only been threatened once. Once was enough. Kia was suspended for five days. Then she was returned to my classroom without incident. The principal visited my class a couple of times after that just to make sure all was well. I did not go home the day of the incident, even though my principal offered. To me, that would be like letting the kids know Kia won. I knew for sure the kids would talk about it. I knew it would be all over the school.
Kia was strange for the rest of the year. One would think she would give me dirty looks whenever she saw me, but it was quite the opposite. She would smile and say hello. As if nothing had happened. I still scratch my head over it.
Watching Freedom Writers put me in mind of this experience and several others I had, both as a student and as a teacher. When I reflect on this experience after nearly 10 years have passed, I don’t feel angry. I can’t even remember the details. Funny, isn’t it? One would expect never to forget something like that. And I had trouble even remembering her name.
[tags]Freedom Writers, school violence[/tags]
Freedom Writers: A Review
I don’t have the opportunity to go to the movies very often, and I am choosy about which movies I see in the theater. Let’s face it, when movies cost $9.50 a pop, and I have two small children who can’t sit through most movies, I suppose it isn’t surprising that I might go only once a year. Do you remember being a teenager and going to the movies with your friends every weekend? I digress. My boss gave each faculty member gift cards to Starbucks and Regal Cinemas for Hanukkah — nothing extravagant, just enough for a cup of coffee and one movie ticket. However, I have always appreciated these gifts more than he might realize because I rarely get to indulge in going to the theater. I suppose for that reason, I also hang onto my movie gift card until something really looks good. Last year, I saw The Chronicles of Narnia with my gift card. This year, my gift card burned a hole in my pocket for some time. There really wasn’t anything out that I wanted to see. I saw a few commercials for Freedom Writers and decided it looked good, so I decided to use my gift card on this film rather than wait to use it on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as I expected I might have to do. I was not disappointed, and I believe I would have paid to see the film.
The film begins as Erin Gruwell, a fresh-faced, naive first-year English teacher is given her classroom assignment of remedial freshman classes. She carefully chooses her outfit for the first day, confidently adding a string of pearls her department head advised her not to wear to school. When she peeks in her classroom for the first time, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my own first look at my classroom in my first year teaching. She writes her name in neat cursive script, and as she waits for her class to file in, her excitement is palpable. The very first day, a fight breaks out in her class and it is clear that this experience is not going to be what she thought it would be. A short exposition reveals the violence and despair that are a daily part of her students’ lives. She resolves to keep fighting, despite the advice of her father and worries of her husband. When she finds a racist cartoon drawn by one of the students, she uses the moment to teach the students about the Holocaust. The classroom is gradually transformed into family, a safe zone, and a vibrant writing lab. Students begin to chronicle their lives in diaries given to them by Ms. Gruwell. Students read literature like The Diary of Anne Frank and begin to see how others have dealt with living in war zones that resemble their own home in Long Beach. They write letters to Miep Gies, who sheltered the Frank family in her home during the Holocaust, and raise funds enable Gies to come and speak at their school.
The reviews on this film are mixed, mainly because Freedom Writers is not the first film to feature a white teacher transforming the lives of students — in this case, Cambodian, African-American, and Hispanic (along with one very scared white kid). I can’t deny that it’s true that this story has been done before; however, don’t let that discourage you from seeing it. I thought the movie was incredibly moving. I think if you have ever taught a difficult group of students — or perhaps if you’ve ever taught, period — and this movie fails to make you cry at some point, then you have a heart of stone. I think all of us walk into a classroom at some point, believing we will be crusaders who change the world. We have these little mugs that say “2 teach is 2 touch lives 4 ever,” right? Or the little poster that says, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” I think many of us begin the profession with the same eager optimism that Hilary Swank as Erin Gruwell captures so well in the film. Many of us gradually become more like Gruwell’s department head — convinced the kids are bad, unteachable, and ultimately going to quit school anyway, so why bother? Or we become like the teacher in Erin’s department who refuses to teach anyone but Honors students or upperclassmen. I read at least one review that took exception to the portrayals of Erin’s colleagues, but anyone who has ever taught has run into teachers just like them. However, one simply doesn’t run into teachers like Erin Gruwell often.
[tags]Freedom Writers, Erin Gruwell, Hilary Swank[/tags]
Making Progress
Some of you might remember I took a Schools Attuned course last summer. I am still working on my practicum. I decided to complete the practicum online due to time and travel consideration. Once I complete my practicum and portfolio, I will earn CEU credits. I just completed the third of six practicum sessions today. It feels good to say I’m at least halfway there.
I’m definitely going to see Freedom Writers tomorrow. My boss gave me a movie gift card, and I think if I go to a matinee, I just might be able to get some snacks, too. I’ll let you know what I think with a review, so watch this space.
[tags]Schools Attuned, Freedom Writers[/tags]
Freedom Writers
Are any of you going to see Freedom Writers? I just sent an e-mail to my department head asking if she’d like to go see it with me this weekend. I wasn’t sure if she had heard of the movie (I hadn’t until a couple of days ago), so I enclosed the IMDb link for the movie. I was curious about some of the message board subject titles on that movie’s page, so I logged in to see what was up. Looks like the board is on fire with debate about the merits of what appears to be yet another movie featuring a white savior who transforms the lives of students who are mostly underprivileged nonwhites living in neighborhoods infested with gang activity. On the one hand, those naysayers have a point. There have been quite a few movies like this one. Dangerous Minds and The Ron Clark Story come to mind. However, there are also movies like Stand and Deliver and To Sir With Love that feature inspirational teachers of diverse racial backgrounds. Erin Gruwell, who wrote The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them, also happens to be white, so on the other hand, I don’t understand criticism about her race. It seems as though the movie producers were trying to be accurate. Amazing, inspirational teachers work all over the world and never get recognition or attention outside of the students whose lives they touch. I think many people who go into teaching really want to touch students in the way that Erin Gruwell has.
My first year teaching, I taught at a rural, underprivileged school not far from Macon, Georgia. We had a gang problem — there was nearly a fight between two boys of rival gangs in my classroom because one of them had a Band-aid stuck to his shirt. I can only remember that it was some sort of gang code for something, but what it meant I have since forgotten. I deeply wanted to show these kids that they were smart, that they had a future, that they could write. They wrote poetry — some of it I still remember well. They read Shakespeare. They also had a lot of problems, and I was not the transforming power I wanted to be — the kind of teacher one sees in these sorts of movies. I would like to think that I touched the students in some way and that some of them still retain positive feelings about their reading and writing experiences in my classroom. Truthfully, however, I’m not really sure I made much of an impact. I ran into many of them a couple of years after I left the school at a field trip to the very Shakespeare play — A Midsummer Night’s Dream — that they read in my class. We were such a poor school that I made photocopies of the entire play for the students. The other 10th grade English teacher didn’t teach Shakespeare. She disliked Shakespeare (which I never understood — how can you be an English teacher and dislike Shakespeare? — but then, I don’t understand how anyone can dislike Shakespeare) and didn’t teach his work. Her rationale was that she knew students would all read Macbeth in the 12th grade, as our 12th grade English teacher always taught that play — as if exposure to one play is enough! I am getting wildly off-topic, so just before I veer back on course, I just want to add Shakespeare is my favorite writer to teach, and I am currently enjoying a study of King Lear with my seniors.
Back on track. Where was I? My point was that despite the fact that the students were glad to see me at the play, and that I was truly glad to see them, I didn’t come anywhere close to doing for them what teachers like Ron Clark or Erin Gruwell did for their students. I couldn’t handle working at that school, where lack of discipline and violence ran rampant, and my principal denied there was any problem to a ridiculous degree. I just couldn’t do it. And where am I now? At a private school teaching students who for the most part have more opportunities in life than I have had. Sometimes I tell myself they don’t need me… but all students need good teachers — even those who don’t live in a ghetto rife with gang warfare. I am not sure anymore where I’m going with this post. I suppose I’m just dumping my feelings. I think in some way, I am trying to say that I would have loved to have transformed the lives of my students. I don’t think I did, but I think I gave them a good education for the time they were in my classroom. Their faces are blurring, and I can’t recall most of their names now. I am immensely proud of those teachers, like Erin Gruwell, who really do something amazing for the students who need them the most. I am honored to share the same profession with the likes of these educators. They are outstanding, and they succeed against some tough odds. I suppose, therefore, that it bothers me when such inspirational stories are reduced to a debate about the fact that the teacher is white.
[tags]Freedom Writers, teaching, writing[/tags]
Presentation
Despite discussing the possibility of taping my presentation in an earlier post, I didn’t get a chance to do so. I had too much to do today to run downstairs, get the camera, and figure out how to use it. Sorry!
Five Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me
Will mentioned this in his blog, and though no one’s tagged me, I decided to play.
- Will begins by mentioning his relation to William Bradford and John Proctor. Some of you probably know I am a genealogist, but you may not know it is a quirky hobby of mine to figure out how I’m related to famous writers. I am Mark Twain’s fourth cousin six times removed, Tennessee Williams’ sixth cousin three times removed, Jane Austen’s fifth cousin seven times removed, Oliver Wendell Holmes’ fifth cousin eight times removed, Robert Penn Warren’s eight cousin three times removed, Willa Cather’s eight cousin three times removed, Sir Walter Scott’s sixth cousin nine times removed, Ray Bradbury’s ninth cousin three times removed, twentieth great-granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer, sixth cousin six times removed of Emily Dickinson, and… well, I could go on, but the point is that I am just barely related to anyone famous. At least no more related than you probably are. The difference is I am weird enough to figure out the relationships.
- I was what is known, I suppose, as a heavy metal chick in high school. Hair bands. Yep. And I had big New Jersey mall hair. No, you can’t see a picture.
- My son Dylan is named for the poet Dylan Thomas — Dylan Thomas Huff. My dad’s name is also Thomas, so Dylan’s middle name serves the dual fuction of completing the poet’s name and honoring my dad. My hope is that Dylan will not emulate the poet’s lifestyle.
- My husband is an operatic tenor. He has had roles with the Knoxville Opera and has sung in the Atlanta Opera Chorus. I think he gave up on making it a career after he didn’t make the last round of Met auditions for which he was eligible.
I am a King Arthur buff. A walking encyclopedia of Arthuriana. And yet, I have never had a chance to put it to much use teaching. Gawain is my favorite knight. My daughter Maggie’s middle name is Elaine for the Fair Maid of Astolat. May she not suffer the same fate.
I tag Mr. Teacher, Nani, and Ms. George. Well, really anyone else who wants to play.
Miss Emily and Walt Whitman
I am taking Mr. Teacher’s advice and posting about some of the lesson ideas you can find on the handout page.
Arguably the two greatest American poets of the nineteenth century were Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, yet two more disparate poets would be difficult to find. For instance, Whitman wrote in free verse, while Dickinson preferred such rigid meter that most of her poetry can be sung to the following tunes: “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” the theme song for Gilligan’s Island, and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Try it. By the way, the reason for this is that Dickinson wrote in hymn meter. That means hymns like “Amazing Grace” will work, too.
Many years ago, I traveled to Atlanta with Gerald Boyd, who was then not the Language Arts Coordinator for the whole state of Georgia, but just for our own Houston County (pronouced not like the city Houston, but like the word house + ton — no, I don’t know why). He took English teachers from two of the other high schools — I represented Warner Robins High, while the two others came from Perry High and Northside High. We were being introduced to a program called Pacesetter English, potentially to determine whether Houston County should adopt it.
I can no longer remember the names of these teachers, but I adapted an offhand comment that the teacher from Perry made about teaching Whitman and Dickinson into a project that has been successful for years.
What would happen if Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson went on a blind date? For this creative writing assignment, students are asked to put themselves in the role of a matchmaker who is arranging a blind date between Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. The student’s composition should record the results of the date. Where did they go? What did they do? What did they say to each other? Did they make a “love connection“? Students had to integrate five lines of poetry from each poet seamlessly as part of the conversation between the poets. For example, many students who choose to depict Whitman as egomaniacal like to use the line “I celebrate myself…” when Dickinson asks him what he likes to do for fun.
Most students tend to determine that the poets are too different to make a lasting connection. It is up to your discretion as to whether you as a teacher want to get into Whitman’s homosexuality or speculation about Dickinson’s possible homosexuality. It depends upon your students. I also ask students to bold or otherwise draw attention to the lines of poetry so I can catch them more easily. This activity asks students to reach into poetry and think about what it means, to learn about two writers based upon their poetry, and to create a piece of polished creative writing about the two poets.
You can download the handout in either pdf or rich text format. Have fun!
Update: Confidential to the angry student in Chapel Hill, Tennessee who is not happy that I shared this idea because now he/she has to write a two-page paper about it: I direct you my policies and offer hope that you can get past your attitude problem and have fun with the assignment (and make a good grade).
Second Update: O, student who likes pie, You have got to be kidding me. You are asking me for help after the comment you tried to leave me yesterday?
Nevertheless, my advice is that if your teacher wants you to do the same thing I asked my students to do, you just need to write a story. Think of where you would like to see them go. What restaurant? What would they talk about? Read their biographies, which should be in your textbook and online. You could have them go mini-golfing. Maybe they would go to a poetry slam and poke fun at the mediocre poets there. Maybe they could go to Burger King and Emily could down five whoppers. The sky is the limit. When you revise, put in some lines of their poetry in their dialogue. For instance, Walt might tell Emily that she’s weird for always wearing white. Emily could counter with, “Much madness is divinest sense.” Something like that. You can actually have a lot of fun with this assignment.
In the future, you might want to remember you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Video or Podcast
Well, I’m taking Syb up on her suggestion. I asked my IT colleague if we could tape my presentation on January 2 so I can share it here. I don’t know yet if it will be a video or podcast, but I will let you know. Don’t look for it to appear right away. I still have to figure out how to do that part.
Faculty Presentation
Most of you reading this right now probably blog already, and many of you use wikis, too. I have given a presentation at a GISA conference on using blogs and wikis in the classroom, but I was also really sick that day and don’t feel I did a good job. I am determined to do a better job in front of my colleagues at a presentation I will be giving on January 2. Those of you who use blogs and wikis in the classroom might be able to help me. What do you wish someone had told you or taught you prior to using these tools? What piece of advice would you give educators beginning to use these tools? If you have used blogs or wikis in the classroom, can you point me toward those resources so that I can share them?