Category: teaching

Everything Is Upside Down and That’s Okay

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“You’ve always been fine but… this is the first time it seems like you really have your shit together.” My boyfriend was leaning on the counter, looking up at me and smiling.

I smiled back, not only because it’s nice when people you love validate you, but because it’s immensely satisfying when your own consciousness is mirrored back to you.

Here’s a thing about growing up (and being a teacher makes it weird, since I know twenty-seven isn’t actually “grown” at all, but consistently being around twelve-year-olds will do that to you): you either accept that everything is imperfect and going to change or you go nuts. There’s no easy way to say it, and frankly to do anything but embrace it would be a waste. 

I finished up my Teacher Leadership Initiative final project this past week, and in doing so reflected not just on my practice, but on my PLC (personal learning community). A lot of my community has been online: first, it was running and marathon training people, then TFA folks when I worked at the org, and then I was lucky enough to find EduColor and all the amazing people that I’ve met along the way.

I like to think of myself as “easily mentored,” but it’s probably more accurate to say that I just enjoy being a “fan” of things– especially people. I am quick to become an acolyte for my current favorite group or person, and just try and soak up some of their awesome. I like this about myself. I generally think people are good, and want to celebrate that as often as I can.

That also comes with a side order of self-consciousness: I value the opinion of people I like very much. I want to be liked by the people I like. While IDGAF about lots of folks, once I’m here for someone, my brain sets up a little test balloon of concern about them consistently bobbing around my mind: am I being too much? Is ____ annoyed with me? Should I do less/more of _______ so as not to upset _____? 

As you can imagine, it’s a lot of balloons, and quite a bit of mental juggling.

Here’s the thing I’m going to have to learn over and over again, though: people are not perfect, relationships change, and sometimes we’re just not going to vibe with someone. That’s okay. That’s good. Appreciating and wanting to be mentored by someone doesn’t mean you’re going to agree with them all the time. There also might be a time when they flow out of your life, and maybe the best thing is to appreciate the time they gave you and let it go.

I was reading Jose Vilson (one of many people who I consider a mentor)’s piece about #BlackLivesMatter and education. Beyond being an amazing, essential read…

(seriously, go read it. Now. I’ll wait. Done? Excellent.)

Anyway. One of the many things I love about the piece is that it reminds us how important it is to consistently question why we’re doing something. As teachers, I think we forget that far too often (both for ourselves and our students), but I know I want my students to question the “why” of every thing and every one, including me, as often as they can.

Moreover, the piece made me not just think about ensuring “The Work” is centered on our students, but it made me realize that it’s important to make sure all my relationships are centered properly as well.

In my professional world, that means students and communities of color. In my personal life, it might mean something else (shared experience, love, values, space, etc). But if growing up means embracing nuance and accepting imperfection, it means that well-centered relationships aren’t always going to feel the same. The chemistry with which I interact with people is invariably going to change, but as long as we both know why we’re in this, then I think it’s going to be okay.

It also means, though, that it’s time to let some of those balloons go. Not because I don’t still tremendously value my mentors, friends, and colleagues, but because I’d like to think that if we’re in this for the right reasons, we should center on that more than just each other. There’s a line between being a caring and empathetic individual, and just doing things to please others, and I’ve been tap-dancing on it for far too long.

As I’ve headed into my fourth year of teaching, there’s a lot of exciting things happening. It’s nice to get more work doing things I love and enjoy (instead of, perhaps, handing out flyers in Waikiki).

There is also, at least for now, an accepted confidence that even when things turn upside down, I have a pretty good idea of who I am and what I’m about. For now. If anything, the acceptance that everything will probably get upended at some point has given me a weird feeling that I am more able to roll with those punches and hopefully recenter and still love myself when I have to regain my footing.

So even if the room flips and everything scatter everywhere, I know where my center is. I’ll hold onto it for as long as I can, so that when chaos inevitably occurs, I’ll be able to find that place and seek joy in the flux.

Hello, I Am Trying to Write Today.

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Hey! Hi! I have a page and here it is! Hello!

I know it hasn’t actually been that long since I last wrote, but it feels like decades. We’re in the second day of school and I’m already tapped out. Beat. At the end of the first day, I sat there thinking I forgot how tiring the job is. 

Overall, I’m loving the work so far. I can already tell, though, that trying to juggle it with the other writing and work I’m supposed to do is going to be a bit of a struggle.

BUT, I think it’s important to remember that creativity isn’t a finite well of stuff we pull from. Hopefully this will push my teaching and my writing to improve. We tell our students this all the time: getting things onto paper is the warmup drill of good writing. It’s the calisthenics. It has to get done to get to the good stuff.

https://vimeo.com/24715531

I’m excited for that good stuff (wherever it’s hiding), and dive headfirst into the next year. I can already tell that this one will be vastly different than last– and it’s awesome to see last year’s students grow up so fast.

But for now… I’m just really, really tired.

What Does It Mean to “Win”?

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I’m on the launchpad of the school year, which is weirdly yet incredibly exciting. I thought I would be sad and, while I am bummed to lose my free time, it feels good to get back into the classroom.

With the school year coming up, it makes me think a lot about what I want for my students. Where will we go? What do I want them to do by the end of the year? What skills do these students need so they succeed out in the world? What will “success” look like in room 206?

I know that I’m lucky to have that freedom as a teacher– I haven’t always. “Success” used to be pretty strictly defined for me: 80% of my students making “Proficiency” on a test created by the organization running my school.

Of course, the charter school I was at did this because… everyone does this. Everyone tests their kids. Now. To this day. Students across the nation began taking Common Core State Standards (CCSS) tests last year, after years of taking the STAR or CST or HSA or whatever acronym the state used for it’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) test requirements.

I’m a lifelong product of these. Ever since early elementary school, I can remember having to sit and take day-long tests. A few months later, my parents would happily show me a piece of paper, and while I didn’t know what anything on it meant, I was happy they were happy. The scores on that paper opened doors for me: I was given awards based on the score, I was allowed to test for the Gifted and Talented program at my school (which I’ve written about here). My ability to do well on a long test directly impacted where I am in life.

Now that I’m in the classroom, knowing just how much that ability to test well gave me opportunity, I ache with knowing what so many teachers do: the ability to take a test does not come close to measuring the brilliance of my students. 

I won’t spend too long on this– plenty of folks have written tomes about how testing hurts students.

While testing isn’t a thorough measure of ability for any student, it is especially harmful for students of color (SoC). More and more, studies are finding that there is a racial bias favoring white students in standardized testing.

Knowing this, I had some mixed feelings when I listened to Nikole Hannah-Jones‘s report on This American Life (also below).


[FWIW: This is part 1, with the second part airing in two days. If that drastically alters my response, you can guess I’ll write about it. 🙂 ]

Of course, the reporting is great, and highlights some very necessary things we need to talk about in education: white fragility, biased beliefs about Black students, lack of teaching talent for SoC. These are all important and must be discussed.

My issue, overall, is that the piece still sees “success” and “the achievement gap” using the measuring stick much of the country uses: tests scores. Tests that only look at one small bit of our students’ capabilities.Tests that are inherently racist. Tests that reinforce the hegemony‘s idea of what it means to be successful in American education.

Even if school integration would drastically increase scores for Black students… I have to follow that up with “but at what cost?” Students would not only have to bare the emotional brunt of negative stereotypes (as noted in the piece), but I can’t help but wonder if their “success” is built around their ability to assimilate to White dominant culture’s ideas of “successful.” We can ask kids to do that, but we also know that comes at tremendous emotional and cultural cost.

So, a part of me says… I want more for students. If success built on integration is one rooted in assimilation, I’m not so interested. I’m not interested in perpetuating a world where my kids can’t be all of their amazing selves and not get called “ghetto” or “moke” or “unprofessional” or “angry” or any other coded, racist term we might use.

Beyond that, assimilation didn’t save Sandra Bland from unfair policing. Good test scores will matter less when unfair housing practices still make it hard to find a place to live. Will arming SoC with skills to do well on tests really be what ends inequality in our country?

Still, I also feel Ms. Hannah-Jones’s overall point, made at around 51:30 in the piece:

…What you’re saying is small, incremental progress. But meanwhile, there’s kids in those classrooms. There are kids who are going through these schools and not getting the education that they deserve while everyone’s trying to fix it. It’s not like those kids are removed somewhere and getting a good education while you guys figure it out. 

And therein lies the crux of the issue. We can call for takedowns of power and privilege but… there are kids in seats who need to be taught, who need to be given the tools to succeed in today’s society. How much longer can we ask students to wait while we dismantle centuries of racist educational practices?

Some argue that getting students into these traditionally “white” schools will be the wedge that starts breaking down some of the larger issues mentioned above. I’m not so sure, but I understand why, for many of us, it’s a place to start. I can’t protect my students from bad policing or unfair housing. All I can hope is that I can give them the strength I hope we all uncover within ourselves: the ability to stand up and say, “This is wrong. We need to fix this. Now.”

Stop and Figure Out What’s Yours

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It starts with checking your phone in bed. You wake up at 5:30AM, because it’s a habit you never really learn to let go of, even over summer vacation. Your eyes blink open, and your brain shoots a rapid fire message to all channels: “HOLY CRAP WHAT TIME IS IT AM I LATE?!”

You ignore the warm body stirring next to you and reach over. Grab your phone. As blue light bounces off your face, you get not just the time, but a reminder of the million other things you could look at right now. Your twitter notifications, what email came in over night. You decide a quick peek won’t hurt.

The peek turns into just answering an email or two. Then maybe a tweet. You chuckle as someone replies, begin to reply back, then try to quiet down so as to be considerate. You decide to quickly skim the news. It’s all important– an email from your principal, outstanding actions from fellowships, requests to host this chat or read this piece. It’s all good stuff. This is what it means to be a 21st-century educator, right? You’re always on. You’re always up-to-date. You’re always connected. You have to be ready to go at any time, because the world is still turning when your body is in bed.

All of a sudden, it’s 7:00AM. The person next to you kisses your cheek. “I love you,” you say, blue light bouncing off your chin as you look up. You don’t want them to forget as the rest of the world gets your attention.

“You too.” They patter off to get ready for their day. The shower runs. You find an article to share out. A witty note to add before the link. Scrape the meat off so it’s at 140. Good to go.

You put your phone down while your partner gets ready. You take a second, ask them about their day. You’re on summer break, so they don’t really ask about yours. Not because they don’t care, but because they can probably guess: gym. work. Summer can be a time to recharge, but you’re amusedly surprised to find out that constantly trying to better everything about yourself— your practice, your writing, your understanding of the world, your body– takes up a lot more time than anyone realizes (you included).

They have to go, you kiss them goodbye. “I love you,” you let them know, almost desperately. They know, and you know they know, and you trust that they love you too. The desperation isn’t that love isn’t there, but that it’s the only thing about yourself that feels constant and true anymore. It’s the knowledge that the sun rises in the morning. Everything else is a series of hop-skip-jumps along a path you’re trying to figure out as you go and that you’re pretty sure you’re going to screw up at some point.

They leave, and the phone is right back in your hand. You respond to a message, there’s another email. It should be made clear that none of this is drudgery, you love what you’re doing right now. It’s what fuels you. It’s the main part of you that feels talented, strong, smart. 

Before you know it, another hour has gone. You hop a bus home. You go to the gym for a few hours. Write, email, tweet in between sets, at stoplights. You’re never not-available. You’re never disconnected.

You get home. Write, edit, read a new piece (you’re a teacher, after all). Suddenly, it’s 4:30P, and you know that the day is rapidly coming to a close. You wonder where the time went. You wonder if you used it well. Didn’t you want to try and go on a hike today?

Now, you’re a little annoyed. At what, you’re not sure, but you are. You have to figure this out.

You get up. You look in the mirror. The contents of the apartment you’ve been in for less-than-a-year are still scattered about, so you never really moved in. It barely feels like yours anyway– no more so than the last less-than-a-year apartment, or the one before it. You’re always looking for something better, and when you think you’ve found it, something else always pops up.

You stop looking at the apartment and back in the mirror. Your face is there. Nose, eyes, mouth. You like your face, generally, but some days when you actually look at it, it’s a shock that it’s yours. It doesn’t really feel like yours.

It takes a second, and then you realize what’s been frustrating you for the past hour, day, week, months: when did you stop taking a second to quietly revel in ownership of yourself? When did your actions become a reaction to everything you thought you needed to do to be yourself?  Did you actually ask yourself what “you” (in all senses of that word) looks like right now? 

You tilt your head– one way, then another. Put your hand your collarbone, feel the body stretch and grow beneath the skin as you breathe in. Breathe out again. Your chest collapses. Your heart beats. Yours.

The mark of the modern educator may be connectedness, but if the mark of a great educator is being authentic to yourself, I should probably take a second to figure out who that person is. That process doesn’t end, and it doesn’t need to be public. If anything, it needs to be in the quiet moments of my own breath, or the soft spaces with people where the walls are down and my own existence feels like enough.

I’ve been beating myself up all week because I didn’t have anything to say here. I realized that I’ve been so focused on authoring myself for other outlets, I lost sight of my own center.

I don’t have a lot of time left, but I think it might be enough to stop and make sure I understand where I am right now. So when the real work begins, I know exactly who is in the classroom with my students, and not the approximation of who I was trying to create.

Teachers Are Not The Sun: Recentering Our Classrooms

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I’m really into centering and focus lately in my teaching practice. The more and more I understand how it affects my everyday life, the more I see its implications in my work.

So, this weekend, I was frustrated when I saw not just one, but THREE separate discussions that, paraphrased, said, “if you’re a non-educator or not a teacher, I’m not interested in your opinion on my classroom.”

And I was like:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/viktortk/25-types-of-shady-looks-you-should-be-using-m2eg#.rdwJrnQ5Z

then I was like:

.

Like, damn. As mentor and #educolor member Melinda Anderson pointed out, it’s an “epidemic.”

But I get it. I get it. Being a teacher is hard. Real hard. We face a lot of outside babble from folks trying to tell us how to do the job and actually being totally wrong, because you don’t know what a classroom is like until you step in there.

That’s really frustrating, and I understand if it has made us guarded. It makes us want to protect the few precious parts of our job that we have ownership over, that don’t feel stripped away by testing we may not agree with or other bureaucracy that, often, doesn’t make sense in our classrooms. You have a right to feel frustrated and skeptical. I often do too.

Still, you’re really gonna tell me that the only people qualified (or even those who are most qualified) to have an opinion on education are only teachers?

Only teachers are capable of understanding the ~mystical ways~ of our students, or our classrooms? Better yet (or worse), you wanna tell me that the academics from places that–you guessed it– are often institutionally racist/sexist/privileged know more about kids than their parents or community?

If you really think that the parents, community members, and other important folks in a student’s life don’t have just as much right to have an opinion as you do, what are you even doing here, bruh?

That sounds harsh, but for all the talk I see about “student-centered” classrooms, I see VERY LITTLE walking the walk.

So many teachers make it all about them and refuse to take outside support from community members. That’s an incredibly frustrating thing to witness, and I’m not even a parent! I can’t imagine what rage I would feel if my kid’s teacher told me that even though I share culture, race, and background with my student (beyond, ya know, being related to and raising this child),  I unequivocally cannot have an opinion about what happens for hours a day in that classroom.

Don’t get me wrong: parents aren’t always able to see a clear picture of their kids either, at least for the time students are in the classroom. Sometimes, we have to remind folks what we’re seeing in the day-to-day. I’m not saying that parents or community members are always right.

But, especially when most teachers are White women, I have a hard time believing that they have any right to only listen to their opinion, or the opinion of outsiders to a community and ignore those who are from the community. How is that student centered?

Melinda brought up this excellent point when we talked about it online: when many of your teachers are not from the community and don’t share the cultural context of their students, forcing parents and community members to stay silent is a form of colonialism in our practice.

Communities have the right to self-author their stories through their children. My job as a teacher isn’t to outshine or shout over that– it’s to expose them and give them the tools to help them share it even louder!

The lack of humility it takes takes to decide that your voice or only your views on education have merit is not just rude, it’s dangerously restrictive and privileged. You do not get to call your teaching “student centered” when you purposefully ignore the voices and beliefs of those who influence student lives in favor of what you believe is “educated” thought. 

I tend to think of a school community a little like a solar system. If my students are the center (which they should be), like the sun, then the bodies closest to them– parents, coaches, teachers etc– are the ones that not only have largest spheres of influence and connection (gravitational pull, if you will), but also the most reliable knowledge about what it’s like closest to that center.

I am very bad at art, but since I am trying to improve my visual aids, I have put together this Google Drawing to illustrate what I’m thinking:

Student Centered Solar System

As the chart shows (fancy, I know), no one is cut out of the picture here (and this is a pretty unfinished picture, despite how ~fancy~ it is). No one is saying that even the media or edu-companies should be cut out.

All I’m saying is this, bottom line: the closer you are to kids, the more you have a shared language, cultural context, and understanding of not just them, but all the stories that helped make them them, the more you can help.

Sometimes, even a lot of times, that’s a teacher. Sometimes, though, it’s not just a teacher, you know?

Look, no one is saying to silence teacher voice. Clearly, teachers are the ones in the trenches, day-to-day, dealing with what happens in schools. Saying that parent voice matters or community voice matters does NOT mean we ignore teacher voices, or even the voices of academia.

Research (especially from researchers who are social-justice-oriented or from communities we teach in, but that’s another post) is not the enemy. Teachers or parents aren’t the enemy. Even edtech companies aren’t the enemy. No one is the enemy. Everyone has something cool to offer.  It’s not a zero-sum game. No one has to win or lose. We can all win.

The only way that happens, though, is if we consistently center the work on our students. If you really want to serve students, and center on them, but you have no relationships with students, you know what you’re probably going to be driven to do? TALK TO SOMEONE WHO DOES AND GIVE WEIGHT TO THEIR THOUGHTS.

And teachers? If we truly center on our students– as often as we can– and ask ourselves: who knows more about this kid right now? I bet the answer may not be us, or the amazing teaching practice book we just read, or that awesome article we loved when we were in teacher prep.

It’s probably going to be a parent, family member, friend or better yet: the student themselves.

I love teachers. I am teacher. I love being one, and I love working with other great teachers. I’m just asking us to remember– when it’s hot outside, when summer has us punchy and squirmy– to remember why we got into the work. Don’t cut out the people that help create the folks you really want to help the most: your students.  

Desperately Seeking Fun

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I’ll admit it: I have recently been regretting taking on a summer school position.

Don’t get me wrong: the pay is decent (I think?), the kids are generally well-behaved, I have a lot of leeway in what I do with students (hence: social justice Fridays). Still, I think that both myself and the program lead seemed to ignore the fact that at the end of the day, you still have 20+ pairs of eyes looking at you asking “What’s Next?” Sure, there’s no grading involved, and there is (or should theoretically be) a lot less pressure, but still the 20+ minds in the room are there to be taught, dammit, so I better come up with something good, ya know?

Now, I normally love that about teaching. It’s one of the reasons I came back— I need the energy and, frankly, that accountability. But it’s also really tiring and it has made me a little grumpy. <pityparty>With summer here, a lot of my friends and colleagues are (rightfully) resting, adventuring, doing other things that I want to be doing. I’d love to be on a hike or a long run at 9:45AM on a Tuesday. Sadly, I am normally telling my kids to work on their articles for the newsletter at that time.</pityparty>

OK, I got that out of my system, which is good. I still get summer (technically) off, and I will still get to do lots of those things, so it’s not all bad.

Plus, I seem to forget that I really like kids when I let myself. Even when I snap at them or get frustrated, they do things like this:

And that was after I got snippy with her. Even when I don’t want to do it, the kids are out there, having fun and being great and having fun.

At the end of the day, this is one of their greatest gifts, and one of the things I truly love about teaching: kids force you to seek joy, live in laughter, and see hope in everything, because that’s how they see the world. Even kids in dire circumstances are often the ones who ask the toughest questions and because of that, dream the biggest dreams. The biggest mistake I could make as a teacher would be to try and squash that sense of wonder, delight, and enjoyment of the world. 

So, I vow to join them. I have about 10 days left with them. I am desperately seeking fun, the bright side, and joy.

An Astronomical Pull – Re-Centering the Work

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I haven’t known what to write.

After the Charleston Shooting, I was at a loss for what to say, and while the conversation has improved from some folks, the amount of hate, frustration, and sheer ridiculousness of what’s out there hurts. There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t been said by some people I respect a lot, like Mr. Chase, Mr. Lehmann, and the EduColor Newsletter.

Then, I saw this tweet:

https://twitter.com/polyhansen/status/611573714086445056

that led me to have this reaction:

https://twitter.com/biblio_phile/status/611697685167345664

And here’s the thing that people, especially those with power, especially white people forget: power has an incredibly strong pull. Its center of gravity takes anything thrown in its orbit and makes it revolve around Power. Power always wants to focus on itself. Power consistently takes whatever is happening and asks, but what about ME?!

Sometimes, that manifests ourselves obviously: I don’t want to talk about it. I am uncomfortable. I don’t feel that way/haven’t experienced it that, so someone else’s feelings don’t matter.

Sometimes, though, that manifests much more subtly. Even if you want to be helpful, making everything focus on your needs and trying to help YOU help others doesn’t always feel helpful, especially when it’s about race. In fact, it can be immensely tiring.

I think,when you decide to teach, or when you decide to work in public to service, we must decenter ourselves from whiteness– the strongest power in these discussions– but always myself from the center of the spaces we inhabit. As the teacher, a classroom shouldn’t center around my needs, but the students. We have to realize that it’s not always about us. 

That seems hypocritical, of course, to say on a blog with my name in the URL. So, I am trying figure out my space in the middle— sometimes as a Woman of Color who is working to figure these things out and take up space, and also as attempting to ally to communities that I want to serve. Right now, that means amplifying as many voices, especially Black voices, as I can, and in the words of my friend Bill, “just shutting up and listening hard.”

I hope that my “ally” friends will do the same. We have to learn when to stop trying to “fix” things and just ask “how can I help?” Sometimes that means just amplifying voices instead of barging in with all of your needs and wants.

As teachers, it means making sure our students have spaces to process if they are the ones in marginalized spaces, or that we are pushing them to discuss difficult things, even when it feels scary. It is totally doable. Today, I was able to start the discussion using an easy and effective Teaching Tolerance lesson. Get there.

I fear what happens if we don’t. I worry that we will just continuous be pulled and re-centered around what is most powerful, until everything else is burned off in its wake, left to drift out alone.

We Rarely Ever Leave: Figuring Out How I Feel About TFA

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It’s been a while since I wrote about Teach For America.

I’ve mostly tried to… avoid it. After publishing something in Medium, I realized that I was sort of tired of talking about it. TFA had compromised the entirety of my adult life, and now I was in a strange place of anger, frustration, and also a deep appreciation for the people I had met. I just wanted to try and let it all go.

So I haven’t talked about TFA in a while. I used to tweet and write about it a lot, then I just… stopped. I cut the cord with TFA much like a break up. I stopped engaging. Occasionally, I asked our mutual friends (aka friends-still-on-staff) how things were going, I wondered what the org was up to at that moment, I’d go on long binges of stalking it on facebook (mostly to cheer on my friends’ work).

Recently, though, I actually quietly rejoined the organization as a part-time staff member (freelancer? contractor? IDK, I do some work for TFA and they pay me. It works out). I heard that TFA was looking to grow its Education 4 Justice program, a pre-corps social justice journey that corps members would go through during the year before they teach.

It was run by people in the org I trusted, so I decided why not apply? As I was writing the application essay, I wrote something that surprised me:

As an alumna who has recently been critical of the organization, I feel its my obligation to put in the work to fix the issues I see with Teach For America.

I got in, and when I went to the training I realized something very important: I am not alone in the work. It’s so easy to look at the monolithic “brand” of Teach For America (and yes, we brand very well, don’t we?) and forget that there a lot of individual rabble-rousers still in the org, making sure it grows from the white savior roots that have made the organization struggle in the past.

There are lots of great people who criticize the organization, but there are also amazing folks who are within the organization, using the power there for good. At the end of the day, the organization has attracted many dedicated, caring, really smart people.

And, as much as I at times have refused to admit it, working with other TFA folks felt, in some ways, like home. There is a culture of the org, especially among people of color or working towards social justice, a shared language that is soothing in its familiarity. As much as the org frustrates me, to deny its influence in my life would be to deny a large part of my identity and origins in education.

So, yes, there are still some things about the organization that make me really frustrated, and parts of the organization that I think need to be overhauled. I also know that TFA and a lot of its staff members put a lot of work into making me a decent teacher. I also owe any time and effort I can give to help make the organization a better tool to support and uplift communities.

I guess we rarely ever leave something behind. We can completely cut ties, but at the end of the day the parts of us that we perhaps feel strange about are still there. They are still tied to us– gossamer strings of memories, habits, influences– that can never really never be cut. We rarely ever leave the places we move on from. We merely stop occupying the space in the same way.

A Summer Letter to My Students

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My Wayfarers and My ‘Ohana,

The year has just finished, and I hear you singing outside as you’re wrapping up your year.

Today, I was at my desks, listening to your chatter, and I was struck by this perfect, simple thought:

I finally know what home is.

I don’t know if you’ll remember my class years from now, but I think I’ll remember you. I don’t know if my class will have a lasting impact on your life, but it’ll stick with me for a while. You were my first when I decided to come back to teaching. You showed me what it was to start digging into this work.

So, when I struggle with the concept of home, thank you for letting me learn alongside you. Thank you for helping me see that home has been right here, watching you all grow.

Please keep sharing your voices. Please, keep telling your stories. They are so worthy of being shouted from the rooftops. You are all so marvelous.

With lots of aloha,

Ms. Torres

Per7per4_1Per2_1Photo on 5-20-15 at 8.32 AM
 And special edit for yearbook because it ks the best and Maya asked for it. ❤️