Samples
A Better Place to Grow Up (Chapter 10-11)
"NOBODY SAID IT WOULD BE EASY ..."
They take the good and bad. They look for a silver lining despite a dark past and an uncertain future. And at the end of a long, hard year, they get the sense that fate at last may be smiling on them.
CHAPTER 10
"We can only do so much"
They called themselves "The Committee to Catch Our Breath."
It's unclear how many staff members at Jefferson Elementary School in the city make up this group. There were no signatures on the letter that first-grade teacher Patsy Saffold handed to principal Ann Meese just a few days after the winter holiday.
The letter said the teachers were "not mentally, physically or emotionally" able to deal with the abundance of new programs at Jefferson -- the paperwork, the committee meetings, the new discipline procedures and the computer technology program.
"We can only do so much in a day, the children can only do so much in a day," the letter said. "Can we stand back, regroup and suggest as a whole team better ways to meet our goals?"
Meese accepted the letter and did just what it asked by holding a discussion about how best to deal with all the demands placed on the teachers.
Still, she was a little hurt that some teachers felt they had to express their feelings through an unsigned letter. Meese believes in openness and solving problems jointly. She would hold meetings at which staff members were invited to bring problems to her attention.
She would form committees so teachers could find their own solutions and not have them handed down from on high.
She remembered their birthdays, organized a special dinner for them and remembered to frequently single out teachers for special recognition in front of the others.
The letter she got was couched in jargon that bespoke teamwork and doing what's best for the children. But Meese saw in the letter a subtext. Some staff members weren't up to the job.
Too many got frustrated and berated their students when they should have been using positive reinforcement techniques. Too many treated the computer program as an irritant rather than a critical factor in their students' future success. Too many failed to understand that only a rigorous reading program with -- yes -- lots of paperwork and follow-up was the best way to get the children reading at their grade level.
She needed a staff that was "mentally, physically and emotionally" able to march into hell for this heavenly cause. The test scores had to improve. Every student had to show progress.
Peter Mudd, the bright young technology coordinator at Jefferson, had b een on her case to move against these teachers who wouldn't get with the program. So had Lisa Angstreich, the vice president for community development at McCormack Baron & Associates.
But nothing made Meese's stomach churn more than wielding the ax. She was by nature an instructor, a coach. When it came to delivering bad news, well, sometimes she practiced what she had to say with her husband.
She had already filed the paperwork against one teacher. She would try to nudge an older teacher toward retirement, a younger one toward a transfer. Then there were a couple of more whom she had thought a lot about, but, well, maybe she didn't yet have enough documentation on them.
Whether those teachers choose to stay or go, Meese isn't backing off on instruction. "They all know where I'm going," she says. "If I expect too much, well, that's part of the package."
CHAPTER 11
A teacher, not a robot
Teacher Mary Spencer isn't a member of The Committee to Catch Our Breath.
Spencer doesn't whine or complain.
Even so, she'll confide that she sometimes regrets promising to put off her retirement until after the next school year. She had promised the neighborhood residents at the dedication ceremony for the refurbished school that she would stay until Jefferson got back on the right track.
But it's been a struggle. On too many days lately she's felt more like a robot than a teacher.
Those are the days when she wants to stop to help a student grasp a concept in the "Success for All" reading program. But then the egg timer has rung and it's time for the next exercise.
It's on days when Spencer has to write detailed lesson plans and fill in progress reports that evaluate her 30 students' progress in 33 categories, rather than working one-on-one with a student and her story.
It's on days when special programs hatched at America's finest universities crowd out projects that Spencer has cooked up herself. She doubts those college professors could get any more out of her students than she has.
Yes, it's true, many students have left Spencer's classes reading well below grade level. "But where did they start from?" Spencer asks. How many turned out to be solid citizens? Those are the relevant questions to ask.
On this day, 39 days into the year 2000, Spencer is passing up a chance to get some after-school computer training.
Every teacher who completes the course will get a free laptop computer.
Spencer and the other teachers could use the laptops to organize their lesson plans, fill out those progress reports and keep track of grades. Or they could build a Web site that would show off classroom projects or encourage students to explore the world.
But in a way, that's what Spencer has been doing for these last four decades -- showing her kids the world. Until 15 years ago, Spencer took her class on a trip to New York. That's how they learned geography. That's how they saw stories they read in books come to life on the stage. That's how they learned their social graces.
This year, some of Spencer's students got to go camping for several days over spring break. That's always an eye-opener for the kids.
But when school starts again, it's back to the new program. She is expected to hit her marks. Teach the children exactly what they need to know so they can get good scores on their state achievement tests, so the district can secure its AAA accreditation, so the public will regain its faith in the city's schools.
Nothing wrong with that. She'll help her kids use the Internet to research subjects for Black History Month. She'll figure out how to use the e-mail system so the children can establish pen-pal relationships with adult volunteers.
But every so often, she'll draw outside the lines, stop class and make her kids think. "What," she asks, "does your God look like?"
The kids outfit God in flowing robes or maybe tattoos and Nikes. Make God a him or a her. Black or white. Bearded or with flowing tresses.
That sort of discussion doesn't come from a lesson plan. Some might even consider it inappropriate in a public school. But Spencer knows it makes her kids think, reminds them that whatever may be happening in their lives, somewhere out there is a wellspring of goodness.
And it reminds her that she's a teacher, not a robot.
