Hump Day

Sometimes just making it past Wednesday is the encouragement that you need for the week. Right now, I feel like making it back to school on Monday will be the ultimate hump day challenge.

I like teaching. I like teaching in Detroit. I like teaching my students.

I hate the system. It is so broken. And it is absolutely beyond me, or any other teacher, to fix it. I am given a pacing chart and told what to teach each day. I am expected to stay on track with the pacing chart. I am expected to differentiate my lessons so that my students, who are all at different levels, can be fairly accessed on the same content but not at the same depth. And yet, each of my students needs to know the same things for the standardized tests because I am evaluated on their performance on these tests. None of it is fair. It's not fair to the teachers and its not fair to the kids.

In the perfect school, kids would be assigned groups based on what they know, not their age. They would be taught in groups no larger than twelve. They would be able to move to another group based on their skill level gained or need for more instruction. Kids would be allowed to study in depth the things that fascinate them, whether it be music, social studies, physics or pottery.

But we have standards for each grade level because we are in competition with other countries. And the people who are in charge of making our children competitive on the world playing field are underpaid, under supported, and stretched too thin.

I love Detroit. I couldn't imagine myself teaching anywhere else. I am not in love with any other group of kids the way that I love kids from my city. I feel like no other place needs me. Detroit needs people who believe in the hope of redemption. Detroit needs people like me. But, being here is so hard. Teaching here is so hard. I don't know how people raise families and teach. It blows my mind that it is even possible. Teaching consumes your life. Teaching requires continual self improvement and reflection and tweaking after tweaking after tweaking.

The first year is the hardest. Yeah, I get that. But there are no guarantees that next year will be any easier. Who knows what school I'll be working at, or what grade I will have, or what subjects I will be teaching. ...and for what? A broken system that cannot be fixed? To fix education in this country school must be completely rethought. Teachers will have to be completely retrained. Universities will have to be completely turned around to produce a mass of people ready to tackle injustice like never before. And the public will have to learn to value something that our culture has always valued in speech, but never with action.

This problem is so much bigger than I can even imagine.

I know I can make a difference in Detroit because it all comes down to how you treat people. The biggest impact I can give to my kids is not how much math or science they learn. Kids don't really care about that. Humans don't really care about that. Humans care how they are treated. Now, in education that means meeting kids where they are and genuinely trying to bridge the gap between what they know and what they don't know. But kids won't let you give them knowledge. You have to earn their respect and trust in order for them to allow anything you say to make a difference.

The only problem is with 50 students, 2 hours given by the district to prepare, plan, intervene, and grade a week, and a plethora of learning styles and abilities, it is nearly impossible to reach every kid.

And so I approach the beginning of the 2013 school year much like a hump day morning, staring at the alarm clock in disbelief that it is already time to get out of bed. I am faced with two choices. One-hit snooze, go back to bed, and then just try to make it to the weekend. Or two-suck it up, breathe in deeply and fill my lungs with life so that I have something to work with when I am up to my neck with problems I cannot solve but a heart that will not let me look the other way.

I will not always be a teacher, of that I am sure. But I will be a teacher here in this city for the next 2 1/2 years. The Lord has put me here. The Lord has allowed my heart to be burdened with some of the things that burden his own heart. I have no other choice but to go back to work in Monday with a resolve in my heart to once again treat and teach my students with justice. I must do justly by them. They are what I have been entrusted with. Even though I can't defeat the monster of education, I stare it boldly in the face knowing that somehow I can be a threat.

My God sees. My God hears. He knows better than me what I am up against. He knows that this job is much harder than most anyone supposes. And so I can go back to work rejuvenated, not because anything is solved, but because I trust my Lord. He has not failed me. And I would hate to live each day just hoping for a weekend without responsibilities to waste away my time.

Cheers to hump day, it's a day of forming character from deep within.