Praxis is a bitch

Praxis is a bitch. Reflection and action. Reflecting on day two, I am kicking myself. I talked too much. The more I saw some students start to shift in their seats or look around, the more I talked. It was a rabbit hole. Typical rookie mistake. My co-teaching colleagues were amazingly gentle in telling me about it later. I sent an email in the afternoon to say that I had been worried ever since class. Their responses were kind, but to the point – just the way colleagues should treat each other. I am so grateful for how much they are teaching me.

Re-reading my first post about this experience, I am also struck by how much it sounds like I think I’m saving the day. This could not be further from the truth! Let’s be clear. I am not the first university professor to return to the classroom to teach. Carole Lee, Deborah Appelman, and Mollie Blackburn come to mind immediately. By letting me co-teach with them, these teachers are giving me an incredible gift. The relationships we are developing and the trust we have are sacred to me. Combined, they have 30+ years teaching at this school. We all bring something important to this work. We are not so much seeking a “balance” as we are trying to construct something new that uses all our expertise in the endeavor. Thinking about today though, I feel like I’ve been a bulldozer. Not to mention that I am just teaching one class every other day. They have 3 or 4 more classes, plus collaborative planning time, support, family group, meetings, after school clubs and who knows what else. I’m a bit like a grandparent. I get to come in for the fun stuff and then go home. I was so stressed about this morning that I went home to take a nap, for goodness sake! I am fully aware of my privilege in this situation.

I did get some interesting feedback about my first posting on Monday that surprised me. In no way did I mean to say that everything was terrible before I came in!! True that I noticed a few kids were more engaged than I had seen before, but it is not the case that they were never engaged or that they were only engaged that day because of me. I know that, as a school, we are still working on having teachers use and post plans following the Understanding by Design framework. But, there are teachers who have been doing it all along, including the three I am co-teaching with. I have said many times that there are amazingly dedicated and caring teachers at East. Please don’t read my thinking about what’s going on as forgetting that.

I thought about not posting anymore if what I write continues to get twisted. I’m simply not good at screening my thoughts, especially on my own blog. I hate workplace politics because it’s such a waste of time and it’s not about the kids. I am always in trouble for speaking out on issues I see as problematic. Like I said, I talk too much. Plus, critical literacy is all about exposing power and how it works to discipline. It also produces. So many of the problems we face in urban education are due to silencing. We just don’t talk about it. Whose interests does it serve to stay silent? Not the kids, that’s for sure.