Pep Your Step

There is a phantom motivational graffiti artist around Squirrel Hill. Each day that I've walked into town I've found a new one. Here are all of them so far...

18. Increase Your "Brain Smarts"

Last night, before the main event, I had my after-school program students write thank you notes to the presenters and tour guides who have made their program really exciting. So far, they've learned how to take blood pressure from the Chatham Physician's Assistants. They've visited the "helipad" of a hospital and watched an emergency helicopter take off in flight. They've even toured a medical simulation center. Out of a handful of notes, here is my favorite...

17. Teach the White Lady Things

"And don't be afraid to be, you know, assertive," says Mr. T. "Or else they'll..."

"Eat me alive," I say.

"Run you out of here," he says.

It doesn't matter that I've just explained that I used to teach middle school. I've been a substitute. Taught high school and summer school. A group of 4th graders made me cry once. I am experienced. I am made of steel and tricks and looks. Oh do I have the looks.

But, I am a white lady. So, according to Mr. T., I need to be schooled.

# # #

Kejean studies the fabric of his chair and grunts at my questions. "What do you think you want to be when you grow up?" I ask. He squirms as his 6th grade toothpick legs brush the carpet of the Principal's office. 

"Sports," he says and goes back to studying his chair.

"Look at Ms. Katie when she's talking to you," Mr. T. orders. "You've got to make eye contact, Kejean. We've been working on that. Come on now." Mr. T. pats the back of his thinning gelled waves and places one hand on his hip. "Use your words, Kejean." 

"And what's plan B if sports doesn't work out?" I ask. Say astronaut. Say neuro-chemical-molecular-astro-physicist. Just say something academic, firmly requiring college, firmly requiring that the mind, rather than the body, stays nimble and fit. 

"Football," he says. 

"Alright then," I say and then smile and look at Mr. T. He nods his head affirming Kejean's career of choice and purses his lips. 

"And that'll be a very typical answer coming from our kids," Mr. T. tells me. By "our kids" he means black and, most likely, nearing, if not sitting right on the poverty line.

"Oh. Right." I say, even though I know that Kejean's 4 foot 9 aspirations of playing ball and skipping college to go pro are the dreams of my former students. Save the aspiring robotic engineer, most of my 12-year-old little men wanted to shoot hoops for the big bucks. That or throw down a mean rap.

I've explained this to Mr. T. I get these kids more than you think, I want to say. But, he translates anyway, so I listen. 

Our paperwork checks out so we take Kejean and Tazhe with us. Tazhe covets the passenger side door of our van even though I'm standing right beside her. "She's coming?" Tazhe asks when she notices I'm competing for her seat. She looks me up and down. 

"That's Ms. Katie," Mr. T. says, "Remember her from last week?"

Tazhe starts to laugh. "I thought you was my teacher," she says. It's May. How could Tazhe have mistaken me for a teacher at her school? Mr. T. doesn't translate this one, but I figure it out on my own. 

"She's in the 6th grade," Mr. T. says. "Twelve years old." He shakes his head. "She's too grown up for twelve." He's referring to the fact that her breasts are spilling out the top of her v-neck t-shirt - that she's as tall as I am.

"Girls are maturing earlier and earlier," I say. And I know this fact just as well as I know Kejean's future plans involve a football or basketball. I've read the studies that explain that adolescent girls are hitting puberty even earlier than the rest. And girls who hit puberty earlier aren't equipped with the developmental skills to deal with their changing bodies and advancing males. Tazhe has more to deal with than outgrowing her training bra. But, I don't say this. I respect that I am here to get to know these kids. I am here to receive an education from Mr. T.

Our van, with cigarette butts in the ashtray and empty Cheeto's bags on the floor, proclaims "Baptist Church" on its side. We pull up to one school, then the next, collecting kids for our after school program. Rico, Jade, Rayon, Ta'Shauna. Mr. T. turns up the radio and bops his head to the beat. I realize that a side effect of no longer teaching is being embarrassingly unaware of top 40 radio hits and the latest hip hop dance. There was a time when I knew how to laffy taffy and do that zoom zoom dance. I knew at least the chorus to the current Soulja Boy song and could name drop Lil' Boosie when I needed to get my students' attention. But, today, I am not prepared for the song that makes the kids bounce across the bench seats of our van. "Birthday Sex" does not seem okay, regardless of the lettering on the side of our vehicle, regardless of the fact that we're an academic mentoring service.  It feels good feels good girl let me hit that g-spot g-spot, girl. Then: Get ready for action / Don't be astounded / We switching positions / You feel so rounded...

Mr. T. looks at me, then at the road, then at me, all while chuckling. He watches my reaction like a tour guide. I shake my head like I imagine I'm supposed to and give a little smile. He thinks he's schooling me, so I play along. It's not the lyrics or the dancing or the fact that everyone is singing along that stumps me. It's that we're in a church van. We're driving to a church. A Baptist church. But, Mr. T. believes he's giving me a cultural immersion, so I pretend to wince at the song and wince the dancing. I'm really wincing at the Baptist part of this scenario. Nothing else.

Later, I tell Mr. T. I'll be making some phone calls to the students' parents. He pauses, then gestures with his hand for effect. "Let me know if any numbers are disconnected. You see, that's a big problem we have with our kids here. Their numbers are always changing."

"Right." I say. "That's similar to my former..." But Mr. T. has already left the room.

# # #

There are 5 weeks left in our after school program, and I'll continue to let Mr. T. teach me what he assumes I don't understand. If I were assertive enough, I'd ask him to scrape deeper than the surface of our shared students - beyond their physical development, predictable adolescent dreams, dance moves and disconnected phone lines. Teach me what lies beneath - show me the rings of their trunks, the veins of their leaves. Teach me their narratives - their hidden stories and circumstances - so that we can, together, pen something meaningful. As for tonight I will pull out the strictest, firmest teacher-look I can muster, respect Mr. T.'s cultural curriculum and absorb. I am a student, too.

16. Make Your Teachers Do Ridiculous Things...

Since Monday, three Southeast Middle teachers have lived and breathed this window-less haven day in and day out. Yes, that's right, they are spending every day and every night for one week trapped inside because 95% of the student body achieved their goal of attendance, behavior and effort during the state test, LEAP. 

Read their adventures within the building here. 

The local news even captured the administrators living up to their end of the bargain. While the entire school assembled in the gym, Mr. Milton's (Principal) head was shaved into a mohawk and dyed blue. Mr. Shelton (Assistant Principal) dressed in a lovely blue dress and sported a woman's wig. The kids about died, and how I loved seeing some of my former students and co-teacher on TV!

The Newest Corps

Over 35,000 people applied to TFA this year (a 42% increase from 2008). Could the increase be a testament to hard economic times? A higher commitment to public service?  Both? Watch a recent clip about TFA from CBS news...

Watch CBS Videos Online

Use Your Words

I like words. I like markers. I like filling up classroom walls with ongoing brainstorms and lists and examples. The Multiple Meaning Word Wall was a classic. Every morning, during this portion of the curriculum, I'd stand on a table (which was enough to get the students to wonder if I'd fall to my death, thus paying close attention to me) and have students call out multiple meaning words. We'd fill up the chart paper little by little. Sooner or later we'd start to lose steam and just admire our weeks' work. We'd tear down the paper when it came time to move on to homophones, or figurative language or synonyms.

Apparently the Multiple Meaning word activities are still charging on at Southeast. Ms. Heinzen reports: I think you might like this one. When doing an observation I walked into a classroom and they were working on the multiple meaning of "handle" and the sentence said, "Chris Brown man-handled Rihanna." I love Middle Schoolers. 

Me too.

Poetry Tree featuring figurative language leaves, 06-07

15. Idolize Your Teachers

I spent Valentine's Day weekend in Chicago celebrating my writing relationship - my often touchy and emotional whirl with words. At AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs), I was courted, not by chocolates or red roses, but by panels of writers and teachers who were there to jump start my feelings about being a part of this love affair that has, lately, made me wonder why I entered into this complicated relationship to begin with. It worked. Partly due to the vast numbers of people who believed in writing and teaching writing (and know what an MFA is). Partly due to the fancy (no free internet) glitz of the Hilton. Mostly, however, my love affair with writing was rekindled upon bumping into some of my writing idols - those Greencastle writing forces who helped me add writer to my list of titles.

You don't just bump into people at AWP. It's way too big. But, during a mid-session bathroom break, I spotted Barbara Bean, the last professor I took at DePauw, a cheerleader and a critic - the best kind of professor. Then, in a session about why Nonfiction writers often get it wrong, in walks Peter Graham. "You don't know me, but I graduated from DePauw and was a writing major," I said after tap-tap-tapping him on the shoulder. I didn't tell him I most desperately wanted to write a memoir like his wife's, Lili Wright's Learning to Float. I didn't tell him that I often gazed through the window that separated me and my professor's personal lives and decided that I wanted an existence just like that. I didn't tell him that Pittsburgh is not Greencastle. Its potholes and rain and lack of small karaoke bars make it really hard to cling onto the vision of an idyllic professorship at a small Liberal Arts college. I did tell him to say hello to Greg Schwipps, advisor-extraordinaire, who, 10 years after completing his MFA will publish his first book, What This River Keeps, this spring. 

For the first time since becoming an MFA candidate at Pitt, I felt a little more like a writer.  A little more like this writing business is a part of my identity. And, since it was Valentine's Day, I chalked these sightings up to fate - the stars had, of course, aligned. In this relationship, there are cheerleading critics that, though distant, can send a little spark to help me keep working through the kinks of this shaky marriage.

Maybe I never fell in love with writing. Maybe I fell in love with the teachers of writing, the idea of being like my teachers and the exhilaration of feeling both humbled and successful during a workshop. I fell in love with the writing experience. Valentine's Day weekend was a perfect opportunity for a little boost - a little reminder of why I write and why the experience of writing can contribute to a long lasting, healthy courtship with words.