My head hurts... and other symptoms of learning

Ouch! My head hurts...

I have often thought of my emotions as following into two categories: "good" emotions and "bad" emotions. The good ones include such well-accepted feelings like joy, happiness, love, bliss, and contentment while conversely I tend to lump anger, fear, anxiety, frustration, and despair into the "bad" category. It turns out that I'm not the only one who has such ideas. Many of the young people that I work with, not to mention most of us humans in the developed world, seem to be on one continuous pleasure hunt.

And in the modern world, there's plenty of opportunities. My particular version of this often consists of eating really delicious food and being unable to get enough. As soon as I'm done eating a meal that was too many calories for one day, I'm thinking about what my next meal is going to be. Or maybe I'm strategizing how my next errand is going to take me past my favorite chaat spot or fish taco joint. The bay area is just one hedonist, local, organic delicious love-fest.

On the flip side, if I'm experiencing pain of either the physical or emotional variety, it's really hard to get perspective. The muscle knot in my shoulder becomes a major physical handicap for the day, the tiny stomach rumbling is a symptom of some nasty gastroenteritis, and my scratchy throat warns of impending sickenss that will confine me to a bed for days.

So what does a splitting head pain mean? Well, when one of the students at my high school went complaining about how her work has been causing her head to split open, my principal responded with a smile and what sounded nearly like "congratulations! you've won the lottery!" Literally, she said, "That means you're learning!"

For the last few years, our school has been on a mission to get students to see pain as normal, to see mind-taxing work as beneficial exercise for the muscle in our head, and ultimately to embrace hard work. Just like me, our students seem to have a desire to feel good and avoid those "bad" emotions. Thus, many would much rather spend all evening developing their social networks than writing a thesis statement to a prompt they don't understand or solving math problems whose answers elude them. They would just rather not feel dumb. Based on my own experience, this seems like a totally logical response to work. My problem in high school, which turned out to be more beneficial in the long-run, is that I was much better at figuring out answers to textbook questions and solving math problems than becoming cool and popular at school. Therefore, on Friday nights, you might just find me saddled up to a desk, solving math problems instead of getting twisted at a party.

Unfortunately, by the time, most of the students reach MetWest, school work feels like pain more than pleasure. They feel stupid more of the time than smart. So, somehow we need to convince them that the pain they experience when faced with challenging work is actually a normal and healthy process. They are, in fact, exercising their brains to be stronger and smarter. Luckily, we are not a cult, brainwashing them into working hard so that they can have both the analytical prowess and disciplined habits to be successful in life. There are studies that seem to indicate that what we are espousing has some truth.  One's intelligence is indeed malleable.  The brain, particulary during adolescence, is developing, and students who perform certain types of tasks will become more and more proficient in those tasks. The implications are high-stakes. As long as young people experience failure in school and carry the idea that they are dumb, they will likely avoid work in school and never develop those parts of their brains that would actually help them do well in school. The cycle is vicious.

Until someone comes up with a magic homework powder, I will keep cheering when I hear students complaining of their heads hurting in school. No need for aspirin, pain is what the doctor ordered.

Benevolent dictators

My classroom has served as a microcosm of the larger world in many enlightening and disturbing ways.  For example, as a young idealist, I wanted to empower my students in the decision making process.  What better way to learn about democracy, then to give them the chance to consider and debate those decisions that would directly impact them, right?  Well, after weeks of trying to plan a trip with my group of advisory students, benevolent dictatorships started sounding like an ideal form of government.  Instead of debating the relative merits of Waterworld versus playing video games at Boomers, I could just decide that we would go rock-climbing.  After all, I knew that there were some students who would be eternally embarrassed if they were ever seen in a swimsuit.  And wasn't I supposed to be helping my students unplug from all the technology that drowns their minds in stimuli?  I could think of ten reasons why rock-climbing was the perfect trip, but could I convince 17 independently-minded youngsters?  Much easier to dispense of the veil of democracy and just come clean - I'm making this decision and I hope that you will all come and have fun.   In fact, this is how it went down last May in my advisory.   Supreme benevolent dictator Young Whan decided that we would go rock-climbing and we did.  Bottom line - we all had fun.

Look, they're smiling!

I must admit that I did experience a mild feeling of regret at pushing their ideas to the side in order to make this decision.  While the outcome of the class trip was ostensibly a success, I wonder about what they learned from the process.  Perhaps, the takeaway was something like, "I don't need to work with others to make decisions.  It's easier if I trust someone in power and go along with what happens."  The radical college student in me was reprimanding me for having fallen so far from my ideals.  "Tsk, tsk, shame on you."  But, there is a harsh reality of competing agendas.  So many important objectives to reach and so few classes.  I want to teach students to think critically, understand content, read, write, pass the CAHSEE, catch up three grade levels in English, write a proficient Document Based Question essay for Social Studies...

Still, I remember the words of a young monk who was expressing his appreciation for the profession of teaching.  He told me that teachers have the ability to help young people learn how to live happily.  What's the point of being smart and doing well in school, if you use your success as an opportunity to exploit others.  It's funny that in his gratitude for teachers he was able to leave me with wisdom and guidance.  Without knowing me, his words had crystallized the essential value of my life's work.  Even if I churned out a bunch of Ivy League students who were great thinkers, it would be for naught if they did not have integrity, if they were unable to reflect honestly, or if they could not live in harmony with others.

Reconnecting with my core values as a teacher needs to be an annual exercise.  It would probably be useful to have this planned into my calendar for each summer vacation before I sit down to do any planning.  Thankfully, I work in a school where we have a vision statement that centers us on our purpose, and we have a culture that values social and emotional development on the same level as academic success (For more information on our school model, check out www.bigpicture.org)

This summer our staff was faced with a dilemma.  We wanted to introduce a model known as Discipline that Restores, which begins with students and a teacher in each classroom co-constructing "respect agreements" that everyone in that class agrees to.  In the midst of a professional development workshop on this topic, questions came up about how these agreements work across different classrooms.  "So, if a student has five different classrooms and teachers at the school, does that mean that she needs to adapt to five different sets of respect agreements in the course of her day?"  Luckily, most of our students stay with only a couple of teachers given our structural model, but still there could be confusion.

During one of the breaks, I huddled with my principal, and an elegant solution appeared.  We would bring all the class agreements together and create a master document that would apply to the entire school.  At MetWest High School, this means bringing together eight classroom's respect agreements.  I took on the task of convening a representative from each class to work collaboratively on examining the original eight documents and drafting a whole school agreement.   Certainly, this was a more manageable task than in your traditional high school setting, but I still harbored some doubts as to how this process would go.  As the adult member of the group, would I need to intervene and make some decisions for the group, and what message would that send if I did?

This story is still playing itself out, but this past Friday I was reunited with my own belief in the value of process... and it felt good.  It was our second session as a committee, and the students were reviewing each other's attempts at consolidation.  In total, we had roughly 30 agreements from each classroom, leaving us with 240 agreements that we needed to condense into a usuable document - somewhere around 40 agreements.  At this point, we had a draft of our final list, and our process was to read through each agreement of the original 240 agreements and determine if each one was represented in some way in the final document.  Can you say monotony?  I feared that this would slip into an exercise in rubber stamping, but the students approached the task with concentration and integrity.

It was truly inspiring to witness their dialogue.  Should we include "be kind?"  How is that different from "be supportive and helpful?"  We delved into the nuances of language and made both significant and subtle revisions.  But instead of seeing revision as annoying and time consuming (a response that I am all too familiar with), they approached revision with serious focus.  In fact, we were less than halfway done after an hour.  Before I could say anything, a student volunteered to keep working on it during her next free period without me.  Others quickly agreed to join in.  While I felt urgent about finishing, I could see the power in the process.  They were learning to make decisions, to see the impact of word choice, to listen to each other's opinions, to share their perspectives, and most importantly, they were fostering a sense that their collective work could help create a safer and more positive community at the school.  I believe that entrusting the students with this level of responsibility called forth their best efforts.  They knew that their work mattered.  It was real.

Do I love teaching?

Yes, I do.  In fact, it has been a part of my identity for the past twelve years, one-third of my life on this planet.  When I meet someone new, I looked forward to telling them that I am a teacher.  Not only that, but I teach public school.  I particularly like to emphasize that I teach public school in Oakland.  In the world of social justice, what you do is important.  All of us soldiers of change want to be recognized for serving the community and serving it in the right ways.

Part of my desire to teach in Oakland Unified School District was exactly because it had such a reputation for being under-resourced and difficult.  I was living out my own little Dangerous Minds type fantasy.  (For a hilarious spoof on this, check out Mad TV's "nice white lady" skit) Being a public school teacher was an ego boost, even as it shattered my ego on other days when I felt totally incompetent.  In contrast to my idealism, it was hard to reconcile the fact that 50% of my students were regularly turning in homework or that despite my best efforts helping them develop a habit of studying for tests often felt fruitless.

Then in the middle of last year I gave notice.  I was emotionally spent, and moreover, I felt that I was no longer learning in my profession.  I needed to shift some things in my life and seek new challenges.  I was scared.  From January to June I was mostly too busy to be scared, but when summer vacation hit, the reality of the transition began to set in.  During the summer I tried on new identities.  Well, half of the time, I told people that I still was a teacher at MetWest High School in Oakland.  This felt comforting but a bit false.  Even though I was technically on summer vacation, I knew that come September I would not be in my usual role in the classroom.  Still, I attended conferences and introduced myself as a teacher.  Other ways I described this period of my life included: early retirement, a transition, setting priorities, seeking new challenges, figuring out what's most important in my life...

It is and continues to be all of those things, AND I still am a teacher at MetWest High School.  I have excised those parts of the work that were dreadful - calling the same parents every week to report little to no progress or effort in their child, feeling awful when I looked at the homework that only some of my students turned in, and sensing impending doom every Sunday evening even though my rationale mind knew that all would be okay.  In my new part-time role as a contractor, I get to teach without all of that.  I am sure that there will be other opportunities to experience frustration and anxiety, but in the meantime, I am enjoying my new role as a teacher of mindfulness and conflict resolution at our school. Bottom line is... I can still say that I love teaching.