Transitions.....

The first semester definitely tested my patience and perseverance as I battled my personal emotions and some unwilling students.  But ultimately the majority of my students are finally performing a the level they should be at.  Now if only  I could figure out those middle school kids who seem to think resisting any attempt to try something new my excitement at teaching them would go up so much.

Over the years as I've grown to become more familiar with Kodaly and Orff the more I find myself enjoying K-5 music more that I thought and maybe High School is a more viable option.  I was lucky in my first two years teaching to have awesome middle school students and it seems that it's gone downhill since then.  I don't know if it's my level of patience, the community, the kids' cultural background, their view of school at this age, or all of the above.  I still wish my middle schoolers could choose their electives which would make a tremendous impact, but who knows.  There is so much stacked against them and a lot of them don't help themselves by resisting any new lesson we teach them.  There are too many factors at play and if one is not resolved, none of them can be.

But despite the strides I've made and the confidence I've found as a teacher in these last for years I find myself in a strange position.

My school will be making big transitions in the next two years.  The details of all of it I do not need to go into.  It has been a very emotional and tense few weeks since our board of directors announced the changes to ours and our administration's surprise.

But such is the nature of charter schools:  they don't meet the expectations of excellence above the district schools, changes are made.  The ones coming are the most drastic in the school's history.

It's left me wondering about the progress of schools in this urban community.  There are very few performing well, charter and district alike and I wonder if governing boards and administrations have stopped and wondered if the issue goes beyond the school walls.

As biased as it could be, I know I work with a very dedicated group of teachers, probably the most determined staff I've seen since I began teaching there, and I am seeing the kids grow tremendously, but just not quick enough to satisfy the powers that be. I'm sure in neighboring schools there are other great things happening but the results are still the same.  So what is the problem?  Culture? Community? Motivation? School? Teaching? Leading? Curriculum? Language?

I think it's all of it.  And unfortunately some of these issues we are in control of and others we are not.  All of these elements of education must be working together and if one is not there then the rest is harder to influence. My school issue isn't just our own, it's the whole community of schools in the area.

Change is hard. It's incredibly hard for kids and when school is the only stable element of a child's life and that school changes it sends kids into a traumatic situation and any trust they built with school will have to be rebuilt and that is easier said than done.

And with the changes coming also comes looking inside of myself and wondering where I go from here.  I have every intention of staying with my school as it goes through these changes, but seeing all of this happen, seeing the devastation in some of my students' eyes when we had to tell them what was happening made me sick to my stomach,  Sick of the system, sick of doing my best to make a change and having it go unappreciated by a few people who look at the numbers and not at the bigger picture of what just happened to our school community.

The fear of an arts teacher came back:  we are the first to go and arts jobs are scarce.  I know my principal is supportive of all the faculty and I should trust them but the warning from teacher education of "be ready to lose your job when changes come" kick in; it's almost instinctual at this point.

My confidence is sinking, not as a teacher but in my ability to do anything else. My confidence has grow as an elementary teacher , lesson and unit planner, and also as a leader, but I don't know if I have the resilience to stay in the classroom while managing the bureaucracy that holds kids in urban communities back.  At the beginning of the year I gave myself this year and the next to figure out for a completely different reason...now I have to add a second factor to that timeline.

Change is hard.