https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/18/i-teach-the-toughest-kids-and-i-love-it/
In recent years, there has been a new genre of writing from teachers who are fed up and explain why they are leaving.
But fortunately most teachers rise every day to do what they love, and they refuse to be intimidated by mandates, administrative nonsense, or tough kids.
Steven Singer says he teaches the toughest kids in his school, and he loves it. He loves the kids, he loves the challenge, he loves meeting them as adults when they come up to hug him and thank him.
Do you want to know what keeps this teacher inspired and motivated?
He begins like this:
It was rarely a good thing when LaRon smiled in school.
It usually meant he was up to something.
He was late to class and wanted to see if I’d notice. He just copied another student’s homework and wondered if he’d get away with it. He was talking crap and hoped someone would take it to the next level.
As his teacher, I became rather familiar with that smile, and it sent shivers down my spine.
But on the last day of school, I couldn’t help but give him a smile back.
A few minutes before the last bell of the year, I stood before my class of 8th graders and gave them each a shout out.
“I just want to say what an honor it’s been to be your teacher,” I said.
They shifted in their seats, immediately silent. They wanted to hear this.
“Some of you have been a huge pain in my butt,” I conceded.
And almost all heads in the room turned to LaRon.
And he smiled.
Not a mischievous smile. Not a warning of wrongdoing yet to come.
He was slightly embarrassed.
So I went on:
“But I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished this year. Each and every one of you. It has been my privilege to be here for you,” and I nodded at LaRon to make sure he knew I included him in what I was saying.
Because I do mean him.
Students like LaRon keep an old man like me on my toes. No doubt. But look at all he did – all he overcame this year.
His writing improved exponentially.
Back in September, he thought a paragraph was a sentence or two loosely connected, badly spelled full of double negatives and verbs badly conjugated. Now he could write a full five-paragraph essay that completely explained his position with a minimum of grammatical errors.
Back in September, the most complex book he had read was “The Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” Now he had read “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.” How did I know? Because I had read it with him. We had all read these books together and stopped frequently to talk about them.
Back in September, if he raised his hand to ask a question, it was usually no more complex than “Can I go to the bathroom?” Now he was asking questions about where the Nazis came from, what happened to Mr. Frank after the war, did Harper Lee ever write any other books, and is the fight for civil rights over.
The last day of school is one of the hardest for me, because my classes are doubled. I don’t just have my students – I also have the ghosts of who they were at the beginning of the year.
They all change so much. They’re like different people at the end, people I helped guide into being.
Read and be inspired.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One of the most difficult things in my life was retiring as a teacher. You get to a point, of course where retiring is the right thing to do. It is important to be able to retire at a point when you will be able to enjoy it, not wait until your health or some of the infirmities of age, demands it. Steve Singer wrote this beautiful essay about the last day of the school year. It also applies to the last day of a career that was so difficult to leave and it was because of all the young people who allowed me to be their teacher.
“It was because of all the young people who allowed me to be their teacher”. That sums it up for me, also. I too loved this job. I always knew it was a privilege to come alongside my English language learners as they learned to speak, read and write in two languages. I loved seeing the smiles on their faces as they finished reading and discussing another story in their 2nd language. Retiring for me was a painful decision. My health demanded it, but my heart resisted. Now I have the opportunity to interact with some of my former 2nd & 3rd graders and to attend their quinceañeras, graduations, and to help them obtain legal status. It truly is a privilege to be part of their lives and their successes.
The thing that troubles me is to see what is happening to our teachers and public schools today. They are being demonized and demoralized in spite of their efforts at educating everyone. I shudder to think of what will become of our public schools and the dream of a free and appropriate education for the children in our democracy. The people need to rise up and demand a return to equal education for all before it is too late. We must educate the whole child and not just to be “college and career” ready.
The future of our democracy depends on it.
Ditto, bpollock42–& that is why I am “retired but miss the kids.”
Thanks, Steven Singer, for your thoughts. (& I, too, taught some of the “toughest kids in the school”–middle school, to boot! {Although I’d previous taught Early Childhood, Primary & Intermediate Special Ed., as well}) I miss them all–each & every one.
Wonderful statement. Thanks very much for Steve Singer’s deep commitment to kids and his eloquence. Thanks to Diane for posting this.
Having been an urban public school teacher & administrator, I’ve had some of the experiences he describes.
Terrific statement. Great way to start a new school year.
There can be a very long tail of influence from teacher to students. I received an email in 2007 from someone trying to track down his 5th grade teacher, circa 1957. He wanted to thank her for the vivid lessons on the intricacies of working on behalf of social justice. He had gained those lessons through a mock trial his teacher had organized.
He had become an architect and community planner specializing in projects for Native Americans in Oregon and Washington.
His memorable teacher had died in 2005.
Your post reminds me of a memory I have long treasured. My 1st teaching experience fresh out of college was teaching 5 levels of French at a private academy (hs). Though rewarding, it was grueling and intimidating. I taught Fr II to a pair of highly-intelligent male identical twins, who maintained a sardonic & low profile. I was never sure whether I was teaching them anything at all. During the subsequent year they and their parents were on a European sabbatical, & I received a letter from one of them describing proudly how they led their parents around Paris by the nose thanks to their grasp of everyday French conversation.
Thank you for sharing such an inspiring post…and the comments are wonderful too! Love your blog and tireless work, Diane!
This was my reply at Singer’s blog. I could have added that my memories come from teaching at mostly-minority, mixed-ethnic working-class schools, but it seemed superfluous. My experiences at ‘white-bread’ elite PreK’s are the same.
“Thanks for this touching and inspiring post. Teaching 3 & 4 y.o.’s is quite different: the rewards are all upfront & immediate, & each incoming class mirrors & floods back with matching affection, from the shyest & the snarliest to the least-complicated & most open.
As a weekly ‘special’ to regional PreK’s, my experience w/alums is opposite to yours. Just this evening I lingered on on 8-y.o. face in the supermarket, thinking how glad I was that she looked happy & engaged, 5 yrs later. But it’s rare for an elem-age kid to remember that 1/2-hr-a-wk PreK Spanish teacher, tho they may linger on my face for an extra beat.
A while ago a new family moved in behind me, & I encountered pre-teen brother, sister (onetime students) & friends in the back bushes. I greeted them by name, startling them. “Oh, yeh..” said the youngest, “Señora Vigi!”, & he looked as astonished as if a long-ago bedtime story character had materialized in his new back yard!”
It is amazing to acknowledge that it only takes one school year or 10 months to influence an 8th grader boy from being illiterate in writing and expressing his idea into a better writer and speaker = from being wild into being civilized.
On the other hand, it is shockingly to realize that all intelligent and rich people have sunk themselves into savage mode in the past 15 years. They self-transform themselves from being intelligent into being ignorant by destroying the world renowned AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, where
teaching profession should be respectful, but it is bullied;
children from kindergarten throughout post secondary should be thriving with creativity, but they are overwhelmingly stressful with INVALID testing schemes; and
charter schools should operate like the true public school, but it operates with unqualified staff in both administrative and teaching aspects and it also loots public education fund for personal gain.
How sad is for American younger generation! Back2basic
You are so right, m4potw.
I have been teaching as a PreK special (Fr & Span) for those same 15 yrs. The changes you note took a while to trickle to PreK, but they did. The first big change for me came in 2010, when the founder of a hospital-employee daycare passed away & was replaced by a newbie director schooled in ed-reform. They were suffering from declining enrollment, so the newbie decided to make over the classrooms/ curriculum to align to the state core, so as to plump up enrollment by adding state-subsidized tuition enrollees from the surrounding area.
The new curriculum de-emphasized play & amped up academics, & moved any enrichments not assessed in the math-eng-heavy curriculum (like mine) to post-3:30pm– at which point any parent who could was bringing their exhausted kids home.
I am fortunate to teach Spanish to all PreK/K kids in a chain PreK that serves lower-income kids. The only reason Spanish is ‘allowed’ in daylight hrs is that the enlightened director considers it important enough to squeeze it into all kids’ curriculum. But I see the results of the play-light, academics/ desk-time- heavy, overly-scripted daylong lessons. The kids are burnt-out & obstreperous from too much teacher-directed activity. I make sure my lessons are full of physical activity & opportunities for kids to express their personalities. As do the music teachers. And I see there is way too little free-form art expression.
Meanwhile what’s happening at the elite white-bread PreK’s in central NJ?
At the hi-salary pharma employee-daycare where I’ve long taught, the founding school remains hi-caliber. Bright kids get access to hands-on science, lots of outdoor time & everything else a parent could wish for. But the scientists who’ve been relocated to a nearby town due to a merger have to make do with a mediocre PreK-in-a-box [“we offer Spanish! Rosetta Stone is on those computers over there”].
The local Montessori continues with its own thing, very hi-caliber, but at a cost unreachable by many.
I’ll be reporting back on that mainstay of upper-middle PreK, the privates long associated w/local churches, as I will again be engaged at a couple of those for the 1st time in a decade (apparently for-lang is in vogue again?). We’ll see how they’ve been affected by the age of Common Core.
Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.