From an intellectual perspective, I know the impact that a teacher can have on a student's life. I've read the articles, and reviewed studies. However, while reading an article written by a high school student this morning it hit me. I mean, really hit me.
Subjects I hated in high school: Math, Religion, Biology, Latin, Physics, P.E. Accounting, History. (Yeah, I now teach History. How's that for irony?) Why? Because I hated the teachers.
In my entire academic career, I have tried my best to avoid those subjects. Like the plague. Yet I've always been fascinated by science and wonder how different my life would have been if I had loved subjects like Math and Biology.
Subjects I loved in high school: Principles of Business, Food & Nutrition, Geography, English, Literature, Computer Science, Spanish. Why? Because I loved the teachers.
Those are the subjects I gravitated toward in college. The ones I'm still passionate about. In fact, I changed majors to Sociology and Anthropology because of a wonderful teacher I had in my first Sociology class. My Spanish teacher in college was awesome. She took us on field trips and made the language come alive. I minored in Business Administration and Entrepreneurship because of how passionate my high school business teacher was.
It is a serious epiphany; the understanding of just how much of a tremendous impact teachers have on the lives of their students. With my teachers, it wasn't so much what they taught, but how they taught it.
Teaching, like love and life, is something that you constantly have to work at. That is why it is so important to love what you do, what you're teaching. True passion cannot hide. It is always on display. Let your light shine. It lets your students know that it is ok to do the same.
That is why it is massively important to engage in activities that light your spark and set you on fire. It's not enough to keep doing the same thing day in and day out. That gets old; boring. Just as it does in love and in life.
Yes, there are issues with students. Especially ones who come from the socioeconomic background that students like mine do. Yes, it is difficult not to bitch and moan about what our students are not doing. However, the onus ultimately rests on us as teachers.
What are you doing to ignite yourself, and your students?
since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world
my blood approves, and kisses are a better fate than wisdom lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry --the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then laugh, leaning back in my arms for life's not a paragraph
And death I think is no parenthesis ~e.e. cummings
On a daily basis, multiple times, I am questioned as to why I became a teacher. For most people, going from practicing law to teaching is seen as a downgrade. This thought has never found residence in my consciousness. I was born of teachers, and though it may have been only to my little brother, I was teaching before practicing law. I love the law and I love education. I love being a teacher and I love being a lawyer. To me they are not mutually exclusive, but comprise different aspects of my being.
This past week my U.S. History class had visitors for Career Day. One of the speakers happened to be the proprietor of an ice cream business, who introduced me to Paulo Freire's 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed'. Only two chapters in, and already I am experiencing paradigm shifts. The Career Day talk was amazing because it reminded me of the three things I wanted to be when I grew up. At four years old I announced to my parents that I was going to be a teacher, a pilot, and sell ice cream. Two out of three so far isn't so bad. My son and I have been planning our ice cream business since he was six. One of these fine days, we'll be selling (healthy) ice cream too.
I'm going to print this on little note cards and hand them to the next person who asks me why a lawyer would become a teacher:
"The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side.”
~Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
p.s. I am well aware that Senor Freire is holding a cigarette which goes against my health nut ideals. However, I chose this picture and view it as a teachable moment--your mind has to develop the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts...at the same time.
Telling stories...if you don't know, you better not just ask somebody; you better ask a Landmark Forum somebody. The stories we tell ourselves create the dramas that fuel our waking lives. Oftentimes stories are negative, self-fulfilling prophecies. Landmarksians will more often than not, remind you of this.
Here's the deal though, by labeling other people's "stories", you are now actively involved in the storytelling process. Labeling others as storytellers, does not elevate Landmarksians to a higher ground.
The mere act of labeling other people's stories, is in and of itself, a story. The only difference is whether you tell yourself a story that hurts or helps you. "Creating possibilities" is a very nice way of telling yourself a different story.
Since the beginning of time, human beings have played roles. Ultimately, this existence is our collective encompassing story.
For the story behind that, you better ask the quantum physicist somebodies ;)
To omit or to minimize these voices of resistance is to create the idea that power only rests with those who have the guns, who possess the wealth, who own the newspapers and the television stations. I want to point out that people who seem to have no power, whether working people, people of color, or women — once they organize and protest and create movements — have a voice no government can suppress. ~Howard Zinn
Posted by Heavy D on Twitter Friday: "Never stop believing. Magic is just science we don't understand. Every original idea was considered insanity at first."
His last post on Twitter yesterday, "BE INSPIRED!"
Black Wall Street so my stock will never crashGiven what I ask, pure religion and cashFrom the windows that open, I'm raising my glassDay light beams, night light schemesThis is my Inception, I'm writing my dreamsImmortal view of a star doing what I'm born to do
He received a scholarship from the World Bank and convinced her to get married. They exchanged vows on a Saturday before two witnesses. Her wedding dress was colorful. She made it herself. On Monday they stepped on a plane for the first time in their lives. My very young parents left Jamaica to attend Tuskegee University, unaware of how the journey would shape their lives and future.
In Alabama, their only family was each other; until the school nurse apologetically advised them that a baby was on the way. It was the middle of their first semester. It is hard for me to imagine what went through their minds upon receipt of that piece of information. Were they worried? Scared? It is only now that I realize I have never asked.
Other Jamaican students were on campus and they became an extended family. I know it could not have been easy; newlyweds juggling school, life, and being new parents in a new country. My father received his degree in Animal and Poultry science from Tuskegee, and my mother transferred her credits. Then they left Tuskegee for Oklahoma State University. I know the history and I've heard the stories countless times, but I've never asked why. Why did they leave Alabama and head for Oklahoma? I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I don't even know.
My brother was born in Oklahoma and Daddy told Mummy, "Don't worry. God will provide." They've always remembered his exact words. He received a Master's degree in Agricultural Science, and she received degrees in Home Economics and Clothing & Textiles.
My father had to leave us behind to stay with family in Maryland while he went to Jamaica to find a job and place for us to live. When I was a little (inquisitive) girl I found a box. In it was a pillow case filled with letters and cassette tapes they had sent to each other during that time. I read the most beautiful love letters, and listened to recordings of me learning to read while my baby brother babbled in the background. To this day, I don't know if they know that I read those letters.
After a few months, Daddy came to get us and with education in hand, they returned home to Jamaica to teach high school in May Pen, a rural area. I have no memories of Alabama, Oklahoma, Maryland, and all the other places in America that we travelled to.
Jamaica is where my brother and I were raised. It is the place where my family comes from. It is the place I call home. It is the place I felt most connected to, even though it is not where I was born. I left Jamaica as a teenager to attend university in the United States. Though my birth certificate says this was where I was born, in my heart I felt like it was not where I belonged. In writing this, I only now realize that I started my academic journey in Maryland with the same family we stayed with all those years before. Never have I made that connection, until now. Life is funny.
Growing up in Jamaica I was teased for being American, and now back in America I was teased for being Jamaican. For most of my life I struggled with the fact that I've straddled both worlds. Never feeling like I completely belonged to either. My childhood in Jamaica as an American, and my adulthood in America viewed through the lens of my "Jamaican-ness".
There were times traveling with my parents when going through customs, where (doofus) agents would send my brother and me to the line for citizens and my parents to the visitors line. That is until I would open my big (American mouth) and demand that we stay together.
When I was younger I distanced myself from the fact that I'm American, yet had very strong feelings about the term Jamerican. I felt it referred to wannabe Jamaicans, secretly questioning whether that included me.
When I first moved to the United States, I maintained that I would never stay here too long. Yet the realization has hit that if I split the years of my life straight down the middle, half is in Jamaica and half is in America.
It is only very recently that I've made peace with the pieces of me. I am an American citizen of Jamaican parentage. My life has been filled with the harsh realities, but also blessed with the beauty of both countries. I am and will forever be connected to the two. My name is Loi and I am a Jamerican.
