The Search

These days I'm steeped in research.

Ever since joining Teach For America and starting this crazy ride of teaching in urban education, I've been bombarded with the research. The research on poverty. The research on racial systemic injustice. The research on boys and girls and who learns better in traditional public schools and who is favored in science class. The research on college readiness exams. The research on being ready for second grade. The research on unlimited varieties in curriculum and why certain ones are better than others. The research on phonics. The research on higher-order thinking. The research on vocabulary acquisition. The research on rewarding kids for success and moving towards intrinsic motivation. The research on character development and social-emotional learning. And a lot more.

In the past two years I've read countless articles, about 10 books, and a lot more blogs on what it means to be in this tough but important work of serving in low-income schools and the children in my community.

And with all that, I've still got so much to learn, so much to know, and so much more to understand.

I still can't wrap my mind around what it is going to take to work with people in my school's communities and others like it in order to have a holistic and healthy renewal of poverty-ridden areas so that children everywhere can grow up to be who they were meant to be; so that places like the West Side of Chicago can be places of hope, fairness, and life. There is so much that goes into an effort like that, and I am made aware every day that it needs to be an all-hands-on-deck approach: no single white girl driving down from Wisconsin is going to change anything unless she is working with all kinds of other people who are working for the same things, teaching her so many things in the process. But.

But. But. In all of the research, in all of the social programs, in all of the new ideas and curricula, there seems to be something missing. Something that I have a hard time articulating, but something that I know in my guts has to be there for anything good to happen or anything new to grow.

Here's what I mean. One Thursday night, during grad class last spring, we had a guest speaker come in to talk about social-emotional learning. She was promoting a curriculum that she has used and helped develop and was now pitching to us young teachers. Don't get me wrong, it was a good curriculum I am sure, complete with group problem-solving and peace-keeping strategies, as well as activities to practice and foster a sense of kindness and community. Her curriculum was, of course, backed by all the research in the world. During her talk, I made a note of some of her quotes that particularly struck a chord with me:

"Teach all the math and reading that you want, but we've gotta change what's going on on the inside if we want any actual change for our students."

"I'm educating my kids for life. I'd lose a few points on those standardized test scores if it meant making time for social-emotional learning."

"This kind of stuff is what matters in marriages and families and workplaces and life."

And as I read those quotes over again, I am struck again with how much I agree. Recently I just finished reading a book called "How Children Succeed," by Paul Tough that I really loved. It spoke to the skills that most successful children have in common. Surprisingly, it's not their high test scores or exemplary IQ. It is their character: their grit, curiosity, social awareness, and integrity. So teachers, leaders, and parents should all be working to teach and develop those skills in our children. And again, I was struck with how much I agree. It was completely research-based, of course, with study after study across multiple disciplines backing his supposition.

But. Again, I felt, for some reason, that all of this is research missing something. The research is, for certain, searching for something. I like the word research and its prefix "re" for the simple fact that it could mean to search again. We know that the word implies that someone is searching systematically for an answer. And all of this research in the educational and social and political world in which I exist is looking for something to answer all of our issues, all of our challenges, and all of our struggles. What is the answer? How do we help people? How do we help kids? Every year or month or even day, it can seem, the newest and latest thing comes out from the newest and latest research. A new answer to our problems. A new solution for the ills of the West Side. And while they are all very positive and even often have results and data to back up their success, there is one side that is left out.

For all of their searching and researching and searching again, I think the scientists, sociologists, and educators are missing something very important about children, and for that matter, about people in general. I wonder if they consider that a child is someone who is more than just a human, physically here with physical needs, and a physical brain that needs to understand how to achieve character and academic growth and adequate test scores so that they can maneuver about their social environment to make their own way forward. I wonder about the idea that a student has a soul, a spiritual side, that needs to be cared for; I wonder about how people expect to "change what's going on on the inside," as that well-meaning guest speaker purported to do. Is it we teachers who really change what's going on on the inside, the deep-down inside? Am I the one with the ultimate ability to heal the spiritual and emotional traumas of my children?

Or is there another answer for which we are searching? Is there another way to which I can point that fills in the missing piece to the puzzle of helping and working with low-income communities? Is there a possibility that the cycles and roundabouts of finding new and good ways to serve kids are missing something in their important search? Every day that I spend with my kids gives me the conviction that there is, indeed, more to it when it comes to children. When it comes to people. When it comes to our world. My kids, to me, are living proof that there is a never-ending depth and mystery to the meaning of what it means to be human, of what it means to have a soul. The research is well-meaning and even effective and helpful. But the search that should be taken up on behalf of my kids' souls must be addressed. It has to be. I guess all of this doesn't mean that I have an answer.

But I might have an idea of where to look for one. The search always leads me there, leads me to the same place, leads me to the very start where my hope and love and faith began. I wonder if the search will ever end. I don't know that it will. But I'm gaining conviction that I know exactly where The Search needs to start.

By the Numbers

I had Martin Luther King, Jr. day off yesterday. I naturally made a To Do list for myself and mapped out my day in the morning. I took my time and got to everything on the list by the time I went to sleep. One of those things was even to go for a run in the 8 degree weather. (Brr.) But there was one little item on the list that I passive aggressively avoided, and it still is not completed. In fact, I've just received a slap-on-the-wrist email for missing this deadline. It's not a huge deal, but I'll admit I hate being late with anything, and yet something in me is still resisting completing this task punctually.

It's my kids' data. 

Basically, all Teach For America corps members submit their students' standardized test scores into a huge database so that the organization can track how your class is doing. We took a round of standardized testing this Winter, got the results a few weeks ago, and need to report these results to decide how to plan for the coming quarters of school. Before I go into why I hate this, let me say that it IS a good thing and meant for the good of the students. They are using this information to support me, to help me become a better teacher. The test scores help you see where you can challenge some kids to push even harder and really do some work in helping other kids catch up to grade level and further. It is crucial for my kids to not fall too far behind, especially in reading, in order for them to have a good foundation for school when they stop learning to read and start reading to learn in the next few years and beyond. So I'm not excusing myself for the lateness. It's not okay and I'm not trying to justify something I should have done. Teach For America is not the problem; they're only trying to be effective, efficient, and productive.

But.

I still hate it. I hate that my kids are assigned numbers, letters, and reading levels. I hate that my kids already think they aren't good at reading or math. I hate that my girl T has been working her butt off during reading this quarter, yet still received an F on her report card for reading to signify that she is still technically below the grade level of where she should be at the halfway point of second grade. I hate that second graders, seven-year-olds, even receive grades at all. I hate that my kids' talents, strengths, abilities, personalities, and passions don't come across on those tests or in that data. I hate that I spend a lot of my time figuring out how to be a numbers person and use trackers for objective mastery but I just can't get the hang of it. Woof.

I know I should be a "data person." I'm supposed to be. I am a Teach For America girl, after all. Data is what it's all about! But I also know some other things. I know that I never had someone tracking my mastery when I was growing up. I know I was not given A's, B's, or C's until much later than 2nd grade. Also, however, I know that my home life and school life were coordinating for my educational success, so maybe that's why I didn't need all my data being tracked until kingdom come. So that's the tension I'll have to live in for my kids. In an imperfect world, we have to be acutely aware of what it's going to take to overcome a lot of obstacles that shouldn't be there for little kids. It's crunch time for my second graders, and knowing exactly where they stand on exact objectives, I suppose, is definitely helpful in figuring out how to help them grow as much as possible...

...but grow into what? People who have mastered objectives? People who pass tests? I don't like the sound of that. All that hard work so they, one day, might have a paycheck with a bigger number on it? This is where I still can't find the words for what I mean to say. I guess what I'm getting at is that, while I'm not a great teacher yet, the fact remains that the heart of my kids is what matters the most to me. It matters that C learns to speak up for herself. It matters that R has shown huge strides with social interaction and understanding social cues. It matters that A smiles when she walks in the door for breakfast in the morning despite what's going on at home. It matters that M is singing gospel songs to himself as he does his math assignment. It matters that T, despite the F in reading, still came up to me the day after parent-teacher conferences and politely asked if she could do extra work on the side for a book that she's reading. And there's no number that can capture that.