Let me explain
My students are sexually active. It’s really not something I’m fuzzy or confused about. It’s actually quite obvious. Pregnancies at my friends’ schools (and, yes, even my own) are not unheard of. But beyond literal insemination, my student’s conversations in the hallway, and their references to sex acts and the such make it clear that they’re far more advanced than I was at their age. In the midst of growing up, I forget my first exposure to all things sex-related. My parents never sat me down for “the talk,” so I must have picked it up from someplace. Regardless, I don’t think it happened in middle school. Then again, that comparison isn’t really very useful anyway. The point is that my students, at my school, are definitely having sex.
While I don’t necessarily condone it, there isn’t the space at my school to even bring it up. As their history teacher and part time mentor, I haven’t found the right place or time to interject my own thoughts on sex at 12 years old. While I think they can assume my position, it’s better ignored in favor of their own moral (or hormonal) compass. My philosophy, as it has been for a long time now, is that young people need access to information about sex at a young age. The more mysterious sex is, the more glorified it becomes, and the less they realize the real-world implications. For this reason, I wanted to play a role in de-mystifying it all.
I posted a list of micro-reforms I wanted to achieve by year’s end back in February. Included on that list was the goal of setting up a sex ed workshop series aimed at educating my students about their bodies, choices and, above all, contraceptives. Although my administration was hesitant at first (“this isn’t really a problem, is it?”) they embraced the idea after rallying other teachers to echo the same sentiment, and collecting a few risque notes that were intercepted during class. Let’s just say my student’s sexual vocabulary is broad and impressive.
I contacted the school district to get their approved organizations for sex ed resources and, upon seeing Planned Parenthood on the list, jumped at the opportunity. So over the last month, Planned Parenthood came in to present three workshops covering a good breadth of topics: from reproductive anatomy and making choices about sexual intimacy to abstinence and contraceptives, we made some good ground. The kids were mostly immature and giggly the whole time, but the mere mention of sex in school must have opened a whole new space to express themselves. The taboo attached to the word “sex” probably became less intriguing when I joined the conversation, and with a straight face, said things they likely didn’t expect to ever hear in room 801.
Our last workshop took place on Friday, after a long day of babysitting 8th graders while the other kids were on a field trip. To keep things rolling, we watched Avatar before the workshop got started. And during the session itself, after getting frustrated with their giggles and loudmouths, I said “We watched Avatar and now we’re talking about sex – what more do you want? Now be quiet.” It shut them up for a bit.
At least until we discovered the presenter left her plastic penis condom-dummy on the desk in our classroom. And after snapping a quick photo, I hid that in a jiffy. I can’t imagine the phone calls I’d be getting from home.
- Jeff
Running around
I’ve recently started getting serious about running. There’s something about it that clears my head and keeps me grounded. It’s not that I particularly like running, though. I’ll often question myself at the start of a run, wondering what I’m doing there, staring at the pavement and my feet and hoping they will slow down or just stop altogether. But then I lose all control and the pain goes away and I can breathe and think without worrying about the next step, or the next day or the next mile.
I’ve gotten so into running lately that I started a Run Club at school for the kids. As part of our elective program, I get to run during school hours with a group of about 14 students. Some are a bit lazy, but most of them are invested in getting better and running further each week. For those kids, it’s worth all the work. And as part of my work with them, I wanted to integrate a some good ol’ goal setting into the program since, as I tell the kids, running is all about setting goals.
It’s true, really. Unlike some of my classroom mantras, this one is not as much of a stretch. As a new runner myself, I’ve set goals every few weeks and started tracking my progress and pushing myself further and further. Just this weekend, I met my 5 mile mark with ease. Just a month ago, I wouldn’t have made it. But consistency and a solid, ambitious, yet realistic goal, has gotten me there.
For the kids, this type of thinking doesn’t necessarily come naturally. It needs to be spelled out, and repeated and discussed and illustrated and played out in their daily lives. So that’s what I’ve done. The runners keep track of their progress and thoughts about each run in a Goal Journal I keep in my classroom. And they have two distance goals I’ve set for them this trimester.
The first, a 5k (3 mile) run, was a success for the two that showed up on time (the third kid was too late). The race was last weekend and, spanning from the Art Museum along West River Drive, it’s a beautiful route. The boys that showed up were not completely convinced they would make, but I was sure the adrenaline provided by the hundreds of fellow runners would pull them through. It was my first race so I, too, was depending on their presence to make it.
The run itself wasn’t as bad as I expected. I had only run 3 miles once before, so I wasn’t sure how I’d feel. There’s always a fear in the back of my mind that prevents me from feeling confident. What if I step wrong, sprain an ankle, my knee starts to buckle, I get a headache…I have to pee! But, like always, 10 minutes in I forgot all that and just ran.
I decidedly stayed back with one of the boys, JP, to keep an eye on him. We talked here and there to keep our minds distracted, and at one point, JP said,
“If I finish this race, Mr. Manassero, I will be so proud of myself. I’ll know I can do anything.”
And I had nothing to say but to agree with him. It made up for the fact that 11 of his classmates were still home sleeping. And it provided just enough motivation to probably last a marathon.
But I stopped at the 3 mile mark. Because that was our goal.
Our next race is an 8k (5 miles) in two weeks. I’ve ratcheted up the training and am signing up all the kids, whether the cross the finish line running or not.
This whole running thing may just turn out to be my favorite part of teaching.
- Jeff
I graduated
I’m looking forward to, for the first time in a long time, not being a student.
It won’t last long, I’m sure.
- Jeff
It looked a lot like Christmas
I know it’s April. I’m under no delusion that this post has taken far too long to write down. I think I needed some time away from it, though, to really make sense of it.
December, as a month during the school year, isn’t really much of anything. Learning, although likely happening from time to time, is mostly pushed aside. The holiday season, in all its glory, takes center stage. Growing up, I remember Christmas time at school. Usually informal, my teachers would have us make gifts for our families and they would decorate their rooms with nondescript holiday colors. Maybe it was the 90′s, but my teachers and schools were overwhelming PC about the whole thing. There weren’t any Christmas songs playing or Santa hats worn. I recall being told not use green and red to decorate our middle school winter dance, and I thought to myself, “well that’s a bit much,” but I went along with – not wanting to leave anyone out. And so it went. As an adult, I came to adopt a very casual relationship with the holiday. Outside my family and friends, I refused to say Merry Christmas to strangers. And even within my circles of friends, I didn’t like using the term “Secret Santa” for our gift exchanges. Perhaps too sensitive, it nonetheless made me feel more comfortable about the whole thing. It is, after all, an entire month long.
And so when Christmas time rolled around at my school this year, where I was no longer a student but a teacher – I was, in the very least, a bit shocked when I saw this:
Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “what’s the big deal?” I’ve asked myself the same question. But my answer, as it’s developed, has been a resounding “everything about it.” Let me explain.
Schools can be, and probably should be, a place for religious expression. But I have a problem when that religious expression is monopolized by a singular faith. And the truth is, most of the schools in this country serve predominantly Christian populations. So the story goes – Christmas, and Christian beliefs, including creationism, moral commandments, and other holidays become the go-to for school celebrations and norms. No one questions it, and when they do – they are demonized, ostracized or deemed too politically correct. I’ve seen people be accused of stealing Christmas for not wanting to push it on others (who might be Christian or not). There’s a whole narrative around this that Bill O’Reilly rails on every December. As he, and others like him, see it – the majority rules. Christians have a right to say Merry Christmas to whoever they want in whatever fashion they deem appropriate.
Suddenly, people seem to think it’s ok to have kids at a public school make ornaments for an evergreen tree, or take pictures with a santa. These are all strong symbols of a Christian holiday, and although my school doesn’t allow the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms, or crosses to be hung above doors, it’s almost sending the same message. I’ve seen muslim kids be denied from participating in our holiday program because they couldn’t wear santa hats or sing to the tune of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” (a song, I admit, transcends religions). And I see the way kids get sucked into the holiday without realizing what it’s all about. It belittles and makes irrelevant the religious beliefs and celebrations of other cultures, and makes people who don’t do it home feel out of place and left out. Indirectly, it rewards those who grow up in a Christian household and leaves others questioning their place in a Christian-dominated society without the context to build their own.
And if we’re going to celebrate religious holidays, we do it across the board. We do it to learn about, not necessarily to celebrate, the beliefs, values or traditions of other people. You can imagine my dismay, then, when during the week of Halloween, our administration made an announcement prohibiting the recognition of Halloween. No decorations, no candy, no costumes. I found it odd. I found it contradictory. And it proved the point I’m trying to make. The only reason they made that announcement was because Halloween, to some Christian families, represents a pagan, anti-Christian holiday. Like the parents that condemn Harry Potter because it’s witchcraft, these families don’t want their kids exposed to anything outside their religious comfort zone. Religious expression, it seems, is ok as long as it fits the norm and is approved by the majority.
That brings us to my point. With all this happening, it becomes reasonable to fall back on the belief that religious expression has no place at school. If it can’t be done with an eye for inclusiveness and the celebration of diversity, then it shouldn’t be done at all. And then we end up missing out on the potential to expose our young people to other cultures and beliefs altogether. As it seems all too often, it’s a case of all or nothing. On this topic, I choose nothing.
- Jeff
14 to 24 to 34
I was only 14 during the last census, so I don’t really remember much about it. Undoubtedly counted in my family household, I didn’t really participate. I do remember, though, reading through 2000 census data tables during college. There was a lot of information in those numbers, and so I’ve really enjoyed being a conscious citizen (and 24 years of age) during the most recent enumeration of our country’s population. I’ve also found it to be the perfect teaching opportunity. Just like the recent Presidential election, I had to take advantage of teaching the census since it doesn’t come around all that often.
And so I tied the census into my African American History curriculum and explained the relationship between representation and the 3/5th clause during slavery. I also got to bring in a guest speaker from the census, and copied my blank census form for the kids to fill out. They walked away with a good understanding of its purpose and history, and we had some fun with the same numbers I crunched in college. All in all, a good opportunity to think about the intersection between history and the real world.
Just last week, I found this great website by the Census Bureau that shows the participation rate at national and local levels. You can even zoom in on your county or neighborhood (they call it a tract) and see the percentage of people who have turned in their census. It even compares your neighborhood’s participation to the last census, and to the state and national average. Color-coded for ease of comparison, the colorful map can tell stories on its own. Scrolling through Philadelphia’s map, I can compare a wealthy neighborhood, like my neighborhood (58-67% submitted), to a low-income area, like the neighborhoods along Broad street (33-38% submitted). Take a gander and play around a bit. You’ll probably be surprised by how much fun the census can be.
It’s strange to think that the next time the census rolls around, I’ll be 34. And my students – the same ones who scream when someone farts – will be 24.
- Jeff
Extra curricular
My school’s elective program is kind of messy. Back in the fall, we were told a week before school started that every teacher would be in charge of teaching an elective of their choice. Every day. All year. Thankfully, it’s turned out better than I expected. Ungraded, under supervised and completely student focused, the electives program offers students a variety of extra curricular paths to follow and remain engaged with throughout the week. If they hate the academics of school, the idea goes, at least they’ll have something to invest themselves in at school. Despite the often-frantic planning, I think we’re lucky to have a program that allows students to spend part of their day learning about things that are as off-topic and non-traditional as German, Robotics, Drumming and Yoga. The list goes on, and every trimester, we get to shake things up and offer a new slew of classes.
My first elective was student government. It was a feeble attempt to relive the glory days of my own schooling and ended up being a disappointment. The only meaningful output was our school climate survey, which I wrote about before. This trimester, I chose to go with a topic that excited and enthused me – teaching American Sign Langauge. I took two years of ASL in college and have been looking for a way to stay in practice, so it just made sense.
Definitely obscure for my students, ASL was a popular choice and I ended up with a good group of kids that took on the language with intense interest and dedication. There are a few that can out-sign me at this point. Kind of embarrassing, I sometimes let them lead the class in whatever topic we explore.
And, as our culminating project for the trimester, a small group from the class interpreted a song in ASL and performed it for the school last month. I was so, so very proud of them. Check out a scaled down version of the performance below, which we’ve also posted to YouTube. Our goal is to reach 1,000 hits by the end of the year. So…watch as many times as you’d like. Enjoy!
- Jeff
Note: I have received the permission of all the participant’s guardians to publicly broadcast this performance. Just a disclaimer for those of you worried about my legal obligations.
My favorite day so far
I’m sitting at report card conferences right now. It’s day three, hour 4. And despite the pile of grades I’m sitting next to, I’d rather just pretend they don’t exist. I pride myself on never writing letter grades on my student’s work. In fact, I’ve never actually written a grade on any assignment – I feel like it’s too definitive and absolute. A percentage or a marking takes the focus away from the evaluation and opens up the assignment for review, reflection and maybe even a chance to learn from mistakes.
So I struggle to explain to parents what an A, B or C really means. It could be as insignificant as one missing assignment, a few points on a hard test, or a misplaced absence. When it comes down to it, the grade isn’t a very accurate reflection of who that student is, how much they’ve learned, or grown. It is, though, a relatively easy way to satisfy the question “how’s my kid doing?” And sadly it becomes the go-to measure of success for a lot of our kids.
I like to think differently. Real learning, and our evaluation of it, must be more holistic. Case in point: as part of our world history curriculum, I’ve been teaching world religions for the last three months. We’ve learned about the basic geography, principles and history of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism (I kept Christianity ’til the end, and we ran out of time…oops). I’ve tested them throughout the unit, and I can identify the objectives and topics they struggled with most. But when it comes down to it – the purpose of my teaching isn’t based on that basic content knowledge. I couldn’t care less if they remember the five pillars of Islam, or the name Siddhartha. What I really want is for my students to leave my classroom with a better understanding of the world, the people they will interact with, and their place within it. And that means having a sense of familiarity with other religions. I would guess 90% of my students are Christian, maybe 5% are Muslim. The rest, by self proclamation, question religion altogether.
In my own experience, I’ve found religion to be a powerful force in people’s lives, and in determining how they act, what they believe and how I interact with them. Beyond encounters of discrimination or difference, religion (or the lack thereof) can be a meaningful variable in any given relationship. And even though I’ve always tried to actively learn about other people’s beliefs, I myself don’t have many friends who aren’t Christian or Jewish. And those friends I do have who identify as Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu (or anything else) haven’t made their religion a part of our relationship. I’ve never been a mosque, a synagogue, a temple or anything in between. I’ve lived a Christian-centered childhood, and spent plenty of time in Catholic and Baptist churches. It’s all I’ve known, and as I came to find, all my students know, too.
So in order to make up for this lack of exposure and diversity, and to make some real-world connections to my teaching, I planned a one day field trip to visit a mosque, synagogue and Buddhist temple. The trip itself was hell to plan – contacting sites, setting up dates, ordering kosher food… the list goes on. But the preparations aside, this trip gave me a real sense of what my students had learned from me, and gave me some confidence that it was actually something meaningful. It’s hard to really measure a “good day” teaching, but this was, by far, my proudest day as a teacher. It wasn’t so much that I led a discussion or even facilitated their learning. It really had nothing to do with me. The learning was happening independent of a teacher, of a classroom, of a book. They were interacting with the world around them in a way they never
had before: asking questions to an Imam, making references to reincarnation in a synagogue, and meditating in a temple. Yes, 50 kids were sitting on a mediation pillow and reciting the “Om” in near silence. I had to ask myself several times throughout the day. “Is this real?”
It was, and it still is. The kids returned with a sense of accomplishment, and I’m sure a familiarity with people and places they previously had viewed as foreign and even dangerous. The mystery was demystified. The uncertain was made more certain. Religion was no longer just a Christian God and the Bible. There was the Torah, Moses, Muhammad, the Qur’an, and gongs. This trip served as a reminder of the teacher I want to be…as a foreshadowing of the kind of teacher I could one day be. If done right, at the right moment, with everything else in the right place, it works. The kids learn something that will stick with them forever.
But it sure as hell doesn’t make it to the report card.
- Jeff
Out in the open
A while back, I put together a list of micro reforms to implement by the end of this school year. Slow to start, I have been making some headway lately. I’ve written about homophobia at my school a few times here and there, but beyond the “no g- word in class” rule (which has been really effective), I haven’t taken steps to do anything about it on a large-scale. But I felt an increased sense of urgency when I started seeing administrators and teachers fall into the same habits as the kids. In its most frequent form, homophobia is used to change a student’s behavior (ie: “stop playing around in the hallway – people are gonna think you’re gay for each other.”) Shocking at first, it became all too familiar of a sight.
In order to best stem the issue, I needed to start at the top. As models of behavior, our teachers need to have positive mindsets that don’t exclude or denigrate. In addition, they need the tools to work with and support LGBT students or those with gender identity issues. We’ve got a 4th grader who wants to be a girl and several middle school boys and girls peeking out of the closet. It’s not an isolated problem – and I’m afraid no one has any idea of how to work with their students to create a safe and supportive classroom for these students.
I couldn’t do any of this myself, so I started looking for an outside organization that could start a constructive dialogue at my school. After a bit of research, I found the Bryson Institute. Part of the Attic Youth Center in Philadelphia, it was started after the murder of Matthew Shepard and works to educate people about LGBT issues in schools. Then I wrote a proposal and submitted it to my administration for approval and scheduling. That was in December.
And over the last three months, I’ve hounded and reminded and inquired what seems like 100 times. It was getting incessant, but I couldn’t go another year without these problems being addressed. I don’t think the word gay has ever been uttered in my school without a negative connotation. It was about time we learned how to use the word to identify and explain rather than incite fear and shame.
After a lot of talking, it happened. Last Friday, at our all-day staff development, we spent a little over an hour discussing LGBT and gender concerns with an amazing facilitator from the Bryson Institute. We defined terms, talked about religion, and explored how our LGBT students might feel in an unsafe classroom. It was an hour well spent and I think most of our staff left with a better understanding of where I’ve been coming from all this time. And thankfully, I’m not alone. There’s a growing mass of people at my school that are already using positive language and are open to thinking about how to support these students. This workshop just finally brought us all together in one room to talk about a taboo issue that some of us just ignore or dismiss.
And for probably the first time, I didn’t cringe at the sound of the word “gay” in my school. I didn’t have to turn my head to deflect my disgust or reprimand a kid for their language. I got to just sit and listen and learn. It was a proud moment. And I love the feeling of checking off a to do list.
Next, sex.
- Jeff
Oh, yeah, I’m a teacher
March has been a bit hectic. I’ve neglected my posts for a reason – mostly because I needed to focus on being a teacher and stuff. Ironically enough, my lack of blog posts has stressed me out more than writing them. When I go without reflection for this long, I begin to sense that there is a teasing void that needs to be filled. So I’m filling it.
These past few months have presented me (and every other teacher in Philadelphia) with a bit of challenge. Interrupted by snow storms and holidays and constant field trips (my students will have gone on 5 this month alone), my curriculum has become nearly irrelevant. As a history teacher, I thrive off of connections from one lesson to the next. There is rarely an isolated moment in my teaching that doesn’t require some background from the previous week or unit. So, it’s been difficult to guide my students with any sense of continuity with our recent stop-and-go schedule.
Presented with a challenge, I have not capitulated, but rather, am rebounding – trying to take advantage of the clutter and make some sense out of it. If the usual and constant is order in my teaching, then I needed to do the opposite – create a little chaos…put things (carefully and thoughtfully) out of order…mix things up. And so I did.
My solution was not, in any way, revolutionary or innovative. But it has been effective. And it’s as simple as centers. By centers I mean isolated stations that allow groups of students to rotate practicing a variety of content-based skills.
The benefits of centers:
- student-focused and operated
- cater to diverse learning styles
- cover a broad scope of material
- can be evaluated in a variety of ways (quantitative/qualitative)
The drawbacks of centers:
- so much planning to prepare
- management can be a problem and add to chaos
- real learning can be avoided by determined students
With all this in mind, I gave it a serious try twice in the last two weeks. Both times the room was quiet with only the buzz of learning to be heard, and students engaged with the material on their own terms and at their own pace. In an effort to capture the beauty of it all, I shot this video:
We are studying Islam and the basic principles and practices of the religion. They had the chance to interact with religious artifacts like a prayer rug and Qur’an and were able to read, write, watch and listen at the five stations I had set up. Regardless of the true success (I’ll know once I grade their assessments and assignments), the experience gave me some motivation to keep thinking about ways to break up my teaching and put it into the hands of my students. That is, I think, where it belongs.
- Jeff
Dream big
Children’s books have the capacity to make complex ideas more simple, colorful and sometimes, even more meaningful. By simplifying the large issues of the day, children’s books articulate a clear message and leave the rest up to the reader. Interpretation of the pictures and scant text is not the job of the author – it’s an exercise of the imagination.
So you can imagine my excitement when I found a new children’s book to fawn over. I stumbled upon this book last week when my friend Selica mentioned it from her travels abroad. She is currently living South Korea – where An Awesome Book has apparently spread like wildfire. The author made a short video about his journey to writing the book – a story of humble a guy who wanted to write a book about dreaming for his son. The final product is beautiful. Colorful and imaginative illustrations fill each page, and the message (although somewhat contrived) has something refreshing about it. It didn’t feel like any other children’s book – it felt like something meant for grown ups.
By the end, his message is this: that dreaming is a skill that shouldn’t be wasted on tangible things like money and goods. Instead, he wants kids to give up those wants in pursuit of dreams that inspire action and fun. It reminded me of a quote Diana (another friend abroad) sent me.
“At every level the greatest obstacle to transforming the world is that we lack
the clarity and imagination to conceive that it could be different.”
- Roberto Unger
Just reminds you that dreaming isn’t just for kids or the naive. It’s for everyone.
He has posted the entire book here for you to read – and buy if you feel the inspiration. He donates one book to the public for every book purchased online.
Here’s a little sneak peek:
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