The official countdown begins...

As many of you know I have accepted a position with Teach for America (recently ranked in the top 100 places to work) as a Program Manager and will, within the next 2 months, be packing up the few things I call my own and making a long and reflective drive from coast to coast.  It is an exciting time for me...but also a hard time.

For years I have told myself that I will start a blog to detail my experiences teaching in Oakland, CA and it seems as though I have been unable to get around to it until now.  5 years have passed since I first walked into a classroom and the room was lit up with 35 children dying to figure out what I was all about.  While my teaching practices have changed drastically over the years my resolve for educational inequity has remained.  I have seen many tragic and beautiful things.  Oakland is both beautiful and tragic.  At its best when beauty triumphs over tragedy...and at its worst when tragedy meets the beauty.  I have lost students to violence, health, and prison.  I have gained a loving relationship with over 600 young people that have overcome challenges I can not even begin to imagine.  I have been inspired, empowered, and proud of what the young people of Oakland have, and will continue, to accomplish in their lives.

Today marks 34 days in my teaching career.  I woke up today with an overpowering feeling of guilt that I had not yet told some of the most important people in my life my decision to move to Boston and start a new life; my students.  As I started to teach my first lesson for the day my eyes welled up with tears, my voice got shaky, and one of my students politely raised her hand, asked if I was ok, and then ran to the front of the classroom to give me a hug.  As she wrapped her arms around me the tears became real and I shuttered.  Awe-struck the rest of the class did not know what to do.  Their response?  An entire class group hug.  Every student came to me, wrapped his or her arms around the group and then one of them started singing some strange song (who knows with these kids) and everyone joined in.  The tears quickly turned to laughter and it was at that point that I knew I owed it to them to tell them the large changes that were going on in my life.

As they all settled back into their seats with obvious concern for my well being I could no longer pretend to be stoic and hold back the emotions I have suppressing for some time.  It was time to break the news.  I sat on my stool, started to talk, stopped.  Started again.  Stopped.  Started again and finally got it out.  "I don't know how else to say this other than to tell you right out that I will not be returning to Tech next year."  My tears were fueled by theirs and we had a long talk about my decision and how hard it will be for me to walk out of the doors of Tech on June 16th...never to return as a teacher again.

"Mr. C...why are you leaving us?  Everybody leaves us!  Are we bad?"  How do you respond to a 15 year old when he says that to you?  How do you look at a young man who has been abandoned by people who he loves time and time again.  All I could do was lock eyes with him and promise that it was a personal decision and it was nothing that he, or they, had done.

"Mr. C...don't leave us!  Actually, it's ok if you leave.  I just hope you are making the right decision for you and I'm proud of you for doing what is best for you."  How does a 14 year old girl know to say such things?  How can she be so empathetic in the face of so much tragedy and hardship?  Her 4 year old brother is handicapped from a tragic car accident as a baby and she has had to step up and help the family with his care.  That's how.  She has experienced tragedy.  She knows pain.  She feels emotions so intuitively.  She, like so many of my other students, is so in tune with emotions because she has felt them beyond anything I can even begin to imagine.

The bells rings.  Repeat.  The bell rings again and in come my seniors.  My leadership class.  My babies (as I like to call them.)  This is my first group of high school students and the first time I will see a student that I taught walk the stage.  We reflect back to their freshman year.  Some of these students walked into my classroom as a freshman never having experienced high school.  I was in the same shoes.  (My first year I taught middle school)  We looked at each other and thought..."ok, what now?" 

This was my hardest group to tell.  I have grown incredibly close with these young ones over the years and have watched them grow physically, emotionally, and spiritually over the course of 4 years.  I could not have more pride in a group of people for what they have accomplished.  Many of their classmates are no longer with us (this group has experienced the death of over 35 young people since their 8th grade year).  Whether it is violence, drop out, or other factors, the simple fact of the matter is that they are no longer with us.  The students in front of me have come out on top when all odds were stacked against them.  You see, they graduate on June 14th from a school district that does not graduate roughly 50% of its students.  For some of them, nobody thought they would make it.  Few believed in them.  They did it on their own.  They found a way.

As the bell rings and they get up and leave class much slower than normal there are very few dry eyes in the room.  Again, even my own fill up with tears as the streaks on my cheeks start to finally dry.  It starts all over again.

The bell rings.  Repeat.  The bell rings. Repeat.  The bell rings...go home and sleep off one of the most emotionally heavy days I have experienced in a very long time.

I wish all of my students knew how much they have impacted me.  I tried to tell them today but it just isn't possible to put those feelings into words.  They have changed me in ways I could have never imagined.  They have touched my heart.  My soul.  My being.  I will forever remember the times I had, both amazing and challenging, when I could call myself a teacher in Oakland Unified School District...