Snappin' Off

I'm going to write about teaching SuMmA sKeWl now. I'm not going to change any names because I liked all my students and if they happen to somehow stumble upon this blog, I think they should know exactly what I think about them. I'm not going to use last names, though, mostly because I don't know most of those.

So, to give yous (that's how Philly people pluralize a lot of the time) an idea of how my Practice Teaching (PT) worked, it was like this:

Ms. Rami, like many other teachers, agreed to teach English 3 (for juniors) at Vaux High School for the summer session. Like the general summer school model, this happens at a bunch of schools all over the city. Ms. Rami also agreed to have (2) Fellows with her in the class, and agreed to let said Fellows teach sometimes. Kim and I were her "said Fellows."

First, I'd like to note that Ms. Rami was an excellent Cooperative Teacher (CT). She is an excellent teacher, both to me and the class. She gave me awesome advice and ideas, and really good critiques. She was always looking out for me and trying to make sure I was getting the most I could out of teaching summer school. And I did. I couldn't have gotten a better CT.

English 3 is a half boring, half really fun class. It was American Lit, with a focus on the autobiography, from the Revolution until almost now. I got to teach Edgar Allen Poe, Richard Wright, N. Scott Momaday, James Baldwin, Robert Frost, and about Modernism and Transcendentalism v. Romanticism. I didn't really like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, mostly because they're old, dead, white men. I'm not a big fan of reading those, even if they are the Founding Fathers. The students liked Richard Wright the best, which isn't surprising since he grew up in the same situation as a a lot of them.

I think I should take a minute here to talk about Vaux High. It's in a really rough area of North Philly. The other day I was at my new apartment hanging out with Zofia, Quame and Quame's friend whose name I dont' really remember. The friend told me that he works for this Philly non-profit to end homelessness. He told me that they did research and the majority of homeless people in Center City (downtown) are from one neighborhood. And this neighborhood, he said, was about four blocks from Vaux. Then Quame told me a story about how he knew this really burly man that worked for a cable company. One night he was in that neighborhood and had to disconnect someone's cable after dark. He climbed up the pole, shut it off, and by the time he got down there was a man at the bottom holding a gun to his head telling him to fix the cable. Now, if that's what happens to a large black man in that neighborhood, think about what my students have been living through their whole lives. I understand things aren't fair. Really, I get it. But it just hurts so much to understand where my students are living but to not understand how they live.



MORE TO COME BECAUSE ZOFIA IS WAITING FOR ME TO DRIVE HOME.