Last Day

Today is the last day of school. The last day of my first year of teaching.

And for the past two hours, I thought that a beloved student of mine was killed in a car accident. But after crying about her for a while, I found out that it wasn't her, it was her older sister. I have so many students who have lost sisters, brothers, and cousins in car accidents.

Another former student of CDJH was supposedly stabbed thirteen times and killed on Friday. He was in 8th grade last year.

I'm suddenly very happy to be getting out of here for the summer.

8th Grade Promotion

Today, the eighth graders promoted to 9th grade. This is a big, big, big deal here on the rez, and it's been a stressful few weeks for the Language Arts department. School policy dictates that if the students do not turn in research projects, they may not promote.

In the past few days I've had to make some tough and controversial calls. I passed a student who suffers from unlabelled, yet severe, learning disabilities who worked hard but almost gave up in the end, turning his paper in late; I also passed a girl who is abused (emotionally, physically, and probably sexually) at home and while she worked slowly and diligently in school, her home life, absences, and the times she ran away prevented her from finishing. She didn't turn in her paper (rough draft) until yesterday afternoon (after the rehearsal for the promotion ceremony). I also passed two students who turned in the same paper; these girls have been my students all year, and I know their abilities and characters fairly well. I made them each write an essay on plagiarism (how cheesy is that?) and gave them each a C- (the highest grade possible to pass).

Anyway, it's over, and today, they promoted. Promotion is mostly frowned upon by the teachers. Statistics show that schools that have large 8th grade promotion ceremonies have a higher drop-out and failure rate in high school. So many of the students' parents and grandparents never made it that far in school; the end of 8th grade is seen as the end of education. Half of them (as statistics would foreshadow) will not graduate from high-school. Around 15-20% didn't even promote and will attend summer school. And there were many more that squeaked by for the sake of a promotion ceremony rather than going to get some extra help at summer school.

Fortunately, promotion's been toned down a bit. Last year, it was at night, bleachers in the activitiy center full, limosines, parties in the parking lot. From the descriptions I've heard, it sounded like a mob scene. There was even a key note speaker (whom no one paid attention to). This year, it was at 10 a.m., hosted by the Student Body President, and it was over in an hour. I didn't see any limos and I didn't see any traffic jams. That's a good sign. I did see a lot of expensive dresses (some that looked like 80s prom dresses and some that looked like wedding gowns). But I also saw some kids in cute, appropriate dresses, or even one of my favorite skater kids in jeans, a black shirt, a tie, and a cowboy hat. When a teacher asked him about the jeans, he shrugged and said, "This is no big deal." Exactly right.

Hopefully next year we can reduce the whole tradition to a class picnic, and focus on getting these kids through high school and on to college.

"Apache land"

One of my favorite quotes from this year came from a rebellious 7th grader who wouldn't stop leaning and pounding on the wall in the lunch line. Logically, on the other side of this wall sit the band instruments. So we nagging teachers have good reason for not wanting the kids up against the wall while they wait for their food. Well, he kept touching, punching, and leaning on the wall just to annoy me, so after asking him several times, I sent him to the back of the line. As he did so, he said to me, "Go back to the white land. This is Apache land."

He's right. And he's wrong. And he's in 7th grade, probably repeating something that he's heard at home. So I just smiled and said, "Whatever," and then I ignored him. I am a visitor. I am a tourist. I do not belong. But I also know that there are no Apaches stepping up for my job, as much as I wish they were, as much as I believe that an Apache-run school district from top-down is the only way to really create change.

Books, books, books!

Next year looks to be quite the roller coaster ride.

I'll be teaching 7th grade ELA, 8th grade ELA, a journalism and yearbook class, and a reading class with a focus in American literature. Yesterday, the other two ELA teachers and I sat down to order books, and I had only just learned that 1) I would be teaching American lit. and 2) we could spend $5,000 on new books! Talk about being happily overwhelmed!

So far, I plan to order class sets of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie, knowing that my class will consist of some of the best readers in the school. Now I need to figure out what else, what else, what else...how do I narrow the many wonderful choices into three or four classroom sets of books, and how do I create a classroom library that represents the gems of multicultural and classic American literature?

This is a moment of geek love! I am revelling in this anticipation of introducing new words, new thoughts, and new ideas to young readers. If anyone has any suggestions, especially less obvious choices, let me know. I'm going to try to connect some of my reading choices to their history classes: World War I through the War on Terror.