My First AHA Moment (thank you, Oprah)

As hard as this is to admit, I have spent a lot of the last 3 weeks feeling sorry for myself. Yes, I do the strenuous work necessary to close the achievement gap for some of the most under privileged children in Houston, Texas, I have often found myself feeling more sorry for ME than for THEM. It sounds backwards, I know. And I don't know why I feel the need to confess my selfishness to all of you and the greater blog-o-sphere, except that I need to get it off my chest. Let me explain a little. As I've already shared on this blog, and to many of you through desperate texts and phone calls, the schedule of institute is pretty horrendous. It's basically boot camp--complete with concrete barracks (in which the lights and AC are motion sensored, and I am too short for them to sensor my motion), a dining hall (where watching people ea alone gives me heartburn), and people running around at all hours to complete their various missions (aka lesson plans that must be printed, copied, hole punched, and practiced). I spend a lot of my time looking for bilingual pre-school books. That means I've read where the wild things are (or donde viven los monstruos) and pretty awesome translations of if you give a mouse a cookie and alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day about 60000 times. On a good night, I average 4 hours of sleep. Then, I go to Tijerina Elementary School and teach 10 little monsters (they actually DO think they are all monsters after reading Where The Wild Things Are--bad lesson planning on my part) anything from reading, writing, math or science. I am observed 2 a week by a SMT (school mentor teacher) and a CMA (corps member advisor) who make me more nervous than a Coronado fire alarm and then meet them twice a week to debrief on the things I am doing well versus those things that I need to improve on. See, here I go again. Needless to say, in the MINUTES in between all of this, I complain. A LOT. I talk about how exhausted I am. About how if I have to ask the kids to cross their legs one more time I'm going to pull my hair out. I complain that its too humid, the walk to the gym is too long, the food is getting old.

Wrapped up in all of my own woes, I lost sight of the big picture. Until this week, when I had my first 2 AHA moments that will hopefully sustain me in the next 2 weeks and 2 years. I was sitting on the floor during Academic Intervention Hour with Juan Chantaca. Juan is what my collaborative group likes to call an emo-in-training. His favorite position in class is "la roca" or one in which he curls up into a ball, head down, unresponsive to anything any of the teachers have to say or do. Juan is an attention-seeking little boy and he is also one of the most curious and driven children I've ever met. Anyway, we were working on making patterns. I would make one, he would copy, or try to. We did this over and over again for 15 minutes. We were having a 50% success rate, and I was bored to tears, already trying to calculate what I would need to do in order to get 5 hours of sleep instead of 4, when Juan looked at me with a huge smile. "Maestra Cruz, mira" and I looked to where he was excitedly pointing. He had made a pattern himself. Now, I know this may seem so minor. But it hit me looking at his face, beaming, seeking my approval, seeking my recognition that YES, Juan you did it! My eyes watered up, as they so easily do, and I gave Juan a "DAME 5" or a high-5. And I realized no matter how simple, how mundane, how trivial these moments seem, these are going to be the moments that define my next 2 years. This was my motivating AHA moment, a big smile from my little emo.

And then I had an AHA moment that made the achievement gap real for me, that made the economic gap real for me. I was sitting eating breakfast with my kids one morning this week, across from a little girl named Alejandra, who, the youngest in the class, is easily the most far behind. This chubby-cheeked little monster was eating her cereal hastily, she loves breakfast and lunch time, and in between explaining to me that she wants to be a police officer and that she loves to cook tortillas with her mom. In her excitement to talk and eat, she spilled some milk on her dress. I handed her a napkin and she began to wipe it off, blushing a bit. As she was wiping, she noticed a hole near the collar of her dress. This was not a hole that you get from snagging your shirt on something, this was a hole from a dress that has been worn and re-worn. She quickly looked up to see if I had noticed the same hole, I averted my eyes to pretend as if I hadn't, and then out of the corner of my eyes, I watched as Alejandra broke my heart a little bit. She stared at the hole, and then hurriedly brushed her hair over it so that neither myself nor anyone else would see it. Alejandra rocked my world with that gesture. I had been lamenting just the night before to my friend Maria about how much I needed to go shopping for cuter teacher clothes, and I had never once considered the very real plight of my students. I am teaching them because most of them, are living in or near poverty. I guess with the little kids its easier to ignore. They generally seem very happy and content, completely unaware of the gravity of their situations, that I too forget and ignore. But Alejandra was painfully self-aware in that moment; for whatever reason, she felt the need to cover that hole in her shirt, and it be it out of shame or pride, she hid the hole. I wanted to kick myself for my selfishness and ignorance. I was ashamed. And I replay that moment in my head over and over again, reminding myself that I am dealing with real people here and up against a very real problem. It sucks to admit that I had lost sight of that.

I've gotten really caught up this week in frustrations that my kids are too rambunctious to learn anything. I spend more time convincing them to sit down in a circle, to stop singing Justin Bieber and listen, and to PLEASE keep your hands to yourself that I do trying to teach my objective. At the end of institute, we'll administer an assessment that will judge their progress for the summer. I am terrified my kids will leave these 5 weeks knowing nothing more than they did coming in. That I will have failed them. Because how do you explain to a bunch of 5 year olds that its them against the world when it comes to education? That the time is short but the need is great? That we can't waste any more time NOT distinguishing b from d, because I don't want them to become another achievement gap statistic? I hope this doesn't seem melodramatic to any of you. This is just what I think about on a day-t0-day, minute-to-minute basis. I will never have a job more physically and mentally as exhausting as this. But I also don't know if I will ever have one that is as fulfilling. So when the frustrations are high and the energy is low, I need to remind myself of the urgency of what I'm doing. I need to remind myself that Alejandra, Juan, and even Kayla--who may be the death of me--need me to advocate for them, and need me to prepare them for what will be a 13 year long fight for an education that they deserve, but may not necessarily be given.

People often talk about the blind idealism of us, TFA-ers, that we naively think we can go out and change the world one child a time. There is some truth to that--we are naive, and I do want to change the world--but we are not above getting jaded by the system or by our own selfishness. I must remind myself daily that I want to be here and that I need to be here. I must not lose my idealism.

Again, I leave you with a quote...another song, actually. I've been introduced to the musical genius of matisyahu here in Houston (yes, about 6 years later than everyone else--Annie Ryon, my musical taste needs you). A few times a week, my school director at Tijerina plays the song ONE DAY by Matisyahu. One day is shaping this experience for me in more ways than one. First because, ONE DAY is the mission of Teach For America (One day, all children) and second because the lyrics talk about how this work is a struggle but that we must continue to fight the good fight with it. So bear with me, friends and family. I apologize for the phone calls in advance, but when I do call or text, please remind me, oh-so-kindly, to suck it up and to get back to work. Matisyahu put it much more eloquently...

Sometimes I lay under the moon
And I thank God I'm breathin'
Then I pray don't take me soon
'Cause I am here for a reason

Sometimes in my tears I drown
But I can never let it get me down
So when negativity surrounds
I know someday it'll all turn around because

All my life I been waitin' for
I been prayin' for, for the people to say
That we don't want to fight no more
They'll be no more wars
And our children will play, ONE DAY.

Happy 4th of July, everyone. Much love, always.