Notice, Listen, Care

 It's strange to think I've been walking the streets around my neighborhood every day for a year.

Not that it's strange to walk around my neighborhood, really. I've done that for years. But until schools shut down last March, I walked (or ran) with exercise in mind. I still appreciate the exercise, but it became something very different. I felt an urgency -- as everything seemed to come to a sudden and terrible stop -- to be present exactly where I was. To experience it, and to notice it. Consciously.

So I walked, broadening my route until I was exploring streets I'd never seen even after years of loving this neighborhood. I walk near the water every day, either down to the shore or up the hill with the sweeping view of the sound, the mountains. As the weather warmed, I noticed open windows on a house I thought was abandoned. As the days shortened and the air cooled and I walked at sunset instead of at dawn, I saw the glow of lights in the windows. And then one day, a neighbor who often walks at the same time I do fell into step across the road and gave me a walking tour of those streets. I learned the life story of the man who lived in that beautiful house with the overgrown yard and the driveway filled with broken cars, and I thought about how easy it is not to look, not to notice, not to care.

Today, I walked by a yard I pass every day, lush with plants, and smelled a scent I recognize from last March: the particular sharpness of spring. And I thought about how I know exactly which bushes will begin to flower, and when, and in what colors. I know where I'll see the most bees, and the most baby rabbits. The seasons shift, like they always do. The blossoms will return. And I want to stay awake to it all.

*

It has been a long and terrible week, but not a terrible day. Even now, half a school year into Remote Learning v. 2.0 (which bears little resemblance to the necessary triage of last spring), even now when the news pits parents against teachers in the headlines, when I cannot click on any article about education without reading comments demanding that I "go back to work" or "quit if I don't like my job," magic still happens. It still happens in a fumbling, accidental, joyful way. Even over a screen.

I was reviewing a technique known as "color-marking" among literature teachers. It's an analytical tool involving colored pencils (or the highlighter on a Google doc) that helps students read closely and identify patterns in a text, which will then lead to their ability to analyze it effectively. It will help them practice "Guided Literary Analysis" for their IB exams, but more importantly, it will help them slip inside a well-crafted sentence and understand exactly why it exists. I hope, anyway.

I absolutely love color-marking. As in, for fun.

I modeled it for my juniors today as we looked at the opening passage of the novel we're starting. My friend and heart-twin Rebecca made a video about this process and graciously gave me permission to share it with my students. Before I played it, I said, "I need you guys to understand the depth of my nerdiness, and also my love. I love this. I do this for fun. Do you guys remember the first week of first quarter, when I shared the poem 'Alabanza' with you and we talked about it a bit? And then I played the video of the author reading it aloud, and he was obviously far more powerful than I was?"

They remembered.

"Well, Ms. Crawford and I thought we'd teach this poem for the first time about ten years ago. We sat in my classroom with a bunch of colored pencils between us, and we marked it up together, in furious ecstatic silence until one of us burst out with, 'What are you noticing?' and the other would respond. Listen. We skipped lunch. This is exciting. This is the heartbeat of what I love about reading and teaching."

"Aww," one of the kids typed in chat. "That's actually really great."

So we dove in. I pulled up a blank copy of the passage and shared my screen and started highlighting.

"The thing I hope you take away from this," I said, as I fumbled around with trying to highlight something in one color and write a comment in the margin, "is that this is about the process. It's not a product. This is what thinking looks like on a screen, or a page, and that's messy. Your color-marking isn't going to look like mine, and that's okay. This isn't about highlighting what you think you're supposed to find; it's about highlighting what you notice along the way."

I said those words aloud so I would believe them. It was surprisingly unnerving to be vulnerable in this moment, to approach this passage like a student, without an answer key. But that was also entirely the point.

"I've read this novel more than once," I continued. "I mark up my books, I make notes in the margins. But I've never just sat down with this passage, to dive in and see exactly how the author does it. How she drops us into the scene and lets the tension unfold. And looking at it now, seeing how she reveals an entire scene with these tiny glimpses of movement, how she lets the whole situation unfurl with the way a character folds a jacket over the back of a chair, or the way she packs a suitcase--this is really interesting! It's about what she doesn't include. Or what she doesn't say. It's about noticing what's in those spaces."

I love color-marking because it's about noticing. And caring.

I didn't notice when my evaluator joined my class for an unannounced, drop-in observation; when I share my screen, I can't see my full class without scrolling down the sidebar. I had no idea she was there. And that's fine; I'm never nervous about observations. Sometimes my evaluator will see some direct instruction, and sometimes she'll see me standing in the corner (or she would, in the days when I taught in a room with my students), trying to blend in to the furniture while I watch my students work. Those are the days when the magic usually happens. If an observer doesn't see what they expect to see, I can explain exactly what I want to see from my class.

It still startled me a bit, when my evaluator sent me a private note in the chat: "Always so fun to see you in action!" I laughed out loud, but she was already gone.

*

My friend Megan shared an article with me this week: "Teacher Demoralization Isn't the Same as Teacher Burnout." I couldn't read the entire article at once because it hurt too much.

When I tell you about unsafe working conditions, when I talk about how my colleagues are sickened by their buildings (nevermind the children drugged by their parents to mask symptoms of illness), when I tell you that the conversation about "good ventilation" as a condition for students returning safely to school, you should listen to me. I've been teaching for twenty years.

The carpet in the classroom my first year of teaching was so moldy I was sick within a week. So was the teacher I shared with. Both of us were new to the building; when we reported it, we were laughed at. Mocked. Belittled. It wasn't that bad, and we weren't tough enough. Finally, to placate our whining, someone shampooed the floors over a long weekend. In that room with no ventilation, without an open window, the soggy floor festered. The stench on Monday was unbearable. Kids wouldn't walk inside. Finally, the office manager rolled her eyes and marched down to our room, ready to prove that we were making a fuss over nothing. She opened the door, took one step inside, and backed out again, bending over with dry heaves. The district slapped a new layer of cheap carpet over an old problem, and my colleague and I taught in the library and the cafeteria after lunch for a week. Our students spread their notebooks over surfaces sticky with ketchup.

This week I thought about how optics matters far more to the public than safety. I thought about how the Superintendent of Public Instruction said our schools have "good ventilation." And I shared a few things.

My classroom window has been broken for the entire time I've been teaching in that space. If someone wants to do the math, that was the fall of 2008. At least I have a window.

Last year, the floor swelled so badly due to moisture and mold that I couldn't open my inner door at all. The custodian managed to shave off the bottom of the door. The door wasn't the main problem, obviously, but at least I could open it.

Another colleague reports that a portion of the wall under a window is duct-taped so it will stay in place.

Sometimes water stains are covered with a sloppy layer of paint, but somehow, they resurface.

Sometimes, teachers have to be strategic in arranging their furniture because the sagging spots in the floors won't safely support the weight of a person sitting in a desk.

Sometimes, when the boilers aren't working, my colleagues heat their classrooms with bunsen burners. Others bring space heaters from home.

Bats live in our ventilation systems.

The flooding on our campus in moderate rain is so extreme that we've stepped into trash cans to wade over our doorsills without soaking our socks.

Water pipes burst, flooding the floors. Last year, one of our colleagues returned from their honeymoon over winter break to find caution tape over their boarded-up door. Another time, a colleague strolled through the commons area with an umbrella while water poured from the ceiling.

We returned from a break to caution tape over our sinks, our drinking fountains. We couldn't drink the water after it tested too high for lead.

The heat in one building randomly skyrockets to 90 degrees while an adjoining room freezes. Kids walk out of both, because fuck this.

Infestations of ants abound. We ban eating in our rooms. It doesn't matter. They're all over our desks, our windowsills, swarming in the trash cans.

All this was before the Pandemic. We have been telling you these stories for years. But you only want to hear the funny stories, or the heartwarming ones. The "pick yourself up by the bootstrap" stories. You want the entertainment without the commitment. You want to feel good. You want to compliment the token teacher in your lives and "like" their Facebook anecdotes without advocating for what our kids--yes, ours--actually need.

It shouldn't be surprising that teachers have a hard time trusting "data." We know how transparent districts are. And with the pressure of white parents and the optics of progress, we don't stand a chance, do we?

*

My colleagues and I have laughed through ant infestations and wearing trash cans on our feet to wade through inches of water that spill across our carpets when we just want to teach our kids. We might laugh together, but no one else can. NO ONE ELSE. We laugh to survive. The rest of America is silent. We have been telling you all of this for years. Years. So do not. Do. Not. Come at any teachers telling them what's "safe" or what is BEST FOR OUR KIDS. Not when you never spoke up about our unsafe buildings, our unsafe drinking water, or flat-out miserable conditions.

Not when you consumed our stories without speaking out on our behalf.

Do not. Do. Not. Come at me with your concern for the children. Do. Not. Your silence and your complicity has already spoken for you.

*

It's easy not to look, not to notice, not to care. I'm asking you do do all of those things. Look. Notice.

Sit in this present moment. Recognize the magic that happens despite the devastation. Wonder. Get curious. Care. And ask: What might be possible if we could do better?