The more things change, the more they stay the same: Making connections to literature and history with The Underground Railroad
The last snap of warm weather was a reality check for me. I’m over half way through with my first year teaching at Morton.
Teaching is one of those things that requires a lot of reflection. I often think about the changes and challenges during the year, and compare how my expectations lived up to reality.
When I was starting this year as an excited first year teacher, I thought at this time, I’d look like this:
I love reading and writing, and in the past I’ve had a variety of jobs with teens. Why wouldn’t my classroom be full of joy, rigor, and learning?
To top it off, apart from Education classes, English classes, and hours and hours of observing in real schools (BORING!!!) every weekend, I’d pop in a classic teacher movie and dream of the day I’d have my own classroom.
So far as role models go, it’s hard to beat Jaime Escalante and Melvin B. Tolson. To help kids pass the AP exam, or better yet- to challenge racism and inequality with their words… WOW!
Instead, I find that every day I’ve fallen short of my goals and failed my students. As we get ready for the ISTEP, Spring Break and subsequent finals, I find that I look much more like
My department head gave me a notebook to record my stories, promising in a few years I’d look back on them and either laugh or cry. It’s only been a few months, and already the entries make me do both.
A few weeks ago, I was looking at my journal entries. I was in the middle of teaching The Scarlet Letter and really in a funk. There were lessons that were great, and I went home feeling “This is why I became a teacher,” but as the weeks wore on, my spirit was low and my students were suffering. I thought about some of the lessons that were great. One of the best lessons (so far as student engagement) compared the public humiliation of Hester Prynne to that suffered by communities of color when the bodies of black and brown youth are left on the street for hours after being slaughtered by policemen.
Students were eager to discuss the role of the state and make connections between the America of today and Puritan America. Students were challenged to ask why the ruling class thought Hester’s sin was so dangerous they needed to make an example of her. Even more compelling, students asked why youth of color are seen as even more dangerous. Try as I might, however, I couldn’t keep them excited. The language was dense, and after a few early sparks, the interest fizzled.
After reviewing some of my journal entries, I made a command decision. I needed a way to get back to that sort of discussion and engagement. As their interest in The Scarlet Letter dipped, so too did their grades. Students weren’t even pretending to read anymore. I emailed my department head and asked for permission to teach The Underground Railroad to my Juniors.
So far, it’s been a wonderful experience. We’ve had class discussions about “Project Prevention” and how people of color still are subject to experimentation and sterilization. We’ve talked about “scrip” and asked why “Pay Day Loans” are able to prey on the poor with crippling interest rates. We’ve had discussions about Eugenics, deficiency narratives, and the recent PBIS training offered to teachers that argued that the brain of the Black student was deformed as a result of repeated stress.
Then they ask the obvious question: “Why don’t we read books like this all time?”
Unsure of how to answer, I pulled the classic teacher move… “What do you think?”
My self-congratulatory slick/smug teacher dance was cut short when on of my students answered:
“It’s the same reason they didn’t want slaves to read,” he said.
“If we read this. We gonna see they doin’ the same thing they always been doin’. C’mon now.”
The class laughed. I was so confused.
“What’s funny?” I asked, resisting shouting Yes! He’s right!
“It’s nothing we don’t know Ms. Ramirez,” another student offered. “Maybe we just don’t know how they do it, but we always know they doin’ it.”
“Ya,” another chimed in, “But it’s funny because ain’t nothing we can do about it. Reading ain’t gonna change it.”
And the bell rang.
I was dumbfounded.
Another point for the bosses.
And no wonder!
How many times have they heard that Abraham Lincoln “freed” the slaves? How different would it be if they read Forced into Glory instead of Pearson’s United States History? Education has robbed students of their legacy of fightback and change.
And I would have cried at that very moment, until I realized there aren’t tears enough to cry for what my students have lost. And I’d throw my hands in the air and surrender, but then it’s another point for the bosses.
It may sound strange, because it isn’t pedagogy, but I feel inspired by speculative realism as a genre. Any of the institutions created by capitalism, of course, support capitalism. Racism and inequality are the cornerstones of capitalism. It’s going to be difficult to find a way to fight these injustices within the structure of public education.
Maybe the best way to prove my students wrong, to let them know I do believe they can change things, is if I am fighting to change things. Maybe it’s time for educators to become pioneers and creating something new- that challenges the limits of public education.
Maybe I need to start questioning the motives of the teacher movies I’ve always loved.
Maybe it’s time for teachers, parents, and students to write a story of our own.
