reflection: new school year, new perspective, same passion.
School year 2012 has begun...yes, another year, another round. Another chance to try again.
The past week has been filled with the excitement and preparation that comes with the start of a fresh year. Days have been kept busy with sifting through standards of learning, writing unit plans, meetings with administration on how to best engage students and raise academic results, discussions with other teachers on how to create strategies to deal with behavioral issues.
During lunch today, a fellow teacher from my school ran up to me bounding with excitement asking, "how was your trip to Lebanon!?!" As I shared with her about my experience, I couldn't help but ask myself (...and in slight shock): "wait, was that really only just a few weeks ago?"
Yes, I am back in the game. Back to reality. Full force. And it is surreal.
It is crazy to think that just a little over two weeks ago, I was doing these same things...planning, sharing, discussing but in a whole other country, in another culture and for children who lived in such a different world.
Since my plane touched back down in DC, it has been a non-stop marathon. Catching up with family and friends, unpacking, preparing for work, starting work...the time has slipped by. And somewhere in all of that, I have been desperately trying to find time to process, to reflect on the intense but incredible experience I just had.
Yet, oddly enough, it wasn't last week when I was off work...but it's been this week that I feel that I'm finally being able to process this summer. It's while in the workplace, at my school, in the midst of all this preparation that my mind is finally starting to rewind and reflect.
As I have been beginning to plan for this upcoming year, my mind keeps going back to the children in Shatila. To the lessons they taught me. To the experiences, perspectives and insights I gained from them and their world.
I keep trying to think of how to integrate this experience into my students' lives, reflecting on all of the parallels I kept drawing while in Lebanon to my students in DC.
The one word that I keep coming back to in all of this: freedom.
I'll never forget how I felt that early morning as my plane took off from Beirut. For the first time in my life, I cried during take-off. Sure, I've been sad to leave many places in my life but I have never been so emotionally moved to cry as the plane literally took off from the ground.
As I think back to that moment, I can still hear the mother behind me telling her child to "wave goodbye, say goodbye to Lebanon" as the child echoed her and indeed said goodbye as we lifted up into the sky.
It was in that moment that the idea of freedom hit me...no, slapped me, in the face. Here I was, leaving freely to go home to my own country, to pursue the goals I had, to work in a career that I was freely allowed to pursue, to return to family and friends who I had been separated from over the summer. Yet, I was leaving behind these beautiful children who were not allowed to do the same.
Children who dreamed of their home country, who knew stories of their homeland through their parents and grandparents but had never stepped foot in it. Children who had dreams, incredible dreams and amazing potential but were heartbreakingly aware of the truth of their reality: those dreams would never come true unless the situation resolved. Children who had so much potential and talent but were stuck and not allowed to freely pursue their potential.
What could be more heartbreaking than a human not being able to fully pursue their own potential?
But there I was, flying away. A lucky American with the world as her oyster. And it broke my heart...just like it did so many other times over the summer. During that take-off, I silently told myself to not let this summer be just "another experience" or another journey to print photos out of and put away in an album. But it was then, during that take off, that I promised myself that I would make sure that this experience became something more. Not for myself...but for them.
So here I am, more than two weeks later. Back in my world. Beginning to process. How will I keep those children with me as I begin a new year here in DC? What do I want my students here to learn from the children in Shatila?
Again, I hear that word echoing in the back of my mind: freedom.
In Lebanon, the students in the refugee camps lack many freedoms. They can't work in certain professions, they can't own land, they don't even have the freedom to go play soccer in a real field...the narrow camp alleys are their fields. These are normal children filled with dreams and goals just like any other child but are held back by the reality of their situation.
Children like Ali.
Ali was one of my students this summer, who made me want to pull my hair out MANY times...yet he became my summer highlight and captured my heart. I'll never forget the first day of class with him. Ali has an intense amount of energy, major attention problems and was frustrated that I was only speaking in English. He actually asked to switch out of my class because I was only speaking English and all of his friends were in the higher level classes. After being told that it was English class so yes, we would only be speaking English, he sat down and accepted the fact.
He was your typical misbehaved nuisance...distracting other students, speaking out of turn, and he had major impulse-control issues. He would randomly sing songs in class or even rap. He liked the attention from students and craved it from the adults. A few teachers couldn't believe that I could tolerate him, he was too much to handle, some thought I should just send him out. But there was something about him that kept me holding out for him. I knew that underneath all that energy and behavior was a child, a child who needed attention and who deserved a chance. A child whose behavior was stemming from somewhere deeper.
And let me tell you, this boy showed up to class everyday. I will admit, there were a few days that I secretly hoped Ali would be absent just to have some calm in my classroom. But he never missed a day. Sometimes, he showed up an hour early. I'd run outside to grab a bottle of water during lunch and there Ali would be standing right outside the door, "Teacher Kim, we begin class?!!??", he would ask, "no Ali, you still have 58 minutes until class," would be my constant reply. That in and of itself spoke volumes. He wanted to be there, his behavior was not out of spite or disrespect, it was a signal of something else.
Somedays I was able to take him out in the hallway to work with him one-on-one. He needed it just as many children need more focused settings to work in. As I worked with him on our English material, I was amazed. This boy was smart. He knew exactly what we were doing and without my help much of the time. One day during our one-on-one time, I looked at him and said, "Ali, you are smart, you are the highest level student in our class, do you know that?", he just looked down at his paper. "You let your behavior get in your way, if you change that, you could do so much. " I know that I was not the only teacher who had this conversation with me, both of the program directors had a very similar conversation with him as well.
I remember in that moment, this "bad boy" looked at me and his eyes filled with tears. Just as suddenly as a huge smile crossed his face. I asked him to nod if he understood, he did. I asked him if he was willing to fix his behavior and show everyone how smart he was, again, he nodded. We went back into class and for the remainder of that final week, he was one of my best behaved students.
He just needed an affirmation. People to believe in him, so he could believe in himself. Don't we all need that?
 |
| With Ali, the student who reminded me why I teach and to never give up on the student who may make you want to give up. |
My students in DC hear the negatives all the time. They do not live in the greatest neighborhood, frankly, they live in the worst neighborhood in DC, as the statistics show. High crime, high poverty fill their community. My school is a failing school, last year we did not make nearly enough gains we needed to on the district-wide testing.
My students have begun to build walls up around their goals and ambitions simply because their world tells them it won't happen. They have listened too much to the negatives and have forgotten the one thing that they should be reminded of: the freedom they have to pursue the future they envision. My students have the ability to overcome those walls and get out of the situation they are in. They are lucky. They are blessed to have that freedom. It says it right in our American Declaration that we have the freedom of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", whatever that may be.
This year, I want my students in DC to truly understand freedom. I want them to embrace their freedom and run with it. I want them to know that, to understand that and to live it.
Since coming back home, I have noticed a refreshed perspective I have on life filled with positivity and optimism. Especially in my teaching. At the end of the last school year, I was close to burn-out. I was frustrated, cynical and exhausted. I honestly didn't think I'd make it through another year. Now, I feel refreshed and actually excited for the year to begin.
This year I am making a committment: to continually affirm my students, to not lose faith in my students..even in the most difficult ones...and to aim high, to take risks. As I was lesson-planning this week, I came up with a few projects for my students which are pretty lofty and ambitious. Last year, I would've said, "Nope, it'll take too much paperwork, too much time and I won't have the support I need. Forget it." But this year, I find myself saying "why not?" I was told by one administrator that I am a bit of an "idealistic" teacher, but is that a bad thing? I think I've been realistic for far too long, it's time to aim high.
As a teacher, it's my role to model what I want my students to achieve. If we want them to embrace the freedom they have, we need to embrace it. If we want them to aim high, we need to aim high. If we want them to live a life full of passion, then we need to.
Even in my personal relationships, I find that my perspective has changed. I find myself encouraging others more, giving support in ways that I was not just a few months ago. I feel reinvigorated with a renewed perspective on life and the world around me. Maybe it was being in an environment which lacked the basics I take for granted or maybe it was immersing myself in that environment and allowing it to mold my worldview. Either way, I am different than I was just 8 weeks ago.
I don't think that I am a changed person but I believe that I am back to being the person who I truly am. The person I was created to be.
This positivity, this passion and confidence...this is who I am. Who I have always been. But somewhere in the past few years, I lost that. I became hardened, frustrated, a little bitter...stuck inside my own head and thoughts. I let the negativity around me affect the core of who I am. I began to believe the lies around me instead of listening to the truth which is essential to my life.
 |
| Beautiful, joyful students in Shatila |
It is another reason why I love being a teacher because you are never truly just a teacher. When you teach and keep your mind and heart open, in the end, it's your students, the community around you who end up teaching you.
It's a beautiful image of the human exchange of learning and growing.
I continue to hope for the refugees in Lebanon. and I will stand beside them as they pursue their right of return. Yet as life moves on here in DC, I step into a new school year and who knows what is in store? Will it be another stressful, busy, insane year? I'm 99% sure of that. Might there be another Ali who I will meet this year, just waiting to make me want to pull my hair out but challenge me like I've never been challenged before? Most definitely. I think I actually just met some tonight at our school's orientation.
But am I ready to look past that and move forward for my students? Am I ready to be challenged, to teach my students the lessons they need? To help them find the strength to go beyond the negative and find the positive? To encourage them to run towards their future with perseverance?
You better believe it. Bring it on, school year 2012.
0 comments