Teaching Fearless

Rep. Volz with guests at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia, Jan. 23, 2018.

What happens when you take three outstanding former students to the state capital to speak on behalf of public education and English Language Learners? Pure magic! This is the story of how one teacher ended up taking three students to our state capital to meet with legislators.

It started with an idea. For two years I had been working to get my local legislators to visit my classroom. I called their offices and left messages and emailed regularly, but to no avail. It was at a National Board Hill Day in February 2017, that I decided to change my message. Instead of asking, I would entice my legislators by focusing on the great things happening in our public schools and, specifically in my school and in my classroom (read more about this here on Stories from School). This shift resulted in several visits from Spokane’s legislators.

One of the first was a visit from Mike Volz, a freshman Representative from the 6th district, in late May of 2017. After spending the afternoon in our class, Representative Volz was taken with the students and the experience and wanted to bring that back to the capital. So began the plan to bring my class to Olympia.

We stayed in touch over the summer, via my newsletters and intermittent email, then, in the fall, after being selected as the Teacher of the Year, things kicked into high gear. Mike asked to visit again and during that visit, we solidified plans for the visit to Olympia. Instead of bringing my class, as originally discussed, we decided it might be more beneficial for legislators to see students who started in the Newcomer Center, but have now gone on to post-secondary education and can talk about what barriers they faced and what helped them most during high school.

On January 22, 2018. I, along with three former students, hopped in the car and headed to the state capital. Philip Janz, Mike Volz’s aide, had an entire agenda planned, including a parking spot – which made us feel very important.

We started the day with a visit to Representative Linda Dolan. Linda is a former educator from Spokane. During our visit, we discovered that she was instrumental in starting the newcomer program in Spokane in the late 1990’s. She enjoyed meeting the students and knowing they started their education in the US in the Newcomer Center. Later when we spoke to the House K-12 committee, Representative Dolan commented o how wonderful it is to see the success of a program she helped to create.

We then visited Representative Marcus Riccelli. He represents the area in which all of us live in Spokane. He was so kind and welcoming and really listened to the students. He even wrote notes as he listened, explaining that while he was not on the education committee, he would pass along some of what he discovered in listening to the students stories and concerns. He also handed each one his card, explaining he is their representative and should they need assistance, they should reach out. This was a powerful message to the students, as they began to recognize their place and their potential impact on policy.

Our busy day next took us to visit both the House Republican and Democratic Caucuses. The caucus is where all of the discussion happens prior to heading out on the floor for debate and voting. While we did not get to witness any of the discussion, we did receive a warm welcome in each caucus and Representative Volz presented me with a resolution he sponsored concerning recognition of my selection as 2018 Washington State Teacher of the Year.

The students and I had the chance to speak about our experiences in front of the entire House body via the caucuses. It was really cool and made a huge impression on the students. I’m sure the students also made a huge impression on the members of the House of Representatives, as well. One legislator, Representative Lovick, from the 44th district, rushed out after our visit to the Democratic Caucus, to take a photo with us and give each of the students his cards, asking them to please reach out to him in the future, that he would love to hear more of their stories.

After a very quick visit to see Senator Billig, and an educational lunch in the legislative cafeteria with Representative Volz, we headed to the House K-12 and Senate K-12 Committee meetings. The students addressed both committees. The students shared their stories of starting their high school journeys in the Newcomer Center and where they all landed. Both Safa and Asraa are sophomores at Eastern Washington University. Safa is studying to become an elementary school teacher, and Asraa is studying Dental Hygiene. Jeff is an Act Six Scholar at Whitworth University. He is a junior and studying sociology. They went on to explain what helped them the most throughout high school (their English language teachers and college achievers programs), and the largest barriers they encountered (standardized testing and access to apprenticeships and mentoring). They provided legislators a unique look into the experiences of English language learners, and, hopefully, inspired them to make positive change for our immigrant and refugee students.

This is the impact students can have when we provide them an opportunity to have a voice. Sure, I could’ve visited the capital on my own as I have in the past, but the true impact on our legislators came through hearing directly from students about their experiences. This visit was also impactful for Jeff, Safa, and Asraa, as they learned they can speak for their communities and make a difference. Such an incredible experience and one I hope to make a tradition.

Reach out to legislators. Give your students the opportunity to share their stories. It really can impact policy and lead to positive changes in our public schools!

I teach math. It’s true. I never thought I would be a math teacher, but here I am, seven years in. You’d think seven years would give me confidence, belief in myself that I am a math teacher, but it doesn’t. We’ve spent so many years in education focused on being highly qualified, meaning holding a specific certification and having the “right” set of college coursework under our belts, that we fail to recognize the knowledge and skill that comes with practice and actual experience. This was my problem. So, when Jesse Gilliam from Washington STEM* contacted me to speak at the Washington STEM Summit last November, my first response was, “Are you sure I’m the right person for this event?”

He responded that the Summit focus was on equity in STEM and he believed, based on my teaching context, I was exactly the right person for this event. This was enough of a push for me to go for it, but just barely. After all, if I’m going to encourage my colleagues, students, family, and anyone else who might listen, to be fearless, I better practice what I preach, right?

I teach math, yes, but not math in the traditional sense. I teach the language for math to high school English language learners who already have the skills, just not the English. I wasn’t so sure that qualified me as an expert, but it did make me think. Why didn’t I see myself as a math teacher? More importantly, why didn’t I see my class, in which we cover content from place value to Cartesian graphs, foundational elements of geometry and algebra to percentages and fractions, as a legitimate math class?

I spent the time between the request to speak and the actual day of the panel diving deeply into the rabbit hole of what equity in STEM means and how it all relates to my own practice in the Newcomer Center. All the while, trying to convince myself that I really do have something to share about this important topic. After weeks of fretting, I finally thought about the topic in terms which made sense to me. I thought about my students. How do my students fit within STEM?

I started with the students in my class, by looking at their interests, their academic strengths and weaknesses, and their goals for the future. Roughly 90% of my kids seek post-secondary education and careers in STEM fields, with 50% wanting careers in medicine. This led me to think about former students, those who went on to college and those who entered the job market or sought technical degrees. It was this train of thought that put me on my path – our view of STEM is quite narrow, traditional – STEM is simply that, science, technology, engineering, and math, and teaching STEM subjects is pretty straightforward. We fail to look at STEM from all angles, and provide all students the inroads they need to access STEM.

The long and short of it is, I am a math teacher. I simply don’t teach math in the traditional sense. I provide my students the approach and knowledge they need to become proficient. My students know math, but if we put them in a regular math class without the proper foundational language skills, they will not succeed. What I teach and how I teach them prepares them for what comes next. Because I have the latitude to meet my students where they are and instruct them in a manner and at a level that is appropriate, they are better equipped to achieve their goals. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we created space for alternative means through which to teach and learn STEM subjects? Imagine, all students would be STEM students, it might simply look different for each of them.

Watch my comments and the equity panel at the Washington STEM Summit here (my comments begin about 20 mins. into the video). Equity in STEM is a matter of access. How do you view STEM and your place in it?

* Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

At 7:26 AM this morning, I dropped my son at the bus stop. I waited with him for the bus then spent time chatting with a couple of other mothers after the bus departed for school.

Freeman High School in Rockford, Washington is just 13.6 miles southeast of my school, Joel E. Ferris High School in Spokane. Every October, Rockford holds a county fair and hosts a children’s Halloween parade. Years ago we took my step-daughter and step-son to participate. It was cute.

My dad is visiting from New Mexico, so I took half a personal day to spend time with him. At 8:00 AM we headed downtown to eat breakfast at the Satellite. We both had scrambles and reminisced about my childhood.

It was a late start day today for Rockford schools. A week earlier, a young man wrote notes to a few friends that he planned to do “something stupid.”

After breakfast, at 9:30 AM, I recorded an interview with KIRO radio in Seattle via Skype. I spoke with Colleen and Dave about our public schools, and DACA, how there is beauty in all families, about seeing difference instead of deficit, and how we must be kind, committed, and caring first for our students. The interview ended at 10:00.

At around the same time, a 15 year old boy opened fire in the second floor hallway of Freeman High School. His school. He shot and killed his “friend,” Sam Strahan, and wounded three others. He carried the guns he used in a duffle bag on the school bus.

At 10:50 AM, I went to my son’s school to drop off a permission slip for him to run cross country. I was locked out. It was my son’s second week of Kindergarten and his school was on lockdown. At the time, I didn’t know why.

Spokane County Sheriff, Ozzie Knezovich, stated, “It sounds like a case of a bullying type situation.” A friend of the suspect said of the alleged shooter, whom he considered a “friend” that “He never really seemed like that person who had issues…was always nice and funny and weird.”

For Spokane Public Schools the lockdown ended at 11:25 AM. My son got to leave his classroom and head to lunch. I dropped off his papers, but, still reeling from the experience, the office staff wasn’t keen on me checking in with my son. I understood. They don’t know me yet and tensions were still high.

One dead and three injured. Rockford is a small community, with only 300 students in the high school. One resident said, “Not knowing who is affected is hard. It doesn’t matter who it is because it’s going to be someone we know.” She was referring to the victims, but the same can be said of the alleged shooter.

I called the Newcomer Center and talked with Luisa. I needed to check on our students before heading to a meeting for the rest of the afternoon. I was worried about them. Were the kids “ok?” I wanted to be there with them. To help them to not fear in the face of something so difficult to understand.

The community of Rockford hopes “everyone stays as positive as we can…and surrounds itself with a lot of love because we’re going to need it.” The healing and recovery will take a long time.

I arrived at my meeting at noon. Everyone there watched the news as the story unfolded. I thought about connections for the entire four hours I was there. When I finally got home, I hugged my little boy tightly and told him how much I love him.

Freeman High School marks the 19th school shooting since January, 2016. It is the 314th mass shooting in 2017 alone. Tomorrow we’ll focus on gun control and arming school resource officers, even though an unarmed school custodian stopped the shooter. There will be no mention of developing connections, reaching out, or really seeing one another.

We teach kids to call everyone a “friend.” We encourage them to report bullies and to not be bullies themselves, but we stop short of teaching kindness and giving them the language they need and the courage it takes to talk about their feelings honestly and openly without fear.

Supposedly there were warning signs. The alleged shooter was obsessed with school shooting documentaries, had acted out violent scenes with BB guns on YouTube, and wrote the notes about doing “something stupid.” We were obviously looking at him, but were we really seeing him?

It’s hard to navigate a world in which most of our connections are made online. We forget that relationships take practice. So many of us end up feeling isolated and alone and when “bullying type situations” occur, we don’t know how to address them.

Tomorrow, I’ll go back to my classroom. My students will be there, ready to learn, but a little bit of the hope will have left their eyes. It’s my job to empower them to be fearless, to show them the world is a beautiful place, and that they and their classmates are worthy of love. I’ll teach my content, but more importantly, I’ll teach them how to be human, how to be kind, and how to make connections with one another.

As we go out into the world tomorrow, into our communities and into our schools, I encourage everyone to make a new connection. Take out your earbuds, put away your phones, try not to look at your feet as you walk. Lift your head and look around. Make eye contact. Ask questions. Show all the people you meet that you are interested in them. See them. Show love. Be fearless.

*Information on Freeman High School Shooting from “One student dead, three in hospital after classmate opens fire at Freeman High School” in The Spokesman-Review, September 13, 2017.