Ask any teacher what the least favorite part of their job is, and they’ll most likely tell you it has something to do with standardized testing…or one of the many negative tendrils that spawn from it.
A close second would be teacher in-service.
For the uninitiated, the beginning of the year teacher in-service is a dog and pony show without anything fun…like a dog or pony. Instead, teachers get to peruse handbooks, fill out the same forms ad nauseum, suffer through ice-breakers, and have conversations fit for Groundhog Day – “How was your Summer?” “Not long enough” (insert fake laugh here). On an infinite loop.
This year was different, though There was something this week of in-service that was valuable and worthwhile. And, no, it wasn’t the Gemstones-esque district-wide revival at the Oman Arena.
I’m starting my 20th year in education. Those 20 years have been spread across very different educational environments in West Tennessee: five years at USJ as a school counselor, 12 years at Northeast Middle as a classroom teacher, two years in Haywood County as part of the district leadership team, and now I’m starting my second year at JCM – my alma mater.
Without diving too deep into the history of JCM, the school was once an academic and athletic powerhouse in Jackson. Still, because of a series of decisions by different incarnations of leadership over the course of a decade, JCM was eventually closed in 2016 but reopened in 2021. We’re in the early stages of the rebirth and trying to build back what was once the best high school in West Tennessee.
During the first day of in-service – after the ice breakers and paperwork – our faculty boarded a school bus and toured the zoned area for our students. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was the most worthwhile thing that happened during the in-service week.
The current incarnation of JCM is in East Jackson on Lane Avenue. When the school closed in 2016, there was an outcry from alumni and residents of East Jackson; they felt a pivotal anchor was being removed from their local community. The name of the school itself was a reminder of the culmination of the fight for integration – Jackson High and Merry High combining to become Jackson Central-Merry High School. Decades of dominance followed – athletically and academically. But the systematic razing – piece by piece – reached its crescendo in 2016 when the doors were closed. Those doors opened again two years ago, but what I found on our bus tour was that most of our students don’t even live within walking distance of our schools. In fact, most of our students take the bus to JCM.
When we left the parking lot on Lane Avenue, we headed west across North Royal, took a right on North Highland, and headed north on Highland. We passed Walgreens and CVS at the intersection of Campbell. We passed First Baptist and First Presbyterian. We passed the mall. We finally took a left on Wiley Parker and began to weave our way through neighborhoods tucked out of sight – camouflaged not by trees or walls but simply by our myopic attention to the personal details of our lives. Out of sight, out of mind.
I’ve lived in Jackson my entire life. 43 years. I pride myself on knowing five different ways to get to one, specific place. I can choose my route to Target automatically depending on the time of the day. I can get to the south Wal-Mart by Riverside Drive or Highway 45 or take Royal to 45 if I come from the East. I know the routes and the roads like the backs of my hands. On our bus tour, however, I realized that I had never been to these neighborhoods once, even though they were only a few hundred yards from places I’d been to thousands of times.
The houses were nondescript; the apartments were serviceable. I looked out the bus window as we drove through the streets to see if I could see any students I had the previous year. It was a July afternoon in Jackson, so no one in their right mind was voluntarily outside.
As the bus rolled from Wallace Road to Old Hickory – my knees pressed against the seat in front of me – I started thinking about the narratives I heard this summer while co-hosting a radio show. I thought about how some of those callers had an agenda they had copied and pasted from another hyper-partisan group that was similar to theirs – parrots squawking repetitive lines without thought.
I also thought about how well-meaning leaders in the city and county hope for a “great public school system” because it will help attract industry; how these leaders are champions for our school system but may not necessarily know where our students live, either. I wondered if they viewed education simply as a conduit for industry and business – management producing more workers to make more money without bothering to know our students by name, strength, and need. I thought about our students tucked away in their homes on unrecognized streets and in mass-produced apartments. It helped me remember why I do what I do.
Later in the week, we hosted our Open House at JCM. Last year, I taught 9th-grade English; this year I’ll be teaching 11th-grade English. When students get to be juniors in high school, they rarely come to Open House. They know the drill by now. I did, however, have three students come by my classroom – they were all students I interacted with last year.
The first student gave me a hug when he saw me. He was one of my most challenging students last year. The second student I only had for a few days during EOC testing because I proctored his class. He, too, was excited to see me. The third student, a female I didn’t have in class but did have during testing, said she wished she were a junior this year so she could have me.
I’m not a perfect teacher by any stretch. Some days, I’m not even a good teacher; some days, I survive. But when students look back over the course of a year, what do they remember about me as a person? Will they be excited when they see me again? That’s how impact can be measured.
Make no mistake, the public education system in America is a bureaucracy that runs deep and wide with people who want to appease the lawmakers who have stacked the deck against what the freedom of teaching can provide a student; misguided legislation has too often reduced students to data points. But if you can wade through all the bullshit and push your way through the vines of “accountability”, you’ll finally make your way to the heart of public education – the students. There are over 11,000 in JMCSS.
The students at my school only make up a small fraction of the total number in the district, but the bus ride through their streets reminded me that I teach human beings. I teach humans who laugh, who hurt, who feel pain, who have anxiety. I teach humans who experience trauma that I can only imagine. I also teach kids who have pretty good lives and are living their teenage years in a way that is very similar to how I lived mine. That’s the beauty of public education – our doors are open to everyone.
Maybe it shouldn’t have, but a simple bus ride helped me prioritize my educational goals as a teacher this year – never losing sight of my students as multi-faceted human beings.
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