Seeing beautiful old houses sometimes makes me tear up. I cannot explain it.
Today, as I was driving to a new middle school opening up in ktown that my teacher education program was invited to come and visit, I found myself driving through a neighborhood of 200 year old mansions. The area is very clearly an affluent area, one that I could probably never hope to live in, but it made me so happy to drive through it and think of the possibility of teaching in an adjacent area next year. I crossed a few major streets and found myself in a land of small, old (craftsman-style in some cases, and just plain OLD and run down in others) buildings. A block away, giant high rises. Yogurt stands, cute Korean coffee shops and tons of KBBQ, stores advertising “antojitos mexicanos,” cheap clothing stores, designer dress shops… all mixed together. The meeting together of some of the richest and poorest LA residents all in a 2 mile radius. I absolutely love it, I get a high off of driving in areas like that. Areas that do not appear to be perfect by any means… but that just seem so… real.
I walked into a beautiful new middle school. A middle school I’ve driven past a few times and wondered about on our way to grab some yummy Korean food. Everything inside is perfect. Everything is wonderful. 1 computer to every 2 students in every classroom. Projectors and microphones and basketball courts and cool looking desks and chairs that slide easily rather than scraping the tiles.
The principle used to be at Los Angeles School of Global Studies. His students were the ones that wrote the stories in Walking Through Walls. WHAT?!? I HELPED EDIT THAT BOOK! My name is inside of it! I poured through all of those stories for hours and hours and oh my gosh what a coincidence!
I want to be here.
But then… they separate the genders. And maybe it is a REALLY great thing, but I’m not sure how much I buy it. Maybe I’m ignorant (very willing to accept that this might be the case), but I feel part of me wincing as they describe how all middle school females are compared to all middle school males. Some stuff seems kind of valid. Other stuff like “girls appreciate environments with soft seats and casual pillows” making me wonder a bit more. Okay, well… I have a lot to learn, I do not know anything about this really and it could be a great thing.
But then… we only have a budget for 28 teachers. Total. There are more than 30 of us UCLAers in there. Oh and they already have about 10 English teachers, so they’re good on that. But if we’re willing to take some extra classes and CSETS… can we teach Health? Spanish? P.E.? Engineering? Especially engineering. …Engineering?!? Really? “Some of you are excellent test takers, take advantage of that!” What?!? Yes, I am a very good test taker. Yes, I could study a bit and pass those classes. But I am in no way QUALIFIED to be teaching those things. I can cram and take a science or math test… but that does not mean I have any business teaching Physics or Algebra. That is entirely a disservice to these students. And that’s what they want? “We’re especially interested in hiring somebody who can teach Math and Music.”
Very humbling to be invited as a school and then realize the principle knows nothing about us. Sure, we’ll have master’s degrees. Sure we’ll be coming from the #1 public grad school of education (#3 overall) (excuse my arrogance). But… “oh… your program is too demanding to let you get 3 more credentials at once? So… none of you are qualified to teach Engineering, Spanish, ESL, and Health all in one day? Hmm.. that’s… tough…”
And then… leaving the area misty-eyed not because of the architecture, history, and diversity, but because I am not going to be given a chance to be a part of it. Because they are going to give my job to some “genius” who took 5 tests and now claims to be qualified enough to teach Chemistry, Spanish, and Dance. All in a day’s work.
