Angel
Angel seemed angry. She looked at me without looking at me; more through than at, patient but wishing she didn’t have to be. Maybe something happened that morning, a slight by a friend on Instagram or maybe she was just coping with me, another teacher from whom she had no reason to expect love and acceptance.
There are Steves and Andrews in our classroom that I know before I meet them. Because our lived experience is so similar, we can begin a conversation in the middle. Angel and I are still agreeing on the language to use to build our relationship. There is a very real possibility that we won’t be able to build the relationship that Angel needs.
Angel sits at the end of a table across the room and turns her chair so that her back is facing me. It’s a common contortion that makes it easier for her to hide her phone in her lap but harder for her to do the work that is sitting on the table.
Angel turned in very little work. Four months into the school year, Angel asked me for help. I sat with her for 20 minutes as the familiar chaos that is our class surrounded us. I sat with her for 20 minutes and did most of the assignment while she told me how to do it. I got up to let her finish alone and watched from across the room. She smiled and showed her work to a friend. This was my favorite moment of the year; her engagement an unambiguous success. Then she went back to scrolling Instagram on her phone. To be clear, I do not believe that Angel learned the content but we did have a positive interaction that was in the context of learning. We will need to have many more for Angel to build the agency she needs to drive her own learning.
On three occasions Angel made a special trip to my room to ask me how she can get caught up. Each time we agreed on a process and each time we are unable to make the process work. I am choosing to see these three conversations as successes that counter our failure to complete the work I assigned in class.
Imani
On what I remember as the first day we met in her Soph year, Imani told me she was my favorite student and it's how she signed an email to me 5 years later, "fav student, Imani." Whenever a new student declares themselves "favorite" (weirdly, it’s a thing) I send an email to Imani to see if the role is available.
Imani told me she loves math. Imani told me she has never had a math teacher. At our school, when we can’t find anyone to teach a class, we hire a long-term-substitute or just cover the class each day with whoever has an open period or, if all else fails which it often does, we send all the students that don’t have a teacher that period to sit on the bleachers by the football field. According to the school’s Master Schedule, the officially ersatz and effigial teacher was born into the Vacancy family: Alpha Vacancy, Bravo Vacancy, Charlie Vacancy, and so on. Recently I saw Juliett Vacancy teaching Algebra II. The Vacancy family taught Imani math for four years.
We didn't have a Senior Capstone class when Imani was a senior. The reason why we created the Senior Capstone class was because, in literal spite of the Vacancy family, Imani told me she loves Math. What would Imani have built as her Capstone? What project would she design? What would she do if she could convince herself that she could do anything? I don't like that I don't know. I don’t like that Imani had to be heroic to sustain her love for math.
Samuel and Akitunda
Samuel Getachew and Akitunda Ahmad both graduated at the top of their class at Oakland Technical High School. Both of them are Black and both have written beautifully about their experiences. Here is Mr. Getachew talking about Mr. Ahmad in a piece he wrote for the New York Times.
“I was in the sixth grade in 2014 when a high school senior named Akintunde Ahmad appeared on “The Ellen Show” and announced that he had committed to attend Yale University. After graduating from Oakland Technical High with a 5.0 grade-point average and receiving acceptances to a number of top universities, he had become a bit of a hometown hero, featured in articles that upheld him as an “inner city” success story. Five years later, Mr. Ahmad offered his perspective on the fanfare that had surrounded him as a teenager: “My story is told as though it is a positive one, inspirational,” he wrote in The Atlantic. “But I see it as a grim one, the tale of a harsh reality that wrecks people. There is nothing positive about classifying me as an exception. When a person is exceptional for doing what I have done, the whole system is cruel to its core.”
— Samuel Getachew, New York Times, 2021
By any measure, Mr. Getachew and Mr. Ahmad were successful high school students. Both brilliant, driven and resilient. We recognize Black students who graduate and go to college as exceptional and white students who graduate and go to college as ordinary. Please don’t read this as an effort to get more praise for white students - maybe that’s needed, maybe it isn’t - this is simply an effort to support what Mr. Ahmad said about his journey - “When a person is exceptional for doing what I have done, the whole system is cruel to its core.”
Sam
Sam is a good student, an ‘A’ student. They do the work. They prioritize effectively, set goals and build relationships with their teachers. Sam’s teachers think they are great. They say, “Sam is an ‘A’ student.” Sam is the captain of the robotics team but wonders if that’s enough. They like robotics and are curious about how wheelchairs could better serve their owners. They wonder why they are built the way they are. They hold that somewhere else. Sam is curious about Sam and wonders about their identity and how it clashes with the world. They hold that somewhere else. Sam got into a good college. Everyone knew they would. We didn’t worry about Sam.
Sam and Angel aren’t friends but they are connected. Angel chose not to play the game because the system wasn’t built for her. Sam chose to play because it was built for a version of Sam that they could make themself be. Both of them weigh the cost and the benefit and then make logical and predictable decisions
Sam went to college but it wasn’t what it was supposed to be. It wasn’t what the brochure said. It wasn’t what was in the acceptance letter. Sam has two friends who died of suicide and has worked hard to acquire the skills they need to understand their own invasive thoughts. Sam couldn’t put it somewhere else anymore. Somewhere else didn’t exist anymore. Somewhere else became here, now. They aren’t exactly angry and they aren’t exactly sad. Maybe there’s a German word for how they feel? Sam is no longer an ‘A’ student. It was a decision they made. A decision that required them to re-wire their own brain. They think a lot about work. They have an emotional support Pug-Huahua named Iggy. They make beautiful chain-mail jewelry. They write poetry, make comic books, build strong relationships and are working on a way to make their life more livable.
Angel is one of my favs. Thankyou for wonderful writing.