The Sandbox
A Memoir of the Year Teaching at Everett Middle School
–by Chad Sweeney, WritersCorps Teacher
I moved to San Francisco seven years ago on a Greyhound Bus. Without a job or money—and only temporary shelter—I didn't know what came next. From a guiding principle to work only for those organizations that serve a positive function in the world, I became a teacher at the Discovery Center School, a progressive private school, willing to hire me without a credential. At first I pretended that I was, deep down, a writer and that teaching wasn't my true vocation, only something worthwhile to do until writing could pay the bills. How wrong I was. Teaching claimed my attention that first year and every year since. As I witnessed the growth of young people into a new awareness of themselves and their environment, I discovered that I loved this composite role of teacher—storyteller, guide, facilitator and protector—and stayed for six wonderful years working in literature, language arts, Spanish, drama, chess and soccer. Unfortunately, the writer in me couldn't find an equal place in this arrangement and took a long, sleepy back-seat ride. When I learned about WritersCorps, I jumped at the chance to carry everything I had learned from the Discovery Center into dynamic new settings where my total identity as both writer and teacher would be invited to flourish.
I began the WritersCorps year thrilled with the opportunity to do the kind of teaching I had dreamed about. In small groups of five or six, we would write poetry, share feelings in a safe space to accomplish the deep work of healing and exploration that accompanies poetry, the dance of mind and words on paper.With fewer classes per week than a classroom teacher, I would have the freedom to develop a varied, hands-on program, supported by a healthy budget for art supplies. Equally important, I would have the energy to implement this program. After six years as a classroom teacher, limited by a set curriculum and a busy schedule of classes and paperwork, I felt that working for WritersCorps would give me the opportunity to be a "pure teacher," freed from the pressures of CTBS testing and report cards. I would breeze into Everett with the magical seeds of poetry in my medicine pouch, and the students would dance around me like elves while their proud English teachers looked on smiling and nodding approval.
As usual the reality was profoundly different that the fantasy. After all, Everett was an institution, and like any other it had its own set ways of doing things. The teachers, counselors, support staff and the Principal each had their own plot of territory carved out and defended, with their own strategies and routines of daily business, and a common bond of belonging and purpose. Fitting into this puzzle was no easy matter.
I began by working with a single language arts class, at the invitation of the teacher, Cindy Sides. The nature of the arrangement made me a disruption to her class. Every day I took a group of five students to another room to lead a writing activity. As a result they missed that day's English activity and often forgot their homework as well. Their grades began to suffer, and Ms. Sides found it difficult to get through her prescribed curriculum. Against this backdrop I felt the need to prove the value of my program: not only to offer each session something unique that couldn't be found in a regular language arts class, but to prove the value of this offering to Ms. Sides. I began typing student poetry and showing it to her almost every day. She was noticeably moved and described chills going down her spine each time a shy student with limited grammar composed something of beauty and revelation, or when a macho-tough boy exposed his fragility. She noticed that the students' writing improved and that their creative writing engaged in a comfortable dialogue with their expository writing. After two months she recommended my workshops to the other English teachers. They agreed, and I expanded the program into all three classes.
Each of the new classes offered its own bag of challenges. Where Cindy Sides' students were slang wielding, rap-smart San Franciscans, Sara Allen's young teens came from all over the world: Bosnia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil, China and the Philippines. Earning their trust and friendship was not a given; they had been through a lot. Furthermore, language was a barrier between us. I usually gave directions three times, in English, Spanish and a comical mixture of pantomime and limited Mandarin. Reading and writing skills in their original language were only developed to the level of when they departed their home country (at age 8 or 10)—and their English abilities flapped even harder to catch up. This class called for a safe, wordless investigation of feelings through art projects as well as vocabulary enrichment activities from which poetry could emerge. The naming of things was usually a first naming. Water tower, pigeon, friendship, fear.
The third, Bita Nazarian's class, suffered from low attendance. Of her twenty students only twelve came regularly, and they were often behind in their assignments. She required that only those who had finished their homework for the week could participate in the Friday workshop. I never knew how many students I would have or who they would be. The most effective writing program—a developed progression of linked ideas—was untenable, instead, each day's activity needed to be a self-contained unit completed in forty minutes. Some Fridays, without warning, I was asked to remain in the room and work with the entire class, perhaps fifteen kids, two or three of whom would be joining the group for the first time. As gracefully as possible, I would scramble around with my supplies and reshape the lesson to match the day's circumstances. I soon learned to plan for these possibilities with versatile activities that could be scaled or modified on the spot—and with an emotional preparedness to work with eighteen or three or to be put off altogether until next week. Regardless, poetry worked its magic; the students' writing mapped out a range of human passion, depth and sophistication that glowed from behind the messy handwriting and grammar mistakes. Ms. Nazarian and I were delighted as the students volunteered with increasing alacrity to read their creations aloud.
A room of one's own is something a teacher can often take for granted. Over the months I would teach in the hallway, the breezeway, the library, the courtyard, the computer lab and five different classrooms, two of which were unkempt and abandoned. Most of the time I ended up teaching in a room, but the likelihood of finding myself displaced was significant. I could never shake off the attendant feelings of instability. If any other teacher needed a classroom, I was out in the cold. What could we do in the hallway? Sit in a close circle and whisper, write about forests, draw a picture of a dream. I became a portable classroom, a cabinet on two legs.
Through all of this the most difficult challenge was keeping up my spirits. Among the teachers and staff at Everett I felt like a second class citizen. For months Everett teachers looked confused as to whom I was or called me by the wrong name or pretended not to see me by the copy machine. I observed these teachers as hard working and dedicated, often overwhelmed by the rigorous schedule; it was evident that they wanted the best for their students. For all of these factors I understood their sometimes aloof or defensive positions, like modern parents, protective and exhausted. Nevertheless, other than my few allies, I felt alone in those vast halls, wearing a diplomatic smile, careful not to get in anyone's way, always looking for opportunities to strike up a conversation and exchange names. It was hard to be so unknown, outside the circle of community. I hadn't realized how much that feeling of belonging under-girded my confidence in the classroom. At times I fantasized about barging into a teachers' meeting and shouting, "I'm on your side! I'm one of you!"
To compound this separateness, while Everett teachers were addressed by their family name, I was called simply "Chad". After six years of being Mr. Sweeney at the Discovery Center School, the name Chad revived old feelings of vulnerability, feelings that plagued my adolescence. Chad was the name of a sad boy I was happy to leave behind in Oklahoma, the name calling me out to fight on the playground, the name berated, attended by shame and humiliation. Whereas, Mr. Sweeney was a respected teacher, a comfortable identity. Now, as both teacher and "Chad", I was forced to embody my full self publicly, past and present, persona and shadow. At times I trembled, but I held on to a thin thread of renewal, out of love for this beautiful labor, and I experienced the most fulfilling year ever.
I have written a great deal of the tangle, these weeds of anxiety and struggle that persisted across the months, but the reason I teach is for the flowers. Most of these are small, quiet moments, when in reading over a student's shoulder I watch the pencil deliver something profound, or when after weeks of silence a student offers to read a poem aloud with a shy, irresistible pride that transforms the room. This is the way of progress, in incremental steps, one child at a time. Often, I missed the moment altogether and only discovered later that while I was busy keeping the peace between two grappling boys, the withdrawn girl in the corner was exploring a secret passageway in her mind. Poetry did the real work.
Inside me
are stairs
that lead to many bright rooms.
One room is blue with blue roses.
Music roams down the halls.
—Terry Yan
One day I brought in paint sample cards from a hardware store on which hundreds of gradients of color climbed their scales and spoke their evocative names. The students stood at the windows identifying as many colors as they could. They were delighted to discover that color was so complex: a single tree possessed a range of greens, yellows, even blues, and the sky smeared itself from ivory to shale to gypsy cobalt. The third-floor windows offered a lavish view of San Francisco with its geometry of buildings, parks and bridges, its palm trees and trash and shopping carts. All the way to Oakland drifted their eyes. Ah, the shadow of a cloud on the bay. Is it blue? Is it flint?
"Chad, come here. What kind of tree is that . . . see, sticking up behind that chimney? It looks like this color, Mojave Sage, don't you think?"
"Wow, Kenny, good eye for detail. I think it's a cypress."
When the name Chad was misused, spoken out of annoyance or impatience, the old pain of childhood arose like a phantom arthritis in rainy weather. But today, spoken by Kenny, the name contained the joy of the sandbox, the glee of first discoveries.
Read poems by other WritersCorps teachers:
