What it Means to be Wild

(Best read while listening to this song.)

“Baby in our wildest moments, we could be the greatest, we could be the worst of all.”

There’s something magic in the thought of being wild. To do something so far outside of expectations that an epic adventure ensues. For a while I mimicked one of my favorite progressives by ending my blogs with the closing “for the wild,” as I loved the romanticism in the phrase; culminating entries that I hoped would inspire others to do something as “wild” as loving others in significant ways. What does it really mean though?

Listening to the song “Wildest Moments” by Jessie Ware allowed me to really reflect on this idea of being “wild” and how our wild moments can be something truly great, but could also end in catastrophe, which is where the magic lies…putting ourselves out there in a way that will either bring a great reward or a great failure, and too often we’d rather play it safe. It brings on echoes of this quote by Marianne Williamson known to many progressives:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Another great aspect of being “wild” is that you can’t quite define what it is to be wild. It’s not something definite. But my reason for writing this quick entry is because, at this giant crossroads in my life, I feel like I need to be wild in certain ways…and while I don’t know what those ways are now, when they present themselves I will and I will shoot to have some of my wildest moments and be my greatest.

for the wild,

andrew

The Blessing is in the Struggle and Growth Through Fasting

I do not know the complete history of Lent, nor do I claim to be an avid observer of the 40 days from Ash Wednesday leading up to Easter, but I must say that there is something to be said for the practice of fasting – whatever that thing is that you’re giving up. I have recently found myself to be in one of the biggest ruts of my life. Almost three years later after my big move to the Big Apple, I have found no Christian community that challenges me in significant ways; I am continuing to question the impact I’ve made on the learning of my students; I have been rejected from a couple of incredibly exciting opportunities that I believed I was not only qualified for but a perfect fit for. I am also growing less in my passion the serve the less fortunate, becoming less a channel of God’s love, and finding myself to be increasingly polluted by this world. James 1:27 says, “Spirituality that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” I don’t believe I am practicing this pure and faultless spirituality James is writing of. In fact I know I’m not.

Why? I try! I long to be a channel of God’s love and want nothing more than a cultivating Christian community. Why is it not happening?

Through daily prayer and reading scripture I have realized two things: I need to give something up to show my discipline and commitment to the Word of God, and that the greatest time of spiritual growth in my life came when I was inundating my brain with messages that God not only conveys through the Bible but also other children of God like Shane Claiborne, Erwin McManus, Lupe Fiasco, Banksy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others. And while not all of them claim to know Christ, they nonetheless spoke to me in significant ways that drew me to understanding the Bible in new ways. This is when I began to really live out my faith.

So, in pondering what exactly that ‘thing’ is that I’m supposed to give up, I must say I knew right away what God wanted me to take a break from: Television. For those of you who don’t know, I watch television the way hipsters enjoy being ironic: enthusiastically and abundantly. I always justified it because there is a wealth of remarkable TV programming out there: Jersey Shore. Cougar Town. The Real Housewives of D.C. (All kidding aside, check out Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad if you haven’t…two high quality shows that not enough people watch).

What I’ve now come to realize, however, is that our mental environment can become easily polluted depending on the messages that are cluttering it. When I spend two hours a night watching depictions of secular living that tells me that what’s important is promiscuous sex, drinking, making and spending money, and glamour, I’m bound to ultimately adopt some (not ALL) of those practices…or at least become weakened to where I question my beliefs on the merits of being abnormal (even though we’re asked to be aliens of this world). This is how the world lives, even people who call themselves Christian, so it’s okay for be to “live” a little. Yet, here I am, the unhappiest I’ve been probably since middle school.

So, during my television fast, I’m going to be replacing the messages that are crowding my mental environment. This means that I will have a full two hours to not only spend reading God’s words but also hopefully allowing him to speak through mine. So, while I don’t promise to write more than a few blog posts, I will sporadically be updating this blog during the month of May, which I hope to be the month of Movement. To get started, let me share the messages I received last night:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, wherever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything…Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”” James 1:2-4, 12
Or, as Lupe Fiasco puts it, “Don’t forget, the blessing is in the struggle.”

I began my fasting last night, and I think God rewarding me with these apt verses, don’t you?



for the wild,
andrew

Home is Whenever I’m With You

Dear Loved Ones,

For some reason I cannot yet place, it’s been a tough transition back to New York. For one thing, I had the best summer imaginable and the thought of returning to the challenging work ahead never looks fun from this vista. In addition, much of my circle of friends from the past two years have relocated to different locations across the nation and the majority of those who have stayed in NYC have moved on to different jobs and thus different circles, beginning new lives. Sure I’ve only been back a couple weeks, but I don’t, in any way, feel like I’ve returned home.

At the same time, when I was in San Diego I didn’t quite get that sense of home either. Yes, I had an incredible time in SD, enjoyed every minute spent with my wonderful family and friends, and was tempted almost daily to quit my NYC job, get an apartment by Petco Park and move back to the most beautiful city in the world, but it still just didn’t feel like home. Not in the present “ah, home sweet home” sense at least. (San Diego will ALWAYS be home in the way that Austria will always be home to Schwarzenegger).

A funny thing happened when I had just gotten in the long and winding security line at the San Diego airport to return to New York: I tossed on my iPod, recently filled with new songs, and one of my new favorites began the shuffle. The chorus of this song, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, goes:

“Home

Yes I am home

Home is whenever

I’m with you”

This put a giant smile on my face. Why? It was a reminder to me that my home isn’t here on Earth but in Heaven, and I’m doing God’s work, following His call for me to help the less fortunate through teaching, showing students love, some of whom have never had someone to love and care for them. There are going to be challenges, and God never promises an easy journey, but what He does promise is a Home in Him, and Home is whenever I’m with Him. I can’t say I’m happy to have absent the physical sense of home, but I know that the blessing is in the struggle, and I really couldn’t imagine being happier with where I am in my life as exciting things are happening, exciting things are to come, and they’re all blessings from following Him. I am Home.

(You can check out the song and video here. Now, if you do check it out you will notice that it’s actually a romantic song, but as Cartman showed us in South Park, any romantic song can be turned into a Christian song by changing a few key words)

for the wild,

andrew

End of Year Blog

Dear Loved Ones,

While my blogging has become more and more sparse throughout my experience as a Teach For America corps member, I find it necessary to put a proper ending to this 2-year journey in the form of a reflective blog. One thing I’m sure most of you aren’t aware of is that I instituted blogging in my 9^th grade ESL classes this year, where I had my students use sentence starters to reflect on their learning and triumphs from throughout the week every Friday. We capped off the year with an “End of the Year” blog, so I figured: Why not do one of my own?

Now, I know that I have discussed with some of you my plans for the near future, but as most of you are probably unaware, let me update you before I move on: Next year I will be staying with my school for a third year again as the 9^th grade ESL teacher. As I teach next year, I will be applying to three different opportunities, all within education: Teach overseas (preferably in Spain); Fulbright scholarship for teaching abroad, and; Harvard Doctorate in Educational Leadership. So, as I am not halting my teaching experience just yet, I think it proper to not end on a note of conclusiveness, but rather one of reflection.

What I have come up with in my reflections are five major take-aways…things I have come away with and learned throughout my time as a New York City public school teacher living in one of the culture capitals of the world. Here we go!

1) The Education System in our Country is Ugly

I know that many of you would agree, before you’ve even seen any statistics. To those of you who are parents, you’ve most likely seen your student’s education both rise in cost and decline in quality. While I do submit that part of this is due to politics and government, I hope you don’t see the problem as being there and only there. Teach For America likes to talk about “Locus of Control”: this idea that, as a teacher, you really don’t have complete control over all aspects of your students’ lives: where they go home, who they go home to, how they eat, etc. We need to instead focus on the things we are able to change. With this, I believe a large part of the problem with our education system is that we as citizens just don’t really give a crap. We spend all of our time arguing political issues like gay marriage, going to war, health care, abortion, etc. and while these are important issues to many, I don’t understand how we have neglected the decline of quality education for our youth without so much as a silent raising of the hand in the back of the room of the national discussion. I’m going to take things a bit farther too: While education in general has gotten worse, how do you think the education for our low-income students has become?

I’m going to try to shorten this up a bit and give some scary statistics:

a. The national graduation rate is about 68% (1/3 of our students don’t graduate high school!)

b. The graduation rate for Whites and Asians are 75% to 77%

c. The graduation rates for students who attend school in high poverty, racially segregated, and urban school districts lag from 15% to 18% percent behind their peers (which is referred to as the “achievement gap”)

d. In New York City, about 30% of Hispanic males graduate high school in four years.

Some offer that the problem of the achievement gap is the parents: The absent father. The 16-year old mother. The abuse. The neglect. But blaming this on the parents is too easy and largely uniformed for us from privileged backgrounds to do. It’s a cycle. Listen to my stories, read my past blogs, and then I think you’ll see what I’m talking about.

2) Change is Possible

This summer I’ll be working at one of the most amazing and incredibly successful experiments in urban education: The Harlem Children’s Zone. (Watch the commercial American Express put together about them). Basically, this revolutionary idea was realized by Geoffrey Canada, who saw a cycle in Harlem that needed to be broken. What he did was set up a network of programs and schools that aimed to solve the problem near the beginning: He would see young pregnant girls walking around the streets of Harlem and bring them in, offering them classes on how to parent while promising them that if their child was raised in the network, attended a HCZ school from pre-kindergarten through high school, that their child would not only graduate and go to college, but graduate college as well. My job this summer will be to see this through as I prepare 17-21 year olds to pass the entrance exams to community colleges, which will allow them to bypass the remedial courses which cost money and provide no credits: a dropout point for many low-income students who can’t afford to do this.

In addition to this network and many incredible charter schools, there is a new film that was just released called The Lottery. The trailer can be found here, and the reason I am so optimistic about this film is the potential it has to finally start the national discussion on the achievement gap. The film might be able to do for education what An Inconvenient Truth did for Global Warming, and let’s hope and pray that is does because we need a sense of urgency; the time for true change needs to be now.

3) A Glass Can Only Spill What it Contains

These are lyrics that come from a mewithoutYou song that is about the need to fill yourself up with everything that you want to give out. If I want to love, I need to first have love to give. If I want to mentor others, I need to have good advice to give, coming from experience and perspective. If I want to show others what it means to live a Godly life, I need to first know the Bible and know what it means to live a Godly life. If you want to set the example of how to have a long lasting marriage, you need to have a long lasting and successful marriage. Etc.

I have seen such a great need for a spiritually absent and selfish city like New York City to experience the love of God on a daily basis, yet I have found it such a struggle to do my part every single day. I’ve wanted to badly to just be a channel of God’s love, but I don’t always have anything in my cup to spill. Whether it was because I fostered malicious thoughts in my heart, neglected to read the Word during the week, or forgot to pray that God would use me as a channel to pour out his love, I often failed in my attempts to love and to care as I was just as empty as the person I was trying to help. I recently heard a quote: “If someone asks you if the glass is half empty or half full, respond by asking them ‘Who said it’s not filled to the brim?’”

If I were to get a tattoo, it surely would be a wine glass filled to the brim spilling over with the text, “A glass can only spill what it contains.”

4) Humans Are Meant to Live in Community

My biggest struggle in living as a Christian in New York City: lack of a Christian community. My roommate is “straight edge.” This mean that he doesn’t drink, smoke, or do any drugs of any kind. He listens to hardcore music and has so many tattoos that he will have to wear long sleeve shirts to work for the rest of his life, or at least until this generation has completely taken over the work force. He has a community, and he hasn’t “broken edge” at all because he has a support system of friends who go to the same concerts, eat the same veggie food, and drink the same Coca-colas at bars with him.

When I was back home in San Diego, or at school at Pepperdine, this is exactly what I had: community; Friends who had the same radical ideas of changing the world as me. People I could see Lupe Fiasco with one night and Radiohead with the next. Movie lovers who would see the latest indie flick with me on any given night. Fellow abstinents (yes I made the adjective into a noun) who understood that dating a girl with the same values was a requirement, not something to be compromised not matter how attractive a girl might be. These are absent here, and let me tell you that this is my biggest single critique on living in New York City. Life is meant to be lived in community, and NYC is a community of secular living that is largely absent of true community and fellowship.

(Also, just watch the film Up in the Air)

5) The Rat Race is an Unfair and Stupid Competition

The above comes from that Bansky quote that has guided this blog and gave it it’s name, but I use this part of the larger quote here to discuss the way in which ambition and selfishness blind those who succumb to them from true happiness. What I have witnessed as a professional has been disappointing and appalling. What I have witnessed this year many of you who have been in the work force have known for years: That politics, jealousy, cattiness, hunger for power, etc. are a pervasive force in this world that prevents us from simply loving others and being productive.

When I was first looking around for a home church two years ago, I had listened to a sermon from a pastor who was addressing a congregation I thought would be my community for a couple years. They were creative, loving, and young. His sermon was a personalized message to this specific community that revealed something I really didn’t feel I wanted to be a part of: He said, “I know that none of you sitting in this church right now moved out to Manhattan to take a pay decrease, and, say, become a teacher.” My reaction: “That’s EXACTLY why I came out here!” And I was proud of that. But upon reflection and prayer, I realized that I didn’t want to become a part of a community where I was the outlier; where people followed their ambition to the point that their end goal was a raise and a promotion and their name in a publication rather than changing a life or being changed by the resilience and pure joy from the marginalized and less fortunate. While I’m not offering that I live a better, less sinful life by any means, or that you must be a teacher or missionary or full-time philanthropist to help others, what I realized is that you must first question why you live for your life, and whom you live your life for. The pastor of my now home church, Dr. Tim Keller, recently put it this way (not verbatim):

“Think about where you root your life: A person who roots their life in their job will be crushed when they lose their job, or don’t get a promotion. A person who roots their life in their status and possessions and money will have a similar reaction when they lose these temporary things. A person who roots themselves in Christ will not be crushed by these things or look at others in jealousy.”

What do you root yourself in?

This was shoved into my face when the guy next to me at Starbucks spilled his coffee on my expensive shoes. Too embarrassed by how much I paid I won’t document the price here, but let’s just say that I was pretty upset initially. I wanted to say something in anger towards him, but then I thought about how stupid it is that I invest my money and “root myself” in things that can get ruined just like that, and cause me to emotionally harm another human being rather than show kindness and love, which is fortunately what my “glass” had just enough of.When I was in the Dominican Republic, I saw a similar dual reaction in one of the volunteers who was playing basketball with one of the orphans when he dropped his expensive Ray-Ban sunglasses. The kid accidentally stepped on them, causing the volunteer to react with a loud curse word. Realizing how stupid his reaction was and that here he is getting upset at an orphan with nothing, not even parents, for stepping on a pair of sunglasses that he could afford from a weeks worth of work he quickly stepped in to apologize and put a smile back on the kids face.

These examples are admittedly on a very small scale in the grand scheme of things, but people often don’t live their lives thinking this way. They root their lives in their jobs, status, wealth, etc. and the only way that I can be of any use to God’s kingdom is to show others that life isn’t meant to be lived like this. It needs to start with me, and it’s another cup that I need to fill. My interactions with colleagues have often left me disappointed and frustrated. They have shown me that the rate race is an unfair and STUPID competition, and I want to streak!

Take these reflections for what you will, I thank you so much for your support over the last two years, five years, twenty-four years even because if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have had these lessons to learn and be the person that I am today.

for the wild,

andrew

The Blessing is in the Struggle

Dear Loved Ones,

I believe this is my first blog entry during this second school year, and this is a shame. Believe me, I have tried to write, but each time it just didn’t feel like writing, and my blogs really are as much or more for me than they are for you. I apologize to those of you who just want updates…feel free to give me a call or send me an email and we can have that personal communication and I’d be happy to do that. But I want to reserve my blog for something different…something that will allow me to express my challenges, wonderings, or experiences in a way that will help me grow and also you, hopefully in some way.

I sit down to write this entry as this year has presented many challenges that are in some ways making this year more difficult than last. You see, you always hear that your first year of teaching is the toughest, the worst! This is mainly because you have NO CLUE what the heck you’re doing. You don’t know how to lesson plan. You don’t know how to manage students. You don’t know how to be as effective as you’d like to be. You begin questioning yourself: Why did I sign up for this? Can I really make a difference? Can I even make it through this year? Am I doing more good than harm by being in this classroom? These questions are extremely typical for a first year teacher, and yet I don’t believe I ever asked myself one of them last year.

The second year is supposed to be leaps and bounds better than year one. You know what you’re doing and you get to start out fresh. You have an air of confidence and believe that this year is going to be amazing, filled with incredible student growth and you’ll get to take credit for it. This year did, in fact, begin this way. It felt so awesome during September and every other second-year teacher I know all felt the same. It was incredible, to feel like you have a handle on this profession, that you don’t need to pray to just get through the week, but you pray that you have enough time with the students to accomplish all that you know you and they are capable of. This was September.

Today it’s November. Dread creeps in with thoughts about going to work tomorrow because the students have slowly but surely begun to take over the class. More and more battles are losing ones, and the true confidence once felt when an administrator walked into the classroom in September now turns into fear that those same people will come in for a visit. What happened? How did my class turn around so quickly? How is this year so different from last?

Well, last year, almost all of my students were recent immigrants. With this, though many of them lacked education and basic abilities present in 5^th graders, I had incredibly invested and well behaved students. While my friends had stories about students physically pushing them, or not being able to teach one word of their lesson because the students simply decided they had their own agenda (which included playing games and cussing at the teacher when they attempted to stop the behavior), my headaches came from one student who talked out 2 or 3 times during the lesson. I didn’t even feel like I was allowed to complain last year because I really didn’t face challenges even close to what my colleagues were facing at different schools. (To be fair to myself, none of my friends had to walk into a class for an hour and a half and teach the entire time in English to a roomful of kids who didn’t speak a word).

This year, however, I finally get to experience the students that we call “Americanized.” These are the kids with the foul language, pants literally below their butts, knives in their knickers, babies in their bellies, you know the type. I could go in depth into what made this community (the poorest congressional district in the nation) turn into the awful and dangerous place it is. I could explain why 95% of its inhabitants are Black or Hispanic and how our nation neglects to believe that this type of place exists, or that the story of Claireece ‘Precious’ Jones is not a unique one. We would end up tracing it back to segregation and then slavery and that people today just blame it on black fathers not being fathers, neglecting to realize that NO ONE is helping them and that these fathers grew up with out fathers (or positive male influences) and that their fathers’ fathers were either imprisoned for being black or lynched (or just simply not given opportunities to be educated). Let’s forget about this terrible history for a second and look at the present: The term that’s used to describe these students is “Americanized.” Funny how many people would think this term should mean free, or liberated, or full of opportunities, yet it comes to mean something that represents the complete opposite ideal of the “American Dream” even while those who it describes are pursuing just that. And while my students say that they want to find a way out, to go to college and not become drug dealers like their cousins, I can’t shake the idea that I’m failing to help them do so. I allow them to behave badly when they don’t know any better. I allow them to distract other students and hold back my consequences for bad behavior because I feel sorry for them, and know that for many of them a phone call home would mean a black eye or bruises in areas that could easily be concealed from a teacher. But I’m brought back to a conversation between Coach Boone and Coach Yoast in Remember the Titans: The white coach was caught ‘babying’ the black players when he felt bad for them. He wanted to show that he wasn’t racist. When he told Coach Boone (Denzel Washington) to lay off one of the black players, Boone calls him out. He says that Coach Yoast doesn’t baby the white players when he (Boone) yells as them, but every time he hurts the feelings of a black player Coach Yoast is right there beside him to help him through it. He tells him that this does nothing to help the players. They don’t need handouts because this will continue to hold them back.

Similarly, one of the main problems in education with the achievement gap, is that wealthy white students are told they have no excuses. Their teachers have high expectations, they believe that they can achieve at high levels and expect no less. Our country has told the poor black and Latino student that they can’t achieve, that we need to have lower expectations for them. This is so completely false, and while I know this and wholeheartedly believe this, I am not following my beliefs when I don’t come down on my students. I am not keeping them at high expectations, I just decide that it’s easier to let them win the battle at times…but it’s only easier for me, and I’m not, then, doing the job I came out here to do. Now I ask myself, in this second year, “Why did I sign up for this? Can I really make a difference? Can I even make it through this year? Am I doing more good than harm by being in this classroom?”

To be clear: I write this not for pity, or for emails of support like “You can do it…you’re doing a great job. You’re doing better than you think.” That’s not what I need. I just need to be honest with myself. I need to write this blog, to have it on paper, to admit this to you and to me and to the Internet. I need to read it again and again until I have changed. I don’t have any Christian or community supports out here to admit this to (which has been an additional struggle) so I decide to write to you. I am challenged. Through Christ, I will prevail. My students will achieve way more this year than last because of what I am going through right now. Step one: Admit you have a problem. Done. As Lupe Fiasco states, “And don’t forget, the blessing is in the struggle.” Thanks for reading.

for the wild,

andrew

Contract for Success

Below is the contract I am having my advanced English speaking class sign. I love them already and I can't wait to see their progress throughout the year. I am also including my contract to them.

A CONTRACT FOR SUCCESS

I, ___________________________________ , want to succeed at the Academy for Language and Technology and to achieve in life. To help me with this, becoming a fully bilingual individual will allow me many opportunities to be the successful professional that I want to be in my life. In wanting to become a fully bilingual individual I need to do well in my English classes at A.L.T. To start, I pledge the following:

• I pledge to be in class, on time, and prepared to do my best work all the time.
• I pledge to try my best to speak only English in Mr. Simmerman’s class, except when instructed differently, or if I absolutely need translation help.
• I pledge to be honest and not make excuses.
• I pledge to respect Mr. Simmerman, other teachers, staff, my school, my peers, and myself all the time.
• I pledge to bring my personality to this class in order to create a fun, engaging, challenging, and successful classroom.
• I pledge to support my peers and give help where help is needed.
• I pledge to learn, laugh, and challenge myself to become a better student and person in Mr. Simmerman’s class.

Signature _________________________________________________

Date ____________

A CONTRACT TO HELP YOU SUCCEED

I, Mr. Simmerman, want you to succeed at the Academy for Language and Technology and to achieve in life. It is my goal to help you become fully bilingual individuals, as it will allow you many opportunities to be the successful professionals that you want to be in your lives. In helping you become fully bilingual individuals, I need to do all that I can to challenge you, set high expectations, and give you the support that you need to find success in all of your English classes. To start, I pledge the following:

• I pledge to be in class, on time, and prepared to do my best work all the time.
• I pledge to challenge you to speak only English in my class, except for a few times when Spanish will be allowed, or if you absolutely need some translation help.
• I pledge to be honest and not make excuses.
• I pledge to respect every student, other teachers, staff, my school, my peers, and myself all the time.
• I pledge to set an example of what respect, loyalty, honesty, integrity, fairness, resilience, and humility look like.
• I pledge to bring my personality to this class in order to create a fun, engaging, challenging, and successful classroom.
• I pledge to support every student and give extra help where help is needed, even if it means staying after school with students.

• I pledge to learn, laugh, and challenge myself to become a better teacher and person for the students in this class.

Signature _________________________________________________

Date ____________

A win

Dear Loved Ones,



I wanted to share with you a “win” I’ve had with my (advanced) students this week. Without going into much detail as I should be in bed right now, I was able to facilitate a conversation with my advanced English speaking class (though the convo was in Spanish) where 3 of the biggest troublemakers of the class turned into leaders as they realized the opportunities ahead of them and how they’ve been blowing it in their efforts. They began to discuss how they need to all pull together as a class to make the most out of the rest of the year and become achievers and set themselves on paths for success. They asked me if I had anything to share and I was able to, first the first time, feel like I could inspire them and really communicate my belief in their abilities (on a week where I’ve mostly felt like a failure). I followed up this conversation with an email (we have a school website and all have email address…visit it at: alteagles.org) and I am sharing this with you below…I received my first (and probably only) reply to the email and wanted to share that as well (short but amazingly sweet).



Dear Bañuelos,



As I reflect on our discussion in class today I feel very inspired by your potential. I know that each and every one of you has special abilities that will help you go very far in life. YOU CAN ALL BECOME SUCCESSFUL!



The reason I told you that only 23% of Hispanic High School students in NYC graduated last year was not because I wanted to scare you or discourage you. I don't want you to think that it is too difficult. I hope that seeing this number of Latino graduates gives you the push and the motivation, that you need to achieve. Si se puede! We are in a special school and you can all graduate and go to college! You are all brilliant students and every time we have a visitor they always tell me what wonderful teenagers you all are.

I feel very luck as a teacher to have you as students and I hope that I can help you go in the right direction, to be a success in life, and to always achieve in everything you do.

I know this email was long (and is a lot of English) but I needed to send this to you.

Have a safe and wonderful weekend! See you all on Monday.



-Mr. Simmerman



“Thank you for your help to learn English.”

-MG



Maybe it's not much of a response to you, but it is to me...and I wanted to share.



for the wild,

andrew