The one photo I was able to get from Institute.
Three
Yet another deviation from my typical “Stories” format (as school doesn’t start until September 2nd), I sit here in frustration with politics and with our nation. Why do we allow ourselves to constantly be divided? How do I allow myself to think one candidate will create the change necessary to help the least of these to the point that I get into petty arguments that only tear down instead of build up? These “Stories” have challenged me in so many ways because I have vowed to stay away from endorsing one candidate or one political stance over another and instead bring you my real stories…stories that will build rather than tear down. It is because of this vow that I have viewed the election in a different light.
One of my favorite authors, Shane Claiborne, writes in his book Jesus For President that “The [distinctly Kingdom] question for us is not how do we vote on November 4th, but how do we live on November 3rd and November 5th...voting is something we do everyday with our lives.” It is because of this that I have stayed away from campaigning for the candidate that I intend to vote for in the streets of New York. My time as a Christian, as an American, as a human being with privilege would be better spent by actually serving the poor, looking out for the widows and the orphans than annoyingly try to get others to vote for a candidate that I feel will be able to provide help to those same people. Certain and direct action vs. uncertain and indirect action. Easy, right?
It is still a problem to me, however, that in traveling back to my less-than-affluent neighborhood of Spanish Harlem from Lower Manhattan I notice that nearly all of the white, well-dressed folks get off the subway by the 96th St. stop…20 blocks south of my place on 116th. After discussing such observations with ten, twenty, and even forty year residents of Manhattan I find that the stop used to be 59th St…past that nearly no whites would be seen. (I know I discuss race a lot, and sometimes it’s more of a socio-economic commentary, but I can’t help but see the implications my skin color has every single moment of every single day where I live and where I work…a process that minorities have been studied to go through at a much earlier age…a process that many of the privileged never go through). The reason for the northern migration of “safer” and “cleaner” communities is directly attributed to the gentrification that residents below the poverty line continue to face and fight in Upper Manhattan and Harlem today.
There are still racial and economic divisions in our country that are staggering. Just a couple weeks ago statistics on high school graduation rates in New York City were released and, as my eyes are going from dry to a bit watery, only 32% of black males graduated….only 1/3 of African American males graduated high school on time this year. This, mind you, is in the midst of one of the crowning achievements of the Bloomberg (Mayor) and Klein (Chancellor of Education) administration that 51% of all high school seniors graduate this year. How has the New York public school system not graduated more than 50% of its seniors in decades? I can’t respond to that, other than the fact that local, state, and national politics inevitably plays a role. No one, still, gets it right. Clinton failed the system just as much as Bush has…and it’s not their fault…it’s our fault…it’s the American peoples fault for not doing more, for sitting back, for simply running the race and NOT streaking in it. Don’t mistake my point for thinking you personally have the obligation to involve yourselves in education through direct action…but those issues that you hold so dear in your decision to vote for a candidate, or better yet to not vote for another candidate, need to not just be beliefs that you vote for on November 4th, but guiding values that lead you to action on November 3rd, November 5th, and every other day of the year. If you think a big government is the wrong way to go, then do your part and act. You probably say that you would rather give money to organizations and contribute your time than give it to the government in taxes…well do it then! And don’t simply donate your money, but donate your time, your skills and resources that you have been blessed with. A big government would pay workers to do some of these community service jobs…so if they don’t exist then your money isn’t the only thing that can provide the help. And if you think big government is the answer to the suffering in our nation, than don’t sit on your behind and expect government to do all the work. You might think that you are more selfless because you vote for what’s perceived as the “bleeding heart” party, but you are no selfless person if you don’t act or give.
I myself struggle with all of these things and don’t perceive to be above my own words. These are reflections of mine…and reflections are more of a personal thing than anything else. I need to continue to act if I want the world to be changed. This is the first time that I have truly understood Ghandi’s now (overused) words.
This is why we must streak.
for the wild,
andrew
One of my favorite authors, Shane Claiborne, writes in his book Jesus For President that “The [distinctly Kingdom] question for us is not how do we vote on November 4th, but how do we live on November 3rd and November 5th...voting is something we do everyday with our lives.” It is because of this that I have stayed away from campaigning for the candidate that I intend to vote for in the streets of New York. My time as a Christian, as an American, as a human being with privilege would be better spent by actually serving the poor, looking out for the widows and the orphans than annoyingly try to get others to vote for a candidate that I feel will be able to provide help to those same people. Certain and direct action vs. uncertain and indirect action. Easy, right?
It is still a problem to me, however, that in traveling back to my less-than-affluent neighborhood of Spanish Harlem from Lower Manhattan I notice that nearly all of the white, well-dressed folks get off the subway by the 96th St. stop…20 blocks south of my place on 116th. After discussing such observations with ten, twenty, and even forty year residents of Manhattan I find that the stop used to be 59th St…past that nearly no whites would be seen. (I know I discuss race a lot, and sometimes it’s more of a socio-economic commentary, but I can’t help but see the implications my skin color has every single moment of every single day where I live and where I work…a process that minorities have been studied to go through at a much earlier age…a process that many of the privileged never go through). The reason for the northern migration of “safer” and “cleaner” communities is directly attributed to the gentrification that residents below the poverty line continue to face and fight in Upper Manhattan and Harlem today.
There are still racial and economic divisions in our country that are staggering. Just a couple weeks ago statistics on high school graduation rates in New York City were released and, as my eyes are going from dry to a bit watery, only 32% of black males graduated….only 1/3 of African American males graduated high school on time this year. This, mind you, is in the midst of one of the crowning achievements of the Bloomberg (Mayor) and Klein (Chancellor of Education) administration that 51% of all high school seniors graduate this year. How has the New York public school system not graduated more than 50% of its seniors in decades? I can’t respond to that, other than the fact that local, state, and national politics inevitably plays a role. No one, still, gets it right. Clinton failed the system just as much as Bush has…and it’s not their fault…it’s our fault…it’s the American peoples fault for not doing more, for sitting back, for simply running the race and NOT streaking in it. Don’t mistake my point for thinking you personally have the obligation to involve yourselves in education through direct action…but those issues that you hold so dear in your decision to vote for a candidate, or better yet to not vote for another candidate, need to not just be beliefs that you vote for on November 4th, but guiding values that lead you to action on November 3rd, November 5th, and every other day of the year. If you think a big government is the wrong way to go, then do your part and act. You probably say that you would rather give money to organizations and contribute your time than give it to the government in taxes…well do it then! And don’t simply donate your money, but donate your time, your skills and resources that you have been blessed with. A big government would pay workers to do some of these community service jobs…so if they don’t exist then your money isn’t the only thing that can provide the help. And if you think big government is the answer to the suffering in our nation, than don’t sit on your behind and expect government to do all the work. You might think that you are more selfless because you vote for what’s perceived as the “bleeding heart” party, but you are no selfless person if you don’t act or give.
I myself struggle with all of these things and don’t perceive to be above my own words. These are reflections of mine…and reflections are more of a personal thing than anything else. I need to continue to act if I want the world to be changed. This is the first time that I have truly understood Ghandi’s now (overused) words.
This is why we must streak.
for the wild,
andrew
Two
This week I became a teacher…but I don’t really feel all that different. No epiphanies have come, no revelations…not even much pure excitement or intense frustrations…just more stress than I’ve ever experienced before, which has come mostly from putting together all of my lesson plans and creating posters for them with 18 hours of work each day and a “lucky” 5 hours of sleep each night. I know it’s all going to be worth it though, especially once I can stop treating my students like guinea pigs. I am, after all, their actual summer school teacher doing real instruction, unlike student teaching. This is definitely real and I still haven’t grasped it yet, which is pretty difficult when the direction of your life has shifted as dramatically as mine has in such a short period of time. Just three months ago I was waiting to hear from Teach For America, waiting to turn them down if I were accepted into the corps. I thought my immediate post-college life was supposed to be lived in Los Angeles for a few years, working with companies I was equally as passionate about entailing working with college (or prospective college) students. New York wasn’t even a thought on my mind since it wasn’t my top choice for placement. All I knew for sure was that I was going to return to Argentina for the month of May, leaving just 2 days after my graduation.
One moth in Argentina, a week in NYC, and three weeks at home later I found myself taking on the greatest challenge I have faced in my life up to this point, in a brand new place with brand new people learning brand new skills. While I’d love to go on and on about my feelings, my stresses, my difficulties, and my joys here I really want to write about a 30 second conversation that I was a part of today that has, so far, had the greatest
impact on me (during my interaction with my students).
Just 3 days into being a teacher and I have already faced my first collision with racial awareness. Part of the preparation for Institute was to read specified texts on all sorts of topics: lesson planning and delivery, elementary and secondary literacy, and many more. They were all great, necessary, and engaging texts that I have begun putting into practice and am using in my teaching. The one that hit me the most, however, was not about instruction or instruction planning at all. It was, rather, the diversity and culture text. At one point I was even called out pretty clearly within the book. When discussing the idea of racial identification and white privilege, it read that all future corps members, of all races, genders, and sexual orientations, need to be aware of these things in their classroom. It emphasized, however, that those who are white, male, affluent, straight, able-bodied, Christian, or able speak English need to pay special attention to what’s discussed in this text. What I found was that I did not resonate with much of thoughts on racial awareness that was discussed, which was the point of calling me, and corps members like me, out. I had never even been faced with the thought that being white gives you privilege in this nation and in this world. I also have never identified with a “white group” or “male group” or “affluent group” or any of these groups (well, except Christian but I don’t’ count that because it’s comfortable often times to be a Christian within these white, affluent communities…which is interesting when you read in the Bible that Christians are supposed to face ridicule…maybe something to think about.) The text explained that there is a process by which black, Latino, poor, and other minority children go through in identifying with one of those descriptions. This was demonstrated today when one of the girls in my class, Julia we’ll call her, made a comment to another student while we were reading:
“You sound white when you read.” she said to the other student we’ll call Joe.
“…Thanks.” responded Joe, seriously and defensively after a pause.
“No offense Mr. Simmerman,” said Julia as I was trying to figure out how to respond.
Both Julia and Joe are Hispanic.
While the readings in the text prepared me to understand why comments like these are made and where they come from, it didn’t offer a crash course on tackling these issues. As a brand new teacher, let’s just say my response was less than preferable (I favored ignoring the comment and quickly moved on rather than address the situation).
There are two primary questions about this conversation I would like to pose. The first is why did Joe respond in that way? Why did he say thanks, and what does that mean? This is almost as troubling to me as the comment made by Julia. The second question, one that’s more of a reflection that I will surely be thinking about throughout my time in the Bronx, is how can I combat the view that being educated and being able to read is viewed by many students as being “white” – something that is clearly not desirable by these adolescent students? The no offense part tells me that Julia doesn’t necessarily categorize me as the “white” person that has brought her to the conclusion that “white” is something bad, but still, when you have peer pressure saying that the moment you strive to be educated you are no longer a part of your race, then how can students find any desire to advance their learning in school?
As part of something I hope to do in every installment of “Stories from a Streaker,” I will leave you with (or put somewhere within the story) a quote that either specifically pertains to something within the installment or has simply came to mind while writing. The following quote is one I just ran across from President Lyndon B. Johnson:
“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”
Four decades later, we have a long way to go, and this is why I streak.
for the wild,
andrew
One moth in Argentina, a week in NYC, and three weeks at home later I found myself taking on the greatest challenge I have faced in my life up to this point, in a brand new place with brand new people learning brand new skills. While I’d love to go on and on about my feelings, my stresses, my difficulties, and my joys here I really want to write about a 30 second conversation that I was a part of today that has, so far, had the greatest
impact on me (during my interaction with my students).
Just 3 days into being a teacher and I have already faced my first collision with racial awareness. Part of the preparation for Institute was to read specified texts on all sorts of topics: lesson planning and delivery, elementary and secondary literacy, and many more. They were all great, necessary, and engaging texts that I have begun putting into practice and am using in my teaching. The one that hit me the most, however, was not about instruction or instruction planning at all. It was, rather, the diversity and culture text. At one point I was even called out pretty clearly within the book. When discussing the idea of racial identification and white privilege, it read that all future corps members, of all races, genders, and sexual orientations, need to be aware of these things in their classroom. It emphasized, however, that those who are white, male, affluent, straight, able-bodied, Christian, or able speak English need to pay special attention to what’s discussed in this text. What I found was that I did not resonate with much of thoughts on racial awareness that was discussed, which was the point of calling me, and corps members like me, out. I had never even been faced with the thought that being white gives you privilege in this nation and in this world. I also have never identified with a “white group” or “male group” or “affluent group” or any of these groups (well, except Christian but I don’t’ count that because it’s comfortable often times to be a Christian within these white, affluent communities…which is interesting when you read in the Bible that Christians are supposed to face ridicule…maybe something to think about.) The text explained that there is a process by which black, Latino, poor, and other minority children go through in identifying with one of those descriptions. This was demonstrated today when one of the girls in my class, Julia we’ll call her, made a comment to another student while we were reading:
“You sound white when you read.” she said to the other student we’ll call Joe.
“…Thanks.” responded Joe, seriously and defensively after a pause.
“No offense Mr. Simmerman,” said Julia as I was trying to figure out how to respond.
Both Julia and Joe are Hispanic.
While the readings in the text prepared me to understand why comments like these are made and where they come from, it didn’t offer a crash course on tackling these issues. As a brand new teacher, let’s just say my response was less than preferable (I favored ignoring the comment and quickly moved on rather than address the situation).
There are two primary questions about this conversation I would like to pose. The first is why did Joe respond in that way? Why did he say thanks, and what does that mean? This is almost as troubling to me as the comment made by Julia. The second question, one that’s more of a reflection that I will surely be thinking about throughout my time in the Bronx, is how can I combat the view that being educated and being able to read is viewed by many students as being “white” – something that is clearly not desirable by these adolescent students? The no offense part tells me that Julia doesn’t necessarily categorize me as the “white” person that has brought her to the conclusion that “white” is something bad, but still, when you have peer pressure saying that the moment you strive to be educated you are no longer a part of your race, then how can students find any desire to advance their learning in school?
As part of something I hope to do in every installment of “Stories from a Streaker,” I will leave you with (or put somewhere within the story) a quote that either specifically pertains to something within the installment or has simply came to mind while writing. The following quote is one I just ran across from President Lyndon B. Johnson:
“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”
Four decades later, we have a long way to go, and this is why I streak.
for the wild,
andrew
One
So I’m sitting on the bus on my way to school, getting ready to meet the children I will be teaching and responsible for passing on during summer school as part of the Institute and I decided that I would try and collect some thoughts to share. It’s long.
First, the 2008 NYC Corps is awesome! Everyone here is so amazing and nice and accomplished. I have two roommates from Princeton, my teaching partner went to Yale, and have met students who went to Columbia, Stanford, Brown, UPenn, and nearly every top school in the nation. Needless to say I feel a little inadequate in the intelligence arena, but that’s ok because we all got into TFA and we are all here and leadership and relentless pursuit is more key than where we got our education. Oh, and there are about 7 girls for every guy, so I’m pretty stoked about that ratio.
Also, as some of you may be surprised to hear, I’m one of the most conservative corps members here. There is something comforting about being around people with similar political ideologies, however as a Christian there are certain beliefs I have that alienate me. I would still consider myself morally conservative, so being in this environment has been a little tough, and surprising.
What’s been tougher, however, is hearing the stories from colleagues of very diverse and low-income backgrounds about their interactions with the affluent white community, especially those calling themselves Christian. One of the girls in my small group got thrown out of her house in high school as gentrification began taking over this city. They speak of Harlem being an up-and-coming city: more investment bankers are locating there; it’s becoming “cleaner” and “safer”; and new affordable sky-rises are being built. What happens to the “thriving culture” all the books use to describe this area of the city though? What happens to the people who have live there for years? The residents of Harlem, some of the poorest people in our nation, are now being placed on the streets, or forced to live in the dangerous projects. It’s no wonder these people turn to drugs, have a distorted view of white people, and decide to solicit themselves for sex. I am reminded of my favorite quote by (my favorite) artist Banksy:
“The human race is an unfair and stupid competition. A lot of the runners don’t even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some people are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It’s not surprising some people have given up competing altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk food and shout abuse. What we need in this race is a lot more streakers."
Teach For America corps members are streakers.
Last year at Pepperdine I was able to have an incredible small group discussion with one of my favorite authors Shane Claiborne. When asked about his political beliefs and stances on controversial issues within the “Church,” he said that he refrains from telling people what to think, or even what he thinks. Rather, he explained to us how he simply tells stories that convey meaning. He said this is what Jesus did; what Mother Theresa, who he studied with, did. He said that no one can argue with stories. (Now of course in politics stories are used out of context all the time; but they usually aren’t stories that come from real experiences the candidates have with real communities…they were simply stories from a five minute conversation with or the reading of a letter of a “real person” in America). I bring this up because this is how I am going to choose to frame my emails, hopefully. I won’t tell you that I think you should vote for candidate X because he has a better education plan; I won’t tell you I think it’s important for everyone to fight for educational equity or seek justice. I will, rather, write to you stories of my 9th and 10th grade students reading on a 5th grade level; I will share my interactions with students who fall asleep in class, unable to concentrate because they didn’t eat last night or have a bed to sleep on. I hope that my experiences will speak to you in whatever way they should. I hope that you won’t allow my experiences to be something to look at and say you are proud of me because I am fighting for equality. I hope they instead that they spark a reaction for you to look for ways to create your own stories as well; to step out of your comfort zones and embody a different “white” or “affluent” or “Christian” person that the poor are used to being affected by. I know many of you have created these stories and experiences…but continue to find more, to do more. I hope that reading my emails won’t be easy because I want to challenge you as I am challenging myself; I can’t be alone in my efforts or it won’t be for much. This isn’t going to be easy for me, I can already tell. But I am doing it. It’s only the beginning for me and there will be times that I want to quit, but with your support I know that it won’t be an option for me.
I apologize for this long email but it has been an accumulation of thoughts over the past week as I haven’t had enough time to sit down and finish all my thoughts in one sitting. I love you all and your support means the world to me.
for the wild,
andrew
First, the 2008 NYC Corps is awesome! Everyone here is so amazing and nice and accomplished. I have two roommates from Princeton, my teaching partner went to Yale, and have met students who went to Columbia, Stanford, Brown, UPenn, and nearly every top school in the nation. Needless to say I feel a little inadequate in the intelligence arena, but that’s ok because we all got into TFA and we are all here and leadership and relentless pursuit is more key than where we got our education. Oh, and there are about 7 girls for every guy, so I’m pretty stoked about that ratio.
Also, as some of you may be surprised to hear, I’m one of the most conservative corps members here. There is something comforting about being around people with similar political ideologies, however as a Christian there are certain beliefs I have that alienate me. I would still consider myself morally conservative, so being in this environment has been a little tough, and surprising.
What’s been tougher, however, is hearing the stories from colleagues of very diverse and low-income backgrounds about their interactions with the affluent white community, especially those calling themselves Christian. One of the girls in my small group got thrown out of her house in high school as gentrification began taking over this city. They speak of Harlem being an up-and-coming city: more investment bankers are locating there; it’s becoming “cleaner” and “safer”; and new affordable sky-rises are being built. What happens to the “thriving culture” all the books use to describe this area of the city though? What happens to the people who have live there for years? The residents of Harlem, some of the poorest people in our nation, are now being placed on the streets, or forced to live in the dangerous projects. It’s no wonder these people turn to drugs, have a distorted view of white people, and decide to solicit themselves for sex. I am reminded of my favorite quote by (my favorite) artist Banksy:
“The human race is an unfair and stupid competition. A lot of the runners don’t even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some people are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It’s not surprising some people have given up competing altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk food and shout abuse. What we need in this race is a lot more streakers."
Teach For America corps members are streakers.
Last year at Pepperdine I was able to have an incredible small group discussion with one of my favorite authors Shane Claiborne. When asked about his political beliefs and stances on controversial issues within the “Church,” he said that he refrains from telling people what to think, or even what he thinks. Rather, he explained to us how he simply tells stories that convey meaning. He said this is what Jesus did; what Mother Theresa, who he studied with, did. He said that no one can argue with stories. (Now of course in politics stories are used out of context all the time; but they usually aren’t stories that come from real experiences the candidates have with real communities…they were simply stories from a five minute conversation with or the reading of a letter of a “real person” in America). I bring this up because this is how I am going to choose to frame my emails, hopefully. I won’t tell you that I think you should vote for candidate X because he has a better education plan; I won’t tell you I think it’s important for everyone to fight for educational equity or seek justice. I will, rather, write to you stories of my 9th and 10th grade students reading on a 5th grade level; I will share my interactions with students who fall asleep in class, unable to concentrate because they didn’t eat last night or have a bed to sleep on. I hope that my experiences will speak to you in whatever way they should. I hope that you won’t allow my experiences to be something to look at and say you are proud of me because I am fighting for equality. I hope they instead that they spark a reaction for you to look for ways to create your own stories as well; to step out of your comfort zones and embody a different “white” or “affluent” or “Christian” person that the poor are used to being affected by. I know many of you have created these stories and experiences…but continue to find more, to do more. I hope that reading my emails won’t be easy because I want to challenge you as I am challenging myself; I can’t be alone in my efforts or it won’t be for much. This isn’t going to be easy for me, I can already tell. But I am doing it. It’s only the beginning for me and there will be times that I want to quit, but with your support I know that it won’t be an option for me.
I apologize for this long email but it has been an accumulation of thoughts over the past week as I haven’t had enough time to sit down and finish all my thoughts in one sitting. I love you all and your support means the world to me.
for the wild,
andrew
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