that classroom vibe

INTRO:

Today is the last day of the Advanced Institute of the Denver Writing Project. Coming as it did on the heels of our transition to remote learning and the Black Lives Matter movement, we all had a lot to process. Our assignment, at the end of the week, after much reading, reflection, Zoom meetings, online discussion boards, and three eye-opening, mind-blowing writing workshops with Nicole Piasecki, Jovan Mays, and Mark Overmeyer, was to answer this prompt: "Using your own style and structure, create a personal essay that describes your identity as a teacher and/or your teaching philosophy." Here's what I managed to write, out of a combobulated brain full of so many thoughts...

VERSE 1:

Sunday afternoon

my 19-year-old White son 

went downtown, 

to City Hall

where he stood

next to his Black girl friend

holding a small piece of cardboard 

cut from a box, 

on which he had written in black sharpie:

VIBE CHECK THE POLICE

CHORUS 1:

Monday morning I was asked: “What is your vibe right now? What is your teaching vibe?” The fact that this word— vibe— had entered my world for two days in a row struck me as somehow important.  Synchronous.  Serendipitous. Vibey.  

My vibe right now is worry.  And doing projects to keep from worrying.  Grief and mourning for classroom and country I pour into scrubbing the tub, chipping the paint, baking the muffins, and above all else: re-arranging the furniture.   I wonder if this is a distraction, or a healthy outlet for emotion. Or maybe it’s an attempt to change the vibe in my home, the way I change it in my classroom.      

VERSE 2:

I’ve heard people say 

to check in on your Black colleagues

I haven’t done this

I don’t know how to

Yet

CHORUS 2:

Student writer Nick Speranza, Arts Section Editor for his high school’s online news site The Radnorite, declared vibe to be the 2019 word-of-the-year. He wrote perhaps the best definition of vibe check that I could find:   “A vibe check is a genuine expression of empathy, a joking threat that encourages your friends to be happy, and a bizarre internet joke all at once.”  

On the surface, a vibe check means “How are you?  What’s going on?”

At a deeper level, however, it seems to be asking, “What are your struggles? Are you ok? How can I help?”

You can always vibe check a mother by asking about her children.  Maybe that’s a place I can start.

BRIDGE:

White socks

Black shoes

I bet her mama shined those shoes

the night before, scrubbed

her white socks and white blouse and white sweater 

so clean

the White children would have nothing to laugh at

Ruby was brave

Her mama was braver

Would I have done it?

Allowed my child to be the bridge?

What words did she say to prepare her daughter

before she watched her be marshaled 

away with four White men?

When you walk into that school, 

you old your head high,

Ruby Girl, but remember

to look down when you come to those steps,

‘cause everyone will be waiting for you to stumble

And remember to breathe, ok? 

As long as you just keep breathin’, you gon be alright.

And she was.

Ruby Bridges vibe checked them all.

VERSE 3:

The classroom vibe is everything

I create the vibe

starting from the outside

Good Vibes

don’t happen by accident

You have to orchestrate
them, which requires a magic wand

strings of fairy lights
three comfy chairs and a sofa

mismatched wooden bookshelves
along every wall

(where you somehow know where every book

is even though they are not in alphabetical order)

You even have to re-arrange the furniture

to metaphorically match your genre:

Poetry, a seated circle around a round rug

Memoir,  small groups for sharing

Fiction, sitting directly across from an IR of their own choosing

Informational, rows facing forward, 

Literary analysis returns us to our circle, older this time

Argument, two sides facing in

My classroom isn’t where I work,

it’s an extension of my Self

This is what I am afraid of losing —
If my students cannot feel that classroom vibe,

how will I be able to teach them?

The outer vibe creates the inner vibe. 

More than one student has told me 

that the 90 minutes they spend in my class

every other day

is the only time they feel calm.

How can I re-create that safe haven in a virtual world?  

Have we been liberated from fluorescent oppression, 

only to find ourselves in a blue light sleepless state?

What have we lost?

What have we gained?

CHORUS 3: 

We have been given an opportunity to re-think, re-question, and re-purpose ourselves as educators.  We didn’t give CMAS, and the world didn’t end!  We changed grading and teacher evaluation policies overnight in ways we never would have considered before!  Inequities were made visible and impossible to ignore!  Police have been voted out of our schools, curriculum is being re-visioned, and teachers are realizing that we have a role to play in dismantling our very own system.

Now is the time to examine the questions that underlie the questions.  The time to ask all the hows and whys.  The time to spout crazy ideas that maybe don’t sound so crazy anymore.  

Teachers need to bring up questions, again, about school funding structures and all the vestiges of history that have left our school system, still, in so many places, separate but unequal. We need to ask why our teaching force is still predominantly White, and then we need to ask how can we find and support the young people of color who want to become teachers. Ruby Bridges had to take a test to get into William Frantz Public School — how and why is testing still being used to determine who gets to go where?

And maybe someday soon, Zoom will create a “seating chart” function that, when enabled, will allow me to continue re-arranging the “furniture”.  What if we could make circles, rows, and groups, out of those little windows, in an attempt to create that classroom vibe?   

It’s not a distraction, my need to re-arrange, it’s an acknowledgement that my physical space creates my vibe.  When there is thoughtful order and structure on the outside, only then can I maintain my inner vibe, the one that allows me to show up, speak truth, create community, and be present every day with my kids.

OUTRO:

I became fascinated by Ruby Bridges after writing from a photo of her in Jovan’s workshop (see "Bridge" above).  Afterwards, I learned that her mother actually went to school with her on that first day, and didn't let her go alone, as I had imagined it. They sat in the office for the whole day, watching all the other parents come in to take their children out of the school.  Ruby prayed for the protestors every day on her way to school, asking God to forgive them “for they know not what they do”.  She wasn’t angry at the other kids not playing with her, because she understood that it was their parents who made them do it, and if her parents had told her not to do something, she wouldn’t have either.  

Ruby experienced little trauma from her experiences, according to Robert Coles (a White psychologist who offered to help her pro bono).  Instead, Robert Coles learned from Ruby, about conviction and courage, grounded in faith.