On the Reservation

He used to hit me. And I used to bite him right back. As children, we fought about who got the bigger piece of candy, and as we grew older, we fought about who was ruining whose life more. This is my little brother. And at 20, he has only recently sort of become tolerable.

As I sat across from one of my students with emotional and behavioral disturbances today, I was swept back to the days when I would lecture and moan at my brother to behave and finish his homework so that Mom wouldn't get mad. He never listened. He was always in trouble anyway.

It was the same thing this afternoon with "Corey." I was the goody-two-shoes, know-it-all big sister talking to a wall again: Be good, behave, be respectful, blah blah blah... As I blah-blah'd on and on in my teacherly ways, which I have apparently honed since childhood, he found a pair of scissors and tried cutting his nose. So I took that away. Then he chewed on paperclips. I took those away too. Next, he tore at a scab on his palm, causing it to gush with blood. I got him a Band-Aid. I obviously wasn't getting through. It was easier when Dennis behaved like this; I would just reach over and slap him. But now I am the teacher. I have to be good, behave, be respectful...

So I did what I thought the education textbooks would have advised me to do: I bribed the kid. We set up a behavior checklist with four short goals for him to follow, including being quiet and doing work. I would check in with him every 10 minutes to identify the goals he had reached in the 10 minute span. Each time he reached all 4 goals in a 10 minute period, he would earn a piece of fruit. (Grapes are his favorite. Next are oranges.)

After much moaning and deliberation, Corey and I developed a fruit-bribing behavior checklist for him to begin tomorrow. After it was done, I just sat there, staring at the 12-year old. And I just had to chuckle and say, "You know, my brother hated school too. He was so bad at it. He barely graduated high school. But then he discovered his passion for martial arts. Now he is in college."

That peaked Corey's interest. His head, which had been buried beneath a black sweatshirt the whole time, suddenly emerged. "How old is your brother?"

"He's 20 now. He's in college now, but before that, he was really bad in school. He had trouble with reading, writing and math-- just like you. But after he discovered Wushu in high school (and he's on the U.S. National team now), he realized he could do things if he really, really tried. Which is good. Because he'll be able to afford to take his girlfriend out after he has a good job."

Corey keeps asking me questions about Dennis. I promise to bring in videos of my brother doing Wushu if I can find any. And that maybe I'll bring him in for show-and-tell one day.

Suddenly, Corey's head bops up from the desk where it's been lying our whole conversation. He says, "I'm ready to go now. I feel a lot better. I'm not angry anymore."

Timidly, I say, "I'm really glad you're feeling better now. Mind if I ask what made you feel better?"

His head goes back underneath his black sweatshirt. This time he shyly calls out, "Listening about your brother. That made me feel better."

This one is for all the folks out there who didn't have it easy throughout school. This is for all the big and little kids who struggled through academics, but made it through. Be forewarned: I'm going to exploit your stories. You are more than inspiration for my students; you are proof that it can all still be OK.

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

What is Thanksgiving like on the Navajo Nation? Thanksgiving is paper turkeys adorning my classroom door with all that we’re thankful. Thanksgiving is a whole community gathering for a turkey dinner on Wednesday in the cafeteria. Thanksgiving is going around the cafeteria and getting hugs from a dozen moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas and aunties who barely looked twice at me last year. (And reminders from them to not party too hard this weekend in Washington, D.C.)

For all who wonder what it’s like to teach and celebrate Thanksgiving with Native Americans, I have no real insights for you. From popping in and out of elementary and secondary classrooms at my school, it appears that Thanksgiving is taught much the same way it was taught to me in grade school: Native Americans, Pilgrims and turkey. But more importantly taught is the spirit of thankfulness and being with family and friends—lessons that should be taught year-round. However, it is interesting to note that my school does not take a holiday for Columbus Day; instead, we get Navajo Sovereignty Day off in April. :-)

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A month and a half ago, Chinese people around the world celebrated the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, a joyous holiday of telling legends of the Moon Lady, eating moon cakes and gathering with friends and family.

Too bad I didn't find out about it until the day after. In an e-mail. In a forwarded cartoon message from my mom.

Apparently I am not very good at being Chinese. I attended a high school with a population of about 30% Asian Americans, but had few friends of Asian descent. I subscribe to Asian American women's magazines, but am illiterate in Chinese. I minored in Asian American Studies in college and can recite historical dates and contentious issues of race, but found myself desperately thumbing through Google to figure out what the heck a Mid-Autumn Moon Festival was all about.

A year and a half ago, I would not have cared. I have spent much of the past two decades breaking away from stereotypes about Asians. I was terrible in math. I hated Hello Kitty. And while I respected my culture and loved my family, being Chinese and looking Chinese only set me apart.

But after moving to the Navajo Nation, where everything from the morning pledge to the principal's moccasins are rooted in Navajo culture and traditions, I have found myself desperately grasping for my own. When my colleagues explain the Ye'be'cheii dances, they want to hear about Chinese rituals too. When my assistant reads our students stories about the ma'ii, or coyote, in the winter months, I want to have a traditional Chinese story to share of my own. In Tohatchi, where there's a Chinese American population of one, there is no question I am different. But for some reason, highlighting my differences around here makes me more the same.

And so that is why my mother rush-delivered two boxes of Chinese mooncakes to New Mexico the weekend after the holiday. That is why at 11:30 p.m., on a Sunday night three weeks ago, I was desperately researching on Google for Mid-Autumn Moon Festival facts to make a reading worksheet. And that is why the next day a dozen Navajo children were figuring out whether they liked red-bean mooncake, pineapple mooncake or lotus mooncake better. (Lotus won, hands down.)

I moved to New Mexico in part to learn about another culture, but ended up learning to embrace my own. Back home, public translations were always muttered and avoided. But when my grandfather visited my school last spring, I found myself loudly translating to him in Chinese without a second thought. Even my German-Italian American boyfriend was more enthusiastic of my heritage than I was and encouraged me to travel through Asia to practice the language (especially after he witnessed vendors in New York City's Chinatown complaining about my accent and syntax). Back at home, I never dared eat anything at work with soy sauce. Last week, I found myself selling kung pao chicken and rice for $2 a plate to the staff members at school. It was a hit. People are requesting egg rolls with the next lunch sale.

Diversity isn't too big on the Navajo Nation. Despite having worked at my school for a year and a half, I am still constantly asked "what" I am. That is a question I normally jump at (I'm human. What do I look like?), but people want to know. Whether I like it or not, I represent an entire race. I teach my students about Chinese culture, I feed them Chinese food and I teach them about multicultural identities. One of my proudest moments was when someone asked me, "What are you, Ms. Shyu?"

Before I had a chance to answer, one of my students in special education piped up, "She's Taiwanese American, because her parents were born in Taiwan and later moved to the United States and Ms. Shyu was born in DC. She's American. And she's Chinese. She's two things. Like us."

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 7:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I am not updating the blog today. This week’s Tuesday blog entry is about how I am not updating. I am not updating because I am frustrated, tired and stressed out.

I am a full-time-plus (my own special term for overtime-less workers out there who work 60-plus hours per week, but get paid for 2/3 of that time) teacher who attends graduate school at night and on the weekend. I am a grant writer, a behavior committee member, an after-school tutor, a dormitory piano teacher, an Art Club sponsor and a Thursday night karaoke singer. I am tired. I am stressed. I have procrastinated far too long and now have too many assignments due tomorrow for graduate school.

For all you full-time-plus teachers out there, this one’s for you.

Bah.

(I’ll update with a real entry later on this week. Maybe.)

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 1:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

11:30 a.m., is fourth period resource math class. We are a month behind in our standards. A quarter of the class is failing. Some need help with multiplication. Others need work on counting nickels.

So it only makes sense that last Friday at 11 a.m., I was 1,136 miles away from fourth period resource math class and combing through wool cable sweaters at the Banana Republic in the Rio Grande Valley. I bought one. It's white.

It is one of those forgotten lessons that is only briefly mentioned in teacher prep classes, lost among talk about significant gains, purposeful planning and never wasting a moment: Relax.

I flew to the very tip of Texas to visit one of my best friends who is in her third month of teaching ESL at a bordertown middle school. I brought workbooks for her to browse through. I showed her examples of how I do centers in my classroom. But most importantly, I showed her how to have a good time again.

That weekend, we slept until almost noon. We shopped until we dropped, at which point we started drinking margaritas and eating enchiladas de mole, a regional speciality. We drove to South Padre Island beach and watched the full moon rise.

One of the hardest things to do in your first year(s) of teaching is to relax. All that talk about significant gains and giving it your all is overwhelming. Couple that with everyday lesson planning, unruly behavior management and learning your content areas, and one is consumed. You break down, you cry, and ultimately, you burn out.

One of the best things that I did last year for myself was to drive to Canyon de Chelly with a good friend and a whole bottle of wine. No papers to grade. No computers or Internet to plan assignments or research best practices. It was a whole day wasted.

And it was a whole day to rejuvenate. I felt refreshed. I felt calmer the following week. And it made me remember that there is life outside of teaching. It made me actually want to stay in the classroom.

And so that is what I hope last weekend did. I hope my friend will remember that life is fun even when you're a teacher. I hope she remembers that significant gains are important, but taking care of yourself and staying happy is far more so.

From what I observe each day, one of the major contributors to the education fallout in the United States is teachers burning out. This includes good, enthusiastic teachers like my peers who have the potential to be excellent. When teachers leave schools, especially the underresourced ones, they create instability, unsupervised students, a loss of regular procedures and most definitely no significant gains. It's frustrating to watch the repercussions of teachers burning out.

But it's more frustrating to watch someone burning out and not doing anything about it. The Teach for America teacher I was placed with last year left in December. Substitute after substitute went through the class. Kids were unruly. Learning seemed optional.

Yet I was happy to see her pack her bags and return to the East Coast. She was unhappy. She was working herself sick toward those significant gains and no one wants to see a friend miserable. To this day I feel guilty for not being more supportive of her when she was beginning to spiral into burn-out. By the end, her leaving was self-preservation.

So this time, it felt like I had another chance to "save" a teacher, a friend. It cost a $300 airplane ticket, one and a half days away from my students and too much money on a wool Banana Republic sweater, but I'm hoping my point was made: Significant gains are important, purposeful planning is important and not wasting a moment is important. But having fun is necessary. Relax.

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)