That other bell, the one that marked the end of transition where kids needed to be seated in classrooms for afternoon attendance was like forty-two, forty-three seconds away. I could tell. I worked at the same school, in the same building for six years. After six years there are things like the timing of bells that have an innate way of growing into a teacher’s timing and expectations. Into a teacher’s values. Bells have become my self-preservation. Only in between those bells, we allow a slice of ourselves to exist. 

Laila understood this about me as she walked towards my classroom after that first bell rang. I heard you! My, my, my. That, that, that. She was near the door with thirty-one seconds left before that second bell rang. That, that, that. Theirs, theirs, theirs. She also has learned this about school too. We, me, them, that, theirs…we all tell them their smart if and when they show us that they know that. Laila knows that. 

She said, “I’m not involved in that, Mr. Morris…That’s not me this time.”

This time. What does this time mean at the end of confessional sentences coming out of a 14-year-old girl’s mouth when speaking about friends, students, coming back from lunch and singing songs with less than 41 seconds until they’re supposed to be seated at their desks? Laila arrived at the doorway nine paces before her singing friends. She knew how to do that. I know that she knows that I know she’s learned a thing or two about school. 

“Did you go out to lunch with them, Laila?” I didn’t even really look at her when I asked her. I looked at her when she started to respond. “Yeah, of course. You know that, Mr. Morris. We go out to lunch together. Everyday.” She didn’t look at me when she answered. We both were watching her friends happily singing away while unlocking their locks to their lockers. That second bell rang. They were still singing. We were still staring. “Laila, get into the classroom. The second bell rang. I’m ‘bout to take attendance.”

“Okay. Mr. Morris.”

There’s an immeasurable thing that occurs in between remembering and writing memories down. A similar gap occurs when teaching and remembering how to teach. An equivalent gap happens to kids who understand the difference between acting like kids and performing like students in front of teachers. Some students grapple with it and get it on the spot. Some kids never get it and only realize it after when they are on porches with friends, half drunk, talking about that time Mr. SoAndSo said this or did that. Some just say, “I know, Mr. Morris” to the teacher in a way that makes their teacher know that they know. Those kids are smart. I like to think that some of those other kids know both ends of that dichotomy and come back from lunch singing songs because they know. Because they know, too. So they don’t give or break or bend. In a good way. Because they know. Those kids are smart, too.

For right now I think Laila is smarter than Shari, Felicia, and Nasir. But I don’t know. I know that they’ve learned and thought about ways to break or bend. But, I do know them. The same way Laila thinks she knows me enough to dissociate herself with her friends and pronounce to her teacher that she isn’t them. I think I know her well. Shari, Felecia, and Nasir too. But I help her more, between those bells, because I know her more and I think she knows me better than those other kids actually know me. Because I know that teaching comes down to bending, breaking and re-molding. I mean, they came back singing after lunch. Knowing. Not broken. Never bending. But I wanted to tell Laila that there ain’t nothing wrong with singing after a lunch and coming back into a building still singing. Unmoulded in a way. Adults never do that. I really sometimes deep down want to do that. But I never do. I don’t know if she know that. I wonder if those three other kids, who came back singing, know that better. Never knowing that they’ll never know what it means to break.

I never actually know so I never actually do because I’ve learned how to live in between those bells. That’s what I’ve been taught. That’s how I learned how to teach. The bells alone ring so loud that I automatically know what they are supposed to mean. Sometimes I forget what it means to live outside of them when I am immersed inside of them every day, all day, until they stop ringing. To still be still, and moving flexibly at the same time. Laila told me, without telling me, she heard them. Those other kids told me the same thing. But they didn’t say it to my face. They told me another way. They sang. They sang through those bells. And kept singing after those seconds after the bell rang silent. And then they stopped singing. They knew it was time for afternoon attendance. They came into class. They knew I heard them so I could never mark them not there. They’re there. All of them. I call names and say, “when you hear your name, say here.” They all do. I have to decide on what I should listen to more. 

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“We have a test?” I asked him. “On the book?” He looked at me and nodded, “open book, she say,” while hastily opening his locker to retrieve his novel. I hadn’t read a single page. Without thinking, I went into my knapsack, grabbed my copy of the book, and ripped out the first three chapters. No way I could do a quiz if the book I received didn’t even include all the necessary pages, right? There was a time when I hated hated reading. 

That time lasted at least four years, starting in ninth grade. I’m sure most of the books I was required to read during those four years hold their own within the canons of literary nobility. And it wasn’t even the narratives in these books that put me off. A group of boys stranded on a deserted island sounds like it would make for a dope story. So did a spooky house on a waspy southern street and an altruistic white lawyer who comes to the defence of an innocent Black man, I guess. It was more the whole process in which we had to engage with books in school that made me hate reading so much that I felt compelled to rip pages out of a classic.

The idea that someone’s subjectivity could be wrong without being further explored was dulling. So was the underlying notion that Ms. Szuke or Mr. Nobes or whichever English teacher had pre-determined the trajectory for how we would engage with the book; questions they gave us to answer, close readings they determined were significant, themes they told us that we had to also see and tease out. Cookie-cutter stuff. And all of these books that made me hate reading revolved around characters and places that looked, sounded, smelled, and seemed nothing like my neighborhood. Teachers didn’t need to hand out mirrors for us to read, but damn, not once did we get something that reflected a glimmer of us, not even just a little bit.  

When I started this, the plan was to recommend five books that can help, whether or not you teach english. But it went somewhere else. I could have got in front of this text and steered it towards a direction that, hundreds of words later, aligned with the idea I had when I first opened my laptop to write. But that isn’t what makes people read along. People read along when they are allowed to steer, make meaning for themselves, and intersect with the text in ways that curate engagement. I maybe wouldn’t have hated reading if my teacher’s picked different books for us to read. But I definitely wouldn’t have hated reading if some of my teacher’s took to teaching about reading and books in more vulnerable, honest, and fluid ways.

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In regards to that first day back, it is true that nothing can really prepare you for that first day and especially those first few minutes. The best teachers are organized yet innovative. If you think the first day will be overwhelming for you, imagine how the students feel! Remember to take a second and slow down. Pause. Give your kids a breather. For me, organization is a key. I am naturally someone who is more inclined to go with the flow and respond on the spot. But I understand that when you have a million and one things that need to get done, putting pen to paper isn’t such a bad idea and will actually save you time in the long run. Lesson plans, unit plans, activity ideas, comment banks, are all things that can do nothing other than help a young teacher. I try to go over things with my students a few times to make sure that they understand.

The first day is one of the easiest but also most crucial days to set the tone for your class. Make sure you take advantage of the fact that although your students will be excited to be back around all of their friends and anticipating a new year, they will also be super receptive this day – picking up on your subtle cues as well as your “dos and don’ts”. Today is a day for you to learn your students but be careful…it is also a day for your students to learn you.

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I put on a movie to start first period. It was a documentary about the history of Canada and the episode was detailing the war of 1812. As I attended to a few menial tasks, I routinely scanned the room ensuring that my students were engaged or at least had enough social awareness to pretend they were. I figured the movie was our best option for today; my students needed a brief break between the project they just handed in and the next task I was about to assign. My scanning didn’t last more than a few seconds before I noticed a group of boys more interested in their fidget spinners than the video detailing events leading up to Canada’s becoming. I walked over to the group and told them to put the toys away and focus on the doc, reminding them that the information would be used for our next project. Five minutes later, I needed to address them again. This time, it wasn’t the spinners but the low commotion of dialogue; one of my boys actually had his back turned away from the screen while chatting with a peer. I bellowed out a few of their names and gave a stare; publicly acknowledging boys (for both positive and negative feedback) always works better. It worked and they paid attention…for a bit.

The same thing happened a few hours later during math class. After delivering a short lesson, I gave my students some practice work. The girls worked quietly in small groups, asking for help when needed while making small, and quiet, talk. My boys on the other hand, ventured off into distracting behaviors that took them so far away from the task at hand that they barely got beyond scribbling the date on the top of their worksheets. It was a blah morning for me as a teacher: no relatable math lesson, no inspiring words to encourage my students, but I still had much of my girls on whatever task was at hand and struggled to keep my boys attention for longer than mere minutes. In light of my admittedly subpar teaching, I was really struck by the fact that boys really do learn differently.

After positioning myself in a space that would force these boys to actually do some math work, I began to think about the whole notion of “boys learning differently”. When you boil it down into traditional assumptions based on gender and identity, if boys learn differently that also means girls learn differently. The issue manifests because school is catered to the learning styles that females typically feel more comfortable with. That can be a loaded statement if taken at face value. But think about it: saying “boys learn differently” is not a charge against boys per se but rather an indictment on how we educate children. In essence, if we are routinely struggling as educators to engage and teach half of our student population (read: boys), then it is not on the fault of boys but on the fault of implicit teaching measures and pedagogies that impede male student learning. Saying “boys learn differently than girls” is a valid argument. But at some point the, “okay, so then what?” has to kick in.

I know if I come to school and teach in a mundane, status-quo like manner, I am leaving many of my students uninspired. I also know that, for the most part, no matter how I approach the material I am supposed to cover, the majority of my girls are going to sit, work, and try to learn it to the best of their capabilities. I don’t have the answers for how we all should move forward with our craft. I do know that when we say boys learn differently, we have to come forth with strategies and applications that reach the way our boys learn.

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Welcome to 2017, where ripped jeans that expose thigh skin, spaghetti-strapped tops, lululemon pants, and “low riding” are some of the clothing choices barred from many public schools. Read that list again. Now, ask yourself this question: who do our dress codes target? Unless you have actually been Keeping Up With the Kardashians, you will know exactly whom they target. I look at the list and I see, “girl”, “girl”, “girl”, and “boy, whom is most likely black”. I think we can begin to draw some conclusions here, one being that dress codes sexualize the female body and racialize the black male body. Let that simmer and keep reading on if you agree with me.

Over the last several years, I worked in a school that ranged in students from kindergarten to eighth grade. On numerous occasions I saw girls get “dress coded” for wearing things like spaghetti strap blouses or tank tops. These girls were 12 or 13. In the same days as these “infractions” would occur, I saw 7- and 8-year-old girls stroll through the hallways in the exact same outfits. Same outfits and somewhere in their desks or backpacks they had the same agenda that outlines the same dress code policy. Why did the girls in 8^th grade get in trouble and not the 8-year-olds? Once, you’ve come to that answer, ask yourself what implicit assumptions are we making when we pick and choose like this.

We sexualize and racialize bodies through dress codes that target specific people while simultaneously maintaining that these one-dimensional standards are universal. All the while, do we ever consider exactly how a dress code benefits student success and the greater good of education? I was once suspended for wearing my hat in the hallway. I missed two days of school and the only learning I soaked in was that the school and the real world were two distinct places in which one of them pissed me off exponentially more than the other.

We should be thinking about ways to engage all learners in education. We should teach that there is a time and place for particular aesthetics, but I question whether or not that should be done through a dress code policy. Perhaps explicit teaching practice that fosters student awareness on the complexities of cultural appropriateness, spatial or social awareness, and for lack of a better term, “playing the game of school” (which translates into the “game” of life, at least, arguably, from a cultural standpoint) is a better route to take. If you think a dress code is appropriate, bring every stakeholder to the table and have an honest discussion. Do not rely on the so-called gaze of the powerful and privileged to dictate what is and is not acceptable. If we allow this, it is clear how and who such a policy affects.

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I am a millennial and went to school during a time when most of my teachers were baby boomers. Without painting a utopian educational landscape that suggests schooling in the 90s and early 2000s was bliss, there did seem to be a greater connection between the curriculum and the student. A decade or two ago, not everything students learned was relevant, but it did seem a whole lot more relatable and practical. Although it is not specifically indicated in the curriculum, we spend time in Geography teaching kids how to read maps. Yes, I will not hesitate to roast a friend who doesn’t know which direction north or west is when driving to a destination, but who the hell is pulling out a physical map these days? Breaking news alert: we got this thing called GPS now. Some of the ways we teach Generation Z simply do not make sense.

Beyond that, the socio-emotional incentives social media and technology provide students with rival particular rewards we still traditionally (try to) instill through schooling. Why hone your craft in an athletic skill when you could turn on your PS4 and create an avatar so realistic that you would rather work your thumb dexterity than learn how to perfect a dribble drive move that works all the time? Some kids would rather win 8 straight titles in 2K than make an actual, real-life basketball team.

The hyperbolic analogy merely suggests that we must re-think the ways we engage students in the learning process. We must re-conceptualize strategies that will hook students for as long as their favorite vines do. To folk born in the 80s and before, the thought sounds sad but it is a truth we must embrace instead of fight against.

Some of the most successful, creative, and influential “millennials” were born out of an educational system that connected the “current” past to the unforeseeable present. And many of these most-known figures didn’t graduate from universities. Have we even stopped to consider what this reality is teaching students? Ironically, who we adults think of when we consider the trail-blazers that are pushing our societal boundaries are people like Mark Zuckerberg. But, many of these kids don’t even know who Mark Zuckerberg is! Their role models are gamers, insta-celebrities, and self-made entrepreneurs. Instead of holding on to the past as a way to prepare students for a successful future, we have to look for ways to connect with youngsters on a level that seamlessly bridges our new generational gap. Maybe, just maybe, we have to do it for the likes.

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Last night, I purposely took some time to sit and talk with my old man. After losing my mother earlier this year, it is the conversations with those dearest to me that matter the most. So on Friday night, I picked his brain as an ethnographer would but also with the grace of a son. I didn’t want answers per se, I just wanted to know. I wanted to learn – to learn his life, and to learn how he came to be the man that he has become. My father is a man of values – the type of man that is often forgotten in this age of social media and displaying selfies to an audience for one’s personal validation.

Last night, he spoke to me with poignancy and clarity. We talked about his schooling experiences and old school schooling. A few things stuck out from our conversation. One of the things he talked about was that in his schooling experience in Jamaica, he felt that there was “no competition” in class. I pushed him to explain his sentiment. He elaborated that in school “back home” everybody got along and “nobody cheated off of each other because you didn’t know if the person beside you was smarter than you or not.” “So why am I going to cheat?” he added. This got me thinking about how our current educational paradigm has produced a counter reality to this, and it also begged me to ponder, which way is better?

People “back in the day” weren’t preoccupied with a hierarchy of validation based on some materialistic vision of intelligence that today’s school espouses. Kids then were at school for two reasons: because they had to be and because they wanted to learn. Today, our educational system has systemically erased the former – students are practically forced to be in (traditional) school until the age of 16. But, is this good for education, or bad? I will adamantly confess that I have no answer. However, I do think that because of the mandatory nature of school, students implicitly find alternative ways to compete with peers. For urban black boys, this has resulted in devastating consequences.

Because schooling is in effect compulsory, competition is now fostered. Also because schooling is so generic, it almost becomes completely unengaging. Many on the educational foreground think this is a good thing. It’s the American dream – competition breeds success and it also cultivates excellence. They also argue that because all schools are the same, everyone gets an “equal” opportunity to succeed. But we often forget the insidious side of competition and the unfortunate side of conformity.

When students are pigeonholed into the same corridor of “academic” growth and validation, passive resistance to the unbalanced validation of excellence will arise. Despite what a lot of educators think, school produces counter cultures of validation that sprout in contrast to the traditional forms of academic excellence. All of our students are smart. But education has now equated academic competency with intelligence, and certain students either refuse to or are not equipped with the tools to play that game. I was one of the lucky ones; many of my brothers were not.

So what did they choose? They chose to resist school in all its forms. They resisted because alternative forms of respect within classrooms and hallways are present and perceptually more valuable than simply getting an A on a Math test. That is the unfortunate path that our progressive but generic education has led to.

Back in the day, students didn’t bother cheating off of each other, as my father said, because no one knew who was smarter. Now education carves clear and precise hierarchal paths of so-called excellence. The lessons that the old school educational system in other countries set forth needs to be adopted here. Perhaps the reason why no student knew who was smarter was because the educational space didn’t deviate from valuing ALL individuals. Education no longer does this.

This prose may come off as more cynicism than productive analysis of progressive education. But make no mistake, the driving point here is that our schools have chosen to dive head first into the shallow end before measuring the waters at bay. Some things from the past were crucial to empowering a generation of creative minds. Some aspects of that old school schooling inevitably led to the boom in creativity that has happened over the last 30 odd years.

So before we start from scratch and amputate our past, we need to revisit how education was done way back when and pick out positives that such a culture instilled. We should look to infuse traditional practices that worked with our current models of school. When we do this, we will not only engage a culture of students who are indelibly different but we will plant values that will lead to positive production and equal validity.

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