It wasn’t my original plan to become a teacher. At first, I didn’t know if I was gonna go to college or not, but I ended up getting accepted into three schools. I wanted to do advertising. I was being naive.
I ended up going to a small state school in Connecticut, where I studied illustration, but I realized I didn’t like people giving me deadlines to do art. I was trying to figure out an alternative. I asked my mom, and she suggested that I look into education. As a single parent, my mom gave me the responsibility of taking care of my two younger brothers.
I did some reflecting about peers and friends I grew up with who weren’t in college. I asked myself why they didn’t go to college. The answer was that they didn’t have anybody in their corner. A few of them ended up incarcerated, dead, or caught up in non-productive activities. They didn’t have much positive guidance. I feel that where we lived in Connecticut didn’t provide enough opportunities for people of color. There was no one telling them, ‘Yeah, the goal is to get to college. That’s the minimum.’ That was too distant for a lot of them.
So at the state school, I took elementary education and history. Eventually, I worked part-time at a few elementary schools in Danbury, Connecticut. I realized I had the opportunity to get out, go to college in a city, finish my degree, and get experience working in an urban setting.
I decided I wanted to go to DC because of all the opportunities here. So during the spring semester of my junior year, I transferred to Howard.
Howard taught me about persistence. I had 72 credits from a state school, but Howard only accepted 25. I had to grind and persuade professors for a while in order to get it up to 52.
Once I got into the education and history classes at Howard, it felt natural. It fed and sparked my curiosity. Everything started to click.
I had a Spanish teacher in high school who said, in front of the entire class, that I would finish high school in jail. But I got Magna Cum Laude when I graduated from Howard. I just needed to find my passion.
One of the reasons I chose DC is because I knew I wanted to bring kids on field trips, and we have so many places to go here. But being at Howard opened up a lot of other doors, too. I worked at an after-school program that allowed me to work on my craft, in terms of educating kids. I got my undergrad in history and my graduate degree in elementary education.
While I was finishing up my grad year, I worked as a paraprofessional for students with autism. Then I did student teaching under the wing of this phenomenal second grade teacher, Ms. St Hill. The following year, the new principal decided to add another third grade teacher, and it ended up being me. There were a lot of ups and downs, especially because Ms. St Hill left the school — it was a roller coaster. I didn’t get a lot of sleep. And at that time, third grade teachers covered all subjects.
Next, the district decided to move toward departmentalization. At the end of my first year, the principal asked, ‘Hey, you want to do math and social studies?’ I was like, ‘Sure.’ It’s a little unusual, because usually one teacher takes math and science and the other takes English and social studies.
I infuse math with different things. For example, around Lunar New Year, I show the kids dragon boat races and we do activities related to multiplication. When we get to the distributive property, I connect the concept to the real world by incorporating different HBCU marching bands. I try to take that angle, sprinkling different components of social studies into math. I even involve my life in the classroom — my petty disputes with my siblings and walking my dog — so students can see me as a human and relate to, connect, and trust me. Most of them either have a pet or a sibling.
Math is a higher priority, for various reasons. In a lot of elementary schools around the country, social studies isn’t highly prioritized. Because it’s not tested. So I try to make sure it does not get neglected.
This is my third school. I’ve been teaching for eight years. At any school that I’ve worked in, I’m always there for kids. I will stay at school until seven o’clock, I’ll be one of the first people to come to events, and I do home visits. I’ve hosted father figure days, ran kickball games, led international nights, and done many more events to connect the school community. I learned that from my mom, who’s worked at the same bank for over 35 years; I’ve seen people above her call her late at night, asking for advice, but that job did not reciprocate the love.
At a previous school where I worked, there was something called Flagway, which was started by the Young People’s Project out of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Flagway Game was created by Bob Moses, who decided to focus on empowering kids through math after he noticed there’s a level of success that people achieve if they understand algebra.
I went through training to learn how to do Flagway. It involves early forms of algebra, and it’s very interactive with math — the kids play a game on this big obstacle course. So at Turner Elementary, I decided to start a team. I worked in southeast DC, and the schools over there have fewer resources. We did it during spring break because most of the students weren’t going anywhere. Most of the families weren’t middle or upper middle class, traveling places.
Then I found out they were having the National Math Festival here in DC. I was able to get a hotel for us to stay in. I brought the kids out to dinner, we played video games, and they were excited.
There were kids on other teams who had been doing this for years, but it was our first time doing it. After the first two rounds, our team wasn’t doing so well. We lost. The kids weren’t even upset, though — they were just so proud of themselves.
They walked away saying, ‘We tried our hardest. This was cool. We want to keep on doing this.’ That was a highlight for me. Instead of being discouraged, they had the opposite reaction. That’s important in a neighborhood where families have negative experiences with the education system.
Teachers are the kitchen table. So many people come to teachers with different things. I hear about home life from parents, behavior in special classes, issues after school or during lunch… it’s a heavy load, and teachers have to act and put on a front.
In my first year of teaching, I wouldn’t even take off when I was sick because I felt I couldn’t leave the kids. My math coach eventually told me to go to a doctor, and I was told I had bronchitis. I already have asthma, so that could have ended badly. We are humans, not superheroes. I think that the expectations for teachers can become a lot, and the mental health of teachers isn’t great because we inherit the trauma of our students.
For a 30-minute lesson, it might take me 45 minutes to an hour to put together PowerPoint slides — using diverse pictures, including some of the kids’ names. Prep takes a lot of energy. I use music, videos, art, activities that get kids out of their seats, and real-world connections to deepen students’ learning with the hope it makes a difference.
By the time students reach third grade, school is a little bit different and more difficult. There’s more required from them in third grade — there’s higher rigor, and the level of freedom and autonomy isn’t the same. It’s a learning curve for students. But their creativity is next level, especially at this school. Third graders take ownership of their projects, and the stuff that they come up with with their hands is just amazing.
I’m passionate about interdisciplinary lessons because I believe students can deepen their learning when they see how different concepts are connected. I also know there are multiple intelligences and everyone learns in their own unique ways. There are so many factors when trying to teach holistically. The projects we do hopefully create experiences that tap into various ways of showing knowledge, because I know that traditional paper assessments don’t always reveal how well a student is learning.
I was considering doing other things in education, because we have a teacher evaluation system in DC that I don’t really agree with. It’s called IMPACT, and it affects people’s income and brings a high level of anxiety.
I understand there should be a way to hold teachers to high expectations, but there are certain components of it that I believe are inappropriate. For example, 10% of my final score at the end of the year is based on a survey that third graders have to do about my teaching. If a few kids have bad days or don’t understand the wording of a question, it can create negative consequences. The survey has questions like, ‘Does your teacher give you challenging work to read?’ A third grader can interpret that kind of question in many ways, especially when I’m teaching them math and not reading.
As a teacher, I know that if I use a logical consequence or they’ve had a rough week at home, they may rate me low that day even if they’d rate me high the following week. But that survey makes up 10% of my evaluation for the whole year. I’m sure not many active teachers would have approved of this component because it comes across as very punitive and there is no opportunity for us to take the results and make changes to improve. My salary may or may not increase annually.
Once or twice a year, an administrator will come in and observe for 15 to 20 minutes, and that snapshot is a big part of the score as well. It all affects your pay, and there have been some years when I haven’t reached the ‘effective’ scores. So my pay did not increase during those years.
For the years that I didn’t make it, I was off by maybe five points. It’s so exact. There’s no rounding. A kid could have skipped a question on my evaluation survey or felt like, ‘I’m done with this.’ Little things like that add up. It causes anxiety, because at the end of the year, no matter what you’ve accomplished, you see that one final score. It also dehumanizes kids and minimizes them to just numbers without any narrative.
You think to yourself, ‘Wow. This whole year, I did so much, and this is the result.’ Then when you go to other schools, the individuals who are hiring you see your score, and they question how great of an educator you are based on that score and the little synopsis.
There needs to be more of an emphasis on educator mental health so that we can support students and not fatigue. You make these direct connections with other human beings, and you only have one year. You’re trying to make their lives better, and you don’t have full control over how their lives go. We’re given more on our plate each day, and of course, we love the meal, but we aren’t gluttons and don’t need to suffer in the process.
I think that there needs to be more opportunities for teachers to collaborate with teachers outside of their school building. There have been times I’ve felt isolated in whichever school I was in because of the topics I wanted to learn more about and apply to my practice. I have enough experience now that I’m in a position to have leadership roles on educator teams like the DC Area Educators for Social Justice working group (via Teaching for Change), DCPS’s project-based learning team and math advisory board, and AFT’s civics team while still being in the classroom. The Hall of Famers usually leave the classroom or are so focused on what they’re doing that they have little time to connect with other teachers. At the end of the day, iron sharpens iron and I still want to be one of the best.
That’s why my work with the American Federation of Teachers is imperative. They can reach a wider audience and make macro change. Working with the AFT allows me to hear other teachers’ experiences and overcome closed minds and rigid mindsets from across the country. Through that work, I can feel the pulse of the whole elementary education system in America.
If teachers are exposed to what other teachers are going through, it can bring more teachers together. Decisions and policies are made with little voice from us, but the country saw how valuable teachers were during the pandemic. That could have been a moment to evolve the education system. I feel that there is not a diverse set of teachers represented when major decisions are being made that impact teachers, and that needs to change.
I’m surrounded by a community of educators who want to learn: Teaching for Change, the Young People’s Project, the Algebra Project, and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). There’s always something new to learn, and there are always new experiences to share.
At AFT, they’re creating professional development to uplift civics, and I’m helping with it to make sure it’s relevant to students from backgrounds like mine and my students’. I’m focusing on using experiential learning techniques in civics, primarily roleplay and simulations. I look at things like, ‘What are some research-based ways of using roleplay? How can civics and social studies be integrated into other subjects? How can educators use experiential learning techniques in their classrooms when they face challenges like time constraints, the climate of the area they teach in, and the needs of their students?’
The professional development changes based on where we’re leading it, because the climate is so different in different places throughout the country. People will say, ‘Hey, if you’re using the word equity, you’re trying to change our kids.’ No one is objective, and everyone has biases, including educators. In teaching civics, my goal isn’t to pitch a narrative; it’s to help students develop tools to create their own narrative.
I recently designed a simulation to teach students about DC history and the economy, influenced by the work of Dr. Margit McGuire. Students are placed in 1969 and tasked with running businesses in a DC area affected by the aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination. I start the unit with a field trip visiting businesses in the neighborhood and seeing how they function. Over the course of the unit, they learn about history, taxes, goods and services, and collaboration. The unit also develops their decision-making, public speaking, and creativity skills, providing a deep understanding of entrepreneurship and local history.
When I’m designing units and doing research, I always wonder when I will see more leaders in the research who look like my students. I want my students to see themselves in leadership positions when they’re doing a roleplay or simulation. I want them to experience it and imagine it. Before anyone can become a doctor, they have to experience it — they have to practice before putting you on the surgery table.
Maybe Barack Obama did a roleplay when he was younger, pretending to be President. I bet he did. I bet he thought, ‘Oh, wow. I like this.
–Raphael Bonhomme, Teacher at School Within School, Washington, DC
Reposted with permission from Teachers in Their Power.