City School Stories

Teacher Stories

Submitted by Angela Chan on October 4, 2011

There is so much about teaching that is intellectually challenging and emotionally taxing, but I found myself experiencing the deepest kind of pain I’d ever known just a few days before school was to start.  We had lost two students whose lives, according to news sources, were ended by their own mother.

Sam, 8 and Samantha, 12, were about to enter the 4^th and 7^th grades respectively.  I had taught Sam in the Extended-Day program the year before.  I was a third grade teacher, and Sam was in the other third grade class.  However, when my grade partner, Sam’s teacher, suddenly passed away, I had considered Sam and his class to be my own.

I saw the headline in the news the day before school started, but I ignored it at first.  Headlines about domestic violence and family tragedies have become something not out of the ordinary in our society. What is one more such case in our city?  Why care enough to spend time to find out the story?  Then came an email from a colleague telling me it might be students from our school.  My heart raced as I opened the story to read its content, but since the names of the children were left out, I couldn’t know for sure.  The circumstances around the deaths of the children were tragic, and I went to bed hoping that they were not children from my school. Read the rest of this entry »

Teacher Stories

Submitted by Bobbie Cratchit, on September 13, 2011

At least ten times a day this past summer I checked Twitter, Facebook and the Philadelphia news media awaiting the news that I suspected was coming since April.  Dr. Ackerman would be leaving the School District of Philadelphia.  In late August, early one morning, the announcement appeared on my Twitter feed.  She was gone.  I couldn’t help but feel excited and vindicated.

I began to wonder about the school year ahead.  I read about teachers being reinstated.  I read about the new West Philadelphia High School.  I read about Dr. Nunery and his plan to focus on the new school year.  What would this change of leadership mean to our students and staff? I wasn’t sure, so I approached September with uncertainty.

Surprisingly, as this new school year begins, I can feel the difference.  I do not have false expectations that there will be a transformation of the School District this year.  In fact, I do not think there will be any noticeable changes at all.  However, there is a feeling.  It’s a feeling that every new school year brings.  It brings enthusiasm, wonderment and a desire to begin anew.  With Ackerman’s departure there seems to have been a shroud lifted.  We are less apprehensive, more willing to try something new.  Teachers are talking about teaching, again.  Gone are the feelings of fear, of retribution and lack of respect.

We are feeling that we have a new start.  A chance to be seen and treated as the professional we truly are.  We are trying to say through our work with students, “See WE are still here!”Our students have a new opportunity to learn.  This feeling is almost defiant.  We will make this year a great year, despite or in spite of curricular limitations!

It is just a feeling.  But right now, in early September, it feels good!