¡Confluencia! Singing the Songs of Ourselves “at” the NCTE Annual Convention by Hannah Lewis

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of my couch, my office, my desk, my computer screen--really, my house. As infection rates in my community remain high, I continue to avoid gatherings with others as much as possible. It’s pretty isolating. The only songs I want to sing of myself are blues songs--and not very good ones--about sitting at home. I feel cut off from the confluence of forces that usually keep me lively, good-natured, funny, and focused. 

I can say with confidence that being a part of a professional community helps me to hold onto community even as I feel isolated, and it has always helped me to see myself as a professional with a particular teacher identity. When I received my teaching certification from Pitt back in 2012, professors there encouraged us to participate in groups like the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) and local affiliates like the Pennsylvania Council for Teachers of English and Language Arts (PCTELA). I’ve since found the Bread Loaf Teacher Network (BLTN) and, more recently, the Western Pennsylvania Council for Teachers of English (WPCTE). For me, these groups helped me to maintain a continuity of vision and purpose throughout a tumultuous early career; they have kept me grounded in my “why,” even as I experienced difficulties. 

In 2019, I developed a meditation on the way my professional communities and relationships had informed my teaching and the ways in which my teaching networks had served as a form of self-care, which I shared with a small group at the Penn Stater at the PCTELA annual conference. An attendee there encouraged me to further develop the presentation and propose it to NCTE as well. Imagine my delight and surprise when I was chosen to present “Refining a Teacher Identity through the Confluence of Your Teacher Family's Influences” (in poster version) at NCTE 2020 in Denver! And imagine my subsequent disappointment when that conference was canceled early this year.

In the end, NCTE’s 2020 conference did happen after all, in a virtual format, and I was still able to present. I found myself thinking again about how to share this information in a way that would mean something to others. You can click here for my poster, or here for the guided tour (or see both on the NCTE conference platform here). The creation of this poster was a fusion of my original vision (which was a tri-fold game board and a set of blank trading cards to distribute to those who came over to discuss it with me) and a 2020 teacher favorite, the hyperdoc (a concept covered in Casey Sirochman’s September Virtual PD blog post). I enjoyed the challenge of creating a digital document that maintained the playful element of the game board and the idea of “collecting” the wisdom of different educators who fit the various “archetypes” I described. 

Nevertheless, I was still disappointed not to be in Denver. It was difficult for me to bring myself to take the time to familiarize myself with the virtual platform. How could they possibly convey the feeling of being among friends and colleagues from across the country? I wondered. How could this feel like anything more than a consolation prize for the conference-that-couldn’t-be? 

I don’t know how many of you know NCTE president and 2020 conference organizer Alfredo Lujan (you may remember he was an active part of NCTE’s weekly events over the Summer), but as soon as I logged in to the conference, I realized I was wrong to doubt that he could produce anything short of magic. The opening session reenergized me immediately. Lujan reminisced about his creative process coming up with the theme for this conference in--of all places--Pittsburgh! After flexing some Pittsburghese and showcasing some lovely author contributions, he turned it over and we heard from keynote speaker Trevor Noah. The serendipity continued, because Noah’s memoir Born a Crime had come up when we discussed This Book is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell at a WPCTE book club in the Summer Series. WPCTE founder John Manear had mentioned it as part of his curriculum, and the new young-adult adaptation of the book is included in the EnglishFest titles this year! Hearing Trevor Noah speak passionately about his love for English teachers and connecting his own experiences with Lujan’s reminded me, once again, of my “why.” 

Conferences tend to do that to me. Every time I attend one, no matter if I’m presenting or not, no matter how much of a hassle I have to go through to attend, they remind me of the importance of what I do--what we do together. So while we couldn’t be together with colleagues in Denver this year, and while we can’t be together in person for WPCTE’s EnglishFest this year (which lives on in a virtual format) or at PCTELA’s annual conference (which has been canceled), we have to hang on to our “why,” and remind one another. Some of us may not even be present with our students or colleagues this year, so virtual togetherness is more important than ever. 

As a cyber school teacher, I’ve often been asked over the course of my career how I build community with my students, and I always have answers; I even wrote about it for this blog. If we center virtual community-building not just for our students but for us, we can do it. This blog. Cheerful chats. Book clubs. Social media communities. Even text messages, emails, and phone calls to our colleagues just to check in. All of these matter. They mean something. They keep us grounded in our “why.”

As we move on to a new year, look back at 2020 and consider your teacher family. Think of your colleagues in your district, your social network, and your professional organizations. Consider thanking someone for the role they play in helping you fill out your teacher identity, and remember that you are giving of yourself to other educators as well as students.  

Through singing that old song of ourselves--the one we remember from when things weren’t quite so hard--we can remind ourselves and one another of our individual and collective teacher identities, our “why,” and our work. The confluence of our voices--separated by distances great and small, though they may be--is what makes the song that sustains us. 

And we won’t always be singing apart; we will be together again. New things await us, together, in the new year. 

Another Kind of “Training School” by Lisa Silverman

Another Kind of "Training School"

    I am a (white) feminist and anti-racist who lives in Penn Hills, a suburban community outside of Pittsburgh that is 37% Black, and I work in the neighboring Woodland Hills School District serving predominantly Black students. The vitality of my classroom depends on many things, but one essential tenet is including Black literary voices in my classroom. That’s why contemporary works like Camille Acker’s short story collection Training School for Negro Girls are so important: for Black students, they give children agency and a positive view of their culture in the curriculum; for white teachers and other students, the stories give us a window to see worlds we may not know otherwise. Presumably, all of us “achieve full participation in society” by exploring such rich texts in the classroom.

I suggested Acker’s book to the WPCTE during a book club Zoom for This Book Is Anti-Racist. After unpacking the concept of systemic racism in that book, it naturally follows that educators interrogate their role(s) in perpetuating these systems and acknowledge their responsibility to disrupt anti-Black racism in their classrooms. Fortunately, the PA Core Standards for ELA require that we introduce students to a variety of literary perspectives in the classroom, and short stories like Acker’s can aid us in exploring the Black experience.

Last month, Ms. Acker graciously met with a small group of WPCTE members via Zoom and discussed her short stories, her creative process, Washington D.C., and Black womanhood. Acker also read “Everything She Wants” from her book--a bittersweet story about a young girl’s experience with her mother’s mental illness. Her stories often meet at the intersection of race, class, and gender, and all these layers and nuance make them interesting and provocative tales. 

At the beginning of last school year, my seniors read “Who We Are.”  In the story, a group of young girls rebels against school and society by cutting class and intimidating everyone who unluckily crosses paths with them. Although the girls seem “wild” (the story climaxes with the teens intimidating an old woman on the Metro), there is agency in their insubordination. My students resoundingly described them as “bad,” but they also recognized their need for power in a world where it is rarely afforded them. 

During our Zoom with her, Acker described to us a time when she, too, was the “bad” girl at school, cutting classes and exploring the world on her own terms. Many personal experiences have influenced her work, but at the heart of all of these stories is a great empathy for her characters and a disdain for class elitism. She brings dignity to characters who are typically marginalized by the hegemony, like TSA agent Bess in her story “All the Things You’ll Never Do.” Acker drew her inspiration for the character in an airport. She was struck by the fact that so many of these TSA agents, who are underpaid and yet charged with the great responsibility of keeping everyone safe, have often never flown on planes themselves. 

Acker’s characters are all so complex that they will naturally elicit ambivalence from readers. One such story is “Final Draft of College Essay,” which I used as one of three model texts for teaching students how to write the college application essay. Acker admitted that protagonist Kara N. Tompkins would likely not get into college with her essay, and I admitted that I used it as a model for what not to do in the students’ essays!  In my class, we deconstructed what the protagonist did wrong in her essay but also what Acker did right with characterization.  Students had strong responses to Kara. Some loved her vulnerable interiority and sympathized with her struggle to navigate through high school, others reviled Kara for her social ineptitude and inability to maintain her focus in the essay, and some were somewhere in between. Whatever the students’ response, it was a good exercise in text dependent analysis for students to defend their disparate views of the protagonist.

One cannot underestimate the importance of teachers reading and using a book like Camille Acker’s Training School in the classroom, particularly in an age of social justice and Black Lives Matter.  While I have subscribed to a paradigm of culturally relevant pedagogy my entire 27-year career, I know that many others are new to this work.  An astounding 94% of public school teachers in Pennsylvania are white.  The racial segregation in Allegheny County is also so rigid and prevalent that in many ways, western Pennsylvanians of any race are not likely to experience any other cultures except their own.  As a result, teachers and students in predominantly white districts and communities may seldom interact  with Black people or culture--and never in sustained and nuanced ways. Thus, Acker’s book is arguably a “training school” for teachers—whether they teach in racially diverse schools or not—to experience the Black community vicariously through a Black lens. It is also an invaluable tool to expose all students to authentic, multi-faceted Black characters. 

Currently, Acker is working on another book of short stories and a novel, but for creative reasons, she would not divulge the content with us. We are grateful for her visit and anticipate more fresh perspectives in her writing, and of course, more opportunities to grow as teachers and learners.

Lisa Silverman is English department chair at Woodland Hills High School and currently teaches Creative Writing I & II, English 12 Honors, and AP Literature & Composition. She also facilitates an anti-racism club for students 9-12 and is a steadfast supporter of equity in public schools. She can be reached at silvli@whsd.net.