(2) Deadly Years

New Orleans, Louisiana, was named the murder capital of America in 1994 and the majority of murders were happening in the Third Ward's B.W. Cooper Apartments, affectionately called the Calliope Projects by locals (and pronounced KAL-ee-ope or KAL-e-o). At that time, I was in my second year at my private, Catholic college, majoring in Elementary Education and beginning to take my core courses.

By 1995, I began student teaching at a suburban elementary school in Metairie, Louisiana. The children were mostly white and I got a lot of questions about why I was so tan. The few African American students would come right up to me, tell me I had good hair, and ask me if I was mixed. I would say to them, "Aren't we all?" They'd walk away puzzled, but wondering if it was true.

I graduated in May of 1996 and was sent out into the world in the Catholic tradition to serve and teach.

After blowing off most of that summer in an attempt to recover from school, I realized that it was time to get a job and applied to New Orleans Public Schools (NOPS). In mid-August, I got a frantic, but nice call from a lady in the NOPS Human Resources Department who gave me the name and phone number of a principal who had just been appointed to an elementary school on Martin Luther King Blvd.. She said they had an immediate teaching opening and that I should call, but I first drove to the neighborhood to check out the location. MLK Blvd., was the main thoroughfare into the Calliope and I saw that the school was located a block from the projects. To me, this was a no brainer, I wasn't going to follow up.

A few days later, the nice-but-frantic lady from HR called back and asked if I had connected with the principal. I lied and said that I had called him, but that no one answered. She then proceeded to get off the phone with me and hunted down said principal at a birthday party at his mother's house. He called a few minutes later and set up an interview time to meet with him the following day.

Photo credit: time.com

For more info on the Calliope Projects:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calliope_Projects

(4) Color

My interview with David Charbonnet, the new principal of the school, was more like a sales pitch. He was young (mid-thirties), tall, Creole, charismatic, handsome and did all of the talking. He was newly appointed and had fresh plans for the school. Mr. Charbonnet hired me right on the spot and told me to report to school in two days which would be the first day of school for staff.

I wasn't given a chance to think about it or to say no, but his pitch worked and I identified with him on some level. We lived in a city that only acknowledged two races - black and white. We, on the other hand, were both brown. Mr. Charbonnet was African American and came from a mixed, well-established, Creole family. He had light brown skin and straight black hair, and used to brag about the fact that he did not have any body hair and didn't have to shave his face. He said it was a genetic trait that he got from the Native American side of his family. I was mixed too, but not African American. But by our looks, Mr. Charbonnet and I could have been related.

As I worked at the school, I was surprised by how quickly the Calliope community claimed us both as their own.

Image credit: Sopoforic

(5) First Days

We had two days of staff meetings before my first day with students. The "Professional Development Days" as they were called, went by quickly. I spent the time getting to know the staff and learning about numerous school procedures. Mr. Charbonnet continued to be charismatic and the staff responded well to their new leader who dressed in snappy suits accented by colorful Save the Children ties which depicted children's artwork.

I got about two hours to set up my classroom which consisted of a pile of old desks and broken chairs. Later I learned that all of the good furniture had already been claimed by the veteran teachers and that new teachers got the old stuff and the problem children.

My assignment was fifth grade and the first day with my 33 students was a blur. There was a lot going on that day and frankly, my students ate me alive. I don't remember much and I am grateful for the small mercy of forgetting. Thinking back, I've realized that it's not just what you remember that's important, but also what you don't remember.

On the first day of school, one of my students got up from his seat and stood by the window. We were on the second floor and I asked him what he was doing. He shouted back that he was opening the window so that he could jump out of it and sue me. I wouldn't have taken him seriously except that he started to dangle one of his legs out of the window. This led to me pulling him back in, pandemonium breaking out in the classroom, and Mrs. Prentiss coming into the room.

When Mrs. Prentiss came in, the class went silent and the student who had tried to jump out the window began to cry.

If you are a teacher, what was your first day like?

(8) Boxed Up

The first year of teaching for anyone is usually a learning curve, but to teach in the Calliope made that learning curve exponentially harder. As a first year teacher, my college teacher preparation program did not prepare me for the kinds of situations that I would have to face on a minute by minute basis. I learned what I needed to know to survive from my colleagues and the community.

That year, I watched our shiny, new principal unravel into a fatigued, cranky, and self-serving leader whose new agenda seemed to be moving on up to a district level director job. However, as I know now, that would not happen for a few years. The reality is that our district office expected administrators to do their time (and to demonstrate that they had served their time loyally) in order to get out.

With no real leader, my colleagues stepped up and took over my education. The person who had the most direct access and influence over me was Mrs. Prentiss. We both taught fifth grade and our classrooms were next door to each other. There was a door in the back that connected both our rooms together.

In order to have a relationship with Mrs. Prentiss, I had to compartmentalize what I knew about her as a person and what I would find out about her as a teacher. I had to learn how to put my thoughts and feelings into separate boxes in order to move forward. This was a skill that I came to rely on for many people and situations during those first years. If I had not used separate boxes, I would have lost my mind.