The Thursday before school started, we the staff of Detroit Leadership Academy took our stations around the building, preparing for the open house where students would come to get their schedules and chromebooks and begin to reconnect with the world of school after eight weeks away.
I was at the main entrance, checking students in. I didn’t know the freshmen, of course, they were new to our building, but I was watching for those students I recognized, especially the small group of students I had had in my reading class the previous year.
“Hey! How was your summer?” I said as I stood from my seat to receive a hug. “It’s so good to see you!”
I was also watching for last year’s juniors, who would be my new senior class. I knew some of their names, but we aren’t familiar enough for a hug.
“Are you ready for this?” I would say, “You ready to be a senior?”
The replies were varied: “Of course!” “Hell, yeah!” “I think so.” “I’m not sure.” “I’m scared.”
I’ve seen it from every group of seniors I’ve ever taught. Some things don’t change; others do.
The first day of school was predicted to be in excess of 90 degrees, and since our school doesn’t have air conditioning, our administration determined to have an early release. We would see each group of students for just 30 minutes, and then they would board their non – air conditioned busses for the sweltering ride home,.
I had two box fans and two ceiling fans blowing, and my two operational windows as far open as they go. I stationed a cooler full of water bottles covered in ice at the front of my room, and kept the lights off to keep the room as cool as possible.
When the bell sounded, my students met me at the door, got their seat assignments, and made their way to their desks. It took me a while — perhaps until this reflective moment — to register that something felt different.
This wasn’t the fall of 2020 where I met my students inside the small square of the zoom room.
It wasn’t the fall of 2021 where my students entered my room mask-clad, the vibration of anxiety among us palpable.
And it wasn’t the manufactured bravado and audaciousness of 2022 — the defiant swagger born of two years of persistent trauma.
No, this past week, the first week of school year 2023-24 felt….light…spacious…and maybe even hopeful.
As I shared the big picture goals for the year — the district-wide vision that all of our students would be accepted to a college, that 80% of them would enroll in some kind of post-secondary training, and that all of them would attend school more than 90% of the time — I watched the faces of my students, expecting the usual push-back, disinterest, or defiance, but what I saw was a collective subtle nod, an acceptance of this reality, and (an at least temporary) buy in.
Now, don’t be mistaken. I still saw seniors struggling to stay off their phones. I still had one student who, when I mentioned that we would be filling out the FAFSA together, stood up from his desk and said, “I ain’t doing that.” I still had at least one student who proclaimed his main post-secondary goal to be “making music”. It was a room full of high school seniors after all, but something felt different.
While our community regularly struggles with chronic absenteeism, the majority of my students attended all four days last week — even though the temps did crawl into the nineties and both my classroom and the busses were stiflingly hot. Not only that, all of my students made eye contact with me this week. All of my students, even on day one, responded to my call for attention. All of my students participated in gatherings, like the one below, where I asked them to stand and move to the four corners of the room to demonstrate their preferences and interests.
And all of my students participated in the making of our class contract, and when asked, every single student in my class stood up and signed their name in agreement to our class norms.
Some teachers may not think this is a big deal. Perhaps they get 100% buy in on every activity they do in their classrooms, but this has not been the case for me. Not since Covid. Not in my little charter school in Detroit. Not with seniors. Not in this demographic that has historically and recently suffered so much.
In the past few years, it has taken me quite a bit of time to build the relationships and trust that lead to this kind of engagement. When I first started at this school, I was some middle-aged white lady from Ann Arbor — how could I have any idea of what life was like on the other side of the zoom camera where an adolescent Black student sat on her bedroom floor trying to figure out what a URL was and how she was going to move from one zoom room to the other.
The following year, my giddiness at finally getting to be “in the flesh” with students was met with distrust, apprehension, and the layers of protectiveness that Covid and generations of systemic racism had produced. My students were stand-offish, skittish, and surly. It was well into the second semester before I had any meaningful relationships.
Last year, it took less time to build trust with most, but some still refused to engage for the entire year. Yes, the entire year.
So when I got 100% opting in on the first day last week, I was a little stunned.
I was even more surprised on Thursday when I collected the student survey I had handed out and started to read the vulnerable responses to my question: What are you concerned about as you start this year?
Do I have enough credits to graduate? Will I be able to fill out the FAFSA if I’m undocumented? Will I be able to stay focused?
I was in awe of their transparency with their answers to my question: What do you want me to know about you?
English is not my first language. I get mad easily. I am a hard worker. I am funny. I hate school.
And I was touched by their responses to my question, How can I support you this year?
Push me. Help me understand. Explain things when I am confused. Be patient with me.
I’ve just finished the first week of school and I know more about this year’s seniors than I have known about many of the grads for the last three years. Why is this? Is it a sign that the trauma from Covid is waning? Is this just a more self-aware and confident group? Have I been in this school long enough that I have built a reputation of being one who can be trusted? Or is this just evidence that God’s grace is flooding my classroom?
Perhaps it’s some of all of that, but I am not going to look away. I am sensing a rare opportunity with this group. It is smaller than any senior class I have ever had, and they have already opened themselves up so much. I am sensing that we just might become a little family, and I am here for it.
So pray for me, if you would. Pray that I would truly see these students, that I would hear them, and that I would be willing to share with them what I know about the English language, of course, but more importantly what I know about life, about vulnerability, and about change.
Because guys, one thing I know about people who are willing to open themselves up is that they are on the verge of transformation, and I am going to have a front row seat.
What types of changes do I think I’ll see? I’m not sure of all of them, but I have already told my students several times this week that “this is the year when we make the transition from childhood to adulthood.” And for many of these students that is more true than I know. One just had a baby. Some will move straight into the military. Some will go straight to work. And even those who are moving on to more education in college will be shifting to a world that they have never seen before — one where the students around them will be from vastly different backgrounds, one where they won’t necessarily be near the family they have been used to, one where they are going to feel potentially more vulnerable than they have ever felt before.
So the fact that they are already willing to bare a small bit of themselves to me gives me a lot of hope that they will be ready for all the change that is coming at them, and because of that I am sitting on the edge of my front row seat.
I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living.
Psalm 27:13
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