First Day of School 2021

As I slid desks across the shiny, clean floors in anticipation for another school year, I was more nervous and anxious than I've been in years. There is still the exciting promise of a fresh start and the tension of meeting a new group of students, but this year hits a little differently. I struggled to see how I could maintain social distancing for 34 students, and I kept coming across relics from the past: file folders and assignments from my last students in the before times back in the spring of 2020. 

I'm trying to stay optimistic. After all, I'm sending my own unvaccinated elementary school students to their first and fourth grade teachers tomorrow. We are all hoping that universal masking is enough. We hope this variant can be kept in check. We hope we can keep our kids healthy. 

But after 18 months of weighing every decision about what to do and what risks to take, it is the letting go that is hardest right now. And maybe letting go isn't the right thing. Maybe instead we have to hold on to the things most important to us. 

We've learned the importance of our physical and mental health over these past months, so we will be vigilant about masking and about holding space for both the trauma and the joy our students will carry into our classrooms. We are aware of the attacks on our public schools, our elected public officials, and our medical professionals, so we will continue to teach and show up for our students. We can see the world shaking in Haiti, hear of the political upheaval here and abroad, and smell the smoke from global fires, so we must wake up in the morning and continue to fight in our small ways. 

The isolation of this past year has caused me to lose faith in so much, but after sliding those desks around, I was able to arrange my room in order to maintain 3-feet distance. When new sixth and seventh graders came in for orientation, they were full of nervous anticipation as well. We are all feeling so much. I'm certain my students this year will once again restore me to some kind of faith. They do this every year. So as I start back, carrying all of my own trauma and joy, I look forward to the restorative healing a new school year can provide.

For other back to school blogs, click here!

The UTLA Strike: One Year Later

One day five of the UTLA strike in 2019, it finally stopped raining. We all showed up at our schools for morning picketing and although our negotiations team was still hard at work and a resolution was not yet in sight, the clear skies made the day feel different.

One reason was that at our site, NEA Vice President Cecily Myart-Cruz was on the line with us that morning. She has taught at Emerson for years, had served as the UTLA West Area Chair, and was a prominent leader in UTLA leadership's Union Power team. She had asked me if I wanted to speak at the downtown rally that day about class-size. I said yes, and this is the speech I was honored to present in front of City Hall and the massive crowd of educators and supporters in Grand Park. It's only 350 words; just five minutes on stage, but it is a moment of Los Angeles beauty I will never forget.

The view from the stage...

My name is Noriko Nakada. I’m a parent of a first grader at Grandview Elementary School and a teacher at Emerson Middle School and a proud UTLA West chapter chair.

Look at this crowd. I have been standing with you shoulder to shoulder in the rain, on the line, on the train, in our streets across this city, and all I can say is you are beautiful. 

Ten years ago, I sat in the street on Beaudry. It was 2009 and the district was handing out pink slips like sticks of gum. UTLA had to do something. We were tired of the district balancing its budget on the backs of UTLA members. We wanted smaller classes and more support services: school librarians, nurses, and counselors, so we staged a one-hour work stoppage, and a small but mighty group of UTLA members sat on the street in front of Beaudry and we were arrested. It was all we could do. It was something small and mighty.

Now, ten years later, there is nothing small about our mighty, mighty union!

Where we got to see some of our favorite teachers!

And guess what we are still fighting for? Smaller classes. This year my eighth grade English classes average 40 students, and that's lessrthan Ms. Shanley's math classes down the hall that have 50 students. Teachers and students, we know what 40 looks like, but for all of our parents and community members who don’t know, this is what 40 is: Abby Amy Chris David Akira Ashley Darius Eres Ethan Evelyn Grace Gabe Henry Irish Irene Isabelle Jordan Jojo Juliet Julia Jose Kailyn Karla Kiara Leslie Laila Luna Mia Marcus Maya Nicole Neve Reece Riley Sophie Seth Veronica and Zach.

And that’s just fourth period.

They are the ones we are fighting for: more of us to serve more of them, so at the end of this we can all breathe in our classrooms and be able to say 20 or 25 or 30 names a little slower and get deep into the work we do which is to TEACH.

And soon, very soon, we will be back to teaching because I believe that we will win. I believe that will we win. I believe that we will win!

A Year After the Night Before the First Day of the Strike...

This winter break, it was hard to not remember how we were feeling a year ago. We are a two-UTLA salary home, so the looming strike brought a whole lot of worry and stress along with sign-making and rain-gear gathering. All we had to say this year was, "Aren't you glad we aren't getting ready to go on strike?"

photo by ESA alumni Sophie Sanchez

And we are glad. We are proud of the gains that came from the strike: class-size caps, movement on teacher-librarians, nurses, the end to random searches, and increased charter school regulation. It was also amazing to feel supported by so many in our city and across the nation, and then to see educators in Denver, West Virginia, Oakland, Sacramento, the Carolinas, New Haven, Washington State, and Chicago using strikes to demand more for our public schools.

But this year, as I look to celebrate my parents' birthdays over the next two days, commemorate the strike, and start the second semester of the year, I'm also seeing how much remains to be done. Public education continues to be threatened by underfunding, the "reform movement" pours money into campaigns to undermine our schools, and we still need more of the public to lean back into our schools.

My students this year are wonderful, but so many of them are sad and recognize their mistreatment in this system. They deserve so much better: smaller classes so teachers can give them more, counseling services to help heal trauma, safe and clean schools where they feel loved and valued as learners and people, not as attendance dollars or test scores. And that's just what I can think of in these waning moments of winter break.

Tomorrow, I will stand at my door to welcome my students back, and the amazing thing about teaching, is they will show up ready to give so much. They give me new perspectives and insights. They remind me what is really important and give me hope.

They want a better world, and they inspire me to try to create it with them. Let's work to give them a 2020 that turns things around.

On the Eve of Spring Term...

The last night of a vacation is always tough. No more travel or sleeping in. No opportunities for exercise each morning, or going out for brunch, or spending time with family and friends. 

Tomorrow, for the first time this year, we will head back to school. My son will head off to daycare, my daughter will join her first grade classmates, my partner will head off to the high school he serves, and I will go to my middle school. We will greet students, teachers, and support staff. We will catch up on vacation news, and then we will talk about this strike.

 

Team Nakada-Gantt is #Red4Ed

It’s coming, because our district wants it. They want to break the union and public schools as we know them. They want to pretend our demands are unreasonable and that the district can’t afford them, but billions in surplus tell us differently. They want the public to turn on teachers; to see us as selfish, but the outpouring of support from parents and families has galvanized our ranks.

We don’t want to strike, but we know we are standing up for what is right. It is the right thing to do for education professionals, for families, and for communities.

We are doing this for our students, the ones I am excited to see tomorrow morning, and in each class period throughout the school day. On break, it’s easy to forget all I learn from my students, all I gain from getting to share the classroom space with them, and tomorrow they will help me remember. It will be so good to see them. They will remind me how good it feels to get started reading, writing, speaking, and listening with them. They will remind me that a quote, a question, and a song can crack our lives open and make us remember the things that are most important. They will remind me of my favorite Anne Frank quote, “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

This strike will be hard for so many. It will be hard for teachers who are rewarded daily by the work we do at our schools. It will be hard financially for families risking so much. It will be hard for parents wanting to make the right decisions for their children. It will be hard for students who want to learn and see teachers outside, fighting for just learning conditions. And I’m sure there are thousands of other ways this will be a challenge that I haven’t thought of yet.

So, I hope the district sees these hardships, sees the communities they are supposed to serve, sees the students who breathe life into our schools, and that they make an offer to help provide the schools our students deserve. They could do this tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. But until that offer comes, you will find me on the line.

Blog Round-Up for 2017

It's been quite a year, and I think most of us saw it coming. With the election of 2016 in the rear-view,  what could we expect but chaos and trauma, injustice and ignorance? There was plenty of all of that, but there were also doses of hope and many galvanized souls against a common enemy. I blogged about some of that despair and some of that hope. Thanks to all who read along. Here is 2017 in review.

This is my sixteenth post of the year on this blog, plus I posted another four on Throwing Cookies, so 20 posts for the year is four short of my goal, but not too bad.

Many of my blog posts are still about my life as a teacher, and my third most read blog post this year, "Still Learning..." was about a moment when I questioned the work I do. A special group

of students helped me remember why I love what I do. Many of these same students came to our ESA signing day and have come back to visit this winter after their first few months at college (four of them at Oregon!). Watching them come into their own as young adults is another reward of this profession.

My second most-read post came this summer, in the wake of white-supremacist actions. In "Help me, please," I asked for help explaining our world to my kids, my students, and my nieces and nephews.

"On the 75th Anniversary of the Executive Order 9066" I told the story of my father's family as they and so many other West Coast Japanese Americans were interned during World War II. These words and pictures captured a little of the toll this injustice had on the Nakadas.

These three posts have become the fourth, fifth, and sixth most read blogs ever and I appreciate all the reads and shares. And with 2017 behind us, lets hope for more justice and hope in the days to come.

I Asked for Help and the Interwebs Responded

Yesterday, I was at a loss. I was overwhelmed by displays of hatred and violence and I wrote how I needed help explaining displays of ignorance and intolerance to my kids.  Today, answers came through and some of you asked me to share them, so here they are.


First, Ashley Cassandra Ford, a writer at Refinery29, posted this on Instagram. When I saw it I was happily waiting for my coffee with my kids. I love the idea of smiling and living my life full of joy and using all of my time and resources to counter hate and terror.

Then, another writer of color, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, shared her plans for the day, and her work as a writer and educator reminded me that the resistance is in our art, our writing, and our teaching.

The rest of my day was spent getting Kiara ready for her first day of kindergarten, back-to-school shopping, and a popsicle meet-up at the park for our neighborhood public school where she will continue her Spanish education.

As I sat down to do a little writing, I came across the twitter hashtags #CharlottesvilleCurriculum and #CharlottesvilleSyllabus. Check them out. So worth looking at as a mother, a teacher, a writer, and an activist. We have to illuminate the past to understand what is happening today.

I will continue to seek joy, to write the truths of my American experience, to teach my children and my students how to be kind and helpful and brave. And on Tuesday, I will continue the work of empowering my students to read critically, question thoughtfully, and find their own voice within this grand cacophony. There is work to do, and we are ready to get it.

Is It Teacher Appreciation Week?

Kiara and Gabe's teacher bouquet. 

I think it’s Teacher Appreciation Week, or Teacher Appreciation Day, or maybe it was last week, or yesterday, or maybe not. No one seems to know. No one seems to be able to schedule this thing. Obviously, this is not something run by teachers.

Last week, I helped my kids thank their teachers. We gathered flowers, gave fruit, made cookies, and cards, but these little things are so small compared to all teachers do for my kids. I appreciate them today and every day. I hope they know this. Because without them, I couldn’t be a teacher. I couldn’t work alongside some of the most phenomenal people I’ve ever met.

Just this week, these are a few things my colleagues have done: helped students struggling with family substance abuse issues, advocated for safe gender-neutral bathrooms in their school, proctored tests that attempt to make students into a number, created and taught review lessons for AP exams, provided lunches and snacks, coached teams of athletes and poets, produced and directed performances, given high fives and smiles, graded papers, taken attendance, entered grades, answered emails, scheduled field trips, and planned these last weeks of school when all of us are just ready for it to be summer.

They all keep me going. There are amazing teachers at every school, and there are students who need amazing teachers at every school. So, to all of the teachers who inspired me back when I was a student, and to all of the teachers who do their jobs with professionalism and integrity day in and day out, and to all the teachers grinding it out every day: thank you. I see you and appreciate all the things you do for our schools, our students and their families today and everyday. Unless today isn’t Teacher Appreciation Day. If that’s the case, then forget it.

Still Learning...

When I left school today, I was pretty disheartened. Even though I'd collected amazing poetry collections from most of my students, too many in my sixth period class turned in whispers of what they could have done.

These students are still teaching me...

Then, after an emergency faculty meeting after school, and a visit from a brilliant former student, I got in the car and checked in with my partner. We confirmed daycare pickup and evening plans, and when he asked me how I was doing, I took a deep breath. I tried to tell him I was OK, but I wasn't. I was tired and doubting my effectiveness as a teacher. He reminded me that it was that time in the school year. It comes in flashes all year long, moments when I wonder if this is the career for me, if it's worth all of the hard work, if I should look to some other profession. And during testing, it's often the worst. I told my partner he was right, and he assured me that, by the end of the year, I would be sad to see all of my students go.

I made my way to a nearby high school where it was senior day for some former students. There I was greeted by a group of seniors I'd taught and who were getting ready to finish off their high school careers. I visited with their parents and with them, and by the time I had to leave, I was so buoyed by our conversation, I had forgotten all about how I'd felt earlier in the day.

I'm a teacher, and I love what I do. It is exhausting and frustrating, but it is also endlessly rewarding. I learn so much from my students and my former students keep teaching me as well. Today, they reminded me that what I do matters. That years down the line, it still matters, and I love them for it. They are the reason I teach and today they helped remind me of that.

Black History Month: If You Build It...

Last year I gained so very much from helping organize our school's Black History Month assembly. You can read about my experience in these three posts. But I was a little hesitant to try it again. It was a lot of work and stress, and without a parent really pushing me, February would have come and gone without an assembly for Black History.

But then there was the inauguration of Donald Trump, and his relentless attacks on people of color and immigrants reminded me that it is easy to do nothing. The challenge is to stand up. So, our Charter Board calendared another Black History Month assembly and preparations began.

This year a colleague worked alongside me which made things so much easier, and students who had attended last year's assembly knew the possibilities of what they could perform, so getting kids to participate wasn't nearly as challenging.

And then, there is our Speech and Debate program. A colleague started a team several years ago, and now, we have students who compete and win in a very competitive local league. We have even had students place at the National tournament. So when these students signed up to participate, it elevated our performance level and brought a new diversity of voice to the program.

Our students are so very talented. Musical performances of "The Drinking Gourd" on clarinet by a recent immigrant from China, a duo's original rap, "Summertime," Parliament Funkadelic's "We Got the Funk" by the Emerson Super Band, and Michael Jackson's "Man In the Mirror" got feet tapping. But the words of Fredrick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Lucille Clifton, and Lupita Nyong'o brought to life by a talented group of orators brought down the house.

We still pushed our students to think. We urged students to think about why we need Black History, viewed clips from Ava Duvernay's 13th documentary about the persistent effects of racism, and teachable moments based on the request: "Don't Touch My Hair."

The talent and hard work of our school community and high expectations of our students really stood out to me this year. I'm so thankful to be part of a school where celebrating diversity is about not only celebrating culture, but demanding more from our students. Acknowledging places of privilege and identifying opportunities to stand up as an ally: this is what it means to resist.

Supporting Public Education in the Era of DeVos

Today, while I was proctoring the interim assessment I'm required to give by the district, the US Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. I heard this news during nutrition, my 10 minute break between third and fourth periods, while students were coming in and out of the room, finishing up homework and studying for tests. I wasn't particularly surprised and went on with my day.

Woah, Betsy. 

I wrote postcards against this nominee. I called Republican senators who might be swayed. I am highly invested in this fight for our public schools. But the vote came down to 50-nays, 51-ayes and the confirmation carried.

To be honest, I was surprised by the unity of the Democrats. DeVos's reform agenda is aligned with many DFERs. These Democrats For Education Reform, like Senator Booker who sat on the Alliance for School Choice board with DeVos, are pro school choice, private charters, testing, accountability, and vouchers, and also anti-union and anti-teacher. President Obama's two prior picks championed many of the same causes DeVos favors. She takes things a bit further with vouchers and lacks experience in public education, but, to be honest, she isn't very different than Sec. Arne Duncan or Sec. John King.

So, guess what I will do tomorrow? Well, after this interim assessment is over, I will go back to my public school, my classroom, my students, and I will teach. For now, things will carry on as before, and I will continue to believe in my job, my students, their families, and our schools. That is the true narrative of our public schools. There are amazing things happening inside our schools if you take the time to look beyond test scores or aging facilities. I see them every day. The "fake news" of our failing schools is a story that has run its course. If you want to know how to fight back against DeVos and for our schools, invest some time and/or money in a public school, and then, send your kid to one.

2016 Blog Round-Up

The reason I teach: Sharpies. 

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been focusing these past few months on submitting my work out into the world. This has been an excellent challenge for me, but it means I have published fewer words here. Still, I managed to post 20 times this year. Although this is quite a bit less than last year's 33, if I'd gotten ambitious and finished the year with 12 posts for Christmas, I would have been close to the same. I didn't do that, and that's okay. Twenty posts for the year it is.

My third most read post this year was the last of my 10 posts to start the school year: Why I Keep Teaching. It's about Sharpies, and teaching, and why I keep doing this impossible work in an urban public school. Almost 200 people read this blog, and that's about the number of students I interact with every school day, so I appreciate this symmetry, and I enjoyed taking some time to write about my teaching practice.

One of my favorite books from 2015. 

In second, with just one more read, was my first post of the year: The Only Three Books I Loved This Year. My book blog for 2016 is forthcoming, but this was a much better reading year than last. This might have been because I engaged in a #ReadDiverseLit challenge, although I only wrote about three such books (even though I read more), I loved just about every book I read. Maybe my brain is finally recovering from baby-rearing, or maybe I just like books about marginalized people better than others.

But my most read blog, the post that actually ran on Shannon Colleary's popular blog The Woman Formerly Known as Beautiful, and on The Huffington Post, is my Culmination Address to the Class of 2016. I wrote this after the UCLA shooting that claimed the life of a professor on campus, and kept all of my eighth grade students and teachers in a lock-down on campus. It was the toughest day in my teaching career, and a day I will always remember. And delivering a culmination address was something I'd never had the opportunity to do before, so I thank Lily Parker, our Speech and Debate coach, for pushing me into this uncomfortable space.

Ah, the Class of 2016... a good one. 

I also wrote about my experience during Black History Month, which taught me so much about privilege and being an ally, and if I added the reads to this series together, it would have made my list, but then again so would my #ReadDiverseLit posts if I added those together, so I will leave it at that.

I have lots more to say. I'm not sure if I will say it all here this year. I think I will be posting quite a bit to start off 2017, but for now, 2016 is in the books.

It has not been an easy year, but I keep hearing the words of author Colson Whitehead, the National Book Award winning author of The Underground Railroad, in my head. This has been my mantra for the last few months and I will carry them, probably, forever.

"Be kind to everybody, make art, and fight the power." 

Yes. That is what I intend to do. Thanks for reading along with me, y'all, and happy New Year!

Ten Blogs Posts to Start the School Year: Why I Keep Teaching

This is not a paid advertisement. 

I love school supplies. All of them. New notebooks, pens, highlighters, glue sticks, dividers, little erasers, and colored pencils. I love all of that stuff, but what I love most of all are Sharpies. I love black ones and all the colors that have come out over the past few years. The thick ones are great, the regular-size, and the fine-tip. There is a job for all of these sizes, and I use them throughout every school year. They write so crisply, so cleanly. They don’t fade over time. I can watercolor over them, so they’re great for projects. They are bold and brilliant. And of all of these Sharpies, the Sharpies I love most are the metallic ones. They have gold and silver so I can write on colored notebooks or black surfaces and those Sharpies pop.

My students love them too. They really are the best for some of the projects we do, and I have all the cool colors and the thick and thin ones so my students ask to use them all the time. I say yes, but every year I have to buy new ones. Somehow these Sharpies manage to walk out of the room. The thing is, students aren’t supposed to have Sharpies on campus. Some kids tag with them, although these days my school doesn’t have any real taggers, so the stolen Sharpies probably head home in a backpack to be used on some future assignment, or for doodling, or for hawking autographs at some YouTuber’s event. Or, worst-case scenario, a student uses it to draw a penis in a bathroom stall somewhere. And the metallic ones? They are guaranteed to disappear.

Disappearing metallic Sharpies. 

But I keep letting my students use them and every year I keep buying them. Why? Well, they aren’t that expensive, and they make me happy, and they make my students happy, and you know what, my students deserve them. They deserve the good stuff. Their schools are dirty. The food we serve in the cafeteria is gross. Their class sizes are huge and they don’t get to have enough fun at school, in general.

My students are like those Sharpies. They are brilliant and resilient. They come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Every year they show up, ready to work. So, as long as I’m here, as long as I still love what I do, I’ll keep getting new Sharpies.

Some days the blinds feel like bars. 

Every once in a while, I feel trapped in my job. I think, maybe I should do something else, something that won’t leave me feeling so wrecked at the end of the day. But I can’t imagine how bored I would be at some office job or working around adults all day. So, I keep coming back. I'm reminded of what a wise former principal ones told me: You don't work for me, or the district. You work for these kids and their families. When I think of it like that, I have to keep going. I'm like a permanent marker that just won’t quit.

And the thing is, I love middle school. I love my middle school and my students and my school feeds me. This work energizes me, keeps me young, and demands I continue learning. Teaching brings me joy like a brand new pack of Sharpies, and it would break my heart to leave it behind.

~ This concludes my ten blog posts to start the year. Thanks for reading along, and hopefully, Geneal, I answered your questions. 

Click here to see my last ten posts and other posts in this blog about teaching. 

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Ten Blog Posts to Start the School Year: How I ACTUALLY Teach~ Routine

I learned early on in my career that what I need, and what students appreciate in a classroom, is routine and predictability. It helps with classroom discipline and planning. It helps us get more work done. So, most of my school days look like this.

My day starts with the Emerson Sports Academy, a program a couple of colleagues and I started eight years ago. Our student-athletes follow a weekly routine of reading and note-taking for two days and three days of sport skill building.

In my English class, students start the day by writing down the agenda in their planners. It’s boring. It’s predictable. It takes no real skill (although it does help me see who needs glasses) and it helps students stay organized.

While I take attendance, a student reads the blog. This is a student’s digital account of the previous day. It helps remind students what we did, allows absent students to see the activities and homework, and gives families and other teachers the opportunity to follow along. Our blog also provides a primary source record of our class and gives every student the chance to present their work in front of the class several times during the school year. We also review grammar here, because inevitably there will be mistakes in the blog that allow us all to review misplaced modifiers, homophones, capitalization and comma rules, etc.

After the blog, we get to work. Students share their homework (reading a summary of the assigned chapter or a book of their choice). I do a quick check to see who is reading, who is not, and to discuss the book with small groups. Then, one or two students share their summaries and we discuss specifics from the book.

Then we get to work in our English notebooks. We take notes answering text-based questions or analyzing plot or character. This would also be the time for a mini-lesson about figurative language or the use of allusion or whatever else we might be examining. If it’s a reader’s workshop day, we might look at a reading strategy or read an article or poem.

For the last 15-20 minutes of class, students start writer’s workshop or reader’s workshop, depending on the day. Students work on assigned writing or free-choice writing, read assigned texts or books of their choice.

We end the day reviewing homework and cleaning up our spaces and that is the basic routine we stick with. In a classroom, of course, things change every day, so no two class periods or days are ever the same. The more I think about it, the more I think routine might actually be why I've taught for so long. It's the structure that keeps me going. 

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