Chicago TFA: 4

Today was the day when finally the students were able to perform the poems they wrote and rehearsed. I was nervous for several reasons: what if they students didn’t do well and did not practice at home and what if I wouldn’t be able to emotionally handle the performance. The poems started and I felt as if I were an audience member of a movie, which included 100 percent observation, and the feeling of empathy. The students showed mixed emotions, some were goofing off and others showed obvious signs of nerves and angst. Ms. Chen made a few announcements on showing respect to fellow classmates and also how to grade each student’s performance. Each student is graded by peers and then voted on to see who had the best performance. The winner for each class would get to eat lunch or dinner with Ms. Chen brought in by a restaurant with other winners. The students wanted to win because they loved Ms. Chen and they also loved the idea of great food. The poems went by really quickly and some of them were very emotional. A poem that stuck out the most was about a student hating life so much and wanting to get away and was contemplating suicide. A good percentage of the poems were very deep and was helped to understand the point by in some cases depressing music. The students that were performing were obviously holding back emotionally. They wanted to appear strong and not vulnerable in front of the classmates. One positive thing about this assignment besides hearing about emotional times in student’s lives was that the student’s advisors were also invited to hear the poems. The advisors were cheering loudly for there specific students and the students were so happy because great support was shown. The amount of support in this school was unbelievably but it wasn’t an accurate depiction of Chicago Public Schools because that isn’t how it is everywhere, it is quite rare in fact. I thought it was weird that the majority of Teach For America core members were placed in charter schools and not regular public schools. These teachers would only be able to help out a select few because a lottery system only accepts the students at charter schools. What about the other students, where do they get the support they need and deserve?

Beth Boomstein