Day 16 – Stony Brook
Roosevelt Day 7
Well, I think some of this has come to an end.
I only spent seven days at Roosevelt. Funny, what a difference seven days here and eight at Banneker makes. I guess I just felt more useful at Banneker. An after school newspaper felt more condusive to a student helping out. Being in an actual class, especially one as well organized as Mr. Spikes’ it was harder to fill in the gaps.
Today I walked around and checked in with the kids on their projects for a PSA contest. I tried to offer examples of photo essays to Monique (I found some neat ones that used audio on NYT and a great name for her to research) and brainstorming tips for Sandra. I tried my best, but I never really found my place there, without Mr. Spikes as back up. The kids didn’t really know me, I didn’t really know the kids, we never got to have a working relationship. I wouldn’t blame anyone or anything specifically, it just worked out that way.
Mr. Spikes told me at the end that he’d essentially gotten a job offer at Stony Brook in Long Island. I knew he wasn’t keen on coming back next year, but I didn’t realize how excited he was about leaving. He’s been here for three years. He told me about the high hopes he had for this class that were just dashed by poor regular attendence save for Dennis and Monique. He poured everything he had into them and had few results to show for it. He’s frustrated with the scheduling (a kid got dropped in his class with three weeks left in the semester), he knows other teachers are frustrated (five have left since the start of the year), but he wants to go out with these kids. Either he’ll be here till the end of this semester, or till the end of the year.
He’s spent a total of five weeks in New York. He’s never permanently lived there, but he knows the place and he’s really excited about moving. I can’t blame him. After seeing the way so much of class is pulling teeth, even with relatively plentiful resources. We walked out, as always, talking about this. Then the paths split off. We stopped, shook hands, wished each other the best of breaks (and that I hoped he’d have good news to report soon), and went our separate ways.
Everyone knows when it’s time to move on. Some people get to, some people are forced into sticking it out. As hard as it might be, somewhere deep down in ourselves we know when it’s time to leave.
