I wasn’t going to blog about this but I read (still am reading) a heated debate on Fark.com about teachers and performance and salaries and firing and … the age old stuff. I can’t really weigh in on the subject considering I’ve never been directly employed by the BoE, never had to work within the “system”. that being said, I’ve been teaching / tutoring for 8 years, in martial arts (2.5 years), computer science (4 years), and highschool math / English (2 years)

I gave a student a promotion test on Wednesday for his orange belt in Tae Kwon Do. I’ve only ever given 1 other promotion test and that was to a 3rd / 4th grader who had me for 1.5 to 2 years. this was a high school student who had me for 1.5 years already. it was a pretty intense test, up to the caliber of the promotion tests I took under Master Orlove. (perhaps my memory distorts the truth; maybe my tests weren’t that hard, maybe they were). about 50 minutes into it (I was aiming for about a 60 or 70 minute test), he says “Mr. Chin, I don’t feel so good. I feel dizzy.” I had him at a stationary fighting stance; I was pushing him physically pretty hard and decided to give him a “rest”; asking questions and testing him on his intellectual knowledge before continuing his physical testing. most students get winded like that and I thought it was a minor thing. it wasn’t. after a minute or 2, I wised up, walked over to him (I had spent the entire 60 minutes behind a desk, scribbling notes, being unattached, academic, and intimidating, like I how I had been tested), and inquired further. I told him to take a knee and when that didn’t help much, to lie down on the floor.

he pushed himself so much to meet my expectations that he put himself in physical harm. he committed. what really made my day was after a while, I asked if he wanted to continue. he had been doing phenomenally up to this point, banging out his pushups, his kicks, and his Korean language without complaint and pretty much flawlessly. I was ready to cut the test short, continue a few days later. I was proud when he said yes, he’d like to continue. I was even prouder when, after literally 3 minutes of continuing, he admitted he can’t continue. it showed that he is determined but also honest.

he propped up against a wall, I ran to grab a bottle of water for him, and spent the next 15 minutes telling him horror stories about my own promotion tests. how I was basically crippled after running the Law Tower my first time but pushed on anyhow for the 2nd day of testing; how 1 time, close to my black belt test, I felt dizzy just like him, excused myself to vomit, rinsed out my mouth, and continued the test. I gave him a flyer for my Tae Kwon Do club at Brooklyn College; he’s graduating this year (everyone in the school is, it’s being closed down) and hopefully will be going to college next year. he didn’t apply to BC but to a lot of CUNY schools.

it means a lot to me, a marker / reward of my ability to teach. his neighborhood is not a good 1. there are gangs in the school, probably worse things I don’t know about. I went on a field trip with his classmates 1 time and I learned that 1 of the students is an expecting father. he was 17, didn’t know water came free in restaurants. that’s the kind of environment my student is in and to think I inspired him so much to commit so hard to something that, in the scope of his academic education, doesn’t matter much, is … bewildering.

his grades are not the best. he’s struggling with math; he blames it on his math teacher, which I don’t think is completely a cop out, because he goes to after school math tutoring very regularly. I’m considering, in the last few months, that instead of teaching Tae Kwon Do, I would help him with his school work. I’d have to brush off my high school math, but that shouldn’t be too hard. as a graduating senior, he’s doing work I was doing my freshman year. (I know I got lucky and went to a good high school. I don’t take that for granted.)

I am a good teacher. back when I was tutoring computer science in Boston, I turned uneasy 75′s into sure 90′s. the tutoring service was free for students but I was so effective that a few students paid out of pocket to get extra time; that people were recommending me to their friends. I remember 1 girl, 1 of the first I tutored, who started out as a complete technophobe. by the end of the semester, I got her so interested in computers that she wanted to take a computer apart and poke at the internals. for fun.

more recently, last year when I was also teaching poetry at my high school, we did workshops 1 class. poetry was never really popular so my classes were always small (3 to 6 kids) but this was a particularly small day. 1 student. I spent the entire period workshopping his work, as my (outstanding) teachers taught me how to workshop. at the end of the period, he didn’t want to leave. he ditched his English class to stay while I taught him English. it wasn’t to get out of doing work, etc., but because I was giving him sincere and quality attention.

even more recently, I had a student in my Pace class come up to me. she has only been taking Tae Kwon Do for a month so far. we’re really only now moving on from the basics. she told me that her schedule next semester will be overloaded and that could she still audit the class for free (I, of course, said yes). this is phenomenal considering so many things. (A) it’s more of a recreation class than anything. (B) she’s not only thinking a semester ahead, but an academic year ahead. she basically said that 7 months from now, she still wants to be taking Tae Kwon Do. (C) I haven’t taught her anything other than the basics yet. it made me smile (wide) and when she thanked me for letting her audit, I thanked her for her dedication.

twice, in my kids classes at NYU, of which I have only taught 6 or 7 classes so far, a kid has said “Tae Kwon Do is a pretty fun sport.” the first time, it took me by surprise because it was a student who had trouble focusing, who acted out. he was particularly bad 1 class but at the end, he stood there, in his uniform, and said it completely unexpectedly. him and his father stopped by my class last week; said they were taking a break, trying out new sports, but might come back next year. the second time was a different kid, both of them were about 6 years old.

I am a good teacher; I think I want to teach for a long time in the foreseeable future. I do want to work in the public schools, where good teachers are needed. preferably with high school or middle school students; I can do more with them than the K-5. I’m willing to accept the stress and poor public view. I do want to teach college level courses also but feel (or intuit) that a few years in high school or middle school will teach me quite a few things I won’t learn anywhere else. I want to teach Tae Kwon Do less (my body just can’t handle 6 to 8 hour days of teaching and training). I’d love to teach poetry; also love to teach English, though that’s scary cause I’ve never taught a class like that, where we discuss novels and such. it’s weird, but I would LOVE to teach math or computer science.

I’ve been reading the article on Fark for an hour and a half. been writing this post for an hour. there are a lot of issues tacked on to the Board of Ed, the system for hiring / tenuring teachers, unions, etc. I have my own views that I’m not going to share, partly because I don’t feel qualified and partly because my views include that all sides are right to some degree and arguing won’t change anything.

1 last thing I want to say about teaching: it’s scary. often, 10 or 15 minutes before teaching a class (especially the first class of the day), I have panic attacks. when a student fails to learn or when I teach something incorrectly or when I don’t teach something in the most efficient and effective way, I feel like it’s an act of betrayal. sometimes I dream about an easier job, like stock boy or something.