They call it scholar talk. It’s not better than home talk, it’s just different. It’s for school.

Like her, they start saying “goodness gracious” when things get crazy. Like someone else, they continue saying “**** ***** *****” when someone bothers them.

Do you feel like you spend a lot of your time disciplining?  
I feel like I spend all my time disciplining, she says.

One boy tries to jump out of the window of her classroom.
Later he tells her that if he doesn’t get another nice teacher he will **** himself.

But lots of kids say they are going to **** themselves. It’s the one threat that gets them one-on-one attention in a class of two dozen.
The school psychologist tells her she needs to manage her classroom better.

Her first principal is fired for abusing her disabled husband.
Her second principal admonishes her for mentioning that **** sapiens originated in Africa.
There are too many religious parents here to teach evolution.
“Where are you even getting this information?” he asks her with a straight face.

One day, in the fall, she cries amidst the chaos. The next day, one student tells another,
“Don’t you dare make my teacher cry again.”

She picks them up on the weekends and takes them to middle school basketball games as a treat. “You can even meet the coach if you behave,” she says to eager 2nd grade faces.

They read about fairytale princesses, and they ask her, “She’s like you, right Ms. Andrews?”

White ***** is hurled at her as often as chairs across the classroom. But come Friday morning they sit silent in their seats, hoping to earn lunch with Ms. Andrews. She gives out certificates, prizes, and free activities, but kids cry over not making “lunch bunch”.  How am I doing today? Am I doing good today?

There is non-profit prestige in moving to West Baltimore. Fresh fruit, new winter coats, and new laptops for every student. Within days, the new computers are slammed against desks and the dictionary covers are ripped off with bicth scribbled inside.
At least spell it right, her final plea.
New stuff doesn’t matter that much when they’re angry all the time, she says to the one school social worker.

What would be the single most helpful thing someone could do for these families?
Birth control, she answers.

Babies are celebrated, at birth. They are a temporary lighthouse.

Some of her students have multiple siblings who regularly visit Johns Hopkins for birth defects. Some of her students are heads of their households, walking their younger siblings to and from school every day. Another teacher gets in trouble for giving out free condoms to 16-year-old girls, many of whom are pregnant.

I honestly think you shouldn't get more welfare after two children, she says. I don’t think many of these babies are conceived out of love.

It’s painful for her to say that. It’s not what you learn at a prestigious liberal arts college. Not when you’re a progressive liberal aware of social constructs and institutionalized power hierarchies. Especially when you chose TFA because you really are committed to working in education policy.  

But you are beating the odds, because Baltimore has one of the highest TFA dropout rates in the country. Though 72 percent of all TFA teachers leave teaching within 5 years. The five-week training program and lack of connection with the community were not enough. Or maybe it’s because they never wanted to be teachers in the first place.

But, they ask, “No one wants those jobs anyway, so who would be there instead?”

Is that really the right question?

Another TFA friend recently quit because he started having panic attacks and losing weight. I’m pretty miserable, she says, but I know it’s for an end. Still, I go home and wonder,
Am I making a difference?