The Art of Growing in Purposeful Silence

the dark days are over we've had our closure  im good peace is where you once were  but blah to the fact that i can't send you screen shots of things songs that you might like  pics you might get inspired by  gotta leave you to discover things with your own eyes your own time  space  ain't space if im still in it. 

Sunday  9:07 AM laying on my white blankets upside down using my Senegalese twists as a pillow.. getting high off the oscillating fan and sound cloud vibes ... i can still hear hear the birds chirp though the base is knocking ..  so much of a woman and yet i feel younger than ever .. feel like im still in college .. haven't been inspired to post anything lately. need to go out and take some pics but I'm not really feeling that it's something I need to do I just want to look and enjoy. im not even really here.  everything is still.  still.  still.  is.  i close my eyes trying to decided whether i want cereal or grits and eggs.  maybe pancakes. 

NP: Radiohead - Daydreaming i still don't want you to understand me. i still don't want you to find me. i still don't want you to know me. i still don't want you to look for me. i still don't want you to cross my boundary that was built in 1986 and i still don't want you to find the key to the 9th door that leads to the secret passage ways and i still don't want you to find me. i still wish you would stop calling my soul to remember your breath in between laughs and the way you would blink when you said you were sorry. i still day dream and i still see things from last tuesday. i still carry the moon where you left the empty space for it to fit. that's how big the space still is. that's how far it is. that's how high i used to get when you would say i love watching you teach. i loved watching you read. you loved watching me write. love you still. still don't want you to find me loving again. i still. daydream still. 

So many expectations come with being a mother, including getting it right all the time, and never losing your cool. So many mothers lose it when it comes to teachers and as hard it is not to want to curse the mother right back out, we can't! Not just because it's unprofessional but because we have a responsibility to assess the situation from a conscious level, not a personal-emotional level.  You aren't just teaching the children. Your job goes beyond the classroom. Had a mother curse me out about her son before she came to the school today. Only hearing his story and defending him to the end honey! Do you know how many parents have cursed me out?! I've had my fair share. But I just listen. Straight-faced. Taking mental notes. I can see what they can't see: they are hurting. They need just as much love as their child does. We didn't just wake up with dysfunctional families in the hood. When I face angry parents, I'm facing generations of unleashed frustrati

Sometimes just asking  the class to be quiet is not enough. Have you ever had that one kid or group of kids, who falsely  accuses you of picking on them if you ask them to stop talking too many times, even though they were talking all of those times? I know I have! What I have learned after 8 years in the field is that you have to get creative. Here are some of my favorite tips:  1. "Hey!" Not in a salutatory way. You have to use the same tone you would use for "stop!" 2. "Get it together!" Use your index finger to point and keep a straight face.  3. "How many people are still talking? Let's count.. Let me see...." Put your hand over your eyes, like you are searching. Before I even get to 1, the kids who were still talking stop. They don't want to find out what happens if they get listed in the count. Follow up with number 2 once everyone is quiet.  4. "What are those sounds that I am hearing?" Start looking

5.16.16 11:05 PM as a child, i didn't really realize how hurtful it was that both of my parents didn't want me. i don't blame myself for still crying about it now. i distinctly remember people asking me things like how does it feel to not know your dad and i would say it feels regular. it was just that. it was nothing.  5.17.16 8:13 AM For most of my life, when I looked at the word trauma, I thought of a car accident or a house burning down. It wasn't until after college that someone listening to my story said, "You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. You should be proud of how you overcame your childhood trauma." That person was right about me not being hard on myself but I am leery of labeling my escape from abuse, addiction, and abandonment with the term "overcome". The more I read, the more I learn that those of us appearing to have survived and surpassed the unbearable are actually living each day within the realms

Dear Show,  Wrote my first message on my mirror. The voices are speaking to me. So many of them. I think back to all the messages I wrote on those closets and mirrors. And my bathroom at my house before I moved in with you. I wonder how long you watched me, knowing I was crazy, but not quite knowing how to get me to see it that way. I think about K and I wonder if any of it was real or was I imagining the whole thing. Am I paranoid? Who am I? So many voices. So many messages.  But the only one that matters is the one that tells me to keep going.  Ironic that I'm wearing this shirt. My friend Danny died this summer when I was in Cuba. I kept having dreams of death. Maybe they were about him. Maybe they were about little josh. Both killed in Baltimore. The place where I almost killed myself. One night when we were in college, Danny called me and told me to meet him under the bridge. Everyone said that Danny had gone crazy. I remember meeting him and he told me that God was watching u

My mission is to show that anything can be turned into a classroom lesson, you just have to know how to finesse!  I've been teaching argumentative essay writing this week and using two separate resource guides: Linda Christensen's "Reading, Writing, and Rising Up" and Katherine Bomer's, "The Journey is Everything". Both Christensen and Bomer include some very strong examples/mentor text, that have been helping my students to find their own voice in their writing.  Today, however, I decided to stray away from those essays and incorporate an essay I wrote at 1:30 this morning about Azaelia Banks and Skai Jackson's Twitter beef. Here's a quick scope in sequence of how it went down:  1. We read the article together , round-robin style. Any student that didn't want to read was able to say, "pass" and the next person would pick up where we left off. This took about 6-10 minutes.  (I attempted to hide the fa

It's 1:32 AM and I'm up. Can't sleep. Scrolling through Twitter and I find the most disheartening battle ever: Skai Jackson v. Azaelia Banks.  I am utterly disgusted.  It's bad enough we fight one another on Vh1 but seeing these young queens going back and forth on Twitter? It's sad. They have never even met one another in real life.  I was asked to give a speech this weekend in Long Island to a group of young girls about bullying and the media's role in advocating or preventing it. People are finally beginning to build an awareness on the violence among teenage girls as we begin to see more cases of such girls being killed in fights. However, this newfound attention to the topic at hand boggles my mind because girl fights have been getting millions of views on World Star Hip Hop and Vine for the past few years. School-aged fights are one of the highest rated components of these sites, and yet, we are only beginning to speak out

Many Nights  Alone  And  Not  Really  Appreciating this as the freedom that it is  Am I crazy  Oh  Yes ma'am Been that way. What year was I born? Wonder how much love my mother got when she was 8 months pregnant with me  On Mother's Day I wonder what she says when people tell her happy mother's day  What could she say? Selfish. She says thank you.  I wish I could slap anyone who screws their mouth to tell her that.  There should be a "you had a child day" and a "Mother's Day". Two different things bruh.  She was high when she got pregnant by accident That's why I don't get high Crack made me.  Crack baby.  Crazy.

Everyone was clapping and agreeing when I talked about teaching our children to be empathetic but it was very quiet in that lecture hall during a part of my speech where I should've gotten a rousing AMEN. I got hit with a confirming silence that let me know I was striking nerves. But when I prepared my speech, I knew exactly who my audience was and I promised myself that I wouldn't hold back, the Department didn't bring me there to be bashful. I urged the attendees - future educators, novice teachers, and leaders of various teacher-prep organizations and academic institutions, to create protocols in which students are able to give pre-service/student-teachers constructive feedback before they enter the field as full-time teachers. Urban classrooms are being led by too many people who do not understand how to teach urban youth. And it's only widening the achievement gap. You can be as book smart as you want to be, but if you don't know how to reach your studen

It's 3:25 AM. Went to a party out here and thought of you most of the time. Music was good but I didn't want to dance with anyone. My friends are silly and super carefree when they are drunk; maybe I'm maturing, but I was really chill and not in the mood to sing loud and be seen like I used to. I wanted to remain low key in my 6 inch heels, silk blouse, and high hair-bun. They both had guys in the party, Shelly's BF and Meekz' main n'gga .. And I was solo in my two step. I turned and looked behind me and saw you but it wasn't you. I wanted him to be you. It's 3:27 and its been maybe about 10 minutes since I've been waiting for this train to come at the Clinton-Washington stop. Should've Ubered home. Or should've stayed home all together. But since Meekz' mom passed I've been making a real effort to be around more. I find myself in BK at least twice a week. Which may be part of the reason I think of you more. More often than n