Author’s note: What follows is my reflections on the Serial podcast that swept the nation last fall. As you will read, my involvement in the events at Woodlawn High School in 1999 and in the Podcast in 2014 gave me a platform for exploration of some compelling questions about our justice system in general, and my teaching in specific. This essay offers no answers but is an example of my sense-making of a time and an event that has gained national attention in which I played a small part. In my perpetual state of social studies geek, I will add that this essay is framed by my work with the C3 in my teaching of students and in my teaching of teachers. I may add to this post in the future, as compelling questions are never truly answered, and each day brings a new understanding of the big questions that guide us in life.
January 2015
Since Serial began airing in October of 2014, and specifically once episode two aired, from where my 15-seconds of fame has derived, friends, family, colleagues, students, former students, acquaintances and strangers alike have asked me questions about the case of Adnan Syed. I have responded briefly in some instances and in most others promised I would give a more detailed and elaborate response soon. It has taken me a while to find the time and concentration to write about Adnan and Hae. The most popular question I’ve gotten over the last six months is “Do you think he did it?” I promised I would write my perspective, one small person in this larger-than –life case, who knew Adnan, Hae, Jay, and many of the others involved in the case and the Serial podcast.
Thank you all for your questions and inquiries via email, twitter, facebook, text and in person. I have used them as mini writing prompts which have allowed me to explore and make sense of my experiences from over 15 years ago. What follows is not the most direct answer to anyone’s questions, but it is my sorting out and sense-making of the horrible tragedy that rocked our school and my world as a teacher over 15 years ago.
September 2014
With the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson, the school year began with yet another high profile case of social injustice, civil unrest, and racial tensions surrounding laws, law-enforcement, and issues of race in America. I had used the George Zimmerman verdict as my opening lesson last year to have my law and government students grapple with issues such as state versus national powers, police powers, and stand your ground laws.
This year I thought bigger. I asked students the compelling question “What is Justice?” This question has framed every law lesson, every conversation, and every debate we have had this year. With the information about Ferguson developing and unfolding almost weekly, I have been able to use this timely event as the springboard for our deeper learning about the nature of justice. My students and I are living this inquiry this year so it is with this orientation that I also began listening to the podcast and processing everything I knew and everything new I was learning about the case of Adnan.
May 2014
When Sarah Koening first reached out to me via email to be interviewed, I had already been tipped off by a former student, now in his 30’s, via a Facebook message. He told me that he and several other students had already been interviewed along with former Woodlawn teachers. All of a sudden I was transported back 15 years to a time and a place I had not thought of since I left.
Freshman Year
In August of 1995 I was a brand new teacher at Woodlawn High School. I along with 3 other Caucasian teachers were among the 25% of new teachers on the staff that year. We were all young and blond(ish) and my department chair called us the Brady Bunch. Three of us were in the social studies department. All of us were on the third floor. I was “Miss Paoletti.”
It was Adnan and Hae’s freshman year. It was my freshman year. They were both in my honors “Contemporary America” class, the required 9th grade social studies class for Baltimore County. Adnan worked hard to impress. He was always friendly, outgoing, the first to volunteer for anything, the first to read the temperature of the room and figure out the dynamics. His friend Saad, was less outgoing. It is easy to remember the contrast as they were the only two male Pakistani Muslim students in class together. At the end of the school year, Adnan gave me a gift. It was bath soaps wrapped in scalloped cream colored paper with a gold foil label. On the gift tag he wrote “From your most devoted student.” For some reason, I kept the soaps and the tag for a long time. I still have the soaps. Sarah had commented on this as it had been noted in the police interview. She asked if that seemed odd. At the time I did not think so. I had a lot of devoted students and it did not surprise me that Adnan wanted to single himself out. He is someone who would not let you not notice him.
At some point, I had the students do what passed for research in 1995 and write “articles” about people they admire. Half the class wrote about their mothers. I remember teaching about economics. The students wanted to compile their writing into a magazine. We added in features like poetry, horoscopes, drawings, and the like, mostly handwritten.
The copy machines at the school were shaky at best. Those first years teaching I many times had to have the students copy information from the overhead because I could not make copies for the entire class. We were still using mimeograph. I made the rookie mistake of taking the finished pages to Staples and paying to make bound class sets. Then I couldn’t make rent. The students and I decided to fundraise to make the money to pay for and pick up the magazines. Adnan’s class chose to ask for donations. My other classes ran a lemonade stand and a car wash. The donations made us the most money. Somehow I connected this back to economics. I still have those magazines with both Adnan and Hae’s writing.
Hae was an effervescent ray of sunshine. She was always smiling, happy, and had that slight Asian affectation to her voice. Beneath that exterior, she was a straight-A student driven to achieve her goals. She offered excellence without excuse. Aisha Pittman in Serial said Hae was annoyingly upbeat but you couldn’t be annoyed with her, ever. If anything, you were annoyed with yourself for not being as happy as Hae. She was just that sweet. Her grades were so high in my AP Psych class that even after she had been missing for three weeks, she still had an A. Hae was the real deal.
The kids in the Woodlawn Magnet program were spread between Honors and G/T classes and they formed a tight-knit little group. They still interacted with other students in the school who were also in their classes, but as they moved through their years together, they were like a little family, perhaps not all best friends, but familiar and comfortable with each other, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Sophomore and Junior Years
My first year at Woodlawn I taught three different courses, honors Contemporary America (government, economics, civics, etc.), Dynamics of Human Behavior (Psychology) and Government and Public Issues (law and policy required senior year course.). The next year my psychology sections increased from two to six and I dropped the GPI course. My assistant principal recognized the popularity of the course and asked me if I would get trained to teach AP Psychology the next year. We went to block scheduling and the catch was that for the first semester I would have to combine regular psych with AP and teach all the student together in one section. I was a challenge to say the least but I loved it! I’ll never forget that first group of AP students who worked their butts off right along with me to prove to everyone that Woodlawn students were just as talented as any other in the country.
Adnan, Hae, Nina, Irena, Tim, all of those kids came by to see me in my room on the third floor often. I did not teach them during these two years but as a second and third year teacher I experienced the wonderful phenomenon of knowing students who were not my students. I had seen most of them weekly, if not daily as they always stopped by to say hi, give hugs, and fill me in on their lives during their sophomore and junior years. (I’m failing AP calc!, Mac and I are fighting, Did you hear Adnan and Hae FINALLY got together?) The difference in my connectedness to the school and the students increased exponentially in those years as the halls were filled with multiplying students whom I had taught and many of whom would come back to take my AP class.
Senior Year
The next year, (1998-1999) Adnan, Hae and their friends were seniors and they all enrolled in my AP Psych course. It was a sweet reunion for me to teach the students whom I knew better than any others. They had all grown so much since their freshman year. But now they were my students once again in the sacred space of my classroom and ready for the best I had to give.
The year started out like any other and the significance for me was that that fall I started dating Kris, whom I would eventually marry. I saved printed emails from that time; emails to Kris, my mom and my sister, mostly, and some to my college friends about Kris and our relationship and how I knew he was the one. Mixed in with the typically early twenty-something love and life drama were bits and pieces about my work life.
Adnan and Hae had been an item since junior year. Everyone in their friends circle were happy and thinking it was about time. The two had been close friends for a long time and many felt it was inevitable that they would eventually start dating. We all knew Adnan’s family was more strict than Hae’s. I did not know a lot about Muslim culture at that time but I knew he was forbidden from dating and even calling girls on the phone. Hae, on the other hand, had much more free reign. I would see them holding hands in the hallways.
Sometime during first semester of their senior year, they broke up. In their little circle of friends, most of whom were in my AP psych class, this was big news and a big deal. And in that 20th century way students had, it was a major topic of all the note passing that took place. I intercepted several notes in those months. Notes from Adnan to other students lamenting about the break-up. Notes between other students altogether talking about the breakup. God I was nosey, but I also hated when student passed notes. Looking back now, I would take note passing any day over the ubiquitous texting that has now replaced it in the classroom. For the most part, however, I remember first semester with Nina as my student aid who would give me the scoop and vent about her life and her friends, applying to colleges, homecoming, AP classes and all the usual teenage issues.
I also remember, but had forgotten until Sarah showed me my police interview transcript, that Adnan used to come to see me during my planning period or lunch, plop himself down on my couch (I had a couch) and vent about Hae, their break-up, their on-again, off-again pattern, etc. Just as quickly, however, he would snap out of it, perk up and tell me about other girls who liked him and how well he was doing without her. It was typical teen boy drama.
January 1999
I remember some time near the end of January, noticing that Hae had not been in class for several days. It was typical of her to miss a day or two here or there. In contrast to Nina, my student assistant and AP psych student, who was never absent, I was used to missing Hae every so often. She always came back without missing a beat. I remember knowing that she was independent, resourceful, and competent. After she had been missing for over a week the other teachers and I began talking about it more seriously. Nina did not know where she was, nor did Aisha or Adnan. We all theorized that she had decided to go to California on the spur of the moment to visit her dad. This seemed plausible to us knowing Hae as we did, although a little strange.
February 1999
About two weeks after she had been gone we learned that her mom had contacted the school and administrators had begun asking us and students questions. Then, in an email I sent on February 11, 1999 to my mom I wrote,
I have really aweful (sic) news. The student that was missing was found dead two days ago. I found out before school today and the other teachers found out this morning. I totally broke down and cried. I feel aweful (sic). I have all of her friends and ex-boyfriend in my fourth period class. I tried to call you but there was no answer. I called Kris but he really didn’t know what to say. Some people don’t know how to handle someone elses pain. Does this make him a bad person for me?
I remember vividly the little closet room with no window and a door that locked. They had finally run a phone line up to the third floor so teachers could make a phone call without having to go all the way to the first floor. We did not have cell phones, yet. You had to push a strange little button to get an outside line. Kris hadn’t known what to say but he was the first one I called as I bawled on the phone. How was I going to teach the entire day with this news?
The health teacher had intercepted me in the front hallway as I was about the walk up the stairs.
“The found Hae, Donna,” she said. “They found her in Leakin park.” I was stunned and it did not register at first that she meant that she was dead. Later she would comment that Leakin Park was where everyone went to hide bodies, a comment others made to Sarah on the Serial podcast. How strange to hear that repeated 15 years later. It was true.
“I wanted to tell you before they announced it to everyone else.” Her husband was a detective and so she had heard the news before anyone else at school. I broke down right there and cried as we hugged. I remember feeling numb the rest of the day. By 4th period (the last period of the day in our block schedule) the students and I just sat, many of them had already left school.
In another email to my sister on the same day I wrote,
One of my students was found dead. This little Asian girl I’ve known and taught three times over the past four years. Things here are pretty sad. I am teaching O.K. I found out before school but couldn’t say anything until it was official. When they handed us the press release I burst into tears. The grief counselor came up right away. The secretary and two teachers gave me a hug. I feel a little better now but the real sadness is when I see my senior students who were all friends with her. …I think Kris is a better “in-person” person.
In the days that followed the students surrounded Adnan. He had some kind of flash pass that allowed him to leave class whenever he needed to, and he used it often and could be found slowly wandering the halls. His grades had slipped since the beginning of the second semester in January. He just simply was not producing any work. He would talk about trying to catch up but nothing ever happened. When Hae was missing for the three weeks before they found her Adnan was not doing well either. Sarah Koening asked me about that time and really pressed me to say if there was a difference in his behavior before she went missing, while she was missing and after they found her. There was definitely a change in him after they found her body in the shallow grave. He was despondent and melancholy. He would sit in class and stare at a picture of Hae. But mentally, he had been checked out for a while. That’s what I remember.
Someone had written her name on my whiteboard and students had come up and drawn a sun, flowers and had written little notes around it. At the end of one class, Adnan had gone to the board and began erasing the notes and drawings. He said it seemed inappropriate, like it was too informal like a yearbook signing. I had agreed. I watched him as he slowly erased all but her name, then just stared at the board, then slowly left the room.
Girls in particular flocked to Adnan’s side. After they found Hae’s body he was never without a few girls escorting him through the halls and he just allowed anyone who wanted to to take his arm or his hand, or give him hugs. Some of these girls came forward during the Serial podcast and were featured on later episodes. I do not necessarily trust their memories… He looked wrecked, pre-occupied, and almost beyond consolation. No one could believe that Hae had been killed and no one could fathom who could have done it or why. None of us knew how she had been killed.
On a date that escapes my memory, but about three weeks after they found Hae’s body, the same health teacher once again stopped me in the front hall of Woodlawn and told me they had arrested Adnan for Hae’s murder. I was stunned and incredulous. Surely it was a mistake. I believed in my heart it was a mistake.
March 1999
On March 1 I emailed my mom,
Aweful (sic) news; they denied Adnan bail. Every Muslim student in the school left today to go to the court house and show their support. Two of my mock trial kids are beside themselves. It is a bad time. I might go down there today with some students.
This was shocking to me. I found my friend in the school. I begged her to tell me that it was a mistake and that they would release him as soon as they figured that out. I remember her just slowly shaking her head and telling me “Donna, he did it. She was strangled.” This was news. The fact that she was strangled, I knew, pointed to the fact that it was a personal crime, not a random act.
At some point I called my mom to tell her. She emailed on March 3:
Got your message this morning. …So what evidence is against the boyfriend? Your school must be consumed with this. It must be like a black cloud hanging over everything.
A black cloud was one way to describe it. From that day on, there was a definite divide between the Muslim and non-Muslim students. As a teacher I felt an acute pain at the loss of relationship I had with several of them. They suspected that most teachers and many students believed that Adnan was guilty. They maintained his innocence. They held rallies and fundraisers for Adnan’s defense. I remember being saddened that I could no longer really communicate with Adnan’s best friend Saad. It was even worse for the students. I was not a witness to any overtly anti-Muslim sentiments or actions. But in their little group of friends there was a permanent fissure.
Here had been a group of students amidst the 87% African-american population of the school comprised of Pakistani Muslims, Korean-Americans, Pacific Asians, Russians, African-American and caucasian students who did not know cultural divides but who knew each other as members of this magnet program that brought them all together. Their group was now forever divided.
I didn’t know what evidence they had. I never knew. I remember learning soon after that Jay Wilds had been questioned/arrested for helping to bury the body. I turned all of my disgust toward him instead. It was easy. He had graduated the year before. He had taken my regular psych class and was an okay student. I found an end of the year letter from him and in addition to his candor, he hinted at some ulterior motives for taking the class. I remember thinking of him indifferently, if not cautiously but it was easier for me to demonize him that try to accept that Adnan could have done this . His girlfriend, Stephanie, was still a student at Woodlawn. She was a tall, beautiful light-skinned African-american girl with electric blue eyes. She and Jay were like this power couple. I felt so bad for her, but I was not close to her the way I was to the others. I can’t recall a single conversation I had with her.
At Woodlawn, I remember many before-school meetings to disseminate information. Email was not yet a reliable method of communication so printed memos and word of mouth were used to bring the teachers together for any news. At some point we were told that some of us may be questioned by the investigators. I remember sitting in the little front office room with no outside windows across from two officers investigating the case. They were the same ones whose interviews with Jay were a part of Serial. I was still hoping there had been a mistake and that they might find evidence to release Adnan. I was not happy to have to be questioned.
In an email to my mom on March 24 I wrote,
I was just interrogated by the Investigating officer and the State’s Attorney for the case of Adnan Syed. It wasn’t too bad until the end when they told me I may be called as a witness and that I would be coached by them before I took the stand. I got a little choked up and almost cried. Just the thought of appearing in court to testify against one of my students gave me chills and made me nauseous. I then had a “to do”list of things I had to get to them; attendance, lesson plans, seating charts and written out memories of conversations I had with him and notes I intercepted. I have a headache just thinking about it! My sleep has still been spotty at best. I haven’t had any more dreams about him or Hae Lee, but I am stressed with a capital S! I am stiff and I’ve been grinding my teeth. I am having trouble concentrating on things. I think I need Ritalin!
Re-reading this I can’t believe I dreamed about Adnan and Hae and the case. The rest of the school year was a fog. My AP students worked hard but there was a definite subduedness about the whole endeavor. My Muslim students were disconnected and I counted the days when I didn’t have at least one student, teacher, or myself get choked up or cry. The thing is, it was a general consensus that he had done it. The investigators and the teachers “in the know” left no room for speculation otherwise. In that way is was mourning for two students. Adnan was lost to us.
May 1999
The students organized a memorial service for Hae at Woodlawn. It was beautiful and perfect. I remember attending a social studies conference after that and carrying with me the heaviest heart I had ever felt into that weekend. No one I met would know what had happened. except, that some did. Teachers from all over the state were at this conferences and when some saw my name tag with my school, they recognized Woodlawn and asked me if I knew the students.
I finished the school year with a heartache that I didn’t know would ever go away. I knew I was not returning. I had an open contract from MCPS and had already committed to Frost MIddle School. I was used to saying goodbye to seniors at graduation but this was the first class I had known since their freshmen year. It was sad and more bitter than sweet.
I left Woodlawn and began at Frost that August. I never knew when Adnan’s trial was, what he was charged with, or who ended up having to testify, on either side. I did learn later that he was convicted and serving time in prison. That was all I knew.
April 2014
So as I sit across from Sarah Koenig now as “Dr. Phillips” in my classroom at my second high school, imagine my shock when I learn that Adnan was convicted of first degree murder largely based on Jay Wilds’ testimony and little else. Sarah presented me with a summary of what had happened in the courts including his defense attorney’s back story, the mistrial and trial. Our two hour+ conversation focused on Adnan’s behavior in class during that winter and spring, the evidence the investigators had had me turn over, and whether I could provide an alibi for Adnan. Mine was the last class he had that day. Mine was the last class Hae ever attended. Those facts hit me like a brick wall. As much as I wanted to I couldn’t provide anything except that they both left class at the bell. That was the last time I saw Hae. In later episodes of Serial, she and Dana trace the timeline in the car and now her questions at that time make sense. I hadn’t pictured the crime taking place right after school or at the Best Buy. I don’t know that I pictured it at all except that knowing she was buried in the park, I thought they had driven near there together, for some reason.
As I sat there in the comfort and safety of my current high school, I was transported back 15 years revisiting with another teacher at another time. I saw my old handwritten lessons, seating chart, as well as the notes the investigators made during my interview. It was surreal, like I was viewing a movie of myself whom I sort of recognized. What jumped out at me, was how much I had not changed as a teacher, and how much I had forgotten that fact. At Woodlawn, I was “that” teacher whom students confided in, followed to take multiple classes with, and formed the bonds with students that allowed them to seek me out for advice, guidance, and solace that went beyond my content area. I flashed back to the straight-A cheerleader who came to me when she got pregnant, and was excited about having her first baby so early. I remember the boy who came out of the closet during my class. I was right back there at Woodlawn as Adnan plopped himself down on my couch and asked what he should do about Hae. “But you know, Miss Paoletti, I don’t even care cuz last night I met these other girls and they were like all over me.”
When I left Baltimore, I went to a school that was as different from Woodlawn as possible, a suburban middle school in Potomac where our biggest challenge was responding within 24 hours to all of the parents emails concerned over their child’s grade drop from 93 to 89%. Seriously. At this school, I was a different kind of teacher, I could be! And I had to be. I didn’t have to take on the weight of the students’ issues the way I had in Baltimore, but as a middle school, I took on their issues in a different way.
After 11 years at Frost, I went back to high school to teach my beloved content again and branch out. Four years in, as I re-read the interview transcripts and listened to Sarah’s questions about my relationship with Hae, Adnan, Nina, Aisha, and others, I realized, I am still “that” teacher whom students seek out for the same reasons. When I taught psych, students thought I had magical powers to help them understand. Now that I teach law, students think I have magical legal connections to help them. Little do they know my first response is always “Did you tell your parents yet?” and my second is always “I am not a lawyer, I just play one in the classroom.” But they want my ear, and my guidance, and my compassion anyway and I give it to them. I had this relationship with Adnan, but only to a certain extent. I obviously did not have much influence over him. I am realizing now, after 20 years in the classroom, I don’t have that much influence over any student, at least not in that way.
The most startling part of the interview was when Sarah referenced a lesson plan for how to determine if someone is lying by reading their body language and looking for tells. A very Freudian lesson, which the police had asked for a copy. Sarah asked me if I had inadvertently taught Adnan how to commit the perfect crime. I was incredulous! No way, I responded. Then why did they ask for it, she countered? They asked for the lesson because in response to it, the students had written about a time they knew someone was lying, how they could tell, their feelings, what they did, etc. Adnan’s response was about a time Hae had lied and the betrayal he felt, and his vengeful response. It was his response the police were interested in.
I could not offer Sarah an alibi for Adnan and my memory of Adnan’s behaviors that semester did not further support her thesis that he might be innocent. I often wonder, “What if I HAD held him after class that day, to make up work he was missing, or to listen to him vent?” In a later episode of Serial, the psychologist said that analyzing someone’s behavioral changes before and after a crime is unreliable and I can probably agree with that.
January 2015
Learning about the trial itself, the evidence used and not used, the work of the attorney, and the holes in the investigation has left me (and all of America) with even more questions than answers. The question I return to, however, is the one that has resided with me and my students all year; What is justice? Was justice served in the case? Does justice for one have to come at the expense of justice for another? One of the most heated aspects of my class discussions is simply trying to define justice. Some students insist it is a moving target, it is situational and objective. I rail against that notion! If that is the case, there will be unrest after every decision because there will always be a group or groups who feel slighted. This essay could easily launch into an analysis of the reaction in Baltimore to Freddie Gray’s death and the actions and reactions of my students in and out of class to what many perceive is an imperfect and broken justice system. But that is a topic for later discussion. Back to Adnan.
Was justice served? If we define justice as fidelity to a set of processes established to ensure fair treatment of the innocent until proven guilty, then… it seems there is room to argue that justice was not served. Adnan’s due process was not necessarily protected, as Serial would have us believe. And at this point, I have no more information to base my judgment than anyone else who listened to the series. Sarah remarked that Adnan sounded comfortable, almost happy with his prison life. Does this speak to his guilt?I don’t think so. I believe an innocent person dealt a bad hand can find peace within their circumstances; it’s a matter of survival. Adnan, as long as I knew him, was one who could always turn it around and see the positive aspect of just about anything. This is an oversimplification of his current situation. But hearing his voice, the tone, and what he had to say about his life in prison, did not surprise me. That was the Adnan I knew. Making the most out of his situation he is in, staying as positive as possible. He continues to insist he did not do it. I believe he is convinced of that fact. What does he know that the rest of us do not?
At the time, 15 years ago, I believed he did it. What what did I know? Not very much. Do I think justice was served? No. Hae’s family will never get her back. The world was robbed of a beautiful, bright, effervescent young woman whose potential will never be realized. They might have the solace of a conviction of her supposed killer. Some consider that justice. But Adnan did not get justice either, at least if the evidentiary inconsistencies and problems with his defense as presented in Serial are to be believed. As a teacher of civic education I have to be a champion of our process. I have to believe it works. I have to believe that despite its flaws, its execution by imperfect humans, it is still the best system ever conceived. And yet… I bear witness to riots and violence in Baltimore and know that there are aspects to our system that are very broken.
Baltimore in the 1990’s was a different animal. Anti-Muslim sentiments, the war on drugs, “snitches get stitches” -all very real phenomena related to this case, to Adnan and Jay’s treatment, none of which I have any expertise on, then or now, but all of which make me re-examine what I believed 15 years ago and what I think going forward.
My wish for Adnan is that he wins an appeal, and a new trial, if that is the result. I do not care the outcome. I believe in the system and to me that is justice. My wish for Hae’s family is for them to have found peace and comfort knowing that all of America now mourn their loss with them and that through Serial others got to know her, if only briefly. I wish for myself, that I never had to say goodbye to two students who grew up with me in Baltimore in the 1990’s.
May 2015
I am standing on the sidelines of my 5-year-old daughter’s soccer field on a warm Saturday morning. From across the other fields I see another mother with her 3-year-old daughter on her hip approach to chat while we watch our kids play. We talk about upcoming races (we both run) our husbands, work, motherhood, and, of course, Serial.
If there is any other positive aspect to the Serial series, on a personal level, it is that it has allowed me to reconnect with former students, now in their mid thirties, many of whom have children the same ages as mine. Most notably, after 15 years of sporadic emails, then Facebook connections, then Instagram, I have reconnected with Nina, my beloved Nina! My student aid and mentee. Her son plays in the same soccer league as my daughter and I get to see her most Saturdays. After college she went on to get her PhD in psychology from none other than my alma mater, Columbia University. We conjecture about Stephanie’s role, the timeline, Hae’s boyfriend, and reminisce about those months in 1999 when we were thrust into a situation that aged us both. Nina was my right hand girl, a mini-me, now my peer in parenting, running, and soccer mommery (my new word).
I think about Adnan and countless other students who seek my advice on life, love, and everything that comes with being a teenager. I’d like to think I have done more good than harm in dispensing advice and guidance. But ultimately i think these students don’t want guidance. They want validation. At the end of the day they are going to make their own decisions regardless of my opinion.
I may not have had an influence on Adnan or on other students who seek me out for advice above and beyond my teaching duties. As “that” teacher, I am only temporarily effective, I think I helped in the moment as a safe place where they could be themselves without judgment. But it is in the classroom, in the pedagogical space and moments that make up teaching and learning in its highest form that I have the magic. I am “THAT” teacher. And knowing Nina as an adult makes me realize that even as a newbie AP psych teacher at the beginning of my career in Baltimore in the early 1990’s I did some good.
Donna Phillips is the Social Studies Curriculum Manager for DC Public Schools. She is a blogger for C3 Teachers where she writes about using inquiry in social studies.
