Anne Gottlieb began teaching English at Washington High School in Chicago 15 years ago.  She spent a year abroad and then found her home at Austin Career Education Center.  She wears many hats at Austin. She serves as Graduate Advisor, Assistant Director, and Louder Than A Bomb coach.  “I love the classroom the most.  The best thing about teaching at my alternative school: the small, close community of students and staff that care about learning and self-improvement.  We are all constantly learning from each other.” When Ms. Gottlieb is not teaching, she helping her husband wrangle her three sons and three dogs.  Along with teaching, she’s avid runner. “And when I need to get away from it all, I run.  I completed my first half-marathon last fall.” Ms. Gottlieb uses poetry to connect with her students. She teaches her students to use their words to express themselves and to tell their stories. Here is a piece she wrote about her first year teaching.

I Am Not Your Enemy

I was a first year teacher

A place holder of five sections of Sophomore English

A foot soldier,

Doing the bidding of Chicago Public Schools
I thought I had all the tools

To win the war against ignorance and apathy

Because I was told repeatedly

That I would be teaching students who didn’t want to learn,

That you would fight me every step of the way.

My sidearms were state standards and skills

Group work and grades were my grenades

Assessments, student-centered activities, and objectives were my automatic weapons

Steinbeck, Shakespeare, and Harriet Beecher-Stowe were my armor

I attacked with a barrage of handouts and homework

My blasters set on stun

I took aim

At your brain.

Resistance wasn’t an option.

I would get the knowledge in

At all costs, I would win.

But Lashaun proved a formidable foe

There he sat, in the last seat, in the last row

No assignments turned in

No participation given

Except for his journal

He sucker-punched me with drawings instead of words

Guns and gang signs,

Tattoo art and nicknames

Most of which I dismissed with a ‘No credit’

Written at the top of the page

Not much attention was paid

Occasionally I would launch a surprise strike.

“Lashaun, where are your vocab assignments and your essay?”

“Lashaun, see me after class – don’t you want to pass?”

He was always ready with a sturdy, yet cool defense.

“I’m working on it,” he would say with confidence.

“I’ll turn it in tomorrow.  But you do have my journal.”

By March, we were two tired fighters

Locked and leaning

Waiting for the other to surrender

He walked out of class, forgettably, on a Friday

His chair was empty on Monday

No official word was given, except that he had died.

But the halls whispered words:

Gang affiliation, known associations, retaliation

Two days later I found his journal

My eyes fell across the images

I lay on the floor

His death had landed a fatal blow to my enemy mentality

Amidst the scrawl, there was a beauty

A 15 year old boy trying to figure it all out

A broken family, an unstable home, a life on the streets

A life that ended over bad decisions

And worse situations.

He lost the battle, and I knew I hadn’t won the war.

Lashaun was not my enemy

You are not my enemy

I was a first year teacher

No longer a foot soldier,

Blindly following barked orders

Yet I still fight

My sidearms are truth and compassion

Standing with me an army of students and teachers ready to wage war.

We fight against all of the things that are trying to bring you down and take you prisoner

The gang bangers and the guys with gats

The racists, cynics, the indifferent

All the people who tell you, you can’t

All the people who tell you, you won’t

Every time you walk in school doors

Sit down in class

Put your ideas on paper

Read a book

Raise your voice in discussion

You are fighting – we are fighting

To make sense of this nonsense

We stand and fight together

Because I am not your enemy.