This year I taught Spanish at Ruben Daniels Middle School in Saginaw. RDMS is an urban school where ALL of the students get free lunch. It is also a significantly low-performing school. Although I had taught at RDMS three years prior, the school was not what it was when I was there the three years before. It had dramatically changed for the worse. Teaching Spanish to many students with very low reading and writing skills  was quite the challenge. I had always taught at an urban school. I knew the challenges, but nothing had prepared me for what I was coming into. My students were the bottom of the barrel: abused, conflicted, poor, disturbed, and simply  mad at the world. Despite my kind, calm, compassionate "I understand" behavior and my engaging (so I thought) lesson plans, my students had other motives that involved insulting and hurting others and disrupt the learning environment as best they could.  And it wasn't just I having this problem. Veteran teachers would spend thier lunch breaks in tears too. On several occassions I went to work with my Letter of Resignation in hand because there were simply times where I did not know if I could continue.  I had no more in me. But one day while I was trying to teach in the midst of chaos assuming that my words were falling on deaf ears, I dropped my head in frustration and was near tears.  A student noticed my emotional state and responded with something that would stay with me for the rest of my life. He said, "Mrs. Garcia, please keep teaching. Because I'm listening." That was a pivotal moment in my career. Antwan, like a very few others WERE listening.  Antwan's words gave me my second wind and I re-examined myself and found my strengths.  I ultimately realized that I did have some great students. I could not quit on those few. So since then, I have been preservering. I can't say that things are great. But they are better.  My district later announced that RDMS would be closing as part of its deficit elimination plan in addition to cutting fifty teachers .  I saw that coming since The Michigan Department of Education was there every Friday trying to help improve the school. If our district didn't close it the State surely would have. Nonetheless, I have been through the trenches and back. I have come out stronger.  I have also built lasting relationships with my students and we will see what the next chapter holds. 
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