Tag Archives: teaching

Affirmation

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At the end of the last school year, I had students write a letter to this year’s students. It was, in a sense, something of an evaluation. I add the “something of” because it was not anonymous;  however, it did affirm some things I’ve been trying to accompolish.

I’ve tried to make the class to be rigorous: to be challenging but not impossible. Based on the comments, I think I succeeded.

  • This class is going to be one of the hardest classes that you will have so far in your life. You will learn many things in this class.
  • Let me tell you Mr. Scott is probably one of the hardest teachers you might ever have.
  • This upcoming year for you will take a lot of work. Mr. Scott has made this year very challenging for me. Although the work is extremely hard, I have become smarter and a better writer overall. If you think his class is tough, keep in mind that he is preparing you for what will come in high school next year. Mr. Scott is such a good teacher and helps you when you don’t understand. He actually teaches you what you need to know.
  • Although this year was very challenging for me I can honestly say that I have improved my writing skills tremendously. I hope that you will do the same. All it takes is hard work, attention and not giving up.
  • Even though this is a difficult class, it can also be very fun. I was never a good writer or reader, but I found many of the activities we did to be very helpful and it allows you to visualize what you are reading.
  • This class is not a normal class, nor the the teacher.  [... Don't] be a class clown.  Just respect him, and he will respect you.  [...] Mr. Scott is by far the most reasonable teacher.
  • The tests Mr. Scott gives you are a lot more difficult[ than the standardized, cumulative test given at the end of the course], and those are the ones you should really study for.
  • Oh and the tests in this class are uber hard. I mean, its [sic] crazy.
  • It’s important to always read the chapters in a novel when Mr. Scott assigns them to you.  You may think, “Oh, it won’t matter”, but Mr. Scott often has pop quizes [sic] on reading you were supposed to do.  Spark Notes can be helpful, but it’s better to just do the reading.  Because you can expect the questions to be things not covered on Spark Notes.
  • Coming into English 1 you might expect it to be relatively easy because of how easy the rest of your English classes have been, but it’s not.  English 1 for Mr. Scott is very demanding, there are many tough projects, and a lot of hard books to read.

If only I could get this kind of response from all of my students…

#21 — Filling and Creating Emptiness

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To harm a person is to receive something from him. [...] We have gained in importance. We have expanded. We have filled an emptiness by creating one in somebody else (50).

Perhaps the best example of filling an emptiness by creating one in another is bullying. Working at a middle school, I’m witness to many major and minor instances of bullying on a daily basis, and it seems to be getting only worse. Statisticians tells us that’s definitely the case, but even if they weren’t providing empirical evidence, I get enough anecdotal evidence daily to make a strong case.

As a teacher, I find I have to walk a thin line. On the one hand, we’ve seen the headlines of recent years, this or that tragic suicide traced back to prolonged bullying, actions that have created situations in which some people feel suicide is the only alternative. Bullying, then, is literally a deadly serious, and as the authority figure in the room or hallways, I have a responsibility to put an end to it when I encounter it. Yet most bullying today is not like the bullying I occasionally encountered. Today’s bullying, ban and large, is verbal. Indeed, there is a whole category of bullying that could be only mental: cyber bullying. In other words, a lot of bullying is of the type “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Yet the truth is, words do hurt. Still, we need resilient, self-assured kids who can take care of themselves and who know how to avoid internalizing the stupid little comments they hear and will hear, in one form or another, throughout life, so I don’t want to help kids become dependent on me — or anyone else — to swoop in and save the day every single time says something mean and bullying.

And so when I do encounter something that I judge to be relatively minor but still behavior that could be considered “bullying,” I try to strike a balance. I deal with the individual who said the hateful words, but I spend more time talking to the person to whom he or she directed the words. (That was a long way to get around saying “victim.” It was a conscious choice.) I tell her that there are individuals who only feel good about themselves when making others feel bad. To quote Weil, these individuals have “gained in importance,” but only in their own mind.

Sonnets, Again

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We’re writing sonnets again in English I. “The hardest thing I’ve ever written” is the common consensus. So much to worry about: meter, rhyme, thematic development.

Notes from the board

The kids wonder why we’re doing it. “It’s not like we’ll ever write one of these again,” some protest, and it’s true. At the same time, they’ve never struggled over a piece of writing word by word; they’ve never searched for the right word only to find it’s actually not quite right; they’ve never planned a piece of writing simultaneously word by word, line by line, quatrain by quatrain. In short, they’ve never written like a poet.

What’s the value in this? In a society where most of these kids are fluent with text shortcuts and seem never to slow down, the question almost answers itself.

Making Me Smile

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I was out sick today: it’s hard to teach when one can’t talk, and that was indeed the case for me today. Still, duty calls, and I updated my school web site to reflect the fact that I wasn’t there and therefore there is no homework.

I shortly got a couple of responses from students wishing me well. It did more for my spirits than all the meds I’m now taking.

Errors and Mistakes

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In the midst of the process, it becomes obvious to me that the road these students are on will not lead to the results they want. They’re working hard learning a new framework for planning and writing formal essays, but there are so many larger and smaller steps — I couldn’t have covered them all the first time through. Yet I sit and wonder whether or not I’ve made a mistake. Instead of essays, many of them are going to wind up with three body paragraphs that seem to have nothing to do with each other.

I’m left wondering what to do. Do I stop everyone and make a group course correction? That’s likely only to confuse some. And besides, it’s the process I’m teaching. I’m not worried as much about the finished product at this point as I am the steps the kids are taking to create that final product.

Then it occurs to me: sometimes the teachable moment is not in the moment. Sometimes it’s best to let them stumble — knowingly, even anticipating it — so that their misstep will show them rather than tell them where they were on the wrong track.

“Mr. Scott,” I envision one young lady beginning quizzically, “This essay we wrote — it don’t make sense.”

“How so? What doesn’t make sense?” I will reply, hoping that she will see then what I already clearly see  now.

“I don’t know. It’s just,” she might continue, pausing to look for the right way to express herself. “These paragraphs. They just don’t go together somehow.”

And I will smile and say, “I know, and I’m so very glad you’ve noticed that.”

Floating on More than Survival

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male sparrows putting on a show.

male sparrows putting on a show. by Will at Morro

The students sit during the Silent Sustained Reading with which we now conclude each day in our new schedule. We’ve begun the year reading the same book, a Pearl Buck short novella called The Big Wave, keeping a reader’s journal as we read. We’re all almost literally on the same page, which simplifies some of the logistics of the year-long project.

“Once you finish this book,” I tell the kids, “You can read whatever you want.” And so when I finish the book, I pick up a poetry collection and encounter R. T. Smith’s amazing poem (source):

Hardware Sparrows

Out for a deadbolt, light bulbs
and two-by-fours, I find a flock
of sparrows safe from hawks

and weather under the roof
of Lowe’s amazing discount
store. They skitter from the racks

of stockpiled posts and hoses
to a spill of winter birdseed
on the concrete floor. How

they know to forage here,
I can’t guess, but the automatic
door is close enough,

and we’ve had a week
of storms. They are, after all,
ubiquitous, though poor,

their only song an irritating
noise, and yet they soar
to offer, amid hardware, rope

and handyman brochures,
some relief, as if a flurry
of notes from Mozart swirled

from seed to ceiling, entreating
us to set aside our evening
chores and take grace where

we find it, saying it is possible,
even in this month of flood,
blackout and frustration,

to float once more on sheer
survival and the shadowy
bliss we exist to explore.

I think of all the linguistic hoops most of my students would have to jump through even to understand the poem let alone to find themselves floating themselves when they reach the final line. Then there is all the cultural knowledge they would need — chiefly, at least a rudimentary knowledge of the and familiarity with the music of Mozart. And the general motivation.

It’s at times like that that I understand just what it means to teach literature and writing in 2012 to fourteen-year-olds.

Lent 2012: Day 4

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Probably the majority of repentances have begun in the reception of acts of kindness, which, if not unexpected, touched men by the sense of their being so undeserved.

Reading Faber, I keep returning to thoughts of school and interactions with students. And I can’t deny that there are times, based on behavior of various students, that I find myself thinking that this or that student doesn’t deserve kindness. When someone is disrupting others, making it difficult to focus on the task at hand, focusing all her energies on getting everyone’s attention, she is attempting to take opportunities away from others. It’s a myth to think that students today aren’t interested in learning — the vast majority are, keenly so. But it only takes two or three in a classroom to derail the whole process, and an incorrigible student soon draws the ire of other students and the teacher.

It is precisely at those moments that I most decidedly don’t feel like being kind. It is in those situations that the temptation to cruelty is most acute. Responses come to mind that are so ineffably and cruelly inappropriate but at the same time seem so perfect. Yet a kind word can sometimes calm the whole situation, while cruelty will only debase everyone in the room. It’s the easy way out, which is why kindness can be so difficult.

The quoted excerpt is from Father Frederick Faber’s Spiritual Conferences, excerpted here.

Teachable Moments

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It often astonishes me how few social skills some students have. Among other tendencies, they exhibit an inability to accept criticism, to delay gratification, to express frustrations in a positive manner, or to know when it’s best to keep a particular thought to themselves. “How is this possible?” I sometimes wondered in the past; having a child whose verbal abilities and cognitive skills increase daily has taught me: these students simply haven’t had sufficient direct instruction.

There are so many things that kids pick up on without being taught directly — chief among them, the most unique characteristic of humans: language — that it’s easy to forget that some things we take for granted actually have to be taught. We think that correction is teaching.

Tonight, I came home with a bit of spare change in my pocket, and as the Girl is saving for a Barbie camper, I give her a bit of my loose change when I have it. I gave her a quarter; she smiled and asked, “Can I have more?”

The easy response — the response I suspect a few of my students got as children — would be, “Can you what?! Don’t you go asking me for more when I’ve already given you something!” And that would be the end.

Tonight, I took the quarter back and explained calmly that, when someone gives you something, it’s really not very polite at all to ask for more. “Let’s try it again,” I said, directing the Girl to return to the spot where she was standing.

“I have something for you,” I smiled again.

“What!?” she asked in almost genuine excitement — she’s a good play-actor.

I gave her the quarter, raised my eyebrows ever so slightly, and she replied, “Thank you!” and put it in the piggy bank.

Explicit teaching followed by directed practice. Sounds like I what I do eight hours a day…

The Games We Play

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The Girl simply loves playing games: Candy Land, checkers, Go Fish, “the memory game” (Never just “memory” for her), Curious George — you name it, she’ll play it.

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The long-standing challenge for us as parents has always been teaching her to win with humility and lose with dignity. It’s tough to teach a child something you yourself are not good at, for it must be said that I don’t always lose with dignity myself. Chess is about the only game I play, and while I don’t pitch a fit, my pulse quickens at a loss, and I’m soon berating myself for my obvious mistakes.

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Yet by their very nature, these games make excellent benchmarks for social skills development. There are countless metrics:

  • How far into the game does the first fuss appear?
  • How long does the first fuss last?
  • Once it subsides, does the first frustration return immediately?
  • Is the Girl capable of finishing the game or has she worked herself into an irreversible tizzy?
  • When it begins to look like a loss is inevitable, does she give up or continue playing?

Recent gaming adventures have shown that L is developing a tolerance for the inevitable eventual loss, an ability to recover quickly from initial frustrations, and the poise to win and lose well. It was, in short, truly a phase.

The Return to Reality

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The return after a long break is both nerve-wracking and refreshing. The former comes from the unpredictability of fourteen-year-olds. The latter is a simple function of having a long period away from each other. As much as I like my students, it’s good to be away from them from time to time — to be around adults more than kids. (Well, having a five-year-old daughter, I’m not sure how much that’s really possible.)

For everyone today — teachers and students — it seemed the “refreshing” won out. Far from being reluctant to return to studies, many students seemed positively eager to come back — at least that was the feeling I got in my classes.

It was a good Monday, and often can one say that, especially after a long break?

Meter

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I try to show the kids the simple fact that much of what we write can feel iambic even when we’re speaking normally.

In the hush of the classroom we read all the lines of the ages, and marvel that “anapest” is a dactyl and that “trochee” is one while “iambic” isn’t. We scan the lines, apply the labels, and admire the Bard for all he did for the iamb.

Tops

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Few things are as beautiful to me as an English teacher as the tops of my students’ heads. Like thirty suns rising over the horizon of their desks, the sight of students’ crowns is a sure promise, an hint that today might be better than yesterday.

With pencils skating and tapping across their page, my students reveal the treasure in their heads through flawed but ever-charming drafts. They create maps of ideas that are perfect in their heads but somehow get a little muddled as they travel down their arms to their fingertips. But oh, the treasure they often share. What a strange and electrifying privilege to learn things about people that seem to be revealed only to the most trusted. What an honor to be the confidant of so many bright minds.

Yet it’s not just the content that brings joy. The process itself is almost sacramental. Some write with furrowed brow; others look like they’re smiling; still others seem both amused and confused; a few even seem ambivalent. There are exasperated sighs and frustrated moans, and the crisp echo of someone wading paper occasionally punctuates the grey-black scratching of graphite.

I’m always torn during such in-class writing engagements. I try to set the example and write alongside my students, sharing my own drafts and troubles so they can see that all writers have problems with writing. Still, part of me wants to sit and just watch as they wrestle with themselves. “I have trouble writing when I don’t like the topic,” they almost universally write in their first assigned topic, “I, the Writer,” an exploration of writing in their lives. To remedy this, I try to allow as much freedom as I can, and the fact that I can get thirty-plus thirteen-year-olds to sit quietly and write is a testament to the effectiveness of freedom. And so I work toward a successful medium: write a little, glance up and feel proud for them, then write a little more. My writing during these sessions often turns to the joy of watching students work.

It is most clearly in these moments that I see my vocation: I am a teacher. I will always be a teacher. I cannot imagine doing anything else, for I am addicted to the warmth and trust of my students.

First Day

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It’s all smiles the first moments of the first day. There is optimism and perhaps hint of hope. New teachers. New year. A fresh start.

“I’ve heard she’s a little odd,” one says to another.

“But she’s really tough. That’s what Eric said,” another chimes in.

Next door, it’s the same story. The worries are identical. Will this be a cool teacher? Will I get along with her better than I did my last first period teacher?

“I’ve heard he’s really hard.”

“I’ve heard he’s really easy.”

Down the hall, the thoughts are the same. What will we read? What experiments will we do? Where will we go for field trips?

“I’ve heard he’s a jerk.”

“I’ve heard she’s really sweet.”

Everyone bumps around, unsure of themselves, unsure of their standing in the class, unsure of more things than they will care to admit. No one knows what to expect; no one knows whether to hope for the best or prepare for the worst.

“I’ve heard the cafeteria food is going to be better this year.”

“I’ve heard the dress code will change.”

Everything is in flux, sliding and slipping about like a ballerina on a well-greased floor. The only thing anyone has to go on is rumors and the Pop-Tart gobbled on the way to the bus stop.

And it’s all visible in the eyes, in the body language. The teacher clears her voice, signaling the beginning of the class, and everyone looks the same: shields up; defenses activated; look like a stone.

Who’s to blame them, for who is this person, this unknown, who will be an integral part of their lives for the next nine months? It’s a great poker game: no one knows if the teacher is the jackpot or three lemons. Everyone knows from experience that a great teacher can turn into a horrible ogre in a matter of days, and so everyone is afraid that it’s a front. The smile might not last; the attempts at jokes might not continue; the proposed classroom atmosphere of ease might be only an illusion.

It’s all rather like a blind date. The doorbell rings and there stands a bloke with a bouquet and a smile. The girl has her guard up and is analyzing every single thing the guy does: the jokes he cracks; the car he drives; the conversation he makes; the clothes he wears. Everything is a coded, hidden message, and the girl wants to know as soon as possible whether or not to text her friend who agreed to call her and speak in a loud, frantic voice about the impending emergency that she must, simply must, come and help with.

“I’m so sorry. I have to go. My friend’s cat is stuck in the dryer.”

If only it were that simple, for this date will last nine months. It’s a first date, a blind date, that’s the length of a pregnancy. And as with a pregnancy, there is nothing a friend can wildly scream over a cell phone, no emergency so great that it can end the date. And yet, the girl ponders, perhaps it won’t be so bad. After all, her cousin ended up marrying a guy she met on a blind date.

So the girl eases into the car and the students ease into the desks with a bit of worry and a touch of hope. This could all turn out well. The young man might be a perfect gentleman; the teacher might be a perfect instructor and mentor. Everyone decides for a moment, for a few days, to give the guy, to give the teacher, the benefit of the doubt.

Even those who are sure the whole school is involved in a vast conspiracy to trouble and torment them through their whole education entertain the thought that this year might be different. It’s sure to turn into disaster sooner or later, they think, but maybe it won’t be that bad. Maybe it won’t even be a disaster; maybe it will just be an inconvenience.

Everyone thinks, “Let’s wait and see.”

The teacher stands in front of the classroom, sees the sea of new faces, ponders the coming nine months, and thinks exactly the same thing.

“By the end of the first quarter, this girl might end up driving me nuts,” she thinks, looking at a face in the front row. “By the end of next week,” she shutters, “That guy in the back row might make me question my dedication to teaching.” The teacher looks, and explains, and waits. Waits for the first sign.

“We will have a test on every chapter,” she begins, and she sees the troublemaker in the back row yawn and prop his head on a casually balanced fist. “Oh, it’s already started,” she thinks. “I can’t make this any more interesting than this, and he doesn’t even have the decency to…”

In truth, it’s always like this. We are individual universes, carried around by clumsy bodies that often belie our doubts and fears. We assume, judge, and act on our initial prejudices, and then wonder why everyone else does the same. But sometimes, those judgments and quick characterizations set the scene for something more significant than a blind date. We are constantly moving into and out of each others’ universes, but we very rarely have any idea when we’ve bumped into someone who will have a major impact on our lives. But such moments do exist.

The first day of class is one. Students and teachers wake up on the first day of the new school year with the same thought: “I hope this year will be better than last year.” It doesn’t matter whether the previous year was a total disaster or an unqualified success. We always want it to be better. And we all hope, students and teachers alike, that it will be better.

Then the old routines return, and the students and teachers alike find themselves wondering, “What’s going on? How did it all go wrong?”

The dilemma is much more complicated than that, because we all have different ideas of what “wrong” means. Because we’re these universes – monads, as Spinoza called them – jostling around, unable ever to understand fully the physics of each other, we’re doomed to make mistakes that we don’t even know are mistakes. We offend where no offense was meant; we anger when we’re trying to amuse; we harm when we’re trying to help.

And nowhere is this more evident, more clear, than in the classroom.

What are we to do? We don’t have instruction manuals that we can read about each other. We don’t know what each others fears and dreams are. Sometimes we don’t know what words hurt, what actions destroy. Unless we tell each other.

That’s unrealistic. No one spills her guts walking to the car on a blind date. “Listen, I had a really bad relationship with a guy who always brought me roses. I associate roses with pain, so you might not want to bring them. They only call back bad memories.” No one says, “Listen, I am very insecure with my reading, and if you ask me to read something aloud, I will do anything and everything to avoid it—even if I have to cause a scene to get thrown out of class.” No one says, “I really want to help you guys, and sometimes I get really frustrated when people don’t seem to be paying attention. Then I make sarcastic remarks because I think it should be obvious.” No one says these things, but maybe they should.

So I will say these things to you. I am here to help you. I am on your side. I wake up in the morning with the hope of somehow making your life a little better. But I am human. I get frustrated; I get tired; I get irritable. I sometimes assume you should realize things that you might not necessarily realize. I occasionally assume that you didn’t this or that because you’re lazy. I catch myself, but sometimes the damage is done. Yet that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still on your side. I still am here for you.

In Their Lives

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In a world of spin and deception, to be trusted with someone’s greatest victories and deepest tragedies is rare indeed. For one hundred and some adolescents to trust someone that way can only happen in one, obvious environment: the classroom. The level of trust some students show (and hopefully, I earn) reminds me daily the privilege I have of teaching thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds.

Students write in essays and journals about things I sometimes worry few other adults in their lives know about: anxieties about the future; frustrations with current situations; sorrows over tragedies large and small. They come to me excitedly when they’ve done well, looking for a high five and a smile; they come to me dejectedly when something’s gone wrong, hoping for a sympathetic ear. They tell me when they’ve fallen in love and when someone’s broken their heart.

With some, I need show only a little attention, ask a few questions genuinely from curiosity, and a smile blooms that makes my day and causes me to wonder why people would want to do anything else with their lives.