Matching Tracksuits

Overheard, after passing out report cards:

“My parents don’t care what I get, as long as I pass. Sometimes, when I brought home an F, my dad would yell at me. But I yell back. He knows better. He sometimes forgets, but I yell back, and he backs off.”

The questions for the anticipation guide were seemingly straightforward. One would think that responses — “Do you agree or disagree and why?” — to these questions would be somewhat predictable.

1. Sometimes, it’s better to remain ignorant about certain things.
2. It’s fair to treat people differently based on their intelligence.
3. It is better to be smart and lonely than unintelligent and happy.
4. Our relationships with other people, not our achievements, are what fulfill us.
5. It is better to accept your fate than to try to change it.
6. It is important to have empathy for others.

Granted, for question one, adolescents might not necessarily have learned the beauty of ignorance. It seems unlikely that any adult would disagree with the statement, and in fact, a slight majority of the students agreed this afternoon.

Question two is a bit tricky: most kids think of it as a question of politeness and manners. I’m almost always the only person indicating agreement with the statement. When I explain about differentiation and remind them of special education services, most students understand where I’m coming from and smile at how I “tricked” them.

Question three is fluff. It gets conversation going, but there’s really no expected response for what I (and I hope others) would consider a well-adjusted, emotionally healthy individual.

Question four hints at the shallowness of materialism. Students seem split on the issue, but for eighth graders, one might expect that.

Question five is an interesting question for my students because so many of them — particularly those who struggle in school — are completely fatalistic. Perhaps they don’t see that in themselves, though, because many disagree with this statement.

Question six, though, seems almost painfully predictable in a room of well-adjusted, emotionally healthy individuals. The inability to feel empathy, after all, is one of the most horrifying aspects of sociopaths and one of the most tragic facets of autism.

So when a young man looked at me this afternoon with an expression of disgust and almost anger when I asked him why he didn’t think empathy is important, why he disagreed when almost everyone else agreed, why he seemed put off by the fact that I was unable to hide my surprise at his response, it left me briefly speechless.

“You mean don’t think it’s important to try to understand the lives of those less fortunate than you?” I asked after a moment.

“I never thought about it,” came the flippant response.

“And now that you’ve thought about it?” I continued.

He shrugged and glared.

Dear Terrence,

The other day was a teacher workday, which means we teachers are at school while you kids are free. I wonder what that freedom brings you.

I know you have more “freedom” than the average student because of all the out-of-school suspensions you’ve served. I’ve often wondered about the wisdom of that. I’ll bet in some ways, at least during some of the more tiring stretches of the school year, OSS seems more like a gift than a punishment. After all, there’s no one to make you do this or that. You get to choose who you spend your time with. You can pass that time however you please.

Or can you? Perhaps your mother makes you clean house while you’re serving OSS. Maybe she has a long list of tasks that she expects completed fully and well when she returns from work. Possibly, but somehow I doubt it. She might be struggling just to get enough money to keep a roof over your head and food on your table — she might not sweat the small stuff. Whatever it is you do during those OSS days, I’m fairly certain you prefer it to what you do at school.

And all of this makes me wonder about the wisdom of OSS. I’ve already mentioned to you that I think you would benefit from some direct instruction in how to learn, in how to be successful in school and life. Couldn’t we replace OSS (and ISS, for that matter) with something like that? It would be tricky, because we would have to find a teacher with a certain patience and dedication to young people because, let’s face it, you and your friends can be a real handful in the classroom. It seems possible and even desirable, but I somehow doubt it will ever happen. The American school system likes to think of itself as being cutting edge and progressive, but it’s still relatively set in its old ways in many regards, and how to help students like you is a perfect example.

So I don’t really know what you might be doing today during your day off. Whatever it is, I hope it’s not what I’ve heard in rumor among teachers: I hope you’re not spending all your time trying to impress the members of some gang — for all I know, your gang, for I hear, as the colloquial expression goes, that you “bang.” I have some thoughts I’d like to share with you on that as well, but for now, I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you’re doing on your day off.

With hope,
Your  Friend in Room 302

Dear Terrence,

I heard today: You’ve been tossed out of alternative school, with your latest offense being the proclamation to a teacher that she could just “– off.”

It’s time I took the gloves off, so to speak. That’s stupid. That’s simply stupid. Look back over your long, checkered school experience: when has something like that ever made a situation better? When has such behavior ever helped? When has such behavior ever brought about anything but more trouble from a teacher? When has a teacher ever replied along the lines of, “Oh my! I’m so sorry to have offended you. Please forgive me!”? When has such language ever helped get you out of trouble? When has that language ever done anything other than get you into more trouble?

I swear, sometimes I think you guys simply don’t think.

Annoyed and saddened,
Your Frustrated Friend in Room 302

Dear JT,

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve come lately simply to ignore when you’ve put your head down in my class. There are enough behavior problems in that class to deal with that I don’t want to pick a fight, so to speak, with you. I know I’ll likely only get attitude, and even if you do comply, it’ll only be temporarily.

It bothers me because it’s disrespectful, but quite honestly, you don’t seem to care, and you’re only a kid, so like I said earlier, bigger fish to fry and such. Today, however, you were disrespectful to close to 10,000,000 people. Did you know it was even possible to disrespect so many people at the same time? I really didn’t either: I’d never really given it much thought. But when you put your head down and slept through our Holocaust-based writing exercise as we prepared to read Anne Frank’s diary, you basically put your middle finger up to all those who died in one of the evilest atrocities in history. For all intents and pursposes, you said,

I don’t care about you. I don’t care that you lost your family to a murderous regime. I don’t care that the last image you had of your child was of her being ripped out of your hands, screaming. I don’t care that you had the responsibility of burning the corpses of thousands upon thousands of gassing victims. I don’t care that you were “experimented” upon, shot, kicked, beaten, tortured, and treated like a roach. What I care about is that I’m a little sleepy now in first period, so screw you — I’m going to sleep.

I anticipate your response being something along the lines of, “I don’t care.” That’s fine. No one can make you care about anything. But if you find yourself one day alone, if you find yourself wondering if anyone in the world cares for you, and if you decide that the answer to that question is, “No, no one other than my mother,” perhaps you’ll know how those millions upon millions of Holocaust victims felt. And ironically, the fact that you put your head down during that class session would go a long way in explain why no one cared for you.

Then again, maybe that’s what you’re experiencing now. Maybe you already feel that way. It’s a bit presumptuous of me to suggest that I know you so well as to make such an accurate assessment. After all, I only see you for a small slice of your life. Still, it strikes me as a real possibility.

At the same time, there are plenty of others who have lived lives devoid of anyone really showing them any concern or compassion as children who have grown up to be perfectly empathetic individuals. (And there are plenty who have experienced the opposite.) I do know that you’ll have an easier time in life — a more fulfilling life — if you manage to purge “I don’t care” from your vocabulary.

Still caring for you, but with greater difficulty today,
Your Friend in Room 302

P.S. I said nothing to you when you put your head down the second time after I’d already asked you politely and privately to show some respect. I didn’t want to damage the atmosphere I had created in the classroom. I will, though, address it tomorrow.

Dear Terrence,

I spoke to your English teacher today. She told me about a problem you had with another student, that this boy did something that so angered you that you were willing to fight him. That you turned over a desk and started marching toward the kid with every evil intent that anyone could imagine glowing your eyes.

Remember, we had a conversation in the hallway about this the other day. You’re letting people push your buttons. You’re essentially giving them a remote control and saying, “Hey, you want me to hop on one leg, press this button. You want me to laugh, press that one. If you want me to hit you, the red button’s the one.”

What saddened me most about what your teacher said, though, was your response later, how you asked in a low voice, “Ms. Jones, did you write me up for that?”

“What choice did you give me, Terrence?” she said.

I know that you feel you don’t have a lot of choices right now, Terrence. I know you feel that no matter what decision you make, things always turn out the same way. I know that a lack of choices feels like a prison, but not a conventional one — this one has invisible bars that seem to change location but hold you fast just the same. I know you feel you have few choices, but I’m wondering if your teachers don’t feel the same way.

“What choice did you give me, Terrence?” asked Ms. Jones, and in that, I can almost hear as much frustration as I hear when you tell me some of your stories. What choice does any teacher have when facing a child like you, a child who really needs some positive attention and someone who can sit down with him and explain and practice, as many times as it takes, some of the rules of the game that you seem somehow to have missed out on?

Before you can learn math, science, history, or English, you need, quite frankly, to learn how to learn. To learn how to be comfortable with your own stillness. To learn how to look at someone who’s giving you instruction the same way you look at me when we’re standing in my doorway, chatting. To learn how to listen with a slight smile of anticipation like you do when I call your name out as you walk down the hall and motion you over to me.

But unfortunately, we’re not in a situation where we can take a lot of time to teach you how to learn. We teachers have got deadlines and testing hovering over us, and it feels like the tests are pressing our buttons. We have choices — I’m convinced of that — but I’m not sure we’re all aware of these choices, of the various options that might lead to more success for you and kids like you in the classroom. I’m certain there are choices, but I’m not as sure that they’ve even all been discovered yet. So in a way, we teachers are just groping around, feeling out these invisible bars just like you.

I do know that for most of us, being in the classroom is a conscious choice. We’re an idealistic group at heart: it’s what led most of us to the profession and it’s what keeps us there. Maybe if you can keep that in your conscious thoughts — that everyone who stands in front of you day in and day out is there because they choose to be there, because they want to help, because they feel called to do what they do — then you’ll start to see some new choices, too.

Sincerely,
Your Friend in Room 302

The school year ended today. It was as I predicted: lots of joy, fair amounts of crying. I told one tearful girl, “It gets less painful every time you reach the end of something like this.” Did I lie? She seemed to think, at the very least, that I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Why is it nostalgia is so much more potent when we’re young? Perhaps it’s simply our general lack of experience, and we’re often thinking, “It can’t get any better than this was,” and so we’re melancholy. Maybe it’s part of the naivete of youth, but this too is a result of being inexperienced in the cycles of contemporary life.

Of course, there were as many not tearful as there were with glistening cheeks. Perhaps they’re not as sentimental as the rest of us. Perhaps they have more experience in their fourteen years that has taught them the transience of most things. Sadly, it might be that they learned about temporariness from the love, attention, and affection they’ve received.

I have at least one such student every year. I always feel like I let him down. I always look back at the year and see countless opportunities to do more, to be more, for such students.

It leaves me wondering, once again, about the marks of a successful year. Testing-wise, I was very successful: I met my MAP score goals, and my E1H EOC grades average was just where I thought it should be. Yet what use are acronyms in determining a successful year? It seems a relatively shallow metric.

The truth is, I became a teacher because I simply love working with kids. Perhaps a selfish reason: I do get a certain high when I connect with a kid and feel I’ve somehow helped him. It’s hardly altruism, especially considering the times I’m doing the opposite: the moments when the urge to take a ridiculous behavior personally and become viscous becomes overwhelming. So maybe it’s not surprising that I have the depressive phases to go along with the manic moments.

This is all to explain why I’m feeling down even though it’s the end of the year.

Another kid left today that I find myself thinking, “I’d like to have another shot with him.” I’d like to have him in my classroom another year and manage to get myself out of the way and see what he needs and give it to him. His needs were not to be met by following the curriculum or making him play by all the admittedly arbitrary rules of the classroom. There was more going on in his life than iPods and texting friends, and I’ve a suspicion a large amount of it was negative. My class might have been one of the few bright spots in his day, but looking back over the year, I doubt it. I communicated to him all the things I swore I never would express through body language and tone to a student.

I finally caught on at the end of the year. (Why did it take so damn long? I knew — I had a similar student last year, and I swore I wouldn’t do what I did this year.) While other students were working on a final project, I realized the project might easily turn into yet another zero for him, and so I differentiated: I had him write an essay on three things he could do next year to meet with more success in the classroom. I gave him a pencil and a legal pad (he seldom had materials), and he always replaced the items on my desk at the end of the class.

What I read when he was done was a stinging condemnation, though he was polite in his tone and word choice. He didn’t even mean to condemn me. He just shared some feelings. Feelings of inadequacy that I fear I only heightened. Feelings of hopelessness that I worry I did nothing to assuage. Feelings of being trapped and only vaguely realizing it.

Real success in the classroom is not measured in completed assignments and MAP/ITBS/PASS scores. Success in the classroom is measured with a metric that, like black holes and dark matter, is hypothetical at best. We can infer it from a student’s smile, or a boy’s pride at walking into class having pencil and paper, or a girl’s wide eyes at getting a C on a test.

I forget this too often.

The school year ended today. It was as I predicted: lots of joy, fair amounts of crying. One girl said, “It’s not going to hit me until tonight. Then I’ll be sad.” And another student added, “And happy, cause we’re in high school.”

I know just how they feel. If only I can keep all this in mind until next August, when I’ll surely another Denny.

Many of my students expose their emotional buttons and switches freely and openly. Within a few minutes of meeting some of them, I can tell what their sensitivities are.

“How many administrative referrals did you get last year?” I ask some of them, with a smile that I hope says, “I’m not trying to size you up — I’m just curious.”

“A lot,” a girl — call her Ann — responds.

“Did you notice my question?” I query. “I didn’t ask, ‘Did you receive any referrals?’ but rather ‘How many did you get?’ I’ll bet you got several of those referrals because you simply walked away from a teacher who was saying something you didn’t want to hear.”

I have her attention: she’s curious, and that’s always a good thing.

“How could you tell?” Ann asks.

With their posture, gait, tone and volume of voice, many of these kids speak loads without saying a word. Yet they’re totally unaware of it. Of more concern is that they’re unaware that others are aware of it and can use it against them.

“When you advertise what ‘makes’ you lose control,” I explain, “You provide others with ammunition. The teacher who doesn’t like you at that moment knows: ‘All I have to do is push a little harder and she’ll definitely give me something to write up.’ You let others know your weakness and they might use them against you.” I pause for a moment, deciding to use a bit of vernacular: “Then who got played? Who got owned?”

“Me,” she says meekly.

I have these little conversations after class with the kids that would be labeled “at risk” because they are at risk: they’re in danger of becoming slaves to their own impulses and the people who can pick up on those signals and use them.

Occasionally, there are moments that illustrate that they are indeed beginning to pick up on the signals they give off. They are aware that others can only “make them” mad if they allow it by advertising their sensitivities and reacting predictably.

This afternoon, while students were waiting for their buses, I was joking with a young man that I could probably get him in a state that would end in a disciplinary referral for him. We’d been joking with each other all class about such things, and he stridently denied that I could “push his buttons.”

“How about you,” I ask the boy’s neighbor. “Do you think you have advertised what gets you hot? Do you think I could push your buttons and get you furious in just a few moments in class” He shrugs his shoulders.

I turn to Ann, always one of the last students waiting for her bus. “I’ll bet I could get you.” I know I can: I already have, inadvertently. The question — the hope — appears in my mind: “Will she own up to it?”

“You already have, Mr. S.” Her grin is an odd combination of devilish delight and sheepish vulnerability.

I smile. “Do you think I could do it again if I tried? I won’t ever try, but if I were to try, what do you think?”

She shrugs her shoulders and looks away. For just a moment, though, her eyes say, “I don’t think so. At least I hope not.” A first step — an admission of ownership and of personal responsibility.

“One small step for man…” I think, as the students leave for the bus. I glance down at the roll book and see four more names that need to have such a brief moment of self-confidence in their ability to control their lives.

“I’ll start on him next week,” I mumble.

It’s all part of the growing realization I’m having about working with these “tough” kids. The cliche is spot on: they don’t care what I know until they know that I care. And they’re beginning to know that I care because with me, it’s not business as usual in the discipline department. The etymology of “discipline” includes notions of teaching, not notions of punishing, and I try to put that into practice in the classroom.