Matching Tracksuits

Teachers have a dream letter. It’s the letter that says simply, “Thanks. You helped me.” Sure, it’s an ego boost, but more than that, it’s confirmation that a teacher is doing his job effectively from the only source that matters: the student.

I received one such letter after my student teaching. A young lady in the honors course I was teaching was frustrated with the amount of reading I’d assigned. She came to me after class and explained that she has great difficulty comprehending what she’s read. “I have to have my mother help me. She reads it and explains it,” she said quietly, wiping her tears and glancing about to see if any other students were in the room.

The next day, I gave her a list of techniques I’d created the night before while pouring over all my notes and books from college. I explained how each technique worked, modeling a couple. She used them at home and said they were helpful.

When my cooperating teacher had the students write letter to me before I completed the assignment (one thing you liked, one thing you didn’t, and advice for the future), she wrote a sentence that, though I have long since lost the letter, I remember clearly: “You’ve helped me more than you realize.”

Fifteen years later, I receive another letter.

To be continued

Returning to school as a student was always something of a mix. There was a little relief because, let’s face it: free time can get a little boring when you’re a teen. At the same time, there was the return to dreaded classes and dreaded teachers. There were classes we didn’t feel were worth our time (sometimes rightly, often not), but this was not the real problem.

The true problem was in the personnel: the teachers.

Though they were few, there were teachers gifted at turning interesting subject matter into drudgery because of their inability to share their enthusiasm or (probably more likely) their complete lack of enthusiasm. Such teachers often complained about the end of break, relied heavily on sarcasm in their interactions with students, and generally made no effort to hide the fact that they really didn’t want to be there, that they really didn’t enjoy working with us, and that, given any other options, they would choose just about any job over being a teacher. (This is certainly not to say that any teacher who complains about the end of a break or uses sarcasm is such a teacher.)

Those were the classes we endured when going back to school after a break. Was it best to have such a teacher first period, fourth period, or seventh? That was the only question. First period meant getting the dreaded class over with from the beginning. Seventh period meant capping a potentially great day with a sure disaster. Fourth was always good for me: not early enough to put me in a sour mood for the rest of the day and not late enough to leave a bad taste in my mouth before heading home.

I know there are still teachers like that. I suspect that if I snooped around a bit, I’d find one or two in my own school. Most teachers would say the same of their schools, I’m sure.

For such teachers, being in class is just as much drudgery as it is for the students. Neither wants to be there; all are counting the minutes to the end of the class. Such teachers drag themselves out of bed every morning and breathe a sigh of relief when the day is done. And so the first day back for them is sheer torture. It’s a return to work.

Along the lines of the old adage, I’ve never worked a day in my life as long as I’ve been employed in education. Going back to school today was a pleasure. Indeed, I couldn’t get to sleep for the excitement last night of trying some new lessons in old units. I walked down the hall this morning with an enormous smile on my face, and I greeted everyone — students, teachers, administrators — with a genuinely goofy cheerfulness. I told students that I’d missed them, that I’d been looking forward to returning, that I was a little bored without working with them.

Perhaps this helps explain why I have no behavior issues in my classroom beyond the talkative nature of thirteen-year-olds.

Bonnie Davis writes in How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You,

In searching for the causes of the achievement gap, [Haycock] and her research colleagues ask adults why there is a gap. They hear comments from educators that the children are too poor, the parents don’t care, and they come to school hungry. The reasons, she adds, are always about the children and their families. Yet, when she talks to the students, she hears different reasons. Students talk about teachers who do not know their subject matter, counselors who underestimate their potential and misplace them, administrators who dismiss their concerns, and a curriculum and expectations that are so low level that students are bored.

I’m curious about the methods of this study. Were teachers simply asked to share their assumptions, with researchers later collating and categorizing them? Or was there a questionnaire? Either way, there is an element of interpretation necessitated by such research that might make it far from objective.

I’m particularly curious about the claim that students find the curriculum so low-level that they’re bored. I don’t doubt their claim to be bored, but I’m skeptical about the cause of that boredom.

In my own classroom experience, I’ve found the state-mandated curriculum to be too challenging for many of the students placed in on-level classes (students who, generally, actually read two to three grade levels lower than their actual grade). I often feel my expectations are too high.

But is this why children are bored in the classroom? Is there a societal element? I believe there is. Contemporary entertainment media — games, television, the Internet — have taught students to expect short, entertaining bites of information.

The question is obvious: are we competing with the new media?

We might be in competition for students’ attention, but to that I’m tempted to say, “Well, that’s at least equally the students’, parents’ and teachers’ fault.” I agree that teachers should be interesting and engaging, but the point of the classroom is not entertainment, and the defining criterion of an effective twenty-first century teacher should not be their ability to entertain students.

Christmas break has disappeared behind a pile of compare/contrast essays, journals, and persuasive essays. The school year has resumed, and the consequence of my inability to keep on schedule means I have in one weekend a pile of grading that I was intending to spend two weekends and the intervening week plowing through.

Plowing through — as if this were a drudgery. It’s the amount, not the work.

This week has forced me to reevaluate my career choice. Most would expect a paragraph that begins like that to end bemoaning the decision to go into education. My thoughts led to quite the opposite conclusion. Every now and then it occurs to me how fortunate I am to be doing what I love most: working with kids. Teaching is a privilege, an honor.

Most significantly, it is a position built around trust. Perhaps it’s not voluntary trust, and maybe it’s not trust in me personally, but public education is built on trust. One parent said told me, “You’re raising my child; you see him more than I do,” Parents hand their children over to me daily, believing that I will do my best to help their children grow — intellectually and even emotionally. I feel a surge of pride and honor every time I think of the role these parents trust me to play in their children’s life, and that’s why the piles of paperwork this weekend don’t phase me.

Ideally, there should be another relationship of trust in education: between teacher and student. If there is mutual trust, there must be mutual respect: it’s hard to trust someone you don’t respect, and vice versa.

I must have faith that, all variables being made equal, my students all want to learn. Some days it’s more difficult than others: those variables — parental support, presence of adult role models, family educational history (i.e., socioeconomic status) — have a resiliency that can be frustrating. But if I didn’t believe all students wanted to learn (not necessarily what I’m teaching, but simply learn), how could I go to work in the morning? It would be the ultimate Sisyphean task.

The trust my students must have in me is much more multi-faceted. If they’ve had several bad experiences with adults, I start already behind. If they’ve had less-than-effective teachers in the past, I start even further behind. So many ways to gain and lose their trust.

When working with thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds, it’s a thin line of trust. They can have such a heightened sense of “fair,” and they often confuse fairness and equality.

How many of my students would say they trust me? Certainly not one hundred percent: it’s not a perfect world, and I’m not a perfect teacher. I can honestly say, though, that a good number trust me to keep their best interests in the forefront of all we do. Even in moments of classroom management crisis (e.g., acting out),

The school year is nearing completion: just under two more weeks remain. Everyone — teachers, students, administrators, custodial staff — everyone in the building is counting the days.

Such an odd thing: we’ve spent 170+ days working together, and we’re all sick of each other, rather like a family on a long vacation. A bit of time apart and all would be well. Yet “a bit of time apart” is impossible: the students move on, and we teachers remain, waiting for the next group.

It’s as if we’re on a cosmic treadmill. We take a few steps with the kids, and though we all (teachers, students, parents, administrators) keep walking, the students slowly move on ahead of us teachers, occasionally looking back with a smile of thanks, occasionally staring straight ahead, occasionally — tragically — looking down.

“I’m so sick of all this,” we all mutter, but come what may, there will be tears on the final day, and I’ll probably be accused of laughing at someone’s tears as I was last year. “No, no, I’m not laughing at you,” I’ll insist. “I’m just smiling because it’s all rather sweet.”

It’s this time of year that I start making resolutions for the next year. Knee deep in all the mistakes I’ve made this year, I resolve not to do this or that, promise myself to be more systematic about some thing or other, commit myself publicly to more of this, less of that. I’ve a six-page, detailed outline of changes I’ll be making in one course next year, and I’ve only just begun recording my thoughts and plans. (A lesson learned from last year: all the brilliant ideas one has about changes to this or that unit tend to disappear the day school is out.)

And in the midst of all this planning for next year while making sure this year ends positively and productively comes a call from a parent. The long conversation includes a story about how her son came into my class apprehensive. Now he admits that the class is “alright” because I’m a “cool” teacher.

And another student sends me an email: “Thank you for helping me get through this year maintaining my grades.”

Bittersweet moments, indeed.

We took our students on a field trip to a district vocational school where students can learn everything from cosmetology to aircraft repair.  We weaved in and out of the classrooms, learning a little about the requirements and salaries of the jobs the students were preparing for, as well as the expectations of the class. Students asked questions and occasionally listened with wide eyes at salary possibilities.

Though they’re only fourteen, they’re already thinking about their future and their careers. It’s an exciting and uncertain time.

At age fourteen, I was sure I was going to be architect. I was thrilled at the prospect of taking drafting in high school, and though the thrill was gone by the end of the second year, I stayed on for a third year of drafting. In a sense, I regret it: I never directly use those skills now. Auto shop would have been of much more practical value.

I thought about telling the students all this as we walked from room to room, but we almost always learn — truly learn — such lessons firsthand.