During that summer with Atlanta PLUS I taught summer school for 7th grade students for two weeks and to high school students for another two weeks. That month of summer school teaching had to be the most nerve wracking and stressful experiences of my short career. Middle school was the worst…more on that later.
My time with the high school students wasn’t bad at all. My cooperating teacher was an older Indian woman. She was brilliant teacher but her classroom management sucked. It didn’t suck because she wasn’t a good teacher…it sucked because these particular summer school students didn’t care to be there. Some of her students talked openly while she taught, listened to music in class, and essentially did the opposite of everything that a student should do. But she took it all in stride. She didn’t let any of it phase her. She taught her classes with grace, style, and a calm demeanor that I’ve been trying to duplicate ever since I met her. I was able to teach one week of her pre-calculus class and one week of her geometry class. Her seniors were taking pre-calculus and her sophomores were taking Geometry. The sophomores were the best.
The middle school experience was like hell on earth. See, high school students typically choose to go to summer school for credit recovery. Middle school students are SENT to summer school…and 7th graders are the worst. My cooperating teacher was not a math teacher. She was a science teacher who assigned to teach math. The students were incredibly rude and confrontational with her…but she usually just laughed it off. She had two classes to teach and she allowed me to teach the calmer of the two classes….until she called out sick for two days. There I was, as green as a blade of grass, left alone with these wild kids. I didn’t know where the copy machines were…I didn’t know how to get to the cafeteria….I didn’t have a key to the room…and up until that point…I had little to no idea what I was doing as far as classroom management or lesson structure was concerned.
That first class was fine. These were the kids I worked with on a regular basis…I guess you could say I bonded with them. The second class however ran the show that first day. They talked, cursed, and did just about everything but what they were supposed to do. They even tried to bargain with me…saying “we’ll let you teach if you let us listen to music.” Let’s just say there was no music that day.
The next day I got extremely firm with them, called parents, and basically stood my ground. The lesson was still a colossal failure, and I still had horrible classroom management…but at least they didn’t try to bribe me.
I learned early on that students ( particularly young students ) can smell the nervousness on a new teacher…they’ll see it…and try to exploit it. I wanted those kids to like me so I was probably more relaxed with them than I should have been when I worked with my cooperating teacher as an observer.
The worst thing a new teacher can do is care about being liked. I have to admit, I still struggle with that. If you’re good…the students will learn to like you later…get their respect first. Hell, if they never learn to like you at least you can still get your job done.
During my 72 minute first period I only taught math for 30 minutes.
During the rest of the period I decided to talk to the young men in my class about their actions, the consequences that WILL DEFINITELY (eventually) follow, and how their 7th grade decision making can ( and in many cases does ) turn into a lifelong struggle with stress and drama that results from poor decision making.
There are 24 young men in my class and for most of our talk time I had the undivided attention of about 18 of them. This morning was a small victory for me as some of them seemed to understand my genuine care and concern for their well being in a safe, nurturing environment.
Sometimes, particularly in our urban schools, I feel that we put so much focus on cramming the academic content into the heads of students who have been categorized as being “behind” or “below grade level” that we forget that they often have other, much more pressing needs that we should first attend.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs places students’ (humans’) physiological needs, safety needs, and the need to belong well before things like esteem and self actualization. Effective classroom management/teaching and public schooling presuppose that the basic needs have already been met or fulfilled by the students’ own families and/or communities…and every school I have ever worked at operates as if those needs have already been met. Counselors and school social workers are always on staff to help fill the gap for those students whose basic needs haven’t been met.
However, in school in the inner city, many (if not most) of the students have not had those basic needs met. How, then, are the schools expected to run as effectively and as efficiently as schools where those basic needs are being met by parents and/or family?
Obviously, there is a strong correlation between socio-economic status and the levels of needs being met. Students with a higher SES are much more likely to have their basic needs already being met. That being verifiable, shouldn’t public schools that knowingly serve students populations who have a strong possibility of those basic needs not being met be more proactive about meeting those needs FIRST, and then meeting students’ academic needs second ? Or is that too close to the STATE raising our children? Will adding more school counselors who are actually allowed to counsel students do the trick or are many of the students already too far gone? Is it the school’s or the State’s responsibility to try to meet those needs or do we simply enact legislation that holds parents more accountable? What do we do for those students whose parents refuse or are simply unable to provide those basic needs?
Whatever the answer to my questions, I know that we can’t continue to do nothing. We lose too many of our inner city and/or rural student populations to a lifetime of underachievement because we refuse to meet them where they are and provide them with what they need in order to be successful.
(If you choose to answer my questions…please…try to be as out of the box as possible. The old way of doing things doesn’t work. I’m not interested in canned answers)
Today was one of those days when, by 1pm, I wondered why I even got out of bed. The day began with me having breakfast with my 1st period students. I took over as their primary teacher two months ago after transitioning in from another single gender school in another district. I expected to encounter some resistance…what I didn’t expect was the chaotic mess I had inherited from my predecessor who, I assume, was all too happy to relinquish her duties to me.
I observed her classes for approximately one month before taking over. What I observed was class after class of bored, underperforming, restless, ill behaved boys of color. I quickly realized why I was brought in. Prior to taking the job, I assumed I was brought in for my content knowledge and/or pedagogical practices. I was wrong. I was brought in to bring some structure, order, and discipline to groups of boys who needed someone who had worked with students like them before. I never back down from a challenge so I did what I do…which brings us to today.
The morning was great…as it usually is for me. The kids were focused, quiet, did what they were told/asked to do and we got everything accomplished that I had planned. My afternoon, however, sucked. During my class after lunch the boys were completely unfocused…tired…and bored. They expect math class to ALWAYS be fun…and to always involve some sort of a game. I blame the proliferation of so-called single gender strategies for that…more on those in a later post.
My 5th period class only has six students in it. Today, that number was down to five. During this class we are typically able to accomplish everything I have planned with time to spare…since behavior problems, questions, and other management issues are nearly non-existent. Today was the day that THREE of my five students decided to have giggle fits for the first ten minutes of class. Instead of continuing with my regularly scheduled program I sat these three boys down, placed the other two on a computer based learning module, and had a roundtable discussion about their behavior and how it often negatively impacts that of their classmates. 7th graders and logic do not co-exist. Needless to say, that conversation did not go well.
There was one shining light in this day. One of my students was mature enough and brave enough to explain to his classmates how their behavior blocked him from learning. They listened to him…longer than they listened to me. Ultimately, they went back to their giggle fit…but the bravery of that young man…and his explanation to his classmates that he was here to learn while they were not…was the single point of light in an otherwise dark day.
I’d like to think of myself as the infallible, unshakable, ultra dependable, rock star teacher who is always on time, always able to connect with the students, and always…ALWAYS…engaging.
But the fact of the matter is I am human and days like yesterday exist to remind me of that and to also remind me that technology, projects, and hands on activities are never a substitute for good teaching.
Second chances are wonderful.
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