8 posts tagged “classroom”

above clouds

Thanks for the many thoughtful comments. Obviously, I do not want to get into what someone has politely called a shin-kicking contest, but I do think I should make a few points.

Prologue: No one who commented on my post has ever been in my classroom for so much as a second. I do not run the "silent classroom." It is a classroom run on mutual respect. Students speak freely in discussion, and engage in candid banter. I do not require raised hands, though many choose to do so, and are acknowledged. Students manage their time and move from one task to another. More days than not they participate in the teaching as well as learning. They know exactly what's expected of them. If you had come into my room in March (the last time I taught due to my accident), you would have thought I had no rules. Again, students know exactly what's expected of them. There's only one road to that. It might have many entrance ramps, but it's the same road: Tell them what's expected of them. Insist they live up to it. Do not tolerate it if they don't. Expect them to succeed in living up to your expectations. Respect them for it.

And now, for the main event:

First, anyone who knows me or has spoken to me or read my opinions about why I am teaching in Mississippi knows that my motives are far from what has been suggested in some comments. Specifically, I refer to accusations of "colonialism."  I assume what is meant is an oblique reference to some sort of systematized noblesse oblige in which privileged white offspring descend into the depths of savagery to sprinkle hope and salvation to the poor and oppressed. Paternalist, perhaps, but not colonialist.

My heritage, my experience, and my motives could not be further from that model. Of course, if one's only experience with me or my opinions was to have brushed me off at an MTC alumni event, it's hard to know this. Perhaps the prejudging of prejudice works in both directions. Having spent more years involved in various social justice projects than some of my commenters have been alive, I think I've gotten my head around why I'm in the Delta teaching. If you're interested in knowing, contact me directly. Better yet, drive into the Delta and join me with a cold one on my front porch for a conversation.

As for the inferences that my statements about adolescents reflect what "can only be racialized undertones," I ask you to take a moment to consider this. There's a saying that "he [who] is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail." What is your filter? Why, specifically, can this "only" be a racial issue? In my experience with raising a child, in dealing with adolescents from every geographic, racial, and economic strata, I find (and am in agreement with psychological and sociological research) that adolescents in the best of circumstances often have trouble with the self-regulation that make it difficult for them to appreciate the nuances of behavior necessary for self-regulation. That is, "You can talk, but not too loudly;" "You can be late to class if you have a good reason," and so forth. Additionally, children with developmental problems caused by a variety of things -- but most notably here in the Delta by poor prenatal nutrition, little or no verbal/cognitive stimulation in early life, drug or alcohol consumption by the mother -- are known to have problems with over-reaction to stimuli, poor self-regulation, and social management issues. This isn't a racial problem. It's an economic and class problem. In Mississippi these go hand-in-hand with race. But a wider and longer perspective might provide you with a different way to frame it. (The hammer quote is, interestingly, from Abraham Maslow, whose theories could inform this line of thought.)

Second, I do not need to caricaturize my students to make a point. Before the age of five, one of my students saw her mother shot in the back, and another saw her aunt shot in the chest by her uncle (about which she testified as the only witness). Another saw his mother set on fire (by the father, who late killed himself, of the student who sits next to him in second period). They've seen family members beaten, knifed, and run over by a car. A male student, recently more involved with town-rivalry gangs, regularly leaves blood stains on his chair from the crotch of his pants. At least seven that I know of are primary caretakers for grandparents or other relatives disabled by strokes, mothers who are crack addicts, or younger siblings. One student has eight children in his bedroom. He lives in a trailer with attic insulation blocking broken windows. Of the five current pregnancies, only one is by a boyfriend. The Delta certainly doesn't have a lock on family tragedy, but the isolation and stagnation of life where there are fewer than 3,000 people (people, not students) in a school district of 1,000 square miles does add a different dimension to how each of these incidents affects the student community as a whole.

One of my MTC colleagues mentioned that she'd never heard voices raised in anger in her family. Many MTC participants come from areas where there is little racial tension because there is little racial diversity. I think it's safe to say the several of us had not imagined the lives many of our students live every day. This was apparent in the shell-shocked conversations of the first few Oxford weekends.

Which brings me to hyperbole: A useful rhetorical and literary device, successfully employed for emphasis by revered third-years during my own summer training. Upon telling a summer student to try a new vocabulary word on his parents that night at dinner, one of this year's class was told in no uncertain terms, "They don't have parents, and they don't have dinner." We were advised not to let students use the bathroom during class because "they'll just gamble, do drugs, and have sex there." The line in my post that students interpret kindness and understanding as weakness is a direct quote from a TEAM teacher.

At the time many of us thought it seemed reductionist and harsh. Seemed. But the first few Oxford weekends proved that many had not taken the message seriously enough. Classrooms were disasters. Students were pitching quarters not in the restroom, but in the back of class while a teacher was in the room. Summer training, as easy-breezy as it seems now in retrospect, needed to be boot camp. An exaggerated experience that would get us to a point where classroom management was second nature and energy could be directed where our aspirations flew.

Many of my students have parents,or step parents they live with. Many of them might eat dinner with their parents. (Though if they do, they are in a minority even among the most affluent and well-educated.) And I'll even give the benefit of the doubt to most of the students who ask to go to the restroom. And those students, for the most part, are not the ones who cause the classroom management nightmares. I am grateful every day for the parents like the woman Karl met at the laundromat, and the ones who own local businesses, and come to parent night. (Twelve parents of my 128 students.) The issue is that the students who cause problems, while they might  be a minority in the classroom, occupy the vast majority of our time in classroom management. Those students who don't require cut-and-dry black-and-white rules to follow will manage themselves. They, for the most part, are grateful that there is a system in place to provide structure to the class. They've told me this. Thanked me for it. And as the months rolled by it was easy for me to see who was who. But the learning curve was steep.

In the first eight to twelve weeks of school, unless a teacher establishes himself or herself as the authority in the classroom, there will be problems down the road. It might come naturally to some, so they don't realize they've done it. But for most first-year teachers it's a struggle. Read the blogs. Listen to the conversations.

Authority in and of itself is not evil. It can be misused, and often is, resulting in opression. But children feel safer and happier when they know someone is in charge. Someone is making sure their needs are looked after. For many of our students, no one does this for them. Far too many have been doing this job -- even taking care of their parents -- and are relieved to have someone in a classroom as an authority figure. I know this sounds patronizing. But the effective use of authority is (dare I say it?) nuanced. The nuance lies in establishing it well enough so that it never needs to be used. Like an insurance policy, or keeping a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.

Epilogue: Lastly, I'd like to point to a question.

And I wonder, why aren't you teaching anymore, really? Of course there's no simple answer to this question, and there were opportunity costs and so on, but I do think you came to believe that classroom teaching was not a sustainable choice for you (it's not for me, either), and I wonder why. What was the problem teaching math to the 25 kids in the room? Why couldn't you explain to them the philosophical corruption of the system, the moral corruption of the stimulus-response model of education, the importance of a social morality based on mutual respect and empathy and reason and the toxic effect of one built on a fear of punishment, and make it all better and more sustainable? ...

...I know you remember how mutually oppressive, how corrosive, it is to be in this place and governed by its bells every day. I may be sympathetic to a claim that this system is so corrupt and corrupting that one cannot long maintain philosophical and moral purity when acting as one of its central cogs. But replacements are on the horizon, and they're supposed to last two years. What you're not acknowledging in your response is that Sabatier is -- with whatever imprecisions and inaccuracies -- waving toward a way to cope with that constant, stifling hostility without taking it personally or ending up a wretched, tortured heap. You and me, we just "walk out of Calculus."

I spent nearly 20 years on the policy side of education, and decided to leave theory and enter practice. Not as a two-year stopover, but as a life. I gave up a successful, comfortable midlife to do it. I find "opportunity costs" an interesting euphemism. It's very easy to know how to do something from afar. It's much more difficult to find a sustainable way to enact it. It requires a balance that often comes only with experience and maturity. The thousands of split-second decisions we, as teachers of a special-needs population, make every day is a tightrope walk not many are able to finish. Knowing how to establish an authority strong enough that it doesn't need to be brandished takes (wait for it) nuance.

[REQUIRED BLOG: ADVICE TO FIRST-YEARS OR, WHY ARE THEY UNHAPPY RABBITS?]

... it's gonna be a bumpy year.

You've read the other second-year blogs that tell you to make the most of the summer, enjoy your time now, make friends, build a network, and whatnot. So I won't go there.

Here is my most important advice: Take to heart the advice you get about classroom management and organization.

As my school security guard says whenever I'm at my wits' end: You in the Delta now, darlin'   In other words: All bets are off.

During summer school you'll be told to manage your classroom in a way that seems dehumanizing and demeaning. Do it. It won't seem necessary in your summer school class. Ignore that. Your students in your classrooms come from families that are chaotic and tragic beyond your wildest imagination. They see more violence and fear before they come to school some days than you've probably ever seen in your life. What they don't have is structure. They are in free fall in terms of self-regulation. They do not understand nuanced behavior. Many are nearly unable to self-regulate or exhibit impulse control. I know it seems demeaning, but these students need the structure that gives them an anchor.

You'll be tempted to think, "I'll be the one who's different. I'll show them respect and they'll respect me for it. They'll want to please me because I'm the first person who's ever smiled at them and shown I care." You will be fresh meat. It won't happen. Believe us.

I'm going to make an analogy that will probably get me in trouble, but not establishing strict classroom management in a critical needs classroom is a little like having a dog and not training it: Neither of you will be happy, but you'll be the one who gets bitten. You have to immediately establish yourself as the alpha figure. This can be difficult when some of your students are bigger than you, more worldly than you, and maybe only two or three years younger than you. The only way to do it ... THE ONLY WAY TO DO IT in their world is through power. It's what they understand. It's the only coin of the realm here.

Your students interpret politeness and kindness as weakness. 

If you hesitate a split second they smell it and will wedge that little crack of insecurity open until you have no control. And believe me: That's a scary place to be. Fifty or 90 minutes of trying to control 25 or 30 teenagers is an eternity even in the best of situations (which this isn't), and it will leave you rattled and not ready for the next 30 who are walking in as the bell rings before you can fight back the tears.

Believe me, in the long run, your students are happier when they are in a controlled, calm environment where the expectations are simple and clear. They'll complain about that, but it's what they want whether they know it or not. You can always loosen up once you've gained their respect, but you can never -- and I mean NEVER -- regain the ground you lose by letting them control you and your class. They are masters at wresting control from you. You are a rookie. You'll hear some of us say "Don't smile until Christmas." It's not so far from the truth. Maybe Thanksgiving.

Once you've earned their respect -- and I've had students tell me they put new teachers through a trial by fire -- you'll be able to quiet the room with a simple glance or stance. But you must earn their respect first, and for the most part, they respect only someone who is in power. What you hope in your heart of hearts is that they will realize that your kindness and fairness is more powerful than the irrationality they encounter elsewhere. But maybe not. You need to be at peace with that.

OK. Next up: Organization. 

standing there: highway 61 in my teacher shoes

It sort of started as a spur of the moment little thing. And now I'm pretty much addicted ... don't know how I'd get through a week without it.

Nope, I'm not talking about huffing Sharpies. I'm talking about letting my students teach.

I teach six class periods a day. I tend to do the guided practice grammar worksheets as overheads on the whiteboard. One day, when I was just plumb sick of hearing my own voice during seventh period I announced half-way through that I was tired of it and held up my dry-erase marker, asking for a volunteer.

Well, Katie bar the door! I thought I had invited disaster to do this without any advance planning. But here comes Karebya, who does a spot-on imitation of my teaching style, right down to handing out tickets (her own!) to other students. She makes her way down the worksheet, circling the participles and drawing those great dynamic arrows to the nouns they're modifying, all while calling on other students, even calling them by last name, just as I would.

Meanwhile, I sit on top of a desk at the side of the room -- not standing, but still taller than seated students -- asking leading questions to make sure the right information was delivered, still sort of assuming the role of a student. "Miss Jones, why isn't corndog being modified by slipping through my fingers?"

Bingo. She asked another student to answer that!

It was such a success! Eventually, I got to the point where I was able to do it with all of my classes. It was crucial to choose just the right day, with the right vibe going, to introduce the process, and it still seems to work better as an impromptu moment. I still play it by ear each time as there's just no predicting which day any given class will be able to handle it. Sometimes I ask for volunteers, and sometime I ask a specific student to take over for me.

One of the good outcomes has been that when I do a mini-review as a bellringer later I can say, "Now, remember, when Mr. Kelly did such a great job teaching you this?" and everyone feels good.

It's also served to defuse a few chronic classroom management issues. When a student is teaching and others are talking, or giving her a hard time about a mistake on the board, I can make a joke about it by saying something like, "It's a tough crowd, isn't it Miss Jackson?" When I first started letting them teach, I would interrupt and ask for tissues, or complain about the room temperature. Once was enough: They got the point, and it seems to have helped take a bit of the edge off their resistance to some of my classroom rules they don't understand.

I've done a few lessons in which student-teaching was incorporated into the plan. The last part of our poetry unit, for example, was to have small groups of students each teach a poem to the rest of the class. I supplied the groups with a printed poem, and they completed an explication worksheet that prepared them to annotate their poem at the board using an overhead. Of course, I had modeled that process several times by annotating poems all along, so they knew what I expected.

Whenever my students teach I remind them to check to make sure their students understand -- not just stand there and lecture. I have to listen carefully and manage my input so each class still gets the same lesson. And it's a classroom management minefield. But haven't I always loved working on just that edge, flirting with disaster?

But mostly I really enjoy the moment when I say, "I'm as tired of hearing my voice as you are. Who wants to teach?" 

Plate-spinning

Having recently found myself celebrating the start of spring break here in the Mississippi Delta with the improbable combination of two inches of snow, a roaring fire, mail-order Indian food, watching Lawrence of Arabia with a like-minded soul and a bottle of gin, I'm now contemplating why it seems that a good number of satisfied and successful MTC teachers seem to be those with adult ADD. Starting a 3-hour film at 6:30, and finding that you've stopped it to talk so often that you've only watched 45 minutes of it by midnight will do that.

ADD hadn't been invented yet when I was coming up in school, so I was just the scatterbrained girl who seemed to be able to focus on everything and nothing at once. I eventually learned to use this to my advantage, but it wasn't until my own daughter was diagnosed in high school that the pieces came together. Notice that I say ADD, not ADHD, and that's the distinction that sometimes lets us slip by undiagnosed. We don't cause behavior problems so we generally can make it through school without being drugged into submissive normality. Thank heaven. Because the skills we develop to manage our minds are precious.

How many people with ADD does it take to screw in a light bulb? The punchline (And if you've got it, you get it. The rest of you: Maybe not so much.) has become a shorthand for recognizing those times when it's getting a little out of hand. Like last Friday. Or spending two hours talking about Australia and Norway over a 7-layer burrito after yoga class. But still ...

The best metaphor I've found for managing a classroom of 25-30 is the old act of spinning plates. You either remember it from Ed Sullivan or you've seen the corny videos. But if you've spent one day as a teacher you know what I mean: Where did you set that clipboard? Who's currently out with the hall pass? You just saw Kenyarder pass a note to DeKindrick, should you pick it up? Are you still listening to yourself as you say the same thing for the third time in the sixth class in which you've said it?  Four people have their hands up. Who's already answered today and who will just ask if you have toothpick if you call on her? The bell's going to ring in 11 minutes and fourth period is still two days behind fifth period. Maybe the bell will ring early. Touch all four walls without ever turning your back on the class. Whom can you let mumble under his breath, and who will get out of hand?

If you regularly substitute espresso for Ritalin, this is a familiar state of mind. And if you've grown up learning to manage your ADD you're supremely adapted to living in this atmosphere. My theory, and I'm eager to discuss this with my MTC colleagues, is that the ability to constantly shift focus while still keeping the main event on track is one of the keys to a certain style of classroom management. Not the only way to manage a classroom, mind you, but a way to  manage one that is flexible and creative, doesn't rely on militaristic adherence to silence, and is able to roll with the daily craziness that is teaching in the Delta. Other teachers with ADD with whom I've spoken about this agree. We consistently get observation comments about the natural ease of our classroom management.

On the "other flip-side of the coin," as an old friend used to say, it often makes us appear to be poor teachers in the eyes of our more linear-minded colleagues because we are continually doing the last-minute lesson plan, turning in nine-week grades a day late (because we knew that the Tuesday deadline was just so they'd get them on Wednesday anyway!), and slogging through piles of unread essays.

But remember, it's that intoxicating adrenaline rush that fuels your creativity. And creativity, whether it's classroom management or lesson planning, is a big part of what will make you a great teacher.

Of course, you know, this blog entry was started at 4:10 a.m on Thursday. Yeah. If you've got it, you get it.

[EDSE 600 REQUIRED BLOG]

Tell 'em

Am I following the basic plan I outlined during summer training? Yes. Have I been able to avoid giving essay writing as a consequence? Yes. Do I give math as a consequence? You bet. Write those times tables. To 5, to 10, to 12. Do it again. Problem is, it becomes something else for me to keep track of.

Like many others I am stumped for the meaningful intermediate consequence between the warning and the write-up that doesn't end up taking away instructional time. My school doesn't do detention so I don't have that option. I can't enforce an after-school detention of my own (even though I'm there Tuesdays and Thursdays until 5 and there are late buses) because so many of them work or have childcare responsibilities.

My basic plan of rewards is working well. At first they were too cool for the tickets, but now they work hard to get one for using a vocab word during a discussion, or for asking a challenging question, or for working at the bell, or whatnot. A few have made decorative envelopes to keep them in. They love seeing me reach into my little apron as I head down the aisle in their direction.

Competition between classes has worked, too. I don't have much empty wall space that I can reach without a chair, so the class-on-class competition had to be displayed vertically, and in a place where they couldn't get to it during class changes. So the back of the classroom door is the "Race to Space" where there are six Velcro strips (yes, those of you who know me know how much I detest the sound of Velcro, but that should tell you how much I care about this) with cut-out spaceships numbered for the class periods. They move up or down each day depending on the behavior of the whole class. Peer pressure works.

The progress of the other classes is a huge topic of conversation. And I hear them shushh each other by saying "Hush, y'all. We're gonna move down!" Sometime all I have to do to quiet the hum of chatter is walk silently to the door, slooooowly peel the spaceship off (This is where the vile sound of Velcro comes in handy) and move it down a bit.

The first class to the top of the door gets a full class period break. In the meantime, the first class to the level of the doorknob got to teach me to Crank dat Soulja Boy. I will admit I vetted the competition a bit because there are some classes in which I knew it would be unwise to show vulnerability. First period won. My class of 12 unusually mature sophomores.

I am learning that the front row is not always the best place for the clowns who talk too much. They sit sideways and can catch everyone else's eye. When I put them in the back, no one looks at them. They lose their audience. And it's easy enough for me to stand in the back to be near them.

I am learning that sometimes stopping in the middle of the hall and simply watching them will quiet them in the lunch line.

And I've still got the kitten.

My biggest problem? Not engaging. Not getting sucked into their deal. This is a problem for me in general. I tend to be a responder so it's very difficult not to have a retort when they mouth off. I can get sarcastic. (Who me?) And that's wrong. I've lost it and shamed a student. I lose sleep over that. I've confessed it like a 12-stepper,

[REQUIRED MTC BLOG: TWO QUESTIONS]

Entre chien et loup

What is my favorite time of the day, and why? I think I have to say it's setting my room for the next day. I know, I know, you're thinking it's because it's the end of the day and I'm about to go home ... but that's not it. Yes, it's the end of the day, but it's also the beginning of another.

It's the time between. A threshold. Entre chien et loup: Between the wolf and the dog. The French idiom for twilight, when the light is just dim enough that you can't distinguish between a wolf and a dog. It's also used in a more symbolic sense as a threshold between hope and fear, the familiar and the dangerous. And that's kind of where I am in that time.

At first, I would get my room and the boards all set just out of a sense of responsibility, thinking that I should close the loop between that afternoon and the next morning. The old publishing production habit of eliminating all possible variables because something you haven't thought about yet will surely go awry.

But now I find a wonderful sense of peace in that time. I've written before about Camus' essay on the Myth of Sysiphus -- probably one of my favorite pieces of nonfiction writing --- and I think this hour or so in my classroom is when I feel closely tied to its spirit. There's the obvious metaphor: returning each day to repeat what seems like a futile mind-numbingly difficult task. But Camus was interested not in the struggle to get the rock up the mountain, and not in the tragedy of its repeated descent, but in the moment of Sysiphus' turning, his moment of awareness of his fate.

At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

I feel that strength each day at this time. I feel stronger than, and ready for, anything that will happen in that room.

robin & gelisia

The other question: Why should someone apply to Mississippi Teacher Corps? I'll tell you why not to apply: You're not sure what you want to do next, and this seems like a good way to kill two years while you decide. You've never been in the South and are curious about it. That's like saying you're curious about mountains so you're going to climb Everest.

I will tell you that you should really want to do this before you get here. You should be passionate about what you want to do here, and at the same time ready to admit that you will probably not be able to accomplish that goal. But you will find a new goal that you've never dreamed of yet. I've done a few more things in my life than most of my colleagues here, and I will still say, as they do, that this is right up there with the most difficult. (Considering that giving birth did not last 2 years with a one-month break next July)

Please visit first if at all possible. See the Delta. (There's room in most of our homes for you.)  Read the blogs and talk to us. Invest in a really good 3-hole punch.

Read Sysiphus.