Students bustle to and from class in the hallway outside my door.
Some days I feel like a failure and other days, well, famously fantastic! Working with
adolescents can sometimes make one feel like having their invariable mood swings. I ‘worry’ about
so many things, like whether I offended my shy student for half-listening while dealing with other
pressing concerns. Fortunately, she was warm towards me the next day, a fact I can only thank
TEEN-RESILENCY for. I do believe kids forgive adults for not being perfect, but it certainly helps if
they feel like adults are trying their best. “Kindness covers a multitude of sins,” hmm… or is that
“a soft answer turns away wrath?” Eh, they go hand-in-hand.
What a week!
When a student says, “I hate this class,” do they say that for the same reasons I’m thinking? Hate
is a strong word, but most teenagers seem to like STRONG words (especially those famous
absolutes of no one, always, and never). Do the 34 students crammed around table groupings in
our small room bother them? Or is it the ten talkers who shout-out, get up/ walk around, throw
things, and interrupt the overall learning of the class with their impervious distractions? As the
teacher, how do I allow such behaviors continue? What am I doing (or not doing) to maintain order for the
students who want to get the most out of 8th grade English? How do I instill consistency when I only see
students every other day? Does research suggest teenagers forget information overnight, or was that only my
brain?
Of course, the “I hate this class” statement might have nothing to do with the dynamics and
everything to do with the content rigor. Currently 1/6th of my students are failing and mainly
because they are missing multiple assignments. How can I give students a score for something they
haven’t done? Which brings me back to the nature of grades – Do they measure a student’s
preparation/ planning, organization, ability to follow directions, and engagement, or focus only on
Language Arts standards like reading comprehension and writing protocols. YES. It’s nearly
impossible to separate the two, and certainly in the work world we don’t. A boss can’t evaluate the
quality of your project if you don’t possess the self-management skills to complete it (let alone on
time).
Still somehow, I see it as my awesome (fearful) responsibility to ensure students get their @#$*
together. The ranges of student abilities challenges me enough and I’m unsure how to support
students that don’t verbalize/ recognize their struggles in the class. Going through the grade book,
I make a list of students and their missing assignments, wondering WHY – Did they not understand
the directions? Did they not know how to do the assignment? Did they forget? Did something unrelated
happen to them outside of class? The list of possibilities goes on…
I think about schools that require students with missing assignments for the day to stay after school
and make them up. Such a change would certainly place academics more at the forefront of school
values. I kind of wish my school had something similar – some may argue that it’s good to let kids
fail in 8th grade before high school grades matter for college admittance, but the thing is, if they
don’t learn good management skills in Jr. High, how are they going to suddenly change for high
school? By not pushing accountability with a pro-active solution addressing the problem, the
pattern will continue.
TIME isn’t only a student issue, but a teacher one as well. I better understand why teachers have
summers off now; during school months they can average 10-14 hour work days depending on
clubs, sports, parent-meetings/ student-conferences, returning email, planning, grading/ giving
feedback, and inputting/ assessing data. It all adds up and I walk out of school befuddled as to
where the time went. Choosing to take an online grad-level class this semester in addition to
everything else was probably not the best decision (understatement inserted here).
And how do I STOP thinking about my students when I’m not at school?
Is it strange that I feel like they’re “mine”? Is it because I’m a female without local family, or does
it have to do with the larger message from society placing students’ final failures and success on
teachers? Could any other profession, would any other profession, accept such a charge? I don’t
know. I kind of want to interview a police officer and ask whether he/ she is able to block out
work-related ‘cases, faces, and places’ when away.
Do teachers CRAVE busyness? I think I do to some extent… if I’m not researching, planning,
writing, or thinking, then what am I supposed to be doing? Work is life. Life is work. Living in the
in between moments, how does one really do that? I fear the un-planned, un-busied, quiet
moments of the mind and soul. Because stress is better than depression, “I don’t have time,” feels
like an easier response.
One thing’s for sure, and I’ve probably said it before, I was made to teach… even if it’s messy,
even if I’m clueless, overwhelmed, emotional when alone, and obsessive-compulsive trying to
maintain structures/ organization… I love, love, love what I get to do every day!
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