Recently I sat down for the absolute most therapeutic discussion with one of our fellow student teachers, and one phrase that has been sticking in my mind that was floating around in our conversation was "succumbing to the chaos" and sometimes, this does need to be done.
I feel like I am a rather chaotic person mostly, or at least that is how my mind seems to function. But when one views teaching and the process of learning as an almost scientific process, there is a pressure to make everything neat, orderly. To have it go a certain way immediately. Lately not only have I been trying to let go on having such a tight leash on my classroom, but also trying to succumb and find comfort in the chaos that is this stage of my life in general. I have achieved moderate success.
That being said, there is a time and place for order, but then how to communicate that to those who like me have found community in the noise?
Jack (as we will call him) is one of the nosiest, until recently. Funny, smart, talkative, disruptive, and not always reliable to turn anything in. That's Jack. Not anymore. Now Jack comes to class with a hood on, hiding the ipod headphones underneath and turns all the way around in his seat.
"Jack," says I in a one on one conference "You aren't yourself. I see you doing all this, I miss the participation I could rely on you for, what's going on?"
"I'm having a bad day. Things aren't going well for me lately, I'm sorry" says Jack.
"Anything you want to talk about?"
"No, I'll be fine. I'll be better tomorrow"
What could I do but try and believe him?
Today my class had a presenter on the college process to talk to the class. Before it started I got up in front of the class, staring them all down saying "We have a guest speaker today, and I expect you all to show him respect and be attentive, I have a zero tolerance policy for disruptions when we have guests in the classroom" Translation: Please show him the respect you don't show me.
I didn't see Jack in the corner, with the hood and headphones uniform of his bad days. I was distracted (attendance, "Lenny, get your head off the desk", "Bianca they want you in the office" etc) But the presenter noticed. He asked him to face forward, take off his headphones, participate. Jack refused. They had an exchange of words. The presenter (who is a Counselor by the way) sent him to the office. It was weird for a moment, but I backed him up. This was ridiculous behavior, we had talked about it.
After class I marched up to the Vice Principal of Discipline to follow up on Jack's meeting.
Jack had never made it to the office. She got on the radio. Jack wasn't in third period.
Scene Two: Yours truly filling out an official referral form, discussing the history of the situation briefly with the VP and the principal. They fight tight lipped about which one of them is going to call his mother. They praise my assessment and action in this situation. "Are you applying for a job here next year, we hope so!" and talk about how this level of defiance warrants a suspension.
Apparently all I've ever had to do to impress my superiors is finally write a freaking referral, something I never EVER wanted to do. And especially not in this case. My referral happy master teacher patted me on the back when I got to her class "It's about time!" I imagine leaving today, other teachers high fiving me on the way out to my car "Good going on that referral, champ!" This is all they have ever wanted me to do.
In my head I'm screaming "WHERE IS JACK?! HOW COME THIS ISN'T THE ISSUE? HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SUSPEND HIM WHEN HE ISN'T HERE?!?!"
I never heard any more until I had to leave. I feel rotten inside, like I've failed. I know that nothing going on in any one's life is ever an excuse for anything, but maybe if I had done more about it, it wouldn't have gotten to this point.
My master teacher says: Teenagers have to learn just like everyone else to compartmentalize.
I says: Do you remember what it was like to be a teenager, Ms. C?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
As for the chaos thing you mention, I’m really not sure how to comment on that. Most of the veteran teachers stress classroom discipline, saying that without management you cannot have curriculum. At first I didn’t agree with this believing that the natural state of a teenager is a hormonal tornado. I felt that to force students to behave a certain way was…honestly a little stupid. I mean how often do we need to raise our hands before we talk? We usually just need to wait for people to finish before we begin talking. I’d rather teach this than the hands in the air thing, but kids already know this and in most cases I just feel that they are testing your boundaries as a new teacher. They test mine everyday.
My problem in classroom management is that I tend to be too sporadic in exercising discipline. It generally all depends on my mood, or if someone will be observing. This isn’t right. I should have gone in with a plan rather than the, ‘deal with it as it comes up’ mentality. “When you don’t plan you plan to fail.” Thanks Franklin-Covey. I guess I’d worry about the chaos. While no, it may be difficult to keep your students on a short leash, why would you want to? I think you should worry about keeping the chaos from spinning into a teenage riot. All I’m saying is that the classroom should be shared (learning community), but you should be the one running it, not behavior-problem students.
With your kid Jack -I wouldn’t beat yourself up over giving him a referral and having him disappear. First- you obviously didn’t have enough a rapport with the student for him to share his feelings with you. That’s not your fault. It seems like you tried. You have spoken to him before and shown genuine concern. If he is not going to share what’s going on in his life you can’t put pressure on him to make him. Some people no matter how well you get to know them will not respond to questioning, but will rather volunteer the information when they want to, if ever.
Second- Jack is a teenager and he seems to be all over the place. Hey, you didn’t pump him out of your womb and toss him into his world. Don’t worry about it. Be there for him if he wants you to, but don’t over extend yourself. I know that a lot of people may not agree with this overextending comment, but I feel being that you are just starting off in this job you should focus on the class as a whole rather than an individual case-by-case strategy.
Yeah, having had plenty of dealings with discipline-administrators as a student I can honestly say all of them are humorless Nazi-bastards. Administrators don’t think anything is funny, believe me. They are concerned with their job and unfortunately no matter how long they have been doing their job they don’t tend to care about the student as a person, but rather as a disruption. This being said, never leave a high-fiver hanging.
As the overall proponent of systematic planning and assessment, I want to reassure you that a little chaos can be a good thing. You have to figure out the way YOU'RE going to be a great teacher, and your way may be a little less structured. Of course, I hope you will take the good parts of being systematic, not abandon it entirely, but there are lots of ways to be a great teacher, and if you're forming good relationships with your students and showing them that you want them to succeed, that's probably the most important piece.
Which brings us to Jack. I agree with taco fighter only insofar as I don't think it's worthwhile to beat up on yourself. However, you clearly have a gut feeling that something's up with Jack and that you can help. Trust that. If he doesn't show up to class, call him at home. I'm really impressed that you began your conversation with him by telling him what you value about him in class. That's a beginning. Keep up the positive reinforcement, and he'll come around.
nrgblog,
You have to know that I completely modeled my first statement to him after just what I thought you would say, part of the perks of having your voice in my head all the time.
You are right, I am too inexperienced at this point to run my class in a non systematic way. Maybe someday, but not now.
I will not beat myself up about it, because it is a good lesson learned.
Funny note, I was talking to my principal the other day and she said something along the lines of "you need to give yourself patience to be figuring all of this out, you're learning"
It was scary, you have said the exact same thing to me so many times.
Patience is a hard thing to learn, but hopefully I am getting there.
Post a Comment