Professor Noob's Daily Disquisitions
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The notorious Ms. Mouth, darling of this pedagogical gossip column, finally landed herself in the principal's office, a story that, in its telling, invariably evokes a single response: "About time."
At least, such is the opinion of Reverend Linus (actually, he'd probably like to see her someplace infinitely nastier than the principal's office, but I am obliged to keep this blog civil), Perfect Mentor, and all of Ms. Mouth's peers. That's right - when Ms. Mouth marched to the water fountain despite my explicit and clearly overheard order for her to remain, the words "Send her to the office," were first uttered, not by Perfect Mentor, but by all the students in the class, who in unison turned against their fellow student and denounced her as the little trouble-making snot that she is. In fact, fearing that I would neglect to do so, one of the boys even offered to write her up for me.
On the one hand, such a show of support is heart-warming, not to mention pretty funny. On the other hand, being the hypercritical, paranoid creature that I am, I feel like I've failed. This one student was so out of control that the kids felt like they had to step in? They have so little faith in my capacity to assert myself that they felt obligated to punish her for me? These are the doubts that are gnawing at me now, turning what should have been a "Woot!" moment into a "Whoop-de-fuckin'-do."
It doesn't help that I've consistently been fed conflicting advice as to how to handle Ms. Mouth. There are essentially two schools on the matter: the Stomp Her line of thought and the Smile Sweetly proponents. Reverend Linus falls decidedly into the former, and of course is a great influence on me, but his persuasive rhetoric is balanced by the much more frequently reiterated opinions of the Behavioral Scientist In the Basement and Mr. Rogers.
The former is exactly who he sounds like - a behavioral scientist who lives in the basement and occasionally gives me potent wine and touchy-feely, unconditional-love-oriented advice. Mr. Rogers is the Special Ed assistant in my classroom and has some impressive credentials, including spending more than a decade teaching before becoming a principal (this gig is his semi-retirement). His advice tends to be a little more pragmatic than BSItB's, with fewer rainbows and sparkles and more patient endurance. "If you react, she wins," he says wisely - usually after complimenting me on my mad teaching skillz, which does make me more inclined to listen.
And then there's Perfect Mentor, who started out the semester firmly entrenched in the Smile Sweetly gang, and has become so irritated with all the students' behavior that she's developed a quick-draw with her pen and the write-up slips. Bang! You're suspended.
Of course, the truth is, if it had been any other student, it would never have gotten this far. I've been much quicker on my feet with other students, subjecting myself to a minimal amount of insolence before letting the principal rain his wrath upon them. But I held off with Ms. Mouth, because I felt sorry for her. I know that she has low self-esteem, and that this is the only way she can feel good about herself. I thought complimenting her and talking to her would help. When it didn't, I thought that she'd notice that she was no longer garnering positive attention, that her own classmates were turning against her, and she'd stop on her own. She didn't. And now, the only rewards for my compassion are a disrupted class, students who think I'm incompetent, and one pissed-off schoolgirl. Like they say - "No good deed goes unpunished."
Well, actually, that line is sung, not said: it's from the musical Wicked. Hey, that means I get to be Elphaba! I guess there are some benefits to this situation after all...
At least, such is the opinion of Reverend Linus (actually, he'd probably like to see her someplace infinitely nastier than the principal's office, but I am obliged to keep this blog civil), Perfect Mentor, and all of Ms. Mouth's peers. That's right - when Ms. Mouth marched to the water fountain despite my explicit and clearly overheard order for her to remain, the words "Send her to the office," were first uttered, not by Perfect Mentor, but by all the students in the class, who in unison turned against their fellow student and denounced her as the little trouble-making snot that she is. In fact, fearing that I would neglect to do so, one of the boys even offered to write her up for me.
On the one hand, such a show of support is heart-warming, not to mention pretty funny. On the other hand, being the hypercritical, paranoid creature that I am, I feel like I've failed. This one student was so out of control that the kids felt like they had to step in? They have so little faith in my capacity to assert myself that they felt obligated to punish her for me? These are the doubts that are gnawing at me now, turning what should have been a "Woot!" moment into a "Whoop-de-fuckin'-do."
It doesn't help that I've consistently been fed conflicting advice as to how to handle Ms. Mouth. There are essentially two schools on the matter: the Stomp Her line of thought and the Smile Sweetly proponents. Reverend Linus falls decidedly into the former, and of course is a great influence on me, but his persuasive rhetoric is balanced by the much more frequently reiterated opinions of the Behavioral Scientist In the Basement and Mr. Rogers.
The former is exactly who he sounds like - a behavioral scientist who lives in the basement and occasionally gives me potent wine and touchy-feely, unconditional-love-oriented advice. Mr. Rogers is the Special Ed assistant in my classroom and has some impressive credentials, including spending more than a decade teaching before becoming a principal (this gig is his semi-retirement). His advice tends to be a little more pragmatic than BSItB's, with fewer rainbows and sparkles and more patient endurance. "If you react, she wins," he says wisely - usually after complimenting me on my mad teaching skillz, which does make me more inclined to listen.
And then there's Perfect Mentor, who started out the semester firmly entrenched in the Smile Sweetly gang, and has become so irritated with all the students' behavior that she's developed a quick-draw with her pen and the write-up slips. Bang! You're suspended.
Of course, the truth is, if it had been any other student, it would never have gotten this far. I've been much quicker on my feet with other students, subjecting myself to a minimal amount of insolence before letting the principal rain his wrath upon them. But I held off with Ms. Mouth, because I felt sorry for her. I know that she has low self-esteem, and that this is the only way she can feel good about herself. I thought complimenting her and talking to her would help. When it didn't, I thought that she'd notice that she was no longer garnering positive attention, that her own classmates were turning against her, and she'd stop on her own. She didn't. And now, the only rewards for my compassion are a disrupted class, students who think I'm incompetent, and one pissed-off schoolgirl. Like they say - "No good deed goes unpunished."
Well, actually, that line is sung, not said: it's from the musical Wicked. Hey, that means I get to be Elphaba! I guess there are some benefits to this situation after all...
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Today, having successfully completed five days of substitute teaching and not slapped, yelled at, or outright bribed my students, I finally succumbed to my ill body and exhausted mind and took one of my sick days. In retrospect, perhaps not the best decision: it would have been better if I had talked to a real live person instead of leaving a message, been aware that Perfect Mentor was running late, and known beforehand that the superintendent was visiting our classroom first period...to find no me...and no Mentor...and apparently no sub plans...
However, when I woke up this morning, feeling happy and free for the first time in weeks, it seemed like a brilliant plan. Convalescing in my sunny room, catching up on my laundry and my lesson plans, and drinking lovely, lovely tea until I start sweating Lemon Zinger? Just what the doctor ordered. And let me tell you - poor timing aside, I think I'm going to be a better teacher tomorrow and the next week for doing this. Three minutes reading e. e. cumming's "A Poet's Advice" this morning has inspired me far more than the past three days of doling out worksheets ever could.
Yes, I bow my head in shame and admit it: I succumbed to the worksheets. In all fairness, this is not entirely a "screw this, just hand 'em paper" approach (although it is partially influenced by the fact that I am dreadfully behind on all kinds of work). Mostly, it has to do with the fact that almost all of my students are failing. Mostly, this is because any number of my students either a) won't do the work, b) want you to spoon-feed them the work over a period of months, or c) have been absent so often that nobody even knows what work they need to get done. The rest probably has something to do with the fact that I've been a college student for four years, and in college it is perfectly acceptable to get most of your points from several large, self-directed assignments. Not so in high school, and particularly not in this high school. So, praise the copier and pass the workbooks! Because my students all desperately need points.
Fortunately, the actual teaching has become a little easier. I've said before that I think they've stopped testing me - and I've always been wrong. Now I've finally discovered the real process of acceptance. It isn't that one day my students will miraculously enjoy my presence and greet me with smiles. It is that, gradually, some of my students will enjoy my presence, some will hate me to the point of indirectly threatening physical violence, and most won't really give a damn either way. Those that fall into the first category include the Poetry Girls - young female students who like me to give me their poetry to read, which is just about the sweetest thing that I can think of. Those that fall into the latter category include Ms. Mouth, who once told Perfect Mentor that she was considering hitting me to see if I'd hit back. If you're reading this, Ms. Mouth, I wouldn't recommend it, because if I have to hear one more time about how I smell or how you can't wait for me to leave and then you try to assault me, you might end up on the floor with a red mark the shape of my hand on your sneering cheek...
...or not. Probably not, in fact, since I'm pretty hell-bent on graduating this spring and really don't need to fail my student-teaching (sigh). Ah, well, it's a pleasant thought anyway.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have tea to drink.
However, when I woke up this morning, feeling happy and free for the first time in weeks, it seemed like a brilliant plan. Convalescing in my sunny room, catching up on my laundry and my lesson plans, and drinking lovely, lovely tea until I start sweating Lemon Zinger? Just what the doctor ordered. And let me tell you - poor timing aside, I think I'm going to be a better teacher tomorrow and the next week for doing this. Three minutes reading e. e. cumming's "A Poet's Advice" this morning has inspired me far more than the past three days of doling out worksheets ever could.
Yes, I bow my head in shame and admit it: I succumbed to the worksheets. In all fairness, this is not entirely a "screw this, just hand 'em paper" approach (although it is partially influenced by the fact that I am dreadfully behind on all kinds of work). Mostly, it has to do with the fact that almost all of my students are failing. Mostly, this is because any number of my students either a) won't do the work, b) want you to spoon-feed them the work over a period of months, or c) have been absent so often that nobody even knows what work they need to get done. The rest probably has something to do with the fact that I've been a college student for four years, and in college it is perfectly acceptable to get most of your points from several large, self-directed assignments. Not so in high school, and particularly not in this high school. So, praise the copier and pass the workbooks! Because my students all desperately need points.
Fortunately, the actual teaching has become a little easier. I've said before that I think they've stopped testing me - and I've always been wrong. Now I've finally discovered the real process of acceptance. It isn't that one day my students will miraculously enjoy my presence and greet me with smiles. It is that, gradually, some of my students will enjoy my presence, some will hate me to the point of indirectly threatening physical violence, and most won't really give a damn either way. Those that fall into the first category include the Poetry Girls - young female students who like me to give me their poetry to read, which is just about the sweetest thing that I can think of. Those that fall into the latter category include Ms. Mouth, who once told Perfect Mentor that she was considering hitting me to see if I'd hit back. If you're reading this, Ms. Mouth, I wouldn't recommend it, because if I have to hear one more time about how I smell or how you can't wait for me to leave and then you try to assault me, you might end up on the floor with a red mark the shape of my hand on your sneering cheek...
...or not. Probably not, in fact, since I'm pretty hell-bent on graduating this spring and really don't need to fail my student-teaching (sigh). Ah, well, it's a pleasant thought anyway.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have tea to drink.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
A Few Helpful Tips
Obviously, I haven't updated in a while. I could cite my frantic schedule, which currently has me waking up at 4:40 in the morning, leaving school anywhere between four and five in the afternoon, and falling asleep while sprawled, fully clothed, across my unmade bed and attempting to have a conversation with Reverend Linus at eight o'clock at night. Not much time for dilly-dallying with one's blog, I think we can all agree.
But the other reason was that I didn't want to write just more of the same. I could whine some more about being a babysitter rather than a teacher, or rant and rave about particularly troublesome students, but that wasn't why I created this blog. This is a "Guide for Commencing Pedagogues," not a "Guide for Convincing Commencing Pedagogues To Major in Journalism Instead." I genuinely believe that the true agony of coaxing, bossing, bullying, and pleading with a classroom of recalcitrant teenagers for five days a week is something that everyone should experience personally, in their own special way and time, and not through perusing some melodramatic blog.
With that in mind, I will desist from pointless bitching and instead offer a few helpful tips and tricks that I have gleaned from my own not-so-extensive time in the classroom.
1) Meditate.
It sounds cliche. It sounds New Age. It sounds like, "What the fuck do you mean I have to get my ass up twenty minutes earlier in the morning?!" But it works.
A few weeks ago, I was struggling with a bad attitude towards my students. I feel ashamed even admitting that. I think it's the teacher's equivalent to post-partum depression, for just like a new mother wondering, "Everyone says I should be happy. Why aren't I happy?", I was thinking, "I know I'm supposed to be connecting with my students, but right now all I can think about is how I'm slaving away, trying to create interesting lesson plans that cater to their needs and will enhance their future lives, and so many of them are just self-centered, nasty brats." While I of course don't condone that line of thinking, I will protest in my own defense that it is very difficult to maintain a loving, nurturing attitude towards people who derive great pleasure in not only making your life more difficult, but also in undermining you as a person. Teaching is, after all, one of the few professions in which you regularly put on the line, not only your physical and intellectual well-being, but also your emotional health; and while I've always been quite nonchalant about the students' attitude while in the classroom, the damage seems to accumulate and surface outside of school, usually in the form of fantasizing about simply hitting everyone with large sticks until they promise to behave.
Hence, the meditation. The first day I woke up early to meditate for ten minutes in front of my "altar" (a bare cabinet-top with a potted rose, a candle, and my lovely wooden tea-box), I could feel the angst and bitterness slough off like so much dead skin. Just taking a few minutes to remind myself of who I was and what was important in my life (tea, mostly) made my feelings of dislike seems so...irrelevant. Now I'm a meditation addict; whenever something goes wrong in my life, a few minutes in the lotus position, staring at the moving light of a candle, somehow puts my problem in perspective.
2) Small moments are big.
Once of the more frustrating characteristics of my teaching career so far has been student apathy. I know for a fact that we are studying interesting stories and doing interesting projects (mostly because Perfect Mentor tells me so), yet they not only display no interest but frequently don't even, despite more than ample time, complete their work - and don't even get me started on homework (doesn't happen. We'll leave it at that.) In the face of all that "Yeah, whatever" attitude, hints of their real feelings can be easily overlooked.
But there is nothing more important than those little moments when they actually open up. When one student asked me to read some poems she'd written, it didn't seem very important at the time; but looking back, that was the first indication I'd ever gotten that the students were beginning to trust me. And these small connections can happen in the strangest places, with the strangest people. I put a girl in in-school suspension for half a day after she was not only blatantly disrespectful and insubordinate but also skipped lunch detention twice. Yet that afternoon, even after I had just punished her, she seemed so excited when I told her that the beginning of her story was excellent and made me want to read more. Remembering these encounters is like accumulating a little bag of gems; they're so tiny, but they're worth so much.
And with that disgustingly saccharine metaphor, I'm leaving you all to go consume some chocolate and mourn the end of the weekend.
But the other reason was that I didn't want to write just more of the same. I could whine some more about being a babysitter rather than a teacher, or rant and rave about particularly troublesome students, but that wasn't why I created this blog. This is a "Guide for Commencing Pedagogues," not a "Guide for Convincing Commencing Pedagogues To Major in Journalism Instead." I genuinely believe that the true agony of coaxing, bossing, bullying, and pleading with a classroom of recalcitrant teenagers for five days a week is something that everyone should experience personally, in their own special way and time, and not through perusing some melodramatic blog.
With that in mind, I will desist from pointless bitching and instead offer a few helpful tips and tricks that I have gleaned from my own not-so-extensive time in the classroom.
1) Meditate.
It sounds cliche. It sounds New Age. It sounds like, "What the fuck do you mean I have to get my ass up twenty minutes earlier in the morning?!" But it works.
A few weeks ago, I was struggling with a bad attitude towards my students. I feel ashamed even admitting that. I think it's the teacher's equivalent to post-partum depression, for just like a new mother wondering, "Everyone says I should be happy. Why aren't I happy?", I was thinking, "I know I'm supposed to be connecting with my students, but right now all I can think about is how I'm slaving away, trying to create interesting lesson plans that cater to their needs and will enhance their future lives, and so many of them are just self-centered, nasty brats." While I of course don't condone that line of thinking, I will protest in my own defense that it is very difficult to maintain a loving, nurturing attitude towards people who derive great pleasure in not only making your life more difficult, but also in undermining you as a person. Teaching is, after all, one of the few professions in which you regularly put on the line, not only your physical and intellectual well-being, but also your emotional health; and while I've always been quite nonchalant about the students' attitude while in the classroom, the damage seems to accumulate and surface outside of school, usually in the form of fantasizing about simply hitting everyone with large sticks until they promise to behave.
Hence, the meditation. The first day I woke up early to meditate for ten minutes in front of my "altar" (a bare cabinet-top with a potted rose, a candle, and my lovely wooden tea-box), I could feel the angst and bitterness slough off like so much dead skin. Just taking a few minutes to remind myself of who I was and what was important in my life (tea, mostly) made my feelings of dislike seems so...irrelevant. Now I'm a meditation addict; whenever something goes wrong in my life, a few minutes in the lotus position, staring at the moving light of a candle, somehow puts my problem in perspective.
2) Small moments are big.
Once of the more frustrating characteristics of my teaching career so far has been student apathy. I know for a fact that we are studying interesting stories and doing interesting projects (mostly because Perfect Mentor tells me so), yet they not only display no interest but frequently don't even, despite more than ample time, complete their work - and don't even get me started on homework (doesn't happen. We'll leave it at that.) In the face of all that "Yeah, whatever" attitude, hints of their real feelings can be easily overlooked.
But there is nothing more important than those little moments when they actually open up. When one student asked me to read some poems she'd written, it didn't seem very important at the time; but looking back, that was the first indication I'd ever gotten that the students were beginning to trust me. And these small connections can happen in the strangest places, with the strangest people. I put a girl in in-school suspension for half a day after she was not only blatantly disrespectful and insubordinate but also skipped lunch detention twice. Yet that afternoon, even after I had just punished her, she seemed so excited when I told her that the beginning of her story was excellent and made me want to read more. Remembering these encounters is like accumulating a little bag of gems; they're so tiny, but they're worth so much.
And with that disgustingly saccharine metaphor, I'm leaving you all to go consume some chocolate and mourn the end of the weekend.
Labels: meditation, small moments, teaching tips
