Professor Noob's Daily Disquisitions

2009-05-03T15:14:00.001-07:00

My last day, which was a day for the celebration of my students' heritage, was a whirlwind of crafts and activities - thanks to Perfect Mentor and myself. Since there were more activities than student groups, not everyone got to do everything, and our little group of students had originally been scheduled to attend only sit-down lectures on such vastly entertaining topics as Mineral Rights. One of the girls almost cried as she was forced to watch possibly the most boring PowerPoint presentation possible on the degrees required to become a Forest Ranger. So Mentor and I outright skipped some of our original activities in favor of Hand Games and Horseback Riding. Much more fun.

One aspect of this event persistently irritated me: the sexism.

I know it's traditional. I know that it's an important part of my students' culture. I know that girls have their own special games and duties as well. But that does not stop my petulant inner privileged-white-feminist voice from seething, "What do you mean I can't touch the drums? Or throw arrows? Goddammit, I don't wanna bead fucking earrings instead, you chauvinist %**$&!"

I just don't come from a culture where such a blatant division of the sexes is acceptable. I'm not used to having to listen to a male student "play" the drums so badly that my palm is actually itching to snatch the stick away from him while all my female students sit silently on the couches and watch.

Am I accustomed to having my gender be used against me in subtle yet horribly detrimental ways? Yes. Have I ever heard someone actually say, "No, girls aren't allowed to do____?" No. Because that someone would get their ass sued, that's why. It's just Not Allowed. We (white mainstream Americans) are not less sexist, just less obvious.

Nevertheless, it still pisses me off to run up against such a bald-faced, outright glorified wall of difference between the sexes. In fact, I think I would have been less offended if they'd said I couldn't do something because I am white. I'm not sure what that says about me, the system, or this tribe.

Oh, and for the record: boys were allowed to bead earrings, too.

Professor Noob's Manifesto

2009-04-27T19:12:00.000-07:00

We have come full circle, my friends. A few months ago I was blogging about how I should be working on my book instead, and lookee here...I'm still blogging about how I should be working on my book instead. Eh, I've already put off my final Honors paper to the week before graduation, I might as well procrastinate some more...

...which has resulted in a new template, as you can see. Fleur and The Only Bagel in France shamed me into actually being creative.

This particular template is representative of the miraculous direction in which my life is headed. No more stodginess! No more nagging! No more worrying about what a gaggle of teenagers think of me! Instead, there lies ahead of me a path of poverty, struggle, intellectual exhaustion and the rude broadening of my tender horizons. But - and this is important - it does not involve wearing a suit. I will saunter down my path of vague but high ambitions with combat boots and a half-shaved head, aiming the tank of my prose at prejudiced ass-hats and refusing to be embarrassed by farts.

So there.

This Is the Definition of "Not With a Bang, But a Whimper"

2009-04-21T13:28:00.001-07:00

Well.

This is going to get interesting.

The bare facts of the coming *&$#@ storm are:

1) 70% of my students are failing.

2) This is only slightly worse than the school-wide average.

3) It's pretty much too late to do anything about it.

Because of this, half the school's running around screaming "We're all gonna diiiiiiieee!" and the other half is crouching behind makeshift bunkers crudely fashioned out of desks, drinking the whiteboard-cleaning fluid and flashing their battle scars. And that's just the teachers.

The students, in contrast, have been transformed into shambling horors that stumble around in mobs, stretching their greedy hands out and moaning "Graaades...GRAAADES..."

I don't know what the principal is doing. We think he might be infected.

The sad news is, this is only the beginning. So far, this is only the "Night of the Living 'F'." When the parents get involved...

You know, I hear Belize is nice. And, you know, has no extradition policy.

2009-04-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I feel like a bitch - and stupid, to boot. Not only do I vent my spleen at a tiny minority of my students and then completely fail to post about any of the wonderful things that have happened in the past few weeks, I do it on a blog that's linked to my university, so everybody knows who I am and can henceforth label me as the student teacher with the Bad Attitude. Nice.

I'm not apologizing for what I said. In fact, I'm glad I finally stood up and declared, "This rainbow-and-sparkles-I-want-to-adopt-all-my-students crap? This is bullshit." What's more, when I privately conveyed my rage and hurt at my students' behavior to Perfect Mentor, I received none of the censure that I expected.

"Oh, yeah," she said knowingly. "There will always be students that you can't stand."

What? This is normal? I'm not supposed to be some sort of weird science, genetically altered, Dead Poets Society and Freedom Writers spouting android? And if that's the case...why didn't we talk about this sooner?!

This is my formal suggestion to my professors at the College of Ed: Please, please, please discuss this more. In modern society, teachers are required not only to teach but to mentor, defend, accomodate, nag, shield, comfort, support, sacrifice for, and (platonically) love our students. Those are all good things to do, and I don't think we should stop. I'm just asking that there be more discussion about the emotional toll that takes, because as it is too many of us student teachers are made to feel guilty for not getting all the students to stand on their desks and recite Whitman, let alone disliking a few of the teenagers in our classes.

What I am sorry about is that I've let the behavior of a few of my students influence my views of teaching in general. I was very bitter for a long time after that outburst, and because nobody told me to "Shut up, stupid," (and I really wish they had), I just kept talking on and on about my own self-righteous rage. It wasn't until I went on a rant at my parents' house that I started listening to what I was actually saying - and was shocked. I couldn't believe how disparaging I had become.

A few months ago, I had been an idealist who came to the Reservation to experience a different culture. I had never expected it to be easy, but I did expect my students to understand the concept of homework and to automatically treat me, their teacher, with respect. They don't.

So what?

I used to pride myself on being pragmatic. "Deal with things as they are, not as they should be." And now there I was, raving continuously about how students "should" do their work and "should" read quietly and "should" not be so rude and "should" actually try to pass. It's true, they should - but wishing and complaining and whining about how things "should" be isn't going to make them better students. Only dealing with things as they are, not as how I'd like them to be, can accomplish that.

So, with that in mind, some of the things I'm really pleased about:

1) The Poetry Slam
At the end of the poetry unit we had a slam, where students drank coffee/hot chocolate, read their poetry and competed for prizes. A few of my students refused to read (and were graded down for participation), but the rest stood behind the podium and shared their work, some of which was excellent - not just excellent for high schoolers, but flat out excellent. That event (the coffee and the silly prizes) set me back half my food budget for the week, resulting in some funny meals. It was worth every penny. In fact, the slam was such a success that we're having a much bigger, school-wide slam at the end of April.

2) The Zines
We're reading The Giver at the moment, and since it is in the Top 100 Banned Books list I'm having them study it through the lens of censorship. Not only are we looking at why people ban books, we're also studying the censorship within the Giver, and why people need information in order to make choices.
At about the same time we started this unit, I got turned on to Bikini Kill and the Riot Grrrl scene. Those ideas smooshed around in my brain and spat out an (I think) excellent idea. Zines (photo-copied, self-published, DIY magazines) are used to combat media censorship and to share personal experiences - why not have my students make a class zine? Each student gets a page, and on one side of the page they write an article, and on the other side they write a Giver-style memory. Put together, each zine becomes a repository of the knowledge and experiences of each class, functioning a little bit like the Giver does in Jonas' community. It also shows them how to express their ideas and convictions without risking censorship or having to tailor their beliefs for the mainstream media. And it's fun. So sue me, I like to have fun.
The articles were okay, though some were too picture-heavy to really even count as articles
(made those students re-write them). But now the memories are being turned in, and once again I'm awed by my students. They are not shying away from this assignment. They are taking my instructions to "choose a powerful memory" very seriously, and some of their memories are...horrific. But well-written, and stirring, and exactly what I wanted - and, I think, what they needed to write.

Woot.

This Post Would Get Me Fired, If I Was Getting Paid

2009-03-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

You know, I consider myself pretty competent at dealing with asshat students by now. Despite the threats that are aired in this online journal, I am actually quite a mild-mannered teacher: the Clark Kent of pedagogy, if you will (except that if I ever wore my underwear outside my pants, I'd be fired. And then sued for traumatizing the poor little kiddies, all of whom have had sex and not a few of whom are parents). Still, I've learned how to shut Ms. Mouth down and how to not make such a public fuss if someone isn't doing their work. It helps that my students have actually cleaned up their act somewhat and keep their sass to reasonable bounds.

Until today, when I decided to try and have an actual conversation with them. They'd just attended an assembly, during which members of the community (actually, they were all from the casino) and elders of the tribe spoke. I was fascinated by the elders' stories about the days before running water, before electricity, before spanking was verboten, before entitlement and snowflakery. The students, who have listened to their elders' sing-song voices lecturing them about respect since they were in the womb, were less impressed. In fact, it seemed to make them cranky.

So when I asked in class, "What did you think of today's assembly?" the first response I got back was, "What kind of question is that?" One that requires effort, apparently, and is therefore a Stupid Teacher Question.

The "conversation" rapidly degenerated into:

Me: [in my brisk, professional "teacher" voice]. Stop that tapping, "Mutter". I find it annoying.
Mutter: I think you're annoying.
Me: [finally snapping a little under the pressure of the continual rudeness]. You're funny. I laugh at you, you know.
Mutter: I laugh at you. We ALL laugh at you.
Me: [still smiling] Really? Why would you do that?
Mean Girl: Because you're ugly.
Me: [still smiling, because I don't know what else to do] Well, I know that isn't true.

What was I supposed to do? Beat them? Yell at them? Send them into the hallway (can't, last time I did that they blocked the hall doors with desks). Dock their grades? Write them up? Probably one of the above would be the correct response. But I, stunned by their sheer fuckwittery, by their stupid rudeness and their bitchy, fragmented, hate-driven little minds, didn't do anything except keep talking.

The talk didn't end so badly. Building on the elders' lament that so few students spoke the local language, I pitched my university to them as a college that is Native-friendly, complete with Native-language classes so they can learn their tribe's traditional tongue. A few listened. A few nodded when I asked if that had helped, bless them.

But as to the others:

I hate you. I'll still teach you and I'll still be fair to you and no, I won't write you up for stating your opinion on my looks. But I hate you. I want nothing to do with you. Does that surprise you, snowflakes? Oh, I forgot, I'm a teacher. Apparently, it's my job to suffer your abuse and still love you in spite of it. No, screw you. I'm here for your classmates, the ones who actually have the courtesy to not be complete douchebags to my face.

I sort of wish I'd said all that...

And now, five minutes ago, I did it again. I let a student who walked out of my classroom get by with just a warning. Not right, and not at all consistent, because I wrote him up last time. What the hell is wrong with me?

I think I need to pray at the shrine of Saint Snape. Oh, Severus Snape, show me the path to the dark truth of total student control. Bless me with the power of your glare, Great One, and I will wear black all my days in your honor...

2009-03-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Well, that was anticlimatic.

No ranting. No fingerpointing. And damn near no parents. I had five parent-teacher conferences in two days, and not one of them lasted longer than three minutes. Only one parent of a failing student came in, and since her daughter has just gotten an IEP and will be getting help with her schoolwork from now on, she really didn't have anything to be pissy about.

I'm actually rather disappointed. I wish I could say that it's because I'd hoped more parents of struggling students would come in, but really, no one in their right mind actually expected them to. I was just hoping for a chance to practice withstanding a hurricane of parental ire while Perfect Mentor was standing (okay, sitting...and napping) behind me.

2009-03-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

So, today I admit to being a little peeved - and for once, not at my students, but at those who brought them into being.

I've met this student's mother before, and she's actually a friend of Perfect Mentor's. A lovely woman who is thankfully quite involved in her slightly wayward son's life. He hurt himself and had to take time off of school, and she was diligent about coming to school to pick up his homework, which he was equally diligent in at least trying to get it done correctly.

Side note: I don't care how many hours you log in tutoring, or how many homework assignments you make up. There is no substitute for class time. Believe it or not, you miss things when you're gone! Important things, like how to do the assignment properly and why it matters! And if you think I'm going to sit down and re-teach the whole lesson to every single student who has missed my class (of whom there are at least ten per day), you seriously underestimate both my workload and my patience.

Ahem. Sorry, that really had nothing to do with today's story. To continue...

So, everything was pleasant and wonderful. Then the boy comes back, spends a few days in classes, and promptly is suspended for doing...something very bad.

Cue an enraged e-mail from the mother, demanding his assignments and complaining that she has never received a syllabus for the semester. Complaining in the really formalized way that indicates that she might use this e-mail to take legal action.

Um...what?

Look, I'm not saying a syllabus isn't a good idea, it's just not required in high school. And I'm not saying that we haven't been a little disorganized about giving her son every assignment that he's missed (when he's been gone about half the semester, it's easy to overlook these things). But don't you dare take out your pissy mood over your son's misbehavior on me. It's not my fault that he misbehaved shamefully and it's not my fault that they suspended him. If you're going to yell at anyone but your son, at least go yell at the principal. It won't do you much good, but at least you won't be actively alienating the only people who can keep your son from failing.

Her e-mail, though annoying, has alerted me to a much more serious problem: the parent-teacher conferences. It's suddenly hit me that about half my students are failing (not my fault! I swear! Ask the staff, they'll back me up!) and that, most likely, their parents are all going to blame me for it. And accuse. And yell. And threaten me with bodily harm. And...okay, it probably won't be that bad. But my wager is that at least one conference will get ugly. Shall we start a pool? Person closest to the number of shouting matches wins?

2009-03-16T13:10:00.001-07:00

It's been awhile since I've written, and many things have changed. For example (and with sincere apologies to my Turkish friend) I am no longer interested in teaching abroad - at least, not at this moment. Instead I'm entering grad school next semester, partly because my friends have been equally delayed in departing from school, partly because I'm disillusioned, but mostly because I've taken a long, long look inside myself and discovered that, not only am I very slimy, but I'm also far too ravenously curious to quit learning now. There are fairytales to decode according to Jungian archetypes, connections to be drawn between Dickens' novels and subsequent social improvements in Victorian England, and most of all, lots of Lovecraft to read. I suppose my great hope is that all this scholarship will eventually influence my writing for the better, a belief validated by my study of the great authors of the last few centuries, all of whom seem to have been voracious readers. In addition, I have been accepted to study Arabic abroad this summer, an experience that I've been looking forward to for years.

My fear, pedagogically speaking, is that with all this ahead of me I'll just "check out" of the classroom and abandon my poor students to the merciless intricacies of sonnets. However, considering the enthusiasm with which I just lectured on blank verse, and the heart-warming enthusiasm my students displayed for the subject, I no longer think that is likely. No, as always, my problem is to control my passion for literature. Why attempt to undermine such love, you ask? Ask any student who's gotten his/her head bitten off for not properly appreciating Vonnegut...

2009-02-18T12:08:00.001-08:00

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...

2009-02-12T11:12:00.000-08:00

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.

A Few Helpful Tips

2009-02-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

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.

A Tale of Two Classrooms

2009-01-13T17:41:00.000-08:00

I've re-read my initial post, and it strikes me as being a bit...whiny. So I thought that I should clarify something very important:

I have chosen this. Exactly this. Everything about it. My choice. Not just in a round-about fashion, by deciding to attend university and then deciding to become a teacher and deciding to student-teach, but by specifically requesting this school district.

Only one person in my high-school has said anything about it. "Did you want to come here?" said Ms. Mouthy, in her attempt to disrupt the rest of the class.

"Yes, I requested it."

"Oh. Why would you want to come here?" [The whine implied in this sentence is not a result of contamination by this rather bitchy blog. That's really how she said it.]

"I want to teach abroad someday," I said, "and so I wanted experience teaching in another culture."

"Oh." Apparently even Ms. Mouthy couldn't find anything to criticize about that. Teacher: 1. Student: 0.

Of course, just because I've empowered myself by accepting all my actions doesn't mean that I'm always happy about it. Like today, when Perfect Mentor asked, "So, excited about being a teacher?" and got only an exhausted moan in response. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and mine is no exception.

With that in mind, I offer you two unique routes to the ninth circle.

Monday:

About half the class period was slotted for a writing exercise, followed by some group brainstorming about nuclear war as an introduction to the next story. During the silent writing section of the class, Perfect Mentor left, and one student - known to this blog as Trouble Student - decided he wanted to talk.
"If you talk, I'll send you out into the hall," said I.
He got about two more words out before kicked him out the door.
Not satisfied with that, he wandered back into the classroom and proceeded to read the instructions to the assignment - which I'd already gone over, thoroughly - off the white board. Out loud.
"Go back into the hall," I said. "This is your warning."
Then he had to sharpen his pencil.
"Lunch detention."
He stood in the doorway and refused to move.
"Write up. Go back into the hall!"
We stood nose-to-nose for at least a good thirty seconds, with me spitting out the words "Go back into the hall!" with every breath, and him saying things like, "Oh, you almost touched me! You can't do that, you're a teacher!"
The situation effectively ended when he finally exited to the room, offering this parting shot: "You're ordering me around like a dog." Since the conversation had degenerated to me barking orders such as "Sit!" I didn't deny the charge, just said, "Well, if you're not going to behave like a rational human being..."

Tuesday:

I gave the class three options for reading the next short story: they could read silently, work in pairs, or "popcorn-read," which allows a student to read out loud as much (or as little) of the story as they'd like before selecting the next student to read, with penalties for those students who weren't paying attention and can't pick up where their predecessor left off.

They decided to popcorn read. A little disappointed that I wasn't going to get to sit on my ass and half-heartedly grade papers, like I had in the previous two classes, I took comfort in pacing the classroom, keeping a wary eye on The Couple in the back and keeping half an ear out for any obvious stumbles.

Something wasn't quite right, though. They kept snickering and giggling through the reading, even though the material wasn't even remotely funny. Finally, Perfect Mentor, who was sitting at her desk as usual and operating as the eyes in the back of my head, said sharply, "Knock it off! There isn't anything comical in this text!" The subdued laughter subsided but didn't fade entirely.

We finished a bit earlier than other periods had, so I commenced a quick discussion using my favorite technological advancement, the white-board. Because the white-board is not in the front of the room but on the side, I was in closer proximity to the boy I'll call "Mutter" than I usually am. Mutter is his name not because he actually mutters, but because he has discovered found the perfect volume for causing classroom chaos: clear enough so that everyone around him can hear and so that I can tell he's saying something insulting, but not quite loud enough for me to actually hear what's going on. Our daily interaction goes something like this:

"Mutter mutter mutter."
"What?"
"Nothing."

But today, whether it was just because I was closer or because he was feeling full of beans and needed someone to fart on, he decided to take it up a notch, not only dismissing the story as "fake" (because it's set in the future) but also trying to persuade the boy next to him to join in. Although I stepped in when that happened - "Are you going to listen to him?" - I apparently had, with my bleeding liberal heart, given everyone in that classroom way too much wiggle room. This became somewhat apparent to me when they started giving me flack for having assigned homework (apparently my first mistake) the day before that was due today with no additional work time in class. Unthinkable! Inhumane!

"Hey, you didn't write a date on the board! It just says 'Due tomorrow'!" the male portion of The Couple yelled.

That's when I finally let the class have it, starting with threatening to explain to the speaker what tomorrow meant "in very small words" and then launching in on their future inability to accomplish anything in the real world if they couldn't turn in a single, easy homework assignment on time. But apparently, it was too little, too late - or so Perfect Mentor decided about a minute before the bell rang. Rising from behind her desk like a Fury hell-bent on avenging the death of my authority, she gave the entire class a scathing denunciation for their immaturity and disrespect, to which I smiled and nodded and wilted inside as it was made perfectly clear to everyone involved how badly I needed rescuing.

So...pick your poison. A full-on, damn-near-came-to-blows confrontation with a student who has sexually harassed you in the past? Or having your clearly indignant-on-your-behalf mentor have to step in on the classroom discipline - and you weren't even conscious of how openly they were disrespecting you?

Give me Monday's events any day. Pain in the ass? Sure. But not nearly so painful as feeling like you've lost ground with an entire classroom.

But today, after school, they held a smudging ceremony in the Commons area, and everyone - students and teachers and student-teachers alike - got to pull the cedar smoke over themselves and let their anger and stress waft away. I don't know if the smudging itself will help me any, but I do know that the ceremony (for which the Elder was paid, I noticed, with twenty dollars and a blanket) was exactly what I needed - a reminder of why I came in the first place.

The Guide for Commencing Pedagogues Commences

2009-01-11T09:33:00.001-08:00

I shouldn't be writing this. Right now, this very second, there are any number of more productive activities in which I could be engaged, including:

laundry
grocery shopping
picking up my toast leavings
cleaning spittle off the bathroom mirror (I had an accident with my toothbrush)
unplugging the shoddy toilet
another load of laundry
cleaning my long-suffering beta's bowls
working on lesson plans
grading papers
working on my book (!!!)

This is the benefit of being naturally lazy and unorganized: I might feel bad about not accomplishing all the items on that list, but I'm well-accustomed to the sensation of failure and am therefore not unduly bothered. I also have a partner who encourages me to be slothful, helpfully reminding me that in the past week I have a) moved from Medium-Sized College Town to Small Western Town, b) fought with my parents, c) made up with my parents, d) begun my student-teaching and e) substitute-taught for the first time. Which erases my guilt about everything except for not working on the novel that's due at the end of the semester and for which I have written, by my estimate, about 1/1000th of the current story-line. Oh, well.

Yes, you read that pathetic list correctly: I have just finished my first week of student-teaching. On the Indian Reservation. With no concrete lesson plans. And a mentor teacher who was sick on Friday (but who is also, fortunately, the Perfect Mentor).

When I got together on Friday with the two other student-teachers who were sent to this (dry, small, oddly hippie-ish) region of the West and compared notes, I was quite impressed with the skill with which they had navigated the downright swamp-like social waters of middle school. The one teaching seventh grade is already wowing the skater-boys with her laid-back attitude and mad knowledge of Extreme Sports. The one teaching eighth grade seems to be not only dealing with the Mentor From Hell but also not caring. I envy her composure and grace under pressure (though I suspect that the two whiskeys she drank were helping a bit). Me? I gave my first detention, my first write-up, grabbed a kid's wrist, treated the seniors like kindergartners and made sexual jokes with a student. Go me.

In all fairness, however, I am not trying to navigate the swampy social waters of middle school but the shark-infested, pitch-black ocean of a high school where all the students are from a different culture (didn't you catch that the school's on the Reservation?). Professor Seventh-Grade will be a big help there - she's not only from the area but knows a lot of the Native Americans and will hopefully be able to gently guide me into the grown-up's social circle. Meanwhile, however, I'm stuck with the students.

The good news is that I'm the least intimidating person on Earth, and so despite differences in culture and - let's be honest - skin color, they've already opened up to me considerably. The other good news is that the majority of them are good kids and at least decent students. The bad news is: I'm the least intimidating person on Earth. Which leads to comments such as:

Me: I think such-and-such a character is sort of annoying, don't you?
Ms. Mouthy: [marginally under her breath] You're annoying.

Me: Take those snacks out of your pocket and give them to me.
Trouble Student: I'd like to see you reach for them.

Me: Stop doing your math homework in my class!
Mr. I Don't Care: Write me up. I don't care.
[This was also the unfortunate wrist-grabbing incident. Not a good time.]

That last student has already been the victim of a lunch detention and has now been duly written-up, with the principal assuring me that the only way to affect him is with after-school detention and that he will Make Him Suffer (all right, he didn't actually say that, but it would have been nice). I'm planning to make his defeat complete by asking his math teacher, with whom I'm slightly acquainted, to not give him credit/give him reduced credit for the assignment. My wrath will be devastating and final, and maybe it will make him think twice about crossing me again. Probably not. The pity is that he's not a mean kid - he can be rather nice when you catch him out of the classroom (like when he's doing lunch detention.) He's just stubborn, attention-seeking, and doesn't give a shit. Intellectually, I understand all that. But disobey a direct order in my class? Oh, hell no. I don't care who you are, I will go all Professor Snape on your trouble-making ass. Especially when I know the other students are watching...