Or Why it's good that my second year co and I are different people.
Creating the curriculum map for the summer was actually rather easy. My co and I both taught are subject, so we could bounce ideas off each other about which concepts we should spend more time on. We banged the map off in just a couple of hours.
I did not have to create such a map for my school during the year. JPS provided me with a pacing guide that lists what objectives need to be taught week by week. When I was slow the first nine weeks several people told me to pick up the pace. Other than that, the pacing guide probably made my life easier.
Or The only legit handshake in MTC.
Or How my first year will turn into a second.
[Disclaimer: I was listening to Josh Ritter while writing this on a very good day, hence the sappiness. As a side note, first-years, teaching is an emotional roller coaster. Had I written this on a bad week, the tone would be very different. But I do love my job more than I hate it, and I will be back next year.]
Six days left. That's no more than 9 hours with any one student. That's tomorrow and then ONE MORE WEEK. With giving an exam on Monday and Tuesday, that's four days of instruction left. Four days. That's only six hours of planning. Six hours of new material. Six hours of worksheets and book work and review games and "shut your mouth" and "sit down" and "did I ask you a question?!?" and "say something crazy!" and "no, no, no." That's six trips to the cafeteria with my lunch block. That's six trips to the bathroom. That's six times in the hall with a class. That's six "BH why you late?" and six "AR have a seat" and six "JB calm down." I can count to six in two languages. I can estimate six things without actually counting. I can eat six Newman O's in one night. I can play six chords on the guitar. I can name six kinds of tree. I can name six countries I have been to. I can drink six beers in one night (although definitely not a school night). I can do SIX.
[For help with my basic emotional feeling towards work and whether I was coming back, you can refer to the chart I have included. One of my fellow classmates used to make the most ridiculous "feeling charts" like this. He said he always loved to quantify the unquantifiable.]
I began the year a scared and timid teacher, unsure of what to do, what to teach. That timidness is not all gone. But more often I am reminded how much I rock. Especially in the past few months I have opened up to my students and my coworkers. This has been a very good thing. But before this, in February, I was decidedly not returning to teach. I had had enough disrespect and struggle with too few rewards. I was not using my brain at my work. I was too smart to teach. Too good at math. I could do statistics and really enjoy what I do. Why waste another year that would suck (maybe not as much as this one, but definitely quite a bit)? Why make myself miserable again.
I don't have two better pieces of advice for first-years than these: coach and try hard to appreciate the rewards. Coach. Do something extra-curricular. Do something that the kids will enjoy, because your class will not be one of those things. When you see a few kids in a different light, enjoying what they do, you start to see more and more kids in a new light. Sooner or later the screw up kid gets on your nerves a little less. You focus less on how unprepared these kids are and how little they care and you focus more on the funny and endearing things about them. The ways they see the world. How it makes you feel like a kid to be with them. Few twelve year olds bring a smile to my face like my soccer boys do. I love to see them because I see in them what they love. When I started to see what my players love, I could start to see things like that in my regular students. Some MTCers will urge you to stand a robotic distance from your students. I will always walk a closer line to them. Never the same one, but I will let them (and myself) know that our lines are not all that far apart. Some of my kids appreciate it. Some of my kids don't give a shit. Some try to take advantage of it. But this is the life of a teacher. Interacting with kids is never perfect, but you should always try to enjoy it.
_______
Today we finished up the MCT-2, a trilogy of state tests given to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in Mississippi covering Math, Reading, and Writing. Instead of jumping back into work, I asked my students to contemplate the test and the year as well. I asked them what they thought we studied too much and too little, what I could have done better, and what they could have done better. In the midst of our discussion I added a bit about teachers that students don't like. These tend to be the student-teacher relationships that create the most trouble and the most disruption. "You may not like a teacher," I told my class, "but you only have a few hours left with him or her. Not just a few hours left of the school year, a few hours left of your life. Some of you don't like me. Some of you don't like my class. In just seven days if you don't want to ever see me again, you don't have to."
The more I think about, the more I feel my life as a teacher has revolved around what I said to my fourth block: "I do not have a student I don't like. I like everyone of you. Sometimes, some of you drive me crazy. Sometimes, I wish that some of you were not in my class. But I like each and everyone of you."
I don't think my students hear words like that enough. I didn't give them unconditional love, but I give them unconditional hope and advice and an ear to listen. I give them an unconditional "hello" in the morning and a "good afternoon" on the way home. Say what you will about me being naive or racist, but I felt a longing when I spoke those words. A longing, as if these children do not hear this from their parents or their loved ones enough. And I can see it in the way they interact sometimes. A yell is a greeting. A phone call is a hug. A whupping is an "I love you." I'm not saying that my students are not loved by their parents. I would say that most of my parents love their children, but I would also say that most of these parents don't tell their children they love them enough. Maybe my students want me to remember them. Maybe they want me to think of them long after the summer vacation has gone. Maybe they are worried that if I don't think of them in the years to come, no one will.
We all want to be loved. It's why we tell jokes. It's why we do nice things for others. It's why we make conversation and listen to what others have to say. It's why we show empathy. It's why we enter into relationships, good and bad. We are worried that when the time comes to be remembered, to be loved, we will be left by the wayside, bothering no other person's thoughts.
I think this is what my students are searching for from me. They disrupt my class, yell at me, cuss at me, threaten me, disregard my rules and directions, neglect my homework, holler "A LIE!" when I give them work, earn an 'F', get sent out, sleep, chew gum, eat food, talk in the line on the way to the cafeteria, shout out in class when it's not their turn. They do all this because they want me to remember them. And when it comes down to it, they are right. I probably won't remember the kid who did everything I said and did all his work. He has made my life easier, but he has not impressed on me the way the kid who tested my patience every day has. That is the kid that I will remember for a long, long time. I won't remember his face. Maybe not his name. But a part of him will stay with me for a long time. And maybe this is what he wanted. Because when it's all said and done, this kid will have some white guy from North Carolina, who came down for a few years to teach some poor black kids some math, who remembers him. And maybe he will feel loved. Maybe for the first time. Hopefully not for the last.
Guess the song I'm trying to play.
I am now into the second week of owning this guitar.
Or Why my third block only has 22 students now.
[required blog: hypothetical situation: student]
As far as you are concerned, Devin has no need to consume calories because he does nothing in your class. Absolutely nothing. Classwork may have a scribble on it. Tests have wrong answers filled in. Devin has scratched by with around a 32 each nine weeks. Here we are in the third nine weeks and Devin is still standing strong with a 28. Devin does not want to learn. He has made that abundantly clear. He doesn't want to talk to you and he doesn't want you to talk to him. He is bothered by his teachers.
Devin's behavior ebbs between quiet and ignorable (a good day) and utterly obnoxious (most days). He talks with the students around him. He yells at you when you tell him to stop or move to another desk. Each day you pray he will not make it to school or your class, and when he does make it you pray he will just fall asleep. Class is so much better when he is not there.
Yesterday, Devin was so awful that you sent him out of class. But instead he decided to walk out before the security guard had made it up to your room to take him away. As he was walking out you yelled at him, "Son, sit back down," and he yelled back that he "only has one daddy" and you are not him.
You were told by your grade principal that Devin would be suspended and would not be back at school today. Not all that surprisingly, however, he has just walked past you down to his first block class. You let the grade principal know and he asks you to send Devin down to him. Pleased, you go tell Devin that he is needed somewhere else. You expect not to see him again for a few days and thank the heavens.
Lo and behold, as you close your door to begin third block you notice Devin sitting in his seat talking loudly with the people around him. You have already resolved that this awful child will not sit in your classroom today, and so you send for the security guard immediately who comes and takes him away. As he is leaving he yells at you something about how you always have to get people in trouble. You expect not to see him again.
All this brings us to the climax of this (hypothetical) situation. About fifteen minutes later, in the middle of your lecture, the classroom door busts open. In marches Devin and yells at you about getting people in trouble, calling you a "stupid bitch."
What do you do? When he leaves and the classes loses it, how do you regain control? How do you turn this into a teachable moment?
Or How some parents don't parent.
[required blog: hypothetical situation: parent]
Stacy is a student in your class. While she started the year off well, she has become increasingly more obnoxious. She talks constantly and continues to talk even after you tell her to stop. She talks back to you and for the last three weeks you have had to send her out of the room on Fridays so that you can give a test in relative silence.
You have given Stacy warnings; she ignores them. You have assigned Stacy detention; she skips it. You have assigned Stacy weekend detention; she acts as if you didn't.
You call Stacy's mom. She seems unconcerned about Stacy's behavior, saying she "knows Stacy" and "Stacy doesn't act this way around her." She then changes the subject to Stacy's grades and offers no more help with the behavior problem. Stacy acts the same way the next day as she did before. If her mother talked to her, you cannot tell.
What do you do?
Or I got a guitar!
I know four chords today. I also developed and popped my first guitar blister on my thumb.
Or Three amazing ideas to improve the MTC site.
ONE. Stream Battlestar Galactica episodes on it. The show is fun and I love to watch it, but I don't have a teevee. Therefore, MTC should stream the episodes so I can watch them whenever I want. QED.
TWO. Allow MTCers to add their own Google Maps. I have found great places in Jackson and I would love for first years and other MTCers (please no NTCers) to be able to see the places like my favorite Wraps place. Allow me and my fellow Jacktownees to create a map that would give people a chance to see the five great things Jackson has to offer.
THREE. Post MTC coach records by percentage wins. Give the person at the top of the list many many gifts.*
* My boys and LF just completed their season with 4 wins. I am the only undefeated MTC coach and the only MTC coach that has never been scored upon. We went 2-0, 7-0, 4-0, and 10-0 for a total of 23 goals against opponents and 0 from.
Or How to make your second year a lot better than your first.
No one hates writing lesson plans more than me. Probably not true. But I do hate it. Part of the beauty (read: terribleness) of my teaching style is that my lesson plans and lessons are malleable masterpieces. I alter them day to day and cover some things for longer and some things I skim over. Jake R. once told me this was a sign of a good teacher.
One thing I do know is that you have to turn lesson plans in in my district. So, SAVE YOUR LESSON PLANS. Save your materials. Save what you do. A better teacher would write follow up reflections to help himself/herself the following year. How much time did this activity take? What went wrong here? Maybe I should switch the order of these two things.
The first year of teaching sucks. Make your second year easier.
