At least, that's what the school counselor told me the student said. Of course she didn't tell me which student, but I had a pretty good guess; I could hear in my head just the way he might have said it. Coming from this particular student, I knew I had to take this analysis of my teaching with a grain of salt, but still I was surprised--and disappointed--to hear it.
Almost from day one, my sixth period class tested my classroom management skills, my nerves, and my resolve to be more calm and patient in the classroom than I was last year. Once I had an administrator come in and team-teach a lesson with me. For that one day, the class went smoothly, students were on task, and I felt like a lot of learning happened. When the administrator left just before the end of the period, I commented to the class "Ladies and gentlemen, this is excellent! This is just what our class should be like every day." I heard one female student mutter under her breath, "Then you'll have to bring Ms .... in here every day." Not long after the administrator left, the class had degenerated into its usual lack of productivity.
Now, I'm not sure if this student meant the comment as an attack on my classroom management, or as a critique of her peers' inability to respond to anything gentler then the threat of the unpleasant punishments often doled out by this particular administrator. Either way, however, team teaching with an administrator was simply not an option, and neither was allowing the class to continue in its current course. For the sake of my students' academic progress (almost completely stalled) and my own mental health, something had to change. By early December it was abundantly clear taht little, if any, learning was occurring in that class, and I was on the verge of losing my sanity.
So, when we returned to school in January, I solicited the assistance of our school counselor and an "at-risk" counselor we share with a neighboring middle school. We decided to join forces one day a week, divide the class into three small discussion groups, and hold little "group therapy" sessions, in order to tap into what is going on in students' minds, to give them an appropriate forum to make their voices heard, and (hopefully) to start to reshape the culture of the class. We started by giving the students a set of ground rules for appropriate discussion, along with some sentence stems to guide them, and asked them to share their feelings about the class. (Note: if you're a new teacher and are considering trying this, make sure you have very thick skin first). From this first session came the comment that opened this post. For some reason, it stuck with me throughout the following week more than any of the feedback I received from my students that day.
Respect. What did he mean by it? How did he not see that I had it for him and for his classmates--that it is a combination of respect and love that impels me to hold them to such high standards? How could I show respect in a way that he--that they all--would recognize it? We discussed the issue of respect the following week. To my surprise, the same student who made the aforementioned comment about respect had great trouble defining it, or describing how an adult might show it to a young person. They all had trouble defining it--one student, her own words failing her, could do little more than belt out some Arethra Franklin at the top of her lungs when asked to respond to the prompt "What does respect mean to you?" Sure, a few students were able to repeat back what they thought the adults wanted to hear as a definition for respect, but I could tell that, for the most part, we simply weren't speaking the same language.
In a course on adolescent development I took in graduate school, we read a paper describing the social, cultural, and linguistic "borders" students must cross in passing from the world of home and family life to the world of academic life (Davidson, Anne Locke & Patricia Phelan, "Students' Multiple Worlds: An anthropologic approach to understanding students' engagement with school," Advances in Motivation and Achievement, vol. 11, 233-273). The authors discussed how such transitions are difficult, and often resisted, when "the knowledge, skills, and behaviors in one world are more highly valued and rewarded than those in another." As I reflected on this experience with my 6th period students, I thought of the knowledge, skills, and behaviors that are necessary for survival in the complicated world from which they come. So many of them exist in the confluence of a variety of challenging circumstances: immigrants navigating an unfamiliar country and culture, poverty, drugs, violence--what do I know about the giving and receiving of respect in such a world? Moreover, Davidson & Phelan were writing about high school students, who tend to be much further along in establishing a stable sense of identity within the context of the world around them. My students, just entering adolescence, are still trying to understand themselves and the parameters of the multiple worlds through which they must navigate each day. I cannot speak for all of my students, but I know that many of them have not had stable influences in their lives to model respect, responsibility, or compassion. Perhaps my classroom is the first time anyone has asked them to think seriously about these ideas.
I do not know just where these Tuesday afternoon sessions will lead. I can hope that my students will somehow learn to reflect on their own behavior, to see through the eyes of their teacher and of their classmates, to understand the link between their choices and the consequences they recieve. The fulfillment of that hope would be a miracle, and with each passing day I realize just how much both my students and I will need to experience miracles in order to navigate the borders that separate us and finally see one another face to face.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
-1 Corinthians 13:11-12
-1 Corinthians 13:11-12
