Why I'm Still Here, or, Why the Rotten Apple Left on My Desk Doesn't Bother Me

I once seriously considered going to law school instead of becoming a teacher. There were many occasions early this school year that made me wonder if law school would not have been a better option. Though I still have difficult days, my thoughts of leaving the profession are now few and far between; I've even decided to stay at my current school--barring the arrival of a pink slip of paper in my mailbox later this month.

As I explained to my sixth period today, I'm still there because I care about them. Of course I got into teaching because I knew, deep within myself, that it was a part of my purpose--a part of who I am and what I am meant to do--but now I am also teaching because I care about these kids, and I want to see them succeed. If I didn't care, I told my students, I would probably have left sometime in November, and I'd be studying for the LSAT right now. I've recently realized that the challenge never was learning to love my students--it was learning to love them unconditionally, even when they don't seem to appreciate, and even seem to resent, all the work I do for them. I frequently have to remind myself that they are 11 or 12, and I am not--that in fact it is part of my job to help them acquire the social skills that will allow them to navigate the turbulent decade (or two) ahead of them.

I found recently some notes I jotted down in December, intending to post them here. The ideas seem to fit with this post:

December 18, 2008

A few good moments have occurred in the last couple of days, and I have to record them, in the interest of preserving hope for better times ahead.

Yesterday, I met with Felix* and his mother. Felix has typically been the student on the figurative back row, too cool for school, disrespectful, disruptive, mean to other kids, and always with a bad attitude. Whenever I suggested I might need to have a parent conference, he acted like he didn't care. Yesterday, though, I saw a different side of him during the conference with him and his mother. He was still all over the room, but he was behaving more like a hyperactive little boy than like the rebellious pre-adolescent I was accustomed to seeing in first period. He was more humble, teachable. He asked earnest questions about why he has to take medication. After my feeble attempt to break down psychopharmacology into 11-year-old terms, he said "Mr. D., I think the front part of my brain is busted." It felt good to be able to demystify the problem a little bit--to reassure him that he isn't broken or deffective, that his brain simply functions differently. I felt like I made an authentic connection with him, one I hadn't had before.

Today, I gave a mid-unit quiz. Alfredo stayed after class because he hadn't finished yet. In fact, he had barely gotten through the first two questions. I walked him through the quiz, one question at a time. I uncovered some of the difficulties he has when taking tests, and he had a chance to feel success in my classroom. That felt good, too.

And, even better, Joseph made an attempt at doing homework two nights in a row-- a personal record for him. He also managed to complete three quarters of the test. Grading only what he completed, he recieved a B-. I graded it in front of him after school. He said he'd never gotten a grade that high before. He doesn't like to show a lot of excitement about school, but I could tell he was pleased. Perhaps there is hope for me in this profession yet.

Those are the moments that have kept me in the classroom--those glimmers of hope that I can do some good, fueled by the fact that I so badly want to see these kids do well. It can be a challenge to keep that hope in view; even as I retype these notes from last December, I realize that I haven't built on these experiences, or maintained these connections, as I might have. The students still continue to struggle. They continue to act in ways that make it seem as if they didn't care. So when someone left an old, decaying apple on my desk this morning when I wasn't looking, it bothered me for a moment. Then I reminded myself that regardless of what these children do, what the need most is someone who will love and care for them in those moments they seem to deserve it the least. I'm finding that is seldom easy to do, but it's worth the struggle, and worth having to throw away a spoiled piece of fruit once in a while. I just hope whoever did it was clever enough to understand the more subtle irony of giving a rotten apple to the teacher.

Apparently I Need to Articulate More Clearly in the Classroom

This week we began studying the Gupta Empire, and ancient India's golden age. In order to help my students understand the concept of a "golden age," I had them draw pictures illustrating a golden age in an imaginary city or country. One of my students must have mis-heard or mis-understood the term golden age because this is what I received from her the next day:

It's an egg, in case you can't tell. A golden egg.

I made it to Winter Break: A Retrospective on the First Half of the Year

I have many fond memories of the last day of school before the winter break. It seems that in elementary school, we nearly always had a holiday party that day. In middle and high school years, while parties were officially frowned upon, teachers always seemed to find a way to bend that rule and allow some holiday cheer on the last day. I remember having "Secret Santa" gift exchanges with other students in band, and always having candy canes or some other Christmas sweet to share with friends.

Always, the last day of school before Christmas was a time of celebration and cheerfulness. Now, mingled with the cheerfulness, I feel a tremendous sense of relief--I made it! While not exactly the half-way point, strictly speaking, I am essentially half way there. The end of August seems a life time ago; I am ready for a moment to pause, catch my breath, and reflect.

In many ways, my introduction to full time teaching has reminded me of an incident on a river-rafting trip I took with some friends last spring. We were on the Upper Tuolumne River, outside of Yosemite--a challenging river with a number of class V rapids for which I was grossly under-prepared. It turned out to be the sort of trip that changes your perspective on life, helps you to focus on the things that really matter, and simply makes you thankful to still be alive. That story, however, is for another occasion. The incident to which I refer occured on the first day of the trip, late in the afternoon, just as the sun was approaching the canyon wall. We had just navigated a particularly treacherous rapid--my companions skillfully paddline around rocks and boulders while I held on for dear life--when our raft ran up vertically against a particularly large rock jutting up out of the river. Instinct and the meager whitewater training I had recieved both drove me to the high side of the boat, hoping to help push it into the water. As the boat rose higher, however, I felt myself tilting backwards. I still remember distinctly that moment of no return, in which I simply had no choice but to let go of the strap to which I held, fall backwards into the seething water, and watch the boat slide down off the rock and over my head. I certainly didn't feel prepared to be out of the boat and in the water--but then I don't think any amount of training would have helped me to really feel prepared. At that point, though, as the turbulent currents pulled me beneath the water's surface, only one thing mattered--somehow getting my nose above the surface of the water so that I could fill my lungs with air. For the moment, I couldn't even think about getting back in the boat. I just needed to breathe.

The first four months of my first year of teaching have felt something like that moment in which I hit the water. If I could just fill my lungs with air one more time, I would be okay. I have wondered, at times, if I would make it back to the surface again, as I have felt the strong currents of student apathy and underachievement, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and my own self-doubt pull me further down. In brief moments, though, I have seen rays of sunlight piercing the troubled waters, and I have a humble resurgence of hope. Perhaps I can do it, after all. Perhaps I can be the sort of teacher I once thought I would be. Now, for a moment, as I rest in a calmer part of the river, perhaps it would be helpful to reflect on those rays of sunlight--those small moments of success that give me hope for my students, and for my own future as the sort of teacher I aspire to be.

My Moments of Success This Year:

• My third period class. This is the one class in which, when they start to get out of hand, all I have to do is stand quietly with arms folded and say quietly "class, I'm disappointed in this behavior; this isn't how my third period class behaves," and I watch them shape up immediately. It's a miracle, and sometimes third period is the only reason I feel motivated to go to work.

• Students who let down their "tough kid" masks in front of me. I have a few kids, mostly boys, who really think they are tough, and who are definitely too cool for school. And yet, there have been moments, usually when I'm keeping them in at lunch or after school, in which they let down their masks, and let me see their real, vulnerable, frightened selves. Then, I can see them as real, fragile human beings just like me, and I feel like maybe there is still something I can do to help them.
  

• Students who learn, in spite of me. My classroom can be a pretty chaotic place sometimes; I still have a lot of kinks to work out in both classroom management and pedagogy. And yet, some of my students still produce stellar work, day after day, and really seem to be learning. Now, perhaps I can't take credit for their success, but at least I'm not getting in the way.

• Students who are like puppies. In so many ways. But what I had in mind was the fact that so many of them, even when I've had to reprimand them the day before, still greet me with a bouncy smile and love to follow me around telling me about their day or asking about the homework when they see me on campus. Fortunately, no puddles on the carpet, yet.
  

• Beauty in imperfection. This comes from advice given by a dear friend who was herself a first year teacher last year. Life, especially in the classroom, is filled with mess, disorder, chaos, and imperfection. But these messes and imperfections leave me room to hope for something better, give me something to strive for as I seek growth an improvement for myself and for my students.
  

Arts, Crafts, and Historical Pedagogy

About the time I was beginning to interview with various school districts last year, the school at which I would eventually teach was in the process of becoming a "Visual and Performing Arts Anchor School." What this means, in short, is that I am expected to incorporate visual and performing arts content standards into my curriculum. For me, as a social science teacher, this means both teaching about the art of the cultures we study, and engaging the students in art projects themselves. The first element of the newly-instituted program I was immediately on board with; looking at a society's art is an excellent way to gain greater insight into the context of the times, and pieces of art can serve as great primary sources.

As far as the second element of the program, I had my reservations. If approached properly, art in the history classroom could be useful. But it seemed all to likely that incorporating art into my curriculum would turn into simply doing "fun" art projects, and sacrificing academic rigor and intellectual challenge for student engagement and entertainment. I knew it wouldn't have to be this way; indeed, this was certainly not the intent of the new program. However, I knew that one of my greates challenges would be to keep this from happening.

During the opening weeks of the school year, I did a few things here and there; we drew some pictures, analyzed some Mesopotamian bas-relief sculptures, but the heavy-duty art began as our unit on Ancient Egypt came to a close. You can see some of the sculpted sarcophagi above. They may look simple enough, but you should have seen the disaster that was my classroom at the end of the day. The custodian walked into my room and just about turned around and walked back out.

Later, we painted them:



















And we made and decorated pyramids to house them. (Thanks, by the way, to those loyal friends who spent a Saturday afternoon helping me cut the pyramids from giant sheets of core board.)





We sponge-painted the outsides with mixtures of brown and yellow paint (historical pedagogy momentarily aside, the mixing of paint was a great art lesson in itself for the students), and decorated the insides with designs inspired by art and hieroglyphs we had seen inside Egyptian tombs.

Now, the critically important question: What was the value, really, of this activity? Is there a chance my students' understanding of Egyptian art, religion, or culture was enhanced by what we did? Certainly they enjoyed it. Students usually apathetic were engaged, and those who are usually my most disruptive were my most helpful, generally speaking. But did they learn anything about historical thinking? Were they really growing and developing their minds in the way they ought to be doing in my classroom, or was this little more than a fun arts and crafts day, a publicly funded summer camp?

Now, don't get me wrong, artistic expression is a valuable part of a student's development as a person. I just hope that the way that I use art in my history classroom is not at odds with what I am trying to teach my students about history.

Confessions of a First Year Teacher in Mid-November

I wish my students knew, when I lose my temper and raise my voice, how disappointed I am in myself. I wish my students knew, when I act like I am fed up with them, how much I long to be that teacher who is always there for them. I wish my students could understand how I want to be patient, meek--how I want to take them by the hand and gently lead them, only I don't always know quite where we are going myself. I hope that, every once in a while, amidst the assignments, the grades, the tried patience, and the lunchtime detentions, that my students catch at least a glimpse of how much I love them and want them to succeed. And I hope they forgive me.

Last year, about this time, Rachel Lotan, the director of STEP, warned me and the other teacher-candidates in the program about the "November Slump," that time just before the holidays in which new teachers start to wonder why they didn't just go to law school instead. She assured us that the discouragement and questioning of one's career path were normal, and that they would indeed pass. I remember thinking the message had come a bit late for me, as I experienced my November Slump in October.

Oddly enough, the same thing happened to me this year. About the middle of last month, I was beginning to wonder if the sixth grade classroom really was the place for me. It wasn't just that the hours were long, the pay seemingly meager, and the work often thankless; my patience was wearing thinner and thinner, and the ability to apply all the great principles of pedagogy I learned at Stanford was eluding me. My heterogeneous groups were in a sorry state, formative assessments were rare and formative feedback rarer, and I had yet to teach my students how to source a historical document. It seemed my job had become 10% history teacher and 90% classroom manager, and I wasn't nearly as meek or patient a classroom manager as I would like to have been. Too many times, I would lose my patience in the classroom, only to reflect during my commute home on how really it was my fault in that I hadn't made my expectations clear, or hadn't structured the classroom environment in a way that would really facilitate student success. For the first time in years, I allowed myself to question whether teaching was really right for me.

Fortunately, the fit of madness passed, and things started looking up. I began to realize that I needed to forgive myself for being human, and that as I did, so would my students. I revisited some of the classroom management strategies I learned last year, and added a few new ones to my arsenal. A friend and veteran teacher pointed out that spending time teaching sixth graders how good students behave really is just as valuable as (perhaps more valuable than) teaching them about the rise and fall of ancient empires. As I took on this point of view, I found that I resented less the time spent teaching appropriate behavior rather than content, I started to enjoy myself more, and, incidentally, behavior problems decreased.

So, when my sixth period class spiraled out of control today, and I lost my temper with them yet again, it was that much more discouraging. I know better, I know my students know better, and they deserve a teacher who can keep his cool while reminding them that they know better. Later in the day, when I found myself on Stanford campus, I began again to entertain the idea of returning to Stanford for a Ph.D. Of course I couldn't return to graduate school as an escape from the classroom, and I certainly need to spend more time in the classroom before I would have credibility as a Ph.D candidate anyway, but it is a tempting thought. Until that time, I'm fortunate that I have friends who have been teaching a few years longer than I have who remind me that I don't have to be perfect in my first year, or even in my second, third, or fourth years.

A Few Scattered Thoughts

Me: Class, can anyone tell me whose faces we see here on Mt. Rushmore?

Student: Oooo, Oooo, I know Mr. Douglas--George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and...George Clooney!



I've been remiss in writing recently, but I've had several thoughts in the last few weeks that I want to capture. Here are three reflections on my classroom experiences over the last month or so:

Leaving the Kids with a Sitter

Several weeks ago, I left my students with a substitute teacher for the first time. Now, I don't have any children myself, but I imagine that what I felt upon leaving my students with a sub might not be to dissimilar from what a parent feels upon leaving his child with a baby sitter for the first time. I spent a significant amount of time the day before instructing my students on how to treat the substitute with the proper respect--remembering, of course, what we did to substitute teachers when I was in sixth grade. The day I was out, I spent most of the day worrying about how my students were treating the substitute, but also worrying about how my students might be faring with the substitute: would she follow the instructions I had left? Would she be sensitive to the needs of my English language learners, or to my students with special needs? Would she be mindful of the emotionally sensitive child who is all to often picked on by her classmates? As pleasant as it was to take a brief break, I've decided that I much prefer to be with my students, even when they are difficult and when they try my patience. I also learned that, when I must be out, it's in my interest to find a rather unpleasant substitute--it helps my kids to appreciate me that much more.

Playing "The Game"

In my credentialing program, we often spoke of students learning to play "the game of school"--the set of unwritten, unarticulated rules for success in the public school system. The idea was that knowledge of this "game," with rules written and enforced by the culture of power, could facilitate academic success independent of understanding of content or intellectual ability.

I think I've discovered another game that is played in the classroom. I've noticed an interesting pattern among students I keep after class for disruption. The conversation during class might go something like this:

Me: Travis, we do not throw paper/shoot spitwads/chew gum/listen to ipods in this classroom.
Student: What? Me? But I didn't do anything, I was just sitting here..
Me: No need to be dishonest, I saw what happened, it just needs to stop now.
Student: No, Mr. Douglas, I swear, it wasn't me...

This could go on for several minutes. Some students, I think, would like for it to go on for longer. I stop it by telling them we'll discuss it after class, and this is how the conversation picks up:

Me: Now Travis, tell me honestly, were you throwing paper/shooting spitwads/chewing gum/listening to your ipod during class?
Student [with surprising meekness]: Yes, Mr. Douglas. I'm sorry.

The change in attitude, in demeanor, is surprising, but perhaps even more surprising is the ease with which they admit to wrongdoing when their classmates aren't watching. Now, their classmates all know what they were doing, to be sure, but they won't admit it, won't "lose face" in front of the class. It's almost as if the bell signals a "time out" in the classroom game, when the rules change, and it is somehow less threatening to admit to the teacher that it was, in fact, you who just threw that paper airplane. Or, perhaps its simply that, once the bell has rung, they know the easiest way to get me to release them is to admit guilt, actual or imagined.

If only teachers really did have eyes on the backs of their heads.

Columns and Rows

Last fall, as an assignment for a course in classroom management, I had to sketch my ideal classroom layout, paying attention to such things as where students attention would be focused, how easily all student could see the board, how easily students might transition from whole-class discussion to small groups, and in general what kinds of messages the layout would send about the desired culture of the classroom. It didn't seem like a terribly significant assignment at the time; at any rate, I had minimal control over the physical layout of my classroom as a student teacher because it was not, in fact, my classroom. Now, however, I am awed at just how much time and thought I have put into the physical layout of my classroom. Even before school started, I went through at least three or for iterations of my original "ideal" desk configuration. The one I finally settled on looked something like this:
I hoped it would provide a good compromise between rows and a circle-- a setup that would facilitate class discussion, but would also establish the front of the room as the primary focal point. It only took me a couple of weeks to decide that I really disliked this setup, however. Whichever half of the class I faced, I always had my back to the other half. I've discovered that, with sixth graders, it's best if I can see them all at once, all the time. Now, I have them in groups of four that easily transition into rows if necessary (pictures of this setup are on their way), but I'm beginning to discover some drawbacks to this setup as well. Part of the problem, I think, is that the students simply get to comfortable, so I have to change things up every once in a while to keep them on their toes. So, now, it's back to the drawing board for my classroom layout.

Listening

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose....a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
-Ecclesiastes 3:1,7



I had an experience this week that took me back to a the first quarter of my credentialing program, to a reading and subsequent class discussion on teaching through listening, and assuming a "listening stance" in the classroom.

For several works, I had been trying to work out ways to keep Travis* engaged and learning in my classroom--or, at very least, to keep him from pestering, annoying, and offending the students around him. When I would correct him, or keep him after class to remind him of our "Classroom Community Expectations," he would look up at me with a smug little smirk that bore the faint odor of defiance--the kind of expression that seems to say "you can talk all you want to, teacher, I'll just be drawing horns and a tail on you in my imagination."

The more I corrected and reminded, the more disruptive he became. Other students started complaining to me about his behavior; I knew I had to do something different, but what to do? Finally, the other day, Travis disrupted the class one too many times. My patience hanging by a few tenuous fibers, I informed him that he would be spending his entire lunch period with me that day. Remembering that only a day or two before he had failed to show up what I euphemistically call a "lunch conference," I added that if he did not come to my classroom at the beginning of lunch, I would come out into the school yard and find him, and when I found him, he could believe me that he would wish I hadn't. I got the same smirk, and couldn't help but wonder what kind of pictures he was drawing in me in his head.

To my surprise, he did show up that day at lunch. After finishing with a couple of students who had come in with questions about their scores on a recent test, I sat Travis down and warmed myself up for another lecture. I opened my mouth to explain what I was seeing in his behavior, why it was a problem, and why it needed to change--for his own sake, and for the sake of the whole class. However, before I had articulated a complete thought, I had an subtle but distinct impression: Stop. Be quiet. Close your mouth, and listen to what he has to say.

So I stopped.

"Travis," I suggested, "why don't you tell me how you feel about what's going on in this class?"
"Well, Mr. Douglas, I'm kind of bored." Boredom. Excellent. This was at least something I could work with. We discussed why people feel boredom, and the everybody gets bored sometimes. We talked about being bored because class is to hard, because class is too easy, or just because it's hard to stay focused. He observed that he was usually bored because he was lost, and that perhaps if he sat closer to the front of the classroom, where he could see better, he wouldn't get lost so easily, and thus wouldn't be so bored. Moving him close to the front seemed almost to simple a solution. I had to do a bit of juggling so as to keep him away from other students he'd had problems with in the past, but I moved him to the front today. It may not solve all his problems, but it's a start; Travis' behavior, while not yet perfect, has markedly improved. Perhaps it was just the simple act of listening, of acknowledging his voice, that changed the dynamic of our relationship so that he didn't feel such a need to resist me, nor I him.

I look back now on our class discussions at Stanford on assuming a "listening stance," striving to be open and responsive to student voices. That was a discussion that moved me, that inspired me, while sitting in CERAS 300 as a prospective teacher. Going back to the same article now, as a six week old teacher, helps me realize not only how essential listening is, but how difficult it is. The odd thing is, that isn't the case with all students. With some, it comes so naturally to rememeber to stop and to earnestly listen to the student's voice, as well as to listen for the things I am not hearing. With others, however, it is not so easy.

Some students, while disruptive or easily distracted, seem naturally responsive, and so it is easy to respond to them. Others, though, like Travis, seem to enter the classroom even as a young sixth-grader with a conception of teacher-as-adversary. Once a resistant relationship is formed, it is an incredible challenge to infuse it with openness and responsiveness. That, I suppose, is one of the fundamental challenges I face in becoming the sort of teacher (and for that matter son, brother, and eventually husband and father) that I want to be--one who is always responsive, compassionate, and meek, even in the face of resistance and defiance. I have begun to learn that teaching is at once rewarding and painful in part because it uncovers and illuminates all my character flaws, bringing them out in stark relief as I work to craft myself into the teacher I would be.



*Not his real name, for obvious reasons.