I wrote this as a journal entry toward the end of a year as a long-term sub in our local high school. I wanted to wet my feet teaching again -- I had missed it, and at the end of the year this high school wanted me to stay. The school is a good one -- my son is there now and enjoying excellent peers, programming and teachers. Even so, my writing captures the intensity of high school teaching at a particular moment in time, dealing with a particular population of students., Even in "good suburban schools," there are plenty of issues and at this point, far too little funding to deliver on what the public has been led to expect. There is an enormous gap between the reality of being a classroom teacher in any school and what those of us who don't teach in similar circumstances believe teaching to be like. That we sometimes can't hang onto good teachers even in suburban schools comes as no surprise to me. Just recently, a friend -- an excellent teacher who has only been at it for 5 years -- let me know that she is "done." I am sad for both her and our schools.
5/22/07
No matter what, I’m guilty. Part and parcel of a hybrid upbringing: Catholic original sin and Protestant work ethic. No matter what, I will always second guess what I do, while driving myself crazy doing it such that I live up to my self-imposed, unrealistic standards of “good enough,” and concurrently chastising myself for being a slovenly half-committed lazy-ass. There. Now that that’s out of the way I can talk about my real and surreal worlds.
I just turned down a very nice 0.5 FTE (that’s half-time for the uninitiated) teaching job at xxx High – minutes from my house - just as I have gotten my sea-legs and started to think that maybe this teaching/real-life balance is within reach after all. Of course, there was little “balance” to this year. Today I caught myself – as I slammed down a salad, logged in attendance, and set up for the class coming in 5 minutes – and stopped to take a deep breath. In that quiet moment I could feel how abnormally high my “idling speed” was. The foot is always on the accelerator even in park. I am going back to my “cushy University job,” (thank goodness for it) in the “real” world. As I write part of me sighs with great relief while the other part aches.
High school teaching (I can’t speak for any other kind) is so impossibly intense it’s indescribable. You are on-stage most of the day, racing in between classes and constantly communicating to kids with the utmost care. H.S. teachers have to deliver nuanced responses in constant split-second interactions with students. This takes a lot of practice to read between the lines and respond accordingly in real time. And teens do not generally bestow benefit of the doubt on the adults in their world. They’re not supposed to. It’s exhausting. The teaching I’ve been doing this year is intense in a gritty, watching-every-move, who-is-about-to explode-and-how-can-I-diffuse-distract-and-refocus, survive-the-class-period, trying-to-maintain-momentum-in-a-direction sort of way. I feel sad that a new physics teacher this year, who is talented and whom I like a lot is not coming back next year. And perhaps never teaching again. He never stood a chance when the department saddled him with 4 classes like mine. I knew already exactly what I was getting into and even so this was an incredibly difficult year.
When I was younger and kid-free, teaching was the center of my universe. It had to be. Without at doubt I feel I am at my most competent when I am part of a high school. Am I a productive-enough member of society when I’m not teaching? Should I care? I do care whether I should or not. Is it O.K. to have some time to exercise and not be bananas all-the-while not be living up to a perceived calling? Am I an indulgent lazy-ass?
What did they need today? The AM class. Rs needed someone to sit him down and make him do his homework right then and there. “I have frees the last three blocks today – I’ll do it then.” Both of us knew these words were hollow. His year average is at a 61%. If he fails biology he’ll have to triple up on science – an impossible feat senior year. If he doesn’t graduate next year, Metco will be done with him and he will be back in the Boston Public School system for a repeat of senior year. Not a good scenario for an extremely bright, wonderfully likeable and terribly unmotivated kid. Br needed the same sit-down-and-do-your-homework-now treatment, though he’s further up in the 60’s and likely to at least pass the year. I should have sat down with Vl, gone over her hot and defiant outburst last Thursday, the reason that I wrote her up, given her the hearing that she craves but doesn’t deserve - that would enable us to end the year without a struggle.
N, Al, Lr, Js and Jy needed a real conversation about evolution and the film we saw rather than a mind-numbing fill-in-the-blank notesheet. They are so good, smart and completely ignored. P needed someone to make sure he did write everything down, the homework assignment, the simple notes. Take out your pen P. Take out your notes. Where is your homework? Why didn’t you do it? Can you get it in my mailbox by the end of the day? Are you writing down what I am saying now on your notebook paper? Pick up the pen and write this down. The email circle between his SPED liason and teachers says this potentially brilliant kid is falling apart yet again. He has been out for counseling sessions. Something’s going on at home again.
Ct needed someone to tell her to hang in there – that she can do one more unit if she doesn’t have a defeatist attitude and stays engaged. Ct, stop text messaging your friends under the desk and pay attention. Her father constantly puts her down. She is so low about herself and I love her to pieces. Where was Ab? Probably somewhere smoking a cigarette and pondering life’s more interesting questions because he is interested in the world and able to ponder but isn’t interested in working much. No matter – he won’t lose any ground. Dv was on the ball and not terribly emotionally needy today thank goodness, as was Js. Dv was not stressed, Js was not confused. K is in a rehab center and L is home with her baby. Both are supposedly trying to keep up with the classwork from where they are with very little help from me. Sn was her O.K, space-cadet self, not trying hard but not missing too much. Of course, we missed 2/3 of class yesterday due to class officer speeches, Thursday we lose time because of the MCAS schedule and Friday we miss time because of the awards ceremony.
Zoo class came in the PM. I cut them so much slack…the need was in the air. A discombobulated schedule – they were all over the place as usual when they walked in. I gave them time to air their grievances with the world as I leisurely passed out papers and checked in with each student to see whether they’d done their homework. Use this opportunity to make personal contact with each kid – something that often helps to settle them. Pg came in late with that look – “I don’t care because I’m in front of everybody.” “I don’t care because that’s my best defense.” “I don’t care even though I know you care about me, I didn’t do the work you are cutting me all sorts of slack for and I need to be able to hate you if I don’t pass.” I won’t go through the needs of everyone here. It’s endless. Ab was a complete pain in the neck. I nailed Br with the ultimate – the write-up for an admin detention – when his cellphone went off. I was in the middle of class and he remained defiant. He stormed out of early. Everyone was cowed into submission. Not a good way to end the day. All he needed to do was apologize and put away the darned phone.
5/24/07
So, I was “mean” to them today. I could feel their vibe on their way out, “Man, she was a BITCH today…,” Just my last class – “zoo class.” I just didn’t have the patience for the enormous physicality of 15 17-year-old boys, 3 flirtatious or troubled girls, the ensuing chatter and constant put-downs. The harshness of the world which comes out of their mouths toward each other still floors me 9 months later. It is never directed to me purposefully. But I feel engulfed by it. It takes so much energy round them up from their entry and maintain their attention. To not be sidetracked by A’s outbursts. (If he were a normal kid I would have kicked him out about once a week at this rate. But his level of “good behavior” is a very low bar with his profound mental challenges and lack of any moral compass. His “good” behavior is someone else’s terrible behavior. At least he does his homework everyday. The inappropriateness of his verbal blurts and noises remind me of Tourette’s but his are to gain attention from his classmates and therefore different.)
I got their attention today by reminding them that they had witnessed my having a “short fuse” the other day with Br and that today was no exception. That I was unwilling and unable to spend my time after school overseeing my own detention and therefore, any detention would be administrative and unfun. They were quiet while watching the film. Some had good questions, I know, but I could not allow any interruption of the quiet momentum. An educational conversation would have quickly devolved into random chatter and posturing, and I just didn’t have the energy or patience to constantly herd them back into line today. I had asked them to take notes on a highly structured worksheet but few wrote anything at all. The film went too fast for some of them. Tomorrow we’ll go back over it piece by piece. I would love some decent discussion. They will all be good people in the end. Just right now they are incredibly large, loud, immature and disinterested.
My stomach will be in knots tomorrow because I really do need to corral zoo-class and force them to listen and learn some content. Tomorrow we meet for the last 3 blocks on Friday in 95 deg heat with no air-conditioning. I’ll turn on the fan and resort to the overhead again. The overhead projector is like a narcotic. I write down notes at their speed while reading the notes aloud and elaborating. Everyone settles down and copies diligently. The room is dark. I am bathed in the lamp’s glow. I do not have my back to them. I realized the other day, as I used the board – something I rarely do with these classes – is that the board forces me to turn my back to them. And I am behind the barrier of the lab table. These two physical realities of the space put miles between us. As soon as I’m at the board, it’s as though I’m not there at all. The overhead is so mundane, so old-school, so effective. Powerpoints don’t work. They are pretty to look at and induce quiet but everyone becomes so much more passive with the powerpoint. As though they expect the knowledge to seep into their brain without any reading, thinking or writing. The overhead forces them to write real notes. Forces them to look at me. Forces eye contact. Old-fashioned and effective. If I could just get them to hang onto these notes long enough to study for a quiz then I’d really have done something!
When viewing films, I pull up a stool to one of the tables in the back of the class with my remote. Make myself at home amongst them. The students who are more likely to be subversive are back there but they suddenly turn to me with curiosity about the film. They whisper questions to me that wouldn’t occur to them in the larger group because they’re so busy being on stage. I answer some quietly and then try to direct them back to the film so they don’t miss so much that they are lost.
Good discussions do happen but they are more likely when I do not feel like I am trying to keep a cork in a shaken bottle. To craft that atmosphere of reasonable calm and focus with this group is very difficult indeed. To succeed, we need the correct barometric pressure in addition to the perfect amount of “sit down and behave” balanced with “trust me and discuss this with me.” It is best when Ab is either absent or quiet for some reason. It is best when Pg and Br are not sullen about their lives. It is best when I can find a way to kindly keep M (with his straight A average and Asperger’s) in check and answer his 10,000 inventive, relevant but off-topic questions later. Thank goodness for him – his classmates show kindness to him when they won’t to anyone else. They begrudgingly allow him to help them understand the material when he approaches them in his socially clueless and incredibly intelligent way. M is the good side of inclusion and he is an absolute asset. Unfortunately, I’m seeing more of the bad side.
What are we doing in schools? This is not education. This is passing the time. I am a highly trained babysitter checking topics off a list even though about a third of these students fail any given test. My students in zoo-class and I have experienced moments of education in occasional good group discussions, but almost all of it has been in small groups or one-on-one. When I am one-on-one I can connect with them and bypass their grandstanding with each other. But as I connect one-on-one with a student the rest of the class gradually spirals into oblivion if I have not structured heavy and, for some, punitive, busywork.
I sat and proctored extra time in MCAS today. Another T, W and Thursday completely disrupted by this crazy testing scheme. Students missing hours of class and direction and momentum in a subject even when they’re not the ones being tested. Teachers needing to proctor and proctor. Couldn’t I be online trying to locate and structure good activities that will engage my students? Couldn’t I be futzing with a potential lab protocol? Couldn’t I be cleaning the beakers in my sink? This is completely ridiculous.
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