But it's Not Like the Movies!

Today’s nugget of gold:

Me: What are you going to bring to class tomorrow, J?

J (guy who plays tough, whom I had to tell twice to lose the gang insignia today): A pencil. Because it’s the new year and all.

Me: High-five!

J: Uh, no, Ms. W. Here’s how you do it. Pounds my fist up, down, straight, and then does a little explosion sound wiggling his fingers.

Me: Do you want to see how they do it in my country?

J: Yeah!

Me: Solemnly reach out and shake his hand.

J: What country are you from again, Ms. W?

Me: The United States of Murica.

J: Oh… oh! Big grin at my cheek. Maybe tomorrow he’ll bring a pencil.

I’ve been on vacation the past two weeks, and as I hear people’s questions about TFA, I’m always inclined to remind them that besides the hilarious moments I put in my blog, teaching is not a thing like the movies.

Sure, my kids stand on the furniture, but not for the right reasons...

For one thing, those movie star teachers only ever teach one class. Didn’t you ever wonder whether the very loved Sir got along with his study hall, or Louanne Johnson’s karate lesson was repeated for all her classes? Did Hilary Swank grade the journals of all 110 of her “Freedom Writers”, or only the 20 shown in the movie? Did Captain-my-Captain get support from his third block when kicked out of Welton? Jaime Escalante didn’t seem to move from his exhausting math class straight into another period of foundations algebra.

Then, those classes always have a core of ten or so really interesting students, students who are the stars of the show, or the rebel children, or the child with a heartrending backstory. But of my thirty-five students per class, there are usually a good thirty-five who are fascinating. And if I were to focus just on ten of them, the rest wouldn’t turn into backup singers. They would become teenage moody ninja desk-mutilators. No wonder Robin Williams inspired those boys… he only had about fifteen to convince.

A major cosmetic difference between my life and the movies: I come to school imperfectly coiffed. Waking at 5:30 every morning, I have the energy to brush my teeth. And that’s it. I smile in the mirror and then call it a day on the grooming. Sometimes my skirt clashes with my cardigan. Sometimes my slacks are held up with a safety pin because I didn’t have time to find a belt. Or shop for clothes that fit. Sometimes my students laughingly point out that my earrings are from two different sets. The point is, I don’t look like a rock star. And guess what? The kids stare at me adoringly anyway. Well, a certain subset.

The most important difference is that in real life, there’s no last scene. There’s no redeeming point at which it’s all over and we can go home. I have those shiny moments where students get something, or commit to working, or the class seems to have connected and really trusts each other—and then the next day it’s real life again. Even once they’ve left the class, they’re still around and important. I still call that kid who was expelled. That kid who got bumped into IB still comes to visit. So the living people wrap tendrils of their lives around yours and are not so nicely contained in a little box on a screen with credits.

No, it’s not a thing like the movies. This is what it’s really like: A blog post written by a teacher explaining why she can’t continue to be a teacher. She writes, “if you want your child to get an education, then I’m afraid that as a teacher, I can’t help you, but feel free to stop by if you want a sticker and a C.”

Doonesbury says it all.

She’s right. I don’t give out educations, I hand out C’s and stickers to students who can barely read. I’ve been advised by someone who’s got my back that I can only flunk a certain number of kids. Then there’s the menial labor and the impossible catch-22 requirements. I’ve racked up some several hundred dollars in stress-related tooth-grinding dental work as I chew furiously through dreams of teaching without a harness of impossible things that must happen-- not merely be imagined by the Red Queen, but happen, and by semester's end-- round my neck.

When I ask kids for their winter 
break work.Luckily, I had 
them sign a paper when they got
the packet; those who are pulling 
the "you never gave it to me" 
speech had a rough shock.

With all that, teaching is, after all, the most glowing thing that exists. Because… students! Today my students in every class were chipper and happy to be back. They dug into the Cold War with vim. I’ve realized that they really like puzzle-type assignments, and so today they pieced together history. Even the kid who’s “so G I don’t do any work” was sitting there with his nose deep in the Berlin Wall and Cuban Missile Crisis trying to figure it out. My third block were indignant when we role-played capitalism and they racked up points (by answering review questions and then playing rock-paper-scissors to simulate deserved earnings and luck) only to hear the points would be divided among the whole class. It generated a hilarious debate on socialism vs. capitalism complete with non sequiturs, straw men, and reductio ad absurdum to an absurd point. Somehow that conversation always seems to say more about a person’s belief in their personal potential and sense of personal responsibility than anything about abstract concepts.

By the way, the best moment of today? When C came up to tell me that he didn't really get the Cold War-- and neither did his friend M. Because it means they're comfortable asking when they don't understand, advocating for themselves and generally care about their education, worth twenty times more than a clear shot on the intricacies of the Cold War. So tomorrow we re-loop! Skip the data, TFA-- I have students who talk instead.

Tomorrow we start two hours late—Charlotte is having a “cold day.” Are you laughing, oh Canuck and Norsk friends o’ mine? The temperature is roughly Torontonian on a normal winter day, and high above Finse’s standard. But I’m cool with it. Time to catch up on some data-crunching for the data-gods.

Clifford Stroll has already addressed our country’s educational misgivings in a single sentence: “Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, and understanding is not wisdom.”