Insightful Additions: A Good Thing

It’s a new semester, a new start, and I finally feel like I’m not swept off my feet in the classroom any more. Outside the classroom is a different matter; I’d forgotten how time-consuming the start of semester is. There are 93 new names to learn, 93 new parents to call, 93 diagnostic reading and 93 writing tests to grade and plug into data charts for TFA and the administration, 93 student surveys to memorize (H plays in the band, R doesn’t like to read aloud), and most dauntingly, 93 student relationships to build back up from the ground.

My trailer. Sorry, I mean "mobile classroom."

I didn’t realize until the first day of class how utterly cold it would feel to stare at 35 brand new faces and wonder where my kids were and how they were coping. It wasn’t just the freezing weather seeping in from the frigid floor of the trailer that drove me into the copy room to warm my arms above the laminating machine like a teacher-hobo. It was the need for companionship with people who I already know, who don’t stare at me like a stranger whose every move is scary.

The last day with my old class particularly exacerbated that feeling. I’d come in after administering an exam and they’d all cheered when I entered—one vivacious troublemaker sprang up and throttled me with a hug, she was so glad to see me back. I sat on the desks in back letting an ELL train me in Spanish while another two drew me cartoons to hang on my wall. I engaged three students in a conversation about the latest reading for my masters’ class on “Diverse Learners.” They agreed that the text’s comments on African-American and Asian eye contact avoidance and Latino proximity were purely stereotypes (I liked hearing them because between us we were a White woman, an African American young man, a Latina young woman, and a Vietnamese young woman). Their comfort and insight was a far cry from the wary, silent faces confronting me on my second first day of school.

But starting over isn’t all bad. I know where we’re going in history, now, and have a much better grasp on the techniques that work. Saying “student-centered learning” is all very well, but one has to see the messes that result when it’s not done to really be a disciple. I’m also much quicker on identifying misbehavior and reacting to it. Used to be, as long as a kid was quiet, I had no idea they weren’t working. Used to be, a kid would do something egregiously violent or rude and I would stare at them thinking, “oh, I get it, this is what this year will be like” until something prodded me into furious retort. Now my reactions are much faster and more even. Students know they’ll get moved for continuous talking because I did it on the first and second day. I’ve had to send two students out—one for refusing to take his hat off and the other for the N-word in a friendly fashion—but nobody has yet had a serious breach of classroom culture and we’re building an environment that feels safe, bit by bit.

Also, those you hate, but I prefer the first alternative.

I’m also very carefully crafting students whom I identified as possible troublemakers into positive members of the class from the get-go. The student who left class rather than move his seat now sits front-and-center, so that I can rap his desk whenever he puts his head down, and make deals with him about turning off the heat if he finishes some of his work (just take the hoody off, man, and you’ll cool off!). I’m convinced he’s not going to be allowed to slide. Now I just have to convince him. There’s another student who tried to throw me off balance the first day by rudely interrupting to ask why my lips were purple (purple lips, bane of the cold white person) and I gushed at her, thanking her for her caring and compassion, joking about how bloody freezing I was, and moving past the moment so swiftly she just had time to look startled before plunging back into taking notes. Labeled mature and considerate, she’s living up to it so far. Maybe it’s who she always was. It helps that her best friend is one of the best workers in the class.

I'm that scumbag teacher =)

A third student is possibly a troublemaker who has been trying, unsuccessfully, to get away with everything she can. But when she ignored the directions on creating topic sentences (this semester I’m teaching writing from the first sentence down) and did something different that produced a lot of garbled text, I laughed, called her an over-achiever for writing so much, and set her straight. Half an hour later she was up at my desk as the other kids left for lunch to tell me that social studies was her strongest subject. I can tell, I responded.

So bit by bit, piece by piece, I’m trying to make the classroom much safer and more comfortable than it was last semester. I don’t want any of my kids scared of other kids. I’m also back on my rounds of soliciting parent involvement. Some sound desperate and hopeless from the get-go, but other I really hit it off with, and we can spend awhile on the phone talking about how to get their kid to be as successful as possible. I like having the good conversations as early as possible, because they usually end the way this one did:

Me: Hi, I’m calling to introduce myself. I also want to let you know, your son already has such insightful additions to classroom discussions.

Mom: Is that a good thing?

Me: Yes! He’s got a really rational way of looking at things. I’m not surprised if he ends up being one of the top students in the class.

Mom: Oh! When you called I thought for sure he’d got in trouble. He always is.

Me: (inner monologue: What? Not this kid!) Nope. Not this semester. Not this class.

Mom: Oh, thanks! You can call back any time.

Me: Sure will.

Seriously debating whether I'm wearing a toga
tomorrow. Still undecided. 

Tuesday we had a fire drill, and I spent the frigid time outside screaming in my mind because most of my kids clearly have no coats. When we came back inside, we played a Roman Republic game in which kids were randomly assigned different roles: patricians, plebeians (which they quickly shortened to “plebs”. Either they’re uncannily familiar with 1984 or it’s just common slang). They had to elect senators, respond to situations such as broken roads, slave revolts, an emperor’s rise, and debate how to handle invasions (Rome fell regardless of their choices, of course). I thought my third block wouldn’t have time to finish because an announcement for early dismissal came on, but they begged me to keep going and adorably stayed late from the lunch they were meant to hustle to so that they could finish. I’m beginning, already, to get attached to these kids.