The Teacher Learning Curve

Learning to teach is hard. Right now I’ve moved from a basic doggie paddle into a steady breaststroke, with the occasional fancy flip, but every so often a moment pops up that reminds me how different this is than the drowning splashes of last year. Today I had one such moment.

A student whom I’ve constantly had to nudge into proper behavior in one of my classes snuck a mouthful of food today. I gave him that look (disappointed-teacher-who-cares) and said, “hey, you know we can’t eat, you saw the bugs that one time.”

“My fault, my fault,” he responded as I moved away from him. Two minutes later, I looked over, stopped mid-sentence while giving directions, watching him stuff a Reeses cup in his mouth.

“!!! Look, I know it’s hard for you to learn, as evidenced by your abysmal grade in this class, but two minutes is too short a time for even you to forget something as basic as the school-wide rule against food,” is what I did not say to him. I got this far:

“Look, I know it’s hard—“ and cut myself off, the acid in my tone striking across the classroom. Then I paused. The students looked at me, waiting for what was coming next. “--, please step outside for a moment,” I told him, and got the class working on their assignment. When I joined him outside, he was waiting for me warily, ballcap low on his forehead.

“So. Why’d you eat when I just asked you not to?” Gotta give a chance to explain. Maybe he’s diabetic.

“I was just finishing it up, I didn’t want it to go to waste, so I was just finishing it up, honest.”

*Cough* Bullshit* Cough* is not what I responded.

“You know I keep Ziploc bags in case you need to put food away that you’d started at lunch. And, listen, I’m glad to know that you had a reason [Translation: I’m glad to know you care enough to lie], but what I saw when you ate right after I told you it was against the rules, was you giving me the finger. And giving the class the finger. Every time you break a rule like that, that’s what the class and I see—you’re saying F you to the class. And you’re a leader. You know you are, because last Wednesday (cue inspirational story of his leading the class that was actually true to let him know I hadn’t just noticed the negative). So get it together. We cool?”

“We cool,” and we shook. Five minutes later he was telling his deskmates to shush, Ms. W was speaking. It’s nice while it lasts. And it’s a HUGE step up from last year, when such insubordination would have sparked a verbal tongue-lashing that would lacerate holes in their teenage-sized egos. I’m learning, slowly but surely.

(By the way, my sister has since told me that I lifted that speech from Freedom Writers, but I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I’m sure I did it better).

In my 2^nd block, we were in the middle of researching the results of violent media upon teenage aggression when someone knocked at the door. As one, the class glanced up at me.

“Ms. W, you promised!”

“Okay, let’s do it!” As one, we stood up, and the kids returned to be hard at work, standing in place, as my bewildered TFA coach walked in the door. He moved to the back and stood, leaning against a wall, surveying the standing students. The class worked for about a minute, and then I gave the hidden signal, and we all sat. Sure enough, my coach took a seat, too.

The class went wild. “It worked! It worked!”

“Okay, guys, what do we have to do to make it ethical?”

“Debrief him!” And they raised their hands to be the one to explain that we were testing the Chameleon Effect on him.

Tomorrow is PSAT day, and I gave my first block a rousing speech about getting scouted by colleges and winning scholarship money. One of the girls pointed out that nobody has ever told them before what the point of all the tests they take is, and that now she’ll actually try tomorrow. Which worries me—what was she doing the rest of the time? Still, it’s going to be a nice break in the schedule for me—as a senior homeroom teacher, I get to chill with my seniors or else be a hall monitor and grade papers.

And I’m going home for Simchat Torah! Columbus may not pop into your mind as the apex of the Simchat Torah scene, but it has family, and old friends, and a women’s Torah reading. Chag sameach, everyone!