Confessions

One of the most important pieces of reflective practice is, well, reflecting.  Unfortunately, sometimes reflection can point out some glaring deficiencies.  In January, my student teacher took over my first hour, I assist 4th and 5th, and I am solely responsible for 3rd hour.

I emphasize solely, because at the end of the day, no matter how much we know that students have to be held accountable, we don't have a system in place to do that for kids who are not afraid of failure.  My third hour has been a struggle since the beginning of the school year, and while there have been moments of growth, I fear we've remained stagnant.  Many of them are still stuck on how to turn a question into a statement without writing a run on sentence, and I'm fully aware that they should have owned the art of writing paragraphs long ago. 

Yesterday, I tried splitting them into groups of three so I could work with a small group (of TEN) on their writing and it was a disaster. We always hear that we need to reteach it in a new way, but what happens when we run out of new ways to teach it? Or don't have the energy to redirect the same misbehavior for the 20th time so we CAN teach it? Because I'm there. I don't know what else to do.  It's painful at times because I look at their faces and I can tell that some of them simply do not understand what I mean when I say to support their writing with examples. Some of them just don't care about reading, writing, or school in general.  Others are getting it, but they're tired of dealing with the ridiculousness and have resigned to just being present.  This isn't quality teaching, and it isn't quality learning.  Yet, we're teaching in a broken system and too many people just don't give a damn.  The powers that be are too busy passing laws so more students can attend private schools, resulting in higher class sizes, burned out teachers, and less resources for those of us who commit ourselves to public education.

I don't want the students in my third hour to drop out.  I don't want the students in my third hour to get the short end of quality instruction.  I don't want them to become a statistic, or to live up to every single stereotype that already exists for them.  I don't want to be mad and frustrated every day, yet that's where I'm at. It isn't where I have to stay, though, so I'll do some more reflecting and pray that the new trimester will bring a little relief.

Those Who CAN

Last Friday I turned in my teacher of the year portfolio.  While I wasn't looking forward to putting together the portfolio, it was pretty powerful.  I was able to take the time to reflect on my growth as a teacher. I had almost forgotten about my first year teaching on a cart (maybe I just tried to repress the awful memory) and the million and one first-year teacher mistakes I made. Bless Pat Lorenc for being my mentor teacher, because I'm pretty sure she helped me maintain my sanity. Thankfully, I had a classroom the next year, but it came with a partial contract (hello, debt) that was less than ideal.  I could continue to chronicle the years leading up to today, but that's not what this post is about.

This post is about everything that is impossible to teach in education courses.

1. A student who is angry and crying because it is the anniversary of her mother's death
2. How to handle the student who thinks it's grand to speak in a British/Australian/ accent at any point in the day...and then do cartwheels down the hall.
3. Providing consequences to students that actually matter (in case you wondered, ISS and OSS don't)
4. How to deal with a classroom of raging hormones
5. What to say when a new student arrives at your door who tells you he's been in jail for a year (nice to meet you??)
6. Remembering to take attendance
7. How to address 10 different questions at one time
8. What to say to a scared 14 year old who just found out she's pregnant
9. A student's death
10. How not to strangle a parent who is abusing his child
11. How to write recommendation letters :) I have this one down now!
12. How to work a copy machine (thankfully, I do not jam ours)
13. Finding a balance between your life as a teacher and your life outside of the classroom
14. How to say NO
15. Um, he brought a picture of WHAT? He showed it to WHO? OK. Um...let's go to the office

In case you're curious, all fifteen of those occurred over the past two weeks. 10 of those in one day. I could write a list longer than this, but I think you get the gist.  Teaching is about more than teaching...it's about making meaning of the experience we call life. And that is no easy task.