I spent some time tonight organizing -- I brought home a milk crate of papers and folders and materials which had been stacking up around my desk and classroom. I filed and organized the stuff that worked; I threw out lot of other things that didn't.
Washing off my overhead transparencies in the kitchen sink got me to thinking about the upcoming semester. It's strangely beautiful to watch the ink words melt under the running water. They sort of smudge to the side for a brief moment, then slide quickly away down the page in a ghostly rush. Gone. All the carefully printed notes on diction, Boo Radley, gender roles, and symbolism.. and miles of vocabulary words imminent, despondent, discreet.... Watching their dark liquid shadows drain down my kitchen sink gave me a wonderful feeling of starting anew. This time around I will have some lessons already hanging out in my back pocket. This time around I know these kids, they've heard of me, and I'll connect with them more quickly. This time around my ideas will work because they are tempered with experience.
But of course I know I am being far too optimistic -- being away from mississippi seems to do that to me. Not everything will work, I will continue to make some mistakes, and who knows if I will be able to re-create the classroom I had in the fall. In the back of my mind I know it is going to be very difficult to start out strict with my rules -- I am more relaxed now than I was, not to mention many of my students will be back, and they know how lax I got in the end...
One by one my newly-washed transparencies were laid out on the counter to dry. Most returned to that perfect shininess that screams "I spent way to much of my personal money on school supplies". But a few were left with traces of the old writing. Something about the acidity of vis-a-vis pens leaves a sort of orangy-grey residue behind sometimes. It's like the moments following the explosion of fireworks; you can still see the faint off-color echo of the excitement hanging in the sky before the next one bursts.....
The semester is over.
For the next two days, my juniors will be watching a movie, and my seniors will be testing. Our classes are half-year -- so that's it. These students are no longer my students. I will sad to see some of them disappear. Others, I am exploding with joy that I will never see in my room again.
I gave my classes an evaluation sheet. After ranking various things (my capabilities, their learning, their interest in the material) I gave them three questions.
A sampling of their answers (each dash is word for word, the entirety of what that particular student wrote):
Things I liked about this class:
-nothing
-everything
-the teacher
-the way she teached
-giving us tickets, movies
-everything every minute
-The class notes, The vibe
-That she explained everything and it was easy to learn.
Things I did NOT like about this class:
-the teacher
-the students
-reading
-too much work
- I didn't like all of the work, we worked from bell to bell too much.
-Ms. M giving detentions
-all the work, but I liked it
-too strick
-all the detentions and talking
If Ms. M wanted to improve this class she would:
-go back where she came from
-keep doing what she is doing
-LEAVE
-add more people to her class role
-stop all that reading so much
-loosen up!
-not give a lot of work
-bring more candy
-she has everything down pack.
One of my favorite evaluation sheets had the same things for the first two questions: "class" and for the third they wrote "do what she do". I am not really sure what to make of some of the sheets..
Overall, I gather that the students hate being worked all block, and they hate when I give out detentions for minor offenses. They liked the books (for the most part) and they were overwhelmed by the research paper. Most gave me high marks across the board but about 25 % felt that I wasn't fair or that I did not give clear directions. About 5-10% gave low marks to everything--- me, the material, and the learning environment of the class. I recognized a few of these angry ones from their badly-masked handwriting, and they are, for the most part, the students who expected to do well but didn't seem to want to do anything in class. The ones with the serious attitude problems. But overall, the eval sheets seem to be reinforcing that I have created -for the most part- the kind of classroom I want.
Speaking of serious attitude, here are a few excerpts from a referral today (I have written at least 10 referrals for this single student. I have only seen 3 of them back Her uncle is an assistant principal, her mother is friends with the superintendent... so she reappears in my class, every day.)
Student loudly addressed class: '"I don't care about this woman or her class! I'm just going to walk up out of here! You think I CARE if that woman writes me up!?'" Later, with attitude, to teacher: "You must not know who I am". And later, loudly again to the entire class: "Its a good thing its almost January, else I'd be in jail for MANSLAUGHTER'" (referring to teacher)
Only two days until the road stretches out in front of me toward colder temperatures, saner citizens, and everything wonderful that is christmas, friends, and family....
Prompted by a heated discussion with a fellow teacher, I have been thinking about the million-dollar question recently.
What kind of an impact am I actually having on these kids?
On the one hand, I am a first year teacher with very little training. Some days I am tired and unorganized. Some days I don't manage the students' behavior as well as I should. Some days my lessons are work-intensive, but nowhere near accomplishing the objectives. And of course, the objectives themselves are often far above my students' heads. For example, the following objective appears on both the junior and senior English frameworks:
1.c The student will compare and contrast authors’ uses of word choice and diction as stylistic devices.
[WARNING: I am about to ramble, occasionally dipping into complaints, in order to work through this thought process]
When I have tried to teach objective 1.c (multiple times) I run into a number of problems:
1. It is hard to look at more than one text at a time to draw comparisons -- you either have to read them on consecutive days (in which case multiple students wont be able to do the assignment because they missed the previous day -- absences are unbelievably rampant) or take very small excerpts (which limit the possibilities of word choice analysis)
2. Students have a hard time looking at an "author's perspective". It takes a mental leap to imagine a person, who is not the narrator, writing from the narrator's perspective. For those who don't read much, this is tough.
3. Along the same lines, they have a hard time realizing that the author makes a specific choice about everything they put into a story. I try to explain this, and it is difficult. For example, when I ask on a worksheet, "Why do you think the author chose to have Jem cry at the end of the trial?" I will invariably get a handful of students who answer "Because that's what happened in the story".
4. Even when we have gone over it, my students only understand levels of diction that are highly distinct. For example, they recognize that "he ain't goin' nowhere" is a lower dialect, or slang, and they can contrast that with "The gentleman will not succeed in his life's path", which they recognize to be a formalized diction. But nuanced differences that regularly appear in literature (perhaps - Scout's language versus her older brother Jem's) are beyond them.
5. They have difficulty recognizing "style" or what it means. We can talk about it all day long in non-literature ways (They understand that all authors have a different style, just like they each have their own unique style of fashion). But once a text is in front of them, their vocabulary is extremely limited, and their comprehension lower than it should be, which makes recognizing a style incredibly different. They cannot look at an interesting word and say to themselves, "hmm that word lends an air of sadness to this author's writing" because they won't know that "despondent" means "extremely sad". They also have a limited vocabulary for actually describing the style, if they recognize it. I might describe the style of the Canterbury Tale Prologue as "jovial" due to its low-ish dialect and upbeat word choices, but my students could not, because they don't know the word jovial. Maybe they could say that it is "casual" and "fun", but they wouldn't be able to come up with the word "casual". They also would not write "fun" because reading Middle Ages poetry is not "fun" to them, so they cannot perceive that the author was trying to go for a "fun" style of writing.
So, after writing much more than anticipated about a single objective, I return to my point -- my students don't always master the objectives I teach them. Does that ruin the impact I have? What about outside of the basic tasks I am supposed to be teaching them ... have I done anything besides act as a more competent substitute babysitter?
I'd like to think so. I make them read and write and think every day. Which is more than a few teachers can say on my hallway. My students believe I am a very difficult teacher, which makes me think I must be doing something right. I may not have taught them skills they are supposed to acquire, but at least I make them think.That doesn't stop me from feeling like a semi-failure, but it helps.
But have I impacted them as people? This is a little more difficult to judge. I know my failings, and my successes, in the actual classroom.... but what about in their heads? Have I inspired anyone? Have I brightened anyone's day? Week? Have I changed anyone's course for the better? For the worse? I can think of a few students who fit into the positive categories. But the vast majority don't.
So what impact have we had? Is it true that you don't have an impact your first year? That it all comes together in the second year? That all our hard work and energy has been for very little? Are we "changing lives" as the TFA website likes to proclaim? Are we making a difference on the scale that MTC hopes for?
I am throwing these questions out in the ether because I don't have an answer... and it feels good to at least put them out there.
at lunch some of my students were discussing so-and-so X and so-and-so Y who were going to "get to fighting" and how X also fought so-and-so Z the other day.
almost to myself, I said something that has been on my mind recently, "Why does there have to be so much fighting? Every time I turn around I feel like I see people hitting eachother."
I added, jokingly, "Why can't there just be peace in this world?"
My students were silent for a moment. then alounda, (who has the highest grade in my class but prone to violent outbursts) responds, "well, because there are black folks in this world"
BG linked to an extremely interesting (and very sad) short film made by a 17-year old girl about race, self-esteem, and "standards" imposed on young African-Americans.
She replicates a study done in the '50s where black children are asked to choose between a black doll and a white doll to play with. The clips, as well as the commentary from other teenage girls, are pretty powerful.
Anthony: Man, I'm so sick of this book! (shaking To Kill a Mockingbird)
Justin: We read this whole book! I ain't never finished a whole book. look at this book! (holding/shaking To Kill a Mockingbird)
Travis S: No we read that one book.
Justin: Oh yeah, that one book, back in freshmen year, in Coach S's class.
Travis S: Yeah, what was that book.
Justin: I dont know. But we read that one too.
Our principal, in his first year as head of the high school, is committed to "turning this school around". He attended this school in the 70s, back when white students still graced the school with their presence, and there were actually extracurriculars. (According to the honor students' framed pictures -- they had an Ecology Club! More than one Honor Society, a student fiction compilation, a regular newspaper, an inter-racial comittee.. and others! They had students make the National Honor Society!) The only extracurriculars that are left these days (besides sports) are Band, Art Club, and a semi-secret gay/lesbian club that routinely gets bashed by students and teachers alike.
Anyway, on his quest to make this place a "school, rather than a prison" Principal B announced today over the intercom that from this moment on, the n-word is banned from school. The kids did not take this very well. After the bellwork, I asked each of my classes how they felt about this ban. Their reactions ranged from disgust, to anger, to cynicism.
"Why can't we say what we want to say?"
"I am going to say whatever I want! n-----! n--------! N-------! Are you going to write me up?"
"What about the first amendment?"
"I don't like that word anyway, but you can't tell people what they can and can't say"
I managed to tie the discussion to Things Fall Apart -- should one group of people be able to impose their values on another set of people? These kids clearly view the n-word as an integral part of their vocabulary and culture -- it means friend, brother, "that man" in addition to its other negative connotations...and it is a powerful way to take back the past. But I personally hate when kids use it. And I think the principal has good intentions.
Tristian, during homeroom, says "But the word he is talking about is n---er, and when WE use it, its n---a! They have totally different meanings!"
I countered this point by saying that even this version, the one that ends in an 'a', is often associated with crime, drugs and a certain lifestyle that our principal doesn't want to encourage here.
Tristian thought for a moment, and then responded, "well then the word I use is n-i-g-g-a-H." and he wandered off.
What a rollercoaster week -- I had one of my best days yet on Friday. My second block was in hysterics (myself included) over a game of Yam-opoly, designed to show them how difficult life was as a yam farmer in an Ibo village. They made connections with Things Fall Apart, and loved the game. They begged me to play again, and told me to ask the Spanish teacher to play it with them. I think this was the first time that I can say that every single student was actively engaged in the lesson for the entire class period. I had a blast.
And then, during fourth block, my class was working diligently all block on a Friday afternoon! Even more fantastic was that they did this while a male member of the class was wearing a very tight cheerleading uniform. The "Powder Puff" football game (senior girls vs. junior girls) happened at the end of the day, so of course there were two cheerleading squads of boys -- in full regalia. I wish I had brought my camera...
Lacey is currently reading two of my books simultaneously. She updates me every day on what is happening in The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, her current preference. She loves it. She highlights words she doesn't know and asks me about them. It's wonderful. The only thing that makes me sad is that Lacey is a junior; she just turned 17. The book she so loves was my favorite book when I was in third grade (this fact was written in my childhood diary).
I was 8....
When Darrius calls me " lil' mama ".
When Johnny does anything.
When Travis knows he is about to get a detention and gets the "Ms. M please don't" grin plastered across his face.
When Deonte tries (unsuccessfully) to hit on every girl in class.
When Murry raps.
When the kids get me to smile-- and then notice it "She smilin'! I see you smilin' Ms. M!"
I think this list could go on....
Today I actually had one of those "can't stop laughing" moments. I kept having to turn away from the class because I would just start giggling all over again and I didn't want them to notice. What set me off was a response to an extra credit prompt. Here was the question: Imagine you are Nathan Radley, and you have noticed the children playing in front of your yard quite often. Write Scout and Jem a letter.
For anyone who has read To Kill a Mockingbird, and also happens to remember the plot well, here is the text of Lenarolyn's response (which not only made her start giggling to herself during the test, but also caused me to fight back laughter for a good 10 minutes...)
To whom this may concern,
I know you devils are playing around my house and doing little SNEAKY things. I would like if you all find another playground. OR else I'll have BOO RADLEY handle it.
