Mean Girls: Have I failed them?

Nothing quite sobers you up than looking at a screen shot of a Twitter fight between some of your students...in this case, high school girls.

Wow. The sweet, respectful young scholars that sit before me are obviously not the owners of this Twitter account.  The vitriol spewed forth is nothing we have learned in class, yet if feels very well studied and superbly executed.  It was brutal.  I actually cannot repeat any of it in my my blog for fear of an indecency flag.

Expletives aside, it was just simply mean.  It was mean and ugly and gross. And it stayed with me all night. The four girls involved were all brought into the APs office and given the appropriate discipline, but although necessary, I don’t think it will stop the problem.

Ironically, these girls are all in my Speech Communications course, where our entire emphasis of the class is on...well...communicating. We also work extensively on conflict resolution. I guess we need a little more work in this department.  Maybe that is why I took it so hard. The reality of teaching is, you can work all year with a kid and really feel as if you are making progress and then, in true teenage fashion, they will make a really, really bad decision.

Here is where the public opinion of teachers really gets me. The label “bad teacher” is thrown around like salt at McDonalds...too much. What non-educators fail to realize is that our clientele is a bunch of kids and kids are unpredictable. They are at a time in their lives where they are navigating their way from childhood to adulthood and along with that, bad decisions become the norm. We try everyday to steer them in the right direction...go towards the light, children! But, sometimes the darkness prevails...in the form of cute boy, snapchat, or just plain vanity.

Today, we will circle up, play some soft music, check our phones into the back of the room, make eye contact, and attempt some verbal appreciations to open class. It could be a time of healing or a complete disaster, as my teacher buddies well know. Our world is an unpredictable one...but, we keep trying, we keep fighting, because these kids - challenges aside - are well worth it.

My Student's Parents Speak Spanish...and...

Last night I presented the Board Award in English to an incredible young scholar.  This boy has a 97% in AP Literature, has missed only one assignment out of 76 this semester, and is heading to UC Berkeley in the fall.  

HIs parents speak Spanish.

His mother and father, beaming with pride, each shook my hand, smiled and nodded their heads profusely.  My student says, “They only speak Spanish.”  

As a public school teacher in California, this is no shocker but this doesn’t make it any less incredible.

This top scholar of English, mastering the likes of Sylvia Plath, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Mary Shelley has been raised in a Spanish speaking home.  Not only did he have to learn English, he then rose through the ranks to reach the highest levels of English literature analysis.  This just touches me so deeply.

His parents, were beaming with pride:  you really felt the love even if they couldn’t verbally express it to me.  I started to think about this powerful learning tool:  love.

Love is what gave my student the boost to succeed in school.  His father works on a dairy and mother babysits a few days a week; this family did not have the money to send him to prep schools, or SAT tutorials, but they had love and that made all the difference.

What does that mean to us in the classroom?  How does the old saying go?  “Students need to know that you care before they care what you know.”  Love.  We need to love them. It’s our only chance.  It doesn’t mean that you forego expectations, deadlines, and consequences but it does mean the constant reminder that you are doing this all out of love. I care about you and that means I work hard and you work hard.  If I didn’t care, here is a movie and leave me alone.

If you ever poll your students about their favorite teachers, it’s usually a no-brainer. They love the ones that care.  They love the ones that know their name.  They love the ones that ask them how their day is going or follow up on the baseball game yesterday.  They love the ones that have an engaging lesson planned everyday. They love the ones that establish respectful order in their class. They love the ones that love them.  

I’m excited to watch my student rise through the ranks of academe. He will no doubt be an asset to UC Berkeley: his keen intellect paired with his flawless bilingualism is a slam dunk for success.  

But, I will miss him because...I love him.

Teachers have friends? Teachers NEED friends!

As much as we love the kids...teachers need friends, adult friends.  I have taught on four different campuses and will tell you point blank, I would not have survived for 13 years without my colleagues turned friends.

No one understands you like a fellow teacher: they just “get it.”  And, if you don’t tap into this free therapy, life in the classroom becomes tough.  My classroom phone rang the other day and I answer to the melodic tones of our art teacher.  She wants to know if we were to (hypothetically) put a girl band together, which iconic 80s group could we emulate?  Bananarama in overalls, the punky-pop of the Go-gos, or the seductive stare of Susanna Hoffs in the the Bangles.  This was a very serious conversation.  Then, of course, we had to cast the group using our fabulous females in the English, Science, and Math departments.  It took about four minutes, the kids had no idea what I was talking about but did witness me cracking up and returning the receiver to the wall with a huge grin.  “I love my job; let’s get back to work!”

Spending time together is a luxury because it is the one thing teachers DO NOT HAVE.  Lunch is 45 minutes and usually eaten up by club meetings or make-up work.  After school, teachers are cleaning up today, prepping for tomorrow, or, if lucky, grading (that usually needs to happen at home).  However, dragging yourself away from these duties for 10-20 minutes can be so invigorating.

Yesterday, I had three soft cookies left in a plastic container - You know the ones.  Soft white flour, refined sugar, cake-like ooie gooies with a thick coat of processed pink frosting frozen in currents of sweetness...rainbow jimmies surfing the sugar wave.  I stood up, left my messy desk and walked across the hall ambushing my BFFs in the English department.  We sat for 20 glorious minutes, nibbling our naughty snack, and breaking down the day:  who would be our new principal next year, what kids surprised us that day (both good and bad), and how are we going to end the year with a bang when we are t.i.r.e.d.

Well, I didn’t get all of my piles sifted through, and I was little late getting home to my own kids, but the 20 minutes with my pals across the hall made me feel not so alone in this insane profession. Ironically, we are never alone...but you know what I mean.

So, in conclusion, create those girl bands, eat those cookies, and talk and laugh with your colleagues.  We need to fill up so we may give hard each and every day.

Take their phones away?

Two days last week, all of my students (and myself) have parked our cell phones...and it’s been SOOOOOOOO relaxing.

A cacophony of desperate pleas filled the room:  “That’s evil, Mrs. Jones,”  “that’s unconstitutional,” “I’m going to die,” and my personal favorite:  “I just started texting a boy I like!”

Yes, we were all in torture as we slid our phones into the individualized pockets of the closet shoe organizers I had bought at Walmart.  What Snapchats would we miss...forever evading our speedy screen shot trigger finger?  What tweets would...tweet on by? What cute boy or girl would be frozen for two hours awaiting the three light gray bubbles of the “text back”?  We were about to find out…

My school schedule is blocked into two hour classes, three times a day. It’s a long chunk of time to focus teen energy...sometimes made longer by cell phones. I know, I know, we love our phones and, as educators, many of us rely on them as an educational tool. The kids can research, play fun quiz games like “Kahoot it,” and even finish up an essay draft on a Google doc and share it with us for editing. The phones have infinite capabilities; HOWEVER, even with my honors kids in AP Literature, I can attest that most phone usage is tied up in social media...and I would have been the same way in the 80s. Unfortunately or fortunately, these devices just did not exist. My tool of distraction was the origami note made from lined paper with my best friends code name on the outside.  Getting the note in her hand was a whole other level of stealth.

So, we parked our phones for the entire two hours.  My potential commencement speakers enjoyed captive audiences in Speech class with beautifully written feedback forms from everyone in class. My AP Lit kids took a mock exam, writing three essays in two hours minus the vibration of their phone notifications.

Speaking of vibrations, the phone parking is next to my desk in the back of the room.  As I was evaluating speeches and proctoring exams yesterday, I marvelled at HOW MANY TIMES THESE PHONES WERE BUZZING.  I think a fair guesstimate would be hundreds!  Hundreds of times per hour, these kids are distracted and pulled from whatever we are trying to accomplish in class. Even your most mature kid with the best handle on their impulse control is going to struggle to pay attention and not be seduced by the buzzzzzzzzzzzz…

I don’t really know where I’m going with this.  Like most things in my life, I feel like moderation is the key to happiness.  So, some days we will be tweeting, taking pictures, and screen chatting in “Todays Meet” and other days we will have to awkwardly stare into each others’ eyes with unoccupied hands at our sides.  

CAN WE DO IT?

The Writers' Cafe: Literacy goes public...with coffee!

Each semester, my Forensics club and our Creative Writing class put on a Writers’ Cafe on our campus.  It’s the closest thing to a hip, cool coffee house that my small town of Tulare has.  

We book the faculty lounge and transform it into a artists’ haven complete with twinkle lights, indie music, Starbucks coffee, homemade oreo pops, cheesecake bars, and brownies.

The students sign up to perform.  Last night we had 22 kids...the list always grows as the night progresses with brave teens being drawn to the scuffed oak lectern.  The pieces range from poems about sisters without makeup to family road trips in a big red van to original songs via acoustic guitar.  This is true literacy.

The “L” word:  Literacy.  Anyone who works in education knows that buzz words come and go in our industry and “literacy,” though legit, is buzzin’.  When I interviewed to be our school’s new Literacy Coach this semester, I was hesitant.  I’m a teacher and have been for 13 years.  It’s all I know and can be broken down into equal parts comfort and passion.  Literacy Coach, though only half time, is a mystery.  I’ll be working with my colleagues in a different way:  how can we deepen and strengthen literacy across our campus in all areas?  

It hit me that events like the Writers’ Cafe do just that:  they allow the kids a venue to make their art public, to take the words that live in their heads or their crumpled Mead notebooks and expose them to 100 of their classmates.  Last night, we had honors students, drop outs, football stars, and kids who live on the fringe of campus life performing side by side, sharing their words and their hearts with equal weight.  One of my colleagues brought her 10 year old daughter and by the time the night was over, she had written two poems in prep for “when she is in high school.”  

Writing for a public event intensifies your work: now you need just the right word, the perfect image, the most creative thought.  It’s not simply being turned in for a grade by your English teacher, the work is coming to life, shining and sparkling in front of a captive, sugar-induced, caffeine-laden audience.  

Our Creative Writing class on campus publishes our literary magazine filled with student work,

“The Mission Oak Review,” three to four times a year. This is not an overly complicated book, simply word processed and bound with a table top binding press. The kids GO CRAZY.  In a world of digitized communication, you wouldn’t think they would care about old-fashioned paper, but they love to see their work and their name in a “real book.”  Since space is limited, they all scramble to perfect their poems, short stories, plays, and autobiographical pieces.  They want just the right word and ask for writing conferences...they are not getting a grade for it...they just want to be a “published author.”  

I feel that this similar vibe could be achieved in all classrooms...not that you need a “real book” or a huge event with blueberry scones, but simply posting a “Best in Show” in your Google Classroom or creating a gallery space on the wall of your classroom.  How about lining the walls of your building with student work so it leaves the confines of your room.  We need to find ways for the students’ voices to be celebrated and maybe a bit more public.  

As we were packing up the stray oreos and vanilla-caramel creamer last night, one of my quietest students came up to me and whispered, “when is the next one?”  I told her November and asked if she may want to perform.  She responded:  “I’m going to start working on some pieces now and see how they turn out.”  A teenager is going to start on some writing SEVEN MONTHS AHEAD OF TIME.  

I think literacy has has won.

Spring Snowball Fight: Liven up Learning

Snowing in spring...why not?  This community builder doubles as a cool (pun intended) review session or skills practice lesson for any subject. In the clips below, you can see how a lesson on prefixes and suffixes in my freshman English class immediately takes on new life with the introduction of this game.

Video clips of some actual classroom “snowball fights”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-UuYKAONWo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5AMN_1-xUc

Directions:

• Each student writes his or her name on a piece of scratch paper and then crushes it into a ball.  
• Count 1-2-3 and yell, “Snowball fight” and have the kids throw their snowballs across the room.  
• Kids pick up the nearest snowball and find that person.  
• They have to find out one piece of information they didn’t know about that person.  
• You can continue the snowball fight for as long as you would like.  
• To end the game, I like to bring my three garbage cans to the center of the room and close out with a game of “trashketball.”  You can even have a competition between two sides of the room to see how many can make a basket!  They love this.
• This game also easily lends itself to curriculum games in any subject.  Defining vocabulary, discussion questions, equations for the board or anything else that needs to be discussed, studied, or talked about.

So start saving all of that scratch paper and get ready for the blizzard of knowledge!

I Still Get Nervous: Teachers On Stage

I still get nervous.

After 13 years in the classroom, I still get a little nervous. You know those butterflies that tickle your stomach right before “going on stage.” It’s a mellow version of that. When my students in Speech class suffer from nerves before going up to the lectern, I always respond with, “Good! That means you care. Apathy would not result in nerves.”  

So, I guess I care.  If you are an educator who doesn’t think they feel “nervous,”  think back to the relaxation that overtook your body on your last Professional Development day or your last teacher work day with no kids. “What? I get to talk to my colleagues, do some planning and grade for 7-8 hours?” Teachers consider these days (days without students) “days off.”  

Yes, we are still at work, but it’s not work - it’s so easy compared to teaching. Ironically, this for many professionals is an average work day. Spending time in an office, working on paperwork, discussing issues, and solving problems with colleagues.  But, to teachers, these days are equated with a day at the beach. Why? Because our most precious commodity is not there:  the kids.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my students as do many, many educators, but this doesn’t make the job “easy.” Managing the energy of youth is taxing and, I believe, is what makes keeping new teachers in the profession so very difficult.

We are on stage every day.  We cannot be late, even by a few minutes or we have 35 kids “homeless” outside of our door.  We cannot use the restroom when our body begs us to, or we are leaving students unattended.  We cannot eat a little snack when our tummies growl...must wait for the bell!  It is a very odd profession.  In Teach LIke a Champion 2.0, Doug Lemov compares teachers to artists stating, “Mastery of tools does not just allow creation; it informs it.  The process is often far from glamorous; an artist’s life is a tradesman’s life, really, characterized by calluses and stone dust, requiring diligence and humility, but its rewards are immense.  It is a worthy life’s work.” (2015, p. 2)

We are artists as much as we are tradesmen and this is why the work is taxing.  Mix in the fact that we care and boy, here come the butterflies.  

So, when I meet people for the first time and tell them I’m a teacher and they respond with, “Man, I could NEVER do that,”  I smile and think to myself…”No, you probably couldn’t.”