December 27, 2006
I made it to Christmas break! A year ago, I would have said Christmas break would be the first milestone in a long career; a month ago, I was updating my resume. If I haven’t said it before, I need to say it now: Teaching is a REALLY hard job. There can’t be many jobs more thankless, more difficult, more demanding of every ounce of time, energy, compassion, and personal restraint. I yelled a kid a few weeks back – really yelled at him – and beat myself up for it all weekend, though most of my colleagues said, “Eh, he probably deserved it.”
He did, but that’s not the point. The yelling made me feel good, but I’m sure it did nothing for him except, possibly, make him think less of me. My greatest consolation is that I’m not at all convinced this kid ever thinks, and I’m pretty sure the whole thing rolled right off his back. He’s certainly no delicate wilting flower, no posturing bully, no fragile class clown – this kid has never seemed to be anything by completely oblivious to my presence or to the fact that there is a class going on that he is allegedly a part of. As I chewed him out he looked at me with his eyes glazed over and his head tilted sideways just like a confused puppy. He came to class on Monday and picked up right where he left off.
None of which justifies the fact that I yelled at him. He’s 12, which is what I have to keep reminding myself about these kids. They’re harmless and silly, goofy and mischievous, but far from malicious, dangerous, or evil. They need to be trained and restrained, possibly, but they don’t need to be yelled at. If I’m going to yell at someone, I need to save my energy and go after an administrator, or possibly a parent (and in the case of this particular kid, the parents deserve worse than yelling, but that’s all I have the power to do). All things considered, the worst of my kids are harmless goof-offs or malcontents, but their parents, in many cases, are actively destroying the lives of everyone around them, especially their kids.
As for the administrators, I think they mean well, but in he current political climate they are not there to help the kids and they certainly aren’t there to help me. Their jobs have more to do with maintaining appearances and handling logistics than anything else. Their focus is on the numbers, and making sure they aren’t the ones thrown under the school bus if the numbers aren’t what they should be.
It’s been a tough three months, to say the least. My kids are, one by one, becoming mine in no uncertain terms. At this point, I feel personally invested in all but just a few. Anthony and Clarence I can’t reach; they just want to goof off and avoid any and all work. Darryl drove everyone crazy and managed to get himself removed from the general population under administrative order. Natalia won’t talk to me or anyone else in class. Reggie refuses to get over the notion that my expectations have more to do with the quality of his work than with the fact that he is in the gifted program and is, therefore, entitled to at least a “B” in my class. Derek refuses to stop talking; he never ever ever shuts up. Danny, Logan, and Chris are nice kids and they’re fairly bright, but they refuse to make any effort at all. Apparently it’s much cooler to fail. Carrie bats her eyes at me and tells me I’m her favorite teacher, and then turns in every assignment 2 weeks late.
I’ve made some mistakes, had some bad breaks – two fights in my classroom, a visit from an administrator during the last five minutes of a messed-up class when, frankly, all hell was breaking loose, a lack of information on the board and decorations on the walls, a less-than-stellar observation. The Assistant Principal told me she saw a “lack of engagement” in my classroom, which she said is “a bad thing.” I couldn’t argue that she was wrong, but I couldn’t help but wonder how she could make such a bold pronouncement based on only a brief observation. I may be the worst teacher in the world, but I wouldn’t take the word of anyone in school administration where that’s concerned. They don’t pay enough attention to what goes on in my classroom day to day to know whether anything I’m doing is effective. My fellow teachers are in a position to evaluate my performance, and so are my students and their parents, but as far as I can tell no one has asked them. Instead, my performance is measured based on arbitrary indicators – information on the blackboard, discipline problems (I’ve had very few, though I’ve had two fights in my classroom which isn’t a good thing), high-quality lesson plans (that I’m not required or even expected to follow), and, of course, test scores.
In fact, I’ve learned a lot about the mess that is our public education system, and the problem is more complex than most outsiders realize. The entire system is based on a terrible business model that involves making empty suits and politicians look good. It’s all slight of hand, a bureaucratic con game, designed to pass accountability to those with the least recourse (meaning students and teachers). There is very little genuine concern for the students, very much concern about the appearance of being concerned about students.
A good business model would have the students as the focus of the entire enterprise – the customer must be satisfied, the customer is always right. Schools, after all, are about a lot more than education – we take care of kids all day while their parents are at work, we broaden their horizons and introduce them to new things, we feed them and take care of them, we help them learn responsibility, we instill character, and, of course, we impart knowledge. Logically, then, the school should be a wonderful place, a paradise of wonders and new experiences, a place where children are given a sense of wonder and are made to feel like they will one day be important contributors to society.
And most administrators, school board members, and superintendents would agree with all of this, and would let me know that I am free to make sure that my classroom is EXACTLY this sort of environment. Never mind the fact that the school is, essentially, designed and operated like a prison.
The reality is that public schools are a political enterprise more than anything else. No one wants to truly invest in schools, but everyone wants to claim some great accomplishment with respect to education. The federal and state governments dangle funds in front of local school boards and force them to roll over and do ridiculous tricks to make various politicians look competent. “We’ll fund this if you give credit to so-and-so and we’ll give you money for this if you can do something to make it look like so-and-so is making good on his promise to make improvements in whatever aspect of education needs a statistical boost.” And, of course, the school boards operate the same way, funding this or that depending on what they believe will make them look best in the next local election. Superintendents, of course, are hired to be independent managers who act in the interest of teachers and students, but generally they are contract employees dependent on meeting political requirements in order to keep their jobs. They hire principals, of course, who will play the political game as well, and so everyone in the education system – teachers included – spends just as much time covering their butts as actually providing any useful service to the children they are responsible for.
Which isn’t to say that people who work in education are evil or that they don’t care about the students or about education. We do what we can, and we want to do better. The primary focus politically, however, is on money and appearances, so those of us at the bottom of the mountain have to focus on fighting to preserve funding or they are fighting to keep our jobs, all with an eye towards whatever arbitrary measures of success are in line with the current political whim. There simply isn’t any mechanism in place to REALLY get students the help they need. Classes are too large, positions and programs come and go, and we fight over resources like hyenas over an already picked over lion carcass. We want to inspire kids and help them do amazing things. We want to help all of them learn and grow. We want to accept every student, regardless of how brilliant or lacking they are, and help all of them find the square hole they can fit their squarish pegs into. Instead, we find ourselves focusing attention on grades, test scores, drop-out rates, and other statistical indicators. We speak very little about the kids themselves. We should be striving to help each student learn everything they can and as much of what they need to as possible, but instead we arbitrarily decide what they are supposed to achieve, and we blame them for not achieving it because we don’t want the blame shifted to us.
It’s an asinine mess, the end result being that schools offer students a long list of demands, rules, requirements, and minimum competencies and give them nothing nurturing or enjoyable with the exception of an occasional dance, pep rally, or wacky fundraising event. Students are told to jump through hoop after hoop and fill out form after form in the interest if proving to the powers that be that all of the forms are filled out and, therefore, all of the requirements for their well-being are met. Meanwhile, students aren’t trusted with even the most meager responsibility. They are told they have rights, and are then asked to answer to bells all day, refrain from eating or drinking during class, and go to the bathroom only with permission.
It’s not a particularly good system. What it amounts to is sentencing our children to 12 years in prison for the crime of not being old enough to know better. Which isn’t to say that these kids don’t need discipline or a respect for authority – they most certainly do – but they aren’t getting that in our public schools since the teachers and administrators, ultimately, don’t possess any real authority. We teach despite the obstacles placed in our path, and often in direct opposition to everything that is asked of us. When we are truly successful, it’s almost always in spite of, not because of, the help we get from the government or society. A teacher’s true status in society is as low-level bureaucratic paper-pushers, checking boxes and giving tests we don’t believe are adequate to represent anything of importance, but represent everything that matters on our evaluations.
A month ago, I received my first observation, and I don’t know what to make of it. The assistant principal is probably right to criticize my pathetic early attempts to teach, but I don’t see how anyone has done anything to help make this go smoothly. I’ve been in meetings and seminars, but have had no one come to me and offer assistance with lesson planning or setting up my room. I received no training on the gradebook program or the attendance program until school had already begun, and was told I was required to use “interactive notes” in class but was not given any information on what that meant until three weeks into the school year. No one even showed me how to work my phone. I’ve been on my own since day one, dependent entirely on the help I can get from the veteran teachers on my hallway.
The gyst of my review was that I was not doing a great job and I need to improve. If I can’t cut it, I can be replaced.
Things have gotten better, though. I got some much needed assistance from some veteran teachers and, more importantly, I stopped trying so hard. I gave up on complicated lessons with fancy objectives and simply started following the other 7th-grade English teacher. Inspiration comes in bits and pieces now, but every day I have a plan that makes the administrators happy. Things have begun to make more sense and I have found myself able to focus on narrower issues. My days are no longer an exercise in survival; I am getting along just fine, and every now and then I have an opportunity to do something that might just reach a few kids – an inspired writing prompt, an activity that works, an opportunity to help a single student through a tough assignment. I spent my planning period working with one girl who was struggling with grammar, saw the lights go on in her eyes as I explained a few concepts (appositives, rules of dialogue) and she got a 93 on her grammar test. I had a student who hates reading and writing suddenly start making a real effort to write poetry, really working with me to improve the way he writes, and get up and present a poem to the class. I got a basketball player who hates books to rewrite a poem with more attention to rhythm, and had him earn a 92 on a major assignment where his previous grades hadn’t topped 80.
My 5thperiod, a frustrating group of struggling writers with a tendency to move en masse towards any discussion or activity that is not related to language arts, seems to have abruptly turned a corner. We hit a dead-end on a poetry assignment and I finally told them that I wasn’t going to push them any more. They spent a day goofing off in the computer lab while I tried in vain to get them to work on the poetry assignment. I ranted and raved that they all still had work to do; they insisted they were done. My other classes still had another day in the lab, but I told my 5thperiod that if they were done, they were done. I would grade what they turned in, and I assured them their grades would not be all that good. I went to class the next day ready to move on to the next thing. They wanted another day in the lab. I, naturally, refused. They begged and pleaded, some insisting they weren’t really finished. I cut a deal: “If you guys can work on this assignment and truly focus on getting it done and doing it well, if you will listen to what I tell you and work to make these poems as good as you possibly can, then I will take you back into the lab for one more day.”
The result was the best day I’ve ever had with that class. They each, individually asked for my help and I sat and worked with each of them in turn, reading their poems and making suggestions for revision, and then turning them loose to improve their poems on their own. In the end, that class had the highest average of any of my classes on that particular assignment. Something clicked, and now instead of a room full of students doing everything they can to tune me out, that class seems to look forward to the next assignment. They’re looking for a challenge now, and if I ask them to write they do it.
Not that I necessarily expect the change to be permanent, but it’s a nice feeling. On the last day before break, I brought in my guitar and we played and sang Christmas carols. It was a crazy day all the way through, but the great thing was that 5thperiod was a breeze. They gathered around and sang, for the most part; a few kids sat and played hangman on the blackboard. They were my best behaved class all day.
I have an amazing mix of kids in my classes. I have kids that inspire me, kids that admire me, kids that resent me, and kids that won’t leave me alone. I have some really nice students who do almost no work and some students who do everything I ask and more but who treat me with complete disdain. I have several students who come to my class every chance they get, even trying to skip other classes to hang out in my room, and I have students who need all kinds of help but who will never come and see me voluntarily.
I love most of the kids. Twelve is a great, goofy age where kids are still kids and real destructive and dangerous behavior arises more from innocence than from ignorance or malicious intent. My students are curious and eager, funny and engaging, and endlessly fascinating. They are easy to please, they can be bought off with candy or small praise, and they want nothing more than to be heard and listened to. Most of them are thrilled to have any kind of conversation with an adult that isn’t a lecture or chewing out. I connected with one student using a corny joke. He picked up a bag of Doritos and asked who it belonged to. “Put it down,” I said breaking into a smile, “that’s na-cho cheese.” I became the favorite teacher of another student when I revealed that I play the guitar. Another likes me simply because I once had them, as a journal entry, write a decent excuse for being tardy to class because I was tired of hearing the same lame things over and over again.
A veteran teacher once told me to always remember that the students want me, not my knowledge. I need to teach, but to get them to listen they have to feel like they know me and like I care. And that, indeed, seems to be the key. The students who I know will die for me are the ones I have reached in a personal way, the ones who feel a connection – one who shares my love of Stephen King, one who shows me her poetry journal at least once a week, one who was amazed to learn that I am a fan of Ozzy Osbourne, a few with whom I’ve shard a joke, a few who were surprised that I would bring a poem by Tupac into the classroom (or who couldn’t believe that Tupac wrote poetry at all, or that I would know enough about him to know something that significant that they knew nothing about, the Tupac t-shirt wearing rap fans that they purport to be). It’s little things like that that win over these kids.
And, of course, this is what I pray will make me a success in this field. Frank McCourt, a Pulitzer-prize winning author and 30-year veteran of the New York City school system, said that teaching, for him, was storytelling. The lessons, he said, come between the stories when you have the students’ attention.
In a way, though, all of that almost makes the absurdity of the system make sense. Teaching is about knowledge, yes. We certainly need to help students learn to read, write, and solve problems of all kinds. Students need an understanding of history and the world around them, of the mistakes people have made and the mess that society often creates. In that light, the classroom environment is almost perfect, because teaching happens and relationships are built despite the impositions of the larger system. Maybe the most important thing students learn in school is that society, as a whole, will always be an aggravation, but that in the midst of “the system” there are people – real living and breathing people – who care, people who will reach out and help you, using the system any way they can, to provide whatever is needed – knowledge, understanding, a few words of wisdom, some shared experience, some validation, some love, or just someone who will listen. The school system is a perfect microcosm of the world, making it nearly impossible for real people to deal with other people as individuals. The fact that it happens anyway is the most important lesson we teach: The system doesn’t care, but there are people do.
In Teacher Man, Frank McCourt does a nice job of encapsulizing the role of the teacher in society:
“In America, doctors, lawyers, generals, actors, television people, and politicians are admired and rewarded. Not teachers. Teaching is the downstairs maid of professions. Teachers are told to use the service door or go around the back. They are spoken of patronizingly and patted, retroactively, on their silvery locks. Oh, yes, I had an English teacher, miss Smith, who really inspired me. I’ll never forget dear old Miss Smith. She used to say that if she reached one child in her forty years of teaching it would make it all worthwhile. She’d die happy. The inspiring English teacher then fades into gray shadows to eke out her days on a penny-pinching pension dreaming of the one child she might have reached. Dream on, teacher. You will not be celebrated.”
One caution, though, about those words. McCourt is right, but he’s also missing the point. Teachers are not prized, valued, or celebrated by our culture, by “the system,” or by any facet of society. We don’t expect any reward, though, not praise, money, or love. Teaching, perhaps more than any other career choice, is done out of a love of serving the greater good, and it does bring satisfaction to those who persevere. Another wise veteran of the classroom said to me recently that teaching unfairly loses in comparison to firefighters, doctors, and police officers, who save lives on a daily basis. “Teaching is the most noble of all professions. We do save lives. We save them by the hundreds. We never know how many lives we save, how many young people make better decisions because of something we said or did. Nobody is in a better position to save lives than a teacher.”
Which brings to mind the Catcher in the Rye, my favorite book since high school. I’ve always identified with Holden Caufield’s vision of his future: “I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in a big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean, if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye…”
My point? I’m not sure that I have one. For the first time in my life, I can honestly say that I love what I do – I feel great about it and I look forward to seeing my students every single day. I love my classroom, even wrote a poem about it, and I have a great time working with my students.
Know, though, that while I love this job – I do love it -- it is also the most difficult job I have ever had, the most difficult job I could imagine, and there is very little in the way of compensation for that. Some time off, yes. This two weeks has been a much needed break and a real blessing and I expect summer break to be the same. Other than that, though, teaching is a trial of vigilance and self-doubt, paperwork and chaos, planning and teaching and planning and teaching and planning and teaching, milling through piles and piles of papers, grading one assignment after another after another, and never knowing what’s coming through the door, what the next class will be like. It involves impossibly high expectations – not ONE child can go off that cliff – with very little meaningful support.
That’s all. This career is my Everest, and like Edmund Hilary and Tenzig Norgay I have no choice but to go forward regardless of whether anything meaningful is ever accomplished. Why? Because it’s there? Because it’s what I’m called to do.
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