Eye Opener - My Introduction to Actual Teaching

Hello again,

So this week was...interesting. I feel the need to reflect on it, outside of assignment guidelines and probably without much extra content.  This is more of a confessional.  Two things happened - actually more related to my Educational Psychology class than the Technologies class that I started this blog for.  Still, this whole crazy life and career "reset" is rather intertwined within itself, so why not share? 

First, for my Ed Psyche class I'm writing a group project paper on a bullying case study. Even though it's a theoretical scenario, my heart hurts for this fictional high school student, Joshua, who is the victim of a false rumor that he is gay. The harassment has escalated from hallway name calling to jeers at his curtain call for the school play to his car being sabotaged in his own driveway.  He and his parents (and the school administration) fear for his safety. Joshua goes from being an honors student very involved in extracurricular to withdrawing emotionally, getting poor grades, and becoming involved in his former passions. 

Here's a link to the Stop Bullying website

Having to write about the situation and what I/we would do as teachers in the school is difficult. All 3 of us working on the project have had experience with being bullied or targets of false rumors... and all of us went to similar high schools to the case study (semi-rural/suburban, not really diverse, and relatively small). And, while no one thought they'd ever been a bully...unfortunately, we all remember times when we witnessed someone else being targeted by a bully and should have spoken up but didn't. It occurred to me as we responded to each question What could Joshua have done differently? The administration? What would you as a teacher have done? What do you think will happen next? That last question kind of scares me - if recent trends are considered, Joshua might hurt himself or someone else.  Or he'll drop out.  Or give up on life in general.  That's so scary!!  It's intimidating to think that an involved teacher might be the one thing that stands between this poor kid and the worst case scenario.  Am I ready for that kind of pressure?



Speaking of feeling unprepared...I have been enrolled in education courses of any kind for a whopping 4 weeks now.  My undergrad degree is in Fine Art and I have no previous teaching experience in a school setting.  I taught karate to children for many years, have been a camp counselor/arts and crafts instructor, and given piano lessons.  But as far as standing up in front of a (small) sea of expectant young scholars on a regular basis, not so much. Well, at least that was how I naively expected teaching to be... full of attentive young minds as excited to learn as I am to teach.  I mean, I was a total nerd (an eclectic, karate devotee, artsy and musical free spirit... with really good grades in all my AP and Honors courses.  I like to learn! Heck, I never took a single study hall - and did Chemistry and Health through correspondence classes so I could squeeze more art classes in to my school day! AKA total nerd.)  I guess I knew deep down that I was more an exception than a rule as far as students go... but I always assumed those who struggled just didn't like school.  They may not have been particularly attentive but at least everyone in my small, semi-rural, pathetically un-diverse school district was respectful.   

Then I did my first 7 hours of field experience as a tutor in an inner-city Akron school.  Eye opener is an understatement. I was assigned to follow 2 sophomore girls through their classes and help whenever necessary.  Before I officially started there was an orientation day where I met my students... we'll call them Nikki and Stella.  I was kind of dreading the whole experience after I found out the tutoring program my class was pairing with for Ed Psyche field experience is basically supposed to be intensive prep of the OGT test. Meaning I'm supposed to help these kids in math and English, mostly.  English no problem.  Math... weeellll... I mean, nerd that I was I took advanced courses in high school, but I don't remember a damn thing.  Believe it or not Mr Warmbrodt - I have yet to use sine or cosine in real life.  Ever.  Nor have I had to find a coefficient.  Nor do I even remember what a coefficient is. 

But at orientation, both girls said they struggled more in English than anything. Nikki insisted they never did anything in her class... that everyone just goofed off.  And Stella said she had the resident "mean teacher" and wasn't getting anything out of it either. So Friday morning, first class of the day I sat down with Nikki. There were about 20 kids in there. You would have thought there were 113.  It was SO LOUD! And chaotic.  Everyone was up, talking, had their phones out, throwing stuff.  It was the teacher's first day, and the long-term sub that had been there was there to help "ease transition."  The sub was a quirky old guy with Einstein hair and a 70's burnout personality.  The new teacher was a young man, full of ideas.  He was also the FIFTH teacher to head that class in a year and a half, Nikki told me. He was desperately trying to take control of the classroom while Mr. CheechandChong sat back looking amused.  

Mr. Freshface used a commanding voice, set clear instructions and expectations... did everything any good teacher would do.  But the kids, with the exception of a very frustrated and eye-rolling Nikki and a few others, paid him no attention. One actually told him to "Shut the f*** up" when Mr. Freshface told him to get off the table, take his headphones off and get to work. The assignment he was trying to do was simple.  He asked them to write a paragraph defining what success meant to them personally and how they thought this class - and school in general - could help them achieve it. He had other things on the agenda too, but it was clear they wouldn't even get this done.  Nikki finished her paragraph with little help - basically saying she wants to be a nurse and obviously one needs a good education to do that. A few others finished eventually.  But the rowdiest contingent - a table full of football players, including an 19 year old sophomore - wasn't doing anything but swearing and goofing off as obnoxiously as possible.  

Mr. Freshface tried several different approaches to engage them.  But it was like herding cats.  He finally got one of the more attentive students to read his paragraph aloud.  As this poor kid is stumbling through a poorly written paragraph, the adult-aged 10th grader pulls out a jump rope, got up, and starts jumping. Seriously.  And the day only got worse from there.  There was the lock down during second period while a drug dog swept the school.  There was the kid who pushed me in the hallway and said "Move, bitch!" And every class was (almost) as rowdy as the first! Eventually I ended up in Stella's English class. This teacher ruled with an iron fist.  Everyone hated her.  But she also was the only educator all day that seemed to have any sort of a grip on the chaos that was the student body! Yet Stella and her friends were convinced she was evil...

This all kind of freaks me out. I mean, I know kids aren't all willing scholars... but I guess I never pictured a completely out of control class room.  Is it the teacher's fault - especially those like Mr. Freshface who come into a situation of academic anarchy mid year?  How do you turn this situation around? What do you do about students like Nikki who genuinely want to learn but can't because of the flurry of nonsense around them?  Any thoughts?