So Long, So Wrong

My teacher persona: 180 degrees different. I’ve stopped fighting the battle against a little talking. I’ve found my sense of humor. Most of my students seem to like me now. And I like to think we get more done than ever.

By now, my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in Namibia feels so far away and so long ago, it almost seems like something that happened to another person. I hate it when people ask about my time in Africa, because sometimes, when I have to explain myself, the whole thing almost seems like two wasted years, and I was a pitiful teacher, with nothing to show for it. But the reality is, twelve months ago, I was in Africa. I know there is this stereotype of Africans or foreign students in general that they are all over there sitting cross-legged under a banana tree or something, hunched over their meager writing tablets and very eagerly awaiting instruction, and whatever, but that is basically bullshit, and certainly nothing was further from the truth in my experience. As a teacher, where the majority of my students were at least 6 grades behind where they should have been in every essential academic skill, where the boarding school hostel was worse than a prison, etc., etc., the situation was so hopeless, so absurd really, I think it is almost impossible to compare my experience there to any school in the United States—the Mississippi Delta included. It made me a pretty tough costumer, battle hardened and stern. When my fancy-pants liberal arts-grad mentor teacher this summer labeled my teaching style “militant,” I finally retorted, “If you came from where I come from, you’d be like this, too.” To his credit, he agreed. An ex-something writes to our PC newsgroup: “still processing through some of the bad habits I acquired in Namibian schools and reinventing myself as a kindhearted teacher,” and I have to agree with her. My entire teaching persona, my tactics and expectations, were built around keeping the 95% in line in order to teach the other 5% who cared. And by the way, language alone makes a world of difference. There, I had to squelch almost all talking, because the children would speak in their mother tongues, which of course I did not understand.

In the last few weeks, my classroom persona has changed so dramatically, I actually find it rather difficult to articulate in words. Basically, my disposition has become more like the best parts of me in real-life. I am more and more relaxed and pleasantly calm, to the point of near indifference, and because I spend a lot less effort telling the kids to shut up, I spend more time listening to my students. I have become more responsive and developed friendlier relationships with almost all of my students. (Students have such short memories!) Overall, I have to say I have become the teacher I always wanted to be. Who knew all I had to do was loosen my grip a little? (Okay, a lot.) There is an expression in ice hockey that a player is gripping his stick too tight (meaning he has lost his touch), and I think the same can be said of teachers.

Our fearless Teacher Corps leader, Ben Guest, has given us an assignment to spend two weeks enforcing our rules and consequences “every time” and blog about the results. Now, never mind the impossibility of objectively applying rules “every time,” as two reasonable people can disagree about the application of a defined set of rules to a football game, with the benefit of video replay, let alone some momentary judgment call by a teacher, one person against a room full of twenty or more rambunctious adolescents. Simply put, the Guestian model of classroom management focuses merely on a Pavlovian concept of behavior: Reward the good behavior, and punish the bad. For the record, I appreciate Ben, and there is a lot to what he has to say. But give me a break. There is a lot more to classroom management than electric shocks and doggie biscuits. Say, for instance, building a positive rapport with your students, conveying that you care about them, and setting expectations that are both reasonable and productive. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still enforce rules. But I think my expectations are a hundred times more productive now than they were before. I enforce more on substance, and I let the little banter and stuff go.

Another big adjustment that has been very successful has been to give a short quiz twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday. In the present incarnation, my quizzes (or “Opportunities” as I call them) are easy to grade, since they consist of basically one or two problems, on a pass/fail basis (they have to get 90% or get a zero and retake it). These little quizzes have proven so invaluable as a regular, routine assessment, it is hard to understand how I ever thought I was teaching without doing this! This is holding the students much more accountable to what I need them to learn than, say homework (easy to cheat, hard to grade, and easy to procrastinate) and the infrequent test or long pop quiz. Committing to this twice-a-week schedule really keeps my pulse on the students’ achievement, and actually seems to help them stay motivated. My wall of “Excellence” has started to run out of room lately! My high expectations (basically perfect or you retake it) do often result in a lot of retakes, but that does not bother me. If they get a “retake” grade, the students have to come to me after school. (If they don’t do so, it simply reflects a true lack of effort. If they do, they will not complain when they start to see those 100%’s on their progress reports!) When they are ready, I tell them to put everything away, take out a clean sheet of paper, and then I give them the exact same questions all over again. Am I worried that they will memorize the answers? Not really, because they still have to show their work and all the steps of the process. If they can memorize all that, it is basically the same as doing it! And because the retakes are just the same quiz over again, it makes my job very easy. There is no penalty for retaking an “Opportunity,” no matter how many times you have to do it (except no longer eligible for potential bonus points), because the emphasis is on getting it right, no matter how long it takes, not on catching them getting it wrong.

Not to say everything is perfect, but things are definitely getting better overall, week by week. I had a fabulous lesson this week with my Algebra II classes. I took them on a “field trip” out into the hallways, where I had them graphing parabolas on the grid lines of the intersecting floor tiles, marking their points with random little green plastic cubes I found in my classroom cupboard. The students really seemed to enjoy the change of environs and medium, and their ability to accomplish the objective nearly exceeded my expectations. By the way, it was a revelation for me to see exactly how many students go up and down the halls all day long at my school (proving this is the Mississippi Delta, after all?!?!), but it was cool to be out there having math fun for everyone to see.