Reluctant Blogger

My whole life I have been stubborn. It's not that I have problems with authority or taking orders. All of that is fine and a natural part of growing up. The problem has usually been that I don't like to do unnecessary things. Busy work in class always frustrated me. Homework for the sake of homework never got completed. Scenic routes aren't really my thing either, and admitting that there is nothing wrong with standing in a grocery store check-out line in the south for twice the time I would in the north has been something I have struggled with for my four years at Ole Miss. 

"Where else do you have to be, Andrea?" 

"Anywhere but here," I usually retort. "It is totally inefficient to stand in line at Wal-Mart for this long."

So here's my point: I am stubborn on nearly every level. I will argue with you about whether or not the sky is blue if you really want to. I will take any side of any argument and enjoy arguing it. So coming into teaching, I figured I would have no problems letting my students know exactly how I felt, exactly what I expected, and exactly what would happen if they chose to go against me. I figured they would be able to sense the brick wall that is Miss Buccilla. 

NOT.

As I have said before, I have discovered this odd contrast between Andrea and Miss Buccilla. Andrea lives pretty happily without concern of approval from much of anyone. Miss Buccilla secretly begs for the acceptance of her young students. So as a result of this dichotomy, that hardened disciplinarian that I assumed would exist in the classroom is remarkably absent. 

So all of that was so that I could simply say this. The Reluctant Disciplinarian helped me. It was probably too anecdotal, which caused me to begin tuning out what I was reading - much like I do when people get too anecdotal in conversation. (It's that whole aversion to unnecessary things) But I could relate to Gary Rubinstein in a number of ways. Even though Andrea is very different than Gary Rubinstein, Miss Buccilla has a lot in common with him.

If I had to choose one piece of advice to immediately take from the book, it would be to develop a teacher look. According to Rubinstein, "the teacher look says, 'There's nothing you can do that I haven't already seen, so don't even bother trying.'"

That sounds wonderful. I have already tried it a couple times and it has been entirely ineffective. In fact, it even produced some laughter. But I had teachers (and a mother) who had that look down to a science, so I know how effective it can be. I know that there will come a point in the year when my voice is like poison that my students immediately shy away from and ignore... so I need a look.

I think that devoting a significant amount time practicing my teacher look in the mirror is entirely necessary and time effective. This blog however, was completely unnecessary.  

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What I've Learned About Myself

I've learned that I'm not as good at time management as I thought. (Notice this blog was posted 10 minutes before it was due).  I've learned that I am not as mean I as I thought. I have learned that I am not as intimidating as I've been told. (In fact I think my college-age friends are more scared of me than my middle schoolers). I've learned that I like kids a lot more than I realized... and not just my little sisters anymore. I have realized how easy it is for me to care for someone who, prior to one month ago, I had no knowledge even existed. I have not learned why yet, but I have discovered the interesting fact that, even though I normally do not bother with whether or not someone likes or approves of me, I am desperate to gain the approval of these pre-teens. I have learned that I am extremely unorganized, which I guess could go back to the time management thing, but it has become such an obvious flaw that I feel it's ok to mention twice. 

I have learned that I will be teaching 7th grade writing, which is a state tested subject. In fact a double state tested subject. The Mississippi Curriculum Test 2, and a state writing test.

I have learned that challenge excites rather than scares me. 

I have realized that being a Division I college athlete was easy.

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My First Couple Weeks

It is Friday of my third week of summer school, and as I am sitting in the teacher work room 30 minutes before the day begins, I am realizing that my time management skills are not what I thought they were. I am still in the honeymoon phase, where even on my worst days I find something positive... or at the very least I try to turn something negative into something funny.

Will my optimism subside? I hope not. Have my first couple weeks been way harder than I had imagined? You bet. Here is the deal. I have learned so much in a short two weeks of summer school, and my teaching abilities have taken the drastic jump from non-existent to passable. I have gotten to the point where, on my good days, I actually feel like a teacher, not just a college graduate beginning the next step of my life. So that gives me hope.

As far as my students go, they are great. They are bad. But they are great. This is the first year that summer school has had enough students to actually simulate a real school year, so the behavior problems I have encountered have been very authentic. We have 30 kids enrolled in our classroom, which means we have somewhere around 25 on a given day. For a first-year novice at classroom management, that is a lot of kids. But like I said, it's great.

We eat lunch with the students everyday so I have gotten to know them outside the class. I'm not sure yet if that has helped or hurt me. There seems to be such a fine line between having them respect me and having them be too comfortable. So I don't know if my recent slip in effectiveness is because they are too comfortable or because it is week three and they realized that they only have two more weeks with me.

At some point, I will have all the answers to these questions. I'll let you know.

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Cold Call, Cold Heart?

This week we were supposed to try a new questioning technique during our lessons. To me, "cold calling" seemed not only to be the simplest, but likely the most effective idea. Let me first define cold calling. The teacher takes either a bunch of pop sickle sticks or a stack of note cards and writes the names of one student on every card. For each question asked, the teacher pulls a name from the group and calls on that student. At this point... in theory... the student whose name gets called perks up from their usual morning lull and aptly gives the answer. In theory.

Since the teacher pulls names at random, it is meant to keep the students on their toes. It is meant to motivate them to pay attention so that when they are called on, they know the answer. It is meant to increase learning.

I was really excited to try out cold calling. Every lesson I have taught thus far has been first period and, needless to say, the kids are less than eager to volunteer. I figured that I would finally get to see them demonstrate all of the information I had helped them learn. 

At first it went pretty well. They were able to answer most of the questions with ease. I had been teaching about the writing process and they were able to list all of the graphic organizers and their corresponding styles of autobiographies. They also remembered the things I told them to look for while editing. But when we got to the last three things I wanted them to look for: spelling, grammar, and punctuation, we had problems. 

Up until that point, I had been cold calling on kids to go write their answers on the board under the corresponding heading that I had written. The student that I called on knew the answer to my question. He said it aloud before I asked him to write it on the board. This actually happened to be one of the better students in my class. He always volunteers, he never sleeps, and he is always polite. But the look of terror on his face when I asked him to write his answer... spell his answer, sent a chill down my own spine as I felt so terrible about what I knew was about to happen. 

He shuffled up to the board and picked up one of the dry erase markers. In tiny handwriting, he apprehensively wrote spelling. "Good!" I encouraged him to keep going, but at this point, the rest of the class had picked up on what was going on. Laughter began spreading around the room, and as I shot them "the look," he turned to a classmate to see if they had the words, grammar and punctuation written on their paper. No luck. As casually as I could, I walked up to the board to "save him." I took the marker, whispered in his ear and said, "Don't worry, I've got it."

That was the end of cold calling for the day. I felt like I couldn't risk humiliating another student. I understand that the whole point is to help them learn. But at that moment, I don't think I was helping anyone learn. It certainly seemed like more of a distraction than anything. My thoughts are this: in a "good" school district, where everyone is at grade level and can at least spell the words that they have been seeing over and over again in their lessons, cold calling might be a good idea. But in these districts, and especially in a summer school English class, I need to find a different way to promote participation.

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Lost

Delta Autumn was initially a book that I had no interest in reading. I'm not saying that I don't want advice, or guidance, or background on the area in which I will be teaching. Honestly, it had a lot to do with the fact that I have so much to do right now. This is all so new and stressful. I have only taught one lesson so far, but for the past week, I have gotten less sleep, food, and Andrea-time than is probably healthy.

But I did read the book. And I'm glad I did. Actually, I'm even glad to be writing this blog right now (even if it is a day late). Reading and writing have always been such a release for me. I have the ability to lose myself in whichever of the two I'm doing. So when I get to use both and write about what I've read.......... Ok I'm back.

Herein lies my distress with teaching English in poor, rural Mississippi though. My kids do not have the privilege, and yes it is a privilege down here, to get lost in a work of literature or their own writing. At the seventh and eighth grade levels, I have students who cannot read or write. My how foreign, how very sad that is. Perhaps the toughest part though, is not the prospect of teaching these 15-year-old middle schoolers how to read. I can teach a kid how to read. What's difficult is knowing whether their lack of classroom participation is because they want to be difficult or because of their illiteracy. I caught myself getting frustrated with a child who was not doing his work, only to find out he couldn't do his work. I felt terrible.

But as the book reiterated, the challenges presented by this subject are exactly what drove me to it. Reading and writing are so imperative to success. People can get by without being good at math or science - I'm living proof! But for these kids to be able to get out of or improve their situation, they have to be articulate. They have to be able to write a resume. They have to be able to pass the same tests as the private school kids.

At this point, I think one of the best things I can do is to demonstrate proper English in the way that I write and speak. All day, every day they are exposed to adults who use improper grammar.  I've heard stories from second year teachers who say that, in the middle of their lesson on verb conjugation, the principal will come over the loud speaker and say, "Today you be taking tests." So I will demonstrate. I will make them demonstrate. The book says, To learn something, you must use it."  They will use it. I want to make my classroom a haven for the kids who get made fun of for not being able to read, and I want to start everyone on the ground level, because even the ones who excel in these schools would be considered less than average writers at a good school. It's time to stop the cycle of completion grades and begin holding these kids accountable. 

We'll see.

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First week of MTC 2010

Yesterday, during day two of the Mississippi Volleyball Corps (not to be confused with the ever time-encroaching Mississippi Teacher Corps), I had a second year ask me if I was ready to quit yet. While I obviously realized this was a joke, I quickly jumped into a mode which has become so familiar. The good impression mode.  I answered with a smile and a vehement, "No! This is great!" 

Now let me stop you here.... when I say that I was in good impression mode, it is not to say that I did not mean those words. MTC has been great thus far. I truly have loved every moment of it. My classmates are amazing. Every one of them. We are all so different, so excited, so nervous, so raw. I click with each of them for entirely different reasons.  Dr. Monroe, Dr. Mullins, Buck, Ben, and the team teachers have all been so wonderfully supportive and understanding of our situation. They have aptly withheld judgement in the midst of our most unwitting moments as first-week MTCers.

Now back to the original question. While of course I don't want to quit, at that moment, while standing in the Campus Creek pool, I realized the importance of such humor. All week we had been inundated with information. We heard stories of success and failure. Positive and negative. Encouragement and candor. The one theme across every one of these stories was, "it happens to everyone." Everyone has successes, and certainly everyone has failures. But if I have learned anything this week, it is that we learn from and lean on each other. We joke. We do not hide from the fact that this will be hard, but we approach it in such a way that makes it manageable. 

I am not scared of the year to come. I am, as I said before, so excited, so nervous, so raw. I feel lucky to be surrounded by people of such a caliber that they are willing to take on this great challenge. Good luck MTC class of 2010.

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