Teacher Moments

Ok y'all, I know I just posted, but I needed to process all of this in writing and I have a couple of "teacher moments" to share from today:

First, I have been amazed over the past few weeks that I have not yet had what I considered the quintessential first-year teacher moment: the feeling of being totally, completely out of control in the classroom. In fact, I was beginning to congratulate myself on not having reached that moment, and believing that I must be pretty amazing. Turns out that instead, I've just been fortunate--until today. Today I gave numerous students after-school "homework club"--basically a detention where you have to do your homework--even though we do not normally give this to 8th graders. I figured this would make them take me (and their dwindling math homework grades) seriously. Instead, it made them declare war against me. First, I had not totally calculated in my head how many students were receiving this consequence until I got to the classroom, where there were more students than desks, making me outnumbered in just about every sense of the word. This lack of desks caused the first bout of chaos; something about not sitting at a proper desk makes a child imagine he does not need to be a proper student. So once I had finally created enough makeshift desks, the whining began. Shockingly, despite the fact that I had clearly explained yesterday the consequences of not bringing in homework today, they all felt that I was just horribly unfair. And the more complaints I heard, the more bold other people became to complain: hearing other people whine about how unfair I was made them feel more confident to voice their complaints at the horrible injustice of staying 30 minutes after school to complete their math homework. (As one student told me, she had "so many more important things to do." I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her that I did, too.) Then, the hands started shooting up. Those students who had finally decided to give in and do their homework now had questions about that homework--but as soon as I could move to a student to answer a question, another student would begin whispering across the room and I would need to leave to deal with that discipline problem. Then more hands would shoot up with more questions, and soon even my behaving children were very disgruntled customers--the service was just not quick enough. In the middle of all the chaos the bell finally rang; before I let them go, I gave them a talk about how disappointed I was in them--a desperate grasp to make it seem like I had control over the situation the entire time, but was choosing not to respond until this moment. I don't think they bought it, considering that one student, as she exited, informed me that there would never have been an episode like this with their normal math teacher.

The good news out of all of this is that 1) I felt totally justified in buying a chocolate cupcake for myself after work; 2) I had a chance to see some areas where I struggle and need to improve; and 3) I had some great conversations with teachers in my office about their first years teaching, which were encouraging, insightful, helpful, and community-building. Still, as I left work today, I felt much less like the confident, bold new teacher I was last week, and more like a kid in dress-up clothes.

But on the funnier side of today, there was another moment that made me feel very much like an actual teacher--and a smart one at that. My students were required to make up their own study guides for their exams, listing at least 5 concepts that they need to review and 2-3 questions for each concept. In order to save time, I have been in the habit of simply scanning homework for completion, which may have prompted today's episode. But as I was (more carefully) grading homework today, I noticed that one student had written on his study guide the following:

#4) Using properties
--What is the Commutative Property of Addition?
--What is the Zero Product Property?
--What is the Multiplicative Identity Property?

#5) Anything that comes
--More things
--Will come up
--During class.

It was the dashes that really made me laugh, because they demonstrated to me that this was not a sincere attempt at concept #5, but rather a hopeful assumption that I would not be looking too closely at anything besides format. After laughing about it at my desk for several minutes, I handed back his paper and in a stern voice asked him if he really thought he was going to trick me into thinking he completed the assignment. He looked pretty sheepish and did not argue, but took the incomplete homework grade. It was a funny moment because I remember being on the other side of those interactions--wondering if I (or, usually, my more gutsy classmates) would get caught riding the line, wondering how the teacher always found out, wondering why she didn't think it was as funny as we did. Turns out, she probably did, but she also probably thought it was more funny that we assumed we wouldn't get caught.

So, very low lows and some moderate highs all in one twelve-hour period that we call a "school day." A few more hours and it starts all over again!