Teachers with even a few years in the classroom can easily begin to feel desensitized to the pain and suffering of their young students. Teachers often joke together in the staff lounge about what an “idiot” so and so is, or what a “rotten” family little Johnny must come from. But that’s just a sad attempt to relieve the tension that builds up day after day, year after year from the struggle of fighting knee deep in the muck of the classroom battle.
It’s almost like post-traumatic stress. I don’t go in the staff lounge anymore. In fact I am rarely seen in the office at all. It’s not that I am anti-social, or that I don’t value the company of my colleagues. No, I stay away because too often when I am in the presence of other teachers, especially ones I share students with, I am shocked, disappointed, and sometimes dismayed at they way other teachers, good teachers, experienced and successful teachers talk about their students. Rarely do I hear shared stories of hope and proud moments of success. I know these people care about the students because I know their hearts. I know why they got into teaching. I have seen the fruits of their labors in the students they sometimes insult. So why do teachers bash the very souls they are committed to saving?
One of my mentors, and very close friends, use to refer to the school we worked at as “The Factory.” The students lined up in front of his classroom before he allowed them to enter (this was middle school.) The desks were lined up in even rows with students seated alphabetically. He had a refined system of grading and never took work home because he was able to fit it in during the class day. He was an accomplished and decorated teacher who taught me as a youth and had a major impact on my life. He was one of the reasons I chose to teach. I even took over his assignment when I was hired for my first job. I knew his heart. I could see it when at 12 years old I sat in his classroom and learned from his lessons. I was inspired then. How could this be the same man who now equated his workday with automobile assembly? Had he changed from the man I admired, and the teacher I respected? After many years in the classroom, after the exhausting repetition of a six-period day, bell schedule, and seemingly revolving door or pain-stricken, hate-mongering, resentment-filled, loud and sometimes obnoxious pupils, well, he built up tolerance.
A teacher who tries to “handle” their students will quickly fail. It’s not our jobs. Yes they are in pain, and yes we want to take the pain away, but we cannot, and should not. Pain is a natural part of life and an important part of growth. If it doesn’t hurt, I don’t change it. This is the hardest part of teaching for me; watching people I care about hurt. Sometimes the pain is purposeful and leads to a positive conclusion, like childbirth. Other times the pain seems to go on and on without direction as the student makes one poor decision after another. Despite our best efforts, from the general talk-around-the-issue-soap-box-moments in the classroom, to those private, frank and very direct chats outside the classroom door, teachers give all that we have to our students to try and support them through their “education.”
Perhaps the largest misstep in education today is the over-emphasis on test scores and the seemingly complete disregard for character education. But that’s a different topic all together.
So after years of giving 100% to our students, seeing one class end and another class begin, we grow tired of suffering with our kids. At the end of the school year the students move on with their lives while we stay in the same place, the same classroom, at the same school, teaching the same subject to a brand new set of student the following fall. We know the cycle repeats, and yet we get frustrated when the new students don’t start where we know we finished with the former group. All of that time and energy invested, and then we have to begin it all over again. It’s easy to get discouraged, easy to become frustrated, easy to burn out.
After the 28th “Jenny” to receive a progress report because she missed 30 of 45 class days in the quarter comes in to ask if she can make up work before school and promises to come in early never shows up the teacher tends to anticipate the possibility that “Jenny” is not going to pass, no matter what the teacher does to help. I’m not as shocked as I once was when a student fails my class, but with every “F” I bubble I wonder what else I could have done? With every student who falls behind, never to catch up on their make-up work, I wonder how I could have accommodated them better. Failing a student for any reason is always painful for the teacher, no matter how long they have taught.
Our sensitivity to the student’s condition must never fade, never fail. If a teacher loses his or her compassion for the people within their realm of influence, then all is lost. It isn’t easy when teachers are so disrespected. One of my colleagues was “shushed” by a 9th grade student in his own classroom this week. Shushed! Because 21st century society does not celebrate teachers or public education many kids do not see the value of their so-called educational experience. What they don’t value they don’t appreciate. Well-intended good-spirited teachers often receive the blunt force trauma of the wild emotions of out-of-control youth who lash out of their emotional desperation without concern for who they injure. Over time teachers learn to protect themselves from the pain and suffering they share through empathy with their students, but they never lose sensitivity.
Please post your comments below.
December 16, 2005
December 09, 2005
School is supposed to be fun?
Yes, school is suppose to be fun. The more fun you have teaching, the more fun the students will have learning. There is nothing more miserable than sitting for 55 minutes desperately trying to pay attention to a miserable lecture proffered by a miserable instructor who is clearly disengaged from the subject and lacks all compassion for his or her students. It’s no wonder kids fall asleep in class. We used to call it the “Gurst” position.
Mr. Gurst was my freshman and senior year English teacher. He was a brilliant writer, but a boring orator. He literarily spoke in a monotone all the time. Now, Mr. Gurst was very influential in my young life. He rode his bicycle to school everyday. There was a time when I rode my bicycle to school everyday. Very cool. But Mr. Gurst liked to read to his English classes. When he did, it was all any of us could do to stay awake. It was brutal. Imagine Great Expectations read for an hour daily by Ben Stein. Pretty close comparison. So as a means of survival, we developed a way of looking like we were paying attention, when really we were out cold. We would place our elbows on the desk, point our palms straight up, and rest our cheeks upon them. See, in this position, the Gurst position, the instructor cannot see the pupils eyeballs. Therefore, we were able to look like we were engrossed in Dickens, when really, we were dreaming of skateboarding and burgers at In-N-Out. We got away with the Gurst position for a very long time. Until one day we were exposed. One of us (me) was caught drooling on the novel. That was the end of the Gurst position at my high school. But the Gurst position lives on where I teach now. I’ve taught it my students as a survival mechanism for their duller courses.
But none of our courses should be dull to anyone. If we love teaching then we should love every moment we spend teaching. You know when a lesson isn’t working. I know when kids tune me out. I hate it. Headphones drive me crazy and I don’t allow my students to wear them in the classroom. Once the headphones are on, the world is tuned out. We cannot let our students tune us out. So what do we do? If you are a teacher who often finds their students with their headphones on, or assuming the "Gurst" position, then it’s time to freshen up your shtick.
If no one has told you so far, it’s ok to have fun in your classroom. Think back to your own favorite K-12 teachers and classes. I will bet that the ones you remember most are the ones where the teacher was passionate about teaching. The subject was exciting and every new idea you had was cherished. You had fun. Do you have fun in your classroom now? Do you laugh with your students? Do you share your life’s experiences with the young, hungry minds of those entrusted to your care? You should.
Many English teachers agree that English is not the most entertaining subject to teach. Literature and writing can be a blast, but parts of speech and sentence structure, well. Sometimes the teacher needs to be very, very creative. But English is not nearly as dry as say Mathematics. I’m not a math teacher. But I have taken classes from math teachers who made math fun and exciting. My favorite high school math teacher was a man named Jim Costello. Jim had a way with teaching math. He could not only break math down into VERY manageable bite-size pieces, but he could also hook us into the daily subject matter through humor. His class was always fun, and I loved going. I haven’t loved math as much since.
Jim found a way to make his class fun, interesting, and most importantly, engaging. What do you do to engage your students and make your class fun? Do you try at all? Many teachers don’t. They just leave it up to the students to figure out. These are the same “educators” who regularly fail 50% of their students. Happens way too often in education today. I have had colleagues who approached the classroom in this manner. Fortunately few of them are still teaching. Teaching is hard enough without hating the classroom. If you hate the classroom, then chances are, your students hate you.
Don’t take that personally. You’re just not fun enough.
But you could be. You need to be. Entertainer is never listed in the job description. But whether you want to or not, whether you like it or not, if you are a teacher, you are an entertainer. Twenty four-seven our students are being entertained. Through television, the Internet, cell phones, iPods, magazines, and film, entertainment is the name of the game. If it doesn’t make me laugh, I’m not interested. If it doesn’t shock, I don’t care. Look at the way modern sitcoms are written; a laugh every ten seconds, and sometimes even more. The “one-liner” has been refined to an art. Attention spans run very short these days. So to expect any child of any age to sit and listen for any period of time is fighting against the wind. We can’t win this war. So if you can’t beat them….
DON’T join them. Strive to learn, understand, and master the “rules of engagement.” Structure your lesson plans and arrange your classroom to invite and entice your students to LEARN! We don’t all consider ourselves to be “dynamic in the classroom.” You don’t have to be a dynamo, but you do have to be invested. Kids know when we care, and when we don’t. When they know we care they can be very forgiving if things don’t always go the way we plan. But if we don’t care about the time we spend with our students neither will they, and that’s no fun at all.
For further discussion please check out this post.
Please post your comments below.
Mr. Gurst was my freshman and senior year English teacher. He was a brilliant writer, but a boring orator. He literarily spoke in a monotone all the time. Now, Mr. Gurst was very influential in my young life. He rode his bicycle to school everyday. There was a time when I rode my bicycle to school everyday. Very cool. But Mr. Gurst liked to read to his English classes. When he did, it was all any of us could do to stay awake. It was brutal. Imagine Great Expectations read for an hour daily by Ben Stein. Pretty close comparison. So as a means of survival, we developed a way of looking like we were paying attention, when really we were out cold. We would place our elbows on the desk, point our palms straight up, and rest our cheeks upon them. See, in this position, the Gurst position, the instructor cannot see the pupils eyeballs. Therefore, we were able to look like we were engrossed in Dickens, when really, we were dreaming of skateboarding and burgers at In-N-Out. We got away with the Gurst position for a very long time. Until one day we were exposed. One of us (me) was caught drooling on the novel. That was the end of the Gurst position at my high school. But the Gurst position lives on where I teach now. I’ve taught it my students as a survival mechanism for their duller courses.
But none of our courses should be dull to anyone. If we love teaching then we should love every moment we spend teaching. You know when a lesson isn’t working. I know when kids tune me out. I hate it. Headphones drive me crazy and I don’t allow my students to wear them in the classroom. Once the headphones are on, the world is tuned out. We cannot let our students tune us out. So what do we do? If you are a teacher who often finds their students with their headphones on, or assuming the "Gurst" position, then it’s time to freshen up your shtick.
If no one has told you so far, it’s ok to have fun in your classroom. Think back to your own favorite K-12 teachers and classes. I will bet that the ones you remember most are the ones where the teacher was passionate about teaching. The subject was exciting and every new idea you had was cherished. You had fun. Do you have fun in your classroom now? Do you laugh with your students? Do you share your life’s experiences with the young, hungry minds of those entrusted to your care? You should.
Many English teachers agree that English is not the most entertaining subject to teach. Literature and writing can be a blast, but parts of speech and sentence structure, well. Sometimes the teacher needs to be very, very creative. But English is not nearly as dry as say Mathematics. I’m not a math teacher. But I have taken classes from math teachers who made math fun and exciting. My favorite high school math teacher was a man named Jim Costello. Jim had a way with teaching math. He could not only break math down into VERY manageable bite-size pieces, but he could also hook us into the daily subject matter through humor. His class was always fun, and I loved going. I haven’t loved math as much since.
Jim found a way to make his class fun, interesting, and most importantly, engaging. What do you do to engage your students and make your class fun? Do you try at all? Many teachers don’t. They just leave it up to the students to figure out. These are the same “educators” who regularly fail 50% of their students. Happens way too often in education today. I have had colleagues who approached the classroom in this manner. Fortunately few of them are still teaching. Teaching is hard enough without hating the classroom. If you hate the classroom, then chances are, your students hate you.
Don’t take that personally. You’re just not fun enough.
But you could be. You need to be. Entertainer is never listed in the job description. But whether you want to or not, whether you like it or not, if you are a teacher, you are an entertainer. Twenty four-seven our students are being entertained. Through television, the Internet, cell phones, iPods, magazines, and film, entertainment is the name of the game. If it doesn’t make me laugh, I’m not interested. If it doesn’t shock, I don’t care. Look at the way modern sitcoms are written; a laugh every ten seconds, and sometimes even more. The “one-liner” has been refined to an art. Attention spans run very short these days. So to expect any child of any age to sit and listen for any period of time is fighting against the wind. We can’t win this war. So if you can’t beat them….
DON’T join them. Strive to learn, understand, and master the “rules of engagement.” Structure your lesson plans and arrange your classroom to invite and entice your students to LEARN! We don’t all consider ourselves to be “dynamic in the classroom.” You don’t have to be a dynamo, but you do have to be invested. Kids know when we care, and when we don’t. When they know we care they can be very forgiving if things don’t always go the way we plan. But if we don’t care about the time we spend with our students neither will they, and that’s no fun at all.
For further discussion please check out this post.
Please post your comments below.
December 02, 2005
What is the goal of education?
The goal of education must be excellence. To achieve excellence we must set high standards for our students, and they must strive to reach those goals. Teachers must hold the students accountable for meeting those high standards. Many will succeed. Some will fail. There are those among us (teachers) who favor equity over excellence. They believe that we must compromise our standards in order to accommodate the students who do not reach established goals. I whole-heartedly disagree. Not because “the world needs ditch diggers too,” but because I know from experience that students will only achieve when they are challenged to do so. Although some students will not master the challenge at a 100% success rate, their efforts to do so will be neither in vain, nor un-worthwhile. By keeping the standard high, the student who fails to reach the ultimate goal can still take pride in the effort they gave, and the objectives they accomplished.
It’s like the wall obstacle exercise some leadership groups use to build teamwork, mutual respect, and understanding. You know the one. A team attempts to get all of their members up and over a wall that is just tall enough that no one person can get up and over it alone. If you’ve never participated in this opportunity, next time you get a chance, give it a shot. The focus is on the fact that EVERYONE can make it over the wall, but NO ONE, can make it alone. And the height of the wall is never changed. Think about how that applies to the classroom.
I teach high school elective courses full of tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders. Each year we begin at the same place in the scope and sequence, but at very different places in both interest and ability levels. We start slow, too slow for some, too fast for others, and gradually pick up the learning pace as the year goes on. Some students who do not have the benefit of having a computer at home, or have never taken a computer course realize very quickly that they are in over their heads. (There is a 9th grade level prerequisite course to my courses, but sometimes students slip by, counselors.) Other tech-savvy students catch on right away and sometimes complain that we aren’t moving fast enough, or maybe even that they are bored. My response to them is to challenge, and sometimes assign, them to assist other students who are not as tech-savvy as they are. Their jobs are to help the others catch up and eventually keep pace. This is a very successful strategy for both types of students. Many teachers believe in peer tutoring, and I can tell you that not only does this approach to learning improve my class grade average; it also engages ALL students in the process and heightens their awareness of their responsibility to each other. “He ain’t heavy…” Together we make it over the wall and on to the next challenge.
What would be the benefit of lowering the obstacle wall? How low would the obstacle wall have to be before everyone could make it over without help? What would be the benefit of such a challenge? Would it be a challenge at all? And if not, then what would the purpose be? So that everyone could feel all “warm and fuzzy” about not needing help to scale the obstacle? So that they didn’t need the fellowship of their peers? What kind of personal growth occurs when the challenges we face, aren’t challenges at all, but mere hoops to jump through? Hoops so low to the ground, that they don’t require any “jumping” at all.
In California it feels like we are making these exact modification with the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). Educators have been told that our high school students will be held accountable for passing this test, or they will not graduate, regardless of earned credits. The year that the students will start to be held accountable continues to be pushed back, even though the regular administration of the test has been going on for some years now. It is a tragedy that a student can spend four years in high school, but not pass a 6th and 7th grade level test. I feel for the parents of these children. What does it say about the education the students receive in our high schools? How can it be that a student can pass their courses, but not pass a state test? Some districts have introduced a replacement graduate certificate available to kids who have the credits but who fail the test and still want to graduate. To me, it just seems like we are lowering our standards, and shorting the obstacle wall.
Sure there is a stigma attached to not graduating. Yes, some people will feel bad. Parents will be disappointed in their children, the schools, and potentially themselves. No one wants to feel bad. However, education is not about feelings. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. Of course self-esteem is important. I once asked a close friend and very successful coach about working with kids on the athletic field. I was coaching little league baseball and I was concerned that all my young players feel positive and confident. The expectation was that everyone should play, and that sometimes made winning even more challenging. I asked him what the secret was to establishing these feelings in my players. My friend told me that playing felt good, but winning felt great. If I was not doing a good enough job preparing my kids to win baseball games, then I was doing them a disservice. The key to success was in making sure that every player was prepared to succeed at the highest level. They all worked to rise to the level of the best players, and not the other way around. Excellent and useful advice both on the diamond and in the classroom.
Back to the obstacle wall. We teachers are the ones who either stand on the bottom and push or reach down from top and pull our students up to the platform. Our job is not and should not be to break the wall down. If we do, our students will never have the opportunity to experience the view from the top of the wall or discover what’s waiting for them on the other side. The more they struggle to scale the obstacle wall and reach the goal, the more we push and pull. The more experience a student receives, the more they learn, the more they grow. Mediocrity is derived from the excuses and rationalizations that are made once we fatigue, get tired, and quit. Excellence is achieved when we all work together to scale the obstacle wall and reach the goal, regardless of how much time, effort, or sacrifice it takes.
It’s like the wall obstacle exercise some leadership groups use to build teamwork, mutual respect, and understanding. You know the one. A team attempts to get all of their members up and over a wall that is just tall enough that no one person can get up and over it alone. If you’ve never participated in this opportunity, next time you get a chance, give it a shot. The focus is on the fact that EVERYONE can make it over the wall, but NO ONE, can make it alone. And the height of the wall is never changed. Think about how that applies to the classroom.
I teach high school elective courses full of tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders. Each year we begin at the same place in the scope and sequence, but at very different places in both interest and ability levels. We start slow, too slow for some, too fast for others, and gradually pick up the learning pace as the year goes on. Some students who do not have the benefit of having a computer at home, or have never taken a computer course realize very quickly that they are in over their heads. (There is a 9th grade level prerequisite course to my courses, but sometimes students slip by, counselors.) Other tech-savvy students catch on right away and sometimes complain that we aren’t moving fast enough, or maybe even that they are bored. My response to them is to challenge, and sometimes assign, them to assist other students who are not as tech-savvy as they are. Their jobs are to help the others catch up and eventually keep pace. This is a very successful strategy for both types of students. Many teachers believe in peer tutoring, and I can tell you that not only does this approach to learning improve my class grade average; it also engages ALL students in the process and heightens their awareness of their responsibility to each other. “He ain’t heavy…” Together we make it over the wall and on to the next challenge.
What would be the benefit of lowering the obstacle wall? How low would the obstacle wall have to be before everyone could make it over without help? What would be the benefit of such a challenge? Would it be a challenge at all? And if not, then what would the purpose be? So that everyone could feel all “warm and fuzzy” about not needing help to scale the obstacle? So that they didn’t need the fellowship of their peers? What kind of personal growth occurs when the challenges we face, aren’t challenges at all, but mere hoops to jump through? Hoops so low to the ground, that they don’t require any “jumping” at all.
In California it feels like we are making these exact modification with the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). Educators have been told that our high school students will be held accountable for passing this test, or they will not graduate, regardless of earned credits. The year that the students will start to be held accountable continues to be pushed back, even though the regular administration of the test has been going on for some years now. It is a tragedy that a student can spend four years in high school, but not pass a 6th and 7th grade level test. I feel for the parents of these children. What does it say about the education the students receive in our high schools? How can it be that a student can pass their courses, but not pass a state test? Some districts have introduced a replacement graduate certificate available to kids who have the credits but who fail the test and still want to graduate. To me, it just seems like we are lowering our standards, and shorting the obstacle wall.
Sure there is a stigma attached to not graduating. Yes, some people will feel bad. Parents will be disappointed in their children, the schools, and potentially themselves. No one wants to feel bad. However, education is not about feelings. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. Of course self-esteem is important. I once asked a close friend and very successful coach about working with kids on the athletic field. I was coaching little league baseball and I was concerned that all my young players feel positive and confident. The expectation was that everyone should play, and that sometimes made winning even more challenging. I asked him what the secret was to establishing these feelings in my players. My friend told me that playing felt good, but winning felt great. If I was not doing a good enough job preparing my kids to win baseball games, then I was doing them a disservice. The key to success was in making sure that every player was prepared to succeed at the highest level. They all worked to rise to the level of the best players, and not the other way around. Excellent and useful advice both on the diamond and in the classroom.
Back to the obstacle wall. We teachers are the ones who either stand on the bottom and push or reach down from top and pull our students up to the platform. Our job is not and should not be to break the wall down. If we do, our students will never have the opportunity to experience the view from the top of the wall or discover what’s waiting for them on the other side. The more they struggle to scale the obstacle wall and reach the goal, the more we push and pull. The more experience a student receives, the more they learn, the more they grow. Mediocrity is derived from the excuses and rationalizations that are made once we fatigue, get tired, and quit. Excellence is achieved when we all work together to scale the obstacle wall and reach the goal, regardless of how much time, effort, or sacrifice it takes.
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