I have thought today about how much my perspective has changed since the beginning of the school year. Not in a drastic sense like a restructuring of my beliefs towards poverty or race, but something as simple and easily overlooked as how to view a successful school day.
Let me be more specific.
Today in my fourth period, two freshmen almost started to fight. One had guessed a wrong answer and the other was ragging him about it. I gave the two a writing assignment, told them to be quiet now and not speak for the rest of the class. I then moved on and finished the lesson. (five-paragraph essays, incidentally).
A simple and easily forgotten story, right?
It wouldn't have been at the beginning of the year, for me or for many other first year teachers. I would have been overwhelmed with my normal responsibilities, so much so that if I had somehow managed to keep the two students' hands from their respective necks I would have erupted in elation.
Today, it was less than a pot-hole on a smooth road.
I don't tell this story to brag about my classroom management, because there was nothing unusual or innovative that I did. I tell this story to show that many a thing I would have stressed about, or been derailed by, at the beginning of the year I now take in stride. I don't even consider it a "successfully avoided implosion".
Experiences that would have been first semester's badges of honor are now given no special attention. I--We--are so adept at handling them that they don't make a deep impression. Regardless of how I, or we, feel personally about the jobs we are doing this year, scenes like this are evidence that the job is getting done right.
Or: Why a dropout-prevention assemblies kill the motivation to live
Last Tuesday I was lassoed into chaperoning a Dropout-Prevention Program. Simmons High's 25 biggest malcontents were herded into a bus and shipped to the middle school, where we picked up 15 more malcontents and headed off to Greenville.
Washington County had gone to an assuredly great expense to put on a "Get-on-the-Bus.MS" Dropout Prevention program. Why that money was spent is still being debated. The collected dropout risks from around the county gathered in the convention center and sat for 3 hours, listening to Washington County's 4 (repeat that: 4!) different school districts' representatives summarize their prevention plans. Then a State Dept. of Education Secretary took the podium and--after apologizing in advance if she ran over her 5 minute time limit--regaled us with rambling reminisces, recriminations, and repetitions for well along half an hour.
Lost in the shuffle was any shape of speech directed towards our kids, to inform or inspire them to stay in school.
As soon as the show began, and I saw what was to come, I knew there might be trouble. I sat myself next to L.S.W., the school's alpha troublemaker. He chomped and kicked when I sat down, but took it well enough thereafter. Despite three hours' nauseous natterings, he behaved better than I'd believed he would. And, in a fit of misguided and ignorant inspiration, he leaned over to me during the proceedings and, passing judgment on the prevention program, said:
"If I'd have known this is what we'd be doing, I would have just stayed in school."
General Update:
-broke up another fight recently. Two males, a freshman and senior, got into it at lunch. I was 15 feet away, in a crowded cafeteria corridor, when it occurred, so the two had 10-15 solid seconds of thrown punches before I could break them up. This was my first fight in which I did not arrive on time to defuse the fight, but had to literally jump between swinging fists. Thankfully, as I jumped between the two, another senior grabbed one of the fighters around the waist and drug him towards the cafeteria door. What that meant was that I didn't get hit by many punches at all: as best I can feel, only a single punch hit me in the elbow.
After I took one of the combatants to the office, I walked back to the cafeteria to get lunch and monitor my class. Cue the movie scene: as I entered the cafeteria, the students caught notice of me and started clapping and shouting my name. From the girls came shouts of, "Mr. Walker, our hero!"
No joke.
I got a standing ovation when I returned. After I sat down, some of my seniors came up to me and said, "Mr. Walker, you must really care about this school. We've never seen a teacher break up a fight like that before."
-started bird-watching. I can now identify, with relative ease, red-winged blackbirds, mockingbirds, blue jays, cowbirds, cardinals, and various sparrows. It's better than identifying copied homework.
