“Open your chest.”

“Lengthen your spine.”

“Rise all the way through the crown of your head.”

“Open your heart center.”

These are the sorts of things the yoga teachers say. They sound a little crazy. My rural Nebraskan sensibilities shudder a bit at all the granola language. But now that I’ve been to a few yoga classes, it still amazes me how much better I feel after I go. Something about this language is true.

Yoga is both a celebration of what the body can do and an invitation to realize the power of the mind. The opening of muscles and joints mirrors the opening of our minds as we are surprised by how much power our minds hold over our bodies and vice versa. It takes mental tenacity to hold my body together in order to get into some of those positions. One tight muscle can tell my mind to forget it; my body is not moving that way today. The poses don’t look too hard when the teacher does them, but it takes such concentration for me to be able to hold my hips level, keep my shoulder blades down, push down with all four corners of my feet, and…oh yeah!…breathe!

“Open your chest.” (more…)

Popularity: 1% [?]

When I was in high school, often I would come home sad because kids were mean to me. (I was painfully shy and dreadfully awkward.) Inevitably, my mom would say:

“They’re insecure. Ignore them.”

I would look at her incredulously. The popular kids who ignored my existence? The loud kids who yelled mean things at me and my friends in the hallway? The big, tough boys who laughed at the fact I didn’t understand their immature joke? They were insecure?

Not too many years later, I find myself in similar situations at times. As a young novice high school teacher, some of my students ignore me when I talk to them, some argue loudly with me in front of the class, and some laugh at me when I accidentally play into their jokes. And they are insecure. Freshmen, especially, are prone to posturing in the all-consuming effort to be cool and accepted.

As the teacher, my mother’s advice still holds true, but only partially.

They are insecure. But I can’t ignore them.

For example, on Wednesday, one of my students, I’ll call him Pedro, walked into class ten minutes late with a sly grin on his face. Now, every day we start class with silent reading. The routine quiets the students before class begins. This morning 27 students read diligently; one of my favorite things to see is students hooked into books. Into this idyllic scene walked Pedro, 6’2″, at least 200lbs, always a gray hooded sweatshirt, and more often than not, a scowl etched onto his features.

He had been gone Monday and Tuesday and I was frustrated at his apparent lack of respect for my class. On top of that, instead of sitting at his regular seat, he sat next to another boy with whom he regularly goofed off instead of participating in class.

I walked up to his desk and brusquely told him, “You need to move. Get out your book and read.”

He argued back loudly. “No. I don’t wanna.”

Blatant insubordination makes my blood boil. Part of the reason I was teased in high school was because I was an obedient student. I struggle to understand why students would be so rude. I scowled back at Pedro and told him if he refused to move I would write him up, which meant an immediate meeting with the dean. Expletives exited his mouth, none too softly, and he grudgingly scooted over to his regular seat. But he refused to read.

I ignored him and began class. I taught for a while, tried to redirect Pedro, gave up, taught for a while, scolded Pedro, conferred with other students, gave up on Pedro, and generally got more and more frustrated as class wore on.

The day limped on and after the last bell, I slumped into the office, defeated and questioning my efficacy as a teacher What had I done? What could I do differently? My mother’s words came back to me.

Yes, Pedro is insecure. Inside he’s a teddy bear, just trying to be cool even while he’s failing most of his classes. A few weeks earlier Pedro had come into our classroom after school. “Miss, I have a B in this class?” Gentle excitement saturated his voice. “This is the only class I have a B in. Thank-you, Miss.” This tough teenager was like putty, and all because of a B.

Yes, I ignored him. But now, as the teacher with power built into my position, and awareness of the greater socio-cultural picture, ignoring a student in this situation is not always the best option. Pedro expects to fight with teachers. They see him as an affront to their authority and classroom. Maybe he can’t help the fact that he’s late everyday and always wears the same grouchy sweatshirt. He probably feels like the world is falling in on him. This is not the time for me to add to his burden with more scolding.

The next day Pedro came into class late again. This habit was old, but I tried to see it as a new day. Instead of greeting him with harsh orders, I asked him how he was doing. “Good. Hey, Miss, can I get that homework I’m missing?” He was all smiles again.

Now I know there are many factors that lead students to behave in certain ways, and my actions can only have so much effect. But too often I forget the inherent power dynamic at play and abuse my power as teacher. Ignoring students and treating them harshly rarely encourage students’ participation. Instead, I need to take the time to remind myself that it is not a battle and there are no winners if a student and I fight. Instead, I try to put myself in their shoes.

My new and improved motto: “They’re insecure. Show them you care.”

The effects can be amazing.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Thoughts after a recent day of teaching:

Today was a downward spiral. We’re working on the infamous five paragraph essay. The first hour class seemed to understand the concept of a thesis and then three main points to back that up. They started writing and had few issues. I thought maybe I’d explained it pretty well.

Second hour floundered a bit but got back on the horse and about 75% of students had a good thesis and main points by the end of the hour.

Third hour started with mischievous shenanigans between my classroom and Rachel’s. I found myself wishing corporal punishment was still an option. I cut down on the lecture and gave them more time to write and confer individually with me.

Fourth hour was a zoo. I gave up on lecturing and told them to just write their papers. As soon as I said it I realized how unfair it was. The students who were loud and disrespectful probably enjoyed the opportunity to goof off working with their neighbors and the students who had been listening were now confused about the work. I tried to circulate to everyone and found my spirits drooping with every student I saw.

After class I tried to pinpoint exactly what had gone wrong, so it would never happen again. I came up with a few possibilities.

Content. It is very difficult to explain a thesis and main points to a classroom of freshmen. This is something writers continue to struggle with through college and beyond.

Catering to all of their levels. What level should they really be at? When to push and when to encourage? What to push and what to encourage? And how to teach this skill all within an abstract essay, the format of which I simply put up with when I was their age?

Format. It’s criminal, what I’m doing to them. I’m subjecting them to the same essays I had to write when I was their age, even though there are better ways to teach the same concepts. I’m reading Katie Wood Ray, a professional writer for teachers who advocates inquiry and writing assignments in the same genres students might see outside of the classroom. And I’m doing everything she says not to. This five paragraph essay appears to the students to have nothing to do with their lives.

Writing is inherently ambiguous because it’s people’s thinking on paper. People’s thinking is intangible and ambiguous. Yet I have to translate the beautiful ambiguity into rigid formulas and lists for students to try to grasp. When really, they already think and write in multiple ways. They are making judgements and using their higher order thinking all the time.

Navigating the halls of this high school and the many arenas of their complex lives requires huge amounts of energy and ingenuity. They’re brilliant. And I’m dumbing them down into a linear outline about a book most of them are ready to throw in the trash after already three weeks of work on it.

Why can’t we do brochures or advertisements or any genre that they might actually use as writers someday? A genre they might buy into?

The answer: Because we have to teach them to write from their reading in a standard format that is easy to assess for understanding for standardized test purposes. The five paragraph essay fits these criteria.

The five paragraph essay also involves the basic elements of argument. Point, back it up, explain. Argument is used all the time in regular people’s writing and conversation, and thus it is an important skill to learn. But argument is usually used in practical genres for practical purposes.

Why aren’t we using those genres with our students, too? Writing up a police report to convict George? Writing up a diagnosis or care procedures sheet for Lennie in a mental institution? These would foster character analysis and argument skills just as well.

Is there room for both the formal academic genre and the progressive practical genre? Is there enough time for all this writing amidst all the other skills I have to teach? Perhaps I could fuse them into one writing project or give students the option to choose one. There are so many grand experiments to try in the classroom, but the high stakes, students’ learning and development, make me cautious.

If I decide to stick with the five paragraph essay because many of them need the structure in order to clearly express their ideas, can I really convince them that the five paragraph essay has something meaningful to offer them in their own lives?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Shank. Origin: Prison slang. To be stabbed by a homemade knife.

My students told me on Thursday that if I didn’t come back next year they would shank me. I blushed, so flattered was I. Then I redirected the conversation back to the task at hand: writing dialogue.

My graduate classmates and I have been spending a great deal of time thinking about the book Choice Words by Peter Johnston. This little book has had a large impact on our thinking amongst the Boettcher Teaching Fellows. We’ve talked about the effect our language has on students’ identity and power. Choice Words includes lists of key phrases to use in the classroom. But I’ve never been good at memorizing things. That’s why I don’t teach science or math. However, I am great at synthesizing information and coming up with a phrase that encapsulates it all. And Choice Words is really just about truly believing in your students. Yes, the patterns and vocabulary that we use to convey this belief do matter, but in this classroom situation, I did not even stop to think whether I should’ve addressed the comment with some choice words. And here’s why.

It all started when they asked, yet again, “Where’s the real teacher?” This was about the millionth time I’d heard this question, so I thought, maybe if I’m just straight with them they’ll stop asking. So I explained, I’m in this program and this is the time where I’m taking over and I’m stretching my little teacher wings. (I flapped my arms to demonstrate.) Next year I’ll be in a classroom all by myself, so this is the time to get prepared for that. Students immediately blasted me with questions.

“So Miss, you’ll be a real teacher next year?”

“Yes, I’ll have my own classroom,” I explained, hesitant to call myself a “real” teacher. The good teachers I know are still figuring out what that is.

“Where will you teach?”

“You better come back here.”

“I have to go wherever there’s jobs, and there’s not a lot of jobs for English teachers.” This is true and I’m still learning about all the contexts in which I might work next year.

“Miss, if you don’t come back here, I’ll shank you.”

Now this student and I have a good relationship. He is failing many classes and right now he is probably failing mine, too, come to think of it. But he doesn’t sass back at me with that curled lip like he does in other classes. The other day he and some other students said something mean about the class and I acted hurt so that he repented, “Oh Miss, you know we love you.” He and I can have this back and forth within the classroom because of our relationship.

At the beginning of the year, after he’d blown up in my class a few times, I took the time to ask him about his anger problem, and he took the time to tell me that sometimes he just needed space. So I give him what space I can while still expecting him to participate, and he responds well for the most part.

Have I consciously been using choice words with this student? Have I been saying “I’m disappointed because I know you can do better.”? No, I don’t know that I have. But really, it’s more about enacting faith and relationships than memorizing key phrases. There are times when students get angry, when they refuse to write, and when I get angry, too. At these times, I ignore my niggling doubts about teaching and learning and just show students that I honestly believe in them.

My language may not always be “choice,” but I think the students are beginning to understand my intentions anyway. And they’re buying in. An adult believes in them, so they’re willing to show that adult what they can do. It shows in their renewed effort in their schoolwork and renewed interest in each other as a class.

So in that moment, I didn’t think about the violence implied in the comment. I didn’t think about the fact that the class is largely poor, of color, and below grade level, with a heavy sprinkling of language learners and special needs. It’s a statistical perfect storm for any teacher, new or experienced. This didn’t even cross my mind. I flushed with delight and thought, by golly, they want me to come back.

And so do I.

Popularity: 1% [?]