Who's permission am I waiting fo to become a teacher?

Wow, whatever happened between yesterday afternoon, and walking into the classroom today, we (the students and the teachers) seemed a little bit different.  The substitute teacher and I talked about doing some mini-activity, interspersed between teaching and guiding, to remind the kids that they need to focus on the teacher with listening and thinking skills in order to work.  She was quite the genius!  For instance, she got the microphone on and made sure that she would always be heard around the classroom.  For another, she played Simon Says first, so that kids would activate those listening skills without having to be told to. And thirdly, she combined both.

In order to be dismissed for recess, she told the kids they had to watch her to know who could leave first.  She called out the first table's number, who went to the closet like usual.  Then she waited...and held up three of her fingers--table 3. Not saying a word.  The students felt silly for being caught out, and sat down again until she dismissed them.

She showed me that creating order didn't have to be a command.  It simply had to be understood to be followed.  She played with them even as she managed them. That doesn't mean she didn't show her displeasure when a kid acted up.  She came down hard on Joseph because he back-talked me when I told him he had to give a sheet to his classmate (whom he'd purposely avoided, and the student HAD called out he still needed a sheet).  "You do not talk to a teacher that way!" I was too appalled to even speak.  She made him apologize to me, then said, "You can do your job right or I can give it to someone who will."  He--reluctantly--gave the sheet to the classmate.

I can feel how second-fiddle I am to the other teachers.  And I'm still very reactive--reactive as in 'I need to help every single child with every single problem!!!'.  One request for a bandaid is ok.  More than one child needing a bandaid for a hang-nail?  Falling for another trick.

If I'm going to teach effectively, I cannot be absorbed into each child's individual well-being.  Yes, I must reach them at their level.  Yet it should be for every single dilemma.  I was tired after seeing them off to P.E. and getting a chance to sit down.  I joked to the substitute teacher that "they run around like chickens with their heads cut off!"

I stopped.

It wasn't them running around.

It had been ME.

Going to each table.  Physically inserting myself between students so they would stop goofing off.  Standing over (or squatting with) students so they would do their work instead of playing with whatever was in their hand.  Taking pens away (after the teacher had warned them that if they had to be told a second time, they would be treated like kindergarteners and have it taken away).  Even small tugs of war with kids because they wouldn't give it to me. (Those were eventually solved when I just stood there.  Hardly recommended though.)

Micro-managing them, because they were not managing themselves.

Oh, how I have been played.

I need to reel myself back in a bit.  Hold them to expectations because I know they can do it, not because I think they can't.  My actions had indeed shown them that I didn't think they could manage themselves. So they didn't.  Was it conscious on their part? Probably not.  But did it end up with me trying to fill every vacuum of each disengaged child?  Very much so.

"The onus is on them to do the right thing," the teacher told me again and again.

And...I ended up not implementing the Lesson That Would Change Their Minds.  The more my mind expanded on it, the less viable it became.  A class book would take time to introduce, to enjoy, to build up together.  I don't have to cram change down their throats.  Or scrabble for every bit of respect from them either.  I'm upset with myself, but it's come with a deeper awareness.

I was expecting too little from them.

I was expecting too little from myself while doing too much of the little things for them.  That's not a teacher I would want to be.

As I've told myself after hearing it from one of our professors, "I'll teach the hell out of the class!"  Not to break the kids, but to empower them upwards, past their egos and their doubts.  Because that's the only way to get the best from myself.

Did you hear the story...?

This week I am working with a substitute teacher for my main site class.  She had taught at this school before, and is quite familiar with my cooperating teacher's ways, if not classroom routine.  Nevertheless, we worked together, bit by bit, as the class was squirrel-ly and its usual loudness.

By the end of the day, I was completely through with the noise.  Even though I held my temper, I had seen, from different students' coping actions, that THEY were just as stressed out and fed up as the teachers.  Even as they're classmates and friends, talking straight through a lesson, it gets on their nerves too.  They really don't stop to listen...because they don't know how.

One thing I would like to do tomorrow, with the substitute's permission, is to skip the morning handwriting practice and have a town-meeting.  I had spent the day warning kids that they would "practice being quiet with me during recess" (for one minute) because they wouldn't be quiet during the lesson.  I don't like being a policewoman all day, and I know it wasn't building relationship with students, either.

The kids have been learning story elements: Setting, Characters, Problems, Solutions.

How would I phrase it?

(Yesterday, it seemed that we were really tired and stressed because it was very loud.  Does anyone feel that way? Could we try to find a better solution, like the characters in our stories?)

"Second grade, you know, sometimes I feel like we're in a story.  What is our setting?" *(motions around the room. If no student pipes up, I'll tell them: Classroom)*  "Who are the characters? ...and I should see every hand up!

"And the kid characters are trying to make a good classroom.  What do kid characters have in a good classroom?" (listing...friends, manners, things to write with, kindness, attention, listening, fun, taking turns).  "How would characters feel when we don't have that in class?" (sad, frustrated (for the articulate 2nd graders), bored, mad).

(If there are answers, I'll write it on the big writing pad. Then I address the most pressing:

But you know what? Our story seems to have a problem.  Can we think of some problems in our story? WITHOUT naming names. You can say 'some characters'..." 

Sometimes, so many characters get so noisy, that other characters don't feel happy being here.  And you know when it gets noisiest? When the teacher characters are talking.  When some characters start asking for help. 

The teacher characters have tried some solutions.  Do you remember what they were? (Some kids might say, but if they don't, I'll remind them). "The teacher characters have asked kid characters to settle down.  Does it work?...Not all the time.  If it gets too noisy, some kid characters stay in for recess, for a minute.  Those are some solutions.


"But you know what?  Yesterday, those were old characters in the story.   I think w,e the kid characters can make some solutions .  (hopefully they do, otherwise, I'm just taking the reins):

Now...what solutions can our characters do?" This is where it is SO tricky.  I'm trusting students to think before they answer me, to stay on topic, to play and yet not go off track.  This is the moment when the baton gets passed. Crickets singing.  Noses being picked.  More side conversation.

I doubt I can actually cover all this in a 20 minute session.  But I'm going to try SOMETHING, because I refuse to be just a 'cop'.  For my own sanity and THEIRS, we got to do something.

G-O-D and delicate territory

When I started at my elementary school, one table, with one girl and two boys, got into an argument.  It took me about only a minute to realize how much more kids KNOW about things.

When the teacher asked how Thanksgiving or the weekend went, the children piped up with their events.  "On Sunday I went to church," said Kelley*, a girl who was new to the school, "and we talked about God--"

"You're not supposed to say that word, God," said Joseph*, "'cause that's a bad word--"

"Yes I can!" Kelley exclaimed.

"It's not a bad word," I said quickly. "It's...a name.  Special.  And what did you do, Joseph?"

"We went shopping--"

 "You're supposed to go to church on Sunday," Kelley said with parental authority, "because he sent Jesus to die for us!"

"Who's that?" asked a third boy.  Kelley and Joseph started to argue, and I tried to settle it without bruising feelings.  All I could do was tell Kelley that it was interesting she went to church, and that it was ok for other people do other things on Sundays, too.

Later on, somehow it got out that Kelley, who was still considered the 'new girl' after three months, liked everyone.  My impression is that she likes everyone because young kids like everyone.  Joseph and the boys made gagging and teasing noises at her, which she answered with a glare.  Then the taunt came out. "Kelley likes everyone! She's a lesbian!"

Hold your horses, what!!


The only thing I could say to that was that "Kelley probably means she likes everyone in a friendly way."  Inside I was banging my head.  How should I address this? 


If any of my kids used racist or sexist language, I would have had a quick Talk with those two.
I AM  pretty sure that it's not the loaded, homophobic violence these kids are using when talking to each other.  Yet, it does have to be addressed, before put-downs like these become, as Vivan Paley wrote in You Can't Say You Can't Play, "habits of exclusion".  Let's not let gay or lesbian become a category of fear.