A Reflection on Myself as a Person

My seniors' final exam was a written take-home test, and it looked like this:

1. A Reflection on Myself as a Reader (25 points)
2. A Reflection on Myself as a Writer (25 points)
3. A Reflection on Myself as a Person (25 points)
4. The Most Important Lesson / Thing I Learned in AP Literature (15 points)
5. Constructive Criticism of the Course (10 points)

I got quite a few reflective and honest essays, especially in response to number 3. I told students that, as they graduated and moved onto the next step of their life, they have the unique opportunity to reinvent themselves if they so choose. As part of choosing who they want to be, I encouraged them to take an honest look at who they are.

This is my favorite response:

Reading my students' exam essays made me think about who I am as a teacher.

I try to be fair and honest and always do what I think is right. I try to challenge students to think for themselves and to develop their character both inside and outside of the classroom. 

I try to shape students into global citizens.

I try to be kind and nurturing, even though those are two qualities that don't come easy for me. 

I am by nature a generous person, but nurturing? Not so much. There are a few students who might say I'm nurturing, but I can only really think of two in my four years of teaching who might say that.

I want to be a positive role model for students both inside and outside of the classroom, and I think I've accomplished that.

I want to be honest when students expect me to be.

I want students to respect me (though I don't necessarily care whether they like me).

Sometimes it's easy to let the gap between who you want to be and who you are spread so wide you can no longer jump it. This summer, I hope to take a break, better myself, and close that gap again so that I can be even prouder of the teacher I've become.

Success

Last week, I asked students to respond to the following prompt:
"Write a paragraph explaining your definition of success and describe what success looks like in your future."

Today, I'm reading one student's response.

As follows...

"Success is difficult to say for me, because I am not even sure I know what the real meaning is. Ever since I was a kid I have never been great at anything. My parents are nothing close to what someone might call a success. Their is [sic] some people in my family who have become something. Though, they look at me as if I am dirt, almost as if I am nothing. Really, I don't think I can become anything that would be called successfull [sic]. It's not like I don't work for it, because I work my tail off everyday [sic] just for a little pride. Success means to me a good life.Where I have a family, I can feel happy going home to. A job I can handle working bring home enough money to spend on myself. Be able to get myself something, an occasional gift and a present for my kids. My version of success isn't greatness, it is hapiness [sic]. In truth, I don't think I am gunna get that, because I seem to always have bad luck in life. That doesn't mean I am not happy with my life. It just means I think my life story is just a plague of bad luck."

This breaks my heart. This student always has a positive attitude, and I would never have known he was feeling this way if it weren't for this writing assignment.

As a teacher, it's sometimes easy to forget that students sometimes have struggles that far exceed those of a typical teenager.

Week in review, a few days late

This (last) week was rough, but today, there are two things that make me happy:

ONE:

This student’s bellwork response:

April 7: Write out as a script to a play the conversation  in which Mr. Nathan Radley tells his neighbours about his shooting at the intruder in his garden.  Decide who says what.   Keep each person in character (include Miss Stephanie Crawford, Miss Maudie, and Atticus; you could also include lines for Miss Rachel and Mr. Avery too) How to punctuate dialogue

“get off my lawn”

“no”

“i will shoot you”

“ok im leaving”

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TWO:

Another thing that I’d like to actually talk about more thoroughly in a future post is that, earlier this year, I lost a student. One of my freshmen was in a car accident, and he was killed. It was, as you can imagine, devastating.

His girlfriend is also a student of mine, one very much concerned with getting good grades. At least she was before her boyfriend was killed. After, she entered a depression and began failing classes.

I heard someone joking with her last week about her having a new boyfriend, and I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, he died in late October, so it’s been 6.5 months. On the other hand, he was my favorite student.

Today, I saw her in the hallway holding hands with her new boyfriend, and I couldn’t have been happier. He is one of the kindest, most caring students I have. He’s probably exactly what she needs. And in the past week, I’ve seen her make an effort again in regards to her grades. I’ve seen her smile. I’ve seen her laugh.

And I’m really happy for her.

That fine line

As a teacher, I often find myself walking that fine line between what I believe to be morally right (i.e. what will prepare students for success in their future) and what I'm asked or told to do.

Last night, another teacher challenged me in front of a group of colleagues, including administration, at a meeting.

She said, "The other day, I had a student bragging that he turned in a paper that was due in February and got a 50% on it. And I just wonder, what lesson is he learning if we just accept work late for credit?"

This is a student in my AP Literature class.

Immediately, I knew exactly who she was talking about: A student who I had to nag and nag and nag to finish his paper because, without that 100 points, he was failing my class. A senior. Failing. If he doesn't pass my class, he doesn't graduate. For some reason, this is the paper he blew off. Unfortunately, it was worth too significant a portion of his grade for this to the paper for which he earned a zero.

So, I asked myself: Is one paper worth failing him?

He did most of it, albeit two months late, so, for the record, I gave him a 40%. Nothing to brag about, but enough to bump his grade up enough to pass, and enough to acknowledge that some effort had been put in.

I work in a blue collar, rural district, where the median income is $27,000. Many of these students don't have college aspirations. Many students are military-bound or intend on immediately entering the work force.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The problem, however, is that many of these students - and many of the teachers with whom I work - do not see English as a valuable course. Students oftentimes will "opt out" of curriculum by failing to complete work because it's "boring" or "not relevant" or insert-colorful-adjective-here.

Last night, at the same meeting, a Tech Ed teacher asked me why a student who's going into auto repair would need to read a novel and analyze it. Much to my surprise, he - like the aforementioned music teacher - challenged me, on the spot, to defend my job.

This teacher also doesn't believe that he should be teaching reading or writing in his class at all, even though reading a textbook or an instruction manual is very different from reading a novel. He has stated multiple times that these are skills the English department should be teaching students.

This is not an uncommon belief.

The English Department at my school is expected to teach all reading and writing in the school day. We are implored to teach all the different kinds of reading and writing that students would need for their other classes. This is not only impossible, but also not my job. If a teacher requires a student to be able to read an instruction manual, then s/he should be teaching relevant vocabulary as well as the skills necessary to comprehend and process that material.

The state says that students need four years of English in order to graduate. Isn't that enough justification that what I'm doing is important? Why do English teachers have to constantly justify their purpose?

And why, when I make one decision to show mercy on a student, am I asked, in front of administration, by a music teacher who writes students passes to leave their Advanced Placement classes to "set up for a choir concert," to justify my decision?

Sometimes, there is a fine line between ignorance and hypocrisy.

38%

Thirty eight percent.

That is the percentage of my English I (a freshman class) students who are failing.

Some of these are actually not freshmen, but sophomores and juniors who are on their second or third run-through of English I. Some are not.

While I recognize that this is - in part - a reflection on me as a teacher, I can honestly say I've done everything I can to get most of these students to pass.

This group of students is the most apathetic I've seen ever in my life. They truly have no concept of or regard for the future, and how what they're doing right now will affect their lives going forward.

Most of these students are not on the cusp of passing, either. One of these students has a 2% in my class... most of these failing students' percentage in my class is below 50%, quite a few below 10%.

This is entirely unprecedented for me, and absolutely abhorrent.

I tell students constantly that I arrive to school - at the latest - 30 minutes before school starts. Furthermore, we all have a shared study hall for 30 minutes each day, and I'm available after school by appointment. I have individually checked in with each of these students, offered help, asked what they need, offered extensions, modifications when necessary, talked with parents, talked with guidance, talked with administrators.

I literally do not know what to do.

It's hard, in times like these, to feel like my job is entirely worthless and unmeaningful.

But then I tell myself that there are two grades you have to work really hard to earn: an A, and an F.

Willful ignorance: Hopefully it leads to a lifetime of a bliss. I wouldn't know.

Sick days

Being sick, in and of itself, really sucks. We all know this.

What sucks about being a teacher who gets sick is all the planning that goes into missing a day of school. You have to leave detailed sub notes (mine are often 3+ pages long). You have to cover things like classroom rules, students that need special allowances, helpful students, as well as your plan for the day, how to execute it, and what to do if something goes wrong.

Getting a capable teacher in your subject area to sub for you is an extreme rarity. Many times, especially in smaller districts, substitutes are members of the community with little to no teaching experience (which makes sense because subs often tiny sums of money for their troubles). Which means you often have to find a way to make something work in a different way than you would have taught it. Often, you have to put a pin in things, such as student presentations, and get them started on something they can do independently. Unfortunately, having a sub does not always mean showing a video.

So, I'm home sick today. I've been in bed all day, sleeping mostly, though I've been able to watch one movie.

I did log in to my work email briefly to send good luck messages to my students who are taking their AP Literature exam tomorrow. While I was checking my email, I noticed an email from a case manager regarding one of my most difficult students.

This student is a freshman. He has an emotional-behavioral disorder, and has trouble controlling his anger. He's a neat kid, all things considered, and smart, but he's hell for subs. He and I get along fine now, but we've had our problems, and we've had numerous talks about treating subs with respect. His parents and case manager and our school administrators and I have held more meetings than I can count on my fingers.

Anyway, his case manager emailed me today saying this student was having a bit of an episode, and so, when my sub asked students to hand write a paragraph (I made the directions very clear on this because of the rampant cheating Melissa and I have been seeing), he knew he wasn't going to be able to because his frustration would have made his handwriting illegible. When this student tried to hand the printed copy to the sub, the sub refused to take it, saying it had to be hand-written. Obviously, the sub was merely doing his job and following the directions I'd laid out for him. And of course it would be impossible to plan for every scenario in my sub notes. In any case, this student controlled himself and reported to his case manager instead of heading into a tailspin, which is huge for him.

So, I wanted to email him to tell him how proud I was of him:

Hi Student,

I wanted you to know that it's okay that you typed your paragraph. I also very much appreciate you treating the substitute with respect. When subs are in a classroom for a day, it's difficult for them to know all the specific situations surrounding each student and each allowance I grant them.

I'm really proud of you for doing the right thing.

See you tomorrow!

Ms. R

These tiny acts of kindness can make a difference for students, especially students like this one, whose acts of self-control often get overlooked by his negative behaviors. And it was so easy. Sometimes it's easier to get caught up in all the negative things that happen in my day and forget how easy it is to focus on the positive and make a difference for even just one student. 

I wake up every day telling myself I'm going to try to focus on the positives, but sometimes it takes one tiny thing to make me roll my eyes and forget my day's goal. I used to keep a notebook of positive things that happened so I could look back on it when I needed a pick-me-up, but I wasn't good at updating it, so I eventually stopped. 

I'm hoping this blog can serve as a place where I can log these positives and remember why I became a teacher in the first place.

PS - someone sure is happy I'm home for the day:

Focusing on the positives: the week in review

I wanted to take a moment to focus my attention on a few positives from the week in review.

I got a brand new student in one of my freshman English classes this week. Yes, in Quarter 4. We are 20 / 31 chapters through To Kill a Mockingbird, so I had to come up with an alternative unit for her. Anyway, I have this new girl right before lunch, and she seems really shy.

At the end of the hour, my sweetest, smartest, shyest, kindest girl walks up to the new girl and asks her if she has anyone to sit with at lunch. New Girl says no. Sweet Girl says, "You can sit with me and my friends." New Girl smiles a big, genuine smile.

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During a pop quiz, one of my students drew a picture of a body-building hamster, and it was hilarious. On the back side of the paper, he drew a picture of me (I love when students do this, because I think their pictures are hilarious). In the picture, I have sweet bangs, a forked tongue, snot dripping onto said reptilian tongue, and something across my upper lip that could either be a mustache or pointy teeth. I hung it on my board and it makes me laugh every time I look at it.

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Our standardized testing is done! Now I just have to prepare for AP tests next week. After that? Smooth sailing until June 4.

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The past two days, my freshmen have been doing a trial reenactment of To Kill a Mockingbird. They've been surprisingly into acting out the characters. Some have fantastic southern drawls. I witnessed some shy students step into roles I didn't know them capable of playing. I saw them come out of their shells. Even my student with so much social anxiety he's rarely in class was talked into playing a pretty big role. It was really great to see.

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Also in regards to the trial, today, the attorney defending the plaintiff strutted over to the jury before class, put his foot up on a desk, and said, "Hey jury... so that guy over there? [He points] Totally guilty. Right? Guilty. Just remember. Guilty... Ice cream? With sprinkles, if you remember: guilty."

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It's a beautiful day and I have all three of my windows wide open.