The Parent Trap

Wednesday night was our (rescheduled) Back to School Night, so I thought I’d use this post to address the topic of parents. Before I launch in, let it be known that I actually like parents a lot (and not just my own…those of my students, too!). I love meeting parents because it provides such interesting insight into the student, his/her home life, and it just helps me to keep things in perspective by working to understand a kid from the various angles of his/her life.

In this same vein, I ran into a student and his mom in the Pittsburgh airport the other day, coming back from a wedding. This also happened to be a mother with whom I had spent some time chaperoning a dance last year; I am certain her son would melt into a puddle of humiliation if he knew half of what she told me about their family, his struggles, her history, etc. Even now, nearly a year after I taught her son (he was moved out of my class mid-year into a special program), she seemed to seek out some support from me. She caught me in the bathroom and we hovered near the sinks, I providing her with some validation that, no, her son is not the only kid who struggles with getting homework done and, no, her son is not the only kid at the school smoking pot. (Again, absolute puddle). I don’t mind these kinds of interactions with parents, though. We know we both want what’s best for the kid; we know it’s not easy to figure that out; we rely on each other for reassurance in some ways.

Now…I happen to teach in a district with very heavy parent involvement. Which we all know is great on some level, and certainly more desirable than a population of parents who couldn’t care less about their children’s education. When I say, though, that they are heavily involved, what it really means is that their main (sole?) concern is their child’s transcript. Not her mental health, or her emotional well-being; not whether she is inspired or engaged or–of all things–learning–, but what a college (preferably, Harvard or Princeton) will see on her transcript. Will it be a delightful mountain range of As? Will it be AP courses galore? Classes with the prestigious word “Honors” embellishing their titles?

It’s enough to make any well-intentioned teacher with a solid set of priorities want to scream.

This week…

I really thought by this point–late September–I’d be using this blog to dig into the pedagogical and political issues that I face on a daily basis, really hashing out what makes a classroom work, what makes kids think, what makes a faculty function well… This week threw a little wrench into my plans, but that’s not to say that there weren’t some great moments of insight. It just means that they were interspersed with some moments of…well, fear. Something I don’t normally feel at school. So, I’d like to use this entry just to sort things out. Here are some things that happened–and some things that didn’t happen–this week:

It’s a Bit Much…

So, if I were to write a piece of fiction, set in a small town high school, and integrate such plot points as “girl commits suicide on the first day of her senior year” and “boy threatens school with gun violence” all within the first month of the school year, you would probably skeptically  raise an eyebrow and say something like, “Really? Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” And you’d be right. It is a bit much.

Alas, this is not a piece of fiction. This is a blog about my real life experiences and I’m certainly not the first to note that the truth can be stranger than fiction.

Six Best Things About the First Week…and One Terribly Sad Thing

It’s hard to believe it was only a week ago yesterday that I welcomed 100 new students to my classroom (okay classrooms…only in my wildest fantasies do I have one classroom). That first week always feels a little eternal, if only because by the end of it, you have 100 new names filed away in the ever-expanding “Name” file of your brain and because the drama, bureaucracy, and overall craziness of a school allows SO much to happen that you feel like it couldn’t possibly have ALL happened in the space of one week. In many ways, though, it’s been a great first week, so here are the six best things about this past week:

Writing for Real

Many of my teaching colleagues are married to other teachers. Not surprising, of course. Awesome vacation opportunities, someone who TRULY understands why you come home so upset when you’ve had an altercation with a kid, and romantic late nights grading papers side by side in bed. Yes, there’s a certain charm to the idea. Of course, we all know you can’t control with whom you fall in love, however, and I’ve ended up with a business guy (hitherto known as BG). Unexpectedly, though, I’ve learned more from him about teaching than I probably could have learned from a fellow teacher (and maybe I’ve taught him a few things, too…).

We find more points of intersection between our vastly different jobs than one might expect. He does strategic planning for corporate real estate and part of his role is management, a role that is not so far removed from a teacher’s role in the classroom. He has the knowledge and skills from his years of experience; he must foster the development of that knowledge and those skills in his newer colleagues. Learning styles, disabilities, and downright know-it-all-ness don’t go away when people enter the workforce, turns out, and a good manager needs to have a certain teacherly capacity for dealing with these elements.

Of art, and trees, and lessons about life – The Boston Globe

This article is not only a beautiful little meditation, but also a prime example of the kind of lasting influence a teacher can have (in the not-so-good way)… It is not an English teacher’s job to separate the “good” literature from the “bad,” but rather to to help students understand why a piece of literature is beloved (whether it’s The Great Gatsby or, well, Twilight), which is because it whisks the reader away into its own created world, while at the same time providing a point of connection, something to relate to. The more we can foster those connections in our classroom (and allow them in whatever form they come), the more thoughtful readers and writers we will nurture.

Of art, and trees, and lessons about life – The Boston Globe

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Scaffolding: Lessons from Yoga Class

As I hung my head in a seemingly endless downward dog at yoga this morning, I tilted it from side to side and noticed the inverted individuals around me. Typically I go to a “basics” class, which attracts people of all levels, experience, and body types. To my right was a svelte and flexible 20-year-old, to my left a guy with that ex-football player muscle-turned-flab look who wiggled and wobbled with each pose. In front of me, a middle aged man with a bad knee adjusted his poses accordingly and, in back, a spry but fragile-looking elderly woman rested into child’s pose often.

How does a yoga instructor teach a class with such a variety of learners, such an array of body types, so many levels of ability and talent….oh. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Moreover, how does she do it in such a way that everyone can follow the class, stay interested, and leave feeling accomplished, having learned something tangible? She does it in the same way that any teacher would approach a class of mixed ability levels: scaffolding.

Experiential Learning

Summer has finally found its way to New England, but I’m not spending my days sunning myself on the deck, taking mid-afternoon naps with my cat, or watching the Food Network…okay, maybe I’m doing a little bit of each of those things, but I’m also working hard. I’m developing a curriculum for the summer camp program in which I’ll be teaching, which begins next week (gulp).

Six Things I’ll Do Differently Next Year

One habit I just can’t seem to latch onto is taking a moment after each lesson to jot down some notes about what worked well, what didn’t, what needs to be tweaked, and what I will never, ever do again. Sure, some things will stick in my memory, but most likely next year, as I sort frantically through my “Gatsby” folder on Sunday night, clutching at whatever looks like it’ll get me through first period on Monday, will I remember that the directions on that character sketch activity led to 10 minutes of confusion before the activity even began? Probably not. I imagine this habit will form with time (along with other elusive habits like organized file-keeping and efficient paper-grading), but in the meantime, I thought that on this first day of July, with the summer like a long, amnesia-inducing stretch before next fall, I would identify the six things I’ll definitely do differently next year…