"Busy"

Okay, so I haven't blogged since before Obama was elected President. I really want to make up an excuse. Got lost at the Super Bowl - sounds kinda boring, besides, only rich people who don't really like football go to the Super Bowl. Perhaps I fell into the dwarven kingdom and was put on an express to an ogre bank where humans are treated and traded as currency. Er, sounds a little too Harry Potterish. Lazy? Um, no scratch that. Forgetfu...wait. "Busy". That's right. I like that word. It can mean so much, and yet, it can mean nothing at all. Side note: I saw on my brother's facebook of all places the other day that "ain't nobody = somebody". If you think about it, I guess that's right.

Seriously though, I spent the Spring semester doing my student teaching for CSU. I was placed at Poudre High School (was strange at first because I went to Rocky a lifetime ago - lucky for those Impalas, I never really had Lobo pride to begin with) and inherited 3 World Literature classes to teach. I'll be honest, at first, I was not enthusiastic about teaching a bunch of 10th graders. I wanted seniors, or at the very least, juniors...just not sophomores. I had the perception that they were kind of like a nasty piece of gum that sticks to the bottom of your shoe - annoying, germ-ridden, and clingy. Kind of like the kid, Timmy, from Jurassic Park - anybody remember him? Put simply: In the end, my perception couldn't have been more wrong.

Of my 3 classes, I got a good mix. I would soon deem my 6th hour class "remedial English" (to friends and family) after the first couple of weeks due to the grotesque amount of testosterone, ankle monitors, court orders, swear words, and damaged brain cells present in the class room. Not everyone in the class was like that though - I had a couple of students who helped me keep my sanity. My 8th hour were a group of angels in comparison. They were never rude or obscene, they loved to chime in and participate, and they all had glowing personalities that I will never forget. My 3rd hour class was between the two, a good medium of everything. You had your trouble-causers, but there were also those eager to learn as well.

When I first began teaching, I knew that I had to "win them over" - I NEEDED students to know that I was cool (er, not like the other teachers they had in a good way). I NEEDED them to know that we had a common ground that related my teaching with their individual lives and the things that they REALLY cared about. I think back to all of the silly (how kind of me to use that adjective lol) education classes I took prior to student teaching, and one of the pillars of teaching knowledge they try to force you to build a foundation of technique and style upon is: 'never develop personal relationships with students'. This stems from society's unfortunate fear of teachers sleeping with students which in a media-crazed age has come to the forefront more than ever. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but we are kind of seeing a Red Scare effect in the world of education because of it. Teachers are unfairly judged by student's parents, administrators, and the public in general in regard to the student-teacher relationship. It's to the point where they (the universities / education departments and programs) are trying to train future teachers how to give generic feedback / compliments in grading. Really? 'Good job Jimmy!' 'Really loved your essay Sarah!' Etc. The reasoning? To quote a seminar instructor I once had at CSU: 'If you give individualized feedback, a student could read it the wrong way and you could have a potential lawsuit on your hands.' Sad. "The Red Scare of Education" in action. Back to my student teaching, I threw this advice and training out the window. I thought back to my high school years and what I really remembered. I remembered Mr. Speer, I remembered Mr. Ballain, Ms. Tappendorf, Mr. Michowski, Mrs. Serrano, Ms. Carpenter...I'm sure I learned stuff - material, but the specific things I remembered were the mentors, the teachers who made a difference in my life. Was I at Poudre to teach material? Sure, but I was there to be a role model first. I was there to be a mentor because kids these days don't have enough good ones if any at all (coincidentally my graduate thesis is on this very subject ;p). So how was I going to do this? Develop individualized relationships with the students. Build trust and respect. Then teach. Even my 6th hour class whom my match-up teacher (that had given me his classroom) was at a loss at how to get them to respond to anything. 75% of 6th hour had 'F's when I took over. Only one student had above a 'D'. By the time I finished my student teaching roughly 25% of the class had an 'F' or a 'D', and this wasn't because I gave out "freebies" or were easier on their grading; on the contrary I was admittedly tougher on them grading-wise compared to my 3rd and 8th hour classes. They responded to my teaching because they respected me as a human being and I respected them back. At the end of the year, I had an assignment where students were to write a good-bye letter to me and tell me what they liked the best about my class and what kind of suggestions they had for improvement in my teaching for future students. 1 of 96 students gave constructive criticism regarding what I should do differently (don't rock back and forth when listening to students speak). The rest said 'don't change anything, you're my favorite teacher' or some variation thereof. I don't say this to toot my own horn as much as I say it as criticism on the way the current education system is structured and the way in which education training is being taught to future teachers. Teachers are being trained to be more-or-less drones that vomit up information from textbooks than anything else. We should be encouraging students to be free-thinkers instead of memorizing zombies. We need to show them that it is okay to be who you want to be, not what society and cliques and education says you should be. We - teachers - need to learn how to be role models and mentors ourselves because that is what the students of tomorrow need more than anything else. I went back to visit my classes a few weeks after student teaching was over (at the end of their school year) and at the end of the day, my match-up teacher took me aside and said: 'they love you, man. I don't know what you did or how you did it, but they love you.' Simple. Show them that you do care about them on an individual level. Be genuine. Give them respect. Smile. Celebrate them. One of my tougher students in 6th hour (been to jail multiple times, and has major problems with male authority) wrote the following verbatim for the good-bye letter assignment (he wanted me to keep it and this is only the end part of it): 'I wish I could have known you a long time ago. You're the only teacher that tells me I have good style when I use the word 'fuck' in my writing. I wish you weren't going because this class is going to be really boring without you. I don't even know if I will come anymore. Thank you for being so cool. You're the only person that has ever made me believe in myself.' He had a 43% in the class when I began teaching. I told him to stick it out for the last three weeks after I was gone. He showed up every day and ended the year with an 85.4%. The last sentence for the assignment, he says PERSON, not teacher. Students need role models.