Battle of Wills
At some points during my summer vacation, I would think to myself in a very tiny voice, “I should be doing something about classes next year . . .planning, reading, something.” And then I would just as quickly reply to myself with “dammit, it’s my vacation. I’m not doing anything until August.”
As it turns out, a summer spent doing nothing related to teaching was probably the best thing I could have done.
Many times in just the past five days I have found myself thinking “Why didn’t I do this last year?” or “Why couldn’t I see my students from this perspective last year?” I don’t think I could have until I spent a summer just letting go and letting my mind process what was unprocessable last year in a kind of subconscious Zen meditation.
I feel like a whole new teacher.
For example, today in my final class I spent 40 minutes in a battle of wills with a handful of students who did not want to move from their old assigned seats to their new assigned seats. I warned them on Friday that I would shuffle the seating chart. Some of them didn’t believe me. Some of them just wanted to complain about the heat (I have mentioned how hot it gets in my classroom, even with two box fans going, haven’t I?). Some of them wanted to test me.
The class went something like this: I would ask a student to move to a new seat, and he or she would either move or complain. I would ask again. And again. And again. I kept asking until the student moved. Some took 15 minutes to move. I watched the time drift away. I deflected complaints that I was unfairly punishing everyone. I held my ground, and kept asking, sometimes firmly, sometimes in a flat, matter-of-fact tone. But I didn’t back down. I didn’t explain why they had to move. They just had to move. (Thank you, Rick Smith, for that chapter about “Inner Authority”).
Amazingly enough, to me, is the fact that it wasn’t the chronic screw-ups, the kids way below grade level, who were giving me the most problems. It was the A and B students.
Actually, the final student to move wasn’t going to move. Ever. He kept writing, kept pretending that he couldn’t hear me. That was worse, for me, than going up against a student who would talk back. I knew this student had exploded in other classes last year. I didn’t want him to explode in mine. So I whipped out my cell phone, called his home, explained the situation, and put him on with his mother. “Earnest” moved after that. He walked right out of my classroom.
He didn’t sit where he was supposed to, but my point about the seating chart remained firm. To the students, my seating chart, and the fact that I insist on assigning one, seems completely arbitrary. To me, it’s a way to establish and reinforce my authority in the classroom. They don’t have to understand that logically. I think if I tried to explain it to them, they’d just rebel more. So I just insist. Stuff like this you can’t learn in teacher education classes. Experience is the only way to really understand how much this can work.
Once everyone was either sitting in their assigned seats or out of the classroom, I started putting notes on the board. We had five minutes to cover what I had taken 20 to cover in my other classes. Then we moved on to the partner assignment (30 minutes) then journaling for the last 20.
Last year, losing so much instructional time would have caused me great anxiety. I always resisted the idea that teachers teach children first, their subject second. As someone who went into teaching because of his love for English and in spite of his distaste for youngsters in general, the idea was abhorrent to me. I wanted to teach reading and writing, period.
I have moved on. My primary focus this year isn’t teaching English. It’s teaching behavior, and patience, and how to work with others. It’s teaching responsibility and accountability and organization. They can’t learn anything about language until they learn those skills. So this year, I can retain my equanimity when students resist my authority and want to waste class time, because I know that what I’m teaching them by being a firm educator is, in the long run, more valuable than the plot of Romeo and Juliet.
As it turns out, a summer spent doing nothing related to teaching was probably the best thing I could have done.
Many times in just the past five days I have found myself thinking “Why didn’t I do this last year?” or “Why couldn’t I see my students from this perspective last year?” I don’t think I could have until I spent a summer just letting go and letting my mind process what was unprocessable last year in a kind of subconscious Zen meditation.
I feel like a whole new teacher.
For example, today in my final class I spent 40 minutes in a battle of wills with a handful of students who did not want to move from their old assigned seats to their new assigned seats. I warned them on Friday that I would shuffle the seating chart. Some of them didn’t believe me. Some of them just wanted to complain about the heat (I have mentioned how hot it gets in my classroom, even with two box fans going, haven’t I?). Some of them wanted to test me.
The class went something like this: I would ask a student to move to a new seat, and he or she would either move or complain. I would ask again. And again. And again. I kept asking until the student moved. Some took 15 minutes to move. I watched the time drift away. I deflected complaints that I was unfairly punishing everyone. I held my ground, and kept asking, sometimes firmly, sometimes in a flat, matter-of-fact tone. But I didn’t back down. I didn’t explain why they had to move. They just had to move. (Thank you, Rick Smith, for that chapter about “Inner Authority”).
Amazingly enough, to me, is the fact that it wasn’t the chronic screw-ups, the kids way below grade level, who were giving me the most problems. It was the A and B students.
Actually, the final student to move wasn’t going to move. Ever. He kept writing, kept pretending that he couldn’t hear me. That was worse, for me, than going up against a student who would talk back. I knew this student had exploded in other classes last year. I didn’t want him to explode in mine. So I whipped out my cell phone, called his home, explained the situation, and put him on with his mother. “Earnest” moved after that. He walked right out of my classroom.
He didn’t sit where he was supposed to, but my point about the seating chart remained firm. To the students, my seating chart, and the fact that I insist on assigning one, seems completely arbitrary. To me, it’s a way to establish and reinforce my authority in the classroom. They don’t have to understand that logically. I think if I tried to explain it to them, they’d just rebel more. So I just insist. Stuff like this you can’t learn in teacher education classes. Experience is the only way to really understand how much this can work.
Once everyone was either sitting in their assigned seats or out of the classroom, I started putting notes on the board. We had five minutes to cover what I had taken 20 to cover in my other classes. Then we moved on to the partner assignment (30 minutes) then journaling for the last 20.
Last year, losing so much instructional time would have caused me great anxiety. I always resisted the idea that teachers teach children first, their subject second. As someone who went into teaching because of his love for English and in spite of his distaste for youngsters in general, the idea was abhorrent to me. I wanted to teach reading and writing, period.
I have moved on. My primary focus this year isn’t teaching English. It’s teaching behavior, and patience, and how to work with others. It’s teaching responsibility and accountability and organization. They can’t learn anything about language until they learn those skills. So this year, I can retain my equanimity when students resist my authority and want to waste class time, because I know that what I’m teaching them by being a firm educator is, in the long run, more valuable than the plot of Romeo and Juliet.
posted by Christopher at
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