Week two, day two- two changes. Today my program changed. Today my outlook and feelings on my ability to teach changed.
I had just learned all their names. I had just organized my grade book. I had begun to feel good about my lessons and my “teaching persona.� I had ideas on how to help Arron read and how best to handle Danny’s behavior in class. I felt as if I might really be successful with these students. Now they’re gone; I lost two of my favorite classes.
What’s worse, is that the classes I was given, don’t want me. The students don’t understand why they had to switch classes and are therefor very rambunctious and insubordinate.
“Miss, why do we got a new teacher. I like Mr. so and so.�
The kids are confused and angry, and it seems they take it out on me. It’s not a good situation for them nor is it for me. I had to call a Dean twice today. The first time, the student would not stop talking. He just simply would not listen to a word I said. After repeatedly asking the class as a whole to pay attention, and then asking individual students, I had to take action. Didn’t I?
The second time was maybe a bit more necessary. It was a double period, my last class of the day, and I was tired, cranky and on the verge of breaking down. I heard a bang and when I turned around two kids were hanging out the window attempting to get a bottle of whiteout that another student had thrown across the room. I had just closed the window. I had just asked them to sit down. I had instructed them at least five times to begin the assignment. What else could I do?
I don’t know if I did the right thing today. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know what to expect from the rest of the year. I don’t know if I love my job so much anymore.
How do you help students who refuse to do anything, students who ignore you when you speak to them? I have to let go of my yearning to get through to each student. I feel as if I’m fighting a battle for kids who don’t want to be fought for.
I feel empty and defeated.
11 Comments:
1 jesse
· Sep 21, 2005 at 3:30 pm
Good atricle. Keep in there, the kids will come back despite the administration. It’s like for Love of the Game, where Costner focuses out the crowd and just pitches. In this case it’s teaches.
2 Rocco
· Sep 21, 2005 at 4:12 pm
Hang in there, Bimsmile. I obviously don’t know why this is happening to you two weeks into the new year, but I can relate — and it speaks an awful lot about the way the DOE and administrators treat teachers, especially new ones. If they continue to treat you like a factory worker (that’s what Klein thinks we are; interchangable parts servicing nameless kids in 10-minute chunks of teaching and “deep learning” times) speak to your chapter leader. He or she might be able to help and certainly connect you with other brothers and sisters who can come alongside you as a support team. By the way, your experience unfortunately, is not unique. When I began as a licensed social studies teacher, the principal threw keys at me, gave me a classroom with no supplies, no textbooks and told me, “By the way. you are teaching special education. But they’re good kids.” They were and they still are. But I floundered and thought about quitting almost every afternoon for several months. So keep your head up. And don’t quit. You can make a difference.
3 firefly
· Sep 21, 2005 at 4:15 pm
Hang in there. The kids will eventually come around…they actually bounce back pretty quickly. The most important thing, I think, is to be honest with them. Let them know that this change of schedule was sad for you as well, but that there was and is nothing you can really do about it. Let them know that you’re trying to deal with the change and that you know it’s disappointing for them right now, but it’ll work out. Honesty is always the best policy with students…they will ultimately respect you for it.
Remember that many of our students have huge abandonment issues…this is why the exodus of teachers is so crushing for them. If you’re honest and patient you’ll see that in a week or two they’ll be on your side.
4 Abbey Lane
· Sep 21, 2005 at 4:52 pm
Kids can be terribly fickle, which means that a week from now they will be eating out of your hand. I had that happen to me too, and it sucks.
5 institutional memory
· Sep 21, 2005 at 5:04 pm
The advice from firefly (above) is exactly what I would tell you. Be honest with the kids, and remember that they’ve just lost their teacher … which actually is a greater loss for them then one might immediately recognize. For all their bravado, they’re not as secure as they’d like you to think they are.
Be patient, stay calm, keep your sense of humor, and don’t take their acting out personally. You’ll see later on that they greatly appreciate any adult who doesn’t try to bull**** them.
6 mvplab
· Sep 21, 2005 at 7:37 pm
I remember as a first-year English teacher, my principal said that I would be better suited to teach arts and crafts!
Huh! I never went to camp, so I didn’t know diddly squat about arts and crafts, decoupage, papier mache etc. I still don’t know much about. Someday I hope I learn something about it in a senior center.
Well there were no supplies, few materials and a lot of uneasy moments testing things at home.
Yet, some how I muddled through!
Keep us posted about your progress!
7 redhog
· Sep 22, 2005 at 5:20 am
This new teacher’s post spurs me to clue her in to perspectives of some of us who are approaching “the end of the line” and seeing “the light at the end of the tunnel.” one of doing this is walking her through some of the trendy vocabulary that has plagued us veterans and dance our way out the door.
As I am heating coffee in the microwave, I take this two-minute opportunity to spontaneously list as many educationese terms from the Lexicon of Pedagogical Blather as I can leisurely call to mind in 120 seconds. It’s only the tip of the glossary landfill. My last project before retirement shall be toe xplain each of the following in a clear, concise paragraph:
LIS/RIS/ISS; core curriculum, brainstroming, Regents Action Plan, rubrics, noticings, inventive spelling, “stretch it out” , ‘scaffolding”, TPR ( Total Physical Response), “architecture of mini-lessons”, “publishing celebrations”, “zoom in”( they’re from Lucy Calkins’s Nonsense Word Salad), Word Walls, accountable talk, story seeds, nurturing, Workshop Model, America’s Choice, Middle School Initiative, Ramp Up, Impact Aid, Aussie, Lizards, Whole Language Lora Decision, Jose P Decree, Ra-Ta-Ta, Balanced Literacy, No Child Left Behind, Children First, schema, artifact ( clue: not Mesopotamia), heterogeneous grouping, mainstreaming, I.E.P.,behavioral modification, rubber room, ALS, ATS,Cooperative Learning,Special Service, Congruence, Portfolio Assessments, School Based Management, Shared Decision Making, Holistic Evaluation, Affective/Cognitive Domain, Multiple Intelligence, Community Empowerment, Constructivist Classrooms, teacher domination, Chalk and Talk, chat and chew,Push In Program, Pull Out program,task- oriented learning,Compact for Learning, cultural literacy, Programmed Learning, reverse mainstreaming, Open Corridor Program, SAVE Law, magnet school, “parking lot”, parent engagement, Boutique Methodology, assertive discipline, discipline with dignity, cooperative discipline, thematic initiative, Pygmalion Effect, privatization and accountability, Community empowerment, Capacity Building and Inclusion, Maslow’s Hierarchy.
Where do I go to turn in my paper(s)?
8 a-realist
· Sep 22, 2005 at 9:10 am
Bimsmile,
I can certainly feel the frustration that
you are experiencing. Only today I, too, had a change. I am a veteran teacher who has worked in other areas of business before switching careers into teaching over 15 years ago. I do not have an ax to grind and I enjoy teaching. Soon afetr arriving on the scene as an outsider, it was quite obvious to me that it is difficult for teachers to “be all they can be.” But this system is very frustrating to many of us. I can easily increase my teaching efficiency by having my own room each day for all courses. There is no doubt that I cannot perform at peak levels due the classroom shortage we are all experiencing. Imagine a lawyer or accountant working out of nothing more than a briefcase each day. That briefcase must be carried with you all day and contain as much equipment, books, and papers that could be shoved within its bounderies. Don’t let the briefcase leave your sight, or risk having it disappear. Try walking around the school with overheads, video and audio equipment and so forth. Unfortunately, the higher level management are so removed from the front lines that they can’t see the forest from the trees. Teachers need not work harder. We don’t need to work extra time. We only need the opportunity to work smarter and can be more efficient as teachers on that basis alone.
9 firebrand
· Sep 22, 2005 at 6:57 pm
this is for myplab…amazing…and look where you are now. My first principal told me I’d never make it as a teacher anywhere, that I was a Mama’s girl, and a sniveling priviledged brat who was out of touch with what real NYC students were like (I taught in an alternative school with kids that to this day I can only refer to as being criminally insane).
Well I filed a number of grievances against her and her abusive treatment (too much to tell) and won every single one…and managed to get her FIRED.
I’m still teaching. It’s been 11 years.
10 steadyeddieg
· Sep 23, 2005 at 6:03 pm
Tell your supervisor to give demonstration lessons. Many pedagogues are not aware that you can make that request.
Get in contact with the parents and assert yourself.
Give tests and surprise ones too. Keep them on their toes. Start the tests off easy and make them more increasingly difficult. Making the “impossible” test at the beginning, and you will be sure to lose them.
I hope you are starting to talk about long-term projects.
You may want the class to keep a log of what’s happening in the class. Relate to math by having the students chart their progress.
Have a wonderful new year. Remember, if things start going down hill, June must come!!!!!!
11 NYC Educator
· Sep 24, 2005 at 9:08 am
Parental contact is key. I’m gonna refer you to a post of mine:
http://nyceducator.blogspot.com/2005/06/i-wish-someone-had-told-me.html
Ever since I started calling parents, I’ve had much better classes. This piece will tell you how to do it. Write me if you have any questions.