Supermoon, no sugar or alcohol, a few short days until break, and now.... SNOW! But not enough snow to get out early or have a snow day. (See photographic evidence.) No, just enough snow to make my high school students behave even more like second graders. Have you ever herded cats? Me neither, but I imagine the experience is akin to my teaching job today. I have a lovely wall of windows in the back of my classroom, the perfect place to view the softly falling snow. And after today, that lovely window is covered with approximately 56 nose prints where fifteen and sixteen-year-olds gazed at the flakes as if they were seeing them with virgin eyes. "Mrs. Witt, do you think we'll get out early?" "No, get your book out." "Mrs. Witt, I heard they already had the buses lined up." "No, get your book out." "Mrs. Witt, look at the radar." "No, get your book out." Repeat. Ad nauseam. At one point I exclaimed, "If you recently moved here from Hawaii, I will allow you a moment to be excited over the seventeen flakes in the air. But the rest of you live in Iowa, and it's November. This isn't new. Now settle in and get to work." You can imagine how effective that was. So, Miss Honey's vacation has been extended until Monday at least.
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Maybe it's because we're all in desperate need of a break. Maybe it's because I haven't had any added sugar or alcohol for more than 30 days. Maybe it's the supermoon. I've just been out of sorts a bit this week, and today I finally got a fed up with caring more than my students do. Remember the book Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard and James Marshall? I have an alter ego, too. She showed up today, but not in the form of a substitute. During my first years of teaching in Missouri, a student gave me the nickname Miss Honey because I was so sweet. I'm not making this up. And the fact is, I rarely lose my cool in the classroom. This isn't a humble brag like you might say in a job interview, though. I openly tell my students that I rarely get angry, and they will hardly ever hear me raise my voice. I just don't think it's worth the spike in blood pressure. This can be a weakness, though. I'm too nice. I get too lenient with deadlines. I'm reflective to a fault. If students aren't doing their work, I overanalyze until somehow I've decided it's my fault (sometimes, yes, it is, but not all the time) and then readjust lesson plans and schedules. Today, however, Miss Honey lost her cool. It started 2nd hour. Every day for the entire year we've done the same thing when the bell rings in English 2. We settle into our seats with independent reading books and read for ten minutes. This is routine, but for nearly every single day this year, I've had to provide the same boy with a gentle reminder. That's usually all it takes, but this week he, too, has been out of sorts because of some drama in his first hour class. Today when he was whining and avoiding his book at the beginning of class, I sternly said, "I've had enough of your whining this week. Either pick up your book and read or head to the office. I'm done." He chose the book with a side of heavy sighing. Then fifth hour rolled along. Four students were scheduled to give informative presentations on a dream destination. We've worked on the project for nearly two weeks, and they've known since Monday that their day was today. Three of the four informed me at the beginning of class that they weren't prepared. I sighed heavily and reminded them that their grade would be reduced as we discussed at the beginning of the year. Then I walked down the hall to quickly commiserate with another teacher. "Make them give it," she said. So I did. I walked back down to my room, told the prepared student to get ready to present, and told the other three to march across the hall to the media center and do some last-minute preparations. They would present after lunch. And they did after much heavy sighing of their own. I'm guessing a few of my students in other classes had choice words to describe me today, too. Several of my English 2 and American Novel students have not been doing their assigned readings in Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird. I've seen them waste provided class time, and I've read their responses that sound shockingly like Sparknotes. So today I gave a quick reading "quiz." I printed out the Sparknotes summaries for the chapters they had several days to read, and then asked them to point out at least three inaccuracies or missing details in the chapter. I saw lots of nervous glances and read several hilarious answers. After the "quiz" we talked about what they miss when they rely only on online summaries. It probably wasn't a lasting lesson, but for today, I felt some satisfaction. I'm sure the teaching gurus who write the books with the perfect strategies and ideal classes would not be pleased with my methods today. I apologize to Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher and the other mentor teachers that I try to emulate. Today was not my best day. Miss Honey will TRY to return tomorrow, but if she can't, she will surely be back after Thanksgiving. When I was 22 and getting ready to graduate from college, I faced the first of many existential crises. I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I was nearing graduation. I had thrown together a religion major with a French minor, but I had no plans to use either. It became a year of escapism. Like Walter Mitty I daydreamed of grand adventures and a lifetime of meaning. I escaped to a world of possibility: I could be a oncology nurse or a civil rights lawyer or a life-changing social worker. But still the clock ticked closer to graduation. I watched my peers who were so much more together than I was. They had life plans and goals; they wore power suits for real-life job interviews. I had an impeccable transcript and a useless major; I wore thrift store t-shirts and a necklace made from a cut-up red handkerchief. Like that senior year at Wartburg, I face a new existential crisis now, the mid-life sort where I question choices and contemplate regrets and what-ifs. I keep a folder in my filing cabinet labeled “Encouragement.” Inside I tuck in notes and reflections from former students. I store thoughtful thank you cards received after graduation and self-assessments that help me remember my WHY. I pulled out that folder this week, and several phrases from my early years as a teacher struck me. Students described me as “fun and exciting,” mentioning my “spontaneous personality.” One girl reflected at the end of the semester, “I love how you love your job” and another wrote, “I always left the classroom happy. You even lift me up and say more nice things than I hear from my parents.” I don’t share those things as a shameless brag. I share those things because they were all written nearly ten years. I’m not sure anyone today would describe me as spontaneous. Sure, I still get the occasional note from a student, but I honestly don’t feel like I’m making the impact I once was. So of course that causes me to reflect. Maybe a bit too much. Is the change because of me? I’m now a working mom. I don’t have the energy or stamina in the classroom that I once had. I no longer stay until 6:00 and volunteer to take on extra responsibilities that help to build relationships with students. I’m also no longer young. When I first started teaching, the age gap between my students and me wasn’t very noticeable, and now just eleven years later, I’m old enough to be their mother. I’ve traded my thrift store t-shirts for diamond studs and sensible flats. (As a matter of fact, just this week I was asked if I was a grandma. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider my stance on plastic surgery.) Is the change because of my students and our society? When I first entered this profession, we had to sign up for times to work in the computer lab, and students were texting on old flip phones. Students still passed real notes, for heaven’s sake. Now I work in a 1:1 district where every student carries a computer in his hands and one in her pockets. Snapchat and YouTube seem much more entertaining than a writing project for English class, and rather than spending spare time reading books, my students are perfecting their bottle flips. I’m not sure what the answer is. Maybe it’s a combination of both changes in me and changes in our culture. Or maybe I’m just tired because we decorated doors for homecoming and I’m procrastinating responding to students’ Article of the Week reflections. I just know that I find myself sitting here at my desk, wondering if I’ve lost my mojo, and perhaps more importantly, if it’s time to go look for it. Nov. 10: Being grateful for humor - share a story about a time in career where humor played a part. Because I'm on a poetry kick, I'll share two comical moments from a poetry unit during my first year of teaching. The first part of the story happened during a poetry scavenger hunt with my English 2 class. The night before we began the scavenger hunt, I painstakingly hunted through our mediocre town library for the right combination of poetry books to add to those I had already chased down in the school library. I wanted a wide range of topics and authors so there was something to appeal to all of the students. They would get to read through pages and pages of poems with the ultimate goal of finding examples of figurative language that they would then analyze. In theory, it was a great idea. The day of the scavenger hunt, my students eagerly fought over the books I had scattered throughout the room. I was bent over a desk helping a student analyze an example when I heard Liz quietly reciting a poem out of the book at her desk. “’Have You Ever Faked an Orgasm?’ by Molly Peacock,” she read. “Liz, don’t read that out loud,” I exclaimed. “Where did you get that book?” “When you get nervous, it's so hard not to./ When you're expected to come in something/ other than your ordinary way, to/ take pleasure in the new way, lost, not knowing,” Liz continued to read, her voice growing louder as the crowd around her desk grew too. I knew I had to stop this. How could I find another job in a different district after I was fired for this? How would I handle the parent phone calls? Was my home number unlisted? Did I even know what “orgasm” meant when I was 15? “Liz! I-I said stop r-reading that. I-I obviously didn’t mean for that b-book to be in here." I rushed to her desk, spurting and stammering all the way. I felt like Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire. The distance to Liz’s desk was so short, but it felt like it took an eternity to get there as everything around me happened in slow motion. The soundtrack to this movie would be less inspiring, though. In my mind, I heard the theme to Jaws. I finally reached Liz’s desk and pulled the book out of her hand. I turned to the cover, expecting to read 101 Sex Poems, but instead it said The Best of the Best American Poems. “I’m so going to the library to get that book after she takes it back,” Liz whispered to Sydni. I smiled to myself, thinking, “At least they’re getting into poetry.” Fast forward a few days to the day of my first ever administrator observation. I had planned The Best Lesson Ever full of great technological tools, fabulous handouts, and student involvement galore. Professional and prepared, I was nervous, yes, but I was ready. Wrapping up our study of sound devices, my students had created “Beautiful Word” poems in which they focused on the sounds of words. Their assignment the night before had been to write a nonsense poem using words that they believed had a beautiful sound. In this poem they were also to incorporate at least three different sound devices. The class started out just like any other day. I did my typical read-aloud at the beginning of the class. We were just getting into the good part of Speak, and the students listened intently as I read. I should have known it was too good to be true. It was soon time to share the “Beautiful Words” poems. Because the principal was in the room, I really didn’t think anyone would volunteer to share. Just in case, though, I gave the opportunity. Liz’s hand shot up. “Okay, Liz, go ahead,” I said, smiling at Mr. Cruzan. I obviously must be a good teacher if my students are so eager to share poetry with one another. What a welcoming learning environment I had created! Liz cleared her throat, smiled at her classmates, and began to read. I immediately had flashbacks of the orgasm poem as I caught the glint in her eye. Oh no! What had I done!? I don’t remember much of Liz’s poem, except that she repeated the word “Chlamydia” a few times. To her credit, it really is a beautiful word. I always thought it should be the name of an exotic flower, not a sexually transmitted disease, but alas, our principal probably did not think “Chlamydia” was a beautiful word. “Thank you for sharing, Liz. You made some bold, interesting choices there,” I mumbled as Liz went back to her seat. I nervously glanced back at Mr. Cruzan to see him furiously writing notes in the back of the room. I’m fairly certain he was blushing, too. I made a mental note to call the union and start updating my resumé after class. |
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