Was this the week that was, or what was it anyway?

Friday about 4 pm:  Whew!  Where to start?  This was another hyper-intense week for me at the Young Oak Kim Academy.  I am searching for an adequate metaphor.  Here are some of the possibilities:

• Roller coaster ride
• Train wreck
• Hercules’ fight with Antaeus
• Walking fast through chest-high water

(I reserve the right to use any of these and more in future accounts of my teaching experience.)

Last weekend of course was the NASSPE conference in  Las Vegas.  I came home intellectually stimulated—somewhat oppositionally to the nostalgie de la boue (I can’t get this vivid phrase out of my mind!) of the keynote speech by the founder and director of the organization—but also positively energized by the great teachers who led the workshops.

So I am feeling pretty positive on Monday, if a bit fatigued from all of the driving.  (Remember that Monday and Thursday are my easy days with a conference period.)  Well, Monday is a long, excruciating train wreck.  That is the phrase that comes to mind at the end of the day.  I feel like I have collided with the speeding freight train of male adolescence. SMASH! CRASH! BOOM!  There go my discussion points, reading selections, key terms, flying off into the air.  I am devastated and crawl home to lick my wounds.

Tuesday is a bit better.  The periods are shorter and end at lunch.  I get through my reduced plan and meet with the other English teachers for the afternoon.  During this meeting I learn that:

• Everyone has a hard time getting through the curriculum;
• Ms Turner (8th grade girls English) has a beautiful room filled with books and posters and objets d’art!
• I’d better get ready for the district “periodic assessment” by checking out the sample questions at the district website;
• I have 4 weeks to finish the unit on narrative because expository has to start in November;
• Grades have to be entered online by 6 pm Wednesday;
• I really like Ms Turner’s room!
• The MEN’S room on the 3rd floor (Girls Academy) has a floral print on the wall and a little table with a vase of flowers and a newspaper, in stark contrast to the men’s room on the Boys Academy floor.
• Girls are not actually perfect in class, but they are probably easier to manage than boys (maybe only because they’re more mature).

Unfortunately I am way behind in getting my grades done, so I stay at school until 9 pm (am I crazy or what?!) checking journals, adding points, etc.

On to Wednesday!

Not too bad.  Solid teaching 830-330 with 30 min lunch.  Today I feel like Hercules wrestling Antaeus…If I can just lift him off the ground I can subdue him.  Through constant effort, prowling around the room, cajoling and admonishing and threatening, I make it through the lessons.  Hurray!

Unfortunately I stay until 6 pm entering grades, but still don’t finish and discover that I can take until 6 pm on Thursday to finish them.

Thursday…a day with a conference period…I work feverishly on grades…classes go OK, although first period is a wild group.  Most of them had a full hour of detention the day before with our math teacher Ms. Huang, so they were a little chastened, but not much.  Again I stay until 6 pm entering grades, caroming between vengeance and encouragement, feeling alternately punitive and indulgent.  (I remember this grading ambivalence vividly from my Crenshaw days.)

I am increasingly struck by the significant number of students who are reasonable, willing to work, and eager to discuss the issues of the lesson.  I am searching for ways to respond to these students and let them drive the agenda rather than the others—the noisy ones. 

I am beginning to wonder if all the talk about how boys behave in class might be defined by this minority of vocal, active, sometimes disruptive boys, while an even larger group of boys have much more moderate personalities that don’t require special techniques.  The vocal boys are often very bright and interesting, but they can make it difficult in class because of their lack of self-control.  I’ll have to think more about this.

And now Friday (the perfect storm, remember?).  Second period is pretty good—we just about get through the selection from Bone Black by bell hooks.  Then fourth period (speech elective) is convulsed by a series of irruptive incidents that hurl everyone off into hyper-excitement.  They barely finish their speeches about elementary school teachers.  The principal even comes in because of one of the incidents—the students are silent in his presence of course. 

In advisory we discuss prejudice in all its forms.  Not a bad discussion really, but lots of shushing in between comments.  Then 6th brings another maelstrom of random activity. (Remember Brownian motion from chemistry class?  That’s how I visualize these classes sometimes.)  Sixth period is small, only about 25 students, but many have very low literacy skills and very short attention spans, even by the modest standards of 12 year old boys.

Sixth also has the admirable student who is in a wheel chair and doesn’t speak or write, but understands everything and composes assignments using a cumbersome mechanism that allows him to choose letters and words with movements of his head.  He has a full time aide.  I often marvel at how hard he works to accomplish the simplest assignments.

Sixth period doesn’t go well at all, and I realize I have to reassess my approach to this group.

And…at last…3:24 pm!  Chairs up on the tables, most paper picked up, ciao ragazzi! 

Whew! 

But really nothing is finished.  I get a weekend to rest and recuperate, but I still have to push faster with the narrative unit, get them onto the computers, straighten up and decorate my room (which like every other space in my life--car, house, yard, garage, cubicle, office, etc.--is cluttering up) and think about what I can do that’s even more engaging and motivational.  I’m even more exhausted just thinking about it. 

So, am I making progress?  This week didn’t feel like progress.  I didn’t feel at all successful this week.  The challenge of managing their behavior sufficiently to conduct interesting, productive lessons is still daunting.  I can think of lots of authentic educational activities, but I am often brought up short at the prospect of managing the students during these activities.  I console myself by thinking that after all I am at 62 more like a new teacher, and of course I don’t know it all and have to learn on the job.  So I will of course push forward on Monday with renewed energy, enhanced by enjoying “Le Nozze di Figaro” on Sunday at the L.A. Opera.

Tonight when I leave school I think I will walk up Vermont to eat at one of the Bangladeshi restaurants in the neighborhood.  There is a growing Bangladeshi community in the area, and I have a dozen or so Bangladeshi students who suggested some places to eat good Bangladeshi food.  Then I will tell my classes about it.  We have a little problem with some anti-Moslem name-calling (terrorist, etc.) so I need to bring it up in advisory.  I hope you enjoyed reading about my week.