Seventh grade lives 3

Forget pedagogy, curriculum, lesson plans, learning theory, brain research and all that for a moment.  This teaching business is often just an emotional hurricane from the first bell in the morning to the last in the afternoon.  Take today for example:

Second period:  today was the last day at school for the boy who lost his mother over the weekend.  We spoke briefly of it in the class, and the boys were visibly affected by his misfortune.  I could see them trying to imagine how it would feel if it happened to them.  I continued to feel troubled by what this fragile boy was facing.

Advisory:  Today was the final game of our basketball tournament.  My class was playing Mr. Beach’s.  Emotions ran high at the game.  The other classes were cheering from the stands.  My students constantly wanted only the best players to play while I insisted on playing anyone who wanted to.  Everyone was very excited--it was wonderful!  We lost but the whole event was very positive for the 7th grade boys and for the five of us who have their advisory periods.  (Next up:  spelling bee!)

Sixth period:  The excitement of the game carried over into this period, always my most difficult.  Somehow one boy who is always pretty hyped up and volatile was pushed off the edge by something someone said.   Next thing I knew he was in a violent rage, trying to throw tables and chairs, screaming and sobbing.  I hustled him outside asked him to just stand still for a moment, get hold of himself,  and calm down.  He was shaking and sobbing, but he did slowly calm down.  Later he came back into the room and soon, in typical boy fashion, he was his usual rambunctious self.  But the display of raw emotion was awesome and hard to forget. 

Meanwhile the provocateur in this case continued to be the most willful, determined, and successful disruptors in all of my classes.  This boy doesn’t even try to control his acting out, but rather issues a steady stream of mockery, goofiness, and impudence.  Yelling doesn’t have more than a transitory effect, so I began ignoring him.  Unfortunately the rest of the class continued to find him hilarious. 

I ended up addressing myself to them rather than him.  “He just wants an audience,” I said, “and if you are his audience ask yourselves, what will he teach you?  Is it more than I can teach you?  It’s up to you to deny him his audience so we can get on with the job of learning and teaching.”  Maybe they heard that, maybe not.  I intend to repeat this argument at every opportunity.  We’ll see. 

The emotion I feel is anger at this boy for making my job so difficult, even while I keep in mind that he’s only 13 and must be deeply troubled to manifest this behavior.  This is a common dichotomy--they piss me off while they evoke my concern for their futures.  This is a basic teacher issue--we care deeply for them even when they infuriate us.  It's sort of like parents, but with scores of kids and only for school hours.  It's what makes teaching so energizing and so exhausting at the same time.

And so another day in the hurricane of emotions that makes up seventh grade lives.

Seventh grade lives 2

Yesterday I learned that the mother of one of my students died suddenly over the weekend of a brain aneurism.  She died on his birthday.  As a result he and his two older sisters must go live with their father about an hour away.  He will go to a new school. 

I can only imagine how traumatic this is for him.  He’s a shy, awkward, overweight boy, with a sweet personality and a gentle manner.  He has a sadness about him that suggests a difficult life.  He’s also a whiz at Yu-Gi-Oh, a fantasy card game with endless detail.  I asked the class to observe a moment of silence for his mother which they did very respectfully.  He told us a little more about her death (more than he has spoken to the class all year), and some boys asked a few questions. 

Of course this is a painful subject for the boys to think about, and their reaction is not surprisingly to change the subject and the mood abruptly.  My heart is heavy thinking of what this boy will face in the months and years to come.  I wish him the best.

Do I hear harps?

The spring semester began a couple of weeks ago and I was gifted with...girls!!  Yes, my fourth period elective is comprised of 25 sixth grade girls.  I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but it has been a real game changer. 

Now don’t get me wrong.  I like my boys with all their ebullience and insouciance (hey--I am an English teacher after all!).  Their energy and fearlessness is invigorating and inspiring.  But it’s also exhausting.  The girls are different.  They’re still just 12 of course, and they’re lively enough, but they are easier to guide and work with.  They take less energy to direct, and so I can put more energy into the actual instruction. 

Fourth period comes in the middle of my two days without a conference period, and the more relaxed atmosphere with the girls has given these days a new character.  I feel more confident in the boys’ English 7 classes on either side and less drained at the end of the day. 

The elective with the girls includes practice for the CST (California Standards Test) in May and also a project for Women’s History Month.  Our smooth movement into the project has made me think that I should be able to do this with the boys as well, notwithstanding the qualities mentioned above.  Of course I have been told by the teachers on the third floor that other kinds of problems arise with girls that are equally challenging, but so far it’s a welcome change of pace.  I would almost recommend that everyone get to teach one class in the other academy.

I’m still puzzled as to exactly how teaching girls is different.  Certainly the majority of boys are equally cooperative and agreeable.  At most a third or so of the boys fuel most of the resistance to order and progress.  I can also see that there are a few girls who are very lively and might need more managing.  I also see that, as with the boys, many of the girls have a lot of other things on their minds with a higher priority than standardized tests or even women in history. 

I can see right away the reality of one oft-cited distinction between most girls and most boys, namely that the girls move easily and eagerly into a collaborative mode.  In this class they immediately began to work together on their Women in History projects.  The boys have had a harder time working together.  Many groups don’t gel and never get focused. 

At the same time the boys really are more competitive. I’m trying to enlist that quality in their attitude towards their measured reading grade levels.  The intersection of collaboration and competitiveness is, of course, the team, and I’m trying to create that environment in class.

Anyway, it’s too soon to draw sweeping conclusions, and I don't want to over-generalize.  I’m sure I’ll comment more in the months to come. 

Until then, is that harps I hear fourth period?