Day Four: Proceed
Here's how you can tell if you and your class are clicking, all you new teachers out there. There are five things to look for:
1. There are suddenly inside jokes. On Thursday, one of my students fooled me into thinking there was someone in the classroom that really wasn't there. I was working on giving her a small push into continuing to work (on systems of linear equations, my favorite subject), and she shouted, "Yo, I didn't even see you there, Miss!"
Yeah, there was no Miss there. There was nobody there. And suddenly, the proverbial egg was on my face. "Broke your neck, Mister." The rest of the class while I looked at them incredulously. "What?"
"You know, I broke your neck."
Still clueless.
Student rolls her eyes. "Ugh, you are so old, Mister. That means I got you to look."
"I would have said 'made you look'".
"It's 2017, Mister, not whatever-year-you-were-a-kid-last."
It was seriously really funny.
Broke your neck became one of our inside jokes, a turn of phrase universally accepted by the group as an ounce of hilarious humor. Inside jokes come out during those times when tension is high, or when conversation is dragging, or when people are getting discouraged. They keep a group together when the going gets rough, and if your classes have gelled, an inside joke will surface in no time.
2. Your class knows when to get serious. Thursday was a stressful day on many levels. Not only did the kids know that the content was starting to get hard, but they also knew that the class was coming to an end. Kids act differently when something comes to an end. All the grousing and complaining and resistance starts to give way to a loopiness, a manic chaos that perfectly expresses the denial that things are about to end.
I had tons of these moments on Thursday, when kids would not stop talking and goofing around. We've been in these classes before, and we've been these people ourselves: sometimes our impulses for joking around just get the better of us. You have to get a little tough during those moments: lower your gaze, strengthen your tone, even tell a kid to step out if you have to have that conversation outside. If your class doesn't let up, they don't think you're serious, and you've got problems. If they respond by letting down the jokes and continuing to work, it means they know they've overstepped a boundary.
I've found this is easy to do without being over the top. A little of that look or that tone or that mannerism, very little, is enough to do the trick if your class is clicking.
3. Your kids want to talk to you about things not pertaining at all to the class in a way that is serious and substantive. "Mister, is hell a swear word?"
"Um...well, I suppose that depends on the context. Why?"
"Well, because we say things like 'what the hell' and 'go to hell' and 'this is hell' all the time, but we also talk about hell in books and religion and other things. So, is it a swear word or not?"
We discuss this for a time, and come to the conclusion that it's a swear when you're saying it for effect, to get a rise out of people. Saying "what the hell" is a swear, but saying that the worst class ever feels like hell is not.
I didn't hear the exclamation "what the hell" or "oh shit" or "god dammit" again for the rest of the week. I had been warning them about their language for three days.
Another example of this sort of discussion was about the schedule changes that their school had gone through in order to help improve MCAS scores. Their first impulse was to say that they absolutely hated it, and they didn't understand why all those changes had to be made, especially at the expense of being able to take electives.
I asked them if they had taken their concerns to their school leaders and they quickly shot back that school leaders don't listen. What followed was a discussion about my experience with this very same feeling. Students often feel helpless in schools, I think, like the decisions adults make are largely over them and done without any form of input. I actually tend to think that the leaders in the school really want to hear what kids have to say, but that kids don't have the awareness or the coaching or the adult allies to get their voices heard in the way they should be heard.
I told my kids about how students have worked on changing this trend in the past, and what they could do to lobby their own school leaders to change things. I also let them know that the schedule changes did likely have a reason, as do almost all decisions school leaders make.
It was one of the most candid discussions we had that day, and it had nothing to do with math at all. It was also probably the most important one we had.
4. They give you a healthy amount of grief. This is directly related to item 1. Kids are constantly testing your boundaries. In the beginning of any class, they are trying to see what things will get to you. Kids test boundaries, feel out reactions, and find out what they can get away with. It's important to hold those boundaries firm.
In the middle of a proceeding class, though, boundaries lighten. Once a class gets into an equilibrium, where the kids know how to work and what is expected of them, things get a little loose. And they get loose in a way that still honors number 2, and usually breaking with the schedule of work looks an awful lot like number 4, but kids still find an occasion to give adults grief on the terms that are dictated to be safe.
One student in my class would say "bless" every time I would do something fun or make a mistake on the board or trip over my words. Another student would mumble or complain under her breath about how the work was too hard or unfair or impossible, and when I'd shoot her a look, she'd wave her hand and say, "proceed, Mister," as though she was telling me to "shoo!" Another student asked me how much I get paid to torture kids, because I'm clearly good at it.
"Not enough," I say.
5. They show up early. I'm not talking about showing up two or three minutes earlier, either. I'm talking about ten minutes or more. When kids feel like being in your room or your class is safe, they want to be there all the time, or as often as they can.
On Thursday, my class showed up a full fifteen minutes before the bell. They did not start working, mind you. No kid really wants to get started on the work that early. But they did sit, settle into their seats, eat the breakfast that the school had served, and talked. It was a good vibe. They would discuss life in the school and how many friends they knew in common, or where how it was that they came to know one another in the first place.
Classes become communities when they're allowed to form, and they only form when kids and teachers alike feel safe to be themselves. This class was becoming a community. While there were only five students, they were getting to know each other well.
The benefit of this from a standpoint of academics is that you also get to know them really well, and it gives you a good relationship upon which to base the work. If you know a kid's particular strengths and struggles, ticks and triumphs, insecurities and confidences, you know what to avoid and what not to. Knowing even the tiniest amount about how kids behave or what their mannerisms or home life or attitudes are like can make a huge difference in how receptive they are to your teaching.
It goes much further than that, though. In classes, kids love to help each other, and when they are known well by the whole class, a sense of camaraderie and of common achievement is much easier to develop. I can't count the number of classes I've seen that had no camaraderie, no desire to help each other get to the main goal every day. This sort of cohesion has the added benefit of helping learning for the classes as a whole, because it's an exercise in deep learning to be able to teach someone else. But without a sense of knowing and belonging and safety, this growth doesn't happen.
It is the primary responsibility of a teacher to shield this ground. Classes must become communities if they are going to work well. Sure, true communities have imperfections. Not every student is engaged in the work all the time. Not everything that is said is cheery or upbeat or positive. Not every task is completed gleefully, or even correctly. People struggle. People get grumpy or irritated. People will grow tired of one another on occasion. Communities soften the blow of these bumpy human interactions and make them easier to handle. And when classes are communities, they can take that bad day or that big mistake or that failing test score and turn it into a change for growth and improvement in a way that doesn't feel like doom.
--------------------------
My class had become a community. The work was going well and my kids were talking and laughing and having fun. Yeah, having fun with math. Who'd have thought?
They were becoming a community just in time for us to leave, just in time for our paths to diverge, and potentially never intersect again.
1. There are suddenly inside jokes. On Thursday, one of my students fooled me into thinking there was someone in the classroom that really wasn't there. I was working on giving her a small push into continuing to work (on systems of linear equations, my favorite subject), and she shouted, "Yo, I didn't even see you there, Miss!"
Yeah, there was no Miss there. There was nobody there. And suddenly, the proverbial egg was on my face. "Broke your neck, Mister." The rest of the class while I looked at them incredulously. "What?"
"You know, I broke your neck."
Still clueless.
Student rolls her eyes. "Ugh, you are so old, Mister. That means I got you to look."
"I would have said 'made you look'".
"It's 2017, Mister, not whatever-year-you-were-a-kid-last."
It was seriously really funny.
Broke your neck became one of our inside jokes, a turn of phrase universally accepted by the group as an ounce of hilarious humor. Inside jokes come out during those times when tension is high, or when conversation is dragging, or when people are getting discouraged. They keep a group together when the going gets rough, and if your classes have gelled, an inside joke will surface in no time.
2. Your class knows when to get serious. Thursday was a stressful day on many levels. Not only did the kids know that the content was starting to get hard, but they also knew that the class was coming to an end. Kids act differently when something comes to an end. All the grousing and complaining and resistance starts to give way to a loopiness, a manic chaos that perfectly expresses the denial that things are about to end.
I had tons of these moments on Thursday, when kids would not stop talking and goofing around. We've been in these classes before, and we've been these people ourselves: sometimes our impulses for joking around just get the better of us. You have to get a little tough during those moments: lower your gaze, strengthen your tone, even tell a kid to step out if you have to have that conversation outside. If your class doesn't let up, they don't think you're serious, and you've got problems. If they respond by letting down the jokes and continuing to work, it means they know they've overstepped a boundary.
I've found this is easy to do without being over the top. A little of that look or that tone or that mannerism, very little, is enough to do the trick if your class is clicking.
3. Your kids want to talk to you about things not pertaining at all to the class in a way that is serious and substantive. "Mister, is hell a swear word?"
"Um...well, I suppose that depends on the context. Why?"
"Well, because we say things like 'what the hell' and 'go to hell' and 'this is hell' all the time, but we also talk about hell in books and religion and other things. So, is it a swear word or not?"
We discuss this for a time, and come to the conclusion that it's a swear when you're saying it for effect, to get a rise out of people. Saying "what the hell" is a swear, but saying that the worst class ever feels like hell is not.
I didn't hear the exclamation "what the hell" or "oh shit" or "god dammit" again for the rest of the week. I had been warning them about their language for three days.
Another example of this sort of discussion was about the schedule changes that their school had gone through in order to help improve MCAS scores. Their first impulse was to say that they absolutely hated it, and they didn't understand why all those changes had to be made, especially at the expense of being able to take electives.
I asked them if they had taken their concerns to their school leaders and they quickly shot back that school leaders don't listen. What followed was a discussion about my experience with this very same feeling. Students often feel helpless in schools, I think, like the decisions adults make are largely over them and done without any form of input. I actually tend to think that the leaders in the school really want to hear what kids have to say, but that kids don't have the awareness or the coaching or the adult allies to get their voices heard in the way they should be heard.
I told my kids about how students have worked on changing this trend in the past, and what they could do to lobby their own school leaders to change things. I also let them know that the schedule changes did likely have a reason, as do almost all decisions school leaders make.
It was one of the most candid discussions we had that day, and it had nothing to do with math at all. It was also probably the most important one we had.
4. They give you a healthy amount of grief. This is directly related to item 1. Kids are constantly testing your boundaries. In the beginning of any class, they are trying to see what things will get to you. Kids test boundaries, feel out reactions, and find out what they can get away with. It's important to hold those boundaries firm.
In the middle of a proceeding class, though, boundaries lighten. Once a class gets into an equilibrium, where the kids know how to work and what is expected of them, things get a little loose. And they get loose in a way that still honors number 2, and usually breaking with the schedule of work looks an awful lot like number 4, but kids still find an occasion to give adults grief on the terms that are dictated to be safe.
One student in my class would say "bless" every time I would do something fun or make a mistake on the board or trip over my words. Another student would mumble or complain under her breath about how the work was too hard or unfair or impossible, and when I'd shoot her a look, she'd wave her hand and say, "proceed, Mister," as though she was telling me to "shoo!" Another student asked me how much I get paid to torture kids, because I'm clearly good at it.
"Not enough," I say.
5. They show up early. I'm not talking about showing up two or three minutes earlier, either. I'm talking about ten minutes or more. When kids feel like being in your room or your class is safe, they want to be there all the time, or as often as they can.
On Thursday, my class showed up a full fifteen minutes before the bell. They did not start working, mind you. No kid really wants to get started on the work that early. But they did sit, settle into their seats, eat the breakfast that the school had served, and talked. It was a good vibe. They would discuss life in the school and how many friends they knew in common, or where how it was that they came to know one another in the first place.
Classes become communities when they're allowed to form, and they only form when kids and teachers alike feel safe to be themselves. This class was becoming a community. While there were only five students, they were getting to know each other well.
The benefit of this from a standpoint of academics is that you also get to know them really well, and it gives you a good relationship upon which to base the work. If you know a kid's particular strengths and struggles, ticks and triumphs, insecurities and confidences, you know what to avoid and what not to. Knowing even the tiniest amount about how kids behave or what their mannerisms or home life or attitudes are like can make a huge difference in how receptive they are to your teaching.
It goes much further than that, though. In classes, kids love to help each other, and when they are known well by the whole class, a sense of camaraderie and of common achievement is much easier to develop. I can't count the number of classes I've seen that had no camaraderie, no desire to help each other get to the main goal every day. This sort of cohesion has the added benefit of helping learning for the classes as a whole, because it's an exercise in deep learning to be able to teach someone else. But without a sense of knowing and belonging and safety, this growth doesn't happen.
It is the primary responsibility of a teacher to shield this ground. Classes must become communities if they are going to work well. Sure, true communities have imperfections. Not every student is engaged in the work all the time. Not everything that is said is cheery or upbeat or positive. Not every task is completed gleefully, or even correctly. People struggle. People get grumpy or irritated. People will grow tired of one another on occasion. Communities soften the blow of these bumpy human interactions and make them easier to handle. And when classes are communities, they can take that bad day or that big mistake or that failing test score and turn it into a change for growth and improvement in a way that doesn't feel like doom.
--------------------------
My class had become a community. The work was going well and my kids were talking and laughing and having fun. Yeah, having fun with math. Who'd have thought?
They were becoming a community just in time for us to leave, just in time for our paths to diverge, and potentially never intersect again.
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