"Ladies and Gentlemen, we'll all have better days if we can just complete this silently and stay on task."
"I don't want to give you consequences, but apparently you want to receive them!"
"I'm not yelling. Keep it up and I'll show you yelling."
"[choose a student's name], that's your warning. This isn't a conversation. Get back to work."
"No you can't go to the bathroom. If you were that thirsty, you wouldn't have thrown your juice away at lunch."
"I'll wait...[crickets] Ok, as I was saying..."
I think it's worth noting that I actually jot these down after each day, just to serve as gentle reminders to avoid at all costs, absolutely, no matter what, sounding like another droning "Womp womp womp womp wahmp" teacher from Peanuts. And this is in the first week, when energy's still there, and students don't, you know, always hate me yet.
On the first day of class, we began by passing out a survey to students which contained questions ranging from "how can we contact your parents?" to "what would you like to learn about this summer?" Respectively, the most popular answers were "404" and "math". Those of you who know telephones well probably have already recognized that "404", while an acceptable guess at the area code, is probably not the student's entire phone number. Diligent readers will recall that my students are in summer school only for reading. So, you know, strong off the starting block.
From there, we moved to Two Minute interviews, also known as Hot Seat, a game I learned from Corp legends who preceded me. Essentially, this involves the students yelling questions for two minutes and me trying to come up with a witty answer to questions like "How many kids you got?" If you think of a witty answer for that question which also makes clear that I have zero chilluns of my own, please do let me know. Other highlights included:
- Mr. Glasser, how'd you get your hair like that?
- Oh. So do you shower everyday?
- You going to wear those pants tomorrow?
- How many dates have you gone on in your life?
- Do you know Wiz Khalifa? (Actually, kids, this one time...)
- Why are you in summer school?
- Oh. So you ain't got anything better to do?
- Do you think we're smart kids or dumb kids?
These kids are smart kids, as I've mentioned before. But, like kids are wont to do, they say a thousand words just by speaking their minds. From that question, I gathered that everything we had learned so far was true for these kids. these twelve and thirteen year-olds, just getting into the glory days, haven't been told in a long time, if ever, that they can succeed, that their work is valuable, or, in a lot of cases, that they themselves are valuable. During training two weeks ago, we watched a video in which a teacher from Chicago told each student who answered a question just how beautiful or brilliant or talented or brave he or she was. Everyday, she would hammer these points home and demand that they do exactly as she told them to do. Her philosophy was that, if she just refused to stop saying these things to her students (who, incidentally, she actually believed were all capable and driven, despite reputations and records) that they might just believe her one day. Fourteen of the sixteen students from that video received at least a college degree. the other two were unavailable for interview.
Without belaboring the point, I also jumped right into the game of calling parents. As you may know, the phone is my jam. I'll write an email, I might respond to your facebook post (though I'm terrible at keeping up with it), and the occasional Saturday night will result in a tweet. But the phone is where I really hit my groove. I spent a week trying to get in touch with half of my class's parents, or about 8 individuals. On day 1, I realized that approximately 1/3 of our entire class roster showed numbers which were disconnected. On day 2, after we issued the student survey, I realized taht I was no better off because, again, 404 is not a phone number. On day 3, I made some initial contact. In each convo with these rents, I explicitly said that his/her student was very bright or a talented reader or some variation thereon. Two of the first three parents legitimately disagreed with me. Tiger moms are one thing, a beast until themselves. But having a mother or aunt or grandmother who not only doesn't encourage you, but downright discourages you can't be a good thing to come home to.
It's no surprise then that many of these students find diversions to avoid going home, or frankly, just to attract some attention from an authority figure. In the past week, at my school, there's been an outbreak of eighth graders drinking some cocktail of Xanex, Jolly Ranchers, Sprite, and Robitussin. Last Wednesday, a student left her backpack in class. Upon exploring its contents to find out who it belonged to, my Faculty Advisor (the real teacher in my classroom), found a blade (exactly nine inches in length and far too haphazard to be considered a knife) rolled in a red bandana. This girl was permitted back into my room the next day. And HOLY CRAP the movies and songs these kids know. I mean, I listened to Tupac in seventh grade, but that would be Disney Radio compared to some of the lyrics that these kids spit in class. Also, no seventh grader should have an unedited knowledge of Friday. Innocence is gone.
In a moment of levity, one of my students did a spot on impression of crazy legs from don't be a menace. I got in trouble for laughing at him. But it was hillarious.
Speaking of levity, here's puppies, a reward for sticking it out this far.
As I explained to some of you, the vast number of TFA new Corps Members training here in Atlanta (nearly 800) means that many of us teach every other day for ninety minutes. Last week, I taught Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Monday, I walked in, and my advisor commented that I should prepare to roll with the punches. After all, "First days are rough." Preach. First day was rough. After the smashing success of administering the survey, the train really jumped the tracks. And went barrelling down the whole mountain. It took out women and children and whole villages. It was just not pretty. But think back to seventh grade, and imagine being in summer school for five weeks, five hours a day in the same room. No recess, no cafeteria, no library, no PE, no music, no science, no math. Just reading, reading, reading for five hours. The only natural reaction, as some of students so graciously taught me early on day 1, is to spin move around teachers (read: me) as they run laps up and down the hallway.
Monday ended, and I still felt great. Laps down the hallway I will take. There were no real issues, our kids seemed nice enough, I knew their names, and the didn't seem to mind me. Well. Then came Wednesday. I would have traded eight Monday hallway lap days just to get out of Wednesday. It really all began with what the school calls hot lunch, a Wednesday special in which these kids get more than bologna, bread, an apple, and a suncup. Instead, they get pizza with (probably) bologna on top, bread, an apple, and a suncup. I was caught off guard by hot lunch, but was actually kind of relieved, as I thought that studnets might feel better fed, a little more energized, and at least they burned some calories on the walk down to the steps.
I've never lived through an apocalypse (can't wait til November when I don't have to confess that anymore), but in hot lunch, I saw what the Book of Revelation was talking about. Fire and brimstone surged as students literally Ponged themselves from one side of the room to the other. The nice, neat single-file line which I lost my voice trying to facilitate dissolved instantaneously, and my students straight up dis-afriggin-peared. And then. The punch heard round the lunchtable was thrown, and it was as if he punched right through the floodgates of teenage boy hormones. No sooner was fight #1 ended then fight #2 already had a take down, and fight number #3 had devolved into some weird sort of giraffe fight.
Needless to say, hot lunch has been cancelled. While I wish it was due to lack of hustle, I think it was actually in response to the Grecian-style flash riots our kids whipped up.
One particularly eager hot lunch culprit was a sassy young lady who embodies most things unfun about teenage girls: boy crazy, attention-seeking, way too smart for summer school, but way too self-absorbed to realize it. I told her several times that she either had to get pizza or get back in line, but she could not roam the cafeteria. Several times, she acknowledged my request and made moves, only to pull some crazy under the table crap to avoid all lines. I was not feeling it. Even a little. When I finally cornered her, I felt ready with the BS Teacher D, and strolled up to her knowning exactly how to proceed. "You can either get in line to come back to class or your not coming back into my classroom," I said calmly.
"Betchu I will," she (literally) spat back, much less calmly.
"You're too smart to take such stupid bets, ma'am. You need to go see the principal."
As if she hadn't already ruined her odds, she turns around and looks me in the eye. "FUCK YOU!" she said, channeling Cee Lo Green. Incidentally, having those words put to music only makes them more gratifying for seventh graders to invoke. Just when you thought it wasn't possible. Anyway, sufficiently satisfied with my management skills, I swaggered back into my classroom only to find that student, the Cee Lo impersonator herself, back in her seat, grinning from ear to ear. "Can't kick kids out, Mr. Glasser. Here to learn," the principal informed me. Good thing I didn't take her bet on whether she'd be back, or I'd look like a wounded puppy who just lost $10, rather than just looking like a wounded puppy.
You can imagine how much work we completed in the last hour of that lesson. If you can't imagine it, try to. Then divide that amount in half. 19,000 times and you'll see exactly how much work we did (somewhere between none and negligible depending on the student).
Then came Friday. "Fridays can be really tough" was the best advice my advisor had to offer as students began to trickle in. And Friday was tough. But seriously, if Fridays are tough, Hot Lunch days are tough (Wednesdays), and Mondays are rough, we're looking at a pretty sparse week, eh? Friday was actually like watching a slow motion game of telephone
I just made a lot of fun of these kids, so I feel obliged to lay some more heavy stuff on you all. Scuse me, folks--on y'all. One student, of whom I am particularly fond, wrote a paragrph about her mom. As a warm-up activity, I asked her to expand it by adding details. At 12 years old, this yound girl's happiest, most available memory with her mother is a recollection of her mom arriving home from a jail a month earlier than expected. Why do you care about synonyms when that's what's on your mind? But somehow, she's the allstar in the bunch. Another student who is, once again, plenty smart to ace seventh grade without summer school (but way too lazy to attend enough regular school days to pass seventh grade) wrote freely about a "bad" day when she had to call the Atlanta equivalent of child protective services so that she could be removed from her mother's care. #howluckyweare
Rereading what I have here makes it sound like I'm complaining. I guess I am complaining about a lot of things. But none of them are teaching, or my classroom, or my kids, or this decision. I've righted exactly zero tracks and transformed precisely goose egg students in my four days on the job, but I have a good feeling about day five.
Sure, we still have to do crazy things, like look in the mirror and adjust our "teacher stares" until we are actually burning holes in glass. And yes, we do have to practice our teacher voices, in front of other people. Sure, there's busy work. And Woah my Lawdy Lah, what did teachers do without copiers? It's like the fall of Saigon to get into the TFA-specific copy center (which, though a fantastic resource for us, has named every copier and computer there after famous educators, movie stars, political figures or others. Copier number 19 seems easier to say than "Please advance to Dostoevsky, the ninteenth printer on your left"). But as long as copies are the low point of my day, I'll call it a good day.
Ok, for real finally, I saw Aaron Rodgers just chilling at a burrito place, loving life, and seemingly banking on a lockout (it dun lopped over). I tried to trip him, but turns out the guy's pretty light on his feet. And just in case you still think I'm not living the good life, consider this: I had a burger stuffed with shrimp and grits for dinner recently. My side? Tatchos, a multi-cultural mix between south of the border and tater tots.
If this place kills me, it won't be the kids. It will be the deep fryers.
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