Day 89: Same boat

I did it to myself. Every year, June rolls around and I think, "Man, I'll get it together next year." And every year, I find myself in the same freakin' boat.

I play hardball, but have a rough time closing. I spend a lot of time yelling but don't do much punishing. I hate punishing kids. I want to keep them in class. I keep hoping that they'll see I am giving them a break and shape up, but they don't. They see I won't actually get out a referral or won't actually send them to ISS and act increasingly poorly. But it is hard to draw a line on that slippery slope.

I finally got serious about controlling some of the worst offenders and my worst classes became much more manageable once they knew my agenda was actually to help them, and if they continued to misbehave I was going to actually send kids to the office. So why is it that 16 years in I still hate to be THAT teacher, the one who is mean and the kids hate? Yet, by the end of the year, all I feel like I am doing is yelling and they all hate me anyway.

It makes me feel like a failure. Every year it seems like my students finally get that I care about them, want them to succeed and have important things to impart just before it is time for exams. Why can't I start off the year this way? Today, my most difficult class was quiet for the most part and I got to teach, the very last regular day of school. I need to figure out how to change for next year, permanently.

The first quarter or two seem to go well, but then we get all off track somewhere in the middle of the year. I think I need a Nike poster in my room from day one reminding me that discipline isn't cruelty. Discipline is kindness masquerading as cruelty. If my students know they can't act up in my classroom because I will discipline them then the quiet students who need peace to work or be heard, will be.

I have better classroom discipline that many of the classrooms I've visited. I don't have a lot of bad kids. Even kids who've been removed from campus for disrespectful behavior, don't really act up in my class. But it is the TALKING, the constant talking that is making me absolutely not want to teach again.

I think in our cyber world, we can Tweet or Facebook or Gmail chat and we're used to expressing every single thought that pops into our heads immediately. The idea of holding our tongues has become very foreign to us. Also with our ability to say something and be heard by hundreds or thousands of people regardless of credibility or knowledge has increased the shouting out of random thoughts.

I can't believe the things people say in my classroom, just ridiculous garbage, and they do not seem concerned with whether or not they made sense or were correct. Also, because you can post instantly and simultaneously, I believe students have lost the ability to take turns in normal conversation.

One of my biggest flaws is that I interrupt people. I don't mean to. I just get excited to talk and jump in just a bit too soon. But I try not to do it and I definitely don't just keep talking as if someone isn't speaking at all. The kids today talk right over not only me, but each other. I am really going to have to work on my lesson planning for next year. I really want to structure my class so that by the end of the year, students speak when called on, take turns in conversation, and I can TEACH. I think it can be done, but I am going to need some support from the administration because the first few weeks will be tricky.

I know that if I establish ground rules and maintain specific standards for them that I could achieve better results. But I find it so hard to know where that line is. One kid talks, then the next one and a few in, I'm talking too or shouting, trying to re-establish what I should be able to maintain.

I am a good teacher, more than 90% of my students passed our state tests this year which was one of my roughest years in recent memory, so I know I am doing a good job. But I am letting things hold me back from being great, and the kids are the ones paying the price. I just think how much better my students would feel about themselves and do in the rest of their lives if I could find a way to reach them.

I just need to find away to stay out of this boat from now on. I don't like being in this sinking ship. 

Day 316: Because I could not stop

for Death, he kindly stopped for me. Somehow this Emily Dickinson poem always makes me think of dapper Death casually passing by in his carriage. Rarely is death so gentlemanly. When my husband's Aunt Jeana passed away, death was an end to long suffering and while not joyous in itself, was an end to her pain and a lengthy semi-comatose period. If we could have added healthy years to her life, we all would have gladly enjoyed her for many years, but more years of pain and drugs and confusion were all she had and death was a release from that half existence that wasn't the crazy, fun woman Jeana had always been. When death came for Grandma Nick, it was sudden but at the end of a very long and full life. We grieve for ourselves for missing these women, but celebrate their joyous reunion with God in heaven.

How are we supposed to feel when death comes more like a freight train barreling at a life barely begun.
This morning we heard the terrible news that a student from our high school had died. While official statements are still being withheld, it appears she was murdered by someone close to her. What kills me is that I walked past her last Friday, I thought to myself, "I'm too tired to stop to chat today." I wanted to talk to her, find out how things were going, but I didn't. I smiled and said hello, but a random thought crossed my mind to ask her about the young man today rumored to be the perpetrator. I didn't ask her, I didn't stop. I didn't tell her how much I liked her new hair cut or how I still worried about her.

I feel so responsible for not taking the time to spend with her. I don't know if stopping to talk to her would have meant anything, but she is one student that even though two years have passed since she was in my room daily, we still talked occasionally and I kind of paid special attention to her. She is one of those girls, and I see them every year, struggling with self-esteem and respect on a dangerous precipice. Sometimes they end up drinking or doing drugs, or dating the wrong boy or allowing themselves to be degraded by friends and boyfriends who don't value them and can't see the ruination of poor decisions. I see these borderline girls every year and try desperately to stretch out a life preserver, but my arms can't always reach into the abyss of their own creation or reach children who don't want, or know they need, saving.

Unfortunately, she is one of several students I have had die or be brutalized. Last year, I had a student kidnapped and raped, another attempted suicide. She is one I wrote about the other day. I have had students killed in car accidents, self-inflicted gun-shot wounds, drug overdoses, in alcohol related incidents, from disease. It always hurts. Sometimes the pain is the shock and sadness and overall unfairness. Sometimes the pain is from wondering what I didn't do, what I could have done. Today, I am again bombarded with this pain. 99% sure I could not have done anything, despite frequent conversations about choosing more carefully her friendships, this person remained in her life. But I could have at least stopped to talk to her.

Death sometimes sneaks up on us from behind, snatching at us unaware. Take the moments to care for and love the people in your life today, not having another chance feels pretty awful.