Teaching

Something Alicia posted on her most recent blog entry made me want to write about an experience I had at Johnson.

Now, my kids were no angels, but at least they liked me. There were times when all I'd see were eyes rolling or I'd hear nothing but tongues clicking. I used to tell them they'd wear the enamel off their teeth if they kept it up-- that was, of course, met with an eye roll. Nevertheless, they generally liked me and referred to me as the "crunkest" teacher at Johnson. Probably because most of them, had I written them up, would have been at Juvenile by that point, but I'm a patient person.

Anyway, Ms. Blake was not. She had the class next to mine and I used to think that she had it all together. Her kids were always quiet and doing work. If I'd paid closer attention, I'd have seen that all they ever did was look up words in the dictionary. About halfway through the year, Ms. Blake walked out. She'd had it and wasn't coming back. Now, from where I sat, I couldn't understand what was wrong. Her kids never made a peep and I thought more learning was taking place than in my rambunctious classroom. However, Ms. Blake had expectations that were way too high. She expected her kids to be absolutely excited about grammar. They're 9th graders-- should we expect anything different? Not only that, but she expected total and absolute silence, almost to the point that she'd give a kid detention for sneezing just because she thought they were being cheeky.

Needless to say, they rebelled, and mercilessly. And she rose to the occasion, responding by throwing a dictionary-- allegedly, but with multiple witnesses who I actually trusted. These were good kids. I remember going over there to watch her class while she walked out to get some air, and the kids begged me to be their teacher. Me, the one who couldn't keep a class under control. Why? I asked. Because you're nice and really care about kids. And you're always having fun next door. Well, fun was sometimes me just giving in and messing around with the kids because I couldn't get through to them about the topic at hand. I figured it would be easier to reach them another day than to have thirty surly teenagers cranky at me for the rest of the year.

Either way, I learned something. The best learning doesn't take place in a picture perfect class. And sometimes it takes twenty kinds of the same lesson before the ideas stick with these kids. The only thing they want from us is respect and love. Being a hard-ass with these kids gets them no where and I'll bet everything that I own that Ms. Abbey will never get those kids to learn after calling them vicious-- she rose to their challenge and gave them what they wanted: another teacher who doesn't understand or who doesn't care.

So, no matter how hard it is, I'm so proud of Alicia because I know she cares and I know her students know it, too. That's the most important education they'll ever receive.