Extreme Complainers

      If there were an Olympic event for griping then I think the top awards could easily be won by   teachers.  After being verbally abused, underpaid, and looked down upon for working with kids, teachers have an easy excuse to be champion complainers.  We certainly have a great deal to complain about with all the nonsense we face each day, but at some point it gets to be enough. 

       I went to a school get-together Friday night so that I could get to know some of my fellow staff members better.  I got to see how talented a third grade teacher was who had built an addition on his house all by himself.  Another first grade teacher I talked to had traveled the world teaching with her Army husband.  As I moved from group to group I sat down with a crowd who were delving into students, parent, and other teaching related issues they had faced at school.  The names and topics were flying around and after a week of teaching, I just didn’t want to start my weekend with more talk about school.  So I graciously listened for a while and then made my way to the exit to go start my weekend away from education.

     Gripe sessions allow us to get troublesome issues out in the open.  Complaining enables us to find comfort that others are suffering in the same way we are.  We can even find humor in some of the ridiculous situations that we find ourselves in.  However, it can also be counterproductive when we spend so much time complaining about the problems that we become unable to see solutions to our issues.  Gossip can fly around so fast that we can sometimes have it fly back in your face by the time we have made a trip down the hall.     Complaining also leaves us unsatisfied, because after we have vented we really haven’t changed any of the issues that got our ire up in the first place. 

   We all need someone to confide in to help us carry our burdens.  Yet, when we think of our conversations throughout the day, would we say that we spend more time in productive conversation or in unproductive complaining?  From what I have seen, the most successful teachers have this balance right.

(In the comments below, let me know what you do when you are around Olympic complainers.)

Help Me to Learn So I Can Improve

      I’m amazed at how much we celebrate fake in our society.   On television we see many characters that have no ability, but work to convince the public otherwise.  My daughters have come to accept that musicians on the radio are auto tuned so that whether they can sing or not the computer just fixes it.   We touch up our photos to make us more of what we are not.  People lie to get jobs stretching their resumes; the list could go on and on. 

    In my classroom I am always amazed how everyone knows everything until it is time for a test.  It makes our job harder to divine out the truth when children think they already know everything.  So we  have to constantly assess after our lessons to make sure the students  have learned what we intended for them to learn.  Even more important than our efforts to police our students is our constant effort to get kids to honestly assess their ability and become self-motivated to learn what they don’t know. 

     Today I had a student come to me before the end of school and said, “Mr. Smith, I don’t understand the math you taught me today. “  So while the other students were packing up for the end of the day I sat down and reviewed the lesson again.  She started to figure out where her misunderstandings were and I was able to get her on her way as the other students began to file out of the room.  I’ll make a point of praising her to her parents and in front of the class.  She is a student who is going to succeed because she realizes that to improve we must admit our weaknesses and make an effort to improve those areas. 

     What areas of our lives are we pretending to have mastery when we have so much more to learn?  What are we doing to improve in our weak areas?  Are we willing to ask for help?  These are all questions that we need to foster in our students.  It also doesn’t hurt to practice what we are teaching our students as well.

(In the comments below, please tell me what you do to motivate students to evaluate their abilities?)

The Fear of Failure

     Wouldn’t it be fun if we could just teach and the kids could just learn whatever they wanted to?  The classroom would be buzzing as everyone investigated topics that fascinated them.  I’ve had a taste of this for the first two weeks of school.   We have experienced learning with no pressure.  This joyous time may come to an end next week as I begin to hold my students accountable with grades.  As soon as I mention the word test, I’m sure my students will begin to show me their fear of failure.   

     In the lower grades students often don’t even have grades, but use checks, smilies, and letters such as V, S, N.  In third grade students are introduced to the A-F grading system and learn that grades are important to adults.   In our state students have the added stress of hearing that if they don’t pass the end of the year test they will “Flunk” third grade.  The students quickly learn that grades are something to be fearful of, or at the very least, something to be very nervous about receiving. 

    Now, I know grades aren’t all bad, because they can be great motivators for smart kids.   However, they can become anchors for students who have struggled.   With all of this in mind, I have been working hard the last two weeks to establish the culture that the reason we are all at school is to learn and not to earn grades.   I hope to take some of the fear of failure out of our educational experience.

     I gave a pretest today to gauge where my students were in division.  Those who have listened to their teachers and learned multiplication over the past two years have had no problem learning what I have been teaching them.  Others that never got around to learning multiplication are having a terrible time with division.  I now have a week to teach my students what they didn’t learn over the past two years.  Regardless of the educational background of my students, I work hard to assure that my student’s first experience in my class produces some success.

     One technique that I use to avoid test anxiety is to give students the chance to retake any of their assessments that they do poorly on and then average the new score with the old. This won’t make a poor student a straight “A” student.  However, it takes some of the fear out of tests, because the test does not become an end, but a springboard to another learning experience.

      It is my hope that  the fear of failure will be removed from my students by providing them the ability to earn the grade they want through hard work in addition to their smarts.  For me, I have seen far more people in the real world be successful by working hard than by being successful, because they were a stellar student.   When we have cultivated our student’s desire to learn, we will have achieved more success than any grading system can assess.   

(In the comments below, please tell me how you help students avoid the fear of failure)

Can't I Just Close My Door and Teach?

    Today I had a very productive day where my students had fun learning without interruption.  Then came an after school faculty meeting.  At our meeting we were told to take our schedules and toss them out.  We then had to align 1,665 minutes of instruction into seven periods.  We also had to consider the mandated time allotments, forced reading block, forced intervention block and specials.  Comments were made by my administrators such as “You must teach health and social studies every day even if it is just for five minutes.”   “You’ll have to teach less math or cut your math block time to an hour at the intermediate level.”  Further threats were made about this being tied to our evaluation and if administrators walked into our room, we better be teaching at the appropriate place on the schedule.   

     I worked on the numbers for about two and a half hours and finally thought I had it.  I have a sneaking suspicion that there might be a minor problem.  Not with the schedule, but my new schedule may not fit into the computer just right.  The computer doesn’t care what is best for the students. The computer is simply there to make sure that all the teachers look the same on paper. 

     In the good old days you could just nod your head in a meeting and then go into your classroom, shut the door, and do whatever you wanted to.  With this new age of accountability someone in an office at the state capital thinks up a “brilliant” idea.  They then call someone at the county, who then threatens the principals, who then unload on the teachers.  The downhill minutia can get so deep that by the time it hits the teachers it is a big smelly mess.

      One of my favorite phrases is that if you don’t like something, then just wait a few weeks.  It will be changed by then.  As I fussed and fumed this evening about the hours of my life that I was wasting on a schedule that was simply going to be put into a computer and forgotten, I wanted to just cut loose and tell everyone I came in contact with what a ridiculous activity I was forced to waste time on.  I even had to go to a school meeting and would have to put on my cheerful face in front of students, parents, and administrators.   I didn’t know if I could pull it off.

      After an hour away from the schedule I was able to begin to get a grip.  The reality is that regardless of how I feel, I’ve been told to fill out this new schedule and turn it in.  No one asked me my opinion and the general public probably doesn’t care about my stupid schedule.  So I have the choice to turn this into a big deal or just do my best and turn it in.  I refuse to become one more teacher who goes out into public and just talks about all the ridiculous parts of our job.  We have enough trouble getting respect as it is. 

  So I guess my plan is to turn it in early and I’m sure it will just sit in an office for a while.  If I have done something wrong then I’m sure an administrator will let me know and will possibly provide me with a feasible way to accomplish this impossible task.  Until then, I’ll get back to my room, shut the door, and get back to having a great time helping the kids to learn. That is my idea of a “brilliant” idea.

(In the comments below, please let me know some of the ridiculous things you have had to do as a teacher this year.)     

Teachers Seem to Live Forever

     I remember when I was in fifth grade I had an old grandma looking teacher named Mrs. Vancleve.  In her class we learning social studies and reading.  I can’t remember a single lesson, but to this day I remember her vibrant polyester dresses decked out with costume jewelry and white hair coifed in the same perfect way every day.   I would have guessed that Mrs. Vancleve was in her seventies when I was in her class and would retire at any second. 

     Ten years later I was back at my elementary school and was amazed to see some of my old teachers.  Mr. McLintock, my second grade teacher, was much shorter after ten years than when he was when I was in second grade.  Mr. Kline had less hair and was actually thinner.  Yet, Mrs. Vancleve looked untouched by time.  Her hair managed to stay exactly the same.  You could imagine that she slept sitting up so that it never moved.  Her outfit, although new, had the same style I remembered.  She also had the same dark rimmed glasses that she probably started wearing the 50’s.  I realized that my guess of 70 years old must have been off, or else Mrs. Vancleve must have turned sixty and quit aging. 

     As I begin year number 17 of my teaching career, I know that I could retire in my early fifties.  The idea sounds good, but unless I have a burning desire to forge into another career, I will most likely keep on teaching as long as I can just like Mrs. Vancleve.  I know that someday my former students will reflect on me as their teacher.  I’m sure they won’t specifically remember most of the items we learned together, but they will probably find some nuance or phrase I recite to remember me by.   I hope it makes them smile. 

(In the comments below, please tell me some of the comments your students have made about your age.  Or let me know some of the quirks of former teachers that you remember still today. )

    Kids are always fascinated by the age of their teacher.  If given the opportunity  their first personal question almost always is, “How old are you?”.  The students use this information to place you in the adult world like, “My parents are older than you.”  Their parents also look at age to define you as a teacher.  Some want new teachers for their child that have fresh ideas and are willing to give their all to their class.  Other parents want older veteran teachers that know what they’re doing in their classrooms.