another study hall... starting to get the hang of this

Not much to note about this day except that I did notice some improvements in the way I related to students.

Instead of that weirdly anxious, codependent urgency to be perceived as understanding and nice, I was able to be kind but firm, which is really what I'm aiming for.

For example, a student came in just before the bell rang and said, "My friend's having a crisis in the hall, can I just go talk to her for a moment?"

I shrugged and replied, "You'll be marked tardy. It's up to you." (This is the "Love & Logic" [http://www.loveandlogic.com/] technique I learned--tell the student what you're going to do and allow them to decide what they're going to do, instead of trying to force them to do what you want, a struggle that is often lost and always exhausting).

She paused and considered for a moment, then nodded and said, "Okay," and went back out the door.

About two minutes after the bell rang she returned, and sat down immediately to get to work. I'd asked all the other students what they were working on and offered help if they needed it, so I went over to her, but first said, "I hope your friend is okay?"

"Yeah," she said, sighing a dramatic teenager sigh. "See, she has lots of problems at home, so I support her, and I have lots of problems at school, so she supports me."

I know that during my student teaching at the alternative high school, I would have tried to be all sympathetic and helpful and perhaps gotten into a long conversation with the student.

But instead, I simply said, "It's good to have someone you can talk to when you need to.... Now, what are you going to be working on today?" She nodded at the first statement and responded to the question, and we exchanged a few more words about her assignment, and then she got to work on it.

I felt good about the interaction because it was kind, but maintained the boundaries--both the interpersonal boundary between myself and the student, and the boundary between work in the classroom and life outside it.

I felt that I provided what she most needed from me, personally--support in getting her schoolwork done. She may have needed many other things in her life, but not necessarily from me.

I also felt that I applied that kindness/firmness thing well with another student who tried to be disruptive and combative. She ended up taking the pass and wandering out of the room, which really is just palming the problem off on someone else (the hall monitor, her social worker) but in my position as a sub, that's all I think I can really do.

In other words, I did succeed in maintaining a safe, quiet environment in the room.... combative, disruptive behavior makes most other students uncomfortable, and the teacher's ability to handle it makes them feel safe.

Right? Uh.... right, I think so anyway........

I hope I never stop asking those questions.... I'm afraid I will though... get tired and stop questioning.

second day of subbing: alternative education

My first (and two months into it, still only) full day of subbing, for an English teacher at an alternative high school.

I did a lot of homework for this job, which turned out to be unnecessary... the teacher had prepped all the students to just work quietly on various assignments while I essentially baby-sat.

But, as it was only my second day, I didn't realize that this is what I should expect, so I looked up the teacher's schedule and then looked up the courses in the course catalog to see what was being taught.

Although I didn't need the info I gleaned from this research, I did learn something, or at least, I did develop the impression (rudimentary and still uninformed of course) that the alternative high school where I subbed that day was much better organized to meet students' needs than the alternative high school where I did my student teaching.

For one thing, all students take specific courses to develop their social skills and life management skills.

The teacher I subbed for taught one of these courses, which was based entirely on a Stephen Covey book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens." Some of us make fun of this kind of pop-culture motivational-speaker franchise book, but honestly, the seven habits (things like "be proactive" and "don't procrastinate" and "take responsibility for your actions") are not a bad way to organize your life. And certainly this would be the first time some of the students had heared anything like this.

Another thing that impressed me was that the teacher actually used methods that are good for multi-age multi-ability classes. In the English classes the students were reading "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and the teacher had divided the story into short segments, which pairs of students were "translating" into language that sounded "natural" to them. This is a classic, standard, well-known (but time-consuming and work-intensive) way to help students thoroughly understand difficult, non-modern English writing.

I don't think I ever encountered this at the other alternative high school.... there, it seemed that teachers were more likely to either assign difficult material and not support students in reading it (beyond making audio tapes available, which is useful if dyslexia is the primary problem, but not if vocabulary & language are the obstalces), OR, to not assign any reading material at all and have students complete meaningless "response" pieces (drawing pictures etc.). I was happy to see the students really sinking their teeth into the old but lovely language of the story.

Down side: they hadn't seen the whole story assembled yet, so when we played hangman using characters and things from the story, none of them could guess the word I used: "pumpkin."

Just my impressions....

first day of subbing

I decided to record some of the stories and experiences I've had while subbing... For various reasons I've decided to post them on the days when they occurred, even tho it's been 2 months since my first day.

So let's see. My first day was strange and revealing.

I had a couple periods of "resource room," a sort of study hall for students with special-ed labels, where supposedly they do their homework. I found (on this and successive days) that they mostly don't have any homework and that the unstated agreement is that I will leave them alone and they will leave me alone and as long as we're all quiet we're all happy.

This is education?

Last, I had a period of social studies for, again, students with various special ed labels. I hate this type of class--in the name of making it "easier," they give students really boring, stupid busywork that is not much easier for them than the regular work.

For example, the topic was the Roman Empire and the beginning of Christianity, and in their busywork they had a matching exercise for their vocabulary words. Among the fifteen or twenty words were "messiah," "prophet," and "Jesus," and they were somehow expected to differentiate between the definitions of the three.

Well, "messiah" vs. "prophet" is actually quite a fine theological distinction, and all the definitions could reasonably have been supposed to refer to Jesus. So even though they understood the passage and understood the words, they had a terrible time with the exercise. So the whole thing just makes them feel stupider, even though it's really the exercise that's stupid.

Again, this is education?

These are the students who would most benefit from the type of challenging, engaging lessons that I received in my "gifted" enrichment programs.... instead they get this crap. So anyway, much misery all around, much disruption from a couple of the kids, and the rest just sat there looking like they wished they could just vanish through the floor. The highlight of the day for them was when my underwear showed above my (for the last time beltless) corduroy slacks.

Maybe I should change the title of this blog to "this is education?"

Afterward I reflected on my role: basically I just kept the disruption from getting totally out of control, and saw to it that all the students made at least a desultory attempt at their silly worksheets. And I had done my job--done all that was asked of me. Could it really be so little was expected?

Feeling the near-total lack of attention or interest from outside the room to anything that happened inside it, I saw how easy it would be to just go along with the system, and felt the seductive pull to relinquish my ideas about how things could be different. It could be so easy to just bide my time.

Scary.

Very scary.