Who’s in Charge?
It was never a question to me that the teacher is in charge of his/her classroom. And for the most part this is always the case except for when you walk in a classroom led by a first year teacher. And I can’t speak for all first year teachers obviously -- but after some years spent ear hustling in the teacher’s lounge I gather I’m not alone. Being a first year teacher in an urban district was nothing like what they told in college. My student teaching was such a false sense of teaching reality because I was placed in a best case scenarios but because of it, I just knew I was ready.
So, off to interviews I went. And after a small stint as a substitute teacher I was hired and sent off to be the teacher. I was a teaching major. There was no doubt that I was ready, especially since I was armed with experience and all sorts of information I’d collected and notes taken from books like Teach Like a Champion and The First Days of School. Little did I know how not prepared I truly was and in this was going to be one of those times that experience would be be my true teacher.
Seven years have passed since I had that first class. Yet I will never forget that year or the first day I walked into my very first classroom equipped with icebreaker getting to know you games that were supposed to help me connect with my 8th grade students that had spent the first three months of school with a sub for an ELA teacher. I stood tall in the front of my class in my teacher clothes wearing what I would find out that day were not teacher shoes. And once every child was seated I cleared my throat. Immediately, I put a big smile on my face looked at every child and started to take attendance.
I stumbled through a few names as a result no one answered. As I stumbled they laughed turned their attention away from and while rolling their eyes. It was like a scene out of Dangerous Minds or Freedom Letters but these children were much younger and wore uniforms. Again I called the names, Asha, which I prounounced Ash-a, Shaquilah, I said Sha-quill-a, and Zah’Neajah I completed fouled that one up, then finally a Mary and Tyler. After a few moments of dead silence, I hear hesitant voices call out, “Present.” I go back to the names of the students that did not called the last names of those Decosey, McCall and Sabir-- that I could say. When I asked why they didn’t respond when I called them the first time they said, “That’s ‘cause you weren’t calling my name.” I quickly changed the subject. But not before they could tell me the correct way to say their names. A-shay, Sha-key-la and Za-nay-ya, the j was silent. Instantly I knew that today was going to be a long day.
After that faux pas the students just watched me. I thought this was a good thing, I had their attention. I went right into my activity. I told them that we were going to do acrostic poems with their names. This was going to help me get to know them. I wrote my example on the board before instructing them to take out some paper and something to write with. Each and every one of them told me how they didn’t have anything to write with or on. I didn’t know what to do. I had extra pens but only 5 and I had no paper. How could they not have a pen or a pencil?
And just like that, they’d sniffed me out. I was a new teacher and they knew it. I was unprepared for them even though they were unprepared for me they knew that since I was fresh meat. Elijah Johnson stood up and said, “Yo, who watched Love and Hip Hop?.” Suddenly, I was no longer in charge. And just like that all of the attention in the room turned away from me and my ice-breaker getting to know you activity to Elijah, who was holding court in the center of what was supposed to be my classroom.
I left that first day feeling dejected but I wasn’t defeated. I asked my fellow teachers for help or advice and not many of them were not interested in helping. In their defense this was a weird year there were rumors of schools closing and teachers losing their jobs and I was new. I had been hired a month before they officially announced the closing of my school. Many teachers were skeptical of me. They thought I was from Teach For America so I should have all of the answers. I did have a mentor teacher and she was awesome but somehow my principal never allowed time in our schedules for us to meet. So she mentored me when she could, at the KRONOS machine (where teachers punched in and out) and via text.
But thank God for my 8th grade team which consisted of a science teacher that was on the verge of retiring and a Math teacher that had just come back into the classroom after spending the past few years as a Math coach. Ms. Howard and Mr. Dixon were both very willing to help me whenever they could even though they were dealing with their own frustrations with the job and the students. It was looking like I was on my own. Most of which started with, “This is what I do…” and I listened because when I went into their classrooms it was working. Children were sitting down working, engaged and learning.
In addition to my students coming to class everyday unprepared and unwilling to work they spent a lot of time asking to go to the bathroom, asking to go and see this teacher that was across the hall from me or simply walking in and out of But the Math teacher did give me one solid piece of advice, “Keep the kids away from the door. Change the seating around. If they are seated then you can teach them.” Now this was solid advice and I was able to use. At the very least keep them in the room which made it look like I was managing my classroom.
By the end of the year I was spent. I had a student named TyRon that was affiliated with gangs threaten to beat me up over a pencil, Elijah cursed me out and called me a bitch. Asha’ whose mother worked in the building as a sub also cursed me out because I gave her lunch detention where I made her do her her work. And spite of those instances and quite frankly the lack of teaching that took place in my class that year I learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself and about teaching. Ninety percent of it is knowing how to manage a class. Planning for the things that may go wrong. Having a plan A, B, C even D but never letting the students know that you aren’t ready for whatever they may throw at you. You have to manage the room before you can teach it.
That first year I figured out that I was not a hard core disciplinarian. It didn’t fit me. And the kids knew it but what I am is the teacher that has to be prepared. And now that I know the type of kids that I teach are textbook students and they are the exception and not the rule. I have learned that if I wanted to be in charge of my room I had to think out of the box and outside of the framework of my subject matter to get my students invested in their learning. But all of that came after I traded my high heel pumps for sensible teacher shoes and I never attempt to cold call student names. I don’t pretend to be a teacher-- I embody one.
No comments:
Post a Comment