Speed Hump Day

This week is going way better than last week. Even with a few student-related road bumps, it is going better. I'm managing to run them over pretty smoothly (like the Speed Humps in University Gardens).

Monday was a bit of a ho hum drag, but I managed to pull the kids along and complete all of my items on the agenda. The honors kids got notes on the four levels of grammar and shared their poem analysis with the class. The plain ole English twos did exercises on nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (mostly compliantly, but I had to wake some of them up) and shared poem analysis. There is a stark difference in culture between honors and regular at my school--both are ethnically diverse, but the difference in prior knowledge, level of engagement, willingness to analyze, and maturity level never fails to shock me a little bit (especially at the beginning of the year). Most of those things came to a head today.

Though I was tired, I managed some cardio kickboxing in the living room on Monday (shout out to Sarah D.) and sweat my ass off for 20 minutes. This was from this free website called Exercise TV. Then I was in a pleasant mood for the rest of the evening--especially since I got to watch Mad Men with Leif.

Tuesday's schedule is different from Monday's, since we have "rolling block." Instead of an afternoon planning period, I get to teach regular English II. Tuesdays and Fridays are long days--my legs, feet, and voice were shot yesterday afternoon. I took a 20 minute nap (passed out cold) and woke up feeling like I'd been run over. I'd planned to go to yoga, so I waffled about that for another twenty minutes and talked to Leif about it (from the couch). He finally said "just go and don't think about," so I did. It ended up being a great class and a new instructor. I got to practice my forearm stand and headstand (which I still can't do without a wall).

This brings us to Wednesday: day two (in a week) of seeing the regular class. Now, I don't want to give the impression that I don't have some seemingly great kids in regular English II--some of the ones I have to wake up all the time are still greats kids to be around. And about a third of the class has that honors type of culture--eager to learn, willing to ask real questions, etc. Another third is relatively neutral--they'd rather be playing video games, but they'll mostly comply and ask questions if they are really confused about something. The final third are the ones who might be labeled as "acting out." I think of them as "the jerks." They want to learn and do well (I think all kids do) but they are consumed with getting reactions from their peers and trying to get some kind of power over their surroundings. Naturally, these are always the ones who want to talk during discussion, interrupt me during a mini lesson, and just generally manipulate the mood and flow of the entire class.

This third is what my friend Mark would call "a crew." I've got one very sassy boy who verbally reacts to anything and everything, such as fanning himself and loudly asking me "Can we turn the air back on yet?" Like a big spoiled baby. He also laughs loudly and derisively when anyone answers a question incorrectly (because of course he's insecure about appearing dumb). And he gets dramatic and defensive if I give him the slightest correction. I've got a girl who turned around and punched the boy behind her today. She said she was "just joking" because he flicked her with a rubber band. I've got a kid with a charming combo of ADHD, OCD, depression, and dysgraphia, but he's actually really articulate and well-read--he just never knows what page we're on and asks too many questions about how I want him to format his notes (there's not a format). He's also a lot smarter than some of his peers and doesn't hide his occasional surprise at their slowness to respond or lack of knowledge, which is of course not very well-received. I've got a few boys that look and act about 10.

Today's class started out with 10 minutes of silent AR reading. First, about 6 of them wanted to leave the room for various reasons--bathroom, left a book in another class, need water, need to blow nose, and then I had to stop AR time and give them a talk about how they need to take care of all of those things during lunch and how if I need to start taking off participation points for trying to leave the room all the time, I will. Then we had a good solid ten minutes when I checked up on those who didn't have books yet and everyone was focused. Then Big Baby was in the mood to be disruptive and chatty and get defensive at my corrections. Then girl punches boy during grammar. I'm at the board. I stop everything, give them a "No ma'am, bad dog" face, and say something like "I know I did not just see that. You guys are adults. You're here to learn. Stay after class." Then while everybody was doing an exercise on verbs, I took the three misbehavers out in the hall, one at a time.

I said to Boxer Girl, "You can't punch people in class. You know that, right?"
She said (earnestly) "well he flicked me with a rubberband."
I paused. "You can't punch people in class." Tried to let it sink in. "I could have you suspended for that."
"But it was just a joke!" (She talks like a loud Valley Girl. On purpose.)
"I can't let that go on in my classroom. There's a reason I don't teach middle school. We don't have time for that here." After that I told her that I thought she could do a lot in my class and she seemed like a good student, but I wanted her to focus and work harder. (I'm sure a lot of teachers would call me a big sap for even trying to reason with them, but I know that some kids respond to this and then don't cause any more problems, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't become a big showdown with flashy punishments.)
Then I called out Rubber Band Flicker, who seemed embarrassed and annoyed that I was talking to him at all, and he also claims he can't help falling asleep. He seems like kind of a dud.
Then Big Baby and I chatted--he was fairly receptive. It started with me asking him why he had a big ole attitude today and him denying it. I told him I'm never going to cop an attitude with him and that I expect him to reciprocate--also that when I correct him, it's not personal, because he seems like a good student (he actually does). Then he admitted that he has trouble keeping his mouth under control and that he would try to do better.

We actually had a decent, engaging discussion about the poem and no more behavior issues for the rest of grammar. I'm really hoping that those personal talks set some kind of precedent, but I know it could go a handful of ways--either they found it uncomfortable and will act out less, or they sense that I see them and give a crap (and they start giving about a fourth of a crap in response), or they appreciate that I was fair and quit making power struggles out of everything, or they are unfazed and apathetic, or they'll continue their behavior because I didn't write them up the first time. Or: they'll forget about the incidents by Friday. Either way, I guess it's time to start taking off participation points and giving real consequences.

The biggest challenge is that I have to figure out a way to stay positive and engaging with the two thirds of the class that are not misbehaving in any way so that their learning experience isn't ruined by the loudmouths-who-demand-attention.

In better classroom news, I did a new activity with seventh hour where I show them a bunch of cultural symbols and they record their personal associations with them. I showed print-outs of the Chinese welcome cat, a menorah, a cross with bread and a chalice, the ohm symbol, Shiva, Buddha, a woman in a hijab, a cartoon picture of a plantation house (which some identified as "the governor's mansion"), and the yin yang ("equilibrium," "ninja," "Kung Fu Panda"). It's supposed to demonstrate how your own cultural experience shapes your perception of other cultures, and I thought it might be a waste of time. But it wasn't at all. If anything, it was a practice in talking frankly about impressions we have of certain cultures.

In snack news, I put baby spinach in my fruit smoothie today and barely tasted it.