The Worst Kind of Teacher

I had a bad day last Thursday. I don't mention these all that often because they tend to be minor blips on a much grander screen, not-to-mention the fact that there's something to be said for being positive. Still, I came into school really exhausted from a late night at class and a variety of responsibilities and concerns, beyond teaching, looming over my head.

The morning went well enough. My buddy Tim, who teaches next door, stopped by to talk with us about a favorite book of his that we had just finished reading and loved as well. There were visitors who enjoyed hearing the new Revolutionary War song we are writing and watching the kids discuss and reflect on their reading.

Our day is broken up into two instructional halves by a break in the middle that includes lunch, a special area (such as art or pe), and recess. When we returned from recess the next two hours included: a broken ruler, someone calling a friend "a jerk", another person completely tuning out all of a math demonstration, a group that refused to work with one another, a number of people who didn't listen to directions, and a loud outburst immediately following a small talk about our expectations for one another when working on a particular project.

These types of days are inevitable when working with humans, not to mention the nine-year-old variety. Not so surprisingly these days often occur on the very day when I've not had enough sleep, I'm beginning to feel sick, or I'm feeling a bit anxious about something outside of school. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the thirty-six year old variety is to blame as well. It happens. Fortunately, though, only about three or four days a year.

Perhaps for Natalie Munroe, though, it happened much more often. If you've not heard of her she's a high school teacher in Central Buck, Pennsylvania who, like me, keeps a blog for her friends and family to enjoy. Recently this blog has gotten her into a whole heap of trouble. It seems she took her bad day at school and made it public. Very public.

"They are disobedient, disrespectful oafs. Noisy, crazy, sloppy lazy, LOAFERS."

Ouch.

"[They] are out of control," she wrote. "They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying."

That seems a bit inappropriate.

Listing comments she'd like to write on report cards, she wrote "I hear the trash company is hiring"; "I called out sick a couple of days just to avoid your son"; and "Just as bad as his sibling. Don't you know how to raise kids?"

Now she's gone completely overboard. Oddly enough I shared an article about her blog with my class on Thursday morning, before our problems.

"Maybe the kids are bored because of her," Jillian suggested. "You have to be interesting."

This, by the way, is very true.

"You can't talk about kids that way," argued Brandon.

"Yeah," said Patton. "That's really insulting."

"High schoolers are sometimes...well, they don't listen," suggested Atira. "She looks interesting and fun in the picture but they're all talking. She has the right to share this but not be all insulting."

"Yeah," said Skyler. "She could have not said it in a bad way."

"I don't know," I said. "Do you think sharing this helped to solve a problem or just make it worse?"

Skyler later asked a great question, "Why would she even teach them and then insult them?"

"We were discussing that too," said Jenna. "Why is she even a teacher if she feels like that?"

Why is she even a teacher if she feels like that? I'd love for someone to ask her. Sadly there are droves of people who support her. There are websites being erected praising her for "tough love" and holding the kids accountable.

As for our bad day, we had a twenty minute talk before going home to see if maybe we couldn't find a solution that would ensure a better tomorrow. A few kids talked about consequences but many others suggested helping one another by letting them know when they are starting to head down the wrong path. This made sense.

I finished the day by warning the kids that I would be blasting them on my blog. I tried to dream up some well chosen words that might spark an uproar from students, parents, and community members. They laughed knowing I'd never do such a thing. Perhaps that was the best medicine for the day. Laughter.

Conversations

I was recently listening to a teacher relate a story about something that had happened in her classroom. She was in the practice, at the end of writing workshop, of allowing her kids time to step up and share a bit of what they had been working to create in their writing journals. At the end of these share sessions she would then open up her own writing notebook and share something she had been writing. A wonderful practice, it was meant to model good writing as well as demonstrate that she writes in a variety of genres and for a variety of purposes. It was also a great opportunity to show her kids how she, too, struggles through many parts of her own writing process.

So one day as the kids finished up sharing their pieces she reached for her journal and someone called out “Alright, now it’s time for the BEST piece!” Stunned, she slumped back into her chair realizing she had done something very wrong. She had sent a negative message to her young writers without ever knowing it had happened. In addition to modeling herself as a writer she had also given the impression that when all of their pieces were out of the way she would show them what really good writing sounds like. Oops!

This can happen awfully easily. I see it occasionally in my own teaching; particularly when I feel the need to have the final say, to set the conversation straight, or to validate everyone’s comments with some sort of response. I find that when I do this too often I teach the kids to speak to me instead of to one another. It creates the sense that I am the one - the only one, really- who determines the importance and relevance of their thoughts, feelings, and questions.

Fortunately, many of us work hard to avoid these interactions and messages. When they present themselves we work to find ways to fix what we’ve done and to move in new directions that will avoid future occurrences. Often times the kids will unknowingly let you know how you’re doing. One of the best ways to find out is to listen to how the kids interact with one another. After hundreds of hours together they tend to sound a lot like you.

We have a neighbor who yells quite often at his kids and not so surprisingly we see his children yelling at one another. Their ears turn crimson red, they step up uncomfortably close, and spike an index finger into the other’s face as they raise a loud and angry voice. They sound exactly like their father. Seeing this makes you worry what your own kids might do or say. Certainly nothing like this!

Sometimes this mimicking is just the opposite, though. It reminds you that you’re doing something right. Something good. I had a really great conversation with one of my kids at school yesterday. One of those conversations that let you get a glimpse of something you’ve done right.

I decided at the beginning of writing workshop yesterday that I should really settle in and try to publish a piece to share alongside the kids. I knew that time was short and that I had a lot of graduate work to do at home so whatever this piece was going to be it would need to be relatively short. I decided on a poem.

I am not one to normally write a poem. Sure, I do my best each year to spend a few weeks really focusing on poetry and its many forms and uses of playful and powerful language. However, I find that once this poetry unit washes away I no longer feel like writing a poem of my own. Read them, sure. Write them, no.

So I sat down at a table next to Kayla, who was also struggling to decide what to write, and opened up my writer’s notebook to a page where, a few days earlier, I had taken some notes on many of the sensory observations to be had when watching fireworks. There’s a poem in here somewhere, I thought. I dropped my head onto my notebook and exhaled loudly. This got Kayla’s attention.

“What are you doing?” she asked, more entertained than concerned.

“Writing a poem,” I answered. I lifted my head to look at her. “Hey, you want to write one, too?”

I showed her how I had assembled and organized my notes on the fireworks. She decided to do the same thing for Captain D’s, the seafood restaurant. We worked alongside one another, doing serious work on poems that would no doubt change the course of humankind. After about ten minutes I had what I thought was a pretty good start but my poem seemed to be getting longer and longer without any end in sight. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where this poem was headed, none-the-less why I really even chose to write it.

I picked up my notebook and walked over to Kirby.

“Hey Kirby, you think you could sit with me and help me with my poem a little bit?” I asked.

She looked up at me.

“Sure.”

I made my way over to the front of the room to have a seat on the carpet and wait for her. Kirby finished up what she was doing and came over looking a tad bit honored and a tad bit unsure.

“Okay,” I started. “Here’s what I’ve done. I started with these words and phrases that remind me of watching a really big fireworks display and I’ve tried to make them into a poem. The problem is that I’m really not sure how to end it. I’m not sure where it’s headed and I don’t want it to just stop awkwardly. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” she answered.

“Well, let me read to you what I have so far and you maybe you can help me think of a good way to end it,” I said.

I read her my poem. It was really fresh and really raw so there were parts where I wasn’t even sure how it was supposed to sound and other parts where I struggled to read my own careless handwriting. Once I had finished I looked up at her and asked, “So, what do you think? How could I end it?”

She sat and thought for a while looking really unsure.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t written any poems in a really long time. Maybe you could find a poetry book and read through it to get some ideas. You could see how other people have finished theirs.”

That was it! What do we do when we get stuck in our writing? We find a piece of writing that we really like and we think about what they have done that we could emulate. She was actually using my own advice to help me with my piece. She was the teacher and I was the learner. Moments like this seem really small and inconsequential to most anyone who doesn’t teach but to those of us who do it’s the stuff that could make an entire day.

“Do you know of any poetry books in particular that I might try?” I asked. I knew this was pushing it a little because Kirby is an avid fantasy reader, consuming every series she can get her hands on.

“No, not really,” she said. “But I did see someone in the room reading a poetry book a few days ago. Maybe you could ask them.”

“Oh, that was Hannah,” I said. “And I think her poetry book was humorous. My poem isn’t really funny so I’m not sure that her book would be all that helpful.”

We sat there and talked about poetry books for a while and then discussed the possibility of finishing with a flourish.

“The finale!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, the finale,” I said. “That makes a lot of sense. It’s kind of like the natural way to end it.”

She hopped up and returned to her own work and I sat and finished up the draft of my poem. The poem turned out okay but the conversation around it was far better. I couldn’t wait to share this discussion with everyone else. I couldn’t wait to tell them how I had come to Kirby with a very specific question or concern about my piece and how she had suggested finding a book to help and then brainstormed some ideas with me.

After our workshop was over everyone took a turn sharing something they were working on. As always, I was blown away by their originality and their writing. Kayla’s poem about Captain D’s was really great – far better than the restaurant itself, I’m sure. And having learned nothing from that earlier anecdote from a fellow teacher, I shared my piece last. So they could hear the BEST writing.

Okay, definitely not the best. But thanks to Kayla writing alongside me and Kirby giving me some pointers I was able to finish a poem. Quite an accomplishment.

Fireworks

The crowd gathers in so tight

I can barely breathe

Our heads lifted

skyward

in anticipation

Suddenly the first crackles

fill the sky with shimmering

sparkling greens

and blues

and reds

and purples
and whites

Where do all the colors come from?

My chest pounds

with each explosion of light

each tremor of sound

Babies bury their faces

in their mothers’ chests

crying

crying

crying

Wanting it to stop

Seconds turn to minutes

slowly ticking past

and the sky goes still

Clouds of smoke

Sit above us

like an eerie dream

Calm

Suddenly thousands

of flashes spark from

the ground

and sticks of lightning

again fill the air

It’s too much to see

Too much to hear

I wish I could stretch it out

over a million nights

so it would

never

have

to

end

Street Art

We watched a pretty interesting documentary this weekend called Exit Through the Gift Shop.  It told the story of this really eccentric- and self-absorbed- French shop keeper, Thierry Guetta, who walks around filming just about everything that happens to him throughout each and every day. He tapes his walk home from the bakery, his wife doing the dishes, himself in the tub. 

At some point he finds himself in the company of some of the most well known graffiti artists in Los Angeles. He begins following them out at night and filming them doing their work. There is one guy, Invader, who glues characters from the Space Invaders game-as well as others- onto walls, curbs, and signs across the city. Another guy, Shepard Fairly, specializes in pieces that feature the face of now deceased professional wrestler Andre the Giant with the word "Obey" written below. Seemingly unconcerned about his family, Guetta follows these artists everywhere - even overseas.

Guetta's dream, however, is to come in contact with the world's most famous and elusive graffiti artist, Banksy. Bansky is known across the globe for his pieces found on walls in post-hurricane New Orleans, the Jerusalem, London, Los Angeles, and many more. Guetta finally gets his chance to meet Bansky, a man who keeps his identity carefully under wraps. Guetta is even allowed to film hundreds of hours of Bansky at work, though from behind and with a hood pulled over his head.

Eventually someone asks Guetta what he's doing with all this film footage. He claims to be making a documentary but in fact he's throwing them all into random boxes in his house. None of the tapes are ever watched and few are even labeled in any way. Guetta sets out to go through his stacks of hundreds, if not thousands, of tapes and actually put together a film. The result of his efforts is terrible.

Bansky winds up taking the tapes and making the documentary himself. In the meantime Guetta tries his own hand at becoming an artist. Less than a year later he is putting on a big scale art show, sells more than a million dollars worth of this "work", and becomes a force within the Los Angeles art scene. The only problem is that he's not really that much of an artist. In fact, he hires artists to make his visions become realities. The bulk of the work at his first art show are the result of many hired hands. Guetta, now going by the name "Mr. Brainwash," seems to only sprinkle some paint over a few canvases and field interview requests. This heavily annoys all the artists he spent years following. Feeling as though Mr. Brainwash didn't have to pay his dues, or create his own work or ideas, there are many feelings of resentment. The silver lining, I guess, was that this film is the result of Banksy's work and is now nominated for an Academy Award.

It was an odd film. However, as you can see the street art was amazing.