Day 14: Fake It 'til You Make It

This is going to be another short post because I need some sleep tonight. We had a very busy first day which was, for lack of a better term, a roller coaster.

From my IC: the 6/8th writing department's first day teaching! Clockwise from top left: Matt, me, Corey and Avery

I had to get up an hour earlier than usual to be at the school by 7 AM. We had a beautiful morning faculty meeting in which we watched an inspiring clip from Spider-Man 2 (a phrase which I would previously have thought paradoxical). In the morning, I had my first lesson with each of my two classes. The first class was very well behaved, though also a little too quiet and hesitant to participate, so I need to find ways to keep them actively engaged. The second class was quite the opposite, overly engaged but also clearly trying to test my limits. One student in particular did something insubordinate which I did not address properly, and so I went into lunch feeling pretty down about myself. I spoke with Megan about it and she encouraged me to find him at recess and have a private conversation with him, coaching me through how to address it to prevent further discontent on his end. I would like to point out that my coach last summer did nothing of the sort, and I really could have used some extra disciplinary coaching along those lines last year. I cannot begin to express how grateful I am for my IC this summer and all of her advice. She totally turned my day around as I was able to find the student, talk to him calmly, address the situation and clear the air.

Proctoring 5th Grade Recess; we built a giant "work of art" and then promptly destroyed it.

The best part of my day was proctoring 5/6th grade recess. We had talked about developmental differences during training, but seeing the stark juxtaposition of my "too-cool-for-school" 8th graders in class and the wildly excited, friendly and creative kids just a few years younger than them was really eye-opening for me. In just one day, I have started reconsidering what age I actually want to teach after I graduate. Don't get me wrong; I still see the positives in teaching older kids, and once we actually begin writing essays, I know I will build strong connections with my oldies, but there is a special spark in those slightly younger students which I had never experienced working with before today.

My elective class was really fun. I am in awe of my co-teacher, Lauren (the half-British young woman from North Carolina), who is easily one of the most organized, well-spoken and effective teachers with whom I have ever had the pleasure to work. I basically want to be her when I grow up, which is funny because I'm slightly older than her. In class, we worked on using our face to portray emotions, watching video clips of high-intensity emotional scenes from movies (one example, inspired by mom, was the "SANTA! I KNOW HIM!" clip from Elf, so thanks for that, Mom.) We then played emotion charades with the kids, giving them tough emotional words (ecstatic, amorous, uncomfortable, etc.) and asking them to guess each other's emotions. It was a challenging game, but Lauren and I were both blown away with how the kids rose to the occasion.

Chris and Sam in our daily ASM skit for the students; I wrote and am in tomorrow's!

Next, I had my advisory group. One of my mentees (Eddy) was absent today, so I just had Eric, Karla and Janice. They are all really sweet kids and a vastly different group than my advisees last year. While my advisees last summer were some of the strongest personalities in the program and consequently both exceptional leaders and frequent troublemakers, this summer they are particularly quiet, bashful and introverted. In some ways, this is a huge blessing because I do not have to worry as much about them, but in others it makes my life difficult because I am going to have an hour every day which I am just spending getting to know them and help them with whatever they are struggling with, but they seem pretty self-sufficient and prefer to keep to themselves. I'm not just going to let this slide all summer of course; I just need to head back to the drawing board to figure out how to warm them up to me and get us functioning well together as a group.

After school ended, we had a professional development about organization strategies. I started to ponder my future and I realized that a lot of my current organization methods are dictated by how my clubs run at Penn. I think after I graduate I am going to open a new e-mail account and start from a clean slate. When P.D. was done, I stuck around for a couple hours working on lesson plans and setting up my room for tomorrow. Overall, today had a lot of big highs and hard lows, but they averaged out to a nice neutral. As I grow with these kids, I am sure that will change: for better or worse though, who's to say?

One last anecdote from today. In my second class, the rough one, I gave a Do Now exercise in which I asked my students to write down how they were feeling about their fourth and final summer at the program. When I allowed them to share if they were interested, one of the girls said she felt "murderous". I of course got concerned and asked her to elaborate. She said that she always feels like she wants to strangle the teachers because we are always so happy and energetic that she thinks we're all fake. This was crushing to me, but also a big eye-opener. The thing to keep in mind is that, yes, we are all crazy energetic, way more than any teacher at any of our kids' schools, and we do that purposefully because we don't want our students coming to our program and thinking of it as work. It is a privilege for them; they should have as much fun as they can to inspire their learning and drive to go to college, and they should feel special, particularly since at their own schools many of them feel lost in the mix.

That said, our happiness is not unfounded. We would be INSANE to give up our summers and work 15+ hour days everyday if we did not absolutely love and believe in what we are doing. The problem is: how do we show that to our students? Is our enthusiasm actually hurting our relationships with them, particularly with the older kids? The 5/6th graders seem to thrive on it, but the 8th graders are a little more mature and a hell of a lot more cynical. They have seen things, they have been hurt and they have come to view things at more than face value, and none of these things are their fault. In this instance, I need to meet them where they are. The question becomes: how do I as their teacher make it clear how thrilled I am to be working with them without breaking their trust by being TOO positive with them? I am going to be reflecting on this for a while, and there does not seem to be a set answer for this one, but I'll let you know whatever I end up thinking. In the meantime, I'll just keep reminding myself that I am not yet a full-time professional teacher and that it's okay to make mistakes in this environment as long as I maintain a growth mindset to keep moving forward. I will stumble this summer, I will be tested (as I have been already), and at times I will fail, but as long as my motives are always driven by my students, even if only one of them comes out of my class having learned a single thing, I will have made a difference.

From our training: "When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding." -Thich Nhat Hanh

Basically, I've just got to fake it until I make it.

Until next time,
Nate