Jerminating

Pre-Season Training

nobody@vox.com(JTarFiel) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:01:05 -0400

I went back to Greenwood to sleep in my extremely comfortable bed where it's actually possible to have dreams. It was pretty awesome. I fell asleep to Cool Hand Luke, got up, and lifted weights. While I was at the gym, I ran into a teacher from my school. Last year was her first year at my school (or teaching period), which makes her a hardened veteran. After the usual small-talk, she delivered some bad news.

Coach Fant is gone. That's the 6-4, 300 pound disciplinarian who strikes fear into the hearts of children (and adults). He is the head paddler (or ass-whupper, as he'd say) although I can pretty much handle that on my own now. Apparently, they're moving him to the other school in the district. I'm surprised about that, because he's been at my school over 30 years, and he could retire and make more money off pensions and driving buses than teaching next year. So there goes the closest thing our school has to a tyrant, and also the best person to sit down and shoot the bull with. I liked to keep my class in the cafeteria a little too long while I talked with him at lunch. Tyrants aren't the greatest people in the world, but at my school he served a very useful purpose. He was also kind of a mentor for coaches, and even for teachers as far at that's concerned. In the words of the woman delivering this news, "Next year is gonna be real."

Another thing that will make next year "real," as if it wasn't far too real already, is that the assistant principal is moving to the elementary school. She was the only administrator with any cojones, despite the fact that she was indeed a she. There was a clear difference in the behavior at our school when she was gone on certain days. That difference was basically that kids were running wild and tearing shit up. Now it is fairly likely that we'll get to see that every day. She was also the administrator most likely to support teachers, although she was often undermined herself. Her leaving, compounded by the fact that the principal is not, is going to make next year pretty damn real, unless they replace her with some sort of drill sergeant or something.

After hearing all the good news, I told her that I guess I'd better start pushing up a little more weight. If nothing else, that gives me plenty of motivation to work out hard in July. Like she said, either get strong and get that swing ready, or get fast and lace up those running shoes.

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Punishment

nobody@vox.com(JTarFiel) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:03:47 -0400

I've talked to several people about corporal punishment now, and lots of people seem curious about it, so I'm going to try to write a serious blog about it (see the "Mr. October" blog for a more entertaining approach).

First, I'm not ideologically opposed to it. For one thing, ideologies aren't worth much when you're in it deep, as we all will be at some time in the classroom. I like ideologies and I have some of my own, but they don't solve many of the problems I've faced. Problem-solving, however, has managed to solve several of my problems. That's what I consider corporal punishment: a problem-solving tool.

My first year, I did not use corporal punishment. Therefore, I do not deem it to be necessary, even at my school in Leflore County, where it is accepted as an integral part of child-rearing and school discipline. However, I choose not to ever go through another year at my school without using it, unless they drastically alter the school discipline plan and the way the administration handles disciplinary problems. The fact is, that's the main form of discipline that they will back me up on.

My own personal experience with corporal punishment is pretty extensive. I was known to get worn out by my mom via the belt ("Do you want Mr. Black or Mr. Brown?"), the wooden spoon (which was broken over my ass), the switch, flyswatter, or whatever else was lying around when I pushed her over the edge. I guess it's just tradition. My mom's parents used it extensively, and I'm sure their parents used it on them. That side of the family is from the country and comes from depression area poverty and large families. This wasn't the only way my mom disciplined my brother and me; she tried everything I think. Raising twins alone, she had to. But when grounding, yelling, taking away privileges, or forced manual labor didn't work, we got our asses beat. And it worked, too.

From my experiences being punished and what seems to me to be common sense, punishment is punishment, there are just different brands. Punishment is not fun. It creates discomfort and displeasure. If you are punishing by taking away privileges (grounding, losing dessert, tv, etc.), that will create displeasure. If you punish by yelling or chastising, that creates discomfort or displeasure. If you are punishing by fining or assigning manual labor, that will create displeasure and discomfort. The point is that you are trying to make it clear that their undesired behavior will lead them displeasure in hopes that they will correct their behavior. Corporal punishment is the same thing. It's just more physical and less psychological in its approach. I've heard words said and seen many types of punishment given out that create lasting psychological damage. If corporal punishment is done correctly, then that won't occur. It will just be a few minutes of discomfort.

There is always the argument that corporal punishment is barbaric or that its time is past. Some people link it to violence and say that it will teach the child to be violent. Some people imply that it's an extension of the same type of physical torture that was used to "discipline" or repress slaves, criminals and other unfortunate people. I can see how there is a relationship between paddling a child in order to get him/her to change their behavior and flogging someone in town square, but it's pretty minimal. It's the same way with something like time-out or ISS, or grounding a child. Aren't those just extensions of imprisoning people, taking away their freedom and the privileges they've been accustomed to? So I can understand arguments like those, but I don't think they hold much water. They're just too extreme and try to see things as either black or white instead of taking the context into consideration.

In my situation, as a teacher at my school, I didn't use corporal punishment my first year. That was one of the topics that came up in my interview. When they asked me about it, I said, "Well you gotta do what you gotta do." Then they informed me that it was the teachers, not the administrators who administered the licks. I didn't plan on paddling students, and I told them that I would make sure I had exhausted every other option first. The main reasons I didn't want to paddle at first were: 1) I hadn't done it before; 2) I wasn't enthused about paddling someone else's kids; 3) I was a young white male from outside the community at an almost totally black school. I didn't want to be the modern-day slave master. To be honest, I didn't really have a problem with corporal punishment, but I didn't want to use it. In retrospect, I think it was wise of me not to use it during my first year, at least from the start. I think it's safer to be established and accepted at your school before trying it.

Late in my first year, my worst class... let me take a line or two to tell you that they were straight from hell, and I promise I'll be good if I never have to see them again. Anyway I had a lot of them who were basically wards in my nut-house for 50 minutes a day, and nothing I did for discipline worked. The only way I could get several of them to sit down and shut up was to threaten to send them to Coach Fant, a 6-4, 300-plus pound man who swings his board very hard. So I was greatly tempted to try it at the end of that first year, but I told myself to go ahead and finish it out and get a fresh start next year.

Another thing that tipped the scales in favor of corporal punishment for year 2 was the way my administration handled it. I remember one day when a student acted up repeatedly, got a writing assignment, got it doubled, and then cussed me out about as badly as she could have. I wrote her up, and after all of that she was sent back immediately and only had to complete the writing assignment she'd already earned. The same day I heard about another student who got suspended for 3 days for refusing corporal punishment after playing around in the hall. After a year it was clear that I was sending too many kids to the office, that they weren't supporting my consequences the way I'd hoped, and that it was hurting my classroom management. They did support corporal punishment, though.

So I mentally prepared myself for the possibility of paddling students heading into year 2, and by the second week of school, it was clear that I needed the "board of corrections" to back up my writing assignments. Long story short, I started paddling, and it was kind of like Pringles: once you pop, you can't stop. I paddled about 50 kids, and I would say that it worked pretty well overall. I'd give it a B+ or an A-. The strengths of paddling are that you get to handle discipline problems that have escalated beyond mere writing assignments on your own; you create less of a hassle for your administrators, and they don't get to undercut your management as much; you get to avoid a lot of the hassle of keeping up with writing assignments when kids won't do them; and it's a very quick and direct way of implementing a consequence as a result of undesirable behavior.

It should also be clear that it's not like I'm going around beating children who don't please me. We go through the consequences, and when we get to corporal punishment, we go in the hall. If the child refuses to take the licks, I write up a referral explaining everything including their refusal for corporal punishment. Very few of them refuse. They don't try to hit you back or fight you, because like I said, they are accepting this punishment.

As far as the technique, you have to use gravity as much as possible, snap the wrist pretty hard, and use those powerful core muscles to twist, like you were trying to hit a home run or a 300 yard drive. If you're going to paddle, paddle pretty hard. If you're not going to paddle, then don't judge those who do. It's a problem-solving strategy, like drawing a diagram for a difficult math problem. Experiment and find what works for you.

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Reflecting at the beginning of my 3rd year

nobody@vox.com(JTarFiel) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:48:53 -0400

Coming back after finishing MTC and teaching in the summer has already been an eye opener and a privilege. As a "third year," I assume I'm expected to model good lessons for the new Biology teachers and help them get started. As of today, I've taught four lessons, and I don't think I've done a real closure yet. If I remember right, that's supposed to be where you review the lesson, relate it to their lives, and preview the next one. I'm sure I wrote them down in my plans, but I don't know what happened to them. I'd say since maybe September or October I've basically been trying to make it through the procedure. If I can do that every day, a closure just seems like showing off, and I'm too modest a guy to do that. So coming back and putting the pressure on myself to teach good lessons from start to finish is definitely good for me. Hopefully it will get me out of some bad habits.

Another eye opener was teaching first period. At my school, we have a homeroom period which is a brief and useless, but often intense living hell, but it does serve some purpose. The kids usually come out of homeroom hyped up (that's how they come out of mine) or at least awake. Teaching first period here in summer school is like teaching the dead. I hope the first years are ready for that. I had a pretty good lesson with my Homer Simpson lab safety power point going strong, but all I could manage was to keep them awake and get a few laughs. At least they didn't throw rotten tomatoes at me. I guess it was mildly successful. Unfortunately, I blew through the presentation too fast and ran out of stuff to do because Lab Safety is easy and they finished a quiz really quick. I had about 7 or 8 minutes left, and I was feeling my body pull me over to the desk, where I like to relax. During the year, I'll get on my stool, relax, and maybe shoot the breeze with some of my kids. That would probably not be the best example of a good finish to a lesson here, and it takes a while for me to build that familiarity with my students, so Pete offered to bail me out with some filler activities. He asked them some good lateral thinking questions.

Pete is an awesome teacher, and he's great at interacting with the students. I didn't see him teach last year, so I don't know if he's a natural or not, but I'd guess he is. It doesn't really matter though, because he's damn good. I look forward to getting some good ideas from watching him, and I hope our first years will do the same.

Thinking back to how I teach during the school year, I realize how much more there is to being a good, successful teacher than teaching good lessons. I think MTC, and especially the summer program, is awesome at making teachers who know how to teach great lessons. But I'm not sure that all that translates to being a good teacher at a school like mine. I guess the rest consists of being able to relate with the kids and adapt to the environment, but mainly being able to cope psychologically with some absurd stuff. In addition to being able to teach, relate to kids, being determined and resilient, I think the ability to laugh has been as important as anything in helping me succeed.

Maybe we've been having people quit more often lately because those other non-instructional qualities are so hard to identify in people until they're put into the real situation. And I don't even know if it's possible to teach them to someone. Teaching these kids at summer school is as good (and easy) as it gets when it comes to learning how to teach, but it's really lacking in terms of preparing someone to survive in certain schools. I don't know if that's a problem that should be solved or just a reality that has to be accepted, but it's something that seems obvious again this summer.

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Book (or at least blog) to Read

nobody@vox.com(JTarFiel) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:18:42 -0400

I just finished a book called There Goes My Everything, and it's a pretty thorough study of white southerners during the civil rights movement. It describes all the different positions that whites occupied on the topic of segregation and integration, from brave freedom fighters to the violent bigots with dynamite, and all those in between. The majority of whites in the south felt that race relations were good, that they knew and understood their black peers, and that everyone thought the Jim Crow status quo was pleasant for all. It was psychologically necessary to believe this in order to justify such an oppressive system. But as blacks began to demand rights and activism spread throughout the region, whites would first dodge the unpleasant truth by attributing these demonstrations and protests to "outside agitators," mainly communists. By linking efforts to integrate and pass civil rights legislation to communism, southerners could feel patriotic in their opposition, that they were doing their duty to defend America (or to defend their homeland from a tyrannical federal government run by communists). When they finally had to face reality as they saw "their negroes" marching in the streets and demanding civil rights, many whites felt betrayed and lost whatever trust and esteem they may have previously felt.

Another interesting point was the inability for the majority of whites to comprehend the notion of equality between the races. They felt that any rights won by blacks would mean rights lost by whites. They were so entrenched in a caste system characterized by oppression that they assumed giving blacks the rights that whites had enjoyed for so long would put blacks on top and whites on the bottom of society.

In an analysis of white attitudes toward integration, it seemed that the majority of whites approved of a "separate but equal" system. Many favored equal rights for blacks, but still supported segregation and felt it was a necessary division between different cultures. They just thought it was the natural order in the south. As integration became widely accepted as inevitable, many whites went with the flow, favoring integrated schools over no school at all. But some of the most violent bigots terrorized whites who integrated restaurants or schools, running them out of town or out of business. In some towns, the Klan would bomb restaurants that had been forced to integrate if they served black customers. This caused many restaurants and hotels to resegregate illegally and against some of their own wishes. In some places the treatment for whites who challenged the status quo was worse than it was for blacks, although obviously that wasn't the norm, and not too many whites were being lynched.

These violent attacks often backfired. Many white southerners, regardless of how they felt before, were swayed by violence and ugly behavior. Whites who felt sympathy for blacks may have felt threatened by more militant or angry protests from blacks and become staunch segregationists. Likewise, some whites who opposed integration and civil rights were often won over by the bombings and beatings and other violence and ignorance shown by klansmen, policemen, and race-baiting politicians.

The book also addresses the stereotype that the poor, ignorant, and working class whites were the most violent and racist people. Upper-class whites often ridiculed them for their treatment of blacks, and this is something we still see today. The truth of the matter is that the poor, working class whites were the ones who actually were affected by integration. They couldn't afford to move to suburbs or gated communities. They couldn't afford to send their kids to private schools. While many of them may have reacted in ugly and hateful ways, their upper-class counterparts still had black servants and sent their children to segregation academies.

This book is really worth the read for anyone who wants to understand the mentality of whites in the last 60 years in terms of race relations. So much civil rights history is centered on events and powerful figures, many of them black heroes from the movement, but the truth is that many of the problems we still have are due to the unwillingness of whites to acknowledge the ugly history of the treatment of blacks and the racial problems that still persist as a result. Much of these problems are white problems that can't be solved without first understanding things from that point of view.

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Finals/Better Luck Next Year

nobody@vox.com(JTarFiel) — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:42:11 -0400

I have a lot of kids failing, especially in my chemistry class, so I gear my final to help them. I make it optional, essay format, and take-home. Each question is worth 15 points, and there are 10 of them, so 7 questions would add up to a possible 105 and one could try all 10 for a possible 150. I allow them to get help from me or other people, to use the internet, or to use any textbooks, but I require that it be in their own words, hand-written, and not the same as anyone else's test. Most of the students who are passing opt out of the test and just take their grade the way it is, and the ones who take the final are borderline or failing and need a miracle to pass.

My hope is that the students will take me seriously when I say that I will actually be grading this, not just giving them a grade for turning something in. I also hope that they will take me seriously when I say that answers that are identical to those of another student won't receive credit. I also hope that they will use the 2 WEEKS time I've given them to work on it and ask questions about things they need help on. I hope they'll read the questions and follow the instructions. Basically, despite a whole year of them demonstrating the opposite, I'm still expecting respect, responsibility, and honesty, the very expectations hanging on my wall since day 1.

So, today was the due date for the tests, and let me tell you, I have never seen so much pitifulness (is that a word?) in all my life. First, the tests were atrocious. I had to take a break while grading them so that I wouldn't become physically or emotionally ill. Many students didn't even attempt enough questions to pass in the first place, and most of the questions that were attempted did not even remotely address the prompt. In addition to the pitiful tests, I saw some truly pitiful students. After realizing they'd failed the test, or that they'd cheated and wouldn't receive any credit, I got to hear the question that I hate as much as "Can I go to the bathroom?" That would be, "Is there some extra work I can do?" I remain outwardly calm, but my inner voice is screaming, "HELL NO! How can you even ask me that ridiculous question after a whole year of doing nothing?" I calmly tell the student that this was the extra work, and there will be no other chances. Better luck next year.

The truth is that I am the person who is the dumbest in this situation. I've trusted the very kids who have shown me that they are the least trustworthy, and I've given a chance to the very students who have wasted almost every chance I've given them this year. A lot of them will cheat. The dumbest and laziest of them will copy word for word, making it easy to put down a zero. Or better yet, they'll have someone else write it and it won't even be in their handwriting. The others will get a friend whose grade is not at stake to tell them the answers, and the resulting work will be very low quality, since that friend doesn't have any real reason to think too hard or work too hard. Then there are a few who just don't take me seriously, which is why they need this miracle to happen in the first place. They usually turn in something that a normal student (or even a lazy cheater) would be ashamed of.

The majority of them are in this final category, at least in combination with some of the other categories. They don't take me seriously, so they didn't take the test that seriously. They don't take me seriously when I tell them their grade and that they must pass the final to have a chance. They don't take me seriously when I tell them that after all the interventions and paperwork I've had to do because of them, that I'll certainly be failing students who deserve to fail. They don't take me seriously when I tell them that I don't just pass people like other teachers do, that they will get what they deserve in my class. Of course, I'm sure every teacher who does just pass them along tells them the same things. And it is only my second year, so maybe I'm still establishing my reputation. But here's hoping that next year the 30+ students retaking my classes will serve as a good example for the new students to whom I'll be giving the same warnings that I've given to all my students the last 2 years.

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First Political Blog: Dem Primary

nobody@vox.com(JTarFiel) — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:08:54 -0400

I'm finally getting fed up with the democratic primary, so much so that I'm writing my first political blog. I'm the left leaning type who doesn't want to consider himself a "Democrat," but that's pretty much what I vote for. I'm certainly not voting for a Republican these days. But another person I won't be voting for is Hillary Clinton. I've decided that if she is given the nomination (by which I mean it's stolen from Obama), I'll vote Green Party or write in Obama.

After the primaries last night in Indiana and North Carolina, Hillary's chances at fairly winning the nomination are over, and all she can do now is fracture the party and try to tear Obama down even more than she has already. Her argument to keep running is that she can win the white, working class vote and Obama can't, and that a Democrat has to win that group in order to win the election. Here are some things that I find troubling about this and about the way the media covers it.

First off, it's illogical to suggest that these voters who may prefer her over Obama will not vote for Obama if he's the Democratic nominee. Why is it that Hillary can win 60% of the white working class vote, and we assume none of them will vote for Obama in the general election, but I don't hear the same argument when Obama wins 90% of the black vote. No one makes the assumption that the black voters won't back Hillary if she's the Democratic nominee. On the news this morning, they said that Hillary won big in the "much sought after white working class vote." No mention of Obama winning 90% of the black vote or of the huge black turnout in North Carolina. No mention that the black vote was "much sought after." No mention of the fact that a Democrat who cannot win the black vote has no chance in a general election in the post-Civil Rights bill era. The coverage seems to be implying that the black vote is not as important as the white working class vote and that Hillary can take their votes for granted if she is the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, she continues to alienate them through divisive campaigning focusing on Rev. Wright in states that have long histories of racial division.

Another thing is the fact that Obama is labeled as out of touch, liberal, and elitist. Hillary was on the damn corporate board at Wal-Mart until Bill ran for Pres. in 1992. And she's branded as the populist who is in touch with the working class. There isn't a more anti-union, anti-working class operation on earth than Wal-Mart. Obama spent years working as a community organizer in Chicago, probably with people who were poor and lacked important services due in part to companies and policies like those of Wal-Mart.

There are some troubling implications that can be made from the coverage I've seen lately. I've mentioned most of them, but I think the main one is that the coverage of this primary is slanted against Obama for whatever reason. Maybe they want Hillary to win. Maybe they want to take Obama down a peg in hopes that McCain will win. Maybe they just favor the negative, shit-slinging style of campaigning that Hillary runs. Maybe they just want this mess to go on as long as possible to boost ratings. I don't know, but I'm sick of it. It's time for someone to get Hillary out of the way and let Obama run against McCain.

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Beat This One

nobody@vox.com(JTarFiel) — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:37:41 -0400

So I'm sure many of you fellow MTCers share the same problems with pests and rodents and what not in your classrooms. I have been priveleged to share this habitat with roaches, mice, wasps, ants, and termites, but today there was a new one. I always hear the mice running around in the ceiling and see them pretty often run across the floor, but lately I've heard some large creature that I haven't cared to discover bumping around in my room or my lab. This morning I got to school early and I heard the usual scurrying around, and later on I heard "Meow." I figured someone was messing with me from out in the hall, and was going to ignore it. After about the fourth time, I decided it had to be what it sounded like and decided to go ahead and take a look. I went around the corner, and sure enough, there was a mangy looking, frail, probably feral black cat. On the one hand, God only knows what kind of diseases and fleas it's carrying, but on the other, I haven't noticed as many mice running around lately. Maybe I should just let it stay back there in the lab. I decided to leave my doors open and hope it snuck out into the hall so I could lock it out. Who knows how it got in here in the first place, or how long it's been here. So it eventually went out in the hall, and I locked it out, and it saw me and ran into the computer teacher's room down the hall. It wouldn't leave, it was just hiding under desks and in corners, until the bell rang and the kids came. I didn't know whether the kids or the cat would freak out more. Luckily, it was the cat. It ran down the hall, crashed into the closed double doors leading outside, jumped to figure out the window was impenetrable, and ran back towards my room. Meanwhile, I was holding a door open so that it would hopefully run outside, but it was slipping and sliding, trying to get back into my room. As it ran through the door, a 7th grade kid reached down and snagged it's tail and yanked it up. He carried it down the hall, while it was hissing and bawling, and threw it out the door. It ran off. I was about to die laughing. I told the kid I'm glad he grabbed that cat becasuse I wasn't going to do it. What a wonderful way to wake up and start another week at school. Never a dull moment.

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My MTC Experience

nobody@vox.com(JTarFiel) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:39:12 -0400

There's no way I could give a complete portrayal of my experience in this blog, or even in a book. Maybe I could put all my blogs together as a sort of book of letters, and then fill in the gaps and make an interesting story, although it would be extremely long. I think it's an experience someone has to live to understand, so I'm sure all my fellow MTCers can relate.

If I had to sum it up, I'd say that I did what I felt I had to do, first of all in order to survive, and secondly to succeed. I'm still here, writing this blog, and I'm even planning on coming back to my school for another year, so I've survived. As far as success, John Wooden says that's achieving your personal best considering what you're given and what you're up against in order to make the greatest contribution you can to the world. Something like achieving your full potential. I'm not going to sit here and say I did that every day. There were times I put everything I could into something, and there were times I didn't. I'm proud of a lot of done, and ashamed of some things I've done as well. So I'll just say I'm a human and that I'm still striving for success, aiming to improve so I can come as close as possible to my personal best. Some people will tell you they did their best, but I won't lie here and say that about myself. Showing up and giving your best everyday is the hardest thing in the world, because you can never do any more than that.

I think the ultimate result is that I learned a lot about human beings, primarily myself. I learned what was most important to me, I learned how to lead, how to adapt, how to accept reality while striving to shape it. This was an exercise in prioritizing. I prioritized everyting from my values to my classroom rules and my curriculum frameworks. For example, I really don't care if a student's shirt is untucked. Come to class on time and do your work. I definitely learned which values I could compromise, and which I couldn't. I learned to shop at Wal-Mart without feeling too guilty about it. I also learned that paddling students wasn't as awful as it's cracked up to be. And having students do worksheets and bookwork... not a horrible thing at all. Keeping a neat, clean, organized desk/room/office... that was the first thing to go. I told several people that compromising values is what teachng is all about.

I also learned the values that I couldn't compromise, no matter how difficult things got. The idea that students have to be responsible and work in order to earn something is something I couldn't part with. If I ever have kids, I'll probably emphasize that more than anything. My students were told on day 1 that they would have to come and work in my class every day, and that was 99.9% true. Working to earn something was as important in basketball as it was in my classroom. Cheating and cutting corners makes me sick. Lots of teachers let students get away with it because it's less work for them, but I couldn't do it. So honesty, hard work, and responsibility for your own actions are values I couldn't compromise.

I also learned what a creature of habit I am. I am extremely dependent on my habits, especially working out, eating, sleeping, and generally taking care of myself. I have to get my exercise, and I have daily and weekly routines that I live by. This is more true outside of my classroom than inside. If I wasn't flexible at work, I would have stroked out very early on.

I think the thing that allowed me to have whatever amount of success I had was that I found ways to enjoy my experience. People who latch on to negative things and can't let them go are totally miserable. I've talked to a lot of people who do nothing but stress out about bad things that happened at work. I like to complain, too, but most of the time I would make myself think about it, hold on to it for a second, and then just let it go. When I go home, who cares if a student was disrespectful to me? A teacher my first year told me how he paddled students and it relieved his stress. He said never let a student's bad day ruin yours. Although you may not need to paddle them every time, that's great advice. There were times a class would be disresepctful or refuse to listen to me, so I would tell them I was going to write their assignment on the board and go sit down and take it easy. It's not always the best approach, but I've stayed happy and sane enough to keep coming back and avoid the bitterness many teachers have. One of my students told me recently that I always seem calm, cool, and collected (the three C's he said). That's what I try to do, really. I don't like stress. I like to stay on an even keel. So, I may not be the energetic teacher who's bouncing off the walls and performing for my class, but I'm also not the one who rips his hair out, screams, cries, or has a nervous breakdown every week. Part of keeping your cool is to let go of the negativity, laugh at a lot of it, and just roll with the punches. Don't take it personally. That's an approach I hope I can take with me everywhere I go.

I made sure to find the enjoyable parts of my job and try to cling to them instead of the negativity. I spent a lot of my time coaching basketball and track. Coaching was something I loved and I would do for free (I did most of the time). It gave me some positive feelings about coming to and being at school. I loved to joke around with the other coaches, I loved planning and running practices, and I loved working with my teams. I also had positive interactions with my students. I learned to enjoy when they would tease me and make jokes, even "hagging each other." Sometimes I'd joke with them and play around a little. I didn't mind sacrificing 2 or 3 minutes of class to tell a joke or laugh at something. I think some of the advice teachers get (don't use sarcasm) is wrong. It's important to be yourself and show them you're a human. You just have to learn how to interact with your students. If I wasn't able to use my sense of humor and laugh, I would have been gone a long time ago. I remember laughing as I was writing students up for outrageous, inappropriate things they'd say or do, but I couldn't help it. Enjoying things at work was the most important thing I did, because it helped me survive and made my classroom a more positive environment. My best classes were those I had the most positive interactions with, and the worst were the ones where we never clicked, and I was always serious.

I think a good analogy for the whole experience is the way I feel when I go home for a long break or holiday. All the misery, difficulty, and hard work I've been through leave a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. A lot of the crazy things that happen and cause headaches during the day turn into funny stories down the road. I end up missing my students and my job, in spite of all the daily crap I deal with. I wonder how I could quit doing the job that I've dreaded and trudged through for the last 9 weeks.

And then I think about my impact. I really don't think I've had any impact whatsoever on the educational or social system here. Nothing more than a drop of water in the ocean at least. But I know I've had an impact on the lives of all the individuals I've taught and coached. I've shown many of them that they can succeed in a demanding class and a difficult subject. I've shown many of them that they can get along with and trust a white man. I've shown many of them that a person can be calm and disciplined, and still have an enjoyable life. And I've shown many of them that at least in some corners of the universe, life can be fair and hard work can pay off.

I don't think I'll do this forever. I'm planning on coming back, teaching and coaching here one more year and applying to grad school for sociology. I want to get a PhD (piled high and deep, as my uncle says). Maybe I'll teach at the college level, but I don't think I'm a high school chemistry teacher at heart. It's not my passion. I know that I will miss coaching basketball a lot, and maybe I'll be drawn back to it one way or another. And I know that I'll take many of these life lessons with me. I know that every day, life is a challenge, and that I have to be myself and do my best to make the best decisions I can make and act on them to the best of my ability. If I do that, there is no reason to regret the past or fear the future, because I'm doing all that I can, striving for success: my personal best and making the greatest contribution I can.

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7th Period today

nobody@vox.com(JTarFiel) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:07:04 -0400

While my other classes got to do labs today, 7th period will not have the privilege. They'll continue to do bookwork, because as usual they had no interest in my teaching and didn't have the respect to at least be quiet. One of the students who is disrespectful to me was back at it today and she needed a sheet of typing paper to complete an assignment on.

"Mr. Fiel, can I have a sheet of typing paper?" She said it in a slow, dull tone, meant to mock me.

"Not from me. You're so disrespectful to me it makes me want to puke."

She ended up getting another student to ask for a sheet and then got it from them. Sometimes I think I get paid to take crap from kids all day. But it's payday, so I guess I'll stop complaining and go get my check.

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7th Period

nobody@vox.com(JTarFiel) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:15:13 -0400

My 7th Period Chemistry class has had problems throughout the year controlling themselves. Overall, they're hyped up and difficult to calm down. There are a couple of really disrespectful students in there too. The result, and what pisses me off so badly about them, is that they refuse to listen to me and most of them start talking when I'm talking. It's almost unbelievable. It's like they will sit there and be quiet and look at me, and as soon as I start talking, they start having side conversations.

So yesterday durinig a short lecture that was pretty important if they hope to understand the material, I noticed them spiraling out of control again. I could start going from left to right, picking out students and going through my consequences. I could get stressed out and yell and maybe cuss them out and tell them to shut up. I could just keep on pissing in the wind and try to teach the ones who are listening. But it's 7th Period and it's the end of March. The end of the day and almost the end of the year. The bottom line is they don't allow me to teach, and at this point I don't feel like forcing them to.

Anyway, I stopped in mid-sentence, told them never mind, and wrote their assignment on the board. I told them to copy down the definitions of all the bold terms in that section of the book, and copy down all the tables, too. I told them I don't think I'm going to teach them anymore because they don't want to listen anyway. I said I'm going to go sit down and take it easy. All of this, in addition to the assigned homework, is a grade and due before class starts tomorrow.

I'll probably give teaching a try again next week, but if I decide to do that then I'm going to have to make the committment to all the discipline it will require with this class. That might mean corporal punishment, but I haven't paddled anyone in over a month (not that it would cause me any stress). It also might mean I start just putting kids out of class the first time they interrupt or disrespect me. It also might mean throwing the responsibility writing assignment transparency on the overhead and having the whole class do it, giving a zero to anyone who refuses (or maybe giving them corporal punishment).

It's really a shame, but by the end of the day I just can't make myself do everything I need to do to be able to teach them. We'll see how they do learning on their own.

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