I just posted grades for the first quarter for the twenty-first time. It doesn’t feel like it. I’m not sure what a 21st milestone is supposed to feel like, but I do know that the realization feels-- eery? unsettling? odd-- like I just woke up from a daydream… it’s disorienting, but not alarming. It just is.
Hopefully, after a few decades of teaching I’ve learned some things. What I think I learned is the true nature of what I do as a middle level educator. My lesson plans matter to my boss--- they’re a record of my planning. My grades matter to my student’s parents-- they give a record of their child’s effort, progress, and give a little insight to his or her acumen when they actually apply themselves. The revelation is something that must be experienced before it is fully understood. Who I am with my students: the man they deal with each day, over a pattern of a year matters more to them than the brilliant lesson I craft, the exemplary grades that they earn, or how much they learn from me.
What matters to them goes something like this. “Will you be the adult?” They will goad me into an argument but not respect me if I engage. They want limits and they’ll never admit that. They want fairness, empathy, attention, genuine concern. If a teacher gives them these things freely, willingly, effortlessly, with all their heart, students learn. They learn because they know they are safe.
Safety isn’t just about kevlar vests, fire retardant material, soft surfaces, and mouth guards. Safety is knowing this is a room where a student can act thirteen because he is and that is a place where he or she will still be respected and welcomed the next day. She wants to know that, even if she was unbearably moody, that I’ll still give her a high five and say hello in the halls, at lunch, at the local grocery store when I run into her and her dad that evening. These simple things open the classroom and all I attempt to do with them.
If I was mentoring this year, here is the advice I would give a new teacher. Be boldly honest. Tell them what you really think. Tell stories. Have fun. Smile BEFORE Christmas. Classroom management isn’t about a healthy dose of fear. Students let you manage them when they feel respected, welcomed, and safe. You don’t have to know their names by the end of the first week of school but you do have to show them that who they are matters to you, and that you’re trying to remember their name, how to spell it, and that you actually listened to them, when they explained that detail.
I’ve learned that seriousness is overrated. Finding the funny and letting them in on the joke, encourages them to laugh, breathe, learn, relax, smile, learn… I’m a bolder entertainer in the safety of my classroom than anywhere else. Teaching demands everything I think I have to give and more. I teach English but I’m more than a teacher in room 225. I’m an actor, a singer, a story-teller, a dancer, a dad, a mentor, a coach, an editor, a decorator… I’m not the sage on the stage, but sometimes there is a stage.
It was so ingrained during teacher education that we should be the guide on the side and not the sage on the stage. I’m on the stage sometimes but not the sage. Entertainer? Yup--- you might walk by my room and hear the roar of laughter spill into the hall or a roar, cackle or shriek from me. Music flows there too. I used to try to hide that from my bosses--- I was having too much fun being Mr. Logan for it to be acceptable and professional right?
The stage is my five paragraph essay I write for my students to read each day. The stage is my engraved invitation delivered daily to each student to join me in the fun of learning. The stage is shared. The stage is my sharing who I am with them boldly, without apology and it is my open letter, inviting them to do the same with me. They do. We’ve had dance contests to see who has the smoothest moves to teach their feet to remember the most common coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and, so. I’ve been the Pied Piper of Fawn Grove, encouraging the students to rattle the guidance office ceiling below us and the social studies walls beside us talking about FANBOYS and problems with run-ons in a cacophony of dubious military drill cadences, cleaned up for middle school, and redirected to grammar.
I’ve learned that The Joker was right, “Why so serious?” Discipline with a smile and dealt gently is rewarded with compliance and a sheepish smile. Discipline with a smile and a sense of humor, that is not sarcastic, actually can earn you a genuine and instant “Sorry Mr. Logan.” mid-chuckle as they accept the invitation to laugh at the audacity of their behavior. Imagine that--- apologies that are genuine, evidenced by the behavior extinguishing?
I could be wrong, but there’s some reason that when I announced that I was going to be absent that my students were disappointed and concerned instead excited and inquiring who would be my sub. My students do most of their work. They respect each other, my room, and me. I set the tone.
I also learned that if I don’t invest the time to create a room that students want to be in, and a teacher they want to be with, nothing else will matter to them and their grades will reflect that. I teach middle school. They will remember a few of my crazy grammar songs, my wit, and my empathy for the fact that these two years are rough. Only a few will remember what an appositive or gerund is. Do you?
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
