Tied Together

I am slowly learning that I have to engage my students all the time. If I don't, they do things like tie their shoe laces together during class. And then I have to take my scissors and cut them apart because time and attentions are at stake.

Yes, I cut my student's shoe lace. And then I tied it back together again. I don't feel bad. Actually, I felt angry, angry at myself for putting two such students next to one another and at them for acting like elementary students. Whoever thinks immaturity is endearing, try enduring it 6 hours a day, 5 days a week.

As much as I would like to cut myself off from them at times, I am finding more and more how tied to them I am. It isn't a negative tie - it's just a connection that drains me 4 days out of 5 and makes me wonder how on earth I am going to make it to Christmas break.

The Way to Respect

There is no winnowing fork so thorough than a class full of young students. At the same time, there is no ground more fertile than their minds, which often appear to reject knowledge and balk at order and respect but actually desire both as dry lands crave water. They are a people that will unknowingly test every principle you have, push against every act of patience you demonstrate, and bore not one but many holes into the center of your heart. Why? The reason is universal: they desire to be found acceptable and loved as they are. 

The true triumph as an educator is not that they remember every grammatical term or mathematical equation, or even that they can apply such basic components to their lives, but that they know love from you as their teacher. This is the key that gains entry into a person's will and earns genuine respect. It makes the rest of teaching easy (even if your lessons are not the most well thought out or stimulating and you are not the most organized or forward thinking person). Perfect love casts out the fear of judgment and will suffer much. It will also reproduce itself and all its related virtues.

Desks of a Feather

It isn't really a wonder that the desks in my classroom shift every class. But how much they move over six class periods is astonishing. I mean, I've had an entire row shift by over a foot. It makes me think of birds and how social they are, how they flock together on telephone lines and in trees. Truly, students in my classroom aren't too unlike birds - their desks become an extension of their active bodies, and students are just "flocking" together, trying to be closer and bend around all the rules and requirements of a traditional classroom. And at the end of the day, I get to reset the desks and wait to see how far they move the next day.

As Simple As Socks

Some of my students are absent minded, and some are just punks. Had it not been for the punk, I would not have discovered the absent minded one. And, as is true in most group environments, one person's actions almost always affects everyone else.

I moved the punk student as my first order of business that morning. I had put up with his shenanigans for about a week, and his protest encouraged me to put him right up front where I had the best view of his socks... Well, of him, but his socks were suddenly very visible. In truth, I am almost always oblivious when it comes to the dress code - it is enough for me to just get through class. Had he been less of a punk, I probably would never have noticed that the socks he put on that morning were black with a wide red wave crashing loudly up the sides of his calves. I have a vague idea of what is allowed in my own dress code and am far from being well versed in the finer details of the student dress code, but I somehow knew that his socks were in violation of the code. The debate that ensued as I confronted him and then took time to confirm in a student handbook became a waste of twenty minutes. I surveyed all the other students' socks and tried to regain order as I discovered the absent minded one in long white socks with black designs stitched all over them. 

Truly, the look of incredulity on both their faces as I told them that they had to go to the office and call their parents to get new socks matched my own at such a rule. It is a rule, though, and I have taken an oath to uphold it. Well, maybe that's a bit dramatic, but I know why upholding the rule is important. A little softening with socks, a little more with sweaters and shirts and...yeah, it becomes somewhat of a slippery slope. I had them take off their socks only to find out that they have to wear socks! It is in the code. And I can almost bet that it was put there because another teacher, like myself, came to the same sockless solution. It is a bit gross, I confess, but I figured it was the best course of action given the dwindling minutes of our already short class period. Since so much time had been wasted, and my frustration was growing, I postponed the battle and waited until after class to drag them before the Dean of students. He had no trouble dispatching both. The punk was told to push his socks down into his shoes and not wear them again, and the absent minded was told to go call his mom as his socks were too long to do the same. And that was the end of my involvement.

Sad and strange that a couple pairs of socks could cause so much trouble and waste so much time. Sometimes I think teaching is a lot like trying to feed a fussy infant. You try to get as much food as you can into its mouth, and you're thankful for what goes in.

Days When Bending Means Not Breaking

I find myself in a strange state of mind. I definitely feel the pressure and the stress of my job, but I don't feel like I am stuffing my emotions either. In short, I feel peace despite all the demands on my time and the little darts being thrown at my spirit. I have cried several times, but it is such a different experience when not coupled with depression. I know this is a strange beginning to a post about teaching Junior High students, but I always seem to be comparing this experience to my last one. And before my last year in China, my depression heightened every negative emotion and took my tiredness and magnified it by one hundred. I can truly attest my freedom from depression to Jesus, who took it from me when I gave it to Him as others prayed with me.

Which reminds me that I have been wanting to set up a prayer time with my co-workers, however short, just to help us all have our spiritual armor oiled and polished and ready for all the attacks of the day. Today would have been a great day for it. I drank caffeinated tea late last night and couldn't fall asleep despite feeling exhausted. So I stayed up to finish a couple work items that I had planned to do just before school started. I ran on about 4.5 hours of sleep and was thankful that my prayer had been answered for the need to feel rested despite a lack of sleep.

During my prep period, I got an email saying that the bells were on the wrong schedule and to follow our chapel schedule despite the sound of the bells. Meanwhile, I focused on trying to create the perfect seating chart for my ADHD class, forgetting all about the scheduled fire drill during that class. Break came and went, and the two students I gave break detention to never showed up. I found out later that they didn't even really have a break because the schedule was so messed up. So I rescheduled it. My most difficult class came; I used my new seating chart to try and force order. And we were in the middle of a quiz, almost finally focused, and the fire alarm sounded LOUDLY. I had forgotten, so I never warned them... 15 minutes later we were trying to settle back into class, and I was moving students around again, trying to regain the focus destroyed by that obnoxiously loud alarm.

I am reminded constantly that this job is not about the perfect plan or schedule or even lesson. It is about having a goal and managing all the obstacles on your way to getting to it. I am thankful for grace. And I am thankful to be able to freely give it.

Sweet and Sour

A group of my seventh grade boys were standing at the railing this morning waving at people passing by on the sidewalk. I love this side of their personalities. My neighbor, the Science teacher, asked me if I had ever heard of "sweet and sour," to which I shook my head "no." She explained that it's a game: if you wave at someone in a car and they smile or wave, then they're sweet; and if they don't, they're sour. It works with students in the classroom too, though it really has more to do with respect.

My seventh graders are my sweet. I smile and laugh and work hard for them, and they listen and self-manage and try to do well. Some of my eighth graders are like this too, but the behavior and overall attitude of a few key personalities are steadily souring the sweetness my seventh graders bring in with them. And I keep thinking that if these few students are acting out so much, they are probably really hurting inside. That has a sourness of its own, but it isn't one that I can help too much - it can only be changed by a much deeper touch.

The culture at my school is challenging because it is a culture I really grew to hate before I left to teach in China. It is a culture that claims to believe by going to church and pronouncing it on their lips, but doesn't live it out. It is empty of the true power to be found in Jesus and it is one that desperately needs Him. I am humbled that He has put me here to be a voice of truth and love, and I am thankful that He has considered me worthy enough to be tested in this way.

Week 1

I had fully intended to give a "blow by blow" of my first days, but they are in such a muddle in my head intermixed with the 5 Jacobs (3 or so who go by Jake), a Jack, a Jackson (who is really Chinese) and at least one Joshua (who goes by Josh) that I am not sure I could even tell you what happened yesterday.

I do remember that on Day 3 after trying to maintain control of my largest class, which is scheduled right after lunch, and enduring a completely structureless (my fault) and gossip filled (not my fault) yearbook class (by some of my 13-year-olds-who-think-they-are-18), that I had more than one thought of quitting. I really didn't see how it was worth it. at. all. In a word, I felt defeated. You try not to have expectations as you're setting up your classroom and imagining what the students will be like. You try to remember that there will be certain students who would much rather sit around and gossip than learn anything else in life. But you forget. And then they descend on your classroom like tornadoes and spin you and all your former sweet dreams around and around until both are battered and bruised or broken.

There are always redeeming moments, however. On Day 3, while I was heading home with the weight of the week, faces of punk students and thoughts of quitting in my mind, I heard "And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?" playing on the radio, and my insides welled up and spilled over into tears. I couldn't stop them. Every battle in the classroom is His. Every victory is because of Him, and I can stand on that promise and not let all the distractions and stresses run me over or wear me out.

By Friday I had given out my first informal detention. I say informal because I didn't contact the parents and only kept the student in my classroom for about ten minutes during lunch. He isn't a punk kid - he's just a kid who likes people and likes to talk. I don't know if this will really effect our classroom dynamics on Monday, but when I don't have break or lunch duty I usually sit in my classroom and work, so there is little loss on my part to give out more detentions.

Meanwhile, I am still learning a lot about teaching, how to manage my classes, how the system works at the school, and how to love my students. Regardless, I am grateful for the weekend.