It's amazing - the emotional roller coaster I ride all day long.
Teacher have to be so many things for their students. They have to be...
- the validator. "You guys are doing such a great job! This is incredible work!"
- the rule giver. "A good audience has eyes and ears on the presenter at all times. That's what I expect to see from you."
- the compassionate compromiser. "I realize that you had a rough night last night, so take today and work on your assignment since you didn't get it done last night."
- the motivator. "This is a strategy that you can use in high school and college and in whatever career path you choose! You're already preparing!"
- the punisher. "Excuse me. I will not stand for that kind of disrespect in my classroom."
- the time-keeper. "You have 5 more minutes to finish your assignment!"
- the high-expectation holder. "Why did you not finish your project?" (student answer: "I didn't have enough time.") "You had plenty of time. I gave you lots of feedback to guide you, but I didn't see you use any of it. I saw you waste all of your revision time yesterday. I expect more from you and I know you can do better than this. I know you are much smarter than my gradebook seems to suggest. What are you going to do to show me how smart you are?"
- the grieving grader. "You've had an "I" in my class since the beginning of the term. Why have I not seen you in itime to get some extra help?"
- the deadline enforcer. "I'm sorry. You knew the assignment was due yesterday. You had time to work on it. You didn't use your time well and now you have to accept the consequences."
- the transparent strategist. "Guys... Why on earth would I waste two days of our class so that you could present your projects to other students?"
- the warning voice. "If you can't handle this kind of assignment, I have no problem with you writing me a 5 paragraph essay to persuade me not to become the teacher that gives you 10 worksheets at the beginning of the period and expects them to be done at the end of class. It's up to you."
- the incentives planner. "We're going to play some bingo, but it means you have to listen for the words I found in your final drafts. They aren't going to be obvious words, so you need to listen carefully! If you get a bingo, I will have a prize for you!"
But what only some of my students have seen is the teacher version of me who is heartbroken that being all of those things above is not enough for my students.
I went out. Spent my own gosh-darn money and bought candy for my students to celebrate their presentations. Everything went fine until 4 period. They ripped me to shreds. Said Bingo is for old people. Said they hated Laffy Taffy. Refused to present even when I warned them they'd be getting a grade for it. Told me the activity was stupid.
It was hard to not get emotional. I did get firm with them to let them know that I don't HAVE to plan fun things for them. I don't have to try so hard for them. I don't have to bring them candy at all. I choose to. Because I care. But if they don't want me to care so much, if they don't want me to fight for them and work hard for them, then so be it. They'll get the "Here's a worksheet. It's due at the end of the period. No one will talk or even think of talking." kind of teacher.
Will I always care about my students? Yes. Is all of that "I don't have to do these things for you..." talk a little empty? Yes. But I can't stop caring... That's the hardest part - caring for someone who could care less about what you do for them. Even with students refusing to present and calling my lesson stupid, I'm still assessing them and trying to find a reason. Maybe they were embarrassed about their topic choice or about how little work they actually did. Maybe they had the creativity and spark kicked out of them at home when they were little, so they're naturally negative and hurtful. Maybe.... there's a reason.
My thoughts at the end of this unit:
- I could still give students choices of genres, but I think I need each class to do the same genre. It was really hard to talk about genre rules with 3 different genres and 6 different groups doing different things. I like giving them a choice and having them in groups, but that doesn't mean that they all have to be doing something different. This will make model analysis a little easier as well.
- My initial rubric is totally useless. I'd created the rubric knowing what lessons I would need to teach, but my instruction changed according to my student needs, so now my rubric needs to change too. I like giving rubrics out early, but I need to leave room for those concepts that I may have covered after assessing student progress.
- I need to give students more guidance when it comes to topic choices. Some students did really well, but others chose to talk about their families and turned in a list of each of their family members, their ages and their hobbies which required no research at all. Bah. So much for that requirement in this unit!
- I need to come up with more engaging ideas for presenting information. I had thought that (since we did group sharing for our narratives) we could have a more formal presenting activity, but it's taking a really long time, the students are sometimes lifeless, and even I am wondering if there's a better way. My 4th period class, after I got really quiet and said, "Guys, I realize that some of you think this is lame. But you can't come up with that claim if you don't give me evidence and ideas about how to improve it." They told me they would rather create a powerpoint of their information so they didn't have to read as much in front of the class. It's one idea!
- I'm ready for Christmas break.
Still love my job. I promise. Just tired. And I'm realizing that perfection is so not attainable as a teacher. What works with one class is "lame" in the next.
And let's face it. My day always gets better after 4th period. Always.
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