Almost there. In only two weeks I will be free - although I'll miss a lot of the kids terribly and the inherent intellectual challenge in teaching, this week has been a terrible horrible no-good very bad week. The best I can say is that I made it through the week alive, but that has, quite possible, been the greatest success of the week.
The best metaphor I could use for the week is that it was like running a gauntlet; every day there were new and...interesting...challenges to contend with. Most of these challenges stem from the fact that I have angered or am in the process of angering the following people:
1. My students
Contrary to my post last week (oh, Fate, how cruel you are) discipline is not getting any better. My three "good" classes are perfectly fine, with only the occasional off-topic conversation to deal with. By and large, those classes seem to be learning a lot from me, and being in the classroom is an absolute joy. The students are fantastic (even the ones who consistently give me trouble) and I wholeheartedly enjoy them as people and as students.
Then there are the "other" three classes. You know, the ones that caused my week to end in a phenomenal display of total emotional breakdown by sobbing for an hour on my sofa. Yeah. Those classes.
Discipline with these classes has snowballed to something that I feel is entirely beyond my control, especially with my 7th hour class. Although my 2nd and 3rd period classes are frustrating and talkative, I have enough respectful students in these classes to persuade them to behave for me. (Again, the quote from Dr. Shoffner: "You can't make students behave. Students choose to behave in your classroom." So incredibly true. My successes in terms of classroom management have all come from my occasional ability to tap into that motivation to behave.)
My 7th hour class makes me want to quit teaching and go back to waiting tables. With other classes, the number of disrespectful students is less than the number of respectful students and neutral students. In 7th hour, the odds are about 50/50 and the disrespectful students are the most vocal (literally and figuratively) of all my classes.
I also have one particular girl who thinks that it is ok to say incredibly disrespectful things to my face and then throw hissy fits in front of the entire class when I am able to call her out on it. She has a particular ability to undermine my authority in very subtle ways; on the surface, she's not doing anything "wrong", so I have no reason to write her up, but she has managed to turn many of her classmates against me.
For example, when working on the board having students create sentences with the phrases we have been learning, she opted to throw out a totally inappropriate comment (the pedestrian-variety "sex, drugs, rock and roll" type comment that every student knows not to bring up in a classroom, unless the discussion is initiated by the teacher. To be sure, I have discussed some taboo topics with a variety of classes from sexual orientation to politics to birth control effectiveness, but the initial respect for me and the topic must be present first and the timing must be appropriate.). When I called the girl out, she responded by reminding her classmates, every time I asked for examples, for the next two days, by saying "don't say anything "inappropriate", you'll get written up!"
While this is actually really good advice, her tone of voice and her insistence on saying it every time I asked for examples from the class at large made it perfectly clear that a:) she doesn't respect me and b:) she has made it her personal goal to influence all of her peers.
This is the same girl that I was shocked Mr. "Smith" hadn't spoken to (and wound up intervening myself) about her mission to ruthlessly bully another student in the class by mispronouncing her name and sarcastically reminding her (the other girl) how "cool" she was.
Needless to say, the classroom climate has degraded to the point where I dread it every day. It makes me physically sick. And since I can't control them, they take over and no one learns a thing. 2/3rds of the students are failing in this hour. Instead of taking responsibility for their own actions, they have been blaming me for their grades. A variety of students have complained about me to their counselor, principal, dean of students, and, most terrifyingly, their parents.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be "that" student teacher; the one who the kids hate and by all appearances is totally incompetent. This makes me hate myself, because I have no way of knowing how I can improve or what the heck I am doing wrong. Mr. "Smith" believes that time will cure it - that somehow I will magically make a breakthrough by "sticking it out". He also doesn't give me any constructive criticism, which makes me absolutely irate. In this case, time is almost beside the point; if I can't control a class after being in the classroom for eight weeks, I hardly think seven days will make a difference.
2. Administrators
Never in my life would I have imagined that I would be a principal's worst student teacher nightmare, but, apparently, I am. The Dean of Students (referred to as Mr. "Scarypants" in a previous post) is frustrated at the amount of detentions I issue and has told Mr. "Smith" that I need to tone it down.
In turn, Mr. "Smith" has told me to only write up students when absolutely necessary. So! The games begin. What should I allow in the classroom? The student who blatantly swears? The student who purposefully breaks a (washable) marker all over his desk? The student who accidentally hits me in the face with a pencil after being warned to stop throwing things? The student who brings no materials to class eight days in a row? Or the girl who constantly undermines my authority by being a total brat day after day?
Where do I draw the line? If I allow these behaviors in the classroom, everything will disintegrate into chaos. If I allow one behavior and not another, they won't respect me because I am not fair.
Yay. Quandary.
3. Parents
My stars. Parents. I have finally decided that parents scare the crap out of me.
I have spoken with four this week. Four. Four angry, angry people that are absolutely convinced that their child should have no more responsibility in the classroom than the desks they sit in. I appreciate their concern, but I am young and soft and vulnerable and dealing with a parent in the middle of the day will bring me to the verge of tears all afternoon. This conversation ensued:
Parent: Well, I am just wondering why "Josh" is getting a D in your classroom. He is a B student!
Me: He has several zeros in the gradebook for various assignments; if he turns those in I will accept them with a small deduction for lateness.
Parent: What is this "peer review" assignment? "Josh" just doesn't understand and has come home complaining about it for three days straight.
Me: Really? He hasn't said anything about that to me. The reason he has a zero is that he didn't come prepared on the day the rough draft was due and is therefore responsible for getting another students' paper and critiquing it.
Parent: Oh really. That is your job; how can he complete the assignment if he can't find a partner?!
Me: Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the problem until now and could have helped "Josh" a while ago. Secondly, I don't have access to student papers as they save them on their own personal flash drives, CDs, and H drives on the computer.
Parent: That is just ridiculous. I have never heard of high school freshman doing peer review.
Me (sinking into despair): I think it is a good skill for students to practice - evaluating their own writing and blah blah blah justification for every flipping assignment the student has ever done etc etc.
Two more weeks? We'll see if I survive that long.
