Reflections on a May post from 2013:
Every one who teaches and most laypeople understand that all classes and classrooms are different. The kids make the class and classes may differ radically. Enthusiasm levels, participation rates, and overall learning are heavily affected by individual student placements. Who are the leaders? If the leaders want to learn, students will learn more than they will learn in classes where the leaders have mostly come to school to socialize. Good classroom management can lessen this leadership effect, but the effect remains a force to be reckoned with.
Still, while I had always been aware that class composition affected learning, I had not much thought about how it affected me. This year was an eye-opener. I had three Spanish classes. I realize now they all had a different teacher.
The Spanish 2 teacher was much more laid-back than the Spanish 1 teacher. Most of these students did not intend to go on, but simply wanted to get in two years for college applications and graduation requirements. I sometimes went off the script in that class. I checked in with the five out of twenty-nine students who planned a third year of Spanish before any significant deviations, since they were the students who cared and who needed to be prepared for the upcoming year.
Spanish 1 was its own story. The Spanish 1 teacher in the afternoon was much more flexible and humorous than the Spanish 1 teacher in the morning. I look back and I honestly don’t like the person who taught that morning Spanish 1 class. In response to the negativity of students, I became progressively more negative.
…
My morning class would have enjoyed that afternoon teacher so much more than the teacher they had. But the students shape the class. The students also shape the teacher. Some dynamics and attitudes become tough to change.
I (re)post this idea today because of issues of timing. This post is for newbies. You are establishing a classroom character right now, even if the tumult of getting started obscures this fact. These first few weeks can create a classroom dynamic that flows throughout the whole year.
I write this because I messed up a few years back. I had four preps that year, two bilingual social studies and two Spanish preps. I had a 304 page Spanish book to cover. All of this was new to me at the time. The workload was extraordinary and, frankly, it overwhelmed me. I managed to get lessons prepared and I handled the nuts and bolts of my responsibilities. But one class got away from me, becoming progressively more difficult to manage. Too many students became resentful of class expectations, unsurprisingly, since they had been obliged to take Spanish as an “elective,” an elective many did not desire. As I look back, I realize that as soon as the negativity started cropping up in earnest, I should have been much less focused on textbook demands and more focused on class emotions.
Eduhonesty: After a few weeks at the latest, new teachers, look out into your classroom. How is the mood? Do you have students pulling that mood down? Move them up front, or at least out of the crowd. Sit down with them. Take time to show them the advantages of what they are learning. Show them you care that they are learning. Let them know you are concerned about their negativity.
Break any deteriorating mood as fast you can. Because once a classroom atmosphere sours, a self-defeating cycle may be created. Negative students make other students more negative, newly negative students who make other students more negative until you end up with that girl who says loudly and aggressively, in a class with numerous Hispanic students, “I don’t see why we have to learn Mexican. They should learn English.”
To build lifelong learners, we have to sell our product, whether that product is mathematics, English, Spanish, or whatever our subject matter. English does not always sell itself, depending on the curriculum and mix of a class. A foreign language seldom sells itself to students who did not select that language for themselves, simply because of the amount of work involved. New teacher, if you are beginning to teach Spanish, that’s probably because you love Spanish. Teachers gravitate towards areas of deep, personal interest.
Whatever you teach, share the love. Share the love and show how and why you came to love your subject. You may think you do not have time because of the 304 page book you must finish by May. I learned from that class a few years ago, though — that book can kill the love if you don’t watch out. Bit by bit, day by day, watch how students are feeling out in the classroom. When you have a teachable moment, seize it. Forget the need to make page 65 by Tuesday. If you can get your students to enjoy what they are doing, getting them to page 65 becomes much more doable. If you cannot get to page 65, you will still be far better off with enthusiastic students on page 56 than with burnt-out, unhappy students who just wish they could chuck their book and maybe their whole school schedule into the trash.
And keep in mind that you will be a different person to every class you teach. Every class becomes its own creature. You forge a unique set of relationships from hour to hour. Try to see each hour through the eyes of the students sitting in the room. You might ask a few students how they see their class. Relationships should not be put on the backburner due to curricular demands. In school and in life, relationships should come before tests and spreadsheets. Good relationships demand give and take and collaboration.
Don’t let curricular demands interfere with the good relationships that make teaching fun.
P.S. I was locked into that book by mandatory midterms and finals that had been written by a group in the Board Office for multiple high schools within the district. As requirements become less flexible, teachers may have to fight to keep class attitude positive. Ironically, extra projects can definitely help, although you may struggle to devote class time to these projects due to curricular requirements. Creative projects help infuse enough enthusiasm into the classroom to carry you through the Long March of the Book.