Objective: The reader shall come to realize that even the most patient teacher will at times lose his or her temper. The reader will understand that this unthinkable event at times is proportional to student behavior and at times is due to more peculiar circumstances.
Materials/Resources Needed: (This list is not exhaustive): Noisy students, unruly students, one disruptive student, homecoming week, not enough sleep, a hot classroom, early mornings, Friday afternoons, state testing, a second job, an angry parent, an angry administrator, a jammed copying machine, the week before vacation, a full moon
Essential Question: It has been established that teaching requires high levels of patience. But what happens when patience fails?
Input/Modeling:
- One Friday Afternoon
- Priorities
- Answering Dale and Andrew
- Battling Martin Brown
Assessment:
Closure:
One Friday Afternoon
Friday afternoons are like mini summer vacations for teachers. There’s all the jokes about teachers and free summers, but the truth is this–in order for teachers to maintain the patience needed to deal with young minds, teachers need summer vacation. And by Friday afternoon teachers patience is waning.
Students want their teachers to be ”on” always, there’s no allowance for bad days or being tired. It’s like their teacher, that classroom is the one consistent thing in their little lives, and you exist for them, you’re not a person with a life outside of that room. Not to them. They will make allowances for you to be sick. Physically sick, that they understand. If they like you, they’re angels when you’re sick. Short of that they expect the same person, the same energy level every day. And by Friday, teachers need a breather.
One Friday afternoon I needed a breather. My room is not air conditioned, and with 30 hormone filled bodies crammed into the desks it felt like it a heater was blowing. It was 7th hour, the kids were restless. The varsity football team had its first scrimmage that night, there were rumors of a big party afterwards, and the clock seemed to stand still. The lights were off–someone thought it would help cool down the room, I figured it was worth a try. I was trying to teach them to simplify algebraic expressions, and I was losing the battle. I needed the weekend too; I was watching the clock with them.
I had given them a problem to attempt to see what they knew, I should have given them more than one. They all finished it before I had time to make it around the room once. Thirty hands waved frantically. “Put your hands down, everyone,” I announced, “I’m just going to walk down the rows and look at your paper. I’ll get to each of you.”
They put their hands down momentarily. But they were antsy, desparate, and hopeful. Antsy for the day to be over, desparate for me to check their papers first, and hopeful for the right answer (which could mean no bookwork). The hands began to fly again.
“Ms. Jane. I’m done” “Ms. Jane. Can you look at mine?” “Ms. Jane, I was first.” “Ms. Jane is this right?” “Ms. Jane, I’m done.” “Ms. Jane.” “Ms. Jane.” “Ms. Jane.” “Ms. Jane.” “Ms. Jane.” “Ms. Jane.” “Ms. Jane.” “Ms. Jane.”
I felt a drop of sweat on my forehead, good lord couldn’t we get a breeze? Was it 13x or 10x? Crap, I couldn’t remember.
“Ms. Jane! Can we just…”
It happened at that moment. That final, “Ms. Jane…”. My patience was gone. Michelle Jones, one of my best students had the misfortune of being the last to speak. She was asking a question, but I didn’t let her finish. At that moment I lost my temper with her and the entire class.
“JUST…..A……SECOND!” I hissed through gritted teeth, as my students jumped in suprise. “There is ONE of me and THIRTY of you. BE. PATIENT,” I growled, oblivious to the irony of my statement. “I want all hands DOWN. Do not raise your hand. Do not say, ‘Ms. Jane…’. I know you’re finished. Sit there and wait for me to come to you. Do not TALK. Do not GET UP.”
Thirty pair of wide eyes looked back at me. No one moved. I don’t think anyone blinked. I thought I saw Michelle start to say something else but she closed her mouth. I doubt she’s ever received a frown from a teacher let alone a stern word. I took a deep breath; it felt a few degrees cooler in the room. It was 13x. Not 10x.
My students sat like statues. I began to finish checking their answers one by one. I arrived at Ryan’s desk. I stared at his paper. He looked nervous. Frowning suspiciously, I narrowed my eyes at his paper. His careful calculations were much shorter than his classmates’. Two lines for what should have 5 lines. I picked up the paper for a closer look. Trying not to anger me again, Ryan quickly offered, “I found a quicker way to do it. I think it’s right–I got the same answer. But I can do it again your way.”
I was amused. “My way? There is no ‘my way’. Or “your way.” Only correct mathematical ways supported by sufficient explanation. That’s why I make you show your work.”
“Huh?” he mumbled.
“Never mind. Your way is good. Quicker and easier than how I would have done it. It’s clever. Nice work,” I said with a smile. “Why didn’t you mention you had found an easier way to do it?
“Well, we all kind of figured it out…Michelle tried to tell you…” his voice trailed off.
I looked at Michelle, she smiled at me. Oh, I was the worst teacher. My eager, inventive students were trying to get my attention. Sure they were being impatient, they could have waited for me instead of shouting out, but they were in the moment focused on their Math on a hot Friday afternoon. Oh, I was the worst teacher.
“I did it that way too, but I was scared to tell you after you yelled at Michelle,” added Darlene.
Yup. I was officially the worst teacher. There was nothing left to do but apologized for losing my temper. To Michelle and to the class. That’s what grown-ups should do when they’re wrong–at least I could teach them that. I apologized, and they were eager to forgive with a choruses of ”That’s ok, Ms. Jane!” Teenagers can be quite lovely when they want to be.
Their cheerful disposition softened me even more. There was a full ten minutes left in class, and I did something I NEVER do. I let them close their books, and I ended class early. “Seriously!?” they exlaimed, “You are the BEST teacher Ms. Jane.”
Priorities
One recent morning I came to school early to work on the lessons I did not do over the weekend. Thirty minutes before the students arrived, I was almost finished and was creating a real-life example for the students to investigate. Pleased with my progress, and determined to complete a perfect final product, I barely noticed when Chris walked in.
Chris isn’t my student this year, but I had him last year. I often have students from years past stopping by to visit, wanting to tell me about their summers, begging for me to talk to the counselor and arrange for them to be in one of my classes this year. Every seat in all of my classes is taken. It’s an incredible compliment as a teacher to have full classes of students who requested your course.
I sighed when I saw Chris come in. It’s not that I wasn’t happy to see him, but I was in a hurry and knew that I had few minutes to spare. But I smiled and greeted him and asked him how his summer was. “It was ok,” he told me, “we had a death in the family.” I was distracted, looking at my computer screen, and I completely missed his point. I heard his words, but I missed their meaning. I told him, “Oh I’m sorry to hear that,” or something of that sort. I figured his great aunt had died. We made some more small talk, but I was only half listening, I was finishing my lessons. I barely looked up when he left, but I told him to come back and visit me again soon.
Later when I had time to think about it, it occured to me that Chris is a 16 year-old boy, and boys that age don’t tell you about a death in the family if it’s a great aunt. They don’t mention the death of a great aunt if you ask them about their summers, and they certainly don’t stop by a teacher’s room to talk about it. What Chris was trying to tell me was that his older brother, the only positive male influence he’d ever known had died last week, and he was not doing well with it, and it felt surreal to be back at school and had him questioning at age 16 the type of man he wanted to grow up to be. He told all of that to the next teacher he went to visit that morning.
I was so busy working on the “perfect lesson” that I missed what was really important right in front of me. Years ago when I was a new teacher I was good at running a classroom and had good rapport with my students but was blissfully unaware of things like dwindling state test scores, the need for instruction to accommodate different learning styles, pacing guides, differentiated instruction, reading across the curriculum, “best practice”, and discovery based learning. My lessons were not good–heck I didn’t even plan lessons, I stood by the overhead and showed the kids how to do math. But I was fun and energetic, and I was present with my kids every day.
Chris will be fine. He’s resilient in that way that some kids are. I saw him laughing and wrestling with a friend in the hall later that week. But I missed an opportunity I won’t get back. But there will be more. More students stopping by after school, before school, over lunch. There will be break-ups with boyfriends and girlfriends, fights with friends, fights with parents, and maybe some even bigger things. And next time whatever work I have to do will just have to wait.
