“Yo, you ever have [Ms. Other History Teacher]?”
“Dude, her class is awesome.”
“It was great. She lets you do whatever you want. She never gets mad or anything.”
“Every time she turned around, we’d be throwin’ spitballs.”
“I slept most of the time.”
“Yeah, I didn’t learn anything that year.”
“I failed.”
“Still awesome, though.”
“Dude, totally!”
1 Comment | 
10th grade, dialogue with students | 
Permalink
Posted by teachingsmarter
When I was student teaching, I was mysteriously given my very own section to teach, with absolutely no supervision. (I say “mysteriously” because “the ‘real’ teachers just didn’t want to do it, and no one wanted to pay for a sub/real teacher” sounds mean, although it is true.) I was in a tiny room, with a giant pillar down the middle that meant I could only see half the students at a time. The desks were also so crowded together that I couldn’t get to the students at the back of the room. Delightfully, no one would give me a key to the room, so every time I was supposed to teach it I had to spend half an hour running around the building looking desperately for a janitor.
The tenth graders could tell immediately I had no idea what I was doing. I teach 10th grade now, and I love them, but at the time it was like being responsible for a room full of wild dogs, while covered in juicy raw steaks. I was awful. I didn’t know how to write a lesson plan, I was never given any kind of syllabus, I couldn’t remember their names.
The real nadir, however, was the day I was teaching (”teaching,” really) and suddenly smelled something. Smoke? I looked around. The kids were giggling. I went into the hallway to see if anyone else was freaking out, or if there was a fire drill going on and I’d missed it. The kids giggled harder. Eventually I figured out why I smelled smoke; three of the little hooligans at the back of the room had lit cigarettes they were hiding under the desk. The room smelled like matches because they’d used them.
I couldn’t get to the back of the room to take them away. They were totally uninterested in me yelling at them. The other kids found the whole thing hilarious. I yelled a little bit, but they just shrugged. The bell rang and they sauntered out, totally confident that I — a brand new student teacher — wouldn’t do anything about it. And they were right; there was no one for me to tell about it, and the other teachers I complained to just told me I needed “better classroom management.” The other teachers, by the way, were total dicks.
Three years later I rule my classroom with an iron fist, but it was a long, hard learning experience to get here. I write things like this down in case anyone reading this is a brand new teacher, dealing with students and having trouble with classroom management. “Get better classroom management” really just means “Be totally confident in everything you do or say in the classroom — even if you have to fake that confidence. Practice saying ‘knock it off’ without yelling, but make sure you sound mean. Don’t confront kids in front of their peers. Arrange the classroom to your own benefit, and don’t let anyone rearrange it. Don’t ever appease teenagers.”
Also, I promise, things get better.
2 Comments | 10th grade | Permalink
Posted by teachingsmarter
HEY MS. —– THE BEST GLOBAL TEACHER AND TEACHER IN GENERAL THAT I EVER HAD!! OMGG MISZ IMA MISS U SOO MUCH!!! ITS GONNA B SO BORING AND DIFFERENT WITH OUT YOU NEXT YEARR!!! OMGG…WELL I WISH you THE BEST IN THE NEW SCHOOL YOURE GOING TO TEACH NEXT YEAR! && I HOPE U WONT FORGET ME OFCOURSE! LOL =]…BUT IM JUS WRITING TO TELL U WHAT I JUS TOLD U && FOR MY CHEESY PICTURE THAT YOU TOOK OF ME IN CLASS TODAY! =]… && WISH ME LUCK FOR TOMORROW!!LOVE UR BEST GLOBAL 4TH PD STUDENT**
[Sic] clearly.
PS — She got a 65. 
2 Comments | 10th grade, dialogue with students, from class, inspiration, regents | Permalink
Posted by teachingsmarter
By the way, when I say the test has a bias based on cultural literacy, here’s what I mean: One of the short-reading passages was about feudal rights, and the obligations a serf owed his lord. One of these was to mow the lawns and hay for his lord.
My students don’t know the word “mow.”
Honestly, if you’d been speaking English for three years and spent all of those three living in the Bronx, you wouldn’t know the word “mow” either. Even the kids who are fluent in English didn’t know “mow.” It’s just not a word city kids run across a lot. It’s not like they have a lawn.
1 Comment | 10th grade, regents | Permalink
Posted by teachingsmarter
Another teacher popped into my room 6th period today. “Hey, you got a second? These two [juniors] are freaking out over the Global Regents and they’d like some help. I told them you could fix them up. Thanks!”
Jesus Christ. You want some advice? Come for help and tutoring before the day before the test! Find a teacher who can help you and stay after school! Buy a review book! Go to Regentsprep.org and spend some of your X-Box time there! Stop expecting a miracle!
A lot of people have been finding this page lately searching for “June 2007 Global Regents” and such. I’ll give you the same advice I gave those two students today (oh my god start studying WEEKS before the test, not HOURS):
2 Comments | 10th grade, regents | Permalink
Posted by teachingsmarter
I just received this email:
Thank u Ms. A For ur letter I appreciate it…. You are one of the best teachers or the best teacher I ever had. I am definitely going to miss you. But I know it is part of life and I got to move on but honestly I learn a lot these last few years and u are simply amazing. You are very smart and other kids will be lucky or even honored to have u as a teacher. You will make a greaat teacher else where. You may be gone but u will not be forgotten Ms. A. Thank u for making Global History fun and exciting!!
Um. I am totally not crying. At all. Stupid last days of school.
No Comments » | 10th grade, dialogue with students, inspiration | Permalink
Posted by teachingsmarter
As a math student I never really understood what “imaginary numbers” were. (I have a vague memory that it has to do with the square root of -1, but that might not be right.) Now that I’m a teacher and grades are due I know exactly what imaginary numbers are.
I’ve been told that, since I’m teaching a course that terminates in the Regents, my grades have to reflect my students’ scores on the test (that they won’t be taking until two days after the grades are due). On the surface, it seems fair; if my class is any good, I should be getting them ready for the test. If they’re passing, they should be ready.
The catch is that doesn’t take into account my 15 mainstreamed 12-1-1 special education students, nor all the ELLs in my classes, nor the kid who was in the hospital for 6 weeks, nor… Well, you get the idea. It means that some kids, who’ve done all their work but suck at testing, are going to get 65’s when they expect an 80. Lots of low-ability students are my hardest workers, who will write every essay assigned and do all the homework, but still not really know how to write a clear sentence or be able to read the questions on the Regents.
The imaginary part comes in with grade reports. I use a really great, detailed program to give the kids grade reports every couple of weeks. I can break every assignment down, include attendance, weigh categories differently… It makes kids much more accountable for what they’re doing in class, and much more aware of what they’ve missed.
Unfortunately (for me) it makes it really hard to finesse their grades into what I want them to be.
I’ve spent the weekend inventing assignment categories so I can give the students the grades I think they deserve/will get on the test. Instead of listing all the practice essays we’ve done this marking period, for example, I created an assignment called “essays” and then gave strong writers an A, weak writers a D, and kids who never do anything an F. It’s very holistic. It’s very impressionistic. It is totally, totally cheating.
I guess it’s one step up from throwing their tests down the stairs for grading.
No Comments » | 10th grade | Permalink
Posted by teachingsmarter
“Okay, who remembers the crusades?”
“Is that… There are Jewish people… And they go to Europe… And they fight some Christians… And the pope is there?… And it’s the Holy Land…? Because they wanted oil?”
“Oh, gosh. Sort of. Does anyone remember more than that? Anyone? …Let’s start again. See how this room has an air conditioner? It doesn’t work super well, but it works kind of alright. But Ms. D’s room across the hall has no air conditioner. It’s just luck that we have the AC and she doesn’t.
“Well, what would happen if the class next door decided that they wanted our air-conditioned room? They’d come in, and tell us it wasn’t fair that we got the air conditioning, so they wanted it. What would we do when they tried to kick us out?”
“Miss, we’d kick their asses. Yo, I’mm’a break someone’s jaw!”
“Right. And we’d fight for a while, and hopefully we’d win, and they’d have to go back to Ms. D’s room. Well, in this story the AC is the Holy Land, we’re the Muslims, and Ms. D’s class are the Catholics. I guess Ms. D is the Pope, telling them to try and kick us out.”
“Miss… Are you saying our AC is like… Jesus or something?”
“When it’s 86 degrees outside, absolutely.”
2 Comments | 10th grade, dialogue with students, from class | Permalink
Posted by teachingsmarter
We were talking about White Man’s Burden and imperialism and historical racism, when one of the kids looked up and said “White man’s burden? Miss, is that why all our teachers are white?”
Ouch. And also, yes, sort of. The kids got into a huge debate about different kinds of people and who’s smarter and who has trouble in school (they have pretty intrinsically racist attitudes about themselves, which just kills me) when I cut them off. “I couldn’t do this job if I didn’t believe that every baby is born with the exact same ability to learn and succeed, guys. And some of them have parents who can’t help them in school, or parents who aren’t around to help, or were born with mental illnesses, but they all start off the same, and some just have better opportunities, but everyone can learn,” I insisted. I say this kind of thing to them a lot.
One boy, who is much better at conceptual history than the others, grinned. “You’re a real Enlightenment thinker, huh, Miss? ‘All babies are created equal,’ right?”
“Yes,” I said firmly. (I was just at a science conference where someone called Richard Dawkins an ‘unabashed child of the Enlightenment,’ and was flattered by the similarity.)
“And you really believe that, too. Wow,” he said, shaking his head at my folly, and the class began studying for the Regents again.
1 Comment | 10th grade, from class | Permalink
Posted by teachingsmarter
I almost passed out in class today. Some combination of skipping breakfast, not sleeping well, the incredible heat, and 28 voices chirping “Miss? What did I get on my quiz yesterday? What do you MEAN you don’t remember MY SCORE?” made me want to put my head down and just never stand up again. I just sort of sat there and stared at them for a few minutes, until they realized I wasn’t saying anything, and all hushed each other, thinking this was punishment.
This was EXHAUSTION. Same difference. Anyway, it’s nice that they understand teacher silence is a punishment.
One girl — one horrible girl, who I wish would fall out a window and never come back to school — patted me on the arm today. It was the nicest she’s ever been; usually she just shrieks and swears and hits other students and refuses to do any work and storms around the school terrorizing people. “Am I dying?” I asked. “Did you find out I was dying, and you’re suddenly being nice?” She smiled and sat down. How nice, I thought. Detente!
“She’s got a thing on her hands,” another kid piped up. “If she touches you, you’ll get bumps and all itchy. She’s been touching all the teachers all day.”
What a darling child.
2 Comments | 10th grade | Permalink
Posted by teachingsmarter
