Two weeks ago I played a Spoken Word poem about depression for one of my classes, at the request of two students. The poem is a young girl trying to explain her depression to her mother, and I was deeply moved by the piece. When the poem ended, I looked around and saw that multiple students were crying. As we talked about the poem, I found myself overcome with emotion. I broke down and cried a little bit in front of my class, which was a first.
I have four sections of the same class this year, on top of AP Lit. AP Lit has been a blast mostly because I have had some sort of relationship with nearly all of the students in it for a year or two. Of my four sections of junior English, I have one that is so good at class discussions. This is the class that got something out of the spoken word poem. We also get a lot from each other, because of the discussions. My class is at its best, when discussions play a big role. A big part of my job is to help students learn how to think for themselves, and learn how to articulate those thoughts.
I am new to this teaching thing, but have been doing it long enough to know this year has been a complete bust. I cannot seem to get a majority of my students to care about learning, about thinking, about reading, about anything, really. Every day is a new struggle. I am doing everything I know how, and nothing is working. I took out my Into the Wild unit to put in a film unit in hopes it would get them moving in the right direction, and even a film unit did not work. I got rid of all non-reading homework. This year all parts of the essay writing process are happening in class, including giving class time to type up final drafts because they do not do homework. In some ways I have liked it because it has allowed me to figure out exactly what is the most important material that I absolutely must teach. The problem is, none of it has worked. Even if I circulate the computer lab for the entire 70 minute period, I still end up only getting about seventy-five percent of essays turned in. What little reading I have assigned has gone mostly unread. Most work is not being done, and when a majority of the classes will not contribute to class discussions on top of that, I have no way of knowing if anything I am teaching is working. Do you have any idea what it feels like to feel totally helpless in your job? It sucks. I have never, in my entire life, felt so ineffective at anything.
It would be so easy to quit on them like they have quit on me, but that is not how I do things, so I listen to them, figure out what they want, what they like, and I try to incorporate those things into my lessons. With The Great Gatsby we have talked a bunch about money, and if it matters where it comes from, and we compare Jay Gatsby to rappers who started as drug dealers. The Great Gatsby is the first unit that has somewhat worked this year. Students appeared to dig reading the book. They like the mystery of this super rich guy. Money is important to teenagers.
Because I am trying to do anything I can to get them engaged, I played that poem. It rattled me. It rattled that one class, but it was just one class, on one day, and we quickly moved on, except the poem lingered with one particular student, and this week I got an email from a parent that reminded me that if I am making a difference in one life, I am doing my job well. The email mentioned that poem, and how I handled the tough subject matter. The mother, who was an English teacher at one point, also wrote "Being a good teacher with high expectations yet remaining approachable and vulnerable is a hard balance to achieve. Thank you for being that kind of teacher."
I have been thinking about that all week because I had worried that I had lost my high expectations this year. I so desperately wanted my students to just turn in anything, I worried that I forgot what it means to have high expectations. This was such a great reminder. It didn't hurt that she CCed my principal in the email.
I have these students for another three and a half months. This wonderful email reminded me that I can do this. I can be effective. I can maintain my high expectations, and till find a way to relate to these kids, and maybe, just maybe, we can all learn together.
Teaching is such a roller coaster.
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