Weeks Two and Three

In the blink of an eye, weeks two and three went by, just like that. It's been an extremely rewarding couple of weeks; full of ups and downs, but what came out of it was that I'm now much better prepared to teach, and my students are clearly learning. I've had one-on-one conversations with them, and it's obvious that they want to learn and they want to pass the class. These kids are still among the best behaved in the school, and I'm so blessed to have students who know how to sit down and just get down to work when they need to. They may not always be engaged, or do their homework, but at the very least they're clearly trying more and doing more than they were at the beginning of summer school, and that's definitely a plus. There's still a lot to do, and my students still aren't where they need to be academically, but they're getting there, and by the end of next week, I'm fully expecting that they will be there.


Lessons Learned


You can't let them get away with anything.
Even though my kids are extremely well-behaved for the most part, they do have occasionally streaks of rebelliousness. They still text in class, pass notes, fall asleep, and show me sass. I first thought that these were pretty minor things and didn't really need to address them, because they were otherwise pretty well-behaved. I was wrong, because they just take advantage of that and do more and more. I've had to discipline them for every single thing, even not sitting up straight, or for talking too loudly. It's true, that if you don't do this, you'll never get the respect of a teacher. They will just keep doing little things that add up to a lot of time wasted, and a lot of work not done. 


You have to get to know them as people.
They're not just your students, and you're not just their teacher, but you're an example in their life - a life coach in some ways. My students mentioned that even though I showed I cared about them, it was limited to the academic sphere. I never talked to them about their lives, or their weekends, or tried to know their likes and dislikes. They want their teachers to do this, because they want role models in their lives.


You can't just talk at them.
Last Thursday, I taught a class on tone and setting in poetry. I thought they were pretty hard concepts, so I modeled the methods and gave examples to the class. Of our one-hour period, I spoke for 45 minutes. I occasionally stopped for questions and to see if students understood what I was saying, but I just talked straight through and drew on the board for a while. The students were bored out of their minds, and had no interest in learning after that. I even decided not to give the class the test I had written for them, because it was clear from my teaching that they probably didn't learn anything. And it was totally my fault. I learned that you really can't just talk at them, but you have to let them try to do the work, play around with concepts, and then correct them after they do it. Learning is about trial and error, and it looks like both teachers and students need to learn that.


Students need to be actively engaged.
I had the students fill out an anonymous survey yesterday, and most of them indicated that the class was boring and uninteresting. It wasn't that they didn't want to learn, but it just wasn't fun and interactive enough for them. I learned that students have to be fully engaged - group activities, moving around the classroom, using multimedia and fun competitions are all ways of making sure students are focused and interested. If I just continued to give them worksheets and essays, they really won't want to be in the class too much.




Stories of Encouragement


"Miss, I am going to pass this class."
One of my students has been caught many times texting in class. After class one day, we spoke to him and told him that this was distracting, and he needs to focus or else he will fail this class. The next morning, he walks into first period, hands our second-period teacher his phone, and says "Miss, I am going to pass this class. Please take my phone every morning." It was just such an amazing turnaround from being rebellious to being excited to learn, and he even went beyond that to make sure he was learning.


"I know I can do this"
We've been trying to instill confidence in our students these past few weeks. Some of them don't believe they can pass the end-of-semester test, but we've been talking to them, and pushing them to do even better. This really showed, when yesterday, they said that they believe they can, and so they will. They believe that they are smart and capable, and this is exactly the kind of confidence and self-belief they need to go even further in their education.


Going above and beyond
After lecturing the class about not doing their homework, the next morning the kids went above and beyond what was expected of them. Their assigned homework was to write two short paragraphs on an essay topic. They showed up the next morning with two full pages of writing. They really do want to pass this class.


Getting to know the community
Yesterday, some of our students took us on a walk around the South Bronx. They showed us where they live, where they buy groceries, where they go to church, where they play ball etc... It was eye-opening and inspirational. They mentioned that their teachers never really make an effort to be part of their community, but there really is so much to see, and so much to learn. We learned about the gang conflicts between neighborhoods, which explains why some students in our classes refuse to talk to others - because where they're from and the building they live in prohibits that. It's heartbreaking, and no one's really doing anything about it. If students are our future, why can't teachers help shape the future by shaping our students' understanding of their neighborhood, and to foster reconciliation? We saw the communities the kids lived in, and we really got to understood the context from which they are coming. We heard stories of hardship, found out that some of our students take an hour and a half to commute to school, and got to know what they had to deal with at home and in their communities. It really was eye-opening, and now that we know them on a much more personal level, we're not only motivated to help them as people, but to be a part of the change in the community.