Week Two - Three
We All Humans
My kids are amazing. That’s right, it’s only been three weeks and I’m already referring to them as mine and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Unlike many of my fellow cult members, my experience in the classroom has been nothing short of incredible. Granted my experience with the larger organization that is sponsoring this pedagogical crash course has been less than savory, but that aside, things are pretty stellar. The kiddies have been learning about the components of a five-paragraph essay and at any given time I can call on one of them and they will be able rifle back scintillating statements such as “a thesis statement is made up of a main idea and three supporting details,” and “the difference between concrete fact and commentary is that one is a fact and the other an opinion.” For nearly two weeks I have drilled fact after fact about the structure of a five paragraph essay into their spongy little brains and now, with just six days left, comes the difficult part – actually using these components in a fully written essay.
Today they were supposed to turn in a completed second draft of their five-paragraph essay, for which they’ve already written a rough draft in class, and only 2 out of the 8 of them actually had it finished. While I wasn’t exactly surprised about the complete degeneration of our usual high homework doing rate, given the length of the assignment and the 4th of July holiday, I was surprised to find that the student who is struggling the most (and one of my secret favorites) not only did his homework, but did seven full pages of writing. That’s right, seven pages! I nearly pissed myself with glee to see his little face light up when I called him a “veritable writing machine;” the pride with which he enters my class is almost too much to handle and every time I consider throwing myself in front of a school bus I think of his quiet little voice asking me for help with finding a supporting detail and my heart just melts.
In response to the nearly complete lack of homework I pulled an impromptu “you’re all toast” session and put on my best teacher face, telling them to take out some blank paper and write me a completed five paragraph essay about what they did on the 4th of July. I was careful to stress that not only did they have to write the in class essay, but they also had to bring me the homework tomorrow and they would still suffer the minus ten points consequence as a result of their negligence. Surprisingly there was no protest. Instead, they diligently (and a tad sheepishly) went to work and I was able to spend much of the class with the two students who did do their work – my struggling student and my shining star. Watching them read and critique each other’s essays was delightful – for once I actually got to sit and chat with them as they worked and it was just incredible. I learned that my shining star is really into Shakespeare – her favorite play is “Much Ado About Nothing” – and that she has yet to read “The Winter’s Tale.” It was amazing to see them chattering away in Spanish so amicably about the work, occasionally pausing to point out something they liked or to take note of something that could use work.
At that moment, as I watched my class working away at their various tasks, I felt like a real teacher. I not only have control of my classroom, but my kids actually seem to like it and respond politely and eagerly to almost everything I throw their way. Last night, as I furiously stormed about pissing and moaning about what I was going to do if they didn’t complete their assignments, I never dreamed that it would go this smoothly. I had no doubt that my kids would respond accordingly, but I did doubt myself considerably. I doubted my ability to hold back my anger towards them for shirking their academic responsibility, but when it came right down to it the small bit of mild disapproval I showed was enough. Flipping through the in-class essays they wrote, I caught the tail end of my class clown’s piece in response to why he didn’t do his homework:
“I got home pretty late so I couldn’t. I’ll do it to night (sic) by hand for a punishment to myself for not doing your homework.”
This he handed to me with a sweet smile as he left for lunch and wished me a good day. While I know he’s not rushing home to self-flagellate or anything, I know that his comment was genuine and that tomorrow there will be an essay on his desk. We all make bad decisions from time to time, and, as my struggler said in his piece:
“We all humans we are not perfect and like my dad said ‘the people learn by the errors they make.’”
