Manage Learning More, Behavior Less

Since my last post two years ago, I moved to a new state and am teaching World History I to English Language Learners.  I'm now a good portion of the way through my third year of teaching. I've definitely learned a few things since the days of stressing about being too nice or too mean.

I've grown a lot in classroom management. I'm still not awesome at it.  There are many days I'd be embarrassed if an administrator walked into my classroom to observe me.  In general, my students get work done and meet my objectives, but they're chatting with outside voices and sneaking peaks at cell phones and swearing and occasionally throwing things the whole while. 

("Wow that's a nice cell phone you have there...shouldn't it be in your backpack?"  "Ah, I see you're confused. Right now we're reading the text, not throwing playing cards across the room." "Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I don't recall asking anyone to play music on their computer right now.")

Here's what I believe about the majority of kids: Student's start socially talking, getting up out of their seat to wander around, yell shit out across the room, throw things, arm wrestle, pierce ears, or light shoes on fire when they don't have anything to do.  And they don't have things to do when a) don't know what to do; b)  they can't do something; c) no one is paying attention to them.

I've always preferred to think of classroom management as managing student learning, not student behavior.  So, here are some planning and instruction principles I've found that really eliminate situations where student's will act out.

I think this could be useful to other early-career teachers, aspiring teachers, or teachers feeling burnt out from student behaviors. There are many great classroom management and discipline tips you can find through Google Searches. But I also propose to focus on the things you'd rather do than manage behavior: plan and instruct.

Keep directions simple 

Students act out when they don't know what to do.  Giving directions in a simple and succinct way is hard and is a skill that needs to be developed. With my students, I can neither rely on written directions, nor expect them to follow long winded verbal explanations. I don't put myself in situations where I need student's attention for a long time (I define long as more than 30 seconds), because doing so puts me in a position of having to manage 25 kids who don't want to listen to me, or are unable of understanding my wah wah wahing.  I find that it's best to plan activities that are quick to explain and simple for students to execute. The planning you do and your ability to succinctly explain directions or concepts can prevent a lot of problems from coming up.

For more complicated activities requiring more explanation, I've learned I need to make them routines. Once students get used to doing them unit after unit, these activities won't even require any explanation.


Focus on the ZPD

Students act up when they can't do something.  For many kids who are continually disrupting classes day after day, they frankly don't know how to do much. I mean, they possibly don't know how to read, or communicate through writing, or do basic addition without a calculator.  If a kid can't read and the whole lesson depends on their ability to do so, what do we honestly expect them to do for an hour?

I've learned to forget what I think a 10th grader should be able to do, and what the state of Virginia thinks they should be able to do.  I have to figure out what the kids in my room can do. Then, I find their zone of proximal development.  I figure out what will be familiar and doable for my students, and then push them little by little.  All students, even ones that are really annoying, seem genuinely happy when they can do something and then see that they learned just a little more.

That feeling keeps them in their seat and makes them feel like a student.


Give Feedback

Students act out when no one is paying attention to them. Many students act out for attention - they don't care if it's positive or negative.  Others act out because no one is paying attention and holding them accountable to their actions.  I try to give them attention, but not discipline attention. Academic attention.  When I'm doing great at giving feedback, I've let them know how they've done on the academic tasks I've asked them to do and am specific about it. This happens verbally, in real time during a lesson,  Remember, feedback is different from praise.

Of course, for a teacher to give feedback a student needs to do work.  Some kids who act out a lot just don't produce work to give feedback on.  But I think if it becomes part of a teacher's practice, and part of the way the teachers interacts with all kids in the classroom, it will catch on.  Feedback makes people feel good and make them feel like they can improve.  I think students who have those feelings stop acting out. They feel visible and held accountable.

Conclusion

Classroom management is exhausting and really not fun when you have a lot of kids acting out. It's not what any of us really got into teaching to do, and yet is a huge part of the job. There are many great classroom management and discipline tips you can find through Google Searches. Yet, I really believe that good classroom management, or managing students' learning, comes down to good planning and instruction - the things that most of want our job to be anyway.

State-schooling is a Fallacy (Phallusy....Phallicy?)

I teach in a classroom that is occupied by the youngest students at our high school.  I also share this classroom with another teacher, so accountability and ownership over the physical space is strained.  I am not proud of the physical state of my classroom, and am frankly a little embarrassed when parents drop by.   

Many of my students have an attitude toward the facilities that I find irritating and have a hard time understanding.  They leave trash everywhere.  And they draw.

One of the more popular things to draw, apparently, is a penis.  There are penises on chairs. Penises on tables. Penises on papers left behind by the other classes.  Penises on clip boards.  Turn around, and, boom, there's an illustrated penis.  I think the other teacher and I want to believe that it's not our respective students doing it, but surely it's students from both of our classes.

Some of these are hastily drawn, not as much penises as phallic designs.  But others are so intricately drawn with anatomical detail that I really wonder how I didn't catch the student doing it.  I picture some kid with his hood up, hunched over his work for half the period, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration.  Me walking by, nodding approvingly, thinking he's being "engaged" and "dedicated."  

It's a mockery of schooling.  And I'm not going to lie, it really bothers me.  I really want the learning space to be sacred.  Safe, clean, and taken seriously.

But at the same time, when I get that feeling of being just a little too uptight, I laugh.  Like, I'm sure as hell not promoting or condoning penis drawing in my classroom, but if I'm going to maintain hope for myself, I have to laugh.  I mean, it's actually funny...right?!

One day in October, I picked up an assignment from the ground.  Students were getting ready to leave.  The name on the paper had been crossed out, so I held it up and yelled, "Whose is this?"  I noticed another piece of paper had been glued to the back.  Holding the paper to the light, I noticed a large penis on the back of the original paper.  Someone's friend probably did that to them, and the poor kid tried to hide it.  I said, "Oh."   I ran over and blocked the door before the class could leave, and as sternly as I could muster warned the class, "Next person I catch drawing a penis gets to sit down with me and their parents and explain what's going on."

There are still penises in the classroom, but penis-drawing isn't the epidemic it was before.  I have about as much interest in having that conversation as the students do.

I have to say, being the teacher I want to be and creating the learning environment I want students to thrive in is hard difficult. And as much as I'm able to laugh about these things, I also think a lot about what it takes to create a learning environment and school that students don't find the need to mock.  One that is challenging, respectful, and engaging enough for them where drawing a penis isn't actually all that entertaining.

#springvalleyhigh

In the first video below, Ta-Nehisi Coates suggests that we (society, the American people in a democracy) are using police to do things that maybe they shouldn't be doing. Or, that as we question the decisions and actions of police, we should also be asking why and how public policies put police in certain spaces in the first place.

A I watched the disturbing (and for many viewers, triggering) video of a police officer in South Carolina violently, brutally, taking down a Black 15-year old female student in a classroom - a space that should be empowering, safe, and joyous - I found myself thinking about the policies that have police called School Resource Officers (SROs) in schools in the first place.  And I was also wondering what decisions the leading adult in that classroom - the teacher - made that brought the officer into that classroom.   Here's the video.

A couple weeks ago, a student was being defiant to me in a way that was challenging the power dynamics of the classroom. I mean that he was declaring his autonomy so unapologetically, and so intentionally disregarding my attempts at authority, that he made me feel defensive.  I had asked and then told him, several times, to put his cell phone away. Normally that's all I do.  If a student doesn't put it away, they are not committed to learning that day, and we'll try again tomorrow.  But this kid wanted to get a rise out of me.  He told me he wouldn't put it away.  I told him I'd take it.  He said I couldn't.  I said the principal could.  He said she couldn't.  Then he said he could sue me.  Ha! I tried to de-escalate the situation by using it as a teaching opportunity about how expensive lawyers are.  He didn't really want to de-escalate though, and put the phone right up in front of his face.

This is when I felt the need to be the powerful one.  I'm about to tell you the decisions I made, and why I empathize with the teacher in the video.  But through that empathy, I'm still critical that the teacher put his student at risk by calling the SRO on her.

This is what I did. I called the office and asked if the principal could come take this students phone.  I was told she was in a meeting, but that they could send security over to the room.  Without thinking, I said yes, and hung up the phone.  I immediately felt ill.  I had called security on a kid for not putting his phone away.

I quickly walked over to the student, kneeled down and very calmly told him this.  "I have called security to come take your phone.  I really don't want security in this classroom, so you can choose at this time to put your phone away, or have security take it.  If you put it away now, I'll tell security that we're cool here."  Literally as security showed up at our classroom door, the student put his phone away.  I waved security away, and they didn't enter.

Watching this disgusting video, I wonder what would've happened if the student I was interacting with hadn't put his phone away.  Would he have peacefully refused to cooperate with what he probably perceived as a bullshit situation?  If so, what would the security guard have done?  Would I be a bystander to anything that continued to unfold?

I'm also upset with myself that I called security on a student about something as minor as a phone. It's not something I'll do again. 

Power is palpable in schools.  Many students become forgotten and discarded - sometimes assaulted - in what is rather insane commitment by educators to preserve a great deal of power over youth. Particularly youth of color. Particularly Black youth.  What was the teacher trying to preserve when they called the SRO into that classroom? And what was the SRO trying to preserve when he assaulted that girl?  I don't think "preserving the learning environment" works here, because that police officer disrupted that "learning environment" way more than anything that girl could have been doing.  I think if we - educators - answer these questions more honestly, we will feel uncomfortable. I do.

Students as other people's children

In the few years I've worked with high school youth, almost all of my favorite memories involve students and their parents.

Lisa Delpit, who I mention in the Why the name? section of this blog, has a book called Other People's Children.  I recommend it. I've found it extremely helpful to look at students as the children of other people.  The extreme majority of whom are loving their kids, fighting and sacrificing for their kids, and trying to navigate complicated relationships with their kids.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that high schoolers, especially the defiant ones, the ones who on the worst days make me think how nice a cubicle must be, are someone's kid.  An example.  One student who as been assigned to my classroom is pretty damn defiant.  He's said things and made certain hand gestures at me that I'm not going to explain here. In the moment, I can have some real negative thoughts about this kid. And it's easy for me to see him in a vacuum, because in an a way classrooms are vacuums. I have a pretty de-contextualized view of this student for 4.5 hours a week.

A few nights ago, I sat down with this student, a few other teachers, his parents and his younger siblings, and an interpreter.  His parents are awesome!  They have high expectations for him.  They want to know from us when he's defiant.  They are noticing he is changing, and have some concerns.  The student's dad shared that he wants to teach his son to treat all people with respect. We were all serious, but had some laughs too. 

Yesterday, when I saw this student again, I thought about his parents.  There was context to this student.  He might be an asshole now, but his parents are cool. He's a teenager, he's changing, and if enough people patiently lift this student up, I think he's going to be okay.  Maybe he'll even thrive. I see this student a lot differently now, as other people's child.

I've sat in meetings with parents and students, and watched how parents look at their children.  With pride, with concern, with annoyance, sometimes with an anger that you see comes from love.  I've seen students laugh with their parents, say nice things to their parents you can tell haven't been said in a while, and also stare at the floor, avoiding eye contact. Perhaps ashamed.

It's all interesting, and it makes me want to step up my game as a teacher.  Other people are trusting me to educate their child.  It's a big deal.  But it also helps me be more patient and more understanding of students, because I see them in the context of their families.

But best of all, the next time this student flips me the bird I can call his dad and know he might miss out on a trip to Mexico this summer!

"Why?"

"Why?"

That's a question that students ask about a lot of things at school.

Two friends enjoying their time together: "Why can't we sit next to each other?"
A kid who is sitting off from the group but doing her work: "Why can't I just stay here?"
Students in a class meeting: "Why do we need to take this class?"

A a representative of the state, these questions feel challenging. When I respond as a representative of the state, my answers are hollow and fumbling.  Neither the student nor my conscience is satisfied.

But as a person who loves critical thought, I really enjoy them. When I respond as a fellow critical thinker, I usually end up saying "I don't know," and stop fighting.

 The past few weeks (the first few weeks of my teaching career) I feel like I was way more focused on controlling student behavior than looking for moments of student learning and insight.  I can't tell you Why. 

Today I was sick and didn't have the energy to fight students on things.  So I just let go.  I posed questions and looked for awesome responses.  They were there.  I was witness to passion and thinking.  That's why I'm doing this job that at times feels absurd and impossible.

Certainly there were some kids who talked over me a lot, some who barely did any work.  This isn't necessarily acceptable, but at the same time I understand that we really learn when we are ready to. So perhaps that kind of behavior is inevitable.

Indeed, I really believe that power struggles and student disengagement is inevitable in the model of schooling we have.  That's not even a very radical outlook on education.  Almost every educator I talk to feels the same way, at least to some degree.  I'm about to pull this number out of nowhere, but let's say 80% of educators understand that the system or model of public education we use creates a lot of power struggles and disengagement. It's not as much the fault of teachers, students, or families but the structure we find ourselves in.  We demand abnormal levels of disciplined performance by educators, students, and families just to keep the model going.

My question is, "Why are we still using it?"  The students I teach would like to know too.

"Why are you always red?"

Passing a student I teach in between classes, he asked, "Mr. Andrews, why are you always red?"

"You mean my face?!" I asked back.

"Yeah."

"I dunno.  I'm a white guy who gets warm." That seemed to satisfy him.

The vast majority of students at my school are people of color.  The majority of adults at my school are white.  This both matters and it doesn't (though it matters more than it doesn't, and as a white man I may still not really grasp how much it matters). 

It matters because of all the research (that I don't need to repeat here, go find it for yourself if this is new) that shows students tend to learn better from people who look like them (which in the United States often means people who share similar lived experiences). There is also a lot of
messed up discipline stuff that goes on between white teachers with a weak foundation of culturally responsive pedagogy and their students of color.  (I actually think it functions similarly to interactions between majority white police forces and citizens of color, but that's something much longer I'm working on).

It also doesn't matter because a school that cares about community and relationships takes people as they come - this means students and teachers. During my year of graduate school I decided that to be a good teacher, I wanted to be able to teach anyone.  I think good teachers respond to the skill levels, cultures, and lived experiences of people in their classroom.  No matter where that is or who it is. Right now I'm really excited to be working with students who come from all over the world and speak many languages. I'm learning to be an excellent teacher for these students.  But I'd want to be an excellent teacher if I suddenly found myself in a majority white Midwest private school too.  

Could the white teachers at my school (me included) grow a lot as culturally responsive educators? Yes. Yes!  Would the school be stronger if we had more excellent teachers of color? Certainly.  AND, I know that the teachers at my school care about our students a lot. A lot. Good intentions are worthless if students are having bad, even damaging, educational experiences.  But good intentions also allow for growth. Right now, I think many students at my school are having good experiences and many are not.

Monday through Thursday, my last period of the day is (as of now) really frustrating.  There's a group of freshman in there who can't shut up.  I need to figure out how to leverage that high social energy, but right now it takes us 15 minutes just to get class started.  I've been sharing my emotions about this with them openly.  The other day, while I was trying to get their attention (it felt impossible), I noticed my face was burning up.

I said loudly, "My face is probably really red right now."  Suprisingly, lots of voices went off.

"There are two reasons for this.  First, I'm a white dude." This got some laughs and smiles.  "Second, I'm feeling really angry right now."  I then proceeded to let them know why I was feeling angry and how I was ready to get class started (so we could start the damn game I spent hours preparing...I didn't say this to them).

I've found that some white teachers who have done some decent reflection on their racial or ethnic identities rush into conversations about race with students of color (with good intentions).  I certainly want to have deep conversations about race and racism with the students I teach. But I also don't want to force these conversations on them through required reading and graded work.  That may come, but not yet.

For now, I'll make slightly self-effacing comments about my rosy cheeks.  I hope students will pick up that I'm comfortable talking about my own race casually, and perhaps they'll be the ones to initiate the more difficult conversations. 

"The teacher should be more mean."

"The teacher should be more mean."

That was an anonymous response I got when I posed this prompt to my students: "This class would be better if..."  In another period I saw a similar response, though more specific: "The teacher should be stricter with certain students."

My reactions to this - intellectual and emotional - are complicated.  It hits me emotionally because it shows that there are students in the class who are very sensitive to how the classroom community is developing and they're looking to me to shift it in certain directions.  These responses demonstrate that some students think I could be doing better, but also trust me enough to say it (albeit anonymously).  Intellectually, it makes me think a lot about power dynamics in the classroom and the system we are in that requires teachers to be mean to establish some sort of order.

What are they trying to say by this?  Certainly they don't want a teacher that yells, that bullies, that is unfair.  It's pretty obvious that what they want is structure, and that is something that I'm trying to figure out as a first year teacher.  What is a structured classroom that allows room for creativity, differentiation, individuality?

We have a this behavior corrective response system at our school that we call the "levels of global warming."  Imagine a student is doing something pretty minor and common, such as having their cell phone out or talking over you while you're trying to give directions or teach a lesson.  According to the levels of global warming I take the following steps, with each step indicating the students has not discontinued their off task or disruptive behavior:  Physical proximity > Verbal Reminder > Verbal Warning > Discussion with Teacher > Send to Reset/Buddy Room > Referral > Send to Office > Call Home > Meeting with Parent and Teacher.  Or something like that.

The thing about this system is that it kind of traps you, as a teacher. And it makes students choose to either assert their autonomy or bend to the wishes of this person that might very well be a complete stranger to them.  As a teacher, if you make one bad judgment somewhere along that line, it's hard to jump off it.  Obviously, as a teacher you can bail on this system at any point, but if you do so you risk appearing indecisive and inconsistent.  That's not respected by anyone really.

It make me think a lot about the meta-structure of how we educate youth.  Why are we all going into a system that requires "meanness" and explicit expressions of power to establish a community that gets people learning?  And why are we so focused on coercive power rather than spiritual or collective power?  When students see a "nice" adult and decide they can disregard that person, what does it say about how they view adults in general?  These are questions that make me feel pretty low, but I also keep pushing to explore.