When I introduce an idea and have students practice a few problems in class to see if they are getting it, I walk around and individually help students. Neighboring students other also help each other out.

What do you do, however, when a few students who “get” things right away finish before the others? The rest of the class seems to get it, but it just is taking them a while to work out the problems. What do you do with these kids? Do you just have them sit quietly?

Sometimes I’ve had them: (1) make up their own problems for me to possibly use on a future assessment, or (2) walk around and ask if anyone else needs help. Most of the time I let them sit. I feel like I should have a good way to deal with this. But I can’t always ask them to make up their own problems or walk around. It’s a temporary solution.

Ideas? Strategies? Do we all struggle with this?

Currently, I’m thinking that each time I put problems up, I should put a couple up, and then put one “challenge problem” too — and then have the expectation that students finish the standard problems, and say that if you don’t have time to get to the challenge problem, that’s totally okay.

Today sucked. I wrote that (but with more verbosity) on facebook. One colleague/friend said that she heard I was a great teacher. In response, I wrote:

my weltschmerz is not due to me questioning my teaching abilities, actually. i’ve grown out of that first year trap. right now it’s all about the school bureaucracy, the time sinks we’re asked to sit through, the faux reflectiveness which never is seriously intellectual nor tangible. what i want is for the powers that be to say “you’re more than competent, you have taken a role in the larger school community, so we will leave you and your time alone so you can do what you do best. we’ll lay off and give you support when you need it, because you’re a team player and you support us and the larger community.” 

I got home, feeling like (a) I’ve had this feeling for a long time, (b) that I didn’t have it last year, and (c) that I hope it isn’t that dreaded second-year burnout. I hope it’s just one long-day burnout. I LOVE TEACHING. But at this particular moment in time, I feel like I’m treading water and that I’m being foiled from all sides by nonsense, keeping me from doing what I know I could do so much better if just left alone.

I need to be let free, given my independence, so that I can fly.

So my question for you is:

I bet that I need to sleep this off. I’ll probably wake up with perfectly coifed hair; I’ll bound out of bed, and two little cartoon birdies will fly around my apartment, picking my clothes and making me breakfast. 

UPDATE: Slept it off; feeling much better.

… for example, I hated the young kid talking to a convention of teachers that was making the rounds (here). It’s supposed to be elevating, motivating, sweet. Instead, I just got supremely annoyed.

But… I saw an inspirational video that actually… well, inspired.

There’s something captivating about the metaphor. I liked it because it got me thinking about teaching.

• Students — when they are pushed just beyond what they think is capable — can surprise themselves and others.
• Teachers — when they trust students enough to push them beyond what they think is capable — can bring out some really amazing results.
• Teachers need to remember that each kid is different, and you can’t expect every student to do the same level work. But you can and must expect them to work up to their potential. (“Do your best.”)
• Students can’t succeed if they have a defeatist attitude.
• Teachers can’t succeed if they have a defeatist attitude.
• Positive encouragement goes a long, long way.
• Students can inspire other students.
• Students can inspire teachers.
• Teachers can inspire students.

I’ve mentioned to parents that my teaching philosophy is to try to teach students just beyond the level they think they’re capable of. (I don’t always succeed.) But I’m thinking that after a particular difficult assessment, when I’m really blown away at how my students did, I might share this philosophy with them. And show them this video. And tell them that I’m really proud of them.

Hopefully I’ll be lucky enough to have that moment sometime this quarter with each of my classes. I don’t know if each one of my classes will pull it out, but I really am pulling for all of them all the time. Some students might not always see it, but I’m always on their side.

PS. I know this is from a “Christian movie.” No, I haven’t seen it. No, I don’t intend to.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of Education of the DC school system. I haven’t read anything about her, though, but after reading this Time article, I want to read more. Something to whet your post-Thanksgiving appetite:

She says things most superintendents would not. “The thing that kills me about education is that it’s so touchy-feely,” she tells me one afternoon in her office. Then she raises her chin and does what I come to recognize as her standard imitation of people she doesn’t respect. Sometimes she uses this voice to imitate teachers; other times, politicians or parents. Never students. “People say, ‘Well, you know, test scores don’t take into account creativity and the love of learning,'” she says with a drippy, grating voice, lowering her eyelids halfway. Then she snaps back to herself. “I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t give a crap.’ Don’t get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don’t know how to read, I don’t care how creative you are. You’re not doing your job.”

Today was a really hard day, because it brought back a lot of the emotions that I had when doing my student teaching. Those days were long and exhausting, and I remember that every little thing affected me.

In those days, I took every student comment to heart. A student got upset after getting back a quiz and breaks down? A student got angry at me for reprimanding them? A student came to me crying about how her A- on a test will preclude them from ever going to college? A student talking to me with nothing but apathy even though they’re failing and won’t be able to graduate? I heard their voices bounce around my brain and my stomach would be all fluttery and I would just be emotionally in turmoil. It may have been a throwaway comment by a student — usually it was — but I carried it with me all day. Sometimes for days.

I needed to develop a tough skin. And, as the student teaching progressed, I did. (Although I needed to breakdown a few times to do it.)

Last year (my first year of full time teaching) I really grew that thick skin. I learned to put up with a lot of flak without students phasing me emotionally. Students really really like to test the boundaries of new teachers at my school and I felt like I dealt with that admirably. I still had days where they got to me, though.

This year I’ve been even more adept at dealing with students. One quarter has passed and I haven’t had that emotional breakdown yet. I think it’s largely because I’ve been even clearer and consistent with my expectations, and I don’t always engage in dialogue with students.

If a student doesn’t do their homework, I let them tell me their reasons/excuses, and then I say “Thank you for telling me that. I’m sorry but I’m still going to have to give you a 0.” Last year, I would engage with a dialogue about why I can’t and won’t give them credit. Last year, if a student asked if I offer extra credit, I would say no and justify my reasons. This year, I say “no” and point them to the course expectations handed out on the first day which states that I don’t give extra credit. Only if students want to have a discussion, in respectful terms, outside of class, do I go into that territory. But this year, as opposed to last year, I’m not the one starting the discussion.

Anyway, how did I get on this topic? Oh yeah, so I feel like I can keep a pretty cool head at school. I’m empathetic to students and my own emotions don’t really ever show through. But today, for the first time this year, there was a student in front of me crying. Because of… well… lots of things. But the point is: my chest tightened, I got all emotional and flustered, and his or her words were bouncing around in my head for hours as I played the situation over and over like a movie reel in my mind.

I felt the same kind of heightened, overly-emotional reaction that I experienced when I was student teaching. It is hard to go through the motions of teaching when you’re not steady emotionally.

I’m much better now, and things will be just fine.

Some fluffy part of me wants to say that emotion enhances teaching. But the more honest part of me is screaming: not being so invested in students emotionally might actually serve them better. I don’t mean that it’s okay not to care about your kids. But it’s okay not to get all tied up in their day-to-day feelings towards you, your subject matter, your policies, or your class. I think I’m not expressing myself right and I need to think this through a bit more to articulate it so it doesn’t come across harshly. But maybe other teachers out there have a sense of what I’m talking about? Keeping an emotional barrier between you and your students?

Whatever phrase you want to use to mourn the loss of my start-of-the-year ambition, use it.

I had what I thought were two really good ideas that I wanted to head up in my school this year.

1. An academic journal, where students could submit research papers they are proud of, for consideration for publication.
2. A professional development group that focused on making a bridge between the math and science curricula in the upper school (high school). So, for example, the math department should teach logarithms before the chemistry students learn about pH. It is especially important that we do this now, since the math curricula in the upper school is being completely redrawn and this is the time we can shift things around easily. [1]

Both were shot down. [2]

What’s the most sad part about this? An invidious seed has been planted in the back of my head. Each time I get an idea of something I want to take on to help make my great school an even better school, to help improve student learning, to get students excited about learning, to get teachers excited about what they’re doing, about anything, I know I’m going to think about these two ideas that never materialized and think twice about pursuing it.

My more optimistic, excitable self back tomorrow. For the next couple hours, I’m going to be in mourning.

[1] In my school, we are required to join a professional development group which meets half a dozen times a year. These groups are led by faculty and span topics like “Space and Pedagogy” to “The Brain” to “Diversity” to “Critical Friends Group” (don’t ask what that is). Historically these groups have been cross divisional — so we’d have lower school teachers and upper school teachers in the same group — and cross departmental.

[2] The first was shot down because there are teachers who want to encourage students to submit their good research papers to other journals, and having our own journal would get in the way of this.

The second was shot down because — even though there was enough interest among math and science teachers, and both math and science department heads were excited enough by it that they wanted to join — the other potential leader of this group and I wanted to restrict the people in it to math and science teachers in the high school. For obvious reasons. It requires a bit of a long-winded explanation about the culture at my school why this would be frowned upon. But I think it boils down to this: if the professional development committee were to approve this, it would be setting a precedent it is hesitant to set.

Without going on a “oh gosh he’s complaining again” riff, I’ll just say that I find the reasons against both rather specious. But I don’t want to rock any boats, make any waves. I’m going to let them die in peace.