Bring. It. On!

In many ways, this week was unexpected, though by now I should be expecting that. Haha. …. Ok, bad joke…

Warning: long update below. Unusually eventful week… (also a bad joke)

On Monday, I had two observations, one from my principal and another from my Program Director for TFA. The first was unexpected, and the second was a source of significant anticipation. The last time he had come to observe my class was at the very beginning of the year, when I was completely frazzled over classroom management. I have always been a little too critical of my PD; I sincerely believe that he is a subpar teacher who is a little too sold on the TFA model and treats teaching like an unnatural science rather than an instinctual art. You all know me well enough to know that this is a personality with which I am bound to clash, especially when that personality is put in a position of authority over me. Regardless, however, I took his scheduled visit very seriously, and lost a great deal of sleep in the process. I dreaded the thought of being judged by someone who did not entirely leave me in wonder of his capabilities, and who has always been just as critical of me as I have been of him. I also feared the perceived moment when he would inevitably confirm my innermost trepidation: that I am indeed a terrible teacher myself.

During the visit from my principal, we were working on visualization using our poem of the week, and it was an amazing lesson. The students were engaged and excited, so we had a great time. I felt pretty good about what was going on in my classroom, and my principal made a point later in the day to share her own excitement with me about what she had observed. It was a wonderful feeling to experience some measurement of success.

When my PD came, we were working on Shurley English, particularly the Question and Answer Flow that accompanies most lessons. My students were a little rusty on the process, so the observation was a little rocky, but at no point did I feel like I had failed miserably in representing myself well as a teacher and as a TFA teacher at that. I walked away from the day feeling satisfied.

But in my debrief the next evening, my PD once again succeeded in making me feel like an inadequate, slacker teacher of whom TFA would be ashamed. My lesson lacked focus and precise objectives, so my students had proceeded without purpose. If only I would spend more time completing the TFA model for lesson planning, I would be more effective with my time, and my students would finally start to achieve. At the end of a very long day that wasn’t even close to being over yet, this PD made me plan out two lessons, which were complete with objective, key points, opening, intro to new material, guided practice, independent practice, and closing. It was tedious and degrading, to say the least.

And yet I walked away with important revelations: I could finally articulate the heart of my frustrations with my PD. It wasn’t so much that I hate the “TFA way” of doing things—in fact, I was surprisingly excited about the lesson plans I made during our session—but rather his way of presenting the TFA way. It is more than a little creepy that the people in TFA talk in the same way; both my PD and my advisor in Houston used the same phrasing and approach to meetings with me. “Angie, I am going to push you on that,” or “Now I want you to summarize for me what you have learned from this meeting,” or “How are you going to implement this in your class tomorrow?” It is exceedingly patronizing and overly professional. If anything, it makes me defensive and even belligerent. I do not respond well to this kind of relationship (is it any surprise that I came to loathe both these individuals?), which no doubt gives these TFA figures a somewhat negative impression of me. It’s ok, though. I am more than fine with that. 

So the point is this: I am finally starting to practice the TFA lesson planning strategy of my own free will. I can see its benefits, and I finally feel like I am comfortable and adapted enough to try it of my own volition. For the longest time, I struggled to conceptualize how to use this model given my discomfort in teaching in general, my obstacles with classroom management, and my stuck-ness in survival mode. I have started to flow effortlessly in my teaching role, I have my kids under control as much as any other teacher can boast, and I am enjoying myself enough to finally seek out ways to push myself even further. Things are finally starting to feel manageable and even exciting. The possibilities really open up after I make it to that stage.

What I DON’T appreciate is a person trying to persistently shove me into their definition of success. From the beginning, my PD has tried and tried and tried to mold me into the TFA way, which is a cookie-cutter approach that I have rejected from the beginning. What my PD fails to realize is that we all start at different levels in this process: some come into TFA ready to embrace the organization’s model and can immediately begin practicing the TFA strategies. Some of us, like me, come in without any conception of how to be a teacher at all, let alone the kind of teacher TFA wants us to be. And others come in who are anti-TFA from beginning to finish. We all start out differently, so the PD’s approach to each of us must necessarily take into account these different positions. I would have loved to have a PD who said, you know what? I can tell you are not ready to follow our approach to the smallest detail, so let’s focus on how we can troubleshoot your most immediate concerns, and then we can build you up to where we want you to be. When I think of this strategy, I think of the words subtle, flexible, and downright sneaky. Would this approach be more effective? I have no idea without testing it. But a part of me thinks that I would have responded much better to this kind of covert manipulation than the TFA heavy-handedness.

And I will admit that to an extent, my PD has been successful in molding me. I just wish he had treated me with more respect and a more personal touch while he did it.

On Thursday, I had an unexpectedly defensive start to the day: a parent had emailed the superintendent with a complaint about me. It will not surprise you that this parent is the same parent whose mother (my student’s grandmother) who had threatened me with bodily harm before Thanksgiving. In this case, early in the week, I had made the student in question touch his toes for a couple of minutes as a consequence for playing in the middle of my class. He had gotten into some sort of disagreement with the student who sat next to him, and they had proceeded to push a book between them, to the disruption of the entire class. It was a ridiculous waste of our learning time, and I was going to make sure they both knew it.

Thursday morning, my principal alerts me that she wants to meet with me, as soon as she can send an assistant to watch my class. In the interim, the student arrives with a note from his mother, accusing me of practicing “unethical disciplinary actions” on a child who is “functionally autistic” (he’s not) and who is incapable of paying attention (he is). She implied that she had taken action against me, since “teacher-parent rapport with you cannot be established.” As if I am the problem? Really? Who threatened whom?

I will admit that I immediately feared reprimand and further conflict with this parent, so much so that I walked to the office with every intention of back downing and giving in to the mother. But when I reached the principal, and found her office entirely empty of the disgruntled parent, I realized that I was not in the wrong. The mother did not even hang around long enough to confront me personally! She sends a note via her child, and emails the superintendent without even contacting my principal! This was not a legitimate complaint, so how could I ignore it?

My principal read me the initial email from the mother to the superintendent, and then the superintendent’s response to the complaint, which was actually impressive in its mediating tone. When it was my turn to speak, I shocked even myself in the hard line I took; I refused to back down, refuted some of the allegations, asserted the complaint was personal rather than legitimate, and pointed out that my co-teacher makes this student touch his toes all the time, but no email had gone to the superintendent over that. I stood by my disciplinary approach, and promised that I would continue to practice it in the future… until my principal had an office busting at the door hinges with angry parents. When that happened, I would consider changing my ways, but for now, I had nothing for which I need to apologize. I knew that I was putting my principal in a difficult position, but I felt liberated having done that much for myself.

Later that morning, the director in charge of special education stopped by to let me know the latest from the Central Office. She had met with my inclusion teacher, who has always been supremely complimentary of my teaching practices, and she wanted to personally reassure me that I was not at all liable for the complaint. She even rolled her eyes in reference to this parent.

Needless to say, my skin is considerably tougher after five months of teaching in the Delta. I hate confrontation, which has always been an area of weakness, but I was thrilled that I had faced the threat head-on and triumphed. I finally had the explicit support of not only my fellow teachers, but also my superintendent. Now that is something to write home about.

The best part? When I returned to my room after meeting with my principal, the assistant teacher had three of my students at the front of the room, all of them touching their toes! (None of them was the student in question, though). Exonerated? I damn well better be!