Nine Weeks In...

This past Thursday marked the end of the first nine weeks! Already! The school year has a momentum that I never expected, but always hoped to experience, and the result is pretty amazing. I cannot believe how differently this school year has started than just one year ago. Long overdue, I am really excited to discuss my progress.

From day one, I established a classroom culture that practices—or at least attempts to practice—respect and cooperation rather than selfishness and getting one’s “licks back.” I hated last year how students would steal from each other and fight one another with such anger and animosity all of the time and would only occasionally demonstrate incredible generosity and kindness. So this year I actively modeled and rewarded more positive behaviors, and the outcomes have been tangible. Rather than stealing a stray pencil on the floor, my students say, “Is this anyone’s pencil? Ms. Cook, I found a loose pencil on the floor and no one has claimed it.” OR, the best one yet, “Ms. Cook, I found this dollar on the floor behind your chair.” And then another student, “I think it’s Teja’s dollar. She had one in her pocket earlier and she was just by your chair a while ago.” Plus I have not sent ONE student to the office this year for fighting or antagonizing another student. These are encouraging developments, to say the least! I have one student whom I knew from last year had substantial anger and behavior problems, and I was not looking forward to teaching him. But I have yet to have a problem with him in my classroom. I know my two co-teachers struggle with him quite a bit, but so far, he is great!

I think the key to my success at the beginning is that I have ascribed to a very simple principle: I am going to treat students’ behavior and misbehavior as something that is not personal to me. I teach my students that they are in charge of their own actions. They make a choice to act in certain ways. I will nonchalantly say to them, “Oops, you made a choice to [insert misbehavior], so here is the consequence.” I make it clear that I am not upset and not taking it personally, but I do want them to learn to act in ways that will help them succeed in school. Last year I would get so upset with my students and their misbehavior, taking it as an affront to me, but this year I am doing a much better job keeping calm and keeping students separate from me. It means that students see a model of a peaceful and respectful adult who they can emulate and I get to go home less stressed.

As a result of all this, I am going to arrogantly boast that of all aspects of my teaching practice, I am super proud of my behavior management. As you will remember, last year was just plain difficult on this front, but I managed to survive and even make some improvements. This year, I am extremely satisfied with the control and structure I have given my students. My lines look great in the hallway and the cafeteria, my classroom is quiet and productive, and my students do not need me to constantly monitor them in order for them to be on their best behavior (though this last point still requires some work).

My new co-teacher is struggling with behavior management, and so she wanted to implement a common behavior system across the three classes. She started a behavior stick with clips, where individual student clips start on green and go down to yellow, orange, or red for misbehavior. I tried the whole behavior stick thing last year and hated it, but I wanted to be supportive of my co-teacher and her attempts to gain greater control. I get frustrated because students’ behavior clips carry over from the other two classes into my class, so they come to me much lower than their usual behavior in my classroom would justify. So I have made the system work for me by emphasizing that students can move back UP the behavior stick by displaying good behavior. I have students tell me each day why their clip is down, and then what they need to do to change that: step 1, stop the misbehavior; and step 2, get caught being that good. It is simple for them, and great for me. I very rarely move a clip down, and students almost always finish on green by the end of my class. So if nothing else, students are finding my class as an opportunity for redemption!

I have received a few great compliments: one from another teacher who wants to observe and gather ideas, one from my principal, and one inadvertently from my students. My students were at Unified Arts, but as I walked to a corner of the hallway, I could hear that some of them were out waiting for their art teacher to arrive. As I rounded the corner, they caught sight of me, loudly whispered, “Here comes Ms. Cook!” and the line immediately snapped to silent attention. It was a beautiful sight. Truly.

As for my principal, she was sick this past week, and she had to attend several meetings for all the principals in the school district (about 11) and the central office administration. She chose me to fill in for her. I was honored. I must say, it was interesting to see how differently meetings are for the administrators versus the teachers. There were plenty of yummy goodies for the principals, but I have never had any at a teachers’ meeting. I took advantage of my temporary status. I was also displeased with the attitudes of some principals, who spoke of their teachers as though they were children who required administrative controls to get them to do their jobs. We received information about a new program for submitting lesson plans online, and rather than seeing the program as a great way to streamline a paper-heavy process, the principals looked at it as a way to catch and punish teachers who do not submit their lesson plans on time. They certainly highlighted the divide between the teachers and the administration, making it feel like we are on opposite sides rather than the same team. What are we here for, guys? To complain about each other? Or to work together in educating these students? Perhaps this is one of the reasons behind the crappy quality of education in the Mississippi Delta.

And I should note, I am such a better TFA corps member this year than I was last year! I have not quite drunk the Kool-Aid, but I have come to value the solid training that I have received. TFA has the right ideas when it comes to education, such as backward planning, positive behavior management, and investing the students, and I can see how much more my students are accomplishing when I use the system to my advantage rather than seeing it as additional work. Ultimately, my thinking is more in line with TFA teachings, and so things are progressing organically from there. I just wanted to survive last year, but this year I am looking to be a better teacher.

AND, I love my job. Perhaps not every single day, but I am happy with what I have achieved and what my students continue to achieve. What an awesome feeling.