In the Classroom

It's been almost four months of school. I've been mostly abstract and philosophical about teaching so far in my blog. Earlier in the year, I set the goal to talk about the idea of teaching and trust in public schools, but I've been unable to write very much in the moment...I can't separate myself from the messiness and uncertainty of teaching.

It's hard for teachers to write or speak publicly about what goes on everyday in the classroom. The accounts we usually hear are either those melt-your-heart, sweet memories of what a child did today or horror stories about that other kid, about the miserable conditions in the school or community. Teachers rarely talk about the million split-second decisions they make and the results of those decisions, whether positive or negative, in their classrooms.

My confidence wavers at times. I think back at the countless moments in a day and wonder if I could have explained it better, acted sooner, said something to a student before he left for home. It can be crippling to think like this, to doubt every next step and ask if what you are doing is right, if it is any good, if it is effective.

This week, my students and I were analyzing how a writer develops the protagonist in a short story. I realized half-way through the week that I had chosen a very difficult text to read as a class. Several students were lost. I should have given more time to students who needed to finish typing their writing. Several students reminded me this week that I had failed to conference with them while they had worked on their writing project. We spent two weeks studying run-ons and fragments, but those types of sentences abounded in their published work. I yelled at a student in front of the whole class for consistently being disrespectful and moved him to a desk facing the wall. I got tired.

But teaching allows for new beginnings. Teachers and students are currently on break, and I have a lot to think about in terms of figuring out where my students are and how I need to improve my instruction. I don't know if I ever forgive myself completely of the mistakes and missteps I make, but I do try to amend them the next day, the next week, the next quarter, the next year.

I will reconsider how to support students individually with conferences and finally begin pulling small groups consistently. I will rethink how to teach run-ons and fragments. I will sit down and talk with that student about how he can meet expectations in writing class and spell out the consequences for bad behavior. I will need a new approach to get students started writing their own fiction short stories, and I will need to find better mentor texts in English and Spanish.

Reflection is both powerful and painful and often a very private process at my school, if it happens at all. But teachers' decision-making should be made more public. We are afraid of being judged on one moment or on one mistake, but accountability to administration, families, and community is necessary to make sure we are doing our jobs. This is where trust on all sides is essential.

Teachers may not fully trust the public to understand the myriad of decisions they make or what they do everyday and often play the role of victim. But our job is too important to be relegated to secrecy, which breeds incompetency and ignorance. We need to make what constitutes effective teaching more public, despite the messiness of what occurs everyday in our classrooms, and take responsibility for our work. In this way, we can not only turn a critical eye on ourselves, but we can receive focused observation and feedback from those that have a stake in each student's education.

As a teacher, I trust you to know that teaching can be imperfect and experimental. Evaluate me on my performance and also on how I reflect, what I learn, and how I put my reflection back into action. I am open to listening to your voices because I take the trust you put in me to educate your children very seriously. With that - here's to a new year, new starts in my classroom, and new prospects in my professional life as I look for a new position in a more functional school.