We're standing outside of Waffles 'n' More, my friend gives me a hug, we exchange the obligatory "how are you"s, and then she asks, "How was this week at school?"
My response: "I had some really awesome moments, and I had moments of living hell. So, I guess it averaged out to okay?"
This week's blog prompt is the following: How are you feeling emotionally, physically? Do you feel that you're getting through to your most difficult students? What strategies are working? What strategies are not? What are your next steps with student engagement in your classroom?
I could focus on the parts that made my week a living hell --but I won't. We've all dealt with them: students who have to come to grips with the fact that it's October and they're failing. In the k-12 world, we have a special monster: the parents who have to come to grips with their child failing. Unfortunately, though parents have high-school-aged students, they often can't fix their student's problems as easy as they once did. Talking to the teacher can be a temporary fix, maybe for one assignment, but the overall problem is that their student is making a series of bad choices, and high school is the eve of the college and career world. Are those bad choices going to mean success for your child outside of this classroom? Nope. Sorry. I'm not going to sugar-coat it for you. I'm not going to sugar-coat it for your student. We might be moving toward a world of "safe zones" but the straight up truth is that some kids aren't ready for the world --and, yes, sometimes I bear the brunt of being that news. Whatever. No one became an English teacher because they wanted to be the most popular kid in the class.
I don't want to chat about that in this blog post. We see enough of that as it is --at both the high school and college level. What I do want to talk about is the overwhelming exhaustion of making class great for your kids. Last Tuesday, I had a new one for my repertoire: I rapped "Alexander Hamilton" for my Junior English class, and in case you've been living under a rock for the last 11 months, it's from Hamilton: The Musical, a Broadway Tony-winner (they won 11 Tony's recently?) where Lin-Manuel Miranda argues that our first Treasurer of the Secretary embodies all of the essential elements of a hip-hop lifestyle. I know. It's conceptual. And it's amazing.
Mine was not a Tony-winning performance. Here, check it out: https://youtu.be/uiz8xDnJXVI
So how am I feeling physically? Um, let's try exhausted. It takes a lot to be able to rap at that pace and at that volume for a room full of kids, let alone the stress of anticipation, let alone stage fright, let alone the excitement of the starved theater kid, let alone all of the other work for all of my other classes I put in on top of it. I've been singing this song at the top of my lungs in drives from point A to point B for months hoping that it would be amazing. Guess what: the first time I performed this for 4th hour (not filmed), it was horrendous. There's a kind of defeat that goes into anticipation failing (which I might add resembled my failing breath control halfway through the song. Whatever.). But there's also a kind of "whatever" energy that goes into this performance in 5th hour. After all, it can only be better.
So how am I feeling emotionally? Pretty amazing --because all of those other questions about reaching students? Yeah. I did that. This year's juniors are of a particular brand of apathetic, a particular brand of quiet, a particular brand of withdrawn. To make things worse, each Junior English class has 30 kids in it, which means while I have one half of the room spellbound, the other half isn't paying attention and class is therefore a juggling act of which half I'm engaging.
But this --I got them with this. The kids that couldn't connect to me before do now. The kids that were apathetic before pay attention now. I don't think mine is their favorite class (or even that they have a favorite class), but at least now when they sit down, I have their attention. Maybe it's temporary, maybe I'll only have their attention for the next few days as long as they wonder when I'll pop out with a rap again, but that's okay. I have a few days to strike while the iron's hot, to talk about the Age of Enlightenment like it's important --because it is, because it is something they can relate to whether they know it or not, because individualism is important and their voice is important.
So am I tired? Yep, but welcome to the life of a teacher. I can handle it, and if it takes rapping for the kids to get their attention, I'm down. It won't be great, but who says it has to be? They could see that I was real with them, and that I was authentic in wanting to connect with them. I did it. Isn't that enough?
Part of my week were a living hell. You'll never make some people happy. But there are some weeks when you will make people happy, and it's okay to revel in that moment. And because I'm feeling the hip-hop vibe, boom.
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