The Clueless Teacher
I was an idealistic college grad in 2007, and I wanted to help people. I also wanted to be as bad ass as Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds. I decided that the best way to do so would be to teach at a high school in the South Bronx. I joined NYC Teaching Fellows, an accelerated teachers prep program that would allow me to move into my own classroom in September, only three months after leaving the womb of undergrad.
I wasn’t ready. I failed every single day. In one chaotic class period I was teaching an elaborate lesson plan where students were supposed to role play the stomata dilemma: basically showing that when a plant opens its pores to get CO2, it loses water. They were supposed to act out the flow of the various gases, but they were being really disruptive. It occurred to me that maybe I should check in with them and make sure that they understood the point of the lesson. I said, “Ok guys, well why does a plant need carbon dioxide?”
No one answered.
“Ok, so the plants need carbon dioxide to do photosynthesis. And what do they do that process for?”
Again, nothing. And I had been teaching about photosynthesis for weeks!
“Ok, so plants need to do photosynthesis to make their own food, and”
A student interrupted me. “Yo miss, plants don’t need food, they are not alive!”
The other kids nodded their heads, “yeah.”
How could I have been teaching about plants for over a month and students still not learned that? Also, my students were between 14-19 years old, so I wasn’t the only teacher who had failed them.
My ineptness really proved dangerous one day, when I was tired of feeling disrespected. Students kept talking through my lesson that I had put so much effort into preparing. It seemed silly to tell students to be quiet when everyone was talking, so I focused on the most obvious rule breaking: one of my students was wearing a hat.
I went over to him and said “take off that hat!” all the frustration causing me to practically shout.
He jumped out of his seat and shoved me so hard that I stumbled backwards. He was a lot bigger than me.
The students circled around us and yelled, “fight, fight!” It was surreal.
And for a minute, I hate to admit this, I wanted to hit him back. I was so sick of being disrespected, I felt my hands curl into fists.
He was about to take a swing, when I came to my senses and ran out the door, down the hall. He chased me, yelling “you don’t f***ing tell me what to do!”
I could hear his footsteps come closer and closer behind me. I didn’t know what he would do to me if he caught up.
In panic I flung myself into the main office.
Luckily, the secretary locked the door. The student pounded on the door yelling “you crazy b****, you’ll pay.”
The next moments and days were a blur of fear, but here is the summary: the student was suspended for the rest of the week. I went back to work the next day. My students seem to respect me a bit more for returning. When that kid returned to school, even he was more respectful. But I'm not going to lie, I still didn't know how to teach, and I definitely didn't give the kids what they needed. When I finished the year I don't think they knew any more about science than they had at the beginning of the year.
Please understand, the kid who assaulted me wasn't a bad kid, he wasn't different from anyone else. I lived in his environment that was full of chaos and no support for a short time and I went from a do-gooder idealist to someone considering punching a kid. It could happen to anyone. Although it was really painful to go through this, it helps me in my teaching practice today.
I still teach in a public high school, now for Seattle. I see kids everyday who come from homes with too much violence and too little love. But now I am experienced enough to tell kids, it is understandable that you would feel violent, but violence is never justified. You have to be better than that. I believe my students can, and I'm not giving up on them.