08 May 2010

Make up your own damn title

About this time, one really, really wants the school year to end. The frustrations and discontent have piled so high they are difficult to see past. I'm so damn sick of the violence. Not just the fighting, but the casual, petty, everyday violence of insults, shoves, kicks, accusations, provocations, destroyed books and classrooms, and the constant shouting. If another kid shouts at me that I "better get that little boy" or "get that that bald-headed girl" I may just walk out. A few trips up and down the halls to drive the bile down.

These days I rarely teach. Instead I am a policeman without a policeman's tools or authority.

This morning, just after school opened, a teacher came and told me she overheard two boys say they's meet outside my room at 2:00 pm. She didn't know the boys, but they looked like middle schoolers. We agreed to meet at my at that time to be ready for whatever was planned. At lunch, I told the two nearest middle school teachers what was going on and they agreed to keep their kids in their rooms around two and to keep an eye on my doorway.

At 1:45, I heard yelling and running in the halls, I went out to see what was going on. There was a fight between two 8th graders at the far end of the hall. I heard the call for security and went back into my room. I knew that eventually the female security guard in her late fifties would get up the stairs and make her way to the fight.

At 1:55, their was a call for the security guard to go to one of the portable buildings next to the school. This time the trouble was in a third grade class. At 2:00, a security guard was called to a first grade room on the first floor. The room has seven children who can only be described as feral. I've never seen so many completely out-of-control kids in one room. By the way, we have one security guard.

Around 2:15, a middle-school boy wandered into my room. I was teaching away to the six or seven who were listening, and this kid I'd never seen before just wandered in and gestured to one of my more wayward students. My student stood up and started to walk out. I loudly told him to sit down, and turned to the middle school boy. I even more loudly told him to get out my room as I was teaching and he was in the way. I also explained in short, blunt sentences that in school, kids have rooms to be in, and don't just go wandering around visiting friends. I am considered unreasonable by most of the students.

The two boys fell to yelling at me that one had borrowed a back pack from the other and he needed it back and it was in his locker and he was going to get it for him and he needed it now and it was his book bag and dawg, I need my book bag, and so on and so on, the volume and pitch rising with their righteous indignation. I walked toward the intruder gave him three seconds notice that the door was about to swing closed through the space where he was standing, counted aloud to two and swung the door shut. It missed him, but not my much. Not very fast on his feet. My kid kept the complaining while I called his mother and handed him the phone. He received an obscenity laced Howler, so loud I could hear her side of the call.

Now, what about the rest of the class. Chaos reigned. The anger shot through the room and energized the sluggish group. Several side arguments were resumed, kids yelled at me to let him get the book bag, and my seven students who can do math, who want to do math, looked sad and frustrated.

I stood there, silently watching the scene. The chaos soared. I'd had enough. I gathered up my materials, disconnected my laptop, and packed up my things to leave. OK, I had an hour-and-a-half to go, but what was the point? Getting them back in order is like putting out brush fires. The chaos leaps about and flares up over and over again.

I sat down and watched the scene, fully intending to sit there until dismissal and then sending them on their way. I'd had enough.

But I kept seeing those seven kids who wanted to learn and, damn it, they were upset. They wanted to learn and they wanted the fools to go away. They wanted me to stop the other kids from making their lives miserable, and I knew I couldn't. I could try to keep order in class, but the halls, the bathrooms, the lunchroom, the school grounds were in the control of the fools and the junior thugs. And I couldn't even guarantee order in my classroom.

I sat there a while longer and they got up. I reached over and picked up a handful of paper. Walking to the back of room were I put these kids to protect them as mush as I could, I dropped a piece of paper in front of my magnificent seven. There's a small chalkboard on the side wall near the back table and desks. I then did something I never do. I turned my back on the chaos, the fart noises, the arguments, the smacking, the kicking, and I said, in a soft voice that only my seven could hear, "Page 413. Let's learn something." Seven books flipped open, pages whirled past, and seven faces smiled. I have never seen fifth graders attack simplifying fractions with such hunger and joy.

After about ten minutes, I noticed the noise level behind my had dropped. Some of the wild bunch called for paper so they could do the work. I ignored them. My time and attention were going to the seven who deserved it. In twenty minutes, all seven were simplifying fractions flawlessly. We quickly worked twenty-five problems and there were only two mistakes. Both times the mistakes were minor. The child understood the process, but made a calculation error. I showed them why their answer didn't work, and they quickly found their error and corrected it.

By now, the class was fairly quiet and with more kids asking for paper. They had journals under the desks and could write in those if the only remembered, so I ignored them and stayed with the seven. Some other kids were clearly following along.

When it was clear that the seven had the idea, I challenged them to contest. I would challenge them at simplifying. I'd write a numerator and they'd take turns picking a denominator. Then we'd work it out as fast we could and shout the answer. If I was first, I'd win. If one of them was first, they'd win.

Now, they knew that I'd be faster, but they love the challenge of beating me. And I have been known to show off, shoot from the hip, and make a mistake. When they won a round, they abused me joyously and grimaced and swore they'd never beat me again. Then I'd break the rules and give them 66/132. They stared, dumbfounded. One kid got it when I wrote 4/8 = 1/2 and 4+4=8 on the board. That, my friends, is called scaffolding, and bright kids can do wonders with it.

So, we got through to dismissal. I keep my brave seven back and told them that they'd done so well, they'd earned homework passes. I promised them that I'd do what I could to make sure they could learn everyday. As I sent them out into the wildness in the hall, I playfully smacked each one lightly on the head. Two swatted me on the back. We all laughed.

After dismissal, I watched three fights on the grounds from the stairwell window. I didn't do a thing about them. I saw one of my seven walking with a younger brother and sister. They had their heads down and were holding hands. Kids were running past them, jostling them as they ran toward the fights. My girl led her siblings away from the crowds, even though she was turning away from her home. She headed up another street, and was going to walk around the long block, avoiding the wild crowd, away from the fight, to find a safe way home. There was nothing I could do to help. Nothing out there anyway.

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