I have been fortunate to work with
teachers and teenagers for the past twenty years. Both of these
groups are populated with interesting, brilliant, delightful,
generous people. And those other people too. At their best, these
are people that make you feel, think, and act better than you
actually are. At their worst, you understands felonies through a
whole new, more sympathetic lens. I have been on both ends of the
continuum, both as a student and as a teacher. I have come to some
conclusions which may be accurate, and they may not, but they help me
stay on the tightrope, instead of strangling someone with it. If
you work in one of those schools where students are expected to be
jerks, and teachers are expected to be unarmed police, then you are
in need of more than I can give, and reading this will probably just
piss you off. Sorry.
Conclusion #1 – You don't have to
like them, but you do have to do your job. This goes for both
students and teachers. You want to like them all, to see the value in
their unique contributions, but it ain't gonna happen. With
students, this is particularly tricky, because I really do like most
of them, especially individually. In groups the Knucklehead Factor
tends to be exaggerated, but if you know what they are like by
themselves, it is much easier to respond. But there are those other
students. Usually they are not the kids that “act out” (teacher
for “be an asshole”), have “trouble staying on-task” (teacher
for “goofing-off), or who “do poorly on their work” (teacher
for, well, “do poorly on their work). Most of those kids are
engaging – they are offering an opportunity to interact, and they
usually are responsive, if you can be creative enough. It's the kids
who won't react at all, who do C-/D+ work, never talk, and resist
participation in any activity that tend to get to me. They rarely
look at you, and when you do talk to them they look at you as if you
are a moron for not recognizing the wall around them. These kids are
very careful to keep any and all traits that you might like stashed
away where you will never see them. Hard to like them. And it's
sometimes infuriating that they sit in your class, and refuse to
avail themselves of the gift that is you.
But that's their choice, and they do
have a choice. A person can simply choose to not engage. Or, they
may choose to engage with other teachers, just not you. So you do
your job. You put the good stuff in front of them, you do what you
can to convince them that if they take it they will be better off,
you make sure that their parental units are aware of what is
happening, and you keep an eye on them. They don't want you to, but
you do anyway. That's the job. As for teachers, reread this,
substitute “teachers” for “kids”, and “supervisor” for
“parent”, and it's about right.
Conclusion #2 – Mobility is
essential. I used to call this “flexibility”, but some people
don't like the idea of other persons determining what they should do,
so now I call it “mobility”. See how I did that? They made me
change my word, but I get what I want, so I'm cool with that. Watch
a good tennis player getting ready to receive a serve. The player
will usually sway back and forth, and then, as the opponent goes into
the toss, their feet will start moving, almost like they are jogging
in place. They don't know where the serve will be, and they need to
be moving, ready to react. They don't complain that the opponent
made them move, or feel bad because they were not perfectly placed
before the serve and had to adjust – their job is to be ready to
return the serve, wherever it is.
We need to be like that, and it's hard.
We are not in a game of batting things back and forth . We want our
students to get somewhere, to advance, to come further into this
wonderful world of rational thought, interesting people and ideas,
and skills to discover, interpret, evaluate, and use them. And,
often, they don't wanna go. They are happy right where they are,
thank you very much. And so you try to pull them along, and that is
where it all goes wrong. When you pull something, it digs in its
heels. It tries to go the other way. It becomes invested in
resisting you. It needs you to fail. We know this – what we
sometimes don't realize is that we started it. When you try to pull
something, the very first thing you do is it plant your feet, which
is a nicer way of saying “dig in your heels”. You try to get
them to go the other way. You become invested in resisting, and you
need your “opponent” to yield. And we are teaching this.
Mobility. You can't move with your
feet firmly placed, and we want our students and ourselves to move.
If a student is stuck, there are tools that they can use, and there
are tools that we can use, there are dances we can do, and there are
shiny things that we can flash in front of them. If we can't create
a situation where the student chooses to move, then we have a problem
that can't be solved by just pulling. As for teachers, reread this,
and, well, you know,
Conclusion #3 – We have to take care
of each other. This is true of many professions, but it is
especially true for teachers (and for ministers, but that's a
different thing). We need to get what recognition we get from other
teachers, and we need to recognize that need. Students are
delightful (sometimes), and it is wonderful when they realize that we
did something that helped them, that changed them. But we can't rely
on them. We can't put students in that position, and we can't look
for our affirmation from them. It is not fair, it is not helpful,
and it is not their job. Administrators can be excellent, they can
be helpful, and they can teach us much, but their job is different.
It is not their job to pay attention to who is in need of support,
advice, or a drink, and we would not want it to be. We have to take
care of our own. We don't have to stand all together in a circle and
sing “What A Wonderful World”. We don't have to be all together
– you have your little group that takes care of each other, and
I'll have mine, and we may even talk shit about the other group. It
doesn't matter. What matters is that in this job, we need to keep an
eye on each other, and we need someone to keep an eye on us.
And that, I think, is it. The Thing.
The Holy Grail. The Hokey Pokey. Do your job, stay mobile, keep an
eye on each other, and usually everything is gonna be alright. Pax.
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