The Unbearable Lightness of Teaching

Day 20 Aim: How do I connect with my students better?

jharlow07 — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 01:54:53 +0000

Go up to them and ask them to “teach you how to dougie”. For reference, check this out:

Remember, a good teacher is never embarrassed.

Day 18 Aim: What do I do when a kid calls my class boring?

jharlow07 — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 03:12:19 +0000

Seriously? Boring? You? If they only knew how fun you actually were on the weekend. Maybe if you stopped telling them that your weekend plans included sipping tea and watching the history channel they’d know. But wait a second, they are calling your class boring. How can this be?

What we’ve encountered here is a young mind that has yet to be sparked by intellectual curiosity about a given subject, in my case its history. The fact of the matter is given a choice of activities to undertake for 45 minutes, “learning” for many students may rank below watching paint dry. If a student calls my class boring, I remind them that their current occupation is that of student, and that in life we must work hard if we are to achieve our goals, and often that takes doing some tasks that we consider boring.

If that doesn’t work just say it’s a game and that the first student to find the correct answer gets a super secret prize to be determined later. Congratulations! Here’s your high five!

Day 17 Aim: What do I do if my students request me on Facebook?

jharlow07 — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:15:13 +0000

DENY DENY DENY! Especially if they are current students. I don’t care if Mark Zuckerberg says his privacy settings can protect you, if there is anything I’ve learned about privacy settings on Facebook its that the settings are similar to the immune system. They react to the most prevailing threat at the time and can prevent against it in the future, but then something mutates and all the sudden students are seeing pictures of another teacher at your school dancing with two women inappropriately, and like Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splaining to do. Bottom line, just don’t friend them, ever. I don’t care if they are in high school and you taught middle school. I teach high school, and I don’t want to hear, “Hey, I’m friends with your friend on Facebook”. The only way I’ll ever friend my former students on Facebook is if/when the graduate college. So the first batch is coming up this year. Congratulation Class of 2008, you are almost allowed to be my friend on Facebook.

Day 16 Aim: How do I know my students are taking their reading seriously?

jharlow07 — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 01:31:26 +0000

They look like this:

Day 12 Aim: Where should I go for Friday Happy Hour?

jharlow07 — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 01:22:54 +0000

As a teacher, the term happy hour takes on new meaning. As the week comes to an end, the time for fun and merriment begins. However, on a Friday, you’ve been through a number of challenges this week and you’re tired. So, when choosing a happy hour, I always recommend convenience above all else. Now is not the time to go to that shi-shi club in the Meatpacking District or the new hipster dive bar in Alphabet City. One choice is always the local watering hole near your school. The positives? It’s a great chance to make friends with your co-workers and in all likely hood, it’s cheap. The cons? Well, you ever ridden for thirty five minutes on the six train after a few beers? The bladder situation can become tenuous. The next option is bars near your apartment. Easy walk home so you can leave whenever, you can gather the usual gang of idiots to join you, and if you are good, you can find good deals. Just moving to the Upper East Side, I’ve found Stumble Inn to be a great deal with a half-off everything happy hour till 7 p.m. The Gin Mill on the West Side has the same deal till 8 p.m. The final option, go home and get some sleep. Hey, sleep can provide many happy hours.

Day 11 Aim: How do I balance my life?

jharlow07 — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 03:14:34 +0000

As a teacher, you consider the sun lazy. Most days of the year we’re up and out the door before it’s even cracked the horizon, and stay up long after it has gone over to another hemisphere. The frightening thing for teachers is that despite this, we still can’t get everything done on a given day. Oh yeah, and we need to work out, keep up with friends, navigate the dating jungle, update your fantasy football team, write your blog, and maybe eat something here and there. How do you do it? All you have to do is think what your willing to sacrifice for everything else. Me, I sacrifice sleep. 5-6 hours a night is plenty. Anything more is just gravy.

This post was brought to you by the letter C–for Coffee.

Day 10 Aim: How can i formulate clever regulations for the classroom?

jharlow07 — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 02:44:45 +0000

That Hammurabi was onto something. Rules need to be about accountability. If you don’t have rules, you don’t have order. If you don’t have order, then you don’t have control. If you don’t have control, then you concede the lands to the barbarians. In this case, the students are the barbarians, lest the whole “barbaric” thing.

I’m in law school right now, and if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that each law–ridiculous and sensible–has some underlying reason for it. But it also binds those affected by it. In other words, the best laws are those that affect the collective whole. People will break laws all the time if the ramifications only affect themselves. But watch what happens when criminal acts affect the masses. Nobody wants to piss off the masses.

Back when I was a teacher before my dreams and ambitions were squashed by the realities of the legal market, I used to have a rule in place. Instead of keeping track of tardiness (which becomes something like taking the LSAT at a point, just penciling in bubbles), have your students do it themselves. When the first straggler wanders in, have him or her write a big, legible “L” on the board. Then, have the next goon scribble a big “A”, and subsequent deliquents a “T” and an “E”. When that happens, the entire class gets an additional assignment. My favorites were ones that had them “reflect” in a two page essay the importance of social responsibility. And as they begrudgingly scribble two pages about how Emilio sat his ass outside and txt’d his bff about the new Nelly jam, they’ll take a moment to think about it could be them next who causes the inane assignment.

That’s the beauty of being a teacher—everything becomes a life lesson. And the more creative you are, the more your students will gain, even from a lesson in tardiness. Too bad I can’t promote this as a future prosecutor. I don’t think that judges’ would like my alternative form of punishment for DUI defendants. Something tells me that forcing defendants to take Snooki out for a night of drunken debauchery violates the 8th Amendment, if not just the sense of common human decency.

—Eugene Lee

An Exceptional Class

jharlow07 — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 02:25:41 +0000

Earlier today I had to have one of my first conferences with a student after class. For now, we’ll call him Axel. Over the course of the class I told Axel to stop having side conversations and listen to his peers when they are speaking four times. For me, I should only have to say it once; four times is clearly over the limit. So I calmly walked over—knowing that we are still in the honeymoon phase of the year—and politely told him that his behavior was unacceptable. Axel seemed shocked that this happened. “What do you mean, I did my work.” This is a response I’ve heard countless times over my four years of teaching. Each time I hear this response, I cringe. Each time I think about what this response tells me about the state of values in the United States, I hang my head in shame.

In the midst of a recession or depression, a nation will ultimately look inward and evaluate what actions and values led it into a financial crisis. It comes as no surprise then that recently in the New York Times opinion writers have been writing a plethora of articles about American values.

David Brooks recently wrote an article on the Gospel of Wealth and focused on a young preacher by the name of David Platt. Platt is a pastor at a mega-church in Alabama where he leads a group of individuals who seemingly have a great deal of wealth at their disposal. In his preaching, Platt began chastising his followers for chasing material goals instead of focusing on God. To better their lives, and presumably demonstrate their faith and obedience to God, Platt encourages his followers to “live like they make 50,000 a year”.

Thomas Friedman wrote a similar article where he compared the methods the Greatest Generation used to overcome challenges to the methods we use today to overcome challenges. Essentially, he argues that the Greatest Generation made the necessary sacrifices to overcome the monumental challenges they faced, while today’s generation prefers to lay the blame on somebody else rather that make sacrifices and assume responsibility. We see that in education, where a teacher can do everything correct and still some students will not be motivated. Politics also sheds light on this issue, as Democrats and Republicans blame the other party rather than create solutions to the problems.

Axel’s comments reflect these values to which Friedman and Brooks allude. By “doing their work” students believe that they have done their part for that day. In Axel’s case, he believes that as long as he listened to my lecture and took notes, he was doing his work. To listen to his peers was extra work that he did not see as important. In the course of our conversation, I relayed to him how important it is to learn from your peers and how he is getting less out of life right now than his classmates. He responded to this admonishment by rolling his eyes, sighing heavily, and saying “I got you”. This didn’t instill a great deal of confidence that in me that he actually gets me, or it for that matter.

Last year I sat with a group of teachers to discuss Axel’s academic prospects with him. We asked him the simple question, “What do you want to do?” Apparently, Axel wanted to either be a professional football player or a professional baseball player. Although I was not one of his teachers at the time, I leaned forward and asked him a couple simple questions. I started with the obvious, “Are you on a team?” He played on the block with his friends. I followed that up with, “Do scouts come watch you play on your block?” He wasn’t quite sure what that means. I then politely told him that at this point, him being a junior in high school, if he wasn’t being scouted by colleges or professional teams, he had no chance of playing a professional sport. I crushed his dreams.

Ask struggling students in high school what they are going to be when they graduate, many of them will have dreams similar to Axel. I don’t blame the students. A value that students today are exposed to on an every day basis is exceptionalism. According to our society now, everyone can become a celebrity. Thanks to youtube, you can become famous by filming yourself do something incredibly stupid and posting it on the internet. After watching the Jersey Shore, you realize you can become famous by becoming a caricature of yourself and offering your friend a sandwich while he “smushes” in the bed next to you. In sports we see extremely gifted athletes get multimillion dollar bonuses for going to one year of college and being better at putting a ball through a hoop than the other guys. This culture of exceptionalism can also be found in our classrooms, where we tell our students that they can all go to an Ivy League school and be whatever they want.

While I support encouraging students to follow their passions and strive to reach whatever goal that they have for themselves, I also believe we need to continually work with students to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses to set feasible goals. If a junior in high school has a 68% grade average still thinks that they are going to go to Harvard—and I’m the first one to tell them that it’s just not going happen—that’s a problem.

As a teacher, I still need a system of values to instill in my students. By the time students reach me in junior and senior year, the American Dream and the Gospel of Wealth may not be realistic. 50,000 a year is a dream that some of my students may never be able to attain, especially if they do not have a realistic plan beyond graduating high school. With this in mind, I hope that at the end of the day we as a society can refocus on living a good life.

When I graduated college, I judged my friends who stayed close to home and settled down. I fell into the idea that I needed to do something exceptional with my life. So I moved across the country to New York City, joined Teach for America, and started writing a blog. I envisioned myself being a champion in the classroom, fighting the achievement gap every day and taking my blows. Now, I realize that I simply want to live a good life. And write a blog.

Martin Luther was once asked by a recent Christian convert what the new Christians should do with their lives. Luther asked the man, “What is your trade now?” The man replied, “I make shoes”. Luther responded to him, “Then make the best shoes you can and sell them at a fair price”. To live a good life we do not need to do anything exceptional. This is a message that I can sell to my students.

Regardless of what my students do, whether they become a doctor, lawyer, janitor, garbage man, or sales clerk, they can still live a good life. While the standard of living may change, they can still continually strive to be the best that they can be regardless of where they start. Those who end up as sales clerks will have a more difficult climb, but they can continue to do their work well which increases their chances of advancement much more than trying to catch lightning in a bottle following the values of exceptionalism.

I’m hoping that I can lead a good life. Each day I go to work and try to be the best teacher I can be, improving from the previous day. I try to treat people the way they deserve to be treated. In working with others, I try to suspend judgment, try to find the assets that others bring to the table, try to understand their perspective, and focus on what I can and can not control. In Teach for America we call those things the diversity competencies; I just call them doing what is right. I fail at these things constantly. I have my vices and constantly make mistakes. I’ve hurt others and been a complete ass at times. I’ve sleepwalked through days at work. I recognize that I’m a continual work in progress who has some deep issues that I need to deal with, but I’m happy with who I am and what I’m doing. This comes from trying to live a good life, and this is a value I want my students to gain from being in my class.

-John Harlow

Day 9 Aim: How do I respond to personal questions from students?

jharlow07 — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 02:17:10 +0000

“Mr. Harlow, are you married?” At some point this year I’m going to be asked this question. When the kid drops this on you, you basically have three options. The first option is the simple dismissal. Tell the student that personal questions do not belong in a professional environment like your classroom. Your second choice is simply be honest with the student. If you choose this route, I also suggest a snarky addition such as, “No I’m not married because no woman would want to listen to me talk about students like you every day”. The final option, and most fun if you can pull it off, is to lie to your students. To pull this off, you need a story, and you need to stick to it. There is a teacher who will go unnamed who has told his students he has eight kids for the past three years. He knows their names better than Antonio Cromartie knows his real kids names. He has Jerry, George, Elaine, Kramer, Delicious, Isosceles, Tangent, and Hero. Because he’s stuck to this story, some kids believe him. If they don’t, well then they don’t ask personal questions anymore. Why wasn’t there a daily aim the past two days? I was busy taking care of Delicious and Isosceles.

Day 6 Aim: How do I de-escalate a situation to avoid a fight?

jharlow07 — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 02:13:20 +0000

Let’s face it, whether you teach kindergartners or high school students, disagreements will ensue. It may be ignorance, an inability to deal with conflict, or a simple result of raging hormones, but kids are going to get into it in your classroom or hallways. The ultimate goal is to de-escalate these situations to ensure the safety of your students and yourself. If you are able to catch a situation quick enough you can prevent a fight. The first thing you need to remember is not to tell the students to calm down. That is the first mistake. Telling someone who is upset to calm down is like telling a tidal wave to stop its trajectory. It’s just not going to happen. Your best bet is to distract the students and try and get their minds on something other than their disagreement. Pull out a shiny object and hold it up in front of them. Tell a joke. Get light. Whatever you need to do, try it. Just realize, there is a point where there is nothing you can do to prevent a fight. At that point you need to make a decision. Do I break up the fight myself or call the dean’s office? My recommendation is never break up a fight on your own. If you get hurt, you are liable and any time you miss comes out of your money. So, try to prevent the fight, but if you can’t, get your popcorn ready.