Apple to Apple

I found I needed a way to think about vandalism and violence at school. My instincts toward fear and anger didn’t work. These feelings separated me from students, making me suspicious and defensive, creating a distance between us instead of the openness needed for teaching and learning.

And, strangely, what helped me most was thinking of vandalism and violence as miniscule versions of the 1967 riots. I was a kid then, living in Flint, Michigan, one of the sites of the more than 150 urban disturbances that broke out during that “long hot summer.” I remembered what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. later said—that a riot doesn’t develop out of thin air and that a riot is the language of the unheard.

So at school, when I saw words I didn’t even want to think about etched into desktops, when we huddled in a darkened classroom because of a gun in the school, when protest graffiti was painted on walls, and when I tried to break up a fist fight in the hall, I tried to turn my mind to this question: Why?

“Seek to understand why those individuals have taken to the streets,” King had said. And though I don’t like or condone violence and though I believe violence and vandalism in school deserve consequence, still I tried to understand—what were the messages behind the vandalism and violence? What had I failed to hear in my classroom? What had we failed to hear in our school system? In our town?

Some students, I learned held grudges against the in-groups, who they felt excluded them and against teachers who favored those in-groups over them. Some students were bored, feeling that the school didn’t give them opportunities to learn what they wanted to learn in ways they needed to learn. And some students were angry because of what was happening at home. These students saw school as an enemy, not as a place where they were included and valued. In these students, I could see despair that linked to anger and then to action.

And though I never found magic answers, I noticed a handful of ways to make a space for disenfranchised students, to hear from them, to open two-way, not one-way, communication:

• A graffiti wall: An art teacher in our school turned a long hallway into a venue for graffiti art. And students used this wall to ask for social change, to express their feelings, to express their creativity.
• Two simple words: I discovered the words “tell me.” When I wanted to connect with a student who had been aggressive, these words worked. They invited communication without condemning connotations. These two simple words helped me reach students.
• A book: S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel that describes the conflict between two groups in a town: the lower-class Greasers and the well-to-do Socials. Hinton, who was seventeen years old when The Outsiders was published, shows the grittiness of conflict but also points toward hope. “Stay gold,” my students said to each other after reading the book.
• Journals: When I gave students a chance to write about what was important to them—and without censure or editing—I understood them better and I found bridges toward them.
• School breakfasts: When I’m hungry, I’m not nice—and neither are students. I noticed a change in the emotional climate of our school when all students were invited to free breakfast every morning. In class, students were not distracted by hunger. And in hallways their blood sugar levels were high enough to give them a chance at walking away from a fight, not throwing the first punch.

We can, and should, use cameras in school hallways, have consequences for destructive behavior, and clean away offensive graffiti. But we should also pay attention—listen for language that is not often heard.

On Labor Day this year, I checked off a life goal. I walked across Mackinac Bridge. By dawn, thousands of us had gathered at the foot of the bridge.

“How does this work?” someone beside me asked.

But I didn’t know either, this being my first time. And then, far ahead of us a man climbed a ladder with a bullhorn.

“Now we’ll find out,” said my fellow walker.

And for the next ten minutes, the bullhorn man explained. At least, that’s what I think he was doing. But I’m not sure because the sound of the bullhorn was too weak to reach back into the crowd. Still, I was amazed at how people kept leaning forward, trying to hear.

“What’s he saying?” my new friend asked. But I shrugged. And when he climbed down, most of us were still uninitiated. He had, however, covered the material.

And I’ve found that, in the classroom, there’s something secure about covering curriculum. I liked to map out the year, to know that by the end, I had led students through the necessary lectures and texts, that I had stayed true to the syllabus, that I had taught the course.

Only sometimes students didn’t seem to hear, like my meaning was too weak for them to hear. They stared at me blankly or answered by rote without seeming to understand. I was like the bullhorn man at the bridge, speaking but not in ways my students could hear. I needed to use their learning styles, their experiences, their skills to help them engage material, not be so concerned with what came out of my mouth. What mattered most was what happened in their brains, not what happened in mine. What counted was the meaning they uncovered, not the material I covered.

You can’t teach without making mistakes. At least I couldn’t. I’d get tangled up in a math problem or forget to enter a grade or get stuck in a logic puzzle. Often I pronounced words wrong. I learned to read at a young age and I read about topics I didn’t discuss with people. So I pronounced words my way in my head. And I said them my way, too.

When I blundered like this, I had some options. I could try to cover my mistake with fancy footwork or brush it off like it didn’t matter. But I found that what worked best was to acknowledge my mistakes and to thank students and parents for pointing them out.

I wanted to call forth the best in my students. So I felt I needed to be my best, but part of being my best was admitting my mistakes. And good things happened when I did.

I’d call parents and say, “You know, after reading your e-mail, I got to thinking, and I want to make some changes.”

Or I’d say to students, “I can tell that lesson plan didn’t work. What would have helped? What should I try tomorrow?”

When I was too hard on a student, pronouncing judgement without understanding, I’d ask the student to stay after class. “What you did was wrong,” I’d say. “But what I did was wrong, too. What can we do to get things right again?”

Admitting mistakes, I found, helped to build an educational community. Students could see that teachers are learners. And when I thanked a student for pointing out one of my errors, the class could see that students are also teachers. Feeling valued and knowing that their input counted, students became more willing to risk questioning a teacher. We were, after all, learning together.

And when I acknowledged failure with a parent, we became partners—collaborators working together for the good of the student. And between us we built trust, both of us human, both of us trying and failing and learning and trying again—all for the sake of the student.

Sometimes confessing fault took more courage than I thought I had. I felt vulnerable and more accountable. But the more I owned up, the more I could see that one of the biggest mistakes teachers can make is to think they have the right answers all of the time.

I learned to drive a stick-shift car in a hilly city. When our old car died, I agreed to buy a stick-shift because gasoline prices were rising and because, when I watched my husband, changing gears looked easy. But what seemed effortless from the passenger seat felt complex behind the wheel.

I had more control, I found. I could choose when to shift gears instead of the car deciding for me. But in the driver’s seat, too much needed to happen at the same time. I had to remember when to put a foot on the brake and on the clutch and when to release the clutch and to do that slowly. I had to keep the car from stalling and from rolling backward down the street from the traffic light at the top of the hill. I had to master the interplay between the clutch and gas pedals to keep from lugging or racing the engine. For weeks the car lurched and bucked like a bull. Beside me drivers glared, and behind me horns honked.

Learning to drive a car with a manual transmission reminded me of my first year in the classroom. Teaching is so simultaneous. At the same time I conjugated verbs with the class, one student passed a note to another, an announcement came over the loud speaker, the guidance counselor brought a new student through the door, the boy in the back row waved one hand frantically and pointed to the restroom pass with the other, and an office helper came for the attendance sheet.

Nothing came to me automatically that first year. I had to think about every move, teaching without instinct, without having the feel. And I had to keep teaching, despite the jolts of the sudden starts and stops and even with disapproving looks from more experienced teachers and irate phone calls from parents who didn’t want a first-year teacher for their kid.

By degrees, the habits of teaching became more instinctual. I learned to retrieve a passed note without pausing in a read-aloud, to nod to a waving hand while I answered the door, to delegate attendance sheets to a trusted student. I was more able to anticipate how to keep parents happy and how to seek advice from experienced teachers instead of irritating them.

And I found that I loved a profession layered with activity, pulsing with multiple rhythms. Teaching, I discovered, wasn’t boring.

Teaching was my dream. Through my school years I collected ideas from my teachers. I’ll do this when I’m a teacher, I thought—or, not this, for sure. I taught my younger siblings to read before they went to school, just for the pleasure of seeing words move from the page to their minds and out of their mouths. I pursued teacher training against odds, diapering babies and stretching money as I completed class after class. And finally one day I held my college diploma, the paper I needed to teach.

So imagine my dismay, when in my first year of teaching, I woke up some mornings wishing I didn’t have to go to school. I’d hear the clock alarm and groan. I didn’t want to answer a thousand questions again or smell thirty adolescent bodies fresh from gym or attend a faculty meeting about test scores.

But I discovered early on that a dragging teacher has no chance for a good day. And gradually, over the years, I developed some tricks of the mind to get myself to school. Here are a few:

• I got to school early, closed the door, and turned up the volume on upbeat classical music. The beat brought the energy I needed for the day.
• I tried to remember I wasn’t entitled, that other people with dreams lost them in concentration camps or prisons or slavery. My day could be different, dream bereft.
• I thought of one student, who needed me that day. This took my mind off my needs, gave me purpose, and redirected my emotion.
• Just start the day, I told myself. You’ll feel better after you start.
• I brought a treat for my students. Buying doughnuts for homeroom changed the tone of their day and mine.
• I wore my favorite outfit. Dressing well pepped me up—giving me energy to joke with students and step spritely in the classroom.
• I looked back to one of my favorite teachers from long ago. Miss Bordeaux, for example, knew I liked to write and understood that I took critique as a gift. I looked forward to my returned essays, with her editing marks slashed across them and her knowing look as she watched me read them. Today, I’ll be Miss Bordeaux for Cassia, I’d think. And this gave me energy.
• I’d look to a colleague for inspiration. One year, for example, I taught next to a primary music teacher. Mrs. Jones, I knew, went home each evening to care for a mother with a freshly amputated leg. Most mornings, she’d be in tears as she fumbled with her door key. But all day, through the walls, I’d hear the bouncy music of her small students and see them leaving her room in smiles. If she can do it, I can do it, I’d think.
• Later in my career, especially, I’d look ahead to my retirement. When I sit on my rocking chair, I’d tell myself, I want to rock with a good conscience, knowing I’ve helped and with fond memories, knowing I’ve loved.
• And I drank caffeine, lots of it.

With these methods, I’d fool myself, on bad days, into thinking I wanted to teach. And then, part way through the day, I’d remember again why I wanted to teach.

Speech filled my classrooms. Some of it came from my mouth. But much of it came from students. And only some of their speech was the words they said. They complained about each other and talked about themes in literature. And as I listened, I learned more about students.

But sometimes what they didn’t say was even louder. When a student who was usually vocal contributed nothing in a round-table discussion, I listened. Did this student identify with the short story protagonist who struggled with self-harm?

I came to realize, though, that I had not been valuing another way students spoke. In fact I often disparaged this way of speaking. But I gradually came to see that students who rolled their eyes and crossed their arms were also sending me a message. Hair drooped over faces, feet tapping, shoulders slumped in hoodies, eyes averted—all these I had often taken as disrespect and mostly ignored. But I   had been losing opportunities. Each speech from a student, even a nonverbal—brings a chance to show care.

And so I started responding to nonverbal speech. In the hallway, I’d pull a student aside.

“You seemed so huddled up in your hoodie this morning,” I’d say. “Are you okay?”

Or after class I’d say to a student, “When I gave that assignment, I saw your eyes rolling. I’m curious. What were you thinking? I’d like to know.”

At lunch I’d sit in an empty seat next to the arm crosser. “You seemed upset during the discussion this morning. Do you want to talk about it?”

As I acknowledged their nonverbal speech, students opened to me. After all, I was continuing , rather shutting down, the communication between us. I discovered more about their thinking and their feelings. And I learned more about my teaching.

This new openness between students and me created more receptivity for learning. After all, no one likes to be ignored.

Brains seek novelty. You can tell by the way students snap from their stupors when a new kid walks into class or mouse runs out from under a cabinet. The brain notices change. It engages most with what is new, different, or unusual. And often when teachers don’t provide enough novelty to make a class interesting, students do.

I found that I’d rather cause a little commotion of my own than to have students shoot spit wads to the ceiling with cafeteria straws or heckle each other or pass notes. Here are some ways to add variety to a classroom so students don’t feel the need to do it themselves:

• Introduce new activities every eight to ten minutes. Explain a concept, and then have students turn and talk with a partner about the concept. Rotate individual work with partner work and group work.
• Alter sound. Change your voice volume—whisper, then speak up. Play instrumental music. Use white noise during quiet work.
• Vary visuals. Use slides and real objects and white boards. Teach with lights on and then off. Buy a lamp with multi-colored bulbs.
• Move around the room. Teach from the front and the side and the middle.
• Change pacing. Be urgent, then reflective. Push, then relax.
• Tap into both logic and emotion. Discuss the theme of a book. But then tell a personal story about how that theme has shown up in your life. Stories invite emotion and increase understanding.
• Incorporate micro-breaks. When eyes start glazing, ask students to stand and stretch before going on.

Teaching for high engagement, I found, takes some planning. But I prefer planning over writing detention slips. And my brain also enjoys the variety.