On Friday I got the chance to visit the school I worked at last year. I haven't felt so much like a (D-list, but still) celebrity since I spent a summer in India and all the people in Amritsar wanted to take pictures with me.
I might have to revise my theory about seventh graders lacking souls. The students I was visiting are seventh graders now, and the warmth they greeted me with had to come from somewhere. Besides being a tutor last year, I was also a teaching assistant and, at the end of the year, a long-term sub. The thing about being a long-term sub is it's sort of like being a teacher, but it's also sort of like being a sub. For a long time. Some kids took advantage. Some kids earned a lot of demerits. Some kids earned a lot of demerits. A handful of last year's sixth grade class would definitively not have called me a friend.
Yet on Friday we were hugging and catching up like old pals. It's amazing how fully they forgive and forget old grudges. I chalked it up to middle school capriciousness, until I realized I was doing the exact same thing. I was so happy to see them, even the ones who devoted a full month of school to making my job difficult. Oh, Juan! How lovely to see you! Yes, I do remember that time you made obscene hand gestures and got sent out of my class three days in a row... And then I found you harassing a baby kitten by the train station!... fond memories.
Speaking of subbing, let me tell you about how I subbed for another teacher a couple weeks ago and unwittingly discovered the best (possibly unconstitutional) classroom management tool ever.
I was subbing for a colleague who was out for the day, and I was pretty pleased with how things were going. Even E., the biggest behavior issue in the class, was having a good day. While the kids were at recess I remember that I needed to film myself teaching for a reflection exercise, so I set up the camera to film the last two lessons of the day.
When I went back to watch the video I thought I had a good sense of how the lessons had gone and what I wanted to work on. But as I was watching, I noticed something. Because of the way the camera was placed, the video was basically close-up footage of E. with me in the background. And every time E. turned around to track the speaker -- every time he was turned away from me, in other words -- he started making ridiculous faces and trying to distract anyone who could see him. I watched helplessly as, on my video screen, E. made subtle but ridiculous choice after subtle but ridiculous choice, then turned back around angel-faced. He had totally gotten away with it.
Or so he thought. The next day, I pulled E. out of closing circle. I told him I had something to show him. "You know how we teachers sometimes film ourselves teaching, right? Its helpful because we can look back at the videos and think about the choices we made and see what we can do better." Then I turned on the video. "What do you think about the choices you're making in this video?" He was speechless. As he watched his silly faces from the day before, his real-time face was not silly. It was grave.
So, I may have given a kid a life-long paranoia complex, and I'm pretty sure there would be something illegal about this if I had filmed him intentionally, but... E. is not going to be making faces in class for a while.
I might have to revise my theory about seventh graders lacking souls. The students I was visiting are seventh graders now, and the warmth they greeted me with had to come from somewhere. Besides being a tutor last year, I was also a teaching assistant and, at the end of the year, a long-term sub. The thing about being a long-term sub is it's sort of like being a teacher, but it's also sort of like being a sub. For a long time. Some kids took advantage. Some kids earned a lot of demerits. Some kids earned a lot of demerits. A handful of last year's sixth grade class would definitively not have called me a friend.
Yet on Friday we were hugging and catching up like old pals. It's amazing how fully they forgive and forget old grudges. I chalked it up to middle school capriciousness, until I realized I was doing the exact same thing. I was so happy to see them, even the ones who devoted a full month of school to making my job difficult. Oh, Juan! How lovely to see you! Yes, I do remember that time you made obscene hand gestures and got sent out of my class three days in a row... And then I found you harassing a baby kitten by the train station!... fond memories.
Speaking of subbing, let me tell you about how I subbed for another teacher a couple weeks ago and unwittingly discovered the best (possibly unconstitutional) classroom management tool ever.
I was subbing for a colleague who was out for the day, and I was pretty pleased with how things were going. Even E., the biggest behavior issue in the class, was having a good day. While the kids were at recess I remember that I needed to film myself teaching for a reflection exercise, so I set up the camera to film the last two lessons of the day.
When I went back to watch the video I thought I had a good sense of how the lessons had gone and what I wanted to work on. But as I was watching, I noticed something. Because of the way the camera was placed, the video was basically close-up footage of E. with me in the background. And every time E. turned around to track the speaker -- every time he was turned away from me, in other words -- he started making ridiculous faces and trying to distract anyone who could see him. I watched helplessly as, on my video screen, E. made subtle but ridiculous choice after subtle but ridiculous choice, then turned back around angel-faced. He had totally gotten away with it.
Or so he thought. The next day, I pulled E. out of closing circle. I told him I had something to show him. "You know how we teachers sometimes film ourselves teaching, right? Its helpful because we can look back at the videos and think about the choices we made and see what we can do better." Then I turned on the video. "What do you think about the choices you're making in this video?" He was speechless. As he watched his silly faces from the day before, his real-time face was not silly. It was grave.
So, I may have given a kid a life-long paranoia complex, and I'm pretty sure there would be something illegal about this if I had filmed him intentionally, but... E. is not going to be making faces in class for a while.
I don't know if it is legal, but it is certainly effective! The best is that he knows that you know! Celeste was a very wise high schooler (ok, only about certain things!). She was a freshman when I was doing my first year of teaching... "Really, Mom, don't you believe for a moment that kid did not know exactly what he was doing! Kids know exactly what they are doing!" I explain every year that Celeste ratted them out a l-o-n-g time ago. As for a life-long paranoia complex...it is more like a lesson in someone is ALWAYS watching!
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