The E-mail Teachers Despise

I received one yesterday.

It reads something like this:  "Reggie will be out of school all next week. Be sure he has his work today before he leaves your class."

GGGRRRRRR.

Now, if you are not a teacher you may be thinking, What's the big deal? What are teachers going to complain about now??? Well, I have a few very important "deals" to share and yes, I have a complaint loud and clear.  Before I do my venting, let me clarify that this has been a growing issue with me over the years.  My disgust with this e-mail can no longer be contained.  I really do let out a scream when I see one.

The Number One Reason I Despise This E-mail
It suggests that I, Reggie's teacher, am totally irrelevant to his education.  All I have to do is "provide the work" and wallah! Reggie can magically do it, without any prior instruction or guidance.  I am particularly grinded by the fact that very often this directive comes from other educators who I feel should know better.  After all, they of all people should understand our importance to the education of the children in our building -- right?  Why this persistent support of "sending work home" as if what we do in the classroom doesn't matter?  I can understand when parents ask -- they think they are doing a good thing keeping up with their child's education.  But in reality, it is a slap in the face to the teacher who works hard to help his or her child gain mastery.

The Number Two Reason I Despise This E-mail
It makes the assumption that education is a straight line and that every teacher has lessons planned weeks in advance, in perfect pacing and sequence, and knows exactly what will be taught next week when Reggie goes on a cruise or to a funeral or Disney World because it's the off season.  There is no understanding that teachers teach DAILY.  We are constantly adjusting our plans to make them work for the children because, surprise! we do care if they learn.  Teaching is not an exact science, as some would have you believe. It is an art.  Ask an artist what he are painting next week, or a songwriter what song she will write.  They will be hard-pressed to tell you.  Same goes for a teacher.  I have a slight idea of where we are headed, but sometimes even up until a half an hour before the kids walk through the door I am still fine-tuning the lesson and preparing last minute handouts. This is the life and reality of a teacher.  The e-mail indicates otherwise.

The Number Three Reason I Despise This E-mail
Even if I do provide work, the kid never does it.  And in this case, it is truly never.  Kids who are routinely taken out of school for said vacations and other dalliances of import soon learn that all they have to say is, "I didn't understand it."  OF COURSE you didn't understand it.  That's why I am here!  That's my job. What I am paid to do.  Degreed, tested, and licensed to be sure you understand it.  Sorry kid, it wasn't my stupid idea to hand you something you haven't been taught.  I've had to do it because the E-MAIL directed me to.  If I fail to provide you the work, I can be called unprofessional or worse.  I can be marked down on my evaluation for not communicating with your family.   So I purposely gave you work you cannot do, and now you are behind because Carnival had a family discount. I will do my level best to get you caught up now, two weeks later.

Let me share one of my early experiences with the e-mail to shed a little additional light on how I came to feel the way I do.

In my first year teaching I had a student I'll call Willie.  During the first open house before school even started, Willie's mom announced to me that he would talk all through my class -- which he did -- with her blessing.  From his constant conversation, I learned that he was treated pretty much like an adult in the family, although he was just a sixth-grader.

Well, later that school year his mom decided to marry her boyfriend, and needed Willie to give her away.  This involved taking a cruise -- couldn't just have the wedding locally even though it was in the middle of the school year.  I dutifully gave Willie all his work to do on the wedding cruise for a week.  Naturally, I saw none of it when he returned.  Soon afterward, his mother blasted me on the telephone about not giving him credit for all the work he did while away.  She said she spent hours with him in their cabin getting the work done.  I had to inform her he never turned it in. When I asked him about it, he said he had lost it.  I never heard from mom again, and a few months later I heard she was already getting divorced.

I was not surprised.

My final word on this: if the kid has to be out of school for something important, then train the child to do what it takes to catch up when he or she returns. Do not put the teacher through the gyrations of putting together work that isn't even going to be done, just to make it look good.  This teaches absolutely nothing about responsibility and actually trains the kid not to care about the work.  It will really save everyone a lot of aggravation, and will acknowledge the fact that teachers actually perform a service in the classroom -- one that can only be accessed by being there.

I Have Observed I'm Ready to Start Blogging Again

Looks like I'm back from my blogging hiatus.  School has begun in earnest and tons of time and energy is going in that direction. Yet, I felt the need to check in here.

This year I am teaching purely 7th grade. This is a big change -- the last time I taught one grade level was the 2009-10 school year.  I have intensive readers and I have got to say, I am loving it.  

In the classroom we have been spending a lot of time setting up our reader and writer's notebooks.  The writer's notebooks are decorated and covered with contact paper. The students have taken complete ownership, from my observation.

And that is what this blog is about -- observation.  This summer I taught myself to slow down and pay attention, and I'm glad to say that I am remembering what I learned this summer and am continuing to apply it.

My return to writing started today when I was driving to a yoga class. I began to make mental notes on things I observed, and then wrote them down as soon as I got to my destination.

Driving to Yoga Class Labor Day 2014

The town is quiet

A dusty white pony dips his head to graze at the fence by the side of the road

Dry palm fronds sway slightly as they lean over in the late summer heat

"God bless the broken road" plays on country radio

Royal palm tree trunks create shadow stripes along MacGregor Boulevard

I miss my turn-off to my usual parking lot

The road I'm on has a farmers stand with a sign that says "Georgia Peaches"

I realize I have found a better place to park

A shady spot

The mid-morning air hangs heavy

Now some gentle movements

For balance, clarity,

And even deeper awareness

*

This is the kind of thing I started training my students to do last Friday.

I started by asking them to make observations of the classroom, and then observation of themselves. We then proceeded into a listening observation. Each time they were expected to write specific things about what they saw and heard. The listening exercise included me playing my Tibetan singing bowl. One class got into an extended conversation afterward about lucid dreams and deja vu, all brought to mind by the sound of the bowl. It so happened that by 7th period my principal was in observing my class, and she loved it, too.

Then we moved to the poem "Observer" by Naomi Shahib Nye. This poem is about observing the world. 

I watch how others things travel
to get an idea how I might move.
A cloud sweeps by silently,
gathering other clouds.
A doodlebug curls in his effort to get there.
A horse snorts before stepping forward.
A caterpillar inches across the kitchen floor.
When I carry him outside on a leaf,
I imagine someone doing that to me.
Would I scream?

In the heart of the day
nothing moves.
No one is going anywhere
or coming back.
The blue glass on the table
lets light pass through.
Something shines
but nothing moves.
I watch that too.

We picked it apart a bit as we sat in our gathering place for the lesson, and then I sent them back to their seats to think about creatures and things from nature they have observed-- how a pet snake moves, what a butterfly does, how a tree moves in the wind. During fifth period we had some tech support people come in to fix up something on the smart board. I told the students to observe them and make some notes about what they were doing. 

I think the word for how I've been operating is "emergent."  

Finally, we got to the Marty Stuart song, "Observations of a Crow."  

We listened to the song and followed along with the lyrics. Miracle upon miracle, I did not have one complaint about it being "country."  In fact, my one student, who can do a mean moonwalk, was nearly dancing along as he sang.  We talked about all the things the crow was observing, and that in his dialogue the crow made up some words. They then had to write from the perspective of the creature or a thing--what does that creature or thing observe about the human world? What does it see as it goes through its day?  They were advised to write in first person to make this come alive.

It was a relaxing and easy lesson, and got them writing and collecting ideas in their Writers Notebooks.  The students aren't writing as specifically as they need to, but we have a beginning, a foundation to get us started.  We'll see what emerges from here.