The Case of the Missing Table

Yesterday was one of those rough days where it’s totally acceptable to go home and pout for an hour to recover.  I mean, when the phrase “and the cockroach was the highlight,” comes out of your mouth, it's a pretty safe bet that you don't want to sit through the rest.  But (apparently) one of the biggest issues from yesterday was: the missing table.

First, you’ll need some background.  Last Thursday, before the long weekend (we had off Friday instead of President’s Day), we had a substitute teacher in for my mentor teacher.  So when we were ready to leave for the day a custodian came and locked the door for us since neither of us get keys, and everything was present and accounted for in the room.  This includes a long table in front of the white board that holds a (broken) stereo and some tape recorders.  I've never seen anyone actively use this table, save for the one time I put my computer on it during a lesson.  I'm pretty sure we all just forget it's there.

So imagine my confusion when I walk yesterday morning and the first thing my mentor teacher says to me is, “Hi, where is my table?”

It was a Monday morning, I was tired from not sleeping well the night before, and hadn’t had an ounce of caffeine yet, so not only had I walked past that section of the room without even noticing the table was gone, but it took me a good thirty seconds to realize she was accusing me of taking her table out of the room.

You might be thinking hey, accuse is a little harsh, it sounds like she was just asking!  But then she asked me twice more, even after I explained to her several times that everything had been in the room when I left on Thursday and I had no idea where her table was.  She told me that she wanted to yell at me when she first came in, and was waiting and waiting for me to walk in so she could jump on me about it.

We then proceeded to wonder and lament about the missing table.  All.  Day.  After school, she hunted down the custodian and left almost an hour later than she had planned because she was trying to track it down.

My question was, what’s the big deal?  Yeah, it’s weird that it’s gone and rude that someone would just take it.  But was it really that pressing?  It’s not like it had much of a purpose, I’ve never seen her actually use it.  We had students yelling over each other, kids not doing projects or turning in homework, and no functioning Internet, but by George we were going to find that table!

And in case you’re wondering (because let’s be honest, I know you’re all just dying of curiosity), it is now Tuesday and there’s still no table.

My five minute soap box

I'm going to use this post to have an I'm an Idealistic College Student and This Is How I Think These Things Should Be moment.

One of the assignments I have in connection to this field experience is to interview two of my students.  We weren't given questions, only the very broad guideline that it should be 10-15 minutes long and that we'd have to write a reflection on it.  I gave fairly basic questions, but the answers I got were anything but simple.

Two of my questions involved the students' opinions about the school: "Do you feel that your teachers care about/support you?"  and "If you could change one thing about your school, what would it be?"  And these questions led to comments indicating that many teachers these students have play favorites, don't seem to care about the education of their students (isn't that kind of the point??), blow students off, yell past the point of being constructive, and don't fairly enforce school rules.

One student's response was that she'd change the disciplinary system.  When I asked her to explain, she said that students tend to get away with big things (like being caught with drugs and being punished with a day of suspension) and little things being blown out of proportion.  She also alluded to the fact that students with money tend to have their disciplinary problems go away a lot more easily.  This is ridiculous to me; what are we teaching these students?  Basically that being responsible for your actions is something of the past, and that if you have a little money or are buddies with administration then consequences don't matter.

The other student named the way some teachers treat students as his change.  He told me that he hates his English class, not because of the content, but because the teacher doesn't seem to care and likes to yell and "get in students' faces" all the time.  He told me that he's had teachers tell him they were too busy or didn't have time to help him when he asked a question.  He then told me that his Spanish teacher (my mentor teacher) would stop grading or whatever she was doing to just have conversations with him in Spanish after school if he asked, and he spoke about this like it was the most monumental and amazing thing in the world.

This made me so sad.  A teacher taking time to talk to a student or answer a question should be the norn, not the exception.  I know that sometimes grading or meetings take priority, but the students should never feel like they are being blown off or ignored.  To me that's one of the main principles of teaching: investing our time in the education and betterment of our students.

And this is a good school.  Excellent ratings over the last several years, not hurting for money, with a very good variety of classes and extracurricular activities for the students.  Which makes me wonder how schools that aren't as well off are faring?

Review woes

Since my students have a chapter test next week, they started review today after their quiz.  And, because we're always trying to keep things interesting, we had them playing charades with the vocabulary words.  And, as expected, a few got into it and most wanted nothing to do with it (heaven forbid, they might look silly in from of their peers).

I was surprised, however, to see how many teenage girls were willing to lay on a dirty classroom floor once they were dragged to the front of the room in order to portray the word for "sunbathing."  They were some the funniest because the motivation (total embarrassment and uncoolness) for not acting out the word at all became the motivation for doing the most accurate charade they could so that someone would guess more quickly, thus ending their uncoolness.

But there still were those who refused to participate.  They got up to the front of the room, whined, and said they didn't know what to do, thinking that would get them out of the game.  You can imagine their disappointment when they discovered they had to stand up there pouting until they participated.

All in all once they got into it (and discovered that we only had time for about 5 minutes) it ended up being good for them, and they were even spitting out words they learned the previous year which is always a good thing.

And the slacker award goes to...

Once again, I find myself apologizing for not posting in a while.  I'm torn between thinking that my schedule is really that hectic, or thinking that my time management needs tweaking.  Since this is a crazy semester for me, I'm going to say the former even though I'm sure it's a combination of the two.

Moving along, today is my first official day off from teaching!  It's Presidents' Day which means the High School is off today (us college kids didn't come out so well since we still had classes, but luckily I came out on the good side and didn't have any other classes today).  So although I most definitely can't use today to do nothing but catch up on napping and Youtube videos, it's infinitely better because the alarm wasn't going off at 5am.

I sincerely hope my students used their long weekend to sleep and blow off steam, however.  I don't know if I was oversensitive, stressed, or what when I taught on Friday, but a lot of the students were in fine form by way of giving the student teacher a hard time.  I had one try to tell me how to teach, another making a snide remark about my being a magician when I erased the SMARTBoard, and the rest either wanted to just sit and stare at me or not stop chatting for five seconds.  One little Judy Attitudy, upon my asking why he wasn't writing, told me that he didn't need to take notes; he memorized them.

I also gave them their grades on presentations I had them do.  They were out of 12 points, and if they followed my directions (they each had to say 3 commands for example), it would have been simple to get full credit.  I didn't even make them memorize it, all they had to do was read their papers (which I had given them time to work on the day before they presented).  And boy were they upset.  But the odd thing was, the students I expected to get mad (the ones who got 8 or less) didn't say anything and those who got 10 or 11 out of 12 were on me like rockets, demanding to know why they got points off.

And they were incredibly rude about it.

There were no, "can I ask you about my grade?" or "I don't understand why..."Nothing like that.  I was prepared after first period for the reactions but that first class took me by surprise.  One boy was so outraged that he stomped out of the room ripping up his rubric (he was also one of the boys who refused to work when I gave them the opportunity, blew off the presentation, and received the grade he had earned).  But my co-op did tell me later that grades like these are tough and the students almost always react this way, justified or not.  She also reminded me that these are the types of situations that I have to just roll off my back, since many students are still under the impression that doing little or no work should still warrant an A.

I'm hoping that, like me, the students just needed a day to breathe.  And maybe this means that they're more comfortable around me, since they're willing to come up to me now for pretty much anything instead of just wondering who I am and why I'm there every day.  Either way, I hope I figure it out soon...

They're having a substitute on Friday, and I'm teaching.