New Year, New Kids

It's been quite a while since I got a chance to blog but I really value the opportunity to reflect on tools like this, so I'm going to try and keep up the habit - even if it's not terribly regularly.

I've been back at school for a month now, three weeks of which has been with my new classes. I'm teaching Year 7 again this year, which I think is great - a) because I like year 7s, they're still little and cute (to begin with) and b) because it's a great opportunity to consolidate everything I learned last year.

I have two classes, which are polar opposites. One of the classes has a high proportion of students with special needs, such as learning disorders and mental health issues. They've been challenging so far. Individually they're all nice kids - but as a group they can be a bit overwhelming. It is taking me a little while to work out, for instance, a harmonious seating arrangement. This week that has been really challenging but I think over time, and especially as I keep getting chances to build relationships with the kids, I'll probably grow to feel very "mother hen" about this particularly clutch.

My other class are completely different - a number of very bright students, a number of very funny students, a number of sweet and beautiful girls, and only one or two kids who push the point. These kids have asked great questions, laughed at my (often lame) jokes, and are the kind of class that do something every day that makes you smile.

I attended a PD recently on positive psychology, which I also studied at university, and it reminded me of the concept of a "Gratitude Journal". My family tried this many years ago, and I was enthusiastic but maybe too young to keep it up. So I thought I would try to keep this blog fairly positive, a place where I can remind myself of the things I am grateful for in my work.

So today, we had to put our very old and dottery cat down. She had racked up some serious mileage in pussycat years, and has lived a good life, so I'm trying not to let myself get too upset about having to let her go. However I spoke to my Mum on my lunch break and she was very upset, so I went out onto playground duty feeling a bit fragile.

As always happens to me on playground, the moment I walked out of the building doors I was surrounded by a special little subgroup of my students (past and present). They're the kids that crave some adult attention, that aren't too cool to hang with a teacher, the ones that want to hug you, the ones that will give you a Christmas card at the end of the year, the sort that somehow manage to clear the way to your heart even on the dark days. Somehow (and I'm still not sure how) they convinced me to play jump rope with them. Now, I was quite the dab hand at jump rope when I was their age - but that was 16 years ago!!!

So there I was, taking turns running in and out of a long jump rope in my high-visibility playground duty vest, struggling to keep my jeans from slipping down, trying to hold onto my key lanyard, getting out of breath and hot and just thinking... "how cool is this."

I love that my relationships with my students allows me to do things like this. Things like rapping the chorus of Eminem's "Slim Shady" off-the-cuff in class yesterday, having last years's students waiting at my classroom door to say hello when my new class walk out, having some others of last year's students trying to go undetected in my class as a prank.

It's so easy to focus on the hard stuff, the challenges, the heart-breaking stories, the lessons that don't go according to plan, the kids doing the wrong thing, the days that we walk out and think "Thank God that's over."

It's much harder to focus on the little tiny moments that lift you up. They're so minute sometimes they can go unnoticed - but they're so much more valuable in the long run.

Operation Relationship Building

I have a very challenging student in one of my classes. He has a long history of behavioural issues and has very patchy attendance. His first day in my class, he repeatedly unplugged peripherals from my computer and sabotaged the lesson. In one of our most recent lessons, he locked me out of my classroom and sat on his chair on the other side of the door. He is .... challenging.

My tactics with this kid from the outset have been clear - build relationship first, tackle academic achievement second.

Well, after a pretty patchy start I think Operation Relationship Building is underway. I 'bonded' with this kid today over a particular 1970s musician, and went so far as to pull up Youtube on my Smartboard to educate the uninitiated in our class. This was simply in response to him showing some enthusiasm about this musician, who I was speaking about earlier in the class.

This is a kid who I have to measure my successes with in very small steps. My successes with him today were getting through a whole lesson without him swearing; having him actually smile at me; having him be the last out the door because he was in no hurry to leave the classroom; him actually having his book out, and contributing to a discussion about grammar.

I know I'm not going to help this kid become a brain surgeon. But if I help him see that not all figures of authority are braindead, uncool, restrictive, unfair, mean, etc... then I've done something. And if all he learnt today was that "homo" means "same", then I've unlocked a bunch of new words for him. And if he turns up tomorrow and doesn't feel like locking me out of my classroom, that's a step forward.

I have to see the glass as half full sometimes. Seeing it as half empty, with some kids, is heartbreaking.