What metaphor best captures those first few weeks/months of the year? Is it a honeymoon or a roller coaster? A horror movie, a comedy, or a drama? I know, I know. It really just depends on the day, the hour, the minute. Here are a few snippets from my August teaching journal to prove just that:
Monday 8/5
This is my second time teaching this course, which means that I am still completely faking it. Still, I find an element of peace in the fact that there is a stockpile of Julie Rust (heavily influenced and helped by Dr. Paul Smith) stuff that I can draw from. From time to time, I had even inserted notes directly on the slideshow or google doc of “JULES: next time cut this in half time-wise” or “JULES: run this like a game with two teams next time instead of four groups” or “JULES: they really hated and I don’t have time to figure out why right now.” The “Jules” is my bat signal of self-talk. When I see that word, my ears perk up b/c I have no other reason for inserting it unless I really mean, pay attention you’ll be glad you did. The “Jules” is almost never a signal for “THIS WAS GREAT DO IT AGAIN.” For those things, and honestly for things that were even decent, I leave no messages in the bottle. When I say “Jules” I mean it in the way that a mother uses her child’s first AND middle name in the grocery store to signify “this time I really mean it.”
Wed 8/14
It’s the morning before my first class and though I’ve had a plan in mind for a week for today I’ve decided to go a completely different direction ever since an idea I used to do (interviews and student profiles) popped in my head in the shower this morning. I have no idea if I’m crazy/foolhardy or being wise/spontaneous. We will see how it goes.
Thursday 8/15
I’ve met my students and I just love them so much. This happens everytime, this strange and often senseless affiliation pretty much right off the bat. They were randomly assigned to my class and my section and I now feel a fierce protectiveness, an overall bent toward their inherent goodness and even on their worst days the sense that “their hearts are good and they MEAN well.”
Monday 8/19
Blake Ware popped in my class, as promised, and I completely went overboard in my acknowledgement of his presence in the class. We were learning names or working on individual student profiles and rather than smile and him and keep going I derailed the entire class. “SPEAKING OF NAMES, “ I said performance-like, “ let’s play a word game with Mr. Ware’s name! You know his first name and last name. You know he used to be a dean at his last school. What do you think students used to call him?!”
“B-dubs?” someone guessed.
Harrison Bobbitt didn’t even skip a beat. “BWare of course, like beware.”
This may be just a coincidence, or his plan all along, but after being in there about 2 minutes, Mr. Ware gracefully made his exit. I genuinely hope I didn’t make him uncomfortable. Why am I like this? I have no idea why I felt moved to “out” the kind and wonderful Blake in front of my students that class, but I hope he will continue to let me teach Eng12, despite my innate ability to make everything, even a class observation, more awkward than it needs to be.
Tuesday 8/20
I have been teaching for 20 years and the same demons so successfully accompany my practice that they have become old friends. My first two classes the pacing was just so off. I felt the push-pull of wanting to rush and fit the things in and wanting to slow down and do the one thing well. My energy was too high, and while a few could keep up with me, many followed up with me after class asking 3-4 questions that revealed the folly (and pride) of my breakneck speed. If I’m going to be honest, my last few classes have been more a childlike clashing collage of activities and tasks and goals rather than a piece of art that actually coalesces.
Thursday 8/22
Today we had ten minutes at the end of class and I had my seniors circle up. “Show me what you’ve got,” I challenged, “I know you’ve done tons of student-led conversations and I want to see how you approach them. I’m not tracking or grading your participation. I just want to see how it goes”. I threw up some questions on the whiteboard that they had submitted about the summer reading text for a set of guidelights. I sat back and shut up. It was a bit of a disaster from a “scholarly conversation standpoint” but a fascinating reveal in terms of social experiment. I quickly saw which students were mature enough to take leadership in steering the conversation to the task at hand. But despite the fact that I had reminded them about textual evidence before they begun, literally no one actually drew on a quote from the book. It was a free-for-all opinion fest about the book, at times ill-informed at best. At one point everyone started shouting at once and I had to do a time-out. I caught eyes with one of my more equipped academically students quietly dying in the background, barely hiding an embarrassed chuckle at how things were going. Students were especially excited to discuss whether they had seen romantic feelings that sort of popped out of nowhere at the end coming, or whether it was totally shocking. This could be a great conversation if they pointed to HOW or WHY they saw this coming, you know, with evidence from the text but it instead devolved into something like this:
“I totally knew that was going to happen”
[Entire class laughs or gasps’
“NO WAY you didn’t”
[person blushes] “No I totally did.”
There are many things to be said for student-centered learning and inquiry, and there are powerful things I learned about my students by shutting up and giving them no guidance in the midst of those ten minutes. I’m just glad I only reserved ten minutes for them to collaboratively make meaning together. I think tomorrow I’ll do a lecture on thesis statements instead.
Monday 8/26
Good people. I just feel like this class is made of good people. I had them analyze, code, categorize, and then simplify class norms today, and they ended up with such a beautiful product. 17-18 year olds have done enough time in school to know what they need, what works, what doesn’t work. Then, about midway through the activity someone either accidentally or on purpose changed the table settings in the editable google doc and everything went haywire, duplicating and moving content from page to page. This is teaching high school. They are so good until something goes wrong. Then you are left wondering if things went wrong by accident or on purpose. The majority are trying to do the thing you’ve asked them to and that you’ve planned so well in neat rows and columns. But the one little move that went wrong means we all have to resort to improvising and just jotting down ideas at the bottom of the document. Best laid plans.
Tuesday 8/27
I walked into a volleyball game to cheer on my kid and got accosted by like my entire class in the front row dressed in theme. It turns out my sweet, delightful bunch of seniors also makes up a disproportionate number of the cheering/sports/fan squad at SA. This shouldn’t surprise me. It doesn’t. “DR. RUST!” they yelled with overly hyped up glee. I felt loved. I felt like I belonged. I didn’t try to join the student section but, for just a moment, I thought maybe I could and would be accepted, 42 year old skin and all. 🙂
Thursday 8/29
Today I made a student cry. Or, rather, my in class essay did. Or, actually, I haven’t yet met with her to have a debrief so it could have been a constellation of different things entirely. . . a bad day, a rough conversation, a past experience with writing in a timed setting. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve made a student cry. The last time was about 7 years ago in a Millsaps writing methods class with future teachers, when I conferenced with a student about her portfolio and gave her what I thought was gentle and informal tips to bump her poetry up a notch. Tears started flowing. “I thought it was good as is,” she said, “teachers never make me redo things.” The time before that with my sixth graders, who cried about every other week. I don’t recall my remedial ninth graders crying about English. They were more likely to make me cry.
Friday 9/20
Lucy says that every time someone from my class mentions they have me as a teacher to her they say something to the tune of, “I feel really bad. Our class is crazy.”
She said she replies, “Don’t feel bad; she lets people walk all over her.”
I feel outrage at this, and then also dissonance. This class is fabulous. Sure they talk too much and I have to remind them to chill. “I think it’s that I have a high tolerance level for chaos,” I say firmly.
But truly, what is, after 21 years of teaching, that STILL screams:”hey! I’m totally cool with you having no filter with me.” I thought I was more intimidating now that I’m in my 40s, but the same tell-tale qualities that made me a pushover then still make me a pushover now.
The latest: In response to a journal entry about what outside reading book they wanted to choose, a student wrote a scathing persuasive piece about why the reading list was too old and not diverse enough in terms of genre. Equal parts annoyed and delighted, I sent it along to my teaching buddy Dr. Smith. He gave me some talking points and included references to her “moxie and spunk.” What a gift it is to have such an expert to teach alongside. What a gift to not do this work alone. What a gift to have students that challenge the status quo.