Just Ignore It

So let's say you're teaching a topic close to your heart, something that means a lot to you, and has for a long time.

(Brief interruption: If you never have that feeling, getting up in the dark every morning to go stand in front of young people for very little money may not be the job for you.)

So, as I was saying, there you are expounding on, say, the beauty of the quadratic equation, and you notice either Jethro or Selmolina in the back of the room doing something that, while not harmful or dangerous, s/he knows full well s/he should not be doing. The offender may even be aware that this act of rebellion is within your line of vision.

Meanwhile, though, the rest of class is completely entranced by the quadratic equation, especially the ax² part. Students are taking notes. Their eyes have that priceless "this-is-why-we-go-to-school" look. But you're furious with that punk in the back row.

What to do?

Unless the student is disrupting the flow or continuity of the class, you just look the other way. The strategy could be the same even if it involves two kids, maybe even three.

Let them have their little world into itself. The consequences will come down on their little self-centered heads soon enough. If you single them out to call attention to the fact that they're doing something wrong when they already know that, you're the one disrupting your class, not them.

Now everyone is watching an exciting showdown between a frustrated adult and an attention-seeking adolescent. Who will win? Will Jethro or Selmolina get written up? Will the teacher become overwrought and let slip a profanity? Tension grows in the room, especially for students suffering from any degree of anxiety issues. All fascination for the quadratic equation -- despite the charms of ax² -- is long gone. What are the odds of your winning them back?

So do you then talk privately with the offender(s) after class, have a little heart-to-heart, remind the little knucklehead who's boss, threaten a call home to the parents, that sort of thing? I wouldn't even do that, not for a while, anyway. The student was seeking attention, but didn't get it. The other students continued to learn. Life went on. That wasn't any fun. Maybe tomorrow she'll try listening to you for a change. And if that happens, you can dish out some moderate praise for her decision to do what students are supposed to do.

In short, new teachers, it may take you a while to figure out which fights are worth engaging in. But whatever you do, don't jump into all of them. Adolescents hate to lose, especially in front of their kind. And when they do lose, their relationship with you is likely to be prickly for weeks to come.

Don't Forget to Listen

I just learned that if you Google "listen to your students," the search results quickly morph into "how to encourage your students to listen to you."

The former, I believe, is the finer skill and equally as important as the latter.

I think it's safe to generalize that many parents, esp. those beaten down and exhausted by the economy, find very few minutes in the day to sit quietly and listen to their kids. And when I am around groups of teenagers, I don't see many of them listening to each other, either. They're neither straining to hear nor straining to be heard; rather, they are ensuring headaches and neck pain for their later years by staring down at their cell phone, feverishly tapping out a critical message to someone perhaps sitting right next to them.

Maybe we should try listening to them. I've tried it a couple of times and I'm pretty sure I saw gratitude awaken in the eyes of my young protégé.

Do you remember what it felt like when a teacher stopped what she was doing long enough to listen to insignificant, harried, confused, teen-aged you? Weren't you flattered by this little moment of grace? Didn't it make you want to work harder for this teacher and to give her a little less grief?

(I'm not sure it ever happened to me. I remember this, instead: "Roy, could you please have a seat so we can start class? Thank you!")

This week, I resolve to listen: When a student has something to tell or ask me, I'll take a breath, establish eye contact, just listen, rather than be formulating a snappy comeback. And I'll do this during class discussions, also before and/or after class.

High school is a hectic, fast-forward world for everyone -- everything happens too fast, and it happens faster every year -- but it's okay to create an eddy in the rapids, or, if you prefer, hit pause on the DVR of life, and let a teenager be heard for a change.

Teaching Tip: Reassessing a "Bad" Class

"A parent gives life, but as a parent, gives no more. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."  -- Henry Adams

On some days you'll come to class still blazing with the momentum from yesterday and with a batch of lively and provocative ideas. Since you were all on fire yesterday, you assume a brief fanning of embers will kindle yet another conflagration of learning.

A few minutes into class, however, you can sense that the students' spirits are beginning to exit their bodies. They become unnaturally still and quiet, and their faces look like they're posing for a group portrait in the 19th-century. Some eyelids droop, then close completely.

Then you, the teacher, know you are alone, all, all alone, alone with your wilted expectations and the cold ashes from yesterday's fire.

These days are rough on all of us, but can be especially painful to new teachers. In my first year or so as a college professor, I often taught classes that met on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and when a Thursday class fell flat, I would suffer from a low-grade despondency til it reconvened on Tuesday. I couldn't wait to get back in there and make it right, make the failure go away.

Most of us take these brief deflating moments too seriously and too personally. Here are some ways to put these things into perspective:

* The students' collective zombie response probably had nothing to do with you. Try to remember they have six other classes. Maybe they're dreading their next class. Maybe your plans for today have made it difficult for them to copy their homework from a more industrious classmate. Many of them have jobs, and some of them work late. The family they left just hours ago might not have been in complete harmony. Maybe some of them are in relationships on the brink of breakup. Maybe some of them are dreading using a high-school restroom. In short, sometimes you and/or your class are a tiny, tiny part of their world.

* Not all of our classes or segments of our classes are for all our students. Sometimes what we do may be for us, even when we think it's for them.War and Peace, for example, is clearly a world masterpiece, but I don't think it was written for me; Brothers Karamazov was written for me. Therefore, as I educate myself, I select the latter and reject the former with glazed-over zombie eyes. My mentor Professor Eugene Crook once explained to me that, on some level, our students know what they need from us, and that need will be their focus.

We should, therefore, not expect them to look like hungry baby birds every time we open up a new can of worms.

* The beauty of human consciousness is that even as it goes through its "natural selection" process, taking only what it thinks it needs, some of the rejected material seeps in at the moment of intended rejection or goes dormant for a while, then reawakens as a thing of value years later. As a friend of mine pointed out, sometimes teaching feels like casting pearls before swine, but we have to cast the pearls anyway in the belief that in the fullness of time, our listeners will perceive them as such. Here is where we console ourselves with the Adams quote above. We "affect eternity." We "can never tell when [our] influence [starts or] stops."

* The students' collective zombie-like appearance doesn't necessarily mean they aren't learning or engaged. Their brains could be busy connecting today's subject to yesterday's lesson. They could be making connections, possibly uncomfortable ones, to their own lives. They could be cutting against the grain of mass education by actually thinking and reflecting. On many occasions, students from what I perceived as a bad class have thanked me for a good one.

In short, it's best to follow the advice of Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan and "don't get too up and don't get too down." After a decent outing, he headed for the exercise bike. After he got shelled for six runs in two innings, he headed for the exercise bike. After he tossed one of his seven no-hitters -- you guessed it -- he headed for the exercise bike. Do your best. Prepare a feast (or lay out the pearls) for your students, and trust them to take what they need. Then, when it's over, let it go and head for your exercise bike.