Light at the End of the Tunnel

Its amazing how much a little Thanksgiving break can change your perspective. I left feeling drained, overwhelmed and pretty on edge, and now I'm backhand I am still a bit intimidated at the work ahead of me but I'm refreshed and confident. It may just be the fact that I finally got to eat some decent, complete meals courtesy of my lovely mother, or it could be that Augusta found my long lost wallet, giving me an exta $70, a Barnes and noble gift card and my social security card back. I think it's more than though, for me I think the most nourishing thing I received this weekend was a healthy dose of home. I don't mean the building located on 16 Hawthorne Dr, I mean a law night on the couch watching movies with my dog, a family dinner, waking up to a mom who not only has he coffee made but already did the laundry I fully intended to do myself. Home to me is watching football with my dad, having dessert at the udder with Lil J and spending a night at a bar with Trevor and talking about my future and for the first time in awhile feeling content about it, regardless of the job market. Thorough said instead of fame or love or money give me truth, and for me I don't find truth anywhere but home, with he people I love. Now I'm back in the Ville and I'm staring at at to do list of presentations, papers and unit plans all of which are due in he next 9 days, but I'm ok with it.

The classroom is all too often a miror image of my pre-thanksgiving life. Students become tired, overwhelmed and irritable. Their effort begins to decrease along with their sleep and soon they spend the entire class thinking of all he work they have to do and wanting to pull their hair out, or perhaps may hair. The question is, why? What are our goals for piling work and driving our students to unprecedented stress levels? Well I can't say I have an answer for that. I'm guessing somewhere along he lines this approach was thought to prepare kids for SATs, Colleen nd the real world. And we are, we're preparing them for a lifetime of feeling stressed, inadequate and pressured. We're teaching them to cram, copy, cheat and procastinate. If you ask me, I don't want that, not of or me and no for my students. Kids need to be encouraged and refreshed, and at times they need to takea break from the curriculum and just talk. I don't intend for my class to be people's "home," but for some students that may be just what they need. In my life, I need breaks, and if I said it once I'll say it a hundred times: teach the way you live, live the way you teach.

Overcoming Annoyance

So Friday I had an interesting day. I was tired. This is nothing new, I burn the candle on both ends with teaching, working, studying, TV, movies and all sorts of other shenanigans. You all are no stranger to this feeling of just being worn out that hits you on a Friday. I was pumped because my co-op had this grammar scavenger hunt for the kids to do, so I would not have too much to deal with. I was planning on meandering through the day, making some conversation with the kids as they went along their hunt and overall just relax. You know that saying about how you can make God laugh? Tell him your plans. yea well it's true.

It all went so well until 6th period. This boy, lets call him Corey, comes in. Now what you need to know about Corey is he's immature, doesn't fit in, will do anything for a laugh and to feel like he fits in and has a shitty home life. He's one of those kids that you totally understand why he's having a rough time, but you still don't like him. So Friday he's bouncing off the walls during this scavenger hunt and I can't get him to focus. I talk to him repeatedly, yet still his partners doing all the work while he's bouncing around from group to group getting on people's last nerve in hopes of a laugh. So finally I insert myself into his group and he begins to focus a bit.

At this point lunch lets out and the hallways flood with kids. I'm talking to Corey's partner when I see him get his "I'm about to piss someone off" grin on his face. A girl, lets call her Dejonae, walks by and Corey yells "HI DEJONAE!" and trys to touch her. She immediately is in his face and yells "I fu*kin told you if you ever talk to me again I'll strangle you!" and walks away. I'm fighting th urge to laugh because In my head I know this kid has probably been waring her down for weeks and only said hi to her for this reaction. Corey looks right to me and demands justice. I tell him I didn't know the girl and I ask him what he did to deserve that reaction. He flips. Yelling about how "this school sucks" "None of the teachers care" and he goes on and on so I say alright were going to the room.

This is where teacher Spencer has to fight normal Spencer. Normal Spencer wants to tell this kid to man up, stop acting like a little girl throwing a fit and maybe stop bothring kids he knows wants to beat him up. I take a deep breath. I look him in the eye. I say "Corey we need to talk about self control. I am constantly having to tell you to get on task. You yell out inappropriate things, you leave your seat and if you had some more self control you wouldn't have intentionally bothered that girl. That being said, I'm sorry I didn't do anything, I was focusing on your partner who had a question. If you feel threatened by her, we'll go to the office and report it right now." I'm pretty proud of that response. He didn't like it so much. He began to explain to me how he was on task, how I didn't care, how no teacher cares and how that girl had no right and he was just being nice by saying hi. He tells me she's going to get her friends to beat him up. "ok," i said. "Lets go talk to the principle then."
"No."he says. "If we do that he's just going to call my dad and he'll be mad at me and he'll just hit me."

Now my stomach drops. I have no idea what to say to that. I say "what do you mean by that?"

He says "Nothing. It doesn't matter noone cares. We'll Just let her friends beat me up. I hope they beat me real bad so everyone feels bad. I hope they kill me."

Now I'm kind of just getting pissed because he's saying stuid things that I know are for attention. I say "Corey, don't say things like that."

He says "Why, I mean it. It would be better if I was dead." "Alright I say were going to the counseling office then."

The bells going to ring for lunch in 8 min and his whole expression changes. "No, I'm fine I already was down there today and I dont want to miss lunch."

"Corey," I say probably lacking a certain amount of compassion. "This isn't option, you can't say things like that and expect me to do nothing."

"No," he pleads. "I didnt mean it, I was joking she's not going to do anything, and I don't want to die."

"Well you know what Corey," I say showing him that I'm not laughing. "I brought you up here to talk to you man to man about self-control. You told me you didn't have a problem, that it was my problem. Now your saying all this stuff you said wasn't true. Well maybe next time, you'll have a bit more self control, but for now we have to go to the counseling office because I'm not equipped to handle what you've been saying."

So we went. ANd we chatted for about 30 min. In the end I got to express that I do indeed care for him. The counselor showed him how all his problems stem from his own actions. ANd I reported the threat to the vice principal, even though he, the counselor and I all agreed it was empty and probably warranted. This was the first time I've had to put a students needs before my own personal thoughts and feelings. My gut wanted to turn and walk away as soon as I heard that girl yell at him. Part of me wanted to send him to the room before that even happened for acting like an idiot instead of doing his work. This was the first time I really realized that my classrooms are going to have kids that I probably won't like, and that's ok. The problem comes when I neglect the needs of that student because of my personal feelings toward them.

I don't think I handled this encounter perfectly. In the future I hope to exercise a lot more patience. However I saw it through to the end and kept my emotions in check. Overall I was relatively pleased with that. I'm going to try to post again before Thanksgiving, I apologize the posts have been so sparce lately. If I don't though I want you all to know how thankful I am for this blog. It's awesome to have a space to not only share my experiences with you but also for myself to reflect on them. Most of all I'm thankful for all of you. I know I don't contact any of you enough individually, but your love, support and prayers mean the world to me.

Lets play catch up

So it's been a crazy week right? I haven't posted on here in 7 days and it's crazy how fast they went and the amount of "stuff" that we all have been faced to endure in those 7 days. Think about your last week, what sticks out to you. Here's my highlights, or maybe not so high for some, Penn State, true love, talked to my sister on the phone, talked to Trevor on the phone, my cousin from West Chester visited, created a 5 week unit plan with my partner, started researching a paper on alcoholism in the lives of Lost Generation Writers, met with Chad and discussed my faith or lack there of recently, battled a cold, realized my bank account is low, had an email exchange with my mentor from the Philly Seminar, had a family dinner with my Dads family, had a heart to heart with a struggling friend, Barney kissed Robin on How I Met Your Mother, Read The Great Gatsby, The Dolphins won, my dolphin chair got stolen, watched Crazy Stupid Love yada, yada, yada. Life is flying and honestly this list could have went on and on and I'm sure all of your lists do the same. The days don't get longer you know? And all this stuff piles up. I've got 100 projects, papers and books that have rapidly approaching due dates. Meanwhile I'm helping friends deal with their problems, because thats important to me. I'm fighting a cold, I'm worried I don't work out enough, I'm questioning love and faith and all the while I'm trying to convince 8th graders that grammar is fun. I don't know what to do about it all. It all seems so important and conflicting.

Natalie Goldberg who is an avid writer and does all kinds of talks and books on how to use writing as an outlet calls stress a state of ignorance. It makes us feel as if everything is an emergency when in reality, nothing is that important. I like this quote a lot but at the same time those due dates are still there, right? They never go away. And the deeper stuff, the faith issues, the love issues, the struggling friends stuff.. thats never going away either. I told my struggling friend that the show How I Met Your Mother is like therapy for me. Because above all it reminds me that it's all a journey, it's all relevant and it will ultimately all be ok. And she catered that analogy to her life by saying maybe this "guy" who has me all twisted up inside right now in the grand scheme of thing is just one episode. I think this simple lens of looking at things is so beautiful and true, all of it the stolen the chair, the cold, the grammar lessons it's all an episode, just one of Ted's illfated romances on the way to finding his true love. If you don't watch this show I'm sorry and you should, but I think you get the point. And here's the cool part, in the midst of all the crap life throws our way: the deadlines, the heartaches, the colds, all of it, there's the sweet stuff. The Dolphins won, I talke to Trev for over an hour, I got an email from my mentor and I had an awesome dinner with my family. So as I continue to form my life to relect who I want to be as a teacher, I'd say I want to take time to reflect with my students on whats going on in their lives. To bitch about the bad, and celebrate the awesome. Because in looking for the sparkle, among all the 'stuff' everything, even grammar, becomes tolerable.

Here's one of my all time favorite videos, speeches, songs whatever you want to call it. Watch it, and be inspired to deal with all the "stuff"

Teaching more than just English

Currently I am reading a book which came highly recommended to me this summer when I was working in Philly. It's called The COurage to teach by Parker Palmer, and it's a very refreshing look at what it is to teach. The subtitle of the book is "Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher" and Palmer's main purpose behind writing the book is that teaching is a heart thing, not a brain thing. He talks about how teaching needs to be a harmony of intellectual, emotional and spiritual enterprises and that identity and integrity come before content.

Parker says that "identity and integrity are not the granite from which fictional heroes are hewn. They are subtle dimensions of the comple, demanding and life long process of self-discovery. Identity lies in the intersection of of the diverse forces that make up my life, and integrity lies in relating to those forces in ways that bring me wholeness and life rather than fragmentation and death." I think this is a very personal and tangible definition of these two words. And while I love the Parker's insight into both the heart and profession of a teacher, I can't help but examine myself and wonder how my identity and integrity will hold up in the classroom.

Identity is tricky because it's not only what you believe to be true of yourself, but it's what others perceive to be true of you. More and more I'm finding that my own view of myself does not alway align with these outside perceptions. Sometimes the perceptions are off, but other times I find I'm the one who is mistaken; that my actions aren't quite measuring up to the bar I've set for myself. So that's something I am definitely trying to work on, but I think that either way this is where integrity comes in. I've been blessed to come fro ma family that ha modeled integrity for me since I can remember. My parents, my grandparents, both of them have always taken the hand the were dealt and played it the best they could, and they did so without compromising their own moral code.

Thus far in my classroom experience I have had no trouble getting kids to like me. My energy, personality, sense of humor they all play into this persona that the kids really gravitate to. Yet if I were to die tomorrow, I can't say my actions would have inspired any of them to live better. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not judging myself to harshly, I have only been in the classroom for 2 months so obviously I'm not perfect, but it's something to think about. I mean regardless of your profession i think you have to have a strong sense of who you are and you have to do your job with a certain amount of integrity. Anyway, I don't really have much insight for you, all I can say is I'm trying to be better and I hope that I never stop trying to be better. Here's two videos that I think speak to this rather well.

Some days, it just seems like work..

Teaching for me is a passion. It's something that I wake up in the morning and I crave. But like anything else, sometimes it's just work. We had a substitute today, so Erika (the student teacher in my room, who co-teaches with me) were running the show. We were in day 2 of a huge Grammar unit, which sucks for us and them. So were thrown into this unit with a bunch of 8th graders and our big plans for the day our 2 pre-tests, a worksheet and a video. Just when you thought it couldn't get any more fun guess what, the video doesn't work, our co-op leaves us a note saying instead of watching the video we'll just present the answers to the worksheet that they would have filled out while watching. So we have this lesson plan thats not fun and and we have really no interest in teaching but we have on saving grace. A brainteaser activity we pulled up that allowed them to get up and move around and have a little fun. And for the first two periods that was enough. The kids actually had a decent time all things considering, we had a bunch of digressions- talking about everything from college life to Destiny's child, but we got all done and no one gauged their eyes out. The came that one pd. The class that can't sit stil that loves to shout across the room and cannot neither take notes quietly or digress and return to the topic successfully. They took one look at the substitute and I knew it was game over. The rest of the class was an uphill battle in a canoe. Me trying every method i can think of to bring them back. There were small successes followed by immediate and colossal reverses and by the end of the period we had finished half of the work of the other classes, questions of legitimate students when unanswered and my sails were at the bottom of the ocean.

Ultimately I don't hold it against them. I used to be those kids. Hassling the sub, having too much fun. But it still really sucks to stand in front of a room of 25 kids and believe there's really nothing I can do to turn it around. After this I was just tired. I sat through my classes at MU and thought about what I could do to change it, without sacrificing my teaching persona, and honestly I came up with nothing, All I was, was tired. Sometimes I feel so untouchable, like I can face anything the class throws at me and I'm a dynamite teacher, yada yada. But I'm not, and I probably never well be. Because when you have all the answers and every day is problem free it means you're not learning and their not learning. Somedays it's gonna feel like work, other days im going to be on cloud 9. But what matters is the passion. As long as I have that I don't need all the answers, nor do I want them.

"The last clear definite function of man—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man. To build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments." John Steinback The Grapes of Wrath

Just for kicks

So I haven't posted alot of videos recently so I just wanted to show you some stuff I have been into recently.

This video's pretty intense but sooooo soooo good

This one is equally as powerful but also funny


Finally this one is funny and surprisingly profound.I feel like this kid really gets some of the bull shit that goes hand-in-hand with structured religion


I've been getting really into this slam poetry. I just think it's really impressive/powerful stuff, I've been writing some of my own I just don't know if I have the confidence and memory to ever read it. But if you like what you see let me know and I can recommend some stuff for you.

PS I just want to encourage everyone to become a member of my blog and comment on stuff, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Somethings you can count on.... even when it snows in october

Death and taxes right? For me I think there is a little bit more that we can depend on in this crazy life. For instance, even when the Dolphins were up 14-0 today i knew they would lose, and they did. I also knew that having homecoming and halloween fall on the same weekend at a college campus could bring no good, and again i was right. I don't need to get into specifics, but lets just say drama happened. Drama is nothing new, but sometimes it gets piled on to the point where you feel like you may just have to start over, new friends, new school, everything. Sophocles said "to be born is to know tragedy," and he knew a thing or two about life and drama. But where as drama is unpredictable and seems to pop up out of nowhere there are always things you can count on to counteract it. Alcohol is not one. It makes things much worse. However I've found that friendship and honesty really can take care of everything. I was faced with multiple conflicts this weekend; some of which I was in the wrong, other's I had been wronged but in each situation I went right to the source and talked it out face to face. People often forget that interpersonal relationships are best conducted in the same room;Not via text or facebook. It was amazing to me how these people all commented how much it meant that i went to them face-to-face. It was just incredible to me that they would expect anything less. The second thing I learned, or was at least reminded of, that I can count on is friends. SO i had this issue and basically someone had said some stuff about me that wasn't true to a person I care about and because of that, that person was hurt. So three things happened to fix that. 1) My roommate Travis who I've become pretty close with stayed up and talked with me about it. This was pretty easy considering him and I decided to share our bed out of pure necessity to survival. You see despite the fact that it snowed saturday, my landlord had not had our furnace lit yet, so our house was literally an igloo. So we had no choice but to share our resources of blankets, plus I have a big bed. So Travis really helped me that night by listening and helping me figure out what to do. Second, I woke up to a missed call from Trevor. And this really just made me realize that a lot of this shit doesn't matter. As I mentioned in a previous post I'm seriously blessed to have friends like I do, so if people want to write me off over lies thats fine. The third thing was that the people involved who I care about listened to me. They didn't write me off and they chose to trust me. Because of that I was honest and things are mended.

So there are some obvious classroom implications to this story. A mentor of mine once told me that a great teacher teaches the way he lives and lives the way he teaches (I may have quoted that before) and it honestly the best advice I've heard. This is exactly how I'm goin to manage my classroom. Drama and conflict are inevitable, even in schools. Whether its between me anda student, two students, or me and another teacher, it will happen. And I need to deal with it in an honest, up-front manner.

In my own life though, I've realized I have tobe careful who I trust, and I also need to be someone who can be trusted. And regardless of what happens I have my friends and family's support. Sophocles is a little bit of a downer. Personally I'd rather focus on C.S. Lewis who said (basically) friends are like art and philosophy. They have no survival value. However they give surviving value. And while I may not be able to count on things like the transition between seasons,my friends will always be there, I'm as sure of that as I am about the dolphins ability to shit away game.