Posts tagged education
Cathedral Building
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This conversation actually happened. Mom is a worrier.
A start to the end of the anger issues.
There’s a room upstairs that serves as my supervisor’s office, a general meeting room for special projects, and the ‘quiet room’ when we realized that we needed to open it up regularly due to increasing lack of space for an increasing number of people. It has colorful walls, some couches, and an overstuffed chair, in addition to the supervisor’s bookshelf and desk, and the kids generally like the feeling of being in there.
Today we tried the start of a twice-a-week open anger management session. For x amount of time that quiet room will have me perched in it, with the youth upstairs in the computer/homework/reading room or the art studio managing themselves (which they do very well — five long strides will take a short person like me from one end of the straight-shot upstairs hall to the other, and everything is audible), and will only be open to people who want to drop in and talk about anger issues, which many of them have trouble with and a few of them want help working through.
I started the drop-in for H, but H was in and out of appointments all day and wanted not to talk about anything. Instead B, a second-grade girl, pressed and asked everyone around the club if they wanted to come and ended up being the only person in the room. And that was fine.
Because in between the self-test I read to her, ten yes-or-no questions from one of two books I picked up last week specifically on anger in kids and teens, she talked to me pretty openly. And she told me that she hadn’t talked to anyone else about these things, with a laugh. And we walked through an anger agreement and reached a stumbling block before we got to the part where she might sign it.
“Do you agree to, when you’re able, apologize for harming someone out of anger?”
She shakes her head.
“…no? Why not?”
“Because I try before and they just make it worse and make me angry again.”
“How do they make it worse?”
“They say mean stuff to me or just make fun of me again. And make me want to punch them in the face. So I decided I’m not going to apologize any more.”
What do I do with that?
We ran out of time before we could get through the rest, but she’s thinking about it now, I can tell.
I gave B an “anger journal” and, like with anyone who asks for help, we’re going to start with listing the things that make her angry and looking at each one. Why does it make her angry? Is it something that she can control or that others control? Understanding what it is that sets her off. Is there a way to avoid those things altogether? And then, on to management techniques when she can’t.
She says she wants to talk to her parents about these things; I told her that talking is a good idea.
That crushing moment when you’ve just picked up another handful of projects for the kids that will take a lot out of you but make their lives better, are tired but feeling good about the day, go to the bank with that envelope from your employer to take care of the bills,
and the cost of rent+utilities is more than the paycheck you’ve got in your hands.
I’m slowly eating through the reserves that were supposed to be the first-and-last for an apartment wherever I can find a full-time job.
And no matter how many things I’m juggling that are making a difference, or how many people comment on what a good thing we’re doing for the kids, it still makes me feel a little like less of a person, for some reason.
Money may not measure you as a human being, but everything around you measures in money.
This post will likely self-destruct when I come to my senses.
Apparently anyone who's worked with kids ends up on the same wavelength.
Dear Parents,
I was wondering if you could do me a favor. I was wondering if you could give me the exact date that….
it became acceptable to accuse and blame the teacher for things that your child should be taking responsibility for.
Because THAT is the day I should have turned in my resignation.
LOOOOOOVE,
Miss At
(That teacher that’s been working her butt off to create a fantastic school year for YOUR child, not you)
Parent: He’s little!
Me: He PUNCHED a girl.
Parent: You expect too much of these little kids.
Me: I expect them to keep their hands to themselves.
Parent: It’s just too much!
Also applicable to out-of-school-time programs. Note: Most of our kids walk to and from program.
Parent on phone: WHY DID YOU SEND MY CHILD HOME?
Staff: *lists reasons that include bullying and violence*
Parent: YOU DON’T TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY, YOU’RE PICKING ON MY CHILD. YOU JUST DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH THEM.
Staff: …ma’am, please review the agreement you and [child] signed about behavior and I’ll see them Monday.
Parent: *CENSORED* THEY’RE NOT COMING BACK.
(They were back a week later.)
If a child has to take responsibility for their actions, the parent has to take responsibility for their parenting. That seems to be a major issue for some people.
Contagion
Tuesday: Evening ends with cleaning up after one of our high school kids got physically ill in the bathroom.
Wednesday: Program is closed because lead staff (well, the other staff member) is now sick with whatever that student had.
Thursday: We include a message on our little schedule whiteboard that both staff are feeling sick so to help us out by keeping one another responsible and positive. Student is fine. We are both not.
Friday, early: …I had to call out. Which I feel horrifically guilty for because I was supposed to start some anger management work with some of the kids today, and run cooking because the co-op lady is on vacation, and…I could have handled BEING there (though the thought of working in the kitchen made me ill in itself, so maybe I couldn’t) but the hour drive wasn’t happening. Guilty, guilty, guilty…
Friday, late: Other staff member (lead staff, supervisor, what-have-you) texted me to let me know that program went well and that our newly junior staff member stepped up to plate, to stop worrying, and to feel better.
My boss is really great.
Cathedral Building: girlwithalessonplan: I tried ordering some “safe space kits” for my...
I tried ordering some “safe space kits” for my school for the GSA we’re going to start next year, and there was an error on GLSEN’s site, and I couldn’t get any for my school.
Grr.
This isn’t a safe space kit BUT, if you haven’t hooked up with these folks already,…
This is great! The IYG has vastly improved their website, because this is all new.
GLESN contacted me about the kits so I should get those this summer…when I have 20-40 bucks just lying around. (Unless someone wants to sponsor us! Eh!?)
Depending on the vibe in your town, for the twenty dollars, you might consider something like a bake sale to raise the money. There’s even some very cool instructions out there for making rainbow cupcakes from a box mix and a set of food coloring.
I tried ordering some “safe space kits” for my school for the GSA we’re going to start next year, and there was an error on GLSEN’s site, and I couldn’t get any for my school.
Grr.
This isn’t a safe space kit BUT, if you haven’t hooked up with these folks already, they may be able to supply you with some resources: http://www.indianayouthgroup.org/gsa-info
I would give it a shot — if nothing else, even if they don’t have physical kits for you, they have a statewide network listing to sign up with and may be able to offer school trainings. The local organization on Long Island was absolutely great that way and served as a valuable liaison, role model, and educator to GSAs.
Or you might have found it already. Or (I’m hoping I didn’t make THIS big a faux-pas) they may not even be the right state. But I think I remembered right.
Educated to Death: 0162: An insidious idea behind classroom management.
I am not yet a classroom management historian, perhaps I’ll become one, but I am quite certain that there are certain insidious motives behind it. While many classroom management techniques are necessary, I submit that their genesis has roots in behaviorist techniques based in social control. This certainly should be an almost redundant statement as some might understand public schooling was born out of the intention of managing and separating certain populations. I hope to spend some of the summer organizing these suspicions into some proper research. And, I hope my research proves my speculations wrong beyond doubt. I hope to uncover the benevolence of our current system of education and behavioral management and be made an utter fool. But, until then, I’ll remain a fool in waiting with my somewhat conspiratorial and alarmist beliefs. I most certainly believe, because I’ve seen in numerous arenas, that children in poverty and, more saliently, children of color are treated more harshly. This may not be consistent across the entire nation, but it is in my experience and the extended experiences of colleagues.
I’d be interested to see what your research turns up, but I caution you this: If you go into any research with preconceived notions of what you do and do not want to see, you will inadvertently turn up whatever it is that you are looking for. You may be more likely to find experiences similar to yours and your colleagues’ and more likely to find fault with (or not find) research that corroborates the opposite if you seek out information with the frame of mind you’re currently (and presently?) working in. For the sake of getting the most of your research perhaps you should consider taking it on in partnership with someone who holds opposing views.
But that is not the point I am trying to make. Classroom management is successful only when the following is true in some form:
“The ideas of crime and punishment must be strongly linked and ‘follow one another without interruption… When you have thus formed the chain of ideas in the heads of your citizens, you will then be able to pride yourselves on guiding them and being their masters. A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas; it is at the stable point of reason that he secures the end of the chain; the link is all the stronger in that we do not know of what it is made and we believe it to be our own work; despair and time eat away the bonds of iron and steel, but they are powerless against the union of ideas, they can only tighten it still more; and on the soft fibres of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the soundest Empires’” (Foucault quoting Servan in Discipline and Punish)
Classroom management is a beginning. The roots spread into other realms of existence as the child grows. Is there another way? A better way? I’m not sure exactly what. But, surely there’s something more freeing than silently imprinting allegiance and respect to one’s masters through subtle and consistent enculturation practices. Please prove that my speculations are deeply incorrect. Please show me that my experiences have simply been rare exceptions, and have driven me down a path of cynicism. Please.
This isn’t necessarily an answer to the original question — I could write a thesis paper to answer it and I’ll do my best to respond on another day more thoroughly — but what I would like to know is why many people consistently group all techniques of classroom management into one mental category.
I put to you an analogy with a similar word - discipline - from a parental perspective, which may have the potential for more universal agreement.
Discipline could be as simple and healthy as requiring a child to deal with the negative consequences of a bad choice rather than making those consequences go away. For example, a parent sets a bedtime for a child and has talked with them about the importance of sleep, especially when it comes to performing well in school. The night before a test that parent studies with the child before and/or after dinner. After they go to bed, the child then stays up late reading or sneaking in computer time or what have you; because they aren’t well-rested they do poorly on the test. If the child is honest with the parent about what happened and the parent then demands of the teacher that the child be allowed a retest (or lies and says there was some traumatic reason the child did poorly so that they can have a retest) so that the child gets a better grade, what is that child learning? Nothing. It might generally be agreed upon that allowing the child to face the consequences of their actions is healthy. Maybe they will not make the same mistake again.
Beating the child mercilessly may well also result in the child not making that mistake again, but it’s obviously neither healthy for the child nor teaching them what it is that you supposedly want them to learn (to make responsible decisions).
Would the same people who vilify all classroom management do the same of discipline because of the latter example, ignoring the first? Would the first, because it is healthy, not be counted under the label of discipline? (The same can be said of course of someone who finds shock treatments to be as worthy in a classroom as free homework passes, but I think I can honestly say I do not personally know anyone with that view).
I ask because the more I see on the classroom management discussion, dating back awhile in the #education community, the more I feel that there’s simply a linguistic barrier here: if it’s good and healthy, if it can’t be construed as indoctrination, it isn’t ‘classroom management’. And if it is in fact a matter of language and we can clear that hurdle, I wonder if some of our discussions will have turned out to be about very different, or very similar, things without some of us having realized.
(via teachinglearning)
Today was productive.
- One of the older students wrote me a beautiful letter for Mothers’ Day. I cried when she wasn’t looking — if the middle school boys saw me crying I think I’d lose any rep I have with them at all 5’2” of me.
- The money earned for the program from the first few comic sales allowed other staff member to take a group of kids down to the Farmer’s Market, where some of them picked up what I think were either flowers-to-be for home or vegetable-plants-to-be for the program.
- While they were away I had a long conversation with a teen who stayed behind about a situation involving bullying, suicidal thoughts, and resulting issues with her father. Part of it was resolved by the end of the day.
- Staff member returned and told me I was taking them next time. Still haven’t gotten the details on that.
- New teen tested macaroni done-ness for mac and cheese by throwing a piece at the wall and couldn’t figure out why I was totally and utterly flabbergasted.
- H nearly put his fist through the kitchen door. I approached the other staff at the end of the day hesitantly about possibly running an anger management group once a week and was told “YES. YES. DO THAT. DO IT. WHENEVER YOU WANT TO START.”
- Had wine with friends and went home, where Colleen watched me stumble through a homemade pudding recipe (which was delicious) and, when I started to recount the macaroni story, interjected - “Throw it at the wall?” Apparently this…is something people do as a normal thing.
This is partly an update and partly a reminder to myself later of things I need to write full bits about later.
