College didn’t come close to preparing me for this. It was only 9 minutes into my 3rd period class today when the student decided to test her teacher’s Monday-morning-didn’t-have-time-to-stop-for-a-Starbucks-today mental acuity.
My 3rd period is, generally, one of those classes that a teacher can teach on auto-pilot. The 24 students are slightly brighter, on average—they come to class with their materials, they don’t complain, and-this is the best-they even (sometimes) laugh at their teacher’s jokes! They’re all friends with each other, and aren’t afraid to just have fun with me, which makes it an overall terrific class to teach—kind of a breath of fresh air amidst my morning hecticness. We laugh a lot, talk a lot, and even get some Spanish learned in the process.
So, that’s why today’s eruption caught me unexpectedly. We were just starting to work on our vocabulary (which, I must admit, even makes me inwardly groan—I have never in my life needed to say “I need to check my radiator” in Spanish!) – and a girl from the back of the class gets out of her seat. (Now, you have to understand that “Miss Walker” can NOT handle students getting out of their seats---this one of the ONLY rules that I enforce strictly). So, as a student is asking a question, I quietly motion for the girl to sit back down and quietly tell her to ask permission. Somewhere in that one sentence, something went wrong.
The girl STOMPED out of my classroom, making the heels on her designer boots smack against my floor, stopped briefly at the doorway, threw her hair over her shoulder and proclaimed that she was going to leave, because no one ever does any listening to her anyway!
The class was stunned. It was one of those moments where in everyone’s head we were all thinking “what is THAT about?” I had zero clue what her deal was. She hadn’t asked to go anywhere or do anything—it was only 9 minutes into class! I would have liked to pause my classroom and take that snapshot back 4 years to my theoretical education class that discussed what educational philosophy camp we landed in and asked that prof what would have been the best philosophy to handle THIS student!
So, the girl left, and even the other students in the class asked what in the world that was all about. We continued on, I later emailed the principal about the girl and let him decide what do, and the rest of my day, well, pretty uneventful.
However, tomorrow, it’s definitely a Starbucks morning.
College just prepared me to think on my own. I have used very little actual classroom knowledge, but have used the problem solving abilities almost daily. Hope the caffeine helps tomorrow, I know I'll need some.
I look forward to reading more.
I agree, Rob, regarding the problem solving abilities learned are used daily. As far as teaching goes and college preparation, I think that my college education classes taught me about the different philosophies of education, which, after fine-tuning my own educational philosphy, gave me the intellectual basis for daily classroom managament strategies. But, really, is anyone ever prepared to work with 15-year-olds? ;-)
You're right. College did prepare me by giving me the tools to use to "build" my career. I am always amazed that the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
And, no, I don't think anyone is ever prepared to work with 15-year olds.
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