Changed My Mind

I started planning this post this morning. I knew exactly what I was going to write about. The title was going to be something along the lines of: I feel like I'm being bullied.

You see, the kids I'm working with now are in 6th grade. This is my first year being exclusively in 6th grade. The last 11 years I was in Kindergarten. I knew these kids in Kindergarten. They were the group of 27 that followed the group of 17. They were the challenging group that followed the group everyone wished they could loop with. They were the group everyone got through.

I've seen them in the hall, and I had some of them in my reading groups when I did reading intervention. But, for the most part, this is the first time I've been with them since they were 6. And for the most part they haven't changed. They are just as challenging as they were then. Maybe more so, because many who weren't as challenging then, have joined the challenging.

Our school, and really our district, have had a habit of chance after chance with no real consequence. We have used the same tired ideas and they have never change the behavior. For a consequence to be effective, it has to change the behavior.

Then I look at the teaching blogs I follow. I read news articles and posts others share about feeling sorry for the world "our kids live in."  I read how putting kids in rows is torture, because kids need to learn to work together. We get notes from our superintendent-- buying into the narrative that we should have couches and lounge chairs and lamps with scarves draped over them to promote a homey atmosphere. We are being led to believe if we don't provide kids a stress free, consequence free, discomfort free, existence than we, as the adult are somehow unfit for teaching or working with kids.

I was going to write about how, maybe if these kids had had more consequences along the way, we wouldn't be in the position we are in now.  I was going to channel my "These rotten kids today," frustration, but then I read this post from tonight.

https://readreflectteach.wordpress.com/2018/03/04/slice-of-life-2018-day-5-if-you-really-knew-me/

It changed my focus. I've heard of the "What i wish my teacher knew about me" writing assignments before, but reading it tonight brought me back to who I really am.

I am the one who relates to kids. My gift has always been connecting to the kids that drive others crazy. That is what is missing from education.

Testing and teacher evaluations based on those tests have relegated connections to the back burner for many. Schools rely on the quick fix and fear of parents forces the least effective route to changing behaviors.

Time and personnel are what schools need. Can you imagine what it would be like if the assistant in a classroom could pull a student aside and discuss behavior and choices while the teacher continued to teach without needing to ditch the many to counsel the one? What if that assistant could take over the class for a few moments so the teacher could connect to the child? Imagine how much more learning could happen if the kids who "live in trauma" in their home lives didn't have to experience trauma in the classroom just because a school prioritizes and allocates money to the benefit of prestige rather than child development?

I still believe we need to stop calling those who have traditional approaches to education wrong-headed and detrimental to student learning. 

I still believe the collective "we" have failed the group of 6th graders I work with. For 6 years we have capitulated, cajoled, and conceded, and because of that, we have a group of kids who put little effort into their learning, talk back, and ignore adults. We have not helped those who needed us when they were little, and we have harmed those exposed to disruption year after year.

Unfortunately the test still looms for all of us, every year, and unless and until we put our resources toward listening and connecting instead of furniture and fancy technology,  we can't say we have prepared our students for now, let alone that proverbial "world they will be living in."