Teaching: Week 1

The first week of my teaching career.

The first week has come and gone, and, as expected, it's been a week of ups and downs. Mostly ups, thankfully - I'm not ready to kill myself and I'm only very sleep deprived.

As a first year teacher, I was given a difficult schedule naturally; **** rolls downhill, as they say. Actually, it's really not that bad. It's bad in the sense that I need to prepare for three different classes everyday (whereas most teachers only need to prepare for two, having been given one class on two different periods). But thankfully, my students make it all worthwhile (most of the time). My courses are as follows:

first period: grade 12 advanced functions - basically a calculus course that involves some vectors.

second period: grade 10 science (advanced) - currently covering chemistry.

third period: spare

fourth period: grade 11 math (basic) - math class with the weaker kids.

I didn't get a minute of sleep the night before; nervousness, excitement, and anticipation made for one intense night of tossing and turning. What would I say to my students? How would I be perceived?

On day 1, I stood outside of my classroom and greeted each student with a "Good morning." Some nodded politely, some gave back a "Hi, sir.", a few gave me a look then continued walking. And then the bell rang.

Knowing that the anthem was ready to play, I refrained from saying anything, not wanting to be interrupted. There were several seconds of awkward silence where the grade 12's just stared at me, expectantly.

"I'm not being rude by not saying anything, I know know that the anthem is about to play, so I'm waiting it out."

OK, something was said. With tension slightly alleviated, the anthem hit, the announcements went, and then it was showtime.

I knew that my biggest obstacle in teaching would be student behaviour. Thus, knowing that I would spend more than half the time getting kids to keep quiet/put their cell phones away/stop making faces at other students/stay in their seats, I decided to take a proactive approach, and spend a good chunk of day 1 setting the tone, being clear on what was expected (behaviour wise), and talking about mutual respect. I was worried this wouldn't go over well with my grade 12's, seeing as many think that sort of "kindergarten talk" is beneath them. But I went with it anyway. So, with my reputation on the line and my heart in my throat, I started.

"Welcome everyone to advanced functions, 4U (a course code). My name is Mr. XXXXX, and I will be your teacher for the semester. Seeing as this is a university-prep course, I'm guessing that many of you are planning on attending university come next fall, which is great. Now, before we get into the course content, I'd like to talk a bit about how I like to run my classes. Really, I only use one guideline, and this guideline has never once failed me for as long as I've taught (not really a lie, as I have taught a few practicums and TA'd at the university level) - mutual respect."

I then went into a 5-minute schpiel, talking about examples and non-examples of mutual respect. I discussed how they needed to show respect for themselves; by showing up to class on time, coming prepared, attentive listening when someone else - be it teacher or student - is talking, etc. After all that: "OK, I've talked for a good 10 minutes or so. If you have any questions or concerns about my policies or anything else, you can ask. Then we'll discuss the course."

First hand shoots up; a guy. "How old are you sir??"

Five others (in unison): "Yeah!"

After the required guessing game (most of which underestimated), came the next question: "Were you always a teacher?"

"No, I used to do sleep research."

And then the eyes bugged out. "Why do we sleep sir?" "Sir, why do we dream?" "How does Red Bull keep you awake when you don't sleep?" to which I made them a deal; I'd give them a sleep fact at the end some classes if I felt like they had worked hard enough and had done enough - a deal that is still holding up after 5 days of school.

The same deal worked out with my grade 10 science class, who were next. It's well-known that grade 10's are typically the rowdiest in the school - having been there for one year, they know each other, think they know how it all works, and feel like it's early enough in their high school years that they can still slack off. So I made my schpiel longer for them to really drive home the point. As expected, I got a few snickers from kids who looked like slackers and trouble-makers; so far the same people have surprised me.

One kid, who used to sit off in the back corner, is now sitting at the front. He moved there on Thursday and said "Look sir, I'm sitting here because I want to do well in the class!" "Good for you! A solid effort goes a long way."

I spoke a bit about the effort required in this course. "This course is a pretty big step up from grade 9. By nature, science is cumulative. Do you know what that means?" Many blank faces shook their heads. "It means that the new things you learn keep building on the old things you learn. Thus, if you don't study on one part, you'll get lost on the next part. So if anybody here is thinking "OK, I'm gonna slack off September, October, November, and then catch up during Christmas holidays."....NO." On day 1, I also said this to them: "Now, at some point over the next few weeks, I'm going to call home." at which several students had their jaws hit the floor. "Why sir??? I didn't even do anything yet!!!"

"No no, grade 10's cool it. I promise you, on my first call home, I'm going to say something good about you. And it won't be something stupid like 'Bob has nice hair.' It will be something like 'Bob is paying attention in class and participates.'"

"Yo sir, can you call my house first??" "No, call mine!"

I also took a shot at something I was taught during professional development - fostering an environment of appreciation. I thought to myself "OMG, that is so cheesy." but whatever, I tried it. I don't force it upon them, but I simply told them about how hard we work for certain things, and how satisfying a simple "Thank you." can be. And it's working. Days 1-3 people weren't really doing it, but now most offer a sincere "Thank you sir." when I do something as simple as give them a handout (i.e. work to do).

The grade 11 essentials class was also worrisome, with the weaker kids you never know what to expect. I gave the same speech with them, made the same deal (to phone home) with the same responses. By the end of week 1 I had called every single parent in that essentials class, and the students returned the following day much more appreciative and willing to participate. Days 1-3 I had to ask students to put their chairs up, return calculators to the front; nowadays as the period ends, they return their calculators and put up their chairs without prompting. It may sound simple, but it's a huge step forward.

Students still give me trouble, yes; as I said before, it's expected. So far, all I have to do is give a simple "Robert..." "Sorry sir." and then move on from there. When I have to stop in the middle of a lesson to work the overhead or something like that, the chatter starts immediately. But I find that once I start talking, the class goes quiet - which has been great. Out of six school days, I've gone through three without food for the entire day (helping many students during lunch who get lost very easily), and slept an average of five hours per night (often sleeping past midnight planning lessons, waking up at 6am to make it to school to make photocopies and overheads). I also get stopped often; I rarely walk down a hallway without a "Hey Mr. XXXXX!!!" or students waving at me.

So far, it's been worth it.