My wife finally had my daughter 9 days late, early Saturday morning. I had taken that Friday off again, but this time even my wife wanted me to take it off. We spent all of Friday walking from one store to the next, preparing for the impending blizzard. First we walked to the local movie shop just in case we got snowed in, and then that evening we walked a mile and a half to Wendy’s. As we were sitting there watching the local news, something was happening. Her contractions hadn’t stopped. We knew the plan was to stay at home as long as possible before going to the birth center, so we put in the movie but neither one of us was really watching it, “Are they still consistent?” “Yep.” I smiled, “I guess we might be having this baby tonight.” “Yep.” It had been snowing for over an hour, and there were already two inches on the roads. So we called the midwife, and she told us to hurry over to the birth center before it starting getting ugly. Our friend had an SUV, and she drove us through the then six inches of snow. The ride normally took thirty minutes, but in these conditions, it took an hour. My wife wasn’t talking anymore. She had brought a pillow, and she spent the whole ride with her head down, breathing heavily. When we got there, I wanted to get the hot tub ready because she was in major pain, but the midwife said there was no use, our daughter was coming. Twenty minutes later, Neve was born. Both mom and daughter were beautiful, and I was grateful that I was a part of it. My wife was a warrior, and I got to be the dad and husband that I wanted to be. While she lay on the bed exhausted, I got to put Neve in her very first outfit. It was hard pulling her tiny little arms and legs through the holes, and of course my wife just had to pick something with tons of buttons. But I did it. And I picked her up and sang “Ba Ba Black Sheep” until she calmed down.
We were hit with 26 inches of snow, and our new family made it back to the house that same morning, just before the brunt of the storm hit. Winter Break was everything I needed it to be. I also had the added comfort that I would take my paternity leave the first week of January.
I came into work the first day back from break just to set everything up for the rest of my paternity week. I still needed to make some copies and finalize my notes for the sub. I figured I could handle just one day with the kids to ensure I wouldn’t get any phone calls from the school about how all the subs had walked out on my class. To my surprise, Franklin had already called in my sub. I asked him if that meant I could leave early to be with my wife, and he said it would be fine. It was her first time with both kids alone, and I was more than willing to leave work and spend the remaining part of the day with her. As I quickly ran over everything with the sub, the class saw that I wasn’t paying attention, and they started getting rowdy. I yelled: “If you hear me, clap once!” Nothing. “If you hear me clap twice!” Only a few kids clapped. “If you hear me, clap three times!” No one clapped. After trying several things to get their attention, I gave up and told them I would be back the following week. As I walked out the door, I heard Mr. Preddy yelling, “If you hear me clap once! Why aren’t you clapping?! You are supposed to clap!”
Back at home, my wife was giddy that I was coming home early. Already the kids were taking over her life. She happened to read that Montgomery County was hiring teachers, and I anxiously waited for her to leave the computer so I could see what she was reading. Montgomery County was a much better school district than DC, and any school there would better than Daley. It occurred to me this paternity leave was perfect for job searching. I could call up one of the hiring schools today, and then go out and interview tomorrow, maybe have a second interview by Friday. I could be hired within a week or two. But hadn’t I just given up on escape? I applied for the position anyway, and I tried as hard as I could to forget about it. But I couldn’t. I called the HR office the next day to see my status, and it turned out the job openings were for the following year. That didn’t help me at all.
Over break, I met up with my teaching buddy, Matt. He had spent the previous year with a bad school, and now he was enjoying life at a new school as a math and science coach. I mentioned to him how anxious I was; he told me that he had the same issues the previous year, and I needed to get out. I already knew that, but he actually meant that I needed to get out after I made it through June; he didn’t know I was trying to get out before the upcoming Monday. He told me I could approach the next 5 months like a marathon; slow and steady wins the race. I counted the remaining days left in the school year, 97 days, divided it by 26.2 and found that every 4 days could be equal to one mile in a marathon. It was the first time I had ever allowed myself to think about June, and I was starting to think about how to get there. Up until this point, I never thought about June because I was planning on quitting before then. Now that I had given up on the struggle, I was coming to terms with reality. I just might make it, one step at a time. I even signed up for a marathon in Vermont on May 30th just to have a symbolic finish to my two years of hell. When Sunday night came, I knew I had 97 days left. I guessed that the hardest step of a marathon was the first, so I closed my eyes and took it.
When I walked in the building on Monday morning, each teacher I walked by welcomed me back, but there was only one thing I wanted to know. “Did he make it?” He did. Not only did Mr. Preddy show up every day, but there was no screaming heard in the halls, no fights in the line, and nothing was missing from my desk. Naturally, I had mixed feelings: it was a good for the kids, it was a good week for Mr. Preddy, but he exposed me. If they could be good for him, then I was the reason for their behavior. It wasn’t long ago that I would have beaten myself down in this situation, “You see, you are a failure. You need to get out now!” But I had a marathon to run and a new thought came instead, “So they CAN be good”
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Giving Up
When I started journaling, it felt like my life was improving. Progress was slow, but it was going in the right direction, and that was all that was important to me. I convinced myself I didn’t need to seek outside help; my coping methods were working just fine. By now, I started to come to realize that journaling wasn’t going to solve all my problems, and unfortunately, I had already canceled the psychiatrist appointment. If I was to schedule another, I would have to wait at least a month. Things were still really bad at school, and it seemed like there was no hope of it getting better. I had run out of ideas, and there were no more replies to my job applications. So on Sunday afternoon we went to the Catholic Basilica for mass like we normally did. It was a towering church, and there was a large mosaic Jesus covering the front wall. This wasn’t a Jesus on the cross with his head turned down; this Jesus was pissed. He was rising through the clouds with blood on his hands, and it seemed like he was glaring right at you. Since college I always enjoyed church because it felt like a recharge for the week, but by now, church felt hollow. It was a reminder that there was either no God or God had abandoned me. That Sunday, I muttered into my hands, “I give up.” Struggling to stay afloat and waiting for a rescue had finally become too much; there were no other branches to hold. There were no administrators or teachers trying to help me out anymore, and I was tired of trying new management techniques. It felt like I had let go of the branch, leaned my head back, and allowed myself to drown.
I knew quitting was best for me and even for my students, but quitting wasn’t working, and I didn’t know what else to do. When I whispered those words, “I give up,” I started accepting that I was no one special. I did not have the power to change the world; I did not have the power to change my classroom; and, up until then, I didn’t even have the power to change myself.
I came to Daley to be a great teacher, a teacher that taught underprivileged kids how to overcome the challenges of their world, but I also imagined success: Teacher of the Year and award speeches. That desire for success was hidden; I wasn’t aware of it because I didn’t care about looking for it. I thought I had the right reasons for teaching at Daley. I was a smart kid, and I worked hard; the rest would figure itself out.
But I became aware that I thought I was different from other people. I thought I was special, and I figured when others had failed before me, it was a sign that is was the right job for me to do. But that job had led to complete destruction.
Hell was not Candler Park or Daley or the administration or anyone really, it was what had happened in my mind, what had happened to my life. If the road to hell was ominous and jagged, maybe I could have avoided it, but my road was paved and quick. As a teenager, I liked to skateboard down the steep hills of my neighborhood. I had a longboard, and the only one way I knew how to stop was by jumping off. Whenever I tried out a new, steep-looking hill, about half way down I thought, “I’m going too fast, this is going to end badly,” and it usually did. Maybe there were signs that told me I was going in the wrong direction, but I wasn’t looking for any of them. Maybe there were onlookers who told me to think twice about the path, but I was too busy telling them I knew exactly where I was going.
By the end of my first year, things started getting better, and I thought it was a sign that I was finally coming around as a teacher. The kids started to line up better, and we even learned a rap to perform to anyone that might come in the doors. On the last day, I had a big party to celebrate, and I planned it for the middle of the day - one of my many teacher mistakes. Always have parties at the end of the day. After we had the cupcakes, almost the whole class was up out of their seats, flying around the room, and there were still two hours to get through. Instead of yelling and chasing them down, I just took out a chair and sat down right in the middle of the room. I called two nice girls up to the front of the class. I let them pull up their chairs so they could sit right next to me, and I told them they were the only ones who had my permission to go outside. Because they had been so good the whole year, it was now up to them to decide who was allowed to go out. The others slowly lined up to apologize. Each kid lined up and eventually pleaded his/her case to the girls. Not much of a surprise, but everyone was forgiven, and by the end of it all, everyone was quietly lined up. I had successfully lined up a crazy class hyped up on sugar and the excitement of the last day of school; I must be on my way.
When my second year started, I was in control, much more so than any moment in my first year. My class walked the halls with their eyes forward and their arms behind their back without a word. When an independent evaluator visited the school, he left a note on my desk saying how impressed he was with my class, and how he was looking forward to the first observation. I was going from the worst class to the best, and once again, that voice started getting louder, “Keep pushing, keep pushing, this is it, you are finally fulfilling your destiny.” It seemed like a long journey, but I had made it; I was the teacher I always wanted to be. But I started getting tired, and my command started to slip. Things went from bad to worse quickly, and this crash was much harder than any other crash I had experienced. As first year teachers, we had been told countless times about the ups and downs of the first year, but by my second year it seemed there were no excuses anymore.
So when I finally gave up, I accepted that there was no escape, that I was stuck. And for some reason, the following week went by just a little bit easier.
I knew quitting was best for me and even for my students, but quitting wasn’t working, and I didn’t know what else to do. When I whispered those words, “I give up,” I started accepting that I was no one special. I did not have the power to change the world; I did not have the power to change my classroom; and, up until then, I didn’t even have the power to change myself.
I came to Daley to be a great teacher, a teacher that taught underprivileged kids how to overcome the challenges of their world, but I also imagined success: Teacher of the Year and award speeches. That desire for success was hidden; I wasn’t aware of it because I didn’t care about looking for it. I thought I had the right reasons for teaching at Daley. I was a smart kid, and I worked hard; the rest would figure itself out.
But I became aware that I thought I was different from other people. I thought I was special, and I figured when others had failed before me, it was a sign that is was the right job for me to do. But that job had led to complete destruction.
Hell was not Candler Park or Daley or the administration or anyone really, it was what had happened in my mind, what had happened to my life. If the road to hell was ominous and jagged, maybe I could have avoided it, but my road was paved and quick. As a teenager, I liked to skateboard down the steep hills of my neighborhood. I had a longboard, and the only one way I knew how to stop was by jumping off. Whenever I tried out a new, steep-looking hill, about half way down I thought, “I’m going too fast, this is going to end badly,” and it usually did. Maybe there were signs that told me I was going in the wrong direction, but I wasn’t looking for any of them. Maybe there were onlookers who told me to think twice about the path, but I was too busy telling them I knew exactly where I was going.
By the end of my first year, things started getting better, and I thought it was a sign that I was finally coming around as a teacher. The kids started to line up better, and we even learned a rap to perform to anyone that might come in the doors. On the last day, I had a big party to celebrate, and I planned it for the middle of the day - one of my many teacher mistakes. Always have parties at the end of the day. After we had the cupcakes, almost the whole class was up out of their seats, flying around the room, and there were still two hours to get through. Instead of yelling and chasing them down, I just took out a chair and sat down right in the middle of the room. I called two nice girls up to the front of the class. I let them pull up their chairs so they could sit right next to me, and I told them they were the only ones who had my permission to go outside. Because they had been so good the whole year, it was now up to them to decide who was allowed to go out. The others slowly lined up to apologize. Each kid lined up and eventually pleaded his/her case to the girls. Not much of a surprise, but everyone was forgiven, and by the end of it all, everyone was quietly lined up. I had successfully lined up a crazy class hyped up on sugar and the excitement of the last day of school; I must be on my way.
When my second year started, I was in control, much more so than any moment in my first year. My class walked the halls with their eyes forward and their arms behind their back without a word. When an independent evaluator visited the school, he left a note on my desk saying how impressed he was with my class, and how he was looking forward to the first observation. I was going from the worst class to the best, and once again, that voice started getting louder, “Keep pushing, keep pushing, this is it, you are finally fulfilling your destiny.” It seemed like a long journey, but I had made it; I was the teacher I always wanted to be. But I started getting tired, and my command started to slip. Things went from bad to worse quickly, and this crash was much harder than any other crash I had experienced. As first year teachers, we had been told countless times about the ups and downs of the first year, but by my second year it seemed there were no excuses anymore.
So when I finally gave up, I accepted that there was no escape, that I was stuck. And for some reason, the following week went by just a little bit easier.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Campbell
One of my more difficult kids was a boy named Campbell. In the beginning of the year, he was one of my favorites. He always came in with the same untucked uniform shirt with patches of dirt all over it. His old shoelaces were frequently untied, and it became clear to me that he had no idea how to tie them. But, he usually had a smile on his face, and he was a good reader. He had “my little project” written all over him. He always brought in action figures to play with after school. He didn’t have a backpack so he had to fit them in his pockets. Their heads usually peaked out of his pockets when he sat down, which was just too tempting. Whenever I caught him hopping them across his desk, he just handed them to me, right away, with an embarrassed smile on his face. One day, I forgot to return them to him, and when I found him in aftercare, he yelled out, “Mr. Slaughter!! You have my toy! I knew you wouldn’t forget. You are the best!” He wrapped his arms around me, and the aftercare teacher told me how much he talked about “the greatest teacher ever, Mr. Slaughter.”
By now, things had changed dramatically. Campbell still didn’t have any friends, and he was picked on everyday. After he learned that there wasn’t much I could do to protect him, he defended himself and turned bad. He was tiny, but he scrapped when he needed to, and he spent too much of his class time crawling on the floor, hopelessly trying to entertain his classmates and aggravating me. I spent the first two months telling his mom how great he was, and now I was telling her just the opposite. By December, he was out of the class and running the halls. He had found a few 3rd graders that always ran the halls; none other than my friends from my first year, Sean and Colin. And he joined them, like a stray cat joining a pack. Today, he ran out in the halls only to return a few minutes later to peek in through a crack in the door. I welcomed him back to class with a wave and a faked smile because I knew that there was little chance of him getting to work. He sensed my hesitancy, and he just scattered down the halls again, looking for another adventure or even another teacher, someone to give him the attention he deserved.
By now, things had changed dramatically. Campbell still didn’t have any friends, and he was picked on everyday. After he learned that there wasn’t much I could do to protect him, he defended himself and turned bad. He was tiny, but he scrapped when he needed to, and he spent too much of his class time crawling on the floor, hopelessly trying to entertain his classmates and aggravating me. I spent the first two months telling his mom how great he was, and now I was telling her just the opposite. By December, he was out of the class and running the halls. He had found a few 3rd graders that always ran the halls; none other than my friends from my first year, Sean and Colin. And he joined them, like a stray cat joining a pack. Today, he ran out in the halls only to return a few minutes later to peek in through a crack in the door. I welcomed him back to class with a wave and a faked smile because I knew that there was little chance of him getting to work. He sensed my hesitancy, and he just scattered down the halls again, looking for another adventure or even another teacher, someone to give him the attention he deserved.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Baby Watch
Tuesday
I had already figured it would be best for me if my new daughter was born either Thursday or Friday so paternity leave would combine with Winter Break, but just as I started to walk down the halls to pick up the kids, I changed my plans; I wanted to get that phone call today. It no longer mattered how many days I would get off, I just needed out now. But then, when I saw them line up so nicely in the cafeteria, I realized my kids were trying. When they started on their morning work, I noticed Gabe sitting up straight and silently raising his hand for a pencil. Usually, Gabe spent the morning swimming on the floor, and then I’d bend down to pick him up, ask him why he was on the floor, and he’d smile and say, “I don’t have a pencil.” I did meet with Gabe’s mom on Monday and told her that I was afraid he had ADHD, but I used teacher-speak, “Gabe has extreme difficulty focusing on his work for more than a few minutes. I’m afraid that his lack of focus is poorly affecting his progress, and I’m not sure if he’ll be prepared for the 3rd grade.” It would have been clearer to say, “Your son is driving me nuts, please medicate him.” She was defensive like she had heard it all before and she told me how smart he was, and how he was reading chapter books at home. He struggled with Dr. Seuss; there was no way he was reading at home. I guess mom told him to straighten up, and it looked like he was at least trying. Unfortunately, the peaceful morning came to a regrettable finish. Ryden was out of control again in the afternoon. He was swinging his jacket in Amelia’s face because he thought she had taken one of his cut outs, but it was really lying there just behind his seat. After I repeatedly asked him to hand me the jacket, and I stared into his eyes with big teacher scissors in hand, “Do you want me to cut your jacket!?” Luckily, he gave it to me.
That night my wife was starting to have contractions, and I was getting hopeful that Wednesday might be my last day.
Wednesday
The contractions amounted to nothing. That afternoon, Asia’s mom came in early to pick up her daughter. I always got really nervous when parents came in to pick up their kids and saw the chaos first hand. My first year, Camryn’s dad always came in early to pick his daughter up, and he just stared in the front window with a clear frown on his face. There would usually be at least one fight happening at the time; he must have been thinking about his daughter and wondering how she could be learning in a class like this mine. When Asia’s mom came in, there were no fights to be seen, but still, barely anyone moved from their seats when I told them it was time to line up. Asia’s mom yelled, “You all need to listen to your teacher!!” Excuse me, Ms. Simpson, but you should know these students don’t need to listen to their teacher because he is satisfied as long as they aren’t trying to punch each other.
Thursday
Thursday arrived and still no contractions. I came to pick up my kids at the cafeteria, and they were particularly chatty. I noticed that the principal, Franklin, had visitors with him, and he was showing them around the school. The school was under a microscope because it was a turn-around school, and it was common for visitors in suits to stop by and see if we were actually turning anything around. Previously, Daley had a justified reputation as a school filled with poorly performing and violent students surrounded by defeated adults. As I was trying to walk my kids down the hall, they were chattering more than I could handle and because my patience was always paper thin, my voice went from a stern reprimand to a shrill yell, “Keep your eyes forward and stop talking!!” I looked up and saw Franklin and his visitors turn towards me with their eyebrows raised. Whoops.
Friday
Friday morning came. Throughout the week I carried my cell phone in my front pocket, and during every small break I would call my wife to see how she was doing. Sometimes if the kids were quietly doing their work, I’d sneak back and give her a call. Each day there were fewer and fewer contractions, but when I woke up to get ready for work that Friday, she was feeling them again. They weren’t consistent, but they were painful and that was enough for me to call Franklin. My wife had no illusions, she knew they were probably nothing, but my mind was made up. I had planned it out carefully: if she didn’t have the baby today, then she would definitely have her over the weekend, and if the baby still wasn’t here by Monday, then I would just show up at work and tell Franklin it was false labor. I even entertained the idea of completely lying about the birth to stay home for the rest of Winter Break. How would he ever find out? The idea made no sense to my wife. I had forgotten that I was taking days off to help her with the new baby, not so I could get a break from my class. She asked, “So if the baby isn’t even here yet, why would you waste paternity days staying home?” She didn’t understand that I would happily donate a kidney just to get the week off.
The second time around, lying and taking the day off had gotten easier. It just took a quick phone call, a lie, a few minutes of feeling bad because my kids would probably run the sub out the door by lunch, and then I relaxed. This day, I read an email from one of my good friends, Mark, who told me there was an opening at his school for a 5th grade teacher. Without caring about the details, I picked up the phone hoping to talk to him before he arrived at school. I was prepared to drive to his school that day to try and land the job. I was sure anything had to be better than what I was doing, but when I talked to Mark, he told me how the previous teacher was a veteran teacher who had been run out by a group of very rough kids. It didn’t seem like a great idea to jump from one sinking ship to another. Needless to say, I didn’t meet my daughter that Friday, and on Monday morning I told Franklin it was false labor.
I had already figured it would be best for me if my new daughter was born either Thursday or Friday so paternity leave would combine with Winter Break, but just as I started to walk down the halls to pick up the kids, I changed my plans; I wanted to get that phone call today. It no longer mattered how many days I would get off, I just needed out now. But then, when I saw them line up so nicely in the cafeteria, I realized my kids were trying. When they started on their morning work, I noticed Gabe sitting up straight and silently raising his hand for a pencil. Usually, Gabe spent the morning swimming on the floor, and then I’d bend down to pick him up, ask him why he was on the floor, and he’d smile and say, “I don’t have a pencil.” I did meet with Gabe’s mom on Monday and told her that I was afraid he had ADHD, but I used teacher-speak, “Gabe has extreme difficulty focusing on his work for more than a few minutes. I’m afraid that his lack of focus is poorly affecting his progress, and I’m not sure if he’ll be prepared for the 3rd grade.” It would have been clearer to say, “Your son is driving me nuts, please medicate him.” She was defensive like she had heard it all before and she told me how smart he was, and how he was reading chapter books at home. He struggled with Dr. Seuss; there was no way he was reading at home. I guess mom told him to straighten up, and it looked like he was at least trying. Unfortunately, the peaceful morning came to a regrettable finish. Ryden was out of control again in the afternoon. He was swinging his jacket in Amelia’s face because he thought she had taken one of his cut outs, but it was really lying there just behind his seat. After I repeatedly asked him to hand me the jacket, and I stared into his eyes with big teacher scissors in hand, “Do you want me to cut your jacket!?” Luckily, he gave it to me.
That night my wife was starting to have contractions, and I was getting hopeful that Wednesday might be my last day.
Wednesday
The contractions amounted to nothing. That afternoon, Asia’s mom came in early to pick up her daughter. I always got really nervous when parents came in to pick up their kids and saw the chaos first hand. My first year, Camryn’s dad always came in early to pick his daughter up, and he just stared in the front window with a clear frown on his face. There would usually be at least one fight happening at the time; he must have been thinking about his daughter and wondering how she could be learning in a class like this mine. When Asia’s mom came in, there were no fights to be seen, but still, barely anyone moved from their seats when I told them it was time to line up. Asia’s mom yelled, “You all need to listen to your teacher!!” Excuse me, Ms. Simpson, but you should know these students don’t need to listen to their teacher because he is satisfied as long as they aren’t trying to punch each other.
Thursday
Thursday arrived and still no contractions. I came to pick up my kids at the cafeteria, and they were particularly chatty. I noticed that the principal, Franklin, had visitors with him, and he was showing them around the school. The school was under a microscope because it was a turn-around school, and it was common for visitors in suits to stop by and see if we were actually turning anything around. Previously, Daley had a justified reputation as a school filled with poorly performing and violent students surrounded by defeated adults. As I was trying to walk my kids down the hall, they were chattering more than I could handle and because my patience was always paper thin, my voice went from a stern reprimand to a shrill yell, “Keep your eyes forward and stop talking!!” I looked up and saw Franklin and his visitors turn towards me with their eyebrows raised. Whoops.
Friday
Friday morning came. Throughout the week I carried my cell phone in my front pocket, and during every small break I would call my wife to see how she was doing. Sometimes if the kids were quietly doing their work, I’d sneak back and give her a call. Each day there were fewer and fewer contractions, but when I woke up to get ready for work that Friday, she was feeling them again. They weren’t consistent, but they were painful and that was enough for me to call Franklin. My wife had no illusions, she knew they were probably nothing, but my mind was made up. I had planned it out carefully: if she didn’t have the baby today, then she would definitely have her over the weekend, and if the baby still wasn’t here by Monday, then I would just show up at work and tell Franklin it was false labor. I even entertained the idea of completely lying about the birth to stay home for the rest of Winter Break. How would he ever find out? The idea made no sense to my wife. I had forgotten that I was taking days off to help her with the new baby, not so I could get a break from my class. She asked, “So if the baby isn’t even here yet, why would you waste paternity days staying home?” She didn’t understand that I would happily donate a kidney just to get the week off.
The second time around, lying and taking the day off had gotten easier. It just took a quick phone call, a lie, a few minutes of feeling bad because my kids would probably run the sub out the door by lunch, and then I relaxed. This day, I read an email from one of my good friends, Mark, who told me there was an opening at his school for a 5th grade teacher. Without caring about the details, I picked up the phone hoping to talk to him before he arrived at school. I was prepared to drive to his school that day to try and land the job. I was sure anything had to be better than what I was doing, but when I talked to Mark, he told me how the previous teacher was a veteran teacher who had been run out by a group of very rough kids. It didn’t seem like a great idea to jump from one sinking ship to another. Needless to say, I didn’t meet my daughter that Friday, and on Monday morning I told Franklin it was false labor.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Parent Teacher Day
I came in early for Parent Teacher day to make packets for the kids so they would have plenty of work when I left for paternity leave. I was holding back a goofy grin while making those packets. They were the physical evidence that I was leaving, and I hoped that they were the last copies I would have to make. Ever. I was still banking on finding a job during the combination of paternity leave and Winter Break.
For my very first parent teacher day, I spent hours preparing portfolios for all the kids, planning on all of the parents showing up. One parent came. So this year I spent my time scrubbing off marker stains and making copies, but this time, instead of one parent, seven parents came. I guess the constant phone calls were becoming too much. So much for the portfolios; I had to just wing it.
My first parent conference of the day was an embarrassing one, with a mom who demanded her daughter, Abigail, be more challenged. She was afraid that Abigail might not be prepared for 3rd grade. I completely agreed with her because there was a secret that I wasn’t telling any parents. Too many times, I let the slower kids dictate the pace of the class because they were the ones who gave me the biggest headaches; it was the smarter ones who were left with their wheels spinning. Abigail was extremely smart, but I just treated her as a girl who liked to talk and more importantly, as a girl who didn’t like to fight which meant she didn’t get much attention. She had also been held back, and she was the largest kid in class. She was a new student and with every new student, I judged them on their propensity for getting into fights. When a new kid walked in for her first day, I would protect her from the crazies for at least the first few days. I would sit the new kid in the least warlike table; sometimes I would put a sweet girl on both sides of the new kid. I would find a friend for the new kid, someone that was marginally cool with the bad kids, but was good enough that he would also listen to me. Then, over the next couple days, I would carefully watch the new kid’s reaction to the inevitable teasing. If she was quick to fight, I had to play prevent defense, and if they avoided fighting at all costs, then they didn’t get as much attention. Abigail didn’t get that much attention.
I suspected a few parents weren’t happy that I was teaching their kid, and Evan’s mom, Ms. Lee, was the worst at concealing her disgust. According to Ms. Lee, Evan had been a well-behaved boy in 1st grade, and she seemed unconcerned he was such a problem now. If he truly was a well-behaved boy, then it was something I was doing wrong, she thought. In September, when he was upset, he liked to push back his feet, slide back on his chair and then topple over to the floor. He may have started out upset, but by the time he was swimming on the floor, he was smiling; the class was his audience, and he was the star. When I called home, this was her response, “I don’t know why he’s doing that. He didn’t do that last year. Is the other 2nd grade teacher a man also? Oh, she’s not. Ok.”
By this point I was starting to get a sense of the kids’ home lives, which gave me insight into their erratic behavior in the classroom. There was one time I called Evan’s mom, and I could only hear a man screaming at her in the background; I asked if I could call her back another time. Grandma James was convinced she was on crack, just by her appearance. When Ms. Lee came to school, she walked unsteadily with mangled hair and black rings under her eyes. Grandma James kept on mentioning how surprised she was that Evan wasn’t worse off. By this time, Evan was respecting me, and he was back to his pre-corrupted 1st grade behavior, I guess. However, Evan was still a fighter, and when his buttons were pushed, he went all out. When I broke up one of his rare fights, Evan started punching me. It wasn’t the first time he had done this, but I had to bring it up with her again, even though I knew it wouldn’t be worth it. After giving her the full details of what happened, including how her son hit me, she said, “Well, you shouldn’t ever lay hands on my boy anyhow.”
When Ryden’s mom came on conference day, I told her about how I caught him climbing a locker to pull down a bag of snacks during dismissal. I told him that he had to clean it up, but he refused, and so I told him he couldn’t leave the room until he cleaned it up. He pulled down all my book shelves and scattered my categorized books all over the room. I still wouldn’t let him leave until he picked up everything. I had to wait until his mom’s girlfriend came to pick him up an hour later before he actually cleaned everything up. As he was leaving, he stared me down, and it looked like he was going to spit in my face, but he held it back. He had learned nothing. In fact, he was getting meaner. When I told his mom the full story, I was really hoping she would be shocked. Instead she told me he does that kind of thing at home too. When he was upset, he liked to punch holes in her walls; she said she had seven holes so far. She was relying on school to get her son back on track; that’s ironic, I was relying on her.
For my very first parent teacher day, I spent hours preparing portfolios for all the kids, planning on all of the parents showing up. One parent came. So this year I spent my time scrubbing off marker stains and making copies, but this time, instead of one parent, seven parents came. I guess the constant phone calls were becoming too much. So much for the portfolios; I had to just wing it.
My first parent conference of the day was an embarrassing one, with a mom who demanded her daughter, Abigail, be more challenged. She was afraid that Abigail might not be prepared for 3rd grade. I completely agreed with her because there was a secret that I wasn’t telling any parents. Too many times, I let the slower kids dictate the pace of the class because they were the ones who gave me the biggest headaches; it was the smarter ones who were left with their wheels spinning. Abigail was extremely smart, but I just treated her as a girl who liked to talk and more importantly, as a girl who didn’t like to fight which meant she didn’t get much attention. She had also been held back, and she was the largest kid in class. She was a new student and with every new student, I judged them on their propensity for getting into fights. When a new kid walked in for her first day, I would protect her from the crazies for at least the first few days. I would sit the new kid in the least warlike table; sometimes I would put a sweet girl on both sides of the new kid. I would find a friend for the new kid, someone that was marginally cool with the bad kids, but was good enough that he would also listen to me. Then, over the next couple days, I would carefully watch the new kid’s reaction to the inevitable teasing. If she was quick to fight, I had to play prevent defense, and if they avoided fighting at all costs, then they didn’t get as much attention. Abigail didn’t get that much attention.
I suspected a few parents weren’t happy that I was teaching their kid, and Evan’s mom, Ms. Lee, was the worst at concealing her disgust. According to Ms. Lee, Evan had been a well-behaved boy in 1st grade, and she seemed unconcerned he was such a problem now. If he truly was a well-behaved boy, then it was something I was doing wrong, she thought. In September, when he was upset, he liked to push back his feet, slide back on his chair and then topple over to the floor. He may have started out upset, but by the time he was swimming on the floor, he was smiling; the class was his audience, and he was the star. When I called home, this was her response, “I don’t know why he’s doing that. He didn’t do that last year. Is the other 2nd grade teacher a man also? Oh, she’s not. Ok.”
By this point I was starting to get a sense of the kids’ home lives, which gave me insight into their erratic behavior in the classroom. There was one time I called Evan’s mom, and I could only hear a man screaming at her in the background; I asked if I could call her back another time. Grandma James was convinced she was on crack, just by her appearance. When Ms. Lee came to school, she walked unsteadily with mangled hair and black rings under her eyes. Grandma James kept on mentioning how surprised she was that Evan wasn’t worse off. By this time, Evan was respecting me, and he was back to his pre-corrupted 1st grade behavior, I guess. However, Evan was still a fighter, and when his buttons were pushed, he went all out. When I broke up one of his rare fights, Evan started punching me. It wasn’t the first time he had done this, but I had to bring it up with her again, even though I knew it wouldn’t be worth it. After giving her the full details of what happened, including how her son hit me, she said, “Well, you shouldn’t ever lay hands on my boy anyhow.”
When Ryden’s mom came on conference day, I told her about how I caught him climbing a locker to pull down a bag of snacks during dismissal. I told him that he had to clean it up, but he refused, and so I told him he couldn’t leave the room until he cleaned it up. He pulled down all my book shelves and scattered my categorized books all over the room. I still wouldn’t let him leave until he picked up everything. I had to wait until his mom’s girlfriend came to pick him up an hour later before he actually cleaned everything up. As he was leaving, he stared me down, and it looked like he was going to spit in my face, but he held it back. He had learned nothing. In fact, he was getting meaner. When I told his mom the full story, I was really hoping she would be shocked. Instead she told me he does that kind of thing at home too. When he was upset, he liked to punch holes in her walls; she said she had seven holes so far. She was relying on school to get her son back on track; that’s ironic, I was relying on her.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Mr. Barcik
There was only one teacher that I smiled in the halls; it was Mr. Barcik, the music teacher. Partly because he had just as many behavior problems in his classes as I did, and partly because we were both awkward white guys, I was often called Mr. Barcik and he was often called Mr. Slaughter by both students and staff. There was a moment our first year of teaching that I think solidified our relationship as the white guys who had no idea what was going on. There was a security guard, Officer Morrison, who took me under his wing to teach me the ways of behavior management. His way included a strong yell and phone calls home; both were big no-no’s in my handy dandy handbook.
One day during music class, Mr. Barcik called security for help because my kids, as usual, were terrorizing his classroom. Colin had grabbed one of the cymbals, and he was running around the classroom banging it as Lauren and Sean gleefully slammed their hands down on the piano. Just like me, Mr. Barcik had run after Colin a few times, trying to corner him unsuccessfully and then, defeated, he called security. I happened to be walking upstairs to pick up the kids, and there was no mistaking which room my kids were in. The screaming made the walls shake. When I arrived, security hadn’t come yet, so I tried to line up some of the kids to go even though it was clear they would much rather be in Mr. Barcik’s room. So when Sean wasn’t looking, I grabbed him and dragged him towards the line while Mr. Barcik grabbed and dragged Lauren. At least the piano playing stopped.
At this very moment, Officer Morrison came bumbling in and yelled, “What are you all doing! Get in line!”, and they all looked up and then straightened up, well, except for Colin, but by now everyone knew Colin was an exception. Colin was one of two kids in the whole school that was actually classified as emotionally disturbed, even though a quarter of the student body fit the qualifications. So when Officer Morrison saw the children line up so easily without complaint, he had an epiphany. Why did the kids act up with Mr. Slaughter and Mr. Barcik, but they listened to me? His answer was written on our faces; we were white, and he was black! So with his new discovery, he felt he had to share it with everyone, including the 2nd graders. As he started explaining our racial backgrounds, they nodded repetitively. “You see, there is a certain way that black people talk, and both Mr. Slaughter and Mr. Barcik talk in a white way, a more educated way.” This was when Mr. Barcik and I started to wince. He continued, “you all should listen and learn from them because they’ve come here to teach.” Both Mr. Barcik and I were too embarrassed to react; Officer Morrison both described himself and the black race by default as uneducated and then pointed at the elephant in the room--Mr. Barcik and I were white. Mr. Barcik and I pretended like it never happened.
This year, we were struggling again, and Barcik mentioned how my class had steamrolled him last week. I asked him, “Is my class the worst in the school?” He smiled, “Two years in a row.” At first, I took a little pride in the statement, and thought, “It isn’t me, it’s those darn kids.” It was a classic teacher line, and I was sticking to it. But it didn’t have the same crunch as last year, the line had gone stale.
One day during music class, Mr. Barcik called security for help because my kids, as usual, were terrorizing his classroom. Colin had grabbed one of the cymbals, and he was running around the classroom banging it as Lauren and Sean gleefully slammed their hands down on the piano. Just like me, Mr. Barcik had run after Colin a few times, trying to corner him unsuccessfully and then, defeated, he called security. I happened to be walking upstairs to pick up the kids, and there was no mistaking which room my kids were in. The screaming made the walls shake. When I arrived, security hadn’t come yet, so I tried to line up some of the kids to go even though it was clear they would much rather be in Mr. Barcik’s room. So when Sean wasn’t looking, I grabbed him and dragged him towards the line while Mr. Barcik grabbed and dragged Lauren. At least the piano playing stopped.
At this very moment, Officer Morrison came bumbling in and yelled, “What are you all doing! Get in line!”, and they all looked up and then straightened up, well, except for Colin, but by now everyone knew Colin was an exception. Colin was one of two kids in the whole school that was actually classified as emotionally disturbed, even though a quarter of the student body fit the qualifications. So when Officer Morrison saw the children line up so easily without complaint, he had an epiphany. Why did the kids act up with Mr. Slaughter and Mr. Barcik, but they listened to me? His answer was written on our faces; we were white, and he was black! So with his new discovery, he felt he had to share it with everyone, including the 2nd graders. As he started explaining our racial backgrounds, they nodded repetitively. “You see, there is a certain way that black people talk, and both Mr. Slaughter and Mr. Barcik talk in a white way, a more educated way.” This was when Mr. Barcik and I started to wince. He continued, “you all should listen and learn from them because they’ve come here to teach.” Both Mr. Barcik and I were too embarrassed to react; Officer Morrison both described himself and the black race by default as uneducated and then pointed at the elephant in the room--Mr. Barcik and I were white. Mr. Barcik and I pretended like it never happened.
This year, we were struggling again, and Barcik mentioned how my class had steamrolled him last week. I asked him, “Is my class the worst in the school?” He smiled, “Two years in a row.” At first, I took a little pride in the statement, and thought, “It isn’t me, it’s those darn kids.” It was a classic teacher line, and I was sticking to it. But it didn’t have the same crunch as last year, the line had gone stale.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
From crazies to kids
That night I did something I never do on a Friday. I planned for the next week. And instead of focusing on which phoneme I could work on, I thought about which kid I could work on.
Adam was in the top tier of misbehavior. He hated school. He never smiled, and he had no friends. He was easily set off, and he could tear apart the classroom with swiftness. Two weeks ago I had to call his mom three times until she showed up at the classroom door with a hand on her hip. I had sent him to CHOICE three times already, and after each time he left the classroom, he came back worse. At the end of the day, I sent him to time out for yelling at a classmate. Adam wasn't doing his work so he decided to bother Abigail. Abigail told him to shut up, and he told her he was going to slap her across the face.
When he was pouting in time out, until I saw him stand up and tear my class calendar in half, and then he swung the trashcan across the carpet--old pencil shavings covered the white tiles. He was standing there crying as she walked in. A fierce glare bore down on Adam, but he kept his head. She said, “I’ll talk to him.” When I explained why Adam was upset, she asked me why Adam wanted to slap Abigail.
"There must be a reason Mr. Slaughter."
“Well, he was bothering her and she told him to shut up.”
Her eyebrows rose; she grabbed Adam's arm and walked him into the hallway.
"Alright, Mr. Slaughter, he won't do it again."
It happened that the security guard was in the hallway when she was speaking with Adam. That afternoon she told me what was said. "She looked the boy straight in the eye and said, 'if anyone ever tells you to shut up, you pop 'em, alright?' That just ain't right, Mr. Slaughter."
Adam always wanted to be first. He didn’t care about how his writing sounded or how his pictures looked because effort took too much time; he just wanted to finish it, whatever it was. Every day we did writing, and every day I gave him a stapled stack of three sheets that had about five lines on each page. Every day he wrote the damn same story: “I went to the playground. It was fun. I went to the pool. It was fun. I went home. It was fun…” He wrote in huge letters so only a few words could fit per line. At first, I was sure he wanted to finish so he could have time to goof off, but he usually didn’t goof off when he was done; he just spaced out. When he finished, he looked around for a few seconds, and then he put his head down on the desk. Sometimes he played imaginary battles between two pencils.
Then someone had to say, “Wow Adam, are you done already?” He smiled a sheepish grin and shrugged his shoulders.
He was like a bottle rocket on the carpet. When I could get him to sit on the carpet, he would rock back and forth with his hand raised whenever I asked a question. If I called on someone else, he would yell out the answer as soon as I motioned to the other student. As I thought about him that night, I put the pieces together and realized he was just wanted to be first, not make my life miserable.
I shouldn't have changed my mind about the psychiatrist. But I did. The appointment was Monday morning, and I could have easily shifted my workday to fit it in because it was a teacher workday. After finishing a full week, I was cocky about my mental stability, and I decided I could just push off the psychiatrist to come home earlier. I thought journaling was all I needed at least until I could quit. I also thought it would only be few more days until my extended winter vacation. If my wife had the baby on Thursday (a week before her due date), then I might have four days left of teaching. Ever.
Adam was in the top tier of misbehavior. He hated school. He never smiled, and he had no friends. He was easily set off, and he could tear apart the classroom with swiftness. Two weeks ago I had to call his mom three times until she showed up at the classroom door with a hand on her hip. I had sent him to CHOICE three times already, and after each time he left the classroom, he came back worse. At the end of the day, I sent him to time out for yelling at a classmate. Adam wasn't doing his work so he decided to bother Abigail. Abigail told him to shut up, and he told her he was going to slap her across the face.
When he was pouting in time out, until I saw him stand up and tear my class calendar in half, and then he swung the trashcan across the carpet--old pencil shavings covered the white tiles. He was standing there crying as she walked in. A fierce glare bore down on Adam, but he kept his head. She said, “I’ll talk to him.” When I explained why Adam was upset, she asked me why Adam wanted to slap Abigail.
"There must be a reason Mr. Slaughter."
“Well, he was bothering her and she told him to shut up.”
Her eyebrows rose; she grabbed Adam's arm and walked him into the hallway.
"Alright, Mr. Slaughter, he won't do it again."
It happened that the security guard was in the hallway when she was speaking with Adam. That afternoon she told me what was said. "She looked the boy straight in the eye and said, 'if anyone ever tells you to shut up, you pop 'em, alright?' That just ain't right, Mr. Slaughter."
Adam always wanted to be first. He didn’t care about how his writing sounded or how his pictures looked because effort took too much time; he just wanted to finish it, whatever it was. Every day we did writing, and every day I gave him a stapled stack of three sheets that had about five lines on each page. Every day he wrote the damn same story: “I went to the playground. It was fun. I went to the pool. It was fun. I went home. It was fun…” He wrote in huge letters so only a few words could fit per line. At first, I was sure he wanted to finish so he could have time to goof off, but he usually didn’t goof off when he was done; he just spaced out. When he finished, he looked around for a few seconds, and then he put his head down on the desk. Sometimes he played imaginary battles between two pencils.
Then someone had to say, “Wow Adam, are you done already?” He smiled a sheepish grin and shrugged his shoulders.
He was like a bottle rocket on the carpet. When I could get him to sit on the carpet, he would rock back and forth with his hand raised whenever I asked a question. If I called on someone else, he would yell out the answer as soon as I motioned to the other student. As I thought about him that night, I put the pieces together and realized he was just wanted to be first, not make my life miserable.
I shouldn't have changed my mind about the psychiatrist. But I did. The appointment was Monday morning, and I could have easily shifted my workday to fit it in because it was a teacher workday. After finishing a full week, I was cocky about my mental stability, and I decided I could just push off the psychiatrist to come home earlier. I thought journaling was all I needed at least until I could quit. I also thought it would only be few more days until my extended winter vacation. If my wife had the baby on Thursday (a week before her due date), then I might have four days left of teaching. Ever.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
The Full Week- Pushing Through to Friday
Wednesday
On Wednesday the roller coaster swept right back down to Monday’s low. I thought it was my anger and glare that caused the golden 15 minutes of silence so I ratcheted it up. If I was pissed off on Tuesday, this morning I was on fire, yelling and screaming at every little thing, “Keep your eyes on the book! Do you want recess?!” The kids were less confused and more despondent, and I was losing my own sense of control. Grandma James pulled me aside, “Calm down, Mr. Slaughter. All you keep on yelling is ‘SILENCE!’ Let the kids be kids. They are going to talk a little.” During my lunch break, I started thinking about my job search again, and I widened my search to more obscure jobs. I even applied to a job at the Zoo; I’d happily pick up poop every day. I wrote it over and over again in my journal: “I want to be home.” At least I was being honest.
I could tell you a hundred reasons why my behavior system was failing, but there was no way I could view it rationally. My fear of complete failure was making me second guess everything I was doing. It was fear that told me every inch that I gained was precious, and if there was any slip, I just might crash. I had read and reread at least a half dozen self-help management books telling me all the different things I should try out, and then there was my insane class screaming that those methods meant nothing. I just inched myself along the tight rope with an abyss below and what felt like a shotgun behind.
That afternoon actually went better. The journaling was helping me calm down, and somewhere along that roller-coaster ride, my kids figured it was time to take a break. Maybe they were getting just as dizzy I was.
Thursday
By Thursday, I was getting closer to the end of the week, and I couldn’t even think about reaching it, out of fear that I would jinx it. Due to a combination of holidays and mental health days, I hadn’t made it a full week since the first week of November. Everything was going decently until the afternoon. Laila was back from her suspension for choking Tybee, and this time Laila was going after Anna. Anna was another cute girl in the class who had a lot of the boys’ attention. In the beginning of the year, I didn’t really like Anna because she couldn’t stop talking. By this time, I had moved her to a corner all by herself; she still managed to write notes and make hand gestures just to keep up with the latest gossip. At recess, she lead cheers with the girls on the sidelines of the boys’ football games. Laila usually tried to take over the cheer game, but her cheers weren’t that good--she wasn't that good at rhyming. Anna left the game with most of the girls following right behind her, and Laila was alone. When they were back in my class, Anna kept on looking up from her writing to bat eyes at Evan who sat right next to Laila. It was too much for Laila, and she leaned up on Evan, “What do you think of my drawing?” Evan ignored her.
Then Laila announced,“Evan wants to kiss Anna!”
“No I don’t!”
“Did you hear that Anna, he doesn’t want to kiss you because your breath stinks!”
Anna muttered under her breath, “Not like your momma’s.” Too bad it was just loud enough for half the class to hear it, including Laila.
Laila walked up to Anna’s desk, threw Anna’s writing on the floor, and stood there. It was clear, Laila wanted a fight. But Anna didn’t flinch. She might have been holding back tears, but she kept her head up. As I waited on hold for security, Laila raised her shoe and smudged dirt on Anna’s desk. Laila was begging for a fight, but Anna continued to just sit there. “Anna how about you sit with Tybee until security comes.” Immediately Anna gabbed with Tybee about whatever daily gossip as if nothing had happened, but it was too much for Laila. She walked over to Anna’s table again and raised her foot again. I kind of wished Anna would grab that foot and yank it over her shoulder, but Anna kept on talking with Tybee. With Laila’s back to me, I managed to sneak up behind and grab her wrist. Security arrived 30 minutes later and Laila was kicking and screaming obscenities at Anna while I held her on the carpet. Even though my anxiety was clouding my vision, something positive was emerging in the classroom. Both Anna and Tybee were standing up for themselves. But I still needed to stand up for myself.
After Thursday was done, there was just one more day to finish the full week, and I started to think about ways to get out again. In my journal, I wrote these exact words, “We should do a map tomorrow and math games... I don’t think I can make it. What I would do just to escape…” There was one voice trying to stay positive, “you can do this!” but the other voice knew it was a lie. I had promised myself that I would be honest in my journaling, and it appeared that there was one safe and mandatory choice: I had to quit.
Friday
It was 8:37am, and I had to pick up the kids in three minutes. This is what I wrote: “I WANT OUT. GET ME OUT! ANXIETY IS KILLING ME!! Calm down… calm down. It’s going to be okay. It’s only one day. On Monday you’ll have the psychiatrist. It’s okay.” I had an appointment with a psychiatrist on Monday, and I hoped the appointment was just the thing to save me. The morning went decently, but I had to get treats during my lunch break for the grab bag that afternoon. As I was in the car driving, I wrote in hardly legible writing, “I’m in the car, and it’s back!! I need to QUIT. Come on Slaughter get a grip. Don’t let 7 year olds ruin your life… YOU CAN DO THIS!” Not only was I driving, but I was also stuffing a sandwich down with one hand, and writing with the other. I was in Memento, but instead of trying to find a killer, I was running from one.
I made it through the afternoon, and yes, I made it through a full week. Instead of cheering after getting off the roller coaster, I threw up. I knew that it was only two days before I had to get right back on it.
On Wednesday the roller coaster swept right back down to Monday’s low. I thought it was my anger and glare that caused the golden 15 minutes of silence so I ratcheted it up. If I was pissed off on Tuesday, this morning I was on fire, yelling and screaming at every little thing, “Keep your eyes on the book! Do you want recess?!” The kids were less confused and more despondent, and I was losing my own sense of control. Grandma James pulled me aside, “Calm down, Mr. Slaughter. All you keep on yelling is ‘SILENCE!’ Let the kids be kids. They are going to talk a little.” During my lunch break, I started thinking about my job search again, and I widened my search to more obscure jobs. I even applied to a job at the Zoo; I’d happily pick up poop every day. I wrote it over and over again in my journal: “I want to be home.” At least I was being honest.
I could tell you a hundred reasons why my behavior system was failing, but there was no way I could view it rationally. My fear of complete failure was making me second guess everything I was doing. It was fear that told me every inch that I gained was precious, and if there was any slip, I just might crash. I had read and reread at least a half dozen self-help management books telling me all the different things I should try out, and then there was my insane class screaming that those methods meant nothing. I just inched myself along the tight rope with an abyss below and what felt like a shotgun behind.
That afternoon actually went better. The journaling was helping me calm down, and somewhere along that roller-coaster ride, my kids figured it was time to take a break. Maybe they were getting just as dizzy I was.
Thursday
By Thursday, I was getting closer to the end of the week, and I couldn’t even think about reaching it, out of fear that I would jinx it. Due to a combination of holidays and mental health days, I hadn’t made it a full week since the first week of November. Everything was going decently until the afternoon. Laila was back from her suspension for choking Tybee, and this time Laila was going after Anna. Anna was another cute girl in the class who had a lot of the boys’ attention. In the beginning of the year, I didn’t really like Anna because she couldn’t stop talking. By this time, I had moved her to a corner all by herself; she still managed to write notes and make hand gestures just to keep up with the latest gossip. At recess, she lead cheers with the girls on the sidelines of the boys’ football games. Laila usually tried to take over the cheer game, but her cheers weren’t that good--she wasn't that good at rhyming. Anna left the game with most of the girls following right behind her, and Laila was alone. When they were back in my class, Anna kept on looking up from her writing to bat eyes at Evan who sat right next to Laila. It was too much for Laila, and she leaned up on Evan, “What do you think of my drawing?” Evan ignored her.
Then Laila announced,“Evan wants to kiss Anna!”
“No I don’t!”
“Did you hear that Anna, he doesn’t want to kiss you because your breath stinks!”
Anna muttered under her breath, “Not like your momma’s.” Too bad it was just loud enough for half the class to hear it, including Laila.
Laila walked up to Anna’s desk, threw Anna’s writing on the floor, and stood there. It was clear, Laila wanted a fight. But Anna didn’t flinch. She might have been holding back tears, but she kept her head up. As I waited on hold for security, Laila raised her shoe and smudged dirt on Anna’s desk. Laila was begging for a fight, but Anna continued to just sit there. “Anna how about you sit with Tybee until security comes.” Immediately Anna gabbed with Tybee about whatever daily gossip as if nothing had happened, but it was too much for Laila. She walked over to Anna’s table again and raised her foot again. I kind of wished Anna would grab that foot and yank it over her shoulder, but Anna kept on talking with Tybee. With Laila’s back to me, I managed to sneak up behind and grab her wrist. Security arrived 30 minutes later and Laila was kicking and screaming obscenities at Anna while I held her on the carpet. Even though my anxiety was clouding my vision, something positive was emerging in the classroom. Both Anna and Tybee were standing up for themselves. But I still needed to stand up for myself.
After Thursday was done, there was just one more day to finish the full week, and I started to think about ways to get out again. In my journal, I wrote these exact words, “We should do a map tomorrow and math games... I don’t think I can make it. What I would do just to escape…” There was one voice trying to stay positive, “you can do this!” but the other voice knew it was a lie. I had promised myself that I would be honest in my journaling, and it appeared that there was one safe and mandatory choice: I had to quit.
Friday
It was 8:37am, and I had to pick up the kids in three minutes. This is what I wrote: “I WANT OUT. GET ME OUT! ANXIETY IS KILLING ME!! Calm down… calm down. It’s going to be okay. It’s only one day. On Monday you’ll have the psychiatrist. It’s okay.” I had an appointment with a psychiatrist on Monday, and I hoped the appointment was just the thing to save me. The morning went decently, but I had to get treats during my lunch break for the grab bag that afternoon. As I was in the car driving, I wrote in hardly legible writing, “I’m in the car, and it’s back!! I need to QUIT. Come on Slaughter get a grip. Don’t let 7 year olds ruin your life… YOU CAN DO THIS!” Not only was I driving, but I was also stuffing a sandwich down with one hand, and writing with the other. I was in Memento, but instead of trying to find a killer, I was running from one.
I made it through the afternoon, and yes, I made it through a full week. Instead of cheering after getting off the roller coaster, I threw up. I knew that it was only two days before I had to get right back on it.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Full Week- Tuesday
First thing Tuesday morning, the kids had a library special, so I walked them up to the room to drop off their coats and book bags, and then we turned right back around and walked back downstairs to the library. I was silent the entire time; I was pissed off. The previous afternoon was really bad, and there was no way I could hide how I felt about it. We had horrible afternoons all the time, and each time I had a similar attitude for the next day, “here we go again.” But this time it was different, it got to me. It seemed like most kids didn’t even remember what happened on Monday, probably thinking, “Why is he angry now? We’ve been doing this to him all year.”
However, after the huge dip on Monday, Tuesday was good. After coming back from the library, we sat down on the carpet, read a story, and I had the students copy a paragraph-long writing prompt from the board onto lined paper. I told them to take their time, write with good handwriting, and think and respond to the questions I had asked. All of these were normal teacher expectations, but I never really expected them to do it. I usually just went throught the motions. But this time, as I paced the room with my eyes burning, the students kept their eyes on their work, and there wasn’t a sound. Silence in the first five minutes wasn’t too shocking because they were only copying what I had written. When they were silent the second five minutes, I guessed they had listened to the book and knew some answers to put down. When they were silent the third five minutes, I didn’t know what to think. It was the longest moment of complete silence I had ever had over two years of teaching.
However, after the huge dip on Monday, Tuesday was good. After coming back from the library, we sat down on the carpet, read a story, and I had the students copy a paragraph-long writing prompt from the board onto lined paper. I told them to take their time, write with good handwriting, and think and respond to the questions I had asked. All of these were normal teacher expectations, but I never really expected them to do it. I usually just went throught the motions. But this time, as I paced the room with my eyes burning, the students kept their eyes on their work, and there wasn’t a sound. Silence in the first five minutes wasn’t too shocking because they were only copying what I had written. When they were silent the second five minutes, I guessed they had listened to the book and knew some answers to put down. When they were silent the third five minutes, I didn’t know what to think. It was the longest moment of complete silence I had ever had over two years of teaching.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
My Management System
When I started my second year, I set my rules, I set my consequences for breaking the rules, and it was working. It was so simple, and it was working, so I stuck to it. But then there were so many infractions, I became overwhelmed with all the consequences. Students were asked to apologize, shake hands, hug, make apology cards, and clean up messes, but the consequences weren’t affecting the behaviors. In fact, things were only getting more out of control.
So after four weeks, I switched up. I brought in the elaborate system of stickers, rewards, and phone calls. Everyone’s name was on a board, and I wrote a letter for each time students did something great. If they earned five letters by the end of the day, it would spell GREAT, and they would get a sticker on a chart. If the students received three stickers in the week, then on Friday, they got to pick something from the magic grab bag. If they got twelve stickers in a month, then they received a ticket to a class party. When they were bad, I erased letters. When all their letters were erased, then they got an X, and after three Xs, it was a phone call. I tried to run this system as perfectly as I could because I believed it was the system that would save me. I let the system dictate how I managed the class because I couldn’t trust my own instincts; I had failed too many times. It worked for some, but it really didn’t work for most.
Ryden was a student who was smart enough to use GREAT to play me. When I took away one of his letters, he typically slammed both hands on his desk, gripping the corners tightly as if he was steadying his launch to charge me and stuff the dry erase marker down my throat. He grunted, “Put back the letter.” Any normal teacher would say, “You don’t demand anything from me, you sit down and do your work or it’s another letter!”
The problem was that I had already done that many times. I had called Ryden’s family again and again, but they stopped picking up. There were was one day I left three messages for three different instances of extreme behavior. One time, when I called his mom, in front of him and the whole class, I left the message, and then, he smiled, “She doesn’t give a s--- about your phone calls.” I called her right back and left another message, “Ms. Valrie, I just thought you should know Ryden just told me and the whole class you don’t give a s-h-i-t about my phone calls.” Ryden had reduced me to a twenty-seven-year old tattle tale.
Plus, losing letters only caused Ryden to get more enraged. Imagine that. The assumption behind the system was that misbehaving students wanted to earn their letter back. When the teacher erased a letter, then the student would get right to work to earn it back as quickly as possible. For most of my students, losing a letter was a public slap in the face, and the only response they knew was to retaliate. I was trapped in the logic of the system so I tried to negotiate a truce, “Alright, Ryden, just sit back down, get back to your work and you’ll get your letter back…” He would sit down, slowly, with his eyes still on the board, making sure I honored the promise. And just as his pencil touched the paper and I rewrote his letter, he crept back out of his seat, and the game began again.
So after four weeks, I switched up. I brought in the elaborate system of stickers, rewards, and phone calls. Everyone’s name was on a board, and I wrote a letter for each time students did something great. If they earned five letters by the end of the day, it would spell GREAT, and they would get a sticker on a chart. If the students received three stickers in the week, then on Friday, they got to pick something from the magic grab bag. If they got twelve stickers in a month, then they received a ticket to a class party. When they were bad, I erased letters. When all their letters were erased, then they got an X, and after three Xs, it was a phone call. I tried to run this system as perfectly as I could because I believed it was the system that would save me. I let the system dictate how I managed the class because I couldn’t trust my own instincts; I had failed too many times. It worked for some, but it really didn’t work for most.
Ryden was a student who was smart enough to use GREAT to play me. When I took away one of his letters, he typically slammed both hands on his desk, gripping the corners tightly as if he was steadying his launch to charge me and stuff the dry erase marker down my throat. He grunted, “Put back the letter.” Any normal teacher would say, “You don’t demand anything from me, you sit down and do your work or it’s another letter!”
The problem was that I had already done that many times. I had called Ryden’s family again and again, but they stopped picking up. There were was one day I left three messages for three different instances of extreme behavior. One time, when I called his mom, in front of him and the whole class, I left the message, and then, he smiled, “She doesn’t give a s--- about your phone calls.” I called her right back and left another message, “Ms. Valrie, I just thought you should know Ryden just told me and the whole class you don’t give a s-h-i-t about my phone calls.” Ryden had reduced me to a twenty-seven-year old tattle tale.
Plus, losing letters only caused Ryden to get more enraged. Imagine that. The assumption behind the system was that misbehaving students wanted to earn their letter back. When the teacher erased a letter, then the student would get right to work to earn it back as quickly as possible. For most of my students, losing a letter was a public slap in the face, and the only response they knew was to retaliate. I was trapped in the logic of the system so I tried to negotiate a truce, “Alright, Ryden, just sit back down, get back to your work and you’ll get your letter back…” He would sit down, slowly, with his eyes still on the board, making sure I honored the promise. And just as his pencil touched the paper and I rewrote his letter, he crept back out of his seat, and the game began again.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday (part 2)
With half of my class off-task already, I was indebted to afternoon PE . But PE only lasted until 2:30; 45 minutes remained until the dismissal bell. By this time Ryden and Adam had had their fun; now it was Laila’s turn. She had her scope set on Tybee, both the smartest and the smallest girl in the class. Tybee sat towards the back of the room and quietly did her work in the midst of a carnival. She rarely asked any questions because she almost always knew how to do it, and she never complained. She finished whatever work I gave her, then she spent the remainder of the lesson making cards for her mom, or brother, or what seemed like a different person every week. For the past week, Tybee had been talking a lot with Quint, and Quint was a popular type, played quarterback on the local team. Most of my kids just accepted that they were a couple now that Tybee was sitting next to Quint at lunch. Laila couldn’t stop noticing.
Laila was one of my most difficult kids. She was very quick to fight, but she didn't lose control like the others--she was more calculated. In the beginning of the year, teachers had told me that she wasn’t coming back to Daley so I didn’t need to worry about her. But by the second week, she was there. I talked to Laila’s mom too many times about her tendency to fight, and each time she let out a small sigh, “I don’t know what to do with that child.”
During PE, Laila had told Tybee she was ugly, and that Quint didn't like her. Now they were both in class and Laila stared at Tybee from across the room, Tybee looked close to tears. Tybee finally yelled, “What?” Laila responded, “How about you shut up before I make you shut up.” There was a quiet “ooh” that flowed from one side of the class to the other. I hoped it would end there because Tybee would never take on Laila. Tybee had never risen her voice, let alone her fists. Laila had no trouble taking on boys. But then Tybee muttered, “You can’t tell me to shut-up, you’re not my mom.” All of a sudden, everything slowed down. Everyone’s look said the same thing, “did she really just say that?” All eyes turned to Laila now, and now she had the spotlight. There was only one thing to do. She shot up out of her seat towards Tybee. I frantically pushed through chairs and tables to reach Laila before she got to Tybee. I was too late. Tybee turned her chair away and lowered her face into her arms to avoid a direct punch, but Laila just pulled her braids down so hard that she pulled her down to the floor backwards. Then she jumped on her stomach and started choking her. Laila wasn't actually choking her. She had her hands around Tybee’s neck. But she wasn’t squeezing. You see, Laila was only doing it for the show. She showed Tybee that she could hurt her, and she showed the whole class that no one talks back to her. But she was in complete control.
That evening at the grocery store I decided to check my blood pressure. My reading was at 160/80, meaning I had stage 2 hypertension. I shouldn't have been so surprised. Grandma Lewis had been telling me I was on my a stroke.
Laila was one of my most difficult kids. She was very quick to fight, but she didn't lose control like the others--she was more calculated. In the beginning of the year, teachers had told me that she wasn’t coming back to Daley so I didn’t need to worry about her. But by the second week, she was there. I talked to Laila’s mom too many times about her tendency to fight, and each time she let out a small sigh, “I don’t know what to do with that child.”
During PE, Laila had told Tybee she was ugly, and that Quint didn't like her. Now they were both in class and Laila stared at Tybee from across the room, Tybee looked close to tears. Tybee finally yelled, “What?” Laila responded, “How about you shut up before I make you shut up.” There was a quiet “ooh” that flowed from one side of the class to the other. I hoped it would end there because Tybee would never take on Laila. Tybee had never risen her voice, let alone her fists. Laila had no trouble taking on boys. But then Tybee muttered, “You can’t tell me to shut-up, you’re not my mom.” All of a sudden, everything slowed down. Everyone’s look said the same thing, “did she really just say that?” All eyes turned to Laila now, and now she had the spotlight. There was only one thing to do. She shot up out of her seat towards Tybee. I frantically pushed through chairs and tables to reach Laila before she got to Tybee. I was too late. Tybee turned her chair away and lowered her face into her arms to avoid a direct punch, but Laila just pulled her braids down so hard that she pulled her down to the floor backwards. Then she jumped on her stomach and started choking her. Laila wasn't actually choking her. She had her hands around Tybee’s neck. But she wasn’t squeezing. You see, Laila was only doing it for the show. She showed Tybee that she could hurt her, and she showed the whole class that no one talks back to her. But she was in complete control.
That evening at the grocery store I decided to check my blood pressure. My reading was at 160/80, meaning I had stage 2 hypertension. I shouldn't have been so surprised. Grandma Lewis had been telling me I was on my a stroke.
Monday, March 28, 2011
The Full Week- Monday
Sunday Night
Thanksgiving break was great, but also quick. The first day of a long and full week was approaching like a battering ram. I had planned out the week, still trying to believe that the better the plans were, the better my class might behave. It was a belief that was drilled into my head every day of grad school, “you won’t have to worry about behavior management when your lessons are engaging; trust us, we know.” After a few weeks of trusting them, I learned that engaging lessons failed just like boring ones, but with a bigger mess to clean up. When I read over my plans a second time, it was like I was right back to where I started, my first day as a teacher. If I wanted things to improve, then screw the plan. I had to ratchet up the anger, maybe that would work. I would be the Hulk if it meant people would shut up and do their math.
I mentioned to my wife that maybe the anxiety was passing, and there was no need to see a psychiatrist. She had her doubts. She knew how bad off I had been and said it would only take one bad day to send me right back into the same hole. I had to stop the the kids from controlling my life, but I didn’t know how. If I wanted to be happy, then they needed to be good, and if I wanted them to be good, then I guess I needed to be mean.
Monday
Unfortunately, my wife proved prophetic and that Monday turned out to be the bad day she was talking about. I started the morning by talking about the huge Christmas Party that we would have in the middle of December. I told them they had to earn 3 stickers per week to go to this party of all parties, but by this time of the year, they knew better: do whatever you want, just don’t piss off Mr. Slaughter on party day. For most of my troublemakers, stickers meant nothing, but it meant just a little something to Adam because his mom sometimes asked him about it. I always reminded him about his mom picking him up to keep him motivated, but this Monday he was not going to earn a sticker. In my class, if you were going to fail, you might as well fail big.
Adam started his trouble because of Ryden. Ryden was smart, but when he came upon something he didn’t know how to do, he didn't ask me, he just copied someone else’s work. Amelia was quietly doing her math when Ryden looked over her shoulder, but she pulled out a folder to block him. So, as any reasonable second grader would do, he started running from table to table, trying to find the answers from other people in the class. Adam thought this looked like a fun game so he got up also and started bothering other tables. “Boys, if you don’t take a seat, then you will receive a 0 on your work.” Bad move, don’t threaten something you don’t want to do. They ignored me - all eyes were on me now. “Alright, you are both getting 0s, and that means I’ll have to talk to your parents about your grades in math.” Well, there goes that consequence. Nothing left to threaten.
Adam turned to me, “I don’t care.” And he ripped up his math packet. Sheets of paper were strewn all over the floor. Anna huffed and rolled her eyes at him, so he picked up her packet, and started running around the room with it. He and Ryden played monkey in the middle with Anna and her math packet, and Evan yelled out, “Ha Anna, you too slow!”
Now Evan liked Anna, and like most 2nd graders, he thought that teasing her was the best way to show her he cared about her. I had the same problem when I was in 2nd grade. Anna glared at Evan, “You shut up!”
This was a serious declaration in Daley. Evan had to step out of his chair or he couldn't show up to school the next day. “No, you shut up.” Evan moved towards Anna. It’s obvious he didn’t want to fight with the girl he liked, but her public insult had left him no choice. Anna went charging at Evan because she was already on the edge. With fists in the air, I had to jet between them before something horrible happened. Evan was a solid fighter, but it was Anna who just might have clawed his eyes out. If it's strength versus crazy, always bet on crazy. So I ended up putting Anna in time out, while Ryden and Adam jumped up and down because now they had taken Anna’s paper. And she was in time out as result of it. They effectively controlled the classroom. And I called security, but security never came.
By now, no one cared about their math work anymore, so with a hoarse voice and vein popping out, I yelled .that all their parents were coming next Monday for Parent Teacher day. "I will show them the behavior chart so they'll find out."
I had a behavior chart that marked their daily progress. Five kids got stars every day. 15 kids got stars every once in a while. Five kids never got them. Unfortunately, we all knew their parents weren’t planning on showing up on Monday. I had shown all my cards, and it was only 2:00.
Thanksgiving break was great, but also quick. The first day of a long and full week was approaching like a battering ram. I had planned out the week, still trying to believe that the better the plans were, the better my class might behave. It was a belief that was drilled into my head every day of grad school, “you won’t have to worry about behavior management when your lessons are engaging; trust us, we know.” After a few weeks of trusting them, I learned that engaging lessons failed just like boring ones, but with a bigger mess to clean up. When I read over my plans a second time, it was like I was right back to where I started, my first day as a teacher. If I wanted things to improve, then screw the plan. I had to ratchet up the anger, maybe that would work. I would be the Hulk if it meant people would shut up and do their math.
I mentioned to my wife that maybe the anxiety was passing, and there was no need to see a psychiatrist. She had her doubts. She knew how bad off I had been and said it would only take one bad day to send me right back into the same hole. I had to stop the the kids from controlling my life, but I didn’t know how. If I wanted to be happy, then they needed to be good, and if I wanted them to be good, then I guess I needed to be mean.
Monday
Unfortunately, my wife proved prophetic and that Monday turned out to be the bad day she was talking about. I started the morning by talking about the huge Christmas Party that we would have in the middle of December. I told them they had to earn 3 stickers per week to go to this party of all parties, but by this time of the year, they knew better: do whatever you want, just don’t piss off Mr. Slaughter on party day. For most of my troublemakers, stickers meant nothing, but it meant just a little something to Adam because his mom sometimes asked him about it. I always reminded him about his mom picking him up to keep him motivated, but this Monday he was not going to earn a sticker. In my class, if you were going to fail, you might as well fail big.
Adam started his trouble because of Ryden. Ryden was smart, but when he came upon something he didn’t know how to do, he didn't ask me, he just copied someone else’s work. Amelia was quietly doing her math when Ryden looked over her shoulder, but she pulled out a folder to block him. So, as any reasonable second grader would do, he started running from table to table, trying to find the answers from other people in the class. Adam thought this looked like a fun game so he got up also and started bothering other tables. “Boys, if you don’t take a seat, then you will receive a 0 on your work.” Bad move, don’t threaten something you don’t want to do. They ignored me - all eyes were on me now. “Alright, you are both getting 0s, and that means I’ll have to talk to your parents about your grades in math.” Well, there goes that consequence. Nothing left to threaten.
Adam turned to me, “I don’t care.” And he ripped up his math packet. Sheets of paper were strewn all over the floor. Anna huffed and rolled her eyes at him, so he picked up her packet, and started running around the room with it. He and Ryden played monkey in the middle with Anna and her math packet, and Evan yelled out, “Ha Anna, you too slow!”
Now Evan liked Anna, and like most 2nd graders, he thought that teasing her was the best way to show her he cared about her. I had the same problem when I was in 2nd grade. Anna glared at Evan, “You shut up!”
This was a serious declaration in Daley. Evan had to step out of his chair or he couldn't show up to school the next day. “No, you shut up.” Evan moved towards Anna. It’s obvious he didn’t want to fight with the girl he liked, but her public insult had left him no choice. Anna went charging at Evan because she was already on the edge. With fists in the air, I had to jet between them before something horrible happened. Evan was a solid fighter, but it was Anna who just might have clawed his eyes out. If it's strength versus crazy, always bet on crazy. So I ended up putting Anna in time out, while Ryden and Adam jumped up and down because now they had taken Anna’s paper. And she was in time out as result of it. They effectively controlled the classroom. And I called security, but security never came.
By now, no one cared about their math work anymore, so with a hoarse voice and vein popping out, I yelled .that all their parents were coming next Monday for Parent Teacher day. "I will show them the behavior chart so they'll find out."
I had a behavior chart that marked their daily progress. Five kids got stars every day. 15 kids got stars every once in a while. Five kids never got them. Unfortunately, we all knew their parents weren’t planning on showing up on Monday. I had shown all my cards, and it was only 2:00.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Ms. Price
Thanksgiving break gave me some perspective. I stepped back and noticed there were something that just didn’t seem right. By now I knew the administration had given up on me, but why did I go to the principal when I should have been talking with the other second grade teacher, Ms. Price? After meeting her, you would think, “what a wonderful teacher!” She acted older than her age and she never told anyone hold she was. I'm sure she had dreams of being a principal. She was probably 28, but she wanted to be 35. She started out as a Teach For America teacher at another school, and she had been recruited by Franklin to come to Daley.
My first year of teaching I knew Ms. Price was a great teacher because whenever there were visitors to the school, they were directed to her classroom. She also seemed great with her kids. She was so close with one of her tough kids that he came to school during the teacher work days just to spend time with her. At the end of the year, he came into school to help her pack away all the teacher materials for the new school. That was when Franklin told me that both Ms. Price and Ms. Johnson wanted to teach 2nd grade with me, and he asked me who I would prefer.
They both seemed fine, but I did tell him there was one teacher I really admired, Ms. Lee. My first year she was a frequent visitor at my door to see how I was doing. She let me vent about the day, and then she offered one or two things to try out. She was a mid-30s, well-rounded, black woman, and she had a grace about her. Ms. Lee was staying with her grade, but I told Franklin I wanted whichever teacher he thought was more like her. Ms. Price and Ms. Lee both taught 4th grade. He picked Ms. Price.
As soon as we both found out, we sat down and scribbled down dates when we could meet over the summer to plan out units. I barely did any planning with my first co-teacher because we were both drowning, so this was new for me. I knew Price was a solid teacher, but she had never taught second grade, so I figured our planning sessions would be a nice back and forth discussion about what was best for second graders. It wasn’t; she talked, and I wrote down notes as fast as I could. Whenever there was something that I wanted to add, she’d usually say, “Well, you can do that if you want.” Still, we were determined to make the second grade the best grade in the school.
But by October, our two classes combined made us the worst. She had a class full of troublemakers much worse than my own; hers had been in so much trouble that they already had reputations and labels before they stepped in the door. One day, I could see through the door window that her class was quietly reading on bean bags, and then I heard a book fall and a loud scream, and then her front door slammed. It was one of her tiny boys, Nico, who must have been teased about something. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and he was screaming, a high-pitched scream that should have caused teachers from every room in the hall to come running out, but no one did. By now, they knew Nico and his piercing scream. Then, I saw Price look through the door window with her cell phone pressed upon her ear. Her door was already locked, and she purposely made the phone call right by the door window so he could see. Then Nico picked up the abandoned security chair and threw it at her door. She just pointed at the security cameras with a smile on her face. It was like my class, but I couldn't smile about it.
She had her own problems, and I had mine, and she kept her distance. Whenever the crap hit the fan last year, Ms. Ward, my old co-teacher, ran over to my room during her lunch break, “Did you hear Daniel screaming this morning?! That boy is driving me insane! I can’t sleep, Jeremy. Even my family is wondering why I’m wasting my time here.”
But Price never opened up about how horrible things were going in her class. It was strange because she wasn’t hiding anything; we all knew it was bad. She overemphasized how much her kids were learning. In the midst of a shit storm, how could she talk about how wonderful it all was?
So I started to blame her. Franklin picked her as a mentor for me because I was the struggling newbie who had a waste of a first year. Why was she smiling as I was drowning? I didn’t find out until spring, but there were something she wasn’t telling me.
My first year of teaching I knew Ms. Price was a great teacher because whenever there were visitors to the school, they were directed to her classroom. She also seemed great with her kids. She was so close with one of her tough kids that he came to school during the teacher work days just to spend time with her. At the end of the year, he came into school to help her pack away all the teacher materials for the new school. That was when Franklin told me that both Ms. Price and Ms. Johnson wanted to teach 2nd grade with me, and he asked me who I would prefer.
They both seemed fine, but I did tell him there was one teacher I really admired, Ms. Lee. My first year she was a frequent visitor at my door to see how I was doing. She let me vent about the day, and then she offered one or two things to try out. She was a mid-30s, well-rounded, black woman, and she had a grace about her. Ms. Lee was staying with her grade, but I told Franklin I wanted whichever teacher he thought was more like her. Ms. Price and Ms. Lee both taught 4th grade. He picked Ms. Price.
As soon as we both found out, we sat down and scribbled down dates when we could meet over the summer to plan out units. I barely did any planning with my first co-teacher because we were both drowning, so this was new for me. I knew Price was a solid teacher, but she had never taught second grade, so I figured our planning sessions would be a nice back and forth discussion about what was best for second graders. It wasn’t; she talked, and I wrote down notes as fast as I could. Whenever there was something that I wanted to add, she’d usually say, “Well, you can do that if you want.” Still, we were determined to make the second grade the best grade in the school.
But by October, our two classes combined made us the worst. She had a class full of troublemakers much worse than my own; hers had been in so much trouble that they already had reputations and labels before they stepped in the door. One day, I could see through the door window that her class was quietly reading on bean bags, and then I heard a book fall and a loud scream, and then her front door slammed. It was one of her tiny boys, Nico, who must have been teased about something. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and he was screaming, a high-pitched scream that should have caused teachers from every room in the hall to come running out, but no one did. By now, they knew Nico and his piercing scream. Then, I saw Price look through the door window with her cell phone pressed upon her ear. Her door was already locked, and she purposely made the phone call right by the door window so he could see. Then Nico picked up the abandoned security chair and threw it at her door. She just pointed at the security cameras with a smile on her face. It was like my class, but I couldn't smile about it.
She had her own problems, and I had mine, and she kept her distance. Whenever the crap hit the fan last year, Ms. Ward, my old co-teacher, ran over to my room during her lunch break, “Did you hear Daniel screaming this morning?! That boy is driving me insane! I can’t sleep, Jeremy. Even my family is wondering why I’m wasting my time here.”
But Price never opened up about how horrible things were going in her class. It was strange because she wasn’t hiding anything; we all knew it was bad. She overemphasized how much her kids were learning. In the midst of a shit storm, how could she talk about how wonderful it all was?
So I started to blame her. Franklin picked her as a mentor for me because I was the struggling newbie who had a waste of a first year. Why was she smiling as I was drowning? I didn’t find out until spring, but there were something she wasn’t telling me.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
THANKSGIVING BREAK
I spent the Thanksgiving Break with my wife’s family, and I finally experienced a pause in the constant flow of school thoughts. I watched football while my wife went shopping with the girls, and instead of thinking about Ryden, I was thinking about Detroit, who were bound to lose because they always lost on Thanksgiving.
As dismal as last week was, it was still a improvement. But for anyone who might walk into my class, it was chaos.
On the last day before break I had a cupcake party for all the kids who had earned enough stickers over the month. The party was virtually for the whole clas even thought most did not deserve it. I even let the bad kids come if they acted nice to me the day of the party. It was one of the many teacher sins that I committed just to keep a semblance of sanity. My kids were smart, they knew the tricks, but Gracyn pushed me too far. Gracyn had spent most of the day in the CHOICE room, and he was excused to my room right at the end of the day. Because he broke the cardinal sin of being mean to the teacher on my party day, I refused to give him the coveted cupcake, and tears trickled down as he left the classroom.
I was impressed; I drew a line, and he backed down. When I told him no, I expected Gracyn to push past me, pick up the tray of leftover cupcakes, and then run away from me around the room, simultaneously stuffing crumbs in his mouth. Then, half a dozen kids would shout to Gracyn for cupcakes as he would gleefully throw the cupcake chunks, over my head, to their outstretched hands as I, now the enraged teacher, would try to corner him, just like always. I would give up because the bell would ring and then I would dismiss the kids in a frenzy because, not only had they received extra cupcakes, but they also saw a great show. Then I would spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the smeared icing and cupcake bits crushed into the rug, too embarrassed to leave any of it for the custodians.
But this time, there was no mess, at least not one that was visibly smeared on the floor.
By now, my wife was very pregnant, and my life was going to change once again. I was counting on my newest daughter’s arrival to make me happy again. If family concerns took the forefront, then I would have to push school anxiety to the side. I fantasized about staying at home with them instead of working. I also worried that my school problems would make me a bad dad. Instead of rocking her to sleep, maybe I would have to stare at laptop screen, trying to perfect a lesson plan that was bound to fail anyway. Maybe with a new daughter, I would reclaim my role as the provider, thinking “who cares that work sucks, that’s life. I have a family to feed.” It was pleasant thinking about how my life would change. But no matter what perspective I constructed, Monday was still coming; nothing could ever stop that.
As dismal as last week was, it was still a improvement. But for anyone who might walk into my class, it was chaos.
On the last day before break I had a cupcake party for all the kids who had earned enough stickers over the month. The party was virtually for the whole clas even thought most did not deserve it. I even let the bad kids come if they acted nice to me the day of the party. It was one of the many teacher sins that I committed just to keep a semblance of sanity. My kids were smart, they knew the tricks, but Gracyn pushed me too far. Gracyn had spent most of the day in the CHOICE room, and he was excused to my room right at the end of the day. Because he broke the cardinal sin of being mean to the teacher on my party day, I refused to give him the coveted cupcake, and tears trickled down as he left the classroom.
I was impressed; I drew a line, and he backed down. When I told him no, I expected Gracyn to push past me, pick up the tray of leftover cupcakes, and then run away from me around the room, simultaneously stuffing crumbs in his mouth. Then, half a dozen kids would shout to Gracyn for cupcakes as he would gleefully throw the cupcake chunks, over my head, to their outstretched hands as I, now the enraged teacher, would try to corner him, just like always. I would give up because the bell would ring and then I would dismiss the kids in a frenzy because, not only had they received extra cupcakes, but they also saw a great show. Then I would spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the smeared icing and cupcake bits crushed into the rug, too embarrassed to leave any of it for the custodians.
But this time, there was no mess, at least not one that was visibly smeared on the floor.
By now, my wife was very pregnant, and my life was going to change once again. I was counting on my newest daughter’s arrival to make me happy again. If family concerns took the forefront, then I would have to push school anxiety to the side. I fantasized about staying at home with them instead of working. I also worried that my school problems would make me a bad dad. Instead of rocking her to sleep, maybe I would have to stare at laptop screen, trying to perfect a lesson plan that was bound to fail anyway. Maybe with a new daughter, I would reclaim my role as the provider, thinking “who cares that work sucks, that’s life. I have a family to feed.” It was pleasant thinking about how my life would change. But no matter what perspective I constructed, Monday was still coming; nothing could ever stop that.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Counting Down To Thanksgiving- Wednesday
My first year of teaching I loved sleeping. I loved laying in bed, drifting into sleep, effortlessly. It was my favorite 7 hours of the day. Which was still depressing. Sometimes after dinner, I let my face sink into the plush carpet and I passed out while my daughter crawled up and over me again and again.
This year, I feared my bed. I knew that another day was coming, and I couldn’t stop hearing the tick-tock of the damn clock telling me that each second, I was getting closer, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I’d scream in my head, “Stop thinking of those damn kids, go to sleep!” Now it was Wednesday night, I had made it through to Thanksgiving Break, and I still couldn’t sleep so I got up, left the bed, and I wrote it down, everything that was eating away at me. It was a mental detox, and there was a stench that exited my head and left itself on the paper. Journaling was my addiction, but it could also be my therapy.
I wrote about how two of my crazies, Gabe and Ryden, were absent and it had made the day so much more bearable. Absences were one of the few things that made me hopeful during a workday. There were quite a few students who didn’t show up on time, but my crazies usually showed up early, every day, even with nausea and high fevers. Typically, when I didn’t see one of my crazies at the cafeteria, I just pretended like I didn’t notice. It was a game I played by letting my happiness slowly seep in, like an IV drip. It was a slow and cautious happiness because deep down I knew they would just show up late. But on this Wednesday, two of them didn’t show up at all, and the day almost felt normal.
That afternoon, I got my results from my first observation of the year. This was the first year for Michelle Rhee’s new evaluation system which, by the end of the year, would tell me if I got fired, suspended pay, a standard raise, or a bonus. I figured that I would either get fired or have my pay suspended. This one was the first of two announced observations so I had the opportunity to carefully plan out the lesson. I even brought in a carrot to visually show how reading can be like eating; when you come to a big word or a big piece of food, you can break it down into parts. I thought it went well because everyone was seated perfectly, with their eyes on me, except for Gabe who was rolling the edge of the carpet around his body to make a human burrito.
By this time in the year, everyone had learned to ignore Gabe because it was obvious something was wrong with him. The lesson ended with Ms. Coen, the observer, physically restraining Gabe by bear hugging him, so that she might continue observing me. I received a 2.44 out of 4, which meant that I was on track to get my pay suspended. It was hard to be relieved to get one out of the way because it was one of my two announced observations; there were three unannounced ones that were sure to sink me.
By this time of the year, I had already been given feedback from the other announced observation, and this one was conducted by an “independent” evaluator from downtown. For this observation, I at least knew that I had tanked it because I spent half the lesson in a corner begging Gabe to take a few deep breaths so that he could stop trying to hit Evan and just do his work.
I didn’t realize until the spring that teachers in my hall had an elaborate plan to trick the evaluators into thinking they had well behaved children. If a teacher saw an evaluator in the building then she would text her other teacher friends. When it was clear whose class would be evaluated, the teacher sent her trouble kids to another teacher ready to watch them during the observation. I was kept out of the loop, leaving me with all my crazies. The independent evaluator gave me a 2.0, and now I had an average of a 2.2. It was embarrassing, and I didn’t tell anyone. If I was quitting, it didn’t matter anyway.
This year, I feared my bed. I knew that another day was coming, and I couldn’t stop hearing the tick-tock of the damn clock telling me that each second, I was getting closer, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I’d scream in my head, “Stop thinking of those damn kids, go to sleep!” Now it was Wednesday night, I had made it through to Thanksgiving Break, and I still couldn’t sleep so I got up, left the bed, and I wrote it down, everything that was eating away at me. It was a mental detox, and there was a stench that exited my head and left itself on the paper. Journaling was my addiction, but it could also be my therapy.
I wrote about how two of my crazies, Gabe and Ryden, were absent and it had made the day so much more bearable. Absences were one of the few things that made me hopeful during a workday. There were quite a few students who didn’t show up on time, but my crazies usually showed up early, every day, even with nausea and high fevers. Typically, when I didn’t see one of my crazies at the cafeteria, I just pretended like I didn’t notice. It was a game I played by letting my happiness slowly seep in, like an IV drip. It was a slow and cautious happiness because deep down I knew they would just show up late. But on this Wednesday, two of them didn’t show up at all, and the day almost felt normal.
That afternoon, I got my results from my first observation of the year. This was the first year for Michelle Rhee’s new evaluation system which, by the end of the year, would tell me if I got fired, suspended pay, a standard raise, or a bonus. I figured that I would either get fired or have my pay suspended. This one was the first of two announced observations so I had the opportunity to carefully plan out the lesson. I even brought in a carrot to visually show how reading can be like eating; when you come to a big word or a big piece of food, you can break it down into parts. I thought it went well because everyone was seated perfectly, with their eyes on me, except for Gabe who was rolling the edge of the carpet around his body to make a human burrito.
By this time in the year, everyone had learned to ignore Gabe because it was obvious something was wrong with him. The lesson ended with Ms. Coen, the observer, physically restraining Gabe by bear hugging him, so that she might continue observing me. I received a 2.44 out of 4, which meant that I was on track to get my pay suspended. It was hard to be relieved to get one out of the way because it was one of my two announced observations; there were three unannounced ones that were sure to sink me.
By this time of the year, I had already been given feedback from the other announced observation, and this one was conducted by an “independent” evaluator from downtown. For this observation, I at least knew that I had tanked it because I spent half the lesson in a corner begging Gabe to take a few deep breaths so that he could stop trying to hit Evan and just do his work.
I didn’t realize until the spring that teachers in my hall had an elaborate plan to trick the evaluators into thinking they had well behaved children. If a teacher saw an evaluator in the building then she would text her other teacher friends. When it was clear whose class would be evaluated, the teacher sent her trouble kids to another teacher ready to watch them during the observation. I was kept out of the loop, leaving me with all my crazies. The independent evaluator gave me a 2.0, and now I had an average of a 2.2. It was embarrassing, and I didn’t tell anyone. If I was quitting, it didn’t matter anyway.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Counting the days until Thanksgiving - Tuesday
This Monday afternoon included two punches: one from Ryden and another from Franklin. Each time I put the journal down the surge of failure rose again. It wasn’t helping that Tuesday was coming. I needed Franklin to suspend Ryden for punching me. It would send a message, a message I could post above my door: you can run around the class and not listen to me, but if you wind up and punch me in the gut, then you’ve gone too far. That might not fit though, maybe just: Don’t Punch Me. Ryden was there bright and early the next morning…so much for the suspension and so much for the message.
At school Tuesday morning, I passed by Franklin in the office, and I asked him if Ryden would be suspended. He replied, “Well, you told me yesterday, right, and I haven’t seen the discipline administrator since then, so…” Right, I thought. Thanks a lot. I rarely pushed for kids to get suspended. In fact, I never did. Kids would spit in my face, and Franklin would come and ask if I wanted them to get suspended. I always said no. He didn’t like suspending kids, and I assumed he was right because it was less time at school and more time at home, a place that was rarely a positive experience. Since then, I had learned something from Grandma James: every consequence or lack of consequence was a message to every kid in my class. If Ryden didn’t get suspended, it meant that kids could do anything they wanted in my class and not get punished. I'm sure Ryden spent all of last afternoon detailing how he punced the teacher in the gut. I might as well have been begging Franklin for a suspension, but he didn’t seem to care, and I started to hate him.
Relative to Monday, Tuesday actually was a good day, good because even though I was losing my mind, no one punched me. I added Franklin to the list of staff that I thought was supporting me, but now wanted nothing to do with me. My kids were acting marginally better, partly because they didn’t know what to expect from me. I was always on the verge of full tilt rage. In circle time, I had the kids greet each other by saying good morning and then shake hands with their neighbor. Quint was next to Amelia, and after he shook her hand, he wiped his hand on the floor to show everyone that Amelia had germs. Amelia didn’t see it, and I was willing to let the thing pass unnoticed, until Evan said, “Quint wiped his hand on the floor; he needs to apologize.” Dammit. I also knew there was no way Quint would apologize on the spot, in front of the whole class. He was volatile, especially first thing in the morning. “Alright Quint, go ahead and apologize to Armoni.”
“No!”
“Then, walk back to your seat.”
“I don’t have to.”
“Fine! If you don’t move, then I’ll move you.” By this time, my eyes were glaring and my muscles were tight. I grabbed his wrist and dragged him across the carpet, onto the floor, and out the door.
“I’m telling my mom!”
“Tell her.”
I slowly walked back to the carpet, sat criss-cross, and attemted singing a song about friends.
“What was that about?” murmured Grandma James.
“I have no idea, Quint is always like that.”
“No, I meant about you.”
At school Tuesday morning, I passed by Franklin in the office, and I asked him if Ryden would be suspended. He replied, “Well, you told me yesterday, right, and I haven’t seen the discipline administrator since then, so…” Right, I thought. Thanks a lot. I rarely pushed for kids to get suspended. In fact, I never did. Kids would spit in my face, and Franklin would come and ask if I wanted them to get suspended. I always said no. He didn’t like suspending kids, and I assumed he was right because it was less time at school and more time at home, a place that was rarely a positive experience. Since then, I had learned something from Grandma James: every consequence or lack of consequence was a message to every kid in my class. If Ryden didn’t get suspended, it meant that kids could do anything they wanted in my class and not get punished. I'm sure Ryden spent all of last afternoon detailing how he punced the teacher in the gut. I might as well have been begging Franklin for a suspension, but he didn’t seem to care, and I started to hate him.
Relative to Monday, Tuesday actually was a good day, good because even though I was losing my mind, no one punched me. I added Franklin to the list of staff that I thought was supporting me, but now wanted nothing to do with me. My kids were acting marginally better, partly because they didn’t know what to expect from me. I was always on the verge of full tilt rage. In circle time, I had the kids greet each other by saying good morning and then shake hands with their neighbor. Quint was next to Amelia, and after he shook her hand, he wiped his hand on the floor to show everyone that Amelia had germs. Amelia didn’t see it, and I was willing to let the thing pass unnoticed, until Evan said, “Quint wiped his hand on the floor; he needs to apologize.” Dammit. I also knew there was no way Quint would apologize on the spot, in front of the whole class. He was volatile, especially first thing in the morning. “Alright Quint, go ahead and apologize to Armoni.”
“No!”
“Then, walk back to your seat.”
“I don’t have to.”
“Fine! If you don’t move, then I’ll move you.” By this time, my eyes were glaring and my muscles were tight. I grabbed his wrist and dragged him across the carpet, onto the floor, and out the door.
“I’m telling my mom!”
“Tell her.”
I slowly walked back to the carpet, sat criss-cross, and attemted singing a song about friends.
“What was that about?” murmured Grandma James.
“I have no idea, Quint is always like that.”
“No, I meant about you.”
Monday, March 21, 2011
Counting down the days to Thanksgiving- Monday
The previous Friday afternoon, I saw the principal, Franklin, chatting with a few students, and I asked if could meet. Things were getting worse and I figured it was best he knew it. Our last meeting hadn’t gone so well, but I needed to give it another shot. I was wondering why he hadn’t sought me out earlier. I mean, it was obvious I needed help.
I went to him for a boost of confidence. I always enjoyed our meetings my first year because Franklin was encouraging even when things were ugly, “Mr. Slaughter, I know it seems like things are going downhill, but those kids have come a long way.”
This year I considered myself a complete failure. But maybe it was in my head. I was working hard, it was only my second year and maybe with a few changes, things would get back on track. When I met with him, I told him how some of my kids were still out of control, but I tried to stay positive. “It’s amazing that my class is so much better than last year, but I’m still stressed because I know they can do better.”
My class was a lot better than last year. Instead of daily fighting, there might have been one fight per week. Instead of no time on task, I had the kids working hard around half the time. I knew it was still bad, but I was moving in the right direction. I was trying to feed him the script, “Mr. Slaughter, I know your class is filled with quite a few challenging students, and I know we can turn them around. I want to observe you teaching this Friday and we’ll start meeting more often to get everything back on track.”
When I saw him on Monday after lunch, it didn’t go like that. It actually went like this, “Mr. Slaughter, you’ve been a disappointment. Your behavior management sucks. Your class is nothing different from any other class, and the chaos has been your own doing. You need to shape the class up, or we won’t be needing you next year.” The skin on my face sunk--wasn’t it only November? I thought I was the one who wanted out, but now he wanted it too? My thoughts raced, attempting to understand what he was saying.
It’s funny he doesn’t know I how much I want to quit.
He ended with, “I’m sure we can count on you giving your best for the rest of the year.” I said, “Of course you can,” but my plastic smile said, “good luck without me, a--hole.” Now, I had to find a job, because after that meeting, a large part of me had already left. I was the dead man walking.
I walked myself right over to the art because I need to pick up my class, and I was late. I looked into the art room, I saw half my class out of their seats. Ryden had a bottle of red paint, and it looked like he was trying to spray anyone who got close. He had already torn up Austin’s painting because Austin wouldn’t give him the red.
Ryden always acted up in the afternoon. I knew Ryden was a strong reader and he was quick in math, but he always seemed angry, and he just got angrier and angrier as the day progressed. I thought it was school that was making him angry, but it took me way too long to figure out he just did not want to go home.
Towards the end of the school year, Ryden was playing football with his little brother in front of his house. He threw it over his head and his little brother went to chase the ball into the street. The four year old was struck by a car, and he died, right in front of Ryden. Ryden sprinted back to his house, screaming at his grandma, “my brother is dead!” His mom wasn’t at the house; no one knew where she was. I was told later that she might have been at a crackhouse.
When the funeral was announced, I was planning on attending. Grandmother James said she wasn’t going to go. She had recently lost her own son to a rare blood disorder, and she had had enough of death; she said, “have you ever been to a black funeral?” “No.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled.
I was one of 5 teachers who attended. I rode in the car with the other second grade teacher Price, her best friend Ms. Vaughn, and two other teachers. They spent the whole car ride talking about how much they didn’t like Price’s student teacher. I liked her student teacher, and I knew she liked Price, she even wanted to be Price’s co-teacher the next year at Daley.
When we walked through doors of the small overflowing church, I could see the open casket from a distance; it was small. Right in front of it was Ryden and his family, and I walked up to see him. Ryden and I had a horrible relationship, but even if it was one of my better behaved kids, I’d still have trouble saying something. I only said, “Hi, Ryden,” he smiled and gave me a hug. It’s the first time he ever hugged me. I gave the mom a hug, and I stood there for a little, with my back to the four year old, not knowing what else to do, so I bent down, and I asked Ryden to come a little closer so we could at least talk for a little. But when I motioned for him to come nearer, he turned away, and I walked back to my seat.
I was surprised to see how many preachers were there; I think there were five, and they all were given an opportunity to speak. They kept on saying his brother was so young, but it was God’s plan, and now the little boy was happy because he was with God. It was hard to believe it was God’s plan for a 4 year old to get hit by a car, but I was in no mind to decipher God’s plan; there was a time when I thought it was God’s plan for me to teach in Candler Park. Ryden’s 9 year old sister got up in front of everyone and sang “I Got Shoes,” a joyous song about walking around in heaven. Ryden’s aunt came up to speak; she couldn’t have been older than 20. “I know I’m not supposed to cry because he is in a better place, but I don’t care. He’s my baby nephew, and he’s dead.” She made the most sense to me. Ryden’s mom and her two daughters sat up in the front, right next to the preacher. Ryden sat by himself, left behind.
Ryden was already diagnosed with attachment disorder, he already had a bad home life, and now this. I don’t know why but his brother’s death didn’t seem to affect his behavior at school. It seemed like things were same as they ever were, but the reality was it was drastically different at home. After the accident, all three children were sent to live in a foster home. After a court case a few weeks later, it was the two daughters that came back to live with mom, and it was Ryden who stayed at the foster home. His mom never had a good thing to say about Ryden, and after what I saw at the funeral, it must have been as clear to Ryden as it was to me; his mom had left him, this time for good.
To be honest, I tried not to think about Ryden’s home life because, well, it didn't seem to help; he was still running circles around me. At the end of the day, whenever he started to get out of his seat and jump around his table, I chased him in a way that herded him out the door. Once he left his seat, there was no bargaining to get him back in it. I even kept an eye on where he placed his backpack and jacket, and when he ran out the door into the halls, I put his backpack, jacket, and math homework just outside the door for him to get later; I called it an early dismissal. But there was nowhere he wanted to go. It wasn’t long before he discovered what I had been doing.
So on this Monday, after the principal told me I really was a failure, and after watching red paint splatter all over Austin’s white T shirt, I walked my kids up from art class to the room, and I found Ryden’s backpack and jacket. I gave him our afternoon math work, and he went right to his work. Sloppy and quick, he tore through the pages, one after another, and I kept on checking and waiting. “Mr. Slaughter! I’m done!”
“Great, Ryden, let’s look at your work.” Each page looked good until I got to page three. Instead of subtracting, he was adding. “Ooooh, it looks like you’re adding when you should be subtracting, see?”
“I’m still done.”
“No, you need to go back and fix these.”
“F--- this.”
That’s when it started. “Well, with language like that, you need to go to time-out.” My words were just a formality; he, I, and the rest of the class knew he wasn’t walking to time out. “Ryden, if you’re not walking to time out, then you’ll have to go to the CHOICE room.” Also a formality; he wasn’t going to CHOICE unless security got up to our room before the bell rung, and that almost never happened. As I walked towards him, he got up out of his seat, and I angled myself in such a way as to direct him out the door, just like before. When he thought he had successfully outmaneuvered me out the door, he turned back, and he must have noticed that I didn't care. As I went to lock the door behind him, he tried to squeeze himself back in the door, but I stood at the doorway blocking his entry. Now it was clear that he wasn’t escaping, but I was kicking him out. It changed the game completely. I locked the door, checked the time (it was 5 minutes before the bell), and I brought his things to the door. He wasn’t running the halls, he was just waiting. “Here are your things, Ryden. You can’t act like that in class, we’ll try again tomorrow. You can go home now.”
It’s never good to tell a kid to go home at Daley, especially Ryden. He reached his arm way back, and he punched me in the stomach as hard as he could. It definitely wasn’t the first time I had been hit, but this one was different from all the rest. When kids hit me, it was usually an accident while in a fit of rage, but Ryden’s punch was intentional. I told Franklin about it after school, but he seemed nonchalant, “Okay, I’ll talk to the discipline administrator about it.”
After Monday was done, I pushed most of my students out the door for dismissal, and the hallways echoed with laughing and yelling. Ms. Jannsen just looked down, Ms. Price smiled and waved, and Ms. Johnson came knocking on the door.
Ms. Johnson may have been one of the young white women teachers, but she wasn't a Teach for America cadet. Maybe that's why I liked her. She was across the hall from me with the first graders. She was bitter about the ubiquitous chaos at Daley, but more importantly, she didn’t pretend like she didn’t see it. She wasn’t particularly nice to me, but I didn't mind.
Some teachers attempted a smile when they saw me, but I imagined they said mean things behind my back. Fake smiles hide secret betrayals.
There were three teachers with classrooms near mine: Ms. Johnson, Ms. Price, and Ms. Jannsen. Ms. Price always put up a façade of kindness, and Ms. Jannsen, the other 1st grade teacher, was new to the school. She was a veteran teacher, and she had taught at Franklin’s previous school, the successful, mostly white, and west of the park one. She was the new kid unsure of which kids she should befriend, and I was a loner. She kept her distance.
“What happened to your class? They are off the walls!” Ms. Johnson told me. I told her it wasn’t the laughing and yelling ones that I was worried about, at least they were walking in the right direction. It was the five kids who were still in my room, refusing to come out, that troubled me. They were the ones tearing posters off the wall, turning over the tables and scaling the lockers to rip open my bags of snacks. I told her I could walk the majority of my class to the front of the building for dismissal and leave the five to tear apart my room, or I could stay in the room, try to push the five out, and let the majority of my class do whatever they wanted in the halls.
I decided from now on, I would stay with the majority, and then it would be less humiliating. I thought, everyone notices a class of students shouting and laughing through the halls, but only the janitors notice the remnants of destruction caused by the five I left behind. Ms. Johnson told me to send kids to her room if; she had quite a few of them last year. It was in the middle of November when she had her baby and took 3 months of maternity leave. I was sad to see her leave even though the occasion was a happy one. The one teacher who told it to me straight had now left the building.
I went to him for a boost of confidence. I always enjoyed our meetings my first year because Franklin was encouraging even when things were ugly, “Mr. Slaughter, I know it seems like things are going downhill, but those kids have come a long way.”
This year I considered myself a complete failure. But maybe it was in my head. I was working hard, it was only my second year and maybe with a few changes, things would get back on track. When I met with him, I told him how some of my kids were still out of control, but I tried to stay positive. “It’s amazing that my class is so much better than last year, but I’m still stressed because I know they can do better.”
My class was a lot better than last year. Instead of daily fighting, there might have been one fight per week. Instead of no time on task, I had the kids working hard around half the time. I knew it was still bad, but I was moving in the right direction. I was trying to feed him the script, “Mr. Slaughter, I know your class is filled with quite a few challenging students, and I know we can turn them around. I want to observe you teaching this Friday and we’ll start meeting more often to get everything back on track.”
When I saw him on Monday after lunch, it didn’t go like that. It actually went like this, “Mr. Slaughter, you’ve been a disappointment. Your behavior management sucks. Your class is nothing different from any other class, and the chaos has been your own doing. You need to shape the class up, or we won’t be needing you next year.” The skin on my face sunk--wasn’t it only November? I thought I was the one who wanted out, but now he wanted it too? My thoughts raced, attempting to understand what he was saying.
It’s funny he doesn’t know I how much I want to quit.
He ended with, “I’m sure we can count on you giving your best for the rest of the year.” I said, “Of course you can,” but my plastic smile said, “good luck without me, a--hole.” Now, I had to find a job, because after that meeting, a large part of me had already left. I was the dead man walking.
------------------------
I walked myself right over to the art because I need to pick up my class, and I was late. I looked into the art room, I saw half my class out of their seats. Ryden had a bottle of red paint, and it looked like he was trying to spray anyone who got close. He had already torn up Austin’s painting because Austin wouldn’t give him the red.
Ryden always acted up in the afternoon. I knew Ryden was a strong reader and he was quick in math, but he always seemed angry, and he just got angrier and angrier as the day progressed. I thought it was school that was making him angry, but it took me way too long to figure out he just did not want to go home.
Towards the end of the school year, Ryden was playing football with his little brother in front of his house. He threw it over his head and his little brother went to chase the ball into the street. The four year old was struck by a car, and he died, right in front of Ryden. Ryden sprinted back to his house, screaming at his grandma, “my brother is dead!” His mom wasn’t at the house; no one knew where she was. I was told later that she might have been at a crackhouse.
When the funeral was announced, I was planning on attending. Grandmother James said she wasn’t going to go. She had recently lost her own son to a rare blood disorder, and she had had enough of death; she said, “have you ever been to a black funeral?” “No.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled.
I was one of 5 teachers who attended. I rode in the car with the other second grade teacher Price, her best friend Ms. Vaughn, and two other teachers. They spent the whole car ride talking about how much they didn’t like Price’s student teacher. I liked her student teacher, and I knew she liked Price, she even wanted to be Price’s co-teacher the next year at Daley.
When we walked through doors of the small overflowing church, I could see the open casket from a distance; it was small. Right in front of it was Ryden and his family, and I walked up to see him. Ryden and I had a horrible relationship, but even if it was one of my better behaved kids, I’d still have trouble saying something. I only said, “Hi, Ryden,” he smiled and gave me a hug. It’s the first time he ever hugged me. I gave the mom a hug, and I stood there for a little, with my back to the four year old, not knowing what else to do, so I bent down, and I asked Ryden to come a little closer so we could at least talk for a little. But when I motioned for him to come nearer, he turned away, and I walked back to my seat.
I was surprised to see how many preachers were there; I think there were five, and they all were given an opportunity to speak. They kept on saying his brother was so young, but it was God’s plan, and now the little boy was happy because he was with God. It was hard to believe it was God’s plan for a 4 year old to get hit by a car, but I was in no mind to decipher God’s plan; there was a time when I thought it was God’s plan for me to teach in Candler Park. Ryden’s 9 year old sister got up in front of everyone and sang “I Got Shoes,” a joyous song about walking around in heaven. Ryden’s aunt came up to speak; she couldn’t have been older than 20. “I know I’m not supposed to cry because he is in a better place, but I don’t care. He’s my baby nephew, and he’s dead.” She made the most sense to me. Ryden’s mom and her two daughters sat up in the front, right next to the preacher. Ryden sat by himself, left behind.
Ryden was already diagnosed with attachment disorder, he already had a bad home life, and now this. I don’t know why but his brother’s death didn’t seem to affect his behavior at school. It seemed like things were same as they ever were, but the reality was it was drastically different at home. After the accident, all three children were sent to live in a foster home. After a court case a few weeks later, it was the two daughters that came back to live with mom, and it was Ryden who stayed at the foster home. His mom never had a good thing to say about Ryden, and after what I saw at the funeral, it must have been as clear to Ryden as it was to me; his mom had left him, this time for good.
To be honest, I tried not to think about Ryden’s home life because, well, it didn't seem to help; he was still running circles around me. At the end of the day, whenever he started to get out of his seat and jump around his table, I chased him in a way that herded him out the door. Once he left his seat, there was no bargaining to get him back in it. I even kept an eye on where he placed his backpack and jacket, and when he ran out the door into the halls, I put his backpack, jacket, and math homework just outside the door for him to get later; I called it an early dismissal. But there was nowhere he wanted to go. It wasn’t long before he discovered what I had been doing.
So on this Monday, after the principal told me I really was a failure, and after watching red paint splatter all over Austin’s white T shirt, I walked my kids up from art class to the room, and I found Ryden’s backpack and jacket. I gave him our afternoon math work, and he went right to his work. Sloppy and quick, he tore through the pages, one after another, and I kept on checking and waiting. “Mr. Slaughter! I’m done!”
“Great, Ryden, let’s look at your work.” Each page looked good until I got to page three. Instead of subtracting, he was adding. “Ooooh, it looks like you’re adding when you should be subtracting, see?”
“I’m still done.”
“No, you need to go back and fix these.”
“F--- this.”
That’s when it started. “Well, with language like that, you need to go to time-out.” My words were just a formality; he, I, and the rest of the class knew he wasn’t walking to time out. “Ryden, if you’re not walking to time out, then you’ll have to go to the CHOICE room.” Also a formality; he wasn’t going to CHOICE unless security got up to our room before the bell rung, and that almost never happened. As I walked towards him, he got up out of his seat, and I angled myself in such a way as to direct him out the door, just like before. When he thought he had successfully outmaneuvered me out the door, he turned back, and he must have noticed that I didn't care. As I went to lock the door behind him, he tried to squeeze himself back in the door, but I stood at the doorway blocking his entry. Now it was clear that he wasn’t escaping, but I was kicking him out. It changed the game completely. I locked the door, checked the time (it was 5 minutes before the bell), and I brought his things to the door. He wasn’t running the halls, he was just waiting. “Here are your things, Ryden. You can’t act like that in class, we’ll try again tomorrow. You can go home now.”
It’s never good to tell a kid to go home at Daley, especially Ryden. He reached his arm way back, and he punched me in the stomach as hard as he could. It definitely wasn’t the first time I had been hit, but this one was different from all the rest. When kids hit me, it was usually an accident while in a fit of rage, but Ryden’s punch was intentional. I told Franklin about it after school, but he seemed nonchalant, “Okay, I’ll talk to the discipline administrator about it.”
--------------------
After Monday was done, I pushed most of my students out the door for dismissal, and the hallways echoed with laughing and yelling. Ms. Jannsen just looked down, Ms. Price smiled and waved, and Ms. Johnson came knocking on the door.
Ms. Johnson may have been one of the young white women teachers, but she wasn't a Teach for America cadet. Maybe that's why I liked her. She was across the hall from me with the first graders. She was bitter about the ubiquitous chaos at Daley, but more importantly, she didn’t pretend like she didn’t see it. She wasn’t particularly nice to me, but I didn't mind.
Some teachers attempted a smile when they saw me, but I imagined they said mean things behind my back. Fake smiles hide secret betrayals.
There were three teachers with classrooms near mine: Ms. Johnson, Ms. Price, and Ms. Jannsen. Ms. Price always put up a façade of kindness, and Ms. Jannsen, the other 1st grade teacher, was new to the school. She was a veteran teacher, and she had taught at Franklin’s previous school, the successful, mostly white, and west of the park one. She was the new kid unsure of which kids she should befriend, and I was a loner. She kept her distance.
“What happened to your class? They are off the walls!” Ms. Johnson told me. I told her it wasn’t the laughing and yelling ones that I was worried about, at least they were walking in the right direction. It was the five kids who were still in my room, refusing to come out, that troubled me. They were the ones tearing posters off the wall, turning over the tables and scaling the lockers to rip open my bags of snacks. I told her I could walk the majority of my class to the front of the building for dismissal and leave the five to tear apart my room, or I could stay in the room, try to push the five out, and let the majority of my class do whatever they wanted in the halls.
I decided from now on, I would stay with the majority, and then it would be less humiliating. I thought, everyone notices a class of students shouting and laughing through the halls, but only the janitors notice the remnants of destruction caused by the five I left behind. Ms. Johnson told me to send kids to her room if; she had quite a few of them last year. It was in the middle of November when she had her baby and took 3 months of maternity leave. I was sad to see her leave even though the occasion was a happy one. The one teacher who told it to me straight had now left the building.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Counting Down the Days to Thanksgiving
Weekends meant I could write everything down, a needed mental release. But no matter how much I put down on paper, Monday always approached, relentlessly. This Monday morning I felt ill, but there was no fever. There was never a fever. I had seen the nurse enough times to know every time I thought I had a fever, I didn't. If there was a pill that could have given me a fever, I would have taken it. Better to be sick and get the days off, then never to have been sick at all.
It was a three day week until Thanksgiving Break, and I told myself three days were nothing. I had gone through months and months of this crap; three days would be over before I knew it. Or so I thought.
Journaling was now less soothing and more addictive; if I felt the anxiety building, I sat down and wrote. This Monday, when I sat down with my cereal and morning coffee, I wrote. When I walked into the classroom at 7 in the morning, I wrote. When I walked down the halls to pick up the kids, I pulled out my pen and a torn hall pass and wrote.
This Monday morning, I lined the kids up without word, but there was an unmistakable grimace on my face. Gabe was my youngest second grader, and it was difficult for him to sit still. This morning he rushed to line up first,with his hands behind his back and his chest puffed out. He was one of my most difficult kids, and he was trying very hard to impress his teacher. It was a new day for Gabe, and things could have been different. I just glared at him, thinking, “Now you are acting like an angel after you have driven me crazy. Now you stand up straight because the other teachers are here. As soon as you walk in my door, you will go right back to acting up!” Ms. Vaughn, a cloying, young Teach For America cadet, looked at me with shock in her eyes and motioned to Gabe, “Wow! Gabe, you are doing such a great job lining up!” It was like a caption in the handbook, “Don’t focus on the negatives, give specific praise to build them up.”
But I had been specifically praising all year, “You are doing a great job sitting still, Gabe! Wow Gabe, you are raising your hand so patiently, I appreciate that. Gabe, I’m glad to see you started right away on your work.” It wasn’t working. He was still struggling to be the best line leader he could be. But in my fog, I couldn’t see it.
It was a three day week until Thanksgiving Break, and I told myself three days were nothing. I had gone through months and months of this crap; three days would be over before I knew it. Or so I thought.
Journaling was now less soothing and more addictive; if I felt the anxiety building, I sat down and wrote. This Monday, when I sat down with my cereal and morning coffee, I wrote. When I walked into the classroom at 7 in the morning, I wrote. When I walked down the halls to pick up the kids, I pulled out my pen and a torn hall pass and wrote.
This Monday morning, I lined the kids up without word, but there was an unmistakable grimace on my face. Gabe was my youngest second grader, and it was difficult for him to sit still. This morning he rushed to line up first,with his hands behind his back and his chest puffed out. He was one of my most difficult kids, and he was trying very hard to impress his teacher. It was a new day for Gabe, and things could have been different. I just glared at him, thinking, “Now you are acting like an angel after you have driven me crazy. Now you stand up straight because the other teachers are here. As soon as you walk in my door, you will go right back to acting up!” Ms. Vaughn, a cloying, young Teach For America cadet, looked at me with shock in her eyes and motioned to Gabe, “Wow! Gabe, you are doing such a great job lining up!” It was like a caption in the handbook, “Don’t focus on the negatives, give specific praise to build them up.”
But I had been specifically praising all year, “You are doing a great job sitting still, Gabe! Wow Gabe, you are raising your hand so patiently, I appreciate that. Gabe, I’m glad to see you started right away on your work.” It wasn’t working. He was still struggling to be the best line leader he could be. But in my fog, I couldn’t see it.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The Choice Room
I decided to personally “escort” misbehaving students out of the classroom to the bad kids’ room. We called it the CHOICE room. Because kids don't misbehave, they make bad choices.
The CHOICE room was where kids could go when they couldn’t be in the classroom. It was one of Franklin’s best ideas; he called it a release valve for when classroom pressure reached dangerous levels. I already had a reputation for using the valve the most because the pressure was unbearable. I was such a frequent caller that I tried not to call until there was something really serious, like Gracyn throwing a chair across the room. So after each time he slung one across the floor up unto a wall, I walked across the room and called, and then he ran from one side to another as I tried to corner him by sliding empty tables in a way that he might get trapped. If I did catch him, then I had to hold him by the wrist until security got there. By this time of the year most students were used to Gracyn, so I simply dragged him to the front of the carpet and continued the lesson where I left off, while he hung near the floor, yanking my wrist as hard as he could, yelling, “Get off of me, white b----!!” It was just like Sean from first year, but Gracyn must have weighed another 50 pounds.
If Gracyn happened to have escaped out the door, then I had about 5 minutes to get my class back on task before he would run back in the room, yell, “f--- you!” and then slam the door to thunderous applause from my class. I could only call security again, “It’s Mr. Slaughter, Gracyn is in the halls again.” By this time, my voice was breaking up and roars of laughter were in the background. That was a typical day.
I actually preferred when students made it out the door before I could get to them. By mid-September I was so frustrated with some of my students that I just let them go out the door, like a matador using the door as a red cape, and I locked the door behind them, hoping not to see them again for the day. Other teachers hated it because my kids would go into their classes and yell obscenities at them. I felt bad, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I mentioned to the other teachers that they should just lock their doors too so the kids would have nowhere to go. Then, the kids ran the halls and became the administrators’ problem. Eventually, I realized how an administrator’s problem would eventually turn into my problem. Sensing the inevitable, I went to Franklin, told him that locking kids out was no solution to the problem, and I wondered if he some a good ideas. I was apologizing, but I also genuinely wanted to get better. He told me my actions were unacceptable and then saw me out the door. He wasn't the same principal from the year before, something was beginning to smell rotten.
My decision to stop calling security several times per day and personally take kids to the CHOICE room was a smart move. I was no calling on security to save me because I could just do it myself. Kids could stop worrying about security and start worrying about me. With my increased anger and exasperation, the class was behaving better, and unfortunately, I believed there were causal links between my anger and my class’ improved behavior. Some of them were acting better. But nothing was improving for me—I still hated it.
The CHOICE room was where kids could go when they couldn’t be in the classroom. It was one of Franklin’s best ideas; he called it a release valve for when classroom pressure reached dangerous levels. I already had a reputation for using the valve the most because the pressure was unbearable. I was such a frequent caller that I tried not to call until there was something really serious, like Gracyn throwing a chair across the room. So after each time he slung one across the floor up unto a wall, I walked across the room and called, and then he ran from one side to another as I tried to corner him by sliding empty tables in a way that he might get trapped. If I did catch him, then I had to hold him by the wrist until security got there. By this time of the year most students were used to Gracyn, so I simply dragged him to the front of the carpet and continued the lesson where I left off, while he hung near the floor, yanking my wrist as hard as he could, yelling, “Get off of me, white b----!!” It was just like Sean from first year, but Gracyn must have weighed another 50 pounds.
If Gracyn happened to have escaped out the door, then I had about 5 minutes to get my class back on task before he would run back in the room, yell, “f--- you!” and then slam the door to thunderous applause from my class. I could only call security again, “It’s Mr. Slaughter, Gracyn is in the halls again.” By this time, my voice was breaking up and roars of laughter were in the background. That was a typical day.
I actually preferred when students made it out the door before I could get to them. By mid-September I was so frustrated with some of my students that I just let them go out the door, like a matador using the door as a red cape, and I locked the door behind them, hoping not to see them again for the day. Other teachers hated it because my kids would go into their classes and yell obscenities at them. I felt bad, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I mentioned to the other teachers that they should just lock their doors too so the kids would have nowhere to go. Then, the kids ran the halls and became the administrators’ problem. Eventually, I realized how an administrator’s problem would eventually turn into my problem. Sensing the inevitable, I went to Franklin, told him that locking kids out was no solution to the problem, and I wondered if he some a good ideas. I was apologizing, but I also genuinely wanted to get better. He told me my actions were unacceptable and then saw me out the door. He wasn't the same principal from the year before, something was beginning to smell rotten.
My decision to stop calling security several times per day and personally take kids to the CHOICE room was a smart move. I was no calling on security to save me because I could just do it myself. Kids could stop worrying about security and start worrying about me. With my increased anger and exasperation, the class was behaving better, and unfortunately, I believed there were causal links between my anger and my class’ improved behavior. Some of them were acting better. But nothing was improving for me—I still hated it.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Grandma James
By November, teachers pretended like they didn’t see me. My forehead was furrowed, and there were deep rings around my eyes. My shirts puffed out around my waist, and my belt didn't have enough notches to hold my pants up anymore. If my face wasn't bright red, it was lurid. Teachers knew my class was the worst in the school, and when they glanced at face, they knew it was only a matter of days before I quit.
There was only one person in the school who talked with me and that was Grandma James. In our school, there were grandmothers from the local neighborhoods who came in and volunteered. Almost every teacher in the lower grades had an assigned helper. The classroom grandma I had last year spent most of the year sitting and falling asleep in a corner, so when Ms. Coan asked if I wanted another grandma in the class, I said no. By mid-October, Ms. Coan approached me again, "Are you sure you don't want some extra help?" This time, I agreed. At least there could be a witness to the chaos so when I write incident reports I ask her who hit who. I first saw her as I walked my class into the library; she walked into the library with a slow limp and asked me, “Could we discuss a few things first?” She was an older lady, maybe in her late 70s. I noticed her shaky hands, and she told me that she had recently suffered a stroke, and her memory was fading. She might have trouble remembering kids' names. Considering her condition, it was unconscionable to put her directly in the line of fire; she came to tutor kids, not restrain them. I told her she could meet with individual kids in the halls and read books with them. Each kid had a baggy of books that were picked based on the student’s reading level. She told me she taught her 5 year old granddaughter to read just by using flash cards with sight words on them. Grad school told me that flash cards were not best practice so I asked her to stick to the books. She slightly raised her eyebrows, "Okay, Mr. Slaughter. You're the teacher." "You can call me Jeremy." "No, I'll call you Mr. Slaughter."
With a new person in the room, I wondered if the kids would behave a little better. Maybe a grandmother would garner some respect, but nothing changed. Gracyn slid a chair across the room, and it almost hit Grandma James in the leg. It was just like when my first classroom grandma was hit in the face by an errant pencil; it was one of the few times she got out of her seat. After the chair incident, I wondered if this would be Grandma James first and last day.
She did come back the next day. And it wasn't until the end of the year that I asked her why. She told me when she took the bus home that day, she was praying, “Please, Lord, I don't want to be in that class.” But then she knew she had come to that school because too many had given up on those kids, and one chair would not stop her. I didn't tell her this at the time, but I used to tell myself the same thing—"I will not allow them to beat me. No matter what."
After two weeks, Grandma was telling it to me straight, “Mr. Slaughter, you have a pregnant wife and a little girl at home. There is no sense putting yourself through this. Every morning you come in with bloodshot eyes, and by mid-day your face is red and your voice is hoarse. Your hair is falling out and your belt doesn’t keep your pants up anymore -, you losin’ weight? Mr. Slaughter, you need to get out before you have a stroke.”
At home I wondered what my wife was thinking about me. Did she think I was a failure? Did she think I was pathetic? Did she think I had no future? If I didn't teach, then what could I do? I had a master's in elementary education. It doesn't open many doors for you.
Journaling was helping me, but I was making unprofessional decisions, like taking personal sick days when I couldn't bear going in. There was no hope of another job when the economy was this bad; there weren’t even other teacher openings. We decided to add up all our savings and calculate how much money we needed to get by until my wife found a job. Our second daughter was due in December, and she would stay at home with the baby for at least the first 6 months. Without my salary, we could have lasted 3 months. I never looked at a position at Target, but I would easily have swallowed my pride and taken it if we had enough savings. She kept on saying, “It’s just one year. You can make it to June." "I can barely make it to Friday, I have no chance of making to June."
There was only one person in the school who talked with me and that was Grandma James. In our school, there were grandmothers from the local neighborhoods who came in and volunteered. Almost every teacher in the lower grades had an assigned helper. The classroom grandma I had last year spent most of the year sitting and falling asleep in a corner, so when Ms. Coan asked if I wanted another grandma in the class, I said no. By mid-October, Ms. Coan approached me again, "Are you sure you don't want some extra help?" This time, I agreed. At least there could be a witness to the chaos so when I write incident reports I ask her who hit who. I first saw her as I walked my class into the library; she walked into the library with a slow limp and asked me, “Could we discuss a few things first?” She was an older lady, maybe in her late 70s. I noticed her shaky hands, and she told me that she had recently suffered a stroke, and her memory was fading. She might have trouble remembering kids' names. Considering her condition, it was unconscionable to put her directly in the line of fire; she came to tutor kids, not restrain them. I told her she could meet with individual kids in the halls and read books with them. Each kid had a baggy of books that were picked based on the student’s reading level. She told me she taught her 5 year old granddaughter to read just by using flash cards with sight words on them. Grad school told me that flash cards were not best practice so I asked her to stick to the books. She slightly raised her eyebrows, "Okay, Mr. Slaughter. You're the teacher." "You can call me Jeremy." "No, I'll call you Mr. Slaughter."
With a new person in the room, I wondered if the kids would behave a little better. Maybe a grandmother would garner some respect, but nothing changed. Gracyn slid a chair across the room, and it almost hit Grandma James in the leg. It was just like when my first classroom grandma was hit in the face by an errant pencil; it was one of the few times she got out of her seat. After the chair incident, I wondered if this would be Grandma James first and last day.
She did come back the next day. And it wasn't until the end of the year that I asked her why. She told me when she took the bus home that day, she was praying, “Please, Lord, I don't want to be in that class.” But then she knew she had come to that school because too many had given up on those kids, and one chair would not stop her. I didn't tell her this at the time, but I used to tell myself the same thing—"I will not allow them to beat me. No matter what."
After two weeks, Grandma was telling it to me straight, “Mr. Slaughter, you have a pregnant wife and a little girl at home. There is no sense putting yourself through this. Every morning you come in with bloodshot eyes, and by mid-day your face is red and your voice is hoarse. Your hair is falling out and your belt doesn’t keep your pants up anymore -, you losin’ weight? Mr. Slaughter, you need to get out before you have a stroke.”
At home I wondered what my wife was thinking about me. Did she think I was a failure? Did she think I was pathetic? Did she think I had no future? If I didn't teach, then what could I do? I had a master's in elementary education. It doesn't open many doors for you.
Journaling was helping me, but I was making unprofessional decisions, like taking personal sick days when I couldn't bear going in. There was no hope of another job when the economy was this bad; there weren’t even other teacher openings. We decided to add up all our savings and calculate how much money we needed to get by until my wife found a job. Our second daughter was due in December, and she would stay at home with the baby for at least the first 6 months. Without my salary, we could have lasted 3 months. I never looked at a position at Target, but I would easily have swallowed my pride and taken it if we had enough savings. She kept on saying, “It’s just one year. You can make it to June." "I can barely make it to Friday, I have no chance of making to June."
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Creating Space
Job queries slowed, and my anxiety seeped into my home life. If I wasn’t talking about school, then I wasn't talking. My wife noticed the changes and told me I should see a psychiatrist. I always believed the psychiatrists were not for me. I could solve my own problems. But I was approaching a place I had never been. I had no space in my day when I wasn’t thinking about why Ryden was screaming or why Laila couldn’t read or why Ms. Price had stopped talking to me (she was the other 2nd grade teacher). Each night I slumped at the dining table with my babbling daughter and supportive wife, and I put my head in my hands, wishing that everything could go back to the way it was. I wanted to enjoy the dinner. I wanted to ask my wife about her day. I wanted to tickle my daughter in the neck and laugh at her when she pursed her lips to avoid eating her vegetables. I couldn't think about work anymore; it was eating away at me. I started to fantasize about escape; if I couldn’t find another job, what else could I do?
Riding your bike in DC is always nerve wracking. On this particular morning, I wondered what would happen if I was hit by car. It would obviously hurt a lot, but only temporarily. If it was really bad, I might be in the hospital for the rest of the year, eat microwaveable dinners, and watch soap operas all day. It was the small slice of heaven I needed. But then, there are also the other risks of getting hit by a car. I could become paralyzed or I might live my life in a coma. What if I died? As soon as I had the thought, I tried to silence it because I knew where it would go. I could fantasize about microwaveable dinners, but I could not let myself fantasize about death.
But it didn't work. The next night, I put my head in my hands again —instead of imagining a new life free from Daley, I started wishing for an end. I needed to see a psychiatrist. I tried to make an appointment, but all the local clinics were booked so I made an appointment that was two months away in a clinic requiring a 40 minute commute. Options were running out, and I needed a solution, today. My wife mentioned journaling.
I had already written what elementary grad students called teacher reflections about what was and wasn’t working in the classroom, but it had been years since I wrote about how I was feeling. Once I started, I didn’t want to stop writing. Everything that had been filling my head, I started to put on paper. After writing an entry, it seemed I had created a little space, just enough space to breathe again.
Riding your bike in DC is always nerve wracking. On this particular morning, I wondered what would happen if I was hit by car. It would obviously hurt a lot, but only temporarily. If it was really bad, I might be in the hospital for the rest of the year, eat microwaveable dinners, and watch soap operas all day. It was the small slice of heaven I needed. But then, there are also the other risks of getting hit by a car. I could become paralyzed or I might live my life in a coma. What if I died? As soon as I had the thought, I tried to silence it because I knew where it would go. I could fantasize about microwaveable dinners, but I could not let myself fantasize about death.
But it didn't work. The next night, I put my head in my hands again —instead of imagining a new life free from Daley, I started wishing for an end. I needed to see a psychiatrist. I tried to make an appointment, but all the local clinics were booked so I made an appointment that was two months away in a clinic requiring a 40 minute commute. Options were running out, and I needed a solution, today. My wife mentioned journaling.
I had already written what elementary grad students called teacher reflections about what was and wasn’t working in the classroom, but it had been years since I wrote about how I was feeling. Once I started, I didn’t want to stop writing. Everything that had been filling my head, I started to put on paper. After writing an entry, it seemed I had created a little space, just enough space to breathe again.
Friday, March 11, 2011
The job search begins
I guess it didn't matter anymore. There was no time to reflect, only time to plot my escape. First, I applied to any job I could find that required a background in education. I didn't get any responses; I guess I wasn't the only teacher looking for a way out. It was a friend of mine who gave me the most promising lead. She had been a teacher before, and she took pity on me. She worked at an adult school that taught English to immigrants. Adult education seemed perfect: students who paid attention, who didn't yell at you, who even wanted to learn. Each day my friend mentioned another supervisor she had talked to about me, and each day, I fantasized just a little more about how my last day at Daley would feel. Would I give the principal two weeks, would I send him an email, or even better, would I just walk out in the middle of a particularly bad afternoon. All great ideas. I was still praying by the way. But I was no longer praying to be a better teacher, I was praying to get out.
The adult ed school called and I scheduled the interview for 4:30 on a Tuesday. This meant I had to leave Daley right after school to arrive on time. On this day, I had colorful marker stains all over my fingers—I spent the day erasing a marked up whiteboard over and over again without an eraser. The erasers never last more than a week. Sometimes I would find a broken one under my desk with bite barks on it.
It took forever to get that dry erase marker off my fingers, and I arrived late to the most important interview of my life. The first of two interviews was just about my resume, and I felt great discussing all the nice volunteer jobs I had before Daley. She asked why I was leaving behind my second graders, and I kept myself from disclosing the real reason, that it was a struggle to show up each day at work because I was starting to hate it. I just told her second graders weren’t motivated to learn, and she smiled, “I know the feeling. I started as a high school teacher, but teaching adults is much more fulfilling.” The interview was going just fine. To help students speak English and find a job seemed like just what I needed. I could still teach, I could make enough money, and I could start sleeping at night, and maybe even enjoy my weekends again. Grandma James would understand, she probably would give me a big hug; she had been telling me to get out for weeks. Well, I had given Daley my best shot, but I was beaten. It was time to walk on.
But by my second interview I realized something was wrong. She told me I had to be bilingual. I actually spoke Spanish, but I was intermediate at best. My second interview was conducted completely in Spanish, and it was going decently until she started asking me about the attendance programming system we used at Daley. I didn’t even know the answer in English. Then she switched to English and started explaining what the job was. It wasn’t a teaching job at all; it was registering new students. I would be on the phone all day, speaking Spanish with people who wanted to learn English. There would be no English speaking at all. She also asked if I had a high school diploma or a GED. As an intermediate Spanish speaker with a masters degree, I was both under-qualified and over-qualified. It also paid an hourly wage right around that of Target; I withdrew my name from the list just to avoid the embarrassment of getting rejected by a job that I couldn’t afford to take anyway. It was back to the whiteboard for me.
The adult ed school called and I scheduled the interview for 4:30 on a Tuesday. This meant I had to leave Daley right after school to arrive on time. On this day, I had colorful marker stains all over my fingers—I spent the day erasing a marked up whiteboard over and over again without an eraser. The erasers never last more than a week. Sometimes I would find a broken one under my desk with bite barks on it.
It took forever to get that dry erase marker off my fingers, and I arrived late to the most important interview of my life. The first of two interviews was just about my resume, and I felt great discussing all the nice volunteer jobs I had before Daley. She asked why I was leaving behind my second graders, and I kept myself from disclosing the real reason, that it was a struggle to show up each day at work because I was starting to hate it. I just told her second graders weren’t motivated to learn, and she smiled, “I know the feeling. I started as a high school teacher, but teaching adults is much more fulfilling.” The interview was going just fine. To help students speak English and find a job seemed like just what I needed. I could still teach, I could make enough money, and I could start sleeping at night, and maybe even enjoy my weekends again. Grandma James would understand, she probably would give me a big hug; she had been telling me to get out for weeks. Well, I had given Daley my best shot, but I was beaten. It was time to walk on.
But by my second interview I realized something was wrong. She told me I had to be bilingual. I actually spoke Spanish, but I was intermediate at best. My second interview was conducted completely in Spanish, and it was going decently until she started asking me about the attendance programming system we used at Daley. I didn’t even know the answer in English. Then she switched to English and started explaining what the job was. It wasn’t a teaching job at all; it was registering new students. I would be on the phone all day, speaking Spanish with people who wanted to learn English. There would be no English speaking at all. She also asked if I had a high school diploma or a GED. As an intermediate Spanish speaker with a masters degree, I was both under-qualified and over-qualified. It also paid an hourly wage right around that of Target; I withdrew my name from the list just to avoid the embarrassment of getting rejected by a job that I couldn’t afford to take anyway. It was back to the whiteboard for me.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
“I want to quit teaching”
Six weeks were done and my class was not magically ready to be taught; in fact, it seemed like each week they were getting worse. They did start their mornings quietly coloring in a rainbow with addition problems that told them which color to use, but by the end of they day, balled up papers and broken crayons were all that remained.
Sadly, it was better than my first year. The majority of the students did their work, and they did it well, but most afternoons things got out of control. In fact, each day was getting worse. My birthday was in late September, and my wife planned something especially nice because she knew my class’ behavior was slowly gnawing away at my sanity. She asked me to take off half the day after my actual birthday, keeping the reason as a surprise. With a two-year old at home, staying out past 10pm was a rarity, and sleeping in was a never. She secretly called my mom to drive up and babysit, and as we walked down the sidewalk to our car, my mom mistakenly yelled out, “Have fun at the concert!” My wife slowly lowered her head, and I could only smile, “So a concert, huh?” “U2.” “U2!” It was our favorite band--"Sunday, Bloody Sunday" is one of the best songs ever, in my humble opinion.
We never did things like this. We were so cheap that we had a rule we couldn’t spend more than $30 on a gift. But somehow, as we pulled away, smiling and waving at my mom, my eyes went blank, and my forehead creased. “Can I tell you what happened during the day at school? I know it's my birthday, and I want everything to be happy because, you know, this is an awesome surprise, and I'm really excited about it, but if I just say all the bad things right now then I won't think about them anymore.” I had no idea how to relieve stress because I had never really been so stressed. I imagined it was like drinking so much that you get dizzy--the only solution is throwing up. Now, instead of liquor, I had to unload my thoughts. Throwing up might be ugly and depressing, but once it's done, it's done. Or so I thought.
When we arrived at the stadium, I had just finished the list of all the terrible things the kids had done. It wasn't just what they had done, but all my theories on why they did it, and how I should change my teaching. "Maybe I should just take his recess, right? Yeah, but I did that to him last week, and he flipped out and threw the chair across the room..."
When the concert started, I repeatedly and secretly glanced at my watch. I had asked for a day off like she had asked, but I asked for the second half of the day off instead of the first half because the afternoons were that bad. This also meant that I wouldn't stay up late because I had to wake up early to go to school, exactly why she had asked me to take the half day off in the first place. Any rational teacher would have taken off the whole day, but for some reason, I felt bad even taking half.
Bono was screaming Sunday Bloody Sunday, and I screamed right along with him, but my mind kept on: “What are we going to do tomorrow? I should have called Ryden’s mom, he did get in a fight… Adam should have lost his recess… He’ll probably do the same thing tomorrow… I don’t want to go in tomorrow… I feel sick.” It should have been an incredible concert, the best concert of my life: the crowd was singing along, pounding their fists in the air, and I was with my best friend. But as I continually chanted, "have fun, smile, have fun, smile," I couldn’t. For every "woooohooo!", there was a glance at my watch and a muffled yawn, and I thought, “It’s getting late. Would it be horrible to leave before the encore?” She turned to me, "you look tired... we can go home if you want."
"No way! Are you kidding! This is the greatest concert ever! What an incredible birthday! I'll remember this forever." At least, that's what I should have said. Instead, I just said, "Yeah. Okay."
The next day I typed, “I want to quit teaching” in Google just to see what would come up, and I smiled--there were plenty of results. There was a pleasure in reading about all the teachers who hated their jobs. I wasn’t surprised by all the first year teachers who hated it, but it was the others that made me feel like I had company. I read about a fourteen-year veteran who regretted he didn’t get quit earlier. I read about a teacher who had already quit and was so happy even though he was barely getting by on unemployment checks. Then I found a website designed for frustrated teachers that listed all the reasons why I should stick with it. At the bottom of the list it said if you really didn’t like the kids, you should get out. Come to think of it, I thought, there aren’t many kids I like. It seemed the answer was clear. It was finally time. Time to get out.
My first year I always kept the hope that things could only get better; there was still a good chance I would pull through, turn the class around, and become a good teacher in the process. I imagined stations of collaborative groups, I imagined facilitating conversations in book groups, I imagined students joyfully filling egg cartons with beads. I knew it wouldn’t come easy, but I assumed it was only a matter of hard work and time. So I wasn’t teacher of the year after my disastrous first year, maybe it would take five years. But I would get there, just had to keep on trying.
Something changed my second year. Just trying hard wasn’t working, it seemed like I was making it worse and the same questions came back—why did I come here, what was I thinking?
Sadly, it was better than my first year. The majority of the students did their work, and they did it well, but most afternoons things got out of control. In fact, each day was getting worse. My birthday was in late September, and my wife planned something especially nice because she knew my class’ behavior was slowly gnawing away at my sanity. She asked me to take off half the day after my actual birthday, keeping the reason as a surprise. With a two-year old at home, staying out past 10pm was a rarity, and sleeping in was a never. She secretly called my mom to drive up and babysit, and as we walked down the sidewalk to our car, my mom mistakenly yelled out, “Have fun at the concert!” My wife slowly lowered her head, and I could only smile, “So a concert, huh?” “U2.” “U2!” It was our favorite band--"Sunday, Bloody Sunday" is one of the best songs ever, in my humble opinion.
We never did things like this. We were so cheap that we had a rule we couldn’t spend more than $30 on a gift. But somehow, as we pulled away, smiling and waving at my mom, my eyes went blank, and my forehead creased. “Can I tell you what happened during the day at school? I know it's my birthday, and I want everything to be happy because, you know, this is an awesome surprise, and I'm really excited about it, but if I just say all the bad things right now then I won't think about them anymore.” I had no idea how to relieve stress because I had never really been so stressed. I imagined it was like drinking so much that you get dizzy--the only solution is throwing up. Now, instead of liquor, I had to unload my thoughts. Throwing up might be ugly and depressing, but once it's done, it's done. Or so I thought.
When we arrived at the stadium, I had just finished the list of all the terrible things the kids had done. It wasn't just what they had done, but all my theories on why they did it, and how I should change my teaching. "Maybe I should just take his recess, right? Yeah, but I did that to him last week, and he flipped out and threw the chair across the room..."
When the concert started, I repeatedly and secretly glanced at my watch. I had asked for a day off like she had asked, but I asked for the second half of the day off instead of the first half because the afternoons were that bad. This also meant that I wouldn't stay up late because I had to wake up early to go to school, exactly why she had asked me to take the half day off in the first place. Any rational teacher would have taken off the whole day, but for some reason, I felt bad even taking half.
Bono was screaming Sunday Bloody Sunday, and I screamed right along with him, but my mind kept on: “What are we going to do tomorrow? I should have called Ryden’s mom, he did get in a fight… Adam should have lost his recess… He’ll probably do the same thing tomorrow… I don’t want to go in tomorrow… I feel sick.” It should have been an incredible concert, the best concert of my life: the crowd was singing along, pounding their fists in the air, and I was with my best friend. But as I continually chanted, "have fun, smile, have fun, smile," I couldn’t. For every "woooohooo!", there was a glance at my watch and a muffled yawn, and I thought, “It’s getting late. Would it be horrible to leave before the encore?” She turned to me, "you look tired... we can go home if you want."
"No way! Are you kidding! This is the greatest concert ever! What an incredible birthday! I'll remember this forever." At least, that's what I should have said. Instead, I just said, "Yeah. Okay."
The next day I typed, “I want to quit teaching” in Google just to see what would come up, and I smiled--there were plenty of results. There was a pleasure in reading about all the teachers who hated their jobs. I wasn’t surprised by all the first year teachers who hated it, but it was the others that made me feel like I had company. I read about a fourteen-year veteran who regretted he didn’t get quit earlier. I read about a teacher who had already quit and was so happy even though he was barely getting by on unemployment checks. Then I found a website designed for frustrated teachers that listed all the reasons why I should stick with it. At the bottom of the list it said if you really didn’t like the kids, you should get out. Come to think of it, I thought, there aren’t many kids I like. It seemed the answer was clear. It was finally time. Time to get out.
My first year I always kept the hope that things could only get better; there was still a good chance I would pull through, turn the class around, and become a good teacher in the process. I imagined stations of collaborative groups, I imagined facilitating conversations in book groups, I imagined students joyfully filling egg cartons with beads. I knew it wouldn’t come easy, but I assumed it was only a matter of hard work and time. So I wasn’t teacher of the year after my disastrous first year, maybe it would take five years. But I would get there, just had to keep on trying.
Something changed my second year. Just trying hard wasn’t working, it seemed like I was making it worse and the same questions came back—why did I come here, what was I thinking?
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