Gladly Would I Teach

As I was writing thank-you notes this weekend, I started thinking about my first year of teaching when I was so young and so inexperienced.  Milky the Marvelous Milking Cow was a new toy in 1977, and the commercials for the toy seemed to air every ten minutes. Milky was a simple toy in these pre-computer days. Kids fed water with milk tablets to Milky and then milked him.

And he mooed.

And mooed!

And mooed!

In class I kept joking about Milky the Cow and claiming that I was dreaming that Santa would bring him to me for Christmas.

As I learned much too late, teachers should never make such statements to eighth graders. When the final day before Christmas break arrived, my kids presented me with a big box to open. After carefully peeling away the wrapping paper, I discovered Milky the Cow, a much too expensive toy for a silly joke.

We spent the rest of the afternoon milking Milky the Cow.

That’s the last time I joked with students about what I wanted for Christmas.

The generosity of students at Christmas always amazes me. I spent most of the day yesterday writing thank-you notes for all of the gifts I received on Thursday and Friday.  Judging from the gifts, it’s hard to believe we are still in the throes of a major recession.

From hand soap and cream, to books, to gift cards, to tea, home-baked sweets, teacups, socks, note cards, tree ornaments, candles, an iced tea pitcher, earrings, and candy, the gifts are as varied as the students I teach.

The most creative gift came from a student who actually made me a personalized serving spoon by wrapping beads around the handle.

One thoughtful gift came from a student who gave me a copy of Jeannette Walls’ new novel, Half Broke Horses. We read The Glass Castle, her first book, earlier in the semester.

The final gift came from a former student I cherish who sent me a beautiful Christmas wreath that I found on my front porch when I pulled into my driveway at the end of the day.

My favorite gifts are always the poignant words students express in the cards and letters that they give me at the end of the semester. Like most teachers, when the semester closes, I am so tired and wonder if I will regain the strength and enthusiasm to begin yet another new semester in January.

Just when I think it’s time to retire, I read notes from students, and, perhaps it’s a sign of age, but it’s hard not to cry when students express gratitude.

I would like you to know I have never had a teacher who has impacted me as much as you have. You found a way to connect to all of my personal needs and struggles.

The world needs more people like you and I feel privileged to know you as my teacher, mentor, and friend.

Yours is a kind soul coupled with a spirit of joy and a readiness for laughter. I look forward to third period each day because I know, no matter how down I may be, no matter how bad my day has been, Dr. Parrott will always do something to make me feel better, be it playing with a camera or becoming all of a sudden fascinated with my love for the color purple.

Your class has changed me, Dr. Parrott, in more ways than can fit on this paper. It has brought values which lived deep inside me to the surface and has truly changed the way I live my life.

After you gave every student that book with the class picture and saying posted inside, it made me realize that I am a different person than I was on the first day of senior year. You have taught me that I have a voice and people will listen to what I have to say.

Oh, the presents are nice, and the baked goods and candy are delicious. Nothing, however, surpasses the lovely notes that make us remember why we became teachers!

I think I’m going to bookmark this post and refer to it in the future when I have one of those “What am I doing here” days!

I haven’t posted anything in the last couple of days because we have been taking final exams, and I’ve spent way too much time grading essays. Today is the first chance I have had to relax.

Speaking of relaxing. . .

On Thursday, my first and second periods had to take the one-hour multiple-choice section of the final exam as I graded essays from the previous day.

Since it is a timed exam (a previously-administered AP exam), I started the exam, set the timer, and sat down at my desk to grade papers. It was supposed to be a relaxing hour for me to finish grading.

I’m a tea drinker and a creature of habit.

At the beginning of first period every day for 90 days, I have boiled water in an electric pot I keep in my classroom and poured it into the cup on my desk. Thursday I followed my routine exactly.

As I sat down to grade papers, I reached over for my tea. As I picked it up, however, I discovered that my normally very dark Earl Gray tea had transformed into a lovely, bright green, more reminiscent of anti-freeze than tea.

I was furious!

Since the students were taking a timed test, however, all I could do was sit and stew (brew?).

I knew immediately that someone had poured food coloring in my cup, and I knew the culprit had to be one of five practical jokers in my first-period class, but I didn’t know which one.

Normally, I would have laughed, dumped out the tea, and made a new cup, but I was trapped in a classroom during final exams, trapped with lime green tea, a stack of essays that I had to grade, and NO TEA!

I calmed down and survived for an entire tea-less hour, but the entire time I debated what I should do when I found the responsible student. Should I assign detention? Should I reprimand him in front of the other students? Should I chastise him and then send him to an administrator for serious discipline?

One of the best byproducts of years of classroom experience is good judgment. Even though I was furious that I didn’t have a cup of tea, I knew the student had simply carried out a practical joke, a joke that I would have enjoyed on practically any other day. I wondered, however, if the student would take responsibility for his action and, if not, what would I do to find the culprit.

At the end of the test, I asked, “Who put something in my tea” and then explained what I had found. Silence prevailed for a few seconds. I then stated, “I am a nervous wreck because of final exam and all these essays to grade, and I couldn’t even drink my tea.”

Immediately a student near me raised his hand and said, “I did it. I’m sorry!”

Good judgment often dictates that the best step is simply to accept the apology and realize that punishment doesn’t have to follow all infractions.

A few minutes later as the student accompanied me across the hall to grade the multiple-choice tests, he apologized once again, and we had a good laugh.

I suggested that he restrict how much food coloring he uses next time. The tea was so bright that no one would fall for the joke and drink the tea!

It’s final exam time, that exciting but overwhelming time of the semester when there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything graded.

Just for the record, the pencil graphic is misleading. Oh, that all of my final exam could be machine scored.

Oh, how much time I would have if I didn’t have to include essays.

Maybe I’ll find time to blog tomorrow.

For tonight, however, it’s back to the red pen and grading.

Of all of the education courses I have taken, all of the books about teaching I have read, and all of the discussions about students I’ve held over the years, I still have not learned how to say good-bye to students at the end of the semester.

Of course, I tell them good-bye when they leave my classroom, and I wish them good-luck, but I have never learned how to actually let go. When students sit inside my classroom for 90 minutes every day for 18 weeks, classes become like families with all the laughter, love, arguments, and drama.

After so much time spent together, how do we go our separate ways, knowing we will never again gather as a class?

I’m excited as the Christmas season unfolds.

I’m thrilled that my seniors are completing their first semester and moving on to their final semester as high school students.

When they walk out of my classroom on Friday and I sit alone in my empty classroom, however, I will once again curse the fact that I teach only seniors. When they leave my classroom, I will never again have the chance to teach them. Because I teach in a large school with a huge campus, I won’t even see most of them unless they make it a point to stop by my classroom just to say hello.

What’s the hardest thing about my job?

Teaching all seniors and having to say good-bye at the end of the semester. (The only thing more difficult is saying good-bye at graduation.)

Friday is the final day of the semester. Unlike most teachers, however, I’m dreading that day.

London’s Daily Mail reports on a 12 year old who was suspended for selling junk food in violation of the school’s ban on “fatty drinks and snacks.”

But headmaster Dave Forshaw said parents and pupils must abide by the school rules or go elsewhere.

‘We are a healthy school and proud of it,’ he said.

I always end the semester with a special activity that allows students to share their thoughts about each other and thank members of the class who have helped them through the semester.

I wrote about this assignment a few weeks ago and explained how I have students write notes and comments to each other.

Want to Give Your Students a Gift?

Today, after we take our final vocabulary quiz and complete the self-evaluation for class participation, I will read aloud the final essay that we will discuss for the semester. It’s a simple essay that is extremely poignant for high school seniors. I read Robert Fulghum’s “Credo” from All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

Credo

Afterward, I’ll pass out small gifts that I have for students and distribute the comments that students wrote for each other. We’ll sit around and eat cake and discuss the semester and laugh and bring the class to a close. (Our final exams start tomorrow.)

Most of all, we’ll end the class with laughter and happiness, a memory that I hope will remain with students for many years. It’s my favorite day of the semester.

Throughout the semester, I require students to research contemporary and often controversial, topics. Students must read a variety of sources and then present their findings to the class or share the information they uncover in a paper or project. Although the topics are quite limited in its early days of development, a new Google service may become a tremendous research aid in the future.

Google Living Stories allows users to access one URL where they can track stories from The New York Times and The Washington Post. Currently, the only topics available are health care, swine flu, global warming, the war in Afghanistan, executive compensation, and a couple of stories of importance to Washington, DC.

Readers who click on a topic can then follow the timeline of the topic, read news stories and editorials, watch videos, see important quotations, etc. all on that topic. Google Living Stories provides a quick primer on topics, but the sources are so extensive, that it appears to be an excellent research tool.

It’s new and limited to a handful of topics and pulls sources from only two newspapers. However, as Google adds sources and topics, Google Living Stories may transform into one of the most important sources we have for tracking important developing stories.

As I played with the website, I, once again, thought about how the Internet is changing how we conduct research. Initially as I looked at Google Living Stories, I did not like it because it provides students with sources without requiring them to search on their own. I quickly changed my mind, however. One of the Internet’s greatest strengths is the ability to perform quick searches and deliver sources that once took individuals days to find. Sure, students don’t have to search as long as students of the past, but the time they save from searching can be spent in reading and analyzing more sources (including graphics and videos) than we ever thought possible.

It’s early in development, but I like what I see so far in Google Living Stories.

As my seniors apply to colleges and start making decisions about where they want to attend school next year, I keep thinking about the handful of students I know whose college options are unreasonably limited.

A few weeks ago, one of my students wrote a research paper on the problems that undocumented students face when they want to attend college:

These are all hard working individuals who are deprived of the privilege of being recognized in the US simply because they were born on the opposite side of an imaginary line…. They will not get the education they worked for with great effort in high school because they are blocked from financial and social barriers. Many colleges do not accept students without proof of residency; the colleges that do require such a student to pay out-of-state tuition. The out-of-state tuition would not be a problem were it not for the fact that these students are denied countless scholarships simply because they too, require proof of residency.

Sometimes we need students to teach us.

Even though I work with immigrant students, until I read this student’s paper, I had never thought about the barriers that restrict these students when they graduate and want to attend college. Because I am accustomed to seeing diligent and intelligent students surpass so many obstacles, I believed they must have found ways to enter and pay for college.

Regardless of our views on immigration, why would we punish children who merely followed their parents to America, children who have worked their hardest in school, many of whom learned English so well that they advanced into honors and AP courses, children who dream just as all of our students dream?

In the spring, Senators Richard Durbin of Illinois and Richard Lugar of Indiana introduced the bi-partisan DREAM (Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors) Act in the Senate. The act would provide a way to citizenship for undocumented immigrant students between 12-35 who entered the country before the age of  16. Students must have been in the United States for at least 5 consecutive years, must have graduated from high school or received a GED, must have been accepted into college, and must have high moral character.

The Dream Act received 51 votes when it was first introduced in the Senate, 9 votes short of passage. What better graduation gift can we give to undocumented immigrant students than the passage of the DREAM Act in the spring?

For more information, please visit the DREAM Act website.

Last night I reconnected with old friends with whom I had taught at Pebblebrook High School in the 1980s and early 1990s. In a matter of minutes, we were back laughing at situations and people we all once loved, cherished, and admired.

Debbie was the department chair who loved literature and laughed freely, Gaile the social studies chair who loved working with difficult students and became an administrator half way through her career. Mary, Robin, and Maria were younger teachers who had just started their careers and were so enthusiastic and full of dreams. Phyllis was the librarian who loved books, way back before noise drowned the silence, technology surpassed print, and libraries changed to media centers. Charlie started his career teaching Industrial Arts before learning how to operate computers in the early years of personal computers and later became our resident technology specialist. Nancy taught math before becoming an administrator; Addie, now retired, taught special education; and Marilyn has been an administrator forever.  Tony, the baseball coach and all-around great guy, also made an appearance. Betty, the English teacher who became an administrator who led many former Pebblebrook teachers to start a new school, also arrived.

Two decades before, Susan, our inspirational and enthusiastic principal, had encouraged us to reach out to students when most of us were frustrated and exhausted, and it was at her request that we all gathered together last night.

We talked for hours about what we are doing now, remembered those who have passed on and those with whom we have lost touch, and toasted the memory of Kay, someone we loved and lost way too early, someone who would have enjoyed last night. Most of the time we laughed, and even though two decades before we had taught in a difficult school during a stressful transition period when we all faced innumerable obstacles, we still remember most of those incidents fondly.

For at least one night a year, we gather and relive those years when we were all together and believed we could change the world – one student at a time. We may not have changed the world, but we definitely made a difference in the lives of hundreds of students as well as in the lives of each other.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a large sign greeted visitors  who stepped inside the main hall at Pebblerook:

Through these halls walk the best: The Faculty and Students of PHS.

I believed it then, and I believe it now.