As a teacher, I make a lot of mistakes. I make little mistakes that nobody notices. I make big mistakes that I have to flounder through and play off. When I make these mistakes in front of my students, I try to admit to them, in order to model that it is ok to mess up, that is is impossible to do everything right all the time, and that the important thing is to learn from those mistakes and move on.
Yesterday, I made a big mistake. I insulted a student. And it wasn’t just a sly, underhanded remark that nobody heard; it was a witty interjection that half (if not more) of the class caught and chuckled at.
My students in English 11 have been working on writing editorials and letters to the editor, with partners. The idea is for them to work on incorporating the opposing viewpoint and addressing the opposing viewpoint with a counterargument in order to strengthen their overall argument. They are all working on Google Docs, and in class on Monday, I had them share their essays with me, so I would be able to monitor their progress.
When I went through the essays on Monday night, I was not surprised by the fact that many of the students had little to nothing done, despite the fact that they had had the entire class period to work that day (not to mention time on Friday and over the weekend). One of the students with very little done was Burt*, who I also have in my zero period online English class because he is making up English 9. Burt is an extremely bright student with a passion for drama, but, when it comes to actually getting his work done in class, Burt has a lot of room for improvement. I’ve spoken to him in the past about this, and I always get the same story - “You don’t need to worry about me, Ms. Lewis. I’ll get it done.” And then I wait. And wait. And wait.
In class on Wednesday, the students were sharing their essays with their partners via Google Docs. They were each on ChromeBooks, and they were supposed to be reading their partner’s essay and commenting on it. As I was looking over another student’s work, I heard a girl say, “Burt, where are you going?” in reference to where he was navigating on his screen. Before I even had time to think and stop myself, “Nowhere” slipped out of my mouth. I had just said Burt was going nowhere, and I had said it out loud, and a lot of students heard me and laughed.
I registered what I said, but, as Burt is usually game for such banter, I didn’t feel too guilty about it. I also didn’t apologize right away, which was an even bigger mistake than saying it in the first place. I had just modeled to my students that it was okay to bully Burt in my classroom. Big mistake.
At the end of the period, when I was back at my desk, I saw that Burt had replied to a comment I’d left on his essay the night before. The comment read, “The comment you made actually really hurt.” BIG MISTAKE.
I looked up in time to see Burt slipping out the door, with a dejected look on his face. The usually confident young man had turned into a sullen teenager because of something I had said! Me! The teacher who vowed to never say anything mean to her students! What had I done?
When I got home after school, I stumbled across a phenomenal blog written by Grant Wiggins about a veteran teacher who shadowed 2 students for 2 days. One of the takeaways from the experience was that, if the teacher could go back in time, she would have made her classroom a sarcasm-free zone. I read this and immediately knew what I had to do. I emailed Burt an apology explaining my comment and why I was worried about him; I also told him that I would attempt to no longer say anything mean to or about my students, and I wanted him to hold me accountable to that.
So, this is one of my new things for this week.
I’ve started this blog as an experiment. Every week, I am going to try to do at least one new thing in the classroom. Not something that nobody has ever done before - that would be ridiculous - but something new for me and my students. Sometimes, I will focus on strategies; other times, I will focus on technology; other times, I will focus on more personal goals.
At the end of each week, I will blog about how my new thing went for that week - what went well, what went horribly, what I can improve upon, what I will do differently next time, etc. I am hoping that I will be able to keep my teaching dynamic and engaging, but I am also hoping that you will be able to learn something from this as well. Since I will be trying out all kinds of different things and telling you what works and doesn’t work, I hope that you will be able to use my experiences to help guide the decisions you make in your own classrooms.
I would also like this blog to serve as a dialogue between educators around the country (and possibly the world). If you have questions for me, please ask! If there is something you aren’t sure about, but you’d like me to try, let me know. I will do my best to incorporate your suggestions into my teaching (within reason, of course - I am an English and English Language Development teacher, so I won’t take off-the-wall suggestions that aren’t applicable to my subject area).
*student's name changed for privacy
Yesterday, I made a big mistake. I insulted a student. And it wasn’t just a sly, underhanded remark that nobody heard; it was a witty interjection that half (if not more) of the class caught and chuckled at.
My students in English 11 have been working on writing editorials and letters to the editor, with partners. The idea is for them to work on incorporating the opposing viewpoint and addressing the opposing viewpoint with a counterargument in order to strengthen their overall argument. They are all working on Google Docs, and in class on Monday, I had them share their essays with me, so I would be able to monitor their progress.
When I went through the essays on Monday night, I was not surprised by the fact that many of the students had little to nothing done, despite the fact that they had had the entire class period to work that day (not to mention time on Friday and over the weekend). One of the students with very little done was Burt*, who I also have in my zero period online English class because he is making up English 9. Burt is an extremely bright student with a passion for drama, but, when it comes to actually getting his work done in class, Burt has a lot of room for improvement. I’ve spoken to him in the past about this, and I always get the same story - “You don’t need to worry about me, Ms. Lewis. I’ll get it done.” And then I wait. And wait. And wait.
In class on Wednesday, the students were sharing their essays with their partners via Google Docs. They were each on ChromeBooks, and they were supposed to be reading their partner’s essay and commenting on it. As I was looking over another student’s work, I heard a girl say, “Burt, where are you going?” in reference to where he was navigating on his screen. Before I even had time to think and stop myself, “Nowhere” slipped out of my mouth. I had just said Burt was going nowhere, and I had said it out loud, and a lot of students heard me and laughed.
I registered what I said, but, as Burt is usually game for such banter, I didn’t feel too guilty about it. I also didn’t apologize right away, which was an even bigger mistake than saying it in the first place. I had just modeled to my students that it was okay to bully Burt in my classroom. Big mistake.
At the end of the period, when I was back at my desk, I saw that Burt had replied to a comment I’d left on his essay the night before. The comment read, “The comment you made actually really hurt.” BIG MISTAKE.
I looked up in time to see Burt slipping out the door, with a dejected look on his face. The usually confident young man had turned into a sullen teenager because of something I had said! Me! The teacher who vowed to never say anything mean to her students! What had I done?
When I got home after school, I stumbled across a phenomenal blog written by Grant Wiggins about a veteran teacher who shadowed 2 students for 2 days. One of the takeaways from the experience was that, if the teacher could go back in time, she would have made her classroom a sarcasm-free zone. I read this and immediately knew what I had to do. I emailed Burt an apology explaining my comment and why I was worried about him; I also told him that I would attempt to no longer say anything mean to or about my students, and I wanted him to hold me accountable to that.
So, this is one of my new things for this week.
I’ve started this blog as an experiment. Every week, I am going to try to do at least one new thing in the classroom. Not something that nobody has ever done before - that would be ridiculous - but something new for me and my students. Sometimes, I will focus on strategies; other times, I will focus on technology; other times, I will focus on more personal goals.
At the end of each week, I will blog about how my new thing went for that week - what went well, what went horribly, what I can improve upon, what I will do differently next time, etc. I am hoping that I will be able to keep my teaching dynamic and engaging, but I am also hoping that you will be able to learn something from this as well. Since I will be trying out all kinds of different things and telling you what works and doesn’t work, I hope that you will be able to use my experiences to help guide the decisions you make in your own classrooms.
I would also like this blog to serve as a dialogue between educators around the country (and possibly the world). If you have questions for me, please ask! If there is something you aren’t sure about, but you’d like me to try, let me know. I will do my best to incorporate your suggestions into my teaching (within reason, of course - I am an English and English Language Development teacher, so I won’t take off-the-wall suggestions that aren’t applicable to my subject area).
*student's name changed for privacy
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