showdown in room 209

it finally happened. i crumbled. it was quieter than i expected and came on a day when everything else was good. the first little ninth grade class was captivated by our book. they raised hands and asked questions and took notes. and two of them come in early every day and take down all the chairs in the room. adorable. then the second class was going well but got a little confused so i gave them their first quiz. "absolutely aggravating a.m." i like to give the quizzes non-quiz names just for fun. and i learn a lot about spelling that way. so i gave them three questions and they spent twenty minutes hunched over desks, silent, scribbling answers. adorable.

then i walked into the tenth grade room. the sky outside was purple, pouring rain. a good sign. cooler weather. smooth sailing and all that. but the immediate talking and sleeping and hovering over the air conditioner was just too much today and i honestly had no idea where to go with these kids. i knew i didn't want to be there and neither did they. so i wrote on the board:

goal- to identify what sort of classroom environment facilitates tenth grade success.
to begin- 1. where does everything begin to fall apart? 2. what do you want from me?
product- we will create personal contracts for success. seriously. this was the focus for the whole class. nothing else. because it takes them so shockingly long to arrive (perhaps supernatural forces are sending them through periods of shifted time or are moving the classrooms around on them) and even longer to get out the supplies they're so consistently surprised to find they need (a pen, a sheet of paper), the class, which starts at noon, generally really begins about 12:25. the twenty five minutes from noon to when i get signs of human life tend to be spent with me insisting to hoodie child to sit in a chair. really. because he won't. he is fifteen.

and i looked out. the wall had headphones on. super jesus, fifteen minutes late, was putting his headphones away. hug child was "sick" which means he showed up fifteen minutes late with bloodshot eyes and proceeded to sleep through class. hoodie child was alternately sleeping and chatting away to a child who doesn't seem to know where he is. and in came two of the girls. one sat down and proceeded to scowl and the boy behind her. the other strolled in with a flourish and held out her arms. i nodded toward a desk. "what? can't i have a hug?" this is because she showed up today. for the first time. she can't believe it's not the best thing that ever happened to me. i told her i had no hugs for people who show up twenty minutes into class. so she stomped to her desk and bemoaned her sorry state. hugless.

so i pointed to the board and told them to get started. near the back of the room is the ghost, a boy who attended my class all of three times last year and who managed to get his feelings hurt all three days. poor darling. but i mentioned being glad to see him for the first time this year and he got out his notebook. he started writing. i have known this child more than three years and i have never seen this. so i talk it up. people will tell you that teens will not buy this sort of thing but they are wrong. you just have to be sincere. so several times i asked the ghost questions or commented again on how nice it was to see him, how i hoped he'd be back tomorrow. and he smiled. i have never seen this, either.

and then i told them. i was honest. i have no idea how to teach this class. i'm out of ideas. i am failing. we are failing. i am sad. too sad to do anything else. i give up. help me. what do i do? and i don't know why it happened. maybe they felt sorry for me. maybe i scared them. maybe the thought of sitting in that room doing nothing for a whole year was more terrifying than sitting in that room working. but they had suggestions. real ones. what would you do to teach this class? what do you want? group work. field trips. more non-fiction. history. real stuff. and they were serious. i asked for someone to write it all down and one boy said he already had it. what? really? and so i pushed it. "you guys complain about this being a special ed. class. it looks like one. that's because nobody shows up. you have sixteen people on the roll. get them here. it feels like a self contained class because only a few of you show up." and they looked around. i went over the list. who knows this child? get him to class. what about her? make sure she shows up tomorrow. this is your problem and it's easy to fix. do i think they'll drag classmates in tomorrow? i don't know. one of my former ninth graders comes in regularly to check on a current ninth grader. she comes in when the ninth grader is out, during break, so we can talk honestly. when i say the ninth grader is a leader in the class, her tenth grade friend beams and wanders back to class. so maybe.

we divide paper into three sections and label them. one section is for the student's name. one is for mine. the third is labeled "the class". everyone makes their own contract, what we should be able to expect from each. they can expect that i will be fair, that i will bring in things on their reading level that will still challenge their minds. for themselves they have personal issues. one says we can expect him to show up on time. another says we can expect him to stay awake. but it is the class section that surprises me. because what it means is what can one child in the room expect every day from the rest? listening. support. fairness. i didn't know they knew about these words.