The Second Trig Test

Today I gave the second test of the year to my Trig/Pre-Calc class. This is a senior level math class that I teach first and second period. When we entered the classroom, I asked all the students to go ahead and have a seat and clear off their desks. I saw a student who still had her calculator out and I asked her to put it away. "We can't use calculators?", she exclaimed, "no, we haven't used them during this entire unit, I'm sorry", I replied. She gave an exhaustive exhale, full of sass and attitude, and put her calculator away. Warning sign #1.

I also noticed two students who made it a point to move from their normal seats, to seats closest to several of the brightest students in the class. I asked them to return to their seats, and they looked at me with a puzzled glare, as to say, "how dare you ask me to return to the seat I sit in every other day of the year". Once they returned to their seat, I passed out the test. The first student whom I asked to move threw his test on the floor and said, "I fail". I walked over and said, "are you sure you don't want to try at least a few problems?" to which he replied, "I know how to do it, I just don't want to, you made me mad". "Ok, Deabrey", I said, and I took up his test. When I stood up, the second student who I asked to move also handed me her test and said, "I'm done". She handed me a test with nothing filled in but her name. "Are you sure you don't want to try any?", I asked. "No", she said, "I don't know how to do it, it's not like it's gonna come to me". "Ok, Ashley", I said, and took up the test. Warning sign #2.

Now I wouldn't pay as much attention to these warning signs, except that we took two class periods to review for this test. Nearly 100 minutes. In that time, I covered questions exactly like the ones they were tested on (side note - calculators were never used), and for some reason, I'm the bad guy. What's even more troubling, is that the second Trig class I teach has neither complained about the lack of calculators, nor given back their tests in defiance.

An overarching spirit of apathy runs rampant in this place. This has honestly been the root of my greatest challenges thus far. How do I make someone care about something. Truly, genuinely care. Caring has consequences. It takes work, it doesn't come easily at times, it requires commitment. This is commitment that some of these students have never experienced and my fear is that they never will. I know this is also where inspiration comes in, but inspiration is not found in calculators and easier tests. What it will take, I do not know, but all I know to do is keep trying, because someone has to care.

Glimpses of Fall

I woke this morning at my routine 4:30, snoozed a couple of times, and finally rose for my morning routine. I came to the kitchen, enjoyed a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats paired with a glass of Simply Orange, and took in the second Psalm. Afterward, I put the finishing touches on my lessons for the day and packed my things. I stepped out into a cool and tranquil Mississippi morning. The dew was fresh on the lawn and thick on the rear window of my car. In the midst of the hussle, it was good to stop and remember that the seasons do turn. The heat paired with the abundance of sunlight has been so prevalent for so long, that mornings and days felt like they kept repeating. Coming from a place where all four seasons existed, I partly wondered if that too was something that never came to Mississippi. Yet the seasons do continue, and the dew continues to remind.

It is still cool; roughly 70 degrees with a pale blue sky. What a day to be on the Delta.

The Day My AC Died

I don't ask for a lot. I consider myself to be a fairly low key, go with the flow kind of guy. I try to make the best of most situations and keep a positive attitude. It honestly just makes life easier and much more pleasant. Right? Ok well with that said, a week before school started, as I was preparing my classroom, I noticed that it was hotter in my classroom than it was outside. This is difficult to accomplish in August in Mississippi. After making some inquiries, I found that my air conditioning unit was indeed broken. It took about a week, but finally we got the ol' girl back in good running order, and my classroom wasn't exactly cool, but it was cooler than it was outside.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. I arrived in my classroom to find that it was again, much warmer in there than it was outside. I informed the necessary parties of the situation, and thought, "it'll be fine, we'll be able to tough it out together". Not true. That was a bad, bad thought. What resulted was several days of the most frustrating instruction to date. I couldn't get through three sentences without a loud exhale, paired with a conversation that went something like this:

"man it hot up in here Coach Ware, I'm about to fall out".

"Take it easy Denarius, you're just gonna have to be tough, I promise there's nothing I can do"

"Man Coach, my momma's gonna be mad when I fall out up in yo class".

"I know, Denarius, I know".

I literally wrote, "Please do not comment on the temperature of this classroom" on the board, but to no avail. It is amazing how ornery kids get when they are hot. They transform from relatively mild mannered teenagers, to mouthy and unreasonable. Ultimately I can only blame them so much. They are being held in a place they already didn't like, but are now hot while they are doing it. I tried to explain the basic principle that the more they complained about it, literally the more hot air was being expelled, and the hotter the room would get. They didn't like that either. I mean, I don't love being hot. I am more irritable, I'll admit it, but there's only so much one can do. What resulted from this debacle was several days of moving around various classrooms while the teachers were on their planning period. I was forced to hand out notes instead of my normal powerpoint presentations, but it was worth it, because Denarius wasn't hot.

A Small Success

Like many teachers, my homeroom period is one that causes great anxiety; it is the period I have traditionally looked forward to the least. Homeroom is a class intended for remediation or improvement of RIT scores, but is not in a subject I am really equipped to teach. Consequently every day feels like I am trying to paddle up class 5 rapids. Today was a little different. I think it was so for two reasons. One: I was talking to one of my football players yesterday after practice who is also in my homeroom. In our discussion, he was complaining about the heat and how he didn't like homeroom at all. After his comment, I turned, looked him in the eye, and told him that I needed him to be a leader in that class. He sighed and said, "but Coach, the heat be puttin' me to sleep", to which I responded, "Fred, leaders lead without condition, they don't make excuses or find ways out, they lead without condition". He understood yesterday and remembered this morning. Two: One of the students who is traditionally the most disruptive and difficult asked if they could listen to music after we were done. I thought back to a conversation I had had previously with a veteran teacher, who suggested I provide some sort of reward for my homeroom if they were cooperative. Instead of shooting the idea out of the water, I thought I'd try things a little differently, and experiment. After we finished our work, we listened to Yo Gotti and Lil Boosie for a little bit. Not the greatest rap artists I've ever heard, but it was amazing how much better I felt at the end of that period. Like I said, I didn't have any student's get a full ride to an Ivy League, but a small success. Grace and Peace.

Is this teacher fair?

Last week, we were asked to pick one or two classes and, at the end of class, pass out a sheet of paper and ask them to answer, anonymously, this question: Is the teacher fair? Oh boy. While this seemed like a golden opportunity for my students to obliterate what little self-esteem I have as a teacher, I actually found a surprising amount of encouragement in the majority of the responses.

I surveyed four classes, some being my trig students, some my geometry students, so the sample ranged from sophomores to seniors. They were all surveyed at the end of class as instructed, so any particular offenses or grudges that I re-aggravated in the 50 minute stretch would be fresh for reflection. I told them to be sure that they answered anonymously (which somehow one student still failed), and to elaborate on their answers if they wanted. I didn’t have much guidelines for responses outside of requesting that they not use profanity.

As said before, when I was able to read the results from the four classes, I found them to be different than initially anticipated. First, only one person wrote, “no, you suck!”. Along the same chord, I only received two that said, “NO!” with a frowny face drawn. Success. I knew that those would come, but I honestly anticipated I would have received more. I also had some of the more diplomatic responses like, “sometimes yes, sometimes no” which doesn’t grant a whole lot of guidance, but I’ll try and focus on the sometimes. The most surprising result, though, was the amount of “yes” answers I received back. This wasn’t surprising because I take great pride in creating a classroom built on unfairness, but rather, because I just assumed that the students thought so many of my procedures were unfair. Examples: I try to insist that students raise their hand to respond, I rarely let people use the restroom, and if you’re not in your seat when the bell rings, you are tardy. These policies are ones that the students have warred against since day 3, so I didn’t expect fairness to be something they associated with Coach Ware. My only explanation is that my students may actually understand that expectations exist for a reason. If they didn’t, I don’t see why they would have responded so generously. One girl’s response was particularly telling. She wrote, “I believe the teacher is fair, it is the students who are not fair to the teacher”. Wow.

All in all, the survey was an interesting way to gauge the classroom thus far. As for the one girl who failed at anonymity, it was ok, because on the back of her hall pass (which documented her name) she wrote, “hell yeah”. I guess I’ll take that.