The Crystal Ball

Your past, your present, your future...the crystal ball of educational documents...next years' class schedules are out.

It is MAYHEM. Students pour out into the hallways after third period upon receiving the single most influential document they have been handed all year. They rush to their friends, already huddled in the hallways trading schedules frantically, as screams of joy and the dull roar of “ughs” fills our acoustically friendly halls.

This is a big day- this is their deciding fate. For a student, there is so much riding on this single, plain, overly structured, black and white, piece of paper.

“Did I get the classes I want? Did I get the teachers I wanted? How hard is next year going to be? Will I be able to come in early or leave late? Most importantly.. the end all be all.. am I with ANY of my friends?”

And then, after all the conversing with friends, the celebrating and complaining, there is the “aftershock”

Students drizzle into fourth period, seemingly exhausted and, as a teacher, you can see in their faces. The greatest, and hardest, thing about high school students is there is no holding back their emotions. Locked and loaded emotional cannons just waiting, hoping, praying.. for the wick to be lit. The cannon sounds and again, chaos.

My heart goes out to the counselors. Every time I sent a student to them I envisioned the guidance office like the seen of a Walmart store on Black Friday, bodies everywhere, complaining, pushing, jarring for a chance to get out of “ the worst class evvvvvvver” because it is just “ SO UNFAIR!”

On the flip side of all of that.. students run up to me all day “ MR.PAHL!!! I HAVE YOU FOR ( insert the greatest class ever here)!!!!!!!!!!

I would imagine this is what Bon Jovi feels like in public.. but cooler. 

The Grand Illusion

We have 2 weeks left in this year and it is the funniest thing, as each day comes to an end ..spoiler alert.. You probably did this in school too with summer fast approaching.. Everyone pretends they want out. Everyone. Students and teachers alike.

“Can we just have a free day? it’s summer!”
“Oh just counting the days..”
“We’re almost there..”

Without fail, come 5^th period.. quotes like that start shooting out of peoples mouths as if they were getting paid to say it ( which, if you listen to teachers,  we aren't getting paid for anything, and if you listen to the media we are getting overpaid for everything) I am personally in the middle. Being from a short sales background and having good friends in the industry ( what up y'all ) performance pay seems like a favorable and logical idea.. but then again so does the ideas and principles of communism and these ..to no surprise.. are not working out for anyone.

I regress. 

Back to the topic.. people want out. But they don’t. No one really wants out. We spend the majority of our year together. We get to know each other (almost more than we’d like) We get to know families.. their dynamics.. their passions.. their short comings.. their drama…their triumphs.. and we get to build a relationship with 300 students most of which we met this year and then we all want to leave ..students and teachers included? Hardly.  

Hell.. my seniors just left and I’m hoping they start blogs about THEIR lives just so I can make sure they are okay.

Pretend all you want.. leaving is never fun.. or easy.. or wanted.

Cop Out

(In the span of writing this … all 4 periods..  there were two confrontations in the tense over crowded hallway I am writing about)

I was thinking about what to write next , whatmy next "life changing" post would be, and then it hit me.. or rather they hit me…the words uttered almost daily from my colleagues as they walk into the office

 “Did you hear/see that? That is why we need to have our cop out there in that hallway”

Soo..Let’s be clear, this is not a cop out – This is an explanation for why we need to have our cop out.

The hallways can be a scary place. Not because of what DOES happen but because of what CAN happen. Breaking up fights is a common occurrence. The fight itself is not usually the issue… so two ill-tempered boys or a couple scorned teenaged girls get into it..that’s on them. The issue is attention that the fight gets because the attention is essentially what fuels it. Students fill out into the hallways watching intently, yelling for their alliances, and recording the fight to show people they were there in this epic moment in which they probably consider a boring bland grey school day. 

Now ..with all eyes on the fight,..as a student..not only do YOU know that you didn’t win the fight that you may have started but, your classmates know, your crush knows, your friends know, your enemies know, and with the addition of the ever powerful social media presence, the whole world knows.

( Please do not think that I truly believe the next comparison.. ONLY in that the social aspect is similar)

Highschool is a one of kind social environment which has only been magnified by the prevalence and power of social media. Highschool hallways are a hotbed of testosterone, estrogen, prejudices, loyalties, mistrust, power struggles, attention seeking outcries, and most of all… pride. Much like a prison (only in comparison by my standards.. the students would tell you otherwise) you have social circles packed very close together in an arena that not only promotes, but preys on the “don’t back down” mentality because god forbid you don’t appear as the top dog on the food chain.

As a teacher… speaking for teachers.. we sometimes add to the problem in that we don’t always stop the behavior that should be stopped. I will admit to having a part in that. This isn’t because I am too lazy… this isn’t because I don’t care… this isn’t a cop out. 

The simple truth , as I talk to more and more teachers, is that we are scared.

People in large groups are uncontrollable ( refer to resent riots in the media )  and in any given passing period the students outnumber us 50 to 1 if not more. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a nerve racking encounter to tell a group of students to stop a behavior. The fear here, as I stated before, is the fear of the unknown.  To walk up to a guy or girl in the middle of 20 person crowd and demand them to stop is asking for a confrontation.  

So, to begin with.. you have to decide that you are willing to single out one student, and confront a group. Then, you need to decide that you are ready for the worst. At minimum, it goes off without a hitch and they stop and move on. On average, you will probably get a few cusses and some comments from the crowd. What you need to be ready for those is the all-out repulse by the individual and the group… The “F*** You’s”  …the “ What the f*** are you gonna do’s” .. The “ get the f*** out of here’s” that even the kindest teachers are met with.

What do you do from there? Your animal instinct tells you to revert back to your HS self and throw gas on this fire that you have knowingly started while the adult and educator in you would like to solves this by talking it over and getting everyone to realize that complying IS actually the best idea. Without support from above and the much needed… immediate …help of your colleagues, there is only one solution..

You guessed it.. it is to have the cop out. It may scare the parents.. it may cause unfavorable dialog in the media.. but as a teacher.. I feel safe knowing that if the crowd EVEN THINKS FOR A SECOND that they have the power.. I have the cop out to assure them that they do not. 

Learning to Walk

Awkward – out of everything that you see on a day to day basis.. all of the dude high fives, the bestie hugs, the PDA from couples that pretend like this next 45 minute period might ACTUALLY kill them..awkward is the best way to describe it. It isn’t bad though. Far from it in fact. It’s growth. It is the shakiness when we first begin to walk. It is the first long step you take before you get on an escalator. 

But like our first steps, as scary as they might be, they are necessary.

 In high school, you see them everywhere. Just like a parent watching and encouraging a new born, as a teacher, you get to witness and celebrate with your students all the same. Sometimes it is a quick first step.. like watching a brilliant, creative, and extraordinarily shy sophomore get up in front of 30 classmates and speak on a topic that he hopes to god everyone else enjoys as much as he does and…Sometimes…well, sometimes they are more like the escalator.

That is the case with Kay- a small, bright, hispanic girl, that has seemed to have to been pushed off to the side a few too many times. When I first met her, first semester, I knew two things about her. I knew she lived in the government assisted housing which is in walking distance of our school and I knew she spent half the day here and half the day at our districts alternative school ( that is where the “bad” kids go)

Kay was in my keyboarding class. If you take a second to think about what a keyboarding class looks like.. you’re probably spot on. Other than the brief interaction you get with the students as they walk in, most of the time is spend monitoring students working on a typing software. (That has since changed due almost exclusively to the following interaction.) 

I was walking around, giving half-hearted support to students that looked like zombies glued to a bright screen in a dimly lit room. As I walked by Kay I noticed she wasn’t doing anything. I had noticed this before but, I thought to myself as many people do, “this is just how she is.” Not today. Today I stopped. Today I was going to be tough. And as I started to ask her why she wasn’t working, she popped her head up, looked me right in my eye and said ..

 “ why are you talking to me, you don’t ever talk to me.”

I was crushed. Beyond crushed. Devastated I guess.  It was an honest statement. I didn’t talk to her. Ever. For the first time as a teacher I felt like I didn’t deserve to be there. As teachers we always hear the phrase “establish teacher student relationships” You hear it so much in fact that it has all but lost its way in a long list of phrases and initiatives that get tossed after the next education changing idea arrives at our door steps.

I came to realize however,  that’s all she wanted.. to feel like her presence mattered. 

To feel like she wasn’t passed over.. again. All she wanted was someone to ask how HER day was going and genuinely care about the response.

She doesn’t know it, and I probably won’t ever tell her.. but that long step I was talking about has been my own .........and that interaction changed me.

A Small Gift

Today is a half day,  God’s small, yet miraculous, gift to the world of education. There is an energy in the air and everyone, willing or not, becomes a part of it. The hall ways are a blur of color and noise as students pass each other with smiles and upbeat...though wildly inappropriate greetings on the way to classes that.. for the most part.. are an extension of the hallway. Teach in 20 minutes? HA there is the joke of the day.

During class, I had the opportunity to read my students “10 year letter" assignment.

I laughed. I laughed out loud during most of them.

 “I met David Beckham and we have been married ever since.”

 There is nothing in the world like a high school student’s imagination. After highschool, most people, and situations, become predicable. Work is the same, family is the same, the stories are the same. Not in highschool. I have a student (Ryan)  who sits in the corner, usually without a word. Puts his head phones in (90’s alternative music no doubt), glasses on, eyes focused on the screen.. very down to earth. His letter tells another tale—in 10 years.. he has become a spy, a quadruple agent that has traveled the county for years carrying out top secret missions and.. very politely,he asked if I could watch his dogs while he was saving the world.

The randomness makes my day.