This week has been excruciating at school. My students' average on my test hovered around a 50, I discovered "fat bitch, fat bitch Montgomery" scribbled on TWO of my textbooks in class, and I feel like I've tried EVERYTHING in the book to get my students to give two shits about their education or at least to sit down and listen.
I was out at dinner with a fellow teacher trying not to talk about school (and largely succeeded in doing so), but eventually got into how I have never been bad at something until now. I am used to doing well, if not rocking out everything I get myself into. School, jobs, sports, being a good person. I've never not given a shit and I've never given up. This year has been the first time in my life that I've genuinely wanted to give up and I would have quit long ago had it not been for my Mom threatening me (well not so much threatening as telling me I'm not going to quit and I know better than to cross Becky Montgomery... I love you Mom).
So why? Why am I so bad at this job?
We got to talking and the point came up that I've never not given a shit. These students don't give a shit about their education. They don't value it. They've got other priorities. I know there are students of mine who do give a shit and that is awesome and I'm glad I've got them. The majority though, don't care enough to even turn in assignments and aren't afraid of zeros in the gradebook. These students also come from difficult situations and some, if not most, do not have parents who continuously check in on progress in school.
In the conversation she mentioned that I might do fantastically well in teaching at a middle class, mostly white school. And while I feel that is partly a compliment (saying that I could do well), I don't know if the fact that it would have to be a middle class, 'white' school is comforting.
So, as much as it hurts me to say, I cannot relate to my students at all. I've never given up. I've always been ambitious. I've always been resilient about my education, even when facing the difficulty of the situation around my medical leave from Sewanee. I went back and graduated cum laude (and was so close to Magna cum laude that it still pisses me off). I have a masters. I'm going back to get a phd.
Also, I've never been in a school situation with the socioeconomic class that I teach. I went to school in Pass Christian, largely a middle class school. I was in advanced classes with students who cared. I remember only one class in which I was in the general population in class and I distinctly recall being pissed off at the students who caused disruptions in class. After Pass Christian, I went to Mississippi School for Math and Science, surrounded by over-achievers. Then Sewanee, a small private liberal arts school. Then Ole Miss. I have not been in a situation where I'm not surrounded by middle class (or above) students. Until now.
The thing that really bothers me is that I've spent the majority of my academic career studying the African-American Civil Rights Movement. My research, my reading, my understanding is about how oppressed people stood up and pulled themselves together to demand rights. I do not see hardly any of this character in my students. Partly I think it's because it's not there, but even if it is there, I do not think my life experience is that in which I could recognize it.
I. Suck. At. Teaching. This. Population.
Also, I want to be friends with them. I like a lot of my students. Some of them are hilarious and a lot of them are good kids. My relationship with kids through Camp and my youth group has been one of listening to what is going on in their lives and giving counsel and playing around with them. A teacher doesn't play around with students. A teacher controls the environment and gets them to learn. Sure, there are some times when I can bond with a student, but that's rare.
I know there might be a couple of kids that I'm reaching and I may never know or find out that I've reached them. I can't help but think now that I'm not improving their education. I can't get the class to calm down enough to get through to improving their education.
What's worse is that I don't feel like my students are going to like history after being in my class. That gets me upset worst of all. I love history. I love the way it makes me think. I fear that I'm creating hatred for history. Although, if I remember correctly, I never liked history until my Junior year in high school when I had US history at MSMS.
I am trying something different in the classroom, however. Most of the time this year, when the students got really out of control, I would have gut reactions to them and get really angry at them. Now, when I get to that point, I take a deep breath and say to myself "they're kids and they need help" and that changed my viewpoint about the situation and my response.
I've just got to make it to the end of the year. I'm no Michele Pfeiffer and I'm not the teacher in the freedom writers and I'm not Antonio Banderas in that movie where he changes lives in the kids by getting them to dance. I am Margaret Blount Montgomery and I have only succeeded this year in proving to myself that I can handle extreme stress and not explode.
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