Morning Malaise
By lbrown
Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 11:37 am in General, Lucas Brown.
It’s another Sunday morning coming down, or so would say Kris Kristopherson. I attempted to deny it by waning in and out of sleep, slipping into my subconscious where only occasionally I am protected from a gripping anxiousness. It’s a self-centered apparition that comes in the night, latches on to my soul and perverts my thoughts for the entirety of my sleep. I now know it, recognize it, and have made efforts to fight it, if not only be prepared for it. After four weeks of school I now sleep with a semblance of comfort and ease.I find myself angered over how overbearing the profession is for me at this point. I was aware that I had a natural antipathy for specific tasks that teaching requires you to become efficient at. It is the organization and planning, not just for yourself, but for your students as well, that prevent me from finding the pleasure I assumed I would receive given a room of young malleable minds. It is all the duties that must be performed, and performed well, for you to even have the chance to exchange ideas and information worthy of being deemed an act of ‘schooling’. I am not there yet.
It's approaching noon this Sunday and I've taken the morning to bike to Mama Buzz café. A local artisans venue that reconnects me with a world that I wish to be a part of. I envy the casual conversations, the pleasure reading, even the smiles that are exchanged that have the weight of a feather and are given at ease, where Sundays represent respite and release. I faint contentment as to not look out of place. Across the street, vocals wail from an African American church. My mind associates that with my students, knowing many are sitting in similar benches receiving similar sounds. This only reconnects me with the inevitable. That tomorrow I begin another week. That tomorrow my conscious will carry me back to work and the whirl of five contiguous days of teaching.
Lucas Brown is a 6th grade teacher at the Alternative Learning Community
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September 30th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I have strong advice for individuals entering the teaching profession. Get a copy of “Impro: Improvisation and the Theater" by Keith Johnstone. He is the father of improvisational theater and a genius when it comes to analyzing minute components of human interaction.
You only need to read the book’s chapter called “Status” and you will learn how body language and tone of voice can subtly raise, or lower, one's status in the eyes of students, and it most certainly does. This phenomenon is related to Baker’s comments to Andy Kwok on 9/14/07.
How status is transacted in your classroom will determine if you are going to sink, or swim, and how quickly. Individuals in a classroom must acknowledge everyone’s proper level of status before teaching of content can begin. This is especially true if you are teaching middle or high school.
I have had children in OUSD schools for 15 years and together they have experienced at least 73 teachers. What they have observed about their teachers (of course everyone talks behind the teachers’ backs) confirms everything about the dynamics of “status transactions” that Johnstone describes.
Some people display a higher status more naturally than others. However, it is possible to learn how to project a heightened level of status. An excellent book where you can learn about the different rules of status in urban “street culture” is “Code of the Street” by Elijah Anderson.
The education of teachers should include a substantial amount of training in these concepts long before they are sent to a classroom. Sadly, I don’t think it does. If you are a new teacher, please don’t gloss by this message because I know it will help you. Spread the word.
October 1st, 2007 at 4:48 pm
I, too, am having nightmares about school. I am a first year teacher, also, but I do have a credential and 2.5 years of graduate work toward my masters in education. Sharon is right about projecting status. Another great resource is something called ENVoY, which is an acronym for Educational Non-Verbal something... He talks about non-verbal cues and tone of voice to display authority AND compassion. She's also right about teachers needing training. Teaching is not something that people are born knowing how to do. It is a skill that can be learned and taught. I know new teachers have a lot of work to do their first year, but I think the best thing they can do is to go to as many workshops as possible and read as many "self-help" books as they can. The result is a much more well-informed teacher and much more respectful and engaged class.