Teaching journal 5/28 - 5/31
In which our hero conquers the big bad
Recap: I’m a teacher in San Diego. I teach English Language Development (ELD, the new term for ESL) to 9-12 grade newcomers to the country. On January 3, I was informed that my position would be eliminated next year. This journal is a chronicle of my current experience before it ends. Hope you enjoy.
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
We’ve crossed the Memorial Day threshold. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve made it. We’ve made it. Good job, teachers. Good job, everyone.
I kept telling myself that amidst the chaos of the day. Kids chasing each other? Not a big deal. Kids stealing each other‘s backpacks? Not a big deal. Kids from other classes just walking in and out of my class? Definitely not a big deal! Not annoying at all.
Today was another day that felt like I was spinning my legs but going nowhere. I had planned to give the students the entire class to finish their zines, which made me nervous. Going in with no lesson plan (aka raw dogging, teacher-style) is often a one-way ticket to disaster. Even on free/game days it’s good to have some structure. But today, giving the kids zine time turned out to be the right move. There were so many kids who still needed to do a lot of work. And yet again, this included me approaching students one-on-one, and finding pictures for them.
Throughout the entirety of third period, I had no less five students around me—each kid wanting me to print pictures, check their work, or explain the entire project again. Some kids were asking for prints of images that I knew had nothing to do with their project, just wanted a high-quality images of whatever.
No sir, didn’t bother me at all.
I have a student who’s a genius—very studious, comes from a great family. I’ve met the mom, dad, and his little sisters, and everybody is such a sweetheart. But today was his birthday, and his mom texted, asking if I could have the class sing happy birthday to him. And if I could take a video. And send it to her.
I didn’t mind the request—we often sing as a class when it’s someone’s birthday. But the whole video part threw me off. I feel like if the other students found out I was taking video for the kid’s mom, it would ruin a his social life for the rest of high school.
When the time came, I asked the student if he was fine with us singing, and he said, yes. So I started the song, using my teacher-voice to get everyone to a uniquely-Freshman fever pitch. Then, as nonchalantly as I could, I took out my phone and started recording. The students saw that and immediately started hamming it up for the camera, and even though it turned out to be one the best birthday singalongs I’ve ever witnessed, I still felt a little deceptive.
After class was over, I gave the birthday boy a whole sheet of temporary tattoos. I’m running out of prizes to give to students celebrating birthdays, and wasn’t sure if tattoos would be this kid’s jam, but he looked thrilled. “I can have all of these?” he asked, in disbelief.
And so that moment made today worth it.
(PS: I’ve given temporary tattoos as gifts a few times, and they’re always a hit—almost as good as letting a kid use their phone during class).
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
The zines were due today, so again, I gave kids the entirety of class to work on them. But the fact they were due pretty much lit fire under a lot of kids’ asses.
I was talking a little bit about the project with Mr. P today, and he made a really good point: with any sort of creative project, there’s enthusiasm for the first half of it, but then between about 50% - 90% completion, the project becomes a chore, a never-ending drag. But then you hit that last 90% and you find something like divine inspiration. The finish line is in sight and all of a sudden clarity of vision washes over you, and you realize the potential of what you’re creating.
This has been true with every creative project that I’ve worked on personally. And I think for a lot of these students—some of whom have very little experience with creative projects—it’s been a good lesson for that creative process.
For example, there were a few students who I’d lost hope in, resigned to the fact that they would not turn anything in. But they pulled it together and finished. I wish you could’ve felt the pride I felt while flipping through Disengaged Girl’s completed zine about The Fast and the Furious franchise. And I wish you could’ve seen the joy on her face when I told her that she was finished.
However, there’s a huge disparity of quality between first and third period’s zines. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great ones in first period, especially one about racism. I don’t know what it is about first period, but they’re just so low energy for me, and you can see it in their work. Most are happy with doing just the bare minimum.
But oh my god, third period brought it. Zombies, strawberries (!), the band Arctic Monkeys, long breasted ghosts—truly an exquisite array of zine topics. So many kids in that class went above and beyond, and it’s obvious that they are proud of their projects.
At lunchtime, one of the students decided to microwave like this fish soup in Mr. P’s classroom, and it immediately stank up the whole place. I saw one kid run out the room, retching.
If teaching my third period class in Mr. P’s classroom over the past few months has taught me anything, it’s that I will never have a microwave in my classroom.
(I actually don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but during third period, Mr. P and I switch classrooms. Last January, we got a student with mobility issues, and they cannot access my classroom because the building is 100 years old and doesn’t have an elevator. It’s not a legal building, and the only reason it still stands is because it’s deemed historic. Obviously, schlepping all my stuff over to another classroom for the past five months has not been ideal for either me or Mr. P, and we both filed complaints with the ADA about it, which I think had an effect because the school apparently will not use that building for classrooms next year).
Also, another lesson from teaching in Mr. P’s room: Will never put a beanbag or couch in my classroom. A few weeks ago, the ELD team all got beanbags for their rooms, and they’ve since become makeout bags. It’s like I turn my back for a second, and suddenly there are two students mackin’. How’d they do that so fast? Where’d they even come from?
Thursday, May 30, 2024
Today was the zinefest. Kind of a shitshow, but more or less a success.
The main goal of the zinefest was for the authors to share their work with students from other classes. We moved all the desks in a U-shaped pattern around the room for visiting students to circumnavigate and get a good look at everyone’s zine. I also gave attendees stickers to vote on their favorite zines in the categories of writing, art, and topic.
I had contacted a few other teachers and asked if they could bring their classes to the zinefests. Thankfully, a few teachers and counselors agreed to give up their own time to attend. They were tasked with asking the authors two questions that we had practiced answering: “What is your zine about?” and “Why did you pick this topic?”
However, at the very last minute we had to move first period’s zinefest to Mr. P’s room because of the aforementioned mobility issues with one of our students—something I had completely forgot about. So that change of scenery kind of threw everyone off.
Then during third period, the outgoing seniors pulled a prank of staging a wedding outside in the quad, and all my students were glued to the windows watching it. As far as pranks go, it was so bizarre that it made it weirdly believable; even I didn’t know it was a prank at first.
But it was definitely a distraction, and I felt bad for the students who were excited to share their zines. The sham wedding kind of stole the attention and took some of the wind out of their sails.
Between groups of attendees, there was a lot of downtime when the kids had no one to talk to except fellow exhibitors. I looked around and most were staring at their phones.
I turned to Mr. P and said, “You know, this is actually a very accurate representation of what it’s like to be at a real zinefest.”
I started cleaning out my classroom today. I’ve had this big stack of worksheets that I’ve been meaning to grade for a long time. These are assignments we’ve done together as a class, so I don’t give them very much weight toward their final grade. A wave of inspiration hit me, and instead of spending two or more hours inputting them into PowerSchool, I just dropped the entire stack in the garbage. The power was intoxicating. I then clapped the dust of hard work off my hands, and called it a day.
In many ways this feels like the final day of school. The zinefest was my big bad, and now it’s over. I know we have a week left, but today was the climax. It’s like in Return of the King after Frodo defeats the bad guy and then there’s like 30 minutes of hobbit stuff. I’m now in my hobbit phase (both figuratively and physically).
As I was leaving school today. I heard the soft sounds of smooth jazz coming from the shitty speakers at Wienerschnitzel. I turned around and looked at my classroom. This is it, I thought. Couldn’t help but feel a little emotional.
Friday, May 31, 2024
So many “happy Fridays” today.
I know it’s the last Friday before break, but it seemed a little excessive.
Like, c’mon people. Show some dignity.
At one point I was using the bathroom and another teacher walked in and he just said “Friday!” Trying to match his enthusiasm, I said, “Indeed!” but I felt like it started off weak and I immediately tried to ramp up my enthusiasm on the second syllable. So it was like “indDEED”, with me shouting the “DEED” part. Felt weird about it for the rest of the day.
I thought about giving the kids an entire period of free time today. But then I shook that thought. Some kids treated the last three weeks of the zine project as free time, and I think other kids were craving some structured learning (no kid will say they want that, but you can see a relief on their faces when school feels like school).
In both classes, we did a little phonics worksheet about when to remove an e when you’re adding an -ing ending, and when to double the consonant when you’re adding an -ing ending. Again, it’s these pattern-finding phonics lessons that most of the kids seem to enjoy. So even though I’ve decided to stop collecting phones this year, I looked around and everyone was paying attention. (Also, I want to pat myself on the back for doing a good job with phones this year. Last year, it was an everyday battle, and I kind of gave up around March, but this year, I remained vigilant on keeping kids as bored as possible).
We then did a Quizizz for vocabulary practice. This might very well be the last Quizizz I do with this group. And even though she hasn’t been in my class for a semester, I still miss Quizizz Girl and her enthusiasm for Quizizz! “Let’s gooooo, Mr. Bradford!”
I also created a self-reflection Google survey for zine project that asked kids to grade themselves. However, I fucked up and forgot to make it email-required, so I just got a lot of anonymous responses.
But going through the data was nice because it did seem that kids largely enjoyed the project and were proud of their work. A lot of students even mentioned that sharing zines at the zinefests were their favorite part—surprising, considering that so many told me they were nervous for it.
When asked what grade they think they deserve, most students said A’s. On one hand there weren’t a lot of A’s. But on the other hand, I really appreciate the confidence.
When I was student teaching, my guide teacher would ask these self-reflection questions. Most students were extremely hard on themselves, and would say lower grades than they were earning. I don’t know if that is typical, but it’s one of the reasons that I’ll miss working with newcomers: they’re just earnest as hell.
For the rest of class, I brought up Youtube and started a list where kids could sign up to play a song. This is my favorite time-killer actively because it’s really cool to allow kids to show off the music of their cultures, and it keeps everyone somewhat engaged. It’s fun to see all the students just vibing to each other’s music.
Apparently, Disengaged Girl and Dancing Girl got in a verbal fight during second period math, and Mrs. E’s substitute had them removed from class. I wasn’t present because it was a test day and I figured the sub could handle a test day, but in hindsight, I should’ve been there.
Later, both girls showed up to third period, so I guess the fight wasn’t too serious. At the end of class, I asked Disengaged Girl what the fight was about. She responded that it was something about boys. Of course.
I brought up the translator and said, “It’s not worth getting in trouble this close to the end of school. You have four days to keep it together.” She seemed responsive to that, but we’ll see.
Never a boring day, even this close to the end of the year.
Historic preservation can eat shit
So close to the finish!