It is Friday. Normally, I look forward to Fridays for the same reason all people look forward to Fridays: getting through them earns you a ticket to Saturday. Today, I had an extra reason to be excited; my chickens were coming home to roost. In day one of my extended middle school assignment, I had assigned an oral presentation to my 7th graders. Now, the students would be going up in front of the class to give their speeches.
Would they take it seriously?
I really hoped they would as I walked into the classroom. I wondered whether someone would refuse to speak. “What if none of them participate,” I thought. I started to sweat, but it was due to heat, not my insecurities.
It was about 85 degrees inside. Someone must have accidentally turned on the heater yesterday. I mutter something about telling the kids not to touch it and then adjust the settings. Then, the bell rings.
“Mr. John! Mr. John,” A girl calls out my name, fights her way through the stream of students walking into the boiler room, and corners me at the door, “I can’t do the speech because I am too embarrassed.”
“Did you practice last night–” I step to the side and continue, “for 15 minutes in front of the mirror like I told you?”
“Yes,” she says with a curious tone.
“Then you’re giving the speech. But don’t worry,” I lower my voice so only she can hear, “I won’t make you go first.” I smile, she shrugs, and the class begins to complain about the heat.
With the air conditional humming at full blast, I begin to give the instructions. Everyone seems pretty nervous. Ray, a boy who got me to give him a green slip earlier in the week, stands up after I call for volunteers and asks if he can go first. I pick up my jaw watch him confidently stroll up to the front of the class and begins after taking a deep breath.
What follows is nothing short of brilliant. He had good posture, decent hand gestures, some eye contract, and a loud voice. Not bad someone who normally does not take the work seriously. When critiquing him, I was sure to use what I am now calling the Complement Sandwich: start out with a complement, then give constructive criticism, and end with another complement. This approach ensures the student–no matter how amazing or dismal–will always walk away with his confidence intact. Moreover, they will walk away with an idea of how to improve for next time.
After Ray, everyone else saw how non-threatening I was and began to volunteer. Everyone, that is, except for Doe. “I don’t want to go,” Doe defiantly said from the back of the classroom.
“You are the last one, you have to go,” I respond.
“No I don’t,” he reasons, “I’ll just take a zero.”
That set me off. “Doe, that is unacceptable! The rest of the class went up and most of them were scared; that did not stop them. They even ended up having fun even though they were complaining about it yesterday–” I pause, catch my breath and continue, “Look, it is one thing if you try and do a bad job, it happens. It is quite another if you refuse to try at all. Students try. You are not acting like a student so unless you get up there and try, you cannot be in my class. Will you try?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” The rest of the class begins to holler out for him to just try it.
“I need a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. Will you try?”
“I said maybe.”
“Sorry Doe, that is not good enough. I’m sending you to the office.” I did not want to do it, but he had exhibited a terrible attitude all week. If I was his regular teacher, I probably would have taken him aside and asked if he was having any trouble at home. In fact, I should have done so even if I was only a substitute. I thought that by being patient with him–ignoring his bad attitude all week–it would just go away. It did not. Instead, I ended up sending him to the office. Next time, I will make it a point to send him to the counselor first.
After Doe walked out, a student reminded me that Jay was supposed to give his speech on Africa. I had not forgotten, just postponed it. As discussed in Fairly Punishing Childish Bigotry, Jay had made a bigoted comment about Africa and was supposed to give an extra speech about the continent. I invited him to hand in his paper and begin.
“Africa is a very important continent,” Jay started. What followed really inspired me. He not own gave the speech, but he took the time to do some research and organize his thoughts. It was touching to see him put so much work into the assignment. Jay definitely made up for his slip yesterday, and I think he learned his lesson, too. He ended with the following: “Africa is a good place because it has a lot of nice colleges, animals, and parents who really love their kids.”
“Jay, you did a fine job!”
“Thanks Mr. John,” he said with a blush, “but now it is your turn. What college did you go to?”
“I went to UCLA, acutally.”
“What?!” Jay exclaimed, “That is not a bad school! I want to go there. Tell us about it!”
I ended up spending the next ten minutes describing my time at UCLA: the campus, the people, and the classes. Everyone, especially Jay, where spellbound. I told them that if they work hard, they could all go there too. They nodded and kept feeding me questions. They were hooked.
Later, as I walked to my car, I realized today was the first time I had ever captured the entire class’ attention. It gave me a very warm feeling to know that I inspired my students.
It felt amazing.
0 comments ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
You must log in to post a comment.