Teach the Students You Have

Not the students you wish you had.

If you’ve been reading this Substack, you know that I have a challenging group of students this year. I’ve written about failing to get their attention, being heckled during learning experiences, and being completely exhausted by my students’ misbehaviors throughout the day. I like to think I’m positive person. No matter how hard the day, I try to start anew the next day. I greet my students at the door with a genuine smile on my face because I’m excited for a new start. I tell my students that I’m a goldfish. I accept mistakes are a part of life, and I try not to linger on any previous day’s flaws. I move on quickly.

I journal every day before bed, recounting my highs and lows and things I am grateful for. I write it down so that when I go to bed, I don’t perseverate on any of my “old nonsense” from the day. I don’t want to toss and turn thinking about how I bombed a particular lesson or yelled at a student. Tomorrow is a new day.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I hope that my previous posts don’t make me sound like a cynical curmudgeon who longs for bygone days when students respected their teachers. I love my students. I care about them. They drive me crazy most days AND I love seeing their smiling faces every day when the bell rings. I treat my students as human beings. Some of them have been traumatized by earlier educational experiences. Logically, I understand why my students misbehave. As Dr. Brené Brown states, these misbehaviors are their armor; what my students use to self-protect because previous “experiences of trauma have taught [them] that vulnerability is actually dangerous.” She continues, “Violence and oppression have made our soft front a liability, and we struggle to find a place emotionally and physically safe enough to be vulnerable.”

My students’ armor makes it difficult to be vulnerable in their learning. I realize that my job is to help them feel safe in my classroom so that I can push them academically. Still, this year has been a tough one. Most days, I wonder if I teach my students anything academic. Some days I feel like I scold more than I teach.

My repeated struggle has been foremost in my thoughts these last few months. In preparation for spring student-led conferences, I reread Dr. Jesse Stommel’s book Undoing the Grade. I’ve read most of his writing on his website, so this time reading was more of a refresher. I came to a quote that I must have missed before and it stopped me. I actually had to set the book down and think for a bit.

“As educators, we need to lead the way and design our pedagogical approaches for the students we have, not the students we wish we had. This requires approaches that are responsive, inclusive, adaptive, challenging, and compassionate.”

— Sara Goldrick-Rab and Jesse Stommel

The context of this quote is around inequitable grading practices in public education. Both Stommel and Goldrick-Rab are college professors, and discuss a need for critical pedagogy. However, I read those words and heard, teach the students I have, not the students I wish I had. I admit, even though I proclaim to push my students to be critical of their educational experiences, some days are so chaotic and emotionally draining, that I secretly long for compliant behavior. Must everything have so much pushback? Why can’t I just give some quick directions without someone shouting across the room? Why can’t I get through a lesson without my students calling each other horrible names and fighting over snacks?

I don’t have compliant students. I don’t have kids who automatically love school. I have students who have been physically abused. I have students who have been demeaned by former teachers. I don’t have students who bring healthy bento boxes for lunch. I have students who don’t eat breakfast at home, and bring junk food to eat it all day. I have imperfect and incredible students. I needed this reminder.

I will not stop pushing my students to be full participants in their own education. I will always hold them to high academic and behavior standards, while advocating for my them because, like Stommel, I believe that my classroom is a place where we can work together to “reimagine the project of education” and help my students “become full agents in that education and in the broader culture in which they live.”

Amplify the Good

At our last class meeting, instead of discussing how we can improve our classroom behavior, I facilitated a simple check-in. How are things going?

Instead of various classroom management suggestions, students shared positive things they noticed from the week. Yes, students are still not throwing their trash in the trash can, but did you notice, Mr. Neibauer, that Jennifer is not talking as much this week? Many students are still interrupting the teacher, but did you notice that some students are paying attention?

This led to a new class goal: amplify the good. I think we all recognized in that moment that we are focusing too much on negative behaviors. Instead, we want to celebrate the positives, no matter how small. I don’t have a formal classroom management system; no stars or pizza parties. Instead, I facilitate a lot of self-reflection and incorporate metacognitive discussions in class. I redirect students who are misbehaving, and only remove students from class if their behavior is too disruptive or dangerous to others. I encourage students to analyze their own behavior and self-correct, which can be difficult for some 5th graders. Still, even without a management system, during our class meeting, my students and I realized that we all need to amplify the positive behaviors, and recognize ways that students are trying , both academically and behaviorally.

These are my students. They struggle. They try their best some days. They fail. They succeed. They fight. They make mistakes. They’re messy. They are compassionate.

I’m grateful that I was reminded of this fact.

Have a great week!

—Adrian

Resources

Teaching the Students We Have, Not the Students We Wish We Had - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Braving the Wilderness by Dr. Brené Brown

• This was the first Brené Brown book I read. It is full of incredible wisdom that set me on my path to rehumanize my classroom.

The Happy Newsletter

• Like me, you probably don’t need more newsletters in your inbox. This, however, is a great email to receive each week. Guaranteed to lift your spirits and pull you out of doom-scrolling.

• “Children ultimately want to be loved and encouraged.. They want to be accepted.” It’s always good to hear that reminder.

• “Only problem is we all got so much junk floating through us, a lot of times we end up getting in our own way. You know, crap like envy, or fear, shame. I don’t want to mess around with that shit anymore. You know what I mean. Do you?”

• I don’t want to mess around with that anymore either, Coach Lasso! I want to believe that we all can get better; that I can get better, and WE WILL get better!