Week 5: Playing Whack-A-Mole

You can be an expert on a subject, have a wealth of teaching techniques and still be an awful teacher if you can’t get a class of students to stop talking to each other, pay attention and sit in their seats.  One of the hardest things for teachers to master at any level is “classroom management,” the educational term for the ability to get a class to engage in the material.  And if you are wondering why this is so hard, then you've never been in front of a classroom full of children. 

The year started out well. I explained my expectations to all my classes. We rehearsed my countdown hand sign that let them know when to be quiet. I corrected some students who were misbehaving immediately and things went great a couple classes. Then as if all my students planned it this way, they seemed to all forget EVERYTHING we discussed in that first week.

. . . sigh . . .

This caught me off guard in the beginning of the week. I didn’t want to stop my lesson to reinforce things that we had already gone over, but that only resulted in lack of productivity as students continued to act as if I was a brand new teacher. So I changed it up and I started classes later in the week with a review of expectations and those classes went a lot better.

In order to maintain expectations, reinforcement really is key. Sometimes it feel like I’m playing “whack-a-mole” as one teacher put it. You can’t ever let your expectations slide so sometimes it seems like you’re spending the entire lesson walking out the room reminding students on how to behave.

This includes utilizing phrases like: take off your hood, put your shoes back on, face forward, stop talking, put away those silly bandz, sit-up straight, now’s not the time to read, that’s not your desk, chairs are made for sitting, stay in your space, hands to yourself, we aren’t at a hair salon, stop tying your shoes to the desk, no one will be friends with you if you keep picking your nose (I’ve said ALL of these thing in the past week).

Are children “bad” when they forget expectations or “test” them? No, of course not. They either honestly forgot about or simply weren’t sure if the expectations I held at the beginning were going to continue. Rarely are children intentionally rude. Is this “testing” a bad thing? As exhausting and annoying as it can be, trying to find limits is a sign of students’ cognitive development. Limits create a sense of stability and predictability that we all desperately need to get through the chaos of life.

Getting students to pay attention is not about power.  I make sure every one of my students to pay attention because every one of them is important. A student may seem like she is happy when they are allowed to misbehave but what the message you are sending when you let an expectation go is: "I don't care."

Classroom management is not about figuring out ways that you can get students to stop talking. It’s about creating a space in which students feel valued.  Only in a classroom filled care and respect can teachers and students join together in the journey of education.

John Lennon's Laugh

John Lennon would have turned 70 years old last weekend if he hadn't been assassinated in 1980.  There's no logic or sense in why someone who devoted his life to spreading peace, love and hope would been taken away from us in such a violent way.

Elton is right, the blues never fade away.



"And I miss John Lennon's laugh"

You Don’t Bring Me Flowers by Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand

I love Neil Diamond. That guy is the man. How can you hate on the guy who wrote “Sweet Caroline,” possibly the greatest sing along song in pop music history? I love his duet with Barbara Streisand “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” But man, I hate Barbara Streisand.

Okay, maybe hate is too strong a word. Part of my dislike comes from the insane way that people who are fans of Streisand worship her. In addition, her ridiculous diva attitude doesn’t make her the most likable performer but I can admit, at her peak she could really sing and her duet with Neil Diamond is one of the most beautiful and unforgettable songs you’ll ever hear.

Neil Diamond wrote "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" with several collaborators in 1977 and in the next year Streisand covered the song. Gary Guthrie, a disc jockey, took these two versions and edited them together as a going away present for his wife that he had just divorced. This version gained such interest that Diamond and Streisand recorded a studio version of the duet. It was this version that became a number one hit and led to one of the greatest Grammy performances of all time.



I mean what color is Barbara wearing? What is the deal with that pantsuit? Oh lord check out the size Neil’s lapels and man that bow tie is small. Laf, Neil is SO wearing old man paints that go above his belly button and . . . um. . . . oh my God, they are walking towards each other. Neil, why don’t “used to be’s” count any more?!? . . . then Barbara touches his hair and wow . . .

The presentation is SO 1980 and the production of the strings is not hip or modern but there is something beautiful about the performance and this song.

This is one of those few breakup songs that is completely devoid of anger.  Anger is not really an emotion itself. Rather it’s an expression of an emotion. Often when you are sad that is expressed through anger and the beauty of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” is that we get to true emotion at the heart of the situation, sadness.

“You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” paints the picture of a beautiful relationship by showing us what isn’t anymore. If you transformed all the negatives into positives you would have one of the most romantic and beautiful love songs, instead we have a heartbreaking realization of what has been lost.

Diamond doesn’t try to out sing Streisand, instead he does what he’s best at, a more conversational style with a deep baritone letting Streisand soar above him and juice the passion and pain out of every single note. It’s a big contrast of styles but it works so well together.

The line, “you think I could learn to tell you goodbye” always gets to me because that truly is one of the hardest things to do in life because when you say the words and the person leaves, they are still with you. Feeling someone in your heart and not feeling their physical presence is one the most depressing things in life.

However while this song is sad, there is smile deep within.  It's like by going through journey these two people are reminded how beautiful love can be and even though they lost this love, there's hope in the future.  This is best explained by Butters Scotch:

“I love life . . I’m sad but at the same time I’m really happy that something can make me feel that sad. It’s like, it makes me feel alive. It makes me feel human. The only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt something really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good. So I guess what I’m feeling is like a beautiful sadness.”

Week 4: Never A Faliure

How was my Thursday last week? Well, it was really good and then it got really bad.

Earlier my principal told she would come by some time to observe me teaching. The longer I teach the less nervous I get about being observed. I remind myself that when administrators come in to watch me teacher they are rooting for me. They want to see me succeed. They aren’t trying to catch me do something wrong, they are trying to catch me doing things right. Having other people observe is a great way to get feedback and improve on what you do.

As I began one of my classes Thursday morning, the principal walked in a took a seat in the back. The class went very smoothly. The lesson progressed at a good pace. There were no major classroom management issues and my students and I had fun.

Later, I went to the principal’s office and we chatted about the lesson. She was complimentary and pointed out some specific things that I should keep doing. She also had some fantastic suggestions for me. Walking out of that I office I felt like a teach an elephant how to fly.

Then I taught a class that did not go so well.

It wasn’t a disaster. It’s not like anything horrendous happened, but it felt like a train wreck. The lesson wasn't designed well and I didn't react to the students in a way that helped them stay focused.  For some reasons they couldn't stop giggling.

Nothing I tried seemed to work.

I felt awful after that class. After school I went and talked to the homeroom teacher. As I talked to this veteran teachers I noticed something: We were both dealing with the same issues. I initially thought, "seriously, you've been teaching longer than I've been alive and you still don't have all of this figured out?" But it was just that fact, that I wasn't alone in my feeling helped me remember why I chose this profession.

Teaching is not about knowing all the answers. The art of teaching is a practice, it's something that is never perfected. While this may intimidate some people, it excites me.  The act of teaching is never a failure, it's always an opportunity to grow.  That's hard to remember when things aren't going well, but it's important to keep in mind.  While frustration is a sign of care it is only productive when focused in on the future not the past.

I get to see that class again next week and I have some time to figure some things out to try to make it a better experience for us all.  As frustrating as that class was, I can't wait to see them again.  You may think I'm crazy for looking forward to spending my day with a class of third graders.  You may be right but as Billy Joel sang, I just might be the lunatic my students need.

The Tempest by Julie Taymor/William Shakespeare

I love Shakespeare on film on my favorite film adaptation is Titus.



This version of Titus Andronicus is gutsy, daring, violent and beautiful.  It is Shakespeare like you never imagined.  If you watch this film, you may not like it but you will be in awe of the artistic vision in this film.  Julie Taymor directed Titus who first made a splash directing the Broadway version of The Lion King.  

After directing the Frida Kahlo biography and Across The Universe, a musical using the music of the Beatles, Taymor is's back to Shakespeare with the bard's final play, The Tempest!



 . . . Shakespeare geek out commencing . . . Prospero changing into a woman totally works . . . Russell Brand as Trinculo is perfect . . . can't wait . . . December 10th!!!!!!!!!!

Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers

There are many misunderstood lyrics in rock music. While some musicians are very deliberate at making sure that their lyrics are understood, rock singers often do not focus on annunciation as part of their craft resulting in misunderstood lyrics or simply words aren’t understood at all.
Most of the time, this doesn’t really bother me. I’m used to looking up Springsteen and Rolling Stones lyrics to make sense of the meaning in their songs. However there is one example, one instance in which a misunderstood lyric had a profound effect on my identity: “Secret Agent Man.”



When I was in elementary school my dad would often pick me up from school and he would always be listening to Oldies stations (which is one reason I love pop music the way I do). Now I don’t know if he was serious or joking when he told me that this particular song about a spy was named “Secret Asian Man.”

Now in my elementary school brain somehow it made sense. Could you really blame me? Look, there is no hint of an ending “t” syllable when Rivers sings the chorus, AT ALL. Asian people can do spy-like James Bond stuff too. So why not? This is a song about an Asian James Bond character who was “secret” as well as a “man,” hence “Secret Asian Man.”

This connected with one of the other culturally experiences I shared with my dad, watching James Bond movies. I loved watching these films with my father and whenever marathons were on the television, we were all over it. Now, James Bond was of course, never Asian, but a lot of bad guys were like that guy who through hat at people.



Connecting my childhood fantasies of being a James Bond-like spy with a song that told of an Asian James Bond cemented in my head that I, a little Asian boy, could in fact be a “Secret Asian Man.”

Unfortunately like many childhood illusions, I came to the realization that Johnny Rivers was not actually talking about an Asian spy but instead was cashing in one the 1960s spy craze by recording a song about a generic spy character.

Realizing that there was no song about an Asian spy shattered my dreams.

Johnny Rivers, you made me think that I could do something with my life, that I could be a “Secret Asian Man.” You convinced me that racial barriers could be crossed and that stereotypes could not limit my dreams. Then reality crushed the hopes of a little boy who realized that you actually didn’t believe that an Asian man could be on the Riviera one day and hide out in Bombay the next day. All you believed was that by catching on to a craze you could cash out. 

Well I hope you’re happy and that your “Secret Agent Man” money comforts you when think of all of the little Asian boys that you misled with your incoherent Southern Drawl.

Week 3: What You Really Need To Know About A Student

Almost all of the schools in the Chicago suburbs use the same online job application system. The nice part about this is that it can import information from one application to another so you don’t have to enter in your name and address for every school you apply to.  The annoying part is that there is this list of essay questions that schools can chose that for you to answer and some of them are kind of. . . weak.

Like this one:
How much do you want to know about your students in order to be most helpful to them?

AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. How is this questions not a no-brainer? Lord knows that teaching is hard enough and it’s even harder when you have no idea what to expect from your students. So when I heard that I was going to be part of transition meetings I was ecstatic.

The idea of a transition meeting is that teachers pass on information about students they had the previous year to the teachers the students currently have.  Now I’ve never been to one of these meetings so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I imagined that with an unprofessional group of teachers, this kind of meeting could become an opportunity for teachers to complain about students and make inappropriate jokes about them. 

Now I would be lying to say that there wasn’t some laughter as teachers talked about students. Some of the stories about students were entertaining. We’re are human. However, within all the discussion there was a level of gravity to the purpose and importance to the meetings.

Teachers were discussed their past students in the hope that the students' new teachers could continue their work and help the students grow.  But it wasn’t just “in the hope.”  This wasn’t a discussion wishing that things could be better for the student.  Words were spoken with a level of confidence that the new teachers could take this student farther then ever before.

There is a danger in all of this.  Shouldn’t ever student get a fair chance to make a clean impression with a teacher without that teacher inadvertently making judgments from talks with other teachers?

We all have the tendency to make judgments about people. It’s something we do without thinking about and it’s not fair to students to let those judgments cloud the way we treat them.  However we would not be doing the best we could for them if we didn't prepare by collaborating with other teachers.

We must acknowledge our baser tendencies and work against them. Even if we can’t help ourselves and we get a negative impression of our students we can still serve our students if we receive the most important thing that was passed on in the meetings: faith.