More Freshman Blues

I think I will win in the long run, but I see now that it is going to take constant pressure on my part. I don't like my overhanging shadow in the room to be the reason students behave civilly. I want them to do it because they are making a choice to enter into a social contract of mutual respect (allowing, of course, for the fact that I have an authority they don't have).

Some of these kids don't seem to be able, at this early date, to internalize the social contract. Too consumed with their own felt needs, too unused to carrying responsibility for their words and actions, and too unfamiliar with the good feeling that comes along with practicing a little maturity.

The majority of the class is fine; it's only a few that seem to not have stepped up, and need to be bump-started. I know what to do: clamp down for a while, be the gentle-but-felt authority in the room until the strays begin to feel the massage and accept the limits; then gently ease the control a bit, let them experience the positive feedback, then a bit more, until I find their level.

Mr. Coulter, the Freshman Whisperer.

OMG, I have Freshmen!

After six years of teaching no one younger than a sophomore, I'd forgotten what my old eighth-grade students were like, and why I wanted to move up to an assignment in the high school. Well, now I remember why I wanted to get away from them.

Freshmen are the Ghosts of Middle-schoolers Past (apologies to Charles Dickens).

They're babyish, and have almost no attention span. They want to peck at each other, and squabble and fight about everything: "Shut up." "No: you shut up!" That kind of crap. They give me instructions to "make him give me my eraser back." They want me to be Lord Arbiter of every perceived injustice, no matter how miniscule.

Giving instructions to them that involve anything like a multi-step process is a study in repetition, back-tracking, and explaining the Why at each step. Here's what we accomplished today in a normal period (58 minutes):

1. I reminded them to bring a reading book Monday


2. I announced the Greek/Latin Roots Quiz


3. After the general panic that ensued, I reminded them that I'd been giving them notices about this quiz, more than once a period, for the last two days


4. I walked them through the process of preparing a quiz sheet from a half-sheet of notebook paper: tear across, write the title of the quiz across the top, write your name/period/assignment name/date in the upper-right hand corner, number from one to ten, skipping lines

Okay, we're into the period about ten minutes now, but this is the first time, and I have fielded four or five questions about these simple, clear instructions (esp. the skipping lines, for some reason). Now for instructions about how to complete the quiz:

1. copy the word you see on the board next to No. 1 on your paper


2. Draw a box around the letters of that word that contains the Greek or Latin root (that you took notes on and completed a homework assignment on)


3. Write the meaning of the root, either above the box, or after the example word on the same line


4. Repeat for Nos. 2–10


5. When you're finished, turn your quiz face-down & occupy yourself quietly until I call time.
   

Oh. My. God. I had to repeat, slowly, the entire process, and put an example on the board, box, definition and all, before they were able to proceed without confirmation at each and every step (and there were four or five who called me over to confirm that they had done it correctly). It's three steps, kids! Copy, identify, define. And the definitions are one-word concepts, so simple a caveman could grunt them: "field," "air," water," high."

All right, these instructions and the time given for everyone to complete the quiz was something like fifteen minutes. For ten words. We've used 25 minutes. Time to score the quiz:

1. Make sure your name is on your paper


2. Trade papers


3. Write your name at the bottom of the person's quiz you just received (at the bottom, Timmy)


4. Each number is worth two points: one for identifying the root, one for the definition

So I read off the letters that should be boxed, slowly & carefully, and the definitions. A few questions about "What about this definition" which is good conscientious scoring, so I'm happy to do it. This takes another ten minutes (again, for ten items). So We're not approaching 40 minutes spent so far.

1. Write the number correct at the top of the quiz, out of 20, as a fraction


2. Return your quiz to its owner: owners, check the arithmetic, and pass your quiz forward

Well, that's another 3–4 minutes, but finally the completed, scored quizzes all come to the front of the room. We took the quiz, and I have less than 15 minutes left in the period. We open our books and continue the current short story until the bell, when I ask for hands from those who need to find a reading book for Monday, and dismiss them.

It's now 8:30 in the morning, and I'm exhausted.