My classes this year are great. Once I get the students in class things go well, but it has been a slow start.
The first two days we had three hours of advisory class each day. We did the kind of paperwork and paper shuffling we usually do a little at a time over the first two weeks. I guess it is better for the principal to get all that out of the way quickly, but we seemed to lose a lot of instruction time.
In addition, the principal decided to take the freshmen out both afternoons those first two days for tours of the school, teambuilding, and such. Most of my freshmen came into class on the third day of school expressing relief and happiness finally to be starting “real” school. I guess it is easier for the principal to get all the freshmen in one place for a while to explain how things work in high school.
Of course then the new textbook issuing procedure didn’t seem to work for Theatre Arts. It was supposed to put students in class the first day with books in hand after having been issued from a central point. Well over half of my classes and all of one class had to leave my room five at a time during class to go to an assistant principal’s office to scan their assigned textbook into the computer record. I guess it is easier for the principal to centralize all textbooks this way.
Finally, there was class leveling. Once they get everyone in a class, they shuffle them around so we don’t have one section of forty-five and another of the same class of twenty-five, they “level” so we have two sections of thirty-five. It’s also during this leveling time, I’ve noticed, many students mysteriously end up in sections together with their best friends, students leave classes that appear to be “too hard,” and a class section taught by a student’s favorite teacher is secured. For this reason, there have been many schedule changes the latter half of the second week. I won’t have a stable class list in most of my Arts 1 classes until nearly the end of the third week. It makes it hard to keep up with students, attendance, grades, and hard to create a theatre learning ensemble in each class with new faces popping in and out so often. I guess it is easier for the principal to do it this way.
As I said after I got students into class things went well, though we seem to be about a week behind in our assignments. I’m looking forward--by at least the fourth week of school, certainly--to being able to settle down and concentrate on our learning. One thing seems a little different this year; I don’t seem to have as many troubled children as I did last year.
Some of the classes I had last year were the most challenging I’ve had in my thirty-year career. I had to be so strict with some, just to keep chaos at bay, the class became about discipline not theatre. Keeping control of the class became task one rather than making sure everyone learned as much as they could. Additionally, I don’t believe many enjoyed Theatre Arts 1 last year. I certainly didn’t.
Several teachers and principals commented to me at different times about how the freshmen were “just a bad batch of kids.” I’ve always found that kind of talk offensive. It’s not even a rational thing to say. I have certainly never seen any objective research pointing to any radical change in any measurable trait in students from one year to the next. Change happens more gradually than that.
Rather than blaming last year on a “bad batch” of children, I think it more likely that the slightly frenzied push to force a universally unpopular dress code on the student population and the subsequent loss of respect engendered by such petty tyranny poisoned the school atmosphere. While change happens gradually, administrative dictates seem to drop on us with alarming speed and frequency.
Frequent comments from my most serious and compliant students led me to believe they thought everyone involved in that “no tolerance” “full court press” on dress code violations were fools. I choose not to put into print what my less serious and less compliant student comments were. I eventually came to agree with my students, even as I--fool that I am--did my best to enforce the policy. I am glad to see the principal ease up on the dress code this year. It is probably easier on him to do so. I believe the decision will give us all more time to focus on learning; we’re going to need the extra time to make up for time lost to other tasks. It may even allow the learning climate of the school to improve.
I’ve always tried to hold what I believe is a Christian, scripture-based view: externals are less importance than internals, and ephemeral things have less value than eternal ones. It is hard for children to hear the message that you care about them, want them to learn, and want them in your class if you are—no matter how gently— “always on their case” about dress code violations they and apparently their parents don’t see as significant.
