Catnap In The School

Frank put his head down on the desk nine minutes ago. He’s always tired at school. With good reason. He needs more sleep, isn’t a morning person, is a teenager, and so on. 

Earlier today, my administrator stopped by. I wonder what he would make of class going on while Frank had his head down. He’s a fair guy, and probably would have asked me. He might even have expected me to have a good answer. I think I do. 

I have long been told that twenty minutes is the optimum time for a nap that restores us and I believe it. 

Ours is an hour-long class and most of that time students read and write on their own. I lecture to the group as little as possible because that doesn’t fit my model of how learning happens best for readers and writers. 

In a perfect world, I would give Frank twenty minutes to nap, wake him gently and return him to reading or writing. It’s not a perfect world. I can afford only about ten minutes, but when I get up after ten minutes I’m just angry. Fifteen minutes is the best I can do for Frank and more than my administrators would probably prefer. Oh well. 

It’s thirteen minutes since Frank put his head down. In two more I will set this piece of writing on his desk and gently rouse him. He’s a good guy and will probably read it. He may smile at me renaming him Frank and my bet is that he’ll get some of my message. 

I hope he notices that I respect his sleepiness and don’t take it as an attack on me. I hope he feels that my gently waking him is no attack on him. 

We can spare fifteen minutes from the class for him to take care of himself, right? Of course we can. He’ll be a better learner for the rest and will know more about me for the experience. Who knows, he might even know more about himself after reading this and that might be enough to get him writing again. 
 

Magic In The Schools

Yesterday, Jane, a colleague, worked with Frank from my class. He's odd. Jane says he's defiant. I think of him as mostly silent. Even when he speaks, which is rare, it's a mumble as if he wasn't spoken to as a baby, toddler, or even spoken now that he is in high school. He wears headphones constantly and often puts his head down on the desk refusing to engage. She sees defiance; I see habit and training. 

Frank was in my class, head down, and I asked him to go to the office if he needed to sleep. I said it gently, explaining I couldn't have him sleep in class. Mostly I wanted him to go see Jane. He didn't say much as he left, but there was body language: stiff back, sideways look, the way he pushed out of his chair. I was supposed to react, but I'm old enough to know there's no fight to win there.

Jane came in a bit later saying Frank was in her office. I nodded, happy he had gotten to the right place. She said, he's upset and doesn't like you. I don't blame him? Have you met me? I suggested I take a minute and talk with him. Jane thought it was too soon, he was too worked up. Okay, I said, wanting her to feel I trust her judgment. 

Jane apologized. I'm sorry, she said. For what? I asked. I'm working to stop her apologizing, but it's not going well. I'm sure she's sorry about that too. She said, I'm sorry I haven't fixed Frank. Fixed him? I asked. That's asking too much. He's in school and that's a start. Fixes, I told her, are a bad goal to shoot for. She apologized again. Sigh.  

Later she came back and I asked if I could tell Frank why I asked him to leave and show that it's not a disciplinary action. She agreed. I went in and sat in a chair lower than his so I wasn't threatening. I kept my voice light, matter-of-fact, explaining why I asked him to go and that I was happy he had come to the office. I told him, I can't make you do anything. What you do is your choice. 

I say this to a lot of students. It's simple honesty. I can't make them do anything, so I ask. I could threaten, but that doesn't work out well. It's always your choice, I told Frank. He nodded, surprised as every kid is when we talk about this. Honesty seems a crazy thing in school. I thanked him and went back to class. Frank was calm and nodded. 

It hasn't happened yet, but Jane will say I worked magic she doesn't understand. She often says this. I'll say, there is no magic. There's a theory and practice I've tested and modified for years. Frank was, according to Jane, defiant, so I chose to be absolutely pliant and give him nothing to defy. I was honest. I didn't want or demand anything from him. I gave. 

School admins and managers are big on outcomes. What's the result of this lesson, this talk, this whatever? I don't hold much with that. Learning is slow, non-linear. My intended outcome was to talk, listen, and demonstrate I'm no threat. I wanted Frank to feel some kindness and honesty. I didn't need anything from him. 

I'm no magician. I follow my theory where it leads because it has served me well. Science not magic. Jane doesn't have the same theory and expects other outcomes immediately. Because of her assumptions, I seem to do magic while she apologizes for getting bad results. 

I may have to find some magic to work on her. 

American Tradition

Seventeen people died yesterday at a Florida school as a result of a boy, an automatic weapon, and politicians bought and sold by the NRA, a terrorist organization. There will be outcry for about a week, but nothing will be done to protect anyone or anything other than gun owners and their right to shoot and kill. The NRA purchased a powerful clergy of zealots and murders the career of any politician who goes transgresses their creed. Seventeen people died in a school yesterday. They won't be the last victims of the jihad this year or even this month. Hell, there are two days left in the school week and who could be surprised if we have another shooting? The Repubs offer thoughts and prayers but are willing accessories to murder along with every dues-paying member of the NRA. 

But none of this matters. Soon the zealots will claim there was no shooting, that the victims' families are actors paid by liberals in a plot to destroy the American Way. Many  will nod their empty heads while cleaning their guns, loading them, and leaving them unlocked to repel the Obama/Clinton shock-troops surely coming for them. 

That boy in Florida is another American exercising his second amendment right to mass murder. My country 'tis of thee. Was he mentally ill? No more than the Repubs and NRA who cherish guns more than the lives of others. The boy executed our national policy. A gun is for shooting. Target practice is okay, but even the targets are human-shaped. Shooting animals is better. Instead of a mere hole in a target, there's the rush of extinguishing a life. And the highest order animal, the big prize is another human. The AR-15 is designed to bring down dozens in seconds. Does Guinness keep records for such things?

The Repubs and NRA have declared humans in season and there's no bag limit. 

Gun massacres are the law and policy of our land. They are our tradition and to oppose them is unpatriotic. Terrorists try such things, but patriots stand up. They root out traitors and preserve our peculiar traditions and institutions. Lock and load. 

There are always thoughts and prayers, man, thoughts and prayers. They makes it all better. I'm just not sure what we're praying for. Divine intervention? Anything that works against the gun would be seen as the work of Satan. 

Wait a week for a tweet to bump this all off the news. I guarantee it. 

Seventeen people are dead. The rule of the gun, the faith in the automatic weapon will remain unscathed. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

I'm going to school now. I'll pass at least one sign demanding a repeal of New York's SAFE act. My representative in Congress will offer thoughts and prayers, they don't cost him anything. When the time comes, he will vote for murder because doing otherwise costs him too much.

Let us now stand as one nation, unholster our weapons, and celebrate our freedoms and school massacres with the singing of our national anthem after which the games can once again begin. 

Walking Out Of Class

I walked out of my class today. It wasn't anything bad. No one was bleeding. There was no smoke bomb or stink bomb. I walked out for a simple reason: I had to pee. 

Ours is a school filled with at-risk kids. That crowd can get out of hand fast. I've had it happen in my class a couple dozen times a year. This is why the usual thing is to get the hall monitor to watch the class while we are gone, but I don't usually bother. It depends on the group, the day, my mood, the phase of the moon. Today, I wasn't worried about it. 

In the hall, another staff member was talking to the hall monitor. "Oh," she said to him, "I guess you have to go watch Brian's class." I waved them off. Don't worry about it. I don't take long to pee. On the way back to class, the staff member was looking at my class. "They're all reading," she said, amazed. I shrugged. Of course they are. "How do you keep them working when you're not there?"

I don't think of what we do as drudge-work and I've engineered things to work this way. 

The first part is crucial. There's not much I want to do more than write and read. I project the idea that writing and reading is the best kind of work. It's not drudgery. We get to write. We get to read. What could be better? They don't love writing and reading as much as I do, but enough of my enthusiasm rubs off. 

The second part goes back to a lesson I was taught in my first year of teaching by my friend Faith who might not remember and hopefully won't mind me telling. 

"Every so often," she said, "walk out of class. Stand around the corner by the lockers and listen. Then come back." There was no need to say anything. Just go back to conducting class. 

I tried it the next day with ninth graders as they were reading. I put down my book, walked out, and stood around the corner. I listened. After a few moments, someone said something. I waited until they were quiet again and went back, picked up my book, took my seat, and kept reading. It was like I had just been given fire by the gods. 

There's more to it of course than just walking out and walking back in, but not much more.  The big part is trusting not just in them but in what I have done with them. The fear is that they will go nuts behind my back. I have to get over that fear. My experience has been that they go nuttiest when I'm there. It's performance art and no good without me there to react. 

When I leave, they mostly do what we've been doing. They'll look at their phones some, but we do that when I'm there. I teach them how to balance phone stuff and school stuff because that's important to learn.  

By this point in the year, they hardly notice me leaving or coming back which is good. Who really wants to think about me having a pee? Better to reading or writing. If I do class right, I'm not important enough to notice that much.