The Teaching Game

Relaxing with candle and mug in between classes

My classes are loud. You’ll find movement, acting, pretending, laughing and frequent high pitched middle school girl squeals. We move furniture to make space, throw balls at the board and watch Spanish language pop-music videos on full blast (is there really any other way?). Some people have quiet classes. That’s just not my style. For the most part, as long as the kids are growing and learning, the noise doesn’t bother me. I don’t get headaches; I actually think it is all pretty fun. My students can attest that I, for better or worse, I rarely lose my cool in our chaos.

Today, one of my colleagues asked me, “How do you deal with it?”  In the moment I just shrugged. In retrospect, I realized that probably wasn’t super helpful. So here’s my quick list of how I keep my calm in loud learning situations.

Water
I almost always have a mug with hot water or tea in my hand. Drinking water gives me a moment to collect my thoughts.

Make sure it’s loud for a good reason
Like I said above, make sure the noise is purposeful and is the result of engagement…not disengagement.

Fake candle
I know this sounds silly. But I have really been enjoying having one. I put it on during my break and reset my brain.

Have visitors and share what’s happening
The one thing that causes me the most duress is what people outside my classroom think about what appears to be craziness. I’ve found that my colleagues better understand our racket after they see what causes it.

Check your blood-sugar
Teachers are notorious for not keeping themselves fed. Hunger make us angry and mean. Don’t forget to eat food that will sustain you through out the day.

While primping for a celebration one night, I decided to venture away from my typical basic eye shadow colors and add a bit of sparkle. I was particularly excited because my day-to-day life rarely calls for a shade called “Hustle.”

On the way to the party, I got caught in a rainstorm that caused the shimmer from my eyelids to spread to cover my cheekbones. It was impossible to scrub off. I’m a generally shy person, so going into the party looking a like a Las Vegas go-go dancer made the situation even more intimidating. As luck would have it not two minutes after I had arrived at the party, a snarky person commented, “You look like you rubbed your face all over the Christmas aisle at Walgreens.” He went on to make a few other crass remarks, before I told him where he could put my glitter.

Even though I felt like I had resolved the situation, it stuck with me for weeks. I thought about how we get so excited try new ideas and how oftentimes we don’t have the proper support when it blows up in our faces. One bad experience with shimmery ideas leads to months of non-showy neutral colors. In the end however, the biggest learning that came from this experience wasn’t a ponderous intellectual metaphor.

A couple of weeks after the party, one of my students thought it would be funny to write a seemingly playful jab about another student on a collaborative Google doc.  When the attacked student read the comment, I saw the look on her face, and knew she felt exactly the same way I had at the party.

I always thought of bullying as physical intimidation or exclusion.  But I’m coming to see that words mixed with snarkiness and sarcasm are another cloak of bullying. The scary thing is, it’s ten-times easier for a student to say something mean to another and “get away” with it, than to punch him in the face.  It seems obvious, but I was genuinely surprised that my students had never considered that even funny/silly comments were hurtful.  As teachers, we need to help our students understand that what you say to someone can be just as painful as punching them in the face. We also need to teach them to build up and encourage through words.

Their happiness and future success could depend on it.