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Learning to Discipline At the start of her teaching career, Ms. Metzger confesses, she ricocheted between being a drill sergeant and Mary Poppins. Here she shares with new teachers the many lessons she's learned along the way about classroom discipline and classroom management. By Margaret Metzger Photo: Eyewire |
Dear New Teachers,
No one is born knowing how to control 125 adolescents for five hours a day and teach the curriculum at the same time. Learning to discipline takes years. Mostly, it's trial and error. Nothing works all the time, and what works well in one class has no effect on another.
However, over time, our repertoire of responses grows; we learn what we can tolerate; we gain a sense of timing; we make alliances within a school. Trust me, you will improve.
When I began teaching, I struggled to control my classes. I did not yet understand the difference between classroom discipline and classroom management. So let me start at the beginning.
A Confession
I still wince at my early attempts to "control" my classes. Here's what I painfully remember about myself as a young teacher, trying in vain to control classes.
Some Progress
I hated disciplining adolescents. If I was going to stay in education, I knew I had to get past the discipline issues.
I tried to write down all my mistakes in order to find a pattern and not repeat them. That didn't help. I just kept making the same mistakes over and over.
More helpful was remembering my own recent high school and college experience. I wrote down what I liked and hated about my own teachers, so I could at least pretend to be someone who knew what she was doing. I remembered how much I wanted the teachers I adored to like or notice me; I remembered how criticism bruised my fragile academic ego; I remembered how I resented teacher power plays. Mostly, I remembered how much I hated the infantilizing nature of high school. Those memories got me through the first years of teaching. I reminded myself that I already knew a lot -- just from the student side of the desk. If I could keep remembering, I could convey genuine empathy and have honest interactions.
My mother, an outstanding teacher, was the best help. She listened patiently that first year as I complained -- or cried -- that my classes never went as I planned. Finally, my mother said, "Look, you can't expect to know how to teach instantly. You wouldn't expect to do brain surgery in your first year of medical school. If you think you can learn this in one year, you degrade my profession.
"Now, let's look at your failures. First, you need to see failures as opportunities for you to learn. You need a theory for each problem. Why is it a problem? What do you bring to the situation? What could you have done differently? What other lens could you use to understand the situation? What does the student think happened?
"Next, you need to stop wallowing in failure." (My mom was tough.) "Once you admit that you are still learning, you can allow yourself to make some mistakes. You claim that every class is a disaster. I doubt it. What would be an acceptable level of failure for you and for the students? Let's say that each class could have one completely lousy day per week. Since you teach six classes, that would give you six expected failures a week.
"Tape a 3 x 5 card on your desk. At the end of each class, ask yourself if the class was a disaster. You can't count the class that fell apart in the last 10 minutes or a class where one kid seemed to hate everything. You can only count true, complete failures. Then put the score on the card."
My mother was right. That little 3 x 5 card gave me perspective and permission. I didn't have to get it right all the time. I could think about the difference between total failure and just plain not-so-good. I used the card for one month and saw that I didn't fail quite as much as I imagined.
Simple Principles of Survival
Once I quit "wallowing," as my mother so delicately put it, I began to think in terms of solutions. I didn't need a huge cookbook of discipline solutions. I just needed a few fast and reliable ones.
In the early years, I needed a few anchoring principles so that every problem didn't require a whole new philosophical debate with myself. Frankly, I didn't want to think about discipline, which I found -- and still find -- the most boring part of teaching. I wanted to dispense with the whole discipline issue as quickly as possible. As I recall them, here are my anchoring principles from those early years, with a few comments about each.
1. Don't escalate, de-escalate. Teachers, like parents, need to use a light touch. Let go of some infractions. Whisper instead of yell. Use humor. Change locations. Divide and conquer. Talk to students privately. Make a tiny hand movement. Call kids by name. Smile a lot. Listen. Listen. Listen.
Students soon showed me that I escalated bad situations with my knee-jerk, self-righteous anger. I never liked this trait in myself, and the kids ridiculed it. To train myself to be calmer, I emulated the behavior and words of calmer teachers -- even when I didn't feel calm.
I still overreact when I am tired or frazzled, when I don't know the students, or when I'm just tired of adolescents. When students infuriate me, I think to myself, "Well, they'll all be nicer people in five years. I wasn't so nice in high school either." I start with de-escalating my own annoyance with bad behavior. Then I can deal with the behavior.
2. Let students save face. A few generic phrases let everyone save face, they don't require me to articulate the problem or even to name it, and they allow me to keep the lesson going. Some of my favorites were and still are:
3. Insist on the right to sanity. Roland Barth offers a great analogy for teachers. He talks about the airplane flight attendant who says, "In case of emergency, put the oxygen mask on yourself first, before you put the mask on the child." Barth says the same is true in schools: if we don't take care of ourselves, we can't save the children.
So, instead of feeling overwhelmed, I tried -- note the critical word tried -- to figure out which behavior bothered me most. I know this sounds odd, but I started by making rules for my sake, not theirs. By the way, it took two years before I completely understood that, as an occupant of the room, I had rights too.
I made a lengthy list of awful behaviors. Then I ranked them. I figured that solutions to some problems could just wait. But if I didn't solve others, I would leave teaching. I tried -- again the operative word -- to solve problems one at a time. Of course, discipline is organic and can't be separated out into distinct pieces. But I tried. I worked my way down the list: cheating, ridiculing, shouting, insults, back talk, eyeball rolling, throwing things, gum chewing, tardiness, etc., etc., etc.
You need to know yourself as a teacher. I admire those teachers who start classes crisply. I can't. My classes have messy starts: students talk to me about make-up work; I pass back papers; I forget something in another room; I set up the classroom while 10 students make demands. So, although I know my colleagues disapprove of my choice, I don't bother with tardiness. That's a rule I can't enforce, because I don't even see which students arrive late. On the other hand, when I ask for student attention, I expect it within three seconds.
4. Get help. My sister tells this funny story about a first-year teacher. In June, she faced piles of ungraded papers. The papers weren't organized by class, she couldn't figure out the grades, and she didn't know how much every assignment counted. She was in tears. So she picked up the phone, called a temporary employment agency, and hired an assistant for the afternoon. In five hours, everything was straightened out.
For the first several years, I felt too humiliated by my failures to ask for help. By the second year, I began to make alliances. I learned which guidance counselors really helped, which administrator trusted my judgment, and whether to trust the truant officer. I learned which teachers made good witnesses in difficult meetings. I began to feel not so alone.
5. Get out of the limelight -- or the line of fire. For the first six years, I repeated this mantra to myself, "Get out of the limelight. Get out of the limelight." Stand-up teaching made me an easy target. So I kept putting the workload on the students. Part of this was for good, sound educational reasons. But in part, I just wanted to get out of the limelight. For example, students presented material they barely understood, they did seatwork, they read in class, they watched movies, and they took too many quizzes. Like dealing with unruly toddlers, keeping adolescents busy helps to control them. I am not proud of this.
And there was always group work, which I assigned not because it made sense but because I didn't know what else to do, because it kept classes busy, and because it was easy to plan. Of course, students snicker behind our backs, "When teachers don't know what to do for the day, they give us group work." I am not proud of this either.
A wonderful teacher, Sue Case, told this story about her first year. She felt so nervous that she just kept handing out ditto sheets. (For you younger readers, that was an early method of duplication.) She just tried to keep students occupied. She couldn't possibly grade all the papers, so at the end of the year, she had a barbecue at her house and burned hundreds of quizzes, worksheets, and papers in her backyard grill! She still developed into a marvelous teacher.
When you start, you don't have the energy, resources, or ideas that would enable you to teach actively all the time. But the students are still sitting in front of you -- as I'm sure you have noticed. Don Thomas (former head of our English Department) used to say that, during his first years in the classroom, he figured that 10 minutes of real teaching in a period qualified as a successful class.
Some More Complex Principles
After a time, calmer and a little more confident, I could think better about discipline. My methods became so intertwined with how I taught that now I can barely untangle them. As I recall them, here are my discipline principles from the middle years of my teaching, with a few comments.
1. Ask questions. There is always more than one side to a story. Ask any parent of two children. And we deal with more than 100 children each day!
Usually the offender knows much more than he or she is allowed to explain. Often, the adults assume that their points of view are complete and correct, without asking the child for more information.
When I ask questions, students often have the information I need. Usually, though, I don't ask soon enough or often enough. One June, I asked a particularly neurotic class if any of them knew what had been going on all year. They did. "Four people here have parents getting divorced this semester, so when we came in and yelled at you, we were really yelling at them." I found this out on the last day of school, when the information was useless to me. I had lost sleep over this angry class, convinced that I was doing something wrong.
Here's a problem. Sometimes you feel you have already spent too much time on the disruptive students. Frankly, you don't want to talk to them. Too bad. Do it. Not during class time, and not always in the hall. If you don't trust yourself or them in a conversation, use notes. "Would you write me a note about what you think is going on in this class? I'll write back."
Ask for information from administrators and from other teachers. Phone parents, if only so you can't be accused of not doing so. Usually, parents want information and can provide helpful input.
2. Give adult feedback. Bob Weintraub, our headmaster,
says that we often withhold the information people most need to
hear about themselves. That seems true. Students need adult feedback,
and sometimes they need cultural or interpersonal feedback, as
well as academic feedback. Here are some examples of what I mean.
3. Respect the rights of the whole class. Some students take much more than their fair share of the psychic space in the room. But the whole class deserves your best self. Three disruptive students can undermine the whole class. But the education of the whole class should always be ahead of the education of one individual. Try not to focus only on the difficult students; quiet, earnest students are waiting for your attention too.
4. Ask the students to do more. This has worked better than anything else for me. If I up the intellectual ante, if I make the work more compelling, if I focus more on how students learn than on how I teach, I do not need to coerce them. If the work seems authentic and interesting, students usually behave well. To see the full impact of this truth, consider how our disruptive students behave in athletic situations, where they buy into the goals.
5. Remember which rules are important. Sometimes schools lose all common sense. I worked briefly in a school that was completely out of control. Classes had just six or seven students in them because the rest had dropped out. Teachers ridiculed other teachers who took work home. In order to discourage suspected drug deals, the school removed the entry doors on the boys' rest rooms. But the principal bragged about his control of the school. As proof, he pointed out that the boys removed their hats during the Pledge of Allegiance, even while walking in the hall, with no flag in sight. The whole situation was crazy-making.
Once my son, then a ninth-grader, decided to cut class to get an autograph from his favorite author. He explained to me that he had planned exactly when to go, which class he could afford to miss, and when he would be back. I was cheering silently for this thoughtful act of defiance. He wasn't cutting class to hang out with the guys on the school steps. But when he asked if I would sign him out of school, I said loudly, "Absolutely not." He replied, sarcastically of course, "Oh yeah, I forgot the rule -- take responsibility for what you do." That was the real rule. No cutting was a minor rule.
As in the rest of life, our motivations for breaking the rules are more interesting than our motivations for following them. I admire the fact that my current school often breaks the rules in order to help students stay in school.
For teachers, too, the question is, Which rules will we enforce or break? And why? Is it favoritism? Racism? Are we acknowledging greater issues -- like safety or mental illness or individualism? Whose best interest are we protecting?
6. Bypass or solve perennial problems. You could be bitter every day of your professional life about students who don't bring pencils or pens to class. Or, without bitterness, you could insist that students come prepared for class. Or, you could provide pencils. For a few dollars a year (12 pencils cost about 69 cents), you can bypass the problem. In addition, most departments have stock supplies.
If students don't bring books, you could crusade for more responsible behavior. But some students consistently forget. You could fight this battle, or you could keep extra copies of the books on hand. However, the same student who forgets his book will also forget to return it. So, require collateral for a borrowed book. Ask for something students won't leave the classroom without: a watch, an earring, a shoe. Some days I have a collection of shoes and watches on my desk, but every student has a book.
There is a famous story about a legendary, creative fifth-grade teacher at Shady Hill School in Cambridge. An elegant Boston Brahmin, she could not tolerate the disruptive banging against desks as students moved around the class. So she balanced pencils on the edge of each desk, pointing outward into the aisles. The "game" was to move so carefully around the room that no pencils fell to the floor. She never punished or made a rule. She managed the problem in terms children would enjoy.
Solve the problems you know happen over and over.
The Larger View
So far, this letter has discussed only suggestions, techniques -- maybe just tricks -- that a teacher can use to help manage student behaviors. But the issue is much deeper than that. Any bad discipline situation involves what the students bring to it, what context the institution provides, and what we adults bring. We tend to look only at what the students bring to the situation. We need to remember to consider the other two factors.
Institutional context. In any situation, we should be aware of the big picture. When discipline deteriorates in a classroom, we need to remember to ask questions of the whole institution.
Did the guidance department put a student in the wrong class in order to keep class sizes equal? Should the supervisor be giving more help to the teacher? Are administrators being asked to do so much that they can't intervene in a timely way? Should certain students even be in a regular classroom? Is the law making unreasonable requests on the teachers and school? Do our institutions spend enough money for curriculum revision? Why do students cut classes? Why do students go to some classes more often than to others?
Do we support new teachers adequately? Do we explain the school culture and expectations adequately? Do new teachers have a chance to watch experienced teachers?
Most important, we should question whether the institution is educating the next generation. Are the teachers, the parents, and the organization all working together efficiently and sanely to produce the results we want?
Personal context. If the institution is the macrocosm, we teachers are the microcosm. The hardest topic to consider with regard to discipline -- at least it's hardest for me -- is what I bring to the situation. I am not a blank slate. I come with all the wear and tear of the day and with all my own psychological baggage.
Very infrequently, I make a clean decision. For example, if a toddler runs into a street, I grab that child, scream, and spank. Because safety is at stake, I can be swift, absolute, and unambivalent.
Most situations aren't this simple. I must ask myself hard questions. Does race or gender influence my response? Does this interaction remind me of another one? What from my background is being triggered? Am I tired, grouchy, or distracted? What else is going on in my life? Who is watching? Is this problem mine or the student's? Has the student hit some raw nerve in me? Why am I threatened by the behavior? Why do I lack resilience on this matter? Am I being inflexible? Am I being authoritative or authoritarian?
Discipline as a Teaching Moment
In the best of all possible worlds, everyone would learn from conflict. True, the student should be the main learner. But teachers and institutions have an opportunity to think about what causes problems.
I have attended meetings in administrators' offices that went far beyond the tit-for-tat kind of discipline described in school rule books. In these good meetings, people listened to one another, considered options, and assigned responsibility for future changes. Everyone present considered his or her own role in the problem. The administrators assessed their own performance. The growth of the child was central, and teachers took responsibility for what happened.
Classroom Management Versus Classroom Discipline
Ideally, you want to anticipate and stave off discipline problems. Instead of merely reacting to bad behavior, we must create classrooms that eliminate the need for disciplinary action. This isn't totally possible. But certainly, some environments, some teacher attitudes, some assignments generate more cooperation than others.
I have attached a "Memo to My Students" (below) that I give to all my students on the first day of school. You can see how I set up the management of my classroom. In my early years of teaching, I could never have pulled off these rules. First, I needed to know who I was as a teacher, and I also needed to know what worked for me. I don't expect -- or want -- anyone to merely copy my memo. I offer it simply as a sample.
With experience, as your own standards for what constitutes a good class go up and up, you will begin to ask harder questions about what and how you teach. Discipline will no longer seem like a separate issue in your professional life. You will usually manage your classrooms, not discipline individuals.
In the end, each of you needs to find methods that fit your teaching style, your school's culture, and your students' needs. But it will be tough.
With empathy,
Margaret Metzger
Memo to My Students
TO: All my students
FROM: Mrs. Metzger
RE: Expectations, procedures, rules, quirks,
and policies (all the procedures you need to know)
How do I expect you to behave in this class? How do I expect you to act? As adults. That simple two-word answer has endless ramifications, from the trivial (permission to go to the bathroom) to the significant (who owns this class). Let's start with the trivial and work up.
1. You do not need to ask my permission to go to the bathroom. Just tell me where you are going, so I will know whether to wait for you or leave materials on your desk or whatever.
2. I don't mind if you bring food to class, but the recent rodent problem resulted in a schoolwide policy against food in the classroom. We will follow school rules. But you may bring drinks. I assume that if you spill anything, you will clean it up. In general, I hope you take some responsibility for this room and won't say silly things like, "I didn't litter -- someone else did."
3. If you are going to be late for class, don't bother the previous teacher for a note. I won't ask where you have been (unless lateness becomes a habit). I assume you made every reasonable effort to get here on time.
4. If I am late, you can assume I am trying to get here. I am not in Coolidge Corner getting a manicure. When I am late, you should begin the class without me. On most days, it will be clear what we will be doing. At the very least, take attendance. If I do not dismiss the class on time, please speak up. I want you to get to your next class on time, and I often get so engrossed in class activities that I forget to end on time. This habit does not endear me to my colleagues.
5. I will talk to you as I would talk to adults, except when I am inordinately frazzled or exasperated. I will assume you can handle mature and controversial topics.
If you are bothered by what I say in class, I hope that you will tell me directly. I do not want to upset you, but neither do I want to teach in such a bland style that you already agree with everything we discuss. I hope to challenge you to think about some of your beliefs and assumptions.
When teaching, I try to remember the words "Afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted." Sometimes when the class is disturbing, you should take it as a compliment that I think you can handle discord and ambiguity.
6. You should move toward a sense of ownership in this class. You are responsible for what happens here. This class is not a Metzger song-and-dance routine.
In retrospect, the funniest criticism I ever received on my yearly evaluation as a teacher was the statement, "The problem with Mrs. Metzger's classes is that she treats students as adults." My answer was, "Do they act like adults?" The answer to that was, "Yes, your class looks like a group of adults sitting around discussing books." Big problem.
I want you to come to class prepared to take over. You should start to form opinions by yourself and with other students before the class begins. I hope I hear you talking in the cafeteria, halls, and homerooms about the assignments in this class.
I love it when I come to class with a plan, only to find that the students are tolerating me for a few minutes at the beginning of the hour but already know what they want to discuss. When the students take over, I become one of the discussion members, trying to edge my way into the conversation just like everyone else. On the best days -- and this happens rarely -- the students will decide what should be done for homework and the next day's classwork. At that point, I know that the students own the class. That's terrific.
7. Students take over class in funny ways. One class went on strike, refusing to work on Fridays, so we compromised on a 10-minute game played at the end of class -- the infamous Friday Game. Another year, a class said to me, "We hope you don't mind, but we've ordered Chinese food for the entire class tomorrow. We're bringing it by your room for lunch. You're invited." Another class wrote on the board on a glorious spring day, "We're meeting at Friday's for ice cream today. See you there."
8. Despite these splurges, most of the time students are working very, very hard in this class. My students complete over 95% of the homework, every day. (When in Rome . . . ) Therefore, I want to give you credit for consistent effort. Depending on the time available, I will collect homework, glance at it briefly, give pop quizzes, or just ask you whether your homework is done. Each homework assignment ends up counting about 1/32 of your grade. If you lie about such a small item, you need to have a talk with yourself about how cheaply you will sell your integrity. If I forget to check homework, give me a signal so I can give credit.
Here's a funny story. One year a mother angrily demanded to know why her son had failed (even though I had sent a warning note). I told her he was missing three out of five papers and hadn't done 80% of the homework. "How do you know he didn't do it?" she asked. I explained about quizzes and homework checks. I told her that sometimes her son had just said that he hadn't done the work. "Well," she huffed, "he could be lying."
9. I want this class to be a community of learners. In addition to academics, you must learn to work with other people. It doesn't matter whether your friends are in this class or even whether you initially like the other members of the class. In a classroom, you can move away from your established friendships, meet people whom you might not socialize with, talk with them about important issues, and learn that they are thoughtful, sensitive, and interesting people. Most of you welcome the opportunity to meet new people and interact in nonsuperficial ways.
You must treat each other with respect. It is more important to me that you treat each other well than that you treat me well. I should warn you that, if you ridicule each other, I will be quite angry. I will not tolerate anyone making fun of a less able student. Remember that all of us have academic weak spots. Frequently, the bravest person in the room is the student who must work hardest to comprehend the material.
Often, strong friendships between quite different people form in this classroom. Literature and writing form bonds among people. Then again, sometimes I think students just form friendships as a kind of survival mechanism. Students cling to each other because they survived such a difficult course together.
10. While I am on warnings, let me mention that I am tyrannical about cheating. If I catch you cheating, I will put a description of the incident in your permanent file. If you are a senior, I may call the colleges you've applied to. Most students work hard at this high school, and cheating devalues the work of honest students. I do not even accept the excuse that someone is under a lot of pressure and therefore resorted to cheating. Most students are pressured. So what? Most of you discipline yourselves to be honest. I admire your hard work.
11. You need a study buddy, someone to call if you are absent and need an assignment.
12. If you know in advance that you will be absent, please tell me. You can save me a lot of paperwork. I will tell you in advance if I expect to be absent.
13. Because I believe this course is based on the premise that you can act like adults, I ask that no substitutes be hired for my classes. This is a time of financial strain for public schools, and perhaps we can help the school save money. More important, I would hire most of my students to babysit for my children, so does the school really need to hire someone to look after you? Of course, if there are medical situations that need adult supervision, I will have an adult present. If you want more explanation of this policy, I will be happy to speak with you about it.
I have not hired substitutes since 1981, and all my students have acted admirably. I will tell you in advance if I know I will be absent, or I will call one of you and explain the lesson plan. Sometimes, I just leave the plan in a sealed envelope taped to the blackboard. On most days, you will know what should logically come next.
The best class I ever taught took place when I wasn't even here. One year, I had to be absent in June. To tell the truth, two kids broke my leg when I tried to break up a fight. (It's a long story, but it wasn't intentional or malicious, just an accident.) My class in American literature conducted class by themselves for four days. They called me each day for instructions, gave and graded their own quizzes, held discussions, and generally behaved with complete maturity. Then the school hired a substitute, and the kids were so insulted that they all skipped class. I didn't blame them; they were doing just fine on their own.
On a day that I was officially absent to attend a conference, I returned to the school at about 2:30. Although the school day had officially ended several minutes before, I found my class sitting in a circle discussing No Exit. I stood at the door eavesdropping and bursting with pride. The students stayed 10 minutes beyond the end of school.
14. You always have the right, even the obligation, to know why we are doing something. I will try to remember to explain the rationale for everything we do -- but if I forget, ask.
15. I want feedback from you about how the learning is going for you, but, ultimately, I am responsible not just for you, but for the whole class. Sometimes I'm not even trying to teach to you. You know some students get ignored in school. Sometimes I design the lesson for those people. So if a class isn't wonderful for you on a particular day, have patience. Don't complain too fast. You'll get on my nerves.
16. I will call your parents or guardians if you are missing class or homework. I take careful attendance. Students do not cut my class (even if they are cutting school). Seniors, on senior cut day, please all cut on the same day and inform me.
17. There will be no written homework on vacations or long weekends. I count Saturday and Sunday for homework time; I don't expect you to work on Friday night. I don't work then.
18. If I were a perfect teacher, I would chase down every piece of undone homework. By my conservative calculations, I do 8,000 homework checks per year. I just can't keep track of that many little assignments. Therefore, your homework grade will be a straight percentage of homework completed on days of attendance. In other words, if you are absent, you don't need to see me about make-up work for daily homework. However, you must keep up with the reading and all major papers.
If you miss 10% of the homework, you will still get an A for "daily work," which counts as much as a full paper. So just keep up with homework, and you will have an automatic A averaged into the quarterly grade. (There are about seven major grades per quarter.)
19. Also, if I were a perfect teacher, I would ask you to write a monthly paper on your outside reading. But that would be an additional 1,000 papers per year (100 students x 10 months). I grade 50 papers every week of my life. If I do more, I get cranky. Although I don't need more papers to grade, you need more books to read. Therefore, you will do monthly independent reading. You will not write papers on independent reading books. On the first day of the month, we will all go outside, walk around the reservoir in pairs, and talk about the books. This is called a Walk-Talk. This plan will be modified for freshmen, who in the past have had a hard time talking for an hour about a book. There will be a small quiz on the reading. If you read a book each month, you will receive an A for outside reading. As with the daily work grade, the Walk-Talk grade will count as a full paper. Sometimes parents object that I am not checking for cheating, but my experience is that most students take the opportunity to read whatever they would like to read -- except truly junk literature. No, I do not allow Stephen King. You will read him anyway in the summer.
20. If you are not turning in a paper or an assignment, write a note explaining why not. Use a full sheet of paper; little scraps of paper get lost. Your explanation of missed work helps me with record keeping. Also, I'll know whether to worry about you. If you didn't do the homework because you didn't understand the directions, that is a teaching problem for me. It is not the same as if you didn't do the homework because you had a fight with your best friend.
21. You should actively participate in this class. It isn't enough to sit politely and absorb other people's thinking. You must contribute to this class. Everyone will read papers aloud. Almost everyone dreads it.
22. If you think of yourself as shy, you should practice speaking in a safe environment, like this one. Over the years, many ex-students report that they regret not having spoken during high school classes. College students are required to speak in front of groups, and my ex-students wish they had learned to feel comfortable doing so earlier in their school careers.
23. Sometimes students complain that I am intimidating at first because I occasionally respond to a student's remark by bluntly stating, "No, that's wrong." Students are horrified. But I don't think being wrong is so terrible. You need to be wrong sometimes, or you are not taking enough risks. I prefer that you be daringly wrong rather than timidly right. Take intellectual risks in this class -- and in all your classes.
24. I can try my best to set up educational experiences for you, but in the end you must decide whether you will take responsibility for your own education. You are not in school for your parents or for grades. You are here to become an educated person. Your attitude toward education will transform when you understand that you are doing this for yourself.
25. This class is one of those situations where "everyone is equal but some are more equal than others." While I will assume you can act like adults, I still retain the teacher's role. I still set the academic standards, decide on the grades, report to the parents, and set the pace for the class. I just wanted you to know that I am not ambivalent about that role.
I look forward to learning from you.
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Last updated 27 August 2002
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