It's a Calling

4 outta 5 hyped up days: not too bad 'a ratio.

I learned today the importance of accepting bad days. They come.
Some days my students are not going to listen to me or get stuff done. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I came home stoked. I love my ghettolicious school, my crazy students, and the diversity in my classroom. Thursday I came home wanting to cry: I failed them. I lost my patience, got frustrated, and looked down on them. I failed them. They dished me attitude and I dished them defense. We got nowhere. I wondered how such a change could happen over night. The beginning of the week, I never wanted to leave. Thursday - I was checking 'easy' schools for openings. Where did I go wrong?

I have three sections of advanced students that love school, love English, and love the material enough to listen up when I give them information via lecture, discussion, or another method. I have two sections of students that the world has given up on.

Example 1:

Student - "Don't worry about it."
- "I am worried about you. I want you to pass this class."
Student - "Hellll yea, I like the sound 'a that!"
(peer laughs)
Student - "What?! Most teachers don't care if you pass or not."

I have students telling me they are stupid. They can't get it done on time so what is the point in trying. They don't get it. My class is gay. They hate teachers. They don't want to be there. They don't like me. This is shit. Why can't I give them the answers. They hate english.

Yesterday, I told myself: "These students don't want to work; we'll never get anything done. They'll fail their SOL tests. They won't listen to me. We just spent 45 minutes logging on to computers and not going to a single website. They aren't doing anything. I can't get them to move. This is pointless. Where are the students who want to try." I gave up on them. I looked at a student who gave me attitude and told myself "I can't make her do this. I hate this defiant and lazy class." I judged her and formed a picture of who she was in my head: the pygmalion effect at its best.

Today in the computer lab, doing the same exact instructions that were given yesterday, I got to the heart of it. This student was confused and discouraged. I helped her find a website and gave her a pep talk on how much I believe she could do a decent job on this and score herself some points, and she began...

Some days these students will not be pushed. Some days they have had it. Thursday we went to the lab and nobody touched the mouse unless I was right above them (and I can't be above every single student at every single moment! we need smaller class sizes!). Today was no different in my part, but I connected with every student and they DID IT. They worked, they succeeded. We got our timeline project done in one day - we pushed hard.

Some days are just bad days. Period.