The Ride Begins…
September 10th, 2007 by Mike Smart
I always compare Labor Day weekend to the that silent spot at the top of a rollercoaster, right before the coaster makes its first big drop. The stark contrast of pace in a teacher’s life is never so pronounced as it is on that September weekend before the first classes start.
For me, I always have a mix of nervousness, fear, and excitement on that last Monday night. I think some of the fear comes from a heightened sense of how important a good start to the year is. All teachers will tell you how important the first week is, and how important the first month is. However, the more I teach, the more I’ve come to realize that September is even more important than I ever imagined it to be. Everything is magnified in September. So many elements of the class take shape: pace, energy, focus, motivation, belief, work habits. Knowing how important the start is always gives me a bit of a knot in my stomach as things start out, because if things go well in September, generally they’ll be going well in April and May. Mess up September, and you can be looking up at a long year.
Once classes start, however, I’m reminded of how much I like the energy of the classroom. So many of my concerns about the nuances of classroom management can be addressed most effectively if I simply focus my energy on making my classroom fun, challenging, and engaging. This isn’t to say that classroom management isn’t important—it’s incredibly important—but it’s always a powerful realization for me the degree to which effective classroom management centers on engaging classes, and I always seem to have to relearn this each fall in order for the knot in my stomach to vanish. This year has been no exception. As we enter the second week of school now, my fear and nervousness have largely faded away, and I can concentrate on teaching.
My Teacher of the Year responsibilities have shown me a different side of education—a side that is incredibly exciting and rewarding to experience—but the core of my experience is still the classroom, and it feels good to be back.
I don’t have your experience or acclaim but I share your revelation. Here, at the start of my fourth year, I’ve realized that what seemed the essential challenge of my first three years was largely a fool’s errand.
The challenge, I’ve decided, isn’t in establishing an airtight and comprehensive system for dealing with misbehavior (that pyramid of discipline: verbal warning, written warning, parent contact, detention, suspension, etc.).
The challenge is in creating a classroom environment so supportive, so engaging, and so respectful that misbehavior doesn’t intentionally cross a student’s mind and when it crosses her mind incidentally, as it inevitably will, its correction involves a civil, straightforward conversation outside.
Reading your description and then describing it to myself in this comment makes me feel like a dope for realizing it only this year. But, to my credit, the revolution that’s brought me here has been intensely personal and only a little bit professional. Pent up in my desire to control was a lot of fear, I think.
Unfortunately I’m not sure how to describe that release to myself, much less anyone else.
[…] Stephen Downesian cross-posted comment, here in reply to a post by Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year who writes: So many of my concerns about the nuances of classroom management can be addressed most […]
Mike, welcome back! I was hoping you’d dive back into blogging!
Dan, the mantra of the principal I did my administrative internship with was: “Classroom management stems from good instruction.” As we walked around the school, I think he said it to me, the principal wanna-be, about a dozen times a day.
Dan,
Great comment. I especially like your connection between a desire to control and fear. I think it’s so easy for a teacher to strive so hard to control a classroom that he or she sucks the life out of it.
Scott,
Thanks. I’m really hoping to post more consistently now that I’m starting to get the speeches/presentations under better control. I’ve focused on most of my available writing time since mid-August on prepping for those, and I think I’ve finally got a base built of material to work from.