My Husband, the Lumberjack (Or, the Power of Yet)

I am not a quitter, but at the beginning of the school year, I thought I might have to quit teaching.

(Actually, that's not true. I am kind of a quitter. I never mean to be, but I get distracted and lose interest in things. Also, I am not a detail-oriented person, so once I have to get down into all the boring details, I lose steam. And I grew up with this weird belief where I thought to myself that if something was difficult, it was because it wasn't meant to be. It never occurred to me that I might have to push through something that was hard. This is a lesson I am learning rather late in life.)

The first day of school this year was rough. This was unexpected and discouraging. Usually the first day of school is awesome, at least for someone who teaches mostly freshmen, because the kids are nervous about their first day of high school, and so there are no behavior issues or distractions. The kids come in, looking so very young, so very much like they are still middle-school students, and about a third of them stare at you, wide-eyed at their new surroundings and lacking self-awareness; another third are quietly and forcefully trying to blend in with their surroundings and avoid drawing any attention to themselves; the other third are either anxiously trying to engage the attention of their peers by any means possible or are desperately and loudly showing off how much Spanish they remember from middle school. It is hilarious and heartwarming to watch, and there are usually no problems.

But the first day of class this year, the kids came in - almost forty of them in my 7th period class - and defied all my expectations.

They were not shy.

They were not nervous.

They were ready to take over.

I had several who were blurters - who constantly blurted out wrong answers, purposefully stupid guesses (the laughter of peers is highly sought-after), some right answers, and worst of all, tons of English. They whispered to those who were next to them, had conversations with each other across the room, addressed me as though I were one of them, ignored instructions the first time they were given and followed them the second time loudly, haphazardly, inefficiently, and only after several interruptions. They made jokes, pushed conversations in new directions, and reacted so loudly and forcefully to the fact that I was not speaking any English that me speaking Spanish itself became such a distraction and I was forced to switch back to English to regain control of the class. It was a nightmare. I made it work, but I was flustered, and irritated, and unhappy at the way I was having to teach, and of course trying to remain perfectly calm on the outside.

This was all going on when I showed my PowerPoint. Every year at the beginning of class, I show my students a PowerPoint that has pictures of me and my family, and tell them in Spanish about things like how old we are, what our names are, how long I've lived in Reno, how I studied in Chile, etc. The point is that if the kids are paying attention to what I say, to my hand gestures, and to the words and pictures, they understand all this information about my family even though I'm saying it all in Spanish and all words on the PowerPoint are in Spanish. These are first-year Spanish students who didn't take it in middle school, but most of them, by the end of my presentation, are able to get at least 80% correct when I ask them questions. This activity is usually good because they realize that I am not going to translate, but if they are paying attention, they will understand what I am saying.

Of course, this year, since the class was so into what they wanted to do with the time rather than what I wanted to do, the activity was quite a bit more chaotic than usual, with quite a bit more waiting, quiet signals, and giving the Mom Look. Outwardly I was still calm, firm, and pleasant; inwardly, I wanted to scream at them all and terrify them into submission. So, I was showing the PowerPoint to my students, and as I showed the picture of Ian, looking handsome with his bearded face and red plaid long-sleeved shirt, a student blurted out, in English, "Is your husband a lumberjack?"

He was rewarded instantly by laughter and the reactions of his peers. "Lumberjack! Ha!" "Of course he's not a lumberjack!" "That's a stupid question!" "Why do you think he looks like a lumberjack?" "Oh yeah, he's wearing lumberjack clothes!" It again became an eruption for me to calm down.

I was so irritated. Of course, I kept my calm and didn't show how mad I was at the student for his stupid question. Asking questions for genuine lack of knowledge or clarity is one thing; throwing out a question to entertain one's peers is another, and it kept happening the entire first half of class. I genuinely wanted to walk out. Worst of all, the kids all came in so agitated, like a bottle of soda shaken up, that I wasn't quite sure who had said it and I didn't know their names yet, so it made discipline hard. So I had to smooth everything out again and continue. But to be honest, inwardly I was furious. I hated that class and was certain they were going to destroy my life or, at the very least, my teaching career.

It wasn't until I was a few hours removed and was having a glass of wine at home that I suddenly realized how funny the question was. I was making dinner, and as I was suddenly struck with how silly freshmen can be and how angry I was and how I actually love how their minds jump quickly between random connections, I started laughing so hard I almost couldn't tell Ian the story. "Is your husband a lumberjack?" Such a stupid question.

In between the end of that terrible class and going home, I remember going to into the bathroom and almost crying in the stall. I was frustrated with myself, with the kids, and with the school district for increasing class sizes last year. Up to this point in teaching my biggest classes had had thirty-two kids.

"I can't do it..." I mumbled to myself. "I can't manage AND teach a class of thirty-seven freshman. I can manage them or I can teach them. There are too many. I can't do both."

But I remembered watching a video about using the word "yet" to create a growth mindset. As much as I just wanted to resign, I figured I would try it. After all, I already felt like I was at rock-bottom, so what did I have to lose? So I added that one little word to the end of my sentence: "I can't manage AND teach a class of thirty-seven students... yet."

Even in that instant, I couldn't believe the change that made in my attitude. Just adding the word "yet" gave me hope. It made teaching thirty-seven students a skill to be figured out and practiced and learned rather than an innate ability that I unfortunately hadn't been born with.

And so I decided to give it a shot.

The next few weeks were tough, but I was mentally prepared. I knew what it felt like to have thirty-seven attention-hungry kids in one room. I assigned them all new seats the next day, immediately. There were so many inappropriate behavior issues going on, such as talking over me and each other, blurting out, having conversations across the room, having side-conversations while instruction was going on... and what was frustrating about this group of thirty-seven kids was that it wasn't simply two or three kids doing it, like in most classes. It was more like twelve.

In the past I had taken a more gentle approach to behavior management, and it had mostly worked well for me. But I stopped giving warnings for behavior issues and went immediately to consequences. If there was a minor misbehavior that I thought might lead to a worse behavior, I removed that kid from the classroom and had a private conversation and took away ALL participation points for the day, which dropped grades significantly when there were only three assignments in the grade book. I learned their names in the first week because knowing and using their names helps with behavior issues. If their behavior was attention-seeking, I removed them from their peers. If they were yelling out answers, I purposefully ignored them and called only on those who were raising their hand. I called a few parents. I talked to some coaches. (It's amazing what the threat of not being able to play a sport will do to male athletes.)

And within a couple weeks, the class had calmed down significantly. Kids were displaying much more appropriate classroom behavior, side-conversations had nearly been eliminated, and the number of blurters was reduced to two kids who have impulse control issues that we continue to work on. But all in all, they became much more pleasant. I was able to make connections with some of my more difficult ones so that even when they were being disciplined, they understood why and liked and respected me enough that they accepted their consequences graciously.

This is not to say that the class is perfect. They are still an energetic, impulsive, attention-hungry group of thirty-seven freshmen (now thirty-eight) in the last and shortest class of the day, and I still have to be quick and consistent with consequences (which I should be anyway). But I like them and they like me. I've come to see how quick their wits are; they have an excellent sense of humor, for the most part; most are genuinely interested in learning Spanish and they try their best, and they are learning a lot. It is not perfect, but it is much improved.

A few weeks ago, I felt like my struggle had come full circle when we were learning about descriptions. I was showing them pictures and using actions to illustrate words such as "tall," "short," "thin," "brunette," and "weak." And when I acted out "strong" and started asking different kids if they were strong, I had one of my kids ask in his novice-level Spanish, "Is your husband strong?"

I smirked and nodded exaggeratedly and answered, "Sí, mi esposo es muy fuerte."

They all laughed and whooped, and then one of my blurters yelled out, "Of course he's strong, he's a lumberjack!"

I laughed too, and we moved on with the lesson. The first day, that joke would have resulted in a major disruption, and we would have wasted a significant amount of class time. And now I had the class under control to the extent that I could also laugh at the joke. I remembered how much I had despised them all the first day and how much I now look forward to teaching that class.

I had fought for it, and learned and grown, and they had learned and grown, and I had succeeded.