09/23/2003
I was anxious about going back to school this year. I was accustomed to high school students and this is my first experience with seventh graders. Last year I taught eighth graders and was not impressed with the experience so I had reservations about going even younger. After two weeks I have completely changed my tune. These kids are great.
First of all, they listen. I am not making this up. I have not yet had to get their attention. When I am standing in front of the class they are sitting at their desks silently looking at me. Sometimes, when I turn my back to write on the white board, I'll spin around expecting to catch them in some unscholastic act but instead they are quietly writing in their notebooks. I was so shocked I asked them what they were doing. I had no idea that students could willingly copy stuff I wrote. In fact, I gave up writing anything meaningful on a chalkboard ten years ago because no one seemed to care.
Secondly, they ask me permission for everything. This is actually a nuisance at times, but it's better than the other extreme. I'm used to kids who typically have no filters in their brains. If a thought pops in their head it automatically spills out of their mouth. They also don't have control of their appendages. If their legs want to take them to the trash can, or their arm wants to reach to a nearby desk, or their hand wants to pull the hair of a classmate there is no need to get clearance from the flight deck. The kids I have this year ask permission to retrieve a piece of paper from their book bag.
One of my students "shushed" me during a recent fire drill. Some of the students went into catatonic shock when I announced that there were no assigned seats. I took my homeroom of fifteen students to the auditorium to get their ID photos taken. We were out of the classroom for exactly thirteen minutes. I am amazed at their behavior.
We took the entire seventh grade team to the beach for "outdoor" day. Six hours, seventy-two twelve year olds, four busses and not a single tear, fight, argument or whine from anyone. The lifeguards whistled a few times because they didn't like kids splashing in the pool. I'm confident that we could have sent them to the beach without supervision. I certainly didn't earn my paycheck that day.
In addition to great kids, I work with a fabulous staff. My team is fun and easy-going. My principal is a riot and loves kids. I am treated like a professional and I feel like my judgment is trusted. I have enough resources to do a good job and because I live on campus my commute is just under two minutes from bedroom to classroom giving me plenty of time to get my work done without bringing it home.
So I am relieved to report that my professional year has started well and I am looking forward to the rest of it. Oddly, I hear very different reports from my eighth grade colleagues. A first-year English teacher had a quintessential eighth grade experience complete with play sword fighting, lewd gestures and flying chairs. So maybe I have pinpointed the very moment in child development when every synapse snaps and kids behavior is reduced to raw animal instinct. I think I'll avoid eighth grade.