Survival in the World of Inner-City Teaching Part 6

So I survived my first year of teaching and was feeling pretty down about the whole experience. I enjoyed students but really struggled to make the adults happy. Parents were fine, it was the “paid professionals” who were unhappy with me. In retrospect I know what happened. I was an alternative licensed professional. I had a four-year degree in history, not education. I never student taught and I had not “paid my dues.” It was like being invited into the club without the initiation. I was a threat to a system that has existed for some time. Another thing that came to light much later was that students at the school I taught in had been together for some time. They put all teachers new to the school through the wringer. They wanted to make sure that you earned the right to be a part of their school family.

I have a couple of recollections from that first year that I did not address in my earlier articles. I vividly recall introducing myself to a fellow new teacher. The school was a family in many ways but she was new to the family and made quite an impression on me. One day before school I said “good morning, FirstName.” She turned and looked at me and said, “You mean Ms. LastName.” I walked away. I have never really figured out what happened, but she was out of the classroom a couple years later when her student’s test scores were in the toilet (remember when I said it is the adults, not the kids that are the problem).

I was worried the sun was setting on my career.

The other was of a young man who was really growing up in a bad environment. We will call him George. His father was obviously abusing drugs and weighed all of about 80 lbs. It was heartbreaking to see the two of them; George was the parent in the relationship. Sadly, they were both involved in a local gang. I remember a day of chaos that happened that I blamed myself for long afterwards. Apparently in the class before mine George thought he saw a student pick up a pen that belonged to him. George walked over to the student and told him to give back the pen at the beginning of my class. The student told George that it was his pen that he brought from home. Not knowing anything about what happened before the two came into my classroom, I told the two of them to sit down and get to work.

About ten minutes later George asked to sharpen his pencil. I told him to go ahead. While walking to the pencil sharpener he proceeded to beat the student he thought stole his pen. I quickly intervened and now George’s anger was turned on me. He was not a big guy and all I did was hold him by the top of his head as he tried to hit me. I guess my forearms took a beating while I waited for security to come take George away. While I was shocked at what happened, it never really bothered me too much, kids do stupid things every once in a while. I forgot about it. I did not realize that the principal told the father that I could press charges and have George expelled from the school. The father pre-emptively pulled George out of school. Last I saw of him he was in the criminal "justice" system.

I was concerned even though things were getting better.

So to get you caught back up, I ended my first year of teaching on a plan of action (one step towards being fired), ready to be let go at a moment’s notice. I knew I had to take drastic action. I knew it was go hard or go home time. So I went hard. Anonymous School was a year round school so summer break was four weeks. I spent my four-week summer break looking at ways to improve my performance in the classroom. I spent a week at Montpelier studying the Constitution. I read several classroom management books and outlined a new course of action. I decided that I would start calling the parents of unruly students immediately, on the first day of school if I had to. I worked with a fellow “alternative licensure” teacher to develop lesson plans. The students in my homeroom had obviously spoken to the previous year’s class. Five minutes into the first day of school I had my first challenge, I turned to the student and told him to meet me in the hall, "we are calling your Mom.” The class sat in stunned silence. I walked out into the hall, handed the student my phone and said “dial.” He dialed and I proceeded to speak with his mother. She assured me she would take care of it and asked me to hand my phone to her son. I then heard her tell him to behave or she would come down to the school and deal with him. We went back to work.

I ended up making quite a few calls those first few days for bad behavior. I also kept track of them in my contact log. During my planning I would call three parents and give a positive report for every negative phone call I’d made. If I called home about a bad thing concerning “Johnny” last week and he was good this week, I called his mom and told her that I appreciated her speaking with “Johnny” because his behavior was outstanding. Word quickly spread and the previous year’s class quickly started the rumor that they “made Mr. K mean.” I have to say those first weeks of teaching were reaffirming. I wrote no behavior referrals that year and worked hard to establish relationships with my students and their parents. I partnered with the veteran teacher across the hall and he told me that I had a knack for getting parents on my side. He encouraged me to use that skill.

Maybe what I saw was not the sun setting on my career but a new sunrise?

More in a couple days, but I will say this, the guy across the hall was there just in time for me. He helped me out when I needed it; he supported me and was just a really good friend. He later moved out of state to teach up north and was killed in a motorcycle accident two years ago. It was heartbreaking. He and I had just discussed two of our passions, target shooting and motorcycling a few weeks before he died. The world is a little poorer without him.

If you like these entries or have any questions please post a comment or hit the upvote button, while making money is not really my concern I would like to know that I am not shouting into an empty canyon.

I took all of the pictures with my Canon EOS 60D in February 2014. These were taken during my trip across the USA. I wrote the field notes these entries are based on during that trip.

Previous entries:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Hello! I am Mike K. I am an educator, lifelong student, military vet and wannabe musician. I have a love of history, economics, philosophy and motorcycles. I am quickly moving from minarchy to Christian anarchy philosophically and want people to stop meddling. My debut CD should be out soon!