Dialogue #1: The Work-Life Divide and Classroom Realities vs. Ideology

However, I think the biggest take-home message has been your distinction between work and home life. I have always struggled with how I can cater to my students’ needs without sacrificing my own. I think your advice and encouragement to take time when I need it has been the biggest lesson this week. But where do you draw that line? When do you decide that you need to shut your phone off, or leave the classroom for the day? How do you tell a student that you need to leave and take care of yourself when they are asking for more help?

One of my greatest frustrations with the ideological mindset in education is something I would, for lack of a more politic name, describe as "the calling."  

Teachers are, in effect, given the responsibilities of a CEO: we have 120~300 employees whom we are responsible for directly managing, both professionally and personally.  We must create a mission and vision for our company, and a culture that will drive us towards those goals.  We must personally create all of the strategies and systems that make business possible, and are responsible for monitoring their success.

We can not fire our employees, many of whom do not even want the job - or to do the work, since the currency we pay in is not of value to them, currently.

But regardless, we are treated as, at best, middle-management.  Oversight is critical, intense, and demands demonstrable top-performers - in both numbers and employee satisfaction.  Pay is little better than for a line worker, though the hours usually run from a minimum of 50 to upwards of 90 a week.

Dialogue #1: Relationship-Building and Discipline

The relationship you’ve built with your students has really resonated with me. I think above school/classroom culture, differentiation, discipline, etc., relationships are key. I want to learn more about how you’ve formed those relationships. How do I get students to respect me as their teacher, but come to me as their confidant? I believe that your grading system is so effective because you’ve already built that relationship. Your students don’t seem to be afraid of the grade, but afraid to disappoint you. At the beginning of each class, you approach them the same way I’ve seen motivational speakers approach their audience. I’ve never considered doing that before, but I think it really plays into fueling your students’ enthusiasm for the day. To be honest, I don’t know if I would come off as genuine and empowering as you do; especially if I were to try it exactly the way you do it, but it is definitely something I want to explore further.

Again, I think honesty is key.  I don't lie to my students - even when a lie would be convenient or politic.  I speak to them the way I speak to adults, and I hold them to the same expectations.  Because they know they can trust me not to treat them as intellectually inferior, just experientially disadvantaged, they tend to be willing to come to me for advice on personal matters (which can sometimes backfire - especially in regards to the work/life divide, which you mention below!).  

Student-Mentor Dialogue #1: Honesty and Growth Mindset

After observing your class this week, I’ve been forced to reconsider a lot of important aspects from my own education. My classes revolve around pedagogy, ideology, and strategy. However, the real meat of the equation often goes missing – the classroom application. Because let’s be honest, discussion can only get you so far; you can’t feel the heat in the kitchen if you’ve never taken over to cook. I’ve come to discover that teaching does not follow one, strict recipe, but variations of that recipe to suit the taste of the individual.    

As a young educator, I acknowledge that many of my developed ideals are just that – extremely idealistic, but not necessarily realistic. I am aware of my impressionability, but I no longer think of it as a weakness I must overcome. To me, knowledge is dynamic, and to be open-minded is to constantly grow. However, my goal by the end of this experience is not to completely revamp my own beliefs, but to refine them from gained experience – whether mine or someone else’s. ‬

This is an incredibly positive and sensible outlook, of course.  It's also the foundation of all education - if you don't believe in knowledge as a dynamic or shifting thing, this isn't the career for you.  With that said, I hope you know I don't expect to agree - I hope we can productively and honestly search for a practical middle-ground in both belief and practice.  As I always tell my kids, teaching is at the top of the pyramid of learning - thank you for being willing to teach me!

The greatest thing you have done for me so far has been your open and honest conversation. You bring a realistic perspective to the profession that I have not gotten anywhere else. You are not afraid to disagree with the norm, and I find it extremely eye-opening. You approach your classroom with a positive intentionality – forcing students to recognize that success comes from growth, and that everyone has the ability to learn. I truly admire that, and hope that I can somehow replicate that sense of “I can” in my own classroom.

One of the texts our campus has been working from this year is a book titled The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  The primary dysfunction identified is a lack of trust, that leads to a lack of ability to communicate honestly.  The book draws a strong distinction between the false sense of "harmony" fostered when a team isn't comfortable being direct, and the sometimes UNCOMFORTABLE communication only possible when real trust has been established.  

Introductions!

My name is Michael Low, and I teach a 9th grade Speech & Composition class and a multi-grade Leadership class at KIPP San Jose Collegiate High School in San Jose, California.  This is my first year at KIPP, and prior to this fall I taught for four years at a public high school (the Multicultural Academy of Scholarship in Chicago) as an English and Japanese teacher.  Prior to that, I taught for five years for a private reading enhancement program called the Institute for Reading Development all around the US, working with classes of students from Kindergarteners through adults.  For more on my background, feel free to take a look at my LinkedIn profile or simply download my resume from my website, lowslanguage.com.

This year I have the fortune to work with a Student Teacher who is working on her MA in Secondary Education with USC Rossier School of Education.  As I told Ms. Do, I was interested in working with a Student Teacher for two main reasons:

• First, I owe much of my own understanding of the art of teaching to my mentor teacher and the experiences I had during my year working with her at the University of Michigan.
• Second, as reflective and deliberate as any teacher can be, there are a number of “invisible skills” in teaching - things instructors do every day, without recognizing their actions as a practiced skill or procedure - that are the crucial difference between success and failure.

I asked Ms. Do if she’d be willing to work with me on this blog in order to help us both: her, as student, in asking the questions she needs answered, and me, as mentor, in being as explicit as possible in explaining what I do and why I do it.

In posts, Ms. Do’s contributions will be represented in block quotes, followed by my replies.  I’ll preserve hers in the type she uses most, Times New Roman, while my text will be typed in Arial.

Whether you’re a mentor, student, or just someone involved in the profession, I hope that our conversations about the how, why, and what of running a high school classroom can be as useful to you as they are to me.  Please feel free to comment, as one of the best ways to learn is an active dialogue!

Without further ado, I'll lead into our first post.  Enjoy!