John has a question for the group that some of us may be able to relate to:
My question for the group is, what do you do when you are faced with an ugly class? I can’t think of any other word to describe this class, except ugly. It’s ugly in there almost every day. The energy is negative, pervaded by ego, competitiveness, desire to be stimulated through meaningless exercises which they perceive as learning, cynicism, and a perception of me as not rigorous and not having much authority, intellectual or otherwise. The restlessness emerges with a resistance to anything I ask them to do because it is not perceived as rigorous, and then the students make this an excuse for side talking, getting out their phones, and screwing around in general. This is coming from high performers who have little motivation, and no love for the subject. Kids who struggle need me to slow down, but also have a certain amount of lethargy and do not rise to challenges, and are distracted by the others when they are “done” with an activity. They need me to do reps and reading activities, when the high performers have already translated the highest level of the story perfectly on day 2.
My default these days is to do what I have to do to get through this class, be it group work, silent reading (which is almost impossible to enforce), worksheets, anything to keep them slightly on task, and engage them as little as possible (which is also cowardly on my part). My authority is tested every 3 to 5 minutes in this class, and because I am a new teacher at this school, and because I did not put a JGR in place (due to uncertainty about the department’s policy on “behavior” grades, and because I am completely overwhelmed with the prospect of grading 150 students every day, and simply can’t come up with enough daily accountability activities much less grade them), I am kind of stuck. My goal is simply to deliver content consistently in a non-chaotic environment, and I rarely meet that. If I had an administrator pop in (which I almost certainly will as a new teacher) I’d be screwed. Parents of the 4%ers are complaining, and some of their criticisms are spot-on. Luckily admin has my back, but I’m not teaching effectively to this class.
I must add that this is the front line of a cultural shift from their previous teacher who was the most old-school ever. These are sophomores, and this is only one out of 5, and I am winning over, or have already won over the other 4 (even the other sophomore class, which is has much more positive energy). So it is not as bad as it could be. However, this is a huge daily challenge for me, and I’m pretty stumped. Any suggestions that would tighten up the class procedures, expectations for all, and not add to my workload of grading, prep, assessment, would be greatly appreciated.
John