Let’s fix this thing once and for all about CM and just say it flat out because it is true: CM is not separate from our instruction in the language. Our instruction in the language IS our CM.
To repeat, our instruction in the language IS our CM, or 95% of it. The other 5% is recognizing narcissistic behaviors in our students right there in the moments they happens and reacting accordingly every single time we recognize it, and with a Mr. Rogers smile on our faces when we do it.
(Of course, if we can’t recognize it, then we can’t react to it, so we have to read up on narcissism and start to learn how to recognize it at every turn in our classrooms and that is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT EMOTIONALLY but all that is for a different post.)
So we need to rethink our positions when we in most cavalier fashion think that we are just hanging out with our kids, going back and forth spending half the time in English and half in the TL and having what we think is a good time until the next inappropriate and rude comment from the kids. We need to rethink our position on how we interact with our students:
1. They are not our friends.
2. The are very clever, like the devil is clever, at making us think that they are innocent when they show off in front of the class with hidden but visible inappropriate comments. I am only describing a few students of course. But they are capable of ruining a class and your career, so we have to think this way.
3. The phenomenon of inappropriate comments, especially those directed at female teachers in a world – where women are only now just now beginning to take their place as the leaders of our society – is stunningly common in these days of leadership by old white men when horrible narcissists like Don Drumph (his real name) seem to be in charge in all areas of education and politics.
4. They need to be kept occupied by good teaching, and stay out of the L1 until you learn how to recognize and squash those inappropriate comments.
5. So stay in the language and stop being their friends and letting them walk over you like they did me for over 40 years. Just teach a good class. Just teach a good class, and put the narcs and kids who make those inappropriate comments away from each other. Seat them in the four corners of the room away from each other where they can’t feed off of each other.
