Preparation Pays

I wrote this post at the beginning of September last year but never posted it because it was so long.  I think I intended to shorten it, but never got around to it.  It’s the blog post I mentioned I would post someday when I put up that post about Leanne’s escapades.  I’ll just put it out there for your enjoyment, and you can read the behemoth of a post if you want.  If not, just skip it.  It won’t offend me.

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I have mentioned my AP class a few times now, and I think it will continue to be a source of conflict for me throughout this school year.

AP English Language and Composition is a course meant to replace Composition 1 in most college gen ed courses.  To prove that they learned the required skills and get the college credit, students take an exam in May.  The exam is comprised of two parts – Multiple Choice and Free Response.  In the multiple choice, students have 60 minutes to answer 55 comprehension questions based off four separate readings.  Then they come to the free response section, where they have to write three essays in little more than 2 hours.  One essay is an analytical essay wherein they read a piece of rhetorical writing or speech, and then they analyze the piece.  Next they are given seven sources and must take a side on a given debate.  They must then defend their position using at least three of their given sources.  Lastly, they have to read a statement prompting them to create an argument and write a well-reasoned argument of their own.  All within two hours.

My task is to prepare my students for this grueling ordeal.

When I was first asked to tackle this class, I had no idea what it entailed.  The first conference I went to did more to confuse the matter than help.  A year later, I attended a second conference, and here I first felt the ground beneath my feet, but more like a swimmer still well out from the beach, where the waves periodically lift him beyond his depth.  So it is that sometimes I feel like I can do it and I’m fine, and other times, I feel like I’m drowning again.

That feeling hasn’t really gone away.

I was treading water pretty well when the class began two and a half weeks ago.  One day in conversation with a board member, she asked how I was doing with my AP class. I told her it was stretching me, and she said be careful not to let myself snap.  There’s a difference, she said, between stretching and snapping.

In passing, I mentioned her comments to Mr. Snyder, my new principal, and he told me he wanted me to be sure to tell him if I was feeling overwhelmed by the class.  “I’m here to help,” he said.  “I need to know if you’re being stretched too far.”

I assured him I would, telling myself it had better never come to that.  I agreed to teach the class:  I can handle it.

That’s all very well and good…but to teach a class, you have to take the necessary time to prep for it…

Throughout all that first full week of classes, I was diligent during my prepping periods to make lesson plans for the following week.  I ticked off class after class.  I graded each day’s work like clockwork.  I was staying ahead.  The AP lessons were hardest to plan, so I put them off.  I’d come in Saturday, I decided as I packed up the last day of school.  If not Saturday, Monday – it was Labor Day, after all.

I didn’t come in Saturday.  It was ok!  Monday was still free.  I decided I would wake up early, work until noon at the house, and then go into work in the afternoon.

Plans don’t always work exactly as we make them, though, have you noticed that?  I didn’t get up early, and I worked at the house past noon…well past noon.

Ok, I admit, I didn’t go into work at all on Monday.

It’s fine.  It’s all fine.  I knew what I was going to do in AP Tuesday, and even Wednesday and, besides, I could always go into work early and prep things before my first class.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Mr. Carter said as he popped into my classroom at 7:50 the following morning, “but you have hall duty.”

I blinked once or twice at him from behind my computer.  Seriously?  This week of all weeks, I have hall duty?  But I don’t believe in shooting the messenger.  “Thanks!” I said with artificial cheerfulness.

At least I still had lunch break before AP class.

Thirty minutes isn’t enough time to fully prep a class like AP and eat lunch.

I shammed pretty well for two days, but Thursday came, and over lunch break, I was still trying to prepare my materials for class.  I couldn’t decide what to do.  The bell rang, and in desperation, I hit ‘print’ on an article I didn’t really like but I could at least use it to instruct them.  I leaped out of my chair and headed toward the door.  The boys must have been waiting just by the outside doors for the bell to ring, because they were already at my door when I reached it.

I know now that I should have told them to wait for me to get back before going in, but I didn’t.  I stepped back to allow them to come in. 

I wasn’t counting on them being impudent coming into the room.  I had stepped back to let them in – a mistake I have of being too polite sometimes – and though I urged them through with a wave of my hand, they saw it annoyed me to tarry, and so they slowed to grin at me as they passed, until Chris stopped altogether in the doorway and just looked at me.

The second bell was going to ring soon.  I didn’t have time for this.

“Just step out of the way,” I said, unceremoniously pushing past him.

I scowled as I strode down the hallway.  I was angry at their disrespect, but I was even more irritated at myself for leaving this for last minute.  But in the classroom, the projector was on, they could see the day’s agenda, and they had instructions for what to do when they sat down.  They would be fine.

But I wasn’t counting on boyish high spirits, or Edward’s (a new student, kind of – it’s complicated) mischievous sense of humor.  Nor the printer being out…

Yes.  The printer was out.  I could not believe my luck.  I spun about and went to the office.  With a Herculean show of calm, I asked Jordan, our secretary, if I could send her a document to print for me.

“Can you send it to Josh?  I need to take my daughter to the doctor, and should have left five minutes ago.”

“Sure!” I said, but as I practically ran back down the hall to my class, I decided definitively that I would not be sending my boss a paper to print for me because I had put off planning until thirty seconds before class started!

It was still fine.  I could project the article.  They had read it a couple days ago.  They should be able to recall it to memory.  They didn’t need a copy in their hands.

I swung into the classroom before the second bell rang.  I froze in my tracks.  The projector was off.  Students were out of their seats.

“Where is my projector?” I demanded.  Heads turned, and there was a scramble for seats.

“What proj-”

“Who turned off my projection?”  This wasn’t funny.  I wasn’t amused.  Far from it.  Maybe I wasn’t fully prepared – but I had been prepared enough to have a projection ready for the class, and even that had been spoiled.

Edward began fumbling in his pocket for the remote.  “Here,” he said.

“This is not acceptable!” I said, striding across the room to take the remote from him.  “We are not going through the year like this!  This has got to stop!”

“What?” he asked, trying to look and sound innocent.

He didn’t fool me.  “You’ve taken things off my desk! You-”

“It was just a pen-”

“That’s not the point!  You don’t touch my desk!  You threw pencils at my ceiling yesterday, and now you turned off the projector!  This class is not a class to goof around in!”

I was losing control.  As I told a friend when recounting this story to her, it doesn’t do any good to get angry with students because you can’t actually hurt them.  I don’t really think we need to go back entirely a hundred years with how we treat students, but I do think an occasional caning wouldn’t do anybody any harm.

I snapped my mouth shut and my eyes shot to the window.

I don’t really count when I’m mad.  I breathe slowly, and I try to think constructively about what could be done.  I realized after about five seconds of silence that I wasn’t talking, that the kids were looking at me, and that I needed to start class.  The bell had rung sometime during my altercation with Edward.  I wasn’t cool enough yet, though.  I let the silence stretch a little longer, and then I brought my gaze back inside the classroom.

“Today we are going to review the multiple choice practice test you took yesterday and discuss what you got right, what you got wrong, and we’ll talk about strategies for multiple choice test taking.”

I had some control again, but something about teaching this material is hard, even when I have a plan, and today I only had half a plan.  I did my best.  We slogged through.  We talked about the tough questions on the test.  We discussed why some answers were right even when they didn’t seem right.  We uncovered things we were going to have to work on throughout the year.  It wasn’t a bad class, once we got rolling.

At the end, I did have to pull up that article.  They kind of remembered it reading it a couple days before.  We reviewed it, and then I asked them the analytical questions to be asked when reading a rhetorical piece – who is the author? Audience? Purpose? Argument?

I asked Edward a question about the context – why did the author find it necessary to write the piece?  He gave a shoddy, thoughtless answer.  I leaned into the question.  The bell rang, and Mike laughed.  “Saved by the bell!” he chuckled.

“No,” I said, coldly.  “You can’t go until you answer this question, Edward.  The rest of you are dismissed.”

Edward began to fumble for a real answer.  He gave a pretty good one, I have to say, but I wasn’t finished with him.  I waited until the others were out of the room, and then I told him he needed to change his behavior.

I don’t remember precisely what I said.  It was lame, I remember that.

I finally let him go.

And then I reflected on the class.

I knew full well my unpreparedness had led to the misbehavior from the boys.  If I had been in the classroom when they entered, they would never have cut up so badly.  Also, if I had been more confident in previous lessons, they would not be so bored in class that they had to cut up.

That was the thing.  I wasn’t confident.  I was out of my depth.

I remembered Mr. Snyder’s request that I come talk to him if I had trouble, and I started at once down the hall.  I stopped halfway to the office.  I was still mad.  My jaw was still rigid, and my hands were stiff, half clenched by my side.  If I went now, I would speak harshly, and I would probably end up crying.

I turned back around to return to my classroom.

But he had asked me to tell him if I struggled…

I undulated back and forth up that hallway about five times before I decided I would send him an email.

It wasn’t too long.  I told him I was really frustrated with the class, and the students were, too.  They showed it in different ways.  One of the two girls had told me the day before that she felt a lack of instruction.  Another boy had expressed his frustration when I asked him how the writing was going.  And Edward…well, I think he misbehaved out of frustration, too, though he would probably never say so.  I told Mr. Snyder I was not well prepared and that my classroom management was coming apart at the seams.  I told him I was ashamed because I knew I could do better.  I was a veteran teacher – I was better than this.

Then I said I didn’t want anything, and that I was just going to work harder and everything would be fine.  That was all I needed to say, thanks for listening, basically.

Before the end of the next period he’d emailed back.  “Thanks for letting me know.  I’ll come find you after school and we’ll talk about it.”

Great.  Just what I didn’t want to do.

After school, he came to my classroom and sat opposite me in one of the student desks.

I don’t know Mr. Snyder particularly well yet.  I know he is kind and sincere and personable, but I had yet to see him handle any form of conflict or discipline, and I didn’t quite know what he would be thinking or what he would say after I told him the trouble I had in the classroom was entirely due to my lack of preparation.

He asked me what happened during class, and I told him, but I (out of a sense of justice, not of noble sacrifice, I assure you) told him although the student misbehaved, it was not the student’s fault, but mine, for not being prepared.  “Perhaps the student is responsible for his own individual behavior,” I added, “but if I hadn’t been out getting papers I’d just printed, he wouldn’t have done it.”

“Why do you think you were not prepared?” he asked.  He didn’t ask in an accusing or stern tone.  He just asked.

At the time, I couldn’t remember.  “I don’t know,” I said.  “I did all the other lesson plans last week, and I’ve been keeping up on grading,” I waved toward the graded stack of papers on my desk.  “I don’t really procrastinate, though maybe it’s a type of procrastination.”  I forgot, while sitting there, that I had meant to do it on Labor Day and just hadn’t.  I rubbed my forehead and looked sidelong at him.  “I don’t know why it didn’t get done.”

“So…” he paused, and I bit my lip waiting.  “You aren’t allowed to make a mistake?”

I didn’t just drop my eyes, I turned my head away and pulled up one hand to hide my face.  I’m not sure why the reaction was to hide, but it was.  For some reason, the question humbled me more than a stern, ‘You should have been prepared,’ would have done.

“Do you let your students make mistakes?”

Of course I did, I thought to myself, but I still couldn’t answer.

“I hope you do,” he said.  He paused.  “You’re still learning, too.”

“Yes,” I agreed, finally looking up.  “I see your point.”

We talked a little longer, he trying to get to the bottom of the problem, and I trying vainly to explain my feelings on the class.

“Perhaps I should come in tomorrow and observe.”

Great.  Come on in and observe my worst class.  You’re going to think I’m a terrible teacher, especially after this fiasco.

I tried hard not to let my displeasure and consternation show on my face, but I know I’m not very good at hiding my emotions.

He went on when I didn’t answer.  “I know no one likes to be observed by someone else, seeing how they’re doing – especially in an area they feel weakest in – but I think it’s the only way I’ll understand what the issues are.”

I nodded and took a deep breath.  “Yes.  You’re right,” I said.  And he was.  It would be an excellent way to see what was actually going on.

He didn’t come in the very next day, but he did eventually – we were reading Luther’s 95 Theses, I believe – and he told me he was quite impressed with their work and my lesson plans, and he thought we would do fine.  His opinion was that I was probably being too hard on myself and expecting too much.

Since that day, I have been extra careful to have my lesson planning done for the AP class.  It is not to say that class has become my favorite or my easiest class.  In fact, it still ranks as my least favorite, most difficult class, but it does help immensely to have plans and materials prepared before class is to begin.