Nusrat

 

Nusrat

Nusrat was a student who already knew most of the core curriculum. The stuff that he didn’t know, he would pretend he knew and share anyway. He always had his hand up. When he would answer a question right, he’d look around nodding at everyone as if to beg for their applause at his cranial capacities. The other students mostly got tired of his attitude. Some would probably have rather celebrated his few failures. Around second semester, Nusrat figured out that dominating his classmates with his superior intellect wasn’t a good way to make friends. I began to see less of his hand in the air while Nusrat learned a skill that was brand new to him – being cool.

He wasn’t the only Muslim in his classes, but he was the loudest about it. He was the only one who would ever bring his own ornate rug and ask for a private spot in the classroom to pray towards Mecca. I always obliged, and he never disturbed anyone with it. When we got the Friday before Easter off of school, Nusrat asked why. When I told him it was a Christian holiday, he complained that it wasn’t fair that they don’t cancel school for his holidays. I gave him a fist bump then and told him, “Dude, you’re right. I agree that it’s not fair. Your religion is just as valid as anyone else’s. But maybe we should all just take advantage of an extra day off anyway.” This answer seemed to be enough as he nodded his approval.

Last week, Nusrat did something I found very entertaining. He entered the classroom with the biggest smile on his face, walked up to me, and asked me, “What’s up, CUZ?”

I lost my chill, cracked up, and responded, “What up, G?” I laughed my way out to the hall to monitor the usual hallway chaos, but with some quick reflecting, decided to go back in and revisit that brief encounter with my guy. “Nusrat!” I got his attention, “It’s hilarious to me that you just called me that, but there’s something you need to know. Have you ever heard of the Bloods and the Crips?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of those,” Nusrat likely bluffed.

“Well then you know that they’re both dangerous street gangs.” I had him staring wide-eyed at me. I think he was thrilled to learn about subject matter that was considered taboo in school. I declaimed to him, “The way Crips greet each other is by calling each other ‘Cuz.’ And when Bloods meet, they might say something like, ‘What up, Blood?’ So when you go around calling someone ‘Cuz’ or ‘Blood,’ it might signify to someone that you’re involved with one of these gangs. I don’t think you’re actually in a gang, so I thought you greeting me that way was funny. But you have to be careful who you say that stuff around, or better yet - maybe avoid saying those things at all. Does that make sense?”

Nusrat obliged, “Yes, Mr. Harris.” I sent him to prepare for class.

Luckily, I haven’t seen Nusrat flashing gang signs, C-walking, or repping any colors since our conversation. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have called him a G - or at least I should have explained what that meant too. But there’s one thing I still wonder about: What was Nusrat studying to gain this new vocabulary anyway?

Blog #7 Interrogating Curriculum and Teaching for Racial Justice

    The other day, I was telling students about a field trip we will be taking at the end of the month. The field trip is a chance to learn about different religions. We will be visiting a Buddhist temple, a Muslim mosque, and an Eastern Orthodox church. Other grades will get to see the Hindu temple as well. One of my white students raised his hand to ask, "Why are there Buddhist temples in Kansas? That's weird."
    I explained to the kid that in America, we are welcoming to all people no matter what they believe or where they come from - and that actually, that's pretty cool.
    My student thought about it for a second and then responded, "Yeah, I guess that is pretty cool actually."
    The whole conversation just tells me why field trips like this are important. Kids need to have their horizons expanded. They need to see that the world is bigger than their own house, school, or religious institution. The more kids can be exposed to people of different walks of life, the more they will learn to treat people who are different from themselves with respect and kindness. Xenophobia happens when people think that only their way of living is correct, and this is doubly dangerous right now because of certain people in power and media outlets that profit from common people's hatred of others. This cycle of riling people up over fear of "the other" makes our world a worse place to live. I can't control what kids are exposed to at home (nor would I want to), but I can make sure that when they're in my class, they are learning kindness through exposure instead of intolerance through ignorance.

    In college, we learned about Jason Reynolds's book: Miles Morales: Spider-Man and how it doesn't shy away from confronting problems like the school to prison pipeline. In the book, the main villain is an evil, racist teacher. This gives me memories of coming home from school everyday in sixth grade and putting on my vinyl copy of Pink Floyd's The Wall. The album featured an evil teacher as well. It was even banned in South Africa in 1980 after protestors used the music to represent their feelings about unequal schooling during apartheid. As a preteen, I mostly used it to vent my frustrations with my English teacher who I thought was too strict and who tried to censor my reading material.
    While I may have had good reason t be upset with my old teacher, I do have to check my privilege because as Miles Morales points out, a lot of students have it way worse than I did. The teacher in The Wall is a broad caricature of  austere instructors. But the teacher in Miles Morales is a malefactor who does specific misdeeds such as celebrating the Confederacy and spreading  misinformation about it. He even praises our status quo because of the efficiency of the prison system replacing slavery as the new way to suppress people of color.
    The Miles Morales book is an improvement over the traditional canon because of the precision of its judgment. Kids who go listen to Pink Floyd might feel rebellious against authority in general whether they be good or bad. But kids who study Jason Reynolds will be likely to rise up against the explicit wrong-doings perpetrated by people in power today. This would be a great book to use in class because it is preparing the leaders of tomorrow for the injustices of the real world. And if parents have a problem with me breaking their kids out of their sheltered nurseries, they're just going to have to homeschool instead. I will not look the other way when faced with bigotry, and I definitely won't contribute to it.

Works Cited:

Worlds, Mario, and Cody Miller. “Miles Morales: Spider-Man and Reimagining the Canon for Racial Justice.” https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/formswift-pdf-editorconve/bdfcnmeidppjeaggnmidamkiddifkdib.

Teaching Between Tragedy and Comedy

 Teaching Between Tragedy and Comedy

Sometimes certain students are continually, habitually disruptive. I have one student named Raphael who is like the modern-day Michael Winslow – the guy who makes all the funny sound effects in those dumb, outdated Police Academy movies. Raphael is constantly creating noises to accompany class time. If someone answers a question wrong, Raphael will make a little Vaudevillian fanfare like a sad trumpet. “Wah-wah-wah.” You know the sound. If something unfortunate happens to a character in a story we’re reading, Raphael will use his cupped hand as a mute to his imaginary trumpet to make the vibrato at the end. If someone gets called to the office for any reason, Raphael is there with his obnoxious fanfare. It becomes a problem. My mentor has attempted to correct this behavior by forcefully instructing Raph that he needs to stop his rude interruptions, but he is tempted by every opportunity to interject with a sound effect. He is like an inevitable, naturally occurring event. Old Faithful erupts every 90 minutes; Raphael makes a trumpet sound about ten times in a 40 minute class.

The other day, Raphael came to our classroom before lunch crying because his previous hour’s teacher had written him up for a particularly bratty offense. Since he was so upset, I let him eat lunch in the classroom with me and another kid instead of out with the bullying mob who hunger to pounce on delicate, crying children. The other kid who joined us was Chris who avoids the crowd because certain noises from other people’s autonomic nervous systems cause him to have intense anxiety.

  It was the three of us having lunch alone in the classroom. I don’t even remember what the catalyst was, but it was after Raph had calmed down again. Something inspired Raph to do his signature trumpet sound. I confronted him directly. I told him, “I think you’re funny. I like how you bring humor into the classroom. But sometimes, the same gag repeated over and over just becomes predictable. The charm wears off after a while. I’m not saying, ‘never make jokes,’ but sometimes it’s good to wait until you’ve thought of a really unique joke before you share it. That way your humor stays fresh instead of getting old.”

  Raphael became quiet. Hopefully, the advice was sinking in. Maybe Raph was reconsidering what had become the majority of his persona in class. Then the silence was interrupted by sensitive Chris who interjected, “Well I disagree. I don’t think humor has any place in the classroom. We’re here to learn, not make jokes. Jokes are a waste of our time.”

I wasn’t unsurprised by Chris taking the serious tone but found myself challenged with handling these two polar opposites at once. I told Chris that sometimes humor is good because it keeps our spirits up. We’ll be more efficient learners if we’re happy, so a dose of humor can be helpful. Chris disagreed with me and argued his case for a bit: “We’re running late enough as it is with everything we have to learn. If we spend too much time making jokes, we won’t be able to learn the important things we’re supposed to.” I bet Aristotle or Buddha didn’t have this much pushback when they told people to take the middle way.

Eventually I told them that I’m glad that we have so many distinct personalities among us, and that I appreciate how they each bring something different to the table. Then, the bell rang to open the floodgate of preteens back to the room. As usual, I could use an extra semester to fit in everything I want the students to learn.

Epilogue

Raphael has stopped making trumpet sounds just in time for the noises to become in fashion for the rest of the sixth grade boys to perform. In effect, I traded in one disruptive kid for a boisterous fifty more. 

Chris still doesn’t think anything is funny.

Blog #6: Classroom Management

 When it comes to classroom management, I would much rather use the carrot than the stick. Part of the reasoning behind this is that it just works better. Students will consistently respond better if they know they are likely to be praised for their good behavior. If the sixth graders at my school anticipate a class where they will be yelled at, they’re likely to just skip that class all together. And where will they be instead of class? Some of them just wander the halls. Some of them hang out in the bathroom the whole time. But some of them have caught on that we monitor those areas and so have found more creative places to hide. The other day, I found graffiti on the roof of the second story (I was on the third floor looking down out the window, not on the roof myself). That tells me that if the kids aren’t in the classroom, their safety cannot be guaranteed.

However, if I make my classroom a place that rewards good behavior more than it punishes bad, then students are more likely to attend and put in effort. As I’m spending more time in the classroom, I’m finding that the best way to reward students is to get to know them to see what their individual motivations are. For example, one of my students has made it known that he enjoys and is talented at beatboxing. My mentor quickly shuts him down when attempts to make music during learning time. Perhaps this is rightly so since other people may be trying to work. But I’ve kept his passion for hip hop in my back pocket. The other day I made a review game for the students. The reward was to be a celebration dance, but I designed the game so it was almost certain to end in a tie. So the game concluded with a class-wide dance party set to the live music of my beatboxing pupil. He was definitely jazzed to finally have a chance to show us his rhythms without being scolded, and everyone enjoyed the chance to loosen up and have fun – even those who aren’t natural born dancers. They seemed to just appreciate the atmosphere.

Some of the students constantly crave as much attention as they can get. Others are introverts who are happier without the eyes of the class on them. But even the quieter students deserve to be noticeably valued. Pedagogist Randall Sprick writes that we need to provide students with noncontingent attention (259). To me, that means that each student should be able to tell that I am interested in who they are. Each student should know that I want them to be there. And they should be able to tell that by my actions toward them. Once they know that I’m on their side and not just trying to punish them into brainwashed conformity, they are going to be more likely to work with me. Then, when a student inevitably does act out of line in my class, the words “I’m disappointed in your behavior” become more effective than treating them as if they are problematic at their core. They have to know that I believe that they can do better. I’m teaching because I see the potential in kids and people who don’t get told enough that they can achieve. I want my students to know that they have worth. Poor behavior isn’t always an indication of rottenness of a person. Kids are learning. They have to have the space to make mistakes and then correct their behavior. I still have hope that they can.

Sprick, Randall S. Discipline in the Secondary Classroom: A Positive Approach to Behavior Management. Jossey-Bass, 2021.

Blog Post #5: Planning for Critical Engagement and Social Justice

 Blog Post #5:  Planning for Critical Engagement and Social Justice

Essential Question:  How will I teach students to critically engage with the world—to question the status quo, to participate productively in digital culture, and to stand up for social justice?

In the classroom, I see many students doing what they think is critical engagement with the world, but what they’re actually doing is simply whining. Pointing out problems cannot be all we do about them. To achieve social justice, action must be taken. Change must happen.

            A simple way to persuade students to engage critically with what is around them is to show them everything that is happening in the world. Studying current events probably isn’t the immediate go-to idea when our students think about fun activities. Associated Press likely isn’t their online subscription priority. But there are things happening that affect their lives in very real ways. The students would do well to be informed today and for the rest of their lives. However, it may be that the news that is covered by the mainstream media just doesn’t interest a particular interest. Luckily, since we’re living in 2022, there are plenty of news sources that are catered specifically to unique interests. Getting kids to read news about any topic is a worthwhile investment. This approach agrees with the notion of giving students a choice of what they read. I don’t want to dictate what current events should be important to them. They must be the ones who decide what information is relevant to their lives. In this way, they can have real feelings about the matters that develop honestly from inside them instead of formulated just to get a grade.

            What then do we do with the feelings inspired by news that matters to them? Expert pedagogist Randy Bomer says that we must “transact with texts by participating in a network” (Bomer 254). Today’s society is connected via instant reactions by an audience. We should encourage our students to not only be a part of that audience but to interact with the creators as well as each other. This means writing op-eds and commenting on message boards. This will be an important task for them since they will be creating communication that can be seen by the public instead of just their ever-forgiving educators. It will hopefully keep them on-task and serious about their work.

            While interacting with the public over the internet is how modern life works, and students need to be prepared and understand such communication, it is risky just letting them be free to discover any disinformation they may happen across. Therefore, we must be vigilant in approving their choice of media they interact with. I wouldn’t let a student communicate with hate groups for credit. But we also have to keep an open mind that what one student sees as social justice may not align with our own ideas. But overall, this practice can be a great tool for inspiring students to engage toward social justice.

Works Cited:

Bomer, Randy. Building Adolescent Literacy in Today’s English Classrooms. Heinemann, 2011.

Blog #4 Integrating Language Instruction into Authentic Reading and Writing

How do language and grammar enliven our writing?

The most important boon that grammar provides to our writing is that grammar makes things understandable. The most pressing issue I see with my sixth graders’ essays is that they use run on sentences all the time. Every time I assign a writing project, I get responses that read like they were written by the Micromachine Man. (Maybe I should explain that one – He was in a bunch of commercials in the 80s and talked really fast so that he could fit a ton of words into a thirty-second advertisement.) My students like to write without punctuation separating sentences as if their words were on a highway. Any comma or period would cause a word jam due to the constant pouring in of incoming next ideas. They don’t yet know how to emphasize impactful ideas using the negative space in the pauses around them.

When I was young, grammar came naturally to me. Math and science were like a vast tundra that my brain didn’t want to suffer through, shivering. But writing English was a walk in the park. Grasping onto lessons quickly, I was able to easily write in whatever format would please my instructor. However, this isn’t the kind of instruction I want to give my students. When Harry Noden suggests sharing grammatical lessons with our students, he isn’t saying that the students need to write exactly the way he does. Instead, he’s giving students tools that can improve their personal writing. If a student were to take to heart Noden’s grammar instruction, they would have a serious advantage over those students who studied traditional grammar style. Noden’s way leaves space for students to be creative. The students will be encouraged to keep their own voices when writing, but they’ll also be empowered to add things like absolutes, appositives, participles, and parallel structure. In this way, our students will end up more like master painters than precisely synchronized literary automatons. I’m not interested in sanitized writing that comes out rule-following but uninspired. But even Picasso had to start with figure drawing and still life practice.

How will I design ELA instruction that helps my students achieve these goals?

So how do I implement Noden-style strategies to solve my students’ problems with run on sentences? The answer came to me at the KATE conference. I believe the instructor was Ms. Fox who showed us how to teach grammar by having the students identify conventions and then practice the techniques themselves before we add more complex ways of doing things. I’ve already started this in my classroom. Whereas we were already telling them how to write correctly, I didn’t think we were giving the students enough chance to use the lessons in their own writing. Now English class has become more of a writing lab, and I think that is for the students’ benefit.

 

Works Cited:

Noden, Harry. Image Grammar Teaching Grammar as Part of the Writing Process. Heinemann, 2011.

Blog Post #3 Enhancing Lives of Writing

 

How will I design instruction that helps students develop habits that enhance their writing lives?

The best way I can think of to show my students how to write is to lead by example. I had this bright idea to open this blog post with an old poem I’d written. But when I looked through my dusty tomes, I found that my most prolific writing period was in my wild years. The subjects I was writing about were not things I would share with my adolescent students. At best, the products I created in that time would serve as a cautionary tale against chasing superficial pleasures and taking the easy way out. And the poems I wrote that would be shareable are ones that I’m just not satisfied with.

But here is where Randy Bomer’s advice comes into play. Bomer says that in order to write quality art, we must lower our standards and allow ourselves to make mistakes so that we can raise those standards with later drafts (204). This makes perfect sense to me. I shouldn’t just show my students my best work and expect them to be inspired enough to create great writing themselves. I have to show them the process. Therefore, instead of pulling poems out of my past, I should create new works of art alongside the students. That way, they can see that decent composition doesn’t just hatch fully formed; It takes nurturing and editing.

I don’t intend to simply have my students write poems all year either. Poems are great, but they only scratch the surface of the world of writing. Perhaps my students will be more into writing story-telling narratives or memoirs from their own lives. Book reports and/or reviews will be a doubly useful tool for both showing me that they comprehend items they’ve read and developing effective writing styles. Maybe I’ll have students who shine when writing easy-to-understand instruction manuals like my classmate whom I admire for his intellect and professionalism.

I feel that it is my duty to appeal to various types of writing personalities instead of trying to get all the students to write in styles that I personally find enjoyable. I want to shatter the belief that school is about enforcing conformity. I’m not trying to put people in identical little boxes made of ticky-tacky like the old folk song criticizes us for. I’ve mentioned throughout this essay that writing is art. That is the whole reason I enrolled to study English education. My wild years weren’t just about partying; The partying was a way to nurture myself through times of suffering. My family had made it clear that I wasn’t welcome around them because I rejected their hateful religion and politics. My love life was largely unsuccessful, and my career was made of unfulfilling jobs that I could have done as a teenager. I had little self-esteem. But while the partying served as a temporary quick fix, what really got me through that time was my creativity. That is what I want to share with my students. I want them to know that I believe they are capable of achieving the individual goals they create for themselves and more. Creating quality writing won’t be easy for all of them, but the process of working through difficult tasks will make them stronger people, and it will all come from what is inside of them.

Works Cited:

Bomer, Randy. Building Adolescent Literacy in Today’s English Classrooms. Heinemann, 2011.