Know your Audience (Part II – the Student)

This is the second of a two-part post (and a shorter post as well!)

The purpose of telling you these two tales of “Knowing your Audience” is not to dazzle you with my vast expertise as a veteran teacher (I’m just a regular teacher), but to remind you that the School Goals Work program focuses on providing real help to real teachers in real situations. And these two “Know your Audience” posts are just a couple of real stories about actual students from my past.

Education’s attrition rate is at the very top for professional careers and that is just plain wrong. Nobody puts in more time and effort to do their job than you – teachers. It is an exciting, vibrant and fun profession that calls on each individual to be on their toes at all times. While it doesn’t carry the dangers and risks that come with being a policeman or fireman, it does require us to maintain a constant vigil over hundreds of individuals for short periods of time, always watching out for their safety and development. We are required to think quickly multiple times each day. No wonder so many of us are wiped out at the end of each school day! All the more reason to stay physically fit to meet these demands. It is a rich and lofty calling, but education desperately needs an intervention. It was Virgil, the Roman poet, who said, “audentis fortuna iuvat” which means “fortune favors the bold.” This is where we are today. We need bold ideas out of the box to get us back on track. These are not times for the timid.

And on that note, here is Part II of “Know your Audience”.

My first year of teaching went as well as could be expected for a newbie. The school was in Queens, NY and was an exciting challenge. The teaching position was recently made vacant by the death of a beloved young teacher which made my coming in as the “new guy” a particularly exciting yet challenging placement. I had to fill these big shoes with zero teaching experience and zero education classes but thank goodness I was very well prepared in science content. I taught over 300 students 4th – 8th grades, seeing each science class once a week. It was a hectic schedule.

One of my 8^th grade classes was especially challenging. The class was actually fine, but in the class sat a big (and thought he was) tough kid who was a bully and a constant source of interruption to my teaching. Let’s call him Damien. From my first day teaching I have never hated going to any class – no matter the climate of the students. I always saw rough classes as tests. Even in the most difficult classes, I felt that I was being tested and worked my best to pass each test. This class, because of Damien, was certainly my toughest test to date. Damien was close to my height (about 6’3”) and had a good 50 lbs. on me. He was a big 8th grader!

It turned out that Damien was not just a problem in my class, but in every other class as well. Disruptions, calls home, suspensions, etc… He could easily frustrate any teacher. Lucky for me, I had only been there for a couple of months and didn’t really feel as if I had earned the title of teacher, so I felt comfortable “winging it” if I needed to - which made my next move very easy.

The class was doing what they did – follow Damien’s lead into chaos and general bedlam, and I had enough. I didn’t know much about teaching, but I knew children, and I knew there was no way I was going to allow this to go on any longer.

I called Damien out into the hall, not knowing a single thing I would say to him once we got out there. He walked out and as we stood face to face, I thought, “Hey, this is just a kid – a big kid – but still just a kid. There is no way I am going to let him have the upper hand or outsmart me.” He would not win.

I looked him in the eyes (almost eye to eye!) and said, “You’re a smart guy, but you don’t really understand what is going on in there, do you? Those kids look up to you. You have something that most people want, but will never have. You are a leader – a natural born leader – and you are their leader. There are adults who can’t get people to follow them like you can. Unfortunately, you are wasting your leadership talents by causing trouble and being in trouble. You’re not winning, you are losing. But you can change this. This is my first year teaching and as you can see, this class is falling apart. I need help. I need you to help me turn this class around so I’ll make you a deal. You stop using your powers of leadership for ‘evil’ and start using them for ‘good’ (my exact words), and I’ll show you how to be a better leader – a great leader! That’s where the real power is. You’re a smart guy, but the way you are acting now has these kids following you for all the wrong reasons. You are wasting your strength and talent. Listen to me, help me out, and I’ll show you how to get them to follow you because you are smarter than them – because you are smarter than them. Do we have a deal?”

From that day on, Damien was like my unofficial “bodyguard”. He helped keep the class in line and he would actually consult with me asking if how he handled something was right or not. He was a nice kid who needed to hear the blunt truth about what he was doing. The truth was that he did have leadership qualities but was not using them effectively, and he learned there was someone smarter than him who saw this and wanted to help him.

Know your audience. Don’t be afraid to be bold. You must make bold decisions to make the change we need.