Rumors.

In what's turned out to be an inadvertent follow-up to last week's topic, I had an interesting encounter with one of my administrators in the hallway after a class shortly after posting my last entry. As I've said, I make it an issue not to give away too much personal information about myself to my students, preferring not to share the details of my personal life with them. Of course, the rumor mill hardly needs fuel to run it.

In any event, I'd like to relate this conversation between myself an my administrator, which went something like this:

I met up with her in the hallway outside my classroom, which right away raised a flag in my mind – while the admins do regularly patrol the building to make sure everything is in order, they usually stay close to the common areas: offices, cafeteria, etc. My classroom is far enough out in the wings of the building that I wouldn't see an admin without a reason.

“Excuse me, can I talk to you about something? Something personal?”

Confusion. I've only been working part time at this particular place, and not long enough to make too many friends. So, I'm curious.

“Something's come up – and let me first say that this is perfectly all right, but...”

Confusion being replaced with concern. I've disregarded the second part of what she's said and focused only on the “something's come up” part – nothing about this is boding well.

“It involves something one of the students said you told them...”

At this point, my brain instantly goes into full-blown red alert. My immediate concern is that something I've said has been misconstrued by a student, and while I keep a cool demeanor, I'm already, in the middle of her talking, frantically searching my memory to try to figure out what it could've possibly have been.

“...that you used to have a learning disablity?”

There is no time for relief – I'm instantly back to confusion. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what I could've said to anyone that could've been interpreted like that. Knowing full well that she cannot and will not reveal any specifics of her conversation, I let her continue.

“Because this student also has been diagnosed, and he was telling me what an inspiration it is to see a teacher who's been in the same situation.”

At this point, let me say, for the record, that I have never had any kind of learning disability. While I'm at it, let me also say that I've never been a priest, never been an alcoholic, never been gay, never been affiliated with any sort of gang, never carried on any sort of torrid love affairs with any of my fellow teachers, and have never been a hitman for the Mafia. I have, however, been the subject of these rumors and more, and have learned to laugh them off and quietly dispel them as they come along – although I will admit, I do have a soft spot for the hitman one.

Having a learning disability is a new one, and While I'll never know what I could've possibly said that gave someone that impression, I responded simply enough: “Well, I actually don't, but if it's inspiring a student, I see no reason to dispel it.” I then asked her which disability I should have, and she (half-jokingly) suggested ADD. I'm not sure if that was some sort of hint, but if it was, it was completely lost on me – in an era of the internet, technology, and instant gratification, it's getting harder and harder to find a student who's not beginning to show symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder.

So apparently I have ADD now. As rumors go, I'm actually not too bothered by this one (as long as my administrators know the truth), and it's doing a world of good for at least one of my students. Is it true? Of course not. Does it matter? It reminds me of the ending of The Dark Knight: “sometimes... the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.”

Our students have faith in us. They have faith in our ability to educate them, to show them how much more they can be. That's what matters.

Let's Not Get Personal Here...

One of my favorite “Calvin and Hobbs” comics featured a conversation between Calvin and his mother. She told him that she saw his teacher, Mrs. Wormwood, shopping at the supermarket, much to Calvin's surprise, who remarks, “I thought teachers slept in coffins all summer.” While a long nap (minus the coffin) at the end of a school year is mighty tempting, it was the notion of the students' perception of me as a teacher which got my attention.

I've always found it a delicate balance between closeness and aloofness when dealing with students – too close, and students see me more as a friend than as a figure of respect; too aloof, and I turn into an 80s high school movie cliché. It's a tightrope act, one which every teacher must walk in accordance with their own teaching style and personality.

For myself, I find myself leaning towards the students, trying to maintain a “friendly, but not a friend,” attitude. In spite of this, I always find myself concerned when I hear my students refer to me as a “cool” teacher – part of me things I'm letting them get away with too much. As professionally as I maintain myself, I've still had my share of interesting encounters.

I've had students offer virtual friendships on various social networking sites. I've received invitations to various social events and gatherings. I've had students try to set me up on dates with their family members – cousins, sisters, even parents. I've even had students offer to sell me drugs. For the record, I've declined all such offers. But it has made me very mindful about how much of my personal life teachers should share with their students – especially older (secondary and post-secondary) students such as the ones I teach.

Should we be encouraged or concerned when our students want to know more about us as people? Is the fact that they're thinking about us as not just teachers cause for encouragement or concern?

A Happy Accident

It's been a wild few weeks for me as I've settled into a new school, and have been eager to earn the respect of my coworkers and students. I was getting prepped for one of my classes the other day, all set to complete a lesson on figurative language. The day before, they had begun some worksheets on personification and hyperbole. Challenging, but not too much; pretty standard fare, but (at least in my opinion) interesting enough to get them engaged. This was to be the last day of this particular lesson, when potential calamity struck.

Turns out I left the entire stack of their worksheets at home – I had nothing on hand to do with them for the period, and precious few materials available except a worksheet they had done previously and a pad of looseleaf paper. Rather than panic, I jumped a few days ahead in my mind and told the class that today, rather than do the worksheets, they would be putting what they had learned to work by composing an original piece of poetry this period. I didn't mention the reason for it, and simply told them that because of it, we'd be doing something different today.

The rules were simple enough – there was no length requirement for the work, and no restrictions as to the subject matter (my only request was to keep the language clean). The poem, however, had to include a sample of each of the figurative terms we had previously discussed – a simile or metaphor, a hyperbole, and an example of personification. I explained the rules and let them go to work.

The work may not have been particularly inspired (I got a lot of ditties of the “Roses are red...” variety), and many of them missed some of the figurative elements, but the important thing is that they all, including students who had been reluctant to participate, were engaged in a creative activity. Even though I didn't require it, many of them attempted to make their work rhyme, and were constantly asking me and each other for rhymes for various words. All told, I got more out of this emergency exercise than the one I had originally planned.

Mark Twain once quipped, "It takes me about three weeks to write an impromptu speech." But it takes more than careful planning to be spontaneous, it takes a desire to do so. Part of me knew the worksheet was really grabbing the kids' attention, but I was too focused on staying organized and committed to my lesson plan to drop it and move on. It took a mishap to get things back on track.

I shall have to arrange for more such mishaps in the future.

Figurative language... represent!

While the odds of me ever becoming or even being mistaken for a Hip-Hop mogul are slim to none, I have recently come across an interesting resource for teaching poetry and figurative language --

deyonjohnson.pbworks.com/f/Figurative+Language+Packet.doc

-- Which usues rap lyrics alongside of more classical poetry to introduce concepts such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole, etc. I've found it useful (with a few modifications) for my own lessons because it reinforces one of my core beliefs of literature and creativity -- nothing is new. The same tools used by the likes of Byron and Shakespeare are still being used by 50 Cent and Jay-Z.

My most profound thanks to Ms. Deyon Johnson of Washington D.C. for posting this and other wonderful resources, and I hope to find others which bring contemporary culture into the classroom.