Classrooms

Having spent the past three years working as a substitute teacher, I have learned some important lessons I want to pass on to my friends who have never worked in the classroom. First off, I work in a district that is above average in teacher education and student performance. I work only grades 6 thru 12 and in seven different schools. This means 49 different classes and that I may hit the same class once every two months. During any two month period I am likely to encounter one class with a disruptive student. Normally I am aware of this student before class even starts. He and it is almost always a he, enters talking loudly and often times pushing other students around. When class starts he is the last to sit down and only after I go over to him and request that he takes his seat. After attendance he will say he doesn’t have his book and wants to go to the locker and get it. I allow that and he takes ten minutes when it should only take two. He sits down and opens a pack of gum and then goes up to the front of the room to throw away the rapper. Then he gets up to sharpen his pencil which he grinds down to a stub. Next he has to go to the bathroom and once again this takes much longer than necessary. Each time he gets up and goes down the aisle he pushes someone’s papers or book on the floor or hits someone on the arm and each time this solicits a snicker or laugh from the other students. Finally he remains in his seat and begins to talk in a loud voice to his neighbors sometimes yelling across the room to another student. After two attempts to get him to stop talking, I ask him to go out into the hall which he immediately does since that is what he wanted from the start. In a short while the assistant principal knocks on the door and says he talked to the student and he will be OK. As he leaves he says, you know he can’t learn anything out in the hall. Other teachers have told me that if this happens too often the principal will wonder if you are unable to control your classroom. Now all of this is not a serious problem for me since it only happens four or so times per year, but for a regular teacher it is a daily occurrence since they have this class every day. The school could choose to expel this student but that would mean the loss of $12,000. They might choose to suspend the student for a day or two but that is frowned upon because it exposes a more serious problem and this is the real downside to the whole affair and why it is avoided at all cost. In my district about 12% of students are black but 50% of those suspended are black. There is a lot of pressure on districts to correct this imbalance and the way the high schools deal with it is to have a special room where these students are sent and there is a teacher in there who deals with them on a one to one basis. Even speaking of this problem in terms of race is risking being called racist so the subject is not brought up. The pressure to keep these students in school is based on the fact that students who drop out at age 16 are more likely to end up in prison than those who stay in school until age 18. The bottom line is that high schools spend $12,000 per year per student to baby sit them until they are 18. Many of these students get diplomas and have the skills of 4th graders. They have been pushed through from elementary school, slowly getting further and further behind and disliking school more and more as the years go by. While this is a problem in my district, if you go up to St. Paul it is much more serious to the point where a teacher’s personal safety is at risk. This is a mess!