School's Out, but Not 'For-Ever'

By Cindy Reitzi

September 2004

A sullen 8-year-old, pale with jet black hair, stands in the school-supply aisle. Frowning, she grumbles accusingly, “You said, ‘School’s out for-ever.’ ”

The camera pans to her father, Alice Cooper, decked out in dramatic, rock star make-up. “No, no, no,” he replies patiently, “The song goes, ‘School’s out for summer’. Nice try,” then smilingly holds up a binder for her approval. She scowls in response.

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Humorous back-to-school ads are the technological equivalent of falling, multicolored leaves signaling the turning season. The transitional month of August prepares us for the hesitant readjustment to sunrises and school schedules. These year-end/year-in switchbacks are part of the ebb and flow of teaching. As one teacher opined about these seasonal pendulum swings, “Teaching is a schizophrenic profession” – tightly bound schedules then abruptly, unfettered summer time.

Add to that the mystery of the first day of school. Unlike more predictable jobs, teachers usually don’t know who they’re going to greet on day one, which exacerbates the element of the unknown. If we’ve taught before, we sift through our positive and negative memories for perspective and mental rehearsal. Still, August’s stage fright can give us an edge for September’s performance.

Seasonal flux and September re-entry are part of a built-in, provocative dynamic in teaching: change. Most people’s response to change is nervousness or excitement. Some of August’s anxiety is pedagogical preparation, but is also a human response to change and unpredictability, even though teachers are probably more adaptable than the average citizen. So, unless you deliver the same lecture year after year culled from notes laminated 20 years ago (those are rare dinosaurs these days), change can help offset staleness and stagnation. Most teachers adjust or revamp their curriculum even if they teach the same subject for a number of years. Seasonal changes and new students every year offer upheaval, but they also offer the opportunity for creativity due to shifts in routines and perspectives.

While preparing lessons maps out a known plan, mentally scrolling through the Ghosts of School Past is rehearsal for the unpredictable. As teachers, we need to distinctly understand our own limitations as well as our strengths. This means we need to remember and understand the negative as well as the positive aspects of teaching in order to be proactive with the unexpected and the inevitable. We don’t want to rest on our laurels, but we also don’t want to focus on our disasters. It’s a healthy, transitional process that helps us anticipate how we’d create potentially positive teaching situations in the future or prevent negative encounters from escalating or occurring in the first place.

Ninth-graders are a good example of how this double-edged anticipation works. On the one hand, I can think of numerous examples of button-pushers from the hopelessly disorganized to the maddeningly irrational. Some of this you can chalk up to, “they’re 9th graders,” meaning it’s a developmental phase, just stop letting it bother you; simply deal with it and solve it. These are the garden variety of students who don’t do homework, rarely make deadlines, have mysterious binders that eat their homework, don’t get a folder until two weeks before school ends, forget to put their names on assignments, lose everything, and are firmly convinced that they get poor grades because their teachers don’t like them.

The maddeningly irrational are way beyond the bounds of the explainable, and you just hope they’ll someday mature and emerge into the law-abiding citizenry. These are the students who are literate and capable, but flatly refuse to engage in any behaviors we label “learning”: they don’t do homework, write papers, read the book, take notes or participate in class. They do cheat or copy; lie; forge notes or passes; never take responsibility for their actions; and then, pathologically, blame you, their teacher, for their failures – loudly, dramatically, and publicly. Quite frankly, I am at a total loss with these students.

Finally, on the complete flip side, nobody can match the loopy giddiness and passion of 9th-grade learners for teaching excitement before they become “too cool” to enjoy learning in the upper grades. These are the blurters, questioners, the where-did-you-get-that-idea left fielders, the “could we do this” or “how about that” suggesters, the teasers, dry wits, eye-rollers, and knowing grinners. They lunge at learning so enthusiastically they need crash helmets and seat belts to just stay in their desks. They make me smile.

I’ve heard many teachers comment on the rhythms of teaching. I’ve heard them say teaching is busy, full, 24/7, stressful, exciting, creative, and yes, schizophrenic. I’ve heard them describe 12 months of work and worry compressed into nine. But I’ve never heard teachers in the middle of a school year say, “I’m bored.”

Posted September 14, 2004