| By John Anderson 
John Anderson is a biology teacher at Pittsville High
School. He began his teaching career in September of 2000. | Flip through any one of the numerous health magazines on the
shelf nowadays and you’ll see articles about topics such
as eating a balanced diet, balancing work and home life, finding
inner peace through a balanced lifestyle, etc. These articles
can be rather repetitive in nature and really all have the same
message. Hug your kid, eat lots of vegetables, take a 30-minute
walk, blah, blah, blah. Despite the title, this is not one of those articles. Yet since I started teaching, I’ve seen more need for balance
in my life than ever before. Maybe this realization is just part
of getting older and more mature and has nothing to do with my
entry into teaching. After all, I stopped eating microwave burritos
and watching the Cartoon Network about the same time. But I tend
to think that teaching is a profession that requires us to look
at both sides of an issue and find a middle ground. Let’s
just look at a few areas where teachers need to find balance: 1) Opening up to students: I think it’s nice to
show the kids you’re a human with real loves, habits, and
eccentricities. I like to interject stories of my exploits in
lectures and find that the most popular stories are the ones where
I come out of it looking like an idiot. But what do you do when a student feels so comfortable around
you that he asks you how much beer you drink? Or if you’ve
ever smoked pot? I can’t say I’m at peace with the
answers to such questions, much less the thought of sharing such
information with my students. In my opinion, if the conversations
have sunk that low, you are probably getting a little too personal
with your students and should back off. 2) Making a grading scale: I think that most people in
our profession (at least at the high school level) like to think
of themselves as a “hard teacher.” They envision students
talking about them after class, using words that may violate your
rules, but then softening the description by adding, “…
but you learn a lot.” One easy way to be a hard teacher
is to set a high grading scale. You could apply the “bell curve” mentality to the
grade scale, with a C being considered average and thus the grade
which a majority of students will get in your class. The problem
with such an approach is that many hard-working students who deserve
high marks are not getting them. They will resent you for it,
and so will their parents. Yet the whole “everyone’s a winner” mentality
nauseates me. In my opinion, not everyone should get an A, not
even well-intentioned students who just are not able to absorb
the concepts you are teaching. I approach grading with the following idea in mind: If most students
are getting most of the concepts about a unit I’m trying
to teach, then most of them should get an A. On the other hand,
if most students are not getting the concepts, then most of them
should get a C or lower. And, while I’m busy patting myself
on the back for being such a demanding teacher, I am also seriously
asking myself two questions: - Is there a way I can change my method of instruction so that
they will have more success?
- Should I invest in a locking gas cap for the car?
3) Setting up a rule system: Some teachers have
a long set of rules that they have posted in their classroom or
in a syllabus. Every sort of infraction a student can think of
is addressed…until they can think of some more. These lists
can be rather cumbersome and students stop listening somewhere
between “no spitting” and “pants must be tucked
in.” On the other hand, some teachers just ask the students to adhere
to the Golden Rule. On the surface, this second route seems to
be simplest approach. But then I asked one experienced teacher
why he had so many rules in his classroom and he answered, “Well,
just having a set of rules in place lets the students know that
you’re watching them.” Made sense to me. 4) Being organized: I have found that keeping
track of 120 students and dozens of different assignments every
quarter to be quite an organizational challenge. So how organized
should I be? If I spend all my time making sure papers are in
the right stack, it sucks time away from doing what I should be
doing … teaching kids. But if I don’t stay organized enough to calculate an accurate
grade for each of those students, how can they trust me at report
card time? Students need to be confident that their teacher is
accurately calculating their grades. And it is hard to justify
yelling at a 15 year-old boy for writing his homework assignment
on his jeans when you are surrounded by reams of chaos. As a new teacher, you should have confidence in yourself that
you can find a middle ground on such issues that will work best
for everybody. But you should also stay receptive to other points
along the spectrum. Now I’m going to eat some bean sprouts. Return to New Teachers page Posted October 12, 2005 |