Videos for October 15th

The video clips we watched for the October 15^th class got me thinking about a few things. The clips from The Wire made me cringe sometimes. The police officer turned school teacher was drowning in that classroom, he was way over his head and everyone, especially the students, was aware of that. It reminded me of my days in high school, it brought to mind how kids would behave when a substitute teacher ran a class. They’d push the envelope as far as they could, misbehaving and sucking up and sneaking out until the sub was to the point of tears. Kids can be cruel!

The poor, bumbling guy just couldn’t seem to conjure up any authority. He was anxious and easily frustrated. The children smelled his fear, I’m sure of it. Even when he did manage to develop relationships with the students, he still had to consider what that might lead to. A student who sees their teacher as a friend is a student that is going to ask for favors and try to get away with things using that friendship as a bargaining chip. Children are devious masterminds that do not hesitate to utilize emotional warfare if it will get them five minutes in the hallway for a bathroom break.

More than anything, those clips from The Wire scared me. Even though I knew what the teacher was doing wrong, I couldn’t think of what he could do right.

The last video, from the Teaching Channel, gave me some hope. I saw in that video a perfect classroom. The children were not only involved, they were attentive, thinking critically and thoroughly analyzing a complex text. Wouldn’t it be amazing if all classrooms were like that? 10-12 students, inward facing seating arrangement, discussion-based curriculum, ahhh sounds good right? The message this video was sending was that the students need to be respected, they need to have someone that believes they are capable of contributing and then, and only then, can they be expected to accept their responsibilities as a successful student. This “inquiry-based teaching” sounds like a pretty good method, but is it feasible in the typical high school or middle school environment?

I say no. With classes of 30+ students being herded into sterile rooms for 1 hour shifts for 8 hours a days in most schools today we just don’t have a system in place that accommodates for the kind of classes we saw in the Teaching Channel video. There’s not enough manpower (teacherpower, I suppose) to give that many kids that attention (or faith) that they need.

The best we can do at this point is try and learn ways to reach as many students as possible, to inspire personal faith in as many young people as we can. Even if only five out of those thirty bored, brain-dead, mischievous kids discovers their inner potential, that’s still five more than before.