Delusions of Classroom Grandeur
What an idiot.
*Quick Colombia update: For those of you who have been following along for sometime, you know that I like to take a break from writing during summer and focus whole-heartedly on living. Two things the past month has taught me. 1: I am truly truly shit at learning Spanish. 2: All that talent I seem to lack in picking up a language was packed into my ability to learn Salsa. I have found utter joy on a Latino Dance floor. No doubt I will write about this soon… but not yet. In the meantime, here is an article I wrote in 2024. It outlines my growth in the classroom as I slowly begin to learn great teaching is often the summation of thousands of tiny boring habits. I loved re-reading it, and I hope you do to if this is your second time through it. In any case— ENJOY.
A Delightful Idiot
Before I ever stepped into a classroom, I imagined what it would be like to be that teacher. The teacher that cracked all the jokes. The teacher that taught mind-blowing lessons. The teacher that said the right thing to the troublesome kid when they needed it most. I imagined a classroom where I was a wrecking ball of change, and every kid wanted to be in that class because I was that teacher.
I can’t blame myself too harshly for wanting that. After all, I had some damn good examples. My junior year English teacher’s class was a roller coaster ride of gut-busting laughter and radical change for better writing skills. My AP European History teacher’s ability to paint a picture through lectures made his classroom one of my favorite places in Norwalk High School. My band teacher created one of the greatest high school music programs in the country through ironclad classroom management and an indomitable will to win.
These were my heroes. I say that unabashedly. I didn’t look up to athletes, musicians, movie stars, or even my parents. I looked up to the teachers who made me better. It didn’t take me long to decide I wanted to be them. When I started my sophomore year at the University of Delaware, I switched from undecided to English-Education.
What a disaster that turned out to be.
Drowning
By the time I made it to senior year I was itching to get in front of a classroom. Enough teaching theory, enough talk about planning. Let me get in front of these kids and make them laugh. I’ll teach through the force of personality, let other people practice their classroom management methods. I’m likable enough.
Fast forward to my second week of student teaching. I’ve run home, and I’m trying to silently sob in my bedroom. I can’t get the kids to listen to a word I say to save my life. My cooperating teacher only made his classes watch movies so when I assigned a book the kids rebelled. It takes me hours to plan a single lesson and I almost never know what I’m going to teach next. I feel trapped.
I’m bad at this.
It was a thought that echoed over and over through my head.
Turns out my ability to put people in a good mood only pertains to University of Delaware keg parties when I’m hammered in a dirty basement. The memories I have of my old high school teachers seem impossible. How the hell did my history teacher plan out over 100 lectures and deliver them with the authority of a TED Talk. For one class!?! He had two other preps… How the hell did my band teacher merely look at you and you knew you had to shut the hell up. I had been trying my own “teacher look” on kids and every time they greeted it with a nice, “the fuck you looking at?”
By the end of a three month stint of teaching high school English I did what any reasonable human would do. I got the hell out of there; I ran from the profession. I didn’t apply to any teaching jobs and immediately took a job working as a CrossFit coach. $120,000 successfully spent on a degree, zero use for it.
My parents were thrilled.
More Delusions
Fast forward another 4 years and I’ve caught the itch to work with kids again. My stint as a CrossFit Trainer has been life changing, but my gut keeps telling me I should be working with teenagers.
But this time no more planning. No more awful papers to read. Just classroom activities and building relationships.
I take out a loan for $50,000 and get a master’s degree in P.E. I am now a gym teacher - sorry, P.E. teacher.
I figured I would work in my hometown or the town over. Nope. I quickly learned that if you wanted a coveted P.E. job in the suburbs, you needed to knife an old man in his sleep, because no one gave up those jobs. After a summer of fruitless job searching I had resigned myself to becoming a substitute teacher until a job opened up. Then, just at the last minute, I got a call for an interview from a school I hadn’t even applied to. It was located in Harlem NYC.
I was no longer completely idealistic when it came to teaching, I was wary of inner city teaching jobs and the high burnout rate. But the $50,000 loan hung over my head like an anvil, and mommy and daddy weren’t going to help me with this one. The CrossFit trainer job wasn’t going to cut it anymore. The inner city job beckoned. Hell, it’s still working with kids, how bad could it be?
Broken
Imagine walking into a situation you know is going to be bad, and then against all expectations, it gets worse.
Turns out the P.E. teacher I was taking over for was a total fucking rockstar - an absolute favorite among the kids. He had a meaningful relationship with the student body and let them play basketball on the daily. Even worse, he was 6’ 4”, handsome, and black.
Here I was, white boy from the burbs taking your favorite black teacher’s job in 2016 where watching white cops shoot black unarmed teenagers had become commonplace. Just walking through the doorway of an entirely Black and Latino high school started me at a disadvantage.
Of course, I can complain and harp on the cultural disadvantage all I want, the real problem was my lack of teaching experience. I was still living in a fantasy land where I thought my personality would ride me through the “tough parts.” I still had this image of being the funny but strict but wise teacher who taught the best class in school…and I would just be that guy.
I cringe thinking back on it. I had no classroom management system. I didn’t know how to keep an accurate grade book. I didn’t have a multitude of activities to teach. I didn’t have a proper response to a student cursing me out. I just wanted to run a chill class where the kids played a multitude of sports, engaged in good fitness practices, and respected each other.
Nonsense.
My first year of teaching was the worst of my life. My classroom was a travesty of unorganized chaos where the kids did whatever they wanted, ignored my threats to their grade (with good reason, I never carried through), and got great entertainment value when I lost my head and just yelled at them. I was threatened by gangs and every time I tried something new it seemed to backfire. I walked home ashamed of myself and the work I was doing every day.
Becoming a Dick
I wanted to quit…but a $50,000 loan is a helluva motivator and there was a huge problem that ran smack dab into my “blame the kids” mentality. As much as I wanted to absolve myself of responsibility, I couldn’t. Because somehow, there were veteran teachers kicking ass in the same school I was drowning in.
How?
The question vexed me. How in the world were the same kids who trashed my gymnasium while screaming “suck my dick!” the same kids who provided productive discussions in Mr. Dunn’s English class? How in the world were the kids who sat on the floor in the gym with noses in their phones the same kids who formed the school’s award winning robotics team?
Ah fuck. It’s me. The problem is me.
That’s never a fun realization, but at least it puts the ball in my court. After an unsuccessful job search in the summer, I decided I would try some things I really didn’t want to do. I was going to keep a tight grade book. I was going to suck the joy out of my life (there wasn’t much joy anyway) and carry around a grade book during class so I could mark down unacceptable behavior and accurately grade these kids. I was going to call security when a kid refused to leave the gymnasium - it felt like admitting I couldn’t control my classroom. (I couldn’t anyway.) I was going to attempt to fist bump every single kid who entered my classroom whether they wanted to or not. It stings when they walk past you, but the kids barely interacted with me anyway.
For a time, the kids pushed back even harder. They told me they didn’t care about the grade book or if I called security on them. But after a time I started to notice that they did care. No one likes being taken out of class by security. Once they realized I was going to do it, a lot of the most egregious behavior stopped, and kids stopped refusing to leave the gym when they didn’t have the class.
The grade book helped everything. After the first marking period all the smart kids who sat against the wall suddenly popped up to participate - they didn’t like the sting of a C-. Students suddenly realized the notebook I held in my hand impacted their GPA, and when they saw me scribbling on the pages they would suddenly plead to let them participate in the game for the day.
As for the kids who truly didn’t care about the grade book, it didn’t matter. I had enough kids participating that they suddenly looked like losers if they didn’t participate, and any egregious behavior would be taken care of by security. The fun teacher I wanted to be didn’t exist…but I slowly developed a reputation for not taking any shit.
Becoming That Teacher
Here’s the thing I didn’t realize would happen after implementing solid classroom management strategies. They eventually allowed me to have more fun. Keeping a grade book - not fun. Calling security on kids - not fun. Enforcing your rules with consequences 95% of the time - not fun. But a 95% participation rate every single day with minimal behavior issues while playing ultimate frisbee… well I’ll be damned, that’s fun.
And here’s the deal, once they start having fun in your class, they’re suddenly interested in what you have to say. All the interpersonal relationships I wanted to build started happening because my class became a place kids wanted to be. Doing the boring hard work of the tiny little million things that great teachers do pays off in the long term.
I’ve begun to think of it as behavioral compounding interest. If a student walks out of your class and talks to another student about how much of your class sucks because you took down their grade for not doing the workout - good. That kid did some reputation work for you. If another kid walks out and says, “oh damn, frisbee was fun today,” then they just created anticipation for other students to look forward to class. If you have the majority of your upperclassmen students telling the lowerclassmen not to mess around in your classroom, then the amount of incidents you have to deal with drops precipitously.
In order to become that teacher - the one whose class is something every kid wants to experience, there must be a solid dedication to small boring behaviors that suck and run counter to what you think the kids will like you for. Your personality doesn’t count for much if you can’t control your classroom, but it counts for a lot if you can get the kids to the point where they care for what you have to say.
When I reflect on the teachers I always looked up to, what I failed to see when I first started teaching was all the little things they did to make their classrooms tick. They all had ironclad classroom management. Their grade books were immaculate. They worked on their lesson plans incessantly. Because they took care of the work behind the scenes, the personality with which they taught became the focal point of my attention.
Every year I’m lucky enough to say it’s been the best year yet. I think I get to say that because I’m beginning to reap the interest of the compounding effect of the tiny boring behaviors I’ve accumulated over the past seven years. The teachers I think about to this day had all taught for over twenty years by the time I experienced their classroom.
This excites me.
Do the no fun work. It makes it fun.
*5 years ago, I read Kevin Kelly’s article, “1000 True Fans.” The gist of it goes like this. Create a following of people who become fans of what you do. Be so damn good at what you do that people want to give you money so you continue doing it.
Here’s what I do. I teach, and I write stories about it.
If you’re in the position where you don’t mind becoming a paid subscriber, I hope you consider it… though if your initial reaction to that is, “fuck off, I’m just here to read,” then rock on.
Fit To Teach is free to all.
Yes, yes, and yes. Your essays are pure joy to read. What a voice. (More on how to learn a language another time--ask your salsa teachers to speak Spanish [slowly] during your lessons.)
My first effective classroom management discovery was the head-down focus I could get from students when I timed them on reading and writing activities. The second great discovery was when the meanest teacher in the school shared her grade book marking system. with me. Every little detail--even chewing gum--had a code. You tell the story so well.
(Oh, other tip; practice speaking English with an exaggerated Spanish accent--when you are alone--and listen to yourself sound like a native Spanish speaker speaking English! Gilberto is born.
You needed to earn their respect for them to listen, and no one respects someone that they can ride roughshod over. My kids had good teachers and they had fun teachers. The good teachers were often fun, but the fun teachers were not good.