People say that those who
can, do. And those who
can't, teach. Well, apparently I
can't do a lot of things, because I taught a lot of stuff this year. Anything from geometry to algebra and from the universe to microorganisms. 6th grade is chuck full of a lot of stuff to teach.
As much as I taught, though, I did a lot more learning. The 31 eleven and twelve year olds that I got to call mine for 9 months were chuck full of stuff to teach me. Besides them correcting me on my calculations on finding the surface area of a triangular prism, these kids taught me a lot of life lessons and things about myself. So, here are three things I learned in my first year of teaching:
1.
The Dark Side is real... apparently.
On one of the first few days of school, an 11 year old named Tyler stood in the doorway of my classroom. I was sitting at my desk. (To give you an idea of who Tyler is, let me describe him this way... He is like the epitome of that emoji with no expression. Straight eyes, straight mouth. He's brilliant, but so unamused by so many things that I do and say. So, yeah... Expressionless Face emoji Tyler.) Back to the story.
Tyler is standing in my doorway and looks at me. Keep in mind that this is the first week of school and I don't know this kid
too well. His expressionless face turns somewhat destructive as he raises his hand toward me and says, in the best movie-trailer voice I've heard from a child, "The power of the dark side flows within me, and now it flows within you."
It seems laughable, but I was actually terrified. (He wore a black glove on that hand almost everyday for the rest of the year.)
2.
Soccer is life.
In January, I changed up the way we did Class Meetings. Generally, we would go through the agenda and, as part of said agenda, we would discuss concerns. Before January, I would be the one to bring up some concerns that we would discuss and try to resolve. After Christmas break, however, I wanted to turn some of the responsibility over to the class. I told them that, from this point forward, I was going to separate myself from the circle of Class Meeting and that they were going run the concerns part by themselves. (More on this change in the next point.)
For the first five weeks of this new attempt at Class Meeting, all that the class (or at least those who actually spoke up) was concerned about was
soccer at recess. The rules, the people who played, the passing, the teams, etc.
Soccer? Are you kidding me?? Like, if kids aren't passing to you, go play tetherball or 4-square or something. You probably suck anyway. (Just my thoughts that I obviously keep to myself during these very dramatic conversations.) It even came to a point where they considered taking a vote to stop playing soccer because too many fights were happening because of it. It got very serious... for them.
And then the next point happened.
3.
Kids should run the country.
I gave them little to no instruction on how to do this new Class Meeting. I said that I was stepping out of the circle for the concerns part of Class Meeting and that they would have to decide how this part of the meeting was going to run.
Immediately they decided that they needed a method for who would talk and when. They figured that out.
They decided that they'd need a way to keep themselves within the time limits. They figured that out.
They even figured out that they needed to call for votes and needed to vote on stuff that they'd discussed. Like, you guys! We're talking kids who shrink in the face of the maturation talk!
During this time, they demonstrated such maturity. Saying what you feel, listening to how others are feeling about the same subject, respecting others' opinions, disagreeing with people while still being kind and respectful... The list goes on and on! They even differentiated between "major issues" (like bullying) and "minor issues" (like soccer at recess)! (By the way, the terms "major" and "minor issues" are their words, not mine.)
So, the final thing that I learned in my first year of teaching is that kids can reach such high levels of maturity if only we give them the opportunity to do so. They are capable of so much when you give them a responsibility and hold them accountable. It's incredible, really. (I wish some of our current political leaders could watch the 6th graders at work and take notes.)
There are a myriad of things that I could've written about on my first year of teaching and the things I learned from it. But, no matter what I write, it all comes back to one thing. My kids. I love them. I love teaching them. I love learning from them. And I can't wait to do it again next year and the year after that and every year forever.
