Can I Do the Sentence?

The four of us sat across the table from the well-dressed parents of one of our students. We were a young team of teachers at Aurora Hills Middle School; I was the oldest at 28. This had been a good conference. Pat was one of our best students and we spent the entire time singing his praises. From his writing folder, I pulled out an "A" essay.

"Pat has wonderful talent as a writer," I commented, passing the essay to his mother. She held it in her sleek, manicured hands and eyed it carefully. She lifted her eyes to meet mine.

"I want to know where you were educated that you think you don't have to write comments on my son's paper," she snapped.

My eyes widened. My teammates shifted uncomfortably, looking away. Where did that come from? I thought.

"I usually write comments," I replied, holding my voice steady, "but this was an introductory paper assigned to give me an idea of each student's writing skill level."

But that wasn't enough. Pat's parents went on and on, slowly demolishing me not only as a teacher, but also as a person. When I saw that logic and educational theory wasn't working, I should have ended the conversation. Instead, I began to play dead. The other teachers excused themselves, I had hoped, to go get an administrator to help. No one came.

"I would have expected that you would be more reasonable," Pat's mother huffed as she gathered her things. Watching her storm off, husband in tow, I thought of every witty comeback that I should have said. It was then, after our first conference of the school year, that I began to grow suspicious that the upcoming year might not be as pleasant as I had hoped.

Sometimes I think back to when I was an undecided major in college, and I think that I was a different person then. I had a part time job at a daycare for children who were learning English as a second language. "Teacher," they called me, and I became enchanted with the idea. The more I considered teaching as my future profession, the more determined I became. I made an appointment with the Dean of the School of Education. She raked over my transcripts with a critical eye.

"You're not going to make it as a teacher," she sighed. "You don't have the grades for it."

That was all that I needed to hear. I thanked her politely and left. That night I sat at the dinner table with my then-boyfriend, Chris. "I'm going to be a teacher," I told him. "I'm going to change lives."

From then on, I never missed a class. I made the Dean's list every semester, boosting my pathetic 1.97 GPA to a respectable 3.0. Before I graduated, I had been hired for my first teaching job. Chris and I were getting married and moving to Colorado; I was bright and hopeful and ready to shape young minds.

Two years later, I was starting my third year of teaching at Aurora Hills. I felt that I had barely survived my first year of teaching, but the second one was considerably better. It frequently occurred to me that my college expectations of teaching were starkly different from my reality as a teacher, and my enthusiasm for teaching was waning.

At the beginning that third year, the seventh-grade teachers had warned us about our incoming class of students. We eighth grade teachers tended to take these warnings with a grain of salt, sometimes even laughing at them. Their cautionary tales were the same every year. Besides, we were the tough teachers. Kids were no match for us!

One month into school, students were behaving as expected: slumping into my classroom in the sweltering heat of September, loud and rudely boisterous, undisciplined by the freedom of the summer. I would whip them into shape by winter break. My patience and resolve were still strong.

"You need to end the conversations and start editing the warm-up sentence," I boomed one day to my highly social third hour class. "Some of you are losing points." The roar of adolescent conversations hushed to a spattering of whispers.

"Can I do the sentence?" Brandon blurted out.

"No," I replied, thinking that I was teaching him a valuable lesson in communication. "It's rude to shout out like that." I turned to the class. "Who wants to do the sentence?"

I proceeded to call on the politest, quietest student with raised hand as Brandon gasped resentfully. She corrected the sentence as the rest of the class fought about the mistakes she was making. I quieted them and began my lesson. A student's hand shot up.

"Mrs. Rude? I need a band-aid," she said, presenting a freshly picked scab. Another student shouted, "Me too." I directed them to the band-aids and tried to resume my lesson.

"Mrs. Rude? Are we going to watch a movie today?" a girl in the back asked.

"The schedule for today is on the board," I hissed. "If it doesn't say video, then we're not watching a video. Chelsea, this is the second time this week I've told you to spit out your gum."

I successfully completed my lesson without too many further interruptions, and at the end, asked the class if they have any questions. A freckled boy in the front raised his hand. I called on him, hopeful that I had piqued his interest.

"When's lunch?" he asked.

At the end of that autumn day, I thought, never mind. They haven't learned the rules yet. They'll settle in and come around. I had created a self-sufficient classroom that would certainly put an end to all of the questions. Outside the door, a sign was posted that listed the needed materials for each day. In the corner was a "Missing in Action" binder for students to access any make-up material. One corner was a miniature self-care health center, complete with band-aids and suggestions from the nurse for helping headaches and stomachaches. A schedule of the class was written on the board, with important reminders. "The silly questions will subside once they get used to this environment," I told myself.

I was wrong. Though I consistently rewarded the polite and responsible, and penalized the rude, the interrupting and constant battery of questions became a daily ritual.

"What are we doing today?"

"Can I do the sentence?"

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

"Did I miss anything when I was gone?"

"Where are the band-aids?"

"What's for lunch today?"

"When does this class end?"

Though my answers were always the same-usually sarcastic-they kept asking.

My theories were numerous. For the first half of the year, I clung to the idea that they would come around. They were immature-LaQuasha sucked her thumb-and would grow up. They were needy-hence all the questions-and would realize they could help themselves. They were overly talkative-Moses wouldn't leave the girls alone-and would eventually tire of each other. They had lenient teachers in the past, and would straighten up with a little discipline. Eventually, these theories proved unsound. I began to just try to get through each day.

Not even my first year of teaching could have prepared me for some of the more momentous occasions of that third year. One day, I had a young man go AWOL. Something struck him the wrong way, and all five feet of him jumped up and fled. I stood there, watching him leave, frantically trying to decide what to do.

"Mm, mm, mm," Tiffany, one of my outspoken girls tsked, shaking her head rhythmically. "We have a runaway fugitive in a circular school." Picturing him running around and around the circular hallways like a dog on a track, I laughed until I cried. Somehow, her comment made me feel as if we were all in this together.

Another day I simply lost my patience and snapped, "Why do you think it's acceptable to interrupt a teacher like that? Who in the world taught you that?!" Instead of apologizing, the student retorted, "My mom. I do it at home all the time." I believed her.

Worse than any of the other problems they had, these students seemed to have no work ethic. I still had a trick up my sleeve: Writer's Workshop. No student could resist my "super-unit." Students had always loved it in the past: they had the freedom to choose what they wrote and worked at their own paces. The one thing that an eighth grader values the most is a little freedom. I started the ten-week unit optimistically.

It broke my heart when my Writer's Workshop was a dismal failure. Students hated it and just didn't do their writing projects. At the completion of the unit, about one third of them had actually completed all of the required work.

"They're my Kryptonite," I told my teammate, Jake, in April. "I haven't taught them a single thing all year." Jake taught in the classroom next door. We often sought consolation during the school day.

Finally, the agonizing year was coming to a close. Inane questions, rude behavior, and poor work ethic persisted despite all of my efforts to the contrary. Brandon still shouted at least twice a week, "Can I do the sentence?" At 8th Grade Continuation, I watched in horror as my students talked, booed, and smacked gum through their own ceremony. At least they behave that way outside my class, too, I thought.

I confronted my disappointment and came to terms with the idea that I had, in my mind, failed as a teacher that year. Here I was, in my most experienced year yet, encountering problems that I didn't even have to deal with during student teaching. I was so disgusted with the experience that I didn't even want to pass around my yearbook for student signatures, as I had in past years, but my husband insisted that I would regret it if I didn't. Reluctantly, I passed it around in my classes during the last week of school. I didn't really want anything to remind me of this horrible year.

That last day of school, my 'unteachable' students, boys and girls alike, clung to me and cried when we told them they could go home.

"Good luck," I told a small group of girls, huddled around me. "You can come back to visit next year." Truthfully, I was anxious for them to leave.

"Don't say that," Kendra wailed in her Louisiana drawl. "It's hard to leave."

"OK," I relented. What I was about to say was straight from my nightmares. "Don't forget the quiz tomorrow. Be sure to study tonight. I'll see you bright and early in the morning."

The consoled girls shuffled off, arm-in-arm, in a red-eyed sniffling mass. I waved good-bye to the last lingering students, and finally the moment I had waited for came. Mercifully, they were gone! I stood on the school lawn, alone in the summer sun. School-year failure is easily sweetened with summer freedom.

That night, I read the signatures in my yearbook. I had fought so long and hard with these kids that I was sure that their notes would bear their final revenge.

The colorful pages were covered with "thank you" and "I'll miss you." Several students wrote, "You taught me so much." There was a note from a girl who had been very confrontational for half the year, saying that I inspired her. One of my favorite signatures was, "You were my favorite teacher. With love and respect, Kendra." A student from my most rambunctious class wrote, "We had our ups and downs, but it was a good year."

I was floored. A good year? Had these students sat in the same classes that I remembered? I wandered around my house for a while, turning this contradiction over and over in my mind.

I've decided since then that it can't always be my way. In truth, many times, it isn't-especially with teaching. I had continually struggled to shape those kids into my pre-conceived notion of what they should be. I realize now that who they were had overpowered my ability to make them who I wanted them to be. Despite what I thought of the school year, these kids left my class feeling better for having been in it. I guess I can chalk that year up to a bittersweet success.

One thing is for sure: I need to build up my strength for the next time someone interrupts me to ask, "Can I do the sentence?"