A Welcome Diversion - The Return of Clemson Football

Words cannot express how delighted I am to switch off the "teacher mode" that I've been in the past three weeks (and beyond) for the next few days. The much-needed Labor Day weekend is upon me. But I'm looking ahead to it for one reason. Monday, September 3rd heralds the return of the Fighting Football Tigers of Clemson University.

Putting the debacle that was the second half of 2006 aside has been a chore in and of itself. Midway through the season, my beloved Tigers were riding a wave of enthusiasm with BCS berths dancing in their heads. They had a 7-1 record, had just trounced the living daylights out of Georgia Tech on national television, and seemed to finally be within reach of the Promised Land.

But then again, we know what happened to the Israelites once they approached the prize. They fell apart, lost focus, and undid themselves. So it was with the Tigers. As soon as Virginia Tech showed our remaining opponents how to beat us, the season popped like an overinflated balloon. Our leadership crumbled. We moved away from our strengths in a futile effort to compensate for our weaknesses. And once we did, the losses began to pile up. Maryland. South Carolina. Kentucky. All teams we possessed the talent to beat, but came up short.

I'm not interested in fueling any of the hotseat controversy that seems to haunt our head coach like the Ghost of Christmas Future. For now, Tommy Bowden is our coach and to cloud the promise of a new season with that kind of talk is just a wasted effort. I'd rather look ahead to the bright spots of our team, and there are plenty. We lost quite a few role players from last year but the cupboard remains stocked with talent.

Just to name a few:

- Seven starters back on a defense that is still young, but highly ranked in several statistical categories.

- New running backs coach Andre Powell's pledge to correct our rancid special teams production.

- Well-deserved promotions for some of our hard-working assistant coaches, who could have taken lucrative offers for other teams, but chose to stay at Clemson.

- The prospect of James Davis and C.J. Spiller in the backfield at the same time.

- The cornerback battle being waged between Byron Maxwell and DeAndre McDaniel.

- The promise of Cullen Harper.

- The emergence of Willy Korn.

- The maturation of wide receivers Jacoby Ford, Aaron Kelly, Rendrick Taylor, and La'Donte Harris.

- The leadership of Davis, Rashaad Jackson, Phillip Merling, and Christian Capote.

- The excitement of starting the season against Florida State. Sure, the Noles have dropped a few pegs, but I'd rather take them out of the gate than, say, McNeese State or Buffalo (no offense to either team).

- The hope of a more balanced offensive attack. A run-first mentality, but enough of a dependable passing game to keep defenses honest.

- The electricity of Death Valley every Saturday. The Hill. The Rock. Tiger Band. The cannon. Even Zombie Nation. And our home slate looks much more marketable this year. Last year, it was basically Georgia Tech and that was it. This year, FSU, Wake Forest (legit contenders now), Boston College, and Virginia Tech come through the Valley.

- Spending the games with my sweetheart (and her family) :D

- Burgers at Mac's before or after the game. The highlight of every visit, whether a win or a loss.

With that said, here's my edited prediction for Labor Day Eve. It's a night game, and Death Valley's atmosphere is pulsating in night games. Both Clemson and Florida State come out with something to prove, working to salve the wounds of last year. The Noles have a new offensive gameplan, but Drew Weatherford is starting. We know how he works and no matter what the new scheme is, Drew is still Drew. I don't see him killing us through the air. The gap is closed in our teams' talent levels, and I'll even venture to say that our offensive and defensive personnel is slightly better than the Noles'. Regardless, execution will be the deciding factor. If we come out and execute, we can win, maybe easily. If we come out flat and make mistakes, it's gonna be a long night.

Hoping that my fortunes have improved with the start of a new year (as I turned the duties over to my dog late last year out of sheer frustration), the Tigers will start somewhat shakily, letting FSU get just enough licks in to get their hopes up. But it will be short-lived. Harper settles in, and we ride the Davis/Spiller train to a hard fought win over the Seminoles. And either way Ann Bowden goes home an unhappy camper.

FINAL SCORE: Clemson 31, Florida State 24

GO TIGERS!!!

My First Week

I try to think of life as a journey. I know that there is an end goal, a prize at the finish, but it’s all about the daily steps you take to get there. You never know when you’ll finally get to the end, but that’s not for you to know. That’s not the point either. The point is to grow through the steps of the journey, to take each day and its challenges as they come and use them as a guide to a better tomorrow.

I’m grateful to have my family, my co-teachers, my girlfriend, my friends from Furman, and most of all, my faith in Jesus Christ in my life to give me a stable foundation from which to make the journey. I know that without any of them in my life, I would not be the man I am today. I would not know life’s lessons and challenges without my parents. I would not know unconditional love without Anna Kate. I would not have salvation by faith without my Savior. Life is not about living for the end or, as some might call it, preparing for the end. It’s about living for the journey, using the steps and the people in your life to become a better person. That way, when the end does arrive, you have no regrets, no second-guessing. All you have to do is receive the prize…

It’s funny, but I didn’t have anything close to this kind of perspective in my first few days of teaching. I only have it now because it’s the only chance I’ve had to sit down and work to process everything that has happened. From my first teacher workday on into this past Wednesday, all I could think about was, “What on Earth have I gotten myself into?” You can go to college and learn about all the theories and the strategies and management plans and Vygotsky and Skinner you want but none of that can prepare you, really prepare you, for the moment when you walk into the classroom knowing that you are the teacher. I can now say truthfully that you will not feel prepared for it. Not even close. You’ll feel like a scared little kid all over again, and the irony of that is you are surrounded by 20-25 scared little kids.

The first day is somewhat unique that way. Neither of you knows exactly what you’re getting into, and you’re both kind of playing around the edges at first until you get a better idea of what to expect. I suppose that’s why first impressions are so important, no matter what profession you enter. You want the party on the opposite side of you to get a positive vibe and see you at your best right off the bat. It may come relatively easy when the party is your principal, but it’s a tremendous challenge when it’s finally your students.

So, first week. Honestly, I can’t rate my first few days as either good or bad. In terms of grading myself, I would probably give Monday through Wednesday a “C.” There is just so much to learn, so many details to digest, memos and notes bombarding you at blinding speed. You never really know if you’re doing something right or wrong, sometimes not even when you get the seal of approval from your buddy teacher or your district mentor. They can advise you, sure, and pass out more comments than you know what to do with, but your students are not theirs. It’s up to you to make decisions on what kind of learning takes place in your classroom. They can only drop by for isolated periods of time, but you are in there all the time (or in my case, also for isolated periods, but just the same…). It’s a whirlwind of activity that, if you allow it, can leave you feeling drained, bewildered and wondering how in the world you can survive 179 more days just like it.

Honestly, if the students were the only facet of the job that mattered, I would most likely love it to high heaven. They are the reason I’m there, after all, and to quote Charlotte the spider, [their] success is to a small degree my success.” It’s mostly the logistics of the job that have my head spinning and unable to even take a breath after five days in the system. Every time I feel like I’ve come close to a stable perch, something comes along to sweep the rug out from under me.

We had a faculty meeting after our third day at which the new grade weighting system was unveiled. The Greenville County School District now wants teachers to schedule a minimum of twelve minor assessments (quizzes, homework, etc.) and four major assessments (tests, projects, etc.) to gauge student achievement for every quarter. I do not believe in leaving unit tests with the responsibility of determining how much a student has learned in nine weeks’ time, but that wasn’t all. Hillcrest wants us to do six major assessments. Six for each quarter. Minimum.

Our principal said this with the full expectation that many teachers would despise it, but for now, that’s how it is. And if we come up short, then we can surely expect to hear it from him. I’m still not certain that I understand why or how this assessment plan works, but it means I’ve got four out of my five periods already graded on two minor assignments. I kept it straight-forward, though. One was bringing the materials I require to class. The other was showing me their journal and what they had written thus far. As long as they had made some kind of effort, I gave them full credit. I didn’t expect anything along the lines of well-thought-out sentences or paragraphs at the outset. I just wanted them to get their feet wet in the process of writing.

I’m the kind of person who likes to have a plan. I will almost surely revise it later or go back to the drawing board, but as long as I have a skeleton plan in place, I feel like I am on much safer ground. It doesn’t seem like I’m scrambling around trying to throw things together and make it seem coherent; I’m not saying it was that, exactly, but that was just how it felt to me. The first five days were drawn up day-by-day, night-by-night. Before, I had little more than vague ideas of things that I wanted to do: rules and procedures were a given, obviously, but beyond that, I had to figure out how to make the first several days meaningful when my students didn’t even have their textbooks until the end of the week.

Looking back, it made me long for the fall semester of senior year when I had the luxury of four months’ time to prepare for student-teaching in my winter block. I had the whole plan laid out by the end of November, and while I drew up new short-term plans, it made me feel more at ease. That wasn’t the case this time, but fortunately, I wasn’t in it alone. Even the experienced veterans I’ve talked to have expressed their struggles with figuring out what to do that first week, let alone the week after. It really does help to know you’re in the same boat with everyone else because your struggles don’t seem so huge anymore.

Floating with my kind of schedule is not for the faint of heart. One of my buddy teachers said that the teacher (I won’t use the name here) who held my position before only lasted that one year at Hillcrest. The workload simply burned her out. Even the near-guarantee that she wouldn’t find herself in that predicament again the next year wasn’t enough for her to stick around. I don’t even know if she’s teaching anymore. For me, it’s a struggle just to get to my next classroom with enough time to catch my breath and get out the roll. Most of the students don’t mind, thank goodness; they’ve taken the whole “floater” thing in stride so far (but the first time I lose one of their assignments in the hallway, that’s out the window!).

I don’t like not having control of my classroom environment. I don’t know from period to period whether the teacher will be present or not, the state of the desks on my arrival, etc. Combine that with teaching two subjects (or two subdivisions of a single subject) to two different grade levels – woof. Every time a teacher walks by and asks how I’m doing, I’ve answered as honest as I can, given my state of mind at the time. “Hanging by a thread.” “I’m surviving.” “I still know my name and all.” They’ve laughed, and that lets me know such responses are all too common. But survival is the key that first week.

I’ve probably stopped making sense by now, and I want to finish sketching my skeleton for the upcoming week, so I’ll wrap this up. If I sound overly negative in this reflection, I apologize. I don’t mean to be. My last couple days, I can honestly say were “good” ones. I’m not making apologies nor am I second-guessing myself – at least not in my reflection. The job is tough, ten times tougher than I ever could have imagined, but it’s what I want to do.

I’ve had my share of private breakdowns this first week, and I’ve no doubt there’ll be more down the road, but right now, I have to keep it in perspective. No road was ever built without a few bumps and cracks in the surface, and they are only noticeable on the days when they’re all we choose to see. But look past those abrasions and the rest is shiny and smooth. Those are the times when you realize that every day successfully completed is in itself a victory, that for every wrong thing you did, you likely did five or ten things right without knowing it.

That’s the trouble I run into when I get too focused on the prize and all the things that keep me from reaching it, when what I should be doing is how all good and bad things are steps that can be daily stepping stones on my journey to growth.

There Be Rough Waters Ahead

I have been at Hillcrest Middle for only three teacher workdays and I already feel like the end of a long year. And the students haven’t even arrived yet! I would liken this week to an induction teacher “boot camp” of sorts, where you truly find out if you’ve got what it takes to survive long-term in the break-neck environment of teaching or if you start sizing up the years until you want out. But for the first time, you are really “in the know” about everything; other than the administrators, no one else knows the school system as well as you.

There is a definite feeling of ascension to a lofty and privileged position, while at the same time the faintest of longings for the simpler life when all that I had to worry about was getting up in the morning for class. But now the class does not start without me. The students can not begin to learn without me present. So much more piles up on my plate, and my responsibilities have multiplied a hundred-fold. Welcome to the wonderful world of teaching, David. Hope you’ve got a barf bag because the safety harness just flew off.

I find that my brain can only take so much information in one sitting. In just three days, I have already learned more about lesson-planning, curriculum instruction, ELA standards, substitutes, scheduling, attendance records, disciplinary measures, parent communication, staff communication, safety procedures, professional demeanor, and how many items to keep on a floater’s cart than I probably ever wanted to know (let alone received in any of my college courses). I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t more than a little staggering initially. Eventually the multi-layered sponge that is my brain reaches its limit. It takes in so much information that the rest kind of trickles off to the side. That’s normally when it’s time to go home, eat a hefty dinner, go to sleep, and wake up in the wee morning hours to do it all over again (and hopefully do it better than the previous day).

I keep reminding myself that it’s only been three days (and they technically don’t count without the students) and I shouldn’t make any pre-conceived judgment calls about how I will perform based on just 24 total hours in the building. This week (and the one or two weeks immediately after) is about survival, learning what I can, and preparing myself to the best of my ability. I will not even meet some of my students and their parents until tomorrow afternoon (this Friday is Open House), so how can I sell myself short when the only people in the building are me and 70+ other adults (not counting administrators and support staff) that are just as weary as me?

I don’t yet know how I will get along with my students, but I’ll soon find that out. Even so, this is the one week in which I have to force myself to ignore my imagination because it’s all too busy conjuring up the worst possible scenarios that I could find myself in. And one thing I’ve learned is that real life is never as crushing or scary as I imagine it to be, but if I allow my imaginations to rule me rather than take a brace and just do the job as best I can, then likely I’ll turn out exactly as I fear I will. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy (or self-defeating depending on how you interpret it).

Educating Esme features a young woman whom I had the pleasure of getting to know in my Education-11 class in freshman year. Truly, it was Providence that I got to read about her in the first place because I had another English class scheduled for that semester, but on the second day, I ended up changing classes and switching over to Education.

But I’m rambling - Esme Raji Codell is one of my inspirations for teaching (even though her primary goal was to be a librarian – but at least she was upfront about it from the start). Her methods were unconventional, for her time and ours, but her main goal was to love her students. Granted, she could be a “dragon lady” when they pushed her far enough, but that’s how they learned to follow her rules and not take her lightly. But even she had her tough days. There were still days that her methods didn’t work out, or she had materials stolen right out from under her, or she was questioned heatedly by parents, or she lost her temper in front of her kids and needed to ask their forgiveness. Heck, she faced situations that most teachers today would consider a thing of the past – bullet-riddled classrooms, a principal and assistant principal that disparaged her for her success. Esme helped to show me that the best teachers are not the perfect ones; there is no such standard in existence. The best teachers are models of consistency. They are the ones who keep getting out of bed every morning to go to work on the heels of rotten days past. They are the ones who continually enforce their classroom management plan, dishing out consequences every time a misbehavior occurs, until the students learn to respect it. They learn to roll with the punches, to forgive themselves at the end of each day and take heart in the fact that the following day is fresh and new, with no mistakes in it yet. They savor the little victories and learn from the defeats (which is why they’re some of the smartest people around).

Of course I’m nervous. I have my moments in which I feel inadequate, not up to the task. Any normal human being in my position, even with all the preparation that Furman, early experience, and student teaching combined gave me, would probably feel the same way. But all I can do is take those moments as they come, deal with them, and then get back in and do my job. I must remind myself that I hold the fates of 106 seventh and eighth grade children in the palm of my hand, and that they will suffer if I surrender to my imagination (not to mention they’ll have free reign of the classroom). I have to remember that it’s all right to make a dozen little mistakes over the course of a single day (and a few biggies as well).

My students don’t expect me to be perfect, and neither do my mentors, my buddy teachers, my supervisor, the Greenville County School District, or grad school professors. I will consider myself a success when I make it past the first day, and the day after that, then the first week, the first two weeks, the month of September, and so on and so forth. It’s much easier to set myself up for success by giving myself some sort of foundation to start from rather than keep tearing it down by worrying about every little thing that goes wrong. It feels better if, by day’s end, I can say something like, “hey, this lesson worked pretty well today. The students were reasonably engaged; I didn’t have many disciplinary issues to work out. I’ll stick a feather in this and see if I can’t use it for future lessons…” Or something like, “well, I feel like today was a total wash, but I never know, it’s not like all the students felt that way. It’s their classroom, too; maybe they got something out of it that I didn’t see…” It’s finding those little slivers of joy that will keep me coming back.

All I know is, I’m strapped in for the ride of my life. I’m jumping head first into the deep ocean of teaching when part of me wishes I was back safe in the shallow end. But I can’t back-paddle in this profession. It’s all upwind from here. And I’m hopeful the baby steps that I’m starting out with will eventually turn into long, confident strokes that I’ll be able to muster without a second thought. Maybe when I actually do arrive at the end of a long year, I’ll feel thoroughly exhausted but already anticipating the next ride.