When Life Gives You Lemons

You know that you are going to have an interesting day when the toilet mysteriously clogs in the middle of the night. I’m not going to speculate what really happened. Somethings in life are better left unknown. All I know is that I woke up at 3:30 am to a clog. Half asleep, unable to see more than a foot in front of me, I grabbed the plunger and started to plunge. After about 10 minutes, my efforts seemed futile. Besides, the toilet wasn’t going anywhere. It could wait until morning.

Then, 7am came. I grabbed my glasses, walked to the bathroom, was relieved that the toilet hadn’t actually gone anywhere, and continue my efforts. Able to see clearly, I quickly became suspicious of my failure. Upon close inspection, I realized that I had been trying to plunge a toilet with a holey plunger (that is holey as in “lots of holes”, not holy as in “sacred”). Unwilling to admit defeat, I put on some pants, grabbed my wallet, walked down to the convenient store and bought myself a plunger (less than 200 yards…rather convenient).

I didn’t really stop and think what an odd sight it is to see a man purchasing a plunger at 7:20 in the morning. I got a lot of looks and one comment from my landlord. But I was determined to complete my mission.

When I returned to the bathroom, the toilet was STILL there. Thank goodness. Unfortunately, after another 10 minutes of plunging with a functional hammer, the darn thing would not budge. $1.99 plunger…wasted.

I would have explored other methods but I needed to be at school in less than 30 minutes. So, I ate breakfast, made myself lunch, got dressed (for work, this time), packed my bag and went on my merry way. Of course, I made a point of stopping by my landlord’s store to ask if he knew anyone that could take care of the clog. He said he would take care of it before my roommates and I got back from work.

Most of my morning was rather uneventful. I subbed during my 1^st period prep, taught my reading students about the Paralympics (they are reading an article about Martine Wiltshire), and I introduced my Freshmen Physical Science students to Newton’s Second Law of Motion. Then I had my 5^th period.

I don’t talk about my students that much but today is a clogged toilet kind of day. Now, all of my classes have their trouble makers. You know, those one or two students who like to gossip instead of listen or tease other students or not follow the rules. They are easy to spot in every classroom and, once in a while, they do something so severe that they get sent to the office. Well, if my other classes have trouble makers, my 5^th period class is just plain trouble. If you can imagine every type of difficult student there can be, I’ve got one in my 5^th period. Talkative, loud, defiant, rude, a real classroom management nightmare. What makes it all worse is that, when they are almost all being bad, it is hard to single one of them out for a more severe punishment. How can I justify sending one to the office for swearing once when I know that two other students were just making fun of that students and I have giving warnings to two different students for breaking a class rule.

First semester, I saw my 5^th period class as a classroom management challenge. If I couldn’t turn this rowdy group into decent classroom of students, how could I call myself a real teacher? Like a clogged toilet, I just needed the right plunger. By the end of 1^st semester, I really thought that I was making progress. With constant reminders and gentle requests, I managed to get through each period with minimal frustration.

Then, winter break happened and things returned to chaos. In two weeks, I had completely lost them. As I stood over one of my students, demanding that he hand over his iTouch which he had been using to cheat on his quiz, I realized that I had made a huge mistake. Last semester, they weren’t getting better, I was. I was getting better at stopping the shenanigans before they started. I was starting every class period on high alert; ready to interfere at the first sign of a disruption.  I learned how to read the signs of their bad behavior but they were learning nothing about how and why they should exhibit good behavior.

After the iTouch incident, I broke down and realized that I needed to change the way I handled the class. I went to my principal, laid out the situation, and decided that, for the time being, I needed to switch to the one-warning policy. After that, I was to send them straight to the office. I informed the class of the policy change on Wednesday (our first day back because of MLK Jr. Day on Monday and another cyclone warning day on Tuesday that was marked by gorgeous weather) and I enforced it for the first time today. It was not a pretty sight.

One of boys walked into class, sat down, and put on his sunglasses. It was a test. I knew it was a test because I had played this game with him before. I ask him to take off the sunglasses, he does, but then he puts them back on. I tell him to take them off or they are mine. He takes them off and, shortly thereafter, he puts them back on. I demand that he give them to me he refuses, puts them away and then puts them back on.  Eventually, he would stop but it was either on his terms or on the off chance that I was quick enough to take them off his face before he realized. Today, I wanted none of it. It was a waste of my time, it kept the entire class from learning, and I was tired of it.

I asked him to take off the sunglasses. He pretended that he didn’t hear me. I walked up to him and gave it to him straight. He could either give me the sunglasses or go to the office. When he refused, I wrote him a referral. When he refused to leave, I called the office. Angrily, he stood up, stared me down and walked towards me. I’d seen the act before and was not amused. Then he gave me a slight shove, swore, pushed a desk and slammed the door behind himself. As I called the office back to inform them of his inappropriate departure, the rest of the class looked on in awe at what had just occurred. I returned the desk to its rightful position and began the lesson.

The rest of the day went rather smoothly until after school when that student returned. Having just received a 3-day suspension for his behavior, he was quite livid. He told me he didn’t understand why I had done what I had done and why what he had done was bad. He blamed me for his punishment. So, I did what I always do. I reasoned with him. I reminded him what happened, I showed him the passage in the school handbook that talks about the wearing of sunglasses, and he seemed to come around because, minutes later, he politely asked me for a quarter so that he could take the bus home. This turned into a conversation about how he hates to walk. From there, he asked if he could borrow my computer to check his e-mail. This, quickly, turned into him checking his Facebook.

As I watched him write on his friends’ walls and try to keep from reading his messages I remembered that my students are only 15 and 16. As much as they want me to think that they are all grown up, they are still just kids. Growing up isn’t easy. The lines between right and wrong are blurred; they have all of these new emotions that they don’t know how to control; and they don’t want/know how to take responsibility for their actions.

I am in no way trying to justify the actions of my student. His behavior was out of line. I am, however, trying to remind myself that his brains, like all of my students’ brains, is still developing and someday, maybe, it will click that I’m not cracking down because I am out to get any them. I’m not trying to ruin any of their lives. In fact, I’m trying to do the opposite. I don’t enjoy referring them to the office but they need to learn how to take responsibility for their words and actions and, if this works, then, at least, I have taught them something. I have, in fact, enriched their lives.

I got back to my house around 4pm and the toilet was completely unclogged. Just like new. Of course, 4 hours later, the water stopped running. But, that is the thing with life; there is always another challenge to be overcome.

   

Life, Uh...Finds A Way

After spending 10 amazingly awesome days back in beautiful Massachusetts with my friends and family, today, I made my triumphant return to Samoana High School. Feeling relaxed and rejuvenated, I was ready to start a brand new semester on a high note.

As I opened the door to my room, I noticed that it was warmer than I had remembered. I immediately ran for the vents to check the AC…it was on. Best I could gather, the school had turned off the air conditioning over break. Save the school some money; not a bad idea.

I continued my trek across my classroom and turned on the lights (why my light switch is across the room from the door, I still can’t quite understand.) As I scanned my gloriously tiny classroom, I noticed it was much dirtier than I remember leaving it. It also had an odd smell.

Upon initial inspection, everything seemed in order. Chairs were folded in the corner, tables were leaning against the wall, and my “desk” was clear of clutter. Then I spotted it. On my one of my students’ “Mitosis vs. Meiosis” project from last semester…MOLD! A closer look led me to mold on other projects and on the sides of the desks. Green, white and black, it was everywhere.

But, how? Using my best logic, turning off an air conditioner in a humid climate is a bad idea. When the AC was turned off, the hot equatorial sun heated the building. The humidity started to rise. However, the objects in the room were still cool and water began to condense. Since the sides of my desks aren’t finished and my students projects are made of clay, they had just the necessary amount of nutrients to harbor some lovely mold spores.

Realizing the dangers of loose mold spores in an enclosed room, I reached for my handy-dandy Clorox wipes (every teacher’s best friend) and began to scrub my desks. Next, I made a move to take down the posters when the bell rang. There was no time. The posters would have to wait…a…minute…and then I saw it! In the ceiling, near the rope from which the posters were hanging was a HOLE!

It was a small hole. Maybe a student was fooling around when I wasn’t looking and punched a hole in the ceiling. After all, it was only mineral fiber board. Not that difficult to puncture. A little angry about the disrespect for my classroom, I moved to open the door and there it was…another hole! It was then that I realized this was not the work of a student. No, this was the work of a true mastermind. It was a rat! Yes, I said, a rat!

While the presence of a rodent in my classroom would have sent me straight to the janitor or an exterminator, I simply went on with my day. In my classes, we talked about what my students did over vacation and they set goals for the upcoming semester. During my prep, I took down the moldy posters and had a student throw them away in the dumpster. That was that because, realistically, there isn’t much that can be done. On a small, mountainous island, there really isn’t much living space. Rodents, cockroaches, termites and other vermin are a fact of life here.

That is not say they aren’t annoying and a little creepy. The minute I see a cockroach in my house, the hunt is on. But there is always going to be another cockroach. True, the questionable building materials and shoddy workmanship don’t really help the situation (my building is newly renovated and the builders are still putting the finishing touches on two of the labs) but, in the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, “life, uh…finds a way.”

Of course, I do draw the line when it comes to my students' learning. If I walked in this morning to find a rat/mold infestation, I would have marched down to the office and demanded immediate action. In order for positive learning to occur, it must occur in a positive environment. But I never saw a rat and the mold was easily taken care of.  It didn’t affect my students’ ability to learn and, thus, it wasn’t a top priority. To sound super cliché, the rule in American Samoa is that you have to roll with the punches and choose your battles wisely. Some days, there will be rats in your ceiling.