The gravest sin : favouritism

"You're a great teacher, but you have one problem - you have favourites"

When I read this feedback in the anonymous survey forms from five students I was shocked and disturbed - favouritism is one of the worst things a teacher can do - it distorts and poisons the classroom. What surprised me was that a teacher could have favourites without really being conscious of it. But I knew it must be true when so many students had written this in their feedback. 

It didn't take me long to realise the root cause : as a new teacher with a great class, I've made the mistake of not imposing a strict 'hands-up' rule during whole class discussion - with the consequences that a group of (well intentioned) students have dominated these sessions by calling out. And so week after week, the quieter students at the back of the class have been watching silently, building up the idea I preferred the ones in the front. Did I have favourites? I may not have thought so, but it surely worked out that way.

There's nothing for it when you get feedback like this - an immediate apology is required. I shared with the class my distress at having made this teaching mistake and apologised.  I thanked them for their trust and openness with me - and how grateful I was that they helped me be aware of this problem with my teaching. I was careful to put the blame where it rested - on me - and not on those students thought to be the favourites. I made a committment on their behalf to do better with my classes next year.  By small way of recompense - and as a test for myself to see if I could do it -  I made up a set of thirty "Thank You" cards and wrote a personalised comment to each student, taking care to demonstrate through the comments that I had indeed noticed what they had contributed to the class during the year. 

I'm so grateful my students gave me this feedback, and I really do believe the only reason they told me was because I collected anonymous feedback from them several times throughout the year. Without this framework and trust, students would never have dared tell a teacher about this until it was too late. Without the feedback, I could have blissfully continued unaware making the same mistake for years - building up a reservoir of hurt and misunderstanding along the way.

Was it all bad feedback from this class? Not at all :-)  Overall, the students really enjoyed the year and gave lots of positive feedback and encouragement. But as always - the most valuable feedback is the one that helps you see what didn't see before - appreciate the positive feedback, but it's the uncomfortable feedback that pays the biggest dividend.

Reaching the end of term for 2011? Try some anonymous student feedback - you will be amazed what you discover! Take the plunge - you will never regret it. Every time something special  happens - for the teacher and for the students. See my post on getting student feedback for templates and some suggestions. 

So what can I do better next time to avoid favouritism?

• Use the "hands-down/paddle-pop stick" system for asking questions. I had actually done this for the first month with this class but as we got more comfortable dropped it. Bad decision.
• Enforce "hands-up" for when students want to ask questions. How silly I feel writing this down - it's Teaching 101. I thought I didn't need to do this for this class - they were such enthusiastic students and it felt too authoritarian. Wow did that idealism bite me back!
• Split up or move dominant groups to a less prominent position in the classroom.
• Ask myself : have I visited each group table during this period? Have I asked them questions? Have I given them some of my time today?

Becoming a teacher: it's a marathon not a sprint!

Finally you've graduated teacher training - after so many lectures, so many lesson observations, practicums, and now you have your own classes - shiny new teacher, keen and eager to launch into the new career. BAM! You're off and racing!


Jeremy Wariner shows how to power off the starting block for a winning sprint.
This is not recommended for a new teacher.

Small problem though - you're sprinting ... but this is a marathon!

Feeling absolutely exhausted during most of my "holiday" break, I've belatedly realised I've been working at completely the wrong pace: that it will take three to five years to build the foundation - and I better start pacing myself accordingly. Sprinting isn't going to make it happen any faster.

I'm realising now that for each topic you teach, you actually need to teach it three times, over three years to have those basics covered.  The first year you engage deeply with the topic as you encounter it in the teaching program. You may think you fully understand a topic, but when you go to teach it, you'll realise you were only touching the sides. Thirty pairs of eyes and active minds will see, hear and do completely unexpected things, have completely unexpected questions and reactions to the topic and to the way you teach it. As you strip the topic down, and then build it back, weaving a sequence, a narrative and ornamentations around the topic, you will find your own understanding of the topic deepens and changes. I've been amazed how even the most supposedly basic concept (the area of the triangle) could require so much thinking.

Then a second year to repeat the topic, this time knowing what hurdles you will face and designing your teaching sequence and activities to match. But you're not done yet. You need a third go - because chances are you are now seeing a different type of class dealing with this topic - and the ideas you thought were good ideas for the second year needed reworking - or even ditching. So hopefully at the end of the third year, you have the topic well understood, you know some ways to successfully teach it, and you have a resource kit that matches your teaching approach, at your fingertips which can form the basis for future development.

Now - consider you are most likely concurrently teaching five different topics to five different classes, and moving to new topics every few weeks, usually without even a moment to collect your thoughts. Learning how to teach, making the topic connections and building your resources (even if people give you resources) really is going to take three years - just to lay the foundation of a long term teaching practice. And that's just thinking about content - we haven't even considered learning about classroom management, school procedures, working with parents and with other teachers. No wonder the new teacher sometimes feels like they are adrift at sea, trying to build a boat with a few planks of wood.  

What to do? Adjust the mindset for a marathon. This is going to be slow steady pacing - with some sprint training sessions for sure, but mostly about building endurance for the distance. It will take time. The so-called 'holiday breaks' aren't enough to catch up work, sleep, personal life and health if you have been sprinting for ten to thirteen weeks - so you need to be working efficiently and don't overdo it, allowing time for healing and recovery.  The pace you work at during school term has to be sustainable over the long term - there really will be no breaks, and it will be like this forever. Adapt - and pace for the marathon.

Nearing the finish line at the
2005 Gold Coast Marathon

Writing this post has reminded me of an an old dream I never finished: to run a marathon in under four hours. I finished my first marathon in 4 hours 32 minutes - was very painful, but very happy to have completed it (everyone is a winner in the marathon!). Second attempt was better, but a heartbreaking 4 hours and 2 minutes. Unfortunately I never went back for a third attempt - and now I'm old and fatter.  Maybe it's time to take up that challenge again (8 years later ...) and see if I can fit marathon training into a teaching schedule - now that's a challenge!

The Crying Game

Sometimes the adventure gets a little rough (with apologies to MGM).

I wrote this piece a month ago as a private reflection - at the time I was hesitant to share it more widely because it is a little emotional and I didn't want to take the chance my students would see it while I was feeling this way. However the response from the people I showed it to at the time suggests it might be helpful to other new teachers - even if just to realise how normal this sort of reaction is. And I think it's important for balance to show some of the low points as well as the high points of first term of teaching.

One week in March 2011

A shocker of a week - an absolute shocker of a week - the low point: finding myself crying uncontrollably - fortunately alone in my classroom at recess with the door shut. It was the end of a dreadful period with my "challenging class" - their rejection of my attempts to engage with them and the aggressive rudeness of some students finally got to me. I was angry and upset - upset with them, and then upset with myself that I was so upset - what sort of crappy teacher was I? Is this what I gave up a career in IT for? What I studied so hard for two years without pay for? I'm kind of laughing now - at the irrationality and intensity of it ... but it really did feel that way. I just bawled and bawled like a baby for a five minutes. I couldn't go into the faculty staff room - I didn't want anyone to see how low I had gone - or see my red eyes.

The day before, I had another dent in my confidence when the school executive decided not to support an initiative I thought I had their support for. Looking back I can see I didn't take the smart approach of getting genuinely solid support for the idea before it went to the meeting - I had forgotten my skills from the corporate world how to play that game. The combined effect of what felt like a rejection from both the school and the students with weeks' of sleep deprivation meant that by Wednesday night I really was feeling it was "Game Over" for me.

Fortunately I've got some great support in my faculty. After I confessed to my pathetic crying session to two colleagues, they shared their own stories of when they had their "crying time" and gave me support and many practical ideas how to deal with the challenges. As one put it to me : "All teachers go through this stage - and then you can go one of several ways: some teachers face it and work out how to deal with it and go on to be good teachers, others leave the profession, and the worst option, some never deal with it, but stay in the profession". I felt very sorry for myself - but decided I wanted to be in the first category of teachers: work it out.

Two days later I faced the test again: and a tougher test - a double period with the challenging class. Different teaching strategies, I stayed very calm, and ... amazingly .... the students (mostly) worked and (some) learned new material. Two students actually apologised to me for the previous period (they must have seen the start of my breakdown!), and the student who had been the most aggressive was polite and civil to me (one of my colleagues said that was their way of apologising). It went to so well, I actually let the students continue doing maths exercises rather than bring out some games I had planned - save that one for another day! Maybe we can start from this base, and slowly introduce some of those more engaging and deeper learning activities I perhaps foolishly tried on Day One. So the week ended on a high.

So why the uncontrollable flood of tears? Apart from just fear of failure, and the ego hit of being rejected, I really have been resisting the pressure to conform and follow more traditional approaches to the "teacher-student-role" - I didn't want to be the adult who dominates the classroom, who uses well-tried techniques to achieve command and control - techniques that I believe often create barriers and inhibit learning. In a way, those tears were for the loss of that of idealism, tears that I might have been terribly mistaken - and that to survive I would have to become what I don't want to be. What I've learnt though is it's not quite that black-and-white: students and the system itself are not always as open and welcoming to your idealism (naiveté?) as you may hope. So you do have to toughen up - this isn't a game for the weak. Now the challenge is to learn how to be strong and resilient, and carefully use those command-and-control techniques, and "play the system"- without losing the idealism, hope and commitment that are the reasons I want to be a teacher.

It's Saturday morning now - a great night's sleep - and the comfort of knowing I survived my first really challenging week. I'm so grateful for the support and friendship of colleagues. And also a little embarrassed to think of my reaction given I only have one class out of five that is challenging - I can only imagine what it's like for teachers who have maybe four out of five challenging classes - period after period, every day of the week.

I don't think I'll be crying again.

One month later: Looking back on this, part of me is chuckling at how sensitive I was at the time - but another part of me sees the importance of going through the experience.  I will be sharing some of the teacher responses to this story in the next post.