The classroom management workshop I went to this week was so inspiring that I was almost (almost) disappointed that my classes were actually pretty well-behaved this week. I kept waiting for a moment when I could try out one of the shiny new routines Scott (classroom management guru) guaranteed would quench the majority of the problems I'm facing as a hapless student teacher. Right now, I anxiously anticipate the next time I vainly attempt to capture the class's attention--only to be defeated by a roomful of 15 year olds intently focused on chatting their ways up the all-important ladder of social hierarchy.

Ever since I left the classroom management workshop, I've been fantasizing my reaction to this absurd adolescent absorption: As the students continue to chatter, the small smile on my face will slip into a look of withering boredom, and my perfect facial expression will effectively communicate to the class the severity of their transgression. Once they have quieted down, I will say, quietly (but with great authority): "We need to try something new. From this moment on, whenever I say 'I need your eyes on me, please,' you WILL stop talking and look at me. In order for this to work, we are going to have to practice this several times..."

..and then I will drill, drill, drill the class on our new routine until they get it. Maybe it's a residual effect from my piano days, but I LOVE the idea of drilling a new routine to perfection. Scott recommended drilling 2-4 times, but I daydream about drilling to the point where I have absolute dictatorial control. While I was doing my classroom observations, I saw a class so well-trained that the teacher controlled them with a squeaky toy. In my wilder fantasies, I aspire for that type of power.

No one goes into teaching because they want to manage a classroom. Discipline is kind of like instruction's evil twin--or at least its ugly sidekick. However, discipline also sets the groundwork for effective instruction...and after this workshop, I'm almost itching to get my hands dirty.

Thank you to everyone who made such encouraging, sweet comments on the blog. I've felt like I have an entourage of angels whispering kind words on this journey, and--perhaps even as a result--I experienced some of my first satisfying moments in front of a class today.

I re-taught one of the lessons that flopped last week--only today, the lesson went well. (Of course, I still experienced some bumps in the classroom management department--every time the noise level gets to a certain point, I find myself physically crumpling in front of the class; at these moments, my amazing mentor teacher steps in. It never ceases to amaze me how a word from her can produce absolute silence from even large groups of rowdy adolescents.) But after the students became quiet and the learning-teaching-learning process began, I became surprisingly aware of the change in my own interior state. For the first time, I did not ardently wish that I possessed Harry Potter's invisibility cloak so that I could discretely remove myself from shame; instead, I found myself actually enjoying (imagine!) teaching. Welcome sensation though it was, I was nonetheless shocked to discover that it is possible to feel joy in front of a classroom. Who would have thought.

I think it had something to do with the group of students. As we talked about "Young Goodman Brown," they seemed to experience no difficulty grasping the concept that this story functions best on an abstract level. In fact, they were incredible at analyzing and articulating the symbolic meaning of the story's literal action. Also, a bunch of the students seemed to have a pretty good handle on the Bible, and my guess is that they were probably thrilled at the opportunity to use such hard-earned knowledge to help them in school. As we attempted to extrapolate a working definition of evil from this story, some of the kids actually seemed enthralled by the intellectual task at hand. I was enthralled by their enthusiasm. By the time I left school, I was so happy that I actually felt kind of like I was floating. Really. I looked down to check.

So I decided to celebrate by taking myself to a really great Indian buffet. (I consoled myself after my most recent teacherly failure in the same manner.) It was delicious, and my post-buffet self now solidly obeys the law of gravity. I don't even need to check.

Intro

Learning how to be a teacher is no picnic, but the experience is worse when you happen to be a person who speaks two octaves higher than your students and finish your phrases with even higher tonal fluctuations. Not only do I speak in questions, but my body language belies underlying social anxieties which diminish my ability to authoritatively organize adolescents. On my worst days, they can eat me like a snack. On my best--well, so far my best is a phenomenon for which I patiently await. I may wait awhile; it's a good thing I am self-supplied in terms of the edible.

As a student teacher, I am just beginning to take over two classes. Today I taught "Harrison Bergeron" to the sophomores, and I attempted to teach transcendentalism, symbolism, the impact of Hawthorne on American literature, and "Young Goodman Brown" to the seniors. Both of these lessons flopped. Over. Dead. As I tried to convey the vast scale of my failure in a conversation with a friend and fellow student teacher, I honed in on my body posture as symbolic of all that went wrong.

"I was sitting crouched over the text with my nose almost touching the top of my desk while my knees hit the desk from the bottom," I miserably recounted. "And it only got worse from there! With every poorly directed question, my voice got quieter and higher, until by the end of the lesson I was substituting whispered squeaks for teacher talk."

"Ah," he replied knowingly. "You went fetal. I do it too."

I paused, struck by the aptness of his descriptive. "Fetal?" I responded. "Yes, I suppose went fetal."

My loose interpretations of teaching are probably more embryonic than fetal--but, in the sense that the latter term references the vastly underdeveloped, I approve of its application to my experience.

After I decided three hours ago to start a blog, I considered, among other titles, "cowering in the classroom," and any number of plays which involved the word "groveling." However, I decided on "The Paved Road" for several reasons. First of all, as much as I adore self-deprecating alliterative play, the phrases I came up with were trite and finite. "The Paved Road," while allowing ample space for downplay of self, also opens the possibility that this journey might not be confined to the realm of para-professional failure. (However, the emphasis still feels satisfactorily centered on the the vehicular nature of good intentions which unfailingly transport me to infernal realms.)

Secondly, "The Paved Road" has been trodden before. I am not the first aspiring teacher to encounter difficulty--nor am I the first student teacher to frequently fail miserably at the task of teaching. This path, however humiliatingly hot, has been trekked before. I tread in company.