teaching-first quarter–Fall 2009

The Santa Cruz faculty met yesterday for about four hours going over a questionaire we first did two years ago.  Things have gotten better there, in part because of efforts by the superintendent, by the principal, by an  outside advisor, by the teachers, by the students– even by the parents?  I have a question mark for the last one only because I see and hear from so very few parents.

Nobody but a teacher, and very few of them, would care to know any details.  What happens at Santa Cruz stays at Santa Cruz.

But I am pleased that the past four weeks have been my best there.  I think I mentioned before that we are teaching four-day weeks.  I suppose for that reason I am more aware of using the time wisely and am more purposeful about how the classes go.  I also have more experience in understanding the students and understanding the works I teach.  As it says in the old song, “by your pupils you’ll be taught”, and part of that learning is knowing what they don’t know.  Part of what they don’t know is how a class can work best.  It is part of what I do–the class management part–to allow as much freedom as possible without letting chaos reign.  What will work with a particular group of students depends on how forceful yet friendly I can be, how organized yet flexible I can be if necessary.  The second part of it depends on how the students themselves take on the challenge of being self-disciplined enough to get the teacher to trust them so they can be allowed to have more freedom; and the freedom they most desire is to be cheek and jowl with their chums.  Now, this is not how I was when I was their age, but it is them, and one of the things I appreciate most about them:  their affection for each other, their friendships.  If public school education has any redeeming quality it should be the social possibilities (socialization as modern Gradgrinds call it).