3 ms·

So was it like the cop turned math teacher in season 4 of The Wire?

acjohnson55 9y ago
If all the most intense moments of my brief teaching career were compressed into like 2 weeks: that's what Season 4 is like. So in one sense, it's truthful. But it's also a bit misleading. The real day-to-day experience was much more mundane and psychologically draining over the long grind of the school year, punctuated by sporadic crises and constant minor disruptions. It's an unbelievable amount of work to buy supplies, plan lessons, physically maintain your classroom, perform your material, engage those students, respond to the dynamism of hormonal teenagers, resolve conflicts, grade work, help administer the school, coach, conference with your colleagues, and follow-up with parents. Somewhere in there, you maybe get attend to your own physical needs. And no matter how badly you fuck up, you wake up at 6am to do it all again the next day, and the next. The challenges you face are manifold. I had a student arrive that spoke zero English. I had students who were refugees from Iraq, one of whom survived a school bombing. I had multiple students return after stints in the justice system. I had one student who lost his cousin, aunt, and grandma all in one day in a fire. I had a 14 year who had never learned subtraction. I had students with deep psychological issues, including one I believe (unprofessional) to be a sociopath. I had one student quietly stay after class to ask me if he could have one of my soups for lunch, since he hadn't eaten all weekend. I had to report one student's account of sexual abuse. I had students in rival gangs, and far worse, students who were gang wannabes. This is just what I remember off the top of my head, year's later. Put 25 or so students of these students in a room, and you never know what's going to happen in a given class period. The class, like a sports team, succeeds or fails as a unit. Many of these students come from home lives and neighborhoods where the idea of education lifting them out of poverty is demonstrably a total myth. You need to convince them that their whole experience is false, and get them to buy into the idea that solving for x is worth a damn. That's what it's like.

If all the most intense moments of my brief teaching career were compressed into like 2 weeks: that's what Season 4 is like. So in one sense, it's truthful. But it's also a bit misleading. The real day-to-day experience was much more mundane and psychologically draining over the long grind of the school year, punctuated by sporadic crises and constant minor disruptions. It's an unbelievable amount of work to buy supplies, plan lessons, physically maintain your classroom, perform your material, engage those students, respond to the dynamism of hormonal teenagers, resolve conflicts, grade work, help administer the school, coach, conference with your colleagues, and follow-up with parents. Somewhere in there, you maybe get attend to your own physical needs. And no matter how badly you fuck up, you wake up at 6am to do it all again the next day, and the next. The challenges you face are manifold. I had a student arrive that spoke zero English. I had students who were refugees from Iraq, one of whom survived a school bombing. I had multiple students return after stints in the justice system. I had one student who lost his cousin, aunt, and grandma all in one day in a fire. I had a 14 year who had never learned subtraction. I had students with deep psychological issues, including one I believe (unprofessional) to be a sociopath. I had one student quietly stay after class to ask me if he could have one of my soups for lunch, since he hadn't eaten all weekend. I had to report one student's account of sexual abuse. I had students in rival gangs, and far worse, students who were gang wannabes. This is just what I remember off the top of my head, year's later. Put 25 or so students of these students in a room, and you never know what's going to happen in a given class period. The class, like a sports team, succeeds or fails as a unit. Many of these students come from home lives and neighborhoods where the idea of education lifting them out of poverty is demonstrably a total myth. You need to convince them that their whole experience is false, and get them to buy into the idea that solving for x is worth a damn. That's what it's like.