One Year of Teaching: Graded

It was a year ago, on this very date, that I was summoned back home by my alma mater to fill in, only temporarily, as a high school German teacher.

For seven months I stayed there, a non-education major first-year teacher working in an area outside of my major or even minor focus of studies. 365 days later, I've yet to escape the title German teacher, I have only added "Native-Speaking English and" in front of the moniker.

Here's a one-year reflection, by the grades:

A+

Teaching has been all about learning for me, and I've become rather good at learning on the fly. I learned how to become an educator last year, melding the best of what I remembered from schooldays gone by and the energy of camp. I've learned from the kids, often without their knowledge. And now teaching has taken me to Hungary, an adventure of constant learning, if not comfort. And when push came to shove, I even taught myself German adjective endings!

A

Being me. Only after a five-minute tirade, chanting "Carpe Diem lads, seize the day, make your lives extraordinary!" to an eighth-hour class of befuddled freshman, did I realize an important lesson. I am who I am, for better or worse. And all that I can really do is be who I am, and hope that the kids learn from that. When I caught a girl cheating, I assigned her to write an essay entitled "Who am I?" Even though it was German class, the assignment was in English. When the German III kids needed to understand why music is sung, we discussed the meaning of life. The discussion was in English. Sometimes learning is more important than the class description.

A-

Rock and Roll and the German Verb. A month-long unit, and exploration, of two topics not mutually exclusive, and my pet-project for quite some time. Unable to teach them everything they needed to know because I had never been taught everything I needed to know, we branched into areas of interest and intrigue. The point of rock and roll, if not language and life, is the verb, no? By the end of the unit, they had written a German song (of various merit), starred in a German music video (again, of various merit), and had perhaps learned a little bit about the German past tenses through the game of Four Square.

B+

The average grade the kids gave me in an evaluation last spring... The gamut ranged from A+ through C -, although one kid simply opted to give me a frowny face. Their comments were scattered, as well. But on average, they seemed to agree that I tried hard, took a unique approach and was engaging, even if I wasn't always (ever?) masterful in the subject area. And seeing as I've been supervised/evaluated all of two minutes over the course of one year, I suppose we'll have to go with the childrens' word.

B

Playing grown-up. It hasn't always been easy, after all I'm far closer in age to the average pupil than the average teacher. But when your first predecessor was fired for sleeping with a student, it helps you make better choices. A fun excursion into adulthood has been fashion. It took a while, first hour kids were good coaches last year, and I'm improving. It hasn't always been good, though. One day last spring I matched so horribly -- apparently -- that they made me put on my raincoat so they wouldn't have to look at me. It's fun to wear a tie. Even more fun with a sportscoat.

B-

Making learning fun, experiential. We might expect this to be my specialty, but I'm not content with what I've done so far. Years of camps and ropes courses are so different than the classroom. The square stagnancy of sitting in desks hinders even my creativity, I fear. But for all the drab lectures on verbs, articles and cases, there have been creative highlights: Herzblatt posters, where the kids created a blind date for me. (Most were generous.) Fashion drawings, where the German scholars decked me out in a creative wardrobe. English/German fairy tales and superheroes, dancing across notebook paper in drawing and story.

C+

High expectations. It's easy to claim to demand high expectations, but in reality much harder to enforce and maintain. I can do better.

C

Giving up on the kids who don't want to learn. It was hard to accept, but I quickly realized there was little I could do to FORCE kids to engage a language, English or German. I want to let them make the best choice for themselves -- and I know they can learn something from being allowed to fail -- but... So I let them fail. For better or worse.

C-

My ability to control, discipline. In many ways, it's a grave apathy, shrouded under the liberal concerns of being afraid to colonize, afraid to impose my definitions upon the kids. In reality, I think I'm just not tough enough, and am too willing to take things upon myself.

D

My level of play in last spring's tsunami relief teachers-vs-students charity basketball game. After much-ballyhooed promises of excellence and vertical leap, the final results weren't pretty:

zero points, 0-3 shooting (including a missed lay-up)
2 assists, 2 steals, 3 turnovers
mishandled defensive strategy allowed the game-winning bucket with 2 seconds left

F

Fluency in the German language. One might expect, after a year of "intensive study and teaching," some significant progress, if not a degree of expertise, in a language. Unfortunately for this self-analysis, watching Austrian MTV does not count as "intensive study," and it is all I can do to lead a class discussion for 45 minutes without falling over in sheer exhaustion. Some of the kids are better than me. Luckily, I'm okay with that. I blame it on my accent, and give them an asterisked 5.