Calling all youth group leaders, teachers, etc...

[miriamjoyce]

I'm going to be teaching a weeklong, three hour per day class in publishing at the Summer Institute at the College of St. Rose this July. The class will be composed of up to 20, though probably more like 12 to 15, 6th through 10th graders (listing to the younger end, I'm told

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[palaverist]

I have only a limited amount of teaching experience, and in weird circumstances at that, but I got a couple of great pieces of advice from Jenny's parents, who made careers of teaching.

1. "Don't crack your first joke before Christmas." This came from a book on discipline that Jenny's mom claimed saved her teaching career. It's a bit extreme, but the point, I think, is sound: if you first establish yourself as a serious force to be reckoned with, you can then loosen up and have fun later without the risk of losing control completely. I had a beloved middle school English teacher who always showed up in suits and kept his desk anally well ordered. He would leap around the room and get totally ridiculous with us as we diagrammed sentences and the like, but he could go cold and serious very quickly, and we didn't dare challenge that. He established that order by being chilly and scary for the first day or two. I personally had trouble maintaining the chill that long, but I did learn to start all my new classes with a glaring litany of requirements and disciplinary consequences for failure to bring your book, bring a pencil, etc. It definitely helped.

2. "Teaching is like pushing a millstone with a broken shoulder." This isn't exactly advice, just a useful metaphor to remember when it feels like you're getting exactly nowhere through tremendous and painful effort. It helped me to know I wasn't the only one to feel frustrated and useless. In the end, I did see progress sometimes (and also regress), but it wasn't quick or easy.