Role Reversal
"Mrs. Ferri, are you really telling kids that they can't say 'no homo'?"
The question took me aback for a minute, just like hearing a few boys casually toss this phrase around my classroom the week before had. I love my middle schoolers dearly and think the world of them, which makes it even more disturbing to hear such ugly things come out of their mouths sometimes. I spent a few nights stewing on this and sent an e-mail to our counseling department to circle back and teach intentionally to these moments. When I started to look through the resources they gave me, the whole thing got bigger for me. What if, I thought, the expository writing we need to practice anyway is timed at a perfect intersection with some real life applicability? What if my students would actually be the better teachers?
I spent the weekend putting together a project for my Pre AP students, including the class with the harmful phrase hockey, where they will do the work to teach each other why some of these most harmful things that they say so carelessly must be opposed as adamantly as I did in their class last week. I want them to get it, and I want them to help each other to get it. Because I know they can. Which brings us to today. My 7th hour student made it clear that, one way or another, the kids are talking about the project.
"So is it true? What's the problem?"
There are so many moments in teaching where I can see two paths roll themselves out clearly in front of me. My husband teases me for my indecisiveness, but I would argue that by the time I get home, I'm just worn out from being deliberately decisive all day long, with the implications of each choice holding more weight than I might even realize at times. Today, I could reiterate that "no homo" simply wouldn't be tolerated in my classroom and move on with our regularly scheduled programming, or I could take a minute to answer thoughtfully. This was one of the easier decisions I made over the course of the day.
Since we just finished reading "Flowers for Algernon", we had a conversation about how "pulling a Charlie Gordon" and "no homo" weren't all that different in theory. We talked about the staggering statistics of how many teenagers harm themselves and how many end their own lives, many because they are made to feel uncomfortable for one reason or another about who they are. Race. Religion. Ethnicity. Sexual Preference. Weight. Height. You name it. We talked about how my job as a Mama Bear is to protect my students and to give them a safe place to be who they were made to be. Because everyone deserves to feel secure in that way, right? Heads started to nod. Maybe they started to get it. We talked about how my Pre AP classes would hopefully be able to explain it better than I could by the end of their project-that-I-hope-will-be-much-more, and I asked them to really hear out their classmates when they tried. I told them I wanted to know the kind of people who could have the courage to say to each other, "I'm uncomfortable when you say that," and, "We don't say that here."
"But what if we're just joking around? I mean, at least 'that's so gay' is fine, right?" His classmates were ready to answer that one for me. Score one for the team.
As our boys acted goofy, made Alexa their personal TRL, and figured out new and inventive ways to avoid eating anything healthy on their plates tonight at dinner, I relayed this story to Tom. He's been my sounding board and proofreader for the project, after all. When I was finished, Tyson turned to me and said, "It sounds like he asked the right teacher his questions, Mama. I bet he's glad he was in your class." I hadn't even known he was listening.
And that's exactly the point, isn't it? Someone is always listening. We are sometimes heard when we don't even realize it, even when we don't mean to be. My school kids needed me to be a mom today, and my own kid saw me as a teacher. The best I can hope is that each of them heard what they needed to hear from me.
The question took me aback for a minute, just like hearing a few boys casually toss this phrase around my classroom the week before had. I love my middle schoolers dearly and think the world of them, which makes it even more disturbing to hear such ugly things come out of their mouths sometimes. I spent a few nights stewing on this and sent an e-mail to our counseling department to circle back and teach intentionally to these moments. When I started to look through the resources they gave me, the whole thing got bigger for me. What if, I thought, the expository writing we need to practice anyway is timed at a perfect intersection with some real life applicability? What if my students would actually be the better teachers?
I spent the weekend putting together a project for my Pre AP students, including the class with the harmful phrase hockey, where they will do the work to teach each other why some of these most harmful things that they say so carelessly must be opposed as adamantly as I did in their class last week. I want them to get it, and I want them to help each other to get it. Because I know they can. Which brings us to today. My 7th hour student made it clear that, one way or another, the kids are talking about the project.
"So is it true? What's the problem?"
There are so many moments in teaching where I can see two paths roll themselves out clearly in front of me. My husband teases me for my indecisiveness, but I would argue that by the time I get home, I'm just worn out from being deliberately decisive all day long, with the implications of each choice holding more weight than I might even realize at times. Today, I could reiterate that "no homo" simply wouldn't be tolerated in my classroom and move on with our regularly scheduled programming, or I could take a minute to answer thoughtfully. This was one of the easier decisions I made over the course of the day.
Since we just finished reading "Flowers for Algernon", we had a conversation about how "pulling a Charlie Gordon" and "no homo" weren't all that different in theory. We talked about the staggering statistics of how many teenagers harm themselves and how many end their own lives, many because they are made to feel uncomfortable for one reason or another about who they are. Race. Religion. Ethnicity. Sexual Preference. Weight. Height. You name it. We talked about how my job as a Mama Bear is to protect my students and to give them a safe place to be who they were made to be. Because everyone deserves to feel secure in that way, right? Heads started to nod. Maybe they started to get it. We talked about how my Pre AP classes would hopefully be able to explain it better than I could by the end of their project-that-I-hope-will-be-much-more, and I asked them to really hear out their classmates when they tried. I told them I wanted to know the kind of people who could have the courage to say to each other, "I'm uncomfortable when you say that," and, "We don't say that here."
"But what if we're just joking around? I mean, at least 'that's so gay' is fine, right?" His classmates were ready to answer that one for me. Score one for the team.
As our boys acted goofy, made Alexa their personal TRL, and figured out new and inventive ways to avoid eating anything healthy on their plates tonight at dinner, I relayed this story to Tom. He's been my sounding board and proofreader for the project, after all. When I was finished, Tyson turned to me and said, "It sounds like he asked the right teacher his questions, Mama. I bet he's glad he was in your class." I hadn't even known he was listening.
And that's exactly the point, isn't it? Someone is always listening. We are sometimes heard when we don't even realize it, even when we don't mean to be. My school kids needed me to be a mom today, and my own kid saw me as a teacher. The best I can hope is that each of them heard what they needed to hear from me.
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