Teaching is a very challenging profession. It entails a continual evaluation of your methods and your role as a leader, a counselor, a friend, and, when necessary, a disciplinarian. This multifaceted role is to be expected because you are charged with what we all understand is a very important mission, that of helping to mold young minds. Furthermore, to be a teacher is to be faced with the fact that any group is characterized by a certain dynamic component that seems difficult to predict, much less control. I liken it to the difficulties that weather forecasters have, trying to take into account all manner of variables in their efforts to understand, anticipate and respond to a fast-approaching weather front. Will it be a storm? Will the tempest pass us by and dissipate harmlessly? Will we have clear conditions conducive to harmony and reception, or will we be faced with squalls and with unforeseen phenomena that will draw attention away from the class? And in this case, if I were to continue with the metaphor, we face conditions that change in response to our actions, in ways we can’t always foresee. This dynamism represents a challenge and, for all that I have learned about techniques of classroom management and pedagogical techniques, I’ve find myself frequently frustrated, both as a university professor but also, especially, in my guise as an occasional substitute teacher.
In any level of teaching I find that it is essential to constantly reach out and try to gauge the reaction of my students. After all, I remember my own experiences, and can reflect on those teachers who have been singularly ineffective. For example, I’ve seen those who are so consumed by the particularities of classroom decorum and procedure so as to lose sight of the bigger picture. They are quick to pounce on any minor infraction, quick to assign punishment, and unable to see how this will constitute an incitement to rebellion on the part of their students. Others in my experience (not too many, thankfully) have appeared supremely disdainful of their charges, sullenly going through the empty ritual of presenting material before dismissing the students to pursue their own private ends which involve circulating around the room, chatting and engaging in horseplay. It is any wonder that these teachers are similarly dismissed by their students, in this self-sustaining cycle of mutual disdain? And there are of course those who try to be receptive to the needs of their students, offering a sympathetic ear and trying to be flexible when it is apparent that they are having difficulties, even though, with classes being the dynamic entities that they are, they aren’t always successful. They are just as likely as the other types of teachers to ends up burned out under the emotional overload.
It is a given that I’ve been reflecting on my experiences as a student since I was very young, and I remember the frustration I felt. It isn’t enough to say that we are young and consequently immature. Yes, this is so, and we all come from diverse backgrounds, and these backgrounds and the particular family dynamics as well as socioeconomic circumstances as well as the abilities and inclinations we all have influence our experience in school. However, I would like to believe that there is always room for engagement, and that we can all learn to recognize the obstacles that we face, even may be cited in a certain truism, obstacles constitute the markers of adolescence. But it is also hard to dismiss the influence of personal factors and they way in which they mark out our path from an early age. Speaking for myself, if I could have been different, I would.
In the beginning I was an unexceptional student. Even in those early days at ******* Elementary I remember that I wanted to do my best to blend in with the other students. It was more important to gain the acceptance of my friends than to curry favor with a teacher even if, in those early years, we tend not to adopt such a confrontational attitude towards them. They are, after all, our surrogate parents even though I am not ashamed to admit, as with any family, we have our favorites. But in the course of those early years I started changing, and finding it more and more difficult to engage with others, for various personal reasons. And because of this I retreated into a private realm.
At this time books became a refuge for me. There was always an element of safety and comfort involved in books, because they didn’t engage in banter, in chants, in aggressive horseplay and in the many forms of bullying that I would encounter. This is not to say that shied away from this conduct myself. To my discredit, I would engage in it myself, because as children we were always on the outlook for those who were even more vulnerable than we were, in order to enforce our own pecking order. There is a certain amount of shameful glee that children have in discrediting or shaming others, and they are all quick to react with verbal taunts or aggressive challenges that seem thoroughly unprovoked but seem to obey the logic of Newtonian mechanics. If you are in my way, you will be struck, because if any body has a surfeit of momentum, it is children who, as with billiard balls on a board that are about to be struck by a cue, are always in expectation of the next smashing encounter. And thus, slowly, after many of these experiences, I learned to withdraw to my own corner, taking refuge instead in my own particular world, that opened up to me by Peanuts comic strips, Dr. Doolittle books, Ted Hughes’ short work “The Iron Giant” and by the ethereal works of science fiction.
Books served to nurture me, but they also naturally amplified my solitude and withdrawal. It seemed to me even back then that reading conferred upon me a sense of power, for it helped me to gain the notice of my teacher. To read was also to proclaim to the world that I was occupied, that I was indifferent to the triviality that I saw around me, and that I preferred instead a more sedate occupation. Many times I chose to remain seated in my room rather than venture out in what I saw as more unstructured and, potentially, dangerous pursuits, ones that would make evident my shortcomings as an athlete or as a self-obsessed mercenary (which is not to say I wasn’t self-obsessed as a reader). I had encouraging teachers from an early age, and as I found the scope of my references as well as my vocabulary expand, I was pleased to note that these teachers recognized something in me that was worth cultivating, even if my social skills didn’t develop as a consequence. By then, however, it didn’t matter that my classmates ridiculed me. I had already dismissed them also, and thought I was well on my way to becoming a self-made man, recapitulating by reading what Horatio Alger had demanded of his peers to do when he exhorted them to “Move West!”. In that respect, I now realize, I was no different from any of the other students of my age.
Now that I have become a teacher myself, I am forced to revisit some of these same experiences once again. This is all the more discomforting because I had sought to bury them in the past, wishing as I did to strike out in a different direction and not treading over territory I have crossed before. It is an unfortunate reality that I was an indifferent teacher, and found myself resistant to this prospect when it was suggested to me in graduate school. This may seem surprising, since it is assumed that most graduate students will be pursuing a teaching career, but back then, in the early 90s, I had just made the transition from an engineering job and I viewed this second chance as a way to somehow compensate for that which I had missed when I was an undergraduate. I was fooling myself into thinking that I would have more options open to me than teaching, and I was desperately waiting for them to present themselves. Unfortunately, they never did.
Most of my teaching has been done at the university level, and the experiences are much different from those afforded at K-12 institutions. For one thing, students tend to be much more respectful. They will actually take notes, they will usually remain quiet and in their seats and they will make an effort to turn in materials. They do remain a little too quiet, however, something that that was even more evident in my graduate classes wherein we would be prompted to speak and we would resist, seeking in many instances to maintain silence in order not to say anything foolish. Thankfully, this gradually changed as we gained more self confidence, and by the second or third year we were usually more participative, a skill developed in large part because seminar are run as forums for student presentations. And yet, after teaching for almost fifteen years, I still have many experiences that lead me to doubt whether I am really making any progress.
During the past few years I have also had to venture into substitute teaching from time to time, in order to supplement my income, and this has been a wholly different experience. It is, in essence, a primal one, in which emotions and impulses and actions are much less restrained, and in which I find myself frequently bewildered. It also has revived all the unpleasant memories I had of my own experiences as a teacher, and of the feeling of being beleaguered. In many of these sub assignments I am confronted by students who are indifferent, insolent, confrontational, or simply bored. They seem to dismiss this experience as an unpleasant interruption to their daily lives and frequently offer a solid wall of resistance that I struggle to break through. They are fully as rebellious and loud and vicious as I remember them being, and at times I have to admit that as I look out at them, I see my modern paragons, the quite student out in the corner with a book who seems isolated and who seems as bewildered as I was at that age. These are moments of recognition that flash through me and through all the intervening years since I found myself in a similar place.
But things aren’t always as frustrating as I have suggested. I also see minds that are sometimes receptive, minds that will collaborate with others and will share impressions, as was the case last year when I had an assignment with a class that was reading John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”, and as part of my instructions I was asked to have them engage in role play. Perhaps they were receptive to the language that, although frequently recalling a rural dialect, seemed honest, or perhaps they understood this dynamic of two friends who were outcasts and who were trying to survive in trying circumstances. It couldn’t help but give me a sense of hope, validating as it did a long-standing belief I had had in the value of literature in helping to nourish reflection and an appreciation for human values, even when underscored by the tragic conflict that was evident in this novel. I admit that I am constrained as a substitute teacher, and pedagogy can’t seem to teach me fail-safe methods, but I have had fulfilling experiences. Most of the time, however, I seem to be digging a hole in the sand.
What prompted me to share these reflections is a film from 2008 that I just finished watching called “The Class”. It is based on a novel by Francois Begaudeau, who also acts in this film. I remembered reading a review of it a few years ago in the New York Times, in which it was described as a profoundly disquieting film. I indeed found it harrowing in its depiction of the experiences of a teacher in a Parisian public school.
The scenes were all too familiar to me. Crowded classrooms, insolent kids who can’t stay still and daily episodes of verbal sparring as they seek to subvert the “system” they so seem to despise. The resistance on the part of all to the entreaties of the teacher who seeks to reach out and engage them with a sense of escalating futility is something I have seen and remember well, and it is a constant among all teachers. At least in American classrooms, for I’ve been led to believe that classrooms in China, in Mexico, in India and in many other places are different. Many of my immigrant informants never fail to express their incredulity when they find themselves in an American classroom.
The students in this inner-city urban school are very diverse, reflecting the many immigrant streams to Europe in the past few decades. Many of them are of African descent, from both the northern part of the continent as well as the Sub-Saharan regions. They all have an uneasy identification with France, as was the case with myself as the son of Mexican immigrants who at times found it easier to repudiate my connection with the United States when I felt that my concerns and my heritage weren’t explored, although there were always other circumstances in which I couldn’t help proclaiming it. But when have immigrants not felt the pull of the disparate strands of their diverse heritages? Japanese-Americans feel it, German-Americans feel it, Irish-Americans feel it, so why was I to be any different?
What I find most familiar is the way in which the students express their own vulnerabilities. They are unsure of themselves, and this contributes to their need to lash out in class, in a way that involves continually challenging their teachers. The kids talk constantly, they swing back on their chairs, they use vulgarities for the satisfaction of their shock value, and they assert the primacy of their own individuality, with all the mini-dramas that these entail. This is, after all, adolescence. And it is frustrating for the teacher in the film to reach out to them, which he tries do to so in what seems to me to be a characteristically French way, by engaging in constant dialogue and banter. It never becomes any easier. These never-ending discussions and verbal confrontations are exercises in wordplay and never fulfill the true corrective function they are meant to exercise, they merely provide another battleground for these classroom conflicts.
There is one scene towards the middle of the film in which a young teacher enters the student lounge shaking his head in disgust and contempt, exclaiming “This is it! No more!”. He seems very brittle and on the verge of a breakdown as he expresses himself furiously in a long monologue in which he criticizes his students, comparing them to animals who carry on as if they are always “in heat”, not receptive to anything he says, not willing to take the class seriously and not willing to make the effort to overcome their circumstances. The rest of the teachers sit or stand by silently, unable to say anything, with expressions of concern and fatigue as they see a colleague melt down in front of them, knowing full well that they have been in that same position themselves. Finally, one offers comfort, and invites him out to take some air before they both return to the classroom. I’ve often wondered if others have seen my own frustration as well, but then again, my impulse has always been to retreat even though I have also felt myself belittled and humiliated by some of my experiences.
The stories told in this class portray the way in which the students wish to assert themselves as they seek a sense of security and confidence. Much of what they do involves maintaining an act, as is the case with the kid with the Goth affection who speaks about the need to distinguish himself from all his other classmates, asserting his individuality and telling them that the dark clothing attests to his “inner gloom”, but being forced to recognize that he is adopting a wardrobe and a guise that is artificial because it has been pioneered and adopted by a group. And it is natural to recognize that the dictates of these roles can frequently be taken to extremes.
One instance of this is evident in the episode of a student from Mali by the name of Souleymon, a young man who never brings his materials to class, never makes an effort to complete any work, and who is known for his biting comments and his poor attitude. The teacher tries to reach out to him, but this student has few advocates among the faculty at this school. He is known by all for his disruptive influence, and his coming expulsion constitutes almost a fait accompli that is merely waiting for that culminating episode to be brought into practice. It is perhaps inevitable that this conflict will involve the teacher in a heart-rending conflict that will force him to re-evaluate his role as a teacher.
In the end, this conflict in instigated by the very teacher himself who, as with his colleague earlier in the teacher’s lounge, is unable to maintain his composure. The difference now is that Francois, the teacher, let himself be baited and when confronted by the fact that two of his students have behaved irresponsibly in their role as student representatives, he reacts with scorn. The truth is that these two students, played by two actual students as is the case with all the other roles for these young protagonists, had behaved in a singularly irresponsible way, inciting their colleagues with confidential information that they had gleaned during a teacher’s meeting in which scores were assigned. But their irresponsibility should have been treated as a given. They are immature, and they are motivated by the feeling of powerlessness that is looking for an opportunity, as is the case when they receive this information. That is how I would justify it, although I’m not so sure I would have acted any differently than the teacher in the film (and this is part of the compelling nature of this conflict, knowing that I identify so much with him.)
The encounter devolves into a confrontation in which Francois likens the conduct of these two student representatives to that of “skanks”, an archaic French word that I won’t include because I will take the translation at its face value, and that is taken to mean “prostitute” by the actual characters who are thus addressed. This leads to a general conflict in which Souleymon is reprimanded, starts using vulgar language to insult other students as well as his teacher, and in an act of ultimate defiance he walks out of the class, inadvertently striking a student who suffers a cut. There seems to be no recourse now but to expel the student, and yet the teacher is filled with remorse, being left to reflect on his own errors and his own inability to take avoid having the situation careen out of control.
There is now no other option but to expel this student, but in the midst of these proceedings, we learn other facts about Souleymon. He has an advocate in his mother, who asserts that he works hard to help her and to help his siblings with their homework. He is said to wash the dishes, which in this context represents the polar opposite of what we would have come to expect from a character who was known for his bravado at school. And what it comes down to is the realization that they are all led to assume roles as characters, all motivated by their fears and insecurities, and we can never truly understand their private selves. The teacher, of course, is also playing a role, and he reflects on the futility of this role as he realizes the cost of this episode for his student. Souleymon will, in all probability, be sent back to his village in Mali, where he will lose contact with his family and with his life in France. All the students seem to see it as a form of banishment that is undeserved, including the student who was cut.
The film ends on a note not of despair but of wistfulness. On the last day of class the students are asked to share what they have learned during that year in school, and some are quite hesitant to admit to having learned anything. After all, to do so is to collaborate with the enemy and with a system that they find encapsulating and punitive, isn’t that so? And yet they try when prompted, even if in an unwilling manner. One mentions the Pythagorean theorem, another mentions the “Triangular Trade” (wherein manufactured goods depart from Europe on boats that pick up slaves in Africa on the way to the Americas, where they receive payment and ship currency back to Europe), and one mentions a Chemistry experiment that produces a change of color in the reactants (but, seemingly, little else). Is a class year with all the tempestuous episodes and all the earnest efforts of a teacher who sought desperately to engage with his students reduced to that, a seeming trivialization apparent in sterile facts and anecdotal experiments? And, as a viewer, one can’t help but ask if the teacher himself had failed to ask the correct question. Education, after all, is not a distillation of facts as in a chemical experiment, but instead a process and an outlook.
In the end, the teacher engages in one last pickup game of soccer with his students in the school courtyard. He would seem to come to have realized that, while nominally, he is the authority figure, he is nonetheless one of them. They are all involved in a never-ending match, trying to achieve goals that seem elusive because of our own mental constraints. It is certainly a wistful note.
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