Tag: power

Things I Know 145 of 365: I don’t yell in anger

In saying what is obvious, never choose cunning. Yelling works better.

– Cynthia Ozick

I’ve yelled at students before. I’ve yelled, but never in anger. In anger, I’ve left the room. In anger, I’ve asked another teacher to watch my room while I walk to the water fountain to cool down and rehydrate to avoid yelling.

I’ve been angry at my students, but I’ve not acted in anger.

It’s been close a few times.

A few days ago, Debbie Schinker sent me a link to this open letter from a community college professor Jaime O’Neill, to his students of the past semester.

They, the students, didn’t measure up to expectations, and their professor, after completing his final semester, let them know – publicly.

I’ve read the piece a few times now, and I can’t tell whether or not O’Neill was yelling.

I never find it pleasant or productive to guilt-trip students. But if just one of you reads these words and decides to take your education a bit more seriously, it was worth writing them.

I don’t doubt the experience was difficult and frustrating. Students now and students 40 years ago, likely register as different. Then again, I’d imagine O’Neill now and O’Neill 40 years ago are fairly different.

I want to criticize O’Neill, to write sentence after sentence taking him to task for publicly and unabashedly taking his students to task.

The thing that keeps me from doing that, though, is the same thing I wish had key O’Neill from writing.

I don’t know him.

I know only what he chose to reveal in his writing. The rest I would be inferring.

The same is true of O’Neill’s final class of students. He knew only what they shared with him, and most of that was in their writing.

I cannot make a full-throated critique of O’Neill because I haven’t taken the time to question him, to engage him, to draw out his interests and let the conversation build in the way I hope he did with his students.

I won’t be criticizing O’Neill because to do so would be to use a public forum to assert some sort of power in the communication dynamic. Anything I’d hope to accomplish would be undermined by the fact that a message I meant for an individual was posted for anyone to see. That would be unfair, it wouldn’t put us on equal footing. The medium would be impersonal, while I’d be sending a message meant to have personal meaning.

An open letter would be a passive aggressive thing to do. If my goal was trying to educate someone like O’Neill or push his thinking, an open letter or public posting of my thinking would probably be something I’d be doing out of anger.

And I know acting out of anger when trying to create change can feel cathartic in the moment, but often be damaging to the change I’m trying to create.

As a teacher, I wouldn’t want to do that to my students.

I’m sure O’Neill agrees.

Things I Know 37 of 365: I am uncool

Popular is the one insult I have never suffered.

– Oscar Wilde

It was an off-the-cuff remark a few months ago. One student was giving me a hard time about something and I was giving it right back.

“Chase,” said he, “you think you’re so cool.”

“Oh, no,” said I, “I definitely know I’m not cool.”

The class laughed.

I wasn’t joking. I’m not cool.

That’s a thought that’ll stick with ya.

For a while in middle school, I thought I was cool.

I remember the day in eighth grade when I learned the truth.

We were still given recess right after lunch. As the heads of middle school, this usually meant the eighth graders milled about the track aimlessly – training for when we went to the mall.

It was a fall day. The kind of fall day when you could see your breath.

I got outside and found my group of friends huddled in a circle at the far end of the track. Reaching them, I realized they were smoking. About 9 kids, sharing one cigarette. I walked away.

Something big had happened. They’d powered up to the next level while I kept an eye out for a pick-up game of tag.

I’ve held my uncoolness since then.

This comes not from a place of shame or inferiority, but one of self-awareness.

I’m totally uncool, and it’s one of my greatest assets.

In class as a teacher, I can dance or use an accent or give a kid a hug without fear of losing cool points.

In class as a student, I get to be a student because I don’t have to worry about the balance of cool and nerd. A question pops into my mind and my hand hits the air – at times, yes, waving like I just don’t care. (See, that was even more uncool.)

And I know there are those out there who will argue learning is cool and nerds are cool and how dare I suggest you can’t have a healthy appetite for learning and be cool at the same time. But, there it is. That nerds are cool is a myth propogated by the uncool in an attempt to subvert the language. See, nerds got game like that.

I’m probably not supposed to leak that one, but I’ve been in the same room as Bill Gates. He’s not cool. Super smart. Wicked savvy. Not cool.

Gates is a welcome reminder the eighth grade smoking ring has its own incarnation in the adult world. He’s also an excellent example of the primary benefit of avoiding that ring.

While the cool people like Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama must worry about staying cool, the uncool like Norman Borlaug, Amy Sedaris, Tina Fey, Joseph Priestley and Dorris Kearns Goodwin get to do cool stuff.

And that’s the virtue of being uncool in the classroom. I can try new ideas, new projects and lessons never raising any suspicions or risking losing and non-existent cred. Being uncool affords me the opportunity to have some pretty cool ideas.