Balancing Act

Today I went in to school after an exhausting battle with food poising over the weekend. I had only just recovered from some obscure strain of the flu that presents like a cold and then gives you a fever of 102.8, when I woke up Monday morning and preceded to spend the day with my head in the toilette (I actually fell asleep on the bathroom floor at one point. This is when you know you are ill).

In any case, standing in front of my 1^st period freshman class I'm feeling significantly better than that first mad dash to the bathroom, but not well enough to enjoy standing for any long period of time. We are working on a poetry unit. I have just assigned them an analysis worksheet which they are completing in pairs. They have to answer some basic questions about a poem that their partner brought in, and then try to draw some larger conclusions on connotation and theme.

As I move around the room, I'm not overly surprised at who is working and who is not. Three of the students brought in poems by Robert Frost (God love them!). However, one of the young men clearly did so because it was the first poem that he came across online. I'm trying to help him with the more difficult questions, “OK. What words or phrases in here do you think could mean something other than what they are saying literally? There is some straight description, but what parts of the poem are more figurative?” I say. He stares blankly at the head of the student sitting in front of him.

It's at about this time that I notice an inordinate amount of noise coming from the front left corner of the room. Brittany Fox, the student I knew would cause trouble if I let them work in groups, is bragging about a party that she attended over the weekend with her friends from another nearby high school. Brittany reminds the class daily how superior her friends school, and how much she would rather be there than “in this messed up school.”

I leave the student whose name I don't know (yes I realize this is awful, but I never get to take attendance for this class) reassuring him that I will be back in a moment, and make my way to the opposite side of the room where Brittany is now laughing flirtatiously.

“Hey guys,” I say. “How's it going?”

“This is boring” says Brittany, pushing the assignment sheet away from her. She leans back in her desk, crosses her arms, and sneers at me smugly. She was late and, although she had ample time to begin working, her sheet is completely blank.

“I thought you liked poetry, Brittany,” I say.

“Yeah. But this TP-CASTT (an acronym for the process they use to analyze the poems) thing is stupid. It's boring and I don't want to do it.”

“Really, Brittany?” I want to say. “Because that just changes everything. Why don't I stop the whole class and we can just sit here and listen to you prattle on about how much better than everyone you are, because you spent the weekend smoking cigarets and drinking stolen Keystone Lite. You know what I don't want to do, Brittany? I don't want to have to fight back nausea while trying to convince you that the lesson I designed is worth your time. So you're bored? How about if I throw-up all over you, right now? Would that be a little less boring?”

Breathe. I don't resent my students. They know not what they do.

“I'm sorry you feel that way,” I say, “But you need to get this done. It's practice for the poetry project you guys are starting later this week.”

She rolls her eyes, but pulls the worksheet toward herself on the desk and at least feigns working on the assignment. I try to hover as close as possible in the last few minutes of class, hoping that I can encourage her and the other students she has distracted to work until the bell. As the class comes to a close, I am rattling off reminders, “Don't forget to do your vocabulary homework for next monday. And tomorrow we will be looking at some authors for you to choose from for your research project, so if you already have an idea of what you want to do, bring it in.” It amazes me how quickly I can rattle off information like this if I need to, or stretch it out to fill up time.

When I finally sit down with the worksheets that were turned in at the end of class “The Road Not Taken” catches my eye under poem title. The student I had been helping, I see now that his name is Carson, has left several sections of his worksheet blank. The sections that I had been helping him with until I left. I had been so intent on monitoring Brittany, that I never made it all the way to the other side of the class again.

What lesson did I teach today? What did Carson learn – or Brittany? Certainly very little about poetry. It's a ridiculous balancing act. By leaving Carson, Brittany and a few other students might have gotten some work done, but I neglected the student who cared enough to ask for help. So we all suffered. But what am I teaching Brittany if I allow her to distract other students, and not turn in work? Which lesson is my responsibility? Which is more important?

I suppose I can't do more than my best to give each student what they need. But it's sucks not being enough, not being capable enough to balance the class. It makes me feel small and incompetent. I'm not looking for sympathy. It's just the truth.