Advice for Teaching Middle School

One of my former COS students just got a job teaching middle school History, the very job I started with at the age of 27 for my first full-time teaching position. He asked if I had any advice, and here is what I sent him.

Ah yes, 7-8 History. I did that for 17 years, starting at age 27 years, 11 months. Is that about the same for you or are you a little younger?  At any rate, I do have some advice for middle school teaching. You have to have standard procedures for everything: how they come into class, leave class, pass out and pass in papers. Remember how I had COS classes pass in their papers in perfect order? If your seating chart is alphabetical it makes it easy to enter grades and easy to pass oars back expeditiously. Every instance of undirected down time is an opportunity for chaos to break out. You have to train them on your procedures. 

When you show videos have worksheets for them to do so they pay attention and don't fool around as much. Your discipline code has to be clearly understood and rigorously enforced. So don't make a rule unless you intend to enforce it. Remember that 29 or 30 out of every class of 32 kids are pretty neat people, but It's the nature of their age that the other 2 or three can make your life miserable. So have a seating chart and let them know you reserve the right to move people if you consider it necessary. Separate the difficult kids away from each other. Starting alphabetically and/or boy-girl are fine. 

I had them clean things up and have their desks straight and didn't dismiss rows until they were all in good shape. That brings peer pressure to bear, which can be your great ally. I would have competitions between classes on passing papers in and out the fastest with Jolly Ranchers (cheap and popular) for the class that had the best time. (Add one second for each paper out of order and one second for each time somebody talks.)

But even with all this rule and discipline stuff, crucial as it is in middle school, let it show that you love teaching and love history, and that though you may be kind of tough you care about them each as individuals and will make every effort to help them as much as you can!

Catch Up Day

I haven't got time for much of a post tonight. One of the classes I teach is History 18, U.S. History since the Civil War. They turned in essays last Wednesday and have another set due this Wednesday upcoming. I want to get the first ones back to them tomorrow so my students will have some feedback to go on before they hand in their second one. I had about 150 of these to grade and have about 25 left, so I'm hopeful I can get the last class finished before they meet at 12:10 tomorrow.

The topic was women's issues. They had five sources to read. One was "Two Speeches" by Sojourner Truth, a former slave woman who spoke out for women's rights and abolition before the Civil War. Another is Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "Demand for the Vote," a speech she delivered to Congress. Then there is a short story called "A New England Nun" by Mary Wilkins Freeman. It's not actually about a nun, but a nineteenth century woman who decides she would rather live her own life on her own terms than get married to a man she doesn't love. She is other wise a conventional woman, but that alone singles her out as a strong feminist for the late 1800s.

The fourth reading is a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks called "The Mother." In it she explores the feelings unleashed in a woman who has an abortion. Finally is "Interview With Alice Paul" by Robert Gallagher. Paul was a leader during the end stages of the suffrage movement who lived to see women get the vote with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

As one might expect, these 2-page essays range from very good to disappointing. One thing they have in common is that these community college students are having to grapple with ideas like equality, rights, tradition, and gender expectations in a systematic way that many have not had to consider before.

Well, time's a-wasting. Got to get back to work. I'll check back in tomorrow night.