It is early in the school year, and I have been thinking about what exactly I am trying to accomplish during these first few weeks. Honestly, we aren’t learning all that much ASL yet.
We are learning some, obviously. Names. Classroom language. Fingerspelling. The beginnings of communication. But there is something else happening before they know enough ASL for me to really teach ASL. We are figuring out how to be together.
Maybe I am trying to establish a learning community. That sounds very teacher-y. But I think I mean it. I have a lot of ninth graders this year, and my very early assessment is that they’re…good.
That’s a terrible descriptor. Ha ha. They’re polite. They’re checked in. They seem willing. I know enough about teaching teenagers now to understand that it is WAY too early to make sweeping declarations about an entire cohort, but I’m enjoying my optimism and I’m going to let myself have it.
There are siblings everywhere this year. Siblings of kids I’ve taught before. Current siblings. Twins. Kids who know other kids who have been through my classroom. I love that. Maybe they’ll practice ASL with each other outside of class. Maybe they’ll drive their parents crazy signing across the dinner table. Maybe they’ll cheat in other classes using ASL. I hope not, but I’ve heard stories. Maybe they’ll just have fun and challenge each other to get better at ASL.
One can hope.
And more students seem to be arriving with at least some exposure to ASL. Meanwhile my ASL 2 students are absolutely convinced they have forgotten everything. They haven’t. That’s a story they’re telling themselves. The interesting thing is watching the language come back. A little prompt. Someone else signs something. A face changes. Ohhhhhhh. RIGHT. It’s still there.
Maybe learning is less about continuous engagement than I once thought. I’ve been thinking about sustained engagement and easy re-engagement. I don’t need to be the center of their universe. Actually, I don’t want to be. There is something really cool about stepping back and watching students correct each other. They chat. They play. They get distracted. They come back. They do the work without much resistance.
Maybe that’s a better measure of what’s happening in the room than whether 30 sets of eyes are continuously trained on me. They are teenagers. Their attention is going to wander. Frankly, so does mine when I’m learning (obviously not while I’m teaching, ha ha).
Maybe the goal isn’t “never leave the learning.” Maybe part of learning is knowing how to come back. And maybe that’s true in a much bigger way than I initially intended when I started thinking about classroom engagement.
Because I have a student who came back this year. I taught her during my first year here.
It was hard.
Really hard.
She wouldn’t participate. The phone was an ongoing battle. Eventually an interaction escalated enough that I had to call security to my classroom.
I was angry.
Frustrated.
Annoyed.
I felt disrespected.
She eventually left our school.
And now, two years later, she’s back. She wants to graduate.
And she’s in my class again. When I saw her name on my roster, I had to catch my breath. That’s a terrible thing to admit. Teachers are all about fresh starts.
Tomorrow is a new day.
Try again.
Make a different choice.
We say these things to kids constantly. Apparently fresh starts are easier when you’re not the person who has to give one. Because I remembered the tension she caused. She walked back into my classroom carrying a history with me—but I suppose I was carrying one with her, too.
And here’s the thing. She seems different. More mature. Maybe she is. Maybe I am. Hmmm.
How much evidence of change does a kid owe me before I allow myself to believe they’ve changed?
I don’t know…maybe none.
I don’t think giving her a fresh start means pretending the past didn’t happen. It happened. There were reasons I made the decisions I made then, and I don’t think caring about a student requires accepting behavior that hurts the learning environment for everybody else.
There are always other kids in the room. They matter, too. All of them. Each of them.
But if I believe teenagers are still becoming—and I do—then surely I can’t require a student to remain the person she was two years ago just because that’s the version of her I remember.
She’s had two years of life since then. So have I. Maybe fresh starts aren’t about forgetting. Maybe they’re about allowing for the possibility that something has changed. I find myself hoping for her. Really hoping for her. Not just that she passes my class. I hope she graduates. I hope she figures some things out. I hope life opens up for her. Because one day this very young woman is going to be 30.
Then maybe 40.
Maybe she’ll be a mom.
Someday she could be a grandma.
And this version of her—the teenager sitting in my classroom—is going to become one small part of a much longer life.
I’d like to be tucked somewhere in her memory as a teacher who leaned in. Not someone who excused everything. Not someone who expected nothing from her. Not someone who rescued her. Just someone who, when she came back, was genuinely glad she came back. Maybe that’s part of what I’m trying to establish before we know enough ASL for me to really teach ASL.
You belong here.
And belonging here means something.
It means you affect the other people in this room. It means they affect you. It means we have obligations to each other. You can struggle here. You can be annoyed here. You can get distracted. You can screw up. You can have a bad day. You can even have a bad history with your teacher. But we have to be able to come back. Maybe that’s why “easy re-engagement” has been rattling around in my head.
I thought I was thinking about learning.
A student chats with a friend, gets distracted, and then returns to the activity without resistance. Great. That’s what I want. But maybe re-engagement is bigger than that. Maybe it’s also returning after a bad grade. Returning after embarrassment. Returning after conflict. Returning after you’ve disappointed someone. Returning after you’ve been the person who made the classroom harder for everyone else. Maybe even returning after two years.
And perhaps the adults in the room have to know how to re-engage, too.
That’s the annoying part.
I don’t get to ask teenagers to be reflective learners while refusing to reflect on myself.
I don’t get to tell them they’re still becoming while deciding I’ve already figured out who one of them is.
And I don’t get to preach fresh starts if I’m unwilling to participate in one.
So perhaps before we really learn ASL, that’s what we’re practicing.
How to be part of a community.
How to wander and come back.
How to affect other people and recognize that they matter.
How to try again without pretending the first attempt never happened.
How to leave room for the possibility that the person sitting across from us is still becoming.
Including, apparently, the 61-year-old teacher.
Hmmm.
I think I can live with that.
Honestly – this leads me to wonder if this practice of leaving space for “the becoming” of other people could happen with the adult community on campus.
Learning is why. 