Classrooms in the Real World

Practical Advice from a Veteran Teacher

Scott Mandel

• Publisher: Myers Education Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781975503376
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Gestion de la salle de classe

For the past 35 years, Scott Mandel has been teaching students in an urban Los Angeles school district. In addition, he instructs teachers in professional development courses. In those classes, he's known for telling stories—stories gleaned from his time spent in the classroom. Classrooms in the Real World is a collection of many of those stories, presented as a set of teachable moments—a practical how-to book for new teachers, one based on interacting with kids on a daily basis. Rather than providing educational theories about what should be, Mandel shares real-life stories of how to relate to your students, administrators and parents, along with his thoughts on how to deal with the multiple curricular and classroom challenges that all teachers face in the real world. Chapters such as "Kids Don't Care How Much You Know As Long As They Know You Care, " "Take Curricular Chances, " "Administrators Want You To Succeed, " "Keeping My Sanity All These Years, " and "What Have I Learned" will give you the reader practical ideas, philosophies and encouragement from a long-time classroom teacher, someone still in the classroom sharing the lived experience of teaching in today's school environment. Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Teaching | Classroom Management | Student Teaching

1

How It All Started

Iconsider myself a “born teacher.” I’ve never wanted to do anything else. Most teachers can remember when they first started teaching. When did I start? Believe it or not, I did my first teaching in sixth grade, when I was twelve years old. It wasn’t a formal class, obviously, but it was my first “teaching experience”—and I was hooked.

It was in elementary school. I was really into science and had just discovered how to grow penicillin from moldy bread. (I can still remember the dining room cabinet where I hid the wet, smelly bread in darkness, away from my mother’s eyes.) I would then look at the mold under my microscope—for which I already had a fairly large collection of premade slides of bug parts, spores, and other yucky stuff to adults, but fascinating subject matter for a twelve-year-old boy.

My brother was in the first grade at the time, and his class was learning something about science. He wanted me to bring my “experiment” to his class to show his friends. I asked my teacher for permission, which I received (probably just an excuse to get me out of her class that day). My brother’s teacher also agreed, but she insisted that I teach a complete science lesson to the students, not just conduct a “show and tell” session. So I did, and it was so successful that I went in there to teach “science” once a week for the next month.

I was hooked.

My first real class actually came only two years later, when I was fourteen. I taught a class at my temple Hebrew school. For anyone who doesn’t know what a Hebrew school class is like, it’s two hours of subjects that the students often do not care about, taught after their full school day and Sunday morning, and which they are forced to attend, preventing them from playing outside with their friends. To say that the students lack motivation is an understatement.

I was given a class of about fifteen “rejects”—twelve-year-olds who basically got kicked out of their other classes. Somehow the principal thought I could relate to them. So I had this class three times a week for two hours at a shot. I had to make lesson plans, grade their papers, and teach the class. And I got paid for it!

I quickly learned the joy of getting paid for doing what you love! It was a great feeling—still is.

And I’ve been teaching ever since, with one year off for my junior year of college abroad. So, in reality, I’ve been formally teaching classes for over forty-five years now!

Sigh.

2

These Ain’t the “Good Ole Days”

When I first started teaching in public school, I could brainstorm a lesson driving to school and incorporate it immediately into my teaching. If a student had a rough day, I could give her a hug. I could give a parent my phone number, provide advice when she called, and get a thank-you for my time. Community members regularly expressed their appreciation for what the school and teaching staff meant to their neighborhood. “Testing” was limited to a multiple-choice, standardized test over two or three days in May—and those scores meant little more than subsequent student placement. College graduates enthusiastically went into teaching and looked forward to spending a twenty- to thirty-year career doing what they loved.

Those were the “good ole days.”

I have watched things change considerably in education over the past thirty-plus years—unfortunately, not for the better. As a result, it takes more determination than ever to choose to go into the teaching profession, let alone be successful in it. More than once, my wife and I have had to sit down and remind ourselves why we’re in this profession—and why we stay.

Since early in this century, there are those in our society who have done their best to destroy public education. Starting with the horrific No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2002, testing—and, more important, test scores—have become the sole determinant for judging the quality of education. Teacher creativity has been hampered, if not destroyed. Politicians and policymakers have tried to make teachers into robots. I once had a principal, during the time of NCLB, who directed the staff: “If it’s not tested, you are not to teach it.” Teaching as an art, as a profession, was now on life-support.

As a result of this attitude toward education, we’ve raised a new generation of young teachers who have no concept of what it is to teach “outside the box.” Teachers today are instructed that teaching means following a specific standard, timeline, or established curriculum. In other words, they don’t know how to be creative as teachers or to use their personal professional judgment in planning for their students.

I am often asked, as an experienced teacher, how I personally deal with this anti-teacher environment. The answer is that I regularly use the most important teaching tool I have in my classroom: the door.

When my door is shut, I do what I know is right for my students. I’m the professional, and it’s my classroom. Ultimately, I’m responsible for what goes on with my students—not an administrator who doesn’t know my class, my curricula, or my teaching style. So I teach my way, the way my years of experience, training, and education have led me to.

That is the number-one piece of advice I can ever give to a new teacher, and probably the overall theme of this book. As a trained professional educator, do what you know is right for your students.

Overall, parents have also changed considerably over the years. Though it is a generalization, when I first started teaching, our greatest problem with some parents was that they tried to be their child’s “friend,” rather than the “adult.” Then we moved to “helicopter” parents—those parents who hovered over the teacher and school questioning or trying to observe everything that they did.

Unfortunately, we now have a number of parents who act as their child’s “agent.¹” These are parents who demand special treatment for their child—even at the expense of the other students in the room. And it’s pervasive: I’ve heard numerous reports of parents going in to see their child’s university professor to discuss grades! The ultimate example was the report of the parent of a first-year teacher who went in to see the principal when her child got a poor evaluation.

So, how do I deal with this phenomenon? I use the same techniques I talk about in “Parents Are Your Greatest Allies” (Chapter 22 in this book). I sell my program to the vast majority of the parents. The “challenging” parents? Those I judge on a case-by-case basis. I ask myself, is this parent someone I can work with, someone who will be somewhat reasonable? Or is it a parent for whom I have no hope—that nothing I do will make this parent happy. If it’s the former, I use whatever logic and strategies I can to make the parent into a partner. If it’s the latter, I face the limits of my influence and cut my losses. It may be that I only correspond with the problem parent in writing; it may be that I only meet with this parent with an administrator present; it may be that I demand the child be transferred from my class. Each case is different, but I will do whatever I need for the sake of my professionalism and sanity. And no matter what, I keep a log of all contact and correspondence with a problem parent. Keeping a detailed log can be critical later on, if the parent ever “reports” you and you’re called in to defend yourself.

Ultimately, teachers need to accept the fact that students have also changed considerably over the years. In this age of instant gratification with social media and “on-demand” entertainment, I have found that a good number of kids today simply don’t care anymore about standard school opportunities. They’d rather play video games or hang with their friends in person or, most often, on social media. High schools in my area have been cancelling proms and other dances for lack of interest. One local high school made it mandatory for any student in organized fall sports to attend the Homecoming Dance. That was the only way they could drum up participation.

This unfortunate phenomenon has even affected my performing arts group. My Pacoima Singers are usually the most popular magnet production group for which students audition. We perform around the country and are known for our quality performances. A couple of years ago, I had seven (out of seventeen) eighth graders quit in the middle of the year! I hadn’t had seven students quit in my previous twenty-plus years with the group. Their reasons? Not that they were upset with me; not that they didn’t get solos. They quit because they didn’t want to attend afterschool rehearsals—they wanted to hang out with their friends. They had absolutely no desire to fulfill their commitments or put in any significant effort. Even worse, their parents allowed them to renege on their personal commitment to the group. What kind of “life lessons” are these parents teaching their children? One has to wonder what they will be like in the real working world one day.

How do I deal with this phenomenon? I keep my standards high. I don’t lower them to meet these students’ expectations in the hope of appeasing them so that they’ll stay in the group. And I concentrate on the other twenty-seven kids in the group who do want to be there, who do want the positive experiences I can provide. I may not affect as many kids as I used to, but I affect many kids as much as I ever have.

Still, through it all—even with the changes in society, parents, and students—there’s nothing I would want to do as much as work with kids, educate them, watch them grow and develop. As times change, I obviously have to adapt to those changes. But the core reasons why I have devoted my life to teaching are still there.

That’s what makes it still worthwhile, and it’s my message to you, the reader. Be the professional, do what you know is right as a teacher, and adapt to the changes you’ll experience over the years.

And that’s why I’ll keep going on this job as long as I’m physically able to do it—or until that coffin (my personal retirement plan—see Chapter 19) in the corner of my room gets put to use.

Now that you’ve learned how I started this long teaching career and have been brought up to date with what teaching is like in today’s times, it’s time for me to fill you in on all of the middle years—the experiences, ideas, thoughts, and fun I’ve had as a public school teacher for the last thirty-some years.

Read on!

¹See S. Mandel. (2007). The parent-teacher partnership: How to work together for student achievement. Chicago: Zephyr Press.

3

How My Students Saved My Life and the School Year

About nine years ago I was diagnosed with cancer— I was actually rushed to the hospital the night before school began in September. Luckily, I had a very rare form of lymphoma—only a thousand men in their 50s get it each year, and it’s 100% curable. As my doctors said: If I were going to get sick, this was what I should have.

After a week, when they finally figured out the exact diagnosis and treatment, I went back to school. I eventually had this new chemo that comes in a pump with a pic-line into your arm that you wear in a fanny-pack for one week. It doesn’t make you sick; you don’t lose your hair; and you can work while you wear it.

Unfortunately, the chemo also kills your immune system to a point where you are left quite susceptible to infection.

My primary job at school is Director of the Pacoima Singers—a production class in our performing arts magnet that performs widely. Now, having our first major Singers show of the year in mid-October, I insisted on going back to work for rehearsals while trying to avoid any significant contact with the kids. Not my smartest decision.

My doctor always likes to point out that doctors and teachers are the worst patients. If I had been a lawyer, accountant, engineer, etc., I would have had no problem taking the two or three months off I should have taken. No—doctors and teachers feel a need to get back to work as soon as possible.

Two weeks later, I was in the hospital, literally dying from an infection. I spent two-and-a-half weeks there before I came home. The nurses and doctors said it was nothing short of amazing, since someone as sick as I was should have been in the hospital for two or three months.

I believe that my students, and obviously God, pulled me through it.

It’s amazing, when you’re alone at night in a hospital bed, the things you pray for and the deals you make with God for getting you through it. I know it sounds corny, and I always believed that it was “TV-ish.” But when you go through it yourself, you find it’s very true.

I found myself not bargaining that I didn’t want to die. Rather, my primary argument was that I had to recover: I had too much good left to do in the world for my studen...