KENTUKIANA 1: 'Classroom management'

Still at the high school, and inside that magnificent auditorium, on closing day we were about three hundred people gathered there. Between teaching and non-teaching staff, including a police officer, all three schools were represented: the Primary school, the Elementary school and the High school. All joined together as one family under one and the same motto: the ‘Newport’s Wildcats: we´re about kids’ — quite the badge of pride here in Newport.

The superintendent, Mr. Bolt, who is something like a commissioner of education, has his office in the old part of my school, where classes used to be held back in the day. He is a person who conveys friendliness and respect at the same time. As he told us in his introduction, he comes from a rather large African American family, stood out in the nineties as an NBA player, and is a great lover of hip hop. During the talk, he did a brilliant job as a speaker: he knew how to reach his audience. On another note, and speaking personally, I find it perfect that a Black person can climb to such a high rung of the hierarchy. He is, for that very reason, a clear example that will help keep tearing down walls against racism, all the more so in this country. With no offense intended, and as a funny aside, the guy bears quite a resemblance to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, or perhaps it's Will Smith who bears one to him. He carries in his stride a certain jovial rhythm or groove that makes him even more unique. If we add to that a colleague of ours who, as it happens, also looks quite a bit like Carlton Banks, the prince's comedic sidekick on the show, the coincidence becomes all the more curious. I've never stopped wondering whether I'm the only one who thinks so.

In short, they were two weeks of highly recommendable and enriching training. If anything became crystal clear to me, it was the urgent need to dig much deeper into everything concerning ‘classroom management‘. They insist on it a great deal. As a reference, and in many states, they follow two of the best manuals written on the subject so far, considered education bibles here: The first days of school: How to be an effective teacher, and The classroom management book; both written by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong, a pair of former teachers and expert educators who have worked and researched the subject at great length.

Here you can breathe commitment, attitude and a will to work, a seriousness toward the position one owes oneself to, and involvement. Is it really so hard for us to take the hint and keep finding new solutions? The idea is simple: observe other systems and adapt the proposals that best help us toward the progress of a more dignified education for everyone, students and teachers alike. In fact, here you see all the teachers so absorbed in their daily work that you have no choice but to imitate them and become one more ‘replicant’, always outdoing, of course, yourself. As the old saying goes: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

At the same time, great emphasis is placed on supporting students in order to prevent academic failure and dropping out. We mustn't forget that in this part of the state of Kentucky many boys and girls come from very poor, broken families affected by drug problems and prison. Managing a classroom with a portion of the student body so unequal and underprivileged becomes very complex. They need a great deal of love and discipline at once: a complex cocktail of values. And yet, what strategies, what tricks, what kinds of activities would we use in these cases? The manuals help, but only through the practice of observation and proper individualized attention can you help the child climb, little by little, out of that pit, and help yourself save the class. There is no greater satisfaction than seeing them smile again.

It has always been a source of genuine admiration to cross paths with someone who has praised and recognized your work. It has already happened to me several times here. When people ask me what I came here for and I answer that I came to work as a teacher at the Newport school, they thank you, almost with their heart in their hand, for the work you do educating their children and the kids of this district. I don't think that's so common in Spain. Teachers tend to get plenty of criticism from people who have no idea of the hell one can sometimes go through in a classroom. Nobody gets to talk until they've been inside one. Whoever rewards you with kind words does so either because they are keenly aware of it, or because they know the complexity that teaching holds in this country, where educational success is not exactly one of its strong suits, by the way. As Mr. Bolt says: -I need you, we need you, they need you, believe in it!- Because if you don't believe in it, don't come to teach.

Perhaps one of the many reasons I decided to break out of my comfort zone and hop across the pond was to keep weaving experiences, above all to learn from my mistakes and improve my teaching. You start to realize it through the day-to-day educational work of another system like the American one. It's not that they do it better, but rather differently, given the equally complex reality they face. However, among our Spanish teaching staff I sometimes detect certain negative inertias, deeply resistant to change, that fester and weigh down the progress of education. Tearing them down, fossilized as they are in time since the last century, has become urgent and necessary; above all for their sake, for the boys and girls we owe ourselves to, the ones we are here for and the ones we get paid for. They give meaning to a very important part of our lives.

But it wasn't all talks and lectures. One day during the training course surprised me a great deal, the one they called the Open Day. We were summoned to the high school gym, where we formed teams of two or three teachers, and each one had the mission of visiting a certain number of houses where the students lived. We looked like Mormons going from house to house, Mormons of education. The goal was to welcome both the kids and their parents to the new school year, address any questions they might have and motivate them for the start. Each student was handed a school bag with the school calendar, academic information and, of course, what could never be missing, the famous candy, to make that visit a little sweeter for them and hook them on that fearsome sustenance once again.

Another thing that surprised me is a fairly widespread custom that almost turns into a competition: decorating your classroom as best you can, with as many details as your imagination can produce. The school offers you $150 to invest in whatever materials you need, at any time of the year. If that still isn't enough, there are sites on the web that also help you buy certain materials. However, it's customary here for teachers to buy their own decorations. The goal is to turn your classroom into a pleasant place for the students: neon lights, shelves packed with attractive books, little fridges, lamps and posters of every kind, rugs, armchairs, sofas. Some classrooms look like they came straight out of the ‘home section’ of Ikea or El Corte Inglés. I've even seen fish tanks and even terrariums with little lizards inside. Poor animals. How far the scant empathy of the human being can go. Although some teachers, like my friend Nick, don't share this idea, arguing that so much ornamentation distracts and diverts the student's focus of attention.

Continuing with the decorative side, inside the classroom we all have a Calm Corner, meant for any student who feels upset, or who happens to be the one upsetting and pestering others, in which case he or she is kindly invited to occupy that respectable spot. I've seen some very well-crafted corners, so much so that even I would enjoy any reading there myself. Mine, however, is more modest: a simple velvety floor chair, legless and with a reclining back, no rug, but accompanied by a Calm Down Kit, which is a simple plastic basket with a deck of cards that help students identify their emotional state while offering them alternatives to work through it, plus some cushions, books, a few soothing stress balls and a pad to draw on. Truth be told, it was the first time I had a blast decorating my own classroom: little flags from every Spanish-speaking country here, borders with different motifs framing the boards there, paper balls of different colors and sizes that I left hanging from the ceiling. I understood that little by little, with the students' handicrafts, I could transform the class into a much cozier space. It would only be a matter of time and inventiveness.

I was still taking stock of everything I'd lived through during those days when suddenly, I heard the dry sound of a ‘knock, knock’ on my classroom door. -They're here!- I thought; and some tiny silhouettes, like slippery little critters, began to appear behind the peculiar little pane of that thick wooden doorway. The first class was beginning.

You can also read:

– Beginning: Skin and Bones (Part I). Saturday, December 2, 2023.